Valentine's Day 2008

Valentine's Day 2008, originally uploaded by Monkey loves Kitten.

Hope you all had some monkey love of your own!

What's in a name?

I made a new friend a few weeks ago. Her husband is new to Brandon's squadron and they have a daughter four days older than Amelia. Another wife put us in touch and we've had playdates at home as well as the park. Today we ventured downtown (that is hilarious if you've ever been here). We were in a shop where we each made a purchase. I went first. After she paid, the shopkeeper said, "Oh, Rebecca, I forgot to get your signature on the slip." Naturally, I walked back to the counter and looked at the slip. It said "Rebecca FriendsLastName." Quoi? I was perplexed to say the least. You see, my new friend is named Annie. So...

"Oh!" says Annie, " "Rebecca is really my first name. I was gonna tell you."
"Wait. What? How is that not something you would tell me right away? P.S. We have the same name."
"No one ever calls me that."
"Okay, you are definitely weird! And now I don't trust you because all the Rebecca's I know are untrustworthy."

I think I may really like this gal.

Thought

This is the hardest time of the year for me. The weeks between ordering the Girl Scout cookies and their arrival. *sigh*

safety

Bounce Houses is having a "Blowout Sale." That's one of those product categories where a blowout really doesn't sound like a selling point.

Sorry, Crimson & Gold

I was at the grocery store with AC today. We were nearing the end of our trip, looping back from beer to ice cream (we're healthy like that), when an elderly white female riding a Rascal gestured to display.
"I wonder if there's a UCLA shirt under that USC one."
"I think there is. I see blue."
"I went to UCLA, I want to put it in front."
"Let's check."
So we did and there were in fact UCLA tees hidden behind the SC sweatshirts. There were two SC shirts showing. I offered to assist. I moved the SC shirts to one rack so the Bruin shirt was showing. That wasn't enough.
"Cover up the other one, too."
Happy to oblige, ma'am. Happy to oblige.

Words do no justice

Un-cross that one off the list

After a second examination and x-ray, it appears there was no actual break. Merely soft tissue damage. Brandon is glad because he had been grounded after the initial diagnosis and is now cleared to fly. I'm glad, too. I am! Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of the hand. It initially swelled so that his normally veiny and tendony hand was smooth like a baby's bottom. If that baby were particularly hairy. Then there was a bruise in the palm of his hand. Then that bruise migrated to his wrist bone. This was very strange since neither his palm nor wrist hurt. Anyway, he's still in some pain if he uses the hand much or knocks it into something unwittingly. He tried to distract himself from that by stubbing two toes over the weekend. Didn't work, just added to his list of sore parts. Oh well.

Birthday wish

Last Saturday, the 27th:

Me: So, today's your birthday. Big ol' 33. Palindrome. Last one of those for 11 years.
He: *blink*
Me: Anyway, is there anything, ya know, that you want to do today? Anything you've gone your whole life without doing? Any gaping holes of experience? (That sounds dirty.)
He: Hmmm. Poss. Lemme think. Oh yeah! I'm gonna break a bone!
Me: Not exactly the train track of thought I was on...

The bone broken is in his right hand on the outside. The result of a sideways karate chop into the end table leg. Fancy maneuver done while horsing around with the dog. Nicely done, Major!

Pumpkin Patch

Meredith and Amelia went to the pumpkin "patch." I say that because there were a whopping five - count them five! - pumpkins on site. Yee haw.

Stunning examples of parenting

Our neighbors had a party today. It was and 11am to 4pm open house/costume party/birthday celebration deal. They home school so wanted to spread the guests out over the day: home schooling friends earlier and regular schooling friends later. AC and I went over around noon and stayed for two hours. We witnessed the end of pumpkin carving, the entire pinata attack, the costume parade and cupcakes. The mom told me that some kids were there without their parents. She said apparently the kids are at the age where some parents just drop 'em off for the day. She and I agreed that was pretty unbelievable.

Around 2 -- three hours into the party -- a mother who'd slowed at the curb to punt her two boys out at the start came back to retrieve them. As the house mom met her at the door, the pick-up mom actually said, "Wow, it sounds like you're running a daycare!" I caught the house-mom's eye and shook my head. Just another lesson to file away for the future.

Brand new niece

Our nephew, Noah, is a big brother. Welcome to Abigail and congratulations to Kim and Justin!

High Desert Sunrise - view from our backyard

All about the eating

Sure, now the dog is interested in me, originally uploaded by Monkey loves Kitten.

Amelia started eating solid foods a couple months back. We started with runny rice cereal. Mmmm. Makes me hungry just thinking about it. We're trying to give her the best we can so went organic. It was so sweet and pure to feed our sweet and pure baby nothing but the purest. And then there was the recall. I looked all through our baby book but there is no entry for "Baby's First Recall." (In the current climate, I think it would be a useful addition.) So, back to Gerber that went and on to another brand full of additives - only for a bit 'till we could secure another organic brand.

Gerber compensated for the two boxes we sent back with three coupons for free cereal. But they haven't brought their organic line back. And that was kind of the whole point, so... Anyway, from cereal we hopped on over to carrots. We waited for Groms to visit and then did we ever have fun. And by we, I mean Groms and me. AC wasn't exactly on the same page.

Brandon and I spent an evening making baby food with the organic produce I had to drive an hour and a half away to buy. (Yes, the trip was combined with many other errands, thank you for asking.) AC has now had butternut squash, broccoli, red potatoes, pears, apples, apricot, Yukon Gold potatoes, parsnips!, Russet potatoes, avocado, carrots. cauliflower - I think that's it. She's eating lots better than the rest of us, I can tell you that.

With such a big change on the mouth end of the child, there have been some impressive changes on the tail end. Solids in, solids out. Brandon couldn't be happier with that change as he dealt poorly with the first six months of output. When I showed him what we have now and told him to just pop it right into the toilet, he excitedly exclaimed, "Oh yeah! I can totally get behind this!"

Special moments.

Wurds

Brandon and I have always delighted in coming up with fantastic names for children. This was to be phase one of the lifetime of abuse we had planned for the offspring. I think more than one of you breathed a sigh of relief when Amelia was presented.

One of the naming resources we threatened to use was the IKEA catalog. Naturally. Well, Brandon and I were instant messaging the other day and the typos were abundant. I typed "florr" instead of "floor." I then wrote, "Florr, the new product from IKEA." This is Brandon's response:

Try new Florr. In Woud, Kaerpit and the always Swedish Neo-Moderninst Minimalistic Semi-Constructionist, Konkreet.

File that one away under "names for future consideration."

We've got a Creepy Crawler

And she's covered with dog hair.

Eavesdropping

Not really. I was watering in the front yard yesterday when the neighbor kids walked out of their front door to the garage. Apparently their dad was in the garage. I didn't see him but I did hear him yell, "WHO TOOK THIS BIKE DOWN!?!?!" This was followed by some muffled kid speak which was overridden by lost-temper-style screaming from the dad. This guy is unusually quiet from what we've observed so I was pretty startled. I ran away. I then told Brandon about what I'd heard and how it freaked me out. He pointed out that we don't really know what was going on. It could've been a safety issue. For instance maybe touching dad's $3000 bicycle could get you killed.

Hmmm, to think I hadn't thought of it that way. Good thing Brandon's here to help.

HAPPY FOURTH TO YA!

Childrearing versus Housekeeping

Outside our living room is a small patio with a metal covering. The covering's shape is pleated and under each small peak is a space between it and the frame. Birds have taken advantage of these small, sheltered spots to build nests. I figure they are smart to do so because their work is protected from the crazy desert winds we get. Also a possibility is they are lazy because there's no balancing of twigs and other nesting materials to be done. They just have to pad their pads.

We've got a great view of these families from inside the house, getting much closer than we otherwise would. We also peak in with a mirror from time to time to see what's going on. We do this part when the parents are away, of course. One of the original nests has launched a couple batches of fledglings successfully. This nest is simply caked with poop. Poop upon poop, sometimes falling off in chunks. Another nest at the other end of the patio was remarkably clean. We saw birds in and out and had seen eggs within. One day I saw the mother feeding her hatchlings. After she had, she began cleaning her nest and it's surroundings. She was eating the poop. After I threw up a little bit in my mouth (much like a bird), I went about my day. A few days later, Brandon found a dead baby in a corner of the yard often visited by the dogs. He speculated it had fallen from a nest and been transported by a four-legged undertaker. I mentioned I had noted a stink over the last few days so Brandon got the mirror and discovered a dead baby in the clean nest. It looked about the same age as the other.

The only lesson I can draw is a clean house can be detrimental to your child's health and welfare. It would be careless of me to not heed this lesson, don't ya think? Ma Nature always knows best.