The Mulligan Years

2009-05-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

Ian: You are mean. No - you are crazy. Crazy!
me: Hey, dude. You remember how, last night, Daddy reminded me not to call people crazy? Because it was not a good word to say? Well, he was totally right. We're not going to call people that, okay? You remind me and I'll remind you.
Ian (mutters) you're crazy.
Me: What does that even mean? What does "crazy" mean, Ian?
Ian: (very emphatically) It means when you are not awesome.

Nice Try

2009-05-06T12:49:00.000-07:00

Me: You were so good at the doctor's office!
Ian: You were right. He is a really dood [that's how Ian says 'good' -ed.] doctor.
Me: What should we have for lunch?
Ian: Ummmmm...Cheeburger Cheeburger!
[regional chain lunch counter - there's one near church.]
Me: That's a pretty good idea.
Ian: Wait, how about..............Lollipop Lollipop??!
Me: Wow! I don't know where there's one of those!
Ian: (sighs, looks out window.) They're all far, far away.

I promised that, the next time we had a cork to screw, I'd show him how it worked.

2009-04-16T18:05:00.000-07:00

Ian is obsessed with the corkscrew.

He was being Mr. Crabass this afternoon, and I suggested a picnic to jolly him up. We ended up sitting on a blanket the deck, eating grapes, cheese, and Girl Scout cookies, helping dinosaurs climb the Eiffel Tower. It was quite relaxing.

I opened some sparkling apple juice (Ian wanted soda, which was not going to happen, but this compromise allowed me to sit around under the beautiful blue sky and gaze at buds and hold a wineglass and kind of kid myself that I was drinking wine.)

But we needed a bottle opener to open the cap on the apple juice, and the first one I could find was on the big corkscrew. Which looks like a person, and airplane, and, not surprisingly, a dinosaur.

No preschoolers or Mommies were harmed in the eating of the picnic.

2009-04-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

We had to explain to Ian that, while the Easter Bunny comes to most kids houses during the night, she visits minister's kids in time for dinner.

The Lord is risen indeed. I have tonsilitis.

closed for the moment:

2008-11-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

Thanks for stopping by. Right now all the action's over at www.funkyfatgirl.com, where I have already failed the NaBloPoMo Challenge but am still concentrating in efforts.

Such as they are.

obilgatory pumpkin pics.

2008-10-24T20:32:00.001-07:00

guess i'm a mommyblogger.

guess where we went.

2008-10-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

this probably doesn't ring any bells

nor this, I imagine.

this might do it

or, in context....

guess what can be purchased there? Quite inexpensively.

we like museums.

we heart the woods

2008-10-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

Everyone's a critic.

2008-10-05T19:58:00.000-07:00

me: Come on, get in the car, sweetie.

him: NO! I don’t want to ride in your car! I want to ride in Daddy’s car!

me: Sorry, dude, not today. Hop in.

him: I don’t want your car! Mommy’s car is SCARY!

me: Scary? (wtf?) What could possibly be scary about mommy’s car?

him: All the bad songs.

You sure are.

2008-09-13T18:08:00.000-07:00

Incidentally, I can vouch for this.

And now, I present 3 scenes, two from today, one from a week or so ago.

1. Ian the Comedy Writer
Scene: Our station wagon. Ian is strapped into his seat; Eric is driving, I am in the passenger seat.

Ian: Knock knock!
(eric and I exchange a look that says, hmmm, this is new.)
Eric: Who's there?
Ian: PINEY!
Me: Um, piney? Piney who? (subtext: What? Piney? what the...?)
Ian: A PINEY! And it REALLY SCRATCHES!! (hoots with laughter, which is so contagious that we also start laughing.

It's been more than a week, and we still have absolutely no idea what it means.
And it's gotten a whole lot funnier.

2. Ian the Performer (a monologue.)
Ian and I are at the lakefront in our town. We've eaten our sandwiches, played on the playground for hours, and are now (with more than a modicum of resistance) making our way back to the car. Ian detours up a ramp and onto the huge concrete stage at the lakeside bandshell. I accompany him, to make sure he can't take a header off the front.

Ian: (stages just off-center, all the way downstage, his eyes raking the empty hillside) I am a magic magician! And I am doing a magic show! Which of you kids would like to come up on MY stage?
(Turns to me) No one is coming on my stage.
I shrug - sad but true. Some nights, it's just like that, kid.

2. Ian the Naturalist
A little closer to the car, Ian spots of ducks standing on the shore, a foot or so from the water, grooming and conversing. He steps toward them, and I catch his arm.

me: Not too close, honey.
Ian: But I want to meet the ducks! Can I pet them? They have furry feathers!
me: I don't think they'll let you, Neen. I'm sure they'd jump in the water to get away. They're scared of people getting too close - they're wild animals, after all.

Ian: (pauses to think. Then:) But I am a wild kid!

2008-07-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

Read this lovely brokenhearted reflection about being a new parent.

It's weird. I am very happy. Right now, I am blissfully happily married, breathless with happiness about my work, happy as a mom, happy with where I live, pretty f.ing happy.

And I know a lot of brand new parents, and I often have a chance to talk about what Ian's infancy was like.

During Ian's infancy, I was not happy. Not happily married. Not happy where I lived. Having zero fun, which was hardly surprising, but thinking that might be a permanent state of affairs. And - this made me feel most hopeless - having lost any scrap of joy in my work. Exhausted, about to capsize on a wave of bad chemicals, desparately in love with my kid. Just overcome. You know, the usual.

And I wonder why I can't sugarcoat that. Not even a little. I cannot bring myself to tell little white lies about that first year; I'm not even tempted. Am I just mean? Selfish? It's not to make myself look good - in these stories, I am not a hero, and not a helpless victim either.

Do I just love a good story that much?

And all I can say is: Exactly.

2008-07-18T05:01:00.000-07:00

I complain a lot, on both my blogs, especially about being a parent. I tell stories about horrifying behavior (like the underpant drill team incident) and moan about having to adjust my internal pace to that of the Dead Worm Patrol. Whine whine whine.

Antonia thinks she does too. One never minds when Antonia complains on her blog Whoopee, since it's always snortingly funny and creative, and accompanied by photos of her daughter in huge costume hornrim glasses or Billybob teeth.

But some people must mind, because Antionia has written a response to a reader whom she has frightened - "Poor em.s read my post about Blogher that bemoans how boring and tedious it is to be a parent. Em.s is 14 weeks pregnant, out of the first trimester and ready to get excited about the most wonderful journey life has to offer, and I come along and tell her it's going to be AWFUL." So she says this:

...Because I have Esme, I can roll down grassy banks in parks without feeling silly. Because I have Esme, I can walk through London making monster noises. (One day last month I inadvertently made a monster noise at respected no-neck media personality Sandi Toksvig, and you can't put a price on that.) Because I have Esme, strangers smile and start conversations with us, strangers who would normally walk by with grumpy faces.

I can't put into words how good the good times are - I can't do them justice - and I don't feel the need to write about them here. I just enjoy them. [...]
And all I can say is:
"Exactly."

greetings from the cincinnati zoo

2008-07-15T20:15:00.001-07:00

the sort of bird that rides on rhinos

the sort of bird that looks like a drag queen

the sort of lion that looks like a display at FAO Schwartz
(alternately, Aslan's standin)

what we've been doing

2008-07-15T20:11:00.001-07:00

enjoying treats

hangin' in the great outdoors

Last week

2008-05-02T18:02:00.001-07:00

Last week, a bunch of people from our congregation spent a Saturday morning on various helping projects - some helped renovate houses, some did landscaping or stream cleanup, and about 10 of us went to a retirement home to visit the residents.

There were quite a few kids on our team; I signed us up for this one because I thought it would suit Ian. He's friendly, he's a good talker, he can sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

Okay, seriously: I signed up because I'm on staff at this church, and I need to be living out the vision of the church and modeling wholehearted participation and MAN ALIVE DO I NOT FEEL LIKE DOING CHURCH STUFF ON A SATURDAY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. So that's the full extent of my suffering for the kingdom - spending a couple of hours visiting old folks in the day room. Yes, I am a fine, fine example. I felt like I had to sign up for something, and so I found something that I could do with the kid. Nice, eh? Why yes, I am quite saintly. I am one saintly mother.

And may I just point out, my little tiny ridiculous suffering is NOT particularly compounded by the fact that it was a nursing home, on account of my mom's long stay in one. So no credit is due me for overcoming nursing home squick.

Anyway, here is my point. The group took nosegays to some residents, and those were well-received. We found a quite corner, pulled out the markers and made some greeting cards to pass out. That was fun.

And then the group kind of split up, and we found ourselves visiting some ladies in another common room. Each was in a wheelchair, kind of wheeled into random positions, not to watch TV or look out a window or converse. One woman was parked on the linoleum, and someone from church was chatting with her, and she was clearly distressed, shouting. And I thought, okay, we'll be fine over here singing for the unresponsive patients for the rest of the hour. No way we're visiting the shouter.

But I do have some small sliver of heart, and it got the better of me. I saw the distressed woman gazing at Ian, and I couldn't conscience staying away. We can over and said hello. Ian took her hand. She frailly stroked his hair.

Ian cracked out the A material: from "Hi! I am Ian!" through "I am talking! To you! We are talking!" and even a quick verse of "Home on the Range". It's a great program, really. A surefire hit.

As the program went on, though, the woman became distressed again, and started shouting - "I'm sick!" "I want to go home. Can't you please take me home?" "This is an awful place, I would never come back here." "I'm dead already." She was weeping.

Krista and I fell into a silence. Ian looked at the woman, the looked at me.
He cocked his head and said "That lady says she is sick."

Yep, I said, that's why she's here, so doctors can take care of her.

"She wants to go home," he said. His heart was breaking, just beginning to crack.

Yes, she does. You know what that's like, huh?

He stared at her for a long time. "She is very sad."

Yes, she is. You're right, Ian. She is very sad.

Ian put his head on my shoulder.

Eventually I pulled myself together a little, and we prayed, with Ian holding her twisted finger. We stayed with her for a while. Eventually we went on and said hello to some more people. Ian was a little shyer over the next hour.

In the afternoon, his father woke his up from his nap. He looked up from the crib and said "Daddy, are you happy?"

"Yes, I am, Ian. How about you? Are you happy?"

"Yes. I am happy."

If I tell him I don't have all the answers - if I tell him that I, his mother, the person who explains things, doesn't know why some people are desperately unhappy, and there's nothing we can do to solve their problems AND YET God expects us to be with them and hold their hands for their sake and God's sake and I will never in this life know why...

