Cheeky!

As Stella approaches her second birthday she's becoming increasingly cheeky and strong willed! She likes to enunciate each syllable very clearly just to make sure we've understood: "I_Want_A Bread_Stick_Mum_Mee" and especially first thing in the morning when Tim and I are hardly awake "I_Want_Some_Weet_A_Bix_Down_Stairs_With_A_Silver_Spoon". It reminds me of a British Person trying to be understood in a foreign land, or maybe she just thinks her parents are stupid. I guess given the speed of our response sometimes she might be right to think this.

She still seems to be settling into her nursery, Apple Tree. Every time we go there she tells me "Mummy will drop you off and Mummy will pick you up" as if to reassure herself. When at home her favourite things are listening to nursery rhymes, drawing (read: scribbling) with crayons especially on furniture, getting all the pans and pots out of the cupboard and pretending to cook, changing her bear's nappies and being read to.

We recently had a lovely time on holiday in Ireland where Stella became very attached to life in a "HoTail" and going to restaurants. Mummy was relieved to be home and not have to worry about plates and cutlery flying towards other guests at meal times.

Settling in...

It's a sure sign that we're finally getting on top of things after the move that I have some time to update Stella's blog. Apologies for the silence.

Stella settled back into London life much quicker than either of her parents. She is over the moon to have her two cousins, Fabio and Massimo, next door to play with. She's also been enjoying the chance to catch up with all the other 9 cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents much more frequently.

All being well, in six months or so, Stella is going to have another big life change to cope with when she becomes a big sister. I'm not sure she's quite grasped the concept yet because apart from enthusiastically pointing to my stomach and announcing "There's a baby in there" she also does the same to her own tummy, and even this weekend to her granddad's! I think we need to be careful as the next recipient of this friendly banter may not be quite so good humoured about it...

Despite displays to the contrary when I say goodbye in the morning, Stella seems to be having lots of fun at her new nursery, Apple Tree. She loves the "singing, singing and dancing" in particular but is also a big fan of the painting, drawing and garden. Probably Stella's favourite part of the nursery regime is the white sliced bread which they get at lunch time. She loves it so much that they've nick-named her "Bread Girl". When I ask her what she did during the day "Bread" is the most common answer. Still only the crusty brown variety at home though.

Stella's language continues to explode beyond our belief. We've decided that "floppy ears" is a good name for her these days because even the most subtle of conversations seem to get repeated back at us. We are learning that we need to be careful. One popular four letter word has already been making embarrassing appearances, so we will need to wash our mouths out.

The picture above is at grandma and grandad's local park in the lake district and the one below at Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath, a favourite outing for us these days.

Lots more to tell, but I'll try and get back to monthly posts rather than infrequent and lengthy ones!

Something different

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Things have been very busy getting ready for the big move back to the UK next week. In the meantime Stella is busy expanding her vocabulary. She now amazes us by reciting entire books (Peek a Boo and Chicken Soup and Rice are the current favourites) nursery rhymes (Hey Diddle Diddle, Twinkle Twinkle) and by finishing sentences whenever we stop reading the books she knows well. I don't think she really understands what it means when we say we're moving to London, but she's got her responses off pat, it goes something like this. Fran:"Next week we're moving back to London, Stella" Stella: "Fabio, Massimo, Giuliana, Paul, Apple Tree, Children" I think she's got the idea of what it will entail! Apple Tree is the name of the nursery where she will be going two days a week once we get back.

These pictures were from my final project at the Corcoran Art class I did last semester. Thanks to my brother in law for the beautiful backgrounds.

Stella the witch

Well, we got into the Halloween spirit in true American style this year. Stella dressed up as a witch and we went from door to door, trick-or-treating with some friends of ours who live a few blocks away in a neighbourhood called Shaw. Luckily the first house we went to was also equipped with bags for poor children like Stella whose parents hadn't thought that there would be so much to carry that a bag was necessary! She definitely enjoyed marching up to people's houses and having sparkly goodies put in her bag. This year she didn't realise what was inside the shiny wrappers. I'm sure she'll have cottoned onto that next year though.

