little black journal

Saturday brought more sun and temps approaching 80 degrees, so we grabbed our beach towel and sunscreen and headed out to grab some rays.  But first, breakfast at M Street Kitchen.

(Please, Mama, can I have pancakes and syrup, light on the pancakes, heavy on the syrup?)

We spent the rest of the morning at Annenberg Beach House, melting into our lounge chairs while Juliette ran wild in the splash park.  Dude, this girl loves water.

I went for a run while Shane put a tuckered-out Jules down for a nap and then hydrated with a bottle of bubbly on our house’s patio.  Perfecto.

Juliette woke up pink-cheeked and crazy-haired and came out to join me.  Those arms!  I’ve missed seeing them these past few months.

We packed up our things and then spent an hour strolling down the 3rd Street promenade, stopping every few minutes to watch the street performers and share a fro-yo.  Since we were so close to Tongva Park, and since Juliette had such a blast there the day before, we popped over for another go at the playground.

Soon it was beach:30, so we made our way to the sand, armed with pail and shovel, and settled in for another sunset.

She makes me so damn happy.  I love to be able to return the favor.

A breeze kicked up as the sun went down and Juliette wanted nothing more than to crawl into papa’s lap and snuggle.  It took about 37 laps up and down the shore, but we had finally worn this girl out!

I sighed as we watched the sun drop behind the horizon, sad to see our final evening in Santa Monica come to a close.  Shane consoled me by volunteering to go pick up burgers and shakes from In-N-Out for dinner while I put Juliette to bed.  Yes, please!  We wolfed down our takeout and then I fell asleep on the couch at 8:00, exhausted in the most satisfying way.

We didn’t need to head to the airport until late morning on Sunday, so we swung by the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market for awhile to eat breakfast and let Jules get her pre-flight wiggles out.  She was a big fan of the folk band that was playing there, knee-slapping and hand-clapping along with the beat.

And then, too soon, it was time to head to LAX and make the trek back to Seattle.  Juliette did alright on the flight, squirming a bit through the first half, but eventually passing out in my arms.  And then, we were home.  Home sweet home, where we don’t have to worry about getting a sunburn or dumping the sand out of our shoes (I’m doing my best to look on the bright side here).

Thanks, Santa Monica, for treating us right!  See you next winter.

March is that time of year in Seattle when I really start getting antsy, when I start itching to shed my coat and my sweater so that I can feel the sun on my shoulders.  It’s the time of year when I’d give anything to just be warm, to wear sandals rather than wool socks and boots.  I remarked last month that this winter was feeling particularly long, with all the sniffles and the stir-craziness, so Shane worked his travel-planning magic and booked us cheap flights and a sweet little cottage in Santa Monica for a long weekend.  Juliette has recently become fascinated by airplanes, pointing to the sky and exclaiming “errrrr-pay!” each time one flies overhead, so she was most certainly up for the adventure.

We set out Thursday morning and made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare – I sipped my coffee while Jules ran circles around us, stopping every couple of minutes to bang on the windows and watch the planes take off.

We had armed ourselves with a bag full of treats and distractions for the plane ride and decided that any ground rules about screen time or snacks are just that – ground rules.  The air is an anything-goes zone, where there’s no shame in letting your toddler load up on sugar or play with your gadgets.  Juliette spent the first half of the flight munching on cookies and cheddar bunnies while pretending to chat on my phone.

We played one round of the Peekaboo-Barn app we’d put on the iPad and then, somewhere around Oregon, she crashed, waking just as we pulled up to the gate.  Whew!

We picked up our rental car without much fuss and made to it Santa Monica in time for a late lunch at True Foods Kitchen.  I bought these silly sunglasses on clearance last fall, and finally!  An excuse to wear them!  Too cool for school, that kid.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at the house and then headed to the nearby beach to catch the sunset.  Juliette was a little tentative when I first set her down on the sand, not sure what to make of the way her feet sunk and squished, but once I handed her a shovel and her bucket, she was content to sit and scoop away.

And then I took her down to the water’s edge so that the waves could lap at her toes, expecting her to be a little nervous at her first encounter with the ocean.

Nervous, schmervous!  She went nuts, squealing with joy and chasing after the waves as they receded.  Shane and I spent the next half hour running after her, trying (unsuccessfully) to direct her along the water’s edge rather than straight into it.  She face-planted a couple of times in the cold wet sand, but was up and at it again before we could even brush her off.  We’ve got a beach-baby on our hands!

The beach in Santa Monica is amazing, nearly deserted on a Thursday night and stretching on for miles in either direction.  We stuck around long enough to wave bye-bye to the sun, and then jetted back to the house for bath and bedtime.  Juliette fell asleep about 25 seconds after I turned off her light and Shane and I enjoyed a couple of hours of quiet time, sharing a pizza and a bottle of wine before conking out ourselves.

We were up bright and early on Friday, eager to see what else Santa Monica had up its sleeve.  We started with breakfast at Huckleberry, for mimosas and monster egg sandwiches.

Then we drove over to Abbot Kinney to peek in the windows of the hip restaurants and trendy shops.

Juliette didn’t want anything to do with her stroller that day, so we booked it over to Venice Beach to look for a place to let her loose.

We found a great little playground right on the beach and she went up and down the slide a few times before settling down on the sand with a few other kids to do some more scooping.

I jogged back to the house from Venice and met Shane and Jules there just in time to help get her down for her nap.  Once she woke, we were back out the door, in search of a late lunch.  La Verne had recommended ramen from Tsujita, where we snagged a sidewalk table and slurped our bowls of noodles and rich, flavorful broth.

For dessert, we walked around the corner for green tea shaved ice from Blockheads.  So good.  So, so good.  My only complaint is that I couldn’t keep Juliette away from it – get your spoon away my mochi, kid!

Bellies full, we played for awhile at Tongva Park, climbing on rocks and bumping down the roller slide.

We weren’t far from the beach, so we headed over to stake out a perfect patch of sand near the pier to catch another sunset.  But first, more running!  This video sums it up so clearly – I look away for a mere second, and she’s gone.  Her pants were soaked faster that I could say “STOP!”.

Keeping this girl from getting swept out to sea was exhausting, but oh, her unbridled joy!  Completely worth it.

We finally coaxed her up onto the towel to scoop, pat, dump and demolish.  Sand castles don’t stand a chance with this little one.

One last jog, before heading out…

This might be an appropriate time for me to apologize to Los Angeles – I’d always fiercely claimed that I am not an LA person, that the city is all sprawl and traffic and too-tan women in too-high heels, but I take it back.  That evening, as the waves murmured and the sky blazed orange and Juliette excitedly pointed to the seagulls flying overhead, I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.

Stay tuned for days 3 and 4!

Remember this post?  Remember how January was all coughing and sore throats and runny noses?  Remember how thankful I was for the dawn of a new, healthy month?  Scratch that.  I’m afraid Chez Schnell is still sick central.  Shane has felt like he’s had his head in a fishbowl for the last four weeks, with a head cold he can’t quite shake.  I’ve had three colds myself, one case of pinkeye, and am currently ailing from a wheezy, rattling cough that makes me sound like I need to lay off the smokes.  Juliette continues to leave a lovely trail of snot in her wake, like some kind of two-legged (all be it adorable) slug.

And yesterday, just as I resolved that March would be our month to kick all these viruses to the curb, Juliette came down with a brand new fever.  We put her to bed early and then I hit the sack at 8:00, praying that the cough suppressant that the Urgent Care doctor had prescribed would allow me to get a decent night’s sleep.  I woke to the sound of Juliette wailing around 9:00, and after Shane’s unsuccessful attempt to soothe her, I got up to give it a go.  Halfway to her room, I started feeling woozy and spent the next ten minutes hunched over the toilet while my poor, feverish girl screamed from the next room.  Add stomach bug my list of woes.

On that note, I’m so glad we got 2015’s low point out of the way this early in the year!  I have to believe things will look up from here – I didn’t puke at all today, and Juliette’s fever seems to have passed, so rather than wallowing among our discarded Kleenex, I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re on the upswing.  And, I’m so thankful my mom has been here the past few days to help us through this.  Though I would have loved for her visit to have occurred under better circumstances, it was so nice to have her here to nurse us toward health with homemade bone broth and an extra hand with Jules.

And before we hit our wall on Sunday night, we did manage a fun little outing to Seward Park to go for a stroll and throw rocks.

I’m going to play the fool and say it again:  cheers to the dawn of a bright and shining new month.

