bakin'

I've taken to baking and doing other things around the house on Friday afternoons. It's a needed relaxation after sitting in front of the computer/steering wheel for most of the rest of the week.

Today I made a version of these chocolate with peanut-butter filling cookies (only the ones I made were from my Big Cookie Book). Mmmm.

new words!

Our neighbor L. asked if I have been recording the new baby-j words, and I haven’t, so here are some from the past week:

oval (Heard by both me and K, on separate occasions, when actually looking at an oval!)

f*ckie (We’re not sure what he’s referring to with this one. P. maintains that he’s saying “Frankie,” a reference to a stuffed frog that I named and so baby-j’s new word f*ckie is all my fault.)

ah-ight (Referring to “light,” not some super-cool pronunciation of “alright.”)

up (I think he means “on” when he says this, as in turn “on” the “ah-ight.” So there’s a lot of gesturing to the ceiling and “Ah-ight. Up. Ah-ight. Up.”)

baby-j, you ah-ight up my life.

Ok, time to stop blogging and finish alphabetizing and checking the 300 references for my proposal. I will, I WILL get this damn thing finished this weekend and defended this semester.

bruises, part 2

Ok, so I know this blog will get boring quickly if I keep chronicling baby-j's bruises, as he is likely to have many more of them in the coming months (days? minutes?). So I'll be quick: we had a slight scare last night and almost a trip to the emergency room when baby-j fell down about 6 attic steps. He landed head-first into the wastepaper basket, which I think saved him a bit. No goose-egg on the forehead, but he is now sporting a Harry Potter scar. As long as I know he's going to be ok, the scar is even a bit cute to me.

matching bruises

baby-j’s tendency to flip over benches has us both bruised this week.

Some background: our dining room table is a family “heirloom,” originally used by my grandmother for a dancing school she founded and ran in the 1950s. It’s not a formal table; it’s a sawbuck table with benches on both sides... ok, it’s basically a glorified picnic bench. Even though my grandmother wouldn’t dream of putting it anywhere in her house (she’s an interior decorator for the wealthy and consequently her tastes have changed accordingly), the few times she’s come to visit, she compliments us on it. Well, I guess she’s complimenting herself, as it’s hers. She always reminds us to keep it in the family if we decide not to use it anymore. My family gives us those kind of reminders quite a bit, knowing how our constant moving has turned us into frequent Freecyclers.

Anyway, baby-j likes to pull over the benches and then slide them around the front room of the house, as seen here recently with his cousins. We’ve given up turning the bench back over for the most part and usually leave it upside down, another addition to the kid-inspired décor of the front room. Yesterday morning, the bench was right about where it appears in this picture when, in a tired haze, I ran down the stairs to head into the kitchen and tripped over the corner. I yelped loudly; as a result, baby-j began to cry in his highchair, and P was forced to try and calm both of us down at the same time. I knew that it was bad, but I didn’t realize that when I got to work and took off my sock, I would discover the toe next to my pinkie toe to be black. I don’t know if it’s broken, but from what I hear I guess there’s not much that can be done anyway. My students were remarkably concerned as I taught my classes sitting down yesterday: I’d like to think it was out of genuine concern rather than the appeal of my having to stay home for a few days. Unfortunately for them, my driving foot was not the one affected.

No, it’s my left foot, just like the spider (?) bite that I got this summer. Unlike this summer, however, I’ve made a decision not to risk comments and make any more readers of this blog ill by posting pictures. :)

Apparently, I was not the bench’s only victim. P informs me that a few hours after I limped out the door, baby-j tripped over the bench yesterday while I was at work, giving him a scary-looking bruise on his chest. He seems to be doing well and not harboring any resentment toward the bench, which has already slid back and forth across the room several times today.

diaper update

Most weeks, baby-j splits the time between mom and dad: P and I go in to teach every other day. This ideal has been marred recently as I’ve had to go in, say, four times a week rather than two or three, but in general, baby-j has a “mom day” followed by a “dad day.” Having to cram a full-time teaching load into 2-3 days means that I don’t get home until 9:30 or 10:30 at night. When P has rehearsal, he gets home even later. The inevitable result is that P and I swap abbreviated baby-j updates either late at night or early in the morning. We don’t always have time to share everything.

