it's not just for breakfast anymore

Here's what happens when Anil takes over Maya's breakfast to let me sleep in a little. Yesterday morning she had a smorgasbord of bite-sized pieces of salmon, chicken, squash, cheese, bananas, and Cheerios.

That was followed up by a rather unfortunate diaper situation, an interrupted morning nap, and some screaming. We went through three outfits over the course of the day. Word has it that there's a GI bug going around that results in a week's worth of unfortunate diapers, though, so now I'm hoping it was just breakfast related and wasn't a preview of the week to come.

Food has been so much fun lately, despite any unintentional side effects of overzealousness on our part. Maya is such a good eater; she hasn't met a food she doesn't like yet. Oh, except for that avocado I covered in lime juice to keep it from turning brown. That didn't go over so well. At least we know she won't be downing margaritas any time soon.

I give Maya little pieces of my lunch when we're out, but sometimes what I'm eating isn't easy to break apart, or I just want to eat all of it, so my new favorite things for meals out are these squeeze-top pouches of pureed fruits and veggies. Maya's BFF Nellie can hold them and suck them down all by herself, so we've started trying that. Maya isn't quite as focused as Nellie, and she alternates between sucking on the nozzle at the top of the pouch and turning it upside down and squeezing so that it squishes out all over her. Or dropping it on the ground so that some spatters, and we play the "I'm pretty sure the nozzle didn't touch the floor" game.

When we started giving Maya pureed solid food around 6 months, we just stuck with breakfast. Then we added "dinner" at around 7 months. I've dabbled in giving her lunch through 8 months, mostly because I realized it would keep her happy while I had lunch with friends if she could grab and munch from the table too. And now that she's two days away from turning 9 months old (!!!), I like that with these easy-to-bring and easy-to-eat pouches I can know that she's getting some good stuff for lunch along with the beans and rice I share from my burrito.

I'm also loving that she's eating finger foods, because it means she can try practically anything. We took her to an Indian buffet for lunch and she ate naan and tandoori chicken. For dinner, I pick apart our leftovers, so she's been eating grilled chicken and sweet potatoes along with the broccoli that I cut up and steamed. It's easy, economical, and fun to be able to just look in the fridge for her food instead of everything having to come from its own can or jar. As we saw with the smorgasbord breakfast, however, we can't let that freedom get the better of us. (Jonathan Franzen would agree.)

mommy brain

To anyone who doesn't believe in this phenomenon...

I'm not a dumb person. I have an advanced degree. I went so far as a year into a Ph.D. program, and not staying in it wasn't a matter of smarts or ability. I've taught college-level writing. I've lived and traveled abroad. I've moved to new cities and gotten jobs, found housing, and switched jobs and housing when better opportunities arose. I've had more than one job for more years than I've had only one, so I'd say I can multitask, and that it's not just book smarts that's kept me afloat for 31 years thus far.

But seriously? Mommy brain threatens to devastate the synapses I've spent years honing.

A few weeks ago, a friend and I had lunch at Chipotle, and she called me as I was driving away to say that her car battery had died. So I swung back around, and we attempted to connect the red clamp to the correct side of the battery. (Note to self, it does matter which color goes on which sign.) One of our better lines was, "Does it matter that it's kind of raining?" (Note to self: YES.) We bumbled around until, thankfully though embarrassingly, two guys in blue uniforms parked next to us and asked if we could use a hand. One guy asked if we had a soda in the car that he could throw on my friend's car battery to get rid of the built up acid that covered it, so I went into my car to get the Diet Coke I'd refilled before leaving Chipotle, and found it missing. Then I realized that I'd left it on the back bumper of my car--I'd stashed it there so I could use that hand to put Maya into her car seat, and I probably said out loud that I'd leave it there, thinking that acknowledgement was some kind of insurance policy on mommy brain. I had, in fact, driven away and lost it to the parking lot. We got my friend's car battery started just fine after that, and we both humbly and laughingly retreated home.

Then today I topped that story. It was pouring rain when we were leaving to meet friends for lunch, and our non-car seat equipped Jeep was blocking the Maya-mobile Subaru in the driveway. While Anil packed Maya into the Subaru, I hopped into the Jeep and moved it out of the driveway and onto the street. Then I waited for Anil to pull up next to the Jeep so that I could pop quickly from one car to the other and not get too soaked. I popped from car to car so quickly, apparently, that I forgot to take the keys out of the Jeep. And... wait for it... not only did I leave the keys in the car, they were in the ignition... ON. I left the car running, on the street in front of our house, for the entire time we were at lunch. Really?! Who does that? It's a whole new level of mommy brain. And Internet, as much as I wanted to immediately pretend that it never happened, as that level of absent-mindedness seems all but impossible, I'm pretty sure I'm never going to live this one down.

shoes

When did the piles of shoes in our house start including little ones?

Baby's first chocolate

Thank you Blue Mountain Brewery:

Why you probably shouldn't give baby her first chocolate:

startled

I was just washing my hands at our bathroom sink, had just put soap on my hands, that foaming kind Method makes, with the sea minerals scent, when I looked down and saw a stinkbug sitting on the sink next to the soap bottle! In my startle response, apparently a simultaneous combination of hands jolting involuntarily upwards and a quick intake of breath, the soap flew from my hands into my mouth! Stupid aerodynamic foam soap. It tasted like it smelled, sort of like a light aftershave--"sea minerals." Not cool! Anil isn't home, and I have to tell someone. So I'm telling the entire Internet.

finally a reason to clean the clutter off of our coffee table

can't get a break

I was determined to write and post some pictures during Maya's morning nap today, but as I sat down with my laptop, she woke up. I'm watching her on the monitor now, and it doesn't look like she's going back to sleep. Not even a 30 minute nap--no fair. I just can't find the time to sit down and write anything lately. I miss you, Internet. That week that I rallied and posted a few times? I hardly showered. So that wasn't very sustainable.

So now, Maya is awake in her crib, and probably looks a lot like this.

Uh oh, except now it sounds like she isn't smiling anymore. Gotta go.

Go Sox