The World According to Mommy

This is apparently the way Nate feels about Merchant's dog food bowls. And how lucky for him that he can now make it to those bowls faster and faster, in time to grab a few handfuls of dog food before Mommy notices.

Defintion of "crunchy" (courtesy of urbandictionary.com):

1. crunchy
quasi/modern day hippie; tends to wear no shoes, spends much of time finding way out of woods after smoking excessive amounts of weed, preferred fragrance = patchouli

"Does it smell like feet in here? Oh yeah, i forgot it's that crunchy kid having found his way out of the forest."

2. crunchy
Adjective. Used to describe persons who have adjusted or altered their lifestyle for environmental reasons. Crunchy persons tend to be politically strongly left-leaning and may be additionally but not exclusively categorized as vegetarians, vegans, eco-tarians, conservationists, environmentalists, neo-hippies, tree huggers, nature enthusiasts, etc.

Also used to describe establishments where alternative foods and products are sold, i.e. natural food stores.

Modified derivative of granola.

"I need more crunchy guys in my life. I'm so tired of dating preppy metrosexuals."

"I'm heading out to the crunchy store to pick up some fair trade chocolate and tea tree oil, do you need anything?"

3. crunchy
The characteristics of a neo hippy.

"Dude, Jane stopped showering and she's not wearing shoes. I think she went all crunchy on our asses.

I've been looking for little activities I can do with Nate, things that get us out of the house, but also allow him to interact more with other kids. So this morning we went to a nearby branch of the Austin Public Library for Baby Storytime.

Baby Storytime is just what you'd imagine...storytime for babies. The moms and babies all sit in a half-circle, and the children’s librarian reads books and sings songs. Nate really seemed to enjoy it. He was mesmerized by the librarian, who may or may not have a few screws loose.

She was great with the stories, doing the voices, and putting great emphasis on words such as "peek-a-boo" and "door". The singing, however, was not so good. She readily admitted that she was not a good singer, which was horrifying to me, considering how wonderful a singer I am, but the real problem was her inability to read. Which is so vexing, considering how great she was with all the reading involved in those books.

She had the words to all the songs printed on posters, and all the moms were to sing along, but as she sang, she would randomly add words to the song or entirely skip over other words, just whatever struck her fancy I guess. The result was a jumbled mess all around. All the moms, I think, were singing the right words, but because we were maybe a little nervous and probably a little embarrassed, we didn't sing very loudly. Ms. Librarian, however, was singing very loudly. So anybody walking by that room no doubt felt sorry for us and for our pathetic attempt to sing to our children.

Also...lots of crunchy moms at the Baby Storytime. Two other babies (that I could tell) had on cloth diapers. This is generally a very good indication of crunchiness (although, I don't think I myself am all that crunchy). In addition, there were two girls named Scout and Meadow. Their mother was named Lake. I believe this makes her the crunchiest mom in Austin.

Anyone who has spent even a little bit of time with Matt knows that there are certain foods, as well as certain food groups that he will not eat. Apparently food aversions are hereditary.

I have been trying to get Nate to eat more table food, so I've been slowly introducing him to new foods and new textures. He loves his jarred baby food and would eat 20 jars a day if I let him, but I'm hoping that soon he'll be able to eat more of what we eat.

So it started with bananas. We all remember how that turned out. Then more recently I started to give him some of the oatmeal with blueberries and brown sugar that I make myself for breakfast. It took about six or seven times of me introducing it, and now he eats a whole bowl, happily.

The problem is that the first few times I try to feed him some new table food, he gags and makes terrible faces. Very similar to the look I imagine one would have if one were being fed dog food. So the gagging is nothing new. However, last week I tried to feed him mashed potatoes, and not only did he gag, but he gagged so hard that he actually made himself throw up. Right there, sitting in the high chair, he threw up all over himself. We have not yet dared to try mashed potatoes again.

Last night for dinner we had baked chicken with rice and corn on the cob, so while I was cleaning up, I took some of the leftovers and blended them together to make something I could try to feed Nate. So today for lunch I heated up his specially-made-by-Mommy meal. Gag, gag, gag. We came perilously close to Throwing Up in High Chair, Part II.

So apparently my chicken, rice, and corn dinner was disgusting, but, in our pantry right now, the jar of baby food called Chicken, Rice, and Corn Dinner...that he LOVES!

Welcome to my new site! This is definitely still a work in progress, so please excuse any mess you see while I continually work to try to make this the perfect home for all of my thoughts on this great little world I have here.

And thanks so much to all four of you who read my blog!

Why is that when I'm getting dressed, I can look at myself in the mirror and think, "Yeah, not looking too bad there," then I will leave the house and catch a glimpse of myself in a window or a store mirror, and I will suddenly have gained 30 pounds. I don't know how this happens, but it's cruel. Really cruel.

The day before yesterday I went in to get Nate from his nap, and I found that he had pulled himself up onto his knees and was holding on to the side of his crib. We had already lowered his mattress down one setting about two months go, but now that he was pulling up onto his knees, I knew it wouldn't be long before he figured out how to get to his feet. And when that happened, with the mattress at it's current setting, he could easily fall over the side.

So yesterday Matt lowered his mattress again, this time all the way down, which was the next setting. And it's a good thing he did, because all day yesterday Nate was pulling up onto things, always just to his knees, but once he did pull himself all the way up while holding on to my arm. All this literally happened overnight. It was kind of wild. And kind of scary.

He is definitely crawling now, moving faster and faster, and now with the pulling up, gone are the days where I could lay him on a blanket and know that he would still be in that same spot 5 minutes later. That 5 minutes has now dwindled to about 3/4 of a second.

(I do have pictures of Nate in his newly redesigned crib, but our computer recently died, and I've been working off my laptop. However, my Photoshop software, which I use to make Nate look his absolute cutest by removing red-eye and such, is on the now deceased computer, so I will have to post pictures when we buy a new computer sometime in the near future.)

I have to admit, when it became clear some months ago that John McCain was going to be the Republican nominee for president, I wasn't all that enthused. I'm not the biggest John McCain fan, and I feared that he wouldn't be able to win against Barack Obama. But I was going to support him anyway, like the good Republican girl I am.

But then...along came Sarah. And now I'm sold.