Balance

Life is humming along on these beautiful summer days, and things feel in balance. Brian has been working a lot this week, and I know that it's wearing him out, but aside from that, I think that things feel quite at ease here. And, of course, it probably feels less at ease for Brian right now for me--I guess this is more a personal update than a family one.

I've found a nice balance of priorities and areas of my life that receive my attention and focus at various times. Sam is with Maia and me for about 15 hours every week, and I've really come to value my ability to be at home with Maia and yet also help her learn some important aspects of emotional intelligence that come from interacting with others. I think she's been able to learn a lot about patience and sharing and cooperation. She's very thoughtful with Sam, but she's definitely had many opportunities to practice speaking kindly to him and understanding that he has a personal bubble (both in terms of space and in terms of wants and needs) just as she does.

I've also struck a very nice balance with work. It felt very validating to pass my LCCE certification exam; I'm very fond of certifications and licenses for their own sake, because I think the process of preparing for the exams (LCCE) or seminars (DONA) or inspections (State of MI child care) is a very valuable one. I guess I'm just a sucker for formalized study and things that a community of professionals can have in common. I like that kind of thing. Anyway, my childbirth teaching is deeply enriching, and I feel really engaged with discussions surrounding the current state of maternity care in the U.S. I think we're going to see a lot of talk about prenatal care and birth now that so much attention is being deservedly paid to the outrageous costs (and, often, not so great outcomes) of health care in this country--finally! Now that I've attended several births, taught this material dozens of times, and worked my way through a lot of current research, I'm feeling really solid with my knowledge in this area, and it feels really intellectually stimulating and challenging.

We've been without our cable for many months now, and I've substituted vegging-out on the sofa in front of the T.V. with vegging-out with my book. Of course, I always was a reader before, but I've gained whole blocks of time that used to get partially consumed by TV watching, almost without me realizing that I was doing it. Talk about "mindless"! I'm at the pace of reading a nonfiction text or novel about once every week or every other week. Just today, while Maia was napping, I finished a book about contemporary China called Oracle Bones, and it helped me get a deeper understanding of the up-to-the-minute events in western China (riots, ethnic tension, economic issues, etc.). I didn't plan it that way--the developments in the news over the last few days coincided with my finising the book.

We just learned last week that a new family has moved into our neighborhood, and their oldest child was born exactly two days after Maia. Maia and I spent a wonderful chunk of time at their house yesterday afternoon, and it was such a treat. I guess the usual term for this would be "playdate," but that's one of the words in common usage that I absolutely can't stand (not sure why . . .), so we'll just call it plain old "playtime." :)

And, of course, another aspect of balance is my regular exercise. I'm running three days per week now, preparing for the half marathon in Detroit in mid-October. I've been in a bit of a holding pattern the last couple of weeks, in that my training schedule has me running 5Ks for the longest distance, but this weekend that increases a bit with a 4-mile run on Sunday. After that, every other week, I go up one mile in distance on my Sunday long runs: 5 miles on the 19th, 6.5 on August 2nd, and so on.

That's enough for now, I think. I have to go comb through my bookshelves and figure out what I'm going to read next. I'm contemplating a re-read of Anna Karenina again, but I might do something else. Maybe The Red Tent?

Toddler interactions

Sam was doing his usual "what's the word for this?" by pointing at Maia's booster seat and saying "That?" Maia responded with the following: "That's a booster seat, Sam. Look at me say it, Sam. (She then pointed at her lips.) Booster seat. This is called a booster seat."

Asking Sam to look at her mouth as she says the word is a strategy I've used with her when I sense that she's stumbling over the phonemes in a word a bit--it's seemed to help her sort them out.

Sam's a really verbal 16-month old with dozens of words and signs, and I think Maia is getting a kick out of understanding his words and decoding them, as it were, and helping him pick up new ones. She likes being the wise old language guru. :)

More cuteness, later in the day:

Maia scraped up her knees a bit with a fall on the sidewalk, and we put a Band-Aid over one of the scrapes. She was looking at her bare knee when she woke up from her nap, and she said:

"There's no Band-Aid here. My body healed it."

I responded with "Yeah, and the Band-Aid is helping heal it on your other knee."

