Wanderlust

First of the Season

"Did I ever mention that I hate the way you eat corn on the cob?"
George snorts and nearly chokes on a mouthful.
"Why?"
"I don't know... you're so messy about it."
"Well, how can you eat corn without making a mess?"
"I don't know. I manage it somehow."
Silence for a minute.
"You know what it is... you never lift your mouth up. I lift my mouth away from the cob after each bite to go to the next one. You just feed it through your teeth like a typewriter."
George chuckles around a mouthful as I conclude.
"It's like eating with a ravenous wildebeast."

The Pacifier Project

When we began this whole parenting thing over here at Wanderlust there were lots of questions to decide- to circumcise or not to circumcise...breastfeeding or formula... bathe the kid or let the dogs tongue him to cleanliness. One of the big ones was to pacify or not to pacify. I did my research, I asked the experts and I decided not to pacify. And then we had Owen, a baby who was attached to the breast from his first hour and inconsolable when seperated from it. When faced with the choice of giving Owen a pacifier or becoming one, I opted for freedom and surrendered to the inevitable plug.

While implementing the use of a pacifier finally allowed me to take ownership of my breasts again at least part time, it had its disadvantages. The goddamn thing was always falling out at the worst times- in the car, stuffed into the side of his seat at an irretrievable angle or in the middle of the night right as I was getting to the good part of that dream about Pierce Brosnan. I also disliked the notion of him toddling around with it, trying to form baby words around this monsterous mouthful of plastic. But the worst of it has been in the last month, when Owen's naps have reverted to 20 and 40 minute sleep bursts during the day. Most horrifying, after learning to sleep through the night, he has promptly gone back to waking three or four times in the wee hours, mewing for... you got it. The pacifier. Something had to be done.

I did my research, fortified myself with plenty of naps, and waited for the right moment. According to several sources, a baby's natural need for suckling dissipates around three to four months old. After that, the pacifier is just a bad habit, like those Whitney Houston CD's you haven't gotten around to throwing out yet. So now was the time. When we got back from my Mom's and Owen had completed the trauma of his four month immunizations, I launched my plan of attack. The "baby whisperer" claims that all bad parenting habits (she doesn't call them baby habits because they are usually the parents fault- no exception here!) can be overcome in three days. The trick is to work on issues one at a time and allow your baby to find healthy alternatives for the behavior you are trying to replace before you change any other parts of his routine.

So this weekend, Owen begins to sleep without his pacifier. Next week- no pacifier in the stroller or car. And by next weekend... no more pacifier. We'll keep you posted.

Anniversary Kitchenry

To celebrate our Anniversary, (and since we have a little bobblehead that dims the romance when we dine out together) I thought I would create a few celebratory dinners that were yummy, creative and thoughtful. I was so pleased with myself on both occasions (Tuesday evening and yesterday) that I thought I would post the details and the recipes in the Kitchenry section.

Tuesday I served Cordon Bleu with Apple Curry Rice and a Carrot & Broccoli stirfry accompanied by organic blueberry juice in wine glasses (hey, I'm drinking for two here). Dessert was a touch of home from George's grandmother, a pie called "Flappy." The recipe won't be included in the recipe section as I think it's something of a family secret.

Wednesday I dished up lemon dill Salmon fillets grilled on a cedar plank, grilled spinach Naan (a delicious Ethopian flatbread), and cilantro lime grilled zuchini with dipping sauce. (Yep, I'm woman enough to cook an entire meal on the grill).George accompanied his dinner with a bottle of Boone's Farm and for dessert, I concocted Homemade Strawberry Shortcake with Vanilla Whipping Cream.

Tonight, fatigued from my culinary adventures, I think I'm going to go with big juicy burgers and a large side salad.

Six years ago...

Six years ago today (on a Wednesday as luck would have it), I walked into the lobby of The Fairfield Inn & Suites on the outskirts of Manchester, NH in company of ex boyfriend who shall remain nameless (not because it's a secret but because no one really cares and it's beside the point now). I scanned the faces of the men walking by, looking for our drinking companion for the evening. And this man walked in, dark haired and swaggering. I got tingly all the way to my toes and my breath was drawn away from me for a few seconds. I knew that very moment that this was the man I would be in love with all my life.

