Category: cuteness

Vroom!

Something that you may not have known about me is that I have a bit of a soft spot for British cars.

I fell in love with the Austin Mini when I was 9 years old, living in France. Over the years, others caught my eye, like the little MG and Triumph convertibles I’d see from time to time in the San Francisco Bay Area. When I was 16, I became enamoured of the Lotus driven by Mrs. Peel, my idol. And what fan of the Prisoner could forget 6’s Lotus 7?

So when John told me he’d heard of a British car show coming up nearby, I put it on the calendar. We went this past Sunday.


The car show was held on the lawn of the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, MA, which is in an incredible park.

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We picked a shady spot to picnic near this sweet purple MG.


Phoebe and Theo enjoyed the sunny day at the park.

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John and I enjoyed taking pictures of the pretty cars, most of which were polished up to a high shine, like this Triumph GT6+.

little green berkeley
This little Berkeley, though, appeared to have its original paint.

spider paint crack
The paint showed some really cool cracking patterns, like this spider-like one.


There was quite a variety of unusual sports cars. Here’s an Allard and a Jaguar. Note the leather straps fastening the bonnet of the Allard (left), and the third headlight on the Jaguar (right).

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I didn’t see any wicker seats, but there were a few wicker baskets, like the one strapped to the boot of this classic MG (left). There were lots of two-seaters at the show, and at least one single-seater, like this Lotus (right).

row of triumphs
Here’s a row of Triumphs.

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I wanted to get a closer look at this (more humble-looking) Triumph, but it drove off as we were walking towards it. (Yes, it started!)

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This new Mini was parked next to a hand-built reproduction of a Lotus 7.

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This was the only classic Mini we saw. I wanted to take it home with me.

my baby love

I was never much of a baby person. My attitude ranged from mild interest in the offspring of close friends, to irritation with babies encountered elsewhere. I never understood why anyone would want to buy a greeting card with a photo of someone else’s baby, or how a baby in a commercial was supposed to make anyone feel compelled to purchase a product. When I thought of having children, I’d think of babyhood as a period of investment, a time that must be endured in order to achieve the goal of “child.”

As I wrote about a couple of years ago, I have since become a different person. I have learned to appreciate the creature that is “baby.”

Even with this new pro-baby attitude, as I anticipated Theo’s arrival, I still didn’t look forward to the early months. I braced myself for the dreaded newborn stage.

When Phoebe was a newborn, you see, I had a tough time. Her weight gain was too slow, and feeding-related activities took over 12 hours a day. She spent many hours a day crying and needing soothing, and so did I. I was extremely sleep-deprived. It was the most exhausting and overwhelming time of my life, and each day felt like a week.

With Theo, these months have flown by. He is generally mellow, and feeding has been uncomplicated. I’m amazed that I have been able to provide all the nourishment Theo needs to grow and thrive.

The flip side to this is that my days and nights are a bit of a blur of feedings and diaper changes, and that it’s rare that I can get even 4 consecutive hours of sleep at night.

In the past 6 months, I haven’t been away from Theo for even a full hour. I have been alone in the house exactly once, when John took Theo with him to pick up Phoebe from daycare. I spent that half hour or so on the phone, as I was in the middle of a work conference call. And I was making dinner.

While part of me is going crazy from the constant tether and lack of decent sleep, another part of me doesn’t really mind.

I have been really enjoying Theo’s babyness. The chubby legs, the impossibly soft skin, the tiny toes. The fuzzy mostly bald head. The wide toothless smile. I love it when he looks up at me, and touches my face, even when he grabs my lip or my nose with his sharp little baby nails. I love it that I can make him laugh when I kiss his cheeks back and forth. I love it that I can scoop him up and hold him high over my head.

I know that I fell in love with Phoebe, too, as a baby. But I don’t remember so much just enjoying the here and now of the there and then. When Phoebe was tiny, the uncharted territory was so much more stressful. I questioned myself often, agonized over mistakes. I found myself thinking “next time, I will know what to do,” and “next time, things won’t be so hard.” And now, remarkably, I have largely known what to do. Things have been easier. Even though life has been more complicated with our jobs and with having a toddler to parent as well as a baby.

