thanks to mysterious bib giver

To the mysterious person who mailed Ila a Dr. Seuss bib with sleeves, thank you! She wore it while she ate her cake.

ode to Ila, on her birthday

lint, she eats it
nails, she has them
shoes, she loses them
showers, she hates them

the scary vacuum
haunts her dreams
she is sad.
alas.

her favorite thing
climbing on mom
she loves it.
squeals.

the boo girl
she so cute
we love her
happy first birthday!

a visit to work

Ila and I surprised David earlier this week by showing up at his work. I haven't been to his office since before school started last year, like 1.5 years ago. 

It was a cold, windy evening. Ila and I (let me pause and say, it is weird to use this phrase "Ila and I" all the time. It's like a tongue twister) tried to get to David's building walking via stroller. I had to look up where his building was on a map. I somehow managed to come to a dead end (for strollers) as I chose the path that ended in stairs. So we went another way and finally made it.

Ila wore her R2D2 hat, which rocks. David didn't seemed surprised at all, which is weird, since I haven't been there forever! And I've never seen it with actual stuff in it. I last saw it when it was empty.

Look at the scrawl on the white board. He must not have been faking it all this time, I guess he's an econ professor after all.

Ila pushed a few keyboard buttons, but hopefully didn't mess up his spreadsheet.

The end.

shoes

Today, Ila and I we went to the store, one I've never shopped at before. Though I did go there a couple weeks ago to pick up santa suits for the run. (By the way, those suits were in tatters by the end of the race! Mine tore along the inseam before we even got in the car to drive to the race and had to be safety pinned.)

We lost Ila's shoes. If I'd been paying attention and not talking on the phone, I would have noticed Ila pulling off her shoes and dropping them in the middle of isle 3 (the one with the chocolate oranges, which are very important. Did you know that I had already checked 2 stores and they weren't there? I thought everyone had them...but no.)

Sadness followed, and a hasty goodbye to phone friend.

Then I ran back (with the cart) to where I suspected she had lost them. I looked everywhere we had gone, and finally made it back to isle 3 where I'd first discovered them missing. If I had only turned around and looked behind me, I would have seen them on the floor at the other end of the isle. But instead I got to run circles around the store. Oh well. At least I found them. They are Ila's only pair of shoes, after all. Though they are more "bootie"-like. I'm postponing buying real shoes until she starts walking.

By the way, David's least favorite christmas song is the one about the shoes. You know. The shoe song. Just so you know.

Cloth Diapers

So I just realized I have never posted anything about cloth diapers. I've been using them on Ila for 6 months now, and they are great. I've been working on the same box of 200 disposables all that time. I put a disposable diaper on Ila when we will be gone for more than a couple hours, like church or at family stuff. It works.

I use Clotheez prefolds and Thirsties covers, from this website that is so informative and helpful. (I also bought a diaper sprayer on amazon, which is very essential for easy cleaning and long term cloth diapering). I spent a while looking at the info when I was pregnant, but then didn't end up buying diapers for a few months until life settled down. Also, Ila had a rash so I decided to try cloth at that time for that reason (and it helped so much. Her rashes are only ever very mild when using cloth-nothing like the evil and nasty red thing she had before).
I bought the covers new, and about half the diapers new. The used ones I got on diaperswappers.com, where they have a forum with lots of categories depending on the diaper style. I also got some hemp doublers on it so we have extra protection at night. You can also post there and ask questions, or look through the archives since people post issues/questions of all kinds there related to cloth (and parenting in general).

I do feel like I am saving money, since I've gotten past the point where they paid for themselves (by not buying so many disposables). The covers will need to be replaced eventually since the lining wears down, but the diapers last forever. The covers/diapers match about size 3 diaper which she was nearly at when I bought the dipes, so she might need a bigger size someday. Which is fine with me, but I know there are some one-size covers and all-in-ones out there that adjust to fit various sizes by folding/snapping.

Anyway, that's my secret. Or not so much now, but if you happen to notice some colorful diaper cover in a picture of her, that's because she uses cloth!

Halloween costumes

So I sort of forgot I had a blog the last couple months. Whoops.

Here we are on Halloween:

You can't see it well, but David is Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I didn't quite have the look to pull off Drusilla. And yes I know I could have gotten a wig. But I didn't. Oh well. I could do Tinkerbell though.

So I'm dressed up like Princess Leah's grandmother, and Ila is Princess Leah herself.

We are acute.

Report on David's Half

So I just realized I never posted after David's half-marathon.

Here he is, after getting home:

Ila stole his finishers medal, naturally.

He did good. But he didn't stretch, and limped for several days. Scold scold! I want to say his time was like 2:30 or something. DH can comment with his real time. He's going to do another in the spring.

Santa Run

David and I ran in a 5K on December 1st. Ila came too. The great part is that for the race we all had to wear a santa suit! (Except Ila got away with just a hat and beard). I'm including the pictures we took in this post too.

 Ila is the cutest. She kept the hat/beard on the whole time! We were impressed.

My sister pointed out that facial hair does not cover the nose. Yes, I am aware of that. But having never worn a beard in my life, and pulling it on seconds before the flash went off, I ended it up doing it wrong! Whoops. Oh well. Hope you get a laugh.

This was the first race I've ran since my half-marathon last June, and only the third time I've run at all since then. My running habit has converted into stationary bike, which has been more flexible with a baby around. But I finished in 36 minutes, which isn't too bad for hardly running at all, and David did 31 minutes. We're rockin.

for kt. :)