Month One

Where does the time go? When you have two under two, I sometimes wonder how I get anything accomplished between duel diaper changes.

As Evelyn approached one month old, I wanted to copy the idea of one of my crafty friends and snap pictures of her in numbered onesies. I had the fabric,the onesies, the fusible web,but what I didn't have is time.

I hastily ironed on the number one the night before her one-month birthday and in the process got some gunky residue all over outfit.

Then I didn't make time to snap a picture until really late

in the evening and I tried to cram in a photo session before Jack's bedtime.

The result? Some lousy pics of the baby, but some great pictures and dialogue with the 19-month-old who will never pose for a picture but wanted to be in on the action.Apparently Jack also wanted to use the opportunity for pictures to lay down some ground rules to the newest member of the household.

Pink invasion

In designing my layette for my first child, I kept everything in muted, bright neutrals. I couldn't imagine being doused with all of the pink or blue that you get when you get a new baby. I couldn't imagine liking it. The blue with Jack never really came. But now, we have plenty o pink stuff that arrived shortly after our 6 pound 2 ounce baby girl.

And we couldn't be happier with the baby or with all of the pink.

It didn't take long to fall in love with Evelyn Rhea, who so far likes to sleep, eat, and poop. Not always in that order.

My family arrived bearing two boxes of pink clothes and bags of gifts from friends and family. We've gotten stuff in the mail and thoughtful gifts from friends. And I haven't minded the pink at all. Honestly, it's so much more exciting to shop for stuff for girls than boys.

Fingers crossed, Evie Rhea is much easier baby than Jack was. She acutally sleeps. The only issue is that she wants to be held all the time. It's not like we made her that way, either. Even in the hospital, she'd fuss in the bassinet until someone picked her up.

We didn't know what we were having until the birth, and we really didn't have any secret desires for the child to be a boy or a girl. But we couldn't be happier with our lady in pink.

Waiting...

I'm not sure if this baby is super stubborn and not wanting to be born or just being uber-polite and giving us plenty of family time before the big arrival. Either way, it's been a waiting game in the Schwartz household as baby continues to incubate past his or her due date.

Right after I finished up work, I went into hyperdrive trying to get all the loose ends tied up. I'd spent the majority of my pregnancy focused on living a busy life and not preparing for the new one, so the week of preparation was much needed. I finished up the nursery, finished up Jack's new room, transitioned Jack to his

new room, finished up craft projects, completed and handed off nonprofit work, packed for the hospital, baked goodies, and tried to keep the house immaculate.

I found time to do small things I'd been meaning to do... small things like super-glue a bit of trim back on a curtain, clean off the top of the dryer, and finish Jack's one year photo book. I decided to weed every flower bed in the yard....something that hasn't been done since early July and weeds were so tall in places they'd smothered one small tomato plant. But baby didn't come and the doctor told us to stay active.

So we did. We cleaned out the basement. We cleaned out the garden shed. We cleaned up the foyer. We cleaned out toolboxes and our tool closet. In-between projects, we tackled area parks and hiking trails sometimes trekking three to five miles a day in two separate walks. We took Jack to the park, to the apple orchard, and on his first trip to the zoo. We've watched our share of TV and played a few games of Scrabble. I'm eyeing cleaning out the garage for another project; Dave...not so much.

We also bought into the old wives tale that eating spicy food helps induce labor. I made supreme nachos that had no less than a half-jar of my grandmother's hot sauce and a half-jar of home-canned hot jalapenos. Our noses and eyes watered even more the next day when Dave made his father's spicy buffalo wings more spicy than normal. I made a dynamite Shrimp Etouffee, but I decided to double the amount of cayenne pepper. It was good, but it was definitely too hot to truly enjoy like we wanted.

Our baby-induced stay-cation has been so far a productive and enjoyable one where we've completed household projects and enjoyed some pre-expansion family time. But like all good vacations, we're somewhat ready for this one to come to an end so we can adjust to a new normal that always seems just a few days?....hours?....away.

A family on the verge

It's presumably the last week the Schwartz household will be a family of three. To document this, we had family pictures taken by one of our favorite photographers and even though Jack was being a tad cantankerous, she captured some beautiful images.

Speaking of cantankerous, that is Jack. The almost 18-month-old has a mind of his own and he doesn't hesitate in letting everyone know it. Currently every morning we have quite a fight on our hands getting him to take off his pajamas. Why? Because his pajamas have his favorite thing on them--Cars. He will hold the pants and pull as you are trying to pull them off while yelling "no!" "cars!" "cars!" "nooooo!" I've resorted to going through all of his clothes trying to find something with cars or the only available substitute, balls. This is hard because I've shied away from the cars-balls-construction equipment wordy t-shirts.

It's tougher when we don't know what he wants, and that's often the biggest source of conflict. He'll scream and cry "no" and some other sounds when we're trying to figure out what it is that he's trying to communicate so vehemently. A fit could commence where there's more screaming and gesturing and unintelligible words. That's when we try to distract him with, of course, cars or balls. Of course, we know some fits Jack thr

ows he knows exactly what he can't have and that makes him plenty mad.

Jack's best friend is his Daddy. From the moment he gets up until he goes to bed, Daddy is frequently mentioned, asked for, and cheered. When we go to get him up in the morning, Jack runs to the side of the bed, yelling "Dad-dee!" When Dave comes in the door from work, Jack is waiting and doing his happy dance while yelling "Dad-dee!" Today as I put him down for a nap, I asked Jack, "You know who loves you, Jack? Mama loves you." To which he replied "Dad-dee!" Right now, the boundaries are Dad-dee is for all fun and Mama is for everything else, which includes taking off those beloved car pajamas.

While he might look like an angel, Jack has a curious nature that often shows up in a destructive way. Yesterday he took his goldfish crackers and ground them into the freshly-cleaned carpet with his hands. The day before he dumped them in the bathtub before climbing into the tub to stop them into bits. The day before that, he was practicing nosediving on our bed and nose-dived right into the footboard and busted his nose. I'll come into the kitchen to discover he's quite proud that he's standing on top of the table. It's not unusual to see him dragging things places just to see how it works there--like moving his rocking horse into the bathroom or trying to climb up in his Little Tykes car that had been moved to a chair for vacuuming.

If there's one thing Jack loves better than cars, it's balls. We no longer allow throwing balls in the house because of too many close calls with a real baseball. Sometimes when the TV is off, he'll stand in front and point "ball" "ball" wanting to find a ball game. He has a hockey stick that he walks around with hitting balls and yelling "goal!" With just about anything Jack has in his hand, there's probably an 80 percent chance it will be airborne when it leaves his hands.

Currently, we've been transitioning Jack to his new bed and his new bedroom and talking about the new baby. We practice holding the baby, putting it in the bassinet, and above all being "nice" and "gentle" with the baby. After a week, he's sleeping in his new bed but he's still throwing the baby around. We're working on it. And we have to. We only have a few more days to go.

Why didn't I think of that?

I've thought before if I could just think of an idea to break into the Minnesota State Fair then I could work for 12 days a year.... perhaps a few more with preps.... and be done. FOR the year. People love to come here, love to work here, and LOVE to spend money here.

A nice brother and sister team from our viewing area came up with the idea. Actually, the family which has a local diner says it was always their dream to have a booth at the state fair. It took them three years of small carnivals, other fairs, and even getting a contract to sell their product at Target Field before they got the green light to sell "Deep Fried Pies" at the State Fair. While people somehow think fried pies are a new concept here, I've laughed because you can buy these at most any mom & pop diner down south. I used to stop in Lewisville and buy a hot peach fried pie at Burge's for a buck.

They are called Minneapple Pies and have cinnamon and apples and are served with ice cream and they are a big hit. Many people I interviewed had a list of all of the new foods at the fair and were going around testing out each one. This one was a hit and even the Food Network's Andrew Zimmern stopped by the fair to sign off on them.

My state fair standby so far has been cheese curds... not any stand, but the original one on the south side of Dan Patch between Underwood and Nelson. They are yummy and not greasy.

But my coworker turned me onto a new favorite-- a turkey sandwich that's the best I've ever eaten in my life. Juicy with great flavor. I could've eaten two. Sold, of course, right across from the Poultry building.

Ma Schwartz came to visit and we spent 4 hours walking around the East side of the fair. We drove by fiddle contests, Spamville, Alphabet Junction, and the Creative Arts buildings and didn't get to stop.... but we did eat some state fair faves like the Oklahoma Cinnamon Roll (my request), Lefse, mini-donuts, nachoes from a stand that's been selling them since 1940-something, german root beer, and fresh french fries from THE fresh french fry stand. There are so many things I would still love to see...or eat.... but we snacked and left when Jack went to sleep and crowds got too think....and ate salads for dinner.

The great (Sweet Martha's) cookie caper

I was not a very popular person at the station after the first day of covering the Minnesota State Fair. It's somewhat of a tradition for the first team covering the fair to bring back a bucket of Sweet Martha's Cookies.

Since 1979, this St Paul company has mixed and baked up thousands if not millions of cookies at the state fair. You buy them piping hot by cone or bucket and then rush over a few blocks to the $1 All-You-Can-Drink-Milk stand and eat them. They melt in your mouth and are truly delicious.
I set out good-naturedly to the fair to bring back a bucket of cookies. We went out of our way to get to the cookie stand. As I was about to get in line, I spotted the price. $15 a bucket. Wow. Granted, it's always a heaping bucket, but still. I didn't have the cash or frankly the inclination to buy a $15 bucket of cookies for the breakroom. So I left.

And I'll be darned if every. single. person. didn't ask me when I got back in the station where the cookies were. I finally told the Cookie Ringleader that you don't send the girl that does the "money saver" segment to the fair and expect her to fork out $15 for a bucket of cookies and if they wanted some, they could pitch in because guess what I'm going next week for another story. Most were flabbergasted to learn the cookies cost that much, but they weren't above clammoring for what was, in their mind, state fair cookie justice. The day of the next story, the Cookie Ringleader offered to buy the bucket. I had pity on him, so I pitched in and my photographer pitched in and we came back to cheers because we were bearing a bucket of Sweet Martha's.

But before we made it back, we grabbed our ice cold milk and decided to level off the bucket before walking outside the fairgrounds. You know, commission and all.

Babies and crafts

I've had several friends have (or are in the process of having) new babies recently. And with new babies, comes new crafts. My crafty friend Laura made this cake for her daughter's christening. That stuff on the top isn't lace my friends. It's something edible that looks like lace. Since I'm not good with small and intricate stuff that require careful precision, I'm totally impressed with this. I would never be able to pull this off.

Since my plate is full, I've also committed to allowing myself not to be overly crafty for everyone. Oh sure, I have ideas for each friend and new baby. But I make myself have an out so if I don't have time to be crafty and produce the present in a polite time frame, I order something online. And that's plenty okay.

But I did crank out this gift this past week for a co-worker who is the biggest out-of-the-closet New Kids on the Block fan I've ever met: It's a onesie and matching pink tutu for her future little girl...complete with a butt patch. Finding a retro logo to print out and adhere was the hardest part of the process. But seeing her reaction at the shower was priceless. She started doing the NKOTB dance moves.