well that was fun

a few photos from our vaycay last week. t2 got to wear some very fancy clothes on saturday at a wedding in spokane. il esta beau.
(i don't reccommend spokane by the way. our hotel was absolutely lovely and our friends there are lovely, but the town kinda stinks. literally. the only thing it has going for it is gonzaga basketball.)
now that summer's just about over, i think i'll let my hair grow long. it's going to be a rough couple of months because right now (even though i just had it trimmed) i look like fraulein maria (the hills are aliiiiivvvveeee ...) seriously, put me in some krenlin and an apron, shove a carpet bag in my hand and send me on my way.

babys first blackberry

this is a little absurd, but we gave t2 an old blackberry that tayloe had because he goes bananas everytime he sees his dad's.
we even charged it so it lights up when he punches buttons.
it's silly, but he loves it so much that now whenever he's headed for trouble (which is always) i can say, "where's your phone?" and he immediately drops what he's doing and starts looking for it. i wonder how long that'll last ...
i was trying to catch him on tape pretending like he is talking on it. it really is funny - he holds it up to his ear and babbles. but of course he's like the dancing frog when we actually ask him to do something, so instead this is a video of him standing up on his own. and in the end he looks just like his dad - who frequently stands in the middle of our living room, pecking away as if his life depends on it.

back, gone, back, gone

this is another birthday shot, taken at the cottage in va (that's t2's paternal grandfather) because i've been extra lame about taking pictures lately. to my defense, everytime i take the camera out, t2 dashes toward it and then throws a fit when i won't give it to him.
cabo was very very hot. it was mostly work so i didn't get to see much, but i did realize that tortillas in america are the pits. saturday morning after going to a surf beach we went to a delicious tortillaria. the scene was unreal - it was about 100 degrees at 9 a.m., and these ladies are working in a room that's about 150 degrees because they have to press the tortilla and then toast it on a griddle. the press looks like an iron from 1940s. there were about 5 little mexican girls, all about age 5 or 6, with orders their mothers had sent them down the street with. for a moment at least i felt like i was actually in a different place. you should have heard me trying to tell the woman in spanish that i wanted 12 tortillas in a bag.
i have no idea what makes authentic tortillas so good, but i'm going to take a wild guess and say lard.
we leave tomorrow for seattle and then spokane for a wedding. we'll be back sunday and then most likely are going back to the east coast for a good long while. no flies on us. i'm going to do the best i can to keep up here because it seems like changes are happening every day to t2. he says ball (ba) and banana (na na) and duck (duh) and wants to walk.
actually, he doesn't want to walk so much. it's me who really wants him to walk. he's like carrying around a sack of wet concrete. i didn't walk until i was 16 months, and i'm telling you right now if it takes him that long i think it's only fair that i get a deep tissue massage weekly, starting today.
now that i think about it, i'm not sure what i'm going to do when he does start walking because i can't keep a single pair of shoes on his feet. he yanks and kicks off anything i put on and inevitably one shoe ends up in the middle of the road and i don't notice it until i'm back to the car. the other day he was actually riding a pony at the farmer's market barefooted. we're such rednecks.
anyway, we'll keep you posted ...

adios

this is at our dave rabb gym class, which ended today. boo hoo. they don't open again until after labor day, which seems like forever away.
i'm leaving in the morning for cabo san jose in mexico. i'll be gone for two days working on my women for the world freelance project, mapping out their new web site (by the pool) and filling their web pages with content (with a cig in one hand and a cocktail in the other) and coming up fundraising ideas (after i order lobster).
the tayloes are staying behind on their first solo/overnight/two-day venture together. i sorta wish i could be in two places at once because i'd really like to watch as they whittle away the day together, most likely in their underware/diapers, eating ice cream and watching professional sports.
tayloe's (big) a rock star for staying behind and minding the store, especially when he had the option to come along.
in gratitude i cooked them a big pot of mac and cheese (broccoli added) and made some chicken salad - food that's easy to grab in between 'girls gone wild' and 'america's next top model.'
i think they're really going to enjoy each other, but if i'm wrong and you get a pitiful call from tayloe asking for help, please do what you can (just don't call me).
mr. mom, i love you forever. you're my favorite place.

recall

so mattel announced another toy recall because some of its toys have dangerous parts. but there's a whole other batch of toys that are being recalled because they're made with lead paint.
um. ok. talk about a problem i thought we'd solved, like, 20 years ago.
speaking of toys that should be recalled, tayloe's (little tayloe) uncle geoff gave him an up-up elmo for his birthday. geoff's the guy that gave us the 'my balls are magical' toy and the rolling, talking ball that says 'i'm over here!' when you've been ignoring it for too long.
determined to outdo himself, he delivered elmo with a smile. only much to our delight, t2 hates it. i mean really hates it. he turns and crawls away from it whenever he sees it. and if it starts talking ('elmo wants up-up, up-up elmo,') t2 starts crying. it's even worse if i start playing with it. he'll try to smack it out of my hands, tears streaming down his face as if to say, 'don't do it mommy! it's a bad toy! can't you tell? can't you ... (cry, cry, cry) ... can't you (cry, cry, cry, cry) ... can't you tell it's EVIL???' it's the saddest thing ever.
so i did elmo a favor and put him in 'storage' in a ziplock bag under t2's crib. only i didn't hide him well enough because t2 found him. elmo came alive from the grave, crying 'up, up, elmo wants up up' (i mean, why can't he at least say please?) through the plastic bag. and that was pretty much it for t2. he had a complete meltdown.
as a side note, this kid melts down about very little. last week a balloon popped in his face (he bit it, of course) and he laughed.
anyway, he melted down crying and crying and crying. i took elmo out and tried to show him it was ok, that i hadn't buried him alive, that he was only 'resting' in the plastic bag, but t2 wanted nothing of it. he whacked elmo so hard i dropped the thing on the floor. it fell with a thud and then said, 'thank you' in its stupid elmo voice.
so elmo and his red polyesther 'fur' and his googly eyes and his bad manners are banished to the man room outside.
if he survives that, which i very seriously doubt, i have my own ideas about what to do with him ...