...does that make his world more frightening, or less frightening?
More sad? Or less sad?

it's been a while since we've had a photo so

2008-03-13T19:34:00.000-07:00

Recent Events

2008-03-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

1. Ian recently tried to hypnotize us at the dinner table. He asked for a treat, and when we refused, we gazed calmly across the table at us and began to rock very slowly and subtly from side to side, whispering "but yesssss....cccinnamon rolllllll.....yesssss......"

2. In the living room the next day, Eric did a magic trick for Ian that climaxed with the revelation of a small silk rainbow streamer. Ian picked it up from the floor, laid it gingerly around his neck like a stole, and smiled at Eric: "Now I'm a princess!"

Bummer.

2008-02-19T16:49:00.000-08:00

via Addison Road.

Wrong about the Baby Jesus

2008-02-18T18:26:00.000-08:00

Another day, another art museum. We found ourselves at the Walters today.

It's a rare gem. Though it is not usually open Mondays, as private museums tend not to be, it was open today, the huge golden doors swung wide onto Charles Street. It's quirky and weird, reflecting a personal vision about collecting and art and what's valuable. It's small and managable, close to free street parking and cheap lunch counters. It's free. All the time.

PLUS over the past few years, they have devoted tremendous resources to making the museum a real family place, with events and activities and interpretive materials for kids as young as pre-school. (This was not true when I lived a few blocks away from the Walters, but then, I didn't need it to be, did I?)

Ian went to the Walters for the first time when he was almost 3 months old.
We go several times a year, and some of the staff recognized us today. (Granted, we are hard to miss, the World's Cutest Toddler and his purple-haired aging hipster mom. We tend to make an impression.)

This morning, we went directly to the playroom in the basement, and played with blocks and puppets for an hour. The puppets at the Walters totally rule over all other hand puppets on earth. The playroom has a slight Heraldry/Chivalry theme, and so the puppets include lions and griffins and dragons, as well as camels, skunks, rats, bunnies, and whatever else the FolkManis people were making that season. Yeah, I know, they're retail puppets - you would think that I would reserve this sort of enthusiasm for one-of-a-kind works of art - but on the other hand, they seem to be surviving rough toddler play and baby gnawing awfully well. Nothing to (ha ha) sneeze at.

Anyway, after about an hour, I was able to lure him into the elevator and get him upstairs to look at some pictures. He wasn't interested at first, but then some temple statues got him, and we went on our traditional hunt for animals in the artworks. We saw bears, horses, monkeys, peacocks, dogs and bunnies. And lions.

This wandering from work to work led us into the 18th Century galleries, where there is lots and lots of Baby Jesus.

Pictures of Baby Jesus are interesting to both of us (I can only feign interest in horse paintings for so long) and so we talked about each one: how does his momma look in this picture? Does she look sad? "NO! Is HAPPY!" She looked kinda tired to me, but maybe I was projecting. What color is his blanket? Does it look soft? What animal is he petting? (There's a whole room of huge paintings of Baby J hugging the Paschal Lamb, by the way. While this symbolism isn't new to me, it hit me square in the chest with a kind of meanness today.)

We came upon a smallish painting of a naked, sleeping Baby J, and I hoisted Ian up so he could get a good look. Ian looked at me with a concerned face.

"His diaper, Mamma!" he whispered, shocked.
"Yep, his diaper's off. Maybe he took it off after his mamma put him to bed."
"But Mamma! His diaper! Is OFF!"
"Yes, it is. I wonder if that made his mamma mad."

Later, we're on the main floor, stopping for a juice box before leaving. Ian grabs my hand and says "Change! muh diaper! Mamma."

I get him into the ladies and strapped onto the changing table. He identifies the figures on the international safety label: "Is baby! Is momma! Is leaving!" He's not alarmed, merely reporting on the content.
"Yes, that's what the picture is, but you know I won't leave. I'm right here."
"Changin' muh diaper!"
"Yes! Changing your diaper."
He stares off into space for a long moment.
"Mamma, I was wrong about the Baby Jesus." (Yes, he said it just that grammatically, and yet it somehow sounded more like Scooby Doo than Ellen Page.)

I asked him what he meant, and he wasn't quite as clear in explaining, of course. But he did get across that the diaper - Baby J's missing diaper - was still bothering him. He may have trouble sleeping tonight, thinking about it. As we were leaving the museum, he stopped to discuss it with the woman behind the membership desk.

"Well, yeah," she said. "Sometimes babies take their diapers off. It's okay. See, Baby Jesus was just like you!"
"No," he said firmly. "Baby Jesus."
"Yes," I chimed in. "That's kind of the point, that Jesus was a person."
"Not a person. Baby Jesus."

He'll get it eventually.

the dreaming continues

2008-02-10T18:20:00.000-08:00

we're playing on the bed this afternoon. I lie down
He lies down with me, face to face, and shuts his eyes.

Me: Are you dreaming?
Ian: Yes! I am dreaming!

we lie still for about 20 seconds, making the sleeping sound.

Ian: Mamma, get up! You are! dreaming too!
Me: Yes I am. I'm dreaming too! What are you dreaming about?
Ian: Wheels. What are you dreaming about?
Me: Fish. I always dream about fish. (True.)
Ian: NO!!!!
Me: Well, you asked. I'm just telling you. I was dreaming about fish.
Ian: NO!!!!!
Me: Occasionally I dream about babies.
Ian: NOOOOOO!!!!!! No babies! No fish! Dream about animals!
Me: I guess I could try that.
Ian: Giraffes. Giraffe animals.
Me: Okay. Let's go back to sleep. I'll try to dream about giraffes.

(30 seconds of pretend sleep.)

Ian: I was dreaming, but now I wake up. You dreaming?
Me: I was. I dreamed about giraffes.
Ian: Good.
Me: Baby giraffes.
Ian: (very satisfied) Good.
Me: What were you dreaming about?
Ian: Wheels. And fish.

(Incidentally, the internet is very obliging - I typed 'dream fish' into google, and up popped this page, which informs me that certain species of fish can be enjoyed for their halluncinogenic qualities. In the pacific, says the page, these are called Dream Fish.)

Today

2008-02-04T11:58:00.000-08:00

1. We're playing in the living room.He rolls over into my lap and closes his eyes. He does his fake sleeping noise, which is somewhere between a shhh and a snore.
I stroke his forehead.

"I'm dreaming," he says, almost whispering, his eyes still closed.

"What are you dreaming about?" I whisper.

"Wheels," he sighs back, in rapture.

20 seconds later he pops up and runs over to the wall.

"Now I'm painting," he informs me, and sure enough, he makes florid gestures with a clean watercolor brush, with the wall as his pretend canvas.

2. This is a picture I did not take: a puddle we played in today. What it doesn't show is two tiny soaked shoes, having landed in the center of the perfectly round, ankle-deep silty puddle, and the 30 or so sets of concentric circles spread out over its surface, each a different size, one for each drop of the splash that was made when he landed. (This is my lame little tribute to the beautiful Unphotographable, which I saw via photojojo.)

Lest you think it's all soft focus Johnson&Johnson commercials around here, let me also tell you this one:

3. he's standing on a kitchen chair, and begins hopping up and down.
I explain to him why this is not a good idea.

My husband chimes in "Oh, that's great. We'll be checking into the emergency room, and he'll be holding his skull together, telling the nurse "I deserve this!"

Why I smiled when Ian cried today

2008-01-21T14:11:00.000-08:00

...because he was crying bitter tears, really wailing and struggling, upon BEING TOLD THAT HE HAD TO LEAVE THE ART MUSEUM.

The Visionary had a free admission day, and I thought this was perfect - we could plan on an hour or so of museum-going before his nap, and if he happened to hate it and lose patience and begin the Display of Antisocial Behaviors, we could just leave. Because it was free, and I would not have to regret not getting my $12 worth.

He LOVED it. He could not get enough. We spotted animals in the Rumi collages, babies in the All Religions exhibit, and ourselves in the many mirrored surfaces. A couple of hours? No problem!

His real favorite was the giant cast-bronze-and-stained-glass Icarus that falls in slow motion through the main stairway, and rises and falls again all day long. He
twists down at a barely percievable rate towards the mirrored slice of sea on the floor below. Ian was riveted. I could not believe it. We climbed the stairs to get close - we followed him down. The sunshine glints from the skylight through the colored glass feathers. He has marbles for eyes and a red throng that's a mosaic of mirrors.

This photo from Gregwar at MosaicArtSource.com, which has many many cool photos, as does his Flickr.

Anyway, I acknowledge that this may not last, and that looking at pictures (or even giant winged men on cables) will almost certainly grow stale at some point. It never has for me, but I didn't start at 2. Trips to art sites will one day mean much eye-rolling. I know. I know.

But he cried! He tried to get away! He was stunned when I suggested that we leave the paintings behind! He would rather stay and look at art than go run up the hill, or eat lunch, or even see Uncle Sandy!

wow.

(smile)

There are worse thing I could do...

2008-01-13T19:45:00.000-08:00

I need to save this link, so that the next time I am kicking myself about being a crap mother (ref. "SEE?!?!??" from the last post) I can think about these excellent stories.

I'm still kind of an amateur. I've only been at this for 2 years, after all.

The Happy Tale of a Boy and his Lobster

2008-01-10T20:21:00.000-08:00

My darling child stayed home from daycare Wednesday, at the suggestion of his day care provider. Since she was the one who had to clean vomit off his socks and shoes on Tuesday, we thought that was a fair request.

As usual, the throw-up was the first and last symptom. Immediately upon clearing the offending stuff out of his tummy, Ian feels FABULOUS!! and wants to play!! Usually something involving wrestling!! And I must say that being a mommy has stripped away most of my squeamishness - while it wouldn't occur to me personally to wrestle a barfed-on baby (or kiss him on the lips, another fav of his), the ideas isn't as upsetting as it used to be. (I can also watch snakes on TV - great huge fangy snakes!! - without my skin crawling.)

Anyway, my point was, no vomit, and unseasonably warm sunny days, and me and the kid at home. I didn't want to take him anywhere crowded, in case he did have something contagious, but our neighborhood's playground is deserted for most of the day, so we went out to play. Me and Ian and his lobster.

See, our Christmas tree is still up, but the branches are a tad droopy, so some stuff has dropped off. We put all our unbreakable (and un-chokable) ornaments on it, so the fallen stuff doesn't matter much. One of the ornaments is a wooden lobster, which I think we got to commemorate our honeymoon trip to the Canadian Maritimes. I do believe it used to sit on a little wooden lobster trap.

So Ian has taken a shine to this little lobster. He carried it around for much of the morning, watched Elmo and Bob with it, showed his sippy cup to it (but did not offer it any Pedialyte), set it carefully on his little desk so it could watch him work a puzzle.

