November, 2011 Archive

Havin’ A Cow

by Alison Friedman in Marvelous Madelyn, Mommy's Musings

It’s only been nine days since Halloween. This post isn’t overdue at all. Nuh uh.

Oops.

Things have been crazy at the Friedman Abode. The Halloween costume is still draped over the dining room chair, so naturally, a recap of Madelyn’s first Halloween is a bit tardy as well. I even questioned doing Halloween at all. Madelyn was less than three months old on October 31st, and she’ll never remember it, and obviously the only candy she gets to enjoy is her formula which is her breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well! Let’s face it, though, Halloween for babies is more for the parents than it is for the little ones. It’s all about the photo op, and we definitely got them!

At first Madelyn was going to be a strawberry for Halloween. I saw a cute costume on Old Navy’s website and ordered it, but when she tried it on, it was too big and baggy. She looked cute in red, but it wasn’t even obvious that it was a strawberry. Quite a bummer, too, since the selection was in honor of her daddy’s favorite food!

While at Costco, I saw costumes by Carters and they were adorable! They must have been all the rage this year, because according to Facebook photos, it looks like most babies and kids wore a variation of a Carters animal costume for Halloween. Color us trendy, because Madelyn looked moooootiful in her cow costume!

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Although, I have to wonder, is it a little meta that Madelyn drinks milk while she’s in her cow costume? She seemed to enjoy her bottle of formula with extra zest that day. I wonder if she finally understood “you are what you eat” in its truest sense.

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Since I haven’t cared about Halloween since college, I really got into the spirit this year since I now had a reason to participate. I baked Halloween cupcakes and made yummy Oreo cookie bars. I even made Bryan dress up with me as Madelyn’s little farmer/cowboy caretakers. I couldn’t decide if we were farmers or cowboys, so I interpret us as a hybrid of such noble professions.

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Oh, and we decided that the cowboy farm specialized in pumpkins as well as cows. Hey, it’s two ingredients in to having a full-blown pumpkin pie.

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I couldn’t wait to bring her over to her friend Brielle’s house (who made the cutest ladybug!) so we could have a mini Halloween party with our families. We enjoyed good food and lots of playtime. We ventured out to a few houses in Brielle’s neighborhood which is in the same community as my elementary school. I went trick-or-treating there as a kid, and it was fun to carry the tradition over for Madelyn as we started our own new tradition with Brielle and her parents! The babies, um, we got some candy and just before dusk, we came back home and 7-month-old Brielle went to sleep.

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We always have such a fun time with Brielle’s mommy and daddy. I’ve known Brielle’s mommy since we were kids and we are having so much fun with our baby girls!

Thirty

by Bryan Friedman in Daddy's Corner

Believe it or not, since pretty much the day after my 29th birthday, I’ve been dreading my 30th. To me, turning 30 somehow meant that I would have to officially be an adult now. I know that turning 18 or 21 (or 25) or whatever means you are an adult in the legal sense. But for me, the idea of turning 30 always felt like some sort of symbolic ending to my youth — no more staying up late, no more eating whatever I want, no more crazy nights out with friends…basically no more fun. (In retrospect, I think most of this “fun” ended closer to my 25th birthday anyway.)

So when I saw my 30th birthday fast approaching, at first I thought I’d rather not celebrate it at all. “Let’s just forget this is even happening,” I thought. But of course, that would have been silly, so I decided instead that it was best, as always, to surround myself with everybody that I love and everybody who loves me… …so I can share with them the misery of me turning old. And that’s what I did. (Well, that, and I ate a whole bunch of overly yummy food made by former Top Chef-testants.)

On Saturday night, Alison and I went out with some of our closest friends to Stefan’s at L.A. Farm in Santa Monica. Some of the food that was served to our table is easily some of the best food I’ve ever had in my life — from appetizers, to salads, to entrees and dessert, it was just an exquisite meal. After it was over we even went out and [sort of] partied hard at an Irish Pub. It was almost like college again, only we had more money and we got tired a little early.

On Sunday, my actual birthday, Alison took me to brunch at Eveleigh in West Hollywood for more awesome food followed by a surprise helicopter tour of L.A. Such an awesome surprise, and we got to see some really cool sites from 500 feet in the air.

Finally, we finished up the night with our families, including Baby Madelyn, with a seven course dinner at Cafe Firenze in Moorpark from Chef Fabio. It was a real treat and the best way I could possibly think of to end what turned out to be just about the perfect 30th birthday weekend for me.

So anyway, it happened. I’m 30 now. I’m old. My 20s are officially over. It’s the end of my youth.

Thankfully, however, I have some truly incredible friends, an extremely awesome family, and an even more incredible and awesome wife and daughter. By sharing with them some great food, good laughs, and fun times during my 30th birthday celebrations, I came to a realization. I guess it took the whole weekend (or probably the whole year) for me to figure it out, but I know now that 30 is not the end of something, it’s the beginning of something. I think my “youth” was probably over longer ago than I’d like to admit, and while my 20s definitely had there fair share of wild times (“wild” is relative here folks…), my 30s will most certainly have their fair share of wildness too, albeit a wholly different kind of wild.

I’ve heard it said that “life begins at 30” and I guess that’s true. I have a beautiful and caring wife that I love, a perfect baby daughter…I now have the most wonderful family any 30-year-old could ever ask for. Forget my “youth” anyway! This is what life is all about. I think I like 30 after all.

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