father's day 2010

finally posting this...

overheard in the whitney house: music lesson

last weekend, we were watching this mostly live-action version of the velveteen rabbit with langley, and during one of the cartoon parts, they do this cheesy musical number. LP starts bopping to it, as usual, and then i hear this:

bryan: if you like this, you're gonna love styx.

random photo monday: memorial day grass-eatin' good times

except for the fact that LP ended up with a bloody lip from sucking on this blade of grass for five minutes, this was a fantastic idea.

overheard in the whitney house: near miss

bryan: good thing i lowered her crib four months ago.

me: yeah, we really dodged that bullet.

overheard in the whitney house: baby fight club

bryan's reaction to LP being upset: you're gonna have to suck it up, kid. this is your life, and it's fucking ending one second at a time.

squash fries

i owe LP, family and friends lots of updates, but we've been too busy hemorrhaging money finishing construction on our new office building, so this is just a tidbit.

LP's (and my husband's) new favorite recipe:

butternut squash fries

1/2 butternut squash, peeled and cut into fry shapes

toss in olive oil

place on greased baking sheet

bake in 350 oven until golden brown

LP likes them pretty "smushy," but the adults have been eating them a bit crispier, and they are fantastic.

happiest. kid. ever.

LP has been extremely cooperative during photo sessions lately, laughing and smiling every time the flash goes off, rather than making her old standby crazy eyes. it's a lovely change.

langley at eight months

february 14, 2010

Dear little LP,

You are now officially 8 months old, since we have agreed finally on the new age calculation method of using the 14th of each month to mark a month. You have had quite a few firsts here over the past few weeks. You seem to be stretching out quite a bit, and I recently had to make your excer-saucer a little higher for you. I also had to adjust your crib down a few settings, and while your mom may not think it is necessary, I was not going to risk you escaping in the middle of the night.

You got to take your first plane ride when we went to Colorado for Jo’s wedding and to visit Un-Cle DAAAAAVE. Luckily for us and everyone else on the plane you were very well behaved. We got to board with the first group because of you, and it was everything I hoped it could be. You stood on my lap in the aisle seat and laughed and smiled at everyone as they boarded the plane, and they silently prayed not to have to listen to a screaming baby for the entire flight.

Once we were in CO you were quite the little trouper. You tagged along on our skiing expedition to Winter Park all the way up to 12,000 feet. We camped out in the ski lodge with you and took turns making runs down the mountain. I really wanted to put you in a sled and have you trail along behind me but we decided that was probably a quick way to have you taken away from us. We did get to put you in a little red wagon surrounded by all our ski stuff, which made lugging you and all the stuff much easier. At Winter Park you rode on the gondola, got pulled in a wagon, you rode on trains and buses at the airport and flew back and forth to CO, pretty much hitting every mode of transportation in one trip except boat.

At the hotel you slept in your very own queen size bed which worked out much better than a hotel crib. You also got to go swimming with your mom and dad and you seemed to like it. You did not cry at all, but you also did not laugh or smile. You were very interested in watching the other kids, but overall you handled the entire swimming thing as though it were a very serious and solemn experience. Hopefully, you will enjoy the pool here at the house this summer.

You now have two giant teeth on the bottom, which you constantly use to chew on anything you can get your hands on. You have hit this stage where you love to walk around in your Jeep walker and have us hold your hands so you can stand and walk. Your new extra fun idea is to try to stand on your own, which you are unable to do just yet, so instead it propels you forward with shocking speed, and you have tried to dive off the couch a few times now. And as I write this you have just managed to roll over from your stomach to your back all on your own for the very first time, and we are so proud.

You have been an amazing little addition and have learned so much in 8 months. I will not hold it against you that you constantly say Mama but have yet to utter anything that remotely resembles Dada. You have however constantly been jabbering and yelling Oy Oy Oy, which is very cute. You finally have some hair too, which is good because Daddy was starting to worry you were gonna have my hairstyle for a while longer. Thanks for being a great daughter. I am so proud of all your progress and I love you very much.

Love,

Daddy

overheard in the whitney house: baby therapy

when langley wakes up some mornings, she makes what we call "the most annoying sound in the world." it sounds like a wrong answer buzzer on a game show. keeping that in mind, here's a text message i got from bryan a couple of weeks ago:

i had a dream last night that i was in the waiting room at a therapist's office, and there was this old jewish man yelling the whole time. then i woke up and i realized langley was the old jewish man.

random photo monday: a series of chai-tastic events

langley at six and seven months

january 14, 2010

dear little boognish,

you might have noticed that mama did not do a letter for you at six months. the first reason is, oy, do we ever have far too much going on around here. the second, crazier, reason is that there has been some debate over when your monthly “birthdays” actually are. your daddy and i have been counting up the weeks and, every four weeks, we call that a month. your gran wants us to count the 14th of each month as your birthday because it makes more sense then when you turn one year old. my only concern with choosing any particular method is that i refuse to be one of those people who says their child is 37 months old or 142 weeks old or any of that nonsense. so here’s the deal: we will, from now on, say that you’ve turned another month older on the 14th of each month and call it good.