And then he took it to the playground. I offered to hold it several times, and was rebuffed every time.

He sent it down the slide before him.

He walked it up one of the climbers.

He balanced it carefully on the playground equipment when he needed to run in circles.

He carried it in his fist when we went for a walk around the neighborhood and gave it a breathless audio tour ("Wind! Chimes!!") ("Tismas!!! Lights!!")

And then he threw it down and broke its claw off.

When Ian breaks things, it forces me to a moment of decision. Routinely, it is something about which I have just said 'Don't ______ the ________, you might break it by accident." (Don't gallop the camel from the nativity set, don't drop the clay frog, don't throw the lobster.) When he does, it takes every fiber of my meager mothering to not say "SEE?????"

He didn't throw it down in anger. (It's not that the lobster had offended him in some way. Or pinched him.) He threw it down because he wanted to feel what his body feels like when he throws. He likes it. It's like jumping. As a matter of fact, it usually includes some jumping. He's learning about his body and its limits and what its good for.

About a third of the time, I actually do say something like "See? What did I tell you?" Maybe a quarter of the time. Maybe less.

Whether I say it or not, I remember all the things I broke by accident when I was a kid. They come flying past, like the doors and pocketwatches in the beginning of the Twilight Zone. A colonial inkwell. The carved back of an antique chair. A gold chain that has been my great-aunt's. A very large reverse painting on glass. German glass Christmas ornaments from the 20s. Plates and glasses and serving pieces far too numerous to mention.

(This is why I can't watch Antiques Roadshow. It makes me queasy.)

And so, yesterday afternoon, I gathered up about 6 things, and Ian and I had a gluing party. We re-attached the camel's leg, and the frog's leg, and the heads of two resin cat refrigerator magnets. And we glued the lobster's claw back on. (And I glued my fingers together, and somehow got a glob of glue on my lower lip, but I did manage to keep Ian from gluing himself to anything.)

I think we will have regular gluing parties.

I had really a good childhood in nearly every way, but at some point I got the message that I must never make mistakes. That the mistakes I made were terrible and irreparable, (and also to be expected because I'm kind of a screw-up)...and pretty much where shame came from.

And, yes, I know that glue won't solve everything. And that he has to learn limits and discipline. And he is, and he will, honest.

But I want him to see that lots of mistakes - his and other people's - aren't tragic. That reparation is real, and most mistakes really aren't the end of the world. Not even the end of the lobster.

Heather Armstrong is my Hero

2007-12-19T19:45:00.000-08:00

We found the... fruit snacks at the store, although using the word fruit here is a bit generous. I would have gone with polycarbonate snack, but I guess that would require more ink and less lying. Whatever. We bought two boxes...

Dooce.

Delicious.

2007-12-19T18:46:00.000-08:00

My son points to a photo in a wildlife calendar.

"Muffins!" he says, and smiles proudly.

"Oh, no, honey, you say 'puffin'. P - p - p puffin! Those are puffins."

"No! Is muffins,' he says adamantly, and then looks up at us with a little twinkle in his eye. He's making a joke.

"Puffins," daddy tries again.

"NO!! IS! Muffins!!" He stamps his foot, and then looks up sideways, smirking.

Our little Ogden Nash.

Baby, if you're a sickness, I don' need no cure.

2007-12-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

Husband (squinting at the one and only print that our accursed printer has been able to eeek out): We can't send this.

Me: Why?

Husband: People will think he has something.

Me: ?

Husband: With that hat. Covering all his hair. People will think he has cancer or something.

Me: Well, yeah! Something! Something like f-ing awesome taste in hats!!

the best picture I took this year:

2007-11-30T18:18:00.001-08:00

for the second-best, go here.

2007-11-29T20:55:00.001-08:00

hooray for me - I finally took MANY gigs of photos off my laptop, which meant that I could finally remove the 412 files (half of which were unrepenant crap) from my camera.

This means:
I have spent part of the evening reminiscing over the year (since the pictures dated back to June) and marveling over how much my child has changed in just 5 months

I am considering getting my eyes checked (I SWEAR they all looked focused when I took them)

I want to buy soundtrack music for my home movies (Bubbly)

I have to buy more photo frames, or perhaps a house with more walls

I STILL don't know why Kodak software maintains thumbnails for deleted ormaged files. It's driving me insane.

I have no idea where my child got his moviestar looks. I mean, his father is handsome, but in a totally different way - the suave and debonair/tall dark and handsome way. The kid looks like Christopher Robin.

Pleads together? Speeds together?

2007-10-11T19:50:00.000-07:00

Life with a for-all-practical-purposes-already-two-year-old is exhausting, but rather good. I have a couple hundred adorable pictures in my camera (and a couple hundred blurry ones too) but my hard drive is so full of pictures that, if I download these, Picasa will crash my computer and probably set it on fire. So we'll have to wait on the pictures.

He's a very attractive child these days -he stood still for a home haircut last weekend. He even let Eric clip several of his nails without the usual wet sheet wrap. (I AM KIDDING. We have never, repeat NEVER, wrapped our child in a wet bedsheet.) (It would probably work, though.) If we work in a little personal care time every saturday morning. we'll probably have a fairly decent-looking kid, without the Wolverine adamantium claws.

He's also fun. He's talking quite at lot, with new words every day. Today, I sneezed, and he said "Bless you."

His best trick - he's been doing this for months - is this.
We tell him to do something.
He replies (as a matter of course, regardless of the request) "NO!"
One of us gives him a big admonishing eyeball and says "Excuse me?"
At which point he makes BLYTHE DOLL EYES and ask sweetly, "No, please?"

So, tiring, but rewarding.

Also, since the tiny corner playground in our neighborhood has been finished and re-opened, I have become much fonder of our development. We go play there nearly every day, and so I am starting to get to know the kids (and the other parents) who live nearby. And, though it isn't like I've found a new BFF, I do find the neighborhood much livlier now that we're a tiny bit connected.

Ian (who, it must be said, talks just a little like Scooby Doo,) asks every day about the playground. This is the way he asks:

"PLWAYYY?!?!??!! GWOUND?!?!???!!!?!?

[He uses that inflection for practically everything. He also has a little trouble with compound consonent sounds, like the 'nk' in the middle of 'monkey'. He gets a little wetness into it, like it's Hebrew. This is particularly cool when he catches sight of the photo of my brother and his wife that's in our living room. He sees it, and it's as if he's never seen it in his life - he gasps (this is actually true), gapes at me, and then shouts "UNKCHCHCHUL?!?!?!? SHANDY?!??!?!?!?!"

Uncle Sandy had dinner with us last week. Ian practically had an aneurysm when he walked in the door.]

We were at the playground after dinner tonight. Ian was starting to get tired (ah ha! My evil plan was working!) and I was ready to scoop him up and take him inside. He was sitting in the bouncy rubber mulch, and I leaned down to pick him up.

At the same time he decided to stand up.

The collision with his shockingly hard little head made me reel, and after a moment, my nose started to bleed. First a trickle, then a gush, which I tamped with my scarf, a pink pashmina-ish sorta thing. I wanted to hide it from Ian, who I thought would be upset be the sight.

While I tried to hide the blood (and get those little cartoon stars and chirping birds from circling my head), Ian decided that it would be a great time to mount the big slide (something he does safely all the time)and then go down it ON HIS FEET.
(Something which cannot be done safely by anyone.)

He made it most of the way down, before falling face-first onto the edge of the slide. No damage, just a bloodied lip. I pinched my nose closed with my left hand, picked him up with my right, comforted him a little, and we staggered home.

Trump Hell

2007-08-21T20:05:00.000-07:00

we've just returned from 24 hours in Atlantic City.
all three of us.

I KNOW.

Atlantic City is an occupational hazard for variety entertainers - like falling off your unicycle, or getting papercuts from palmed cards. I've been once before, and Eric and Charon have been a couple more times, always to see friends perform.

This was actually a great opportunity - a magician Eric admires, who lives and performs on the west coast, had a booking in AC, and agreed to spend a day with Eric and do some show-doctoring. And that part (you know, the point of our trip)was totally totally totally worthwhile, more than worthwhile - I can already see good effects from the coaching he received.

We stayed at the Trump Marina, a multi-million-dollar COMPLETE HOLE miles from the ocean. Okay, not a complete hole. The sleeping room was very nice. It had the most fabulous chaise over by the window, upholstered in cream linen, and the bed was fantastic. Great linens. Not a bad view. Really good design all around. Whenever we were in the room, we were happy.

The hotel also has a lovely pool, which unfortunately someone carelessly left outdoors in the rain. Since it was not only drizzling but also 68 degrees all weekend, that didn't work out for us.

They also have a nice spa, but until Ian and I can get parallel massage tables, that's not going to work out either.

In fact, I would say that this hotel was the least hospitable environment for a toddler that I have ever seen.

"Duh," you're saying, "Who takes toddlers to casino hotels?"

Well, idiots, to start with. In my defense, I want to say that I was thinking that Atlantic City would be like Vegas. You'd think that would be a safe bet, right, ha ha?

Atlantic City is NOTHING LIKE VEGAS. IN ANY WAY.

We first went to Vegas several years ago for a gig. I expected to hate it - almost didn't go. I ended up completely loving it. We stayed at the Mandelay Bay for the first part of the trip, which was GREAT; when it came time to pay for our own lodging, we moved down the strip to the Monte Carlo. Which, though it lacked the marble bathrooms and Dale Chihuly ceilings of other hotels, was still pretty nice. (Scaling down, in that case, meant going to a hotel that only had 4 pools.)

I was shocked at how, well, accomodating everything was. Though I'm from the country, I'm kind of an urban girl at heart, and I have internalized the idea that 'the world was not set up for my personal convenience.' Except in Las Vegas, it is.

Tired? There's a bench right here! Bathroom - 10 feet to your left. Warm day? Well, for heaven's sake, don't walk down to the Walgreens - take the free monorail. Thirsty? Oh, honey, let me bring you a drink - what, just a soda? You sure? Well, okay....

Plus, as if you needed it, everyplace is brimming with entertainment, either paid (the art museum at the Bellagio, the big evening shows) or comped (we saw Mac King's daytime show for free) or really free, out on the street! Choreographed fountains! Hot air Balloons! Pirate Battles! Singing gondoliers! A fire-breathing dragon! Okay, so the dragon was looking a little shopworn, and Merlin's arm had fallen off. I didn't care, and I can guaran-damn-tee you that Ian wouldn't care.

Ian, in fact, would have been totally happy to stand in the window and watch the Luxor's diagonal elevator all day. I'm totally sure. The fountain show might have been too much for him. He would have gone into a pleasure coma.

I wasn't expecting a pleasure coma, but a bench might have been nice. A public area with, you know, seating. A lobby. Like at a hotel.

