Fathers Follow-up

I just found another interesting article on NY Times Wellness Blog about the role of fathers in their children's health and care. They had some good points and tips. The following quote rang true to me:

“Many TV sitcoms and animated shows continue to portray dads as dolts or, at best, well-meaning but misguided large children whose wives have to mother them as well as their offspring. If an alien in another universe happens to tune in to ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘Everyone Loves Raymond,’ ‘Family Guy,’ etc., he (it?) will come away with a rather skewed idea of how men function in American families.”

The article discusses what are some universal principles of good fathering. #1 and #2 are Be There and Be There throughout childhood.

I'm SO glad when daddy comes home...

Today I wanna give a shout out to the other cutie in my life-- not Eliza, but STEVE!

This picture was taken the night that Steve proposed to me.

Now I know I'm a little tardy in the blogging world as far as Father's Day posts go, but June 15th was the day after my birthday and 2 days before vacation, so I've had little time to blog since then.

I started at my job when Eliza was almost 5 months old. I was TERRIFIED to be leaving her for my 8 hour shifts 2 days a week at first. And honestly my heart still aches sometimes when I say "bye bye" to 'Liza as I head to work. However, one of the big things that has made my working not only an enriching experience for me but also for Eliza, is that I always leave Eliza home with her daddy.

(This picture was taken just about a week after I started working. Eliza is 5 1/2 months old.)

Before we even got pregnant, Steve and I dreamed about splitting our work week in order for us to each get time in the adult world with careers that we had passions for- Steve's art and my social work- not because of the fortune we'd make from them (haha), but the love we had for our jobs.

It's been a dream come true that we have found a way to split the load of parenting and work for pay. This also became a priority in a different way as soon as we had Eliza. Steve came to the unsurprising realization that his heart ached as soon as he had to go back to work and started missing out on 8 hours of Eliza's life every day during the week. (The division of labor in the home is a big issue for each family. Check out a great article that Katy posted as Sharing is Caring on her blog.)

Many of you know that it can be hard for dad's to bond with breastfed newborns... and it can be hard for hovering mothers to "let go" long enough for dads to figure out what's what when it comes to caring for their own kid. There's just seems to be so much trial and error with raising kids-- especially your first!

I have been sooo grateful to see the beautiful, nurturing and often quirky relationship Eliza and Steve have developed with each other.

With me out of the way, they watch Mozart operas. Eliza already knows how to "conduct" music whenever people are singing loud around us or there's loud music on (although it unfortunately resembles a nazi salute a little bit).

Eliza also learned how to crawl and walk during Steve's weekend direction. What are the odds, right? I'm there 5 days a week, Steve 2 and he's still the lucky one!!

Eliza often wakes up calling, "Daddaw, daddaw" because she knows whose cheerful morning face will greet her bouncing self (besides the kitty).

Steve and Eliza have a peaceful and playful understanding. I love the calm, kind, soft-spoken Dad that Steve is with Eliza. Lovingly letting her tug on his nose and ears as she learns her body parts, and singing Baby Beluga off key as he rocks her to sleep. Reading her his precious picture books in hopes that someday, her attention span will actually allow them to make it through a whole Peter Sis, Paul Zelinsky, or Maurice Sendak in one sitting.

So all of the wonderful benefits of Steve and Eliza's Daddy/Daughter time outweigh the mismatched, wild haired, care-free states I often find my baby in upon my return home from work. Like this pictures I took on my dinner break on Father's Day:

(I put Eliza's hair up in elastics and bows in the mornings and for church, but often by the end of the day, especially after "wrestling" with daddy, the hair bows end up as casualties!)

And this picture that Steve took of Eliza today. She found my workout shorts in the laundry pile and managed to put her head through one of the legs and the waist band was around her waist...

(Our little Red Riding Hood...Shorts)

Direct quote from Steve: "I was worried she was going to get tangled in the shorts or something, but her head popped right through like she knew just what she was doing!" (I mentioned in my last post about how Eliza loves to try to put everything on her head to play dress up with).

When I leave for work, I know that my daughter will be fed and physically nourished, attentively watched, and most importantly loved by her caregiver. I love our little family and am grateful for a husband who shares the role of nurturer for our daughter.

And seriously, I don't know how single parents do it. I really don't know if my children would live to adulthood if it were up to just me to raise them....!!!

Backpackin'

Eliza loves gathering things into containers or bags.

Eliza also recently loves to try to "dress up" by taking one of my headbands and try to put it on her head. Or she loves to try on her gymboree sunglasses over and over again and then have us try them on too. Or she grabs her raincoat or other clothing item and tries to place it on top of her head.

So I pulled out this little backpack that Sis. Marsh gave me for Eliza's shower last year. And it's a hit! We put a couple of Eliza's light toys into it and helped her into the straps, and she took off! First she said, "bye bye!' and went to the door. Then with the lack of options presented by the closed screen door, she turned and decided to show it off to Aunt Katy.

