to sleep, perchance to dream

summer has recently replaced the whoozit as the love of her little baby life.

but i'm not so sure this new relationship is any healthier. while the crux of the problem with the whoozit was his lack of attention, her lovey has gone to the reverse extreme and appears to be smothering her.

skagit county tulip festival

the sun has returned to the pacific northwest, so we decided to take mike and janna (and summer, of course) and venture out to receive our yearly quota of vitamin d:

 

 

strawberry fields forever.

poppies. poppies will make you sleepy.

 

Bumbo baby

In general, Emily must wield all her persuasive powers for me to approve a purchase of baby gear. I do not possess the gift of fine discernment that distinguishes the value of the bouncy seat from the papasan swing from the rainforest jumperoo from the tinylove playmat. Nor do I see why it is necessary to own five different baby carriers--though she assures me each one has a separate and distinct purpose (reminiscent of her excuses for having so many pairs of shoes).

Last weekend, we happed upon a rare moment wherein it was I persuading Emily to make an aquisition: the Bumbo chair. As some of you may be aware, I was a bit of a late bloomer as an infant. Though I caught up with my peers by the time I took my first math test, I was quite content not holding up my head until 9 months or walking until 18 (months, that is).

I feel that my life has been rather grand, but as a parent, you always want your children to achieve greater heights. So I have enlisted the help of the Bumbo in ensuring that Summer's sitting abilities far surpass my own.

buttermilk blog

so i went to the grocery store on saturday night. and for anyone who might not be familiar with the last minute weekend scramble to the market, there are some very interesting characters who roam the aisles after 9pm.

i met one such man on this week’s trip. i was minding my own business in the baking aisle, looking for some ice cube trays, when he approached: “ i hate all these *beep* health freaks messing with the *beep* grocery store, so i can’t find the *beep* i need.”

uh, i’m sorry, sir, what are you looking for?

“buttermilk. all they have is *beep* reduced-fat buttermilk. how am i supposed to make buttermilk biscuits with this *beep*? if people only knew what they were eating…i ought to buy my own *beep* cow and keep all the *beep* fat in the milk that i want.”

right you are, sir, communists in the grocery store, reducing all the fat, tragedy, yadda yadda (and then i narrowly escaped).

now, there are a couple of points of concern pertaining to this brief interlude that i would like to share with the masses:

1) the language. do people actually swear that much in conversations with complete strangers? in the grocery store? i mean, obviously, at a metallica concert. but really—in the baking aisle? about buttermilk?

2) the fundamental misunderstanding of buttermilk. buttermilk, a misnomer, does not have butter in it, nor is it even the dairy product close to having the highest percentage of butterfat. its “richness” is not why it goes in biscuits and pancakes (else we would all be having buttermilk ice cream), but rather its acidic properties and sour taste. in fact, most buttermilk nowadays is made conventionally by simply adding acid to regular milk.

so, sir, you are welcome to buy some whole milk and add a bit of lemon juice or cream of tartar and make your own buttermilk that the health food fascists can’t touch (‘twould be easier than purchasing the cow).

but as for me and my house, we take it as it comes.

summer squash

this week, summer was ready to eat more than just rice cereal. unfortunately, our food processor had not yet arrived from amazon, so options were limited, and the only thing i had in my pantry to satiate her growing appetite was squash.

apparently, summer likes squash just about as much as the rest of us do.

 

 

5 days later

As it turns out, I'm married to a master of surprises. Latest case in point? Operation Birthday: 2008.

On Monday night, Emily left me to tend Summer while she went to a visiting teaching appointment. In reality, she stole my badge and infiltrated Microsoft's building 25 with balloons and cake in tow. After winning over the hearts and minds of some of the locals, she placed the ginormous balloon bouquet in my office and hid a birthday cake in the fridge.

The festitivites did not end there, however. Operation Birthday also coincided with an MSNBC SiteDev morale event. Activity of choice? Mariners ball game. Under normal circumstances, a Mariners game in mid-April is a fantastic idea. Unfortunately, 40 degree weather combined with large quantities of rain dampened some of our enthusiasm.

After the game, Summer attended her first birthday party. Apart from the 5 seconds posing for the photo, she spent the time captivated by her latest discovery: fire.

burns brighter

four years ago, on april 10, 2004, bryan and i were married in the salt lake city temple--despite that on the way to the ceremony, my brother assured me that it still wasn't too late to back out.

to commemorate our union, i would like to illustrate, in four carefully chosen scenarios, why i stand by the decision i made that fateful morning more than 35,000 hours ago. in no particular order:

1 - when i was pregnant with summer, i was mad sick for 7 1/2 weeks. during this time, bryan got up every morning at 4:45am and made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and brought me a box of apple juice. while the pbj didn't necessarily help quell the sickness, bryan faithfully rose from bed each dawn to make me a dish he knew i would just...uh...toss...

2 - bryan has an alter ego known only as "the asleep huss." i often hold in depth conversations with him only to discover the next morning that bryan remembers none of it. but luckily, the asleep huss is also very romantic: he is always telling me how much he loves me and how beautiful i am. he frequently asks me what he can do for me and approves fantasy purchases. so even if "the awake huss" and i aren't getting along, i can always count on his sleeping self to be quite adoring.

3 - one day i came home and decided to sell all of our furniture. i spent the morning figuring out how much we had paid for each piece, calculating depreciation over the previous 1-3 years, taking pictures and preparing to post on craigslist. when i told bryan, he calmly allowed me to go about my business knowing that by nightfall, the storm would have passed. and it did; it always does.

4 - after an ill-fated atv trip two years ago, i went through a phase (which i am just beginning to emerge from) where i was deathly afraid to drive on the freeway. unfortunately, at the time, i was taking graduate classes in dc and living in baltimore--which is quite a drive almost entirely on high-speed roads. so bryan leaves his own graduate studies twice a week to drive me an hour to dc, sit for two and a half hours during my class, and then drives me an hour home. who does that?

i realize that by telling these stories, i am making myself look like *somewhat* of a spazz. but that's why bryan is the yin to my yang, the macaroni to my cheese. i haven't quite figured out what he's getting from the relationship...but let's hope whatever it is lasts at least another four years.

first bite

summer has shown so much interest in our eating habits as of late--mimicking chewing, demanding to sit at the table during dinner, and loving to play with empty food containers--that we decided to give her a go at it.

like a fish to water. as anyone can tell just by looking at those cheeks, summer is a born eater.


please note: this photo was carefully posed. we do not actually let summer feed herself or hold long, thin objects perfect for thrusting to the back of her throat. and for that matter, bryan's use of silverware is also very closely monitored.

Sedia gestatoria

Every parent has aspirations that greatly exceed their child's abilities. Due to Summer's superhuman powers, I thought I would be immune to such follies. Alas, I am not.

Summer's growth rate of late has been quite exceptional. According to published infant growth charts, however, she's actually quite normal. The accompanying photo of Summer's new sedan chair (aka "the hiking throne") shows the disconnect between my expectations and reality. Apparently, her chin is supposed to be resting above the chin rest rather than behind it. Looks like forced family fun in the woods is at least a month off.