Free Pattern: My Little Guys Hat!
11 years ago
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Yesterday was the longest and weirdest day ever.
The morning started off beautifully with Judah sleeping in until 8:30am (and his mommy, too!) We had a leisurely breakfast and then headed out for our favorite local nursery to plant shop. As soon as I paid for the plants and walked out of the store, Micheal came running to inform that the baby was locked in the car. The car keys had slipped out of his pocket while he was putting Judah in the carseat and our car locks keep scrambling and randomly self-locking at inappropriate times. Thank God, it wasn't a typical blazing hot June day. The weather was very overcast, which means that mere minutes after the baby was locked in (crying, hungry and with poopy pants that I had intended to change when I got to the car), the heavens opened and a flash flood/lightning storm ensued.
The employees at the nursery got very involved in trying to help resolve the situation, with one loaning a hammer and another kind soul fetching an umbrella for me ('cause I'm always so prepared, yo). Micheal & I stood outside the car as diagonal sheets of rain soaked us to the bone, praying we would not be electrocuted. The first locksmith we called said we needed to call 911 since a baby was involved. 911 said the fire department would have to come and they would break the glass. I was not in favor of this idea at all since Judah would be in the path of broken glass. Micheal told the operator to cancel the fire department call and that he would try another locksmith.
The nursery called a locksmith they use (who is free!) but it would be 25 minutes before they would arrive. Those long minutes were terrible, watching my baby boy cry hysterically and attempt to pull his buckles off his seat.
Twenty minutes later, we saw a fire truck come blazing down the road, sirens and all. The call came to them that a baby was abandoned in a locked car. Everybody stood around in the rain assessing the situation when finally the locksmith arrived and saved the day. We rushed home to get our bodies into warm clothes and put tea on to boil.
More fun happenings later in the day were that Judah was playing with a playground ball in the kitchen and suddenly flopped over for no reason and hit his forehead square on the corner of the kitchen island, leaving a vertical bruised welt down the right-of-center of his forehead. Then, later that evening, when Micheal was helping me bring groceries in from the car, we heard a "THUMP!" in the living room and then hysterical cries. We still don't know what happened, but there was no blood, nothing is broken and as Barney was on the TV, he stopped crying a couple minutes later so he could pay attention to Baby Bop.
One hour later, Judah was in the guest bathroom in our living room while we were cooking dinner. I heard him flush the toilet a couple times and Micheal said, "Please go check to make sure he's not flushing any toys." I walked in to find the toilet overflowing and water spilling all over the floor in a gush. Post-plunge, it seems to have been a surplus of toilet paper, but I'm sure there might have been a Lego involved. Who knows.
And, of course, once I had prepared a very healthy stir-fry dinner, he refused to eat one single bite. Asking for peanut butter, we made him a sandwich (protein is protein) where he ate maybe three bites and then used his elbows to mush the remaining sandwich into blobs.
It's days like this that you just want to hermit on your couch under a big blanket and not move for fear the sky will fall on your head.
The morning started off beautifully with Judah sleeping in until 8:30am (and his mommy, too!) We had a leisurely breakfast and then headed out for our favorite local nursery to plant shop. As soon as I paid for the plants and walked out of the store, Micheal came running to inform that the baby was locked in the car. The car keys had slipped out of his pocket while he was putting Judah in the carseat and our car locks keep scrambling and randomly self-locking at inappropriate times. Thank God, it wasn't a typical blazing hot June day. The weather was very overcast, which means that mere minutes after the baby was locked in (crying, hungry and with poopy pants that I had intended to change when I got to the car), the heavens opened and a flash flood/lightning storm ensued.
The employees at the nursery got very involved in trying to help resolve the situation, with one loaning a hammer and another kind soul fetching an umbrella for me ('cause I'm always so prepared, yo). Micheal & I stood outside the car as diagonal sheets of rain soaked us to the bone, praying we would not be electrocuted. The first locksmith we called said we needed to call 911 since a baby was involved. 911 said the fire department would have to come and they would break the glass. I was not in favor of this idea at all since Judah would be in the path of broken glass. Micheal told the operator to cancel the fire department call and that he would try another locksmith.
The nursery called a locksmith they use (who is free!) but it would be 25 minutes before they would arrive. Those long minutes were terrible, watching my baby boy cry hysterically and attempt to pull his buckles off his seat.
Twenty minutes later, we saw a fire truck come blazing down the road, sirens and all. The call came to them that a baby was abandoned in a locked car. Everybody stood around in the rain assessing the situation when finally the locksmith arrived and saved the day. We rushed home to get our bodies into warm clothes and put tea on to boil.
