Carrots

Big news - El Burrito ate carrots with a fork today.


Yes, he's using a pickle/seafood fork. Light, fairly dull, and my third choice when the dinner and salad forks are all in the dishwasher. The Event was properly recorded - camcorder, digital camera, and digital camera movie mode - and we even called DH to share the news.

Still working on Tooth #3, and he's slept through the night in his crib probably 10 nights out of the past 14. Sadly, last night was not one of them, which is why I'm dragging today.

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El Burrito is going to his first Renaissance Festival this weekend, in Kansas City. (Not the best website, though) We had to skip last year, since we were still horribly sleep deprived and DH's car was being persnickety. It'll be a one-day trip instead of our usual weekend visit with friends in the area, but it'll do. We'll still have dinner with some friends of mine in KC, but we won't be spending the night catching up. Now I just have to make sure and pack everything. Food, water, straws, sunscreen, what else?

This year, I may manage to buy the windchimes I've been lusting after for a few years. Almost bought them last time, but I waffled too long. And it won't be RenFest without at least stopping at Nene Thomas' stand to see what new artwork she's got for sale. I still drool over the Winter Carousel Horse, but it's a huge piece. And sold out. I've got the 5x7 note card of the print, but it's not the same as the wall-sized original. I keep hoping that she'll finish the Carousel Horse series and turn it into a calendar, since there were originally 12 designs that she had in mind.


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Photos:


The only (slightly) decent shot I got of the Harvest Moon on Wednesday night. Lousy timing.




DH and El Burrito (and the new stroller) on our walk last night.


Clouds we saw while out walking. Three laps around the complex, so about a mile.

Shoes and stuff

All right, the Burrito is finally asleep, so here goes.

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Shoes

To answer Jen's questions (Thanks, Jen!), El Burrito is 16 months old and apparently takes after his parents, because we both wear a wide shoe (at least in Rockports and New Balance). That's our boy - 40th percentile in height and weight at his last checkup, but 95+ percentile on head size, and already wearing about a size 5 or 6 shoe, as far as I can tell. Oy. Weather-wise, it's Missouri, so it may be cold this winter, or not. Right now, we're running in the 80's but that's a bit warmer than usual, sayeth the TV weather dude. It may get nasty-cold in January again, or we may have a mild winter.

El Burrito is just getting into the walking thing this past month, and we're still in the condo, so he's not doing a lot of outdoor walking unless we visit the grandparents. He does need to get used to wearing something on his feet, and in a few months we'll need something to keep the tootsies warm. Last year, we had winter booties from Carter's, which worked great.

We hit almost every shoe store at the mall last week. It's freaky, less than 100 stores in the mall, and at least 10% are shoe stores. There are 3 flavors of Foot Locker, Payless, Tradehome, and a couple others, plus of course Target, Sears, JCPenney, etc. No Stride Rite in the area, though. And yet, a crap selection of kid shoes, and I had to drive 90 miles to find a pair of Rockport walking shoes for me, because no one in this city carries women's Rockports. Men's, yes.

We ended up getting these at Target - MiniStars, made by Bobux. All leather (although made in China, and DH the cynic says don't be surprised if they meow someday), soft sole. With elephants on top.


(Yes, that's our lovely used-to-be-mauve carpet. The person who furnished this place had to be color blind and a bit clueless.) Only $13, and the only non-girly pair in his size (Large). We figure they'll be good enough as a starter shoe, get him used to not walking barefoot, keep the toes warm inside, and keep him from finding that cross-stitch needle (blunt ended) that I think I lost. So far, he hasn't been trying to take them off, so that's a good thing.

In a month or so, when the weather's colder and he may be doing more outdoor walking, we can go back to Sears or Payless or wherever, and get something a bit sturdier and warmer. By then, he may be able to wear a stiff soled shoe without too much trouble. Right now, 90% of the "real" shoes in his size that we can find have soles that I can't bend with both hands, and putting him in those this soon seems like begging for trouble if you ask me. There is a store in town that carries Robeez, but that's it for the kiddie shoes.

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Other Stuff:

A water lily at Shelter Garden. We need to squeeze in a few more visits before the crew starts tearing out the annuals and take the fish in for the winter.


The Tracfone issue is fixed, although I'm not sure I'll get my Ebates money for the order. Took them less than 48 hours to reply.

And, since I missed Jan's invitation to join the Flickr pool, I present (doo doo doo) the outfits that El Burrito and I wore to the library yesterday.


El Burrito is wearing the shorts from a pair of Carter's PJs, a yellow shirt that his favorite aunt found at a thrift store (over a Carter's onesie), and the size 5-7 hat we got at Gymboree last weekend ($4, clearance). Not his most coordinated outfit, but hey. I'm just lucky he held still long enough for the picture. Usually I get the top of his head as he rushes over to grab the lens cover.



And me. Don't remember where the shirt came from; the jeans are a pair of Levis that Mom brought me last week, from my Aunt's yard sale. Not worn enough to even be broken in yet. The perks of aunts with expensive taste and high closet turnover. :) Plus my old New Balance walking shoes that need to be replaced. Pardon the missing head and feet, I was using the 2-second timer and perching the camera on a cracker box.

Someday I need to figure out what to do with my hair, since it's been the same for oh, 20 years or so (basically, since that ill-fated perm my mother talked me into). I've been thinking lately of ditching the bangs (fringe, if you're overseas) but don't know what to do otherwise.

Random Thoughts

Random quick stuff again, because I've been busy and El Burrito is fascinated by computer mice.

More on the whole Shoes thing tomorrow. We've got an interim solution, that should hold us for a month or two, until it's cold enough to need something else.

Tracfone can be a pain. Their website, specifically, has problems with timing out on dialup, and reloading the page gets error messages. Not helpful when you're trying to order something. Their phone support is okay, but has been outsourced overseas - I managed to get a resolution last time I used it, but the accents involved meant that I had to have the CSR repeat about 80% of what they said.

El Burrito is still thisclose to getting Tooth #3 (upper right center). Sadly, I don't think I wrote down which lower tooth came in first. Makes me feel like a bit of a failure, actually. Didn't write down the day he first "walked" or smiled, or anything. Bah.

And I need to go find some ibuprofen, because my whole leg aches right now. And switch the laundry.

Brain freeze

You know, I do come up with interesting things to write about here. Trouble is, they usually come to me when I'm doing something else, and by the time I get back here, I've forgotten them again.

And now El Burrito is waking up.

Burrito news: He's walking well. Working on Tooth #3 (at last!). Slept in his very own crib all night last night (first time in months). Figured out how to turn on the stereo, and crawl under the baby gate into the kitchen. Also knows how to back-crawl off the bed now, although he gets in a hurry and falls over when he lands.

No walk last night. We were bad and went out for dinner. Returned something to Walmart, bought El Burrito some clothes for next summer. Love the clearance - $1 shirts and $2 Wrangler shorts. Now I need to lose weight so I can find some of these deals for me.

The New Leaf

The "new leaf" is chugging along. I've managed to remember the morning tooth-brushing three times in the past week, which is good for me these days. Just need to find the floss and start using it. And get rid of all the unwaxed floss around here, because it's everywhere and I can't use it. It shreds between my teeth.

We've been walking twice, plus the weekend shopping involved enough walking to count as exercise in my book. It made my feet hurt, anyway.

We got the results of DH's quarterly bloodwork this week. His blood iron is back to normal and his HbA1C was a lovely 5.9 - the iron-free vitamins and cinnamon capsules seem to be helping. However, his triglycerides and HDL are still not where they should be. With any luck, the walking will help the triglycerides, and the fish oil supplement may help the HDL. I need to find the last bloodwork numbers and see if there's any improvement since we started the fish oil.

Now, if I could only figure out a way to get 28-hour days and convince El Burrito to sleep all night in his crib. Then I might actually have the energy to get something done.

Shoes

As much as I hate shopping for my own shoes (because I can never find something comfy in my size), shopping for toddler shoes is worse.

Have I mentioned that the Burrito is walking now? That, plus the fact that it's September, means it's time for him to have some shoes. And for a city/town this size, our shoe selection sucks. I knew this already, from my search for a pair of not-white, not-sneaker walking shoes for the Ireland trip. The Burrito shoe search confirms it so far.

He's apparently got big feet, a size 6 from the shoes at Sears, to go with the big head (and 30th %ile height/weight). Which means that most of what we found at the mall (Sears, Target, Gymboree, Foot Locker and Childrens Place) in his size was big clunky sneakers. Not what I think he needs right now, still being new to the walking thing and not quite steady on his feet yet. I'm thinking he needs something more like the soft-soled Bobux-type shoes at Target. Right?

Babies should come with a manual, really. And my mother, who came to visit yesterday, is already asking if he has a pair of shoes for the winter, and warning me that since he's gone barefooted all summer, it'll be hard to keep shoes on him. Well, it's been hot all summer, and lord knows he can pull socks off faster than I can put them back, I'm not expecting shoes to be any different. Especially once he figures out how Velcro works.

At least it was free

Over the weekend, I watched one of the most pointless, painful movies I think I've ever seen - Highlander: The Source. I should have known it was a piece of dreck when it went direct-to-SciFi (hyped as a "Sci Fi Original!") instead of being a theater release. At least it was on Sci Fi, so we didn't pay for movie tickets to watch this thing.

Seriously, I was a big fan of the series (at least until Richie's death), and watched all of the movies except #2 (The Quickening), which I was told to avoid and pretend it never happened. But this was a horrendous mishmash of amazing proportions, that may make Quickening look good by comparison. The impossible planetary alignment, the depressing chaos, the blond Immortal who looks like the German/Nazi villain in every B-movie. Yet another mortal "love of his life" for Duncan - how many is that now? And this one he actually married, but she left him, because he didn't mention the no-kids part until after the wedding.

In short, the writing, if you can call it that, was abysmal. The plot wandered off and got lost, and never made sense in the first place. The ending was confusing, to say the least. Plus, killing off a main character, and implying another death? Never a good idea.

So unless you're the type of fan who must watch everything related to your focus, I'm warning you now, avoid this one and save some brain cells. And if you have to watch it, record it so you can skip the commercials (and the cheezy ripoffs of Queen songs that saved some royalty money). You'll thank me later.