happy birthday, baldo! Baldo is one year old as of yesterday. We celebrated by singing "Happy Birthday" all day long. We went to Chuy's for dinner, and I was reminded as I ate my carne guisada tacos of the chilly night one year ago when I wolfed down the same meal, went home, and woke up five hours later in labor. The tacos tasted better last year. Don't ask me why. (J. likes the part of the story where Harry Knowles was sitting a few tables away and kept looking over at us as if he thought he could place me but wasn't sure who I was, so I'll throw that in, too.) We gave B. a wheatless, eggless, nondairy quasi-cookie for dessert. He was only semi-interested in it; he ate a couple of pieces and then batted the rest around on his tray, so J. and I finished it. You know, that quasi-cookie wasn't half bad. I too am experimenting with non-food baking; my two layers of Xanthan Gum Semi-Cake are cooling in the kitchen. Okay, you got me--they're cold now, and I'm messing around online instead of making frosting. I have to blend some sugar to make it powdered, and I'm just not into running the blender and waking up the baby when I could be using these moments to blog and listen to Brak. What, is that wrong? We're having a party tomorrow with Moz the Wonder Baby, who is two days older than B. but, like, 4000% more cheerful and redheaded and compact, and he says, "Bird...bird...bird" in the apparent absence of winged animals of any sort. Moz is really short, so it's fun to fling him around in the air, whereas B. is considerably more elongated. We got foodstuff at Costco like I said, and I resisted a number of impulse purchases: the DVD of Punch-Drunk Love, a two-pack of bra tanks (I love bra tanks), a giant bag of Iams (we don't even have a cat anymore, but it was such a good deal!), and a similarly sized bag of frozen mangos. Frozen fruits and vegetables would be wonderful for The B., but I'm not going to get a metric assload of something and find out next week that he's allergic to it, kwim? In other gripping news, our new neighbors have moved in next door, and they've brought with them a Truly Giant Dog. B. is fascinated. This is seriously the biggest dog I've ever seen, and I grew up next door to a St. Bernard. (Oh, the drool!) The dog is apparently friendly and equally aware of B. He/she watches us through the glass patio door. In yet even more gripping news, we have scored a hit with our babysitter, who came over with her son today for the first time. We shall call them D. and E., as their names both begin with B and there are too damn many B people hanging around here already. My dear sweet goddess, having a sitter is better than therapy. (Cheaper, too, now that you mention it.) I love hanging out with my kid, do not get me wrong, but this will enable me to do some work and take a breath a couple of mornings a week and maybe go get a haircut or something, at least until summer when J. is home. I'm not able to leave the house yet, but B. and I spent some time physically apart while I baked the cake, and it was weird--like having a kid instead of having a little baby. B. is usually clamped to my body. I could be trying to wash a dish, and B. would be dangling off my foot. I love E., the sitter's kid. He is adorable. He's six months older than B but has the same kind of clingy, extra-sensitive temperament. He's very verbal and sweet. He blew kisses to me. I am taking a big deep breath of happiness. The only problem I can forsee is that E. loves peanut butter, and I'm fearful that B. will accidentally touch E.'s sandwich and spotaneously combust or something. OK, this is so much baby talk that I really do feel the need to get random. I ate a whole bunch of carob almonds with lunch, and let me tell you, it's just not the same. I'm thankful for carob; it's as if I've been kidnapped by benevolent aliens who have a simulator machine that has created a near-replica of Earth chocolate. The thought is nice, but maybe not. OK, that woke up the boy.

