Backyard tea party

My mom got C a tea set for Christmas and I'm impressed with how much use it gets during playtime. I wonder what it is about having tea that little girls seem to love recreating over and over again. Is it the ritual of setting everything up? Or feeling like a "big girl" who drinks tea and chats with friends? Whatever it is, it's adorable. This little tea party was just us girls but other typical participants include her T-Rex stuffed doll.

Growing Butterflies

 We don't have a dog or any cats. But we do have a fish pond at our place and he have to fed the fish and turtles that live there every day. So when people ask C if she has pets she says she has fishies, turtles, and butterflies :) Butterflies because we have grown 2 sets of butterflies now from caterpillars and C loves it. She is obsessed with her "butterfly friends" and looks for the ones we've released in the yard every day. I'll be ordering a third batch of caterpillars soon so we can keep going!

Horses and tangarines

This last weekend was beautiful here in Ojai so we decided to head over to our friends ranch and enjoy walking thorugh their orange groves. There was an added bonus that our friends were taking their horses out, a treat for the Pepper who loves all things horsey right now.

Everything right now is related to big things and small things. Big things are mommies, little things are babies. It's very cute. So of course she wanted us to pick a mommy tangerine and a baby tangerine. She has started to want to dress herself so she picked her outfit. It's all about dresses right now which makes me regret buying all those practical t-shirts going unused in her closet. She also loves to wear both her bracelets and doesn't liek to leave the house without her hat.

Even though we spend a lot of time visiting our friend's horses this was the Pepper's first time on a horse! Look at that happy face. She was so thrilled. I hope we can do more of this for her.

Hello to 2015 (and some changes)

Happy 2015! I haven't been here awhile ad that's because I've been trying to figure out what to do with this space. I had some goals at the beginning but as I came upon my one year blog anniversary I was unsure of the direction I wanted to take moving forward. I needed to change something but wasn't sure what. Thankfully, my husband has helped me out with that. As a Christmas gift he gave me a real camera! I've always been interested in photography and have been talking about getting a nice camera for years (since the Pepper was born). We live in such a beautiful place and there are so many magical moments to capture with the little one and my poor iPhone isn't always up for the challenge. So in 2015 I'm embarking on a new hobby: photography. And this blog will more become a place for me to share my pictures and, through them, pieces of my life.

These pictures are from my first outing with my new camera and our first outing of 2015. We went to visit dear friends at their ranch. We picked flowers and walked through a near-by field and it felt perfect. I'm feeling good about the new year!

The Pepper's current obsession: anything with wheels

Thankfully my little girl is still obsessed with her books but a new obsession recently emerged and I'm excited about it: cars! Actually, all things with wheels. This includes cars, trucks, bikes, and particularity motorcycles. She loves watching cars drive down the rode, she points out trucks or buses, and motorcycles are just fascinating to her. There is a restaurant here in Ojai called the Deer Lodge and it is a popular spot for motorcyclists because it's on a windy lovely road. It's become one of our favorite restaurants because it brings the Pepper so much entertainment. We walk outside and look at all the motorcycles and talk about the different colors and ornamentation. But the real fun is when the motorcyclists come out to leave. We watch them get their gear on and then wave to them as they vroom away. Exciting stuff! And the best part is that the motorcyclists get such a kick out of the Pepper's interest that they are so sweet and friendly and chatty and they play it up for her.

I'm happy about this new interest because I like that it's gender neutral. I guess you could even say it's considered more of a boy thing. But since I don't like to think to much in gender I like that this came into our lives. I've been thinking of gender and toys since we visited some new friends with a 2 year old boy the other week. He had a lot of cool things I wouldn't have thought to get for the Pepper, including some large plastic dinosaurs. And my little girl loved it all. It will help me think a little more "outside the box" when it's time to next upgrade her toys.

I also want to note hat motorcycles scare me. A lot. So while I support the Pepper's interest in them there is something about it that also worries me. My parents gave us a lot of freedom but there was one big thing on the "don't to it" list and that was ride motorcycles (we'd known too many tragedies). Flash forward and I ended up marrying a guy who used to work as a motorcycle courier. D grew up riding motorcycles with his dad so for him it was a normal part of life. This was a hidden side of him until a few years into our relationship. When I met D he didn't have a motorcycle but when he started his PhD he bought one to reduce his commute time and I almost had a heart attack. It seemed like death on wheels. But I had to get used to the idea and while his riding always worried me I got used to it and mostly just decided that I had to trust him to be as safe a driver as possible.

