This machine is super awesome looking. It is expensive but what a great idea and something I would totally give to a special new parent friend. I remember the to and fro from steamer to cuisinart when cooking for G&W and this Babycook simplifies all of that elegantly!

Ironic, isn’t it, that I subsist on c-r-a-p while I am so devoted to my children eating well.

Uninspired today but was sufficiently impressed by the Babycook that I wanted to post it.

Ten Characters In Search of an Author (with apologies to Pirandello)

Lighthearted meme for Sunday morning.

1. Rockstar Name (first pet, current car): Caliban Subaru

2. Gangsta Name (fave ice cream flavor, favorite type of shoe): Cake Batter Choo

3. Native American Name (fave color, fave animal): Blue Elephant

4. Superhero Name (2nd fave color, fave drink): Yellow Sauv Rocks

5. Nascar Name (first names of your grandfathers): Lawrence Henry

6. Stripper Name (name of your fave scent/perfume, fave candy): Laundry Licorice

7. TV Weather Anchor Name (5th grade teacher’s last name, major city that starts with same letter): Swain Sewanee

8. Spy Name (fave season/holiday, flower): Summer Peony

9. Cartoon Name (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now): Pear Wifebeater

10. Hippie Name (what you ate for breakfast, favorite tree): Coffee Birch

My private blogosphere, all 136 blogs that I read daily, is absolutely lit up with pride and joy and delight and tears today. My blog list, like my magazine list, is as diverse as my many personalities. All of these varied bloggers, who write about motherhood or technology or cooking or fashion or literature or the contents of their very own hearts … everybody is talking about Barack Hussein Obama and what he means to them. This is, after all, the whole point of him (I think): the promise of reengaging a hopelessly cynical people who are about to give up. To resow hope. What is better than that?

And, yes, now the hard work starts, after the euphoria ends. It sounds like he has a good plan for that.

6 year doctor visit

I really, really, really love Dr. Rick. We had a great appointment today, Grace checked out as average size (45.5 inches, 50%, and 43 pounds, 40%) and all seems well. He is magic with her; he addressed all of his questions to her and she was open and responsive. Also did a sight check and that is 20/20.

We spent most of the time talking about school and social emotional things. Grace averred that she likes to play alone, which was fine, until her lip started trembling a little bit and she confessed that she doesn’t feel like a lot of the other kids want to play with her. This is consistent with what the teachers said in her conference and I confess it surprised me. To enjoy being alone is a wonderful thing, and a gift I hope I’ve given her. To feel left out and excluded is, of course, not. There was an episode on the playground last week that has me a bit worried about the peer pressure in the class. In combination with her description of the other kids being “real friends” with each other but not with her, I’m feeling ambivalent about her school for the first time.

Talking to Rick was helpful. His is, as usual, a wonderfully calm, moderate voice of wisdom. He did ask that I keep tabs on the anxiety Grace is exhibiting though. I feel such an aching familiarity with her concerns and behavior. She so clearly wants people to like her, wants her peers to want to be her friend; I worry that this can become corrosive and can lead to losing touch with her very own self (as she used to say as a toddler: “I want to do it my very own self!“).

Nothing to do but watch and wait, and keep telling her that she is great just by being her very own self.