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.

I am a super writer.

Right now, I think the biggest compliment you can get in a read and critique group is that they forgot they were supposed to be critiquing and were just waiting to see what happened next. But this might be because this was the compliment I got tonight at read and critique group.

It's so nice to eat a tart without having to make sure my wee little one is amused, or watching to make sure he doesn't choke, or trying to make sure he's not eating something disgusting like the grime-covered high chair strap or the edge of the table. Relaxing used to be the spa in Hawaii. Now it's eating a tart.

Wednesday blahs

I've been up since four AM so I'm probably cranky. The drywall saga is still on-going. No drywall guy yesterday, although he came by after we'd gone out (and called his partner to mention that the drywall wasn't done yet) and left a melodramatic note saying he'd be back and stay for as long as it takes to finish it. Whatever. I know what he's got left to do (install drywall, tape and texture, plus paint) and there's no way to do it in one day.

Monday we had swim class and it was super, just one other kid (18 months old) and us. It was bilingual all-star swim class. We did a lot of submersions where we let the babies swim on their own for a couple seconds. With the goggles on, I can see that A's got his mouth closed underwater and his eyes open. He's started trying to jump off the wall on a 1-2-3 count, which is neat.

We also do what we call "balloon faces" where we're trying to get the kids to hold their breath. A hasn't really wanted to do this, but when I showed him that I could make a balloon face and then put half of my face in the water, he perked up like, "Really? Why didn't you mention this was relevant? I thought you were just batty!" and started doing balloon faces. He's funny. Don't bother him with new information unless it's relevant, cha chas.

I've got a writing group meeting tonight, which means I spent the last hour writing something so I wouldn't look like a big goober with nothing to have to share. I'm not sure what the critique value will be on something scribbled for the purpose of not looking like a goober, but that's okay. I'm showing up. I'm way behind on ScriptFrenzy but I am not throwing in the towel yet.

Two more things

1. The other day, I meant to write about how super Mistah C is and I didn't. But he's super. He's just amazing and I'm so grateful to have him in my life. I'm just so pleased A has such a wonderful role model; it will make raising a boy a lot easier than if I'd married a sexist pig dog.
2. A has added another baby sign to his repertoire, more. In A's version, he raises two fists parallel to each other. I filmed him doing it while eating Trader Joe's Os and it's up on YouTube for your enjoyment.
   

Father's Day

We've had a busy week. We're currently (still) in the flux of drywall installation. I'm partially convinced our drywall guy is on meth, but he may also just be incredibly flaky. He seems to do good work, so maybe it's early in his addiction cycle. (This thought occurred to me while I gave him unsupervised access to our house, so this may just be my insidious paranoia. Nothing was missing, so let's assume he's just flaky.)

So the toilet and sink are in the garage, the bathroom has insulation and copper green, and now all it needs is drywall and paint.

A had swimming last week, which was super although I was late. We left the house early to avoid entanglement with the drywall guy, which meant I realized in OB that I didn't have the swim bag. Oops. Home and back again in record time and we made it into the pool during the welcome song. A's doing great in swim class. After swim class, one of the other mommies and I rode the Giant Dipper, which was super great fun. I haven't been on a roller coaster since, oh, Space Mountain before we had A.

It was Father's Day and that was mellow and low-key. A's been having sleeping troubles so there wasn't much sleeping in for C. But we had a lovely day nevertheless. A's sleeping troubles are currently attributed to:

• Teething - that sixth tooth is bulging out of his gum
• Growth spurt - some of his borderline jammies are verging into too tight
  
• Learning - he's had a couple, non-duplicable standing incidents
  

But in the end, it doesn't matter since we're not getting any sleep. So a lot of Father's Day was spent driving in the car so A would sleep.

We have a bonus swim class today that we're making up from Italy. I had a class myself this weekend on queries for articles and short works, so now I have to go get published somewhere. This week is birthday party week: Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Superduper Mister C

Right now, the drywall guys are banging away in the powder room, removing two walls' worth of drywall and insulation. A's in the office with me, coughing his poor little head off. He's got a cold and didn't sleep well last night. He's still got that darned sixth tooth bulging through his gum but it actually hasn't come through yet. So he's a little cranky. He didn't have any good naps yesterday and he's only had a tiny one (between the gardeners and the drywall guys) today.

He's so tired. I would write more but he's just crawled across the room to me to be picked up and cuddled. So off we go for a diaper change, a feed, and maybe (cross your fingers) a nap.

Sandbox!

We got a sandbox from the consignment baby store yesterday. I washed it this morning and once it's dry , we'll fill it up with sand and see how it goes. I've spent the last weekend and this week cleaning up the balcony/patio outside our bedroom. We figure we'll put the sandbox up there. The sandbox has a lid, but it's always best to take whatever precautions you can against the neighborhood cats with a sandbox, don't you think?

