Heroes

Another great episode!

So, Eden is a mole and now she's going after Isaac. Speaking of which, did the creepy dad tell her to bring the "pre-cog"? What term did he use? I missed it. I think I'll re-watch the episode online.

Is Niki dead? Her eyes were still open, so it's hard to tell. I was wondering if DL could put himself through people and then, wham!, into her chest. From the previews of next week, it does look like their little son has some kind of power, too. Also, when Isaac was rubbing the paint off her portrait and there was the "F" tattoo - does she actually have that tattoo? I haven't seen it on her.

Now the creepy dad knows that the other heroes are banding together to save the cheerleader. What is he going to do to her?

DL is definitely not the same guy as the mind-eraser dude.

I loved how Hiro was all excited about his future self carrying a sword. He's the best character on television right now.

What else?

Happy Halloween!

Here's the best photo I have of Sophie's costume so far:

In other news, the "pink eye" looks much better. You wouldn't even know at this point. Except for the goopy ointment.

Aaron and I tag-teamed the day yesterday because we had to keep her home from daycare. I left work around noon to take over so that he could go to school. At one point, we were in her room and I had to go the bathroom. I closed the gate behind me and did my thing. And she didn't complain at all. I could hear her in there talking to herself and giggling a little. Excellent! I'll check email! And she continued to play by herself until I decided maybe I should go check on her as she's entertaining herself almost too well. I found her sitting in front of her mirror with a green (washable, non-toxic) crayon in her mouth! That she had smeared all over her face! And her hands! She had been having a grand old time.

I feel worse about the fact that I did not take any photos.

Pink eye!

Awesome! Sophie's eyes are all puffy and dripping thick yellow custard. She woke up this morning with one of her eyes almost caked shut. Our doctor was luckily on duty today and he wouldn't definitively say it was pink eye, but he did prescribe antibiotics. So, she's staying home tomorrow as a precaution. Aaron and I are going to split the time home with her.

Now both of our eyes are feeling itchy but I think that is just a symptom of hypochondria. Cross your fingers.

Sophie Stats!

Today was Sophie's 1 year doctor's appointment. Three shots, including the flu shot, and lead/iron blood tests. She handled the blood drawing for the lead/iron without crying at all. Although the looks she was giving the nurse were capable of burning holes. The shots? Eh, not so much.

I was planning on getting back to work by 10, but she fell asleep in the car on the way to daycare. So I parked near the daycare house and took a quick nap with her. We both needed it. We all have dark circles under our eyes from a mostly sleepless night last night. Yes, she has another cold. Now with coughing! Yay!

She also has eczema and a new prescription for a hydrocortizone-laced Eucerin cream. Which means I was right all along. I did ask him about dietary correlations with eczema - like eliminating dairy - and he said the end result is about the same. Except you are getting less calcium and other nutrients. So, we're going to try the cream first and see what happens.

Now onto the stats:

Weight: 20 lbs, 15 oz (50%)
Height: 30.9" (95%)
Head: 47cm (~18")

She's a little beanpole: she grew 2.5" since the August appointment and only gained 14 oz this time.

She impressed the doctor by walking all over the place and showing him the signs for "dog", "hungry" and "all done". She also bounced up and down when we showed her a rabbit and a frog. She also made "brrr" noises for the toy school bus they had in the room.

This weekend is her belated birthday party and we're hosting my mom, grandmother, aunt, sister, brother-in-law, nephew and niece. I'm being a little ambitious with the amount of things I plan to cook (muffins! cupcakes! soup! chicken! bread!). This is all in addition to the cleaning and straightening we need to do. Luckily, there is still some wine left from last night to help spur things along.

Life Lesson #346

Husband guilt + fear of retribution = awesome chocolate cake, tomato garlic pizza, a bottle of Ricardo Santos Malbec, candles and balloons.

35!

It's my birthday! I'm 35! That sounds so weird. I feel, maybe, 24.

Aaron forgot my birthday. He failed the ultimate "will he remember my birthday?" test.

He'd better remember to pick up the large garlic and tomato pizza from Roberto's before he gets home today or there is going to be major hell to pay.

Cat on a treadmill

This video of a cat on a treadmill is oddly mesmerizing. I turned the music down.

Heroes

Another great episode!

