Thankful for a long weekend

We had a great, long Thanksgiving weekend. Boy did this family need a break from the rat race, and we embraced four days off from work with all the laziness skills we possess. Unfortunately I didn't manage to take my camera out of my purse, so no photos to capture the memories...I guess this blog post will have to suffice.

First off, the big development is that early last week Sonia woke up one day and decided she could really walk. Not just the handful of steps like in the last video we posted, but actually walking from one end of the apartment to the other (and, yes, I appreciate that in our apartment that is still not that many steps). It was amazing how dramatic the change was -- one day she's stumbling to take 3 steps, and the next day she figured out how to stand up in the middle of the room and just started walking around. She's still not that stable on her feet, so I think she has fallen more in the last 5 days than in the previous 12 months combined. The first time she walked across the room to Sameer and raised her arms up to be picked up he asked me, "Do you think I'll ever be happier than this?" Maybe, but it was pretty darn cute.

In the spirit of one step forward, two steps back, Sonia has taken to waking up again nearly every night. I'm not sure if it's switching her entirely to cow's milk, teething, the temperature changing, or something else, but the net effect is that four nights out of five we're getting up in the middle of the night (and typically caving at some point to give her a bottle to get her to go back to sleep). I now remember why I vowed that I would not end my maternity leave until Sonia was sleeping through the night...it is very hard to be up for an hour in the middle of the night and then be coherent at work the next day. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time this weekend catching up on sleep.

As far as Thanksgiving itself, we had a great day celebrating it at Sanjay and Melissa's -- they hosted an amazing meal for 28 (!) people. It was the perfect day...we showed up, we ate until we couldn't eat anymore, and then somehow we managed to leave without doing any dishes. What great house guests we are. Especially because we brought our toddler who gets scared whenever someone new acts like they might pick her up, who then welcomed everyone by spending the first 20 minutes at the house crying. Thankfully, by the end of the night she had warmed up to the crowd, so at least we looked somewhat truthful when we kept telling everyone "I swear she's not always like this."

The rest of the weekend was a blur of errands and laziness. Notably, we started our search for a new car...who would have thought we would still have my old 1995 Honda Accord in 2007? I am tempted to keep it until it literally dies by the side of the road since it is maybe the only big frugal thing I have ever done in my life. Unfortunately, as things are beginning to break on the car, the prospect of it dying by the side of the road is becoming more realistic by the day.

Still no real talking from Sonia, although she has cemented "go go" as her first pseudo word (it means dog, and has effectively replaced "fluffy puppy" as the name of her various stuffed dogs). We were in a baby store that had this print of various dogs (sounds tacky, but trust me that it was cute). When Sonia saw it on the wall she started to say "go go" over and over, and what do you know...pretty soon Sameer was telling the woman behind the counter that we would buy it. Now it's hanging on her wall as proof that she has daddy wrapped around her little finger. I figure if one pseudo word can get her a print she sees in a store, then once she starts talking for real it's only a matter of time before she talks Sameer into a real dog. :-)

Back to the real world tomorrow...how may days until Christmas?

Step by step

One more quick post for tonight.... For a few weeks, Sonia has been doing a lot more standing and even the tentative step before sitting back down. But, in the last couple of days she has started to occasionally string together a few steps, which I finally caught on video tonight. Not surprisingly, it is only for Fluffy Puppy that she will actually walk...to get to the rest of us she is fine to slowly make her way crawling. I suspect it won't be long before we're chasing after her!

Birthday Celebrations

We've had a very busy time since Sonia's birthday! On Thursday Sonia went to the doctor for her 1-year checkup. She weighed in at 21 lbs, 10 oz (61st percentile), her height was 29" (48%), and her head circumference was 46.5cm (87%!). So, she continues to maintain her near-average size combined with a huge noggin. This helps explain why she only has one hat that actually fits her. Five vaccinations later (poor baby), she was done...no more visits for another 6 months.

On Friday Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Kevin arrived for the weekend. Sonia decided the weekend everyone was visiting would be a great time to exhibit maximum fussiness, so she proceeded to spend the better part of the night whining and showing off her "prune face" (it didn't help that tooth #5 is making its debut). On Saturday, we finally celebrated Sonia's first birthday with lots of friends and family in attendance. As you can see from the photo, Sonia was not a big fan of everyone singing her happy birthday and chose to immortalize this moment with tears. Remarkably, she refused to even try the cupcake, opting to celebrate with a barley teething biscuit instead. A very questionable call. But, while Sonia may not have been all smiles, the rest of us managed to have a good time (and plenty of cupcakes).

On Sunday it was my birthday, and we headed to the SF Zoo to enjoy some incredibly good weather and let Sonia see some real live animals since she is so enamored with the stuffed variety. Sonia enjoyed looking at the giraffes and the meerkats, but had one of her biggest meltdowns ever in the "Family Farm" petting zoo. Admittedly the goats there were a little aggressive when it came to asking for treats (including one who ate directly out of the vending machine that dispensed the food). After that, we wrapped up our visit and headed to the Cliff House for lunch. Since Sameer and I got engaged there nearly four years ago (time flies), it was fun to come back with the whole family and reflect on just how much has changed. We had champagne (and a sippy cup full of water) to celebrate our birthdays and Sonia was a very good sport for the whole meal (a plate full of strawberries helped).

Here's Sonia with Grandma and Grandpa right before their departure on Monday (Uncle Kevin had to leave us a day earlier). It was so much fun to have them all visit...can't wait until Christmas when we'll see them next!

One Year Later

Just a quick post to wish Sonia a happy first birthday! In some ways it's hard to believe it's been a whole year since we had her, and at the same time it's hard to remember what it was like before she was in our lives. We're planning on celebrating her birthday for real this weekend, but today we marked the occasion by giving her a few presents, including a new Sonia-sized chair. She quickly figured out how to climb onto it and sit on it like a little princess on her throne...too true.

Here is a picture of her from this morning, and below that is a picture of Sameer holding her an hour after she was born...what a difference a year makes!