Guess How Much I Love You?

That is The Boy's current favorite book. Grandma got it for him and was the first to read it to him, but it's been a favorite of ours ever since. He is also quite fond of Gymboree's multilingual Alphabet and Colors books.

His favorite toys are his Melissa & Doug play kitchen and it's attendant accessories: pots, pans, spatula and velcroed fruit that can be sliced with a wooden knife. We often stick together mis-matched fruit to make strange hybrids - strawbanans, piwis, orangaloups.

He also loves blocks in all forms - letter/number blocks, jungle blocks, Duplo blocks. He builds castles with me and has contests to see who can build the bigger tower with his dad. He's definitely destined to be an architect, if not a chef.

The Boy is sick again(stupid winter!) so he's been even cuddlier than usual. Gives me that many more chances hold him and to ask him, "Guess how much I love you?"

Film on a Friday

This is one of my favorite times of day. Please forgive the mess and the ersatz baby gate.

Weekend cuteness

In keeping with my New Year’s Resolution of us all getting out to the big city at least once a month, Hubs, The Boy and I went to Santa Monica this past weekend. We were foiled in our attempt to visit the aquarium by a private party but enjoyed a nice walk on the pier and a proper pub meal at the King’s Head.

Here's a wriggly boy and I looking out at the sea and the pier.

Then we braved the crowds and shoved our way onto the pier and got this shot of The Boy, pointing the wrong way to the Pacific.

What this photo lacks in scope or technical merit it more than makes up for in emotional importance. See, my dad used to play chess on the Santa Monica Pier when I was just a wee one and, though it’s a crowded tourist trap now, I hope The Boy can one day play chess with his granddad there just like I used to.

What can I say? I tend to wax nostalgic frequently.

Then after the pier, our failed attempt to visit the aquarium and an awesome pub lunch - including The Boy's first ever "child's meal" ordered just for him - we took a walk along Third Street Promenade...

...before climbing into the car with a sleepy toddler who slept the whole way home.

And Speaking of Books

As you can see from my book list to the right I am reading Pride and Prejudice. I am reading Pride and Prejudice and I think it sucks. Seriously, I have no idea what all the hubbub is about.

I chose to read this book with a friend, a clever girl with an advanced degree who shares my shame regarding the blank spots in our reading repertoire, with whom I founded a two-person book club. Over tapas and wine a few weeks ago I was telling her all about the last overrated book I read, Madame Bovary. She asked why I read it if I thought it was so awful and I told her that I was reading it because it seemed like a book that well-read people read.

Whatever. Madame Bovary sucked but at least the title character had the decency to off herself with arsenic at the end. I don't think I'll be so lucky with Lizzy "I'm strong and independent even though Mr. Wickham tells me what to think" Bennett.

So I don't know whether generations of literature lovers have been woefully mis-led by pretty words or if I'm just too thick to understand the importance Flaubert or Jane Austen. Either way, I think next months book-club book will require a bit more consideration than we gave this month's.

The Black Sea

A little more than twelve years before The Boy was born I was given a trip to Europe as a gift from my dad to celebrate my imminent transfer to UC Berkeley. He’d paid for me to go to Europe before, but my previous trips, though awesome in more ways than I can count, usually ended up with me working at a bar, behaving in a debauched manner and avoiding as much of my life back home as I could muster.

So my trip in 1997, an overly generous gift from my devoted dad, differed in that it had a definite end-point – my moving to Northern California, as well as also having a very real reason for happening – I had actually accomplished something by being accepted to university. So although I was incredibly grateful to Dad for shelling out the cash for me to visit the continent that would mean so much to me academically and personally(Hubs is, after all, British – they don’t actually consider themselves European, but never mind) I didn’t have the same underlying sense of guilt in going over there that time that I did during my previous trips.
During that trip I backpacked for a few weeks with a friend, fell in love with a boy from the north of England and lived with him in Brussels and finally got the chance to show Dad my beloved Prague.

