Making History

Yesterday I took my car to the VW dealership to have some parts replaced that were recalled by Volkswagen. They had great customer service and when I picked it up, they had vacuumed it and put an ice cold bottle of water in my cup holder. I was a fan.

On our way home I was listening to NPR and I heard a report about the upcoming Democratic nomination of Barack Obama that happened last night. The man being interviewed was Georgia representative John Lewis who was there when Martin Luther King Jr. made his "I have a dream" speech. He was saying how he never would have imagined that the day would come when an African-American man would be nominated for a major political party. I got chills listening to it. It was so powerful. What an amazing time and country we live in. I'm not saying I'm pro-Obama or pro-McCain, but I am pro-equality. And how appropriate that the nomination was done on the 45-year anniversary of Martin Luther King's speech.

Then this morning as I was driving home from work they were giving recaps of his acceptance speech and again, I got emotional about how blessed we are to live in this day where freedom and equality mean so much.

3-D Art

Is anyone else extremely fascinated by and into 3-D art? I think it's fabulous. I was first introduced to it when Trav's mom gave us these fabulous 3-D pop-up books with amazingly intricate illustrations. Are they even called illustrations since they're not illustrated? I'm not sure what they're called. But I guess they do illustrate the words. The books are done by Robert Sabuda and they are so creative and fun.

Recently I just saw another artist that does 3-D art. Her name is Patricia Zapata and I am in love with it. Maybe to be fabulous at 3-D art, you have to do have a last name that is 3 syllables and has a -ta or -da at the end. Sabuda. Zapata. Nilsson. Nope.

I want to own all of these. Too bad for me, they're all sold out. Boo.

He's a big boy

When we started CB on solid food we never gave him any of the pre-made, pureed, packaged baby foods. (3 points in Scattergories :) I just cooked sweet potatoes and mashed them up and gave him little pieces of banana or avocado. So now he thinks he's such a big boy and won't tolerate anything pureed. Like this morning, for example, I made him some millet that I ground to a chunky consistency but he wouldn't eat it; he just wanted to eat my whole steel-cut oats with bananas. So I tossed the millet and made him some steel-cut oats with bananas and he gobbled them down. Yesterday I tried to give him some pureed vegetables and he was gagging and spitting them out. I understood why when I tasted the mix I had made and agreed that it was terrible. I guess he's just a boy that knows what he wants and stands firm in his decisions. I guess that's why once he decided he wasn't going to turn for labor, he stuck by it. No matter how much mugwort I did.

Caps For Sale

CB is so lucky to have 2 talented aunts: Bean & Anj. (Well, actually all of his aunts are talented, but these are the 2 that happened to give him hats this week. :) Check out his new looks:

Tasty Part II

Another thing I love that I have recently discovered is steel cut oats with a dash of organic brown sugar (it's tastier and grainier) and diced bananas cooked in. It is a magnificent start to every day. You give it a try...

Tasty Treat

If anyone loves pudding as much as I do, you'll love this new invention. Single-serve puddings--how fabulous. We got a free sample in the newspaper a few months ago but have since forgot about it. Then today at the store I saw that you can get a whole box for $1.50 and I had to pick up a few boxes. It's done in 5 minutes and only requires 1/2 cup of milk. I'm a big fan.

And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise!

Does anyone have an opinion regarding white noise machines and babies sleeping well? It's a debate I have. Many peeps swear by them. CB usually sleeps for about 8-9 hours and then wakes for a snack and then sleeps for 3 or 4 more. Not bad. No complaints. But sometimes he doesn't. Usually his naps are 1.5-2.5 hours, but sometimes they're only 30 minutes and he's sad and is a tired dogg. So I wonder if these white noise machines are all they're cracked up to be. Also, I have a big problem with all the energy they would use/waste. I mean, it would a machine turned on for about 15 or so hours a day. It seems like a waste. And it seems like a contradiction since we keep our air conditioning at around 75, compost our waste, recycle like mad, and buy local produce. Thoughts?
P.S. Try to be the first to name the movie the title of this blog comes from and you'll win a prize in the mail from me. :)

Baby Backpack

Does anyone have a favorite baby backpack that they love and would recommend? I'm looking at the Kelty Frame Carrier 1.0 but know nothing about it. I'm open for suggestions...

DeSwaddle Success!

before

Since CB was a little tiny baby (I guess tiny is debatable since he was 8 lbs 3 oz when he was born) we have always swaddled him like a little burrito. A Chuck-arito as T likes to call it. So for the past week or so he has awakened a few times each night only needing to be reswaddled and then being able to go back to sleep. Since his nursery is upstairs, it is very tiring and taxing to climb those stairs at 2am and 5am to reswaddle him so we decided we needed to do something about it. I read various sites where people put their 2 cents on how to teach a baby to sleep without a swaddle. Mostly people said just lay them down and they'll cry, but they'll learn. As I've said earlier, I don't let him just cry and scream in bed, so I wanted a different option.

I decided to just lie him down and see what happened. And thanks to our video monitor, I could watch his every move to see how it went. First he played around in his bed, most likely surprised at his freedom of movement. Then, after about 15 minutes, he decided he wasn't a fan and started fussing. So I went in there and rubbed his face and tummy and he started shutting his eyes. This happened about 3 or 4 more times until he dozed off. Success! So now he's sleeping without a swaddle and it's so cute how his little hands are up by his face. We'll see how it goes tonight, but I think this combined with the No Cry Sleep Solution technique that we're using is working well. :)


after

Yum!

Also, we just ordered CB's high chair since he just started eating food yesterday! We waited until he was at a little over 6 months old and we skipped rice cereal and went straight to our favorite, sweet potatoes. He was a big fan. It's so darling to see how stoked he gets about food. I bet he'll be even more stoked to eat it in this:

Nighty Night

I'm constantly checking out kid/baby things to try to find the coolest stuff out there and this definitely qualifies. This artist makes fabulous glass night lights that are so darling. There are mosaics, bugs, fish, etc... CB's nursery will definitely house one when he gets old enough to be scared of the dark.

Farfar och Morfar

We just got back from a fabulous vacation and we're happy to be back on our schedules, but sad that we live so far away from all our fun family. We first went to Salt Lake and CB got to meet his Great Grandma & Grandpa Nilsson and his Great Grandma and Grandpa (Oma & Opa) Muelleck. It was fun to take some 4 generation photos:





One of the many things that is great about Swedish is the names for grandpa and grandma are very informative. So for my grandma on my dad's side, CB would say mom's dad's mom. It makes it easy to tell which one you're talking about without having to differentiate by last name or another code name. Since we mainly speak English though, our parents got to pick out their preferred name so we have: Opa & Oma Belt, Grandpa E & Grandma D, Opa 3 and Gma, Opa & Oma, and GG.