In the window light

I've been having lots of fun on a digital darkroom course at the local art school in Washington. Hopefully you'll notice an improved standard of photos as a result! This one of Stella by the window.

Stella at 17 months

We're all feeling a bit jaded today as Stella decided to return to newborn sleeping patterns last night. Well, not quite... she woke up twice, very angry, for no apparent reason. Tim said it was the worst night he'd had since she was born - I think he's got a very poor memory!

Fortunately, Stella generally specialises in new tricks not old ones these days. Most exciting of all is the speaking. She recently started to put together more than one word - Daddy's shoes, Good story, Nice bread etc.. Her vocabulary is expanding rapidly as well. Two of her favourite new words - lorry and lift - thoroughly confuse the American babysitters. We're trying our best to make sure she fit's in OK when we move back to the UK. I did notice this morning though, when we were reading an alphabet book, that when it came to the last letter there was a definite "zeee" rather than "zed".... oh well, I guess this can be remedied quite easily at a later date.

Stella is a flower girl

Stella was one of the flower girls at her babysitter Alice's wedding on August 13th. The wedding was in the garden of a lovely B&B on the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis, Maryland. In spite of temperatures of about 110 degrees Fareinheit, she had a great time and took the whole event in her stride and even walked down the aisle with all the other flower girls (with a bit of help from her escort who kindly carried her basket of flower petals!).

Daddy practises his karate moves!

Tim had a karate grading this month and was keen to get out and practise. Stella was much more intrigued by me and my camera though!

All wrapped up

This is actually a photo from when we were in Canada last month. This was early one morning when Stella wouldn't sleep because of jetlag and we were trying not to wake the grandparents!
She's lots of fun at the moment, we counted over fifty new words last night - of course most of them only intelligible to her parents! Some current favourites are oh dear, door and beer.

Subscribe to Stella's site feed

If you click on the "feed" icon below right, you can subscribe to the Stella's blog site feed. This means that if you have an RSS Reader like "Sharp Reader" which you can download for free, you will automatically get updates when we post on Stella's blog. How cool is that?!

I can walk!

Stella took her first independent steps aged 13 and a half months, while on holiday in Canada at her Great Uncle Gerry's house by Pike Lake in Saskatchewan. With perfect planning for maximum attention, Stella also timed her first walk to coincide with the visit of the Monks Grandparents to this side of the Atlantic. It will come as no surprise to hear that our lives have changed again as we busy ourselves running around after our increasingly mobile daughter!

Cows go mmmmmmm

Cows are without a doubt Stella's favourite animal at the moment, so we went to visit two of them at the Washington zoo.

Breaking for freedom

Stella's getting firmer on her feet by the day. When given both space and something to lean on at a friends' house in the suburbs she was off in a flash....

Roosevelt Island

Roosevelt Island is in the middle of the Potomac River and a rare urban wilderness in Washington DC. In the hope that Stella will get to know what trees and birds are we went there for a lovely walk one very hot Sunday.

Stella turns one!

Stella turned one on May 13th. I don't think any year has ever passed this fast! The actual birthday was quite quiet with cake and a quick round of Happy Birthday to celebrate. On the 14th we had a party with nearly 40 adults and about 15 children. It was crazy but Stella loved it. In fact Tim and I hardly saw her all evening as she crawled around following her friends.

A very exciting development over the past couple of weeks has been Stella's increasing vocabulary. She can now say "teeth" while pointing to her teeth, "moo" when asked what cows do, "brown bear" at the sight of any book (Brown Bear is her favourite) and the latest is "hi" whenever she or anyone else enters a room.

Presents the American way.....

The morning after Stella's party, we were a bit overwhelmed by the generosity of our party guests... No shortage of toys in this house anymore

Reading on her bed

Stella will often take herself off to the bedroom and spends hours leafing happily through her books.

