My “spring” sign and Franny’s demented beetle.

1. Strudel Is One

Today Strudel is one. How happy I am that it is a year from the weekend of endless labor. In fact, something interesting happened this weekend, almost by accident. I mentioned I have been cutting down nursing more and more in preparation of weaning around her birthday. On Friday, I nursed Strudel when she awoke and again midmorning. Then I took Franny to a movie on Friday night so we missed the nighttime nursing. By the time I woke up on Saturday morning, I realized it had been almost twenty-four hours since she had nursed. We decided to go for it and wean this weekend, which we discussed as a possibility. Woot! and Ow!

My big weaner this morning.

2. This Is Why Valium Was Invented

Strudel was cross Saturday morning after missing two nursings. We went out to breakfast with Halo and Strudel cold-cocked me with her sippy cup, giving me the world’s smallest black eye. That’s not punk rock, yo. Also, I discovered it sucks to get punched in the face when you’re sober. It took me right back to the ska shows I used to go to fifteen years ago. *snif*

3. Art Attack!

While I still had some energy left, I took Franny outside to draw with her new sidewalk chalk. For some reason, the first time we drew on the sidewalk a couple of years ago we drew muffins. Now Frannie thinks this is classic sidewalk subject matter, on par with hopscotch, so every time we bust out the chalk we have to draw a giant muffin. I dunno, man, she’s a weird one.

4. A Trip to Painport

By Saturday afternoon, I was employing Cabbage Therapy. I didn’t know about cabbage leaves the first time I weaned, and I think it’s slightly more bearable with a bra full of produce. Raw cabbage is stiff, of course, so I sort of look like an opera singer with a breast plate when I’m just wearing my tee-shirt. I have been kind of sick and out of it, and I lumped in bed for a lot of the afternoon on Saturday. It’s a little like having the flu.

“Poor thing,” said my companion, bringing me Advil. “This is a lot like milk fever.” He spends a lot of time comparing me to the dairy cows he used to work with. I guess I should be grateful that it was cows and not monkeys. “This is just like the time we botched up that batch of bonobo cheese,” he would say.

5. Then We Killed Laura Palmer

Today we decided to take a day trip to Snoqualmie Falls to commemorate Strudel’s birthday.

After we hit the falls, we stopped at Twede’s Restaurant in North Bend, which is a rebuild of the restaurant used in Twin Peaks. I didn’t know until yesterday that it had burned down in 2000, and was rebuilt by the same owner and given a new name. I hadn’t been there since I took a visiting friend in 1996.

Strudel ate stupid amounts of french fries. Go crazy, kid, you’re only one once. Franny shared some of her dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, too.

Then we drove back to Snoqualmie and stopped at the Snoqulamie Falls Candy Factory. Franny, who has been frantically wiggling her first loose tooth for weeks, lost it while we were looking at the taffy. To celebrate, I told her she could choose four pieces. I was going to let her have taffy anyway, but now she thinks it’s extra-special reward taffy. I hardly every buy her candy, so it’s pretty likely that this is one of the things she’ll remember about Strudel’s birthday.

(Morgan: if you read this before you see your niece, act surprised about her tooth.)

Here’s lil Baby Holeyface:

6. Doctor, Doctor, It Hurts When I Do This

Tonight we are having pie with strudel filling. I was going to make a real strudel, and had prepared filling last week and stowed it in the freezer, but it hurts when I bake. I have the equivalent of man-nuts on my chest right now, people, and they’re inflamed. So my companion is making a pie crust to dump the strudel filling into.

We will sing and my baby will have her first piece of pie. I am cutting the cord and covering up the raw bits with cabbage. Cabbage, and vodka martinis, make everything better.