Sweetness and Light

I just couldn't resist adding these two photos of Olivia in my baby dress. We certainly, and against all preconceptions, think that she is particularly pretty in pink!




The beautiful afghan in the background was made by my mother for me.

Back in the Cascades!

One of our last days in Seattle we spent hiking in the Cascades with the Peterka family. It was a wonderful outing with beautiful weather, a nice big rock by the lake for lunching on, lots of interesting exploration - Zeth and Devon found a mysterious orchid in the undergrowth - and fantastic company. Ooooh, and lots of yummy baked goods! of which Olivia, alas could not partake as she had only just begun to eat solids.

Olivia seemed to enjoy the day. We found a nice, shady nook for her to sit and take in her surroundings. Here, she is exploring the heather. For hiking, she hitched a ride with Bob mostly, in the Baby Bjorn. It was so good to be in the mountains again and to introduce Olivia to one of our favorite outdoor destinations.

Our little biker

Now that Olivia can hold her head up and sit up pretty well, we're able to get her in the bike seat- which is a great thing, as Cambridge is a perfect town for bikes, less perfect for cars! The terrain is flat, and the roads can be rather clogged with cars in peak times (locally known as "chock a block!"). So the bike seat gives Olivia (and Suzanne!) some much-needed freedom and flexibility- to say nothing of getting some exercise and not having to burn biodiesel!

She initially didn't like the helmet much, but we got her used to it by letting her play with it, and when it's time to put it on we put ours on first so she can see what's going to happen. Now she doesn't seem to mind it so much.


This is what often happens during the ride. She spends a fair amount of time looking at things passing by, but frequently eventually passes out. Fortunately we can pretty easily pop the seat off so we can, say, sit on the grass and eat lunch in the Botanical gardens while Olivia naps.
This particular picnic spot is under a descendant of Newton's apple tree, so the headgear is an essential precaution...

We're back!!

This picture is actually over a month old, but it seemed like a good place to start back in. She'd just so darn cute!

Its been a long dry spell for all of us, not being wired at home. But we've finally gotten back on a broadband connection (or maybe that's narrow band?) with a "service" called TalkTalk. I just looked back and noticed how long it's been since we've had any regular updates- quite a while! Well, rather than feel like we need to start from where we left off (which would make us procrastinate indefinitely since it seems like such a big job!), we thought we'd jump back on the horse with current events, and fill in things that happened in the intervening time with back-dated posts. They'll show up in the correct chronological order, so if you see a post show up that you don't recognize but you're sure you've been watching, that's probably why.

So, where to start? Olivia has been blossoming in the last couple of months. She now has 4 teeth, and we think number 5 might be right around the corner. She's rolling over and sitting up like a champ, and incredibly close to crawling. She eats a lot; solid food plus plenty of breastmilk. Her favorite is bananna, but she does pretty well with sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, rice cereal... she didn't like the green beans too much though. She's quite good at feeding herself, we put some food on the spoon and aim it for her, and she grabs it and does the rest. For a long time she'd then keep the spoon, and we'd have to use another, so we'd have to have 3 spoons for a feeding- 1 for each hand and 1 to actually use (she'd drop one spoon to grab the current one). Lately, though, she's doing a good job of letting us have the spoon back, and this evening she seemed to want to show us how good her aim was, but taking the spoon, stretching it out to arm's length, and then bringing it to her mouth all by herself. What a star!


Here are Suzanne and Olivia relaxing in the Cambridge Botanic Garden, which is very close to my work. They come in from time to time and the three of us enjoy a picnic in the gardens.

Ok, well, that's quite a long post, so I'd better go. We'll get back into the swing of things though, so there will hopefully be many more posts soon!