Hartwick Pines

One morning in mid-October, we woke up in need of a spontaneous family adventure. Nick was worn out from many long days of work, I was worn out from lots of solo toddler time and many nights of interrupted sleep, and we felt disgruntled and disconnected. So we packed up the car for a day trip to Hartwick Pines State Park, an outing we've been talking about for years but had never managed to take. It's only an hour away, but my last visit was an elementary school field trip and Nick had never been.

It was a beautiful fall day. Rain the night before left everything looking clean and saturated in rich colors, but the sun was out and the air was fresh and mild.

Maya, now quite a sturdy little biped, was inspired to do some trail-running. A ball to chase and kick helped keep her moving in a forward direction, more or less.

The park is home to the lower peninsula's largest remaining stand of old-growth white pines. These are some majestic trees.

 

We enjoyed spending the afternoon in the company of such stately old citizens.

It turned out to be the perfect time and place to introduce Maya to the game of hide and seek. Nick and I took turns hiding along the trail, while the other counted with Maya and then went on the hunt. As soon as we finished a round, she'd ask for more. "Mama 'iding!" she'd say, if Nick had just hid. Or "Papa 'iding!" if I'd gone last.

Nick won the prize for best hiding place.  

The end of the loop trail took us past the logging museum. Here are Nick and Maya peeking through a set of "big wheels" used to transport logs back in lumberjack days.

Maya cruised around, checking it all out and making her presence known with a voice that's getting more and more exuberant every day.

Is the volume of photos I took that day correlated, perhaps, to the fact that Maya was wearing a new Mama-made dress? Well, maybe.

Sewing notes: This is one of the more involved patterns I've completed so far, the Oliver + S Jump Rope Dress. I used two thrifted men's button-down shirts and cut out all the pieces in size 18-24 months shortly before Maya was born. This fall I realized I'd better get it sewn before she outgrew it. Luckily it's plenty roomy and should fit for a while.

We had a picnic lunch after our hike and drove home, but the day wasn't done. We dropped Maya off to play with our friend Meg while Nick and I walked into town for dinner. Not bad for a planned-on-the-fly day of family fun and reconnection!

By the way, avid readers may note that my posting frequency is unusually high lately. I'm attempting to catch up again, but no promises. 
If you are an avid reader who really wants the scoop, you might enjoy checking out the day-to-day happenings in the current photo album:  Fall 2015
Missed some earlier seasons? Find the whole set here.

Halloween Owl

A little owl flew in for a visit at our house on Halloween! We had a fun day, and Maya obligingly wore her owl ensemble and hooted upon request.

Although Maya's bird obsession has been diluted a bit as she's developed the ability to talk about other things, she still does love her birdies and has been particularly keen on "owl birdies" of late. She was spotting them everywhere - in books, in shop windows, on signs at school.

Do you see the owl face?

Then one morning as I was getting her dressed, she looked at her jeans and said "owl birdie." What? I thought. Then I looked closer. Sure enough, there was a button with two big round holes that could be owl eyes (with enough imagination applied). She clearly had owls on the brain, so that sealed the deal on her Halloween costume.

The hat was the first piece I finished, so any mention of Halloween in the week or two prior prompted her to say "Owl hat!" followed quickly by "Hoo hoo!"

When the rest of the costume was complete, she added some enthusiastic wing-flapping to her performance.

We started Halloween with a walk downtown. Our little owl charmed many passersby at the farmer's market and the coffee shop, but she had more important things to do than pose for photos.

There were ducks to be spotted on the bridge over the river.

Grandma and Grandpa came to join the Halloween fun, and we spent the afternoon carving a pumpkin and making two big pots of soup, applesauce, and some hot spiced cider. Trick-or-treaters started marching up to the doorstep. A bunch of friends arrived to hang out, some big and some small, in varying degrees of costume or not. A fire in the fireplace kept everyone cozy on a wet and chilly night.

We put up our umbrellas and took a short foray through the trick-or-treating crowds. No candy necessary to ramp up the excitement: Maya and her pal Grayson ran at full-toddler-tilt, mouths open, yelling "aaaaaaaahhhh!" in their glee. Two blocks to our mutual midwife's house (for popcorn) and then back again was the perfect distance.

Bella did not actually wear these ears on Halloween. We found them in our front yard the next day. They suit her, though, don't you think?

