Nine Months In, Nine Months Out!!

Oh Bean,
Today you are a spectacular 9 months old! To celebrate we took you off your nap schedule so you could go to your swim lesson with your dad. Apparently it was a really good time and included jumping off the side of the pool. When you came home you had a bath, a bottle, lunch with mom, and a well-deserved nap.

You are becoming a much better napper, which makes us happy. You take two naps a day now. One around 9:00 AM and the other around 1:00. You go to bed right at 6:00 because you are throughly exhausted because you now spend a lot of your days pulling yourself up to stand! You're really good at this and you're good at getting back down on your bottom, which you were unable to do a month ago.

Now that it's nice out you're getting to spend a lot more time outside,which everyone is happy about. You really like the baby swing on the Green and last week you went in your first sandbox, which you seemed pretty happy about. You really liked the being in the back pack and going for a hike with me last week. I hope you like it even when your friend's dog isn't with us. You also like just sitting out in our backyard---you're not eating leaves and grass as often either. Yay!!

To celebrate your 9 monthiness you had (modified) macaroni and cheese with green beans for dinner. You loved the mac -n-cheese as I suspected you would. You fed yourself some pieces of bread and cheese cubes, too. For desert you had a fruit combo, which you also dug. You eat a lot of food these days It seems like I need to go grocery shopping all the time and it's mostly food for you! You still don't like cauliflower (although I haven't tried it lately), but I feel lucky that you are such a good eater. You even eat veggies with gusto! You're going to the doctor for your checkup on Monday. Luckily there are no shots! According to the Wii Fit you weigh 20.5 pounds. You seem very long to us, but we will know more on Monday afternoon.

You're sleeping better at night although you still wake up. You don't get fed anymore because you're too old for that, but sometimes you need some water, a diaper change, and a hug. Hopefully in the next month you won't need those things any more...at least not at 3 AM.

Your dad and I love you like crazy Bean Girl! It's been a fabulous 9 months! We can't wait to see what #10 has in store.

Much love,
Bklyn Mama

All About The Benjamins

This post was going to be all about how my generally awesome brother KILLED all my sweaters when he went psycho with the moth balls this past summer, but then I learned that this was to be my 100th post and thought I'd save the one about my brother for another, less special time.

So Mazel Tov to me!! 100 posts about moi! In a less than a year! That's pretty self-involved even for me! Here's a sampling of what those in the know have to say about my blog.
N says the blog is "wordy and full of typos and mispellings, but is also a lifesaver for myna birds."
The Bean says that the blog is "full of poop" but I think she's talking about herself.
The Brother who killed the sweaters says that this blog "brings tears to his eyes and fills him with much jealousy and rage."
Malice feels the blog is " too fraking cheery" and Jenny thinks there ought to be "more about cakes!"
KW feels as though the blog "relies too much on me, as the sole commenter" and The Muel is " too busy buying things on Ebay to read it regularly, but hears that's it's not too shabby."
The Bean would also like to add that in addition to being "full of poop" that ten posts tagged under "lame" is indeed "LAME!"

Okay, well I need to go as N. is bringing me a wonderful slice of chocolate cake to celebrate my 100 Golden Moments.

Feel free to let me know how awesome you thinketh the blog is, lurkers! And do keep sending the chocolates.

8 Months, Baby!

Today The Bean turned 8 months! That seems crazy, no? To celebrate her 8 months The Bean woke up at 5:30, which has unfortunately been the theme all week. She got some yogurt and some fruit for breakfast from her dad, which made her pretty happy.

She stayed up for her 9:00 nap until 8:50, which was pretty amazing. She woke at 10:00 just in time for her babysitter. And to celebrate, she was actually happy for her babysitter, which considering the bad times last week was quite a present. Yay!! Bean! Mama likes it when you're happy with others:) Mama celebrated 8 months of being mama with a latte (decaf) and a roll at Borders while The Bean was being sat.

Because she's 8 months, The Bean happily ate her lunch of spinach, carrots and sweet potatoes, and cut up pieces of bread, which she attempted to feed herself. Go Bean Go! Then she took her 1:00 nap at 1:00! Miracles do happen now don't they?

After she woke up at 2:00, all of us (daddy included!) went for a walk in the beautiful 60 degree sunshine. To top it all off, Bean went swinging in her favorite swing on The Green.

