Wednesday, July 25, 2007

No, really, it's yucky! You won't like it!

Cora found two new things yesterday that she thought tasted really good. One was my iced coffee. She kept trying to get hold of my cup and I kept telling her it was coffee, yucky, not for babies, and she wouldn't like it. Finally, I gave her a little with the straw. And she smacked her lips, laughed, and signed for more. Yikes. And I actually gave her another sip. Hey - if you hand me that shovel, I'd be happy to dig it myself!

The other new thing was actually new to all of us - I tried a new recipe for dinner last night - grilled tofu and red peppers with soba noodles in a sauce/marinade. As the Twin Cities approached 80% humidity and a heat index of 98 degrees, it seemed time for a cold noodle dinner...especially since my chances of getting take-out Thai seemed slim. (That rotting deck? The one that also turns out not to be up to code anyway? About $5000 to replace. At least that includes demolishing and hauling away the old one!) The sauce: hoisin, rice wine (really cooking sherry as I remembered the contents of my cupboard incorrectly), soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar, tomato paste, ginger, garlic, and red pepper flakes (Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, p178). You marinate the tofu in this sauce first.

When we were at the grocery store Monday, I broke a knob of ginger off a larger piece and held the broken end out to Cora to smell. She tried to lick it. I should have known then, especially after last week's lime slice sucking episode.

After I made the sauce I tasted it (yummy! spicy!) and Cora saw me and started making her "I want some" noises. So, I let her lick a little off my finger. She wrinkled up her face, shook her head, and then signed for more. So, I gave her a little more. Of course. And she signed for more again. And when dinnertime finally rolled around, she also liked the peppers and soba noodles. I mean, come on, Daddy didn't even like the soba noodles!

Thank goodness the little epicure happily ate her waffle and omelet this morning and didn't make me whip up a steak-and-kidney pie. Though she did insist on the really good Vermont cheddar.

Cora dictates her review of last night's dinner for the next issue of BabyGourmet.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Oh no! Where's the baby?!



It's so much nicer when she plays this game with the bath towel instead of the dish towel.

A few firsts

This past weekend Cora experienced her first longish car trip (2.5 hours), her first excursion into Wisconsin (as an outside baby, anyway), her first seedy motel (learn to use a vacuum! No one likes their kid eating someone else's fried chicken skin off the carpet! Relax, grandmas, she didn't, Chris found it first. With his bare feet. Hee hee!), her first Happy Meal (forgive us), her first funnel cake (also her parents' first...what can I say, we were possessed by Wisconsin), her first small town carnival, and her first ride on a carousel (she loved it, of course, as it slowed down again she tried to make the horse go faster).



She was also mesmerized by the fireworks, especially the ones that did something else after they exploded, like changed colors, or exploded further; those ones made her laugh. She didn't sleep so well - there was a lot of driving around the little town and surrounding rural roads waiting for her to fall asleep, then hoping she would sleep while we parked and read, and then laughing at ourselves for being such dreamers. But it was sad laughter, you understand. On the way to the little town, when I thought she would nap, she slept a little, cried a little, talked to the Love Monkey a little. We hunted down a park and a DQ and that helped make it all worthwhile.


Cora now considers herself an experienced traveler and is willing to give advice to other babies about how to survive such excursions. She has very reasonable speaking fees.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Recent events in July


The headline is a trick - there are no recent events! It's too hot! Too humid for events!

Well, just kidding. It is way too hot and humid, but the events continue anyway. In recent days we have:
* found a daycare for Cora for the fall - a great place that I think she will really enjoy once she gets over the whole "you're LEAVING ME?!" part,
* Chris has had his last day at his day job (hooray!) and is in the middle of an intensive composer's workshop (he's working on a piece that involves the influences of British change-ringing, reggae, and Bjork...yeah, I'm curious to hear it too!),
* Cora took the last step in her self-weaning journey (a little sad, but definitely good timing),
* Cora has worked on developing her toddler superpowers - especially the expression of sudden agony of the soul for unknown reasons (see photo, taken shortly after everything was fine),
* I got to do a little writing and a lot of reading (okay, it was mostly revising, but it was still writing!),
* we finally admitted the necessity of replacing our deck soon - the rotten boards are starting to crumble a little under the feet of our chairs when we eat outside,
* and we had a brief and lovely break from the heat over the weekend. The weatherguy promises another break tomorrow. We'll see.


The other day Cora and I spent a lot of time with the stuffed animals - hugging them, kissing them, putting hats on them, rocking them like babies, biting them, and of course sitting on their heads. Then I took this family portrait.
Starting with the green guy and going clockwise we have: George the Dinosaur, Mr. Bear (don't let the bonnet fool you), Ms Rabbit, CourderoyBear, and the Love Monkey. Right now these are her favorite downstairs animals. Maybe the upstairs animals will sit for a portrait next week.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Summer Equation

THIS:



PLUS THIS:




EQUALS:

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Recent photos





How Big is Cora?

(Edited 7/4: having trouble posting lately - hope this shows up!)
(Queen Cora awaits her bathing attendant)

Frankly, she's getting a little too big a little too fast.
I mean, look at this baby!
But she's not really a baby anymore, is she?


Shhhh. Don't tell her.