This is Kira Marie, and I approve this message....

Now, to be fair everyone, we did look high and low for a McCain cutout at the state fair, but there was no McCain booth in sight. I can only assume that this is because McCain believes he can win AK with very little investment.

More state fair pictures on the right...

On the 5 month book

So everyone wants to know, where is Kira's five month book? Well, it should be coming...soon. I *just* found the rest of my pictures from the midwest trip -- I was smarter than I thought and moved them to an extra special place on my hard drive. Look for a book out this week or weekend :)

P.S. MissK's sixth month appointment is tomorrow. It's your first and last chance to guess correctly how big she is. Extra brownie points go for correct percentiles for height, weight and head size.

Meme Monday

Anne made me do it....

Apparently someone came up with a list of the one hundred things that you should aspire to eat as an omnivore. There's a lot on this list that I should have eaten but have avoided up to this point. Roadkill of course is one of them (at least as far as I know).

Here’s what I want you to do:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette mmm...kare kare
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe (recently legalized in the US!)
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (hell no!)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

54/100 -- not too bad :)

Hippy dippy baby-food making yuppie momma stuff

So baby's first "real" food is...avocado. Why -- you may ask -- would you feed your daughter a first food that you yourself don't really like? Good question. The responsible answer is that it's chock full of essential ingredients that will help her build a useful brain and sharp eyes. The culinary answer would be that I would like my daughter to have a broader and more refined palate than her parents. The other answer is it's probably the easiest thing to ever make.

The hardest thing is to determine when the avocado is ripe. I think it's when you squeeze it will all five fingers and it's mushy. You crack open the avocado in half and pop out the seed. Then, you get your trusty melon baller out (yes, another use for my mad melon balling skillz), and start scooping. Once it's all out, one must mush the mushy avocado into green goo. The first time, as you can see, I used a mortar and pestle. Simple yet suprisingly ineffective. I now use my good friend the immersion blender which is a godsend (seriously, go get an immersion blender). To save, you just put these guys into ice cube trays (use your mini offset spatula to spread the goo evenly -- you do have a mini offset spatula, right?) and voila - you have made ice cubes of avocado for many months of enjoyment.

All in all, it's a 20 minute job -- 25 minutes if you do two avocados.

Now, what else can I make that's easy -- uh, nutritous -- for baby's next food? I'm thinking peaches because they are in season -- and if there's anything a hippy dippy baby food making yuppie momma knows, it's that you should serve your baby something in season (or grown locally -- but she's not allowed to eat rhubarb yet).

In other news, the university officially granted Frank tenure yesterday. Unlike what I thought, there is no tenure fairy or a secret ritual with cloaked professors chanting in latin. He was recognized in an assembly and shook hands with the powers that be. It's fantastic, and a great accomplishment to be a tenured faculty member, so please give him a hand in your comments.

Speaking of fairies, I was reminded of brownies today. Brownies are not only chocolate treats but girl scouts of course, but they are named after a little fairy who picks up the house. Brownies (the girl scout variety) are supposed to pick up the house secretly for their parents a few times before they are inaugurated into the girl scout collective. It will be nice when MissK is a Brownie and stops hiding Daddy's keys in the morning.

Happy Friday!

Guess who is the boss now?

I guess it's Kira, because the bib won't fit over my big head :)

On Growing up...

So, day care wound up being great. Miss K took about four days to really warm up to the team, but now she's just fine. She has learned a lot of new sounds and "tricks" from daycare -- like whining when she wants something, sticking her thumb in her mouth, etc -- but on the other hand, these are all things she would have learned anyways. I've been really impressed with the day care folks, they seem to really be attentive and seem genuinely concerned about MissK's welfare.

Two fantastic milestones have flown past in the last week -- Kira sits up on her own (as you can see), and she also rolls over on her stomach easily. Because of this, we have stopped swaddling her at night, which brings all sorts of problems. You see, MissK is flipping onto her stomach in the nighttime and does not find it a happy place yet. So, this morning, at 4:55am, Kira woke mommy up for assistance. Yikes, or should I say paraphrasing Avenue Q -- sucks to be mommy.

On the other hand, Daddy got Mommy a cappucino this morning, and mommy got to watch a half hour of Meet the Press. So now the day is good.

However, Miss K has flipped herself over again..MommyTime!

Day Care Day 1 revelation -- Miss K is not sentimental

So, Frank and I dropped off Miss K to day care today. She instantly sat down in a bumbo seat and proceeded to play with new toys while I fumbled around with paperwork. When I got up to say goodbye, all she did was grunt. We'll see how she actually does during the day though -- she can be pretty stubborn.

Suddenly, I'm all by myself. Does it feel good? I'm not sure. It's quiet. I can get a lot more work done with actual focus. On the other hand, it's eerily quiet...the type of quiet I haven't really been in for five months. I'm sure I will get used to it, but it's unnerving to say the least. And of course I worry about her -- what she's doing, whether she's throwing a fit, is she crying, does she miss her mom and dad -- but that's not constructive worrying.

Either way, I will let you know how things go. By the way, new pictures in the five month album -- I know, we should turn another month, but I haven't done a five month snapbook yet :) Maybe with all this extra quiet I can get it done...

We/re BACK!

Sorry for the lack of Blogging. We are back from our various vacations, which Miss K thoroughly enjoyed, as you can see. Pictures of New Mexico are below...