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February 21, 2008
i'll write you a love song
somebody got up early today, and in my new efforts to get on a "schedule" instead if trying to convince him to stay in bed just a little longer we got up. our routine is i put in in his crib while i wake up with apple juice and yogurt. he is content as can be. He rolls around a little, and turns himself like a compass so he can turn on his mobile with his feet. It is very resourceful of him. I could turn on his mobile before i leave, but i prefer letting him do it now that he has figured it out.
now i am off for the second part of our routine - the working out. i start, leaving him in his crib until he get fussy and them bring him back.
whew.
so that went well. he lasts about 15 mins in the crib. 15 mins on the bed. i break and fed him. he then goes for 15 minutes in the bouncy chair. then he was looking real tired so i stopped and nursed him to sleep, put him in the crib and returned for my last 15 minutes. yay! good nap today!
ben and i got to see the lunar eclipse last night. at least a bit of it. it is really REALLY REALLY cold up here. The WGN weather guy reminded us at 10 about it. So i made ben get out of bed to see if we could see the moon out of our back window/door. And we could. so we got to see the almost eclipsed moon from inside our warm bedroom. It was cool. Not cool enough that i stay awake to see it totally eclipse. Actually, Aiden woke up so I had to go put him back down and when i came back i had forgotten about the moon and fell easily asleep.
Posted by christina at 9:35 AM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2008
defying gravity
Yesterday was a great day:
1. Ben was off. Yay! This gives me uninterrupted work out time. This is much appreciated. It also makes running errands WAAAYYYYYY easier. Also, he facilitates naps! Aiden slept on him for 2 hours yesterday morning! And then took his afternoon nap in the car when we were running errands. We kept trying to think of other things to do in the car for cap time which lead us to:
2. Driving downtown for Garret's cheese and caramel popcorn mix. It is the best. This is an example of the downside of ben being home: it is bad for my sugar intake. He likes to suggest Garret's popcorn or Jama Jucie. During the summer it was diary queen or baskin robbins...pretty much every night. It was okay then. I was pregnant and needed the ice cream! Now i still need ice cream, but prefer to get my no-sugar added made with splenda which i am sure is still going to kill me according to the media ice cream. ; )
3. While I was drying my hair I thought, man, I need to e-mail my co-author about him getting back to me about my draft of the response to the editors. I did not do it, but while I returned from my errands he had e-mailed me back. As Tom said - it was a president's day miracle! It has also made today good as I have been using my BRAIN! and it feels sooooo good. this is combined with some awesome sleeping by my child giving me time to work! I am enjoying it today as i am sure the awesome sleeping will be gone as soon as i finish this sentence.
4. A reason I cannot share right now, but I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!! (no, i am not pregnant. i would not be excited if i was.)
5. But a couple friend of ours is! He was in our wedding. She is awesome. And we are so excited for them. She is due Sept. 1. Funny since that is going to make all of our friend's baby have similar b-days. Tera from high school's Jack's birthday is 8/24. Aiden is 8/26. And now our friend is due right around there! CRAZY! (Okay, we found out about this Sunday when we went to lunch with them, but my joy spilled into yesterday!)
Posted by christina at 7:47 AM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2008
set yourself adrift
This might be of interest to a very small subset of people, but I thought I'd link to it anyways. I made a video of aiden stuff for our familes, especially Emma, who is under the weather in Italy. It is kinda long because I am still learning iMovie and cannot figure out how to cut out the added audio (the song here). So I had to fill all the song. Oh and it is all legit and everything as the music is by Pete and J, go gave me permission.
The best thing about Pete and J is that it is great music that i can set my videos to. The only drawback is that my videos are of Aiden and their music is usually about girls. Oh well. This video does feature aiden's love for pepper. so that works. : )
I would have been doing more videos if I wasn't an idiot and just now tried out the video on the digital camera. It turned out to take a decent video and is a million thousand time easier to upload to my computer. Our video recorder writes to a dvd which does not work in iMovie, so getting the video involves ripping the dvd into a file with is like 5 GBs and is a really big pain.
And they'll be shorter once i figure out how to cut down the songs!
Posted by christina at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2008
never, never
Now that i am firmly entrenched in this motherhood, I have come to realize the people are judgmental when they are insecure in their decisions. I think this is true in general, but I can only for sure say that I am judgmental when I insecure in my decisions.