Still enjoying the sling

At 26lbs she's getting quite heavy but Stella still loves being in the sling and for short journeys I can still just about manage it!

Learning to walk

Stella is an independent soul. She's now a super fast crawler and an expert cruiser and is learning to walk with the help of anything that moves, furniture wise that is. She doesn't seem to trust her parents not to let go, so she'll only walk with a solid inanimate object to cling onto.

We've also made big progress on the sleep front in the past couple of weeks and for the last few nights she's slept all the way through the night. Well, until at least 5.30am, which strangely enough we now consider to be morning..... Tonight we erected some black-out curtains in the bedroom so we're hoping for more of a lie in tomorrow. Let's see.

The Cherry Blossom Festival

Just like the Japanese, the Washingtonians like to celebrate the coming of spring with a Cherry Blossom Festival. Unlike the Japanese, the Americans don't like to sit under the trees drinking beer and singing Karaoke. Nevertheless, Stella enjoyed getting her first proper look at these beautiful flowers as we walked around the Tidal Basin at the weekend. Huge crowds had gathered to see the wonderful blossoms and Stella was kept very busy trying to capture the attention of all passers by with loud shouts and waves from her buggy. Much to her delight, some of them were even kind enough to wave back.

Waving "Da Dye"

Ten months old and Stella is having lots of fun waving and using her "first word" a great imitation of Bye Bye, "Da Dye". She's fascinated with doors and hinges, including the dishwasher door, the loo seat (which she loves to eat) and wardrobe doors. On the same theme turning book pages and flicking through daddy's Journal of Economic Perspectives are other favourite pass-times.

Last week we started a babysitting swap with her friend Alvar, who is Finnish-German and was born two weeks before Stella. We'll do it a couple of times a week so that Stella gets a regular break from her mum, something I'm sure she'll enjoy a lot!

On the swings

Ten Months Old

The revolution is in full swing

Returning from England, we discover that Stella's previously-tentative crawling (here made to appear more dynamic by the deceptive skill of the photojournalist) has become genuinely rapid. In addition, she has suddenly decided to pull herself to a standing position on various objects (the shower door, trapping her mother inside; the upper tray of the dishwasher, the one with all the knives, etc. etc.) and also cruise backwards and forwards. A whole new world of exploration has opened up to her. This is alarming, but on the bright side, her mother has started singing songs about poo.

Stella's favourite place to stand seems to be the window-sill, which is at a convenient height of eight inches. She'll pull herself up and stroll backwards and forwards looking out at the city below. Shades of Scarlett Johanssen in 'Lost in Translation'...


Scarlett Johanssen

Stella Harford

Stella is baptised

While we were in England Stella was baptised at St Etheldreda's, where we were married in 2003. It was a lovely day with family and friends. Stella was on good form and amused the congregation and charmed the priest with her broad smiles and apparent willingness to be welcomed into the Catholic Church.

Eight months old

Crawling at eight months

Aged eight months and one day, Stella finally made her first forward motion in the direction of a telephone. It started as a marine like shuffle, but only a few days later Stella was enjoying her new found independence and heading out of any room to explore the world alone.

Other major milestones include two more teeth and plenty of new sounds. Da da, ba ba, a a, hi and eee are some favourites. Not to mention some excellent rasberry blowing and clicking.

Stella's eating lots more solid foods these days too. Favourites seem to be lentils, celery, chicken, sweet potato, cheerios, pears and bananas. Yoghurt and raisins are new arrivals on the menu which seem pretty popular as well.

We have a busy week of activities out on the town nowadays. On Tuesdays it's music and art at the Jewish Community Centre. On Wednesday it's swimming and on Thursday it's baby and mom yoga. Yoga is getting a bit less relaxing for mummy now that Stella would rather spend the class exploring the other babies and their toys than watching the yoga. Swimming is definitely Stella's favourite especially the songs which we sing like "Swimming swimming in the swimming pool" and "baby shark".