Because mama was ill prepared, the first course of The Bean's 8 month dinner was oatmeal and Vermont organic applesauce. The second course was most exciting as it included salt! The Bean had her very first Dr. Prager's Spinach pancake! Mmmmm, said The Bean! Give me more! So Mama did! Give me more, said The Bean. So Mama did and kept doing until Daddy appeared quite shocked at how much pancake The Bean had eaten. And he didn't even know about the avocado between the courses. Hopefully the tastiness that is Dr. Prager's won't upset The Bean's stomach.

All in all a pretty exciting day, Ms. Bean. You keep growing, pulling yourself to STAND, feeding yourself, crawling into our laps, getting into stuff, laughing, making us laugh, dancing, yelling, and being your all around interested and interesting self!

Only 4 months till you can eat cake, baby girl.

213.057949 DAYS and Counting!

Dear Bean,
Whooo hooooo! Today you are 7 months old! You're SITTING like a pro right now on your play gym, sucking and screaming at your little blue monkey. Being ever so talented you're able to hold the monkey in your mouth hands-free. You're CRAWLING TOO and EATING two meals a day although most of the time it seems to end up all of you, your highchair, and bib. For your 7-month dinner you had mixed veggies, sweet potatoes, avocado, and apple sauce for desert. You love apple sauce but maybe not as much as you love pear sauce and peaches.

7-month olds do not get shots, so no grape Tylenol this week. You will have to get the other half of the flu shot, but that's not for 2 weeks.

It's amazing to me how much of a person you're becoming each day. I feel lucky that I get to witness this journey with you. Even if you did poop all over me in the middle of a diaper change at 3:00 AM the other night:)

Go, Bean, go! You rock on with your awesome, growing self.

Love,
Your Brooklyn Mama

What The Bean, N. and I Would Be Doing 2/25 if We Wasn't So Far, Far Away

Okay, we wouldn't actually be in the pool. We'd be at MOMA (yes, the Museum of Modern Art) watching our coolest, filmiest friend's documentary Sync or Swim. What, you didn't know the U.S. had its very own synchronized swim team? Get thee to the MOMA, friend!

Mark your calendars: FEBRUARY 25, 2009 @ 6:00 PM. MOMA.

And tell Auntie C if you see her that The Bean(and co.) wants a screening in Lebanon ASAP!!!

Lest Auntie C get in trouble, the above pic is a still from her movie, but we found it on the Internets.

Marvelous!

Check out Bill Cunningham's inaugural experience.

It's Been A Long Time Coming....

But we made it. Here's to a new day, America.

It's A Baby, Not A Bean!!!!!

Our daughter was born at 10:42 AM on August 2nd. She was a pretty big bean at 8.5 pounds and 21 inches long. We might be a little biased but N. and I think she's incredibly beautiful.

I'm not going to use her name on this blog. The five readers who know me will know Bean's name. And just in case there are some lurkers (which is cool:) I don't want to give out her name to strangers. That way when she's 16, she can't guilt me into a bigger allowance because I like totally violated her privacy by giving her name out on the Internet, which will probably be totally old school by then. So she'll remain Bean.

Because she won't look like this soon enough, I will share a picture.



Pretty cute, huh?

Another Great Thing About Brooklyn

Is the library. I love libraries in general but Brooklyn's is particularly fantastic. In that other borough (Manhattan) to get a just-reviewed NY Times book you need to reserve it way in advance and then probably wait at least three months. In Brooklyn? Richard Price's new novel Lush Life was reviewed on a Saturday. I reserved it on Monday and got it the following week! Amazing. Our current hood is mere blocks away from the newly renovated central library, which is like the Rolls Royce of branches.

Lush Life was a great read, too. Price really captures the gentrification/ghettoization of the LES. I like how he makes his characters so complicated in their failures. Plus, the guy is terrific with details and dialogue. I can see why David Simon loved him as a Wire writer.

Now, I'm reading yet another recently NY Times novel that I got in record time from the library. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. I'm still on the first story, which is about a pregnant mom who moves across the country for her husband's job. I had to put it down when the character thinks about missing the ladies from prenatal yoga and fiending for an egg and cheese from the local bodega.