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She is growing up.  Santa is about the same.  What a difference a year makes.

(helps that she understands presents, now!)

Holidays at Home

The very best part of the holidays is getting to go home for a little over a week and see our families.  This second holiday season was especially fun, as Zoe gets really excited to see her grandparents on both sides, her aunts, and her cousins and other family members.

We made a little bit of progress on posing for pictures.  She will sometimes say cheese now, and if you are super quick you can catch her smiling for the camera.

This does not always work, and I am not always quick.

 

Despite the fact that everybody in New York seemed to have terrible colds and everyone in Michigan had the flu and we were lucky enough to all get both, we had a great visit.  Zoe is obsessed with looking at the pictures of sledding in the front yard.  She points and says "snow" and "me, mich?"  I am sure she would jump on a plane to Michigan with no hesitation. 


Here are a few more mostly successful posed and not so posed highlights:

 

 

Autumn Update

 

We're pent up here during our "hurrication"--(day 2 of no school today).   Zoe and I took a quick trip to Michigan to visit my grandmother, and made it back on the last flight in before the storm.  We've been lucky- still have power, with the only complaint being that our poor little tree in the backyard of our building looks like the leaves were squeezed off!  We haven't done any exploring but it is safe to say that fall has come to an abrupt end with the stripping of leaves off the trees!

As we wait to see how the city will fare, and what will become of our subway system over the next couple days, I thought it was a good time for a brief update!

So... the highlights:

From a broken elbow, to croup, to whatever it is that is making her cranky as can be during our cabin fever stay in the apartment right now, this has been a rough month for Zoe!  But luckily, baby's broken bones heal quickly, and she was hanging from the playground equipment the very day she got her cast removed, so she is on the mend!

We've had a lovely fall, with great weather and fun filled weekends.  I've been enjoying my new job, working hard but liking the change-- and of course, the commute.  Zoe actually loves visiting me down the street at work- the only down side is I can't get her to leave the building!  We did a little bit of light traveling (and speaking of ailments, we learned that Zoe officially gets carsick!  Really, truly, with intensity!).  Here are some highlights from our trip with friends to the Jersey Shore (hoping the lovely businesses and hotels there are doing okay this morning):

Over my school's October break, we took a trip to Vermont for some real crisp and beautiful fall!  We stayed in Aaron's cousin Jon's house, which is a converted birthing barn on a former farm.  Truly beautiful, very rural, complete with a wood burning stove to keep us warm.  Zoe got to put her newly learned animal sounds to very good use, and she "moo'ed" and "baa'ed" with vigor and energy!  We enjoyed day trips to Burlington to see my friend Sarah and her kids, to Shelburne Farms, and to the Ben and Jerry Factory where Aaron insisted we eat a "mini Vermonster".  It is exactly what it sounds like! 

We did some hiking as well, and Aaron went on what he called the best mountain bike trails ever, just outside our back door.  The highlight of the trip for me was playing "what did he just say!?"-- I liked to hear Jon and his roommate exchange stories of their normal everyday-- chopping wood, cutting brush, and staring down porcupines.  Nice to get out of Brooklyn for a change! 

I'm feeling quite lucky today, as I hear about the ordeal that so may are going through in New Jersey, NYC, and other areas that were hit hard by Sandy.  I know my city is going to work hard and carry on-- looks like there is some work to do!  Sending my best to all of you, with love and gratitude. 

Summer Highlights

Just some things I have missed......

 

Upper Peninsula

 

It has been over a month since our Michigan trip, and if I wait any longer I won't post at all, so I'm trying to pick the best excerpts from our two week trip.  We took a million pictures, and yet, it seems like we didn't take the ones I need- there is always somebody missing, or looking the wrong way, or too many of me- not the right pictures for this post in particular.

