Melissa's Visit

This weekend Melissa came to visit us and we went back to one of our new favorite places in Norwalk: The Stepping Stones Museum for Children.  We even decided to join this time and excitingly that means that we get reciprocal membership with lots of cool children's museums and science museums all over the country.

In addition to the fun energy lab and the Rube Goldberg machine (which we could watch for hours) there is a pre-walkers area.  It has toys to play with, bars to hold on to, and an elephant.

This elephant does cool things!  Its trunk blows air.

Enough air to suspend a ball.  And that intrigued Emma.

And it was great fun for us to watch her.  She kept reaching for the balls over and over. After all that excitement Emma passed right out.

She slept right through the "merp" game where we wiggle her little chin and make her mouth open.  

While Emma napped we went on to do important things like trying to make enough energy to light up all the stars with stationary bikes.

When we got home she was all refreshed from her nap and had a ride on Blades.

Singing Baby

What?  It is completely normal to use a bottle of lotion as a mic.

Look, that other baby is doing it. 

Let's do a duet!

Ok!

Grapefruit

Mmmmm.... what's this?

And it's supposed to be this tart?

I don't know about this.

Mashed Banana

Hmmm.... what's this?

Of course I know how to use a spoon!

Mission accomplished!  Banana obliterated! 

Cooking Saag Paneer

Emma and I have settled into a babysitting routine. Mondays we cook (when most museums are closed), and Wednesdays we explore the City. This Monday we made Saag Paneer using a recipe from 101Cookbooks. We were feeling ambitious and even made our own paneer.

We made the cheese first thing in the morning so it would have enough time to drain for cooking the saag later in the afternoon. The cheese making process was surprisingly easy. First we boiled a pot of milk then added some lemon juice to curdle the milk and separate the curds from the whey, then the mixture was strained in a cheese cloth and left to drain. Emma played a crucial role in the lemon selection for the recipe.

While the cheese drained we took a mini nap, then we wrapped up the cheese and put it in the fridge for later. We then went on a search for spices, a requisite for any decent Indian dish. We took the train to Curry Hill and visited Kalustyan’s—an amazing store full of every spice you can imagine, from Anardana (sour pomegranate powder) to Turmeric. Not only did the store smell delightful but, the products were well catalogued and the entire store was intuitively laid out. Emma woke up from her nap just in time to be adorable and elicit compliments and baby talk. We left with our small sack of spices and headed uptown.

When we got back Emma took a nap, and I started to chop vegetables. Emma woke up from her nap in time to help with the spinach and smell some of the spice mixture I was working on. Once all the vegetables were chopped it was pretty straightforward from there, mixing each item in and waiting for the whole mixture to cook down a bit. Everything was cooked and ready to eat when Olivia and Todd arrived.

Emma is dubious of the spice mixture
on the end of pestle I was using to crush it.

Adventure Baby

As much as Emmeline loves being in the moby wrap, she often falls asleep in it and it is hard to trim bushes carrying her in the front.  Instead we have started to carry her in this hiking/backpack type carrier and she loves it!  She stayed a wake through an entire 3 mile walk and "helped" me trim the snowball bush and the butterfly bush down to manageable sizes.

Squeeze!

Emma loves it when Grandma Betty gives her a squeeze!   My mom discovered when Emma was pretty small that if you too her arms and crossed them across her chest she would resist for a sec, then giggle - and it still works.

Here Todd is giving Emma a squeeze too, but the other thing about this picture is that it captures how much Emma looks like a little girl instead of a baby sometimes now.

A visit to the New Museum

I have a wonderful time babysitting Emma twice a week. We laugh, we cook, we nap and we visit museums. I believe at the young age of eight months Emma has been to MAD, the MET, the ICP, and the AMNH. To continue our weekly museum tour, we went to the New Museum to see the Ungovernables political art exhibit.

The exhibit was part of the New Museum’s 2012 Triennial show and featured thirty-four artists, artist groups and collectives who were born between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. Many of the artists came of age in politically charged environments, where revolutions colored their view of the world. All of the art exhibited was connected to ideas of globalism, independence, history, economics and war.

The title, although it doesn’t roll off the tongue, was apt for show. The term “ungovernables” was pejoratively used by colonists and dictators to describe the native people of a country.

Here are some of our favorite pieces from the show.

O Século [The Century], Video

Cinthia Marcelle

Born 1974, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Emma was particularly captivated by this video of debris being strewn across an empty lot to symbolize labor riots and civil war. The sound track was a cacophony of thumps, screeches, smashes, bursts and booms.

Habemus Gasoline, installation

José Antonio Vega Macotela

Born 1980, Mexico City

Lives and works in Amsterdam and Mexico City

This piece is clever and controversial and Emma found the tubing intriguing. The artist statement for the piece was very well written, here is an excerpt.

"While Mexico is the sixth largest producer of crude oil in the world, more than one million barrels are exported to the United States daily where the oil is refined and ultimately sold back to Mexico as gasoline. This arrangement which disproportionately benefits US refineries, continues under the presumption that Mexico lack the facilities to manufacture gasoline domestically. With this installation, Vega Macotela offers modifications to local folk technologies used to make tequila, mezcal, and potable water in order to construct a makeshift refinery in the gallery."

A person loved me, sculpture

Adrián Villar Rojas

Born 1980, Rosario Argentina

Lives and works in Rosario

Emma and I enjoyed looking at this big robot sculpture. I wasn't throughly persuaded of the global and political significance of the piece, but it sure was impressive.

Emma and I worked up an appetite viewing all of that art so we walked to Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles in Chinatown for a bite. We then hurried home because Emma was catching the 5:21 train to Danbury, in a maneuver we like to call the Great Baby Handoff—and as a bonus, Emma was handed off with tender pork dumplings.

Helping

Somehow Emmeline ended up with lots of exciting toys.  Now that she is more mobile she gets them spread out all over her room.  To avoid adult sprained ankles we are also now working on cleaning up her room when she is done playing.

She gathered her toys together into a hand pile for me and she thought this new game was lots of fun.

This brought to mind an appropriate nursery rhyme:
"Clean up, clean up,
Everybody, everywhere,
Clean up, clean up,
Everybody do your share.

Clean up, clean up,
Everybody, everywhere,
Clean up, clean up,
Come on Emma you do your share."

It's not easy being green

Cooking with Emma

Sometimes when I babysit Emma we cook together.

First we go to the store to get supplies. I always make sure Emma is appropriately dressed for the weather, and baby-fashionable.

Then we mise en place all of our ingredients. Here we're making miso soup.

Here we're making Spring Vegetable soup.

Emma likes to watch from her highchair that is next to the counter. She is very chatty when we cook. She enjoys playing with carrots and melons while I chop vegetables and cook. We usually listen to NPR, I think she likes the Brian Lehrer show best.

We then have a delicious mid-day feast. Usually a healthy vegetable recipe for me, and milk for Emma (or sometimes veggies mash, she's fond of sweet potatoes).

We then tidy up. Griffin likes to help with the dishes as long as it is sunny.