Baby Tuesday

I blame blogger for my photos disappearing...I put them on again, watch them come back and I'll have double...

Baby C got attacked by a crazy toddler in the church nursery on saturday night, she wasn't his only victim and somehow in a sick way that made me feel better about the incident.
Here's how it went:
I walked in to pick her up, and in front of me was a father picking up his son. The nursery lady said politely but with a firm stare, "your son was scratching all the other children today." Then the guy carried him out and I asked for my toddler.
They pulled her from the ajoining room wailing and holding her cheek.
"She got pinched in the face."
I think she was his final victim, the attack for the road, if you will.
Luckily Daddy was there with me to hold her but she was still pretty upset.
When we got all buckled in the car I looked at her face and the area underneath her right eye was all pink and swollen.
I grumbled to myself about the little turd going for her eyes and said "do you want ice cream?"
So we got ice cream.

And yes I know that you're not supposed to use food as a reward or whatever the rule is.
And yes I know I should think other people's kids are turds.
But I do and I don't care.

Just in the past week she's been stringing together words to convey more complex thoughts, which means that communicating with her is more like playing the $10,000 Pyramid than say, Concentration.

Here's an example of what I think is the cutest thing:
C:"Park"
Me:"We already went to the park"
"Rich"
"And Rich was there too."
"GiGi"
"And Gigi"
"Dada"
"And Daddy"
"baby"
"yes and the baby was there too"
"stro"
"we went in the stroller"
"fun"
"Did you have fun?"
"yeah!"

Hey, she's my first kid. I think it's adorable that that's how she tells me that she remembers going to the park with all of us that morning and having fun.

She told her father a similar report on the events at the aquarium, who was there and what she saw and that it was fun.
Cute!

Also in the middle of the night instead of making little whines when she wakes up, she plays with her plush Tad that sings little songs when you press his buttons. At 3AM I'll hear "that's the yellow star! that's the green circle!"


Buried treasure!


So many neat things for little kids to experience there!
Like this little coral tunnel with fish tanks inside, so cool.
I can't wait until both babies can play in there. I wanted to let her hang out and play all afternoon but Baby R made it clear he wasn't cool with that.


Baby R relaxing at last in Capitola.


"Thanks GG for holding me. I love love."


Guess where I am in all this?


What am I doing here?
Moreover, what is my hair and outfit doing?


This activity confused both of us. I don't think she had the prerequistite for the flippers.


Note the penguin shirt. I thought ahead! We had aquatic spirit.


Please people, just leave me in peace. I have no interest in fish.


Again, the best part about this exhibit was the fiberglass rock.


This little boy had been in the giant seashell but when I told Baby C to climb in and share it with him, he got weirded out. He looked at her for a moment and then walked off. Sorry Chuck, not a love connection.



Grandpa Rich educates Baby R (who is now 4 mo old!) about the wide world of hot doggery.


the pleasantly unexpected


Thanks be to Rich for carrying the big lump around!
This video makes more sense knowing this was the arrangement.




"ooh reading glasses- yoink!"


At this point, Baby C loved chasing the seagull feathers that were blowing around out on the balcony way more than anything else in the museum.





If you can't tell, she saying penguin penguin! fly fly!
Or rather "pennuh pennuh! fye fye!" Which is cuter anyway.

flattery will get your photos thrown away

It's 11:11 right now and i am 11 minutes in to my one hour of inidividual productivity.

Any design jobs I have on my plate, most emails, blog posting, and online shopping, I gets done between the hours of 11 p.m. and 12 a.m.

I think it'll be like this for a while...

anyway--

I went to Tar-shzay this afternoon to pick up [some Old Spice] and my photos that I sent to be printed last night.

I walked up to the [napoleon dynamite] guy at the photo counter and asked for my photos.

He handed me a small envelope and told me the price.

I asked him where the other prints were and he replied "oh there was a copyright infringment, those were profressional photos."

"What?"

"Those were taken by a professional, you don't have permission to print them"

"I swear to God I took those." (I can't believe it only took the threat of not getting a handful of prints in order for me to throw the Lord's name around like that)
"They're mine I swear! Here, do you have them, I'll show you where I screwed stuff up with photoshop!"

He then tells me that he usually throws them away but he had them in a drawer so he pulled them out. I then showed him where I had to edit out Baby R's "little bits," etc. And thankfully he believed me.
I mean what did I have to do, go home and get my art degree off the wall and show him I'm capable of taking good photos? (Not to mentionI didn't think they weren't that good.)

I walked over to TK Noodle clutching the envelope like ransomed captives. I sat down and opened up the initial envelope and sure enough there was an official document inside stating that by law they had refused printing according to the law.

Thank you for the compliment, but I just want my photos!

the dark horse of DNA discovery is quite friendly

Look who met up with us at the Aquarium on Friday!
It's Rosalind Franklin!
And you thought she was dead.
Nope, see for yourself she's holding onto Baby C and Baby's got her by the hair.

I guess after that whole Watson and Crick scandal, she can handle anything.
There's chaos all around, but she's keepin' her cool.

