Walker..Texas Ranger...

you knew it had to happen..iona is walking..she has been walking with the assistance of furniture, ernie, us and her fabulous radio flyer wagon for quite awhile...but now she is free range! in the end it seemed to take just one evening with her new friend lorenzo (and his fabulous parents marcella and kevin) to give her hte inspiration she needed...lorenzo is a bit older and walks like a champ (and now scales the furniture too!) and after watching him all evening iona decided she was ready...she is now about 50/50 walking and crawling...crawling is still faster but everyday she becomes more determined to walk all the time...we take her for a spin in the hallway of our building most nights before bedtime...she has regular stops including the elevator, the window overlooking the back yard and our neighbor's doormat...she loves the gnome and mushroom

we actually thought we could escape purchasing more shoes..we thought her sweet robot monster robeez would be good, even great, for walking..one day into the adventure they looked as if they had been eaten by a cat so we had to step up and get some sturdier big girl shoes... and that is when we learned that big girl shoes are expensive! jaclyn recommended stride rite, other friends said see kai run...all of which run $40-60..i am not begrudging my girl good comfortable shoes..this is a lesson everyone should value as early in life as possible..but little feet grow fast AND iona is a water and filth fiend...so i could just picture her sassy new leather shoes covered in lake muck and soaked through...and that is when i found keen's for kids...those funky hybrid water shoes (hugely popular in our town...)..the price was similar but they love wet and filth...a perfect match...of course she screamed bloody murder the first day we put them on but now has become fairly used to them..they are still a bit clunky for her but it is nice to know she won't slice her feet open swimming or wandering the world...now if we could just get her to accept her bike helmet all would be great!

summer has finally arrived here (although the frost free date is not until the weekend)..we have been swimming several times already the lake is still cold!) and matt has been out in the kayak already...iona cannot get enough of the water...cold and chattering she will still yell when we take her out...she also found her first fossil when we were out last week...perhaps the start of a great career....we are set for a great summer..a new farm share, swimming holes galore, a new PFD on the way so iona can come kayaking with us and our craigslist bike trailer is working out great!!! it is light and easy to pull and we have already used it several times to go to the grocery store and will soon take a weekend ride to the farmer's market...we also have a couple of trips planned...to see the fellmans in philly, a trip to NYC and a long stint in Maine in august (one strange perk of my new job is a ton of vacation time...i plan to use it!!)

we totally missed posting pics from her first birthday... here are the cupcakes mom and oma made! they were actually quite easy but after frosting several dozen we were on a weird sugar high and felt quite sick...the party was really great..all the fellman's came up to help celebrate and oma and opa came from texas..our girl had a great time and received very thoughtful gifts...books and toys and jammies and the wagon! we still can't quite believe everyone made it a whole year...we are definitely seeing who our girls will be...she is funny and weird and sweet and loves people (and dogs..and water)...
life could not be any better....except maybe while eating peanut butter.....

music makes the people come together...

we are quickly approaching iona's first birthday...it is crazy for us although i am sure for her certain things just aren't happening fast enough...we are SLOWLY finding a routine and this allows a small bit of sanity to creep back into our world...she will now go to bed fairly easily (barring teething)...i am sure there are a whole slew of factors contributing to this but it all seemed to happen when we bought a very cool new CD to play her at night..it is called 'the planet sleeps' and it is a compilation of songs (some lullabies, some just pretty and soothing) from around the world..the music seems to work wonders and iona gets to hear new languages and sounds.....in general we try and avoid music targeted just to kids...i am a bit terrified of children's music (and dolls and sock monkeys)...it often just seems oddly pitched and repetitive...there is so much incredible music in the world it seems a shame to only play one genre for a kid...we DO own a couple of They Might Be Giants albums that were made with kids in mind..but really it is hard to tell it from their other albums (and at least when the alphabet of nations is stuck in your head you are learning about geography)....iona does seem to love all kinds of music...currently she really gets down to the 'Democracy now' theme song..and the soundtrack from mary poppins (although you kind of have to be dancing along with it for her to truly be interested)....we are also soon to introduce some zydeco into her day...in the end i think music has been such a huge part of both matt and my lives that we can't imagine it not having a starring roll in iona's...of course she will never leave her favorite record on the radiator and then still try and play it but that is progress for you....

matt also wanted me to post a video of our girl...she has some new skills and one in particular is her love for removing things from containers...this clip demonstrates her love of facial tissue (and this extends to toilet paper)..i let her continue to completion in this exercise specifically for matt because i knew it would drive him insane(he has a few mess issues...)...i think we just recently used up the last of the free range tissues....

i don't want to make toys..i want to be a dentist..

iona now has teeth(two on the bottom, two coming in on the top..)...it is strange to me what a transformation it makes in her face and often, as they are still coming in, her demeanor..she has also, like herbie the elf, become fascinated with teeth...given the opportunity she will shove her tiny fingers into my mouth to explore what must be the finished product (her technique quite like many dentists i have visited) and she will snatch the toothbrush away and happily chew on it (which i am sure will not be the case when she actually needs to brush her new chompers...)..she has already become more adept at chewing and thus her diet has expended to include more crunchy things (which before teeth were enjoyable for here but stressful for us) and i am thrilled that as a still nursing mom she is thus far using her biting powers for good...

the downside, of course, new teeth hurt! i vaguely recall the appearance of my wisdom teeth in my early twenties and it was unpleasant so i feel bad for the girl...sleep has been a rare commodity in our house of late but there is plenty of oragel baby (now thats a party)...thanks to matt's ability to cast some sort of strange sleep spell on her we all got 5 hours last night...hopefully we have turned a corner (but not the corner to bitetown)...

