We just got an electric kettle, and I'm smitten. Suddenly, I'm drinking herbal tea regularly, instead of just thinking that I should (sweetened herbal tea helps to satiate my 4 p.m. sweet/caffeine craving, without ODing on sugar or staying up all night cause I drank coffee after noon). And I no longer have that annoying situation where I turn the kettle on and by the time it's whistling its heart out on the stove, I'm upstairs elbow-deep in a poopy diaper. Or ensconced in my rocking chair, nursing the baby. Or wrangling Elan, who's throwing a fit, while trying not to wake Emry, who's napping. This way, after the water's boiled, the kettle just turns itself off. I need more things in my life that turn themselves off automatically. Like the Internet, nightly at 9 p.m. How much sleep I would get if my Internet went off at 9 p.m. Does anyone know how to make it do that (except for special situations like working at night, or writing important blog posts about kitchen gadgets)?The kettle produces warm water nearly instantly, much faster than running the water in ... more
Making "soup" in his "soup-making machine."We ran Elan around a lot in San Diego. Even with a few days of rain and some chilly wind, he spent a lot of time outdoors - at the pool, the beach, the zoo, riding bikes and playing with friends. And the result was: no bedtime battles. With all the sleep-related struggles we've had with Elan, and there have been many, going to sleep at night hadn't generally been one of them until recently. Sometimes when it's taking an hour for him to ... more
Before breakfast:I nursed Emry at 3 a.m., 4:30 a.m., and 6 a.m. By 6:20 a.m., his cheeks were the size of small cantaloupes.Also at 6:20, Emry started working on perfecting his teradacytle shriek. The happy kind.I waited for my mom to wake up so that I could hand off the adorable, shrieking-with-delight baby to her and go back to sleep.I cursed the light streaming into the bedroom, cueing the baby's brain that he should start waking up at 6:00. What happened to 7 a.m., my dear babykins? On that ... more
Should I try to explain my 2-week absence?I fell off the blogging horse. I got overwhelmed. I tried to figure out a new way to post pictures, and couldn't do it in the 4-minute increments I had, so I gave up.There. Now you know the exciting stuff.Don't listen to what she's about to tell you.Emry has a cold, just in time for his first flight on Saturday, just in time for me to fly alone with both the boys. And he was up most of the night last night ... more
This is my boy.We think he looks a little like an Ewok.He woke up at 5:30 this morning. Mama was not pleased.Of course, I had already been up since 4. Pregnant insomnia. That one good night's sleep with the Valerian was awesome, but I guess it was a one-shot deal.Here he is with Doggie in the pocket of his new apron. In our house, we call this a "morale-boosting outfit." As in, the cuteness factor boosts Mama and Dada's morale.He's even taken to helping with the ... more
self-portrait, 22 weeksI stayed up way too late last night - MIDNIGHT! I haven't seen midnight in ages, whereas it was once a regular phenomenon that Mikhail and I went to bed at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. There was no good excuse for staying up. I shouldn't have done it, because my belly button and right side of my belly were hurting, and the longer I stayed up, the more they hurt. I was engaging in an activity we call "strollering" - named after the inordinate amount of time ... more
This is not the post I was going to write tonight.I was going to have a nice relaxing evening to myself while Mikhail was at soccer, and I was going to write a post about... well, you'll have to wait to see what that one was going to be about, because my evening was hijacked by my 3.5-year-old. Who has been in bed for two hours, and is still screaming.The stories I could tell about sleep and Elan! Blood-curdling tales that would scare off any sane person from parenthood. However, ... more
It's muddy around here, and not just because of the recent storms. Our schedules are all haywire and out-of-whack. A husband working the phones and the resume, looking for a job. A 3-year-old with a 102.9 fever and a gnarly cough who can't sleep past 5:15 in the morning and is trying to give up his nap. A woman who's trying to finish the rough draft of a screenplay for a big meeting in a week, apply for jobs in a way she hasn't for YEARS, and do all the ... more
I might have mentioned before that Elan is a problematic sleeper. At this point, after more than 2.5 years of sleep training, he often goes through good spells of sleeping through the night. He never wakes up at what Mikhail and I would have considered in our B.C. (before-child) life to be a reasonable hour. But let's not get me started on that right now.Elan has a clock in his head. And it is a very reliable one. It knows, for instance, exactly what time to awaken to really ... more
My new nephew's name is technically Judah, but after spending four days snuggling him, I get to call him Jude. Cause it rhymes with Dude. And you know how fun it is to do the whole baby-talk thing while rhyming. Even though I am actually terrible at rhyming. Just ask my husband. Or Elan, who just discovered the concept of rhyming a week ago and is already better at it than his mama.Anyway, I got to steep myself in newborn-land at my sister & Jason's house outside Athens, Georgia, courtesy ... more