I’ve started this blog post a couple of times – a few days ago I drafted an intro about how grand life is at the moment, how we’ve fallen into such a good rhythm and how Juliette and I are enjoying each other’s company more than ever.  And then came Friday, when Juliette woke up super-early and wailed because I gave her the wrong spoon to eat her yogurt and whacked me in the face each time I carried her upstairs to change her diaper and shrieked like a banshee when I told her she couldn’t play in the shower.  Forget grand.  Some days, parenthood sucks the life right out of you.  We’re back on the upswing now, so I figure I should get this post published while I still have mostly nice things to say about my daughter.  Here goes:

Most significantly, she started at a new school last week!  When Juliette moved to a noon-time nap schedule and I stopped visiting her during my lunch hour, Shane and I started to feel like having her downtown, close to our offices, probably wasn’t worth the big cost premium.  We put our names on a waitlist at a daycare a little closer to home and found out in January that they had an opening.  It was harder than we expected to say good-bye to her teachers and buddies at her old classroom – I didn’t realize how much they had come to mean to her (and to me) until we were faced with the fact that those people won’t really be a part of our lives anymore.  Our farewells left me feeling incredibly sad.  I felt like I was tearing Juliette away from people she loved without being able to make her understand why.  Add to my sadness and guilt a case of extreme anxiety over the fact that she is in the midst of some serious separation anxiety, crying uncontrollably when I move out of her sight for more than a second, fiercely protesting when we try to leave her at Sunday school or with friends.  And now we were going to dump her in a brand new school with a bunch of strangers?  I tossed and turned the night before her first day, wondering if we’d made a monumental mistake, and…oh man, that first day.  The moment we stepped into her new classroom, she turned to me and clung tightly to my legs, begging me not to leave.  We read a few books together and I put on my most excited face about all her new buddies and toys, but she was hip to my tricks – she eyed everyone and everything warily, refusing to move from the safe space of my lap.  I had no choice but to cut and run.  I kissed her, told her I’d see her that evening, and walked out as she began to cry and my own eyes welled up with tears.  Shane held her for awhile longer as she sobbed into his chest, but we both knew no amount of lingering was going to make this any easier.  He passed her off to her teacher and made his exit, his eyes also swimming in sadness.  That walk down the hall to the front door, the sound of Juliette’s screaming ringing in our ears, were some of the hardest steps we’ve ever taken.  Our poor baby!  How would she ever make it through the day?!  The director of the daycare called me later that morning and I braced myself for bad news when I saw her number pop up on my phone.  But PRAISE THE LORD, Juliette was having an “amazing” morning!  She had settled down pretty quickly, enjoyed an outing to the playground, and was contentedly eating lunch as we spoke.  I thanked the director profusely and breathed a huge sigh of relief, feeling my doubt and worry melt away.  The drop-offs were progressively easier on Tuesday and Wednesday and I could see that Jules was already starting to bond with her teachers.  She surprisingly adaptable, that girl.  That said, Wednesday evening couldn’t come fast enough – it felt so good to walk out of there with her in my arms and assure her that she had a few solid days of mama-time ahead of her!

In other exciting developments, after several weeks of smacking me in the face and giggling every time I asked for a kiss, she’s finally got a proper pucker down, complete with the sweetest little lip smack.

In general, she’s seemed more affectionate lately – she was quick to give this abandoned Ironman action figure a hug and a few pat-pats when we visited the coffee shop last week.

Why use a table when papa’s belly is the perfect surface for typing or coloring or playing the drums?

She’s learned a host of new words this month:  ow-shy? (outside?); mo-mo-mo! (more!); show-ah (shower); show-ah (flower, too); and sorr-rry (but only when I tell her to say it…).  She’s also way into animal sounds – her birdy impersonation is classic.

She loves to have her belly kissed, laughing hysterically as I nuzzle into her tummy.

She also loooooves shoes, perpetually pulling my boots out of my closet when we’re upstairs and struggling to sink her feet into them.

Yes, I’m aware that it might be time to retire that “dress” that used to come down to her knees!

When living room fashion shows lose their charm, we look for new places to pass the rainy wintertime afternoons.  We visited Seattle Gymnastics a couple of weeks ago and let Juliette run wild on the floor mats and balance beam and runway trampoline.  She had a blast.

We also discovered the toddler gym at Garfield Community center – tricycles and scooters galore!