we recently returned from visiting family in said warm south (which is the main reason the winter doesn't seem so long)...it was great to see everyone and iona cultivated her love for toys that sing songs (none of which can be found at our house)..my uncle holds the prize for producing the most annoying and amazing one - a 2.5 foot chili pepper that sings 'hot, hot, hot' while it dances and plays the maracas..it is truly a marvel of modern technology...

we also saw some of the other babies in our world...my cousin's daughter, and my beautiful friend beth's daughter maggie...maggie and iona seemed to co-exist well..eating rocks and leaves together..the road to true friendship..

back home the weather has been strange...-15 last week for a couple of days and then 40 for the last two...it is nice to get a hint of spring to keep you from permanetely moving south...we have had good snow too so there have been several days of good snowshoeing (despite the near-rumble we had with the cross-country skiers, who knew there was such a faction between winter sport enthusiasts)..today it is near 40 and cloudy but we have thrown open the windows and will be out the door soon...ernie loves this type of weather because the snowmelt reveals all sorts of yummy treats....pizza bones, half eaten chicken wings (apparently alot of people eat chicken wings while the wait for the bus, the bus stop outside our house is always lousy with chicken wings)..he even once found a hamburger and a dead cat...treasure!

her highness beckons...more adventures to follow....

the mighty have fallen..

ahh yes..just shy of the new year and we are already delinquent on sharing iona's adventures with the world (again with the crushing pressure)...does it count to say we somehow lost the USB cable for our camera and it is PACKED..literally packed with adorable holiday photos of our girl... how about if i throw in that we actually bought a new videocamera prior to xmas and it was a HUGE fiasco (do NOT buy a Canon video camera if you have a mac...it is two steps shy of impossible to download and view your videos...the swearing and yelling were a fun addition to our holiday as all of this was discovered christmas eve!) that resulted in us just waving the white flag and returning it...the upside is that we now have an 8 gb card for our camera but of course no USB cord..dammit! i did just purchase a replacement cord so new photos and the whole holiday skinny are soon to come...no really...until then here is something to keep you coming back...

happy holidays...

iona weighed in at just shy of 20 lbs and is just short of 30 inches at her recent checkup...so she seems to have definitely inherited her father's giant genes..hopefully she will make it to 5 or 6 before she is taller then me...i must say i still remember the day i became taller then my mother and i was very proud of my accomplishment (however passive it may have been on my part)...so i suppose i can't begrudge her that rite of passage...




winter seems to have arrived here...we got our first real snow with more on the way soon...we are all happy but no one more so then ernie...for a dog that was born and raised in florida he can't get enough of the snow...iona has been out in the elements since just a few days after her arrival and seems nonplussed by it all...we are hoping she will choose the outdoors as her playground but only time will tell..until then she is at the mercy of her hiking, fresh-air loving, snowman
building parents.....






soon we are off to celebrate her first christmas...several trips (her first plane ride!) and lots of family....she hasn't even tried to pull down the tree (of course we tied it to the wall with a neck level garrote length of fishing line...and as a result have just left the lights on day and night)..she has been very helpful wrapping gifts (how do they always find the scissors?) and we are sure she is anxiously waiting her first visit from santa (she asked for a new xylophone...and she has been very good)...no mall santa visits for our girl though...this seems like such a frightening thing for a small child (seriously they never look happy)....not to mention the idea of plunking her down on the lap of a stranger in a costume that must rarely be cleaned makes me itch just thinking about it..it crosses even my very high threshold for germs (along with chewing on the dog's tail) ..she is still a bit young for my family's holiday traditions..lumpia and chex mix (i know it DOES say merry christmas)..but she might have fun making tamales which matt's mom has expressed in an interest in helping me do...i LOVE christmas (but NOT christmas music)..the twinkly lights, the sparkly snow, the sense of hope and kindness that you can just see out of the corner of your eye...to have a small, joyous person around who is seeing it all for the first time makes it even better...and it doens't hurt that she finds shiny paper and empty boxes to be unbelievably exciting...

childhood advice....

iona saw her first real snow this week (no this is not a picture of her in the snow..but look how happy she is that we are talking about it)....we got 7 or 8 inches on thursday....as we took her out for her inaugural romp (for which ernie was so much more excited) it reminded me of when i was a kid and my mom would send us out for fresh snow to make slushes with....on one occasion we proudly returned with a tray of pretty yellow snow that we assumed had been magically flavored by the winter fairies (thus saving my mom the effort)...i couldn't have been more then 3-4 and i still remember my mom emphatically telling us 'don't eat yellow snow!' which i feel is really good advice for a kid....so this got me thinking about other good advice we receive when we are young...'never trust a fart' seems smart (thanks bud!) and the 30 second rule is good to learn young (although it takes experience to understand the subtle yet important variations of this rule e.g. 30 seconds in your kitchen different then 30 seconds on the street)..in an effort to balance iona's education i am sending out a request for other useful advice...it may be a while before it sinks in for her but it is never too early to start....

funny haha and funny peculiar

matt picked out this hat for iona and i knit/felted it...we are endlessly amused by it because it bears a striking resemblance to that of sgt schulz on hogan's heroes..strange costuming choice i know but i am a child of the 70s..and so strange that i was allowed to watch that tv show...






also something that we do for our own amusement at the expense of our child (perhaps she understands this better then we think..hence the crying and carrying on) giving your kid a fauxhawk in old navy while we waited in line -i can't remember if we actually put water on her head or it was just sweaty....we laughed for five minutes....yeah she totally knows...