Hula Maggie

When I was pregnant with Maggie one of my best friends, Christin, went to Hawaii. She bought a little hula outfit for her and it's finally about the right size for her. Today I was putting something away and rediscovered it, so of course we had to try it on. It was pretty darn funny if you ask me. The first shot here doesn't show much, obviously, but we always like photos that show her strawberry-blonde curls (and the hibiscus flower clip in her hair is great, too).



She's doing a little hula dancing. We did not teach her this, I promise! She came up with it on her own.
She LOVES to walk around in our shoes. It doesn't matter if they're Grant's, and huge, or mine, with a heel. Here she's wearing a pair of my sandals with heels.

Another picture showing off her curls.Snuggling...and more curls. What can I say? We love them!
Tonight we were driving home from our busy day out and decided to drive through Starbucks for some coffee. This is a little embarassing, but should be no surprise to those of you who know us well, but Maggie can differentiate between a coffee and an iced latte (she can say iced latte!). We let her have a little sip every now and then. Anyway, as we were driving away she said, "Please! Sip coffee!" and we told her no because we were driving. So she said, "I NEED sip!" We cracked up...but she still didn't get any.

Food Miscellany

Okay, every now and then (I think this is the second time) I ask you to humor me as I write not about Maggie, but just about what's on my mind. Right now it's food.

For some reason today everything I'm reading and thinking about is food! First I wanted to share two great websites with you that are related to healthy living. I know many of you are health-conscious so I think you'll appreciate these. The first website, found here, may seem like it's only for women but it's not! It's called Hungry Girl and it's got lots of tips and information on healthy eating, but it's in a really fun, hip format so you don't bore yourself to tears. You can also sign up for an e-mail newsletter. This site's articles are sometimes used by Yahoo, so if you need someone else's praise besides mine, well, there you go!

The second website is one of my new favorites. It's called Map My Run and can be found by clicking here. You simply type in your zip code, a map pops up, and you plot a starting point, an ending point, and any other points in between, and it tells you how long your route is. It's very user friendly and helped me map out a new course!

I'm also reading a book now called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver. It's essentially the story of how the author and her family decided to be a living food experiment for one year. They moved to their farm in North Carolina and for one year ate only food they grew/raised on their farm or was grown/raised locally. It's a really interesting read and has put things in a different perspective for me. She writes about how now that the year is over they still primarily eat only locally- or self-grown food, but she allows herself the luxury of Alaskan salmon or other non-local products occasionally. When you really think about it, it DOES seem rather decadent to eat a food that was caught in Alaska and then shipped on ice thousands of miles to your supermarket.
According to the co-author, Kingsolver's husband, Steven L. Hopp, "if every US citizen ate just one meal a week composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast." (Of course there are references in the book for this but it seems kind of silly to have references in my blog. If you want to know what they are I'll e-mail them to you.)
I know you all don't read this blog to hear my opinion on all this, but I just appreciated thinking about things in a different way and I wanted to encourage the people around me to start considering things differently as well. So let's all go to the Farmer's Market and buy some local produce! (It HAS to taste better than stuff grown in California or Chile and flown in here a week after it was picked!)

Thanks for indulging me if you made it this far! Please feel free to post on this subject or if you have a differing opinion - I'd love to hear what you think.

Maggie's latest antics

Here are three outdated photos for you (just slightly outdated):
This first one is a photo of a silhouette of Maggie that my amazing grandma commissioned (sounds fancier that way, right?). I had been researching silhouette artists because I just love them and then Grandma, out of the blue, asked me if I would like one of Maggie. So here it is for you to enjoy!

Here is my brother, Chris, with Maggie at a family birthday party. Chris is showing her photos from his trip to Peru and is explaining the socio-political situation there.
And here are Maggie and Poppy at the same birthday party. They sort of enjoy each other :)

Yesterday Maggie was being especially cute and we were asking her where all these different items were. We asked her where her shoes were, where her book was, where the light was, etc. and then I asked her where her cuteness was. She thought about it for a half of a second and then pointed to her face. Yep, right every time!

She is extremely polite (honestly, without much training from us). She says, "No, thank you," "please", etc. Recently she has started saying "Excuse me," although it comes out more like this, "Apoose me," which we like equally well. She even says it after she burps (or worse!) Her Uncle Jim (Landers) especially is a sucker for her politeness. When she says, "Thank you, Uncle Jim" he'll just keep giving her whatever she wants (like a good uncle should).

Every now and then I've tried to fake Maggie out with crying, but she thinks it's really funny and always laughs at me. A few weeks ago we were driving and she suddenly started crying. It sounded a little different so I said, "Maggie, are you okay? Are you sad?" And she said, "Maggie sad." And I said, "Are you crying?" And she said, "Maggie crying. Boo hoo hoo" and continued FAKE crying! Then she cracked herself up (let's be honest - I was laughing hysterically, too).

She also is really having fun with the word "silly" lately. If she does something funny or silly (or if someone else does) she'll say, "Maggie silly!" and then laugh a falsetto giggle/squeal. It's really funny.

Her vocabulary and sentence construction has just increased tenfold overnight! We are really amazed by it. Just in the last few days she's saying 4-5 word sentences like "Maggie kiss the boo-boo", and, "I see the zoo!"

I think that's all the latest Maggie stories, so hopefully I'll post some more for you soon! And of course this is unspoken, but so you don't think I'm an oblivious, biased mom, please know that Maggie DOES have her moments of less-than-cuteness, including some full-on tantrums. They're rare, but they occur. Just keeping myself honest here.

Oh- some of you have asked to see photos of some of our mutual friends' babies. If you'd like to see the blog (including photos!) of Nate and Emily Heffter's baby, Ruby, click here.
If you'd like to see Cole Tepner, son of Marc and Elise Tepner, click here.

Tup Tup's Birthday

We celebrated Spencer's 10th birthday on Memorial Day and here is a photo of him and Maggie at the party. Maggie pretty much things Spencer hung the moon - and with good reason. He runs around and chases her and hides from her and basically is so sweet and fun. In case you didn't know, she calls him Tup Tup for some inexplicable reason but we hope she calls him that for a very long time. The photos is a little blurry but I think it's easy to see how much they love each other.

On another note, I can't believe Spencer is 10! I remember the day he was born and going to the hospital with Erin and Lindsay. When I saw him for the first time I just couldn't believe how much he looked like my dad. He really looked like a tiny, baby version. He was always so smart and sweet and still is at ten years old. What a milestone birthday for him!

Here's that photo of me and Whitney!

It's kind of funky with the light but I wanted proof that Whitney visited! If I weren't in such a good mood I would write about how terrible the service was there. I really think I won't go back.

A glut of photos and stories

We finally have some new photos on the computer to share. First let me tell you a cute thing Maggie did today. I often will tell her how sweet she is or ask her, "Maggie, how did you get to be so sweet?" Today we were playing around and she stopped, looked up at me and said "Mama so sweet." Years ago I never would have thought three simple words could make me feel so great.

Please crane your neck for this photo. I feel really stupid, but as you've seen before, I really can't figure out how to make these vertical photos post correctly. Sorry. Anyway, this is Maggie in one of Grant's shirts. She loves to wear our clothes and shoes.


This photo is from a cool morning a few weeks ago when I was making a Starbucks run and Grant stayed home with Maggie.


This is from Easter so it's a little late! (With my mom and grandma)

And finally, the long-awaited gymnastics photos (or as Maggie says "gymnactics"). The first one is Maggie, fellow student Catherine, and her teacher, Ms. Becca. They're practicing hanging from the bar like monkeys.

This is Maggie on the wedge mat. She's kind of learned how to do a somersault. When I say kind of I mean that I roll her body up into a ball and push her down the mat. Just kidding! She can do it mostly on her own with a little guidance.

And this is on the balance beam with a little help from Grant:
Carol (Grant's mom) asked me to post a few of her latest words. I'll start with the biggest:
quesadilla, gymnastics, cinnamon, sweet potatoes, Tiffany, chocolate, tomatoes, gnome (not big but funny), pancakes, Mexico, and Texas.

She's also singing a lot. We went to a birthday party a few weeks ago and then she started singing "Happy Birthday to You." It took us days to figure out where she had learned it but she got it after hearing it once at the party! Her other current favorites are "How Much is that Doggy In the Window" (with mostly made-up lyrics by me), "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", "Wheels on the Bus", and "If You're Happy and You Know It" (which she calls "Happy Know It"). Sometimes I feel like a one-woman show and I would be so embarassed if anyone ever saw/heard me. Actually, this is embarassing to even write. Oh well; it makes her happy.

She still loves to run everywhere. About ten times a day she brings me her shoes and says, "Walk around?"

If we are driving and she sees the downtown skyline she says, "Daddy's office!"

There's a nursery worker named Amanda at the YMCA nursery who Maggie loves.
I guess when she changes a dirty diaper she says, "Shoowee! Stinky!" Now whenever Maggie has a dirty diaper she says "Shoowee Manda! Dirty diaper!" And if the feeling of the dirty diaper bothers her she says "Diaper hurting!"

