10.23.03

106693970567307056

Posted in Uncategorized at 3:08 pm by Anne

Our visit to Austin was, as usual, a wonderful time. We stayed just outside of town with relatives (so that a crying Lily in the middle of the night wouldn’t be so shocking), got to see an excellent play Dracula with our pal Samwise in the lead (He was incredibly good), ate great bbq, and I got a lot of Cecily-time. On the drive back home we stopped at central Market and bought all manner of victuals for this week. Unfortunately, something I ate Monday night left me miserable and bed/bathroom ridden for all of Tuesday. Shan’s folks saved me by taking care of Lily all day while Shan worked and I tried to purge and recuperate. The only good thing is that it was over in about 24 hours. I guess it’s also good that neither Shan nor Lily came down with it too. Thankfully, I just can’t imagine a baby going through that. Speaking of babynews…

I tried to install the cabinet locks yesterday but was foiled by the cabinets themselves. Apparently they are constructed from ash which is a very hard wood and all I managed to do was strip the tiny screws and make a powder of tiny metal shavings. Oh yeah, I also managed to get really #$@$%ing angry and nearly chunked Shan’s drill out the window. He’s promised to help me put them in today since all Lilliputian wants to do is go through our cabinets and yank things out. Today while I mixed some buttermilk and heavy cream together to make creme fraiche Lily opened a door and when I interrupted her, she arched her back so that picking her up was difficult. I’m used to this routine by now, however, and as I picked her up, she tried something somewhat newer. She opened her mouth as wide as she could and attacked my chin with as much ferocity as a 9 month old can muster. It wasn’t biting, per se, but I could feel her little lower nubblies and it still made me a bit irritated. I realize this is the only way she feels she can communicate with me now, I mean , in addition to screaming and crying, but it still bothers me. What can one do other than say ‘no’ to teach that this behaviour is unacceptable? Is she too young to learn that? I need to consult my baby books I guess.

Permalink Comments

10.16.03

106633814200033684

Posted in Uncategorized at 4:02 pm by Anne

The 9 month check-up today went fine as frog’s hair. The mildly cruddy part was the question : Is your child ever around someone who welds? Since her Dad is a part-time hobby tungsten-inert-gas welder and the doctor wasn’t sure if there was a possibility of lead being released into the air, she decided baby needed to get a blood test. This in addition to the one to check her iron levels. So fun. The doc told us to go to a place called LabCorp for the bloodwork since the pediatrics office didn’t perform lead tests. Whatever. Lily slept a bit as we drove to the LabCorp office. This wound up being a tiny, hole-in-the-wall office in the same building as my pre-pregnancy gynecologist’s office. So we go in and get some blood taken from my poor child’s finger (it appeared to be about two mililiters) with the freaky finger-prick device that elicited a delayed cry reaction from little miss. The crying wasn’t too bad, I think she was more irritated with having to sit still than the actual blood collection. Then she got a colorful Garfield band aid (ala Aussie Lass), was told not to put it in her mouth, and we left. Can you imagine that? Putting a brightly colored object on an infant’s hand and telling him/her not to put it in their mouth? HAH. The bandaid was gone within moments of getting situated in the car and it occurred to me that bandaids themselves are probably exquisite choking hazards. Later, over a lunch of last night’s Cajun inspired chicken and dumplings (She liked the chicken and vegetables more than the dumplings), the lab-lady called back to say she didn’t take enough blood to run a lead test. gahhhh. So we loaded back up and went through the whole thing again a few hours later.

We are going on a trip this weekend to visit our friends in Austin. One is starring in a Dracula musical and the other is having a birthday. The only wrench so far is Lily. She woke up this morning with boogs. Each time she sneezes, which is periodic, again the upper lip is spackled with yellow-ish goopy phlegm. I’ve tried saline and the nose-squeezer a few times, each time she screams and wriggles, and I’m not sure it’s really too effective in the first place but some poeple swear by them. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. In any event, today while we were at tar-jay and I was looking over the baby-safety devices for keeping cabinet doors and drawers safe for bibble-bobbling babies such as my own, she sneezed and the most disgusting load of boogs shot out nearly to her chin. Horrified and ill-prepared as usual, I rushed the cart forward looking for an errant box of kleenex (as if all aisles at target have a ready box of tissues in them) and almost considered buying an article of baby clothing that I could then soil with her phlegm, when I heard the distinct and revolting sound of lip-smacking.

erk. Baby eats her own boogs. I guess there are worse things.

