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Oct. 1, 1958
Thank you for the snapshots. Daddy looks a little older, but it has been a year since I saw him last, and then only briefly. Your flowers look lovely. They must take a lot of work.
She & I are weathering an exposure to German measles. The 14 days will be up on Sat. The doctor said that babies her age usually don't get them, & I know I've had them before - though the person we were exposed to also had them before. We both feel fine.
Keep your eye on Dr. James. I had to spend over $200 repairing his handiwork. The inlays he put in were beautifully done, except he was so busy talking that he didn't keep the cavity sterile. Under his beautiful work, my teeth were [gaily?] nothing away. I saw the evidence both on the x-rays & when the original inlays were removed. I can remember wondering, at the time he did the work, why he bothered to sterilize the area when he let all kinds of things, including my saliva, touch it before he glued the inlay in.
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Today, I had a photographer out to take some pictures of She. She absolutely refused to crack a smile, except in moments so brief, I doubt if he caught them. After he left she laughed smiled, grinned, & positively wiggled with glee. The sight of a camera gives her a serious look, as she gives it a curious going-over. The poor man nearly stood on his head.
We're in the process of painting & decorating her standard-size crib & her potty chair. She'll soon be in them, yesterday, she turned from back to stomache without assistance. She's doing very well at drinking out of a cup, too. Bre gave her a darling baby cup & self-feeding spoon, & it won't be long before she's using them.
I'll send you some more pictures of her when this roll is out of the camera. I got a couple of her yesterday, standing up & holding onto the coffee table.
Lately we've been on a party kick. I went to a Sarah Coventry jewelry party, then I gave one. Next we went to a waterless cooking ware dinner. Delicious but we have a lovely set of Revere Ware, & nothing can beat an iron frying pan. Tonite, we're going to a
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Stanley party. Sometimes I manage to do a little Avon-ing on the side. If you have any sales resistance, those parties can be fun, & if you need any of that stuff, you can always give a party & get a discount.
We took She to church for the first time since her baptism, & she was really very well behaved. She gave a couple of happy squeals, & spent the rest of the time inspecting things. There was just one thing, she made faces & laughed quietly over Jim's shoulder until the boy in back of us was in stitches. She's a little heavy to hold all that time. I wish we could hook her car seat over the back of the pew.
This is the first time I've used a straight pen since the Post Office installed ball-points. This ink is so old that it won't flow through a fountain pen, & all our ball-points need refills. I kind of enjoy the change, anyway. Pat sent us a big box of pen points that she swiped from the bank, in a box of baby clothes. Thanks to Pat, She has more dresses than the princess of Monaco, and James Harvey Standley III's wardrobe is under way, even though he isn't.
Look magazine came yesterday with the
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Websters & [Fraps?]. I think they got better pictures of the dead geese than they did of [Ferris?] & Dorothy. By the way, we got a lovely white dress for She, from there.
At the moment, I'm at a standstill on Thank you notes, tell the ladies. My correspondence has had to be re-arranged several times in my absence, & I'm still digging back down to it. In short - I'm messey.
Thurs. She has perfected rolling over onto her stomache, & does it with ease when I try to put her on her back when her stomache is full. Oh well, someday she'll be old enough to wipe up the barf herself. Nasty thought!
Jim put the washer & dryer on platforms the other day, in anticipation of the coming rains. The garage had several inches of water last year, & we propped them up temporarily. The city has been working on the drainage, but we don't trust them. This part of Palo Alto was one of the least affected in the '55 & '57 high water sprees, but only a couple of blocks away they had several feet of water in '55 & were evacuated but not flooded in '57. We're going to fill this lot a little when we buy it. That is just one of the nuisances of living on a peninsula.
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Just ate lunch, some of my leftover goulash. Not bad - it tastes different every time. I kind of like to cook, if I'm all alone & can experiment - otherwise I just like to open cans. Yesterday I improvised on a cookie recipe for the second time & got satisfactory results at last. I tried it before & the first batch was kind of runny & in the third batch they were round. This time both batches looked like cookies & didn't taste bad either - oatmeal butterscotch & oatmeal maple. Today I found a recipe for potatoe pancakes (instant potatoes, yet!) & one for maple cake, & I guess I'll try that the next time. I'm slowly accumulating a collection of exotic ingredients. It's a slow process since there's no sense accumulating what I don't know how to use. In the first experiment I usually make some incongruous mistake, but my second attempts are usually successful. When I feel that I have mastered enough fundamentals, I will start exploring some of our fancy cookbooks. In the meantime, I'm trying to decide how I want the kitchen. We're going to streamline it after we buy the place, & change the kitchen door. Modern kitchens are designed to be compact but not easy to clutter, & to save steps. Applying that aim is pretty challenging. We
