We are really trying to keep the house in relatively good order since it’s still on the market, but it’s nearly impossible with our little helper.
Kitchen Helper
Category Archives: Griffin
Griffin the Puppy
Revolution
Today I made banana walnut muffins with Griffin, and it was truly a transformative experience. This may seem like the beginning of a silly anecdote, but I am totally serious. It really opened my eyes to the fact that my child is ready for things I didn’t know he was capable of.
The idea of involving him in making muffins (which I was going to do regardless) transpired after reading a book called Sign With Your Baby and watching the corresponding DVD. I’ve been working on signing with Griffin since returning from full time work, and already he’s picked up more, milk, and all done. I wanted a little more guidance, though, and so turned to these resources. The babies in the video were communicating on such a sophisticated level that it motivated me to first, learn more signs so I can introduce them to Griffin, and second, really involve Griffin in everyday experiences so we can have more opportunities to communicate and experience things together. Muffin making this afternoon seemed like the perfect chance to start. I thought at the very least he’d be fascinated by the mixer!
I put him in a little apron and pulled the step stool up to the counter. He watched me measure the flour, sugar, and other dry ingredients and put them into the mixer. He listened to my warnings not to put his hands near the moving parts, and was indeed taken with the sound and movement. Next, we worked on the wet ingredients, which were set aside next to another bowl. This is where the magic started happening. I was standing behind him while he was standing on the step stool: I cracked the eggs in front of his face, which elicited an excited, “ooooooooh!” I brought out the egg beater, and we spun it together, hand over hand, to beat the eggs. He giggled. He poured in the milk and yogurt without spilling! We stirred it together with a wooden spoon. I showed him how to mash the bananas with his hand and put them in the bowl, and to my amazement, he did it unaided. This was by far his favorite part. He was laughing with every squish and signed more! when he was done. I crushed the walnuts, and he dutifully put the walnuts in the batter, one by one, after I’d combined the wet and dry ingredients.
He did get banned from actually filling the muffin tins since he wanted to stick his hand in every single one, but this is only the first of many collaborative cooking efforts; I’m sure we’ll get to a point where he will be able to help every step of the way.
Better Than A Dog
Andrew and I are both dog people. Before getting married, we talked pretty seriously about getting a dog, but then we got engaged, were working full time (plus I was working another part time job), planning a wedding, driving across the country, getting married…you get the picture. It didn’t seem fair to get a dog if we couldn’t devote the time we both thought a dog deserved. “Maybe after we’re married,” we both said. Then I got pregnant.
Now that Griffin has been in our lives for over a year, we’ve been talking about how we’d love to have a dog someday. . .like when Griffin can take care of it. But we’ve also been thinking, “Who needs a dog when you have a baby?” The parallels are more than you might imagine. Griffin likes to:
- unroll and shred the toilet paper
- eat everything, especially non-food items
- get into the recycling and garbage
- go for walks
- pee on the rug
- run around in the backyard
- lap up water from puddles
And yesterday, we discovered he loves the sprinkler! Check out the video:
Of course, a dog can’t say “Mama” or “Dada,” and a dog certainly won’t sit on your lap and listen to you read stories while he turns the pages. And even though Griffin likes to pull all the books off of the bookshelves and reorganize the tupperware all over the kitchen floor, we think he’s a keeper and better than any dog we could have imagined.
Never Say Never
I’m discovering as I get older that perhaps I’m the kind of person who prefers the quiet. Those of you who know me well might be saying, “Duh, Sarah. Aren’t you the woman who has chosen to spend most of her summers in a tent in the woods? And hey, didn’t you live for an entire year in a state park?” So perhaps I’m a little slow on the uptake. I mean, really, I kind of think screaming should be reserved for when you’re being eaten by a bear. You’d think I would have figured out by now that I prefer quiet.
But seriously, sometimes these insights creep up on me and I realize, “Oooohhhhh, there are different people in the world. Those who like it noisy and those who like it quiet, and I like quiet!” So imagine my surprise when I said to myself, “I really should buy Griffin one of those fake phones that makes all kinds of noise when you push the buttons! And maybe it should be in Elmo’s voice! And be able to say Griffin’s name! That would be an awesome addition to my life!”
Yes, I’ll confess that I’ve often looked with disdain at those toys that light up, talk to you, and do all kinds of things that seem unnecessary. I believe the words, “The WORLD is stimulating enough! I will never buy something like that for my child! Kids don’t need all those bells and whistles!” have come out of my mouth on more than one occasion, definitely with an eye roll for dramatic effect. But need is the operative word here. Of course kids don’t NEED those things, but they sure do like ’em, and Griffin is definitely one of those kids who delights in things that go “whirrrrr!”
Sure, he’ll play with the beautiful stuffed animal I painstakingly made out of felt or the natural wooden blocks, but what he really, really loves is carrying our cordless phone around while pushing the buttons to hear the noise and watch it light up. We were ending up chasing him all over the house making sure he didn’t dial 911 or India, and finally I decided he needed a phone of his own.
I considered looking at the second-hand stores first, but frankly traipsing all over Oakland with Griffin in tow pursuing this one thing I may never find wasn’t too appealing. So I headed to Target as part of a greater errand run, and the choices were surprisingly limited (apparently the newest thing for kids is to have their own play laptop, so I guess I’m behind the times). It was either Elmo, Buzz Lightyear, or some obnoxious Japanese character I’ve never heard of. I had to forget my goal of purchasing things without television or Disney characters on them (I guess I’ve got a lot of issues), and let Griffin play with Elmo and Buzz in the cart to see which seemed the least disturbing. Surprisingly, Elmo won.
Admittedly, Elmo is pretty cute, and Griffin absolutely loves the phone. He carries it all around, puts it up to his ear and says, “Hay-lo!” He hasn’t touched our real phone since, and thankfully Elmo has an off switch for those times when we need just a little more quiet.
The Incredible Birthday Gift
As you may know, my sister Alli designed and printed our wedding invitations a couple of years ago, and since then Andrew and I have been telling her that she’s going to be the next big thing. While we may be slightly biased, I do think it’s undeniable that Alli has amazing talents that produce beautiful, visually yummy designs.
It turns out she’s been working on an alphabet book for Griffin for the past eight months, and it arrived in the mail two days ago. If my socks could have been knocked off literally, they would have shot straight across the room. She got it “published” through Shutterfly, so it’s a real, hardcover book, and it could not be more beautiful. It’s so beautiful, in fact, that I’m not letting Griffin touch it. He can only look at it from a distance until his proclivity for eating books subsides. I wish I could post the whole book, but until it’s really published (and I seriously think it could be!) I’ll share a few of my favorite pages from The Incredible Edible Alphabet by Alli Stocco.
Cover
A is for Apple
B is for Bean
D is for Dill
F is for Fig
P is for Pomegranate
T is for Tomato
W is for Walnut
Minnesota Progress
A lot has happened in the past four days:
- On Wednesday we flew to Minnesota, duly documented via iPhone.
- On Thursday morning I met with the principal of the St. Paul Open School.
- Then we had lunch with Maddy and Zoe and I visited Laura Jeffrey Academy, an all-girls middle school in St. Paul. I toured the school with some prospective parents and then had a great meeting with the educational director (their equivalent of a principal).
- Somehow in the midst of all this Sarah and I drove around various neighborhoods in St. Paul and Minneapolis to start thinking about where we might want to live.
- On Thursday evening we celebrated Griffin’s first birthday in Courtland with a whole passel of Stocco family friends. It was fun and festive, and the cake was delicious.
- Friday morning began with a somewhat strange meeting with the principal of a progressive charter school in Minneapolis. Sarah and I participated in their “morning meeting” and then chatted briefly (and awkwardly) with the principal who basically said he doesn’t have any job openings and has no ideas about where one should look for teaching jobs. Weird.
- Then we raced over to Crosswinds Middle School in Woodbury (east of St. Paul) and met with a friend of a friend who has been teaching there for a bunch of years. She was great and introduced us to her principal who was similarly great.
- The sum of all the meetings was that budget cuts will make the job search very challenging. On the bright side, I got many useful tips on how to best market myself and where to focus my efforts most productively. At this point I’m focusing on charter schools and will start checking out possible private school options.
- On Friday afternoon Sarah and I met with a realtor and started looking at houses and exploring various neighborhoods in St. Paul. Our first foray was a bit underwhelming (but things got better later).
- On our drive back to Courtland that evening we realized that we were utterly exhausted. We called the realtor to reschedule our Saturday tour to Sunday morning.
- Saturday was our spring break! We had a leisurely breakfast, napped, took long hot baths, and walked to the local park where Griffin loved the slide. (First time he has ever been really into it — he just kept diving down this one, head first! Pictures will be forthcoming.) I also wrote thank you cards to the various people I had met with during the week.
- This morning (seriously, I can’t believe this was today) we raced back up to the Cities to meet with our realtor. Today’s tour focused mostly on Minneapolis and was much more positive. We saw a fabulous house in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood and a couple of other cool contenders in Southwest and near Lake Nokomis.
- Then a picnic lunch by the lake with Pam and Jeff who had just picked up uncle Bob at the airport. Fun in the sun, and great to overlap with Bob for an hour.
- Then back to the airport to fly back to SFO. Griffin had a harder time on this flight. He’s got a molar coming in and was tired but couldn’t fall into a comfortable sleep. Still, he handled it pretty well and is a pro at airplane bathroom diaper changes.
- When Ed picked us up at the BART station he handed us a bag with three English muffins from our favorite bakery. He figured we might not have breakfast organized for tomorrow. Is that not the sweetest thing?
Whew. We would never have been able to get this much done if Pam and Jeff and Alli hadn’t handled Griffin during most of our trips to the Cities. It was a win-win for everybody: we got a lot done and Griffin got to bond with his grandparents and auntie!
Here’s what Griffin thought about all of this on the BART ride home:
I can’t believe I have to work tomorrow!
Happy Birthday Griffin!
SFO->MSP
Had a great flight! Griffin was squirmy but generally polite. (And who isn’t squirmy when they have to sit in a tiny seat in a noisy tube packed with strangers?)
( I probably could have skipped these posts, but I am addicted to my new phone. Love the wordpress app!)
BART
On our way to SFO. Griffin is incredibly curious about everything.
