day of firsts

Lot's of firsts today.  First farmer's market of the season and also the first time Lane has gone to the farmer's market.  It's only around the corner from home and it's just the right size for us.  We don't have to wander aimlessly shopping for the best price as there is only one veggie vendor and she has great prices - we get the Whole Foods Market's leftovers...  things she didn't sell to them this week and it's all fresh and good.  I would imagine some was picked yesterday morning too just for us!  We love the veggie lady and she came thru again yesterday with sweet carrots and baby peas!  Made for a first time ever mash up of baby peas and carrots and it got snarfed down with lots of happy baby eating noises.

First time trying out a Saturday evening mass as well.  Didn't go as well as a Sunday morning and Lane ended up falling asleep outside on daddy.  Then we went to the church bazaar - another first.  Think country fair, but the food looked a bit better.  Don't ask for a review on that as we did skip it.  Huge tents and entertainment.  It was geared towards kids a little older and we wanted more than fair food for dinner so we hit the road after taking a walk around.

We ended up going to dinner at a diner I was at a few weeks ago for work.  Figured my breakfast was pretty good  (translation non-greasy for a diner...) and the desserts in the case rival the Cheesecake Factory.  I was told the other meals were pretty good too.  First off a diner usually has good burgers so we were taking a risk by going here for a non-burger dinner.  A huge risk by diner standards.  This place needs to come off the diner map.  It's not your typical diner.  As Mark said it's quite gourmet, something about goodness in the bread.  We both ended up getting the same thing.  Southern Fried Chicken with biscuits, mashed potatoes and corn. (yes, I'm sure my mom is drooling right now along with a few others and yes it was that good...) Had some sort of white gravy on parts of it - we didn't bother to ID it.  Not greasy so I'm wondering what their trick was maybe the oven and good spices?  My greek salad had real peppers in it, olives with pits and tons of feta.  Even some foo-foo lettuce as it's called in our house.  Field greens mix to most people.  Mark was not overly pleased that the appetizer that came with it was a stuffed clam.  I was somewhat amused as I had never had one and I figured stuffed meant some sort of stuffing with clam in it.  And it was stuffing and it was pretty good and I'm not a clam person.    The topper...  any dessert of our choice from the sweets case.  I got tiramasu cake and Mark had the strawberry shortcake cake - lots of cake I know.  Mine was good and Mark didn't share so I would imagine it was also good.  We did get it to go in case you were wondering how we managed to stuff all that food in.  It was good last night and again this afternoon.  Huge slices.   Lane enjoyed his first mashed potatoes and had lots of fun making tons of noise.  He was getting a bit crazy over something there.

unexpected vacation at home

Having a feverish baby has led to two vacation days at home. This is a first.  I would have to say we've been super lucky that this is the first real illness that he's caught from daycare.  We always take off and travel for our vacation days so this has been interetesting to say the least. Since his fever has been gone since 4:00 pm Thursday he's back at full tilt with tons of energy.  That could be because I let him take a 3 hour nap this morning too. He did have 20 minutes of intense "you are cutting off my legs" crying last night, but other than that he's been a model sick baby.
Not sure what caused the crying because his fever was gone, but a bottle finally cured it. Must have had his appetite was back? Daycare won't take him until he's been fever free for 24 hours so we are now having some fun waiting for daddy to get home from his trip to California for work. I see some sun in the forecast for later this after noon so I'm hoping to take a walk on the bridge.

We had a chance to introduce the sippy cup yesterday and today. He's not keen on the apple juice and spits it out. Might as well just use water for now. Really don't want to put his formula in it - that stuff really gets stinky and gunky if I don't clean his bottle out right away so I can only imagine the things that would get stuck in the sippy cup. gross. The handle also makes a great teething toy. An expensive one at that. Multi-use cup I guess.

The rain has yet to let up making this a less than ideal "vacation". It's great for our pool which was in need of some more water. It's now full! Overfull if I was to ask the pool expert, which I'm not going to do. He's going to tell me it's low on chlorine too. hmmm... Since it's been cold I'm not overly worried. Lane is not a fan of the cold pool so we aren't going in it today therefore the fact it's low on chlorine is not a big deal. This is not a pool summer thus far. It's tempting to get a solar cover, but you need sun for that to work. What's that... haha
And here's my PSA... make sure you are up to date on your virus software and malware. I didn't know what malware was until this latest run in. Had a bit of an issue at work this week when I was on the New York Public Library website looking for ebooks to "check-out". Great website tip Andrea... problem is now I am afraid to go back there. It took the IT god 8 hours to get my computer back at work. Thank goodness I didn't try it at home! We are up-to-date with our AVG software, but still I would hate to test it out like that.

So now that we are getting a 4 day weekend at home I can't believe we will have another one next weekend too! Bring on the 4th of July. Weekends at home are rare these days with Grandpa Sens (Mark's dad) being sick. 10 hours a weekend in the car is a challenge. We won't trade that time with them and all the Rochester family for anything though!  Here is a photo from Father's Day....   Three generations of "Lawrence" Sens boys on Father's Day with Lane showing off his "Happy Feet of Lane" art.  Both daddy and grandpa got a copy for Father's Day.  Lane loved making them and was a really good sport about having his feet painted repeatedly throughout the weekend that daddy was in Arizona.
Time to think about lunch...  carrots for Lane and Frank's for me?  It's vacation after all right?

yum, yum, yum

This is hilarious.. (more so if you are a Grandma or me).  He was making all sorts of foodie noises while eating his carrots so I started in with yum, yum,yum, yum, yum and he started laughing at me.  He has laughed before, but not at me like this.  Had to video it and I knew the Grandma's would get a kick out of it. 

Sick baby?

Does he look sick to you?  His temp was 101.4 before his last dose of advil.  Since then he's been hamming it up, drinking and eating.  Unfortunately daycare won't let him back tomorrow.  So I'm having another unplanned vacation day.  Not such a bad thing in the summer if only the rain would let up.

what was I thinking?

this is Lane's first sippy cup - but not his last!

Why in the world did I pick out a pink and purple sippy cup! First off we were in a hurry and it was after Lane's doctor appointment yesterday. While I know many of you love Target ours is not my favorite place. For some reason I just don't like the store in Poughkeepsie. Anywho... I was looking for something just like this and it fit the bill and it was the only one on the shelf. Didn't even think to look for a different color because it was what I wanted and it was the only one. If it's the only one what choice is there to make other than to grab it fast before anyone else decides they want it too. Surely it wouldn't be worth my time to make someone go look for another in the back room. So when I got it home I noticed that the packaging was yellow and blue, but the cup was pink and purple! He doesn't want it at this point, but if it goes to daycare he might be a bit more interested. I really wanted it because I was told he could start having water and juice and I would rather he drink those out of something other than his bottles. I also wanted a straw cup not a nipple he could chew off - Lane loves to chew stuff right now.
anyway.. Lane has coxsaxie, which I didn't know about until I picked him up from daycare to go to his 6 month well visit. So much for shots - he was off the hook and we'll go back in a couple weeks to get them. So far he's pretty happy for having a fever. If only it was sunny today so I could enjoy the pool or something. Can we say pouring rain that is threatening to overflow our pool? This is our first time not being able to go to school and he can't go back until he's fever free for 24 hours. I always wondered how kids make it back into school after one day home sick. hmmm.. I think I figured it out. Anyone care to take a stab at that one? So far Lane has been fever free since his last dose of advil at 2:00 am (for the record!). Although a Friday at home is pretty appealing. Never mind that it's one of my vacation days. For that I should be rewarded with some sunshine and nice weather!

We've got a roller

Lane is so proud that he can roll over now and I'd love to show a the video of him talking himself up to doing the roll over but that takes about a minute. Way more fun in person. He grunts, groans and and then does this fake deep throat scream and then thumps his heels into the floor at least 10 times and then he flips. So funny. Quite the routine. He's quite proud that he can do it. Then he wiggles on his tummy. I think it's time to start child proofing!
Mark is coming home tonight after being on the road for a week and asked if he could wake him up to say "hello" - ummm ... sure, but better be ready to play, change his diaper and get him back to sleep. (all while mommy sleeps!) He's bound to be overly excited by seeing daddy.
In other news coxsaxie has hit daycare. They were a bit freaked about having to tell me. It's daycare I expect him to catch stuff. Bound to happen. Haven't yet used any sick baby days (those used to be called vacation days...), but these next two days are looking to be really nice. Now I don't want a sick baby, but a couple days of sun and pool sound awesome about now.