A Way With Words Year 3 + Season Premiere

This is my third annual installment of capturing funny little EB-isms. She's growing up so fast, I'm hoping that I have another few years before these funny little EB-isms become full-on bratty, ungrateful EB-isms (did I tell you that I'm a bit fearful of the tween/teenage years?)

While I'm at it, I thought I'd start throwing in some B-Boy-isms for a good measure.

The Latest EB-isms

"Jesus of God"
EB is in awe of the mightiness of God and the all-loving figure, Jesus. So much so that she goes around calling Jesus: "Jesus of God." Technically speaking, his name is Jesus. And he is the son of God. So by deductive reasoning, it probably is not inaccurate to refer to him as "Jesus of God."

"Georgia Washington"
If EB were a historian, we would all think that one of our Founding Fathers was actually a Founding Mother.


"I will wear it when we go to church"
Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It's been...uh, never since I've had my last confession. And it's been over a year since I last went to church. My little tomboy knows this all too well, so whenever I try to buy her a twirly, girly skirt, she looks up at me, smiles and says: "Looks great, Mom! I'll wear it when we go to church." Translation: at the rate we are going, it'll be another year or so.

"Cheese grill sandwich"
Like the French, EB sometimes puts her adjectives behind the described noun. For example, instead of saying: "blue sky," the French refers to it as "le ciel bleu" (direct translation: sky blue). So instead of "grilled cheese sandwich," the girl is going all Francophone on me by calling it "cheese grill sandwich."




Season Premier of B-Boy-isms

"Go!" (pronounced "Gah!")
He likes to repeat this over and over as he climbs up our stairs, as if he were a Little Engine that could.

"Uh-oh!"
Uttered when he purposely throws his sippy cup, bottle and food onto the floor.

"Na-na" (banana)
Self-explanatory

"Geh?"
When uttered while pointing to grapes, it means: can I have some grapes? Otherwise I will scream my head off. When uttered while pointing to my iPhone, it means: can I hold it? Otherwise I will scream my head off. And when you give it to me, I will test gravity and drop it on the floor.

"Ma-ma!"
Uttered when he is in a cuddly mood. This one always melts my heart:

Six-Years Old!

My baby girl turns six today. Six! At six years old, am I still allowed to call her my baby??

Happy birthday to a little girl...

...Whose imagination and ingenuity always brings a smile to my face. Here is her solution to battling the wind on a particularly blustery day: a mask fashioned out of an old colander and a pair of work goggles. A bit Friday the 13th-ish, but my little Jason is adorable all the same.
 

  
...Who has a strong (read: stubborn) sense of style. Did you notice that in the above two photos she is wearing the same sort of outfit? I assure you that we buy her plenty of clothes, most of which she will have none of. Here's a rundown of her daily "uniform":

• T-shirt. It's always a t-shirt. If it's cold, she will wear a long sleeve shirt with a t-shirt on top. If she wants to shake things up a bit, she will wear a zip up fleece over her t-shirt. But, it's always a t-shirt.
• Jeans. This girl is forever in blue jeans. ("Because they look cool")
• No buttons, ever. Unless it's on a pair of jeans. She has a serious fear of buttons. Kinda odd.

   ....Who is turning out to be quite the little artist.

  

...Who doesn't quite get the art of a good punchline yet.

Her most recent joke went something like this:
 EB: "What did the cat say to the mouse?"
 Me: "Not sure. What?"
 EB: "I'm going to chase you!  And then, the mouse says, 'No, please don't chase me!' And he runs away from him, across the street!" Uproarious laughter ensues.


 Happy Birthday, EB! I love you!

Beans, beans, the magical fruit...

...the more you eat, the more you toot. Tooting aside, they say black beans provide a wealth of health benefits, including cancer prevention and cardiovascular health. So you'll be happy to know that now, you can enjoy them not only in savory dishes, but in your cake, too! Say what? Yes, you heard me right. And not just in any old cake, but chocolate cake.

I got this black bean chocolate cake recipe from a book club acquaintance. Those of you who know me well can attest to the fact that I'm not much of a cake fan, but the idea of chocolate cake made out of black beans was so intriguing that I just had to give this recipe a whirl. That's what happens when you grow up in an Asian family--your taste buds are conditioned to accept red bean cake and sesame paste as delectable treats. Picture me as a five year old, running around and beaming that I get to have a red bean pastry for dessert. So, given a choice between chocolate cake and red bean cake, for me the red bean cake wins hands down. But with this recipe, I don't need to choose; I get two yummy flavors into one. And, did I mention that this is far healthier than the flour version?

