paint chips and easter eggs

thinking of iowa again--this time it is of our old neighbors, joaquin and marta (not their real names) and their oldest kid. even though gus' school was like two blocks away, i usually drove him because a) i was sick and pregnant and b) it was cold. REALLY cold. anyway, when we would pull out of the driveway i would look over at my neighbor's house and far too frequently see their 1-year old standing on the windowsill, pressed up against the glass and gnawing on the wooden frame. it was an odd sight and disconcerting--it was an older house and there is no question they had lead paint on that window. this child and his newborn brother both stayed at home all day with a nanny and, later, a manny, as both of the parents worked, and i told the nanny/manny that i was really concerned about his health...etc. the nanny, who quit not long after i talked to her (because the parents adopted another child and didn't give her a raise), did nothing; the manny was french and saw no reason for alarm. the parents couldn't be bothered--they were both perpetually one failed grant application away from unemployment. i can still see that child hanging there, swinging back and forth from his teeth in the window thinking, like sophie with the candy cane, mmm, sweet...

when we lived in houston this last time, i got so paranoid about whether or not gus had eaten any lead paint when we lived on dunstan that i took him to a harris county health clinic and had him tested--the tester called lead paint chips "ghetto m&ms." isn't that awful? i have no idea where i am going with this story, but now i can stop thinking about it. and, the story is the context for the easter 2006 pictures below:

i love that when we tell gus to get dressed to hunt for easter eggs he chooses this outfit

...chocolate...

...eggs...

...pretty, pretty eggs...

maybe it's the skull on his shirt, but this has such an "alas poor yorick, i knew him [well]" quality.

sophie in orange

this was one of my favorite dresses for sophie, who looks quite fetching in orange. old pictures from august and october 2006:

rich: "i don't know what you are talking about--she's easy to go out to lunch with."


"uh-oh."


"i am the babymaster."


somehow this expression sums up sophie's reaction to her existence for the first few months


sophie: "who are you again?"


further proof that sophie looks good in orange; she was an organic carrot for halloween

the pop-up toadsters

i got yer pop-up toadsters for ya heh heh heh

i so wish i came up with that title on my own--it comes from a wonderful, inventive, intelligent children's book (that is currently gus' most requested) called "behold the bold umbrellaphant." the pop-up toadsters are gus' favorite. i found that book as i was leaving the library and checked it out for him without even looking through it because i loved the cover so much. you really can judge a book by its cover!!! god i am embarassed for myself for saying that. here is the amazon link if anyone is interested:

amazon site

gus also asked, politely, that i remind everyone that his birthday is coming up in a mere 7 weeks...

here are random pictures from last summer in iowa--gus has been talking about iowa a lot recently, and with all the snow and cold weather it kinda seems like we're still there. that and he and sophie never seem to want to wear a coat outside (iowa blood). enjoy!

this is possibly my favorite picture ever from a digital camera


does anyone know what this is? it used to live in our backyard. is it a groundhog? by the way, you can click on any of the pictures to blow them up...so click away!


gus changing lizzie's diaper (note sophie's box in background)


the gusman


rich and gus after a bike ride/run to coldstone ice cream. they used to ride/run this fairly often, which is impressive considering it was about five miles away and gus was doing it on a two-wheeler at 5...brag brag brag (note the little kid looking enviously at gus' camelbak AND how close sophie's car seat is to the edge of the table--bad rich)


gus and a very tired and somewhat defeated-looking rich exhausted by a hard day of wearing sophie (good rich) in gus' old room

where sophie sleeps

sophie is not a great sleeper. part of that is just how she is--i truly believe some kids are just hardwired to sleep better than others--and part of that is her sleeping locales. when she was born, sophie slept in a box. or rather a glorified box that was lined with vinyl. one of my mom's good friends, who sadly died recently, slept in a dresser drawer in her parent's room for quite some time after she was born and became a tremendously successful woman in every sense of the word. so maybe sophie's box built some character. in any event, this is the dispiriting place where sophie used to sleep:




or, more commonly, like this (rich got smart and slept on the couch):




so as a consequence of the box sophie learned to sleep in the car (like most babies), which eliminated the need to put her in the box. however she couldn't avoid it altogether--she spent several weeks in her box on a hotel bed, as we moved when she was 6 weeks old. no pictures of this, because it was just too depressing. anyway, we tried to make up for it with her new room:

"welcome! this is my room!"


"this is my quilt. it has circles."


"this is my mobile. it has circles and a horse."


"my horse is a bit shy today--usually he has more to say."


"teething is harsh but thankfully i have this giant wooden teether."