I am trying to find the right way to capture our summer trip home.  Home to Grand Rapids, home briefly to Lansing, home to the Upper Peninsual cabin on Lake Michigan that we first starting staying in when my twelve year old nephew was a not-even-toddler.  The first time we visited, my grandma was with us, Sylvia from Zoe's middle name.  Now, 11 years later, we're louder, bigger in some ways and smaller in others.  Four kids scramble up and down the stairs to the beach below the cabin and the toy room on the second floor.  My 91 year old grandmother holds my one year old daughter, sits by my 9 year old niece, and 4 generations of family fill the home.  We spend an evening digging through postcards from Sylvia's postcard collection that my mother brought with us, Aaron and Liam laughing at the soldier cartoons on the front, my sister, mother and I trying to decipher the names of relatives and the bits and pieces of my grandma's life we are privy to. 

This is not the going home of the house I grew up in, but I have been here enough times that it feels like home.  More importantly, it houses the people who feel like home to me.  My dad drives us to the nearby spring.  Aaron trades cooking tips with my mother, cooking with ease for ten people.  My 2 1/2 year old nephew, Connor, gives us glimpses of a year from now- just as he did quite accurately a year ago, a sneak peek at what's to come.

 

My parents used to take our family vacations here every summer- not to this cabin or this town, but to this area, somewhere in the Upper Peninsula.  My sister and I would complain that "we never went anywhere..."  I see Pastie signs and agates and t-shirts with bears on them, now,  with a level of familiarity and nostalgia.  I can stop for Mackinaw fudge without begging, since Aaron is the one behind the wheel (although I still haven't been to the Mystery Spot- we are waiting for Zoe to ask and have already decided that YES she can check it out-- a difference between me and my parents!!).  I understand, now,  my parent's urge, to make a home out of a vacation spot for us each year, and find myself repeating this for my daughter.  Already I can picture her next summer, old enough for longer day trips, a hike to a waterfall or a lighthouse, at our sometimes home. 

  

 

 

Metaphor

 

Zoe met a little friend at the park today, and as they chased each other holding hands through a gazebo littered with old metro cards, I chatted with the dad.  He gave me the best metaphor for parenting a toddler!  His daughter is 21 months, and I was amazed at how vocal she was-- clear 3 word sentences flowed.  Since Zoe pretty much grabs one word and sticks with it forever, this seems like a tall order to expect from her in the next few months.  (Example: After our recent trip to Michigan, Zoe learned the word "Nana" for her grandma.  She now calls every picture in a book-- photos of family, animals, monsters-- "Nana" with gusto!)  This dad told me how much her language skills have progressed over the past couple of months.  He said he always said having her was like living with a drunk Icelandic person.  Now, he says, it is more like living with a drunk Frenchman.  He doesn't speak any Icelandic, but he speaks a little bit of French.

Currently, we enjoy Zoe's Icelandic nonsense babble, but it will be fun to see the French emerge!  And I think we can all agree when watching her walk, grabbing items out of her hand, and feeding her that the drunken roommate metaphor works perfectly!

On Father's Day....

Confession:  I didn't know what Aaron would be like as a father.

Come on, those of you who knew him-- you didn't know either!  I knew he'd take to it, and I promised him he'd be a fan of the baby.  But I did not know that he would take to being a father, embody it, own it, so that being a dad is so much a part of who he is and who he is going to help Zoe to be.

Here are some things Zoe has learned about fathers, from her father.....

 

* Dad is the one who makes sure everyone has a delicious breakfast, and that mom has her coffee before going to work.  

* Dad is the the one who likes nothing better than napping with a baby on his chest.

* Dad is the one who is never too tired to chase, tickle, and throw!

* Dad is right there in the morning, ready to be greeted with a kiss.

* Dad makes sure dinner is ready and yummy each night, and that we always have new and healthy food.

* Dad is there for the good and the bad, to go to the park, play in the fountain, make a fort or a ball pit, hug and sit on all day.

Zoe gets to learn, from Aaron, that a father is someone to trust and rely on-- much like I did.  She gets to build a relationship that transcends societal norms, to form a bond with her father that will be powerfully strong.  We are so incredibly lucky-- Zoe and I-- that she has such an amazing role model and dad.