Sweet Yet Sour

Here’s the news from my little corner from this last week (in no particular order).

1.  I’m over the cold thankfully.  I was well enough to attend a ladies night planned by ElleBee (thank you ElleBee!).  We hung out at The Hornet, talked, ate and drank cider (at least Ellebee and I drank cider).  It was absolutely lovely to sit and have adult conversation.   The Hornet makes a lovely Guinness battered fish and chips that I just had to have – yippee for deep fat fried goodness!  There was a discussion that I spend far too much time on my blog telling about the bad stuff of parenthood (apparently the diaper post was a little scary for ElleBee).  So I’m drafting a post about the good stuff that comes with being Anna’s mom.

2. Mike updated my WordPress version for my blog.  It’s a much nicer interface on the backend, but it meant that I had to change my theme.  I’m not really liking the new theme very much, but it was the only one that I had on reserve that didn’t make the Blogroll and the categories look screwy.  I’ll be looking for new themes sometime soon.

3. My mom’s birthday was Friday and she and my dad ventured up from the Springs to celebrate.  I made my mom a chocolate chip cake that she loves and a simple dinner of baked potatoes and corn chowder.  The winter meal seemed fitting since it rained all day Friday and the high was in the 50’s.  I gave her the earrings I got for her from Sundance Moods (lovely blue iolite and pearls), which she loved.  My sister gave her a camera for her computer, which we will hook up for mom, so that she can talk to Anna and my nephew whenever she wants.

4. My cousin John from Portland was in town this weekend.  John is the youngest son of my mom’s brother Tom and I have not seen him in 15 years, at least.  Unfortunately, I was only able to see him for a few minutes since he could only meet around the same time that our Childbirth Preparation Class Reunion was planned.  John is a younger version of my grandfather Tom, with a lean lanky build and a thin patch of red hair and red goatee.  The weirdest part is that he smells exactly like my grandfather does.  I have a tendency to notice the particular smell that people have and it was strange to be hugging my cousin, but smelling my grandfather.

5. Mike and I really thought that Anna was going through a growth spurt a few weeks ago.  It seemed like a logical conclusion when two weeks ago she began demanding food every 2-3 hours (at least), even at night.  Previous to that Anna would go for a nice 5-6 hour stretch after we put her to bed.  Now that it has been two weeks of this, I’m not sure if this is a growth spurt after all.  Being up three or four times a night was something I had hoped was in the past for me, but I was, as usual, forgetful of the “roll with the punches” life of a parent.

6. We finally hosted our Childbirth Preparation Class Reunion at our house this weekend.  Two other couples and our teacher were able to show up and bring their babies.  We were missing two more couples and three babies, but I think I will try to organize another get together soon since this one was so fun.  Our teacher wanted to hold babies, hear birth stories and asked questions about how things were going now.  It was great to hang out with parents of kids almost exactly Anna’s age (Anna is the oldest by a few weeks).  I am so immersed in my world with Anna that I forget what other babies can be like at the same time.  One boy was not very active and just wanted to be held; his lucky mother said that he sleeps from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.  The other boy was active, but unfortunately very fussy – so much so that his poor mom said, “My child should make other parents feel good about their babies.”  I showed his parents a little better swaddling technique that seemed to calm him down and Mike played Anna’s favorite motorcycle game with him.  We sent them home with the “Happiest Baby on the Block” video from which we had learned the tight swaddle in the hopes that we could help them calm the fussing.

7. Tuesday Anna and I spent the day at our friend Kristen’s house.  Kristen has recently broken her foot and needs help with her one-year old, Evan.  There were times when I had to hold both of them and other times when I had to change two diapers in a row.  How do those people with twins manage?

8. Wednesday my sister and I went to a meeting of the “Liberal Ladies of Highlands Ranch”.  Sadly, there were only five of us, but it’s a start.  The other women in the group are a little more active politically and are, like ElleBee, volunteering for the DNC.  One woman has been campaigning for Obama and told us a story of being escorted out of a Lone Tree neighborhood by the police because someone objected to their presence.  I have no idea why, but the suburbs seem to be the place where Republican’s have gone to breed and frankly sometimes I feel a little choked by the conservatives in our area.  It was nice to meet with other like-minded women and finally see that we are not the only Democrats in Highlands Ranch.

9. We started Anna on rice cereal this week.

Anna tries rice cereal

Here she is looking at the bowl from her high chair.  Mike and I put her in the high chair only to discover that she is a tiny little girl in comparison to her high chair – and that we can’t adjust the tray level.  We spent a lot of time laughing at the poor thing staring at us from her perch.  Anyway, we are trying out the rice cereal in small bouts.  So far most of it ends up on her chin and on her bib.  Until she gets the hang of swallowing something on her tongue, feedings will be immediately followed by a bath.