Weekday Farmers Market
In order to wear her the heck out so I can get some work done, take advantage of The Little Empress’ school vacation, I’m trying to fill the days with fun, low-cost outings to pass the time. One of the outings I decided on was to hit up the Concord Farmers Market in Todos Santos Plaza.
I try to hit up a Farmer’s Market or farmer’s stand at least every week or so, to take advantage of the fresh produce we have in this area. There are at least three Farmers Markets within ten miles of us and a countless number of family owned farm stands. (Antioch may be maligned for being way the hell out in nowhere land but it does have its advantages.) The Concord Farmer’s Market isn’t one of the close by Farmers Markets but it is my current favorite due to its location. Todos Santos is a beautiful city square with a park, kids play area and is surrounded by a good selection of shops. These shops include Half Price Books and Peet’s Coffee which is damn near my version of heaven already. Adding a twice weekly Farmers Market on top of it is just icing on the cake! The location is full of mature trees for shade so after meandering through the Farmers Market, you can sit on the grass and let your kid play while you enjoy some fresh produce and whatever hot food happens to be at the market that day.
The Little Empress and I wandered through Half Price Books for a bit before hitting up the Farmers Market. While I’m not nearly as much of a bibliophile as other folks I know, book stores and libraries seriously make me happy and I can stay there for hours. TLE is still a bit young and got restless and I was getting hungry so I decided to head out to find something to eat. There were a bunch of great hot food stalls to choose from, including Argentine Empanadas, tamales, wood fired pizza, gourmet hot dogs… yummy. I decided on a gyro which I thought TLE would like but she didn’t. Alas, no photo of the gyro as it disappeared into my gaping maw way too quickly. It was delicious.
We relaxed on the grass for a bit. Next week, I’ll have to remember to bring a good blanket to sit on as well as a ball for TLE to kick around. I’d thought that she would have wanted to play on the play structure but she was (surprisingly) uninterested. (Lucky for me. The play structure is meant for kids 5+ rather than the toddler set. That usually doesn’t stop TLE who is a total daredevil.) Instead, she entertained herself by watching other kids and running around on the grass near me.
TLE dancing on the grass
Soon enough, she tired of the grass and signed frantically for “apples” which is her way of asking for fruit. It took some convincing to get her back in her stroller. I normally don’t take a stroller anywhere but Farmers Markets are SO much easier to navigate with a stroller rather than carrying her on my back while carrying groceries. (Plus, have you ever had a toddler eating a plum while in a back carry? I personally find the sensation of dripping plum juice down my neck to be decidedly NOT PLEASANT.)
We wandered up and down the aisles of the Farmers Market, looking at all the yummy and delicious fruits. I like to make at least one round of the offerings, to see what’s being offered at what prices. Summer farmer’s markets are always the best, full of stone fruit, delicious berries and awesome vegetables. Plus, fully circumventing the farmers market means I get to pilfer samples from everyone. BWAHAHA. (These samples kept TLE satisfied for quite awhile!)
Free samples? YES PLEASE.
I saw some really lovely tomatoes and a bunch of Asian herbs that I desperately wanted but knew I had no time to really enjoy properly this week so I passed. Seriously, check out these tomatoes!! The heirlooms next to the Early Girls were even more gorgeous but I didn’t get a really good shot of those.
Tomatoes... gorgeous, aren't they?!
After my first round, I stopped at a vendor to pick up a few pounds of naturally sweet, stone fruit goodness. TLE was very happy to get her chance to dig in to a sweet-tart pluot.
Yummy pluot!
Nomilicious indeed!
Study: More U.S. girls starting puberty early – CNN.com
Study: More U.S. girls starting puberty early – CNN.com.
The study just confirms what anyone with eyes can see: kids are growing up too fast. Literally. This has always worried me, especially in regards to when The Little Empress will start puberty. I hit puberty around 11 years old and got my period at 12. The idea of a child hitting puberty at 7… I can’t even fathom how a child of that age can even begin to process the changes.
Even though her pre-teen years are still far, far away, they’ll be here before we know it. I just hope that she’ll be able to enjoy being a little girl for as long as possible.
Progress Report: Months 3 and 4
TLE feeding her baby
I didn’t get much of a chance to write about The Little Empress and her school so now that I’ve got a moment, I figure I may as well talk about that. During her third month of school, I had a few meetings with her teachers and program coordinators to discuss her developmental goals. It seems that she will be in the program until she ages out at 3 years old which is fine by me since she is making so much progress. She also had a home visit that went horribly. TLE is notoriously bad with transitions and the arrival of her teachers (who belong IN SCHOOL in her toddler world) showing up on her doorstep, was too much for her to take. She melted down into a tantrum that lasted over an hour. The upside was that her therapist and teacher got to witness first hand the behavior issues I’d talked about during her evaluation. They took some notes and talked to her OT. Later, her OT and I had a meeting of our own and developed a sensory diet for TLE which, so far, has helped a lot. She still has melt downs but the severity has decreased as has the length of her tantrums. (THANK GOD!! One hour tantrums nearly every day are not for the faint of heart.)