That's all I was expecting. I was expecting the hotel where we were staying to be like...a hotel. Hospitable. Accomodating. You would think they would want to make a nice place, so people will want to come and gamble.

But pretty much the motto of the Trump Marina is: gamble or fuck off.

There's not even SHOPPING, people. There's not even anything to buy if you win, except dinner and Trump t-shirts. (And really cheap costume jewelry. I got 2 watches. I am waiting for my arm to turn green.) You would think they could scare up a Versace, a Juicy Couture counter, something vulgar.

Nothin'.

But there's no place to sit down except at a slot machine, no place to stand except in line, no place to buy a paper (AT ALL), no place to let a baby be a baby. It's barely even handicapped accessible, despite the HUGE number of wheelchair users we saw there.

How gruesome is it?

we went for a 60-minute walk in the rain.

So, to recap:
1. The Trump Marina's success is based entirely on entropy. Once you're there, you're not within walking distance of anything else, and so there's not much competition.

2. If you are not actively involved in shoving coins into something, Trump Marina thinks you're dead weight, and would prefer not to do you any favors. It is a hellish place to spend an afternoon, let alone 24 hours with a hyper toddler.

3. East coast hotel pools belong indoors.

4. Be nice to the staff; they really appreciate it, plus you get to leave eventually but they come back every day.

5. We really, really need a new bed.

Metropolitan Refridgerator of Art

2007-08-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

We're very proud.

We've been to the beach.

2007-07-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

he liked it.

On Dooce, Heather Armstrong recently referred to vacation with a child as SUFFERING, and I wouldn't go quite that far.

Quite.

Ian had a wonderful time at the beach. An insanely wonderful time. Which is to say, apparently something about it drove him insane.

I know that, because shortly after he went completely insane, we stopped briefly at the Jockey outlet for our bi-annual underwear upgrade.

Ian chose to entertain the assembled underwear shoppers by grabbing two gold-colored women's thong panties, on hangers, and running through the crowded store, squealing, twirling them over his head in interlocking circles. Like, I don't know, some sort of underpants drill team.

And I dutifully chased him, mostly to avoid the disapprobation of my peers, because I think we all know it wasn't like I was going to be able to catch him or anything.

That wasn't the only incident, but kind of indicative. It captures the general texture of the week. I know I've complained about him recently, but he's normally not like THAT. We're fairly proud of his ability to join is in restaurants and stores (for reasonable periods) without incident. Strangers are always praising him for his good behavior and even disposition.

Ha ha.

Some snags aside, it was actually fun - we stayed right up at the boardwalk, and could walk down to the ocean carrying nothing more than a room key. For years, we stayed on the outskirts of town, and carried enough stuff each day to start a small lunar colony - food, clothes, books, a tent. This year, I could literally get up and go for a swim in the ocean CARRYING NOTHING. This is the only way, and I don't care how old and crappy the motel (ours was somewhat crappy) is or how rowdy the kids are outside after dark (barely rowdy even by Bethany standards. No lie, there were a bunch of high school boys playing guitar and singing Wonderwall on the boardwalk at 9pm.)

And, of course, it was emotional for me, seeing Ian take to it the way he did, and seeing Eric be such a dad. It made me think about how the beach has kind of 'been there for me', from babyhood through college and singlehood and wife-hood, and now with a beach baby of our own.

It's like a flipbook of snapshots - there's me and mom in matching sundresses at Avalon, there's dad throwing Sandy over the waves; there's me in my red white and blue racing suit in 1972; there's my mom after the stroke; me and Paul and Chuck; me and Dorney and Chuck and Larry..there are all the pictures of me that Eric has taken, holding up a rubber frog at Funland, shading my eyes by the jetty. There are even pictures from our pregnant trip, 2 years ago, when it rained the whole time and never got about 70. I'm obviously lost - huge, uncomfortable, already tired of waiting but mentally paralyzed, completely unable to think about what I'm waiting for. The rain pounded the dunes, and I stood out in it, shooting video of the whipping grass.

And now Ian, running in and out like a sandpiper, dropping handfuls of sand after the receding wave, showing the ocean who's boss.

We're going again in 6 weeks.

2007-07-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

www.themonkeyman.com

Pleased and fairly stunned to report that we survived Artscape!

I mean, who would do that? Who would take a 1-year-old to Artscape?

In fact, if you're like many people, you're asking: who would even go to Artscape? At all?

It's the annual outdoor arts fest in Baltimore.
It is always always always scheduled for the hottest days of the year. With the highest humidity.
Perversely, it's always completely mobbed with people, hundreds of thousands of them. Many visit the small press tents and the art installations, but many more come looking for cheesesteaks and funnel cake.
(Since most art -and most art patrons- do better INDOORS, some of the art and performances are tucked away in buildings and courtyards around the Maryland Institute campus. NOT SO with the cheesesteaks and funnel cake, which are right there on the street - at least a mile of food vendors. This leads the waggish to refer to it as Food-Scape.)
Plus, they sell yards of Coors on the street starting at 8am.
And you park like a mile away. (I guess the walk to your car gives you time to sober up. I hasten to add that, when I lived in Baltimore, in the next neighborhood overm and could easily have stumbled drunkenly home, the beer was not as much of a feature of Artscape.)

I love it.
I love everything about it.
I love the art, I love the art cars, I love the outdoor concert where you sit on the hillside at Mt Royal Station. (It's where I saw Taj Mahal, Betty and Johnny Clegg. Different years.)
I love a cheesesteak.
I love the several hundred art and craft vendors.
I love the idea of showing experimental short films in a tent in in the middle of the street on a Saturday afternoon in July.
I love the way guerilla art projects seep into other parts of town.
I love the people standing outside Theatre Project, inviting people to their original one-act plays like a barker at a sideshow.
I love that there's a ferris wheel, and it's free, and so people bring their little kids and walk around eating popcorn and have conversations about sculptures. That makes me so happy I could practically faint.

I love that it's the same weekend as Otacon, so that, as you drive up Charles from the Harbor, you see people - SERIOUSLY, LIKE A HUNDRED PEOPLE! walking down in homemade elf costumes.

(incidentally, the internet is a making us all smarter, I just learned the word "glomp".)
(I've had them, I just never knew there was a word for them.)

Anyway, I threw Petulant Baby in the car this morning, and I really didn't think we would get all the way to Baltimore. I thought we might get to the ATM, and maybe the Target. But it was such a beautiful day that, once I got him strapped down, and was driving with the windows down and the radio on, I said "To hell with it! Artscape or Bust!"

He obligingly fell asleep, and work up in a stroller on Charles Street.

Of course he protested. I was actually a little nervous - was he just going to be a little crab, a surly little crankypants, and harsh everyone's buzz until I capitulated and took him back home?

We were saved by a monkey.

That's Django, with her friend Jerry. After the jerk chicken stand and the line for the ferris wheel, they were the first thing we came to upon entering Artscape. A welcome sight indeed, as Ian was completely transfixed for...a long time. I got Jerry's card - he does lots more than just pimp monkey kisses, though that was most in demand today.

Anyway, watching Django kiss other children was plenty of entertainment for Ian, and the thrill of a real live monkey - not just on Animal Planet! But in person!- created enough afterglow for him to sit happily in the stroller while I purchased and ate a piece of cherry pie from Rodney.(Ian declined.) AND while we looked at some handmade jewelry and some of this and some of that - a crocheted OBEY afghan and some cool photos
and it was really fun and a nice day SO WE WENT HOME.

I'm ambitious, yes, but I am not stupid. I only put an hour and a half on the parking meter. I knew that he'd hit his fill line eventually, and I was almost spot on.

But I'm really really happy.

Since we have entered the run-up to the terrible twos, I sometimes (ha ha SOMETIMES, that's a special literary device I learned in school, it means PRACTICALLY CONSTANTLY) feel very put-upon. "Oh, fine," I think to myself, "I'll just never do anything fun again. I'll just spend the rest of my life sitting around a townhouse in the suburbs saying 'good job!' and 'Come on, eat one more carrot,' and 'Ew, who has a 'tinky butt? Who? WHO?' until I am too old to enjoy anything except {God forbid} bringing the snacks for travel soccer and complaining about the coarse language in mainstream movies. I am so screwed."

So to be able to take my son to Artscape - even the smallest northeast corner of Artscape, for an hour - really makes me happy.

Comedy 101 - midterm - multiple choice

2007-07-20T19:39:00.000-07:00

fig. 1

IF Daddy was dressing hurriedly for a gig

AND a couple of hours later, Mommy and Baby emerge from the bathroom, clean, shiny, wrapped in fluffy towels

AND IF Momma, as she is prone to do, plops Baby onto the bed for a towel-off, a vocabulary lesson, a little smackerel of soy milk, a diaper and a story

1. what item has been left on the bed?
a. something harmless but personal, like a single dirty sock
b. something precisely the size of a baby's esophogus, like a collar stay or the cap from the toothpaste
c. a blunt object or two (ref fig 1)

2. and what is done with that object?
a. it is brandished to humorous effect
b. Baby jokingly holds it near his mouth, checking to make sure Momma is looking and is appropriately horrified, at which point he dissolves into delighted laughter at his obviously excellent skills as a practical joker
c. somebody's getting bonked in the damned head.

Extra credit: how many times, in repeated attempts to repeat the words "Shoe Tree", does Baby mutter "shit..." while Momma's lips go numb from pursing so hard?
b.

Lord, show me the way, the Devil's tryin' to break me down.

2007-07-07T19:17:00.001-07:00

Somehow, The World's Cutest Toddler, with his generally pleasant diposition and his easygoing manner, has been stolen by fairies. The changeling they have left in his place is...well, he's kind of a dick.

He pitches horrible public tantrums with no provocation. He cries for an hour at a time. He throws food. And thinks it's funny. He wants to be held, held, held, and freaks out if you need to shift position. Unless, of course, he cannot bear to be touched at all.

Things we have done to discipline him in the past have no effect at all. My serious admonishing look makes him laugh out loud.

Plus he has learned to escape from his crib, so the idea that we can leave him for some quiet time and, you know, get something done for an hour...that's all over. He's capable of going up and down stairs, so basically he has the run of the house now. No house will ever be sufficiently child-proof for this. Even if we moved all the furniture out, we'd still have to bar the windows.

So these are some tiring days. It's hard work, frustrating and disappointing a child this much, let alone trying to keep him from cracking his skull. While I have no real desire to quit this mothering gig (okay, only intermittant desire) I have wondered several times if I can't get some sort of a transfer to another department.

