Swinging - as written by Claire

Mommy took me to the park. I got to use the little girl swings. Big kids use the big kid swings. I like watching big kids Swing. I enjoy being on the little Swings but one day I'll be big enough to use the big kid swings. It is the best when mommy pushes me because I like being close to Mommy. I am new to Swinging so I mostly keep my arms held tight to the swing.















Sometimes I feel brave and I reach my arms out wide and I like to squeal like a delighted piglet. At the park there are sometimes little kids like me, but they are not as fun to watch as the big kids. The little kids just lie and cry. I want to learn to become a big kid so I practice getting into a crawling position and rocking vigorously back and forth. It makes me tired. But I like to take naps too..












At the park I also like the tetter totter. Even though I am not a totter yet and I don't know what teeter means I think it is fun and mommy holds me if she puts me on it. I hope to someday teeter and totter on my own.

Drop and give me 20

Our daughter is making us look super lazy! When we lay her on the floor, she instantly starts her "crawling practice" which involves pushing up into plank positions and alot of grunting. This is interspersed with modified downward dog poses (on toes and head instead of hands) and lots of rolling. By the end of 20 minutes or so she is breathing hard! She does all of this while we sit idly by wondering if this will be the moment when she gets into that puppy-dog crawl position.


As you can see, Cleo is clearly unimpressed with the latest tummy time developments.

In other news: we have found our feet! Mommy has been waiting for this for months. The Little Piggies nursery rhyme has finally paid off.

Over the weekend we took Claire up to San Francisco to visit with our friends Trish, Tyler, John, and Justin. We must've spent a good 3 hours having brunch, and boy was it a wrestling match with Claire to keep her from grabbing everything on the table! It was certainly a wake-up call for us. On the upside, all of the distractions kept her entertained and she was such a good smiley girl.

Game Fools

Claire is on a nice schedule of sleeping from 9p to 7a so you would think that we're getting good sleep too. But nope, we're staying up late playing games! Brian and I are completely addicted to a board game called Agricola, which was one of Brian's birthday gifts (thanks Ali!). It's a pretty complicated game where you have to grow crops and livestock, and provide for family members. There are alot of tiny pieces so we play only after Claire has gone to bed.

Claire has her own games, which include peek-a-boo, pulling off mom's sunglasses over and over again, tickle monster, and super Claire with daddy. She's also sitting up and unstacking her star toy to the best of her abilities (which means she can only take the top two off and then gets mad!):

Bottom's Up!

Have you ever tried sleeping on your stomach with your butt in the air? I just tried this and believe me its not very plausible for a grown human being. However, it seems to be perfectly comfortable for a 6 month old baby.

Also, since our baby is older now, we've started feeding her nuclear biproducts.

Group Hug

I have spent the whole day wondering what to post on the blog and didn't come up with anything until Brian came home from work. The first thing he does is scoop up the baby and plant a kiss on her cheek, and she's all smiles. This always makes my day and I just stand back and get that warm fuzzy feeling. But today, Claire changed it up a bit. As Daddy was holding her, she turned to look at me and reached an arm out toward me. I came up close to her and she put her arm around my shoulder so we had a group hug going! We were all giggles! I grabbed the camera and took one of those candid shots that we used to do of just me and Brian. It's so much better now that there's three of us!

Everybody Jump!

Claire has turned into a jumping fanatic overnite, and can't get enough of her jumperoo. I think it's time to raise the harness since she nearly flops out of the thing when Daddy gets her all excited!

We're Officially A Family

Yesterday was a big day for the Sivitz family. Yesterday we went to the Mazda dealer and traded in our old trusted Madza Protege 5 for a Mazda 5. Based on the name you'd think we got the same car and just dropped the "Protege" part, whatever that is. But in actuality we bought a Minvan. Yep, we're officially a family. We went to the dealer looking for a slightly bigger car but deadset against getting an minivan. I apoligize in advance to all you minivan lovers out there, but we just couldn't imagine owning a minvan.. Its like admitting we're old and that our job in life is to cart around all of Claire's stuff. But... we've been in denial too long. We are old and our job is to cart around Claire's stuff so the minivan just seemed like the right approach. Besides, this isn't your typical minivan. It drives like a small car and has the same engine as our smaller Mazda 3. Its actually the smallest and most fuel efficient of all the minvans on the market and although this is just another step in the denial process, its technically a "microvan" (Source: Consumer Reports... look it up if you don't believe us).. . Anyway, our sweet new ride is brillant black in color has two rear sliding doors and a hatchback. I also discovered today that its big enough to fit a 10 foot piece of wood straight in with all the windows closed.