She did, however, have quite a Halloween adventure. She slipped out the front door during the trick-or-treat confusion and went on a wander. No identification tag, because it had fallen off and we hadn't gotten a new one yet. Not just a black dog on a dark, rainy night, but an elderly black dog who walks slow and doesn't see or hear well anymore. We searched the neighborhood and promptly posted her photo on the local lost pets page online. Sure enough, social media came through for us that very night. Someone across the alley had seen her on the speeding thoroughfare at the end of our block (yowzers!) and rescued her. A friend of hers saw her personal Facebook post and our lost pet announcement and made the connection. A late-night phone call and a short walk brought her safely home.

Here's a little more about Maya's costume, for anyone wanting the sewing details:

I made the hat from a gray wool sweater in my repurposing pile. I lined it with fleece and made the eyes and beak from felt. I happened to have two big black shiny buttons that worked perfectly for the pupils. The "ear" tufts are just pieces of thick white yarn and gray sweater scraps. The ties are i-cord that I knit up quickly from some bulky gray yarn.

The wings were a labor of love, but one I had been looking forward to. I made a similar set of bird wings before Maya was born for her cousin Maggie, and I knew I was going to want to make a pair for Maya when she was big enough to wear them.

The first pair I made was inspired by these, these, and these. Luckily I kept good notes and could pretty much follow the same procedure to make Maya's, which sped up the process considerably. I was torn between something colorful and fun, like Maggie's, and something a little more muted and owlish. In the end I chose this autumnal palette, somewhere between the two extremes.

After cutting out all those scalloped strips, I sewed them onto the backing fabric, which was two quarter-circles 13.5 inches on each straight side (rather than the 15 inches I used for Maggie, who was nearly 3 at the time). I bound the edges with bias tape and added elastic at the wrists. I'll add another set of elastic loops at the shoulders so that these can be worn for everyday dress-up, but for the costume, I attached them at the center to the back of her outfit.

The last few Halloweens have been cold, windy, and rainy, so I decided to get ahead of the game and make a super-warm and cozy base layer for the costume. Sure enough, this year was more of the same, so it worked out well!

The pants are made from the sleeves of the same sweater I used for the hat. The dress is another repurposed sweater. I started with the Oliver + S Field Trip Raglan t-shirt pattern and modified it a bit (using this helpful tutorial) to make an a-line dress with a pleat in the center. It was my first-ever completed-in-a-single-naptime sewing project. I've never thought myself capable of this feat, although I often read about it being done by speedier sewists. But this time I traced the pattern, made the dress revisions, cut out the fabric, and sewed it all up, all in the space of a single (admittedly longer than usual) afternoon nap. Re-using the original hems for both the skirt and the sleeves was key, but I'll take it!

She'll be able to wear these pieces as basics all winter, so the time investment should certainly pay off. To be honest, though, I hope she'll wear the hat and the wings just as much!

In Translation

Here is a thing I'm learning about living with a toddler who is in the exploding-vocabulary phase: It's a bit like living in another country and learning a new language myself. Some of Maya's words are perfectly clear to anyone we meet. Others are less obvious, and some are frankly baffling.

For the past few months, I've had so many Maya-isms stuffed into my head that sometimes I have to sift through them to connect a word with its meaning. It's fascinating. And exhausting.

Unless you are a linguist, you may not find this post as thrilling as I do, but I can't help wanting to preserve the sound of my daughter's voice making sense of the world, one word at a time. She jumps in with both feet, this child, and when she can narrate at the same time, she is that much more delighted with just about any situation.

More capable - both physically and verbally - every single day. 

In an attempt to take what turned into a ridiculously long-winded post and slim it down into something you might actually read, I present here the abridged Maya dictionary, capturing some of her highlights at the age of 20 months and only somewhat current, as she adds and refines words daily.

• Appy. "Happy." She started saying this one in August right before my extended family came to visit, and everyone loved to ask her if she was happy. "Appy Maya!" she'd respond, and everyone was a little happier for it.
• Aw. "Saw." When she's thinking about Nick out at work, she says "Papa. Ook. Duck. Aw. Helmee." That would be "Papa is at work with his truck, saw, and helmet."
• Ba. The syllable ba meant many things at first - ball, bike, book, bath, and the thing a sheep says. They've all been refined now, but it was an early staple.
• Bash. "Splash." What you do in a puddle, or with every rock you pick up and toss when you are at the beach. 