He's very needy, is the thing. He's teething like hell (apparently that's precisely the word I mean) and having a growth spurt, and it seems that he's really scared of us abandoning him. He has trouble relaxing unless we're both visible. This is tough, since his dad has gigs all weekend, including one Sunday in ANOTHER STATE.

Well, if it sucks to be me these days (and it does) at least I'm aware that is sucks much, much more to be my kid.

2007-06-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

Looky Daddy rules. Be sure to read back a few weeks for the story about the toe.

Our new business plan

2007-06-03T19:17:00.000-07:00

World' Best Husband is preparing to take a business trip.

(Wait, which sounds cooler - 'a business trip' or 'a gig'? He's got that coveted gig, one that combines public speaking with performing. And with paying the mortgage. Incidentally. But it does mean he'll be away for a night, and it does mean he gets to obsess about packing - material for the show, clothes, promo materials, the magical Sleep Machine. Dude, it's like he's going on Galactica. I am trying to sneak the baby into one of his bags, and it seems there's little chance he'll notice, except that the baby would eat all the granola bars for the trip and then what?)

Him: "Well, I have the cooler for the trip, and some Gatorades, and...hmmm, what's in this Target bag? Ah! Snacks'n'maps!

Me: Did you say "Snacks'n'Maps"?

Him: Yes! Snacks'n'Maps!

Me: And should that be the name of our national chain of roadside stands? "Snacks'n'Maps"?

Him: Yes! I believe it should! "Snacks'n'Maps"!

Me: Or maybe "Maps'n'Snacks"?

Him:..........................................You're fired.

Before and After

2007-06-01T14:33:00.000-07:00

Well, he's not a baby anymore, exactly.
He had his first haircut this afternoon. If you had driven by the barber shop at 1pm, you might have guessed that the sign read 'Free Appendectomy Day (anesthesia not included)' rather than 'Tiny Tots a Specialty'. Never has there been a tantrum like this one...and yet Kim, our cutter, was just brilliant, completely non-plussed, working steadily and carefully - and astonishingly quickly - as he writhed and bellowed.

I have no pictures of the cut itself, as I was holding him in my lap for most of the cut. (At the end, we switched, and his dad pinned him against his chest for the last bit of the back.) Beautiful taupey wheat blond locks rained down everywhere, along with tears, and the occasional snot gob.

The special pineapple-and-hair-flavored lollipop cheered him up a little, though he mostly held it - he doesn't quite know what candy is for.

On my other blog, I had said that I could

envision a barber shop like the one my dad and brother went to - the big chair with the booster, the cotton cape, the fat guy brushing his the little hairs off his shoulders with a little soft broom, the stack of Field and Streams and Argosys.

I don't imagine anyone will have a small black-and-white TV with a wire coathanger sticking out the top, playing westerns or a Yankees game...

well, when you check my flickr stream, you'll see that we came pretty darn close.

you'll also see what an all-American boy eats for a special celebratory meal, after the worst public tantrum in world history.

Family-friendly

2007-05-24T18:53:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to let you know that, for these few weeks, this time when the weather is warm but not yet too hot, when the mosquitos are not yet thick as clouds, is a great time for suburban al fresco dining.

In our town, there is a ridiculous man-made lake, lined on one side by cheesy chain restaurants. Yes, we are far, far to hip, to earnest, to urban and gritty and socially conscious to really fully enjoy an evening at Don Pablos.

Except.

Except that we have this child.

This little boy has somehow snuck into our family, and we rather like him (and we rather like not having to cook every night), and so we are pleased when we find a place that we can stand that he can also stand.

He adores Don Pablos, because the patio has a view of the lake, where people walk dogs in the evening and where ducks - in large groups - can be counted on to wander up and try to scam tortilla chips. THIS, friends, is entertainment of the very finest sort when you are 17 months old.

It's also pretty decent for us parents; it's pleasant and relaxing and you can put your feet up and get a decent cocktail, none of which can be said of AIRMAX FUNZONE! (the bouncy castle warehouse.)(They don't even have coffee there. Can you imagine?)

So that's my recommendation: sit outside at Don Pablos. Watch the sunset. Feed your kid a quesadilla with some authentic mexican tater tots.

Ducks like them, too.

[incidentally, a DISCLAIMER: Tortilla chips are not good for ducks. Ditto tots. You should not feed ducks any human snack food. Not only is it not good for the ducks, who then get too fat and lazy to look for real food, but having crumbs around gives the rats ideas. So responsible adults don't do this.]

New Photos

2007-05-20T19:53:00.000-07:00

over here. Yes, It's been a long time, but here you go.

What's Goin' On

2007-05-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

1. Reading: I have just finished I, Neal Pollack, Was A Gigantic Ass to My Astonishingly Patient Wife at the Worst Possible Time (right after she had our baby.) Not everyone has liked Alternadad; in fact, not even everyone I like liked it. But I liked it quite a bit.

2. World's Cutest is still a bottle baby. His crib is still in our room. I am not actually bothered by either of these things, and no one (except the pediatrician we saw last time) is giving us any pressure.

3. His favorite book at the moment is Richard Scarry's Please and Thank You Book, a book in which a sanctimonious beastiary of hippos in pinafores and worms in felt mountaineers hats...take turns! and eat with their mouths closed! and help Mother Bear clear the breakfast dishes. He ADORES this book. Absolutely adores it.

One of the characters - a petulent piglet - stays home one afternoon rather than help his father with a project. His mother pig 'stays in her room all day writing a children's book', and therefore he is horribly bored. Occasionally - on the third or fourth time through - I have her write something else. Usually threatening letters to public figures, or else some sort of highly specialized erotic fiction.

4. For Mother's Day, I went to see Spiderman Three. This is NOT A GOOD MOVIE. Please do not go to this movie. It will only encourage them.

Best day ever.

2007-04-15T19:28:00.000-07:00

We went to Fells Point. We shared a couple of these

at the BOP - and it's NOT just 80s Baltimore nostalgia, it really is the best pizza I've ever had. Ian loved all the activity and the people coming and going. And I thanked them for having high chairs.

We saw several "DAAAAAAAGS!!" including one of these
wearing a red turtleneck.

We walked across the square to the patisserie,

where Ian was greeted like the visiting dignitary who also happened to be a movie star. We shared an almond croissant, and Mommy had a delicious and much-needed cappucino, and we played the world's longest game of 'Got Yer Hat!", the adorableness of which undoubtedly made the other patrons grow a new ovary, or else frow up in their mouths a widdle.

Leaving the bakery, we watched several of these
which was desparately exciting.

Back across the square, chasing these
and admiring some very handsome spaniels. The woman who was walking them seemed fairly uncomfortable to have her (and her dogs) actions narrated.

On the way home, we stopped at the store, and I was a rotten parent and bought him a toy to keep him from crying; one of these

(that's not him, it's some other internet baby who also like purple balls) and when we got home, we kicked it around outside until he was absolutely caked with filth. And so was I. Our side yard has a slight slope, and so I would punt the ball toward the house and it would roll back down, always gently returning to bump against him like the Red Balloon.

9:30ish

2007-04-13T18:41:00.000-07:00

baby crying. Quite unusual.

As I got closer, I could hear that it wasn't the freaked-out night terror cry. In fact, parenthetically, it's mostly me that's freaked out by night terrors; it weirds me out the way he can wail his ass off and STILL BE COMPLETELY ASLEEP.

When I got to the top of the stairs, he was standing up in the crib. He stopped crying when he saw me, and looked concerned, pointing over at the closet. "Glabble?" he asked, conversationally, with his perfect diction. When I look confused, he starts to cry again, softly, like he's sad.

I go and close all the closet doors, remembering how, as a little girl, I couldn't fall asleep if my closet was open. I rock him, pat him, give him a little bottle (YES, 15 months old and still having bottles, please shut up) and a dry diaper. I've been eating szechuan string beans; he doesn't recoil from my chili-garlic breath.

I hold him some more; he rests his forehead against mine and falls asleep. For the second time today, he sleeps across my chest, shoulder to hip like a bandolier.

He's so big now, so long and heavy. And strong. And he speaks so clearly - not English, you know, but that'll come. I finally got that 6-week tangle out of his hair, there in the back, where his head rests against the car seat. He's been working that dreadlock like a dirty hippie. I keep putting off his first haircut; I just want to get a few more pictures first. And a few more. And then a few more.

You know.

the fundamentals of comedy writing

2007-04-05T20:16:00.000-07:00

PPS ALSO PLEASE DO NOT OFFER MY CHILD STICKERS. HE STILL HAS NOT POOPED OUT THE ONES YOU GAVE HIM LAST WEEK.

Amalah's got it.

He'll sleep when he's dead.

2007-04-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

Just like me.

My child is just like me.

Sunday, a friend asked me, "Does even one day go by when no one says 'Wow! He looks EXACTLY like you!'"

well, no, not even one, as a matter of fact. Not since the day he was born.

Actually, he looks a lot like his Daddy, from the bridge is the nose up; his beautiful brown eyes certainly don't come from my side of the family. But nose, mouth, chin, pink chipmunk cheeks and blocky build - thats all me.

As is his taste in food, his jumpy energy...and his attitude about sleep.

Which is to say, like me, he loves sleep - once he gets there. But getting to sleep is a daily problem. Because he knows - KNOWS, for an actual FACT - that there is something interesting going on somewhere. And if he goes to sleep, he'll miss it. He knows for sure, just like I remember knowing at 2 or 3, that everything really good happens at night. I used to lie in my bed, door cracked a fraction of an inch, straining desperately to listen: to the sound of the TV (Glen Campbell, the Burns and Allen TV show, Johnny Carson), quiet conversation, turning pages. I didn't think my parents were having martinis or glamorous parties out there, a room away...but I knew they were up, and I knew it was good time, special time, grown-up time, and I was missing it, and it filled me with longing.

This is a weird admission: my biggest fear, as a child and even a teenager, is that I would die before I was grown up and would never get a chance to DO ANYTHING.

It will be years before my kid has the words to talk about this - and maybe I'm totally projecting - but I swear I see this in him, this longing, at 15 months.

eye of the tiger, baby.

2007-03-18T18:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this life - this Rubik's Cube of a life that I'm working - isn't working.

Or it's working, intermittently. Sometimes it's great. Frequently. It's frequently great. Fun, stimulating, manageable. I'm pleased to report good things - we're getting the sleep we need, I've been meeting my goals at the gym and eating much better. I wore some pants the other day that haven't fit since 2004.

Other times, it takes a ridiculously high percentage of my energy to just keep it together. To stay caught up - and I mean, sometimes, just barely caught up - at work; to be minimally civil to the man I love; to keep the little darling warm and fed and not hurling himself out into traffic. The fight for clean underwear could be lost at any moment.

