Blog blog blog...

Kate got me hooked on the Real Simple Magazine. I recently bought myself one in the check-out line and thoroughly devoured it from cover to cover over the weekend (slow time at work).

They had a piece on blogs and listed some of their staff's favorite blogs. So before I post them on my 'Other Noteworthy blogs of people I wish were my friends' list, some of my favorites that they listed are:

smittenkitchen.com
An enthusiastic kitchen amateur chronicles her adventures, offering a mix of easy recipes, smart and witty commentary, and beautiful photos.
apartmenttherapy.com
Decorating ideas and resources for homes and budgets of all sizes. Submit photos of a space that needs help and readers and editors will offer suggestions.

www.budgetfashionista.com
Points readers to on- and off-line deals on clothes and accessories, dispensing fashion advice along the way.

www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com
This is one of my special favorites. From city streets around the world, a fashion-loving photographer posts stylish looks spotted on real folks, not models. It's great people watching...

well.blogs.nytimes.com
Health columnist talks with the experts and sifts through the research, then translates the science of health into practical pointers on sleep, sex, diet, kids' well-being, and more. I especially enjoyed this video about SNL taking on drug companies and their ads:


www.coolmompicks.com
Scouting report on the latest and coolest in everything from kiddie (and mommy) clothes to cribs and cookbooks, with links to the sites that sell them.

www.parenthacks.com
Real parents offer inventive solutions to the problems of child rearing.

www.nymag.com/daily/entertainment/
Two bloggers who profess to "love/hate pop culture like we love/hate nothing else" bring smarts and irony to New York magazine's eclectice coverage of music, books, TV, art, and film. And they feature fun stuff like male pattern baldness on American Idol and fun quotes like this by Will Ferrell:
"I don't know how I won it. I've never been on a list like that, either positively or negatively before. God only knows, but it's probably because I punched this 8-year-old kid in the face at the airport one day, and he wanted an autograph." —Will Ferrell on why he was named the worst autographer by Autograph magazine [A.V. Club]

www.firstshowing.net
See movie trailers and reviews, plus exclusive interviews with film-makers and cinema-related news.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I have!

My New Gym Friend

So it was one of those days at the gym where I had arrived too late to sneak into the aerobics class, and I wasn't feeling motivated enough to make myself jog on the treadmill when I wandered by this thing-- the Expresso Fitness Bike, my new gym friend.
I thought it was a pretty corny machine when I first hopped on, but I thought biking would be good on my knee that has been a little funky and achy of late. But now I'm addicted to this machine! It's like an interactive video game, and it REALLY makes me sweat. It kept my heart rate b/t 120 -140 which is great for biking and actually has bars that move for steering, gear shifts, and resistance for hills.
Plus it has awesome graphics. I can choose if I want to take a "sunset stroll" or bike through the "rolling redwoods" or lost Mayan ruins or even use some weird-o flying dragon, fireball character to consume other bikers in fire.If we ever buy our kids video games, this is totally gonna be the kind of thing we'll have to get. Maybe it'll be cheaper by then.

What really sold me on this bike is that I can set the pacer to like 70 and then bike at a 140 pace and that means that every time I come across any other biker, I can totally pass them. The old cross-country competitor in me is lovin' it.

This totally tops trying to up my tredmill speed higher than the guys' next to me. It's the best of all combinations: cardio, competition, and entertainment. All wrapped up in one sweaty package!

And yes, I realize this is probably the nerdiest post ever, but I just wanted to share the love for all you fellow-gym goers out there...

Sicko

I feel like Eliza is constantly sick. Every weekend at work, my co-workers ask me "How's the baby?" and I feel like every week there's something wrong with her. She sounds like a sickly child, but I think she's actually a very healthy kid.

Her record recently has been against her though; She's had a really high fever this week, last week she had a cold with a really REALLY runny nose, the week before that Eliza was throwing up, and don't forget about the intermittent but constant teething too.

(We took a bunch of pictures at this lunch, but
Eliza's mouth was full in every single one!
She must love Sesame chicken as much as her momma!)

Mom said that she learned in one of her classes that children may have six to ten colds a year (and up to 12 colds a year for school children) and so if those colds last for a week or more, that ends up being about half of the year that HEALTHY kids have some sort of cold or illness! So that made me feel a little better about Eliza's weekend sick report.

