Perish the Thought!!

I hardly ever wake Sadie up from naps, but as evidenced below-- I did break that cardinal rule. I love to watch her going from the deep sleep state to her jovial self. She's such a wonderful little baby! I love her!!


I guess I was taking a lot of nap videos on Sunday. This is Sadie after her afternoon nap (above is her morning nap). We love going to get her up after she's moved so much in her crib because she always looks so proud of herself. And there's so much to be proud of, Sadie. :)

Cookie Monster

Little Sadie is eyeing dad's cookie....

Playtime

Here are a couple videos of Sadie rocking playtime a couple of weeks ago...these are two of her favorite places to play!

The Week in Pictures

Working part-time can be a little odd. I feel like my week stops and starts. Things are very slow-paced and Sadie-driven at home—is she tired? Is she hungry? Is she bored? And at work, things are very fast-paced and schedule-driven. This week was a taste of what life will be like for the next couple years: me working part-time, mark working, us juggling the car, dropping off and picking up Sadie from daycare, etc...(and then there’s always laundry and dishes). We’ve come to the end of the week, and I feel good. This is doable.

Sadie started off the week with tears on her first day of daddy daycare, but thankfully finished it off with smiles. She’s adjusting nicely, so that makes going back to work bearable.

We made fish tacos mid week-- such a feat and so delicious! The fish was beer-battered and yumminess. It was a team effort. Mark and I traded off Sadie and dinner-making responsibilities.

We made so much! But mmmm they made great left overs.

Sadie greets Daddy after a long day of work. (Nice vest Mark!)

Our first strawberry this season! Yum.

Sadie enjoys her first piggy back...especially pulling mom's hair.

Ending the week with daddy-daughter storytime. Preciousness!

Daddy Daycare

Our friend Lon is pretty much awesome (pictured below- with baby Kate). We're doing a daycare trade-- we're watching little Kate this summer and he's watching Sadie until June. I left Sadie at Lon's yesterday... and she had a hard time adjusting to the new people and surroundings. They say separation anxiety kicks in at 5 months...and yup, it kicked in yesterday for Sadie. Pobrecita hardly slept and she cried all morning.  That means that she's been a mess all day today too b/c she's sleep deprived. I'm sure Sadie will adjust and her calm easy-going disposition will return. But for now-- Lon, bless his heart, will be dealing with a confused and fussy baby.  

Workin' It

So...I went back to work, part-time (phew! i'm so glad it's not full-time!). This week was positive in so many ways, so I want to share all those happy moments with y'all:

• Thanks to Paid Family Leave, Mark stayed home with Sadie this week. We thought this would be a good way to transition, so that I could concentrate on going back to work without having to worry about her being in a new place, etc...That will start next week. She'll go to Anne and Lon's to hang with her baby BFF, Kate.
• Sadie ate her bottle and was really good for Mark. She fussed sometimes, but overall me being gone was successful.
• Sadie slept through the night! I heard that sometimes babies wake their moms up at night after they go back to work to get extra snuggle time.
• My awesome Principal is letting me work 3 days a week. So nice of him. It's a great schedule.
• I really liked being at work. It was so nice to see my peeps (shout out to Monarch!) and it was really great to see the kiddos I work with (I know I'm not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, but whatevers). It was so good to have adult conversations. I know that's a cliche mommy-back-to-work statement, but it was so so true! I'm a Reading Specialist working with small groups of students. Many of the kids have made little progress since I left (sad), so it's nice to be back...to hopefully get some progress made in these last couple months before summer. They have the sweetest dispositions.
• I watched less TV this week on Hulu because I was busy busy busy, so my brain felt a little less mushy. And the times I did get to watch a show--- oh, it was so divine! BTW the new Glee was thoroughly disappointing.
• I got to hang out with my hubby (and my baby Sadie) on my days off-- Monday and Wednesday! He's (she's) the best!
• We had earth day at my school today. I was with the group that cleaned up a local park. We had over 40 families cleaning this nasty park. The kids found so much trash-- shoes in trees, a janky stroller, jeans, carpet, car parts, and yes, a used condom (luckily they had no clue what it was!). Parents and students (and teachers) had so much fun weeding, cleaning graffiti off the play structure, planting flowers, wearing neon safety vests, and using the cool trash picker uppers the city lent us. Good times.
• I think I'm going to lose this baby weight going back to work. It makes me busier (and honestly, more motivated/engaged), so I eat less. I like that. We shall see...there's always a jar of chocolate in the office that's quite enticing!
• This week ended with a lovely family walk around Lake Merritt late this afternoon. It was pleasantly warm. Sadie was chipper. We walked, ran into our friend Lon (Sadie's soon-to-be babysitter), and ended up a Lake Chalet for a drink and a small bite to eat. Perfect. Yum, I still smell like sun.

Of course there are drawbacks to going back to work. The main drawback is that I can't be with my little baby all day. But luckily we have summer in 10 weeks! Yah!

Mark had Sadie snuggle my scarf and towel in my absence. She loved it. See below:

Yum yum yum

Oh, I'm such a spastic blogger. I write a flurry of posts, and then you don't hear from me for days, and in this case, weeks! I have a few in the queue....so get ready!!

