Hot Tomale!

Oh what a day!
It's been hotter 'n hades today! It broke an easy 105 degrees today and some thermometers in town read 109! It's the first time in Seattle history it has broke 100 since they started keeping track in 1841.
Many of you realize that this is hot, but you don't know hot until you live without AC and are living/sleeping in 100 plus weather. Blech.
SO measures have been taken. This is our second night camping downstairs in the living room like one big hippie family. We moved the mattress downstairs, moved all of Greta's things so we can glean the precious bit of coolness that the downstairs holds.
I haven't put a toe outside in 24 hours and am happy as a clam. Or maybe an oyster...a sweaty oyster...a sweaty oyster that is ready to be thrown back into the sea...so maybe happy as a clam is a bit of a stretch. But I am more of a hopeful sort of mollusk.
All on all though as miserable as it has been....it's actually kind of fun!
There is an element in emergency type situations that I like! They bring people together and upset normal schedules, you know, doing what you have to in order to get through the heat. Like spending the day in your unders, not moving, or in Greta's instance soaking all day in a bath in the dining room! It's all very out of the norm and memorable.

( I took this picture with my phone because nothing short of a pyroclastic cloud (worst fear) could chase me up those hot stairs to get my camera.)
Greta spent most of her day adorned thus. And I have been humming "How do you solve a problem like Maria" all day.
She has been a sweet little trooper that just doesn't quite get why things are so uncomfortable all of a sudden. But nonetheless she has been very sweet and wishes me to tell you that her favorite new food is zucchini, that she is learning how to use a sippy cup but is finding it a little confounding (why doesn't the water come out when I put it upside down?) and that she is currently on expedition to the greater "downstairs" region of our house and those wishing to see the underside of our chairs may enquire, however positions are filling up.

Mamamamama!

Mamamamama!
That's been the common refrain for the last few days.
But I don't mind:)
She reaches for me when she wants to go "up"
And holds on tight.
She likes to be carried into stores and sit in the cart.
Being a mom just keeps getting better and better.

Unwedged

The week we spent in the hospital after Greta was born it was discovered that Greta had acid reflux which made sleeping uncomfortable for her (and us).
Enter... The Wedge.
Children's fitted her with a giant foam throne complete with large blue Velcro straps to keep her sleeping in a comfortable semi-upright position. They told us that she would probably not need it by the time she got to be 6 months.
Well, 6 months came and went and she still slept in her wedge. Now the function was replaced by its comforts and Greta didn't fancy sleeping without it.
It was comical really seeing this big baby with her shoulders crammed between the foam sides, and arms sticking out and up since they couldn't fit at her side anymore. Foam groaning and buckling under the strain.
We tried taking it out cold turkey and I can't remember a more miserable night for either of us. She kept turning over looking for the side of her wedge to snuggle into and kept lodging herself in the bars of the crib instead.
Another complication was that she wasn't an ambi-roller yet. She could roll back to front, but front to back was something else. So one roll and she was stuck. Despair of life inevitably followed.
However lately she's been rolling to AND fro so we have been weaning Greta into what we call "Big girl naps" (without the wedge), and finally 2 nights ago we took the plunge and had her sleep...bum, bum, buuuuum...WEDGELESS!
Happy to say she did great, and proved herself again last night!

Ladies and gentleman... The Wedgeless Wonder...

Portland

This weekend we went down to check out the Land of Ports (as Kent calls it). We kept on hearing how awesome it is there and what a cool arts community it has. Almost every other person on Etsy is from there it seems:) So we thought we would go down and see what all the fuss was about.
We met up with some of my cousins there and Jessa Mae so graciously allowed us to stay at Casa de Yay for the duration of our trip.
We did our homework before going and chose a few places we particularly wanted to go and In the beginning there was: Pine State Biscuits.
Oh mother of pearl, that was some good food! We saw it on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives a couple weeks ago and it did not disappoint. They specialize in biscuits, but not your average biscuit... Giant, fluffy biscuits smothered in the worlds best sausage or shitake gravy (usually a "no thanks" for me, but was a "gimme that!" at Pine State) with every breakfast food that deserves to be around stacked on top. Since the owners were a couple of guys from the South who met up in College they had lot's good old southern flair there, even Cheerwine! I hadn't seen a bottle of that since I was in North Caroline. If you like breakfast and you are ever in Oregon run don't walk to Pine State, just look for the line wrapped outside the door and all the happy people.
Then there was Powell's! The worlds largest independent bookstore. It was numerous stories high and meticulously categorized by color, room, and shelf to make searches a breeze.
I hear people say all the time that you can spend the rest of your life in Powell's. And I can see how it would be easy to do because first you would get lost, second you would look around and realize that you didn't care, and then lastly they would find your body (someday) beaming under a stack of books.
Our last must see spot was a little donut shop called Voodoo. Famous for it's odd flavoured donuts (like Captain Crunch, Tang, even a maple bar with bacon on top) as well as their odd shaped ones like their namesake, a donut shaped like a man with red jelly inside that's been stabbed with a pretzel.
Overall the donuts didn't blow our minds, As a novelty they were fun though and the place certainly didn't lack in character (or morbid charm).
In between all of our must sees we shopped vintage stores, drank Stump Town coffee, perused record shops, markets, and restaurants galore. Greta was a champ for the whole trip. Each day she emerged from her stroller sticky with sweat but smiling.
She didn't seem to mind the hot as balls weather or the fact that she spent almost her entire day being pushed around at everything we wanted to see and probably nothing she did.
So thanks little one!