More fun happenings later in the day were that Judah was playing with a playground ball in the kitchen and suddenly flopped over for no reason and hit his forehead square on the corner of the kitchen island, leaving a vertical bruised welt down the right-of-center of his forehead. Then, later that evening, when Micheal was helping me bring groceries in from the car, we heard a "THUMP!" in the living room and then hysterical cries. We still don't know what happened, but there was no blood, nothing is broken and as Barney was on the TV, he stopped crying a couple minutes later so he could pay attention to Baby Bop.
One hour later, Judah was in the guest bathroom in our living room while we were cooking dinner. I heard him flush the toilet a couple times and Micheal said, "Please go check to make sure he's not flushing any toys." I walked in to find the toilet overflowing and water spilling all over the floor in a gush. Post-plunge, it seems to have been a surplus of toilet paper, but I'm sure there might have been a Lego involved. Who knows.
And, of course, once I had prepared a very healthy stir-fry dinner, he refused to eat one single bite. Asking for peanut butter, we made him a sandwich (protein is protein) where he ate maybe three bites and then used his elbows to mush the remaining sandwich into blobs.
It's days like this that you just want to hermit on your couch under a big blanket and not move for fear the sky will fall on your head.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Katie's A Slice of Heaven Risotto with Porcini
I made a divine risotto with porcini mushrooms tonight. Here is my recipe:
1.5 cups boiling water
1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves finely minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 cup risotto
1 teaspoon salt
Chicken stock
1) Place mushrooms in boiling water and set aside for 10 minutes (have munchies on hand as the rich smell of porcini mushrooms will make your taste buds water like crazy)
2) In a skillet, saute onion and garlic in olive oil. Add oregano when onions are slightly brown
3) Strain mushrooms and reserve liquid
4) Add enough chicken stock to reserve liquid to equal 2.5 cups liquid (about 1 cup)
5) Combine all ingredients in stock pot and cook 20 minutes, constantly stirring to allow risotto to soak up broth
I want to point out that this is not really the proper way to cook risotto, and I am lucky that it turned out perfectly al dente and not crunchy. Proper risotto cooking requires adding broth a little at a time, stirring to allow risotto to soak up the liquid before adding more. I am nothing if not impatient and lazy, so I just threw it all in the stock pot and hoped for the best.
I also made garlic pesto chicken and soaked some gigantic cherry tomatoes in balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I served fresh baked pagnotta bread with butter and a bottle of 2003 Canaletto Pinot Grigio (a delicious wine for summer evenings).
Judah is still under the weather...feverish and demanding to see Finding Nemo for the eleven-millionth time. "Nino! I'm Nino!" "Shark!" "Whale!" "Turtle!" "More Nino!" Today was a very TV-intensive day, which I allowed only because it keeps Judah from fanning around and allows him to convalesce peacefully.
I managed to get out around 2pm to go vote in a local election, shop at the bookstore (I got "The Loved One" by Evelyn Waugh...one of my favorite authors and a new summer "beach book" -- Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding) and run by the market to pick up everything for tonight's dinner. I stopped by the liquor store to get rum and made it home 10 minutes before the start of the 131th Kentucky Derby. Judah and I wore hats (his daddy didn't want to participate in my silliness) and I made mojitos after thinking about how much I really hate mint juleps -- I had them at Churchill Downs during Derby Week a few years ago and once you've had about three of them they finally start to taste edible, but I decided that rather than punish myself in the name of tradition, I'd make something Latin and delish. My favorite horse this year, Afleet Alex, placed. There are two more races in the Triple Crown. Go, Alex, Go!
1.5 cups boiling water
1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves finely minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 cup risotto
1 teaspoon salt
Chicken stock
1) Place mushrooms in boiling water and set aside for 10 minutes (have munchies on hand as the rich smell of porcini mushrooms will make your taste buds water like crazy)
2) In a skillet, saute onion and garlic in olive oil. Add oregano when onions are slightly brown
3) Strain mushrooms and reserve liquid
4) Add enough chicken stock to reserve liquid to equal 2.5 cups liquid (about 1 cup)
5) Combine all ingredients in stock pot and cook 20 minutes, constantly stirring to allow risotto to soak up broth
I want to point out that this is not really the proper way to cook risotto, and I am lucky that it turned out perfectly al dente and not crunchy. Proper risotto cooking requires adding broth a little at a time, stirring to allow risotto to soak up the liquid before adding more. I am nothing if not impatient and lazy, so I just threw it all in the stock pot and hoped for the best.
I also made garlic pesto chicken and soaked some gigantic cherry tomatoes in balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I served fresh baked pagnotta bread with butter and a bottle of 2003 Canaletto Pinot Grigio (a delicious wine for summer evenings).