Happy Anniversary, George.

Letters to the O

Four Months

This has been the month of the grandparents. We began with a visit from your Grandparents Weida and ended it with a plane trip to Vegas. In between were thousands of small milestones and while you haven't hit any big ones yet (sitting, walking, dating), you seemed a completely different baby by the time your four month birthday rolled around. Both families, however, have prononced you satisfactorily attractive and good natured, so your future Christmas bounty is well secured at this point.

I think my favorite thing this month was when you began to turn the pages in the books we read at bedtime. One day, you just reached your long, baby fingers out towards the page, grasped it, and slid it slowly to the left as if you'd been doing it your entire life. My surprised, estatic praise encouraged you so much that now you do it constantly, sometimes before I'm done reading the words. Fortunately, I have our entire small library memorized at this point. You've also come to the sudden realization that when we read or walk, I am BEHIND you. This you found enormously delightful and funny and you tilt your head back to grin at me frequently, showing me your saucer eyes and gummy smile.

You've also fallen in love with your own reflection and stare at yourself with an affectionate adoration everytime we prop you up in front of a mirror. I'm probably only being a codependent in your narcistic ways by confirming your assessment with phrases like "You're so good lookin'!" or "Don't you look handsome!" You'd think I'd gag on my own cliches at this point, but no. You just keep on smiling and I keep on complimenting. You also have begun to hold hands with yourself when no one is available and you hold them in front of you like praying, which makes me exceptionally nervous. I usually feel better after I read you some of "The Fountainhead."

We've begun to play several new games which delight you, one of which is "yum yum kisses." I lean over your baby cheeks and pretend to eat chunks out of them while repeating,"yum yum yum yum yum." You think this cannibalism is absolutely hilarious and give little belly giggles. You also respond to tickling now with squirming shrieks and grins, which makes it so much more fun than before, when you stared at me blankly like I was exhibiting some sort of strange tick. I've also been encouraging you to roll over by spending lots of time on the bed with you, propped up by pillows. You love to kick out with your feet and make yourself fall over on purpose. It's so dramatic and when your head hits the mattress you laugh like a little maniac. I act like some sort of crazed cheering section at this point, trying to get you to roll from your tummy to your back, but thus far unsuccessfully. I've seen you do it in your sleep as if it was the easiest thing in the world and wake up scared, facing the ceiling with no clue of how you ended up that way.

Your first plane trip was a perfect example of how I must have been a good person in some other life (cause I know it wasn't this one!). You rode without complaint in the Baby Bjorn, fell asleep in the terminal, nursed on the plane, and arrived fatigued but smiling into your Grandma's eager arms. While there, you entertained the entire family with your high pitched babbling conversation and managed to spit up on both grandparents and at least one sister. On the flight home, I was worried you'd be cranky but you managed to make it on board without much fuss. During takeoff I got an inkling of what we might have in store for us in the next fifteen years. While taxiing, you were enthralled with the scene outside and flapped your arms and cooed at the planes rumbling by on the runway. When our turn came, you stood in my lap like you were surfing the turbulance, arms spread, eyes wide with glee, giggling. And that's when I knew we were in trouble.

The Friendly Skies

Tomorrow morning, George and I will haul our asses out of bed at four-thirty (sadly only a half hour difference from when we usually get up) for the honor of bestowing baby Owen on a Southwest Airlines flight out of SLC. Owen and I are going to visit Nana for a few days in Las Vegas. Since the flight is short (only a little over an hour) and the drive is long (about 9 hours), it seemed the most reasonable solution. Hey, I can endure an hour of ANYTHING, right? I guess we'll find out.

I've been obsessively anal and printed out all regulations on infants, carry-ons and other restrictions off of their website. I guess because I've watched that show "Airline" so much and I've never traveled with a baby before, I'm terrified there's some unwritten rule I haven't considered. Like a flight attendant will come up to me and say his diaper smells and we aren't allowed on board. I've made several packing lists, a couple different timelines, and tried to consider every detail that I need to attend to beforehand in order to make our trip survivable. But I know there's something I've forgotten or never even cnsidered that will make me scream in frustration once we're airborne. Guess that's the price you pay for flying the friendly skies.

