omigosh!

Okay, this is not a baby post, but I couldn't resist. Jen will like this one, if she hasn't seen it yet. It's not kitty torture, it's for kitty charity, it's KITTY WIGS!

So, if you haven't thought of what to get that special kitty in your life, now you know.

Happy Christmas!!


ooh wait!
this just in!! there are going to be chihuahua wigs too! mom H. (aka gigi) won't be disappointed!

Yo quiero cabello rizado.
Yo quiero taco hell también.

Scary Parade

OK we live in Bizzarrro world. There we are having a nice domestic evening in the terraced house, Momma, baby and me. When all the sudden a loud BANG BOOM CLANG is heard outside the door. What is it? We all ran to the door and I lifted the sash to see and we were met with this spectacle...

It seems it was time for another Pagan ritual to be played out on our street. I love this country! But Renee was scared! I got out my Faerie gun and fired a few rounds but no one was hurt.

Then she calmed down and settled in for a good read.

"I'm reading! Pictures Later" she demanded!

Then her vanity caught up with her, "OK, but just one picture! Ha ha ha, one I said!"

Garbled Talks!

Ok it's me again back for more breaking news. Dateline England: Baby says "Dada." Yes, her first word is "dada" Which obviously means she's aware of the art movement of the same name.

And more evidence...

Notice she says "uh huh" at the end.

Next word we are teaching her, "antidisestablishment" or "mama."

Back to you Shannon...

little baba ghanoush

It's getting cold around here...brrrr! So we had to bundle Renee up in a little snowsuit to go for a walk today. She reminds me of the boy on A Christmas Story when his mom bundles him up so much he can barely move.

look at those little teefers! She is so cute you have to kiss her!

let's go!!

look at who's

learning to sit up!

she still falls over a bit like a drunken soldier, so we have to surround her with pillows.
she sends kisses to everyone!
Happy Thanksgiving.

It's about Time!

Finally, I have picked up the baton and started posting entries to this blog! Shannon is such a fine writer and I am often too busy downloading Cops for her TV habit.

OK, you want new pictures of Renee? Well I've got 'em! I just sterilized some bottles and she is off for a little nap so I can now post these for you:

I got two toofus!

Me, Mommy and my new monkey.

I love my Mommy but I love my monkey too.

Dad, put down the camera and let's go for a walk already.

time to pee?

boys and girls,

i have gone from the expansive space-time of maternity leave head first into the compressed time-space of writing a dissertation and applying for jobs. For updates you will have to appeal to mr. mom whose email is (his first name) @cellis.net

We still love you lots and lots and lots.

Shan, Renee & Charles

sweet, sweet babies

babies, babies, babies, what did I do before baby? Well, I am about to find out as I am really, really going back go work now. I know I have been talking about it for awhile, I am slow to adjust. I did, in fact, go yesterday, and today, and I will go again tomorrow. Now that I am the one going to work and Charles is the one staying home with Renee I feel a tinge of guilt mixed with a bit of jealousy. Yuck. I wonder...Will she love me less? Will Charles become her most favorite? These are my secret worries. It's a cliché, a boring, meaningless cliché, until you are living the cliché: they grow up so fast, little babies, but don't take my word for it I'll give you some photographic evidence.

2 weeks, little tiny-------------------------- 23 weeks, little piglet

2-3 weeks, skinny n' grouchy---------- 23 weeks, fat n' happy

and she has teeth, two of them, now, can u c them??...she can bite


and with teeth she can eat, which is something she loves to do...bananas, baby rice, carrots, sweet potato, yum.yum. (yes, our house is messy, don't notice this)

in other news...

Knitting on a diet

Before

(I didn't feel like having my picture taken.)

This is actually my latest knitting project and I think it's given me arthritis. I had a huge stash of mohair and wool yarn. Some yarn I "inherited" from other people's abandoned knitting projects (mom), other yarn I picked up in thrift stores cheap. Thrift store yarn is great with a few caveats: it's often difficult to find a knitting project to fit the hodge podge of yarn you find. It's much easier to find yarn to fit a knitting project. Of course, you can always knit scarves and hats, but this was a lot of super fuzzy mohair which I though would be too itchy for a garment. The second downside to thrift store yarn is it tends to smell a bit musty (eww). I didn't realize this when I bought it, I was just excited about getting high quality yarn for cheap. Knitting can be a surprisingly expensive hobby. I usually go for the natural, animal fibers, and technically you're not supposed to wash them. So, I knitted this GIANT bag with all the various bits and bobs of yarn I had and felted it.

Voila!--AFTER

This is what happens when you wash wool, mohair, alpaca, silk, etc. I actually intended this bag to be more the size of a shoulder bag and I could probably run it through the wash again, but I kind of like it as an anemone shaped basket for around the house. It is also a bit heavier than I expected. Washing the yarn causes it to compact and become very dense. I also like the painterly effect it has on the colors. So, since the project was too big and wobbly to be a handbag it has become a toy basket:

It would probably look extra cool with wooden blocks in it (if I do say so myself) but Renee is not to that stage yet. Speaking of my little angel, here she is : )

She's in some of her new clothes sent special delivery from her grandmommy (aka Gigi) in the United States. Thanks Gigi! Renee also received some beautiful clothes from Carolyn & Tommy, a gorgeous pair of corduroy overalls from her Auntie Sarah, and some adorable cowgirl boots from Uncle Rob and Auntie Laura Beth. Thanks everyone! Charles promises to send proper Thank You cards complete with photos!

a bouncing babe

Not a good angle for the mom but a cute babe.

ring in the changes

After what has seemed like years of deliberation, we have decided that Charles will become a stay at home dad, at least for the time being. He will join the ranks of Michael Douglas, and..., and...., surely there must be others?? After doing a bit of research I found that there are other stay at home dads and, apparently, they really hate being called Mr. Mom. There are web support groups like: www.rebeldad.com and stayathomedad.org

So far, all the people that I have told this news to have said, "Oooohh," in an alarmed tone, "does he realize how hard that will be???" So many people have said this that I have begun to doubt our decision. Then I think: wait a minute, aren't they referring to the same job that I have been doing for the past five months? Wouldn't I know how hard it would be? Or do these people have some secret knowledge they aren't sharing with me? Do people issue the same warnings to moms that are considering being stay at home moms? Or, are they concerned because Charles is a man, i.e., a MR. MOM!?! Poor Mr. Mom gets sucked into the cheesy drama of soap operas, is inept in every way, and nearly has an affair. Hopefully, Charles won't suffer the same fate, although he did manage to sit on my peanut butter toast this morning.

He assures me he won't have an identity crisis and I annoy him by giving way too many instructions on this or that baby thing. I have spent nearly every minute with Renee since she was born. I am going to have to adjust to letting go, letting someone else take the reins. I am glad it will be Charles because letting go is a bit more difficult than I imagined. I think she is very lucky to have a daddy like Charles and we are both very lucky to have baby Renee. Besides, they're only babies for a very short time. Before we know it, Renee will ask us not to kiss her when we drop her off for school, she'll want to dress herself and basically, have nothing to do with us, which will mean we've done our job. In the meantime, I think we'll ignore the naysayers and get on with doing things our way. To the Mr. Mom's around the globe: UNITE! to change the stereotype.

how can you resist?

this week with Renee

It's week 19 folks. Renee is 26 inches long / tall. That means she's grown nearly 6 inches since she was born. That's more than an inch a month! This week has been a pretty good week. I am trying to figure out how to get back to work so I've been interviewing 'childminders'. Well, I interviewed one and then changed my mind about the whole thing and Charles contemplated quitting his job again.

Renee's started reading books...hee hee

Doesn't she just look so smart? I think she'll move from this text onto something equally as challenging. Maybe something by Dostoevsky? : )

I am afraid her balding patches have ruined her chances for a baby modeling career : ) She needs too much beauty sleep to make enough smiles for the paparazzi anyway. So, it's probably for the best.

Poor thing. I think you could stick some little dots (for eyes) in the bald spot and it would look like a man with a moustache, like Charlie Chaplin, but Charles wouldn't let me do that. He doesn't seem to think it's such a funny idea. I guess he hasn't been on maternity leave for the past 5 months and so is not as easily amused.

Also, we had a little outing this weekend. We all went to Willen Lake which is where Charles and I lived when we first moved to England. We thought it would be nice to have pictures of Renee there so when she's older we can show her where she lived when she was born.

Here we are at the Peace Pagoda near the Buddhist Temple.

And here we are with the lake in the background. It was such a beautiful day and Renee was an angel. She let mommy & daddy hang out at the pub by the lake and have a Guinness. See how big she's getting? Giant, giant baby. Mommy needs to figure out how to hold her more pretty-like for pictures.

Finally, this week we attended (via webcam) the FIRST BIRTHDAY party of the illustrious Benjamin, Renee's baby cousin. The webcam business was a major pain in the a*@ and gave me a headache but it was worth it to see such a cutie-pie. We didn't get to see Ben open all his presents but we did get kisses and hugs and lots of love. I can't wait to see pics of Ben with his face in his birthday cake. BTW...how did the UK v. UofL game turn out?

sweet Ben and his pretty mommy...so much sweetness makes me cry.

****HAPPY BIRTHDAY BENJAMIN!****


one last thing...i took this goofy online quiz to tell me what breed of dog i am. turns out, i'm a scottish terrier and charles is a saint bernard...hmmm




You're a Scottish Terrier!


What Breed of Dog Are You?

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