A seat at the table

E has always been kind of a late mover: he crawled late and walked late and it wasn’t until this last week that he really figured out how to climb up on chairs. But now that he’s figured it out he LOVES siting in the chairs at the dining table. Unfortunately he’s not always aware of where the edge of the seat is and we’ve had quite a few spills. But he’s getting the hang of it.


Cute Shirt Dress

This adorable girl’s shirt dress is made using a man’s dress shirt. Doesn’t it look perfect for summer? I would try my hand at making one if 1) I was a okay seamstress and 2) I had a daughter.

If either of those qualities describes you, check out the great tutorial here by Dana from Made. There’s also a Flickr group where you can check out the dresses that other people have made.

E’s First Trip to the Zoo

We’ve been having some pretty unusual (for Utah) weather lately: we’ve had rain and/or a thunderstorm almost every day for the last week and a half. I’ve kind of enjoyed it but it has put a damper on taking E around outside.

So when the weather was nice on Friday and Miranda called about going to the zoo we jumped at the chance. Jan, her boys, and my mom and Steven also thought it sounded like fun and they ended up coming too. Half of Salt Lake also showed up; it was super crowded.

But it was really fun. For E the highlights were attending the bird show (I highly recommend it.) and riding the carousel and little train.

E and me on the carousel and my brother Steven in the background.
E LOVED it and cried when it was time to get off.

Us on the train ride. I know he looks terrified, but he was just startled by some overgrown branches that whipped out at us. He actually really enjoyed the ride and kept saying “choo, choo!”

After a while E zonked out in his stroller.

It was a fun day but was definitely a bit of an outing. The zoo is kind of far from our house to go regularly but I’d like to take E back at least one more time this summer when N can come with us.

Paperless Post

I’m a big stationary nerd. I could spend hours pouring over paper samples and dithering over fonts. And even though we’re basically homebodies and don’t entertain that often I spent entirely too much time yesterday puttering around on paperlesspost.com designing invitations for various fake events.

Paperless Post basically offers classy evites that mimic the look and feel of receiving a nice piece of stationary in the mail. The designs are pretty charming and well-photographed: you can even seen the grain of the paper.

I heard about the site from this article in yesterday’s NY Times. Paperless post is still in beta but you can sign up and get 25 free stamps. (Instead of using advertising, users buy stamps to send invitations starting at $5 for 60 stamps.)

If you’re hosting a 4th of July barbecue or some other event this summer it might be fun to try it out.

Letter: Month Nineteen

Dear E,

You actually turned nineteen months old last week but I’ve been procrastinating writing this letter for a while. The main reason is that while there were many great moments during the last month, the last few weeks have been been somewhat hard for me. You’re starting to turn into your own person with your own ideas and (predictably) those ideas don’t always align with we think is best for you.

I think you should drink some soy milk; you don’t want anything to do with it. I think you should take some Benadryl when your allergies flare up; you prefer to spit out the medicine so it runs down your shirt and into your hair. I would like you to play cheerfully with the other kids at day care and nursery like you’ve been doing for the last couple of months; you prefer to cling to my leg and cry brokenheartedly. And so on.

I think the reason these struggles are so difficult for me is that up until now you’ve consistently been a very easygoing little guy. I haven’t really built up much of a tolerance for toddler shenanigans and so I am easily flummoxed at times.

I don’t want to make it sound like you’ve turned into a total pill because you haven’t. You’re still a very sweet little guy. You’ve started giving us close approximations of kisses which are adorable and very much appreciated. And you’ve improved quite a bit talking with talking. You love taking your gummy vitamins and will politely request “minamin, eease!”


I love your fearless sense of curiosity. We’ve gone to a local exhibition farm a few times and every time you go out of your mind with excitement at seeing the different animals. You fearlessly grab handfuls of corn and stick your little fist up to the goats to feed them and then shriek in joy when they lick your hand. It’s so cute to watch.

In general you’re still quite the little trooper. We took you on a day trip to Goblin Valley over Memorial Day weekend and you held it together very admirably. We strapped you into a carrier on your dad’s back and you giggled wildly every time your dad slipped and almost fell down in the mud. It was a lot of fun. We’re looking forward to taking many more family trips together.

You’ve started to idolize older kids. You’re especially fond of your cousins A and J. When we’re over at their house you follow them around like a little puppy. They’re really good with you and like to chase you around and make you laugh.


You know, over the course of writing this letter and thinking about all the ways you’ve grown over the past month I’ve managed to cheer myself up quite a bit. The small lovely moments we share outnumber the frustrating ones many, many times over. I know it can be frustrating for both of us at times, but I’m glad you’re growing into your own. It’s extremely humbling to watch you discover who you are. And it’s amazing–totally, mindbogglingly amazing.

Love,

Mama

E is on strike

For over a week now E has refused to drink any soy milk and I don’t know why. (In case you didn’t know, E has serious food allergies to several things including cow’s milk which is why he drinks soy.) For the last several months he has been taking a bottle of soy milk before his nap and one before bed time but over the last few weeks he’s been drinking less and less of his bottles.

Then about a week ago he just quit cold turkey. He doesn’t want anything to do with the soy milk. If I pop the bottle in his mouth he’ll fill his mouth up and then let the milk dribble out the corners of his mouth and down his neck. He thinks it’s hilarious (but predictably, I disagree).

I’ve tried putting it in a sippy cup but as soon as he tastes what it is he spits it back out. I’ve also tried a couple different brands of soy milk and even chocolate soy milk but it doesn’t make a difference. It’s pretty frustrating. He’s been drinking soy formula/milk for eight months. What changed? What’s going on inside his wee little brain? His behavior is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

I worry that because he can’t have other calcium-rich foods like yogurt or cheese he’s not getting enough calcium but he does takes a couple of those gummy calcium vitamins a day which should help. I don’t want to overreact but I just don’t what to do. Should I just let it slide for a while or if I should call his pediatrician to see what he says?

Meh. What do you think? Any ideas?

Lumberjacks!

We first heard about Timbersports on the Colbert Report last year.

I thought the whole thing was oddly fascinating in the same way that I’m intrigued by traditional aspects of small town Utah life like rodeos and parades. I didn’t grow up in Utah and to be honest I don’t want to live here forever. But I like experiencing the local flavor while I have the chance.

And I’ve mentioned before, I’m a sucker for festivals. So on Saturday I took E and went with my mom, brother, and nephews to the wild outdoors festival.

The lumberjack part of the festival turned out to be pretty anticlimactic. They were taping it for ESPN and so there was a lot of waiting around for the cameras to get set up. I was hoping to see the events where the competitors climb up super tall poles or balance on floating log booms but we only saw them chopping logs in half with hand axes. Which I guess is actually pretty impressive, but was kind of meh to watch.

Manly men at work.

The best part of the event were the Splash Dogs, dogs that competed to jump the longest distance into a pool of water. E loves dogs and freaked out in joy every time he saw one jump.

On of the splash dogs in mid jump.

A splash puppy in training.

There were a couple of other things to do beside watch the dogs and lumberjacks.

Cowboy A in training.

J taking a turn at the bow.

Wrapping it up and heading home.

It was fun, but I probably won’t go again unless they drop the price. It was $15 for adults, $10 for kids which was simply way too much. The mechanical bull, the archery station and the splash dogs were pretty much all there was to do and watch besides the timbersports. More than a third of the grounds were devoted to showcasing boats and tents and other merchandise that we weren’t interested in. To be fair, I don’t think we were really the target demographic but I still think admission should have been half the price they were charging.

Maybe we’ll have more luck at some of the other festivals this summer. There’s a Scottish Festival this coming up weekend and tickets are more reasonably priced. Maybe I can talk N into going–we’ll see.

Jumping!

My mom and brother Steven are in town visiting my sister Jan for a while and so E and I went over to Jan’s house yesterday to hang out for a bit. Sadly, E had apparently been traumatized by us dropping him off at Jan’s when we went to the Camera Obscura concert earlier this week because as soon as I pulled into the driveway he started crying, convinced that I was going to leave him.

E’s cousins A and J are really great with him. Nine year-old A wanted to cheer up E and so he built him a rattle out of Legos which was a big hit. But E cheered up even more when we went outside to play. He loved bopping around on the trampoline.

His cousins were really good about making sure E was safe on the trampoline.

J and E.

A and my mom with E.