Double Digits: Retta at 10 Months

Woah, wait, how did this baby get to be 10 months old already?!! Seriously, only two months until I'm baking a little baby cake?! Ugh, it's great to see your baby thriving, but little people are great measuring sticks of time passing. At least I can look at her and think about all the good stuff that's happened to us because of her over these fast 10 months.

Retta is full of it at the moment....chomping on anything in sight to get those two top front teeth to break through. Our coffee table now has a cute little bite-mark border around the top edge, as do most of our books. Over the past month I've retrieved a giant ball of cat hair, multiple wood chips and pieces of bark, a tube of paint, a tube of diaper ointment, and a shard of glass from our daughter's mouth (I really do watch her vigilantly, I swear!). She has developed lightning fast Go-Go Gadget arms as well- while riding around the house in her baby carrier, she flings an arm out and grabs whatever is in sight, like a blender jar full of smoothie ingredients. Retta and the cat's food dish also seem to share some sort of magnetic relationship, and in the last week she has banged her head on more objects than I can count. It seems like nearly every day I am wondering if I need to take her to the E.R., or at the very least invest in a bouncy house for our living room that she could just bop around in. As our neighbors like to remind us, "It's all about containment right now!" So true, so true. When we are going somewhere and I finally have both girls strapped in their carseats and have that momentary piece of mind knowing that they can't get into something and hurt themselves, I feel so at peace. After we buckle the girls in, Aaron and I have started joking, "We have achieved containment folks!"

The wonderful thing is that the little grins and giggles, the waving, the blowing kisses, the wild tub splashing, and the peekaboo more than make up for all the baby chasing. Every chance I get I find myself drinking in that baby smell and that soft baby fine hair that's just starting to get a little curl to it, and kissing those cherub cheeks... and every time I hear, "mmma mma, ma-MA, MAMA!" I want to capture those cute sounds in a bottle and keep them close to my heart for all of time.

Chewing on a tape measure

Chewing on a sock

Still chewing...this time on a book

Waving

Wearing her aptly named Wild Thing hat

Trying to figure this sippy cup thing out

Contemplating

Baby Jowls

All packed up and ready to go

Potions!

A magic potion. Secret ingredients? Eye of newt and the hair of a unicorn.

Potions have become of Rowan's favorite new activities. This is something that Aaron loved to do as a kid, and now she is carrying on the tradition. We put a mixing bowl and spoon in the sink and let her go to town with adding ingredients and stirring them together to make a magic brew. She likes to use spices, food coloring, bits of food from the cupboards, and especially any kind of cooking oil, which makes instant bubbly gook on the surface of the potion. I am always surprised at how long she will spend tweaking her concoctions and stirring...it's a great time-suck, like at the end of the day when the last 15 minutes until Aaron comes home feels like forever. So, maybe it is magical after all--saving my sanity while occupying her!

Family Portrait

The artist at work

This week Rowan drew her first family portrait of all of us, and I was so excited to see the emergence of cute, amoeba-like people with legs coming out of their heads and big googly eyes. It is so cool to watch the evolution of drawing skills as your child's motor skills develop. She was very proud of her creation and we framed it right away and hung it in "Rowan's Art Gallery," a new designated wall in the stairwell where her masterpieces are now on display!

Proud of her creation

The finished product: Aaron, Rowan in the middle, and me holding Retta. Wendell the cat is underneath Aaron's feet, and then of course, an artist always signs her work. 

The New Year

So I don't really want to start the new year off by apologizing, but I just had myself so much fun over the holidays that I didn't find time to write, despite the 478 awesome Christmas-themed blog ideas I had stored up for the season...they'll have to wait for next year. This year we had a particularly special Christmas because my brother and sister-in-law were home from Hawaii, and my husband's sister was home from California, and of course it was Retta's first Christmas, and then there is the unfathomable excitement of a 3 year old over Santa and elves and Rudolph. I swear that if we could've figured out how to harness Rowan's energy and enthusiasm for the holidays we could have powered a small nation for at least a year.