Swimming on Friday was super. We're now putting on goggles to see what they're doing underwater. A keeps his eyes and mouth closed and flaps his arms. We thought the two-year-old in class might actually go underwater this week, but no dice. I think continuous swim classes are a good thing, or continuous access to water, at least. We got him a little surf shirt at Target so that he can go in our pool once it gets warmer.

Blond and biting

In the last few days, many different people have commented to me on how blond A looks, including but not limited to Miss Julie, the other playgroup moms, and everyone at the dentist's (where I finished my cleaning with A sitting on my belly, staring into my mouth in fascination--he did a happy 45 minutes in the stroller before deciding he needed some attention). He still doesn't have much hair, but his latest hairs do seem blonder.

I'm currently styling myself as a strawberry blond, which might make people who don't know us more inclined to think he's blond, but there are enough people who've commented who know my hair color has more to do with chemicals and no relation to A's hair color. C was blond as a child and my brother's strikingly blond, so there are some possible genetics for blond. Oh my. I spent my childhood in envy of my blond haired, blue eyed brother and now I might be the mother of a blond haired, blue eyed boy. Scary.

Also scary: A got bit at playgroup yesterday by a girl three weeks older than him. They all mouth each other from time to time, but all of a sudden, chomp, there she clamped down on his arm and little fat wrist with her four teeth. Ouch. She didn't break the skin, but he's still got a red mark today. He was surprised, then howled. Her mother was horrified and embarrassed. I reassured her that he was fine after making sure she didn't break the skin. I don't know why that was the dealbreaker for me, but as long as she didn't break his skin (and grabbed her child and kept a close eye on her after that), I wasn't in terrible lioness mother mode.

Today's agenda: swimming. He's currently napping so I'm trying to figure out if I can get a shower in before class. That may not happen. Sigh.

Eating and learning

That's what we're doing here. A is up to three meals a day and boy howdy does he like O cereal. He's cruising around everywhere but hasn't gotten to the standing alone stage yet.

What have we done? We got a baby gate installed at the top of the stairs, which makes everyone feel better. We hosted playdate here last week and everyone admired the baby gate. All the babies want to hang on the bars of the baby gate, which makes everyone nervous. A and I were noticed for signing; I made the "nurse" sign at him from across the room and he came to me to eat. I didn't think this was that big a deal, but the other mommies noticed so it must be.

We had swimming on Friday. A rocks. We practiced backfloating and he is the king of the back float. He's getting really good at paddling and kicking. We got to meet our swim class instructor's mother, which was nice since our instructor's so sweet. "She's been like that since preschool. She met everyone at the door and greeted everyone as they came in."

Now if we could get him to stop grinding his teeth together...

Swimming breakthrough

In swim class, we give the kids a one-two-three count before we do anything like jumping in the pool or going under water. Today, I was jumping A off the "island" in the middle of the pool back into the water. On three, he lit up and splashed his hands and kicked. He knew he was going back into the water and he was happy about it. (And maybe, just maybe, he understood that he needed to paddle his hands and kick?)

He was great at kicking and paddling today. He floats on his back really well; I'm holding him up with three fingers behind his head. I tried to take my fingers away today (gently, tentatively, under the instructor's supervision with big eyes) and his head sunk. So he's not quite ready to solo back float, but he's not crying like the other babies.

Nannies

We live in sunny San Diego here. A and I went to the Zoo with one of our mom friends this morning, and I have to address the nanny issue.

I first noticed this when we went to the La Jolla library. La Jolla is a swanky place, beautiful beaches, lots of money, mansions everywhere. I was hanging out in the library with A and overheard a conversation. Two women were sitting with two kids reading books to them. The kids were maybe three or four(?). I can't tell until A's been that age and then I still can't tell.

Anyway, these two women were hired caretakers, one was an au pair and one was a nanny. They had a lovely cheerful chat about where they spend time with the kids and where the kids live.

So then I started wondering how many other nanny pairs I'm strolling by with A in my stroller. Now that I've started looking, I think it's more than I originally thought in my altruistic, pluralist way. I'm keen on adoption, blended families, biracial blends, and all the other wonderful manifestations of society. But the woman at the zoo pushing a toddler I saw today--they weren't related. No way. And I hate making the judgment because I'm making it on appearance (skin color and disparity of consumer goods). No mom who's pushing a kid dressed in Juicy Couture in a Bugaboo Chameleon would be seen in Walmart sweats with knock-off Keds sneakers.

I know; maybe it's Grandma. Maybe.

Changing after swim class one day, one of my least favorite moms had a wailing infant. Sobbing, yelling, tears. Sound really reverberates off the damn tile in there. If you don't have kids and are wondering if parenting inoculates you to the sound of babies crying, wonder no more: it doesn't. If the parent's working on it, then I feel more empathy since I've been there, done that, but if the parent is blithely letting the child cry, then I'm ready to jump down their throat and say, "Why have the child if you weren't going to help him?"

There's a swim class for older ladies at the same time as our class, so there's an older woman sitting next to me. She says to me, "I hate hearing babies cry," and I nod as agreeably as I can while getting dressed. She goes over and talks to the mom.

This mom is one of my least favorite moms. (Said it once before but it bears repeating.) This older woman tried to coo to the baby to get him to stop and this mom basically said can it, Grandma, he doesn't like strangers. Lady, he doesn't look like he likes you. (I have never seen this child not screaming.) One of the other moms suggested that maybe he was hungry. Oh yes, she says, he is. He's on a new feeding schedule and he has to wait another two hours to eat, plus a new nap schedule so he has to stay awake.

This might make sense, you formula-feeding parents out there are saying. No, he's breastfed, and they eat when they want to. Also, swim class is like my bankable nap of the week. If I had to bet all the money in my pockets to say when during the week A would be taking a nap, I'd tell you right after swim class, after he eats. This new schedule sounds like the road to insanity.

The older woman sits down next to me and tells me again how much she doesn't like to hear babies crying. I agree. She looks over at A, who is his sweet darling observant self, and she says how beautiful he is, how sweet. I thank her.

She tells me she never let her babies cry. I tell her I try not to let mine cry like that. I ask her how many children she has. She explains that she raised five children, all grown now. She wasn't their mother, but she raised them. She did a good job; they are all sweet, smart, and still remember her.

I tell her that's wonderful, but I'm thinking how sad, they still remember you and that's the marker of a good job? She tells me that she has no children now and she wants to have new children to look after, that she likes having nice children to look after.

And I think, oh, have I been conducting a job interview for a nanny without knowing it?

So I try to not-too-obviously state that looking after children is quite a job and I consider myself so lucky to be looking after my own son. And she agrees and leaves.

I don't know why I didn't expect to see that many nannies; I just didn't expect to see them in the locker room. Or the zoo.

Post 200

How's our boy doing? Well, he and I just crawled up the stairs together. He laughed uproariously the whole way. We were chasing Jake.

We had our nine-month-checkup yesterday that had been rescheduled twice. He's 20 pounds, 11 ounces and 28 inches long, which makes him average for weight and short. The pediatrician says not to worry about it; he's fine and right on track. He had to have a hemoglobin test (which was fine) and the last of his Hep B vaccine. He didn't cry for either. It was amazing.

He's also now up to three solid food meals a day and starting to eat real people food. We fed him a mushy, cut up banana this morning and he thought we were loony. He looked horrified by the texture. This is what he eats: Sweet potatoes, bananas, pears, apples, carrots, winter squash, and yes, even peas. They're not his favorite but he's becoming reconciled. The doctor says we're okay to introduce other foods that don't have us hopping about allergy fears: wheat-free/corn-free O-cereal, yogurt, cheese, meat, tofu. The wheat and corn we can discuss at the one-year visit; nuts, shellfish, berries, and citrus are off the table until two without further discussion with the doctor.

The nurse goes through a series of questions when we walk in, and one of them was, "Does he respond to his name and 'No'?" Well, yes, he laughs hysterically when we say "No." That is a response. Consistency, consistency, consistency.

Other notes: I had a visit to grown-up land. The surly (and I mean surly) office worker who checked me out told me there was absolutely no appointment first thing in the morning for the month surrounding his birthday for his one-year visit. "Is that okay?"

Well, I'd like something first thing in the morning because then my husband can accompany me.

Don't have anything. Okay. She hands me a card and it's for 8/22, which is three months from yesterday and much closer to his 13 month than 12 month.

"Could I have something closer to his birthday?" I asked.

She hemmed and hawed. "Well, see, it's pretty full, and it is three months from today."

I went out into the hall and pushed the elevator button and thought about how annoyed I was that they had rescheduled this visit twice and how much I would be pissed off if they rescheduled his 12 month for two or three weeks later. So I went back in and said, "Actually, I'm sorry, but I would really like an appointment closer to his birthday." I didn't yell; I didn't scream; I didn't get bitchy. I asked nicely for an appointment and I got one. Now if I'm smart, I'll call ahead to schedule the next visit for first-thing in the morning.

Look at me, whining whining whining

Since this blog is ostensibly about the boychik, I should have blogged about Mother's Day.

Mother's Day here was grand. I didn't sleep in, but C and A went on a grand tour for the morning that included the grocery store, the French bakery, the coffee shop, and the beautiful open-air flower stand up the street. During this time, I took a nap on the couch with both cats. I had an almond croissant and a chai latte for breakfast, followed by a day of hanging out and idly looking at open houses in the OB/Point Loma area (none of which we would buy or consider buying just because they weren't...us), and then we had goat cheese with goat cheese and garlic bread for dinner. It was a fabulous day.

There's a story about two Jews who meet (I think it's a Hasidic story) and ask how it's going. The first one says, "Oh, it's terrible. My kids are sick, my wife is mean, my job is a mess, my life is awful." And God's watching and says, "Awful? I'll show you awful."