She had a mini-language explosion around the end of June and beginning of July. She went from having only a few sounds to suddenly she began mimicking words on a frequent basis — it surprised us as well as her teachers! The mini-explosion has continued through till August. She seems to be adding new words to her vocabulary every day. I don’t think she has more than 100 yet but she’s getting there! She’s begun to show that she likes animals, a lot. She seems to especially love monkeys! She still can’t say the word “monkey” but she’ll make the sign for “monkey” and make monkey sounds.
Two absolutely huge things that she’s done lately: Within the last month, she actually said her name!!! She won’t say it all the time if you ask her, “What’s your name?” but she has been able to say it once or twice when asked. AWESOME!!! Within the last week, she’s been using the word “me” and “mine”, something she hasn’t done before. I”m so happy that her language is improving so much! The upside is that now that she has more of a vocabulary, she seems to be far less irritable and less easily frustrated since we can better understand her.
I think one of the craziest things about her speech issues is the fact that she seems like she’s trying to say sentences. I’ve heard her say four word sentences like “Where did it go?” but this is rare. It is almost like she wants to run before she can walk. Another funny thing is that she doesn’t have a word for “yes”. She has plenty of ways to say “no” but “yes” is not a word she says. Her nod is absolutely adorable, though. Instead of just nodding her head, she has this funny tendency to nod with her whole body. It is pretty adorable.
Socially, she’s a little butterfly. She is the class hugger as she seems to like to hug just about everyone. She still especially loves her friend Mauricio — and will occasionally ask about him at home saying, “Muh-muh-muh” with this adorable little half smile — and loves to hug her teachers, too. I was a bit worried when she first started school as she had seemed aloof and disinterested in other kids her age when I’d taken her to playgroups but it doesn’t seem like she’s this way with her classmates at all.
At home, she’s started to do a lot more pretend play with her dolls and toys in the last month or so. In the photo above, she’s playing with her baby doll. She happily rocked, nursed and cuddled her “baby” and even put her in her booster seat so she could feed her while she was eating her dinner! She never did this before so I was pretty amazed to see how loving she was to her little “baby”. She also seems to love Pixar movies. She loves all animated movies but Pixar’s Up and Monsters Inc. seem to be her favorites right now and she will constantly ask to watch these two movies over. and over. and over again. She likes pointing out the characters and telling me if they’re “happy” or “sad”. Sometimes, when she’s watching a TV show, she’ll turn to me and say, “Help, help!” if the character on screen seems like they need help or are sad. She gets very into her shows now!!
Of course, she’s on vacation for most of the month of August. Yikes! Nearly three weeks of her at home every day… I almost don’t know what to do! Luckily, the OT and the OT intern at school provided the families with lots of fun activity ideas. I hope I can keep up with her!
The Ultimate in Geek Love
With this ring, I thee weird: 11 wacky weddings.
I especially love the comic themed wedding, with the bride dressed as Wonder Woman and the groom dressed as Batman. (For the record, I’m a HUGE Bats/WW shipper which makes this even more awesome!!)
Superman to the rescue!!
First Superman Comic Saves Family’s Home – ABC News.
Stories like this warm my heart but it saddens me how many families are facing foreclosure everyday. If only everyone had a happy ending like this family…
Working at Home 101 – Job Search
On my local parenting mailing list, someone recently asked about work from home opportunities and it got me thinking about when I first started researching working at home on my own. Working at home is something a lot of stay at home parents aspire to do. Unfortunately it is also something that a lot of jerkoffs like to screw people over on so I wanted to write up some of the things I’d learned over the past two years to help other folks NOT waste their time/money/hope on work at home venture.
This is the first of a weekly series on working at home. I’m hoping that my work at home misadventures and experience will eventually be of use/value to someone.
Work at Home 101 – The Job Search
Here’s the ugly truth about the work at home job market: most of the so-called work at home “jobs” you’ll find online are scams. Plain and simple. There are plenty of unscrupulous people and companies out there that are out to screw you out of your hard earned money. They know how badly most stay at home parents want to contribute to their household expenses and will do/say/promise “jobs” that are just scams to get money out of honest people.
How to avoid scams and more advice on finding a legitimate work at home job after the jump….
Freecycle Fail
I’d like to preface this entry by reminding the world at large how much I love Freecycle. I mean, I totally less than 3 (<3) it, j0. I’ve gotten many a wonderful thing from Freecycle including books, clothes and darn near all of The Little Empress’ big a$$ plastic toys that I couldn’t have otherwise afforded in this lifetime. (Did I mention I got a fantastic Step 2 climber for free a few weeks ago? No? How about the sizable addition to my graphic novel library just about a week ago? Didn’t mention that either? Well, let me brag now, then. Okay, I’m done.)
