Two Zadie bits

Zadie picked up my phone this morning and said "Hi." I asked "Who's on the phone?" "Big Bird," she answered nonchalantly.

Two nights ago, I picked Zadie up and was walking around the house singing to her (Paul Simon's "Loves Me Like a Rock" for interested parties). She snuggled down and said "Mommy sing... Mommy sing... Mommy sing." Most gratifying.

The zoo

We went to the zoo this morning. It was a nice day for it.

We saw the addaxes, the lemurs (ring-tailed and black and white), giraffes, chimpanzees, those monkeys that go "whoop!", the orangutan (who was sitting still with a blanket over his head), some red pandas, koi, emus, zebras, ostriches, flamingos, tropical birds, and then the lions, jaguars, tiger, and anteater, all of which were napping. She also really enjoyed the construction worker display.

Of course, the hit of the day was the dumptruck. She saw it and got so excited, saying "in, in!" I put her in, and she said "Baby drive!" I had to take her out three times so other kids could get a turn.


My favorite part was that we got a Merlino's Freeze. I prefer half orange, half lemon, with the lemon on the bottom.


Ready for the sun.


She saw the water and said "Throw money!"


She also enjoyed the sitting-eating-blueberries portion of our trip.


Watching flamingos.


She wanted so badly to climb on this frog, and when she first went over there, it was almost empty. But then a bunch of big kids descended on it, and she couldn't get on. One big boy, in particular, jumped into Zadie's way just as she was about to get a handhold on about five occasions. Then, on the sixth time, he slid down the frog's nose and nutted himself on the frog's tongue. I shall say no more, lest you think I engaged in schadenfreude.

Here's her take on today. Sorry about the messy room - I cleaned it this afternoon.

Picture bits

My new toy. I figured if I got a smaller amp that could live in the house, I could actually practice once in a while. This was highly recommended as the best small bass amp for practice, and there was one listed on Craigslist as being for sale at a pawnshop not far from here. I picked it up today!


On the way to the doctor. She is really starting to smile for the camera.


This building is in Chicago. It was famously in "Adventures in Babysitting." That tickles me.


This redundancy in the Des Moines airport also made me laugh.


Oddly, one-hundred-ninety-two hicks was what we were surrounded by at most places in Boone.


This is how the baby sleeps.

A few reflections

I've never flown cross-country during daylight hours before, so I was surprised to see just how many farms are circular! Is it for water-saving reasons? It was so interesting to see the farmlands, which I always imaged to look like patchwork squares, polkadotted instead!

People in Chicago are really nice. Like surprisingly so. For example, one day, my mom was lost under Wacker Street (which has two levels) and couldn't figure out how to get back to the hotel. She has an excellent sense of direction, but seriously, the place is balls-out crazy in terms of layout. Anyway, a man didn't just give her directions -- he led her to an elevator, through a parking lot, through a plaza, and directly to the service elevator on the bottom floor of the Sheraton. Another day, two men saw us looking at the El tracks and immediately asked us if we needed help. One then walked us about a block and a half to the visitors' center so we could get directions. When we were on the train, yet another man overheard us discussing where to get off and called CTA for us and handed us the phone. We ended up using his phone twice! And I know it's weird to add this information, but all these people (and those in a few more stories I left out) were African-American. I rarely need help here at home (although I can remember a couple years ago when I got a flat tire and several people stopped to help), so I guess I don't know whether Sacramentans are that helpful, but I really was pleased to find my "people are basically good" theory holding up. Thanks, Chicago.

There were two big issues at BlogHer this year. One was basically marketing/money. It seems like a lot of bloggers seem to think that mommybloggers all rake in the cash and product samples, and the non-mommybloggers want a piece of the action. Here's what I think: If you want to make money, go ahead and be proactive about it. Write companies and offer to review their junk. As a reader, I don't really pay attention to product endorsements, so it doesn't affect me. On the other hand, being jealous and petty is really fucked up of you, and I don't particularly appreciate the implication on the part of non-mommybloggers that mommybloggers write about nothing but diapers (seriously, I TWICE heard a personal blogger say "just because I don't write about diapers...").

Further on that topic, I feel a little icky that so many of the companies represented had us stereotyped -- Ragu, Swiffer, Walmart, All, Bounce -- I mean, am I little more than a clean-bot looking for frugal meal ideas? I know there were some technical companies and a car company there too, but fewer, I expect, than at a non-female-oriented blog conference. Someone else said we should essentially be empowered that they see what a huge market we are and want our money. I guess I just don't see empowerment in the same way. Go to a men's conference to sell Swiffers and maybe I'll change my mind.

The other big brouhaha was over male bloggers, their presence in general, and their choice (two of them, anyway) to wear sexist "joke" shirts around the conference. First of all, I think if male bloggers want to come, they should be welcome. But the sexist shirts were a dick move, and despite the buttloads of female bloggers jumping in to say "but those guys aren't REALLY like that -- they're sweet wonderful marshmallows!", it's still a dick move and they ought to own up to it. Great, wonderful people make mistakes, too, but they usually admit it and apologize. Either that or wear your KKK shirt to the next NAACP meeting and see how fucking funny everybody thinks that is.

So... blogging. I don't know exactly why I blog. It's a combination of a few things, I guess. I've always sorted my feelings out better in writing than I do out loud. I also just like to write, even though I know I'm not a great writer. I'm a serviceable writer. I also like to be able to keep everyone in the loop as to what's going on in my life. I started blogging in about 1998, before there were really blogs. I made a web site to chronicle my concert-going, and I called it "Your Mama's Scene Zine" because I thought of it as an online zine. I quit that after a while because I was teaching and too busy to really go out much. But in 2004 I started a blog here on Blogger when my husband (then my boyfriend) had an active political blog. For five years I've been chronicling my life here, and the archives include trips to New York, the Virgin Islands, and Hawaii, as well as throughout California and Oregon. I got engaged, married, dealt with problems getting pregnant, got pregnant, had a beautiful baby in a difficult birth, lost people I loved, bought a new house, lost weight, gained weight, and did lots and lots of mundane things in between. Now I mostly write about my beautiful daughter, which makes me a mommy blogger, but I still think of myself as a life- or personal- blogger, mainly because this is still my life. It's just changed. I hope you enjoy reading about it -- even the mundane stuff. I'll keep writing it because I do like to write. I can't think of a better reason.

And finally, we went to the doctor today. Zadie is above average in height and weight. At 18 months, they are expected to know between 7 and 10 words, and Zadie probably knows hundreds now. She told the doctor we'd been in Chicago, and said money, broccoli, Hi doctor, Boone, Iowa, shoe, and many other words. The doctor told me it was obvious we had been working with her, and she was way ahead of schedule verbally. Then Zadie licked the garbage can. Three times.

Zadie is

delighted to be home.

She screamed "see Daddy!" and when he wasn't home, she tried "see Mina!" and that worked. Mina promptly ran away.

Then she took all the Tupperware out of its cabinet and spread it all over the house.

Then she took a few handfuls of Mina's food and put it in the water dish.

We went to the store, and when we came home, she again said "See Daddy?" Sure enough, he was home. She absolutely screamed with glee. It was like she was seeing the Beatles.

Speaking of the Beatles, I was thinking of watching one of my favorite movies tonight. I'm too tired for "Notorious," which is a little intense. "Harold and Maude" makes me cry, and I'm not in the mood for that tonight. I'm not allowed to watch "Help" or "A Hard Day's Night" because Sweetie hates the Beatles. What should I watch? The Secret of Roan Inish? A Fish Called Wanda? Whale Rider? The Princess Bride? I think it'll be Labyrinth.

By the way, tomorrow we have a doctor's appointment, and I'm hoping she'll say all the new words she's picked up. I'm thinking of cueing her.

Me: So, doc, do you have trouble parking at this building?
Z: Building!

Me: This economy sure is a trip, with so many people upside-down in their home loans.
Z: People! Upside-down!

Me: Oh, she's a good eater. I like to cook, so we make pizza, sushi, broccoli and rice...
Z: Mama cook! Pizza! Sushi! Brok-ly! Rice!

Me: Yeah, it was hard to get in here this morning as we just got back from Chicago...
Z: Chicago!

That sort of thing. Or I may just lean in to her and say "Say Chicago!"

Postscript: I started watching Labyrinth, and it's just different to watch after seeing Jennifer Connelly's performance in "Requiem for a Dream."

Busy trip, slow internets lead to no posts!

Hi all! Well, the very last workshop was so crowded that I was going to have to sit on the floor for another hour and a half (after just having done so), so I skipped it and went upstairs. Mom and Zadie had gone down to the pool, so I read my new book (It's Not Me, It's You by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor). Then we got ready for dinner and met Suzanne and some friends in the lobby to walk to Gino's East, which is a fabulous pizza parlor that specializes in deep dish pizza. I had two slices, a vegetarian, and a spinach and cheese that blew my mind. We also got to talk to Suzanne's parents, who are awesome.

We had thought about going to Venetian Night, where all the boats get lit up and there are fireworks, but it was late for the baby, so we went back to the hotel.

In the morning we had breakfast with Suzanne and Suebob. Earlier, I had tried to figure out how to get out to Oak Park for a barbecue. First I tried Gooroo. The directions were VERY detailed, so I wrote them all down. Then I tried Google. The directions were quite different, and not as detailed, so I went with Gooroo. But then Suzanne said that the idea of getting on a bus to get to the Blue Line train was ridiculous, as it was less than a mile from the hotel. So Mom and I decided to walk to the station, which Suzanne gave us pretty good directions to. We got about a block away from the station and there were stairs everywhere and tracks overhead, and we stopped to look around when someone asked if we needed help. We said sure, we needed to know where the Blue Line station was. He didn't know, but walked us to the visitors' center, about two blocks away, because they would know. Well, they told us, but it was in the opposite direction, just a block or so past where we had started. Sigh.

We finally got on the train but then didn't know quite where to get off. The Gooroo directions now seemed useless, so I was going to go on the iPhone to try to figure it out when a guy called CTA for us and handed me the phone. "They'll know!" he said. They told us to get off at Forest Park station. My Gooroo directions had said to get off at Oak Park. The guy at the visitors' center had said something about Harlem station. We had no idea how far any of these stations would be from the house. So then the guy handed us the phone again, and they told us to take the 305. We took the CTA's recommendation and got off at Forest Park (where I left my purse on the train, but luckily I remembered and the train was still there with the doors open). At the station, my friend who lives in Oak Park called me and gave me the real (and simple) directions, which required us to get back on the train and go back two stops, to Oak Park. The friendly phone guy was still outside the gate yelling "no, you get out here!"

Anyway, we finally made it and enjoyed a really lovely barbecue with friends, most of whom I'd only met online. The kids all played together, and there was a FABULOUS dessert. We got back without incident and Zadie passed out at about 7 (5 California time).

This morning we got up early, went outside and the shuttle was just pulling up, and made our way to O'Hare. We went through a long security line, grabbed a pretty horrible breakfast, then boarded our flight. It was four hours, but Zadie was fantastic the whole way. She only yelled once or twice for a few seconds. Otherwise she slept and ate snacks and played and nursed.

Boompah picked us up at the airport with a bag of Cheerios, another of Teddy Grahams, and an Elmo cup full of cold water. Isn't he thoughtful?

Now I've sat down to catch up on the internet, and Zadie asked for "more ilk!" which is her way of asking to nurse, now. So she is asleep at the boob, and I'm listening to Joni Mitchell. I am actually a little hungry, but I'm going to let her sleep for a while. Then we'll have to scope out the kitchen and probably make a grocery run for milk and dinner supplies.

I hope you're all well. Take care!

At just about ten pm

Zadie was nursing to sleep, and had stopped sucking, closed her eyes, and begun to lay perfectly still. Suddenly, she jerked, rolled over to her back, yelled "lipstick!"* without opening her eyes, then fell back into a deep sleep.

*Okay, fine, it still sounds like ick-ick. It was goddamn funny.

The rest of today

When I left my Mommy conference, I was stopped by a big cowboy who gave me a flyer for a tea room in the Hospitality Suite. I thanked him, but hurried off to the bathroom. When I was done, I checked the map for the Hospitality Suite, but I couldn't find it. So I went back to the cowboy. He told me where it was and I went. They were primarily trying to sell me baby bath products and creams and lotions (which Z doesn't tolerate well because of her sensitive skin), but they also had some breastfeeding teas I might try. I also talked to some nice ladies. So that was a bonus after having to essentially RUN out of the session I was in due to a potty emergency.

I re-met up with Suzanne and company at the Community Keynote, which was light years better than a traditional keynote. Members of the community read some of their best posts out loud. I have several new blogs to add to my reading.

Then I left to go back to the room, since I had told Mom I'd be back by 6:15. I met her and Zadie, and we decided to go to dinner and then to Nordstrom, since the baby had kicked off one of her shoes somewhere along the "Miracle Mile."

I remembered that we'd seen Sayat-Nova on our walk last night, and that my friend Tamiko had recommended it. It's Armenian, and Mom and I could only remember having tasted Armenian food once each, and in small amounts. So we went, and they were very nice. We started with a cheese boureg (? my memory fails). It was more or less like a Greek tiropita, and delicious. Then Mom had a chicken dish with couscous which she said was wonderful, and I had a vegetarian combo plate, which included a cold spinach dish, tabbouleh salad, a spinach boureg (? again) which was like a spanikopita, and a bean dish with rice. Everything was very good.

Now we're just back at the hotel getting ready for bed. Zadie is in love with the Strawberry Shortcake doll I got as swag this afternoon. Did you know Strawberry Shortcake is hip now? She looks like a teenager, whereas she used to look like a frumpy little girl.

Zadie can now say Chicago very clearly and has been saying my name (although I don't think she knows what it means). Tonight she pointed to the window and said "See boat!" I took her to see the boats, and when we saw one, she said "Hi boat!"

I like BlogHer, but...

I have to admit that I like meeting the people a lot more than I like the sessions, sometimes. For example, this session was called something like "Microblogging: is it for you?" Well, I figured microblogging might be Twitter, but I wasn't sure, and thought it could also be about focusing on one specific focus or something. But I've now been in here for half an hour, and the conversation has been "I really like Tweeting." "I do, too." "I love Twitter, and I was wondering if anyone else does, too?"

This morning I met up with Suzanne, Suebob, and Maren, and we ate breakfast, then skipped out before a meet-and-greet thing in order to go to Lush, then eat chocolate-mint ice cream pie at Macy's. We got back just in time for the Ragu-sponsored lunch.

After lunch, we went through the exposition area, where they were giving away a billion things. I took some kiwis and kiwi knife things, some apple slices from McDonalds, PlayDough, a kids' CD, and a couple other things. This morning I got a t-shirt and a couple suckers and a chocolate star thing. In the big bag they gave us I received a Mrs. Potato Head toy, a Spiderman book, some shaving cream, and much more. I won't even be able to pack it all in my luggage.

We saw some laundry detergent fairies, a walking Mrs. Potato Head, and the Wienermobile (which they let us sit inside). The driver had a shirt and shorts embroidered with the Weinermobile as well as a belt buckle with a weiner on it.





It sounds like Mom and Zadie walked to the Navy Pier this morning. I'll catch up more with them at dinner. As much fun as I am having, I feel a little guilty that I'm spending my baby's first trip to Chicago without her. I love to see her react to stuff. It's like seeing everything with new eyes.

BlogHer, marketing, and mommyblogs.

So... I'm a mommyblogger, I guess. I don't think in terms of pigeonholing myself, and I often write about non-Zadie things. But I write mostly about the kid, and I think most of the people who read it read it for kid news.

But I forgot how anti-mommyblog some bloggers are. I'm sitting in a session where people are complaining that all the marketers are marketing toward mommybloggers, and they want to be marketed to as well. People who are writing about things other than "diapers or whatever." "No offense to any mommybloggers here" of course.

I'm not crazy about being marketed to, frankly. I mean, I appreciate the free stuff (and trust me, we've gotten a LOT of free stuff), but I try (maybe not successfully) to not be such a consumer.

I actually sat in on this non-mommyblog session because I still think of myself as a "life blogger." It's just that my life is now pretty Zadie-fied.

Hmm. Okay, I can't multi-task. Listening and writing is proving too much for me. More later.

I am inside the Weinermobile.

Ironically

The wifi from blogher is possibly the slowest ever. I'm blogging from my phone because it's faster.

Bye bye Boone, Hello Chicago!

As fast as I can make it...

Boone was weird. Everywhere we went they were playing 80s music -- REM and 10,000 Maniacs in the Giggling Goat, The Cure in the HyVee market, Phil Collins and Huey Lewis in the Tic Toc, and Lisa Loeb (okay, she's 90s) in the Des Moines airport.

I also saw exactly 5 non-white people the entire four days we were there (and three were a dad and two kids in the same family staying in our hotel). Everyone else was seriously corn-fed white people. At the Hickory Park restaurant, we sat next to a table of about twelve guys, all with the same haircut, most blond, many with baseball caps, and all quite sturdy-looking. It looked like a volunteer fire department. Heck, it may have been.

Last night we ate at the Tic Toc, and we were talking about food. My grandma talks a bunch of bullshit all the time, so my mom was rolling her eyes and I was having a hard time not giggling. Grandma said that someone had made a recipe called "walking tacos." I was getting a little loopy, and I couldn't contain myself. I told my mom "I think I had a case of the walking tacos once." We laughed so hard people at the next table were laughing at us.

We also laughed all the way to the Goodwill, where we donated all the crappy presents they gave us, then all the way back to the hotel. It is such a relief to be done with Iowa.

The Tic Toc, by the way, was ironic hipster heaven. Iceberg lettuce salads, naugahyde booths, posters of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean with florescent light accents... It was like eating in 1986.

This morning we drove to Des Moines, ate a quick bagel with nuclear cheese glue, then got on the small plane to Chicago. It only took 45 minutes, then we rode the shuttle to our hotel. After a quick lunch, then a nap, we went to Millenium Park to sightsee. We saw the bean (I don't know what it's called, but it looks like this):

It was raining and there was lightning and thunder, so they had closed it so you couldn't walk right up to it. On the down side, we couldn't go up to it. On the bright side, I rarely see photos of it without a thousand people crowded in front of it, so getting it with just the guard was cool. (The guard would NOT step out of the frame. Mom and I joked that he tries to get in every picture.)

Then we walked the other way to go back to where we had lunch, as there were several decent-looking restaurants in the area. We passed one called Markethouse that boasted fresh, seasonal stuff, so we went in. Oh, man did we have a good meal! We started with hummus and flatbread, which had a little relish of roasted red peppers and pine nuts and feta, then Mom had meatloaf with a twice-baked potato and veggies. Mine was a morel mushroom risotto with lemon zest and summer truffles. They were both delicious. We also ordered a bottle of sauvignon blanc and demolished that, as well as some pound cake with strawberry-rhubarb compote for dessert. The servers were really solicitous of us, and we had a great meal. Thank goodness -- we really needed it.

After dinner, I got some milk for the baby, then we've been here at the hotel reading books, etc. BlogHer starts in the morning. I'm looking forward to it.

Notable quotables & Boone

Zadie on counting: "One, two, three, four, high five, no!"

Zadie on mass-energy equivalence: "Ee. Ekoos. Emm. Cee. [uproarious laughter]."

Zadie on overcoming adversity: "Baby fall. Boom! Get up."

Zadie on the value of spending time outdoors: "Open door?" Me: "Not right now." Zadie: "Damn."

I think next I'm going to teach her some pirate phrases. What do you do to the mizzenmast again?

Anyway, Boone is pretty low-key. After yesterday's respite here at the hotel, we went grocery shopping, then I made a stir-fry big enough to feed most of the population of Boone (12,000-something) for the four-and-a-half of us.

Then back to the hotel for some nice conversation (I totally interrupted Mom's newspaper reading to make her tell me stories). Then this morning another breakfast at the hotel, then over to Grandma's for more visits with relatives and friends of relatives, some leftovers for lunch, and some running up and down the hall demanding "light off!" (That was mostly Zadie.)

At the moment, I'm watching the baby sleep and catching up on the outside world via the internets (thank you, Baymont Inn for having wireless internet!). I am also well into the stash of chocolates that my Boompah packed for me.

Incidentally, the kid can now say almost anything. I was in the backseat of the car yesterday saying "Say zucchini. Say broccoli. Say lettuce. Say celery. Say pepper. Say cucumber. Say radish." Seriously, she repeated almost everything back to me perfectly. She stumbled on a few, like cucumber, and rosemary came out "moo-mee," but I'm just so impressed.

Hope you're all well out there in the outside world.
Love from Boone,
Mockula

Boone, day 3

Supermatic Supermatic is my next electronica song.

Last night Mom made dinner at Grandma's and we visited a bit. I got to see some old pictures, a few I'd never seen before. Then we came back to the hotel and slept more. This morning we went to coffee at the McDonald's, which I have never done before. It wasn't half bad -- better than the hotel coffee anyway.

Then we had a really nice morning. Mom had to take Grandma to the Social Security office in Ames, and she had planned to drop us off at a park to play. But when we woke up, it was raining, so the park plan fizzled. However, Mom's cousin had told her about a butterfly garden near the office, so we looked it up and Mom dropped Zadie and me* there. It was gorgeous! In fact, when Mom called to tell me they were there to pick us up, we had only seen maybe a third of the gardens and hadn't even been to the butterfly enclosure yet. We started in the fossil garden, which housed plants known to be in roughly the same state they were thousands of years ago. It included several ferns, horsetail, bromeliads, bunya bunya, and monkey puzzle tree. There was also a fountain that Zadie threw pennies into. (She's getting really into throwing money into fountains. She sees a fountain and yells "Money! Throw!" I'm going to have to watch my wallet, since she doesn't understand denominations yet.) Then we wandered outside to the gardens, which were just lovely. Throughout, there were sculptures, mostly of dinosaurs. There was also a vegetable garden, potting shed, cottage garden, lily pond, waterfall, and so much more. After Mom called, we quickly walked through the butterfly enclosure, where a girl had one land on her finger, and kneeled down to show Zadie. I also saw one as big as my hand, and with its wings closed, I thought it was just shades of brown and tan, but then it opened up and was vibrant turquoise!

Here are some photos.







Then for lunch, Mom couldn't talk Grandma out of Hickory Park, a giant and busy restaurant whose every item also came in a "garbage" version, covered in cheese, ham, and bacon. I was shocked to find a vegetarian sandwich at the very end of the menu, so I ordered it. It was your basic salad on white bread, but better than nothing, and I got a brownie sundae for dessert!

Mom and Z just walked down the hall to the pool, so I'm following them. See ya (as the baby can now say).






*I recently had my other grandmother try to school me on it being "Zadie and I."

Boone so far

The question on everyone's lips has been "So what are you going to do in Boone, Iowa for four days?" Well, last night, we visited with Granny, ate dinner at the Giggling Goat*, and then went back to the hotel and slept for ten hours. So there's one day.

This morning we ate breakfast at the hotel, went to Wal-Mart for sundries, then to the Hy-Vee grocery store for dinner supplies (not, somewhat disappointingly, Panburger Partner) and coffee, then to Granny's to visit with the DISTANT cousins. Okay, they're my mom's first cousins, but I am related to them only very distantly, I'm sure. I think they're third cousins twice removed or something -- I'm not sure how it works. One of them was out visiting although she'd misplaced her teeth. One looked like Grizzly Adams and was enjoying a generic beer in a camouflage Koozy at ten a.m. But, you know, the toothless one's daughter is a published poet**.

Right now my mom is very kindly letting us have a loooong nap at the hotel while she does some things for Granny.

There are good bits about Iowa so far. First, it's a lot greener than California in midsummer. At least, my bit of California. There is corn growing everywhere -- exactly as much as you might imagine from stereotypes of Iowa. But it's all lush and green and pretty. Here's how much of a rube I can be about other parts of the country: Mom says "You know, they don't use irrigation." "What?!" I responded in shock, "Well what do they do?" "They, you know, wait for rain." Oh yeah, rain. I forget that it rains in the summer in some places.

I also was interested to see the house where my mom lived until she was 9. It was HUGE. The house she lived in in Sacramento was a 900 square foot dinky shack, so I kind of assumed they lived in a smaller place in Iowa, too, but it was enormous! Mom said it was a huge culture shock to move to Sacramento and see their new house. She said it always made her feel claustrophobic, and that's why her own houses as an adult have always been bigger.

The houses downtown (yes, there's a downtown Boone) are, many of them anyway, large and lovely. Many of them have enclosed porches with windows all across the front. There are also a lot of trees. It's not really what I expected.

I thought you might enjoy the Boone wiki. It includes such claims to fame as that Boone houses the second most-used bowling alley in Iowa. Well what the fuck else do they have to do, you know?

*Okay, in all seriousness, this wasn't bad at all, and Mom said it was the best meal she's had in Boone. I had a Mediterranean portobello sandwich. I assumed I was going to have to order a grilled cheese or something, so this was a nice surprise.

** As a sometime poet myself, I realize I am going straight to poet hell for posting this, but come on...

Welcome to Boone, Iowa

IMG_0173
Originally uploaded by countmockula

New video of silliness

Ick-ick

The baby loves lipstick. She calls it ick-ick, and carries it around the house. She puts it to my lips and says "mama ick-ick," then puts it to her own mouth and says "baby ick-ick."

Just some random notes -- the guys started work yesterday on the backyard and got about 3/4 of the lawn ripped up. I had flagstone and decomposed granite delivered yesterday, but I forgot sand, so I'm having a cubic yard of that delivered today. I'm really looking forward to having it done. I also feel TERRIBLE for the guys (some co-workers of mine), who are working in the hottest part of the day. Yesterday they went through most of two urns of ice water I put out for them.

Our garden is doing so-so. The soybeans are going like gangbusters, but the sugar peas haven't come up at all. We have four or five corn shoots, but no peppers yet. There's a lot of amaranth but no shiso. The radishes came up, but then birds ate them all. Despite the heat, the tomatoes, pepper, and pumpkin that we planted as starts all are doing okay.

The bedroom overhaul is almost done, but I still have to hang the art, so I'll post pictures when that's done.

We went to see Granny yesterday, and Zadie was at her most charming. She said "I see a Granny!" and put on Granny's pink gardening hat and walked around in it. The she put on some safety goggles. She also climbed up and down a stepladder about 40 times.

We're working on being polite. She sometimes says thank you unprompted, and will usually say please if prompted. I can't help but think "Booby, peese!" is both sweet and hilarious.

Speaking of booby, she's changing her habits a little, which makes me wonder if she's on the cusp of weaning. She's nurse all morning if I let her, but at bedtime, it's like a few minutes, then she wants to get up and run around, whereas I used to nurse her to sleep. She still uses it for comfort, too. On Monday she fell at the park and bonked her head, and as she was crying (and stopping to tell me "baby cry!"), I offered her some boob. She happily took it and stopped crying, but after a few minutes when she seemed better, I asked her if she wanted to go home. "No. More booby."

Sweetie taught her to pump her fists in the air and chant "Pizza! Pizza!" He says he's teaching her "Attica!" next.

Later today we're going to buy Zadie some big girl Elmo underwear. We think that'll help in the potty training (which is also going so-so).

She can now say "There we go," "All right," "Okay," "Cool," and "Whoa, dude!" You learn a lot about your own speech patterns when someone is imitating them.

Rafting!

We had a brilliant day rafting yesterday. We went to Cache Creek (yes, not too far past the casino), where I've now rafted for almost 8 years straight (we missed last year because I was nursing full-time and afraid my boobs would explode).

The water level was very low, which made things interesting. Rocks that, when the water was higher, you sail straight over were instead hiding at the top of the water to grab your boat. There were rapids and difficult areas we've never seen before. Strangely, two of the biggest rapids were quite easy -- we breezed through Mother and Elevator.

I was partners with our friend Cary, whom I haven't spent any time with in several years, so it was nice to catch up. Sweetie was partners with Monkeygirl, and they not only yelled at each other for half the trip, they found every rock in the river (frankly, so did Cary and I, but we were lucky and quick about getting off the rocks). Our friends Matt and Mary were also along, and they seemed to have a pretty easy time of it.

I think the most exciting bit was a really rocky section where first, Sweetie and Monkeygirl got caught up. Then Cary and I got stuck. While we were half-out of the raft trying to push ourselves off the rock, another boat came along and bumped us off. I got thrown into the bottom of the raft and we moved quickly downstream. Before I could get up, we hit a rock and it got me square in the knee.

Cary got thrown out shortly thereafter and I had to paddle to the shore so he could float down to me. It was one of the rougher years for me, for sure. I didn't get thrown out, but we did both have to get out of the boat at one point when it got swamped. When we got back in, we heard the sputtering, hissing sound of the valve leaking. After trying to tighten it and failing, we found our boat quite flat. Luckily, we came to a low bridge where a rafting company worker sits to direct people, and he had a huge hand pump and re-inflated our boat.

For whatever reason, we hit the pull-out point faster than we expected, so we pulled over and played in the water a bit before going to the pull-out point.

On the bus on the way back to our cars, we sat behind a guy who seemed to be trying to pick up the girl next to him, but all he could talk about was beer pong.

We decided to carbo-load after a shower, so we all met (and we picked up the baby and brought her) at the Old Spaghetti Factory, which used to be our rafting tradition. We had a lovely dinner with good friends.

Oh, there were two odd things about the day. The rafting company has changed hands, and one change they made was to stop offering twine to people. We always used the twine to secure the ice chest. Otherwise, you'd lose your ice chest the first time you hit a rapid. I have no idea why they wouldn't offer it. Except...

The other odd thing was that we were one of the only two groups who seemed to have a cooler at all, or even water to drink! I swear, I have no idea what everyone else was doing. You're on the river from about ten to four, and most people have about an hour and a half drive home (at least). So why wouldn't you have food with you? We just didn't understand. In previous years, almost everyone else had ice chests, too. It was a puzzler.

This isn't us, but it looks a lot like this:

Baby cook

Baby cook
Originally uploaded by countmockula

Here's a short video I took of Zadie "cooking" yesterday. That thing on her hand is a frog-shaped silicone pot holder. And of course, that's chocolate on her face.

I'm taking a...

short break in a busy day.

Zadie is allergic to, of all things, peaches! Wouldn't you know, after how carefully I introduced her to everything else, that something I wasn't even worried about would cause this:



You can see that she's got her momma's, er, eclectic fashion sense.



Today I was making cookies and she wanted up. I picked her up and rested her on my hip, telling her that I was cooking. I had just started measuring oats into my cookie dough. She said "baby cook" and threw a small fistful of oats into the bowl. I figured I'd let her help, so I started pouring the chocolate chips into the bowl, and put a few in her hand and asked her to throw them in. But apparently I didn't raise no fool, because the chocolate chips went straight into her mouth. But then she wanted to stir, saying "baby cook, baby cook!" So I let her. She poked at the dough with the spoon for a long time.



I'm giving our bedroom a makeover, and I've already taken some "before" and "in progress" pictures, but I'll wait until I'm all done to post the whole series, including "after" pics. Keep your eye out for that in the near future.

Happy anniversary, Sweetie!

Hey, guess what? It's our 4th wedding anniversary. We've been together for six years, and I can honestly say they're the best six years of my life (childhood was fun, but lacks autonomy, you know?).

Sweetie just makes my life better in so many ways. I love our little traditions and rituals (like Waffle Sunday). I love the way he supports me and listens to me. He brings me flowers just for the heck of it. We do things together, like collaborate on planting the garden. We share household duties as fairly as we can. We travel well together. We rarely disagree. I love his family (our family, now). Sharing my life with him is just a million times better than my life before I knew him. Not to mention that he is a loving father to our precious daughter.