I was a bit nervous about how it would taste. But after just one bite, I knew that this one was a winner. It was moist, slightly sweet, and most of all, I did not have to feel guilty about eating it, because beans are good for you, y'all! This picture doesn't do the recipe much justice since the beautiful sprinkling of confectioner's sugar kind of melted away, but it was especially good with a dollop of home-made whipped cream. Even K, who is more of a traditionalist when it comes to desserts, asked for seconds and thirds. EB gobbled it up as well.

Here is the recipe, in case you are interested. For all of you calorie counters, I also put together nutritional content as well.

I will most likely try a version sweetened with stevia or Splenda. Let me know if you end up trying the recipe, and how you like it!

*****
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
5 large eggs
1 tbs vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbs butter
3/4 cup demerera sugar
6 tbs cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbs water

Preheat the oven to 350º and grease a 9″ cake pan.
Mix together the cocoa, baking powder and baking soda in a small bowl.
In a larger bowl, beat the butter until it’s soft and fluffy. Add 2 of the eggs and beat well after each one. Put the beans, 3 of the eggs, vanilla, sugar and salt into a blender or food processor and blend/process until the mixture is smooth. Add this mixture to the butter/egg mixture, further mix to combine. Stir in the remaining dry ingredients and the water and beat on high for 1 minute until smooth. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for 30-35 mins. The top of the cake should be rounded and firm to the touch, and the cake should be pulling away from the sides of the pan.

Total number of calories per serving (assuming you feed 8 people): 232 calories

Foot Fetish

Warning: this posting may be a bit TMI about my feet. Feel free to read or not read. But if you do, be prepared. Nighmares may ensue.

..................

I have decided to train for the Little Rock half-marathon. But before I subject my feet to another round of pavement-pounding punishment, I decided to go see a podiatrist to help mitigate my foot problems. And a whole lot of problems there are--my feet are flat as pancakes and wide as a Winnebago. Worst of all, I've got bunions so large that K is convinced that they've got heartbeats of their own.

So, there I was at the podiatrist's office, sitting with my shoes and socks off when the doctor walked in. After he shook my hand and introduced himself, he looked over my feet and promptly exclaimed, "WOW! Look at these bunions! Goodness, they're huge! Do they hurt?"

Me: "Umm...not really."
Doc: "Well those are really something else. They look like they should hurt."

Jeeze, thanks, Doc. Without bunions, you wouldn't be in business, buddy.

As the doctor started pulling my feet this way and that,  I noticed that he was not wearing any gloves. How gross. I can't imagine having to touch other people's sweaty, stinky feet all day long. And that's when I remembered that I had just shaken his hand, which meant that unless he had washed his hands before seeing me, I probably now had a half-a-dozen sets of foot funk doing the happy dance on my right palm.

And then the good doctor does something unimaginable. He gets an itch, and the fingers that had moments before kneaded my feet started inching towards his left eye.

Holy crap. Don't do it, man.

Yet his hand continued to move up, until it reached under his glasses and there he was, scratching and rubbing his foot-funked fingers across his eyelids.

Sweet Baby Jesus. I am simultaneously fascinated and skeeved out.

The rest of the visit was uneventful. After I was measured for my orthotics, I went off on my merry little way to the nearby bathroom, where I fervently scrubbed the funk off of my hands.

Happy Birthday to My Little Man!

My little guy celebrated his one year birthday yesterday. Since we are still up to our elbows with moving boxes, we kept it very low key--a couple of hats, balloons, and a nice ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery (P.S. -- no hat in this picture, because as it turns out, he hates hats).

Happy Birthday, Little Man!

We've learned so much about you since when you came out kicking and screaming a year ago.

Like how you absolutely adore and idolize you sister, even when she is tormenting you or when she does the silliest things...

...or how you will put just about anything and everything in your mouth...

...or what a happy little guy you would become and how much you love to giggle and laugh!

We love you, B! We are so very grateful that you came into our lives a year ago, and look forward to watching your personality develop!

Desperately seeking normal

I traveled back to Little Rock this week to transition my old job to the new guy that they just hired to replace me. Despite the fact that I have not been in the Little Rock office for almost three months, I slipped right back into the environment, joking around with my old colleagues and clients. I walked to the same old bathroom that I had been walking to for years, got my lunch at the same old cafeteria. It was as if I had never left. The only difference, though, is that instead of driving back to Maumelle at the end of the day, I kept going north towards Bentonville back to my new "home." I put this in quotes because this is a place where everything still feels utterly unfamiliar, where we are living in a temporary apartment, literally out of our suitcases and paper boxes.

In the past few months, I've felt like I've been straddling a familiar world and an unfamiliar world. Like, despite the fact that I'm still with my company and understand how to navigate it (familiar world), I'm serving a new client and still trying to understand their MO (unfamiliar world). Or, when I met up with a bunch of girlfriends that I knew from Little Rock (the familiar world), for a girl's weekend in California (the unfamiliar world).

Plus, I've been traveling a lot these past few months, for both work and personal reasons. There have been times, while in midst of my morning grog, I've wondered where the heck I was--is this Atlanta? Michigan? Am I back in Little Rock or Bentonville? It has been very disorienting. There has been no pattern, no routine, no predictability in my life. I've felt off. Like when, in a dream, you find yourself in a big fancy ball and you are wearing nothing but a pair of old underwear. You feel out of sorts and out of place, but  for some reason, no one notices it. You feel off, yet everything is normal.

Which is why I am looking so forward to closing on our home tomorrow, for the movers to come on Friday, and for us to finally move out of our ghetto temporary apartment and settle down. I used to believe that I would have no problem living out of apartments and hotels, but now I'm desperately seeking a bit of normalcy in my life.

My Catch-Up Blog

I'm back! Hope you didn't miss me too much. The last three months have passed by in a frenzy of activities--relocating from Little Rock to Bentonville, a week trip to the Dominican Republic to celebrate our ten-year anniversary (I know, rough life...some pictures to come), and a trip to Michigan to see Grandma K. I have quickly acclimated to my new role at work and even was able to slip away for a girl's weekend in California in July. On top of that, we have managed to sell a house, buy a house and survive an apartment flood in the temporary ghetto-style living space that we've fashioned for ourselves. There have been some tears and tantrums in-between, but mostly, we've had lots of the fun and craziness that's typically central to our somewhat disorganized life.

For the most part, the kids have been a couple of troopers, rolling with the punches. They have been going through lots of changes as well.

EB . . .

...has been a bit moody and whiney lately. I can blame it on the TV show "Caillou"--I can't stand that little brat; that kid whines more than anyone I know. But mostly, we think it may be her way of acting out her insecurities with the move, entering Kindergarten and her jealousy at the amount of attention BBoy gets from strangers and family.

...is starting to take after Mommy with her love of making lists. Here is the list that she made prior to her road trip to Michigan:

...is, despite her whininess, an all-around good egg. Nothing makes her beam more than when she makes Mommy and Daddy happy.

BBoy . . .

...uttered his first words--"Mama!"

...has an adorably mischievous smile, crawls around everywhere, gets into everything and won't take no for an answer

...has already learned to use his little instrument. The other day I had him pinned down to change his diaper. He knew he was no match for my She-Ra strengths, so what did the little bugger do? He made like an Old Geyser and peed on my face. Guess it's a good thing that urine is antiseptic.

School Program and the Renegade Country

Another school year has flown by! EB’s school holds an annual year-end program, and this year’s theme was “countries of the world.” It was quite cute, if a bit corny in a “let’s-all-hold-hands-because-we-are-unique-but-all-the-same” sort of way. Each student whose parent(s) were born in a foreign country dressed up in the country’s traditional garb and counted to ten in their respective languages. Here’s a picture of EB, dressed up in her Chinese chipao. She looks like she's about to go crouching tiger/hidden dragon on you, no? Next to her is her classmate, looking absolutely adorable in her kimono.


To add to the international flair, EB’s teacher wanted each student to hold the flag of the country that they were representing. Little did she know that this would invite a lesson in Chinese history from K. A few weeks back, she sent us a note letting us know that she was going to order a Chinese flag for EB. This prompted K to tell her that he would really rather not have her daughter wave around a flag that symbolized the Communist Party. When he saw a blank look on her face, he proceeded to explain to her how the flag came to be—the history of Communist vs the Nationalist Party, the fact that it was adopted in 1949 when the Communist Party took over, so on and so forth.

In the end, she ordered EB a Taiwanese flag, which was probably fitting anyway since that’s where I was born. We wondered if it would raise ruckus from other Chinese parents who may be "One China" proponents, what with all of the ongoing political storm going on. But thankfully all was calm, and we were able to avert an ugly international incident right here in Little Rock.

In other news: we are moving to Bentonville! I got a promotion at work and will be working on a large retail account whose icon used to be very smiley and whose name rhymes with “Bart.” It’s bittersweet for me-- Little Rock has been great to us, but work-wise it’s a great opportunity. Since I anticipate lots of craziness in preparation for the move, this will probably be my last blog entry for the next couple of months. I know that there will be many disappointed readers out there (*snort*) but fret not. I will be back after all the dust settles. Ta-ta for now.

What's the best thing about running 10 miles?

Eating.

I am proud to announce that I completed the Austin 10-mile run. And I'm equally proud that I got to eat, drink and celebrate with guilt-free abandonment afterwards.

Here is a pic from the race site. I'm not sure why a part of my head is cut-off, but since I sort of lifted the picture from the site, I guess I can't complain.



I looked energetic, no? Well don't let the picture fool you. I was exhausted. My running pace, at 12.5 minute mile, is nothing to boast about. Especially since in my younger days, I had managed to complete the New York City Marathon at a sub-11 minute mile and the half-marathon at a 10 minute mile. In contrast, this time around, I found myself walking for stretches at a time. Not to mention the fact that my hips and lower back were shot for days after the race. What can I say, this gal is getting old. Years of prancing around in heels, schlepping around lap top bags and two child-births have wreaked havoc on my body.

Anyhow, enough about the running, and onto the part about eating and drinking. According to my trusty calorie counter, I burned a little over 3,000 calories during the race. But amongst the 3 margaritas, the two glasses of beer, the burger, fries, other fried munchies and ice cream from Amy's, I probably ended up in a calorie-surplus situation. But who cares. Just LOOK at this delectable goodie I got to enjoy! It made the pain and agony of the race all worth it.

Wordless Wednesday

Juicing

While I was at a work conference recently, a group of us gathered around during one of the breaks making small talk. As with all small talk, it was bland – the obligatory weather-talk, a bit of griping and a few rounds of polite laughter every now and then. In a word: yawn. To my surprise, however, the energy level skyrocketed the moment that I casually mentioned that I had recently bought a juicer. One of the guys—generally quiet and not excitable—leaned forward and with a glean in his eyes, said: “You. Are. Juicing?” His voice was low, but had a passionate tone. It was almost as if he had found the only other Christian at a Satan-worshiping convention: “You. Are. Saved?”

And with that, a few other folks excitedly proclaimed that they, too, were juicing. Some of them quite seriously, in fact. More than one of them said that they to do periodic detox regimens, where they ingest nothing but juice for a week at a time. Some juiced once a day to get antioxidants into their system. Very quickly, the conversation became animated, passionate and nearly fanatical.

Yes, juicing has really struck a chord with many people. I am one of those folks who have become obsessed about its benefits. My new nightly ritual includes pulling an assortment of fresh vegetables and fruits from the fridge, firing up my Omega J8004 Nutrition Center Commercial Masticating Juicer and liquidizing it all into a finely-pulped brew.

My juicing obsession began after I watched "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" on Netflix. This documentary followed an over-weight and sickly Aussie as he drove across the U.S., ingesting nothing but raw veggie juice along the way. The plot was contrived, but I couldn't help but be inspired by the incredible transformation that the guy went through: he dropped more than a few waist sizes, his skin cleared up and his steps became more energetic.
 
While I generally don't prescribe to extreme forms of diet, I very much believe in the benefits of supplementing your diet with fresh juice. Although K is not as enthusiastic as I am, he plays along on a nightly basis, drinking the sometimes green, sometimes puce colored concoction.

K about to enjoy a midnight snack of apple, pear, collard green and pineapple juice



Looks like Guinness but has the goodness of kale, beet, cucumber and apple

I have only been juicing for a few weeks, but already have some "Do's & Don'ts" that I’d like to share.

(1) Don’t juice the peels of an orange. Orange rind essence is so strong that it makes your juice sharply bitter and taste exactly like what you would imagine that liquid from a potpourri warmer tastes like.

(2) Do not drink too much raw beet juice. You can get very sick. A coworker got sick within minutes of drinking the juice of an entire beet—nausea, chills and other unpleasant side effects that I don’t care to write about here. Apparently, beets are such a powerful diuretic that a very little goes a long way. If you want to juice beets, juice only a quarter of a beet and mix it up with other veggies and fruits.

(3) Do continue to eat whole veggies even if you are juicing. Juicing is great, but you will miss out on the roughage that intact veggies provide. Here is a picture of all the pulpy goodness that gets spun out of the juicing machine. If you know of a good use for this stuff, please let me know!

Cocktail Party

The other day, I went shopping with a work acquaintance, whom I will call Laura in this post. Laura, a fashion-aficionado and childless, convinced me to buy a pair of sleek, rather shimmery black shorts--"perfect for summer cocktail parties!" she gushed. This made me laugh out loud, because I can't remember the last time I attended a fabulous cocktail party, or any party for that matter.

As a case in point, here is a video clip of how my Saturday night went. After a fun-filled day of frolicking in the park, the kids decided to take a train down to meltdown central.

After K and I managed to calm, feed, bath and sleep the kids, we decided to have a little cocktail party of our own to calm our fraying nerves. Cheers!

I am committing myself . . . to a 10-mile race!

I have decided to run in the Austin 10-mile race with a couple of friends in April. It's been a long time since I've committed myself to any form of organized running event. For one, there's this work/kids thing, making it hard to find time to train. Second, I probably have one of the weakest immune systems on this earth. Ever since I've had kids (i.e. germ-spreading rug rats), I've fallen sick at least once every six weeks. This means that just as I start making progress with my training, I have to stop to recuperate from my ailment of the month.

But I am determined to make it work this time around, and just spent a few hours arming myself with the tools I need to train for this race.

1. Proper footwear

I've been wearing this worn-out pair of New Balance shoes for quite some time now, so I decided it was time to invest in a new pair. I walked into the New Balance store, where I was greeted by a very knowledgeable sales guy. I quickly spotted a pair that I liked, and as I was being fitted, the sales guy casually asked how long I had been using my current pair. That was when I realized that I had no idea how long I have been wearing these shoes. Has it been four years? Five? Surely there's no way I would've let more than five years slip by without investing in a new pair of running shoes. I told him that I couldn't remember, to which he commented: "Well, it must be older than two years, because we don't make this model anymore."

After I got home, I searched through my photo files to see if I can find old pictures of me wearing this outdated model. And then I came across this picture, labeled "2006 Little Rock Marathon Relay."

 Here I am in the picture, covered in finish-line foil. I would not have been able to tell what footwear I was donning, if it were not for the little bit of gray peeping out from under the foil. I zoomed in on it, and here it is, to my shock and dismay. I was wearing this exact pair.

And that's when I realized that I had bought this pair when I was rafting in Maine, back in the fall of 2004. This pair of sneakers is over 8 years old!!

No wonder my back and ankles hurt like hell after my runs.



2. Immune booster
I know a ton of folks who do not like to take medication. Me, I'm the complete opposite. Got a headache? Take ibuprofen. Got allergies? Take Claritin. Can't sleep? Take Ambien.

So naturally, I figured there would be immune boosting supplements that I can take to ward off the germs. I marched into Whole Foods and after comparing and contrasting six different types of herbal remedy, settled upon this one:

I had thought about buying an herbal formula composed of 200 mcg of "whole Reishi mushroom powder," but something about taking pure mushroom extract didn't settle well with me - Would I get sick? Would I get high? Would I get healthy but grow a third eye? (Ed. note: This sounds like a Dr. Seuss rhyme). This Wellness Formula, however, has a combination of vitamins, minerals and herbal powders; kind of like East-meets-West thing -- best of both worlds.

I am now properly armed and ready to go. Let the training begin!

Angry Birds: Recycled Edition

K helped with EB on her very first science project this weekend. The theme this year is "recycled goods" -- the project was to take unused objects from around the house and make them into something fun or useful. K had the ingenious idea of making our very own "live action" Angry Bird game. Useful? Probably not. Fun? Definitely. And there are millions of Angry Bird players that would attest to that.

Here's the cast of characters. The disgruntled protagonist is made from a plastic softball, and the pigs are constructed from cardboard taped to Activia yogurt cups. For the facial features and coloring, they used a lot of poster paint and Sharpie markers.

And here's the most important component of the game--the sling. This is made from two training-wheel struts, a piece of particle board scrap, a cut-up jelly jar and a generous amount of duct tape. For the propellant, they started out with an old elastic strap. After a lot of very scientific trial and error, however, they switched to some thick rubber bands that I suggested. It's not the prettiest, but it does the job of launching the Angry Bird.

Here's the finished product in action!

The Farmer in the Dell, Production and Marketing

Here's a video of EB singing "The Farmer in the Dell" to B-Boy. I think it's adorable, but be forewarned: EB has a very strong set of lungs. She very possibly damaged B-Boy's hearing, but as you'll see in the video, he was totally into her serenade, pumping his legs and arms as if he's her number one fan. If you can bare a couple of minutes of her shrill singing, click on play. But don't say I didn't warn you....

By the way, I never quite understood what "The Farmer in the Dell" was all about, so I looked it up on Wikipedia, the most totally trust-worthy source on all of the Inter-Webs. If you're not familiar with the song, the lyrics go something like this: The farmer takes a wife, then the wife takes a child, so on and so forth, until you get to the last line--"the cheese stands alone." Evidently it originated in Germany and there are several interpretations of the song's meaning. The following is by far my favorite:

The farmer in the dell nursery rhyme refers to age old production. a farmer (historically) needed children to help with help hence he took a wife. The wife took a child in order to fulfill her duties as a mother the child took, or needed, a nurse during birth and early life. The nurse took a cow in order to help sustain the child quite possibly to supplement the wife's (mother) breastfeeding. The dog is needed to help manage the cattle (think a working border collie here). The dog (a stretch on this one) needs the cat for entertainment purposes. The cat obviously needs the rat as sustenance as does the rat need the cheese (the rat takes the cheese).

In the end the cheese stands alone. The nursery rhyme is a relationship to production and economy. The cheese represents the theoretical beginning of the production line.

Interesting, no? But I think EB took the production interpretation to a whole new level. If you were able to have make it through her entire performance, you'll notice that EB added a few twists of her own: The cheese takes the baby, then the baby takes the milk, then the milk takes the cookie, and finally, the cookie stands alone.

So, if the cheese represents the theoretical beginning of the production line, the baby signifies that the larger the population, the more necessary it became to automate and increase production. The baby needs the milk for obvious reasons, but in the end, milk needs the cookie. This signifies the fact that production is further accelerated by the advent of marketing. As us marketers are all-too aware, marketing creates a need that no one knows existed--remember the ads for Oreo, the "Milk's Favorite Cookie"?

In EB's version, The production line begins, making it possible to feed more and more people with less effort. Marketing takes it further, creating the need for more production. Brilliant, actually.

Life

The rat race began this week. K and the kids went back to school, work got busier than ever and K’s semester started off with a hellacious bang (whoever thought nursing school is a cake walk is just plain wrong). Most daunting of all, we’ve had to figure out a way for both of us to get decent amount of ZZZ's while parenting a three-month old.

Since K and I have never been disciplined enough to sleep-train our kids, we have once again decided to rely on our own strategies. There’s the “11:30 PM strategy,” which involves K awakening the little guy around 11:30 PM for his last feeding. This usually satisfies him until 6:30 or 7 AM, allowing us to get much needed rest. We’ve also set up a “Nuk-ing station”--a mattress, pillow and blanket placed right at the head of his crib. When B-Boy inevitably starts crying for his lost pacifier in the middle of the night, I would stumble into his room, pop it back in his mouth, and resume my slumber on the mattress for the rest of the night. My arms are just small enough to fit through the bars of his crib, which means I can pretty much pop the pacifier back in his mouth in my sleep. Yes, we are probably training him to constantly need someone to give him his paci, but what’s worse – night after night of crying, or a few seconds worth of Nuk-placement? You may be clucking your disapproval while reading this. But K and I are in crisis control mode--whatever it takes to make it work in the short term.

All in all, our first week wasn’t terrible at all. We’ll see how our second week goes.

On a related note, B-Boy has been acclimating wonderfully to his new daycare environment. According to the gals at the daycare, he coos and smiles for them all of the time—already the ladies’ man.