Less than Twelve Parsecs

This past month (9 months so far!) we started using more pieces of our cute RIE wooden furniture for kids, now that Mara is more steady on her feet. Large Climbing Structure This is Mara's first time trying to use the large wooden climbing structure and ramp. She just went to it and started climbing with confidence, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Little Chair Stool We love the little stools that came with the baby table, we've used them before as mini tables on their own by placing various toys on top. Mara would love to crawl between them to pick up each toy and place it on the carpet. She would play this game for long periods of time. This particular video was from a few weeks ago, one morning when Greg was letting me sleep in. He chose to feed Mara some spaghetti and rice (what, you don't eat that for breakfast?!) and brought a stool out as a sitting device for the first time. Disclaimer: The RIE philosophy says that it&#

Mara figured out this week how to open the doors for the kitchen cabinets. More specifically, the one under the sink. We were glad we had already moved the dangerous items up high, because this way we just happily watched her explore. It's quite funny that she is not realizing yet that the same technique can be applied to all the other cabinets doors. We'll see how long it takes for that association to materialize.

Last weekend we attended our first pro Ultimate Frisbee game: the San Jose Spiders versus the San Francisco Flamethrowers. It was in the evening, close to Mara's bedtime but we figure we'd make an exception. She took a nap in the ergo baby during the first quarter, but then she woke and became a very passionate watcher.

This Saturday we discovered how Mara recognizes daddy: Mara also gets confused by the Bearded shirt that  Greg received from Joe (Thanks!!) - thick dark beard - thinly framed glasses - casual t shirt - and a happy attitude This pretty much also describes a man that came for the first time with his son to this week's music class. Thus began a story of love and confusion. Mara is normally quite shy in class, staying next to one of us, her Mommy or Daddy, unless there is a very cool object in range. When that happens, Mara springs towards the object with no regards to the hordes (well, not more than 9-10 usually) of other larger toddlers moving about. Today seemed no different. We sat down in the circle after coming in and I had her tiny hand practically glued onto my skirt. Daddy was a few seconds behind, having locked up the car. He came in and sat to my right. However, the moment Mara looked across me to the left, something clicked. The new daddy in

Our friend Emily writes dontmissdairy.com , a blog with recipes that are adapted for dairy-free diets. Even though we don't really avoid dairy ourselves, one recipe caught our eye last week and we decided to make it a Sunday brunch. It makes great use of the quinoa that we've been keeping in the pantry. Here's the recipe: http://dontmissdairy.com/2014/05/27/simple-quinoa-egg-bake . We used squash and carrots for the veggies, very finely chopped, and some delightful organic asparagus spears for decoration that ended up also delicious. Here is the photo log from making it, don't miss Mara's action stance before the very first bite!