I almost posted this to Facebook before deciding it's not for polite company.( A tale of baby poop )

Danny is 2 months old today. We weighed him on the Wii this morning: 14 lbs! And I think he's about 24" long. This child is growing growing growing! I have a big bag of clothes Danny has already outgrown.
He's quite alert now. When Danny is awake he's looking around, fascinated. Unfortunately this means that by the end of the day he's had it and we're starting to get over-tired fussiness.

As a child my favorite thing to do when visiting my Auntie Helen was to play tourist. She lived at the seaside but instead of taking a little plastic bucket and spade to the beach we took the kitchen mop bucket and a trowel. :)

Today I played tourist in my own town. John, Drew's (and by extension my) college roommate is in town for two days. Yesterday I showed him State Street and we sat at the Terrace and watched the lake. Today we went to the zoo, the Veteran's Museum, and the State Historical Society Museum. We had a really good time and it cost us maybe $10 plus lunch and a coffee break.

I was surprised at how much there is to see at the Vilas Zoo. We only saw half of it before we had to leave to meet Drew for lunch. The primate house was really interesting as was the Tropical Rain Forest House. There was this African bird that I swear looked like MC Hammer. It has a black plume that's sort of rectangular that it could puff up on the top of its head.

After dropping our inkjet printer off at the Computer Science department we met Drew for lunch at Ian's Pizza. This is our favorite pizza place in the whole world. Why? Best pizza. They always have several veggie options and lots of really unusual toppings. Drew and John both had a slice of beef taco pizza and a slice of macaroni & cheese pizza. I had spinach & feta and a penne pasta pizza.

I may never go to the Veteran's Museum again but I'm glad I went with John. John was in the Army Reserve and deployed to Iraq in 2003. There was a special exhibit on the current war which gave him lots of artifacts to explain to me. Then we went through the rest of the museum where I saw things that I knew the names of but had no idea what they looked like. All the classic (post-1850) armaments for example, which my guy friends seem to know about instinctively. Now I've seen a Tommy gun, a Winchester rifle, an AK-47, and a claymore mine. It'll help when we're playing more modern role playing games.

At the Historical Society Museum we went to the Odd Wisconsin exhibit. It was a lot of fun but the part that made the biggest impression on us was the very end. After tracing the history of unusual things in the state they showed a kitchen and living room circa 1992. We stood in front of the living room trying to see what videos, Nintendo games, and CDs they had. It looked very very generic and very very familiar. For the record they had a tape of Ghost, and Pac-man, Super Mario Brothers, and Duck Hunt for the Nintendo.

It's been a rough afternoon at Chez Bernat. I was awake and ready to go when Danny woke up at 5:30. But not at 7:30 and barely so at 8:45 when I finally levered myself out of bed. Danny ate and napped nicely until after lunch. Then he started fussing and nothing was going to make this baby happy for long. Hungry? Half the time it's not what he wants. Burpy? Too worn out to burp.  Wet? Yes, and again and again and again. I think he's just hot and overtired.

The funniest time was after one of the handles on the Snappi broke so the diaper wasn't fastened well. I had just changed him and left him lying on the table while I tied the wrap to put him in. I heard a squawk as my baby boy peed on his own head!

Finally I grabbed the pacifier and held it for him so he wouldn't spit it out. This kid has never taken a pacifier before; the only one we have is from the hospital. Most of the time he sucks on our fingers because his own are not satisfying. Well after 2 minutes of sucking the baby was out like a light. When I was ready to sit down I popped it back out to see if he'd wake up and nurse. Nope. Baby's asleep. Good. Maybe he'll wake up happy!

Baby Danny was born at 10:01 this morning after a very fast labor. I woke up to mild contractions at 5:15, my water broke at 6:30 and by 7:30 I was at the hospital. There was a lot of meconium but he has had no trouble from it (it just took a couple of shampoos to wash his hair).

Danny is 8lbs 8.5 oz and 19 inches long and of course an adorable baby. He started nursing like a champ right away and now has the hang of it!

Pictures at Facebook and more to come as soon as Drew comes back to the hospital.

I haven't been doing a lot of the cooking lately, but I did a couple of frivolous things today.

