the Hippo Brigade

Hudson’s 6 months old.

8 Comments

June 27, 2010

This is what you looked like when you were 2 months old.

Then 3 months old...

4 months

5 months

...and now you're 6 months old

Your personality is emerging and you’re loving, gentle, curious, and active.

Your giggles warm me.

And your bight blue eyes are astounding.

To celebrate your 6 months of being awesome, we fed you some goop for the first time.

I know is was kind of meh, but food gets a whole lot better tasting, I promise.

Your sister said it best when she said, “Oh, big boy now.”

It’s true, you’re not my tiny, fragile newborn baby anymore. Now you’re sturdy and very aware of the world around you.

Plus, you’re very active and you’re practically crawling now. I’m sorry for not putting you on the ground more. It’s for your own good. Well, it’s really for my own good, but same difference.

Way to go Huddy. Happy 6 months. You’re turning into a pretty awesome human.

The Backwards R

4 Comments

June 23, 2010

If you have a child, chances (backwards) R that you’ve been to this mega-sized baby mart.

It is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the world.

The minute you step in you’re greeted with the most insane florescent lighting, because apparently all the superfluous plastic baby gear looks better when the light bounces off it and partially blinds you. Even before your pupils are able to properly dilate, you suddenly find yourself face-to-face with a portly woman with a purple smock and adult acne asking you if you need help.

Once you find what you need, you second guess yourself 6 times because they’re are far TOO MANY CHOICES, but before your brain leaks out of your head, Purple Smock is back asking you if you need help, again, because you look like a moron staring blankly at the shelves.  You ask her for her opinion on diaper cream, and she has to radio in 3 co-workers on her walkie-talkie before she tells you she likes the one that her manager told her to sell more of.

You finally make a decision and notice that you’ve left your wadded coupons at home!!

FRICK.

You could have saved $3.23 on that diaper ointment, but then you realize that coupons are for turds who enjoy carrying a fat stack of crumpled papers around with them at all times, and instead you like looking into your bag and seeing order, not chaos, and you think, it’s cool. I’m totally fine with not saving 3.23, because at least my life is more visually attractive.

And before you are able to turn and leave the store, the cashier hands you a fistful of paperwork in the form of 3 receipts and a coupon booklet.

And you think, you know where you can stick your coupon booklet, and then you envision throwing the papers back in her face.

HA. That will show her!

But instead you polietly take them and shove them into your once visually attractive bag.

Maybe you know the store I’m referring to?

Well. I hate it.

From now on I’m going to patron stores with creativity and integrity. Stores that are mindful of their shoppers, and don’t try to assail them with coupons and marketing tactics.

But since there are no baby stores in Orange County like that, (except for milkalicious),

I’ll be shopping on Amazon.

Peace out Backwards R. We are offically over.

First Family Vacation

9 Comments

June 22, 2010

Where the heck have you been, Beckey? You might ask yourself.

Or you might be like, what? You went somewhere? Who the hell cares. What I want to know is how long is a hippo’s gestation? Can I find that here?

No, you can’t find that here.  But I have photos of our fantastic road trip where we traveled up and back down the California Coast.

It’s just as facinating, I promise. Or…it’s like those boooring family slide shows you were forced into watching when you were a youngster…you decide:

Here we are driving. There was a lot of that.

We visited San Luis Obisbo to watch my coolest bro-in-law graduate, then headed up to San Francisco.

Golden Gate Bridge

Then we went to Monterey.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Carmel-by-the-Sea:

And took Highway 1:

Isn’t it beautiful?

Then, we went to Solvang and tasted wine…

Even Hudson got to taste some wine.  Everyone’s a winner!

There was an overarching theme to our trip. It was Bad Mood Berlyn.

Girlfriend was moody.

Here's Moody Berlyn at the quaint French cafe in the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

Moody Berlyn walking down the Embarcadero in S.F.

Moody Berlyn in our hotel room.

Moody Berlyn on a couch looking at a table of flames.

We then realized the cure to her bad mood was in the form of bacon, ice cream, lolly pops and wine.*

She perked right up.

At a breakfast spot in Solvang.

Eating ice cream while it was freezing outside at Ghirardelli Square in S.F.

Getting sauced at the Saarloos Winery/Enjoy Cupcakes bakery in Los Olivos.

*No, we didn’t really give her wine. I thought it would be fine, but Pat wouldn’t let me. He’s such a party pooper. Lame.

Sausalito

And that, my friends, was our family vacation.

Last week in photos

7 Comments

June 8, 2010

Here’s some stuff we’ve been up to.

We demo’ed the side yard.

I helped.

If you consider standing inside, watching from a safe distance helpful, then yes, I helped.

But we can’t take out that lattice behind Pat yet, because a mommy and a daddy mourning dove have built their nest there.

And they laid eggs.

Twice.

Yeah, as soon as we thought the coast was clear and they all flew the coup, they came back the next day and started laying more eggs.

Apparently momma bird thinks the world needs more mourning doves.

Except momma is kinda of a klutz, because she dropped one of her eggs.

Meanwhile, Hudson had a fever for 9 days.

And I pulled all my hair out and went to the doctor’s office just about every day.

But he didn’t seem too bothered by it.

Berlyn had a giant booger.

And in my opinion, the best part about last week was finding these suckers:

Nope, they’re not girl scout Somoas, they’re Keebler.

So now I don’t have to wait around for a 5 year old with a superiority complex.

I can eat them anytime I want.

But if I eat too many, it’ll give me an excuse to run in my brilliant new patent yellow trainers.

Zowie! They’re bright.

And that was my week.

My new cozy pants

3 Comments

June 1, 2010

Hi. My name is Beckey, and I’m addicted to comfy pants. It’s been three days since I last wore comfy pants in public.

Hi, Beckey

Here’s the thing: pants with a supportive elastic waistband are just plain comfortable. And they hold in my mom belly in nicely. I don’t have to worry about that tube of flexy skin wibbling about, waiving to my grocer and whatnot while I’m bending over to grab a gallon of milk.

What is that?

Seriously.

My belly stretches and gets huge for 9 months, then I pop out a baby, and the thanks I receive is a smooshie, mushy middle?

In order for me to feel normal, I need to holster my lady love. It needs to be tightly coddled inside the confines of my yoga pants for me to feel less jiggly and more free to experience the world.

It’s like those artfully shot tampon commercials; where they’re riding a horse on the Hawaiian shoreline. Or when the women start twirling around for no good reason.

Because they can.

In my mind, in order for me to twirl carelessly or ride into the sunset on a horse, I need to be snapped into place by my yoga pants.

They’re like spanx for my midsection.

Sound effect: WHAPPACCHHH!

But I want to look less schleppy.

Conundrum.

**Thinking face

I don’t want to look like I’ve just come from a cycling class at the gym everyday.

Because I haven’t been to the gym in two years.

I don’t even know where the gym is anymore.

So, here’s what:

I’m gonna wear jeans.

When I’m running errands.

Maybe looking nicer will convince me to work out every once in a while.

I donno.

I’m hoping for a domino effect.

Jeans!

Everyday!

It’s going to feel weird at first. What with all that starchy fabric poking at my belly. But maybe I’ll get used to it.

It will be like when I got used to thong underwear.

At first a string going up my ass crack drove me crazy, now it’s like, meh, whatever.

I’m hoping in a few weeks jeans will be like my new cozy pants.

Or I can just get these:

Pajama jeans!

Cozy pants that look like jeans!

It’s brilliant.