Birthday twins

After I gave birth to The Baby, my husband and I were walking the halls of the hospital (okay, I was totally hobbling) and we ran into a couple that we were acquainted with through a mutual friend. I knew she was pregnant, but I had no idea that our due dates were close. At first I was confused. Were they here visiting someone? Why was she in pajamas? Then it dawned on me, oh, she had her baby! How cool is that? Same day, too.

Before we left the hospital, we vowed that we would keep in touch and make a play date. True to our words, albeit 13 months later, we got together for a barbecue. Note to self: Don’t have barbecue get-togethers on a weeknight. There isn’t enough time to catch up, let alone do the dishes. That being said, it was really nice.

It’s true that all babies develop at their own rate. Allow me to compare our kids just to illustrate that you can’t really compare kids.

The Baby practically ran up to greet them, while The Other Baby walked with assistance. While the husbands were preparing dinner (have I mentioned how glad I am that I live in this century?), The Other Baby picked out books and actually listened as her mom read one. She discriminately chose another book and flipped through a few pages. One-hundred percent oblivious to the literary genius of Dr. Seuss, my baby was climbing the rocking chair. And then standing on the rocking chair. *sigh*

At dinner, The Other Baby ate with gusto – and a spoon! She gleefully ate everything that we ate: hamburger, hot dog, pasta salad. She used a sippy cup to perfection. If her little pinky would have been sticking out while she sipped, I would not have been surprised. She was a little lady through and through. Did she want more? Yes, she’d communicate with a nod of her head. Out of sheer desperation, we fed our kiddo applesauce. He wouldn’t touch anything else. He too had a sippy cup, but instead of swallowing his milk, he let it pour right back out of his mouth. Did he want more? No, he’d communicate by touching the spout of the sippy cup to his head and rubbing milk in his hair.

So, though they are the exact same age, they have totally different sets of skills. One baby’s large motor skills is developed more than the other. The other communicates much better (and has better table manners). But, both get bored sitting at the table, both totally loved playing in the floor-length curtains, both sat contentedly on our after-dinner walk, simultaneous squeals of joy erupted upon passing dogs, and both our kids are happy and healthy.

Did I mention they are both cute as heck? See…?

Lost in translation

Meet Coco the fish. He is not Nemo. He is “amusive.” He is my son’s new favorite toy.

The Baby’s uncle Steve and aunt Bibi got this gem for him from a street vendor in Thailand. As you can see by the packaging, no one was really checking the translation closely. I looked it up, just in case, but amusive is not a word. At least not in English.

This is one funky fish (hey, now that would have been a better name!). It rolls around the floor with “real fish motion,” plays “dulcet” music and “immediately change direction when hitting.” In other words, it rolls around the floor blaring a 10-second loop of techno music, crashes into furniture and toys and turns around. Its tail has strobe lights. It makes The Cat nervous and engrosses The Baby. Did I mention that you can’t turn off the sound?

Aside from the wacky name, oddball adjectives and poor phrasing, there are also sentences on the package that make no sense whatsoever. My favorite? The very top of the package, which exclaims, “Let we play go!”

Tee-hee.

Haiku Friday: My Family Vice

Every family, and every person, has that one product or thing that they MUST.HAVE.OR.ELSE. just can't resist. Here are The Baby's, my husband's and my own. Happy Friday!

Family Vices

Dependable meal,
when nothing else will suffice.
Blueberry is best.




Dear Brutus Buckeye:
Find someone else’s husband
to bug this season.




Mocha, I love you!
Give me my frappucino
and no one gets hurt.

Oral Fixation

Sometimes I go back and re-read my old posts (can you stalk your own blog?). It occurred to me that I obsess write about what The Baby eats, how he eats, how much he eats, when he eats poop or his first mud pie, and what he won’t eat, a lot. When I pumped and bottle fed I drove myself nuts. I hopefully didn’t drive you nuts too. If so, I apologize.

When a child is so young, I guess one thing you have complete control over is what goes in their mouths. Except poo and mud, of course. Oh, and cat food, phone antennas, newspaper… well, you know what I mean! I think that is why it’s so easy for pumping moms to freak about their supply – it’s difficult and sometimes impossible to influence (boy, am I glad I'm done!) Anyway, when I find a gem, whether it’s a product that might help pumping moms or a recipe that worked well for our toddler (13 months is toddler, right?) I like to pass it on.

The Baby really likes meatloaf and meatballs. They are easy for him to eat. While I do buy 93% lean beef, I still don’t like to let him eat read meat more than once or twice a week. These Thai Chicken balls were flavorful, would be super easy to modify (we didn’t have green onions so I added two tablespoons of finely chopped onion and some chives), and extra balls freeze well for future meals. We made them as a meal, but they’d be a great appetizer for a party. They were easy for The Baby to eat with his fingers. Here is an easy recipe that all three of us enjoyed from a member of Allrecipes.

Thai Chicken Balls
2 pounds ground chicken
1 cup dry bread crumbs
4 green onions, sliced
1 tablespoon ground coriander seed
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup sweet chili sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
oil for frying

In a large bowl, mix together the chicken and bread crumbs. Season with green onion, ground coriander, cilantro, chili sauce and lemon juice; mix well.

Using damp hands, form mixture into evenly shaped balls that are either small enough to eat with your fingers, or large enough to use as burgers.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Fry the chicken balls in batches until well browned all over.

NOTE: I halved the recipe and baked them at 400 in the oven for 20 minutes. Turn (or roll) the balls around halfway through. We just happened to have coriander seed. I didn’t even taste it. Could be that it went stale since it just sits in my spice rack. Also, the sweet chili sauce was in with ethnic foods at the store. It made yummy dipping sauce too.

Magic Moments

We had a moment Saturday night, The Baby and I. One of those sweet moments that naïve people like me imagined would happen all the time once life included children.

Long ago my husband and I decided that we were going to continue our weekly ritual of dining out. You can read about our downward dining spiral here. Dinner ran a little late on Saturday as we had a few errands to run. Since The Baby had YoBaby in his hair and had rubbed roasted Peruvian chicken into his eye sockets, skipping a bath wasn’t an option. Because of the time, our almost-13-month old was fast asleep when we got home.

Sticky situation (pun intended), should we wake The Baby to give him a bath and bottle or leave him sleep and chance that A) he’ll go blind from the aforementioned Peruvian chicken spices or B) he might wake up at 3 a.m. and want the bottle we put him down without. We weren’t taking any chances.

After the quickest bath ever (partially due to tub poop, but this is a story about a special moment, so I’m omitting this dirty little detail), and a quick bottle, I carried my half-sleeping child to his room.

I held him in my arms and stared at his tiny face marveling at how much he’s grown and changed in the last year and trying desperately to absorb the moment because I know they are fleeting. I kissed his cheek and whispered, “I love you.” He opened his eyes. I blinked back a few tears. When I re-focused, he was smiling the sweetest smile I think I’ve ever seen. He reached up and touched my face – my lips, my eyes. And then he quietly said, “Dada.”

hhmmmffff. I know what he meant to say. :-)

Haiku Friday: Gardeners of doom

Where good plants go to die

Dry and dead, they sit
in a makeshift plant graveyard.
Green thumbs we are not.

We do try our best.
Our thumbs are brown and busy,
our plants, sparse of bloom.

Look at the new guy.
This poor plant must be thinking,
“Get me out of here!”

Thursday 13: ZZZZZZ...... ZZZZZZZZZZ

Over the past couple of weeks my husband and I have been trying to ween The Baby off of falling asleep on his nightly bottle and in our arms. We feel that it's really important that he learn to fall asleep on his own and in his crib. It's been a slow, but steady process. We still want rocking or cuddling to be a part of his bedtime routine, just not what makes him sleep. We're at the point now were we give him a little bottle and rock him until he is content and sleepy (usually just a few minutes), then we put him in his crib. He cried a few times for short periods, fussed a little for a day or two, and has been drifting off on his own for about a week.

It's no wonder some babies and toddlers cry so much at the prospect of going to sleep. It can be a tough job -- even when you have a whole bunch of tricks up your sleeve.

13 things that help me fall asleep
1. Advil PM
2. Naming all the Native American tribes that I can think of
3. Naming all the bird/plants/snakes/fish that I can think of
4. “Flipping” our house mentally. I will think of walls to knock out, rooms to create and other ways to improve our house — in pretty intense detail.
5. Read a book. Currently I am reading Maeve Binchy’s “Evening Class.” So far, so good.
6. Read a magazine. We subscribe to Fast Company and Readers’ Digest (boo to RD for taking the art off of the back cover and selling it, btw!)
7. Watch TV. Either Sex in the City re-runs on TBS or Adult Swim on Cartoon Network — I know, way different ends of the spectrum.
8. Eat. Whoa, I don’t recommend this one to anyone.
9. Stumble on the Internet.
10. Assemble outfit combinations in my head. I never remember them in the morning, which is why it seems like I wear the same five outfits over and over and over.
11. Think of things to feed The Baby. Besides Cheerios and Puffs.
12. Think of different menus for me and my husband. Sometimes it seems like we have chicken every.single.night. Blah.
13. Tylenol PM (I’m not brand specific, it depends on what is on sale!)

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