We have a problem with one of our cats. Verbo has a terrible habit of chewing on things, to the point that she consumes pieces of whatever she’s gnawing on. Many of our paperback books have covers with pierced or missing corners. Most of our electrical cords have teeth marks in them (scary, right?). Maya has lots of toys that used to have tags on them and now have shredded nubs instead.

Maya – 9 months old

We received a little tutu in a box of hand-me-down clothes and had been dressing some of Maya’s stuffed animals in it. One day, we noticed that big chunks of it were missing. Verbo strikes again. We figured we better dress Maya up and get her picture before the tutu was completely consumed.

Maya – 9 months old

This also let us show off Maya’s first moves toward being a proper biped. It took her a little while to figure out crawling, but now she’s a force to be reckoned with. Working in the office during the day, I’ll hear the telltale slap-slap-slap of an approaching crawler. Soon after, a grinning Maya will crawl around the corner and pop her head in. She can also climb up the stairs (but not down yet). She can pull herself up to standing and even manages to tentatively cruise along the furniture from time to time.

Maya – 9 months old

As always, it’s so much fun to watch her figure things out. It wasn’t that long ago that we were wondering if she’d ever learn to crawl. Now it’s hard to slow her down.

In the hundred degree heat of a Texas summer, there is no reason to dress a baby in anything other than a diaper and onesie / snapsuit / creeper / whatever … except that babies in overalls are beyond cute, especially when they get a hold of their parents’ straw hat.

Maya – 8 months old

I feel bad for Maya. She really wants to be outside, but between the heat and her band, it’s a little too much most of the time. Sometimes though, we ditch the band and hang out in the yard anyway.

Over fourth of July weekend, we took a trip to Alabama so Maya could visit her Lolli and Pop Woods and her Aunt Darci, Uncle Will, and cousin AP. We were worried that now that Maya was a little more alert to her surroundings that it would be harder to get her through the airport, but need not have bothered. Apparently she’s a seasoned traveler now, accustomed to the ins and outs of air travel.

Maya – 7 1/2 months old

We tried out a new plan. We’d fly out to Alabama around Maya’s bedtime to see if that would help us breeze through the flight. It worked well. She ate and slept as expected, making for a trouble-free trip. The problem is that when we got to Harry and Helen’s house, Maya had just woken from a good long nap and was ready to par-tay. Mommy and Daddy, on the other hand, were ready to crash.

Maya and Lolli

It had been a very wet summer in Homewood, and our visit was no exception. Given that, and everyone’s generally quiet mood, we were homebodies for the majority of our visit. Maya is scared of the noise my blender makes, so I wasn’t too keen on keeping her out past her bedtime to experience the sights and sounds of Independence Day anyway (next year will be better, I think).

Maya and Pop

While we had a good visit, we still didn’t have the presence of mind to take too many pictures. We do have a few of Lolli and Pop with Maya, taken the very last day we were there. There’s only one with Aunt Darci and cousin AP, and we didn’t manage to get any at all with Uncle Will.

Our little family!

Darci took some family photos for us, and they turned out really nicely! I think the only other time before this we’ve even tried to get a family photo was Christmas, and none of us had a great deal of energy or enthusiasm for it.

Because of Maya’s tight neck muscles (torticollis), she wound up preferring one side over the other when it came to sleeping, and especially early on, she spent a lot of time sleeping. Thanks to all this, she developed a flat spot on one side of her head (plagiocephaly). She also has mild scaphocephaly. To treat these things, at her pediatrician’s advice, we had her fitted for a DOC band.

Maya’s first day with the helmet

After some appointments for imaging and discussion, Maya received her band (which we call a helmet) on June 20th. She wears the band 23 hours a day, really only taking it off for bath time and so we can clean the band. She goes in every two weeks so they can route out portions of the band to allow for growth where her skull needs to “fill in.”

Interesting tidbit about these helmets: thanks to all the head sweat, they develop a deep gym-sock-like funk that nightly cleanings with rubbing alcohol cannot get rid of.

Maya Monkey

It was a little difficult for the first few days. She wasn’t fond of having it on, and she found it difficult to sleep with it. Plus, it’s summer. In Texas. The poor girl was so sweaty. After a few days, she adapted. She slept better and got used to having the band on during the day. We have the thermostat in the house set a little cooler to keep her comfortable, but she really prefers to be outside. The hundred-degree heat plus her band are a rough combination.

