Beaches

It's almost here we keep telling her. No, not like the Florida Keys of February we explain, with it's rocky shoreline and reef laden waters. No, this is the real beach she is about to experience. The wide, hot on your feet, shell scattered beach. The lay in a hammock under the cottage beach. The relax and do nothing beach. The picnic at sunset beach. The why don't we live here all the time beach. The South Carolina beach. Of course she won't really understand what we mean until she digs her own heels into the sand a few inches and feels that coolness below. She won't understand until she feels the breeze just as the sun sets behind a never ending ocean. But soon she will and I'm sure she'll never want to leave. It should make for some good pictures :)

Tubes

Hopefully the tide of ear infections has reversed as of Wednesday when Sydney had very tiny ear tubes placed. The placement took about 10 minutes and this picture is about 30 minutes after the procedure. She was a little groggy and bobble head like but soon returned to her waving ways as shown here. The nurses all just got a kick out of that and we had a good laugh at her hospital gown and booties she's wearing here.

Father's Day

So what does a dad do on a Saturday night before a second father's day when he knows he doesn't have to get up early? He watches golf (yeah for a US Open on the West Coast), follows that up with some baseball (yeah for the Nationals playing on the West Coast) and peruses pictures of the reason he gets to celebrate father's day. So here are some of the pics I took today of Brady and Sydney as we said goodbye to the Miller's before the long drive tomorrow. I thought the black and white was funny because it almost looks like some old photo and they are in jail together. If you picture a tin cup and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" it's pretty humerous. The last photo is just part of our daily fun as she decided that kissing the clear gate we have set up was hysterical.

 

Refreshingly Cold

Sydney clapped and clapped at the site of her new pool. The bright blue against the green grass of our small front lawn, an eye catching site of refreshment from 100 degree heat. Even the hose filling up the bird bath sized pond was an attraction to this little girl. I had tried to place it such that half was in the sun, to heat the ice cold water from the pipes, and half in the shade to protect that pale skin we love but it would have taken hours to warm up, so in she went. And out just as fast capped off with baby sized shiver, something so adorable we were almost tempted to put her back in to see it again. So in went daddy and with patience and an imperceptibly slow lowering motion we both got used to the water and had a fun time fighting the heat.

Friends

As usual, Sydney had a wonderful time at the party we went to this past weekend. Sadly, it was the going away party for some of our best friends J&B and Sydney's friends Brady and Ainsley. She was pretty torn up but Elmo (in the background) and this monkey eased the pain. What I actually liked about this picture was that it captures a little bit of the couch in the background. That now old blue and white couch that has been in our circle for a long time. It was in the first house we all got together after college and the townhouse that followed that. It saw Saturday parties and lazy Sundays, many a house guest crashing on the cushions and a couple of moves. Sometimes it's that meeting of old and new, our old couch and our new baby that make you look at a photo just a bit longer. Now it makes the long move to New York and with it our friends, but with any luck we'll see them both very soon and often.

Healthy Again

What do you when your daughter has a 103 fever for 7 days? Well, you don't take a lot of pictures, hence the little break but we're mended and back to smiling and waving at everything. This was the one picture I did take, if only to remember a 7 day event which included cold washcloths and bottles and bottles of baby Tylenol and Motrin. On the upside, if there was one, a baby with a 103 fever sleeps a lot...and I have never gotten so much accomplished in 7 days...well, since last May at least. So now back to trips outside and hopefully some pool pics one of these weekends.

Presents

Without a doubt, Sydney's favorite thing about her birthday has been the cards. The prospect of a colorful new sheet of something that she can chew on is almost too much too bear. She has at times appreciated her other gifts though, such as this table that she can cruise around and which seems to sing the alphabet in spanish unusually loud.

An Entire Year

An entire year has passed, so fast that it seems like a blink of an eye. Through sleepless nights and cuddling mornings we have watched our tiny one grow and grow. She needed a lot, but she gave back so much more. She watched us grow as well, from disheveled and worried into two people that at least appear to know what they're doing. In one year I can't count the diapers we've changed, the books we've read, the bottles we've made, the pacifiers that fell on the ground, the times we've cleaned the carpet or the trips to the pediatrician...but I can count 365 days of a permanent smile on my face. Happy Birthday little one.

For her birthday, Sydney has also taken up reading the paper as required by the Priddy side of the family.

Mother's Day

Hope all the mother's out there have a wonderful weekend and get all the praise and pampering they deserve!

Popsicle!

Such a beautiful day outside called for banana apple juice popsicles, frozen on Mickey Mouse popsicle sticks no less. As we realized I'm usually behind the camera, Maggie made it a point to grab a couple of us enjoying the relaxing afternoon. Watching her eat anything cold is hilarious because she likes the cold on her mouth but hates it because it's so cold...and then she shivers every couple of minutes which is just adorable.

First Kiss

It started innocently enough. Jacob and Sydney both eyeing the bench telling us that they just wanted to swing. It looked liked so much fun. So we set them down and pushed them off, each sneaking peeks coyly at one another. And then, there it was, without any notice...Sydney's first kiss. I couldn't have been happier with her choice of Jacob as he's a handsome boy with a good head on his shoulders, but I of course told Marc that if his son ever touched my daughter again we'd have a talk :) She babbled on and on as we drove home from the party, presumably letting mom in on all the gossip until finally she drifted off, dreaming of that sunny day on the swing.

Daycare

Among
the fun activities Sydney participates in each day are finger painting and buggy riding. Daycare was kind enough to take a couple shots that the parents could take home and here are some gems. How she didn't come home yellow we'll never know.

Camera Phone

I
can't imagine how much better life is documented now with the advent and wide use of camera phones. It's so easy to snap away, and while not up to printing caliber yet or even in focus sometimes, they are great for remembering a quick moment. Here's a couple I've caught recently, the first a product of boredom while waiting the twenty minutes in a small room for Sydney's eyes to dilate at the eye doctor office. In the second, a trip to the bookstore was a perfect excuse to stand and survey all the fun things around her.

Chew it Up

The onset of quite a few teeth has had a couple of results. One is that Sydney will now actually chew Cheerios, but then upon mashing it up realizes she doesn't like the consistency and spits out the mush. The other is that she grinds her teeth which drives me crazy. Worse than nails on a chalkboard, I actually stick in her pacifier because I can't take the horrible sound. I'm surprised something that sounds so awful doesn't hurt but I guess she knows her limits. I grind my teeth at night and the dentist swears it's stress related. I can only hope an eleven month old isn't stressed or we're doing something terribly wrong.

Mmmm

We made a trip out to one of the local restaurants yesterday and Sydney again found that the table was the tastiest part of the trip. Her teeth have become fascinating to her. She plays with them all day long with her tongue and gnawing at a table is about as good as a trip to the candy store apparently.

Round and Round

Sydney got to experience her first Carousel ride, courtesy of her friends Gabby and (hidden) Mallory. So many of these firsts to capture it's nearly impossible. I read a passage in a book recently that I thought was a good metaphor where the writer likened memories passing to an art lover running through a burning museum trying to grab as many pieces as possible but knowing he could only carry so much before it was gone. Maggie reminds me to remember this during the 3 am wake up calls when Sydney is sick.


Photo credit: Skye Sultan (the multitasking mom of the two on the left)

Easter

Happy Easter!
We've had a busy weekend in the Sydney household. Maybe it's all the bananas she's been eating or something in the air but development seems to be the theme. Yesterday she couldn't stop waving and waved at everything including doors and windows. She has a cute beauty pageant or maybe Queen of England sort of wave with a little wrist action combined with the full arm movement.

She's been standing a lot more as well and we're trying to get her to push her little buggy around the room. Now she starts to get upset if we don't stand her up and put her against something to hold on to, so I'm accelerating my plan to install gates.

And finally, more a development for Maggie than anything else. I think she's been waiting since exactly 60 seconds after we found out we were having a girl in the ultrasound. She bought the hair ties when Sydney was about two weeks old and at last yesterday she pulled up that little crop of hair, measured it in her head and decided "yes!, the time was here". An internal dialogue I could see in the excitement of her eyes so she told Sydney to hold on one minute, raced upstairs and only moments later had the couple strands of hair bound up as she had always dreamed. Sydney didn't mind it and was accomodating for the pictures. Incredibly, she did not try to eat the rubber band.

