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.

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.

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!