Ridin’ the train 31 August 2009

I’m thinking Mary Ellen is teething, and teething badly.  This is a new experience for us.  Grace was a very good teether, rarely crying and never really making a fuss.  But we put ME to bed a good two hours ago, yet she wakes up every twenty to thirty minutes, crying.  Normally, she’ll fall asleep with a binky in her mouth, and as soon as she’s deeply asleep, she loses hold of the binky.  Tonight that part, the loss of the binky, is what’s causing her to wake up, and then she starts fussing all over again.  Kurt and I have tried everything — I swaddled her, Kurt cuddled her, yet nothing is really working.  Both of us came to the conclusion that she may be in pain at the same time, so the Tylenol came out.  Hopefully that’ll do the trick eventually, though I wish it would be sooner rather than later.  Grace’s first day of school (though it’s really just a continuation of what she’s been doing all summer) is tomorrow.  She needs her sleep!

No, Grace does not start kindergarten tomorrow.  I wish she could, but Rhode Island requires a child to be five before 1 September — and Grace’s birthday isn’t till October.  This means she’ll be one of the eldest kids in her class, but that’s not a bad thing.  Hopefully the kids will look up to her.  I know she would be ready for kindergarten; she can already read fairly well for a four-year-old, she knows all her letters and their sounds, and she understands how to sound out a word.  She can also do rudimentary math, though she doesn’t realize she’s doing it.  But keeping her back a year is just fine too, and it’s not like she’s not getting any schooling at all.  She’s going to pre-kindergarten twice a week and loving every second of it.  Once the school year starts in earnest tomorrow, they’ll be learning so much that their heads will practically pop off.

The Tylenol seems to be working…  it’s an hour later (I’ve gotten distracted), and I haven’t heard a peep from Mary Ellen in all that time.  Whew!  So glad it was a problem so easily fixed.  I wish they all were.

I love how imaginative Grace is getting.  I am always amazed by her, since I feel I was never very imaginative as a kid.  I tried to play with my Barbies and my Cabbage Patch Kids, but I never really “got” it.  I’d rather read a book, immerse myself in someone else’s creative world.  I couldn’t come up with my own.  Grace, on the other hand, is a walking imagination.  Everything to her sparks a story, an event, a world of its own.  Today it was my plastic-ware collection.  She would bring them out to the living room where I was chatting with a friend and tell us they were full of delicious food.  Apparently she is really good at cooking pasta; that was in almost every dish.  Rice pasta, bean pasta, pasta with sauce, pasta in salad.  Then she put all the lids on the containers and built towers with them.  It was always something new and different!

But she took the cake this morning when she found her cold-weather gear in the closet.  She put on the hat and the scarf and the matching gloves, and paraded around like she was at a fashion show.  Next thing I know, she’s dressed Mary Ellen up and let her play with my vacuum.

I seriously think that has got to be the best baby photo that has ever been taken in the history of the universe.  Of course, I am biased — but that is some serious cute right there.

This, folks, is why I had two kids.  As great as Grace is on her own, she’s infinitely cuter and funnier and amazing when she has her very own living baby doll to take along with her on all her adventures.  And I’m lucky enough to be along for the ride.

Living dangerously 24 August 2009

Is it over already??  My cousin Aubrey came to visit last week, and it went by entirely too quickly.  The first day, we took Grace to school, and of course, Gracie was thrilled to show off her school.  Once we were down to the one child, we headed off to the mansions, where we took a tour of the Astors’ Beechwood, the living history mansion in which the tour guides pretend that it’s 1891 in the house, and the tourists are visitors invited to Mrs Astor’s party the next day.  I’d taken one tour already, but this was a new tour, it being during the season.  So that was fun!  Then it was off to the base so Aub could have a tour of Kurt’s work.  She cracked me up, though.  She was amazed I could get on base with my “secret pass” — being my military ID card, and when the watch-stander on the quarterdeck of Kurt’s work waved me in once I announced whose wife I was, she was even more amazed.  I have to say, it does have a certain mystique about it, and I was pretty impressed they let me in too.  Usually I have to wait to be escorted.