(Here's the only Happy Valentine picture we got of Eliza)

Her latest malady has actually been quite the mystery. We THINK we've narrowed it down to an illness called Fifth Disease which includes high fever for several days and then a development of a red, "lacy" rash on her upper arms and legs which are the most common locations (but she didn't have the classic symptom of red cheeks that most kids get). The rash can last a couple of weeks but supposedly once the kid develops the rash they're usually no longer infectious.
Eliza has had fever since like last Thursday or Friday and has been sooo sleepy (kinda nice) and fussy (not nice), and I took her into the pediatrician yesterday. After nose swabs for flu, the normal checking of the other orifices and heart beat and lungs, and a sad catheter to get a urine sample, they found that they had no idea what was wrong with her. So the conclusion was that it was probably a virus (which we would just have to let run its course).

This morning I thought Eliza was feeling a little better, so I went ahead and took us to the gym then met Steve for lunch, and then Eliza and I went to the library. Eliza ended up needing a diaper change and when I was changing her diaper in the library bathroom, I realized that she had this little speckled "lacey" rash alllllllll over her tummy and back and the back of her neck and on her forehead too! I was really freaked and called my mom AGAIN (thanks for letting me bug you so much, mom! I don't know what I'd do w/o you!) and then called my pediatrician again.

So, Fifth disease it is. Poor girl.

(If you look really closely you can see the rash on her forehead and neck)

So we've gotten some great sick-looking pictures of Eliza lately:

Eliza has also recently become quite elusive when the camera is brought out. I swear I call out her name and she crawls away from me faster, the little booger! So I end up with a lot of pictures like this:

and this:

and this:

But I still wanted to update on Eliza's recent discoveries amid her flurry of ill-health.

Her crawling keeps her sooo busy, it's so funny to watch her tour the apartment, usually tagging along behind the kitty or cornering the dog. She also took her first few steps last week from the couch to me! It is SO impressive. But alas, I have failed to capture the wonder, much to my bloggish dismay.

Eliza has been saying "Hi!" to people for months now along with her waves, but these last few weeks she's added another great word to her repertoire. No she waves and says, "Hi, 'Itty! Hi!" and waves at none other than her favorite little kitty, Finnegan! That's right, "Itty" is Eliza-speak for Kitty.

Oh, and she also says ball and mama and dada, but I'm not sure if she's really assigned the meanings to those yet. It's SO cute to hear her talk to the kitty! It's totally worth changing the cat litter (I just need to convince Steve of that)!

Steve and I have really enjoyed Eliza's new intelligence and curiosity and ability to play that's come with her older age. It's made it a lot more fun and exciting to take her to discover the fun at places like the playground, the library (she loves books more than anything!), and other fun kid zone kinda places.

I've really enjoying finding free kids' activities posted in the local free newspaper, C'Ville. It told me about Mother Goose story and singing time at the library on Monday mornings and also about this free marionette performance of Pinocchio last Saturday. I was working, but Steve and Eliza had a blast together!

Eliza's joyous on the inside...

Steve said the theater was a really neat little place and
they even let the kids play with the puppets after the performance!

*The painting at the top is the neat illustration that Steve painted for my mom for Christmas.

Happy Birthday, little brother.

Monday was my "little" brother, Robby's, 21st birthday.

Robby, or Elder Meldau, is currently serving in the Sao Paulo North Mission in Brazil.

And I miss him sooooo much!!
Robby and I are only 18 mnths apart. Growing up, we did EVERYTHING together. Everything, at least, that I could convince/force him to do with me. I even tried to "share" my fingers that I sucked and often would try to offer them to him when he was just a baby which probably resulted in me periodically choking my baby brother-- but it was all outta love!

A little older and we were inseparable. We loved to build forts in the woods, play soccer and basketball, play and act out lego wars, play "imaginary" (where we would pretend to be characters from various things ranging from star trek to x-men to captain planet or disney movies), catch minnows, and sometimes even ride bikes.

Except Robby hated riding bikes, especially after he ran into a pile of branches on his bike and got a huge black eye. After that, I would ride my bike and Robby would run along side me, my faithful companion. I think therefore that I am partly responsible for Robby growing up to become the award winning cross country runner that he is today...

We always had chores to do growing up, and we obviously had to get these done before we got to go out to play. Robby was never too interested in the cleaning thing, and I've never been to interested in the patience thing, so I would often do his chores with him (or for him) just so that he could come play with me sooner.
Robby was my best friend-- hopefully he still is, even though continents and oceans currently divide us. He put up with so much being my little brother. I used to beat him up and stuff or push him around, but he's such a sweet sweet guy that suddenly when he became bigger and stronger than me and I tried to push him around, he never retaliated, he'd just pin my arms down and make it so I couldn't keep fighting him.

