____giving

The past week had been full of variations on the traditional Turkey Day, including Frysgiving, Friendsgiving, and the actual Thanksgiving meal itself. Basically, we've been eating nonstop for the past week - I am afraid to get on the scale.

We started out with Frysgiving at our friend's place - it involved deep frying a turkey, though we didn't stay long enough to sample any of it. Though Maya did have fun hanging out there before naptime:

The next day we continued the eating at Friendsgiving with another group of friends. A huge feast was served, with lots of delicious food. We had turkey, tofurkey, cranberry sauce, biscuits, cornbread, stuffing, squash, mashed potatoes, and more:

The kids had lots of fun playing together too, and paused briefly for a photo:

After all this eating, we headed up to Canada to visit our good friends and cook yet another Thanksgiving meal. Again, there was quite a spread of food, including turkey, mashed potatotes, dressing, brussels sprouts, cranberry relish, green beans, and mac n cheese:

 

 

Maya had lots of fun meeting new friends and playing with cool toys:

All in all, a great way to wrap up November! Oh and Maya learned a new word as well: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svmMQt1cgsE

She's a Maniac, Maniac on the Floor

We've already established here that Maya appears to be quite the little dancer. She seems to have a few favorite tunes, including "Waka Waka" by Shakira and "The Dog Days Are Over" by Florence and the Machine. The other night we were playing the latter song and here she is dancing so much (like a little maniac) that she falls over:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nav97SPA7bI

Fortunately she was ok and this clip was just too funny not to share! The reason it cuts off abruptly at the end was because I turned off the camera and ran over to check on her, so perhaps I'm not such a bad mother.

Once we all got over that little spill, we turned the song back on so she could dance some more. In this clip she also seems to be trying to follow the beat with her little drumsticks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GkXSlv1c5s

And this time she didn't fall over either! The entire experience seems to have left her a bit hungry:

And of course, smiley as well:

Feeding the Maya Monkey

Maya Monkey has been a nickname for a while, especially once I chose a monkey theme for decorating her nursery. Turns out, she loves bananas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUbOctgFmZM

She did get full near the end and dropped some on the floor, but up until that point she really seemed to be enjoying it!

Brunching, Walking, and Dining with Friends

Another fun weekend for the Husains! Saturday we went to a fun 3rd birthday party; I forgot my camera so I don't really have any photos. But there was a professional-level photographer snapping away, so I'm sure we'll see some great shots later.

Sunday morning we went to brunch with our neighbors Ken and Marilyn - we all enjoyed the food at The Blue Room. Maya managed to convince them to share their dessert:

After brunch, Maya took a micro-nap for 20 minutes and was up again to watch football and dance a bit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT1CcrCexD0

After that, we headed out to spend time with friends from Hyder's old job - Helene, Caroline, and Dan. There were three dogs for Maya to play with, including a Great Dane! We went out for a walk with Helene, Caroline, little Tuxedo, and big Odin before dinner:

Maya seemed a bit unsure about meeting Odin, the Great Dane:

But she loved playing with little Jack - he's more her size:

After a delicious home cooked dinner, we headed home. Maya was snoring within 5 minutes!

Laughing, Meeting New Friends, and Helping with Housework

A friend at work once told me that baby laughter is like a drug to a parent - you'll do anything to get more. It turns out to be so true! We regularly find ourselves jumping around and making noises like idiots if it gets a giggle out of Maya. And of course, when Dada is the one doing the entertaining, I try to make sure I capture it on camera. Here's a fun video clip of this very scenario, a few days ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RQlXuVYKCk

Friday was a fun day - we met up with a good friend of mine from California; I've known her since 1996. Man, we're old. She was visiting friends & family in Massachusetts and I'm so glad we could catch up. She had brought her dog so of course Maya loved meeting another furry friend:

Afterward we did some errands, using the cart cover given to us by our neighbor Marilyn:

Then we came home to do some housework. Here's a picture of Maya 'helping' with the laundry:

One day maybe she'll learn that she doesn't have to stomp on the clean clothes before folding them!

Balloons, Bindis, and Baingan

Another fun weekend for the Husains, especially the littlest one! On Saturday we went to lunch with friends who are expecting a baby of their own. They were wonderful with Maya, and even got a balloon from the restaurant for her. She was all smiles in the car while playing with the balloon:

Saturday evening we had our friends good friends Kathryn & Kieran, and their daughter Erica, over for dinner. We were having too much fun eating, drinking, and playing Rock Band to take many pictures. In fact, the only picture I have is of the food! Here is our pasta with kale & thyme pesto:

Sunday morning we went to the new house of our good friends Josh & Rachel; along with their son Zach, and our friends Justin & Saru with their son Ryan, and our friend Sharona with her daughter Lilia, we did a mini-puja for Diwali. Maya and I bought new clothes for the occasion, and I cooked up a feast. Here's apicture of our little puja setup, with candle, fruit, flowers, and a statue of Saraswati (not the right goddess for this holiday, but still...):

And here's a picture of the food I cooked, including rice, lentils and spinach, chickpeas and potatoes, and masala eggplant:

Here's a picture of Maya smiling with her bindi and new clothes:

Finally, here's a picture of Maya and I in our new clothes:

It was the end of the afternoon, so someone was a bit tired and not very smiley! As usual, there are more photos in our November 2010 album.

And as an added bonus, here's a video of Maya dancing and clapping to the Beatles song "Let It Be" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgB7Xs_pcps

Look Who Decided to Crawl

I thought Maya would never crawl; she did not seem interested in it a while ago in the 9-12 month timeframe when most babies do crawl. And over the past couple months she's been very eager to toddle along while holding on to our hands or while holding on to a walker. But over the past few days she's actually been crawling along on the floor to get near us or to get over to a toy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haJubJfxQi8

Since she is my daughter, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that she's late to this milestone.

In other news, I decided to try an experiment as part of the great Binky and Bottle Battle of 2010 (say that five times fast). Today's attempt to get her off the bottle involved a cup with a straw. Since she won't drink milk out of a sippy cup, I thought a new cup might be exciting enough that she'd try it. Well, she did try it but I'm not sure how much milk actually went into her belly:

This was a fairly messy experiment, but I'll try again tomorrow. Everyone, keep your fingers crossed!

Halloween, Part 3

After the two Halloween parties last week, Maya was of course ready to wear her bumblebee outfit one more time and go trick-or-treating. But before we did that, we had brunch with our friends at one of our favorite restaurants and spent a bit of time outdoors. It was a beautiful fall day; the weather was a bit chilly but it was sunny and the fall foliage is beautiful:

Maya didn't seem to mind the breeze too much:

At night we headed out for some trick-or-treating with our friends:

 

Maya seemed a bit unsure about this whole adventure, but she hung out in the carrier for almost an hour. She also held on tight to her candy pail and consistently chose the biggest piece of candy in each bowl:

Clearly, I've been teaching her well. :) Lots of photos from this month can be found in our October 2010 album.

Playing, Giggling, and Walking (With Assistance)

Maya is at a really fun age now - certain toys will make her giggle to no end. Right now, it's a funky ball dropper toy that we got as a hand-me-down, like so many other toys. And like other kids, I am sure this is a phase and she'll get tired of this particular toy. But for now, she loves it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PhPywZYVNU

And I just got her a couple other toys tonight, including a walker on wheels. For now, she seems to be enjoying this toy as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsjxlMfHeD4

Yes, she's wearing the same shirt in both photos - she didn't wear it for too long yesterday and it wasn't dirty so I put it on her again today. It's my own little way of keeping the laundry manageable. ;-)