Hopefully the Pepper will grow up just appreciating the more dangerous hobbies from afar. Fingers crossed...

Image of the Pepper from this weekend. She loves this hand-me-down little car.

The scary transition to daycare

One of the big changes we've been dealing with because of our move has been the transition to daycare for the Pepper. We had planned to get her into daycare in Los Angeles ages ago, but we were at the mercy of a long wait list. This ended up being wonderful in a lot of ways because it meant she had more time with our wonderful nanny. And I'm grateful we found a way to make that happen for as long as we did. But it also meant the Drew had to do more childcare during the day than was ideal and we consequently didn't have as much time as a family together. Plus, especially over the last few months we've all felt that the little one could use a little more stimulation. So we were excited to have her start daycare once we made the move. We did research and selected a great daycare with farm animals and a garden and wonderful outdoor space. It seemed to be a nurturing and exciting place and we felt good about it. Until we actually had to send our daughter there.

We knew we wanted to make it as smooth of a transition for her as possible. She's such an open and trusting little girl we didn't want to scare her to the point where she would loose any of that. Luckily our nanny came up with us for a few days and actually went to the daycare with her for the first day and then slowly spent less and less time there. I think this really helped the Pepper get comfortable with the environment and the new schedule. By the end of the week were were so happy because it had gone better than expected! The nanny didn't have to spend any time there at all the last day and there was no crying or anything. It felt like a huge success. And a lot of it I credit to the primary daycare worker Ms. Barbara. The Pepper connected with her instantly and was even talking about her in the evenings. She seemed excited to see her new friends in the morning. We were feeling relieved.

One thing that surprised me was how I emotionally felt about the change. I wasn't expecting to feel so sensitive about it. But the first day that my husband went to drop her off she grabbed her lunchbox and her sunglasses, blew me a kiss, and confidently walked out the front door. Oh my goodness. My baby was gone. She didn't need us anymore. She was a big girl now. Such a milestone. So proud of her but man I feel the loss of the end of the baby era. And I miss having her around during the day. But, the only constant as a parent is change and I'm starting to get used to the new routine.

We felt so good after the first week but the second week was a bit harder. They warned us that kids have a honeymoon period where the newness is enough to keep them engaged and excited. But the second or third week they realize that this is the new routine and they may have some feelings about that. I think that definitely happened last week. She was feeling more clingy and sensitive than usual. She would cry when her dad dropped her off at daycare in the morning. He was attentive to it and often stayed with her for a bit to help her make the transition, and he always hid and watched from afar for a a bit after he "left" to make sure she was ok after he left. She apparently always stopped crying after a couple minutes which tells me she was just trying to tell us she didn't want daddy to go and that she was actually ok and wasn't really scared or anything. And when I picked her up in the afternoons she seemed happy to see me but not upset and it seemed like she'd had a great day. Even though we know things were ok and that she was doing well, it was hard to see her upset last week and struggling with the transition. Not the easiest week. We definitely had moments of doubt.

We are now on the third week and it's night and day to last week. Yesterday was her first day back after the weekend and she was ready to go in the morning. She was talking about Ms. Barbara after breakfast. She was pointing at the door. She was ready. And my husband dropped her off with no tears or whining. Today was much the same. So I'm hoping we're over the hump. Daycare is a good thing for her I think. She is very social, she likes stimulation, she enjoys engagement, and she gets all that at her daycare. And thank goodness for Ms. Barbara. Thank goodness.

Image via.

Independence!

