cindy's world

The other day at work, I bent over at the hips to pick something up off the floor, and saw my hair sweep the floor. This was especially gross because I was in the shared restroom. Time for a haircut. I figured Friday was a good day, as I had taken the day off to get my annual physical checkup, and was still having Jayne come over to care for Allie so that I could have a “me” day.

Turns out I’m not used to thinking in terms of “me” anymore because I had a hard time the whole day feeling comfortable. I felt like I was plopped in a body and said, “Here, take care of this body for today” and I didn’t quite know how to do it and was fumbling around. After leaving Allie with Jayne, I drove off to the vet’s to get Dodo some prescription cat food, and realized on the drive that I forgot to medicate him this morning, so I had to go back home. Good thing I’d left early and my doctor’s appointment wasn’t until much later. And then in leaving, I was about to go to the wrong Kaiser clinic location when it suddenly occurred to me that my ob/gyn was in a different facility.
The checkup was uneventful. Doctor said I looked great, saw/felt nothing abnormal in the exam, my weight was 118 lbs and blood pressure was 118/56, pulse was a little high (for me) at 73, but my OB was happy. It’s nice to know where I stand with the numbers once a year, since I don’t weigh myself at home anymore. Of course, it’s not exactly a cholesterol screening, either. I noted as I was getting dressed that Allie’s birth announcement card was tacked up on the bulletin board of that particular exam room. I snapped a photo of that on my phone and texted it to Mr. W.
Then after that, the day was mine. I had a massage appointment at 2:30p and that was it. I already got the cat food, so that was the important errand. Next on priorities is the haircut, and buying some healthy-grain pasta for Allie so that I could make her another one-pot meal, and I needed some facial cleansing cloths I’ve seen at Costco. I’ve also purchased a variety pack of small semolina pastas at Costco, so I figured I’d go there. But first I was hungry and it was brunch time.

I tried to approach the plan logically. I know where my haircut place should be; I’d been going to the same salon since I discovered it after moving to the current residence in 2008. So the meal should be some place close to it. I decided to give Break of Dawn restaurant another try. College roommie Diana had suggested we all try it when she and her hubby visited some time ago, and Mr. W and I had found the food a little rich for our liking. Nevertheless, after looking the location up on my smartphone, I put in the info on my nav and off I went.

The small restaurant was at least half-full and I was seated immediately at a table by the window. The menu threw me a little; the descriptions didn’t tell me enough about what each item was, the form they were served in, so altho I was drawn immediately to some kabocha soup, I needed some help. A guy who may have been the owner came by and asked if I was ready to order, and I kind of was, I just needed some clarification. The 3-course meal included the kabocha squash soup and a choice of an entrée and I was interested in the chicken stew option, and it had a dessert, but I wasn’t STARVING, so I asked him about portion size. He said it’s enough to make me full but that stew and kabocha soup wasn’t good together because it’s 2 “watery” things. Okay, so I asked about something else, and he asked what it is I’m looking for. I said I wanted to try the soup, but ordering the soup entrée came with 2 items of fried things and I don’t want to eat anything fried, so I asked for his recommendation. He told me he doesn’t recommend things and that he doesn’t know what I want or am looking for so I should just study the menu longer and order later, and then he walked away. Good thing I wasn’t rushed for time. Geez. The busboy who had seated me and brought me the menu and water soon came by and asked if I was ready to order, as it was clear the other guy was by now ignoring me. I just ordered the chicken curry stew and left it at that. The food was fine. But it didn’t fill me up. I left anyway without ordering anything additional. Pretty uncomfortable experience. The Vietnamese owner guy never came back to my table.