Another thing worth mentioning is how hard it was for us to part with the old car. We've had our Protege 5, whom we call Darryl, for nearly 7 and a half years and have driven it nearly 132,000 miles. When we left the dealer we somehow felt as if a member of our family had been left behind and were quite sad that Claire would never remember the first car either of us had owned. Oh well, at least we got photos of Claire at the dealership with the old car. FYI, the two cars we currently have our named "OBD" (our Mazda 3) and "BBD" (our Mazda 5). If you don't know already, feel free to guess what the acronyms stand for.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

It's Brian's birthday today! Claire couldn't be more excited, and she's slobbering all over his gifts in anticipation. He's still in bed at this moment because we're letting him sleep in -- a gift in itself. Happy birthday Brian! Claire and I agree that you're the best thing that's ever happened to us. (Well, at least you are tied with milk in Claire's opinion)

Mmm peaches

Hooray, it's peach season! We are so lucky that our puny little peach tree makes the tastiest fruit, and in big quantities. The tough thing is that they all seem to ripen at once and now we're overloaded with them. This one tree is providing for all of our neighbors and co-workers too! Claire is doing her share of eating. Here's a photo of her gumming away at her mesh feeder, stuffed with ripe peaches:

Edinburgh and London Vacation

Wow, the last couple of weeks went by fast. Our vacations are typically very busy and go go go, but this time we literally did nothing in London (last 5 of the days) and it still zipped by! Here's a summary of our time in Scotland, which was our first time visiting there:

We started our trip with an evening flight to London Heathrow, then made a connection to Edinburgh. Claire slept through 6 hours of the flight, comfortably splayed out on the complimentary bassinet provided by the airline. The word "bassinet" really didn't apply if you ask us, because it ended up just being a plasticky duffel-bag which we laid at our feet. Brian and I didn't sleep much at all because we were so worried about accidentally kicking Claire! After getting seriously lost driving around downtown Edinburgh, we finally made it to the Walton Hotel with whom we had booked an apartment. It ended up being a really decent place, two bedrooms, with nice although strange decor including an animal hide rug in the living room. We did a little grocery shopping in the neighborhood and I got my fill of fish and chips before hitting the sack.

Our first full day in Edinburgh, we drove to two medieval castles along the coast east of Edinburgh: Dirleton Castle and Tantallon Castle. There were only a few other people at these castles so it was alot of fun exploring them in the eery silence. From Tantallon Castle we could see Bass Rock, home to 100,000 seabirds. The rain drove us to return to the apartment early, but it did lighten up and we took turns doing running tours through downtown. We picked up Brian's sister, Ali, late that night and she finally got to meet Claire.

Day two we decided to stay in the city and see Edinburgh Castle, which actually ended up being way too crowded for our likes. We did get to see the "1 o'clock gun" fire off and changing of the guards in the courtyard, but we ditched out of there early to lunch on Thai food. The Princes Street Gardens at the foot of the castle were very nice and suited us much better. Brian "flew" Claire around in the air alot and she had a blast. We went on a late afternoon hike in Holyrood Park, and ended up getting lost in the thick fog. I'm pretty sure we made it to the summit but there was absolutely no view of Edinburgh to be had. On our way down we did have nice views of the nearby town of Duddington and its small loch.

On day three we drove to the town of Stirling to get away from the rain in Edinburgh. On the way we stopped to see Linlithgow Palace, a residence of the Stuart monarchs. We missed the falconry show there but the birds were on display and Claire was fascinated by them. One of them was screeching incessantly and it sounded very much like Claire when she screams! We toured Stirling Castle, another residence of the Stuart monarchs, and Argyll's Lodging, a historic home. We should have ended the day at that point, but Brian really wanted to see Loch Lomond. It ended up being alot farther away than we had guessed! By the time we got there, it was too dark to do anything, plus we did not have good views of the loch anyway.

Day four we headed out to the town of Perth and picnicked at Elcho Castle by the river Tay. I will never forget this: Claire lunged at Brian's peanut butter and jelly sandwich while he was talking, and she got her first taste of peanut butter! I had a bit of a panic attack but Claire ended up being just fine. Afterwards we toured Scone Palace, the home of the Earl of Mansfield. There was a nice hedge maze in the gardens as well as peacocks living on the grounds. We ended the afternoon with a nice hike up Killoun Hill, for splendid views of the countryside despite the mist.

On day five we did a little shopping then met up with one of Ali's friends for lunch and a stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens. The highlights were the gigantic 100 year old hedge and rock garden. Ali baby-sat Claire while we went on a run up Calton Hill to get views of the city. We realized it was just the second time we've ever had anybody baby-sit Claire! Her auntie did a fantastic job, and Claire rewarded her by saying her first word: "Ali". We don't know if Claire knew what she was saying but it definitely sounded like Ali's name!

The next day we flew to London with Ali to see my family before my brother's wedding on July 4th. Brian and Ali did an amazingly thorough walking tour of London in just 3 hours, before she had to leave to return to her home in Montpelier. The remainder of our time in London was primarily spent visiting with family, and of course the wedding! We strolled through Soho and Covent Gardens, toured the tower of London with my cousin Mimi and her family, and went up in the London Eye to see what all the hype was about. In the end we decided it was over-priced but it was very special to get to see the city on such a sunny day, and with my brother Stephen, sister-in-law Ana, and nephew Alex too. We had such a fun time catching up with the newlyweds David and Leila, along with all the rest of the family! We miss everybody already.

Even though Claire won't remember the trip at all we really enjoyed showing her new things and having her meet our loved ones. Travelling with a 5-month-old is much different and tiring than what we're used to but the special memories make it worth it for us.