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Sunday, December 28, 2008

Christmas Cookies

My last post about Christmas '08.

Have you ever noticed how it takes three times as long to get anything done with a baby around?

It has taken me three nights to watch The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (one hour per night).

It has taken me three days to complete the Sugar Cut Out Cookies. Four days if you count Christmas Eve where husband went to 4 different stores to find cookie cutters and came home with a huge variety of shapes and sizes. I would have been happy with 3 or 4 shapes. We can now supply Christmas cookies for a small party or a large family.

Day 1 - Dec. 26th - I made assembled the ingredients in three bowls and gave husband instructions to mix. We then tossed the mix into the fridge to bake the following day.

Day 2 - Dec. 27th - I didn't have parchment paper so tried rolling the cookies onto wax paper. I managed to mangle a few cookies onto the pan and resolved to get parchment paper later that day. After getting the paper, I made one batch and rolled the 3 remaining sheets to be baked the next day.

Day 3 - Dec. 28th - I've finished baking 2 of the batches and decorations are compliments of husband while holding jabbering 6 month old.



Evil Gingerbread man with his 3 subordinates.

I'm doing the last batch by myself!

Homemade baby food - follow up

After baby rejected the chunky sweet potatoes, we pureed them in the blender and compared texture to Gerber. It was a match. Baby still refused them. The following day she refused Gerber sweet potatoes. I no longer believe it's my fault.

Today I pureed banana with some soft tofu and she loved it! Will continue to experiment in fresh food fixings for baby.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Charlotte's first Christmas


It's only a good present if it can be eaten.


She was very polite with the book.


But wrapping paper is more fun to eat.


Onto the beach!


Good times!


As we arrived, we noticed the lifeguard stand had red and purple flags out with a sign reading DANGER Rip Currents and Man of war. We watched as a child ran screaming towards his parents after getting stung by a Man of war. We then found them all over the beach.


We had a lovely Christmas

Naive moment in parenthood #33

Today I decided to make baby food as part of a new year's commitment to give Charlotte the freshest food possible. So far she has eaten Gerber foods for 2 months and she loves sweet potatoes, carrots, peaches, applesauce and so forth. So I decided to start with a sweet potato. I cut it into 1" chunks and pureed it to where it looked smooth enough. I proudly sat down and presented her with the first bite - this should taste so much better then Gerber - it's fresh, I told her. She gets really excited at meal time and took a big bite and immediately gagged. Total failure. She hated it.

Later I opened a Gerber sweet potato and compared taste. Gerber has a bit of a sulfuric taste but otherwise same flavor. Big difference is Gerber is so smooth it's like yogurt. I need to figure out how to get my veggies that smooth. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES!!!

I got off work early at 2pm! Now on with making Christmas cookies.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Pre-Christmas Cheer

Yesterday I took Charlotte to the Boca Raton mall. Arriving at the front entrance I was met with a yellow light which if I had crossed through would have left my car blocking oncoming traffic. So I stopped and habitually glanced into my rear view mirror to make sure the person behind me had stopped. Only to see a women in a Mercedes SUV, on a cell phone mouth the words "You f@#King bitch, I can't believe you stopped", next to her was her tween daughter. Merry Christmas from Boca! It thus cements is reputation as the happiest place on earth.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Company Christmas Dinner

It's that time of year for the annual company Christmas party. Many company's are canceling the party this year, Google, Disney to name two. Yet we soldier on and set our dinner for Friday evening.

This has produced unnecessary bouts of aggravation in all 7 employees (not counting Director of Ops because no one solicited his opinion). We all collectively requested a lunch because:
A. some of the younger ones have fab social life and regret losing any Friday night freedoms
B. one artist has an aunt with a birthday and parents coming down to celebrate
C. one person's child has child's Christmas play/event at nursury
D. my reasons are everyone I work with is a size 4 or smaller and I'm more like a 10 and seriously frustrated over what to wear with the addition of it being daughter's 6 month birthday and would just prefer a night in celebrating with cupcakes and silly photos.

Granted this is likely the spur of my Monday resolve to lose weight which backfired magnificently in the breast milk production area. Thus giving me total reason to stay cuddly and continue my carb injestion ways.

