title

Last Sunday I joined my cousin in doing the Fat Flush diet-- partly out of solidarity, because she wasn't ennjoying it much and partly because I need to lose this baby weight, and heck, I'm game for a new diet.

It was pretty UN-fun the first few days, but once I got into the swing of it, it's been fine. I actually really like the cran-water regimen, but I put stevia in it to make it taste better. I think it has helped to keep my blood sugar in check. The scale has only changed by a pound and a half, but my clothes tell a different story- I'm down one full pants size after a week. That's refreshing. I'm also really glad I went to the state fair last wekend and PIGGED out on all my favorite fair foods, because now I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

This weekend, the fall colors are really getting turned up. I love this time of year- it is my absolute favorite season in North Carolina. Out my back window there's a riot of orange, red, pink, yellow, purple and green. Flowers could never compete just for the sheer visual real-estate those colorful leaves occupy! The weather is nice and cool, too, which makes me more inclined to play outside with the kids. THis morning, e-baby and I practiced riding her pedal bike She still has a long way to go, but there's a mtivating factor-- if she learns to ride it by Christmas, then she can ask Santa Claus for a pink-and-purple princess pedal-bike. Yes, I know, I am the LAST person you'd figure would have a princess for a kid, but there it is. Evidence of the inevitability of princess-infusion. It's OK, she can be a princess and still win the Nobel in Chemistry someday.

Jambuca really wants to walk, really wants to talk, but hasn't got the hang of either. He will be walking soon, but the talking? He does a lot of rhythmic LALALA! but so far, no hard consonants. He did sign "Milk" a few weeks ago, which was cool. He also recognizes a few other signs but I think he'll probably talk on a more "normal" schedule than his sister did. He can pretty much get whatever he wants by smiling at people. Which is just fine with me. My dad calls him Cheerful Charlie, and he really is just that.

SNG is not faring as well as the rest of us. This terrible cough he has is turning into a bear. He seems to have torn a muscle in his ribcage, making it painful to laugh, cough or sneeze. I am trying to make him go to the doctor, but he isn't having it. If he's not better by Wednesday, he'll go.

And me? I feel fabulous. Just getting over another cold, lost my voice, but HEY! I lost a pants size! Nothing's gonna get me down.

All About Being Three

e-baby is three. She reminds me at every opportunity. She also reminds the checker at the grocery store, my colleagues, our neighbors, the mail carrier...

Being three means being able to DO IT MYSELF, DAMMIT, SO BACK OFF! (OK, those aren't exactly her words, but they're close) But really, she has a point. There are a lot of things that she can do and should be encouraged to do by herself. It's all good.

With three comes pre-school. She has moved up to the Children's House and within a day or 2, I could see changes. It's as if something clicks in a child's mind when they switch environments and bazillions of new connection form. I saw it when she moved into the 1- and 2- year old classes at daycare as well. The first and most dramatic clue I had was her artwork.

Exhibit A: Original e-baby art created maybe a month ago:

Exhibit B: Original e-baby art created after a week at Children's House:

Um- WTF? Wow, kid. You've been holding on me?
I don't suppose you really need those labels I put on the pictures, but I wanted to be sure I remembered which was whom.

So far, three is fun, but then that's no surprise. Every age has been fun. I'm looking forward to this next year.

Angels at the Altar

Today was Baby Wisdom's baptism. I love baptisms. I love the little gowns, I love the Pass-the-Baby-Round-the-Congregation for blessings, but most of all I love the smell of a freshly-baptized baby. Makes me misty, every time. Peace was sweet enough to wipe a little of that anointing oil from Wisdom's head onto a cloth for me to put in my baby keepsake box. Because I was too drunk on baby-high to remember to do it when either of my kids were baptized.

Now, I shouldn't say so aloud, but we haven't been very consistent about taking the kids to church. E-baby pretty much thinks that church is for weddings, funerals and baptisms. Oh, and going to church is a HUGE treat to her. At the beginning of mass today, she caught my sleeve, looked up at me with wide eyes and whispered "Look! There's angels! Mommy, angels up there!" Being a little spook-able, I half-suspected that she was seeing some supernatural vision that only children can see (any of you with babies will KNOW what I mean when I say that it seems like small children see ghosts-- darn imagination makes the hair on your neck stand on end). So I looked at where she was pointing, and saw 2 altar girls, about 10 or 12 years old, flanking the priest. The girls in their robes and sandals made e-baby think she was seeing a heavenly vision.