But my love of Freecycle is sometimes trumped by my headdesking of Freecycle. I love the concept of Freecycle, keeping things out of landfills and what not, but I think too many people use it as a place to shamelessly beg for stuff. It is one thing to score something because someone is throwing it out; it is another to straight out BEG for something. And I know times are tough but somehow, begging for an iPod because “I really need an iPod with my lifestyle” doesn’t count. (I love my iPod too but no one needs one. Sheesh.)
But whatever, if the mods let it through, eh, at least I got something to snark at. (My life is filled with simple pleasures these days. When you’re broke, you entertain yourself with what you can, right? Right.)
What I don’t appreciate are emails in my inbox like this one I got recently after posting some stuff up for offer. (I always try to offer something in return for either asking or receiving something else. Remember folks, give a little, get a little.)
im due august 18th with a baby girl i have barely any clothes for her because my first doctor said i was having a boy so i spent all my money on boy things do u have any newborn to 3 months clothes socks bibs hats mittens anything that u dont need?
I sat there with my mouth gaping open for a few minutes. My mind was filled with things to retort with.
From the nice…
Babies just warm clothes, a place to sleep and a safe car seat. Your baby girl won’t care that her onesie is blue so long as Mommy loves her.
To the not so nice…
Baby girls can wear boy clothes, too. Or are you afraid it’ll make her a lesbian? (If so, what’s wrong with that?!)
To the flat out snarky…
I’m sorry, but can you repeat your request in English? I don’t speak Dumb*ss.
For the record, I emailed her back asking her to send requests like that to the Freecycle list and not to individual people’s emails, warning her that I would also report her to the mods. She hasn’t posted since.
Gee. I wonder why.
Anyhow, all of this was inspired by finding this gem of a site: FailCycle. A must-read for any Freecycle fanatic who has rolled their eyes at some of the posts that come through their local Freecycle lists. It looks like they haven’t updated in awhile but it is still amusing as heck.
Gift of Flowers
Flowers from The Little Empress
I confess that I’ve never been much of a flower person. I mean, I like flowers but I don’t grow flowers in my garden — my poor garden is a blog entry in and of itself…. — and I don’t have any flowers (or any plants for that matter) in the house. This has never been a conscious thing for me. It’s just, well, I’ve never really thought about flowers all that much except in the obligatory romantic sense.
Thank God I have The Little Empress to remind me that a simple gift like freshly picked flowers can be a real joy. She loves flowers and constantly points out flowers whenever she seems them, signing and saying “fwah-fwah” which is her word for “flowers”. On a recent trip to my parents’ house, my mom took The Little Empress outside where she picked some “fwah-fwah”. She happily rushed right back, absolutely brimming with pride and give me the flowers she had picked. Sadly, I was absolutely exhausted and napping so I did not wake up.
Later, my mom and my sister told me about how TLE tried to give me the flowers. I just about cried. I called TLE over to me, hoping that I hadn’t hurt her feelings by not waking up when she first wanted to show me the flowers. Luckily, I didn’t. She was so happy to show me the ‘fwah-fwah’, proudly proclaiming the big bunch of flowers “mama” and the littler bunch of flowers “baby”. (So. damn. cute!)
As I’ve gotten older and more cynical, I’ve tended to look view gifts as something more obligatory than heartfelt. This tiny, heartfelt gift from my 2 year old daughter this really touched me and reminded me that despite my own cynical point of view, life (and childhood) can be such a beautiful thing.
Less than cooperative
Not posing for you, Mommy.
This photo was taken by my point and shoot. I haven’t had made the opportunity to use my dSLR in a long, long time. That makes me sad.
It also makes me sad that it has been quite awhile since I’ve gotten a photo of The Little Empress that I’ve been happy with. I’m not happy with this photo but right now, I’ll take what I can get. Always on the move, TLE has made it quite clear to me that she’s no longer willing to sit still, even for a moment. The second that the camera comes out, she whips about and if I’m lucky, I’ll catch her tail end.
She’s only standing still in this photo because I had the foresight to load a digital copy of Monsters, Inc. (her current favorite movie) on my iPhone. It kept her still for perhaps half a second. Unfortunately, it also gave her a great excuse to avoid the camera. But at least she held still.
DC Universe SDCC Trailer
DC Universe Online - Oh be still my fangirl heart. The DCU MMO looks awesome. I know what I’ll be playing come November.
About
My name is Michelle. I write, I shoot and I mom, not necessarily in that order. I'm aware that 'mom' isn't widely accepted as a verb but I think it should be.I'm a self-professed geek and caffeine addict. (Some may argue that the latter is a requirement of the former.) I live with my husband and our daughter in the California Delta.
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