Day 225 - Actual Thanksgiving

We spent actual American Thanksgiving (USA USA USA) at my aunt Connie and Sharon's new house in New Jersey. A good time was had by all. Especially by me, since Sharon made some sort of yummy cookie/oat/cream cheese/cherry dessert.

With great-Aunt Connie


With Sharon


With Meli and her bling. Ruth is chewin' that chain like a gangsta, yo.

Day 224 - Walking?

Ruth has started pulling herself up to standing on things, all on her own. If you help her a bit with her balance, she's also basically figured out the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other procedure. My friend L's daughter started walking just shy of 9 months - Ruth has a month and change to beat her...

Day 220 - Hat

They gave us this hat for her at the hospital. She used to be swimming in it.

Day 220 - Whee!

Day 219 - Snow!

Day 213 - Actual Crawling!

Blue States

Day 202 - Blue State: UR Doin it Rong. Ruth really likes blueberries.



Day 203 - VOTER FRAUD! VOTER FRAUD!

Day 198 - Halloween, Part II

For some reason, Picasa still doesn't like posting more than 4 pictures at once. The other thing we learned this Halloween was that there are a lot of kids in our neighborhood. I was in Iraq last year, so M kept the lights off, and we didn't participate. This year I got a bunch of candy, what I thought would be enough and leave us some to eat ourselves. Nope - I went through all that, then all the apples we had in the house, then my neighbor came over to resupply us, and I went through that. I had to turn the lights off while shouting to the onrushing swarms of children that we were very sorry, but totally tapped out.

Day 198 - All Hallow's Eve

M is convinced that Ruth looks just like me. So, this year for Halloween, we decided she could go as me. The original plan was to use eyeliner to draw black glasses on her, but she was having none of that. So, she got a little mohawk instead, and we just went as two vaguely punked-out folks. We couldn't decide which photo we thought was the cutest so - lucky you - you get all of them!

Day 185 - Hippie Food

My mother lent us an old food mill, that has been tremendously useful. Since M and I are dirty hippie liberals, we've been trying to mostly make our own baby food rather than buying it - the mill has been a lifesaver for that. So far, Ruth has prunes, apples, pears, carrots, bananas, and squash. I mash/mill/puree the fruits and veggies, then we freeze them in ice cube trays and put the cubes in freezer bags. Right now, she'll eat about two cubes worth at a time.

Troubleshooting note: if you baby experiences reduced throughput, try feeding prunes or pears at every other meal, rather than apples or bananas. DO NOT FEED PRUNES AT EVERY MEAL.

Day 185 - Mom Uses the Cool Pink Carrier

Dinosaur shoes!