The only pair of jeans that fit my current body have recently sprung a giant hole in one knee. And since it is no longer 1992, I can't quite pull off that look. (At least, not without my plaid flannel shirts and Chuck Taylor high tops.)
So last night I ventured out to Old Navy in search of replacement jeans. It was not an easy task. These days, in addition to finding the right size, you also have to figure out what "jean type" you are. Determining your Denim Identity at Old Navy is a lot like figuring out your Starbucks order (are you a grande non-fat half-caf mocha? or a tall half-fat all-caf latte?)
Where Old Navy jeans are concerned, you first have to determine whether you are a Sweetheart, a Flirt, or a Diva. Apparently, Sweethearts like their jeans to sit just below the belly button, Diva's like them so low that their ass crack shows, and Flirts are somewhere in between. Once you have chosen the appropriate sluttiness factor, you have to choose your:
Length--short, regular, or long
Leg style -- boot cut, skinny leg, wide leg, straight leg, or flare
Wash -- light or dark
It was an evening of self-discovery. After two trips to the dressing room and 10 pairs of jeans pulled on and off my body, I now know that I am a Sweetheart, regular, boot-leg, dark wash, thank you very much.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Vacation: Part IV
It's Tough to be Three
Our vacation concluded with a four-day visit at the home of Minh's sister, brother-in-law, and three year old niece, Scuppy. During our stay there, Tai got lots of good quality time with his aunt and uncle as well as his grandparents and he got to meet his great-grandmother for the first time.
Apparently Scuppy and her mom had spent the previous week getting ready for our visit -- baby proofing the house, setting up the pack-n-play, and locating and washing all of Scuppy's old baby toys. She was very excited about the prospect of her baby cousin coming to live at her house for a few days.
Until we got there.
The first 90 minutes or so were great. Scuppy was so excited to see us and she and Tai were fascinated with each other. And then Tai had the nerve to start touching her stuff. Scuppy became very possessive of her things and frustrated at Tai's inability to understand essential English phrases such as: "Stop touching me," "You can't play with that," and the ever-popular "Don't crawl there."
The poor thing. She's three and (thus far) an only child. I understand that it's hard to have your world disrupted by a little crawly-grabby-drooly guy. All the adults in the house expended much effort talking to Scuppy about Tai and babies and about sharing. We'd never let Scuppy know, but Minh and I found it pretty funny the way she scowled at him. To the left is a picture of her patented Furrowed Brow that she employed whenever Tai got too close.
It was really too bad she had such a hard time, because all Tai wanted to do was be near her. Credit goes to Scuppy, though, for owning her issues and admitting them publicly. Tai was playing in the yard with some plastic cups and then Scuppy decided she wanted to play with them. Instead of battling her, we let her have the cups and moved Tai over to a very low swing that he could hold on to and swing back and forth. Suddenly, Scuppy announced that she wanted to use that swing. I asked her if she really wanted to use it, or only because Tai was using it and she proudly stated, "Only because Tai is using it."
I should say that it was not all bad. They did indeed have some stretches of quality time together (see picture, right). This was excellent practice for Scuppy, though, because in March 2008 she will be getting a baby brother. Luckily, he won't be born crawling and grabbing at her things, so she'll have several months to warm up to him.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Vacation: Part III
Ten Things I learned while in California:
1. Californians do not wear pantyhose to weddings. Not even the women.
2. Everyone in California owns a dog. I think it's a state law or something.
3. California is not the best place to order a Philly cheese steak. (Not sure why I didn't just know that one intuitively. )
4. A little hair gel goes a long way.
5. Enormous plates of cheese during the cocktail hour of a wedding are incredibly baby-friendly.
6. I can, in fact, take part in a wedding ceremony without swearing on the altar. I didn't even mess up the reading.
7. Pandas really are that cute in person and hippos and polar bears are surprisingly graceful swimmers.
8. The plain old ducks and pigeons that live at the zoo are more interesting to Tai than the peacocks and flamingos.
9. The "Brockton Villa" in La Jolla is really nothing like Brockton, Massachusetts at all. It's MUCH nicer.
10. Never mind the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, and other attractions....all Tai really needs to be happy is a patch of grass to crawl on and some seagulls to watch.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Vacation: Part II
Everybody Loves Milk.
The night before we headed to the San Diego Zoo, we used our dying laptop and the shaky internet connection in our villa to check out the live panda cam. What did we see? A mommy panda nursing her cub. Then the two of them fell asleep all snuggled up together. It was ridiculously adorable and got me even more excited for our trip to the zoo.
The next day, while touring the zoo, we happened upon a family of Red River Hogs having lunch. Well, the babies were having lunch--they were nursing. You can see in the picture below the underside of the mom's chin is on the right. She's laying on her side nursing the three babies.
About an hour later, while we were visiting the African elephants, we saw this:
It might be hard to see, but that momma elephant has a baby standing just behind her front left leg, nursing.
At the end of the day, as he headed out to the parking lot, Minh spied another exotic creature feeding its young.
This little guy must have gotten hungry watching all those other animals drink their milk. And none of those mothers even had the decency to cover up!
Just after Minh snapped it's photo, the baby wild animal popped up with a very satiated, "milk-drunk" look on it's face.
The night before we headed to the San Diego Zoo, we used our dying laptop and the shaky internet connection in our villa to check out the live panda cam. What did we see? A mommy panda nursing her cub. Then the two of them fell asleep all snuggled up together. It was ridiculously adorable and got me even more excited for our trip to the zoo.
The next day, while touring the zoo, we happened upon a family of Red River Hogs having lunch. Well, the babies were having lunch--they were nursing. You can see in the picture below the underside of the mom's chin is on the right. She's laying on her side nursing the three babies.
