Happy Gardening Surprises and Too Much Time in the Car

Nick is getting better about eating finger foods. His Grandma bought him this nice bib with a pocket to catch all of the food that he drops. That has made feeding him less messy, although I'm sure waitresses curse us after we leave. It sure wastes less food, because we can just dump the pocket back onto the table when he's done, and there are his seconds. I believe here he was eating mushrooms, carrots, dumplings, hamburger, and french fries. His favorites were the mushrooms and fries.

This is how poor Nick spent most of his weekend; I believe it was something like 16 hours in the car from Friday through to tonight. We were in Gleason, Wisconsin, for Greg's Grandma's 95th Birthday. I'll talk more about my trip later this week. All I can say now is that it feels wonderful to be out of the car! Nick thinks so too. When we got home, he played happily (and gratefully) in the baby cage. I'm afraid he's going to flip out tomorrow when we put him back in the car seat.

I was surprised this week at what my garden actually managed to produce. Despite all of the Japanese beetles and the lack of attention I gave my garden, I still reaped at least a few rewards. I've got baby yellow squashies!

I think they're very cute, and I want to slice them up with olive oil and garlic later this week. I have to make sure I catch them before they get too big. It sure took long enough for them to start producing.

I was also impressed with the size of this monster zucchini. I needed something to use for scale, and, well, my foot was already there.

I am hoping that I can spend more time next year gardening. I want to double the size of my raised bed garden, and keep better track of the weeds.

I killed about twenty Japanese Beetles today; I hate those little suckers. They decimated my raspberry bush. I guess I'll have to add another task to my evening rituals: killing bugs.

Laughing Over Spilled Milk

Nick is becoming a very high maintenance baby. All this week, I came home to work to find that he would not stay in the baby cage without screaming and dissolving in pitiful tears. He seems fine in there when Greg is getting ready in the morning; I'm not sure what the aversion is for him.

It seems like Nicholas just wants to explore. So I've been rather creative. Today I had to plant a raspberry bush that my mom gave me. It took me a few minutes to figure out a strategy for getting this done while still supervising Nick, especially since he refuses to play in the baby cage. I brought a blanket, a toy, and an old magazine (for him to rip up and destroy) outside and placed it near where I needed to work.

The only issue is that Nick now crawls. He did not stay on the blanket for long, and he kept coming over to the area with dirt, sod clumps, garden implements, and plants with pokey things on them. Do you have any idea how hard it is to dig a 16" hole through sod while keeping track of how much grass a baby is ingesting? I now know. Nick ripped some leaves off of one of my zucchini plants, and was pinched a bit by the stem. Then he tried to eat a Japanese beetle. I didn't feel bad for the beetle, but I wasn't sure that it would be a healthy dinner choice for Nick, so I grabbed it and smooshed it instead.

He did love being outside, though, and the grass was an interesting feature for him. He isn't used to crawling on it yet. Nick kept touching it and pulling on it and trying to eat it. He almost looked confused. As I filled the bird feeders, Nicholas used one of my bird feeder poles to try to stand up. One good thing about grass is that it is soft when you land on your bottom.

I will finish with a video of Nick drinking his formula out of a cup with no lid. Yes, we were crazy.



Nick loves to drink out of cups, but he doesn't like the sippy part. He'd rather drink out of a regular cup. He can do it, too, to some extent. Until he can't. That's when the mess starts.

No More Excuses!

For several months, I've been putting off getting back into a regular workout schedule. My endocrinologist said my thyroid is all screwed up, and that is why I'm having trouble losing the last 20 (okay, 25+) pounds of baby weight. Part of it is tiredness--taking care of a baby is a workout in itself, though not one that results in cardiovascular health or weight loss.

I also felt guilty about dropping Nick off at the child care center at our YMCA. "He's too young," I thought. "He'll get scared if I leave him with strange people." But today I decided to try it.

Nick was totally fine. Not only did he not cry when I left him, he reached out for the day care teacher and grinned at her. Didn't even look back at me. I was chopped liver. This was new and exciting and colorful. And loud.

The whole time I was on the elliptical trainer and the strength machines, I was listening for my name to be called over the intercom. I never heard it. That's because the child care center has TOYS. NEW TOYS that Nicholas has never seen before. Plus, there are new people and other babies there. In other words, Nick was in baby heaven. I swear, I went to pick him up and he didn't want to come. He just kept chewing on a plastic cookie and blinking, as if maybe I would go away again and he could play some more. Usually he's happy to see me, and when I hold out my arms, he raises his for me to pick him up. Not today. He just looked at me long and hard and then looked away.

So now I have absolutely no excuse not to work out. I'm sure that there's nothing more Nick would rather do than play in this wonderful place for a few hours a week. Fun for him, but not so much for me. I'm the one who has to sweat. No matter how much I try, I hate exercising. I love a brisk walk or some hiking or casual swimming. But true exercise is something I've always hated. When I had take PE, I was always the kid standing around in left field who ducked when someone threw a ball her way. Now when I exercise, I always bring a book to get my mind off of things. Perhaps I can forget I'm even exercising until the torture is finished. The great thing about an elliptical trainer is that it tracks your heart rate and beeps when you need to go faster. Therefore, I can read and zone out. That is my kind of exercise.

Unfortunately, today I brought "I Was Told There'd Be Cake," by Sloane Crosley. Not that it was a bad book. Actually, I thought it was charming, clever, and well-written. It made me laugh out loud more than once. But I realized about halfway through it that I HAD READ IT BEFORE. At first, I thought maybe I'd done that preview thing on amazon and read the first chapter. But I recognized the plot of every single essay. I read it again anyway, though. It was great even the second time.

For some reason, I was very motivated today. I ended up doing some hard core gardening and watering all morning. I researched online and found that the best way to kill the beetles is to drown them in soapy water and leave the bodies for their friends to find. Gruesome, but true.

I trimmed bushes, watered my garden, and cut down the catnip again. (It keeps getting out of control.) I killed at least 4 nasty prickly weeds, each over 2 ft. tall. Even though those darned Japanese beetles (for that is what they are called) ate lots of strawberry leaves, they didn't touch the nasturiums. Don't they look pretty?