Mara’s Blog Influencing the world one day at a time since 2005…

Audiences have been clamoring for it for weeks. OK, days. OK, never clamored. Dominican Republic…. The Video!

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You have never seen any movie like it before. Mara, a mild mannered reporter from the big city goes on her first adventure to an island in the Caribbean. She doesn’t speak the language, she doesn’t even know anyone. Whatever shall she do???!?!?!?!

I guess just jump in the pool. Mara had a blast with the new adventure of a family vacation. She has no fear of the pool, she gets her groove on (reminiscent of her younger days), learns a new language, and makes new friends. The video is a little long and, yes, there are parts where you cannot see much because of the sun. Somehow we will have to learn how to adjust for that in the future. Nevertheless I’m sure it will be entertaining (at least for the grandparents). The file is, as a result of length, very large. We broke the site record with this one. But, I didn’t want to reduce the quality so go get a coffee or something and let the computer simmer a while.

I suggest right clicking the link to the video and choosing “save as…” so that if anything funky happens the file is on your computer rather than having to download it again off the site and waste your time getting another coffee (I mean you just got one, right?).

DomRep06 Video

64.7 MB / Time 25:32

So the other day we were in Target and we passed by one of those large wire bins full of plastic balls. Being one of the first words that Mara learned, she spares no opportunity to let us know that she can point a ball out. We were also letting her walk around the store at this point so whe went right up to the bin and asked us to get one out for her. Needless to say after playing with the ball for a short while, we were not going to get her away from it. So, we spent the $1.99 for the ball (a bargain) and she has played with it ever since. There is something just funny about a little person like her walking around and trying to carry a ball that is over half her size. She manages it pretty well and has a load of fun with it. Its the best money spent so far. It just seems that with the little people spending less ends up getting you more. It’s the expensive toys that just lay around the house.

Pink Ball Video

12.7 MB / Time 5:06

Mara continued to practice the next day this past Monday with her walking. She was on a hot streak. Strangely enough she has done little walking in the last few days. But, we are off to NY for the weekend, so we’ll see if she will treat everyone to some walking while we are up there. She is close to walking all the time, we are just waiting for when.

Practice Walking Part Two Video

9.4 MB / Time 3:47

So, it was an eventful weekend. First on Friday Mara visited Parker at Bob and Shannon Sowell’s. Mara and Parker hung out for a little while, but then Mara was unable to go to sleep in a strange house while Parker went off to bed. Instead she provided entertainement for everyone. She also showed that she had been practicing her walking skills a little by taking a couple steps from person to person.

The next morning Mara got to go to the pool at the YMCA. Come to think of it, the video of her swimming lesson has never been posted. Maybe that will get on here soon. Anyways, Mara really enjoyed the pool. Dad dunked her a couple times, but she was also trying to blow bubbles and kick her feet.

Then on Sunday Dad and Mara were playing with her princess ball. Mara seemed to want to stand and hold her ball like she sees the neighbors when they play basketball. It wasn’t long until Dad convinced her to take a few steps to the ottoman. Mom came in soon after and got some video. Sorry that the lighting is blown out a little. So, this is the first video of Mara standing on her own, a new trick discovered just last week, and then video of her taking quite a few steps on her own.

Practice Walking Part One Video

11.2 MB / Time 4:30

Mara has been progressing quite a bit lately. We are still amazed at her capacity to learn and what she is able to show us she knows every day. There are a lot of people out there wondering when she will be walking. Well, we will get to that.

First, we took some video last week of her latest skills. You will see that she has gotten adept at maneuvering her mail cart. This has helped her practice walking without Mom or Dad’s assistance. Just before this shot she walked the cart up to Kiwi’s cage to say “hi Kiwi.”

Next you will see that she can get up the stairs quite easily, then she will show you what she knows about her blocks. Last she plays with some bowling pins that she got at Christmas time, and only after watching tape does Dad realize that she said “Dog” about 5 times without me acknowledging it because I didn’t notice what the blue pin is. A dog. As Mom indicated in an earlier post she has gotten quite a vocabulary. You will see it here a little. Notice how she says “please.” She only gets out the “P” and “S.”

Stairs And Blocks Video

13.4 MB / Time 5:22

Walking has become the practice du jour lately around the house. Mara has suddenly clicked on the idea that she can potentially stand and move around like Mom and Dad do. That seems to have given her a new willingness for us to actually stand her up and for her to take some steps while holding our hands. Before it seemed like she would rather just let go and start crawling.

In the video you will see that Mom discovered that she rather likes holding on to the wagon while you pull it around the downstairs. In fact it started by her just pushing in on her own, but without someone steering the whole thing can get a little leery. Picking up speed can be an issue.

Push the Wagon Video

11.2 MB / Time 4:03

In the infamous words of our grocery store cake decorator

“1ST HAPPY MARA!”

Mom and Dad are so surprised to be sitting here one year later already. She has grown so much. Even though her party was this past Saturday, we still had to post today, of course. You have seen the pictures, so now the video. You see all the nail biting suspense of her cake episode. She ate cake… She didn’t eat cake… you decide! You see her open presents. Forget the clothes! I want the bath fizzies! And MORE….

Birthday 2006 Video

41.0 MB / Time 16:14

Lately Mara has shown her desire to play with books on her own, not just when we read them to her. Take a look at this video where she shows she kind of knows what she’s doing.

In the background I think you hear some parrots talking too. They almost talk as good as Mara.

Mara Reads A Book Video

2.8 MB / Time 1:10

Its hard to remember who we have told about our teaching Mara how to sign. It was a long road, Mom and Dad repeating sign time and time again with no results. Then one day she just did it and it was a real suprise. The first one we taught her was “eat.” The true-tell indication that she understood what it meant, vs. just repeating what we do or following word association alone, came one Saturday morning. As typical, we spend a lot of time caring for her in the morning such that we don’t enjoy our breakfast until it is well after she is done with her own. This day Mom was sitting on the couch minding her beeswax enjoying an bacon and egg bagel, when Mara caught wind of what was going on. Mara went right up to Mom and stood next to the couch. But, since she cannot have eggs yet, she was relatively ignored. She quickly turned to Dad and showed the eat sign clearly “saying” that she wanted some of what Mom had.

The next sign to come was “drink” which took a while for her to use. She also does “all done,” but that one she has not really done independently as much as just copy us. We have been using “cereal” to signify her cheerios for just about as long as eat, but she still doesn’t use that one yet.

This is a short video of us catching her with the “eat” sign.

Mara Signs Video

1.5 MB / Time 0:39