we all split the sheets
It's Judy's first week as a full-time nanny-grandma for Harvey, and she's trying to be extra helpful.
"Do you want me to change the bed sheets?" she asks.
"No, we just changed them yesterday. We actually change the sheets fairly frequently because he pees in them."
"Who?"
"WHO? HARVEY, THAT'S WHO! WHO DO YOU THINK???"
"Well, um, I don't know, I thought maybe the dog..."
"I can assure you: if your son ever had a bed wetting problem, he has completely overcome it by this stage in life."
the twig on the branch and the branch on the tree and the tree in the ground and disaster grew all around
I was walking Rascal in the woods this morning with Harvey in the bjorn carrier. Rascal wrapped his leash around a tree, and I leaned in to unwrap it. As I did this, I thought to myself, maybe there are too many branches around here to be leaning in with the baby's face out... oh well... next time. Then I straightened up to find a tiny twig had fallen on the baby's face... actually, it was in his face.. actually, it was sticking out of his nose. I pulled on the end, and it came out. A whole LOT of stick came out. About two inches. More stick than, ideally, you would like present on the inside of your baby's head.
Holding the snotty stick in my hand, seeing the baby's face contract into a sob, I had one of those moments where all time stands still and I think: is this it? Is this the moment? Where I just broke our entire life? Will I forever look back on this morning as the day I reached into the baby's head and pulled out a chunk of brain?
Well, the good news is there was no brain. Just a snotty snotty stick. Not even any blood. But I still freaked out like my life depended on it. I turned on my heals and high-tailed it home, praying all the way. Oh man, did I pray. I prayed way out of proportion for the not-bloody crisis at hand. I drew down healing from heaven, I commanded angels concerning him, I called on all the spiritual authority I had every heard any Christian call on, and I ordered that shit around like it was my job. Hey God who brings folks back from the dead, it's me Leah: PLEASE FOCUS ALL OF YOUR ATTENTION ON THIS TWIG!
The baby, for his part, was pretty good about the whole thing. He cried for a moment, and then promptly fell asleep, which is a normal reaction to both trauma and being bounced quickly home, but it made me even more freaked out. When I reached home I practically threw the baby into Judy's arms, just as she was pulling up in the car. I called the pediatrician and tried to find an appropriate way to explain how I got a stick two inches up my kids nose without making it sound like they should call DSS. A moment later the nurse came on the line and told me that it was fine... they actually stick swabs up kids noses all the time, and if it hits anything bad then the nose will bleed. No blood? No problem. And by this time, Harvey had looked like he had forgotten the whole incident completely.
That was maybe an hour ago, and I'm still sitting here shaking, so I'm going to go run and try to forget about the feeling where I saw the future flash before my eyes and then disappear. Oh Lord, it's tough to be a mom!
Attachment
Theoretically we one day want Harvey to sleep in his own room, in his crib, like a big boy with parents who aren't walking zombies. But it's just so hard. He needs me for feeding every few hours. And petting his back. And watching him sleep. Which is why if you step foot in the baby room this week, this is what you'll see:
So yeah, mommy may have some issues around boundaries... Another blogger summed it up better in her recent post about how parenting is "totally f***ed"
Nature hard wires you to want them close and worry about them for their whole lives, and then demands that if you're doing it right that they then really boldly walk away into their own destinies and leave you standing there, still feeling like you're totally in charge of whether or not they live or die or get a sandwich.
Read the whole thing here. Her daughter is moving to Australia. Our son is only trying to move across the hall, between the hours of 3 and 7 am.
multi-modal communication
<img src="images/harvey_with_zebra.jpg" alt="a picture" />
If you happen to be on Facebook, and are "friends" with me on that site (N.B. if the first qualifier is true, the second had better be as well, if the third is that you are reading these words), you will have already seen this amusing picture. However, not all the great pictures I take will be posted to the blog here; similarly, they won't all appear on Facebook (though the Facebook exporter for iPhoto makes it awful easy to add photos, right Leah?). No, for the complete range of Harvey pictures—which are certainly what you are mostly looking for—you'll have to look in a number of places. To wit, here, my Facebook page, Leah's Facebook page, and, of course, Harvey's website.