go to sleep, i'm begging you Need I say more? I hate it when teeth are coming in. I hate to see beady little eyes staring at me in the dark after two hours of rocking, singing, and nursing. Today's adventure: After the thaw, we were able to go to Sun Harvest and get lots of Food Substitutes. I'm turning into one of those weird moms whose kitchen is full of pear juice and quinoa. I actually bought a bag of xanthan gum. It was butt-crushingly expensive, and I still don't know exactly what it *is*, but I need it to make the Wheat-Free and Dairy-Free Birthday Cake Substitute for the party this weekend. I got carob. Tapioca flour. Barley flour. Spelt pasta. Now I just need to start drinking Postum and fiber water, and I'm all set. I never thought my life would be like this. I'm a third-generation Texan. I thought that when I became a mother, I could have hearty snacks on hand--I dunno, like a brisket in the oven and margaritas. Allergenic and dangerous foods: chocolate peanut butter ice cream with wheat topping and shellfish and ragweed on the side. Pollen sandwiches. Instead I root through the bakery in search of wheat-free eggless nondairy cookies, which taste surprisingly good but break if you look at them sternly (which I do kind of a lot). We're going to Costco tomorrow in preparation for the party, which promises to be interesting. I'll probably come back with a camcorder and new tires. Costco is so dangerous. I'm sure there are people who save money by buying in bulk, but I never do. I end up with giant containers of stuff that I could conceivably use but probably won't--a metric assload of paper clips, a 36-pack of adhesive tape, restaurant-sized salad dressing that doesn't fit in the refrigerator and has to be poured out into bottles, which languish, unmarked, until their contents expire. But I really shoot a wad in the bakery section, with those titanic muffins. I love Costco muffins. They're like delicious golden brown land mines of baby allergens, though. Naturally B. gravitates toward these forbidden fruits, properly identifying the muffins in one of our picture books. I'm telling you, when all this is over I really am going to write a book for allergic children. ("C is for 100% cotton clothing, double-rinsed with vinegar"; "L is for latex, which sends me into anaphlactic shock.") I think I'm going to go eat some carob.

by the way "24" is out-of-control ridiculous. I don't know if it's worse than last season's multiple abductions, switchbacks, and amnesia, but pleease. I only watch one TV show; I wonder if I chose correctly. I'm just hoping Dennis Hopper doesn't show up with some kind of crazy, uneven accent ("oh, LOOHCK, eet ees Meeester Jahck Baaauuuer!"). I really like the unnamed bomb tech who's working the case. That actor has really got that SAG card now. Him and Agent Baker (?), the Asian-American field agent who has that sort of lantern-jawed, studly-but-wholesome mien I really like to see in my TV FBI agents. Wow, it's like now I'm *really* blogging.

hellzapoppin' What the hell happened to my kid in the last six hours? I'm talking about a sudden rapid evolution in his ability to communicate--or maybe a sudden rapid evolution in my ability to notice. He made the sign for "baby" and pointed at a package of diapers with a baby on the wrapper, which about made me fall over. He made the sign for "telephone." He made the sign for "hat." He took a spoonful of mushed carrots and cauliflower out of my hand and fed himself with it. He pointed at our measuring spoons and went "ba ba ba" until we handed them over for playing. I'm incredulous. In other news, I just finished my third piece of dewberry bread, made with some of my mom's frozen dewberries. Mom, if you're out there, your dewberries ROCK. Gotta go--"24" is on!

reading

snow day It snowed! Enough ice accumulated on the roads to occasion the cancellation of school. Wowza. That's central TX for you. We're snow wusses, seeing as we have it about once a decade. However, we are not power outage wusses; the lights were off for a goodly portion of last night, and we fired up about ten candles and went on with our biz. I was reminded of the one time the lights went off when J. and I were living in California. Our next-door neighbors came barrelling out onto the lawn, freaking out because there was no power. They didn't even have a flashlight. Just the same, it is cold (26 degrees) and we are making a nice chicken soup and doing some laundry. On a happy note, the allergist did *not* turn out to be an ass clown. He didn't ask me a ton of lunkheaded questions (e.g., "What formula is he on?") and really seemed to get how difficult it can be having a baby with eczema (e.g., it's not just a cosmetic problem). We're already doing most of the things he suggested, but he did order a RAST test (yeah!) and give us some samples of cream for B.'s hands. I was really getting worried about one of them; the skin is cracked and weepy-looking, and I'm afraid he's going to get staph. While we were talking, I kept mentally restyling the doctor's hair. It kind of looked like a rug. Nice guy, though. I like our new doctors so much better than the last group, including the dumbass allergy specialist who said we couldn't give any tests until after B. was two years old. He can kiss my shiny metal ass, you know? In other news, we haven't gotten any more SXSW tapes, and I'm afraid we're really going to get slammed with assignments during the fest. Still thinking about that robot movie. I think we need more robot movies nowadays.

