Miss Independent, and the (almost) American dream

Ready or not, we have a toddler!

It literally happened overnight, at some point this last month since Ivy turned one. She has become an independent little tyke, grabbing at everything in sight, wanting to feed herself, and throwing tantrums when we have to say no or take something away that she shouldn't be playing with. It's amusing though because she is rapidly figuring out cause and effect relationships - she drops her fork, and says "uh-oh"; she bangs her bongo drums, and claps her hands and shakes her booty to the music. And the best of all, when she looks up and grins showing off her six little teeth.

I briefly mentioned above wanting to feed herself - that's an understatement actually. She has pretty much gone on food strike when she is at home. To be fair, she eats really well at daycare...I really can't compete with Persian home cooking, though she never complained before. Once she hit one year, we decided she could eat with the other kids at daycare, since she was already supplementing everything we sent with her with their food anyway. So now my kid eats like a queen - soup, chicken with pasta, vegetables, fruit, yogurt...I wish I ate that good! But then she comes home and refuses to eat dinner. Or breakfast or lunch on weekends...though eventually she realizes she's hungry and will nibble at whatever I put on the tray as I long as I walk away and leave her to her own devices. Like the other morning, after not eating for almost 3 days, she tried pouring the yogurt from the little container straight into her mouth. Classic. Clearly, she has a mind of her own!

And, in other Silverstein family news, we are moving into a house! Since the good ol' American dream of home ownership is pretty much as far out of reach as it can get, we were extraordinarily lucky to find what we found. We got a crazy good deal for not that much more than what we pay per month for our tiny 2 bedroom now, and by cutting a few corners (bye bye DirecTV) we'll be able to make it work. It's the bottom floor of an adorable duplex, three bedrooms - complete with a washer/dryer (the other American dream!) AND a backyard! We're so excited that Ivy will be able to live in a place that feels like a home...especially since she outgrew the limited space in our apartment the minute she became mobile. The people upstairs have 2 kids, one of whom is a 6 month old, so there are even built in friends! The neighborhood is great - beautiful treelined streets, several friends nearby, walking distance to almost as many places as we have now. We're so excited! Time to start packing...

Ivy's birthday - multimedia style

Here are two - Ivy's first cupcake, and her sweet birthday present:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Our first trip around the sun together...

We are exhausted after a wonderful birthday weekend for Ivy Bess. I'm sitting here, the big one year old passed out (in just a diaper - too tired for pjs!) from many exciting celebration adventures, and reflecting on the first year of her sweet life. Frankly I'm really to pass out too, but I figure I better blog while it's fresh.

It's hard to believe how fast the year has flown by - I remember like yesterday meeting her for the first time. The first year of parenthood was NOT what I expected, in good ways mostly. She has been such an easy baby - always has been a good sleeper, a good eater, and a smiley happy personality. Mothering, in terms of actually caring for her, was also easier than I thought. I was lucky that nursing came easily and we've cruised through this first year with no problems. Ivy loves her milk! I've also learned there's really something to be said about trusting your instincts - after reading many books and websites, I usually end up going the route of whatever my gut tells me and I think we've all turned out okay!

I was not prepared for how much I would change as a person - all of my patience now belongs to Ivy, and others are not so lucky. I find I don't care so much about many things anymore, relative to how much I care about her and taking care of our family. I have NO memory left - mommy brain is WAY worse than pregnancy brain! And I REALLY need to start exercising again to hopefully feel more like myself - I'm on the Ivy New Year's resolution plan. Starting tomorrow, of course.

But I won't ramble on further about my random maladies and angst when clearly the news you are looking for is a rundown of the birthday weekend! Because we Silversteins can't just have one party and call it a birthday - we are better known for weekend-long extravaganzas! Accompanying photos will be on Facebook later this week.

Friday: The Rosenkranz/Tennenbaum/Silverstein crew arrived from the east coast, just in time to see the sun make its way out. We had lunch at Nate n Al's, and then went to the Marina to hang out the hotel. Ivy enjoyed playing with the air conditioner the best. We headed home early so Ivy could get to bed, and I could get to the kitchen to start baking the birthday cake. The giant cupcake was a bit of a disaster (even after I had it sitting in the over for an hour without the oven even being ON!), large chunks falling off in landslide fashion. I was able to recover it somewhat with loads of frosting, and I further salvaged it for the party. I have to say that while I'm no Martha Stewart or future contestant on Ace of Cakes, it turned out nice.

Saturday: We started off our day with brunch at Toast, where Ivy was fascinated with the bakery display of cupcakes, so much so that it was one of her longest unassisted stands on record and our waitress gave us a free blue velvet (yup, you read that right!) cupcake to take home! We then headed straight to Dodger stadium where the following events happened:

• Ivy met catcher (and Jewish Ivy Leaguer) Brad Ausmus - so dreamy!
• The scoreboard read Happy 1st Birthday Ivy Bess during the first and fifth innings
• Ivy devoured a hot dog bun, after refusing all other food
• Oh, and a baseball game was played...one that turned out to be an exciting one but only after we had left.

