THIRTY-TWO

The baby wasn't sitting in the "correct" position. Obviously. 

2014 week thirty-two

There are many and varied remedies for teething:

Strap a baby to you.

Beef Jerky.  Natures teether/the only thing she will consent to chew on. Eat your heart out Sophie the Giraffe.

Flail around like a wild salmon. (note: injuries may occur mid-tantrum)

Demand to eat lunch with all of your friends. 

Wear sunnies indoors. That feeling of too cool helps soothe sore gums. 

Color! (on paper, or mama's phone, or the white poang... why do we own a white chair?)

Slash and jab everything with your purple balloon sword. (PS Papa is the greatest man of many weird + carny talents)

Look at the cat with a mildly amused expression. Who needs you Dinah? I have a purple sword.

And when the purple sword fails to soothe, steal a few potatoes, put them in a ziplock bag and carry them around the house like treasure.

Throw up Mama's delicious quiche silently in bed and then fall back asleep in it. 

In an effort to become more aware and grateful of my surroundings and to stem any (more) mental atrophy, I am going to try to write some thoughts or stories each week in conjunction with the photos. This week I will tell you a story about Dinah. Dinah, our lovely, probably inbred, surely a runt, sickly cat, is a fickle character. Husband, in a fit of extravagance bought her some the the very expensive Blue Buffalo cat food that is grain-free (our cat does not have celiac, but it wouldn't surprise us) and oh-so-fancy with a lynx on the front. Dinah hates it. She liked it for two bowls and then decided she hated it so much she stopped eating. "Bring me my putrescent-flavored corn flake rocks!"she probably cried. But all it sounded like was a whining crow. After about a week of not touching a single pebble in her bowl, I started to get worried. She frequently sleeps on our table or sits in a chair with her head over the table while we eat, like so:

But this night was different. I made braised quail with mushrooms and she was outside eating bugs and it was so nice that night we had all the windows open. She apparently got a whiff and came running and cat-screaming to the door. She sat like this, meowling, through my dinner until I finally gave her the scraps of a leg. She ate it all. Bones and everything. She thew it up the next day. But she decided at that moment that cat food was no longer for her. Two days later as I'm eating lasagna for lunch, she clawed her way up my leg with the wrath of Voldemort in her eyes and jumped face first into my lasagna so fast I couldn't swat her away in time. The next night I made chicken legs, and since she had still not eaten Husband was going to give her the scraps of one. As soon as she realized what was happening she latched on to that bone and attempted to pull it out of his hand. The cat was tug-of-warring with Matt for the chicken bone. She threw up the next day. Since then I have just been adding water or a bit of wet food to her dry food. It seems to be helping as long as we are not eating any sort of poultry. Then she gets the wild in her eyes. In conclusion, she just threw up on my kitchen floor. Most of it was bug legs and wings.