It took us a while to decorate it. For a little while it was plain. Then in desperation, Sean slapped a Mickey Mouse head on it. We tried some 3D stickers, but they are flat and her band is not, so it was a matter of minutes before Maya had crushed 3D stickers in her grip. Eventually, we settled on some flat stickers and since then all has been well.

Final decorations

We’re likely nearing the end of her DOC band wearing days. We have an appointment next week for imaging to see if there’s anything that might be correctible with a second band. All told, her head is looking much better. There are things that won’t be fixed. Hopefully those will smooth out a bit as her head continues to grow. Even if they don’t, they should be covered up by a head full of hair.

Sean has been looking forward to being a dad for a long time. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but he told me more than once over the years that if he had a daughter, he’d want to name her Maya. There was no particular reason, other than he liked the name. My point is that it’s been on his mind for a while. Given that, I wanted to try and make his first Father’s Day at least a little bit special.

Daddy and Maya

Sean wanted some Daddy and Maya pictures, so we went to Mayfield Park, which is known for its little colony of peacocks (and peahens, collectively known as peafowl). I purchased a couple of Daddy-centric creepers for Maya to wear during her photo shoot, though only one managed to ship in time.

Maya’s Father’s Day Outfit

While it was hot and we were past Maya’s nap time, I think the photos turned out nicely. The peacocks were fairly people-tolerant. (Maya was kind of peacock-indifferent.) The park was lush and green and not so crowded that we couldn’t avoid extras in our pictures.

Peacock!

The way to Sean’s heart has always been chocolate, so I also made a chocolate pudding pie [made-from-scratch dark chocolate pudding, freshly whipped cream, graham cracker crust]. I know it doesn’t look like much, but it tasted good. And of course, Maya was happy to have some of Daddy’s pie as well.

Chocolate Pudding Pie

It took a while for Sean to be a father, and now that the time is finally here, it’s not surprising that he loves it. I think there was little doubt that he and Maya were going to have a nice Father’s Day. The peacocks and chocolate pie were just a bonus.

There was maybe a two or three week period shortly after Maya was born that she didn’t like her bath. We’d get her naked, and she’d just wail from the moment we’d put her in the water till we were finished drying her off and dressing her. She has since gotten over it.

Maya fresh out of the bath

These days, Maya is all about her bath. She has spent many happy evenings giggling and splashing in her little plastic baby tub that sits on our kitchen sink. We recently decided she had overgrown her baby tub, so we moved her to the big bathtub. The transition hasn’t been quite as smooth as I expected it to be. In the big bathtub, Maya has a little too much room to roam. Her toys get away from her, and she tries to drown herself chasing after them. Instead we put a little inflatable tub inside the big bathtub. That one seems to frustrate her with its constraints (and she still tries to drown herself). I’m sure she’ll eventually adapt. Meanwhile, bath time has been … interesting.

Sean’s maternal grandma bought all her grandkids their first bathing suits. Sean’s mom Helen decided to carry on the tradition. Since before Maya was born, we’ve had two cute little swim suits just itching to be worn. Given that she was born in November, we’ve had to wait a bit to be able to break them in.

Maya at the splash pad

A couple weeks ago, we met friends at a local splash pad. We dressed Maya up in one of her swim suits, lathered her with sunscreen, and topped her with a hat. To say that she loved it is an understatement. With the splashing water and all the little kids running around her, she spent most of her time there squawking and kicking her legs with infant glee.

Maya in the pool with Daddy

This weekend, we took her to the pool for the first time, allowing her to model her other swim suit. We had gotten a little floaty thing for her to ride around in, and she liked it, but I think she may have preferred having one of us hold and float her around in the water. Again she splashed and played, and by the end, it was clear that her enjoyment of the pool was at war with her need for a nap. As hot as our summers are though, I’m guessing we’ll make visits to the pool a regular outing.

I know it’s weird, but Sean and I generally do not buy gifts for each other. Not for Christmas, birthdays, or anniversaries. Our celebrations often entail us wishing each other well and going out to eat somewhere special. We have made it through well more than a decade of marriage like this.

Mother’s Day 2013

As Mother’s Day approached, I started to feel that this holiday might be different. I couldn’t put my finger on it (still can’t really), but I knew I’d be disappointed if the day passed with a simple “Happy Mother’s Day” wish and a trip to a restaurant. After mulling it over for a few days, I decided it was important enough to mention.

