have you seen my elf?

Right now our kitchen resembles Santa's workshop as we work on some top secret projects. Even Zuzu has gotten in on the action and become one of Santa's elves at home. And recently she was spotted at the Christmas party at Tata's as an elf again, making herself comfy in Tato's chair.

o christmas tree

Tonight we popped in the fireplace DVD Ty made, turned on some holiday tunes, and decorated the Christmas tree. Zuzu “helped” put the star on the top of the tree:

good hair day

Guess who did Zuzu’s hair after her bath this morning? Daddy. She looked absolutely adorable with a little curly mohawk. No product; that’s all natural, baby. From a certain angle, she reminded us of Conan O’Brien.

snow day

This is the view today from our living room window. See the birch trees that normally stand tall, way over the house? The freezing rain arrived and a couple hours after taking this noontime picture, the top branches touched the sidewalk. There’s a little crabapple tree underneath all those branches that is taking part of the weight of the larger tree. Ty tried knocking off some of the ice this morning but it just broke off branches instead.

So, it’s been a snow day. No school for Jenn (hurrah, which we’d hoped for since Zuzu is sick, which means for the first time since going back to work, I can finally be the one home with her when she can’t go to Tata’s). We just regained power after a couple of hours which were spent a) trying to hear the backup sump pump kick in, hoping it would, since the basement is almost done; b) contemplating various ways the lack of power impacted us and the things we could and could not do (turn on the oven to bake cookies? no. run the space heater? no. plug in the Christmas tree and pretend we’re warm? no.) and lastly, c) trying to open a jar of baby peaches. You can even ask Ty, the latest batch of baby fruits are impossible to open. So Zuzu ate peas instead.

Happy snow day, everyone.

-- update --

So, I wrote the above post around two o’clock. Around three, Ty called. Our conversation went like this:

Ty: have you had power?
Jenn: we lost it twice for about two hours. And guess what, each time it went out I heard a comic book-like “zzzaa – zzzaa – zzzzzzuh” and then bam! no lights.
Ty: really? But you have it back now?
Jenn: yeah, and I’m hoping it…

----zzzzaa….zzzaaa….zzzzzzuh ---- darkness.

And that’s pretty much how things were until about 7:15 tonight, when we blew out our candles and cranked the heat, and breathed a huge sigh of relief to hear the main sump pump running again (the backup was running every 40 seconds…so we were feeling nervous!).

Between Zuzu and myself we wore two sweatshirts, two shirts and one fleece; three pairs of pants, one pair of long underwear pants, three pairs of socks, one pair of shoes, a stocking cap and a hood. I imagined my dad saying, “start putting on layers, it’s going to get cold” so that’s exactly what we did. I’m not banking on the power staying on, especially since we’re supposed to get more sleet, but for now we are well-lit and toasty.

hang on

Hooray for a baby who likes to take a bath! On most nights, a rub-a-dub-dub is part of Zuzu's bedtime routine. While we've tried graduating to a bath seat, Zuzu still likes her blue baby tub; and we like it because her bath toys (a ruber duckie and a firefly) don't usually wander too far. She always tilts her head back when her hair gets rinsed (she takes advantage of this opportunity to try to lick any water that runs down her chin) and has yet to lay a giant poo in the tub. So in a nutshell, she's very cooperative when it comes to bath time.

Last night, however, instead of grabbing onto duckie or the firefly, she clung to the side of the baby tub for dear life (don't worry, she wasn't really in any danger). It cracked us up (the spinach she eats must be making her strong!).

p.s. Zuzu, if you see this when you're older, Mommy didn't pixilate your bum for the video. It's just so darn cute.

that's entertainment

Some days, it feels like we entertain Zuzu as much as she entertains us. Lately she enjoys sitting in her high chair and watching us disappear and reappear from behind the other side of the kitchen counter. Even though it's me (Jenn) behind the scenes in this video, she seems to like it most when it's Ty hiding and popping up. The more she figures out what we're doing, the harder we have to try to get a good giggle or jump out of her!

a nap? are you joking?

After all the Thanksgiving festivities and visiting both families, Zuzu was tuckered out from fun and therefore her body clock decided sleeping was silly and unnecessary. Imagine that! Mommy and Daddy thought much differently, but despite our efforts we had an overtired girl and tired parents. After night #3 of Zuzu not wanting to sleep (and finally on Saturday night her dinner making a surprise reappearance in her crib as a result of letting her cry it out), she settled down for a nap just before it was time to go to church on Sunday morning. Seriously hoping for a good nap for her, we stayed home so she could get some rest.

Her nap was short lived and she was wide awake. Out of ideas to get her back down to snooze, I wound up taking pictures (she's just too cute). This is her "I Heart My Cat" pose (by the way, she's started saying "eh-wa" when she sees Emma!):

...and this is her "Tired? Maybe a little. But take a nap? You must be kidding" pose:

...and life is interesting in the laundry basket:

...but hee hee hee, there's no way I'm sleeping:

wire zuzu

Pictured above is a wire sculpture that Maddie made for her cousin Zuzu. Can you guess who it is? It's Zuzu when she's older! I love her long curly hair and the fact that she's not afraid to wear a big beret the size of her head (if I remember correctly, Maddie said she put that on her because the sculpture had a bald spot...which Zuzu really does right now, only it's in the back). She's got on a funky top that, if it were real, I'd suspect may have come from a thrift shop (that's my girl!) or maybe is a hand-me-down from one of her older cousins, a chic scarf, and nifty purse (love the orange strap). And, she's wearing purple flip-flops. A very spunky girl!

thanksgiving!

zuzu's first thanksgiving started out with monkey bread, fresh from the oven. though she wasn't able to enjoy it in the same way that jenn and i did, she did get a chance to take a good look at it and perhaps breathe in its warm, gooey goodness.

we're all about enjoying classic holiday family traditions here, so next on the list was turning on the macy's thanksgiving day parade, mainly to just have on in the background - to create atmosphere. normally, we don't have zuzu watching tv, so she was quite curious about the activity taking place. even when turned in her exersaucer to face the other way, she insisted on twisting around to see the next float, balloon, band, or performance.

i started noticing how everything was so carefully orchestrated to blend smoothly into the advertising. the latest barbie super-princess mega-dream castle float featured a "live" barbie, singing about her perfect life (or something like that), then transitioned to a strategically positioned commercial alerting viewers to the newly available super-princess mega-dream castle DVD. ech! okay, the "corporate marketing machine" may have put me under its enchanting spell when i was a kid, but they can't have my zuzu! so i turned off the tv and we enjoyed some holiday music until it was time for a morning snooze-break.

after zuzu's naptime, we headed up to see my family for an afternoon and evening of thanksgiving feasting and fun. on the way, we took some time to talk about some of the things for which we are very thankful. loving families and friends, good health, and a happy home were found on the list, with zuzu being the number one answer on our board this year! thank you, god, for such a wonderful little girl. thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

everyone had a good time being together and playing with zuzu and dayten, her 6-month old cousin. we enjoyed a bountiful meal of turkey, dressing, potatoes (mashed and sweet), cranberry sauce, and more. we put zuzu down for her afternoon nap in the middle of the meal, which offered me a good chance to take a break from stuffing myself. i eventually made it back to the table to finish off an additional helping of some fine sweet potato casserole (thanks, julie!), turkey, and mashed potatoes.

zuzu's napping didn't last too long, so jenn and i spent a good hour and a half or more encouraging her to sleep by lying down with her on the floor and then on the bed. all the excitement of a festive family environment must have wound her up quite a bit, but eventually she fell asleep for about an hour. a bit later, we enjoyed some pie and took some family pictures.

it was a good thanksgiving, indeed!

