The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry

Extreme Makeover: Dollhouse Edition

There's a system here in Brooklyn where if you don't want something, you put it on your sidewalk and someone else takes it. Like, within an hour. It's pretty amazing. Sunday we were walking home from church and this dollhouse was sitting outside our neighbor's house. With the previous little girl owner and her friend standing watch. It was sorta sad to take it away right in front of her but she promised me she wasn't sad and told me to "come back again any time." Plus, she snagged her misplaced My Little Pony back just in the nick of time.

BEFORE picture. This is even after a serious scrub down in the shower. The whole thing was crazy caked with old paint. Not sure what our next move is. Can it be saved? I'm excited to work on it. I'm not as excited about finding somewhere to put this thing. If all else fails, we can ditch the house and just keep the cute furniture.
 

Seven Months

Looking way too old:

This girl loves her tongue:

Help me:

Stately:

Cute little stinkbug:

Sunshine girl:

Just standin around:

Serious gwen:

Hi baby:

I love this picture:

Doing a jig on her signature blanket:

And some animation for the road:

Suddenly

Gwen stood up and just like that, everything got harder. I'm not exaggerating when I say she tears this room apart. I know she is little, but she finds a way. She already prefers things she's not supposed to have. I am hoping this isn't a lasting quality or she'll be in for a lot of heartache. I feel bad when I try to divert her attention away from me when she comes begging for some interaction. Am I supposed to interact with her all day long? She's cute and I want to but it's tough! It's also hard to spend my day on the floor pulling her off of things that are going to hurt her over and over again while she wags her tongue and kicks her feet so obliviously. Except of course she's oblivious, and I want her to stay that way. I don't like being frustrated that she is so curious and adventurous and strong because these are all very good things. But spending my life within a protective arm's length of the sweet little darling, I'm feeling a little claustrophobic. If I walk by, she literally tries to grab on to my pants and climb up my leg, while I'm walking. There's no one I'd rather hang out with but come on, Gwen. Another example, I just put her down for a nap but when her whimpers turned to a scream, I went in to find her standing straight up in her crib, clenching the rails with a terrified look because she didn't know how to get back down. It was sad. It's like we can't win. But also like we can't lose? Because in 20-60 minutes she'll wake up, make some coos, then there's a cuddle and some happy bouncing and it's a fresh slate. And that's what we do all day long. Exhausting but also pretty incredible.

p.s. is it unrealistic to expect Spring to cure all of this?

p.p.s. It's okay to roll your eyes at my idea of a hard life

Six Months (and a bag of tricks)

Gwen's sixth month brought a whole bunch of new stuff with it  

Stretching gracefully: 

Crawling/spitting:   

Holding herself up on the coffee table with her gums:

Sitting:

 

Followed closely by standing: 

(like, I found her standing straight up in her crib this afternoon. what!?)

 

Digging in her toy basket for whatever she wants to play with:

Loving any and all food we put in front of her:

And mostly following me around with a sweet slobbery face asking

for praise and/or reassurance to go do it all again: