Dear Madison Miller,

Thank you for the Big & Little Nutbrown Hare you got me for Christmas. My mom detached them and little Nutbrown Hare is the perfect size for me to carry around. I just LOVE it! I love to swing it around, eat it, and give it kisses. It comforts me at night or nap time or even when I don't want mom to change my diaper. See how much fun we have together!?








My mom tells me you and Aunt Paisley are going to visit me soon, but she doesn't know when. Will you PLEASE come visit so we can play again? I miss you so much. Love you,

Kelsey

P.S. I miss you so much, it brings me to tears!

Kelsey is 9 months!

Could it be possible that she is another month closer to being a one-year-old? Tally called her a toddler on Sunday and I almost cried. Here are some things she's been up to this month.

PEEK A BOO, KOO-KOOS, WHERE'S KELSEY?

She loves playing this game now and can either do it with her hands or with a blanket.


BUNNY KISSES
Tal & I got this bunny piggy bank for Kelsey in Italy before she was born. Now, every morning when she wakes up (and even after naps) she spots her bunny, points to it and makes the "I want that" noise. We go over to the bunny and she gives it a kiss on the nose. I of course taught her to give it kisses but now she does it on her own. It's cute and I finally captured it on video.

SKILLS
Her vocabulary consists of "dada" "baba" "mama" "nana" and other babbles. She can also clap (which has been the case for a few months now, but now it's an open hand and with more purpose), play peek-a-boo (as of June 17th) where she covers her own eyes, feeds herself with her hands (very messily), and scoots/crawls. She scoots half on her butt, half stinkbug walking. Every time I try to put her on her hands and knees, she points her toe and goes to a sitting position. She's pretty set in her ways and she can get around quite well, just not from her room to the kitchen. She tried that today and stopped at her doorway and just cried for me. Too difficult I think. But when she adds a "mama" in that cry, my heart melts and I come running!

BUMPS & BRUISES
I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but she has THREE big bumps or bruises that she got in two days.


June 17-I put her on the bed and stood right next to it while I grabbed her burpcloth. Next thing I knew she was inches from the ground falling head first and my hands were on her chest and ankle. It happened so quickly - I was standing right in front of her! She is just so active and more mobile than ever before - even more so in the last few days.

Later that night we were watching one of the Euro 2008 games and Kelsey was roaming the living room. I had an eye on her, but she was holding onto a kitchen chair while I sat on the couch. She took one hand off the chair and faced out, then took her other hand off the chair and started to take a step, but her head was just too heavy. She came crashing down with a thud. She cried pretty hard and has a bruise on her cheek to show for it. I couldn't believe she tried to walk! This is what caused the bruise on her left cheek (see above).


PLAYTIME
There is this cool ship playground right next to the lake near our house. Everytime we walk/run past it, Kelsey stares up in awe at the other kids playing. One day, I decided to let her play on it and she loved it. She especially loved trying to eat the wood chips. Some of the older kids came up to her and played with her (talking in Swiss German). It was cute.



The expat ma-mas at Starbie's.

Here we are at story time. She loves when we read books to her at home, but I think there were too many distractions at the American Women's Club story time. Instead she resorted to one of her favorite pastimes - PULLING HAIR. She LOVES pulling hair. It's funny when she stands next to Tally's leg and pulls his leg hairs but it's NOT so funny when she pulls my hair - or worse - when she pulls other kids hair. Like on Wednesday morning when she pulled her friend Emily's hair so hard it left a bald spot! How do you discipline a baby? I told her no and she just gave me one of those gooey, toothless smiles and my heart melted. Which brings me to my next item.

She looks as though to ask, is it okay if I pull Emily's hair? She KNOWS it's not okay.


STILL NO TEETH. But enjoy that toothless grin while it lasts, she starting to get her bottom teeth! And I think they're coming in crooked...only time will tell.


ANIMALS
We have sheep by our house and we pass them on our walk to the train station. She's never really noticed them much until recently. Now she loves to watch them, pet them through the fence, and when they baa, she looks up at me and smiles. This sheep was eating the neighbor's plants through the fence and I thought it was kind of funny.




SLEEPING
She's becoming much more mobile, even in her sleep! Tally and I just have to laugh when we see how she falls asleep. We even go and get each other..."honey, come check out how she fell asleep tonight!" Speaking of night, she mostly sleep through the night (9p-6a, nurses and falls asleep until 7:30 or 8), but sometimes I get a 4am wake-up call. She never stays awake because I bring her into bed with me, nurse her, and we fall asleep.


