Something Strange. . .

hi everyone, its me, Jeff.
I had a dream that Ruby was a mechanical duck. She was crying, so I picked her up to comfort her, and suddenly she was a duck. Then I found a little opening in the skin at the back of her little ducky neck. I peeled it open to look inside, and saw lots of gears turning. "Harriet!" I said, "come look at this! Did you know that Ruby is a mechanical duck!?" The fact that she was a duck didn't seem that surprising, but we were shocked that she turned out to be, essentially, a wind-up toy. How did this happen? How did we never notice before? This changes everything -- i mean, do we still raise her to adulthood? Send her to prom? Pay for her college someday? It seems so foolish to continue... yet we've grown to love her so much, how can we stop? Grandma Joan really looks forward to seeing pictures of her on our blog! I don't have the heart to tell her!

and then I woke up very relieved, and picked Ruby up and hugged and kissed her a lot.

Thanks Holly...

for the kick in the pants. Over the past few weeks I've told myself "I need to blog about this," as different stuff has happened. So where to start? I last checked in 3 weeks ago, so Mother's Day seems a good jumping-off point.

Happy Belated M Day to all the lovely moms I know out there. I hope your family showered you with love and appreciation. This year Levi made me a card at preschool with his hand print and a random gorilla sticker on it. It's bittersweet for me that Levi's now old enough to make a M-Day card for me. I mean, I remember making cards for my mom as a kid. That's what you do for old people like your parents. Apparently now it's my turn to be old. Jeff got me a beautiful bouquet of red and white tulips (my favorite flower), took us out to breakfast (coconut-macadamia-banana pancakes!!), and gave me an awesome dual BOB jogging stroller. It's the sixth stroller we've owned since Jeff and I've become parents. Here's a shot of the kids at the end of the BOB's maiden voyage. Clearly, it is one smooooth ride.



Ruby is fully mobile now. She moves around on all fours rather than the flopping army crawl movement I described in a previous post. The only things standing in her way are her lame mom and dad, who repeatedly block her from climbing on the napping dog, pulling plugs out of sockets, putting shoes in her mouth, taking and mouthing the toy Mini Cooper (Levi's prized possession). It's frustrating for everyone. She's also pulling herself up onto anything and everything she can (or cannot) whether it's the side of her crib, the sharp corner of the dinner table, the hinges of any door, Jeff's wobbly guitar stand, Levi's trike. It's all physical development without any capacity for judgement, and she's got the bruises and goose eggs to show for it.

Last week I started working part-time as a pastry assistant at the Flea St. Cafe. The mantra of the owner, Jesse Cool, goes something like: "organic, local, sustainable". The menu is seasonal, which keeps life interesting. One of the things I got to do in my first week was to test a recipe for a goat cheese bavarian (like a mousse). It's not a bad gig. Obviously, the clincher is finding childcare that we trust implicitly and can afford. It hasn't happened yet, so I'm not sure how long my return to the workforce is going to last. But until then, I'm really enjoying it. I'm getting paid to bake, and the brief break from the kids refreshes me and makes me a better mom when I get back home at the end of my shift.

Here she is, so proud of herself for standing up.

Ruby and Hadley getting a closer look at each other. The cousins are only 6 weeks apart.

Levi likes my new Wellies as much as I do. Same goes for Roo, except he wants to eat them. Hence, the guilty dog face.

cold #17

The entire family is recovering from yet another cold compliments of Levi's preschool. Have any of you out there managed to get your toddler to actually blow his/her own nose? If so, kindly pass on your wisdom. Both kids are more or less over it but the snot still lingers.

Jeff and I hired a babysitter on Saturday and took the morning off to go to the Maker Faire. Jeff aptly describes it as Burning Man without the drugs. We saw lots of robots, a laser harp, a life-sized mouse trap, cupcake cars, more robots, you get the idea. The people-watching almost rivaled the inventions themselves. Some of the attendees seemed a little confused that this wasn't in fact the Renaissance Faire, or they just wanted any excuse to dress up as serving wenches.

This weekend I also paid tribute to offal. At the fair, I ordered myself a lamb cheek taco. Then today I managed to get my hands on a bowl of menudo. At its best, offal is really good because the cook knows what to do to compensate for the fact that (s)he's serving up animal parts that otherwise end up in the trash. Not so this weekend. Both dishes were just dull and chewy. Oh well, my quest for tasty tripe continues. I suggested that Jeff make me a "I Heart Offal" t-shirt for Mother's Day.

Ruby's still figuring out how to crawl and her frustration is mounting. Levi continues to embrace his age by getting into all sorts of mischief. We go to Whole Foods now and again not so much for groceries (I'm a cheapo, hence the fascination with offal), but rather for the kid-sized shopping carts. Levi likes to put his Mini Cooper in the cart and give it a ride around the store. I left the store red-faced last time because Levi decided to bite into a block of aged Irish cheddar while I had my back turned looking for feta. By the time I got to him, he had in one hand the block of cheese with a perfect impression of his upper teeth in it and the other hand grasping at the plastic wrap stuck to his teeth. Nice, huh?



The video game sucks in man and boy alike. Note Jeff's wide-eyed gaze and dropped jaw. I call this his "Nintendo face".