Fast Food Nation

Baby F. has started eating solids.
...well, i say solids, but really it's just a bunch of mush. 
As it should be, considering she has, count'em, zero teeth. So we've started what her pediatrician recommended - we gave her the same veggie/fruit for 3 days in a row to find out if she's allergic to anything. 

And what wondrous thing have we discovered so far?
Only that she likes *everything*. Broccoli, spinach, apple, strawberry, the occasional fingertip's worth of ketchup ;o).
Everything.

Broccoli *and* apple? Stop it, you're spoiling me ;o)

This doesn't of course mean that it's all been smooth sailing though. Although she chomped down on her spinach like our very own baby Popeye (complete with super arm strength - really, she's crazy strong), spinach alas did not agree with her and we'll have to forgo it for now. Cue sad face.

But the most surprising thing for me has been how quickly she took to eating food. One day she's fighting us, turning her face away from the choo-choo spoon of pap, and the next she has her mouth open eons before we've even cracked open the seal on her veggie du jour. 

I started out giving her half a jar each time she fed and dutifully refrigerating the other half, to giving her the full jar and having her sometimes ask for more - the apple one *is* quite tasty :o)

I'm hoping she continues to be this open-minded about food into the future, but i know that this early enthusiasm doesn't necessarily mean anything as far as her taste-buds-to-be.

But it's nice to know that at least for now, i have a little foodie in the making.

The Afternoon at the Museum

Baby F. the art genius baby.

That's right. I said it. Genius. With a capital G.

OK, mayhaps I'm going too far. But it could happen ;o)

She has been to a museum two times now. And is only eight months old.

We took her to the Newark Museum last weekend to see Angels and Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th century American Art, which had some amazing pieces, like this hilarious one:

A Bedtime Story, 1878 - Seymour Joseph Guy

Do you see the horror in the little ones' faces? Heehee. Their sister must be telling them a scary story ;o)

There were loads more really amazing paintings as well as some striking photographs. I think some of the writing in the show left a bit to be desired, but the work speaks for itself really. If you're anywhere nearby, I'd highly recommend it...even if you were never a girl ;o)

Baby F. proved to be quite the draw while in the museum btw. As Papa-in-training and Auntie Lulu and BF were otherwise engaged using the stairs, Baby and moi had to look for various elevators. We ended up sharing one of them with a group of elderly folk. One of the gentlemen started to gush over F., although he did think she was a boy :P Such is the fate of little bald-headed baby girls whose Mamas refuse to put ribbons on their non-hair ;o)

We later encountered the same group in one of the galleries, whilst i took a photo of F. in front of a funny collage in the permanent collection. The same gentleman from before wondered whether Baby F. was going to know all about art once she grew up. I mentioned that it was her second time in the museum which delighted the kind gentlemen and his friends :o)

So like i said, Baby F., the art genius to be :o)

The Baby Sitting Club

Oof!

So much has been going on.
...which is why, if you're keeping score, we've been away for oh... eh, i forget how long. But far too long.

But such is the life of a mama-in-training.
Some weeks are busy, some weeks are...who am i kidding, they're always busy ;o)

Let's get to the nitty-gritty though, shall we?

Momentous accomplishment of the month:

Drum roll, please.

Baby F. can now sit up on her own!

Whoooooo! Hurrah! Whoop-whoop!
And much joy was had across the land.

Now, this must not seem like much to those that do not have any children, but it was huuuuuge for us.

This means she can now sit up to have her pap without me having to worry about her going for a dive sideways.

I can put her on her play mat and she can happily wile away the minutes with her blocks or stacking cups without fear of her clonking down and hitting her head...
OK, i still have to worry, because she still falls over occasionally, but i don't have to worry as much ;o)

One more weapon in my arsenal of 'many change positions, so baby doesn't get grumpy'. :o)

More of her hair can come in since she's not always having it rubbed away by laying around.

All in all, a great thing.

Of course, this also means that crawling is not too far off, as well as pulling herself up, which although super exciting, are kind of horrifying, not going to lie.

Our penthouse in the sky, a.k.a. top apartment in a 4-floor, 100+ old building in a sizable Northeast city, is not too bad as far as being baby safe. We have tall bookcases which we long ago attached to the walls so they wouldn't crush us or the cats, we don't have a lot of little tchotchkes laying around as an appetizing morsel for babies, and we don't have any interior staircases to worry about.

But...

We do have cats that shed everywhere and that no matter how often we clean, still seem to reproduce via the process of ginormous-furball-mitosis every few weeks. 
We have a couple of bookshelves that have apparently come away from the damn crappy wall.
We have super hard ceramic floors in the kitchen/living room. 
Oh, and a drum set in our library, which I'm sure will be fascinating for a crawling baby.

All of this will be fixed, dealt with, remedied, but it's still a lot (particularly stopping the kitty-mitosis thing) to deal with which I'm glad i don't have to do...yet.

So yay for big developments.
And now let's give this mama-in-training a little chance to adjust, shall we?

Developmentalooza!

The last few days have been short in events and productivity, but chock-a-block full of little baby steps.
Not literal ones, baby F. is not quite ready for that as of yet ;o)

But of course that doesn't mean that Miss F. hasn't been up to stuff.

I've slowly come to the realization that we don't have anything to fear from a coming horde of zombies bound to eat our brrrrrains!
Instead we should concentrate more of our defense funding in trying to figure out a way to stop babies from being cannibals. That's right, you heard me right.

Cannibal Babies.

How else to explain what happened last week?
Baby F. and moi were enjoying some big bed time. That's when i set up a fort - made up of a perimeter of pillows and in this particular case, my own legs - and let F. twirl her way around our bed. She can't quite manage to sit up unpropped and she can't quite crawl yet, but she's becoming a master twirler, rolling around back and forth like a maniac.

On this one occasion, she twirled her way over to my legs, which as i said, were at the time being used as part of a human fence, trying to keep baby F. from tumbling her way down to the floor...'cause she's already done that before, but from the couch. That was a great day :/

Anywho, she managed to twirl her way over to my legs...and then proceeded to latch on to one of them with her gummy jaw. As if being chewed on by an over eager, 'going-to-have-teeth-any-day-now' baby wasn't painful/weird enough, she then starts to hum as she's doing it. 'Cause apparently while attempting to eat your own Mama, you should have a song both in your heart and in your throat.

So yeah, let's do a Kickstarter on Humming Cannibal Babies and how to prevent this plague upon our race ;o)

And now a short pause for Hurrah for Genetics!

Some of you who know me IRL might know that I have all sorts of crazy sleep issues. I mean, at the moment, I mostly have 'lack-of-sleep' issues, but I am a poster child for sleeping disorders.

You know that film 'Sleepwalk with Me' that just came out? You don't? Because it's only playing in one theater? Well, it is being offered on demand, so maybe you can watch it at home. I didn't think it was that great, actually, but hey, it establishes what I'm about to discuss.

Like i was saying, you know that film 'Sleepwalk with Me'?
Well, I'm not quite that bad. I've never jumped out of a building, or wandered naked down a hall. I don't actually act out my dreams...which would be so freaking weird as most of them involve some sort of apocalyptic event. They'd be like something out of 'The Road'...except worse.

I have a weird brain.

But i have been known to talk in my sleep, either in Portuguese (my mother tongue) or in just outright nonsense. I also have night terrors, which usually involve some unknown evil force hovering in the room, from which I'll wake up screaming. Fun, fun, times for my husband.

They can be cute though. I once urgently woke up Papa-in-Training to tell him that there were some Sugar-Gliders over by our bedroom window. You know, as one does. I always remember that one because it was so specific. I mean, if you know me, you know i love squirrels (even if at present, I've wagered a small, mostly one-sided war with my resident 4th floor porch squirrel). But Sugar-Gliders? Pretty specific.

Anyway, all this is to tell you that I do crazy things in my sleep. Some even crazier than the ones mentioned above. But nothing dangerous and yes, I have done a sleep study, thanks for asking.
It was too much to ask of course that my baby would not do these same crazy things in her sleep. That her sleep would only be interrupted by marauding kitties using her bedroom as a hiding place or other such ambient noises. What, you don't have marauding kitties as ambient noises in your house? How dull ;o)

I spotted it almost from the beginning. Within days of being home, I woke up to her moaning in her sleep. I thought, 'Well, that's not good. She can't even speak yet, and is already talking in her sleep.' 

She still does that a bit, but i haven't noticed it as much.
What does she do instead?

Laughs in her sleep :D

Actually, out loud laughs.
She'll get a little smile at first and then cracks up.

Now this is the kind of sleep issue i can get behind. I try and imagine what it is that's making her laugh out loud. I like to think she's dreaming of me or Papa-in-Training playing with her and making her giggle. Of one of my funny faces. Or of us head banging, which she just adores. Who knew I'd be rocking out so much once she was born?

So yes, i have a sleeping laughing baby. Best kind of baby there is :o)

Captain Hook Jr.

So yesterday our routine was turned a little upside down in the morning.

Usually, Papa-in-Training changes and feeds baby F. her first bottle of the day, allowing me an extra hour of sleep or so. Because i always invariably end up sleeping less during the night. Either because some health issue has kept me up or the cats or the baby or who knows what else. Meanwhile PIT (Papa-in-Training) will fall asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow...and sometimes even before it. And will pretty much sleep through anything during the night, up to and including smoke alarms. So yeah, i get an extra little sleep :o)

But yesterday was different. We'd made a couple of book sales through our Amazon Seller Account and sort of, kind of, hadn't gotten around to finding the books or packing them up. So once we realized this (right before falling asleep of course), we figured out he'd look for the books in the morning and I'd feed the baby, so he wouldn't be late to work and we'd maintain our book selling reliability.

And so whilst still very groggy, i get handed a newly changed but yet to be fed hungry, hungry hippo...i mean, baby.

Then i notice a weird stain on her PJ's. A bit brownish but all the way on her chest. Hmm, couldn't be poop. Even baby poop can't quite manage to migrate to a baby's chest...i think.
Could it be blood? But where the heck would it come from? Let's check the baby.

HOLY CRAP!!!

Baby F.'s left thumb was all cut up. The sole of it was shredded. I go into 'i'm-terrified-of-blood-usually-but-i-snap-out-of-it-in-actual-emergencies'* mode and clean it up as best as possible and apply the smallest bandage i have...

And then i realize, er, she's going to eat the bandage if i just leave it like this.

What to do? What to do?

Ta Da!

Witness the brilliance of a bachelor sock with a bachelor bootie. Et voilá!

Yes, that is her left arm and hand, not a horribly distorted leg. Don't let the bootie fool you ;o)

She pretty quickly figured out how to get rid of the bootie.
But the sock stayed on all of yesterday.
And then we changed it last night and the new sock has stayed on all of today.

Still not sure how she managed to shred her thumb. She has done this before, but to one of her toes, so I'm guessing she scratched herself with her crazy kitty-like claws...'cause she won't let us clip them!

Crazy, crazy Captain Hook baby.



*I fully realize this did not actually count as a full-fledged emergency. I just meant i'm a wuss but am usually pretty good in emergencies - unless they involve getting anything stuck in an eye...then you're on your own.

The tale of Unkie M., or how we came to be in south Jersey

Baby F.'s Unkie M had invited us to visit over Labor Day weekend, more precisely on Saturday. We were all very excited to go, not only because we hadn't seen him in far too long and because he has a pool. A pool, you say? Those things full up with water in which this Mama had not been inside of since her college days. It'd been a while for F.'s Papa as well.

So we all packed up our swimsuits, fresh off of the mothballs ;o) and somehow managed to traipse from our penthouse in the sky down to south Jersey while carrying a minimum of baby products...which is still a lot of stuff.

We all took the train down to Red Bank because well, we don't have a car and that's how we get around :o)

F. loves every type of transportation, or at least all those she's been in so far.

Stroller? Check.
Automobile? Check.
PATH train? Check.
Subway? Check.
NJ Transit train? Check.

Now we just have to get her on a taxi, trolley, boat and plane and she'll have the whole set :o)

I have realized though, that making a train is not quite as easy as it once was. If F. is with us and therefore her stroller too, that means knowing where the elevators are, or if there are any elevators at all. And getting on these same elevators takes a bit of extra time so we've got to add that on to our commute and not expect to rush and make a train. Except...

Well, we rushed, and didn't know where the elevator was, and got separated from Papa-in-training without my cell phone, and somehow were still 10 minutes early for the train. Hurrah for us!

The trip went off without a hitch and Unkie M. was in Red Bank waiting for us. We then had a lovely, leisurely ride through 'horse country' (who even knew there was such a thing so close by?) and arrived at M.'s bachelor pad around noonish.

We rested a bit and fed baby F. and M. went to inquire about the pool. And then tragedy struck. For the pool was closed and would remain so for the last two days of the season. The apartment complex in which Unkie M. lives had hired a lifeguard for the duration of the summer. And said lifeguard had decided to quit with 3 days left in the season.

Shock. Tears. Anguish.

OK, not really. Some disappointment, but after all we came to see M. not the fantabulous pool, so we all got over it. And instead we feasted on local food (although I still dream of returning for some kosher Chinese) and played a bit with the baby.

And then the real fun began. First we had a go at BuyWord, a game where one buys letters and then tries to sell words at a profit to the bank. A mixture of monopoly and scrabble...sort of.
M. pretty much clobbered us, as was to be expected as we'd never played before. I mean, really, really clobbered us. 100 point difference type of clobberation ;o)

And now cue angels singing.

Enter 'The Settlers of Catan', the bestest board game since Cranium! We loved playing it and F. was nice enough to be pretty accommodating during the games, either napping or happily sitting and watching us as her Mama and Papa tried (unsuccessfully) to dethrone Unkie M.
So much fun though! And anyone can play, no large vocabulary or trivia knowledge necessary (though I dearly love anything involving those) :o)

After that, Papa-in-training showed off his now non-existent Guitar Hero skills - oh, what taking care of a 7 month old will do to one's video game chops ;o)

We then finally exhausted Unkie M.'s hospitality and came home.

All in all, a great day.


P.S. Wholly unrelated, I finally finished a project I'd been working on since before baby F. was born. I asked our family and friends to send her a postcard of either where they lived or of something they liked. And to say something about themselves in the card.
I received quite a few and ended up laminating them so the baby will be able play with them without destroying them. And then I set them up here:








I'll eventually have a mobile for the baby hanging from the ceiling, but meanwhile she can look at this and know how excited everyone was for her to be born and how much she's loved :o)

An apple a day and all that...

I didn't want this to turn into a weekly diary. I mean, the definition of a diary is right in the word: diary = daily.
But...

Well, I guess life gets in the way, etc, etc. Which I hate really. Just a bunch of excuses. You either do it or you don't. The whole purpose of this is to keep a record of baby F.'s early life and how I'm handling it. If I'm writing it down a week after it happened, then I'm not really giving an accurate representation and then what's the point.

So my new school year resolution (does anyone else - without kids and out of school - still think of September as a new beginning?) is to well, actually write on here daily. Even if just a short note. Because that is after all the point of this exercise ;o)

F. was in top form yesterday. Me, not so much. Been feeling a little strange and so asked her Vôvô to come on over and keep both of us company. Just wanted another adult around.
Vôvô duly came by in the afternoon and both baby and moi were happy. Moi for knowing that there was someone there to watch F. if I should feel more poorly and F. because, well, isn't it obvious?

Vôvô!!!

Vôvô dotes madly upon baby F. and she dotes right back. They have silly conversations about her being the queen of babies and him being a mere ogre and serf-like creature (I am not making this up) :o)

And she smiles and babbles like mad at all the attention given to her, 'cause let's face it, I'm not speaking to her about serfs and queens 24/7 like Vôvô does.

So, my physical day not so great, but mine and F.'s overall day was pretty fab.

And last week, Thursday to be precise, we went to her monthly doc visit. Which went well...and not so well.

She's fine. That part was the well part. Developing as she should, growing like a weed - 18 lbs and counting, at a little less than 7 months at the time of her visit and with a head circumference in the 97th+ percentile. For those without wee babes, that means that her head is bigger than 97+ percent of babies her age. We'd never had the + before, but hey, she does have a huge head. Then again so do her parents, so not really a surprise there ;o)

And her hearing is great as well. We had some doubts because the hospital where she was born was unable to get an accurate result when they measured her soon after birth and I thought maybe she wasn't responding as well as she should to our voices. So the doctor had told me during the previous visit to remind them to do the test this time. So again, all good there.

The not so well part comes with everything else regarding the visit.

Now, we don't make appointments at the last minute. So far, we've been lucky and have only had to see F.'s doctor for wellness visits - shots and the like. So all our appointments are made a month in advance. Yet again and again, F. and I (and usually her Vôvô too) will sit there for 90+ minutes waiting to be seen. This is understandable if emergencies have come in, but when you look around and see a whole bunch of healthy kids there for their wellness visits too...
Well, that's when you start to get annoyed. What is the point of making appointments when it all ends up being first come, first served?

And then as if all that waiting wasn't enough, they expect me to undress F. in the consultation room and keep her undressed for far too long while either a Physician's Aide or the doctor finally remembers she's there.
I was particularly put off by the fact that a family that arrived after us, ended up being seen before baby F. They  (3 kids) were called right after F., but because the Aide ended up being super slow with her measurements, they ended up being seen (all 3!) by the doctor before us.
Grrrrr!
Was so mad.

Plus I'm starting to wonder if maybe I need to find a new doctor for F. The mother and daughter practice she now goes to are professional enough, but I don't get any warm fuzzies from them, and well, I kind of want that from a pediatrician. I want to feel like they really like children and I'm not getting that vibe. And maybe it's just my first time mama's nerves, but I usually end up feeling like I'm bothering them when I ask my monthly visit questions. I'm not one of these mamas who's calling up their pediatrician for every little thing their baby does. That's perfectly fine for those that do, but it's just not something I do. Which makes me feel even stranger when I get dismissive responses to little questions that I might have. So I'm taking some notes and if both the ridiculous waiting *and* dismissiveness keep on happening, then maybe it'll be time to move on to a new doc.

More on last week, to come...

Trapped under a baby! Quick, send help!

I was going to start this post by writing about our resident squirrel...but then I got trapped under a baby. And then whoosh! another day went by.
Sheesh!
Here I am writing about how the days drag and now it's been almost a week since I wrote.

I think the days still dragged for the most part, but baby F., as well as other obligations, aka fun-times for Mama and Papa, have stolen some of my writing time.

Even now, she's starting her combo revue act while I'm trying to write:
Speaking Pterodactyl while yielding a mean maracas.

Oh the joy.

But back to that squirrel.

So it seems to be definite. I cannot keep certain planters. Or rather I cannot keep them growing anything viable, for my resident squirrel(s) will not let this happen. The only way around it is that I guess I have to make little cages around some of the planters...which means they'll look oh so pretty. But hey, sometimes one must sacrifice aesthetics for actually being able to grow any damn thing. I didn't go to all the trouble of fixing them up, just so the squirrel could have a sand box after all.

I've tried luring him away from the now-empty-but-for-the-dirt-planters by setting out some almonds, but I guess Mr. Fancy-Pants-Squirrel is too hoity-toity for stale nuts. Harrumph!

I've even caught him eating my roses *and* rose bush leaves. Sigh.

That was last week. I hoped to be able to make said plant cages, but just haven't had the time. Boo to me.

F. has been very vocal lately (which is good), but sometimes her vocal skills are just a scooch
ANNOYING AS HELL!

See what I did there? Wasn't that grating and harsh? Now imagine that feeling for hours and hours at a time. There you go. Now you know what she's been like lately ;o)

But after hours of these grating noises, I'll pick her up and she'll nuzzle away on my chest and give the equivalent of baby hugs...and all is good again.
Well, it helps if Vóvó has been by, even if briefly, to break up the droning.

Last Friday evening we handed F. over to Vóvó and Vôvô and moi and the boy went to what is likely to be the last karaoke evening we'll have for quite a while. One of our dearest friends A. is moving out west, Californi-ay, and we wanted to have a proper send-off for him. Speaking of which, we'd already attended a going-away party for him earlier in the month and he was due at another one the day after. I've never known someone to have so many going-away parties! It's a testament to how lovely a person he is that everyone he's ever known wants to say goodbye.

So anywho, we went and had ourselves some karaoke and much fun was had by all. Of course all the compromising photos and video have been destroyed* so you'll just have to take my word for it ;o)

We had big plans for Saturday involving various DIY projects which have literally been half done since May...but well, that didn't quite happen. I'd missed out on some sleep and needed to catch up and just veg out.

We did manage to start watching Sight and Sound's Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time, and we decided to start a little blog about it, 'cause... well, why not? :o) Besides, I believe I've already addressed my whole "my memory is crap" debacle.

And then on Sunday, our friend K. and her little boy N. came over for a visit! Hurrah!
We'd been trying to have them over for weeks, but something always seemed to pop up at the last minute.

They came by and we decided to go and check out our newest neighborhood park Riverfront Park. Only one portion of it is open as of yet - they'll be expanding it within the next few years - but the part that's already open has a playground, so I thought it'd be a good choice.

Hmm, it might have been. If it wasn't seemingly miles away from our apartment...and if it hadn't been far hotter a day than I'd realized.

The playground itself was nice enough, even if it afforded absolutely no shade. I suppose the little trees they planted nearby, will someday provide shade, but I have a feeling it'll be long after F. has a need for a playground. Besides, she ended up pretty much sleeping the whole way and back, so didn't really end up spending any time with N. :o(

Next time, we'll go to the shaded park 5 minutes away from our apartment and get our exercise from playing around, rather than walking the breadth of our neighborhood.

Oh right, I almost forgot about the trapped under a baby thing. Yesterday F. was pretty inconsolable. Just grumpy the whole day and wasn't resting at all. That is until I settled her on my lap, where she proceeded to snooze away...for 2 hours! Usually I'd transfer her over to her playpen, aka "Baby Prison" but seeing as she (and me) had had such a rough day, I thought I'd let her be. And so was effectively trapped under a baby for 2+ hours. Still, it could be worse.

It could've been an elephant :P

-- Mama-in-Training


*there are indeed lots of pics and some vids, but you didn't really think I was going to plaster them here, did you? ;o)

P.S. And to end, an amuse-bouche courtesy of my Postcrossing addiction:

I call this one "Kitties by the Shore" :o)
It came from Helen from the Ukraine via Cyprus where she was vacationing.

Onwards and forwards

So F. and moi (and at least two of the cats*) had a lovely time with our guests on Monday. My friend P. went on about how calm the baby was...until they left of course.
And then all hell broke loose.

F.'s schedule was thrown off a bit and she wanted her meals dammit...all at once. So we had a bit of a hissy fit for a couple of hours. Thankfully her Vóvó (Big Mama) came by and soothed her a bit so I could have a teeny break.

And it looks like F. is finally starting to put some weight on her legs. Big Mama is apparently having her stand up quite a bit to strengthen those incredibly chubby legs (her rolls have rolls) and I've started to do the same. Her default position is still to go limp, but she's stood up a couple of times, which I'm pleased with.

The rest of the evening was spent not trying to fall asleep too early (and so therefore throw off my sleep again) and watching Copper, a new series on BBC America (we'd taped it the night before). Not sure how I feel yet about the show. One thing I do know is that I can't stand the sets. Too much reliance on crappy post-production work. Whatever happened to making some good, realistic-looking miniatures? The show has spent enough money on adverts in places like Gothamist, maybe they should've saved some of that money for the making of the actual show.

This kind of thing takes me out of the period, so I found it hard to appreciate the plot and acting when I'm still tutting the lack of ambiance. I'll watch the second episode next Sunday and see if it's worth following.

Most of Tuesday was spent trying to gather up enough energy to work on a couple of projects, but alas it was not to be. I did eventually manage to write up some Postcrossing postcards, but that was pretty much the extent of my accomplishments for the day :o(

Here's a particularly beautiful one that showed up in my mailbox yesterday :o)

The message was soo cute. "You are a woman, you like to read, you've got a child - that's why you get this postcard from me." :D

Oh, I did watch something pretty execrable and need to share it with the world. Last week I'd watched the premiere episode of Gallery Girls (btw, how long did it take them to come up with that name? I'm a huge fan of alliteration, but really? Sigh.) and found it pretty bad. But I wanted to make sure to watch another episode to make sure it really was as bad as it seemed.

Yeah, it was worse.

I know editing is everything in reality shows, blah, blah, blah. But could they have found any more vapid young women than these? It kind of hurt to watch it, particularly when one of the less hateful ones gets an internship purely because she has a rich daddy whom the gallery owner wants to impress. Who once she has the job, refuses to do anything involving 'manual' labor...you know, like moving a small painting from one place to another.
Sigh to the googleplex.

Once upon a time I wanted to work in a gallery, with the hope of then turning that experience into a position at a museum. I really, really hope that they just managed to get the worst people to be in this show and that those decent people that actually work in the industry wouldn't  be caught dead in this crappy Bravo show.

And because I apparently don't have enough to fill my time with, I'll be starting a couple of other online projects within the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned :o)


*One cat never deigned to join the party (even though the laser bird made an appearance) and so missed out on all the festivities.

Tea Party Time! ...in no way associated with ridiculous GOP movement :P

Phew!
Last few days have either been busy or tiring...or both.

Sunday was spent preparing for my little Tea party on Monday. Or rather, most of the day was 'wasted' away doing god-knows-what-else and then the evening and early hours were frittered away in baking and sandwich preparation.

And for some reason, my usual OK luck with baking seemed to depart, leaving behind flattened, holey cupcakes and unfluffy sponge cake. I think in the end, they both worked out and were quite yummy - the boy and I have been munching on the leftovers :o)

So here are some of the results of moi staying up til 2 am on Sunday...

Whole Wheat bread with Basil and Garlic Flavored Goat Cheese and thinly sliced Ham - These disappeared completely :o)

Flat and holey chocolate cupcakes baked from scratch...frosting, not so much ;o)

Traditional British Sponge...which wasn't so spongy. And with apple preserves filling instead of raspberry,
'cause all my jams decided to die on me, i.e. had expired :o(

And my lovely Cranberry-Orange Scones!
Which for some reason i always make extra small. I never seem to think the batter will yield a lot.
I'll have to remember that next time.

The baby mostly behaved on Sunday, allowing me the freedom to make these goodies. But then again, I started so late, that she was almost down for the evening by that time. Her Papa was kind enough to bathe F. and give her her last bottle of the day. Then again, he's usually the one who bathes her and gives her last bottle, so no biggie there.

Monday morning was spent running around attempting to get the apartment in a less than shambolic state so that two small children and an adult woman would not run away screaming upon entering the place. I think I managed it OK, with a few things swept under the metaphorical rug ;o)

Little sidenote: my mother apparently used to literally do this when she was a teenager, and lived with her sister in some rented rooms - would sweep the dirt under their real rugs :D

Baby was pretty agreeable during that hurried (and sleep-deprived) morning and was the model of mellowness once our Tea party guests arrived... Which means that then ppl won't believe me when I say she's part-pterodactyl :P

I think as usual, she was simply stunned by looking at other children, even if they're older than her. The same happens when I take her for her monthly doctor visits. She'll just stare and stare in wonder that there are other creatures smaller than Mama and Papa and Vóvó and Vôvô (that's grandma and grandpa in Portuguese) in the world.

Once she can actually sit up on her own, I'll see if I can wrestle up some baby playdates, so she can get used to other kiddies.

Food and fun was had at our little tea party - though not a lot of tea.
Note to self: have lemonade on hand instead and call it tea ;o)

And prezzies were exchanged.
I have the bad habit of hoarding gifts waaaay past their due date. Exhibit A: gave my friend her Christmas gift this Monday (sheepish grin).
Sometimes I forget to give someone their gift, sometimes it's delayed because I decided to make something (most common reason). It's definitely something I have to work on. Then again, isn't it fun to get a birthday gift out of the blue, i.e. 3 months after your actual birthday?

Surprise!

No?
Er, my bad (second sheepish grin).

Speaking of gifts, this here is something I've been working on for a while. My little friend's birthday was in May, so yeah, a little while ;o)

Little Treasure Box. E. likes butterflies so i thought she might like this.
I only noticed after i photographed it that some of the butterflies end up looking 3D. Pleased about that.

And this is one of the drawers. Seeing as it's meant to keep treasures,
i thought I'd line each one individually with different color felt for an extra little pop.

I could've still worked on it a bit more, but I felt if I didn't give it to E. this week, that it'd end up being here until her next birthday ;o)

I'll catch up with the rest of the week so far, in the next post.

Zzzzzzz (or how i finally got some rest)

So, the boy's employer was nice enough to allow him to work from home a couple of times a month. Soon it'll be down to only once a month (how will i cope?) and then after a little while it'll stop altogether (cue sounds of crying), but at least for the rest of the month, I get to have him stay home - usually on Fridays - which allows me to mostly, well, sleep :o)

Now, that's not the reason we originally requested this arrangement. Originally we thought this would be very helpful so that I could go to doctor's appointments and such without having to drag the baby with me. Particularly since my dentist is in Manhattan (in the Chrysler building no less - such cool views as you're getting your skull drilled into) and the thought of dragging F. with me is not such a welcome thing. Besides, who'd watch the baby while I was getting my teeth bored into?

Anywho, that was the original reason for having this set up and we have on occasion done just that. I needed to go to the doctor, and so the boy would watch F. while i went off to do whatever needed to be done. But mostly, it's become Mama-in-Training's resting day. When I take a whole lot of sleep deprivation and try to catch up on all of it on a bi-monthly Friday. F.'s Papa will take over and watch her as I sleep until noonish and then try to rejoin the ranks of the conscious (OK, semi-conscious) human race.

And so it came to be this past Friday. Aaaaaah! That was nice :o)
I believe F. mostly behaved, although i do remember hearing some grumblings. But they were minor ones. At some point during the day i was even able to go outside and check out my other little growing things.

First rose from my newest rosebush. Unfortunately i did not capture it at its' bloomiest, but i still think it's perty :o)

Not sure what this is. It kind of just showed up in this pot. I'd planted something
else in it and then this little one started to pop up. The Big Mama (my mama)
said not to yank it out and here it is in all its' pink cuteness.

Didn't even know this particular plant produced flowers until i spotted these. Squeeee! for nature!

Stinkiest plant in the world, but the flowers are pretty.

Carrots! I'm growing carrots on my back porch! And they actually seem to be doing OK.

Second blooming of my first rosebush...which is coming along so well.
And the Big Mama didn't want me to prune it :P

And this is my sad, sad ivy. Why is it sad? Because even though it looks pretty healthy and I've had it for a while
it doesn't seem to grow beyond this. Any gardeners out there have any suggestions?

I have quite a few other planties growing out there (including the planter of death. Anything i plant in there is dug up by the resident squirrel. I love the bugger, but come'on!), but these were looking particularly happy on Friday.

After this, the day kind of flew by and by the time the Big Mama came by to pick up F. for the evening, I really didn't want the baby to go. But the Big Mama looooves having the baby over and we had somewhere to go on Saturday, so i reluctantly handed F. over.

Saturday was therefore, pretty F. free. The boy and I went to see 'War Horse' at Lincoln Center in New York City.

Btw, if there's a production of it anywhere near where you live, do go and see it. It's one of the most wonderful theater experiences I've ever had....even if the particular actor playing the human lead was atrocious.

Side note: If your character is supposed to be 14, 16, 18 in your play, maybe don't get an adult to play him. Particularly if the adult thinks that playing a 14 year old boy, means he has to speak like a 5 year old - 'Gee, golly!'

But the horses (and all the other human characters) were amazing as well as the whole production of it - lighting, sound, the whole thing. Just superb.

One thing i did notice (and keep on noticing whenever i get the chance) is how skewed the audience age for any theater production tends to be. There were basically only tourists and elderly people when we went to see it. Granted it was a matinee, but I've seen this at nightly performances as well. I know there are some discounts for younger people, but either our local youth don't know about it, or it's not enough. I know I've looked into it for me and i no longer qualify for any discounts. This doesn't however mean that I've suddenly increased my income for the year. It'd be great if there were more ways to get discounted tixs for those that maybe have outgrown the youthful prices but not the youthful income.

Oh, and this came in the mail on Friday:

How lovely is this? I loved the poem, and the little stamps and the big stamps :o)

Off to work on a multitude of projects.
What's this you say about resting on Sundays? Er...not in this household ;o)

The good news...

Is that I did sleep. I slept relatively well on Tuesday night and woke up positively refreshed on Wednesday....OK, that's a bold-faced lie. I've never in my life woken up without grumbling and I've certainly never felt 'refreshed'.

Morning person I am not.
But once I woke up, I never felt the need to nap, I never spontaneously fell into a coma on the couch at 2 pm, and I wasn't so tired I could barely pick up F....
So that's my idea of refreshed I guess.

But see that was bad. My body tricked my mind into thinking that our sleeping patterns were back to normal. But then Wednesday night came around, and seeing as I'd apparently slept well the night before, it meant I could now stay up until.. FOREVER! Or so it felt like.

The good thing is I got a few things done on Wednesday that I'd been meaning to.

Like this:

Little care package to send to a new Taiwanese pen-pal -
notice the teeny-tiny little envelopes with a ribbon around them?

Aren't they just adorable?
Btw, in case you're wondering about those tiny envelopes...That's what happens when you buy a Japanese envelope template from the internets and don't check the measurements.


And this:

Bunch of gigantic Wallace and Gromit envelopes

And yet more of these:

Pretty Picturesque Portuguese Envelopes -
you thought i was going to say postcards didn't you?

I even managed to finally pack up a whole bunch of F.'s clothes to send on to my friend who's just had triplets. It was tough to send off some of the adorable onesies that F. wore. But she's outgrown them and we have a small place, so...
Of course, the boy has already squirreled away at least 1 or 2 outfits that he just couldn't part with, sentimental Papa that he is.

I also managed to write up a few postcards for Postcrossing. Why yes, I am currently obsessed, why do you ask?

And F. did a new thing on Wednesday.
While I was sorting through her clothes in her bedroom, I set up the wee one in her chair in the living room, facing me through the open doorway. And then I had to get something in the room that put me out of her range of sight.

Once she saw me again, she let out the biggest guffaw imaginable. Apparently the simple act of disappearing briefly from her sight and reappearing soon after was the funniest thing she'd ever seen. Well, I'm not one to waste a good laugh, so of course I then proceeded to repeat what I'd inadvertently done ad nauseum. And it was the best! Really. There's nothing like getting your baby to laugh hysterically. Pretty much better than almost anything in the world. And I usually have to work hard at it.

F. is a demanding customer. There are ad-libbed songs involved, various accents, crazy sounds, incredibly goofy and complicated facial expressions...
A Mama-in-training works hard for that smile. But not on Wednesday. All I had to do was briefly step away...and then return. That was a pretty good day.

But then Wednesday night came, and no sleep with it. Although in my sleep's defense, the massive amount of free kindle books on Amazon didn't help.

The baby was a bit restless (yes, yes, I know she should be in her own room by now, but it's all the way over on the opposite side of the apartment, so it's hard. We will do it, of course, but it'll probably be another couple of weeks. Really. I promise.), so that kept me up. And then I figured out where all the free kindle books were...and I shopped, and shopped, and shopped some more.

I even managed to scare the usually comatose husband. He woke briefly during the night and asked me what I was doing. I told him I'd just bought 25 books on Amazon :o)
I think he actually properly snapped up for a moment. I did explain that they were all free, so he fell back into his deep coma.

25?? You're saying.
That's crazy!

Er, that's how many I'd 'bought' up to that point. I think I might have broken the 50 mark before my body finally shut down around 4:10 am.
What can I say? A girl does not live on bread and water alone. A free digital copy of 'Innocents Abroad' is also quite nourishing. As well as 49 other friends for it.

Going to sleep at such a time does not make for the best of next mornings. So not too surprisingly, today was kind of crap. The baby was good enough to let me sleep until about 11 (Papa had taken care of her first bottle and diaper change before heading to work) and I then proceeded to sleepwalk through the rest of the day, while watching a whole lot of Louie which is my current program obsession du jour. Honestly, if you haven't watched it, just stop reading this and get some through Netflix or through your on demand cable or satellite network. This post will still be here when you get back.

The rest of the day is pretty much a blur. I remember the boy lulling F. to sleep by dancing with her to The Hives. We have a strange kid ;o)
Coming up with another nickname for the baby - Grumblix - whom I believe will soon be a new character in the Asterix comic books and getting a pretty sweet card from China in the mail with a poem on it :o)

And now here I am at 2:30 am still awake. Let's put that to a stop, shall we?
Good night!

Sleep...need sleep

Or pretty much how my days of late have been arranged.

Don't get enough sleep at night because...

1. Baby F. ends up on her belly and I'm yanked from my slumber to move her
2. Cats attempt to destroy one of the many boxes of things to be put away which are conveniently right outside our bedroom
3. Apartment makes weird shifting noises
4. Squirrel, possibly raccoon, having mid-summer party in the attic
5. Hubby shifts imperceptibly while in bed and therefore wakes me
6. and on and on and on

All of this waking up is keeping me from...well, sleeping. So i sleep for 2 or 3 hours, and then have to wake up because the baby's up. Because even though I've tried really, really hard, i can't seem to get any of the 3 cats to feed or change her. Grumble, grumble, ungrateful cats...

So then I'm not at my best and am constantly trying to steal some sleep here and then. 'Baby seems to have momentarily closed her eyes after drinking her bottle?' Nap time for me!

But that doesn't really tend to work, seeing as i don't think one can survive on 5 minute naps alone...even if one takes 20 of them.

So we'll see how tonight goes, if I'm able to get to sleep and then stay asleep. I'll keep you all posted.

As for F., well she was pretty good today. Actually she's pretty good any day of the week, but she has been a bit grumbly of late. So much so, that we've taken to calling her 'Grumbledor'. A really bad day is when she alternates being a Grumbledor with sounding like a Pterodactyl. Never thought a baby could sound like an extinct flying dinosaur?
Trust me, if there was a category in America's Got Talent for best Pterodactyl imitation by a baby, F. would have it in the bag.

So in between 5 minute naps (although i did get about a 90 minute one at some point - the baby gods were sweet upon me today), we did some playing and some sneaking of television watching. I watch, I set up F. to face me in her little chair and then she proceeds to crane her neck to try and watch whatever inappropriate stuff it is that I'm attempting to watch.

Our wi-fi seems to be taking a holiday on some distant shore, which means our Netflix is down. So instead of some fine educational documentaries, we ended up watching an episode of John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show, which was, not very surprisingly, hilarious. The one 'we' watched featured Wyatt Cenac, which is another one of my faves.

I also managed at some point today to finish reading How Not to Run a B&B . I picked this up a few weeks ago, 1. because i had a credit on amazon i needed to use, and 2. because the hubby and i have been considering opening up our own B&B abroad.

That probably won't happen for a while mainly because, oh what was the reason, oh right, we're broke, but it was still good to read about one person's experience running one. There are however quite a few things wrong with this little book - rugs are Oriental, not people, spell-check is our friend, proof-reading in general is really our best friend - but i still found it an amusing read.
And it proved that i could actually read an entire book using the kindle app on my iPad which i didn't honestly think was possible.
It still hasn't won me over as I'm a touchy-feely kind of gal - touch the paper, feel the cover - but it was different and not bad different.

And i managed to finish making some homemade envelopes. I always save my old calendars so i can then make kooky envelopes out of the large images. I have a new pen-pal to write to (through Postcrossing) and i thought she'd get a kick out of a Wallace and Grommit envelope. I'll post a pic here tomorrow of the finished product.

OK, time to attempt some sleep again. Wish me luck!

First!

Here goes nothing. My first post.
Everyone says that when you have a baby, time just flies by. Next thing you blink and they're off to college, married and with children of their own.

OK, sure.

But here's my reality.

I look to my right - where my 6-month-old is currently sitting on her wee chair attempting to stuff both her pacifier (sideways) *and* her Sheepy* (stuffed sheep) into her mouth, while often sounding like a pterodactyl - and wonder that she's not at least 12 months, heck 18 months even.
Time drags. Weeks blink by, I'll freely admit, but each day is loooong.
(cue pterodactyl noises)

F. is lovely, all that I'd ever hoped for and didn't even know I'd wanted. But it's still hard and it's still long. Did i mention long? ;o)
But like i said, weeks do blink by and i wanted to make sure that I actually kept some sort of record of this time. Both for F.'s sake, so she can read what she was like at this age and for my own sake, so i don't look back in a few years and just remember some sort of baby-centric cultural wasteland, i.e. whatever did i do with myself all while F. was very wee?

I could've just kept a private diary in my own mac, or heck, even took pen to paper and wrote down the damn thing. But i know myself, and i know all my procrastination tricks - i *have* lived with myself for a while now after all - so i thought I'd try something that'd keep me honest, a blog that will remind me to write things down. Mind you, although i call this a diary and it is public, i won't be putting down actual personal details on here, so if that's the kind of titillation you're looking for, then keep on moving ;o)

I do however promise to post about what the baby was up to on any given day, how i reacted, what i tried to do, and also anything else that i was up to on that day - books read, projects worked on, etc, et al, you get the idea.

Hopefully it'll be interesting, or entertaining, or informative. We'll see :o)



*Yeah, i know. Sheepy the sheep, highly original. You try to come up with individual names for toys and remember them all :P
As a child, i resorted to writing my dolls' names on their forehead with a marker so i could keep them straight. I was never too good with names.