Sometimes she falls asleep in daddy's arms while watching TV


EATING

She loves to eat! She's still mostly breastfeeding but she likes just about what ever we give her. Obviously we've given her too many chocolate chips as she seems to know what those are now. 






WATER BABY
She loves the water!

Happy Father's Day, "da-da"

This year was the first real father & mother's day. To celebrate, Tally lit up the grill and we had hamburgers and then I made one of Tal's favorite Thai dishes for him. We should be on a diet for our upcoming cruise, but we're not...yet. Kelsey decided to make da-da a card. So thoughtful. She didn't like me tracing her hand on the card though! She just wanted to eat the stickers.



Tal, I love watching you with Kelsey. I makes my heart melt to see you two bond. You are such a wonderful dad and she adores you. I've had so many people from church tell me what a wonderful job you did taking her to church all by yourself.

Also, Happy Father's day to my dad, Steve & Tal's dad, Lee. We love you guys and would not be the people we are today without you. We wish we were there celebrating with you, but all in due time.

Music to my Ears

Tonight Kelsey finally said "mama!" She said it once in my German class LAST Monday, but I thought it was a fluke. After tonight, there was no mistaking. I tried to get it on camera, but of course, she wouldn't perform. She would only say "Baba, " which is also new as of tonight. Sometimes it even sounds like "Papa" or when she waves and says it, it sounds/looks like she's saying "bye bye." Here's a clip of one of the first times she said "Baba."



I'm determined to get one of her saying "mama" so stay tuned...

All In the GS Family

Tally's work had a Community Team Works day today. For this event, he gets to take the day off to do community service with his co-workers. We went to a handicapped children's school and put on a carnival for them. Tal & our friend Josh were in charge and I was surprised by how organized it was, considering the language barrier. Kelsey and I came along to help out. I don't know how much help we were, but the kids sure loved her! And I think she had fun with them too. It was hot outside, especially running around with the kids. We played catch, bubbles, bouncy castle, did face painting, coloring, gave out prizes, served lunch & dessert, hung out with the clown, and had a great time with the kids. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day. We couldn't resist turning one of her shirts into a Community Team Works 2008 shirt like ours.

Fast Friends

Buddies

Look at all these fun friends I can play with!

Tally playing sports with the boys

Now how can I hold all the pins at once?

They even hired a clown for the day. Normally I'm not too keen on clowns but she gave me a whole new perception of clowns. Not so scary once you get to know them!

All Tuckered Out

What a fun day!

It was a lot of fun, but by the end of the day we were exhausted. We took a train, a tram, a bus to get there and the same on the way back - and then our car to get home from the train station. Kelsey loves the outdoors and traveling (and long walks on the beach, right?) so I think she was thrilled with the day. I don't think she cried once!

Hopp Schwiiz!

We're in the midst of the Euro Cup 2008 which translates to Swiss flags EVERYWHERE! They're on peoples' cars, houses, gardens, boats, businesses, bodies - you name it. We couldn't help but catch the Euro Cup fever so we dressed Kelsey up in her Swiss onesie and watched the game at home (tickets are OUTRAGEOUS and crowds are HUGE in the city). We grilled up some cervelas Swiss style (cutting the ends so the middle doesn't split) and ate them with our Hopp Suisse ketchup (Suisse is the French way to say Switzerland, Schweiz is the German way). Kelsey enjoyed getting up close to the action. Unfortunately, they lost last night and tonight's game so it doesn't look good for them. But nonetheless, HOPP SCHWEIZ (go Switzerland)!

On The Move

A week ago today, Kelsey finally started scooting forward instead of backwards! It took a bit of coaxing and some tears, but she did it! She has done it a few times a day this week, but she doesn't like doing it.

Instead, she prefers to pull herself up on everything and walk around holding onto whatever she can, especially mommy.

I'm constantly amazed when I put her down in one place and turn around to find her - STANDING - in another. She also likes to stand and let go. Then she starts laughing and gets unstable so she sits down. It's so fun to see her personality with this newfound mobility. Today, Tally referred to her as a "toddler" and I had to remind him that she is still a baby. He said she was "toddling" around so he called her a toddler. It caught me unaware and although I know she's still a baby, it made me sad to think she's soon moving past that phase.

Last Night

I jump up out of bed after hearing what sounded like a bang followed by a shattering of glass. Of course my first thought is the new windows and it didn't sound too far off from the sound of the window guy throwing all the old windows into a dumpster a few days ago. However it's not a few days ago. It's 4am and I run to check on the baby first. No one has broken into her room, she's fast asleep.