Last week i broke my golden rule of "if i don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all" re: people's decisions.
it seems that i hurt someone's feelings. i do not know this person. at the time i didn't realize how harsh i was. i guess i am hardened by reviewers comments. I guess i felt that i was trying to make this person better in some way. but in doing so i feel worse than i have felt about anything in recent memory.
it is strange, my reaction. I apologized. that is all i can do. it isn't like i did anything really that bad. the scale of my apology was proportional to the e-mail response i received, but probably not to the crime. in fact, ben commented that he hopes he would get an apology of that caliber at some point during our marriage.
ha.ha.
in this case, i recognize right off that i was in the wrong, not in what i wrote, but in the fact that there was no need for what i wrote. i should have kept my fingers shut. i had not right to be so defensive to this person.
i think i feel so bad because i was caught by surprise about how personally the recipient took my e-mail. i know that i didn't think my e-mail was that harsh. I know that it isn't how i mean things that matters as how they are received. i also feel bad because there was no reason in the whole world for me to write that e-mail. i know it was because i was fired up and directed it toward an innocent party.
the weird thing about it is it is fairly out of character. i get fired up about stuff, but usually don't go out of my way to direct it at a specific party.
i also don't really care about what other people do/say. I am not sure what prompted me this day to lash out. I know the context was that i am so tired of feeling judged. The nurse at the dr.'s office had just judged my decision to start aiden off on avocado instead of rice cereal. I feel like everyone thinks you should "cry-it-out" and if you aren't you aren't teaching your baby to "sooth himself". If you co-sleep your kid is never going to leave your bed! The baby food book was like MEAT IS EVIL! I am really really tired of the media (society) trying to make overweight people feel guilty. It is diet soda - don't drink it! it will make you fat! if you are fat you are going to die! you are lazy! you are ugly! if you are pregnant and drink coffee, soda, eat deli meat, raw eggs...your baby is going to die! or be born with horns!
and i read too much of the internet.
and this is why i am so annoyed at myself. really. i need to stop reading so much of the internet. i have a stack of books i want to read. i should be reading printed words. i have policy stuff to read. i have science stuff to read. i have good fiction to read. i default to the internet because it is easy and quick. but no more. i'm going to unsubscrube from all the random blogs I read (including the one that caused this existential crisis). I'll keep up with my friends, and the friends of friends. But the random people? A couple I will keep. One just had a new baby and write good long funny posts. I'll keep all my women in science blogs. But the random shit. Gone. In the end, this was good. This was what I needed. A symptom that makes me realize that I need to put down the internet. Live in the printed world of editors and reviewers.
This will be a good cleanse for my internet soul. It was due. i needed something to jar me lose from the internet back into the world of the living. I'll return to my bases - this blog is for my friends at al. and so i'll rant and rave but i'll stay focused on real life things for those real life people.
Posted by christina at 8:56 PM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2008
so cute
isn't this the cutest thing EVER
seriously. they are really cute. They are bff already, especially since aiden has begun solids. He cutely get it all over his hand, and sweetly holds them down for the dog to clean. Today we had avocado for lunch and sweet potato for dinner. yum. i've also been giving him teething biscuits. Of course this totally violates the one food at a time rule, but i am tried of the rules. i don't think that it matters so much. of course, if there is a food reaction it would make it way easier if you were introducing things one at a time. but really. there are no allergies in our family (save lactose intolerance), so teething biscuits it is. Aiden has been so interested in gnawing on things (i.e., the bagel chips at the bagel); i feel so much better with the teething biscuit as they dissolve quickly. The dog has been enjoying them immensely. Aiden slobbers all over them and then we give them to the dog.
MORE snow today. like four inches.
a little story about Obama. he almost didn't get to be the US senator from IL. In the democratic primary, there was another guy who was thought to be the shoe-in for the democratic nomination, but he was accused of domestic violence and had to drop out. Obama got the nomination. Then the republican that he was running against had to drop out b/c of a sex "scandal" (he took his WIFE to sex clubs). The republican party imploded. Obama won easily. Not that he isn't deserving. I do admire his service and intellect. I would have voted for him easily if i had been an IL citizen at the time. It is just funny how really random things have brought him to this point.
Today I am tired. I am getting more sleep though. Aiden is sleeping better. He sleeps a good chunk of the night in his crib. I bring him to bed when i am too tired to try again. The other night i woke and he was in my bed. i totally don't remember bringing him. but i really like waking up beside me. he is so cute sleeping beside me. Some how i have this sense to make sure the covers are all on ben, to put my arm between his head and the pillows and to wake-up to prevent ben from encroaching on our space.
the millionaire matchmaker is not cute. it is strange. though i like her no sex outside a committed relationship rule. have i gotten old?
Posted by christina at 9:10 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2008
shake it up baby
so. we didn't get the foot of snow forecast. yay. we got some snow, but not nearly a foot. ben was sad because he had to go to work. it was (is) really cold today. really cold. we went out to have brunch (yum!) at on of our favorite places. it is a the end of our block. it is a little hold in the wall cafe. it has yummy food. it is also filled with "hipsters". The hipsters love the baby. everyone loves that baby as he is a flirt. he smiles at everyone. he was also an attraction at lunch yesterday. we went to our "local" "Jewish Deli". It is yummy and also filled with the most random mix of people - really old people, families, and yuppies.
lots of going out to lunch/brunch this weekend. it is way easier to take aiden out to lunch than dinner. he is pretty whiney around 6. so we order in on the weekends.