little glimmer of devil

you tell me, what should the thought bubble over his head say?

elliott james lipp

news, news, news! my friend cathy lipp had her baby boy on tuesday! elliott james lipp was born at 11:06 aug. 7 - everyone is happy and healthy.
i would have posted a photo of the little guy if, um, i had it. his slacker parents haven't sent one - you'd think they had a newborn to take care of or something.
meanwhile, tayloe keeps finding new things to get into. it took him 10 minutes to work his way out of this basket.
aren't those cute orange pants he has on? i switched to cloth diapers last week. i know, who does that this late in the game, right? i honestly wish i'd done it sooner. i do a stupid amount of laundry a week anyway, so i haven't really noticed that much difference. i bought some great liners and over pants on sale and already have a bunch of cloth inserts, so it was just a matter of putting it all together.
getting them - or any diaper - on in peaceful manner is something else entirely.
i'm going to make a million dollars inventing a stand-up diaper changing station that you can strap a kid into.
here's what my daily conversations with t2 sound like:
me: stand up and let's change your pants
t2: bababababababa
me: hold still now. still. still. hold still. look!!! a car!! right there!!! in front of you! ooohhh, what a nice car! car! car! red car! your red car! hold still (etc, etc, etc )
t2: aaaahahahaha. bababa. mama mama mama. DADA?
me: dada's working. he's not here. i'm here. hold still.
t2: DADA? DADA? DADADADADADADADA.
me: ok, we're almost done. look! another car! a car! WWWHHEEE! play with that car. (SLAM)
no, we don't throw cars, we roll cars. see (one hand putting diaper on, one hand rolling the car) roll. not throw, roll. roll cars.
t2: DDDDAAAAADDDDAAA? dada? dada? dada? dadadadadada
me: let's work as a team. we're almost done. almost done. almost ...
(t2 sits down and inevitably squishes a turd into any one of our persian rugs. then, he makes a break for it and finds something else to throw.)
me: sigh. (pull out the big guns and put a ball on a nearby table, prompting him to crawl toward it and stand up. 'he can't possibly fall for this again,' i think.)
t2: ba? ba? ba?
me: yes, that's a ball. hhhheeeey, i know! you should get that ball! that's your ball! get the ball! it's over here ...
(sucker ...)
t2: ba. ba. mama? dada? mama? dada? DADA? DADA? DADA?
me: DADADADADA is NOT here. FOCUS, CHILD!
it's cute that he's really attached to tayloe, unless i'm trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to do in which case he nearly always screeches for his dad. and here i was believing what everyone said about little boys being ssssssoooooo attached to their mother. hrumph.

the very busy spider

another cute birthday photo.
we have this eric carle book, the very busy spider, that t2 loves. it's his top choice nearly every night. now, i like eric carle. he's good clean fun.
but this one, the very busy spider, makes me mad. here's the deal. it's this spider and she gets blown across a field and lands on a fence post near a farm and starts spinning a web.
as she's making this web, various and assorted farm animals approach her and ask if she wants to play (pig wants her to go roll in the mud with him, the dog wants her to come chase a cat, the cat wants her to take a nap and so on). each time, the spider doesn't answer because 'she's too busy spinning her web.'
at the end of the day, she catches a fly in the web and then she falls asleep. she's so zonked she even misses hearing a compliment from an owl, who (hooo, hooo) says her web is very beautiful. and that's the end.
this spider, she's a pretty boring gal don't ya think? she's so caught up in getting her mundane tasks done that she misses all the fun on the farm. i mean, who wouldn't want to roll in the mud? where's the work-play balance?
that's the lesson i take from it (everytime she doesn't answer, i tell t2 how rude she is and how very boring her day is turning out to be), but i'm not sure that's the lesson the author intended.
i think maybe eric carle has some protestant work ethic hang ups that he hasn't really worked through. i halfway expect the very busy spider to be beamed straight to heaven and take a seat next to the almighty at the end of the book.
that said, if that spider is for hire i'm perfectly willing to hand over my dyson and a bottle of ajax and let her get her protestant work ethic on in my house.

a vaccum that doesn't suck

tayloe surprised me with a new vaccum.
it sounds like the most unromantic gift ever. but it's a dyson - a super slim, super sucking, bagless, headacheless dyson. in fact, one of the very best surprises i've ever gotten.
tuesday morning he left the house on a mystery errand and came home with the new slim model in the car. maybe i've lost my mind, but i think that's really sweet and romantic.
i jumped up and down and i think i cried a little when i saw it.
wolly's hair and baby mess have really started to cake in over the last few months. my 'ol wheezer (the dirt devil) just wasn't getting the job done. it just blew the dog hair around the house. in fact, the dog hair actually ran from it. the thing can't even suck up a cheerio anymore.
and emptying the filter is like setting off an atomic bomb. it billows a plume of dust over our garbage cans that doesn't settle for days.
i ripped into the dyson, put it together in 15 minutes and vaccumed for 2 hours straight. it could suck up the baby, i'm convinced.
it also swivles! and to empty it, you just remove the canister and open the bottom! dump and go! bam!
our rugs look like new and turns out we have wood floors!
thank you tayloe. thank you, thank you, thank you.

hey, family!

i'm too tired to think even though i had a really great day and tayloe brought me an awesome suprise. i'll tell you all about it later.
for now here are some pics.
the first one is tayloe with his cousins eliza jane. these two have a ball together. am i the only one who can actually see the humidity in the air in this picture?

max and henry are our tayloe cousins. i refuse to think about the things these two are going to teach t2.

three generations of emerys. i love this picture.

