The Art-Busy Scale

My mom always says she can tell how much free time I have (or don't have) by how much art I produce. I love to draw, paint, mess around with Photoshop, do crafty things. But when life gets hectic, that's the first to go.

Sunday, some friends came over to play video games with Steve.  (I'm too much of a video game noob/dunce to play in a group!) Oliver was being a dream baby, taking a long nap and then happily kicking around on his mat, so I took the opportunity to do an art project for the nursery.

Two down, one to go

My friend J, a talented graphic designer, made a baby stats poster when Oliver was born.  By itself, it seemed too small for the space I wanted to hang it.  Especially since the wall there is a little roughed up from a shadow box my prior roommate had hanging and I wanted to cover the holes and anchors that are still in the wall.  It was either cover them or patch them and figure out how to match the paint... covering was easier!

I'm happy with how they came out!  I'm also pleased that almost everything in the nursery has a handmade touch.  It's my favorite room in the house.

Yoshi, No Dye

We had some friends come over yesterday for one last post-graduation (they all just finished their PhD's), pre-move (P&L are moving up north, Y is still looking for a job, but it won't be here) video game-playing hurrah.

To cap (no pun intended) off the day, Steve wanted to make a cake: a graduation Yoshi.  And he wanted to make the frosting with no food dye.

So Steve and I took to the internet for ideas and recipes.  Steve made the cake and a traditional white buttercream frosting to use as the base, and I was in charge of the color-making.  (For the record, red, yellow, and blue were all made using the buttercream frosting.  The greens were a separate recipe.)

Red: Beets.  I cut up a beet and boiled it in a small amount of water, intending to use the water as food coloring.  That yielded a pretty pink color, but we were going for red.  So I tossed the frosting and some beet chunks into the blender, and came up with a much deeper color.

Light Green (not pictured): Avocado.  I used this recipe, minus the lemon extract, because I didn't have any and I didn't want to buy it for half a teaspoon.

Yellow: Turmeric.  I dissolved turmeric in water and mixed just a bit into the frosting.  I had to add some more powdered sugar to thicken it up.  I probably could have added the turmeric directly to the frosting for a bolder color, but that was the first one I did, and I didn't think of it.

Dark Green: Spinach.  Again, I boiled down spinach intending to use the water, but it was too pale a green.  So I tossed some of the avocado frosting into the blender with the boiled spinach leaves, and came up with that nice, rich green.

Blue: Blueberries-plus.  Blue was the most fun.  I'd read about using blueberries or purple spinach.  Blueberries seemed more delicious, so I went that route.  The recommendation with the spinach was to add baking soda to turn the color from purple to blue, so when the blueberries ended up more purple than we were going for, I tried the baking soda.  It was still too purple, so I added some of the avocado frosting, which turned it grey-ish, so in went a piece of beet.  And all together, we ended up with a kind of deep purple-blue, which was acceptable.

And... voila!

The cake was delicious.  Each frosting had a different flavor, some more mild than others, but all tasty.  It did take a good chunk of the morning to figure everything out, but now that I've got these colors down, I'd do it again.  And it was a lot of fun experimenting!

The game-playing, although I didn't actually participate in that part, was also super-fun.  Steve had a dual-screen set-up for maximum gaming enjoyment.

It was a great Sunday of food, friends, and art projects (for me... that will be in another post).  We're really going to miss being able to do this!  Good luck, friends!

Tootsies

Oliver's toes are endlessly entertaining.  (To me and to him!)

Evil plotting toes

Freed from the blanket--always!

Toes are so interesting!

They're on both feet!

A (dangerous) game!

To the Ocean and Back

It wasn't a very beachy day, all overcast and foggy, but we were committed.

It was also, apparently, National Ice Cream Day, so we were obligated to stop at Sub Zero on the way home for a treat.  Yum.

Not-a-Newborn

Oliver was three months old yesterday, which magically, officially turned him into a baby, and not a newborn anymore.

Because he's currently the youngest of my friends' kids, I spend a lot of time watching them and reminding myself that I can wait until ____ (he laughs at jokes, can eat avocados, whatever); I'm excited about those things happening, but I'm enjoying him as he is now.

Oliver is a happy baby.  He spends most of his day grinning (although you may not know it from pictures) and cooing and wanting to see everything around him.  He's a talker.  Especially when he wakes up.  He lays on the changing table and smiles and tells me all about his dreams, I imagine, in his back-of-the-mouth voice.  He watches my mouth when I talk, and I can see him thinking it over, trying to make his tongue do that, too.

He loves it when I take off or put on his shirt.  "One... two... three!" and over-the-head.  So much fun!

Once, a few days ago, Oliver rolled over by accident.  He was on his tummy with a small blanket rolled up under his chest, and he twisted his top half, flung his arm up and back, gravity took him and over he went.  He's been trying to do it again ever since, but he can't quite make it happen.

