matry-OH!-shka

i have a thing for matryoshkas. maybe it's because i'm polish. they're eastern european nesting dolls (perhaps specifically russian, but i'm not positive). i've seen some scandinavian ones too. in college i had one with all of the leaders of the soviet union. gorbachev was the largest, this was before putin, before even yeltsin...ok, i admit it. i was a poly sci geek. these are a few of my favorite matryoshka finds on etsy, but there are loads more. as soon as we get my daughter a room, i'm getting the wall decals.

the best sound

i realize this is an old video, but it still makes me laugh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE6PNps5N9I&feature=related

getting a stuffy nose unstuffed.

odds are, if you're a parent, your baby has gotten a cold as some point in his/her life.

and with that cold probably came a stuffed up nose you were puzzled to get un-stuffed. so far the only thing available to help were those blue-bulb-y things that just piss off the little one and really don't get the snot out. then my friend juliet (she's a pediatrician) sent me a nosefrida. it's genius. it's a nasal aspirator from sweden and it gets the snot out so effectively and painlessly, i actually look forward to the next time baby bea has a stuffed up nose. well, sort of. how you use it: one end of the tube goes up against baby's nostril--it doesn't go all the way in, but it's angled to fit snugly. from the other end of the hard tube is a filter and then another soft tube with a red mouthpiece at the end. you then use your own suction to literally suck the snot out. don't get grossed out, the snot comes NO WHERE near your mouth. but the joy you get from actually seeing the job being done.

check out their website: http://www.nosefrida.com/. in the states you can buy them at whole foods.

you've got to start somewhere.

it dawned on me, i could sit around and talk about starting a blog, or i could just do it.

first dilema: what to name my blog? all i can come up with is something my son luc keeps saying, something he picked up from alvin and the chipmunks: oh yeah mamacita. maybe i'll change it later. who knows.