We keep finding three’s all over our house.

– – – – –

In the bathroom:

We knew it was only a mater of time.

We now have three toothbrushes in the bathroom cabinet!
All made from recycled yogurt containers.

Miss Leyba’s even helps protect wildlife too (she has the PINK St. Lucia Parrot style). After keeping us company while we brush our teeth for the past few months, she was initially confused but ultimately excited to have her own tooth brush.

She’s very into brushing her teeth, although she prefers to help us brush our teeth with her toothbrush.

– – – – –

By the front door:

Gosh, her little shoes are so darling.

The only reason the shoe rack is so empty is because Miss Leyba LOVES to unload it and then carry our shoes off around the room. And she’ll try to taste them all too if I fail to intervene. Mamas can be so mean. They just don’t understand how tasty shoes can be or appreciate how good leather feels on teething gums.

– – – – –

For the time being, three’s are all around.

Here’s an excerpt from a great children’s song about three’s:

Three is a magic number.
Yes it is, it’s a magic number.

It takes three legs to make a tri-pod or to make a table stand.
It takes three wheels to make a vehicle called a tricycle.
Every triangle has three corners,
Every triangle has three sides,
No more, no less.
You don’t have to guess.
When it’s three you can see it’s a magic number.

A man and a woman had a little baby.
Yes, they did.
They had three in the family.
That’s a magic number.

– Lyrics by Robert Dorough.

We like the Elizabeth Mitchell version of this song from her album, You Are My Sunshine. This CD, which we take out of the library pretty regularly, gets lots of airtime in our house.

I am doing some cooking in the kitchen and suddenly I hear the most beautiful music coming from my feet:

Beautiful music from Carrie on Vimeo.

Miss Leyba came up with the whole thing on her own (even arranging the bowls just so) and, oh boy, does she take her music making seriously.

I love it.

I grew up in New Jersey where The City meant New York (obviously!). Now that we’re living on the West Coast and living in the Bay Area, we have a new city: San Francisco. At least that’s what our friends are referring to when they talk about going into the city. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that, but I’ll give it a shot. The City.

Last week Miss Leyba finally got to check it out FOR REAL.

We met up with my friend April who I last saw in August 2003 in Tuscon. (Wow, does that feel like another lifetime ago!) She recently moved to the Bay Area and we (i.e. ME!) finally got our (MY!) act together and met up.

Our plan to see the new California Academy of Sciences FAILED when we realized several thousand people were visiting the museum too (it reached capacity an hour after opening! with hundreds of people still waiting outside! it was INSANE!):

Climbing the stairs from Carrie on Vimeo.
(Sorry about the audio in the middle; I had to mute the part where I said Miss Leyba’s real name.)

Instead we hit the worlds best playground in Golden Gate Park and ate a super tasty lunch at the Beach Chalet with a front row view of the ocean. We all had a great time (and we hope to meet up again soon!).

Miss Leyba loved April from the get go.

I love it when friends move to town. Come westwards, dear readers! Then you too can hang with Miss Leyba!

And us too. We’re not as fun though.

Someone crawled over to the laundry basket before we were finished getting dressed.

I recognize that look.

Mom, I got away from you! Ha ha ha! See, we don’t have to put my pants on!

(Thanks to Alice for the babylegs! Aren’t they adorable?! Miss Leyba’s thighs are so chubby that they only fit as leg warmers! I think they are more cute that way anyhow.)

From my blog in college: 

“There is nothing like bouncing around the biology building in spandex to set the tone for my day! Gardening and dancing: the two things I want to wake up to every day of my life.”

January 30, 2001

When was the last time you danced and gardened all in one day?

Better yet, when was the last time you danced around in public wearing spandex?

(photo of Carrie circa 1985)

I rarely make New Years Resolutions. Partially because everyone seems to make them and no one seems to keep them. Partly because I think January 1 as the start of the year is pretty arbitrary.

My goal for 2009 is really more of a challenge for me to meet by the time I turn 30 (in approximately 13 months) than a New Years Resolution.

I want to lose 15 pounds.

I’d like to lose closer to 25, but I think a goal of 15 is more realistic.

I don’t know if it’s going to be possible while I’m breastfeeding to do this. My appetite is ferocious and my daughter’s need to suckle is great. And my breasts are huge right now while she is breastfeeding. My nursing bra cup size is a G/H, despite the fact that I have been back to my pre pregnancy clothing size since the spring.

I don’t know if I am going to be able to find the time to exercise and eat the way I want to.

But I’m going to try.

Stick around and cheer me on during this journey.

Here’s to a great 2009.

This is the first in a new feature here: books that we love.

From the very first day (literally!), we have been reading to Miss Leyba. David and I both love to read ourselves and sharing books with our daughter has been such a blessing for our family. We’ve so enjoyed watching her develop a love of books:

We have found that board books are a godsend. No paper cuts. No tearing (though she’s only done this a few times). No bent pages. No ruined pages because of all the drool. And the occasional bites.

Board books are (more) sturdy.

Nowadays most baby books come in this format and I strongly recommend you search them out when buying presents for little ones. After a few months, we packed up all the non-board children’s books –because she terrorized the hell out of them–and have only now (at almost a year old) started reintroducing them to her.

There are also small, thick, sturdy board books which are especially good for teething on, if you can get paste the whole baby chewing on cardboard (which I personally prefer to baby chewing on plastic–eck!). We especially like these Eric Carle ones, which come in a set of three small books:

They feature words from some of Eric Carle’s books like The Very Busy Spider and The Very Hungry Caterpillar:

We like these because we can read (or tell!) the longer story that these words were excerpted from while Miss Leyba plays with the smaller book; they are highly portable (I always have a few in my purse); the pages are extra thick which makes them very easy to turn; and they are fairly hard to rip apart, though after about 8 months of use ours are finally starting to beat the dust.

With them we practice animal names, animal sounds, colors, and spelling (i.e., D-O-G). We stack them up like blocks and knock them down. They are endlessly fun to play with.

The original books are pretty great too.