The Artist II

I'm just going nuts for Addie's drawings lately. She spent Friday night doing full size faces on her easel, this one is of me. Her noses are my favorite - big exclamation points right in the middle. Here are a few other selections from the past month.


fuzzy face


a dancing princess


a bevy of centipedes


a shell


a duck. she's learning to color things in now too.


and a spider. This one I want to put in a frame.

Another Day at the Museum

The weather has been a little weird lately. Cloudy cold, then humid. We bagged going to the pool on Saturday and risked the potential heat in Pasadena to revisit the KidSpace Museum. It's really more of a discovery center than a museum and Addie got to explore all sorts of rocks, shells and yes, even a fine pelt. I like this photo because she looks like a sales lady at the fur counter at Bergdorfs. I keep thinking of fun places to go when my Mom is in town in a few weeks and then I remember that having a baby is less of a vacation and more like house arrest.

Sunday I was treated to an amazing baby shower hosted by Jamie and Jeannine with decadent food, a little champagne for the pregnant lady, sweet gifts and most importantly lots of time to gab with my lady friends. I loved every minute of it. This is my last week at work until January which means there must be a baby coming soon! Addie is ready as she's dragged the bassinet into her room as well as the infant car seat. Baby Doll sleeps face down and shrouded with a wash cloth while Elmo keeps the car seat warm. I gently told Addie that her baby sister can only sleep on her back and she can't have any blankets in her bed, especially not covering her face. Addie promptly told me that her doll was a toy and it was perfectly fine for her to sleep any way she wanted. Well then!

Who does she look like?

Me, at my third birthday


Cap, I'm guessing, is three here. GranJanne?


I am becoming more and more curious and excited to find out who Addie's little sister is going to look like. If she pops out an Inuit, then we know she'll transform into a blond-haired princess like her big sister. As for Addie herself, I think she's a mix of both Cap and I. What do you think?

Getting Ready

I've been a little in the denial mindset. The baby isn't due until Fall - that's ages away. There isn't really anything we need to do to get ready for the new baby - just the car seat and the bassinet, right? But once I started to bust out with a list, it grew longer and longer. Sure, we don't need to buy a lot of stuff, but we still need to locate it from the bowels of the garage. We spent a little of last weekend soaking breastmilk-stained onesies, bibs and burp clothes in Oxy Clean overnight. This weekend we managed to uncover a few items including the car seat and the bassinet as well as other key items that were safely stored in a box called Infant Gear. Everything is washed and put away, car seat is by the door, bassinet by my bedside. While unpacking, I came across one teeny weeny newborn sized diaper that I had saved from Addie and was confounded by how small it is and the recollection that even this micro-diaper will seem gigantic on a newborn. Remind me I need to add diapers to my To Do list!

I'm officially full term now with 3 weeks to go until my due date. I hold on to everyone's story about how their baby came early, but I know from my own experience that I need to mentally prepare for late when every day after is an eternity. Are you kidding me? I'm still pregnant?! This time, I won't be working past my due date. What was I thinking? I remember being in the elevator on May 18, 2006 at The Standard Hotel downtown for a work event when a stranger asked me when I was due and I said, "today."

I have two more weeks left of work and then one week off (maybe, the baby will come early?!?). I'm thinking I should take myself to the movies every day that week, get pedicures and lounge around Urth Cafe in West Hollywood sipping iced hibiscus tea and reading mystery novels. Perhaps if I make elaborate plans with my freedom, it will be Murphy's Law and the baby will arrive a little bit early. Not too early, just a little bit.

I want to go to a museum

Mommy: "Do you want to go the beach today?"

Addie: "No, I want to go a museum."