So the second one says, "Well, my life is great. Everyone's healthy, everyone's happy, I can't imagine my life more wonderful than it is right now." And God's still watching and says, "Wonderful? I'll show you wonderful."

Drywall not dry

We had a leak in our showerhead joint that caused rain in our downstairs bathroom. The nice (super nice, actually) plumbers came and fixed it yesterday, and today the drywall guy came. But the drywall guy pointed out to me that there was:

1. at least one soggy wall, mushy enough to sink my thumb into
   
2. a mildew, moldy smell
3. both green and black mold

All of these things made him reluctant to install drywall. So off I trotted to Home Depot to get drying crystals (although I'm not tall enough to install them) and a mold test kit (which they didn't have). In a couple days, we'll get an estimate on ripping out all the moldy/wet drywall in the bathroom and getting it replaced. It's just not a lot of fun.

Peas and swimming

Well, our food loving ways stopped with peas. Yup, peas. A was game for a couple bites, then tried to scrape off his tongue. So we went back to sweet potatoes, bananas, and pears.

The kid doesn't like green veggies. He is my boy, that's for sure.

We're not force-feeding him, learning from my in-laws who force-fed C when he was a wee thing and then C threw up in his dad's bucket seat.

We went to our new swim class, which only has one other person, an 18-month-old named Rachel. Rachel is (obviously) walking and waving and things like that, but in terms of actual swimming prowess, she's not doing much more than A. She's jumping in the pool, sometimes not when she's supposed to jump in the pool. So I was relieved that A suddenly wasn't going to be in a class where he's completely outpaced by someone 9 months older. He did not have a rockin' time, though; less kids means more submersions and he was unprepared for all the submersions. But he did well.

Oh, and it rained in our downstairs bathroom yesterday. Yes, in the bathroom.

Random playdate

We had a random playdate today, which was good. One of our moms is going to Arkansas this weekend, so we rescheduled for her.

A is eating food now like it's going out of style. He's been averaging a small jar and a half of food per meal, a pretty good leap from nothing but nursing in Italy. I had to do a Whole Foods run this afternoon to get more food. C taught him how to get the hang of eating off a spoon. I don't know how, but he did. So feeding is suddenly a lot less messy.

So far, he's had sweet potatoes, bananas, and pears. The next thing we'll probably introduce: peas. He hasn't disliked anything so far, although he disliked sweet potatoes after bananas. But he seems to really like bananas.

In the category of you knew it was going to happen...

Today's the day A discovered a box of tissues and emptied about half of it before I could turn around and say, "Hey there, sport."

Yesterday was the day we fed A sweet potatoes after bananas and he decided he no longer liked sweet potatoes. He made a Calvin face that would have made Terry very proud (Terry having the best Calvin face I know of, in an pseudo-adult, anyway). That was a rookie mistake of our first meal with mixed foods. Next time, fruit last.

9 o'clock and all is well

Mostly, anyway. C is trying to rock A back to sleep as part of ongoing efforts to get A to sleep without Mommy. I'm still getting over my ick but I'm improved.

We went baby gate shopping this weekend. The baby superstore is frightening, but they had the best gates, unfortunately. I got winded somewhere on our walk. I hate being sick.


We'll be at loose ends tomorrow since we switched swimming days and now our class is on Fridays instead of Mondays. But I'm still feeling pretty crappy so I don't think that's a bad thing this week.

My doctor's visit

I'm doing better. I've got bronchitis. I haven't had it long enough yet for my doctor to prescribe antibiotics, and since I'm still breastfeeding my drugs are limited to certain OTCs and an inhaler, just like when I got bronchitis when I was preggo.

Anyway, I got a lot of sleep last night. C did an amazing job of taking care of A quickly when A woke up so that I only had to wake up to feed A. And then I was only half-awake. I think he even took A away quickly after he'd eaten, which doesn't always happen and sometimes we just all drift back to sleep.

A is terribly interested in books today. He has now gone through all the books we keep for him in a basket on the floor and is now trying to fit into the basket.

No doctor's visit today

The stupid office people at the pediatrician's drive me nutso.

We didn't get a confirmation call yesterday, so this morning I called to confirm our appointment this morning. Oh, no, the pediatrician's not here today. Did you need an appointment? Well, yes, I had an appointment for this morning.

Oh, no, she's not here. Let me see when I can get you in. This is his nine month check-up?
Yes.
When will he be nine months?
Last week.
Okay. Well, the earliest I can get you in is two weeks from now, since well care appointments need to be made two to three months in advance.

Let me jump through the phone and throttle you. Yes, I know that, woman; that's why I made the appointment at the end of January for today, which apparently was a bad day or became a bad day and nobody bothered to reschedule us. So just make the damn appointment for whenever the hell we can get in because I know we're at the mercy of the all-mighty scheduling book.

This meant that C could go to "work." Today "work" is in quotes because "work" today consists of the first screening of a certain blockbuster movie opening today and a Cinco de Mayo party. Gotta love his job.

