Thanksgiving fun

"wash hands" with Nana; playing with Susan's trains with Pa; finally zonking out in the car.

Bouncy Balls!

We had fun with the exercise balls at Nanas!

Aquarium Wonder

We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium over the weekend. It was spectacular. Molly had an amazing time. We all had fun.

pseudoephedrine & diphenhydramine adventures

This weekend the entire Zanklinardi family got some lessons in drug use. When trying to relieve congestion to allow sleeping, we learned that not all over the counter decongestants are created equal. One common decongestant relieves congestion and, according to the nice advice nurse at Kaiser, can cause a racing heart, restlessness, anxiety, and high blood pressure. Another is more commonly associated with sleepyness and general sedation.

Guess which one we gave to Molly for two (sleepless) nights in a row? That's right, the first one. Finally, on Sunday, Nona convinced us to check in with Kaiser and see if there was anything else they recommended to keep her comfortable. Um, yes. Don't give her pseudoephedrine when she needs to sleep.

Oh, what a little sleep can do. On Monday Molly was already feeling better. And Nona was getting sick.

(Photos Right: Molly takes the bears "up up up up TOP down down down" the Lego stairs Zach made; Left: Molly chases the chickens;)

motherhood and apple pie

Another nice visit with Nona - lots of time at the park, in the backyard with the chickens, and lots and lots of reading books. And eating apple pie with ice cream (and cheddar cheese?).

taking the ladybug for a walk

Baby or Big Girl?

I remember when Molly first used two words together: we were in Cambridge in August for Angus & Jason's wedding, walking down a major street to our hotel, when a bus passed by and Molly exclaimed: "BIIIIIIIIG ........ tRucK." It was cool. But as with most of her new tricks, she put it back in her pocket and practiced it on her own for a while. She occasionally paired up words in the next few months, but mostly spent time practicing new words, like colors, and animal sounds, and names.

Then, in October, after several weeks of very poor sleeping habits, she made some big developmental leaps, including almost always using pairs of words: "red car!" "brown shoes!" "mama spoon!", and the ever popular "Molly"+ anything (ie. "Molly shoe!" "Molly walk!" "Molly color!" "Molly toy!"). And the other day I noticed she made the leap to three words: "Molly waaaaant-iT!". Fortunately, she's also adding words like "share" and "turn" to her vocabulary. We'll take what we can get.

So, between the increasing verbalization and the new bangs, Molly is really looking like a big kid. Zach and I asked her the other day: "Molly, are you a baby or a big girl?" She looked up from her book briefly to tell us: "Big Girl." Well, a big girl that still loves her Mama and Dada, won't go to bed without her Peetsie and Bear Bear, and knows that a kiss from Mama or Dada makes her bumps feel better.

Votes

As the saying goes: "vote early and vote often."

Swing!

Pa got a swing. I'm not sure if he got it for his birthday or for Molly. Or for Molly for his birthday. But whichever way you slice it, she loves it!

Happy Birthday Pa!

We're down in CV this weekend celebrating Pa's birthday. Molly got to celebrate a little early when Nana & Pa stopped by and took her to the park. Molly showed them how she likes to go down the slide on her belly. Head first.

You may also notice that Molly has a "big girl" haircut with bangs. The other day I realized that not only was the hair in her face presenting "hair management" issues for us - Molly was probably even more irritated than we were with the hair! Several times when she was waking up in the middle of the night she would be crying and at the same time saying "hair! hair!" and trying to get the hair out of her eyes and mouth. Yuk.

I quizzed Zach on his feelings about bangs and he felt he couldn't really offer much of an opinion, seeing how he's never really done much hair management (the long hair in college doesn't really count since it was never really managed, per se). So I asked Paz what she thought one day and she was agreed that it was well past time to do something about the hair in the face. In fact, she went and got scissors and helped me figure out how much to cut.

Trick or Treat?

Molly dressed up as a train engineer this year. She preferred to wear her hat backwards and enjoyed dancing with Nate, the firefighter. Later, we all enjoyed some Snoopy (and the Great Pumpkin) projected on our neighbor's garage (courtesy of Zach) while handing out candy to the neighborhood kids.