First I made yogurt. After scouring the internet I found the simplest method possible. Heat 4 cups of milk to 180F, drop it back down to just below 120F and stir in 2 Tbsp of yogurt. Pop that in a clean quart canning jar and put it in a small cooler with a companion jar of hot water. It should be ready later this evening. I did this with Sassy Cow milk, which comes from about 10 miles from my house.

This evening I went outside to tell Drew that we're in a tornado watch zone. Not a big deal, since as I was taught, it's the R in Warning that means Run. A watch just means "Clean up the back yard so that the sheets of foam board insulation don't end up down the street". As I was out there I noticed the dandelion greens. I came back in for a bowl and then picked a whole salad spinner full of dandelion greens. Tomorrow night I'll steam them and serve them with lentils and barley. Tasty and easy springtime dinner!

What I should be doing this evening:
1) Packing up Passover dishes and unpacking the regular ones
2) Packing my hospital bag

What I am doing:
Crashing in front of the TV.

I am so tired and crampy that I just have no energy to stand up and do this stuff.

Pixar's next movie is opening Memorial Day weekend. I've seen every Pixar film since  Monsters Inc in the theater, and I'm not a frequent movie goer. So I've just signed up for the email notification for the Tuesday morning parents matinee. I suspect that I'll be seeing Up in a movie theater full of babies.

The new Star Trek movie, on the other hand, we're hoping to get early screening tickets for. And in that case this kiddo better come after his due date so we can see it. :) 

The last couple of weeks Drew and I have been making an effort to have a nice dinner on Friday night. This week we weren't sure what we'd eat, but he asked me to make challah anyway. So Thursday night after dinner I started the challah. My current favorite recipe is the Czernowitzer Challah from A Blessing of Bread. It's very easy to mix up -- no power tools required. Unfortunately it starts with a 2+ hour rise, and it was pushing 8pm when I finally got it going. My Thursday night Facebook status was "Waiting for the challah to rise so I can go to bed". Eventually I gave up and just threw the bowl in the fridge overnight.

Friday morning the dough had risen nicely but I was a little concerned about it over-rising through the day. Neither of us had time to wait for the dough to warm and bake, though, so we went for it. Drew shaped the challah while I was in the shower -- a 4 strand braid that looks complicated but is as easy as a 3 strand. He covered it with a damp tea towel and put it in the booze cellar for the day. When I got home at 5:15 the dough was in nice shape -- not over-risen at all! I put my egg wash on and baked it.

And here's how it turned out!

From Blog photos

From Blog photos

Beautiful, easy, and it fit into my usual schedule! I am a very happy camper.

I know that my zombie-aware friends and my parenting friends don't necessarily overlap, hence the total lack of filters on this thing. Go read: Babywearing During the Zombie Apocalypse. Follow that up with Transporting Small Children During the Zombie Apocalypse. And be prepared to laugh. :)

ETA: Thanks to the folks over at The Babywearer forums who originally linked to these.

I've just made my second batch of laundry soap. The last batch lasted 7 months and I made this one with the remaining ingredients -- how's that for economical? :)
Today's version was inspired by my new copy of The Naturally Clean Home (Karyn Siegel-Maier). Since I have a front-loading washing machine, hard water, and usually wash in cold water, I thought I'd better stick to the gel method commonly available on the internet. So I used the ingredients in the book and the method from the internet. Which ended up going as follows:

Ingredients

• 1 cup grated soap (I use Zote brand -- in the future I'll look for something less scented)
• 1 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup borax
• 10-15 drops essential oil
• A whole lot of water!
• 3-5 gallon container

1. Heat 6 cups of water, then dissolve the grated soap into it.
2. Once dissolved, turn off the heat and add the washing soda and borax, stirring until those are dissolved.
3. Put 4 cups of hot water into your storage container
4. Add the soap mixture to the water and mix.
5. Add another 1 gallon plus 6 cups (that's 22 cups) of cool water to the mixture. Stir to combine.
6. At this point the soap is cool enough to add 10-15 drops of the essential oil of your choice. I used lavender.
7. Let sit 24 hours to gel. Or you could pour it into old laundry bottles and then let it sit to gel.

This stuff is a little sludgy, like thick egg drop soup. I use 1/4 cup of soap per load and put vinegar into the fabric softener cup of my washing machine. It works well for us! I have seen notes that say not to use this formulation for cloth diapers since the soap (rather than detergent) can negatively impact the absorbency of the diapers. So we will just be using this for household laundry once the baby comes.

