Christmas Countdown

We've been very busy here getting ready for Christmas!  Lula doesn't know it yet but because she has been such a good girl her father and I have purchased about 3 presents for her.  She is also getting a hand me down zebra bounce toy from her cousins that I will happily pass off like it was purchased just for her.  She had a test drive last weekend and she loves it so I know it will be a big big hit.

Lula's christmas card photo might be one of my favorite photos ever - it is just so sweet.  My friend Susan took the photo and boy is she good.

  In some not so surprising news, Lula loves christmas cookies.  Sugar cookies with sprinkles specifically.  Like mother like daughter.

Look Who's Walking!

Lula loves llamas

Yesterday I took Lula to the zoo.  We went most days while I was on maternity leave but she was so small and snuggled in the bjorn or down low in the baby car seat so she couldn't see much.  Her eyesight probably wasn't very good either as a newborn.  So, even though it wasn't her first time at the zoo it was probably the first time she noticed anything.
We went to the petting zoo part at the bottom of the zoo and my girl loves a llama. She laughed out loud when she first saw them and was totally fascinated.  Sadly, the petting part didn't work out but I hope to take her back soon when petting in in session so she can actually touch them.  I think she'd flip out.

It is naptime here and I just caught my little beaver chewing on her crib.  I thought it was suspicious that she wasn't making any noise up there and she was slightly out of camera range.  When I opened the door she was chomping on the crib -then she turned her little head toward me and showed me the gouges in the crib and the paint flecks around her mouth.  Yuck!  And probably not real healthy.

dinner

yesterday i was in court doing a plea for a defendant with an interpreter and i thought about how much longer it took than usual to finish the plea. it may or may not have been past lunch time. i was wondering what else could possibly take so much longer to do....and then i got home to dinner with a 1 yr old.

not only do we have to applaud (for at least 25 seconds) after every bite Lula gets off the tray and into her mouth, but once i applaud she wants to put her hands on mine and applaud a little more.  its cute and all but what should take 15 minutes ends up taking 45 minutes.

maybe having an interpreter at dinner would be quicker?  perhaps ASL?

Long distance friends

Meagan is moving to Trinidad and taking her sweet Grace with her.

What do you mean you're moving to Trinidad? 

I'm outta here - I'll send you a postcard.

And when I come back we'll wrestle some more and I'll show you who is boss. 

Thanksgiving

We're thankful for a lot of things....family, health, friends.  Also, with what we believe is Roseola, we are thankful for tylenol (for Lula) and wine (for mom).

What a difference a year makes!

More dancing

Lula is a dancing machine.

Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone.  Fortunately we made it out unscathed.  Lula wasn't scared at all. In fact, she danced for most of the storm.

post-birthday wrap up

Lula had a fabulous birthday and really enjoyed her first cupcake and ice cream cone.

I wish I had more pictures of the venue but we had some huge balloons which were a huge hit (with Lula - not so much with Gizmo).  I could barely fit one of these 36" balloons in these car.  Pat had a hard time getting them home, but he was determined for Lula's first birthday party to be perfect so he walked down Colesville Rd, 16th Street, and Second Ave like this:

Shes bound to be a daddy's girl. 

Lula's 1st birthday!

That little piggy sure messed up her costume. 

tooth

Lula has a top tooth!  And a second top tooth that is primed to arrive any minute now.  Getting a photo of that tooth is impossible - I tried.

fun with dad

I was out of town all weekend and Lula had a ball with Pat.  I don't know if Pat has ever been so tired - but I think he had a good time too.

No pants and tv!! What a weekend. 

1 year

Last night I went through the monthly Lula photos to try and pick one from each month to use as birthday party decorations.  It made me a little sad because she is growing so much and I'd like to pause the progress - but it also made me laugh to see the progression from tiny baby propped on the glider to wiggly 11 month old chewing on a necklace, waving the camera lense cap & not looking at the camera.

I do not expect that she will have a successful modeling career based on her apparent distaste for looking at the camera when someone is trying to photograph her.

