We beat the plague and celebrate (with a cow, too)

We're now at a full day with no fever (and 2 days without a high fever) and I'm feeling relieved at finally turning the corner.   Getting Maya back on solid food is likely to be a week long battle (as she's happily transitioned to a diet composed solely of milk, water, applesauce, yogurt & chocolate pudding), but at least the fever is gone and she's on the road to normal.

We celebrated with a fabulous feeling-better-and-it's-Mother's-Day-too! weekend . . .

Saturday . . .

We go to Stew Leonard's, which never disappoints.  This time they have some sort of kids club thing happeneing outside, complete with snacks, hand painting, and . . . a calf!

A baby cow?!

 I'm going to come get you, baby cow.

 True love.  Note the cow trying to lick Maya---I think the feeling is mutual. (Also, note my death grip---I've seen Maya's "gentle hands" with Parker, and was afraid she might try to love the cow to death.)

 I think she was debating a big kiss on the nose.

I'm going to kiss you!

One big snuggle for the road :)

We become the hand painter's favorite client of the day when I request . . .  not a princess, not Spongebob, not a tiger, but a white circle.  It's the moon.  Maya is obsessed with the moon (ever since we took her outside with friends back in March to see the "Super Moon").  

And on Saturday night I made a big fancy Mother's Day dinner.  It may have been one night early, but I was excited to splurge on nice food and spend some time in the kitchen after spening most of the week sick.   So I bought the food I wanted, the flowers I wanted, and the good local beer I wanted and made up a nice meal:

Why not take a picture of dinner?  This was steak, potatoes, bok choy, garlic green beans, and tomato/onion salad.  I didn't get a picture of the amazing dessert, but it was equally wonderful.

Sunday . . .

I went out shopping alone, and Dave & Maya went to the zoo.  While it was nice to have a little break from toddler mom duties, I quickly became a little lonely (and remembered that I hate shopping).  So I went home, grabbed Parker, my book, and an iced coffee, and laid out a blanket at the park instead.

That's much more my speed.

The afternoon brought trips to 2 different playgrounds, walking around the neighborhood, and take-out Thai food from my favorite local place. 

 Maya was delighted to find a stopped up, filled-with-muddy-sand water fountain at the second playground. 

 Hey, you!  Come here!  You've got to see this!

 Successfully dirtying other playground children.

She may have also had a grown-up partner in crime.

It was a perfect return-to-health/Mother's Day weekend :)

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there!  Especially to my mom (Maureen), sister (Lisa), mother-in-law (Helaine), and sisters-in-law (Anne, Laura, & Lori).

We're celebrities, until January 31

Maya loves Stew Leonard's. 

What is Stew Leonard's, you ask? 

It's a mini chain of grocery stores in CT/NY that sells very little processed foods, but lots of fresh dairy, meats and produce.  But that's not all.  It's set up kind of like a maze---there's only one way to go through, and as you wind through the store (which is painted like a barn) you go through bunches of decorations---the produce sections has fake trees lining the ailes, the banana stand has a giant singing and dancing mechanical banana, etc.  There are dancing mechanical cows and chickens. 

I think that Maya might think it's a theme park.

Back in the day, when she was born (May 2008), it was HOT.  After 2 weeks spent primarily hanging around the house, we were desperate to spend more time out, and the air conditioned Stew Leonard's provided a chance to shop, have ice cream (they serve food, too) and relieve our stir craziness.  So "Uncle Stew's" (as we affectionately call it) was one of Maya's first outings:

See the little tippy top of her baby head?

And once she had a taste, she couldn't get enough.  We can't go shopping anywhere near Stew's without stopping in, or we are guaranteeing a meltdown.

 Guys, look, it's right up there!  We're in the wrong place!  I need to get up that big hill to Uncle Stew's!  Right now!   Waaaaaaahhhhhhhh.  (Taken in the Costco parking lot)

Oh, and in the summer, they have animals.  REAL animals.  They even have . . .

wait for it . . .

COWS!  (well, calves,  but whatever)

I'm talkin' to a baby cow and it's lickin' my cow sticker.  It doesn't get better than this :)

I love it here!



So, when we were at "Uncle Stew's" a few days before New Year's Eve, I couldn't stifle a laugh when a bubbly customer service worker came over and said "Hi, do you guys shop here often?"  Ha! (the service is really friendly, by the way, they give stickers to Maya everytime we go . . . and although she's super cute, I suspect they might give stickers to all of the little kids).  We said yes, and she asked if we'd like to be the "customers of the month".  And that's how we became celebrities :)

They gave us the worst flowers ever and a $20 gift card:

Ok, the flowers were actually alive when we got them, but then Maya got sick and I forgot to take a picture until it was too late.