speaking of aiden, he did not poop for a VERY LONG TIME. like 10 days! it is normal for exclusively breast feed babies to go a while, but 10 days! so i called the dr. office. i was not a fan of the nurse, but she did assure me that everything was fine and gave us three things to try. Two of these involved giving him fruit (juice or prunes). i was not really wanting to do either, so we did the third. I will not share, but it was something we kept putting off and finally did it tonight and BOOM! it worked like a charm. And he pooped. and therefore I am not worried. It was normal and so i will just let him be in the future. he has got to feel better. for reals.
the big upside is I added back in ice cream this week to try to get him to poop and since it did not, it means that his digestive system has matured enough to process dairy. YAY! I got McDonald's ice cream on the way home from dinner with tom on friday and it was awesome. I've been eating it for a couple of days and there have been no adverse effect so ice cream here i come back. and my morning yogurt. I am looking forward to the return of dairy. oh how i have missed you over the past 5 months.
it is 2.7 degrees outside. ben whines.
the weekend passes quickly. i know that you think, everyday is the weekend for you!. NO SO. it is so much nicer when ben is here when i work out. aiden is usually great, but some morning he is a whine-o-matic. so it is nice to have the help. though, of course, he slept through most of my work out this morning.
michael jorden is in the back of my bon appetit. random.
the warmth filters back tomorrow. but so does the snow.
Posted by christina at 8:14 PM | Comments (1)
February 5, 2008
americain pie
the gorgeous trip, pepper's boyfriend
now i am 29. TWENTY-NINE people. that is old. ha ha. not really. my sister asked me last night if i felt old. funny thing is, i do not. mainly because i've gotten a ton of stuff in those 29 years. : )
my birthday, for reals, was good. Rachel cooked me a yummy dinner and dessert. i got to return exactly one birthday call. the kid was not wanting to stay asleep while i was talking on the phone. so it goes.
oh, and god loved me as it was in the the 40s for my birthday. Today, it has rained, so much of the snow is gone, but we are forecast for MORE SNOW THAN EVER. like a FOOT. I am SO HAPPY PRAISE THE LORD that i am not in class this quarter.
today was super tuesday and Aiden and I went to the polling place to vote. It was my first in person vote. It was quick and painless. I used the electronic ballot. it was nice. and interesting. i made my choices (slowly as i had to match up the choices with my print out from my research). After I was done, it printed a paper ballot for me to look at. it was SOOOOO cool. and though i know that my vote for the democratic nominee was going to be washed out by the huge obama support in Illinois. sigh. so well. thank goodness i think he'll do a good job also. I just think that clinton has a lot more foreign policy experience.
I also saw my friend Emily today. Her baby is SO CUTE. so small. she is 7 weeks and i am sure that aiden was that small at 7 weeks. boy. she is so cute. soooo cute. and aiden was great during lunch. with a lot of sleep he is a dream.
aiden lately has been very interested in food. he just stares at my food as i eat it. on sunday he was in my lap and i gave him some cornbread to play with and he ate it! so last night we started with our "first food"- avocado. He seems to be a fan. he eats more than the book told me to expect, so that is exciting. tonight he had cornbread and avocado. i think we might have to break out the bibs, and a towel for my lap, b/c he is MESSY. the dog. she is in heaven.
Posted by christina at 8:24 PM | Comments (1)
February 3, 2008
picture perfect
so much snow. our grill on friday morning.
so yesterday was perfect. it was my birthday, observed. I knew that we were going to one of my favorite restaurants for dinner. Ben surprised me in the morning with three cards - one with the plan for dinner and a surprise movie plan after that from him. One card from the dog for brunch. And one card from aiden for a massage! Ben figured out after last year that the only way for me to get a gift massage in a timely manner is to make the appointment for me, drive me there, and drop me off. (last year he got me a coupon for a massage which I did not use until July. yes, he got me the same thing, it is the perfect gift for me. something i really want, but am too cheap to get for myself.)
So I worked out. The three of us then went to brunch at ann sathers were we had their yummy cinnamon rolls and egg scrambles. (it finally dawned on us to ask for our omelets scrabbled as we don't like the oven baked omelets.)
we hung out, played some real life scrabble, and went to get the massage, which was AMAZING. super amazing. i love massages. If they weren't so dang expensive i would get them way more often than a couple times a year.
ben pick me up baring garrett's caramel corn. SO YUMMY! my favorite. Some how during that 70 minutes he drove downtown picking up my sister on the way, got the popcorn, and went to whole foods. And Aiden was quite the trouper I heard.
After some more scrabble online, we left rachel with the baby, put on some dress-up clothes and went up to evanston for so yummy food at our favorite wine bar. I had the delicate whites flight and the salmon. both fabulous. I haven't had any alcohol really this past oh, year or so. so the 1.5 glasses of wine went to my head in a good way. It was the perfect amount to make me feel good, but never bad. the salmon was great. ben's fillet was perfect. Then we were off to see Juno around the corner. Fabulous movie.
Fabulous day.
Posted by christina at 8:54 PM | Comments (0)