"C" is for Change

Hanging out in Poland, eating a steady diet of stale bread and rice cakes

Same old blog, slightly different name. Also, same old me, without enough time or energy to keep things up. So here is a quick update.

Alexander is much better, but at his 1 year old check up (OMG is he a year old? I can't believe how quickly this year has flown by, or how much better things are Now than they were at this time last year!) we found out that he doesn't just look thin, he is. He's grown from 74cm to 78cm since his last checkup (prior to the London move) but his weight has gone down from 8.74 to 8.6 kilos. Not a huge drop, but he should have gained, so it's not great. We blame the illness and his rate of activity (erm, rather high). So I'm sneaking as much fat into his diet as he'll accept. I was a skinny kid, so I'm not worried, but I guess it's good to just be aware of this stuff.

Being skinny

Otherwise, we've been celebrating. We've had his birthday and the inauguration of Obama. 

The birthday was managed thanks to Viive, who invited us over and made a cake. I too had ideas about cake baking, but my cake was a sad failure and ended up in the bin. Let's just say that my "castle form" is much too complicated for the likes of me. I think I'll either try it again when I'm feeling very patient or with something like jello.

This photo illustrates another change: Alexander is using a spoon. Not reliably, but he's getting there. More and more often he gets angry if I try to feed him, and I have to maneuver my spoonfuls into his mouth between his attempts at feeding himself through his ears and nostrils.

Then came the inauguration, which I have to explain something about--I think the guy is okay. I'm still slightly sad he isn't Hillary, but I'm over that mostly. The thing is, I wasn't celebrating HIM so much as celebrating the removal of Shrubbery.

I am very pleased my country has gotten it's head out of it's collective ass and elected a person rather than a color, and Aretha's singing at the inauguration did bring a tear to my cynical eye, but I'm not yet one of the people who think Obama is The Answer to the nation's problems. I kind of think that Bush was the nation's problem and just about ANYONE (at least, anyone who didn't come connected to Sarah Palin) would have been a good answer.

Anyway, I'm happy that Alexander will grow up in a world where there is no question about if a black man can become president. I'd like him to also grow up in a world where a woman can become president of the states as well, but I guess we'll just have to wait a little bit longer for that.

At this very moment, Alexander (who just finished crapping in his diaper) figured out how to open the cabinet where I have napkins stored. He is flinging them. Some are in Jill's water. I must go.