flea

54 bush beans this morning, about 4 of them nibbled at the ends by rabbits, who have also entirely consumed the remaining lettuces.

My tomatoes aren't doing very well. They just aren't growing, and my cherokee purple is yellow and losing leaves.

In book news,
Atul Gawande, Better (2007). Mostly New Yorker articles, which I had read. but it's nice to reread. I really like his writing, although I have some bones to pick with his article on giving birth and c-sections.

Wendy Wasserstein, Shiksa Goddess (2001). Really short, fluffy magazine pieces, collected. I checked this out mainly because of my memory of her New Yorker article about the very premature birth of her daughter, and a coworker was reading her just-published novel and we got to talking about it.

Liza Mundy, Everything Conceivable (2007). About the variety of assisted reproductive therapies and their social implications (IVF, egg donation, sperm donation, selective reduction, multiples). A good introduction to the topic, and balanced, I felt. I was especially interested by the contrast between the US and UK in terms of degree of regulation of ART and associated consequences. And by how much we really don't know, medically, and are just starting to explore, socially (interest in donor-gamete children about their biological donors, etc.)

Harvest:
8 cherokee purple tomatoes
1 german johnson
1 chinese eggplant

Current garden status is two tomatoes left standing (red zebra and cherokee purple) with multiple green fruits. Burpee carrots are still growing, probably at the baby carrot stage. There's parsely, which rebounded after the depredations of caterpillars, and more basil than ou can shake a stick at.

We got into the middle 30s overnight this weekend, so brought in Barney (the ficus). Also need to bring in the pot of calla lilies. Did some prliminary raking and mulching of things with leaves yesterday.

Books:
Deborah Tannen, You're Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation. I very much skimmed this; I just don't like her style, and this was also kind of one-note.

Amy Tiemann, Mojo Mom: Nuturing Yourself while Raising a Family. This is a local author. The book has some good messages: there's a big mental adjustment when you have kids, especially if you go from being a high-pressure career person to a stay at home mother; it's important to balance the needs of your kids with the continuing needs of your self; it's important to have a financial plan and plan to go back to the workforce, as most SAHMs ultimately do. But the book is a bit padded out - a few simple ideas made into a shortish book.

Carola Dunn, The Improper Governess (Zebra, 1998).
Carola Dunn, The Tudor Secret (Zebra, 1995).

Harvest:
1 Pink Girl
1 German Johnson
5 pole beans
4 carrots

Books:
Edith Layton, The Choice (1999).
Edith Layton, To Wed A Stranger (2003).
Edith Layton, To Tempt A Bride (2003).
Candice Hern, A Change of Heart (1995).
Candice Hern, A Garden Folly (1997).
Candice Hern, The Best Intentions (1999).
Mary Balogh, Slightly Dangerous (2004).
Mary Balogh, Simply Unforgettable (2005).

A slew of regency romances:

Mary Balogh, A Christmas Bride (1997). A Signet Regency, but very dark indeed for all that, and with a heroine it is difficult to like. AND explicit pre-marital sex. Huh.

Mary Balogh, Slightly Married (2003). A re-read, actually, though I didn't realize it until I got it home from the library. The first of this series, and my favorite - I realize that I really like restraint, even repression, in a romance novel.

Mary Balogh, Slightly Sinful (2004). Funny that a light caper (which involves deep issues) could be written by the same woman who 7 years earlier wrote the first in this list. I kept thinking the whores were in their 40s, which was weird.

Celeste Bradley, The Pretender (2003). So very ridiculous. Maybe this might have worked if the tone had been more high farce, but as it was I just kept boggling at the deeply stupid numerous people who were supposedly master spies. Never mind the completely ahistorical characters. I can't believe I even read it - I had to pause after every chapter ro roll my eyes.

One month today. We are decidedly cranky. Why don't other people's babies do this? mr. flea chatted up a woman with a 3.5 week old at the Whole Foods who reported that her first was sleeping 7-7 at 6 weeks. Ours has trouble sleeping even when you are holding him and rocking him. We're getting one 3-4 hour stretch a night and then lots of struggle to get further 1-2 hour kips. He wanted to be wide awake at 3am today.

Harvest:
1 pole bean
3 German Johnson tomatoes
amazingly, my zucchini has DIED.

Harvest:
8 carrots
about 20 bush beans
German Johnson tomato as big as my hand
basil for pesto dinner

Book read:
Marion Chesney, Plain Jane (1986). There's a lot going on in this Regency romance - romance, mystery, an interesting Upstairs-Downstairs thing - which may be why the characters are either caricatures or flat. I may try one more of hers, but I don't really like her voice and she seems to suffer from the 1980s phenomenon of boring perfect heroes and boring stupid heroines. I can take naive, but stupid gives me hives.

It was a very difficult night last night. I really need mr. flea's help in the nights, and he fell asleep with Casper and I didn't wake up enough to go ask him for help until 5:45 am. Left to myself I have a great deal of trouble getting the Dillo to sleep - I suck at wrapping him up - and have a tendency to nurse too often and fall asleep nursing (we can do it lying down already!) only to be woken by every single snort. Very tired today.

I tried earplugs during his naps today. Helps some. I wish I were better at sleeping through the sniffs and snorts. I am a complete hair-trigger-mother sleeper.

Harvest:
2 more zucchini
4 small red zebra tomatoes (probably the last - the plant has the wilts)
1 green unidentified tomato (it just came off in Casper's hand...)
1 pole bean
15 or so bush beans
6 carrots
2 of these: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/193985376/ mr. flea thinks it's a variety of butternut...

Plus: cute, if yellow, boy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/193985378/in/photostream/
Mohawk boy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/193985379/in/photostream/

Harvest:
6 more pole beans (running tally: 22!)
2 zucchini (running tally: 5)
1 4-inch carrot from carrots 1 (the first official one that didn't count as weeding)

In a day or two I will have red zebra tomatoes. All others are still green.

In celebration of the fact that it was 96 degrees yesterday, we didn't leave the house. (Well, mr. flea went to the library and worked for 4 hours, and also did a grocery run to fulfill a hot dog craving - his, not mine.) Casper and I watched a lot of children's TV and played a lot of games and baked a cake and frosted it. The cake was a flag cake, with blueberry and strawberry decorations. Recipe for the cake was Joy of Cooking's "blitztorte" which came out just like a pound cake baked in a sheet cake pan (not that this was a bad thing, just not what I was expecting.) Frosting a basic buttercream. During lunch Casper scraped the frosting bowl with her carrot sticks and enjoyed the results.

In the evening as it was still hot we did not venture down to the ballpark to see fireworks but instead watched "A Capitol Fouth" on PBS. Elmo was featured, much to Casper's joy. After he left she kept asking when he was coming back, and cried when I explained that it was probably his bedtime. She was not mollified by Stevie Wonder. We did a lot of dancing to the other music, though - Casper's interpretive dance to "The Star Spangled Banner" as sung by popette Jo Jo was something to be seen. It involved slow bending over and sticking out her butt, hopping on one leg, and spinning around. (Okay, all her interpretive dance looks much like this, but it's so much funnier when it's slow and done to the national anthem.)