Minky

I have a small mink ball that I got years ago in NYC and planned to fashion into a hair tie.  Lula goes crazy for this little mink ball.  I like to rub it on her face before I turn it over to her - she freezes and coos like an pigeon.  Then I let her hold it and she continues to coo while rubbing it on her own face.  Then she puts it in her mouth and proceeds to gunk it up.

I bet she dreams about a ball pit full of little mink balls. If only there was a way to make that happen for her birthday.

Fall

I am so excited for fall weather and cozy fleece coats.  Lula, not so much.

She is, however, very thankful for the adorable fleece her Aunt Deirdre got her. 

Jeopardy

If this series of photos was a Jeopardy clue I think the answer would be, "How a baby loses an eye"

Lucky for us nobody lost an eye.

ice cream

Lula loves ice cream.  And sprinkles. 

Tooth

On her 10 month birthday, Lula finally got a tooth!  Hooray.  
Notwithstanding the new tooth, she continues to chew on anything she can get her paws on.  Bath toys included.

giggles

I can't think of any sound I like more than the sound of Lula laughing.  The harder she laughs the more I enjoy it.  It is so sweet.   

Rascal

Look what our little rascal decided to do a few hours after her father and I went out of town.
What a stinker.

Soundtrack courtesy of Will I Am, Sesame Street and the Letter L.

USA***USA***USA

In honor of the London Olympics, we had a few Lulacentric events this weekend.  The following results got her to the podium:
Bronze in hair pulling:

Silver in door jamb jumping: 

Look at that form!

Gold in mess making:

She just missed medaling in remote control chewing, food spitting and teething.  I'm sure she'll be back to impress us all in 2016.

  

40 weeks

born at 40 weeks, Lula is now 40 weeks old.  crazy!

2 redheads

walk into a bar, er, french restaurant

Moving stinks

But with help from these two i should be all unpacked in no time :)

New digs New nannies

We've moved into a new house and I think Lula loves it.  She seems to appreciate the trains that are constantly driving my our windows and I think she even likes her smaller, cozier room.  She is such an easy baby who happily adapts to whatever we throw her way.  Today is her first Wednesday with Grandpop and I hear its going well.  I hope they have lots of fun together.  The other days she will hang out with Grammy and have load of fun then too.

Gizmo was pretty reluctant to embrace the move even though he  has way more woodland animals to look at from his perch in the windowsill.  He spent the first three days hiding under an upholstered chair - so I guess its progress that he is now milling about (albeit reeealy low to the ground) and exploring the house.  We don't know anything about his personal make-up but given his love for the dry heat of the attic I am inclined to believe his ancestors are from the Sudan.  You couldnt pay me enough money to put on a fur coat and hang out in the attic but I guess thats just another difference between me & Gizmo.

Posse

Buela

Buela is a sad, bad bunny.
With wild eyes and crazy hairs.
She's Lulas evil twin - and its not funny.

Buela wakes often in the night and before the sun come up for the day. 
She pinches, grabs and scratches. 
She screeches and yells until she gets her way. 

Buela is impatient when she gets into a mood. 
She yanks on your hair and screams in your ear.
She squirms and kicks which is really quite rude.

Buela isnt cuddly on these days
She swats at everyone and everything
Wishing we'd all go away.

Buela is a sad, bad bunny.
Wake up happier tomorrow honey.

Why?

Why won't my baby sleep until 7 on a weekend morning?

Also, why does she act like a baby wolverine and scratch so much?  She really got the inside of my right nostril and it stings.

We had a nice weekend and a nice fathers day.  Lula gave Pat a tool belt (ooohhh and aahhhhhh) and he seemed to really like it.  In return, perhaps he will make her shelves for her new room.  In our new house :)

I got to see and hold Baby Barclay this weekend  - and he is so handsome.  I think he and Lula will be great friends.  

gizNO

it is entirely possible that lulas first word will be gizmo.  she loves that furball and spends a lot of time trying to get a better look at him and/or a fistful of fur.  i just hope that she realizes that his name is gizmo and not gizno as 99% of the time i say his name it comes out like this:
Giz, no - dont scratch that
Giz, no - dont eat that
Giz, no - cats dont belong on the counter/dining room table/changing table/in the crib
Giz, no eating from the trashcan
Giz, no going out front for you
Giz, no snooping in full grocery bags
Giz, no eating leftover baby food for you
Giz, no clawing at the rug
Giz, no hanging out in Lulas room (see above)
Giz, no meowing after Lula goes to bed
Giz, no biting the comforter
Giz, no walking on the laptop

and, if her first word is goddamnit gizmo, i will officially be the worlds worst mom. 