The pressure to get thinner is self-imposed. It comes from memory of the days when husband and I were rail thin in college and we're not quite sure how it's even possible our bodies managed to gain this extra weight. A history of being thin coupled with not wanting to settle into parenthood in front of the telly but wanting a vivaciously, adventurous life with our offspring is leading to impatience with our new found curves.

BUT - nothing gets in the way of caring for offspring so I settled for a new J. Jill billowing sleeveless top and spent the evening eating favorite Szechuan Chicken and rice. Pleased to say milk production favors rice intake.


Data a little inconclusive at this point

but I think eating carbs has much to do with breast milk quantity.

On Monday I began my quest to return to the body I had before pregnancy. The six month mark is looming, well it's today and I'm tired of carrying around this extra weight around my midsection.

I began my hour workout and dropped all carbs from my diet and was alarmed to notice 50% drop in milk production.

I made some small adjustments throughout the week and by Thursday recovered to full production.

Husband, the science expert of the family, says results are inconclusive and I'd need more study going with and without carbs.

I think I'm going to keep the carbs at breakfast and lunch, cut them after 5pm and continue the one hour workout.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The cat has bite through a light string on our Christmas Tree

The same cat who managed to get his tail caught in the door. Revenge? No, just a proclivity to bite cords. The same cat who has bitten through many mouse and keyboard cords before we managed to switch to wireless. The same who has bitten through so many cords that we now have a clever system of hiding all cords that might dangle in a cat's reach.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Motivational speeches

In the company I work for, there are 9 employees in the US office. We all know each other pretty well. 5 of us are in the creative department which is a big open room. One cannot receive a personal call without the entire room knowing about it. One cannot go out to lunch with a friend without everyone knowing. So today when the boss gave a little motivational speech that times are tough, people are getting laid off and we all need to work harder because next year is going to be a really hard year. In fact, an executive he just presented to recently just lost her job, without any warning. Her management didn't even see it coming. He then points at 3 of us standing the closest to him and says, I don't want to come in one day and have to say your fired, your fired, your fired. We look over at the 2 guys sitting at the side table - one cheers yeah we're safe. The girls and I just nod our heads sagely and after the meeting, we all go about our business. Let's face it, we work at a small company, there are no surprises. When there is really bad news, everyone knows it. When there is a need to work hard, everyone knows it. Motivational speeches, well considering how well we know each other are just as expected as knowing what everyone's personal calls are about.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

I'm having balance problems

life balancing problems that is

6:30 - wake up, waste time on the internet for 20 minutes, get ready for work
8:30 - rush out the door with lunch in hand along with breakfast burrito and coffee
8:45 - arrive to work
Noon - girls in office tempt me with Mexican food. They know it's my favorite restaurant and they dangle it in front of me. Not excited about stew I've brought for lunch so I cave in. This is a bad idea for 2 reasons
- 1 - I plan to leave at 5pm, and since I didn't arrive until 8:40 that leaves my day short of working 8 hours
- 2 - that means I'll be up late at night finishing emails
I go anyway
5:15 - leave work for yoga class
6:00 - Yoga class - I rock the leg positions, really weak in the duel arm/leg boat position so flail around aimlessly.
7:15 - go to Whole Foods
8:00 - arrive home to notice husband needs to go to Petsmart before 9pm to get 30% discount that ends today. I take baby who promptly falls asleep on my shoulder after giving husband the wicked eye as if to say "I love mom and not sorry for being a total pain all day"
8-10 - I eat tamales while holding sleeping baby and get her ready for bed.
9:30 - husband comes back and small neighborhood boy knocks on door to ask him to fix his bike. Noticing husband will be busy for awile, I get babies bottle ready and take her to bed.
10:15 - spend a few minutes wandering aimlessly on internet
10:30 - midnight - finish work emails that I could have been doing instead of eating Mexican food for lunch.

Guess what?

Miami airport has located our carseat and is sending it tomorrow!!!! Now if Kodak would just call to say they are finished fixing our camera and have not found further issues to discuss!

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Miami airport cements it's hideous reputation

I love going to Texas because my husbands family is really cool and I get to eat great TexMex food every day.

