More old pictures

It cracks me up to see how the girls grow. They are so much the same and so very different at the same time.

Here are pictures from each of their first bubble baths. Neither of them had ever poured water over her head before, so it must have been something about the bubbles. Stella is the restrained one, Violet is the exuberant one.


Violet is much more likely to throw herself in head first - sometimes with results that aren't all that pleasing to her. Here she is eating her first bubble bath.


And Stella is very adventuresome, but she is much more cautious. I don't even have a picture of her smiling during her first bubble bath. She loves bubbles now, but she started out quite suspicious.

Puke

Need I say more? Jason and Stella have had a nasty time of it, and miraculously... well, I'll stop right there. But seeing as how I have a few minutes while the troops are out getting french fries (french fries are good for recovery, didn't you know?) I'll post some old pictures I've been meaning to get up.



Here are pictures I took of the girls when they were each about 8 months old. Can you tell which is which? I think the one on the right has Jason's eyes, but they both look a heck of a lot like him.



No fair cheating by looking at the floor.



Okay. Here's the answer. Did you guess right?




Even though they look a lot alike, Stella was actually a whole lot bigger than Violet at the same age. See how the overalls are different? That's because Stella didn't fit into the 9-12 month pair Violet is wearing - rolled cuffs and cranked right up under her chin. I'm pretty sure the ones Stella has on are 12 months. A good mother would have written these things down. Or perhaps framed the outfit in a shadow box. But I did save the shirt, so they can force their kids into it if their hears so desire.

And seeing as how it has taken me 5 hours to get these pictures up, I'll save more old pictures for later.

Oh, and Jason informed me that when he is recovering, it is a sign that he is better when he wants a 'big juicy hamburger'. I wasn't aware that they had those at McDonalds, but I guess his wife wasn't about to cook one for him.

Good riddance to bad rubbish

(AFP/White House/Eric Draper)

I love this picture. See ya , Bozo. I hope he spends the rest of his life carefully considering and regretting all the crap he has wrought over the past 8 years.

Edited to add another fabulous picture. I don't have a credit for this one but I got it here.

Nah-nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah, hey hey hey ... goodbye.

Two Years Old!

Can you believe that Stella has turned 2 years old today? It's not that the past two years flew by or anything, I just remember so her entrance into this world so vividly it seems as though it was no more than a week ago. She was an adorable infant. Two and a half hours of (albeit augmented) labor and there she was. I make that sound easy, don't I? She came into this world with an healthy little cry, and immediately started nursing. Then, not 5 minutes old, she fell asleep. It was then that Jason and I looked at each other and said "Well, she's definitely not a Stella Moxie." and so Stella Ivy she is. Jason later said "We've just guaranteed ourselves a lifetime of saying to ourselves "We should've named her Moxie." So far I haven't said that, but she has definitely grown a little spunkier with age.

She was born with little creases on her earlobes that have since turned into dimples, and a crease across the bridge of her nose - and, you know, a couple chins and some chunky little thighs. Here she is just a couple hours old. She was very solemn most of the time.

And these are two of my favorite photos of her first week.



Look at those toes, would you? Those are the longest toes I have ever seen on an infant.

And while I'm at it, I'll show you some of her first birthday pictures. This one is by far my favorite.


She was still quite solemn but relatively agreeable. Doesn't she look like an old Italian guy hanging out on a lawnchair in front of his apartment building in the North End?


Sometime before she turned one, she developed what we have found to be a continuing obsession - shoes. The girl loves shoes. Here she is with her fancy new Robeez.


And now she is two. And who is Stella at two? She is coy, and sweet, and devilish. She loves shoes, dancing, coloring and her big sister. She is incredibly gregarious and liberal with her affections. She just graduated from speech therapy, and her vocabulary is amazing. I heard her say 'princess' the other day. And Jason tells me that after he pees now, she says 'Good job Dada.' (which is a step up from 'No peepee!') She makes me laugh daily. We are utterly blessed to have her in our lives.

So - the details of her day. First she and Violet got gussied up in their party dresses. (Truthfully, first I spent the morning cleaning the house and hanging streamers and decorating a cake, but this is about Stella's day.) They spent a good long time jumping up and hitting the two balloons I had hung from the ceiling. And please note the crowns Violet made.



All being well in the living room, I went into the kitchen to continue preparations, when I heard Violet scream with glee "Stella's licking the cake!!" Oh yes, she was indeed. But, um, it is her birthday, and I let her go at it for a few minutes before I dragged her away howling.

Grandy and Bubby came over, fought their way through a veritable blizzard to bring helium balloons and eat cake.



Stella opted to open presents before eating cake (seeing as how she was already full of frosting?). She was very restrained about the whole thing. She would open a present when prompted, play with it, find another toy from the toy shelf and play with that a while, and eventually someone would entice her to open another present.

She seemed genuinely pleased with each one. I couldn't really say which might be her favorite. Amusingly, she decided that she needed Dora's flippers on her own feet. She needed help getting them off Dora, but she is very clever about getting shoes on her own feet. That's one of her favorite activities.


Violet kept her impulsiveness to a minimum. I was incredibly proud of her. She shared Stella's toys, but didn't rip them open herself or grab them away. Mostly. They enjoyed Aquadoodle together until I told Violet she was not allowed to lick it. Mean, mean Mama.

Stella is a very good sharer, though, and Violet did get a turn all by herself.

Eventually Violet got bored of Stella's plodding present-opening style and called for cake. See? It's only slightly mangled. Stella sat like this and stared at the candles for several long moments.


Then Violet oh-so-politely turned to Stella and said "Can I blow out your candles?"

And Stella nodded her acquiescence.

I'm going to leave you with this last picture because it really sums up an aspect of Stella that I would never have thought to try to capture on film.

Stella is a little neatnick. I'm not sure how that is going to fly over the years, growing up with a couple sloppy packrats for parents and a miniature tornado for a sister. I often find myself hoping that we don't warp her for life with our messiness. So far she doesn't seem to mind too much, but this is so typical of her: "I'm not quite done opening this present, but look, here's a piece of trash. I think we need to take care of that immediately." This girl puts crayons back in the box, plays with shoes and then returns them to the place she found them, and will stop to clean up a little mess she finds on the floor. When she can find a little mess amidst the big mess.

So happy birthday to the sweetest two year old I know.

Why have kids if you can't have a little fun with them?

Violet has been swinging from our ceiling for a couple years now. It was right before Stella was born that at her request we tossed her in a bag and strung her up for the first time.


As she got bigger, she moved into an improvised harness made by Jason. This had to be tied on her each time she wanted to hang.


She has also climbed the tree in the backyard, and there are times when she still wants the bag, though not as often.

So Jason got her a real harness for Christmas, and she couldn't be more thrilled. Not only that, but she had to get Stella in on the action, so Stella has inherited Violet's makeshift harness at a much younger age than we ever would have given it to Violet.


It's fun for the whole family.

Is she a rock jock in the making, or what?

And then a couple unrelated pictures, because I can't stand the cuteness. This is Stella 'vacuuming'. She calls that little push toy her 'vacuum' and whenever I get out the big version, she goes RUNNING for hers. In sparkly shoes, no less.

And some Jason cuteness, too, for ya.