Not Being Nominated for Ms. Goodwill Ambassador anytime soon

My daily jaunts around the block have lengthened to four mile escapades. As springtime careened into full bloom and the daylight lasted far into the evening, I've been running into a predictable pattern of problems consisting of two things. Dogs and kids.

And you might think this wouldn't be much of a problem since I have both varieties of problems myself. But as many people will tell you, it's always a little different when it's SOMEONE ELSE's snotty toddler or nipping poodle. I have never ceased to be amazed, or annoyed for that matter, by the absolute careless rudeness I encounter throughout the neighborhood. One evening recently I actually took the trouble to count how many loose dogs approached us. Eight. How many apologies did I receive for said loose dog that caused mass chaos with my leashed labrador and defenseless infant in tow? Big fat zero. Yes we have a leash law here. No, nobody gives a shit.

Dogs are the least of my worries, though. I had two encounters on the same evening that left me mumbling and puffing in rage to myself all the way home. God damn Mormons. They have too many kids to raise properly and teach common decency. The first happened on a quiet, residential side street shaded thickly with adult trees. A pair of kids came careening around a corner on the sidewalk, riding their bikes like little demons. The boy was out in front, his training wheels oscilating madly over the uneven cement. He was a little distance from me but he seemed to be shouting something. As he got closer, I realized he was yelling at me. "MOVE! MOVE!," he huffed. The boy was about six or seven, I'd say. Old enough to know better and too young to bash in the head with a rock without feelings of enormous guilt. I pushed Owen into the grass, held Miles tighter, and stood my ground as the bicycle came bearing down on me. When the kid realized I wasn't going to move, he somehow found his brakes and managed to stop just in time.

"Excuse me... but you weren't speaking to me, were you? Because if you were, that would be very, very RUDE. I'm sure your parents wouldn't be pleased to hear that you spoke to an adult that way."

The kid turned several shades of red and since he seemed to have permanently lost his tongue, I left him in my dusty and wrathful wake. A few streets down at the turn of a cul-de-sac, two middle school age kids were drawing on the sidewalk with chalk. When I approached, the girl dropped her chalk, screamed like I had suggested lighting her hair on fire, and retreated across the lawn.

"I HATE dogs," she called across to me.

It popped out of my mouth before I had time to even consider it, laced with an acidic sarcasm I'm sure was totally lost on her.

"I'm sure the feeling is mutual."

Memoirs on Mommihood: Part XIV

RESPECT

I've never been a very reverent person. Celebrity mania seems like a disease I wouldn't want to catch and when it comes to God... well, let's just say I'm pretty sure Jesus was a real nice guy. Even things I've participated in, such as the serious endeavor of matrimony, inspire my flippant, unholy attitude. I think George and I should get divorced as a testiment to our love on our twenty fifth anniversary so I can be sixty and living in SIN. So, yeah. Not alot of respect here in the Weida household for the sacredness of cultural shit. George says he even refuses to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day because it's a holiday Hallmark made up. Course this is the same guy who ritualistically observes Faschnact day. We have priorities. They're just weird.

But I've found a new source of reverence as a mother and it makes me feel all squishy and embarassed, like a big twinkie cliche. My relationship with my own mother has passed through the standard stages. Complete childhood dependence and adoration gave way to mortification mingled with teenage angst. After college, we passed into the the phase of acceptance and akward truce. Marriage was followed by a season of goodwill and mutual friendship. Now, as a mother in my own right, I find myself moving into a bewildering and foreign territory- respectful awe.

Everytime I am out walking around a block and I see a young kid go riding by on their motorized scooter (nobody rides bikes anymore, didn't you know? So last year) or a toddler playing in the grass, the first thought that streakes through my brain is this. Someone stayed up nights, fretting and worrying about that kid. Some mother hung on the edge of delirium and exhaustion, sacrificed the shape of her body and the future of her thighs, gave up her financial security and maritial stability just to send that little being out into the world, fully clothed and adored. The strength of the sacrifice and the intimacy of the relationship is humbling.

Fortunately for Moms, this is not a one sided gig. As I write this, I'm balancing a leaning Owen, who is attempting to devour the bare skin of my shoulder whole, bathing it in his drooling slober. I'm inhaling the distinct smell of new skin as his cheek drifts back and forth past my own and I'm thinking there's nothing lovelier than this. And then he spits up in my hair.

Wacking the weeds

I just bought my first weed wacker (or "timmer") yesterday. I've come to the conclusion that the yard really needs a weed wacker to keep some of the hard to reach grass in check. I wanted to get a nice 4-stroke gas powered one, but we don't have the money to get that, plus we really don't need something totally crazy. I mean it would be nice to have one like that, but it's just not worth the money.

So we got an electric one. It is cheap and good for the environment. The only problem is that there is a woman on the box. Apparently the two cheaper electric models we saw have women on the front. That means that it is a wimpy, girly weed wacker, and real men have a 1/8 horse power model. My first trimmer is made for girls.

Now this bothers me for two reasons. I must be a wimp because I got such a girly weed wacker. Kaz will probably not ever use it, not because she can't or won't, but because I like to weed wack and cut the grass. It is fun, in a way, but now I have to use a model that is for girls.

The second thing that really bothers me is that there is a girl on the front of the box. Why can't a girl use a gas-powered model? Only women would/should use an electric? Come on, that is just plain silly. Women can do anything a man can do. Shouldn't there be a woman on the box of the gas-powered 1/8HP model? Like a hot young brunette. I would have totally bought the gas-powered one if there was a hot girl on the box. I find it completely ridicously that the two cheaper, lower end, wimpier models have women on the box cover. And she's not even younger or good looking, she's in her fourties! (Not that there's anytning wrong with that.)

So to reassert my manhood from buying a "girly" weed wacker, I made tonight's entire dinner on the grill. We had bratwurst, zuchinni, and pasta. Only a real man can make a complete meal on the grill.

Haircut

I recently decided that I had taken frumpiness to new heights since Owen's birth and that I was sadly in need of at least a haircut, if not the full cast of extreme makeover. So George and I both decided to try out this new salon over by the store called "Posh." It's very funky and has an impressive crew of Utahian hair bitches. George says you have to call them haircutting bitches. I'm not sure why, but he seems to be right because I can't think of anything better to call them. Ours had hair extensions and looked like a brunette Skipper doll- you know, the less busty version of Barbie. Anyway, I told her to do something with lots of layers that might look find of funky and messy. This picture was taken the day of the haircut so, as to be expected, my hair was weighted down with tons of product and will never look that smooth ever again. Skipper styled it way too Utah for me. Now I just wake up and tousle it and I'm ready to go, which is a good thing because the last thing I have time for these days is hair. I'm going to need a serious razor when short season gets into full swing.

Pics Posted

Long overdue, we have finally posted some pics from the last month or so. The first set is of Owen and can be found here. The second set is of the Weida visit back in April and you can find those here. We take way more pictures than this on a regular basis but we only post the ones we really like so as not bore you and your computer with thousands of images. You can thank me later.

Weida Weekend Revisted

So a couple of weeks back here before our technical meltdown, we had a plethora of Weidas, ex Weidas and honorary Weidas in house here in Utah. George's parents flew out to visit and stayed with us for a few days. We took them to see our old homestead in the valley, introduced them to real mountains, and even persuaded them to take their shoes off and dine out at our favorite Japanese restuarant, Windy's. They also took off on their own to visit such historical (and BORING when you've been there three times already) places as the Great Salt Lake (big, shallow and salty), Temple Square (home of Mormon fanaticism) and the State Capitol building (wasn't my idea). We even managed to squeeze in a movie, "The Constant Gardener" (at home of course), something George and I haven't managed to do in awhile.

Gretchen and Bert arrived late Friday night to spend the weekend. While I worked on Saturday, Owen stayed home with the Weidas and made the rounds. He managed to successfully spitup on every family member, including himself, of course. Owen's favorite person of the weekend was probably his Uncle Bert, though. Gotta be the tattoes. Kids dig tattoes.

So for the time being, we've had our fill of Weidas. Now that Auntie Gretchen and Uncle Bert are buying their own digs, however, we'll have to a plan visit soon. Break out the rain slickers, guys! It'll be a wet weekend with Owen on board.