To make this last one a little easier, I've whipped up an RSS feed for his cute little page. Now you can subscribe and make sure you don't miss a single photo, without the bother of refreshing the page every half-hour (sadly, our upload rate is slightly lower than that).
Obsessive Harvey-watchers may also have noticed that we suspended our real-time monitoring, due to it taking about three hours a day to keep up with. Too bad; it was awesome having all that data. Why doesn't Trixie-Tracker sell some sort of implantable chip that will automatically tell us when he's wet, nursing, and asleep or awake (Santa Clause might be able to make use of this last bit of functionality) and automatically update the site?! Until that technological marvel is developed, however, we made the decision that our Harvey time would be better spent playing with him. For now, anyways. And taking pictures, of course!
Harvey's first forays into conversation
The trained ear can distinguish between Harvey's cooings and his mother's imitations. Around second 27 there is a distinct "Ga." Also, the video may make apparent our low property values... we live near an airfield. Enjoy!
chefery
For Labor Day, our farmers market put on a special presentation to draw folks there rather than the beach or cookout: Iron Chef Bedford. Yes, chefs from two local bistros competed to make three courses using ingredients they got from the market, and naturally me and Harvey was there to watch and sleep, respectively. It was a pretty fun time. A few things, however, could have made it even better:
- I could have remembered to bring my camera, so you would have some photographic evidence of the proceedings.
- They could have hewn more closely to the real Iron Chef model and declared a secret ingredient that the chefs had to use, instead of letting them essentially plan their whole menus before even getting to the market.
- They could have thrown away less food.
Especially the last one. Oh how I suffered, sitting behind the prep area watching so much deliciousness go to waste: extra steak, peaches, polenta, whipped cream, the outside of bread cut-outs, packaged shortcake biscuits... I drool just to think of it.
Though it was all for the best, because as hungry as watching the competition made me, I just had to go home and cook something myself. Since it is now getting into apple season, and I was filled with inspiration, I attempted my first ever apple pie. It was reasonably successful, I would say.
Before:
After:
As you can see, we found it to be edible. I will try another one someday.
Git off ma lawn!
What did you do today? Today we bought a house.
As far as home buying experiences go, this was a pretty easy transition. While we've been living in this house for over 4 years now, we've technically been renting it from the actual homeowner, my father. A few months ago he got tired of the fiscal responsibilities of landlordership, and told us to make him an offer. We said, how about some baby kisses? a pie? this pint of sugar snap peas? He said, nice try; get a mortgage.
No, it didn't really go down that way, but the actual financial particulars are pretty uninteresting. Suffice it to say that after several months of chasing down various rare and important documents, we found ourselves in the attorney's office today ready to sign a hundred very formal looking pieces of paper. The attorney had a very dryyyyyyyy sense of humor, which I'm sure has been honed through guiding hundreds of couples through stacks of uninteresting yet life-altering documents. At one point he gestured towards the baby and said,
"It's good to start them early getting acclimated to lawyers."
"Yes," I thought, "Do you have a parole officer in this office as well? We might as well hit em all up while we're here."
Anyway, it seems that we now own our house now, except for a pesky mortgage for the entire sum of it. Hello home sweet home! I am now the boss of you! Where's your self cleaning button?
A love letter by Harvey
Dear Thumb,
My love, my darling. Have I told you today how much I love you? Well I do. I love you, thumb. From the moment I first laid eyes on you, first tasted your sweet goodness, I asked myself, "Thumb, where have you been all my life?" How was it that I lived a whole 10 weeks not knowing you? Had you always been there and yet I never noticed? No matter! Now that you're here, oh object of my affections, you have changed my life. I burn with passion for you, thumb. Is that so wrong? That even when sleeping I dream of you? Dream of getting you back in my mouth? You must be mine! And you are all mine! I will never stop loving you, thumb. I will never stop loving you.
Yours devotedly,
Harvey
Sleepy baby hates to wake up
What I like about this video is the dramatic flailing and clawing at the face. Does that make me a bad mother?
harveypics++
We don't have to wait until he's in college to get photos of Harvey passed out after a hard evening of partying:
construction delays
Today we were out chatting with our neighbor about her new baby and her 18-month-old, and suddenly something came to me, a realization, as swift as a bolt of lightening. My poor neighbor, who I pitied over her schedule c-section and 6-week- convalescence, she is one up on me in one important regard. Can you guess. CAN YOU GUESS?????