Hilarious. I think it makes her look way grown up too.
Unfortunately, she somehow gets it caught like around her head occasionally and needs to be helped out of it. She does the same thing with my diaper bags and Steve's man bag. Silly goose!

My Beach Babe!

Eliza and I finally made it back from our San Diego vacation. We felt really lucky to be able to go. Even if most of the events ended up looking like the picture below for the two of us. We never really figured out a schedule, and it didn't help that Eliza got feverish and sick one of the nights and woke up screaming every two hours. OUCH.

The other biggest ouch that I'm still not recovered from and am not sure if I ever will be was the red eye flight we came back on Sunday night. Eliza got a poopy diaper right after we got on the plane, and so I couldn't get up to change her until we were in the air... which meant that my exhausted Eliza SCREAMED and SCREAMED and writhed in my arms for a good 20 minutes until she finally fell asleep in my lap. I cried with her. It was terrible. as I'm sure anyone on that altitude could tell you.

I tried reading to her, singing to her, feeding her, rocking her (while still in the seated position), everything I could think of... It reminded me of when she was colicky... not a reminder I was grateful for. Eliza doesn't realize that she just booted back any potential of a sibling by another good 3+ years. and I'm not kidding. It was that bad. I don't plan on trying to fly with her anywhere else anytime soon. On one of our flights on the way out, Eliza and I had a whole row to ourselves which was heaven! It was just like chillin' on the couch only better! Eliza spent probably a good hour of our flight just cuddling with the airplane pillows and her blankie. It was really cute. We were unfortunately scrunched in next to two perverted men who had fun talking about So Cal beach girls and nude beaches, etc on our red eye flight of horrors... awesome.

But back to the sunny San Diego Report. I loved getting lots of fun time with four of my favorite people during our trip:
Eliza really knows her aunts and grandparents these days. She thinks they're a not stop party! It was sooo much fun to be with Mom, Dad, Katy, and Abby-- it felt like Robby should be right there with us getting stung by jelly fishes.

But the big news was that Eliza is a TOTAL Beach BABE!!! She was giddy in the waves. Seriously squealy and kicking her feet with each wave and ocean water exposure! She was more brave about them then I was. Lots of times I would be running away from the breaking waves, and she would be running towards them! She only got swallowed by one once... but she recovered quickly.

Eliza's Meldau Roots were bursting through! She even got to see a tide pool with Aunt Katy! Something that Steve had never seen until the Thanksgiving we were engaged and visited my Grandpa Bob in CA almost 3 years ago.
One of the best parts of the trip was that Eliza got to meet her two great grandparents. My Oma (my mom's mom):

and her Great Grandpa Bob (my dad's dad) and her Great Aunt Barbara:Eliza loved them MUCHO! And the birthday presents they gave her! Oma gave her a giant white poodle stuffed animal that Eliza loves hugging and rolling around on the ground with. Grandpa gave Eliza her first doll which she also loves hugging and rolling around on the ground with! and a little Leap Frog that sings the ABC's to her. She kept walking it over to us and signing while saying, "Mo? Mo?" (translation- More) so that we would press it's tummy and make it sing for her.

Eliza also quickly learned that Aunt Barbara was THE source for fun with all of the toys she had for her to play with! I was amazed and Oh-so-grateful for her supply!

I LOVED being able to visit with these three amazing people along with other Capener's. Being able to visit and enjoy their company reminded me of just how hard it is to live across the country from a lot of our family!

My favorite part of the vacation besides the beach was getting to go to the glorious San Diego Temple with Mom. We even got to go to a Spanish Session! Que Bueno! It was AMAZING. and a very peaceful experience amidst the stress of sleep deprivation and traveling.


And if you hadn't noticed already, I love doing these 'Look How Far We've Come in a Year' pictures. So here's Eliza and me ready to swim last August compared to this week!

(gotta love my farmer's tan and the seaweed that Katy snuck into Eliza's arms RIGHT before the shot was taken. Thanks, Kate)

I was sad I didn't get more pictures, but hopefully Mom, Dad, and Abby will continue to share more with me. They have a better camera anywayz. Thanks again for the trip, guys!

Rub a dub dub, Eliza in the Tub

I tried to get just one cute picture of Eliza in the bath, but ironically or not surprisingly, she was moving too quickly to get a focused shot. Top left is her squirting herself in the face.

Eliza has been LOVING her bath time lately. The last few weeks, every time she hears me start the water, she climbs the stairs and gets herself to the edge of the bath to peer in as quick as she can! She is literally dancing with anticipation for her bath.

This excitement and enjoyment of bathing has been much appreciated by Steve and myself. Last month she HATED her baths. She cried almost the whole time and would try to climb out like the whole time. Then I instituted the No Standing up in the bath rule for safety reasons (after she busted her lip on the edge of bath twice- so scary and sad).

Now she spends her whole time scooting and crawling and wiggling around with her water animal toys and letters that stick to the porcelain and the bubble ones, etc, and it's 15 or 20 minutes of bliss.