The Columbia City Library is a new favorite – we pop in for the Saturday morning storytime or swing by on our way to the bakery to pick up a couple of books.

And then there are the days when, rain be danged, we just have to get outside, so Jules sports her yellow boots and we walk around the block to get the wiggles out.

We’ve been making good on my resolution to do a new art project each week – we made play-dough one Friday afternoon and did a little sculpting.  I made a worm, a hot dog, and a snake.  And then Juliette tried to eat them.

Before you declare me super-mom, with our storytime and homemade play-dough, know that this has also been the month that Juliette discovered Sesame Street.  Some days, I can’t help but call on Elmo to give me a break…

And thank heavens for her continued love of books.

Shane and I took Juliette out for her first round of frisbee golf on Friday.  She needs to work on her form a little bit, but she wins major points for style!

Oh, the way that girl struts her stuff!  Kills me.

Happy 17 months, goofball!

Valentines Day!  A day for lovers, for romance, for chocolates and wine and ooh-la-la.  Or…a day for chasing after your toddler, finding joy in pink-frosted donuts and a longer-than-normal nap and an afternoon at the park.  C’est la parenthood.

We spent the morning at the Rusts – the kiddos exchanged Valentines (turns out Jules has mad watercolor skills!) and the grown-ups sipped mimosas and munched on Nance’s heart-shaped coffee cake.

Jules enjoyed a little snuggle session with her buddy S in the playroom hammock.  I don’t know where that girl’s pants went.

We made it home for naptime and Juliette crashed hard, snoozing for a solid hour and a half (this is an improvement over recent sub-hour naps!).  Find me something sweeter than a baby sleeping with her butt up in the air like so.  I dare you.

Juliette woke up in great spirits and laid with us on the couch for a bit, then tore into the magna-doodle I bought her for V-Day.

Once the new toy magic wore off (which took all of…15 minutes?  damn it.), we all got a little antsy and decided to drive over to Luther Burbank Park to enjoy the sun.  We hit that playground hard.  Too hard, as evidenced by my sore butt.  That turbo-boosted roller slide has an unexpected kick to it!

Once we had explored every slide, swing, and teeter-totter, we made our way toward the water, stopping for a few minutes to check out the pups at the dog park.  Jules was completely mesmerized, woof-woofing at each dog that ran past her.  Forget the zoo – this is apparently where it’s at!

Once we pried Juliette away from the furballs, we walked down to the waterfront to throw rocks and see how close we could get to the water’s edge without actually getting our feet soaked (her game, not ours).

I asked for a kiss and…wow.  This girl doesn’t hold back.

A chill set in as the sun went down, so we trekked back to the car, deciding we should ride this good-spirited wave and go grab a bite somewhere.  I was in the mood for a burger but raised my eyebrows as Shane threw out the names of a couple of trendy, probably-crowded Capitol Hill burger joints.  Let’s not press our luck.  I wanted to go someplace easy and close-by, someplace we knew would have high chairs and crayons.  And that’s the story of how the Schnells ended up at the Factoria Mall Red Robin for Valentines Day dinner.

Shane and I reminisced over our bottomless fries about the Valentines meal we ate at Windows on the Water in Morro Bay when I was in college, where we ordered our first-ever bottle of wine (a lovely White Zinfandel) and sipped it while the sounds of quietly murmuring couples and piano music filled the dimly lit dining room.  That was fun.  But RED ROBIN.  Red Robin has balloons.

Happy Valentines Day, folks – may you all find happiness in the most unexpected of places.

Miss Juliette hit the sixteen-month mark on Wednesday – at some point in the past few weeks I stopped referring to her as a baby and started calling her a toddler.  She’s increasingly curious, increasingly communicative, increasingly funny and sweet and, let’s be honest, increasingly maddening as she has recently perfected the arched-back, rigid-as-a-board, screaming-bloody-murder temper tantrum.  But we’ll save my tantrum woes for another day, because there really is so much good stuff to report:

She’s added a host of new words to her vocabulary – there’s a bit of translation required, but she’s slowly making herself understood.  Favorite words are wa-wa (water), nana (banana), UPUPUPPP?! (put me up on the bed or couch, please), shucks (socks), and sheeeeesh (shoes), often muttered as I hear the crackle of velcro being undone in the backseat.  No matter how short our car ride, I always find her barefoot by the time we arrive at our destination.