My best friend, like many of my friends, started down this 'motherhood' road many years before I did - her daughter is a teenager now. Her advice has been 'lower your standards'.

To which I reply - excuse me, have you met me? Have you seen our house? Exactly how much lower are my standards going to go?

I have work to do - I took the day off from church, but I have a draft plan that needs typing up -but here I am, blogging, watching Cold Case, which I don't even like that much.

Can't be done.

2007-03-02T14:30:00.000-08:00

Because whoever you are, you're doing this too — this thing where you're trying to solve the Rubik's Cube of your life, consolidating one color without screwing up the rest of them; where you're like Wile E. Coyote sprinting off the cliff and through the air, trying to put off the moment when you notice the absence of ground and plummet downwards, trying not to, say, leave one child behind in a stroller at an airport checkpoint because you were busy counting the luggage (ahem). Things can make it easier, of course: a flexible job, good and affordable childcare, health insurance, financial resources, a supportive partner and/or a devoted community of friends. But the only way to make it actually all work, as you surely know, is to pay attention to one thing at a time.

from here
via finslippy.

Seriously - is this possible?

Can it?

Babies don't seem to mind

2007-02-28T07:08:00.001-08:00

breifly - a couple, maybe 3 weeks ago, we had the Week of Vomit.

Ian started Saturday night. (Babies, it seems, are weirdly non-plussed by throwing up, though it freaks their poor mothers the F out. He had never thrown up before! I was busily paging through The 3am Book, a resource that tells you, in effect, when to take your kid to the emergency room. 3am, I'm sitting in bed, hyperventilating, trying to read this book. Ian, having surrendered his stomach contents and now feeling utterly fabulous, is standing beside me, naked, trying to wrestle the book out of my hands because it has a picture of a dog - a boy hugging a dog - on the cover."DAAAAH!!! he yells, and slaps the book.)

(So, while I may remember the night as the start of the Week of Vomit, Ian will recall it as the night that Mama wouldn't let him read the Dog Book. She's so mean.)

Anyway, he felt better immediately. I took the Tues-Wed-Thurs shift, and then Eric came in to finish the week strong, narrrowly missing a trip to the ER for intravenous fluids.

That was also the week that Betsy Misplaced the $600 Drugs. (I found them eventually.) They're actually very effective - it's a special anti-nausea drug that dissolves in your mouth, so you don't have to be able to keep water down in order to take them. They're rather miraculous. Chemo patients take them. Chemo patients, and my husband.

It's a good thing we have some left over.

It's back.

2007-02-09T19:23:00.000-08:00

i am aware that this is not a great photo. It's blurry. But it truly captures the feeling of shoe shopping with a one-year-old.

I was laughing so hard that I did not have the phyical strength the get up from my spot (LYING ON MY BACK ON THE FLOOR of the shoe aisle, gasping for breath) to chase him.

You may have to look at the photo a time or two before you notice a pertinatt detail:

he's not wearing any pants.

World's Best Mommyblog

2007-02-09T19:15:00.000-08:00

Everything is so damn peachy, it's embarrassing. And my son is all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns that crap puppies.

Finslippy rules.

Finally!

2007-01-29T20:04:00.000-08:00

Baby's first snow -barely more than a flurry, but immortalized nonetheless.

Lost weekend

2007-01-22T19:33:00.000-08:00

I have no bleeding idea how I am still in this house, still married, still employed, still the legal (I just typed 'Klegal', which made me snort with laughter, though misspelled.) legal guardian of an innocent child.

I have no idea how this darling child did not end up in a foundling basket on the steps of some church. Not, um, MY church, of course. Some other church.

The last few days have been rawthur gruesome around here. Today was much better. Thank God.

The darling child had a little virus, which gave him a mild fever, a near-complete loss of appetite, a vile disposition, and, notably, a green gummy discharge coming out of his EYEBALLS. Lots of naps, lots of baths, lots of wiping of various things, lots of night waking.

Lots of crying.

Oh, good Lord, what a lot of crying. And what a lot of hanging around the house, not exposing people at large to gross gummy eye goo.

We had certainly been exposed to the virus, since I had a throbbing head and more than the usual amount of chills. (Pregnancy seems to have broken my internal thermostat, and I am permanantly freezing. My teeth chatter routinely. So when I get the shivers, it takes me a couple days to suspect I might have a fever, by which time it always subsides.)

As I said, today was far better. The eye goo dried up yesterday, under Daddy's loving
care, and today he was energetic, playful, and famished. Still just a little out of sorts. A certain amount of crying. Me, I am back to the normal amount of freezing, and intermittant, minor headache. (My BFF emailed me with an excellent suggestion - I probably should get my blood pressure checked.)

In retrospect - now that he's better and my head hurts less and he's going back to daycare tomorrow morning - I frankly cannot believe what a huge baby I've been about this.

That, in fact, is an insult to babies. (And who do babies have to speak up for them in matters such as these? There's no Baby Anti-defamation League...)

Sorry, digression. What I mean is, is my happiness so fragile that all it takes to crush it is a couple days with a demanding toddler?

Well, apparently.

Friday night, after said toddler was asleep, I had the chance to run out and pick up some groceries. As I buttoned my coat, Eric looked deep into my eyes and said "Just...come back. Okay? Come back? Please?"

And as you can tell, I did. Either this speaks well of me, or else my spirit is finally broken.

indeed it is

2007-01-15T17:33:00.000-08:00

Is this thing on? (tap tap)

2007-01-10T19:53:00.000-08:00

So I have learned, just in the nick of time, that it's De-Lurking Week. (I think I first saw this on the excellent Metrodad.)
So leave me a comment.

Since you're in the neighborhood, scoot over to my other blog, On The Other Hand, Who Knows What I'll Do? And then you can leave a comment there! And perhaps my desparate neediness will subside, just for a moment, for one blessed moment....

Kidding.

Mostly.

365 daaaaaays .... seems like an awful loooot...*

2007-01-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

from this...

to this, in one year

*lyrics from the birthday song from the daily children's TV show that my brother and I used to watch on WGAL-TV in Lancaster: Percy Platypus and Friends. No lie. Scanty info here. I cannot find the complete lyrics anywhere - everyone on the web seems to remember the same part I do, the bridge and the big finish:

365 days
seems like an awful lot
then, before you know it,
another year is (BANG!) shot!

Have a happy birthday,
whether you're 90 or 2!
We would like to wish a
happy birthday to you!

This song went with a little cartoon featuring, if I remember correctly, deer, and one got shot in a comical way when they sang 'another year is shot'. Like, it came back with a clumsily bandaged antler to sing that last verse.

I have no explanation, except to say - it's Pennsylvania, man.

Portrait of the baby as a Young Man

2007-01-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

The World's Cutest Baby is one year old. He is now the World's Cutest Toddler.

Mobility: He's been walking since about nine-and-a-half months, and so by now he's quite accomplished at it. He actually broke into a run the other day. So far, he's not attempting stairs. Thank God.

Hobbies:
Picking up and carrying heavy things around the room;
holding things (toys, remote controls) up to his ear as if they are telephone;
trying new foods

Obsessions:
Monkeys, Ducks
our cats
flashlights and other things that light up
sticks of all kinds - brooms, wrapping paper tubes.

Favorite joke:
stealing your hat; putting things (socks, books, toys, paper) on his head as if it is a hat.

Favorite music:
he favors things with a strong beat, like dance tracks. (shudder.)

Favorite Foods:
change from day to day. Consistently enamoured of cheese, plain yogurt, cottage cheese, bananas, apples and wheat toast. And butter. (Guess he's my child.) Today, he ate more than half of a gigantic red grapefruit (from which his mother carefully removed the membranes.)

Words:
duck and monkey noises, Daddy, uh oh! Hi! and NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Sure, he's adorable in pictures.....

2006-12-27T21:19:00.000-08:00

we have no day care this week.

2006-12-27T20:53:00.000-08:00

Laura 'throws another one on the pile'.

2006-12-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

A quick note from the office to point out this - Laura from Runway had a boy, named Finn (a name which was on my boy name list, in fact, but never broke the top 3.)

I must say that I disliked Laura a great deal on Project Runway - it's easy to dislike Laura, with her patronizing attitude and her perfect ponytail and her spine-crushing, bone-chilling 'good taste'. (I prefered Kayne, and his ridiculously generous, lavish 'bad taste'.)

That is, I disliked her UNTIL she said an outrageous and flippant, even rude thing to her own mother. Completely counter-intuitive, I know.

Laura's mother was on the show, expressing shock and disapproval that Laura, at 43, had gone and gotten herself pregnant with her 6th child. You could see how a Manhatten loft full (and I do mean full) of screaming rug rats might not fit her class-concious dream for her very sophisticated architect daughter's life. Like, there might be a few too many already -and now this!

Really, she was just mortified. And on national TV. (I mean, it's only Bravo, but still. A few people do watch.)

And Laura sighed and rolled her eyesand said something to the effect of "Oh, Mother, it'll be fine. I'll just throw another one on the pile."

And suddenly I loved her.

Go, Laura! God bless the pile.

See? See what I meant?

2006-11-02T20:54:00.000-08:00

This will end in tears

2006-10-31T19:15:00.000-08:00

I had great plans, GREAT plans, which had to do with posting mind-boggling adorable pictures of my child in his brain-squishingly cute Halloween costume. You know, like Dianne did.

(so you could all make fun of me. Like Elesa made fun of Dianne.)

This was going to be the last post before my month-long blog vacation, so that I can concentrate all my (non-kid, non-husband, non-liturgical) energy on a completely ridiculous project.

We had the concept: the Dude would be a cuddley little bunny; his daddy would put on his magician rig, complete with top hat, and carry him around looking super-cute.
We had the costume, too - a wonderful soft fuzzy bunny outfit, with adorable little rabbit feet. (OF COURSE I had planned to design and sew some fabulous mammal myself. We ended up at Party City, which was fine with me - a relief, in fact.)

There was just one thing we hadn't counted on. The young man himself.

WHY did I think that this kid, who won't wear a hat for more than 5 seconds or a sock for a minute, would allow us to snap a hood with ears onto him? Why would I imagine he'd put up with that? Plus, the ears would flop over onto his face.

This was actually kind of convenient, as the did soak up the tears.

So I did get a few pictures - some outside the house, and some in the foyer at a friends' house. In them, Eric tries to smile, but Ian gazes at the camera with enormous serious eyes. Eyes that plead "I dare not speak up. Please contact Amnesty International. I'm begging you."

So those pictures aren't exactly like Dianne's.

See you in December.

2006-10-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

Cornbread

2006-09-25T18:57:00.000-07:00

The cornbread I made came out absolutely terrible - strong baking powder taste, gritty texture, salty - but Baby and I had a grand time making it. I gave him some flour and cornmeal so he could experience what I was doing.