Can Nathan fly or what? That was insane. No wonder he is such a cocky bastard.

Matt, the cop, getting all overwhelmed by people's thoughts and using his power to manipulate his wife. Not sure how I feel about that. Although it would be great if Aaron knew what I wanted for my birthday just by reading my mind. But I wouldn't want him to know everything I'm thinking. That's just creepy.

I loved, loved, loved when Hiro "yoo hoo!"ed for the waffles. And how excited he was when he saw Nathan land. He's the best character on the show.

I'm really looking forward to next week - maybe it will explain more about Niki's doppelganger. Also, I think her kid does have some kind of power.

So, who do you think is after the cheerleader? Is it Sylar?

Claire's father using the dark dude to wipe the quarterback's memory. Is he protecting her? Or is he going to use her power for evil?

How did her father know where Nathan and Niki were? And didn't he know that Nathan could fly? They seemed a bit surprised when he took off.

I love how everyone is starting to find each other - when Hiro called Isaac again and Peter had a message for him? Crazy. And when Peter started to paint and see the vision?

On a side note, Heroes really needs a better lead-in show than 'Deal or No Deal' - does anyone really watch that? I watch 'How I Met Your Mother' (love Doogie) and 'The Class' (growing on me) and then switch over. I know, I'm old-fashioned and I don't have Tivo.

Happy Birthday Sophie!

Sophie, Monkey, Moo Moo, Poo Poo, Boo Boo (creative, yeah?), Poofer, Snopher, Snophinator, Snow Pea, Soph, Snoph, Beeble, The Moo, Lulu, Sophster, Moomer, Boofer, Snophie von Pooplestein:

Before you were born, whenever I was asked the age-old question: "if you could have any superpower, what would it be?", I would either answer invisibility (which, still cool) or the ability to breathe underwater.

Metaphorically, the latter has come true. We didn't know what we were in for. Parenting is definitely a sink or swim venture. Just when you think you've got things figured out, another wave hits and you are underwater once again. For the most part, our heads are bobbing above the surface.

As for invisibility, as long as you are with me, I don't think I'll ever be invisible. Babies are magnets. Especially cute babies. It has rankled my hermit ways, but I've come to the understanding that I now have to talk to strangers because you do.

If that superhero question were asked now, however? Since the invention of you? I just want the ability to stop time.

I also want super-video eyesight where I could just blink and record all those perfect moments so that I will never forget your big toothy grin or the look on your face when you tasted that pickle for the first time.

This is all so surreal. I'm not old enough to be a mother! It's all so strange and mind-boggling and utterly, blissfully fantastic. You are exactly what I hoped for. A little person with a hilarious sense of humor and pure determination and strength and cuteness and, goodness gracious, you smell so incredible that it sometimes takes my breath away. I want to kiss you and nibble on your cheeks and your toes and your little fingers forever and ever, the end.

I put together two retrospectives. The first one is all videos:

(YouTube seems to be having some issues. Here's the direct link to the video retrospective.)

The second one is all photos with a song by the Doleful Lions: "There's no other like my baby."

(Here's the direct link to the photo retrospective.)

Our hearts are exponentially bigger because of you.

This time last year...

I had been having mild labor pains since my appointment with the short-fingered doctor. It was about this time that things started to pick up a bit and Aaron told me to call the doctor. We headed to the hospital soon after. In retrospect, we should have stayed home and tried to get some sleep as I didn't go into active labor until about noon the next day. Hindsight being 20/20 and all that.

I was ten days overdue and really, really sick of waiting.

Plea for Help

I need your advice: we are going to get family portraits taken tomorrow at the big Target and I don't know what to wear. Or how to dress Sophie. I mean, she has a closet full of cute dresses - is that the way to go? The woman at the portrait studio recommended wearing solid colors - no patterns. Okay, that narrows things down. But is Sophie really a dress-wearing girl? Or have we just not put her in many dresses because of the crawling?

And then, what do I wear? Do we go all matchy-matchy?

Blegh. Also, it's raining and my hair is about double its normal size. It is going to look great in photos.

A Picture a Day

No, this wasn't done by me. I'm having a hard enough time wading through all the Sophie photos.

This cool picture-a-day video is by Olde English. Fantastic.

