Party Prep and costume catastrophes

Well, best laid plans go awry and all that jazz, right?

Historically, I procrastinate. But I've changed my tune and start ahead these days. P's party prep began a Month ago. The whole concept stresses me out and, dammit, I was not going to be up all night the night before. So I started early.

Miles of surprise pendant bunting have been cut and bound (and then discovered by the boy. Sigh). We implemented project Goodie Bag weeks in advance (he has some high hopes). And, of course, Halloween can't be forgotten in the midst of party prep, so I started sewing costumes a month in advance, too...

And I am being met with Failure at every turn. Pity me? ;)

Fine. The bunting, despite the fact it was found, is fine. The cast dragon crayons, lovely. The chocolate dragons, well....

As of last weekend, I would have reported success as we finished over half of them. Then the chocolate started melting funny and we quit crafting for a few days. Then, looking in on our previous successes tonight I found them covered in spots. Fuck. Our dragons had chicken pox or something!

Google quickly told me I was a dumb arse who had not properly researched chocolate making and therefore did not properly temper my candies. The fix? Soooo not going to happen (remelting and retempering and recasting). This made me want to spit and cuss. Instead, I pulled P into the kitchen and pointed.

"I love them even more! It looks like scales! They are spotted dragons!"

Yes, they are spotted. With improperly tempered fat globules. I guess we'll see if his guests give two shits about such surface imperfections or are just happy for chocolate handouts....

So, assuming we finish sewing the handmade dragon books (um, not kidding) in time, and can get some more chocolate to melt (and then spot), I guess the goodie bags are good to go.

Which only leaves the costume failure to whine about....

Z hates stuff on her head (or arms or butt or legs, but it's a bit chilly for "Hair" reenactments) so I made her a Red Riding cape with a dramatic, high, gathered collar (in lieu of a hood that she would Hate). I upcycled an old coat and even lined her new beau Brummell (and I seriously have no idea how to sew.). I'll admit to being pretty pleased with myself. Imagined her wearing it all winter, loving it.

Reality? She Hates it. Loooooathes it. Will not put it on her body and Shrieks if it comes near her.

Honestly? She's one. I'd skip the whole thing, were it not so important to her brother.

So I made her a new one tonight. Shorter. No gathered collar. And lined with a circle pattern, since she's all about the dots lately. She graciously carried it for a minute. We'll see tomorrow night....

Meanwhile, the Little Man's grand Russian Doll plans are unfolding. He will be Phoenix, under a Harry Potter costume, under a Ghost costume. (Get it?) Only problem? The ghost costume elicited Ku Klux Klan fears in
me upon today's trial run. That, coupled with the discovery of spotted chocolates (and the subsequent consumption of large quantities of failed chocolate trials) has me quite awake quite later than usual.

Which means, that despite decent planning and starting waaaay early, I am still up for most of the night right before his birthday. Maybe it's all of the caffeine/sugar, but I'm finding that funny. Kinda.

Zia: her twelfth month

I'm not sure how long I'll keep up with the monthly updates for Z, but she's still changing so rapidly that it seems non-cloying for a bit longer...

We made it in for her yearly check-up.  She's happy and healthy :) Check-ups seem ridiculous to me, taking a healthy baby into a cesspool of germs, so this will probably be her last.  P always came in (excepting the booming big baby at birth bit) small, around the 10% mark on the charts.  Z is at 75% for height, but only 10% for weight.  Tall and skinny seems to be her trend so far, but she still has enough buddha belly to make us all want to squeeze her ;)  We should make decisions on vaccines now, before not making a decision is our decision ;)  It's an insanely complex issue and one I loathe researching.

An awful lot of our time lately has been spent on Bday prep.  E is scoffing at the complexities of our homemade goodie bag bit, but P has a vision and we're embracing it ;)  And if I'm perfectly honest, I think I'm trying to atone for last year's lameness...  So Z has been left to tag-a-long a lot.  She does pretty well with this... for a bit ;)  But she is big enough now that she wants to be a part of everything.  If P and I are at the craft table, she wants to be there, too.  Unfortunately, she eats crayons and dances on the craft table, so she's not conducive to P's projects (is this a blogging theme of late?;)

Fortunately, I've been dedicatedly working on her naps.  After a few weeks of laying her down Every Day when she zonked, she stopped waking every 15 minutes, upset she's in a bed and not my arms.  It has been a looooooong process, but she sometimes stays in bed for an hour and a half!  Often (usually, sigh) she needs a little mid-nap coax/snuggle back to sleep, but then she sleeps for another hour.  This time with Phoenix is glorious and So important (to both of us;)  So, thanks, Zia :)

I had started looking forward to the 12-14 month range, so that the playground commentary would cease.  She's spent the last 6 months being fawned over (or shocked over) for being so agile and so little.  P dealt with it great, but he mentioned (numerous times) how much attention Z gets ;)  I figured once the other kids started toddling around too, she'd fit in with the crowd.  I think it may take a few more months, she's running and jumping off of things and talking too much to fit in quite yet.  But she'll be normal soon ;)