And since baby-j can’t talk yet, how wonderful that the contents of a diaper tell a story.

I know, for example, that yesterday P must have fed baby-j some corn (a relative newcomer to the baby-j diet), and perhaps some oats. In addition, it looks like baby-j read--or rather, consumed--some kind of story with the word “sleep” in it.

I hasten to add that this is not a criticism of P; I admire his determination to add new foods (i.e., the corn) to baby-j’s diet slowly but consistently. And as for the book page, well, it was a very small piece of paper, especially compared to the entire bar code sticker from Barnes and Noble that we found in his diaper several months back, presumably devoured on my watch.

shake it like a polaroid picture

Yesterday we got baby-j's first pair of hard-soled shoes. (We've gone through a few pair of Robeez already, but we needed something he could wear outside, especially when it's when wet... a few bouts of "pruny feet" settled that.) After an unsuccessful trip trying on shoes at Target, we decided to get his feet measured at an actual shoe store.

So here's the style we got: KX500. Although we didn't plan it, they're New Balance, like his dad's sneakers. Actually, we didn't plan on sneakers at all: we basically bought these shoes like we buy our pre-owned cars. ("...so what are the cheapest ones you have in the store?") He'll be in a bigger size in 3 months anyway.

After realizing that these would be his first hard-soled shoes, a few tears were shed (by me--what a wuss I am), and the salesperson took a Polaroid photo of baby-j that went immediately in their custom "First Steps" card, with his name, date, brand, and size. (For what it's worth, baby-j is a size 7 extra wide. Yikes!) The shoe store has got the marketing down, haven't they?

stage four

I've been known to take many a photo-shoot of baby-j.

There are several stages involved in the baby photo-shoot. Stage One, or "Camera on the Other Side of the Room," features full-length shots (as seen in nice legs). Stages Two and Three, those that I like to refer to as "Bewildered Candids" and "Wandering Towards Mom," produce the best shots, featuring a purposeful baby-j, usually with toy or half-eaten book still in hand.

This is baby-j in Stage Four, otherwise known as "Camera Attack." Half-eaten books are forgotten at this point.

Photos taken in Stage Five, or "Camera Grab," are often deleted immediately after being downloaded from the camera. They typically depict a blurry bald head and a flash of teeth.

tennis, anyone?

Today baby-j and I went to the outdoor tennis courts, which are a block away and a recent discovery of mine. I mean, there are large signs all around them that state they are for the students and faculty of the local college, so prior to this week, who was I to intrude? But a walk with a neighbor and her dog--during which we entered aforementioned unlocked tennis courts--showed me that there is a very cool space to walk around with (i.e., to exhaust) baby-j.

By the way, I love this, this walking with a neighbor and her dog. I have never felt such a sense of community in my life since moving here... which means, of course, that we are soon destined to move yet again.

Back to the tennis courts. We were there for an hour, engaging in baby-j’s favorite activities, which include chomping on leaves, twigs, and old Powerbar wrappers; giggling while chasing his shadow; and kicking his blue mini-soccer ball which P. purchased on a whim during a Target trip many months ago.

P. is in the city now, rehearsing for one of his many projects. And I must stop blogging in a second, as I prepare for a chat with my online students while keeping one ear alert for baby-j, who is soon to wake up from his post-tennis court nap.

nice legs

Those are some nice legs.