Permalink Comments

10.13.03

106608342753864366

Posted in Uncategorized at 5:17 pm by Anne

Saturday night I went to my first cooking class at Central Market and it was absolutely incredible. The guest chef was Maria Helm Sinsky from Napa Valley. She and her husband own a winery called Robert Sinsky Vinyards. In any event, I went in not planning on buying a cookbook but by the end of the class virtually clambered over the whole class to get at one of the few remaining. Lucky for me I did get one of the last ones and she autographed it. The cookbook had all the recipes she made for the class. Starting with savory cheese puffs and moving to an apple and pear galette, pumpkin tortellini with sage-butter sauce, and pork loin and herbed couscous. It was inspiring to be that close to the actual cooking, and Maria was charming and intelligent and hilarious. Very easy to talk to. Basically I love her. And we got to eat 5 courses! My favorite was the tortellini. Earlier that week I had gotten a new sage plant, called ‘Mediterranean’ and planted it in one of my barrels. It was different from other sages I have grown in the past, with chubbier, larger leaves. Turns out that this Mediterranean sage is *HOT* amongst cooks in the know. She cranked out some homemade semolina pasta and pureed a roasted pumpkin which served as filling for the tortellinis. Then, she took a couple pounds of butter, added a few handfuls of fresh sage leaves and heated the butter until it was frothing. Then she heated it some more until the sage crisped and the butter turned light brown. This was spooned over the cooked tortellini and was incredible. Seriously, it was the BEST thing I have eaten in months. Very rich but very very good. I’m thinking about making it this Thanksgiving. Heresy yes, but well worth it.

Shan got to watch the little miss so I had a really nice night out.

Today after the gym and lunch out with cousin Ashe and Aunt Loupe I got Lily ready for a bath. While she sat on my lap and I fiddled with the faucet, at once I felt something warm running down my leg. No, I hadn’t pee’d my pants but she had. All over me in fact. There was even some pee on the floor. It was really nice.

Permalink Comments

10.09.03

106570050812458408

Posted in Uncategorized at 6:55 am by Anne

Finally, after weeks, nay months, of making do with a disturbed and dysfunctional appliance, my boat finally came in and Shan installed it late last night. He had to convert the electrical supply and run a gas line and at first we were under the impression that we had ordered a dual-fuel range, but happily it turns out that this sweet baby is all gas. Now I can make his birthday coconut cream pie this friday at home! First things, first though. I believe it’s time for some biscuits.

On the little miss front I think I determined why she has been having some troubles sleeping through the night recently. We had gotten a beautiful hanging nightlight for her. It is blue and made of paper and folded in the shape of a 7 pointed star and has a small lighbulb hanging in the middle of it. I’d guess it’s about a foot in diameter, no small piece. The neatest thing about this star are the little star-shaped punchouts that make small star shaped lights shine on the wall. It hung in the far corner of her room and looks just gorgeous when it gets dark and I had been keeping it on all day and all night and the little mis was not sleping well. I suspect it was just too bright in there for her since for the past few days I have been turning it off at bedtime and as a result have been getting a much better sleep. Who knew?

It’s all about experimentation and the scientific method.

Permalink Comments

10.07.03

106555381510099440

Posted in Uncategorized at 2:10 pm by Anne

This is HI-larious even if you don’t know who Strindberg was. I didn’t but learned some after performing a good old google search.

Permalink Comments

10.06.03

106549119386761213

Posted in Uncategorized at 8:46 pm by Anne

A few events of the weekend:
1) homemade pasta noodles
2) Trades Day in Canton

My parents had given me a hand-crank pasta machine for my birthday a few years ago and Saturday I finally got it out and put it to work, employing a simple enough recipe from one of my books. Actaully, I combined a few books again, one straight italian and the other a ‘food and wine’ version, one for the recipe and the other for instructions. The italian book advised doing all of it by hand, the mixing of the dough, the rolling out, the stretching, and even the cutting into strips or sheets or whatever. I opted to get the machine on my side and truth be told it still took a lot of time. I also used my food processor to make the dough. What the hell else do I have one for if not to use it when I can? One surprise was that the italian recipe didn’t call for semolina flour, just good old regullar unbleached all-purpose. After letting the dough sit for a few hours to ‘rest’, I cranked up the machine as it were. With the rollers at the maximum distance from each other, I cranked 1/3 of the dough through. Then folded it into thirds and did it again. This was repeated 8 times…it was kind of tricky, adding enough flour so that the dough wouldn’t stick to itself, feeding great strips of it through the machine, over and over again…after the 8 times on that setting, each feeding went through a tighter space until finally it was thin enough to be fed through the fettucini or spaghetti cranks. I tried both since Shan likes thinner pasta and I like thicker. During this time I had a big pot of marinara merrily bubbling on the stove and Lily was snoozing. After the noodles were done I had to hang them out to dry a bit and rigged a clamp to a cabinet with a wooden spoon jutting out perpendicular to the cabinet, and parallel to the floor. The books mentioned draping the noodles over a colander or a mesh basket but that didn’t work near as well, the noodles wanted to stick when they’re draped over a colander. More flour? perhaps…flour was like the magical ingredient here, dusting the noodles every so often while feeding through the machine kept them from clumping and sticking to the apparatus itself.