She tilted her head, paused, and said "Not my body?!" (She's very focused on and proud of her body's ability to heal "owies," and was none too pleased with my implication that her body wasn't capable of healing that knee. After all, as Maia's said before: "Healing! It's what bodies do!")

Lots of new photos

From July 4

We've had a busy couple of days! Brian's home for a three-day weekend, and we've taken full advantage of his time off to do lots of holiday-related stuff. Last night we went to a nearby park to watch the fireworks (which Maia seemed to LOVE--it was her first fireworks experience), and then today we went to Ann Arbor's parade and then a picnic at Kensington Metropark (near Brighton) with Nana and Papa. What a weekend! Tomorrow, perhaps we'll go swimming at a pool down the road, and then we have dinner with friends.

So, yes, there are lots of new photos at the usual photo site.

The Dichotomy of Predictability and Creativity

From June 19

Setting: Watching a squirrel climb up a fire hydrant on campus.

Maia: "When I'm a squirrel, I'm going to climb up fire hydrants, too!"

I explained that Maia's most likely not going to be a squirrel, even when she gets older, and she started down a verbal path that lasted 15-20 minutes . . .

Maia: "When I get older, I am going to be a biiiig squirrel. No. When I get older, I'm going to be a biiiiig bird. There will be another Maia walking, watching me fly up high. Dada, you will be an airplane. You will fly up high next to me. There will be another matching Dada named Steve." (It went on like this for several minutes.)

Later on, she explained that Cara was going to be a bird, too, but a small one. Maia was going to be a big one like Vlad Vladikoff.

Of course, I am fascinated by this imaginative leap she has taken within the past few days. What fascinates me most, is related to a blog post from the mother of Maia's best friend who moved out West. If you read further down, you will see that Harper is going through some VERY similar cognitive developments -- for her, she will be a frog who will "jump out of windows REALLY quick".

This has been something that I have been extremely interested in since Maia was born. Babies, toddlers and small children seem to go down two parallel tracks of development--those things that make them unique individuals, and those things that are genetically programmed into their makeup. In some ways, they are unpredictable, amusing creatures in the natural world. In other ways, they are perfectly predictable robots who are determined to fulfill their destiny.

This type of imaginative talk is a case of both developmental paths. On one hand, her imagination is perfectly unique. No other kid has come up with the same story she has. On the other hand, her imagination is perfectly predictable. She HAS to go through this mental exercise of wondering what she will be like when she is older. Will she be a bigger version of herself? Or will she be something completely different, like a bird or a squirrel. If she is something different, how fun would it be to do the things that those creatures can do? Harper's similar conversation is no coincidence. They are about 3 months apart. They are PROGRAMMED to think that way at this age.

As a software developer who deals with both absolutes and creativity simultaneously, this dichotomy fascinates me. How can we all be so predictable and unpredictable at the exact same time? I love it.

Odds and Ends

From June 12

An update, in list form:

• Maia's having one successful potty trip per day, on average, over the last few days. We dialed back a bit on the intensity and focus on potty training, and it seems to have helped the situation. She's now pretty good at having her BMs end up in the potty much of the time, which is AWESOME! She's very proud of herself, and a lot of her anxiety seems to have lifted. So, we're still making progress!
• I've started my official training routine for the Detroit Free Press half marathon, which is in mid-October. The schedule starts off pretty mellow, but ramps up quickly enough. According to my schedule (courtesy of Jeff Galloway), I'm going to be running 8 miles by mid-August, and then 14 miles two weeks before the race (which is, of course, 13.1 miles). It sounds intimidating, but I'm doing 5K-ish distances now, so I just need to stick with it. Paying the entry fee for the run will help!
• Maia's in a pattern right now of getting upset when I have to go to work in the evenings. I've worked the last two nights in a row, and both times she's been very clingy, asked to go with me to my destination, asked me to read books with her here at home, etc. We're wondering if this new Mama-centric clingy behavior is related to her recent spike in anxiety (the last blog post). We're guessing yes.
  
• Brian's had two software-group talks in the last two weeks (one in Flint, tonight in Southfield), and his big national talk is in Tennessee at the end of the month. There's a lot of collective pride in our family over this new addition to Brian's professional life.
• My doula business continues to roll along, despite the lousy economy. I attended a birth in late May, will attend another sometime in the next 4-5 weeks, and then another in August. That will be 12 births for me, I think, by the end of the summer. Sweet!
  
