My losing battle with Plastic

I've always been a little freaked out about plastic and I've known about the BPA thing for awhile.

But just last week I decided I was done with any plastic food containers in our house. I obsessed over where I could find glass containers that would not cost me an arm and a leg and Steve made it all the more difficult by insisting that they must be a certain size and shape so that they would fit properly in his lunch bag.

After many hours of internet searching and an impromptu trip to Bed Bath and Beyond, Steve reminded me that we still had a little bit of money left to spend at Crate and Barrel (was our wedding really 3 years ago? How can we still have these gift cards? Oh yeah, because I'm cheap and I hate to accumulate things.) I recycled all of our fake tupperware like items (oh if only I had freecycled them!) and stocked up on a myriad of shapes and sizes of glass containers.

What happened next, of course is my mom came to take care of Samuel while we were on our Parental Getaway, and when we returned Samuel had a new favorite snack cup - in the exact plastic we had been avoiding all this time. Yah mom! Do you think she tortures me on purpose?

Anyway, this snack cup, which is the most ordinary thing on earth, and we have seen a million other kids with at the park, will only be pried from Samuel's cold tantruming hands.

How come I don't get that much joy from the ATM?

Parental Getaway Part 3

Did I mention how amazing it was of my Mom and Barry to come and take care of Samuel for a whole three days? Thanks Bubbie and Popsy, you go above and beyond!

Parental Getaway Part 2

As you can see, the raccoons followed us all the way to Canada and made themselves known when we took a little walk in between the ceremony and dinner, luckily they decided to take their dinner from the garbage can instead of crashing the wedding.

The toasts at the dinner were charming and amusing and I enjoyed the company of our table mates. Since I had only met Mary one time and knew not a single other soul at the wedding and Steve knew only two other people there, I was pleasantly surprised that we felt very comfortable and had an excellent time.

The centerpiece of each table was a cake, which I assumed must not be real - as you can see I was inappropriate as always. Best cake I've ever had at a wedding (well, ok, it was equal to our ice cream cake).

The Parental Getaway

On August 23rd, Steve and I took our first trip without Samuel. We went to Vancouver to attend Mary and Renald's wedding. In a break from my usual high achieving personality I did not plan any activities other than to sleep as much as possible.

On Saturday we went to the pre wedding picnic and Steve and I were able to hone our competitive edge while learning a new game called "cups". To my surprise this game did not involve any alcohol, but instead required us to throw a frisbee between two poles that had cups sitting on top of them. I will not go into the boring details on the rules of said game, but Steve was a ringer considering his Ultimate prowess, and I didn't do too badly myself. I believe we exited the field undefeated :) Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of Steve and myself playing, however, I did take a couple of pictures of Mary and other picnic attendees.

That night we went out to a great tapas place for dinner, I got to drink as much as I wanted since I was pumping and dumping, and I slept through the night for the first time in 15 months.

Scene of the Crime

We had some unexpected nocturnal visitors two nights ago. Samuel woke up at 1am on Tuesday and while I was putting him back to sleep I heard a loud noise that I could not readily identify right outside his window. I naturally assumed it was the child thief that I always hear in the middle of the night coming to steal Samuel (because let's be honest, who wouldn't be lurking around in our suburban town breaking into houses specifically to steal little boys who wake up multiple times in the night. I think I read too much Roald Dahl as a child).

The unidentifiable ruckus was followed by the sound of splashing water and the clicking of plastic toys. As any reasonable person knows, child thieves do not swim in kiddy pools, so I peered out the window to see three fluffy tails sticking out of Samuel's wading pool. Baby raccoons were frolicking in the water and playing with the baby toys. They were so boisterous they managed to spread the toys halfway around the yard.

I sent Steve to scare them off. When he opened the sliding glass door, two of them scurried a couple of feet away, but the mama showed up and seemed to be about to mosey into our kitchen. Steve shut the door and left them to their devices. They became fans of Steve's footwear, and he now needs a new pair of flip flops. I regret not being awake enough to take pictures at the time but here are some before and after shots.

first words, first steps

I have been ruminating on this post for a long time. In fact, there has been some existential angst in our household regarding the topic of "firsts."

How does one define "first word"? And if you want to get really deep, what qualifies as a word? Does the sound just need to have intention, or does it need to be a real English word? Does it count if only your parents can understand you? Do you have to be able to use it on cue? What if you say it only once? What if you use that same word for many things? What if you say a word that no one can understand? What if you say it in a forest and no one can hear? What if you say them on a train, on a boat... oops, wrong story.

Likewise, when are you truly walking? Is it when you have taken your first two steps? When you can retrieve something by using walking as locomotion? When you can walk across the room? Or when you use walking as your main form of transportation? These are the difficult questions that plague Steve and I when we aren't too tired to think.

Perhaps Samuel's first word was dog. He uttered what his doting parents believe to be doggy and kitty as early as 11 months. That said, he called just about everything that he liked doggy, including me, for about two months, at which point the word disappeared from his lexicon rarely to be heard again. In the past four months, we have heard what we believe to be any number of words, including but not limited to: help, please, up, no, yes, mommy, daddy, nose, this, keys, music, raspberry (I know, we're crazy, but it was clear as day), kitty and happy. We believe his first really intentional phrase was "No no no," which actually meant, "Give that to me," because that is what I always say to him before I rip knives, scissors, ice picks and other dangerous objects out of his hands. "Nose" is currently his most consistent and reliable word, and I think we can attribute it's use to Grandpa Tom who never fails to ask Samuel where his is.

On the subject of walking, it is similarly difficult to pinpoint the "first" moment in time. Again, Samuel's first steps took place at about 11 months. He was getting to a standing position on his own even earlier than that. It wasn't until about 13 months that he started really walking, however, and within two weeks, he quit crawling altogether.

At some point, I hope to add some walking video to this post. If I ever get some talking action I will add that as well.