A Post for Great Grandma Fratt (a photo journal)

“This is MY Christmas tree!”

“This is MY ornament!”

“What do you mean, it doesn’t have my name on it?”

“Well, she’s making me one, right? Pretty pretty PRETTY please?”

/end scene

And yes, she really does call that one “my ornament.”

Milestones

We have a pretty little “development” wheel that you can set up to each age (3 months, 6 months, etc) to see what sort of things your child should be able to accomplish at that point. With Vi turning 2 next week, we like to make sure she’s on track.

Under verbal, for a two year old, it said “may be using three word sentences.”

This morning, Vi tried to roll out of bed when we woke her up. She made it halfway, looked at us, and shouted, “My blue blanket is stuck to my PILLOW!!!”

We decided to throw out the wheel. We don’t need it anymore.

A doll, a doll, Vi wants a doll

I’m starting to notice that I’ve begun projecting my own gender hang-ups on my daughter. At nearly two years old, she doesn’t really own a baby doll. Oh, she has stuffed animals, and her Yo Gabba Gabba friends, and she sleeps with Hop on Pop every night. But the closest thing she has to a baby doll is a little plastic faced stuffed thing that looks like a baby, but, for some unexplained reason, has antenna on its head.

She went through a brief period of pretending to feed the bug baby with a spoon, and she kissed it when I asked and pointed to its mouth and eyes when I questioned her. But there’s no real bonding going on. I just assumed she’s not that nurturing yet, and took out more cars and balls to play with.

But I would get notes from daycare about her dancing with scarves and how she loved putting things in her play purse. And she’ll run into the closet and pull out my heels, clomping along the floor. It just never occurred to me that not throwing any “girl” toys in the mix, I’m feeding her jut as many gender stereotypes as I would be if I gave her nothing but Barbies and Princess dress up clothes.

I had many dolls as a kid. There was the doll that could talk when you pressed on her stomach, saying things like “Mommy loves baby” and “I want to play!” I was never strong enough to squeeze it, so instead I stepped on the stomach repeatedly to make it squeal. And there was ShaSha, the love of my life, who had a speaker inside that made her randomly wake up and cry in the middle of the night until my brother eventually stole her voicebox. I adored my dolls, dressing them, putting them in cribs, brushing their hair, making them jump off of bookshelves and other high furniture, and eventually opening them up to see how they were put together and what made them work.

So it’s time. For her birthday, I think I’m ready to get Vi a doll. As long as it doesn’t cry at night.

The games we play…

Now that it’s colder and we have to move all the fun indoors, it turns out it takes a little more to stay entertained than it does when we had a park at our disposal. In order to not get stuck watching too much Elmo in Grouchland or Finding Nemo, we’ve had to get somewhat inventive. “Find the Gabbas” has been a mainstay, with Steve hiding Moono, Foofa and Brobie around the house. It’s taught Vi “hot and cold,” although I don’t think she understands them as actual temperatures, just a “near” and “far” sort of thing.

But her favorite game lately is one I invented, called “Slap Memory.” We bought some small kids games from Target a few months ago, hoping we could introduce her to board games like Candyland or Memory, that don’t involve really needing to read or count. Of course, we forgot that she’s not even two, which means she can’t follow directions, even if she had the patience for such things. Candyland consists mostly of her yelling “NO LICORICE!!!” since something about Lord Licorice frightens her (to be fair, he does have a Snidely Whiplash bent to his moustache).

But Memory! Oh, that’s a good game. Of course, matching up cards takes way too much effort. So, instead, we flip cards, one by one, naming them out loud. “One puppy, one trike, one birthday cake,” and so on and so on. But if it happens that you flip 2 in a row, then you slap your hand on top of them and win the pile. Think Memory meets slapjack. “One pizza, one wagon, one beach ball, two beach balls!” SLAP!

Vi’s an excellent slapper, although a little over-enthusiastic, with much of her pile ending up on the floor. The game goes on and on until she stops giggling every time she sees a match. Needless to say, that can take a LONG time. She’s definitely a giggler.

Definite signs my luck is finally turning around…

I won a coffee sleeve from I want a mini-van, through pure random chance!

Nice!

The “big” secret

Not so much of a secret, I’m finding out…

Me, presenting a session Saturday

First, no, I’m not pregnant. Well, actually, technically, I AM pregnant, since for some reason the hormone isn’t going away at the expected rate. But not pregnant in a good way, just in the tired, cranky way that isn’t relieved by at least getting a baby out of it in the end. I’m waiting to hear back on how often I will need to go in for bloodwork, since I now have to do weekly or semi-weekly draws until my numbers go back down to 0.

But that’s not the secret. The news is that I am actually in the process of leaving my job at the Center for Independent Media, where I have been working for nearly three and a half years. For the last few years I have been working on the operational side of things – working with other progressive groups, doing minor promotions, updating tech and boosting advertising revenue for the sites. I originally began working in ops when were were setting up new sites across the country, but there has been less of that recently, so these other aspects have come more into the forefront.

However, as the non-profit grew, it had the ability to hire more people in DC who could do these things, and my job started becoming redundant. They’ve now hit a point were all ops can be done from inside DC, so I’m wrapping up some advertising projects and will be done in the next few weeks.

Luckily, this also gives me a chance to try something I’ve wanted to do for a while — freelancing. One minor regret of the last few years was that, especially once I was no longer running the Minnesota site, I did a lot less writing. But one group that I had started to work with recently was kind enough to offer me a contract to work with them for a while, doing some writing and editing as well as other tasks.

Yes, it will come as no shock to those of you on twitter or facebook, but I’m signing on with RH Reality Check, a group that writes about reproductive healthcare in a national and global setting. It’s a part time gig, which also allows me to write on all of my other sites (including this one), and try to spend more time on WoMNFocus, too.

I’ll be completely honest — I’m not sure where 2010 is going to lead. I know that the onslaught of changes at the end of 2009 was a rollercoaster: employed, pregnant, not employed, not pregnant, freelancing. But I’m lucky enough to have a wonderful family, a situation that can handle a little uncertainty, and even better, some time to reflect and decide what is and isn’t working in my world and what I want to do next. I missed writing. I missed advocacy. Maybe soon I’ll miss stability, or maybe even miss the corporate world (yikes!). But I’ve been extremely lucky so far, and I’m just going to hope my luck continues.

(Working on being a role model for my little girl. How does it look like I’m doing?)

Gender confusion

Violet was eating mac and cheese with turkey dogs, and chowing down her food.

“I like mac and cheese, daddy,” she says to me.

“I’m momma,” I reminder her.

“I’m Violet,” she tells me, and goes back to eating her dinner.

A bilingual breakfast

Transfixed by the Pocoyo in Spanish

This morning Vi didn’t want to eat, so I put the rice chex on the table to count them. We set out 10, counting each one, then went back and counted them in Spanish.

She set out another chex, so I told her it was “once,” trying to teach her more numbers.

“Once,” she repeated, putting the piece of cereal with the 10 others.

Then she grabbed another cereal piece from the bowl, this one broken in half. “Mama, what’s that?”

“That one is doce,” I said, trying to continue the counting.

“Oh.” She looked at it for a second in her hand. “I wanna eat doce.”

End of lesson.

I have a secret

Of to a meeting, so no time for a real post. But I have a secret I’m hoping to be able to share on Monday, so that’s a teaser, and here’s a cute picture from last week I never managed to post to hold you over for a bit.

Home made pizza dough

Recipe for my home made pizza dough. It’s traditionally a grilled pizza dough, but can be used in a pan as well and put in the oven. Make a nice chewy crust in the over, or a crispy one on the grill. Adapted from Pizza on the Grill: 100 Feisty Fire-Roasted Recipes for Pizza & More

Ingredients:

1 cup lukewarm water
1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup olive oil
1 pkg yeast (or 2 and 1/4 tsp)

1 cup wheat flour
2 cups white flour
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 handful of dried rosemary

cornmeal for dusting

Put cup of warm water in large bowl, add honey and oil, then sprinkle yeast on top and let sit for 15 minutes until bubbly. Mix dry ingredients in by hand (or mixer if you prefer), until solid then dump onto lightly floured surface to knead by hand for 5 minutes. You may need to add a little water or a little flour to reach the right consistency, but this has always been pretty spot on for me.

Once dough is firm and stretchy, oil a medium to large bowl, rotate the dough so it has been covered with oil, and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let sit for one hour or until doubled in size. For me, I have a hard time with the rise in my cold kitchen, and find that if it is sunny, sitting it in the window sill helps a lot.

Once doubled, dump onto a lightly floured surface and divide into two balls. Wrap one up and stick in the freezer to use some other time. Take other ball, and roll out until it is about 1/16th inch thick, which should be the the perfect size for a large baking sheet. Be sure to grease your sheet and dust with cornmeal before placing the dough. Drizzle top with olive oil and put in 450 degree oven for 8 minutes.

Remove pan from over, and flip pizza over. The crust may have bubbled, so either just push down once you have flipped to deflate, or pop them with a knife. Add your toppings and put back in the over at 350 this time for about 10 minutes or until toppings are done.

Note, to make this a grilled pizza, grease your grill lightly and oil the dough then place dough oil side down for 3 minutes with the top down on indirect heat. After 3 minutes, remove dough, oil other side and add toppings, and place again on grill on indirect heat until toppings are done.

Now, so that those who are just here for the baby aren’t bored, a picture of her eating salad while she waits for her pizza to cool.