Biology Lesson

Food Cubed

My latest elaborate and ridiculous hobby: making and freezing baby foods. There's nothing ridiculous about making baby food, but freezing it into fun shapes is for my pleasure only. Tillie never seems to notice how her food is stored, hee, hee.

Freezing the purees:

Yam star, chicken cattiatore cube, carrot star, and apricot heart:

Internal Revedrool Service

Ug, so stressed...can barely deal. At least there is cute in my life. Perhaps I should share:

Perfessor Tillium

Tot Watchers

We took Tillie in for her 6-month checkup and it is official—she has to go on a little baby diet! Apparently, 42 ounces of formula a day is a little much for our 19.5-pound circus queen. So, she will be switching to a diet of mostly solid foods. That’s three squares a day! Both mommy and baby went swimsuit shopping to “celebrate.” Baby looked much cuter in hers than mommy, so someone else will be going on a diet, too. Holler if you are interested in scheming with me about Weight Watchers. I’m going to start on Monday.

This issue of Women’s Health magazine arrived last week addressed to Tillie, no kidding!

Conversations with Tills

Myahm myahm myahm...this duck is tasty.

I'm sorry, did you say something?

Nuh uh, really!

John

My good friend lost her step father last Monday. It is such a painful loss because he wasn’t old enough to die, and his illness—cancer—seemed to play an unfairly significant part of the last years of his life.

My favorite memories of John were when his step-daughter and I were teenagers. She would throw very lovely dinner parties—a precocious diversion for a teen and one of the things I have always admired about her—and John and her mother would chat a bit with us early in the evening but then leave us to our thing. I remember talking with him about science and computers mostly. I also remember feeling very adult while conversing with him. In retrospect it might be because he was a professor and accustomed to young interlocutors, but also, he is such a warm, friendly guy.

Hearing about John’s death and some other really dreadful news about a friend’s health have really made this last week tough. Coming back to Austin has been quite wonderful for me in that I am back in touch with some very dear friends. It has also made me realize how much it hurts when your community hurts.

I knew John through his wife’s child. How many people will I know through Tillie?

John M. Slatin

[Image from: http://blog.fawny.org/2005/03/06/portraits/]

Twice the Cute

This post is long overdue—I’ve had a hell of a week. All the more reason to post this toute suite!

Cousin Writer came to town again. What’s cuter than a baby? A pile of babies! Okay, well two is not really a pile, but it is certainly a lot of cute.

Aunt Karen's pics:

Pay-per-View Baby Boxing?

Baby Gourmand

Baby foods Tillie has eaten: rice, apples, pears, bananas, sweet potatoes, carrots, and peaches.

Next week it will be: oats, peas, and prunes.

There are really only a limited number of items that come prepared as baby food. And, let me tell you, the strained, jarred stuff does not taste as good as the real thing. I kind of want to mush up some fresh stuff myself for her. What could I make? I think it would be pretty easy to whip some avocados (like naked guacamole). And, I bet I could make pureed raspberries. That seems like it would go well with oat cereal. As long as I have the food processor and strainer out, I might as well make her some asparagus mash, strained blueberries, and mashed potatoes.

Oh when oh when will she be old enough for some real Texas barbecue? She probably needs some teeth first. As soon as she gets that first little pearly white, I’ll take her to Ruby’s. Then she’ll really know how wonderful food is!

Pretty Eyes

Sham Shamrock

Tillie inspects greenness of felt Trifolium dubium specimen.

Clam It Chickie!

Everything must go in the mouf:

Squeaky Clean

Here's Tillie fresh out of the bath and into her froggy towel. I'm not sure what she is thinking. Perhaps it's "Hmmm, I think I could have been a little bit slipperier and more difficult to wash. Next time, more wiggles."

Stupor Tuesday

What an exciting race in Texas! The Texas Democratic Party has a crazy way of running their primaries. They mete out two thirds of their delegates through the results of the popular vote and one third of their delegates through the results of the caucuses. I went to the caucus in my precinct last night. It was a madhouse! At least 500 people were crammed into a tiny elementary school cafeteria with crowds oozing out into the hallways and lines of people outside for at least a block. It’s looking like possibly Clinton might win the vote while Obama might win the caucus, which is pretty exciting—so close!

I’m not really that into one over the other, so I have no complaints over the outcome. However, this process is highly UN-democratic. People with jobs, with kids, with disabilities, or with lacking transportation would have found it incredibly difficult to get their caucus vote counted. It took me an hour to do it, and I was one of the first people out of there. That complaint aside, the dream of my daughter growing up with a woman or person of color as president is closer to possible. The anticipation and fear of it not happening are almost physically painful!

Tillie is confused by the delegate/caucus process:

Oh yeah, and Tillie started eating solid foods this week!
Before:

During:

After:

And a bonus pic after a week of no posts:

Live action footage:

Sit!

Office Chair

We bought this crazy chair that holds up a baby who can’t sit up alone into a sitting position. Now Tillie can finally boss us (and her toys) around like the CEO of a tiny company. The power is going to her head.

Let’s get down to business.

Tillie ordered Karin to make the ravioli into heart shapes for Valentine’s Day.

Cupid is a Cu'e Pie

I love valentines. They are a great excuse to use stickers and stamps and pinking shears and glitter and pipe cleaners and...

Haute Cousine

Tillie now has a new baby girl cousin who was just born to my brother and his wife early this morning. (Excitement!) I tried to explain to Tillie the significance of the event, but she is either playing it cool or hasn't quite figured out how awesome this is. My brother will now get to do what I do all day, which is make tutus for my daughter and then dress her up in silly outfits for baby fashion shoots.

A brilliantly crafty friend Liz made this adorable sweater vest that the tutu matches.

What fabric is this? Tulle is cool!

Yes, I've sealed the deal: Tillie will definitely end up a punk-rock P.I.B. vampire with many piercings as a direct response to this ridiculously fruffy pastime, but I don't care!

Doesn't she look like the Russian Princess Mathilde Romanova-Krasinskaya, who also wore tutus?

[Image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathilde]

The Growl of the Juvenile Tillisaurus

Sadly, I have not been lucky enough to catch it on film, but Tillie has been practicing her low notes recently. If I were easily spooked, I would have thought her possessed. Perhaps she learned this growl noise from the dogs? I've never heard a baby make the sound. As soon as I capture this elusive tune, I will share with y'all.

Caught on film:

1040-I.O.U.

People say that you finally have to grow up when you have a kid. Yes, someone has to change the dirty diapers, mop up the puke, endure the screaming, and clip the little fingernails. But all this is fun parenting. The hard part for me is the money stress.

I’m a parent now, so suddenly, it is not okay to skimp on retirement savings, rack up student loans for useless degrees, experiment with not having electricity, tease the goddess of home foreclosure, be passive-aggressive with the IRS, and play Russian roulette with crappy health insurance.

The health insurance thing is rearing its ugly head once more. This time, they are acting like they will gladly insure me (hooray for no longer being pregnant!) but they just can’t decide how big a wad they want to extract from my sad little wallet. They are sizing us up, picking through our health histories, and threatening to make us pay royally for not-so-royal coverage. I want to just quit. I want my mommy—no actually, I want my HR person. Every day, I consider throwing in the towel and applying for some job, any job, one that comes with cheap and automatic health insurance, paid sick days, a regular paycheck, a sweet 401K, routine tax withholding, and the occasional free donut.

Lunchbreak!

Postprandial window gazing