"Bash" in a puddle with "beebs" (leaves).

• Beer. Hilariously, her "bear" and "pear" both sound very much like "beer." If you're in the kitchen with Maya and she reaches for the counter saying "mo beer," she wants a pear. Not more beer. Otherwise, she's probably referencing her large stuffed bear, who is quite a pal.
• Beep! The thing she says when touching someone's nose.
• Bet. Upon seeing any dog, cat, squirrel, rabbit, bird, or other furry or feathered thing, wild or tame, Maya's response is likely to be a firm bet. Pet, she means, and that's exactly what she wants to do. That's also her response whenever she is a bit too rough with me. If I say "Ouch, that hurts Mama," she says "bet" and proceeds to pet me instead.
• Boke. "Poke." The thing that happens when we go to visit Dotder Noon (Dr. Kuhn, her pediatrician). She says "boke! och!" and then waves her hands. That's "poke! ouch!" and then "shake it off!" We practiced this sequence a lot in preparation for a recent series of vaccines.
• Bop! The thing she says when poking someone's belly button, including her own.
• Bopper. For a while, Maya had a word we couldn't figure out: babu. Eventually we realized it meant "diaper." Recently, to our amusement, it morphed into bopper. "New bopper! New bopper!" she'll say when she's done sitting on her potty and wants to get on with things.
• Bye or By. As in "goodbye," "go by," or "near by." The usual. But I'm amazed at how young speakers of our language figure out some of these trickier homonyms and other constructions. She's been saying "Hi" and "Bye" for ages; anytime she picks up a phone she says "Hi Papa" and "Bye Papa" on endless repeat. Then she started saying "Dow by," meaning "a car went by." And just last night, while we were sitting on the floor building block towers, she would say "by Mama" and scooch herself right up to my knees (and knock over my tower) and then "by Papa" and do the same with Nick. Seems she's got those down. Luckily, I don't think she understands "buy" quite yet.
• Ditty Dat. "Kitty cat." She is beside herself with excitement when we encounter any of the neighborhood cats out on a walk. I explained that if we want to pet the cat, we need to be quiet and calm so it won't run away. She puts her finger (or several fingers) to her lips and says "shhhh!" every time she sees or just thinks about a ditty dat, which is multiple times a day.
• Dis. 1. "This." As in "What is this?" Said on repeat until she gets an answer. "Dis dis dis dis dis?" 2. "Kiss." After a bump or scrape, she'll hold the injured body part out, request a "dis," and then say "bedder." (It feels better now.) 

A "dis" for this shop dog in Leland's Fishtown.

• Dodger. Somewhat inexplicably, this meant "carry" and was said at the top of the steps when she wanted to be carried down. It's fading now; as of yesterday, apparently, she can say the entire sentence "Mama pick up Maya."
• Dool. "School." A mention of school always provokes the chain "dool, back-ack, kids!" (school, backpack, kids!). She's entirely delighted with school, now - not a single tear as she waves goodbye and trucks off down the hall to her classroom. We still hear the ubiquitous "Mama back," but it's said confidently and is often followed by "Maisie eash tree" because Maisie sometimes accompanies me for pick-up and waits on her leash under a tree in the schoolyard. 
• Doe. "Go." "Papa doe?" means "Where did Papa go?" That guy is always busy; it's not easy to keep track of him!
• Dow. "Car." When she first started saying it, she'd sometimes watch the cars go past and say "dow dow dow dow dow." Indeed, that's traffic for you.
• Iding. "Hiding." She loves to go outside before bed and look for the moon. "Moon! Dars!" she says. (Moon. Stars.) But often it's an "iding moon," hidden behind the clouds or not yet up. Translating what she knows about kitty cats and their propensity to hide if you are loud, she puts a finger to her lips and says "shhhh!" when we talk about the moon, too.
• Ippamomus. "Hippopotamus." We currently have But Not the Hippopotamus checked out from the library. She loves it, and chimes in with the most adorable little "nopes" and shakes of her head when it comes to the refrain "But not the hippopotamus." Less adorably, I blame this book for the sudden arrival of "no" as a regular feature in her vocabulary.
• Ips. She has one word - ips - that she uses for chips, stripes, wipes, sheep, sweep, and sharp. "Ips mims" means "sharp pins" and she said it often when inspecting her Halloween costume in progress.
• Mammies. "Jammies." As in pajamas.
• Mo ong. Literally, "more song." As in, "Sing a song!" or "Sing that song AGAIN!" or "Sing ANOTHER song!" "Mo appy ong" refers to "If You're Happy and You Know It," her first song request. After the standard "clap your hands" and "stomp your feet," she loves all the verses we've added, such as "beep your nose," "wiggle your ears," "rub your head," and especially "spin around."  

