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.