I also knew when it was time to stop teasing Robby because when he got really frustrated he would stick his tongue out and bite it- when he would do that, I knew that I'd pushed him far enough.Robby is the clown in our family. He could entertain us and make us all laugh like no else. I have so many memories of sitting around the dinner table, and Robby just making us crack up. Especially mom. I'd be tattling to mom about something that Robby had done that was very deserving of punishment, and he'd have my mom laughing before she could even correct him. That used to drive me crazy, but I was also laughing by the end too.

Rob is playful but doesn't really like playing a lot of games. He's one of the only guys I know who worked as a nanny for two toddlers for a summer and the parents and the kids loved him.
When Robby was in 4th grade and I was in 6th grade, my mom home-schooled us for a year. We would watch Shakespeare movies every Friday and play badminton in our front yard and steal change out of my dad's coin jar and go buy candy all in dimes from Wal-Mart or burgers from Burger King (biking/running the whole way there) and then go eat our plunder in our fort in the woods.

Robby is afraid of the dark and afraid of heights and spiders and strange food and touchy-feely women, but otherwise he's one of the bravest people I know.

Robby was always a lot more social than either Katy or I. Robby has friends every where he goes. People are just drawn to him. Not out of awe or fearful respect but because he has this sincere core to him that is honest and sensitive and brilliant and fantastic.
That's one of the reasons I know he's an awesome missionary. He loves people, and I think people can see that in him. He's an assistant to the president down in Brazil and works his butt off.

I was always so amazed by his deep and steady testimony he would get up and bear every fast Sunday when we were teenagers. When I would oscillate between my valiance and doubts, Rob was always there with his deep, monotone voice sharing that he knew the gospel was true.Robby was the one who taught me my appreciation for rap music which he would play blaring out of our purple mini-van that he drove every morning to high school. He also taught me that shoe design was a supreme art form. He bought me my first pair of pumas for my 19th birthday and took me on a date to Ruby Tuesday's.
He was also my prime dance partner for all of our o-so-awesome (lame) stake dances-- he was the life of the party, always. He always hated my boyfriends, but he liked Steve. He defended my honor once at scout camp when one of my former boyfriends talked smack about me and said some other girl was prettier than me. That guy never messed with us again!
Robby and I played on the same intermural soccer team at BYU, and he named us the Unicorns and was able to totally rock this t-shirt that Steve designed for us. And he bought me my pink soccer ball.
One year at our boot camp styled soccer camp, we had a coach from like Norway or somewhere, and he saw what a focused and dedicated individual that Rob was and would almost daily tell our team, "If I could I would gather up all my money and gold and invest it in RUbert. Rubert is gonna go places in his life."
Granted, he was a pretty strange man, but I know he was picking up on what was essentially Robby. Good attitude, never straying, solid, Robert Capener Meldau.
Robby comes home from his mission in July, and I can't wait. See, the thing that KILLS me is he still hasn't met my baby. Ahh! It breaks my heart that she's never had the chance to laugh and giggle with her Uncle Robby! But she'll be like 16 mnths old by the time he gets back. That's hardly even a baby anymore. More like a toddler.

We have a little "Who Loves Baby?" book and one whole page is dedicated to her Uncle Robby.
So if there are any single, early 20's mormon girls out there, heads up! Rob'll be back at BYU Fall of 2008. take note.

I love you, Rob.

Freedom does not equal Happiness: The Sad Tale of the Mittenless Baby who liked to poke outlets

Eliza's turning out to be somewhat of a stubborn, headstrong kid already. Taking after her mother, perhaps.

Yesterday I took her to the mall's little playground play place (to escape the cold weather but still have some time outside the apartment), and she was having a BLAST crawling around over the odd Thomas Jefferson plastic memorials and laughing at the fun big kids and then somehow managed to find the ONE exposed outlet that was on the ground right outside of the play area to try to poke her finger into.
I tried moving her across the play area to play and be distracted with other corny, fake plastic rocks and drums and such, but she kept finding her way back to the outlet. Then I tried just standing with one foot over the outlet and letting her still explore around me, but instead she tried pushing my foot out of the way and got mad at me. I moved her across the room again and she turned to repeatedly pulling off her socks and trying to de-leaf a branch of an ivy plant.

Notice the mess Eliza manages to make in a matter of about 2 minutes.
She pulls up on the entertainment center (and the couch and the chairs
and the toilet and the edge of the bath, etc) all by herself these days!

Today on our daily walk with the dog, I got Eliza all bundled to go out into the 20 degree weather and put her winter coat on with a hat, mittens, and shoes. She was not happy about being burdened with all of this extra clothing and just a minute into her walk I heard her from the backpack make an angry grunting noise, and I glanced back and groped around with my arm to find that one of her mittens was hanging down. I felt around on the other side a minute later and realized she had freed herself from that one also.

I hung the mittens over my shoulder and felt one of them and found that it was wet from where she had apparently bitten it to pull her hand free from its imprisonment. I gave Eliza a nice little lecture on how "Freedom does not always mean happiness" which I'm sure she enjoyed greatly (but if I don't talk to her or Mika, what else do I have to do all day?).

Here's Eliza after the walk: no shoes, no mittens-- and a smile!

Then a few minutes later I heard her mad little grunt again and heard a soft thud on the cement behind us. I turned around and there was her little plastic shoe sitting on the trail. I bent down and picked it up and before I even stood up the other one plopped down also. OH, Eliza! What am I gonna do with you? I cut our walk a little short. At least (knock on wood) she hasn't figured out or at least hasn't found interest in pulling off her hat or bows yet...

It was really nice weather on Monday so we had our sliding door to our balcony open with the screen door just barely open enough so that our indoor cat could go out to stare at the birds and think he's really daring and stuff. This is also where Eliza decided she wanted to practice walking. We tried to distract her with other toys and walk her to another couch and location but she would just let her legs collapse under her so that she could crawl right back to what she was doing. Nice, right?
Oh, yeah, and Eliza also loves to chew on chords.

This is probably just a normal child's response or attempt to control and/or manipulate their environment, but it sure can get annoying.

Eliza also loves playing with the dog's crate for some reason.
Notice how she is once again down to only one sock!

My mom said that she would tell Katy No or to not do something and Katy would stop (as a baby/infant). She said that I would find an electrical outlet and try to put my finger in and my mom would say no, and I'd go right back to it and stare at my mom while I poked my finger into it once again. (Let me know if I got that story right or wrong, mom)

Eliza also loves playing with the dog's crate for some reason.
Notice how she is once again down to only one sock!

So apparently Eliza has my affinity for electrical sources and defiance. Neat.


V-Day Report
Steve and I tried to keep it cheap this valentine's day. I baked him this devil's food cake from scratch and practiced out my cake decorating skills.
And here's a dorky picture of me being really excited about the Lindt chocolates Steve got me!We actually had a really neat Valentine's day. Steve made me my favorite food for a romantic lunch- sesame chicken (and even out of the weight watchers cook book so there was no guilt)! And then we had a great family nap and went to the library. Then we had a scrumptious Mediterranean meal at a restaurant on the Downtown Mall called Bashir's Tavern that had a delicious Valentine's menu that even included chocolate fondue for dessert. YUM!

We were kinda worried that we would crash some couple's romantic valentine's date by having Eliza with us at such a nice, un-family oriented restaurant (they didn't even have high chairs or booster seats), but Eliza was SO good. She loved sharing my food with me (and eating her blueberry and cereal baby food), and our waitress and the people sitting next to us both commented on what a GOOD baby she was and how lucky we were!

And here's a picture of our odd kitty who loved his little paper ball so much, he dove into the deep recesses of our couch to retrieve it.
And returned successfully to tell the tale.And here's something crazy I did in photoshop with a picture of my mom with Eliza. Don't worry, I don't actually think it looks good. I thought it was kinda fun/funny, though.
Playing with photoshop is just one of my recent projects I've deluded myself into thinking I can become awesome at.

Some others include the cake decorating, sewing Eliza a jumper (this I blame on too many project runway reruns), sewing Eliza and me matching skirts (also PR reruns), reading five different novels (including 2 Toni Morrison audiobooks), trying to wean Eliza, blogging fascinating and interesting posts every 2-3 days, and browsing and retaining the information from 4 different parenting books before they're due back at the library.
I believe that I will probably completely accomplish NONE of these endeavors, at least not to the extent I would like.

But maybe I'll have some fun in the process... or give Steve something new to chuckle at. Eliza's SO good at entertaining herself these days now that she can crawl; I feel a new liberation as far as my hobbies go. It's been really nice in the afternoons to turn on my Toni Morrison audiobooks and listen to them while I try to learn how to cut and sew straight as Eliza happily plays with her puzzles and blocks and the cat at my feet!