Sunday morning was sunny, warm, clear skies and gorgeous. The perfect day to go to the beach. Only Addie didn't want to. She said it would be too windy. After much convincing, we got in our swim gear (as if we go in the water but we pretend), made pb&j sandwiches, packed our beach bag and gathered the sand toys. Off we went until we hit the west side, a bank of dense, low cloud cover and a temperature that read 68 degrees. Um, what happened to sunny skies? Darn it if it Addie wasn't right! So we turned around on PCH and headed back to sunny mid-city and to Addie's original plan. Luckily she hasn't figured out the phrase, I told you so.

We hadn't been to see the new Renzo Piano designed Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum yet where, incidentally, my firm did all the engineering. LACMA has a cool (and free!) kids membership called NextGen which gets her and a parent into the museum at no charge until she's 18. Awesome.


Addie ran though the 99 cent store installation . . .


. . . ran through the lamp post installation . . .


. . . and ran after the pigeons.

She thankfully didn't run while inside the museum. We already were reprimanded for having her on Cap's shoulders and for not holding her hand while in 25 feet of the Jeff Koon's giant blue balloon dog should she make a mad dash for it and defile it's shiny surface with peanut butter fingers.

I'm really glad we ended up at BCAM, and next time we'll listen when she has an idea for a weekend adventure!

Check out a few more pics from our museum outing.

3 Week Progress Report

Isn't that a nice note from Addie's teacher? Addie seems happy and when Cap drops her off she says "Bye Dada" and hurries into her classroom. When I pick her up she's in the playground catching caterpillars with a small group of bug lovers or drawing with chalk. She is starting to talk about her new friends which is great to hear. I can't tell you how different pre-school is from our daycare. I feel a little like Addie is in college or something. She has "work" and, as she often tells me, you can't be loud in the classroom. There wasn't even a real "inside" at her daycare. Even the term teacher is brand new. She told me that big girls learn things.

I am hopeful that since this note was written, we have overcome the accident problem. You have to be potty trained to start in the 3-4 year old classroom, and we sent her into her new school knowing that she was almost but not quite there. We haven't used a diaper or washed poopy undies in a week. Fingers crossed that we are in the clear! This will make us a diaper free household for about a month until the new lil pooper arrives in September.

Another thing I love about her new school is that she's an Adelaide. On her first day at daycare 3 years ago, Andi asked me how to spell Adelaide and she seems so flustered, I just said, "Oh well, we call her Addie." And there it was. She was always and only Addie there. Now, however I have the chance to use her real name and let her nickname catch on organically. I ordered labels with Adelaide, her cubby is labeled the same and her art projects are sent home with her real name spelled out. If someone asks her name, she'll even say Adelaide. We still call her Addie, but it's nice to know that she's an Adelaide too.

Tomorrow she has her first field trip to a lagoon in Redondo Beach. I considered chaperoning, but I'd pretty much be useless since I can barely bend down and certainly can't run around.

San Diego (again)!

We returned to San Diego last weekend to celebrate Cousin Esme's wedding and dance the night away with family. Esme looked gorgeous and it was so great to see so much family! Addie I think had the most fun of anyone there. She partied for 5 hours and we had to lure her off the dance floor after the last song with a beach ball that a groomsman kindly offered her.

After a yummy brunch with family on Saturday morning, we explored the science center and hung out with my friend Karen, her husband and her super duper cute almost one year old daughter Sofia. Addie is gaga for babies. She loved meeting her 9 month old second cousin Octavia at the wedding and (s)mothered Sofia - washing her hair, bringing her toys, feeding her baby food and brushing her hair. Addie is getting pretty excited for her little sister. I'm hoping I can just lounge around on the sofa watching Weeds while Addie takes care of the new baby.

Sunday we said goodbye to baby Sofia and headed out to Sea World. It was fine. There were shows. I got drenched by a dolphin, ate ice cream and generally felt that one time was enough for me. I have also renewed my love of the Long Beach aquarium which beats Sea World hands down in that department. If you go to Sea World, skip the aquarium stuff and stick with the animal shows. Or just go to Disneyland.

Check out more pictures from our weekend in San Diego here.