Unola2000

Todd was part of a very cool experimental, improvisational band "Unola" several years ago. They're just releasing their 10-CD box set; it's their first and only release, so the fact that there's twelve hours of it is both hilarious and charming. The website tells the story better than I can.

Right now I'm listening to "Anything But That." It ROCKS. Great job, guys!

The sweet part of this weekend

Lila: "Thea, I love you. You're my special friend."
Thea: "I love you, too, Lila. I'll love you forever."



(This exchange took place in the bathroom while Lila was on the toilet and Thea was on the little potty. That doesn't make it less sweet, though, does it?)

Scary

This weekend some friends went through a frightening situation with their 6-week-old son. I think everyone involved directly and tangentially has a touch of PTSD from it. Things seem to be okay now, but it has reiterated to me that the health of our kids is inestimably important (of course) and pretty much everything else is trivial in varying degrees.

Also, I need a drink. Thanks again for the tequila, Dad!

I put the girls to work

Emma, Lila, and Thea paint the walls

We're painting the old dining room/new office. I briefly considered not painting over the wallpaper, because someone — with better taste than I have — complimented it once. But then as I was staring at it, my eyes started jumping around like I was about to have a seizure. It's pretty, but BUSY.

A Jenny Holzer Truism

Remember Jenny Holzer? I miss '80s art.

(Signbot, via Fussy.)

Lost

Todd got me a great birthday present, though I suspect it was also a present for him since I got us lost on the way to the emergency room when Todd had kidney stones a few months ago. Poor guy, even though he was almost passing out from the pain, he still had to hold it together enough to get us back on the right road. Yikes.

The GPS was my navigator up to New Jersey this weekend. He — the voice is male; I imagine his name is "Tom" and he likes sweaters — was good company, too, though a little pissy. When I would make a wrong turn despite his explicit instructions, you could almost hear him sigh heavily before saying "Recalculating directions," every syllable enunciated crisply like you do when you want to let someone know they're an idiot without having to actually say it.

It's also "Blog for Choice" day

Is it lame that I don't want to blog for choice on my birthday? It's a bummer topic. But an even bigger downer, of course, would be if that choice were taken away by people who don't know me and yet still think they get a vote in my reproduction.

So, I'm pro-choice because I believe in personal freedom and responsibility. I'm pro-choice because I trust women and know that if a woman doesn't want to have a baby, she has very good reasons. I'm pro-choice because a governmental attempt to control women's bodies scares me. And, lastly, I'm pro-choice because I believe that a potential baby is not the same thing as a child, and that it is most definitely not worth more than the life of the woman carrying it.

Okay, now back to the birthday party!

BFF

You say it's your birthday?



It's my birthday, too!

Happy birthday, Heather. I love you! *swak*

You are my sister, and I love you

"You are my sister, and I love you. May all your dreams come true. I want this for you. They're going to come true." (Just to make Jennifer cry. It was an Antony and the Johnsons song I was listening to on the way to New Jersey. If you haven't heard them, do yourself a favor and buy the album now. AMAZING.)


Amy's sister Jennifer, Amy, Heather, and me.

We had a great time this weekend just hanging out, drinking great wine, eating great food. Jennifer, who has two girls, spent the night, too, and was a godsend because then I had someone else to hang out with who tires easily. I adore her, and her older daughter Nikki and Thea are great friends. Nikki says Thea is the sister she SHOULD have had, and Thea completely idolizes Nikki.

While I was in New Jersey, Todd took the kids to the National Building Museum with friends to watch the paper airplane program. Somehow Thea fell into a fountain while Todd was chasing after Liam, but she didn't seem terribly traumatized about it. When I asked her today what her favorite part of the weekend was, she said "cuddling with Don," who dried her off and calmed her down while Sue and Heather B. got her some dry clothes. Then they went over to Heather B.'s for Chinese take-out. All in all, it was a good weekend for everyone. (Except maybe Todd. I love you, baby!)

Almost home

(About 45 more minutes, anyway. I was getting really antsy to see the fam.)

We're the Fakersens

Our birthday-weekend fake tans. (Our birthday is 1/22.) I think I look weird and mannish, but Heather looks great.

Birthday fake tan

In my never-ending search for cool stuff...

Through cribcandy, I found these canvases. For mass-produced art, I think they're quite nice!

Liam is 14 months old today

It's been a month of changes. Liam learned how to give kisses, toast with his sippy cup ("Cheers!"), and say "up" and "down" (though it sounds like "uh" and "duh"). He doesn't say many other words, but he grunts very expressively. He's done with his bottle, and is almost off the pacifier. He's also recently — as in, last night — started to walk more than crawl. He still looks like a chimp when he walks, but he's getting more and more steady.



Side note: When Thea was Liam's age, I was newly pregnant with her brother. Yikes!

Today is art's birthday

Happy birthday, art!

But one day, on the 17th of January to be precise, Art was born. According to Filliou, it happened when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. Modest beginnings, but look at us now.

In celebration, check out this exhibit, Dulce Pinzón's The Real Story of the Superheroes.


GATUBELA (Catwoman)
Minerva Valencia
from Puebla
works as a babysitter in New York
sends home $400 per week


Aquaman
Juventino Rosas
from the State of México
works cleaning fish in New York
sends home $400 per week


SUPERMAN
Noe Reyes
from the State of Puebla
Works as fast-food delivery boy in Brooklyn
sends home $500 per week

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore."