pics

Ahh, the wee hours of the night. Zuzu is asleep, the house is quiet, and we have an internet connection. Before one of those things change I will quickly post a few recent pictures taken before bedtime a few nights ago. Now that Zuzu is really getting places with her rolling, we sometimes take advantage of that extra energy just before bedtime to help ensure that she wears herself out a bit to make sleep come more easily. Sometimes it works and sometimes it backfires! This was one of those evenings she was on the go... The little scratches on Zuzu's forehead were Zuzu's own work (not Emma's!) but were the reason why I snuck in her room to trim her nails at 2 a.m. last Saturday.

tootsie roll

Zuzu was a tootsie roll for Halloween, an adorable costume courtesy of her cousin Ella -- note that Zuzu is so long we couldn't cinch the bottom of the costume. Late in the afternoon Margarita dressed Zuzu in her costume, along with the three boys Margarita also cares for (Zuzu’s “big brothers”), and took the kids for an annual Halloween costume parade in her neighborhood. Margarita made her a little fleecy treat bag (which Zuzu reportedly held onto with success!). Below are some pics passed along to us by one of the parents -- Zuzu outside and with Margarita: That evening we briefly took Zuzu trick-or-treating to say happy Halloween to a few of our neighbors, some of whom hadn’t seen Zuzu in a while. Admittedly, we wanted to show off how cute she looked. We have such friendly neighbors (and I’m not just saying that since I know who reads the blog) so it was a good excuse to be, well, neighborly, since sometimes we’re so busy we don’t get to see them much.

big mess

Halloween also was the Great Basement Jack Hammering Day. It was a lot of work to get things ready for this project and it was only the beginning!



Okay, so you can see there are piles of things everywhere that came from downstairs. Mattress propped against the dining room wall, stacks of things, boxes, lamps, displaced dining room chairs, etc. When this is all over I am going to have to post a video of our house when it's together just to prove we don't live like packrats. But I admit, that is a lot of laundry; however, in our defense it was laundry sorting time and without the laundry room the sorting happened on the living room floor!

Emma was boarded (jack hammering sounds can be scary). I came home from work to find big barrels of concrete chunks in the driveway ready to be hauled off, and a thick layer of concrete dust coating the walls and floors downstairs, clinging to every object in our garage, and sneaking upstairs despite the plastic barrier. We were thrilled to turn the furnace back on in the wee hours of Friday morning after our first clean up attempt while wearing masks and goggles – that stuff is nasty -- although more rounds of cleanup remain. What a project! We are really crossing our fingers that in late November, three and a half months after the flooding, that this whole thing can be done and the house can be back to normal.

One good thing that came out of this is that we discovered we have hardwood stairs in the house. A neighbor tipped us off and after prying up not one but two layers of gross carpet and chiseling away disintegrated carpet padding, we found a little treasure, or at least great potential, in our entryway stairs! See, didn’t we say that the wet basement would mean a house project that grows exponentially? Maybe we’ll table working on the stairs until the spring. Now I’m itching to see what lies beneath the living room carpet (besides more carpet).

bananas

Zuzu’s Poppa (Norm) will be thrilled to know that she ate his favorite food on Saturday for the first time. Yes, bananas. Dad, I’m sorry to say she gagged on them, but we’ll keep trying.

october 22nd

Happy 12 year anniversary, Ty. We started dating on this day in 1995 and haven't stopped dating each other since. You are an amazing daddy and husband and best friend. Who knew that falling asleep while watching Babette's Feast for a philosophy class could lead to such great things?

sunday morning nap

We went away on our fall trip for two nights recently. We followed Zuzu's routine -- like clockwork. Somehow, "strange place" and "schedule" didn't fit with Zuzu's plans, so her sleep cycle got thrown off, leading to an out-of-character tired and cranky girl. On Sunday morning I was so delighted to have her successfully go down for her morning nap that I decided to take a quick video of my sweet sleeper. Here's what happened.

fall trip

it's an annual tradition. when the air begins to turn crisp and the leaves, crispy, we take a couple days off from work and head to where the foliage seems to fall in slow motion. autumn seems to be one of our busiest seasons of the year, so this trip forces us to stop for a moment and breathe in the beauty around us.

this year, jenn and i have become tour guides to our newest october traveler (zuzu), pointing out all of the places we've enjoyed visiting in the past. today, we made it to the main attraction - starved rock state park. riding in a backpack carrier, zuzu took it all in with a smile.