• We're feeling a lot of luck these days in work-related life. We were thrilled to finally pay off my car last month (got the title in the mail last week! Joy!), and we're finally, after two and a half years, starting to actually save money on a monthly basis rather than digging into the savings stockpile that we built up from 2004-2006. I had a few people tell me that this was actually possible when I resigned from my 40-hr/week job before Maia's birth, and I had difficulty believing it. But here we are, actually starting to live it. We know how lucky we are, and we're still profoundly cautious--in this economy, it could all disappear in a heartbeat. We know that for sure.
• We've added to Maia's bedtime routine: nightly read-alouds from a chapter book. We've started with Milne's Winnie the Pooh, and Maia seems quite enamored of this new tradition. Being read to every night by my parents for years (literally--it really was years) is one of my most distinct childhood memories. Thanks to Mom and Dad, I heard the James Herriot stories, Mark Twain's novels, Black Beauty, and countless other books well before I could read them myself. (I still have images from Tom Sawyer in my head to this day, and I don't think I've ever actually read that book myself.) So, we've decided to keep the tradition going with Maia. We sit out in the hallway with a small reading light, and Maia's bedroom door is slightly ajar, and she gets cuddled under her covers and listens to the story. I don't know how much she can actually process at this point, but it's not about content right now . . . it's about routine and together time and the pure, unadulterated joy of reading novels. :)

So there are some of our recent developments. Life is good, summer is here, and it's only a month until we go up north!

A dilemma: change and stress.

A new development in this third year of Maia's life has been the presence of anxiety or stress in connection with change. We've been working on some changes lately--potty training, weaning off a sleep-time paci--and we've both noticed that Maia's stress level increases in connection with these changes. So, Brian and I both have felt the need to hit the "pause" or "rewind" button on some of these decisions, but we're not sure that that's the right answer, either.

I believe very strongly that adaptability and flexibility are essential life skills. But I don't necessarily think that it's developmentally appropriate to expect these skills of a 2 1/2 year old. In fact, I'm pretty certain it isn't in a lot of circumstances, and also depending upon the kid. Maia is exuberant about life and is a very brave and strong person, but she's never really been a "go with the flow" kind of kid. She's needed particular routines for sleep, a relatively predictable flow to the day, and she likes to know that she has "her places" that are familiar and comforting to her. She's not rigid, by any means, but she's opinionated, detail-oriented, a light sleeper, and a bit of an introvert (in that she watches a new situation from the periphery for a bit before diving in). She loves to explore, but she needs a familiar foundation upon which to stand and to which she can return in-between explorations. Of course, in many ways, several of these descriptions also fit her parents, but we're not going to answer the "nature vs. nurture" question in this particular blog post. ;)

So, put all of this together, and I think what we have is a toddler who isn't a great fit for changing things cold turkey. Brian and I have definitely learned that in the last few weeks.

So, I guess the questions we're asking these days include: what level of stress (because of change) are we comfortable with in Maia? What level seems unreasonable or inappropriate? Is any stress really appropriate in relationship to these changes (paci weaning, potty training) that aren't really that important right now, in the grand scheme of things? There are developmental milestones that matter for a two-year-old, and those that don't, and, in my opinion, these two don't so much. If she's still peeing in her pants all the time at 4-years-old, that's a different situation.

I'm processing this as I write, so I don't necessarily see this post as a set of answers, but rather a series of questions. What I'm trying to do right now is prioritize; there are "struggles" in which I'd probably have a greater investment in standing my ground, even if increased stress on the part of my little girl was a result. If Maia had a very limited or unhealthy diet, for example, or if I was concerned about her physical health, that would be a bigger issue. If I was concerned about her intellectual or verbal development, that would be a bigger issue. Those things don't apply in either of the cases that we're dealing with.

But perhaps I'm rationalizing. Perhaps I'm teaching her that "If you object strongly enough, we'll back off." I don't know. That's not really the lesson I'm shooting for. But I'm also not interested in communicating to Maia that "Mama's going to make you feel stressed out about inconsequential things."

Ahhh. Big questions, and few answers. Welcome to parenting.

Big progress on the potty front!

