Grambee and Swedish Pancakes vs. Ida

Journey to Wisconsin

After a delay in the Philly airport, we made it to Milwaukee, where we stayed in the D'Amato's mansion and watched Samson's Mets team lose a ferocious game of baseball. Ida became good friends with her beautiful cousin Sophia D'Amato, the noted karate expert and Irish dancer:

Action in Haddonfield

Before we left New Jersey, Motoko-san tormented Elsie and Ida...

Ida vs. Elsie, growing on up

Mornings on Euclid have gotten pretty complicated!



Really these two swarthies are quite friendly, and talk to each other in a language all their own.



Some say they have the same size hands.



What kind of fools would agree to take care of both at once?



Time's pretty quick. Check out how it looked just two months ago:

Cousins!

After the picnic, we picked up Cousin Elsie and Aunt Maggie!



Soon we had a regular cousin festival going on. That's D. Hawk and his excellent mother, known as SHV for internet purposes...



You might recognize Ella's brother, husbandKV



D. Hawk, who can crawl (!), soon attacked Aunt Margaret!



Meanwhile, Grandma Vining found a good person to hide behind...

Ida vs. Rittenhouse Square

Even though all of Ella's precision plans did not go perfectly, we had a kind of family picnic at Rittenhouse Square on a beautiful day. Look at us:



How about these swarthy beauties?



More normal expressions! Just the way DKV likes them.

Old Friends/New Friends

There's a lot of catching up to do, a lot of old friends to see. Occasionally Ida has to do battle with some of the children of these old friends; without exception, so far, they have been quite a bit larger than she is. Without better head control, it's hard for her to hold her own.

For instance, look at the powerful Elena Domenico (here with her mother, Sharon, a graduate of Haddonfield Memorial High School with Ella):



Soon it was on to see Mariana Garza, the notorious baby biter! (Parents Molly and Luis will soon offer up twins for her sharp teeth!) But Mariana only kissed Ida, thankfully. She's much too fast for conventional, even digital, cameras:



Ida also encountered Skyler Sherin-Wright, who played baseball for two hours straight in Rittenhouse, where he hit approximately 340 home runs and dutifully ran the bases. Pete's hand is still sore from the sheer number of high fives.



Skyler's mother Kerry is not as good a pitcher as his father, Scott. In fact, Skyler suggested that even Pete was superior at serving up the "tasty taters."



Ida even made the acquaintance of one of Pete's oldest and best friends, Andy Jackman Cooley. Yes, the Uintah Unicorn/Clayton Cougar/East High Leopard/Utah Ute/Harvard Crimsonite/Powerful Executive/Celebrity Dog Trainer of the Ferocious Akbash:

East Coast!

Ida set a (then) personal best on the plane ride from Portland to Philly, sleeping about six hours straight. As soon as we arrived here, the fierce Ida Akiko set her sights on winning over Grandpa Vining...



Soon she had enticed him down to the floor, where they battled with great tenderness:



Grandma Vining was not so easily won over, and for more documentation of this camera shy lady, stay tuned...

Cousin Preparation; Ida vs. Bumbo

Just hours away from her overnight flight to Philly, Ida's feeling a little anxious. She knows that her east coast cousins are pretty developmentally advanced. She has been trying to use the Bumbo, in preparation:



It's a difficult device to master. And what is a "normal expression," anyway?



People are staying in our house while we're gone, and some of these people have weapons.



Look out, cousins!

hat

Despite global warming, we've had a cool June here in PDX. Check out this little swarthy:

Father's Day

After a challenging weekend, big Daddy didn't look so great. But what could be better than Ida being mesmerized by her mobile?



I think this mobile was supposed to be a gift for Elsie, but Aunt Maggie dissed it. Eat your heart out, Elsie! Actually, you can borrow it since you're so cute! We'll even attach it to your leg with a string!

Ida's Favorite Song

It's a little weird, but Ida's favorite song is the "Theme from Greatest American Hero"; it makes her so happy!