"If you're happy and you know it, wiggle your ears!"

• Nern. "Turn." She is very into turn-taking. "Maya nern!" she says, when she wants to do something. When she wants us to do it - or just wants to keep everything equal - she says "Mama nern!" or "Papa nern!"
• Nigh-nigh, Bah-dee. "Goodnight, everybody!" Said on her way up the stairs to bed.
• Nuh-nuh. "Water." This was one of her early words, and at first the primitive pronunciation made some sense. She kept it up for months, though, even as she managed to say the name of our friends' dog - Walter - quite successfully. Thankfully, she's now come around to "water." "Glass water," she says, or "Dink water," as she carefully maneuvers a tall half-full glass off my nightstand most mornings and lifts it to her lips. It's an effective way to get me up in a hurry!
• Och. "Out" or "off." Either one. Also sometime "Ouch."
• Ock. "Walk." Often used in this string: "Ock dot eash!" (That's "Walk the dogs on a leash," of course).

Walking with Maisie on the "eash"

• Osh. "Wash." A frequent request after she drops her half-eaten apple on the ground. She also says "osh ands" anytime we're in the bathroom, and then drags her stool over to the sink. 
• Uck. "Milk." "Uck deerder" means milk and cereal - she tips up the bowl to drink the milk and leaves most of the cereal behind. However, uck (or usually mo uck) mostly refers to nursing time with Mama. But she's getting used to the idea that it's something we do at special times now rather than anytime, anywhere. "Home uck dowch," she'll say when we're out and about. "Let's go home and have milk on the couch."
• Oup. "Soup." Similarly, auce is "sauce" and ider is "cider." Context is key when it comes to translating during meals. Noonoos are noodles. Apple, juice, cheese, eggs, pepper, and bread are pretty clear. Ba-tot-oh is potato. Baki is broccoli. Banana recently graduated from nana to MA-nana, pronounced just like that with a great deal of enthusiasm. She loves baba ganoush, but I can't even begin to spell something that resembles her pronunciation of it. On the other hand, she can say die abbacot (dried apricot) and you'll know just what she means. Next she'll ask for mo deets and that means "more dates," her current favorite in the dried fruit category. She'll add a bees (please) with just a little prompting.
• Punky. "Pumpkin." She was delighted when the pumpkins started appearing on porches in early October, and every walk or bike ride would include requests for "Mo punky." (Let's look for more pumpkins!) This year there were lots of warty ones to be found and felt, so she loved to say "bumpy punky." The others, she'd tell you, were mooth (smooth).

"Bumpy punky! Hebby!" (a bumpy, heavy pumpkin)

Okay, okay. I could go on, but I'll spare you. I just have to add one appendix to the dictionary that concerns a few multi-word scenarios that are also fascinating to me.

• Daily, she is becoming more adept at communicating her ideas using a series of words that go together. One morning she was eating breakfast and asked for something I couldn't identify. She said it several times - mah-go - and then finally added "Rudy marm mah-go." Oh! She wanted a cherry tomato, which she had been eating the evening before by the handful when we went to "Rudy's farm" to pick up our share of CSA vegetables. Then, just the other day, I was thinking aloud about what we should have for dinner. She said, very definitively, "Apple ider. Apple auce. Meem dockers." (That would be apple cider, applesauce, and graham crackers.)

•  I've been intrigued to find that she seems to discover similar-sounding words all at the same time. It's as if a certain combination of letters is a key that unlocks a whole set of new doors. One of the first word "families" she mastered (around her first birthday) effectively tripled her vocabulary: trees, cheese, juice, shoes. (I know they don't seem that similar, but trust me - she had one sound that meant all of those things.) Later, lion and onion appeared simultaneously. The most recent and sophisticated one is hello, owl, aloe, and olive. All these words sound essentially the same when she says them, and she started saying all of them at once. 