We've had many, many more misses than hits over the last several days of potty learning. As I said before, we've been doing lots of laundry and using our wet vac on the carpet (TMI?). But, tonight, there was BIG progress! After having an accident at around 6:30, Brian and Maia were playing with her ABC picture cards in her play area, with the potty in close proximity. She was going commando, as she has been quite a bit lately when we're hanging around here at home. I've come to believe that this is an essential starting-off point for Maia's potty learning, because she had to find a way to learn how yucky it is to have pee and poo all over herself. Not fun.

Suddenly, Maia ran over towards the potty, stopped, and said "I'm peeing!" Brian quickly helped her onto the potty, and, although most of her pee ended up on the carpet (something to which we've become quite accustomed), the communication and the foresight to know ahead of time that the pee was coming is a really significant improvement in our world.

So, progress. This was becoming somewhat disheartening, and I know that that's completely normal. But still, it's nice to have the moment of progress.

Update

It's been a pretty average/busy week around here since I last wrote. I attended my ninth (or maybe tenth? I've lost count.) birth last weekend, and this past weekend was a chance for the three of us to have a normal routine again. Our weekday pattern was pretty average, too, in that we have some evenings together and some apart (usually because of a class or meeting that I have scheduled). I have my usual class to teach tonight, and I think Brian plans to go to the YMCA pool with Maia, which is frequently their Monday night routine.

Potty training: what a challenge! We've had three successful trips to the potty over the course of several days, and many accidents and wet undies. Here's something I don't get: Pull-Ups. How are they not just diapers that go on a different way? We've tried not to use them that often, but we are using them when we're leaving the house or when Maia sleeps. I just don't understand how they can be a useful tool for potty training. They're too absorbent to help her learn what wetness feels like, and so they just seem to be glorified (and more expensive) diapers, if you ask me. Of course, having Maia spend her time in undies means I've been doing way more laundry than usual, but I don't see how potty training can work with Pull-Ups. Hm. Maybe I'm missing something.

I can hear Maia waking up from her nap, and so I'm not going to be writing for much longer. I think we'll hang out in the backyard this afternoon rather than get in the car and head out (which is what we did this morning). Baby Sam isn't with us this week (he and his Mom headed out to see family in Ohio), and so we've got a bit more flexibility in our schedule than usual. OK, I can hear Maia upstairs now, walking around her bedroom and singing "Freight Train," which is one of her favorite songs. I guess it's time to sign off!

Just now

Maia insisted that Brian sit in his reading chair and read one book, while she sat in her own reading chair to read her own book. She opened the book and then recited the first two whole pages of Horton Hatches the Egg verbatim:

"Sighed Mayzie, a lazy bird hatching an egg:
'I'm tired and I'm bored
And I've kinks in my leg
From sitting, just sitting here day after day.
It's work! How I hate it!
I'd much rather play!
I'd take a vacation, fly off for a rest
If I could find someone to stay on my nest!
If I could find someone, I'd fly away--free . . .'

Then Horton, the Elephant, passed by her tree.
'Hello!' called the lazy bird, smiling her best,
'You've nothing to do and I do need a rest.
Would YOU like to sit on the egg in my nest?'"

Brian and I sat in our respective chairs, not really believing that we were hearing all this. :)

Imagination vs. reality

We had an interesting "first" just a short while ago. Maia and I were driving out to meet Brian for lunch (a once-weekly bright spot on all of our calendars), and she started talking about motorcycles and scooters. We're accustomed to her saying things like "I'm going to ride my motorcycle" all the time--it's one version of her imaginative play. She says the sentence, but it doesn't necessarily mean that she goes about her business any differently. She's just walking around the yard as she was before--but she's riding a motorcycle!

Anyway, today she started to talk about her motorcycles and scooters, and how Brian was going to be bringing them in his car. I played along as I often do (particularly when I'm driving and can't engage in any other way), saying things like "Oh really? That's so cool!". She kept talking about it and building on it, including how she was going to ride her motorcycle to the gas station and to Zingerman's.

But then, when we arrived at Ahmo's to meet Brian, Maia was really upset that he didn't have a motorcycle or scooter in the back of his car! She cried and stuck out her bottom lip and insisted on looking in his car herself. She was really sad and disappointed. It was an interesting moment--the imaginative world that she so often creates for herself (in which she's at the beach, or cooking dinner, or is being "Horton" or "Auntie JoJo" or whomever) extended beyond its usual confines and became something that she thought was real.

Happy Mamas’ Day!

From Mother's Day

Happy Mama’s Day! That is what Maia calls it. Right now, Mothers’ day is more for Maia than it is for Mama. At least, Maia was significantly more excited than Cara was about the holiday. I suppose that this is a metaphor for Cara’s role in the last year.

To celebrate, Maia and I made a red velvet cake. More seasoned parents may know this, but I learned it the hard way: making food with a toddler that has a lot of food coloring is not exactly a great idea. I was cleaning red dye out of everything. The cake was delicious. Maia enjoyed an entire slice.

This morning, Maia and I took Cara out for breakfast. Cara got the “Special” – a bagel with cream cheese, lox, red onion and tomato. This is something Cara only gets every year or so, and I am glad she allowed herself that treat. She shared her smoked salmon with Maia, who thought it was delicious.

This afternoon and evening, we made dinner for Grandma, Grandpa, Nana and Papa who came over to celebrate with us. Maia couldn’t shut up. She yaps and yaps and yaps. It made for a good party. Burgers, Michigan asparagus, salad and red velvet cake. Yummmmmm.

Tonight, Cara is watching the recorded “White House Correspondents' Dinner”. Real entertainment for Cara. :) We might curl up on the couch and watch an episode of “The Wire” or read a book.

I know that I have said it here before, but I need to say it again. I really appreciate Cara. In the last year, Cara has very successfully built her Doula business AND her day care business. Along with her Lamaze work, she has her plate full! This family wouldn’t function without Cara’s hard work and I appreciate her. Maia does too . . . in her own way.

Happy Mamas’ day to ALL the mothers in my life… my wife, my mother, my mother-in-law, my grandmother, my sister and my friends.

Also, tomorrow is our 7th wedding anniversary. You rock. I love you. Sorry if this post feels more like my “stream of consciousness." It is the writing mood I am in today.

Love, Dada

All done with paci?

Last night, Dada was giving Maia her pacis for bed, and here's what she said: "I don't need my pacis." He put them down on her pillow so she could get them when she wanted them, and she proceeded to lift her pillow up and dump them off onto the bed. She put her pillow over them, and said "I'll just put them under my pillow."

And that's where they stayed all night. She slept for her usual 11.5 hours without her pacis for the first time since she was about three weeks old. :)

A weekend away.

From May 09

Brian is in Seattle (his plane arrives home at DTW in the middle of the night), and Maia and I have returned from a lovely weekend in East Lansing. The sun was shining on both Saturday and Sunday, and we had a great time roaming the various nooks and crannies of MSU's campus that have been Hecker favorites for decades.

We started with . . . horses! There was a quarter horse show at the Judging Pavilion, which was our first stop. It was a small show, and we weren't there for very long, but Maia seemed to get a kick out of roaming up and down the hallways with stalls of horses on either side, and climbing the bleachers in the show arena.

We quickly decided to move on to the horse farms down the road, though, to soak up more sunshine and visit the new babies. There were a couple of foals, one of whom had a very rough start to her little life (she caught an infection in-utero, and almost didn't make it); she's looking wonderful now, though, and we watched her and her Mama take it easy in their stall for quite a while. Maia was fascinated by the nursing process, and she seemed quite perplexed for a while that Mama horse's "nook-uhs" were in the wrong place! :) I was happy that she had the chance to see another mammal nursing--we'd told her it happens, but she'd never had the opportunity to see it in person.

We wandered across the field where the marching band practices, through Beal Botanical Gardens, up the steps at the back of the library (where Maia wanted to go in--we explained that there weren't any blocks or toys or picture books in this library), and past Beaumont Tower to the MSU Union for some Dairy Store ice cream. Delicious!

I visited Nannie this morning sans Maia (due to her recent cold), and then we hung out at the house through dinner. Thanks to Nana and Papa, I had plenty of opportunities to go sit at coffee shops and bookstores on my own, soaking up the sunshine and reading up a bit on family nutrition (via Dr. Sears's book The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood). Maia slept wonderfully in a queen-sized bed with a kid-friendly bedrail attached--we all were very proud of her quick adaptation to the new bed situation.

