Walk in the Glow of Each Other's Majestic Presence

Coming into the weekend Alice and I were getting pretty tired of being on our own, but fortunately the reinforcements arrived on Thursday in the form of my cousin, Ashley, and her boyfriend, Alex. We had a fun dinner at Mifune and I got to hear about some of Alex' adventures as a set designer for movies and television. Unfortunately, something Alex and Alice ate (we suspect the beef) did not go down well and they both had rough nights. Avert your eyes now if bodily effluvia is a squick factor.

( Gag Line )

On Friday A&A went off for a day of wandering Harvard Square and Newbury Street and dinner with bex77 and audioboy. Alice and I had a hard day--even before the previous night's adventures she had been off her feed for a few days and mealtimes have become major exercises in patience. But we survived and A&A came back about the time that muffyjo was arriving for pizza and laundry and we ended up playing Trivial Pursuit. I shamelessly won and when Alex wanted to play again I suggested that I just dump my pieces and we keep going...and I won again.

When I woke up on Saturday, Jason was home and in bed with me and all was right with the world. He looked after Alice all day, while A&A went off to spend the rest of their visit with Anne & George. I puttered around and finally managed to get some traction on a task I've started three times previously and then we joined dpolicar and earthling177 for dinner at Alfresco, which everyone had been praising to the skies. The food was reasonably good, but they were overrun and the service suffered to the point of Jason not only being served the wrong entree, but never being brought the correct one. The waitress was fairly nonchalant about the whole thing until I asked her to take the wrong entree off the bill and then the owner came and made sufficiently effusive apologies that we came out thinking we probably will go back, but maybe on a Tuesday. From there we went to celebrate hotpoint's birthday at his lovely home and I gorged myself on cannoli. Most exciting of all, Alice took her first unsupported step before realizing what she'd done and sitting down. Now the trouble really starts!

Today I did a big run to Whole Foods and then came home and cleared enough stuff out of the fridge to make room for the groceries and made lunch before setting to work on dinner. I made a quadruple batch of Hungarian mushroom soup. I think that's the largest I've ever done and chopping seventy mushrooms reminded me why I don't do that more often. I did remember to use my snorkel mask for the onions this time, which is a major win. I got a nap and then the hordes (Anne, George, Ashley, Alex, Mom and Dad) descended upon us and we had a very pleasant evening, dining on soup and bread and the wonderful salamis that Jason had brought home from Salumi. Unfortunately, something hit Jason really hard a few minutes into dinner (possibly the clam chowder he'd had for lunch) and he's spent the rest of the evening Very Unhappy™. After dessert (ice cream and brownies--I tried wattleseed for the first time!) everyone else left and I spent some time with Alice before getting her to bed right at ten. muffyjo called on her way home from NJ to say that her car's problems had piled up to the point that she'd like me to meet her at our dealership, so she could leave the car there without stopping again. So I got to see her for a few minutes and hear about her weekend adventures.

And tomorrow I get to have rehearsal again!

- she is still almost-crawling: she can get up on her hands and knees, or she can creep across the floor on her belly, but I still haven't seen what I would call crawling

- she can stand on her own two feet, holding onto things

- sometimes when she wakes up at night she sings herself back to sleep

- she weighs just about 17.5 lbs.

- she is babbling in syllables and pretty clearly associating "ma ma ma ma" with me and "da da da da" with J., but neither of us are claiming "first word" yet

- if you say "boogedy, boogedy, boogedy" to her, she rocks back and forth

- we're working on switching her to sleep in her own room, which is going pretty well despite our inconsistency about it

- she is continuing to eat everything we give her quite cheerfully, except for carrots, as long as it's very smooth; actually solid food is still mysterious and problematic

- still no sign of teeth, although the onslaught of drool continues unabated

- she's still got a very sweet temperament and is generally happy and cheerful; I don't know if it's just that we're putting more effort into it lately, or an actual development, but I feel as though she laughs more easily now

Last night the fabulous muffyjo volunteered to hang out with Alice while we went to see Spiderman 3 at the IMAX in Natick. As self-indulgent summer effects blockbusters go, I'll take Pirates over this, but it was fun to see Spidey webslinging his way around the city on the big, big screen. Overall, I think I'd like this franchise better if Tobey Maguire did a thing for me, but J. always enjoys Kristen Dunst and I'm willing to indulge him.

Tonight I made tilapia with balsamic butter sauce, thyme mashed potatoes and sauteed fiddleheads in honor of our guests, ironpoet and alfie1981. Alice was in a sleepy mood, so we were able to have a nice, grown-up meal together. And whoa, balsamic butter sauce! I might make it just to have on toast.