It's really hot in Los Angeles

It's so hot, in fact, that a group of us mommies and babies were videotaped last week at a park for the local news doing spots on the heat wave. We were having a going away playdate for a mommy who's moving away to Indiana. We're so sad to lose her, she was the sweetheart of our group, but work calls. She's got a Phd and job offers are few and far (literally far) in between. Then I found out today that the leader of our baby group, whose husband also is a Phd, is moving to Seoul, Korea. Wow.

I've meanwhile, been having fun designing elements for my new digital scrapbooking kits. I don't have my own creative team, so I should probably take a break from designing at some point and scrapbook my own baby. Maybe my next kit should be blue and more masculine, so I could do some more pages for Myles.

Myles, meanwhile, is growing and changing at a lightning pace. He's saying more words everyday. He points to planes and says, "bee." No idea why. He's started to read a book on his potty. We're just getting him used to the idea of sitting on the potty. Today he crawled into his jogging stroller on his own. Subtle hint, huh?

New kit preview

Almost done with another kit. Not sure about the name, but I'm getting there. I love pink and green, so this one's called Berries and Pistachios at the moment. Take a sneak peak:

Big sister's leaving

My sister came into town to visit Myles on the 4th of July, coincidentally the same time as last year. A lot has changed. She visited a really cute, warm lump last year and came back this year to find a little boy. He's learned so much since she's been here: he can blow his nose (caught her flu), he learned to blow a little whistle noise maker we got from a baby party, he says "wawa," "open" - apparently he's been saying it for awhile, but we didn't understand "opie" "oppie" the way she did. And sure enough he only says it while opening and closing things. She bought him a potty, which he's scared to sit on, but likes to open the top while saying open. She's learned his lingo, which includes the undiscernable, "bee-dub." No idea what that's about. He can turn the rotary dimmer light switch, the cable box. He's said thank you, but "love you" doesn't really sound like English. It's funny how adding another person to the mix speeds things up. These are all added to his standard repertoire of "dog" (voiced as if he's totally surprised every single time), "dada," "mama," "hi," "hello," "bye bye," "oh no," "uh-oh" and "aww, man," which he learned from The Backyardigans. He's also made up "nummy num num," as a way to ask for food when he sees some that he wants. We're entering exponential growth as far as the vocabulary is concerned.

We had three days of him sleeping through the night - M,W,F, followed by him waking up every 2 hours last night. Hope ignited, hope set aflame! LOL. It was so bad, I had to sleep on the sofa so as to not wake up the rest of the house. He's had a great time. I hope he remembers her face on webcam when she makes it back home.

He's tried new foods: cut up (and peeled) hot dogs, corn on the cob which he adored yesterday and not so much today, burgers and fries and sweet potatoes. It's been a great visit and I'm sad to see her go, as evidenced by this late night post. She was sick so it wasn't even as much fun as it could have been and I'm still said about her leaving. Imagine if we'd had a full-on blow out. But as usual, nobody can make me laugh harder than my sister. I fell to the ground in fits of hysterical laughing with tears rolling down my face at least twice that I can remember. I can't wait to give Myles a sibling so that he may know the joy of having somebody else in the world who's forever connected, despite how similar or dissimilar they are. When my brother's not busy dividing and conquering my parents so that he may pillage them for every cent they have, we have a lot of fun as well. One year, we had a Thanksgiving with just the 3 of us kids and it was SO funny. We did imitations of our parents, told our favorite stories and just hammed it up. I feel bad for him, he's really missing out on the best of life, right now doing his imitation of an only child. But my sister and I, we figured out that our tastes are SO opposite. We like the opposite foods, we made a guy crack up in the store as she mentioned that "the chunks were rising" to her throat at the sight of some darling purse I showed her that she didn't like. She hates mayo, I love mayo. She hates curry, I'm honorarily Caribbean, I hate strawberries and am allergic to shrimp, both of which she loves. Friends need to be somewhat similar to you in order to make it, but siblings don't have that pressure. We don't have similar tastes, we don't even exactly have the same upbringing, but we have a shared set of references and a language of shorthand that can't be replicated, which is funny because we weren't close AT ALL growing up. She's nearly a decade older than me and I grew up moreso with my little brother who I used to be somewhat close to until he was old enough to talk. LOL. Fast forward several years, now she's one of the first calls I make. Enough of the wistfulness, I'm going to catch some more zzzzs.

Pictures to follow.

New Foods, More Pictures

Myles has eaten two new foods this week! Shouldn't be a big deal, but for him it is. He tried adult oatmeal this week and liked it and today tried sweet potatoes and liked it. He didn't immediately take to the sweet potatoes, but something in the way he rejected it let me know he might eat it if I prepared it just so. So he spit out the big chunk, I squished it much thinner and he spit it out again, but no yuck face. I mixed it with a bit of honey (he's over a year now, so it's safe) and he still wasn't thrilled, then I thinned it with even more water and then he liked it and came back for more voluntarily. He even said the words more and eventually signed the word more without saying it. He ate the whole ramekin I made for him and fell asleep. Progress! He started corn as well last week. Fruits don't work so well for us, but I'm going to try watermelon next week perhaps. He won't have grapes at all, nor apples. He's not totally revolted by oranges, but doesn't particularly like them either.

My sister's in town from DC and it's been great to get away. She watched the baby and let us have 2 movie dates alone. We saw Eclipse (guilty pleasure) and Get Him to the Greek, which was fantastic! I LOVE Russell Brand.

Here are so more random pics of Myles.