Labor Day 2015

Our Labor Day weekend.

When Luke arrived home from Houston on Saturday we went to Torchy's at 3 pm -- the place was 80% full but no wait -- for margaritas and queso. Their queso is sooo good!

"Mommy's drink and Daddy's drink."

Thank you for my supercool t-shirt, Aunt Molly and Uncle John!

WHERE'S JOSIE???? She still covers her ears instead of her eyes. So cute!

Our next stop was an Indian place my co-worker recommended about 10 miles away. To me, this constitutes A Trip. There are no Indian restaurants close to us much to the detriment of my Take Out Friday needs (pretty much every Friday is Take Out and Nonstop TV Until Bedtime Because Mommy Is Exhausted Friday).

Here we turned gulab jamun into Clementine's favorite thing:  A CAKE POP! she exclaimed.

Trader Joe's is across the parking lot, the place 'where you buy plants and chocolate'. -- Luke

Note potted succulent as sole cart item. Clementine loved pushing the cart.
 

Home for crawl-on-Daddy antics

A gentle pat?

No.

Sunday morning at new coffee place and bakery Southview.

Here's Halee the head baker - her Instagram feed will make you want to move to San Antonio - she shows off the brightest and the coolest parts of the city. (@theginger_snap)

As for Clementine, she likes her doughnuts.

Nearby Lion's Field.

Baby got back: this jumpsuit is still available in a different wash. Caveat emptor: it's impossible to zip up yourself so be sure you have your Downton Abbey-style valet on duty.

Pearl farmers' market. My foot is sanny [sandy]!

Target Run 1.

Target Run 2. How creepy is Big Baby?

Josie - still waiting for the big WHERE'S JOSIE reveal.

Nailed it.

Big Baby

Last night when C and Daddy were outside 'nooking at the cats' -- a walk to the house around the corner where numerous cats lounge in the yard -- Josie pounced on briefly unattended Big Baby* to put her night-night.

She placed the dish towel over Baby and patted her. I've never seen her do this before!


*There are two baby dolls in the house, the larger known as Big Baby or more frequently just Baby and the smaller Tiny Baby.

Life Lately

I'm still pretty annoying about answering 31 months! when asked how old Clementine is. (I mean, 30 months??? 12 months plus 12 months plus a bit more... your kid is 2, lady).

BUT!

She is so different month to month that 31 is so different from 29 that '2 years old' just doesn't cut it. Some anecdotes:

In April she didn't have novel two word phrases. Now she asks: What happened, Mommy? / What that noise is, Mommy? / It's a tiny piece of paper towel. / You tired, Mommy? / And my favorite question, what that called, Mommy? [It's a hose; we water the plants with it.] It's like she's a tiny tourist on planet Earth.

♥

ME: What does a dog eat?
C: Strawberries!
ME: What does a cat eat?
C: Tomatoes!
ME: What does Josie eat?
C: Gnocchi!

We haven't eaten or talked about gnocchi in over a month. And I didn't know what gnocchi was until I was at least 23 years old.

♥

Not Without My Baby: The Clementine Jack Story. She loves her baby doll, feeds her baby doll, puts her in her purse, puts her night-night, and must know where she is at all times.

♥

Clementine is singing all the time now -- Wheels on the Bus, ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle, Baa Baa Black Sheep, something about clapping, and Everybody Wants To Be a Cat - just the first line.

♥

Poor Josie has been treated to 14 months of benign neglect as we keep her sister from jumping off of things. This week I was reading Hello Highlights to her (she and C both love these) and on the find it page I asked her, Josie, where's the bear? And she pointed to the bear. I had no idea she knew what a bear was.

Josie doesn't have any words yet (thinking she will follow C's slow-but-expontential language curve) but has starting saying BA! BA! BA! often when a ball is around.

She's started preferring me to everyone else, a post-12 month development. She has it rough because she doesn't sleep much at school and some days (like yesterday) won't sleep at all: she arrives home, eyes glazed over, cranky. We feed her, put her to bed, and get back to focusing on Clementine.

None of this is news to St. Josephine of the Weary Resignation.

Clem took these photos.

Note baby. ('Baby sit next to me.')

Back at Target for the promised red cart.

This is where she puts baby in time out. 'Baby in time out!' she exclaimed as she scrolls through my camera roll.

Screenshots

The New York Times Magazine featured an artist whose exhibition of her search history uncovers:

She captures the perversity that characterizes most of our relationships with the Internet. We obsess over our self-presentation on social media, while constantly leaving traces of our true selves elsewhere, often without even realizing it. Call it ‘‘dark data’’: the trail of information collected by companies like Amazon, Seamless and Uber about what we really do in our free time, about our splurges and snack preferences — all those unsharable details that we rarely boast about on our feeds.

I turned that over in my mind for a while. What do I think is interesting and/or important? Let's ask my camera roll.

Time for another round of screenshots!

More from my spiritual advisor Dallas Clayton. This made me laugh out loud.

Bwhahaaha.

Go get 'em tiger!

Pink and red is my favorite color combination.

LET IT OUT!

Also, goldfish and banana peels.

Grow!

Sofabulous.

Been there.

I was dangerously close to losing the inability to even recently.

Amanda and I are buying these hats. Then solving mysteries. Even if those mysteries are the whereabouts of the cheapest mimosas in St Louis (we spent all of our money on $200 hats).

This book is a quick enjoyable read.

Dallas Hartwig of Whole 30 fame drops some real truth bombs on Instagram (see photo and accompanying text). I'm off of Facebook for the month.

Not sure where she's going but I want to go there too.

FOMO.

What's Making Me Happy This Week

// I've checked out many Lucky Peaches from the library but have only gotten to a few. This piece about Las Vegas buffets had me in stitches.

// Sausage and acorn squash from One Pot. Easy-peasy, low carb, hearty, leftover-friendly, savory and a little bit sweet. I've made this four times recently.

via

// Next Issue app corrals all the magazines I want to read into one place for $5/month, decreasing clutter and saving trees. Now I need an app that creates time for me to catch up on magazines.

From the fitness desk

// I tried on a pair of pants I last wore in February and they were way too big in the waist - unwearable. Even though my weight hasn't changed, I've lost inches from my waist. #fistpumpemoji

// Susie climbed the rope at Alamo 180! #trophyemoji

// Benchmark at Alamo 180 ("Angie"). I made an index card to keep track of each 10 reps because I knew I would lose count. So gratifying to get stronger! #flexedarmemoji

// Luke's tour concluded with this one day drive:

♥ We are so happy to have him home! ♥