• She also gets whole strings of words connected in her head thanks to some memorable experience and then recites them over and over. One evening a few weeks ago, we drove out to meet Nick at a site where he and his crew were burning tree debris in a massive bonfire. On the way, I explained to her that it would be a big fire and we'd have to stand back, and we stopped to pick up some provisions for the guys. The whole trip, Maya chanted "ot ire neen bok!" (hot fire, stand back) and "ips beer Papa" (chips and beer for Papa). The scene surely made a huge impression: twilight in a beautiful rolling field, a giant pile of spruce logs and limbs glowing and sparking, a cold wind blowing, and Nick or Joe periodically firing up the roaring Skidsteer to push logs further into the fire. She still recollects this event often - almost every day - and currently the sequence is "Ot ire. Neen bok. Apple ider. Ips. Beer." She got to drink apple cider while we were standing back from the hot fire. Not beer, but she never forgets to include it in the tale.

Between Time

I spotted this leaf on a walk with Maya the other day. The first of the fall color, still showing some of its summer green but shot with the brilliant orange of autumn.

Waxing metaphorical while we snailed along at toddler pace, examining every acorn and stick and sidewalk crack, I started thinking about how I am in a between-place now in my own life. One season passing, another beginning, both lending their distinct colors to my days. Maya and I are moving out of the baby phase in which Mama is constantly attached to a tiny creature with endless needs. We are entering new territory of separation and independence. Like a rubber band that stretches and then snaps back, we both feel the pull. Forging out on her own, then rebounding into my arms.

Maya started "school" at the beginning of September. Two mornings a week in the toddler classroom at our public Montessori elementary, a mere two blocks from our house. We bike or walk both ways. She wears her tiny backpack ("back-ack"), which she adores.

When we visited the classroom, she was delighted with the miniature chairs and tables, the low shelves full of enticing things to investigate and manipulate, the little cubbies and coathooks, all designed precisely for people her size. I could hardly tear her away. It was the very day she turned 18 months old (the lower limit for the program), but she certainly seemed ready. Was I? Honestly, I was a bit distraught that she would need a backpack and school shoes and the official green health form that every kid in the school district must file. Truly, her first day of school was upon us? So soon? Did that mean I'd need to take the obligatory front-door photo already?

I put on my happy face, eager for this next phase in which she'd explore new sides of herself and I'd get to rediscover who I am when I can focus on something for more than five minutes at a time. On the first day, Nick and I both accompanied her to her classroom. But her happy face crumpled when she realized we were leaving. Tears at drop-off, tears at pick-up, that day and the following ones. The teachers assure me that she is very engaged and that each day is getting better. But every time we talk about school, her automatic and immediate response is "Mama back." I reassure her that Mama always comes back - just as she is reassuring herself by stating this all-important fact so frequently. It seems to be working; this morning was the first drop-off with no tears at all. She motored right off to visit the fish aquarium after hanging up her backpack and changing her shoes. I waved and departed.

 

With some regular time carved out after 18 months of all-child-care-all-the-time, I have started dabbling in writing again. Hence my presence here in this long-neglected space, along with a project or two on the burner in my professional field. Those few hours twice a week go by very quickly, but if we add on a solid afternoon nap, plus another chunk of playtime with a family friend who generally visits Maya once a week, it's enough for me to feel renewed. The house even feels a little tidier and meals have been prepared in advance a time or two.

Meanwhile, it's never very long before that little body is back in my arms and, seconds later, her hand is likely reaching down my shirt. Milk from Mama is still a comforting constant in her life, and now she requests it with her own voice - not just with the cries of her newborn self or the sweet little fist curling and uncurling in the sign language she started using around the one-year-mark, but with an insistent "Uck!"Or usually "Mo uck! Mo uck!" (More milk, in translation.)

 

Independence and dependence. Together and apart and together again. Like these leaves with their pattern revealed in contrasting colors - not all green, not all flame - there is extra complexity in our current reality that didn't exist a year ago and that will likely equalize into a new solid shade in another year or two.

Maya started saying her own name about a month ago and now speaks it with emphasis and intention. I find it quite powerful, hearing our child pronounce the name we gave to her. We chose it in a leap of faith that it was the right combination of letters, sounds, meanings, and connotations for the person she would be, far out into the future from the tiny newborn bundle in our arms. Now she owns it.

She has claimed it, and she uses it to differentiate herself from the rest of the world. Even when she speaks just that one word ("Maya!") it is triumphant and it means, "Maya wants that apple she is reaching for," or "Maya is standing on this bench that she just climbed onto all by herself," or "Maya is stomping in this puddle with her own shoes."

For a long time, whenever we went out, she would say "Mama" and point at me as soon as someone spoke to her. As if to assure herself and others that she was not unattended. Mama was right here; she was not adrift alone in a wide sea.

Now, as she walks beside me, she reaches out and says "hand" and locks her finger into my grip. If Nick is there too, she reaches out with her other hand, says "Papa," and locks in on the other side. Then she puts her head down and charges forward with the turbo-boost of security that comes of being connected. "Maya!" she says, and it's clear she means "Look! Maya's hand is holding yours. But Maya is moving forward on her own two capable feet." Indeed, she is. Look at her go!

One!

As usual, I'm a little behind on chronicling the happenings around here, but this milestone needs marking. Somebody special celebrated her first birthday at the beginning of March.

From such a tiny bundle...                             to this delightful lively girl, in just one year.

Maya on her Birth Day

Maya on her First Birthday

The day before Maya’s birthday was a brilliantly sunny one – a day of deep blue sky and crisp shadows on sparkling snow. These kinds of days are particular to late February and March here, after the lake freezes and stops feeding the constant cloud cover that makes most of the winter quite gray. I loaded Maya into the backpack and we went for a deep-snow ski. It was a perfect chance to reflect on the events of exactly one year ago. That day was similarly bright and sunny, and I had taken an afternoon walk on the trails at the Commons. I felt strong as I powered up the hills with my pregnant belly, two weeks from my due date. I couldn’t have imagined that labor would begin an hour later, and that by the next morning I’d be holding my newborn baby in my arms and seeing her face for the first time.

So many memories came flooding back during that stretch of time around her birthday – the anticipation of my final stretch of pregnancy, all the things I wanted to have ready, the surprise of the early and fast labor. Maya as a tiny newborn bundle, wrapped in her soft yellow blanket and white hat, with her long feet and expressive hands, her head as soft as a peach, her smooth skin, bright eyes, and beautiful face.

 

And now: a whole year gone by! At one year old, Maya is so many things. She is eager to experience life; her eyes still sparkle but now they take in everything around her. She has a ready grin that she flashes often, for us, for friends, and for strangers that she makes into friends immediately. “Hiiiii!” is one of her favorite words, and she says hi to me throughout the day, hi to Bella and Maisie, hi to the chickens, hi to Papa when he gets home, hi to her toys, and hi to people we see when we are out and about.

She is an enthusiastic eater, quick to try whatever we offer and quick to offer plentiful “Yums” and “Mmmms” as she eats. She loves to read books, take walks, and point out birdies everywhere we go. She’s a busy little bee, not walking yet but crawling fast and pulling herself up to reach whatever she can. She’s sturdy; when she’s done standing, she sits right down on her bottom and does a fancy little pirouette, scooting around to face whatever direction she's going next. She’s a little tornado, getting out all her books, and all her blocks, and the dog toys out of the basket, and the games out of the cupboard, and the containers out of the kitchen drawer – all while I’m trying to clean up some other mess!

Whenever our bare bellies are accessible, she loves to blow raspberries. She’s better at it than either me or Nick, even though we showed her first. She studies the spot, puts her mouth down in one swift motion, blows a long, loud raspberry, and then looks up at us and says “Ha!” We laugh so hard.

"Maya, how old are you?"

She was doing a lot of pointing right before her birthday, so we started to say, “Maya, how old are you?” She caught right on and now she puts up her finger on cue, especially if we hold out a single finger to meet hers. We make an exploding “kapow” sound as they touch. She loves to play that game over and over again.

We had a celebratory family dinner on the day she turned one. There was red lentil dal with coconut milk (a family favorite) followed by blueberry-banana birthday cake. It was a big hit.

And a few gifts to open, with helpful cousins to make sure the job got done.

The following weekend, we had a party with the baby brigade and their families. Six babies from the 2014 vintage in attendance (and one big brother), plus three others who sent wishes from afar, all within our group of local friends. Whatever was in the water last year, it was powerful stuff!

A fiesta of fruit, with mango ones, papaya stars, and banana flowers.

Blueberry birthday pie.

Happy, happy birthday, you amazing child overflowing with life and potential. Your Papa and I love you so much. Already I can't quite remember the time before you were part of our world.

A new era begins!

More photos from Maya's birthday celebration, and Maya's birthday month, here.