Al Parque, Al Parque

In his very precious and very limited spare time (I hesitate to call it that, inbetweenworkandschoolandsleep time is more like it) Thomas tagged along with us to the park. I don't say it enough but I admire his ability to work as hard as he does and still make time to be a great dad to Dylan. I also think that even if I said "Thank you" one million times every day he would never know how much I appreciate him gifting me our son's childhood.

Applauding the birds, or perhaps Daddy for reminding us that Geese belong to the avian super order Neognathae, sub-order Anseriformes.

I'm starting to spice things up in the kitchen once again! Before my pregnancy I cooked twice a day every day. During my first trimester I couldn't stand the smell of anything on the stove so I counted on Amy's burritos from the oven, prepared hummus and fresh fruit and veg to sustain me until Dylan arrived. Since then, I honestly don't know what we've survived on because I certainly haven't been cooking.

I'm here to tell you today is a new day, we're all hungry, and since Dylan eats what we eat (except added sweeteners and salt) the heat is back on.

My current favorite technique is roasting squash whole. Any variety will do but today it was pumpkin.

This was painfully simple. Scrub, rub, bake, and out comes a delectable calabaza with skin so tender it's butter by any other name.

 I wasn't sure what to do with it when it came out so I peeked into our fridge only to find a pot full of lonely, boring, short grain brown rice that was practically begging to be made into risotto. Before you finish that thought, let me just say I know it's not traditional risotto if the rice is pre-cooked and non-arborio. I was just working with what I had and since I was a little over-zealous earlier in the week when I decided to cook two cups of rice instead of one, cheater's risotto is what became of this beautiful meso plant.

What you don't know is that I roasted a butternut squash alongside the pumpkin. Add Maritza's fresh roasted, pumpkin, butternut, cheater's risotto with sage, carmelized onions, and green peas to the list of food and (non-food) items that Dylan devours. And while we're at it add red grapefruit, kiwi, orange and yellow bell pepper, Muchi and other curries, broccoli, yams, and roasted garlic.

So far he's exceeded my expectations. I couldn't ask him for an inch more. He's already a foodie, and cute to boot.

They grow up so fast

It took him 10 months but last week Dylan sprouted his first and second teeth. One on top and one on bottom. It's pretty much impossible to get a photo of his gums but I managed these right before the top tooth broke through:

I know what this looks like but he's not upset at all. He just likes to scrunch up his nose and make like a piglet.

We bought his first tooth brush today. He seems to like it. We'll ask again in 20 years after twice daily brushing and flossing sessions...

His bottom one has surpassed his top the past few days:

Discontent to stay inside

The transition to stay-at-home people has been tough. Our new neighborhood is not condusive to walking and our neighbors aren't very neighborly. I snap on my baby carrier most days and haul Dylan outside in search of any sign of life. I just don't get it. There must be at least one thousand living people amongst us in this complex but I have counted maybe 10 out and about in just under one month.These people seem too willing to stay locked up inside, presumably staring at the tube, all day everyday. It feels like we're living in a ghost town. What gives?

There is a small playground nearby and I have only seen one family use it. Where are all the other stay-at-home moms? We're in the suburbs for crying out loud. Take your babies outside! Anyway, that's my rant for today.

Yesterday I spotted a young mom with a baby who appeared to be about Dylan's age on an adjacent patio; A guestimate, the baby was "cruising" and standing well but not walking on her (his?) own. If you're imagining me peeping out the window with binoculars pressed to my face and a pad and pen in my hands scribbling latitude and longitude feverishly, you're not too far off. I'll admit I thought about marching right over to them with a big goofy, desperate grin and a bribe for friendship. I thought better of it. It's probably best not to sneak up on a mama bear and her cub.

Of course I'm exaggerating, but only a little. Dylan and I have been getting out of the house at least once a week to attend a playgroup so we're not as pathetic as I made it seem. This week we went to his buddy's Mickey Mouse themed 1st birthday party.

(Photo courtesy Julia McAndrew)

(Photo courtesy Julia McAndrew)

Later in the week we were so stir crazy that we decided to tag along with Thomas to the dentist. What fun! Seriously, it wasn't half bad. We each claimed our own LoveSac in the kiddie corner and Dylan played with an activity cube that was bigger than him and even kissed (see also: licked) the penguins that were painted on the wall.

Thomas on the other hand wants nothing more than to spend one full day per week couped up inside. It's astonishing how different our daily lives are right now. He's out in the field mist netting and being pecked by cardinals or monitoring rodent species in deep East Texas while Dylan and I are at home in the Dallas suburbs trying to make sense of Dr. Seuss and fighting pirates in the bath tub. At the end of the day though we've got our eye on the prize and the future we envision doesn't seem too far away.

Good Eats, Good Eater

I am proud to say that so far Dylan eats what Mama and Daddy eat. As of yet, he's not a picky eater.