He's also thisclose to rolling over from his back to his tummy.  He pushes with his legs, gets his hips up and perpendicular to the floor, but he's not sure what to do about the arm that keeps getting in the way.

Oliver's a champion sleeper--at night.  He goes down drowsy-but-awake, gets all swaddled up (I'm not sure what we'll do when this rolling-over thing actually happens and we can't swaddle him anymore!), and sleeps eight or nine hours straight.  He's up sometime between five and six in the morning to eat, and he often falls back to sleep while I'm feeding him and is out for another three or four good hours.  This schedule will inevitably have to change when I go back to work, but for now, it's beautiful.

Just in the last week, I've been mostly successful at getting him to take one good nap a day in his crib.  He'll sleep anywhere from 45 minutes to two and a half hours.  The rest of his naps are catnaps, fifteen or thirty minutes in the Ergo, on my lap, in the car or the stroller.

We have his three-month well baby check-up tomorrow, so I don't know his official stats.  I weighed him with me on my regular scale, which is only accurate to half a pound (if that), and it put him at 16 pounds.  And then I tried measuring him with my measuring tape, and I got either 26 or 27 inches (he was wiggling).  Either way, he's quickly coming up on that 30-inch limit for his carseat.  I guess we'll have to start thinking about the next step pretty soon.

[Edit: 16 pounds, 1 ounce (90th percentile) and 27.25 inches long (off the charts!)]

Oliver at three months is a delight.  He likes bouncing on your knee or standing on your lap.  He loves tummy-tickles and kisses and when you make funny sounds with your mouth.  We do math dots most days, and he seems to enjoy it.  He likes being danced with and sung to and snuggled.  He's intensely interested in the world around him.

Three months old.  How did that happen?

Non-Comic-Con

This is the first time in eight years I haven't gone to San Diego Comic-Con, and I'm feeling a little sad about it.  Steve and I bought tickets a year ago, before we got pregnant, and then sold them back once we realized it wouldn't be possible to attend.  People bring babies, so maybe we'll try it again next year.  Or the year after. (For a toned-down version, of course.)

San Diego Comic-Con

For my first Comic-Con, I got a hotel room about a week before and bought tickets at the door.  At my second Comic-Con, Saturday tickets sold out--on Friday.  And it was the talk of the convention!  I think it was my third year going that the entire weekend sold out.  And now, they only sell tickets online, and if you don't click within the first seconds the link is available, you're pretty much out of luck.

The Convention Center

It's crazy, but it's kind of awesome.

Chuck

Big Bang Theory

I've seen Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen and Neil deGrasse Tyson speak.  I've been to panels on everything from web series (The Guild, the Nerdist channel) to TV shows (Smallville, Dexter) to movies (ParaNorman, Knights of Badassdom).  I've been to every Supernatural panel, every Chuck panel.  I've learned how to make and publish a children's book, how to draw from math, how to use Photoshop.  I've seen panels on things I've never heard of because they happened to be before panels I wanted to see.  I've started watching TV shows I'd never watched before because of how passionate the panelists were.

Supernatural

Fringe

I've spent hours wandering the dealer hall, talking to artists, admiring original work.  Buying things.

3-D Puzzle

More puzzles

I've slept on air mattresses in hotel rooms.  I've squeezed through crowds, stood in lines, had lines form behind me just because I happened to stop walking.  I've played card games and dice games and word games while waiting in line or sitting in rooms waiting for things to start.  I've gotten up before the sun just to make sure I could get into a panel I really wanted to see.

Waiting in line

Just a fraction of the line

 I've literally bumped into famous people, and not noticed until my friends pointed it out.  Because there are so many people, you just get numb to it.

Comic-Con really is an experience. 

Swag bag

And this year, the panel I think I'm the most sad about missing is the 20th anniversary of the beginning of The X-Files.  Twenty years.  Holy cow.  That was my first fandom, back when AOL was it.  I made some awesome friends.  I could even venture to say that, because of The X-Files, Oliver exists.  (I met my friend Elaina when I was 16 through an X-Files fan group on AOL; she met Steve in grad school.  She introduced us, and the rest is history.)  So, yeah.  I'm disappointed to be missing that panel.  Maybe in 2022 they'll do a 20th anniversary of the end of The X-Files panel, and I can go to that.

Twice this week I've had dinner with out-of-state friends who came to town before driving down to San Diego for Comic-Con, so that was nice.  And someday, we'll go back.  With Oliver.  We may even let him dress up as something adorable.

Just Keep Swimming

This weekend, we took Oliver swimming for the first time.  And for the second time.  (He enjoyed it a lot more the second time.)

Pre-swim

We're ready!