And yes, homemade noodles totally kick store bought’s arse. There is just no comparison. Maybe next time I’ll add some fresh herbs to the dough. mmm basil or lemon thyme.

Sunday morning I was invited to drive all the way out to Canton for the first monday of the month’s Trades Day. The history of this expansive and mighty flea market is kinda interesting if you have the inclination. All I know is that it rained all the way there and for about half the time we were walking around. Shan watched Lily at home so I was free to peruse the trinkets and antiques with wild abandon. The funny thing is that although I loved the freedom of not having baby with me, whenever I’d see or hear an infant (which was often, there were tons of people there) I’d feel a pang of missing the little miss. A few things stood out at this market, which stretched over 3 square miles…sprawled would be a better term. One little stand sold homemade salt dough Christmas ornaments and I got one in the shape of a cream colored rocking horse. The plan is to write on it ‘Lily’s First Christmas’ with 2003 on the saddle part. Trust me, it’s cuter than all get out. The other supercool vendor made stained glass baubles. Light and colored glass. Is there anything more beautiful? ( Children do not count here.) Long story short, a fair amount of Christmas shopping was completed. I even wrapped some of the things when I got home to be ahead of the game. yeehaww.

I got home later that night and found Lily happily gabbing around her Dad’s neck. It’s good for them to have time together, without me, I think.

Permalink Comments

10.03.03

106523599398472806

Posted in Uncategorized at 9:53 pm by Anne

Since the appointment with the pediatric dermatologist was this morning and near DFW airport, in order to miss the hellish metroplex rush hour traffic, we opted to stay at a hotel last night. This was preceeded by a seriously good pizza supper with Shan’s sister and kids. It was a bit of an ovekill and the doctor was appalled and said, “Next time get an 11AM appointment and you’ll miss all of that.” A good plan since I got little to no sleep. The room we wound up with was on the 9th floor and had two double beds. Shan called the lobby to see if they had a baby crib or bed (as his sister had suggested they might) and the fellow at the desk assured us that yes they had a baby bed and for a mere 25 dollars we could have it for the night. Instead Shan utilized his ability to take things apart and completely disassembled one of the beds (I didn’t know they even came apart!) and we set Lily up on a mattress surrounded by pillows. Well, that didn’t last long. She was exhausted but tossed and turned and whimpered until we brought her into bed with us, and I tell you what, I got no sleep on that fullsize bed. I remember when Shan and I lived in Austin in what we refer to as ‘the hovel’ we slept more than comfortably in a full size bed. Part of that must have been because we weren’t married, when everything was so terribly romantic, but then, we didn’t sleep in it with a little 9 month old between us either. To make matters worse, the pillows at this hotel were rock-hard. So there I was. Head on a boulder, ass hanging off the edge, and a little miss nestled between us. She woke up every few hours, full knowing the refrigerator was there for her to nurse from with impunity. gahh.
Anyway, the pediatric dermatologist was friendly and funny and after looking at the bump by baby’s eyebrow exclaimed, “I can tell by looking that this is no problem at all, it is not malignant (big sigh), and is in fact pretty common.” He referred to it as a dermatoid cyst aka a dermoid cyst. It will continue to grow as she grows and we’ll probably want a plastic surgeon to excise it in a few years. While I was guesstimating the cost of this procedure on my mental calculator, the doctor said that because there is a possibility the cysts can become infected, our insurance company will cover its removal. So good on that.
Then we drove back home and I took a ton of film to Wolf Camera and was DELIGHTED at the prints. The quality was so much better than Ofoto’s AND I had tried some new black and white c-41 film as per reccommended by Cess. It is incredible. I want to take more and more pictures of the little miss. Lots and lots. Tons. Happy Friday!

Permalink Comments

10.02.03

106510062457933989

Posted in Uncategorized at 8:17 am by Anne

Shan retrofitted my younger sister’s old wooden baby swing over the weekend and the little miss has been having nothing but a good old time in it ever since and let me just say that it is a fry cry, A FAR CRY, from those brightly colored plastic hoohahs by fisher price. I love old things like that for a couple of reasons. The main reason is purely sentimental but the other top reason is the notion of quality workmanship. Like ‘customer service’, QW lately seems to have gone by the wayside as everyone cheapens their product to the point of one-time throw away use. But enough about that.

Baby’s paternal Grandma popped over a few days ago with a fisher-price box under one arm and a great big smile on her face. Grandma’s are good for gift-giving as you know and Shan’s Mom is no exception. I will admit, though, when I read the title Baby’s First Doll, having never been a ‘doll person’ in my life, I wanted throw up. I guess it’s not so bad. She was a heck of a lot more interested in the box the doll came in anyway. Hi-larious!

Meanwhile it is a glorious day in the mid 70’s. The best weather in the world.

Permalink Comments