Cranky cranky cranky

I am sick. Nose running like a faucet, coughing like I've been smoking three packs of the Devil's cigarettes, and a headache to boot. When I called the doctor to make an appointment, she said, "My goodness, it sounds like you've got a whistle caught in your throat." But she couldn't get me in until today.

Yesterday C stayed home with me since I was sick. Last night, I couldn't sleep due to a combination of coughing and non-drowsy drugs. I got an hour and a half at one point, broken when A needed to eat.

These are the days when I don't feel like a mom but a teenage vagrant who mysteriously has a baby. I don't want to be the typical fabulous selfless mom who slaps on some lipstick and goes about her daily routine cheerily. I want to climb back into bed with a cat or two and give the baby to anyone willing to keep him quiet for a couple hours. This is, in short, a bad mom day.

Also on an extended note, Master A's started banging his head when he's tired, against my collarbone or C's shoulder. This is a possible sign of autism and has me slightly worried. Thankfully, we have our nine month visit tomorrow and the doctor can reassure me. All the Googling in the universe tells me that it's not uncommon for babies, particularly boys, to develop head banging behaviors in the second half of the first year for self-soothing. God knows this week we've had sleep adjustments up the wazoo with nine hours of time zones.

But still, I'll feel better when I've talked to our pediatrician about it. Growing up with my sister, we had the mantra of "early detection, early intervention," drummed into our brains about any kind of disorder or disability. So if he's got something, I want to know sooner rather than later. This is when I need to go to the grocery store to reassure myself that he's still a sociable little being. Every time we go to the store, people stop me to tell me what a smiley baby I have. "He still seems engaged with people, right?" I ask C, who looks at me like I have three heads. Yes, he says. Look at him smile at you. Look at him laugh. He's okay.

Jet lag

Jet lag is just no fun for anyone. We'd been moving to increasingly later bedtimes until C came home last night and found A and I asleep on the couch together. He put A to bed and when I woke up, I went to bed too. Then we all got up at 3 or 4 this morning and drove aimlessly trying to put the boy to sleep.

So we're tired. But I found quizzes.

Your Birthdate

You're a dynamic, charismatic person who's possibly headed for fame. You tend to charm strangers easily. And you usually can get what you want from them. Verbally talented, you tend to persuade people with your speaking and writing. You are affectionate and loving, but it's hard for you to commit to any one relationship. Your strength: Your charm Your weakness: Your extreme manipulation tactics Your power color: Indigo Your power symbol: Four leaf clover Your power month: December

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Italy: an overview

I just started trying to write a trip report and it's just going to take too long. So I thought I'd write a brief summary of where we went and hope that would satisfy people for now.

Places we went:

• Florence - Duomo, the Duomo Museum, the Bapistry, the Accademia, Santa Croce, the Uffizi Gallery, the Ponte Vecchio, the Medici Chapels, the Straw Market, the Piazza dei Signorina, the Uffizi Loggia, and our own Piazza dei Annunziata.
• Vernazza in the Cinque Terre
  
• Pisa - the Field of Miracles, but we just looked at the outsides of the Leaning Tower and the Duomo before skedaddling. We didn't like Pisa.
  
• Tuscany: San Giminano, Siena, Monteriggiano, Pienza, Volterra. We went into the Duomos of most places.
• Rome: the Campo dei Fiori, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Piazza Novena, the Colosseum, the Forum, Palentine Hill, the Borghese Gallery, St. Peter's, and the Vatican Museum, including the Sistine Chapel.

Things we learned:

• Italians love babies. They passionately love babies. They shower babies with affection. A ate it up.
  
• Carrying your baby gets you special treatment. Places with ridiculous amounts of stairs sent us to the elevator; we were waved through security checkpoints and X-ray machines. I was tapped firmly on the shoulder at the Sistine Chapel and told to follow a security guard. I thought I was in trouble. He walked me over to a bench (most of the Sistine is standing room only aside from benches in one corner), unseated a man, and sat me down.
  
• Most Italians have not seen a baby carried in a wrap and so they're fascinated by it and thrilled to talk to the baby face-to-face. A now smiles when you say, "Ciao, bambino!" to him.
• Packing light is a wonderful thing. We had two carry-on sized bags and a day bag, plus the car seat. That was grand for traveling. I wore a shirt/skirt combo or a dress every day and that was fine.
  
• Those mesh packing cubes that seem like an incredible waste of money are fabulous. Everyone had a cube for their clothes: me, C, A. When you're going from town to town pretty regularly, it keeps you organized and makes the repacking easier. We had some other things in ordinary Ziplock plastic bags, and they were too slippery to make for good packing.
• At some point, you have to stop swabbing everything your baby touches with an antibacterial wipe.
  

It was amazing to have a baby with us in Italy. In the US, I often feel like I'm apologizing for having my baby with me unless it is a patently kid-friendly place, like the Zoo. He yells or squeals in a restaurant and we've got him out of the room quickly.

In Italy, it was like everyone was related to us. Everyone (with one exception in the entire country) was thrilled to see him. He yelled in museums and churches and people still cooed and called him beautiful, asked about his weight, his teething. In Italy, they expected babies to be babies and didn't care when he made noise. It was amazing how much that added to my enjoyment of life. I'm not suggesting the US goes baby-crazy, but it was certainly a refreshing two weeks.

Bellisimo piccolino!

We are home and currently suffering from sleeplessness. This is what happens when you go across nine time zones.

Everything was fabulous; Italians love, love, love babies and they loved, loved, loved A. I felt like royalty: crowds parted, people cooed and waved, people on buses hopped up like they'd been stuck with pins to give me and A a seat, guards ushered us to private elevators and seats in every museum we went to.

I've gone from thinking you must be crazy to take a baby to Italy to thinking you absolutely must take a baby to Italy to experience Italy at its best. Trip report will follow once I've downloaded pictures; my 4 gig card was insufficient and we had to buy another gig for Rome.

Packing packing packing

I am pleased to report that we are mostly (90%) packed for Italy and we don't leave until Wednesday morning. The luggage count still stands at two carry-on bags and a small backpack, plus car seat. Please compare to the luggage count for Christmas to be awed by the improvement in our mad packing skills.

Saturday I had a pedicure, then we ran around doing last-minute trip stuff, like getting a couple new toys for A for the plane and getting a self-stuffing jacket for C.

Easter was low-key with J&T but surprisingly good: ham, mashed potatoes, broiled pineapple with brown sugar. Sunday morning, A woke us up horribly: pulling on hair, crying, yelling. Then he waved at us for the first time. That kid knows how to ladle out a little sugar with his crankiness to keep us from BBQ-ing him.

Today's plan: swim class and last-minute errands like getting a key made for the pet sitter, picking up minor things, and stopping our mail service. If we can just finish our taxes before we leave the country, we'll be set.

The Poop Post

You've been warned.

We met a pet sitter, went to the Zoo, had a happy morning, yadda yadda. A is particularly smiley and happy today.

Then A pooped more than I think he's ever pooped. It was not contained by the diaper or the onesie (Hanna freaking Andersson, of course, because he only has blow-outs in Hanna freaking Andersson, not the cheap stuff) and was barely contained by the pants. It was the first time he's been so filthy that I just put him in the bathtub instead of trying to wipe him up.

We had a bath, cleaned him up, and fifteen minutes later we have another poop blow-out (in Old Navy, not Hanna).

Fine. I wipe him up, get him dressed in outfit number 3 (resale, so we're safe, right?), and we play. He's standing and teething on everything and is happy. We play Superman, where I hold him over my head horizontally and cheer him on. He's laughing and giggling and boy is the world a fabulous place when he's laughing.

He spits up all over my face.

Travel Crib and Sleep Deprivation

Happy April! There's nothing like April to make you say, "Wow, we're leaving the country in less than two weeks; we better get a move on."

We actually completed a dry-run of packing this weekend. At this time, it looks like we'll be traveling with two carry-on bags and a day bag (and no more). Well, the car seat, but we think we can hook that over our rolling bag.

Most of our clothes and toiletries are all within one bag, if you can believe that. The other bag is mostly consumed by the travel crib. We've used the travel crib with middling success when we went to Denver last month and began having the debate about its usefulness Saturday.

"Let's try it out," C said, and I said okey-dokey, knowing full well that A has been sleepless this week and it's about the worst time to try a sleep experiment.

Except that he slept brilliantly in the travel crib.

So we tried it again last night, and again, he slept soundly and peacefully in the travel crib.

Now the travel crib is definitely going.

Eight months old

Young Master A has been around for eight months. Amazing, no?

This has been a long hard week of teething. We got one night of good sleep in the middle and then poof, no sleep the rest of the week. Last night wasn't too bad. We've been dosing him with Tylenol, which he likes, happily.

Monday we had swim class, where A did super, as always. He likes to drink the pool water (bad) but he is starting to close his mouth when we cue him that he's going into the water (great). There's no class next week for spring break.

Also on Monday, A decided he knew how to scale things. One day, he's completely horizontal and the next day, poof, he's vertical. He's moving somewhat from side to side, but he's now looking to get over things, like the side of the crib or the bins I set up as barricades. I'm trying to teach him how to get off the couch safely (feet first) but he still wants to go head first. All the other babies we hang out with do that too; I don't know why.

He decided he knew how to crawl. After months and months of crawling with the one, two, inchworm rhythm, he started cross-crawling on Monday. Now he's wicked fast. We need some baby gates.

We had a baby playdate yesterday. Half the moms I know are moving within the next year or two. That's sad for me; I really like them. Hopefully, we'll all keep in touch. It's been fun to watch the babies grow in all their different ways together.

Now if A could get those teeth through so we can all get some sleep...

Writing Class, Workshop Style

Writing class means every week we read one or two people's work (the euphemism for "don't know what the hell it is yet but I had to have some text to come to class") and then we talk about some other aspect of writing, like character development or plot or style or dialogue.