There is DNA in hair follicles

Two Month Check-up

Ida Akiko is in fact only eight weeks and two days, but we had her two month doctor's appointment early to facilitate our cross-country travels...she suffered her shots like a stoic; this was not documented since we knew it could not compare with Elsie's trial by hypodermic. I tried to tell her what was coming, earlier this morning, and this is what she looked like, listening:



We also gave her a little medicine so we could tell the doctor that we have been, in fact, administering her vitamins. She didn't like it:




I know people just want to know the percentiles, so here goes:

Weight: 10 lbs. 7 oz. (just over half the size of mammoth DHV, whose nine month appt. was today): 50th percentile

Height: 23 inches: 75th percentile

Head diameter: can't remember, but it was 40th percentile (thanks for the reassurance, Elsie; DHV is in the 90th!)

Hair percentile: 110th percentile

canola oil x 2

Ella put a bunch of oil on Ida's head in an attempt to combat cradle cap; then she blow-dried it in an effort to tame it.



I don't think it looks so good. I am the parent who prefers the messy hair.



While we're here, let me share a few thoughts about "baby massage." I was tricked into signing up and paying $25 for a 2 hour class. I thought that this would involve me being massaged by several babies--a prospect that I welcomed, as I do all new experiences. However, what transpired was quite different. It turns out that a) one massages babies with canola oil, b) you can't massage babies unless they're calm (I'd hoped it would be one way to quiet them), and c) babies hate being massaged; it makes them furious. So the result was being in a room with four very slippery, very loud and angry babies.

I know we've been slow with the posts, here. Tomorrow, though, is Ida's two month check up where we'll learn all kinds of things. So get ready...

Overheard

1. The aforementioned Professor Hugh Hochman says, "What I like best about Ida is that, using her first initial, her name can be homophonic with IROC."

Right on! We're buying her one for her sixteenth birthday!


2. On a walk, we were surrounded by neighborhood children under the age of five. They all wanted to stick their head into the stroller to get a good look at Ida.

"He's cute," one girl said. "Well, pretty cute."

Ida vs. Ichiban, continued

What kind of friends are these guys ever going to be?

Ida vs. Mr. Orange Rabbit

Ida vs. Cradle Cap = Keeping it Real

Okay, so there's a downside to having so much hair. Some have denied its presence, but Ella has decided that we cannot live in silence. Ida has some cradle crap:



It's not as pronounced as Samson D'Amato's was, but still. Hey DHV, check out this use for a toothbrush (learned by Ella from a baby-rearing expert book):




While we're at it: some say that Ida's hair smells like a Halloween costume; some say that behind her ears smells "gross, like inside a belly button."

Successes and Failures

A few words from a monkey:

1. Some of you like Aunt Margaret have been pushing for more nudity on this blog.

2. Others of you, like Aunt Margaret, have suggested that Ida's legs are scrawny. It's just her calves; there are pronounced rolls on her thighs!

3. We tried to photograph Ida's Mongolian Spot. Some have worried that the Kashimada samurai Japanese blood is being too diluted by albinos, but the presence of the Mongolian Spot suggests that the samurai blood is strong.

(Actually, Ella just told me that the Kashimadas were merchants, but I've believed the samurai thing for so long that I'm just going to leave it. Besides, the ferocity of the Vining women suggests that it is actually true.)

4. Ida was too fast and squirmy to be photographed, so we had to make a video, which captured the spot and her wiggling rear end, then panned around to show her nice little face. However, once I posted it (maybe some of you real aficionados glimpsed it) there was some concern about a) Motoko-san's reaction and b) internet predators, so it was quickly taken down. You'll just have to imagine it and believe me.

5. There has been much discussion about whether Ida's hair has been "styled" or "tinted"; it has not. Some, like Aunt Margaret, have suggested that we could make Ida's hair lie down if we just combed it (rather than towel drying) after her bath. We tried this last night. It didn't work (if the video was still posted, you'd see).

Enthusiasm!

Watch out!

Horsing around

This is how it often is on Nehalem Street these days: