Oh, Mexico

We are back from five days in Sayulita, Mexico, where we did almost nothing all day. Unless you count napping, Sudoku, and People magazine as doing something, in which case, we were incredibly busy. My arms are completely exhausted from dipping all those chips into guacamole.

Here are the pictures.

People seem to be pretty interested in where we stayed. This year, since it was just the three of us, we got a two bedroom condo in the center of town. It is one block from the beach and the front door sits under a tree full of 24" long iguanas. The place was called Casa Siestas y Olas and having a separate bedroom for Julian was fantastic. Last year, we stayed in a huge house called Casa Bouganvillea with Doug and Sharon. There was tons of space for hanging out, and a gorgeous view, but it only slept four adults. We put Julian's crib in the bathroom, and we all slept horribly. Lesson learned.

Ryan surfed for about an hour each day. We tried to teach Julian to enjoy the sand and water, but he had to adapt to the setting at his own pace. Mostly he was distracted by how dirty his hands were getting, until the last couple of days when he finally got into it and acted the way we think a two-year old should act at the beach: delighted.

We also gave Julian his first ice cream cone. The next day, when we walked by the bench where he had eaten the cone, he sat on it and said, "I have a snack now." I pulled some crackers out of my purse and offered them to him. "No," he shouted, "I have ice cream cone!" Okaay.

Phonics lessons from Julian

Thanks to the brilliant LeapFrog-produced DVD The Letter Factory, Julian knows all the sounds that letters make. This doesn't mean he's ready for Kindergarten or anything, he just has a faint notion that "D is for Daddy" has something to do with saying "Duh-duh-daddy." When I get tired of talking about Thomas the Train, sometimes I tell him about the initial letters of his favorite words.

Recently, he's schooled me on a few letter sounds that I was confused about. Direct quotes from Julian:

• "Emily" starts with "M"
• "Our house" starts with "R"
• "Theo" starts with "O"

In other news, we are headed to Mexico for vacation where we'll see who understands more Spanish: Julian with five months of bilingual daycare and a two-year old's grasp of English or Whitney with a minor in Spanish Language and Literature and advanced fluency in English? Or, perhaps it will be Ryan who doesn't get tripped up by vocabulary and just looks at facial expressions and hand gestures.

Baby pants & hat made from t-shirt

I couldn't help myself. After I made pants and a hat for Heather's boys out of a no-longer-a -favorite Banana Republic sweater of Ryan's, I just had to make something for our household, too. Starting with... this salmon-colored J.Crew shirt.
I posted a tutorial for making the hat on RookieMoms.com, and the pants -- well, they're just the sleeves of the same shirt sewn together with a button added.

So here they are - Baby Girl M-C's first handmade clothes. 100% recycled, to boot. How Berkeley can you be?
Excuse the hat model. We don't have any life-sized babydolls.

Back porch action

Labor Day?

No, not for me.

Last week, a guy in my neighborhood asked me if the baby is coming soon. Well, that is a relative question. If you think 4.5 months is soon, then absolutely, we are having a baby soon. In the world of pregnancy, however, I am just halfway there. "Soon" seems like a huge exaggeration.

Because of my height, I suppose, I am large for the second trimester, with plans to get much larger. I am preparing to be fielding that question for the next four months, until I can finally say, "Yes, soon."

For Heather (my writing partner and a bff), however, "soon" is the right word. Hours or days, we don't know, but for her it could not be soon enough.

Here we are at 20 and 39.5 weeks.


So, to answer your frequently asked questions:

1 - I feel great; thanks for asking.
2- The first half of July. Due to our previous experience, in this house, we don't focus on an actual day. 07/07/07 is a possibility, however.
3- A girl, according to the ultrasound technician.
4- Yes, Julian knows the words "mommy has baby in da tummy" but we don't think he necessarily knows what that means.
5- They will be 2 years and 8 months apart.
6- We do have some name ideas, but they are sealed in saran wrap, locked in an airtight vault, and will not be revealed before the end of the pregnancy.

UPDATE: Heather's baby, Milo Theodore Flibbs (not his real last name), was born 47 hours after this picture was taken.

While the boss* is away

* Ryan's college nickname is "Boss". It does not mean he is actually the boss. Well, he is in fact the boss of a few people at his office, but around here, he's probably last in line for that title.

