summer update

We’re back online after an extended hiatus without internet! We received many laments about Zuzu’s blog absence, and all we can say is life has been, well, busy. We’ll catch you up on our happenings in another post, but for the moment we’ll share a few of our favorite pictures from the past months.

During the time that has passed since her first birthday, Zuzu has blossomed -- goodbye baby, hello toddler. Zuzu's first haircut was in May. Don't let her smile fool you -- despite eating an arrowroot biscuit while sitting on Jenn's lap at our friend Jen’s salon, Zuzu knew something was suspicious the minute the vinyl cape was draped over her shoulders. We spared you the squirmy "during" pictures and just shared the end result:

One of our "must do" traditions is going to Arts Fest every June. We spent a steamy Saturday downtown inspired by creations, listened to music, took a break for an Indian lunch buffet (another one of our traditions), looked at more art and then lapped up melting gelato. Zuzu carried her rubber duckie around all afternoon. If anyone finds a rubber duckie in the Ped Mall, please call. That weekend she’d started to become confident in her ability to walk and was thrilled to hold onto a pinky as she strolled in the summer breeze.

While Zuzu is a consistent cuddler and loves to be held by one of us, she has become quite busy in her play time at home -- walking a loop between the kitchen, dining and living rooms and sometimes wandering down the hallway only to return with a loose sock or a stray shoe held excitedly above her head, babbling and spontaneously giggling. It's so fabulous to watch her explore. Below was one of those quiet moments in the midst of play time that lasted just long enough for me to grab the camera:

Walking became official in June. Zuzu walks on her tiptoes so much that she wore holes her birthday shoes. Sometimes she has blisters on her toes, but doesn't seem to notice them at all. She is just thrilled to be prancing around on her own. After going barefoot most of the summer, she fell in love with a pair of Crocs from cousin Ella.

Jazz Fest fell on a hot, humid weekend but Zuzu still seemed happy to be out and about. I think we wound up running into people and talking more than sitting still and taking in the music, but even a brief time on the lawn in front of the Old Capitol among the crowd was fun. With a summer full of long work weeks we were hungry for any time together as a threesome.

Zuzu is saying more new words than we can keep track of. We last counted in June and she was at about 30 words at that time, so I really can’t guess how many she’s saying now. Our favorites include hearing her say "broccoli" and "Amen!". Now she's starting to pair words together a little bit – “Bye bye agua” (in the tub), “What is that?”, “Hi Daddy”, etc. A few weeks ago she started singing “yeah, yeah, yeah!” along to a U2 song. And books, which she loves to read over and over, keep her busy and repeating lots of words.

sweet dreamer

zuzu's fever hasn't affected her attitude or behavior much, but it has made her a bit sleepier these past couple of days. when naptime rolls around and it's my job to put her down, i often try to enjoy the perks of such a task by letting her fall asleep on my chest while we sit in the rocker. with her fever, zuzu's level of sweetness has been equally elevated to a higher level - her warmth and soft sighs against me are like smelling chocolate-chip cookies fresh out of the oven... so sweet!

this afternoon, zuzu was so zonked that when i eventually put her in her crib, she slept in the position in which she landed - arms and legs tucked into a big self-hug.

i caught a bit of this sweetness on tape and put in some music from plumb along with it. it seemed to fit so perfectly.

enjoy this, another slice of zuzu.

keep it simple...

once again, it's been a while since we've posted. we're trying to figure out ways to keep the blog-flow going and have a theory that a "keep it simple" approach may be the way for us to go in this season. post a picture or a bit of video, a couple of sentences, and you're set! as we all know, even just a drop of little zuzu in our life will keep us happy for some time.

this week, tata has been on vacation, so on monday and tuesday my mom (grandma) watched zuzu during the day. yesterday, i took over and began three days of "daddy-duty." unfortunately zuzu developed a fever on tuesday night/wednesday morning, which meant my plans of grand adventures (you know - like hot-air balloon riding, roller-coasting, and, say... mall-walking) had to be put on hold till a later date. today during lunch, i decided to entertain zuzu with a little comedy to lift her spirits. and i kept it simple... the ol' hiccup routine. works every time.

zuzu's first birthday

well, it’s been over two weeks since zuzu celebrated day three-hundred sixty-five and people are starting to talk. here’s the (long overdue) scoop on the celebrations that took place in honor of her very first birthday.

did someone say emergency?

This week we had two emergencies. First, on Easter Sunday instead of celebrating the stone being rolled from the tomb, Ty rolled his own seven millimeter kidney stone, not too shabby as kidney stone sizes go. We spent the evening at the emergency room while Ty writhed around while his little surprise friend traveled out of his kidney, until he got some welcome pain killers in an IV (here's Ty giving the thumbs up after the meds kicked in). Zuzu was a real trooper and made Ty's experience more bearable as some of the ER staff fawned over Zuzu since she's been talked up big time in the ER by her honorary Auntie Katie who works there (here we are waiting with Ty). The stone has yet to be apprehended but we're sure it will be a memorable event for Ty when it does, ahem, appear.

The second emergency was Wednesday morning when our smoke detectors went off. Zuzu sat patiently in her excersaucer while I tried to silence the alarm, which didn't work, so I took out the battery and tried to pull the detector (which was still going off) out of the wall, but it was wired in. Beep! beep! beep! beep! beep! Zuzu's smoke detector was going off too. We finally got them quieted, only to have one go off ten minutes later. And then again. And again. And again. And again, and again, and again. And then again with a new battery in another room. The fire department said to call 911 "just in case". So after calling 911 and explaining that we didn't appear to be in imminent danger, and then the neighbors (so they didn't worry), not one but two fire trucks with sirens pulled up as well as the fire department command van. Sheesh. By then Zuzu was at Tata's so we didn't have her all worked up over the commotion. All was fine and somehow just a weird coincidence of events and a recommendation from the firefighters to replace our smoke alarms.