The Trickster

Can you guess what one of Willa's new tricks is?

Willa has had a lot of milestones lately!  First of all, she has ventured a few wobbly steps on her own a couple of times and is getting braver and braver as she tries to get from place to place.  She's standing on her own for more than a few seconds and is all around just growing up!

A few weeks ago, I thought she had started to lean out, but it appears that flab is fab because it's on its way back.  We went to the doctor yesterday because of a persistent diaper rash, and when they weighed her she had gained almost THREE pounds since her last appointment six weeks ago!!!  Granted, she was at a low weight then when she was really sick - but still, three pounds?  I honestly feel like she is hungry all. the. time.  She also likes to slap her fat buddha belly in the bathtub and laugh at the sound and feel.

She loves to crawl into her room and grab her pacifier out of her crib and she will cry very hard if the pacifier is out of reach.  I was boiling her pacifiers the other day and she started try cry by the crib because she wanted one.  I gave her the little ribbon clip that I use to clip the pacifier on her clothes and she kept turning it over and over in her hands trying to find the pacifier at the end of it.  I felt sneaky and a little deceptive.

Today she waved a real "Bye Bye" to Ryan several times when he left for work. Since I saw a 9 month old doing this recently, I will admit that she arrived a little late to the party, but she arrived.

The real trickster part of her came out today when I was feeding her some brunch.  She LOVES to throw food. Today she threw her arm out like she throwing the food, then she looked at me and opened her hand to show that it still had food in it, then she laughed hysterically.  Then, she did it immediately again with her other hand and laughed again!  I couldn't believe it!  You just keep thinking these babies don't have a clue what is going on, but then they show that they've got something up their sleeve.

Baby in the baby swing

I'm in a small ensemble that is playing for our stake's upcoming nativity and we rehearsed yesterday at my apartment.  The is the first time I've played with a small ensemble since leaving USC and it's been an eye-opener.  First of all, we needed to rehearse.  Second of all, we needed two rehearsals and some people wanted MORE rehearsals!  Thirdly, after all these rehearsals we still don't sound as well as I'm used to hearing.  Oy, that violin is an instrument that can really screech!!!

Still, this day was bound to happen; it's still fun to be involved with music and it makes me happy that people who really don't have much training beyond high school still want to develop their talents.  It was just strange, we wanted to play multiple pieces but people looked at the music and said that they wouldn't have time to practice and learn the parts!  I'm used to showing up ten minutes beforehand, cutting and pasting a few parts together with my duet partner, then playing it.

During the second rehearsal there was a two month old baby and an eleven month old there.  Willa and the eleven month baby had a fine time.  He tried to pull out her pacifier and she tried to grab his bottle; they equally crawled around among everyone, trying to knock down music stands.  The little two month baby got a little fussy, so we pulled out Willa's baby swing.  It was charming to me how we could all get together to do music and work with kids and babies.  Definitely a Mormon group!

After they all left, Willa was really interested in her old swing.  I put her in it and she would have laid there for hours.  She's really into soft textures lately and loved laying her head down on this lamby seat.  Here she is, just chilling out; definitely big enough to put a strain on that motor!

What are you looking at?

Here is a picture from the park about two weeks ago. I love her little booty in the air!  I ran to the restroom and while I was gone a single mom tried to pick up on Ryan!

Orchestra/Dorkestra - or - Quiet in the pit!

A few weeks ago, I played with a small community orchestra in the area. I was only able to attend one rehearsal before the performance (usually rehearsal time conflicts with my class) and, as typical, they pretty much rehearsed everything except where the harp plays.  It was a really good experience and very fun, but it brought back soooo many memories.

I have a very conflicted view of orchestra.  There is definitely a thrill of playing with a group and playing such great pieces, but in the past there was also a lot of stress for me.  Here is the harpist's job in most orchestral pieces: count 500 measures through multiple time and key signature changes, play one very big and exposed chord or arpeggio, repeat.  I hated practicing my orchestral music; who wants to practice a bunch of random chords that have no relation to one another?  Not me!  Also, before I got to BYU I just didn't have a lot of experience in orchestras.  There is no orchestral future for most harpists so my teacher really tried to think creatively about other harp careers, which was very beneficial.  The bad news was that once I got to college, I had very little orchestra experience and I had to play in orchestras with other students who had been playing in them since middle school.   Bleh.  It was traumatizing.  Most of it was my fault, I just hating practicing the music, but I also just really feel antagonistically towards them.

Here is the orchestra hit list: Mainly, the string section.  The violins were the worst.  They had such small instruments, there were so many of them that if they got yelled at, it wasn't personal.  They played almost the entire time so that counting and furiously trying to keep track of measures was also less important.  Also, if you did mess up, loose your place, or whatever - no one could hear you and your stand partner could tell you where to go.  I love violins individually, but in an orchestra, they drive me bananas.