This class is a "breaking into fiction" class. It's for people who haven't written much before. I am not sure that I am the target audience for this class, but it's also good for me to be able to moderate the level of the challenge for class myself. Like this week, we're supposed to write a scene in the style of our favorite author. First, I have a hard time picking a favorite author, so I'll just pick from the ones I like the most. I could do Roald Dahl pretty easily, but I've opted to try Wodehouse instead. I'm not worthy of attempting, say, Toni Morrison. See? Self-moderated challenge. (By the way, the Wodehouse went okay but not great. Wodehouse is hard. Funny is hard.)

My fiction class has the same old people who are in everyone's fiction class. We've got the people who are weathered and grizzly and taking this class to write about their own lives. We've got the fan girl who follows this teacher from class to class. We've got the girl from the Peace Corps who has many interesting stories to tell and wants to tell them. We have the mommy who's taking the class to have something adult to do (that's me). And we have the prat.

In my past life, I ended up becoming a pretty decent (and harsh) copyeditor. I hack and slash with the best of them. I didn't realize how technical I had become about good writing until I started doing serious editing. But what I learned is that nobody (except the serious writers) wants every detail the editor has to offer. It's too much for most people.

I turn off my copyeditor brain when I read stories for class. I'm not talking about punctuation or typos, although I do mark the random typo from time to time. I'm talking about basic Elements of Style stuff. Why? Because Elements of Style is so simple that nobody does it all well, at least not in a "Breaking into Fiction" class.

This gets us back to the prat. The prat is the person who introduced himself at the first class as "specializing in sci-fi/fantasy, currently shopping my novel around to agents." Whoop de freaking do, sir. Get back to me when you sell the damn thing. The prat, having a novel that he's "marketing," feels the need to comment on all the Elementsof Style stuff, plus typos, plus ripping whatever story is there to shreds because, hey, that's how you learn, right?

I think it's crappy, especially when I don't see any signs of brilliance in his edits. Being a good writer does not make you a good editor.

Anyway, I submitted a short story (but only five pages, since, you know, people don't have time to read 15 pages) and I didn't get much feedback at all, which I don't know if that's a good sign. It was raining and I believe most people in SoCal turn their brains off when it's raining and they have to drive; maybe they didn't turn their brains back on. Maybe they didn't have any places for hack-and-slash improvement. I don't know. I used the word "genitalia" at one point in the story and someone commented that I shouldn't use the euphemism, which just made me laugh. I think anyone who knows me would have a hard time accusing me of holding back on a vulgar or obscene word out of shyness or prissiness.

There you go. Taking the class makes me think I need to do something to keep my editorial brain primed. We've got one left this week and that will be it. I'm not seeing anything that I'm terribly interested in for the next round (at least, not that I won't miss significant sections of for Bella Italia), but I'll definitely try a class again on some other level. Maybe not so much the workshopping.

The TV Experiment

As some of you may or may not know, due to interpretation of a pain-in-the-ass HOA as a possible sign from the greater things on heaven and earth that we may dream of, we jettisoned our TV service at the beginning of this month No, we're not going to carve a sofa out of wood or start making our own clothes out of hemp. Yes, I know all HOAs are a pain in the ass.

I was really worried that I would be jonesing for a TV fix, if not Heroes or House (sigh, House), then at least an Oprah snack every once in a while. But it's been surprisingly easy to live without TV. It feels like we have much more time. We're getting Netflix movies and we watch those from time to time; I've been watching our West Wing collection while A and I go to recuperative nurse/nap mode. I've read about three times the number of books I normally do in a week. So far, the experiment's going well.

I have three blog entires going...

...and I'm going to ignore them all and start this one.

We haven't fallen off the face of the earth. A has been teething, a fact confirmed this week when C and I noticed at least one and possibly two teeth making their way through A's upper gum. He has been cranky and not sleeping well. The teething has been making A's gums hurt, which then makes him latch funny during breastfeeding, which means we've all been cranky here. There was a day last week when I heard myself say, "Oh, you're going to be weaned today if this keeps up." He's been nursing back on the 2-3 hour schedule for most of this week, which makes me cranky (and sore, right now--I had to dig out my tube of lanolin in your TMI moment of the blog).

We've been cranky, but still going through our normal routines. Swim class is super; A is really enjoying it. We've spent a lot of time walking through both the Zoo and Balboa Park in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Italy. I must look like a raving lunatic since I'm talking to myself with my Italian lessons in my ear. "D'ove il museo nazionale? E veccino? No, e ladro." (They are tapes, people, not books, so the Italian is completely as I hear it and wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.)

We've had playdates, one at Miss M's and one here. Of course, we vacuumed and prepared upstairs and everyone wanted to be downstairs. Why? I have no idea. I need to ask someone if the litter box really drove them out. We try not to be the "oh, you have cats" people but the cats do need to go.

