Annada Marie Vergo

One morning Annada headed straight to the baskets where I keep extra diapers, her Snugli and wipes. She likes to pull everything out and spread it around on the floor. But this morning she caught my eye. Instead of just throwing everything out, she was looking through the basket.

She found the Snugli, pulled it out and sat down on the floor looking at it. Then she crawled inside it and started walking around wearing the Snugli. She walked over to show me – just as proud as can be. “Wow,” I told her. “Are you carrying your baby just like Daddy does?” Annada grinned and laughed and kept walking around. It was so cute, I had to get a picture!

No drawer is safe anymore. Annada has a special love of crawling in the stove drawer and pulling out pans.

I love this last picture because it shows two trademark Annada moves. One is sitting on her heels. Now that she is walking, she doesn’t like to go all the way to the floor to look at things. Instead she sits up on her heels or calves. She can sit like that a lot longer than I can.

The second is the look on her face. I can clearly see, “Hi mom. I really want to eat this wood chip, but I have to wait until you aren’t looking. But I’ll be super cute while I wait for you to be distracted!”

Annada woke up bright and early – 5:45 – excited about Thanksgiving. At noon we left to have lunch with the Townsends. It was so good to spend time with them and their family. Then we picked up Jess and Rafal and met up with the St. Onge’s, Judy (our neighbor) and Nathaniel. We had dinner at the St. Onge’s – potluck style Thanksgiving. Then the men went to our home and played Risk while the ladies played golf at the St. Onge’s. Annada went to bed.

I think it was a pretty good Thanksgiving for Annada. She was adored everywhere she went. There was lots of good food and friends for her to play with. As you can tell from the picture, she was teething too. So it was a long night – but hey, what a better way to end Thanksgiving then by cuddling with Annada?

1) Annada will crawl over to her bookshelf, pick out a book, give it to me and then climb into my lap for the story.
2) Annada feeds herself. It may be messy, but it is also 10 minutes of downtime for mom as I listen to Annada’s happy noises.
3) Annada “honks” my nose.
4) Every 10 minutes or so Annada will come give me a hug while playing.
5) When we go to the playground, Annada starts yelling “Wee Wee” and climbs to the slide as fast as she can.
6) Annada makes noises not even Marc can replicate. It is the most adorable language ever.
7) Annada says “Ah-doh” and points when she wants something. When I pick it up and ask if I have the right object, she says, “Yeah.”
8 ) Annada absolutely loves flowers. She will walk with me for over an hour going from plant to plant and carefully picking out her favorite flower, leaf or rock. She treasures her collections and screams like she is in pain if I try to take them away.
9) She can climb behind the futon and has learned that Mommy and Daddy can’t follow her. If she gets something she shouldn’t have (my cell phone for example) she zooms behind the coach faster than seems possible. When I stick my head in the hole, she grins and laughs so deeply we all end up laughing.
10) When eating left-over pureed green beans one night, she squirted some out of her teeth. I knew they were gross and it was so adorable, I laughed too. Big mistake. We’ve been trying to break Annada of spitting food since then. Hardest part is, she clearly does it to make us laugh and looks expectantly at us. Now she has started doing it without food and it never fails to make us laugh.
11) When I nurse her before bed, she knows Daddy will come to tickle her and put her in PJs when she is done. So when she gets close to finished she starts laughing in anticipation. When she hears him on the stairs, she begins laughing harder. And when he gets to the door, she quick pretends to be eating again while smiling from ear-to-ear.

I know, I know. It’s not Thanksgiving yet. But those Christmas cards need to be ordered. And once Daddy started letting her play with the tree it was all too much fun.

Meme and Annada went on a long walk. Meme let Annada pick flowers and Annada formed quite the attachment to the flowers. Annada carried them all the way home without once trying to eat them. Then we pried them out of her fingers and put them in a vase. (I actually regret it now – she wanted to hold those flowers so bad.) She has held them every day since then and still not attempted to eat them. They are looking pretty dead but I can’t throw them away. She still reaches to hold them when I put her in her high chair.

The great hunt for new pants for Daddy! We were victorious.

At the airport :(. Picking up is so much more fun than dropping off.

The birthday boy!

Every Thursday, I go see an older man! Brennan’s Mommy (Emily) watches me for Mommy while she goes to YearOne meetings. Brennan is my best friend.

Brennan invited me to his birthday party. It was the first birthday party I have gone to. Brennan would open presents and I would snatch little pieces of Elmo wrapping paper. Both Brennan and I thought the wrapping paper was the best part. Oh, and the balloons!

Mommy, Meme and I went to Wishes Brew for afternoon tea. The restaurant has only been open a few days. It wasn’t very good, but we had a lot of fun!

Afterward we walked around, found a farmers market, played on a playground and visited a Cuban bakery. Whew. After all that excitement, I took a nap on the way home.

We drove to Cypress Gardens, only to find out it was closed! But Meme was up for an adventure, so going off of a road sign, we drove to Bok Tower Gardens. And there we found a hidden treasure…

Sitting in the gift shop.

We fed the squirrel grapes and he was quite tame. I was enthralled by the animals in the gardens.

Meme even let the swan eat out her hand.




There is the tower. The gardens were beautiful. And we even picked and ate ripe oranges. Yummy!

Welcome to Orlando, Meme! I love playing with you.

Shoes, glorious shoes! Thank you for the gifts, Meme.

I love climbing in and out of suitcases or baskets now. I say, “Oww, Owww” when I go out. Or take things out.

I can go anywhere else. BUT I really, really want to go into street.

Mommmm! I want to go into the street.

Okay, the park bench is good too.

We had to laugh when Annada put her food on the floor. She looked a lot like a puppy.

She’s a two-fisted drinker!

Daddy gave her a whole apple and she loved it! Those two teeth are just perfect for getting little chunks of apple off. Plus, she can eat like a big girl.

Daddy came up with a “pour the cheerios” game. Annada loves it. Its a game and snack time all in one 🙂

Awww. Thanks for the hugs, Annada. I love them.

When we got to Morocco, a couple of women ran out and gave us kisses. They call Annada “The Princess” and wanted to teach her how to belly dance. So they put an outfit on her. At first Annada was scared, but then all of the sudden she walked out into the street/stage and started going around in circles. It was so cute! The women were laughing and a group of people jumped up and started video taping. I think people thought it was a show.

The interns had us over for root beer floats and dinner :).

They also took us to play putt putt.

Daddy made mommy special pancakes. I got to eat some too! Yummy.

Congratulations, Sarah and Ed!

I was sleeping when I heard Pepe say, “Hi Annada!” Pepe? In Orlando? What could I do but wake up and get some snuggles?!

Thanks for coming Pepe. We won’t tell Mommy about Operation BC (yummy!). I love you!

As you can tell, “every-body-stop-playing-and-sit-together-so-Mommy-can-take-pictures” didn’t go so well. At one point, every single baby was crying. But they were still sooooo cute. I love Annada’s ladybug costume. (Thanks Meme!). Trick-or-Treat pictures to come.

Ahh… Annada decided her birthday suit worked just fine as a costume a few minutes later. Such an innocent face!

Daddy took Mommy out to see CATS for her birthday. I stayed with Cate and had so much fun I didn’t even watch Mom and Dad leave. Way to go, Dad!

Wake up, Mommy!

Annada now weighs 21 lbs and 14.5 ounces. That means she is almost in the 90th percentile for weight and in the 90th percentile for height. That means she jumped from the 75th to the 90th in both categories in less than 2 months! (This is really encouraging considering she is an EE baby.)

Dr. Nielson and I talked about if I changed her diet (I didn’t) and decided it must be all the extra love in Omaha. Thank you!

(I couldn’t leave the interns out!)

While waiting for Marc to finish at the dentist, I decided to drive around a little. I found an empty toddler playground. So Annada and I tried it out. We spent about half of the time on the first step checking out the holes in the stairs, cars that drove by and animals in the grass. But once she got going, nothing but the monkey bars were safe!

Annada’s first trip to the dentist. Mommy was the patient but Annada and her two little teeth got most of the attention.

Everybody now… “Awwwww”

This is the horse Marc played with as a boy.

Playing with Great-grandma

I love Aunt Rona!

Cuddling with Daddy

A Grandma and Grandpa sandwich kiss