Project, cont.

It's coming along!

In which he earns himself another bath

Smittins is an accomplished ruiner of outfits. Lose your focus for one second and he'll pee an entire change of clothes. Plus the new diaper. And any other dry materials within a 3-foot radius.

Don't let the pudgy sweetness fool you, he's endowed with crafty baby skills. He's laid off this particular trick just long enough to lull me into a false sense of security. I was changing his diaper today and thought to myself 'self, it's sure been a nice long while since I've had to change all of baby's clothes along with his diaper.'

One should not think these things, even in the privacy of one's own head, because baby will employ his super-sensitive Power To Read Minds (the power that lets him know you're about to lay him in his crib, allowing him to snap himself wide awake and start batting himself in the eyeball with renewed vigor) and choose that exact second to whiz all over his pants, socks, onesie, twosie and overshirt. And possibly his own face.

And then he will look you straight in the eye and giggle. Fer realz people.

As punishment, I should have dunked him in the ever-loving mess that is the kids' bathtub. But he got to try out the Bumbo seat and the kitchen sink instead.

The indignity. It can't be that bad, right?

I thought not.

Dragon paws

Definitely the best 99 cents I spent at Gymboree. How much do you want to squeeze his wee fatty legs?

Cake Boss Buddy's got nothin' on me

Violet and Dash have their birthdays 3 weeks apart (don't even ask what I was thinking when we set that up... Dash was supposed to be a summer baby OK?) So in addition to their party with friends, we also make a combined cake to share at a family celebration. I didn't want to tackle a requested Barbie/StarWars/Mermaid/Lego/Princess/Batman/Butterfly masterpiece, so we settled for something that everyone loves equally - Angry Birds.

My drawing skills peaked in about 3rd grade, so I didn't really trust myself to pipe a recognizable angry scene. But I did have lots of leftover white fondant, a rainbow of gel dyes and a spare morning. A friend taught me to sculpt polymer clay a few years ago and fortunately fondant is really similar.

Once I got going, I was really excited. These are simple shapes that came together pretty easily. My one big hangup was Violet sitting at my side requesting more and more pigs and "the red bird mom and you forgot the yellow one and what about the black bomb bird...." So here's our finished collection:

I know right? Totally angry.

To keep me from feeling too awesome, my first-grader sculpted this from the leftover PlayDough that Dash tried to start a house fire with last summer.

We made a red velvet cake with buttercream/raspberry filling and I didn't really want its deliciousness ruined with boring white icing on the outside, so we just set up our angry scene right on a chocolate battlefield.

Dash ate the black bird (pity) but I have the rest of the pieces left over. Now what on earth will I do with them?

2 months

At 2 months, sweet baby Smittens has:
- enough hair for a teeny weeny fauxhawk
- developed adorable elbow dimples
- lovely dark eyelashes coming in
- discovered that his thumb is the most succulent of all the fingers
- a love-hate relationship with Tummy Time
- been trying to roll over
- remianed the most content, darling baby in the entire world

Some people have all the luck

Yesterday I french-braided Violet's hair in pigtails for school.

Today I took them out. Voilà!

Instant perfect waves. They'll stay like this all day. I can't imagine what my hair would do if I tried this. Something not-cool, that's for sure. Something along the lines of this.

Or perhaps this. But, you know, without the intentional style factor.


Also my neck is not 17 feet long. But we can't have everything.