There’s a chance that Sean would have figured it out on his own, but right or wrong, I didn’t leave it to chance. After 13 years of marriage, I decided it really works best if I just ask for what I want. What I wanted was some actual celebration of Mother’s Day.

Tired Maya

Sean did really well. We spent the morning hiking around Zilker Park and then took a bunch of Mommy and Maya photos at the Zilker Botanical Garden. Maya was so excited about the whole thing that she flatly refused to take a nap that morning. At the very end, she was so tired, she laid her head against me and went to sleep.

Stepping Stone!

I actually helped a bit to construct my present. Sean’s plan is to make a paving stone each year with Maya’s footprints. He gathered all the materials (and like any trip to Home Depot, there were several subsequent trips for extras) and mixed and poured the cement. I dangled Maya over the wet cement so he could direct her feet a little more easily. Sean followed up by decorating with beads and a 2013 penny and applying a sealant after it had dried a bit. I think the finished product turned out very nicely.

My little sister Rachel had her first baby on April 16th, a healthy little girl named Lily. Naturally, we decided to go to Missouri shortly thereafter to see the new baby and introduce the rest of my family to Maya.

Maya and Lily

I won’t lie. We were a hair on the nervous side about taking a five month old on a flight. Maya is a really good-natured little girl, but trapping her in a pressurized metal tube several miles above the ground is a whole different deal.

Maya at the Austin airport

Generally she handled it all pretty well. We had two issues. The first was that airports are busy places full of all kinds of people and hubbub. Maya was way too excited about all the new things to see to bother with silly little (completely necessary) things like naps. This put a bit of an edge on her mood. And it didn’t get much better on the plane. She won’t take a pacifier, so we let her work on her bottle during takeoff and landing, so that really wasn’t an issue. However, every time she’d drift off to sleep, the intercom would blare and she’d be startled awake. She was nice about it and didn’t make much noise, but it was clear that the poor thing was exhausted.

The second issue caught me completely off guard. Apparently airport bathrooms are actually infant torture chambers, at least in Maya’s eyes. We had barely laid her down on the changing table before she turned beet red and screamed. She kept that up through an entire poop-laden diaper change.

On the way into Missouri, we had the good sense to duck into one of those family rest rooms so her screaming fit could be contained. On the way home from Missouri, because clearly there is no learning curve at all, I chose to use the changing table in the crowded women’s rest room instead. I walked in and laid Maya down on the first changing table I saw, which was right by the paper towels and trash can on the way out of the rest room. I barely had her (again shitty) diaper off before the screaming started. So there I was, trying to clean the crap off a squirmy angry baby under the watchful eye of a steady stream of disapproving foot traffic. We of course got through it, and once I was finished, I noticed that there was another changing table at the far end of the bathroom where we could have had our stinky crying jag in relative peace. Lesson learned.

Four generations of Schmidts

While illness and flood waters kept us from seeing everyone we’d have liked to see, we still had a really nice visit. We got to meet tiny little Lily. Maya got to see many of her great aunts and great uncles and of course she spent some time with her Great Grandma Schmidt. Even Rachel and Michael’s (and Lily’s!) dog Gus got in on the action. Maya seemed to really get a kick out of letting Gus nose around at her hand.

Maya and Gus

Maya is old enough that she was able to show off her personality and preferences a little bit. She doled out smiles and baby jabber liberally. She and Grandpa watched some TV together. She and Grammy did lots of talking. She showed off how much she likes to eat and how much she likes her bath. Unfortunately, she also demonstrated her complete dislike of anything that even hinted at her napping (I think she yelled at Grandpa every time he rocked the recliner while holding her). We’re still kind of new at this parenting thing, so we didn’t have our crap together enough to actually take all the pictures we should have taken. We’re missing any of Maya with either her Grammy or her Aunt Rachel and Uncle Michael. We’ll do better next time.

Maya and Cushman

We even managed to sneak in a quick lunch with our friend Cushman (who has an actual first name – Matt – but I can’t seem to stop calling him Cushman). On our way out of town on Monday, we met for lunch at Chris’s Pancake and Dining (which I definitely recommend) and caught up a bit. Maya and Cushman got along well. More and more I’m discovering that it’s lots of fun to introduce her to people. We’re really proud of our cute, good-natured girl!

On the flight home, Maya again was completely worn out. This time though, it was like she was on a mission to sleep. She fell asleep shortly after our flight took off from St Louis, slept through landing and takeoff at Dallas (we had a stopover, no plane change), and didn’t wake up to around the time we were landing in Austin.

