HomeGirl

Reading! For real this time...

Today I read 27 pages of a non-children's book! I have figured out how to get reading done during the daytime. My son isn't a big napper and only sleeps a few minutes at a time if I leave him to nap alone, but if I'm in the bed with him he'll stay asleep for an hour or two. So instead of rushing to try to get something constructive done in the house while he sleeps alone for 20 or 30 minutes, I stayed in bed with him, read a bit and got a good nap in myself. I'm reading Self Storage by Gayle Brandies and am looking forward to picking up where I left off tomorrow. I bet I can get some Internet time in during nap time too.

I love this stuff

Still busy with my 4 month-old, a.k.a. Master of The House, and loving every second of it. He's growing like a weed and is now approximately the size of the average 7 month-old...thanks to my dad's paul bunyan-ness passed on to my son. I'm busy, but not too busy to stop by to tell y'all what I'm loving at the moment... 

Clinique 7 Day Scrub- After the first use, you'll want to call it 365 day scrub. I followed the directions on my face and neck the first day and sneaked it onto my arms, chest, knees and elbows every day after that. What I'm about to say is so cliche, but I actually have a baby's bottom to compare my skin to, so--whatever body part you use this on will be as soft as a baby's bottom...really.

Horizon's Organic Skim Milk- I drink a lot of milk. Like, 1.5 gallons a week. I switched to organic a few months ago to avoid hormone O.D. and love their skim milk. It's the most un-skimmy skim milk. It's not watery at all. It looks and tastes like 2%. 

Lip Smacker's Strawberry Lip Gloss-I know I'm not in 8th grade anymore, but this gloss makes me feel right youthful. I bought a 3-pack of this gloss about a month ago from Target and replaced the Strawberry Chapstick in my purse, diaper bag and makeup bag. Of all the fancy lip glosses I have from Benefit, Stilla, Nars and drugstore brands, the Lip Smacker gloss is my favorite everyday gloss for summer.

IHOP Carrot Cake Pancakes- Um. Yeah. Carrot. Cake. Pancakes. Mhm.We went to IHOP last Friday for dinner and I handled a 4-stack with scrambled eggs. I'm not even a pancake person, but I couldn't pass on those. It's not right how good they are. The hotcakes are still on my mind real hard. 

My Stone Mountain hobo- After lip glosses, handbags are my favorite accessories. I have a handful that I haven't even use yet. I broke this bone hobo in on a recent trip home to Memphis and I plan to carry it all summer.It matches summer-colored clothes and fits my shades, clutch wallet and makeup bag perfectly. It's also just big/small enough for me to carry along with my black diaper bag  and not look like a bag lady.

The Djembabes (www.djembabes.com/)- They're a local group of amazing female singers, dancers and drummers, who perform African folksongs with such passion ad skill. We took Zack to see them perform a couple of weeks ago. There's something about the sound of African drums--the hips and shoulders move involuntarily to the beat.

Baby Einstein Classical Lullaby CD- This was a gift and it keeps on giving. Bedtime and night nursing are so pleasant around here and I'm convinced it's because of Baby Mozart.

L'Occtain Lavender Hand Lotion- It's so rich and smells so heavenly and the package is so shiny. I feel like such a girl every time I use it. Bonus: I can't use scented products on my son's sensitive skin, but I think he gets the calming benefits of lavender when I use it before nursing him or putting him to sleep.

 

 

My Boppy- The single best airplane carry-on when traveling with an infant. Two trips down and one more long one planned. My son nurses and sleeps peacefully in flight thanks to this thing. With my boppy-sized tote bag in tow, I don't fear being the passenger with the crying baby. Unfortunately, all the nursing and sleeping facilitates pooping which is actually not so much fun in flight.

Stella Perfume by Stella McCartney- It's so sophisticated.

Happy Friday!

My paul bunyan baby boy is 4 months old now. His hair is growing back, his eczema is improving and I love him exponentially more everyday than I did the day before. He refuses to lay down and play on his activity mat like a normal baby. I tried laying him down on it a few days ago when I got it and he wasn't having it. He's very nosey curious about his surroundings and is more comfortable if he can look around and find me when he wants to. He loves to play on his back, but only if I'm looking down at him. Today when we got back from his first playdate (he was the youngest there, but had a blast watching the other kids play and screamed and laughed right along with them and I enjoyed the company of adults during daytime hours which was great), he was wired up so I tried laying him down again to see how he'd do--no ma'am. So, our compromise was to put him in his infant seat so he could play with the toys at eye level. As you can see, that made him very happy...for about an hour!  Score!

Sometimes...

At the end of the day
I want to go some place dark and very quiet
And drink something very strong and smooth
And smoke.

I don't smoke, but it always looks relaxing when I see other people do it. Instead of drinking and smoking, I settle for a long shower and coffee and sometimes a late trip to Barnes and Noble to relax--it works. My son is sleeping all night now, which means he naps less during the day, which means I better be rested, bright and shiny when he wakes up in the mornings. So far so good. 

Random Song Outburst

"So hoooooow
do youu expect mee
to liiive alooone with juust mee
when my woorld revolves aaaround you it's so haard for me to breeeath."

I saw this video the other day and now I can't stop singing that line. I don't know any of the other lyrics yet so I just sing that line and the chorus over and over again. My son finds the "no aaaya aaaya" particularly amusing.

Jordin Sparks ft Chris Brown - No Air

"She only drinks coffee at midnight when the moment is not right...

...Her timing is quite unusual."  Train wrote those lyrics about Virginia, but that line sounds a lot like Raquel these days.

I feel like my day starts at 9 o'clock at night and there's no real "night" for me. Around 9, my son goes down for the night. Once he's out, I take a good, longer than necessary shower. Then, if Billy hasn't cooked, I'll make a quick dinner, which is usually something like a breakfast--the favorite this week was an okra, onion and egg omelet with smashed potatoes. Then I'll clean the kitchen while the coffee pot is brewing. When the kitchen's done or the coffee is ready, whichever comes first, I have a seat on the sofa next to Billy and log on to the Internet to catch up on emails, blogs, celeb gossip and political happenings while I have my coffee. Then if I'm not in the mood to read, I watch old episodes of my favorite shows on the network websites. I watch online because Billy's usually watching the playoffs or nothing interesting is on tv at that time of night. These days I'm re-watching Lipstick Jungle on abc.com. It's like Sex and the City except better. Then around midnight we lock the house down, settle the dogs in and then settle ourselves in. The boy usually wakes up around 2:30 am to eat so from midnight to about that time, while Billy's asleep, I'm lying in bed resting and listening to talk radio over Billy's sleep-breathing and the low hum of the baby monitor waiting for my son's call. On a good night, I'll fall asleep and he won't call until much later if at all like this morning when I had to wake him up at 7 am only because my boobs were about to pop.Then it's me and my boy, playing nursing and napping until my day starts again around 9 at night. Almost three and a half months into this motherhood thing and I think I'm starting to feel like I'm catching a rhythm.

It's 10:55 pm now. The Laker game just ended and I'm finishing my coffee and this post.

Goodnight and Good morning. 

This is really happening!

In 1808, slave trade was banned in the U.S.

In 2008, the U.S. Democrat nominee for president and quite possibly the next president of the United States is the son of an African.

I feel so excited and proud and nervous. And happy for all the minority children witnessing this. If they didn't believe it before, after today they have a reason to believe that the sky is the limit for them to be whatever they want to be.

Awesome.

Two Tuesday Randoms

As of yesterday I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight! After 3 months, it feels good to bid farewell to those 44 pounds. 

Also, I got to see the late show of  Sex and the City at our neighborhood theater. I waited until my boy was good and sleep and skipped out for a couple of hours after 10. As a fan of every single season, I'm thoroughly pleased with the film. I feel total closure--the series wrapped up perfectly. I hope there's a Sopranos movie coming. That series finale was wack as  hell! The Sopranos folks SO owe us a movie.

To Do:Read or listen to Barack Obama's books.

Aw shucks :)

Last weekend a guy who looked like he was in his early twenties knocked on our door to promote a new company that opened in our neighborhood. Our conversation started out like this:

I answered the door...

Me: "Yes?"
Him:"Hi. Um. Are your parents home, errr...?"
Me: (looking over my shoulder into the house as if to make sure he's actually addressing me, then turning back around, smiling) " Oh! No, this is my house."
Him: (looking taken aback and confused) "Oh?! (then smiling and nodding) awesome...."

I do live in a grown-up neighborhood, so that fact that he seemed impressed it was my house is not a big deal. What was frickin' awesome was that to him, I looked like I had PARENTS!

 

This face makes my face so happy.

Congratulations, Paula!

Big ups to my cousin, Paula, for scoring a gig as back-up soprano on Issac Hayes's summer tour. Have a blast, girl.

Love In This Club

Ok. So this song is basically kinda gross. I mean, really? You can't even wait to ge to a hotel or to the car even? It's that urgent? The music is hot, and as nasty as the hook is it's catchy in a way that gets stuck in your head...and hopefully you don't break out singing it at the wrong time, like in line at the grocery store as you unload your cart with your 3 month old smiling at you from his carrier.

Usher performed it on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. I still feel like he's the male version of Ciara...their song and dance styles are so similar. This performance is SO cute! The group dance part is in.sane. I want to put on latex bodypants and stripper boots and skip to the beat onto the stage unexpectedly and do sexy-jerky dance moves and then skip off stage to the beat with one hand in the air like the second girl. It looks like fun. I'd have a good time doing that...but it might look a li.ttle different.

Big Ups to my sibs!

I went home to Memphis for my twin brother's college graduation this past weekend. He'd worked so long and hard for his BA, so Big Ups, Twin, for doing your thizzle!

He sang (he's a really good singer) a sweet-sweet song to my son (it was also my 11 week-old son's first visit to Memphis to meet his kin). We're a singing family, so it wasn't out of place for me to hear him singing at a random moment. When I heard him singing I expected it to end quickly, but he sang the whole song, and my Zack was just there watching him the whole time. The lyrics were about Zack finally being here and the song was slow and sweet...it was special.

The highlight of the weekend was at my brother's graduation reception, when he presented our sister with a cake that read, "Congratulations Dr. Adriane Williams". (She's receiving her doctorate, so we celebrated her graduation this weekend too.) It was her first time seeing her name like that and she was totally overwhelmed with the moment and hugged him and started crying. Then he started crying. It was awesome. It went something like this...

He presented her with the cake...surprise!

Proud parents look on...pleased.

Hugs...that's me in the background like, "aaaww?!"

Me..."Is he crying too?! Aw! I feel left out, I wanna cry too!"

I didn't cry, but was deeply touched. Thanks to my husband, Billy, for being on his toes to document everything. Later this week it's Wisconsin-or-bust for my sister's hooding ceremony. Fun times.

Clinton vs Obama Star Wars Style

If you have 5 minutes, you should watch this. This is awesome.

Yadda Yadda Yadda

It's eleven o'lock and my son has been asleep for about an hour. I should be putting another load of laundry into the washer and doing a quick pedicure since I wasn't able to squeeze those things in today. That's what my mind is telling me, but my heart wants to blog on the sofa lounging next to my husband, so here I am. I don't really have anything in mind to say, but something will turn up I'm sure. Hmmmm. Well...

• I finally posted to my Honey Magazine blog after a good bit of time away. I totally need to find a direction for that blog. I'm freed up a bit to discover more blog-worthy restaurants, attractions, etc. to mention. My fall-back interest, which usually rears it's head when I have free time, is accessories and make-up shopping, so maybe that's a direction for me. However disapproving my bank account might be, there is always money for accessories.
• I hope my E-Prayer, in the right margin there, doesn't offend anybody. It's not meant to mock prayer at all and is very sincere.
• We went to a housewarming party this weekend. The house was decorated beautifully and got me in the mood to pick up some painting projects I had put aside when I got preggers. I've had this peanut butter toned paint chip pinned to the wall in our den/bonus area/whateveryouwanttocallit for almost a year now. It's definitely time for that room to come together. And my laundry room is SO on it's way to becoming a bright shade of avocado green.
• I'm about to embark on air travel with a breastfeeding infant. I checked the terminals I'm set to travel through and so far have found no place for families to take care of family business. I usually find a dressing room to nurse in when I'm caught out with the boy, so I may have to breastfeed in one of the busiest airports in the country. Hmm. The last trip we have planned at the end of the summer is to Billy's home in the West Indies where Zack will meet his other side. By then, I'm sure I'll be comfortable enough to whip one out on the beach.
• Speaking of embarking and breastfeeding, I've decided to explore the local farmer's markets around town over my next few grocery trips. The first one I picked is in a small town in the middle of Austin called Sunset Valley. It's supposed to be the best of the many farmer's markets around and I'm really looking forward to the experience. I'm planning to go the whole nine and buy organic meats from the vendors and everything. The price of produce is going up in the grocery stores anyway, so if I'm gonna pay more for a pepper it might as well be organic and support local growers. The first time, I hope I have enough time to check out the cafe and entertainment while taking care of business. The Sunset Valley market is right next to a Babies R Us, which has nursing rooms, which will definitely be planned into the trip. I usually stop by one before and after trips out that will likely catch me at a feeding time. It's a lot to go through, I know, but I'm new at this, so give me a minute to get comfortable. The second market I'm planning to explore is the Austin one downtown, which is nowhere near a Babies R Us.

Ok. I'm sleepy now. The Spurs just lost. It's almost 11:30. Time to hit the sack. I think I'll make a cup of tea then check out some other sights for another few before the post-game interviews are done. Goodnight.

Settling into motherhood...

So I went in to the office and had The Talk with my bosses a couple of days ago. I'm not returning to work after my maternity leave. They were great about it...and not surprised. I will be working on a project basis from home from time to time, but I won't be working full-time or part-time anytime soon. I love being at home with my son. I love being a mom. I'm glad I can focus on him right now. When he can tell me how his day was, I'll feel comfortable putting him in someone else's care--not a day sooner than that. After that, I'll consider working again, but only part-time. There will be more children soon and I'll want pretty much the same time with them, so just call me Momma Bear!

Right now, I'm exactly where I want to be--listening to the last of my three morning talk radio shows (Austin Morning News, Neal Boortz and Rush Limbaugh) and ending this post so I can step over my two sleeping dogs on the way to peek in on my sleeping baby... 

Will somebody please tell Minister Jeremiah Wright to go sit down somewhere?

A Little Humpday Cheese

We took Zack on his first ride through Zilker Park on the Zilker Zephyr miniature train Saturday. He had a really good time--he even chimed in 9-week-old style with the big kids making train sounds when we went through the tunnel. A fellow passenger took this picture during the ride--we had a moment.

 

Just Felt This Flick: Once

Ok. So Once is film that you could totally watch with your eyes closed. I netflixed it last week and watched it once (pun, however weak, still intended) and then immediately played it again just so the music could float through my house as I hung out with my kid. If you like acoustic guitar music and awesome lyrics, you might like this film. I say might because it's a musical that's just short of being an opera...there's probably more singing than speaking lines...which is awesome! The film made the secret acoustic guitar playing, free living artist inside of me want to hang out with my imaginary musician and artist and dancer friends in an apartment that's way to small to hold all of us and sing and play our instruments and smoke and drink wine and obscure beers and be artsy and talk about how much pocket money we made in tips during our street performances and waiter jobs that day. There is something exciting about people who live their passions. That's what this film is.

It's a love story. It's a musical. It's Irish. It's Indie. It's awesome.

Ben & Jerry's Annual Free Scoop Day!

Happy 30th B-day to Ben and Jerry's. They're giving out free scoops tomorrow from noon to 8pm at participating shops to celebrate. I didn't even know we had Ben & Jerry's here in Austin. See if there's on near you and get your scoop on.