happy birthday

i can't believe t2s first birthday past and i didn't even post a blog. we've been on the east coast since last monday and i've been the most slack blogger ever, haven't i?
i don't highly recommend a 5 hour plane ride alone with a one year old on your lap, by the way. it was less fun than a root canal. he napped a total of 45 minutes. good times.
however when we landed my best (8 mo pregnant) pal cathy was waiting for me and so were my parents. we ditched t2 with mom and dad and headed to charleston, sc, where i spent three delicious days and nights away. these were my first nights away from 2, and it was good to actually start to miss the little critter. cathy and i went to a spa and shopped and ate ice cream. i feel incredibly lucky to have gotten to spend time with her, just the two of us, before her baby comes. keep watch for news and photos of little lipp, due aug. 25.
t2s first birthday was never-ending. we had a fun party in LA two weekends ago with cake and ice cream and booze. thanks everyone for coming!
last weekend we had a family party at the river cottage with more cake and ice cream. (it was the third cake i'd made in a week - butter cake with vanilla icing and sliced strawberries on top. i'm not shy - it was DELICIOUS).
and monday, his actual birthday, we had cupcakes and he was bathed in love by his granparents and uncle and, of course, his mother.
i'm going to reflect a little. just a year ago t2 was a stranger in our house. we loved him of course, but it was more out of duty than anything else.
now he's one of us. equal parts catherine (calm, kind, caring, attractive, sensitive, smart. i could go on ...) and tayloe (wicked, sly, robust, loud, messy, loves to sleep...), and we absolutely adore him. he's just the yummiest, most delicious little person i've ever met.
if i had to find one thing i like the most about him, it's what a boy he is. he's full of piss and vinegar. he eats everything, plays with everything, uncovers everything, laughs a lot and loves to be tickled, tossed around and taken on tours of every single photograph and picture in any house he's in.
none of us can imagine a life without his wet kisses and the sweet, baby-voiced way he says "huh?" when he points to something he's curious about.
oh t2, what would we do without you? not very much, i believe.

next time i won't feed him cous cous

i made this video because i really love this song by my friend chantal and i can't get it out of my head. so i'm sharing it with you people. she wrote it for her two boys (who are three and two) and she's always reminding me when i'm what if-ing and worrying and just generally overthinking the way mothers do that all you can do - really - is love your kid(s).
isn't that liberating? cause i mean, if i can do nothing else i can at least do that.
so here's to me.
turns out giving a 1 year old cous cous is a pretty sour idea. i gave some to t2 tonight and while he did in fact get some in his mouth, i didn't consider how it'd hold up to the nightly floor tossing. not well, it turns out. i still have little cous cous (koo-koo as my mom calls it) grains all over the floor, even though i swept and vaccumed. and i'm pretty sure that even after a very long soak in the tub, there's still some in the folds of little tayloe's body. and perhaps also in the folds of my body.
now there's an image ...

iOne

there've been a few folks who've asked me about birthday gifts for t2. so i created an amazon wish list, which has lots of books and toy ideas. i love wooden toys and so does t2, so there are lots of those. amazon has good prices and you can even get some of the things (especially books) that used. that's fine by us since you'd be saving and recycling, two things we dig.
he's really attached to this blanket we got as a baby gift when he was born. i'm terrified i'm going to lose it in all our moving around, so we'd all sleep better if there was a back up.
other than that, we ask for humanitarian gifts in tayloe's name to our favorite organizations, like heifer.org, the sierra club, our local PBS station KCET, our local public radio KCRW, Oxfam America and Save the Children.

dead woman's shoes

tayloe found a pair of Prada shoes in our garbage can the other day. that sentence would make no sense anywhere else in the world.
it also occurs to me that it's a little odd that my husband knows designer shoes when he sees them.
and that he actually looks in our garbage can.
and that he presumably took a dive in our trash to retrieve the shoes.
hm.
i won't think about that.
the shoes aren't my size, of course, and i don't really like them that much anyway (if i did i'd squeeze my toes in them regardless) so i'm selling them on eBay.
how much can i get for italian heels found in the trash? i hope at least $30 because i'd help me get a really cool birthday present for t2.
this was tayloe's advice:
"make them sound really awesome. something like, "purple james brown shoes! very sexy! very LA! perfect for all seasons!" and then he said, "just don't put that you found them in the garbage."
oh, ok. good tip.
i've been calling them dead woman shoes because we're sure that someone tossed them in our can just before tying cinderblocks to the gal's body and heaving her off a yacht into the santa monica bay.

last first holiday

i just realized it's t2's last first holiday.
we had big plans to go to the beach today, but it got cloudy so we went to the pool instead. it was sunny there and foster's freeze is right around the corner.
if you can't have a french fry on the fourth of july, when can you have a french fry.
tayloe's leaving in the morning for the live earth concert in johannesburg south africa. he'll be back tuesday, which is also his birthday.
(aside: who goes to south africa for a weekend? right now i'm watching him zip up his tiny little daypack backpack, which holds everything he's taking. who takes only a carry-on backpack to SOUTH AFRICA? jeeze louise).
anywho that leaves me and wmd, who in the last week really amped up his 'spirit.' it's as if someone told him (geoff emery) that we are going to love & feed him no matter if he's an angel or tayloe the terrible.
slamming his sippy cup on the floor after a long, wet gulp. screeching at me when he doesn't get what he wants in the time he thinks he ought to get it (one second after notifying me). putting his little paws on the dvd player/tv etc and looking back to make sure i see. and my favorite, acting like a junkie going through withdrawl when i change his diaper.
i'm the adult, i keep telling myself. i'm the adult. i'm the adult. i'm the adult.
that means i do the adult thing. set the boundries, say no, show him what he can play with, sympathize with his frustration, explain the right thing to do and then move on and so on.
but damn, people, sometimes i want to throw that sippy cup up in the air and blast the bitch with a 12-gauge shotgun.
but then i think of all the explaining i'd have to do. and the mess it'd make.
so instead i act mature and say (under my breath) with conviction, "look you, last year at this time you didn't even exist."
so there.

wolly's world

it's true that wolly has been marginalized in the past year - much like the guy in the office who's really annoying but too nice to fire.
after the inital shock and then after-shock and then after-after shock, i think he's finally accepted that he really is a dog. i think he's maybe even gone the extra step and accepted that being a dog is, in fact, pretty damn good.
look at him here. he's stone-cold sober. he hasn't been this mellow since tayloe fed him half a bottle of dog prozac five years ago.
being the dog in our family isn't such a bad deal. there's a lot to envy (tons of sleep, tons of love), but the thrice-daily showers of table scraps are probably his primary reason for sticking around.
keeping up with (enduring) t2 has aged him, though. he's whiter around the muzzle for sure. he has arthritis in his back leg. he moans sometimes when he has to get up. he has a very hard time jumping in the car.
earlier this week i became convinced that something was terribly wrong with him. he was scratching like a madman, was an ashy, flaky mess and wasn't even walking on his back leg. wolly can be a total pain in the ass and i cuss at him more than anyone, but i'd die if something happened to him. just die.
i hauled him to the vet.
my vet is a bitch. she's cold and stodgy and has no bedside manner whatsoever. however, she really knows dogs and she especially knows dogs with skin problems.
wolly hates the vet - not just this vet. all vets. it's like he smells the fear and it sends some kind of wacko surge to his brain. it's a wonder he doesn't poop all over himself everytime we go.
three vet technicians later, wolly's heaved onto the examination table (which blows my mind, but that's something else entirely). he's standing stiff legged, hot breath panting like a beast while one woman is trying to calm him down, another is holding his left side and yet another is holding him on the right. the vet is at his rump, trying to examine his hind leg.
for some reason she's trying to get him to sit. on the leg that hurts. while perched like a damn parakeet on this exam table.
when he won't do it, homegirl says TO ME, "wolly's not trained is he?"
and then she told me he's overweight and needs to be eating weight management (or at least senior) dog chow. AND THEN she tells me i need to brush his teeth.
i told her that i don't even brush my child's teeth.
my $56 exam fee bought me all of that, plus a little peace of mind. turns out the only thing wrong with wolly is that he's gettin old.
just like the rest of us.

giggle

secret lover

this is the conversation i just had with my washing machine:
me: oh washing machine. what would a day be without the warm, lush way you drench my clothes and the hum of your spin cycle?
wm: hands off, woman! i need a break.
me: no breaks, wm. don't blame me, blame the weapon of mass destruction. he's hell on a t-shirt.
wm: sigh. hey, speaking of wmd - can you ask him to stop banging his blocks on my front side? i'm bruise easily.
me: rub some dirt on it. (pause) i miss tayloe.
wm: well he can't be far. only moments ago he was french kissing my torso.
me: no, no. tayloe the husband.
wm: husband? i've never seen a husband. what husband?
me: my husband.
wm: wwhhaa? oooooohhhhh. OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. well, thank god. i seriously thought we were going to have to have an intervention over the fly fishing shirts and army pants.

kiddie p.e.

leave it it pharida to find the grooviest, most old-school kid activity in our parts. this morning she and i and sadie and tayloe went to gym class with dave rabb. dave himself greeted us, hawaiian shirt, nose hairs, jersey accent and all. he and his wife run the place and they romp around with the kids, let them climb on everything, bring out buckets of balls, build obstacle courses, sing songs, jump on trampolines and play country music. it's a little hole in the wall that's low (way, way low - so very low) in pretention and high on good, clean fun.
i never knew such a place could exist in los angeles.
dave took lots of time to meet tayloe (who he called 'Thor' for the first 15 minutes because he misunderstood his name) and taught him how to do a backwards somersault, which thor liked very much.
next time, i'll take pictures.

swimmy

lets not forget

who the best dad in the whole world is. my father and me, winter 1979

happy father's day

top 10 things we love about tayloe the dad
10. he does a mean 'n sync/boyband impression that always makes us laugh
9. he knows every single word to 'my favorite things' and 'edelweiss'
8. there are very few things he won't do for cake
7. he watches soccer in spanish at high volumes for abnormally long periods of time
6. he reminds me of my dad
5. he sings in the shower
4. he does very good work for a very worthy cause
3. he rocks our baby to sleep
2. he makes up silly stories and sometimes he tells the same stories over and over again, but they never get old (almost never)
1. he grows and evolves without ever changing.

wait, wait, wait

i got this little walker thing earlier this week, wednesday i think, and t2 couldn't do a thing with it. in fact, it was useless to him just yesterday. he'd stand up, hold on to it and then flop down on the floor.
today i sat down with him to play and he gravitated toward it and took off.
is that really all it takes - 3 days - for him to get the hang of something as complicated as walking upright? it takes me three days to get our books back to the library on time (why isn't there an online rental service for books, anyway? netflix for novels).
i feel like i savored just about every moment of his babyhood. i really do - i mean, if anything i over-enjoyed it. i double-dipped, went back for seconds. i ate the fat. and i'll tell you, it was delicious.
i'm being a little over-nostaligic, but how can it really be just about behind us? i mean, i still have 10 lbs of pregnancy weight that i vowed to lose before t2 was a toddler so please dear god say it's not true. say the deadline isn't lurking over me like a very, very knarly thunderstorm.
i want my baby back, baby back, baby back. ribs.

just peachy

i have messed up and cleaned up the kitchen four times today and we've yet to have dinner. sometimes i feel like it's all i do. pull things out of the fridge, put them back, pull out bowls and plates and forks, wash them, put them back. repeat, repeat, repeat.
tayloe's leaving for a week on sunday and the only good thing about that is that my kitchen work load will significantly decrease. kinda like at my old jobs when the boss was out of town.
i do my best thinking in the kitchen. lately there've been about 6 or 7 things that are repeatedly on my mind when i'm standing at the sink or chopping or stirring something on the stove.
they are:
1. we don't have to separate our recycling, it just all goes in one huge bin in the back. so who does separate it? is there a machine that weeds out the plastic from the paper and glass and if so, how big is it and how does it know? a trip to the recycling plant might make a good field trip one day.
2. our neighbors have a bumper sticker on the back of their car. it reads, "who would jesus bomb?" this question occupies my mind for hours.
3. what will i be in my next life? a seal? a flamingo? a rock?
4. what would my spare change sign read if i were homeless? need cash for alcohol research? sign for sale? help me pimp my box?
5. what do they use to ship styrofoam?
6. what will be the first thing i do with the money when i win the lottery?

go to work with dad day

i hope my look in the photo with ben affleck says it all because i'm just not sure what to say about today, or the week we've had for that matter.
will there ever be another time my little boy doesn't seem to care that he's being cuddled by a supermodel? i cherish these days.
da-da? dddaaaa-ddddaaa? what 'wicked game' video? what happened to her top? mom said she was very young in that video and it was obviously made before she had children. da-da, what does sultry mean? why don't i want to fall in love? hhuuuhhhmmm? da-da?

la woman

of course i decided to leave my camera in the car on our fancy night out, so tayloe took this glamorous picture of me filling up the car on the way home. (did you know i cut my hair even shorter? no? well, i cut my hair even shorter.)
ladies and gentlemen, she walks the red carpet and pumps petrol (tayloe was at the atm).
**applause**
we had a great time and i could have kicked myself 1,000 times and then picked me up and kicked me again for not taking my camera along. we really did get to walk the red carpet into grauman's theater, in front of all those cameras and lights and screaming people and na-na-na oscar night hollywood music.
can you believe that? they really play music outside to set the mood.
it worked for me. the sounds rang in my ears as my little black sandal touched the red carpet for the first time. it took all the will power i had not to take off in a delirious sprint, striping off my clothes as i ran like a maniac toward george clooney.
that would have really embarrassed tayloe, though. so instead i walked slowly and tried to act like i'd been there. which was very, very, VERY hard. because, um, i hadn't.
no one was looking at us, obviously. but who cares. i sure didn't because just inside there was free popcorn and soda. FREE! and i didn't have to wait in line to soak my snack in buttery topping because it's very f-a-t-t-e-n-i-n-g. pity for them.
we munched and chatted and watched people and counted fake boobs. then there was the movie, which was fine. oh and the theater! it was gorgeous.
as if it wasn't already an amazing date, we got to walk on the red carpet AGAIN to get to the after party. there were people everywhere waiting to get a glimpse of someone famous. that we were in the middle of all that makes me laugh so hard.
it was just an amazing hollywood night, with movie stars and oppulence and acrobats and fireworks and drink and food. we sat and talked with matt damon and his wife, who are lovely. for me, seeing my favorite entourage character, lloyd, and for a moment really believing that i was living the perfect reality of a tv show was the highlight.
that and the free popcorn.

red carpet ready

this pic was taken a few days ago, back when it was sunny. it's been grey and cool for three days and for some reason it feels like eternity. phewy on june gloom.
tayloe and i are going to the premiere of ocean's 13 tonight at grauman's chinese theater. i finally cleaned out my closet friday and rediscovered one of my favorite dresses. i zippered my skin trying to see if it fit and thought maybe that was an indication that it didn't so much, but then tayloe came in and helped me and turns out it fits just fine. this does volumes for my self worth.
i just waxed my eyebrows because maybe i'll meet brad pitt and if i do, i sure as shit don't want a jungle on my forehead. it's been so long since i've done it that i forgot that it's not the best idea to wax and plan to go anywhere within 5-6 hours.
oops.
i'm pretty excited about our night out, but what i really can't stop thinking about is grauman's theatre and whether they sell pop corn. oh, i hope so.

lovers

well i'll be damned - a picture really is worth a thousand words.
check out a few more here.

aw, shit

i've been feeling a little unhinged lately. t2 is going through some kind of nap transition that has our days jumbled and all this crawling and exploring and keeping up with is hard on a gal. so the end of the day comes and just about everything around us is a complete, turned-over, spilled-on, crunched-up cheerio mess. because i'm a bit of a tidy tina, messes get to me. bad.
i feel like my brain has ridden the scrambler 678,000 consecutive times.
that said, the other day i was trying to clean out my closet while t2 poked around in our bedroom. my closet is a nightmare right now. i've been either going barefoot or wearing flip flops for the past month because i can't find any of my shoes.
so i'm on task and making progress when t2 has an explosion. i pick him up and dash him to his room for a change when i realize that a big, wet glob of dung has spilled out of the back of his diaper and onto my arm, shirt and (somehow?) foot.
very soon, there's splatter on the walls and on his FACE and well, everywhere. it's sticking to absolutely everything.
whoever invented glue had a baby, i'm sure of it.
we got through it and later that day went for a walk to the park with wolly. only the dog park was closed for cleaning. so i tied wolls to a poll and decided to push t2 on a swing until it reopened. that didn't work out, though, because i turned around 5 minutes later and a bevy of spanish nannies were shouting perro! perro! consiga ese perro loco!
there was a black dog standing at the gate of the kid park prancing and panting and drooling and generally acting like a rabid madman.
do i claim him or do i just act like nothing's happening?
wolly, good ol wolly, chewed through is leash. isn't that just precious?
i scurried to get t2 in his stroller and get over to the wolly before he did something really stupid. the dog park was still closed (it's all mulch, but they actually spend an hour a week watering the goddammned thing), so we shuffled over to a grassy area, pushing the baby and holding wolly by the 10 inches of leash left attached to his neck.
i was busy convincing myself that someone very nice would find wolly if i just took his collar off and left him at the park when a ranger found us. i was sure, absolutely sure, he was going to tell us to leave and i was going to have to start crying because i had a long walk ahead of me that would have been murder with a stroller, a hyper lab and no leash.
instead he handed me a new leash, one he'd found and presumably been waiting to give to someone just like me.
someone pathetic.
i thanked him, probably with tears in my eyes, and he said he was about to turn off the sprinklers and we could go in the dog park - 5 minutes earlier than he was supposed to let us in.
a random act of mercy.
and i sometimes wonder why i'm so tired at the end of the day.

tayloe in the wild

sometimes i feel like a species scientist in the field, watching some kind of beast. i think it's funny that when we're just sitting around like this, my brain downshifts and i think about as little as possible while his little thinker is no doubt in motorskill overdrive.
the movie grizzly man kinda makes sense to me now. i get why that dude went a little bonkers and actually thought he was connected to the bears in a way no one else was. he watched them all the time.
of course, they ate him in the end, but anyway.

traffic in the kitchen

ol wolls is dealing (just barely) with t2's love of balls, which must really be reeking havoc on his mental state. especially because t2 will grasp a ball in his hand and wiggle his way over to wolly and offer it up to him. i mean, literally bonk him in the nose with it or drop it right near his feet. for some reason, a reason i really can't begin to understand, wolly doesn't respond. most of the time he just gets up and tries to find a peaceful place to sleep. which, of course, prompts t2 to scamper along behind him, panting.
other times i swear wolly actually plays opposum. leave me alone kid, i'm dead.
very un-wolly.
the only thing i can figure is that these two worked out some kind of cheerios + goldfish for hours of torment trade, with wolly writing in some kind of all-day, everyday fetch policy that'll become active as soon as t2's old enough to play that game.
anyway, how bout that speed crawl, eh? there's just one speed - superfast. i kinda want to paint little flames on the outside of his thighs. the trouble, though, is that his limbs can't always keep up with his overdrive. so at least once a day his zip turns into a flail and he face plants on the floor. ouch.

what does a doggie say?

ruff, ruff? woof? arf? gggrrr?
not in our house. i ask t2 what a dog says, specifically what our hyped up, over-bred crazy dog says, and he pants.
heh, heh, heh. heh, heh, heh.
nothing's truer than the truth.

happy campers

we got a wild hair and went on a camping trip up the coast last weekend. it's interesting with a baby. i didn't know dirt could stick in so many places and you just haven't lived until you've hiked a 10 month old to an outhouse and tried to bathe him while you shower.
we spent one night near the beach, all hunkered in together with bellies full of fajitas listening to waves crash. the next day, we trucked up to big sur and camped in a redwood grove. the canopy was so beautiful we left the rain fly off so we could stare at the trees all night.
inspired, we kept going up to mendicino county, where our friend kevin lives in a tree house near the beach. we ate like royality and drank more anderson valley wine than i really want to remember. by the time we got home we looked like a band of gypsies. even wolly was tired.
we've driven the entire pacific coast highway, from the very top of the olympic peninsula in washington to los angeles. the stretch between malibu and san fran is some of the most amazing.
it's t2's 10 month birthday. here's a pic to mark the day.

bubbles

ball buster

mama's boy

there's a story about our first mother's day in my head, but i think i'm going to save it for the book. that way it'll give us all a little, what's the word ... distance from reality. that always makes things funnier.
it ended rather nicely, i will say that. we went to a lovely party in the afternoon and tayloe made me a grilled cheese while i watched casino royale.
at the party, we got to see our friends joe and sara, their baby twin girls, josie and chase, and their 4 year old sal. everyone was getting along swimmingly until t2 tried to french kiss a twin (i'm not sure which, i can't tell them apart). he opened his mouth and moved slowly, romantically toward her, ready to dazzle her with his carrot breath and incoming top tooth. he licked his lips and drooled (thanks for the tips, wolly) and was just about to make his move when, slamma. she heisman'd him. hand to the face. no way, mr. not on the first date, cool your jets and take 5. and don't even think about moving in on my sister. everyone laughed and he cried in defeat and humiliation.
ps - thanks to ganny for the most smashing new suit and shoes. you just can't find these kind of classics in la. xoxo

indigo child

dr. destruction is coming on 10 months and i think that has people thinking about preschool. by people i mean folks other than me. i'm not thinking about it because i'm still waiting for this child's mother to come pick him up.
where is that lady, anyway?
at the park the other day i was mindlessly talking to a mother sitting near me. it's a nice day, your daughter's cute, i hate the sand at this place, what's up with the new dog park near the airport. blah blah blah. the kind of chatter that takes up space and time but doesn't really get you anywhere. the kind of chatter, frankly, that i expect from and have come to enjoy at the park.
maybe i was zoning out a little too much, because this lady decided to clobber me with 'what preschools do you have him on the list for?'
not have you thought about it. not have you been to look at any. have you GOTTEN HIM ON LISTS? PLURAL!
um, what?
i thought for a very quick second about lying and saying yes but then i realized i don't know the names of any preschools in a 100 mile radius, so i'd surely look like an idiot when she asked me which ones. and she FOR SURE was going to ask me which ones.
so i just said no, hoping she'd think i was such an idiot, dangerously dumb even, that i no longer was worthy of her company and the conversation could be over.
but that's not the way things work at the park, it seems.
instead, she decided to rattle on about how competitive good preschools are, how most couples go look at them when THEY'RE PREGNANT and how her kid (13 months, mind you, a good year and a half away from preschool) is on four lists or some shit.
oh. how interesting, i say.
why the rush, i asked. i felt annoyed, like horse-fly-buzzing-around-your-head annoyed.
she blabbed on about the reasons as i tuned out. i was just about to excuse myself when she said, 'but the real reason we've been looking so diligently (interesting choice of words, i thought) is because XXX is an indigo child.'
i looked at the kid to see if she was blue. or cross-eyed. or seemed retarded in anyway.
she was scooping shovel fulls of sand into a bucket. once the bucket was full, she'd dump the sand out and start all over. occasionaly she'd grab a fist full and open her hand and stare at it for an extended period of time. she looked perfectly normal.
did i really need to hear what an indigo child is? more importantly, did i need to hear it from this woman?
apparently, i'm a masochist.
indigo children, i learned, are extremely bright, gifted children who have an evolved consciousness and have come here to help change the 'vibrations of our lives' because they have a strong desire to live instinctively. they are our bridge to the future because they are the ones who are going to create one land, one globe, one species. also they have an amazing memory and are easy to recognize because they have bright, clear eyes. sometimes they have a blue aura, but that part is disputable.
the 'vibrations' part is verbatium, by the way.
it all made sense. if you had the jewel of the world, the savior, a little messiah or the next dali lama on your hands, wouldn't you want the very, very, very best preschool, too?
me on the other hand. i just have an average goofy blonde kid who likes to be pushed in a moldy, blue swing and bang his head against things. the best i can hope for is that he gets an ok teacher at public school and doesn't end up in jail.
i looked at her kid again. she put a handful of sand into her mouth.
i'm forever facinated by realities, by our truths - how things that are very real to one person can be complete bullshit to another.
i guess that's why i kept listening. i wanted to see how something so completely absurd to me could be so very, very true to her.
of course, we didn't make it that far. it was way too hot and rarely do i ever reach an epiphany without vodka, tonic, ice and limes.
we parted ways and she seemed happy that we'd met. that was one of us, at least. i'm left having to find another park, one that's sure to be less convenient, to go to.
of course yesterday i called pharida, asking for her advice on preschools. true to herself, she said she was probably going to send sadie to one up the street. it's good, it's cheap, doesn't have too long of a list and is three blocks from our neighborhood.
i trucked up the street yesterday to check it out, all the while thinking, 'this is really something this child's mother should be doing.'

new do

i was pretty solid on not cutting t2's hair until some (dumb) lady at the library said "what a pretty little girl." ugh. snip, snip, snip.
and to my surprise, he still looks the way i think a baby should look. so no harm, no foul.
every night at supper tayloe and i say one thing we're thankful for. tonight, i'm thankful to have such a patient dog. wolly certainly has his, um, quirks. but when it comes to sweetness, he rules. every morning t2 and i get up, get coffee and take dubs to the dog park. in return, he's kind and loving and adoring (and calm) the rest of the day. we've found our groove and it is good.

derby day

we had an impromptu kentucky derby party saturday and this is what t2 wore. dressing him is one of my favorite things to do. poor kid.
here's the debate happening in our house right now - should we give t2 a hair cut, paying special attention to trimming the hair around the ears.
tayloe says yes, that he looks like a hick.
i say no, little boys are supposed to have hair over their ears. if we trim it, won't he look like a little man?
help us. but keep in mind what happened the last time tayloe gave him a 'trim.'

gimme five

the latest from the land of ttwo. pardon the firmness with which i instill the new skill in the final frames of this video. perhaps i was a little gung ho.
observe also that the moment i cease to entertain, he turns and goes straight for da-da, who he has decided he loves more than anything else in the entire world.
he wakes up, takes one look at me and then yells, "DA DA???" "
i put him on the floor and he takes off crawling toward tayloe, muttering "da-da, da-da, da-da."
he gets to his father and has a melt down at his feet until tayloe picks him up. then he smiles uncontrollably and giggles a lot, looking at me every once and a while to make sure i see that he's having a perfectly delightful time without me.
da-da. da-da. da-da. dadadadadadadadada.
it's all da-da all the time.
and i'm totally fine with that.
oh also, we had the nine month appt yesterday. everything's just fine and get this - little tayloe got a shot, a hugh needle in his thigh, and he didn't cry. not a peep. isn't that weird? and amazing? the nurse said it made her feel good, so she gave us 4 cans of free formula, a bunch of $5 off coupons and a very nice book on early childhood development.
you should have seen me carrying all that crap plus the baby to the car. where was da-da when the similac was falling from my purse, when my hands were so full i had a book of coupons clutched between my teeth all while my pants were falling down and the baby was clinging to my neck for dear life. huh? huh? DA-DA????
i am woman. hear me roar.

that's not my baby

his feet are too big.
here's what i've been thinking lately - that the t2 i know now can't possibly be the same t2 that i met 9 months ago. they just don't seem like the same child. in fact, he doesn't even seem like the same child he was last week. i think when something changes and evolves so deliberately right in front of you, it's very hard to piece all the time together so that it makes sense and flows properly. and at the same time and in a very opposite way, it does flow properly and he's most definately the same kid he was the day he was born.
it's all very weird.
to keep life's larger questions from blowing my simple little mind, i continue to concoct baby mush in the magic bullet. this keeps me occupied and gives me the illusion of having control over something. this afternoon i steamed carrots and then bulleted them with garlic hummus. tonight i blended our leftovers again. it's sad that i have so much fun dishing out my experiments. it isn't even about nourishment or my neurotic need to feed anymore. it's all about my ego and getting positive feedback from this creature who is now my job.
how's it taste, boss?

Barrel House Mamas

Some sweet Virginia music from the Menokin Bluegrass Fest After-Party..U gotta Love them Barrel House Mamas!

that's what friends are for

this is my friend pharida and her little girl sadie. pharida lives up the street from us and about two months after t2 was born, she came over to introduce herself. i loved that about her. i also loved that she was wearing yoga pants and a t shirt and didn't have a stitch of make up on was so completely comfortable with herself. i also loved that she brought coffee and chocolate. it was friends at first sight.
there are days when we're each others salvation. many afternoons i cart t2 over to her house and plunk him down with sadie while pharida and i pop popcorn and gossip about people in our neighborhood and the people at the park. we meet at the swings and swap US weeklies and People magazines. very often we go out after the babies are asleep for drinks and plates of french fries. tonight, we're going to a movie.
t2 is an amazing little creature. he's opened so many new doors for me - to family, to humor, to adulthood & responsibility. who knew he'd also bring so many awesome people into our lives? three cheers for little tay.
there are some new pics posted from our trip east. check 'em

iCreep

well, this is one way to do it. while t2's new method of transport may not be the most efficient means of getting around, it certainly is creative. so points for ingenuity kiddo.
we had a great trip east and it's good to be home. t2's newfound mobility hasn't given me time to do much of anything except chase. god forbid i leave a door open - he bolts toward the light like a moth to a bug zapper. zzzzzzeeeeetyttt.
i did, however, have time yesterday to give a take 2 to the magic bullet, the handy little chopping device that helped me create the healthful, delicious but not-so-much-a-hit salad slushee a few weeks back.
i figure all this moving around means 2's burning more calories, right? i gotta keep fillin the tank so he can do fun new things like go searching for treasures in our trash can.
this time i tried some fruit. cantaloupe and raspberries to be exact.
throw them in and chop, chop, chop. a little watery. i'll add banana.
bbblllleeeennnndd.
still watery.
maybe i'll add some cheerios.
wwwwhhhhrrrrr.
better, but still not quite right. so i open the cabinents in search of a thickening agent. sugar? no.
corn starch. hhhmm. corn starch? no.
maple syrup? honey?
rice cereal. ah-ha. rice cereal!
so i added it and blended and the result was a mixture as good as any bought in the store. except it tasted a little, um, off. i think it was the cheereos. i decided to chill it and try it anyway.
later in the day, i chopped the remainder of my tofu dog, some of my mom's sweet pickles and a little mustard. and last night, i magic bulleted some stir fry leftovers. all of these goodies were waiting in the fridge for us today.
this morning we tried the fruit mixture. t2 humored me for about 5 seconds and then decided it was horrid and splattered every bite i gave him. phewy.
this evening, however -- oh, this evening was a different story! i heated the stir fry and dished it out.
mmmmm. mmmmmmmmmmm. mmmoooommmm! this is delicious! it's lip smacking good! this is the most delicious dinner i've had yet! you're an amazing, wonderful, inventive cook and the best mother on the planet!
he said all those things. really.
because it was a success, i named the stir fry kitty b's amazing chop, chop, chopped suey fry.
next up, tofu dog mash.
seriously, folks. i may be on the way to my very own show on the food network. cooking for kids with kitty b.

first night

all week i've been thinking where we were last year at this time. a year ago today, we arrived in santa monica and saddled up to our empty house. i think today's the day we also learned that our moving truck was 'off track' and all our worldy belongings would be here 2 weeks later than we thought. we had our car, our suitcases from our road trip across the country, two easter baskets, 2 sleeping bags, tayloe's golf clubs and for some reason, our vaccum cleaner.
with that, we bought a cheap mattress and commenced operation camp-out house, in which tayloe and i spend 10 days at pacific st without a lick of comfort except before mentioned matress, a $20 tv from goodwill, 2 plates, 2 forks, 2 glasses and a bowl also from goodwill and 1 hotel towel. later in the week we bought a washer and dryer from michael london.
also, i was 6 and a half months pregnant. i was trying to remember today if i really minded it (it sure seems like i should have), but i don't think i did. all i remember is feeling happy.
when our moving truck finally did arrive, after two weeks of calling everyday and getting 1,000 different stories about where they were and when they'd be here, it was 7 p.m. the night before we were getting on a plane to go back to the east coast for the menokin bluegrass festival.
my cell phone rang around 6:45 that night. i answered.
on the other end: hey, yeah, mrs. emery?
me: yes
on the other end: well, it's us. the movers. and, uh, we're on your street and we're seein that there's a taco bell here on the corner. so we're gonna stop and get some tacos. ok?
me: um. ok? (looking out the window and down the street and in fact seeing a moving truck parked outside the taco bell)
on the other in: is that ok? you want somethin?
seriously. he asked me if i wanted something. like, maybe, furniture?
we loaded everything in this house, went to bed and left the next morning. we didn't touch a single box or unwrap a single piece of furniture. and i don't think we were really terribly fretted about it. how very zen of us.
anyway, tayloe took this picture on our first night in california, which was before all that. we were somewhere near the california-arizona border in a motel parking lot. we'd been to sedona, to denver, ridden in a helicopter, driven through a snow & hail storm, stayed in a real western inn in durango, slept on the rim on the grand canyon, hiked around the pueblos in mesa verde.
it was just us at our finest. it's been the most fun year, hasn't it tay? i'm the happiest i've ever been.

proper clothes

thank heavens for grandmothers. my mom got t2 this little suit. i call clothes like these proper clothes. i'd dress him in this little get up if tayloe were a pga champion and was in the lead on masters sunday. so what if sometimes i pretend i'm married to phil mickelson? it's allowed.
today wasn't a special day like that - phil was nowhere near the lead and bought the farm on the first hole yesterday - but it was warm and that was reason enough to duddy up the baby.
i had another gerbil day trying to figure out what all i need to do before we leave for virginia. this'll be t2's seventh trip across the country, which tayloe pointed out this morning is more than some people have in a lifetime. sometimes i wish he could remember this first year and all we've done together. he'd probably never ever want to go to utah again. i imagine he'd probably pester us daily to take him to mt. airy and greensboro, thinking it was as easy as getting on a plane and going there - the way i would always say "let's go to disneyworld!!" when i was 4 and my parents would ask me what i wanted to do on any given saturday.

waterkid

if you're a mom of a little kid, maybe you're thinking about having another one. maybe you're about to have your first one, like my closest friend cathy, who is FIVE MONTHS PREGNANT and due Aug. 25 (let's everyone give a whoop, whoop for hip, hip Cathy Lipp here!!). maybe you're feeling brave - brave enough to try some kind of 'alternative' birth. like, say, a birth in water.
first, screw your head back on, woman, and put down the hippy dippy tea. if you've done that and still think it sounds like a good idea, heed this advice: make sure you really, really like water. like it enough to spend 50 degree days sitting on the beach while your kid swims in the ocean, which is also 50 degrees. enough to go to the pool for no fewer than 6 hours a day in the summer (4 in winter). enough to say "sure, you can go swimming in that water fountain in your brand new sunday dress." enough to ride the log flume ride 35 consecutive times.
because that's what your kid will want to do. she'll want to do all of that. possibly all of that in one day.
meet my niece eliza jane. she was born in a pool. and look at her here - a fish out of water. we check her weekly for gills.
mom and dad and eliza left this morning after a really awesome week, despite the fact that i had some kind of stomach crud a good part of the time. i'll see them in two short weeks at the bluegrass festival so that made saying goodbye a little bit easier.
it's been a somewhat eventful week, i think. tayloe the dad made it home safely from africa and showered us all with great gifts from uganda and ghana. the week t2 and i spent without him was hard simply because we longed for his company and his jokes and his fill-the-room personality.
i turned 32 last week and i cut my hair short. and even though i was asked back for a second interview at the yoga studio, i didn't get the job. i think the moment i started asking how many hours i could work at home a day, they scratched me off the list. so the universe answered - it would have made our lives very complicated, and i was fretting just thinking about how we'd make it work. i feel relieved.
so we're back to normal for a few days until we shove off for the east coast for a week at the cottage in warsaw and the festival. if you're the prayin' type, please include a warm sunny day in virginia on april 21 on your list of requests.
amen.

Out of Africa

Heading home. Long trip but the last part in Uganda was incredible when we visted the Queen Elizabeth Game Reserve. Miss you guys...be home soon. XXOO JTE