AAAAAHHH!!!!!

Welp, we're not going to Maryland tonight, after all. I'm eating my 90 cent Family Dollar linguine, checking off items on my List of Things to Not Forget to Bring to Maryland, and Rob and Zoe have gone to Games N'At, a South Side arcade painted the most horrific shade of purple with a bizarro Bart Simpson mural on the facade. Cla-ssy. As soon as Ben took us by there when we moved here, we knew it would be right up Zoe's alley, and she's been itching like mad to get there since she arrived. It'd been closed all week and this evening was her one opportunity to get her Ski-Ball on, so I said Maryland could wait till the morn to see our shining faces.

There's something that I've been wanting to share, but have been a little afraid to do so, for fear that I will jinx myself and the positively splendid sleep schedule that my daughter has adopted. In my last post I talked about Grant and our sweet visit with the Fiddys. Well, something must've happened to the Goon, because each and every night since then she has slept through the night, or at least for a solid eight hours. BEAUTIFUL! I've been practically bouncing off the walls with my newfound energy. Since it's been six nights in a row, I felt like tooting my gal's horn just a wee bit. Lord knows she deserves it! And I don't expect her to maintain this while we're away, so I'm basking in it while I can before it all comes crashing down and we have to rebuild once we return. Now that I've seen the fruits of our efforts, I'm so encouraged!

Yesterday she turned 10 months old. Alex, the youngest of the Khoreys, alerted me last night at 6:26, the exact time of her birth, to give props, dear boy. Those kids are all so sweet with her. Noah, the oldest, had three friends over last night to rehearse for a Battle of the Bands competition, and he all but ignored the other 13 year-olds in favor of doting on Goonface. Hard to blame him, though. Her eighth tooth is beginning to spring forth next to her two middle bottom teeth, making four on each story. She's eating her weight in solids now, it seems. When I got home from work this evening Rob and Zoe informed me that she had eaten a full pound of pureed fruits and vegetables, and a bunch of Cheerios. Last night she polished off all but two bites of a banana. That she'll soon be turning a year old is a difficult idea for me to process. What happened to this year? She is delightful, but I wish I could keep her at each of her different stages, because they've all been wonderful.

Ahhh, what did I ever do before I fell in love with a goon?

The Meeting that Deserved It

Last night the Fiddys - Sam, Howard, and Grant - came for dinner, and more importantly, to introduce our children. I will say this: I have never in my life seen a cuter pair with their round, bald heads (well, Olive's moving father and farther away from that with her soft, wispy strands filling in) and darling faces. Also, I can rest assured that this kid will be bright (they'll probably tell him he's "wicked smaht"!), talented, and, best of all, funny. Granted, people can change, but he's got a real boost coming from parents who are well-educated, aren't drug-addicts, and don't burn their garbage. A perfect match for our goon. We sat around and had dinner on the living room floor while Olive carefully and curiously poked, prodded, and stroked Grant's face. He was a great sport. Our fingers are all crossed that the little seed that was planted can flourish in about twenty years. Fine by me!

I really love this family!  If Sam is half the mother-in-law that she was a roommate, Olive has it made.

Have I Mentioned...

...how big a fan I am of EC? Yes, our gal's been doing it, pooing in the toilet. There are few things in life I love more than not having to clean a very soiled cloth diapers. I also suspect that this early relationship with the commode may promote early toilet training, though I could be totally wrong.

Our week is winding down rapidly, and soon it will be Christmas. I'm really looking most forward to Christmas Eve, though - quite possibly my favorite day of the year. I love the busyness of that day. Nine years ago, and nearly every December 24th since, I've spent helping last-minute shoppers (mostly bewildered men) select baubles and pretties for their loved ones at Amaryllis, the best little jewelry store there is. And even though I haven't officially been employed by those dear and lovely ladies, Allie and AnnMarie, since I moved to Maine over three years ago, they still let me come back to help out for old times' sake. Then I go to my parents' house, we eat dinner (I miss the years back in the early '00s when we'd get takeout from Hunan Gourmet in Frederick), then go to church, usually the service where my dad sings in the choir. When we get home, I go up to see my oldest friend, Natalie, at her parents' house in our old neighborhood for their annual Christmas Eve party. This year will be our twentieth Christmas together. Cool, huh? I love her.

