sorry to have given you the run around... write around?

Gah... I know, I haven't kept up again. And Maya's probably going to wake up from her nap soon. How people write novels "when the baby naps" is completely beyond me. My quick explanation is that I just keep vacillating between what I want this blog to be. I found it easy and fun to write about myself during pregnancy, but I find it more challenging and a little bit unsettling to write about Maya now. I think it's creepy that someone named "Romeo" follows my blog, and you can't block followers any more, and even if I did, it's useless because surely an even more unsettling number of unnamed people like that can check in any time they want. It's just the reality of the Internet. And I'm struggling with what I'm okay putting up for public consumption. Not just what I want people to know/see about my daughter, but what I think is worth seeing and reading, and what I'm interested in writing.

I keep going back and forth between, "I should just try to write things that'll get published, that I'll get paid for, and keep my life off the Internet" and "But it's nice to chronicle our adventures together (while pretending that no one creepy is out there?), and the more I write informally here, the better chance I have of coming up with something that could actually get published one day." Then I think, if I'm going to commit to the blog, I want to go the whole way. I want to make it search-able from Google. Get myself into the mommy blog network.

It all connects with my general vague angst about what I'm doing about my career, my self that exists beyond being a mom. I'm a little lost on that front. I decided I was going to write as a freelancer, but it's a pretty big ramp-up. I'm still working on it. I'm working on all this.

And yep, Maya is up. Just wanted to leave an update in case anyone is checking! Hopefully I'll figure something out soon.

soundtrack to home

I heard this piece on NPR about a Nashville band (duet) called The Civil Wars, and I'm now obsessed with their album. I was meeting friends for dinner and heard this as I parked, so as I waited, I sat at the bar and downloaded the album to my phone so I wouldn't forget. When I was pregnant, I always had this vision of me hanging around the house with my baby, always playing music. I asked my in-laws for a Bose iPod docking station the Christmas before Maya was born, with this very scenario in mind. And I do use it all the time, but I should play music more. Unfortunately I'm a terrible singer, but I want music to surround Maya as she grows up. And not just me blundering through the itsy bitsy spider as I coax her into a complacent diaper change. So this band will be added to my "Maya" playlist, on heavy rotation, this week.

still life with bunnies

I was going to take this week to "work," which means, or is going to mean: write, and read stuff that'll help me write, then write more, and try to get some of it published. First and foremost, it's also to restart this blog, in the interest of writing stuff that no one can reject. But Maya was sick this week, so my noble goal is being pushed till next week. Sorry :(.

It was Maya's first virus that wasn't just a cold, and she was so sad, she needed both bunnies.

Hopefully we'll be back to this more rambunctious state soon.

And with Maya fast asleep by 5:30 tonight, I'll be going now to watch the past two episodes of Big Love on On Demand. It's the last season, gotta stay on top of it. That's right... I've filled my blogging hiatus with meaningful cultural pursuits. Like HBO.

Maya retrospective

Here's what you missed...

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Christmas

First Birthday!!!

Words to come soon :). Thanks for stopping back by. 

xo-

Sara

It's coming back

If anyone is still checking in periodically, Goodnight Martini will make a triumphant return (triumphant to me, anyway) very soon. Please keep checking. New and improved, coming soon. You heard it here first.

fade to black?

Whoa, apparently it's been so long since I've posted that my background has expired or something. Put that on the list. Sorry for the delinquent blog. I'll make it back soon! Let's just say I'm at blogging rehab? Or on hiatus to find myself. Really I'm on hiatus to find time to get back to this in a steady and worthwhile way. So happy holidays and check back when you can--we'll get rolling over here again soon.

PS. The background appears to be back!

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.)