Friends and Play

Stephanie and I took Maya and Naomi to go play at a Gymboree play place that recently opened in our city. They had a blast!

Bubbles!

The girls rocked back and forth on this boat for a good 10 minutes

Our driveway

The two pictures below were taken at a playground close to our house. I like the idea of a multiple-person swing. Seems very appropriate to Indonesia, where more is always merrier.

Maya chattin' it up with some new friends

My good friend Eli came over with her son recently. I was pleasantly surprised at how gentle Maya was with him. A great big sister in the making!

Maya and little Elo

My Favorite Maya-isms

It will be hard to keep the list to just a few, but I wanted to get some of my favorite Maya-isms down for the record.

1. Some of you may not know this, but Maya has a mild obsession with her belly button. It particularly manifests when she is sleepy or just plain needing some comfort. Every night when I lay her down she goes straight for it. I foolishly laid her down for a nap the other day with a onesie outfit on. Five minutes later I noticed she still wasn't asleep and was in there talking to herself. Over the next few minutes she grew increasingly upset, eventually crying and wailing. I went in and tried to calm her down and put her back to sleep. Then the thought occured to me, "She doesn't have belly button access!" We quickly changed her clothes and she went to sleep almost immediately.

2. Greetings. Maya is very into saying "hi" and "bye" as well as waving and blowing kisses to just about anything that moves. We often go on walks to see our neighbor's dogs and the fish in the pond down the street. She, without fail, always greets the dogs and the fish with hi's, bye's and waves. She does this with other kids, too. She seems to be puzzled when others don't recriprocate with a "hi" and often will repeatedly say hi until she gets some sort of an acknowledgement from them.

3. The intensity with which she does her animal sounds. This has been more a recent thing. Lately when doing the sheep and horse sound she seems to take a big breath and let out one continuous "baa" or "neigh" until she has no breath left. It's quite comical. But she seems to take this animal noises thing very seriously.

4. She's high-tech. She is quite the wiz on my iPhone. She has figured out how to unlock it and last week even sent a friend of mine a text message that read "moo". No joke. I had a lot of explaining to do.

5. The kid has got some serious flexibility! She can go from sitting on her bottom, legs stretched out in front, to a split, to her legs behind her (belly to the floor) all in one fail swoop. My gut is she's gonna be a dancer. We'll see.

6. She is obsessed with rice. She can now say "rice" and has been asking for it often. She also has a revived fondness for green peas. (This was one of the only foods I could get her to eat when she started eating solids. Then she backed off for a while but has rediscovered how much she loves them). I find this quite random and amusing.

7. She is quite the laugher. If you really want to get her going, all you need is a trip to Olivia Klein's house. Oh man, Olivia can get Maya laughing like no one else I've seen. I can almost always count on seeing Maya reach gut-level laughter level when they are together. (She will sometimes throw her head back in mid-laugh which is really funny, too). I'm gonna try and keep my video camera on me more when we go over there to try and capture it on film.

By no means an exhaustive list of my favorite Maya-isms but wanted to get a few down :)

Evidence of her obsession

I wasn't even trying to capture more evidence. I realized later she was touching her belly button here, too :)

Look at that smile!

Goodnight Moon with Daddy

Bath Time

I don't know what we're gonna do when Maya outgrows the inflatable duck bathtub. She barely fits in it anymore but since I know she'd be upset to part with him we're just gonna stick with Mr. Ducky until it becomes a physical impossibility to bathe with him anymore. (p.s. Thanks, Lauren, for sending it! It's been a big hit!)

This pouring water thing in and out of cups is serious business.

 (I promise that isn't sweat under my armpit. Holding a wet baby leads to wet clothes. Really.)

Love her!

July in Indo

June 19,2011 was kind of a sad day for us. It was the day our good friends Misi and Jonathan tied the knot in Austin, Texas and we were unable to attend. But about a month later we got to welcome them back to Indonesia and celebrate together. Congrats, Misi and Jo! We are so happy for you!

Looking at pictures of their wedding day

Oh, and it was Misi's birthday. Vik made one of her famous cakes. Yum yum!

In other Perry news, I've been taking Maya to Sunday School at one our friend's churches. I honestly don't know a thing about the church (is that ok?) but I know that Maya *loves* getting to play with the other kids. I also thought it'd be a good chance to get to know other moms since the moms sit in with the little ones. (My guess is that church 'nurseries' don't exist here simply because Indonesians absolutely cannot stand the thought of a baby crying. They will avoid this at all costs.) Anyhow, Sunday School itself is actually somewhat of a humorous, exhausting experience for me. But, like I said, well worth it. Humorous/exhausting because they divide a large room into two halves, one half for the 0-2 years class and the other half for the 2-4 class. Oh man, the concrete walls and tile floor don't absorb any of the sounds of 30 screaming kids OR the voice of the teachers in in the 2-4s class who use microphones (yes, microphones) to keep the kids' attention. Needless to say, I leave with my ears ringing and a bit worn out from trying to pretend like I can hear and understand what other moms are saying to me. But, I've learned that in a culture not my own- smiling and nodding and an occasional laugh can go a long way for making friends. Even if you don't have a clue what they're saying ;)

Maya in her Sunday best. I absolutely love this dress on her!

 In the picture below Maya is sitting on some woman's lap that neither of us know. Maya was working the room, being her social little self, greeting all the kids with friendly "hi's" and high fives and then she walked right up to this woman, lifted her arms up and asked to be picked up. I watched all of this from across the room. She sat on her lap for at least five minutes, happily looking at some book this woman brought with her. I finally decided I should probably go get her since in the mean time, Sunday School had ended and the room was emptying out. She's never met a stranger. Truly.

Maya enjoying time with her new friend

A swim day at the pool

Maya has grown very attached to this hat. She often picks it up, puts it on backwards and says, "Day!" For some reason she associates this hat with her Uncle David (who she will never, never be able to forget. She talks about him on an almost daily basis.) You are missed, Uncle Day!

Oh, the many different smiles and expressions of Maya Perry. I could never get enough!

Spontaneity

I love all things spontaneous. Well, no, that's not true. The mouse who spontaneously shows up in our kitchen is not a spontaneous event that I enjoy. But anything fun that is also spontaneous, in my book becomes 10 times MORE fun because it wasn't planned. Today we spontaneously went down to the playground to play. Granted, we usually do this at least once a week anyway. But today it was even more fun because MJ suggested a quick run to the park - even though it was almost dinner time and I still hadn't figured out what we were going to eat :)

Too cute. Just plain WAY TOO CUTE!

Oh, and we just had leftovers for dinner. In case you were wondering :)

Joy in the Everyday Things

So today Maya discovered my scarf. (Don't ask me why I even own a scarf?!) She had an absolute ball with it, dragging in around the house, draping it around her neck and doing just about anything else she could think to do with it. She was intensely happy about her new discovery :)



This shoerack is a place of great temptation for Maya. She isn't allowed to play with Mommy and Daddy's shoes (although she often sneaks them when we're not looking) but here she is reaching to play with her shoes (which is allowed). 



Post-bath time fun

Maya's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. In the last few days she has added "moon, house, and mouse" (pronouned 'moo' 'how' and 'mou') to her repertoire, thanks to Nana who brought a copy of Goodnight Moon. This girl is currently obsessed with the book. It has become part of our bedtime ritual to read it at least once through. Now everytime we go outside she's searching the sky over for the moon. Yesterday was quite exciting because we had a daytime spotting of the moon! She couldn't quit jabbering about it and pointing up at it. Again, such JOY in the everyday things. This girl is teaching me a lot :)

Nana's Visit to Indonesia

We were SO happy to have Nana come visit for three weeks this summer! What a gift to have her come see us in Indonesia!

We got to tell Nana in person that we were having another baby!!! This is the welcome card we put in her room signed by MJ, Hayley, Maya and BABY PERRY!!!

Watching cartoons together

Nana can't get enough

Maya enjoyed sitting in Nana's lap a lot

On the plane to Bali! Maya was a little chilly so Daddy put his sweatshirt on her.

Nana was excited to see Bali for the first time!

Enjoying the beautiful beaches

 Always a good time to be had if there is sun, sand, water and Daddy!



After swimming we walked along the boardwalk and looked for a good place to eat lunch



Lunch on the beach

Maya enjoys the view

Dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant...yummy New York syle pizzas! The best in Indo, for sure.

Maya hones her techie skills

Eating lunch in Ubud, Bali in the middle of some beautiful rice fields

Back in Malang getting cream baths together at the salon.

We visited a beautiful waterfall about 45 minutes from our house. It was the same one we took Ashley and David to go see a few months earlier.

Maya admires the beauty of the waterfall

Maya catches glimpse of some monkeys. Who cares about the waterfall guys, there are MONKEYS here!

Heading back home

On our way to Surabaya. I don't think I've ever heard Maya laugh as hard as she did in these pictures!

We loved every minute of having you here, Nana! Thank you for making the trip to come see us! We'll remember it forever!