Bay Area Discovery Museum

Cecily loves the Bay Area Discovery Museum. Its right across the bridge in Sausalito and her nanny Berit takes her there about once a week. Last week Nana and Nonno took her and her cousin Lauren there. They had lots of fun. See below for pictures.

Playing in the Tot Room. Lots of fun toys to play with, costumes to wear, and fun squishy waterbed like things to jump on.

Playing with big rubber fish in the stream. They also have rubber crabs and frogs.

Playing with clay like sand. Very cool stuff.

Painting

Unearthing treasures in the excavation sand pit

Holding Hands

Time to go home

Don't Eat the Flowers

Little girl Cecily is busy busy busy. She is hard to capture on camera standing still. She is always running, shrieking, giggling, dancing, figuring out how the world works, and demanding her way!

Here she is having a "ball" at Nana and Nonnos last weekend.

Life with our baby girl is always changing, getting more fun and interesting. We are all understanding each other a bit more, and her personality is definitely developing! Some things are NOT getting easier, or more fun, such as bedtime. What had settled into a fairly predictable and manageable routine has turned into a battle of the wills. Screaming, thrashing, and ..... head banging. She's figured out that if she bangs her head on the crib and screams "Ow Ow Ow!" as if she is in severe pain, anguish, danger, etc. we will come-a-running to her rescue. We are going to outsmart her of course, but we just havent figured out how yet.

Here are pictures of three girls (Ceci*Addi*Luna)from Luna Dator's first birthday last weekend.

Butter & Eggs Day in Petaluma

18 months old

Wow. A year and 1/2 already. She is definitely seeming more and more little girl and less and less baby. Though she still often has trouble sleeping (sleeps through the night generally but last night woke up once needing to be soothed) and I am reluctant to say, she is still nursing occasionally. Well, more than occasionally, twice a day. I went away for the weekend two weeks ago and thought I might be in the clear when I came back with an almost non-existent milk supply. But no, she doesnt think that it is time to stop. But we are working on it.

Exciting note: last week she pee'd in her potty! She was getting ready for her bath and started to pee and desperately wanted her potty. Greg went and got it (it migrates from room to room as it is basically a "toy" for the moment) and she sat on it and pee'd! We were all very excited. She especially enjoyed the dumping it into the toilet and flushing part. Then she did it again the next night. So we will see what happens now. Since she just turned 18 months I doubt this will take much flight but at least she knows what the purpose of it is!

Cecily's favorite things at 18 months:

*People (her family, new people, babies, older kids, you name it she is pretty interested in everyone. But her favorite is the little girl, or "big" girl to her, around 4-5 yrs old)

*Luca-she loves her doggie, but can be quite rough with her unfortunately, so the affection needs to be monitored.

*Running, climbing, hurtling through space. She can be quite the little daredevil. Her new thing is to climb up on one of her little chairs or her table and "free-fall" off into our arms. A little scary and hard on Mommy's nerves. Future bungie jumper?...gosh I hope not!!!!

*Music and dancing. Loves loves loves to listen to CDs or someone singing and bop-bop along. She definitely makes requests though and will let you know if she wants a different song.

*Blue's Clues and Sesame Street (mostly Elmo or other muppet parts)-I am not crazy about her love of TV. We limit it to only brief periods of course and I do think she has learned alot from her Brain Candy DVDs and seems to learn from these programs as well.

*Stories-she loves her books and is starting to appreciate actual stories-where something happens rather than just looking at the pictures. She likes "Three Little Pigs" and to act it out with the toys Nana gave her.

*Favorite toys at the moment-Things that she can personify, or use to mimic an actual task she sees us doing, such as feeding baby doll with the bottle or spoons, playing tea party and pouring us tea to drink, little people and their cars, and also coloring with crayons and coloring books.

She has an ever increasing vocabulary. She attempts to say almost anything, and much of the time it is discernable as the actual word. The two word combos she manages are with Hi and Bye, such as "Bye Dad"

She loves loves to learn. She gets very proud of herself when she does something new, or learns a new word. She likes to point out pictures of things she knows and sometimes will say the word. She enjoys the game of "show me the picture of the baby, the bucket, the sandbox, etc..."

She likes the park/playground. Playing in the sand, going down the slide (trying to climb up the slide), swings, and watching other kids. She still goes to Gymboree and has started going to another kids-gym program as well at the Richmond Rec center. We had nice hot weather this weekend and she loved running in the back yard and getting misted by the hose.

She is just full of love for life and it is inspiring to watch her!

Hippity Hoppity

Cecily enjoyed her second Easter. Spending time with her cousins and running around on a beautiful sunny day. Finding the eggs and trying to understand the importance of the whole thing until discovering that they open up and have treats inside! Her favorite Easter thing was the singing bunny rabbit "Here comes Peter Cotton Tail...." Over and over and over again. Her new favorite activity is coloring which she got to do with Lauren and Kaitlyn, both of whom she adores.

Forbidden pleasures

17 months old! Everyday is a new day of new experiences with our Cecily. She is turning into a little girl before our eyes. Where did my little baby go? But then, there are moments when she is all baby (like when she is nursing, which is only once-maybe twice- a day now, and soon to be a thing of the past, though weaning has been a battle).

She can be quite defiant at times, when she doesnt get her way, and throw herself down on the floor screaming, or lash out and scratch us, push us, etc. Her favorite "forbidden" things that she throws fits for: playing with cell phones, remote controls, sunglasses, watching Blues Clues, eating copious amounts of fruit leather, running with pencils or other dangerous objects, teasing the dog, eating paper or other non-food-possibly-toxic substance, mommy's make-up, and so many others! She also throws big fits about getting dressed, diaper changes, etc.

But she is an absolute joy most of the time. And we are amazed by her advancement and how she can name all sorts of body parts, and takes on new words and challenges every day. She is so cute with her books and her baby dolls (she likes to pretend to feed and change the babies). She adores Luca and kitty cats-though the love is not always returned. She is so affectionate with us and loves to gives kisses (she makes a big "MWA" sound sometimes to dramatize the kiss) She loves other kids, especially older girls (as in 4-5 years old) She thinks they are the all-powerful ones with all the secrets.

We have had some scary moments in the last few weeks such as a virus and ear infection two weeks ago which was accompanied by a 104.3 fever! And then yesterday we spent the morning at the E.R. getting a CAT scan for her poor little head. She went running with a forbidden object and slipped hard on the hardwood floor in my bedroom and clunked the back of her head. She falls alot and gets many bumps and bruises but this was different. She cried and went I picked her up she started getting very drowsy and losing conciousness. I quickly took her straight to the E.R. and we spent the next few hours trying to get her calm enough for a CAT scan. Scan came back perfectly normal but it was a grueling, emotional, stressful time for all. When we came home she wanted to resume her high activity playing, and seems fully recovered from the traumatic event (short of a little extra clinginess-though that is common at the end of any weekend).

Below are some pics and a video of her playing with one of her fave forbidden objects.

Cecily and Mommy