Sunday, August 30, 2009

Beatrice, Month Three

Month three has been a big one for Beatrice (as are most months when you are an infant). Beatrice started off her third month with the family trip to Ojai for her Grandmother Suzan's 60th birthday party.

Later the same month we drove to the Bay Area to attend Edward and Vanessa's wedding - Beatrice had fun with her other set of grandparents while Dev and I got to enjoy two baby-free nights in San Francisco.


Back in Los Angeles we also had a lot of fun, including attending a children's outdoor performance of Cymbeline and a Bollywood kids' concert, both with Mina and Rosemary. I also joined a mother's social group in my neighborhood and took Beatrice to several "play dates" - though since I have been assigned to the youngest infants' group, there's little real playing, as you might imagine.

Developmentally, the big news is that Beatrice can now really engage with toys and other objects. Favorites include the sleep sheep and the $20 rubber giraffe. But above all, she adores the (somewhat banal) soft book Fluffy Chick and Friends - she will spend more than an hour at a time staring at the book, transfixed, slowly turning the pages.



Playing with the book:

She spends a lot of time staring at and grabbing her feet, trying to stick her entire fist into her mouth, and grabbing other people's fingers and putting them into her mouth. She babbles a lot, mostly saying either "goo" or "ah-goo." She's also picked up the rather distasteful habit of blowing bubbles - but (specious) research shows that babies that blow bubbles often develop superior verbal skills as older children, so blow away!

Also this month, Baby's First Pants, Baby's First Subway Ride (the Gold Line from Pasadena to downtown L.A. with her aunts Mina and Julie), and Baby's First Dive Bar, in Studio City.

Baby's First Pants:


Overall she's an incredibly smiley baby, spending most of the day smiling, laughing, and looking around contentedly.

Some video of Beatrice waking up in an excellent mood, as usual (she really starts rocking out around second 45):

And just this morning she rolled over for the very first time! and burst into tears immediately afterward. Sadly I missed catching it all on film, but I did catch her frantically clinging to the mat to make sure she doesn't ever do it again...



As always, you can find more baby photos on
Flickr and Facebook.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Greenville Avenue Wine

David Waddington has a new wine blog - check it out!

(Somehow that exclamation point looks all wrong.)

Congratulations, Hannah and Daniel!

On your just-announced engagement - I can't wait to hear the details...

McSweeneys swimsuit edition

Thank you to Elissa Bassist for mentioning me in her article "The Women of McSweeneys.net" in The Rumpus! It's particularly exciting to be on the same list of "funny women" as people like Sarah Vowell.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Congratulations, Edward and Vanessa!

And thank you for inviting us to your lovely wedding (where we enjoyed two consecutive baby-free nights).

Friday, August 14, 2009

Non-baby news

Grandparents can stop reading now.

For the rest of you, check out my new short story in the latest edition of Wheelhouse.

Then visit Gillian's new web project, People Who Should Be Denied a Voice.

A meeting of the minds

My friend Jody sent this video of Beatrice hilariously failing to interact with two of her "friends," Joy and Kaitlyn.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Suzan's birthday and Kumar reunion in Ojai

We just got back from four days in Ojai, where we rented a very impressive house to celebrate Suzan's 60th birthday. There were a total of 15 adults, 2 babies, and 1 dog: me, Dev, Suzan, Naresh, Mina, James, Julie, Maureen, Mamo, Gale, Roger, Eddie, Sally, Krissy, Aaron, Rosemary, Beatrice, and Cromwell.

Beatrice met many of these people for the first time and she spent time focusing on each person's face and voice:

Suzan and Naresh brought Beatrice a beautiful Indian gold bangle:

(They also gave me a beautiful Tanzanite ring, photos to follow - )

At the pool:









Watching Suzan's birthday slideshow:





Krissy's amazing cake:

At the beach:



On a geology tour with Naresh:





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