The Easter bunny visited!

M aisy was very interested in these baskets and the goodies they held. We didn’t dye Easter eggs this year, but hope to next year.

Egg Fan

Bow Fan

Then we had a heat wave for about 3 days and Maisy enjoyed our “pool” in the front yard.

Oh Wow!

Maisy’s skills seem to surprise us each day. She loves DOGS and gets very very excited when she sees one. She knows the sign for dog, which is slapping your leg like you are calling a dog and she’ll do that if you even say the word dog. She says, Mama and Dada, she’s said Ball, and “Oh Wow”. Her favorite rambling these days is “odie-odie-odie-odie”. She signs all done, and waves hello a lot- and I mean a lot. She waves to the pictures in the hallway, she waves to everyone while we are out, she waves to the cats, to the trees, to the windows, etc. The all done sign and the wave look very similar. She also does those signs if she wants something, so they are kind of difficult to interpret. Maisy loves flowers and gets super excited if we are walking by a pretty flower and makes us stop to admire-it’s so cute. She’s going to make a wonderful dog catching gardener some day… I thought she was going to blow a gasket at Michael’s today in the silk flower section!! She didn’t seem to get that the flowers were fake…. She sure made a scene. Too cute.

Pig Tails?

Maisy is working so hard on getting her top to teeth. She still only has her two bottom ones. She is a drooling queen and has had some cranky days, but other than that she’s doing great! Not walking or standing independently yet, but getting more and more confident in her cruising and standing with only one hand holding on. Cross our fingers Maisy has still yet to encounter her first cold- and she has been sleeping through the night consistently for 3 months now. Life is pretty good.

We have been pretty lucky in April. I am now working part time from home for a non profit doing clinical research and Todd found a full time job in the city for a company called Heroku. YAY!

Those are all of our updates for now!!

Much love and more later- Todd, Becky and Maisy

let’s roll, dad!

A fter a short trip to REI and local bike shop, the Missing Link, I returned hands full with a child carrier, bike rack and helmet for little miss. It’s about time.

You can’t hear it in the video, but Maisy was laughing almost the whole time we were riding. She loved it, and I can’t wait to go on a longer ride – next time as a family. :)

“Hello There!”

We have had a major break through this week. Maisy slept through the night for the very first time. She didn’t do it the next night or the next, but we are working on it! We are doing what is called “sleep training”. We are no longer reinforcing night time waking with picking her up or with milk and the theory is that she will realize there is no need to get mom and dad up in the middle of the night because they can’t do anything for me anyway- and then she will just fall back to sleep and sleep like a little baby. Right?

Nap times have gotten a little bit more difficult now that Maisy can stand. She thinks it’s much more fun to have a standing party than to nap. She has also discovered the blinds that we had custom made for her room. She thinks they are perfect for sharpening her two tiny teeth on!

We had a very lovely first family Valentine’s Day together. Maisy made Todd a card. It was her first art piece.

Baby Painter

Maisy and Todd started the day with a nice book on the couch.

Reading time!

As Todd got laid off at the beginning of January, he is now working a temporary job in the city through the end of February. We hope that a full time position will come along soon! Maisy and I ventured into the city today to meet him for lunch. Meeting for lunch was such a treat. Todd doesn’t always get home before Maisy is in bed for the night, so it was good to give them a bit more time together. It helped that it was a beautiful day in the city and a fun day for a walk.

Later in the day Maisy and I met with Angie and Rowan at Lake Merritt for some play time in the park. It was the first time Maisy had been involved with duck and geese feeding. She thought it was okay, but then that one goose got a little too close and she started to get nervous.

hmm birds eating bread… interesting.

Tell that silly goose to back the duck up!

Maisy is a swing fiend- which is so adorable.

This is Maisy’s happy place

Maisy continues to become more steady when she pulls up on EVERYTHING. She is doing very well eating larger chunks of food and is feeding herself like a champ even though she only has her bottom two teeth. She’s gotten very quick too! It’s difficult to expect her to stay in one place these days. The good thing is that she understands when we tell her not to touch something and she so far respects that. We’ll see how that progresses.

She goes for her 9 month appointment the second week of March, so we’ll have more height and weight updates then.

