krisalis

Cooking Dinner
Originally uploaded by krisalis.

Trout, broccoli and fried potato chunks.

Inspired and emboldened by the success of my latest forays into the wonderful world of Etsy, I recently acquired some fun marble magnets.

My old marble magnets have been dying at a disturbing rate over recent months, partly driven by curious hands (Alexander broke a couple by grabbing them off the fridge whenever I would open the fridge door with him on my hip….which happens pretty often in the afternoons when he’s being a little whiny and clingy and I’m trying to get his dinner ready) and partly, I suspect, just driven by age. A little search through the archives reveals that most of my marble magnets date back to a creative spurt back in February of 2003!

I considered making myself a new batch of marble magnets, since I do really enjoy having pretty pieces to hang on my fridge and hold up the invitations and reminders that get posted on the fridge for easy reference. But then I realised that it would take me aaaaages to get around to actually making them. I’d have to find the marbles and the magnets and get the silicone stuff and find all kinds of pretty pictures to use as magnet art, and then I’d have to find the time to sit down and put them all together without a certain small person getting their hands (feet, mouth) involved. So I looked on etsy.

Voila: Pop flowers Jack and Jill

And here they are on my fridge :):

Billie does not really like cake.

I do not pretend to understand this bizarre affliction, but in an attempt to make her a birthday cake she would actually enjoy, this year I made a cheese cake in addition to a standard cake cake. And when I say cheese cake, I mean a cake made from cheese. Red pepper and garlic Boursin and Brie to be precise.

I also made a carrot cake, which actually tasted darn good but looked awful, because I tried to make a giant cupcake out of carrot cake and it totally Did Not Work. In order to atone for my carrot cake issues, I also made a giant cupcake using my standard buttercream cake and icing recipe. That one turned out rather well. Not that Billie had any of it. sigh

The scene:

Alexander is playing with two neighbourhood kids, a girl who is about 7 years old and a boy who is 5. They are running around on the lawn.

The girl turns to me and asks “What’s your little boy’s name?”

I answer, “His name is Alexander.”

“Alexander” she says, as if trying the name out. “Huh. Do you call him Alexander?”.

“Yes.” I say, wondering what she means.

“He needs a nickname”, she says, very matter of fact.

“Oh, really? What do you think we should call him?”

She ponders this for a couple of seconds before answering, “He looks like an Alex. Or James.”

18 month stats: height 34.5″ (95%), weight 26lb 12oz (65%), head circumference 49cm (95%).

If July was the month of ‘CAR!’, then September is the month of ‘NO!’.

‘No, no, no!’ is Alexander’s standard answer to everything these days. Everything. Even things that he actually does want.

‘Is your nappy dirty?’
‘NO! NO! NO!’

‘Are you finished eating?’
‘No.’

‘Would you like some more?
‘No.’

‘Would you like some milk?”
‘Nooooo.’

‘Let’s take Rosie for a walk.’
‘No, no, no.’

The only question that doesn’t immediately illicit a NO seems to be: ‘Shall we go in the car?’ Which tends to get the enthusiastic response of ‘Car! Car!’ as he runs in the general direction of the garage to clamber into the car.

Alexander likes to sing. His favourite song is one we sing to the tune of “We’re All Going To The Zoo Tomorrow“, except we sing different words.

We sing: Alexander likes to ride in the car, ride in the car, ride in the car
Alexander like to ride in the car, every single day.
He goes in the car, car, car
To visit grandma, ma, ma
It’s not very far, far, far
When we go in the car, car, car.

Or some other similar variation on this theme.

Alexander will request a rendition of this song by bobbing his head up and down and saying car! car! car! in a sing-song voice. It’s lovely.

Poor boy has a bit of a cold at the moment, and is producing great quantities of snot. Of course, he HATES having his nose wiped, so it’s a bit of a battle. Also, his resistance to having his nappy changed has suddenly escalated to new heights. He’s never been one to lie down quietly, but now he will actively fight against being changed, complete with flailing limbs and bawling tears. For the time being, the best action seems to be to distract him during the changing process with a toy. The two best toys are currently a little beanie baby cricket playing bear and a toy mini (a car! what a surprise!).

Alexander also seems to be cutting some more teeth, which is making him uncomfortable. I think his eye teeth should pop through soonish, and once they are in, I think we should be all set on the teeth front for a while? Hope so, anyway.

Alexander seems to be falling over a lot recently - I think it’s the combination of a growth spurt and his need to run everywhere as fast as possible. Fortunately, he rarely cries when he takes a tumble. He mostly just says “ooooooooohhh” and then gets up, dusts himself of and gets on with whatever he was doing.

A future challenge that I can foresee on the horizon will be tackling Alexander’s first haircut. Mark, however, is adamant that Alexander does not need a haircut. So we’ll wait a bit longer on this one for the sake of marital peace, and also because I’m pretty much dreading trying to get Alexander to sit still for an extended period of time.

I’m sure there’s more I could say. But this will have to do for now. Pictures to be added as soon as other commitments (read: work) stops sucking out my soul up all my time.

Just a few samples of the things that google knows….

Noodles
Originally uploaded by krisalis.

The Asian food erst continues. Tonight I made yellow noodles - my version of Hokkien mee. Now where is the sambal olek?

Laksa
Originally uploaded by krisalis.

Going through a major ‘need Asian food’ phase. Made laksa for dins. Sooo good.

This video was made at around 7.30am this morning. Alexander thought it was pretty awesome that he got to play on his trike that early in the day. I am still bleary eyed and feeling half a sleep, and hopeful of getting some sort of rain from the fringes of hurricaine Ike (it didn’t happen).