Easter Bunny: Creepy or Quaint?

So Easter is coming up... and all of a sudden, Steve and I had to think about how we are going to handle things with Stella. Since neither of us is religious (although Steve grew up in a church-going household) Easter does not have religious connotations for us as it does for others. So, what do we do? For me, Easter was always a time to have a nice meal with family and hunt for Easter baskets. Although I'm not into the chocolate/candy/sugar filled basket for Stella (obviously not at her age now, but maybe also not down the road?) we wonder what type of traditions to share with her.

Which brings me to the Easter Bunny. and I guess Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, et al. I'm not sure I'm totally into this whole perpetuation of creepy human-sized mythical creatures bring presents and gifts. I guess there is no way to get around Santa... but a bunny? Is there a way to turn Easter into a celebration of spring? Maybe it's a day we go the nursery and get plants, plant seeds, dig in the dirt, have a nice meal, pick flowers, whatever... something like that? I'm all about dying eggs for some reason... we used to blow out the insides and make an egg tree as a child, and I really enjoyed doing that. But perpetuating a myth about a big bunny that "bring you chocolate" seems a little much for me. Am I stupid here? Am I thinking too much in my head about this? I mean, please, you can't tell me that this is just a little weird, right?

What do YOU think about traditions? How would you/do you handle them with your child?

Stella, superkid

So I realized when i got a few comments and emails from people asking me if I was ok that i've been using this blog as a personal therapy/whining device.

Sorry about that. Most people's children's blogs should not contain random crankiness from the parents... but rather celebrate the wee munchkin, right?

So since i actually did already mention that Stella says "dog" now - I will also enjoying retelling some of her recent exploits. She is extremely flexible... maybe she learned a thing or two from all the yoga classes I took when pregnant (and never returned to... ugh). She loves to pick up things with her feet. Seriously. Loves it.

Exhibit A:

This is an easy one, but she's also adept at picking up books, blocks, and the occasional Scupper bone, although she is getting better about not putting them directly in her mouth.

She loves bathtime - and this Saturday we attend our first baby swimming class together at the YMCA. WOOHOO! I can't wait. I know it seems a bit ridiculous to take a 1 yr old to swimming class, but I've read a few things on it, and it seems if you get them used to the water early, they should be very comfortable with it by at least 2-3 years old. I had friends in college that were 20 and could not swim. I can't even image that. So in the water we go!

Besides trying to crawl and pull herself up on anything she can (today our babysitter said she tried to crawl up the dog to standing) she is learning quite a bit from her friend Anouk.

Anouk is two months older and is the daughter of a fellow grad student. We do a babysitting swap - Tuesday I take the girls and Friday she takes them. It's pretty great for them - and a free day of babysitting is great for us as well! This week she took Stella to the zoo (her first time!) and as I put her in the car seat to leave, she and Anouk started talking and cooing and smiling at each other... BBFs. Too cute. Julie said they "Talked" the whole way to the zoo. Stella learned to use a sippy cup by watching Anouk... she is starting to string lots of syllables together and offer much inflection in her voice as Anouk begins to command language better. While they still "parallel play" they enjoy each other's company, although we have to work on Stella and sharing. She's a big fan of stealing anything Anouk finds. I'm also hoping that she'll pick up all the French that Julie speaks to both of them... sadly, my high school French is just about good to speak to Anouk now, but I have a feeling that she's going to surpass me soon.

Stella also has enjoyed eating things that the "big people get." Like sharing apples, bananas and full pieces of muffin or toast. She gets VERY excited when I offer her a bite of apple. I might have to video it, it's so amusing. Let's just hope she is as excited about apples in about two years.

Well, they aren't earthshattering milestones - she's a pretty average Joe, and I'm sure everyone's child has done these things, but it's wonderful to learn and experience the world anew with her. Our babysitter is a cognitive science PhD at UCSD and she is studying brain cognition and how we start to "learn" things so being with Stella one day a week has been a joy for her as well (and I get to learn some things too!) next week we are going to film the "A-B" test with Stella for a lecture she has to do... the one where babies under the age of 1 cannot remember where you have hid the object in a new place and go to the old place even though they see you hide it... pretty cool. Maybe Stella will defy the statistics. We'll see. ;)

Wonder if THIS could get me tenure...

