Magnum P.I. Blogging

I am currently watching an episode of Season 1 of Magnum P.I. on Netflix as I write this post. I'm just putting that out there so that if I make lots of typos and random meandering thoughts, I have an excuse. The episode is called "The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii" and it's pretty awful, but in a nice way. The whole episode is centered around some guys trying to kidnap a dog. Seriously.

Anyways, there's not too much new to report. We had a nice weekend, starting with a grown up night on Friday. Justin and I made a concerted effort to not ignore each other after the baby went to bed, and we spent time talking about the crime in the city and whether or not we want to move, and to where. It's such a complicated issue, so we are trying to get our ducks in a row. I've been talking to a real estate agent at Sanctuary Realty (over e-mail) and he seems very helpful. We are going to go to a home buying seminar that the realty offers next Thursday, and we are even going to have my friend Whitney watch the baby! Can we count that as a date? In any case, we are not in a big rush yet, and we have to figure out whether or not this is even feasible for us. Part of what is making us get more serious is the proposed $15,000 tax credit in the stimulus package. If I understand it correctly, and it gets passed the way I think it is, we wouldn't get a check for $15K or anything, but we would not have to pay federal income tax for two years. But I'm definitely not an expert, and all of this is being pieced together from random websites and finance blogs. But it's really interesting! Once we figure out whether or not we could even qualify for a mortgage, we will need to start thinking seriously about neighborhoods. But who knows...we could easily keep renting for a few more years. It just seems like it's a good time to be a first time homebuyer.

But back to the weekend. Roxanne and I went to a consignment sale in Morningside on Saturday morning. It was sort of "meh." I mean, we found 6 tops and a baby gate (still in the box!) and spent $12, but none of the clothes are great. When you have to go to your basement and hope that your landlord isn't doing his laundry every time you wash your baby's clothes, you buy LOTS of baby clothes so that laundry isn't quite as necessary. After that, we went to get new front tires on our car, since we got a flat last week. We now have all four new tires, since one of the rear tires went flat a few weeks ago. Ugh. After that, we went to IKEA and met my mom and Mike and Leah and some of her friends. We were there for hours, but Roxanne had lots of fun with her family. All we bought was a pillow for the baby, since she is finally allowed to have one. Justin let her borrow his Transformers pillow case. She looks adorable sleeping on it. Sunday was ideal. We went to the Zoo, then ate lunch at Alon's. We went to Yoforia for dessert, and it was wonderful. Roxanne LOVED it. She helped herself to her Dad's frozen yogurt once he had enough.

Roxanne had a big time at the Zoo. She was much more able to watch the animals, especially the elephant. She really stared at him. And the petting zoo was perfect as always. She walked around and said "hihihihi!" to all the animals. She patted a few, too, especially the pigs. And the best goat ever, Willow, let her pet him as usual. She rode the carousel with me, although she was pretty scared of it. I ended up having to sit on the dolphin one with her (which was mildly embarassing) because she wouldn't sit on it alone. But once we got going, she loved it. She did her usual "whoawhoa" and even waved a little. But I tried to wave, too, and she grabbed my hand and put it back on her tummy. I guess she felt safer that way. The three of us rode the train, but Roxanne was more interested in the ticket stubs than the view. So it goes.

Roxanne has added a few new words to her vocabulary, including "nehneh" which can either mean "nana" (my mom) or "night night." She has learned the sign for "milk," but she only does it when she starts nursing or when I ask her if she wants milk. She doesn't sign in order to nurse, if that makes sense. She is only nursing a few times a day, so I'm not rushing to wean at this point. I think if we make it to 18 months, I will reassess how things are going. Right now, her favorite thing to do is climb on stuff. Anything. Everything. Especially stairs. And she loves rocking toys. She rides on them and says "whoawhoawhoa." Today she discovered the joys of dirt while we were playing in the backyard. She was grabbing handfulls of it and then letting it sift back through her fingers. It was one of those moments where I had to let her do it, but I was inwardly cringeing. Ick.

All right, that's enough I guess. I promise I'll post some new photos soon. These long rambling posts are so boring without photos. Sorry!