It was so poignant, a moment of pure belief, from a mind that has no limits on what can be. The super-sentimental in me likes to think that what e-baby saw were, in fact, angels singing for Wisdom on her baptism day. Happy grace-day, Wisdom!!

Recap

In case I've forgotten to mention it, we're getting ready for a trip to Australia in November. Work is sending me to teach for 2 weeks, so I'm bringing the whole family (the 4 of us plus my parents) to Melbourne and Sydney for 3 weeks. We are all very excited. I told e-baby that we would be going to the land of koalas and kangaroos, and she said "Are we going to the zoo?" and I said, "No, it's better than that!" and she said "We're going to AUSTRALIA?!?!?"

And so those of us with passports got visas and we applied for Jambuca's passport right away. I've been fretting ever since about its timely arrival. Thankfully, I just saw that the State department mailed it to me yesterday, so it should be in my hands next week. I will feel better once all of us have all the paperwork in order. Coolest planning thing-- we will have 2-BR apartments with washer/dryer in both cities. That'll make traveling with small children much easier.

Speaking of small children, Jambuca has been crawling all over Raleigh, and showed us 2 new tricks yesterday:
1. FIRST SIGN! He signed Milk to me yesterday. He was kind of signing to me, kind of to himself, but it was definitely a sign associated with milk. He got very upset with me for not making with the milk fast enough, and signed milk at me as he started to cry. I was so proud and excited that I totally interrupted someone else's friendly conversation to tell them how great it's all gonna be, I mean, to say that he had just signed Milk.
2. Peek-a-boo! Hee has taken to playing peek-a-boo with us. He was hiding behind some long curtains at PIC and LeBon's house last night and playing peek-a-boo, and he was doing it again at home today. E-baby used to play peek-a-boo with blankets on her changing table, but for the life of me I can't remember how old she was. I was thinking around 4 months or so, but I have to be remembering that wrong.

E-baby and SNG went to the international festival this evening while I stayed at home to cram a ton of work. One condition of going to Australia is that I have to wrap up 4 BIG deadlines before I can leave. So I will be putting in some overtime between now and mid-November. Ah well, small price to pay.

Oh, and today was basil-harvesting day. This year we planted 6 basil plants that grew to about 4-feet tall, each very full-and-bushy. I made 2 quarts of pesto, and I still have half a grocery bag of picked leaves, plus about 23 more gallons of on-the-stem basil waiting for someone to cart some of it home. If I can get some more pine nuts and parmesan tomorrow, I'll make another quart or 2 of pesto. And, the bushes in the garden are still reasonably large that I might have a full 2nd harvest before the first hard freeze. Good times.

Three of the Best Years Ever

Today is e-baby's THIRD BIRTHDAY!

I love you than you can ever imagine, honeybunch!

I will write an update post later. Right now it's bedtime.

Beatles Rock Band, tomato sorbet, "Rosie" from Caillou, sweet pickles, Miracle Whip, the red-headed spokesmodel for Progressive insurance. There are a lot of things I have talked about NOT liking lately. To balance all that negativity, here are some things I like.

The sound of a good glockenspiel
Hugs from tiny children, pretty much any tiny children
Rain without thunder
Pumpkins
Creamed tuna on toast
The first crisp day of fall
The "oyster" in a chicken
Making crafts with pipe cleaners and pliers
Watching George Hincapie in a bike race

OK, that's enough to bring the tao back into balance for now.

Random e-baby Quotes

Yesterday at work, e-baby called me on the phone from daycare. She talked for about 10 minutes straight, and I had a few chances to say "Oh, wow" and "OK, that's nice" while she rambled on. These one-sided conversations always make me laugh, and I had the presence of mind to transcribe about 30 seconds' worth of it for posterity. I'm blogging it here so I will be able to look back at it someday.

Make sure the rattles are clean enough for Austin to play with to introduce his playful mouth Oh. Oh. And make sure the pecils are opened up so I an finish the paperwork. Mommy, can you make sure the lamp at home is off and DOTi [dog we're dogsitting] is in her bed so no one can take her and give her a treat. Something is not defined in the matrix- the matrix is not defined. The matrix is locked up in our door and ice cream is good to eat...

And now I'm siting in the bathroom while e-baby takes a bath and I'm going to transcribe what I can from the current ramble...

Today, Lucy and Bananas the Gorilla are coming over today. Sally cat is sick today. Hmm. So umm, Huckle has to stay home with Sally Cat. But their mother is coming over today, since she's not sick. She's gonna make dinner for us. She loves broccoli mixed up in drinks. Huh. And when she'll put that on our plates, and we'll eat it AAALL UP with a spoon .Oh! She's at the door! Oh. You can be her, if you like, and I can be Huckle. And umm, uh, and after, then Austin can be Sally Cat, if he'd like. Mom! Mom! Something is not right with Lowly. And I think Sally Cay is asleep and I'm done with my bath.

That was so much fun, I might turn this into a Stuff my Toddler Says blog.

Big, Big, Big, Big World

The past few weeks have been a blur- I can hardly think where to begin to talk about what's been going on. I've got three big things going at work, and they all have deadlines during 4th quarter which also happens to be our busiest time of the year for teaching. This week I'm teaching and preparing materials for a new class, so keeping up with anything else is a challenge. Blogging is kind of last on my priority list now.

To help with the heavy lifting, SNG has been picking up the kids from daycare all week, which lets me stay at work until 6pm. It's surprising how much more work can be done in one hour- particularly if that hour happens to be after everyone else has gone home for the day. You don't realize how much those little interruptions get in the way of productivity until there aren't any interruptions. Maybe working from home wouldn't be so bad ater all...Naaah, I like my coworkers too much.

Tuesday was an exciting evening of doing something completely new and different. For you who don't know her, Peace owns a business teaching ASL to children, parents, caregivers, and health care workers. One of her teachers had an Introduction to Sign Language Workshop scheduled and had to cancel, but Peace and Fuzzy are out of town this week. Peace asked if I'd cover and I said OK, and Tuesday night found myself in front of a class of 15 or 20 parents talking about the benefits of signing with babies, and teaching a few of my favorite sing-and-sign songs. At first some of the parents were shy about singing out loud and signing, but by the 2nd song, the whole room was rocking with a cheerful chorus of Old McDonald! When we did Twinkle Twinkle Traffic Light, you'd have guessed it was a rave. I haven't had that much fun since the old days of teaching arobics. And I didn't have to wear spandex!

That same night PIC, LeBon and c-baby had a slumber party with us. Due to a scheduliong mix-up, the water and electricity at their new house didn't get turned on in time for move in, and so their misery was our company! The girls had a ball, and I always enjoy PIC and LeBon. It was so much fun I'm thinking we should let the girls have sleepovers more often.

And the news that has been eating at my brain non-stop for over a week is the big trip at Thanksgiving. I got an email that our colleagues in Australia needed someone to come teach a class that I teach, and one thing led to another, and now I'm scheduled to teach 4 days in Melbourne Thanksgiving week, and 5 days in Sydney the week after. SNG, the kids, and my parents will come along and we'll make a vacation of it. Now I'm trying to learn all I can about the where we're going. There are some awesome-looking side trips I want to take. Oooooh we're so excited! Not so much looking forward to that 30-hour trip each way, but the 3 weeks in between should be a blast.

We applied for Jambuca's passport last week. He's such a character! He's quite mobile now with his funny inchworm crawl, and you have to lock up anything edible. The other day he ate e-baby's dinner roll, he has taken waffle fries from SNG, and he will stuff his face with corn puffs. He's still as happy as ever, and a little more fun for his sister to play with.

Aaaaand now, without proofreading, I'm hitting Publish. Good night, blogworld.

Three Disconnected Blog Topics

1) One of my favorite things to do on a weekend is to do an inventory of our produce and make something that uses as much of it as possible at the same time. Lately SNG’s been doing green curry vegetables, but this week was my turn to do some cooking. And I’m proud to report this recipe, which consists entirely of stuff from our CSA farm and stuff from my front yard. A recipe for Creole Ratatouille from Richard & Rima Collins’ (now out-of-print but still most excellent) cookbook provided the general inspiration. Like most of my cooking, I pulled a lot of it out of the seat of my pants.