Sean and I are kind of into food. While I was not working, I wrote a food blog. (I tried to keep it up after I started back to work, but it started to feel like a chore instead of fun, so I haven’t written there in a while.) We celebrate special occasions with visits to interesting restaurants. We have way too many cookbooks in the house. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that when Maya’s pediatrician gave us the go-ahead to start feeding her solids, it was kind of a big deal.

MMMM, sweet potatoes

This is going to sound like one of those “she’s completely crazy” kind of things. In fact, I think Sean has said as much. So far, I’m preparing Maya’s food instead of buying pre-done jars. I wanted to do this for several reasons. First, I derive a great deal of satisfaction from cooking the food that I serve her. Also, the variety of food we can offer is really limited only by her palate and reasonable caution about the timing of introducing the more allergenic foods. Plus, the food just seems fresher and more appetizing. I look at jarred sweet potatoes vs the ones I’ve just roasted and pureed. The freshly made ones are vibrant orange. Her steamed peas are bright green.

It’s actually much easier than it sounds, at least so far. Most of the time, the instructions are: steam (or roast) food, then puree. Sometimes, as in the case of bananas, it’s simply: puree. For most of the food, I make a big batch and freeze the extra in what amounts to a glorified ice cube tray so I can dole it out as needed.

I won’t lie. It would be easier to stock up on the jarred stuff. It doesn’t have to be refrigerated, and the variety is good. Also there’s no equipment requirement for jarred food. I have a pretty hoss blender, a steamer, and a nice food processor. Meal prep wouldn’t be quite so easy without those.

We did buy a box of iron-fortified oat cereal for her, and that’s what she started on. We’ve been introducing a new food every three or four days since then (so that if there’s an allergic reaction, we’ll know what most likely caused it). Here’s what she’s had so far: apple sauce, sweet potatoes, peas, bananas, avocados, and most recently zucchini. Her favorites are apple sauce and sweet potatoes. She hated the bananas at first – I think she was just put off by the texture – but she warmed up to them over a few days. The avocados were similar except I don’t think she warmed up as much. (The bananas and avocados are mashed up to order, by the way.)

Everything we read said not to expect too much when we first started feeding her, but Maya took to it right away. She had been watching us very closely while we ate anyway, so I think she was just ready. Now she actively looks forward to dinner time when Sean and I both sit down with her to feed her and talk to her. She’ll fuss until we put her in the high chair and then she calms down and waits for her food. When we start to scoop up a spoonful, her mouth pops right open, ready to taste. It is so much fun to watch her try new things. Sweet potatoes – yum. Bananas – yuck. Avocados – double yuck.

You’ll notice in at least one of the pictures that her high chair sits on the floor and we sit on the floor with her to feed her. Here’s the deal: we still have the DINK-only dining room table with a lovely granite top surrounded by very nice upholstered chairs. Nothing about that set-up invites a not-quite-five-month-old to do her worst with banana mush and pureed peas. Instead, we have a good sturdy dining room table on order. Once it arrives, the plan is that we’ll all sit and eat together like civilized(-ish) people. In the mean time, Maya eats on the floor and Mommy and Daddy wolf down their food after Maya goes to sleep.

We’ve lived in Texas now for roughly 14 years, but we’re still considered outsiders. Maya, on the other hand, has only been in Texas about four and a half months, but as a native, she’s definitely in the club. As proud parents of a native Texan, we had to find a good patch of bluebonnets – the state flower – to take her photo in.

Maya in the bluebonnets – 4 1/2 months old

We bought her a dress for Easter with the specific intent of her wearing it for her bluebonnet pictures. We never actually managed to put it on her for the holiday. That weekend wound up being too rainy for outdoor photography. Plus we were going to our friend Sharon’s house for Easter lunch, and we wanted her to wear something more comfortable than a fussy dress.

Given that, all our bluebonnet and Easter pictures actually occurred this past Saturday. The day was cool and a bit overcast, but the ground had dried enough to sit on without getting muddy. Maya hasn’t quite made her peace with being outdoors yet, so we couldn’t really coax any smiles out of her. She did seem to enjoy sitting on the ground and wiggling her toes in the dirt and weeds.

Maya’s tired of pictures – 4 1/2 months old

Grammy and Grandpa Schmidt and Lolli and Pop Woods sent goodies for Maya’s first Easter. We tried taking some photos with her presents, but again, she wasn’t in a smiling mood. Good thing she’s cute anyway.