Not so sure about this...

Can we get out yet?

This might be better.  Or not.

One, two, three...

... FLY!

Okay, that wasn't so bad!

Later, dudes!

Boy Humor

If farts are funny, poop is hilarious.  Just ask Oliver.

Bath time last night provided two firsts.  I'd been thinking during his last bath that we'd been on a streak of really excellent timing: he'd never once pooped in the bath.  (I probably jinxed it just by thinking it.)  So when, just a minute after taking off his diaper and getting him settled in the kitchen sink for nice relaxing bath, Oliver pooped, I figured we'd probably been due for it.

Right away I transferred him to the (really too-small) plastic tub the hospital gave us, and you know what he did?  He laughed!  He laughed what I consider his first real laugh.  It was more than just a big smile with a coo behind it; it was a laugh.

So the first thing Oliver truly laughed at wasn't Mom or Dad being goofy.  It wasn't a good tickle or a dancing stuffed animal.  It was poop in the bath.

First Fourth

Three years ago, two sets of our couple friends came over on the Fourth of July.  We played lawn games, grilled delicious food, and went to the local fireworks display.  It was simple and low-key, and somehow that Fourth has gone down in our collective memory as The Best.

Yesterday, one of those couples, P & L, came over.  We recreated some of that past holiday and made Oliver's first Fourth of July pretty darn fun.

There were games (mostly of the video variety), more delicious grilled food, and fireworks, this time viewed from afar.  I didn't want Oliver's tiny ears so close to a fireworks display, so instead of going to the park with the crowds, we drove up to the mall, which overlooks our valley, to see what we could see from there.  We weren't alone, but it wasn't crowded or loud, which was exactly what I was aiming for.

Tastiest rainbow ever!

We saw lots of private fireworks and probably would have been able to see the professional ones our town puts on, if there hadn't been a malfunction.  (The "malfunction", which we heard about via a text to someone in the group next to us, turned out to be a platform collapse that aimed several fireworks directly into the crowd, injuring an estimated 28 people. I am so, so glad I'd decided I didn't want to take Oliver this year!)

Waiting for fireworks

Oliver fell asleep watching fireworks.  All in all, a pretty fun Fourth!

Recipe Book: Oatmeal, Banana, and Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes

I was having a smoothie every morning for breakfast, and I got burnt out.  And I was a little bit afraid that my (very loud) blender would wake Oliver up, although it might fall into the same category as coffee grinder or plane engine or bagpipes, which don't wake Oliver up, instead of ice clinking against your glass or fork dropping into the sink, which do.

I'm also now officially back on Weight Watchers, and I have a deadline (before I have to start paying again, if I don't meet my goal) of September 3rd to lose the leftover 24 pounds that just won't go.  I lost about 20 pounds in the first week or so after Oliver was born, and that's it.  "They" say breastfeeding is supposed to help with weight loss; I guess I'd be afraid to see what was happening if I wasn't breastfeeding!

Which brings me to my latest Weight Watchers-friendly breakfasts.  The first two recipes (if you can call them that, they're so simple) are ones I came across, and the third is a combination I think works.


Oatmeal Pancakes

• 3 Tbsp egg whites or 1 egg
• 1/4 cup dry oatmeal
• 1 packet Splenda or stevia
• a shake of cinnamon

Combine ingredients.  Makes one pancake.  Cook on the stovetop... as you would a pancake.  3 WW PointsPlus with egg whites, 4 with the whole egg.

That's it.  I like to make a week's worth on Sunday and reheat them each morning.  I also prefer to make them one at a time instead of in a whole batch so that I know each one has the same amount of oatmeal and egg, but that might be a little obsessive. 


Banana Pancakes

• 1 banana, mashed
• 2 eggs (you could probably use 6 Tbsp egg whites, but I haven't tried that)

Combine ingredients and mix well.  Makes about four pancakes.  Cook on the stovetop.  4 points for the whole batch, 2 if you're using egg whites.

These come out more crepe-like, I think.  I was calling them banana omelets; they taste much more egg-y than the oatmeal pancakes.  And they're fragile. I don't think I could make a week's worth in advance.


Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes

• 1/4 cup dry oatmeal
• 3 Tbsp egg whites
• 1 Tbsp mashed banana
• Cinnamon

Mash a banana and add cinnamon to taste.  Combine egg whites, oats, and 1 Tbsp of the banana.   Makes one pancake.  3 points.

I find these to be a nice middle ground between the two recipes.  The banana is sweet so it doesn't need added sweetener.  It also gives the oatmeal a slightly more pancake-y texture; the oatmeal alone makes a fairly dense pancake.  I made a week's worth of these last night (or, six days' worth for two people).  I mashed three smallish bananas with cinnamon, which went into 12 pancakes.