This is a recording we made today of Gabriel talking to himself as he banged away on the open dishwasher door while Matt was doing dishes. At the end of the recording, he grabs the MP3 player out of Patty's hand. If you listen really closely, you can even hear him open his mouth to put the player in. Now that we know we can do this, look forward to more of these fun posts!
Gabriel crawled for the first time today. It was almost more of a belly scoot, because it was on the bed and his knees sank into the mattress a little, but he definitely got from Point A to Point B using hands and knees! He was going for Mommy's In Style magazine. He must like Queen Latifah, who's on the cover. She does look good! Of course, Daddy and Mommy were there with the camera. It's never more than an arm's reach away.
By the way, the bread that we made yesterday is good! It was nice and moist on the inside and had a nice dark crust. The only thing that would make it better maybe - maybe - would be a crispier crust. It didn't fall apart when we cut it, which meant that we could use it for sandwich bread and toast.
We forgot a few things yesterday. First, Jack called Mom and Dad yesterday morning (technically, two days ago but who's counting). He sounded great and said that they'd moved from tents to buildings and he has a bunk bed, or a "rack" as they say. Bunk bed does sound kind of wussy. He said that they had to shoot up a car that was speeding toward the checkpoint, but the guy had just been speeding and hadn't meant any harm. The guy was very grateful to have survived in one piece. Jack's been in a convoy escorting a colonel and is also working in an office. They have a little exchange the size of a small bedroom, so they can buy things. There is a great web service that we've been using to write him letters called Motomail. They supposedly get letters faster that way, because they print them locally and deliver them, but he hasn't gotten any of them yet.
The second thing we forgot yesterday is that we cut Gabriel's hair for the first necessary time. We'd already cut a piece off the back before to save, but this time he needed it. It was growing over his ears. Patty still wants to style it on the top, but there's no hurry for that since it looks good as it already is.
Lastly, we tried virtual babysitting yesterday. Mom K watched Gabriel play on the webcam while Patty tended to the bread for a few seconds in the kitchen. Of course, he was completely safe and secure anyway, but it was pretty funny.
Gabriel ate a new food today - avocados. He didn't turn his nose up at it, but he didn't wolf it down, either. When it comes to fruit, though, he'll still gobble up anything.
Tomorrow, we're going to St. Petersburg. It's going to be so nice to introduce Gabe-Luke to his great-grandparents. We're very excited about the trip. The weather is supposed to be questionable, but since we'll be there until Tuesday, we should be able to get some beach time in. The temperature is supposed to be right around 80°F all weekend. We bought tickets for Tigers vs. Astros in spring training at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, FL. We've always wanted to attend a spring training game, especially one of the Tigers', so this is going to be the perfect way to end our trip on Monday.
We might not be able to blog this weekend, but we'll try. Grandma and Grandpa have WebTV, so we can probably log on to our weblog and write a little. If we don't, we should be back in business on Tuesday.
Today is Nancy's 30th birthday! Happy birthday, Nay!!!
Gabriel invented a really good baby sign today. While he was eating lunch, he kept wrinkling his nose and breathing in and out of his nose really hard. He did that about 3 or 4 times before Patty realized that something was burning on the stove. He was telling her that it smelled bad!
We went to play group happy hour today at the Flemings' house. Gabriel's friends Jake, Zoe, Jonah, Sofia, and new friends named Mackenzie and Allie were there with their parents. We had drinks (wine for Patty and beer for Matt) and the kids played. It was fun.
We got a few more things prepared for the Chipster today: Anjou pears, squash, and zucchini (two different types mixed) - all organic, of course. We keep underestimating how much we need of each type of food and only end up with about 6 servings of each every time we make something. Patty punctured the muffin tin when she was using a knife to pry out the pears - it went right through like the metal wasn't even there. She forgot that Matt sharpened the knives.
We also finally finished making that bread that we've been talking about for a couple of days. It's from a recipe on the Food Network - Alton Brown's recipe, of course. His recipes always turn out really well. We've made the best turkey we've ever had, we've made some killer yellow cake, and we always make our own chocolate syrup, all from his show. He hasn't steered us wrong yet. He's also got a really good web site. But we digress. Anyway, as of press time (ha ha!), the bread is still cooling on the rack and smells fantastic. It's really crusty, and since we had to cut the cooking time by about 10 minutes because it was starting to burn, we're hoping that it's nice and chewy on the inside. We are fanatics about crusty bread.
We found a really good web site today called 8Legged.com. It has a lot of really good cooking information, including some really informative cooking shows given by an animated octopus named Tako. The shows have interesting tidbits of information while you watch, and related links show up - and stay in the corner - from time to time. That way, you can learn more or buy something for the recipe very easily. It's funny, interesting, and educational all at the same time. It's done by one of the writers of Good Eats, Alton Brown's show.
Incidentally, we got started as Good Eats fans back when Patty was up against a scientist from Georgia Tech for a role on the show. Before that, we'd never heard of it. It turns out they asked for a thermodynamics expert when they really wanted a ceramics expert, so they went with the professor. Of course, it was the worst episode ever...
It stormed today in Georgia. It's always spooky to drive through the city after a storm, or any time it's foggy, because the buildings seem to disappear. It looks like the entire city's been wiped out. There is a skyscraper three blocks from us, and when we drive toward it on a foggy day, even from three blocks away, it looks like a ten-story building. It's really neat.
Tonight was tutoring night for Patty, so Gabe got to spend some quality alone time with his daddy. Matt gave him a bath that was not the easiest one in history. As usual, the Chipster wanted to sit forward and play in the basin rather than lie back so Daddy could wash his tummy and legs. When Matt finally got him to lay back, he was rewarded with a shower of his own.
After the bath, Gabriel went exploring, and his daddy found him playing with the stereo. He'd opened the CD tray - he must have wanted to check out the selections. By the time Matt could grab the camera, though, Gabe was halfway across the apartment. Later, he went back to the stereo, turned it on, played a little music from his Dora the Explorer CD, decided he was in a jazzy mood, and switched the CD to his Harry Connick, Jr. disc. We danced to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (why couldn't he have picked one that's easier to spell?!) and then sang The Lonely Goatherd. This time, we got a picture of him playing DJ. Every day, he amazes us with the things he learns to do.
Also amazing was how fast he was walking today. We almost couldn't keep track of him, because he was almost running in his walker. He's getting really good at turning around in small spaces, too.
We've been through this before - don't look if you don't want to know what happened!
This is your last warning...
We really like Rob and Amber. We don't want them to win another million, but second place would be fine. They are not mean-spirited at all and seem to be genuinely excited about their successes in the game. They really are playing it well. We get the impression that the other teams are a little jealous of their cleverness and are using their celebrity as an excuse to hate them.
Ray and Deana are this season's Jonathan and Victoria. We might even hate Ray more than Jonathan because he seems sneakier. At least with Jonathan, you knew to dismiss him as a moron right away. Ray keeps harping on Gretchen and Meredith and saying that they are too old to be there. He's no spring chicken himself, not that you could tell his real age under that over-tanned leatherface of his.
Gretchen and Meredith continued to do well, even though they'll probably be the next to go. They fell for Ray and Deana's trick when they followed them in the boats away from the clue, but luckily they weren't the ones eliminated. It would be nice to see them outlast Ray and Deana.
The brothers weren't really in this episode very much, except for the Gaucho task, where the one brother (whichever, they're interchangeable) did an awesome job with the horse.
Joyce was a champ with the horse. She got thrown off twice and still got back on and finished! She definitely won points with us this week.
Ron and Kelly were almost a non-presence this week. We were not surprised to see the southerner Kelly riding a horse.
Alex and Lynn are getting a little too snitty to be funny. They're doing well, and even though the engine on their boat broke, they still finished quickly.
Susan didn't deserve to lose, but Patrick sure did. He's been whining the entire time and didn't seem to want to play the game at all. As hard as she tried, he was a total anchor.
Next week's prediction: Gretchen and Meredith come in last in a non-elimination round.
Gabriel was a pill today - he was sleepy and clingy much of the day but had a really hard time falling asleep. We thought that babies are supposed to learn to fall asleep, but it's been 8 months of trying everything under the sun, and he's still crying himself to sleep. We've tried rocking him to sleep, and he isn't interested in falling asleep in our arms. We usually let him cry it out, but he isn't getting better with time. We've tried sitting in the room with him, leaving the room, putting on a fan, turning off the fan... he just hates going to sleep. But he does everything else well and makes us so proud that we really can't complain too much.
There is something interesting about the picture above that we didn't notice at first. Gabriel is pushing a button on the train with the middle finger of his left hand. This is remarkable because he'd just picked up the train and wasn't even looking at it, yet he knew exactly where to touch it to play a song. The place where he is pushing is actually designed so that if he puts a certain type of block on there (which he doesn't do yet), the thing inside the block will spin around. He's figured out that if he just pushes on it, it will vibrate against his finger while the song plays. That was one of the first things he learned about cause and effect, maybe the first, months ago. By the way, is this an indication that he's left-handed like his mommy and daddy?
The highlight of Gabriel's day was when we read him his new book - Barnyard Boogie, which he got in the mail from Great-Grandma Angle today. He loved the book right away, and we both had fun making voices for all of the animals. Part of the book is actually a puppet mouth that sticks through the middle of the pages. We have to hide our face behind the book when we're reading so Chip will look at the puppet mouth and not our mouth.
We discovered yesterday in the car that Gabriel is a fan of punk music. "I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones came on the radio, and he loved it. We downloaded it for him today along with some Rancid (one song is a killer version of the Bob Marley and the Wailers song "No Woman, No Cry") and The Sex Pistols. Maybe we won't tell him the names of the bands, now that we think of it...
We went to Whole Foods today to stock up on organic food for the Chipster. He's down to a couple veggies and needed some variety. We got corn, peas, avocado, green beans, zucchini, squash, and pears. We ran into Kathleen, Patty's former boss, in the produce section and got a chance to catch up. The man working in that same section, Norm, told us that we needed to try kohlrabi and threw a bunch in a bag for us, wrote "Comp" on it, and told us that we could have it. It's supposedly a member of the turnip family but tastes sweeter than a turnip. We can't wait to try it; we need to branch out with our veggies.
Speaking of food, Patty has been obsessed with popovers lately and made two batches yesterday and one today. She's eating them almost as fast as they can come out of the oven, but she's been saving a few for Matt. The recipe is super easy: whisk together a cup of milk and 2 eggs, whisk in a cup of all-purpose flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt that have been previously combined, and bake in a greased muffin tin for 20 minutes at 450°. Lower the heat to 375° and bake until crispy and golden on the outside, about 10-20 minutes. It takes literally two minutes to prepare. Oh, here's a tip that makes it even easier: throw the muffin tin in the oven while combining the ingredients, and then put a little dab of butter in each tin and rub around to grease. The butter will instantly melt and will be easy to get in the corners, rather than trying to force a solid piece of butter to go where you want it.
We got some bread flour at Whole Foods today, so we're going to try to make our own bread. If it goes well, we'll never have to buy bread again - and at the rate we go through bread, that's a good thing!
