Sad Little Puppy

Madeleine got yet another ear infection this week, but she's back on meds and already feeling better. And she fully enjoyed her week with her grandparents, who are amazing. Thanks Mimi, Nonny, Papa and Poppie! Matt and I also had a great trip to California, despite some rather cool weather. Highlights: Calvin and Karen's lovely wedding; fabulous food in San Francisco; driving the Pacific highway; hiking up and down the streets of San Fan and through some cool redwoods forests; stunning museums ... and most of all, time together.

Goin' Back to Cali

OK, I guess it doesn't really count as going back if we've never lived there, but I just heard that song the other day and it made me chuckle. Matt and I are headed to a wedding in Santa Cruz and then siteseeing in San Francisco for the next six days. It will be our first trip without you know who, but she'll be in very good hands with her grandparents. Have a great week!

Parenting, Inc.

I think this is a great article about all the ways parents get bamboozled into buying all sorts of unnecessary, expensive stuff for their kids:

Salon.com: The Parent Trap.

For instance, I never got the point of the special swaddling blankets. Does everyone know how easy it is to take a regular blanket and swaddle a baby? Seriously. Some of Madeleine's favorite toys include tupperware and simple plastic rings that have been chewed on by babies before her. (And then washed, don't worry.) She loves to pull on the fringe of our blankets. Simple board books delight her, as mentioned previously. She also likes some stuff with bells and whistles, but I can totally see the point that those kind of toys could ruin kids for the simpler kind that involve more imagination.

There is some baby gear that parents will undoubtedly find really useful. The problem is that until you try it out on your kid, you don't know what they're going to think of it. Madeleine never really got into the swing. Some parents think Exersaucers are a total waste of money, and she loved it. I never used our slings very much, but some moms swear by them. And I still don't see the point of expensive video monitors, believing somewhat that we parents need to know if our kids are crying, but we also need to relax and enjoy adult time when they're not. Madeleine loves the Johnny Jump-Up that hangs from the doorway, but I'm sure some kids just sit there and wonder what the hell they're supposed to be doing.

Some of Madeleine's best-loved toys (she adores her walker, which I don't think they even sell anymore because of the "potential to go down the stairs" issue) have been hand-me-downs from Isabelle and Lilly. And to Madeleine's adorable two nieces, she says: Thank you!

English vs. Science

Madeleine has showing a growing interest in doing more than just eating her board books and tearing the pages out of the rest of them. She has now taken to flipping through them and chatting with them as she points at the pages, which is pretty cute. But it's still debatable whether she's taking after the "English" side of the family, rather than the "Science" side. She absolutely loves animals, and greets them by basically yelling "boo" at them. Yesterday we took her to the zoo for the first time, since it was a gorgeous day in the low 60s (finally). She had a blast, as did we.

For the record, she also started crawling about two weeks ago. I realized I haven't been recording any of her milestones in a baby book, but many of them I've mentioned here to everyone's boredom, so I figure at least I'm keeping track somewhere.

And as for the day care update ... finally, by Friday, she had stopped bursting into tears (with relief?) when I came to pick her up. Amanda reports that she's doing great, and given the fact that she's been taking unusually long naps and is in a great mood every night, I believe her.

Today we're keeping it low-key, since it's kind of gloomy and rainy outside. My big project was to take off all the doors to our kitchen cabinets to clean the chipping paint off the hinges. Why the former owner painted them black, I have no idea. I want to get down to the silver beneath. A tip I read about in This Old House: soak your old hardware all day (or all night) in a crock pot with detergent, softening the paint enough so you can scrape it off. I'm not looking forward to putting the doors back up, but it's too late to turn back now. This summer I'm contemplating reglazing our old windows, and it's just going to suck.

Also, after feeding Madeleine a turkey hot dog for lunch, Matt informed me he'd like to be called Leroy Hot Dog Zanzibar. You know, just as an FYI.