cindy's world

Allie and I took a couple of trips to playground parks this past weekend. Both days, it seemed to have been Daddy Day. I can only imagine that the dads were out with their kids because the moms were at home making Super Bowl food. *shrug*
I noticed while at the park with Allie that she’s past the “parallel play” point and is now fully interactive with other kids. She gets really excited when she sees kids and will go right up to them, try to hold their hand, wave and say “hi,” hand them her most precious asset (a leaf, rock or twig she’d found moments ago on the ground). She watched and followed and played along with a crowd of 5 kids crawling around a wooden playhouse boat over the weekend. She didn’t climb the counters and stuff like the older kids did, but she was inside the house and looking through the windows and touching the kids’ arms and exchanging leaves and twigs with them. A little girl who couldn’t have been more than 4 years old or so said to me, “What’s her name?”
“This is Allie.”
“Allie. You have a really cute baby.” I’m amazed because I have never been into babies, even as a kid, and it was most noticeable who the nurturing girlfriends were as teens because they’d coo and go right up to a kid and talk about how cute some kid was when I would hardly realize a kid were there. Now I’m thinking it’s a personality trait (to be nurturing and kid-oriented) from very, very young. That little girl would make a great big sister, how gentle she was with Allie. When Allie handed her a fallen leaf, she took it, held onto it for a few seconds, and when Allie reached again, she gave it back. She watched Allie carefully, moved slowly and attentively so she didn’t scare Allie or knock her over.

On the other side of the spectrum, when Allie was at a different park on Sunday morning, she was standing by a zebra rocker and a 3-4 year old girl with curly dark hair pushed between Allie and the zebra, wanting to get on the zebra. I pulled Allie back a bit as Allie watched, fascinated by the rocking motion. After Allie stared for awhile, I walked on and said to Allie, “Come on, baby, let’s leave her alone to play.” Allie still watched the other girl. “Come on, Allie, let’s go on the slide.” I reached out my hand, which Allie took, feet still firmly planted and unmoving. The little girl actually said to Allie, in an almost-whisper as if she thought I wouldn’t hear, “Go away! Go on, go away! Leave! Go!” How rude. That probably would’ve been me at that age. Someday she’d have to tolerate her mom telling her to have kids despite not liking kids because “It’ll be different when it’s YOUR kid.”

Actually, it IS different when it’s your kid, cuz when it’s your kid, you think the smallest thing is hilarious. Like when Allie was doing something funny over the weekend and I said to her, “You goofball.” She ran off and then ran back holding her big rubber ball out to me, saying, “Ball.” And when Mr. W was ticking off his grocery list to make almond-anise biscotti from scratch, he said, “Butter, sliced almonds, white flour –” and Allie interrupted with a loud “*SNIFF SNIFF*” “Haha, that’s a different kind of ‘flower,’ baby.” “*SNIFF SNIFF*”

Speaking of tolerating what moms say, my mom told me this weekend to have Allie watch TV. According to my mom, Allie isn’t talking because she has no TV to learn speech from. As if we don’t talk to her! As if she’s not talking! As if TV is good for her developing brain! I didn’t bother to go into that and dealt with it how I always deal with unsolicited advice from my mom — by biting my tongue.

One quick anecdote before I get into the zoo stuff: this morning as I was pouring milk for Allie’s breakfast, Allie pointed at the milk carton from her high chair and said, “Baby!”
“Milk,” I corrected her, still pouring.
“Baby.”
“No baby here, mil–” And then I saw it. On the side of the milk carton facing Allie was a photo of a toddler as the milk manufacturer explained why the added DHA is good for developing bodies. “Oh, you’re right. There IS a baby here.”
“Baby.” You’d think I would’ve learned after all the “bbbbloon”s, “bow-wow”s and “mau-mau”s she points out way before I see or hear them.
~ * ~
Yesterday, because the weather’s so beautiful (high 80s!), Mr. W and I took Allie to Irvine Park with intention of going to the zoo inside. The zoo isn’t grandiose with exotic animals the way San Diego Zoo is, but it’s got local animals and a petting zoo. Not bad for $5 parking and $2 per adult zoo entry. We parked in a general area and walked past picnic spots and a pony ride area to the zoo section, Mr. W holding Allie and handing me the DSLR camera. Turns out he’d only brought the 2 new portrait lenses (my xmas present), which was a bit of a pain because I had to be far away to fit what I needed into the frame. But you do get nice focused shots in an otherwise too-busy background.
On the way to the zoo part of the giant park, Mr. W saw a hollow tree and inserted the baby.