The talking bit is fun.  She is suuuuuch a chatterbox.  We don't know what she is saying half the time, but she sure does ;)  The other night at dinner she was playing with my zoo card and kept saying "Oooo, look at the cat!  Oooo, look at the cat!"  (there are lions on it.)  The problem is, some words are pretty clear (she woke up and asked where "brother" was the other morning, perfectly annunciated) and other words are still baby gibberish (you gotta really pay attention to understand "raspberry" - though she nails the right number of syllables;) WE know this is normal, SHE is annoyed by our inabilities to translate.  I can only imagine how infuriating it is to be run by two nincompoops that can't do what you are ("clearly" and loudly) telling them ;)

What else....  She's working on doorknobs.  This scares me.

She's kinda obsessed with books.  She "reads" all. the. time.  Usually by herself, but she'll also grab an article of clothing (or blanket) and a book and come climb in a lap.  It's kinda sweet :)

Oh!  And she's eating EGGS!!!!!!!!!  Yup.  This brings me great joy.  Her, not so much.  She's not that into them (some days she eats a couple of bites, some days no - but that's just being a toddler, eh?)  But, they don't seem to be giving her Any Issues.  This is Awesome.  Adding eggs and nightshades (tomatoes and peppers so far) has made eating as a family So Much easier.  I was all smug about our expanding palates when I went to the store the other day.  I thought I'd buy a few packaged foods for our upcoming flight.  Ha.  Seems everything has sunflower oil or corn in it.  She's still screwed for kiddie snacks!  But, eating at home, everything homemade, feels easy and doable these days.  Or, at least, familiar.  Unfortunately, I think adding wheat, dairy and eggs have lessened our consumption of veggies, making P happy but us all less healthy...  I try not to stress, but I'm responsible for the making of human bodies right now and that just feels heavy ;)  For the gut healing record, she is only reacting to corn, seeds, nuts and cucurbitaceae.

What the fuck is a cucurbitaceae you ask???  Yah.  You learn these things when your baby gets hives and diarrhea when she eats cucumbers, pickles, cantaloupe and watermelon...  Then you smack your head and think - hey are they all in the same food family?  And you google and find out, why, yes, yes they are.  So, no squash/melon kinda stuff either.  I hope she outgrows this one, as I do have a bit of a love affair with the butternut squash...

Her current love affair is games.  Hide and seek and chase top the list.  She really enjoys hiding things in my shirt.  This can be awkward.  She also loves climbing.  (Really?  Haven't we done this before with the first one?  Is this a genetic trait?)  Seriously, she is into and on top of Everything.  Tables, chairs, stools.  Boxes stacked on top of benches sitting in front of 100 year old glass windows... (I ran.) And, unfortunately, sometimes things tip over.  This is a painful lesson (face, stool, floor, this morning.)

Hide and seek with Aunt Alicia

I think its because of her love to move that she loathes diapers so very much.  They are so much more restrictive than nudity ;)  She's more than happy to step into her undies though, which is saving us lots of messes.  She still refuses the potty.  Honestly, it appears she will do nothing until she can do it for herself, so we'll see how that all plays out ;)

Maybe its because she's moving around so much, maybe it's the tiny toddler tummy, maybe she's inherited my ridiculous metabolism (I'm trusting it isn't because she has a tape worm;), but the child is Always Hungry.  She's still nursing a ton and wakes to nurse a gazzilion times a night.  And she's eating.  Granted, small, little baby portions, but she is eating all three meals... that she extends into an all day affair.  Like, we finish lunch and go into the backyard.  She plays for a tiny bit and then starts looking for raspberries.  (The bushes are done.)  Then she mosies about gnawing on gnarly apples from the ground.  Finally, she'll start chucking pea gravel into her mouth as an enormous hint.  I'm Hungry Again.  (The whole time I'm in denial, she can't be hungry Already!)  Then, I'll hand her a plum and she screams with glee and acts like she hasn't seen sustenance in daaaaaays.  Of course, four bites later, it's dirty in the weeds and forgotten as she hunts for fallen figs....

Are we still teething?

There is so much more, I'm sure, but I'm trying to make dragon chocolates with P and typing at the same time is proving too taxing for my brain ;)  (Sorry for the delay, daddy!  You'll know waaaay too much, soon ;)

She reeeeally likes to floss before bed.

Quick Pics

Trying to clean my phone while putting Z down... found a few random pics. As the Little Man has a proclivity for pouring liquids on my laptop (thank gawd for that dehydrator!!!) I like keeping (kinda) up with the pics here, for safety's sake ;)

Yeesh, they're all of Z! more of P next time ;)

There's a couple of her opening her sweet gift from Grandpapa and Mimi, a couple of her sporting P's arrow holder (she slung it over her shoulder like she'd been bow hunting for years). The plastic car was from P's friend's family (they moved away) - Z fell in love with it at at block party. Of course, there's a food shot;) And there's one of Z with her Aunt and Uncle, taken shortly after I realized that they will be ONLY Aunt and Uncle for only a teeny bit longer. It is bittersweet for E and I, thinking about their laps holding more than *our* babies. Personally, I cannot wait to get my hands on that precious cousin, while at the same time, I am hoping beyond hope that my precious babes aren't toooooo jealous - having to learn to share their favorite people:).