I really can’t get over baby-j’s legs sometimes. They’re just so... lumpy. They’re wonderful. Sometimes I worry about how large he is. I mean, he is large for his age, but not in an eatin’-Doritos-all-day-long kind of way. He’s strong. When I look at him, I’m reminded of my own younger days, particularly when, at fourteen, I spied the notes my pediatrician had written in my file about me at age 10: This is a girl who is large for her age. I know he didn’t mean “fat,” not quite... he meant tall, and thick. But it was shocking, reading that line about me in the folder. In one sense, it was yet another factor contributing to the body/self-loathing that was to come in college. I think it was more than that, though. Reading that line, it dawned on me that in the eyes of a doctor, I was no more than a subject, a body to be analyzed and dissected. And so now, I want to acknowledge that baby-j is--will always be--much more than his beautiful, delicious, chunky body.

P and baby-j just finished watching Wedding Crashers on cable. Now they’re dancing together around the living room singing to The Long Winters. It’s a good, happy Saturday night.

a is for apple

P and I are officially recording baby-j's first word as "apple."

Sure, he's said a lot of "da-das" and even "ex-ee." But last week, at our first parent/child class, the teacher passed around a morning snack of sliced apples, and without even prompting, it came: App-uh. App-uh.

It is the mark of a parent when the word takes on a life of its own. P said he never realized how beautiful, how textured the word apple really is. And it is. Isn't it? :)

car-ful o' fun

This has been our first full week back at work, and I don’t know about baby-j, but it’s sure been rough on his parents. Especially when his mom’s car threatens to break down.

Forty-five minutes into my ninety-minute commute Monday, my car started shimmying and shaking, especially when accelerating. Thankfully, I was able to make it to work and back Monday. (Though I was going 50 mph in the right lane with my hazards on… and those damn NJ drivers were still on my ass. I mean, what do you have to do to just get those suicidal drivers to pass you?)

We took the car in to the shop Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, both P and I had to go to work. So he headed off in his car, and I rented a car. The only car that Enterprise had available? A big blue pick-up truck. New and beautiful, but still: a huge truck, particularly for someone who avoids large cars (ok, mostly SUVs) as a general rule.

Yes-indeedy, I looked mighty cool rollin’ into work.

Luckily, the shop said all we needed was a tune-up (rather than a new transmission, which would have meant P and I would be looking for a new car). So we got the car back Tuesday night and dropped off the rental truck. I won’t mention that P got pulled over by the cops in my car on the way to drop off the rental. ;) I mean, he was speeding for good reason--testing out the engine on my car. Luckily the officer took pity on him and gave him a warning. Otherwise, that would have been one of the most expensive days in the history of our relationship.

But Wednesday was much better. I had a productive day at work, and it sounds like P had a good day at home with baby-j. It warms my heart just to think about it. At the risk of sounding like a complete sap, I cannot imagine P being a better dad for the j-man.

a photo a day...

I've been having great fun exploring YouTube (yes, I'm often late to the hip Web sites that the young people enjoy these days). I like to fool myself by saying that it's all for school and research--that's partly true, as I'm going to require students to use hyperlinks, images, and video in their research papers this semester. However, I've been enjoying YouTube on its own. Last night, I was looking at this one:

Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years.

It's nice. But then, after looking at the above, you have to check out a review at this link:

Re: Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years.

And then, when you get pretty slap-happy, try this:

Phil takes a photo of himself everyday for 2 days.

Minutes of enjoyment for me and P last night, I tell you.

sweepin' up

Well, I'm back at work and I can tell already that it's going to tough to keep up with the blogging when I'm grading papers for 4 different writing classes. But I promise to try. The issue is that I'm also writing to my other blog for dissertation purposes, so it's hard to keep all these things straight in my head.

baby-j is starting school next week! Ok, so it's not school-school: it's a parent-child class one day a week and I'll be with him, which is definitely a good thing, since he still enjoys nibbling on other children. (We need to work on that.) We got a letter in the mail from the school yesterday explaining how the class will run. I'm very nervous about it, because the class encourages the adults to work on "purposeful activity" (like various crafts) while the children wander about freely and help as they can. However, we're also expected to maintain responsibility for our child, which I fear means that my "purposeful activity" will entail running around the room after baby-j so he doesn't eat another child.

