Paper Posterity

I love cards, stationery, paper, etc. I have kept many, many letters and cards over the years and I haven't yet found a good way to store them (so I'm open for ideas). I have been trying to keep up with Sadie's baby book, but saving all of her birthday cards doesn't seem practical.
This picture was taken by a professional - one of the dads from our mom's group - at the giant joint birthday party we had at the end of July. I thought this would be a good way to save it.
Here's a shot of most of the rest that she received:

I still haven't decided if I should keep them or not. Have I mentioned that I'm not the best decision maker?

Chess, anyone?

Sadie seems to really like this giant chess set at Santana Row in San Jose.
Today was the second time we've been there and she got right into it - moving the pieces around, etc. (the last time we had to steer clear of some older boys who were kicking the pieces all over the place and generally wreaking havoc - nice, eh?)
I don't like to hang out here normally, because while it is lovely, it's uber-trendy and just kind of ridiculous (I mean, the list of shops reads like Rodeo Drive) The people there on average are...well...the kind of people who let their kids kick chess pieces all over the place! However, there are a few stores that I like there including H&M, so I make the rounds every once in a while.
Anyway, Sadie had a ball for a good 20 minutes at this chess set while I chatted with a very friendly Chinese woman whose 2 kids were also in the mix. People stopped to watch the kids tottering around and there were a particularly funny few moments when Sadie started following a very snappily dressed little girl (pink & brown houndstooth toe-up, including a little beret). Sadie kept signing "hat" and even tried to take it off at one point! Here she is going for the grab:

Thankfully, she listened and obeyed when I told her not to take it.

By the way, if anyone wants to volunteer to teach Sadie how to play chess someday, have at it. I certainly don't have the patience for it. Just ask my friend Fabio who tried to teach me in college. I think one of the only times I found him speechless was when I cleared the board with a single sweep of my arm. Hey - I'm the first to admit that I don't like learning new things if I'm not able to be really good at them right away. I blame my intelligent, athletic and competitive family tree!

Extreme close-up!

Thanks for this fun shot, Aunt Joanne!
We love you.

These Little Feet

Sadie's been kind of obsessed with shoes lately. It's one of the words she knows both verbally and in sign language and she just likes to say it. She will bring me one of hers, one of mine, or even one of Andrew's, and proudly announce, "shooz!"
Tonight was the first time she took an interest in my flip-flops, which I thought was pretty amusing, seeing that I pretty much live in them.
I got to thinking about her feet. They are big (long) which seems to be an indication of her height, and they are prone to sweatiness, which she definitely got from me. My feet were a size 10 by some point during high school and grew almost a full size after my two year stint working at Nordstrom a few years ago. I don't like having such big feet, but I do like being taller than the average woman, so I don't complain. I wonder if Sadie will feel that way?
I wonder if she'll live in flip-flops the way I do? I wonder if she'll like having lots of fun, fashionable shoes or just a few essentials? Mostly, I wonder where she'll walk in her shoes. Where will these little feet wander in the world? There's no way to know. For now, I'll just dream of all the countless steps that lay before her.
Lucky little feet.

tears

Sadie is changing in lots of ways. She's walking. She's talking more than ever. She's also starting to shift into being more aware of her surroundings, and her repertoire of moods and feelings is growing. For example, she cries or at least looks very concerned when she hears a baby cry. She laughs when we laugh. She gets frustrated when she can't do certain tasks. She has even started to whine a little. (ugh)
She also seems to have dropped her afternoon nap. She'll sleep almost 3 hours in the morning/early afternoon, so she's not tired for a second one until 5 or 6, which is way too late. I just can't have her awake until 10 PM with us, especially when Andrew doesn't get home from work until 8 PM sometimes. I need my down time with him. The sad part is that it's beyond clear that she wants to A)spend time with him when he gets home and B) spend time with both of us at once.
This was illustrated last night when I put her down at 7:30, she cried hard until Andrew got home and got her up at 7:45. She was delighted until we put her back down at 8:30. She cried hard again, so I went in and rocked her and sang to her for 5 minutes. She totally relaxed in my arms but when I put her back down, she started crying again. Since we've been uber-spoiled with this angelic, perfect sleeper, it's really hard to just "let her cry it out". (this is where all of my friends with normal bedtime/nighttime crying babies will want to slap me. Sorry, guys - I'm just telling it like it is)
So, we know she wants to play with us. We also know she's teething (molars). But most importantly, we know that she's tired. We got her up one more time for a bit and put her back down for good at 9:15. She cried for almost a full half hour before finally giving up.

Not until the apartment was quiet did it occur to me that she might also just be very in-tune with me. I just learned of a good friend's mother being killed and I also had a root canal yesterday.
Maybe the tears were intuitive and empathetic.

(I can almost hear the sarcastic remarks already...but hey, it's possible.)

You've come a long way, baby!

Today was really great.
It was fun to celebrate our little miss Sadie all day long. We sang happy birthday to her when she woke up this morning, which she seemed to really like.
She had a nice breakfast (oatmeal & bananas) and she stumbled all around the apartment, babbling and moving things here and there.
I gave her a bath and she took a long nap. So long, in fact, that we missed our photo appointment at Sears, which I only scheduled on a whim yesterday, so that was no big deal. Aunt Joanne will be here the next 2 weekends, so we'll get lots of great photos to mark her turning one.
I bought her 3 balloons at Safeway (she calls them "moow!") and we spent some time at Grandma and Grandpa's. She hung out with Stitch and I did my best to help with some party-prep for tomorrow. Sadie took her first tumble (read: face-plant) off of the couch, but didn't even need mom (me) to get over it. Grandma did just fine; imagine that!
Later we had a party in San Jose to attend. It was an Olympic Send-Off party for our friend and amazing triathlete, Becky Lavelle. She made the Olympic team as an alternate after a really rough year and we are all so proud of her. It was nice to celebrate her achievement with dozens of her local fans.
Andrew searched for somewhere for us to have dinner, and since a local Ethiopian place came highly recommended on Yelp, we headed on over. Dinner was delicious and Sadie gobbled up all sorts of authentic, organic, delicious cuisine like collard greens, roasted and mashed chickpeas, potatoes, green beans, and onions all in savory sauces. At least one of them was pretty spicy, so I got a little nervous at one point that she might not keep eating, but she just asked for water and went on eating.

She especially loved the injera, which is the spongy pancake-like bread that you use in lieu of utensils. It tastes kind of like sourdough bread and it's apparently very high in iron. Bonus.
Here's a video of Sadie "ordering" her 1st birthday dinner.

We arrived home just minutes before the exact moment of her birth - 9:42 PM. I've been expecting to get all weepy but it hasn't happened yet.

This year has been so blessed and we have had the most fun with her.

Happy Birthday, Bean! We love you more than you know.