Do-ku (donut haiku)

Oh donut. Big thug
in my stomach. You sit like
a fifteen pound bowling ball.

Regretfully I
was tempted by choc-o-late;
my stomach distends.

Music Ideas

I'm working on a one-year retrospective for Sophie and the movie software I have sucks ass. Obviously I don't have an Apple. The only music I can add are .wav files. How can I convert my .mp3 files to .wav?

Also, if you have a moment, please point me in the direction of a good song. I'm so out of touch that the only one I could think of is "Brown-eyed Girl". Very cliche. I feel so old and unhip.

Help!

Extra Baby Food

Do you have a baby/toddler hybrid who really wants to feed herself, thank you very much, and is no longer interested in the 50 jars of expensive organic baby food you lovingly bought for her?

Here are some ideas for you to work your way through said jars of expensive organic baby food:

• She likes to eat bread, right? Spread some of that yummy baby food on some whole grain bread and toast it up a bit. One example: spread the green bean and rice mix on some bread, add a few bits of cooked chicken and some shredded cheese. Stick in the toaster oven and allow the cheese to melt. Now you have a convenient, healthy snack. The open-faced sandwich is great for ripping little pieces off and handing them to the very self-sufficient little baby/toddler hybrid. The cheese holds it all together if you want to take it on the road. (just don't let the chicken sit out too long)

• Mmmm, full fat plain yogurt. So yummy. Not your cup of tea? How about full fat plain yogurt with apples and bananas baby food mixed in? Maybe with a little cinnamon? Or how about that yummy prunes and oats mix or the apples and blueberries?

• Everyone likes dip, right? So make some plain (whole wheat if you have it) penne pasta. Penne is great because little baby/toddler hybrid hands can grab right onto it. And then make a couple of little puddles of, say, peas and carrots and/or winter squash and/or peas and brown rice on a plate or straight onto the high chair tray. Maybe add a bit of garlic powder or ginger to the dips to make them more exciting. Demonstrate how to dip the pasta into the "dip". This should provide you a few minutes to finally finish that cup of coffee.
  

Any other ideas?

Heroes - whew

Okay, I watched it this morning before heading to work. Wooo!

Will Claire make it look like Brody was driving?

Did the creepy dude take Niki or Nathan?

Hiro from the future!!

Do you think Niki's son, Micah, has powers, too?

Is the mind-reading cop dead?

How creepy was it when Claire's dad said there was going to be a throw down when he gets back?

I was trying to look for the weird "F"-like logo thingy and I only saw it once - as a tattoo on Niki's back. Although it looked like the creepy dark dude may have had it as a pendant around his neck. Did I miss other instances?

Discuss.

Heroes

Crap, crap, crap. Sophie's teething and she started crying about 5 minutes into the episode. It took almost the whole hour before she fell asleep again. I'm going to have to watch it online. But they still have last week's episode on nbc.com at the moment. Maybe they wait until it plays on the west coast?

I bet it was good.

Cowscapes

Wow. I love cows and I love photography and Rachael Sudlow has combined both of these in her amazing Cowscapes. Fantastic. I'm just going to ignore the fact that there was a horse and a sheep thrown in the mix.

NaBloPoMo

In honor of Mrs. Kennedy's fantastic idea - NaBloPoMo - National Blog POSTING Month. I generally don't have much of a problem posting during the week, but I'm quite procrastinatory on the weekends.

A story of cornfields and barf

We decided we should find a pumpkin patch to show Sophie. Sir Google pointed me in the direction of Mike's Maze, a cool cornfield maze with pumpkins and a small petting farm. Each year, they design a different maze and you have a map with clues and a sheet of puzzles/questions you try to solve along the way. They give you a map of the clue/question locations. They also have a tomato trebuchet and a spudzooka hidden in the maze. Lots of fun. You should have seen how excited Aaron was.

So, here we are, before heading out to the maze. Click on that photo to see the huge grin on Sophie's face.

In the car, happily reading her book:

Look, pumpkins!

Hi!

All strapped into the Ergo, walking along the maze paths. This is when the hiccuping started. I guess I should have realized something was up. Rookie mistake.

Aw, yeah. You know how the Ergo has her facing in so she can snuggle up and not get too overwhelmed by things? Yeah, well, it also makes the perfect barf receptacle.

