South Beach

J and I went on the South Beach diet a couple of weeks ago. Pros: I've lost about 14 pounds, mostly due to the diet (I've been exercising fairly diligently, but not enough to lose that much weight); I haven't been all that hungry; the meals are decent. Cons: Food prep is a nightmare. You need to hire a chef to prepare the meals--very elaborate; it's designed for suburbanites with huge fridges, which we're not; the first two weeks mandate V8 or tomato juice for breakfast every morning--both are undrinkable unless you put vodka in them (which we didn't).

I did not give up caffeine, as the diet suggests (it makes you hungry), but I did have a constant low-level headache the first few days. But now I feel a lot better--surprisingly better. I used to have a constantly upset stomach, and that's gone away. Of course, this might be due to lack of stress from not teaching.

This post seems to beg for a before and after picture. Maybe later.

Emily's Canon

Books That She Likes and We Like: Fortunately, a large category. The Snowy Day is a favorite, though right now she seems to prefer Peter's Chair, another book featuring Peter that I don't like nearly as much. Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny (though she wants only to look at the color pictures) also fit here. She loves the Sandra Boynton books, especially But Not the Hippopotamus, though she seems to be slightly less interested in that one right now. The Very Hungry Caterpillar her first favorite book and she still likes it.
Books That She Likes and We Do Not: Alas, a growing category. Elmo's Twelve Days of Christmas is a current favorite; we love Sesame Street, but this book isn't terribly interesting. The Sparkly Princess, which is both dumb and offensive, is also a big favorite (J won't read it without changing the words). Worst of all are the Veggie Tales books; the main problem with them isn't that they're overtly Christian (she has a children's Bible and we attend church) but that they're just poorly written and dull. But not to her, it seems, though she doesn't demand that we read them to her in their entirety; usually flipping a few pages is enough.
Books We Like and She Doesn't: Fortunately, nothing in this category. We haven't tried to force books on her. A little, maybe--I tried Peter Rabbit, one of my childhood favorites, but she wasn't into it and I put it away.

Trip

We went to San Diego over the weekend, but our camera's batteries died, so no photos. We didn't do much; tried to relax. It was chilly down there (as it is up here). Thursday is the big trip to Florida; none of us are looking forward to it so much, but it's hard to complain about Christmas in Florida, especially given the weather in most of the country right now.

We've been watching movies with numbers in the title. Not sequels, but movies with actual numbers mentioned somewhere. We figured it would get us to watch some films we might not see otherwise. So we started with Capricorn One, a classic example of late 70s paranoia: astronauts are supposed to go to Mars, but they don't: instead, it's faked, with the Mars scenes shot in a studio. It stars James Brolin, Sam Waterston, and...O.J. Simpson. Elliot Gould is the journalist who exposes the scam. Not such a good movie, but fun enough.

Back

I'm doing Daddy Day Care until the end of March, so I'm going to be blogging a lot more often, I'm guessing, if only to maintain my sanity. We also plan to take A LOT of classes together, Emily and I.

Since I haven't posted for awhile, I'm including a more recent photo. Today Emily and I spent the afternoon together; we did laundry and went to the playground. She became very interested in standing on manhole covers and got very angry when I made her come home. Oh, and we had brunch with our former French teacher, Christine, who lives in this gorgeous spot on the Mesa. You can see UCSB from a deck they have over the ocean, on a clear day (it's about fifteen miles up the coast). The water was very blue and Emily spent most of her time climbing the stairs.

Good eatin'

Yesterday, at the playground, just after we were remarking to another couple that Emily has not tried to eat sand, J noticed that she had a handful of wood chips in her mouth. A very large mouthful. It took us a while to get them all out; she even continued to chew one on the way home, and we had to extract it with a toothbrush. At least it's solid food--we're still having a hard time there, though she has done better the last couple days. She's even managed to feed herself with a spoon.

She seems to be a lefty, though apparently this doesn't get determined until much later. She throws (very well) left-handed, and uses her left hand (always) for the spoon.

A visit to the doctor

Emily is 22 pounds, and healthy. She got a shot, which she didn't like so much, but when we got home she slept 3 hours and seemed like a much more developed baby when she woke up. She seems on the verge of saying actual words and of walking. I hope these two don't happen at the same time--I see her walking along shouting out demands. We're still having some trouble with the solid food--she insists on trying to feed herself, and she can't, but we figure that she's not going to starve.

I can hear cheerleading camp nearby. It's an annual rite here, and I'm not as annoyed by it as I used to be.

New Developments

Emily has a new toy area, seen above, that she is enjoying very much. Yesterday she spent about half-an-hour there, alone, flipping through her books and talking to her stuffed animals while I had lunch. Her talking is interesting--she points at things and says either "Bah" or "Gee." We're not at all sure what the difference is.