Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Back to the start

My last hurrah before Charlotte was the Grammy's. No, I did not attend (sidebar: this is the newest addition to my bucket list); I watched a few hours of it from the comforts of my couch. I heart music, and I heart awards shows. Match made in heaven.

Seeing Adele perform was cool. Watching Taylor Swift pick a banjo, also cool, even if she did look ridiculous with it slung so low. But for me, the highlight of the evening was a commercial.



It helps that I love Coldplay, and Chipotle, and commercials, I guess, but really, this was neat. I've watched it/listened to it an awful lot since then.  

And now, I want some Chipotle guac. And a naturally raised pork carnitas burrito.

There's something about piggies.

Because the upstairs of our house is cold (seriously, we have got to consider insulation at some point), Charlotte sleeps in layers: onesie, fleece sleeper, fleece SwaddleMe, and a hat. At this point I'm thinking I don't need to bother trying to stuff her feet into the the footies on the sleeper, because this is how she positions herself within the SwaddleMe doohickey:

Baby toes sticking through the snaps of the sleeper, an invitation to play "This little piggie" before a diaper change. I love it.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Firsts.

Getting dressed to come home, in my brother's blue sweater. Let the tradition of hand-me-downs begin!

 First official tummy time/face plant.

First bath. She really dug the inside of the hooded towel, apparently.

First time Tucker realized he lost his place at the top of hierarchy.

She's two weeks old today, and truly I cannot believe it's been two weeks. One, it feels like it's been an eternity, and two, it feels like I was still pregnant yesterday. Dear god, two weeks ago at this time I had just started pushing. Boy, was that awful. The intervening time has been great, though; I'm so totally overcome with the need to just love on this little baby from sunup to sundown.

Today is a big day. We are going to the grocery store in a little while. AND I'm doing laundry. Adapting to life with a newborn has meant that I've had to greatly minimize my expectations - I am shocked to find that I have neither the time nor the motivation to DO things. I am realizing that I should have listened to what they said about labor, exhaustion, and housework. But really, when have I ever done what I should?

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Welcome to Miami (bienvenido a Miami)!

I guess the third time's a charm: Three times writing this post. Three visits from new grandparents. Three person household. All because I spent three hours pushing on Monday. Charlotte Eve joined us on February 13th, weighing 6lbs 9oz and measuring 20 inches long. She is a delight. Once I get a little more acclimated to feeding her every two hours (seriously, kid, you better be gaining weight), pictures will follow. And happily enough, Gus is completely unfazed by the new addition!

Monday, February 6, 2012

Grafitti is bad.

I went to Joanne's this weekend, to buy a ridiculous amount of cardstock and printed paper for a few projects I'm working on. What? It was only a quarter a sheet!

I went to the ladies' room twice while there (what? I was there for a while), and on the second trip, noticed this. It seemed too perfect not to share.

Can you read it? It says
Your Mom 
is awesome!
so call her more often.


Thanks, I think I will.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

World Nutella Day

Unsurprisingly, M. and I are celebrating World Nutella Day as expectant parents, rather than parents of a newborn. There are seven-and-a-half hours left, but I'm not too convinced, at this point, that Baby Girl will make an appearance today. Guess I lost the pool.

Please use your imagination for the following image:
Here is the last piece of the Nutella cheesecake I made earlier this week. I have nursed it for several days, just so I'd be able to say I had some of it on this magical day.

And now, back to reality. M. ate the last piece today, which means this:

is how I celebrated World Nutella Day.

Gus was very sad not to celebrate with me.
See?

He is good practice for my "just say no" skillz.

Friday, February 3, 2012

2012 garden planning

Since I am now fairly certain I will simply remain pregnant for the duration of 2012, I figured I better get cracking on planning my garden. Maybe making plans to over-extend myself will encourage this baby to make a more timely appearance!

Did you hear about the USDA's hardiness map changes? The Albany paper spoke with the ED of Landis Arboretum, which isn't far from our house, about it - I'm not terribly surprised to hear that the Arboretum will be selling two Zone SIX plants at the spring plant sale (we've always been firmly in Zone 5). In the article, Fred notes that successfully growing a Zone 6 plant will be dependent upon your local conditions. I know that our local conditions make it so that even a Zone 5 can be pushing it, but that's largely because we don't have many sheltered flower beds. Every winter a fierce wind comes whipping down the hill, and it's brutal on tender plants.

Anyways, this got me wondering - if things are warming up, should I consider moving ahead the planting of my garden? All the old-timers say to plant the garden Memorial Day weekend, but really, that's always seemed late to me, like I'm missing out on some quality growing time. Still, for the past few years I have based my seed start dates on the traditional planting weekend.

So I did a little research (aren't you surprised!). The Farmer's Almanac publishes a chart of what they consider to be the best planting dates for seeds, and another for transplants. Here's the transplant chart for my ZIP code:
Ignoring the moon favorable dates for now, we see that nearly everything starts with a planting date of May 15. That is nearly two weeks earlier than the traditional planting date.

But that wasn't enough for this intrepid planner, certainly not! I dug further and discovered the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Freeze/Frost Occurrence Data. This is way better. It tells me when there is a 90% chance, a 50% chance, and a 10% of 36-, 32-, and 28-degree temps. Why am I only just discovering this amazing chart?

Keeping the dates from NOAA in mind, the Almanac's suggested transplanting dates seem totally reasonable. This is awesome. Combined with a season-extending hoop house/row cover thingamabob I received as a Christmas present, I'm definitely going to get a head start on summer. The only bad thing is, I have less time to figure out seeds and seed starting. Guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend!