Sunset Cell Phone Pics

Reflected in the glass of the door

Through the door.

Zzzzz haiku

When you cannot tell
if it's Tuesday or Wednesday
time to go to sleep

Mateo's First (Pre) Birthday Celebration

On Saturday, we were lucky enough to celebrate with a group of babies, all born in August 2009, all in our Astoria Moms Group.

Mateo was not sure what to think of so many birthday friends!

Or what to think of the pool...

Thanks to Jürgen Fauth for these lovely pics.

We had so much fun getting together with all of the other families from our August "cohort".

How we spent part of our lovely afternoon

Coconut rice pudding with whipped cream

Thanks a lot, Rice to Riches

Getting my creative mojo back

I just challenged myself to write one post a day for a month. I've since modified that to averaging one post per day, which is why I'm writing 3 posts today. I have a little making up to do.

After years of sporadic blogging, this is a bit of a challenge. If this week is any indication, many of my posts will be written, half asleep, in bed, from my phone.

But they will be written. I'm trying to focus more on the process, and less on the outcome. Trying not to worry if I piss people off, or if I write insipid things.

I don't know if it's working. But it does feel good already.

Botox Schmotox

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine (same age as me) told me that she's started using Botox for "frown lines". This completely freaked me out on several levels. Firstly, people MY AGE (34) are getting plastic surgery?! Okay, that's probably a super naive reaction, but it was my genuine first thought. Secondly, my friend who told me this is just absolutely beautiful. If she does, in fact, have any visible frown lines, then I'm sure they just make her look a little wiser or cooler or something.

Then, I came across this article in the NYTimes the other day about an abundance of TEENAGERS using Botox. I am so ready to rant about this, but really, is there a need? Clearly, this is fucked up. Enough said.

The bottom line, as I see it, is this (and I know this is cliche, but only because it's true)... None of these physical procedures will make you a beautiful person. Not beautiful in the way that matters. As soon as you get to know someone well, their physical attributes pretty much melt away anyway, and what you are left with is the essence of who they are. What their actions are. How they make you feel when you're around them.

Sure, you want to look your best. By all means, make sure you have decent grooming habits and put a little effort into your appearance from time to time. Especially if that makes you feel good.

But really, if you want to be beautiful, just be a wonderful person. People will see that in you. If you're an asshole but you look gorgeous on the surface, who gives a damn? You won't be fooling people for long. (Author's note: My Botox using friend is NOT an asshole, she is a lovely person.)


* * *

SKIN DEEP: This Teenage Girl Uses Botox. No, She’s Not Alone.
Doctors inject teenagers with Botox for a variety of perceived flaws, from a too-gummy smile to a too-square jaw.

Defying gravity prohibited between the hours of 11 PM and 6 AM

Dear Kittens,

Please stop tearing down the hall and up and down the walls like a god damned maniac. Yes, it was impressive at first, but now you are just showing off.

Love,
Jor

p.s. If you wake the baby one more time, you are fired.

First of all, dinosaurs can't drive

We just bought M some new pj's. They are adorable, of course, but also, sometimes I can't help but think these kid pj designers are really phoning it in. One of them is nothing but a bunch of dinosaurs driving cars. I can imagine that conversation...

- So, what do we want on these?

- Let's see... Little boys like cars, right? And they like dinosaurs. (pause. Thinking real hard.).

- I know! We'll draw the dinosaurs IN the cars.

Brilliant. Also, I want that job.

Learning opportunity

I look over and see Mateo sitting in a pile of toilet paper, busily shredding it into a million pieces. He's in full view of Steve all the while.

Me: What is he doing??

Steve: Learning about toilet paper.


(I've been laughing about this all day )

3:10 AM

Never thought waking
Would be so hard to give up
Love you more than sleep


***

I want to be in pictures! on the radio!

Listening to podcasts is one of my favorite past times. This American Life, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, The Moth, Fresh Air, Pregtastic, Savage Love.... the list goes on and on, but those are my current favs. Usually I only listen to these while in transit - while driving or walking Maeby - but since Mateo was born, I've found that I don't have nearly enough transit time to listen to all of the programs I want.

So, I've started plugging my ipod into speakers and listening while I'm at home playing with Little M, instead of watching TV or listening to music. It's a whole different kind of experience. I can be more engaged with him.

Anyway, I just discovered http://transom.org/ - a website that has all kinds of information on how to get started creating your own radio programs. I am so down for this. Who's with me??

The pictures above have nothing really to do with this post. Just thought I'd post something about my "other children", Maeby and Kittens, since M has been getting all the camera love lately.

"All of the candy corn that was ever made was made in 1911" - Lewis Black

Another first yesterday. Mateo's first Halloween!

Unlike his father, he did not love dressing up. I guess he takes after me in something at least because I'm not a fan of dressing up either. Of course it could be that M just didn't like the wussy pea pod costume we got him. But what are you gonna do? He's 9 weeks old. Notice our neighbors downstairs dressed their son Daniel (2 months older than M) as Batman. Insult to injury to M's ego, I guess.

Now that I have a child, I think that takes some of the heat off me from having to dress up every year. Also, I look forward to next year when M can provide some input on what he will be. I imagine it will be superhero related and Steve will also go all out in his costume as well.

Final Halloween thought - every year I am tempted to eat a Jolly Rancher, and every year I remember how much I dislike them.... why?? See also: Candy corn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8yuvMsvNqY

Mateo 8 weeks (22 photos), by Jorli Baker

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
Click here to view photos

The Complexities of Sleep Deprivation

Every day is tiring in a different way when you're sleep deprived. Prior to Mateo being born, I had never really experienced this at all. Since I can fall asleep almost anywhere, with any amount of light or noise level, it's not been an issue for me.

Surprisingly, it's not always so bad. I have my days when the lack of sleep makes me a little loopy/giddy. There are those other days when my patience is razor thin, and I feel like I'm continually apologizing to Steve for being snappy. Right now, my eyelids just feel heavy, but besides that I'm doing fine.

The best part about being sleep deprived is that when you do get to nap for like 20 minutes that can feel like hours. It's really strange.

Day 1 of the Experiment

The No TV for one day a week experiment...
Will let you know how it goes. Month long,once weekly trial begins today.

Dear Answering Machine.. We're Through

I don't remember a lot of significant inventions in my lifetime, but I distinctly remember the day we got our first answering machine. After having it a few days, I couldn't imagine how we ever got by without it. The days of sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring, or being fearful you might miss that all important call were over. Hallelujah. I never thought my love affair with the answering machine would end.

These days, however, I loathe having to listen to voice mail messages. Actually, it's been this way for a few years at least. I once accumulated 34 new voice mails in the course of a busy day, and I asked my then-assistant to listen to them and try to accurately capture the callers' moods, so that I didn't have to listen to the rants myself. I have messages on my cell phone that I don't listen to for weeks at a time, and don't even get me started on my home office land line voice mail... that damn red message light taunts me to no end. Usually there are between 12 and 23 messages at any given time, before I finally muster up the strength to go through and listen/delete them (or not listen/delete them, as the case may be).

It's not that I don't want to talk to people. I do. Especially over instant messenger. Or in person. If I am at my desk, I reply almost immediately to any IM I get. Text messages I also respond to very quickly. At my company, almost no one ever calls you without scheduling it ahead of time or IMing you first to say "hey, can I call you now?" It almost seems rude not to do that first.

And I do enjoy the phone, but only to catch up with old friends. For these calls, I generally make a phone date, so that we actually have time to really spend talking, undistracted. Working from home with an endless amount of conference calls has just worn me out for all other calls.

I never could have predicted that I would prefer people sending short text messages or emails to actually listening to a recording of their voice. Who has the time though? If I see on my caller ID that you called me, and I want to call you back, then there you go - I will. I'm sure part of my frustration is so many of the calls I get at home are unsolicited calls like telemarketers and political campaigns. Land lines like disappearing beacons for telemarketers and political campaigns.

So enough of this confusion. I decided to act. At least people should be fairly warned that I hate voice mail and there is almost no chance I will listen to whatever messages are left for me. I just changed my outgoing home phone message to say, "Hello, you've reached 718-726-XXXX, I no longer listen to these voice mail messages, so please try to reach me on my cell or via email. Thank you and have a nice day!" So far, everyone that has called has hung up right after the word messages. Brilliant! I would have just turned off the voice mail from picking up, but I don't want the phone to ring and ring.

What is worse than breaking your phone?

Just breaking the screen so that I can hear when I get texts and calls but can't do anything!! Aaaarrrgh.

Another casualty of late night feedings. I dropped it on the ground. Who knew the 1 millionth time I dropped it would be the one that sealed it's fate?

Coincidence? I think not.

So I decided today that I'm going to blog a lot more. As an experiment, blog all the time, maybe even several times in a day. (I can already hear my skeptical friends scoffing at this goal, since I have fallen short of similar goals many times before). Whatever, we'll see.

My point is, just after making this blogging proclamation, I discoverd that gmail has the option to let you post blogs directly from your gmail web page. F*#king awesome!!! Since I am constantly on gmail during the course of any given day, this will be a huge help. Whether or not I will have anything interesting to say, that remains to be seen. Not really the point anyway. I just want to start writing more.

Sunday = Football

Today was the first time we had people over since we had the baby. I may be biased, but our baby is pretty awesome. Little M can sleep in even the most extreme noise situations - whether there be a fire truck blaring down the street or 6 extremely loud people chattering while watching a bunch of football games in the apartment (as there was today).

It is wonderful that M is so cool and chill around people, because I don't get out much these days, and it was really nice catching up with friends. I didn't even mind that my breastfeeding status precluded me from drinking anything except a single sip of hard cider.

Where do I even start?

The more things happen in my life, the more I seem to retreat away from sharing it via social media. Ever since the birth of my son, Mateo (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) a few weeks ago, I have been almost lights out on social media - almost no Twittering, no blogging, very little e-mail. Oh wait, well - ahem - I have still been active on Facebook, because that's where I've been posting all of my pictures of little M, as we've started calling him.

The point is, the more intense/exciting/dramatic/wonderful my life is, the less I want to share about it. I'm not exactly sure why this is, except now that I think about it, it could be because I can't imagine words possibly doing justice to the feelings that I'm experiencing. Trying to capture them completely would most certainly fail, so why even try? I'd much rather spend all of my energy savoring all of this bliss, and not waste one ounce of it on anything else.

Unfortunatley, this trait does not make me the best blogger in the world. Sigh. I do have quite a bit of time on my hands when the little one is napping though, so maybe I will start posting more. If I make any promises though, that is usually a recipe for disaster, so we shall just wait and see.

On a related note, thank you to all of our friends and family for your well wishes on our new little addition. Mateo will hopefully get to meet all of you in due time!