20 months old

So here we are, now 4 months away from Daniel's 2nd birthday.  With every passing month he seems to transition more and more from a baby to a little boy.  His latest trick?  As I discovered today, he can climb onto the table. Time was not so long ago I could set him down on the floor, leave the room, and he'd still be in the same spot when I returned.  Now, apparently he's likely to be up on the dining room table.  As is often the case with such things, even as I'm telling him "no" and setting him back on the floor, I'm struggling to hide the laugh.  Life with a young toddler is never dull!

In other news, he's becoming increasingly vocal and seems to learn a new word every other day or so.  Recent additions to the list are "please," "home," and "bath," though his favorites are "mama," "dada," "up," and "no."  He can say his grandparents' names too, somewhat: Grandma is "Damma," Mimi is "Mimi," or sometimes "Mimimi," and Grandpa is "Baba."  He also has a lot of "gibberish" words which might make sense to him but don't yet to us.  Perhaps he's just trying out different combinations of sounds.  In any event, it's pretty entertaining.

No new developments on the sleep front.  He'll skip his nap sometimes or go through a few nights in a row of waking up, but overall he's a great sleeper.  He's a good eater too, though with occasional picky/light eating phases.  He's getting increasingly proficient with a fork and spoon, though tonight's adventures in eating rice were quite messy because he insisted on feeding himself.  But, I'm happy that he seems to like healthy foods and wants independence.  As far as clothes go, he's still in 18 month clothes.  They aren't getting small on him yet but they aren't big anymore.  I bet we get another month or so out of them then it's on to 2T.

A few weekends ago we went to the Houston area for my grandmother's memorial service.  I booked us at a suite hotel and definitely think that concept would serve us well on future trips.  It was nice to have some room to spread out and be able to put him to bed (in the pack n play we brought) in the bedroom, then shut the doors and stay up and visit in the living area.  Before bed though, we went out to eat at the BJ's brewpub nearby.  Funny, Kevin's and my first date was at a BJ's, now we see it and think "oh, good kid-friendly place."  And it was-lots of families, and noisy enough that the occasional cry wouldn't be disruptive.  I was a little nervous about it as we don't generally take Daniel out to dinner, we'd been on the road all afternoon, and it was his bedtime, but he rose to the challenge and for the most part did quite well.  We did get some funny pictures of him next to the empty glasses from the beer sampler Kevin and I shared.

On that trip, we also discovered a new trick of his:



One big change in the works is that we're planning to start him in preschool a few days a week after his 2nd birthday.  We haven't chosen the school yet but we've got it narrowed down to our top 2 choices.  I think either would be a good option for him, we just need to discuss the differences and decide which is the best fit for us.  The plan is to start him off with 3 days a week of school and 2 days at Grandma's, then eventually go to 5 days of school.  He loves his time with Grandma, and she loves it, but he's also enjoying interactions with other kids now too and I think would enjoy the different stimulation and structure that a classroom provides.  So, by the next time I post we'll probably have a decision on that front.

Eating good in the neighborhood

I've been meaning to post about our experiences with the Urban Acres CSA (community sponsored agriculture) but haven't gotten around to it till now.  Last month we signed up, along with our neighbors, for a biweekly share of ~30 pounds of local, organic produce.  We've gotten 3 shares so far with items including broccoli, kale, mustard greens, chard, spinach, sweet potatoes, turnips, beets, radishes, apples, and oranges, among other things.

When we started the CSA I decided 2 things: 1) I would use everything we get, even if it's not something we would normally buy, and 2) I would use every usable part of the veggies.  That means cooking and eating the greens if they're edible and saving the scraps to make veggie stock.

Here's our first share, and some of the things we made from it:

Sauteed broccoli crowns

Red pepper-garlic broccoli leaves

Pickled broccoli stems

Applesauce for Daniel

Garlic ginger mustard greens

Sauteed Indian-seasoned cabbage

Our second share:

Beets-look at that pretty coloring!

Rainbow carrots, carrot greens, and shiitake mushrooms

The most unusual/creative thing I've made is a pizza using pureed boiled beets as the sauce base instead of tomatoes-"beetza."  Would never have thought to try that but saw the recipe online and decided to give it a try.  I made a honey whole wheat crust then made the sauce with pureed beets, goat cheese, olive oil, and seasoning.  I topped it with mozzarella cheese, goat cheese, spinach from our share, kale, and venison sausage.  It wasn't from our share but it was made from the deer Kevin shot last fall, so it fit with the local/organic theme.  Here's what the finished product looked like:

So how did it turn out?  Actually, pretty good.  I wouldn't use beets instead of tomatoes, but if I had beets on hand already this would be a good use for them.  The bacon actually wasn't all that great on its own but turned out to be pretty good as a pizza topping.  And I had made pizza crust before but not in awhile, but now that I've been reminded how good it is, we'll have to make more homemade pizzas.