I just got back from dinner at Harvest. It's Restaurant Week here in Madison and they had a very nice prix fixe menu. I had the butternut squash soup, pasta, and panna cotta. Everything was SO good. Every time a new dish came out I had to stop talking and just focus on the flavors. The sauce on the pasta was amazing and the panna cotta was an orgasm on a plate -- like the best homemade vanilla ice cream only not cold. Even the coffee was really good!

I love that we were able to go to Harvest and eat what we liked. If it weren't Restaurant Week our $25 would buy us an entree. So I'd choose the cheapest thing on the menu, skip the appetizers, and share a dessert. The prix fixe menu gave us the freedom to enjoy our food without worrying about the money.

I'm listening to Talk of the Nation right now and they're polling people about their favorite Christmas specials. Mine are the 1964 Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer and A Muppet Family Christmas. Rudolph has the fabulous details of the elf who wants to be a dentist and the Abominable Snowman who makes sno-cones (who got a cameo in Monsters Inc). The Muppet one is a cross-over of Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and Muppets. The Swedish Chef is in charge of cooking dinner and wants to serve up Big Bird. Priceless.

What's your favorite TV Christmas special and what makes it so special?

 I love love love Listener Request week on Simply Folk. They just played a wonderful parody of On The Road Again called the Midwest Winter Driving Song. A few of the verses:

 Off the road again, looks like I just drove off the road again.
 Hit a patch of ice and I just buried my front end.
 But it won't be long 'till before I'm back on the road again.
 
 Triple A again, looks like I'll have to call Triple A again.
 Send a tow truck and please hurry if you can,
 'Cause I can't wait to get back on the road again.
 
 I'm in the ditch again, son-of-a-gun, I'll have to hitch again.
 I'm in the ditch again, there goes my skiing trip to Michigan.
 I'm in the ditch again.
  
 I'm in your yard again, took the curve too fast, I'm in your yard again.
 Knocked down your mailbox, I think this one makes it ten.
 But it won't be long 'till I'm back on the road again.

I'm listening tonight to see if they play my request, Rolf Harris's Six White Boomers (courtesy of YouTube). It was requested last December and they played it once the CD arrived in March. It's an explanation of how toys must be delivered in Australia where Santa would obviously get heat stroke. :-)

and in French. morganlf posted about OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies last weekend and tonight we watched it. Halfway through, I was emailing my Dad saying "You have GOT to see this movie!". It's a parody of early Bond and it's done really really well.

I was just listening to a radio program about Sesame Street and its associated international programs. A caller talked about showing his kids classic clips from You Tube. The Sesame Street rep said that you can see classic clips in better quality at sesamestreet.org.

Oh, and I got to hear "Rubber Duckie" in Mandarin. That was cool.

I just read this in the NY Times. So so so cool! Google, through Google Trends, is tracking the flu season. They've checked their data against the Centers for Disease Control for the  last 4 flu seasons and found that they're 2 weeks ahead of the CDC. This is apparently just a data processing issue -- Google can collect and process the data much faster because they're not working from the same sources.

"The NSA has threatened me..." and the phone line goes dead.

You can't make this stuff up!  I was listening with just one ear to Kathleen Dunn on Wisconsin Public Radio and she's interviewing James Bramford who writes books about the NSA. She managed to get the guest back and he was able to finish the sentence "threatened me with prosecution after the publication of my first book". But in the meantime I was laughing hysterically.

There is currently a 70 year old man in a dead tree in my yard. In the dark. With a chainsaw.

The good news is that he's a trained tree guy and he's working for over $50/hour. But still I didn't think that this would take all day! I passed him on my way to work and he's still here after dark.

I don't want to think about how much guilt I will feel if he gets injured because he's working after dark.

I decided to make brown rice & lentils for lunch today but then noticed we're really low on brown rice. Right behind the brown rice was a large container of hulled barley. I decided to try cooking it in the rice cooker.

Lentils & Barley
Lunch for 2When everything was done I combined them in our lunch containers, put a splash of red wine vinegar over each, and grated some Parmesan cheese on top. Reheated in the microwave at lunch time it was delicious!