Indiana Idylls

10-31-07 14-50-13 : : theGteam A witty costume thought up by Paul and realized in fabric by Grammy Cavano. Her productive procrastination is an inspiration. We wore the costume to playgroup, on a visit to Daddy's department, and then to visit a good friend. Many of the neighbors were not at home -- I guess they knew we hardly get any trick or treaters. With such a great costume and so few opportunities to wear it, we wanted to get as much mileage out of it as we could. With 10 minutes of trick-or-treat time to go (yes, there's a city ordinance), we've only had ONE group stop: the family down the street, with a little boy and twin girls. Great costumes -- a shark, a bass chick, and a wizard. Unfortunately, they only took five Smarties amongst them! (I'll have to find some cookie recipes that require pushing Hershey Kisses in the middles.) An exciting development today worth noting: Alex has started to voluntarily let go of our fingers to try to stand by himsel...

We were at Lowes today to obtain a pair of channel lock pliers on the advice of Greg the Plumber. I didn't see why it was so necessary, but it is so clear to me now. Best Tool Ever. But I'm not merely writing in shameless support of my new pliers. Despite it not being yet Halloween, Christmas is nearly in full swing at Lowes. I wouldn't normally have paid the displays any mind, except that I saw there were several of those mechanical tabletop decorations with moving parts that I thought Alex might enjoy seeing. It was great fun to watch him take in all the sights and sounds. He seemed to really enjoy the rocking Santa figure and the flying sleigh. I started to believe that maybe it's true -- maybe the holidays are more magical with children around. I'm really quite excited for Christmas, now. Alex will be a whole two months older and I can just imagine the leaps and bounds he'll make between now and then. What fun!

Alex climbed a stair yesterday, all by himself. No matter that he can't yet stand for any speakable amount of time on his own, nor transition from a prone position to basically any upright pose. I guess the boy aims high.

This is another fantastic recipe my mother came across. She told me that she doubles the recipe and makes 24, but I got 24 just perfectly out of a single batch. You be the judge! They sure are tasty, no matter what size they are, so go ahead -- risk making 48! Carrot Zucchini Pineapple Muffins 3 eggs 1 1/2 c. sugar 3/4 c. oil 2 tsp. vanilla 2 1/4 c. flour 2 tsp. soda 1 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. salt 14 oz. crushed pineapple 1 c. walnuts 1 c. raisins 1 c. coconut, shredded 1 c. carrots, shredded 1 c. zucchini, shredded Blend and bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees. I rearranged the ingredients to what I think is a more sensible order. I am surprised by how little I can taste of the pineapple. I was feeling adventuresome yesterday, and so substituted 1 Tbs. milled flax seed and 3 Tbs. water for one egg, and used 1/2 cup of drained applesauce in place of 1/2 c. oil. I am generally pleased with the results. Paul says they're fantastic.

2 tsp. baking soda 2 tsp. water 3/4 c. vegetable oil 1 1/2 c. sugar 1 Tbs. vanilla 2 eggs 2 c. mashed banana 1/2 c. sour cream 3 1/2 c. flour (great with whole wheat!) 1/4 c. wheat germ Dissolve baking soda in water. Mix all ingredients. Pour into muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes. Makes 24 muffins.

I'm back, with LOTS to report. We had a grand trip to NY to see the great-grands and many friends and relatives. Alex was a good sport and thrived during his three weeks on the road. Once back home, he promptly forgot everything he knew about sleeping through the night. After two weeks of this regression, we supposed that he was perhaps hungry for more than Mommy's able to give him and we started him on rice cereal two weeks ago. Alex has now added sweet potatoes, oatmeal, avocado, and green beans to his menu and seems to thoroughly enjoy them all. In fact, he's taken to solids so well and eagerly that I tend to skimp on the water a bit and give him a nice hearty puree. He likes it -- and it's easier to feed him! Alex is sporting a lower right tooth, the left partner soon to follow. It surfaced last Friday. He's been good to me so far, but in honesty, it's the top teeth I fear. His tongue covers the bottom ones nicely. Overall, he's been in excellent spirits...

Alex and I were playing in the living room this afternoon, and  -- feeling munchy and magnanimous -- I reached over for two chocolates, even thinking as I did that Alex deserved a little treat. I had them both in my hand before my folly was apparent. It's the thought that counts?

My new favorite treat: Dipping OREOs in Chocolate Cool Whip. It's easy to eat with one hand and oh, so tasty! Like a mini cookies 'n' cream sundae. If only we could work some cherries in there somehow. P.S . The organic OREOs are sort of a waste -- you get maybe half the regular number of OREOs, and they're packaged like Samoas instead of Thin Mints. They're tasty, and organic, so they've got that going for them. They were also the ONLY OREOs left last Monday when we went to the store -- they had a special going, where one could buy two OREOs and get a gallon of milk free.

I just learned that Tonya started a blog on Eli's behalf . We're still waiting to hear how his hernia operation went on Monday. I've left two messages and am starting to worry. Anyway, since I don't think anyone's met her, I thought you might enjoy the pictures, if nothing else. There's an especially funny story about our BSU picnic last week that I completely forgot to mention to anyone.

Alex slept for nearly EIGHT hours last night. Hooray! I've learned not to put too much stock in these fluke sleeps, but I sure am grateful for them when they happen.

