09.29.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 8:57 am by Anne

Everything is so incredibly fascinating to the little miss now. She wants to look and touch and babble at everything she sees and when she is not contained, be it in her exersaucer, crib, playpen, or jumping swing contraption….then we are are full alert. She crawls everywhere, pulls herself up on anything (preferably the most hard edged and dangerous furniture pieces), and wants to stand up. In her highchair, in the bathtub…wherever.

Last night she was having a bath after a great weekend of playing outside and eating new things (tortilla soup broth, papaya, vegetable pasta) and I had filled it pretty full and was in the water with her. After all the usual scrubbing and rinsing of soap, she wanted to grab and taste the shower curtain liner. Something tells me that although it appears clean enough, the liner is probably crawling with microbes and not necessarily ‘good’ ones for ingesting. After convincing her ht eliner wasn’t so great, she became enamored with the idea of playing with the drain hardware. The lever that pokes out at a dangerous angle from the bathtub wall…I kept seeing her little forhead (or worse her eye) knocking into it, but she kept after it again and again. My convoluted point here is she is just so interested in seeming minutiae, and although it’s difficult in the sense that her interests could be dangerous to her, at the same time I am finding a new appreciation for so much in our environment. People without kids miss out on this kind of thing!

She did a great thing for us on Saturday. The backyard has been a hellish mass of growth and weeds and tyranny. I strapped her in her bouncy swing as an experiment, put on my gloves, and joined her Dad in the weeding and trimming and relocation of various pots to a wonderful end. And she LOVED being outside with us, swinging, and laughing at Darwin(who pranced around with a chewtoy most of the time). Now it is back to being incredibly lovely out there and thank goodness! The weather is exquisite in the mornings and evenings when it is most beautiful and nopw we have a wonderful place to be again.

My cheese book came in the mail on friday and I am inspired. There are all manner of soft cheeses to experiment with, including cream cheese and sour cream and buttermilk and mascarpone(yum) but I am intrigued with the possibility of blue cheese and gouda and even parmesan! Will write as they come about, or don’t come about. HAH.

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09.23.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 2:25 pm by Anne

I did forget to mention one thing about yesterday’s shopping trip. Towards the end of the spree, I sort of ‘got that old feeling’…the one in which my bosoms communicate their need to release nourishment to the baby. It happens less and less often just because the little miss has been eating more solid food but when I go more than 4 hours during the day with no nursing…well, to make a long story short, after a few surreptitious glances down my t-shirt, OF COURSE, I see a few wet spots forming. I had to go back to the car to drop off a bag and while there, managed to dump a sippee cup of water down my front for reasons of camoflauge. Then I told Ashe that I had accidentally spilled water down my front. hahahahha. Isn’t that pitiful?! And we kept shopping. Actually, the wet t-shirt cooled me off and yesterday was in the upper 80’s; it’s just plain hi-larious.

FYI: If it’s scatalogical I just have to share.

Oh man. My main client just dropped off a slew of samples and had to come in the house while I made copies of a form for him. He could not have picked a worse day, the interior is not only a shambles, a melee of toys and dishes and CRAP…but it smells of onions, too. That divine beef stroganoff from last night and its everpresent hovering. gahhhhhh.

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09.22.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:49 pm by Anne

I am starting to think this crusty nose and watering right eye is due to allergies. It’s the strangest thing, though, that one eye. After the gym today, I looked down at her, fastened in yon baby bucket, and she just grinned…but the eye, it was shimmering. At least it’s not red or infected-looking and she’s not rubbing at it continuously but I think it warrants a call to the dr in the morning.

