01.30.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:36 am by Anne

*new project alert*
My sister in law called this morning to ask if I had considered taking Lily to Gymboree for structured playtime and interation with other parents. I had to tell her it never even occurred to me. She was a pretty big supporter; both her kids were enrolled for about a year and she had met a few women who are still friends of hers. So I looked into it. The art and music classes ring up for $144.00/12 weeks, I think just the gym is less expensive but for the location near us, they hide the price until you are actually enrolling. Sneaky. I am going to go on a fact finding mission to determine whether this is really worth the time and money. In the meantime, I was poking around on Amazon and found some good books. One of them is how to teach your baby to read. More later on that one, I bought a used copy and will probably get it next week. Wouldn’t it be awesome if Lily learned to read earlier than her much older cousins? hahahahaha… I was around 2. Maybe I need to talk to my Mom about that.

The gym had no electricity again today. For the second time this week! Granted, I am suffering from heinous cramping but after yesterday’s fiasco with Lilycrabbing, I really wanted to try again.

sigh. Does midol go bad? I think mine expired a year ago.

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01.29.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:47 am by Anne

It’s become a game, she points and says ‘Darwin’ and I correct her and say the real word. She loves pointing at the microwave and laughs like a hellion, waving and waving to the microwave while grinning rather toothily.

Today we have a slew of errands. To the bank, the property tax office (it’s that time of year again), the gym, the grocery store, the ups office, and lastly to her grandparents. They have moved into an even larger home and are in the tedious process of unpacking, but only partially since they will begin building their new home in the next month or so. It will be nice to have them a few miles closer for awhile.

Baby had a blowout at Old Navy yesterday while I was looking at a Lily coats for next year. While pushing her around in the shopping cart. I kept catching a whiff of salami. To be honest it threw me off the diaper track until I got her to the car. Then it was time for a quick change in my lap at the 7-11. I used up every last diaper wipe in the bag and had to call it good. Lucky are we that the gas stations have so many trash cans and that I was able to rid myself of that biohazard as soon as I had gotten it off her.

Now on with the day.

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01.28.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:46 pm by Anne

“‘My friend said, ‘I’m for the UN and international law, and I think you’ve become a traitor to the left. A neocon!’
I said, ‘I’m for overthrowing tyrants, and since when did overthrowing fascism become treason to the left?’
‘But isn’t George Bush himself a fascist, more or less? I mean-admit it!’
My own eyes widened. ‘You haven’t the foggiest idea what fascism is,’ I said. ‘I always figured that a keen awareness of extreme oppression was the deepest trait of a left-wing heart. Mass graves, three hundred thousand missing Iraqis, a population crushed by thirty-five years of Baathist boots stomping on their faces-that is what fascism means! And you think that a few corrupt insider contracts with Bush’s cronies at Halliburton and a bit of retrograde Bible-thumping and Bush’s ridiculous tax cuts and his bonanzas for the super-rich are indistinguishable from that?-indistinguishable from fascism? From a politics of slaughter? Leftism is supposed to be a reality principle. Leftism is supposed to embody an ability to take in the big picture. The traitor to the left is you, my friend…”

- Paul Berman, fighting for sanity, in Dissent.”

gakked from Andrew Sullivan.com

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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:02 am by Anne

Bathtubs cannot be baby proofed. Even without water. This should be common sense and it probably is for most people but I was still suprised by Lily again last night. We had just cleaned up after a very successful dinner party of tortilla soup, guacamole, bean tamales, and creme caramel; and I was giving Lily a bath in the tub. The bad soaps were out of reach, the toys were within reach, and I even had her faucet protector, this giant yellow rubber ducky, in place. Things were going well for the most part, she was mostly scrubbed clean and was just playing with the various sea creatures when all of a sudden, she slipped forward from the sitting position and smacked her cheek against the bathtub side. You try cleaning soap off a howling and clutching one year old. It wasn’t easy and those tears magnified her already huge eyes to the size of beach balls. By the time a towel was wrapped around her, I was pretty soaked, and a very distinct grayish bruise was forming right on her cheekbone. To make things worse, as I tried to rock her to sleep, because the bruise is on her more ‘dominant’ cheek, everytime she put her little face down on my chest, she’d start wailing all over agin. I even tried changing the direction I was facing in hopes she might lay her head down on the other side but there was no doing. Shan finally walked in, producing the tylenol and he took over until baby went off to sleep.

