Liz was the winner of my caption contest way back in September. I took this photo of her in a flapper costume on Halloween and then used it to do the pop art tutorial at MelissaClifton.com.
Monthly Archive for January, 2008
I woke up sad this morning, probably from not processing an exchange with GJ when it actually occurred. On Sunday, she was talking about how when she moved up here from Dothan, she put a daybed in her room in case I wanted to come sleep in there. Whenever we went to visit her or she came up here, I always liked to sleep in her room.
“But you only used it the one time; I guess you were growing up,” she said.
I don’t remember the daybed, but I very much remember sleeping in her room after she moved up here. How many times, I don’t recall (hey, it was 1988). I tried to jog her memory by reminding her that she liked for me to scratch her back and I’d get bored and instead draw letters or words on her back, making her guess what they were.
“I could always stay awake for Lawrence Welk,” I told her. “But then I’d fall asleep during the 700 Club.”
She paused before saying that she doesn’t know what the 700 Club is.
You used to, I want to say. And you used to remember stories about my mom and when I was little.
I miss those stories.
Kris had a last-minute cancellation and made it home early this evening. Ben was happy to see him, so I passed him off and headed into the kitchen to make some dinner. After a few minutes, Kris followed to get something to drink. Together, we watched as Ben crawled after us, over to the baby gate, which he pulled himself up on… and swung open.
Kris and I uttered the same expletive in unison.
I see more and more of his dad in him every time.
I drink fat free milk. I haven’t had “whole” milk since I lived at my parents’ house. I remember that my mom bought skim milk for her and whole milk for me. Skim milk seemed like water to me back then.
Eventually, the Bentley house went to 2% milk. And then I moved out and somehow moved on to 1%. I know that I dropped down to the fat free kind when I was pregnant and drinking milk like it was going out of style.
Over the past few months, I have cut down to only drinking milk in my coffee. I used to have milk with my breakfast and then top it off with coffee. Then one week we were low on milk so I only drank it in my coffee, and then I was all “what’s all this milk drinking about? Bring on the coffee!”
Last week, when there was snow in the forecast (ha!), there was no fat free milk available. We got 1%. I could taste a bit of difference in my coffee, but I really noticed it last night when I had a glass of milk with some delectable pound cake from Rhonda.
“Kris, smell this. Is that the fat? Or like because this milk expires on Friday?”
He did not want to smell the milk. Nor did he want to talk about our friends calling milk “liquid meat.”
With Ben two months from his first birthday, when I’m supposed to switch him to whole milk (I shudder to think of drinking whole milk), I begin to wonder why it is we give our human babes cow’s milk. Formula I understand; it’s the man-made replacement for breast milk. But why make the switch to cow’s milk? Why not just stay with formula until milk is no longer part of the deal? I’m just curious.
ETA: This article on Parenting.com answers a few of my questions.
Ben, you���re 10 months old today. You���ve now spent a longer amount of time in the outside world than you did in my abdomen.
Over the weekend, you began using the walker toy Carla gave you for Christmas. You didn���t trust it at first, the way it would move forward when you pulled yourself up on it. Now you realize that when holding onto this thing, you can walk across the room really fast.
You say ���dada��� now, and I think you���d be babbling more if not for the whole ear fluid thing. I hadn���t really realized that you���d cut back on babbling until you started up again. That may seem unobservant of me, that I hadn���t noticed you weren���t imitating sounds as much anymore.
The thing is, I think you���re just about perfect and there is little wrong you can do in my eyes. (That doesn���t mean I���m a fan of your grumpy moods or when you refuse to sit still while I change your diaper.)
In the store:
Huh, so that���s what a papaya looks like.
I doubt papaya is in season. Where is this one even from? Ah, Belize. So known for their papayas.
What if I buy this and forget and leave it in the refrigerator? Well, less than $2 lost.
How come I will buy fruit to puree for Ben that I have never bought to eat myself?
At home, almost a week later:
The skin���s looking a little shriveled; I guess it���s still okay?
After slicing it open:
Wow, those seeds are kinda grossing me out.
The papaya has a nice color scheme.
I will take a picture of it.
After taking a bite:
Yep, freeze dry that and add sugar and that���s what I���m used to papaya tasting like.
After blending it with banana to freeze for Ben:
I wonder what the daycare ladies will think when I send little containers marked ���Papaya-Banana - Ben 1/08.���
Did I mention that Ben has another tooth that has broken the surface? He’s up to four and a half teeth now. I opened his baby book to notate the date I first noticed it, and I’ve gotten into the habit of flipping through the whole book every time I go to write one little thing in there. In flipping this week, I came across the page where a picture of him and his grandparents should go. I only have pictures of him one-on-one with his grands, so I didn’t know what I’d put there.
And then it occurred to me that it’s a pretty rare thing that all his grandparents have lived in the same apartment building since he was born. I knew then that I wanted a picture of the five of them on the front steps. Unfortunately, the best time for that was this afternoon and church ran long and oh yeah, it was NEGATIVE BAZILLION DEGREES outside… but I got a shot. I will not say “the shot” but a shot, perfectly suitable for the baby book.
Had it been a lazy Sunday afternoon and all parties not needing food, a nap and warmer weather, I would have flexed my mojo. As is, I’m glad it’s in focus and everybody is looking in the general direction of the camera.
As someone who hates to hear herself talk on recordings, I find it amusing that I have been roped into doing the voice-overs for a couple of the GadsdenTimes.com video presentations.
Last week it was because Lisa didn’t want to do the one for her series because she said she sounded “too country.” Marc came into the break room while Cyndi and I were eating and said he needed someone to do the VO. Cyndi, having muchos seniority, pointed at me.
This week, I’m assuming it came down to me because I didn’t balk last time.
Laura Catoe, soft-spoken video voice-over gal
“I can’t figure out why the spare rooms in the new house are so cold. I thought the vents were cut off, but they aren’t. Jimmy says it because they don’t get as much sun. I don’t believe him.”
“Maybe next season you should have someone come out and see if they need cleaning. I mean, since it used to have renters, you never know if there’s, like, old underwear in the vents.”
“What? Under- oh! Like we did at apartment 313! Why did we do that?”
“Remember it was always so cold in that front hall? And it messed up the thermostat so it was still hot in the parts of the apartment that counted, like the bedrooms?”
“Yeah, yeah. But why did we use underwear?”
“I do not know. Because we didn’t own dishrags?”
“Did we ever get the underwear out?”
“I don’t think so. I think we only remembered it was in there after we’d turned the keys back in.”
“That’s great. Underwear in the vent. You should blog about that.”
“Okay. For you. And it does prove that sometimes well-meaning people do dumb things.”
