A boy after my own heart

I was baking A's birthday cake this afternoon. He'd collapsed into a nap on the couch after a long, happy day of play with his friend H at the Fleet; I had L in the baby bouncer in the kitchen with me as I baked.

L was not too keen on being trapped while I baked, but I handed him some scraps of parchment paper to teethe on and he seemed okay with that--until I started pouring out cake batter. If I was still eating cake batter, this is the cake batter I would eat: thick, rich, chocolately-buttery-delicious. Then L started to tantrum madly. It looked to the casual eye like he was happy with parchment until he realized there was cake batter in play.

If my life were a sitcom, this is where I would have handed him a spoon of batter, salmonella and allergy-introduction be damned, and I would have an adorable photo of a batter-smeared baby to show you. But my life is my life, so L screamed at me until I put the cake pans in the oven. Then I changed his diaper.

Happy birthday, Jake and Niles!

It's been a fabulous decade.

Dia de los Muertos

We had Halloween. A went Trick-or-Treating for the very first time with his friend H. A was a lion, H was a firefighter. We met up with a mob of kids; A and H were the littlest ones in the group, adorable. The neighborhood wasn't super, lots of houses without lights and lots of big hills, so after a reasonable number of houses (under ten), we split H and A off from the big group and doubled back, hitting the houses on the other side of the street.

But A certainly understood trick-or-treating this year. C's "What do you say?" prompts to him for a "Thank you," resulted in a "Happy Halloween!" half the time after A overheard the mob of parents saying "Happy Halloween." He's still pretty cute.

We came home and trick-or-treated at our sweet neighbor's house, where she'd baked a batch of cookies especially for him, and he took off his costume and looked like he was ready to stay the night.

He got a small stash of candy, which is larger than any stash of candy he's ever had in his life. The funny thing is: he asked for a piece on Halloween night when we got home (a Tootsie Roll, a tiny one) and he hasn't asked for one since. This may be an out of sight, out of mind thing; it may be that we had birthday cake last night. But A's candy might disappear if this keeps up. We'll see if the other kids at school today remind him that he has candy.

In sickness news, I have been still sick, pretty much mute all weekend. Today my voice has started to come back and my head's not full all the freaking time, thankfully, but I've not been the world's most functional person. Saturday I took a midday nap; yesterday I fell asleep in front of the TV around 8:30 or so after my nap efforts were thwarted by two fighting cats (thanks, guys). I started cleaning and laundering this morning, which is always a sign that I'm feeling better. Unfortunately, crankiness is one of those signs too, but I've felt that all week.

Birthday soiree and other weekend summaries

Saturday was A's big three party and he had a great time. One other kid, H, was able to come, and while the two of them could not be more different, they had a great time together. We're bridging the gap between A's parties being his friends and our friends. Next year, we won't be able to put the party off for two+ weeks.

A was all about the presents. People came in the door with them and he wanted to open them. Ah, well. No, first food, then cake, then presents. And pinata--a dinosaur one, not a Dora one, because Mommy couldn't find a Dora one. It was also filled with toys and fruit leather and no candy, so it was certainly a gringo pinata bash. He now has way too many presents, but he adores them all.

A had a great time with his grandparents. The weekend felt action-packed and I think all the adults were sleep-deprived. Thursday we ended up in Encinitas for the evening since I had an ultrasound at 6:30PM (more like 7, and it took an hour). But the good news is that Baby 2.0 looks great and on track for development. We found an excellent Greek restaurant up there that I'm going to be visiting again once I have another appointment, let me tell you. They had a lemon-chicken-rice soup which sounds terrible but is exactly what I want to eat the next time I'm sick.

Sunday the grandparents left, which is sad. Not enough time. A got up the next day (a normal day, with everyone back at work or home) and told me, "I don't want you. I want Daddy; I want Grandma." Sorry, kid. You're stuck.

Of course, A is sick again, somewhat, with a little head cold. We're watching his asthma meds to make sure his head cold doesn't turn into a hospital stay.

I'm taking it easy, since I'm having some cramping, which I've had since yesterday. I was supposed to get into my OBGYN's today for a checkup but of course, they canceled it--both doctors were delivering one hour before my appointment. So I'll be rolling out of bed before dawn tomorrow to get there at 8:30AM with the traffic (yuck).