We have some very exciting news....no, I'm not pregnant. That would be a little crazy, and a tad bit too soon for my liking (Sadie has to be the only child for some time so she can develop all her first child characteristics, dontcha think?). [Pardon the tangent] Sadie ate big people food this week...well, I don't think it's truly big people food, because it's made especially for babies to transition to big people food. But, isn't it wonderful? She ate rice cereal for the past 2 noontime meals....AND....she loved it!!! We had a good hunch that she was ready. All the signs were there: she has been very focused on our food for the last couple weeks, her head control has developed, she's over 5 months old, and she definitely knows how to push things away from her mouth that she doesn't like (She pushes the bottle away when she's done with it).

Without further ado...her she is tackling the first spoonfuls. You can see how she gets more into it the longer she's fed.


And for you folks that never watch the videos, here are some pictures:

Philly: Chillin' at the Casa de Ruff

We had some quality time hanging out with our family at Clovery Road in Philly. It's now my Aunt and Uncle's house (and their 3 grown children), but it used to be my grandparents' house, the house my dad grew up in. Mark and I love games...so it was great fun to play croquet and a couple different card games with the Ruff family.

Sadie mesmorized by the ceiling fan. Check out the brick in the background, my Uncle laid it when he was 18 years old, how cool is that?

Sadie plays croquet on my team (we lost, then sadie went down for a nap, and I lost again). My mom played with my cousin, uncle and brother the day before this, and debated objected to their use of the extra hit; when they knock and opponents ball to earn an extra hit, they play that you can repeat this indefinitely. My hotly contested this version of the game (I like to see my mom get a little riled up about things). Another variation upon the game:  They play with a killer. Once you finish the course, you go around the course killing other players, but if you're killed by a killer or go through a wicket--- you lose. I liked playing with killers; it makes the game more unpredictable.

Learning Nertz after playing Dutch Blitz...we all had our game toothpicks in, making us legit!

Team Aunt Ruthanne and Uncle Martin

Shelly visits!

It was great to be in Philadelphia. Everytime we go back, I try to convince Mark we should move there. The cost of living is so much cheaper than the Bay Area, and we could get teaching jobs anywhere. Also, I love the city and church there that I grew up in. I romanticize what that life would be like: I could stay at home, we'd be a drive away from his brother and a longer drive to his parents and sister, and my family would visit because Philly is home away from home to them too. Honestly, I think I remember how much I loved living in Philadelphia when I was young, so I think my growing family will love it too. But when it comes down to it, I do love California, and I could never leave my immediate family. It's going to be so much fun for Sadie to grow up with cousins around-- that's something I didn't have because my family trekked out to CA, away from everyone else. 

Getting Oakland Kids to Read

I like Think College Now's Principal David Silver's creativity around getting kids to read. Read here about how he entices the students at his school to read. Reading a great volume of diverse books is essential for our little ones to become good readers. It's quite simple, the more you read the better you read. In education, we call it the Matthew Principle after the biblical adage that the rich become richer.

Laugh Attack

Too cute for words....

Philly: Anderson Cousin Fest

All the new Anderson/Ainsworth babies met up while we were in town. Since we live so far away in California, it was so great to have some family bonding time. We were able to visit with cousin Lars(almost 4 months) and Lucey (2 months-ish) in Philly. Then we went up to DC for the night and saw cousin Lars again. So fun!

Jolly Sadie with Aunt Lida!

Cousin hand-holding...it doesn't get much cuter than this! They definitely have similar voices, and the same coloring and hair...and the same sweetness.

Sadie sampling 2nd cousin Lucey's hand-- Lars lets them know that he feels left out.

L to R: Lida, Scott, Baby Lars, Rob, Baby Lucey, Lauren, Mark, Rebecca, Baby Sadie

Brothers Mark and Scott.. Lars chomping down on Mark's hand

Philly: Rebecca and Jeremy's Slammin' Wedding!

It's been a long time since I've blogged because we went to Philadelphia for a good family friend's wedding (and then took 3-4 days to recover from the trip). We had a great time, and Sadie especially enjoyed her first plane ride. She did rather well, fussing at times, but sleeping on mama or playing with new friends most of the time. So here's the first installment of my blogging about our 6-day Philly trip...

This is the beautiful church Jeremy and Rebecca got married in-- Tenth Presbyterian Church in Rittenhouse Square (historic, supercute, and hip downtown neighborhood). I talked to Mr. Tom Manns (good family friend) about the seemingly morroccan-inspired architecture. It's a great church...

Rebecca and Jeremy Julien's first dance as a married unit. Their personality was evident at their wedding and reception-- very fun, relaxed, yet well-planned and detailed. As you can see here--they looked gorgeous too!

Smiling Sadie, happy in dad's arms at the reception.

Rebecca, the lovely bride, chatting it up with my mom. I loved this moment.

What a brilliant idea to have a candy bar at your wedding. We all got our fill... all of the many jars were empty at night's end.

Us, sans baby (Some nice doctor man held her for over an hour. We didn't know him, but every one assured us it was okay because he was a doctor. It was great because I was able to eat with both hands free!)

Sadie cutting it up with the men.

Shelly with her son, so sweet.