Favorite toys are her wooden puzzles, anything with a lid that can be snapped or screwed on and off, and her ever-trusty Mega-Bloks.  She’s put together some pretty impressive towers – they’re not necessarily structurally sound, but gosh, they’re tall!

We still while away the evenings with a stack of books…

And when the rain puts a damper on our park plans, we dance! I will watch this video each time she has one of those afore-mentioned tantrums and I need a reminder of what a joy she really is.

Dress-up is a new fun pastime – she loves to rummage around in our entryway baskets and pull out my scarves and hats.

Oven mitts are another favorite accessory.

Blue steel?

Other hobbies include pulling every single bottle and tube and q-tip out of the bathroom drawers, turning the TV on and off and on and off, and lifting up her dad’s shirt and sticking her finger in his belly button as hard as she can.

We also started swim lessons a couple of weeks ago and spend our Thursday mornings doing laps at the nearby pool.  Juliette likes the water, but it was a little unfortunate to pull out the 18-24 month swimsuit I had picked up in the fall and find that she had already outgrown it – she was like a sausage, stuffed into that thing!

The 2T tankini I bought as a replacement was hardly much better.  That belly!  Good for buoyancy, though, right?

And can we talk about her hair for a minute?  Oy vey.

If you had told me two years ago that I’d have a little girl with red-golden curls, this isn’t quite what I would have had in mind.  She often looks like a hobbit when we pull her out of bed in the morning, bare-footed and mop-topped.

But we’re rolling with it.  It goes so well with her happy-go-lucky demeanor!

We call this her Pantene audition video…

Happy sixteen months, giggle-pants.  You’re a regular laugh a minute.

We set out for Portland on Christmas Eve, our trunk loaded with presents and wine and assorted goodies.  Juliette napped about half the way and then patiently chilled in the backseat for the last eighty miles – dare I hope that we’re making a road-tripper out of this kid?

We rolled up to Mitch’s house around 4:00, kicked off our shoes, and poured ourselves a couple of home-brewed beers from his kegerator.  Let the festivities begin!  It took Juliette about five minutes to warm up to her cousins, and then she was off to the races, following them from room to room, screeching with joy when they turned to chase her.  She settled down in her pack n play without a peep after dinner – a couple of hours of keeping up with the big kids had plumb tuckered her out.

We were up and at ’em early the next morning – the girls were thrilled to see that Santa had indeed stopped by in the night to fill stockings and leave a few extra gifts under the tree.

The adults sipped coffee and politely exchanged a few presents while the kids delightfully tore into their loot – Juliette quickly got the hang of unwrapping and made quick work of lining up her new books and puzzles.

Morgan and Jules were thick as thieves during our visit, hardly leaving each other’s sides.  Whenever Juliette fussed a bit, resisting a diaper change or reaching for something she couldn’t have, Morgan would come extra-close to her, murmuring “hiiiiii Juliette, it’s okaaayyy…” while gently touching her cheek.  It only had about a 25% success rate of doing any actual soothing, but damn, it was sweet.

Once we’d opened all the presents and eaten our bacon and coffee cake, we set out for Mt. Tabor park to let the kids burn off any left over Christmas morning antsies.

We made it home just in time for naps and then spent a quiet afternoon at the house, reading and doing puzzles and drinking hot chocolate.

I took Juliette out for a short walk around the neighborhood after she woke up…

And we found Santa!  Hey, if the kid doesn’t know any different, no sense in standing in that line at Nordstrom for two hours!

We headed in when the sun started to set and Elise offered to keep Juliette entertained while the finishing touches were put on dinner.

We shared a big Christmas meal and then all three girls piled into the tub for bathtime.  They streaked through the house when they were done, laughing hysterically as they left their towels in a pile on the floor and clamored upstairs to find their pajamas.  The sight of Juliette running behind Morgan and Elise with such glee, her dimpled bottom jiggling as she shouted and giggled – what a gift.

Friday was another day, another park – we spent the morning at Columbia Park, teeter-tottering and swinging and sliding.

Shane and Juliette took marathon naps in the afternoon while I played Disney Frozen Bingo and Frozen Memory and Frozen Matching with the girls.  Elise got a microscope for Christmas and we spent a little while “doing experiments”.  That face!  She’s so grown up these days, but such a wonderful goofball at the same time.