BOOM!
Tally: What was that?
Me: No idea, what is going on?
Meanwhile we're both frantically looking out our bedroom windows, then all the windows in the house. I notice it's really windy outside and think that maybe a shutter is banging against the house. As I'm in another room, Tally says urgently,
Tally: Oh no, something is on fire downstairs, in our yard.
Me: I don't smell any smoke, are you sure?
Tally: I just saw sparks
He runs out of our bedroom to the door, and then back for some more appropriate pajamas. I throw mine on and say as he's leaving
Me: Yell up here if it's a fire and I'll grab the baby
He runs down the stairs. At this point I'm half wondering if it's a shutter loose, half wondering if our neighbor's girlfriend dumped him and he's on a rampage breaking things. What if he got so mad he killed Tally? I'd better lock the door. But what if it's a fire? I'd better not. This hot, windy summer night would not be good for a fire (I'm from So Cal, okay?). Anxiety.
Tally, bewildered: There's no fire??!!
Then you could see the lightbulb turn on.
Tally: I bet it was our neighbor throwing out his cigarette. He was closing the shutters when I went down there.
Me: Well at least it's not a fire. Did you see anything else?
Tally: No, let's go to sleep
So we laid in bed for who knows how much longer while the wind howled around us and something banged against the house.
That is until Kelsey woke up at 5am, hungry.
Needless to say, we are dragging a bit today.

Little Moogle

There's something different about you today

I took notice when you woke up from your nap

You went down with so many baby-like features

But left several behind in your crib

Never to be rediscovered

Did you also grow a centimeter or two?

Your belly peeks out between your pants and shirt

Pointing!

Have you always done that when you wanted something?

I could swear I've never seen that trick before

And when did you learn to stand up on your own

For so long, without holding onto mommy?

I usually look forward to your naps,

Rest and productivity

But at the rate you're going

GROWING

You'll be gone before I can blink

So stay up, come cuddle, close next to me

Let's waste the day spending moments together

While you're still my little baby

I just found this poem that I wrote on May 22, 2008 in a notebook. It probably needs some more work but if I don't post it now, it will be lost to history in a random notebook. It's funny to think that this feeling hasn't gone away - and maybe it never will.

New Windows

I need to vent for a moment and haven't been able to since I've been working on that gargantuan Italy post. Our landlord had new windows put in our apartment this week and notified us with a letter in German. Okay, no big deal, right? WRONG. At 7am, two mornings in a row, these guys came ringing. Considering our night owl daughter and my late night photo musings, this was way too early. The first day, they took out 3 of the windows in our house and the one right outside our hall door. It was a cool day and it made the entire house FREEZING. I had a sweatshirt and fuzzy socks on and I put slippers and a jacket on Kelsey. When nap time came, I couldn't put her in her crib because it was covered with paper and she had NO WINDOWS in her room. So, I laid down with her in my bed and ended up falling asleep...that is until my friend Dianne came over for lunch at 11. I hadn't meant to fall asleep and it was nice to have her over to distract me from the CAOS that was my house. Kelsey was still asleep until 11:30 when the window guys came in and told me they needed to start working in my bedroom. I told them my baby was asleep (and pointed out that they hadn't replaced any of the windows they took away in the rest of the house yet). I gave up the fight, woke Kelsey up and let them in. For the record, they didn't end up doing anything in that room that day. I walked into town with my friend to escape the CAOS and took the bus to pick up my car that was in the shop. The next day, they came at 7am. We let them in and went right back to sleep. I knew they wanted to do the windows in my room, but stayed asleep when they WALKED IN on me sleeping. We finally escaped to Jessi's at 8:30am and stayed there until 4pm (thanks Jess). I came home to a mess of dust and concrete particles all over my floor and any horizontal surface, a sawdust smell, and dirty everything. Oh, and they broke off or took off all our our window treatments. Anyone in the mood for spring cleaning? I'm not!


Thanks for letting me vent. If your landlord ever wants to replace the windows or you do on your own home, GO ON VACATION while it's done and hire a housekeeper to clean before you come home.

It's Saturday night and I've just now finished cleaning all but my room. Phew!

UPDATE: My husband just informed me that I spelled CHAOS, CAOS in this post. There is a valid reason for this (and any of you are welcome to tell me my spelling errors - I WANT to know b/c I will be printing out my blog someday and I don't want my kids to make fun of me). When I used to work for GS, I worked with a system called CAOS - Client Account Opening System. I guess it became my version of chaos, thus craziness in my mind is CAOS. Get all that?