Thursday, September 6, 2007

On Babies, Enchanted Ropes and Rats

As of tomorrow, Emily will officially be 4 months old! She'll be almost 18 weeks though, so that's confusing. I never really cared that a month has more than 28 days (except for February, and then only 3/4 of the time) until this whole pregnancy/childrearing thing. For the past year I have been measuring time in weeks instead of months, and that just confuses everyone. If someone tells you they're 27 weeks pregnant, do you know off the top of your head how many months that is? I think that every month should have exactly 4 weeks, and then with the extra days we're left with at the end of the year we can just party for a month. I think there was some society in the past that actually did that, but I can't remember who. Probably because they're not around anymore. I guess that doesn't bode well for my partying idea.

But Emily is doing well, for her 4-month birthday we are getting her...3 shots! Poor baby. I'm not quite as beside myself as I was in the days leading up to her 2 month vaccinations, but I worry because she's so much more aware of her surroundings now. I am anxious to see how much she weighs now though, and to see what the pediatrician thinks about starting her on solid foods. I don't plan to start her until she's 5 months, but all summer I've been making and freezing baby food for her and I'm excited that soon I'll be able to feed it to her and see her reactions to different flavors.

Also I've been playing around with cloth diapers, and it's actually really fun! I know most of you won't believe me, but it can be very addictive (researching diapers, finding good deals on pretty ones to add to your "stash", figuring out which fabrics are the nicest) so that's kind of my hobby now. Being a stay-at-home mom is keeping me super busy, and I don't actually do all that much staying at home.

Last week was Will's birthday, so we went to the new sushi restaurant that is on Carroll Creek on Thursday night, Hinode. It was tasty, but you can tell it just opened. The service was slow and the servers not very knowledgable, plus they don't yet have the rope that will allow them to serve alcohol to their outside diners. That is so weird to me, is it a miraculous enchanted rope that will keep out would-be underage drinkers? Will people who drink too much inside the roped-off area automatically become sober and not bother anyone else once they cross back over the rope? I'll have to ask the mayor the next time I see him.

On Saturday we went to the Lebanese Taverna in Baltimore. It was excellent as always, big thanks to Michelle for introducing us to our new favorite restaurant! After dinner we all walked to Oliver the Wharf Rat (a bar) and actually SAW a wharf rat on the way there! I don't think I've ever seen a wild rat before. We also saw a giant cockroach (the likes of which I HAVE seen before, in our old College Park apartment, yick!), and while we were sitting outside the bar we saw a poor pregnant lady's car break down in the middle of Pratt street. The guy behind her laid on his horn for a minute and a half straight (seriously, it was almost an entire light cycle) and strangely enough, all that honking didn't fix her car. Eventually some chivalrous gentlemen braved the Pratt street traffic to push her over to the side of the road. In the meantime, the gentlemen we were with took a break from gawking at the traffic disaster and went to get more beer. I can't complain though, Will did bring me another diet coke. And they say chivalry is dead.

-Sara