moving

we signed a new apartment lease last night!  as of june 1, we will be paying for 2 apartments in prague.  but the old lease runs out on july 31, and the new place is much closer to lumi's daycare.

first haircut!

i trimmed the lumster's hair last night!  

she still has her baby baldness except in a couple of places and it was kind of weird.  there was one hair that was way longer than all the others on the side, and kimmo's mother even tugged it once, thinking it was stray lint and not realizing it was attached to lumi.

so i waited until she was happily splashing in the bath and i took some scissors and trimmed that one long hair, plus i took some volume off the baby mullet patch in the back.  i saved the hair in a little container that was a gift from sarah wheatley.  lumi didn't seem to care, and kimmo didn't notice (i even told him about it, but he forgot).

i thought i might feel all emotional about it, but i don't.  she looks a little neater, and i think that's good.

angry face

i'm sorry to report that lumi seems to have inherited my tragic trait of looking angry and accusative when she is merely confused.

i never realized i did this until i was almost 30 and my roommate nikki pointed it out to me.  it was at that point that i realized why so many people over the years have assumed i'm a huge bitch (plus i'm sure my personality doesn't help).  i have since been actively trying to control that and to keep my face more on the neutral side when i don't understand something.  i think i have made some progress.

anyway, we noticed this last week, and i was very sad to see that i had passed this on.  maybe i'll try to help her overcome this earlier in life.

headline of champions

'Number of extremely fat Czechs surging' : i like that it could be that several obese people are surging.  i picture them going on a rampage through the city, waving the flag of their people.

http://praguemonitor.com/2012/05/21/pr%C3%A1vo-number-extremely-fat-czechs-surging

suomi!

we're in nakkila now, enjoying a weekend with kimmo's mom.  we arrived on friday night, after 7 months away from finland.  that is a new record for kimmo!  

the great part was the kimmo's mother was matter-of-fact when we told her it had been 7 months, but then later when we were getting ready for sauna and she asked how long it had been since we last had a sauna, she was stunned and appalled that it had been 7 months.  it was the same reaction i might have had if someone told me that they hadn't trimmed their toenails in 7 months -- like we must be functioning poorly and suffering in some way.

i live for news stories like this

this 'news' story and accompanying photo are both terrific: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18100847

sounds about right

"Writing from a female point of view seems to be generally regarded as something more like writing from the perspective of a deer: you might get points for novelty, but it'd be impossible to get right, and who really wants to hear a deer narrate a story, anyway?"

http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/writing-across-gender-by-jennifer-dubois/

because ladybugs bring chocolate, i guess

yesterday was ladybug day.  

when kimmo arrived at her daycare to pick her up, the kids were playing outside.  the director came out with a square of chocolate and gave some to some of the other daycare teachers (nurses? nannies? what do you call them?) and then gave some to lumi.  kimmo and i are trying to not give sweets and salty snacks to lumi yet, so he asked if she gets chocolate often.

the explanation was "no, but it's ladybug day and all the children got candy."

kimmo let it go then, but now one of us has to have the uncomfortable discussion with the daycare people about not giving lumi sweets, even if all the other kids are getting it (i dread conversations like these so i "forgot" this morning when i dropped her off).  maybe tomorrow!

Dehydration

I drank a lot of beer Friday night at the beer garden and I am still not rehydrated. It is a weird feeling, like my whole GI system is sluggish. I suppose lots of herbal tea would help. Plain water would help too, but sometimes it isn't appealing straight from the kitchen sink, because it has a yellowish hue (i think it is from sitting in the pipes, because it goes away when we are actively using it a lot).

mother's day

it was a nice mother's day.  breakfast at home, then more touring of prague.  we went to the castle, then through mala strana and over the charles bridge, then staromestska, then the bar where they serve you beers via trains.

lumi and simo get along great!

Zoo

We had a nice trip to the zoo today with Kimmo's friends Lotta, Sami, and Simo.

DH, DD

i never read the pregnancy forums much when i was pregnant (except in a search for morning sickness help), and i certainly never posted anything myself.  now that we're experimenting with some different types of diapers, i have been wanting to get on some diaper forums for advice (best detergent in czech republic, etc).  but the acronyms are a huge turnoff.  i can get on board with SAHM and WAHM and such, because i know those would be annoying to type and retype, but the ones that kill me are 'DH' (dear/darling husband), 'DD' (dear/darling daughter), 'DS', 'LO' (little one, i think), and the like.  

chicken

i ate at KFC today!  i was stupidly dumbfounded by the 'menu', which had various 'deals' and pictures and no real list of options.  but the food was tasty and not too heavy, not including the soda that came with my meal.  i think i would go again for a quick lunch, if i can figure out which items i can buy individually.

lunch

i went out for lunch today with a few coworkers, and they took me to this really unappealing cafeteria.  they said it's for tram drivers (it's kind of in the office at one of the tram end stations) and it serves traditional czech food.  i was expecting meat in a brown sauce with a bunch of knedlicky.  but i got one of the best meals i've had since we came to prague!  it was a chicken breast with some cheese and roasted vegetables on it with a side of slightly sour cabbage and mashed potatoes.  i washed it down with a grapefruit-flavored soda.

Happy victory day!

Lumi and I are celebrating with a beer in the park.

i bet you can't even see a seal from 871 meters, even a big one

The UTO KULM in Zurich advertises that it is "871 metres above seal level."

failed environmentalism

since i'm enjoying the cloth diapering with lumi and trying different kinds and feeling generally smug about not producing so much trash, i thought i would try reusable sanitary napkins.  i bought a few from a UK diaper site that a friend raved about.  i haven't used them for full out menstruation, but i have used them instead of disposable panty liners.

i'm not a fan.  maybe i use the wrong kind of underwear or something, but they bunch up and move around and (maybe this is the most important thing) they feel like the drops of pee/discharge/end of cycle/whatever post-birth stuff i'm using a panty liner to absorb are staying wettish and closer to my body than they would if i just let my underwear take the brunt of it.  i don't like it!  fortunately at this point i don't need to wear one every day since the post-birth shrapnel and continency issues seem to have subsided, but i was sad to find that i don't like the hippie route in this circumstance.

in case you were wondering, i did attend class and properly earned my minor african studies

i spent the first half of my senior year of college as part of the Burch Field Research Seminar in cape town.  it was a wonderful time and i learned a lot.  it has been sad to hear more and more (as the story has unfolded in national sports news) how the professor who taught the seminar, dr. julius nyang'oro, played a huge role in the unc football academic fraud saga.

i remember dr. nyang'oro as a wonderful professor and that semester was full of incredible experiences.

http://alumni.unc.edu/article.aspx?sid=8822

why can't they just have the same notes in the same places?

i have been practicing on the keyboard lately, and i'm having trouble keeping the bass and treble clef notes straight in my mind. do i just have to practice until it becomes second nature?

i feel comfortable with bass clef from the baritone years so i can play those notes smoothly, and i can also play smoothly with treble clef when i'm just working on that hand, but reading both at once is very challenging (e.g. the first space means different notes above and below -- A on bass, but then F on treble, so when i see a note on the first space i have to think about which clef it is).  i know the FACE and Every Good Boy and All Cows and so on and if i'm quizzed i know the notes, but it's just that my mind can only handle one set at a time when i'm playing.

name

my new niece's name is zoe!

and today lumi seems to know how to unscrew a cap on a bottle, which means that there is a new layer of babyproofing we have to do around here.

new niece!

my brother and his wife have a new baby!  no name yet...

update: 4.43 kilos!  (9lbs 12oz)

it's got a nice ring to it

tomorrow is the scheduled c-section for my newest niece.  i called today to suggest the czech name 'blahoslava'.  it was one of yesterday's name days.  the boy version is 'blahoslav'.  fabulous!