As soon as she can walk, she can have sex.
Me? I don't think my big dig is going to be finished in time for Irish twins.
nature, tooth and claw
Harvey took a bottle today. Which is technically a good thing. We've been trying to get him interested over the past several weeks, but his reaction has been barely luke warm. Then this afternoon he woke up from a nap starving, but I was on an important call. So Judy fed him a bottle of pumped milk, and miraculously he drank the whole thing! Then when I got off the phone I nursed him to top it off. And he bit me. Hard.
He also bit me later in the evening when our errand to the bottle store took us several minutes past his feeding time. And it's not like I can explain to him that HEY HARVEY, I'M GOING TO THE BABY CRAP STORE TO SPEND MY HARD EARNED MONEY ON MORE CRAP FOR YOU! SO HOPEFULLY YOU END UP WITH A BOTTLE THAT YOU DISDAIN LESS THAN THE PLAGUE! IT'S NOT LIKE I'M STOPPING AT THE STARBUCKS GETTING MYSELF A LATTE, BECAUSE GOD FORBID WE SHOULD EVER RUN AN ERRAND THAT INCLUDES SOMETHING FOR MOMMY. No, the baby is immune to both sarcasm and capital letters. He only understands "I am hungry" and "There will be biting for this."
If it were up to me we would never have entered this world of pumping and biting and eighty-dollar bottle-store purchases. With the pesky monetary demands of the family stealing so much of my daily attention, Harvey and I have a relationship that's primarily based on nursing. It's symbiotic supply and demand... until we gotta involve other people and farm-level equipment. And even with the modicum of freedom that the bottle provides, I feel like I'm giving up more than I'm gaining. Like Harvey's dependence on mommy. Like the knowledge that when I feel that milk drop down into place, there's a little boy around the corner just waking up from a nice dream of boobies.
All this because some people have the nerve to demand my presence sometimes in some capacity other than mother. If you're not a mother yourself, then you don't get it. You wouldn't get why I'd rather stay home every night of my life than have a nursing relationship with my baby that involves crying and biting.
not a boob, but plays one on TV
As I mentioned in the last post I purchased a new kind of bottle on Thursday, a bottle more properly manufactured to Harvey's specifications.
This bottle looks like a boob.
Rebecca, our midwife extraordinaire, also happens to work at the insanely expensive mommy and baby store, and she recommended this insanely expensive bottle as a remedy for the aforementioned biting. Since this nipple widens out like a real booby does, it may lessen Harvey's inclination to bite down when he gets back to the real thing. That is, if the biting is in fact caused by nipple confusion, and not say by a manipulative baby trying to guilt his momma into giving up social engagements for the next nine months.
Anyway, on Friday my mother gave Harvey this new bottle, and he loved it, just LOVED it! Of course, according to my mother Harvey just LOVES baby yoga, the sound of Grandma's voice, and a perpetual chorus of The Wheels on the Bus. Nevertheless, Harvey WAS so soothed by the booby bottle that he fell asleep before ingesting its contents. Even better, there was no biting Friday evening. So either this is a better nipple system, or Harvey has realized over the past few days that the bottle doesn't signify the end of mommy-direct feedings. Still, the victory is bitter-sweet. I mean, I wanted him to take the bottle, but so easily? What does he need mommy for?
Harvey turns 12 weeks old today. To think I've only been a mom for three months makes me feel better about sucking at it. I'm the kind of mother that I never wanted to be: clingy, anxious, frustrated, frazzled. It's been over a year since I last cut my hair. The highest heals I own are Mary Janes. The mascara lives in the diaper bag so that I can apply in the car on the way to church. If Stacy and Clinton from What Not to Wear came running out from behind a bush, I'd be like "Yup, I'll take that abuse-filled shopping spree. Only you're going to need to let me breast feed on camera."
Jewish grandmothers have a secret gravy recipe that's 50% guilt.
So my mom calls me up this morning:
"I just wanted to thank you for coming over for dinner last night."
"Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having us."
"I know that you didn't really want to be there, so I appreciate you coming."
"Um, what?"
"It was just obvious you didn't want to be at dinner with us, so thank you for coming anyway."
"Mom, I'm just really tired..."
"No, no, you don't have to explain yourself to me. I'm just sorry we're so trying for you to be around."
"Mom, are you mad at me for not being enthusiastic at dinner last night?"
"No, I called to thank you for coming. You made your father very happy. He enjoyed playing with Harvey, even if you didn't enjoy being there. He hardly ever gets to see his grandson."
In her defense, she was born on Long Island, so this is in her genes.
This totally made my day
My awesome cousin Angela sent me a note this morning that she googled "squibix" to see whether it was a word we made up (Answer: yes, Dan made it up.) And she found that someone else, someone we DONT KNOW is reading our blog. And posted about it on her blog. Re-tweeted if you will. But in blog form. uhhhh.... blogrolled? Gosh I'm old.
This made my day, until I realized the mention was from 2006.... oh well, so we can't expect our traffic to skyrocked tomorrow. But then I read the description she posted of our blog, and it made me laugh out loud. Is this how you would describe us?
The Squibix family blog is something I just srumbled upon today. I have not had a chance to delve too deeply into the archives, but I love the opening page. In it the mother describes just how lousy she is at all things encompassing her life. She claims she is a lousy wife, a negligent car owner, a less than stellar manager. These are all things that run through my mind, but reading it about somebody elses takes the pressure off of me and lends just a tid bit of comfort to know other peole struggle with the daily basics.
At least she didn't ask if we needed recycled toilet paper
Yesterday Judy's going out for a walk into town and she says to me, "Do you want anything from the bagel store?"
"Yes," I say, "bring us back a pack of 6 bagels."
"You like the used kind, right?"
"Used! They're not used! They're DAY OLD. Day old bagels are very different than used bagels. Nobody used them for anything!"
Then this morning, Dan says, "Oh, we got bagels! Are they day old?"
"Yes, or as you're mom would have it, 'used'"
"Ha! That's awesome. I'm going to call them used bagels from now on."
"They not used! Nobody used them. That's why they're still there. Hence day old."
"No, I think they're used. They were used for sitting on the shelf for a day. For that day, the bagel store used them."
"I guess you could say they were used as a sales enticement, but they failed in that purpose..."
"See? Used bagels."
"I'm just going to call them cheap bagels."
apples and trees and what not
Some people complain that Harvey's already developing a bad habit of sticking out his tongue. See exhibit A...
and B...
I can't imagine where he gets it from.
No, I've got no clue whatsoever.
Maybe from this guy?
the excitement never stops
We had a fun time at Bible study this evening. Since half the folks didn't show up, we decided it would be mean to continue with our study of the Gospel of John and make them miss the beginning of chapter eight, or wherever we are anyways. Instead, we played Ticket to Ride ("trains", as Leah and I and now everyone we know calls it). Awesome! Then we prayed, because, you know, you have to get some religion in there somewhere.
I was going to post something to this effect on Facebook (more briefly, of course), but Leah pointed out that that wouldn't be really good for my street cred: yeah! We played a board game at Bible study! So I write it here instead; if you're reading this blog, you already know I'm not in any way cool.
'cake mixing
There was no milk in the house this morning, nor was there any bread that would be acceptable for breakfast consumption (pita and sesame rolls do not count). Naturally, then, I thought back to our pioneer ancestors: what would they do in this situation?! I actually have no idea—probably eat some deer steaks or pumpkin or something, who knows what passed for breakfast in those days—but when I was a young lad I visited Plimoth Plantation with my school class, and the most (only) memorable moment of that trip was tasting some sort of flat cakes made with corn meal and sweetened with maple syrup. I have cornmeal and maple syrup!
Unfortunately, the internet was no help in determining how I would go about preparing such a thing. I had some idea that what I wanted to make are known as johnny cakes, but most of the recipes I found called for milk and/or eggs—obviously not useful, and also a-historical according to Wikipedia's description of "dough, made of cornmeal, salt, and water". (I actually didn't think to check the wiki until right now, and I probably should have; then again, until this morning's experiments I don't think I would have noticed the contradictions in that article. But I get ahead of myself!)
The problem with making cakes out of cornmeal, water, and salt is that cornmeal alone isn't super eager to form a batter. It doesn't soak up water like flour, that's for sure. It doesn't, that is, unless the water is heated. First I tried hot (though not boiling) water, in a ratio of two parts water to one part cornmeal, as suggested by the only three-ingredient johnny cake recipe I could locate on the internet. The results didn't look anything like any batter I knew what to do with: far too much water would have been my opinion as an impartial observer. Still, I heated the griddle and tossed on a could spoonfulls, dipping down to get a full spoon of corn meal and letting the water drain off. This produced a reasonable pancake-looking thing, and tasty enough; but the dry cornmeal that lingered in the middle made me think that I was doing something wrong.
Since I knew the way to make corn meal take up water was to heat it, I did just that: dumped my "batter" into a saucepan and put it on the burner. Pretty soon, of course, I had some poorly-made polenta, which I spooned up and dumped on the griddle. These cakes (pictured above) were much more tender than the first batch, but they didn't brown up nearly as well; they also tasted mostly like fried polenta (naturally), which is good enough but which isn't what I was going for. Still and all, it was plenty of breakfast.
Then later I got some milk, so for lunch we had real pancakes. Some of em with chocolate chips, even. Mmm.
(And yes, that is the famous D cup in the first picture.)
a momma moment
So we took a walk this morning, me dan harvey and rascal, with Dan carrying Harvey in the front pack. We were halfway down the street before I took a look at the two boys together, and when I did my heart skipped a beat.
"You're both wearing the hats I made you!"
"Yeah, so?" Dan replied. "It's cold out."
"Oh my boys! My boys are both wearing my hats! I think I'm going to cry..."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"To see you both wearing your knitted hats, and I made you those hats... I'm going to cry.."
"You're CRAZY!"
So maybe I am crazy, but I knitted those hats for my two favorite people in the world, and then they ACTUALLY WORE THEM to keep their heads warm. That people is a momma moment.
first comes love...
Some of our young friends got married this weekend, and we survived the festivities alright. "Survive" might be the best verb to describe such an eventful weekend, a weekend that required me leaving the baby FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. Poor little latch-key infant... he had more face-to-face time with a plastic nipple this weekend than with his momma. Dan gave him a bottle while I was at the wedding rehearsal on Saturday, and Judy served up a whopping 4 bottles while we were at the reception on Sunday. By Monday Harvey was practically done with me. When Judy came in the morning Harvey gave me this look like, "Guess what mom? The fun lady? She serves milk now. Seeeee ya."
I almost didn't make it to the wedding reception due to extreme not-feeling-like-it-ness. I went home after the service to feed the baby and feed and walk the dog, and while I was there I started to fantasize about washing off my makeup and taking the baby up to bed. I mean, the reception was a whole 30 minutes away, and the drinks were 4.50 a pop. And by that point they were already married, so why bother sullying more nursing pads?
But I did end up going, and it was nice despite the cash bar and the engorgement. And Harvey did marvelously well with Grandma. A little too marvelously well, if you ask me. Let's just say I'm not going anywhere for a while.
Dear brand manager for Trader Joe's pita
We recently purchased some pita for our weekly bible study, and I have to admit that I'm a bit confused about your branding conventions. Here's the regular pita bag:
And here's the bag for the wheat pita:
Apocryphal pita. Apocryphal pita? Um, are we sure on what apocryphal means? I'm pretty sure the real definition is something like "of dubious origins" or "doubtful of the original source" or if you're being generous "non-canonical" Is that the take-home message you want associated with your wheat pita?
Dan surmises that there's a pun in there about a-pocket-full, which I admit is rather clever if you happen to be in the 1% of the population who picked up on it. On the other hand, what percent of the population knows what apocryphal means?
Still, there's this old SATs trick where if you don't know the real definition of a word you say to yourself "Is it a good word? or a bad word?" That should at least get you half-way on the multiple choice. Anyway, Apocryphal falls into "bad word" category, I think. Pita? Good word. I have cognitive dissonance.
Sincerely,
Leah, lover of pita
on heart rates and dance and exercise and pie
So, you may not know it from my constant complaining vis a vis my fatness situation, but I used to be an aerobics instructor and dancer and even briefly a cheerleader. So lets just say that I've logged a couple of billion hours of my life in the studio of one gym or another. And here's some thing that really bugs me.
Last night I was at a dance class (Les Mills Body Jam to be exact, offered over at Summit Health and Fitness) and the instructor shoots off a little factoid discovered by the Les Mills crack team of marketers. You see this one time? they brought all these really fit cyclists in to take this dance class, and they measured their heart rates. And wouldn't you know it their heart rates were actually higher in the dance class than they were on the bike! The take away, obviously, is that dancing is better exercise than biking. Now don't you feel better about going to dance class?
Seems plausible but wait a minute...
Assuming the bikers aren't dance experts, they would have to work harder with a new form of movement to get their muscles to move in the right way. This in turn raises their heart rate more than a move they're already efficient at, like biking. Similarly, if you took the dancers and threw them into a spin room, they would have a higher heart rate biking than while dancing because they're muscles are accustomed to dance. (also? they might throw up. Spin is wicked hard.) So basically, you work harder doing something you're not already good at. And when you're good at something you work less hard. That's the basics of exercise.
I get sooooooo pissed at yoga people who I overhear saying "This runner came into my class and he couldn't even stand in a basic warrior pose." Like duh, why should he be able to? Who does that like in the middle of the street? When would that be a useful life skill?
The good news is that the more retarded you look at doing some form of exercise, the harder your heart is working, so good on you if you're going for aerobic fitness. On the other hand, if your goal is to be better at running, then you better run some more. That cross training is only going to help you not go completely insane between runs. And if you want to lose weight, you could talk about exercise until you're blue in the face but you'd better start eating less or nothing will happen.
In that vein, let's return to my original complaint, which is not that gym rats can be annoying but that I'M STILL FAT! There have been some recent milestones on the weightloss path that deserve celebration: over the weekend I squeeeeeeezed into a size 8 dress for the rehearsal dinner, and I also managed to put on my wedding ring for the first time without cutting off the circulation in my finger. I'd congratulate myself a little more, but there's this little matter of still weighing ten pound more than I did before the whole knocking up incident, and ten pounds is sort of a lot if you ask me. It's the difference between fitting into my old jeans and wearing maternity sweatpants every day.
The challenge for me is the whole eating less piece. Or more precisely, less pieces. Of pie. Because let's face it; I work from home where there's APPLE PIE IN THE FRIDGE! And that's some damn good pie. Oy, back to the gym!
only 36 more shopping days until Halloween!
The first Halloween decorations are up in our neighborhood. Even better: the first giant inflatable Halloween decorations. This begins inflatable decoration season, which lasts from now until well past Christmas. At this point, though, I can't recall if there are Thanksgiving inflatables, or if the Halloween ones hang on until the Santas go up. A giant inflatable turkey would be pretty classy out on the lawn, would it not? Ooh, ooh, or how about a blow-up pilgrim?!
The fact that the Halloween stuff is showing up so early points to something that I've thought for some time: that the holiday is replacing Thanksgiving as the United States' main fall festival. See, it's my belief that we humans are programmed to celebrate the turning of the seasons, and regardless of the 'official' justifications for certain holidays they are in actuality observances of seasonal milestones. Christmas and Easter are obvious, but I would also posit that Fourth of July is so exciting because it's not only our nation's birthday, it's also our summer solstice party! Thanksgiving is ostensibly meant as a harvest—read, autumnal equinox—festival, but it's obviously too late in the year to provide any real emotional fulfillment in that role. Halloween has taken over, thus the the constantly increasing stream of decorations in recent years.
Discuss.
hallo-weaned
So this post may push us over the edge, in your mind, from a couple who is cute and quaint and hippy to a couple who has gone off the deep end into certifiably nutzoid un-american cultish madness. But Dan's last post reminded me, and I'm dying to talk about this publicly, so here goes...
We hate Halloween.
What? Forreal? How could anyone hate Halloween?!
Well, there are several good reasons. The bellyaches for one, and then the over-priced plastic costumes, of the enforced sluttyness of most female options (cheerleader or sexy kitten?). But I don't mind that stuff all that much, and I'll defend any teenager's right to express herself in an obscenely short skirt. It's just that, well, we're Christians. And Halloween is a celebration of all things occult. The neighborhood is already starting to fill up with displays of ghosts and skeletons. Then closer to the date we get the devils and the zombies. I mean, I don't want to confuse God about what team I'm on.
Like I said, you can call us nutzoid, and it would be fair. Nobody ever got excommunicated for dressing their baby up like a puppy dog. Certainly not after the pope saw the photo and was all like "awwwwww.... the baby looks like a puppy!"
But I feel like you can't attend a bonfire without burning stuff, and so it feels disingenuous to take part in a collective festival of ghoulies and ghosties. But then all the neighbors are asking us what Harvey is going to "be for Halloween" and I'm just thinking "He's getting baptized the following day... I don't want to fuck it up!"
Which reminds me, mark your calendars for Sunday November 1st. We're gonna throw the hottest baptism brunch you have ever seen. Costume optional.
Bedford Day!
Yesterday was perhaps our most social day EVER. We started off with a walk to the local parade for BEDFORD DAY, a showcase of our town's most popular past times: soccer, girl scouts, 4H, band, and riding on top of very very noisy fire trucks.
Harvey (unlike Rascal) was unfazed by the chaos. He just did what he always does... he ate.
After the parade we rushed home to host a brunch with some family friends, a family who Dan started nannied for when their third was still in diapers (that one's now 13!) Dan cooked up a delicious storm, and the guests were kind enough to bring beer to brunch... our kind of guests!
In the evening we went over the in-laws for a dinner with Dan's aunt and uncle, and then stopped by my parents house on the way home to see my cousins who are also visiting. Phewf! So much fawning was done over the baby that he took today to nap all afternoon. Harvey, it's well deserved!
Dan took some great shots at the parade, and here's my favorite one. Of all the great people we get to see this weekend, my boys are still my favorite.
bitching about stitching
In July I started knitting a onesie for Harvey, out of the pattern book Natural Knits for Kids. I won't include a link, because I wouldn't strongly recommend this book... there were some silly omissions in this pattern that gave me a lot of trouble, and in the end I think that this yarn (made from woven corn husks) is too rough to sit against a baby's skin without an intermediate layer. All in all, not a super successful project... only successful in the fact that I FINALLY GOT IT DONE this week and can now move onto other things in my life.
For weeks I've complained and complained about this onesie; that the summer was leaving us with nary a chance to test it out; that all my 3 month knitting effort was misplaced and should have been diverted to dieting. Today however, after an evening of re-sewing all the buttons, I finally got my chance at a photo shoot.
At was nice to have a real hot day to test drive the scratchy monstrosity. And also, you know, get outside by the water and look all boating. Now it's off to the closet for you, mister!
Yes, I'm talking to you mister corn-husk bum.
summer extension
We went to the beach for Yom Kippur. Non-traditional, I know.
It was delightfully tiring. Too bad we don't have another weekend now to recuperate.
We don't mean everything we say
So we're walking the down the neighborhood street with all the Halloween decorations, and Dan goes to me, "Are we dressing Harvey up for Halloween?"
So I'm all, "What are you talking about? Don't you remember we had this whole conversation? Where you said how you hate Halloween?"
"I don't hate Halloween."
"I wrote about it on the blog! You said how Halloween is a pagan holiday, and you hate how everyone dresses up like branded characters... so much pressure to buy things... blah blah blah... I don't want to celebrate Halloween anymore."
"I said that?"
"Yes! And I said I agreed with you, I don't care for Halloween either. And we decided not to do it."
"We decided that?"
"Yeah, you said you were so happy we were on the same page with this Halloween thing.
"I say a lot of things."
"Oh.... So do you want to dress him up?"
"He would look cute."
And so begins costume crunch 2009. I have some ideas, but we'll see what I'm able to execute in time.
proper appreciation
The last three or four times we've eaten corn, I've made sure to point out to Leah that it might be the last corn of the season. She is becoming less properly reverential with each repetition. The corn is still good, though.