Apples, Sickness and Baby Talk

I haven’t had a chance to update lately because I have been wicked sick.  Sicker than I have been in a long time, that’s for sure.  Unfortunately, Evie had been sick before me and all I could think about was, “I sure hope this isn’t how she felt!”  Also unfortunately, we were in Fort Wayne for the Johnny Appleseed Festival, and it always sucks to be sick anywhere besides home.  To say nothing of a brutal 3 hour ride home.  (Although, someone did point out that I have probably spent more time being sick in that house than anywhere else on earth)  I would also like to state for the record that Ron’s apple pie tastes exactly the same coming out as going in!

Johnny Appleseed was pretty cool.  I didn’t get an apple dumpling like I wanted, or any food for that matter due to sickness, but we did manage to eat apple baked french toast for breakfast and apple pie for dinner, so I think I made up for it.  I was kind of concerned that it wouldn’t be as big as I remembered since I haven’t been there since I was quite small, but it was pretty huge.  We didn’t buy anything (it was indeed as expensive as I remembered), but we had a good look around and also saw Casey, Margaret and Isaiah who is only 1 month older than Evie.

Speaking of Evie, we had a discussion about how many words she can say.  We had been saying 25 words as a rough estimate, but when we sat down and actually counted them, we came up with I think 63.  She certainly understands a lot more, but those are the ones she will spontaneously and reliably say, and not counting things she just repeats after you say them.  She loves books more and more every day (a child after my own heart) and practically doesn’t play with any other toys.  She knows all of her books and you can ask for them by name and she can go over to the shelf and find them and bring them to you.  This is including her set of alphabet books that she got for her birthday, but only certain letters that she likes.  For example, she can always find ‘O’ (octopus, orange and owl to which she likes to say “hoo hoo”) but other letters give her trouble.

She is eating a little better especially if it is finger foods.  She’s not very good with a spoon.  However, soon after a meal starts she starts yelling, “Chee!  Chee!” because all she wants to eat at every meal is cheese (as I said, a child after my own heart).  You have to be careful what you say because you might accidentally remind her of cheese and once she gets going, she wants nothing else.  It is the same for water.

She still loves shoes and clothes and spends a lot of time ineffectually trying to dress herself with anything that resembles clothes.  She doesn’t even come close.  My mom gave her a purse and she likes to carry that around now too.  She’s going to be something when she gets old enough to really know about clothes!

I almost hate to say it because I don’t want to jinx it, but the last two nights rather than rocking and singing her to sleep, I have put her in her bed and read her a story until she fell asleep!  Granted, she was very tired both nights, but if that sticks that would be a huge deal!  But of course, now that I have told all of you it can’t possibly happen.

That is all.

Oh, P.S. just because I forgot to mention Talk Like a Pirate Day, doesn’t mean I didn’t celebrate!  And even if my reoccurring calendar appointment didn’t remind me, I always have people who do.

Cupcake Traitor

As readers of this blog are well aware, I am a fan of Molly’s Cupcakes.  Well, over the weekend, my loyalty was tested by another Chicago cupcake joint, Sweet Mandy B’s. (Sorry, I couldn’t find an actual website for them)

I was a little nervous that the place would actually be good and then it would test my loyalty.  As we were walking in I said, “Best case for me, this place totally sucks.”  Unfortunately (or fortunately) the place did not in fact totally suck.  Quite the opposite actually, it was quite delicious!

It is really hard to compare the two places though.  They had slightly different vibes.  Sweet Mandy B’s was busier, with less seating and with a lot of other options besides cupcakes (like cookies for example).  I don’t think you can make your own cupcakes like you can at Molly’s.  They didn’t have swings either.  As far as I could tell they don’t really put any frosting or filling inside the cupcake the way they do at Molly’s.  It did seem to be a little cheaper, which isn’t anything to scoff at.  The strangest thing that made it hard to compare the two was that there was actually very little overlap in the cupcakes they offered!  Both places have maybe 10 types of cupcakes so you would think they would overlap significantly, but they really didn’t.

The first cupcake I tried was the Turtle because it looked the most similar to the Ron Bennington.  But in actuality they were nothing alike because the Turtle doesn’t have any peanut butter, which is the main ingredient in the Ron Bennington.  However, I have to say, I may have preferred the Turtle!  That is only due to the fact that I am not as much of a peanut butter fan as some people may be.  So I’m not saying the Turtle is a better cupcake, I’m only saying that I personally (may) prefer it.