We're looking forward to Brian's return home tomorrow, and then a routine week for all of us starting on Tuesday (Brian's taking the day off work tomorrow to rest up--he'll sleep until noon). In other family notes: we're sending happy thoughts in a couple of directions this week. Katie's birthday is tomorrow, and Jo is taking her milestone PhD qualifying exams this week. Happy Birthday, Auntie Katie, and you ROCK, Auntie JoJo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Toddler dreams

Maia woke up crying about an hour ago, and when I went in the room to see her, she reported that she had a "dream about Dada." When I asked her for more detail, here's where she went with it:

"Dada's going to bring me a surprise. I live in Ann Arbor. You and I (yes, that's how she phrased it) live in Ann Arbor. Dada's going to Seattle. Dada lives in Seattle!"

Maybe she's having a dream anticipating the likely event that she'll miss Brian while he's gone? She might have extrapolated to him living somewhere else, rather than just visiting. That would be a sad dream indeed. In any case, she and I are driving to East Lansing tomorrow to spend two and a half days with her beloved Nana and Papa, so I'm sure that she'll have a good weekend, even with Brian's absence. I'm sure many photos will follow.

Talking to toddlers

Maia dropped a cup of milk on the carpet on purpose today. While I was setting up the wet-vac, this was our conversation:

Dad: Am I happy right now?
Maia: No. You are not at all happy.
D: Why am I not happy?
M: Because you are sad.
D: Why am I sad?
M: Because you are not at all happy.
D: I am sad because you spilled the milk on the carpet and I need to clean it up.
M: Yeah.
D: Can you say that you are sorry?
M: I'm sorry, Dada. I will not do that again.
D: Thank you. Why won't you do that again?
M: Because I'm a robot.

Well... at least we understand each other :)

This is our place.

This morning, while I was filling my mug with coffee, Maia walked through the seating area at Zingerman's and stood right next to Ari Weinzweig, the co-founder and owner of the deli who was working on a laptop at one of the back tables. She looked at him and said "This is our place." He looked up and said "It's a good place to have. It looks good on you!"

I'm not sure if she was speaking about Zingerman's in general, or if she was trying to say that she wanted his table.

Imaginative play

Baby Sam is napping upstairs, and Maia and I have been playing in her kitchen area for the last several minutes. I'm taking a short break from our pretend meal together to record some of the details of what it's like to participate in Maia's imaginative play these days:

• She's very detail oriented. When it's time for her to cook macaroni and cheese, she uses a wooden spoon to stir and serve it, a knife to add a bit of butter to the cheese sauce, and a separate spoon or fork to eat it. The utensils are real, but, of course, she's not using real butter, so she mimics the motion of slicing a pat of butter off of the stick.
• She participates in the cooking process for various pasta dishes a couple of times a week with Brian and me, and it's fun to hear her saying "I'm going to test a noodle. Nope! It's not ready! It's still crunchy!" when she's pretend cooking.
  
• She's careful to be sure that her set of dishes and utensils is all the same color. Today, it's green.
• She's very precise with her words, too. Just now she said "I'm looking for the stirring spoon in the utensil basket." She's also sure to pick up her hamburger patty with what she calls the "cooking spatula," which is metal.

It's a kick to participate in all of this, because it's so clear that she's imitating the cooking behaviors that she sees Brian and I doing in our every day life.

April is the awesomest month

"Awesomest" isn't a word, I know, but whatever.

We're having an awesome April around here, and life is good. It's been far too long since my last blog post, so, even though I should be asleep or at least reading in preparation for sleep right now, I thought I'd sit down here a bit and post.

It's now four months into Brian's and my collective get-healthy-and-stop-making-lame-excuses campaign, and we're doing a really good job (especially Brian). He gets up three mornings a week at 5:10 AM to go work out at the Y before a full day of software work, which is a considerable thing to maintain for four months, if you ask me. I myself don't keep that regular a schedule, but I'm doing OK. I'm officially able to fit into my wedding dress again; losing dress sizes wasn't the goal here, but it's a welcome side effect of my other efforts to get healthy and strong. I'm recording these achievements here both to say "good for us!", but also to set down a signpost, a marker along the path, perhaps as extra insurance that we won't allow ourselves to slip back into old habits too easily. We're seeing the difference with Maia, too--she talks about how much she loves to run and jump and go swimming, and she has specific "running pants" that she insists on wearing most of the times that we take family trips to the gym. She also likes to do her own personal version of yoga, which consists mainly of an adorable rendition of Downward Dog and a couple of stretches against the wall. Sometimes she even folds her hands and says "Namaste" when she's done! :)

I've bounced back (ha!) from my fall down the stairs very well and quite quickly, and all that remains is a dent across the bridge of my nose. I think that souvenir is going to be here permanently, so I'm getting a bit attached to it.

