shiso mama

I am such a cheap date. As many of you know, I can't drink much. Two drinks and I'm done for the night. Oh, I might have my amusing moments after the first drink starts to take effect. But pretty soon, that amusing wave crests and I'm sliding down the steep slope towards extreeeeeeme sleepiness. And once in a while, I just get weird and mean. Don't even bring up that time at the Firm Retreat when I quickly gobbled down two glasses of that sweet Jamaican rum concoction and then told my companions that I was going to go and spill my sickly sweet drink on my nemesis, the wife of one of the other lawyers, just to watch her face crumple in surprise and defeat as she realized WHO WAS BOSS. I still get a weird head ache-y hangover feeling just THINKING about the fact that I said those things out loud, rather than thinking them again and again SILENTLY to myself.

Most of the time, I accept the fact that I can't drink much. If it's all the same, I'd rather just spend my money elsewhere. But some times, I just have the vague sense that I'm missing out on something pretty freaking fantastic. As all the house remodelling stuff was escalating and making so many decisions was making me completely cuckoo, I said to F that I WISH I drank. Because then I could say, "You know, all this is stressing me out. I need to unwind with a drink." And somehow, a few sips of magical elixir later, my body would just start to relax and my mind would start to clear. But unfortunately, a few sips of magical elixir merely make me want to dance a couple of rounds of a strange chicken dance, and then collapse into a napping heap.

Otis is at Grandma R's house tonight so F and I went out on the SECOND of our dates. We shared a bottle of wine, and after a few high kicks after we got home, we are both now completely useless. Oh well. At least F has lost his touch too.

this is pure genius.

I really don’t like to make a big deal, but we got a lot of wonderful, thoughtful gifts from friends and family for Otis’s birthday. And I especially don’t like to make a big deal out of any one particular present (we like them all equally!), but I think we maybe like this one just a teensy beensy weensy more than the rest.

Our friend Elizabeth sewed this quilt for Otis. Yessir, she sewed it! Last time she saw Otis, when he was 5 months old or so, she told us that she had just bought herself a sewing machine and wanted to learn how to sew. And now she’s put us all to shame by showing up with this fantastically beautiful thing.

Lookee and feel the jealousy OOZING through your pores:

It’s got these lines of adorable animals on it (adorable in that Japanese way, my favorite way, not the pukey kitties and puppies way).

We had to introduce it to Otis a little earlier than expected, since the day after his party, he peed all over his blanket and sleep sack and we had to improvise right at bedtime. When I brought it over to him, cursing him and his un-potty trainable ways, he grabbed it, started giggling, and then hid under it to play peekaboo. I think that’s a pretty good endorsement.

OK, well maybe it's me that's the shopaholic.

A few months ago the children's clothing company Tea had this fantastic sample sale just down the hill from where I grew up. There was no question that I had to go. And force Fifth Aunt Grandma K to go too. Lucky I brought backup because I started grabbing everything in sight and stuffing them into the large paper bags that she was holding (hey, I wasn't really a "woman" until I had been indoctrinated into the Barney's Warehouse Sale). Because I had grown up there, I knew the weird address that they gave us, so they let us in early. The rest of the masses swarmed in maybe 20 minutes later because they had been waiting on the main strip. Whole families with sobbing babies were there. Pregnant ladies shoving other pregnant ladies aside. Just all around chaos. Fifth Aunt Grandma K eventually just slumped in the corner with multiple bags piled around her as she waited patiently for me to finish desperately digging through the boxes, looking for one more matching outfit. We got quite a bit of booty, even after sifting through and tossing out lots of rejects. Fifth Aunt Grandma K likes to point out that I love to "buy ahead," but that probably doesn't stop me from buying at the time, either.

The thing about the sale is that because it was a sample sale, they mostly had clothes in 18 month sizes and in 3T. And they make their clothes a little on the small size (compared to most American companies) so Otis can now finally fit into the first bit lot of his fantastically cute new wardrobe. Yet he still fits into lots of his 6-12 month clothes. And some things I just can't stand to get rid of so I keep stuffing him into them even if it gives him baby cameltoe.

So I did this last humongous batch of laundry, including all his new clothes, folded them up neatly (although not as neatly as if my mom were still here) and then looked at the stack. And it scared me a little. Maybe it's because we took all his clothes out of his under-crib drawer and started laying them on the floor of his closet so it just looks like a massive mound of clothes. But that pile looks unnaturally large. Did you ever hear about the woman who because so addicted to Gymboree that she ran up $50,000 in debt? And she would get the shakes just thinking about the clothes on her way to the store? (You can read about it here - it's coo ray zee!) I hope that's not in my future. Does it make a difference if the clothes were really cheap?

We had our one year checkup at the doctor today, complete with the next round of immunization shots.

the stats:
21 pounds 13 ounces
30 3/4 inches

We love our pediatrician, Dr. Jones. She was recommended to us by a midwife at UCSF, who told us that Dr. Jones will always make you feel like you are the absolute best parent ever. And it's true. Because if Dr. Jones were to be believed, then Otis is the cutest, smartest, most dextrous baby EVER, and it would be a crime not to have our superlative genes cloned in a lab to create a breed of superbabies.