without chemicals, he points We are home from a weekend spent On the Farm with gmom and gdad. There was much birthday rejoicing (belated for gdad, early for El Bebe) and a tearful reunion with Scooter. The big haps occurred after we came home, as I was feeding the Baldinator some cubed tofu from my stir-fry: He has begun pointing at things. "Elephant?" we said. He pointed at the elephant on his high chair. We just about fell over. We're so excitable. "Lion?" we said. He pointed at two giraffes. Okay, we'll work on that. He also apparently went apeshit over the fish tank at the restaurant where we ordered takeout. We're seeing the allergist tomorrow. Yay! I seriously hope this dude doesn't turn out to be an ass clown, because he's pretty much it from our HMO. The babe broke out this morning on his back and on his arms, so at least we'll have a good example of his eczema.

robot parade I'm sitting down to watch my second SXSW movie, and my workstation is so bad-ass that I can blog while it's rewinding. It's called Robot Stories, but I don't think it has robots in it. Kristin--the credits play against a backdrop of scrolling numbers that look like stylized binary code. Oh, hey--there are the robots! The costumer is named Kitty Boots. Looks promising. Oh, no--the animated robots are resisting the constraints of binary code and generating colored strings of random numbers!

gorgeous, darling

much better, thanks Whew. The Baldo household breathes a sigh of relief as its inhabitants surmount the Evil Virus. I knew I was feeling better when I started craving chicken fingers on Sunday afternoon. Still not ready for that Luann platter. (Do people outside of Texas get the "Luann Platter" joke on King of the Hill? I guess not.) Now we can resume socializing with baby and mama buddies, except now they're probably all sick. More milestones for Das Baby: He ate his first piece of sushi, and he made his first trip to ComputerWorks, the brilliantly brilliant secondhand store operated by Goodwill. We combed bins of cables and cards and goggled at monitors and motherboards and it was all quite swell, except Baldito's tiny fingers itched to touch all the forbidden fruits on the shelves. (On another note, Baldito's tiny fingers itch from yet another rash--are more fruits indeed forbidden, literally?) Someday we'll get around to making that Macquarium, and then we'll be the coolest kids in school! Failing that, there was a brilliant Commodore monitor that would be lovely for cacti or something. Why oh why did manufacturers stop making monitors with simulated woodgrain paneling, so your system can blend in tastefully with the hi-fi and your credenza? The sushi was less of a success. I gave B. some of my (cooked) salmon roll, breaking off the fish and the rice. He did his usual thing with meat, regarding it suspiciously, and then tucked in. Sticky sushi rice is also a hit. But I guess he wasn't quite ready for fish and got a rashy face. We had to bust out the Elocon and the Atarax for that one. Salmon is supposed to be the least allergenic fish, suitable for 12-mo-olds. Oh well. Anyhow, the long and the short of it is that I get to keep my salmon rolls to myself for a little while longer, and we have a new ink-jet printer so we can make iron-on transfers and temporary tattoos. Now's my chance to start building my brand. We watched and tremendously enjoyed "About a Boy," J. especially, though I was able to set aside my usual misgivings about the Nick Hornby Man-Boy Character quite easily. I guess I like that the Man-Boy figures out his life around the third act and becomes dynamic and whatnot, but it's always such slow going, isn't it? You just want to shake him. "Um, hello, yes--you're not the only person in the world, so stop making lists and categorizing your CDs and go do something already, why not?" And of course we couldn't watch the movie without thinking of our own son, who may well grow up to be a bread-throwing, bowl-cut misfit child, given his parentage. It's nice to be able to watch the occasional movie. I had such plans to get back to my usual schedule. My editor has put in for me to get a pass to SXSW Film, and looking over the schedule last night was like browsing at Todai: I'll take that and that and one of these and a couple of those and maybe one of that one there. The documentaries inevitably interest me more than the features; it doesn't seem as if there's a big flagship feature, unless it's Bubba Ho-Tep, and as if they're going to send me to that, trailing my diaper bag with my cassette-a-phone and my notebook smeared with baby applesauce. What can you really do about that? My heart with go on. I can't remember any other specifics about the lineup, which says more about my memory than about the lineup. There were a few movies with big casts, and I didn't really put in for those because my other editor has probably seen them at Sundance or Toronto and I'd just as soon not have to go to the Paramount and stand around in the corral with all those Polarfleeced New Media Guys with their swag bags and flip phones. (Are those people even still around?) But you know what? Who am I kidding--I kind of like all that too.