We had a good day, lunched on mediocre chinese food with cousin Ashe and her twin girls, 3 years old. Oh. My. Sweet little girls but the absolute definition of hell on wheels. They were and are all over the place. I can’t imagine taking care of twins but Ashe is doing a capital job and we had a nice time chatting and shopping and well, baby sitting. I managed to get a few Christmas presents taken care of too. This year we decided to try and knock gifts out early for a few reasons, 1) so we’re not faced with a glut of spending all at once and 2) so there’s no rushrushrush bs. I also stocked up on some excellent little miss clothes for next summer, even a bathing suit! The Children’s Place had some incredible sales, everything I bought cost a mere $2.99! You can’t shake a stick at that kind of a bargain but as with most of my purchases, Shan was pretty unimpressed.

By the end of the venture, I had drooled shamelessly over
Crate and Barrel and the equally sophisticated Le Creuset stores. yow. Would I really be all that much happier with a spacious kitchen and all the trimmings? yeah baby yeah!
Speaking of which, Baby was just perfect the whole time. I put her in one of the provided highchairs in the food court during lunch and was dismayed only twice. The first time, I caught her mouthing the handle bar of her seat. Ack. Then she did a skillful face plant and tasted the table. I grimace at the thought of all the various flora and fauna texturing the public facilities there but so far she hasn’t had any adverse reaction. Of course, the night isn’t over yet so knock on wood already.

I just got a call from a frantic homeowner in town. I don’t normally answer my office phone this late at night but she called twice and hadn’t left a message. Caller ID is good but it’s not perfect. Anyway, this lady was afraid even to take a fungal sample so I had to spend a few minutes talking her down.

“I collect mold, spores, and fungus.”

Got a wild hair to make pastel de tres leches, or three milks cake on sunday. I could have sworn I had a recipe for it in one of my periodicals (a much nicer term than ‘MAGAZINES’ but let’s be honest here) but alas no dice. So I found a few recipes on the internet, the next best thing, and wound up melding two of them. And here is the reason why. The version in ‘Texas Monthly’ most assuredly would be most authentic and toothsome( nod to CJ ) but it called for 9 EGGS! Come on! Maybe if I had been planning on baking it for a group but since I was sure only Shan and I would be eating of it, I opted to also follow the recipe employing 5 eggs instead. Long story short, next time I’ll probably just use this one. I was also I bit freaked out by the notion of bathing the cake in all that liquid so I only used a third of it. Although very tasty, next time I’d use more, maybe not all, but definitely more. Cake bathing. mmmmm. nice title. to what, i don’t know.

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09.20.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:43 am by Anne

She has a tooth! Yesterday Grandma found it and I think I can feel another one coming out on top but that may just be my imagination. It’s still cause for celebration; what a sweet baby!

Before taking her over to Gramma’s yesterday I gave her a bath due to the scattered mass of hardened boogs stuck in her hair. Sometimes in the mornings before I pluck her from the crib I suspect she blows the boogs onto her face and then purposefully rubs her face back and forth into her cribsheet. I’ve tried just combing these gems out, as if they were fleas, but that’s the cheap method of boog-removal. So I got her ready, put her on her oversized bath sponge, turned on the water, and got on with the bath. At one point, I turned away to get the baby shampoo in the cabinet and when I turned back, she had moved a bit off the sponge and I noticed a gift. It was like Easter and she was the Easter Bunny and had deposited a nice lump of baby pooh on her sponge for me. Good baby!

Today I think we will go to Target together. Someone needs more diapers.

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09.18.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 11:07 pm by Anne

Just finished ‘Neverwhere‘ by Gaiman. Not bad. We have ‘American Gods’ in one of the bookcases but there are so many other books to read and I still haven’t finished ‘Holy Blood Holy Grail’ for crying out christophers. What to do what to do. Lily has been sleeping rather poorly today and I suspect it has something to do with mucus again. We are re-visiting the routine of sneezing ivory boogs onto the upper lip and wailing as I daub it away. I’m hoping this is just a fluke on account of the strange weather and that she’ll be well tomorrow.