Sorry to get all sappy and sincere with you, but I just couldn't be happier and I couldn't feel luckier. Even when he mines all the cookie dough out of Ben and Jerry's cookie dough ice cream. I love you, Sweetie. Thanks for marrying me four years ago and living up to our vows every day.

Happy Birthday Boompah

Zadie has been trying to sing the Happy Birthday song, but really wasn't into it today.

Zadie eats with a spoon

This video is 1 minute, 29 seconds, and you can probably get the idea after a few seconds, but she is freakin' cute, so you might want to watch it all.

Zadie says

IMG_0303
Originally uploaded by countmockula

"Mama eyes... on!"

Some things I like about my kid

So, you kind of have to like your own kid because she's yours, but I also really get a kick out of mine. Here's why.

She tries to sing "Happy Birthday" and it sounds like "Happy dithay." But she really tries.

She often chuckles when I first get out my boob to nurse.

She can now say "ice ice baby."

If you tell her "smell my toes," she will lean over and give it two huge whiffs, but then she laughs like she was in on the joke.

She's getting to a point where she can repeat almost anything you say, but she's shy in front of other people. The other night in the car on the way to Maalouf's, where the proprietor's name is Abdul, we said "say Abdul." She immediately said it. But when we got to the restaurant and saw him, she would only point to me and say "mommy."

She likes to dance, and we can make her dance pretty easily.

She is crazy for anything girly -- I swear I didn't encourage it. She just IS that way. She picks up women's and girls' shoes and tries to steal them (the pinker and sparklier the better). She loves to carry purses. She points to my eyes when I'm wearing eyeshadow. She tilts her mouth up for lipstick whenever Grandma puts it on. She can say "dress" but not "pants." She even loves pretty underwear, pulling it out of the laundry to carry around.

She has a long-running monologue in the car of whatever words she likes best. I'll turn the radio down to hear "Mommy baby booby ice Grandma shoe..."

She tries to give the cat kisses, and will lean in and make kiss noises until we pull her away.

She loves cell phones, and if you put one to her ear, she'll hold it and say "hi."

She also loves books, and will pull book after book off the shelf and hand it to us to read.

She's just a little tricky. If Sweetie is eating, she'll go to his chair and say "up!" as if she wants to cuddle and hang out. Then as soon as she's up there, it's all "Apple! Eat!" Also, at the end of her nap I'll often try to gently pull away, thinking that she's sound asleep. But she'll hold onto my boob with her hand and mouth and follow me halfway across the bed, never opening her eyes. She's pretending to be asleep, but doesn't want me to go.

Those are just a few of many things. It's just fun to watch her develop her own personality.

On books

I've been delighted to have the chance to read several books lately.

I read House of Spirits while we were on vacation. It's just the sort of thing I love -- multi-generational, a little magical realism, some political commentary. I don't know why I've never read it before!

Also on vacation, I started Sherman Alexie's collection of short stories The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. This is one of those I'm going to force on other people, dropping it off at their houses and telling them to read it. Alexie grew up on a reservation and tells stories that he admits are semi-autobiographical about the people he knew growing up.

Then I read Marjane Satrapi's Chicken with Plums. I really enjoyed all three of her previous graphic novels, and I enjoyed this one too, but not quite as much. See, the other three mined her own life, either stories of growing up around the time of the revolution (Persepolis and Persepolis II) or stories she heard from the women in her life when she was a child (Embroideries). This one is the story of a distant relative, and it sort of reads that way -- as hearsay about someone else's life. It's still beautiful, but it's not moving in the same way her personal stories are.

Then I was on to one Sweetie picked up called The Year of Living Biblically. A.J. Jacobs, an editor at Esquire magazine, decided to do his best to literally follow all the rules in the bible. I was expecting it to be funny, and it was absolutely hysterical in parts (read the part where he decides to stone someone). But I wasn't expecting it to be quite so thoughtful as well. As he continues his journey, he considers the impact of religion on his children and he meets many people whom he learns from. I also like the small ways in which his project changes him. Like, he decides to give thanks as part of his daily prayer routine and finds himself genuinely moved by the number of small things he has to be thankful for. It was an interesting read for sure.

Now I'm onto Margaret Cho's I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight. So far, not so good. She's apparently adapted many individual rants from her blog, and it sort of reads that way. The tone is also very, very angry. Now I like Margaret Cho; I've read her books, seen her movies, enjoyed her stand-up, and even seen her in person. But I like her because she's funny, and this is just not funny. It's mad, and it feels like she's mad at me and yelling at me. This, as you might imagine, does not make for a fun reading experience. I actually agree with her on most points, I just don't like people yelling at me.

I have several other books lined up for this summer's reading, too, so stay tuned!

ArtBeast

We went to ArtBeast Studios today. It's a new play/art space for kids downtown. Here's the details, then the good and the bad of it.

First of all, it's totally rad. Downstairs there's a castle made of paint cans and metal tubing, a stage, a guitar, tambourine, and bongos, a puppet theater with a ton of puppets inside, and a bunch of costumes, hats, scarves, etc.

Upstairs, there is a big room with several easels, a big plastic sheet you can paint on and wipe off, a ton of paper (construction and otherwise), paint, sponges, a table with "moon sand" and buckets and cookie cutters and molds, a table with clay and tools, a table with scraps of fabric and little loom-like things, a table with "watercolor crayons," a table with tiles, a bunch of shelves with little scraps of paper and brushes and tools and stuff, and other things like cones and tissue paper squares.

