Shannon Phillips

We canceled our veggie box order this week because we thought we wouldn’t be able to pick it up—Sam was supposed to have to work on Saturday—but they postponed the big data-center move on account of all the snow.

(There wasn’t actually any snow. Everybody in the Bay Area got super-excited about some weather reports calling for snow—it hasn’t snowed here since 1976—but the weekend dawned bright and clear. Everybody celebrated by driving as if the streets were clogged with a foot of slush, though.)

So this without veggies this week, I’m going a bit wild and buying whatever strikes my fancy: beets, romaine, leeks, red potatoes, kale, basil, bananas, grapes. I’m planning on making pasta puttanesca tonight; tomorrow, roasted lemon chicken and a caesar salad; Tuesday, steaks and a side dish of farro with walnuts and beets; Wednesday, chili mac and Thursday, potato-leek soup. Friday we’ll have leftovers.

The Florida woman, who has been identified by authorities simply as “Angela,” was leaving a playground with her toddler son in Port Charlotte when a man approached her in the parking lot with a knife and told her not to make any noise or sudden movements.

Angela didn’t have to do either to protect herself and her child — a dog mysteriously ran to the scene and charged the man, who quickly fled.

http://www.lifewithdogs.tv/2011/02/pit-bull-saves-woman-child-from-attacker/

Technically this is yet another story about a pit bull attacking a stranger, but it’s actually heartwarming rather than awful.

So much of parenthood has been a process of discovering for myself all the things that are completely obvious and everybody else already knew.

Like, did you know that mothers really really love their babies? I mean really a lot? Did you know that? You probably knew that, huh? It’s not like all of human civilization isn’t built around an understanding of that fact.

And yet when I pick Davy up, and he’s warm against me and soft, then I have to give him a kiss, and then he chortles and beams at me, and then I love him so much I can barely stand it, and even though this is a thing that happens every day—and has happened every day since Robin was born three and a half years ago—there is still some little dumb piece of me that is surprised. On some level this experience is still just really amazing to me.

A quick shout-out to Quirky Urbanite, who has awesome adventures in local foraging. Her account of harvesting local olives made me all fired up to do the same (I know exactly where there’s a big olive tree in my neighborhood) until I got to the part about the worms. Still, really cool stuff to read about.

Probably both the boys’ favorite game right now is “Baby’s Gonna Get You,” an activity wherein somebody (usually Sam) chases Robin around the house while holding Davy out in a vaguely menacing fashion. Davy loves this and will wave his arms around wildly while chortling happily. Robin also loves it and will scream with glee while running away. In fact, they both love the game so much that they sometimes try to play it without Sam, although as you might imagine this involves quite a bit of cooperation on Robin’s part in order to make the “chase” even vaguely interesting. This is a picture of Davy winning the game:

Baby’s gonna get you!

I hope everyone had a nice Valentine’s Day! Robin was thrilled with all his mail. I explained to him that they were “Valentines” and they were from people who wanted to tell him they loved him, but Robin spotted the salient feature pretty quickly. “Hearts!” he said, holding up his cards. “Look Mommy, hearts!” So I told him that, yeah, it was “heart day,” and he seemed to find that so very thrilling that I’m wondering if we shouldn’t do square day and triangle day and so forth. At one point in the afternoon he came to me demanding “more hearts,” so I cut him out a big red construction-paper heart, and he carried that around for hours. Adorably, when Sam came home the first thing Robin did was run up and hand him the big red heart.

Unfortunately, on Valentine’s Day we also got colonized with another round of germs. So far I’m just feeling mildly stuffy, but Robin’s got a worsening cough, and today I don’t think he feels well at all. “Hurts, Mommy,” he croaked this morning, pointing at his throat. I gave him some children’s Tylenol, and I”ll see if I can get him to drink some hot tea with me. Hopefully he’ll bounce back quickly.

Also: check out these chompers!

I’m working on the novel revisions that the agent requested, but I need someone to help me read through it and identify words that might be so unusual as to be jarring to the reader. I don’t trust myself to do a good job—I changed “ululating” because that was specifically pointed out by the agent, but looking through the rest of the chapter I skimmed right over “atavistic.” Sam caught that one for me, but he’s having trouble carving out the time to read through the rest of the manuscript. Is there anyone reading this blog who would be willing to help me with this? It has to be a reader who would break stride at “ululating,” “atavistic” and similar words—that is, someone who reads like a normal person, rather than an English major. This is a deficiency of mine and I need a careful reader to help me correct for it.

Let’s see, what else has been going on over the past week. Robin had the second of the two playdates I mentioned: Elena is a very charming little girl, and the two of them played together quite sweetly. Amy sent me a message after they left: Fresh out of the babe’s mouth after asking if she had fun today: “Robin is very nice.” Awww. Awww!

Careful observation has shown that Davy is not crawling, but he can travel quite some distance by rolling. He’s also sitting up now.

The sleep issue: still a problem. Yesterday we ran out of coffee and I was basically non-functional by 3:30 in the afternoon. I crawled into bed as soon as Sam got home at 5:45 and I slept through (except when I had to get up to nurse Davy) until the baby woke up a little after 5 am. I was still tired. At least there’s coffee in the house now, because Sam went and got some last night. Yay Sam!

Pear in your hair
It doesn’t go there
My child, where
-fore did you put that pear in your hair?

In other news, Davy is a stealth crawler. I’ve never managed to see him doing it, but if I put him down and leave the room, he won’t be in the same spot when I get back.

My love for Judith Martin is well documented, but this week’s Miss Manners’ column is particularly well-timed. See, although we had a wonderful time at yesterday’s group playdate, I was also a little bit intimidated by the hostess’s immaculate house. I still have a long list of projects that I need to get done on our own home—and the backyard is a complete disgrace, with bagged trash and unbagged wood and concrete refuse piled up in several places. I was thinking to myself, I would love to host the next group playdate but I cannot possibly, I would be shamed.

And then Miss Manners goes and tackles this question:

Dear Miss Manners:

My husband and I were recently married. He is a PhD student, and I am finishing my master’s degree and looking for work. Due to our families’ financial situations, we decided to elope to spare them the costs of a formal wedding.

We are on an extremely tight budget and only have two dining chairs, and no money for more. I have always loved entertaining, but now I am hesitant to do so because of our lack of dining chairs.

Can you please tell me if it is acceptable to invite another couple over for dinner if they will be seated in our dining chairs, while my husband and I sit on ottomans? I don’t want to offend, but I would also love to entertain company.

Gentle Reader:

Whew. Miss Manners thought she knew where you were heading and is thrilled to find out that she was mistaken.

Every other letter she has received in which newlyweds (or oldyweds) beg off from entertaining because they are lacking some equipment asks for a free pass not to reciprocate hospitality or suggests a scheme for getting donations from prospective guests.

Yes, of course you should go ahead and entertain. No guest worth having would be the least put off by your furniture arrangements.

So, I suppose the fact that I have not yet managed to decorate the house to my highest ideals does not, in fact, buy me “a free pass not to reciprocate hospitality.” I’ll wait a week or so and then issue invitations of my own.

I do think Judith Martin would give me a gold star for one thing: I sat down and wrote a thank-you note as soon as we got home.