Hopefully this long blog will make up for my lackluster blogging over the last few weeks!

I am really doing a bad job at this lately

Well, sorry it's taken so long for me to post something new. I don't have much to post right now in the way of photos, but here are two for you. One is of the three of us at Grant's fancy new office at Cummins Station. Our friends Whitney and Chris Bishop from Louisville took it on their way through Nashville to Memphis.


Here's one of the back of my head with Maggie. I don't know how to make it turn the correct way; I saved it correctly on the computer and when I put it in here it's sideways! Sorry.And I had one of Whitney but as I'm looking for it, it seems to have disappeared. Whitney - will you send it again so I can put it on here? Grrr...

Have I posted about Maggie's gymnastics class yet? She had her third one today and she LOVES it. We meet at the YMCA that I work out at and our friends Molly and Ben are in the class, too. There's a big, inflated jumpy thing that they practice bouncing on (or in Maggie's case, galloping on), bars that they can hang from, a balance beam that's about 3 inches off the ground, slides, wedge mats, and lots of other fun things. Maggie has learned how to do a somersault and also has learned to say "gymnastics" which is pretty cute, too.

She's still as social as ever. Yesterday we were at the grocery store and someone came into line behind us. Maggie said, "Hi!", then pointed at me and said "Mama", and pointed at herself and said "Maggie", as if she were introducing us. It was so cute.

One of her current favorite activities is to go to the library. Not only does she get to visit the playground ("Swings! Slides!") but we get to get books, attend story time, and flirt with all the librarians. There's one older, male librarian with whom Maggie has a special relationship (not in a creepy way).

I think Grant's trying to attend next week's gymnastic class and take pictures so I'll be sure to put those on the blog.

Also, FYI, Grant's 29th birthday is next Friday! It's his last one before 30 so I'm going to try and make him feel really old :)

Sick again!

I'll put the cute Maggie stories at the top of this so everyone can read what they really want.

Yesterday I was doing a kickboxing video while Maggie was awake (I usually do it while she sleeps) and she was cracking up at the crazy woman on the video, kicking and punching into the air. She came up next to me and started doing all the moves (well, her version of them), lifting her knees, punching her arms. I got a good workout just from laughing at her.

Yesterday I found a bug in our living room and although I normally rely on Grant for all bug-killing duties, he wasn't here. I had to kill it myself. So Maggie and I ran over to get a shoe and then she watched as I smashed it mercilessly. The rest of the day (and much of today) she would say, "Bug! Mama's shoe!", often repeated several times in a row. I wonder if I scarred her and she'll end up volunteering for PETA. (Is there a PETB - People for the Ethical Treatment of Bugs?)

Maggie is sick again with some kind of virus. She's had a little runny nose and other sinus-type symptoms, and then on Monday afternoon her eyes started oozing green stuff. Pretty disgusting. I called her pediatrician, with whom we had an appointment on Tuesday for her 18-month checkup, and the office said that since she had a fever (101) they didn't want to just treat the eye stuff and to bring her in for her existing appointment.

Her eye stuff was gone by Tuesday although I fully expected her eyes to be crusted shut in the morning (they weren't). We went to her appointment and he said it's just a virus, the eyes were a symptom, and we didn't need to take any medication for it. Later that afternoon (after going to Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day (strawberry ice cream for her, strawberry kiwi sorbet for me) she had a fever of 104! It really scared me, although she was still acting sweet and not particulary sick (a little wimpy). I called her ped and they said to give her iboprofen for the fever and just to watch her. That helped, but last night she coughed about every 5 minutes (I know b/c it woke me up!) and didn't get a very good night's sleep.

She's doing better today - lower fever, no crusty eyes, still sneezing and coughing - and right now she's sleeping with some Robitussin DM in her for her cough.

As far as her 18-month visit, things are great! She gained a pound and is 22 lbs (20%) and 31 1/2" (45 %). She's on track or beyond with all of her developmental milestones, and even said, "Bye-bye, Dr. John" at the end of our appointment. We expect to start potty training in earnest in 2-4 months. No more diapers. Yippee!

I have to admit - I've been very impressed with the immunity-boosting powers of breastfeeding. Before she was weaned she was never sick (besides the odd sniffle) and since she was weaned she's had several big illnesses.

On another note, Grant has been leaving around 7am and returning around 8pm for a project he's working on right now, leaving me on my own feeling kinda run-down and caring for this sick kiddo. Let's just say that every day I've been thanking my lucky stars that I'm not a single mom. I have LOTS of respect for single parents who don't have a partner to relieve them. (Plus I feel bad for Grant b/c he's really missing his regular time with Maggie.)

So that's pretty much the news for us.

For those of you who didn't hear - my surgery is scheduled for July 11 and we're fortunate enough to have Grant's mom and grandma come out to help care for Maggie during that time. Lucky for me, also, that I have so many friends and family who will be able to help after they leave!

All right, now I'm going to try to see if I can scrounge up anything for dinner.

Maggie's video

I don't know how to post video on here (if it's even possible), but for those of you who haven't seen it already, here is a link to two videos Grant put together. One is of Maggie's first Easter egg hunt and the other is her saying some words. They're both very short and you can find them at:

http://www.mspcreative.com/maggieclaire.html

More miscellaneous photos

We have two cameras right now and so here are some older photos that have been sitting on the lesser-used one.
First is Maggie with Mimi (my mom) at Mediteranean Cuisine. Maggie has a few moments of picky eating every now and then but in general is a very good eater. She'll eat almost anything - Mediteranean food, Japanese, Chinese, most vegetables, and even hummus, as you can see from this photo below.

Here is a photo of Maggie, Grant, and our good friend Brandon Baker with his adorable and brilliant daughter Emma. They live in Maryland and visited us in the midst of a whirlwind trip to West TN. Brandon keeps a very witty blog at http://www.theshallowwater.blogspot.com/
And finally, here is the photo I wrote about several weeks ago when Maggie was sick with the stomach bug. Remember when she fell asleep on the floor and slept through a diaper change? Well, this is the photo. If this isn't totally wimpy, I don't know what is!

Grandma and Grandpa Come to Nashville!

A few weeks ago, for Carol's Spring Break, Rusty and Carol came to Nashville to visit Maggie (oh yeah...and Grant, Blake, Jenny and me). We had a great time. We went to the zoo where Maggie walked around the entire time, only sitting in her stroller for five minutes, and was so worn out that she almost fell asleep in the swing. We saw giraffes, elephants, gibbon monkeys, and almost as interesting to Maggie, lots of big kids. Also, thanks to Rusty, Maggie learned a new word that week: mustache.

Here are some pictures of our trip to the zoo:
With the lorikeets

Where are the elephants? Over there!And here's where she almost fell asleep in the swing.
Maggie, Grant and I in front of the tigers (I think).

The next day we went to the Parthenon and Centennial Park. For those of you not from Nashville, the Parthenon here is the only full-scale reproduction in the world. Centennial Park has a pond with ducks and both I and my mother came here as children to feed the ducks. Now Maggie does, too!
Here are all the Howards by the pond:
And then we went to the playgroudnd. Here is a photo story entitled "The Slide: O Greatest Joy"

Who do you think is having more fun in the following photo?
And in non-Howard photos, here's one showing how much Maggie loves her Aunt Erin! And I think Maggie knows she has a good thing going: when we ask her if she wants a cousin or if she wants Erin to have a baby, she ALWAYS says no. Boy, is she in for a surprise come September when baby Landers is here and gives her a little competition in the attention department.

I don't have a photo for this one, but I think Maggie had one of her first dreams last week. She woke up crying around 10:30 and didn't stop after 30 seconds like she usually does, so I went in to get her. She was laying in her crib, crying out and saying "Daddy...dog...yucky, yucky, yucky" I can only imagine what she was dreaming about. I was just lucky to be the one who got to hold her and comfort her. She's awfully sweet when she cuddles up into your shoulder.

Time for some cute Maggie photos!

I took this photo one morning after breakfast. She's always extra sweet in the mornings and on this morning she was being especially cute. I just like the way she looks with all of her toys surrounding her (and my foot in its slipper - oh well!). Molly - I keep forgetting to tell you that Ben left his car over here. I'll return it when all of our germs are gone!
The dress Maggie is wearing in this photo was bought for her by Grandma Howard in Laguna Beach, CA, before she was even born. It finally fits her! I was trying on a bunch of spring clothes so I would know what fits her and when I put this dress on she said "Pretty!" and ran around excitedly. After I let her play for a few minutes and saw that it fit her, I wanted to try on the next thing. She cried and cried and was so upset. She didn't want to take this dress off! She kept crying until I put it back on her. Little princess:) Sorry the photo is blurry; I'm trying to figure out Grant's new camera.
I just like this photo b/c she looks like she's up to something.
In this photo I think she looks a little more like me than she usually does. But maybe it's just my imagination.
Grant and I were working in our little fenced-in courtyard a few weekends ago and Maggie was playing happily with us. All of a sudden we heard her saying "HEY! HEY!" so we turned towards the gate and there she was on the other side! I thought she had just opened it and walked through but as we quickly found out, she actually crawled through, commando-style. What a funny girl!
We like to go outside to wave goodbye to Grant in the mornings, and this morning I was wearing Grant's jacket so I just zipped Maggie up in there with me. We were both toasty!
This is Maggie's closest friend, Ben Griggs. Ben's mom, Molly, and I are good friends and we love to take the kids on walks and play together. Usually they kind of ignore each other and do their own thing but every now and then they interact and it's SO CUTE when they do. Molly and I think Ben and Maggie could almost pass for brother and sister with their similar coloring and little turned-up noses. Ben is really smart, too, and specializes in making a very realistic pig snorting sound.