Along with all that, I started to read a book – The Black Sea by Neal Ascherson. I never got very far as I was too busy getting my heart broken and drinking Stella Artois to concentrate on reading. I picked it up a few days ago and found that my old bookmark is still there, hovering around page 50. I’m sad to report that my memory has not been jogged – that fourteen years ago I read about the chemical composition of the Black Sea, the topography that surrounds it, the many waves of migration to its shores and its roll in the Russian Civil War and collapse of communism and I don’t remember reading any of it. And my freakin’ senior thesis was about the Russian Civil War, so that’s a spectacular memory lapse on my part.

Aaanyway, there is no real point to this post except to remind myself that before The Boy there was grad school, and that before grad school there was undergrad, and through it all there was my freaky love for Russians, Eastern Europeans, Central Europeans and, for that matter, Western Europeans.

I haven’t been back to Brussels since that trip, and I’ve still never been to Russia, but I gotta say I’m really looking forward to(hopefully) getting to both places with Hubs and The Boy. I mean, as intimidating as travel seems with a toddler – short trips to San Diego or Palm Springs notwithstanding – I’m really looking forward to creating traveling memories with The Boy. More than a decade with Hubs means that we’ve got a good amount of travel under our belts together, but there’s something totally different and magical about the idea of traveling with The Boy – seeing him toddle around London and people gush over his cuteness with English accents, drinking hot chocolate with him in a Left Bank café in Paris. Or even hanging out in the Grand Place like I used to do when I lived in Brussels or visiting the Lenin’s Tomb like I’ve always wanted to. I’m stoked for all of it.

I was a person before I was a mom

I’ve been thinking a lot about college lately. I just finished a book written by one of my grad school professors and it got me feeling wistful about returning to get my PhD. Since there’s no chance of that happening until The Boy is used to a full school day – when is that? 1st, 2nd grade? – I’ll have to contain my thoughts about academia to getting back to reading like someone who’s vaguely literate, and not like the ditzy, internet obsessed housewife I’ve allowed myself to become for most of the last two years.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade the last two years for anything. My pregnancy and subsequent time with The Boy have been my greatest blessings… ever, but I miss having a life of the mind. I never really took to having a career – office work not really being my forte – but I absolutely loved academia. I got a BA and MA in European History – I love reading about my Russians, wars and ideological intrigue and I miss having that be my job.

Since looking after my beloved Boy is now my job my ability to read, study and comprehend anything is often foiled by demands that I read aloud stuff that’s more appropriate for a one and a half year old. When I began my new year’s plan to read more I did try to read to him some of my material, but I figure if he couldn’t find the adventure of ancient Greeks and Romans interesting then he certainly wasn’t going to pay any attention to what my former professor had to say about playwrights in the former Soviet Union.

That’s fine. We’ve got his whole childhood for him to be annoyed by my geekiness. In the meantime I’ll be content with leaving my dense histories and serious literature to naptime, and I’ll enjoy every second of reading Mother Goose to The Boy countless times a day.

Who knew you could take blowing your nose for granted?

The Boy has had a cold since Saturday afternoon. He's been coughing like a barking seal and his face - eyes as well as nose - has been leaking like a faucet. He's been grumpy and whiny as all get-out and has been undoing all our hard work of a month ago by constantly wanting to nurse.

And 5 days in he still seems as coughy and snotty as he was at the start of this thing. So we've been stuck at home - no outings, walks or fresh air and exercise. The only sign of my sweet little love being on the path to recovery is that his appetite seems to have improved today. I never thought I'd be so happy to see him demand lunch and eat 2/3 of a banana.

His tummy full I laid him down for his second(second!?!?) nap of the day. I'm looking ad his sweet little face and wondering how, with the half dozen attacks I've made on his little face with Boogie Wipes today, there seems to be booger cement worming its way out of his nose.

Yeah, it's time for some adult interaction.