Alex rolled over FOUR times tonight! Three times to his left, once to his right. Once, he didn't even wait for me to properly ground him on his tummy. He wasn't as surprised as I expected him to be. When we asked him to show Daddy how he did it, he contentedly munched on his hands instead.

05-21-07_19-13-12.jpg : Pucker up! : Uploaded by theGteam If only he knew what kisses meant...

This is just about the coolest thing I've ever seen.

It's primary day here in Muncie. Of the six mayoral candidates, only one of whom seems to have a college degree -- and she's billing herself as having "blue collar" experience. One candidate just turned 18, and will be attending BSU in the fall. Nice group. The worst part? No alcohol can be sold until after the polls close at 6pm.

Why does Alex always "growth spurt" AFTER a stint of excellent sleeping? During our week visiting Paul's family in NY, the little man slept 4-4.5 hours in the first stretch, then usually about 3 hours, which meant I only had to get up once in the middle of the night. Last night, I was up four times. Ouch. I like to think that our regularly scheduled programming will return soon. I guess that really means that I like to think that's our new schedule.

Paul got Alex to bed at 6:30pm last night. Unheard of! Alex even kept to his nighttime routine of getting up to eat every 2-3 hours. If not for all the diaper leaks and changes, it would have been a pretty smooth night. To be repeated? We can only hope!

Tonight my parents took the THREE of us out to dinner at Johnny Carino's. It was Alex's first trip to a restaurant, and surprisingly, he received his first children's menu/activity book and crayons! I ordered for him, this time. We'll save the crayons until he gets the hang of his hands -- he's discovering them this week, but still can't deliberately and accurately bring them to his mouth.

We're celebrating our third anniversary today, but also Paul's Italian citizenship! Thanks to cousin Dave for bringing this to our attention through his own quest to have his Italian citizenship recognized. According to the principle of jure sanguinis (Latin for "by the right of blood," in this case, meaning the right to citizenship through one's bloodline or ancestry.), any person who can trace their lineage back to an Italian ancestor who was born in Italy and emigrated after 1861, has actually been an Italian citizen since birth, and can go about the business of securing the proper paperwork to become officially recognized as such. The two caveats, as I understand them, are 1) that citizenship could only be passed from parent to child if that child was born before the parent naturalized and 2) that a female could not pass on her citizenship to any children born before January 1, 1948. By way of example on my mother's side, my great-grandfather was born ...

Alex was baptized this morning in a lovely ceremony. Brian Oliver, a friend from Buffalo, was the godfather and Becca O'Hara, a childhood friend in Rome, was the godmother (though unable to make the trip -- she was missed!). It was a lovely ceremony and we had a full house for his party afterwards. I also have to include a picture of his cake. It's the first cake I've ever decorated and I'm pretty proud of it. Busia (Polish for grandmother and the family name for Paul's paternal grandma) had always made the baptism cakes for her grandchildren -- and now great-grandchildren! -- but it was more than a little infeasible for her to make one for Alex. I was happy to borrow her cross-shaped cake pan and received my very own cake decorating kit as an anniversary gift. Here's to many special occasion cakes to come! (Good thing I have four cups of icing leftover for practice.)

Walking and singing to Alex, I'm learning how very few songs I know, and how for some that I think I know, I only know a verse or two. I quickly exhaust -- or simply tire of -- my limited repertoire of children's songs, and so it was the other day that I started singing "There's no Business Like Show Business" to Alex -- anything to cheer him up. As it happens, he liked the song but I basically only know the title line and a handful of non-sequential other lyrics. Yesterday, again faced with an over-tired, unhappy baby, I thought to dig out the CD and have a listen. I've got the song on a compilation disc of favorite Broadway tunes. I jump to track five and Alex LOVED it. He immediately piped down and listened intently to the whole song. Next up: "Almost Like Being In Love," the classic ballad from Brigadoon . Alex resumed screaming. I skipped back to "There's no Business..." and he got real quiet again and fell asleep. He even let me p...

Alex and I took a more light-hearted approach to his "First Easter" outfit and dressed up like Easter eggs. Any excuse to wear the fabulous tie-dyed onesies and T-shirts that my cousin Mary in Tucson made for him. I wish more Tucson-like weather were in the forecast for us, but it's likely our "little man" will outgrow them before too much longer.

Alex and I were "playing", and it amused me to think that this little person grunting excitedly next to me would grow up to be more or less like me: probably go to college, get a job, find a nice girl, get married, and have some little grunters of his own. He can't even reliably get his hand to his mouth! You, me, the Pope, the President... we all started out this way! It boggles the mind.

Let's see if I can resurrect this after yet another hiatus, this one owed to the haze of new motherhood. I certainly don't have time to email, so perhaps I can keep everyone in the loop this way. I've just put Alex down for the third time tonight and am waiting to see if sleep sticks this time around. "Third time's a charm" doesn't generally apply to babies. Then again, "sleep" doesn't always apply to babies. It's a good thing they're so gosh darn cute. Tonight Alex was obviously very tired and was fussing -- crying, really -- pretty hard. Suddenly he got very quiet and yawned, as if to say he were tired of his own shenanigans, before starting back up as vigorously as before. Several many choruses of a taize prayer song later, I actually put him to bed drowsy and continued singing and he seems to have fallen asleep. I was feeling so proud of myself that I was sure he'd pop back up. It's been nearly 30 minutes now, though, so ...

Wishing everyone peace, contentment, and all good things in 2007!