We enjoyed our family visits oh so much- there was fondue-eating, ice skating, gingerbread house making, wine tasting, the releasing of wish lanterns, parties, a new Christmas-themed Baby Talk, and then there was Christmas itself, when Santa left **gasp** a magic Dora doll that turns into a fairy when you wave a wand over her chest. She also sings an incredibly irritating song about "our fairy wish can take us anywhere, let's explore, and make our fairy wish come true!" but in the spirit of the season I am trying to calmly tune her out.  Rowan also got a bike from one set of grandparents and her first camera from the other set. She's been practicing using training wheels in snow pants and becoming a real shutterbug with her camera-- she's taken over 300 pictures on it since Christmas...it's a mix of portraits of her favorite people and blurry pictures of the ceiling, but I love hearing her say, "Daddy! Let me bring my camera when we go out in the woods so we can take pictures of nature things like grasshoppers and chameleons!"

By the time the siblings headed to the airport, we were ready for some home time, so New Year's Eve was probably our quietest one yet, involving sushi, a bottle of wine and a movie, but as we watched the ball drop and another year begin, I looked down at baby Retta sleeping in my arms and felt thankful for the year that was and the year that is to be. Last year at this time she hadn't even arrived and now she's saying "Ho,Ho,Ho," and "Jesus" and will be walking soon. It feels like a blink since 2012 began, and yet so much happened in the space of time between then and now.

A lot can happen in a year, or so little for that matter, depending on what you make of it. I am hoping the coming year will be one of peace and good health for everyone, and a transformative year for our family. Things are great as is, but I feel like we have some exciting things on the horizon.  I have been enjoying my coursework with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and am excited about becoming a certified Health and Wellness Coach this year.  Aaron has been growing his environmental consulting side-business, and we have some other plans in the works for exciting changes regarding our careers. I'm sure the girls will surprise us with many new tricks, and hopefully we'll be able to manage a little traveling this year too. Anyway, at the onset of this new year,  I am happy to report that the Megquier household is bustling with activity and all are well and excited for lucky 2013!

Here's what we were doing while Wonder Parenting gathered dust:

Choppin' down the family Christmas tree

Rowan puts the star on our tree

Retta's first ornament!

Rowan took money from her piggy bank and bought treats for the cats and dogs at the shelter

Proud little volunteer

She had so much fun playing with and feeding the animals!

Rowan enjoyed addressing the gift tags this year

Rowan and Aaron with the first little snowman of the season

Retta checks out the snow

The stockings (my latest sewing project) all hung by the chimney with care

Rowan wearing my Christmas dress from when I was 3

Santa baby

Rowan's adorable letter to Santa (with a portrait of Santa and a tracing of her hand at the bottom)

Fun toys in the stockings!

Major Christmas Jesus-cloud action on the drive to Ellsworth

Retta liking the Elmo teether from Rowan

Cold smiley baby

9 months on Christmas day!!!

There are lots of other wonderful photos with extended family, but I don't even know where to begin--these are just a sampling of what was on my iPod.

Last but not least, the latest episode of Baby Talk! My brother actually put all of the Baby Talk episodes on a blog so they're in one place..the latest episode is "Christmas."

Here's the link:

The New Baby Talk Blog

Advent

Advent is by far my favorite part of the Christmas season. From the time I was a little girl, and before I was even born, my dad's family set aside time each Sunday afternoon/evening for advent activities on the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. When I was younger we used to go to my grandparents house for advent and sometimes my aunt's family and my cousins would be there as well, and then as we got older we started having advent at our own house. My parents assigned each member of the family a certain Sunday of Advent. My brother always had the first weekend in December because he was the youngest, then I had the second, then my mom the third and my dad the fourth.

Our advent activities usually began by lighting the appropriate candles on the advent wreath and reading a passage of the Christmas story from the bible, followed by something fun together. If it was your week of advent, you got to plan what that would be. We did everything from making ornaments to putting on Christmas plays to playing homemade board games to flashlight capture the flag in the snow. Advent always included drinking my dad's homemade eggnog, having some tasty dessert, and usually ended with watching a Christmas movie. We often invited my grandparents to join us, and some advents have been spent decorating their hospital or nursing home rooms as they've aged. I remember even making it a priority in college to try to get home for advent as much as possible, because in our family, it doesn't feel like the Christmas season unless advent is involved.

