Baby Girl

K loves having a little girl but like most dads with girls, he's anxious about all of the boys lurking around the corner. "I know what they all want, I was there myself," he'd lament. "Plus, I'm responsible for defining EB's relationship with men in general."

Indeed. And K, don't forget to take Chris Rock's words of wisdom: "Keep her off the pole."

P.S. -- in the typical Chris Rock fashion, there is some swearing in the video so play it when kids are not around.

Happy Autumn!

It was a beautiful, comfortable 75 degrees today--fall is finally here! This is my favorite season of the year, and here are the five top reasons.

• Lots of hiking. K and I love to hike, and we've been taking EB since she was 10 months old. She has long outgrown her carrier, but she's a little trooper and does great hiking on her own. Here are some pics from our past hiking trips:

EB 10 months; Arizona

EB 24 months; North Carolina

EB almost 3; Mt. Pinnacle

• Pumpkin breads. I bought a couple of pumpkins yesterday so that EB and I can bake some pumpkin bread together. Look at these beauties--only $2 each. Here's a great pumpkin bread recipe, courtesy of Alton Brown from the Food Network, in case you're interested.

Bake me!

• Chilly nights = bonfire + s'mores. K built this fire pit in our backyard a few months ago...just in time for a blistering, blazing summer. We can't wait to put it to use.

• Halloween! I have not cared for Halloween since my college days, when it was a great excuse for my college friends and I to dress up and get silly inebriated. But now that I have EB, I have a brand-new appreciation for this holiday. In fact, she's been talking about it nonstop for months now, and it's great fun seeing everything through her eyes. 

Buds from school

• And finally...no more flip-flops at work. I can not believe people actually think it's acceptable to wear flip-flops in the office, but that has been the sad reality. Don't get me wrong, I think some toe action is O.K. during the summer time, but showing off every unsightly square inch of your feet is just plain wrong. It creates a hostile work environment.

David and Me

EB, beaming about her new froggy lunch bag

To get EB excited about bringing her own lunch to school, we bought her a cute froggy lunch bag at the beginning of the school year. EB loves this bag because she got to pick it out herself -- just look at her beaming.

Which, sadly, reminds me of my own lunch box history. Remember when metal lunch boxes were all the rage in the ‘80s? When I was nine, I begged Mom to buy me a Cabbage Patch Kids lunch box. We had just immigrated to the U.S. a year earlier and my mother was bewildered. She had no idea why people would  waste money on something she deemed completely unnecessary: “Why spend money on a lunch box when it can be packed in a bag–completely free?”

After much incessant whining from me, she finally relented and agreed to buy a lunch box for me. So, Mom came home one day, very satisfied with her purchase. She did the big reveal, and THIS is what she bought me--I'm guessing from Clearance aisle at Kmart:

David Hasselhoff was my friend

“60% off!” Mom proudly proclaimed. While she was beaming, I was mortified. While I may have been new to American culture, no one needed to teach me that it was not cool for a girl to bring a Knight Rider lunch box. I spent a lot of alone time with David Hasselhoff in the school cafeteria that year. No one wanted to hang out with the strange Chinese girl who had an unhealthy obsession with The Hoff. It was David and me; me and David.

So EB, consider this my sob story to you about how I had to walk five miles to school everyday, in three feet of snow, barefoot. And I've got many more to tell.

Peer Pressure

You know the trite saying: “If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?” Well, K and I just jumped off the bridge.

So here is the situation. EB has attended seven different daycares, and they all serve the same crappy lunch. It matters not whether it’s a daycare that costs an arm and a leg or a cheaper place; the menu is always the same. Here is a sample:

• "Meat" (usually dried out chicken, beef tip that looks like the sole of an old boot, or nitrate-filled hot dog)
• "Fruit" (syrupy-sweet canned version)
• "Veggies" (probably have not seen the outside of their aluminum can for years)

Yuck and ugh.

That’s why I was so excited when I found that out that we get to pack EB’s lunch at her new pre-school. I’m not a health-food fanatic, nor do I pay attention to the organic fad. But I do like fresh, whole food: fresh fruit, green leafy salads (no iceberg lettuce), a good cut of meat.

So when the school informed us that we have the option of paying for Pizza Fridays, I said, emphatically, abso-positively not. What parent would pay for their child to participate in Pizza Fridays when their child can eat nutritiously and save money at the same time?

Turns out: Every. Single. Parent.

This is an excerpt from her teacher's note:  "I think EB would eat better on Fridays if you did the pizza. Everyone eats pizza but her."

How sad! I pictured poor EB sitting at the lunch table, picking at her left-over teriyaki salmon (yes, I actually made her bring that to school) while the other kids danced around her with great slabs of pizza, strung with pepperoni and dripping with all of the greasy goodness.

Hmm. What to do; what to do. K and I weighed the pros and cons. On one hand, we don’t want to be one of those parents that give in just because “everyone is doing it” or “all of the other kids have it.” On the other hand, we don’t want EB to become an outcast at a tender age of three. And as far as peer pressures go, this one is pretty darned harmless.

Pizza Fridays, it is.

Memory

For the most part, I have a pretty good memory. Tell me about an event and I'll remember the date and time without having to write it down. I think of everything in terms of timeline and milestones. This ability has been a real advantage for me. That is, until I remember things that I don’t necessarily want to recall. Like how this week would’ve been when we found out the sex of the baby.

It’s been almost four months since the miscarriage and for the most part, I’ve moved on. I’ve been working out and learning the guitar. I’ve been immensely enjoying family time with EB and K. I’ve been happy. But then I remembered this milestone date and all over again, I felt slammed by grief and disappointment. Except the feeling was duller, more fleeting. In fact, it came and went; I was able to flick it out of the way.

But it still sucked. I’d been told that in the grieving process, it’s helpful to give the unborn child a name and even “talk” to her. I refer to the baby as a “she,” because although I will never know if the baby would’ve been a girl or a boy, “Julia” was the first name that came to my mind.

I wish you were O.K., Julia. I wish I could have met you, been able to hold you and watch you grow.

Loving Parenthood

I recently stumbled upon this commercial for the 2011 Toyota Sienna. While I'm not about to buy a minivan soon, it made me laugh out loud. 





It definitely reminds me of how my life has evolved over the past few years. I was never a partier, but I did do my fair share of bar-hopping and clubbing when I lived in NYC. I dined out often, favoring quiet, cozy restaurants. I enjoyed traveling overseas and vowed to travel internationally at least once a year.

And then EB came into our lives. Instead of going to wine bars and dance clubs, we go to playgrounds and play dates. We are now regulars of Chic-fil-A. Our international travels have been replaced by visits to Branson, MO and other local, kid-friendly attractions.

And you know what? I’ve loved every minute. Would not trade this in for anything else.

Labor Day Weekend

What a beautiful Labor Day Weekend it was! K, EB and I drove out to Eureka Springs on Saturday for a little last-minute getaway. We got there on Saturday night and headed over to historic downtown, a quaint area with lots of narrow, winding streets, art galleries and local restaurants. We had dinner at Local Flavor, which I highly recommend. The food was great, if a little slow, but we had a nice patio seat and had fun people watching.

The next day we headed out to Lake Leatherwood to do a bit of paddle boating, exploring and lake wading. K was extremely brave, jumping off of a natural high point (about 15+ feet up) with kids that were about 25 years his junior. I took a video of him and threatened to post it on this blog, but I've decided to be kind and will only pull it out for blackmail.

Amused by our tour guide

 
We capped off our trip with a visit to the Cosmic Cavern, with the usual stalactite and stalagmite (yes, I had to look up the spelling) formations. What was unusual about the tour was the tour guide--the poor devil was such a terrible story/joke teller that he himself became a source of our entertainment. Our entire tour went something like this:

Tour guide: “So, you know the difference between a cavern and a cave?”
K: “Um… two letters?”
Tour guide (with genuine amazement): “Damn, how did you know that?”



Overall, it was a great trip: beautiful clear-blue skies, lots of outdoor stuff, good food, and most of all, an opportunity to spend lots of time with my two favorite people in the whole world.

Beer & Pharmacy

Is it wrong to buy beer at a pharmacy?

I stopped in at Walgreens after work to pick up some prescription. It had been a stressful day dealing with EB’s school (to be blogged about at a future date) and some stuff at work. We were planning on having some grilled chicken for dinner and the six pack in the beverage aisle beckoned me like the Siren's call. I quickly realized that I really needed wanted some beer.

But I felt strange, even a bit trashy about buying beer at a pharmacy. I suppose visually, there’s just something not right about seeing a a six pack placed on Walgreens' antiseptic-white checkout counter. Or maybe it’s because it would give the pharmacist the impression that I’m the type that likes to wash down my meds with alcohol, not a premium brand at that.

I toyed with the idea of going to Kroger to pick up the beer, but my laziness won me over. I sighed, picked out the six pack and did my walk of shame to the checkout line. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw a few teenage boys eyeing me with a small sneer. They were probably imagining me as a washed out middle-age lady that regularly mixes cheap beer with prescription med. Whatever, boys. At least I can enjoy a nice cold beer with my grilled chicken. You can just go home and drink your Kool-Aid. So in your face, little bastards. Look who’s sneering now?