I don’t actually know what she was standing on, because she was in there alone, and I’m not tall enough to look in. I didn’t have time to check it out anyway as Mr. W said there’s a big black spider in there so to hurry and take the shots so we can get Allie out.

She didn’t get bitten and she rather enjoyed the view from there.
Having just entered the zoo, Mr. W placed her in front of the sign so we’ll know for future reference where we are. However, the lens did not zoom out at all so I couldn’t fit the sign in the frame.

I ran across the walkway, backed up against an opposing building, waited for all the people walking between us to pass, and managed to get this shot. Unfortunately, I was too far away for her to hear me call her to try to get her attention.

Mr. W said I complained too much about the lenses. I guess I was verbalizing all the difficulty I was having getting the shots in the frame. But the lens was good for stuff like this:

It’s not often we could get a nice clear shot of her eyes since she’s always running around and she has such dark eyes. But the problem with trying to photograph in a busy outdoors area is that one parent has to always be very close to Allie while the other parent runs 20 feet away to get a shot, and it wouldn’t be possible if I were by myself. As it was, an entire boy scout troop and some goats were running my kid over.

It was easier when Mr. W picked her up. For both me to photograph and for the goats to not nibble at her hat.

Allie likes kids (human kids) more than she likes strange animals. This turkey didn’t hold her attention as much as the little girl next to her did. (I say “strange animals” as distinguished from familiar animals, such as Dodo, whom Allie runs to joyously every chance she gets and then squats down in front of to give him a kiss.)

BTW, turkeys make soft, rather pretty and soothing cooing noises. It’s nothing like the “gobble gobble” we were told in school that they make.
Mr. W introduces Allie to a sleeping bear. It must be nothing like what she expected, because she didn’t recognize it and say, “Bay!” like she does when she sees teddy bears.

More father-daughter animal-gazing. I don’t remember what they were looking at because I couldn’t back up far enough to fit it into the frame. =P

Along the pathway, Daddy pointed out some interesting stuff…

…and Baby pointed out some interesting stuff.

Yeah, Allie ran up to and petted more than a few trash cans that trip.
We had lunch at the park’s picnic area, and altho Allie ate homemade organic carrot-kale-celery-fennel greens-ground beef-bell peppers-and-brown rice porridge and freshly homemade granny smith applesauce, Mr. W and I tried the snack bar’s burrito, hamburger and fries. They were surprisingly good, albeit slow to arrive. Soon, it was time to go home.
I don’t know what was said between the two during the walk since I had to run 60 yards away to take the photo, but I imagine it went something like this…
Allie: Thank you for taking me on my first trip to the zoo, Daddy.
Mr. W: Thank you for coming into my life, Allie.

One last quicky photo op before getting in the car:

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.

I think when you love children, it shows in your photography. Our outdoor photographer Kari, with whom we just did Allie’s 1-year outdoor shoot on Tuesday, told me soon after she arrived at our house, “I love kids. They’re my favorite subjects to photograph.” I love Allie, but I’m not really a kid-person. My attempts at photography this past month have been all right, but nothing to write home about. When I take an action shot of Allie it looks like this when it’s acceptable:

Cute subject, photo makes you smile, but it’s not artistic or anything. It’s Allie frolicking in a holiday wonderland.
When it’s just short of acceptable, it’s usually because composition is a little off, or the focus is mis-aimed. Allie moves fast; it’s not easy. For example, here’s an action shot of Allie in which I somehow managed to only have her knuckles in focus.