Tonight I simmered the veggie scraps I've been storing in the freezer for the last month or so and made some stock.  Not sure what I'll do with the scraps now.  I pureed them so I think I'll see if they work as the base for a soup.  I made a soup last week using CSA cabbage and baking potatoes and am thinking to do another one with some CSA celery this week.

The CSA shares have definitely challenged me to cook new things and get the most out of our veggies.  The shares have so far been a good mix of things we would get anyway (broccoli, apples) and new things (beets, radishes, romaine and spinach heads-we usually get bagged) and while we haven't loved everything (Kevin wasn't a beet fan before and the last month hasn't changed his mind), we have found some new things we like and would get again, and I like the challenge of cooking new things.  Looking forward to seeing what great stuff we get next week!

Meet my new blog!

You know when there's a tv show, and a supporting character becomes popular enough that s/he gets a spinoff show to star in?  Same kind of thing here.  I decided that my posts on the races I run are enough of a tangent from the primary goal of this blog-keeping our family and friends updated on our family life-that it was time for the little bird to leave the nest and become a new blog.  So from now on, you can find my race write-ups, including for today's Cupid's Chase 5k, here.  If you like pictures of cool trophies, you should definitely check out the first post!  And with that, we resume our regularly scheduled programming...

Books I read in 2011

Decided it was time to move last year's reading list from a side widget to a post and start new for 2012.  So, here's my reading list from 2011:

• Room, Emma Donoghue
• Chi Running, Danny Dreyer
• Born to Run, Christopher McDougal (r)
• The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan
• The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing To Our Brains, Nicholas Carr
• The Lincoln Lawyer, Michael Connelly
• Innocent, Scott Turow (r)
• Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To, Sian Beilock
• The Happiest Toddler on the Block, Harvey Karp
• Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, Peggy Orenstein
• The Frailty Myth: Women Approaching Physical Equality, Colette Dowling
• Nerve, Taylor Clark
• Patent It Yourself, David Pressman
• Patent Pending in 24 Hours, Richard Stim and David Pressman
• Nurture Shock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
• The Help, Kathryn Stockett
• The Price of Everything, Eduardo Porter
• Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses, Claire Dederer
• The Confession, John Grisham
• Vanished Glory: A Family in America, Connie Lynne Smith
• Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle With Faith and Love, Father Albert Cutie
• The Appeal, John Grisham (r)

I liked most of what I read last year.  Particularly memorable books were Vanished Glory (historical fiction about some of my distant ancestors), The Help, Nerve, and Room.  I'm already off to a good start in 2012 too!

18 Months

Daniel is 18 months old now.  Hard to believe my baby is a year and a half old already.  We had his checkup a few weeks ago and he's growing, weighing in at 22.4lb and measuring 32in tall.  He's holding steady around the 40th percentile for height and inched up from 5th to 8th weight percentile.  The pediatrician was pleased with his growth and developmental progress, so everything is looking good.  That height, incidentally, makes him just tall enough to reach things on the counter and the table.  Which I learned the hard way by leaving a nearly full Dr. Pepper on the edge of the table.  Messy lesson learned.

Since my last update on him we've reached one bittersweet milestone.  Sometime in late December/early January Daniel nursed for the last time.  He had dropped to just the night feeding awhile back and had gotten to where he seemed like he could take it or leave it, so I stopped offering and he didn't ask for it.  I'll miss that special bond with him, but we were both ready to stop.  I would have been willing to go longer had he wanted to, but I'm proud that we made it 17 months.

Otherwise no real news to report on the sleep or food fronts.  He's still a good eater and a pretty reliable sleeper at night and most days at naptime.

As far as development goes, he's working at walking up and down the stairs.  He needs a hand or railing to hold but is getting pretty good at it.  And as we discovered when we put Christmas decorations up in the attic, he can also climb a ladder!

Bathtime continues to be a favorite time of day.  Daniel likes to try to pull the faucets on and off and gets very upset when I tell him no.  He also enjoys sticking his face into the running cold water or drinking from it. 

Last week our friend Nicole and our 22 month old godson came over for playtime and dinner.  We've always hoped the boys will grow up to be friends and it was really fun to watch them play together.  Nicole and I prepared dinner in the kitchen, uninterrupted, for 20 minutes while the boys happily chased each other around.  Then, while we were eating, Nicole mentioned how Alejandro doesn't like his bath, so we thought bath with his buddy might make it more fun.  We set the boys in the tub and sure enough, they had a great time.  And, as captured on video, Alejandro decided to be helpful.