You know, this brings up another point.  It is hard to compare cupcakes because whatever cupcake you are currently eating is automatically the most delicious cupcake ever.  So the reality of the current cupcake competes with the faded memory of the past cupcake, which isn’t really a fair comparison.  That is why I can’t say whether the only cupcake I tried that is actually found at both places (Red Velvet) was better or worse at Sweet Mandy B’s.  It was delicious, but so was the one at Molly’s.

Anyway, I also really liked the Snickerdoodle and Sara declared that the Cherry Almond cupcake was the greatest cupcake EVAR.  It was extremely tasty.  The only disappointment was the regular vanilla cupcake. With all the other choices you have, I’d say don’t bother.

So, unfortunately, I now no longer have a go-to cupcake place.  I still have a special place in my heart for Molly’s; you never forget your first love.  Choosing between delicious cupcake places…my life is hard. 😦

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In addition to Sweet Molly B’s, we went to another Chicago restaurant, Minnies.  Their gimmick is that they have tiny sandwichs.  So instead of ordering one sandwich, you order maybe three.  My favorite was the Pesto Chicken.  I also tried the Reuben and the Club.  The Club was pretty good, but about what you would expect.  The Reuben was decidedly blah.  The BBQ Pulled Pork was actually really good.  It was sweeter than I expected, but still good.  

While there I saw on the menu that they had Dublin Dr. Pepper.  For those not in the know, that is the only Dr. Pepper bottling plant that still uses the original Dr. Pepper recipe with real sugar. Being a Dr. Pepper fan, of course I had to try that.  At first I was worried that it would just taste the same and be lame.  When I drank it I thought it tasted different, but only later did I realize it was probably because it was regular and I am used to diet!  So maybe there is no difference, I don’t know.

So, all in all, the restaurant was okay, but it was kind of expensive for what you got (that Dr. Pepper was $5). 

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Contrast that with the May Street Cafe where I had I think the best prepared fish I have ever tasted in my entire life.  Salmon, delicious and perfectly cooked.  I would absolutely recommend this place to anybody.  We got there right when they opened so nobody was around at all.  In fact, we were the only customers the entire time we were there.  I hope they get busy later because it would be sad if a great little place like that closed down because they never got any customers.  Out around the parking lot they grow flowers to put on the tables and they even have a little herb garden to grow some of the ingredients.  The one knock against the place was that they didn’t have a highchair (it was kind of a fancy place).  However, it turns out they had something better!

Keep in mind this is not the first time this has happened.  Whenever we go to a Mexican restaurant, everybody is quick to fall in love with Evie.  (Okay, whenever we go anywhere)  Because it is a very family oriented culture, they just love to make a big deal over babies.  So what you have to do is go really early when the restaurant first opens so that there are no other customers.  Then the staff is happy to take your baby and carry her all around the restaurant and introduce her to people and show her all the pictures, etc. leaving you to eat in peace!  I’m telling you, the first time it happened it kind of freaked me out, but now I love it.  They are so nice and they kept her occupied the entire time, even though that meant showing her the picture of the fishy like 20 times and giving her little boxes of Chiclets to use as maracas.

So, two thumbs up to the May Street Cafe, one for food and one for service!

Quite the foodie weekend!

New Videos

I’ve added some new videos to MySpace.  Unfortunately, WordPress.com doesn’t allow you to embed MySpace videos, so you’ll have to click on the links.  Maybe someday I’ll upload them to youtube or something.

The first video is an older video showing some of Evie’s first steps.

The second video is a newer video of Evie after she had been walking for a while.  We got her some new shoes and they were a little stiffer than the shoes she had when she was learning to walk.  She did not like them!

The third video is brand spanking new video of Evie being a genius.  She has had an explosion of words lately.  It seems like she is learning a few new words every day.  We’ve lost track of how many words she knows now, but our rough guess is about 25.  Anything from “tree”, to “house”, to “key”, to her personal favorite words “fishy” and “cheese” (well, actually, she is still very fond of “no”).

I can’t wait to see what month 14 brings!

Teleportation Cat

This is a veeery sneaky cat.  And creepy!  It almost reminds me of The Ring or something.

Link courtesy Ichiban

Guess the Accent

Okay, this is a fun game courtesy MegDesk.  Basically you watch a video of people speaking English and then you have to guess which country you think they are from.  You need to have sound (obviously) and it takes a little while to complete because there are 16 of them.

I got 7 correct and a total of 29 points.  Like Meg, I will post a comment with spoilers, so don’t read that until you’ve taken the test!