Cruisin'

Xavier is getting better and better at cruising these days. He loves to move along the side of the couch or coffee table and can easily pull himself up to look out the French doors in the back. He has also taken to pushing his plastic activity table across the room as a sort of makeshift walker. So when I was in Target the other day and saw a little riding car that converts into an upright walking toy, I figured Xavier would love it.

At first he loved the box it came in more than anything else. Silly baby. But once I put his little hands on the walker bar, we was crossing the room with amazing speed. When Mom or Dad isn't standing nearby to spot him, we keep the car in "ride on" mode to prevent accidents. As you can see, Xavier likes the riding experience just fine too.

Simplicity Challenge -- Part II

It's a bit overdue but I wanted to post a follow-up to Part I of my self-imposed Simplicity Challenge to try to waste less food. I found that meal planning and pantry organization were key to this effort. I just didn't keep a lot of spare, perishable food around the house.

In January, we made pretty good progress in this area.

• I made chicken and vegetable stock with scraps and leftovers
• Almost all other leftovers were reused or repurposed with the exception of some funky lemon wedges that got shoved to the back of the fridge
• As a last resort, non-meat foods were put into our compost pile

The last bullet leads to my current Simplicity Challenge: to significantly reduce the amount of waste we send to the local landfill. I was inspired by a New Zealand television show called Wa$ted. In it a family tries to reduce their ecofootprint by reducing the amount of wasted energy and unnecessary trash sent to landfills. In a dramatic flourish, they go through the family's garbage for the past week and sort out recyclables and compostables and identify other ways to reduce the amount of garbage. It is really inspiring to see that only about 1/10 of the garbage they send to the landfill is truly unusable garbage.

Since we already cloth diaper, that is one HUGE family trash factor that we eliminate from the landfills. My frugal penchant for buying in bulk and eschewing serving sizes means that we already have less packaging than we used to. We also have a compost pile which I have varying success with. But Beaumont discontinued its curbside recycling program in 2002 for lack of participation and interest.

I decided to see how difficult it would be to self-recycle. Lo and behold there are several recycling companies here. After a few calls I found one that takes paper, cardboard and #1 and #2 plastics, and another that accepts aluminum cans. Now both companies would actually pay me for my drop offs, but our trash volume is so low, it doesn't really make much sense to go through the process of weighing it in. I mean I might pick up a nickle off the ground but I'd feel silly standing in a line to pick up a nickle.

Fortunately, both companies also have "donation bins" where the proceeds from the collected items go to local United Way charities. Both companies are also locally owned and operated so the money they generate stays here in our community.

I'm still refining our collection area and find myself hunting through the kitchen garbage can to retrieve a pizza box or cat food can that got mistakenly thrown away. Every day is an Easter Egg hunt when you're trying to get a home recycling program started I suppose.

Babies for Obama

Xavier and I attended a precinct captain training session and local grassroots rally for Barack Obama.

The night before I created two t-shirts for us to wear. They were a big hit. Xavier enjoyed getting to meet so many new people. At first he cried a little whenever the crowd began to chant "Yes, We Can." I think he was a little scared. But by the end of the event he was smiling and waving along with the crowds.

It was so inspiring to be in a room of such a diverse crowd of people who were all coming together for a common cause. At one point during the training, we paired off to share personal stories of why we were supporting Obama's campaign. No two stories were alike but what seemed to be a throughline was that he was a face of a movement to cut through partisanship and devisive politics to bring a new era to American government.

Between the training session and the rally, Xavier and I left to go grab a bite to eat. When we came back, about half the folks in the room cooed and said, "Xavier's back!" It was as if he were Norm entering the Cheers bar. I have a feeling for the next three weeks, I'm going to be known as "Xavier's Mom" at campaign headquarters.

Even the local news crews weren't immune to Xavier's inherent charm. Check him out at the end of this clip: http://setxhomepage.com/media_player.php?media_id=5794 .

New Photos

No time to post...feeding baby. Here are some recent photos.

Mardi Gras in Beaumont with our neighbors.




A bath.
I'm still standin'!

Drama with Mama

Last week I took Xavier to his very first play: Miss Nelson Has a Field Day at the Lutcher Theatre in Orange. The 45-minute drive from Beaumont was well worth the experience. When we arrived there were about 500 little kids bussed in from all over southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana. Xavier was fascinated by their sheer numbers. I don't thing he realized that many kids existed in the entire world before that.

Thanks to a friendly Lutcher volunteer, I found a quiet room to nurse Xavier in before the show. While I'm not against nursing in public, I wasn't ready to become the science/civics lesson experiment for so many children all at once!

Once Xavier was well fed and ready to sit still we found our way to our seats. The powers that be put all of the non-school folks and homeschoolers together in the same section. Xavier and I had two seats although we both sat in one together. Having a little space turned out to be a good thing. The poor woman to my right kept getting smacked by Xavier whenever he got really excited. Xavier was waving his yellow lovey (known around here as Lovie Smith) during all the songs...second lining skills must be transmitted through the placenta!

What was fascinating to me was what types of things would capture Xavier's attention since he obviously couldn't follow the storyline. Lighting played a huge part in directing his attention to the stage. He had little interest in the straight dialogue but loved it when there were patterns such as a teacher asking three kids the same questions. His favorite by far were the dance numbers. Whenever I found myself getting bogged down in the plot, sure enough, Xavier's attention was beginning to wander. I think that every director should rent a baby to help identify the lagging parts of a show.