If he has something to do, though, he should be ok. One of the activities is cleaning (yes, we're paying to clean together), and baby-j does love sweeping. This is a picture of him sweeping up while we were on vacation in MI. Apparently, once he got a taste of how exciting sweeping can be, he was hooked. We have a Swiffer at home that I use occasionally. (Ok, I use it rarely--so rarely that I've had the same box of Swiffer cloths for at least 3 years. Using that much paper to clean is bad for the environment anyway... yeah, that's why I haven't used them).

Ahem. Anyway, baby-j will grab that Swiffer and just won't let go. K (our amazing babysitter) said that this week, when she tried to take it away in order to put him in his highchair, he wailed hysterically.

Don't try to separate a baby and his broom.

babylegs

Wow: it's gotten cold(er) here over the past two days, making it difficult to pretend I don't have to go back to teach next week. It already feels like fall. There are good things about fall, though: the first of which is that baby-j can wear things like his babylegs. These things are supposed to be "one size fits all," but honestly, baby-j has some chunky thighs that challenge such a declaration. Since they roll down his thighs, the babylegs look more like legwarmers, particularly his "funky green jester" ones.

He's also getting more accomplished as a walker. I'm not quite used to how fast he moves. Today I mistakenly left the bedroom door open to dispose of the goodies he left in his cloth diaper, only to turn back and see him quickly waddling towards the stairs. He was giggling, holding a shoebox through which he had just gnawed a hole. And he was wearing only a diaper and some babylegs.

I think it's the teeth--when he grins maniacally you see the gap between the front two teeth and the gums above them--that make surprising moments like that hilarious for his parents.

costumes

Is it too early to be thinking about Halloween costumes? According to the various Web sites I've looked at, it may be too late. The chili-pepper bunting suits and yoda ears for toddlers are just flying off the shelves. P and I are considering dressing baby-j as Charlie Brown, since he's already got the hairstyle licked. Also, he wouldn't have to wear anything on his head. As you can see from last year's Halloween picture, he wasn't too into wearing things on his head. Or being dressed as a peapod. Not that I blame him. (The peapod costume was a gift, and not my idea.)

But I cannot seem to find an already-made Charlie Brown T-shirt. Guess I'll have to make it. I'm thinking fabric glue.

death of a tree

This morning at 8am our street was visited by Jim’s Tree Service; they were there to remove the tree in front of the house across the street. Our neighbor M came over for the first time yesterday to let us know (primarily so P could move his car). It was good to know in advance. It’s good to have some warning. It’s for safety reasons, as the tree dips precariously over the street, and there’s a concern it would fall on children (or adults… that would be bad, too, no?). Having had a retaining wall collapse and demolish our car when we lived in the Bronx, I understand such risk. I understand why this must be done. But still.

Is baby-j too young to witness such a death? I suppose the point is moot, since I let him. At first, he started pounding on the window. He screeched and yelped at the machines. Then, after a few minutes, he returned to his morning ritual of searching for (and eventually putting in his mouth) small pieces of garbage on the floor that are too small for adults to see.

I’d never watched a tree being removed before, so I had no idea what a time-consuming process it is. They chainsaw the branches off first--in the case of the longer, thicker ones, cutting them in 2-foot sections, then dropping them three stories to the street below. Once dropped, they are immediately thrown to the woodchipper. Soon the branches are removed, leaving a bald trunk that gives a first glimpse of what this street will be like without this tree. Then, the trunk is sawed off from the top, piece-by-piece, each one lassoed by rope and then gently hoisted off the top to glide down to the ground.

Oh, tree, I hardly knew ye. But there is something haunting about this absence. For a hundred years (or more?), that existing space was all tree, and now it is just space. There are things we can see that we couldn’t before. In that sense, it’s much like the end of autumn, when everything is laid bare.

dumps like a truck

baby-j has gotten several dump truck and digger-type vehicles lately, and he loves them. The latest one was given to him yesterday by our (wonderful) neighbors--the Fisher-Price "Little People" Dump Truck.

