Nap interrupted.

She’s up and at’em that’s for sure.

The good news is that Miss Lolo has accomplished another motor milestone. She is standing up in her crib all by herself (which caused me to rush out to IKEA to purchase the crib rail bite guards so she doen’t start getting splinters in her gums).

She’s crawling a little bit here and there. She has the ability, just not the desire. She would much rather spend her energy pulling up on anything she can get her little rice cake-smeared fingers on.

The not-so-great news for me is that any time she wakes up slightly, she wants to practice her new tricks. So, instead of sleeping, she is cruising around the bed.

Jabber

Jabber talk … Sorry, I don’t know how to rotate the video in GoLive.
Notice how she is momentarily mesmerized by the stripes and thus stops talking for a bit.

What better way to celebrate a Barclays buyout?

Hoo-ray for the Brits.

What better way to celebrate a Barclays buyout than to follow Matt to work and have lunch in the city.

Train into Penn Station …

Lolo loves the Beco!

Who doesn’t love to talk commodities before lunch? Although, the Brits really need to address the lighting. The fluorescent bulbs do nothing for Lolo’s complexion.

Lolo is bullish on coal!

There is nothing this girl likes more than eating at a restaurant. She gets so excited when we eat out!

We’d like to send a shout-out to all the peeps in metals and mining! Peace to Dana, B., Kelly and Chris!

This is the only way to liven up Cubicle Land.

And, what is a trip into the big city without a stop by Rockefeller Center?

She owns this city. Do you know how many people stopped to admire all that is Lolo? So many that it impeded my travels to the nearest Starbucks!

I was happy with the way I handled the bambino in the city. It’s been a while, so it was invigorating to know I still had it. Although, this short trip did make me miss the ciy. Yes, you read that correctly. I miss New York!

How many more teeth does she need?

With eight teeth already, I wasn’t expecting any additional chiclets for a while. But, apparently she’s destined for a full set before turning one. That’s right, it looks like Lolo is getting a molar. On Tuesday, she enjoyed a 103° fever, which I thought would be followed by some sort of sickness. But, she showed no signs of discomfort until Wednesday night when she started gnawing on anything in sight and only calmed down with the “one-two punch” of Baby Orajel and Tylenol.

This is what an fever looks like on Lolo …

She's not phased by a burning fever!

This is the morning after cutting a molar … well, it hasn’t peeked through the gums yet, but I feel the bump.

Good times!

When in doubt

In times of stress, we go to restaurants and bars.

Here is Lolo’s first sushi lunch! She’s not up for her own California Roll quite yet, so she stuck with her favorite plum, brown rice and banana concoction.

Lunch out with our friends Stella and Anne.

And, then we took Papa to our town’s Irish pub/restaurant. It’s a completely family style place that has as many highchairs as they do regular chairs.

Who doesn't bring their own organic bananas to the pub? And, by the way, I'm not singing in this shot. I was talking when Matt snapped the picture. Honest.

Not-so-subtle transition

From the well-being of our family to a toothbrush. That’s me.

I just found the best baby toothbrush, and for some reason, I want to sing about it to the world even amidst the rumble over Matt’s job. This is either my optimism rearing its head or a prime example of my ability to block out unpleasant things. More likely, it is just additional evidence of my unhealthy obsession with baby  products.

I have never officially endorsed a product. If you know me, you know the items I live and stand by. But, I just felt the need to share the love on this one. It’s the Raz-A-Dazzle Toothbrush made by RazBaby.

Dazzle indeed.

It’s a tiny toothbrush made of silicone, so it’s BPA-free, and it offers the added benefit of super gentle silicone bristles. I find that typical toothbrush bristles, no matter how soft, are just too harsh for tiny chiclet teeth. What’s more, it’s equipped with a little, round shield so the head of the brush can only go so far into their mouths.

Better yet, it’s super cheap. I found it for $1.79 online and ordered six. I wasn’t surprised that I loved Razbaby’s toothbrush because I am also a fan of their fantabulous teether’s.

It finally hit.

It finally hit me today. After all these months. The fear, the worry over the economy and how it will directly affect our family. You know what did it? Several friends e-mailed today to inquire about Matt’s job on Wall Street. And, then I checked the top stories on Yahoo! which led me down a path of disastrous headlines, and inside I said, “Oh no.”

If other people are worried for me, then I need to hop to it and add to the worry fire. I haven’t been oblivious by any means, I just haven’t bought into the hysteria. We are certainly cautious with our money, but we haven’t stopped buying Honey Bunches of Oats in favor of the 4 lb. bag of generic cereal quite yet.

Up until now, my deep well of optimism has allowed me to just keep trucking, which is easier for me to do as my day consists of burp cloths and jars of sweet potato mush. I’m not exactly on the pulse of news and business anymore now that I work at home with a baby.

As soon as I started nervously folding laundry at 8:30 at night, I knew that I was finally affected.

