The Folk Life Festival Was Great!

On Tuesday of last week my friend Nick asked me if I wanted to go to the Folk Life Festival with him and his boyfriend Scott. I had totally forgotten about the Folk Life Festival and Walter was eager for a weekend without a baby and so I jumped at the chance to eat strawberry shortcake, elephant ears, and a french fry loaf. So on Saturday Padon and I dawned our festive folky garb and off we went on the 510 bus to Seattle.

I sadly forgot my camera (Argh!!!!) and so missed some very awesome photo op's but luckily Nick took some great pictures and sent me a couple. Padon had a great time on the bus and by the time we left Nick's place and walked to the Seattle Center Padon was out cold. Which was good because he needed the nap.

Meeting Scott was awesome because I had heard about him but hadn't had a chance to meet him. He was a tremendous help carring the umbrella stroller and getting me a high chair and he was always eager to lend a hand so I didn't have to feel like I had to do ALL the Mom stuff.
When we arrived at Nick's place Padon was really bothered by the hallways to Nick's Condo door. It was really strongly perfumed and on the second pass through the hallway I wondered if he had the same problem I do with perfumes. I can't be near a real perfume or an overly perfumed person because I get an instant migrane headache and start to feel nausous. It dawned on me that the hallway may have the same effect on Padon so I was moving as fast as I could. Already worked up it didn't help that Padon found Nick intimadating and cried, even though Nick was really nice, friendly, and down on Padon's level. By the time we left Nick's condo, however, Padon had started to warm up to him, was really interested in his orange shirt and snuggled into his chest. Nick carried him for quite a way before he started to realize how heavy a 23 lb baby can be to carry in front of you and he handed him back. Nick, Scott, and Nick's friend Heather, who met us later, went to the beer garden and Padon and I played down by "The Fountain". It was great and while Padon was hugging onto me tightly and laying his head on my shoulder he was very interested in the people running in and out of the water. When the fountain ran low we ran up to it to touch it, like the other kids and teenagers, but that was when the fountain reved back up again and it was like someone dumped a bucket of cold water on our heads. Padon wasn't pleased at all but it was so sunny that it didn't take us very long to dry off.

When we met back up with Nick, Scott and Heather we went to McMenimen's and had lunch. Padon tried out his first booster seat and managed to grab the salt shaker and shove it in his mouth when I wasn't looking. I tried cleaning it off the best I could and ended up moving him into a high chair. It really was a matter of inches before he would have fallen under the table anyway. He just isn't big enough for a booster yet.
After lunch we went back to Nick's to watch "The Bird Cage", one of my favorite movies. Padon and I ended up getting home way too late but we had a really good time. I was just a tad disappointed that I never got the elephant ear or the strawberry shotcake.

On Monday, Memorial Day, I decided sportatically, as it was appearing to be another beautiful sunny day, that we would go back down to the Folk Life Festival (again forgot my camera; double argh!!). This time it was just Padon and I all day. We spent a long time at the fountain while Padon played with his McDonald's Speed Racer car in nothing but his diaper and sun hat (we got dumped on again by the fountain). I carried him on my shoulders every where we went so he could see all the cool people and entertainers and we danced with the musical vendors in the crowd of grooving watchers. We ate at the Horn of Africa and had strawberry shortcake from the Beringer Farms vendor. I passed on the elephant ear and pondered the french fry loaf and then turned it down at the thought of what a toaster size quanitiy of grease dripping fries would do to Padon's and my insides, especially since I would be eatting the majority of them. We walked through the crafty vendors and drooled over their various goods, and finally we made our way home; this time at a reasonable hour.

It is too bad we have to wait another year for it to come around again. Of all the festivals in Seattle this one is my favorite and the weather this year couldn't have been more perfect. And over all I had an absolutely fabulous time with Padon and I think he felt the same about me.

Tasty!

Chloe to Walter: "What is that in Padon's teeth?" Pulling long yellow stringy thing out from Padon's gums...

Walter to Chloe: "Oh, that's just dandelion."

Happy Birthday to Sarah!

Sarah was nice enough to share her birthday with Mother's Day but I don't think that either holdiay was pushed out of the way by the other. A grand 29 years old it's hard to believe we have come this far already. Jane made her a wonderful yellow cake from scratch and my mom made her famous Hungarian Goolash (sp?) for dinner. It was such a good time and I'm glad we got to share it with her.

Happy 1st Mother's Day to Me!

I had my first Mother's Day this year and it was nice to walk through the grocery store holding my baby bean and realizing that I truely was a Mother. I love Padon so much and he is so absolutely fabulous to me that I often have to remind myself that yes, he is mine, and no one is going to come and pick him up after their long vacation and take him away.

I love being his Mommy!

Your Felt Purse Is Made Out Of What?!

So my sister Sarah has a cute Standard Poodle named Benny who needs to go to a groomer periodically to get shaved.

At one get together at my parents I pet him and my love of fiber kicked in (much like it does when I pull a ton of dryer lint out of the dryer screen) and I wondered to myself, I wonder how hard it would be to spin poodle fur. (Yes, I did think this through.) So when Benny started to get a little shaggy I proposed to my brother-in-law, Wayne, and my sister, Sarah, that they give me the clippings from Benny's next grooming. They checked to see if I was serious and low and behold the next time I saw them at Easter they brought me a grocery bag of Benny clippings. Yeah!

I happily washed it like I would sheep's wool in the washer, carded it with my hand cards, and spun up a nice worsted weight yarn on my spinning wheel. I only had so much and I wanted to be able to make something with it so instead of plying it back on itself like you usually do with standard yarn I plyed it with some multi-colored red silk thread. (To ply means you spin the yarn in the opposite direction you created it in and respin it with a second or more piece of yarn or other fiber.) I searched on the internet for a bag pattern that would be worthy of Sarah(thinking that would be small enough to accomodate the small amount of yarn I had) and found a cute little felted purse. I adjusted the pattern to fit my yarn and knitted up the bag in a day. I followed the easy directions to felt the knitted bag and man it came out awesome! I totally need one for myself now! I sewed little glass beads to the front and back and sewed in two bamboo handles. The handles were supposed to be straight but I was unable to find straight sitck bamboo and had to resort to oval shapped ones that had to be tucked inside to get the bag to keep most of it's square shape and not pucker.
It spun like wool and felted really nicely. What a great fiber to spin with, albeit lumpy (because of the way it was cut I think). The felting made a lot of the red silk thread dissapear but I liked that when you looked at it closely you could see red flecks like sparkels through it. And I liked how the fur regained a lot of the curl that it had lost in spinning. As a yarn it looked like it had the ability to plumb up nicely and it sure didn't let me down. It even had cute tiny cowlicks in a couple places. I'm very proud of this project. It was lots of fun. And Sarah and Wayne, not to mention my whole family, got a huge kick out of it.
In case you are wondering, however, I did turn down the offer for more Benny fur. I have such a multitude of projects going on right now, who knows when I would be able to get to it. Benny will continue to need grooming and I know where he lives.

Trip To The Zoo With Awesome Friends

Walter, Padon, Eliot and Ivor

Walter and Padon (luck guys!) got to go to the Zoo with Erin, Eliot, and Ivor last Tuesday. They went around and got to see a bunch of the different animals including a extreme close-up of a brown bear and gorilla, and had a nice packed lunch in the Zoo Cafeteria. I'm so jealous I couldn't go but I love that Padon got to go and see the animals. Last time we went he enjoyed watching the hippo play with the water pouring out of a spout in the make-shift concrete cliff.
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He is still a little young to see animals in the far distance and is only captivated by what is directly in front of him but that doesn't mean he doesn't get a kick out of seeing something new. He really enjoyed the bird exhibit where parakeets were flying all around and over head and as Walter tells it he was quite captivated.

Walter and Ivor

Walter and Padon (making the latest and greatest "monkey" face)

Eat'n lunch

Our First Baby ER Experience

Hard to believe that this face reflects a baby that was sporting a temp of 104.9 not 6 hour previous.

We had our first Baby scare that sent us to the ER (recommendations of Padon's Pediatric office) when Friday night we took his temp and found he was 104.3. The hospital couldn't believe that such a happy go lucky baby could have a temp of 104 and gave him a huge dose of Tylenol. There was nothing wrong with his stomach, throat, or ears and so they sent us home with instructions that if his temp was above 102 to give him two dropers of baby tylenol every 4 hours. And we had to watch it too. By the time we got him home at midnight his temp was down to 102 but by 4 am he was back up to 103.7 and climbing.
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We layed in bed all day on Saturday and snuggled; Padon clutched to my fleece pajamas, and Walter offering tons of hugs and kisses. We had one last scare as Padon's temp soared to 104.9 at about 8pm that night and we debated whether we should take him back to the ER. Instead we dosed him with the two eye droppers of tylenol and stripped him down to his diaper and covered him with a blanket. That did the trick and again his temperature dropped. By Sunday he was feeling much better and finally sleeping soundly between the two of us. It seemed we were through the worst of it. Man, and we thought he just had a fever on Thursday because he is teething!

Turns out he had Roseola, a viral infection that effects kids between the ages of 6 months and 2 years. Roseola is contagious and spreads through tiny drops of fluid from the nose and throat of other infected kids. These drops are expelled when the infected person talks, laughs, sneezes, or coughs. Then if other people breathe the drops in or touch them and then touch their own noses or mouths, they can become infected as well. The viruses that cause roseola do not appear to be spread by kids while they are exhibiting symptoms of the illness. Instead, someone who has not yet developed symptoms often spreads the infection. Hummm Ferry maybe? I think so. We went to the Bell-Square Ferry on Monday and by Thursday he was sporting the fever. Oh well. No reason not to play in public places. What a learning experience!

Dada!

This is the face of a baby who turned toward his Father's back, loudly proclaimed "Dada!" and waited for Walter to respond. We have it folks! His first Word! It totally counts as Daddy!