Look at this eggplant!  Isn't it gorgeous?  Wish I could take credit for it, but Connie picked it up at the farmer's market.  Let's hope it tastes as good as it looks.

We went to HELL, uh, I mean the Children's Museum yesterday.   Fun for the kids, not so fun for the mom.  It was sooo hot & over-crowded & so many tantrum-ing brats (not mine)!  And it's a  long T ride there, which was packed (and hot & smelly as the T usually is). Orange had a lot of fun, though.  She especially likes the rock climbing wall, which she did over &  over (and over!).  And the recycle shop, where she filled a bag & I picked up 23 of these little guys.  They are sad on one side and happy on the reverse.  I have no idea what I'll do with them, but they were calling out to me with their sad (and happy!) little heart-shaped faces.

And no complaints on the Ocean front, she seemed very content in the Beco all day.  And they have a designated "Nursing Room" there complete with dim lighting, a couch, and a bunch of pillows which provides the perfect excuse to escape from all the museum mayhem.

What babe? The babe with the power...

Don't you think Ocean sort of looks like Toby?  And I, like Sarah, sometimes wish the goblins would come and take her away! And if only Cory looked that good in tights...!

Just kidding. 

kind of.

2 syllables away from a Haiku

Today was a rainy day, so after Orange had a "power snack" of hummus, sprouts, carrots, cherry tomatoes, and grapes (a whole plate of what we deem "power foods"), I let her watch The Dark Crystal, circa 1982.  Her review?  "It has scary parts, sad parts like when his master dies, good parts, and happy parts.  And movies like that are good, good, good!"  

She was even inspired to write the above poem.  Here, let me decipher for you:  

"This is one of my poems, Run through the sun, to get the shining crystal, shining bright, 

Love Orange"

We then braved the rain & walked to the library.  They had a $1.00 bag sale so we picked up a few, including Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, a Lyle Crocodile book, and an old Dr. Who book.  We could have fit a lot more in our bag, but I was already carrying 15-some-odd pounds of baby and up-teen pounds of library books.    

The librarian gave me a book to read for the book club, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist.  It's a nice thick book & I'm ready for a book of sustenance.  And I got one of little, a James Patterson, for the beach.   

The Beco: tha baby shit we love, part 1

When Ocean was an infant, I tried a Maya wrap, a Kangaroo Korner fleece pouch, and a regular ring sling, and she always seemed to get devoured and lost in the abyss and none of them were very comfortable, especially for walking long distances.  So after pouring over the mothering.com babywearing forum (yes, they have a forum dedicated to this as well as any other subject a crunchy type would want to peruse, from breast feeding to uncirc'd penises), we decided to splurge and get the highly rated $140 Beco carrier.
And I'm glad we did, as we are loving it.  It's super-comfortable & can accommodate a wide range of body sizes (read: pot bellies & post-baby bellies!) and, unlike the Ergo,  comes in cool prints (ours is the cameron).  Also, unlike the Ergo, it has a built-in fabric panel "infant insert" so it can properly sit a newborn and you can use it from day #1.   Since Ocean will not tolerate the stroller yet & prefers to be carried 24-7 (and who can blame her really?), an excellent carrier is a must and this is that.  I think in another month or so, she'll be big enough to ride in a back carry, which will make it easier to get things done (like washing dishes...not that I'm looking forward to that).  

I just have a couple of small gripes.  The web-site claims that you can easily breast feed while wearing the Beco, but, alas, not me.  There is no way in hell I'd be able to maneuver my ginormous beastly breasts into an appropriate position suitable for comfortable nursing in this.  But it may be able to work for smaller-breasted women, I wouldn't know.  

And it does get hot on these 90-degree days & there's nothing worse than wearing a sticky sweaty mess of a baby on a steamy hot day, but hey, we're in New England where those days are few & far between, and this carrier is perfect for the other 346 days.  

We went in and actually came out with what we went in for

No less than a miracle. 

Every time we go into Ikea, we regret it.  It's just this overwhelming sea of swedish plastic and pressboard, essentially a Euro-coated Wal-Mart. It's always terribly over-crowded, we always feel a bit nauseous from eating too many meatballs, and we never quite find what we want (but manage to spend a couple hundred regardless on cheap plastic crap that we don't exactly need). We spend all this time searching and writing out the number codes on the cards they give you only to inevitably find that what we're looking for is out of stock.  

Well, this time was relatively painless.  We went in for a cheap plastic high chair & that's what we came out with.  There was a brief moment of panic when we found only red high chairs in aisle #21 (I would have just gotten the red one, but Cory was concerned that it would clash with our bright green kitchen...I, on the other hand, have always been a fan of contrasting colors). We were then directed to aisle #15 where "all (read:most) of the children's items are," only to find exclusively white high chairs.  We finally found what we were looking for, a blue high chair, in aisle #17.  Mind you, these are the exact same high chairs just in different colors...wouldn't you think they'd all be in the same spot, in the same aisle, perhaps in the aisle with "all of the children's items"?  You would think.

Anyways, I'm happy we actually got what we went in for (plus an additional $100 of cheap plastic crap that we don't really need)...and Ocean is delighted.  After months of ogling and drooling over us eating, she can now sit up with us and enjoy her sippy cup of water.  Not exactly a prime rib, but she'll take whatever she can get.