Judah is still under the weather...feverish and demanding to see Finding Nemo for the eleven-millionth time. "Nino! I'm Nino!" "Shark!" "Whale!" "Turtle!" "More Nino!" Today was a very TV-intensive day, which I allowed only because it keeps Judah from fanning around and allows him to convalesce peacefully.
I managed to get out around 2pm to go vote in a local election, shop at the bookstore (I got "The Loved One" by Evelyn Waugh...one of my favorite authors and a new summer "beach book" -- Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding) and run by the market to pick up everything for tonight's dinner. I stopped by the liquor store to get rum and made it home 10 minutes before the start of the 131th Kentucky Derby. Judah and I wore hats (his daddy didn't want to participate in my silliness) and I made mojitos after thinking about how much I really hate mint juleps -- I had them at Churchill Downs during Derby Week a few years ago and once you've had about three of them they finally start to taste edible, but I decided that rather than punish myself in the name of tradition, I'd make something Latin and delish. My favorite horse this year, Afleet Alex, placed. There are two more races in the Triple Crown. Go, Alex, Go!
Friday, May 06, 2005
Judah woke up at 4:30am vomiting all over our bed. It followed a half hour later by more vomiting and then in the morning twice more.
Mother & Child
Mother & Child
Mother's Day is this Sunday. I realized that sitting with your two-year old son folded up in your arms at 5 o'clock in the morning, not minding for one second that he still has a piece of residual barf stuck in his hair, and mainly worried about how scary the experience must have been for him, that this is the stuff of motherhood. No Hallmark card or FTD arrangement could ever replace those precious moments when your child is frightened and your arms are the sole comfort he seeks.
We had a little chat today about vomiting and how it is a natural process that the body has of eliminating the bad things in your tummy. I think he felt better knowing that we didn't mind that he got sick. We told him, "It's OK, honey, these things happen sometimes."
I fed him a lunch of chicken soup with rice (which was easy to get him to try since one of his favorite books is "Chicken Soup with Rice" by Maurice Sendak). He has kept it down so far. He took his nap at 3pm and is still asleep (it's now 7pm.) Yikes...we're in for a long night.
This story - Student Suspended Over Call to Mom in Iraq - made me so damn mad that I wrote a letter of complaint to the principal and assistant principal which in short was a "shame on you". Being the wife of a war veteran, I can vividly remember the long stretches of time between letters and phone calls and how stressful it was wondering how Micheal was doing and if he was even alive. So, here a mother who is deployed to Iraq calls her son during lunch hour and is told to hang up on her. Bollocks!
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
I haven't written down words that Judah has added to his vocabulary in a while. He's talking up a storm! Yesterday, he took his Daddy by the hand and walked him around the classroom telling him the names of his classmates. He also says his Daddy's name, 'Micheal'. Many of the words he previously said are now more correctly pronounced (like milk, turtle and horse).
- Alektra - Alekta
- alligator - ah gee
- Art - Aht
- Bambi
- Bear
- Bee - Bee, Bzzz
- Book
- Bug
- Burrito - Boo-ee-toe
- Butterfly - Buff-lie
- Candy
- Diaper - Dye-puh
- Dragon - Dwagon
- Duck
- Easel
- Elephant - effant
- Elmo
- Feet
- Fish
- Flower - flow uh (and always smells it or "sniffs" if just talking about flowers)
- Frog
- Gnome
- Micheal
- Miles - Mise
- Monkey
- Moona (as in "moon" and "luna")
- Mouse
- Nap Mat
- Nemo - Nino
- Otter
- Pancake
- Pee Pee
- Penguin - Ping in
- People
- Pig - kig oink oink
- Play
- Poo Poo - Poo Poot "I Poo Poot!"
- Potty
- Puppy
- Rabbit
- Shark
- Sherry
- Shirt - Shuht
- Shoes
- Shopping
- Snack
- Socks
- Squirrel
- Story
- Tomato - ah mayto
- Tree
- Truck
- Valerie
Judah just woke up a few minutes ago in his own bed crying for rescue. This is a nightly occurence and means that when I fetch him, he's already standing in his bed with blanket & "crib friend" (various stuffed animal) ready to come to our bed. He isn't adjusting to his daybed at all. We removed the front crib rail (is a convertible 3-in-1) but didn't know that we should discuss it with him for some time prior to actually doing it, so our process may have been too abrupt and traumatic. His daybed has been assembled since around 15 April and he has only slept in it twice for naptime and has made it about 4 hours straight at night. He absolutely refuses to start sleeping there and we have to put him down on a palette on his floor or else start in our bed and move him once he's asleep. Then, we wait for the middle of the night "Mommeeeeeee! Daddeeeeeeee!" followed by hysterical crying.
