fall family weekend

Matt's family has an annual tradition of going on vacation together, somewhere in Wisconsin, for a long fall weekend. This will be Matteo's first family vacation and this afternoon we're headed to Wisconsin Dells. Although nowadays the Dells is primarily known for being the waterpark capital of the world, there is stuff to do that doesn't smell like chlorine and involve getting wet.

The Dells are famous for these really cool sandstone formations in a gorge along the Wisconsin River and I'm hoping we can see them on a boat tour. The rock formations are what initially brought tourists to the Dells in the 1800's after H. H. Bennett, an old-timey photographer, made the Dells famous with landscape photos of the area. Bennett also invented the first stop motion shutter, which he proved actually worked with this crazy photo of his son jumping between rock formations. I wonder how many times that poor kid had to make the leap before his dad got the photo he wanted?

obama in madison

President Obama was in Madison yesterday for a rally on the UW campus. When I first heard about it I thought it would be cool to go and take Matteo. I saw Michelle Obama speak during the 2008 campaign and her rally was fairly accessible. Ultimately I decided that as mellow as Matteo is, it might be too big of a crowd even for him. I think I made the right call.



Matteo's babysitter, Rachel, was there and sat right behind him when he was speaking.



I think it was awesome to have him here, even though his motorcade route made trying to get home from work to a hungry waiting baby slightly stressful. But as exciting as his speech on campus was, my favorite part of his trip was when Obama made a surprise visit to a local high school, where he met with the football, volleyball and tennis teams.



From Channel 3000:

"White House spokesman Bill Burton said Obama urged the football players to work hard in sports and school and to avoid the types of mental errors that caused the Green Bay Packers to lose Monday to his favorite team, the Chicago Bears.

'We talked about the Packer game yesterday and how they had 18 penalties and how you can't mess up that many times in life,' said Ben Mogilevsky, a member of the LaFollette High School freshman football team."

pandas

Matteo loves pandas. His first toy was his black and white panda.



And he has a red panda that we call Lloyd Bridges, because of his white furry eyebrows.



He even has panda socks.



I like pandas too, especially this one:

new tnc psa

willy street parade

Our neighborhood is famous for its summer festivals. Starting in June there are four big ones - one each month - and the final festival, the Willy Street Fair, is always my favorite. It's when the neighborhood REALLY lets its freak flag fly. (Want to see what I mean? Check out here and here.)

The Willy Street Fair was this past weekend and yesterday we took Matteo to the festival parade. I think he really liked it. He had the best view on the street.



Our friend Adam was hooping in the parade.



Next year his and Stefanie's baby will be at the parade with us!



Guess what else Matteo did for the first time this weekend? He started sucking his thumb.

cyclocross

Matteo and I went to cheer for our friends Steve, Angela and Wendy in their cyclocross races this morning. It was really fun to watch - they all totally rocked! Matteo liked the races, but especially liked getting some lovin' from his lady friends after they were done.


steve


angela on the left in blue


(and a close up of her sweet striped racing socks)


wendy

new friends

This month Matteo has really started to notice Roscoe. Right now he's grabbing onto everything he can get his little hands on and one of his favorite textures is nice, soft, fluffy Roscoe fur. Roscoe is very gentle with Matteo, and from the time he was born has always been very protective of him, but grabby baby hands are not exactly his idea of a good time.

See what I mean?



Matteo thinking: "ROSCOE!"
Roscoe thinking: "Oh shit."



Matteo thinking: "Soft!"
Roscoe thinking: "How much longer do I have to endure this?"

the new date night

Right now date night means watching a movie at home, which for me is awesome since I haven't been able to sit down and watch a movie in its entirety for months. When I was pregnant I had a terrible case of the jimmy legs (technically known as restless leg syndrome) and couldn't sit still for more than 15 minutes without having to move my feet. It was torture.

Now that Matteo is sleeping through most of the night we can finally settle in and get through a movie without major interruptions or one of us falling asleep. Tonight's agenda is Chinese food and OSS 117: Lost in Rio.

It played at the Wisconsin Film Festival this year but I was too pregnant to see it in the theatre. If you're not familiar with this or the previous movie, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies - they're like the French version of the Austin Powers movies, but more clever and not as gross. (I really hated Fat Bastard.)

Here's the trailer:

working on his hops

[flickr video=5019243878 secret=f6da0bbbea w=400 h=300]

doppelgängers

I think the guy in this commercial looks a lot like Matt, especially during the quick flash of the little boy's 3rd birthday and at the very end when he gets on the train. What do you think?



I do NOT think he looks anything like Robin Thicke, but yesterday his basketball team told him he does.



He asked me who Robin Thicke was and I told him he's Alan Thicke's son and he sings a lot of songs about sex. That's about it, right?

oh baltimore

Sometimes I really miss you.

footies!

There are a lot of things to love about babies, but one of my absolute favorite things is little feet in footie pajamas.



Another favorite? Big gummy grins.

everything tastes better wrapped in bacon

Yeah yeah I know they're gross, but I'm a big fan of hot dogs. Especially hot dogs out of street vendor carts. When I worked in DC my favorite lunch cost $2.25 - a $1 hot dog wrapped in foil, a bag of chips, a can of soda and a three pack of chocolate chip cookies. That's some kind of deal.

I'm also a big fan of Zingerman's in Ann Arbor. Whenever we see our Michigan relatives there's at least something from Zingerman's that comes along for the ride. Their giant paesano bread wheels are practically part of our family. Zingerman's baked goods are also great default gifts when we can't get our own gift together in time. (Hi Mom! Hope you liked the brownies this year!)

Imagine my delight this morning when I opened my inbox to find an email from Zingerman's with a recipe for BACON WRAPPED HOT DOGS.  Holy. Crap. These people are marketing geniuses because this is now one mailing list I'm never going to unsubscribe from.

Bacon Wrapped Hot Dog Recipe
Prep
Wrap a slice of bacon around each hotdog like the stripes on a candy can or barber's pole. Lay the wrapped dogs in a plastic bag or container. Chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. You want the bacon to stiffen up a little bit to hold its shape. Tip: Thinly sliced bacon is easier to use and adheres to the hot dogs better than thicker cut.

Cooking
I prefer grilling (the traditional approach, since they're street food). The dogs can be cooked on the stovetop as well. Place a cooking sheet or aluminum foil on top of the grate and use this as your cooking surface. Lay the dogs on the sheet. Cook for a few minutes on each side until the bacon is as crisp as you'd like it.

Buns & Toppings
The sweeter the bun you can find, the better. If you're lucky enough to have a Mexican bakery in your area, shop there. Bun toasting is optional.

Standard toppings: yellow mustard, ketchup, crema (you can substitute sour cream), chopped jalapeños—either roasted or grilled.

Optional toppings used by different vendors: chopped tomatoes, chopped onions, relish, mayonnaise, mango, pineapple, salt.

hoodies + cookies = fall

As sad as I always am to see summer go, September in Wisconsin is one of my favorite months. I think Matteo agrees. He hated the hot humid days we had this summer and now that the weather is a little cooler he is much happier being outdoors.

This afternoon we took him to Elmside Circle Park. He loves the baby swings and we love making him smile so its a win-win.



Cooler weather also means lots of baking and when we got back from the park I made chocolate chip cookies from this recipe. Ohmygod these cookies are good. Like beyond insanity good. I made some to take to Matteo's daycare as a thank you for his teachers and was planning to send the rest to our softball team tomorrow night but...we ate too many ourselves. Oops.

Smitten Kitchen is one of my absolute favorite blogs. Every recipe I've ever made of hers is fabulous and her food photography is great too. Whenever I feel like my kitchen is small, I remind myself this woman works out of a tiny 42 square foot kitchen with one counter.

the solid food eating trick

He did it! I cooked up a nice fat acorn squash last night for Matteo and he gobbled it up like a champ. It took him a little while to get the hang of it all but by the end he was chowing down.

Last night we also moved him out of the bassinet in our room to his own crib. He slept from 8:30 to 5 - a new record! Holy cow this kid is growing up fast. What's he going to be doing next, packing his bag for college?







And for those of you who want more (grandparents, I'm looking at you) here are a couple of short movies of how it all went down. In the second video he's drunk on the stuff.

[flickr video=5001430010 secret=9b78f3eae0 w=400 h=300]

[flickr video=5001430020 secret=27d312c278 w=400 h=300]

the lsd no-no

Matt asked me to share this one. According to him, this is one of the top five athletic performances of all time.



(another goodie from my brother)

good eating

I was a notoriously finicky eater as a kid. Just ask my friend Jen, who spent her 11th birthday tromping around Baltimore's Inner Harbor looking for a restaurant that had a grilled cheese on the menu because that's just about all I ate. To this day I'm still not a fan of most fish, and my understanding and appreciation of vegetables is limited. An ex-boyfriend once asked me to pick up avocados so he could make fresh guacamole and I came home with artichokes. Whoops!