This trip was unexpected for me. I ordered tickets for husband and daughter so they could visit with his grandparents for her first visit and after telling my boss, he decided to give me an extra week vacation! In my quest to use miles and thus spend as little money as possible, I had to fly out separate from them and out of the Miami airport which worked out since we were both returning to the Miami airport. Oh the joys of using miles. Almost free trip, really annoying trip agenda of leaving from Fort Lauderdale and returning out of Miami. I dropped them off at Fort Lauderdale at 2:00pm, hung out in Fort Laud for an hour and then headed down to Miami to find parking in the off-site to save money. Got through the airport a grand 1.5 hours before my flight!

I had to spend the night in Dallas because the 2nd flight into husband's home town didn't leave until the following morning.

The trip was only for 3 days and baby did surprisingly well with her grand and great grand parents. If you've read my previous blogs you will realize this is nothing short of a miracle.

Friday, Dec 5th - Coming back baby did well on the flights and our connection was smooth. We arrived into Dallas with one hour to jump on the next flight. After collecting our car seat and carry on, we got on the train and went from terminal B to D. Arriving at our next gate, we dropped the car seat at the entrance to the flight and settled in with baby.

Upon arriving in Miami at 8:30pm, we are the last to get off the plane and do not find the car seat waiting outside the door. Someone tells us to collect it at the baggage claim belt.

9:30pm - no car seat to be found!

Panic sets in, cannot drive anywhere without it.

Leave husband with sleeping baby and rush around airport looking for American Airlines baggage claim office. Stand in line until 10:00pm to file claim. They suggest someone can help us get a loaner car seat. We are taken to storage room with lost luggage and shown a room with car seats that have little signs on them. The lady doesn't speak much English, I'm regretting 8 years of working with Latin boss and not taking time to learn Spanish. She basically tells me there are no options. I look at her in total disbelief and say I'm not leaving the airport without a car seat and that she must take me to her manager. She acts like she doesn't know what I'm saying so I push harder, take me to your manager. She finally takes us back to the baggage claim desk and goes inside to talk to her manager and comes out with a beat up broken dark blue car seat for toddlers - baby is 5 months old.

Beaten down and worn out, we take it and depart for the car lot where I left the car. I have to call them to pick us up. The lady tells us "just stand in the middle, the driver will stop". I try to tell her this airport is huge and she should take down the exact number stop we are at but she hangs up. The guy passes us, parks far away and as we are struggling to reach the van he takes off. I have to call back and I hear myself screeching that the driver left and they need to send him back to baggage claim 24. They try to tell me to calm down but I'm completely hysterical at this point. I look back at husband and baby, she's sleeping, he's tired and I have to wonder why I bothered to save a few dollars and put my family in this stupid predicament of standing in the center lane in the dark dusky Miami airport parking lot smelling fumes.

11:00pm - we finally arrive to the car lot. I stand at the counter with my head in my hands waiting for them to find my paperwork and keys. They keep picking up boxes and searching frantically, finally someone finds the keys on the desk in a pile. I pay and they send me outside for someone to collect the car. I tell my husband they are bringing the car from an off lot and he points at the car in front of us and says "isn't that our car?", just as they come back from the other lot to realize it's right there and they still pull it up for us. Weird.

12:00am - we get home and I finally feed baby. She hasn't fussed the entire time and hasn't eaten since 6:30 or 7pm. It's the oddest thing. She should have been furious with us by now but thankfully she was a peaceful baby in the calm of our little storm.

ps - Tuesday, still waiting for them to find our car seat :(

Monday, December 01, 2008

People keep asking "how are your pets doing with the new baby?"

in that really concerned tone that really says, are they threatening the child??? Brows are always furrowed when asking this question. Like they are expecting me to say, oh my goodness, just yesterday I found Rumble lying on Charlotte's face! I don't know what to do.

What they should be asking is - how are your pets doing now that you are ignoring them, shutting their tail in the door resulting in removal of 2 inches of prized tail, terrifying them into leaving the couch which results in them making a blind leap into an open box of Christmas ornaments causing me to scream NOOOO!!!! and resulting in said cat limping away mournfully.

Thus when I saw the pretty princess cat sitting on the newly positioned crushed red velvet runner on counter top I simply petted her and said nice kitty.