Leave it to me that the smallest body part is what I get the camera to focus on. =P
And then when I (attempt to) do a portrait shot, it’s not stunning. It’s just sort of “there.” Like this:

Again, cute subject, but without post-production cropping and other work, it’s not something that would even make me stop and go, “Ooh, I like that one.” So I’m glad I’d called in the professionals for Allie’s one-year photoshoots. We haven’t seen the studio shots done last week by inGrace Photography, yet, but we already got some digital proofs from Kari. Here are some of my favorites.
You saw my “portrait” of Allie, above. Now see Kari’s Portrait (with a capital “P”).

Stunning. I realize she did post-production work and played with oversaturation of hues, but still. This makes me stop in my tracks and gawk a little.
Here’s something with a little more personality showing. Allie walked around tickling herself with this fuzzy reed (?), and wouldn’t let it go.

Somehow it just conveys adoration. It’s almost as if a mother took the photo, but Kari doesn’t have kids (yet).
And here’s yet more personality, which Kari brought out herself by reaching in to tease and tickle Allie’s tummy, then swinging back very quickly to take the shot, then reaching up for a tickle and a tease as Allie giggles and plays back, then leaning quickly back for another snap.

Allie clearly really liked Kari. 🙂
When I do a portrait of Daddy with Baby, it’s “fine.” It may even be “cute.” It’s like this:

But good golly, when Kari photographs Daddy with Baby, the two look cohesive and vibrant together.

Here’s a couple of the three of us together.

Words fail me. I don’t think photography’s even Kari’s day job! This photoshoot wasn’t easy; Allie kept taking off and almost deliberately always turned her back to the camera and/or ran away from it. In Kari’s own words, tho, “…but you would never be able to tell the way that bright smile screams ‘take my picture’…” The experience even inspired Mr. W to buy me a very nice portrait lens for my DSLR camera. I barely remember how to turn on my DSLR so I certainly was too intimidated to look into expensive, semi-professional accessories. However, unbeknownst to me, Mr. W was researching on my behalf. When we got home from work today, a box had arrived, which Mr. W handed me and told me to open right away — it was my Christmas present. The moment I touched the box, I said, a bit confused, “You got me a camera lens?” Why would he do that? I don’t know what I’m doing with the camera to justify a purchase like this.
Mr. W looked blank. “How did you know that?” I looked down at the plain box. “Does it say that on the box?” He took the box from me and looked at it, then handed it back.
“So it IS a camera lens?” I asked, still befuddled.
Now he looked a little crestfallen. I’d ruined my own surprise somehow. I opened the box. Mr. W installed it on my camera and played with it while I fed Allie dinner. Then he handed it to me as he took Allie’s bowl out of my hands. I was still unconvinced this was something necessary, especially given the expense, but a few minutes later, I realized this lens is exactly what I’d always wanted but didn’t know I was looking for. The effects created brought many creative visions I had to fruition. Now I really need to re-learn how to use my camera and take full advantage.

But, you know what? Kari’s probably 8-9 times cheaper than this lens. I’m definitely still going to keep her around. 🙂

Allie’s second Thanksgiving was the day before her birthday this year. Knowing we would have a busy guest-filled weekend, we took Thanksgiving Thursday very, very easy. I’m grateful for that. Mr. W and I hung out at home with Allie, and had an early turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie lunch with the kid at Claim Jumper. I pulled off small pieces of the warm cottony sourdough bread for Allie, and she enjoyed that. She also had a few bites of plain mashed potato (altho I suspect it’s pretty butter-laden). She did not enjoy the pumpkie pie at all and made a face. She likes sweet fruit quite a bit, but does not seem to think much of dessert. I’m happy about that. She had a rare couple of days of frequent soft poopies last wek, which gave her a bad diaper rash complete with blisters, so we gave her stuff we used to avoid to solidify her poops a bit more. Banana, bread, applesauce. Her new favorite thing is now bananas. She loves it SO much that she immediately learned to say it, so that she could point and demand it. “BA-ya-ya! BA-ya!” she’d say every time she’s within sight of a banana, pointing.