Teeth

Lula is working on teeth - and it has been a long road.  She is a drooling machine so i really hope she is close to actually cutting the teeth because they seem to be bothering her.

She also seems to have picked up a cold at the beach this weekend so we have a congested, teething baby on our hands.  That nasal aspirator is really no help at all if the baby wont let you get the end of it in her nose. 

Memorial Day

Lula and Maggie enjoyed a great Memorial Day weekend even if only one of them was allowed to actually go to the beach.   

Weekend Update

We had a nice lazy family weekend - probably our last for a while with beach season upon us and an upcoming move.
On Saturday we walked around all afternoon and did some furniture shopping.  Lula fell in serious baby love with a sheepskin rug at Room & Board but her mean old mom declined to buy the baby a $100 rug.  Maybe as a housewarming gift.
Sunday we all went to my grandmothers 97th birthday party.  It was nice to see Momma and she remarked that Lula had real red hair. Poor Momma had 10 kids and none of them had red hair like she hoped. 

Lula tried so many new foods this weekend - strawberries, raspberries, eggs, pancakes with syrup, ice cream, and avocado.  I bet she had an entire serving of guacamole - pretty impressive for a baby. 

a mothers wish

I've seen lots of writing in the past few days about mothers wishes for their children - and I hope to someday make a comprehensive list both of things I wish for Lula and things I hope to teach her.  But today, a more practical hope.

I hope that she gets a kind and patient college roomate who will roll her over from her stomach to her back in the middle of the night when she wakes up crying SINCE SHE MAY NEVER LEARN TO DO THIS FOR HERSELF. This roomate will also have to toss Celia back in bed with her several times a night  and should always keep a few pacifiers within arms reach just in case. 

On the bright side, this roomate will not be expected to change any diapers since I fully expect that other children will shame her into using the toilet at some point before she goes to college.

 

Happy Mothers Day

 

Sweet

Look who has enough hair for a real bow!

She is so so sweet.  So good tempered and snuggly and happy and smiley.  Boy, did we hit the baby jackpot.

Food

Likes:
Milk
Pears
Apples
Bannana/Squash
Apples/Blueberries/Spinach

Dislikes:
Squash
Rice Cereal
Pineapple
Oranges
Avocado

This weekend I hope to introduce yogurt and work on some more textured foods.  Lula is interested in what we are eating, but anything that isnt a liquid of a puree is pretty much rejected immediately.  Maybe its just the texture?

Beach

Last weekend Lula made her inagural trip to the beach where her cousins gave her a bouncy seat.  Which.  She. Loved.

She bounced and bounced and bounced.  In the tv doorway, the bathroom doorway and even the bedroom doorway.  When I first put her in there she bounced for an hour and forty minutes.  I looked over at one point and she had stopped bouncing and was slumped over like she'd been shot.  She rallied and bounced a little more before calling it quits for the day. 

We might fire Norah and just put her in the bouncy seat in the am and let her take her meals on the attached tray and sleep whenever she is so physically exhausted she cant bounce anymore.  If we could successfully train Giz to tap out 911 in case of serious emergency we will change our child care set up and promote Giz to Chief Childcare Officer.

She also played and chatted with her cousin Maggie.  God help us when these two party animals ask for the house for Beach Week 2020. 

mee-oow

About 2 weeks ago Lula noticed the cat. She reacted much like I might react if a panther strolled by when I was eating my dinner.  Her eyes got as big as saucers and she followed him all over the room with her eyes.  She was still and silent.  She seemed very unsure.  Slowly, Lula is warming up to Gizmo and he seems to be warming up to her a bit too.
At Saturday's photo shoot Lula seemed downright thrilled to have a cat.     

