Welcome to toast & cereal

Conversations

These are the conversations that make me love my peeps.

Me, drawing a picture of Viola's favorite air travel vessel: Mama's drawing a blimp!
Viola: Bimp!
Me, drawing clouds: What are these?
Viola: ...
Me: Clouds?
Viola: Couds!
Me, drawing the sun: What's this?
Viola, triumphant: Pider!!*

-------------------

Me, in living room, playing with Viola, yelling to Joe in the kitchen: Were you the one who told me just a few years ago that "We Are the World" was about AIDS?
Joe: Uh, maybe.
Me: It's so weird that I didn't know it was about AIDS. Kind of like I didn't know "Who's the Boss" was about class.
(pause)
Joe: Actually, I'm in here thinking, "Did I know that 'We Are The World' was about AIDS?" So, I'm probably not the one who told you. Unless I knew at one time and just forgot.
Me: It's not really something you'd forget.
Joe: No, it's really the perfect thing to forget.

*Spider

Viola with Violas

These and other pictures from our trip to Portland last month (for father's day/Joe's birthday) over in the photos section. They're all mixed in with others from this year; I suppose it's time to start a new album. Viola just turned 19 months!

Summer Weekend

A Dutch baby for breakfast with raspberries and blueberries from our yard:

Popsicles (Joe ate like 17; somehow Viola had only one):

Filling up the kiddie pool (and lounging in it, of course):

Housework (V's job is sorting the bibs and washcloths):

Not pictured: building a deck (almost finished!), going to a festival, getting a pedicure (my twice-a-year treat), grocery shopping, grilling, mowing the lawn, Viola's first smoked salmon (she liked it!), picking a ton of sugar snap peas, playing with frozen washcloths, and on, and on...

All this, and we still had time to feed the little gold baby. It came from my grandma (my parents sent it to me after she died), and it is the perfect sample of her old-world European aesthetic. She kept these little cherubs in her potted plants, so that's where I had it, until Viola took a shine to him. "Bay-bee!" she says, and then offers him a little of whatever she's eating, saying "nom nom nom." Usually we can get her to say "bay-bee watch" but occassionally she also invites him on to her highchair. Here he is enjoying bunny crackers and goat cheese:

Who put a quarter in you?

That's what my mom used to say to us when we were acting loopy. For those of you who don't know, my mom had her brain poked and prodded twice this week. So, this one's to make you laugh, mom! (Taken April 15.)

Dancing

Our girl loves to dance. A few weeks ago in Portland on an outdoor stage...

And at home last month, in a b-boy mood...

For 30 minutes tonight

"Elmo. Mama. Elmo. Mama. Elmo mama. Elmo mama. Elmo mama. Elmo mama. Elmo mama Elmo mama Elmo mama Elmo mama Elmo mama Elmo mama Elmo mama Elmo mama Elmo mama Elmomama Elmomama Elmomama Elmomama Elmomama Elmomama Elmomama ElmomamaElmomamaElmomamaElmomamaElmomamaElmomama....Elmama Elmama Elmama."

Regular Stuff

A lot has been going on here. And not necessarily in a good way. But then, amidst all that stuff, there's this regular stuff, too, which is pretty great:

Viola got this awesome doll bed from our friend Alyssa. It's got a real mattress and pillows and everything. Viola only has one small doll, but she doesn't have any trouble finding things to put in the bed, including herself. I asked her to sit on it instead of laying, afraid she might break it. Right before I took this, she was showing me the owie on her knee, which, despite being acquired by performing an impressive belly flop on some gravel at a housewarming party last weekend, is very minor. Joe claims it is still noteworthy, however as her first official Knee Scrape. Not that she hasn't had plenty of other scrapes elsewhere, most memorably, on her forehead after smacking it on the sidewalk. She had at least 3 of those this winter.

