Thursday, April 16, 2009

Snuggle Bear

Tylo is 10 1/2 months old! Just weeks away from the big 1 year old. It's so amazing how fast it went by. The first 6 months felt painfully slow, actually. I mean, nothing really happened. I would spend all day talking and making faces at her, and she would smile here and there, but really - it wasn't much. Then, POOF. It's like she started understanding everything, rolling all over, then crawling on her own, shouting out orders, mimicking several words, laughing at my silliness. Now it all seems to be happening so fast.

Since I last wrote about it, Tylo is still snuggling. For a few weeks now she and I play the "Where's Bear?" game. After she wakes up, I ask her "where's bear?" and she looks around her crib, finds it, and hands it to me to kiss hello. Then she takes it back and hugs it with a big smile, sometimes kisses it herself. Yesterday when I asked her "where's bear?" she went and snuggled with it. It was so darn cute! I caught it on video and got a sliver of it on camera too:




I love watching her learn to do new things and knowing I was the one that taught her. We proudly show Daddy all her new tricks when he gets home, or all the cute moments I managed to capture on camera that day. After all, he only gets to see her for a couple of hours a day. I would never manage to get by on so little of Tylo.

You know what the best part about being a mom to a 10 month old is? It's that she loves me so unconditionally. This little pint-sized girl thinks I'm the funniest, funnest, best mom in the world. You should see the way she laughs at me sometimes. And even when I leave her crying out and shrieking for me at night because I left her alone in her crib in the dark, she forgets about it the next day after a good night sleep and a morning bottle, and gives me the biggest 6-tooth grin there is.

We're not all made to be mothers. But if you are, and you choose to take the plunge, it's moments like those that make it so worth the pregnancy pain.

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Is it that hard to get a good steak?

Wednesday was HP's birthday! We knew we totally deserved some extravagant high-end dinner, despite these economic times, but weren't sure what to do with our precious alone (no baby) time. Michael Minna and Chez Panisse were booked solid. So we saw Alexander's Steakhouse on Check Please, Bay Area and thought everything looked yummy, and interesting. It was like 75 miles of a drive each way, dropping off Tylo at the In-laws and all, but it would be worth it.

Well, I might as well have flushed our $250 down the drain. It was the most expensive meal we had out together, nearly $400 if you include the wine. Somehow we convinced ourselves that we were deserving, tired, overworked parents we are. Alright, it was not that bad. But it was truly a disappointment. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the steaks we had a 1 and a 2. My dried out, mushy, sad looking filet a 1, and his juicy and BBQ sauce-slathered 2 lb rib-eye a 2. I've had better steaks from Safeway. Much better. And those are usually like $8 each.

Outside of the steaks, the appetizers and desserts were just okay. HP said the best thing of the night were the truffled french fries. I thought they were good, but not $12 good. They did give complimentary homemade cotton candy at the end, which I was pretty happy about. I love me some cotton candy.


At least we got to have 6 hours to get dressed up and spend with each other, not watching over the baby's next meal, changing, nap, etc. So that was well worth it. But next time I'm craving a good steak, I think I'll just make it at home. I do not recommend Alexander's Steakhouse, even if you need a good date night. Go to Morton's or Ruth's Chris instead.



Here is HP's glistening Rib-Eye, which he ate about a quarter of. If it were any good, we probably could have polished it off between the two of us.










And here is my dried out excuse of a filet. See how it doesn't glisten, like, at all? No juices ever came out of that thing.
I think it was the worst steak I've ever had.





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