Total Mom Haircut

Little Reminder

2007-02-02T12:48:00.000-05:00

This is just a reminder for those of you who are back over here because your bloglines feed said there was a new post. I've moved to another site, so please go ahead and change your rss feed as I won't be posting here anymore. Thanks!

totalmomhaircut.com

I'm outta here!

2007-01-07T14:47:00.000-05:00

I've moved - come on over and see...please? Please come over...please just click once more and come over...pretty pretty?

Totalmomhaircut.com

Oh, right...

2007-01-04T20:01:00.000-05:00

A few holiday pictures are in order...several weeks after the fact.

We have some traditional Christmas cookie making...

I decided Sam should be Rudolph.
I guess he was going through a weird growly phase. I swear I've never even seen him make the face he has on in that last one. And he seems to be making a similar face in a few of the others. The odd thing is it is a happy face for him. It's kind of a smile...that looks evil.

We don't seem to have any gift unwrapping photos because we did some video of it instead. So the growly will have to do for his pictures this Christmas.

They came in swarms.

2006-12-28T13:04:00.000-05:00

We've been attacked by Little People! They've come in by bus, by plane, and by train and have totally taken over our living room with their house and garage. Yes, it was a Little People Christmas for Sam, among other things, many other things. This kid has so many freakin' toys...

The Little People now have their own Big World set out in our living room. (I had to throw in a joke about that stupid show - how could I not? Seriously though, why is that show ok?) If only I wasn't so anal. See, I like for toys to be put away with other similar toys at the end of the day. So when it comes to the dozens of Little People, I want the (female!) pilot and passengers on the plane to go in the plane, the kids and bus driver to be in the wheel chair accessible bus, the little stereotypical family and their cat in their picket fence house, the mustached mechanics and their odd moppy dog to hang out in their garage. But more often than not I have to let these little details go and leave that mechanic in the bed with the mom holding the bottle...

And just a tip: You know you've got real estate on the brain when you look at the Little People house and seriously think, "Oh, well they're doing fine with just one bathroom all the way up on the second floor so maybe we could manage it too..."

All I want for Christmas is...

2006-12-21T20:39:00.000-05:00

A BIG NAP. Can I just take a 6 six hour nap? Man, SO tired. My exhaustion is so far the only sign that I am pregnant...well, I guess that's not exactly true. Is it possible that I already look pregnant? Because seriously, my tummy already looks swollen. And it has that sort of sensitive full feeling so that I don't want anything to touch it, including my pants. I know you show earlier with your second but this seems mighty impossible. Maybe I'm carrying a food baby...

Anyway, I've been trying to nap whenever Sam does so that I can FUNCTION, hence my blogging absence. Nap time used to be post and comment time so I'm going to have to come up with some sort of alternate plan for that. That plan may have to go into effect after the holidays though seeing as everything is crazy with getting ready to travel and stuff. I hope you all out there are doing well and if I'm not back before then - Merry Christmas. I hope you all have a great one. Looking forward to seeing pics and video of the kiddies going crazy.

And just let me take a moment to say that I've missed you in my absence. I look forward to being more regular in my reading and writing in the new year because the relationships we have are very important to me. As I've said before, internet friendships are surprisingly real. I speak of you to my husband on a first name basis as I do any of my in person friends, and I think it's great. Starting a blog was one of the best things I have done as a mom, and it is because I have found all of you and your support, your humor, your stories, your comments and emails, they all keep me going. So thank you all for opening your minds to a relationship in which we've never actually met, because our friendship is real be it face to face or not.

Merry Chrismas and Happy New Year.

You Guessed It

2006-12-15T13:11:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's true. But who knew that crying during Sesame Street and eating an entire crab dip was such normal behavior? I am pregnant though. It's very, very early, as evidenced by the fact that I am still able to eat crab dip and the very idea of it does not sicken me. On the contrary, when thinking about what I wanted for lunch that day it was clear immediately that that was absolutely the only thing that I wanted and I needed it NOW. When pregnant with Sam I had constant nausea for most of the first trimester. I'm assuming it's just too early for that right now, and I can't remember when it started with Sam. But I'm going on the assumption that it will probably return soon so I'm trying to fill up on everything that I know will disgust me starting any day now and for the next 8 or so months. Among those things I include seafood and chicken. Chicken totally creeped me out when pregnant with Sam. Absolutely no chicken could be anywhere near me for fear I'd see those fleshy strings or, even worse, smell it. The smell was the downfall with the fish too. But I digress...

Sam is going to be a big brother. Some of you may be a little confused since it was not so long ago that I wrote this. And I have to say that even while writing it I was thinking my feelings seemed pretty normal. I was getting a little scared because I knew we were about to do this for real and it wasn't going to just be talk anymore. I think no matter how old Sam is I will always have concerns about him when it comes to having another child. How could I not? It's been just us and that will change. I've often heard of mothers wondering if they can love another child as much as their first and the resounding answer seems to be 'yes.' Things change, but for the better.

Hubby and I talked a lot after that post about my feelings on that matter and his. And so we entered an official state of "not, not trying" to have baby. You know, we weren't specifically not trying...or were specifically not...yeah, you get it. And this past month we just happened to not, not try at a fairly crucial time, although honestly we did not expect anything so quickly; that seemed impossible. Not long after that I had many tantrums over the course of several days that led Hubby to wonder what the hell was wrong with me, and not long after that I wondered what the hell was wrong with me, myself. Then I bought the Early Response, took the test, went out and bought another, and then another just to be sure, and you know the rest of the story.

August. Yeah, you heard me. August. That's when I'm due. I'm going to be that huge pregnant woman sweating and with swollen feet trying to pull off cute baby doll dresses that look more like mumus. I have always given sympathy to any woman I have seen pregnant in the summer and expressed how I could never do it. I probably thought to myself how I'd never let myself have to do it. Hmpf. So much for that. I actually have a friend here that is taking a break from trying to get pregnant to avoid a summer due date. Crazy? Mmmmm, I'm not so sure. And, you know, I thought it was really important to have an August/butt end of summer due date specifically so that I could be increasing in size as the temp rose for maximum uncomfortability. And laboring in 100 degrees certainly does sound nice...

I'm going to kick myself for saying this later but I do wish I felt pregnant in some way. Knowing how I felt physically that first time along with the surprise of how quickly this occurred makes it feel very surreal. I have to keep reminding myself that we are going to have another baby almost because I'm not totally convinced. Like I said though, I'm sure I'll be way more convinced than I want to be very soon.

Sam's going to be a big brother...maybe to a little sister...or a little brother is good too...

And since you all seem to be drooling over crab dip let me go ahead and share that little tidbit with you. It's super easy, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to make it in my feverishly starving state. It's something I remember my mom would make sometimes when people were coming over. I always remember it being served with Triscuits, so that's what I did.

Crazy Pregnant Lady's Craving Crab Dip
You need:
1 package cream cheese
1 can crab
1 can baby shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 bottle cocktail sauce
Worcestershire Sauce, optional (wow, I had no idea that was spelled that way)
Crackers

If you are using Worcestershire, mix the pack of cream cheese with a few teaspoons of the sauce. Spread the mixture in a layer on a large plate. If you skip the sauce just spread the cream cheese on a plate. That's what I did in my mad panic and I didn't really notice a difference in the taste when it was done.

Drain the two cans of seafood and mix together with about 1 bottle of cocktail sauce, depending on how big of a bottle it is. Spread this mixture over the cream cheese. Oh yeah, I think you can also top it with a little lemon juice if you want...I forgot about that...that would have been really good...damn...

Grab box of triscuits or other cracker thing. Submerge in dippy goodness. Stuff face. This recipe is particularly good when the only reason you have the ingredients on hand is because you intend to make the dip for a playgroup you are hosting and instead decide it should be all yours.

Enjoy!

I know, I know

2006-12-14T13:43:00.000-05:00

I've been a totally bad blogger lately. I'm bad about posting, bad about commenting. I haven't written a seriously thoughtful post in...I dunno, have any been thoughtful? There was a day when I was all reflective and stuff, and that day seems to have passed. I do have some post ideas in mind for some time soon - a response to the article in Mothering about toy guns and violence, more thoughts on mom cliques and middle school behavior among the best of us, but I'm just not feelin' it today...maybe tomorrow. We've just got a lot going on over here. We might be making an offer on a house on Saturday, which is really exciting and scary. The house search has been time and energy consuming. Hubby's got a case in court right now and has been coming home so late sometimes that he doesn't even get to see Sam for the whole day, which is sad for him and killer for me. Sam and I hosted out first play group today which made me a crazy, cleaning, baking freak for the past 4 days. And there's more too. Want a hint?

The other day for lunch I made myself an entire crab dip thing - the one with a layer of cream cheese and then a layer of cocktail sauce mixed with crab and shrimp; it takes up an entire large plate. I ate over half of it with crackers in one sitting and was hungry again a few hours later.

******edited to add another hint:

Oh yeah, I cried during Sesame Street yesterday when Ernie sang the song about how he'd like to visit the moon.

I just want some earrings!

2006-12-09T17:04:00.000-05:00

I'm standing in the shower - one of two regular length showers I get each week due to the weekend and Hubby being home - and I think I hear some crying and maybe some screaming. I wonder if I should call out and see if he needs help with Sam or find out if Sam has been hurt. I decide he'll come and let me know if he needs me. Besides, sometimes I imagine hearing Sam when I'm in the shower and we're home alone throughout the week, so maybe the noises I hear are just the weird water noises that are good at creating scary mental images for a paranoid mom.

Then Hubby comes in and says, "Does he want me to do something specific when he holds a piece of scotch tape up to his ear like he's listening to it?"
"Oh, yeah he wants you to stick it to his ear lobe like an earring," I say.
"Thank you!"

And the door is shut, the odd crying/screaming sound stops, and I take the rest of my shower in peace, picturing Sam holding tape up to his ear and screeching at his father who must be desperately trying to figure out what this toddler is trying to tell him. Earrings Dad, duh.

A Meme for the Season

2006-12-03T20:46:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling rather festive. Hubby and I finally got out and did some holiday-related errands today. We picked up our wrapping paper, ribbons, and so forth so that I can wrap the presents that are sitting in the closet. All of them are for Sam. I've done nothing for anyone else. Don't even know what Hubby will be getting this year. But Sam's gift shopping is done and has been for over a month. Because we are on such a budget I stretched out the purchases for him over the past several months, buying a few things each month so that the expenses wouldn't overwhelm any one pay check. The result is that I love all of his gifts and put a lot of thought into each one of them since I couldn't just go crazy and buy everything, and it was done in November. We also got our little table top Christmas tree. We decided it probably wasn't a very good idea to have a tree on the floor where Sam could get to it, especially after seeing his reponse to the tree we put up at my parents' over Thanksgiving. I need to be able to leave him in our living room alone without envisioning him trapped under a huge tree he has just pulled onto himself and being repeatedly shocked by Christmas lights. So the little tree sits on our dining table so that now Sam can just scream through every meal as he tries to reach the ornaments - his favorite things: "bawus," which we now hear about 8 million times a day along with "ah oo" (uh oh).

Anyway: festive, that's right, festive. And some time ago Scribbit tagged me for this meme that she sort of tweaked to be about childhood memories. I like it. And since I'm feeling festive I'm going to try and throw in as many holiday memories as I can. I have no idea who to tag, so how about if you are also feeling festive and/or you went to Target today then consider yourself it.

One of my all time favorite memories of childhood is this...

My dad took me to see E.T. in the theater when it came out. What year was that? 1982. So I was 5. It was a special Father/Daughter event. Considering when it took place in retrospect I imagine he and I were out together without my mom for some reason related to the birth of my brother, or perhaps she was just very pregnant. As I'm sure you all know E.T. is one of the best movies ever made, but it is also painfully upsetting. It still makes me cry today, as it did when I was 5, only now I can contain it a bit more. At the end of the movie I was a wreck, totally sobbing because ET and Elliot had parted and I loved him, see, both of them. As we sat in the empty theater after everyone else had gone my dad asked me if I wanted to see it again. As the usher cleaning up the theater came around my dad handed him what I can only assume was money - whether or not it was for the price of two more tickets or it was just a bit for this kid to pocket in order to keep his mouth shut I have no idea, but we sat there through the break between showings after the usher passed by. My dad sat through ET a second time in a row and that time around I didn't cry so hard.

Probably that same year at Christmas I had a life changing experience that would set the tone for many a Christmas to come. OK, maybe not life changing...

As usual I woke up way early Christmas morning and ran downstairs to see if Santa had come. I scanned our living room to ensure that presents had, in fact, been deposited and took a brief inventory of what was there. I then ran upstairs to get my parents since it was a long standing and unspoken rule that absolutely no gifts could be touched until all family members were present. When I went upstairs I found my brother, Mom, and Dad standing at the top of the stairs ready to come down. When we went back down to the living room something was there that had not been before. It was one of those huge tubes that you crawl through sort of like this. It ran the entire length of the room and was right in front of everything. I was certain it was not there before and completely convinced that Santa must have left it there while I was briefly upstairs getting my family. My Dad totally milked it and started asking if I'd, "maybe seen a shoe in the chimney as Santa went up to get the crawl tube." How I could have missed a huge freakin' tube stretching about 8 feet in the middle of the room I have no idea, but clearly I did, and as a result I believed in Santa for many more years than the average kid. I'm not sure how I figured out what was up, but I know I probably emabarrassed myself telling that story to the already non-believers many a time.

I believed in Santa so long that I can recall this little tidbit from some time around 4th grade...

I couldn't sleep, or wouldn't, because I was certain this was my year to catch the man that had eluded me so many years ago. I was doing a pretty good job too, and I knew it because my mom kept coming in and making threats to get me to go to sleep. You know the threats, that Santa knows you're awake, that he won't come if you're not asleep, etc. But clearly it was getting too late for my mom because she eventually pulled out the big guns. She came into my room and said that she'd been watching the news, that they had seen Santa on the radar, and he wasn't going to get to our area for several more hours. I felt totally hopeless and I guess just gave up because I was asleep almost immediately.

And speaking of giving up...

The first time I ever had heartburn I thought I was dying. I thought I was having some sort of heart attack and that I was surely almost dead. As I lay on my death bed I remember telling my Mom that I loved her. I think I may have even written out a will. Then she gave me some alka selzer and 5 minutes later I was doing celebratory cartwheels. Oh, to be a 4th grader who has just had a brush with death!

Many years before...

I remember that we put the little synthetic Christmas tree in my room since we had a big, live tree for the living room. I got to lay in bed and look at it with its little lights and little ornaments and fall asleep imagining myself living inside the tree. That's what I always did when we decorated the trees, imagined what it would be like to live inside them. I was fascinated with that Disney Christmas special with Mickey, Pluto, and Chip and Dale who hid in the tree that Mickey and Pluto had just decorated, resulting I think in Pluto destroying the tree trying to get to them. But there was a shot from the perspective of one of the chipmunks looking out of the tree through the lights, and I just thought it was the best thing in the world. So strange the things that catch our attention and stay in our minds as children, and so many amazing opportunities for that magic at this time of year...

1 lb., 6 oz.

2006-11-29T15:18:00.000-05:00

We arrived back from our Thanksgiving festivities last night. Sam is now a seasoned air traveller, now having 9 flights under his belt in his 18 month life. As usual he was great. The wheel on our stroller was bent on the flight though and it turns out it's going to be a lot more of an ordeal than we thought to fix it. We'll probably end up needing a new stroller entirely, and I can't begin to tell you how annoying that is.

I think this is the longest I have gone without posting (or commenting) since starting this blog 9 months ago. I felt very mindless during our break and visit to my parents' house. I couldn't seem to do anything that required thought other than play Mah Jhong on the computer and Scrabble and poker with my family. Hubby and I also got to go out to dinner twice and we saw 2 movies: Casino Royale and The Fountain. Still trying to figure out the latter - again, too much thought required, but not due to any fault of mine.

Does it seem like this post is sort of pointless? I know. I think so too. I think it's because all I really have to post about today is Sam's poo this morning, but I really feel I should spare you all the details since the scenario resulted in me throwing up. Let's just say that Sam gave birth to a baby poo this morning after a very painful labor...and I was his midwife.

Holiday Prep: Bangs and Boobs

2006-11-20T13:33:00.000-05:00

Here's a little bit of unsolicited advice:

If you look at your child and think to yourself, "He needs a haircut before we go visit our relatives for Thanksgiving...I think I'll cut it myself," just stop right there. Even if it will save you money. Even if you just have such a long to do list that the thought of scheduling another appointment makes your heart race (in a bad way). Even if your friends paid you in college to cut their hair and you even cut your own hair for 4 years and the haircuts you give your husband are always his favorite cuts. Just stop. Because none of this will matter when you are feeling rushed because it is past bedtime and you and your husband are trying to trick your child into being still in the bath tub so that you can trim his bangs. Yes, that's right, you will decide that the bath tub is the best place for this salon session to take place because your child's hair will already be wet and the only time you can get a comb through the dreads in back is when you've glopped conditioner all over his head. And so you will think that you can get in the bath with him and sit behind him and cut his hair while your Hubby entertains him by pouring water from cup to cup. But you will be wrong, thereby predestroying all holiday photos by cutting your son's bangs to an odd length that somehow emphasizes his abnormally large forehead. And that is why you should just stop. Ruined Thanksgiving pictures to follow.

And now, as if I didn't have enough to stress me out before flying for the holidays with a toddler, did you see this crap? (Now that you're enraged you can go sign this petition so as to not feel quite so powerless.) Let me just say that if Sam were to not nurse for take off and landing, and as a result his ears started hurting during the flight then every passenger on that plane would wish that they'd gotten to see both of my huge nummies exposed rather than experience the shrieks that would ensue. And yeah, just try and cover his head with a blanket while he nurses. I dare you.

Doh!

2006-11-16T14:01:00.000-05:00

Sam has moved on from his "Rollin' It" obsession to Play Doh. He loves the stuff. He searches for where I hide the little jars of it and screams until I bring them down. We even busted out the flour and the salt and made our own dough yesterday. Remind me to never, ever do that again. Sam's reponse to feeling flour in the bowl, that's cute. Flour is soft and cool and nice. It is enjoyable to touch in the bowl, yes. Flour is not enjoyable to sweep up when it's been flung all over the kitchen floor, however. Never again, or at least not until another flash of temporary insanity comes along.

More importantly Play Doh has been the impetus for Sam's first repeating word. Now, every time I roll the dough into a ball he says "bawu." That L sound, it's a rough one. He also finds balls around the house and brings them to me to tell me it is, in fact, a bawu. So good to finally hear my son's voice...saying actual words.

Da 'Burbs and Da Baby

2006-11-13T14:58:00.000-05:00

I know, I know. I've not been around very much, not been posting, not been commenting (I have been reading your blogs though, just so you know). You may recall when I warned you all that I was going to take blog break to do NaNoWriMo and you have jumped to the logical conclusion that that is what I'm up to, that is, if you even noticed my absence and bothered to jump to a conclusion. Well, I've written 3 chapters...all right, 2 and 1/2. I have my whole outline of the plot and my characters and all that. I just really havn't felt motivated to write during the extremely rare times when I've actually had the opportunity. So no certificate or whatever it is for me. I still plan to write the thing, just not in one month.

So what the hell have I been doing, you ask? House hunting. Yep. Well, not real house hunting, not yet. We still have about 7 months on this lease, but we decided we should go ahead and start looking at what was out there in different areas and stuff since we've never bought before and are totally freaked out by it. How do you people do this? How do you make these decisions? I've been going to open houses and driving around and looking at houses my agent is sending me and reading the details of hundreds of listings and I'm already stressed yet barely have begun. I can't narrow this down at all. And what's more - I think I might be old, because the 'burbs are lookin' real good to me right now. When Hubby and I discuss this we always decide we aren't ready to leave the city yet, but I tell ya when I'm out there looking at what's available in our price range I'm really leaning toward that little rancher with the small fenced yard and super high taxes (better schools) over that 3 story rowhouse with no parking but leaves us with money to spare. All right, that's an exaggeration. But the point is this is freakin' hard and I already feel like I'm going to have an aneurism. How do you do it and avoid a panic attack? Yesterday, for the first time, I actually liked one of the houses I saw and it felt like a panic attack because I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I don't think I can keep this up for 7 more months.

You know what else I'm totally indecisive about? Babies. It's this whole second child thing. See, about 2 months ago I was totally thinking Hubby and I would be officially "trying" by now. I was thinking around the time Sam was 18 months old would be a good time to get started. I talked about it all summer. Seriously, I was ready. Went off the pill and everything. Even almost wanted to go ahead and get going, if you know what I mean, because I was baby crazy. Now...not so much. And I don't really know what happened. I kind of just want to hang out with Sam. The apprehension about the second baby thing might have started when we had that incident at the playground. You know, he got hurt while I was trapped holding a baby. And I see other moms unable to do things with their toddlers because they're holding a younger child and I just don't want to let go of any of that with Sam. I just can't quite envision how it all works. Then I look at other moms and calculate the ages of their children in my head and see that they're doing just fine and think, "I could do that," and recognize that it will always be scary to make such a decision.

But the thing is, how do I say this, I have started to feel like I might resent another child for getting in the way of my relationship with Sam. And I hate to use the word 'resent' because it feels so harsh, especially when talking about a newborn of all things, but that's the best word I've got. I'm trying to be honest here. Are these feelings normal? For those of you that have more than one child, did you experience anything like that either when making the decision or as you waited for the second to arrive or even after the baby came? I can't tell if this is an actual change of mind and we're really not ready, or if it's just normal apprehension because the decision is so close at hand and therefore more real. Because really I can't imagine that there would ever come a time when I'm not worried about losing my time with Sam due to another baby; that threat will always be there no matter when we decide to do this. It's quite a change though. All of a sudden I feel very protective of my time with him and my ability to give him my undivided attention. And then someone passes me their 3 month old at a playgroup and Sam walks up and gently pets her head and I wonder what we're waiting for...

Roll it...roll it...roll it!

2006-11-08T13:42:00.000-05:00

Sam has become obsessed with Patty Cake. Ob. Sessed.

Initially he would just start his rolling arm motion when I would begin the song. Now he doesn't need me to initiate the Patty Cake. He has been walking around the house "rollin' it" for days. It's cute, it is. But see, when he starts to roll it he wants me to sing the song. And if it takes me too long to get to the "roll it" part he screams. And if I pass the "roll it" part and for instance, "pat it," he screams. And if I stop singing he screams. And if I try and sing another song, even one with hand movements, well, he screams.

Marking it with a 'B' is ok. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, marking it with a 'B' is an acceptable substitution for rolling. But then this baker better get my ass in gear and roll it again.

One Hit Wonder

2006-11-05T21:13:00.000-05:00

We've had more words around here lately. But there has yet to be a repeat of "sho" or "cah." In fact, Sam seems to only be interested in saying his words for us a few times in the moment and then never coming back to them...ever. It makes us wonder if he is even saying them in the first place.

In the past week we have had "buh bah" (bye bye), "gat" (cat), "Daghee" (Daddy), and "bal" (ball). But again, we've only heard each of them a few times when he says them initially. So the cat walks by and we say, "There's the cat," and he says, "gat." We say something like, "Did you just say cat?" and he says, "gat," "cat?" "gah," and then it's over. There is absolutely nothing you can do to get the kid to say gat again for days and days and days. It's like he just wants to let us know he can do it once and that's enough for him. It's clearly just much more fun to point and grunt like an ape.

Sam the Builder (Can he fix it? Yes, he can!)

2006-11-01T14:33:00.000-05:00

As it turned out the Halloween parade was the perfect amount of festivity for us. Sam had fun playing with his friends in his lame costume. He actually did keep the belt on the whole time, but I would still say he was the least costumed of all the kids. He had fun carrying his bucket around and pulling out all of the snacks that people kept putting in it. Then he would transfer them to his hat that wouldn't stay on, and eventually back to his bucket, but not before mushing them to a pulp. Please note the very sad NutriGrain bar in this first photo.

Want to know how many kids came to our apartment trick or treating? Two. How many bags of candy did we buy? Three. I think we have about 8 pounds of candy in our home now.

Holiday events!

2006-10-31T12:54:00.000-05:00

First things first - I know you all have been buckling under the anticipation of finding out the true nature of the filling inside this deep fried goodness. And so I tell you now that that, my friends, is your basic deep fried Oreo. Yep. Oreo...fried. Gross, huh? Well, I ate them all. It was so bizaare I just had to share it. Sorry the picture clue of Sam in the pumpkins threw some of you. I was just trying to convey that we were at one of those pumpkin patch farms when we discovered the deep fried Oreo. And those two pictures are the only ones worth sharing because the place was a freakin' mob scene.

For several weeks I'd been envying all your blog posts with your children frolicking among the pumpkins in fields of green under the blue, cloudless sky, so 2 weekends ago I insisted we give it a try as well. This was more like frolicking among fields of humans amidst a grey, smokey cloud. Seriously, are we not past the whole smoking around children thing? Guess not. The lines for things like hay rides and pony rides were hours (note the plural 's') long, so we couldn't do much in the way of activities. We tried to take Sam to the playground area where you had to pay to get in, but that lasted maybe 5 minutes due to the extremely dense layer of children writhing around everywhere we stepped. And so we made out with our two pumpkins and our deep fried food. While Hubby waited in line to pay for the pumpkins Sam and I watched a guy and his girlfriend inspect and take one of the pumpkins from the little photo area that the farm had set up...while someone was taking their child's picture. How's that for class? Have I painted a vivid picture of this experience yet? Next year we'll be driving to a farm further away from the city, I think.

Today we'll be attending a costume parade with the moms and kids from "the club." I totally half assed Halloween this year as far as Sam's costume. You know what though, I kept my eyes open for costume possibilities and even did some active searching and I'm telling you I did not see a single thing that my kid would keep on his body for more than 30 seconds. With all the fluff and fur and padding and synthetic fibers there was just no way. Plus there's the issue of budget. For a while Hubby and I brainstormed ideas for costumes I could make. We almost went with a vampire costume for him. He'd wear a t-shirt that said, "I vant to suuck your boooob," on it and on the cape the name "Lactacula" would be printed. After a little while it didn't sound like such a great idea as I envisioned the 3 year olds asking their moms about it and the moms not laughing but glaring at me. So in the end I decided to go simple and get him something he could play with after Halloween, unlike the skunk costume from last year that is now our cat's bed. I also figured the more toy-like his costume was the more likely it might hold his interest for the duration of the parade. So Sam will be a construction worker this year. I got him a Bob the Builder toolbelt and hard hat and he'll wear his jeans and a plaid shirt. Of course, the flannel is going to end up being too hot for him to wear this afternoon since it is almost 70 freakin' degrees here today! I expect the shirt will be shed early on, as will the toolbelt and hat if this goes anything like the test run last night, leaving Sam to do the parade in his t-shirt and jeans. Impressive, I know.

As for tonight I'm not sure what to do with him. I had hoped that he would get to put candy in the buckets/bags of the kids that would come to our door, but the neighbors say the kids in our buildings generally leave our apartment complex and head over to more residential areas. I know Sam could care less about trick or treating, I just thought he might like to look at other kids in costumes. Maybe we'll go take a walk through one of the neighborhoods so he can see. And after he goes to bed I'm sure Hubby and I will be enjoying any one of the fine Halloween flicks to be aired on tv tonight.

In other news we have a second word: "cah," sometimes pronounced "gah." Apparently my son is from Boston.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Little quiz for ya:

2006-10-26T13:26:00.000-04:00

Here's a little quiz for your Thursday enjoyment. See if you can answer the following.

1) Remember I mentioned I was going to be writing a book? Well I've been doing some planning for it, outlining plot and such, and also choosing character names. After long, long consideration I decided on the two names for the main characters, who will end up in a relationship for most of the book. So I wanted the names to not only fit what I envision for each character but also work well together. When I finally chose them I was very pleased with myself and promptly wrote an email to Hubby listing the character names, but as soon as I wrote them next to each other I realized why I thought they sounded so good together, as well as why I can't use them. The names were Lil and James. Why can't I use them?

2) What do you think this is?

I'll give you a hint about where we were to help you out.

What is he pointing at? That one's hypothetical - I have no idea.

3) This is related to number 1. What was the name of a fairly jockish and popular but nice guy in your middle school or high school? I don't want the name of the jack ass who thought he was too cool for school. I want the name of the down to earth guy that seemed to get along with most everyone and was genuinely kind to even the people that weren't jocks or popular or whatever. See how I use you all?

Another Birthday Today

2006-10-25T14:26:00.000-04:00

I’ve always associated my Dad with the outdoors; he's just an outdoorsy type of guy. Growing up, if my father was not at work then he was probably out in the yard doing an array of gardening tasks and projects. I never understood what he could possibly be doing to pass so much time.

When I picture my childhood I envision our back yard when we lived in Maryland. It had a treehouse and a trapeze that my dad built himself. And it was full of trees and leaves and secret places. That yard was my absolute favorite place to be. I ran around pretending to be Wendy, Dorothy, Sheena, a fairy, a gelfling, a unicorn, anyone or anything I wanted. My dad would walk around the yard with me and point out the things I’d miss, like a snake coiled up a few feet from where I’d stepped. He’d drive me around on the lawn mower down the hill in the grassy part below. This will sound strange, but I did this meditation thing back in my theater days where we envisioned ourselves in a safe space and I automatically saw myself back in that treehouse.

When I got older and we lived in a different house things were different. I didn’t want to go outside. It was all about locking myself in my bedroom, shutting out the light as much as possible and blasting some awful hair band. My dad would force me to go out back and do yard work under threat of grounding or losing my phone. I hated it. I hated weeding and planting and whatever else he had me do, and I was certain that absolutely no other kid my age was being forced to do manual labor outside – I, and I alone, was being tortured. I started to dread any Saturday in which the weather was nice because I knew I’d be forced to “go out and enjoy it.”

As the weather gets colder here I’ve been watching my plants out on the patio freeze and slowly droop. I contacted my dad back in the summer to get his advice on what to plant out there and discuss how to do it successfully. My potted caladium and coleus had tripled in size by week 6. I was left wishing for a yard in which I could start a real garden, a place that would support perennials, and wishing I’d paid more attention to everything my dad taught me. Hubby and I are starting to look into buying a house this spring and my number one priority for looking at a home is for it to have a yard. I want Sam to have his own place outdoors where he feels free. Right now I do my best to get him outside as much as possible to parks, playgrounds, or the arboretum. I look forward to seeing what my dad has done for Sam in his new woodsy backyard in the mountains where he and my mother recently retired. I know it involves a play area with tree stumps, and holes and crevices especially good for inhabitance by elves.

Every weekend Hubby and I try to figure out what we should do with our free time with Sam. Hubby lists possibilities as they come to mind and quite frequently, if the weather is nice, every indoor suggestion will be met with a disdainful, “There’s no way we’re doing something inside. It’s a beautiful day and I intend to enjoy it.”

Happy Birthday, Dad. Hope you have fun out in the yard today.

More Tales of Trains

2006-10-22T20:20:00.000-04:00

Well, I think I scarred my son. Ever since the incident with the train table last week I have been walking around the house and finding scenes like this:

And this:

Clearly this boy has been wronged, be it by me, by 4 year olds who don't like sharing, or by their negligent parents, the boy has been wronged.

My poor little train conductor. Will he ever recover?

I did take him back to the train table a few days later where he played happily with a two year old whose mother kept reprimanding him for absolutely nothing. He still threw a tantrum when we left despite the fact that he'd already gotten bored with the train and was just walking around. I don't feel so bad anymore. And I am armed and ready for the next bully. Now if only my son could get some words so that I could arm him as well. Thanks for all of your input.

Grapple, grapple

2006-10-19T13:43:00.000-04:00

I have a hard time admitting this, but I have learned something about myself over the course of the last few months. I tend to get incredibly indignant about the way other people parent their children when it comes to protecting Sam. When I take him out to a playground, a store, a playgroup, what have you, I am right there with him when it comes to interacting with other kids when it looks like there might be trouble. I am there helping him to share and trade toys back and forth, to make sure no one gets pushed away from the steering wheel and that everyone gets a turn. I cannot tell you how often I find I am the only one mediating though, how often other parents stand their and watch their child take a toy, slap Sam's hands, push past him, and they do nothing. It makes me want to scream, say something rude, or glare until my eyes pop out and/or their head explodes. I never, in actuality, do more than glare mildly and then complain to my husband. Here's an example:

Yesterday was dreary and threatening to rain so I decided to take Sam to the Barnes and Noble because they have a train set there, and I thought he'd like it. When we arrived there were two older children already there so I decided to take him over to the story area to play on the stage for a while. When it was clear that the parents of these kids were camped out for the day I decided to let him go over and play. The other two kids proceeded to take train cars from him, gathering them up so that they had them all, and repeatedly stepped between him and the table so that he could not come near. The girl even started to say something to him about how he was too young to play there until she saw me looking at her. Their parents did nothing. They sat in their chairs reading. Personally I do not feel comfortable being the only one to mediate in a situation like that when the parents are RIGHT THERE. Sadly, I decided that Sam and I needed to leave because I was afraid he was really going to get pushed over and his lack of train cars was starting to upset him. Of course, when I picked him up to go he threw a HUGE tantrum and would not stop screaming no matter how I tried to appease him. We ended up leaving the store with him flailing in my arms and sobbing. I felt awful. And yet I do think he needed to be removed from the situation. He was going to have a tantrum anyway if he kept having his cars taken away or it could have been worse with two older kids who specifically did not want him there and two parents who wouldn't even look up from their reading material.

I left with him feeling that we'd both been bullied. I was so pissed that our afternoon had been ruined, at least that's how it felt. I understand that kids will be kids. They don't have to want to play with him. They don't even have to be good at sharing. But they do need to have parents that will supervise enough to let them know that pushing him away from the table is not acceptable. I really need some advice here because I feel like I find myself in this situation over and over again. What am I supposed to do when I am standing there watching a kid be mean to him and their parent does nothing? I mean, clearly these two parents had brought their kids there to play with the train so they could check out for a bit, and I understand the need to check out every so often. And I know their kids were older and maybe they don't really need to deal with this stuff very often anymore. But wasn't this a good opportunity to help their child exhibit some patience with a younger child? Or was I just totally wrong to take Sam somewhere to play with a train where there might be older kids in the first place? I really don't know how I should have handled the situation but as I wiped tears from his eyes and put him in the car I knew that somewhere along the line I had not made the right choice, because he didn't deserve to miss out on something he liked due to the behavior of everyone else. And I know that I get angry and am frustrated by situations like this frequently.

So tell me, am I expecting too much from other parents? Am I totally overprotective/overbearing/over-involved? Would you reprimand another person's child if they didn't? Would you feel comfortable sitting there and mediating while the other parent did nothing? Do you avoid these situations altogether? Do you try and let your child be independent and fend for himself until the bad thing happens rather than removing him in its anticipation? Honest answers please - I'm at a loss.

It's officially time to throw the remote in the trash...

2006-10-17T13:17:00.000-04:00

We all had a vision of how we would parent before we actually had kids. My vision involved homemade baby food, cloth diapers, co-sleeping through the night, etc. Oh, how things change once the baby arrives. Things seem unrealistic, expectations are lowered, we feel some guilt but not enough to change it. Part of my perfect vision also involved no tv watching for Sam. Before he was born I didn't understand why anyone would want their baby watching tv, and I admit that I saw it as a type of laziness in parents. Then Sam came and I needed a way to fill up hours and hours of time, just the two of us. When he was very young he was all colic, all the time, so tv wasn't an issue. Eventually though he settled and every so often we had some down time by watching a Baby Einstein video. As he got a bit older it turned into the occasional episode of Teletubbies, and as of late Sam has discovered the joys of Elmo while mommy has discovered the joys of getting to take a shower while Elmo babysits.

It was never a lot of tv, about half an hour so that I could get ready for the day. And maybe if he wasn't feeling well and wanted to cuddle on the couch...and maybe if he needed to be still to settle down for a nap...you get the picture. And I did this, knowing full well that the American Academy of Pediatrics did not recommend any television viewing for children under the age of two. And I did this knowing why they would make that recommendation. Certainly nothing good was coming from Sam's tv viewing other than some down time for me. He wasn't learning anything from it since we all know babies learn by doing, not by watching a 2 dimensional screen. I could see him sitting there totally zoning out as I thought to myself, "this is not right." He was engaged but not in a good way. When asked if he wanted to watch Elmo though, he would smile and run to the tv waiting to see his friend sing that incredibly annoying song, and he would dance, which I could rationalize as "interaction". And so I continued - a bit of tv, every so often when I needed it, like to shower for 5 minutes without Sam standing there opening and closing my shower door. I had become that "lazy" parent but I didn't care, not enough to change it anyway.

About a month ago a writer on Slate suggested that there might be a possible link between the increase in children diagnosed with Autism and the rise of tv viewing among children in the past 25 years. On first read I thought the idea was interesting, but not very convincing. He had very little in the way of hard evidence to support this theory and acknowledged in the article that it was little more than speculation. I actually was a little pissed off by the article after thinking about it a bit because I think it's dangerous to insinuate that Autism might be linked to something that a parent can control when you have no evidence to support you. Parents of Autistic children, I am sure, already beat themselves up enough wondering if they did something wrong or could have somehow prevented this from happening to their children. For us, it hits close to home because my husband has two autistic half brothers. The idea of my Mother-in-law berrating herself for letting her boys watch too much tv was too much, especially if there was no basis.

Yesterday a follow up article was posted on Slate discussing a recent study done by Cornell University, potentially linking Autism to tv viewing by children under three. If you've not yet seen this article you really need to go and read it (it links to the previous article I mentioned above, which is also worth your time to read as it gives a lot of background on the potential connection between the two). Reading it was enough to make me jump from my seat, grab the remote and delete every episode of Teletubbies and Sesame Street we had. The researchers are not suggesting that tv is the sole cause of the rise in autism, but they, and the writer, believe there is a link, that it is one factor among many. What it comes down to for me is this: no one knows the real cause of autism and why it has become so widespread, but this study has found that tv might play a role, potentially a big role. And since I already know that tv does nothing good for my child and that his time would be better spent doing...well, just about anything else, then that's enough for me. I find the article to be extremely compelling in its case against tv for children under the age of three, not perfect, not without holes in the argument, not to be taken as fact without further scrutiny, but compelling, compelling enough to make me stop doing something that I know wasn't really good for my child anyway. And so the Teletubbie and Sesame Street season passes have been cancelled and the remote has been hidden. We are officially a no tv household, at least before Sam's bedtime we are - Hubby and I are working hard to get through the first season of Lost on DVD and there's no way we're stopping now! I think it's a good decision whether or not this study proves true (and there is already some major backlash and criticism of it). Sam and I have already had more tickle fights, read more books, and done more dancing than we would have on a regular morning. The question is: how am I going to get my shower?

Write with me!

2006-10-15T22:02:00.000-04:00

So I think I’m going to be all daring and try and write a book. For quite some time, since the days where I taught in a middle school, I’ve had an idea for a novel for young audiences. I never really got anywhere with it, some character names and a written and rewritten first page that I didn’t even end up saving. But as of late I’ve been kind of flailing around, wondering what the heck it is that I’m doing with myself and what I intend to do with myself in the future. I must admit I need a little more than what I’ve got going on right now. It’s not that I don’t find being a stay at home mom to be fulfilling…well, maybe it is. Maybe that’s exactly what it is. I think right now I am lacking goals of my own, and that’s hard. So when Heather over at One Woman's World posted about National Novel Writing Month it was perfect. It’s time to get down to business and try to write this thing to see what comes of it; hopefully it will be more than 1 page this time.

I apologize in advance for my intended lack of blogging for the next month or so. Honestly I’ve been lame anyway when it comes to posting and commenting, as you may have noticed. Perhaps it’s time for a little blogging break. I don’t mean I’m going to disappear or anything. I think I’ll just post a little less often and relax about that, rather than feeling like it’s “been 3 whole days and I HAVE to get a post up.” No I don’t. Blogging is not an obligation – remember that all you blogging ladies because I know how hard it is to get caught up and then it’s not fun anymore.

Today I wrote the first page or so (again) and I have to say it was amazing to do something that had nothing to do with Sam. It was bizarre and weirdly exciting. I kept feeling like I should stop and write a children’s book instead so that I could somehow relate what I was doing to him. But I didn’t, and for half an hour I did something of my own. So for all of you out there who have ever had the inclination to try and write more than your blog, join me and go on over to the NaNoWriMo site and sign on up.

Top Three - Driving Music

2006-10-13T15:10:00.000-04:00

So I think I'm going to start something new on my blog called "Top Three." It will, in essence, be a list of my top three...of anything I happen to want it to be that day - books, movies, songs, snacks, who knows what, and then an invitation for you to add your list in the comments. And I am not assigning it a day because that will just stress me out. I may try and stick to Fridays but it is possible that Top Three will be random, so you'll just have to keep a look out.

I decided to start this today because I was driving with Sam and listening to a totally awesome CD. I was lovin' it and I just thought to myself, "I have to tell someone about this totally awesome CD! Who can I tell? Who else would love this CD?" My first thought was Mama D, which I thought was cool in a lot of ways. It's funny how much blogging has permeated our lives, I think. I mean, I've never met D in person but I truly believe I know her well enough to know that she'd probably like what I was hearing, and she came to mind just as easily as any "in-person" friend would have. And then I thought of a few other CDs I've really loved as of late and how it's rare for me to find music I like because I just don't have access to what is current, you know, with my only human contact being a toddler and all. So I thought that maybe I could share some music picks with you guys, then you could respond with your own list, and then we'll all have a few new ideas for new possibilities.

So here goes, the first ever Top Three: Best CDs to listen to in the car. And let me just emphasize that with the exception of D you should probably listen to some songs on itunes or amazon or something before spending any money because jeez, I don't know what you like, this is just me.

1.The Killers - Sam's Town. This is the one I was listening to today. I'm not very familiar with their first release which, according to reviews, was their masterpiece. This new one just happened to be in the car because my husband just got it, but he did let me know that he knew I'd like them. Well, he was right. Great driving music with a really nice 80's influence I'd say. In fact, I'm pretty sure there is a synthesizer involved in the 3rd track. It's nostalgic but not in a depressing way, and there is a chain of songs, I think tracks 3-6, that are just about the best songs I've heard in months.

2. Dixie Chicks - Taking The Long Way. This is pretty uncharacteristic for me because I'm not a country fan. But when I heard all the hype about what they said about Bush and all that my interest was piqued so I decided to give them a shot. Besides, I've always loved me some good sing along with the ladies driving music and this most recent release of theirs fit the bill. For me, about half of this disc is really great and the other half I could take or leave. But the good part is really very good. Track 2 is chillingly lovely and bookended (tracks 1 and 3) by the strongest sing your guts out in the car songs since the Indigo Girls, hence its inclusion in the list.

3.Stellastarr - stellastarr. Talk about your 80's Brit pop influence! I love this album. Love it. In this case I am not going to recommend the most recent release from this band because their new one really left me wanting...wanting more of the female co-singer! I'll admit I am hugely swayed by female singers, probably because I love to sing in the car and singing along with a woman is somehow more fun for me. That said, this is a rockin' band very reminiscient of Pulp in my opinion, who I would like with or without the alto, and she just makes them that much cooler.

So there you have it - my first "Top Three." Now, if you will be so kind, please let me know what your favorite driving CDs are and maybe we'll all find something new and wonderful. Only rule: no kid music. Nope, sorry. That would totally defeat the purpose here. Adults only - I mean, kids can hear all of this stuff, it's just not written for children. And for the record, these all are my more recent picks. I didn't include things like Rites of Passage and Check Your Head because I figure if you're gonna listen to that stuff you've certainly already found it by now. So if you need a way to narrow your list down you could always choose the more recent music/bands so that we can all learn about the new music that we may not yet have encountered.

We have a winner!

2006-10-11T13:07:00.000-04:00

At long last...long, long last...my child is officially verbal. For the past few weeks Sam has been imitating our speech more and especially our intonation. Every so often we'd hear a vowel or consonant that was very similar to what we'd just said. As usual though it was never certain when he would make these sounds that he actually meant them as words. He would yell, "Mamama!" when pissed off at me, like when we'd stop nursing before he was ready (well, excuse me but he was going off and on over and over again and was looking away - God forbid I cover up the nummy!), but that seemed like more of a random expletive, if you will, as opposed to a word with an intended meaning such as, "Mommy, please do not cover your breast yet for I am not quite finished feeding." But this morning that all changed.

As we prepared to go grocery shopping I told him we needed to put our shoes on so we could go out. He went and got my sneakers and brought them to me. I said, "Thank you so much for bringing me my shoes." And he said, "sho." "Did you say shoe?" "Shess." "Shoe!" "Shs." And then we called Hubby on the phone because his word was deteriorating quickly. "Say shoes to Daddy." "Shiss." Works for me.

And so it's official - a first word. I was sure it would be car, but shoes are cool too. I'll take it.

Colors

2006-10-09T20:48:00.000-04:00

Green

White

Red

Green and White

Unfortunately I am now in no mood to write anything because it just took Blogger over TWO HOURS to upload these measly photos. Seriously dude, seriously, do I have time for that? No. The answer is no. It is now time for bed.

I will say this though - is this not the cutest hoodie you have ever seen in your life? One of the many benefits of visiting in-laws: designer gifts that we could never ever afford nor would ever buy if it were up to us but since someone else bought it this time I guess we should just keep it because secretly it makes me salivate and I know it's a little big but I care not because it is so cute and fashionable and hip and unique and no one else will have it at the park and I get to have one really cool thing just this once so there!

Question for ya:

2006-10-07T22:14:00.001-04:00

So we're visitng my in-laws for the long weekend right now. When I came to check my site here I saw that my banner is not up when I look at my blog from their computer. That's very strange. Can ya'll do me a favor and if you are here at my blog let me know if you see my banner up there? It should have pictures of Sam in a swing and the title "Total Mom Haircut." This is really annoying. Can a bunch of people not even see the title to my blog? Does anyone know why this might be? Thanks for responding - I appreciate it.

Workin' Out

2006-10-05T12:53:00.000-04:00

So I went ahead and joined that gym with the childcare that I mentioned last week. I thought for just a few days a week Sam and I should have a little time away from each other, and the idea of getting to listen to some music while walking or do a yoga class was just way too tempting. I was only slightly worried about how he might respond to being left with strangers. I mentioned before that we've never left him with anyone other than family, but he's always been fine when I've gone away. I have no idea why. Mommy leaves less than an hour after Grammy and Grampy arrive - fine. Daddy tries to put him to bed with no Mommy - definitely not fine.

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect upon leaving him the first time, especially since it would be in a new place, and I was nervous. But when I walked him into the room he struggled to get free so that he could run over to the car toys (big shocker). I had to walk up to him and touch him to get his attention to let him know I was leaving for a bit, in case he turned around and all of a sudden I was gone. Yeah right, like he cared. There were cars, different cars, cars that were exponentially better than any cars that I could ever buy for him ever. He didn't care that I left and hardly cared when I returned. I checked in periodically to look through the window and make sure he was ok. Once he was pushing a car back and forth with another girl about his age. Once he was playing peek-a-boo with another kid under the slide. Once all the kids were doing something in the corner and then they all ran, herd-like through the rest of the room. I made sure he couldn't see me through the window in case it might upset him, but frankly I don't think it would have mattered. He was having a good time...without me.

I was about to start talking there about how torn I am and how deep down I wish he missed me and couldn't get on without me, but that's not really true. I was so proud of him. He's a little independent boy who can play with other kids and run in the herd. And I'm really happy that he can have fun with new people in new places. I'd like to take credit for his adaptability but I realize it's really not mine to take.

When I came to get him he wanted to show me all the great things in the room (ie. cars, a toy airplane, the play kitchen, the slide...and cars). One of the women said he'd been dancing for them a bit and that he'd been great, even laughed at her some. He's gone twice now and both times had the same response. He loves it, and then I go through the rest of the day feeling like I havn't gotten to see him at all because I walked on a tread mill for 30 minutes. Could he talk he'd probably be telling me to go to the gym, where it is more fun and far more exciting.

Rockin' out

2006-10-02T21:47:00.000-04:00

So we took Sam to his first concert this past weekend. It was a free concert at the zoo and one of our favorite bands happened to be playing, Lunch Money. Sam really likes their CD and I'll admit, it is not offensive to the parental ear...ok, so really I like a few of their songs. So although we'd really be pushing nap time we ultimately decided it was worth the trip. Hubby and I recognized that we would probably enjoy the concert a lot more than Sam would, but how can you turn down a free concert at a place where you have a membership, making the whole thing free, free, free?

Well, we were totally wrong - Sam loved it. As soon as they started playing music he was dancing. I so wish we had the video camera because the pictures just don't do his moves justice. It was cute, really cute. When they were having the kids all jump during a song Sam tried to jump by going up on his toes over and over again. I have to admit I got a little misty from all the cuteness going around. I was really glad we went - very worth pushing back the nap a bit.

Clapping for the band...while eating a cracker...and sitting in goose poo.

This is his head bopping move, in which he bops his head to and fro while keeping the rest of his body totally rigid.

Waving back and forth move, in which he sways from side to side.

Squatting move, in which he stands immobile and bends his legs repeatedly.

Carefully approaching the stage.

Yes, I realize these pictures all look exactly the same. I told you, we didn't bring the video camera! We suck!

Birthday Girl

2006-10-01T20:51:00.000-04:00

One of the best things that has ever happened for the relationship I have with my mother was becoming a mom myself.

After Sam was born my mother came and stayed with us. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made, and I will never forget the overwhelming love I felt for her and my baby.

The way that everything comes full circle in those first weeks home with your new baby - it's so hard and yet such an amazing milestone. You are there, a mother yourself, but needing so desperately to be mothered. My mom was there through some very difficult times, fulfilling every need, feeding me as though I were a child, helping me heal from a very difficult surgery followed by an infection, and assuring me along the way that I could do this mothering thing too, that she did it and had "done a damn fine job of it," and so could I.

This is my favorite picture of her. I love her smile. Beautiful.

When I look at these pictures I see myself in her and Sam in me. I am struck by how much I look like her, how much I act like her. She's the one who taught me how to be a mother, and I'm doing a damn fine job of it, if I do say so myself.

Today is my mom's birthday. She is probably one of your lurkers - she subscribes to bloglines, because she's cool like that, but she probably has never commented, because she's shy like that. But she knows who all of you are and even asks me about you specifically in her emails. So if you are here, please join me in wishing her a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Words of Thanks

2006-09-28T12:28:00.003-04:00

Thank you for your support after the incident the other day. I feel much better about it after having some time to settle down, seeing Sam is totally fine, hearing your war stories of toddlerhood, and meeting another mom at the playground who said that her daughter did the exact same thing when she was Sam's age - same bridge, falling under that bar while she stood there and watched, only she wasn't holding another baby. So thank you again, all you little bloggy ladies. It's good to know I can come here and share my incompetencies and be told what a good mom I am. I wonder what I'll have to do to actually get one of you to say, "Oh man, you did that?! You must really suck at this."

And here are some other words of gratitude I have mumbled today:

"Oh, thank you for wiping your face so nicely on my butt, Sam. Now YOUR cheeks are so clean and nice!"

"Are you helping mommy by cleaning the top of the toilet with mommy's blush brush?...Thank you!?"

"No, your mouth is full so you need to swallow those crackers before you get a bite of my lunch...or you could just open your mouth and scrape out the chewed up crackers and drop them on the floor. Yes, your mouth is empty now. Thank you for reminding me that there are always multiple solutions to a problem."

Powerless

2006-09-26T13:23:00.000-04:00

I don’t even know how to start writing this...to admit this...

Sam fell from a piece of playground equipment yesterday. This is the third accident we have had in the past week. Last week he fell at the park while running on some uneven pavement and bonked his forehead hard enough for me to call the hospital and find out about signs of concussion and head trauma. The day before that he ran off the edge of our bed while we were playing on it. I couldn’t catch him in time as he sprinted in the other direction. Amazingly, the top half of his body landed in his bouncing Amby bed, which bounced him back up and gently onto the floor. It was like a cartoon, just a totally unlikely string of movement that resulted in him being scared but totally unscathed. I know that things happen and now that he is more mobile there are bound to be some bumps and bruises. What happened yesterday is different though, more serious, and I’m having a much harder time processing it.

We went to the playground in the afternoon and for once there was another mom there who I actually knew. She has a 2 year old daughter as well as a new 4 month old baby girl. While there her 2 year old pooped and needed a diaper change. I asked if there was any way I could help, and so I held the baby so that she didn’t need to be put back in the stroller that was currently full of other gear. As the diaper change took place Sam started to climb up onto the playground equipment. In the past I have always gone up there with him in order to help with steps and make sure he doesn’t run off the edge (like he did from the bed last week). Nothing has ever really happened that has required my assistance – I just follow him to be safe and cautious, and that’s what I was thinking when I made the decision to follow him up while still holding the baby. I figured if he needed me I could still hold his hand and that I was totally capable of doing both.

There is a bridge that connects 2 larger pieces of equipment that Sam likes to walk across. It has parallel horizontal bars along the sides but there is about a foot of space between each bar. We were on this bridge walking back and forth when the baby started to squirm some. I started to change her position and wondered if her mom was comfortable with me holding her while up on the equipment; it hadn’t occurred to me to ask her if it was ok. These are my thoughts when I look up to see that Sam is several feet away and standing near the edge of the bridge. He starts to lose his balance – I still have no idea why – and I know. I know standing there too far away that he is going to fall. The baby is still squirming; I’m trying to hold onto her while watching him. I still have in my mind that I can’t let anything happen to the baby up here and that I shouldn’t have come up with her. I think: he’s going to fall and I’m going to have to stand here and watch it happen. And then Sam sits back, trying to catch himself, but he sits down so close to the edge that his butt lands off the side, and because he is sitting he completely slips under the lowest bar and falls backwards off the bridge. I watch it happen. He’s laying on his back on the ground crying and now I am trapped with no way to get down to him while holding the baby. Her mom runs over and I hand her over the side of the bars. I turn back and jump off the edge to Sam, who has had to lay there crying for what felt like several seconds. It all happened so…slowly. That’s how it felt, and that’s what I can’t understand.

Why didn’t I run to him? I saw it happening. I knew it was going to happen before it actually did, and I froze. I always thought that when and if my child was in danger I would become Wonder Woman and rescue him as long as I was there to see what was going on. I envisioned myself as one of the women we hear about, lifting cars to get to their child trapped underneath. But that’s not what happened. Nothing kicked into gear allowing me a momentary feat of strength and agility. I just stood there…frozen. And that’s what I keep coming back to. I know I made the wrong decision when I followed him up while holding the baby. I should have either stopped him or given the baby back to be placed in her stroller. I know that. But that’s not the problem I am having for some reason. It’s to that point in time where it actually happened that I cannot let go. If I had moved faster…if I had moved at all…could I have grabbed him? I wonder how many times I will replay this, wondering.

Sam is fine. We took an unnecessary trip to the ER where he waved at everyone smiling, laughing, and playing with his cars on the seats in the waiting room. He doesn’t even have a bump. But this morning I still woke up unsettled. Do you ever wake up and feel good for a moment because you acknowledge that nothing bad is happening that day, like unwanted appointments or tasks, and then a realization descends upon you and your heart sinks? I woke up this morning with him smiling at me and then I saw him falling and looking up at me sobbing and scared while I was trapped on the top of a bridge…

We went back to the playground this morning. I didn’t want it to become a thing, you know, like a thing where I end up never taking him back or not letting him get back on the equipment and it just spirals into a big fearful inability to function. When we arrived it was like it never happened for him. He pushed his pink toy stroller around, right under the bridge and walked over the place where he had landed without even noticing. I felt nauseous and asked him for a kiss. I stood next to the bridge from the ground and estimated it to be about 4 feet high. It felt so much taller when I was standing on top of it looking down. He climbed up to the top of the bridge and walked across as I tried to stop myself from hanging onto him the whole time, feeling the color drain from my face as he had a brief misstep and teetered a bit. I asked for another kiss. And then we went on the swings, rolled the acorns down the slide, waved at the airplanes overhead, and followed a butterfly back to the car. He’s fine. But I still come back to it, that feeling descending as I watch him fall. Why didn’t I move?

A jiggly bowl of guilt

2006-09-24T21:42:00.000-04:00

So, I think it's time. It's time for me to join a gym. Since having Sam my exercise regime has been pretty much nil, with the exception of my awesome performance at the strollercize class, of course. And so as I watch my stomach jiggle (I originally spelled that "giggle" - wonder what that means...) due to my newfound obsession with baking and devouring the results, I figure I gotta do something here. But I'll be honest, it's not just to exercise. While the exercise element is all well and good and good for me too, this decision, in great part, is so that I can get a break...from Sam.

The gym that I am thinking of joining has childcare, and I would be joining specifically so that Sam and I could go during the week when Hubby is gone. I feel bad...sort of. In a lot of ways I think it might be good for Sam. We're in each other's face all the time. Maybe he'd like a break from me too. Maybe it would do us both some good. He might benefit from having some more independent time and exploring a new place with new people. I don't know. Maybe I'm just rationalizing it that way so that I can feel ok about putting him in a childcare situation, which I've never done. Truth be told, Sam has never been left with anyone other than one friend we had back in Chicago and family members. The idea of leaving him in a room with strangers may end up being way more than I can handle. I also recall a few posts I've read in the past that make me wary of gym childcare. I went and toured the place on Saturday and asked a lot of questions. I also asked about it on the message board for "the club." All the moms who responded said the care there was pretty good and that their kids enjoyed going. Maybe Sam would too.

I guess I just feel like I'd do a better job mothering if I could have just a little bit of time each week to do something for myself. It doesn't really happen on the weekend because there is always so much to do, including spending time together as a family. The time just flies by. And yet the weekdays are loooooong. It's just Sam and me for 13 hours every day. I feel like it's really important for us to have ways to break up the day and keep things interesting. I am able to find TONS of errands to do in the morning just for the sake of getting out of the house for a change of scenery, but I can't keep that up because it is just turning into a big spending habit that we totally CANNOT afford. This would be another way to have something scheduled in to break up the day and perhaps be beneficial for both of us. I get some exercise and a much needed break a few times a week, and Sam gets to do something a little more interesting than hanging out with Mommy at home or running errands. So why am I rationalizing this? Because when I read this over again it's pretty obvious that that't what I'm doing. Why should I feel bad about having someone else take care of Sam for a little while so that I can have 2-3 hours a week? Is it normal for me to feel bad about this? Jeez! Where does this come from, this mommy guilt?

Seasonal Insanity

2006-09-20T12:11:00.000-04:00

It was around this time last year that I began the search for the perfect coat. No, not for me, for my then 5 month old son. I was obsessed with all things baby warmth. I began my search via the internet, favoriting websites and marking possibilities. How could I keep him warm in the freezing Chicago weather? It's so windy, so very windy. I considered snow pants matched with huge coats, fuzzy fleecy baby-in-a-bags, one piece down things with hands and feet built in - I had no idea what I was doing. The search ended up taking roughly 2 and 1/2 months. It was an actual source of stress for me. I even remember accusing Hubby of a lack of involvement in the life of his son because I could not under any circumstance get him to talk to me anymore about baby winter apparel. He had had enough. Two months in our conversations went something like:

"Why don't you just order that one?"

"FOR THE 59TH TIME I TOLD YOU LAST WEEK I CAN'T GET THAT ONE BECAUSE IT HAS NO FEET AND IF THERE IS A GAP BETWEEN HIS PANTS AND HIS SHOES HE COULD FREEZE!"

"Ok, how about that one?"

"FOR THE 83RD TIME I TOLD YOU TWO WEEKS AGO IT CAN'T BE THAT ONE BECAUSE IT WILL BUNCH UP TOO MUCH AND HIS SEAT BELT WON'T FIT RIGHT AND HE'LL DIE IF HE WEARS IT IN THE CAR!"

"...that one?" (shrinks away in fear)

"FOR THE 107TH TIME I TOLD YOU YESTERDAY THAT THE PRINT IS UGLY AND I HATE THE COLOR AND I'M CRAZY AND AN INSANE BITCH ABOUT COATS AND BLAH BLAH CRAZY WOMAN BLAH SCREECH WHY WON'T YOU HELP ME YOU DON'T LOVE ME BLAH CRAZY COATS CRAZY COATS CRAZY COATS..."

And so I had to go it alone. In the end I made what I thought was the perfect decision - it had hands and feet and zippers and down and a hood and it would make my babe a bundle of toasty goodness all winter long. Except for the fact that I did not actually intend to bundle up my child and go trecking through the windy blowing blizzards of our freezing city. What was it exactly that I needed this SNOWSUIT for?

Here is a picture of one of maybe 3 times total that I put Sam in this thing. Think "A Christmas Story" here.

See how he has to explore with his tongue because all of his limbs have been rendered immobile?

Clearly this is not a garment I could expect him to wear for any period of time over 3 minutes. I tried to put him in it for a car ride once and had to pull over and take him out so that he wouldn't sweat to death, big sweaty head that he is. Or maybe I just opened all the windows and froze myself as his body temp equalized...

Today is chillier than it's been. For our grocery trip this morning we sported long sleeves and I my new jeans jacket - let's go 80's woohoo! But it hit on my walk to the car as I held my 3 layered child: "Oh no, what is Sam going to wear for a coat this winter?!" And it all started flashing before my eyes again. Snowsuits, boots, parkas, fleeces, hoods, hats. Dear God, it begins again, with a whole new set of toddler like issues. Meanwhile the like new blue suit sits in the closet longing for another body to smother.

The Great Escape

2006-09-17T12:19:00.000-04:00

I mentioned before that my parents were coming this weekend. I also mentioned my big plans to bail on them and my son so that Hubby and I could get some much needed going out time. Since we're still new here we pretty much have no one to watch Sam so that we can get away, so having this opportunity presents some much needed and long awaited date time.

We saw Little Miss Sunshine yesterday - really very good. I realize I've seen like 3 movies since Sam was born over a year ago, but I'm pretty sure it was very good despite my desperate, biased excitement over just seeing any movie at all. I actually laughed out loud several times, which is rare for me at a movie. Great characters, great acting - definately worth a spot on your Netflix queue ( I can't believe that word is actually spelled that way...it's so strange to type). And speaking of Steve Carell, can I just say I am ridiculously excited about the new season of the Office starting this week? We've been gearing up for it by watching episodes from the previous seasons. Hubby and I actually fell asleep last night whispering in bed about what we think will happen with Jim and Pam, which, as always, results in me having dreams about Jim (Hubby knows. He's ok with it. He has a crush on Pam too) and then whenever I wake up I find I am still thinking about what will happen Thursday. I'm obsessed. I have never been like this over a TV show. Ever. I'll probably write about it AGAIN before next Thursday because I think about it SO MUCH. Lame, and yet I care not. Now back to the topic at hand...

Today I got to shower for more than 3 and 1/2 minutes while I had 3 other people there to watch Sam. I even shaved my legs because, that's right, tonight we are going out to dinner, just the two of us. We're going somewhere that we could never take Sam, we will spend lots of money we don't have, we will gorge ourselves on food while it is still hot, and I will wear a skirt and perhaps even a necklace. It is unseasonably hot here today, supposed to get up to 85 or so. We plan to bid farewell to the summer in style, hopefully sitting out on a patio of some fancy schmancy restaurant and eating multiple courses. Bon appetit.

Flicks Results

2006-09-16T20:53:00.000-04:00

Here ya go, the results from yesterday's Friday Flicks game. Below are the answers followed by the points awarded. I had a system for points, not KEP's perhaps, but a system. Laina totally rocked it. Looks like we have a Leo fan in the ranks. Thanks for playing!

1. Howard - The Aviator
2. Lee - Marvin’s Room
3. Ismay and Rose - Titanic
4. Jim – The Basketball Diaries
5. Sal - The Beach
6. Boss Tweed - Gangs of New York
7. Porthos and Aramis – The Man in the Iron Mask
8. Juliet – Romeo and Juliet
9. Gilbert and Arnie – What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
10. Kid - The Quick and the Dead

Laina – 14
KEP – 6
Jay – 3
Kristy P. - 3
MamaChristy - 3
Rooney, Carrie, Loni, K, DMD, KTS - 1

Friday Flicks

2006-09-15T12:22:00.000-04:00

For the past few months I’ve been playing KEP’s Friday Flicks game. She posts 10 movie quotes and we guess the movie, actor/character, and the theme that ties the ten movies together. She awards points each week and after several rounds declares a winner. I won once and then learned that there is also a PRIZE involved – woohoo! Anyway, for this session she is doing a blog tour for Friday Flicks and I am hosting this week. So welcome fellow Flicks players and everyone who has never seen this game can play along and then check out the point standings and future rounds over at Holding the Mirror Up to My Soul.

Remember you are guessing the movie, the character and/or actor and the THEME. Answers will be posted some time on Saturday. Oh, and this is probably obvious but you can’t use the internet…because it’s lame, and although it might not be an official rule I never read anyone else’s comments when I play.

1. “Come in with the milk. Come in with the milk. Come in with the milk.”

2. “You know how every goddamn Christmas I say, Looks like we didn't get a card again this year from your Aunt Bessie? Well, that's my sister Bessie.”

3. “I wanted to convey sheer size, and size means stability, luxury, and above all, strength.”
“Do you know of Dr. Freud, Mr. Ismay? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you.”

4. “Just my own naked self and the stars breathing down, it's beautiful.”

5. “Now get some sleep, I may wish to have sex again before we eat breakfast.”

6. “They don't speak English in New York any more?”

7. “Aramis, is this the way to hell?”
“Hell may be our destination, but not this trip.”

8. “You kiss by the book.”

9. “God Arnie, you're getting so big. Pretty soon I ain't gonna be able to carry you no more.”
“No, you're getting littler Gilbert. You're getting littler, you're shrinking! You're shrinking Gilbert, you're shrinking! Shrinking, shrinking, shrinking!”

10. “No no no no, you see it's a gun fight. We both have guns. We aim, we fire, you die.”

Updates

2006-09-14T12:11:00.000-04:00

It's time to follow up on some recent topics. After all, I don't want to leave anyone hangin'.

Sam's visit to his new pediatrician was awesome. I told her I was concerned about his lack of verbiage. She asked some questions about what he was doing and about his ability to understand what I was saying and then she was not concerned at all. She's thinking he'll probably start talking in the next few months. I liked her a lot and the office is nicer than the place we went to in Chicago. Good news all around there.

The bad news, at least for all of you commenters on my last post - you're too late. I had actually already cut Sam's hair when I put that picture up. It was meant to prepare you for my son's new look and prove he really needed his hair cut. I guess it didn't do the job. But we just trimmed his bangs out of his eyes and neatened up the back. He still has his curls so there is no need to worry. I'll post some new pictures soon so you can all rest easy. And know that it really had to be done. The back of his head always looked like this (see left) because he would rub his head around while he slept. They weren't curls back there, just little blonde dreads. And besides, this wasn't his first hair cut so I didn't need to get all emotional over it anyway.

Now let's back it up a bit more. Remember when I first moved here and I was really lonely because I couldn't figure out where all the other moms were? You may recall a post comparing myself to The Last Unicorn trying to figure out where all others had gone. Well, I found them this morning. I found the ocean where the Red Bull forced them all; they're at the freakin' Target. Yep. Went there this morning to get Hubby some socks and there they were, the whole herd. And they weren't even shopping alone, they were hanging out together...at the Target. Am I missing something here? No wonder I've had days and days worth of trips to abandoned playgrounds where Sam and I collect acorns by ourselves. Who needs a playground when you can hang out at...Target?

All right, here's another. Remember this horrible woman who was making babies cry for her "art"? Well I found something worse: baby ear piercing. Why, oh why is this ok? I cannot fathom it. I cannot hold back my glares of disgust at the parents of the poor baby girls with earrings in their little lobes. You put your child through pain and possibly infection for your own vanity? It's grosser than that which is grosser than gross. Blah. It is my all time worst pet peeve.

Lastly, for those of you on the edge of your seats hoping 80's Sunday will return this Fall - sorry, more bad news. With Hubby gone ALL THE TIME throughout the week now that he is back to work my blogging over the weekends has been pretty much nil and will probably stay that way. Sorry. Just can't keep up. But you can come by tomorrow as I will be hosting KEP's awesome Friday Flicks game. She, like me, hosted a game and needed a break. She just found a much more creative way to deal with it in organizing other bloggers to host it at their site each week. Tomorrow is me so come on by.

And after that I may be on a little haiatus. My parents are coming in to see their grandson walk and Hubby and I have big plans to totally bail on them and our son so we can go see movies and eat out as much as humanly possible.

Wordless Wednesday - Um, Haircut?

2006-09-13T13:05:00.000-04:00

A real boy?

2006-09-11T21:23:00.000-04:00

I seem to have missed something because for some reason I do not see my little baby anywhere. Instead I have this real boy. What happened? He wears jeans and sneakers (Vans to be exact, for any fellow long lost punk rock skater girls out there - Baby Vans!) And he eats cookies with me and decides he gets to hold both of our cookies and give me bites when I ask. I guess he's willing to share as long as he is in control.

Sam was so hard as an infant, so constantly colicky and fussy. We would see other couples with their babies doing normal things with them and just wonder if we would ever get to drive in the car again without him screaming the whole entire time. Would we ever eat breakfast at a diner like all the families we saw during my pregnancy? Would we ever have a baby that would take a nap in a stroller? For that matter, would we ever be able to use the stroller without him screaming the whole time? He was rough. And as we got through each little improvement we would say to each other, "Wow, it's like we have a real boy." We even had a friend say it once to us when we went out to eat breakfast for the first time. He said, "Wow, he's like a normal baby now," as Sam sat in his carseat and looked up at the ceiling fan. We didn't get through that meal but at least we'd made it to the restaurant and ordered.

And now he's a real boy in almost every respect. I won't mention his sleep problems here since we are still at a standstill with that. And...well...he's not talking. I've tried not to obsess, and I know there is not a real "normal," but he's now 16 months old. He has no words, none, none that we can tie to an actual meaning. He babbles all the time, he knows exactly what we are saying to him, and he is very good at getting his point across, but not with words. We have our 15 month check up Wednesday. I know, bad mommy. We're a month late because I wanted to be on our new insurance plan so that we could have the appointment with the person who would be his new pediatrician. Then the insurance kicked in later than I'd expected blah blah blah. The appointment is Wednesday. And I'm worried. We'll be meeting with his new doctor and I have no idea how to prepare myself for an appointment in which I am bringing in a totally non-verbal 16 month old. I have avoided doing research on what the range is for the age at which children can begin speaking because I wanted to give him time and trust that he would get there on his own, but now I am afraid we are long past the time where it was ok. I'm afraid there is something wrong and I have been in denial.

The thing is, I don't really feel like he is behind or anything. We are communicating and he seems to be developing so well in every other way. I'm just shocked that he's not talking yet. And being at playgroups where other kids his age have tons of words and I sit there and watch them learn new words right then and there...that's killer. And of course whenever anyone finds out he's not speaking they ask what his doctor says and I have no answer because I'm the negligent mom who hasn't taken her kid to the doctor since leaving Chicago 4 months ago. But by the way, "What does his doctor say?" is not actually a comforting response when engaged in a discussion about a concern of a parent. Well, maybe it would be if the doctor had been consulted and said everything was fine, but in that case we wouldn't be having the discussion because it wouldn't be a concern!

He's not talking. And I want to hear him. I feel like he has so much to say and I can see that's he's starting to get frustrated as his ideas become more complex, making it harder to get his meaning across. I'd like to hear one "mama" that actually refers to me, one exclamation of a word other than "eeeeh" when he excitedly points at something. I just want to know he's ok.

Shelter

2006-09-08T14:21:00.000-04:00

This is surprising. You know how you blog in your head? Well, that’s what I do ever since I started this blog 6 months ago. I write in my head and think of topics I want to be sure I post about, then I hear the phrases I want to write in my head throughout the day. Today I had one in my mind before actually going to the event the post was going to be about. And now I’m all off, because my response wasn’t quite what I’d expected.

Sam and I started school today. I found a great parent/toddler program at a Waldorf School. We go for one morning a week. We’re not really considering Waldorf for Sam’s education later on and I’ll probably write more about that as I learn more about it, but what this program does for children this young I think is really right on. It’s very much based on imaginative play, imitation, and showing children how to find joy in their work through our own example. Pretty progressive, and that’s what I thought this post would discuss. While I think of myself as a fairly progressive parent I know I am by no means anywhere near the end of the spectrum. I’m used to being with moms from the club where I tend to come off as pretty crunchy. This was going to be a situation where I fell more on the other end, and I knew this as I sat at our first meeting among several knitting women. I felt self-conscious going to “school” today and found that I constantly pulled down Sam’s shirt to cover up the fact that he was not in a cloth diaper. But other than that I really don’t have much to say on the issue. I didn’t feel uncomfortable and I liked the program. Maybe I’ll write more about what we do one day later but for now I have a different issue to address.

Sam is the youngest in the class, which ranges from 15 months of age up to 3 years. He did pretty well for most of the morning. There are certainly different expectations of him since he is different developmentally, and I did my best to be reasonable in what we could expect from him. So he spent a lot of time outside of the activity and watching or exploring something else altogether. It was also his first time there and his first time doing anything like this for so long (2 ½ hours). Anyway, here’s what I didn’t expect to be writing about today…

I’m worried about the influence that older children have on Sam. Sam is still very sweet. He hasn’t really hit the tantrum phase yet. He does not scream except for when he feels wronged, like when I pull him away from something he is exploring. He is not violent – he has started swinging his arms at us sort of like hitting just a bit and I think it’s because he gets a new and different reaction. But for the most part violence has not crossed his mind because he’s had no experience with it. And Waldorf is certainly very peace driven, making my concerns today that much further from my mind going in.

I saw some stuff I didn’t really like. One kid bit another child and I saw very little response from the biter’s mom. I saw 2 girls hitting each other and again not much in the way of ramifications. And 3 times one child took a toy that Sam was playing with, which really upset him, and the mom of the thief hadn’t even seen it happen. I know all of this is normal kid stuff. I know. I know Sam will be exposed to these kinds of things and that eventually we will be dealing with these very issues when he is the biter/stealer/hitter. And the toy taking is totally normal behavior. He does that at playgroups too but the difference is that I am there to mediate, trade toys, redirect, so forth. My problem is with the lack of mediation among the parents. And I don’t know if that is some sort of Waldorf discipline thing I am not aware of, although that seems very unlikely considering everything else I know about the philosophy, or if this is just these parents, or if it is the setting where the parents are supposed to be “finding joy” in their baking of bread and sewing their doll and so they really aren’t seeing these things…I don’t know. But I know I left there worried about what Sam might pick up from watching and interacting with older kids. I don’t want him to see kids hitting each other yet because it’s just not something I want him to learn…ever. That’s unreasonable, yes. But not so soon, you know. And as I saw from a distance a child walk up and take his toy and his face turn red as he started to cry I was really torn. Things will not always go his way – people may wrong him – but when is it appropriate for him to see that?

For the first time the word “shelter” did not have the negative connotation it has always had for me. I mean, if he had been the one bitten or hit I would have freaked out. And then if no one dealt with the child who hurt him I would have freaked out more. The mom of the one taking his toy was busy sewing her bookmark and she never knew that my son’s crying had anything to do with her daughter, and that’s ok. They all take each other’s toys and we deal with it the best we can until they are old enough that they can understand sharing and empathy. Fine. But dude, I just don’t want him to see kids being violent and I certainly don’t want him on the receiving end of it. I wanted to go home and lock us up in our apartment so that we could play catch with the beach ball and feed each other toast. I wanted to shelter him, which is not what I have ever wanted before. Ironic since my biggest problem with the Waldorf philosophy is that it seems to set forth sort of an “us and them” negative view of the world and our culture. I don't want to lose him...and I don't want to lock us up...and I don't want him to find out that others can physically hurt him...and I don't want him to be afraid of the world...and I definately don't want him acting like a 3 year old yet.

E. & I. R.I.P.

2006-09-06T12:32:00.000-04:00

Remember Ebony and Ivory? Yeah? Well, they both bit it today. I know, pretty freakin' fast if you ask me. How long did they live, like 10 days? I realize I'm being crass and nonchalant about death here. It made me sad, it made Hubby sadder, but I had to move on pretty quickly and deal with the damage.

When I discovered Ebony floating mid-tank and Ivory upside-down behind one of the plants I knew I had to move fast. I distracted Sam with Sesame Street (tv is an excellent distraction for a kid that watches very little tv) so that I could flush said dead fish down the toilet without a toddler seeing the heinous act I was about to commit. And so it was done, fish were flushed and Sam was none the wiser. Not a great way to start the morning, but not a total tragedy either.

Then it was time for breakfast. Unfortunately for me I had forgotten that Ebony and Ivory had become part of our morning ritual. Sam would watch them eat their food while waiting for me to finish making his breakfast. Then we all, including the fish, had breakfast together. So I decided to make his breakfast first and not put him in his seat until it was done, hoping food would deter him from the empty fish tank. No go. I put him in his seat and gave him his very favorite breakfast, scrambled egg with cheese and raisin toast (yeah, you heard me right - I fed him the breakfast I last saw spewed on the inside of my car in order to create a diversion. I was desperate) and yet the first thing he did was point to the fish tank. Crap. I panicked. I didn't know what to do. They're gone. The fish are gone and I have a toddler pointing to them waiting for me to make a big deal of feeding them and turning on their light and saying good morning to them so he can sit and wave to the fish while he eats his breakfast!

And so I did what any good, lying, conniving, petrified, desperate mother would do. I went and got the fish food and turned on the light and fed that empty fish tank. I sat back down and waved and said hello and good morning to Ebony and Ivory and joined my son in waving to "the fish."

I've spent the rest of the morning trying to divert him every time he points to the tank and starts walking over to visit them. We've watched a lot of tv as a result, which I hate but it does the job - "Look Sam, Elmo," eyes glaze over as he walks zombie like back to the living room. It's a choice between that and his discovering that the fish have disappeared and Mommy is a big fat FAKER/LIAR/FISH KILLER. I don't know how long I can keep up this charade. After this nap we'll have lunch and I'll have to sit and wave and talk to the fish all over again, displaying a gruesome performance of dishonesty for the sake of my son. And I know I can't put new fish in the water the dead fish were in because they'll just die and probably faster this time around. Which means I have to clean out the whole tank first and then cycle the fresh water for another 48 hours! I'd better go tivo some more Sesame Streets...

Just smile and wave

2006-09-04T20:27:00.000-04:00

How did I have the world's friendliest baby? I wouldn't say I'm totally anti-social, but I also am not particularly good around strangers. More importantly I've become a bit jaded in my 10 years of urban dwelling. I've taken on the -avoid eye contact look down at your feet and walk fast- mode of travel. I'm not saying I like it, it just happened. In fact, one of the things I think would greatly improve our society is to get rid of this isolating mind set of ignoring our neighbors and focusing only on ourselves. I know this is something I wish I could change, and yet I press on, eyes averted and missing my surroundings. So how do I make my mark on society without making any changes to my ingrained cynical self? I produce Sam.

I love going out with Sam; he is friendly to every passing stranger. He waves at everyone that walks by, every animal that walks by, every object in his view - he waves and he smiles. He does what I wish we all did, and he does it happily and without self-conciousness. I wish it could stay this way for him.

Today we went to the arboretum where they have a Garden Railroad exhibit. Sam loves it. Train tracks set amongst plants and meticulously sculpted houses and bridges based on fairy tales, not that Sam cares about that part. What matters, clearly, are the trains. He stands at the edge of the garden area, waits patiently, and as they come around points and yells, "eeeeeh!" But what I loved the most about his response was his need to share his excitement with everyone who passed by. He would get their attention by either waving or yelling at them (in a friendly way, of course) and then point to the train for them just in case they were not aware of its presence. He loved the trains and wanted to make sure everyone else, even total strangers, saw how great they were.

Our urban living environment has rubbed off on him in one way that drives me crazy though:

This is what Sam does every time he is set down in grass. He lifts his hands and legs so that he has as little contact as possible. And he doesn't move, that would involve touching the horrible, prickly nastiness that is nature. I have tried so hard to get him to like playing in grass and it just doesn't work. Maybe nature was introduced too late. What a failure I am.

He did like playing in the sculptures though, and they were inspired by nature supposedly...

After the arboretum we went out to dinner and sat outside. Sam waved at the people who walked by as well as those at the surrounding tables. I was my cynical, anti-social self, glaring at anyone who dared ignore my beautiful baby's smiles and waves, those who planted their faces in their plates tuning out their surroundings, or maybe just avoiding eye contact being busily pissed off about a couple bringing a toddler to a restaurant. Who is the person who doesn't smile back at this face? Clearly someone very cynical and anti-social.

A word of caution

2006-08-31T11:20:00.000-04:00

If the check out woman at the grocery store decides to give your toddler a sticker on your way out, and you debate as you walk to the car whether or not to allow said toddler to hold the sticker for the drive home, do not. Even if said toddler has not put anything in his mouth other than food for months, do not. Even if said toddler is only presently interested in sticking his fingers on and off of the sticker and the thought of trying to eat it has not entered his mind, do not. Even if you have only a five minute drive home and you are certain (almost certain) that the thought will not cross his mind before you get there, do not. Even if you know that taking said sticker away from said toddler will result in a huge scream fest in the parking lot and all the way home, do not; do not let said toddler hold the sticker for the ride home.

If you do, you may find out any combination of the following:

Letting said toddler hold the sticker on the way home will result in gagging sounds coming from the back seat 1 minute from home, causing you to do a lightning speed pullover off the side of the road as you envision yourself trying to get the buckle of the safety seat undone while your child chokes to death.

Scrambled eggs and raisin toast for breakfast make for particularly putrid smelling vomit.

There is no easy way to clean puke out of a car seat strap and the INSIDE of the buckle.

That the people you walk by on your way into the house will not give you a sympathetic look for holding a shirtless child in 65 degree weather, despite the smell emanating from you both.

Even after you have cleaned everything and started your additional load of laundry the smell will remain...somewhere.

You have no idea how to remove your carseat cover for cleaning because, as it turns out, you have not cleaned it since you bought it like 10 months ago, and frankly, you don't have time to figure it out right now. There will probably be an edit later adding an additional lesson about what happens when you leave a pukey car seat cover in a closed car all day.

That Mommy Fear can rear its ugly head at any time. This time it was a sticker, and that time it was a zipper.

Animal House

2006-08-30T07:58:00.000-04:00

Sam and I thought we could use some more company around the house. It's been raining all week, we are freakin' bored, and with his work schedule Hubby has only been getting to see Sam awake for about 20 minutes before his bedtime each day. Not sure what we're going to do about this yet...

But until then, let me introduce...

EBONY AND IVORY

I really felt like I needed more to take care of. You know, a toddler and 2 cats - it just wasn't enough. But Sam likes to wave at them and look at them during his meals and since I now do all meals by myself I'm willing to do quite a bit to make them a little easier.

End of Summer Days, Daddy Days

2006-08-27T17:51:00.000-04:00

The end of summer has been looming around to say the least. Just as a child dreads the start of school, I have been in denial about these last weeks of August as they quickly approached. I’ve been spoiled, you see. For the past 4 weeks, ever since Hubby took the Bar Exam, I have had him all to myself, and with Sam, of course. There’s been no studying, no books, no mock trials, no drilling him with law details, no going off to work/school, no nothing. It’s been wonderful. We’ve split the work load around the house, attended to Sam together (except, of course, for all things sleep related because clearly only Mommy can do that job), and we’ve spent afternoons at the park, the zoo, or running errands together. It all stops here.

Tomorrow Hubby starts his new job, the one we moved here for, and Sam and I are just the two of us again. We’ve done it before, we can do it again. The bad news is that Hubby’s work day is a lot longer than we realized…a LOT longer than I realized. What I thought was going to be him gone for 9-10 hours including travel is realistically going to be 12-13 hours and that’s if we cut out some of the time away by driving him to the train (we have one car). So now we have problems with dinner together, the problem being that we can’t really do it, not to mention the fact that Hubby will potentially be coming home during Sam’s bedtime. It’s all very stressful and complicated…most of you probably know all about it.

In preparation for what is about to happen, Hubby has been trying to give me a little time to myself, probably because he realized when he informed me of his actual work day that I was on the verge of a tantrum. So I sit here now while he is out with Sam on an errand, and yesterday I got to have a Mommy morning. At first I had no idea what to do with myself. Has that ever happened to you? Your husband says, “Why don’t you go out and have some alone time.” Uh…ok…where do I go? What do I do? What exactly is it that I complain about not having time for? I need advance notice of all potential breaks so that I can make sure I have something legitimate to do. So yesterday I decided to go to this bead place and make myself a necklace. I know, it sounds so lame. And it sort of was. I didn’t really like being by myself all that much and frankly beading is really overwhelming. But I wanted to make something that could withstand Sam’s grip so that I can wear jewelry again, part of the whole “feel better about my appearance stop grubbing it up plan.” Afterwards I went to a coffee shop and had my little chocolate croissant and latte, part of the whole “wonder why I feel fat but continuously sabotage myself by pigging out at every possible moment plan.” Actually the woman was trying to charge me $8.00 for this initially, which confused me until we both realized she thought I’d ordered 2 chocolate croissants…….why would she think I was going to eat 2 chocolate croissants myself? I’ll not go there.

In total I spent about 3 hours away from Sam. That’s pretty much the longest I have ever been away from him since he was born. Well, there’s one exception when I was away for about 5 hours. It made me feel like a lunatic. It felt so wrong and weird. I sort of wanted to just keep on going and not go home for like 10 more hours or something, as though if I went home I’d never get out for that long ever again. That was 8 months ago. It hasn’t happened since. But yesterday, as it is with almost every time I get out on my own, I start to feel odd after about 2 hours. I start to look around and notice that all the other mommies have their kids with them and of course they all look so happy about it. I never see the totally frazzled looking woman with the screaming toddler when I am out on a break. No, they are all smiling and talking to each other, going on a walk in their stroller on a gorgeous day. This is all I saw on my walk to the coffee shop and then back to the car. There just comes a point in that time away where I feel an overwhelming sense of longing. I saw women with their kids and was just flooded with a need to look at Sam. And I knew I just needed to see him for a moment and then I would be able to go out for another 3 hours if that was an option (which it so was not), or I just needed to pick him up and get a “big hug” and then I could go on. That longing for my baby, it takes me full force. I just have to get him and squeeze him and…look at him. Can’t go more than a few hours without getting in at least a look.

So that’s what I need to try and remember as our lives are on the brink of change. That’s what I need to remember when I am that frazzled woman and he is all I’ve looked at for the past 10 hours. I just need to remember this:

Sincerely, The Blog Management

2006-08-25T13:35:00.000-04:00

So last week I discovered some little added bonuses to enhance my blogging. Yeah, I know, like I need to spend more time on it. But one has got me thinking and I want to ask for your opinions, and the other is just so amazingly helpful that I have to tell you about it. Both are probably things you have already heard about, but for me it was all very new.

First, I got Sitemeter for my site. I read about it over at Mama D's and thought I’d look into it, just out of curiosity. I can’t say there’s anything really great about it, but it’s free and if you want to know more about who is looking at your site and how many people have been and how often your parents come each day (dude, you guys need to chill.) then there’s certainly no reason not to get it…unless it will make you obsess over your blog. I was afraid I would, but honestly after the first few days I forgot to even look at it, just like Mama D said I would.

But here’s where it gets a little dicey. I found out that there are more people coming here than I realized. You’d think I’d be happy about that, but it has brought up some concerns for me. Before, I lived in my nice little oblivious world where everyone who came to my site left me comments and I was getting to know all of you and it was all very happy. Now I realize there are some strangers coming around. And I don’t mind lurkers, not at all (hello lurkers), as long as they are not the kind of scary lurker that hides in the shadows of dark alleys, know what I mean? And I'm not saying I have like tons of readers or anything, I don't. But it only takes one freak, right? And this made me realize that there are people coming over who I don't know about, which has gotten me thinking about internet safety. I wanted this blog to be about Sam and my family, and I never really thought to worry about weirdos checking it out, maybe I should have – I still don’t know. But I’m thinking about it now. Do I want to post all these pictures? Do I want to use my son’s name, my name, both of which are fairly common? Do I want people to know what city I am in? The answer to that one is “no” and so I have changed my little “about me” over there. I worry that stressing about this will stop me from writing things about him that I love to share, but obviously I want to be smart about it. I know every single person reading this has a different opinion on it. I’d like to hear it. Where do you stand on what is appropriate for a mommy blog and why?

And now for something more fun for you to comment about – I am considering using a nickname for Sam, both for safety and his own privacy. The first thing I thought of was “Little Pooper (LP),” because I call him that all the time, because that is what he is. But some of you guys know him pretty well by now, and you know he is more than a poop machine. Got any suggestions?

Now onto the other site I discovered. Stephanie posted recently about Bloglines, which I had heard of before but never actually bothered to find out about. Well, I did. IT IS AWESOME. If you have not gone there and subscribed for feeds for all the blogs you read then you are missing out. It saves you so much time because you know just by checking it who has put up a new post since you last did your rounds. I now feel like I can “manage” my blog reading. Some of you may think, “What is she talking about? Who needs to manage blog reading?” Fine, then I am the one with a problem – my name is Beth and I’m a blogoholic – but for those of you who have ever said to your husband, “I’m really behind on my commenting. It’s getting difficult to remember who I need to read and stuff. I wish I could manage it somehow,” then bloglines is for you.

So tell me all about it: I need your opinions on privacy for mommy blogs, an awesome nickname for Sam, and to hear that Bloglines has changed your life.

Wordless Wednesday - 1 week old

2006-08-23T10:22:00.000-04:00

"Kiss Off"

This one's for all the ladies

2006-08-20T13:19:00.000-04:00

For years and years I wore the same ugly nightshirt. Even Hubby commented on its hideousness occasionally, but I explained very patiently that it was comfortable, which is certainly the most important quality in sleepwear. Year by year, the nightshirt stayed. When I think back, I’m pretty sure I got it in high school – it was that old, blue with tannish flowers and an awful neckline with strange embroidery. It was butt ugly, I couldn’t argue with him on that.

After I had Sam I really needed a nightshirt that could open up so that I could nurse him at night…let me rephrase that, so that I could nurse him all night long. I had seen a nightshirt in a maternity store that had slits on the front for just this purpose. In my extreme exhaustion I decided it would be a good idea to give my lovely nightshirt a little makeover. Scissors in hand I told Hubby what I was going to do, and he did not raise a finger to stop me. I know why. He saw me with those scissors and thought to himself, “This is it! This is the end of the Butt Ugly nightshirt I’ve had to look at for the past 4 years. Stay silent. Take no part in what is about to happen, because when this turns out horribly you don’t want to have been involved in any way.” Sometimes silence says more than words.

And so I cut my “nursing slits” in my beloved nightshirt. The result reminded both of us of Silence of The Lambs. You know the part where you get to see that dress hanging on the back of the closet door when it all becomes clear that the killer is following a dress pattern using the skin of the women? That’s what it looked like, with its symmetrical diamonds cut out of the front. What added more to this effect were my huge breastfeeding nummies protruding from these slits in their flesh colored nursing bra. It was all very…fleshy. It was gross. It gave whole new meaning to Butt Ugly. That was the end of my long loved nightshirt. I’ll always wonder how Hubby did not rejoice out loud in front of me, but he kept silent and made sure he wasn’t even the one to suggest that it might be time to let go.

The replacement nightshirt was equally unattractive. I knew now that I needed something that opened up so that Sam could nurse next to me, but finding a short sleeved snap up nightshirt is a lot harder than you’d think. It’s the whole short sleeved aspect. But any of you who have slept in the bed with your baby while nursing know that it is just a big sweat fest. Sam would leave sweat stains on the bed as he slept in my armpit, so dressing lightly was crucial. So the one and only shirt I found was yet another Butt Ugly blue number. More floral was involved, this time consisting of other shades of blue and red creeping up and down the front. It was so amazingly Granny-esque, but again, quite functional. And that’s what I’ve been wearing for I don’t know how many months. It’s been long enough that the whole thing started to stretch out, and lose all semblance of the shape it once had. It was not flattering. I was not attractive. But Hubby was smart enough this time to keep his yap shut, knowing I required a fully functional piece for getting through the night shift with Sam.

He let me wear Butt Ugly 2, “The Big Granny,” without saying a word. Perhaps he knew that I would one day discover on my own how truly unattractive the shirt was and perhaps have the motivation to change it. Yesterday I finally had that realization. I woke up in the morning and looked down at my stupid shirt AGAIN, and thought to myself, “Why the hell am I wearing this still? I don’t even use the snaps any more – I just lift the shirt for Sam. There is no shape to it, making me appear even larger than I already am. And most importantly I am not, in fact, 65 years old. I would never under any other circumstances buy this shirt. Had my mother held it up to show me in a store I totally would have rolled my eyes and probably made some sort of sound effect a la barf.” I started to wonder why I would make a choice to specifically be unattractive and not care. I started to think about other ways I do that each and every day. It’s as though I have given up in certain areas claiming exhaustion, stress, lack of time, and perhaps just being married as an excuse. I wear clothes sometimes that I have seen pictures of myself in and sworn I would never put them on again only to pick up those nasty shorts again the next day. I’m wearing them right now! Why?!

It was time for a change, and I encourage you to follow the following steps to make this change with me; I think you’ll feel better. This will not be a huge change. For example I was not going to give up my lame mom haircut or put on anything more than lipgloss because that is just not realistic. I can get myself better pajamas though. I can wear something to lounge around in during the evenings and mornings that actually fits and has a least a hint of cuteness (dare I say even sexiness) and does not insinuate that I feel ok about becoming a grandmother just yet. And that’s what I did. I took an hour for myself and went to Kohls – easy, inexpensive - to get some new jammies. And I love them. They do not involve lace or frills, nor would they ever be categorized in the negligee genre. They are simple. Very soft solid shirts that are actually my size in nice, flattering colors (the softness adds the sexy) and crop pants that also fit and compliment the shirts. These jammies are cute and comfy, who knew? It’s not like I went out and bought some sort of “let me slip into something more comfortable” nightie that only comes out for birthdays or something. These are functional yet not totally disgusting, and that’s all I’m saying here. Just a little bit of improvement can go a long way in how you feel. As moms, we spend a lot of time in our jammies, and when husbands work then much of the time they get to see us (mornings and evenings) we happen to be in our jammies, so it really is important that we not feel like hags during that time.

So I say to you, go forth. Go forth all of you mommies who have been schlepping around in that Butt Ugly of your own, whatever it may be. Go out for one hour to the nearest cheap department store and get yourself something nice that you will feel good about. I will only add the following rules to make sure that you really benefit from your excursion. And you MUST follow the rules.

1) You may not shop for your child. You may not even look. You may not enter the children’s clothing or toy section of the store. If you feel this will be difficult, you are not alone. I tried to get my cart past the little boy clothes but that thing had a mind of its own. I had to leave it behind and save myself. It might be a good idea to take an alternate route past those sections if you feel this could be an issue.

2) You must buy something you will actually wear. We all have those little nighties of various kinds that never come out of the drawer because they are not practical and are only for certain…special occasions, ahem. No, the point here is to find something that you will enjoy every day and night. So stick to whatever pajama style you happen to wear and then find something in that style.

3) It has to fit. You are not allowed to buy the next size up. This is not up for debate. Stop asking me! No! Listen to me, look at my eyes: IT HAS TO BE IN YOUR SIZE. You will feel better because you will be less bulky and it will still be comfortable if you have done a good job of finding the right thing. I promise.

4) The new item may not be in the same color scheme as your old bedtime attire. We need to do some pattern breaking here ladies. Try something new.

5) If, on your way out, you happen to pass the make-up section and it is calling to you, you must go there. We are working on feeling just a little better about ourselves and if you are a product junkie who has been deprived since becoming a mom and getting on a budget then it is high time you allow yourself a little somthin’ somthin’. Get yourself one thing that you will use every day. Again, not something that will go in a drawer and come out for special occasions. For me, it was some under-eye cream that is meant to get rid of the dark circles under my eyes (big shocker I would go for this, right?) using the “reflecting qualities of Micah.” Yeah, I don’t care. I wanted it and I like it. Go find one for yourself and use without guilt.

Trust me, when you tell your husband what you want to do at the store he will jump at the chance to watch the kiddies while you go. He’s been looking at that blue floral thing for God knows how long and his eyes are sore. This is just as much for him as it is you; he’ll make sure you get there. And seriously, there’d better not be a husband out there that would deny their wife one hour to rejuvenate.

Go forth. I wish you well.

Note of clarification

2006-08-19T23:27:00.000-04:00

I just realized that I failed to mention in my previous post that Hubby was in there with Sam. I just edited the post to make it a bit more clear, but for some reason I still felt the need to add this because I realize the rest of the post (as well as previous posts) may have been confusing/contradictory. Hubby was trying to put him to bed so that he could work on finding ways to comfort Sam. It didn't work, as you will/did read, but I was not saying that we were in the midst of a crying it out plan.

Phase Two - Who's Your Daddy?

2006-08-18T20:00:00.000-04:00

Tonight we begin Operation Sleep: Phase Two - "We love Daddy too." Let's note the time: 7:54pm. Hubby is in the bedroom with Sam trying his hand at bedtime; our next step is Hubby involvement. Sam is so close to being night weaned; we're on the brink of success. I thought last night would be the night, but then for some reason it was a really bad night. We had one unwanted nursing session. Still, that's pretty good and I'm trying to focus on the good right now as I listen to my son scream as though he's alone in the room...or as though someone is plucking out his eyelashes. What are the neighbors thinking? I have heard many times that when night weaning it is really helpful to have daddy handle the wakings since when mommy does it the child is confused about why mommy won't give him the desired nummies...

It's now 8:48pm. Sam got so upset that he threw up. It was at about 8:02pm when Hubby called me in. Up above I was about to tell you all the really great reasons that we decided this should be the next step - that Sam wouldn't be alone so we'd know he wasn't scared, that it would still break the habit of needing me all night, that it would give me some relief for at least some of the wakings...I guess there's no point in going over those though. I was prepared to sit here and listen to a lot of crying. I was going to make you read my stream of consciousness as I sat and listened. Who knows what wonderful things I would have shared with you to pass the time. But now I am forced to tell you instead that Sam threw up everywhere. When I came in it was all over him, the bed, the carpet, and once I arrived, me. I took him to the bath. He didn't stop screaming until we were naked and in the warm water together. Hubby dealt with the pukey bed situation. I put him to bed and he fell asleep almost instantly. All signs have told me that this is something I have to do myself, with Sam. We're in for the long haul.

I'm not sure what to do here. I'm trying really hard to discriminate between all the things people are saying to me (not that I am judging anyone, just that I am trying to determine what is best for us, just as each of you did what was best for you), what I read, what I hear, and what I feel. I'm trying really hard in general. It would be really nice to have a good night tonight. I just hope that once the weaning is complete the wakings really will go down. Change takes so much work. It's really no wonder this went on so long.

9:11pm.

Another kind of blogad

2006-08-17T21:24:00.000-04:00

As a mom, it's really nice when you find a product that you feel truly makes your day a little easier, a little brighter, a little...smarter. I don't mean in the practical tell you about helpful products sort of way, but instead the I-feel-connected,-enlightened,-more-aware,-and-just- plain-old-proud-to-be-a-mom sort of way. That's how I feel when I read the following two magazines. And no, I am not getting paid or anything like that. I just wanted to share what I can about these mags because I genuinely enjoy them and I would have liked to learn about them earlier myself, so maybe you might too. I have read a good too many annoying magazines for moms that were product driven, uninspired, and just plain boring. These are different.

I found Wondertime in my pediatrician's office and immediately ran off to the bookstore to buy myself my own copy. It was exactly the kind of parenting magazine I'd been looking for, one that focused on and appreciated the beauty of childhood. The slogan after the title is, "Celebrate your child's love of learning," and I think what makes me enjoy the magazine so much is that it really does emphasize the joy and fun of learning and how you can find these opportunities in a natural and meaningful way, rather than pushing a mom to force her child to excel (you know how I feel about that whole flashcard mentality). Best part is, if you sign up to subscribe they will send you the first issue for free so you can check it out, so there's nothing to lose!

More recently I stumbled upon Brain, Child. Cool title, huh? At first I didn't like it but it has really grown on me - if you have a brain and you have a child, this is for you (I think I just don't like pausing between the words when I say it out loud). This is not the glossy photo filled run of the mill mass produced mag we have come to know. It is "The magazine for thinking mothers." I've only read one issue but that did not stop me from also subscribing to this one immediately. A few pages in, I think I was just reading the letters to the editor, and I said to my husband, "Wow, this magazine is smart." When you know how good a magazine is just by reading how eloquently its readers respond to its articles, that is something. A few more pages in and I was hooked - it was a section where readers respond to a topic set forth by the writers of the magazine. The topic was "When Kids Mimic Us," and I tell you as I sat there reading the stories people sent I felt like I was reading a string of really excellent blog posts and laughing out loud, reading some of the best to Hubby and cracking him up. The magazine is made up of essays, fiction writing, as well as features dealing with current topics facing us as moms. I love it.

I just thought I'd share these just in case there were others looking for something just a cut above. If you have parenting magazines that you love please share them with me in a comment - I love a good read!

Wordless Wednesday - Summer Spray

2006-08-16T12:34:00.000-04:00

Alive, Zombie Style

2006-08-14T20:37:00.000-04:00

This will be brief, as we are working hard over here, but I wanted to say thank you. I can't tell you all how much your support has helped. I had hoped when I started blogging that I might find a few people to read my blog and vice versa so that we could get to know each other a bit. I never, ever imagined how much of a community I would find, nor how much care and concern I would find in people who had never even met me. More than once I have needed support or advice and have found it from mommy bloggers, you. Perhaps when we are all better rested in our house I will write a proper ode to blogging. And I certainly intend to come back to your blogs (or be introduced to your blogs for the new people I have met) and respond to your emails and send you all love letters and chocolates and flowers. I intend to, just as soon as we get out of this vacuum that is Operation Sleep: Phase One. But for now, thank you all for your comments, emails, articles, posts, support, and just for reading.

Many of you have asked about the status over here so here is the update. We are on day 3 of Operation Sleep: Phase One - "crib time and night weaning." For us, night weaning has been the step that has really messed us up and our inability to get it over with has really been the essence of our problems. Back when we met with the "sleep consultant" we all agreed that the frequency of Sam's wakings would go down if we could get him out of the habit of night nursing; he will wake up less if he knows there is little point since there will be no nummies. Problem is it's just really hard to night wean. It takes A LOT of endurance and we've pretty much been on this step on and off for months. So Hubby and I decided it is our first goal right now, along with moving him to his crib. He's been starting out the night sleeping in an Amby Bed, which was extremely helpful in transitioning him out of our bed (he had that weird bouncing thing), a huge step taken at about 9 months. And then he's been moved to our bed anywhere between 2:00 and 5:00am each night. But now he's really getting too big for the Amby and it's also not a safe place for older babies if they are awake and unattended. So if we are ever to get him to sleep on his own, he can't be in the Amby and needs to learn how to sleep in the crib.

So right now we are staying in the room with him and touching him (rubbing his back, holding his hand, etc.) to help soothe him to sleep so that he can get used to the crib and not be afraid of it. I am also cutting down on the duration and frequency of his night nursings with the intent of stopping them altogether in the next 3 days. And then later this week we will be in the room with him but not touching him.

The first night was a bit sketchy. Hubby and I were not totally clear on all of the details (when do I nurse, who does what, etc.) other than "move him to the crib" so it backfired a bit by about 2:00am and he ended up back in our bed. Last night was hard but more successful. He woke up every 45 minutes on the dot but I managed to keep him in his crib until 5:30 and only nursed 3 times - and I thought I was tired before! While all of it is very difficult and exhausting, I feel more confident in what we are doing because he is not alone. I feel like we are addressing our specific problem and helping him to know that we can soothe him without nursing and, eventually, that he can soothe himself with us just short distance away, which will hopefully show him it is really just not worth waking up. Once we are weaned for a few days we will evaluate where we are, how often he wakes up, what he requires when he wakes up and so forth and then develop Phase Two.

And so we're off on night 3. Can't wait to visit all your blogs again and see how you all are. Thank you again for reading that incredibly long post and then taking even more time to thoughtfully respond. Although I do not wish sleep problems on anyone, it is so good to know I am not alone.

Ok, so I guess this wasn't so brief...

I have a secret.

2006-08-12T12:43:00.000-04:00

That’s what it feels like, like I have a secret that I keep from everyone I meet, from everyone who reads this blog, from our families, although my parents have some idea of what has been going on. I’ve alluded to it before – in my blog, in your comments, in jokes made to strangers – but I’ve never really explained anything to anyone. We have been harboring this secret, this problem, for 15 months now, because that is how old Sam is, and I think we’ve finally hit the point where we can’t go on like this anymore. I can’t. The truth is I am not actually the hypersensitive, fairly unfashionable, bad haircutted human mommy that you think I am; I am actually a half dead zombie.

Ah, she jests, you think to yourself. But believe me, the lightheartedness ends here, because I spent hours last night sobbing about what I am about to relay to you: Sam can’t sleep on his own…at all. He’s 15 months old, we’ve let him get to be 15 months old, and he can’t sooth himself to sleep. You may think, big deal, so you have to put him to sleep when he goes to bed. Well, if that were the case this would not be nearly the problem that it is. For those of you that have battled with sleep problems you know that we all have what are called “light awakenings.” For adults this is when you sort of half wake up and roll over and instantly fall back to sleep. The sleep cycle lasts several hours, making you have a few light awakenings each night – maybe during one you realize you have to get up and pee. For babies these awakenings are much more frequent, varying according to age between 45 minutes to about 2 hours on the outside. When a baby has a “sleep problem” it means that he cannot get back to sleep on his own not only in the beginning of the night, but for every one of those light awakenings throughout. That’s how Sam is. That means that from the time he was about 2 weeks old he has required assistance, in some form or other, to get himself back to sleep ever hour to 2 hours or so. That means he wakes me up roughly 5 times a night, sometimes more, and needs me to help him. What he requires to help him back to sleep during these awakenings is the part that has changed over time. We started with just nursing, which resulted in him not being able to sleep at all if I was not next to him. So I had lay next to him for every nap of every day, keeping perfectly still and quiet, and I’d have to go to bed with him at 6:30 at night, reading a book in the dark with a booklight while my husband watched TV alone. You may think so what, all babies need that in the beginning; this was until he was 7 months old. And now we jump to what he needs now, which is to be taken out of bed and nursed and then put back in bed and have someone's hand on him as they bounce him in his weird Amby bed (it's like a hammock thing that we can bounce - he had a bouncing thing for a while and this was the only thing that would let us put him down to sleep without being on me. There was a whole phase in there that required and exercise ball...) until he falls back to sleep. But ever since he had that cold a few weeks ago he will only accept the help of me, mommy, so that I am the one dealing with every waking. I’m just going to stop here though. I just can’t. I don’t have the energy to rehash this anymore.

I have started so many posts on this topic and never finished them. There are so many details that I could share about what has happened over time, how we got to this point, how we let it go on so long. I’ve filled pages and pages and still had no end in sight when I write it that way. And I’ve realized why I write it that way. I want to rationalize it to you because I don’t want to be judged, because I know it is extreme to most people. And that is what has really started to get to me. Every time I read a post someone has written, or heard someone talking about putting their baby to bed or their child’s sleep regressing because he no longer sleeps all the way through the night but wakes up once or twice, or waking their child up in the morning…I just want to scream. I want to throw something through the window. I am reminded that what is happening in our house, in fact, is not what is happening in the homes of everyone who has kids. I know no one who has dealt with something like this, not even remotely. And I totally have no resentment toward the people that say these things; I know that what is normal is relative for everyone and it’s certainly not like anyone knows what we’ve been going through. But I have had resentment toward Sam, and toward my husband, and toward myself. And I’m exhausted. I don’t know what it feels like to sleep for more than 2 consecutive hours anymore; it's been at least 16 months since it has happened. I don’t know what it feels like to go through the day without that scratchy eye feeling like you’ve pulled an all nighter. I’m scared to drive because I just don’t have the focus I used to have. And I feel like I can’t do the things I want to do with Sam, the extra things that would make me a better mom, because I’m just barely keeping it together.

I’m finally writing about this today because I know we have to change. I know we have to help him learn to sleep on his own. We have tried everything we can possibly try to make this a gradual change, to avoid crying, to make this easy and slow on everyone – nothing has worked. We’ve read books, we’ve hired a “sleep consultant” and we’ve been working on it for 8 months. We’re going to have to do what I always said I would never do with my children. I’m not the cry it out type – I’m a Dr. Sears woman. And because I made this decision long ago I have loaded a lot of baggage onto what crying it out means and what it does. I’m convinced that I’m going to lose my baby, that he is going to wake up in the morning (assuming he ever falls asleep) and a part of him will be lost because he has learned something new – that mommy will not always pick him up when he needs her, that there is a such thing as fear and being scared. I want to believe he will wake up having learned about what it feels like to be independent, but that’s not how I see it right now. I feel like he is going to change, be hesitant, fearful, anxious, less joyful, because he is going to have lost the security he once had. And so I feel trapped, as I have for so many months now. I absolutely cannot continue this way for the sake of my mothering and my marriage, and yet I detest the only solution that is left.

And so I am asking for your help. I’m writing this so that you can know about our secret, so that we can be held accountable. Being able to hide this problem has allowed us to let it go on and on, rationalizing and perpetuating. And I guess I am also asking for your support. Tell me that you let your child cry some and that they still loved you in the morning, that they still laughed during the day, and that everyone was happier because they were rested. Tell me it made you a better mom in the end.

For 10 months I have dreaded going to bed at night. It’s been one of the worst things about this – to be so tired and to know that going to bed will not give any rest, but will only be a time to work even harder than I do during the day. I have hated not being able to look forward to sleep and being in my bed with my husband. I dread tonight even more.

Nummy Envy

2006-08-10T21:02:00.000-04:00

Sam is nursing like a fiend. He was starting to show less interest in breastfeeding, just wanting the nummies a few times throughout the day. Then he got that cold a few weeks ago and totally regressed. So lately Hubby and I have been trying to just make sure he knows he has his other options when he has been nursing a lot more than usual. I’m not weaning him or anything; I plan to follow his lead, but if he has just nursed recently and then decides he wants to again simply because he saw some cleavage or something we’ll offer him a sippy cup or regular cup instead. That’s what happened yesterday. So Hubby went to get him a sippy cup with some milk and he brought it in for Sam. On his way he made a little joke for my benefit, holding the sippy cup up to his chest, spout out, and leaning toward Sam, who opened his mouth in anticipation of the cup. My milk came down…big time.

So add that to the list of ways to get your milk going: hearing your baby cry, hearing running or rushing water, leaning forward and jiggling a bit, watching your husband affix to his chest a bright blue and green cup.

Wordless Wednesday - Kitty!

2006-08-08T23:26:00.000-04:00

You can go and see other Wordless Wednesdays at 5 Minutes For Mom

"Do I want to try?"

2006-08-07T21:25:00.000-04:00

I love it when things fall into place. Today was hard in that hard on yourself as a mother sort of way. But you never know when or where you'll find an encouraging word.

One of my new favorite authors is Barbara Kingsolver (I know, I'm way late and totally missed the boat on this one). I'm currently reading my second novel of hers, "The Bean Trees", and came across this passage. It's funny and inspiring to find fictional characters dealing with issues I feel I've been addressing for quite some time now, ever since becoming a mom.

Just so you know I'm editing this to get down to the part that really spoke to me. Hope I'm not breaking any sort of copyright laws here.

"When you told me about babies getting dehydrated it scared the living daylights out of me. I realized I had no business just assuming I could take the responsibility for a child's life."

"There's not a decent mother in the world that hasn't realized that."

"So how does a person make a decision that important?"

"If you don't mind me saying so I think you're asking the wrong question. You're asking yourself, Can I give this child the best possible upbringing and keep her out of harm's way her whole life long? The answer is no, you can't."

"So what's the right thing to ask?"

"Do I want to try?"

We're none of us perfect - we can only do our best and try not to berate ourselves for our shortcomings. Our best will be good enough; it has to be. And I already know I want to try, there's not been a question about that.

Now I just hope I can really hear this.

But What Was the Best Part?

2006-08-05T21:36:00.000-04:00

We have returned. One may wonder what best part of the trip was. Let us consider the options and recount the lovely vacation we just had. What was the highlight of it all?

Was it pushing the car around on the beach?

Hanging out in the beach duds?

Filling and emptying the bucket?

The public displays of affection?

Putting the cap on the bottle? (oh yes, putting caps on things definitely should be included in the possible highlight choices)

Nope. It was this:

Finally, FINALLY Sam took his first steps. The pics aren't great because the room was pretty dark and we didn't have the video camera on the trip (of course!) but he can totally do it. He's very brave now that he has gotten started. We've probably got some booboos ahead, but right now we're all very proud. And glad to be home.

We're Outta Here

2006-07-29T11:38:00.000-04:00

We'll be leaving for the beach in a few hours and will be gone for a week. I'm pretty sure we will not have an internet connection there so I guess I will be on forced blogging hiatus. Perhaps that is a good thing seeing as it is a FAMILY vacation and sometimes blogging can be a bit of a...distraction. I look forward to coming back to all of your blogs when we return and perhaps I'll even have something thoughtful to say. You know, the ocean can make ya thoughtful sometimes. Have a wonderful week and let's hope that for the drive to the shore Sam looks like this (he likes to drive with the windows down):

Ah Mazing

2006-07-27T13:03:00.000-04:00

Well, we flew home late yesterday afternoon. Sam. Was. Awesome. I can't believe it. Somehow he woke up without a fever that morning. Our flight was on time. We got there at the perfect time. My parents watched him as he crawled around the airport for a while as I stood in the bathroom chanting my mantra: "You can do this. It will be over soon. You can do this. It will be over soon." You'd think I was in labor. We stayed with my parents as long as possible and then went through security, arriving at the gate just as they started to board. I was worried about not having a seat next to us, and truthfully the woman next to me did not seem interested in moving to an empty seat (was she insane? My parents say it's a Southern manners thing). But right before take off the flight attendant came and told me we could move to the front - that's right, the front row! Where there's room for Sam to stand and play on the chair like it's a table. Two empty seats in front and they were mine, all mine...all right, ours, all ours! And Sam was great. The one lone guy across from us was great, giving Sam high fives at the end of the flight, which I guess will have to suffice for the deserved applause.

And now everything we were dreading is done. No more airline travel. Sam is getting over this cold thing, as am I. And Hubby has completed the Bar Exam. Today is our 3 year anniversary. We leave for the beach on Saturday, or, as people say here on the east coast we are "goin' down the shore." Everything is good.

Here are some highlight photos from our trip - all taken before the illness hit him. All in all I think it was a pretty good time.

He loved the swing Grampy put up for him...

He loved the corn on the cob Grammy made for him...

And he loved his little wading pool...

He Got It

2006-07-25T11:00:00.000-04:00

Well, Sam caught this horrible thing that I have. He came down with a fever yesterday, along with some pukiness, potentially a stuffy nose (hard to tell with a non-verbal baby), and a whole lot of miserable. He had an awful time sleeping last night and ended up in the bed with me for most of the night - just like when he was very little. It was kind of nice. I'll always wish the co-sleeping had worked out for us better than it had.

Today Hubby is taking his first day of the Bar exam (go Hubby!). This proves it was a good thing for us to come out to my parents' afterall. As hard as it is to be away from home and away from him with both of us sick, it would have been horrible for him to have this to deal with on top of the exam.

The plan is still for us to head home tomorrow. Remember I mentioned I should fear the trip home with every fiber of my being? Yeah, let's add a fever on top of that. Those horse tranquilizers are looking pretty good. Of course it could be worse. I could be writing essays about law for 8 hours each day.

Absentee Blogging

2006-07-22T21:40:00.000-04:00

Well, with my last post I broke two of my very own blog records. The first was my all time high number of comments. That’s right, 16 baby! And that’s not including me adding my own comments to your comments; it’s a solid 16. Not that I’m counting, of course. I blog for myself…of course…

And the second record was the extremely long period of time that I left that rather pathetic/complaining post up there. But I have a reason, which I probably should have mentioned earlier when I had the chance. Sam and I are away. Hubby is studying for the Bar and is taking the test early next week. So Sam and I decided to escape before he went all Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" on us. Since Thursday we have been in the lovely Blue Ridge Mountains visiting my parents.

I had big plans to write a sarcastic and ridiculous post documenting a horrible airline experience, but much to my dismay the trip was great. This was the second time that I have flown with Sam by myself, the first one being that lovely trip we took from Chicago to Philadelphia for the move. You remember that, the time I had to drag the car seat through the airport with absolutely no assistance and then install it into 2 different seats on the plane because the flight attendant made me move just before take off? Yeah, we all remember that trip.

My little cherub was perfect, though. I believe the key to my success was that I arranged to be moved so that there was an empty seat next to me, imperative to the happiness of all. Of course, that didn’t stop all of the people in the vicinity of our seats to moan and murmur, “Oh crap” to each other as Sam and I approached. But then Sam was awesome, the snacks mommy brought were awesome, the secret toys mommy had hidden for a week and saved for the plane ride were awesome, and no one had a leg to stand on. By the end of the flight Sam was still happy and started waving to everybody, who, now that the flight was over and they saw they would not be bothered by a screaming baby, were happy to wave and smile back. Seriously, when a mom gets though a flight with so little disturbance to those around her, I think she deserves applause at the end. When I stood up with him to get off the plane it was all I could do to not turn around and bow, waiting for their ovation for my totally AWESOME MOMNESS. I did get in trouble though. We had a fasten seat belt sign on because of some turbulence (nothing like clutching your child on the bumpiest plane ride you’ve ever been on). When I thought it was done I put Sam back down in the empty seat next to me and immediately the flight attendant came on the intercom with: “Will the lady with the lap child please be sure to hold the child in her lap?!” I blushed like a 6th grader getting busted passing a note. People actually turned around to look at us.

As soon as we stepped off the plane I pretty much checked out. I’d been fighting a cold since Tuesday and after the flight it pretty much took hold (the air sickness from the turbulence certainly didn't help), leaving me in a snotty funk and so very glad to be with parents who could take care of Sam while I wallowed around feeling sorry for myself. Hubby and I weren’t sure we’d made the right decision as this trip approached. I felt I was abandoning him in his time of need, despite the detailed meal plan I wrote out for him. And when lone air travel with a child looms in the future, it’s hard to not second guess one’s decision. But once I started getting sick it was clear we had done the right thing. Now Hubby could study in peace, sans needy baby and sick wife, and not feel bad about how much time he needed to spend working. And like I said, I’ve checked out. Today my mom asked what I wanted Sam to have for lunch, a question that normally would be met with a detailed menu incorporating just the right balance of vegetables, grains, and fruits. I believe my response was something along the lines of, “I dunno. Whatever you want.” Yeah, absentee mommy here.

So the blogging and the commenting may continue to be a little sparse until next week. Then Sam and I come home for 2 days and we all go on a celebrate-the-end-of-the-Bar-beach-extravaganza, where I am not sure we will have internet access - oh, the horror.

In the meantime though, I am totally convinced that the flight home is going to be horrendous. In my experience so far, if one flight goes well, the other one fully deserves to be feared with every fiber of one’s being, and I am fearing it. I’m convinced we will not have an empty seat next to us and Sam will be forced to sit on my lap for the entire 2 hours. From the short time he had to stay on my lap on the flight out, I learned that trying that for any period longer than 15 minutes would not be wise. So what are your suggestions for entertaining a baby on one’s lap on an airplane? I didn’t buy him a seat because of all the trouble we had on that trip that must not be named with the car seat, but now I’m really wishing I’d sprung for the promise of a seat for Sam. Any suggestions? And don’t even try to suggest that I try and get him to go to sleep unless you are also recommending that I inject him with horse tranquilizers, because there’s no way it’s going to work any other way.

Hum Drum Days

2006-07-18T21:56:00.000-04:00

I’m struggling lately. I know it has to do with being in a place that still doesn’t feel like home. It has to do with trying to meet other moms and having the opportunity to see how other moms parent their children. It has to do with loads of laundry. It has to do with planning the meals. It has to do with questioning my choices, spending maybe too much time on myself, doing the dishes, vacuuming the floor, worrying about Sam’s development, worrying about Sam’s education, worrying about Sam getting sunburned, wondering if I should go to another playgroup, if we should spend more money to buy more organic food or if we really don’t have that money, if I do enough during the day to keep Sam intellectually stimulated, if we are doing the right thing for his sleep problems, if we are dealing with his new screaming fits the right way, if he will scream on the plane ride on Thursday when it is just the two of us, if I am too late on so many things we already made decisions about in Sam’s first year, and if I will always wish I had made another choice, a better choice, a more informed choice, a more proactive choice…wondering already, if it is too late. It has to do with being a mom.

I never, ever saw myself as a stay at home mom. Frankly, for all of my life up until about one year before getting pregnant with Sam I never saw myself as any type of mom. But once I got the mommy bug, I wanted that baby immediately. I remember holding my friend’s one year old daughter thinking to myself as I rubbed her back, “I want this baby IN me…now!” I probably squeezed her too hard at that point. And now, here I am, a mom. And doing what I never could have predicted: staying at home. All day, every day, we are staying at home. And all day, every day, I wonder if Sam is getting everything he deserves. Lately I am immersed in the frenzy of trying to read parenting books, education books, baby food books, all books that will make me feel that I am doing a good job, doing the right things, making the right choices. And just as often I am immersed in the pool of tepid, stand still nothingness called Boredom. The routine. Dear God, The Day In, Day Out Routine! The dishes, the cooking while a child screams at you only to be screamed at once the food is prepared, the picking said food up off the floor, the laundry, the nap preparation, the diapers, the trash, the cat litter, the grocery shopping…the routine. How do we do this?

How do we deal with these challenges? How do we spice it up, make it interesting, keep ourselves motivated? I know that Sam is my motivation in the bigger sense, but I mean practically speaking. How do we keep on keepin’ on and how do we do it effectively, happily, in a way that sets an example, that makes us feel proud of what we do, every day?

And on the flip side, how do we not go crazy with trying to do what’s best at all times, forcing us to constantly try to figure out what best is? I sit in the living room with Sam playing by my side. He’s got a puzzle and a car that he’s banging around that I’ve just been driving around all over his back and his head. Now, do I keep playing with him? Do I try and read a chapter in any one of the 5 parenting books recently borrowed from the library which will potentially make me much more useful the next time I play with him? Which one? The one about emotional intelligence, the one about developmental stages, the one about age appropriate games, or the one about how to make “Super Porridge,” the most important of the Super Baby Foods? Or do I go and try to make the stupid brown porridge so that he has no time to start flailing around at lunchtime, resulting in me getting more food down his little gullet. Do I read a few blog posts and perk myself up mentally and emotionally because a happy mommy is a better mommy? Do I pack us up and get us out of the house for yet another trip to an empty park so that Sam’s world is as big as possible? Run an errand? Do I fold the clothes? Eat some breakfast? Close my eyes for 2 minutes? Too many choices, the same choices that are faced every 15 minutes or so of every single day. It’s enough to make ya wanna sit there and do nothin’.

How do you do it? And I’m not saying I’m unhappy with this set up; this is exactly what I want to be doing. I just mean what I said: how do we do the repetition of the day in, day out in a way that sets an example, makes us feel that we are good mothers, makes us feel like we are making the right choices, from what we do for the next fifteen minutes to how we parent our babies. I guess I just feel like I’m flailing around a bit. I look up and see a lot of question marks, not nearly enough periods.

Sam's First Meme

2006-07-15T22:19:00.000-04:00

Stephanie from Adventures in Babywearing very kindly tagged me with this meme recently. I’ve kind of been feeling like lately I’ve been writing way too much about me, me, me and not nearly enough about Sam, Sam, Sam though. When I saw that Jamie from All Things Avery had done this tag from her daughter’s perspective it was the perfect solution. Now I get to refocus on Sam, do the meme, and you guys don’t have to keep reading about me. So, Sam would like you to know the following things about his personality:

3 Things That Scare Me
Loud children.
The flying circus tent in Teletubbies – the one that houses the dancing bear.
When mommy makes strange noises to keep me awake in the car when we’re just a few minutes from home.

3 People That Make Me Laugh
Daddy
Mommy
Tyler & Maki (our cats)

3 Things I Love
Obstacle courses
Nummies
Figuring out something new

3 Things I Hate
When I try to escape to the place behind the potty and get caught before I can pull the cap thing off of the base.
Being picked up and taken away from an area I am exploring.
When Mommy doesn’t share her food.

3 Things I Don’t Understand
Why I can’t grab the stream of water poured from a cup.
How to fall asleep by myself.
Why I’m not allowed to push through the screen door

3 Things On My Desk/Table
Car puzzle
Geo Trio
Nesting cups

3 Things I’m Doing Right Now
Sleeping.
Sweating.
Plotting my next potty escape…or my next waking.

3 Things I Want to Do Before I Die
Mommy’s not even willing to discuss me in the same sentence with that word so I guess we have to skip it.

3 Things I Can Do
Hammer – watch my video. I’m REALLY good at it.
Make mommy laugh.
Stand for a few seconds all by myself.

3 Ways to Describe My Personality
Contemplative
Joyful
Impatient, especially when it comes to people making my lunch too slowly.

3 Things I Can’t Do
More than I can list. Walking and talking are pretty high up there right now.

3 Things I Think You Should Listen To
I like songs with lots of drums.
Anyone who is saying “Bye bye.”
Mommy, but only if she is talking about nummies or trucks.

3 Things I Think You Should Never Listen To
Anyone saying the word “no.”
Babies that yell during playgroup.
Anyone saying there is “no biting.”

3 Absolute Favorite Foods
Toast with peanut butter
Grilled cheese…cheese of any kind
YoBaby yogurt - blueberry

3 Things I’d Like to Learn
How to catch the ball
How to catch the cats
How to read my books

3 Beverages I Drink Regularly
Milk from the nummies
Whole milk
Apple juice

3 Shows I Watched as a Kid
Teletubbies
Sesame Street
Lots of tennis, but I don’t pay much attention to it.

3 People I Tag
I want to tag all of Mommy’s friends that she thinks have one child. That way, if the mommies want their kid to have a meme, they don’t have to choose between their children. Or the mommies could do the meme about themselves. Or they don’t have to do it at all, and that’s ok, I won’t be offended. So I tag:
Eli
Gilly
Jack
bb
Boo
Baby A
Camden

What's grosser than gross?

2006-07-13T23:11:00.000-04:00

Originally this title was going to head a post about how much I hate yogurt, and how my willingness to let my son cover me in it at lunch time proves my love. But something much worse has crossed my path today.

Hubby reads that Slate website all the time and today came across this article about a fairly controversial artist who has been discussed on the internet a lot lately. So I’m late in addressing this today, but I’m not writing about it because I want to be part of the hype anyway. I need to write about it because I’m disgusted and have to clear my mind so I can go to bed.

Lisa Greenberg takes pictures of sobbing toddlers. She instigates these sobbing tantrums in her studio by doing things like giving the child a lollipop and then taking it away with no explanation. In fact, she does not speak to them at all. Once she has successfully produced a crying child, she takes their picture. I realize there are so many issues here, and I’m not going to cover even close to all of them and when I start clicking around on this subject I find that there are a lot of people who have already said a lot with which I agree and done it much more articulately than I ever could. Supporters are arguing that this is great art because it is getting people talking and has sparked debate. The debate, however, is not about the quality of the photographs but rather the method she is using to get her subjects, babies, to do what she wants them to do. Just because the art achieves a strong emotional reaction from its viewers does not mean that it is good, not when the reaction is attributed to the viewer wondering what the artist did to these kids to make them so unhappy. You know what, blah! It doesn’t even matter if it’s good or not. I wouldn’t feel any better about what she is doing even if the art were amazing and whatever message about Bush she is trying to convey actually came across (yeah, she says the pieces are about Bush and the future of the world for our kids) because its quality still would not rationalize the way in which she takes advantage of these children.

Other Greenberg supporters, including the “artist” herself, are saying that this is not abuse and these kids will forget about it within 10 minutes because children this age cry "all the time for no reason", and it is “normal.” Ok, yes, children this age cry. They cry because they are hurt, sad, angry, frustrated, want attention, scared, and sometimes they cry because they have been totally wronged and have been offered no explanation for why an adult is treating them so unfairly. That they may forget that lollipop in ten minutes may be true. But the lesson they learn about life and the world probably will stick with them a bit longer. They are taken into a room by their parent, who sits by and watches while a woman mistreats them, and then they see that their parent does nothing to make it right. What have they learned from this? We spend so much time when they are babies teaching them to trust us, to depend on us, that we will be there to take care of their needs. What could these kids possibly think when mommy sits by and does not stand up for what is right on their behalf?

These are children. They are not old enough to give consent for this exercise. They have to depend on their parents to make good decisions for them. This could never happen this way if the subjects were adults because adults can make decisions for themselves and can choose whether or not to allow someone to abuse them for the sake of art. These babies didn’t make that choice. They don’t even know what’s going on, and it can’t even be explained to them in a way that makes sense because it is so ludicrous. They get nothing from this experience except that one day they will get to see a huge photograph of themselves with a broken heart, sitting in a room not understanding why the people who are supposed to care for them are giving them absolutely no respect. And that’s all I see when I look at these photos – brokenhearted, confused, miserable, and scared babies who did not choose to be there, have their picture clicked, and certainly not displayed in a gallery. I hesitate to even link to these pictures because I feel like it just perpetuates this violation…so I won’t. You’ll have to use the link in the article I mentioned above and find them for yourself. While there you can also link to her interview where she comes off as completely unsympathetic because she is not causing any "psychological damage." Gross. Grosser than gross. I have to go kiss my baby now.

Exhibit A

2006-07-12T12:46:00.000-04:00

Just in case there is any question about whether or not the parks around here are tuly devoid of mommies, I'll provide some proof. Here are some pics of a recent trip that Sam and I took. Do you see anyone else? Didn't think so.

To entertain himself, because you can only swing for so long, and slide the car down the slide for so long, and stare at Mommy for so long, he decided to clean things up a bit. I won't tell you how long he spent crawling around looking for acorns (and one twig), but I think you'll get the picture. Find an acorn, hold it up to show Mommy excaiming, "ichsh," ("this"?), hand it to Mommy who throws it over the fence, move on to the next acorn as Mommy tries to stop baby from scraping up his little knees.

And now you know how we spend our days. Unfortunately we may have many more like this. Yesterday was our first playgroup with "the club" (and yes, I was kidding about the various duct tape items I was meant to bring - that was my little hazing joke. Sorry it didn't come across in the writing) and I'm a little worried. Let's just say between Sam's screaming and sobbing because he was scared to death of one of the other babies that kept screaming at him, it was kind of hard to get involved in the various conversations about flashcards for babies and which gym classes would be better to accelerate motor development...oh yeah, and which preschools would start taking kids as early as 18 months. I know, I'm being a snob, and I'm supposed to be all about refraining from judgment of other moms because we all need support and motherhood is our common bond and blah blah blah, but I am also not exaggerating - these were the topics covered, the very ones I JUST took issue with in a very recent post.

And I don't know if it was so much that I was judging them, because seriously I was just trying to soothe my sobbing son who has NEVER cried like that, or if I just felt really out of place so now I'm lashing out. Regardless, I think it was Kate who used the term "kindred spirit" recently; I'm pretty sure mine wasn't there. It probably doesn't help matters that I was dressed like an adolescent boy. I had just decided I was going to be myself since if I had to put on a little show I wouldn't really end up being friends with the people there anyway. Meeting people who are "like you" when "you" are a really liberal and fairly crunchy mom disguised as a 9th grade skater is hard. There's another playgroup tomorrow. I'll try again.

It's official, I'm a frosh pledge

2006-07-09T20:00:00.000-04:00

Desperate times call for desperate measures…and I’m officially desperate. Since moving here things have not been going well on the social front. Sam and I have been the only living humans on the playground pretty much daily. I have made phone call after phone call to parent child centers and community centers where no one returns my calls, several nursing groups to find out that they disbanded over a year ago (why they still have a listing in the paper I have no idea), and multiple music/gym classes to find out they are either too far away or right smack in the middle of naptime. Since moving here I have had exactly 3 conversations with other moms, 3 different moms, each lasting roughly 3 minutes, with the exception of one. One lone mom actually took the time to talk to me, answer my questions, and give me her email address, ultimately convincing me to join my first. ever. club.

Among the failed phone calls, empty parks, the super fun stroller-cise classes , people who want to charge me money just to come and sit at their house for 45 minutes while they “facilitated” discussion, and the deserted book clubs, I had also sent out a few emails to a club for moms that had a listing in the free paper I picked up. After a few days went by I was sure nothing would come of that just like everything else, but on day 5 I received an email back from a very helpful woman who had been out of town. She told me about the upcoming events this club had and said I could come by and see what I thought before joining. So after some difficulty in finding a time that worked (yet again everything takes place at 10:00 when Sam naps) I settled on a park day meeting one afternoon the following week. When the day came I received an email from my contact saying that she would not be able to be at the park that day because she had an ultrasound, but that she had sent out an email to the group telling anyone who was going to be there to look out for me.

As I approached the park, for the first time since moving here, I was walking toward other moms. Let me rephrase that: I was walking toward a mom. There was one woman there at the swings with her baby, who looked to be about 8 months old. As I came up to the gate the woman greeted me and asked if I was Sam’s mom. She had me at hello, dude. She had me at hello. Never mind the fact that this is supposed to be a club and there was only one person there. One person is 100% more person than I have seen at any swing at any park so far.

She told me about the club, the message board, the activities. All of it sounded pretty good. And it sounded like it would be really helpful for a person who just moved here because I can post questions on the message board asking about doctors and babysitters and so forth. They meet at parks, have playgroups for different age groups, a book club, a mom’s night out once a month, lots of stuff. And so, I joined my little club. I paid my twenty dollar membership fee and bought myself some friends. Please understand, I am not a club/organization/sorority/institution type a gal. I’ve always felt a bit of disdain for any type of group that included the special some and excluded most others. It’s just not my style. In fact, I specifically sought out a college that had absolutely no fraternities or sororities of any kind. I just didn’t want to be in a place where people segregated themselves by choice. And my feelings about this have grown exponentially since becoming a mom because we need all the support we can get, (some of you may remember me yelling about this at length in the Middle School of Mommyhood .)

I guess I feel like this situation is a bit different because there was no process by which I had to be chosen. I chose them and then gave them my twenty smackers. So if anyone who has twenty bucks to spend each year can join, I feel like this is pretty inclusive. I like that they do at least some work for the community and seem to be very supportive of each other, particularly when a woman has just given birth – I saw a sign-up thing for women to take meals to the new mom’s house. So I feel like this might be a good thing. Touche to me. Or maybe I am just rationalizing this because I’ve just paid money to have the opportunity to meet people. Don’t care. I’m happy. I’m in the club. And as I said before, desperate times.

But does anyone think it’s weird that they told me to bring some duct tape, a swim cap, and several jars of honey to my first meeting? They said that traditionally they like to give new members a nice, warm welcome…:)

The end of an 80's Sunday era

2006-07-09T09:37:00.000-04:00

So I think that 80's Sunday is going to have to take a summer hiatus. I knew this might be the case last week when I felt a bit of relief that I didn't need to stop our packing to do it, but I figured it was just because we were busy so I didn't feel I had the time. But then yesterday I felt a little pang of stress when I realized I had to get everything together for an 80's Sunday the next day. Part of the problem is that with the new video thing it is much more time consuming and to a certain extent requires Hubby's assistance. But Hubby is studying for the Bar exam and there is no way I am going to bother him when he is studying to come and do some video of Sam staring blankly. And then there's the downloading and uploading and posting and it's all just very computery, which, for me, is sometimes difficult, particularly when doing it while watching Sam. I'll also be out of town with Sam the week before the Bar and then away again with Hubby and Sam the week after. So the next month was going to be scattered at best. Anyway, blah blah blah. I think the kicker was feeling a little stress about it, because we all know that's not why we blog. So I'll see if I feel the impetus to start it up again in the fall. For all I know I'll start it again when we get back from the second trip in August. And I apologize to any of you that are crying, longing to hear that unknown 80's riff playing in the background while Sam eats Cheerios on your screen.

But we cannot forget our second time winner, you guessed it, that Crazy MamaD, who blew everyone away with her Little Red Corvette guess 2 weeks ago. Congrats to Mama D, who I assume will still be doing her "Say What" game on Fridays where you get to guess an 80's movie from a quote. So be sure to go there to get your 80's weekend fix.

And she's got a new profile pic for your viewing pleasure.

I feel bad doing this with no warning. I can't get the whole video thing together right now, but I will at least leave you with some obscure lyrics to ponder. I also remember vowing to stump you guys, so I can't possibly admit defeat so easily. So here are some lyrics for ya. Let's see just how good you guys really are.

I see your face every time I dream
On every page, every magazine
So wild so free so far from me
You're all I want, my fantasy
Oh!
Look what you've done to this rock 'n' roll clown

My baby needs a Superman

2006-07-05T21:34:00.000-04:00

The airplane full of passengers, after hurtling through the atmosphere in flames, comes to a screeching halt just a few feet over a baseball diamond. Thank goodness, Lois is safe and Superman has saved the day again. The whole crowd is on its feet at this spectacle. When they realize what has taken place, that Superman is back, they burst into applause. Hubby and I burst into tears. We, like the audience at that baseball game, were so happy to see Superman again: “Thank goodness, I’m so glad he’s back. I’m so happy to be HERE, at a movie, with YOU.” This is only the second movie Hubby and I have seen since Sam was born, not including the 2 that we tried to take Sam to when he was younger because, well, they just don’t count. And we used to be a couple that would go to a movie and on the way out decide we wanted to see another. So it was a big deal to be at the theater, a few hours that made the trip to visit the in-laws well worth the travel in the car with the infant, even though the fireworks were cancelled.

And it’s not just that we got to see a movie, but we got to see Superman Returns. To be fair, it’s really not that great. But that’s not the point. That first action sequence makes it worth it, because I think for anyone of my generation we’re going to feel nothing but complete joy when we hear that music (yes, they keep the awesome music by John Williams) and feel that relief when we see that he’s done it yet again. We grew up with Superman, the amazing Christopher Reeve. We grew up with Star Wars, the original trilogy before all of the crap was added. We grew up with He-Man, Thundercats, Indiana Jones, and E.T., everyone’s favorite extra-terrestrial. What will Sam grow up with? Who will his heroes be? When he is about to turn 30, who will return to make him think, “Thank goodness, I’m so glad he’s back in my life again – I really missed him”?

It makes me sad. I want my son to have all the things I had growing up. I really feel like our generation benefited from a fabulous burst on the scenes of Hollywood just as we were getting old enough to appreciate it. Some of what we had as children has become a quintessential part of our culture today. There are moments from these films that still will give you the chills when seen again. Just watch Elliot riding his bicycle at that beautiful moment before they lift off the ground and you’ll know what I am talking about. Elmo, Dora, Sponge Bob for goodness sake! They just aren’t comparable. And I realize that to Sam they will be totally and completely comparable. And I suppose that to some extent one could argue that Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy are comparable. But…well…I want Sam to love what I loved I guess. I want him to see Star Wars and realize how amazing it was for its time, not be distracted by what he considers to be poor special effects. I want him to feel the joy that his father and I had as children from seeing something new and loving it innocently, without cynicism or criticism.

I want Sam to be able to enjoy the world in which I grew up, and I am starting to be afraid that he can’t. What if we can’t find a house in a neighborhood where it is safe for him to go out on his bike for hours with his friends? Do kids even get to do that anymore, leave for the afternoon and be free and independent? Or is the world already too dangerous, too scary? I don’t want to raise my child to be afraid of the world, but…I just don’t know…if I can.

On the drive home today Hubby and I were talking about Kim Jong-Il developing nuclear weapons and my gut reaction was, “Oh my God, what if something happens to our planet before Sam gets to live his life?” I can’t even bring myself to watch Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth because I already feel so amazingly powerless when it comes to the fact that I know we are destroying our world. I don’t want to be afraid, but it is so much, SO MUCH harder now that I have him. I have no control. Who will save the world for my baby? Even Superman can’t stand up to the radioactive material from his home planet.

I don’t want my son to be afraid of the world, to lose his childhood to fear. I want Sam to play with his friends in the street without me watching him out the window every moment. I want him to have some clean air left to breathe, some fresh water to drink, some sunlight safely touching his face. I want for him to have some superheroes, both real and fictitious, in whom he can place his hope. And yes, I want him to have some truly awesome movies too.

Having Fun With Boys - You know what I mean

2006-06-30T20:25:00.000-04:00

Raising a little boy is so...strange. Sam's moods are so fleeting and extreme. One moment he is grunting and yelling at his truck that will not stay up on the couch when he puts it there, screaming and turning red in the face in aggressive frustration. The next he is head butting me with his mouth wide open for a kiss, he lays his head on my leg and smiles as I rub his ears while he whispers sweet nothings, aka babble, to my lap. I think I'm in for it. He's got me right where he wants me. Is it wrong to believe I have the sweetest baby imaginable? The best? Because I do...believe that, I mean.

Here are some highlights from the zoo today, the highlight being the ice cream. This is not unlike the face he makes for that kiss.

My two boys.

And for the five of you that care, we'll be headed to the in-laws for the 4th so there won't be an 80's Sunday this week. We'll pick up where we left off next week.

Happy weekend and Happy 4th!

The Bragging Wife

2006-06-29T21:29:00.000-04:00

I just have to brag because I am so very proud of Hubby. As you may know, he graduated from law school back in May. He did an excellent job in all of his classes from the very beginning. Just yesterday we found out that he was awarded Cum Laude for his awesome GPA, 3.88.

In addition, he was awarded the honor of Order Of The Coif. I know, it sounds so very Harry Potter. This is an award that is decided by the Professors at his school, giving it to students for outstanding achievement.

Hubby worked so hard during his 3 years of law school, he took excellent care of a crazy pregnant woman for nine months of it, and then took on the new responsibility of being an outstanding father - all while succeeding and excelling at a top 15 law school. I am so proud of him for being able to accomplish so much, so I just had to brag because I can't contain myself.

And speaking of Harry Potter, look at what they made him wear for his graduation!

My Mom Haircut is New and Improved

2006-06-27T23:17:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my new look! This is what I get when I go to a book group that I've looked forward to all month and prepped for all day (mentally and psychologically), one of the only social events I have been able to attend since moving here, only to sit there by myself for 20 minutes until finally realizing no one else is coming. After coming home crying and declaring that absolutely nothing seems to work out in this city (recall all posts regarding the BIG MOVE and the one about how no mommies live here) Hubby offered to work on my site's look with me, something I have been making noises about for a month or so. He's so good to me. Of course, it also gave him a good excuse to avoid studying for the BAR exam...

I hope this new format is both easier to read and more reflective of my site's content. The Carol Brady thing was a little too kitschy, even for me. So please let me know what you honestly think, because I'm sure we'll have more nights when I have tried to be social and am thwarted, and Hubby will be looking for more ways to avoid his studies. Personally, I love it and intend to have beautiful dreams about my new blog tonight.

Sorry, bad apples

2006-06-26T19:56:00.000-04:00

Oh, it’s so very unfortunate, but alas I am sick. You may have noticed in the description of the 80’s Sunday video that I mention Sam has a bit of a fever. Well now he is ok, but I am under the weather. So I won’t really be writing today, but sipping tea instead. But I wanted to go ahead and mention it now so that tomorrow when some of you are asking me if I went to visit my good friends with the apple calves and the blank stares again, I’d have my excuse prepared. I am sick, see? So no, I can’t possibly go back to that class and haul buns through the park with my humungo stroller and humungo nummies. Just can’t. Must finish book instead. Must rest. Must regain strength and recover.

Ok, this is all a little too sarcastic sounding. I truly am legitimately ill – sore throat, stuffy nose, dizzy feeling, all that stuff. But I’ll be honest: I’m just fine with not having to make a decision about going back to that class tomorrow. I hadn’t decided yet what I was going to do. I think I was leaning toward going, which would mean that now I should be feeling some sort of disappointment. Can’t say that I do.

We’ll see if something happens to come up next week as well…

Apples Calves and Shin Splints

2006-06-21T21:55:00.000-04:00

So, I went to a fitness class for moms yesterday. It is a class where you bring your child(ren) and a stroller and you work out with your baby. The cardio portion of the class is predominantly pushing the stroller, and then every so often the group stops to do some strengthening exercises, ending the one hour session with work on mats on the grass, using our babies as resistance. In Chicago I had always wished there was a way to work out with Sam, and I never felt I could really get any exercise in if I was taking care of him. I tried to go to one mom and baby yoga class and I got to do all of two poses. So this class sounded ideal when I first discovered it.

As with any new class/exercise/meeting/social situation, there is always that doubt when it comes time to actually participate in the activity, at least, this is true with me, particularly with exercise…and meeting new people…and being social…ok, with everything new. It always sounds good until I actually have to motivate to do it. Class was going to be at 5:00 and I found from the time I woke up that I was trying to devise a good reason to not go. This is a difficult task seeing as I would first have to convince myself it was ok to stay home, and then convince Hubby, who I knew would give me an earful of guilt since I have been yammering about how I need things to do with Sam, need to make friends, need to find ways to exercise, etc. So I knew it would have to be something pretty good to get me out of this successfully. I checked the weather and saw that they were predicting an isolated thunderstorm sometime in the afternoon. I thought, that’s it, I’m totally set, but as the day wore on it just got sunnier and clearer. In the morning I started planting the idea into Hubby’s head that it might just be too hot to exercise outside. It’s hot here, you know. And muggy, so muggy. And it’s hard for someone who’s not used to exercising in the heat to all of a sudden begin. It could be dangerous. Oh, and what about Sam? What about my son the big sweaty head who keeps getting heat rash. Surely I can’t take him out for a whole hour if it is hot and humid. But of course, the temp did not go beyond 84 degrees. It was a beautiful, cloudless, sunny day with a nice cooling breeze. But what if this is a running class? I can’t run. I hate running (Yes, I HATE running. It makes me feel like my face is going to bounce off and my eyes are going to fall out. It makes me want to puke. It is so jarring and unpleasant. I can’t even look at a jogger without getting uncomfortable.) And there’s no way I can run with a stroller, and with these enormous nummies! No way. “Well, does it say it’s a running class?” “No, it doesn’t.” “In the pictures are the women running?” “No, they aren’t. But they are ridiculously thin and buff. They are clearly work out women, which I am not. I’ll be the fattest one there.” “Honey, they just post pictures like that to make the program look good, the women there will be regular women who have also given birth. And you’re NOT FAT.” I had nothing.

And so, when the time came, instead of trying my usual excuses, I just went and got dressed in my “workout attire.” Please note, I made a half hearted attempt at, “I have nothing to wear,” to which Hubby promptly reminded me of the trip I took to Target not so long ago for the sole purpose of purchasing workout clothes for an aerobics class. “But that was indoor and this is outdoor.” “But you bought shorts.” Fine. I was going. I had no excuse and truthfully I knew I’d never forgive myself if I chickened out. I drove off with Sam and my map to the place where this group meets, the new Dixie Chicks improving my confidence slightly. I find the place easily and am on time despite my subconscious attempts at delaying us. Park, gear up the stroller, add baby, and make sure I have everything:
Water – check
Yoga mat – check
Total mom haircut - check
Humungous and heavy non-jogging stroller - check
Equally humungous and heavy breastfeeding nummies – check
Inner thigh flab that will rub together whenever engaging in a quick pace – check
Previously mentioned Target shorts that will ride up to crotch with the help of aforementioned thighs - check

And with that we walk down to the meeting point at the end of the trail. I knew it was them before I even got to the group. They weren’t exactly the ones from the pictures on the website, but they might as well have been. They were the buff women, the work out women, the serious women. How do I know?
Uber hip jogging strollers – check
Ponytails – check
Spandex biker shorts - check
Apple shaped protruding calves – check
Breasts – ... nada

And I know I’m being harsh on women who exercise here, but it’s only because I’m jealous. I think it’s great. But c’mon, noone wants to be the fat girl, right? And I’m looking at a woman who gave birth 3 months ago who is thinner than I have ever been in my entire life. Furthermore, as soon as I saw how fit these people were I was back to wondering what exactly we’d be doing in this class. I’m thinking at this point it’s not just a walk in the park.

The instructor curtly welcomes me, asks if I can register after class so that we can go ahead and get going…um, yes. We tell each other our names, and she begins with,
“Ok, we’re going to warm up by walking at a fast pace in a single file line. The person in back will then run up to the front of the line and so on.” Oh crap...

I found out later from Hubby that this exercise is called an Indian Sprint. Please ignore the offensive part and focus on SPRINT. And I think to myself: Would these women laugh at me if I just turned around and walked away right now? Yes, yes they would. They’d probably talk about it for the duration of the class.

The beginning of the trail is uphill. And let me say that the fast pace was FAST. I am short. I have short legs. People who have short legs have to take more steps to cover the same distance as people with long legs, see? I was practically running just to stay in the line, so when it kept being my turn to run up to the front I was totally haulin’ it. And my stroller is completely bouncing so while the other women are literally pushing theirs with one hand using like 2 fingers I’m trying to keep Sam out of the ditch. So I’m running up this hill thinking, “I have to get back to the car. I have to get out of here. Would anyone notice if I just didn’t run up to the front of the line? But if they turn around and see me, I know they can outrun me. They’ll come and catch me. Then I’ll have to run faster than I am now. They’ll trap me with their smooth riding three wheeled strollers. But if this is just the warm up, what is the real class like? I’m going to die out here and she didn’t let me register so she doesn’t even have my emergency contact’s information. Hubby will have to come searching for me in the ditch…” and then she says we will be continuing with this for 3 more minutes. I press on and we pull over to do push ups on a fence. When we begin again it is clear we will just do the fast paced walk. And this is how it continues. We walk fast, we pull over to do exercises. We head further and further into the park. I try desperately to think up an excuse to get out of there. Unfortunately Sam is not cooperating. Normally if there is something I really want to do I can depend on him to be fussy and thwart my attempts at having a life. Not today. No, he loves this. Mommy is on her 3rd set of 20 squat side kick things and he’s yuckin it up with the 8 month old next to him.

I try at one point to insert myself into the conversation 2 women are having. One is telling the other that she has been looking for activities like this to do with her kids. I ask, “Oh, did you just move here?” Pause…blank stare... “No.”… “Oh.” Silence. After about 15 seconds the other woman looks at me and asks if I just moved here, asks where from, etc. It ends. At this point I decide I need to just do my own thing. I need to enjoy the scenery, enjoy Sam, and just forget about what these women think of my shorts wedged up in my crotch.

The class seems to improve from here on out (especially when we turned around and started heading back). I fall a bit behind a few times, especially when I get off to a slightly late start due to giving Sam some of my water, but somehow I make it through. I end up talking again to that second woman and even a bit to the blank starer. We get to the last part where we set up our mats on the grass and take the kids out to play. Sam loved being used as my weight. He laughed as I lifted him up and down and bit and slapped my butt as I held my plank pose. And the women were a little warmer for this part too. I made 2 successful jokes and by the end found myself telling the instructor I’d be back next week. How did that happen?

As I walked to the car with the blank starer, I asked her about her super cool stroller. It was a single that could convert into a double with a place underneath for a second child. I thought that might actually be worth investing in if it could be used with a potential next child. So she told me the company and to look online. I did look it up later: $469.99.
Horror stricken face – check.

Told you they were serious.

Learning through play

2006-06-19T22:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, for Father’s Day, we went to the Please Touch Museum. I had read that they had a farm exhibit specifically for children under three. They also have a storytime in the afternoons once a week, so I was considering getting a membership and going often if Sam enjoyed our trip. The Please Touch Museum is fairly small, very seventies in style. I think this is because they have plans to open at a new location in 2008, so there is very little going on there as far as renovating or making any major improvements. Everything is just a little old and a little grey and a little smelly. Sam was fascinated.

This place is so very well designed. I would have loved it as a kid and I could see that the kids around me loved it too. They have a water table exhibit where the kids put on smocks and play with boats and water machines. They have a house where the kids use “tools” to hammer boards onto the walls, a Sendak “Where the Wild Things Are” exhibit where a kid can pick up a Max costume at the beginning, and an Alice In Wonderland exhibit complete with the Mad Hatter’s tea party as well as the flamingo croquet. Strange gadgets, toys, and puzzles are everywhere. There are little doll houses the kids can play inside with vacuums and a construction center with bricks, construction plans and wheel barrows. And the Farm exhibit for very young kids was adorable. Sam had a blast placing all of the play radishes and corn into the wheel barrow and then emptying it, riding the tractor, and staring at the strange rubber pig. He also enjoyed the puzzle table in the storytime room, which made me realize that was an entire genre of toys that we have completely missed – he now has 4 puzzles. He crawled through the whole museum at a feverish pace, checking out everything, waving to everybody, and finding anything with wheels, stealing said wheeled object from whatever child had it, and proceeding to push it through the museum just like at home. He loved it. I got us the membership. Easily a place to spend an afternoon to get the kid all tuckered out.

As I sat there watching Sam play with his big knobby circle puzzle and watching kids working so hard at their tasks, I commented to Hubby that the whole thing had a very Montessori type of feel. We’ve been considering a Montessori school for Sam when he is ready for it, but I figure we have a lot of time to consider what we want. 3 years old, right? So during his nap I decided to look into schools here in Philly just to start to see what was available…and then I freaked out. Most Montessori schools begin their toddler programs at 18 months old and take in applications one year before the kid would be starting school. That means that if Sam was going to be 18 months old by September (which he will not be) I would have had to apply to schools for him last September when he was SIX MONTHS OLD. Have I missed something here? Was I supposed to be thinking about schools already? How can I possibly make a decision about what type of education would be good for my child when he is 6 months old? All of a sudden I feel like I am behind on this only because Hubby and I don’t know what we want for him yet. So it is horrifying to find out that should we decide on one thing or another, it may turn out we made that decision too late.

To make matters worse, I looked at an application for one of these schools and it totally left me with a rancid taste in my mouth. Among the typical “why do you think your child would excel here” types, they ask when he started talking. Why does that matter? Are you telling me you are going to consider this when looking at his application for admission? Is he in a race? It also mentions that the child will be brought in for an evaluation in which he is observed in the classroom to see if he is able to do tasks “appropriate for his age.” So essentially, Sam would be tested, his skills evaluated, his behavior scrutinized and compared in order to determine if he should be accepted. We are talking about a child under the age of two here, and I feel like I did when applying to college.

Let me say that I think this problem has nothing to do with these schools being Montessori, but being private schools, schools that require applications because they are so sought after. Problem is, if Philadelphia is anything like Chicago (is this just an urban problem or is this the case in other areas as well?), there will be an application process for nearly all decent schools, public or private. Aye, there’s the rub. We are having to put our little guys (and our parenting) in competition to ensure that our children can go to a school where they can learn. Parents are afraid that if their child can’t recite the latin names of his favorite bugs then he won’t be accepted into a good PRE-SCHOOL and his life will be ruined. No wonder acceleration is the trend.

I just want Sam to be able to be a child. I’m not into this whole sign him up for classes that will enhance his motor skills via a rigid program/drill him with flash cards/turn play into work movement. I’m just not. He’s a baby. He will learn to do these things by living (that’s why I was considering Montessori). But now it seems that by choosing this path for us I am putting him behind what the rest are doing, and that may hinder him, not because it’s right, but because there’s competition among toddlers and parents are afraid for their children's education. I'm not sure what the answer is. At the school where I used to work in Chicago they did their admissions based on a lottery system. I don't think I understood why or appreciated that until now. This babbling has at least taught me something about what I will be looking for in a school when that time comes (whenever that is – I’m totally confused now).

I trust that Sam will figure things out his own way; I don’t need to drill him, force him, or accelerate him. A few weeks ago we were playing with this toy that I made for him. It’s an oatmeal canister with a slit cut in the top just big enough for a poker chip. This is one of the only times I have actually tried to “work” with him on a task. I would hand him the chips and show him how to place them in the slot so they would fall in. I always tried to make him interested in getting the chips through the slot while he was always much more interested playing with the lid and trying to figure out how to get it on and off. On this particular day he was having trouble getting the chips at the right angle to go in the hole, or he wouldn’t let go at the right time. I kept trying to show him and he was getting frustrated. Finally he pulled the lid off of the can, threw in the chip, and slammed the lid back on top. He’ll work it out. And I was so much more proud of that decision than I was a few days later when he actually started putting the chips in the “right” way.

80's Sunday, That's My Fun Day - week 6

2006-06-17T16:03:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to last week's 80's Sunday winner, Crazy MamaD.

I don't actually know if her name is "Crazy" Mama D. But I've seen her site listed on the links of others' blogs as "Crazy Mama D," "The Tales of Mama D," "The Tales of Crazy MamaD." I just don't know (actually I know her real name, but that's a secret). Anyway, she's crazy, she's a winner, and she's MamaD. She correctly guessed that last week's song was "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order, it's the song everyone who has ever been to a dance club on 80's night knows, but very few can actually name.

MamaD also has a very cool game on Fridays where she writes 80's movie quotes and you guess the movie. See, that's smart. Movies have quotes. It's not like, say, making people guess songs based on only reading lyrics and not actually hearing any music...oh wait...yeah. Many of you have said that it's pretty hard to guess these songs so randomly. I don't actually know how hard it is because noone else does a game that makes so little sense. So this week we are changing things up a bit. Let me know how this works: if you like it better, if you can see the video, if it's now too easy, etc. But I think this may be the new 80's Sunday format. It gives me an excuse to get some video of Sam each week, which is pretty cool. Of course, in this one he refuses to dance while the camera is running (he started every time I stopped taping or like when the song was at the chorus) and instead stares off at Hubby in the corner who is trying to encourage him to get jiggy. So now you get to see my son standing there doing nothing. Fascinating.

Below is a video with a popular 80's song playing in the background. Using your very own knowledge, I want the title of the song and the name of the artist.

Happy Father's Day!

I Asked, I Received

2006-06-16T12:22:00.000-04:00

Thank you all so very much for all of your support and suggestions in your comments to my last post. One of the things I have learned more recently in my life is that if you need help it is best to just ask for it, and I’m glad I did. Your comments gave me new ideas for activities to look into as well as motivated me to reconsider some things that I thought I could not do. And yesterday afternoon I took Sam to the neighborhood where I would think lots of moms go with their kids to walk around. Saw no moms (big shocker) but did go into every place and pick up those little free magazines for parents that list events and stuff. Of my stack one of them was very helpful and listed some promising things to look into. Between your comments and this paper I think I am on the right track. I’ll try to give as brief an update as I can here to let everyone know what is going on.

La Leche League – You know, I didn’t do these meetings after first having Sam because he was so amazingly, ridiculously fussy/cranky/colicky/cranky/did I mention fussy? I couldn’t really go to mommy groups those first 6 months because he made it a fairly miserable experience. He is a very light sleeper (still is) and was easily overstimulated. So by the time 6 months rolled around I kind of felt like those meetings might really be for moms new to breastfeeding. Don’t know why I thought that, but clearly from your comments I was wrong. So I am looking into a group that is listed in the paper that meets pretty close to me, even though they don’t have it on their website. If I don’t hear back from the woman I called I will try and work out going to the meeting a little further away. Problem is, it meets at 10:00.

It seems that 80% of gatherings take place at 10:00 or 11:00. Sam has his big nap of the day from about 10:00-12:00. I know, it’s weird. But that’s what he does instead of an afternoon nap. So because most kids his age nap in the afternoons very few activities take place then and are held in the morning instead. This nap issue will become a theme in this post I have a feeling, because it really is putting a cramp in my Let’s Meet Friends Plan.