We went out for dinner at a local brewpub and then everyone grabbed a few last snuggles with Juliette before it was time for us to hit the road back to Seattle.

I’m telling you, the 7:30 pm departure is money – Juliette fell asleep a few miles into the ride, we made record time in the absence of any traffic, and then she easily settled into her crib when we got home.  Shane and I played a couple of rounds of Mario Kart before heading to bed ourselves, thankful for a chance to veg after a busy couple of days.

I woke up a little blue on Saturday, already missing my family and feeling the funk of post-holiday letdown, so Shane suggested that we get out and do something special.  We decided to head downtown to take a whirl on the carousel in Westlake Plaza.  Juliette was a little skeptical when we first got on – she gave the pole a shake, found out the horse didn’t spring back and forth like the one at the playground, and promptly decided she wanted to get off.  But oh, the look on her face when the carousel started spinning and her horse started galloping up and down, she dug it.  She smiled like mad, exclaiming “whoooaaa, whoooaaa, whoooaaa!” over and over and over.  Add this to our list of Christmas traditions!

From Westlake, we walked over to the Sheraton to check out the annual gingerbread house display.  I can’t believe the time (and sugar!) that must go into some of these!

Juliette was mildly impressed by the gingerbread village – she was more excited about being allowed to run free in the lobby after just four short blocks in her stroller.  There’s no stopping this kid.

We walked by the Fairmont Olympic Hotel on our way back to the car and decided to pop into their cozy lobby to say hi to Santa and check out the tree.

Cheers to a holiday filled with very little naughty and SO MUCH NICE.

Although I’d pay good money for a day of 80-degree temps, it really does feel like the most wonderful time of the year around here.  December has been packed of merry-making as we’ve filled our weekends with our favorite Christmastime traditions.

The annual trek out to Mountain Creek tree farm in North Bend has become our family’s marker that Christmas is a-comin’, and this year was pretty perfect as tree hunts go.  The sun was shining, the snow was glistening, and Juliette had a grand time traipsing among the trees, some of which were just her size.

We settled on a 6-foot Grand Fir without too much ado, Shane did the honors, and we were off!

Ok, we weren’t really off just yet, as it takes us four times as long to securely rope the tree to the roof of our Civic as it does to actually cut it down.  Luckily, Jules was there to supervise, as she guzzled warm apple cider from the sidelines.

And then we were off!

After one more picture.

We strung lights and hung ornaments on the tree that afternoon while A Charlie Brown Christmas piped through the speakers.  I love, love, love the warm glow of a well-lit tree.  Makes me want to pot an indoor tree and string lights on it to keep that glow going year-round (Shane said no).

Juliette was pretty taken with the tree at first, pulling off any ornaments that were within arm’s reach, giving the lights a nerve-racking tug now and then.

I let her hold my little plastic angel, thinking she couldn’t harm it.  She proceeded to bite the wings right off the poor guy.  Thus, there are no longer any ornaments on the bottom third of the tree…

A couple of weeks ago we gathered with the gang for our annual fondue party.  But first, the annual pre-fondue 5k at Seward Park, as a preemptive calorie burn!

As Shane and I are two of the few lucky owners of a fondue set, we’re tasked each year with doing one of the cheese pots.  The first year was not so good, as we rushed the melting process ended up with one giant cheese blob.  But now, after several years of practice, we speak Gruyere.  Shane’s a certified cheese whiz.

It was a wild night, as nearly 20 adults and 10 kids ate and laughed and chased each other through Jack and La Verne’s house.  This fondue party, with the cheese and the chocolate and Ronda’s homemade marshmallows, is another one of our very crucial Christmastime happenings – the holidays wouldn’t be the same without it.  Juliette’s fully on board.

Shane and I snuck out one Friday night for a kid-free evening with my coworkers for our annual holiday party.  Good cocktails, good conversation, and this hottie in an elf hat.  Nice.

The next day I set out with Nance and La Verne for a solid 22 hours of kid-freeness for Ladies Weekend 2014.  The three of us started this tradition of getting away for some R and R in 2011 but had to skip it last year, as La Verne’s and my babes were still so little (and needy).  But when I asked La Verne last month if she was ready for a night away, she responded with a resounding YES.  The dads were cool with hanging at home with the little ones, so we booked a room at Cedarbrook Lodge in nearby SeaTac, scheduled our spa treatments, and packed our bags!  We spent the afternoon shopping at the Supermall and then made it to the hotel just in time to check in for our massages and facials.  We ate a leisurely dinner (oh, the luxury of a leisurely meal!), raided the hotel lounge’s supply of free ice cream and malt balls, and then settled into our room for a night of Haagen Dasz and chick flicks.  Dirty Dancing was playing on Bravo, so we spent two hours giggling like schoolgirls over Patrick Swayze’s bulging muscles and gyrating hips.  It felt like a high school sleepover, which was kind of awesome – there aren’t many instances these days when I feel younger than I actually am.  Sleeping in until 8:00 the next morning and waking to a quiet, foggy bit of wonderland was also amazing (I know, “wonderland” in SeaTac?  It’s true!).

We had breakfast at the hotel and spent a long time talking about family and faith and priorities and contentedness (Nance was channeling her inner Oprah!), and then it was time to grab a few malt balls for the road and get back to Seattle.

Juliette was quick to run into my arms when I walked in the door, which made my break all the sweeter.  She and Shane had fared pretty well – the dads and kids had eaten dinner together the evening before, Juliette had slept through the night, she was dressed and happy when I got home.  The weekend was such a success, in fact, that there’s talk of this becoming a quarterly rather than annual tradition…

We spent one clear evening checking out the lights at Gene Coulon Park in Renton.  Juliette roamed up and down the path, excited by the big glowing candy canes and the opportunity to run free after dark.

I had high hopes for church and brunch and maybe a Santa Scouting this past Sunday, but Juliette woke up with copious amounts of snot flowing from her nose, so we decided instead to declare it a huddle day, to make pancakes and enjoy our tree before the needles start dropping like flies.

We let Juliette open a couple of gifts in the afternoon, since she has more than enough to tear into on Christmas morning.  She’s been using this box as a bench for the past two weeks and was amazed to find that there was actually something inside of it!

Looking forward to trying out these paint brushes and paint cups with her on our next rainy afternoon at home together.

Shane got a Nintendo for Christmas (from…himself?), and while Juliette isn’t quite ready for Mario Kart, she was pretty taken with the controller – we didn’t even have the TV on, but she pushed those buttons and jiggled that joystick for a good 15 minutes.

I spent this evening baking a few goodies and making sure every last gift is wrapped and tagged – tomorrow we head to Portland for a few days with family.  Happy, happy holidays, friends!

I’m a little late with this post, as I’ve had a tough time putting my finger on the past month’s developments – changes seem to be coming more gradually these days, or at least more subtly since those thrilling first steps.  I know there’s a lot going on in that wild-haired head of hers and I’m sure she’s dying to be able to put words to her thoughts and wants, but Juliette and I aren’t speaking the same language just yet.  She spends a lot of time right now wandering around the house, pointing up at countertops and tabletops and cupboards, saying “Eh?  Eh?  Eh?  EEEEHHHHH???!!!”.  I offer her everything she could possibly be asking for, with the exception of my phone or my hot cup of coffee (which of course, are the items she’s after), so we compromise and I hand her an apple from the fruit bowl, which she happily grabs, takes one bite of, and then throws on the floor.  Toddlerhood is fun.

Honestly though, communication breakdowns aside, I do love hanging out with that kid.  And her increasing independence has its perks, like she hardly needs my help at mealtime anymore.  Check out her mad spoon skills!

Cleanup takes a little effort, but her aim improves day by day, and that avocado facial keeps her skin oh-so-soft.

Thankfully, she still loves the tub and is amenable to being hosed down after meals.  She’s definitely a water-baby – I can’t wait to get her back in the pool for her January swim lessons.

She’s full of silly little quirks and gestures, like the way she grabs anything rectangular and holds it up to her ear like a phone – a tupperware lid, the TV remote, whatever cards she swipes from my wallet when I’m not looking.  Shane and I aren’t sure where she picked this up, since we rarely use our phones to actually talk, but there are times when she babbles so intently that it’s like she really believes there’s someone on the other end of whatever she’s holding.

She’s go-go-going as much as ever – I can usually coax her into the stroller if she’s set up with a snack and a sippy cup of warm milk, but for the most part, she wants to be out and about.  Shane took her to the bakery last weekend and she insisted on getting out of the stroller and walking the mile back home (which took about 45 minutes, bless Shane’s heart…).  She loves the little tricycle our neighbors gave to us – her feet don’t quite reach both pedals, so she holds on tight while I give her a push around the driveway.