That night we went to dinner with my friend, which was followed by a screening of Julie and Julia.  I loved the parts with Julia Child, but the bits with Julie Powell…. well.  It wasn’t inspiring, let’s just say.  If they could have made an entire movie of the chemistry between Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) and her husband Paul, I would have loved it so much more.  But it was still a good diversion.

On Friday we sort of stayed quiet and made our way to Target in the afternoon after a delicious lunch at one of the best places for seafood here in Newport.  Dinner was more seafood — Scallops in Spicy Red Sauce.  It was so, so yummy!  I tried my best to stuff Aubrey full of scrumptious seafood while she was here, since she lives in central Pennsylvania, far away from the coast.  She couldn’t get enough!  Yum.

But then she had to go back home again on Saturday.  We were worried she’d get stuck in the hurricane, and she needed to be present at a family lunch the next day.  My grandparents celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary, and several people were coming into town to celebrate.  It was such a nice visit, though, that I didn’t want it to end.  Aub is the cousin I know the best, she being just two years younger than me, and living  in the same town as my grandparents meant that I saw her every time we went up for a visit.  And I have to say, she was the one that made me feel as though I were truly part of the family when my parents were married.  I remember when we came up for a visit, not long after my parents’ wedding, and stopped by my aunt and uncle’s house as soon as we made it into town.  I had hardly exited the van when I was bowled over by a small, brunette ball of energy screaming my name.  My six-year-old self thought, “Wow, she really does love me.”  I had arrived, baby.

Today it’s back to the grind.  Kurt’s work is getting insane, and all I can do is sit back and shake my head.  After getting to work at 7am (possibly earlier — I am not conscious that early in the morning), he didn’t arrive back home again until almost 8pm.  And there was no lunch for the poor guy.  He got to go running instead.  Fun, fun, fun.

Too bad for him!  He almost didn’t make it home in time for dinner.  He arrived right after Grace and I sat down to eat our delicious Bulgarian Red Pepper Stew, which had made the house smell so very deliciously all day long.  First it was the homemade vegetable stock simmering away most of the afternoon, and then it was the stew which made the house so aromatic for an hour and a half.  Yum!!

I knew I wanted to make something with lentils for dinner, so I consulted my new cookbook, courtesy of my friends who’d come to visit last week — Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. The Bulgarian Red Pepper Stew was the only thing I had most of the ingredients for, except the red peppers.  So it was off to the grocery store for me.

And here’s where I start to live dangerously.  The commissary is closed on Mondays, which meant I had to go to the regular grocery store.  It’s always a treat for me.  Finally I get to see how normal people shop, even if I can’t afford the prices.  The shelves look so fancy, full of new products that I’ve never seen before.  There are a million different types of everything, not just a few variations here and there.  Anything I could possibly want, it’s there.  And it’s there all the time, not just the day after the commissary is stocked.  It’s such an amazing thing.

I know that sounds a little odd, but while the commissary is a great deal, it’s not the most convenient at times.  Food is moving towards more ethnic and unusual cuisines, and since we’re adventurous eaters, I want to go that way as well.  But I can’t find the ingredients at the commissary.  I was shocked to find that I could get pancetta and proscuitto at the commissary — I’m almost positive that’s a new thing for them.  I have a feeling I’ll be cooking more Italian food as a result.  I’m an avid coupon clipper, and most of the coupons are for the newest products to get you to try them.  I don’t even bother cutting those coupons out anymore; it takes a good six months before we will get the new products at the commissary.

Most of the time I don’t mind.  I’d rather pay the cheaper prices at the commissary and have a little extra money in my pocket.  And besides, do we really need the option between eight different brands of peanut butter and four different consistencies?  Do we really need gallon upon gallon of bleach on the store shelves, to give us the illusion of plenty?  It made me wonder, when I saw things lined up so prettily at Target, how long those cleaning products (and the food at the grocery stores) stay on the shelves.  Or does it just sort of sit there until it expires, and the supermarket stockboys throw it out?  What happens to the always-full bread aisles, if day-old bread can’t be sold as fresh?  I know we Americans like choice, but at what cost?