Oh - and there's one of P! There they are, scheming and getting dirty together. (Which reminds me, I overheard him call to her the other day, telling her he had a secret. Then it was quiet. Then he skipped in and announced that she'd actually leaned in and listened to his secret. He was tickled;). She, meanwhile, has finally picked up on his constant cackling and now sports a hilarious mwah-ha-ha. I've gotta get it on video.

(Happy, Daddy? That's two in one weekend! Think of it as partial bday joy ;)

Fall finally found us...

It was bound to happen :)

Z, watching the rain.

Honestly?  It's a tad relief.  If it was sunny (which it has been, every day, for months) and we were not out, enjoying the sunshine (that I knew would end, that I could feel the impending end of), I felt we were wasting the fall ;)  Silly, yes. Exhausting, totally.

But we've had a lovely few weeks, making merry in the yard or the woods.  And now, we can do the crafts and projects and grey day reading that I had actually started missing.

I've been a bad little blogger (and I don't see that improving much in the near future :)  So here's a gathering of some shots from the last month or so.  Sorry if some are repeats, I can't remember what I've posted and what I've meant to post...

We enjoyed various hikes in Washington Park and Forest Park. Alicia joined us for one hike... that turned into a longer hike... that then morphed into a tour of the Japanese Gardens... and then a roadside picnic... Nothing like wearing out the totally pregnant lady (Sorry, A!)

Z was OBSESSED with the koi.

And attempted to run out into the carefully maintained zen garden.

We visited the Audobon Society, saw some birds, hiked a hike.  (Where Z was a TOTAL toddler disaster.  Dashing off down stairs and trails and then, suddenly, taking off into the ferns at top toddler speed where she flew off of a mini-cliff (about her height) and was actually AIR BORN.  She fell into the soft grass with a tiny thud and was relatively unfazed, but it was enough to upset me;)

We went to the zoo, over and over again.  I forgot my phone, each and every time. Sigh.  Z was unbelievably, adorably excited by the great cats (signing, what else, DOG.)  We took the train ride through the zoo and the nearby park (near disaster, expecting a toddler to sit still for its entirety...) P is totally into the zoo of late.

We played in the parks.  Swinging, listening to drum circles, bands, watching dogs.

We spent tons of time in the backyard.  Trying to save our freakin garden (caterpillars, ants, aphids oh my!) that is climbing an uphill, almost sunless battle, now that the sun has dipped below our house's roofline...  There's no way to set up a "safe space" for P back there, so inevitably, he gets into some awesome project and his bothersome little sister wants to join.  So playing in the backyard isn't quite as peaceful as the house or the park, but we give it a go every day :)

And sometimes they play really sweetly together.  For a second or two ;)

I realized this is really my first fall in Portland.  Between bed-rest and being too embarrassed/overwhelmed to take my screaming infant out and about last year, I missed September and October.  And I hear this year is unusually warm and sunny.  But so far, we're still loving living here.  And after a summer of go-go-going to suck up the sun, I'm excited for a fall of finding all of the nooks in crannies in this house.  Maybe even tackling a project or two ;)

Love this kid!

Sooo, Z has been a major malcontent the last few days. Sick? Teething? She kept opening her mouth, sticking out her tongue, pointing in and com-plain-ing. As of last night, she's warm and boogery, so that settles that.

I've mentioned her, erm, disdain for discomfort, no?:).

The last couple of days, P has picked her up a few times while she was moaning (I had wet hands or was around the corner when misery hit) and hugged her and bounced her. He knows how we comfort her and he's trying. Way too cute:)

Blog Hop!!!

Ok, stop reading all of my new posts (both of them;) and skip over to my amazing Sister in Law's blog!  She put up the best photo essay of Z's bday, eveh!  Gorgeous photos and sweeeeeet descriptions.  She's silly talented.  Just check out the pics of Z's doll, if you don't believe me.  I know she's busy getting ready to have a baby and all, but yeesh could she make a living documenting special occasions....  Thanks for documenting ours, Alicia :)

Superman and the big 4-0.

Superman turned 40 last month (i'm bloggy behind;), right after Z's bday.  I'll be brief, but suffice it to say... I'm thankful for every day this guy is alive and I'm happy he's stuck with me for the next (at least!) 40 years.  He is wuuuuuunderful.

We cut him 40 hearts (ok, Z woke up from her nap a little before 40, but we were almost there;) and wrote things about him we love. P's choices were a riot.  Froggy figured in heavily.

P decorated the house for him ;)

Gosh, isn't he a fabulous father?  Even if he is OLD now ;)