Friday, Baby-Boo turned ONE! We entered her room in the morning and greeted her with the happy birthday song. She watched us politely, then pointed at the nursing recliner and said, “Mum mum mum.” (Food.)

Mr. W and I hit the grocery store for some last minute stuff and bought Allie her balloons. (“bbbloon, bbbbloon, bbbbloon!”)

While she napped, I made her personalized “smash cake” out of whole wheat flour, wheat germ, mashed ripe bananas, homemade applesauce, and soy milk. It’s oil-free, dairy-free, and healthy, which means it also ended up being more smash bread than smash cake. I also made her frosting the sugar-free way, by stirring pure apple juice concentrate into softened whipped cream cheese. That was her only dairy. I also dripped beet juice (Mr. W’s contribution, mashing a baked beet over wire mesh thingie and extracting the juice, which he had to do because I had a FIT that he dumped the beet juice I’d previously collected and had been saving for the frosting) into the frosting to give it a nice shade of pink, which I used to frost the mini bundt smash bread. Then I added more beet juice for a deeper pink in the remaining frosting to make accent frosting. Turns out frosting a cake with cream cheese is not easy! It did not spread very evenly. But heck, it was gonna get smashed, anyway. Nobody else has to eat it. It wasn’t until Mr. W shoved the giant candle on it that I realized I’d inadvertently matched the “theme colors” exactly.

In the late afternoon, Mr. W’s parents arrived from Vegas. They hadn’t seen her since we visited Vegas when she was about 8 months old, and all she was doing then was pulling up and cruising a few steps. Now she’s running…

…playing…

…”jumping” (really just squatting and then springing up to a stand very quickly), and new on her bday, she suddenly started walking a few steps backwards, laughing, and she’d turn in a circle looking down until she fell over dizzy, giggling. Grandma and grandpa enjoyed watching her dig around in her toy box, take out the toy she wants, run with it across the room and place it on the couch or the piano bench, and run back for another toy.

They also enjoyed watching her dance…

and make faces at them, such as the mock-upset expression when she runs into something or trips…

…basically being her usual clowny self.

Later, the stepdaughter and her boyfriend came over bringing a big Hello Kitty balloon and joined in the Allie fun.

Mr. W’s dad kept saying how amazing it is that she’s always happy, doesn’t fuss before or after her naps, and has high-energy and great focus during her awake times. He told me that he’s now a believer in my sleep-focused parenting style. Heh.

Mr. W upgraded the home desktop PC to Windows 8, which is supposed to be more of a touchscreen tablet interface than a desktop computer interface. Since the interface was just not doing much for us and we couldn’t figure out how to use it effectively, he decided, in the next day, to turn his home PC into a giant tablet. He kind of just appeared with a new giant touchscreen monitor. And then a couple of days later, he got a webcam.

“What the hell is THAT for?! I don’t want that!” I pointed at the webcam, appalled. I don’t want to put on makeup just to check my email! This is why I think Apple’s FaceTime feature is the scariest idea, ever. But he installed it anyway (cuz he’s trying to turn the PC into a giant iPad, I’m convinced), and did a test shot while I hid waaaay off-screen.

I guess I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming into modern technology. *sigh*

Despite my nostalgia for what I consider the more user-friendly every-prior-version-of-Windows-including-DOS, I admit that the new app-run Win8 does have some fun perks. For example, hubby found a photo app and made these cool illustrations.

He showed me that one but I didn’t pay much attention because I was still unhappy that the computer user interface I’m familiar with is gone. So he tried again.

He knew that if he placed a cat anywhere on, in, or near an object (such as displayed on this monitor), the battle is almost won. Take TWO cute cats, and I grudgingly come and pay attention. The above photo actually has THREE cute cats in it. Knowing he got me, he told me to try a photo. So I directed while he touch-screened, and came up with this masterpiece:

Now I had to reluctantly agree that this is kind of neat. And I personally made this other one that I entitle, “MY MOTHER’S WORSE NIGHTMARE.” My mom gave me a lot of crap when she first got on the social networking site about the photos of Allie that I’ve posted. (Good thing she doesn’t know about this blog, huh?) It got annoying enough that I avoided hearing all her pestering by simply blocking her from seeing selected photo postings. Her, and anyone who may see it and mention it to her, so my dad, some of my mom’s friends, my mom’s friends’ children, my relatives, family friends, are all blocked from the same photos and postings. I asked her what all her beef about Allie’s photos being shared among my friends circle is about. She said that since she’s able to right-click on my posted photos and save the photo to her computer, that means other people are, too, which means that someone can steal Allie’s photo(s) and make fake I.D.s out of it. *blink blink* What, like this?

There you have it, people. My Mother’s Worst Nightmare. (I think it’s hilarious, but every time I mock her or scoff at her about something, I get a knee-jerk counterthought of, “I hope Allie never does this stuff to me.”)

Here’s something I did on the iPad, to compare old technology with new technology. My mom scanned and emailed me the photo on the left.

I hadn’t wanted to do anything for Allie’s 1st bday because at this age, she will likely get nothing out of it except a missed nap. I’d rather she take the nap and I’d prefer not to stress about food, guest lists, setup and cleanup, goodie bags, decorations, venue, cost, blah blah blah. My parents offered to bring dinner over on or around Allie’s bday, which falls on Thanksgiving weekend, and bring my grandma who hadn’t seen Allie in awhile, and just have a quiet low-key dinner. That sounded fine.

Then Mr. W got a phone call this weekend from his parents saying that they are planning to drive all the way here from Vegas the day after Thanksgiving (which would be on Allie’s bday) for their youngest grandchild’s first birthday. Mr. W told them we weren’t planning to celebrate it, and they said we have to at least get photos of her having her first cake and getting all messy. Well, if her grandparents are gonna drive all day, how can we not honor Allie’s bday? So it’s going to be my parents and grandma, now joined by Mr. W’s parents, so we have to have the stepkidlets here since we’re doing something now, and the stepdaughter of course would want her boyfriend to be present as he’s usually here in the evenings anyway when she’s home. Mr. W suggested adding his friend Chris and his daughter, and Allie’s nanny Jayne and her husband John, and I vetoed that. Once we start including non-family members, the line gets fuzzier, and we can’t invite Jayne and John without inviting their daughter who still lives at home, and if you invite their daughter who lives at home, you can’t not invite the daughter who doesn’t live at home because they’ll be spending the holiday weekend all together. 10 adults + Allie is a tight enough fit considering we have a dining table that seats 4, but 15 adults and 2 kids? No way. I don’t even know how we’re going to have room to serve dinner as it is, or where we’ll be eating, or when we’ll be eating as Allie goes to bed by 7pm.

Over the weekend, Mr. W and I passed by a party supply store on a walk to the organic grocery store across the street, and we ended up buying a couple of 1st Bday things for Allie. And I’m going to have to make her a smash cake. I found a recipe for a healthy sugar-free (using fruit juice as sweetener) and egg-free banana and applesauce cake which uses wheat flour and I’m going to make her frosting out of cream cheese and beet juice as red dye. I’m going to make 6 small bundt cakes so she gets her own to make a mess with. Flip Flop Girl suggested adding blueberries to increase the cute-mess factor, so I’ll do that. Hope it turns out well. For dinner, I’m not cooking. Mr. W has already ordered 2 fully-cooked, complete prime rib dinners from the organic grocery store for that day, which comes with sides and pumpkin pie.

I’ve also been inspired to pay a professional photographer (or maybe 2) for a 1-year birthday shoot. Jordan (in Florida) has a nurse coworker who’s also a photographer, who did newborn hospital shots of Jordan’s new grandson. I’ve looked at these photos, and because they were SO GOOD, I looked at other photos in this lady’s portfolio (InspireFly Photography is her side-gig). She is probably THE best children’s photographer I’ve seen, based on her work, but she’s too far away. So I started a local hunt. There is a studio in San Juan Capistrano running a promo with a slashed sitting fee on a mini-session of 20 minutes. Prints will probably be expensive, though. And then a social networking friend aware of my search did a public call on her page, and within minutes were flooded with recommendations, one of which was was more forward in responding to an email she left, whom I’d contacted and had emailed me back today with VERY excellent prices. She said she travels, and is willing to come to our house or to a local park for portraits. So I thought, Allie at our lake! How perfect! So I think we’ll do that, too. (I haven’t told Mr. W about that but he basically left all this menial decision-making stuff to me. Hee hee.) Then Allie will get a few posed studio shots, and some live outdoor shots that show more personality (hopefully).
Some people told me to dust off my DSLR camera and shoot Allie’s 1-year photos myself, and I was reluctant because I’m SO rusty (having not taken out the camera since Allie’s birth) that I don’t even remember how to change certain functions on manual mode and will have to crack open the manual again. I feel like I have no business using a fancy camera if I’m gonna shoot on automatic mode. Then I may as well keep using my cameraphone. Nevertheless, I finally got the DSLR out this weekend and did a few test shots.
O.M.G. A running 1 year old? I was in a full-sweat trying to get in front of her so that I didn’t constantly have shots of her side and back. I couldn’t get her to perform on command, either. There is no WAY I can shoot on full-manual for a kid. I’m definitely gonna hand the task to a professional.

I managed to snag some photos taken by a neighbor of the birthday party we attended last weekend. The backyard carnival fancy-smancy theme party for the 1-year-old.

Here is the birthday boy Hudson’s daddy at the hot dog stand.

In addition to the personalized hot dog stand, there was lots of personalized bottled water, too.

The face-painting booth.

(Allie did not know what to make of all the kids coming up to her with stripes and webs on their faces. “Ooh, a zebra!” I’d tell her. “Look, it’s Spiderman!” She would just stand and stare as the boys stared back. Then I’d realize she doesn’t know what a zebra or Spiderman looks like, so my explanation is moot.)
The dessert table with the popcorn-bucket cupcakes. The “popcorn” are miniature marshmallows, hand-twisted and placed on a layer of white frosting, and then the tops of the marshmallows are lightly misted with a diluted solution of yellow food coloring.

Some kids playing carnival games.

…and of course, the birthday boy with his own smash cake, in between his mom and dad.

The photo booth let us email the photos in addition to giving us printed ones. I don’t know why they came out as doubles, but here they are. Here is me with my little Allie Cat in a fancy black feathered boa.

And then we went back for a pic with Mr. W with our little bunny (her zodiac sign).

So turns out it’s not that easy to get a toddler to look at the camera, particularly when the camera isn’t as interesting as stuff on the outside of the booth, especially when she has to look at the camera long enough for it to go off and take the photo while she’s still looking. I tried tapping on the glass near the camera to get her to look, but mostly all that did was make me look at my own hand higher than the camera while clearly she lost interest already. Oh, well.

Allie had been waking up and staying up on her own between 5am and 5:30am for the past month, and we don’t know why. She did well with the time change, however, and was still getting up between 5-5:30am, occasionally as late as 5:45a, but it was the “new” 5:30a or whenever. Over the weekend, we finally turned on the central heater, and she slept in to her old time of past 6am, and yesterday on Veteran’s Day, as late as a few minutes past 7am. So it could be that even though I’d been double-bagging her with a onesie inside her fleece zip-up footsie sleep-n-plays, it has simply been so much colder in the mornings that when she wakes up in the morning, she has been unable to go back to sleep. She doesn’t make noise or demand anything, just playing on her own in her crib until we go in to get her, be it half an hour, an hour or more.

We attended a birthday party over the weekend, thrown by a coworker for her grandson’s first birthday. She went all-out and turned her large backyard into an old-fashioned carnival, complete with game booths, prizes, props, popcorn machine, hot dog “vendor” booth, game tickets, photo booth, cotton candy cart, face painters. And the details! Little goldfish in round bowls, cupcakes that look exactly like little buckets of popcorn (“popcorn” made with twisted mini marshmallows lightly sprayed with yellow food coloring), everything was bright red and blue. I would’ve taken photos, except Allie threw my cell phone into some crevice in the car and Mr. W said I didn’t need it so we were rushed inside. There went my primary mode of photodocumentation. Given the many many kids and babies at the party (we’re talking 100+ guests), everyone seemed to be an expert in parenting. We got lots of unsolicited commentary on Allie. They were mostly kind comments, such as how cute she is and how well she walks given her age, but more and more she’s receiving comments of how tall she is. People assume she’s 14-15 months and are surprised when they learn she’s 11. She towered over the 1-year-old birthday boy. I can see that she’ll be expected to act like a young adult when she’s just a small child and wants to come up to me to be held when she’s my height. =P

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day and a holiday. We used the day off to bring Allie to the doctor for her 2nd dose of the flu shot. She did well, crying in protest when we forced her to lie back on the table, having the same fit she gives us when we make her lie back for a diaper change. She was so busy fussing about that, that she didn’t know the shot had come and gone already, so she stopped crying as soon as we let her sit up again. I asked how many shots Allie will get for her 1-year appointment, and the nurse said six. SIX! Two on each thigh, and one under each upper arm. That would be the most shots she’d received at once, and the first shots on her arms. I’m not looking forward to that appointment in a couple of weeks. I asked when the next series of vaccinations after that would be, and was told 18 months. That would be a nice break from all the shooting up every time she’s gone to the doctor, and after that, her booster shots would come at age 2. And then even bigger gaps after that. So her only regular shots after that would be her annual flu shots, which would still be a child-sized half-dose, but only 1 shot. I was told she got the double-shot this year only because it’s her first time.

I asked Mr. W if he had any pre-scanned photos of himself in uniform that I could post to do a Veteran’s Day blog entry. He thought a long time and said no. All his photos are hard copies only, nothing digital. I figured as much, it was a long time ago. When we had been at the Toyota dealership last month buying the new Prius V, I’d noted that the fleet saleswoman had a framed portrait on her desk of a young man in a Marine Corps uniform. I asked her about it, and she said it’s her 23-year-old son currently stationed in Afghanistan. That’s Mr. W’s son’s age. Later, we were sent to finalize documents with a finance person and I noticed a similar shot behind him. The finance guy said that’s his 21-year-old son, currently a Marine in Iraq. I told him I hoped his son would be home soon, and he said the military had said he’d be home on Thanksgiving. I brightened and said that’s great. The finance guy chortled and said, “Oh, you know our military. They SAY Thanksgiving, and then when that comes and goes, they say, ‘Oh, did we say Thanksgiving? We meant Christmas.’ And then, ‘We meant Christmas NEXT year.'” The finance guy came from a military family of Marines, altho he himself had been Army because he got almost lethally seasick. He was good-natured about his son, who is Mr. W’s daughter’s age, being away from home this long with an indefinite end in sight. It’s amazing the characters of our military, also amazing how life has to go on for their family members at home, even though I’m sure they don’t sleep easily at night.
“If the Marine motto is The few, the proud, how come it seems like almost every military or ex-military person we know of is a Marine?” I asked Mr. W, the former Marine, whose father was also a Marine.
He was too busy trying to figure out Windows8 to give me much of a response.

Win8. Yeah, still not loving it. It’s turned our PC much, much less user-friendly. Being on the PC now feels like I’m back in Italy in the rain and hostile environment without a guidebook or map or a translator. (Italy will forever now be the place I compare negativity to.)

Ugh. It makes me nervous when a bajillion prospective jurors are given access to the jury room to use the restrooms during jury selection, like now, cuz my pump parts are disassembled, washed and drying in there and I’d kill someone if I saw a curious juror handling them. Yay, a 2-week criminal trial for a doctor (ex-doctor, I should say) for filing false tax returns (2 counts) and for failing to file a tax return (1 count). Yes, people, they really do prosecute for that. This guy faces up to 4 years in state prison.

I hadn’t wanted to bother with Halloween this year because I figure Allie’s too young to understand the concept, too young to eat candy, too young to stay up after dark to go trick-or-treating, and spending money on a costume she’s only going to wear once for a few hours? No, thanks. The week of Halloween, however, I started seeing people’s adorable photos of their kids in a variety of costumes, and I thought, “She’s only going to be this size once. By this time next year, she’ll be a kid in a costume, not a toddler.” (She’s practically kid-sized already. BTW, did you know that girls reach half their adult height at approximately 20 months, and boys at 24 months? So however tall your toddler is at those respective ages, double it, and you’re looking at an approximate. Allie is probably already half my height at 11 months, so in another 9 months…she’ll probably already be taller than I am.) But I still didn’t want to go thru the trouble of costume shopping for a few hours’ worth of wear. And then it hit me.

Before Allie was born, my court reporter Louise’s daughter was working in Disney Tokyo and had bought a little outfit for Allie. It was for a toddler and not an infant, so I’d put it away for future wear. I dug it out, and it fits! So for Halloween this year, Allie was Japanese. 😀

She had no hair to put up, so Mr. W made do. (har.) We decided to take her to nearby Saddleback Church’s “Blocktober” family event after work, which is a fall-themed campus-wide shindig with toddler areas, kid areas, teen areas, food truck area, shows, trick-or-treating, photo ops, rock-climbing walls, rides, ziplines… but Allie’s favorite thing is something she spotted immediately and beelined for.

“Bbbloon, bbbloon, bbbbloon!” she said, rushing off, before I even saw the balloon arch myself.
There weren’t a lot of kiddie rides she could go on without slipping off (like the carousel horse or the suspended swing ride), so she only got to go on this one. At least it’s a character she’s familiar with, given the theme of her bedroom. She even imitated him!

There were a lot of photo ops for our little pumpkin.

Her big sister even joined in on one of them.

And you can’t be a good authentic Japanese maiden without a nice nature background with water and big rocks in your photo.

One of the children’s classrooms giving out toys to trick-or-treaters found an age-appropriate toy for Allie: a rubber ducky squirter in a tiara! Allie loved it and hung on to it the whole time without dropping it. She bathed with it the other night already.

Can you believe that dressed like that, someone STILL mistook her for a boy? “Whoa there, little guy!” as he patted her head.

We got her home in time for her normal bedtime, which we were pushing back a little each day anyway in preparation for the Daylight Savings “Fall Back” schedule. I considered taping a piece of paper over the doorbell so kids would knock instead of ring the bell while Allie’s sleeping, and college roommie Diana’s dad had a higher-tech solution along the same lines and he disconnected the wires to their doorbell so Alexis could sleep through Halloween, but Mr. W ended up doing the low-tech version: he sat outside the front door on the porch and played on his iPad and presumably ate candy from our giant punchbowl of chocolates while he waited for kids to walk up to our front door. We didn’t get a lot of trick-or-treaters this year at all, according to him. Maybe 10 kids. I tried to tell him not to buy candy from Costco. =P We probably have 8 pounds left over. Where was everyone this year?