So over the past 6 months since Stella has been eating solids, I have been making her baby food. Not an amazing feat - I know other parents who do it/have done it, and I'm sure I'm also not the best one out there. I have, however, come up with some interesting concoctions that Stella seems to enjoy... that is, when she decides she feels like eating. Tonight, I made banana apple bran mini muffins from a baby cookbook that a friend gave me. As I was flipping through the intro, which I neglected to read a few weeks ago when I was given the book and jumped right into some of the recipes, I read that the author made stuff for her son and then gradually branched out to sell some of the items (muffins, teething biscuits, "cookies") and then published this book... which, I found later, is a pretty popular seller on Amazon.

Hmm... i think to myself. Well, I COULD DO THAT. Stella has had some pretty fun things over the past few months - and now that she's not so hot on pureed stuff, I've been even more inventive about what to feed her as far as finger food. (Did you know how many amazing things can be spread on toast? We do!) Maybe a baby food cookbook could get me tenure, what do you think? I think recipes like "lima bean/apple/carrot" and "lentil, bulgar, roasted red pepper" and "chick pea/ spinach/ pear" could count as equally as in-depth play analysis, right?Just wait until she starts helping me cook in the kitchen. That definitely is book contract number two. Cooking with your kids.. man, i'm all over it.

March comes in like a lion...

or a cranky 11 month old who has an ear infection, is cutting teeth, and has a nasty snotty nose and cough. But i guess things could be worse. Our basement (if we had one) could have flooded (so sorry GEB!).... we could have not got any farther on our dissertation, we could have had another on-campus interview and still have no word on what the job front is... oh wait. those last two HAVE actually happened to us.  The good news is that I had an interview in NYC last week and Steve has one in Olympia, WA second week of April. The bad news is that we still aren't any further in finding out where we might be moving. If we're moving at all. Limbo sucks, ya'll. Just saying.

But beyond the snotty nose, the stalling (as always) dissertation, the liminal void that is our lack of job prospects, we have had a full month. And pictures (as always) are a good way to share. That is, if anyone is reading this blog anymore. Don't blame you if you stopped - listening to me complain or prattle on about how cute our daughter is can be rather boring...

Stella has said her first word, and of course... it's DOG. oh yes. but more like DAWG. or DAIWG. (think of Brat Pitt as the Traveler in the film Snatch. That's about how she says it.) She also says "Yeah" when she claps, but "dog" feels more like a real first word to me. Since my water DID break at the DOG park, it seems only fitting, yes?

Stella likes shoes (i mean, she IS a girl). Especially Daddy's boots when he comes home from work.

She also enjoys offering Scupper some of her dinner, snack, whatever and then after he licks all over it, decides to take it back and eat it. YUM!

Getting dressed up for a friend's birthday. Thank you Aunt Mary Ann for the wonderful craft-fair handmade clothes because I certainly haven't had the time to make them. I sadly knit her two hats, a dress, and booties before she was born AND THAT WAS IT. Someday she'll have more handmade things .... someday.

Scupper's birthday was March 12. I made a peanut butter cake with peanut butter swiss meringue buttercream and on his slice, candied bacon.  It was pretty good cake... he loved it.

There goes the bacon!

And then i think he thought that it was too good to be true, so he took the WHOLE SLICE of cake out of his bowl and tried to run away with it. When we tried to tell him it was ok, he INHALED the entire slice. All at once. Maybe next year, we'll just make him some steak and give him a beer. ;)

Stella, as of late.. crankier than .... well, you fill in the blank.

 She's very excited that she can pull herself up in her crib. I think she just likes the doorknobs.

 Yes, this is a garter. Yes, it's from Target $1 spot. Yes, I completely forgot to take a picture of her in it on St. Patrick's Day until it was bathtime. Yes. She is wearing a garter on her head in the bath.

And speaking of baths - we had WAY too much fun with her hair last night.

Stella's first "Brunch" of her first taste of crepes with raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. Crepes were a tradition in my house growing up instead of pancakes... and we have now begun with Miss S. As you can tell, Scupper is more than a fan of them as well.

And that's it from Casa Germonski for the month of March. This week is "spring break" for UCSD, although I'm still trying to write and also put together lesson plans for my class. I'm teaching an upper division dramatic lit class, and since I promised Steve I could do it and have it not interfere with my dissertation, I am trying to write lesson plans this week to stockpile. We'll see how well that works....

Suggestions?

So Stella has already begun to test her boundaries (and our limits). She's been teething something awful, yet as we're at the tail end of another round of teeth, I'm starting to notice her independence. She has started refusing to sit in her high chair, her car seat, the stroller... she does NOT want to take a nap, she does not want to eat regular food anymore, save for Joe's Os, and she gets extremely pissy with us when we take something away (Scupper's dog toys). She twists and turns so much when I try to change her diaper, i am now proficient putting the diaper on when she is laying on her stomach. (and don't even ask about her tantrum when I tried to change a poo diaper today.... let's just say that there is definitely some clean up going on).

So I'm thinking that i have to learn how I'm supposed to deal with the next step. If anyone has any good parenting books out there with a philosophy that you've appreciated, let me know. I'm all ears, believe me. Yes, I'm a book nerd and need to at review something because I'm definitely convinced there are parts of parenting that are not innate. I figure there are child psychologists out there that probably know a thing or two. And while I practically banged my head against a wall reading all those sleep books and wondering why "my child wasn't like that" I know now how to filter, adjust, and take away tidbits that seem appropriate to our daughter.

So help, you out there in the blogosphere!

'Allo Mates!

Currently fighting off the scurvy, I am... you know, since i can't have citrus until 12 months...

Access for all

So Stella attended her first protest rally today. I mean, we DO live in California, people. All the UC campuses, as well as other K-12 public schools and Cal State campuses held a "teach-out/speak out" day where professors were supposed to teach their classes outside and rallies were held to protest the privatization of public schools - basically, the raising of school fees and tuition so much so that public colleges are starting to cost like private schools, and thus restricting access to public education to families who cannot afford to send their sons and daughters to such a high cost school. Believe me, I think it's pretty dang awesome that all the UCs are so relatively cheap (in comparison to private schools) for the kind of education that they offer students. But when the President's office of the UC system is thinking of raising fees 300% in the next five years, well then... that's kind of an issue.

I think this speaks to the larger endemic problem about the lack of affordable, accessible, QUALITY education here in America. Why is it that we always look to our school systems to cut the budget? Why are we laying off teachers to pay for other things? I really have never understood how our country has routinely put K-12 education on the back burner of "things that are important." And let's not even get into how many years I'll be paying back students loans... I mean, i guess I should be lucky the government lent me the money at such a low interest rate, but it still is unfathomable to me that America as whole doesn't seem to value the importance of good classes, good teachers, and good schools.

In the interview search that both Steve and I have been in the middle of, we constantly consider - so - what are the public school systems like? Philly? Oh you don't want to go to Philly public schools, everyone told me. Everyone who can sends their kids to private school if you live in the city .... Um, well, we wouldn't be those people who can. Yesterday, I received a call from Queens College in NYC about a job interview for this month. (out of the BLUE folks! But guess I'm headed there sometime soon!) and of course Steve and I go - well, NYC public schools are mostly horrible, but private schools are completely out of reach. Do you know that they cost upwards of $20K a year? Um. Yes, you read that right. Twenty THOUSAND dollars for K-5 education. That's wrong. That's just wrong. And why ARE NYC public schools not great? Why shouldn't the children of the 8 million people that live in the 5 Burroughs be able to have quality education for their kids?

So back to the rally. It's the first time i've ever seen such pluck and gumption from our UCSD students. It was remarkable to watch and encouraging. The apathy that I've seen reside in so many of my students over the last five years seemed to be at least hidden for today. And that was really amazing to see. Stella had a maraca that Grammy Z gave her and she shook it when the crowd got all fired up... and of course, she gave a running commentary of the whole thing, but I'm not exactly sure what she was saying. ;)

The rally seemed to inflame her gums however, so she went to bed with a dose of Tylenol and a big hug as the FOUR INCISORS descend all at once into her gummy mouth. Um, when does this bloody teething thing end?