Our baby has become such a little girl recently! Things are certainly changing and fast. It's exciting but there are also things I'm going to miss. The baby phase felt like it went by so quickly. I used to get to spend all day snuggling my little bear. I used to get stuck holding her while she napped! Now it's a struggle to get a hug from her. She's just become so independent. It's like she finally realized that she is her own person and that she has the power to decide what happens to her. We say she is a "woman who knows her own mind". An example is today when her nanny came and after some playing she decided she wanted to go for a walk. So she grabbed Auntie Kathy's hand, walked her over to the stroller and pointed at it. Then once Kathy got the stroller set up she decided she wanted to walk on her own so she walked over to the door and directed Kathy to bring the stroller and follow her. She's been doing a lot of this stuff lately: insisting she walks someplace on her own, that she uses a glass or a spoon on her own, that she wants to read one book and not another. And she's been assertively directing others to execute what she wants. She was bossing around one of the dads on the playground the other day by instructing him to throw the ball for her over and over. He was sweet to accommodate her but it made me realize we're going to have to start teaching her about saying "please" as soon as possible.

That's the balance I'm trying to achieve, allowing her to explore the word and be an independent being while putting the needed boundaries in place so that she doesn't run amok. Because of course the flip side is that when she doesn't get what she wants she gets upset which means we're dealing with tantrums now on a regular basis (she had one last night when I wouldn't let her play in the fridge). They luckily don't last very long but I feel it signals a new phase of the push and pull of boundary negotiation that is expected with a toddler.

The biggest change to our routine has been the morning. I talked here about how much I loved our morning routine because it included some quality cuddle time. Well, it's a month later and that snuggle time is no more. Now, she likes to stay in her crib by herself. She sometimes plays with her stuffed animals, sometimes she just lies there (I assume solving the mysteries of the universe). But if I ask her if she wants to go see daddy in bed she says "no no". If I ask if she wants to come cuddle she says "no no". And if I don't believe her and try to bring her to bed anyway she makes it very clear she was serious about her "no"s. So we let her hang in her crib until she asks to be taken out to play, which she does by pointing frantically at her play-mat. I love that she enjoys time to herself and I think that is a good quality to foster. But I do miss my cuddles :(

Picture of the Pepper and me from the recent long weekend.

Parenting perspective from past generations

I really enjoyed this talk by Raul Gutierrez. He walks the audience through a few generations of his family and what each generation's childhood was like. This is a wonderful perspective to keep in mind when you're a parent. It's easy as modern parents to feel like we need to do a lot for our kids. How we raise them, how much we play with them, how much we talk to them, etc feels so crucial. That with every parenting decision we make we are defining their childhood and therefore who they will become. It can be stressful. And one thing I do to combat the stress is to remind myself that people have been parents for thousands of years in thousands of different ways, and everyone basically seems to turn out ok. Raul's portrait of his family is a wonderful reminder of that.

One thing I think about a lot is the amount of time I spend with the Pepper. As a working mom I feel like I don't get a lot of time with her. I feel guilty for not being aorund to play with her. I worry she feels neglected or abandoned for my work. I hope she knows how much I love her even though I sometimes have to walk away from her. But then I think about how much time I get with her compared to previous generations and I feel reassured. Reassured that kids are ok and can still thrive even if their parents don't do everything perfectly. Because really, no parent ever has.

His thoughts on creativity and the space that is needed to allow for it is also great. I love the emphasis on quiet time, and on the time to ask questions and talk. After listening to his talk I downloaded his company's app and it's pretty cool. I don't expose the Pepper to technology much yet but we did spend a good 15 minutes with the app on the iPad learning about the mouth and what happens when you don't brush your teeth.And it was surprisingly fun!

Video via Swiss Miss.

Girls, gender colors, and princess culture

We decided not to find out the gender of our baby while we were pregnant. And it was funny to me how often people asked "but what color clothes are you going to buy for it?". Seems to me that there are lots of colors that a baby can wear that aren't pink or blue. But we as a culture seem to have certain ideas about gender and what each gender should be. But a good reminder that these things are subjective is this article which notes that until the 1940s boys were actually encouraged to wear pink and girls blue!

My baby eats better than I do

The Pepper is 7 months old now, so for the past few months we've been introducing solid foods. It was a slow start but she's really embraced all sorts of foods now and seems to love almost anything we give her.

Museums have the best gifts

When I was living in Berkeley my favorite place to buy Christmas gifts was the SFMoMA gift shop. Now that the holidays are fast approaching I found two things from the MoMA Store that I want.