4 T butter (aww, come on, do it)
4 shallots, peeled and sliced
4 small green onions, sliced
3c. fresh small okra, sliced
6 bell peppers, seeded and julienned (I told you, I have to use up this stuff and the farmer’s gone nvts with the peppers)
2 tomatoes, sliced
large bunch of fresh basil, chopped rough
a pinch each of Konriko/Tony’s, salt, and sugar to taste, or several drops of Tabasco

In a big pan, sautee everything in the order shown above, 5 min on shallots/onions, 10 min on okra/peppers, 5 more minutes on everything else, then cover and cook low heat 10 or 15 more minutes. Serve over rice (or couscous, which is all I had in the pantry today).

2) I want to get some opinions about Moon Sand, as compared to Play-Doh , Silly Putty, and good ol’ modeling clay. I like Play-Doh as a toy, but it dries and since I keep it outside in the gazebo, even sealed cans of Play-Doh sometimes die out there in the heat. So I decided to get some Moon Sand and try it out. It claims to never dry out and be easy to clean up. I trust they’re right about it never drying out, but easy clean up? We only used it outside and it was messy by backyard standards. I also got some Silly Putty, and it has some excellent tactile properties but it doesn’t mold and it REALLY doesn’t come out of wool carpet. And it doesn’t pick up newspaper cartoons anymore! WTF?

So if you have/are/play with kids, what do you think? Moon Sand? Play-Doh? Other toys of that kind that I don’t know about? I vaguely recall seeing something that was like tiny foam-looking balls that could be shaped and molded. Anyone familiar with those? What do you like best and why? What do you hate most and why?

3) SNG is a magician. E-baby is transfixed. He can make things disappear. His magical reappearing trick uses the incantation “Hey, look over THERE!!”

My Seven Month Old Piggy

Today is Jambuca's 7-month-day and poor guy's been sick since Wednesday. SNG and e-baby are visiting the grandparents for a couple of days in New Bern so that Jambuca can be quarantined. It gets boring not going anywhere, so we had lunch at Sonic. What a lovely place, where you can eat in your car, be served by a high school kid on skates, eat tater tots, and enjoy some of the finest cool summer weather ever.

He's been doing the cutest little crawl thing the past few days- it's something like an inchworm, where he pulls his knees up to his chest, and then slides his hands out. Then he does a belly flop to recover, and then he pulls his knees up and starts it all over again.

He's also begun to communicate his food preferences. Last night I was feeding him peas and farmer's market blend. A couple of times, after a few spoonfuls of peas, he indicated his preference by leaning toward the jar of farmer's market blend. Maybe you had to be there, but I thought it was cool.

But mostly this week is about trying to make him feel better. He's lost his voice and so when his fever goes up and he cries, it's a whimper. When he coughs, it hurts, and he looks at me with a pathetic "Why does this hurt, mommy?" look on his face. I wish I could take all that misery from him.

Later this month is e-baby's 3rd birthday. We'll have a party, but I'm not sure where yet. She will also be moving to the pre-school around her birthday, and I can't wait to see how she does in the new environment. The preschool classes are mixed 3-5 year lds, and the Montessori philosophy means there are areas of the classroom for each subject, such as math, geography, language, etc. I'll write all about it once she starts, I'm sure.

OK, off to watch TV. With Jambuca sleeping and everyone else out of town, I can watch all kids of junk TV!! Woo!

Suday Morning Cooking Show

Here is an excerpt from e-baby and Jambuca's cooking show this morning. Dress code is pretty casual around here.

Bad Blogger! No Cookie for You!

I haven't been keeping up with blogging well at all lately. That's partly, as I said, because work is insane. It is also because once the kids are in bed, it's just a pain in the tookus to get on the computer and write. There's no way I can write while they're awake. Not while e-baby is in this WHY phase, at least.


So when SNG asked me whether I wanted a netbook for my birthday, my first thought was, "What the heck will I do with a netbook? I never use the other computers we already have." But then I thought about it more. Why don't I use them? Because it's too much trouble to USE THEM. A netbook would be something I could leave on my side of the bed, ready to drop on my lap and start writing at bedtime. It is super lightweight and small, so it wouldn't make me feel trapped under a machine. And it would be mine mine mine, so I could leave some things logged in so I wouldn't have to put in passwords on all my webpages which would reduce a good 40% of the annoyance of using a computer when I'm already kind of tired.

