Nearly 3-Year Old Maeve on Girl’s Roles

First page of Oliver Button Is A Sissy – photo via Where the Bear Rugs Are Still Growling

This morning I was reading Tomie diPaola’s book Oliver Button Is A Sissy with my nearly 3-year old daughter Maeve. It’s a sweet poignant 1979 kids book that takes on some gender roles. We’ve read it dozens of times. The opening page states that “Oliver… didn’t like to things that boys are supposed to do.”

I asked Maeve what thought little girls are supposed to do. She thought about it a bit, then responded that little girls are supposed to “sit up straight” especially “when watching Madagascar” (one of her preferred videos these days.)

So it would seem that she’s not all that consciously aware of gender roles. She knows that she and mommy are girls, and that daddy and Silvio, next door, are boys. But, mercifully, she’s not so clear on outdated ideas of what girls are supposed to do.

The neighborhood posse: Silvio, Maeve and Juliana playing cardboard swords earlier this month

(I haven’t posted many daddy blogs lately – apologies. I was trying to think about doing big updates like 2015 in review, but then I don’t get around to it. So I think it’s going to be easier to post short stuff like this, hopefully more frequently… we’ll see.)

19-Month-Old Maeve Is A Climber

Maeve climbing at Shatto Park

I’ve been meaning to post some recent images of our daughter… but between work and parenting and doing a little art and writing about comics on the side, I don’t post often enough. Maeve is 20 months old, and, of course, growing and changing daily. Over the past couple months it seems like she’s been more active, more coordinated and more fearless about climbing up things, especially at the park. 

Photoshoot by the L.A. River, September 2014

Our family at the Los Angeles River, September 2014, photo by Matt Grashaw

I never got around to posting these excellent photos we took last year – September 30, 2014. Carrie used them for our holiday cars last December. The photographer is Matt Grashaw, who we met on a Glendale bakery walk hosted by Walk Bike Glendale. He is great, and highly recommended. (We just did another shoot with him, and I’ll post some more photos soon.)

September 2014

September 2014

More pictures after the jump. 

Maeve’s First 10 Words, Recent Photos

Maeve riding on my back on our hike in the Santa Monica Mountains about a month ago. Photo by Carrie

Our daughter Maeve is 15 months old now. Going to post a fairly quick sort-of scrapbook post here to get down what she’s up to at this age.

She’s talking… I think she speaks about 10 words which she started using in roughly this order:

• mama/mom,
• dada/daddy,
• dog [which is kind of “dah”],
• bye,
• no,
• yah,
• ball [which is kind of “bah”],
• baby [which is kind of “bay”],
• yum [which she says num-num-num which means generally postitive comment on eating/food]
• chick [my wife Carrie heard this, I didn’t – and it’s in the baby chicken sense – from the book Barnyard Dance, one of her favorites]

So maybe it’s a few less than ten? She also uses gestures – pointing  a lot, more-or-less clapping her hands (at least making that motion.) She raises both arms toward us to ask “pick me up.” She understands a lot more: shoes, nose, chin, kiss, diaper, bath, potty, etc.

She was pushing around this toy, really, then stopped to pose for the photo.

She’s definitely mobile

A Letter to My Daughter Maeve on Her First Birthday

You and me today – just a couple weeks after you turned one

July 30, 2014

Precious awesome little person! My daughter Maeve,

I love you and I love being with you. So much I can feel it in every cell. As I look back at pictures I am struck with how much you have grown and learned in one year. So much more than you will ever grow in one year again. It seems to have gone so fast and its an interesting experience to love someone who is changing so much – its hard to not want it to go slower. You have been so continuously occupied with becoming you I feel like I have been able to perceive only a part of it.

Just a few weeks after you were born

Your birth went very well. You, your dad and I were at home surrounded by great people and there was lots of family near by eagerly waiting to meet you. Once labor started it ramped up quickly and the process was purely intuitive. We did great. And when you came out it was a truly amazing moment. There YOU were and we were so happy.

I want to write to you at your birthday every year about the proceeding year and some of the things you or we did and hope that you enjoy reading these letters in the future.

Maeve’s First Birthday, Three Generations of First Birthday Photos

Three generations of first birthdays: left to right: Susan Palmer, Carrie Lincourt, and Maeve Linton Lincourt. Larger versions of these photos below.

Our daughter Maeve turned one this week. Carrie and I were pretty skeptical about one-year-old’s birthday parties. We’ve seen more than one child have a crying melt-down when there are a dozen-plus older kids running around and lots of noise and attention and confusion. So we opted for a low-key celebration at Maeve’s grandfather’s home in Orange County. Just a handful of family members. Here’s a video of the occasion. We’re sure that there will be bigger birthday celebrations in Maeve’s future.

Maeve turned one on July 30th. She’s doing well. Very healthy. She walks 2-5 steps here and there, but mostly she’s crawling, and frequently cruising holding onto tables, chairs, our legs, and other stuff. She’s saying mama, maaaaaaah!, and dada, too.

10-Month-Old Maeve Speaks First Real Word Today: “Mama”

What Maeve looks like today!

Maeve is 10 months old. I’ve been busy writing full time over at Streetsblog Los Angeles, so I haven’t posted here, but I wanted to do a quick piece on Maeve’s first word. Uttered today. “Mama.”

She’s been babbling a lot for a couple months. The first word isn’t so much a quantum leap or a corner turned. It’s more another nudge forward along a gradual continuum. She’s been saying stuff like “muh-muh-merm-muh-uh” to Carrie for around a month, and “dah-duh-duh-diem” to me for a similar time.

Today, on the bed, reaching up to Carrie, she blurted out a clear concise “mama!”

Baby Maeve at Ten Weeks: First Hike

Carrie, Maeve and Joe on the Bearfort Ridge Trail yesterday

Another brief late entry… mostly to get some photographs posted to share with friends and family.

Baby Maeve passed the ten-week mark on Tuesday, a couple days ago. She’s doing well. Sleeping a lot, nursing, pooping, crying, smiling, potato-chip-ping on her tummy, and more.

We’ve been going into NYC a few times, including a trip to the Whitney Museum last Friday, but the big new activity was Maeve’s first hike. We’re car-sitting for Maeve’s uncle Bob, so we took a drive (Maeve’s second time ever in a car) out to Bearfort Mountain, located in Abram S. Hewitt State Forest – in northern New Jersey, near the New York State border.

Baby Maeve at Nine Weeks: Two-Month Check-Up, Photos

My sweet wife Carrie and my great 2-month-old daughter Maeve yesterday

I’ve been a bit under the weather this week – nothing serious – but getting The Weekly Maeve out a whole day late. I am working on a longer entry about a lot of things that we’re not doing… but that’s not ready, so I am just going to post the results of Maeve’s latest visit to the pediatrician… and, of course, photos!

Two Months of Love and Some Pre and Post Natal Gems

Reading Dr. Seuss’ Hop on Pop with Maeve this week

All is going very well.  I am loving being with Maeve and Joe.  In particular, I love watching the way she moves her fingers, the moments when she looks in my eyes and, as the days pass, seeing the expression in her features and body becoming more clear, articulate.  I love the way she migrates around (surprisingly far and fast)  just by the wending of her limbs,  head and neck.

I love how utterly self possessed she is – she is sure – and I marvel, sometimes shudder, at how completely vulnerable she is.  Her presence seems to have flipped a switch in me around ways I have limited myself in the past.  I have more resolve to achieve my goals than before.  The days fly by.  I can’t believe it’s already been two months.

Here are three great parenting resources have come on my radar in the last couple of weeks:

Illustration from The Female Pelvis by Blandine Calais-Germain

My best friend Shinehah sent me a book called The Female Pelvis: Anatomy & Exercises – which gives incredibly clear, simple information (in words and diagrams -including the one at at the top of this post) about the organs in the female pelvis and what happens in the pelvis with pregnancy and birth.  I really appreciate having a clearer picture of all the parts and how they fit together and change through pregnancy and delivery.  Seems to me really great information for any female to have.  The Female Pelvis was written by Blandine Calais-Germain and published by Eastland Press.