Portrait of the blogger as a young girl

Cat's Cradle

She just wants to help

Halloween wrap
So it's November now, and still nothing to report in the baby news department. I can tell you I am not a fan of pointless contractions that apparently accomplish nothing, but that's about all I've got.On the plus side, though, we did get to take the Bug trick-or-treating this year - something

War and Peace
Even more intimidating than picking up Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace is attempting, as an amateur blogger, to review it. This is an amazing book, difficult to put down and enjoyable from start to finish. I chose the 2007 translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, a husband and wife team who has done a phenomenal job of translating a number of Russian classics. I don't anticipate ever reading another translator's edition of any Russian novel - they breathe new life into these wonderful books.At nearly

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
After my tepid review of Watchmen, Joker suggested that I try Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, as another well-known, groundbreaking graphic novel, and one that he particularly likes. I definitely preferred it to Watchmen, and while I would absolutely recommend it for the medium, I wouldn't list it among the greatest reads of all time.Dark Knight Returns was my first Batman comic, though I have seen

Bug: L'artiste
The weather this weekend was pretty crappy, lessened only because it was expected to be worse. Combined with the fact that I'm uncomfortable, achy, and contracting, we were pretty cooped up. Though I desperately needed the time to sort through boxes of baby stuff - and to do endless loads of laundry before sorting the clothes, blankets, bibs, etc. into piles by size (and girl vs. gender-neutral) - the highlight was helping the Bug with her artwork.She absolutely loves to color and to "do stickers", but the real fun begins when we break out the paints or the markers. I love watching her work - she picks out a color, concentrates very hard on whatever it is she's doing at the mo

Pumpkin painting
Even though our neighbors have promised to set up a special night of trick-or-treating for the Bug should the moppet decide to show on Halloween, it'd be a bummer to miss the Bug's first "real" Halloween. Technically, it's her third, but this is the first time she could tell me what she wanted to be (a unicorn, which is harder to find than you'd expect). And she was super excited for our visit to the pumpkin patch (where she was going to find a Bug-sized pumpkin, and I would get a Mommy-sized pumpkin, and Daddy would get a Daddy-sized pumpkin). We even upped the fun quotient by inviting the cousins (and Aunt Katy and Uncle Dave) to join us.We went to Eden Farms in Stamford -