Eleven (and a half) Months

So we're running a little behind on this whole 'monthly update' thing. Miriam is now eleven and a half months, and time just keeps flying. April was packed with visits from friends, two weekend trips away, and lots of time in the spring sunshine (which seems to have once again left Boston for the time being).

Miriam is as full of life as ever. Her favorite activities these days are dancing, waving, and creating disorder out of order. Out of nowhere one day she started dancing to music, swaying back and forth like a baby metronome. These days she will go over to the computer (the source of Pandora and all other musical wonders) and begin dancing - her way of saying 'Please won't you turn the music back on?' Oh and the waving. Anything and everything deserves a wave these days from inanimate objects to people walking by, but the waves are mostly directed at pictures of herself on the walls and mirrors. Who is that cute baby always looking back anyways?

We spent a nice, quiet Easter with Charlotte at our church followed by lots of delicious food at our place. Note her sweet Easter dress and first pair of real shoes! She is so ready to walk but just doesn't know it's a possibility yet.

The following weekend our friend Karen came out for a visit during the Boston Marathon. Temperatures that weekend were at record highs, and we enjoyed time out in the sun. As you can see, Miriam quickly bonded with her.

Our church had a women's retreat in western Massachusetts toward the end of April, and Zach graciously agreed to watch Miriam on his own that weekend. It was so nice to get out of the city, meet some new friends, and not have to worry about making the next meal or cleaning up the next mess. It was good to come home and find that they had such fun daddy-daughter time together. 

The next weekend Miriam and I were off to Jackson, Mississippi to watch Alli graduate from college. Plane rides are not meant for children who cannot sit still, but it was well worth it to see family and get a taste of where Alli has been the past four years. It was a fast but wonderful trip filled with outdoor dinners, poolside chats, and the sweet smell of magnolia trees. 

In other news we have officially commenced urban baby training here.  Phase one: learning to push your own groceries home in a cart. As you can see, she is becoming quite good. We'll have to move on to phase two soon: toting her baby doll around in a front-pack carrier.

10 Months and Counting

Miriam wasn't feeling very well on her ten month day (that, or she didn't like the dress I made for her) so she was pretty mellow (a rare state) when I took this picture. Just when her fever dropped, two more teeth decided to emerge, but we are over the worst for now (fingers crossed).

We spent the last truly cold days of winter exploring local museums and entertaining ourselves indoors. This is easily accomplished when even the variations in our floorboards hold endless wonder to Miriam as she scoots around the apartment. She had her first taste of the Children's Museum with some playgroup friends and then we went to the Harvard Museum of Natural History as a family. We can get in for free with Zach's work ID, and we're looking forward to taking her again when she will actually appreciate the dinosaur bones and enormous stuffed animals instead of taking a snooze.

Winter seemed to suddenly turn to summer last week with weather in the 80s. Our courtyard is bursting with buds and bulbs, and the evenings are staying lighter and lighter. The spring weather has made me reminisce about last year when Miriam was still on her way, and now she wears some clothes that say 'toddler' in the sizing. Ok, ok, maybe she is just a big baby, but toddler days aren't too far off.

For now, though, we get to enjoy what she is like at ten months:

Loving her blueberry oatmeal. However, she does NOT love the  subsequent cleanup.

Bath time is much more fun now that she actually has some hair.

Zach brought this huge box home on the bus. First playhouse? Check.

Hanging out with Grandpa Ward in the dress he brought her from Ethiopia.
Uncle Caleb visited too!

Her first real picnic...

and her first taste of baguette.
We're looking forward to more warm weather to come!

9 Months!

It's only been a month and a half since I last wrote about little Miriam, but so much has changed...so many milestones! As her mobility and language competence increase, more and more of her personality comes out, and boy does this girl have personality!

So what is Miriam like these days?

- Favorite activity: coffee table cruising - the unique sport of holding on to the coffee table and making as many laps around it as possible until the inevitable plop on a diapered tush. She also plays the crib version of this game in the middle of the night, and it is slightly less amusing to all involved.

- Favorite sounds: She started babbling just after Christmas and has worked through several consonants, currently settling on 'baba' and 'dada' (much to Zach's approval). However, her true current favorite is growling. 

- Favorite time of day: when Zach gets home. She knows the sound of the door and lets out a hearty growl of excitement even before she sees him.

- Favorite food: Anything, as long as she can feed it to herself. Full of stubborn independence this one...wonder where she gets that from?

- Favorite toy: She still plays rather indiscriminately with anything in sight, though she has a particular fondness for her stuffed Curious George...probably because she is such a monkey herself. 

You've got to love early morning bed-head

So proud of her new skills

Her latest preferred method of sleeping. It reminds  me of someone else I know, though no names will be mentioned :)

Playing with her mini Miriam doll that Grandma Bostrom MADE for her. It looks just like her!

Won't you PLEASE be my Valentine??

It has been an exceptionally mild winter, and I am so thankful. Here Miriam is growling
 for the joy of yet another sunny 50 degree day at the park.

We had Miriam baptized at our church at the end of January, and Zach's mom came down for the occasion. It was a special time of remembering what a gift this little one is. 

Last but certainly not least, she decided that as much fun as walking around the coffee table and crib is, she would give crawling a try too. She is still working on her form, but here she is in her first crawling performance:

Miriam's first Holiday Season

Miriam at 7 months

In all our holiday travels and the hustle and bustle that accompanied them, I fell behind on Miriam's monthly update. Also, part of me felt like six months was such a big milestone that it should stick around for a while, but nope, she just keeps growing at the speed of light.

We traveled to Colorado at the end of November for Thanksgiving. My parents' family of six now numbers nine plus their exchange student, and how sweet it was for us all to converge at their home for a weekend together. We also got to see much of our extended family and introduce some of them to Miriam for the first time.

The Bostrom clan at Thanksgiving

Returning to Boston, we set out to enjoy our first Christmastime in the city.  It was our first Christmas back in the States in two years. While we missed the lights and markets of France, we had plenty of festive fun including the Boston Pops children's concert and a cocktail party at the Harvard Faculty Club. We also decked our apartment with a charming little tree whose lights dazzled Miriam to no end.

We celebrated our own family Christmas the weekend before leaving for Portland so as not to haul all our presents across the country. Miriam was so wildly ecstatic over all the ribbons and wrappings that she wore herself out and had to open her presents in shifts. Really, she would have been completely satisfied had she just received wrapping paper and boxes, but we couldn't resist giving her her own tiny piano so her music genius can be performed on something her own size.



Our holiday saga continued as we flew all the way to the west coast to spend Christmas and New Year's with Zach's family in Portland, Oregon. It was good to be back in the mild and misty Northwest, and we spent a full two weeks relaxing and sharing good food and memories with lots of family.

Our little maestro's first recorded performance.

(Sorry, I don't know how to rotate the image)

Sharing Christmas secrets with Great-Grandpa

Christmas morning

Learning about African adventures with daddy

And now we breathe after the wonderful craziness of the last month and a half. We're slowly settling back into routine and hoping that 2012 is perhaps just a wee bit less crazy than 2011, wonderful as it was.

Happy Half Birthday, Miriam!!

She thought she'd finally sprout some hair for her half birthday...

Has it really been six months? Most people look at our 94th percentile (read chubby) baby and guess that she is at least eight months, but I still find it hard to believe that half a year has gone by. She sleeps all night long and spends her days at full throttle wanting to sit up all the time and devour anything in sight...

                                   

Our first fall in New England proved to be just as beautiful as we'd hoped. November was full of warm, sunny days and beautiful foliage everywhere. In fact it's been so nice that we are still in denial that dreaded winter is just around the corner.

The ivy outside our building

First time in the swings at our neighborhood park.

Miriam's sixth month was also full of guests. She got to see three grandparents, one great-grandparent, and one of our dear friends from college. She is one loved little girl.

With Papa Bostrom at the Boston Waterworks Museum during his first visit to Boston.

With her great-grandmother.
She has now met all seven of her living great-grandparents!

With aunties Brittany and Charlotte during Brittany's visit.
I don't think I've ever heard Miriam laugh so much!

Zach is not just a public health programmer by day but has recently extended his endeavors into cheese and beer making. I am happy to share in the bounty...

Learning all about the beer making process...

   That's all folks...

Miriam's 5th Month

Oh, ya know, just sitting up to celebrate being five months old today...

It's been a full month for all of us. We traded late summer in for autumn (though the Boston foliage seems to be on the late side this year), and Miriam keeps trading in old habits for new ones. She plays with her feet all the time instead of her hands. She's decided that she maybe enjoys baths now, hard as she tries not to smile. The list could go on and on.

Perhaps most exciting is her new-found discovery of mobility. She started rolling over, at first with timidity, but now she flips over with glee. Then there is the belly-inching. She heaves up her chubby belly and then pushes with her toes to inch backwards - not the most efficient means of movement, but she's working with what she's got. She also wants so desperately to be sitting up whenever she is on her back that she ends up doing several repetitions of baby crunches a day...though still no abs to show for it yet. 

We also got a piano this month! Not surprisingly free pianos in Boston go quite quickly, but we finally heard back about one only to find out that it belonged to someone from my women's Bible study at church. They had to move quickly and needed to get rid of it, so it has found a new home in our little apartment. It is over 120 years old, and needs some love and repairs, but how wonderful to be able to fill our home with music again.

We took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather over Columbus Day weekend to explore some of the urban parkland around Boston. 

Of course we had to visit Ward's Pond, murky as it was.

Testing out her new snowsuit. Thankfully we have no use for it yet.

Showing off her koala hat and her Michelin Man arms.
We think she has a career as a bouncer in her future.

And finally here she is testing out her usual song and dance routine on our new rug...

4 Months

It was this time last year that we were finding out that little Miriam was on her way, and now our little monkey is already four months old!

This is about as good of a picture I could snap of her on her four month day. She is such a squirmy little thing that there is always a bit of blur to each photo. If I put something new in her line of vision i.e. a camera, she goes into full-throttle flail. Either that or she tries to snatch the camera out of my hand where its likely destination would be her mouth.

She is so full of life...erupting in tears and then bursting in belly laughs. It's like she's trying out different emotions and the reactions they get, and then she'll crack a cheeky little smile like she's got it all figured out. How can you resist a bald little baby with a smile like that?

Here are some of the less blurry photos of her that we managed to take during this last month:

Having fun with Grandpa Ward during his visit Labor Day weekend

Enjoying sunny Boston over Labor Day weekend

Geez, mom! Can't you see we're busy reading  The Economist?

Showing off her chubby baby belly