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Falling for Fall
I love Fall. I never used to. As a kid, fall meant bulky scratchy ill-fitting sweaters and tights that wouldn’t stay up. It meant school and lots of stay-inside days. In high school, Fall and Winter meant rain and if it rained then the hairspray on my bangs would completely lose all it’s stiffness and my day would be ruined. Oh the horror.
But now I love wearing bulky clothes. I hardly ever wear tights but I love wearing socks. I still don’t really love rain but I could care less what my hair looked like. I love the crisp air in Fall and the blue blue blue skies. I love taking walks with Baby Bug and not feeling drops of perspiration run down my back underneath the baby harness. I love sipping hot drinks and walking on a beach completely bare of tourists. I love thinking about pumpkins and butternut squash soup and warm cozy things like making pies.
Speaking of… I wonder if I’ll be able to pull off making pies now that I have a baby. It was such an achievement for me last year. I think I can do it. And you know why? Because I AM the MASTER MEAL PLANNER!!! [insert cheery tooting kazoo music here] Meal planning rocks. I thought it was a silly idea at first. Just one more thing to fill up my day. I thought it was overkill. I mean what are you going to ask me to do next? Lay out my clothes on the bed the night before and iron my shirts! Enter my receipts into an Excel spreadsheet? That’s just silly talk.
You know what? Meal planning works. It was a very productive exercise to force myself to sit down and think about what I had on hand and what I needed from the grocery store. I usually just wing it and it’s a good thing I’m creative because you know how well winging it works. Then I got out my big fat Joy of Cooking cookbook (that I just happen to be reading these days. I kid you not.) and I picked out one new recipe to try. We have “new recipe night” now. It’s kinda fun. Except I think I’m either allergic to walnuts or I poisoned myself. (I’ll try to link the recipe on my cooking blog and link it here later.)
I feel like such a fake trying to be so domestic but it’s not that bad really. If I’m here being a mom 100% of the time, I might as well embrace all the facets of professional wife-and-momhood and be good at it. It just feels so foreign. I’m not a good cook. I don’t really like to clean. I’d rather spend all my time playing on my computer and making things. But this is what fits around the baby’s nap times and this is what makes my family happy. So I’m going to do the best job I can. And maybe along the way I’ll enjoy it and become a good cook. Imagine that!
Enough about that. Here are some more swing pictures. We have a lot of pictures of Baby Bug in the swing. Mostly because we go to the park EVERY DAY!!! I have to. It keeps me sane. But these pictures are special because I sort of almost got a picture of her peek-a-boo invisible new tooth. It’s there, I can feel it. It just doesn’t really show up well, especially in a gritty slideshow.
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the 3am rambly sicky post
You’d never guess it from the pictures but Baby Bug and I are feeling a little bit under the weather. So much for nursing for the first year of life and not getting sick. I think this is her third cold. I could be wrong though. They say congestion during the first month is totally normal. Either way, being sick is the pits. Being sick and getting new teeth is the double pits. Just like my ugly arm pits in the pictures above.
But don’t worry about us, we’re fine. We plug on through illness like super troopers. Baby Bug is still a lot of fun. She doesn’t let the sniffles or a wheeze get her down. She must have a milder version of this bug than I do because I feel like %#@. I’m just worried that the next stage of my normal routine of sickness, which is coughing like crazy, is going to be a problem. I might have to actually sleep in the other room! Gasp!
You may have gathered that I’ve been sleeping on the floor in the Bug’s room. (No more fleas. We killed ’em dead!) I have a futon there so it’s not so bare bones as it was those first few months. I gave up on the 70’s crib because I couldn’t sleep thinking about her suffocating all night. But the real reason is it was just so much hassle feeding her at night, like I like to, and worrying about waking Toby up. Toby may be a night owl but he does go to bed for just a few hours before I get up and those are the hours that both of us struggle with being polite to each other. We’re trolls when we’re half asleep. I know, excuses excuses. I don’t know why I like to sleep in the other room. I just do. Romance Schmomance. I promise, when she’s a year old (only 3 months from now) I will try and sleep in my old bed again. That’s my plan.
The 70’s crib is still there though. Toby won’t let me get rid of it. He hopes we could all sleep together in the same room like a happy family someday. I might use it if we have company and I give up my futon for guests to sleep on. I took out the super-tall bumper pad that I so lovingly suffered to make and replaced it with one of those ugly breathable bumper pads. It looks terrible. But at least she won’t suffocate.
So that’s that. Questions answered finally. Let’s just put that subject to “bed”.
Onward with… hmmmmmmm… nothing much. I’m back from the sticks. I’m attempting to be super mom and plan my meals for the week. Ha! What a funny concept. I did manage to eek out a week’s menu while Baby Bug climbed up the side of my chair fifty-seven times and tried to climb into my lap. I wish I had a jungle gym made out of soft stairs and cushions. She loves to climb things. But she’s always fallling down and banging herself. The other day she fell on the rung that stretches between the two legs of the bistro table we have in the dinging room and gave herself a nasty nick on the side of her eye. I thought sure she was going to get a black eye. What kind of mom am I that I let my kid get a black eye!
It’s just impossible to let her “explore” and play without letting her tumble now and then. No area is 100% safe. She’s starting to pull herself up on everything, even the walls. My mom has this cool little leap pad table toy that stands about a foot maybe a foot and a half tall. She tries to climb up on top of that. She’s just a little mountain climber!
Well, I’m rambling. It’s 3:30 in the morning and my hot lemon and honey tea (that was supposed to make my sore throat feel better) is cold. I guess I might as well tumble back into bed and attempt to get some sleep. Morning is going to be here way before I want it to.
