fish and fat

the prior goldfish (r.i.p.) lived lengthy goldfish lives in the tank at violet's daycare, so hopefully these guys will too. some weeks ago i promised to provide replacements for the flushed, but after a frustrating petco experience wherein they could not sell me any goldfish ("they're under surveillance") despite an employee having told me via phone a few hours earlier that there were OF COURSE goldfish for sale, i asked kevin to take over the fish duties. i surely would have shown up with two half-limp carnival specimen, but kevin classed up the joint with four gorgeous freshwaters of varying halloween colors. i look forward to reporting back once the teachers have named them.

apparently aghast at the thought that we'd ever stoop to lazy parenting tactics (despite the evidence of our still night-nursing little co-sleeper), kevin assembled violet's convertible walker/hot ride. she keeps a stuffed banana in the front compartment, and every time the car stops moving, she checks to make sure the banana is still in place. maybe she is a girl after my own heart: never leave without snacks.



one thing i know for sure is that violet is a girl after her father's heart. every time something is "out of place" in the house - a laundry basket on the floor, a package on the front stoop, a bag of groceries on the counter - she points at it emphatically. "DA," as if to say THAT doesn't belong there. it's only a matter of time before she's straightening askew magazines on the coffee table.

i can't believe i've neglected to mention that violet has not one but TWO teeth! well, more like one and a half. the first one took weeks to come in, and the second one is moving even slower. you can catch a glimpse of the first tooth in this pic taken by my friend monica, who spent last saturday entertaining the munch with her amazing goofy faces.





i wonder if there's any correlation between how slowly violet's teeth come in and how slowly she puts on weight. what you see on her tray is typical fare for her. shredded veggies made into cakes and then fried to blazes in olive oil. summer squash drowned in olive oil and then roasted. i've made banana muffins with double the butter and half and half in place of milk, and then buttered some more upon serving. all carbs are slathered in butter or cream cheese; macaroni and cheese is also made with half and half. full-fat yogurt is spooned into her mouth at a furious pace until she realizes, wait, i don't like to eat from the spoon, and the same goes for sweet potatoes pureed with huge glugs of olive oil, frozen, and then re-warmed with melted butter and cinnamon. can you imagine if we got to eat like this all the time? after her bout with roseola, during which she barely ate for a week, she was all ribs again, so we've been working overtime to recoup. hopefully i won't have to cry on the car ride home from her 12-month appointment in a few weeks.

in other news, little miss chicken legs has figured out how to stand on her own. keep you posted.

violet's hair is so long now that it gets in her eyes. after her bath at night, kevin brushes her wet hair into a donald trump swoop in hopes that it will dry sideswept for the next day, but she still always ends up looking like linus when he sees "the great pumpkin." my mom cut my hair when i was a baby, and it was screwy from then on out; she didn't cut my younger sister's hair, which ended up long and gorgeous. we've been avoiding cutting violet's hair based on this sole data point; daycare noted its protest by sending her home looking like bam bam.