Christmas and cousins and carriers, oh my!

So much holiday hoopla and some not-so-fun flooding aftermath at our place that I'll cover later, so blogging's going to continue to be sparse for a bit. But Christmas itself was lovely.

We had breakfast with J.'s family and Ava and Dylan got to run around with their passel of cousins.

 Merry Christmas, from the Joneses!

We asked Ava to take a break from the fun to take this picture. Hence her Bob Cratchit-worthy expression.

But her frown turned upside down later when she opened her gifts, which included this new doll, to replace the one that went AWOL somewhere out in the world while she was traveling with us or the grandparents.

As mentioned before, we do the babywearing thing at our house and we Santa did spring for a new ErgoBaby carrier for Ava, in her favorite color. She squealed with delight when we snapped it together for her and loves wearing her doll and playing out elaborate scenarios filled with lots of baby changing, burping, and nursing ("Dolly needs some boobie milk 'cause she's sleepy. See? She's rubbing her eyes.") Ah, the simple joys of childhood.

And thankfully, Dylan still doesn't understand what all the hoopla's about, so he busied himself with a kiddie laptop in the playroom. He was thoroughly underwhelmed by the big truck we Santa got for him, but loved his waffle. Again: simple pleasures.

Next to the doll and carrier, Ava's other favorite gift was these Dorothy-goes-to-Oz-worthy glittery pink shoes from Grandma. They've been worn almost every day since. Luckily they go with almost everything in her wardrobe.

Despite the challenges of this past year, we are all incredibly blessed, especially to have all these lovely, smiling faces to call family.

Merry Christmas!

Happy birthday Dylan! Look who's walking!

Three months ago, this was Dylan.

Crawling at a fast clip, unable to walk but happily hanging out in my Ergo as we took Ava off to her first day of school.

Yesterday he turned one. Today he decided it was time to get a move on.

And again with Dad in better light and to much more fanfare.

Ava just lost one more advantage over her little brother.

Love, peace and hair grease

I thought having a boy would mean 'fewer' hair-related activities. I was wrong. I've written before about Ava and Dylan's hair care process. We added something new to the repetoire this week.

Braids!

 Ava had her first braids when she was almost two years old. So Dylan beat her to the punch a bit.

 Like father, like son with the afro pick action.

Full, post-braid, picked out glory. Like Bootsy, baby!

Baby carriers for mom's little baby

I love finding new, interesting blogs and it turns out my latest find is a fellow Clever Girls Collective member. Thanks, Mail Carrier is by a mom of two who writes:

about the love that my daughters and I have for receiving mail and how happy the mail carrier makes us when he comes driving down our street.

She does reviews and giveaways of mom- and kid-friendly products. One of her November posts made me smile: an Ergo baby carrier for kids! Or more specifically, for their dolls.

Courtesy of ErgoBaby

I have loved my Ergo baby carrier and extol its virtues to every new parent who asks about carrier options. But I had to introduce my mom to the benefits of babywearing back when Ava was an infant.

While I was busy reading reams of pregnancy and child development magazines about new research in baby development, attachment parenting and the nurturing needs of newborns, my mom and aunts were convinced that the long-since debunked advice they'd been given 30+ years ago was all that was needed to whip this new, needy (in their eyes) family member into shape.

Case in point: Ava preferred to be carried a lot as an infant (still does) and would cry a lot with my mom initially, who split caregiver duties with J. for most of the day when I went back to work after three months maternity leave.

My aunts, calling from across the country to check in on the new grandmother and new great-niece, could hear all the crying in the background, and told my mom that holding the baby would spoil her and to feed her rice cereal from birth (!) to make her sleep longer and cry less. "That's what the baby nurse told me when your cousin was born," she explained. Said cousin now being in his mid-30s.

Ahem. I was SO not cool with that and explained (diplomatically) what doctors have learned about the immaturity of the infant digestive system and I trusted my gut, which told me that Ava just needed to be held and interacted with, not left in a swing or crib for hours on end, which was the norm back in the day.

So I took a sling infant carrier I'd been using at home to my mom and had her try it. She called me at work hours later to say, "I've had her in this thing all morning and she hasn't said a peep! She's just as quiet and content, hanging here on my hip just looking around." Oh really. Imagine that. :-)

Ava - 10 months

As an older new mom friend of mine told her skeptical mother who pooh-poohed her swaddling and babywearing techniques as 'Not what we did when you were a baby': "Yeah, it's amazing what can change in 40 years!"

We tried out several carriers after the Bjorn and the sling, finally discovering the Ergo. Ava at 10 months in the Ergo weighed much less than 20 pounds. J. and I loved that we could each use it it with minimal adjustment for each of us, rather than having to use separate carriers as we'd done up until then: one for his large frame and one for my smaller one.

Dylan - 9 months, Ava - 3 years

Fast forward three years and Dylan, at nine months, weighed about 25 pounds - just a couple pounds less than his three year old sister. But he still rode (and currently rides) comfortably in the same Ergo. He's 11 months and 27 pounds pounds now and though I still carry him for short trips out and about, afterwards, it feels like I've done a major buns and thigh workout, sans elliptical.

With Christmas just around the corner and Ava in need of a doll to replace one left somewhere while spending the weekend with my folks, I may spring for the Ergo Baby Carrier and a new doll for her. After all, it's never too early to teach kids how to be loving parents to their babies.

Thanksgiving visuals

Since we didn't host Thanksgiving dinner this year, or the cleaning and entertaining hullaballoo that goes with it, I was free to grab a few shots on the big day.

My mother-in-law working her hostessing magic. Yes, those are three stacked pies, next to another pie and a cake. Altogether, there were at least nine different desserts, including bar cookies, a red velvet cake, and a 7-Up cake (so light and tasty).

Mac and cheese and green bean casserole.

Clockwise: hot croissants in the bowl, roast turkey, baked turkey, J.'s salmon, more mac and cheese, and ham. No deep fried turkey this year. :-( My arteries will probably thank me later.

A beautiful table for the grown folks.

The kids table with Ava in the back with two of her more than a dozen cousins who came.

Jones family: poorly cropped, but happy, healthy, and thankful in 2010.