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It's a bit impossible to remember what life was like just over 18 months ago before Thea arrived, or imagine what life would be like today without Thea in it. We celebrated Thea's 18 months with us by letting her fall back asleep after her nap. Of course, we paid for that when it came time to put her down for the night, but life with children is all about trade-offs...
Word on the street can be trusted: Garnett's is one superb sandwich shop.
Early Friday morning, the Twitterverse alerted me to the opening of Garnett's at the corner of Park Avenue and Meadow Street. The tiny restaurant -- with fewer than a dozen tables -- is the brainchild and creation of Kendra Feather, who opened the legendary Ipanema Cafe near VCU eleven years ago.
Friday also happened to be one of the rare days in my new business experience that I was in the office all day, so I called Nikole to see if she and Thea wanted to meet for lunch.
Thea didn't have the best lunch in the world (pretzels) but Nikole and I are now in love with Kendra's new place.
Nikole had the sweet potato soup (pictured) and an amazing chicken salad sandwich. I had the WBLT (white bean, lettuce and tomato) sandwich and a house salad (which I took back to the office).
Stellar.
Go now.
We brought home a new filing cabinet last week. It came in a cardboard box. The cardboard box is Thea's new best friend.
Since it has rained and been freezing cold all week, I'm not sure that's a problem.
I only have myself to blame. Not only was it my idea to put her in the box the first time, but I'm also the one who started spinning her around and around in the box as fast as it would spin on our smooth, wooden flooring. Of course, she's the one who screamed, "More! More!"
And so we spent the week spinning, spinning, spinning and then toppling -- box and baby and stuffed animals -- to the floor.
Note to grandparents: Go cheap this holiday season. We've got ourselves a recession baby!
We were in Charlotte last weekend for a baby shower -- Nikole's brother and his wife are expecting their second child in November; Thea and their son, Baker, are two months apart. It's going to be nice (in a few years) to have someone else for the two of them to pick on.
We strategized for this trip -- timing the departure with her nap, and bringing along a brand new DVD player and tons of videos from the library. Strategy one worked. She was out before we even set wheel to the interstate and slept all the way to Burlington. We woke her so we could get dinner at what passes for the only healthy option on the Interstate -- Panera Bread.
Our goal when we got back on the road was actually to keep her awake. We wanted her to sleep after we got to Charlotte later that evening. Nikole and the DVD player moved to the back seat, where Thea promptly lost interest. Prior to last Friday, she's watched perhaps 15 minutes of television. She finally got interested when Nikole put the animated version of "The 101 Dalmatians" into the player -- our girl loves her some puppies.
While we were there, she slept through the night. Twice. And then slept much of the way home. And has woken multiple times every night since we've gotten home.
I think well just move to Charlotte. It's the only place where she sleeps well.
Nikole sent me this photo of Thea, who fell in love with this bouncy toy pony at Cartwheels and Coffee. I think she looks a late 70s British punker who's ready for her date with Johnny Lydon. And that scares me.