At least at the commissary I know things will be sold.  I’ve seen the empty shelves too often to know that there must be relatively little waste.  I think I’ll stick with my less-than-always-convenient commissary, thanks.

Your gravity is making me dizzy 17 August 2009

We finally made it to the beach this weekend.  I know, I know, we’ve been living on an island for the last two years.  Why has this been our first trip to the beach??

Mainly, we’re not beach people.  I could handle it a lot better if we lived on the beach, or rented a house within walking distance of it.  When I was a kid, my parents and extended family would rent a beach house right on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Those were the best summers of my life.  We’d get up early, scarf down some breakfast, and spend all day, every single day, in the water or on the sand.  Our next-door neighbors had a trampoline, and we’d bounce and bounce and bounce if we got tired of swimming.  My cousin Aubrey and I would share a room upstairs, and we’d fall asleep to the sound of the waves, the scent of the lake air, and the lights of the pier glinting off the ceiling.  Some nights I almost felt like I was on a boat since I had been in the water all day, and my body still felt the rocking of the waves.

But that’s when I was a kid, and I didn’t have the adult concerns of getting sand everywhere, or driving home in a wet suit.  Besides, we were living on the water.  I could come “home” every evening and immediately jump in the shower.  Sand wasn’t an issue.  Sunburns were — I almost always burnt my back to a crisp.  Not good, I know, but I either wore off the sunscreen that my mom insisted on, or I slipped out of the house before she could pin me down.

Oops.

See, Kurt isn’t a fan of the sun for just that reason.  We are fair, fair people, even though Kurt gets pretty brown in the summertime.  Plus he easily gets hot in the sun, and he’s rather light-sensitive.  He’s getting better about wearing hats that also shade his eyes so he doesn’t get a headache, but it’s still not hard for him to get too much sun.  That’s also why we rarely go to the pool here in our neighborhood — there’s just no shade.  It would also help if the pool were actually open instead of being broken all summer long, but that’s a rant for another day.

When we were kids, we also didn’t have to worry about parking since we were already there.  Even the beach for the locals was charging $20 a day to park, which was slightly painful seeing as we were only there for two or three hours.  That, and there wasn’t enough parking to boot.  We arrived when it was chilly and foggy, so foggy that boats would suddenly and drastically emerge from the mist as they came near to shore.

After an hour or so, the sun came out and burned off the fog — and the temperatures skyrocketed.  It became perfect beach weather, and the cold ocean water felt so dang good.  Kurt and I passed ME back and forth between us so we each could swim and carouse with our visiting friends.

Doesn’t that look lovely? That photo is taken slightly right of the first; the shoreline was covered by fog in the first photo.  So as we were leaving, there was quite a line to park at that beach, and the traffic for the more populated beaches was simply insane.  Why anyone would wait for an hour to park at the beach, I will never understand.

But we had a great time.  ME discovered sand and enjoyed getting it everywhere.  Grace occupied herself by covering herself with sand, rinsing it off in the ocean, and covering herself with sand once more.  Right as we were getting ready to leave, I had her rinse off once more — only to see her plop down in the sand again.  Gahh!  This happened time after time after time.  And ME managed a sunburn, even though she was slathered with sunscreen.  Note to self — buy a shade for the baby.  Even I’m burnt; my back won’t quit itching.

So in general, even though we had a blast, I am not sure it’s worth it in future.  I’d rather stay at home and throw Grace outside in the kiddie pool or in the sprinkler while Mary Ellen gets in her afternoon nap.  I don’t mind being outside, but I think half my problem was I forgot my book.  I hate having downtime without being able to read.

Maybe one day we’ll rent a house on the beach so that Grace and ME can have the same awesome memories that I have as a child.  That, I think, would be ideal.  Until then, we’ll just keep our trips to the beach to a minimum.