Off to the important thing on my list: the haircut. I pumped in my car in a secluded area of a parking lot near the salon (that was fun), then drove to the salon. I was happy to see that the guy whom I’d gone to exclusively to cut my hair for the past 5 years was there, altho he was giving an order man a haircut so it looks like there would be a wait. I could wait a little bit given the time. Richard looked up and smiled at me and I happily said, “Hi!”
“Hi,” he took a few steps toward me. “Can I help you?”
It dawned on me that Richard did not recognize me. Has it been that long? I’d gotten one haircut after giving birth and sure it was almost a year ago, but he ALWAYS cut my hair and we would chat and he’d kid around with me and asked how my pregnancy was going and blah blah! Could it be he’d NEVER recognized me in all the years I’d been going there? That can’t be it; he’d told me before when I was 8 months pregnant that the time I’d been there previously, the owner of the salon asked him if I’d gained a little weight, and he had laughed and told her I was pregnant, and that when the owner asked how far along I was, she was shocked that I didn’t look MORE pregnant. Maybe he’d fallen and hit his head some time in the past year and now has amnesia, but somehow retained the knowledge of how to cut hair. Anyway, after ascertaining that he would be unable to fit me in until 2:30, the same time as my massage appointment, I said I’d come back another day and left.

I now had time to go to Costco before my massage appointment after all, but the Costco closer to the massage place, and one I was unfamiliar with, was only a couple of miles from my earlier doctor’s appointment. As I drove back the way I’d come, I thought about how this was so poorly planned as to make it un-executable. I should’ve just stayed in this area and I could’ve avoided the discomfort at Break of Dawn, and the trip-for-nothing at the salon. I even drove unsteadily, the reflexes operating when to go, how to smoothly merge into traffic, making snap judgments on whether I could pull out and turn left all now rusty due to lack of use.
Turns out the Costco I’d found was the puniest Costco ever. I circled the place twice and the only pasta they had was one brand of spaghetti. Plus their layout was different from other Costcos so I had a hard time doing the quick beelines to the stuff I needed to get. At least it helped me in accomplishing the impossible: getting out of Costco with only $26 in purchases. Mr. W, the big Costco fan, had never done THAT.

I got to the massage appointment early, so I had half an hour to visit a coffeehouse a few doors down, and things started going right after that. I ordered a blueberry muffin (cuz I was still hungry from brunch) and a spiced Chai tea latte, and while I waited for the tea, was able to rinse out my pump parts in the tidy restroom. I enjoyed my beverage and snack while reading a chapter on my Kindle (A Storm of Swords, the 3rd volume in George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” series, aka “Game of Thrones” series), then with 5 minutes to spare, walked to the massage place.

The massage was needed and very relaxing, and as usual after it was over all too quickly, I thought about how great it would be if they’d allow the option of renting the massage room after a massage so that patrons could take a nap.

Last thing before heading home: I went to the healthy/organics grocery store across the street from the house and bought Allie some organic whole grain baby waffles and other stuff. And then I got home, beating Mr. W by only half an hour or so as he returned from work.

I don’t think I’m gonna need a “me” day for awhile. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Even with little Allie’s phlegmy coughs that she’s had for the past 2 days (Jayne has a cold), she still makes me happier than having a whole day with endless possibilities to myself. Especially when she now added a part in the morning routine when she’d pull off during nursing and then struggle to sit up and pull herself up to my face, just to plant a kiss on my lips, followed by a gleeful smile with solid eye contact.

We never received our studio photos in time to include the prints in Christmas presents to Allie’s grandparents (and great-grandma). I emailed the photo studio Christmas evening to inquire about it. A few days ago, I received an emailed response from them indicating that they had thought we were okay with getting the prints after the studio re-opens after the holidays. Well, we were, but when we left, we’d agreed that it wouldn’t be a problem for them to get the prints done before the holidays, so that was what I’d expected. I thought if they couldn’t do it, they could’ve contacted me. The studio apologized for the confusion and said they would throw in a couple of extra prints for free, which was very nice of them. Last night, I got the share-able “unprintable web digitals” via email. The photos ARE small, but not as small as I’d expected, altho Mr. W was unimpressed with their size. Here are the two poses we’d purchased from the photo studio, the top being 300K and bottom 425K:

I also heard from Kari, the photographer who came to us for a separate outdoor photoshoot. She emailed me that a CD with her edited digitals (presumably full-size resolution) along with two large prints will be mailed to us. It should’ve gone in the mail yesterday. I can’t wait to get those; I made our Christmas cards this year from Kari’s photos (she emailed me about 15 fairly quickly after the photoshoot so that I could do holiday mailings) and people LOVED them. Mr. W will want to use Kari again for any of our future photography needs.

