We be Parents

The months keep flying by – 6 months since my last update brings Hazel to the 2 year mark! She’s a total blast and sure keeps us moving! Hazel had a busy birthday week last week as we hosted Yenari’s friend Eulji in a week long trip from Korea. We spent the three day weekend in Santa Cruz, played on the (windy and cold beach), met up with Rebecca and Ewan, did lots of shopping, ate way too much food, and celebrated Hazel’s birthday. Hazel looooooves Eulji and had so much fun running around and playing with her, but somehow I didn’t get a photo of them together – drat.

We’ve had a lot of visits and trips in the 6 months since I’ve last wrote…a month long visit from Yenari’s mother, a visit from my mom, many visits from my father, and a trip to Boston and Connecticut where we saw Liza, my mom, Duncan, and my grandmother. Many other things have been keeping us busy too – Yenari started a Master’s program in nursing in January, she switched from the cardiac unit to the mother/baby unit (just yesterday!), and my company was just acquired…so we each have (somewhat) new jobs even though we’re both working at the same places.

Hazel is at that stage where every day brings new words, new understanding, and just plain figuring things out that no one tried to teach her. She hasn’t moved on to full sentences, but she’s practicing her parrot routine – trying to say everything that we say and practicing lots of words.

Here’s Hazel with one of her favorite birthday presents, her bad-ass trike:

She hasn’t figured out how to ride it the ‘real’ way yet, but she happily scoots around our living room on it.

Hazel has become a slide aficionado, content to repeat the cycle of climbing up the playground steps, making her way as fast as she can to the slide, then sliding down…exclaiming ‘weeeeeeeeeeeeee’ each time she swirls down:

Hazel is still sleeping in bed with us, something we haven’t been able to shake. She did finally stop breastfeeding though – at the ripe old age of 23 months. While two years is still the World Health Organization’s recommendation, it sure is a difficult thing to keep up for that long – Yenari is finally free! This also makes life easier for me when I take care of Hazel at night, because she no longer holds out on eating until Yenari gets home from work. Here are a couple photos of Hazel getting her stuffed animals ready for bed:

And to round it out, a bunch more photos from Hazel playing in our backyard…

Yay Hazel! Happy birthday (not so) baby girl!