Off that room is a music room with a big wooden fort and baby dolls and beds, plus a Zadie-sized drum kit, shakers, bells, bongos, and numerous other noisemakers (my favorite was the thing attached to the wall with washers of all sizes on it. You could lift the washers and let them fall and they made cool, different-toned noises.

On the third floor are several different areas. One is an infant area with rubber mats and stuff to crawl around on. She had fun in there for a few minutes, but there was no one to play with, so it quickly got old. There's also a big wood-floored room with a giant mirrored wall that they held a dance class, a storytime, and a sing-along in while we were there. There is also a room with a big Ikea tube to crawl through and a bunch of mats and bean bag chairs.

The good: It was really well-stocked with art supplies and things to play with. Zadie loved the music room and played the drums for quite a while. They had multi-ethnic baby dolls. Every time I was afraid Zadie was getting in the way of something, the friendly staff said "He's fine!" (She, uh, was wearing her Johnny Cash shirt.) All the other kids there seemed to be having a great time, and there was a nice diversity of families there, too. There were handy things like "yuck boxes" to put toys into if they'd gone into a kid's mouth, and the bathrooms were spacious, clean, and well-stocked. All the staff we talked to were friendly. The woman who led the classes was nice and the songs and activities looked fun (Zadie even tried to participate, especially with this scarf game). There was even a lovely courtyard that we didn't take advantage of at all.

The bad: They seemed to be of the opinion that making a mess was all part of the fun, which would be all right with older kids, but Zadie doesn't realize that putting orange paint on her hands, then grabbing for another mommy's skirt isn't cool. I chased her around, but we had near-misses at getting paint on the stair rail, the carpet, the drumsticks, the drums, other kids, other kids' artwork, and a mom. She also got paint in the sandbox (and sand on the paintbrush). She's just not big enough to follow any kind of moderate-mess-making rules, so I was running around after her nonstop. It was actually a lot of work. It wouldn't be worth it to pay $8 to put her in the infant area, and she really did enjoy stuff like the drums, but it was kind of a pain to keep grabbing her paint-y hands away from other kids' paintings and returning stuff she stole from each of the rooms.

They could also use a few paper-towel/handi-wipe stations. That would have allowed me to wipe her hands off before she took off for another area.

So we had fun and it was worth it this time, but I don't know if it'll be a regular stop. Especially since after the first two weeks, the classes will cost money. And I did misunderstand something: I thought it was $8 per kid, but it's $8 per person, so to get in with the kid is $16. Apparently, babies under 1 are free. When they let her in for free today because she was a baby, I thought it was an under-two thing, so I didn't correct them. But in fact, we should have paid $16. That's a lot, even if the proceeds are going to charity.

Good news

Jury duty went like this -- I checked in, found my friend Stephanie, talked to her, played on my iPhone, read a little, took a two-hour lunch, came back and read some more, then got dismissed for the day.

Now I feel petulant and bratty for being so tense about it yesterday. Not just because I got off easy, either. I have such a good, profoundly lucky and wonderful life that I really shouldn't complain about such minor negatives.

I am lucky, and I know it, and I'm grateful.

Yuck (with unnecessary links)

Well, I had a great day off today. I went to Tower Cafe for French toast with Zadie (a half order with peach-strawberry compote and cinnamon whipped cream). At home we ate honeydew, took a nap, ate lunch, then went to Z Gallerie and bought some new bedding! Then based on that color, I went to Kelly-Moore paints and bought a paint color for the walls of the bedroom.

I also made some phone calls this morning and arranged to have several tons of dirt delivered in the morning. It's two cubic yards, and that is supposed to weigh around 2 1/2 to 3 tons. For real. They're coming between 8 and ten in the morning. Then I was arranging to have lunch with a friend. I was half-considering taking Zadie to the opening of ArtBeast downtown. I also had an appointment with award-winning tattoo artist (and my old friend) Char of Side Show Studios to go over some ideas.

Insert needle-scratching-across-a-record sound.

I checked to see whether I had to report for jury duty, and I do. I had hope that since it was so late in the week and my group number so high that I wouldn't have to go. So... (sigh), Mom is taking Zadie and waiting for the dirt delivery. My friend and I have put off lunch. I told Char I couldn't make it. But isn't that a whole barrel full of suck? I mean, I postpone jury duty during the school year because I feel loyal to my kids and don't want to leave them with a sub, but here I am on the first full week of being at home with the baby, and I don't get a whole week. At this point, I am just praying that I don't actually get on a jury.

My friends have given me some advice. They said I can say I think the justice system is broken and I wouldn't feel comfortable convicting anyone. One friend said to act like I really, really wanted to be on the jury, because it seemed suspicious. One reminded me that I can probably get off because I'm breastfeeding (I could have put that on the postponement form, but because I was feeding her only before and after work during the school year, it felt a little dishonest to do so). I flashed back to comedian Sarah Silverman's joke about trying to get off a jury. But the truth is, I will probably answer all their questions honestly. If I have to do my stupid civic duty, I will. Not that I'm not really depressed about it -- I want to be here with my baby, teaching her to dance, running through the sprinklers, and playing "Bee-tu" (peek-a-boo) -- but what kind of example would I be setting for my daughter if I lied? I know she doesn't know what's going on now, but if I'm gonna be a godless heathen, at least I need to live by my personal moral standards, and my personal moral standards don't allow lying. Begging and crying, yes. Lying, no.

Wish me luck.