Stop the Carousel, I Want to Get Off

The weather was gorgeous this weekend so we wnt to Glen Echo Park. We have been there before but this time we wanted Mabel to have her first carousel ride - the carousel at Glen Echo is absolutely gorgeous; it's from the early 1900s and has been completely restored. Plus they have live music and dancing in what used to be a bumper car pavillion, and all sorts of yurts (that's right, yurts) where artists teach clases and sell their wares. It's a very funky, cool place. Dylan remembers coming here for art classes when he was in high school.

So, at first Mabel seemed to be into the carousel - we put her on the horse and she immeditately grabbed the shiny pole in front of her to hold on. But as the music started and the horse began moving up and down and the carousel began spinning, she was ... not so into it anymore. She was very brave and tried to hold herself together, but after a minute or two I could feel her little body begin to shake and then she was bawling. But of course you can't get OFF the darn thing until it stops moving, which took a few minutes. But all was not lost - after the horror of the carousel wore off, we got something to eat and Mabel had her first taste of rice pudding. She is officially a fan.

Mmmmmmm ..... corn pudding

I have been wanting to make corn pudding all summer and I finally found a good recipe and some time to make it. I used a Barefoot Contessa recipe so it had an entire stick of butter and a lot more delicious ingredients - and wow, let me tell you, it was some good corn pudding. Unbelieveably, outrageously good corn pudding. I gave Mabel a bite because she was eyeballing me while I was chowing down, and she went nutso for it. Just a little tip from me to you, cleaning up a baby after she's eaten A LOT of corn pudding is rather challenging. Here is Mabel in a corn pudding haze, with a nice sheen of butter coating her little face.

Please Don't Make Me Wear This Ridiculous Hat

Dylan's birthday was last week and I wanted to get a picture of Mabel wearing the same party hat she wore for his birthday last year. Turns out she's not so into the hat anymore - but it's still kinda fun to see how much she's changed.

Car Talk

Mabel has a little plastic walker that also converts into a car. (Hmmmm ... so I guess the car is a convertible?) Anyway, she is very enamored with the car these days. It has a little trunk in the back that opens, and we like to store things in there. Blocks, small toys, pieces of paper; anything a Nugget might need on her long drive across the living room. She hasn't yet mastered forward motion, though, so she scoots herself backward until she gets stuck in a corner or up against the wall, and then waits for us to get her back on course. And if we don't respond fast enough, she simply rolls off and moves on to another activity, like reading that day's newspaper or tormenting the cats. She's got things to do, you understand.

A Nugget and Her Drawer

Mabel loves to be in the kitchen if that's where we are, and as we all know kitchens can be a bit dangerous for kids. Especially if, for example, you keep knives in drawers that are within a certain someone's reach AND you haven't put drawer locks on yet. So we came up with the super clever idea of giving Mabel her own drawer that she can access easily, open and close to her heart's content and is full of Nugget-friendly stuff: wooden spoons, rubber spatulas (very handy for teething - who knew?), boxes of tea bags, etc. You get the picture. Here she is enjoying her drawer, and here she is sizing it up for future use as an alternate nap location. A girl's gotta have options.

Shameful

I'm afraid it's true - sometimes we turn on Sesame Street for Mabel when she's playing in the living room and we want five minutes to read the paper. Go ahead and judge, but so far her brain doesn't seem to be rotting and leaking out her ears.

Just Beachy, Thanks for Asking

Last week Mabel and I went to Annapolis to visit my friend Amy and her daughter Olivia. Amy and I used to work together and we try to hang out once a month or so. This time we all went to Matapeake Beach, on Kent Island just over the Bay Bridge. It was a gorgeous day - mid-80s, no humidity and a light breeze. (This was a nice contrast to the rest of the weekend which was in the 90s and humid and disgusting.) We had a ball at the beach - it was Mabel's first visit and she loved it. Although I had to do a fair amount of hovering to make sure she didn't eat any of the little rocks that were everywhere. I wasn't as concerned with whether she ate the sand, though, and by the end of the day she had a lovely sand moustache + goatee to show for a hard day's work.