Lunchtime Observations

• Grilled cheese must be cut in twain to be truly enjoyed. And you must say, "cut in twain" while you're doing it.
• One slice of cheese is good, two slices, much better.
• Turning away for just a moment to make googely faces at baby makes a grilled cheese burn.
  
• A slightly burnt grilled cheese makes a lot of smoke.
• When eating a slightly burnt grilled cheese, burnt side up is best.
• String Cheese must be eaten in strings, somehow it doesn't taste as good in bites.
• Sophie starts crying after approximately three bites of a grilled cheese sandwich.
• I can do two "hard" Sudoku puzzles while eating a grilled cheese sandwich, a handful of chips, a string cheese and one pickle spear.
• I think Sophie might be ready for solid food because she watches me eat like a Jenny Craig customer at a pie eating contest.
• I'm starting to think the cat likes being squirted with the water bottle because he gets up on the table so much.
• Whoever said that one cookie is a serving clearly did not like cookies.
  

Ladies Who Lunch

I had a wonderful lunch with my two sisters-in-law, Jen(left) and Karen(middle), my mother-in-law, Gail aka Mammom (right), and my niece, Tara (Sophie's future idol in the orange stripes), who is on Spring Break from school. It was delish, as well as interesting to spend time with the women who helped shape the person my husband is. They just adore Sophie, so if I didn't already think they were great, that would tip me over the edge.

At the end of the meal, I had to take Sophie to the bathroom to change her diaper. This is challenging even at home where the set-up is ideal, because Sophie will simply not lay still. But in a restaurant bathroom where you're working within the confines of a small stall, things are even more complicated. Luckily, they had one of those changing station things, although the stall it was in was only slightly larger than a regular stall. So when I sat down to do my own thing, Sophie was literally laying across my lap on the fold down table. Pretty weird to be staring into my daughter's eyes about one foot away. I felt like the cats when I walk in on them in the litter box.

I did manage to get us both taken care of, though, and get her dressed and all of her diaper gear back in the bag. However, I waited until coming out of the stall to return the changing pad to the bag. A woman comes out of an adjacent stall and walks up to the sinks as I finish wedging the pad in my bag and "wash " my hands with my antibacterial gel. I do this because washing my hands while holding a baby is darn near impossible. Holding baby requires at least one hand, washing hands requires two. Where do I put the baby? Under my arm like a clutch purse? So I use the antibacterial gel. Truth be told, it probably does a better job of de-germing my hands than the pathetic wash I could accomplish one hand at a time while holding Sophie. Meanwhile, this other woman does a cursory rinse of her hands, I don't even think she used soap.

We wind up walking out at the same time, with me ahead of this woman. I hold the door open for her and instead of grabbing it, she awkwardly hits it with her elbow and then her butt so as not to touch with her hands. Now, I understand the desire to avoid contact with germy public bathroom surfaces, but this woman could only marginally have been considered to wash her hands and she was concerned about touching the door after me? At first I was offended, but I have since come to the conclusion that she was actually doing the rest of us a favor by not touching the door with her disgusting hands.

Speaking of bacteria-laden hands, how 'bout this picture of Sophie with most of her hand in her mouth. That's my girl!

In a Mommy Moment

I had my first truly ditzy mommy moment yesterday. Mondays are generally grocery store day, give or take three days, and so I bundled the child up and off we went. We have four grocery stores within about 2 minutes of our house and I go through phases where one is my favorite and I will go to it all the time. But then something will happen, they stop carrying Campbell's Supper Bakes(gasp!), for instance, and we will break up. Amicably, of course, because I might want to take them back. Safeway is my grocery store du jour.

Sophie had just woken up from a nap when we left, so I knew we had a good solid hour, maybe even two, before the cranks set in. We wandered through all of the aisles, grabbing things we didn't need and generally had a pleasant shopping experience. Sophie looked around, wide-eyed, and gurgled the whole time. When we got to the check-out, I politely let both a man and a woman, who each had only one or two things, go ahead of me. I was feeling terribly magnanimous, sort of like that give it back commercial. You know, where people do something nice and someone sees them do it and they do something nice and so on. I wanted to start that chain.

I finally get to the conveyor belt and laid out all of my food. The checker starts ringing things up and I reach into my purse to grab my wallet so I can scan my Safeway card, but its not there. And that's when I realize that, horror of horrors, I have forgotten my wallet. I stand there sheepishly for a moment, watching him run items across the scanner, and then I check my purse again. Maybe I've overlooked it and it is in there. But, no. Plenty of diapers, but no wallet.

I tell the kid how sorry I am but I've forgotten my wallet and he looks at me like I'm the biggest moron ever. It was obvious even before this that here was a person who was not happy. Whether it was just the job or it extended beyond to a general dissatisfaction with life, I can't say. I ask him if we could just put the stuff to the side and I could run home and come right back. He doesn't say anything, just starts putting everything back in the cart. Despite my urge to tell him where he could stick his bad attitude, I continue to apologize profusely saying I've never done this before, I just switched purses and so on. Another checker/bagger comes by and starts helping us re-load the cart and he tells me that they'll put the cart over to the side for me. He says not to worry, it happens all the time.

The worst part is that I hadn't really dressed up for this outing. I had showered, but had just allowed my hair to air dry, had no make-up on and I don't think my clothes really matched. So I couldn't even be the cute, dumb girl. I seriously contemplated not going back and just moving on to the next grocery store, but my conscience got the better of me and back we went. I wish I could say the kid was nicer the second time around but he wasn't. However, the bagger and the other checker who had witnessed the event were surprised and happy to see me back. I know I'm going to feel goofy the next time I go there, maybe it's time for a switch.

The moral of the story is never forget to wear mascara, because you're going to do stupid things, but its much better to look good and feel stupid than to feel stupid and look bad while you're at it.

G

We had a pretty exciting event this weekend. For the first time, we left Sophie with someone while we left the house! We are doing some tiling in the basement and needed to go to Lowe's to pick up all of the supplies, which not surprisingly, would be much easier without the baby. So, Neil calls up his parents and asks them if they could come over for an hour or two so we could go.

I have this picture in my head of how that call went through on their side. Mammom puts down the phone after telling Neil that they'll be over in an hour and hits the grandparent alarm button. A giant G spotlight immediately shows out onto the clouds and Grandy, working his way through the back nine, recognizes the sign. He finishes the round, let it not be said the man walked away from a golf game unfinished, and then hops in the G-mobile to pick up Mammom. They barrel over here at breakneck speeds, whip into the driveway with flourish and are at the door in exactly an hour.

Sophie was a little fussy when we left, it seemed like she knew that we were leaving her. I had absolute confidence in Grandy and Mammom's ability to take care of her, but that didn't mean that the desire to call about 10 times during that hour at Lowe's went away. Somehow I managed to restrain myself, though. When we got back, she was sitting contentedly on Grandy's lap with one of her teething toys in her mouth.

Here's a picture of the tile so far. Do I rock the hizzy or what? I got it all down and all that's left is to grout it. I'm pretty excited to be done with it. Except that I am so sore. Every. Muscle. In. My. Body. Hurts.

I am dreading doing the grouting because it means more pain.

And yes, that's a cat door leading into the laundry room. I know, ingenious.

If at first...

"I read my horoscope. The first line said, 'Ignore bad advice.' Fine. I stopped reading my horoscope." - Dan Spencer

I made a startling revelation the other day, one that just might change the future of my life as a parent. I think I am probably way behind the curve on this one, but the realization is still pretty liberating. Parenting books are crap.

For nearly six months, as well as most of the previous nine, I have read and reread a half dozen books looking for guidance and inspiration for how to deal with the myriad of unforeseen circumstances that parents encounter. And let's face it, as a new parent, they're ALL unforeseen circumstances. However, they all seem to be so specific, "your child should be sleeping through the night by 6 months, four days and 8 hours" or they're so vague "your child might be sleeping through the night between 5 and 9 months," that they just don't seem to be practically applicable.

I think the best comparison is to newspaper horoscopes. Here's mine for today: "The labor of your hard work will show great rewards this morning. Perhaps you have been working in the garden or you have prepared the house for a reception of some sort--perhaps a birthday party or a celebration. You put a lot of effort and forethought into whatever it is you are doing today. Your personality is magnetic and can be passed very easily to another person today. You will be highly successful in the results that you set out to achieve. Allow your positive energy to work through you now. Emotions today as well as the feelings of those around you, may become very clear. If you are not cleaning up this evening, you will most certainly find yourself relaxing and having fun with friends. Start the evening out with laughter."

Something I've been working on, hmm, I am tiling the basement...my personality is magnetic, gee, it's like they know me...If I'm not cleaning, I'll be relaxing this evening, true, true...start the evening out with laughter, wow, have they read my mind? It's absolute merde.

And so goes the books, I'm sorry Doctors Sears, Spock, Weisbluth, et al. I appreciate the effort you put into creating these magnum opuses (opi?), but I think we'll just figure it out as we go.

This picture was in the slide show from Friday's post, but I am so in love with it that I had to put it in here again.

Summertime, Wherefore Art Thou?

After the whole Verizon experience I needed a little sunshine and puppies, so I had Sophie try on one of her summer outfits, just for fun. I couldn't decide which photo I liked the best and they were awfully darn cute as a show, so here is the whole experience.

RIP

I would like to take a moment to mourn the loss of customer service in America. I just spent the better part of an hour on the phone with various “customer service” agents from Verizon trying to explain the problem we are having with our DSL service. Basically, some sort of static on the line is causing our DSL to frequently disconnect. On two occasions, they directed me to call the same number I had just called to reach the person I was speaking with. What? On one occasion, the woman had me repeat myself because, wait for it, there was static on the line.

After an hour, I was on the verge of tears from frustration and trying not to yell at these poor people whose only sin was to agree to work for Verizon, which might be sin enough, now that I think about it. By this time, however, the baby actually was crying, quite loudly, and I decided it was time to take a break. All of this could be solved if you could just talk to a person without going through a 15 step automated menu and their service departments weren't so fragmented all over the world.