(click to enlarge)

emma & zuzu

Zuzu has recently taken an interest in Emma (who, even though she's a cat, is frequently reassured she will always be "our baby"). Emma often makes a good target for Zuzu to reach for when she's on the floor, and Zuzu can be seen wriggling in a variety of ways in hopes of getting a quick touch. Emma puts up with it for a little while before becomming indifferent (or annoyed). Seeing the two of them hang out on the floor together usually makes us chuckle, since they are close in size and sometimes both rock from side to side while on their backs. Notice how they both have their bellies "exposed" in this video (and Zuzu scratches hers), always a good sign of being relaxed!

newness

Zuzu has outgrown her infant carseat. Which is funny, because she’s just six months old and we thought it would last her until a year – but she’s so long that she could not wait to upgrade. After polling friends and family and scouring online reviews, we wound up on the floor in Target putting Zuzu in the display models to try them out and we drove home with two giant boxes and a lighter wallet. Now she has a new seat in daddy’s car and another for mommy’s car.

And if getting new carseats wasn’t exciting enough for one weekend, Zuzu’s first tooth broke through on Saturday night (see teething ring in picture above). She had a fabulous attitude the past few days despite teething. It had been waiting below the gums teasing us for a while, until early on Saturday we exclaimed “there IS a tooth there!” and relieved we hadn’t imagined its imminent presence. Sure enough, Sunday morning it was finally free. Now we are eager to see it grow as it pushes up and becomes more visible.

This weekend we continued to ready things for the basement waterproofing work that will be tackled around Halloween. Yesterday we hauled out the contents of our storage room, sorted and organized items into tubs, and moved things into the garage. It kind of felt like we were moving! Today Ty conquered our deck by removing boards in preparation for the new sump line going out of the house. Inside there’s still baseboard to be taken off, another closet to empty, blinds to take down, vinyl to peel up, work for an electrician…ugh. We’re not quite ready to contemplate how much work will remain once the contractor finishes... and we haven’t told Emma yet that she’ll need to be boarded while the work goes on, poor kitty. But thankfully all this is happening before Zuzu will be crawling and after it’s done the downstairs will be dry and recarpeted – hooray -- and the guest room at “Chez Jenn & Ty’s” once again open for company ;)

sweet baby

Ahhh, isn't she a sweet sleeper?

So, our baby is six months old. She is now rolling like a tumbleweed. Sitting up like a pro (okay, a little wobbly, but she's got the hang of it). I'm pretty sure a tooth is coming in on the bottom. She'll hold a glass if there's one within reach and put it up to her mouth. And she likes peas! How is she growing so fast?!

diaper magic

Now that Zuzu has added baby food to her diet, we have had some fascinating diapers. In went squash, and out came something squashy. In went carrots, out came something with carrot-like flecks. But yesterday was by far the most amazing. In went mushed sweet potatoes and out came --- SOLID SWEET POTATOES!

homecoming parade

Friday was UI’s homecoming parade, and it’s tradition for Jenn’s school to march in the parade. With Zuzu in the backpack carrier, we were part of the caravan of strollers and wagons. Jenn’s school handed out Seed Savers seed packets (instead of candy), the kids carried biodegradable earth balloons, and we all seemed to take turns carrying some kid-created “eco rules” signs. I thought it was a blast and of course something good for the baby books – Zuzu IN her first parade. We loved having friends spot us along the way and call out “Zuzu!” to get our attention and wave. She was a trooper the whole way despite the fact that the time fell during her normal nursing/dinner/bath/bed routine time. Afterwards Ty proclaimed it tradition from there forward to go to El Ranchero for dinner each year after the homecoming parade. It was a perfect evening together as a family. Ahhhh.