Here we are ready to go to a 4th of July party at little Clarkie's house. It was a ton of fun, and tuckered Viola out so that she slept through the lengthy pyrotechnics display in our neighborhood once darkness fell. Considering that she doesn't usually sleep through the night even when bombs aren't bursting in air, this was quite a treat for the parents. On a related note, we are one week in to a successful night-weaning effort, which is a huge step in everyone getting more sleep. She is taking it like a champ.

We know two little people locally with birthdays in July, and here Viola is enjoying her first popsicle at Sascha's house on his second birthday. This pop was homemade from unsweetened yogurt and blueberries. Viola thought it was the greatest thing ever. (We've been picking and eating blueberries and raspberries in the yard together too, much to her delight. She was unsure of raspberries at first, saying "no, no, no, no" when we picked them, but she likes them now.) The next day, we went to little Lilie's birthday party, which was also a ton of fun. Viola devoured an entire piece of apricot tart and a scoop of homemade ice cream at the party, in addition to her lunch.

A few weeks ago we were making chocolate chip cookies and she was helping out by dumping ingredients in the bowl after they were measured. I saw her putting a chocolate chip closer and closer to her mouth, watching for our reaction. When I told her she could eat it, she did, and she only had one word to say: "moe." And then she learned about cookies too. "Mama, oo-ie, moe" she said to me as I got home from work the next day.

This is July so far: lots of parties, lots of food, some finally warm weather, and lots going on.

I knew this day would come

Viola has completely lost her wrist creases, one of my favorite baby-parts.

Here she is sporting them at 8 months.

Also at 8 months, with uncle Adam in Boston. Look at those things!

Photographic evidence shows that she was developing them by at least three months:

And by four months they were in fine form:

Last month in Vegas (1 year, 5 months). No evidence of wrist creases whatsoever.

The June Update

It has been some time since I graced the fine pages of Toast and Cereal with my ramblings, the last two posts having been written by my esteemed spouse. There are various and sundry reasons for this, but I shall bore you with only one: we were burglarized (burgled?) a second time, and the thief (theives?) stole my computer, only to return it to our porch the following evening. As bizarre and shocking as this may sound, I am no longer interested in guessing at who the returner was, or why they decided to return a basically new MacBook Pro that had just been purchased to replace the ancient one that had been stolen the year before. If you have any theories on this, please keep them to yourself.

Whatever the reason, and whoever he/she was, the returner brought my computer back sans power cord. As you may know, a power cord for a Mac laptop is not cheap. And so I stubbornly (lazily?) decided to wait until our homeowners' insurance check came in (we love you, MetLife! Go Pretzels!) before purchasing a new one. And so generally my laptop was without life, excepting when Joe would generously bring his cord home from M-Space for his own nearly-identical laptop and I would juice up the little guy for a day or so, check Twitter and Gmail and my favorite blogs, and then it would be dead again. So, you see? No blogging.

And then, soon after our check arrived, we cashed it and went straight to Vegas! Which sounds racy, but we actually didn't gamble it away. We just happened to deposit it on our way to the airport. So then a little more time passed, and I still didn't have a power cord. But we had a great vacation in Vegas, visiting with Marc & Shannon who live there, and my parents, who don't live there. I'll post some pictures at some point.

Now I've built it up way too much, so this is the let-down part: one day I walked to the independent Mac Store four blocks from my workplace and bought a cord. They've redesigned it. It now runs parallel to the computer instead of perpendicular. I know, right?

I'm glad Joe has kept you up to date on what's been happening with Viola, because she is awesome. When we are eating cereal and yogurt together at 4:15 am and she looks over the bowl at me and says "mah-muh," it's THE BEST.

More Shoes Please

Viola and Jess went shopping. Viola had to try everything on before bed. The shoes, not the jammies. Before bed, meaning laying down and not sleeping. Must have been overstimulated at the mall, Nordstrom sale and all. Mama's shoes, jammies, and trying to wink. Ok, I forgive you, you charming little devil.