The calm before the storm

It's Saturday. C is better but not great; still sounds like he's going to cough up a lung every now and again. A and I avoided the flu, so I'm thrilled.

Today is the deep breath before the plunge of this week. Tomorrow I am going to meetings, meetings, meetings: San Diego Writers Ink, followed by the plumeria society. That'll take me from 9AM to 5PM pretty easily, if not longer. C and A are going to a Padres game. It's both of their first baseball games. A and I are doing the summer reading program at the library and for reading twenty books with Mommy, he got two tickets to the Padres. Go A! They're playing the Mets; I'm a little jealous of C.

The grandparents roll into town at Wednesday midnight, so there is shopping and cleaning that needs to happen between then and now. Wednesday my fabulous friend JJ offered to take A off my hands in the morning for a playdate so I can house clean and bake a cake, plus A has speech therapy that day. Plus the grandparents will be getting there late.

Thursday we're jam-packed with preschool and grandparents and my twenty(-two, nice scheduling there, guys) week ultrasound. Friday C's off work but I'm sure we'll be busy running around and doing party prep.

Saturday will be the official birthday party for the little boy. We are not bounce housing or petting zoo-ing or anything like that. Brunch at home, wading pool on the lawn, a pinata, and cake, of course. "A Dora pinata, Mommy," I was told this morning. Right. Dora.

And then the whole whirlwind will be over. So this time next week, I should be a lot more relaxed.

Happy birthday!

It was my sweet baby boy's (who is more boy than baby now) birthday and he had a jam-packed day. First, preschool, where they gave him a crown and had muffins (mommy-baked, peach and blueberry) and sang "Happy Birthday." His teachers gave him the run of the place for the day, so he had a good time.

Then lunch at Chick-fil-a with Mommy, always a hit, then a nap, then speech therapy. His teacher brought presents for both him and Mommy (nice!). Daddy came home early and grilled him his own pizza and then it was cake and presents and bed.

For three, a pretty full day. The party will come later when his friends are back in town and Grandma and Grandpa are here (and Mommy is not double-booked for meetings).

But he's so amazingly cute and sweet. Liz and Bill sent a box of stuff (a wonderful surprise) and A tore through it like mad as a before-dinner treat. But he's so amazingly smart. He opened a book he's never seen and said, "Oh, it's Dr. Seuss!"

We just got back from Balboa Park. I took him to the puppet show (Pirate Paul) to get a birthday surprise: a crown and a card and a little frog prince finger puppet. Then an auditorium of people sing "Happy Birthday" to him. They called his name and he just ran down (we were sitting in the very back row) to the front without one look back for Mommy. He's getting so grown-up and worldly.

Party party party

After a couple of craptastic weeks, we needed to have some fun this weekend. And boy, did we ever. Saturday was the big 0h-Three for our friend H, who had a rocking birthday party complete with bounce house, Cookie Monster pinata, and cake. Boy did A have a good time, and so did we. He even used the potty in the scary park bathroom--twice.

Sunday, we headed up to the House of Mouse for a day of rides. Oh my, rides. We rode Pooh and Buzz and the small world boats, of course. A looked at the map and insisted on going to see Nemo, so I waited in line with him while C ran off to ride roller coasters (it was Fathers' Day, after all). The lines weren't actually that bad at all. And we didn't have an asthma attack and end up in the hospital, so that always makes the day just a little more fun.

I should mention that A is currently in love with Dora the Explorer and maps. He can't get enough of maps. We go to the Zoo, we look at the map and map our route. We go to Disneyland, he gets his own map and wants to know where we are, where we have been, and points to where he would like to go.

We had a learning experience where A wanted to ride "the rabbit ride." This would be Splash Mountain, which is hard-core and has one of the taller height requirements. So I took A over to the dreaded "you must be this tall" sign and stood him there and had the guy explain that he wasn't tall enough yet for Splash Mountain. A is tall enough now for the Matterhorn and the little kid coaster in Toon Town, but we're waiting for him to ask to ride them before we take him on them.

We had Mickey ice cream and burgers and Mexican food and I fed the feral cats to protect them from toddlers. A used the potty and stayed dry all day, hurrah. So that was all grand. And we were in the car so A could be asleep by his normal bedtime and home in time so we could be asleep by our normal bedtime.

