Archive for August, 2008

Inferior wrapper technology

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

One of Ronin’s favorite things is an unopened granola bar. She can kill an hour happily worrying the thing, chewing on the wrapper, turning it over in her hand, rustling the crinkly plastic, mushing around the contents, etc. Generally we give her the Trader Joes bars and I never worried about her getting the wrapper open because I can hardly open them myself. The other day we got a bunch of samples of Kasha Golean stuff, one of which was a breakfast bar I turned up my nose at because of questionable ingredients, and so I gave her the bar to Ronin to destroy.

Next thing we know, she had extracted the contents and was smearing the chocolate-covered bar all over her face. Pretty much every single allergy-risk ingredient was present and accounted for: wheat, soy, corn, dairy, peanuts and other tree nuts, and chocolate. Go us.


Ay-dah

Monday, August 11th, 2008

It would seem that six months marks a trying time for helpless babies and their bleary-eyed counterparts. I’m talking about everyone’s favorite topic: sleep. Sleep and Ronin are at odds lately. Sleep and Ronin have a on-again, off-again relationship and this relationship is on the rocks. Sleep and Ronin = LAME for EVERYONE.

(Me = cranky.)

There is a lot of advice out there regarding how to get your baby to sleep. Everyone is a baby-whisperer. I think the sleep advisers are more prolific than the how-to-be-pregnant people. At any rate, one bit of advice was to introduce a “lovey,” or some sort of item to be loved up/devoured by mucous alone (stuffed critter, blanket, paper bag, wire whisk, etc.). I decided a stuffed critter was the element missing from my child’s sleep psyche.

NO MORE! BEHOLD: “Ay-dah!” (Ronin named her.)

God isn’t that the cutest thing? I totally stole the idea from some crafty type and made my own version out of some of some of those fabric scraps I’ve got on hand, one of my pregnant sweaters that is now too wanged out to wear, and an old Irish flannel shirt I’ve been carrying around since high school.

Warning: video somewhat grandparenty.

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Longboard

Saturday, August 9th, 2008

Mt. Tabor, Portland, Oregon


Ronin and the Yam

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

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An all new video wherein Ronin has a second encounter with a yam. As you can see she still hasn’t quite figured out how to deal with “solids.”


Dumpster-Diving Yuppies

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

Ronin had her six-month checkup and shots the other day. She was really good and showed off all her milestones for the doctor. The shots were horrible as usual and Dora the nurse again traumatized the three of us with her breezy sense of incompetence. Ronin crashed out the moment we got home, slept for an amazing hour and a half, and woke up crying. She didn’t stop until we put her to bed early. She hasn’t stopped yet. Oh, I’m kidding, sort of. She has been seriously cranky the past four days and yesterday evening/last night/this morning was horrible. I can’t figure out if it has to do with the shots still or something else. Everyone says (everyone = strangers off the street), “OH, she’s teething! Aren’t you? Yes you ARE!” because she likes to chew and slobber on stuff. Of course, I’m all, “She didn’t just agree with you, she doesn’t even speak English.” But I do check on a near-hourly basis to see if emerging dental action is the cause of her beastly temper, but no, nothing there but a bunch of squishy gums. And slobber.

(Stats: 17 pounds, 26.25 inches long, 17-inch head circ. Big girl! All around 60th-ish percentile.)

Three days ago we were thinking we maybe should get a stroller and now we have two of them. Stroller number one is a BOB we got used off Craigslist (we are officially yuppies starting NOW) and the other we found in the trash (dumpster-diving yuppies!). I like to think the free dumpster stroller sort of takes the edge off the super-fancy BOB but unless I put a bumper sticker on the BOB that says “My other stroller I got out of the trash,” I don’t suppose anyone will actually realize that I’m not just another suburban mom walking around with her bright red $300* jogging stroller but in fact, like some kind of dangerously hip crime-fighting super-anime ninja** in disguise.

Of course we didn’t set out to get the BOB stroller, not that I didn’t know they existed, but I considered them to be the ultimate in dorky jock extravagance. I mean, you can get a NEW jogging stroller for less than $100 and why buy new when you can get one even cheaper from Craigslist. Here’s where we went astray. 1) Accidentally touched a BOB stroller in a bike shop we were browsing while waiting for our Lebanese takeout. 2) Put Ronin in it and pushed her around in circles, “DANG this is nice.” 3) Started searching Craigslist for a used stroller; boggled minds at the confounding range in prices and the god-awful photos people take of the zillions of brands and models. 4) Went to Babies R Us to actually look at all the brands in person. Except Babies R Us is a horrid store so evil that despite 13 square acres of baby merchandise, you still can’t find anything you actually want. Also, can I just say now that if you EVER hear me suggesting, “Why don’t we just go to Babies R Us to look at all the models so we have something to compare when we’re browsing Craigslist,” smack me a good one. 5) We hated every single stroller in Babies R Us. 6) We started browsing BOBs used on Craigslist (it’s all downhill from here). 7) Justified ourselves thinking that if we could just get a really great deal on a used (but in essentially brand-new condition and not last-year’s model either) BOB, we could sell it again when we’re through for what we paid for it. 8) It’s red.

* That’s what they cost NEW. Not used off Craigslist haha, whew! But ours looks brand new so everyone must think I bought it new and spent $300 on a stroller for god’s sake. Can you tell I am nursing something of a complex about this? Give me a couple of weeks for my eyes to adjust to the red and my sensitive nerves to settle.

** Oh I’m kidding! I’m not really very hip.

ps – Stroller number two is a lightweight umbrella stroller which folds up into a tidy, um, umbrella-like shape.

pps – We don’t have a photo of the Contraption yet.. I’ll try to get one today.


Cheyenne Weil, Joshua Coxwell