What makes me happy and hopeful that Allie truly is the “wonderful person” Rebecca had seen when I was pregnant and/or when Allie was a newborn, is when Allie shows spontaneous unprompted signs of a loving personality. Earlier, I was at the kitchen sink rinsing out her breakfast bowls and prepping some peaches and cherries to make into a pureed snack (or dip) for her, and I heard the playful “wap wap wap” of her feet when she’s running with deliberate small but loud steps. Then I felt her tiny arms around my left leg. Before I could turn around, I felt and heard her plant a kiss on my butt (which is where her lips reach against me). I looked down and she looked up. We smiled at each other. “Hi, baby!” I said. I would’ve hugged her or patted her head but my hands were wet. She released and I went back to what I was doing. I felt her arms around my leg again for a second hug. And then she wapped off to the breakfast nook to find Mr. W.

I was nervous about Stage 3/4 foods for Allie when she’s ready to move beyond the purees, because I wasn’t sure how to prepare finger foods and “real foods” fresh every day when I’m at work all day except for the 1.5 hours or so I get with her after work until her bedtime. But what I’ve been doing is making a one-pot meal en masse that usually has some sort of grain (typically brown rice and/or quinoa, or tiny semolina pasta) made into a porridge with fresh veggies (carrots, peas, edamame, green beans, corn, tomato puree) and a meat (beef, fish). Then I freeze them into 1.5 to 2 oz portions in silicon ice cube trays and she’s good for about a week. I try to give her a different one-pot dish for lunch from her dinner, and I add to each frozen dish some extra veggies as I get them (freshly cut, steamed, frozen), chopped bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, asparagus, zucchini. Sometimes she gets the extra veggies on the side as finger food. Jayne has never had a problem feeding her. She gets fresh seasonal fruit after each meal that Mr. W cuts up for her in the morning as I select and place her frozen foods in serving bowls to thaw out for the day’s feedings. All the day’s food prep is done before we get her from her crib each weekday morning. Snacks are kind of left up to Jayne’s pleasure, with some suggestions from me. Allie sometimes gets tiny baby waffles that are frozen like Eggos, heated in the toaster oven, which would be dipped in Greek yogurt, hummus, or eaten with a scrambled egg that Jayne would make. Sometimes it’s half a slice of sprouted whole wheat bread with Colby cheese bits. Sometimes it’s veggies and fruit. She drinks her cow’s milk from a straw and water from a sippy cup, still gets 3 servings of breast milk daily (nursing morning and bedtime, plus a bottle after the first nap or nursing when I’m home). Nutrition must be adequate; Allie’s pooping regularly, 2-3 times a day, and I think she shot up a couple more inches in the past month as her head is now well above the tops of our living room baby gates/blockades. The seats on our couches come up to her waist. She’s now attempting to climb, getting a knee up on the couch, but unsure of how to get her other leg up from there. She uses her underfoot toys as stepstools but hasn’t realized she could move a toy to where she wants to go and use that as a step, yet. *keeping fingers crossed that she doesn’t figure this out anytime soon*