The Little Gym – I had only heard of Gymboree classes before (which is very far from us) and did not know that these Little Gyms were in this area. Turns out there is one fairly close by and we will be going to a free trial class next week. It’s pretty expensive, but at this point I don’t think I care anymore.

Food Shares – I actually looked into this last week and learned that these groups were full way back in March. It didn’t occur to me to do that before moving out here. So instead we’ll be hitting the Farmers Markets nearby (first one is this afternoon) and checking out the groups that way so that we can get on a waitlist for next year.

MOPS Clubs and MOMS Clubs – I had never really looked into any type of “Mom’s Clubs” before. I had assumed that Moms of Preschoolers actually meant preschool aged kids, like kids in pre-school, but when I looked into it I discovered it was from infancy, but then I learned there isn’t a group anywhere near us. This suggestion did, however, motivate me to look into the clubs listed in this paper I got and one of them sounds promising, the MOMS Club, which is also an international group. There is one that meets right in may area. Waiting for a response to my email. Are these clubs good things? I guess the word “club” has negative connotations for me, but the website did not mention a hazing, so I hope to attend a meeting and an activity of this group soon to see if it’s my thing. It sounds really cool and welcoming.

Libraries and Book Store Storytimes and book groups – I have confirmed that none of the surrounding libraries are doing any type of story time this summer. Some of the bigger bookstores that are a little further away I think have some, but they are listing them for slightly older kids. In fact, a lot of what I find is for 3 years and up and I think that may be some of the challenge here. Sam is very young and can’t do much, but I am also not considered a “new mom” so we are sort of in between groups right now. I wish that the libraries didn’t drop their programs for younger kids just because the older ones have summer reading. I have found 3 potential book groups to do myself in the evenings. 2 meet in 2 weeks and I am intending to go to both to check them out. (CMommy, I’m about half way through the book and it’s pretty clever – I’ll let you know.)

Church – I have found a great sounding church that I want us to visit. Finding a church that’s right is always hard work, as I am sure many of you know who have looked at new churches. In addition to the regular difficulties in finding a good match, we also have the Sam sleep dilemma. Service times are always in the morning during his nap hours. And so we still have yet to make it to this place I found because he is always, ALWAYS mid-nap when we would need to go. Isn’t that always the way? They know you want to do something and it’s like they go out of their way to stop you. No, that’s not really true. But it is true that doing anything during the 10:00 to 12:00 window is going to be very difficult. I may go to this place by myself to check it out.

Starting my own play group – I really like this idea and was considering it before moving here. I havn’t decided if I want to try and start one within this apartment community or one for the area in general. And this may be my way of procrastinating because it’s a little scary to see myself trying this out. Any of you that have had success doing this please let me know your tips. If I was going to start one just in the area I suppose I’d post something at the grocery store and the library and plan to meet at a nearby park at a certain time. Are there really play groups for kids this young?

One Fit Mama – This is an awesome thing I found in the paper I picked up. The group of mamas meets with their babies for a fitness class and there is a meeting place close to us. They spend a lot of the time pushing the kids in the stroller around the park, stopping periodically for strength training using the kids as their resistance. They even have a class at 5:00 once a week in that park I showed pictures of in a recent post. So excited.

Other highlights – I’m waiting for my zoo membership card to come in the mail. We have a Makin’ Music, Rockin Rythms class starting next week. It is at 9:45am, which is totally going to cause problems with the Sam nap but I was desperate when I signed up and they only had morning classes (again with the morning meetings). I know there’s more…

Basically I have a left a lot of messages and am waiting to hear back on several things. But there is a lot that is promising. Thank you all again for your comments. They made me feel so much better and I feel like I have a lot of possibilities now. As my Mom and Hubby so very kindly pointed out, “I think you are upset about this because you are getting your period soon…” Well, they are both right. Let’s here it for the people that really know us. So while that does not make my feelings invalid, it certainly can make things feel exponentially worse and slightly more hopeless. I suppose that’s why it felt like it was really bad very suddenly. Thank you all again for coming to my pity party giving me the help I needed.

The Red Bull (not the drink)

2006-06-14T21:17:00.000-04:00

I’m at a loss. We’ve been in Philadelphia about 3 weeks now, including the week of no furniture. I’ve been working pretty hard to find activities to do with Sam, and it’s not working out the way I thought it would. Before moving here I envisioned finding play groups at recreation centers, talking to people at story times at various bookstores, and meeting other mommies at the park in our complex and at the pool. But instead, I am being thwarted. Seriously.

I’ve been working for weeks on this and just nothing is working out. The rec centers are literally not at the address that is listed and no one answers the phone, no bookstore within 30 minutes of us hosts a story time and the libraries are taking a break for summer reading, and the parks! The parks are devoid of mommies. Forget about the one in our complex; it’s lead poisoning/swing-crash-down-if-any-weight-is-put-on-it waiting to happen. I can see why it’s totally empty all the time. The pool is beautiful but totally freezing and therefore, also empty. Not to mention the fact that my visions of other moms walking around with their strollers in our little gated community disintegrated when I realized that 80% of the residents here are above the age of 70. And so we drive to other parks, beautiful parks…where we are the only living souls in sight. Are there no young mommies left in this city?

I sort of feel like the Last Unicorn, which was my all time favorite childhood movie. In the beginning the unicorn asks herself why she has not seen any other unicorns for so long, and so she goes on a quest to find them, learning along the way that the Red Bull rounded them all up and drove them into the ocean where they stay for the greedy and pathetic King Haggard to watch them. Anyway…where is this ocean? I just don’t know where the mommies are. Every day Sam and I set forth on our quest (cue music a la America here) to find other mommies and babies and come up with nada. I feel like they are all hiding somewhere around here whispering about me and laughing as I walk right by, oblivious and perplexed. And here my own self-conciousness comes into play.

It’s scary to make new friends. It was difficult in school where everyone else was looking for friends. As an adult it is much harder because so many people are already set: they’ve got their playdates, their mommy groups, the pals who were pregnant at the same time they were. They’re booked and not interested in meeting the new kid. I don’t know – is that true? Or is it just my new kid syndrome coming back to haunt me? It doesn’t even matter because I can’t find anyone to shun me anyway. How does one find potential friends? I did it when first moved to Chicago, but I was going to work. Now I do my work at home and with Sam; I’m a SAHM with Sam, hardy har.

And the problem is two-fold. Yes, I have no friends and that makes me very sad and discouraged. But Sam and I are bored to tears! I am not nearly as creative in the fun and leisure activities as I’d expected. What do you do with a 13 month old all day? And bear in mind we are broke, and often do not have the car at our disposal.

I’m just at a loss here. And I joke and draw stretched analogies between myself and a fantastical creature, but I really am sad. And lonely. I miss at least having the option of seeing a friend occasionally, or even talking to a stranger at the playground wondering if we’ll run into each other again. What do mommies do? And where do they go? If you were a Philadelphia mommy, where would you be hiding? Would you be happy to meet a new kid, or is your dance card full?

Underoos, my special friend

2006-06-12T21:08:00.000-04:00

Now that THE BIG MOVE is done and we are mostly settled I get to finally participate in Rachelle’s “My Life Monday.” This week’s topic: a favorite childhood toy…

When I was young I used to love playing with my imaginary friends. I know this is true for almost any child at some point, but it was a bit extreme for me and it lasted beyond what I think most would consider “normal.” In addition to having my imaginary friends, I also pretended to be characters other than myself. Again, so do many children, but I guess for me it became persistent enough that I tried to convince people whom I’d just met that I was the other character; my parents promptly took me to a psychologist when I convinced my babysitter that my name was Dorothy.

I pretended to be several of my favorite heroines from books, movies, and cartoons. Dorothy was a big one – she had a dog, which I liked. Often I was seen running around our yard with my palm to my forehead as I communicated with the woodland creatures; I was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle after all. I actually saw part of that movie on TV recently and realized that it is practically porn, by the way. I can’t believe I was allowed to watch it. My parents must have been unaware. Anyway, I also pretended to be Kira, the female Gelfling from the Dark Crystal quite often. This was the best way to have a working romantic relationship with Peter Pan,which was clearly acceptable because they both had pointy ears, without having the difficult size discrepancies that he must have had with Tinkerbell – she was just doomed to long for him forever. Tinkerbell and I did have something in common though in that we hated Wendy for trying to take beloved Peter from us. But I digress.

I loved loved loved to pretend I was Wonderwoman. She was so amazingly awesome. For me, Wonderwoman was my first introduction to superpowers and the fact that she was a woman was just so cool to me. And she was an awesome superhero: powerful, confident, quick, and GORGEOUS. I loved her and therefore wanted to be her, and so, one of my favorite things in the entire world was my Wonderwoman Underoos. For most of my young childhood I could be found in my back yard wearing the equivalent of a swimsuit, swinging around a yellow piece of yarn (my AWESOME lasso.) It was very frustrating to me to not actually be able to lasso anything with my…string unless I set up the scenario very strategically. Actually, I guess I can’t remember that it ever worked, but I was not discouraged, I was Wonderwoman.

I’d like to say this was a fun phase that soon passed with nothing more than the minor concern of my parents, but this whole pretending-to-be-someone-else thing lasted a while. And yeah, I know I look too old to be wearing my Underoos to my tennis lesson there, and it probably was very inappropriate, but that’s not what I mean.

I rediscovered my love of acting when I was cast as Queen Aggravain in “Once Upon a Mattress” in 10th grade. I’ve loved it ever since. In college I majored in Theater and Education, spending more time in rehearsals than I did studying. And in Chicago I even made it my career for a little while until I learned that adding the business element really took out the fun. And that’s what acting has always been for me: pure fun. As a child I acted like other people because it allowed me to live in another world. I could be whoever I wanted to be, wherever I wanted to be. As an adult I loved it for the same reasons. I could be stronger than I was, funnier, smarter, prettier (at least it felt that way). I could even do things that in my own life I would not allow myself to do and not be accountable for these actions, which sometimes seemed more real than pretend. And the imaginary friends I created for myself as a child became the people watching me and the people acting with me. Peter thought I was funny, and so did the person on stage or in the studio with me, and that was a feeling I had not been able to experience as a child – being able to be these characters and interact with real people in front of real people, that was new. The best friends I have ever had are those whom I have acted with: my high school friends were fellow "Theater Nerds," my best friend in College was my servant in "Taming of the Shrew," most of my friends in Chicago and I started a theater company for a short while, and Hubby was my brother in "Arcadia." (eeek!)

When you really love acting, there is no other feeling in the world than really connecting with the character you are playing and being in the moment with the other person on the stage. Everything else falls away and you are just there with them, for real, perhaps aware of the energy of the audience as well, which only feeds into the hilarity/tension/fear/love/whatever it is at the time. It feels wonderful, powerful, just like Wonderwoman.

80's Sunday, That's My Fun Day

2006-06-11T10:38:00.000-04:00

Winner Katie's Little Potato...

Congratulations to Katie for correctly guessing last week’s 80’s tune. Really I am congratulating her on being speedy, because as I mentioned I was feeling pretty generous – Bryan Adams? Summer of ’69? Yeah, pretty generous. But Katie had this nailed within an hour of posting. Way to stay on top of it!

So now we move on to something only slightly more difficult. I know it is hard to guess these with no music, so I am trying to be fair. I am going to experiment with a new way of posting The Challenge next week. It will have real music, real video, and real live baby, so get ready to be wowed; Sam is preparing to DANCE. Until then, please accept my apologies and go here to be thoroughly entertained by one of my favorite lip syncing videos.

Below are the lyrics to a popular 80’s song. Without using the internet as a resource, guess the song and artist and name them in your comment. First to do so correctly wins. I will post the winner next Sunday, link to their site, and attempt to show their profile picture. In the meantime I will respond in the comments at some point to let you know we have a winner. Enjoy!

I feel fine and I feel good
I’m feeling like I never should
Whenever I get this way
I just don’t know what to say
Why can’t we be ourselves like we were yesterday.

Talk the talk and walk the walk...or not

2006-06-08T22:30:00.000-04:00

Sam is now 13 months old. He does not walk; he does not talk. I am trying to be calm about this and not obsess over milestones and so forth. I have always tried to avoid fixating on his achievements in comparison with other babies and to ignore various books and emails sent to me detailing everything he “should” be doing. There is little cause for concern with the walking because if I could crawl as fast as this kid I would see very little reason to find another way as well. I have to admit though, I wish we were getting a few words out of him. He babbles all the time, but there is little indication that when he says “mama” that he is actually referring to me. I feel like I’ve been reading his mind for a little too long now and I am ready to be able to stop guessing what he wants. Those first words would also alleviate some of the fear I have relating to some autism in our family (yes, I know there is no proof that it is genetic, but how could that not enter my mind?). I’m ready for him to talk to me, to say “mama” and mean it, and to show me he can do these things.

We’re doing ok though. He is certainly developing other ways of communicating what he wants a little more directly, often accompanied with hysterical screaming and flapping of arms if my response is not immediate. And physically, despite the fact that he does not walk, he is doing some stuff that I find pretty impressive.

Here, he is about to feed me a piece of his cheese. Much to my “surprise” though, he will put it almost into my mouth and then pull it away to eat himself, both of us hysterically laughing as I tell him what a stinker he is. You can see his mischievous anticipation of his little joke, which is not nearly as funny when played on him.

Here is the face he now makes to let us know he wants to eat. I don’t know, he’s just so subtle. How could I possibly tell what he means?

I have just brought out the YoBaby, so we get the open-mouthed, lean forward in the seat action. He was extremely unhappy that I chose to take the picture rather than promptly feed him. I suppose that is understandable.

Please note the lovely proper grasp of the spoon...before noting that he is actually eating with his other hand. And this is just a moment before both the spoon and the bowl end up on the floor.

Sam at work. He likes to lift objects onto things: shelves, chairs, the ottoman, the couch, and in this case, the dishwasher. One of his favorite times of day is when I put away the dishes. He challenges himself by trying to place two objects at once so that he can’t use his hands to get up, or to lift very large objects onto very high areas. This backfires when he doesn’t quite make it and the much bigger fire engine falls back in his face.

This: I just liked it.

"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

2006-06-06T17:06:00.000-04:00

Today was a good day. That’s right, I’m not here to complain today (except for about Blogger - What is up?!), and that feels pretty great. Sam had his first hair cut and no one cried, including Mommy. Back in April I wrote about my aversion to having this done in Cherub Do, one of my first posts. I just went back and read it and realized I had predicted I would cry. I also believed I would have to give in before his first birthday. Clearly I surpassed even my own expectations. But with his hair perpetually in his eyes this last week and that constantly sweaty head, I accepted that I needed to do this for the sake of his comfort, which is very different than having it done as a result of everyone talking about what a beautiful daughter I have. That never really bothered me; I think he’s beautiful too. And the good news is: he still is.

The woman cutting his hair did exactly what I asked, so we still have his little curls. And now they are less tangley so they appear to be even curlier. I don’t think we’ll be avoiding any of the pretty little girl comments from strangers anytime soon, but I am pleased to have not left there sobbing with Sam and his new crew cut. Best of all, he got to sit in a big red car and play with the steering wheel while watching a Baby Einstein video (that’s why he appears so mesmerized in some of the pics). Here are some highlights from the excursion.

This is the before picture, just as we were heading out.

First snip!

Not so sure about this...

Getting shorter...and eating treats.

Hey, where's my hair?!

You can read on to the next post to find out about the rest of our afternoon. I had to split the posts up since I guess Blogger only lets you use 5 pictures for each post. I couldn’t choose between these that easily so I'm double posting today.

Pretending it's our back yard

2006-06-06T16:28:00.000-04:00

After Sam's haircut we went to a place that is literally a one minute drive away. I find it amazing that we live in the boundaries of a city and are surrounded with what you see here. It's such a strange mix of urban, suburban, and rural so near each other. On the road to our apartment community there is an actual field with actual horses and actual cows. We drove by and smelled the cow smell just minutes from our place. It has been so long since I've breathed cow and trees and grass. It's nice. I'm not saying I'm settled - far from it. But on a day like today I remember why we decided to leave Chicago on this new adventure.

ABC Tag

2006-06-05T12:39:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Cmommy for tagging me with this very cool meme. Sorry it took so long!

ABC Meme

ACCENT: Used to be Southern, now that’s only when I’m really seriously drunk or extremely angry.
BIBLE BOOK THAT I LIKE: Ecclesiastes and First Peter
CHORE I DON'T CARE FOR: Cat litter box! See below.
DOG OR CAT: 2 cats - Maki and Tyler. One day there will be a dog.
ESSENTIAL ELECTRONICS: Computer, Tivo
FAVORITE COLOGNE: I like the little mixes they do at Aveda. I can’t remember which one I have right now. Air?
GOLD OR SILVER: Platinum
HANDBAG I CARRY MOST OFTEN: Right now I have a straw bag that really is acting as a mini diaper bag since it has more of Sam’s stuff than it does mine. It’s good for summer.
INSOMNIA: Um, yes, baby induced.
JOB TITLE: Mama.
KIDS: Sam, almost 13 months
LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: New 2 bedroom apartment – much bigger than what we had. I’ll give a tour as soon as the sun comes out so I can get good pics; it’s been cloudy for days.
MOST ADMIRABLE TRAIT: Well, I’m very organized, but I don’t know how admirable that is. I wish something else came to mind first.
NAUGHTIEST CHILDHOOD BEHAVIOR: I used to tell people my name was Dorothy or other characters I liked from stories instead of Elizabeth. I insisted. My parents took me to see a psychologist…
OVERNIGHT HOSPITAL STAYS: Just Sam’s birth – Cesarean – 3 nights for the labor, 4 more for recovery.
PHOBIAS: Swings.
QUOTE: “What’s that? What’s that you say? You say today is Saturday? Goodbye! I’m going out to play!”
RELIGION: Raised in Church of Christ, now it’s sort of an amalgamation and more personal.
SIBLINGS: One brother, 5 years younger. One brother in law, one step-sister in law, 3 half brothers in law. You can see my family tripled when I got married.
TIME I WAKE UP: Sam calls it. Sometime between 6:00 and 7:30.
UNUSUAL TALENT OR SKILL: Well, I used to act, and I guess since there is some statistic about public speaking being so many people’s worst fear that makes it pretty unusual.
VEGETABLE I REFUSE TO EAT: Collard greens and eggplant.
WORST HABIT: Eating at the counter, eating too much, eating junk food, eating too frequently.
X-RAYS: One of my ankle when I fractured it carrying laundry down icy stairs in Chicago. Do ultrasounds count? 3 during the pregnancy, 2 since then of my Thyroid, I can’t think of any others.
YUMMY STUFF I COOK: Salmon, shrimp scampi, fish tacos, meatloaf, chicken parm.
ZOO ANIMAL I LIKE MOST: Otters. I love those little guys.

And now to tag, and if any of you have done this one already I am very sorry. I was out of the loop for a few weeks there so I missed it. Let’s say Snickers (you said once you liked tags, right?), Katie (for guessing this week’s 80’s tune way too fast!), and Rachelle (for getting me with those other 2 tags and because I havn’t seen her around lately).

80's Sunday, That's My Fun Day

2006-06-03T22:38:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to Kep for correctly identifying Poison’s “Talk Dirty To Me” as last week’s 80’s tune. Poison: an excellent hair band with some very special lyrics and lovely attire.

And also let us recognize Kate for her outstanding identification of the previous week’s Kim Wilde song. But let’s not forget Linsey, who was able to actually quote the chorus of the song without placing the actual name or artist (but you were right, Ms. Wilde also did “Kids in America”). Good job to both of you and I am very sorry you did not get proper recognition for your joint effort last week – those of you that have been reading know why. ANYWAY, it’s good to be back and here we go with another 80’s Sunday, That’s My Fun Day Challenge, and I'm feeling pretty generous so you'd better hope you get here first.

Below are the lyrics to a popular 80’s song. Without using the internet as a resource, guess the song and artist and name them in your comment. First to do so correctly wins. Enjoy!

Standing on your momma's porch
You told me it'd last forever
Oh and when you held my hand
I knew that it was now or never

And thanks to Mama D, who gave me the idea to post the profile pictures of the 80's Sunday winner (actually I stole the idea and didn't even ask). She does an awesome new 80's movie quote game on Fridays called "Say What?" I have big plans to win.

Taking My Chances With Lady Luck

2006-06-01T21:52:00.000-04:00

I admit it; it’s my fault. I’m the one who thought it and therefore I am responsible. On Tuesday evening all of our stuff had been in the apartment a day, the air conditioning was working as was the cable and the internet, which I believe I mentioned was sporadic in my last post, but I was still happy to have just something. And then I thought it. I thought to myself, “Maybe our luck is finally going to change…” And I am sorry. I am very, very sorry. Do you hear me Lady Luck!? I’m fucking sorry! (Please note that is the first time I have cursed on my blog and oh, it feels fucking good!)

The internet lasted another 20 minutes or so after I posted my last entry. Who knows when I will ever get to post this but man, I just needed to vent. It is Thursday night as I write this, by the way. The cable lasted about 3 hours before going back to a black screen. The cable guy came out this evening and fixed it. That was about 2 hours ago. It’s a black screen again. And the AC stopped working again last night. This means that Sam and I had to sit in our furnace of an apartment all day today waiting for these various technicians to arrive. All day, apartment full of boxes, sweaty one year old, 85 degrees, waiting for 3 technicians.

Would you like to know how many actually showed up? One. The cable guy, and you already know how successful that visit was. Supposedly the internet people are coming out tomorrow. Hubby thought it was today but apparently, according to them, he was wrong. And the AC guys spent the entire day two floors up from us installing new ACs into those apartments (I should go tell those people to refuse them because isn’t the point of getting a new appliance to improve one’s situation?) telling us all day that they would be down to fix ours again soon, before finally just leaving for the day at 4:00 without ever checking in. I seriously believe that we have made about 32 calls in the past week regarding our utilities, these utilities for which we pay our money.

I was just sitting out on our little patio deck thing watching a thunder storm come in while Hubby put Sam to bed. It was really nice and I was realizing how long it had been since I’d gotten to do something like that. I love thunderstorms. And I can’t say I was really able to appreciate them while in Chicago because looking at a total downpour over a highway just isn’t quite the same as seeing one come at you over the trees. I didn’t have a deck thing or anything nice to look at. I couldn’t hear the sounds over the cars in Chicago. I couldn’t smell the difference in the air over the gas station across the street. I was sitting outside feeling the stillness in the air waiting for it to hit when all of a sudden the air started to move, the trees started to rustle, and the smell in the air changed to that wonderful clean heat changing to cool smell, like trees, leaves, and water from the sky. I liked it. I loved it.

Over the past few weeks I’ve had many recurring thoughts. One, of course, was: maybe our luck is changing. Another was: I hate it here. It’s crossed my mind over and over again and even escaped my mouth more than once. It’s been extremely difficult to recognize all of the positive things about this place in the midst of the ridiculousness. I need to remember that it will take time to feel comfortable, to find where things are, to figure out how to meet people. I just need to remember all of this and try to be more positive. As I watched that storm come in and felt the air change, new air blowing the old out, I let myself think it again. Maybe our luck is finally changing...or maybe that lightning is going to strike us.

24

2006-05-30T22:43:00.000-04:00

Previously on 24:
It has been 11 days since our stuff was picked up by the moving truck and we left Chicago. We are exhausted from horrible trips to Philadelphia, followed by living in an empty apartment for over a week. We’ve been told that their stuff will arrive on Sunday morning at 10:00 after already being delayed several times. On Sunday we reach the driver, Troy, again and are told it will be more like 2:00. At 2:00 we are told it will be 4:00. At 4:00 when we have heard nothing we call the driver again and are told by his sidekick, Pops (seriously, he went by Pops) that they now have a flat tire and have no money in their account to get it fixed. We are told that the truck will arrive Monday morning at 10:00am. We wonder how a person who drives across the country for a living can have no funds for situations like this. Expecting several days to go by without ever seeing our belongings, Hubby’s parents take us out to get us a TV so that we can at least have something more to do than play cards on the floor (they were there visiting to help with Sam while the movers were there. So much for that.). We come home and hook it up only to find out that the cable does not work. Hubby nearly has a breakdown…

The following takes place between 6:00am and 7:00am:
Monday morning Sam gets bitten by a horsefly while I am changing his diaper. We still have no internet, no cable, no air conditioning, and still no furniture. Nothing can be done about any of the utilities since it is Memorial Day weekend. Sam hasn’t slept at all because he is constantly sweating so much that his bed is wet.

The following takes place between 10:00am and 11:00am:
Troy calls and says they are still in D.C. with another stop to make. He intends to arrive later in the afternoon.

The following takes place between 1:00pm and 2:00pm:
Troy calls and says they are about 20 minutes away.

The following takes place between 2:00pm and 3:00pm:
The truck actually arrives (much to my amazement – I was sure they come up with some new excuse to get through to at least Wednesday), but Troy says that the truck can’t get up to our building because the parking lot is too narrow.

The following takes place between 3:00pm and 4:00pm:
I call my mom to have her give me phone numbers for every truck rental place in the area (remember, no internet). After several calls a truck is reserved for the purpose of shuttling our belongings between the big truck out on the street and our apartment building.

The following takes place between 4:00pm and 5:00pm:
Troy and Pops are loading the new little truck from the huge one, as we discover that the elevator in our building is out, as is most of the electricity. It is up to about 86 degrees in the apartment.

The following takes place between 5:00pm and 6:00pm:
Pops indicates that he is very concerned about how they are going to get all of our stuff up the stairs without an elevator. They have been told by maintenance that the elevator will not be working for at least 2 hours. Hubby and I point out that we could have lived in a building without an elevator at all. What would have happened then? We just moved out of a third floor apartment in Chicago and we had no elevator there for the movers.

The following takes place at 5:58pm:
Miraculously, the elevator is fixed. It begins.

The following takes place between 10:00pm and 11:00pm:
Despite a working elevator, and the fact that it only took two trips between the two trucks to get all of our stuff to the building, it takes Pops and Troy, with Hubby’s help, 6 hours to unload our stuff (no, we do not have all that much stuff. We live in a two bedroom apartment, how much can we have?). My dresser is broken, as is a shelf unit, a glass door to a bathroom storage cabinet, the ironing board and several boxes appear to have been crushed. But it is all there. At 11:00pm they left our apartment full of our furniture, clothes, and boxes.

The following takes place between 6:00am and 7:00am:
We wake up in our own bed.

Later on 24:
The air conditioning gets fixed just as Sam really starts to lose it from lack of sleep. Several other items are broken. Hubby has it out with our moving “coordinator” and gets a call from the big honcho at the moving company. He doesn’t answer this call so that he can better prepare. The internet gets connected finally around 9:00pm but goes in and out in its connection. We’ll see if I am even able to post this. The cable got fixed at 5:00 but has just gone out again as I write this. Hubby is now laying on the floor staring at the ceiling rubbing his forehead, periodically sitting up and turning the TV on to see if the screen is still black. It is.

