Pony Tales

On mornings when I put Isabella in the jogger to go for a run we always make at least one stop to visit the pony in the pen just off of Coombsville Ave. A wee bit filthy and quite possibly depressed, that pony, on occasion, will acknowledge our friendly calls with a snort. We gladly appreciate his/her effort, knowing it must be hard living in a small, muddy pen which he/she must share with a couple of chickens and a rooster. But this is not the pony tale I wish to share today.



Today's pony tale is the one that marks an important day in my days of motherhood. For today is the day that I first combed my daughter's hair into two ponytails.

My theory has been that since Isabella was so bald for so long as a baby, she's simply not used to her hair being touched. So the combing, gathering, pulling, and bundling of her wisps into elastics was probably as awkward a feeling for her as it was for me to do.

The end result though, was worth it...at least for me. Viola! Behold the ponies!

Apparently the significance of this pony tale was lost on Isabella. Within 20 minutes, she'd pulled out her ponytails and thrown the elastics on the floor. Thank goodness for cameras.

Nana turns 29! For the 36th time...

My mom's birthday falls a week after Isabella's, so the family partying continued...
To celebrate her 65th, we ate at my parents' favorite restaurant in Napa, which is where we celebrated my Dad's 65th a couple of years ago. (See black and white photo below)

(Dad's 65th. I was preggers with Isabella and technically on bed rest at the time. My doctor gave me permission to go to dinner that night. )

And here we are again.

Nana opens her gift with I's supervision.

Nana then must share her gift with Isabella (who picked out the color of the scarf--so maybe she just assumes it's half hers).

Isabella busies herself on the cardboard laptop while waiting for dinner. Fun times had by all. Happy Birthday, Mom!

E-ya-bella turns 2!!

Isabella (who pronounces her name E-ya-bella!) turned 2 on April 4.

At 2, here are I's top five:

1. Playground Gan-gak-ico (Playground Fantastico-or any park with swings. They're all fantastico in her book)

2. Chocolate

3. Dirt

4. Singing

5. Water

Since her birthday fell on Easter Sunday this year, we celebrated with a family feast. Nana, Bop and Uncle Dave were in attendance.

As was the Easter Bunny--in cake form.

Yay for Uncle Dave coming to visit! Isabella was too busy cooking her pizza and chocolate chip cookie on her new stove top (thanks Nana and Bop!) to pose for a picture.

My plan was to color Easter eggs (which I forgot about) and to have an Easter egg hunt (which got rained out). We did get around to coloring the eggs after everyone left. Instead of the hunt, we just opened the eggs and ate the chocolate out of them. (Isn't that what the egg hunt is really about?)

And the following day, which was bright and sunny, was a perfect day for trying out the new trike.

At 2, five things we love about Isabella:
1. How she refers to herself in the third person. "Eyabella go outside!" "Eyabella play play-doh"
2. That she is always singing and with great gusto.
3. Her sudden use of "where" questions. "Where's Daddy?" "Mama, where's the pork (fork)?"
4. That face! Those expressions! That 'tude!
5. Her little self. We are very grateful that Isabella is a happy, healthy little girl.

The First Day of Spring

The truth is, it's been a long, rainy winter. Despite the fact that I love where we live, we struggle financially. In part, we've struggle financially because we have had to consistently pour money into our only car each month since last November, the biggie being having to replace the transmission in January. After that it was the alternator, then some line to the transmission that started to leak... Needless to say, our savings has taken a pretty big hit due to the car, and yet for us, this is a more "affordable" solution than getting a new car.

There has also been some weird correlation to the car being sick and me getting sick. Nothing serious, but for several months now I have had back-to-back colds/flu, which has caused me to develop asthma--to which I thought I was immune after living in NYC. (Mark once heard of a study that said that 90% of people who lived/worked in the S. Bronx would develop asthma after so many years of being there. We left having only ever had several bouts of bad bronchitis).

Less than a month ago I learned that I would be laid off for the next school year with pretty much no chance of being rehired. I will be spending the next several months looking for something part time outside of teaching.

In short, we've had our challenges. But sometime around mid-March the sun came out and warmed the air enough to where I could lie out in the hammock and read while Isabella napped. The roses in the backyard started blooming, and the ladybugs arrived. We discovered tadpoles in a puddle of rainwater in the vineyard and collected a few in a jar. Isabella added the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" to her growing repertoire of songs she can sing (the ipsy bipsy spidie went up the wadiespout) Even the chickens shook off their winter gloom and all four started laying eggs every day (Raising Chickens 101: egg production is affected by the amount of sunlight they get each day and weather).

AND on the first day of Spring, March 20, 2010, our family was sealed in the Oakland CA, temple. A simple but significant ceremony for us because of our belief that family relationships are meant to endure forever. Mark and I were first sealed to each other and then Isabella was sealed to the both of us, bonding our family together for time and all eternity.

While getting sealed has brought a calm and peacefulness to our family, it certainly does not take away our trials. Case in point: the rain came back, I came down with the flu, Mark got a wicked sinus infection and one of the chickens succumbed to some wild creature in the middle of the night. Then there's that belt in the car that is making a bad rattling noise...But I couldn't be happier.