I brought along some blueberries to the park for him and when I sat the container out on the table open, Dylan lunged for them and relentlessly plunged handful after handful into his mouth, the other mom's mouths dropped open. His current favorite finger food is apparently not usually so popular with the little ones.

He literally licked the bowl clean!

He's 9 months old and he hasn't turned away from a single food item thus far. He loves hummus, sprouted bread, collard greens, garbanzo beans, raspberries, potatoes, avocado, winter and summer squash, pears, steel cut oats, spinach, brown rice, you name it! I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. I lived on all of the above while I was pregnant.

One of the moms in my meetup group proclaimed "My kid screams if I give him anything other than cheese, he'll only eat cheese." I wasn't surprised to hear that, she was nursing what had to be at least 1 liter of soda from a gargantuan Whataburger cup which led me to believe she doesn't make the best dietary choices herself. Children learn what they live folks.

Anyway, in the past couple of weeks he has mastered his pincer grip as well as his begging face. He gobbles up anything we give him, and anything he finds on the ground, or on the bottom of our shoes. While bathing him this morning he went after a bar of cassia clove soap. Yum! Because of his proclivity to eat mud, soap, and the like, I've had to master the crooked finger mouth swipe. Unfortunately, Dylan has learned to keep my finger out of his mouth by clamping his gums together like a crocodile on prey. And when the teeth come? I can't wait for that magic.

This week Dylan has also learned to clap. He does it on command or after we tell him to stop doing something he knows he shouldn't be doing. "Clap! Clap! Clap!" It's amazing to me how similar babies are to dogs.

For instance:

They're usually cute and cuddly, but get near them while they're eating? That's a horse of a different color.

Transition to Minimalism

It's been less than three weeks since we left Florida and already so much has changed. It's a new year, we're in a new town, Thomas has had to adjust to commuting to both work and school, and Dylan and I are learning what it means to be stay-at-home people.

We're really loving our new apartment. We moved from a 750+ sq.ft. place to a 430 sq.ft. studio. We really don't need more space than that. In fact, we could get along with less.

Thomas found some minimalist blogs and an anti-consumer documentary and the content really struck a chord with both of us. The months leading up to the move we started selling and giving away our stuff on Craigslist. Before we signed our new lease we decided that we wanted to rid our lives of the material clutter that was surrounding us. To our delight we ended up with a pile of cash and a more serene space and mind.

We're carrying the minimalist philosophy over into all areas of our life, slowly but surely. We've downsized our wardrobe, furniture, dishes, and even sold over half of the books we own and pitched the TV and telephone. It's already apparent that this is the right thing for us right now. Minimalism means something different to every person; to us it's about saving money, breaking attachments to inanimate, material possessions, reducing our carbon footprint, and most importantly, thinking outside the conventional box.

For example, about two weeks ago, while I was packing up the old apartment, Dylan was chewing on the phone cord  and to my dismay, my insistent "Drop it! That's dangerous." only elicited giggles. I had been trying to convince Thomas that we should get rid of the phone for awhile at this point, so naturally that thought was in the back of my mind but it wasn't my first thought. My first thought  had to do with baby-proofing something or other and why we hadn't bothered to do it yet. Anyway, I thought about hanging the phone on the wall at the new place but the cord would still hang down a little so the point would have been moot. After some thought and several more unheeded warnings I decided to look into other options for long-distance communication with our family and friends in other states.

Of course, unlimited video chats via Skype for free was the best option, but unfortunately, not everyone we need to talk to has access to a web cam. The second best option was to buy a Skype subscription that would enable us to place outgoing calls as well as to receive calls from landlines and mobile. At first, I thought the plan was too good to be true. For the total price of $5.18 per month after ALL taxes and fees, we would get unlimited calls to/from any and all landlines and mobiles in the U.S. and Canada, free voicemail, caller ID, speed dial, and an online telephone number that we could pick the area code for. Plus, since we don't have or want a regular cell phone, we could just take the computer with us on road trips and use it as a mobile at any restaurant, coffee shop, library, etc with a WiFi signal. Yes, please! On top of getting rid of another useless possession (el teléfono), the Skype subscription will save us in the ballpark of $350 this year. Win, win.

There's still one big part of our lives that needs tweaking if we really want to save big. FOOD. And grocery shopping and impulse buying. Can anyone say 99 cent organic head-sized ciabatta cinnamon roll? We've been picking up these bad boys at least a couple times per week and the empty calories and buck a pop really add up. Not to mention we're total Virgil's root beer lushes, that's another $1.69 per bottle. And we're also complete Whole Foods Market snobs which is just the kind of branding we'd like to move away from. We're on the road to recovery, however. The word around town is that the local farmer's market stocks organic produce and the farmers are willing to bargain. Downtown, here we come!

Finally, and totally off topic, I took Dylan to a local park the other day with one of my mom groups, and he rode his first swing, fed the ducks, and went down one of the slides.