faboo mama

The loves of my life.

Mr. Alton is a month old today. It’s amazing to think that my due date is still a week away. I couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable and intolerable I’d be if I were still carrying him.

Miss Ilia updates: Every morning when Ilia comes into our room, the first thing out of her mouth is, “Oh, cute baby.” She’s so incredibly helpful, almost to the point of trying to take over. She helps get his diapers, she loves to shake his bottles and she’s even fed him a few times. When he’s getting fed, she showers “Alton-baby” with kisses or just holds his hands. I’m amazed at how well she’s adapted to the baby. I was so concerned she’d be jealous of not being the center of attention but with the exception of a few “mine” incidents, she’s behaving well. Naturally, she’s regressed. She wants us to feed her like the baby or burp her like the baby…forget about potty training. I’m just glad that she hasn’t tried to breastfeed. Yet. Speaking of breastfeeding, she does 2 hiliarious things. One, is she takes the old bottles and hand pump (which is officially lost) and pretends to pump. The other thing is “My boobs are leaking.” She says this out of the blue and it’s a crackup, like she’s really concerned.

Ilia’s first taste of marshmallow. She didn’t like it.

Mr. Alton updates: He’s filling out. Which isn’t shocking since he eats like 400 times a day. My milk supply is getting low (due to several stupid reasons, all my fault), but he still latches on and eats. Then wants to have 3 more 4 oz. bottles within the hour. Pig baby! We’re so amazed at how much like Ilia he looks. It’s astounding.

This is Alton @ 2 weeks.

This is Ilia @ 3 days.

As I said before, he’s a noisemaker. This kid is vocalizing at least 98% of the day. He hums, grunts, mewls, cries, yells out, snores, laughs, and clears his throat. The grunts and the laughs kill us. He has different sounds he makes when he’s eating, depending on what he’s sucking on. He has 3 different hums and 2 smacking sounds for bottlefeeding. He has 2 other smacking sounds for breastfeeding and a different hum in between.

He’s been so alert the past couple of weeks and loves to look around at everything. We thought Ilia was a chill baby, this kid has got her beat. He will just lay anywhere you place him and be content. The only thing he hates is a wet diaper and getting changed. He also didn’t enjoy his first bath, but that’s to be expected.

Alton getting in the tub.

Getting Alton out of the tub.

He’s very comfortable with Ilia too. She likes to hold him. A lot. So we set them up and she strokes his head and sings to him. He’ll just sit there, content to hang with his big sister. Whenever she talks, he’ll turn to her voice. That’s great because in utero, he would move toward her voice whenever she sang or talked near my belly.

As for me and Adrian, we’re doing well. Very tired, since we also have a lot of work to do in addition to focusing on the kids. I’ve taken both kids out by myself a few times. I expected it to be hard, but Ilia’s behaving and will hold on to Alton’s stroller or the shopping cart and everything works well. Adrian has yet to take them both out by himself and I don’t think he’s even taken Alton out by himself yet. He does take Ilia with him when he goes out, which is fine with me because she has a meltdown if he leaves without her.

It’s definitely time to put her in pre-school, but we’re still trying to find a place to move to, so I want to wait until we figure out where we’re going to be living. Right now, I feel so bad…since we’re swamped with work, I can’t take her to playdates or do anything fun and/or educational with her. So we watch Blue’s Clues, the Backyardigans, Star Wars, Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer or a Muppet movie. Ugh.

That’s about it. It sounds like everyone’s about to wake up, so I have to go attend to them. Thanks for reading!

“What is this?” you wonder. A challenge? What about the babies? Where are pictures? I thought Anika hated Starbucks. Well, I do. And…I could bore you with the blurry details over the last few weeks of how much Ilia loves her little brother, how we’re still swamped with work and how tired we both are, but this may prove to be a little more interesting. But you’d expect that. I hate to be predictable, so you get this instead.

See. I have severe issues with Starbucks. I won’t even list them all. Let’s just say that they’re lucky they’re so ubiquitous or I’d never have a cup of their burnt and greasy joe ever. I’m not even going to go on my annual rant against that horrid Christmas Blend (pine needles and burnt cinnamon, are not a basis for a brew). There is one great thing about Starbucks. Say it with me people: Arabian Mocha Sanani. The most delicious brew, with great aroma and slightly chocolately flavor. It’s perfection in bean shape. The best way to have it, is to buy a bag of beans and grind them yourself at home. Use freezing cold water in your coffee pot (yeah, it does make a huge difference) and don’t let it sit. Once we find the lid to our grinder, or buy a decent one, I plan on getting some Arabic Sunani to use in our french press.

I digress…One other thing that Starbucks likes to tout is their Fair Trade coffee. Sounds good and it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside knowing you’re helping others less fortunate than you. But I can think of maybe 7 times in the last 7 years I’ve actually seen FT coffee for sale in my local Starbucks. A few years ago, I just assumed this is just BS like their claims of offering health benefits to employees, even though they try to minimize workers hours so most aren’t eligible for those benefits. Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about their FT coffee. Today, I stumbled across Starbucks Challenge 3.0 over at green LA girl’s blog. Through her, I learn the following:

So Starbucks admitted it hasn’t lived up to its own highly trumpeted fair-trade-friendly policy to French press a cup of fair trade coffee for anyone who asks for it. It’s a “break down in customer service,” Starbucks said, and sent out some emails to its stores.

But two months into the challenge, things STILL haven’t improved much. And the mermaid STILL hasn’t answered our questions — How does Starbucks plan to fix the problem? When?

Regardless of politics, most of us agree on one thing: If a company makes a promise, it should stick to it.

Wh-wh-waaaatt??? French press a cup of their fair trade coffee? I had never heard of this. How delightful would it be to get a fresh cup of FT coffee? Hell, how delightful would it be to get a fresh cup of coffee period?

Well, I’m always up for a challenge, especially if it’s against a corporation who chaffs my hide. I’m in on this one. But. I need your help to win. That’s where you come in, dear reader. If you are like most people I know and need to have a latte just to motivate, can you spread the word (i.e., email this link) and let everyone know that faboo mama says, “Just ask!” You don’t have to buy the FT coffee if you must have your non-cap, double spigot, countrywide, yoga chai (I usually order a venti drip, so excuse me if I messed up something there), but at least ask if they’ll do this.

I’m counting on you people. We have until Dec. 16th, so I’ll try to hit up every Starbucks I can and I hope you do the same. You can email me the torrid details or just post them up here. Between today and the 16th, I’ll go to a different Starbucks to enquire on getting me my FT coffee. Also, they’ll pick 2 winners who spurred most people to sign onto their letter to Starbucks. When you sign, please post that faboo or fabooj sent you their way. Maybe add the link to my blog.

If I win, I will thank you from the bottom of my blogging heart. If I lose, I’ll be so depressed that I won’t post any more pictures of my children and none of you will be able to see them until they graduate from college. Fair enough? Let the games begin!