Somehow, on my birthday Eva got two presents. The beauty of motherhood is that I enjoyed her gifts more than mine.

A gift [...]]]> They say 30 is the new twenty. Two weeks into the new decade, I can attest that 30 is way better than twenty. Could I have owned this much dorkiness a decade ago?

Somehow, on my birthday Eva got two presents. The beauty of motherhood is that I enjoyed her gifts more than mine.

A gift for Eva

Gifts for Mama

Not pictured: the huge bouquet of red roses from Matt. One dozen for each decade.

Even better than the gifts, my birthday buddy since the 4th grade was in town to help celebrate. She picked out a beautiful cake.

Finally, this was a birthday of the social networking era. At midnight, between my birthday and Marissa’s, this is what my Facebook page looked like (click to read it).

We celebrated Eva’s first birthday a little over a week ago. It was an event – family flew in from the West Coast and we threw a party. You should know that the last time Matt and I threw a party, we were getting married. It took a [...]]]> It is amazing what happens in 12 months:

We celebrated Eva’s first birthday a little over a week ago. It was an event – family flew in from the West Coast and we threw a party. You should know that the last time Matt and I threw a party, we were getting married. It took a week to recover from it all – normally I have a 24 hour turnaround for getting pictures up and this batch took… a week and a half.

The picture above right is from our little family celebration on Eva’s actual birthday. We had breakfast for dinner, because one of Eva’s favorite foods is pancakes – the carbohydrates instantly convert into baby energy.

Two days later we had the official party at a picnic shelter at local park. The park was gorgeous, we couldn’t have asked for better spring weather, and everything went smoothly. The picture below captures the spirit of the party – Eva has not left my arms, and is wondering how everyone she knows ended up in the same place and why they are all singing.

She finally decided she could leave my side when she saw Matt pick up another baby.

Eva got into the spirit of things after guests left. She is missing a shoe, but enjoying the flying paper.

All the pictures are up the photo gallery. We’d better get good at party planning – only 51 weeks until the next one.

May 10, 2009

May 9, 2010

Eva’s hair, courtesy of the wind in the Outer Banks.

The best way to get 20 minutes of quiet time is to put Eva on the floor with a pile of books. She can easily spend an hour throughout the day reading by herself in addition to 20-30 minutes [...]]]> When Eva was a newborn, I worried I didn’t read to her enough. Sometimes I worry excessively.

The best way to get 20 minutes of quiet time is to put Eva on the floor with a pile of books. She can easily spend an hour throughout the day reading by herself in addition to 20-30 minutes we read together.

The book piles in our living room got out of control after our last trip to Seattle (hmm… what a coincidence), so we picked up a bookcase over the weekend. Yesterday I sat Eva on the floor in front of the bookcase, and she knew exactly what to do.

If you want to see more baby reading in action, take a look at our latest video on YouTube. At three minutes it’s a relatively long one, but Eva “dances” during the first minute and “reads” during the second two minutes.

The Pacific Northwest is having the warmest winter on record, which sounded more appealing than [...]]]> A week and a half ago, Eva and I bid farewell to the five foot pile of snow in our front yard and headed West for a balmy vacation in Seattle. Matt flew out and met us a few days later.

The Pacific Northwest is having the warmest winter on record, which sounded more appealing than Washington DC’s snowiest winter on record. It was a spring vacation; bulbs were peeking out of the ground, trees were blooming, and we rarely needed coats (or pants, if you’re a baby).

I planned the vacation in part because the gap between December and May seemed too long for Eva to go without seeing her West Coast Uncle and Grandparents. Just two months after Christmas she’s a different person, and nine months is an exciting age. I watch her learn and grow every day, and she does it with cheer and giggles (most of the time). It is an age that is meant to be shared.

As is becoming tradition, my brother took me rock climbing. We went to Vertical World in Redmond, and I was pleased with my progress since my first climb last November.

If you’re a climber and look closely at the picture at left, you’ll see that I’m not following a route (my hands and feet are on different colors). I did, however, climb that wall a second time following a 5.6 route (beginner) without cheating. I managed to make my climber extraordinaire brother proud.

We planned the trip to coincide with the Kasdan’s trip to Seattle. Mitchell just turned one, and Eva had a lot to say to him. She likes to be around other babies, and is especially interested in babies that move independently (crawl or walk) like Mitchell can. It took him awhile to warm up to her, but they were batting each other on the head by the second visit.

Eva made great strides with her stranger anxiety on this trip. For the last three months she has taken days to get used to new people and situations, and often had to be attached to me. On this trip she immediately smiled and waved at everyone she met, and even allowed Marissa to carry her around at a crowded event.

Overall, it was a fantastic trip, and I was as thoroughly spoiled as Eva. I barely cooked, saw a movie, and came home with a suitcase of clean clothes I didn’t fold. If that’s not a good trip, I don’t know what is.

I have one more entry to post on this trip; in the meantime, there are more photos here.

Cindy is in Haiti for four weeks working as a communications officer for a not-for-profit called HelpAge. She [...]]]> Did you know there are Christmas decorations hanging above the ruined streets of Haiti? That is what I learned this morning while reading the most recent entry from my friend and colleague Cindy’s blog, Dispatches from Haiti.

Cindy is in Haiti for four weeks working as a communications officer for a not-for-profit called HelpAge. She visits nursing homes and homeless camps and reports what she sees both back to HelpAge and on her personal blog.

I’ve kept up with Cindy’s blog from the beginning, but I sat down with my mother this morning and reread the whole thing over coffee.

When we finished, I said, “I should really put a link to this on my blog.” My mother said, “Why isn’t this isn’t on your blog yet? You should post a link. Today.”

My mother is normally not so forthright, so I decided I had better follow her instructions.

There you have it – my mother and I highly recommend you read Dispatches from Haiti. It is a human interest story, and far more interesting than any news story you will read about the earthquake recovery effort. After a few posts you will feel like you, too, have witnessed tent living and lived through aftershocks.

Yesterday a blizzard dropped 10 inches of new snow. A storm that I agree actually was a blizzard, and I’m picky – I’ve read The Long Winter multiple times and have a literary sense [...]]]> After our second historic winter storm you would think we would get a break. And we did – for one day.

Yesterday a blizzard dropped 10 inches of new snow. A storm that I agree actually was a blizzard, and I’m picky – I’ve read The Long Winter multiple times and have a literary sense for what a real blizzard is. It’s the kind of storm you get lost in while walking home from school and are saved from death only by brushing the edge of the last building in town before wandering onto the prairie forever.

Okay, our blizzard wasn’t that bad. But there were 50 mile an hour wind gusts that blew our powdery new snow all over the place, and visibility was extremely limited.

Meanwhile, Eva and I started to get cabin fever. Matt has been out shoveling every day and even got to go to work for a half day on Tuesday, but Eva and I haven’t seen the outdoors since Friday, aside from the ten minutes we stood on the front stoop on Sunday. Add to that our lack of Internet and a cold (how did I catch a cold while housebound? I am baffled), and I might have been getting a little cranky.

In the name of Mama and baby sanity, we did things we never do, like watching to the local news (all snow, all the time) and figure skating. Matt managed to get Muppets Studio working on his laptop, and Eva visited with Animal and Beaker for a few minutes. As Matt took pictures of Eva watching YouTube (at right), I said, “This is a preview of teenage Eva, lying on the floor and flipping through a magazine… Oh wait, she’ll probably never read magazines.”

The blizzard ended yesterday at dusk and Matt went out to shovel. I strapped Eva to my chest and we stood outside for a half hour. That half hour made all the difference in the world. I saw that there was an end in sight, and Eva was shrieking with laughter by the time I brought her inside for a bath.