Tortocolis

Honestly I felt resigned. I knew it was coming. I'd seen it for years and I think I'd joked about it as a young adult that my offspring were screwed. And on that note, I packed up Sydney and we headed on to her first eye appointment. At her sixth month appointment, the pediatrician had noted a head tilt and said it might have something to do with her eyes but we'd watch and see how it progressed. In knew it. I let out a deep knowing sigh then, so when the nine month appointment came and went it was no shock that it would potentially be her eyes. Tortocolis was the potential culprit, a word of which I'm still convinced is some sort of joke and has something to do with turtles. Of course, this was only the first I told myself, then the obligatory bad teeth for which we better just start a savings account now. We have an FSA and DCA, so why not a BSA (Braces Savings Account). Mom couldn't stand to go as she's averse to anything eye related. Like many parents we have our specialties listed out. I'm eyes, puking and blood. She's just about everything else. So I had the pleasure of sitting in the waiting room with 5 other mothers and their kids. I think I was getting looks of admiration but it could have been pitty. And after all was said and done, the dilation drops administered, the waiting in the room, the poking and prodding, incessant rubbing of her eyes, it turned out my resignation was premature. A sigh of relief as I heard the results. She checked out just fine and all we're left with is a mild case of tortocolis and a hope that her teeth come in straight.

Happy St. Patty's Day

Happy St. Patty's Day from our little mischievous one.

Fridays

Sydney
loves her Fridays when mom is home to go out for walks. As "good clothes" don't go to day care this is also the day to dress up fashionably or just in things we don't want to potentially lose. So we stepped out and grabbed a few photos before the walk of her in a little Clemson sweatshirt that Maggie used to wear as a baby. Momma's so proud.

Evolution

The natural evolution over millions of years was swimming in water to crawling on land and finally to walking. While most babies still test out the crawling stage before moving on, our little one seems primed just to jump straight into walking and skip nature's due course. But maybe this is evolution as well and eventually crawling will be a thing of the past. Now the fact that she will only eat bananas seems to either be a jesture to Maggie who has filled her room with monkeys, or the fact that you really can't escape your past. In either case, we now call her our little monkey.

Here we captured her "american" evolution which is riding lazily in a car. Not pictured is the evolution of horrible bed head which her hair is now long enough to accomodate.

In The End

In the end we had an incredible first trip with little Sydney and were so happy we got to share it with friends. The plane ride back went smoothly and for all our fears of Sydney or Natalie screaming for two hours, they were quiet and it was in fact another little girl behind us who screamed for two hours and made the flight nearly unbearable.

There were many big changes about vacations with a baby but some small changes that were funny as well. It was about day 3 we realized there was little point in putting on heavy suntan lotion for example. At the pool where we'd normally soak up the sun, we sat in the shade. At restaurants where we'd take the sunny table on the water, we needed the table with lots of umbrellas to cover the strollers.

The pictures below are a before (last year in Aruba) and after (this trip) which I thought was a funny comment on how things have changed over the past year.



Lots of pictures and video on the trip as it's one hobby I can do with her, so here's a very short clip of some of the highlights. (there's music so make sure your volume isn't cranked up too high :) )

Hammock Days

Maggie is passing on her love of hammocks to the little one day by day, here on a nice walk around sunset last night. We both agreed this is about our favorite time of the day after you get all cleaned up from the pool, the colors in the sky radiate and the wind dies down to reveal a calm that just makes you take a deep breath and soak it all in. We'll soak it all in one more time today before we start packing for the adventurous trip back home.

The picture to the right was from my daily sunrise walk with Sydney this morning. An incredible way to start the day.

Birdies

What better place than on vacation to cut her fourth tooth, so at least the short nights are followed by a day off. Symptoms we had taken as a cold took us about three days to realize that a dab or Oragel would fix, and she's been much happier.

Sydney has been enjoying the birds of the Keys and we've seen lots of different small birds as well as some large pelicans waiting for the fisherman to come back. She continues to love our afternoon swims in the pool and just enjoying the breeze anytime we get outside. In one picture here, the six of us enjoy a relaxing lunch out by the water while we listened to some great Carribean music. This was followed by a trip to the large Worldwide Sportsman (Bass Pro Shops like) just down the road where I honestly pondered a purchase of a little pink tackle box for my fishing buddy :) If I didn't fear checking one more thing on the plane ride back I would have walked out of there with it.

Sun Drenched

The girls (Sydney and Natalie) are both enjoying the sun and being outside. In fact Sydney moans as soon as we go inside now which could really be a problem when we get home. They both love the water and we spent a couple pruny hours in the pool yesterday splashing and slapping the water.


Here's a picture of Sydney who just can't wait to try out her new floaty boat (the light is too harsh but I love her smile in the pic), Natalie with a local flower in her hair and the sunrise we can see each morning from our deck which looks out over the marina and ocean beyond. Oh yes, we're up each morning well before the sunrise so I can have a nice cup of coffee and take my time preparing to see it. I remember when we actually had to set the alarm to see a sunrise, so I could take see this as a positive thing if I wanted. :)