Brain development is fascinating. Based on what I’ve learned in reading The Wonder Weeks, Allie is now at the development of “programs.” She understands a whole series of events and can put them together and control the outcome. Something as simple as, “Allie, where’s your sock? Get your sock and I’ll put it on for you” is pretty complicated when you think about the process. The above is what I said to her when I happened to see that she’d taken a sock off at some point in her play and had left it by some toys in the living room. So her response was to put her hands palm up like a shrug, as if to say she doesn’t know where her sock is, then walk around leaning forward so that her face is closer to the ground, as if to say, “I’m looking for it.” She walked around for a bit with her hands raised up, then spotted the sock. The hands went down, she ran to it, picked it up, brought it back to me, and then waited for me to pick her up and place her in my lap to put the sock on. In order to get to this point, she has to first understand what a sock is, that it is separate from her, understand distances, that she can bridge the distance, she has to stick out her hand toward it and move her fingers in a gripping fashion to pick it up, and then she has to remember to bring that sock to me and have me help her put it on. All of that were learned in bits and pieces in her development for the past year. Her being able to understand “programs” is handy in that we can now just say, “Ready for your nap?” “Ready to go night-night?” and she’d stop her playing, run around to the gate at the stairs, and pull on it, waiting for us to open it so she could step through and make her way upstairs to her room.

Her memory development is a cool thing to observe, too. Last night, for example, she was having her bath using an organic home-milled chamomile baby soap I’d purchased from a friend’s wife who handmakes all her organic products (Moxie Organix, if any of you are interested). Allie pointed to the soap bar and said, “Baya!”
Mr. W corrected her, “Soap. Not banana. Soap.”
“Bayaya,” she insisted.
Looking at the bar, the translucent cream color does bear an uncanny resemblance to banana flesh, albeit shaped differently.
“No, soap.”
“Baya.”
“Soap.”
“Baya.”
After she was taken out of her bath, dried off, diaper put on, she ran back into the bathroom where Mr. W still was, and pointed at the bar.
“Bayaya!”
“Soap.”
“Baya.”
“Soap.”
An application of lotion later, she was put in her fleece footsie jammies, said her goodnights to Mr. W, nursed, and as I started to move her off the Boppy to place her in her crib, she pointed at the bathroom door and said with all seriousness, “Baya.”
“You’re still on that?”
She went in her crib, played for the usual 20 minutes or so until she went to sleep. 11 hours go by. We go in her room to pick up a standing, smiling Allie from her crib. “Good MORning, sweetheart!”
*point* “Baya.” The way she smiles mischievously when she says “baya” tells us she’s deliberately telling us it’s a banana even thought she knows it’s not, so it’s a game to her.

“One” rhymes with “fun.” And she is lots of it.

I’m deeee-lighted to announce that Mr. W’s vacation-at-home with Allie has concluded and they both did EXTREMELY well! Unless Mr. W lied on his entries on the app, it looks like Allie took great naps on time and had all her meals and snacks on time. He took her out to an organic lunch at Mother’s Market on Monday and she ate Swiss chard and tempeh off his plate. Reportedly, the other restaurant patrons smiled at her for being “so cute.” Allie may newly be going through her adjustment to get down to one long nap, started this weekend, but she’s healthy. No diaper rashes or any issues. Yay!

New Year’s Day, my parents came over and we did a Chinese hot pot dinner. Allie joined us at the table and had turnips, tofu, whitefish, napa cabbage, taro root. And then my parents played with Allie so that I could explore a new Bejeweled game on the computer. That was nice.

Allie even joined in on the computer fun.

All photos here courtesy of my parents.

If I don’t get around to posting about Xmas, I’ll just say that Allie was opening gifts for a week leading up to Christmas Day. She got tons of toys and clothes from our friends, coworkers, and family. It was a nice, quiet holiday week (the stepkidlet has been in Germany for the past month visiting her boyfriend’s family, which I think beats last year’s Christmas trip of Haiti).

To my bloggy friends…
I wish for you that you all retain the good memories of last year to relive this year and next year and the next and next; that you forget the negativity of last year but retain the lesson so that you don’t repeat it; and that with each passing year you become more and more the person you want the next generation to write about one day in an essay. Happy New Year, as you approach love and light.