So here I am, typing a blog entry with my new netbook (yes, I know, 2 weeks before my birthday), and it's very nice. The only trouble is that they had to rearrange some keys to make them fit. There's no dedicated End key; you have to Fn-PgDn. And PgDn is not in the right place. The touchpad is a poor design. But I'll get used to it, and maybe I'll start posting regularly again.

What is up with the alphafamily?
E-baby is getting close to her birthday and has been pracicing on her bike a lot. She can balance really well and is nearly ready for a pedal bike-- once she gets tall enough. I want to get her a trailer bike in the meantime, but SNG is nervous about her falling off. He wants to get her a teeeeeny custom painted Madone.

Jambuca continues to be fat and happy. He is doing really well with solids. Maybe too well. He dives into his baby food like a heroin junkie, especially sweet potatoes.

I'm looking at the triathlon series for next year and trying to decide which ones to do. I'm planning on a relay with 2 of my cousins (I got stuck doing the run- dangit!:-) and 2 friends from work are going to train with me for another sprint or two as well. No international distance races this time. Sprint tris are like a fun, intense workout. International tris are downright uncomfortable. I can be uncomfortable at home for free, thanks.

Every year since e-baby was born I've said that I'm going to do triathlon again "next year" and I still haven't done it. Wish me luck in getting my schedule in order to do it this time!

Commute Conversation

e-baby: 'What are these strings on my toy butterfly?'
me: 'Antennas'
e: 'Lantana?'
m: 'No, lantana are flowers. Antennas are on bugs.'
e: 'Butterflies eat the pollen on the lantana'
m: 'That's right'
e: 'What are antennas?'
m: 'They're like fingers for a bug.'
e: 'Like spiders?'
m: 'No, spiders have legs. Bugs have legs and antennas.'
e: 'But I'm talking about spiders.'
m: 'Spiders have 8 legs.'
e: 'Like octopuses!'
m: 'That's right'
e: 'Do octopuses eat spiders?'
m: 'I bet they would if they could'
e: 'Octopuses eating the snake with the spider in his mouth! Would that be a good plan?'
m: 'That would be an excellent plan!'

Never a dull moment.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Half a Year and a Half Bithday Party

Jambuca is 6 months old today. Six months is an important milestone-- he got to have "real" food for the first time (baby rice cereal) and everyone else had some half-birthday cake.

Since I've been so quiet in blogland lately, thanks to an insane amount of stuff going on at work and at home, there's not much record of what he's been doing the past few months. So in honor of the big half-birthday achievement, here are some highlights (nothing here is unusual for a regular 6-month-old baby, but I like to have a record of these things, and the blog is a good way to do that).

Jambuca is a very different kind of baby than his venerable big sister. Both of them are perfect to me, but I am glad that I had her first and him second, because he is one of those babies that fools people into thinking they're baby-whisperers. He's a parent-whisperer. I'm pretty sure he will get away with a lot more than e-baby will.

He's a very jovial fellow and laughs at everything, especially in anticipation of something funny or a tickle. Anticipatory baby laughs are the best. He likes to see himself in the mirror and busts out in belly laughs that seem to say "Damn, looka' me! I'm a HANDSOME little fella! WOO mama, look at me workin' it."

He's interested in toys, where "toys" are anything that can be grabbed and shoved into his mouth. Examples include straws, coffee cups, my hair, e-baby's hair, a nose, a shirt, a washrag, a teddy bear, a carseat strap, the railing of the crib... you get the idea. If he can see it, he'll mouth it. That reminds me-

He's trying so hard to be mobile. He can easily push up onto hands and knees, but for now getting to stuff is mostly a matter of rolling around. He rolls around a lot because while he can sit upright, and he can play with a toy, he cannot, it seems, do both at the same time. He ends up rolling on the floor eventually anyway.

He is also very, very interested in eating. When he got to try cereal for the first time this evening, it rocked his tiny little world. He made some faces that suggested he had NO idea WHAT had just happened or how to take the news, but he kept coming back for more food, so it wasn't all bad.

I've included some pictures of the shin-dig on Flickr here.

And here's a bonus video of e-baby singing to her baby brother and helping him with the candle.