Matteo hit a crazy growth spurt this week. When he first started daycare two weeks ago, 9 ounces of milk got him through the day. Today I had to send almost double that amount! And when we eat dinner he stares at the food going into our mouths, hypnotized, like the snake in the old Disney Robin Hood cartoon.



Last night as a test, I put a teeny bit of ice cream on my spoon and fed it to him. He lunged for it, sucked it down, and then looked up at me like some sad urchin in a Dickens novel. I practically could hear him thinking, "Please mum, can I have some more?" If he had a little empty gruel bowl in his hands he would have held it out in front of him.

I was hoping to get him to six months on nothing but breastmilk but I think it's time to test the waters of real food. As much as I can, I want to try to make my own baby food. It's good for Matteo, but even better, it's good for me to get to know and love vegetables. I can't expect him to become a good eater if I'm not, so we're definitely in this one together.

I just bought this great new baby cookbook Love in Spoonfuls, which has really simple recipes for each stage of baby eating: 4-6 months, 7-8 months, 9-11 months and 12-18 months.

First up, winter squash purée. Wish us luck!

first field trip

Matteo and his class went on their first field trip today. They walked all the way up to the farmers market! Inga's little boy is also at Matteo's school so we walked up from our office to meet them.

Matteo is still too little to ride in the big buggy (he has to ride in a double stroller with the other baby), but I sat him in there for a picture. I'm sure he'll be riding in there with the bigger kids soon enough.



We bought honeycrisp apples, a tiny pumpkin, and a loaf of raspberry bread for Matt. That one was Matteo's choice.

up north

I spent yesterday up north with my co-workers, visiting our newest preserve. While we were up there we toured the property by pontoon boat and then had some drinks at the local "resort", whose specialty drink was something called a Kraut Bomb - a shot of Jagermeister in a cup of sauerkraut juice. Seriously.

I didn't have one but my friend Inga was talked into doing a kraut bomb after she had already had a couple of PBRs and we all started chanting "Sheboygan Sheboygan!", which is where she's from. She's a true Wisconsin girl.

why babies and hoop earrings don't mix

ironman!

Tim totally rocked the ironman finishing in 12 hours even and in 598th place out of 2,556 competitors. Here he is, right before heading toward the finish line.

[flickr video=4986746070 secret=a6811918b2 w=400 h=300]

What you don't see in the video is when he came over to us, he kissed Sherryl. Argh, I can't believe we missed that on the video! I got chills seeing how they looked at each other - he was so happy to see his family and they were so proud of him. As he crossed the finish line and they called his name a minute later, I got chills all over again. There is so much energy and excitement in the crowd and seeing the athletes pushing themselves and working their hardest is so inspiring.

Congratulations Tim!



Matteo is proud of you too. You can't really see it, but here he is holding onto Tim's thumb.



This year's race had a blind athlete competing. We saw him run by while waiting for Tim.



These people swim 2.4 miles, ride 116 and then run a full marathon and this man did it almost completely blind. Plus he's 60 years old! That's beyond inspiring, that's simply amazing. Here is his story.

stefanie's shower

This morning I co-hosted a baby shower for my friend Stefanie. It was an easy, breezy ladies-only outdoor brunch with perfect Wisconsin-in-September weather.

Stefanie and Carrie hosted my shower and one of my favorite things they did was have each guest fill out a 'Wishes for Baby' card. Each card had a list of phrases like, "I hope you learn...", "I hope you love...", "I hope you respect..." The guests completed the sentences and then the cards were all compiled in an album together. I read though mine all the time and love seeing what thoughtful wishes our friends wrote.



These are the ones we made for Stefanie. I hope her little baby grows up and loves reading them, just like I hope Matteo enjoys reading his.

Not to toot my own horn too much or anything but I was pretty excited for Stef to open my gift. She and Adam love to go to shows - Phish, String Cheese Incident, Bonnaroo, etc. - so I gave her a little tie-dye onesie and a teeny pair of Birks (well, Old Navy's version of Birkenstocks). I'm so happy she liked them. They're going to have the cutest hippie baby ever.



Congratulations Stefanie and Adam! We can't wait for your baby to finally get here!

old friends and ironmen

Tomorrow is the Ironman Wisconsin and our friend Tim is competing. His wife Sherryl was my first friend at college and they came in from Detroit for the weekend with their two daughters for the race. This is the first time they've met Matteo and spent time in Madison and she and her girls are loving the chance to get in lots of time with a new baby. I love it when important old friends get introduced to the important new things in your life.