Gizmo is less thrilled.

little bunny

My friend Vanessa got Lula this cute cute bunny book.  Obviously, she loved it. 

Sleep Training

Alternative titles for this post: 'Why our neighbors hate us', 'Why Pat is so tired he fell asleep in the shower', or 'Why Gizmo is sulking around all traumatized lately.' 

We have had 2 dark days of sleep training at our house and we are hopeful that brighter days are on the horizon.  There has been a lot caterwauing in the middle of the night and no relief for our baby bunny.  Poor Gizmo has been making things worse by standing outside the babys door at night and moaning/meowing while Lula screams.  I'm not sure if he is making noise in solidarity with her or if he is trying to alert me that something is wrong with the baby.  Thanks Lassie, but I am very well aware that Lula has fallen down the proverbial well and I am choosing to ignore her in the name of healthy sleep habits.   

One day I will look back at this and laugh, right?

HF Easter

an unholy mess on holy thursday

Pat & I have been really concerned that since starting rice cereal Lula has been a little backed up.  Our biggest concern was who would have to clean up what promised to be an unholy mess. Today was day 7 with no movement despite a large amount of prune puree in the last few days. 

The following text exchange began at 11:58 am:

Norah: OMG it happened.  I had to give her a bath.  It was just everywhere.  I left the onesie in the baby tub in the regular tub since theres probably still some poop on it.  I rinsed it out as best I could but things got real chaotic.
Bayly: Hooray! Does she seem happier?
Norah: Yes.  Very tranquil and at peace.  It was a huge mess so shes def happy to be free of it
Bayly: A lot of poop huh?  Sorry for you
Norah: Ha.  You're just glad it wasn't you
Bayly: Sure am

A few things:
1. You bet your ass I'm glad I wasn't there when it happened.  Sounds like it was a real mess.
2. Lucky Lula got an extra midday bath.
3. I hope we didnt go overboard on the prunes in the last few days - it would be a real shame to go from one extreme to the other :)

celia

This weekend Celia got a bath.  My Aunt Louise shamed me into giving her a quick run through the rinse cycle.  Celia splits her time between Lula's mitts and her mouth. Neither is particularly clean and as a result Celia was loking a bit crusty.  Luckily, after a quick trip through the washing machine and dryer Celia looks like a million bucks.  I think they're starting to look alike.      

bow

my headbands came!! i love them. the purple one and the green ones are my favorites.

tricks

Lula's newest trick:

Other notable tricks include rolling over (mainly back to front but an occasional front to back), eating rice cereal and blowing raspberries while her mouth is full of rice cereal.

BIG weekend

We had a big weekend at Chez Leighton.  We celebrated St. Patricks Day at Bourbon and the Reef.  Saturday evening Lula had her some cereal for the first time.  It was a success even though I don't think she actually ate any of it.  She took it into her mouth, swished it around a bit, and then smiled so big that it all came rolling out of her mouth.  We did that for almost 30 minutes before we both got tired of it and gave up.  I have some video to add to this.  Gizmo probably ended up ingesting more rice cereal than Lula did.
Sunday morning I awoke to a screaming Lula - and I listened to her scream for a while since it was after her middle of the night feed but before her usual wake up time.  She screamed and screamed and I silently hoped to myself that she would just fall back asleep.  When I finally dragged myself into her room I was suprised to see my little Lula screaming her head off on her stomach - she ROLLED OVER.  Naturally, I felt like mother of the year for letting her scream since it was pretty clear that she was unhappily stuck on her stomach.  
Sunday evening we finally got that swirl margarita at Lauriol Plaza - Hooray.
I am trying to decide how I feel about baby leg warmers today.  Part of me says very cute and as practical as any baby accessory.  The other part of me is unsure.   If the baby headbands I ordered two weeks ago EVER get here and are as cute as I hope they are, my faith in cute etsy bought baby accesories might be restored and I may give the legwarmers a go.  They could be a perfect addition to Lula's Easter emsemble.

