Le gourmand

I listen to Sirius satellite radio in the car, and I often hear a commercial for Rosetta Stone language software. A man describes a visit to a French restaurant, where he impresses his friends by ordering in French. He says something along the lines of, "When the waiter came, I said, 'Je voudrais le poulet et le riz'."

Every time I hear that, I can't help but think, "You go to a French restaurant and you order chicken and rice??"

mamarazza

I'm making some changes in my blogging efforts, but I haven't quite nailed down what I want to do yet. I don't like having two separate streams of photos because it's too hard to figure out where to post which pictures (should the one of Zachary and Cowboy be on this blog or baby-hill...?). Plus I want to have a place where I can just post pictures for the sake of posting pictures.

So I started yet ANOTHER blog (it seems ironic that, in order to simplify my blogs, I'm adding another one to the list):

m a m a r a z z a

It's where I am posting my favorite pictures as I take them. I may move all of my pictures over there eventually.

"Mamarazza" (pronounced "ma-ma-rat'za") is a word that I thought I invented, but it turns out that I'm not as clever as I think I am. I came up with it because so many of my friends call me the "paparazzi" due to my picture-taking addiction. Since I am now a mama and I am female (those two tend to go hand-in-hand), I figured "mamarazza" would be a good twist on "paparazzi".

Quick Italian lesson: "Paparazzi" is the plural form of "paparazzo". "Paparazzo" is masculine, as it ends in an "o". The female form would end in an "a", as in "paparazza". But I'm a mama, not a papa...so "mamarazza" is born.

However, "mamarazza" has already been coined by Marianne Fürstin zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn. As she is an Austrian princess, accomplished photographer, and already has an impressively long name of her own, I hope she doesn't mind if I use "mamarazza" as well.

Happy Birthday to the Cow!

Three years ago on this day, several big things happened in our lives:

• We bought our first house
• I received the offer for my current job
• Cowboy was born!!

Here he is, being a "dog hazard" on Chris' makeshift putting green. He's the sweetest, most stubborn, goofiest, not-so-smartest, most patient dog ever and we are so happy that he's agreed to be part of our family.



Can you believe that on Valentine's Day three years ago, I was a puppy-less single gal, living in a cute studio apartment in lower Queen Anne, working as a consultant, dating a great guy...and now I'm married to that great guy, living in our lovely Greenlake house-with-a-fenced-yard, working "in the industry" (i.e. no longer consulting), playing with my sweet dog and enjoying being a new mother to a precious little boy? Lots of changes in 3 years! I guess, like everything else I do, I procrastinated on the whole "growing up" thing and ended up cramming last minute. And luckily it's all worked out perfectly!

Not the best night

After a miraculous night when Zachary slept for 8 hours (granted, he was in his car seat, which I put inside his crib), last night wasn't so great. Here's how it went:

7:00 PM - Give Zachary a bath
8:00 PM - Nurse Zachary until 8:30 PM, then put him to bed
9:00 PM - Zachary's finally asleep, finish laundry and watch Grammy's with Chris
11:00 PM - Go to bed
12:10 AM - Zachary's up. Nurse him until he falls asleep at 12:30 AM. Put him back to bed.
12:40 AM - Zachary's still hungry. Nurse him again (other side) until 1 AM, put him in his crib.
1:30 AM - Zachary's up and crying. Rock him to sleep. Put him in his crib.
2:00 AM - Zachary's up and crying. Rock him to sleep. Fall asleep while rocking him.
3:00 AM - Wake up in rocker. Put Zachary in his crib. He starts crying. Nurse him, then put him in his crib.
4:10 AM - Zachary's up and crying. Rock him to sleep. Put him in his crib.
5:45 AM - Zachary's up and crying. Realize that the poor little guy is cold. Bring him into our bed to warm him up.
7:30 AM - Zachary's up for the day. And hungry.

Tonight, the car seat may make another appearance in his crib.

Happy Year of the Rat

To start off this new year full of new beginnings, we moved Zachary's co-sleeper into the nursery. So this is our first night without him in our room. Hopefully it will help him sleep for longer stretches (because he won't be distracted by mama-the-food-source)...but it does mean that I have to actually get out of bed and go to another room to nurse him. Hmph.

Wonderland

There's nothing quite as wonderful as having your baby snuggle into your neck and fall asleep. And hearing his first laugh is pretty amazing too. Head over to Zachary's blog to hear him!

That's my boy!

There's nothing quite like being in a calm, serene yoga class and having your baby very audibly fill his diapers.

"Exhale and move into downward dog...
now lengthen that spine...
lower your knees...
tuck into child pose..."

BRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPP

"...reach up for the top of your mat and lighten your shoulders..."

Bless the yoga instructor for the "Mom & Baby" class. Even though I giggled, she kept right on going as if nothing happened.

Chocolate + pasta = brilliant

Ben and Carrie came over last week to continue a tradition that we all kind of regret: watching the "Saw" movies together. This time it was "Saw IV", and I seem to have a harder and harder time following the plot. Since I have the somewhat annoying talent of forgetting a movie immediately after I've seen it, the "Saw" series (which relies on familiarity with the previous installments) is a challenge for me. I can't remember who did what, and I completely miss a lot of the meaningful tie-ins. Ah well. I still cringe at the gore.

And I have to admit, the "Hostel" series disturbs me more. And yes, we share that unfortunate tradition with Ben and Carrie as well. We are planning to watch "Hostel 2" soon.

But anyway, one highlight of the evening (other than enjoying Ben and Carrie's company, of course) was finally making the Pappardelle's chocolate linguine that we bought at Christmas. I served it for dessert with stewed berries, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate sauce on top. Yum.