Weekend update

[rivka]

I'm sorry, no daughter of feminists should look this sweet in a rosebud-studded pink dress. It's not fair.



Said sweet girl is being ultra cranky today - wanting to eat every hour or two, ramping up from quiet to "OMG YOU NEVER FEED ME!!!1!1one!" in about five seconds, and being generally whiny and volatile. I am reminded that we are normally very lucky in her behavior - as a general rule, she only cries when she's hungry or overtired, and her crying is easily cured. Not so much today. I'm coming down with a cold, so maybe she is too.

We had a good weekend. Saturday we went to the Pride parade, which was conveniently held two blocks from our house. The weather was gorgeous - upper seventies, with enough cloud cover and breeze to keep things cool. Baltimore's Pride parade always seems kind of small and thin to me, compared to the Seattle parades I used to go to in college, but it was still fun. Mardi Gras beads were apparently the thing to throw, this year - I stopped collecting at eight strands, but I could've gotten many many more.



While we were out, we bought Alex a Mylar balloon. I got the idea from a library book, Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads, which has been a bonanza of advice not found in books geared at mothers. (For example, the book notes that when the baby outgrows a footed sleeper, you can generally extend its useful life by cutting the feet off and pairing it with socks instead. Huh. Why didn't I think of that?) In particular, it has a lot of suggestions about how to entertain a baby, and which places make good outings at various sub-one ages. The book suggested tying a Mylar balloon to the baby's ankle and letting her discover that she can move it around by kicking. Wow did Alex love that idea. We're going to get tons of play value out of this thing.



The early hours on Sunday morning weren't particularly restful, so I begged off going to the Pride Festival to see Melissa Ferrick. (Sigh...) I took a nap instead. Later on we met up with minnaleigh at a restaurant notable for its pomegranate margaritas, only to find that they don't serve alcohol on Sundays. I have never heard of not being able to buy alcohol by the glass on Sundays - not outside the Bible belt, anyway. Sadly, the restaurant was not worth going to for the food alone. The enchiladas I ordered were too spicy for me and too skimpy on the meat (they were mostly bean-filled, with only occasional shreds of steak), and the sauce tasted much too strongly of tomato paste. Alas. We'll go back sometime just for cocktails, I guess.

Also on Sunday we went to Dim Sum after church, at our favorite Chinese restuarant. We're regulars there, and the manager made a huge fuss over Alex. She asked if she could bring by a bunch of baby clothes for us - she knows our address from delivering there. I hemmed and hawed a little bit ("Well, if you really don't know anyone who needs them more than we do..."), and finally she told me the real reason she wants to give us the clothes: she has two girls already, and according to Chinese superstition, if she doesn't get the girl clothes out of the house the next baby will also be a girl. So we'll actually be doing her a favor by taking them off her hands... and maybe Alex will like having a little sister. *grin*

Comments

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

The problem with cutting off the feeties is that then they're not there for the next kid. Of course, we're really geared for hand-me-downs, because we knew we were having another kid, and after that, there will be cousins, etc.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

Also, I had a Feminist Moment two days before I left for Wiscon, while I was gathering about a yard of pink gingham into a frilly skirt.

But she doesn't look good in yellow.

[saoba.livejournal.com]

She's clearly destined to be a Stealth Feminist, who will (looking so cute in her pink frilly things) be able to slide past the early warning systems of sexists and get in close the better to use her Incredible Kung Fu Intellect to devastate all their silly talking points.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

She continues to delight in these pictures. I'm sorry she's being cranky today. It's a measure of something that you're even contemplating a little sister for her right now.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Hee. I will pass on to you the warning I got from a friend of mine.

No matter how fierce a feminist you are, no matter if your daughter has never, ever seen you wearing a skirt, there will come a time when your daughter will refuse to wear anything but pink dresses because "girls wear pink". Role models are all very well, but peer pressure is where it's at.

She'll grow out of it.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

P.S. I write this wearing an ankle-length sparkly blue skirt. I like skirts. I just don't wear them to play in sandboxes.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

A corollary to that rule, according to my mother, would be:

When you find that your little blonde girl-child looks adorable in smocked dresses and mary janes, she will then only want to wear turtlenecks and jeans from the time she can crawl to the dresser and pull out clothes. This will be especially troubling when you take little blonde girl-child to visit with churchlady Grandma.

[abbylee]

I swear, that's the real reason why parents have multiple children. It increases the chance that at least one of them will agree with you on any given issue :D

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Maybe she's fussing today because she's going to grow some more tomorrow.

K.

Reclaim pink!

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

Damn it, why should the fluffy non-feminists have it all to themselves?

Re: Reclaim pink!

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Quite!

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

That first picture is truly adorable!

-J

[abbylee]

That is one beautiful baby. I love the updates.

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

Such a darling baby!

The food tasted significantly better the second day- there was actual flavour there, not just fire.

We definitely have to go for pomegranate margaritas some Saturday very soon. And I think the combo afternoon tea/pomegranate margarita plan is a good one- it's been too long since I did tea.

[puppytown.livejournal.com]

Please reverse-engineer the pomegranate margaritas for me! And stick Rivka and Alex in your pockets, while you're at it.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

I love the balloon idea!

And your daughter is cuter than ever :-)

[lcohen]

sweet pictures!

mmmm, dim sum place.

Cuteness!

[ailbhe]

Linnea also looked betrayingly adorable in pink. I'm hoping my mother-in-law doesn't notice.

Eeee! Ballooooooon!

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Feminists can redefine the meaning of any colour by wearing it. You go, Alex!

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

The mylar balloon concept is brilliant!

[richtermom.livejournal.com]

When I first found out Squeaky is a girl, I vowed she'd never wear pink because frankly, I hate pink, and I figured with DH's and my coloring, she'd look really ucky in most shades, so I kept steering everyone toward greens and purples.

Turns out that with blond hair and blue eyes, she looks delightful and demure in pink.

And then she goes tearing around like the little hellion that she is.

So. I'm holding on to all her clothes in big time hope that she becomes an older/oldest sister sometime before my ova hit their expiration dates.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the pink thing really is a betrayal of principles, isn't it? I mean, how to resist teh cuteness?

I'll have to think about the balloon thing myself.

Mine's cranky too, but I'm chalking it up to the fact that we're having our first heat wave of summer, and she inherited her father's body temperature (we just call her Heat Pump). No, she doesn't want to nurse because that involves pressing her hot little sweaty body against my larger hot sweaty body. Ick.