Otis did OK with his shots. There is usually not a whole lot of crying, but he got four shots today, including three in his arms, which are more painful, so I hear there was a little more crying. (F usually has to come to the visits when Otis is getting shots because needles make me faint, and I just can't handle the thought of having to hold him down to get the shots.) But now he's got his band-aids. F thinks that band-aids are like baby tattoos and that they make him look tough. You think? I love how it looks like he's trying to scratch his butt.

Here's the card I made to thank all the people who gave Otis such lovely birthday presents and who came to the party.

I printed them using these eraser-like printmaking blocks and black and silver printmaking ink, mixed together to form a pearl-y charcoal grey. And here's the part I'm most proud of - I used paper that I scaveneged from SCRAP, where they have tons of art materials for people to creatively reuse. It's letterhead from a print shop that for some reason or another couldn't be used. The card stock is nice and thick, and in this lovely mustard yellow color. The cards look better in person, more tactile.

I'm not sure, but I FEEL like Otis was saying his name this morning. "OOOOOOOOOOO - dis!" "OOOOOOOOOOOOOO"….."dis." When I would repeat his name, he would flash a big smile. Or course, I am starting to interpret all kinds of words from his little mumblings. For example, I keep being convinced that he's saying "Thank you" when I do something for him. But I think that would be called wishful thinking. It would be interesting if his first word was his own name beyond the little mamamas and babababas. What a show of narcicism! Though as far as he knows, everything does in fact revolve around Otis.

Of course we had to send Taka and Tama a package after receiving Otis’s birthday treats in the mail, and I hear they’ve already received them. I felt inspired to make Tama a little hat for him to wear, and I’ve learned my lesson - never make a baby something with “baby” yarn. It’ll take forever. I used a chunkier yarn for Tama’s hat, and this is what I imagine he looks like, wearing it:

Taka told me that it was cold in Boston the day they received the hat, so I hope he’s getting some use out of his new hat.

Phew! Party's over and I am TI-RED! I think people enjoyed themselves. We had so many babies and kids here, it was a sea of babies. You couldn't take a step in our Rec Room (uh, supposedly my studio) without stepping on a small hand or foot. There were kids stacking blocks, babies playing with balls, everyone enjoying Otis's wooden toys (see? old fashioned wooden toys are the way to go!) and can you believe it? Nothing was destroyed or broken, and all of my studio supplies remained untouched.

So here was the menu:
fruit salad
roasted asparagus with lemon
double salmon cakes with spicy peach ketchup
wild mushroom bread pudding (made with the chicken lady's eggs!)
roasted potatoes
liege waffles (you know, like the kind they have at Petite Abeille or Le Pain Quotidien in NY? man, these things disappeared! they were soooo good but they had soooooo much butter in them)
chocolate cupcakes

Boy, Otis is quite the Casanova. His girlfriend, Tyrah, was here, dressed to the nines. They were playing quite well together, the love fest that it usually is, with touching and smiling, and at some point, Tyrah decided that it was time to move on. When she tried to crawl away, Otis grabbed a handful of her sweater to try to prevent her from moving away. No, he doesn't want to break up! He doesn't even want to take a break! Good thing her daddy didn't witness that one; he's a BIG man.

His wanna-be girlfriend Stella was here too (wanna-be because Otis WANNA grope her all over). Remember Stella? He tried to eat her shoe last time they spent time together and she wasn't into it, but today, her mother informed me that it might be OK, she was wearing hard-soled shoes. He kept trying to reach over to touch her and even leaned in a few times to kiss her, mouth puckered. "Not on the first date," I tried to tell him. He didn't have much luck with her this time, either. She kept having to push him away with her hands, looking to her mother with a pleading look to have her TAKE THIS GROPING OCTOPUS BOY AWAY FROM HER. Lucky for Otis her daddy wasn't even here; he's pretty protective.

Someone noted that he's probably going to be the boy who will run around the playground, trying to kiss all the girls. That's the nice way of saying that he's an insensitive molester. And that kind of behavior can get a boy into trouble these days. But we'll worry about it when he gets to school age. Right now I'm still pleased that he's affectionate.

He was so busy with all the playing, love and attention that he didn't even get to eat much of a lunch. He ate a big old dinner after his nap and finally had his birthday cake. This was right before he took a huge chomp out of my finger:

And one last picture, just because I like it so much. By the way, our friend Winky likes to refer to Otis's outfit today as his "prison uniform."

OK, it's just about midnight the night before the party, and here's the latest update.

F has cleaned the house! He has even been scrubbing at the light fixtures. He became dizzy from bleach fumes at one point and had to come downstairs for a chocolate break and to make sure he still possessed the ability to read.

The birthday cupcakes are done!

They are chocolate, and are filled with a supremely sweet filling partially made with marshmallow fluff. They're supposed to be like Ding Dongs, but I just couldn't fill them with as much fluff as I wanted. The fluff just kept squishing out after I piped it in. Luckily, since I messed up my chocolate ganache (Bad Baker! Didn't follow directions!) and out of sheer desperation, I threw the leftover fluff into the mixture and it somehow magically all came together.

Our obliging taste tester:

"Not poisonous!" says F.

The chicken sugar cookies are done! We will wrap these up in cellophane and give them out as party favors.

Balloon chickens are decorated!

Most of the food has been started and is prepped for the morning. I think we're all ready to go! Hopefully the rain, which has started to pour down, will abate by morning.