About an hour later, while we were visiting the African elephants, we saw this:
It might be hard to see, but that momma elephant has a baby standing just behind her front left leg, nursing.
At the end of the day, as he headed out to the parking lot, Minh spied another exotic creature feeding its young.
This little guy must have gotten hungry watching all those other animals drink their milk. And none of those mothers even had the decency to cover up!
Just after Minh snapped it's photo, the baby wild animal popped up with a very satiated, "milk-drunk" look on it's face.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Vacation: Part I
Travelling across the country with an infant is every bit as fun as it looks.
We are now "those people." You know, the ones you see in the airport and think "why don't they just stay home?" The ones you HATE to be stuck behind in line. We descended upon Logan Airport with 4 suitcases, a car seat wrapped in a black trash bag, two carry-ons, and a stroller. Oh, and a baby who did not want to be in the stroller. With the help of my parents, we navigated the hour-long line to check bags and get boarding passes. (Jet Blue's computers were all down, so there was no self-check-in and they were giving out hand-written boarding passes.)
Once that hurtle was conquered, we glided through security relatively unencumbered. With the stroller folded up on the x-ray belt, I carried Tai through the metal detector, after passing up two opportunities to make breast milk jokes to the TSA folks. I can't tell you how hard it was to restrain myself when they said, "If you have any liquids for the baby you need to take them out."
This was our first time flying Jet Blue. We mostly chose them because of the insanely cheap direct flight from Boston to San Diego. But the fact that there is a mini-TV in front of each person didn't hurt either. They even have a Google Maps channel that shows you your current air speed, elevation, and location on a map of the US, so that every now and then you can flip to that station and think, "Oh god, we've only come as far as Indiana?"
We figured the TV might help keep Tai calm and quite during the flight. But he was actually not all that interested in it. He was much happier peeking between the seats at the people behind us and giggling at them. Once he fell asleep, though, I found the mini-TV very useful. Or, at least, I thought it would be useful. There I was, 37,000 feet in the air, belted into my seat with Tai sleeping deeply on my full bladder, at 9pm EST on a Thursday. Time for Grey's Anatomy. But wait, Jet Blue offers 37 channels of digital cable and not a single ABC affiliate! It was like some little-known level of hell, sitting there having to pee and knowing that Grey's was on and I was unable to tune in.
Tai was a trooper. He slept for about 1/3 of the flight and only really got stir-crazy for the last 20 minutes or so. And even though we landed in San Diego at 9pm (midnight, EST) and then had to get our bags, shuttle to the car rental place, and wait for our car for about 45 minutes, he held it together.
With the exception of potato chips on the flight, Minh and I had not eaten since about 1pm EST. originally, I thought we'd stop and get something to eat on the way to the condo, but by the time we got our rental car it was so late and Tai was so tired, that we just went straight there and went to bed. Of course, Tai woke us up at 4am the next day, ready to go. We fed him some baby food and played with him, and the proceeded to wait a very long time for restaurants to open. There was no food in the condo and the tap water tasted like dirt. It was a painful 4 hours--I almost broke down and ate a jar of baby food. Needless to say, we were waiting outside the door of a local greasy spoon when they opened at 8am.
We are now "those people." You know, the ones you see in the airport and think "why don't they just stay home?" The ones you HATE to be stuck behind in line. We descended upon Logan Airport with 4 suitcases, a car seat wrapped in a black trash bag, two carry-ons, and a stroller. Oh, and a baby who did not want to be in the stroller. With the help of my parents, we navigated the hour-long line to check bags and get boarding passes. (Jet Blue's computers were all down, so there was no self-check-in and they were giving out hand-written boarding passes.)
Once that hurtle was conquered, we glided through security relatively unencumbered. With the stroller folded up on the x-ray belt, I carried Tai through the metal detector, after passing up two opportunities to make breast milk jokes to the TSA folks. I can't tell you how hard it was to restrain myself when they said, "If you have any liquids for the baby you need to take them out."
This was our first time flying Jet Blue. We mostly chose them because of the insanely cheap direct flight from Boston to San Diego. But the fact that there is a mini-TV in front of each person didn't hurt either. They even have a Google Maps channel that shows you your current air speed, elevation, and location on a map of the US, so that every now and then you can flip to that station and think, "Oh god, we've only come as far as Indiana?"
We figured the TV might help keep Tai calm and quite during the flight. But he was actually not all that interested in it. He was much happier peeking between the seats at the people behind us and giggling at them. Once he fell asleep, though, I found the mini-TV very useful. Or, at least, I thought it would be useful. There I was, 37,000 feet in the air, belted into my seat with Tai sleeping deeply on my full bladder, at 9pm EST on a Thursday. Time for Grey's Anatomy. But wait, Jet Blue offers 37 channels of digital cable and not a single ABC affiliate! It was like some little-known level of hell, sitting there having to pee and knowing that Grey's was on and I was unable to tune in.
Tai was a trooper. He slept for about 1/3 of the flight and only really got stir-crazy for the last 20 minutes or so. And even though we landed in San Diego at 9pm (midnight, EST) and then had to get our bags, shuttle to the car rental place, and wait for our car for about 45 minutes, he held it together.
With the exception of potato chips on the flight, Minh and I had not eaten since about 1pm EST. originally, I thought we'd stop and get something to eat on the way to the condo, but by the time we got our rental car it was so late and Tai was so tired, that we just went straight there and went to bed. Of course, Tai woke us up at 4am the next day, ready to go. We fed him some baby food and played with him, and the proceeded to wait a very long time for restaurants to open. There was no food in the condo and the tap water tasted like dirt. It was a painful 4 hours--I almost broke down and ate a jar of baby food. Needless to say, we were waiting outside the door of a local greasy spoon when they opened at 8am.
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