Potatoes in the Mist

My baby is now a night owl...after training me to be an early bird. I'm kind of ready to go to bed, but he's wide awake. I think I'll give him some avocado. It is absolutely true what they say about babies preferring household objects to toys. E adores Cheerio boxes and water bottles. My SIL came across a study about this - she says it's because the household object is more of a blank slate, and therefore stimulates the imagination more.

D is reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Outliers to E, with lots of explanation "so it won't go over his head," and E keeps laughing. I'm worried that Facebook is going to overtake Blogger. It's the lazy (wo)man's Blogger. On Facebook, you can toss off witty one-liners instead of writing a fully-baked blog post. It's a low-effort way to keep in touch and keep up with other people's lives. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. When I read Please Excuse My Daughter, I came across the Jewish concept of kinehora. I realized I had been an unwitting adherent of kinehora for years. Basically, people who believe in kinehora won't acknowledge aloud the good things in their lives for fear that they will be taken away. It's very superstitious. And so am I! So I won't enumerate the good things in my life, but I'm grateful for them.

So we went to Philly yesterday with the wee one. He was very tickled by the conductor's announcement on the way back - namely, that we were passing through Trenton. Apparently, Trenton is very funny! He ended up laughing for about half an hour, because I rubbed my head against his tummy. A tween sitting in front of us was making a video of him with her cell phone. Also, a man took a picture of him through the window at a diner, and a woman seated at the counter at the same diner was taking shots of him. It's a little unnerving. I *still* feel a little guilty about E's circumcision, but D's cousin's husband told me a story that put my mind at ease. He said his friend wasn't circumcised, and is too afraid to do it now, but he wishes it had been done when he was a baby. I told him how E has a new habit of grabbing his man parts in the bath and digging his nails in a little. I trim his talons religiously, but his poor man parts still get a bit red. D's cousin...

So I've been feeding E rice cereal (thumbs up) and baby oatmeal (thumbs down, though he's only had it once, so things could change). I like this website a lot, and was surprised to find one of the recipes appealing for adults: Sweet Potato Risotto - You have to try this recipe for the whole family! Easily adaptable to feed the 8 month old + baby, sweet potato risotto is a meal in itself and very very tasty! (8 months) 2 medium sweet potatoes ¼ cup olive oil, divided 4 cups hot vegetable stock , divided ½ cup finely chopped onion 1 tablespoon minced garlic 1½ cups arborio rice (12-ounce package) ¾ cup white wine (white grape juice will suffice) 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary 1½ teaspoons thyme leaves 3 tablespoons butter ...

So I went to Mommy & Me yoga class today and was so glad I did. I resisted the whole concept for a while, because a friend told me about contagious crying. But another friend had a good experience, so I went, and I've been going regularly. One of my pre-existing mommy friends came with me (she has the little boy who is also named E, and looks a bit like E), and I am also becoming friendly with one of the girls in the class. After class, my friend and I went to Cosi where I got a tasty salad with pistachios and grapes in it, and then we headed to Central Park. It's one of my favorite places in the city, but I haven't been there since E was born. We sat and talked near Strawberry Fields, and we were looking at these black, gnarled trees with bright yellow leaves and all these picturesque pathways. It's one of those places where you can't tell you're in the city. It definitely cleared the gunk out of my soul.

Yesterday, water was a very powerful force in our lives. First, someone (not D) spilled it on my open laptop. After the spiller left, my laptop died. It was partly resuscitated this morning. I'm going to have to either get it fixed or get a new one. It would be tacky to ask the spiller to pay for it, and we won't; but a small, resentful part of me does wish the spiller would go through the shlepping and calling and warranty-hunting and general annoyance I'm going to have to undergo to get it fixed. But D doesn't want to tell him it's broken, and that's probably the classy thing to do. It's just annoying. Then our bathtub overflowed. D started to fill the tub while I stripped E down for his bath. We both got distracted, chatting, and suddenly there was an ocean on the (hardwood) hallway floor. We sprang into action with a mop, but it was ineffectual. So we grabbed towels and started sopping up the mess and wringing them out. Then maintenance appeared, unbidde...

Or is it fifth? I saw EH strolling down the avenue where I live, looking very debonair. He has gained maybe 5 pounds, bringing him up from "gaunt" to "thin." He looked good. I do feel like I know him by now. Maybe I should arrange a play date with E and his kids? I heard he just had a new baby... And he lives just a few blocks away (or so I'm told).

Everyone please cross your fingers that E sleeps tonight...last night, our squeaky bathroom door woke him up and it was all downhill from there. I attacked it with WD-40 and hopefully that will do the trick. The hardware store is very masculine. I did feel that I fit in a bit better than usual because I was carrying a large box. (Okay, medium.) It contained a food processor which I will use to puree sweet potatoes, etc. for E when the time comes. Some dude hit on me when I was pushing E in his stroller - a bizarre occurrence. Some women have written in books that men back away from strollers as if they were a disease. That has not been my experience, but this was the first time some guy said in front of the stroller that I was "cute," "looked like the girl in that Woody Allen movie, Take the Money and Run " and asked if I wanted "to go talk somewhere." I'm not sure the Janet Margolin comparison was accurate, but I'll take it. I guess we look alike...

So right now D and I are visiting my fam in MA. There is lots of pretty foliage and we had a good train trip - a whole four-seat section to ourselves. (People tend to pass you by when you have a baby, though he was very well-behaved on the train). He did melt down at home, after the train ride, and worked himself into such a tizzy that he was utterly exhausted, and slept through the night without a "final feeding." Foolish me - didn't bring home my pump. I slept with a bath towel. I had my first drink since June '07 - a strawberry margarita at a restaurant near here. Actually, I just had a few sips. It was D's drink. He was very magnanimous. Fall is usually my favorite season, but it can be depressing too. I guess the leaves falling are a natural metaphor for death. (Sorry, that is incredibly morbid.) We did just receive news that 2 people died - I didn't know either of them, but I know people affected by it. I do think the person calling should've held th...

So D told me how popular Little House on the Prairie (the TV series) is in Finland. They love it. The problem is, because the show ran for so long, it would cost a lot of money for some Finnish review board to watch all the episodes and assign a rating. The total cost would be $27,000. So Universal Pictures didn't pay the board to rate it. As a result, all the DVDs are labeled "Suitable for Adult Viewing Only" and can only be sold with a sticker saying "Banned for Under 18s."

The view from our living room window: Last night was not the best. E is generally sleeping 8 hours a night, but last night he did about 6, and D came to bed much later than me, waking me up, and then snoring a little (though he flipped on his side, which solved the problem). I really would not mind sleeping for, like, a week. Or a day. I got my roots done yesterday (some gray was coming in again) and I have to say, having your hair washed by someone else is deeply relaxing. I nearly drifted off then and there. Though the hair-washing girl seemed to take my decision not to get the "treatment" (post-color application that smells like chemical berries and makes me sneeze, and also costs $25) personally. The hairdresser, by contrast, was sympathetic to the whole allergy issue. Am reading a good book - The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry. The somewhat ominous title just refers to slicing onions.

E's new thing is to grab his big toes: We also voted.

Here is E, enjoying a book by Audre Lourde.

Some tummy time shots: