Month: 5

Note to Vivienne (if you read this someday):
You are the cutest, most lovable, and friendliest baby ever. You never cease to amaze me or your dad. I'm not kidding, we OFTEN find ourselves sitting around after we've put you to bed (at 6pm - good girl) with our BOTTLE of wine, talking about you and how much we absolutely adore you, and how much you've changed our lives. We think you are an old soul. The way you look at us sometimes radiates this, and you seem to always be taking things in around here, watching the way things work. All we want is for you to keep being happy. Thanks for being our baby girl.
xo

The kissing game

Vivienne has just learned to kiss. By kissing I mean grabbing your face with both hands, looking straight into your eyes, and laying a big fat wet juicy open mouth on your chin or cheek. She also pinches your neck with her little hands while doing it. It's to die for, except the wet part. And, as evidenced in one of the pictures above, if you get grossed out by her affections she gets a very offended look. She's looking at me like WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?!

(These were taken a few weeks ago outside of Houston's, for a brunch with Auntie Kirsten and her family in from Australia.)

Lil' peacock

When we were thinking of what to name Vivienne, we had a list of a few names that we liked. On that list was what the potential nicknames would be because we had to love those too. You see, I abbreviate EVERYTHING. It's like the time when we were standing in line at a coffee house in Point Reyes, TONS of people around us. And I came up all sweet to Mitch, put my arms around him and said really loudly, CAN YOU GET ME A CHINO FOR THE ROAD? Translation = cappuccino. We still talk about how many shades of red his face got. I really didn't mean it that way, whatever way that means. It just sounds nasty doesn't it? Last night when we had a take-out rotisserie chicken from Whole Foods I ALMOST said, hey babe, the CHICK is ready! I stopped myself because I didn't want to endure another night of head shaking from Mitch. Seriously, it's bad sometimes. My friend Danni always used to crack up at the things I would just randomly abbreviate or find a nickname for. We'd be shopping and I would bust out with a language only she could decipher cause it was SO abbreviated or nicknamed. I can't help it. IT'S WHO I AM!

Here are a few names I call my little pookie: Viv, Vivienne, Vivi, boo, boo boo, lil peacock (her hair stands up in a little curl in the middle after a bath, it makes SENSE!), pook, pookie, pookilino, TOOTS!, monkey, moose, worm, wormy, alien (this one's retired), little lizard, monchhichi, clone, clonie (daddy clone), baby girl, stinky! (she loves that one), little hamhock, juicy loosie, dimple girl, V James, the other day, I'm not kidding you, Vivilino came out of my mouth. oh god.

I need to start narrowing it down so she stops responding to, "Hey TOOTS!" with a big cheese grin, like that's her ACTUAL name. I'm not really sure if she knows that Vivienne is her name because she equally loves "stinky!" or "SAMMY!!". I'm sure one day she will start the eye rolling thing that she will most definitely inherit from me, and give me a long exacerbated sigh, and tell me something like "My name is VIVIENNE, remember? You had them put it on my birth certificate?!" And I will respond with a big goofy grin and politely tell her that she will always be my stinky little pookie.

The likeness

People are always telling me how much my daughter looks like her dad. Minus the eyes of course, but the color is definitely his (hazel, or kinda blue, or grayish, it depends on what she's wearing). In these photos I finally see just how much of a resemblance there is. Just look at that hair line and sweet smile! They are the best of buddies, and that last picture is just so cute I couldn't resist sharing it. He is the only man for her these days!

She comes by them naturally

It's obvious she got those eyes from her mama. I'll have to teach her how to moisturize them when she gets older because they are so darn big that the elements tend to be a problem! She gets these big globs of sleep in her eyes which I have never seen on a baby before. We think it's from all that surface space.

Wonder who she gets the tummy from?

SWING!

I know it's backlit and she is so stuffed in the there you can barely see her -- but for the sake of documentation, Viv had her FIRST swing ride last weekend! It went well. Safe to say, she loved it!

Almost a self portrait

I love this one. Viv and I are BOTH checking to see if there is a good picture selection.