Insomniac

I woke up very, very early Saturday morning. It's not the baby's fault. Or the dogs'. Or even Nick's.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.

Yup, that would be my pager going off at 5:30 in the am on a Saturday. After waiting on hold for several minutes, which feels like a slow eternity at that awful hour, I reached the lab. Apparently, a sample drawn the prior afternoon returned with a critically high value, for which the lab is required to contact the physician immediately upon completion of the test.

But it was so very early on a weekend morning. You know when that information would have been helpful? Um, Friday afternoon. I don't think a critical value resulted more than 24 hours later has the same urgency as something done in the hospital done, say oh I dunno, an hour ago. Pretty much, if that critical value hadn't landed him in the ER by then, it wasn't actually that critical.

But that's just tired, cranky Bethie talking.

I am going to bed early as if I could make up for those two lost hours of sleep yesterday. Good night, and good luck. With what, I don't know. But good luck nonetheless.

Battle of the sexes: Picking your battles

I don't remember how this story begins, so I'll just jump right to the good part in the middle. Somehow or another, I ended up challenging Nick to arm wrestling - his left arm versus my whole body. And in case you didn't know, he hurt his left shoulder a couple years ago, so it's his bad side.

I am proud to say that I eventually won. Nick laughed the whole time, and I broke a sweat. But darn it if after three minutes or so I didn't show his left arm who's boss. Alas, my victory was sweet but  quite short, as Nick couldn't let a girl beat him for long. I'll always treasure those 14 seconds.

Googley eyes

Me: Hi, I'm Dr. Scholz. This is your first visit to rheumatology clinic, right?
Patient: Yes, hi. I've been looking forward to meeting you. I searched for you on the internet, but I couldn't find a picture of you. So I didn't know what you'd look like.
Me: (silent, mouth-slightly-open stare) Well, this is me. Alright, tell me what brings you to rheumatology clinic today.

People GOOGLE me now. So weird. Apparently I didn't impress this one because she never came back.

Hangin' with the cool kids

What do you do on Friday night after the long work week? We sit on our couch. Ellison gets particularly happy whenever she has the good fortune to have both Mommy and Daddy as an audience for her baby shenanigans. Observe.

Yes, I know it looks like she's checking him for ticks. I'm pretty sure they're actually watching TV.

She thinks double-fisting her thumbs is pretty entertaining. Too bad for her there's strict enforcement of our "just say no to thumbs" policy around here.

A new endeavor

Many of you were at the baby sprinkle for Kristen Nuckols today. My apologies because if so, you've already seen this. But I'm just so darn proud of my very first fondant-decorated cake.

I promise the top layer looked even in real life. Now I can't take all the credit. Or even half the credit really. I served mostly as Creative Director with a cameo appearance as sous chef for the decorating. Executive Chef Auntie Laurie did all the heavy lifting, ie frosting and covering the cakes. Speaking of heavy lifting, this tiered cake business isn't easy. That thing weighed several pounds. And it took a long time to make. Probably 8 or 10 man hours just for a cake to serve 20. And that's sans piping, sculpting, or really anything fancy. I mean, I used a hairspray lid as my circle cutter. That's a low-budget operation if I ever saw one. Now I know why fancy wedding cakes to serve 200 cost so darn much. I shall stop judging all the over-priced bakeries.
Besides, after a couple more fondant lessons from Chef Auntie Laurie, I won't need the over-priced bakery. I'll be able to make it myself!

A new perspective

It could just be that what I'm about to share with you is funnier because I have a kid now. But I think you'll find this pretty entertaining even if you just know someone with a kid but don't have one yourself. Jen showed me this, and I feel it's my duty to introduce you to... Honest Toddler. It's a blog (and a Twitter feed!) written from the perspective of a toddler. And it is hilarious. I laughed so hard I cried and stopped breathing.

Enjoy and you're welcome.

Bathing beauties

By way of introduction, this photo op came about when we introduced Elle to Mom's swimming pool last weekend. On an unrelated note, I remember joking to someone a few years ago that Nick and I someday would have the palest, blondest children ever and that we would be perfect poster children for the Aryan nation except for me being half-Jewish. Man, was I ever right.

Compensation

As mentioned last week, we went to Mom's house for the holiday weekend. It was lovely. Lots of Grandma time for Ellison and lots of delicious yumminess for the rest of us. A trip to Mom's (or a visit from her to here) always entails lots of dessert. Lots. And it is so, so good. But I'm not as young as I once was, and my body occasionally tells me to eat more vegetables. So tonight, I did.

Yes, Laurie and I made a complete dinner of roasted vegetables. We decided we had to do this while Nick was still away. Laurie quite astutely noted that he would comment how this was much too much vegetable for one plate. And while I am a carnivore at heart, sometimes a girl just needs some sprouts. And broccoli. And carrots. And asparagus. And that is all because that is all we could fit in the oven.

Feast with your eyes.

And lest you think a body snatcher has taken the place of your dearly beloved chocolate loving Bethie, have no fear! We had froyo with chocolate sauce for dessert. :)

Chip off the ol' blocks

I think it's fun to talk about who Elle looks like. Nick isn't nearly so amused by this conversation, so I now turn to you, loyal cyber-readers, for sympathy. I think she's more Nick than me. Others have opined that she has Nick's eyes but is otherwise a little Bethie. Still others have said the exact opposite. What do you think? And I already know that Nick was a more photogenic baby than me, so no need to rub salt in still-open wounds.