Absolutely Scrumptious!

My old boss gave me 5 skiens of absolutely scrumptious yarn as a thank you for helping out his department when his admin went on maternity leave. It by far was the best thank you gift I have ever received and oh so thoughtful! He had gone on a week vacation to Key West with his wife and decided, upon passing by the Knit-Wits yarn store, that he would go on in and get me some yarn. How cool is that?!

The idea was I would take the the yarn and knit Padon a sweater. So after some careful searching for the ultimate pattern to be knit with the ultimate yarn I decided upon a cardigan style sweater pleasently named "Babies First Tatoo". It took me about two months of knitting in the car, and on the bus, and in any apare time, with some arm warmers slipped in for Jane, to finish Padon's sweater but it came out perfectly. Not well represented by Padon, however, who was being goofy, wiggling around, and pulling at the sweater because I kept adjusting it closed. What a ham! I think I'm going to keep the sweater forever!

Say it ain't so!

It may possibly be true that Padon is allergic to Chocolate. Ok, this is a parental diagnosis, but it has happened a couple times so I'm starting to lean towards it being true; until of course we get a chance to talk to his Pediatrician.

So Padon, at his first birthday, started rubbing his eyes and nose, and snorting through his nose like it really itched after attempting to eat one pancake with chocolate chips in it and in the end turned down the pancake when he is capable of eatting at least two. I thought it was odd but wasn't sure if it was the chocolate chips.

But then he had two maybe three oreo cookies on Saturday and accompanied with the I-had-way-too-much-fruit diarreah he broke out in the worst diaper rash I have ever seen. It was like it was a contact reaction. He was bright red everwhere his diaper touched and woke up early Sunday morning crying really hard and saying "Ow-eeeee, Oweeeee!!!!" Where the poop was stuck to his skin his skin was raw and bleeding underneath. So we plopped in him the bathtub where the water could soak off the poop and we wouldn't have to wipe his raw skin. It was truly amazing.

So I looked up Allergies to Chocolate and it was so not helpful. Chocolate isn't just coco but milk, nuts, wheat and gluten, soy, corn, caffeine, and sometimes berries. Argh! At least he has been eatting solid foods long enough that I feel pretty confident in not including milk, wheat and gluten, corn, and berries, in potential allergies for him. I'm pretty sure it isn't nuts because I have never noticed any adverse reactions to peanut butter sandwiches but I'm not sure he has ever had soy and he has never had caffine.

Supposedly having an allergic reaction to chocolate is relatively rare. It would be interesting to give him a small dose and see if we go through the whole process again. I'm guessing that is what the pediatrican is going to recommend. What can she do but recommend we watch his diet closely or recommend we take him for food allergy testing (I cringe for him). But Chocolate? How sad. What are we going to do on cold winter nights after playing in the snow? Tang I guess. Ummmm hot Tang, that was always good...

How Nifty!

You know, I'm not that big a cookie person, but once in a while you have to eat something just because it's just too cool. I discovered today the Oreo Dunker. Ergonomically designed for dunking in a glass of milk they are just like the standard oreo but longer. I didn't know, however, until I went looking for a picture of the Oreo Dunker, that they came in all kinds of dunk'n designs too. How fun! The one I got today, at the office celebration for a co-worker who just got married, was the one in the top row in the middle. It tells you where to hold it and even provides a dotted line for how far you should submerge your cookie in the milk. While it was fudge filled it still paled in comparison to its double stuffed counter-parts that shared the same plate. Still anything this unique is bound to taste a little sweeter just because.

You know you're tired when...

Ok, I haven't done this since college. You know when you are so tired and/ or bored that your eyes keep rolling back in your head and your head keeps falling forward? I used to have this trouble in my Chemistry class on way too often an occasion. Total cheek slapping and thigh pinching time. So I'm trying to write the blog entry below and type "munch away at his fruit pudding" because I couldn't remember what it was called and what my fingers and brain were able to get out as my eyes rolled back again was "munvhing away at his criot pipppping". I find this so funny. I used to have a whole half page of this sort of gibberish, in my art history and chemistry classes, until the notes would peter off into a wiggly line. I love that even when I'm half asleep my brain is still studious. Ha! Good times!

Here's One For You Dad!

Here's one for you Dad. May this child be a child after your own heart

Look'it him munching away at that almost year old fruit cake!

Lake Goodwin Rocks!

We live in an area that has 7 lakes. One of which is really nicely set up for families, picnics, and swimming. I had been with Padon once before and it was too cold to go swimming so I didn't know just how really cool Lake Goodwin was.

This Saturday Walter went off to Fight Practice and Padon and I went to Lake Goodwin. It was a glorious 85 degrees outside and the sun was high. I packed a lunch and stopped at QFC to get batteries for my camera and a free cookie for Padon. (Super cool!) Amazingly, even though it was close to noon we were able to find a parking spot easily and there was still room to choose a nice clump of grass to sit down on and have lunch.
After lunch I walked Padon out into the water which at first he was hesitant about but with the water being the perfect temperature of not cold and not warm he was soon sitting and splashing in the water and playing with the sand toys that his Auntie Jane had given him.
What blew my mind about Lake Goodwin was you could walk about 200 feet out into the lake and never get more than wading pool deep. It was awesome! The bottom was rock and sand and the water really clear so you could see the little fish swimming around. We walked way out in the water until I think Padon's legs felt tired from trying to pick up his feet with his sandles on and he kept trying to drop to his knees to crawl. I think had we kept on going we could have possibly made it almost all the way out to the dock in the picture below.
There was a lot of rock eating but I only had to pry out two rocks. The other ones I got him to happily chuck back in the water with him mimicing my gutteral "Yuccccccckkkkkk, Yuuucccckkkkkk!!!!!" sounds. I started to realize that he was getting tired and so I gestured at him with our Warren sign language "Are you all done?" He gestered back and I said "Ok" and we packed up our stuff and went home. He went right to sleep and had a long nap before we had to go to our friends house. It was such a good time I wish I could be home with Padon more during the days so we could go to the lake all the time with Walter and have picnics every day.

These shoes weren't made for walk'n, but that's just what they'll do...

How funny is it that when I get stuck on another unplanned bus adventure I always seem to have my camera?

I had another, get-to-learn-the-transit-system-of-the-greater-Seattle-area impromptu trip last night as I was attempting to get from Bellevue to Mill Creek's McCollum Park.


I hadn't realized, however, that I had left my bus pass in my other purse and since I had given my cash to Walter over the weekend I didn't have any bus money either. I got to down town Seattle to catch my second bus to find that getting cash was no easy task. I walked up and down University street up to 3rd ave and back down to 2nd ave 5 times before I could find the entrance to Washington Mutual only to find it was closed. After some searching I found they did have an ATM that happily wouldn't let me have any less than $20 and which charged me a $2 processing fee. I got back down to the kiddy-corner of my bus stop in time to see the last 412 pull up to get it's passengers and drive away. Argh! And I still needed to break the $20. Happily the Starbucks in the lobby of the very packed Seattle Art Museum was more than willing to break my 20 into bus denominations and didn't even charge me for a drink.


I went back to the bus station, hopped on the only bus I knew was going in my direction, and made my way to Northgate Park & Ride. With some help from the security guard there and the Customer Service Trip Planner (through the free phone service they had at the transit center; sweet!)
I made my way from Northgate to the University of Washington and onto McCollum Park where my car was. It was a way-out-of- my-way excursion that took me 4 1/2 hours to get home but on the upside I got a ton of knitting done on the bus and it was fun listening to the gals that got on the bus from the nursing school at the UW.


Walter was amazing and had a hot artichoke with melted butter (Yum!!!) waiting for me when I got home. You'd think this would teach me not to leave my bus pass behind. Knowing me it probably will happen again though. *Sigh*

Old Enough To Hand Food Off To

I love that Padon is getting to the point where you can hand food off to him without worrying about cutting it up first. Just one of those little things that make it a tiny bit easier.
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Over the weekend at Autumn War I handed Padon a slice of Watermelon and he happily munched away at its sweet core until he had had his fill and it was flung to the side (yeah still working on the flinging). And again in the car I passed off two sweet rolls to him to hold him over until we got home. He munched and crammed those sweet rolls into his mouth and I didn't have to worry about him a bit! Woohoo!