Home Grown

Hello, my little pretties.

You four are so cute– the most cheerful shade of Santa-Clause-red.

Thank you for deciding to grow in my container garden. You have been the guests of honor for quite some time now.

I want to eat you all (at the same time, no favorites! okay, you, the tiny one on the upper left. You’re my favorite because you fought so hard to survive), but I can’t decide what you would like more? A bouncy salad leaf lawn chair? Should I upgrade you to Kale leaves? Or perhaps you’d like to take a little vacay south of the border and be wrapped in some yummy beans and cheese in a tortilla blanket?

Any way we go, you are sure to be yummy.

I am not worthy 🙂

 

Love

I hope that someday, when Gregory is grown and moved on from us, I will still remember mornings like today.

How we just laid next to each other, giggling while I tickled and draped his face with a scarf. Over and over again, little giggles of delight as he felt the soft scarf pass over his eyes and nose. The cutest.

How, when I fell asleep beside him in the living room (which was baby-proofed and barricaded!) he got lonely and woke me up by crawling over and giving me big open mouth kisses, all over my face.

How, after I finished singing him nursery rhymes, he sang his own tunes, independently for a solid 10 minutes.

How he called after the dog, “DAAWWWW!! DAAAAWWWW!!!!”

How he sat attentively on my lap while we read books together.

Chores, be damned. This is the kind of morning I love.

Sold!

I knew that we were going to downsize certain things, no matter where we moved. Last night, I spent an hour taking pictures and listing stuff on Craigslist.

Today, we sold our day/trundle bed for $250 in cash.

For any of you who ever stayed the night at our place, say goodbye!

It's last resting place, in G's room

The first place we had the daybed, way back there in the sunroom, in our first Dallas apartment 4 years ago!

First Emmy Nomination of season 8

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything from SYTYCD (So You Think You Can Dance). Even if you don’t normally watch the show, these two routines are worth watching.

And, yes, I’m a week behind. Since I teach piano in the evenings, Jesse and I have been watching the show when it gets to Hulu, a week later.

This first one was incredible. Just incredible. Chills-up-the-spine-good. The girl (Melanie Moore) is, according to Nigel, the best/strongest female dancer they have ever had on the show. That’s high praise!!! He also said that this could be the first “Emmy nomination” routine of the season!

The story: 2 statues come to life after the museum has closed.

This one is also very cool! We got done and Jesse said, “I wanna see that again!”.

The story: 2 demons are unleashed from Pandora’s Box.

Amazing Birth Story

Just read an amazing story of an unassisted birth. While all of her positive descriptions were NOT my experience at all, I really hope it can be for Baby #2 (with the addition of a midwife helping me deliver, never fear!). But I like the idea of having Gregory there, and of having it in a tub, at home.

 

Teether?

I thought this teether book was supposed to be semi-indestructible?

Another one bites the dust...

nahm nahm nahm!

BFFs?

What do you think? Do we have the making of best friends forever? Just a few minutes before I shot this, Claire used Gregory’s FACE to push off from with her hind legs and do a somersault. It startled him, but he giggled immediately after 🙂 I especially like his “peace offering” near the end!

Need for Speed

Look who chased me around the living room this morning!

Also, it’s not even 9am and he’s already had one big “konk” on the head from face planting while trying to walk on his own….

Ouch.

After receiving my white/glass Evenflo bottles in the mail yesterday, I was reminded of why it’s so important to use wide based bottle nipples when trying to successfully breastfeed without immense pain.

WOW-za! Or should I say, OW-za!

Basically, it breaks down like this:

Baby+ Wide Mouth+ Goes AROUND, not ON nipple= Successful, pain free breastfeeding.

It’s like comparing drinking through a straw, an act which just requires you to purse your lips, with drinking from a cup. A short, narrow based nipple encourages the “straw”, while a wide base encourages the baby to open wide. Also, a wide mouth means that the baby actually gets more milk per feeding.

(also, sidenote: slow flow vs. medium flow also matters a ton. G almost stopped breastfeeding altogether at 5 weeks because the bottle we were using only 1-2x/week was a medium flow and he got too frustrated at how slow breastfeeding is when we switched back. oops!)

Safe to say, even after 8 months of breastfeeding, I am replacing the tops of these bottles with wide based ones.

There you are. Way more than you needed or wanted to know!

Muhahaha

The English major in me cackled with glee when I read this article on why the Twilight novels are such trash. Their clever critique of not-so-clever writing has me feeling…giddy.

Satire. It’s like a drug.