I think I was in a hurry for Phoebe to grow and develop, too. I was eager for all those big next steps. Now they seem to be coming all too quickly. Theo keeps growing, and climbing that developmental ladder. He’s babbling now, and has started sitting up unsupported. He’s discovered toys, and is entranced by sounds and shapes and colors. It’s fun and exciting, but I want to slow down the time. Or at least to bottle it up and save it.

I need to get the time to buckle down and catch up with the work that I’ve committed to doing. I owe many hours to my job, and need to get moving on my degree requirements. There are plenty of other things that I have been letting slide, too. Plus I would like to have more time to myself, or time with John go to a movie or dinner.

Theo is 6 months old now, as of Wednesday. He’ll start daycare, as soon as I can get myself organized enough to get him used to a bottle. He’ll be starting solid foods, which will probably mean longer stretches between nursing. He’ll hopefully sleep longer at night, and nap better during the day.

I find it funny how I can, near-simultaneously, feel like I’m going crazy, and lament that these days of near-constant baby care will soon end.

I find myself sad that this is it for me. This time, there isn’t a “next time.” No more babies. I always imagined myself having two kids, and I am incredibly fortunate to have them. I find it terribly surprising that I can even imagine having another baby, but I know it doesn’t make sense for us. And realizing this makes this baby time feel all the more sweet.

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Photo by John.

hat fetish (PhotoHunt)

What can I say? I love hats. And what’s more, my kiddos look good in a hat. Damn good. I found myself overwhelmed by cute-hatted options for this week’s PhotoHunt theme of “hats.” While tempted to put together a headwear retrospective¹, I decided to show a bit of restraint. For now.

Phoebe in a flowered cap, age 2 and a half.
Phoebe in a flowered cap, age 2 and a half.
Theo in the cradle, wearing a funky hat. (Age 4 months)
Theo in the cradle, wearing a funky hat. (Age 4 months)

For more hats than you can shake a cat at, go visit tnchick.

¹ Like KC, it appears that I am afflicted with Trichotoppomania.

bunny and carrot (and also a cat)

I had grand ideas to have Phoebe and Theo’s Halloween costumes coordinate in some way. As Phoebe wanted to be a bunny, I thought Theo (who had no input in the matter) could be a carrot.

I early gave up on the idea of making Phoebe’s bunny costume, thinking that it would be easy to find one ready-made. I had plans to make Theo’s costume as well as my own, and thought making 3 costumes would be insane. We had some trouble finding a bunny in her size, as it turned out, and ended up ordering online. But seeing as I am a pathological procrastinator, we did so only a week before our party.

A few days before the party, we got a bit antsy, and when we saw a much-discounted white kitty costume, we decided to get it, thinking that I could transform it into a bunny in a pinch. As it turned out, the bunny costume arrived the same day. But, it also turned out to have enclosed plush-covered feet. Such that one could not wear the costume with shoes. As one might want to do when walking outside. Such as one tends to do for trick-or-treating.

So, we decided she could wear the bunny costume for our party, and then the kitty cat for trick-or-treating. (And as such may have set the expectation for future years of having two costumes for Halloween…)

I did manage to make Theo’s carrot, using orange fleece (so as to need minimal hemming) and some green felt for the greens. I made up a pattern for carrot bunting-type thing as well as a hat. We don’t have a sewing machine, so I stitched it up by hand. Much of it while I was on the phone for a work conference call a few hours before the party.

And, because I had to go and run off at the mouth (or whatever the typed equivalent is) about having each of my posts this month feature some word that I like, I felt compelled to follow through in some way. And while I do think the word bunny is a fine word¹, it seemed a bit…um…fluffy…as a followup to yesterday’s omphaloskepsis.

So, I dug up a couple of new words to go along with this post. Both of these are from a site called Luciferous Logolepsy.

    apiaceous
    adj. – parsley-like; belonging to plant family including carrot, parsley, etc.

    macrotous
    adj. – having large ears


My temorarily macrotous daughter and briefly apiaceous son.


Here is Phoebe as a kitty. No bonus word for this image, unless someone else wants to add one.

