overheard in the whitney house: baby names

me (sternly): langley piper! when you act this way, it makes me think we shouldn't have given you such a sweet name. we should have given you an evil name…like "fangley viper."


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father's day 2010

finally posting this...

overheard in the whitney house: music lesson

last weekend, we were watching this mostly live-action version of the velveteen rabbit with langley, and during one of the cartoon parts, they do this cheesy musical number. LP starts bopping to it, as usual, and then i hear this:

bryan: if you like this, you're gonna love styx.

overheard in the whitney house: baby warfare

bryan: baby, are you not watching this baby? she's got a handful of dog food, a hand grenade, and i think she just yelled "jihad."


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langley at one year

june 14, 2010

Dear Langley,

You are now a full year old and I just cannot believe how fast the time has gone. I was looking back at pictures of you when you first came home and it does not seem possible that I am looking at the same baby. In the last few weeks you have really come into your own with this combination crawl, slide, drag, crab walk thing you do. Until recently your locomotion was severely impaired because of the concrete floors and our fear of you cracking your head. But NO MORE. We bought some carpet and some carpet pad and put it down and rearranged the living room around the idea of keeping you corralled but letting you have some independence, and it is looking good so far. You are cruising from couch to couch and scooting all over the living room. It is really quite a miracle that you are not walking yet, and we are savoring these last few moments we have with you as a nonfunctioning biped. You are quite comfortable on your feet and will walk just holding onto one of my hands squealing in delight the entire time.

Also it appears you have been bit by the technology bug very early. We recently got new iMacs and iPads for the office (I am actually typing this to you on the iPad), and you are always looking for an opportunity to take one and see if it works better while being jammed in a baby's mouth. (We think you are really just trying to update www.truth.com.) I let you play with my old iPhone and, after you were done, the home screen button no longer worked and the screen said that the accessory (YOU) that I was trying to plug into the phone was not meant for use with the iPhone.

This year has been quite a learning experience but you have really made it easy. You are really a happy kid who loves her furry bothers and sisters and just loves to be tickled and laugh. Really the only thing you do not like lately are naps, but we have managed to trick you into enough to keep our sanity.

On the music front, you have been exposed to about every genre possible. Despite mom's best attempts you are totally onboard with listening to rap, especially Jay-Z, 50, and Nelly. The only music I have seen you react negatively to is bad 90's heavy metal that came on during bath time thanks to the bing top 100 app.

You are really an amazing little person and I am so proud of you and love you so much. I can not wait to see all that you will do in your life. I know that you will not remember your 1st birthday but your mom and I will always remember the day our little baby dog turned a year old.

Love,

Daddy Dog (which is what you call me lately)

random photo monday: memorial day grass-eatin' good times

except for the fact that LP ended up with a bloody lip from sucking on this blade of grass for five minutes, this was a fantastic idea.

overheard in the whitney house: near miss

bryan: good thing i lowered her crib four months ago.

me: yeah, we really dodged that bullet.

overheard in the whitney house: baby fight club

bryan's reaction to LP being upset: you're gonna have to suck it up, kid. this is your life, and it's fucking ending one second at a time.

langley at nine months...and ten months...and eleven months

may 14, 2010

dear little boognish,

apparently, mama has gotten very bad about getting these letters done for you lately. we haven’t written one since you were eight months old, and that’s just ridiculous because, hello, are you a new baby or what?

in the past three months, you have grown four more teeth, giving you a whole new smile - just a giant, goofy grin. you have finally decided that rolling over is worth something, and you have crawled, albeit backwards only. i think we kind of set you up for failure on that one, what with the concrete floors and the “bunchy britches” (aka, bumgenius diapers). i did convince your daddy to let us throw some carpet down in the living room temporarily, so hopefully we’ll get that done soon, and we won’t have to be so terrified of you cracking your head open all the time.

none of these things can compare to the allure of walking, so that has been your major focus for the past few months. you do not want to sit down - ever. usually, if we try to put you in a seated position on the floor or couch, you stiffen up your little legs and make it impossible. even if we do get you to sit, within seconds you’re grabbing something to help you stand up. your favorite place to do this is on the couch, where you can then walk back and forth and try to attack the kittendog or pull aiko’s tail. you also really enjoy cruising around the coffee table, which means we need to start rethinking that glass and metal contraption of death.

even though you love practicing your walk on your own (with a little help from me or daddy), you still dig the jeep walker, which terrifies the dogs no end, and that causes us great enjoyment. some of your finer moments have been spent outside chasing after the dogs and squealing with delight as they take off in fear for their lives. i’ll tell you, it’s better than TV.

daddy lowered your crib months ago, thinking that soon we would go into your room in the morning and find you hanging over the railing because you’ve pulled yourself up and tried to climb out. we haven’t had that experience yet, but you did finally start rolling over to your stomach while you sleep, so we have found you in all kinds of different positions in the past few days. unfortunately, you usually cry a bit when you do it, and really unfortunately, it tends to be at 5 am. it’s like you have totally panicked yourself by rolling into this position and then, after about 30 seconds, you’re like, “oh hey, this is really comfortable. i should do this all the...zzzzz...zzzzz.”

we celebrated my first mother’s day together, starting a long tradition of daddy being responsible for buying more than one card for every holiday, so i’m sure that’s very exciting for him. just wait until he has you “buying” me gifts that he then has to wrap. i predict mama will have to teach you how to properly manipulate gift wrap very early in your life so i don’t end up opening things that look like they’ve been run over by a small truck.

finally, i should tell you that the last time we took you to the baby playgroup, we discovered that you’re going to be the big kid who bites, which is fantastic. can’t wait to get those calls from school. the biting really isn’t your fault - it’s because you’ve been raised mostly by dogs. and by people who have too many dogs. and who play with you sometimes like you’re a babydog...ugh, i should probably just stop worrying about a college fund and start working on a therapy fund instead...and i should clarify that you did not bite anyone at playgroup, but i saw panic in a few of the parents’ eyes as you came at their babies face first with your mouth open. we didn’t bother to explain that this is what you apparently consider “kissing.” in any case, you are also the most giant baby compared to so many others that we see, and i don’t mean that you’re overly chunky or somehow out of proportion. you’re just a big, healthy kid, and i’m afraid you’re going to be just like your mother and be taller than practically everyone else in your class until the boys hit 16 or 17. don’t worry though. it just means that people will be intimidated by you for one more reason in addition to your brilliance and beauty.

love,

mamadog

squash fries

i owe LP, family and friends lots of updates, but we've been too busy hemorrhaging money finishing construction on our new office building, so this is just a tidbit.

LP's (and my husband's) new favorite recipe:

butternut squash fries

1/2 butternut squash, peeled and cut into fry shapes

toss in olive oil

place on greased baking sheet

bake in 350 oven until golden brown

LP likes them pretty "smushy," but the adults have been eating them a bit crispier, and they are fantastic.

happiest. kid. ever.

LP has been extremely cooperative during photo sessions lately, laughing and smiling every time the flash goes off, rather than making her old standby crazy eyes. it's a lovely change.

langley at eight months

february 14, 2010

Dear little LP,

You are now officially 8 months old, since we have agreed finally on the new age calculation method of using the 14th of each month to mark a month. You have had quite a few firsts here over the past few weeks. You seem to be stretching out quite a bit, and I recently had to make your excer-saucer a little higher for you. I also had to adjust your crib down a few settings, and while your mom may not think it is necessary, I was not going to risk you escaping in the middle of the night.

You got to take your first plane ride when we went to Colorado for Jo’s wedding and to visit Un-Cle DAAAAAVE. Luckily for us and everyone else on the plane you were very well behaved. We got to board with the first group because of you, and it was everything I hoped it could be. You stood on my lap in the aisle seat and laughed and smiled at everyone as they boarded the plane, and they silently prayed not to have to listen to a screaming baby for the entire flight.

Once we were in CO you were quite the little trouper. You tagged along on our skiing expedition to Winter Park all the way up to 12,000 feet. We camped out in the ski lodge with you and took turns making runs down the mountain. I really wanted to put you in a sled and have you trail along behind me but we decided that was probably a quick way to have you taken away from us. We did get to put you in a little red wagon surrounded by all our ski stuff, which made lugging you and all the stuff much easier. At Winter Park you rode on the gondola, got pulled in a wagon, you rode on trains and buses at the airport and flew back and forth to CO, pretty much hitting every mode of transportation in one trip except boat.

At the hotel you slept in your very own queen size bed which worked out much better than a hotel crib. You also got to go swimming with your mom and dad and you seemed to like it. You did not cry at all, but you also did not laugh or smile. You were very interested in watching the other kids, but overall you handled the entire swimming thing as though it were a very serious and solemn experience. Hopefully, you will enjoy the pool here at the house this summer.

You now have two giant teeth on the bottom, which you constantly use to chew on anything you can get your hands on. You have hit this stage where you love to walk around in your Jeep walker and have us hold your hands so you can stand and walk. Your new extra fun idea is to try to stand on your own, which you are unable to do just yet, so instead it propels you forward with shocking speed, and you have tried to dive off the couch a few times now. And as I write this you have just managed to roll over from your stomach to your back all on your own for the very first time, and we are so proud.