We're all very excited for tomorrow, which is our first "summertime" Saturday since, oh, about October last year. I'll get up before Maia does to go to the gym, and I'll meet Brian and Maia at the Farmer's Market, which has been gearing up over the last few weeks, adding a few stalls and trucks each Saturday. It's going to be over 70 degrees tomorrow, so I expect to see lots of people there who are celebrating the return of market season along with us. We bought a full share in a different CSA farm this year, but it doesn't start delivering until June, so we'll be going stall-to-stall tomorrow, picking all the dark, leafy greens and asparagus we can eat. Then, we'll go to Zingerman's for bagels and coffee at one of the outside tables (Maia, Nana Dawn and I ate lunch outside there today--it was wonderful)!

Other awesome things that are happening these days:

• I'm taking the certifying exam for Lamaze childbirth educators next Wednesday. I'm looking forward to it--here's hoping I pass!
  
• My beloved little red car is paid off next month. We'll own our cars outright, which is a cool milestone, especially since we have no plans or wishes to replace either one. (I just knocked on the desk--I'm not superstitious, but here's hoping that the sentence I just wrote doesn't lead to a blown head gasket or something tomorrow . . .)
  
• I'm going to be caring for "baby Sam" (he's definitely a toddler, but that's still his full name, according to Maia) for another full year. He's walking a lot and talking a bit now, and is going to be 14 months old in a few days. :)
• I've attended the births of two babies in the past month, and I'm still so deeply honored to have the opportunity to earn money doing this very cool doula work.
• Maia is loving her swimming classes with Brian, and now gets a kick out of jumping off the side of the pool into the water all by herself (with Brian awaiting her in the water, of course).
• Ann Arbor is waking up and shaking off the winter yuck. Downtown is busy again every evening, the streetside tables are full, and you can't find parking. That will last a couple of more weeks until the students leave for the summer, and then the city will take its annual deep breath and stretch out a bit for a few months. I like the lazy summers in college towns, but I'm always happy to see the return of the students in the fall, too.
  

Fairy Door Field Trip

We took a grand tour around Ann Arbor this evening, photographing all of Maia's favorite fairy doors. Take a peek at the photos on the usual site to see all of the mirth and whimsy that you can handle! :)

From April 1

What a morning!

Maia's down for her midday nap after a very exciting morning. She woke up at her usual time (about 8:00 AM), and we were out of the house and downtown by 9:00 or so. After parking our car on State St., we walked to the Espresso Royale coffee shop right off campus. We were able to snag what I consider the best seats in Ann Arbor: the window tables at Espresso. After about 45 minutes of people watching and book reading, we went back down State St. in the other direction to visit the newly-reopened University of Michigan Museum of Art. We've been watching this construction project unfold for months, and Maia's been eagerly anticipating her chance to get into the new museum. Some of her thoughts on the collection: any works which depicted kids were top notch, some of the Southeast Asian sculptures were "a little bit scary," and the bust of George Washington wasn't worth a second look.

We explored the museum for about an hour, and then got back into the car to go meet Brian for lunch at our usual spot, Ahmo's. Enjoying their lunch just a couple of tables over were a group of Ann Arbor firefighters, and their truck was parked in the lot outside. So, of course, Maia charmed them right away and said hello, and she was honored to get a "Junior Firefighter" badge from her friendly local firefighters (who are probably used to toddlers staring at them while they're trying to eat lunch).

We decided to look at the truck out in the parking lot, and at that moment another fireman was arriving to join his colleagues. He walked up to Maia and offered her a personal tour of the truck, complete with some time sitting in the driver's seat, pushing various dashboard buttons, trying on a big helmet (which I called a "hat" and Maia corrected me with "helmet, Mama!"), and looking at all the equiptment in the various storage places. Maia was thrilled, and she left the whole experience with a coloring book, a kid-sized helmet, and a big "Thank you!" for the firefighters on AAFD Engine #4. :)

Here's a photo I got on my iPhone:

From Fire Truck