I think the larger the instrument got, the less animosity I felt.  I had quite a strong affinity with the bass players.  I got along well with all the brass players and percussion - I felt like we were all in the same boat.  Counting for billions of measures, then very exposed.  I think the brass players probably have it the  worst.  The percussion, we were always tight because we had so much equipment to move.  It was always us loading and unloading the trucks (bass players included here).  We were all kind of lone rangers together, often the only person on our part, arriving earlier than everyone else and leaving later than everyone else.  One time after BYU played on Temple Square we were loading the harps and big instruments into the truck.  When we finally got everything loaded up we looked around and realized that the buses had left us.  It was a crappy feeling to realize that no one on the buses had realized that eight or nine of us weren't there and that's probably how our status with them always was - not quite aware of us, just mad when we didn't get it right.  We ended up having to call my parents to come pick us up and drive us back to Provo.

So that's my orchestra gripe.  I had a great time at the rehearsal and performance with this community orchestra.  The best part?  They had a harp!!!  A lot of the middle schools and high schools out here have harps, so I didn't have to move my harp at all!  The director had even already set the harp up for me each time I got there.  Of course it was a Venus and sounded about as melodious as a tin can - nothing can quite match my Lyon & Healy, but Ryan says that sound quality is a small price to pay for not having to carry the harp down and up three flights of stairs.  He's a barbarian, naturally.

Here is Ryan throwing Willa in the park two weeks ago:

Unflattering photo of us in our Young's Jersey Dairy shirts holding our little (angry) cow.  This just in: Willa is not a Jersey cow, so the likelihood of getting this photo on the wall at the dairy are slim.

And... our cute little Willa.  Excuse the hairy legs - I think Ryan must have just gotten in from running - thus the short shorts.

I just love these little purple sweatpants!

With the mommy away...

the baby shall play!!!

Actually, I was right there when she did it, but she had been such a good baby all day that I thought she deserved a little fun. Plus, I got to finish dinner without a little rascal crawling around my legs!

Anyone who knows me from USC should be able to see my devotion to Willa in the fact that I let her play with the ziploc baggies. When I packed Ryan's lunch, I would use and reuse these baggies. I've relaxed a little now - I still reuse the ones that just had a sandwich or crackers - but back then I used to try to wash the peanut butter out! Once or twice I bought a bum box and the baggies would rip after only one or two uses; what a rip-off! I used to get out the scotch tape and try to tape them together. I don't know why I thought things were so desperate that we couldn't afford $2 for another box of them! Ryan would sometimes try to secretly throw out the baggies after he ate, but I would always catch him when I retrieved the empty bags from his backpack and knew that there were fewer than there should have been!

Here comes trouble

Things are just rosy around here.  Little Willa (finally) learned how to pull herself up to standing this past week.  She has pulled up to her knees for a long time, but never seemed interested in going for the whole tamale.  It only took her one or two times to figure out the skill, and now she thinks she is hot stuff as she pulls up and starts cruising around.  I realize that most everything I am writing in here happens to all the other babies in the world, so I'm not offended of you want to stop reading.  There are a billion babies in the world but I only have one of them, and all these little steps are so amazing to me.

She loves the fridge and scurries over to it as soon as I open it.  The other day she scurried over to it, pulled herself up, and pulled her sippy cup of milk off of the second shelf!  Ryan got home as soon as she started drinking and when she heard the door open, she scurried off to see Ryan with the sippy cup still hanging in her teeth.  It was hilarious!

Ryan and I both feel like walking is just around the corner.  I think a lot of it has to do with her little walker that she has as well as seeing the other kids walk around at the library.  Yesterday I got a little misty-eyed when she pulled herself up and trotted off with her walker, her little booty shaking.  My baby's growing up!

Here is one of her favorite cupboards to pull up to (also, one of the only unlocked ones).

Hooray, we had some visitor's this weekend!  Robert and Carey were awesome enough to plan a vacation to Galveston.  We got to see a lot of them over the weekend, which was so fun for us!

We went to a park downtown and Willa went crazy being able to crawl and crawl and crawl around.  We thought it was appropriate to take a photo of her on top of the "Trojan Bear".
 

So excited!  The grass was a really strange variety, maybe golf course grass?  Not too wet and NO fire ants, perfect for a little baby to crawl in, huzzah!  She had such a good time and it was nice to be able to allow her to crawl somewhere (instead of holding a howling baby at Walmart who is trying to reach for the ground).  Ryan and I decided that we needed to get out more so that Willa can explore.

Finally, my cousin Donna made this cow blanket for Willa's first birthday BEFORE she knew that Willa was going to be a cow for Halloween.  My sister Carrie also sent her this little cow Cabbage Patch Kid before she knew that Willa was going to be a cow.  Coincidence or heavenly manifestation?

I also have to add a little note about Willa from this morning.  I was making breakfast and she was hanging around my legs, whining and wanting to be picked up.  Finally, I said, "Hey, where's Dada?  Go find Dada!"  Immediately, she stopped, turned and started crawling out of the kitchen and looking around!  I yelled for Ryan to start talking to her.  He started saying, "Willa, where are you?  Willa!"  She followed his voice and crawled back and into the bedroom where he was getting ready!  I couldn't believe it!  I know that they say that babies understand a lot, but sometimes it seems like they don't understand anything :)!  Here  is the proof!  Such a growing girl!