¹ I did discover though, that in British English, bunny can refer to a squirrel. Which funnily enough was Phoebe’s costume of last year.

make like a tree (and squirrel)

We took Phoebe out trick-or-treating for the first time tonight. Phoebe was dressed as a squirrel, and I was dressed as a tree.¹

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I love getting dressed up, and devising costumes.

My tree costume (which you can see a bit of over at John’s) was an old standby of mine, a creation I’m quite proud of. I wear all brown, wear a twig wreath on my head with a few leaves, and drape some fall leaf garlands around my shoulders. The costume was not only easy to put together, but since I happen to have various plain dark brown clothing items to disguise my body as the tree trunk, it was cheap. It only cost me about $10.00 to buy the leaves and wreath at a craft store.

I was quite happy with how Phoebe’s costume turned out, too. The squirrel to climb on my tree. It was another assembled piece of work. (I don’t really sew.) I found a grey onesie, on sale for about $3.00, and stitched a white oval on the tummy from a robe that had long since been retired to the rag pile. The tail was put together from an old fuzzy snake dog toy, and I used a Toober toy to give it shape. The ears/hat I made from an old too-small pair of Phoebe’s tights. The biggest expense was to buy a new pair of gray tights, which cost about $7.00. What’s more, the way I put it together, it can all be salvaged again, and the clothes worn as normal clothes.

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¹ John was not in costume. Or perhaps he was just a big nut.

10 little piggy-pig-pigtail-people

As might be inferred from my last post, I am decidedly pro-pigtail. In celebration of pigtails, I bring you the following pigtail-themed list.

The 10 people on this list have one thing in common. Or two things, really. Pigtails. Whether it’s two braids, or two little pony tails, these folks know how to do the two-do with style.

  1. Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy’s pigtails with their blue-ribbon bows are iconic, and a standard feature of Dorothy costumes, along with the blue gingham dress and ruby slippers. Many illustrations of the original book (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum), also show Dorothy in pigtails.

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  2. Ronald Ann from Berke Breathed’s cartoon Outland. She started off with 3 pigtails, but her do evolved to the classic 2.

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  3. Laura of Little House on the Prairie. I’m familiar with the TV show Laura, as played by Melissa Gilbert. I can’t speak for her hair in the books on which the show was based. (I loved her braided pigtails when I was about 11, and would occasionally wear my hair that way.)

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  4. Pippi Longstockings. The super-strong Pippi, of the books and movies, has bright red pigtails that defy gravity.

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  5. Cindy from the Brady Bunch, in the early days. The youngest one in curls. Which were often in pigtails.

    6. nbsp;

    Then there are various girly-girl cartoon & animé characters wear pigtails, like…
    sailor_moon.gifbubbles.gif

  6. Bubbles, the Powerpuff Girl. The sweet girly-girl one, and
  7. Sailor Moon, who has really, really long blond pigtails.

    8. And lest you think that pigtails are just for toddlers and schoolgirls, I submit to you the following pigtail-sporting women:

  8. Jennifer Schwalbach Smith (aka Kevin Smith’s wife) wore pigtails with her black leather catsuit in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) (I actually found a picture of Kevin Smith in pigtails, which was not something I expected to find.)

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  9. Buffy, on occasion, also sported pigtails. Like in the episode “Fear Itself,” a bit which you can see on YouTube. (Okay, so Buffy’s dressed in a Little Red Riding Hood Halloween costume in this one, but other times she wears pigtails when not dressed as a little girl.)

    10. michelle_yeoh1.jpg

  10. Michelle Yeoh in Supercop/Jing cha gu shi III: Chao ji jing cha/ Police Story III: Supercop: I mentioned once before that my favorite scene in this movie is a fight scene where she’s wearing her hair in braided pigtails. Those braids go a-flyin’ as she kicks some serious ass.

the evidence builds

I submit to you that pigtails are cute. Especially when worn by a cute toddler, and held in place by pony tail holders of mismatched colors.

Exhibit A:

phoebe_pigtails.jpg

Time is running away with me again. Or perhaps running away from me, as I chase after it cartoon-like with an oversized butterfly net. In any case, I need to go to bed. But I felt like posting something. Like a picture. Oh, fine. I also wanted an excuse to post this picture. So look: pigtails.