We came back home, not having sufficiently napped (for any of us), only to then head out to dinner in the neighborhood before crashing for good.

Sunday (today - birthday!): Ivy treated us by sleeping in a little and we had a big family snuggle in bed for about an hour, recounting the events of her birth. Then Mike left on a walk to pick up some stuff for the party and encourage a nap, which did not happen, while I finished preparing the cake, etc. We arrived at the park and had a sweet day with bagels, friends, family, and sand pails. Ivy was more interested in her bagel than her cupcake (video coming to Facebook and/or the blog soon).

She collected many pairs of pajamas to donate to the Pajama Program, and got an AWESOME baby-sized stroller for a doll that immediately upon assembly started pushing around the apartment. Other loot included a jogging stroller from Grandma and Grandpa and a pink plush chair from Nana and Papa. We then headed out to Caleb's first birthday party, a very different kind of party, which was slightly overstimulating, mostly for Mike. I caught up with an old friend, who also has a daughter Ivy's age, and we got to take a nice stroll along Ocean Ave., soaking up perfect weather and views. We ended the day at Gladstone's for dinner, where Ivy scarfed up some broccoli before diving face first into her second birthday cake of the day. Bliss!

Okay, well one year of being a mom would not be as great if it weren't for Ivy being the rock start that she is...and having Mike as my co-parent in crime. Now I need a weekend to recover from the weekend. Is it Friday yet?

Almost one!

I've been doing a lot of pre-Ivy reminiscing lately, along the lines of "a year ago, I was doing x" or "last year at this time"... Today last year - May 31 - was my due date. And I will still very much pregnant, and would stay that way for another week. I remember two distinct things about that day - Maya wishing me "Happy Due Date!" when I arrived at IKAR, and the look on the Starbucks barista's face when I told him I was due TODAY upon his asking. In celebration of this first sort-of milestone, pre birthday, I have updated the look of blog! Maybe this will inspire me update more often. Maybe.

Ivy is quickly hurtling towards toddlerhood, and I don't just mean her age. She is really becoming a person! That sounds silly, because if you know her you know that she's always had a very distinct, magnetic personality. But recently she has started acting less like a baby and more like a kid. In other words, she has learned to fight back! She screams when you take things away from her, especially objects that do not belong to her. She bangs on the high chair tray and points at the container of puffs, going "ooooh ooooh ooooh!" and refuses to eat her meals until she has had some. No more sweet moments zipping her into jammies on the changing table...she now bucks off the table, squirming and screaming to freedom. She is quite a handful these days, but just gets cuter and sweeter so really, I can't complain!

Last night, Caron and Cliff came over to babysit...to set the stage, Ivy had a long day, didn't nap well (what else is new), and has about 3 new teeth ready to burst through, so needless to say she was not the happiest of campers. She had just woken up from a nap in the car, and was pretty confused to look up and see C & C, who are not short people. She burst into tears, ala Uncle Mark, and it was fast slide down the slope from there. We tried to get her to eat some semblance of dinner before we left - FAIL! We left and Caron tried to put her jammies - FAIL! (Yes, she slept in only a diaper.) Caron tried to give her a bottle of milk before bed - FAIL! Poor thing just wailed for an hour, while we were off eating yummy guac and sipping sangrias pre-theater. Cliff summed up the night perfectly - she's the best birth control out there. For them, clearly; and for us...Ivy will not be a big sister any time soon.

We have a big week coming up before the birthday party. I am going to be doing some serious baking in my new GIANT CUPCAKE PAN and preparing for ALL the family to come to town. I can't wait to post pictures after the big day, but here's an idea of the domestic pursuit I have in mind:

Happy Birthday, random baby!

Uncle Buck he aint...

I feel bad for my brother. Ivy reacts to him the same way Tia initially treated Uncle Buck in the classic film of the same name. (Note - this is actually Kim writing this post, not Mike, and is a testament to our marriage that I am now so intimately familiar with this movie.) Except instead of fighting back with stinging words (I recommend you stay out of my personal life!) Ivy uses tears and wails. It's a bizarre phenomenon considering she's pretty much the happiest baby we know.

It started a couple months ago - Mark had returned from spring training, so to be fair it had been a while, and came straight over to visit his favorite niece. She took one look at him from the floor in her room where she was playing happily, and burst into tears! I went to pick her up, and she buried her head in my shoulder, occasionally looking up to see if he was still there. We laughed at the reaction, until we realized she was not fooling around. Uh oh. Repeat the same scenario a week or so later, and pretty much every time since.

Mark sprained his ankle last weekend, so we've been trying to help out as much as possible. I had to work late the other night, so Mike went over with Ivy to help him take stuff out of the car and make him dinner. But no sooner had they crossed the threshold into his apartment when Ivy totally lost it. Mike tried to leave her there, with plenty of couch space to cruise along, while he went to help out, but Ivy was not having it. Needless to say Mark did not have tacos for dinner that night; he probably had to order a pizza.

On the one hand, it's rather amusing - she's totally pavlovian about it! Enter Mark, freak out. Remove Mark, calm. On the other, I really hope they get to know one another soon and she doesn't unleash a fury of stored up anger when we have him come babysit. "Hey, Mom. Next time you take off in the middle of the night, why don't you hire a murderer to watch the house?"

The good old days

Shorty!

A little montage of Ivy cuteness...in lieu of a more substantial update.


Shorty!

I don't even know where to begin!

I've been keeping a running list of topics to discuss in this here blogosphere, so here they are in no particular order (and without any sense of coherency):

Skype

I'm sure all you web-savvy kids are familiar with this techonological phenomenon. Ivy's friend Tamar has breakfast with her grandparents in Israel every morning...on Skype. Abby Gabby ate her first birthday cake with her grandparents in Slovakia...on Skype. Meanwhile, we can barely figure out nailing down the 3-hour time difference to talk to the grandparents on the east coast. Problem is, during the week, I only have maximum 2 hours at home with Ivy before she goes to bed, and during that time she has to eat, take a bath, get ready for bed, etc., so weeknight skyping is out of the question. Then on weekends we end up coordinating over the phone, only to then try to get everyone home at the same time so we can run to the computers to converse with video.

Let me back up. Really, I had no idea the kind of absurdity it would invite, but it's been entertaining to say the least. We agreed to try this out - Mike's parents bought us a "good" webcam after the debacle with the first one (don't ask) for Hanukkah, and we set up shop. Our internet connection is not always at its best, so most of the conversations go like this:

G&G: Something is wrong with your audio.

Us: Well we can hear you fine. Hello!

G&G: Something is wrong with your audio. Can you hear me?

Us: Yes! Hello! (Ivy waves!)

G&G: We see Ivy waving but we can't hear...

Us: Oh wait, now YOU don't have audio!

And then people hold up notes to the webcam and hilarity ensues. It's quite comical, but a good chance for the relatives afar to see Ivy especially now that she does cute stuff like wave. But she also doesn't sit still without trying to grab and eat the keyboard so the sessions don't last long. Someday, we'll have telepathy-vision or something, rendering all computers and webcams obsolete.

He or She?

This is a question we receive often. We haven't dressed her in generic green and yellow since she was about 3 weeks old, and she has LOTS of pink stuff...yet her sparse hair tends to confuse people. So people are always saying things like "oh isn't he handsome?" when she's wearing pink pants and a purple sweater. '"Um, she's a girl." "Oh!" Yeah. I mean, I'm all for gender equality and whatnot, but don't tell me you haven't been socialized into understanding that boys wear blue and girls wear pink. I've started putting bows in her hair, in a desperate attempt to make a little poof, to show that she DOES have hair...just not a lot. Mike hates the poof; I defend it to the end.

Swim class

Now this is a real hoot - get a bunch of babies in the water with their parents and you can't help but crack up. Especially when the teacher demonstrates everything with this little naked baby doll. (Doll did not get the memo about swim diapers, which we had to scramble to borrow from someone today when Ivy peed out of hers before we even got in the water.) It's super cute - we sing songs, practice kicks and splashes, go underwater. Good times.  Hmmm...I don't feel like I'm doing it justice...will try to video next time. Yeah.

Naps

Ivy does not nap. Well, I guess that's not entirely true. She does, just not in a way that is at all convenient for us or her caretakers. I always guffaw when I hear parents say things like "Eli goes down for his nap at 11" because really, who's on a schedule??!!Ivy would fall asleep at 11 every day too...if I put her in the car and drove around for a while.  She naps at Pantea's usually twice a day, anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour each...on average, I'm THRILLED if she naps a total of 1 hour. Then she falls asleep in the car on the way home.

Weekends are a whole other story. Usually she'll sleep on a big walk, which we do on Shabbat anyway, which is nice for us because then we get to exercise. But trying to get that second nap to happen, usually a bigger issue on Sundays, is quite a challenge and frankly the source of most of my stress these days. Because then she's not rested, I'm not rested, and the whole thing falls apart. We do NOT need a cranky adult in addition to a cranky baby, thank you very much. 

Okay, I'm done. In hindsight, this stuff is funnier when it's happening. Or not funny at all. But I don't want to innundate you with my woes. I think I'm losing my touch - either that, or my mind. I vote the latter.