26November2009
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by Peter under: Family Blog; Photos.
Hope you’re chillaxing with your deer family like we are in Sebastopol.
22November2009
Previewing Preschools
Posted by robyn under: Family Blog.
I’ve been desperately trying to figure out a preschool situation for Lila for when she turns 3. Now that she’s pottytrained and she’s 2 and 3/4 years old, she’s eligible to start preschool. But although there are a lot of good preschools in town, they all have waiting lists. My first choice is to get her into the Montessori preschool that is just on the other side of Bidwell Park from our house. It sounds like they have an opening that we could get her into. The trouble is that school doesn’t start until 8:30 and ends at 4pm. Now how on earth is a working parent supposed to make that work if I’m supposed to be at work from 8am – 5pm? I need a program that can take my kid from 7:30am – 5:30pm at a minimum! So in addition to trying to get into the school, we need to work out a drop-off and pick-up arrangement and pay someone to handle that. There is another daycare down the street from the school and that might work except that means that the preschool costs $540/month and the before/after school care costs another $295. That’s a lot of money!! But I’m so eager for her to start some kind of school program because I think she really craves learning. Her daycare is just “free play” all day and I’m not very happy about the quantity of sweets and TV she’s being exposed to. I think she would really benefit from some school-type activities so I’m eager to make that happen starting in January.
8November2009
Kids say the darndest things!
Posted by robyn under: Family Blog.
This morning Lila said “We have hair on our heads but not our out bodies. But Snuffy and Daddy and Calli have lots of hair.”
Simone very clearly says “sit down” and points emphatically towards the chair when she wants me to nurse her. It sounds more like “dit down” but there is no question about what she is saying. She’s so very demanding! Simone says “ball” and “duck”, “apple” and “ba-ba”. From this point on, her vocabulary will just continue to expand every day.
Simone also says “Lila” but it sounds like “I-ya”. Lila sleeps in a lot these days so often I’ll tell Simone to go wake her sister up. Simone goes toddling into Lila’s room saying “I-ya… I-ya…” and then climbs up onto Lila’s little toddler bed. Lila sleeps in after her naps too. In fact, there are lots of times when Lila just likes to curl up and stay in bed. Sometimes I worry about her a little bit and why she might be so lethargic. But I guess she gets it from her dad.
8September2009
Sleepwalking
Posted by robyn under: Family Blog.
Last night I think I must have done some sleep walking. It must have been after I got Simone from her crib and after nursing her back to sleep in my bed. I woke up around 3 in the morning and found myself on the couch. But I had no idea how I’d gotten there. Best I can figure out is that I must have gotten up in the middle of the night, possibly to go pee (though I don’t remember getting up to go pee) and then tried to go back to bed but ended up lying down on the couch. None of it really makes any sense but all I know is that at some point in the middle of the night I left Simone sleeping in my bed by herself and somehow ended up sleeping on the couch naked. Thankfully Simone didn’t fall out of the bed!
Actually here’s another good story… Two nights ago, I woke up around 6 in the morning and heard Simone crying out from the other room. My first thought was “that’s odd that Simone’s in the other room… is she in her crib? why isn’t she in the bed with me?…” So I got out of bed and went to get her. Turns out she was in the living room, crawling towards the kitchen! Peter was in the bonus room sleeping on the futon. Lila was still in bed. Simone was crawling around the house all by herself while everyone else slept! Until she got lonely and cried out, I had been dead asleep in my bed. I can’t believe I didn’t hear her wake up or notice her crawling off the bed or anything. She just helped herself off the bed (which Peter has taught her to do recently) and crawled on out the door!
6September2009
Yes, We Have Two Kids And Are Too Busy to Blog About It
Posted by admin under: Family Blog.
I have spent more time updating the software for my blog to keep it secure against internet-based threats than I have actually writing anything this summer, but I would like to make some honorable mentions of family milestones:
* We built a deck (okay, had it built. It’s rad)
* Simone took her first steps.
* We sold the Brave Little Toaster (71 VW bus) and bought a 1989 VW Vanagon Wolfsburg edition. Sweet!
* Peter is furloughed due to budget cuts, while Robyn is not, thankfully.
* Lila is hilarious and has entered the “why” phase.
* Our dear friend Ashley passed away suddenly and we’re hoping to be a present in the life of her beautiful baby boy and her surviving partner who has about the toughest job I can imagine right now.
If you didn’t know about some of these things, you’re probably not on Facebook. We’re on Facebook and it sucks away small silvers of available time that wouldn’t really work well for blogging anyway. So come find us.
Theoretically there’ll be more verbose posts ahead and the subjects above, but I can’t promise much, life’s too busy!
11April2009
The update
Posted by Peter under: Family Blog; Photos.
Okay, how’s this for the keeping up:
Simone, 6 months:
 Eats solid food |
 Smiles a lot |
 Crawls, backwards |
Lila, 27 months:
Loves her sister |
 Chick in a Box |
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I’ll trust Robyn to fill in some more details when she gets to writing.
30January2009
Two little sisters
Posted by robyn under: Family Blog.
Before Simone came, Lila was our baby.
As Simone’s due date neared, we started calling Lila our “little girl” and she seemed to like her new title.
When Simone was born, we informed Lila she was now a big sister. “I wanna be a little sister,” Lila declared. Well, um… it doesn’t really work that way. But Lila has a thing for the diminutive and so sometimes I say they are two little sisters. They’re both little and they’re sisters!
Lately Lila has been really into diminutives and surperlatives. Everything is “tiny little this” or “BIG BIG that”. And my favorite: “big little” as in: “My dolly’s drinkin’ a big little bottle.” Okay. The best part is that when she wakes up in the middle of the night — which thankfully doesn’t happen very often — all it takes to get her back to sleep is to endure a brief routine of hugs and kisses. First a BIG hug. Then a little hug. Then a little kiss followed by a BIG kiss. And don’t forget the big little hugs and kisses! Yes, it’s very sweet.
Lila’s been having fun playing with her dollies these days — big and little. Simone is kind of a special big dolly who smiles and laughs while Lila busily tucks her in with various little blankets or brings her little dolls that Simone occasionally holds onto. In an attempt to keep Lila from smothering Simone with kisses, we’ve encouraged Lila to kiss Simone’s feet and wash Simone’s feet in the bath. I’m sure the tables will someday turn and it will be little sister Simone metaphorically kissing Lila’s feet.
And poor Simone is already getting blamed for everything. Lila enjoys hugging Simone which involves putting her head on Simone’s chest. Simone’s little arms flail and her little hands grasp handfulls of Lila’s hair. “Simone pulled my hair!” charges Lila in a tattle-tail voice. Next Lila generously, lovingly tucks her special blankie over Simone’s body then turns to the parents and declares with a pout: “Simone took my blankie!” Ah, the sibling dynamic begins. Poor Simone has been framed and appears guilty as charged.
Lila may someday have a great career as a sports commentator. From the back seat of the car she keeps us updated on Simone’s every move. “Simone yawned!” “Simone’s suckin’ her pacifier!” “Simone smiled!” We almost expect her to sign of with “From the back seat of the car, this is Lila DiFalco for NPR news.”
31December2008
Fun things Lila says…
Posted by robyn under: Family Blog.
As Lila approaches her 2nd birthday, we are ever more amused by the things she says. Here is just a sampling of recent Lila-isms: (And for the record, these sentences have not been edited or corrected. This is exactly how she said it.)
- “Good for you, Daddy.” (in response to Peter proudly showing her that he peeled an orange all in one piece)
- “The tiny baby Jesus has a poop in his butt.” (referring to the little figurine she abducted from the creche)
- “Look at me, Papa! I’m wearing a Santa hat!”
- “Simone’s wearing the Moby Wrap.” (though technically I was wearing Simone in the Moby Wrap which is, for those who don’t have infants, a cloth baby carrier for “baby wearing”)
- “Simone is holding Daddy.” (umm… just a little subject-object inversion…)
- “Quesadilla moon” (Lila’s interpretation of the quarter moon one evening)
- “cranberry juice hot” (when drinking a demitasse cup of warm cranberry apple tea)
- “Calli needs a couple more food” (Calli is our cat)
- “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” (she repeats this over and over in an apologetic tone)
- “It’s okay, baby.” (said while holding any little doll or anthropomorphized object to her shoulder)
- “I want you to be Super Mommy” (meaning she wants me to hold her and Simone at the same time)
- “Simone sucking on a booby”
- “You’re in my spot. Move, Mommy. I wanna sit in my spot.”
- “little window” (said in reference to the little holes on top of her Mary Jane shoes where the sock peeks through)
- “I making a g’aff” (meaning she’s making a giraffe out of legos)
- “Leave me ‘lone” and “no touching Lila’s hair”
- “I throwed it” (she’s now using the past tense but doesn’t know all the irregular verb forms)
- “Happy day to me” (sings all four verses of the Happy Birthday song to herself or others)
- “VanGogh. Cut ear.” (said when Peter wore his VanGogh t-shirt. Gotta watch what you teach them!)
- “Barack Obama” (said when she saw a tall, thin, light-skinned African American man)
- “The banana peel goes in the compost.” (That’s right! My baby knows the difference between trash, recycling and compost!)
- “One two three five seven eight nine ten!” (she just can’t seem to get 4 or 6)
And here is a sampling of just how complete Lila’s sentences are these days:
- “Only one more raisin, please, Mommy”
- “Mommy’s all done with her breakfast.”
- “I wanna have a little tea party at Connie’s house.”
- “It’s too hard. I can’t do it.”
And the most frequently heard sentence from Lila these days….. “I wanna do it all by myself!”
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