He had swimming this morning all by himself, which was good because I could pretty much let the teacher take him and see how he would do in a private, mommy-less lesson, and he'd do relatively well, I think.

Birthday madness!

We just took the grandparents to the airport (sadly, it was great fun to have them here) after Mister A's Big One.

It was madcap. Friday we decided to go to Comic-Con. If you don't know what Comic-Con is, you probably won't enjoy it. I realized that I was not the big geeky loser girl I thought I was after going to Comic-Con. It makes the SCA people at Ren Fairs look positively well-adjusted.

But then we ran around here cooking and cleaning before we had to pick up the grandparents. Then we woke up and cooked and cleaned until everyone ate, really. We had a good time; I hope everyone else did. A took a nap halfway through his party so the party ended up lasting an hour longer than I thought. Mister L was a trooper and was pretty happy throughout. We had enough food to feed three times the people; I don't know why I'm always convinced everyone will starve.

A liked the frosting but didn't like the cake. He chewed on the cardboard cake round instead. He now has more toys than I know what to do with, but they're all really cool ones. We're parceling them out. He still hasn't opened all the ones from Grandma and Grandpa and us and the out-of-town folks. It's a little overwhelming for a little guy.

Yesterday we took him for a birthday ride on the carousel and train in Balboa Park, which he enjoyed. We went out for BBQ and he took great pleasure in chewing on rib bones. It looked like he was a serious BBQ aficionado from way back. He dropped his bone, then turned and pointed to Grandpa's plate, like, "Hey there, Grandpa, better get me another one." We had a small incident when he got a little bit of the spicy sauce but Dad put a pat of butter in his mouth and everything was better.

Today A and I will try to put the house back together and get back onto a more normal schedule. Boy, birthdays are exciting.

Harry Potter Harry Potter Harry Potter

We're done with Harry in this household. The period of time where I am finished and C is not is somewhat tension filled around here since we hold firmly to the concept of not blabbing the bits of books or movies until everyone is done.

So no Harry discussions here. If you finished it and want to chat about it, email me.

But this is all irrelevant to the real attraction which is the boy.

It was birthday party weekend (and it should be a measure of how much we like people that we ventured forth into the world with HP unfinished). Saturday was Little Miss S's birthday, also known on this blog as the Biter. A didn't get bit. It was in a park; all the other birth class babies were there and there were tunnels and toys to play with galore.

There was a huge spread of corn-based food, none of which I could eat. I happened to be standing where the front of the line was when the announcement came to eat, so I gamely walked through the line and took a little of everything, while realizing that I could eat nothing. So then I found my husband (this is why married couples should circulate at parties) and said, "Look, honey, I got you a plate of food." At least everything that I could touch (no utensils for grabbing corn-husk-wrapped tamales, so no tamales on my plate).

This makes me feel slightly better about not killing myself to make sure I have wheat-free, gluten-free everything for our shindig this week.

Sunday we went to Terry's birthday dinner and that was fun, even if there was just too much going on for A. He was mostly fine, a little fussy but it was a long time. I'm feeling increasingly apologetic to my child-free friends because I just can't have a normal conversation any more. I'm trying but my brain's completely taxed. I'm trying to keep my baby occupied and happy first of all, and then second, I can talk to you. You're already coming in second. But then, I have to really concentrate to try and think of something small-talk-y or conversational and that's probably too much work. I don't want to talk about the baby, but I have very few other things that I'm spending my brain power on. Plus I'm consumed by envy of child-free people in restaurants because they don't have someone who is desperately interested you and only wants to be in your lap with a hand down your shirt. Well, you might have someone who wants a hand down your shirt, but you won't be changing his diapers in the next half hour.

The other things that I'm spending my brain power on are things I don't want to talk about, like the fact that I need to figure out whether the protagonist in my novel-in-progress is more of a girl who likes sour candy or sweet, exactly how much already-written back story needs to go and how sad that will make me because I really like the bit about Estefan quitting cigarettes, and whether I should submit my story about the safe for critique this week or the part of the novel where my protagonist meets up with her ex.

See, your eyes are glazing over already.

The tiny bit of my brain that's left is spent on the fact that the hornworms have spread to the basil which pisses me off and that I need to clean the house this week for the impending in-laws and birthday party. You know, remembering milk at the store.

