Day Care: 1, Maya: 0

Maya didn't even get a full week of day care before she had to stay home sick. I guess those kids in her class aren't all that interested in making a new friend... So we've been dealing with a relatively persistent and high fever for the past few days. Luckily it looks like just a little virus and nothing more serious. She seems to be over the hump... (Knock on wood) By the way, it's not clear how Maya gets points in this contest...

Because she's not at her best right now, here's a picture from earlier in the week. This is a little after-daycare playtime; Maya always comes home in such a good mood.

Backyard, Day, um, who knows?

The work on our backyard has been progressing VERY slowly. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you're not getting new landscaping, I suppose) it has been raining nonstop all summer here. All they have really been able to do so far is make a mess, taking up the patio and digging irrigation trenches. Here's where we were a few days ago:

Maya's First Day

No pictures today...

It's Maya's first day of day care. We dropped her off around 8am this morning, and I told her teacher I would try as hard as I could to stay away until 3pm. I'm sure she's doing fantastically...

Maya's Last Day

Today was Maya's last day at work, and we actually had a good day today. It was very productive, and Maya stuck to her schedule pretty well. This afternoon, I had a meeting with Angela and some students. Maya happily played in her chair for the beginning of the meeting, but Evie was cranky and tired, so she laid down for a nap in Maya's Pack-N-Play. After some rolling around, she settled down. But Maya got cranky because she was tired, too. But there was plenty of room in the Pack-N-Play for both of them. so I swaddled Maya up and set her in there (though now that I think about it, I think we exceeded the official 25 lb weight limitation of the bassinet--what a terrible mother I am). Here she is next to a sleeping Evie:

After a bit, Evie woke up, rolled over and looked like she wanted to say, "Hey! This wasn't here when I went to sleep!"

Ah, what good friends the girls will be...

Early Education

Some more pictures from work...

In my lab, we have a post-doc, and she has a four month old. When Evie was younger and coming to work more often with her mom, Angela brought a swing into the lab. It turns out Maya loves it. When Evie comes in and Maya is in her swing, Evie just stares at her (well, that is, until Maya vacates the chair so Evie can have it back). Maya is lucky Evie is so willing to share.


This is basically how our day goes. We arrive in my office about 8:30 or 9. I eat breakfast (Maya is usually still asleep from the car ride) and read my email. Then Maya eats. Then we go to the lab, and Maya swings until she falls asleep. This is the best time I have to work, though the past couple of days, I have instead spent it chatting with my graduate students. Maya swings and sleeps until noon or one. Then she eats. Things pretty much fall apart after that; I can get a couple things done here or there, but Maya is pretty high maintenance in the afternoon. Afternoons are good for visiting with everyone. Here's Charlotte with Maya:

and Suzanne and Maya:

Going to work...

Until Maya starts day care next week, she's been coming to work with me. I don't get as much work done as I should, but that's because Maya does stuff like this:


In fact, yesterday, Maya learned a little about cause and effect. She learned that if she moves enough her bouncy seat sings to her. She would bounce, sit still while it sang until it stopped, then bounce again. Oh how she loved it. (In case there's any question, that's definitely a thumbs up, and not a "Gig 'em" sign!)

Backyard Day 5

The grass in back is successfully dying. Other than that, no progress to report yet:

New Backyard, Day 0

We've started a new renovation... this time in the backyard. The dogs and our lack of green thumbs have done a number on the pretty decent landscaping that existed when we moved in. We're having the yard and patio completely redone to be more drought tolerant, more dog tolerant, and really easy to take care of. Check back here for periodic updates on the progress. Here are some pictures from Day 0: the day before the work started. Today is officially Day 2; yesterday, they came by to spray kill the existing St. Augustine's grass. The pictures aren't all that interesting yet, but we'll keep you posted.

Playing with the Photo Booth

Just because GG and Jaydee demand photos... Maya and I had some fun with OS X's Photo Booth application today. Here's a sample of our work...