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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:09 am by Anne

During Lily’s afternoon nap, yesterday, I decided it was time to make some cheese. I took out the citric acid powder, lipase (a bovine enzyme ordered on the internet) powder, gallon of milk, rennet, and went to town with my recipe. I can’t remember which periodical carried the recipe but I think it was ‘fine cooking’, one of those freebie-subscriptions where they send you a few free issues and then a bill which I invariable write ‘please cancel my subscription’ on, and the cycle repeats ad nauseum to infinity. There were a number of cool parts. The first was actual curd formation although I have to say that at this point the mixture smells uncannily like baby spit-up. I didn’t have a slotted spoon handy but employed instead my ’spider’ tool for asian wok cooking. It worked just fine at separating the larger curds from the thin, almost greenish, whey. This part really got me to thinking about Little Miss Moffet, eating her curds and whey, and to be honest, it was kind of unappetizing. The next cool part was heating the cheese mass and then pulling and squeezing it into a ball, to separate more whey and get the right texture. This step was repeated a few times, flaked salt was added, and when it was shiney and pretty like mozzarella should be, I covered it and put it in the fridge. We’re going to use it on pizza tomorrow night I think. All in all, I LOVED the process and look forward to trying different cheeses, I even have a few cultures from mail-order. (Insert mold joke here.)

What about baby? She just woke up from her morning nap. I bet it’s time for cheerios!

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09.16.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 3:53 pm by Anne

I am totally getting the hang of solid foods in regards to the little miss. Around 1PM I began preparing a lunch for me and Shan, spinach tortellini with a tomato basil marinara (from a jar). He was running a bit late so I put a lid on the pasta and decided to feed baby. A tiny jar of stained peas stared out at me from the pantry just as Lily stared at me from her highchair, so I filled her sippee cup with some water, grabbed a dish to spoon mashed peas into, and commenced feeding. At the first bite, her eyes fixed on mine, and nearly bored the question “Are you kidding me?” into my mind. Yes, I know she wasn’t a fan of peas, I’m not a fan of peas, as Ill readily and repeatedly admit until my last day, but I had to try again. Besides, it was in the pantry and I don’t think the boyscout canned food drive happens until November. (Do they even take glass jars?) Long story short, after less than ten bites, there was no point in trying to push the peas. She wasn’t going to eat any more peas. She preferred to tug at her ballet slippers (a different story), look out the window, or any variety of other baby activities. So I gamely screwed the lid back on the babyfood and put it in the fridge. Why, I don’t know, it’s not like she’ll be eating the rest of it or anything. I’m really hungry by this point myself. So I grab an orange, peel it, and bring it to the table. This she likes and makes her ‘I want some!’ noise which changes to yummy food noises after I start feeding her chunks of orange. The problem with oranges is, oh where so I start, legion:
they are sticky
and juicy
and I have to peel out these specific non-membrane chunks for her (to prevent a choking hazard)
and finally, there is never enough orange for her. It was gone entirely too soon but we were both good and sticky.
sigh.
Then I broke into to the cheerios. I learned last week to stop giving her a handful of the oat ‘o’s because 98% of them will wind up on the floor. So I made a small pile of the cereal in front of me and placed 1-3 cheerios at a time in front of her. She is still working on her manual dexterity of course, the pincher-grip consisting of thumb and forefinger is a hit or miss action. Often, she’ll scrabble around on the table with all her fingers but I am just pleased as pudding if she can manage to get a cheerio or two in her mouth. Today, she did pretty well, although used one hand to grab the cheerio and the other to guide the hand to her mouth. It was pretty a pretty clever use of tools and I am certain the other primates in our club would have been proud. In any event, I finally decided I couldn’t wait another minute and fixed myself some pasta and it was good, too. With a fine shredding of parmigiano-reggiano on top, I bet even canned ravioli could be served in this country’s 5 star restaurants. After a few mouthfuls, I couldn’t help but notice Lily’s eyes on me and my lunch, so I cut a tiny piece of tortellini off and feed it to her. Well, she just loved it of course and this is what I am realizing. To hell with baby food. My child is ready for the adult stuff.

