having fun with mambaw and grandpa lawler

Mambaw and Grandpa Lawler arrived on Friday and we've been having a terrific time, taking it easy and watching Charli do cute things for the most part. We got back from the airport while Charli was napping, so everyone had a little while to relax.

When Charli woke up, she warmed up immediately to Donna. It took her a little longer with Jerry, but that's not to say it took a long time. They were best of friends after about an hour, discussing wrist exercises and comparing how far they could stick their tongues out.

As soon as the grandparents got here, Charli got out the new trick bag, and started reaching for people. She reached for Donna shortly after she got here, so Mambaw was first. Charli also displayed some serious focus. She was a few feet away from me, and eying the camera I was holding. Trying to encourage her to crawl, I told her if she came over to get it, she could chew on the camera - I figured if she didn't crawl, it would take so long she would get distracted by some other toy on the way over. Well, she was NOT distracted. She inched her way over, getting her knees up under herself and then flopping down on her stomach, to the tune of a few inches each time, and she stared fixedly at the camera until she got all the way over to me and I felt obliged to let her chew on the corner. She also exhibited some complex wrist action - very similar to some of the physical therapy Jerry has been doing. Probably we mentioned it to her at some point, and she was just trying to help Grandpa Lawler do it right. After all, we can see she's very fond of him.



For dinner, Brian grilled salmon in a soy-brown sugar marinade (same as he made me for mother's day), and it turned out, once again, absolutely fantastic. We got two different kinds of salmon (how many kinds? two), farm raised and wild, to try and do a side by side comparison (of what? salmon). Unfortunately, Brian's indicator of which kind of salmon was which sort of cooked itself into oblivion, so we couldn't follow through with our test (o, were we testing something? yes, two kinds of salmon. o, how many kinds? two). We pretty much determined both kinds were dam good (kinds of what? SALMON. how many kinds? TWO).

For dessert, we had Bi-rite chocolate cake (meh) and Bi-rite creamery strawberry balsamic vinegar ice cream (decadent pint of creamy goodness). You know, life just doesn't get much better than this.

paper

Today we celebrated our paper anniversary! That's right, friends, we made it a whole year - I know some of you had your doubts about how stable Brian's and my relationship is... or maybe not. I would post a picture, but we don't seem to have any with both of us. I'll just have to post one of Charli - I have a lot of those.


We celebrated by having Maria stay late with Charli, and we went out for a lovely early dinner at Ame and followed it up with Indiana Jones and cheesy aliens! Unfortunately, we ate so slowly at Ame that we didn't have time for dessert. Fortunately, we were full, so it was OK. Everything we had was good, but I have to say: their dinner rolls are AWESOME.

Our anniversary is actually on Sunday, but it's much easier to get Maria to stay late on a day when she's already here. Plus, Brian's parents are going to be here then, and I don't want to dilute Brian's first Father's Day with our 1-year anniversary...

blah blah blah.

Nanananana. Bababababa. Dadada. Nananana.

One day, Charli started babbling. It was yesterday.

projectile vomiting and french fries

Two completely separate firsts, fortunately!

We've had such a lovely weekend. The weather has been great, and Charli has been great, too. Yesterday we had breakfast at Stacks early and once again, Charli didn't go to sleep on the way over or while we were there, but she was fine the whole time. I let her try a little bit of my waffle; it ended up in her seat. She fell asleep on the way home, though, and had a short morning nap. Then we did nothing for a while, fed Charli lunch, etc etc, and then she got tired and fussy and I was going to try to put her down for a nap. So she had some bottle (a ton, actually), and we went downstairs and we were sitting in the rocking chair, and there was a *blaarp*! It was everywhere. Brian had to come down with rags. I never seen so much barf. It got on the chair arm, seat, and back, and on the floor, and on the shelves, and on me, of course... The funny thing was that it totally woke her up. Once she that was done, she was the happiest, smiliest baby you have ever seen. I guess she thought it was funny.

So since Charli was so wide awake, we went shopping to get Brian all kinds of new pants, now that he's so skinny. We went downtown, and Charli fell asleep, and slept the whole time we were shopping (a highly successful shopping trip, I might add). After that, we went to an early dinner at Nordstrom, which turned out to be surprisingly nice. Charli woke up, and was good AGAIN. She also had a whole french fry! *sniff* She's just like her mom...

Then we came home and stopped at the swings on the way back, and Charli had some dinner, and a bath, and went to bed just like the little angel she is.

Today we had brunch at Boulette's Larder with Daisy and Jim and Kojo and Jason and Tracey. Jason and Tracey are moving back into their house at the end of this month! *gasp* It's been almost 4 years since we started demolishing their house... It was mid-July, 2004, when I went over there to help take down the chimney.

Boulette's Larder was surprisingly disappointing, but Charli was really good again. Daisy and I had read some great reviews about this restaurant's breakfast, and we were psyched about trying it out, but I guess it's all about managing expectations. Their salads were really good, but I had chicken and biscuits and gravy, which turned out to be 1/2 a roast chicken and a couple of biscuits, and not any real gravy - just some stuff drizzled over the chicken. The chicken was good, but not as good as Range. Actually, the last chicken Brian made was as good, if not better. The biscuits also were good, but not as good as Mission Beach Cafe. So I was dissatisfied, and Brian and Charli and I walked to Yerba Buena Gardens afterwards and got smoothies and listened to music. O! I forgot to mention - Boulette's Larder DOES have awesome beignets.

We didn't do too much else the rest of the day, but it has been a really nice weekend. I have no pictures for this post, because I really have to get to bed, but Brian watched the baby most of the day so that I could get my new computer syncing with the website again. So, there are LOTS of new pictures on the website! Enjoy!

Art in the park...

We made the walk over to Stax this morning for our Saturday brunch.
Charli was awake the whole time but was very good. She has been
really happy the last couple of days - even more than usual - perhaps
in anxious anticipation of Mambaw and Grandpa Lawlers' arrival.

The picture here is of a new art installation in the little park just
outside the restaurant. I thought it was a really cool piece so I
thought I would share it. Charli would have liked it more but she
couldn't put it in her mouth. Too many sharp edges you see...

On the "crawl watch," we are still in breathless anticipation of
Charli's first "steps". At this point she spends most of her time on
her stomach reaching for things, getting those things, then putting
them in her mouth. Then she gets up on all fours (refer to previous
videos) and wobbles a bit. But as yet, no forward motion. We still
have plenty of backwards motion though, so she is still perfectly
capable of getting herself into trouble.

That's al I have for now...

chicken

At Charli's 6 month checkup, the pediatrician said I could start introducing meats into her diet. So on Sunday, I cooked up a chicken recipe in this baby food book I got - it's got chicken, onions, sweet potatoes, and apples, in homemade chicken stock with no salt. I think it tastes pretty good, although the texture leaves a little something to be desired. This may be a good thing, because if things continue on as they have been the past 2 nights, I will be eating most of it. As far as I can tell, Charli HATES CHICKEN. She hasn't barfed it back up, so maybe she doesn't hate it as much as she hated cauliflower and potatoes, but she sure won't eat much of it. This is unfortunate, because although I only made one recipe in case she didn't like it, and the recipe said it only made 4 servings for a 7 - 9 month old, it ended up being like 20 or 22 ounces. I have a TON. 4 servings my eye - maybe for a 20 pound 9 month old who eats chicken enthusiastically. It's about 90 servings for Charli. :(

All the world is a toy...

You could spend lots of money on toys, but you would only be heading
for the disappointment of having your child have a better time playing
with the wooden spoon from your kitchen that you got for $0.49.