Monday morning and where's my weekend?

This was a busy weekend, holy cow. Saturday we had Mr. L's birthday party, which was fun. Two of the babies are standing; A is still crawling fast when he needs to go somewhere. A missed his morning nap (more or less) so we drove around SD after L's party so he could sleep.

Sunday morning we hosted brunch for our friends who are moving away. We had waffles: lots and lots of waffles. Oh, and red beans and rice, which C and I will be eating for a week now. We went to our local coffee shop to get a carton of coffee (since not having coffee for brunch can be a mortal sin but we don't drink coffee) and our friendly barista loaned us one of their carafes, which was lovely. And the coffee was good according to the people who drank it, so that's great.

C triaged the massive number of dishes so that the kitchen wouldn't become kitty-licking-heaven while we were gone, and then we were out again to Miss M's birthday party (different Miss M than Thursday). This was a huge bash out on Coronado. This is the baby from our class born prematurely and boy howdy were they celebrating their very tough first year. I don't know how many people were there but it was probably at least fifty or so. They had a lot of things set up for the kids; A found a tiny inflatable ball pit and thought that was the best thing ever. Two of the other moms commented to me that A's very focused; he finds one thing he likes playing with and plays with it. This was at least true about the ball pit.

We walked to the beach and put A's feet in the Pacific for the first time. He loved it. We were lucky he can't walk yet or he would have walked right into the ocean. That kid loves water; we're going to have to explain water in a pool versus the water in the ocean.

I'm up and writing since nobody's awake, but I think I hear a baby. C and I are so tired; it was fun but we need a weekend to recover from our weekend.

Birthday Party #1: The Divine Miss M

We went to our first official baby birthday party today. The birthday girl's birthday is still a couple weeks away, but she's moving and all of us SD moms were getting robbed of the joy of her birthday. So her mom threw a party during playdate.

There were eight babies there. It was chaos, babies strewn everywhere, crawling, chewing, and one running around. We had cupcakes (deliciously if accidentally almond flavored, yum) and munchie food and it was good.

I did have a couple WTF moments. First and primary example, the kid only got three presents and a card. It's a kid's birthday party. You need to bring a present or at least a card. There are only two types of parties where presents are required, showers and kid's birthday parties. One of the presents was hijacked by a husband who took the wrong car to work, but that's still a couple clueless wonders left. One person had the gall to say to the hostess: "I thought you wouldn't want a present since you're moving and you'd have to pack it." Beeeeeactch. How much room does a kid's book take up in a box?

Here's my other WTF moment: This bitchy person, who I have blogged about before as happy naked mom, left the place where we have swim lessons to go to another place for swim lessons. "It's cheaper and they keep the pool at 92°F!" I didn't go. I think the place we're in has logic and goals behind its lessons, the instructor is a gem, and the pool is 84°F, which isn't balmy but is more like what he'll actually encounter in pools. I didn't want a hothouse swimmer baby.

Today she asks me if I'm still having lessons at the old place. "Have they taught him anything new? Have they progressed any in what they're doing?" This ticked me off. The lessons are structured so that there's a repetition in every class that I know A likes, because he knows that after the welcome song comes the "kids in the pool" song, followed by "all around the cobbler's bench" and submersions, yadda yadda. He knows what to expect and while it varies from time to time in small ways, he's used to the routine.

But within the boundaries of repetition, there's room for each kid to do what he or she is able to do. So while my boy's doing six or more submersions in a class, the two-year-old who's scared of the water is still practicing putting his body in the water. And the instructors do a good job of not making it judgmental or competitive, which is honestly refreshing after you've had any conversation with a baby scorekeeper: "Is your son walking yet? My son was walking at ten months. Is he talking? My son recited Henry V's St. Crispen's Day speech at his first birthday party." Bleack.

But I digress.

I told this mom that since A had improved, they were giving him more complicated things to do but that it was same as it ever was, based on the ability level of the individual kids. She doesn't like the new place because (I kid you not) "the pool is 92°." Okay..................

But the WTFs were few and far between. It was the first time all the moms from birth class were together since our reunion in November. The one baby born prematurely looks great (her party's Sunday). I talked to moms with bigger hearts than mine who are adopting babies from Africa soon. I had a cupcake. I took pictures. The birthday girl's dad came home and I only wish I'd gotten a picture of him entering his completely trashed living room and scanning the eight babies that were there. He was goggle-eyed.

