Just when I think that Meredith is going to start sleeping through the night for good, we have a night like last night, in which we spent from 2am to 6am on the couch so that we could both finish the night having gotten more than 3 hours of sleep. Sigh. Good thing she’s so cute or I would have put her out with the recycling on Monday.
Look at those lashes!
In other news, Kevin returns tomorrow. He is muchly missed.
Well, like the title says. Better late than never, right? Friday night, the three of us went to the monthly block party that 68th Street has on a rotating basis throughout the summer. (In the winter, they congregate at the Kort House, a tavern just up the street on the Ridge.) We met lots of our neighbors. Of course, everyone was charmed by our little Meredith — 2 of our neighbors ended up walking her around the yard, and she was shameless about pulling herself up on the legs of a couple of our male neighbors. Any convenient leg, as long as it gets her into a standing position!
Saturday we went to Pike Place Market and Uwajimaya (the Chinatown grocery store) in search of geoduck for Kevin to take back to Wisconsin. In case you don’t know what that is, it’s a great big saltwater clam that’s absolutely vile looking. And it’s pronounced “gooeyduck”. Strange but true. Eventually we found it and I fought back vomit seeing the man at the Uwajimaya counter clean and prepare it for freezing. EW. He cracked its shell and cleaned it and basically tore it limb from limb. If it had limbs. And if THAT weren’t a full enough day, Meredith figured out how to clap Saturday morning — just sat up and started doing it. YAY! So cute. Now she crawls around and then sits up and applauds herself.
Sunday we (sadly) dropped Kevin off at the airport for yet another week in Wisconsin. Boooo. We girls consoled ourselves with a little retail therapy at IKEA. I won’t tell what we bought — it would ruin the surprise for Kevin! Hee hee hee.
I forgot the biggest news yet! Meredith has finally, FINALLY decided to poke out one of those teeth she’s been working on forever. It’s one of the front ones on the lower jaw. I would post a picture, but I can barely get her to show it to me without getting my camera shoved in there as well.
Given the way she does everything else, we’re pretty sure she’ll be attempting to eat corn-on-the-cob any day now.
How did that happen already?
Well, we actually got out and did stuff this weekend. Yay us! As hoped, we went to the Bite of Seattle on Sunday. We took the bus as a family and it was CROWDED. Meredith took it in stride, though, and looked at all the new and interesting people around here, most of whom were talking on cellphones. Kevin took it in stride as well — good for him. 
The Bite was not all I had dreamed and more, unfortunately. I think I was thinking it would be more like a food expo, where one wanders from booth to booth sampling. This was full-on commerce, with all the food vendors hawking their stuff at premium prices. No wonder admission was free! Kevin made us get SOMETHING for our trouble to get down there. He had a jerk chicken kabob and some really interesting mango lemonade. I had a Shishkaberry, which was chocolate-dipped strawberries on a stick. Mmmmm. At that point, we wandered around a little more and then headed home. On the way to the bus stop, we got to tote Meredith and her 350-lb. stroller up and down 2 stairways to navigate the pedestrian underpass for the highway. Who says Seattle isn’t walkable?
Saturday was more our speed. We all headed to Discovery Park to do some hiking. Kevin wore Meredith in the sling and I schlepped the diaper bag. We took a loop around the park that was, all together, 2.8(?) miles, but we certainly didn’t do the whole thing: just enough to be interesting. There were some great views, especially when we were hiking along the top of the bluffs directly over Puget Sound; the view reminded me of hiking at Tahquamenon Falls in Michigan. Sweaty but content, we headed back home for the day — I’m sure we’ll do more hiking there in years to come. (While we were there, there was a HUGE Native American pow wow going on that we did not check out as we are no doubt distantly related to people who came to this country bearing smallpoxy blankets.)
Her shirt says “Superstar”.
Verified: Yes, Kevin is also talking to himself. But he’s also talking to stupid telemarketers…
“Hello?”
“Hello, this is Lisa with Farmers Insurance. Is this Kevin?”
“Yeeess?”
“Oh, OK. I was wondering if I could quote you on your insurance and see if we could get you a better rate or something?”
“OK.”
“Oh, well, do you have insurance?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, uh, who do you have insurance with?”
“Farmers.”
“Oh *teehee* I guess I can’t quote you then… I’m sorry… Bye!”
Blink. Blink. Huh?
-K
Clearly that’s the reason for there not being any posts in a few days, right? WRONG. Mostly it’s being busy at work AND having no desire to sit at a computer at the end of the day. Not even to download new pictures of Meredith! LAME. Sorry about that. To recap:
Meredith: falling down stairs. Mostly unblemished. Sleeping slightly less. Waking up more. Laughing. Talking to herself.
Kevin: Working. Going to Wisconsin in a couple of weeks. Probably also talking to himself. Organizing the office.
Me: Working. Super-busy. Organizing stuff on the weekend. Sleeping whenever possible.
There, welcome to our lives. This weekend, I’d like to go to the Bite of Seattle at Seattle Center (near the Space Needle.) After all, we need to get out and find out what all the cool restaurants are for when all our visitors show up. Chris. My folks. Christi and Nick. That’s a lot of meals! I’ll have to wear my eatin’ pants if we make it to the festival.
So there you go. We’re still here. Just really bad at updating at the moment.
Well, it finally happened: Meredith had her first official “fall down the stairs” moment this morning, and it was a good one! (Well, “good” meaning “spectacularly ass-over-teakettle and kind of scary to watch”.) All of a sudden I saw her flipping head over foot like a jumping jack! Fortunately, she only has 3 stairs to fall — and she didn’t even cry! Just made a little crabby noise, looked at me, and then started crawling my way laughing. Supergirl!
Our nanny and her family are heading to San Francisco for the weekend, so Kevin will have little Pooperella all to himself on Friday — I predict no work will be done…
Look at that picture — you can see open floor! There are fewer than 20 boxes the picture! It feels like we’re almost moved in. We have to organize the bookshelves — a HUGE job in and of itself. And then find a home for some of our tchotckes. And get rid of our mattresses. And buy a few shelves and things. OK, maybe we’re not QUITE as close as I thought…
We spent yesterday afternoon shopping for baby gates. Yes, it’s time to wall off stairways and doorways for the terror that is crawling, climbing Meredith! She is into EVERYTHING now, and is practicing climbing the stairs, pulling books off the wall, opening and closing drawers and basically manipulating everything in sight!
We also bought some new (old) formula for her. We had started her on the “Next Step” formula, but it seemed like she was in awful pain in the middle of the night when I would feed her and put her down. Back to the old stuff and the pain seems to have gone. So we’ll ask her doctor for his recommendation.
Today we’re all going for a drive around Puget Sound to see some sights! We’re headed up to Port Townsend, then take the ferry across the Sound and head back south home. We’ll let you know if we see anything cool.
We’re all red, white and blue today to wish you a Happy — and safe, as in don’t-blow-any-fingers-off safe — Fourth of July! (A mere 3 hours later, this outfit was covered with green beans and rice lunch. :P)