Further keeping us on our toes, we have tried to give him a bath twice this week. Bathtime has always been his favorite activity, so much so that he stays in there until he's a raisin and would get really upset about having to get out of the tub. Now, he refuses to get in. I gave him a quick & dirty on Sunday night where he just stood there refusing to sit in the water and begging me to pull him out. I chalked it up to a long travel day back from Gran's and that he was just overtired. Then, last night the same thing happened. It was very upsetting for all three of us. When Micheal closed the bathroom door, leaving Judah and me, he ran to the door crying and chanting, "No!" Tears poured down his face. He had played at the park and eaten Pad Thai for dinner, and has developed what might be athlete's foot on his toes (peeling?), so we were determined that he would take a bath.
The entire time, he cried, refused to sit in the water, hugged Micheal (who was kneeling beside the tub) begging, "No, Daddy! No!" and even when I got in the tub with him, he still clung for dear life to his daddy. So, we did another quick & dirty and he was perfectly fine once we got him in bed for storytime.
We consulted the "What to Expect" book and it said that it could be either normal two-year old assertion of independence by rejecting things or that he is associating some sort of scary incident (hit his head in the tub, went under water, etc.) and is afraid of the bath. But, it clearly states that until he is ready for a bath again, we have to go the sponge-bath route or else risk permanently traumatizing him by forcing him into the tub (which we did last night before we read the article, so we suck.) All I know is that before our vacation, he LOVED bathtime, and now it's the complete opposite. Maybe vacation away from him is not a good idea at this age.
This two-year old thing is hard!
So, to add to our week of parenthood quandaries, Judah's toes are peeling. His toes looked a little blistered when we retrieved him on Sunday and we figured it was that he had outgrown his shoes, so we bought him some bigger ones. Now, all ten digits are peeling like mad and he has been very fussy about it saying, "Feet! Boo Boo!" and showing us. I looked it up on the web just now and it is either athlete's foot or "toe box dermatitis", which are both caused by moisture yet one is a fungus and the other an irritation. He was mucking about on the ranch last week and may have been in shoes more frequently than normal (he's pretty much always barefoot at home). He also has an ingrown toenail that looks pretty brutal. So, I guess we're off to the pediatrician again. In the meantime, we covered his feet in Tinactin at bedtime.
Further keeping us on our toes, we have tried to give him a bath twice this week. Bathtime has always been his favorite activity, so much so that he stays in there until he's a raisin and would get really upset about having to get out of the tub. Now, he refuses to get in. I gave him a quick & dirty on Sunday night where he just stood there refusing to sit in the water and begging me to pull him out. I chalked it up to a long travel day back from Gran's and that he was just overtired. Then, last night the same thing happened. It was very upsetting for all three of us. When Micheal closed the bathroom door, leaving Judah and me, he ran to the door crying and chanting, "No!" Tears poured down his face. He had played at the park and eaten Pad Thai for dinner, and has developed what might be athlete's foot on his toes (peeling?), so we were determined that he would take a bath.
The entire time, he cried, refused to sit in the water, hugged Micheal (who was kneeling beside the tub) begging, "No, Daddy! No!" and even when I got in the tub with him, he still clung for dear life to his daddy. So, we did another quick & dirty and he was perfectly fine once we got him in bed for storytime.
We consulted the "What to Expect" book and it said that it could be either normal two-year old assertion of independence by rejecting things or that he is associating some sort of scary incident (hit his head in the tub, went under water, etc.) and is afraid of the bath. But, it clearly states that until he is ready for a bath again, we have to go the sponge-bath route or else risk permanently traumatizing him by forcing him into the tub (which we did last night before we read the article, so we suck.) All I know is that before our vacation, he LOVED bathtime, and now it's the complete opposite. Maybe vacation away from him is not a good idea at this age.
This two-year old thing is hard!
So, to add to our week of parenthood quandaries, Judah's toes are peeling. His toes looked a little blistered when we retrieved him on Sunday and we figured it was that he had outgrown his shoes, so we bought him some bigger ones. Now, all ten digits are peeling like mad and he has been very fussy about it saying, "Feet! Boo Boo!" and showing us. I looked it up on the web just now and it is either athlete's foot or "toe box dermatitis", which are both caused by moisture yet one is a fungus and the other an irritation. He was mucking about on the ranch last week and may have been in shoes more frequently than normal (he's pretty much always barefoot at home). He also has an ingrown toenail that looks pretty brutal. So, I guess we're off to the pediatrician again. In the meantime, we covered his feet in Tinactin at bedtime.
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