All this activity is exhausting and so Stella still takes two naps a day at 10am and 2.30pm... roughly! Unfortunately, not exhausting enough to make Stella sleep for 12 hours straight at night. That is a milestone which I'm hoping to achieve one day soon :)

Ready, Steady.....

....Go!

Photoshoot with dad

Walking at Great Falls

Seven months old

Two teeth and rosy cheeks

Learning to crawl

Stella's latest trick is pushing up on her hands and knees. No forward movement yet though....

Sitting at six months

Six months old

Stella is six months old today and as I write she is rolling herself under the sofa! She's become quite a proficient roller. Spotting an object of interest across the other side of the room she can now roll her way over to it. We're going to have to start paying a bit more attention to where we leave all our stuff.

Other new tricks include sitting up, for short stints at least, before wobbling over and spinning over onto her front. Two new teeth appeared about a fortnight ago as well, so Stella is great at biting anything that she might find in her mouth, especially Tim's fingers.

She is gradually gaining a taste for solid food. Carrot, sweet potato, squash, apple, banana, avocado and rice cereal have all been tried and sometimes swallowed. At the moment Stella's favourite part of the meal seems to be the water...

We're still working on sleep. She usually manages one five hour stretch a night now but I'm still being woken up a bit more regularly than I'd like.

Stella's smiles certainly ease the pain of any lack of sleep. On Friday we went for Stella's six month doctor's appointment and Dr Razi commented that she found the consistency of her happiness to be quite remarkable. So do we, considering the amateur parenting she gets, but we hope it will last!

Rock Creek Park

Stella at four and a half months

Stella is getting stronger by the day and learning lots of new tricks. She rolls over now and spends most of her time on her tummy. Consequently her arms and back are getting strong so that she can adopt the swimming pose (pictured below). She can just about sit in her high chair, with a bit of slumping, and this week ate some carrots for the first time. Stella seemed to quite like the taste, although mostly enjoyed spitting it out again...seems food is going to be a messy business for a while. After our easy first few months, Stella's sleeping patterns are taking a backward course and many a midnight feast is being had, leaving a very tired mummy...

Stella learning to swim

Stella visits the UK

Stella made her first trip to the UK in September to meet up with many of her relatives for the first time. Fortunately she decided that travelling by car isn't too bad if you fall asleep (rather than scream) so our visits to London, Shrewsbury, Oxford and Bristol were all quite easy. It was a busy 10 days and Stella went to her first wedding (Ralph and Liz) and met with her oldest relative, Great Granny Betty Harford (89 shhh..).

Great Granny and Stella

Lunch at Bistrot du Coin

Stella loves to lie on the table when we eat out. Although, over the last week she's been rolling lots from front to back and back to front so I fear this pleasure will soon end!

Three months old!

And she is getting shoutier by the minute. But this afternoon she decided to sleep for hours, so that her parents could work on their respective books. Now we're about to head out for a celebratory meal.

Stella views Baltimore from Daddy's arms

Stella goes to Baltimore

Stella enjoyed lots of firsts today: her first ride in a train, her first ride in a boat - and the first time we've had to pay for her... We all went to Baltimore on a lovely sunny day with a cool breeze; a big success.

Stella grows bigger and livelier by the day. She often wears dungarees (very fetching), and is smiling, laughing, shouting and grabbing more and more by the day. Her neck is very strong and she is very happy on her tummy or slung over a shoulder to take a look around.

Rockers at Harpers Ferry

Twelve weeks old

It's 12 weeks since Stella was born and she's learning lots of new tricks. Stella usually wakes for the day sometime between 6 and 7. I do what I can to keep her quiet until 7, when Tim's alarm clock goes off, but usually the whole family is awake before then. One of the great things about having Stella in our bed is that when she does wake in the morning she is full of beaming smiles and will happily lie with us and kick around until we get out of bed.

Many mornings either Tim or I will take Stella into the shower with us. She seems to love the sensation of the water on her back and head and it's certainly a much easier way to wash her than a baby bath. We don't use any soap yet as the pediatrician said it was good for her skin to colonise with bacteria. I'm sure we'll have to change this approach once she starts getting really dirty!

Once Tim has gone off to work Stella and I get on with our day together. Stella still sleeps quite a lot in the day, up to about 4 hours, but when she's awake she still loves to kick around in the baby gym or under the mobile. She spends hours looking at her fists and putting them into her mouth. She's also just starting to grab and feel things of interest around her and bring them to her mouth as well.

Stella loves playing along when I do my yoga exercises. She particularly likes flying baby, where I put her on my shins and fly her above my head. She also likes lying under me when I do cat pose and finds my dangling hair most amusing. She's very good at sitting on my knees when I do my warrior stances. Altogether a great little assistant. Her neck is getting stronger and stronger and now we hardly need to hold her head at all.

I usually go out at least once a day, either to meet a friend, to take some photographs or to do some errands. If Stella is really restless and I haven't got an outing planned I'll often just put her in the sling and take her to the lovely supermarket over the road. She loves looking at all the brightly coloured packages on the shelves as I wander through the aisles. For weeks I took her over there and she was asleep before we got through the door, but now she's much more alert and charms all other the customers and shop staff.

We're still able to take Stella with us pretty much anywhere we want to go in the evenings. In restaurants we will often plonk Stella on the table next to us where she loves to look around and kick away. Sushi Taro nearby is particularly good for Stella as we can put her on the tatami mat next to where we sit to eat.

We are learning however, that sometime between 7 and 9 Stella is ready to go to sleep for the night. If we're at home I'll take her to bed and feed her and she'll usually fall asleep no problem. If we're out with friends we'll put her in the sling and she'll fall into a pretty deep sleep if we're lucky. If we're not lucky, she'll give us a very sad face and some tears and we'll feel extremely guilty about keeping her away from her bed!

Most nights Stella wakes me up once sometime between 3.30 and 5.30. A couple of night she's slept for 7 hours in a row, but unfortunately I haven't managed to grab the same 7 hours. We're still practising at that.

Looking like Grandad...

Upside-down at the Arboretum

Stella and friends

Five weeks old

Stella was five weeks old yesterday and is currently lying beside me, cooing adorably. She's under the baby gym which was given to her by friends in London, Tim and Angela. She really likes the black and white patterns and toys which hang from it's arches. At least they're enough to occupy her for 10 minutes...

In five weeks Stella has developed a lot. Although she was really alert when she was born and already had quite a strong neck and could hold her head up a little, she now takes in much more than she did, she responds to us and is getting stronger all the time. Just a few days ago she started smiling which is wonderful to see.

For the first couple of weeks she enjoyed watching the light through the venetian blinds in our apartment. She didn't cry very much at first although she's certainly found her voice now! After about two or three weeks she started to enjoy looking in mirrors or at brightly coloured toys. She also loves it when I play melodic music like Norah Jones or Eva Cassidy, and even more so when I sing along. This is a great way to calm her down. The most well used calming trick by Tim is a little finger in the mouth. Stella will suck for hours on his finger, and it almost always stops her crying. The other favourite is the over the shoulder position. Inquisitive little Stella loves to look at the world from our shoulders. Last but by no means least is the sling. Deirdre, our friend in Belgium, sent us a gift of an amazing sling and Stella spends a lot of time in there. It's a great way to send her to sleep and it also helps me to get jobs done around the house and to work on my book. Without the sling I don't think I'd get anything done.

Another wonderful thing about Stella is that she has known the difference between night and day since day one. We have been very lucky to have a baby who sleeps between feeds during the night without any trouble at all. So far at least!

Big blue eyes

With Mummy

Stella eats the monkey