"out now! tour is over!"

it's blue monday in england, but it's lovely here

happy birthday tracy!


sophie and her pretty godmother

the golden locks

gus has decided he wants long hair. really long hair. i think the last time i cut it was when i was pregnant with sophie:



so the other day when i was randomly taking pictures of him, i caught something interesting in the background: rich looking longingly at gus' golden locks...



and gus seems somewhat pleased by this.

sophie's week

this has been a rough week for/with sophie--she cut her first two teeth within 72 hours of each other and she is not happy.

we have spent most of the week seeing her like this:




when she usually looks like this:




gus did his best to try and distract her:




but gave up and thought it might be best to teach her to watch pbs kids instead:




even sartorial matters didn't seem to distract her:



and rich's attempt to mesmerize her out of the pain just made her concerned (note gus running away):






so now we all must ride this out, and hopefully not overdose her on hyland's homeopathic teething tablets (is it wrong to give a baby percoset?).

two questions for which i have no answer

happy mlk day!

i was going to call this post "¿dónde es la madre de ellos?" as that would fit as well.

two questions: one question alarming--because it has been asked several times--and one not so much, but both are questions that i have no good answer for, and they always seem to pop up (regarding sophie) from younger female native new mexicans. the first one is, why aren't her ears pierced yet? my answer for this, which sounds completely lame, is that it isn't part of my culture (whatever the hell that may be) to pierce an infant's ears. i was nine when i got my first set of piercings and i think if she asks for it anytime after the age of five she can have it.

that isn't the alarming one--the alarming one, which i heard again today, is how old is your granddaughter? once, at kohl's, i even got the two together: "why aren't your granddaughter's ears pierced yet?" in many places, having a child at 38 isn't terribly uncommon--even my mother was a happy surprise to my grandmother at 40. but i live in a place where i am almost twice the age of the average first-time mother. the most incredible story i have ever heard about having children came from one of the movers who moved us in here--he saw sophie (who was then about 9 weeks old) and told me that he just had a son who was about her age. he was a young guy so i asked if it was his first and he and the other movers (his cousin and his uncle) started laughing and said no...it was his seventh. he was 24 years old; he had his first child when he was 13 and his wife was 11. wow. and, as a really weird coincidence, his brother is one of rich's patients at UNM because he lost his eye in a car accident and his orbit can't hold a prosthetic eye properly.

anyway, while that is an extreme example, i really am closer to grandmother age here than not. so, today i thought i'd concentrate my pictures on just how cute my kiddos are and how little they look like their aged mother...(boo-hoo). it's those damned swedish genes--no wonder the vikings were so tenacious.

me smothering gus at school: some, but not too much resemblance.


me and gus in houston whilst enormously pregnant: not much resemblance.


little sophie and me: no resemblance.


side view: nope.


other side view: still nope.


two side profiles: nothing.


maybe when blurry there are some similarities...

open space in the home

i was talking to a friend last night who is building his own home off the grid in the sandia mountains, and he asked what i thought the most important feature of a home should be. that was easy--open space. his response was that everyone wants open space in their homes but once they actually get it they call in a contractor to start closing it up. i told him we have lived in so many claustrophobia-inducing houses that were closed, low-ceilinged, and anything but open that i was fairly sure i wanted open space (he still doubts it, and he's a contractor so maybe he knows something i don't). the worst space we ever lived in was one that we owned (try to guess which one from the pics below), and all this led me to reflect on all the places we have lived since we met, in chronological order, and the fates of those structures:

*no picture*
garage apartment, del monte drive, houston, texas (no longer extant)

*no picture*
apartment, bissonet road, houston, texas (no longer extant)

*no picture*
apartment, carlisle street, dallas, texas (extant, but trust me it was bad)

*no picture*
apartment in quadroplex, bolsover road, houston, texas (no longer extant)



house, carlisle road, albuquerque, new mexico (extant, but note the shotgun spray pattern on the front wall next to the no war sign--that happened while i was at home. and, this picture makes the place look much better than it actually is)


*no picture*
tandem bicycle, 4000+ miles and 4 1/2 months, throughout europe, then many hotel rooms throughout iowa for 3 more months (i think this could be called glorified homelessness)


house, normandy drive, iowa city, iowa (extant yet thoroughly stripped, sanitized and somewhat dehumanized by its current owner)


house, dunstan road, houston, texas (no longer extant)


house, monte vista boulevard, albuquerque, new mexico (extant and totally different now)


house, woolf avenue, iowa city, iowa (extant and quite the same, i'm sure)


house in los ranchos de albuquerque, new mexico (obviously extant...)