Recently, Ryan was away on a business trip. While he was gone, I succeeded in selling a piece of furniture from our living room. We want new furniture and agreed that this piece should go. When the nice craig's list people came and took the chair, it looked to me like our living room grew. There was a wonderful big empty space where there chair had been, and I felt like I could breathe more easily.

Ryan got home from Denver a few hours later. He didn't notice the new vacancy in the living room, and I didn't mention it to him. I wanted to see who would notice first between him and Julian.

We brought Julian home from school and he ran right through the formerly-occupied space as if he had been able to run that path his whole life.

And several more hours passed, and still Ryan did not notice. During that time, Julian asked about certain missing toy trains, missing puzzle pieces, but not a very large missing chair.

I am comforted, actually, because I was nervous about selling a perfectly good chair. I feel validated that none of us actually ever sat in it.

Take your guess: Did Ryan notice, but think it wasn't worth mentioning? Will Julian be the first to point out "where wocking chair go?" Will Ryan suddenly say, "Hey, you sold the chair!" Will Ryan read this post before that happens?

I'll be waiting.

To be or not to be

As Julian has been adding more proper grammar to his sentences, I notice that it's usually one step forward, two steps back before we get any new verb usage smoothed out.

"To be" started out very well for us a few months ago, in the form of the contraction "That's" (pronounced "dat's") so that he could say "Dat's mommy's iPod" or "Dat's a fire truck!" instead of the babyish excuse for a sentence, "Fire truck!"

Current usage of the verb "to be", however, includes predicting the future without the use of the helping verb "will":

Me: I'm going to turn off the lights now.
Julian: It be dark.

Me: I'll eat one of your orange slices.
Julian: Dey be all gone!

And, of course, simple descriptions of how things "be":

Me: Your doll has no shirt now!
Julian: She be cold!

January M-C News

1. Ryan posted new pictures.
2. Whitney is writing a book (with Heather) and has interest from a couple publishers.
3. Julian doesn't know it yet, but in July, he will become a big brother.

Happy New Year!

No one cares what you had for lunch

Maggie Mason, a well-known blogger in San Francisco, has written a book of 100 ideas for blog entries. She aims to provide inspiration for bloggers who are stuck on writing about their cats and other mundane details of their lives, and has titled it No One Cares What You Had For Lunch. I like the book, and have been using it, but today I will contradict the claim she makes.

Today you should care what I had for lunch, because it was leftover zucchini latkes made by Karen for our Hanukkah party. They are delicious themselves, but the best part is the yogurt sauce that goes with them. Here is the zucchini latke recipe. I encourage you to try it out, even if you're not celebrating Hannukah.

ZUCCHINI LATKES

- Grate on a microplane:
about 8 zucchini (unpeeled)
1/2 a red onion or 1 small one

- Mix together:
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 cup water

- Mix batter with veg. Add:
a big pinch of salt
about 1/2 cup chopped chives
a bit more flour or water to make a consistency like thick cake batter

- Heat oil and drop into pan- spread them out thin in the oil with the back of your spoon a little bit. Cook thru and drain on paper towels.

DIPPING SAUCE
for 1 pint whole milk plain yogurt, mix in to taste:
juice of 1 lemon
a couple big pinches of sea salt
a heavy dose of garam masala (around 2T)
a heavy dose of turmeric (around 1T)
a heavy dose of garlic powder (about 1T- could also use fresh minced garlic)
you could add other things like, chopped mint, chopped shallots (raw or pickled)
keep adding more spices until it tastes good. you need to put in a lot.
let it sit for a few hours in the fridge to marry all the flavors.

I Shpy

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah (which you can spell however you want). We'll have the Flibbs over for dinner and light the candles in a couple of menorahs. Tomorrow my mom will come up from L.A. so that at our Hanukkah party on Sunday, I won't be the only Jewish mother in the house.

Julian is obsessed with playing "I Spy" whenever he sees a picture with lots of details. He has a subscription to Animal Baby magazine, and "I Spy" is a feature in each issue. So... I was excited when I saw this printable "I Shpy" activity on the Chabad web site. It's not really 2-year old appropriate, but we'll find other things in the picture to quiz him on.

At "school" this week, Julian made latkes, decorated a Jewish star, and painted a menorah, made out of blocks. Perfect timing because when these 8 days of Hanukkah are over, we can turn our attention to Christmas trees, Santa Claus, and giving. Oy, do I love December.