Two Great Sites for Moms

I have a couple friends who have started fantastic blogs recently. If you are a mom of a little one, I know you will benefit greatly from these two sites. One is about feeding your children, the other about teaching them. That's about all there is to parenting, right?

Mommy and Me Meals

If you have a child, there's a good chance that you feed them. Lucky for you, Mommy and Me Meals is here to simplify your cooking and help you plan healthy meals for your whole family. Christa is a friend from waaay back, and I've loved reading her recipes and ideas for cooking. The vision behind her site is to prepare healthy meals for you family that can easily be adapted for a toddler and baby. It's much less work for mom to make 3 versions of the same meal!

I Can Teach My Child!

This site is a GEM if you want to raise a little genius baby. My friend Jenae is an elementary school teacher turned stay at home mom. She has posted tons of fun, educational activities for little ones. Not only is Jenae super creative, her activities are sound educationally as well. And if you don't want to teach your kid anything, you should still go over to see her cute kids.

Every mom should add both sites to their Google Reader, you and your child will be glad you did!

Happy Birthday Sol!

Today, we are in the Cayman Islands and my sweet husband turns 30!

Last year, I wrote 29 reason I love him.

In honor of his 30th birthday, here is the 30th reason I love him.

30. Finley clearly adores him.

Happy Birthday!

The first I never wanted to happen

Having a baby is full of firsts. Most firsts are joyous occasions.

First smile. First tooth. First steps.

This first was not. I've been dreading it since before Finley was born. Watch and see.

THE KID LOVES KETCHUP. I should have known this day would come. Did you see it? He dipped the fry in over and over. Like it was a special ketchup spoon.

(I edited both videos to shorter versions where I don't seem so whiny, but I guess I don't know what I am doing... so you get the UNCUT VERSION!!! YEAH!!! Sorry they are long and boring.)

If you know me well or have eaten with me often, you know that I can't handle ketchup. Or tomatoes. Or any tomato product (with the exception of Spaghettios--don't ask why, those are just the rules.) It all goes back to a Girl Scout overnight to the zoo involving bats, blood and a story about lax quality control at tomato processing plants... and rats. My poor third grade brain couldn't handle it. And now, older and wiser, I still equate ketchup with blood.

And now I have a kid who is going to have it all over his face and fingers and I'm going to have to clean it up.

Ugh.

Cayman Bound

I'm currently on a plane, flying to the Cayman Islands for a week. Hopefully, my baby is sleeping sweetly, my husband is being helpful and no one is giving us the stink eye.

We're meeting my whole family for a week of fun in the sun! Scuba diving, beach, pirate cruises and my friend Stine... it's going to be a blast. I have a few things set to post this week in my absence. But I'm going to miss you, internet, so much. So so much.

See you in a week!

Antsy Boy

Around 6 o'clock, Finley starts getting antsy. I start getting antsy. We're ready for Sol to be home. Luckily, by that time the backyard is cool enough we can go play on the deck. And even more luckily, the light is perfect for picture taking.

Finley loves the new gates Sol installed to keep babies and doggies in their place. He'll push them open and shut, over and over. That kind of defeats the purpose of the gates, but it keeps him occupied for a loooong time.

And then he'll see Sol--and I can finally capture some sweet smiles.

15 months

Finley is 15 months old!

I'm so happy to get to spend the summer with him--and I feel like he is learning and changing so much lately!

Sleeping

Summer has thrown off our schedule a little, but he sleeps about 13 hours a night and takes a nap for just over an hour in afternoon. I'm grateful for how late he sleeps in.

Eating

I'm trying to introduce lots of new foods that he might like since he's not a great eater--last night he chowed down on peas, tofu and hummus. Now doesn't that sound great? He's a little guy--after dropping to the 0 percentile for weight last week, he's back around the 4th percentile. He's a very active guy and loses interest in eating pretty quickly. I started giving him Pediasure last week and the pediatrician recommended toddler formula as another option--anyone have experience with either of these? His height and head remain average--he's just skinny!

New Tricks

Finley loves to carry stuff around and put things away. I love it when I find the remote in our bed, the baby monitor in the guest room and his toy zebra in the tv cabinet. He's a little organizer.

He's getting better at walking all the time and can finally get to standing on his own. He loves to blow kisses and wave to people. And he definitely inherited his daddy's dance skills.

His vocabulary is pretty limited (mama, dada, banana, night-night) but he likes to mimic what we say and make up little tunes to sing (his favorite is going ah-mm ah-mm over and over.)

He's a doll. We're suffering from some stranger anxiety--he doesn't like anyone to hold him but us (and Victoria) and gets nervous that we are going to leave him if we go some place new. I think I've said it a million times--he's a joy and a blessing, everyday.

Here's his stats.

Height: 31 inches (50%)

Weight: 20 lbs 4 oz (4%)

Head: 18.5 inches (50%)

(These pictures were taken on three different cameras last week. Most pictures are courtesy of Katherine, Finley makes very silly faces for her camera.)

Giacomo's Ristorante

If you ever visited Sol and I in Boston, then you probably ate at Giacomo's. It is the best food in the world, so if you visited us and we didn't take you--that means we must not like you.

It's hard to accurately describe how lovely Giacomo's is. It's a tiny restaurant with a few very crowded tables that always has a line around the corner. They don't take reservations or credit cards. Giacomo's is in Boston's North End--the Italian area of town. There's lots of delicious pasta and seafood up and down Hanover Street, but Giacomo's is in a league of its own (in my opinion and in the opinion of every person we ever took there).

I made my school friends go with me on my last birthday in Boston. My pal Marie was a little snooty about going--she lived in the North End and thought is was silly to wait in line to eat when there were lots of great places to eat in the area. She has since changed her stance--because it is THAT good. (Finley didn't really like Giacomo's. He'll regret that one day.)

The menu is written on chalkboards on the wall; the specials on one board and the full menu on the other. I always get the "special"--homemade fusilli with lobster and shrimp in a scampi sauce. (I write special in quotes, because it has been the special for the past 5 years.) Sol always gets shrimp and scallops with fra diavolo and giacomo sauce mixed together. And he always asks for extra because he likes heartburn. We never finish our meals and always take the rest home for the next day.

I would seriously fly to Boston just to have it for dinner. It makes me so very happy and full.

The only not so great things? The bread is chewy and not so great, and they play Top 40 music. And in the winter, whenever the door opens the whole restaurant drops about 40 degrees. But these are things I can live with, for the love of pasta.

(Vic and I bought a new font and I am borderline obsessed with it. It's so pretty.)

A blog for Kat

My friend Katherine just yelled at me. She said, "You haven't blogged anything since Ducklings" as she sat beside me on the couch. So I said, "Fine, I'll blog something."

This is Finley on the airplane to Boston. Is that good enough? Because it is 2:30 AM and I am tired.

But--good news--Kat's camera is magic and Finley takes DARLING pictures with it. So, stay tuned, readers. There are sweet baby pictures on the way.