Category Archives: Cuteness

Dinner at Local Harvest and a winery trip

After some house and apartment hunting on Wednesday afternoon, our hungry crew (our little fam + Matthew’s mom and sister) needed a place for an early-bird dinner.  Enter Local Harvest Cafe.

Although I’ve been there many times, this was the first visit that necessitated a high chair.  In reply to my tweet asking if they had high chairs — they do (funny how you don’t notice these things when you don’t have kids), they also said they had wooden veggies for baby entertainment.

Sir enjoyed the real food far too much to need the wood version, and I don’t blame him.  We started with some wonderful vegan meatballs made from sweet potato and eggplant, served with a chimichurri sauce.  This was my favorite dish, but also the one thing we didn’t photograph.  Fortunately, the rest of the meal was well-documented.

Matthew and I split the house made gnocchi in cauliflower-pea soup (above), which was that evening’s green plate special, and the chard-wrapped tamales with mushroom filling, served with a side of purple slaw (below).  I love the colors on the tamale plate.

Pam and Rachel shared the wild mushroom stroganoff.  Matthew tried a bite, and proclaimed it the best stroganoff ever, with lots of mushroom flavor — we plan to return soon and order this dish ourselves.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any photos of Sir enjoying the delicious offerings, but if you’re hoping for a cute baby picture, don’t despair!

We started the holiday weekend early with a trip to Montelle Winery on Friday afternoon.  Despite buying local wines almost exclusively since I’ve lived in St. Louis, I’ve never actually visited one of the wineries.

Gabriel checked things out from the floor while we tasted wines, and later enjoyed the scenic view from the large deck.

While at the winery, we were in the midst of negotiating a verbal offer on a FSBO house.  Between that and a fussy, refusing-to-nurse baby, it was pretty impossible to focus on the wine or relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

I’ll admit that I was longing for some baby-free time to really enjoy the wine and setting, but I guess we’ll just have to make another trip to wine country, sooner, rather than later, I hope!

All photos in the post courtesy of Gabriel’s Aunt Rachel.

From Dude to Sir

While I’ve continued to refer to Gabriel as “The Dude” in most of my posts, these days, we use the nickname “Sir” much more frequently.*  I’m not sure where I picked it up, but there is some irony in addressing him as such:

“Would Sir desire a shit in the potty?”

“Is Sir ready for some delicious breast milk?”

Anyhow, at some point we’ll have to drop this “Sir” business, lest he get an inflated impression of his position in this family and society at large, but for now, it’s sticking.

The nickname is not the only change.  Earlier this month, Sir passed the eight-month mark.  One part of me feels like these life-tipped-totally-upside-down-because-of-baby days can’t pass quickly enough and the other part can’t believe it’s already been over eight months.

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Here’s a quick peek at the current state of things.

Food
While mama’s milk continues to provide the majority of calories and nutrients,
Sir enjoys his solid food.  I had some doubts about BabyLed Weaning in the beginning and worried that several bouts of sickness that put Sir back on a milk-only diet would pose significant setbacks in the process, but things are going wonderfully.

He’s tried almost everything we’ve set in front of him thus far, usually displaying great enthusiasm for the whole process, proving that he is, in fact, our child.  He’s also been exposed to most of the foods that are common allergens (peanuts, eggs, soy, wheat, corn) with no apparent issues, which is nice.

Movement
Over the past two months, Sir perfected the army crawl.  He moves quite quickly and adroitly, especially when he spots a forbidden object, like the trash can.

So far, he’s displayed little inclination to pick his belly up off of the floor and actually crawl.  I’m not particularly concerned, either he will, or he’ll go straight to walking.

Potty
Very hit or miss, much to my frustration, as I mentioned here.  We continue to offer.  These days, Sir usually consents to sit on the potty, but often with no results (despite waiting sitting for several minutes at times, looking at a toy or a book), only to make a big puddle on the floor a few minutes later.

Sleep
Do I dare to even go here?  Most nights are actually pretty darn good, it’s the daytime sleep, especially at daycare, that’s killing me.  This week has actually been slightly better, but I don’t want to get my hopes up.

Quick Facts

  • Number of teeth: 8 — no molars yet, but he’s working on it!
  • Hair: still brown, though lighter than before, starting to fill in the bald spot on the back of his head, shows signs of having a bit of curl
  • Weight: Somewhere over 20 pounds — a nice little chunker
  • Height: Somewhere over 27 inches
  • Other nicknames: Baby Bulldog (when teething), Little Lizard (when gassy)
  • Likes: Outsa! (how Matthew said “outside” as a baby), eating, putting everything in his mouth, exploring, my animal sound impressions, babbling with us, peeing on the floor shortly after we offer the potty
  • Dislikes: naps, holding still for diaper changes, parental limits on explorations

*I’m sure The Dude will still pop up from time to time.  He was most definitely The Dude while sporting some sunglasses last weekend.

Friday Funday — Meet our new pet

I’m not really a pet person.  I like animals and all, especially baby animals, but I don’t like animal hair or the idea of spending lots of money on vet bills and other expenses.  It just seems like more trouble than it’s worth.  That said, we seem to have found ourselves a pet . . .

. . . a baby bulldog!

Lip protruding, bulldog style

I can’t imagine taking care of a baby and taking care of a puppy.  Fortunately, we don’t need to get a puppy — we got a two-in-one deal.

Baby Bulldog loves to chew

How babies are like puppies:

  1. Diaper-free time = cleaning up lots of puddles
  2. Chewing everything — Baby Bulldog favors slippers (we’re tempted to buy him a rawhide bone)
  3. Needing lots of attention

What do you think?  Any other ways that babies and puppies are similar?

Percolating

Number of draft posts started in the last week (and by “started,” I mean they have titles): 6

Number of published posts in the last week: 1

Sigh.  Maybe one of these days . . . .

Until then, here’s a gratuitous baby picture to make up for my lack of posting 🙂

Psst, psst: EC at Four Months

Babies change so quickly in a month’s time, but I don’t think much has changed EC-wise.  At this point, the communication feels fairly one-sided, especially when it comes to pee: we give potty opportunities and cues and he [sometimes] responds.

Despite no diet change (still 100% breast milk), his poops are becoming more, um, interesting, providing extra incentive to get them in the potty rather than the diaper.  His poop cues are fairly distinctive: farting, grunting, fussing while feeding.  Unfortunately, these cues that sometimes mean, “I’m about to poop,” can alternately mean, “I have gas,” or, “I might poop sometime in the next 24 hours.”

In other news, I found a second potty on Craigslist for eight dollars — same brand as the blue pot, slightly different design.  The blue pot now stays at daycare during the week, and I offer potty opportunities when I go over to feed The Dude.  On the weekends, I just leave the pot in the car.  If I slide the passenger seat all the way forward, I can place the pot on the floor behind it, and I’ve caught a couple of pees when we were out and about.

I’ll close this update by sharing a couple of things we’ve discovered on our EC journey.

Tips and Tricks:

  • Sometimes The Dude needs a little help chilling out enough to pee.  For awhile, letting him suck on a pacifier helped accomplish this.  (It also gave me visions of him standing at a urinal in a public restroom when he’s twenty, casually pulling a pacifier out of his pocket before getting down to business.)
  • More recently, the hairdryer is our calming tool of choice.  We’d been using the dryer to calm him during diaper changes and make sure things stayed nice and dry down there.  Matthew discovered that it also helped while on the pot!
  • At daycare, in lieu of the hairdryer, I’ve sometimes resorted to running water in the sink.
  • If you’re not quite “diaper-free” (and we definitely are NOT),  something that’s easy-on and off, like a simple velcro cover with insert, makes potty opportunities more convenient.

Further reading
Diaper Free: FAQs and Facts — Good answers to common EC questions and concerns, written by a dad.
Elimination Communication — Tons of information in this two-year-and-counting chronicle of one family’s EC journey.  While I try to avoid doing too many comparisons, I find it helpful to see where “Itty Bitty” was at various ages and what lies ahead for us.  It also provides encouragement when I feel like just throwing in the diaper towel.