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09.12.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:21 am by Anne

It is official, Lily is crawling all over the place. I carry her from baby station to baby station, while at home, but there is no more partial supervision on a floor palett. Now, when I place her on the floor in the kitchen, no matter where I put her down, she immediately crawls in the direction of the dog’s waterbowl. She’s nearly made it there a time or two. Interestingly, she also seems to be on the verge of standing. I don’t know how far away walking is, and at this point, I’m not in a big hurry for that one, but she’ll crawl over to me, stiffen her legs, and use her arms to pull herself up. It’s pretty cute.

And I’m happy to say that her HIGHCHAIR is finally almost done. How embarrassing. I brought back my Mother’s beautiful wooden highchair a over a year ago, and Shan just recently finished repairing a few things on it. His Grandfather came over last weekend and the three of us sanded and stained it, and earlier in the week, I helped Shan glaze it. Now all it needs is a few coats of this waterproofing varnish and it’ll be ready for Lily and her mealtime shenanigans. The varnish is kind of neat, I can’t remember the name offhand but it’s the same material that boatmakers put on the outside of seafaring vehicles to protect the wood from water and rot. I’m really looking forward to the highchair and was reminded of that again this morning as I fed Lily tiny pieces of mango and she dropped or slung them about the floor.

Yesterday at a BBQ joint north of here, I became one of those women I used to scorn. There we were, the three of us and a couple of friends, meeting for a very fine lunch of briskit and sausage. Lily was being pretty good; she was enjoying a lemon wedge and I had brought along a small cannister of unsweetened applesauce, a bib, and an empty sippeecup for her lunch biding my time until she was ready to eat. After adding ’sweet n low’ to my iced tea (The only time I willingly consume artificial sweetener), Lily began to get a little loud. I took her from our friend, put on her bib, and started to give her applesauce, but she remained crabby. The waittress was nowhere and no one at the table had ordered water when Shan suggested, “Give her a little taste of your tea.” So I did. And Lily of course loved it. So then I did the deed and poured a little tea into her sippeecup. And Lily was happy. Drinking artificially sweetened and caffeine-filled tea. When the server came back I requested a water but the damage had already been done. Another black mark went down on my permanent maternal record.

She’s kind of entered the ‘I only want my Mom to hold me.’ phase. Kind of. It doesn’t seem to be a constant methodology for her but her face crinkles up and she starts to fuss with new ‘holders’ more often that she used to.

Happy 8th Month Official Birthday Lily girl! Where has all the time gone?

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09.03.03

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Posted in Uncategorized at 2:08 pm by Anne

I spent entirely too much time talking about all the good things going on with the little miss last night and after punching the post and publish button, all was lost. I was so disgusted with blogger that I went to bed. While she takes an afternoon catnap, I’ll sum up.

Over Labor Day weekend, Loveofmylife, started crawling! Each day since then, she crawls a little bit further. Granted, it’s not like the wholly coordinated crawling you see on television but she is definitely on the road to locomotion. When we got home from the lakehouse, Shan and I stayed up late babyproofing the nursery. He screwed bookcases into the wall, I replaced the lowest shelves with stuffed animals and put some of the larger books way up high so she can’t pull them on top of herself. The biggest deal, though, is the floor. Gramma brought over a set of foam letters and numbers that latch together in tongue and groove style and resemble foot-squared tile. We wound up getting two more sets and laying it on top of the cement floor so she can’t bump her noggin as is her wont. The only down side is the colors completely and totally clash with all the lovely pastels of her crib and blankets and rocking chair. The clashing is so intense, I nearly get a headache taking it all in, but of course, I know it is much more worth it to have a safe babyarea than an aesthetically perfect nursery.

The other big news is we think she must be teething. The other night she woke us up at midnight and no amount of nursing walking around or singing made her feel any better. As a last resort we all bundled up in the truck and went for a drive. Finally she conked out but it was 1AM by the time we got back home and the next morning we both dragged arse.

Last night after dinner with the GreatGrandparent’s Shan gave Lily a washcloth with an icecube tied at one end and she just went to town with it.

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