El Tamarindo

Every day last summer I walked by Lauriol Plaza on my way home from the metro, sweating like a man and drooling like a lunatic at all those swirl margaritas.  I was excited for a lot of things last summer: to find out if we had a baby girl or boy, to take a deep breath, to one day wear pants with a button and zipper, and to have a frosty swirl margarita while sitting on the patio at LP.
Last night we decided to go to LP for dinner so I could finally (finally!!!) have a delicious swirl margarita.  Of course, since it was perfect weather, there were about 85 parties ahead of us and we couldn't wait the 45 minutes for a table because Lula was with us.  As it was, we were pushing our luck taking her out to dinner so close to bed time.
So,we turned back toward home and went to El Tamarindo.  El Tamarindo is not as popular as LP and their outside seating is awkwardly at the most dangerous intersection in the District - where U Street, Florida Ave and 18th Street all merge together.  We sat down and before we even ordered - long before the first taste of margarita touched my lips - this happened:

She fell asleep. Right there on the noisy street while we enjoyed a leisurly dinner complete with margarita. 
Maybe this weekend we'll take her to our favorite Mexican place on the Hill and see if Pennsylvania Ave will lull her to sleep like U Street does. 
I love my Lula - she is the best baby.

weekend

We had a nice lazy weekend.  Dinner for Noni's birthday on Saturday, zoo on Sunday morning, and dinner with the Kirlins/Christins on Sunday.  Lula was an angel baby all weekend and only pooped herself so severly that most of her outfit was thrown in the garbage can at one of those dinners.

I am trying to encourage healthy eating habits at our house*.  To this end, I bought some double fiber bread for sandwiches this week.  I might as well have bought some medium grit sandpaper blocks and put my turkey on them.  The sandpaper blocks would actually be more appetizing.  It is going to be a long and fiber filled week for me.  Meanwhile, Pat will continue to eat a diet that is  49% string cheese, 49% popsicles and 2% Nerds.  (Naturally, when we run out of Nerds he will revert to his usual 50/50 string cheese/popsicle diet.) 

* I caught Gizmo foraging in the kitchen trashcan this morning so his eating habits remain less than healthy.

hot potato

you know what to call a baby who hasn't pooped in 5 days?  a hot potato. 
every raised eyebrow, constriction of the belly, flushing of the cheeks and certainly any grunting and you're looking to pass the baby off tout de suite so that you're not stuck cleaning up a mess that would make a zookeeper weep.  of course, you try to do this nonchalantly so that you dont put your spouse on high alert that the baby is primed to poop through all her clothes, all your clothes, and the upholstery.  oh hey pat, can you hold the baby for me until she explodes all over you and requires 35 minutes of clean up, a bath, and 2 loads of laundry.  ill take her back as soon as you clean her up.  this would be met with a sentiment somewhere between reluctance and indignation. and, in any event, she probably wouldnt poop until the moment he handed her back to me. 

* i realize that now 50% of my posts are poop related.  im thinking of renaming the blog Bowel Movements with Bayly.

Lent

Lula,
Please consider giving up your middle of the night feeding for Lent.  It would make me  & God so so happy.

Mom

buzzzzzz

Heres what I'm looking for - not sure if its available at Buy Buy Baby. Take your standard baby monitor - video or not - and add a third piece that is designed to be worn by one of the parents.  This unit would deliver an electric shock to the wearer when the baby cried.  This way, the parent who volunteers to get up with the baby in the middle of the night but falls asleep and can't be easily roused will have a little shock to wake them up!  And the other parent could, in theory, enjoy some uninterrupted sleep. 

GENIUS!

explosion

message received from norah this afternoon:
I believe I'm familiar with an explosion now.  It sounded like lava erupting and was evveerryywhere.

i wonder if she knew enough to go hose her off in the tub or if she used 82 wipes.

Giz

This is Gizmo.  In a tiny bear hat.

Lula

This is Lula.  In a tiny bear hat.

hello blog!

Hello blog.  I love Lula.  And Pat.  And Gizmo.