I keep asking myself: Did we make the right decision when we decided to move to Philadelphia?

Camping in the new place, a meme, and 80’s Sunday all mooshed in a really big ball

2006-05-27T18:35:00.000-04:00

Wow, where to begin? We’re in Philadelphia and have been since Sunday. Our stuff still is not here. As of yesterday it was scheduled to arrive tonight. Then this morning it was pushed back to tomorrow. I was not surprised, but actually thankful that they were willing to bring it to us on a Sunday and not wait until Tuesday with Memorial Day and all. That’s what I’d expected when they started saying it wouldn’t be until the evening. I guess I’ll believe it will be here when I see it though.

Hubby, Sam, our two cats and I have been living on the floor of our very spacious apartment for a full week now. I’m sure it will look lovely with furniture. We still have no internet service. That won’t work until Tuesday. I am writing this on the laptop and then tonight we are going to go back to this sandwich place where we had lunch because we realized while sitting there that they had free wireless. I have to say, not having the internet may be just as bad as not having our furniture. This is for two reasons primarily. One is that it is extremely difficult to find one’s way around a new city without the web. I didn’t realize how dependent on it we were. And two: I have really, really missed blogging. Not only writing and posting, but reading everyone’s and commenting as well…and checking comments of course. Again, a dependency I had not quite realized had taken such hold so soon.

There was something nice about knowing I might sit down and write each night. I paid more attention to things maybe, knowing I’d be taking that time to reflect later. I was better able to organize my thoughts and the goings on of the day, especially anything in relation to Sam. I lost that for the past two weeks and have missed it terribly. Everything has been scattered. And yes, I know that is mainly due to the ridiculous situations in which I have found myself, like arriving to the apartment after driving with a screaming Sam for three hours, only to find out that the key they gave us to the bottom lock doesn’t actually work. Sometimes it has all just felt like too much, and I can’t help but think that had I been unloading and uploading some of it throughout this process I maybe could have handled it better. And certainly having a cheering section would have felt good too. I felt better after writing the post that shared some of the details of the moving day and reading your comments made me feel even better after that, so thank you all for that.

And then I was cut off. I’d written my 80’s Sunday ahead of time and just posted it up the morning we left, fully believing I’d be back by about Tuesday to write more and read more. But no, that’s not how it happened. And now my thoughts are so disorganized I can’t even narrow down anything to say. When I realized we’d be able to go back to the sandwich place and get online (as long as we were willing to have the same sandwiches for dinner that we’d had for lunch) I was totally overwhelmed. What to post with such a short amount of time? Do I do one of the tags that I still need to do from a few days before I left? Do I write about the new place? Complain more about all the crap that has happened in the past week? Post an early 80’s Sunday challenge for fear that I won’t get to put one up on Sunday since the movers are supposedly coming tomorrow? Write about what it feels like to be in a new place? I still have no idea what this post is about and it’s already ridiculously long. What do I need to say? Because we write these for ourselves, right? Boy, that’s a post all its own…I guess I’ll try and do a little of everything.

I’ve learned some things in the past 2 weeks. I want to get them all out. That’s more important to me right now than paragraphs with transition sentences.

1) I have “control issues.” I do not handle it well when I feel that things are beyond my control. I’ve always known this, but finding out that all of your belongings are not even on their way to where you are and no one is doing anything about it and you can’t do anything either has a special way of really bringing out these…issues. Recall two posts ago when I wanted to scream or sleep. Yeah, that’s been a continuing theme.

2) My son is the sweatiest baby ever. He sweats when he eats, when he sleeps, when he plays, when he smiles. This kid sweats. We’re talking wet through the clothes, visible dampness on the bed. And I have to tell you, it’s not that hot.

3) Having a washer/dryer in my apartment is just as great as I’d imagined.

4) Having trees outside one’s windows is exponentially better for one’s psyche than looking at a gas station and highway.

5) Moving from a very flat place, like Chicago, to a very hilly place, like Philadelphia, is very hard on one’s calves. I think I need new shoes with better arch support.

6) While in many ways it is good to recognize that many people do not do what they say they are going to do and that often things go wrong, expecting that to always be the case is not a nice way to live; it feels bad. I want to be more optimistic, especially for Sam and for Hubby, who always manages to look on the bright side and generally trusts people.

And now I think I’ll go ahead and post a meme that Rachelle tagged me with like 2 weeks ago, maybe even more, I can’t even remember. I have one more meme for her and one from Cmommy coming up. I promise I won’t drop the ball, it’s just taking a long time for fairly obvious reasons.

Four jobs I've had:
Arts Education Program Manager, Actor – Got paid $10 per show so technically it was a job, right?, Café Barista (latter 2 were simultaneous – you do the math), Teacher

Four movies I watch over and over:
Clue, Sense and Sensibility, Amelie, Dead Poets Society

Four places I have lived:
Texas, Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Chicago, Philadelphia

Four TV shows I love to watch:
The Office (did you see that finale!?), 24 (missed this finale due to TV being in storage in Illinois), American Idol (again, no TV but I know who won.), Survivor (saw this finale but wish I hadn’t. So lame.)

Four places I have been on vacation:
Alaska, Bermuda, Grand Cayman, London

Four Places I'd Love to Go to On Vacation:
Thailand, Greece, Italy, Great Barrier Reef

Four websites I visit often:
My blog, your blog, others’ blogs, weather channel

Four favorite foods:
Sushi, chocolate chip cookies, doughnuts, my mom’s chicken and dumplings

Four Places I would like to be right now:
About 2 feet higher, then I wouldn’t be on the floor but on my couch, which is hopefully at least in the right state by now; in my bed, see above and know that Hubby and I have been on an air mattress for 6 nights now; my tree house from childhood; back in Chicago.

I’m not sure who to tag because I’ve been so out of the loop that I don’t know who has not done this one yet. And I know Hubby is not going to sit in the sandwich place while I go through everyone’s blogs – that would be dangerous anyway since I’d probably want to sit and read everyone’s posts for the past week. So for now, if you have not done this meme yet and would like to, consider yourself it!

And last but not least, for those of you still reading this horrifically long post: 80’s Sunday, That’s My Fun Day. Yes, I realize it is Saturday but if I don’t post this today then I’ll miss it altogether since I am sure that tomorrow I will not be returning for more sandwiches in the midst of the movers finally bringing me my bed. And I’d rather get to have the 80’s challenge early than to not have it at all. Next week I will be back on track and on schedule…at least I hope so…nothing else could possibly go wrong, right? Right? So obviously I can’t see your comments here, but I will read them when I get to the internet sandwich place to see if anyone guessed that last week’s song was “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by Kim Wilde. Oh, the dance routines I had to that one…I think one involved me hanging on to an imaginary rope…ahem anyway, if you were the first to guess it then congrats to you!

Below are the lyrics to a popular 80’s song. Be the first to guess the song and artist and name them in your comment. First to do so correctly is deemed 80’s Goddess Divine for the week (or God Divine, I suppose. Pretty sure the only males that have ever seen this site are Hubby and my Dad). Here goes:

You know I call you

I call you on the telephone

I’m only hoping that you’re home

So I can hear you

When you say those words to me
And whisper so softly

Signing off until who knows when. Can’t wait to read everyone again!

80's Sunday, That's My Fun Day

2006-05-19T23:08:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to Kate for guessing last week’s 80’s tune and "artist" correctly, and to ABC Momma for a close second. Oh, Rick Astley, did you have any other songs? So here we go with week two, and it looks like we've got a competition going here so bring your A-game ladies.

Below are the lyrics to a popular 80’s song. Without using the internet as a resource, guess the song and artist and name them in your comment. First to do so correctly, wins. I'm signing off for a few days as we head out to the barren apartment, and I'm not sure how long it will take to get our internet going there. I look forward to seeing the results and checking in on your blogs soon. Enjoy!

You say although we broke up
you still just wanna be friends
but how can we still be friends
when seeing you only breaks my heart again

We're all fine here...just fine...really... fine

2006-05-19T16:00:00.000-04:00

Did you ever feel like things were so out of control that there was nothing left to do but go somehwhere and scream? Or curl up in bed and sleep? The activities surrounding this move have not been going well. Nothing ridiculous has happened I guess, but no aspect has gone without a hitch, at least not yet. Here are some highlights...

Our flight out: I was flying out to Connecticut to stay with my in-laws with Sam on Tuesday afternoon. I had two seats for us so that he wouldn't have to sit on my lap the whole 3 hours. I was told I would have assistance transporting the car seat to the gate from check-in. When I called the day before to arrange for this assistance I was told that "they don't do that." Skip to the end of that argumentative conversation. I was told that if we arrived early enough we could potentially get a pass that would allow Hubby to come with us to the gate to help with the stuff. We arrive super early only to find out that the parking lot is full and we would have to park in the "Remote Parking." By Remote they mean so far away you shouldn't have bothered to drive. We would have had to take the shuttle after backtracking and by the time we got there the whole get there early thing would have been moot. Fine. I'll work it out and get to the gate on my own. I'll rent one of the little cart things. Hubby comes in to at least help check the bags before pulling away from the curb. I am off to security check. Hmm...no carts. Ok. I'll drag the car seat while pushing Sam in the stroller while carrying the backpack. And that is what I did, all the way to the gate, where we had arrived 2 hours early (remember the whole "get there early" thing? Well, we did) leaving me to entertain Sam at the gate before the flight had even boarded. I speak to the check in lady and am told there is no early boarding so that I can install the carseat. Again, not what I had been told before purchasing the tickets. Fine. Can I get help transporting the car seat onto the plane? No. Fine. How about holding the baby while I install the car seat? No. Fine. Has anyone person helped me at all? No. Ok, after an intense battle as I buckle in the seat while holding Sam on the other seat with my knee we're installed. Sam is done screaming. Surrounding passengers are done moaning and then, "I'm really sorry to do this to you, but I need you to change seats. You see, we can't have a carseat installed in the rows before or after the exit row, so I need you to switch with the people behind you and reinstall your seat." F.I.N.E.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago: Hubby was dealing with the movers and then driving to Philly with our 2 cats before driving on to CT to join us at his Dad's. (That's right, I stayed with my Father-in-law, just us, for 3 days. Awkward? Um, yeah, I'd say so.) While I don't know all the details I do know know of a few little tidbits, the best of which is as follows. Hubby packed the keys to our storage unit in one of the boxes. This is the storage unit we rented so that we could start packing our stuff 2 months ago and get it out of our apartment. It was totally full. The keys were packed and loaded onto the truck. He doesn't realize this until it is time to take the movers over to the storage place. That's fine. Hubby goes to Home Depot and is told he needs a hack saw to cut through the lock. Fine. Comes back with hack saw which does absolutely nothing. Fine. On to Ace hardware where, after being given a hard time because his license doesn't have his current address, he rents huge cutters, which do the trick and then need to be returned. He doesn't get out of the city until 4:30 that afternoon with cats yelling and puking in the car and who need to be snuck into a Best Western in Ohio that night.

3 days later, in CT: Today we find out that our apartment manager in Chicago wouldn't hand over the keys to the subletter we found at THEIR REQUEST because we hadn't signed some form, even though we had already been told that we had done everything they needed us to do. So now we are faxing and signing and causing grief for this poor subletter who isn't being given the keys to our place. This process gets delayed because in its midst we also happen to put a little call in to our moving company to find out if they have a better sense of when our stuff will be arriving in Philly. Well, you see, it didn't get onto the truck that was supposed to take it yesterday because they misjudged how much stuff someone else had and ours wouldn't fit. It's in their warehouse still. She'll check and see when it can be reloaded onto a truck and taken over. The answer: Monday. Our stuff has been in storage since Wednesday and will get out and BEGIN the trip Monday. It will arrive...SATURDAY, as in a week from TOMORROW. Hubby's Bar review class begins this Monday, that's the whole reason we did the move so soon after his graduation. So now we get to choose between staying here for another week while he misses a week of his classes and our cats sit in an empty apartment, or we can all go and live in the empty apartment together for the week. Oh yeah, and Sam has a fever again. Please excuse me as I try to find a helmet strong enough to hold my head together.

"Goodbye Chicago," board book style

2006-05-16T11:59:00.000-04:00

In the great windy city
There was a Picasso
and a park by Gehry
and a pizza that
was stuffed with pepperoni.
And there were Chicago Bears
and a tower called Sears
and lots of police
and buildings by Mies
and pretty street blocks
and a team with white Sox
and the Cubs
and the El
and a Beluga whale
and a bad old governor who was going to jail

Goodbye City
Goodbye pepperoni
Goodbye pizza stuffed with pepperoni
Goodbye schools and the park by Gehry
Goodbye Bears, goodbye Sears
Goodbye police and goodbye Mies
Goodbye river bends and goodbye great friends
Goodbye pretty blocks and goodbye Sox
Goodbye Cubs and goodbye El
Goodbye everybody, goodbye whale
And goodbye to the old Governor going to jail
Goodbye park, goodbye Drake
Goodbye city by the lake.

80’s Sunday, That’s My Fun Day

2006-05-14T20:24:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the first ever “80’s Sunday, That’s My Fun Day.” I experimented with this last week and have decided to make it a regular addition to my site every Sunday.

Below are the lyrics to a popular 80’s song. Without using the internet as a resource (and we’re on the HONOR SYSTEM here, ladies), guess the song and artist and name them in your comment. First to do so correctly wins. You win nothing, but if you beat ABC Momma you will win my applause and respect – she’s your competition, and also the inspiration behind this little challenge. Enjoy!

We've known each other for so long
Your heart's been aching but you're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on
We know the game and we're gonna play it

Get Ready For 80's Sunday

2006-05-12T22:50:00.000-04:00

So everything here is officially insane. Family is in, Hubby's graduation is Sunday, and we move to Philly on Tuesday. Insane. Needless to say I will be a bit out of the loop for a little while, but I didn't want to go without leaving a little something, so get ready for the naming of tunes.

This Sunday will be the first "80's Sunday, That's My Fun Day." This will be a chance for you, yes, you to read the lyrics of an 80's song and try to guess it before ABC Momma, a true 80's expert. You will win nothing, you will lose nothing. Prepare to blast to the past, and be sure to bring your hair pick and banana barrettes.

The Night Ritual

2006-05-10T22:36:00.000-04:00

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while because it is something I want to make sure I always remember. Every night is the same here in our house. I have alluded to some of Sam’s sleep problems before, but this is not an instance where I am going to complain. I love how we get Sam ready for bed every night. And ever since he was old enough to really benefit from a going to bed ritual, this has been it.

After Hubby and I eat dinner we change Sam’s diaper. I then give him a leg massage with some lavender scented lotion, although, lately he has been much more interested in dropping the lotion bottle, one of his favorite toys, back behind the bed and leaning over the side to see if it is still there and if he can reach it. Meanwhile I try to keep him from falling with my hands and his legs covered in slime as he wiggles and writhes. Hubby and I then read him 2 books. Up until a few nights ago, the second one is always “Sam Loves Kisses,” which ends with Mommy and Daddy giving Sam a "snuggly kiss" when he can't sleep. Then we nurse and I bring him out to the living room and dance with him to one or two songs. For as long as I can remember we have been dancing to The Innocence Mission. Lately he has added hugs and his very special kisses to our dance time. He’s also begun laying his head on my shoulder when he’s really sleepy. He’s a real boy! I then put him in his bed and he holds my hand until he falls asleep while I hum him a combination of the songs I have sung to him since his birth. This is the part I want to make sure I remember. And no, I do not think all of these songs are amazing or anything like that. Most of them were just all I could think of while trying to calm him down and they stuck.

My Repertoire:
Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Eternal Flame (The Bangles), The Rose, You’re the Inspiration (Chicago), Unchained Melody, Stand By Me, Yellow Submarine, Glory of Love, Carrie (Europe, that’s right, Europe), I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You (which Katharine slaughtered last night on American Idol), Everything I Do I Do It For You (Bryan Adams), Holy Holy Holy, What A Wonderful World, Tomorrow

After just one year some of these already make me feel nostalgic and remember when he was tiny, fussy, and needed to sleep right up against me (or on top of me – the hand holding is a HUGE improvement). I think back to what those crazy newborn days were like and I’m amazed at how much has happened. I thought I would never get the hang of this mom thing, yet here I am. We kept him alive for a year so I guess we’re ok so far. And I still love singing him to sleep, except for when it is the umpteenth time and it's 4:00am.

What are your favorite songs to sing to your children?

Bad Technician, Mad Mommy, Sad Story

2006-05-10T11:09:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was Sam’s one year check up at the pediatrician and with that came the dreaded vaccinations. I remember the first time he had to get shots I started crying as soon as I saw the needles. I had to go in the corner and calm down while my husband held him. I got much better after that, and the last time he needed a shot he didn’t even notice it and didn’t cry at all. That is, until yesterday.

I didn’t like this tech from the moment she walked in, so maybe my account of the events is a little skewed because she just rubbed me the wrong way, and we had to wait for her to arrive for a very long time as Sam grew more and more restless. What bothered me first is that she began the procedure before I was able to get up next to Sam at the table. I was late getting there because she was standing in my way. And as I stood behind her trying to find a way around and mumbling excuse me, she gave him the first shot (there would be 2 more, unfortunately). It was clear from his wail that he did, in fact, notice this one. This time I was much louder as I pushed past her saying I needed to get up to the table. He was already very upset.

I just happened to look down at what she was doing just as she began the second shot. Now, I’ve never actually watched the injection happen, but I’m pretty sure what I saw was not normal. (If you don’t like needles you may want to stop here.) It looked to me like she was having trouble getting the needle to penetrate his skin at first, and then all of a sudden it went through and the whole needle was thrust into his leg. And by the whole needle, I mean the entire thing. All that was visible outside his leg was the syringe, and he SCREAMED, and my husband and I both GASPED. But that is not all. At this point she let go of the needle to hold Sam’s hand down and ask my husband to take over that duty (this, in my opinion, should have been taken care of before the injections began – each person should have been assigned legs and arms...and mom should have been up at the table – that is what everyone in the past has done), so I was left watching a wobbling syringe stick out of my son’s leg as he sobbed. I asked her if the shot was supposed to go in that far and she said yes, but I can tell you that the 3rd needle was not put in that far. I really felt like I was going to lose it at this point so I think I just had to believe her in order to keep it together.
That was yesterday.

Last night I did not believe her as I tried to get to sleep. This morning I do not believe her. As I write this I do not believe her. As I have pictured this horrific sight over and over again, feeling nauseous all over, tearing up all over, I absolutely, with perfect clarity do not believe her. And it’s not that I think something really bad happened. I mean, this situation was really bad, but I am not worried that there are going to be serious ramifications to his health. It is that the way she handled the whole thing was not ideal. Vaccinations are painful for babies anyway, when done perfectly. I believe that she made an already difficult situation much worse than it needed to be. She did not prepare Hubby, me, and her assistant for our roles, resulting in awkward pauses where she had to ask one of us to take an arm or leg more than once, which I think made her a bit flustered. More importantly, she shoved a needle into my son. Then she told me she meant to do it that way. I think she knew she couldn’t tell me that it was an accident, and she was probably right. But now I am left to fume after the fact.

I’m not sure what, if anything, I should do about this. I could call the doctor under the guise of asking her if a vaccination is really meant to go in so deep, in the hopes that she asks me what happened and then I can describe the events (the passive aggressive approach). Or I can call her with the specific intention of tattling on her tech (aggressive). Or I could write a letter describing the events and send it to...someone...someone important (responsibly aggressive?). Or I can call and try to speak to the technician herself and explain what I think she could have done differently (direct and very conflict resolutiony – I could say things like, “When you stabbed my baby with a needle, it made me feel rage”). Or I could do nothing (potentially cowardly, potentially right).

I could try to accept her answer and believe that this is just how these vaccinations are. I could realize that no matter what it looks like I will probably find fault because no matter how you slice it it’s something that is traumatic for my baby. I could accept that no one is perfect and maybe she did just make a mistake. I could.

80's Name That Tune

2006-05-08T23:12:00.000-04:00

In honor of ABC Momma, who I owe one to for tagging her last week and then realizing she gets the heebegeebees when she is tagged, I am issuing a challenge just for her. In the same tag where she expresses her discomfort at being a tag-gee, she also asserts that she would be champion of an 80's Name That Tune. I kind of liked the idea because in truth I actually think I would be the winner, but hey, I tagged her and feel bad so I'll get this going and not even be there to face off.

Below are the lyrics to a song from the 80's. Be the first to name the song and artist and you win...I don't know what. Respect? Love? Adoration? Well, you may just have to be satisfied with the knowledge that you won and beat a self-proclaimed guru - that's assuming, of course, that she doesn't beat all ya'll (and no internet resources allowed). Good Luck!

Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich

Addendum: If you are reading this now you are way too late. ABC Momma had it immediately. But please do leave a comment if you would be interested in another 80's Tune challenge.

Birthday Dreams

2006-05-07T21:50:00.000-04:00

In lieu of presents for his birthday (the move and all) I decided to collect wishes for Sam from our family and friends. I knew I was going to do this at some point ever since he was born, although I have not yet worked out the details of what we will do with his “wish box.” I’m not sure if we will read his wishes to him each year on his Birthday once he is old enough. Or maybe we will save wishes for him every year and then give them all to him at some significant age, like when he leaves for college or turns 16. Maybe I will add a new wish to the box for him each year from Hubby and me, along with a bit about what he did that year. Or maybe I will have Sam write his birthday wish each year and add it to the box with the ones we have collected. We have some time to figure it out I think, but I love the wishes we received from our friends today at his party.

It almost intimidates me, some of the things they wrote, because now it is time for me to write my wish for my son. Perhaps I am a little lost since I don’t know what exactly we are doing with these, or perhaps I am just overwhelmed with the fact that my baby is one year old today and I have so much that I want for him in his life that I have no idea how to narrow it down to words.

What do all parents wish for their children? Happiness, right? For them to be healthy and enjoy life. For them to feel love, and sorrow, hope, joy, excitement, and fear. For them to live their lives to the fullest and appreciate what is happening to them as they do so. For them to feel fulfilled emotionally, spiritually, mentally. But now these words are too big to understand – they become meaningless, non-specific. What do I want for him and what I am I really saying? It’s too much.

Whenever Hubby and I discussed having children it always turned to the happiness we felt as children growing up. We wanted that joy, wonder, and excitement for our kids, and we wanted to be a part of that again, to help create it. I've also been thinking a lot about my childhood this week in response to Rachelle's writing assignment for "My Life Monday." Over the week I was asked to recall my most memorable childhood experience, but for me I was only flooded with images of delight; there was not one specific memory that took the cake (Birthday pun for ya). I just loved childhood - all of it. And that was what Hubby and I looked forward to the most: to have a child who got to feel those wonderful things we took with us, for the first time.

Today, my wish for Sam is that he stay a child as long as possible. Ironically, I don’t mean that because he is my baby and I don’t want him to grow up. I mean that I want him to feel that awe and curiosity and innocence for as long as he can hang on to it. I want him to feel the thrill of turning around on his bicycle to see that the parent who was holding him up is 25 yards back, yet he is still moving forward. To feel the disappointment on Christmas Eve when his mom comes in after he has worked so hard to stay awake, to tell him that she saw on the news that Santa is running late and is still a few thousand miles away, and he realizes that he won’t be able to stay awake long enough, no matter what he does. To feel the fear of finding a slug (which he has never seen before – what is it?!) on the ladder of his tree house and the relief when he finally gathers the courage to return 4 days later and it is gone. To feel the wonder of sitting in that tree house as the sun goes down and hear the change in the noises of the woods and feel the sudden chill in the air on his sun warmed arms. To jump on mattresses, to build forts out of boxes, to dance before he cares what he looks like, to lick the batter off the spoon, to fall asleep on the way home from fireworks on the Fourth of July, to ride his first roller coaster, get his first pet, make his first best friend…

I have no idea what I’ll actually write for Sam’s wish. But today, I wish for myself to help give him all of these things and more. Hubby and I wanted a child so that we could share with him his childhood, and I wish that it could last forever.

Young, by Anne Sexton
A thousand doors ago
when I was a lonely kid
in a big house with four
garages and it was summer
as long as I could remember,
I lay on the lawn at night,
clover wrinkling over me,
the wise stars bedding over me,
my mother's window a funnel
of yellow heat running out,
my father's window, half shut,
an eye where sleepers pass,
and the boards of the house
were smooth and white as wax
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks
as the crickets ticked together
and I, in my brand new body,
which was not a woman's yet,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.

Little Baby Pukey Pants

2006-05-05T22:02:00.000-04:00

Sam is finally asleep. He has a fever and threw up his dinner. I didn’t know he was sick until tonight. He’s been cranky lately, especially today, but he also has a molar coming in so that was to be expected. I felt like we were neglecting him as we got back to our packing mission, and I thought he might be resenting the lack of attention a bit. And I was impatient. Didn’t I say just a few days ago on that meme that I am not always as patient as I would like to be with my son and husband? Let’s go back and check the meme. Yep, that’s exactly what I said. And I have now discovered the downfall of blogging.

I was impatient, despite the signs that something might be wrong. And even if he wasn’t sick he was still teething and clearly cranky because he was in pain. I even thought about this and was still completely…impatient. As I watched the numbers on the thermometer climb I berated myself for my complete and total bitchiness today. And then I realized that the fact that he had a fever did not matter. I should have been more sensitive anyway because he was teething, because we are moving and I know he feels our stress, because we have not been paying as much attention to him due to our being completely overwhelmed, because it is almost his birthday, because he is my baby and he makes me smile and feel better when I am down.

As he fell asleep tonight, just before he closed his eyes, he looked at me and gave me his sweet smile, and I just couldn’t believe he had a smile for me despite the fact that he felt like crap. So I am back to where I was before in mommy fear , where something bad happens to Sam before I realize that I need to relax about this move and the graduation and the party (Oh no! The party is supposed to be in 2 days…and he’s sick…I am totally defeating my point here…) and all the logistics and details of everything. He is all that matters. And if he is able to look at me when he has a fever, an upset tummy, and a huge molar breaking though his swollen gums yet still muster up enough love to make me feel so good, then I certainly should be able to do the same.

Two Men Kissing

2006-05-04T20:06:00.000-04:00

This was the first time that Sam gave Hubby one of his "special kisses."

On the Birthday party front, I finally let go today and ordered a cake for Sam. The thought of baking a sheet cake and 2 dozen cupcakes Sunday morning while trying to get everything else ready (including the Birthday Boy) did not sound appealing. I am a bad bad mom who isn't going to bake her son's first birthday cake. But you know what, he's not going to eat it anyway and I'll be in a much better mood for his party knowing I am not serving potentially burned cupcakes. I'd much rather spend as much time with him as possible that day; he'll probably enjoy that a lot more and so will I.

One year ago today we were one day past our due date, wondering why the Mexican food I'd had the night before was doing nothing, and waiting...stewing. Sam would not be born for several more days...