right for the wallet

escape from rotavirus mountain Can you believe it? It's back again. I just finished spraying down the house. B. puked all over me and the Boppy at bedtime. I may never be able to eat another Luann platter again, which is pretty tragic. We had to call J. home from his conference. The less said about my symptoms, the better. My mom was here to help out and visit anyway, and she stepped up big time on the hygiene patrol. But there's only so much you can do with this thing. What's worse: Somebody sent me a pecan pie--some special someone--and I can't eat it. I'm on the sherbet-and-Pedialyte protocol, and even that's making some serious noise in my intestines. Time to wipe down the mouse. This proves it: I am always sick on holidays. The last time we had this was Christmas morning.

squirrels First of all, the guy at Photo-Byte will have my pictures later this afternoon. Mkay? Our trip to Houston is off, at least for me and The Boy. He's got what appears to be a cold; he's prurulent. The good news about that is that blasting his nostrils with saline is officially no longer a problem. In fact, when I put the cap back on the spray and hand it to him, he sticks it up his nose. So that's something, anyhow. I think the nasal syringe is similarly unoffending. Suctioning body fluids out of someone else's orifices isn't fun (at least it's not my idea of fun--no offense to anyone). I used to be really squicked by snot, and I guess I still am, except for when it's my kid's snot. Then it's just business as usual. Another new development is the awareness of squirrels. He seems to like them. We have a Baby Bear picture book with a squirrel in a tree. I asked B., "Do you see the squirrel?" and he turned to the patio door and waved in the direction of where squirrels would be in the backyard. I also think I heard him say, "Hi!" yesterday. J. and I looked at each other. He hasn't said it again. That gives us a spoken vocabulary of "Daddy," "Mama," "doggie," and "hi." He appears to comprehend "squirrel" and can imitate a chicken. Next stop: rocket science. I'm also trying to teach him to climb down from chairs feet first. He's grasped it except for the rocker in his room. Even though there's a stool, B. still goes barrelling head-first out of there. I have a song I sing--"Feet First"--roughly to the tune of the "Libby's" vegetable jingle. Yesterday morning I really hit the wall with this stuff. I accosted J. on his way out the door and said, "Do you realize my daily conversation is limited to nine or ten phrases, like 'Let's sit on our bottom, sweetie' and songs about feet? I used to read Schopenhauer." He didn't really have much to say to that, so I freaked out. I don't want to be genderist here, but there's something about a woman freaking out early in the morning that causes men to panic and flail and do the "What do you want from me?" stuff, when that's really an unanswerable question. I guess I wanted to be patted on the head and commended for excellent work in what is, essentially, a practicum in epistemology: Infant Cognitive Development 101. I want a good grade. See, in the workplace, especially when you're a low-paid writer or editor, you get lots of e-cards and sheet cakes and thank-you notes, because it's really important for you to feel valued and keep writing those $.10-a-word articles and letters from the director. You get to be like a trained seal. You're not rolling in money, but dammit, you're *needed* and *appreciated.* Babies are kind of a blank. The only thing you get at this point is maybe a wave, but you're not so sure what's so special about that because the baby also waves at the ceiling fan and imaginary squirrels. So then you turn to your partner for a little juice, and he's glassy-eyed from the teaching endeavor. I did point out that he doesn't have to wipe his students' hinders or try to convince them not to chew on the mini-blinds, but I guess it's always a struggle one way or the other, eh? So I made myself a music playlist of old school hip-hop so I can get my swerve on. I'm listening to it now. "Double Dutch Bus." Anyhow, I changed the answering machine so that the outgoing message is me reading from the "Baby Signs" picture book, since that's all I'm really able to say. So far nobody's gotten it. Kristin said it was Dada, which is getting closer. In other news, we are preparing for the first birthday party. I need to find a recipe for wheat-free cake. I have no idea at this point if a wheat-free cake is even necessary, but I'm so afraid to try a wheat recipe. I ate a piece of J.'s melba toast yesterday just to remind myself what choice grains taste like. It actually grossed me out. It was really salty and dissolved rapidly upon contact with saliva. I guess that's what grains are supposed to do, but I'm so used to silage by now that it seems unnatural. I watched the 9:00 news last night, and there was a puff piece about food allergies that featured a 18-month-old girl who is allergic to rice. Rice! The simplest of grains! Baby's first food! Some people give their babies rice after the cord gets cut, practically. Everything in our pantry has rice. What the heck do you feed a kid like that? It seems like kids are becoming more and more allergic; meanwhile, baby food has more and more stuff in it to make it appeal to the parents. I got a jar of "country vegetables" to feed B. in a pinch, and it has tomato in it. It's for babies who are "learning to chew," but you're not "supposed" to give tomatoes until after the first year. They're too acidic. So half the time you hear "Give the baby everything!" The rest of the time it's "Give the baby nothing!" I think I'm going to stick with squash. Is anyone out there allergic to squash? Good.

hey, let's waste some time
""Which cocktail are you?""
brought to you by Quizilla I worked today, finishing the Exemplary Migrant Student brochure, so I figure I'm entitled to a little farting around. I'm a little sad that I'm a bloody mary instead of something sophisticated and brown. We gave Das Baby a tater tot with dinner. He prefers Wasa but eventually came around to putting the tot in his mouth and chewing. He helped me pull the crabgrass out of our vinka plot and tried to eat some of our jasmine blooms. He also took the Nap of All Naps this morning, causing J. and I to panic and check his breathing every ten minutes. Three hours. Tooth #7 is visible below the surface. We are planning his b-day fete, along with the parents of Moz the Wunder-Bebe, and we made plans for a trip out to The Farm to see G-mom and Grandad. We will also be reunited with Scooter. I ate wheat gluten in the form of a soy dog, so the floodgates are open. Step aside, everyone; I'm getting some bread. We went thrifting yesterday a.m., and I got B. another tambourine, bringing the total to 3. True confession: He's not averse to the tambourine, but I'm the one who really plays with them. I'm going to put on my snakeskin pants and my knee boots and play tambourine in the living room. We also got our first set of Legos, except they're the super-giant babystyle Lego-type blocks, and not actual Lego(tm) legos. B. will test them for food value. He says "Daddy" almost constantly, which drives me insane of course; yet why would he need to refer to me when I'm always around? Suddenly I can't focus on anything but forbidden foods. I want a big old slice of wheat toast with bananas and chocolate and guacamole. And some shrimp with peanut sauce. Top it off with penicillin and a great big antihistamine shot in the ER. And a bloody mary.

I got this great magnet at Planet K yesterday. I'd gone in with The Boy to get patches for my diaper bag (it has a big dorky label on it) and for his new baseball hat (which of course says BABY GAP in the damn middle of it). I am desperate to find a hat that will actually stay on my child, and elastic-backed ball caps seem to stay on the longest. But I don't want him to look like a baby billboard. And I reeeallly don't want him to get the message that designer logos make you cool or something. (Apparently, J.'s students are rabidly obsessed with Tommy Hilfiger this or whatever whatever that.) I flipped through the poster and patch racks for a loong loong time in search of something that would fit on a baby hat. The best match was a round patch with a picture of a marijuana leaf and an American flag on it. So that's what I got! I'm waiting for the DEA and CPS to descend on the house. What can I say, though? So if you see my child advertising legalized marijuana instead of The Gap, Inc., you'll know why. We're not putting herbs in his baby yogurt, OK? This was the second time I'd taken B. into a head shop. It really freaks people out. We went to the northeast store, which is surrounded by circling APD cruisers and next door to Discoteca Rudy's with its blasting conjunto music, and let me tell you, *nobody* is quite sure what to do when a white chick with a Volvo and a baby in a sling shows up. The other customers cut me a wide berth and kind of gave me the hairy eyeball, which is kind of strange because I don't give them the hairy eyeball for buying glass pipes and outre porno mags, I'm fine with whatever, and of course I don't take B. into the outre porno part of the store because, well, he's not 18. He loved the rest of the store: the colored freak wigs, the whirling mobiles and black lights, the tie-dyed hippie bedspreads hung up on the walls. It was big fun for him. There was a mother and her grown daughter shopping together for who knows what, which was kind of sweet, and the clerk who rang me up was bouncing up and down with excitement because her friend was in the hospital delivering at that particular moment, and somebody would call from the room with updates periodically. We talked briefly about motherhood and being a teacher, and she said, "Teachers make the best parents." There was this warm and happy vibe all around, like we were turning Planet K into a total chick space, and all I could think was, "Isn't it wonderful?" I love that different kinds of people--people who might be considered "weird" or whatnot--are having great family experiences. You almost get the feeling sometimes that if you're not driving around in a Lincoln Navigator on your way to a private preschool with your kid in a Gap hat, you're some kind of substandard person who has no business breeding, because your kid will be last picked for sports and grow up to wear too much eyeliner and skulk around in "Satanic-looking" jewelry and be harrassed and antisocial and not go to prom. Which is not to say there's even anything wrong with Lincoln Navigators (though I do have my opinions) or Gap hats or private preschools--just that there's a billion ways to be a good parent, or a good friend, or a good mentor, or a good person. Maybe I'm reading way too much into this experience. But I always feel cheered up by slightly freaky parents, anyhow.

nuff said

still no pix I'm inching closer to finishing that roll. I promise. Today's big surprise was cauliflower. I steamed the hell out of a head of cauliflower, and to my wonderment, The Boy scarfed it! Excelsior! We tried some more turkey, and that went right onto the floor. I'd also forgotten how much I like cauliflower. The damn thing was so huge that half of it went right into the Soup Bag(tm). So far the Soup Bag is pretty random: cauliflower, a coupld tablespoons of fish broth, some cooked turkey that I'm pretty sure I didn't put in there, and some kind of yellow broth I don't recognize. (Please let it be chicken.) J. will not be pleased. But I guess that's the Soup Bag for you. And speaking of random, I had the Best Cup of Coffee in the World the other day. Texspresso. Say no more. Uh oh. Baby crying.

chicken! Sorry, no pix today. We're four exposures shy of finishing a roll. I could take pictures of my feet or the backyard or something, but that just seems wasteful to me. Scooter was useful for that--being an impromptu photo subject. So El Chico made his first-ever animal noise: The cackling of a chicken. This is a favorite sound in our house. According to J., he also made his first sign for a word: POOP. Yes, a-rooty-tooty, he signed "poop." He didn't actually have dookie; J. just asked him, "Poop?" and he signed it back. I am ever so stoked. And Dad, you'll be gratified to hear that he ate some MEAT. Turkey meatballs. I made them with oats (we're still off wheat, so no bread crumbs) and plopped a few on the tray. El Chico was very confused and rolled one around in his fingers for a long time before he ate it. I had to demonstrate for him. He got the idea. We're back to T-shirt weather (high of 80 today), so it looks like it might be time to get some warm-weather toddler wear. I think a trip to Thrift Land is in our future. They take credit now, so I'm in trouble. I have this tendency to go in looking for baby clothes and toys and come out with flared pants and vintage purses. Such a problem. We also had our first prolonged tantrum yesterday, concerning B.'s lack of access to the backyard, where J. was hacking at our dead wisteria bush with sharp and rusty tools. I had to bust my ass, like all the Wiggles rolled into one, to provide distraction. B. likes it when I act out a kung-fu scene with Mojo, his pajama-clad stuffed cow. He especially likes the wire stunts. Now that my article is in, I am back to having no work at all. We'll soon be gearing up for SXSW, though, and that'll be a fresh hell of deadlines and screenings and stuff. I skipped out last year because I was delivering a child, so I expect to really be in for it this time around. Ooops--nap time's over.