He's still a bit of a crab, but this kept him happy for a long long time.

Nine in, nine out

2006-09-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

Or: The Return of Doctor Bellows

So he's 9 month old, as of Friday. And he really is more charming, more engaging, funnier and sweeter pretty much by the day. Yes, I said funnier. I don't know if this is developmentally possible, but I swear he has a real sense of humor.

That toothless smile that people used to rave about is gone - he's got 6 teeth, and is working at least one more. He cruises like a madman, and will carefully let go and take a step or two before pitching over. He got over his ear infection very fast (thank God) and is back to sleeping through the night and then some. His hair's getting thicker and blonder, and in the right light, you can even see his eyebrows! His eyes have moved from kinda hazel to medium brown (like his dad's) with a navy blue ring around the outside.

When I look at new babies, I can imagine he was ever that small, or that inactive. (For the record, try to look like you're interested, he's over 20 lbs and over 27 inches tall.) I know this sounds ridiculous, but he's so grown up!

Adorable, funny, grown up - and really well-developed lungs, have I mentioned that? Wow, can this kid yell. Lots of yelling this weekend. Lots and lots. I attribute this to the fact that he had a couple of vaccinations on Friday, which in the past have tended to make him crabby and out-of-sorts, I think because his legs get sore at the injection site. So it was a weekend of crying, screaming, of begging to be picked up and then wrestling out of our arms. Sigh.

It's all you can do, I guess - sigh, and give him as many cuddles as he'll sit still for.

We're sleeping much better

2006-09-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

as you can see.

Turns out that the young man had a bit of fluid in his left ear - our babysitter pegged it completely - and, after just a couple days of meds, is much better, and much more pleasant to be around.

We are very relieved - huband and I occasionally have this experience (we had it a couple times when I was pregnant) in which we feel enormous intense relief about something that we hadn't realized we were worried about. And I would say that we weren't feeling worried about Baby's sleeplessness and crankiness - much more annoyed than worried - but now cannot believe how happy we are that he's on his way back to normal.

2006-09-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

I should be asleep by now, but I'm very very busy

1. Watching a documentary about heavy metal culture on VH1. (Remind me sometime to tell you some tales of my years as the fiance of a metal guitarist.)

2. Sniffling over this post. Tears welled up and spilled over at the first newborn photo and have barely stopped. I was going to say "You don't have to be a mother to be touched by this piece of writing," but I could totally be talking out my butt on that. Would I have cried reading this last September?

Okay, probably, but would I have cried about it 2 years ago?

What do you think? (I know many - most? All? of you are parents...)

oh no, not another crappy selfportait

2006-09-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

7 mo, originally uploaded by funky fat girl.

This is a picture of two people after one long night. It's several weeks old, but I post it because we've been having some long, long nights lately.

The Dude has decided that sleeping at night is for chumps.

If it was, say, April or May, and we were USED to being up all night, this would not even merit a flinch. But he's been sleeping for 9-hour stretches all summer, and we have lost our edge. We've become soft.

I'm not REALLY going to drive myself into a bridge abuttment. I mean, in all likelihood.

He had a little fever this afternoon. If that comes back, or if he has another crap night, we're heading to the dr in the morning. (Again, like with the sleep, this would not even garner a shrug from most parents, but he's been in such perfect health for...his whole life! that I'm pretty freaked out about a (tiny, marginal) fever.

If, however, he has a good night (one waking or, dare I imagine, LESS) he's going to spend some time at a friend's, and I'm spending the day napping and reading the new Vogue.

So please - think good thoughts. Sleepy, fluffy cool thoughts

An encouraging thought on motherhood

2006-09-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who used to say that when I talked about parenthood it sounded as if I were trying to convince myself that everything was okay. And for a long time it was exactly that — this new way of life was hard to navigate, impossible at times. I used to hang up the pone after talking to her, crawl into my closet and cry because I thought I was so bad at this. I said a few months ago that things were better, and they were, but I had no idea that you would continue to become more charming, more adorable, more full of surprises. At this age you are like Christmas every morning, always saying something wildly outrageous, often breaking into song in the oddest places, and now my friend tells me that when I talk about parenthood it sounds like an instrument I’ve been playing all my life. I like to think that I feel better about this because I am better at this, but I know it’s mostly because you are the most amazing person I have ever known. Whenever I talk about you to other people, whenever they ask me how I’m doing with this, I’m not sure I can adequately communicate just how lucky I am to know you.

Love,
Mama

from dooce, in her monthly open letter to her daughter Leta (who's now 31 months.)

Ian critiques mom's sermon

2006-08-27T20:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, not really. Really, it was The Hat Game that made him laugh insanely.

Admire his 5 teeth! At least 2 of them are easy to see in this video.

Once in a Lifetime

2006-08-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

The Dude is 8 months old today.

He has 4 teeth.
He smiles and laughs all the time.
He stands up in his crib in the morning and grins crazily when he catches sight of us.
He slept through the night all last week. This is a HUGE improvement over the very dependable 4am wakeup that has marked the previous 3 months.
He says (and occasionally yells) DA DA DA DA DA whenever the mood strikes him.
He loves a bath (finally)
He waved at someone for the first time last night. We think. He's nearly ready to 'slap someone five' (much cooler than 'high fives'.)
He has learned, within the last few days, to make a perfectly terrible squealing cry, which he uses in the evening when he's getting hungry. This, I think as he yells, is NOT attachment-promoting behavior.

I still look at him and think "Where did you come from? How did I get here?"

Look! Look at This!!!

2006-08-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

Best Idea Ever!!!

2006-08-14T19:06:00.000-07:00

If you were around during my pregnancy, or read the old Life With Sticky lj,[which incidentally is still around, if you'd like to kill an hour or so, and to know more about My Bidness than my husband does]...you know that I had a ridiculously happy pregnancy. I must admit that I had moments of anxiety, what I imagine to be the average amount of anxiety for a woman of Very Very Advanced Maternal Age. Who's fat.

In the interest of controlling my anxiety (I know myself) I read very little about pregnancy on the internet, confining my research mostly to the comforting, slightly outdated worn hardback books from the public library.

So Sarah, the very excellent creator of Going Jesus and now the pregnancy blog Going Parental, has many of the best ideas on the web.

Here's one.

and here's another.

But it was this one that really grabbed me. PLEASE click.

Can I post this without making a comment?

2006-07-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

The culture has told her she's not a real mother unless she's the one getting up in the middle of the night with the baby. So her identity is inextricably linked to her actions, to doing the endless chores of parenting. Men can take it or leave it

When Moms Are Gatekeepers:
Women want their husbands to do more of the childraising — but some are having trouble letting go.

via Blogging Baby

~EDIT~ Okay, apparently I can't. Go without making a comment, that is.
The Blogging Baby folks ask: "What do you think? Are women the better nurturers? Or is it just a matter of wanting to be in control?"

Neither. For me, I really think it's internalized sexism.

I've really struggled with this. It seems that, despite my/our beliefs:
about equality, feminism/egalitaranism, how important we think it is to raise our son to be a man who loves home and family and treats people as individuals, how important we think it is to model flexible roles not limited by gender..
..the truth is when the going gets tough, I have felt like the kid is my job.

Reflecting on this, I found that I had strong default programming telling me that, no matter what else has been going on - who's been working all day, who's exhausted, who's feeling fresh - tending to the baby was my responsibility. And when World's Best Husband did some tending - got up with him while I slept, for example, which he has been happy to do - I felt like it was a really significant personal favor to me. Not like I was receiving grace, but more like I was borrowing time. Like he was covering for me.

Well, this is just stupid. Not only does this not line up with
my beliefs
my experience
logic or common sense
but I hasten to point out that I grew up with a STAY AT HOME DAD! My father cooked, cleaned, and did most of the caring for us, as well as working as general manager of the newspaper. (My mother was the proprieter and editor in chief.)

(This was a very unusual arrangement in the early 1960s in rural Cowpatch, PA. Believe me. None of the other Brownies had dads baking for the bake sale.)

Hmmm. It occurs to me - just this second - that my slightly unusual upbringing may be part of this programming. It may have something to do with the way I always felt closer to my dad than to my mom, always identified with him. I don't know. It also seems to be tangled up with feelings of superiority, perhaps a little mild martyr action.

Anyway, I've gotten a little better about this. You would not believe me if I told you how hard it was, how much discipline it has taken (don't be hatin') for me to leave SuperBaby with SuperDad and have a regular night off. I generally leave after my dinner but before baby's, and go hide out in the bookstore with coffee and magazines until they close.

And I come home, and everyone's intact. Of course. Nothing has burned down and no one has gone to the emergency room or the locked ward. Of course. I am a self-important ass, but a slightly-better-rested ass, and over time, perhaps a little less self-important.

Pleased to say that this is NOT true of my kid....

2006-07-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

but well-put, no?

as she is a light sleeper, and sometimes at night while she is asleep in her room at the back of the house I can wake her up from fifty feet away by imagining the sound an eyelash would make if it drifted to the ground.

That Heather certainly has a way with words.

And speaking of the great blogs of many people I have never met:

My husband walked into the kitchen to hear me heave a heavy sigh.
"Aw, honey, what's wrong?"
"Oh, some woman I've never met broke up with her boyfriend."
And my husband backed silently, slowly out of the room.

Monster Crib

2006-07-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

My brother did the impossible today and transfered the crib from babyland down the hall into our room. I'm not sure how he did this, as the crib, assembled, is too large to fit through any door in our house, and I am not aware that he had the specialized crib disassembly/reassembly tool.

Nonetheless, there it sits, with a sleeping baby inside.

From my vantage point, this is the largest crib in history, at least the size of out California-king sized bed. It soundly dwarfs every bookcase, dresser and hamper in the place. World's Cutest takes up about one-ninth of it. In every other context - in my arms, the carrier, even the stroller - he seems freakishly large. Here in the crib, he's so tiny that you might overlook him, forget you put him in there. "Hey, honey, where'd you put the - oh, wait, I see him now. Never mind. He was there all along."

The Plan

2006-07-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

My child spent most of last night explaning his plan to me. That would be his 60,000-Point Plan to Stay Awake for the Rest of His Life.

Here is the plan:

Point 1) Don't go to sleep tonight.
Point 2) Don't go to sleep tomorrow night.
Points 3 though 60,000) Don't go to sleep the night after that.

Naturally, I suggested revisions. He would have none of it.

First, I tried to explain the elegant, almost poetic simplicity of just sticking with Point One; that would cover it. He patiently explained to me that history had never been made with a measley One-Point Plan.

I switched direction at that point, and tried to convince him that he could just limit himself to Point Two. (Much as Satan himself convinces people that "I'll go to the gym tomorrow" is a good excercise plan.) Alas, he stood firm. Well, not 'stood', exactly. But he was quite firm.

Eventually, though, all the talking and the literary analysis took its toll (as it always does) and he started to look kind of glazed. A little breastmilk and a quick backrub was all it took to overcome The Plan.

For that night.

Doctor Jeckyl and Mister Baby

2006-07-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

You know how I mentioned that World's Cutest has been a little....needy, lately? A little demanding?

A little...horrible?

Okay, I know I didn't say 'horrible'; I would never say that. And he's not consistantly horrible, not at all. He's as charming as ever, smiling and laughing, flinging his arms out in excitement when he sees one of us, giving badly-aimed, wide-open-mouth kisses.

Just as charming as ever.
Precisely 50% of the time.

And it's impossible to guess what triggers the change. I honestly can't think of a thing. One minute, he's Sweetie Baby, and the next, he's yelling as if someone's stabbing him. He can't stand to be left alone for a moment, when he's in this state, but picking him up doesn't necessarily stop the howling - just puts the source closer to your ear.

Plus, he's so active - within a muscle twitch of actually crawling - that it's risky to turn your back for long, even when he's asleep. Which mean that, if I need to do so much as turn a page or answer the phone, he needs to go into one of the containment devices (crib, pen, saucer.) It's really important to me that he not grow to hate his crib, but that seems to be the road that we're going down now.

Last night he woke up 4 times. I'm dyin' here.

I've said before that motherhood has made me much more aware of my mortality, much more aware of my life as a physical being generally. Ah, yes...I remember the days when I lived in the ether almost all the time, the voicemail/email/mp3/philosphy and theology world....but pregnancy jostled me right out, right into a world of fluids and leaky parts and insane starving hunger and taking up way too much room....And of course that was nothing compared to parenthood, the pumping and the pee and the diaper cheese and the chipping of the dried peas out of the eyebrow - his, not mine, usually.

And the tireness, the previously unimaginable bone tireness, the mornings when even your skin is tired. That's what makes me think about death - not about my own death particularly, and certainly not about killing myself or anything. Just about the fact that I live in a body, and bodies have their limits.

And Mister Baby is bumping me up against mine.

He's hungry all the time, on account of another growth spurt; he's capable of over-peeing a super-absorbent overnight diaper. He's been teething continuously for about 4 months, swamped in drool, which is turn creates a rash on his creasy neck, but no teeth yet.

Boy oh boy, do I need a night off.

2006-07-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

See my Tabblo>

Lunch is on Grandpa

2006-07-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

lunch is on Grandpa, originally uploaded by funky fat girl.

A bonus photo, because these days it's all about the food, for God's sake.

Prior to the holiday, we had a lovely visit with the World's Most Devoted Grandparents. Dude, he has them totally snowed. They think he hung the moon. I've never seen anything like it.

dinner and a show

2006-07-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

dinner and a show, originally uploaded by funky fat girl.

Ian seems only mildly impressed with his first-ever magic show. He's watching his father perform at the Fairfax 4th of July fest.

It was 1,000 freaking degrees in the shade, which can slightly diminish the fun of a small town ballfield carnival. It can also diminish the audience - the children themselves were beginning to gdiminish before our eyes, shriveling in the spots on the grass. Luckily, their mothers came in the middle of the show to swoop them into the shade and ply them with water bottles and sunscreen, just before they burst into flames.

DESPITE the shriveling and the swooping, it was a good show, and the 20 or so that saw the whole thing had a lovely time. Then the three of us, a bit shriveled ourselves, repaired to the Amphora for sandwiches and gallons of coke.

World's Cutest Baby, of course, did not have a sandwich, though he gave it a good eyeball and seemed to be evaluating his chances of making off with mine. Luckily, he was distracted by the insanely beautiful teenaged waitress, who seemed to be from Russia, and who was so completely taken with our boy that, when we would ask for something - say, a spoon for rice pudding - she would rush off to get it, than wander back to gaze at him, having forgotten why she ever left the table.

Dave S., who is pretty much my favorite of our magic friends, showed up to watch the show, which was wonderful. (oh, don't be so sensitive! I like you too! I didn't say Dave was the ONLY magic friend I liked. Just that he's a particular favorite. It's a Phoenix thing. Can't be helped.)

So World's Cutest had a nice day, which was a very good thing, as he had a couple of less-nice days recently. Just as I was finishing lettering the tiny 'Free to Good Home' sandwich board, I recalled that book we read.

We read this book called Wonder Weeks, which suggested that babies go through entirely predictable fussy (by which they mean clingy/sleepless/bitchy/impossible) periods, which coincide with significant cognative leaps. When your baby's synapses reach a new milestone - say, the first glimmer of object permanance, or some suspicions about cause and effect - his world is suddenly a lot bigger and more complicated. More interesting, but also more stressful, at least as he's getting used to it. So it's not surprising if he's a little crabby for a few days, if he needs a lot more attention.

Frankly, the World's Cutest Baby has been such a walk in the park for the most part - great health, pretty good sleeper, good eater, casual disposition - that I think I have more trouble coping with these little hiccups than I should. I'm sure the mother of any colicky, sensitive or otherwise more-normal baby would scoff at me, hanging here at the end of my rope. "HA!" they'd scoff. "That's tough? You're hiding in the bathroom from THAT? Why, listen to this -" and launch into some tale of totally average babyhood - say, a child that poops every single day! - that would make me shudder in terror.

Sticky all over again

2006-06-21T18:51:00.000-07:00

happy meal, originally uploaded by funky fat girl.

This was taken near the start of the meal - he got a whole lot stickier.

Feeding this kid is an amazing amount of fun; he's enthusiastic, he's appreciative, he's even washable. He grins and laughs with relief at being full, finally, and with the excitement of this new thing.

So far, we just eat dinner - his other meals come from a bottle - and since we've done this for a few days in a row, he seems to look forward to it. Tonight he got tremendously excited when he saw the bowl and spoons in my hand.

Yeah, spoons. It takes a more than one spoon to get the food in the little dude - usually, two are in play, although I can imagine a day when there will be more. I hold the bowl, and spoon him up a bite. I try to get it to his mouth, but more often than not, he'd prefer to hold the spoon himself.

I hand it to him carefully.
He immediately sticks it in his eye.
This step is absolutely de riguer. You know it's going to happen, and you feel like you might as well get it out of the way early, like the first ding on a freshly painted car. Once he spoons his eyeball, we can all relax and get down to business. So he holds a spoon, I hold a spoon, we trade off.

After dinner, it's a warm bath, a cuddley towel, a rousing chorus of The Boa Constrictor Song, a few sips of bottle, and he passes out over my shoulder.

I just flaked a little rice cereal off my earlobe. No lie.

When I say he's a big boy....

2006-06-19T16:32:00.000-07:00

Big Ian, originally uploaded by funky fat girl.

I'm not kidding.

The introduction of solid food went absolutely splendidly. He's the master of the little plastic spoon.
inc
Since we don't have a high chair (on purpose), we've been feeding him sitting in his exer-saucer. Which we then take outside and hose off. Really.

So, How's the Baby?

2006-06-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

How is he? How is he, you ask?

Well, he's hungry. First and foremost, he is hungry, about 26 hours a day.

The little sweetie has been gotten so big, and is growing so fast, that the combination of formula and breast milk that we've been feeding him no longer does the trick. The 8 oz bottle that he could never finish now barely seems to take the edge off. He cries to eat every two hours or so, just as he did when he was a baggy, monkeyfooted newborn, struggling to get back up to his birthweight.

So last night, being 1) a great believer in anecdotal wisdom and 2) just fucking exhausted, I flew in the face of our pediatrician's advice, and dissolved a spoonful of rice cereal in his 9pm bottle. The Sears book, like our doctors, tell me there is nothing to be gained by this; meanwhile, literally uncountable moms and dads swear up and down that some cereal in the bottle is our express ticket to the Promised Land of silent nights.

The Sears book has been awfully good to us. And we think the world of our pediatrics practice. Both assure us that the point of learning to eat solid food is to learn to eat solid food, with your lips and tongue, from a spoon, not to fortify bottles of milk. Besides, what if our friends are wrong? What if the cereal disagrees with him?

In the end, I think, I was moved with compassion. He's just so hungry! And he wails, in a way that sounds like grief and pain together, like he's mourning the loss of food from his life, like he'll never eat again.

After the cereal bottle, he's motionless in my arms, stunned, and I wonder for a second if I've killed him. I watch him breath for a full minute, feel his astonishing skin, toasty as a muffin, and lay him down on his back.

He wakes up in a little while with a faraway smile, different than I've ever seen. It's as if he knows that his life will never be the same.

2006-06-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

I've been instructed to write more about my son's personality.

Well, a month ago, I would have said he was the most easy-going, flexible, chilled-out kid in history. It was as if God said, "Eh, they're amatuers. Let's give them an easy one."

A couple of months before that, I might have described him as clingy - but not, oddly enough, in a bad way. He was a kid constantly in arms and in laps, and my arms and my lap were really happy with that. He was light - under 15 pounds - and pocket-sized, so it was easy to cart him everywhere by hand (easier than it is now, at nearly 17 lbs - also, he's all wiggley now, which he wasn't before.)

And a couple of months before that, he just slept. Literally, we couldn't wake him up for the month of January - between jaundice and exhaustion, he was like a little baby-shaped rock. We force-fed him with a syringe, and eventually he woke up.

Certain qualities have been present all along, since the very beginning - he loves to listen, and loves especially when we sing to him. His favorite song - from the very beginning - is I Get A Kick Out of You, from the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes. For going to sleep, he likes a little James Taylor (You Can Close Your Eyes and Sweet Baby James, both of which, interestingly, make me cry like crazy) in a medley with an authenic American folksong, The Sloop John B. (That one does not make me cry.)

I also sing to him what my father used to sing to me - You Are My Sunshine. It's a good thing I had a baby, as I used to sing that to my cat ("You are my sunshine, my Pokey sunshine, you make me happy, you're white and grey...") and in retrospect, that seems a bit much even to me. (Well, not my memories of singing to my cat, which are actually pretty sweet...but when you describe it to people, it makes you sound odd.)

So what's he like now?

He's a little cranky, from cutting his first tooth. He's super-observant, and nothing makes him happier than watching people walk around. He smiles a lot but laughs only occasioanally, mostly at funny noises. He can roll for miles.

Gentlemen

2006-05-31T08:09:00.000-07:00

turq and yellow, originally uploaded by funky fat girl.

Here are my boys - 45 years and 4 months.
Both like ice cream, sleeping, America's Funniest Home Videos, and me.