Valentine's Day recap

Valentine Day?  Valentine's Day??  I don't know... grammar fail or whatever.

So we did our usual tradition for V-day (which I now realize I explain every year on this blog) of making a fancy dinner together at home.  We've done shrimp, crab legs, tenderloin, beef wellington, sushi.  I've blogged about a bunch of them (and I also added this snarky post back in 2009...oh I should have known that would come back to bite me!).  This year Mr. Incredible wanted to do LIVE lobster.  "It'll be so fresh and cool to make."  I was kind of squeamish about it all... I'm fine with preparing freshly caught fish, I know where my burgers come from, but lobsters kind of have faces and seem more substantial than a fish.  And having its living, blinking, beady eyes staring at me just prior to being on my dinner plate just might be a little much.

But I obliged and we went on a Lobster Hunt over the weekend to find fresh, living, lobster (to be purchased the day of because what would we do with live lobster for two days??? Mr. I already nixed the idea of storing them in the fish tank...).  With Corbin in tow, we clawed our way through three crazy busy Asian markets back to the fish section only to turn up empty handed (we did find some unusual products and received plenty of stares for being the only white people in said markets but no delicious crustacean to be had).  We ended up getting frozen lobster tails from Costco.  Mr. Incredible was disappointed... but still looking forward to a lobster dinner.

Now I need to add a little side note about lobster, being cheapskates, etc.  Our usual Valentine's Day tradition is great for a variety of reasons but namely because its so dang cheap!  We can have the most expensive item on a menu in our own home for a fraction of the price... However, lobster is subject to market prices and even at Costco, they were twenty bucks a pop (or tail or fish or something).  So this was a little pricey for us.  But we bit the bullet and even threw in a $10 wine to go with our lobster (whoa!! big spenders!!)

We 'researched' how to prepare our extravagant purchase (i.e. we watch youtube videos of people making lobster... there's surprisingly a lot of people whose contribution to humanity includes youtube videos of themselves preparing seafood...anyone sense a new calling on their lives?  Just asking...) and when Mr. Incredible came home from work we went about preparing the lobster.  The number one rule we discovered in all of the youtube lobster videos is Thou Shall Not Overcook Your Lobster (or you will end up eating very expensive fishy-tasting rubber).  So we were were cautious.

Here's our lobsters pre-cooking:

Did I mention these were huge?  Like almost didn't fit in my 13 inch pan and each one over 1 lb??

We set the timer, turned on the over light so we could carefully monitor things, and followed our cooking instructions exactly.

When the timer beeped, I removed the lobsters and leerily looked at the translucent meat.

"I don't think they're done."- me

"Don't overcook them!!!!"- Mr. I

I won this round and they went back in the over for a few more minutes.  That seemed to do the trick as the tops looked nice and white so we took them out and sat down for our Valentine's feast.

It was delicious.  Corbin was cooperating for the most part and just starting to look wimpery from his scooter car thingy but I figured we could make it through dinner before he melted down and required holding.

I was happily munching along when suddenly the bite in my mouth turned to slime.  I felt the color drain from my face as my stomach immediately tried to figure out how to send everything in it back out.  I gripped the table and stared at Mr. I with wide eyes and a moan.

ME: "I don't think its done."

HIM: "What?!  What's wrong with you?  Its fine.  If mine is done, then you's definitely is."

ME: "ooooooohhhhhhhhhh."

HIM: "Don't tell me you're not going to eat your $20 lobster???"

So I regained my composure and picked carefully at the crusty part on top.  And ate my salad.  And some bread.  And scooted my RAW lobster around on my plate.  Until Mr. Incredible started gagging across the table.

HIM: "I don't think mine is done."

So our lobsters got sent back to the oven... twice actually.  And Corbin realized, hey, they seem to be enjoying themselves too much not holding a baby at the table, and turned into a terrorist... a valentine's day terrorist.

Eventually our lobster turned out ok... but even though it was unspoken (because they cost $40!!!!) we didn't really enjoy each bite as we carefully considered if it was indeed done or still RAW!  (RAW LOBSTER IN MY MOUTH EW EWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWWWW!)

So that was our 1st V-day with a baby.  Next year we'll maybe get a sitter and go see a movie or something.  At least the $10 wine was good.

Happy Valentine's Day!

He'll hate this when he's older...