Sorry, there’s no cute baby story here.

I need a Ho Ho.

Booga Booga

Sophie just loves to be vertical these days. Her favorite thing is for one of us to hold her so that she is supporting her weight on her feet and then bounce her up and down. So, thinking this meant she was primed and ready for the exersaucer, I plunked her down in it. The first thing I noticed was that our little miss is a tad petite for the seat, so we had to support her with a small pillow. Doesn't she look cozy? And unfortunately, she's not quite strong enough to really move many of the parts or buttons yet. So, as usual, mommy wound up playing with everything while baby looks at mommy like she is covered in blue fur. She went back and forth from crying to happy squealing, so I can't quite figure out yet if she likes it or not. We'll give it another go in a day or two.

Neil took this video the other day and I can't stop laughing when I watch it. The funniest part is that Neil had no idea he was moving the camera, he just thought he was getting a cute video of Sophie laughing and smiling. Make sure your sound is on.

Poopenstein

Here's Sophie waking up from a nap. We had a little photo shoot since she was looking so cute. I said, "dahhhling, can you give me cautiously happy," and I got the one on the left. And then I said, "now, give me pensive, rrrrrr!" and we got the one on the right.










In the continuing theme of lists, I thought I would compile all of the nicknames we have for Sophie:

1. Sophie Bean (given to her by her pinni and still my favorite)
2. Beaner
3. Soph
4. Sophapotamous
5. Poopasaurus Rex
6. Stinky McStinkerson (can you guess who gave her this one?)
   
7. Poopenstein
   
8. Sweet Potea (developed when I kept accidentally blending sweet pea and sweet potato, now it's a thing)
   
9. Baby Girl (not very original, I know)
10. Beanie Baby
11. Toots (which she does often and loudly)
12. Sophiekins
    

No doubt she'll have some trouble figuring out what her real name is. Poor kid.

I loved some of my friends' idea of taking a picture of their kids in the same spot each month. So here she is at 5 months. See her at four months.
She's getting more okay with the camera these days and I can usually get her to smile for at least a couple of pictures. Can you spot her little teefs?

Next Blog

When I first set this blog up, I noticed the small button at the top of the screen that says "Next Blog." It didn't interest me, really. Frankly, I figured all blogs were like ours, mostly interesting to people who know us. Although I'd like to think that the whole world wants to look at pictures of my beautiful daughter because she's just so darn cute and read my tales of delight or woe about life with her, sadly I don't think that is the case. (This is Sophie's most recently acquired chew toy. She has about 12 now and this is the only one she'll have anything to do with.)

We did start using Google Analytics, which tracks how many hits we get a day and from where. We've had 325 hits from more than 60 people in 15 states. And would you believe someone checked us out from Malaysia! I can safely say that the majority of these are people that I know, however, I am fairly confident I don't know anyone in Hoboken, let alone Malaysia, so there are at least a few non-family members who think we're moderately interesting.

So despite these numbers, which I naively thought were pretty awesome, and my delight with my friends' blogs, I hadn't really put much thought into the blogs of people I didn't know. But after looking at that "Next Blog" button for the better part of a month, I finally pushed it the other day. I can dramatically compare this event to every movie where a person does that first line of cocaine or hit of heroine. I think the Doors "Break on Through To The Other Side" might even have started playing somewhere. That first click did not take me to an interesting blog, nor the second or third. But at some point, I clicked on one from a woman in Wisconsin who spends a great deal of time talking about Jane Austen and knitting, both topics that could be VERY dry, but she makes them interesting and fun (A Good Thing It Is To Be With). And somehow from there I found my way to my first professional "mommy" blog (Baby On Bored). This one done by a woman who has actually written a couple of books and who is splendidly perceptive and funny. I haven't read her books yet, but I plan to. There are LOTS more mommy blogs, way too many for me to detail. Most of which curse a lot and have terribly clever names that make me wish I had come up with something better for mine. (This picture has no relevance whatsoever, I just think its funny. Note the ugly blue carpet, soon to be gone. Yay. And that's an ever-present twistie-tie by his head. He LOVES them.)

From here, a whole world has opened up to me. I now have my Paris blog (Paris Daily Photo), my cooking blog (Smitten Kitchen) and my snarky Hollywood fashion blog (Go Fug Yourself), among others.

I can't believe that I was so completely unaware of this blog world (ahem, blogosphere, I'm getting in on the lingo) and that I might actually find it interesting.

Programming Note: I finally watched High School Confidential, which I DVRed last week. It's set in Overland Park at Northwest High School, which is pretty close to my last KC residence, so it's kind of neat to see recognizable locations. More importantly though, it was a really interesting show. It follows twelve girls through their four years of high school, showing how they changed over the years. Each show is about two girls. It is probably most appealing to girls/women, not surprisingly. If you have the opportunity, give it a watch. It's on Monday nights on WE.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!