We left the maze (Aaron's quite disappointed. Labyrinths, maps, a trebuchet and a cannon? He was in heaven.). He makes a big fuss about cleaning the one tiny spot of barf off Sophie. And then proceeds to "wipe" the barf off me. But it's now no longer warm and fresh and he's just mashing the cold barf into my skin. Sophie's having a blast - pointing out dogs and pumpkins and cars. I decide to suck it up and zip the barf into my jacket. We head back. She falls asleep in the Ergo.

We finished the maze. They designed it this year to look like Julia Childs wielding a mallet. The clues this year were fancy French dinners and desserts. They show you a photo and give you the name in English. You have to figure out what French translation on the sheet matches the English. Luckily, I took French in school. And I've read a lot of cookbooks. We needed 20 points to get the free gourd. We got 50. Apparently, we didn't need to get a perfect score.

Wire Couture

Wow. I've dabbled with sculptures in wire, but these are just absolutely fantastic.

Three-dimensional wire sculptures made to look like couture dresses.

3D Pumpkin Carving Tutorial

Very, very cool tutorial on carving pumpkins.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh

And the clouds lifted over our household and, yeah, we were glad.

Sophie is feeling a lot better than she has for the past couple of weeks. She is all smiles and giggles and full of energy. She still has some coughing fits at night but she's also sleeping much better (*cue angels singing*). She's about to hit the next Wonder Week so I'm preparing myself, but, for now, she's in an absolutely, fantastically great mood.

Ugly Betty

While I still like the show and I think America Ferrara is adorable, the whole: "be honest and speak the truth" life lesson is a little heavy-handed. We get it, already. Bring on more of the camp. I just want to stick Betty under my wing and protect her from those vapid coworkers.

Happy Birth...oh wait

Today should have been Sophie's birthday. But she's a stubborn little monkey and she decided she was quite comfortable in her cozy little lounge, stretching her legs and kicking my ribs, thankyouverymuch. I can't announce her first birthday for TEN MORE DAYS.

Also, holyshitonacracker, it's a good thing we're keeping things low key this year because I just realized I probably should have sent invitations already.

30 Rock

All in all, it was okay. Tina Fey seemed a little stiff and awkward. Alec Baldwin was good and Tracey Morgan was odd as usual. It's a little sad that Rachel Dratch was just the cat lady and not one of the stars (as she was originally). I'll probably watch again next week. But I hope it gets better.

ListPic

Do you use Craiglist? There is a cool new interface that allows you to view Craiglist listings by the images in the listings. It's called ListPic. Go check it out. Very addictive.

Debacle

A new study (article on Salon) estimates the total number of Iraqis who have died since we invaded their country is 655,000. They estimate 600,000 of those deaths were due to violence in their country.

From Salon: "How large a number is 655,000? It's equal to about 2.5 percent of Iraq's total population. If 2.5 percent of Americans were killed in a war here, the death toll would be an unimaginable 7.4 million."

I'm so happy we're going to stay the course.

Walking! and Photos!

I've been quite remiss with the posting of Sophie Saturday photos. So, here's some Sophie Wednesday (not quite the same ring to it, huh?) photos and a video of the walking for you.

First, the video. She loves holding on to us and walking all around. This morning, she was wide awake at 5:30 (ugh). I took a shower and when I got back to the room, she was ready to start walking around. She's a fanatic.

This video is one of the many walking videos from the weekend. She does walk a lot on her own, but she was quite happy to lead me around in this one. Aaron is a little over-excited. ;)

Excited to walk with Daddy:

She inherited the best wardrobe from her cousin and cousin-in-law:

(there are more photos if you click on any of these)

Aaron, being goofy:

Heroes

Holey Moley! Did anyone else watch Heroes last night? What a fantastic show. It's so creepy and they leave so much unsaid. And then it just ends. No explanation. AAAGH! What happened to the cheerleader? And the guy from Felicity? You should really be watching this.

I just watched the two-minute recap at NBC.com and while I thought, last night, that the cheerleader ended up in a lab like the Felicity guy, I think she may have been on an autopsy table.

Long Weekend

Whew.

How many entries have started with that, by the way?