Thus far the dreaded terrible twos haven't shown themselves.  Daniel does cry when he doesn't get his way, but can generally be calmed pretty quickly.  He can get pretty fixated on what he wants though and isn't easily distracted.  Case in point: lately his favorite thing to do is play in the front seat of the (parked) car.  He likes to sit behind the wheel and can turn the hazards on and off.  He loves doing this and doesn't seem to tire of it.  This is cute.  It also means that every time we're going or arriving somewhere he runs to the driver side door and looks at me expectantly, then cries if he can't play or, if he can, when he has to get out.  It's made for some frustration for both of us, but not too bad really.  We'll see what the next months bring, but thus far he's still a pretty easy kid.

And that pretty much wraps up what's new with Daniel these days.  I feel like every month I could say this, but this really is my favorite stage so far.  He's more interactive than ever, and now at night when I take him to his crib he puts his head on my shoulder and gives me a big hug.  What a sweet reward to get every night!

Grandmother

This week my maternal grandmother passed away at the age of 93.  I'm 33 years old, but this was only my second time to lose a grandparent.  Daniel won't get to know her in person, but I'm looking forward to sharing stories about her with him.
The first word I think of when I think of her is "cheerful."  She just always seemed to be happy and in a good mood and she loved to laugh.  While it was hard for us to watch her memory erode as dementia set in, she remained as cheerful as ever.

On reflection, that leads me to the second word that fits her.  "Brave."  Not in a big, daring adventure sort of way, but in the way she handled the unsought challenges that came her way throughout life.  She lost her mother in a car accident when the car my grandmother was driving was hit by a drunk driver.  While there was surely nothing she could have done to prevent it, she must have always been haunted by it.  Then after she and my Granddaddy married, World War II took him away to the Pacific theater.  While he returned home safely I'm sure she nervously awaited his return, and did so while raising their first child, my aunt.

Then a few years later came perhaps the most heartbreaking tragedy of her life, when their son Tommy died of pneumonia.  They buried him on his second birthday.  As a parent myself I can't begin to imagine the overwhelming sadness, and as with her mother's death, she must have wondered if she could have done anything differently.  Many people never get over the loss of a child, but she and my grandfather carried on, and a few years later my mom was born.  I think it takes a great deal of courage to become a parent again after the loss of a child.  My mom, and by extension me, my brother, and Daniel, are all here because she did.

In 1983, she suffered the loss of her husband of 40+ years when Granddaddy died.  As she had several times already, she grieved this loss but continued to live her life and provided her family with many more years of happy memories.

Bravery takes a lot of forms.  Sometimes it's just the quiet courage to embrace life one day at a time and maintain a cheerful attitude in spite of difficulties and sorrows.  In her own way she was a strong lady and she left a good example for us to follow.