I don't have any photos to go along with this story but that's probably for the best. Maggie and I are both sick this week! Maggie has some sort of stomach bug and I'll let you use your imagination for what her symptoms are. I've had really bad allergies. Somehow I feel that doesn't convey the discomfort I've been in. Let's just say I can't breathe, I've had a headache for three days, I've gone through a box of Kleenex, and I've lost my sense of smell so badly that I haven't tasted anything for three days. I'm really not exaggerating. Anyway, I don't believe that everything happens for a reason, but I'm definitely glad that my loss of smell has coincided with Maggie's stomach bug. Great timing, allergies!
Poor Maggie has just been really wimpy and wants to be held constantly. She's fallen asleep in my arms three times today and once on the floor. She even slept through me changing her diaper and pants and taking her temperature. Poor thing!

The playground and the gym - all in a day's play!

Yesterday Maggie and I went to the wonderful playground behind the Edmondson Pike library and we had so much fun. Maggie went down the slide by herself for the first time. She went right to the top of the slide and stood there looking down for a minute. I stood right beside her on the ground and just as I put my hand up to help her she made a leaping start onto the slide. If I hadn't put my hand up when I did who knows how she would have landed! She loved it and immediately wanted to go again, so we did about fifteen more times. Every time she went down the slide she yelled "Wheeeee!"

Lately her favorite song is the Alphabet Song. She only knows "A" and "B" so she'll say "AB!AB!" which is my indication that it's time to sing. So I start singing and she sings "abababababab" as I sing all other 24 letters. I've been trying to teach her the other letters or at least "C", but I haven't had much luck so far. I've also been pointing out the letter "A" in all her books. So yesterday we pull into the YMCA to work out and Maggie says "A!" I thought, "Oh, she just wants to sing the song." I turn around to look at her and see she's pointing at the "A" in the YMCA sign. Then we get out of the car and and she says "A" again and points at the other YMCA sign. I couldn't believe it!

And one more story...tonight Grant had to work late (poor guy has been working his tail off!) so I put Maggie to bed by myself. Usually after we put her in her crib we high tail it out of there but I lingered a little longer than usual. As I was walking out a minute later I looked back at her crib and saw that she had scooted right next to the front side of the crib, turned on her back, stuck her foot out the slats, rested it upon the crib bumper, and was rocking it back and forth. So cute. I should linger more often!

I'll be posting some photos soon - sorry they're not going up with this post!

Is it safe to play in the oven?

Here's a new one of Maggie! (What other kind of photos do I ever put on here?)














Maggie likes to crawl into her play kitchen and pretend she's a Thanksgiving turkey cooking in the oven. She stays in there for eight hours and comes out when she's fully cooked. (I don't even know how long it takes to cook a turkey but if you're reading this and you have cooked a turkey before, you probably already figured that out!)

I sometimes think she might be too cute. Is that even possible? For you out-of-towners, let me tell you about her Happy Dance. Every now and then (about 5 times daily) she is so overwhelmed with joy that she can't contain herself and does her Happy Dance. This consists primarily of standing in place and stomping her feet about thirty times in a row. Sometimes she adds a few spins or even throws her head back in wonder and amazement at the fun of it all.

This makes me think of her head which makes me think, "Did I mention she had her first hair cut?" Well, if I didn't, let me be the first to tell you she has had her first hair cut. She was in the bath and I just cut about an inch or two off the back, which was easy enough since it was arranged in four little curls. I just cut each curl off and it ended up pretty even! I did save one of the curls and tied it up with ribbon for her baby book. That in itself is pretty sweet. She looks like she has a little bob and I think it's a very good look for her (although Grant did confess he wants it grown out again ASAP).

Here's Maggie wearing Grant's hat. It's a little big. These are some of her favorite pajamas, given to her by Grant's Uncle Rick and Aunt Chris, and she really likes them because they have a dog on them.