Each time he gets one of these "vroom-vroom" toys, I start thinking about gender, and find myself amazed that people can possibly deny that the differences between boys and girls are nurtured at an early age by culture. baby-j is only 1, but he's been exposed to all things "boy" from the moment he was born despite our resistance. I try to comfort myself in these moments by telling myself that if we'd had a little girl, she would be exposed to the same kind and amount of "vroom-vroom" toys, though of course that probably wouldn't be the case as P and I are never the ones to buy toys--they are usually gifts. (Of course, if we were to have a second child who was a girl, she'd have access to all of baby-j's old toys...)

Anyway, back to the dump truck. It's pretty fun, and I love that there's actually a shit-colored piece of crap that can be dumped out of the truck. My issue is not with the truck, but rather, with the packaging that encourages you to buy other Fisher-Price "Little Vehicles," including the one pictured here.

It's the Lil' Movers SUV. That's right. And it comes complete with mom and baby. Looking at the product description, you'll see that kids can "recreate the familiar experience of riding around with mom!" Developmental benefits include "early role play: being the mom figure"! So not only are we teaching young girls that they want to be moms, but that they need the SUV to do it. (Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to be a mom--hell, I wanted that--but where are the vehicles encouraging boys to be fathers?)

I showed this to P, who was not impressed: "What else do you expect?" As usual, he's right (but don't tell him I wrote that). :)

Sigh. Resistance is not only futile, but also quite depressing.

neighborhood walk

One of the reasons P and I decided to buy a house was this neighborhood. It’s a college neighborhood that’s relatively quiet; it has beautiful houses that are diverse in both price and style, houses that are often more than 100 years old. We love the walking here.

So baby-j and I went on one of our evening excursions, with him chattering away the entire time. I am uncertain how exactly to handle his “talking” while I’m pushing him in a stroller. I want to reassure him that I’m close by, so I’ll often respond with:
“Really? You don’t say.”
“Tell me more.”
“What do you really think?”

This is fun for about 10 minutes. After this point, I run out of responses to his monologue. Complicating things lately is baby-j’s tendency to move beyond cute baby gurgles and into yelps and groans, rather loudly, as we march up and down the street. Blehhhhhch, he croaks. Then, louder and more insistent. Blehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhch. Blehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhch!! He starts to sound a bit demonic, which has the unintended effect of making my responses even more ridiculous, as if I’m the only one who can understand the secret, scary language.

dissertation update

Ok, I know this is not as interesting as cute toddler info, but I just have to submit an update here: my dissertation proposal is, in my advisor's words, "in very good shape." I have work to do, but it may just be manageable. This is a big deal for me, especially as I've been both
a) waiting for a bit for this good news, and
b) hoping beyond hopes that I can defend the proposal this fall. Then I "get" to write the dissertation. (The proposal itself is 60 pages, so it's a decent start once it's been accepted.)

Ok, baby-j and I are going to do a dance in honor of this exciting news. He doesn't know what he's boogying for, but still. He's adorable.

pots and pans

Thought I'd post this picture that P got about a month back. What is up with the opening of cabinets? baby-j is way into them; I just assume that most babies/toddlers are. He loves opening doors and pulling crap out: in this case, all of P's pots and pans. Though we've been here almost four months, there's still quite a bit to do, including some baby-proofing. Not latching cabinet doors--that would make too much sense--but rather, attaching cabinets to walls so baby-j doesn't pull them down on himself. There have been a couple of instances of baby-j almost being crushed by cheap, filmsy cabinetry in his room... but both were caught in time. I never knew I could move so fast. Once, in my younger days, I climbed aboard my father's running lawnmower and the thing took off in the backyard. I never saw your father hustle so fast, is what my mother always says.