You have been an amazing little addition and have learned so much in 8 months. I will not hold it against you that you constantly say Mama but have yet to utter anything that remotely resembles Dada. You have however constantly been jabbering and yelling Oy Oy Oy, which is very cute. You finally have some hair too, which is good because Daddy was starting to worry you were gonna have my hairstyle for a while longer. Thanks for being a great daughter. I am so proud of all your progress and I love you very much.

Love,

Daddy

overheard in the whitney house: baby therapy

when langley wakes up some mornings, she makes what we call "the most annoying sound in the world." it sounds like a wrong answer buzzer on a game show. keeping that in mind, here's a text message i got from bryan a couple of weeks ago:

i had a dream last night that i was in the waiting room at a therapist's office, and there was this old jewish man yelling the whole time. then i woke up and i realized langley was the old jewish man.

random photo monday: a series of chai-tastic events

langley at six and seven months

january 14, 2010

dear little boognish,

you might have noticed that mama did not do a letter for you at six months. the first reason is, oy, do we ever have far too much going on around here. the second, crazier, reason is that there has been some debate over when your monthly “birthdays” actually are. your daddy and i have been counting up the weeks and, every four weeks, we call that a month. your gran wants us to count the 14th of each month as your birthday because it makes more sense then when you turn one year old. my only concern with choosing any particular method is that i refuse to be one of those people who says their child is 37 months old or 142 weeks old or any of that nonsense. so here’s the deal: we will, from now on, say that you’ve turned another month older on the 14th of each month and call it good.

all that aside, you have had a spectacular couple of months, little lady. you’re becoming a real little person, and it’s absolutely incredible. recently, we got you a walker, and then gran got you one for her house too, and you love scooting around and playing with all the toys. you actually “drive” the jeep walker - hands at 10 and 2 and everything.

you almost never want to lie down anymore, and naps are mostly out of the question unless you’re treefrogging on me or daddy. all you want to do is stand up, which you can now do with very little help from us. you hold onto our hands, but you’re basically balancing and doing everything on your own. you have also started sitting up without our help for really long periods of time without toppling over. it’s amazing how much happier you are with some independence. you’re so stinkin’ proud of yourself, and i love it.

the dogs are all your best buds, and you’re checking them out almost as much as they check you out now. one day a couple of weeks ago, you were at the tail-end of a two-hour fuss that no silly mama face or noise could break you out of, and bronson came over and started nosing around at you and licking your face, and you just busted out laughing. malichai came over to join in, and you were completely cheered up. you love those damn dogs. you’ve been petting them a lot more and grabbing clumps of their fur and pulling their ears, and luckily they’ve been very understanding of these new developments. i think they’re just happy to have another human to pay attention to them since all mama and daddy do is neglect and abuse them, of course.

about a week ago, we took you to phoenix, and you took an awesome nap the whole way down, and then woke up just in time to go completely apeshit in the hotel room. you were a huge fan of all the new sights. you sat for an hour just rubbing your feet on the comforter because you liked the sound it made, and you got all wide-eyed looking out from our 16th floor windows. you went with us to a fancy dinner in a revolving restaurant, and even though everyone around us looked pretty worried that you were going to ruin their lovely evening, you did an amazing job of not fussing...even if it meant constantly being on either my or daddy’s lap, which made trying to cut our steaks really fun. when we got back to our hotel, we stopped at the bar to buy a bottle of wine, which we placed in the cup holder of your stroller, instantly making you a huge hit in the lobby. everybody saw our little alcoholic baby and laughed their asses off. we took off running before somebody called CPS.

you’re eating real foods these days, and mama’s giving the baby food maker a good workout. you’ve tried peas, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, bananas and prunes, and guess what? you’re a foodie. you don’t care what color it is or what it smells like. if it is food, you probably really really really love it. daddy hates to feed you because you’re a giant catastrophe, always putting your fingers in your mouth and flinging food everywhere. i’m not a huge fan of that either, but you look so damn happy the whole time that i forgive you.

in two weeks, we’ll be heading to colorado to see your un-cle daaaaave in boulder and go to my friend jo’s wedding in denver. it will be your first plane ride and your first trip of more than one night, and i’m quite terrified. be nice to mama and daddy, okay? don’t decide that you hate your hotel crib like you did in phoenix, because i am not sleeping with a punching-and-kicking baby for five nights!

love,

mamadog