Thank Jeebus for long weekends. I could have used another day as it was. We have a crazy walker on our hands now. Sophie walks much farther on her own (although she walks like a little Frankenstein and huffs and puffs and grunts with each step) and she walks circles around the house when she's holding one of our hands. There is no rest for the weary now. She will insistently pull on our hands with her strong, warm little grip and then we're off. We walk from the livingroom into the kitchen (exclaiming dat! over and over and pointing at all the sights), back through the dining room and then the circle starts over. Upstairs, she does another circle and she's just on the verge of not wanting us to carry her anywhere. And crawling only happens when we are just too slow.

She also made it up the back, carpeted, stairs (with spotter standing by) remarkably fast. Twice. With all the moving, I just want to put everything in freeze frame so I can step back and marvel at the strength and determination in that tiny little body.

She is suddenly quite the Mommy's girl. She only wants to be held by me and she's been giving me lots of kisses and hugs. It's giving Aaron quite a complex. I say: "I love you, Sophie." and she'll lean in and give me a kiss. It's open-mouthed and it's messy but it is absolutely the most wonderful moment in time.

Foley

My sister sent me this link to Leah Peah's entry about Foley. It is very good and very worth the read.

Regarding Foley

I find it indescribably sad that our youth are going to what should be an exciting and knowledge-packed place and supposedly having this spectacular experience learning how our government works and the ins and outs of how things get done and instead are learning the very worst kind of lessons about dysfunction, which apparently, is how our government works.

Dueling Album Covers

Fantastic journey through a huge history of album covers. Which sounds boring, but they all start attacking each other and it gets pretty crazy.

Sign of the Times

Well, Sophie's cold [*knock on wood*] cold seems to be abating. She slept really well last night, only waking up a couple of times.

I discovered, way too late in the game, that the Tylenol Cold Plus we'd been giving her to help her with the stuffiness at night was not working the way I'd intended. It sort of helped with the snot flow but it made her a little wired crack monkey before the cough suppressant kicked in to help her sleep. We would give her a dose of that twice in a night and then when she woke up around 2 or so, we'd give her just a bit of ibuprofren and squirt some saline into her nose (oooh, she LOVES that). I noticed that she slept really well for that last stretch.

So last night I decided to just do the saline and ibuprofren and *bingo!* sleep! Ah, glorious glorious sleep.

She woke up in full firecracker mode this morning - wanting to walk all over the upstairs and talk to Otto and pull her frog toy around and pull all my tampons out of the box and walk around with them, gesturing wildly.

But back to the title of my post. We've been teaching her some signs when we think of them and so far, she knows "hungry" or "eat" (which also sometimes means "want" or "thirsty") and will actually make the sign. She also knows "dog" and will use that sign with enthusiasm (although it also means random fuzzy animal). She's made up some signs for binky and car and ball and actually comes close to saying the words. There are many others but I have a feeling that someone else may not understand what she's trying to say. I've gotten pretty good at translating.

I highly recommend the American Sign Language Browser for teaching signs. They have short videos of pretty much every sign you will ever need to use.

Bring on the cute

Even when she is sick and coughing and snotty and tired, the girl is still extremely cute.

She's at once so big and so tiny. I'm amazed that that little body can walk itself across the room. So balanced and so determined.

Exhaustion

This weekend was fairly calm and easy - a bit more of the stuffy and snottiness from Sophie, but she seemed to be in a great mood. Lots more walking. Her current record is 13 steps without holding on to anything. She walks much farther if she's holding one of our hands.

And then last night, the cold medicine wouldn't clear up her nose and she forgets that she can breathe through her mouth so she woke up many times by gasping for air. And then she got worse because it went into her throat and there was lots of crying and coughing and a low fever and sweatiness and peeing on Mommy and lots and lots of snot. You should see the shirt I was wearing last night. Covered in purple medicine, snot and tears. And that's just from Aaron (ba dum bum). None of us slept very well last night. Aaron was panicked that she was going to stop breathing and Sophie didn't want to sleep anywhere but ON me (I was able to move her once she finally fell asleep).

She's very cranky this morning and it sounds like she has a sore throat. We're going to bring her to daycare for the morning and then see how she's doing around lunchtime. If it is just a cold, there is not much a doctor can do. It's all about waiting it out.