Much love-
Todd, Becky and Maisy

Lasers in the eyes kinda hurt

F or those of you who haven’t heard, Todd took the plunge and got himself some bionic laser eyes. He is recovering well and can see almost perfectly. His vision should continue to improve. Right now his newest hobby is putting eye drops in his eyes and being amazed at all the stuff he can see unaided. He is especially thrilled about peripheral vision.

Maisy helped Daddy recover on Thursday when he got home from the eye zapper, uh I mean, doctor.

Daddy and Maisy hanging out

She seems to have noticed there is something just a bit off.

Where’s all that face jewelry?!!

Much love to all and more later!

Todd, Becky and Maisy

I went out to run an errand while Todd was at home and Maisy was taking a nap. This is a wonderful opportunity for me to cross some tasks off my list and usually I come home to a still sleeping Maisy. Today, Maisy must have not been all that tired, because I walk in the door and find- SUPER MAISY!

Todd had tucked Maisy’s purple blankie in the back of her pajamas and was flying her around. I was greeted at the door with giggles from Todd and big smiles from Maisy. It was too cute and I had to grab the camera.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Super Maisy!!

On another note, Maisy has broadened her horizons in the food department. She has now had butternut squash, pear, sweet potato and apple. So far I’ve been making all of her food and freezing the food in cubes to be defrosted before meal time. Just today we started her on three meals a day. She’s getting the hang of eating, but still seems as if she could take it or leave it. She’s definitely not one of those kids that screams for more and more, faster and faster.

While Maisy was taking her next “nap” (I use the term nap loosely because she actually did not sleep at all, but ended up playing with daddy), I was lucky enough to get to visit Alison, Maynard and new beautiful baby Mila in the hospital. Alison is doing amazingly well and Mila is a precious adorable little girl!

Sleeping baby Mila

Maisy is so excited to meet baby Mila. It’s so amazing to think that Maisy was this small just 6 months ago!!

She’s so tiny and sweet

It’s so fun to see all of our friends get married, have children and watch all the kids grow up together. It’s great to get to share the experience of parenthood with so many wonderful people.

Much love to all- Todd, Becky and Maisy

T oday was an amazing really warm day here in Berkeley. We took the opportunity to take a couple of trips outdoors. I took Maisy to the park in the middle of the day where she sat on my lap while we went swinging and sliding down the slide. She seemed to have a good time, but was good and tuckered out when we got home. Maisy went down for a nap.

When Maisy woke up we decided to take an evening stroll and did some geocaching. This is where people hide things in public places and post their coordinates online by GPS. So it’s like a big treasure hunt that anyone can partake in. We found two! It was really fun. Here we are after our second find of the day.

As we were walking back home Maisy found a lovely orange flower that she had to investigate.

After we got home, Maisy was just about ready for bed and Todd fired up the grill. We had yummy grilled chicken and fresh steamed veggies for dinner. A perfect end to a warm and fabulous day.

Much love to all- Todd, Becky and Maisy

A s Halloween is approaching, we decided to take Maisy to the pumpkin patch today. Uncle Steven joined us on our adventure! Here are some pictures from our day.

We went to a little cute pumpkin patch in Oakland/Piedmont just down the street from the old and beautiful Mountain View Cemetary- which we took a tour of before the pumpkin patch, just to get in the mood!

Maisy really seemed to enjoy pumpkin hunting and picked a very cute little pumpkin all for herself.

We were so inspired that when we got home we got to work on our very own graveyard and body guard “Jake” to sit on our porch.

Maisy is going to be a bunny this year for Halloween. We are going to go trick or treating with friends Rowan and Evan (both monkeys). We’ll be sure to post pictures of the big night!

Have a happy Halloween season!

Much love to all- Todd, Becky and Maisy

Our first trip on an airplane as a family

W e went up to Portland to attend a wedding and visit some family. The above picture is of Maisy as we de-planed in Oakland after we had returned from our trip. We think she knew we were on our way home.

We had a lovely time, rented a house and stayed together with Grandma and Grandpa (Still working on a name?) Matthews and Uncle Steve-O.

We were up in the Portland area to celebrate the wedding of Todd’s cousin Jason to Laura- Congratulations! While we were up there we had the chance to re-connect with my cousin Sean and his wonderful family (Debbie, Austin and Dylan). There we met with Grandpa Steve who was very happy to see Maisy for the first time.

