Play time

Dad and Dahlia in Dolores Park enjoying the sun

Today we met up with Craig and Gerald, got food from Bi-Rite and sat in Dolores Park for a couple hours enjoying the sunny January day. Dahlia was such a good girl, really enjoying the fresh air and people watching.

So yeah, after all this time I'm finally finding time to write a post. For some reason, I thought that being home all the time, you know, "not working," I would have time to do housewifey things like cook, clean, and write blog posts (and thank you notes, and Christmas cards, etc.). However, as any parent could have told me (and probably tried to), it seems that all I have time to do every day is feed Dahlia, change her diapers, play with her, and try to get her to sleep.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it. Playing with Dahlia, even feeding her, changing her diapers, and rocking her to sleep are all amazingly fun and rewarding. And now that she's sleeping for a little while, I will attempt to write a blog post.

Some of the things we do to play during the day are: read books like the new Mother Goose nursery rhymes book from Aunt Molly, compare Dahlia's hands to Mommy's hands, play jump-up and airplane, peekaboo (though she's still too young to see what's funny about it), dance to the new jazz CD from Aunt Wendy and Uncle Chris (or was it officially from Nick and Josie?), and sometimes, when she's starting to fuss, I take her to see the view from our back porch.



Playing peekaboo with Daddy

Tummy time with the chicken rattle

Tummy time has to be Dahlia's least-favorite of our play-time activities. It's like she doesn't even realize how good she is at it! She's always had a strong neck -- she was holding her head up and looking around in the delivery room, truly. But that might have had more to do with adrenaline than anything else. I think tummy time for her is like doing push-ups for me. In fact, I figure it's only fair if I do push-ups while she is on her tummy and the longer she goes, the longer I have to go.

Dahlia loves watching the safari animals spin in circles over her head

In the mornings is when Dahlia is at her best. After her breakfast, and after I've eaten my cereal, I change her diaper and put her in her crib to watch the mobile while I take a very quick shower. They really should make the music and spinning last longer -- 10 minutes would be perfect so I can shower and get dressed before it stops and she gets bored looking at the unmoving animals. It is a life-saver, however. She gets this super cute look of excitement when I reach up to turn it on and she sees the animals start moving.

Looking at her favorite fishes on the curtains over the changing table

Another great call are the curtains that my mom and I made -- I chose the fabric and she made them. Dahlia loves them! She stares at the fish during diaper changes. The way the light comes through them, giving them a glow, really attracts her gaze.

She likes all windows in daylight and particularly likes going outside. She's fascinated by all the things to see, especially when they're lit up with sunlight. I take her out in the Moby wrap (like a sling but she's upright, held tightly against me with her head peeking out the top) and she stares intently, so alert and so curious. After about 2 minutes of walking and taking it all in, however, the vibrations get the best of her and she falls asleep.

Fortunately for me, she's happily asleep for awhile and I can either walk for exercise (wearing my new pedometer; thanks Chris and Wendy!) or get a quick meal. Since Peter returned to work, he's been coming home for lunch or occasionally meeting me out for lunch at a restaurant. We ate at Weird Fish on Friday and Dahlia was so good and asleep the whole time and I was able to enjoy my favorite sandwich, the Black Cat (blackened catfish with mango salsa and shredded cabbage on French roll).

Ah, there's my call -- I'll post again soon. Working on making videos so will include some next time. Until then...