I have not forgotten to post a photo, we’ve been in Monterey and last night I was simply too exhausted to pick one (and our appetizer had tentacles).
I will upload a photo here tomorrow.
Promise.
Update (Feb. 22, 2012):
Oliver pulling the “steam whistle” at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Thankfully the rope activated a speaker with a muted whistling noise instead of a real steam whistle.
and our calamari had tentacles.*
*There were many good things that happened today as well, but those two incidents really stand out.
I’m going to talk Oliver down off the windowsill now, he’s on the look-out for our dinner: “see pizza? no see pizza yet.”
Hopefully we’ll have an early night.
*I know calamari has tentacles, but usually they’re usually not quite so pronounced.
For Valentine’s Day Gavin got me a new crockpot, before any of you give him grief about this, I ASKED for a new crockpot for Valentine’s Day (he wanted suggestions). You may, however, give him grief that I got to wrap it myself: “could you please sweetie? You’re better at such things.”
I don’t mind, I got a beautifully wrapped gift which Oliver got to open.
A friend of ours came over and we baked cookies lemon thumbprint cookies with jam. She brought a balloon for the boys, and Oliver spent much of the afternoon running around hollering “ba-oon!” Patrick was also enthralled by the shiny thing that floated high above his head.
We are enjoying a quiet evening in and “that’s not bread pudding!!!” chocolate strawberries, we are saving our night out for later when things aren’t so busy.
The neighbors in the back orchard have a backhoe, not sure what they’re doing with it, but it has made more than a few passes past our back fence.
Oliver is fascinated by the “diggar!” and spent a large portion of Tuesday afternoon in his observation tower watching the progress. He insisted on holding Howie so that he could see too. “See Howie! See Diggar!”
This evening as we sat down to a dinner (crockpot lentil soup, cornbread with honey butter, and a salad) I was reminded of my father-in-law, Stephen. Early on in our marriage Stephen asked Gavin “Did you know she could cook when you married her?” to which Gavin replied, “No, but she didn’t know either.”
We’d probably been married just over a year at that point as we were living in Sebastopol and I’d brought down some dish (probably a cheesecake, torte or sticky buns), and he was quite impressed by my culinary masterpiece.
I did not start out being able to cook, I started out being able to follow a recipe VERY WELL, which is more important than one might realize. Sure all it takes to make bread is flour, yeast and some water, but how much of it, and what you do with it is very important.
So where did I learn to cook? At the time I think my reply was “too many hours of Food Network,” but that isn’t entirely true.
To be honest, I didn’t learn to cook in just one place and most what I learned was NOT from the Food Newtwork. Continue reading
This afternoon I decided to open the box of clothing I’ve set aside for the baby clothes quilt to see what I had set aside. Oliver helped me carefully fold the clothes and place them around the kitchen table as a very rough representation of what I’m hoping to accomplish. 
So many little outfits, and ech piece has a story. There are a few bodysuits given to us by Kim and Beth – the green and brown ones; the granimals from Amy and her family. The little friends onesie from Eileen. “I’m tweet” from our neighbor, Ceylan. The outfit P came home from the hospital in. “Mommy+Daddy=brilliant” from Paula. Capt. Adorable, Tough and Handsome Like Daddy, and the hateful brown corduroy overalls with the button-up legs/crotch and the fraying lizard.
I really hate those overalls. Continue reading
I hate zucchini, I have always found it to be a revolting vegetable. Texturally slimy when cooked, mushy even when breaded and fried, zucchini was something I avoided – that and eggplant, but this post isn’t about that.
Up until about two months ago our home had been a zucchini-free zone, then P started to eat, and eat, and eat. So I started making my own baby food, which led to me reverse-engineering his all-time-favorite jar of mush “organic summer vegetables.”
Organic vegetables are easy to come by so I read the label: potato, carrot, green beans and zucchini.
Zucchini?! Really baby, can’t mommy get a break?
In Oliver’s world there is no “day” there is just “night” and “no-night.”
In the evening as the sun goes down it becomes time for “night.” In the morning, when the sun comes up and the darkness is replaced by light, there is voice, inches away from my face which enthusiastically announces “No-night mommy! No-night!”
The baby does not “sleep.” P is either “awake” or “no-awake.” No-awake is usually easily resolved by being poked at which point baby is “awake!” again. The baby does “nap” but when nap time is over, baby enters “no-nap” time, sometimes with a helpful poke.
There is also “no baby!” but that is reserved for when P gets into something of O’s.
At Christmas O got a camera from Auntie M, so far he’s run the batteries down, filled the memory card once, and taken dozens of nowhere close to in focus pictures. I was recently inspired to upload the most recent batch of blurry perspectives, and thought I’d share a few.
More of O’s fine work is now up in an album entitled Oliver’s Perspectives at my picasa.