During our first night in Portland, we visited with our friend Lisa in the Hawthorne neighborhood where she lives. Though I saw her a few months ago, it’s been nearly a year since Todd saw her last. It was great to catch up!

Maisy did great on the plane. She loved the sound and the movement. She did not do so well with driving around and meeting lots of new people. Poor Maisy is having a bout of colic! We hope it resolves soon. Maisy is pretty happy until about 6 or 7pm and then it’s a 3 hour soothe fest until we can get her settled for bed time.

All in all we had a great trip!

Much love to all- Todd, Becky and Maisy

The family at Kehoe Beach

The day was beautiful and warm so we decided to take a drive to the coast.

W e drove for more than two hours to a beach just north of Point Reyes named Kehoe Beach.

We had to hike in, which is just what we were looking for- a good walk and a bit of time to relax.

What kind of kid doesn’t love the beach- sand, sun and waves? Well the kind of kid like Maisy- that’s who! (Okay, granted she’s only an infant- but come on!) We walked 25 minutes to reach the beach from where we’d parked. We scouted out the perfect spot after 10 more minutes of walking and set ourselves up. Within seconds Maisy was protesting. We tried feeding her, distracting her, making her warmer and bouncing her. The only thing that worked was for me to stand half bouncing half dancing on the beach. Thank goodness I was holding a baby otherwise I would have looked like some strung out love child on the beach with horrible rhythm. We quickly realized this was going to be relaxing for no one. After about 10 minutes we decided we should pack up. So we packed up our goods we hiked in and set out for another 25 minutes back to the car and another 2 hours home.

Our outing didn’t go quite as planned- but we think it’s important to keep trying!

She’s been a bit grumpy since we’ve gotten home and the only two things that sooth her are me holding her in my arms while dancing to inappropriate hip-hop in the living room, or todd sitting in the glider rocking Maisy to the wonderful tune of purchased vacuum cleaner noise (thank you itunes!!).

So I type from Maisy’s room in the dark with vacuum sounds blasting in my left ear.

At least Maisy is happy!

Maisy in her Rain Forest

Life is starting to return to “normal”

W e have had a couple more weeks with many new adventures and firsts!

Since I’ve had a couple of questions about the pronunciation of Maisy- it’s said Mazey. Now that that’s out of the way- here is our update and some pictures.

Grandma and Grandpa J came to visit from New York when Maisy was 2 weeks old and that was a very exciting adventure. It was the first time Maisy had ever been to a restaurant. Jupiter in Berkeley was her very first dining experience. She did pretty darn well if you ask me!

The following week we drove down to LA to attend a baby shower. It was hot as heck in LA. The car ride both on the way there and on the way back went super smoothly. Luckily she just slept the whole way. While we were there Maisy was able to meet lots of new people. She had her first trip to Santa Monica 3rd street promenade and the boardwalk. She liked it. She also really enjoyed meeting Elijah, her big boy cousin, Uncle Rigo and Papa. She also loved to see Nana and Auntie again.

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top left: Maisy and big boy cousin Elijah, top right: Todd attempting to take Maisy swimming on July 12th, bottom left: On the boardwalk in Santa Monica, bottom right: Out to lunch on July 11th

Becky and Maisy at the pool- it’s her first bathing suit!

Last week we just got more into our “routine” if we can call it that. We have started to try to ensure she is awake for at least a half hour after each feeding during the day and Todd gives Maisy a bottle of milk every evening around 8 which is the beginning of her bedtime routine. She’s been sleeping for a good four hour stretch after we first put her down- then she wakes to feed again. It’s sometimes hard to get her back to sleep after that, so she often ends up in bed with us. Usually she’ll be asleep for another three to four hours- and wake up at about six or seven. If it’s a fantastic day, we can get her back to sleep- if not, it’s time to get up and make the coffee! She is definitely getting more fun. She is smiling and enjoying looking at toys and being played with by us. We sing and dance a lot with her. Those are Maisy’s hobbies for now. We went to the doctor last week about her belly button- it wasn’t drying up- and she is now up to 9 pounds (and her belly button is all good now too).

She had her very first bath on July 12th. She wasn’t super sure about it.

So we all just keep learning and growing together! It’s getting more and more fun everyday. We will have our first airplane adventure later this month when we go up to Oregon for a wedding and to meet some family and friends.

Much love-
Todd, Becky and Maisy