We desperately miss our summer park adventures and often talk about exploring new coffeeshops and restaurants, but always return to our tried-and-true favorites, passing many a morning at the Columbia City Bakery…

And then stopping to say hello to the Nutcracker next door.

We head over to Tutta Bella and have pizza for dinner more often than any responsible adult should.  Jules loves their meatballs, and I love their happy hour glasses of champagne.

We usually spend Friday mornings with our little buddies, braving the cold for the sake of being able to run around and get some fresh air.

I’ve mentioned recently that there are days when Juliette makes me batty with frustration and impatience, but there are also days like today, when she couldn’t possibly be any sweeter.  She laid it on thick today, wrapping her arms around me several times and laying her head on my shoulder for a good warm snuggle, bringing her socks and shoes to me when it was time to go out and then sitting still while I put them on (you have no idea what a treat this is), even coming up behind me and patting my back as I kneeled on the floor to wipe up some spilt milk.  She must have heard me complaining to Shane last night after she and I had battled over dinner and bath and toothbrushing and pajamas, “I do everything for her, and she gives me nothing!”  I take it back, baby.  You give me such abundant joy, such deep-seated fulfillment as I feel the weight of you in my lap and run my fingers through those soft, wispy pigtails.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I’m finding that motherhood brings out both the best and the worst in me.  There are days when I surprise myself with my selflessness or my gentleness or my super-human strength as I lug a wriggling toddler and two bags of groceries across a parking lot because I forgot to park the car near the shopping cart drop-off (rookie mistake).  There are days when I run wild with Juliette on the playground, following her up the steps and down the slide and back again, and again, and again, playing through the monotony because to her, the up-downs never get old.  Then we head home and I read her the same book eight times over, because that silly bear in I Want My Hat Back is her favorite and storytime is one of the few chances I get to hold my busy girl extra-close.   There are days when she devours her broccoli quiche and her sweet potatoes and her homemade coconut-almond bars, politely signing “more” and “please” after each course, and I pat myself on my back for raising such a healthy, well-mannered little girl.

And then…there are those other kinds of days.  Days when she tosses her steamed vegetables and roasted chicken on the floor, so I throw up my hands and let her have a banana for dinner.  Days when I lay all the blankets and pillows on the living room floor with the pretense of wanting to snuggle, but in reality just praying that if I give her a big enough cup of Cheerios, she’ll leave me alone and let me doze for a precious few minutes.  Days when I altogether lose my shit.  Like the day we went to the zoo and it rained and rained, so I called it quits and we headed to the car where she whined and kicked as I wrestled her into her carseat.  Buckles finally secure, stroller folded into the trunk, my back completely soaked, I handed her a pouch of her favorite pear-pea puree for the ride home, expecting a little gratitude, but instead watching her grabby hands squeeze two-thirds of the green goo down the front of her shirt.  Horns sprouted from my head as I angrily yelled, “BABY, NO!!!  STOP!!!  NO, NO, NO!”.  She was momentarily startled into silence, her lip quivering and her eyes wide with fear.  Then she burst into one of the saddest wails I’ve ever heard.  I think I cried most of the way home, too, embarrassed and ashamed that I had lost my cool and become that crazy, shouting mom I’ve seen (and admittedly judged) so many times before.  And yesterday…ooofff.  Bad weather and a lack of motivation on my part kept us housebound, and after the sixth ransacking of the kitchen cupboards and the third meltdown over not being allowed to play in the fridge, I’d had enough.  “JULIETTE GRACE!  QUIT YOUR CRYING!”  I was done, sick of the messes and the whining and the complete lack of personal space.  I put her down for her afternoon nap at 9 am, partly because she seemed tired, but partly because I just couldn’t stand to be around her anymore.  Which sounds so awful, especially when I had just spent three days at work looking forward to Mama-Jules Thursday.  But did she not read the memo about snuggling together under piles of blankets, contentedly playing Legos while I took a shower?  Or was I suffering from my usual delusions of quiet grandeur and coming up short on patience when reality set in?  Yeah, patience…not my forte.  But apparently kind of essential if I’m going to make it through toddlerhood without turning into the Wicked Witch of the Pacific Northwest.  Craaaaaap.

The upside? At least she doesn’t hold grudges.