See generally.

Pru’s first attempt at eating solid foods:

Sweet potatoes are nutritious, palatable and extremely unlikely to cause an allergic reaction. The same is true of bananas, but bananas are so delicious that there’s a concern that if you start a baby off on bananas she’ll reject less sweet veggies, like, for example, sweet potatoes. So, we started with the sweet potatoes.

Victory! The spoon is in, the food is in: we are go for eating!

Or, not.

Stiff arm!

The many faces of first-feeding Pru:

Intoxicated?

Pensive?

Happy!

Final disposition of steamed and pureed sweet potatoes from first feeding: 95% still on container, 4% on bib, 1% in mouth. I’d call that a very successful first feeding.

We picked up our tickets to the Papal Mass in Yankee Stadium and have been busy trying to discourage Pru from putting them in her mouth. 

We made a very tasty classic Texan dinner:  chicken fried steak and Dr Pepper.

We did the laundry (and temporarily lost Cal in the process).

We cleaned the oven; it passed Cal’s inspection.

We saw the kneelerthat will be used when the Holy Father (Be-ne-dict X-V-I/Be-ne-dict, he’s our guy!) visits our neighborhood.

I’m not sure what the cause of this change is (when she was newly home, she slept all day long, and was relatively content to just lay in her crib even when she was awake so long as she wasn’t hungry or needing a change).  I suspect it’s partially developmental – she’s presumably been going through her three-week growth spurt, which apparently increases discomfort and fussiness in infants.  It’s also probably partially environmental – the heater in the bedroom stopped producing hot air about two and a half weeks ago, which made it very hard to keep her adequately warm.  The heater is heating again now, sort of, but only after a still-unfinished series of tragicomic misadventures, which I may describe in a subsequent post, tentatively titled “Why I Am Withholding Next Month’s Rent On The Basis of a Breach of The Implied Warranty of Habitability”; nevertheless, I think she’s come to associate being in her crib with being cold and uncomfortable.

Anyway, she’s asleep now, as is Sarah; I’m up early to run some “have to be done before 8:30 am” errands.  (Perhaps a nap this afternoon.)  Speaking of errands, I should be off, but so as to leave this post not a total bummer, I’ll pass on some cute pictures of the Pru-bear:

Also, my ultra-cool birthday gift from Sarah:  an Alton Brown-branded salt cellar

However, we are a bit behind in some very important matters.  In other words, yes, Campagna crew, you are due an e-mail.  And, yes, blog-reading world at-large, you are all missing on your recommended dose of pointers to penguin cookie cutters because of our neglect of Dwyeropolis.  Please accept our sincere and heart-felt apologies.  It’s only temporarily slow here.  Promise.

*Well, that and also asking ourselves “what would Ron Paul do?” a dozen or so times a day.