Our plans for this week: working at the Khoreys until late tonight - 10 or 11 or so - working at Cosimano e Ferrari tomorrow morning, followed by a visit that deserves it: my college roommate of four years, Sam, her husband Howard, and their 3 month-old doll of a son, Grant, who I'll be meeting for the first time. He's our first pick for Olive. Saturday is more olive oiling and lots and lots of painting, Sunday we're having Rob's gorilla supervisor, Roseann, over for dinner (she doesn't eat meat or white flour, so the meal promises to be deelish) as a thank you for taking on Rob as an intern, then Zoe comes. We'll spend the next four days here in Pittsburgh amusing ourselves and showing Zoe around "the big city", before heading to Maryland late on the 23rd. It's going to be a good time, if not completely exhausting.

Here are some shots from this morning's activities. The goon has been stuffing her craw full of Cheerios to beat the band. Who can blame her, as I'm an oat gal myself.

Her new favorite toy this week: the paint roller. She can't get enough.

Making Our Nest

Whether or not we'll be in Pittsburgh much longer is still very much up in the air, but I figured, for the time being, What the hey? Why not paint the living room after all? The perfect opportunity found me last night when I dropped a baby food jar of turpentine all over my keyboard (the old iBook, not my still shiny and new MacBook, Bruce!). I quickly shut 'er down, removed the battery, and turned it upside-down to let gravity and oxygen work their magic. You see, I'd been working on this Winslow Homer copy for someone to give to their father as a Christmas gift; my reference image was on my desktop so I was painting with my laptop open. When disaster struck I was out of luck and couldn't copy from an image I couldn't see, so I took it as a sign that I should do a little home improvement. Zoe will be here in less than a week and I'd hate for her to think that we live in an urban hovel (though I doubt her taste in interior decor is on the too sophisticated side). Kellie had given me a few partial cans of paint - one a peachy pink and one sage - and I tested out the green on a smaller wall. Perfect. I slapped paint up on all but one of the walls, which I will probably cover tonight (unless, of course, I stumble upon some really killer vintage wallpaper. How I love an accent wall!). Now the room feels much more homey, though it's in desperate need of a lamp or two.

Much better, right? I should've included a before shot, too. Note the glow of the iBook on the drafting table. Still good!

You're probably wondering how Buggy's sleep has been improving. It hasn't. Granted, she's been taking longer naps, but those are only to make up for the hours a night she spends lowing. Last night was particularly awful. My original plan was to train her to sleep through the night before Ben arrived. When that failed I didn't lose heart; at least we had another visitor to anticipate and work towards a good sleeping goal. I figured December 19th gave us plenty of time to nail down good sleeping habits, but I'm dubious. While Rob understands and is supportive of letting her cry at night, Zoe is quite the opposite. She shoots me looks that could ice over Hades that can only say, You are a terrible, horrible mother. No one has known guilt until they've seen a look like this. It is the height of ocular punishment, so I need Olive to buckle down lest I be paid a visit by Child Protective Services.

Overworked and Underrested

Don't misunderstand the title; I am not (yet) at my wits' end. I'm just feeling especially tired right now, though the fruits of our "Extinction" method (versus "Gradual Extinction" where parents slowly eliminate their tending to a fussy baby at night or naptimes)- of getting Olive to sleep through the night are finally starting to show themselves. Since I'll be out of work for over a week during the holidays, I'm picking up extra hours wherever I can (including babysitting my sweetlings, Jack and Gail, this evening while Kellie, Mike, and wee Iris went to a church meeting). Aside from the fact that I'm beginning to feel like an absentee mother, all of this working wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have six paintings to complete (some of which need to be started) before Christmas. Eek. I also have a tendency to want to take on other projects, like painting our living room and learning to knit a sweater...then I realize that Christmas is two weeks away and I'd better shelve these things of lesser importance and do what needs to be done, and it will. I'm just thankful every day that I can avoid daycare and babysitters by having such a wonderful husband who cares for Olive every bit as well as I can, and does so on a daily basis, and she loves him for it, too. She's one lucky goon to have a father like him.