news from the homefront

We’ve been working on the sitting thing for a while but Zuzu has been more interested in assisted standing, which has been fine with us, and we’ve figured when she’s ready to sit she will so we haven’t pushed it. On Saturday while we were in Ames visiting family, she was perched on my lap for a bit before I realized she was sitting! I took away my hands and she sat there for a couple of minutes without falling over – and a roomful of witnesses to vouch that she sat by herself for the first time.

On an unrelated note, last night we met with the contractor to remedy the problem that caused a very wet basement in August. Remember how I said that having our basement flood would turn into a house project that grows exponentially? The foundation of our house says welcome, Mr. Jackhammer and hello Mrs. Drainage System! How lovely to meet you, Miss Backup Sump Pump! Make yourself comfortable, Madame Exterior Drainage Line! We’re thinking that removing the contents and shelves from our storage room is going to be loads of fun (note overtones of sarcasm), but not nearly as exciting as pulling up part of our deck (anyone have experience with this?).

p.s. we’ve really appreciated some of the recent comments – zuzu likes knowing that people read her blog!

why i normally don't drink caffeine

almost midnight, in our bed...

queen of the castle

Look who finally has a high chair! Eating rice cereal AND oatmeal these days certainly calls for proper seating options for our little babe. We have never before been so excited about something largely vinyl and plastic in our home. Zuzu seems to like her new perspective and we really enjoy no longer squatting on the floor to feed her in the bumbo. But she did look awfully cute in that, too.

under the weather

Zuzu has been sick for the past few days. Poor kiddo. Just a virus but her first time officially being sick still felt like a milestone. Sometime last week she started an occasional dry cough (only I thought she was merely exploring this aspect of her vocalization and enjoying the attention). Late last week we noticed her cheeks were pretty red plus her nose was a little runny (but no fever), and chalked it up to spending time outside in the cooler weather. By Saturday she wasn’t quite herself and she began to look a bit speckled… hmm, we wondered if she was reacting to our laundry detergent. But by Sunday morning she had a croupy cough – out came the humidifier -- and her spotted appearance gave way to a definite rash. At one point she looked a little beat up between the rash and eyelids red from rubbing them and of course her relative patheticness melted my heart. She didn’t sleep well Monday night (which meant no one slept well) and didn’t have much interest in her cereal either. There was no going to Margarita’s on Monday or Tuesday (and I felt terribly guilty for not being the parent to stay home with her) but Ty enjoyed two full days with his girl.

ninja dad

On Wednesday night Zuzu attended her first kids’ birthday party – the three boys at Margarita’s celebrated their third birthdays together. When I walked in the door, Zuzu was wearing a party hat and man, she looked smashing with the pointy hat on her head and the little elastic band under her chin.

When we got home from the party, I spotted a creepy-crawly on the vaulted ceiling in the kitchen and mentioned it to Ty. I think my, ahem, distaste for bugs has created an instinctual reaction in him, because with ninja-like stealthness Ty flung one leg up and lept onto the kitchen counter and started to reach a Kleenex up in the air. With un-ninja-like intuition, he didn’t recognize the ceiling fan whipping around with a 100 watt bulb glaring out like a beacon that says “I’m on!”. If it wasn’t for the spike in his hair, he would’ve never felt the fan blades graze against his head, which caused him to duck and gash his lip on the top of the cabinets. I’m pretty sure the spider was laughing inside as Ty cried out to the cabinets for getting in his way. If you see Ty, please commend him for his heroic attempts at saving his poor wife and innocent baby from the spider in the kitchen.

And today I ran over a squirrel while taking Zuzu to Margarita’s house. I think tomorrow we’ll buy a lottery ticket in hopes of bulking up Zuzu’s college fund.

rice cereal

The time finally arrived this week for Zuzu to eat rice cereal -- her first taste of anything other than breastmilk. She seemed to love this new experience (actually, she seems to love just about anything in life), which made feeding time quite nice for us. Here's a video clip of her first feeding -- that's her real smile in the video after the first bite.

put on a big smile

when it comes to entertainment, there's nothing better than a cute babe.

these days

We are long overdue to post! The past two weeks have flown by, feeling particularly busy with the start of the school year for Jenn, which gave Zuzu some opportunities to tag along at work with her momma after being picked up from Margarita's house during the week and on weekend days. It's amazing how quickly "mommy guilt" sets in when our schedule goes through a hectic phase -- I just feel so sad to be away from her. Ty was his fabulously flexible self and had lots of one-on-one time with Zuzu when I couldn't be home. A three day weekened is coming up soon and Ty decided not to go on the annual guys' mountain trip this year in favor of family-of-three time. What a devoted daddy -- I love him!

Zuzu is doing well and amazing us every day. She's exploring her excersaucer (thanks, C&M!) and seems to like the cat, dog, cow, duck, and lion sound buttons. At first when she heard the noises they made, she looked a little shocked -- but now she will smile with intrigue if I say a long "mmmmmooooooooooooooooo!" to imitate the cow. She's also standing on our laps as often as she can and seems to enjoy the workout this gives her little legs. Zuzu is falling into a predictible schedule, so for her sake we're doing our best to keep mealtime, naptime, bath time, bed time, etc. the same each day to develop solid routines for her. It's amazing how quickly she lets us know if we get a bit off schedule!

Right now we're in the process of drying out after getting water in our lower level. The contents from our downstairs now resides in our garage and living room, the carpet and padding went to the landfill, and a big stinky mess has taken over our family room and guest bedroom. In addition to an initial headache, all this eventually leads to a house project that grows exponentially. Zuzu was awfully patient while we dealt with a contractor, the Servicemaster guys, carpet ripping and furniture moving this morning. Thankfully she's not crawling yet because our house is far from child-friendly at the moment!

This pic was taken a few days ago. Seems Zuzu's left fingers are the favored chewing items these days.

delayed reaction

Click to Play

We crack up every time we see Zuzu's delayed reaction on this video.  Enjoy.

miss easygoing

Zuzu’s morning began with snuggling in mom and dad’s bed and eating (usual routine), then laying in her crib listening to classical music (also her usual routine), and then hearing one of her parents wildly shrieking after an incident involving an unsuspecting naked person, the shower, a towel, and a very, VERY large spider. She had little reaction to the ruckus and went merrily about her business of smiling at her mobile while her mom “dealt” with the eight-legged squatter.

Later, Zuzu ran errands with her dad while I spent some time at work. I pictured Ty trying to juggle Zuzu in the carrier and a cart full of groceries to bag as not a simple task, but once again Ty proved me wrong! I’m not sure if the two of them worked out a little deal a while back, but every time Ty is on baby duty Zuzu winds up sleeping. Ty seems to have the magic touch with her!

Tomorrow is a pretty big day: Zuzu has her four month appointment (more shots), plus participation in a psychology research study (don’t worry, no electrodes are involved). This ought to lead to some good stories – stay tuned!

more vacation pics!

we had such a great time in maine with zuzu and have the pictures to prove it.
see some of them here.

the swimming incident

We decided to take video of Zuzu’s first dip into Beech Hill Pond on our trip to Maine – you know, so we could look back on it later and remember our trip. Gosh, I’m so glad Ty wore his water shoes for extra traction.

Click To Play

p.s. ty was such a good sport about it that he gave me the thumbs up to put it on the blog. out of respect for him i promise to not ever mention it again (um, at least publicly). for the record, he said there was a big rock.