Coming soon: a post on my read and critique group, although I can't right now because I read a story from a person in the group and it wasn't good. It just...wasn't...good. This person had some mildly snarky commentary for me on my story so...Oh, next post, I promise.

Quick like a bunny updates

We had swimming today and it was great even though we were late. Poop blow-out coupled with the fact that I didn't discover until I was trying to pack up the car to go that Mistah C had my diaper bag, sling, and stroller in his car. At work. Oy. That meant I had to turn down an invitation for lunch with the other swimming mommies, which makes me a little sad but I am so tired today that it's not a bad thing to come home, feed the baby, and relax.

Yesterday we celebrated the darling Miss Julie's b-day by going to Sea World. It was fabulous and surprisingly wonderful. I got to try out my new wrap on a serious walk-around day and my back isn't killing me even a little, which is good news on the wrap front. Also, Sea World is chock-full of diaper changing and nursing stations throughout the park which makes it baby-friendly, even though I just nursed A through the "Pets Rule!" show. (I have great respect for anyone who can train a cat to do anything, let alone on cue in front of an audience.) But now I'm tired. Sea World is a lot of fun! I don't think I've been to one since I was four or so and could ride in the dolphin strollers. We need to do more fun things on the weekends instead of just, you know, go to Target for diapers and Trader Joe's to do the grocery shopping.

We also got to see our local Navy pilot this weekend, so that was good. He lives in town and we just get into our Target-Trader Joe's rut and don't think to call him, so I'm glad he called us. We ate in a restaurant and young Master A was as good as always; the waitress told us we were getting compliments on our good baby.

New item received today: Inflatable portable baby crib. We're going to test it out for Italy.

Record High Weather and It's All My Fault

Yah, you betcha. It was 99°F yesterday here (a record over the past high of 87°F) in our little corner of the world and it was DAMN hot. I'm sure this is because I am pregnant and set to simmer anyway. It's been hot here like it is in the East. You shower, towel off, and you're sweaty again. It's that hot.

We went out yesterday to the best hardware store in gay ol' Hillcrest and found an ionizing tower fan for downstairs (we had one for our bedroom at night, but it was just getting ridiculous). Mistah C and I are now in love with the fan. Poems are being composed by the hour to the joys of sitting on our asses in front of the TV with the fan going. Example:

The couch is dampened--
Let us turn the fan to three
With this here clicker.

I didn't say they were good poems.

Anyway, yesterday was T's birthday (oh, we can blame him for the heat!) and we saw the One Man Star Wars Trilogy, which is fabulous if you're a little Star Wars fangirl like me. Happily, I think Terry is a big Star Wars geek too. Watching someone do all three movies in under an hour is damn funny. If you don't know the films backwards and forwards, I'm not sure you'd enjoy it, but if you do, then let me tell you to make sure you see it when he's in town. There's a good balance of plot and editorializing, although he was funny enough I would have liked more editorializing.

I got to play the "I'm more pregnant than you are" game in the bathroom after the show with a woman who's due in two weeks. I won.

But seeing the show was the last scheduled thing I've got pre-kid that I needed to not be in labor for. My last day of work before maternity leave is Friday and I still have a couple things to wrap up, but they're not huge disgusting things.

Last night, I don't know if I woke up with a contraction or if I was awake and noticed I had a contraction, but I had a contraction. Honestly, I thought to the kid, "No, not today. Today is not your birthday; it's too damn hot and you can wait a couple more days to be fully-cooked. I don't want to do this right now, so just chill out." I don't know why that was my gut response, but there it was. I just wanted to go back to sleep. I didn't tell Mistah C since I thought we'd never get back to sleep waiting around for another contraction. I didn't have another one and I'm not in labor yet, so there you go.

The only disturbing thing is that my pinkies keep going numb. When I woke up last night, I noticed it on my right hand and thought I had slept funny and cut off circulation, but both pinkies are still tingly today. It's just my pinkies and they don't appear to be blue or any other color than the rest of my hands, so I'm thinking it's nerves and wondering if I'm finally having some inflammation issues. We've got a midwife appointment tomorrow, so I'll ask about it then.

I have to go back to sitting on my ass in front of the TV. Excuse me.