Now, I’m bummed. I had this rosy blog post brewing in my head as I took a long walk with Lolo in a park overlooking Manhattan. In the distance I could see the Brooklyn Bridge and I thought to myself, that I have never made such a major move and felt so far from where I used to live, yet still been able to see the old neighborhood from the new one.

Crab walkin’

Lolo is intent on trying to stand and walk. She gets up on all fours and immediately straightens those legs just hoping her torso will rise up on its own. She’s simply perplexed by the fact that her hands remain on the floor.

It’s obvious that she doesn’t want to waste her energy creeping forward on the floor when she can skip that step and go upright. It will definitely take some time but she isn’t deterred.

Spic and span

I used to clean on weekends and that would be that. It would be clean. In all my years of living on my own, this system has worked. Sure, slowly (or rapidly) over the week, the apartment would go downhill, but there was always Saturday to bring it back together. (Matt will want me to clarify. When I say clean, I mean to wipe down, disinfect or rid of dust bunnies. I don’t necessarily mean to put all of my shoes away. My sneakers, flip flops and socks may be in the living room, but dammit, the floor is gleaming and smells minty fresh.)

Now cleaning is a constant and only puts a bandaid on the flood of crumbs, dog hair, and crap that seems to gush through this house. I’m not sure if it’s because there are now three stories to take care of or if it’s because I have to worry about a little baby crab ingesting something like a torn piece of a Talbots catalog (mailed to the previous owner, I swear).

I can “clean” for 2 hours with every single vacuum attachment, 100 sanitizing wipes, swiffers, brooms, etc, but suddenly in one 15 minute session of Lolo care, it looks like disaster again. There are bowls, mugs and spoons in the sink, 3 abandoned bottles laying on their sides in the living room, crushed “Oatios” on the kitchen floor, and toys, toys, toys everywhere. I won’t even mention the unfolded laundry that seems to be the backdrop of my life.

I’m just not used to the act of cleaning being synonymous with breathing. It’s all the time. I’ve never had to mop the kitchen floor on a Tuesday night before. Suddenly I see why all the commercials for cleaning products are marketed exclusively to women. If a dad/man ever enters the scene, it’s only to point out that they have no idea what they’re doing and really, the mom will take care of it with her superior knowledge of mops and paper towels. What’s odd though is that all the cleaning mascots (Brawny paper towel lumberjack, Mr. Clean, etc.) are men. I don’t necessarily need a fictional male character to help me get the job done, but I wouldn’t mind a little help from a cleaning genie, man or woman.

It’s not pink, it’s “drama violet”

Our Labor Day was indeed filled with, well, labor.

I said I would never do it again, and I meant it, until now I guess. The promise to never paint a room myself again has lasted for many years and many abodes. But, for my daughter, I picked up the blasted paint roller again. The last time Matt and I painted together was in Richmond when we decided that our kitchen walls needed to be orange and our kitchen cabinets needed to be blue. It was great until we moved out and had to paint it all over again to bring it back to white. And, did I mention that we had two blue bathrooms to paint over as well? Good times.

In order to make this large undertaking possible, my parents made the trek from good old VA to take care of the beanie while Matt and I overhauled the nursery. It’s been a task hanging over our heads since we moved in. The yellow hue the room came with had to go in order for us to give Lolo the kickin’ decor she deserves.

I’ve known all along that I wanted her room to incorporate some purple and green in avoidance of “the pink”. But, the hunt for fabric that would include those colors for her curtains has been problematic to say the least. Who knew? I’ve been going back and forth with the fabric for weeks and wanted to have the perfect swatch in hand before picking the wall color. But, at the last minute we chose a wildcard fabric and just went with the wall color that would seemingly make the pattern pop the most, and that would be “drama violet”.

We hit up Sherwin Williams for some Zero VOC paint and got to work.

My mom preps the walls.

Yes, I have chosen to paint in old pajamas that do not match and then go a step further by documenting it with a photo. Do you see anything wrong with that?

It took more than 12 hours in total, but we got it done in one day and even managed to paint the closet an awesome contrasting color (Matt’s idea!!).

I will post pictures of the finished room when I have a chance to take some shots.

I didn’t have time because we had to prep last minute for our roof to be torn off! Yes, after recuperating from the paint job, guess who gave us a call Monday night? The roofers that’s who!

When they said they would be ready to redo our roof this week, it turns out that they meant they would be at our house with 10 men on Tuesday morning at 7 am. They actually arrived at 6:55 and had the whole house tarped by 7:10. So much for trying to be out of the house for the morning.

I was really worried about Chloe being able to sleep through the noise but guess what, I apparently produced a miracle baby. She is currently sleeping as they tear, rip, saw and nail wooden materials on our house. Don’t ask me, man. It boggles my mind. I can only attribute this talent to her noise insensitivity training in Brooklyn.

It's pandemonium outside.

Oh, and, by the by, this is also the day the painters were scheduled to come and remove our back door so it could be stripped and painted offsite. No door with plastic sheeting covering the hole is nothing compared to our house feeling a construction war zone.