And our picture/bio is on the plaque-----if you're local you should totally head to Stew's to check it out!

I think you can click this and it will appear larger if you wan to check out the text.

It's hanging behind the desk in the customer service barn:

Maya was so excited to have this award bestowed upon her.  You can tell that she's just overwhelmed by the honor:

Throw your arms around the world at Christmas time*

Last night we headed to Maya's favorite place (Stew Leonard's) to get our tree  :)

Have I mentioned that I love Christmas time?

And Maya's learning to love it, too :)

Dave and I are excited to get the tree, Maya's perplexed that some strange lady just took our camera.

We quickly grabbed our tree  . . .

 . . . because it was pretty cold.  (Those are my gloves on Maya . . . if you follow our Facebook page you would know that getting her to keep gloves on is tricky business.)

"Santa, your beard is mighty suspicious"

And today has been as magical as last night . . . the holidays are definitely here, complete with a deliciously pine-scented apartment (courtesy of the above tree). 

Maya helped me make cookies (for the first time ever)!  It makes me kind of giddy to think about the ways that she'll soon be able to "help" in the kitchen (she's a big fan of "helping".  Note the quotes.).  Today she loaded cookies into the food processor to get crushed:

KIPP teachers, you will be eating the fruits of her labor tomorrow if you're cookie-exchanging.    Don't worry, her hands were spotlessly clean :)

Then she helped me bring out the lights and beads for the tree . . . which quickly evolved into a mini photo shoot, because she's just so darn cute.

Parker!  Get out of here, I'm tryin' to untangle these lights and you're just makin' me giggle!

And then she showed me that she's totally ready to unwrap presents by destroying her walker.  Yeah, you read that right.  I'll post about that tomorrow(ish)---it was a handy DIY project, but now I'm back to square one on it.

(cue big, announcer-type voice)

And now, folks, it's the moment you've all been waiting for . . . the winners of the first ever Holiday Card Giveaway are . . .

 #6- Jerri

#11- Lucie

#1- Candice

Hooray!  Congratulations, ladies!  Please email me your name & address (uncommonfeedback@gmail.com) and I'll get those right out to you!

A bunch of little stuff

Highlights from the past few days:

-Miracles do happen . . . Maya's splints are finally here!  They're SureStep splints, and she seems to like them----after I put her socks on today she actually picked one up and tried to put it on her foot :)  Instead of the girly patterns, we went for barns and farm animals, because this girl loves her farm animals.  She took her "Little People" cow with her to bed tonight. 

-Speaking of farms, we took my mom to visit Maya's favorite farm/grocery store, Stew Leonard's.  I can't remember whether I've talked about Stew Leonard's here, but Maya loves it.  She made her first trip there when she was just 2 weeks old, since it was terribly hot and we were stir crazy in the apartment.  They have a little animal farm in the back, complete with Maya's fave, cows:

 (that's yogurt on her mouth)                                           Mom!  This cow is lickin' my sticker!

-We spent some time in NJ with my folks and my sister's family, and I showed off my hula-hooping prowess. 

(the look on Dave's face here is priceless)

-We went to a big dog/cat show, that we thought would make Maya laugh until she threw up again, but she really liked the T-shirts with the doggie pictures better than the dogs.  (So of course, we bought the stupid t-shirt.  I'm hoping I can make it into a pillow.)

-But I think Maya's favorite part of the weekend may have been just hanging out with her Dad at the playground:

Oh, and we had a big meeting-of-the-therapists, and our first ever playdate, and a bunch of other stuff I'm probably forgetting.  It's been a fun few days :)

Whistle while you work*

I'm working on something . . .a little essay of sorts.  I've been rolling it around in my head for, oh, 6 months or so . . . that's about the time that it takes for me to plant an idea.  Starting jotting down my thoughts yesterday, so it should probably show up here in a month or so :)  Ok, probably sooner, but that's where my "blogging" time has been disappearing to . . . I haven't forgotten, I've just been laying a foundation.

Here are some random pictures from July:

Maya loves Stew Leonard's.  We've been heading there since she was 2 weeks old (when she went in the Ergo, a la the pics at the bottom of this thread) and we call it "Uncle Stew's".  For those of you not in the tri-state area, it's a specialty store and they even have a little farm in the back (where this pic is).  Lots of samples, robotic animals----what's not to love?

We stumble into good times wherever we go . . . here, we were walking in Central Park to kill some time before feeding therapy.  We saw some kids singing on a blanket and were watching from a distance when the leader of the party called "Hey, we're having a free music class, would you like to join us?"   Before I had time to think about it, Dave was halfway across the field to her.  Maya must think the world is a party :)