Monthly Archives: June 2011

27

Uncategorized

Today is the 27th anniversary of the day my parents got married. I would like to say a big shout out to my Mom and the man I have come to think of more as a father than my father ever will be.

I can’t say that I always agreed with them or fully appreciated them growing up, but now that I am a parent I realize more than ever the challenge that I faced them with. The fact that I am not only alive but a productive member of society is all thanks to them and their unwavering refusal to simply never give up on me.

Thank you for all you have done and for all you continue to do – to celebrate your anniversary Lucy would like me to post some gratuitously cute pictures of her:

Flower Child
Pirate baby
In Rittenhouse Square

 

At LOVE park
On the porch

 

Happy Anniversary!

The Amish don’t have internet access right?

good intentions, Life Lessons

my sister and I are always looking for a way to escape the corporate grind… so to speak. We would love nothing more than creating a cash cow and being able to sit back and take a break from the M-F 9-5 world.

At some point last year she emailed me this article about how Amish businesses don’t fail, it sparked this email trail:

her: “Business idea — be Amish.”

Me: “Being Amish makes me beileve my hair will alwayd be dirty and I’ll be itchy all the time…”

her: “They’re not hippies — they do bathe.  But maybe a line of natural Amish soaps?  BTW — my new neighbor owns a cheese-making business.”

Me: “I know they bathe but how good is homemade soap for your hair? These are things I worry about…
Maybe we could make a good natural soap for your hair – with a beer base (beer is really good for your hair) people are into natual/organic beauty products…”

her: “Maybe a whole line of natural beer products — beer to drink, beer for bathing, etc.  We can even start growing our own organic hops.”

Me: “This seems like a lot of work, lets just go drink some beer…”

I guess this also serves as a great example of why we have never been successful at starting our own business.

Selfless promotion

Random stuff

I have two really good friends, and when I say “really good friends” I mean I work with a very cool guy who I occasionally find myself drinking too much with at the bars near our office. My other really good friend I have never met but I have been reading his blog everyday for at least seven years, I feel like I know him better than I know most people I interact with on a regular basis (also I’m a giant nerd).

Both of these very dear friends of mine have just recently self published their first novels, I would like to take the opportunity to urge all of you to help support artistic talent – because why else would you be reading this if not to bask in all the glory of my abundant artistic talent?  I mean besides just stopping by to see if I’ve posted any new pictures of the worlds cutest kid.

Someday I will find the time and wherewithal to sit down and put to print the novel that is inside me… and supporting my friends will give you all good practice for when I urge you to buy my book.

Here they are, they are awesome and totally worth your time*


  Read me    
Cover Image
 
 
 
*it should be noted here that I have not actually had the chance to read either of these books yet – I am, however,  confident in my awesomeness statement nonetheless.

Because they probably think I’m making this all up…

good intentions, Random stuff, Vacations

Pretty soon after I got bitten  by that monkey in Spain the Red Cross stopped asking for my blood. They left me alone for over a year – presumably with a giant red circle with a cross through it on my chart. About the time they started calling again I had recently returned from a malaria hot spot on the coast of Mexico – and I was once again put on their bad list and then just about a year later I had the nerve to get pregnant (I’m such a jerk).

Yesterday they called me for the first time in about six months, and we had this lovely conversation:
“I’m calling to tell you that the need for blood is particularly bad right now – we were hoping you could give…”
Long pause… “Well…”
 “I suppose you’re going to tell me you are still breastfeeding?” *exasperation*
“Well, actually…yes. Why don’t you call back in 3 months?”
“Are you planning on getting any new tattoos” * sarcasm*
“Hm, that’s not a bad idea… why don’t you make it 9 months…”
It’s not that I mind giving – its just all these rules they have – and it has been a long time since my last tattoo.

Newsletter: Month 10

Newsletter

Dear Lucy,

I cannot believe it you have been in my life only 10 months, I can barely remember life without you, or why I ever thought it was really important. This month you have really grown not just physically but also cognitively. Your agility and fine motor coordination have really developed – you can grab a single cheerio with one hand and bite it right in half with your front teeth. You have learned to climb stairs, albeit not very well, you like to climb up a stair and sit back and rest – fortunately we have good gates.

yummy sand!

You have also learned how to play hide and seek – you hide behind your toy chest and come crawling when I call for you – big smile on your face like you have fooled us all. You have discovered that there is water in the most unexpected of places – like the toilet and now you can’t wait until I flush it. You have discovered that your Dad and I will yell “Goal!” every time you raise you hands, and sometimes you will spend an entire evening raising your arms up and down.

We have had some good adventures this month, we spent a day at Longwood gardens looking at flowers, but mostly we spent our day looking at the various fountains around the property… We spent a day at the Emlwood park zoo and your favorite thing, by far, was the infant swing in the playground – we rode that many times, before we had to go. We spent a day at your Aunt Briggy’s pool which was also right next to a playground with an infant swing- it was a great day for you… We went to a BBQ at your 3rd cousins (1st cousin 3 times removed?). We have had lots of adventures together and I am always relieved and proud that you are such an easy going baby – loud noises, chaos, sharp pointy grass nothing really upsets you – you take it all in stride and seem to soak up these experiences like you are tucking them away for review later.

water!

People are always stopping us when we are out to say how beautiful you are and you are such a ham when that happens. And when it doesn’t, when we are standing in line and the woman next to us doesn’t smile at you and tell you you are pretty you get awfully disappointed and try and work it until she notices you.

Ham

Within the last couple of weeks  you have made great strides in your endeavor to learn how to walk – you can get all the way around the kitchen just by touching the cabinets as you go. You have started trying to stand in the middle of the room – you are strong enough to pull yourself  up without holding on to anything you only lack the balance to be successful – if I support you just slightly you can stand on your own without a problem.

Standing is easy...

Last night you discovered that if you pull the cord out of the baby monitor in your room that either your Dad or I will be there within minutes – you did this twice yesterday, I think (hopefully) you also learned that just because we come to fix the monitor doesn’t mean you don’t have to go to sleep anyway.

 

When you are sleeping is when I know for sure that you are definitely my child – you sleep just like I do in contorted positions always with your hands over your head – I wish I could get more pictures of you in your crib. Once I found you with both your feet up in the air stuck between the slats of your crib and your arms both straight up over your head, you barely stirred when I freed your feet so you wouldn’t hurt yourself.

It’s not going to be long before you start to talk – you are already babbling a mile a minute and – you continue to say “Mama mama mama” and “Dada dada dada” over and over and over when you need attention – but you use them interchangeably and it’s not all you say… You like to screech and not because you are upset but just because I think it sounds fun to you when it comes out of your mouth – I don’t think this bodes well for the future.

blah blah blah blahhhh

You love books, especially books that allow you to touch and feel, or anything that pops up – we have to be careful that you don’t destroy them all but when left alone you will flip through them many times before moving on to something else.

A little Mozart perhaps?

Your favorite things right now are your ‘piano’, taking all the magnets off of the refrigerator, watching the toilet flush and being swung upside down by your Dad.

Yay! Upside down!
Another way you take after your Dad
Yay for Dad!

Clearly we need more pictures of the two of us.

I Love you so much.

Mama

Upgraded

Pictures, Random stuff

We finally had to throw out the vacuum cleaner box, but we got this to replace it:

collapsible tube from Ikea

We got it for her:

Yay for tubes!

But I think we mostly got it for him:

Here's Daddy!
Yay for tubes!
Tube Daddy
Sucked up any babies lately?

Yup, this is what I deal with everyday…

What’s in a name

good intentions, Random stuff

I used to work with a man named Harry, he was a decidedly ‘interesting’ character, spent most of his lunch hours at the bar across the street drinking multiple scotch and waters – this made him very chatty and I’ve lost track of the countless afternoons he spent leaning over my desk sharing information I probably didn’t need to know.

My favorite Harry story goes a little something like this:

Harry’s mother in law died and his wife being just an ‘interesting’ as Harry was trying to make decisions and sense of what was left of her life now that she was gone. Her Mother had lived in a little house in Germantown, a town a good 30 minutes away from where Harry lived. Her Mother had a cat, a very old, crotchety cat.

Instead of bringing the cat to live out the rest of it’s life at their house, they were afraid that it wouldn’t get along with their cat – cats? (I cant really remember but they remind me of the type of people that would have a small hoard) so they decided to let it stay in it’s familiar territory. They never tested this theory , they just assumed it would be all chaos and mayhem.

In order to make this work Harry left the office everyday and drove from center city out to Germantown (30 minutes) to feed and hang out with his dead Mother-in-laws cat. He would  give it dinner, play with it – turn on the evening news  and then leave and drive home to (presumably) do the same with his wife.

I remember Harry and I having conversations a lot like this:
“Wouldn’t it just be easier to have one of your Mother in Law’s neighbor’s just pop over to do this for you?”
“Don’t you think that would upset it – To have strangers over there everyday?”
                                                ________
“Why don’t you make your wife go over during the day to feed it while you are at work?” (she didn’t work)
“That would never work she gets upset going over there and I think she’s decided she doesn’t want to drive anymore…”
                                                ________
“Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to sell your mother in laws house so that you dont have to keep up with it and pay the taxes?”
“Oh yeah”
                                                 ________
“How long do you think you are going to do this?”
“I don’t know, how long to cats live?”
I bring this up because Harry’s wife’s name is Lucy and when we were picking baby names I thought ‘Lucy, I don’t know… someday she might make her husband spend over an hour of his day hanging with my crotchety old cat in the house they have essentially given it so it wouldn’t get lonely.’ And then I thought – awww, my cat would probably really appreciate that.