Trip Report

We're back from Ohio and all went well. Mabel was a total champ on the drive to and from, and she slept like a baby (interesting!) in the hotel crib and at my cousin's house. We were visiting a family (my cousin Dave and his wife Amy) with three little boys - ages 5, 3 and 2 1/2 months - and Mabel was fascinated by the older boys - so much activity! They were very sweet to her, and played with her and called her Baby Mabel. We had a great time and it was wonderful to introduce Mabel to her Hyland relatives. My great aunt Mary Janet, whose mother was the first Mabel Hyland, brought us several things that had belonged to her mom, which will be very special for Mabel to have one day. Here are some pics from the trip. The other baby in the picture with Mabel, Aunt Jan and Aunt Mary Janet is Nathan, Dave and Amy's youngest. He was the best baby, very quiet and mellow, only crying when he needed something ... otherwise, no worries, don't trouble yourself, he'll just hang out and chill.

On the Road

We are heading out the door to drive to Ohio for Christmas. As I write this, Dylan is packing the car and Mabel is sleeping ... shhhhh ... you wake her, you take her! The kitties know something is up, and they don't like it. We have one bag left open for last-minute things and Hamlet is sleeping on top of it. We will have Christmas with Grandma Sandy, Grandpa Tom and Granny Lib in Shepherdstown when we get back. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Like a Bowl Full of Jelly

Even with his busy schedule, Santa had time to visit Mabel's school late last week. All of the kids (and teachers) wore their pajamas to school that day and had quite the time. Sister Geri read The Polar Express and the big kids made gingerbread houses. Dylan took Mabel in that day and stayed to get some pictures.

Uncle Will's Rattle

We have received so many great gifts and hand-me-downs for Mabel. One of our favorites came from Dylan's mom: his brother Will's silver rattle. (Will is now 30 and lives in Hong Kong.) I keep it in the drawer of Mabel's changing table and sometimes give it to her to play with when I'm changing her diaper. This morning she decided she had no interest in letting it go and kept it with her during breakfast.

Cheers!

Breaking news - Mabel is learning to use a sippy cup. She is very skilled already (of course!), and really seemed to get the hang of it almost instantly. Granted, sometimes we give it to her and she waves it around in the manner of a dangerous weapon, but still, the girl's got some talent. See accompanying photos for proof.

Bun Bun

Although Mabel is still besotted with BlaBla, she is only allowed to play with him inside her crib ... leaving lots of time to make new friends. As we saw from yesterday's post, Pisco Bear has been warmly received. Also making the scene is Bun Bun, a soft, squishy pink bunny given to Mabel by Dylan's friend Eve.

Close, But Not Quite

My well-orchestrated plan to get Mabel's picture taken with Santa this weekend did not quite go as planned. Which is shocking, considering how easy it is to get babies to bend to your schedule. We did make it over to the holiday bazaar at her 'school', and even managed to get Robin and Aidan to come with us, but by the time we got there Santa was just about done for the day and Mabel was on the brink, since it was really, really time for her nap. As you will see from the picture above - this is her when we got home and I laid her down on her changing table.

So we spent the afternoon hanging out on the floor and logged some good tummy time, and also played with the bear Grandma Sandy gave Mabel for her baptism. If you look very close you will see the Episcopal Church shield on the bear's vest. Very smart.

Getting Through the Week

This has been a long week ... back to work for Mom and Dad, back to day care for Mabel and to top things off, Dylan is sick now. See picture above for a glimpse of life at our house these days.

But of course Mabel is still the star of the show and is really changing every day. She is verrry close to sitting up all by herself, and for the first time fell asleep sucking her thumb. Tomorrow we are taking her to have her picture taken with Santa, which should be fun. Photographic evidence to follow shortly.

Thanksgiving 2008

We stayed home for Thanksgiving this year; Mabel has a respiratory virus and we wanted to give her a chance to feel better over the long weekend, before we head back to work and she heads back to day care. We had a nice, quiet day - the highlight was a walk around the neighborhood and then pizza and champagne for dinner. We are very grateful this year, for our wonderful friends and family, our health and especially for Mabel.

Mabel's New Best Friend

Well, it's happened already; Mabel is already making new friends and would rather hang out with them than us. Who knew it would happen so soon? She has become quite enamored with Blabla, a soft doll/bug-looking-thing that my friend Adrienne gave her when she was born. She will spend 30 minutes in her crib, closely examining Blabla's wings and antennae and teeny tiny hat. As you will see from the accompanying photo essay, it's all Blabla, all the time.

The Best Seat in the House

As we all know, Mabel is now very into eating 'real' food ... so far she has tried bananas, peas, sweet potatoes and, as of this weekend, carrots. I would say she likes sweet potatoes the most, followed very closely by carrots. I find this very encouraging, because I did not come around to carrots until about two years ago. Anyway, Mabel now has a high chair to hang out in when she's noshing, thanks to our most excellent next-door neighbors, Robin and Rodges. They were kind enough to give us the chair that their little fella, Aidan, used. Mabel seems to like sitting up in a proper seat while she is fed by her adoring subjects.

Hallelujah

Did I spell that right? Anyway, today was a big day - we took Mabel to Shepherdstown to be baptized, at the same church where Dylan and I were married. She handled it like a pro, and was even kind enough to reach up and pat the minister's cheek while he was rubbing holy oil on her.
Of course we don't have one picture of the service or afterward, because even though we had our camera with us in church it did not occur to us that we would have to actually be doing something whilst the girl was being baptized, and therefore be rendered unable to take pictures. Oh well. I did manage to take a few pictures of Mabel once we were back at Tom and Sandy (who also go by Grandma and Grandpa)'s house, before she barfed all over her dress. You can kind of see it in these pictures, but it's sort of en ecru-colored cotton, with very delicate embroidery at the top and short, puffed sleeves. We found it over the summer while we were antiquing and paid a whopping $5 for it. My guess is that it's from the 1920's or 30's.

After the service we went back to Tom and Sandy's and they had a few folks over for snacks and drinks. It was really nice, and we got to show off Mabel to Sandy's cousins, Tom and Judy, and her friends Nancy and her husband, Vernon. Everyone was so nice and it was a really lovely way to spend the afternoon. Dylan's granny (Mabel's great granny!) was of course there, too. She and Mabel were both wearing purple - Granny had on a pretty purple velvet blazer, and after church I changed Mabel into a purple onesie with an owl on the front. Very fetching.

Happiness is a Two-Hour Nap

Mabel now takes (fairly) regular naps during the day when she's home. You can never predict the length - sometime 20 minutes; one blissful Saturday it was three hours - but she will always wake up happy. This weekend we laid her down and before we knew it she had slept for two whole hours without making a peep. I think she was tired out from all of the naked sweet potato eating she's been doing. (see above.)

Mabel Will Bring the Sweet Potatoes this Thanksgiving

Mabel is really getting the hang of this whole eating 'real' food thing, and would like to report that she is totally digging the sweet potatoes. She ate two containers' worth at day care on Friday, and about half as much at home today. We found them in her nose both days, a sure sign of success. Also, Mabel is getting better every day at sitting up - see photo!

Squeaky Monkey

Mabel is feeling better after six days on yet another antibiotic for yet another sinus infection. Today was her first day back at day care since last Wednesday and when I walked in she was in a swing that she can jump all around in, and she was going to town. Hilarious. This weekend we tried bananas (see above) and also practiced laying on our tummy and pushing up. Very exciting.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Well, Miss Mabel is back at the doctor this morning - looks like she has another sinus infection. Drat. The ladies at day care told me yesterday that she "did not have a very good day" and was crying and throwing up a lot. Just what you want to hear. However, when she saw me she did smile hugely while blowing a snot bubble out her nose, so that's not all bad. Here's a video of Mabel from a few days ago, when she felt a little better ...

Election Day!

Today is Mabel's first Election Day! We dressed her all in blue in hopeful anticipation of how the day will turn out. I left work early to pick her up at St. Jerome's and take her to the polls with me. There was no line and we were in and out in under 10 minutes. Other than the nosy old lady who told me to "put some socks on that baby!", the whole experience was very pleasant. Here is Mabel proudly wearing her I Voted sticker.

It's Time for Whirled Peas

It was quite the weekend here - Mabel had her first 'real' food. The plan was to give her sweet potatoes, but by the time she and I got home from the store on Sunday I was dang tired, so we looked in the freezer, grabbed a bag of peas and we were off to the races. She seemed to be moderately interested in the whole affair. Here's a few pictures, plus a bonus video of the inaugural eating of the peas.

Happy Halloween!

Today is Mabel's first Halloween and we are celebrating by ... doing nothing. Actually, that's not entirely true; at her day care they had Farm Day this week and all the kiddos got a pumpkin. Here is Mabel's.
















Also, Mabel has worn a nice assortment of seasonally festive socks this week in anticipation of Halloween: Tuesday she sported the snazzy black cat socks our neighbor Robin gave her, and yesterday it was the orange-and-green jack-o-lantern socks that came from (I think) Tori.
See above - I still can't get the pictures to line up with the words.

Tonight we're going to turn off our porch light and not hand out candy, for the first time ever, because the Nugget goes to bed early and all that knocking and hooting and hollering would likely wake her up, and we don't want that. Unfortunately the room we typically hang out in after she goes to bed is clearly visible from our porch, so we are going to squirrel ourselves away somewhere else in the house. Although I am bummed we won't see all of our neighborhood kiddos in their costumes, Mabel's early bed time is sparing us from eating 54 mini Snickers as we wait for the next round of goblins to appear.