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01.26.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 11:03 am by Anne

Yes, the cake was to die for, and consisted of three lemony components. The first, a white cake with the shredded zest of a few lemons baked in. I liked the method, the zest was pulverized in a food processor with some of the sugar prior to mixing it into the batter. Second, the lemon curd filling. It’s a heavy lemon custard made only of lemon zest, sugar, and egg yolks cooked over very low heat until thick. Some who have never eaten curd before think it sounds gross but I assure them it is similar to the filling in a lemon meringue pie or the dollop on a lemon danish. Curd. Not a pretty word. Finally, the frosting. Butter, powdered sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, beaten until fluffy and initially spread thinly on the assembled cake, then refrigerated for a half hour, and then re-frosted. The two-part icing of the cake prevents cake crumbs from destroying the pristine lovliness of the finished product. I forgot to mention the one thing I do to all my cakes, which is rarely in the directions; and that is the brushing of simple sugar syrup on the cake layers before spreading the filling. This keeps the cake moist, especially if one slices the layers in half-lengthwise, which I normally do. This time I added a teaspoon of lemon extract to the syrup for some extra oomph. Dee-vine.

After driving all the way to the gym this morning (and finding their power out) Lily tried to fall asleep on the way home. She had been holding a mini-maraca and as she fell asleep, kept partially waking her self back up by rubbing her little eye with the maraca and resting her slumping head on the maraca until finally we got home and I wrestled it from her baby grip. Good baby.

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01.23.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 5:10 pm by Anne

While assembling the ingredients for a triple lemon cake (We are having company this weekend), I left Lily’s favorite area open. The pantry’s lowest shelf is only canned goods and luna bars and since she enjoys making a pile of the bars in the center of the kitchen floor, this gives me a bit of time. So she got busy and I got to pulling out flour and sugar and egg whites, etc. With everything out and ready, I looked over at Lily and saw that her little fists were full brown pellets. sigh. I had forgotten about the dogfood. After prying a kibble from her mouth and emptying each hand, she presented me with another one. From her mouth. Then another one. In all, I pulled out 5 kibbles but am glad to note they are high in omega-3 fatty acids at least.

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01.22.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 1:31 pm by Anne

Dinner at Buca de Beppo

We started with a mixed green salad, piled very high on a medium sized oval platter. It was so high as to be lumbering and difficult to serve without making a large mess, but this was family-style, so no one cared. Each leaf was bathed in a shimmering vinaigrette and sprinkled with gorgonzola crumbles and plenty of crispy prosciutto bits. It was good but would have been even better if the dressing had been less bland. While we goofed around ltrying to decide on an entree the server asked if we’d like some garlic bread with marinara and with nothing better to do, the table acquiesced. By the time it arrived, we had decided on the spaghetti with meatballs (for the kids) and chicken parmesan for everyone else. Shan was in charge if divvying up the garlic bread. It was at least an inch and a half thick, served in a large round aluminum baking tin (resembling a thick pizza) and was covered in melted mozzarella and a horde of thinly slivered garlic. Nice. Lily went hog wild; she is a big bread and cheese fan. Next came the entrees. We had ordered the large spaghetti and meatballs. I don’t know how much pasta there was but I do know the small pasta was 2 pounds of noodles…there was plenty for all and fortunately the marinara was nicely chunky and tangy and slightly sweet. The chicken parmesan was perfect. Unlike a lot of places that serve bricks of chicken coated in entirely too much breadcrumb and slopping with melted cheese, our chicken was thin and just barely breaded and sauteed with a tiny bit of mozzarella melted on top served on a bed of tomato sauce. It was the best part of the meal so far and I think it went over pretty well. With a cubic centimeter of space left for dessert, we decided on the house specialty…chocolate cake slices with layer of chewy caramel ontop, and either vanilla icecream or spumoni on top of that. It was pretty good except I don’t believe they knew what spumoni is. I was expecting pistachio icecream, maybe with some bits of cherry but whatever, it was still tasty despite Shan’s attempts at destroying it as he served everyone.

Sometimes I really think that man needs a healthy slap.

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01.21.04

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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:29 am by Anne

The Little Miss slept a lot yesterday, raising my suspicions of some kind of virus or infection. A few hours after her morning nap, her greatgrandparents came over to watch her for a few hours and she fell asleep on GreatGrandpa’s chest. For an hour and a half! It is becoming increasingly obvious that he is inching Grandpa out of the ‘favorite person’ running.

This morning she seems fine though is taking her morning nap earlier than usual. About an hour ago while I ran the water for a bath, she stood beside the tub, nekkid as a jailbird, and peered at all her toys swirling in the water. You’d think I would learn to keep her diaper on until just before plopping her in the tub. One minute she was standing there just perfectly and the next she was standing there peeing like a little statuary. At least she was near the floor towel.

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