Baby Boogers

Someone once said sick babies make them nervous.  I couldn't agree more.  Corbin has been suffering through a cold for over a week now but thankfully hasn't had a fever and is pretty happy despite miserable symptoms.  That is, except when I bring out these characters:

Corbin was sick with a cold when he was about 3 weeks old and it was easy.  Wipe his nose, suck out the snot, let the baby sleep.  Now at six months, he knows what that blue nasal aspirator (or snot sucker thing as we refer to it) is and what it means.  At the sight of it, he throws up his arms, thrashing around, rolls his head back and cries pitifully (and sometimes forcefully).  I'm not sure who taught him to hate having his nose/face wiped (note to self- check with Mr. Incredible about 'prescribed boy curriculum.').

So at least twice a day we go through our song and dance about me trying to clean out his nose and make his life so much better and he acting like I'm sucking his brains out to eat for lunch.  He hates it.  And why are baby boogers so dang sticky?  Really- if you know, please comment.  I'm baffled.  Someone should harvest them and use them to repair leaking dams and broken pieces of the space shuttle.  It would seriously work.

So this morning we did our thing before nap time.  Corbin turned into his angry baby eel and slipped and flailed around while I struggled to aim the sucker towards his nose.  I made contact- SCHLUUUUURRP!  And then he lurched dangerously out of my arms and in my effort to SAVE HIS LIFE, I squeezed the sucker again and sent his extra schlurpy booger flying.  Ew...

I secured Corbin and had to SEARCH the room for said snot.  (So not what I thought I would EVER spend time doing...blechhhh!).  It was nowhere to be found.  Meanwhile, Mr. Corbin decided life was miserable again:

And worked himself up to a good cry.  I turned to take care of the little guy- and discovered his nasty, GIANT, snot ball attached to his eyelid!!!!!!!!!!  GROSS GROSS GROSS.


And of course I couldn't just wipe it away- it was glued with the super strength power that all baby snot has to my poor little guy's face.  Did I mention I was grossed out yet?

(No- I did not take a photo of Corbin's Space Snot- I have standards for this blog, ya know?)

Now, all you seasoned parents out there knowingly shaking your heads and thinking, 'She doesn't even know gross, "  I know.  There's much worse.  And much worse coming my way.  I'm aware.  I'm working my way towards handling it all.  But we can't deny snot should definitely be on the Gross List of Baby Stuff... the only thing that can make it grosser is this product- that I thankfully did not receive as a shower gift:

(source)

This is an example of why we should be weary of Swedes.  But please don't mention I said that to Mr. Incredible- I might never be allowed back in Ikea if you do!

6 Months Old!

Stuff I Made...aka my craft failure.

I have a new hobby... its a hobby formed out of desperation... of being help captive to my couch while my lovely little one eats ALL the DANG TIME.  If you know me in real life, you know I have a lot of creative energy.  I have an entire room of my house filled with fabric, paint stuff, beading, metal stamping, scrap-booking, silkscreening, you name it I probably have some of it... and that's just in that one room... craft/art/project stuff is spilling out of every corner of our house (and don't even get me started on my spray paint obsession in the garage).

Unfortunately, a lot of my favorite activities require a sewing machine or two hands, or basically just not an infant attached to one's chest.  So I slowly went crazy for a few months, not really being able to get some of this energy out except in short, nap-length bursts from time to time.  And I went a little wild on Pinterest...but that's another story.  So I decided I needed to learn to crochet.  There's tons of cute crochet things out there that don't look like your granny's blanket thing-ies and I could totally do that while feeding the boy.  Corbin has this cute crocheted ball that he loves and I  decided making crochet balls would be a good goal.  And how hard could it really be- you're just tying knots- right?

I think I have finally met my match in the craft world.

Not to sound braggy or anything but I am good at crafty things.

They just generally come naturally to me.  I am not the best sewer but I am good at the things I do make with my sewing machine.

I am by no means a master painter but if I want something to look a certain way I can usually accomplish it.

I am totally awesome at making life-sized monsters and Halloween props.

But crochet.... ohhhh crochet.  Why do you evade me like you do?

I started to out by learning the basic stitches- no problem.  Tying knots... literally.

I figured out how to hold the hook and start my foundation row.

I loved picking out fun yarns (cheaper than fabric!).

And then I struggled through learning how to read patterns (horrible person who figured out that method of short-hand!).

I decided if I could figure out hats then I'd get a good overall understanding of how crochet works.  Seemed like a small enough of a project that I'd actually finish it and I like hats and Corbin looks cute in hats (since he has no hair) so win-win.

Lose-lose.

My first attempt:

A big, green, yarn pancake.  See:

Not a hat.

After several more 'pancakes' I finally started getting my projects to look a little more hat-like:

I made this one for Mr. Incredible.  He said it looked like a giant knit boob.

My next attempt was actually closer to fitting an actual human's head... but still boob-like:

For the record I proudly wore the blue boob out in public.


I finally started getting a flatter hat shape... but its weird:

Here I stopped while I was ahead... already boob-ish:

These were two different hats that didn't turn out so I stitched them together... kind of like a sad ice cream cone:

I actually finally started to figure things out and found a pattern that wasn't written in Martian and my hats started turning out.... see how cute Corbin looks despite his mama's lack of crochet skills?

And yes I finally did accomplish it- the crocheted ball:

Pretty much 2 months from when I first started this 'hobby' I finally think I have a 50/50 shot of whatever I'm working on turning out more or less like what the pattern says it should be.  I feel like a craft failure for the first time in my life.  I suppose I'm getting better with practice.  We'll see... one thing is certain, I've got the corner of the market covered for yarn pancakes and boobs!

Witty Title About CIO-ing

That's Cry-It-Out-ing for those not in the know...  and yes I declared the other day for all the world to hear (or at least all my Facebook friends) that Mr. Incredible were putting our collective foot down and making Corbin Cry It Out in his crib that night.  He has gone from crummy sleeper to crapp-o sleeper these last few weeks and we had.had.enough.  Or so I thought.

Mr. Incredible- in his Incredible way of doing things- had done the research.  By leaving the baby to cry for a while and then going in to rock, feed, etc we were teaching perseverance... and perseverance was not what we needed to be teaching right now since our son was applying this new skill towards battling our will power in the middle of the night.  And he was getting very, very good at it.  We had a plan to end this and I had worked up the stamina/courage/guts/desperate need for something to work to enforce  a night of crying it out.

But here's the thing.  Our bundle of joy is a small bundle of joy... like literally small in size not in joy or whatever... like he's tiny and small and still eating every three hours (per doctor's orders).  That's three hours day AND NIGHT... not really conducive to sleeping through the night which is what CIO-ing is suppose to accomplish.  We've managed to make it to six months with this eating all hours of the night schedule and me not going totally insane from lack of sleep by discovering that Corbin is actually pretty content to sleep in our bed (insert *GASP* from the internets- did she just say they [bad word] CO-SLEEP?!?!?!?!?).   Sooooo... the cat is now out of the bag.  Yes, we do the hippy thing and co-sleep.

We both decided until Corbin gets a little bigger/we get the go ahead to make him sleep longer, then we're just going to stop stressing about being Damn Hippies and embrace the co-sleeping.

We're still battling getting him to sleep for his early bedtime- he's in his own room and is putting up a big fight.  But when the adults of the house are ready to call it a day and the BABY is still awake, well, then he just gets to sleep with us for now.

After we decided we could handle this new plan, I think we both felt better about how things were going as you know, PARENTS.  We had rationalized to each other that Corbin was a good sleeper in our bed and we were both sleeping well enough and it was much better than listening to him scream for an hour and a half (his previous record).  We settled into our 'family bed' (bleh!) feeling in charge when, low and behold, someone decided to put our decision to the test.  Corbin very clearly said,

"Hey."

We both kind of laughed.

"Hey.  Hey!"

Ok- he'll settle down.

"Hey!  Hey!  Hey!"

Me: "Shhhhh- Corbin its sleep time."

(whispered) "hhhhhHey!"

"Shhhhh!"

"hhhhHey!"

"HEY!  HEY!  HEY!"

And on and on until we both felt stupid for thinking we had outsmarted our 6 MONTH OLD!

"silly parents- who needs sleep?"

His next doctor appointment is this week... we'll see if we have a new plan of attack after that....

Name That Photo Contest!

Its time for the first Caption Contest of 2012!  Comment with your best caption and I'll send you a prize if Mr. Incredible picks your entry!