I remember some fun and funny times with her:
- When David and I were little we took turns flying up to Dallas for one-on-one visits with her.  That was my first time to fly by myself.  While I was there she took me to the library and the pool at her retirement complex.  Sitting out in the heat was surely not her idea of fun but she was a good sport.
- She was no Julia Child, but we enjoyed making spaghetti, jello, and pumpkin pie together.  The other night my mom and I made spaghetti together as a tribute.
- She joined my family for a trip to Padre Island once when I was younger.  We were walking on the beach one night but she didn't see a sand dune and tripped and fell.  One minute she was right next to me, the next she was on the ground.  She laughed it off.  Then the next day, she had a longneck beer with her lunch.  Given that my brother and I had never seen her drink before it was a funny sight to see her kicking back with a longneck.
- When I was in junior high and my parents went on vacation, Grandmother came to Austin to watch David and me.  We had dinner every afternoon (yes, afternoon) at Luby's to "beat the rush" and she had a hard time getting my dad's car out of the garage.  As she'd back out she'd say "come on, car!"  I couldn't help but think that even though I was only 14, maybe we'd be better off if I drove.
- She had an old gun (I think it was her father's) that she called "Peter."  Which even into her 80s, she kept in her apartment.  I'm sure Peter didn't make the move to the retirement center, I wonder what became of him?
- She could be feisty.  After Granddaddy died she had short stints in Austin and Indiana before opting to move to a series of senior apartment complexes in Dallas.  Then in the late 90s my mom and aunt decided it was time to move her closer to one of them so the decision was made to move her to a retirement home in Houston.  The home was quite nice but this was not change Grandmother could believe in.  She asked the girls to move her back to Dallas, they said no, so what did she do?  Only orchestrated a return to Dallas all by herself by phone.  She got an apartment, movers, and even negotiated for someone to drive her car up for her.  Mind you she didn't have a computer or probably anything but a Dallas yellow pages book, but she had the will and she found the way.  Eventually she wound up at a wonderful retirement/assisted living center in Austin, but she bought herself another 4-5 years of independent living with that move back to Dallas.
- Her last year in Dallas was my first year of law school at SMU and I lived near her, so I went over to her apartment every so often for dinner.  I'd usually pick up sandwiches for us at the Jason's Deli nearby and we'd eat and visit.
- She had some funny sayings we didn't understand.  I came over to her apartment once and she said, "did you bring home a dead cat, kid?"  No clue what that was in reference to.
- She did, however, seem to enjoy my (live) cats when I brought them over to her apartment when she lived in Dallas.  Even as her memory was slipping she remembered my cats for a long time.
- Sadly, her dementia was progressed enough by the time I met Kevin that she didn't really understand who he was, but when he joined us for Christmas she did comment that "he smells nice."  Well, good to know ;)
- She saw Daniel several times but never knew he was her great-grandson.  But the last time we saw her she did have a special moment with him.  She was sitting at her usual table in the Summit dining room eating her dinner (incidentally, it seems we spend our early days in diapers eating mushed-up food, and, if we live long enough, our last days as well).  Daniel and I came and sat down with her.  For the first few minutes she didn't seem aware of us but then she looked right at him, lit up in a smile, and said "oh you sweet thing!"  Those are the last words I ever heard her say, and I'll always be grateful for them.  I wish she had known the little boy in front of her was her great-grandson, but I'm glad he brought her joy in that moment.

Here are a few pictures:

7 month old me with Granddaddy and Grandmother

Granddaddy and Grandmother on their honeymoon.  Check out those fancy boots and riding pants!

Christmas sometime in the early '90s.  We're laughing because someone just dropped a camera into the piano lid!

This week Daniel and I went to Austin for a quick visit to help/support my mom.  While we were there we went to my grandmother's assisted living center and my mom asked if I wanted to take anything.  Grandmother had had a full china set before but it was now down to a few pieces.  I chose a serving platter and bowl which had apparently been my great-grandmother's first.  Now those pieces are living in my china cabinet and while they don't match my contemporary pattern, I'll enjoy seeing them there. 

When Kevin and I got engaged my paternal grandparents offered us their silver, and I gratefully accepted.  I liked the idea that over the coming years when my family sits down to a holiday meal, my grandparents will still be part of our lives even though they won't be sitting at the table.  Now that Grandmother's china is there, she'll be a part of those festive occasions too.

Fun weekend moments

It's been awhile since my last post, and of course there is plenty of news.  But I'll get to that in another post.  This weekend wasn't really anything special, it was just a weekend, but there were a few special little everyday moments I enjoyed with Daniel that I want to remember.

Yesterday morning I ran the Bold in the Cold 15k race in Grapevine.  When I got home I was craving a nice relaxing soak in the tub.  Alas, Kevin had a few errands to run so I decided to let Daniel get in the tub with me.  It wasn't relaxing, or at least, not what I had had in mind, but it was nice.  For a few minutes he just sat in my lap leaning back into me.  Then he played, filling his play cups from the faucet.  Then we read his bath books, over and over and over and whenever the book mentioned a body part he enthusiastically pointed to it (a game he's pretty good at now: head, hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, shoulders, hands, fingers, tummy, bottom, knees, feet, and toes!).  Finally, he decided to use me as a human ladder to climb up onto the sides of the tub.  It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it was nice to get a few minutes of one-on-one time with no distractions.  And for Daniel it was a bonus to get 2 baths in one day!

Then, yesterday and this evening, we took advantage of the mild winter weather to go to the playground near the house.  Yesterday we met a friend of mine and her 2 kids for a playdate, today Kevin, Daniel, and I went as a family.  Both days Daniel loved it.  He ran all around, looking back at me sometimes to see if I'd chase him (another game he enjoys now).  He also had fun on the slides, and today he was able to walk over to the slide entrance, get himself into position with feet forward, and push off.  He has always enjoyed the slide but today was the first time he didn't need our help to get set up and go.  I know we'll probably be out there as often as possible as the weather allows this year.  He was cranky from not napping this afternoon, but he was a happy boy after some playground time!

Here he is:

So, those were just a few fun little moments from our weekend.  I hope Daniel enjoyed them, I know I did.