I finished my cake decorating class tonight. I enjoyed meeting new people and learning new techniques but won't take another class until the smell of sugar doesn't disgust me anymore. ICK! I was worried that taking the class would lead to excessive snacking, but it has led to the opposite - it has led to disliking cake and things associated with it. I used seedless raspberry jam for my cake filling and even that tasted gross to me when I tried some on a piece of toast.

The weather here has been beautiful and I've gone walking three times this week, each day seeing a few of the mammas I've met in the neighborhood. The trees aren't blooming, but the the grass is tufting and the first yard pickup day of the year is just around the corner! This is my favorite time of the year in New Jersey.

I've been online a lot recently. Today it is to deal with some credit card fraud (argh) but mostly it has been at night while unable to sleep. I don't think the fraud and not sleeping are related, but now that I see them together in writing I think there could be a connection.

I'm eight and a half weeks along today (and expecting this little one to join us by early November) and haven't slept well in four nights, though John consistently sleeps through the night now. (If he can't have orderly naps, at least he can have orderly nights). Everything seems exactly like last time so far - no sickness and a bit of tiredness but nothing extreme. I'm taking a cake decorating class and the smell of frosting is a bit gross to me, but at least that means I don't have any desire to eat the cake afterwards :-).

I'm thinking about changing midwives this time, so that's what is on my mind now that I'm home from CA. We talked with one yesterday who is super-experienced (she's been at over 1000 births) but who is a bit of a 1970s-style "free-spirit". We're sorting through what criteria to use in evaluation. She teaches in local midwifery programs and trained some of the midwives in the group I went to last time. She practices with a second midwife (who wasn't there yesterday) who seems, from her background, to be a little more "normal".

If I remember correctly, last time, insomnia didn't start until the third trimester...

Random

John and I have been back from CA for four full days now. He's back in cloth (so nice - he had been in paper for a few weeks before our trip because the washer broke and it took a while to figure out whose responsibility it was to pay for a new one), but he is quite exhausted so I'm exhausted, too. Now it is time for the hard work of getting him to sleep again - I think he's dropped from an average of 14 hours of sleep per day to 10, which makes for a grouchy baby (and frustrated mama). He's moved his bedtime from 7 pm to 9:30 pm (we're working on moving it back) so I don't have those quiet evening hours to do taxes. Argh.

We figured out how to eat mango a few weeks ago and have been feasting on it since. Tonight we'll be having black bean cakes with mango-ginger salsa and green salad. John eats everything right now and appears to be angry if he is given different food than what Dan and I are eating. The other day, he even ate an onion-tomato quiche with me for lunch.

Dan has posted some new photos of John on his dotPhoto account; check out Dan's website for the link or e-mail me if you need it.

John and I are at my parents' house in California currently and John has connected my parents' "Bonzai Panther" with the word "cat" and says, "ATTT! ATTT! ATTT!" while ruthlessly chasing the cat around the house and up the stairs. The cat has kindly allowed John to pet him three times.

John signed "milk" tonight!

The weather here is beautiful and springlike. Due to some dark clouds, I put off walking until 3 pm yesterday. What a blessing! It turns out most mammas go walking at 3 pm and not at 9 am (my normal time). I met five mammas, got invited to a play group today, and was invited into one woman's home to sit and talk for a few minutes yesterday while her 7-year-old daughter doted on John. What a blessing those dark clouds were!

I worried that giving John a Flourless Chocolate Cake for his birthday cake (ingredients: butter, eggs, chocolate) might spoil his appetite for other foods, especially since he wasn't really eating much at that point. However, it seems to have been the turning point which convinced him that eating food is worth the hassle.

I took my first Wilton I cake decorating class last Friday night. It is at Michaels and there are only three students. :-)

Dan's aunt Elizabeth visited this week (YAY!!!) and I told her about our family rule: "You always need to try one bite, but you don't have to eat more than that." Elizabeth wondered whether it was unkind to enforce such a rule at 12.5 months of age, but the conversation changed and we didn't discuss it anymore.

Later, I made some deviled eggs. I put some on my finger for John but had to hold down his arms and head (with Dan's help) and pry open his mouth to enforce the rule. I felt cruel, but in a few seconds, John began licking his lips. I offered another bite. His face lit up and he loved it. He didn't wait for the next bite, instead diving forward and biting off part of an egg. He ate the equivalent of two eggs without the eggwhite. I think it is his favorite food.

I stand by my rule.

Aunt Elizabeth is Dan's father's sister and there is family resemblance in how they interact with babies. Some things my FIL did while he was here: turn lights on and off while saying "On, Off" and open and shut his hand while saying "Open, shut". One things Aunt Elizabeth did was stand up and down while saying "Stand, sit". She was also careful to narrate her actions for John.

This one’s for Vikki W.

Last Friday, we went to a Sayonara S party for a colleague of Dan’s who began a professorship in Japan this week. John likes the “s” sound (he repeats it whenever he hears me say it), so he “ssss”-ed during most of the drive to the party.

One of the senior researchers in Dan’s department does not wear shoes, though I’ve seen him with flip-flops in the snow. (I think his wife insisted - and his wife is completely normal!)

A four-year-old girl at the party (dressed in a shiny pink dress, red tights, and black shoes with sparkly insoles) got up her courage and asked the researcher why he doesn’t wear shoes.

Robert: “You get sick, sometimes, don’t you? It is because the shoes trap the germs in your body. If you wore bare feet all the time, the germs could get out and you wouldn’t get sick.”

This one’s not for Vikki W - Another overheard conversation

Person 1 (to Person 2) : Hey, congrats on your engagement.
Person 3: I didn’t know you were engaged! Congratulations!
Person 2: Oh, it’s no big deal. You know, modern relationships and such.
Person 3: I see. Signed your prenups yet?