Alice, click your heels three times

One of Tony's friends at work is a dance instructor and she gave Alice these lovely golden dance shoes. We always thought that Alice would wear them sometime around her first birthday or at very least at the six-month mark around Christmas. Alas, our little pumpkin already has feet big enough to barely fit into her dancing shoes. The time for dancing is now!

Here she is in her newly shod finery:



Thank you Shelli!!

I get jokes

The night Tony came home from Florida we were having a little family time with Alice sitting on her daddy's lap. Tony and I were a little slap-happy (it being midnight) and we started a round of raucous laughter at some lame joke. Suddenly we heard a screechy "Hee-Haw" wheezing sound coming from our daughter. We both looked at her concerned that she might be hurt but the kid was smiling like a loony bird. Tony grinned and said, "Are you trying to laugh sweetheart?"
Alice said "SCREAM squeek hoot snort burble RARWHAH!"

Since then Tony has been working on Alice's "laugh" by saying "Come on honey, Give me a Laugh."
Tonight all his hard work was rewarded. Check it out.

Casa de Luz

(note: This is not my photo. It can be found on the Casa de Luz website)

Today Alice and I had a lunch date with my friend Krishna and her baby girl Lilly. Krishna and I met in a Mom and Baby group and she was very helpful in helping me to prepare for Tony's first trip away from Alice. Her most helpful suggestion was to fill the weekend before he left with nothing but family time.

One of the things Krishna helped me do today is get out of the frickin' house!
The place where we ate lunch was an interesting school/vegan restaurant/yoga studio/lots of other stuff. It seems to be a community of folks that like hanging out under trees drinking tea, watching the kids play, and eating lunch, and I am totally down with that.
The place was called Casa de Luz and it was really lovely. Alice is not fond of sitting in her carseat for long periods of non-driving time, so she sat in my lap and goggled at the older kids scrambling all over the playground. It was great getting to just sit with another adult and talk about baby (and non-baby) stuff. I think we freaked out our fellow diners when we roamed onto the topic of amniotic fluid. But they were talking politics, which is marginally more unappetizing.
The deal with Casa de Luz is that you pay $12 for two helpings of whatever vegan meal they are making that day, plus soup, salad, and free drinks. It was a very satisfying experience.

We live next to the House of Torment...owner

One of our neighbors owns the sixth best haunted house in the nation. We're new to the community so we haven't had a chance to get to know the guy but he seems really nice. He's got cute kids. His yard looks good. Oh, and he has a hearse parked out front.

The picture up above is not of his house. We took this photo on a walk in another neighborhood. I thought it probably wasn't cool to post pictures of the man's domicile. But I will post links to these great videos of what it takes to spend all year creating the most incredible Halloween experience in Texas. What a great job.

Baldy McNohair

Alice and I are hanging out alone this week while Tony is at a conference in Florida. Yesterday we went to the Library, the organic market, the park, and took a big girl bath. Today we napped.
The only effort we took this afternoon was for a hearty round of "Tummy Time".



As I rounded the baby I got this shot of Alice's growing bald patch. She has passed "puppy with mange" and moved on to "fraternity prank victim".

Alice is a happy baby and when she wakes up in the morning she whips her head from side to side yaulping with joy. Thus the stripe of obliterated fine baby hair.

freaking roach

Ok it is about 4:50am right now. Alice and I are getting ready to take Tony to the airport for a business trip. I am totally awake because at 4:20am a FREAKING ROACH ran across my face. It has been raining outside all night. This is the first rain we have had in months. So critters are inevitable in our circa 1984 non-hermetically sealed house. In Texas people call these creepy crawlies "water bugs" but when I woke to scratchy legs scrabbling over my cheek my first thought was:
"Did it get on the Baby?" and "That was definitely a Roach".

I waited until the alarm went off at 4:30 to tell Tony, "Funny story sweetie..."
He went "Ewwwww!" and let me use the bathroom first while he snoozed with Alice.
When I emerged from the bathroom I said "Another funny story sweetie, the roach just ran across my foot."

Tony said, "He's a Dead Man. Kafka be dammed."
My Hero.

That Roach is totally dead now ya'll.

Au contraire girl with no hair

Alice favors sleeping with her head turned to one side. We try to dissuade favoritism by flipping her around at night, but she really rejects coequality.
Now our precious redhead has a large bald patch on one side. In an added twist my pregnancy hormones have faded and my hair is also falling out. Only Tony's pillow remains fur free.