Miss Minty Fresh

Two Saturdays ago I spent the day poking around Hermosa Beach.  It was a gorgeous sunny day:  almost chilly in the shade with the sea breeze, warm and pleasantly toasty in the sunshine.  

The Pacific Ocean is quite green here:

I like tile.

There were lots of flies on the beach, but I was happy anyway.

West Coast, I do like you.

Miss Minty

Dear Peanut,

About that: sorry we don’t have a name for you just yet. We’re working on it.

We are about 18 weeks away from meeting you. Seeing you on the ultrasound machine the other week made it seem so much more real for both your dad AND me. You haven’t been too hard on me so far; aside from the constant full bladder/empty stomach thing, I am not uncomfortable yet. Speaking of empty stomachs, I feel pretty lucky that I’m growing you during the warmer months. You would not believe the volume of fruit I can consume in one sitting these days. Check out this plum…I’ve eaten three just like it today:

By the time you arrive I’ll be happily gorging for us on apples, pears, and squashes. I hope you’ll like those, too.

While I don’t feel uncomfortable, I am not particularly energetic lately, and I’ve been a bit of a slug all weekend. So I made myself get up and take a little bicycle ride this evening while your dad was playing a gig. I hope you’ll be quick to take to the bike when you get old enough. Your dad and I love to ride around in the evening and until you’re old enough to keep up, we’ll be bringing you along, somehow. Maybe in this:

I like it because you’ll get to learn how to watch the road and read traffic.

We might get this thing, too, because we can use it to push you around when we’re not pulling it behind our bikes or when we’re not carrying you. (Your dad is really looking forward to wearing you in a baby carrier, and I think that’s just so sweet).

We went to see your dad’s old band on Friday, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and I think his buddies are excited to meet you. I hope you liked the music; we haven’t listened to much of it at home…mostly just Phillies games and NPR podcasts. (That’s really weird, considering). I actually can’t tell if you are responding to any external stimuli, as you seem to knock around at my innards without discernable patterns. Lucky for me, you’re probably not too much bigger than a pound yet, so it doesn’t hurt….it just reminds me that you’re there.

We love you, baby boy.

Love,

Mama

(a.k.a. Miss Minty)

Saying “female fan” is like saying “lady doctor.”  Kind of abhorrent.  Dudes are just as prone to trying too hard in outdoing others in their fan-dom….too much testosterone and beer are just as ugly as too much estrogen and beer.

It all depends on the angle….but still:

I just can’t believe I’m going to keep growing for 19 more weeks.  Eeeeek…

Miss Minty

Someday, somehow, I will own dirt, preferably in zone 6 or better (better = warmer).  And I will plant beautiful perennials in that dirt.  Until then, I will snap envious iPhone pictures of other lucky folks’ beautiful perennials.

These are all from Redondo Beach.

This is a bird-of-paradise…but some cultivar I’ve never seen before.  The whole plant was about 14 feet tall, and the flowers were enormous:

Call me nerdy, but I get really excited about interesting groundcovers:

I saw so many beautiful rose bushes with HUGE roses:

There are jasmine bushes everywhere:

Miss Minty

More pictures are always better.

That was the balcony almost a month ago, above. That is before we hit the dumpster-diving jackpot. Observe….now:

We’ve acquired a giant and perfectly patinaed terra cotta pot, a dirty plastic end table, an over-weathered TV-dinner tray table, an over-weathered IKEA coffee table, and two wooden kitchen chairs that enabled us to put our plastic chairs outside. Our balcony faces south in the grid, but southeast, cardinally speaking.  We get direct sun in the morning and until about 4PM.

Both cats walk around on top of the railing now. We have some pretty serious bird netting up (came with the apartment!) and to make it more secure, we lashed it to the top of the balcony railing. They of course scare both of us to death most of the time, and we only let them out there when we’re home.

We like to call this part of the balcony “the garage.”  

The balcony is probably the best amenity of this apartment.  I’ll show you the rest of the (itty-bitty) inside space soon.

Miss Minty

Thanks to a quickly-finished training session with a new client Friday, I’ve had the better part of two days to poke around Redondo and Hermosa Beaches.  The weather has been positively amazing…I love how different the West Coast air feels.  

These photos are all from Redondo Beach.

The hotel was right by a marina…see the boat out the window of the lobby?

The view from the pool area.  There’s a seal refuge just over that stone-pile breaker wall and they bark constantly.

At the pier/concrete boardwalk thing:

I made sure to get plenty of vitamin D…Peanut needs it.  Yep.

I do love being able to use non-Monopoly money and my phone’s data plan when I cross the border.  Any place in the US feels a little bit more like home, now.

Miss Minty

Check out that spine!

Already sucking the thumb:

(I’ll make some scans tomorrow and post non-iPhone “scans” soon).

Today was the big midway ultrasound appointment.  It appears that everything is growing as it should:  all the parts are in proportion, all the chambers of the heart are functional, the umbilical cord looks great, etc.  We’ll get more information at my next midwife appointment next week,  but right now, all’s well.  

Baby boy, we already love you so much.  We can’t wait to show you the big awesome world you’re going to live in.

Miss Minty

It’s going to take every ounce of willpower I possess to not steal each and every fat, purple, finger-staining berry.

I need to find a public park or something so I can steal some without guilt.

It’s not ready for the grand tour just yet, but I did want to mention that if I were a career lettuce farmer I’d be mighty pleased with the atmospheric circumstances here in Toronto.  Lettuce and other greens won’t germinate if it’s over a certain temperature (70F, maybe?) and they bolt and go bitter quickly in the heat.  No excessive hot weather is going to be found here, if the first few weeks of June are any indication.

So far I’ve planted arugula, French radishes, mesclun mix, and oats (as grass for the kittens).  Everything has sprouted rather quickly.  I am pleased.

Mesclun mix after just three days:

Arugula after three weeks:

All the dust on the leaves is a little gross.  There’s a ton of traffic on the street below our seventh-floor balcony.

We just need some consistently sunny days to curb the legginess that is already happening.

Miss Minty