Baby Tuesday

I never stop hunting for the ultimate public park. I'm like a suburban conquistador[a], always asking the natives if they know of the El Parque Del Oro.
Donde esta?!
This afternoon I tried Las Palmas. It was like the set of Gilligan's Island interpreted into a children's playground. The only bummer was that the water spayers were turned off and the Professor was nowhere to be found to fix them [with a coconut husk and stick of bamboo].


Here's our little Bob Denver-Dawn Wells hybrid.


I was sure that Baby C would fall into the "lagoon" before we left, but alas, she did not.
She did however, run away from me when I said it was time to go, across the concrete and biffed it onto her knees. I told her that was the way the world worked, "when you don't mind Mommy, then you get hurt."
It's more or less true, right?


I don't care how much she looks like her father otherwise, when she makes that face, she looks like a little me.



She's plotting her escape and possibly her revenge upon the rest of us.


"I love nakedness!"


Yes, this one will be printed and framed. I love the "warthog."


Man, this may be the best photo of him to date. He is cuter than a hamster wearing mittens having tea with a pink bunny.
(and yes, I had to erase the laundry basket that was originally behind his head in the photo, and I didn't do it very well, sowy.)


"I am naked, by the backdoor on Daddy's bathrobe in my car seat...but I trust you. You're the one with the milk."


Modesty pleat.


'Looks like he's about to start up a polite conversation, right?


Thank you to great-aunt Cindy for making this muscle car quilt that mgaically matches his muscle car car seat cover made by yours truly. Kismet!
And that's a 12mo onesie and 18mo shorts. He's a hunk in more than one way.

on a separate note...
I've never donated to a presidential campaign before, but I want Barack Obama to win next year's election so darn bad, that I'm considering buying this shirt (20 bucks towards his campaign)

because I am an Obama Mama

great to wear when standing still, indoors, when its warm

I went out yesterday afternoon to a regular stomping ground of mine. And a very many pretty and fit young women were wearing the style of dress pictured above.
And why shouldn't they?
This style is everywhere this season, every store is telling you to buy this and wear this.

There's just one problem:

the breeze

Each woman I saw wearing a babydoll dress was holding it down to her thighs to keep it from flying over her head, Monroe style. In fact, they looked like someone had just run off with their pants and they were left trying to cover themselves with a maternity shirt.

Very unfortunate fashion/weather victims.

talk to my agent

For the second time this month I've recieved an Evite from a person I don't know.

The first Evite I suspect came from someone 20-ish at church that somehow got my email address and invited me because I appear from a distance to be good party material.
Obviously they don't know that all I do at parties is park it at the food table and run through an internal monologue about other guests' shoes.

Then I got another Evite and I really don't know who they are or who the person whose birthday we're supposed to be celebrating. And either my false reputation precedes me in ways I wasn't aware of, or they spelled someone's email address wrong.
Perhaps they were inviting a "Charles" who loves cake and keg stands? Or a "Charisa" that is renown around San Jose for mixing a really great White Russian?
Dunno.

But it's weird, and I have declined their advances.

dab of this and that

Here are my half designed, half paid/appopriated images that I've been working on lately.




(that's just a placeholder set of words for the subtitle, btw)


I've been reading a book about not being too busy. And since I've read it, I've taken on more projects than ever before...one painting, one website, 4 DVD covers, two title slides, one invitation, one business card, two T-shirts and one logo.
All to be done in the next two weeks or so.

The book says we do things like this to ourselves to feel important.
The book is totally right.
Yes, I need affirmation this bad.
I'm only getting paid real money for the painting.

I got a certificate of appreciation from the City of San Jose a few days ago and it only stoked the fire.

proof or excuse?

Attention everyone, can I have you attention please?

I'm here to publicly shame my mom for buying a pack of cigarettes this afternoon.

She just paid bookoo bucks to quit again
and apparently my home is so stressful that she couldn't make it even two weeks here without losing her mind and starting smoking again.

Last time her excuse was her husband was going through chemo-therapy, and that was stressful so she had to smoke.

Does that mean that my home is as stressful as cancer treatment??

(It possibly could be, for all I know.)

Shame on you Gwynn! SHAME!

If you have a moment, please call her and add some more guilt, will you?

Baby Tuesday

I'm always making a smarmy face when Kevin takes the picture. I must secretly (or not so secretly) feel smarmy towards him



[[film noir saxaphone* playing]]
"4:45PM, Father's Day. I drank and drank [milk] until I forgot about all of my problems. I took off my tie [bib], unbuttoned my shirt and laid on the floor. It had been a long 3 1/2 months..."



Dad's day with the dads, all 3 of them, out in the garden.


Look at this guy will ya? Good lookin'!


Baby C as always, has her eyes on the prize, or the bean dip in this case.



I bought a "mommy swimsuit." Everything is covered and stays put so I don't look like a hussy-mom.
I bought another one for Hawaii where I don't care what people think.
But here, I put on my sparkley Mott's apple juice suit and sit in the sand with the babies.



Howdy howdy howdy...as a sheriff, I'm tiny and ineffective against banditos. Sorry.





fat rolls = art


A little help please?



Stop it with the camera and get me out, look at me.



Baby C and her GG.


"Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go 'round!"



Thank you modesty-blanket.


*While I did notice that I spelled saxophone incorrectly, I wanted to double check it. I googled "saxaphone" and was given many many websites featuring the word spelled with an "a" instead of an "o." Curious!