It's official...I am a mom

While technically I have been a mom for three years now, I scaled new heights today as I made tuna noodle casserole, wearing sweatpants, and, um, smelling of spit up (just faintly mind you!). In my defense, tuna is one of the few healthy protein sources I can get into Mizz. As a parent I have started to look at my childhood from another viewpoint, and now have way more understanding and empathy for my parents. In this case, I remember making lots of complaints about food as a youngster (tuna noodle casserole being a somewhat recurrent one) and only now do I appreciate how ridiculously trying it can be to come up with meals that satisfy three seriously different palates. The casserole did include delicious whole wheat noodles with flax and Tillamook cheddar. I have no excuse for the sweatpants though and fully blame D for the spit up.

Beaching it up

The view from our balcony. Sweet.

Seaside's beach is huge and apparently one of them growing beaches. It was also wonderfully empty.

While I can't say it was the most relaxing trip to the beach I've ever had...it definitely fit into the category of a solidly good family vacation. We scored big time on the accommodations. The timeshare units had just been renovated and were attractive and mostly brand new. We had two bedrooms that felt far apart from each other and, best of all, two bathrooms. Translation: Mizz got his very own ceiling fan and I didn't have to share my bathroom space with a potty seat. In fact, as soon as I saw the place I threatened to never leave. Mizz was enraptured by all the new light switches (of course) and could not take his eyes off the working gas fireplace. We swam in the warm waters of the pool, built some vaguely impressive sand sculptures, and got to feed the harbor seals in the aquarium. I am still stunned by our luck with the weather. It was sun, sunny, sunny. Being September, Oregon and well, my luck, I had assumed that the weather was going to be spotty at best, but it was perfect. Earlier today Dave and I were talking about how much we have already forgotten (I had just asked Dave if he thought D was similar to Mizz at four and half months), I hope that I at least remember some of this trip. Like Mizz's insistence that he was swimming when in fact he was scooting along the kiddie pool like a crab or the simple fact that he kept saying "cool" instead of "pool", as in "I don't wanna go in the big cool!" D, true to self, simply took it all in with lots of smiles, in between his marathon naps.

Baby Elephant

I got to check up on my favorite baby elephant today. At 300 lbs he is positively adorable and absolutely (relatively) tiny! This time he was walking around the elephant yard although he stuck pretty close to his mom and auntie. I even got to see him nurse! Mizz and his playgroup pals were captivated by all the pachyderm family activity and I got to catch up with my mom friends in bits and pieces. True to form though, the highlights for Mizz were the stamps at the exit and a surprise discovery of a nightlight at the frog exhibit.

It's quiet. A little too quiet.

I didn't even finish typing the title before D started to cry. I was just going to write about how all three of my boys were asleep before 8:30 tonight but the youngest just decided to rebel. So much for having the house to myself.

Backblogged

I have been composing blog posts in my head now for weeks about the election but grad school has taken it's toll and I feel like I have to collect and footnote all the articles I have been reading to support my claims. But this is a blog and I don't have to do any such thing. So here it is. McCain disgusts me more and more every day because of his lying, pandering, and ridiculously frightening pick of Palin. My fears all along that this country is still so racially prejudice that the best presidential candidate in years may be denied the presidency simply based on his race seem very well founded (check out Yahoo's latest poll about voters sterotypes about African Americans). And now all the talk of bailing out the seriously irresponsible people on wall street makes me furious. I say all the managers get fined from their huge salaries and give the buy out money to the schools. If we have it to spend, it certainly doesn't need to go to a bunch of rich idiots, who will undoubtedly do the same crap again--with or without new regulations.

The weekend that wouldn't quit

Normally weekends that last forever are a good thing. Not this weekend though. All four of us were suffering from colds of varying intensity. This meant there was a whole lot of snot and a whole lot of irritability all of which was comfined to our little house. Mizz was unrelenting and not content to sit and watch videos or play quietly for any significant length of time. Yesterday and D and I pretty much retired to my bed for a nursing/napping/read all of Water for Elephants extravaganza. Which means I owe Dave big time. Perhaps next weekend at the beach, I'll take the kids and Dave can do something without them. All of us seem to be doing better today and I am looking forward to a nice relaxing day of taking care of eight wobblers.

New pics!

D's first day of school. He went in his pajamas!
My honey surprised me with some beautiful flowers, which Mizz promptly thanked him for!

Mr. Roly Poly himself wearing my favorite OskKosh turtleneck ever.

D sporting a cute local bus onesie. Dave sporting a new haircut. He probably wouldn't want me to blog this but he gets his hair cut at a place where they give out lollipops and balloons instead of beer. It's true what they say, parenthood changes everything. Everything.

There is a whole lotta sick going around

D has his first cold complete with snot bubbles and little coughs and sneezes. It breaks my heart, but fortunately he doesn't appear too miserable. And now Mizz has spent the last 30 minutes diagnosing his cars and taking them to the doctor so that they car feel better too. This is probably inspired by D's cold and Mizz's recent trip to urgent care to get an x-ray. Mizz kept complaining about a hurt foot and was limping pronouncedly, so off to the doctor he went. He did great and it appears he just had some kind of soft tissue injury that didn't show up.

Where to start?

In a nutshell, I have been cooking lots of food from scratch, reading way too much about the election, watching D struggle to overcome his arm in his frantic attempts to roll over, and keep Mizz busy in a happy, pro society way.


The cooking storm stems in large part to having been so inspired by the Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. While I consider myself to be a fairly questioning, well informed consumer about most things, in reading the book, I realized how much I didn't know about the food we eat. For example, I learned where things came from and how they grow and why organic is better (on many levels), what exactly GMO means to me and potentially the world's food supply, and why corn syrup is in everything. I think for the most part, until I started feeding my kids, I was simply happier not knowing and buying organic and local stuff when it seemed right and yes, convenient. In this case ignorance was definitely bliss, because now I realize that there really is a different way to eat that doesn't involve a whole lot of packages but does involve a few more dirty dishes. But dirty dishes aside, it also means making a choice to not consume most of the processed goods that I imagine probably 98% of America eats on a daily basis. And so, before people start rolling their eyes, betting how long this fad will last, or getting defensive, I should note that as with most things in my life, I am not attempting to be super rigid or fanatical about this approach, but I am going to cook more, bake more, and not offer Mizz as many crackers, bars, and other foods that I have relied on for so long. So this week I cooked fish for the first time, used a lemon zester, and put together an Asian inspired stir fry sauce and had three awesome meals that didn't come by way of a refrigerated truck from New Jersey.

OK enough about food.

We also went to the zoo twice and I am happy to report got to see the new baby elephant who was an adorable 291 pound clumsy little beast who spent most of its time hiding in his mother's legs. We also played in the sand box. On average, we see about one animal each trip to the zoo, what with pottying, eating, and the not so simple act of locomoting through the zoo. I suppose from Mizz's perspective, with buttons and things to touch around every corner, who needs the
animals? I have finally given up my expectations about what a proper visit to the zoo should encompass, after hearing Mizz shout one too many times "NOOO...I DON'T WANNA SEE ANY MORE MONKEYS!"

D went to school for the first time yesterday and wooed everyone with his smiles and giggles. He was the champion cat napper and woke up promply after a series of twenty minute naps there. I was terrified that the drive home and evening would be horrible but he didn't make a peep the whole way home and had a great night's sleep.

And since it was our nine year anniversary yesterday (yikes!) D got to spend his first night in his crib all by himself (for awhile Dave had taken up cohabitation with D in the nursery/office).