However, I'm finding that most of these blissful stages of childhood can't just stay the way you'd like them to be. This week in the bath, Eliza gets so excited about her baths she's started to like dive into the water with her mouth open, gulping loads of water and chasing and splashing her toys at such a speedy rate that my No Standing rule no longer is assuring safety. Eliza's found a way around it to be dangerous once again! She's pushing the limits all over again.

Just like a junkie needing just one more high... Yeah, I just compared my baby to a drug addict.

I want someone else to make my cake so I can eat it too

(My mom made a couple cakes like this for me when I was growing up. Yum!)

My birthday is this Saturday, Flag Day. The most awesome holiday ever!? Right?

I'm looking forward to my birthday-- I always look forward to my birthday. On any given day I can usually tell you that it's my something year, 5 month and 3 days birthday because I think of birthday's being THAT COOL. Like cool enough to always be celebrating. I think that's because my mom and dad always made our birthdays so special for us growing up.

HOWEVER, adult birthdays are NOT what they're cracked up to be. Especially I'm-a-Mom-Now Birthdays. This will be my second birthday as a mother. And I just hope it'll be better than last year.

Last year on June 14th, 2007, Eliza was celebrating her 1 month and 15 days bday AKA Colic! I spent most of the day in my yellow pajamas in a stale unshowered state, tired and mostly breastfeeding, watching Lost episodes on my loveseat, and pacing throughout the apartment rocking Eliza while singing the verses from Wheels on the Bus song over and over and over as she screamed at me.

It was sooo sad to see my baby so sad. The only time she wasn't crying was when she was eating and sleeping.

Steve came home and I got a shower, and we decided to meet Kate and Aaron for some Mexican Food. Eliza was really cute, but before the meal was over, she was crying! We passed her around to everyone once, and then we figured she was probably hungry. That's when we realized that Steve had forgotten to pack the bottle of breastmilk that I had set out. Not to point fingers or anything.

So I found myself sitting on the tiled floor of a Mexican restaurant bathroom nursing a very sad baby and changing a poopy diaper while people knocked on the door to find out what was taking so long.

We went home to have some Ben & Jerry's cake- my favorite!! YUM. and open presents, and Eliza started just screaming. This was the first day she had ever done this kinda crying before. It was clear none of us were enjoying ourselves. Eliza's colic lasted way through to the 4th of July as I recall.

So at the end of my birthday 2007, after we had finally gotten Eliza to sleep, I was feeling sorry for myself. So since it was my birthday, I cried cuz I wanted to.

So I'm predicting sunnier weather for this Saturday. Hoping! I actually have work off so Steve and Eliza and I will get a whole day together- a rare occasion for our family. We're still trying to decide how to enjoy this boon. We're gonna do some joint father's day celebrating too. We like the idea of eating and spending time together, but we still need our creative juices to start flowing a bit more.

But how do the rest of you serious adults manage to enjoy your day of birth these days?

2 summers ago, Steve and I were living in NYC and to celebrate my birthday after we got off work/slave labor internships, we took the subway down to Little Italy and had some of the most delicious pasta ever.

We headed down 2 blocks to my favorite bakery in the WORLD and got some delicious creamy, chocolaty goodness. Then we went to the Prairie Home Companion movie and took the hot and humid subway home exhausted, in love, and joyous.
Eliza wasn't on her way yet, but we were very eager for her to come join our family at this time. It was still one of my happiest birthdays ever. I think that NYC is a great place to be young and in love.

So I've been trying to figure out how to recreate that kind of joyful moment while incorporating our little one. We have plenty of joyful moments with her that are very different. Fantastic and unsurpassable, but different.

Anyone have any tips, ideas, or favorite birthday stories?

How does your garden grow: Part II

It started out like this...

And now it looks like this...I took this picture at the end of April/early May

And now a month later, it's like this....Here's a shot of our backyard last month with the pretty Azalea's growing. Yay for Southern foliage!

The tomato plants were almost a measely foot tall when I planted them. Now they're almost five feet tall! They've totally outgrown the original cages I put in to support them. Here's a shot of our house/duplex in case anyone's curious. We're lovin' it!

Here are the first 2 "fruits" I was able to harvest from my gardening venture. My calla lillies! Calla Lillies are my FAVORITE flower, and I have some planted in a flower box in front of our front porch now. I clipped these two as a visual for our primary lesson on Korihor and Alma's testimony of "all things denote that there is a God." There are signs all around us of God's grand design and plan... especially in nature.

And for those of you with little or no interest in garden updates and only hit up this blog to check out the HOT-MOMMA pics of Eliza, here are two good 'uns!

Eliza helping me garden:

And Eliza eating fruit from another's garden:

Yep, that's one hot baby!

Finally Ambulatory!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Steve noticed Eliza's new trick this weekend! It started with four steps, and now she can make it all the way across the room! We're sooo excited! Yay Baby!

*Please disregard the corny music that the media program added in automatically and my grungy workout clothes! ;)