Once I married Aaron and started own family I was very eager to carry on this tradition. Aaron and I have been doing this for years, but this year is the first that Rowan seems old enough to begin to get the concept. On the first Sunday I explained the wreath and which candle will be hers to light, and let her choose the special activity. She picked making Santa ornaments, and she and I baked a coconut butter cake together to have for dessert. Now every morning she wakes up and asks me if it's advent yet, and if she gets to light her candle again. What fun it is to share these traditions! Last Sunday we made paper snowflakes and then for a snack we folded tortillas just like the paper and used kitchen shears to make edible snowflakes. We drizzled melted butter, sugar and cinnamon over them and baked them in the oven.

Making Santa ornaments

Rowan with her finished ornament

Biting into her tortilla snowflake

Hot cocoa with heart shaped marshmallows, for drinking by the fire while reading Christmas books

In addition to Sunday advent activities, we always have an advent calendar, usually of the chocolate variety. I remember receiving chocolate advent calendars from my aunt and uncle as a child and thinking, "Could there honestly be anything better? For a whole month I get to eat a piece of chocolate every day!" This year, however, with the massive sewing kick that I've been on, I was excited to make the girls an activity-oriented advent calendar, something nice that they could have for years to come. When I was a kid, we had this cloth advent calendar with pockets, with a little mouse that you stuffed into the pocket of the appropriate day. My brother and I had an ongoing annual argument about who got evens or odds on the calendar that year, because the person with evens would get to put the mouse in it's pocket on Christmas Eve, the most special day on the calendar. I wanted something like that for our house, and my friend Nitasia came across a cute idea of making 25 mini-stockings and stringing them up. That way you can put a treat or a piece of paper with a fun activity for that day in each one. She graciously shared a bunch of her wool and cashmere scraps and while recovering from my recent hospital stint I spent a lot of sedentary time at my sewing machine making all these little stockings. We're having a lot of fun doing the activities in each one. Some of the highlights so far have included going for a drive to see Christmas lights, making frosty sundaes, singing Christmas karaoke, and going to the Nutcracker. Things on tap in the next couple of weeks that I'm excited for: ice skating at the rink in town, a night hike up Mt. Battie to see the Christmas star lit up on top, going to the Live Nativity, and a Grinch puppet show.

The finished advent calendar

For me, advent is not only about getting ready and counting the days, but it's about setting aside time from our busy schedules to enjoy each others company, to play together, making memories, and of course, drinking your yearly quota of eggnog.

Hello December

I was so happy to flip the calendar to December this past weekend. This is my favorite month- I love that for one month of the year I have a free pass to geek out over cheesy heart-warming songs, drink way more hot cocoa than a person should, and that it's perfectly legitimate for this brief period to suggest that we all hold hands, snuggle and watch Christmas cartoons. Everyone is so much nicer to each other this time of year, and I love that a lot of Christmas activities center around making gifts, crafts, ceremonial activities and traditions-- all things that I love! Basically, I hope to be reincarnated as an elf in my next life. So hang onto your Santa hats folks, and prepare for a mega-injection of Christmas cheer on this blog for the next month!

First I want to post some cute photos of our family on our yearly balsam tip collecting expedition. We go into the woods behind our house and collect a giant bag of balsam branches for wreath making and also cut a little Charlie Brown tree to put outside in front of the kitchen window. Of course, we also bring a thermos of hot cocoa and have a picnic in the woods together. This year, Rowan thought we also needed to bring a compass to be on the safe side. Then we return home to make wreaths and do some exterior illumination. Making the wreaths always takes Aaron and I back to the winter we made wreaths and garland for Piper Mountain Christmas tree farm, and it smells so good!

Also, here's a happy list of things I'm loving right now:

• Rowan calling Retta "Miss Cutie Megquier"
• The dangerous nightly ritual Aaron and I have fallen into of drinking Trader Joe's Sipping Chocolate--it isn't really hot chocolate, more like hot melted chocolate in a cup
• Waking up to Rowan running into our room saying, "I wonder where Jingle is today?!" (our Elf on the Shelf)
• Buying gifts for an angel tree child and volunteering at the animal shelter
• Rowan's self-proclaimed Christmas nook in the space behind the tree and next to the couch. I see she's leaving her Hello Kitty slippers in there now. Sometimes I look over and just see two legs sticking out from under the tree as she lays in there looking up at the lights on the tree.
• And this cute picture: