Lost Locks Leave Lady Luminous

Today was the big day. I went and donated my hair to Locks of Love. I went for the Mariska as you will all see in just a moment. And for any of you in the city who would like to do this In Situ in the Grammercy area does free hair cuts for people donating to locks of love. But it's only during week days so those of you who work might have a problem. In Situ is a nice salon. They give you robes to wear so you don't get hair on your shirt. No capes for them. Here I am in the dressing room trying to get a picture of my hair before the chop.

My last day of long hair was supposed to be all flowy and beautiful and straight and smooth. Thanks to lots of wind and humidity it ended up and wavy, prickly mess. It made the chop less painful.

The stylist decided to help me out with some before pictures after she'd brushed my hair so I look a little less pathetic.

Aren't my half grown out highlights nice?

They put it in a ponytail and take it all at once then do your real cut.

I felt like a hunter holding my kill.

And here are the after, styled pictures.

Meanwhile Beckett was unaware of the momentous hair events occurring. He got to play with his friend Sheldon. Although in all our excitement we forgot Ghost Bear when we left. Sheldon had a good time too. He sat up on his own really well which is a first according to his mom. He loved staring at Beckett. It's only fair since watching him roll inspired Beckett to roll over for the first time. We have to get these boys together more often. Who knows what they'll teach each other? That being said once they turn two they can never see each other again because who knows what they'll teach each other??

This picture cracks me up because it looks like Sheldon is beating Beckett up. He isn't.

6 Month Appointment

Today was Beckett's six month appointment. Unfortunately I made it two days too early as he really turns six months on the 24th. This is only an issue as they refused to give him a flu shot before his was six months. The doctor specifically made a point of saying, "I know he turns six months in two days, but I cannot give him a flu shot until he actually does." Good thing he will magically be able to metabolize the vaccine in two days. So Friday I have to go back. Boo. At least it didn't take 3 hours this time.

So here are the stats:

He is now 27.5" tall and weighs....

As usual he's in 75-90%. The doctor also says that he's big enough to survive the night without food. So it looks like we're going to start phasing out that midnight feeding. I don't think he's going to like that at all. The doctor's advice, keep him up and hour later so he doesn't sleep as long and then he won't need food. I'm not sure I'm down with that advice, but Chris and I were out shopping tonight and he went to bed about 3 hours after his normal time of 6:00pm. Ooops. Maybe he won't need food and tonight is the night he magically starts sleeping through the night. Ya...right.

He only had to get two shots today. So he wasn't too cranky. In fact he had a pretty good time waiting for the shots.

Now, for the really exciting part....

As I walked to Beckett's appointment we happened upon some film trailers. This is not uncommon and I just figured they were doing some shots for one of the many Law and Orders. I was wrong. Turns out they were filming actual scenes for the CW's new show Gossip Girl. It's about snotty rich people on the Upper East Side.

Here they are setting up a shot and I realize that something is happening.

Ah ha! The chairs reveal that it's a show I've heard of.

These are the two main female leads. Their names escape me. B and S are their initials.

This lady in black stood around and talked to me for a while. I guess she was an authorized extra because they let her walk across the sidewalk. She told me she'd worked in commericals and my baby was so beautiful and had such a good tempermant. That's nice. The one thing that sucks about having a baby is strangers talking to you.

Later, after Beckett's appointment I was in the area and stopped in at Subway for lunch. Then one of the male leads came in for a sandwich. I can't remember his name either but I call him Jimdemort as he looks like a combination between Jimmy Fallon and, as Jenny cannily pointed out, Lord Voldemort. (It's the flat sided nose and cheeks. Trust me.) According to the website he plays Chuck, " an overly confident and sexy bad boy" and also the Dark Lord, who is coincidentally an overly confident bad boy. I was going to ask for his autograph but then I worried he would Avada Kevadra me.

Birthday Cupie Doll

As I wanted to party hard for my birthday I had to find someone to take care of Beckett. My good friend Jenny, who you hear a lot about as she lives literally a 5 minute walk from me, stepped up to help out. She took these cute pictures while we were out. What a nice friend to take cute pictures of my baby.

I love his little curl of hair. He looks just like a cupie doll.

Since Beckett was in good hands we were free to go out to dinner. As I was more interested in birthday dessert we decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory. The food was mediocre, but the cheesecake was awesome. I ate a turtle nutty, chocolaty, carameley piece of heaven. Then I got a piece of key lime to go. Chris was supposed to pretend it was for him, but he made a point of telling the waiter he was too full and he wasn't going to be eating any of it. He did have a bite at home later, but I did eat most of it. And I liked it, so there!

Then we went to a movie. I know this doesn't sound stellar, but trust me, this was a lot of fun as we haven't gone to a move in about 6 months. We went to Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

I enjoyed it although I do not think that Mary Queen of Scots had a Scottish accent as portrayed in the film since she was raised in the French court from a very young age. I'm reading a book about Mary and Elizabeth so I declared myself a defacto expert.

All in all it was a nice birthday and not too traumatic. I can't wait for my present from Chris to arrive so I can be a rocking guitar hero with my Wii. Oh Nintendo, why won't you ship it?

Go shorty!

Song lyrics of the day:

"Go shorty, it's your birthday, we're gonna party like, it's your birthday"

When you aren't visiting for pictures of Beckett looking insane you are visiting to tell Dawnell how cool she is. So here's a spot for you to add comments full of birthday wishes to the love of my life, as October 12th is her birthday. Considering I was depressed on my birthday this year I'll not share how old she is, but she'll always be my hot younger wife to me.

Here's a re-run of one of the tiny family together. Happy Birthday!

We are those people

Dawnell and I always said that we'd never be one of those couples who showed people disgusting pictures of their children. But....

Beckett had his first meal of non-milk, non-formula, non-rice a couple of days ago. He loves sweet potatoes! I think the cuteness overwhelms the messiness of this picture, hopefully you all feel the same.

Here's to the Ladies Who Lunch

Last week I went to lunch with some friends in the city. We went to Max Brenner's Chocolates By the Bald Man in my old Village stomping grounds. There were four of us and I was the first to arrive. The restaurant was pretty empty but even so, since I was the first to arrive, I informed the hostess that I would be joined by three friends and that we each would have a baby with us. She asked if we needed four highchairs. I said no that most of them were too little for high chairs we'd just have our strollers. She said fine and so I waited. Five minutes later Heidi showed up with Maddy. Five minutes after that Alicia showed up with Sheldon. Alicia then went to hostess again to let her know that we had one more friend coming and she would need a high chair. So there are the three of us with our strollers and a little while later the manager comes out to the empty dining room floor and says, "You can't eat here. We can't have all of these strollers here." I went on the war path. So I push up to the front of our group and say quite forcefully, "I spoke with your hostess 10-15 minutes ago and apprised her of the situation with our group why wasn't I informed of this problem then??" Then the hostess freaks out that she's going to get reamed and says, "I'm not the manager I didn't know it was a problem." But the manager saw my angry face and miraculously realized that it wasn't a problem at all. The strollers tuck right under the tables like a chair. I was so mad though. What if we were a support group for people married to quadriplegics? Are you not going to allow four wheelchairs in your establishment? My friend Addy said we should have told them they were discriminating based on age disability. I'm keeping that in mind for the next time someone gets an attitude. "You know age is a protected status and you realize that you are denying service based on my son's inability to sit upright by himself." Suck it stuck up Manhattan restaurants. I'm an educated housewife with time on her hands. I'll make your life hell. Good thing he decided to seat us.

So here we are at the restaurant when they finally allowed us to give them our money.

Sheldon sampled extensively from the menu.

Maddy preferred to wear her lunch, or her mom's lunch as it were.

This is the nicest employee at the restaurant. Too bad he wasn't our waiter.

Here is poor Beckett tuckered out after helping me right the world's wrongs. Our lunch counter sit in will go down in history.....or it would have if I didn't get a seat. Regardless, I'm never going back there. I can buy overpriced chocolate any number of places in Manhattan.

Cupcakes and Ireland and One Tiny Sailor

Friday I went to Jenny's house to make cupcakes. She made delicious frosting and we had fun decorating, when Beckett wasn't crying that is. We did nice fall colors as you can see.

Saturday, in order to keep the party rolling, Chris and I went to the Irish Festival here in Jersey City. Here are some pictures.

Here's some war memorial in the area of the festival. I think it's for one of the world war's. I was suprised because it seems a little graphic for a piece of municipal sculpture.

Turns out an Irish festival isn't very much fun if you're not going to get drunk so we were there about as long as it took me to take these pictures.

And now, since you're stuck with us, here's Beckett as a sailor.

What was that Ensign?

Isn't he a cute "sailman" as a woman at church referred to him?

Book Club Babies

Last Wednesday was my book club. We read "Money Changes Everything" a collection of essays about how money...changes...everything. Three babies showed up with their moms and they played together so cute...for a while. It's hard to have charming babies when book club starts at 7:00 and bedtime is 6:30. Still Haylie and Beckett got their second wind and were spastic cute happy babies most of the night. It's kind of funny to see them get all riled up from lack of sleep. Not funny enough to do it often, but worth the one night a month for book club.

Haylie looks a little pissed off but really she's happy to be there.

Or not 'cause now she's out of there. She scoots around so good. She shames Beckett and his inactivity. I'm hoping watching her will inspire him to explore the world of movement.

Isn't Sheldon just the cutest smiler?

Beckett seems a little surprised someone other than his mom is pointing a camera at him.