She laughs

Today was the best day. Ari made her laugh in the car by shaking a
rattle and smiling. I only heard it, but it made me want to pull over
and see it.

Babies in a row

Here is Yemaya with her first friends, the babies in my new mom group.
They are so cute lined up in a row.

The innocence of babies

Well, the minutes are ticking away until her first doctors appointment with shots.  Here is a video of her innocently looking at her mobile and cooing, not knowing what she is about to have done to her.

Anything with monkeys is funny

She wasn't happy about it, but it sure was cute!!!

Not matching sweatsuits...

Ari and I keep our clothes in these storage bags on the shelf next to
our bed. The idea being that they might stay folded (if you bother to
fold them when you put them in) and you can find what you need.
When I was putting my clothes away this morning one of the bags was
laying on the bed. I started to get annoyed because I thought Ari had
put his pants in one of my bags with my pants. I opened up to remove
the pants that I assumed were mine only to realize they were all
Ari's. Apparently we both own one pair brown cords, and two pairs of
jeans. If I took up wearing only black T-shirts we would be one step
from the matching sweatsuits that my aunt is always worried we will
start wearing to the airport.

Our little tree frog

The only outfit she will wear from now on.

Stroller Strides

Today we went to this excercise class called stroller strides.
Basically Yemaya slept in her stroller while I run, walk, and do silly
things with one of those rubber bands. It was fun, and I meet a mom
who said she lived on a boat with her parents when she was three. She
said she remembers taking a water taxi to and from their boat anchored
near Santa Cruz.
I'm not sure that I really fit in with a lot of the moms who were
there though. The best way to describe them might be the "Sex and the
City" with babies crowd. I over heard two moms talking about how long
it has been since they shaved their legs and joking that it wasn't
long enough yet for them to fit in in Berkeley. I guess it is good
that I wore pants today!

We went to the zoo

Yemaya saw her first real giraffes, elephants, tigers, and zebras.  My moms group took a trip to the Oakland zoo, but we only saw a few animals because of all the feeding and diaper changing (of babies not animals).  I can't wait to go back with Yemaya when she is a little older, because she was unimpressed by the whole zoo thing.

Good Sleeper

Yemaya has started sleeping through the night!  (The picture is of nap time though)  Almost a week of 9pm-7am.  The first night she slept that long Ari asked me if I we should get up and check on her.  I told him no way!  But, what I haven't told him is that get up and check on her almost every night still. 
One of my mom friends with a similar aged baby asked me what I do to help her sleep, and the sad truth is nothing.  We just got lucky in the baby lottery and got one that is a "sleep monster" as Ari would say. 
My mom says that I slept through the night at six weeks.  Ari's mom says that he was a very difficult baby.  I haven't asked about how he slept as a baby, but I am guessing it was not good.  Ari and I are glad that our baby seems to have more of my baby temperament then his.  There are lots of other ways that I hope she is like Ari, such as being curious, smart, funny, and energetic, but I am glad she is more like me in this case.

Solar Cooking

Disclaimer:  There are no babies or mention of babies in this post. 
Ari bought us a solar cooker a few weeks ago.  He found it on some boat website I think.  It is called Hot Pot and comes with a metal reflector and a glass bowl and lid that a black bowl fit inside.  So far it has just been taking up space on our boat.  In fact, Ari was quite surprised when I used it today.  In his own words he said, "I just assumed you thought it was another one of my crazy ideas."  Well, it was not a crazy idea at all.  More like a miracle in cooking.
I decided to start with something simple and that would not be inedible if it didn't really cook all the way.  I picked veggies enchiladas as my first solar cooking project.  (To be honest I have made some kind of solar cookies at some workshop I went to, but I was only sort of involved.)  True to my boat cooking principles I like to see how many "bilge ingredients," canned goods, I can use in a recipe.   These enchiladas are about half from the bilge, half fresh.  I did not use the pickled asparagus in the end because I felt like it was plenty of food, but I know it would have been great too.  I took maybe five minutes of prep including cutting the mushrooms, broccoli, cheese, and red peppers, and then making the layers.  The five minutes of prep puts it in a special category of good boat cooking in my mind.

We had some errands to do during the day and I intended the enchiladas to be dinner.  The recipe I used as a guide suggested two hours of cooking.  The book also suggested that you can sort of use the sun as a timer and turn the solar cooker so that when you put it out the sun is not directly hitting the cooker and it is turned towards where the sun will be when you really want it to start cooking.  So, I put it out about 11:30am (see the first close up of the cooker) and turned it so that it would be in direct sun what I guessed would be a few hours later.  We returned from errands around 3:30pm and Ari was already hungry because he had gone without lunch.  The enchiladas looked cooked and when we took off the lid they smelled yummy and I stuck my finger in and it was HOT!  (I want to buy a little thermometer that I can just put in there with the food.)  The cheese on top was starting to brown and the top tortillas were a little crispy.  I was surprised how wet the bottom layer was, but I read that all the water will come out of the veggies in the cooking process.  The lid is tight so none of it evaporates.
I served it up with sour cream and salsa.  Ari said it was the best, and only, solar cooked meal he has ever had.  And it really was great.  A few bites were too hot to eat with out blowing on them which really surprised me.  I will definitely make solar enchiladas again.
In case you want to do some solar cooking of your own here is my recipe for what it is worth.  But, I recommend using what ever you have in your bilge. And for you land lubbers out there I sure your cupboard has some cans dying to be used as well.

Solar Veggie Enchiladas

5 Corn tortillas (I recommend 6, but that was all we had)
1 small can green chillies
1 small can enchilada sauce
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes
1/2 jar roasted red peppers (about equal to one red pepper)
4 brown mushrooms
1 small bunch of broccoli
1/2 cup cheddar cheese

Salsa
Sour Cream

Cut up all veggies and cheese into small pieces.  Lay down two tortillas in bowl.  Put half of each of the veggies in a layer in top.  Pour over half the enchilada sauce and sprinkle on one third of the cheese.  Lay down two more tortillas.  Layer on the rest of the veggies, pour on the rest of the sauce, saving just a little to go over the top, and one third of the cheese.  Lay down the last two tortillas and sprinkle on the remainder of the cheese and enchilada sauce.  Place solar cooker in the sun for 2 hours or more until the cheese is melted and browning and the inside is hot.  Serve with salsa and sour cream.

Second Sail

We took Yemaya for her second sail on our friend Craig's catamaran (but this time we remembered the camera).  We even put Yemaya in her life jacket for some of the sail (it fits now!).  She hated it, and she and I mostly stayed inside anyway.  We had a grand time!

Yemaya likes sailing upwind best for sleeping because the conditions are more bumpy and bouncy.  Downwind is too calm for really good sleeping.

I'm sure all the grandparents will be glad to know that we have not taken her out on a more adventurous little boat sail yet.  Soon maybe.

Speaking of cute hats...

Look at the cute hat that Yemaya's Nana sent.

Cute hat

Look at the cute hat with a Y my friend Mike's daughter Kaitlyn made.
It is too small, but will be great for her dolls. Kaitlyn made tons
of hats and is donating them to the hospital. How cool!

By popular demand

So here it is, our baby blog.  For all our friends and family without facebook you can now see all the too cute photos that I take with my iPhone.  And don't forget the videos I have made of her smiling and cooing.  I don't want any of you to continue to miss out.
Plus I have discovered that as a stay at home mom I have quite a bit of down time while my wonderful daughter takes a nap.  And since my knitting project is boring me and I don't have any good books to read right now (although I am taking suggestions of light reads) I might as well start a blog.

Here are some examples of the cute pictures you non-facebookers may have missed in the past month.

We went swimming

In hopes that our daughter will love the water and learn to swim we took her in the pool at the hotel during our varnish-moon (This is when we are having work done on the boat and I get to stay in a hotel with hot running water and cable TV, like a honeymoon from the boat). She showed absolutely no reaction to being in the water. She did not cry, scream or make a sound, but she also did not smile, stick out her tongue or seem at all amused.
In addition, the little girls in the pool thought she was a boy due to her boy like swim diaper with alligators on it. Thanks for the buying advice Rebecca!