The Bumbo

If you haven't heard of this baby contraption, well, you should have. It's this seat that smaller babies can sit in before they can sit up on their own. It promotes their neck and back strength, and Maya loves the fact that she can look around. She doesn't yet have the best neck strength in town, but she can sit in the chair for several minutes before her neck gets too tired to hold her head up. And she's getting better every day. And she just LOVES it.

Finally...

It seems as though the rain has finally stopped. Someone told me that there was a stretch there that it rained every day for 45 days someplace in Texas. There has been all kinds of flooding, and the mosquitoes are having a hey-day. It only means we haven't had to do much watering. And it also means that there's significantly more grass growing in our backyard. Not that that matters all that much at this point (more on that in the coming days...). Tim's mom house has had even more rain than we have: here are Tim and his mom contemplating her backyard--the yard was too wet even for the dogs to venture out in to it!

Meet me in Saint Louis...Again

So this may become a theme... but we recently made another trip back to Saint Louis. This time two of our good friends from grad school were getting married, so we made the trek north. With the help of my mom, Maya and I drove up. For Maya, the best part of every driving day was the end. Every day ended looking something like this, with Maya celebrating no longer being constrained in her car seat:


The drive gave us some good opportunities to stop and see some friends and family along the way. We spent a couple of days in Springfield visiting my grandmother ("GG" to Maya), and my Aunt Becky also happened to be in town so we got a bonus visit. We also reconnected with one of my cousins we hadn't seen in a while. Grandma just recently suffered a fall (the way she tells it, the carpet got the worst of it), but she had some bruises on her face. It did not at all stop her from thoroughly enjoying her newest great-grand-daughter, but I'll leave out the pictures... Here's Aunt Becky looking mighty comfortable with Maya:


My mom also got some Maya time:


And, because I can't resist, here's Maya in her sun hat the same day:


From Springfield, we moved on to Dixon, which happens to be where my parents grew up (in addition to being where Tim grew up). We still have a lot of family and friends there. We stopped by mom's aunt's house, and family converged there. Here's a photo of Maya with Sue Ann (officially, Maya's first cousin, twice removed, by marriage, but also my mom's best friend from high school).


Then we were off to Saint Louis. My dad decided to fly in for the weekend and spend some of his extra vacation time. I'm sure my mom appreciated the company while she babysat during the wedding on Saturday. And Maya, of course, loves all the time she can get with her grandparents. We arrived on Thursday in time to have dinner with some friends from college. We met Jaydee, Brian, Tyler, and Trish for some pizza. Jaydee and Tyler were both excited to hold Maya:



Trish and Brian both had their reservations with respect to holding Maya, but they both ooed and awed over her enough to satisfy me. But not to leave them out of the photo opportunity:


Tim had to work during the week, so he flew up to the 'Lou to meet us on Friday. We had dinner with friends again, and Dante and Amanda joined us Friday. And we all got Ted Drewes' frozen custard, a Saint Louis favorite. Dante and Amanda have just moved back to Saint Louis, so they've added to the list of friends we get to visit when we go back in the future:


Saturday morning, Tim, mom, dad, Maya, and I took a walk from the hotel down to the arch and around the park. Here's mom and dad with Maya:


and an interesting picture of the arch:


Tim and I headed to the wedding, which was on Wash U's campus. My parents kept Maya during the ceremony, and we picked her up to take her with us to the reception. Here's Maya at the reception:


She slept through absolutely everything...except the toasts. Oh well. :)

Sunday, we carried on the old Saint Louis tradition, and met a bunch of people for coffee at Kaldi's. Tim's former classmate Mike, and his wife Gina, and their new baby Emma were there, but I was delinquent and failed to get a photo.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip. We love to visit Saint Louis, and it's always great to get to see old friends. But without my mother's help, there is no way I would have sanely survived the trip. Here's to moms!