[Sorry for the excessive posting today, but this blows my mind.]

Federal Way schools restrict Gore film
'Inconvenient Truth' called too controversial

By ROBERT McCLURE AND LISA STIFFLER
P-I REPORTERS

Al Gore's documentary about global warming may not be shown unless the teacher also presents an "opposing view."

This week in Federal Way schools, it got a lot more inconvenient to show one of the top-grossing documentaries in U.S. history, the global-warming alert "An Inconvenient Truth."

After a parent who supports the teaching of creationism and opposes sex education complained about the film, the Federal Way School Board on Tuesday placed what it labeled a moratorium on showing the film. The movie consists largely of a computer presentation by former Vice President Al Gore recounting scientists' findings.

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

> Read the whole thing.

AI resumes tonight

Here is one of the many, many reasons I eagerly await the return of American Idol:



SPOILER ALERT: Paula does not fall off her stool. But she does come awfully close. *hic*

Thea's submission to Cute Overload?

(Cuteoverload.com)

Also, happy birthday to my favorite baby-eater

We celebrate the life of Dr. King with airplanes

Rosie and Thea


Dash and Liam (Liam's still pretty cranky and had to be held in place for the two seconds it took me to take the photo. Jeez.)

Alanna overheard someone calling to their son, "Vachel" (rhymes with "Dashiell"). Apparently it's the name of a 19th-century poet or something? I said the name reminded me of "vaginal" for some reason, and Todd pointed out that it was really a more appropriate name for a girl.

Sunday morning warehouse shopping

Like sharks, we must keep moving or die.

(Well, not die, really. But the kids will get antsy and try to escape.)

First part of my extended birthday

Gorgeous flowers and fantastic ribs from two of my favorite people have made for an excellent start to my extended birthday remix, despite plans having to be cancelled due to a throat infection (Liam's), a sick and CRANKY kid, and not enough sleep. I love my friends, I really do.

Next Saturday I go to New Jersey to spend my actual birthday weekend with my actual sister while Todd watches the kids solo. I can't wait! Heather and Amy have a gazillion things planned for us to do. Since I'm usually asleep at grandma hours, I'm going to need some serious caffeinating to keep up with those crazy kids.

I have no idea what this means

I noticed this on the door to the kitchen of my favorite take-out restaurant, Costa Alegre, a couple weeks ago when I took some work friends there for lunch. WTF?

Liam and Thea at a year old, side by side

Akio's polaroids

Akio takes some great photos, and he has a cool collection of polaroid cameras. Here are some pictures he took of the kids. They're some of my favorite photos we have of them. Thea was probably about a year old, maybe just eleven months old. (I wish I had written the date on the photos.) Liam's photos are from his birthday party this past November.

Playdate at Emma's

First kiss

Liam has learned how to smooch. He kissed each of us in turn — me, Daddy, and Thea (who giggled, wiped her mouth, and said, "Ew, he slobbered on me!") — and then refused any more advances. I spent the rest of the night trying unsuccessfully to get one photo of a kiss.



I made a bit of a nuisance of myself, I admit it. But, come on, how could I not want to smother this kid with kisses?

NYE wrap-ups

Molly and Alanna both mention New Year's Eve at my place in their blogs. I was so happy to have been able to spend it with most of my favorite people all under one roof. It's great, too, to read other people's perspectives. Alanna has an almost photographic memory, so she always remembers lots of interesting details that make a clearer big picture. Kind of like pointillism! (Cool, that master's in art history does come in handy.)

Also endlessly amusing, Molly says ours was an afternoon party. I had a sudden shock of, "Wait, that's right! The rest of the world still considers 4 p.m. to be the afternoon, not early evening." Kind of like how 3 a.m. is not late at night anymore — it's too early in the morning — and 8 p.m. does not make a late night to anyone but us. The "with kids" paradigm shift surprises me again and again.

Bath toys

This is Liam's favorite bath toy, a wind-up turtle.



This wind-up fish scares him so much he scoots to the other end of the tub and bats it away with a bath crayon.



The difference? No idea.



[By the way, yes, I realize how foul our bathtub is. The bathroom is next on the list of things to be renovated. It will be completely gutted in about two weeks, and the plan is to put in a new clawfoot tub.]

Thea makes cupcakes

Thea got a baking set for Christmas from Alanna. She loves it, and insisted on making Bob cupcakes when he came over for the traditional black-eyed pea new year's dinner last night. He was supposed to be at the New Year's Eve/birthday party, but missed it because he doesn't have kids and thought it started at the reasonable hour of 7 p.m. instead of ended around then.



She said she felt bad that he missed the party, but I think she just couldn't wait to try out her new bakeware.

Happy New Year!

On New Year's Eve at the stroke of midnight, we ring in the new year by jumping off a chair holding a list of things we want for the coming year, eating twelve grapes as fast as possible, and kissing everyone in the room. Post-kids, our tradition is pretty similar, though we celebrate midnight in Reykjavik (that's 7 p.m. our time, or 7:02 after corralling all the kids there also to celebrate Thea's birthday) and I make the little ones start eating their grapes (choking hazards!) an hour before we jump up and down (no jumping off the furniture!).

But we still hold lists of things we hope for the new year. Here's what I wrote for the kids:



It was just my best guess.