Sleep? Whassat?

Well, our Olive is one tough nut for sure. I've lost track of the number of nights it's been since we started forgoing her midnight feeding in hopes of getting her to sleep through the night. I've logged nine hours of sleep (plus a blessedly rare one-hour nap I squeezed in today) this week and, like clockwork, Olive is wailing her brains out. She does this nightly for well over an hour. Last night I went to bed earlier than usual, but suffered a bout of insomnia that lasted two hours, taking me right up to Olive's midnight howl fest. She's fine during the day, but these night wakings are starting to get to me. A book that I read during her earlier months, 12 Hours of Sleep by 12 Weeks, assured me that three nights of crying it out would cure a fussy baby at night; the first would be the most difficult, the second trying, but not so bad, the third much better, and the fourth - sleeping babe. Was I a gullible fool to fall for such hogwash? Evidently so. Each night I go to bed thinking, This is it. This will be my night of sleep. And each night is the same. Rob's been lucky, getting to sleep in with her the past few mornings while I head off to work before 7 am. He has the enviable ability to lull her back to slumber after I've left the bed (I take her from her crib when I wake, feed her then leave her in our bed to sleep the rest of the morning with Rob. They're nearly always still there, fast asleep when I return hours later). When I have the opportunity to sleep in and keep her with me, all she wants to do is inspect my face and play - lovely things in and of themselves, but I always have to call it a night as far as my rest is concerned. Now I'm just waiting for her to cave, to break, to realize that her incessant braying when we're going to bed is not going to land her some late night bro-down sessions with us. I'm beginning to fear that this little goon is going to be as stubborn as I was, and I'd be a liar if I said that this thought didn't strike fear in my heart.

Though it will take me days - if not weeks - to catch up on my lost sleep, tomorrow morning I'm off, which means that my doll of a husband will rise and take Olive into the living room to play, leaving me in our pitch-black bedroom dreaming of ten thousand mute babies.

Lights, Apples, and Family Portraits

Alas, our great weekend has come to a close. Pittsburgh's slight snow has begun, little flurries that seem to happen at least once a day and dust over everything but don't make getting around difficult - not yet, at least. Ben left us this afternoon; he decided to head back to Maryland a day early to escape a supposed storm that's to hit sometime this evening. Before he left we took a quick trip down to the Pittsburgh Public Market so I could show him where I work. My co-workers, Emily and Natalie, were delighted to see Olive, as usual. We left the goon with Auntie Em while we meandered through the market, checking out other vendors. We got a few good family shots before we left. He'll be back in three more weeks, so we won't have to go nearly so long without seeing him as we did before. Maybe Buggy will be able to say his name by then.

Christmas card photo? I think so.

Also, the topic of a Christmas tree has come up several times. With our living room serving as Buggy's play area, there was just no way we were going to set up a tree in there, inviting her to clamber up into the prickly branches. That would be begging for a mess. Instead I opted to put in a more or less permanent installation that harkened back to my days of Display Coordinator at Anthropologie. Last night, Rob, Olive, and I took a walk through Highland Park in search of some good fallen branches. We selected two good ones, I biked to The Home Depot to pick up a string of white lights, a spool of jute, and a package of eye hooks, and returned home to make this little number. Now our living room is far more pleasant than it was before, and Buggy's eyes light up when she sees it.

I know it's hard, but do me a favor and try to ignore the hideous gridded paneled ceiling.

For the last month we've been swimming in apples since an apple vendor set up shop across from Cosimano e Farrari. Each week I've been coming home with bags upon bags of Braeburn and Pink Lady apples, but we were unable to make a pie since I seemed to be eating them at a rate that was incompatible with filling a pie. They are just too, too good. Tonight we buckled down, though, and Rob sliced eight apples while I biked to Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and the Family Dollar (through the wind and snow with bum brakes, no less. And in a dress!), and we turned out a handsome deep dish apple-cranberry pie, heavy on the cranberries. Mighty tasty.

I've always been a sucker for the apples that still have their leaves. They remind me of my dear pal, Rita, who loves them just as much. See the Trivial Pursuit box in the backgound? Rob and I played last night and he actually beat me. One of the million reasons why I love him so.