Little Miss Maia Turns One Year Old

Special guest post by Mommy!

Dear Punky,
A year ago tonight, we met you for the first time. Even after 9 months of waiting and preparing and hoping, I don't think we ever could have known how much you would turn our lives upside down in the very best way.

You have changed so much in your first year. During the first few days of your life, you wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep. I had to resort to (at the nurses' suggestion) putting cold washcloths on your face to wake you up and get you to eat. Thankfully you have kept up with being a sound sleeper, but these days you have no problem shoving fistfuls of food into your mouth as fast as possible.

I am still amazed by you, every single day. I would do pretty much anything to hear you laugh (and thankfully there is not yet any video proof of that)! I love watching your personality unfold and I'm so excited to see what else you have in store for me.





Happy first birthday, Punky! We love you thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much. And more.

Little Miss Maia Contributes to Science (Again)

On Monday Mommy and I went back to the Very Big and Impressive University so I could help the Very Smart Scientists with some more Very Important Research.

This time I got to watch some monkey puppets eat green beans and graham crackers. One monkey liked the graham crackers best, and the other monkey liked the green beans. Then I was supposed to pick which monkey I wanted to play with. I wanted to play with both at the same time but they really wanted me to pick just one. Oh well! Then it was my turn to pick between graham crackers and green beans. I didn't see why I should only have just one so I put one hand in the bowl of crackers and the other hand in the bowl of green beans at the same time. I dug around in the bowls and finally decided to eat a green bean. And that was it--we were done! I don't understand all this Science stuff but Mommy is impressed with my budding research skills.

Here's a picture of me with the 2 Very Smart Scientists whose experiment I helped out with. Of course my favorite part of visiting their lab are all the toys they have for their research volunteers to play with.

Little Miss Maia Returns to the Windy City

Last weekend Mommy and I went on another airplane ride to visit Grandma Ellie and Grandpa Ken in Chicago. I enjoyed reading the SkyMall catalog, and then tearing it into tiny pieces.
Here I am getting a bath in the kitchen sink! Grandpa Ken let me play with a wooden spoon, mostly to keep me from grabbing all the other stuff on the counter.

Grandpa Sonny and Great Aunt Mimi came over to see me while I was in town...I promise I'm smiling under that binky!
Grandma Ellie and I hung out together while Mommy went to work downtown.

But of course my favorite part of the trip was getting to see Harley!
On the ride home, Mommy and I were stuck in a window seat and the mean lady in front of us put her seat all the way back so I had no room to move around. Mommy let me kick her seat the whole way. I wanted to pull her hair too but Mommy stopped me. I was very cranky until the last 20 minutes of the flight, when Mommy and I played the best game ever! It was called "I will pull the window shade down and then Mommy will put it back up immediately so I can pull it down again." When Mommy wasn't fast enough I grabbed her hand and pulled it over to the window shade to show her what to do. Really, Mommy, it's not that hard of a game. I'm sure you'll do better next time.

Little Miss Maia Goes Climbing

Now that I'm crawling all over the place, I keep finding new things and places to explore. The other day I wandered over near the dog dish (I keep trying to get the dog's Puffs out of the bowl but Mommy keeps saying no!) and I found this:

Then, with a little trying, I realized I could climb it!

I made it all the way to the top (Mommy had to stop taking pictures so she could follow me). And when I made it to the top, I turned left and went up 2 more steps right into Mommy's office. I can go anywhere now!