all that aside, you have had a spectacular couple of months, little lady. you’re becoming a real little person, and it’s absolutely incredible. recently, we got you a walker, and then gran got you one for her house too, and you love scooting around and playing with all the toys. you actually “drive” the jeep walker - hands at 10 and 2 and everything.

you almost never want to lie down anymore, and naps are mostly out of the question unless you’re treefrogging on me or daddy. all you want to do is stand up, which you can now do with very little help from us. you hold onto our hands, but you’re basically balancing and doing everything on your own. you have also started sitting up without our help for really long periods of time without toppling over. it’s amazing how much happier you are with some independence. you’re so stinkin’ proud of yourself, and i love it.

the dogs are all your best buds, and you’re checking them out almost as much as they check you out now. one day a couple of weeks ago, you were at the tail-end of a two-hour fuss that no silly mama face or noise could break you out of, and bronson came over and started nosing around at you and licking your face, and you just busted out laughing. malichai came over to join in, and you were completely cheered up. you love those damn dogs. you’ve been petting them a lot more and grabbing clumps of their fur and pulling their ears, and luckily they’ve been very understanding of these new developments. i think they’re just happy to have another human to pay attention to them since all mama and daddy do is neglect and abuse them, of course.

about a week ago, we took you to phoenix, and you took an awesome nap the whole way down, and then woke up just in time to go completely apeshit in the hotel room. you were a huge fan of all the new sights. you sat for an hour just rubbing your feet on the comforter because you liked the sound it made, and you got all wide-eyed looking out from our 16th floor windows. you went with us to a fancy dinner in a revolving restaurant, and even though everyone around us looked pretty worried that you were going to ruin their lovely evening, you did an amazing job of not fussing...even if it meant constantly being on either my or daddy’s lap, which made trying to cut our steaks really fun. when we got back to our hotel, we stopped at the bar to buy a bottle of wine, which we placed in the cup holder of your stroller, instantly making you a huge hit in the lobby. everybody saw our little alcoholic baby and laughed their asses off. we took off running before somebody called CPS.

you’re eating real foods these days, and mama’s giving the baby food maker a good workout. you’ve tried peas, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, bananas and prunes, and guess what? you’re a foodie. you don’t care what color it is or what it smells like. if it is food, you probably really really really love it. daddy hates to feed you because you’re a giant catastrophe, always putting your fingers in your mouth and flinging food everywhere. i’m not a huge fan of that either, but you look so damn happy the whole time that i forgive you.

in two weeks, we’ll be heading to colorado to see your un-cle daaaaave in boulder and go to my friend jo’s wedding in denver. it will be your first plane ride and your first trip of more than one night, and i’m quite terrified. be nice to mama and daddy, okay? don’t decide that you hate your hotel crib like you did in phoenix, because i am not sleeping with a punching-and-kicking baby for five nights!

love,

mamadog

things i love wednesday: winks

seriously? who taught her this??

random photo monday: overstimulated

random photo monday: christmas is overwhelming

i'm calling this LP's "holy shit, it's christmas" look.

random photo monday: impromptu nap

bryan took this short video when i fell asleep on the couch yesterday. i had no idea the cat had decided to join me.

random photo monday: baby it's cold outside

when the weather turns chilly, aiko refuses to go outdoors and just wraps up in blankets near the fire.

random photo monday: stranglebath

so, bryan took photos of LP getting a bath one day, and they all turned out like this:

why does it have to look like i'm strangling my baby? i swear i'm not! that's just the only way to take care of the spoiled milk neck!

overheard in the whitney house: baby paraphernalia

in the category of "things you never thought you'd hear a man say:"

bryan: ugh, i hate these nipples! it's too hard to tell what kind they are!

for those who are offended

i received this comment on one of my posts a couple of weeks ago, and it took me until today to decide to publish it and then to respond to it.

Gently, because I know you mean absolutely no harm: you may want to reconsider your header, before a parent of a baby with cerebral palsy or another crawling-limiting motor condition sees it.

okay, so i can completely appreciate that someone is looking out for the parents of those with debilitating infirmities, and it makes me strangely proud to see that someone outside my group of immediate family and friends is paying any attention to this little site, but come on!

here's the deal: i live in a house that is under 2000 square feet with four dogs, a kittendogdisaster, a husband and 8000 pieces of technogeek equipment. none of these things are babyproofed, nor do i think they are necessarily capable of being babyproofed, particularly bronson. the last time a child ran through our house, bryan and i looked on in horror as we realized our house was full of fire pokers and sharp corners and quicksand and godknowswhat. these things are what make me terrified of the concept of langley learning to crawl and why i am savoring these days of immobility. because very, very soon i will have to envelop that child in bubble wrap and hope for the best. with any luck, she'll make it through her toddlerhood covered only in dog spit and not scars from cracking her head open on the concrete floors.

i hope this addresses any concerns that i might be trying to poke fun or that i might not be sensitive to the plights of others. sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, folks.

random photo monday: flying baby

coming in for a landing on crazy papadog.