A played with his first flashlight this week (part of mommy babyproofing the computer) and has started standing up next to things. His crawl isn't more than it ever was; I'm wondering if he's going to move straight to walking.

For those of you concerned about the state of the Mommy, I've been having grown-up time: my first pedicure since A made his appearance (lovely, going back there in two weeks), writing class (another blog entry, languishing in the draft box), and the plumeria society (which is having a cutting sale in another two weeks). The Daddy had a great review (he's modest, but I'm going to check my sources to confirm that he's understating the coolness of his review) at his kick-ass job and if he gets some sleep he'll be doing great.

Development of Mischieviousness

I was in my office looking for tax paperwork while I watched A crawl around the floor. He crawled out of the office and into the hallway, then into the storage room. I came around the corner to pick him up (knowing he can't go far) and he is laughing. He's delighted to be somewhere he's never been before.

So much time, so little blogging

Lots has happened. We've had our new swim class session start, a visit from A's grandparents (who left today, sniff), meals with friends from CO and our Navy pilot (aviator, I am told), and a trip to the post office to get A's passport. It's busy busy busy here. We spent a full day at the Zoo with the grandparents. That was a lot of fun. We saw a panda and a koala eating, which was amazing since those two animals usually sit like lumps.

A spent most of the 'rents' visit fighting sleep so he could be doted upon royally, but he did sleep for something like ten hours last night and he's gone to sleep at a more normal bedtime tonight, so life is returning to normal. Grandpa can make him laugh and Grandma can sing him to sleep. We spent a lot of time driving around in the car because A was napping and we didn't want to wake him up. Grandma and Grandpa got to go to swim class, very exciting, and see my sorry attempts at submerging A. But they did see what a super swimmer A is. I was amazed by how much that boy can fight sleep. He needed a lot more sleep than he had.

This is a sad attempt at a blog update, but I will work on it more in the coming days as life returns more to normal. Really!

Development of Humor

Today is a watermark day, people. Today's the day A first found something funny on his own, without prompting.

Our sweet white cat Niles has been neglected recently, so we've been making an effort to play with him more often. This morning I found one of his cat toys and starting throwing it up in the air to Niles. Niles would jump up and catch it in both paws. (He's brilliant, this cat.) I had A standing up against me, looking away from me towards Niles. All I'm saying throughout this is, "Niles, ready? Go get it!"

After two tosses, once Niles started getting really into it and jumping higher, A started laughing, fully belly laughs. There wasn't anything else going on, so I tossed the toy to Niles again and once Niles caught it, A laughed. Every time Niles caught the toy, A laughed. He laughs when we tickle him, make faces, or talk silly to him and laugh with him, but this is the first time he's spontaneously burst into laughter on his own cognition. It's pretty amazing.

Of course, Niles was nonplussed by the drooling unpredictable flesh lump making loud laughing noises at him, so he stopped once A got really revved up. But I'm sure he'll adapt.

Other news: A has figured out how to blow raspberries, so everything's now misted in baby spit.

Whirlwind tours

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. We had a whirlwind visit to CO last week to the lovely Casa de Bump. I must say, visiting friends or family makes me remember that people's homes can be beautiful places. This is not an ideal we're chasing here in the rental. We didn't do much of anything (aside from an art show--it's amazing when poof, one of your friends is an artist and a good one to boot) but we had a grand time. Colorado is cold compared to SD right now. It was just a day trip but so nice and felt so much longer than that, really.

How did our boy do? He's a champ. We had four flights (SD to Vegas, Vegas to Denver with no change in planes, then Denver to Vegas with a plane change). A cried from the time he was buckled into the seat until the plane began moving on the first flight and didn't wake up until Denver. The second set of flights was more harried, but that was not A's fault.

We met those people: mom who looked like Barbie in her skin-tight Lucky brand jeans and blue suede and shearling knee-high boots, dad who was dragged along against his will and spent most of the time playing with his phone, and their two screaming children, maybe six and ten (?), a girl and a boy. Mom left the boy in the gift shop by himself, the girl ran around taking off her shirt, and dad claimed "he couldn't watch both the bags and her [the girl]." These children did not look 5 and under, but they pre-boarded and sat right behind us.

So the girl is screaming for most of the flight, the boy is yelling about how he wants to sit next to a window and sit next to mom, and dad is pretending he doesn't know them. Mom is delaying the flight by getting the girl her Garfield book during taxiing. There was so much movement and noise from between the seats behind us (which A is facing in his car seat) that he didn't sleep until I threw a blanket over our seats to hide the horrible family. Then he slept the whole way.

On descent, the flight attendants say to C and me, "How old is your baby?" Seven months. "I haven't heard a peep out of him the whole flight." No, he's a good traveler. "I bet you guys are thinking, 'Never, never, never." This was a flat-out reference to the horrible family behind us. I said that saying 'Never' is the best way to ensure that's what you get, and they laughed, but they complimented us again on how super A is.

A slept through descent, disembarking, and the whole next flight. Our connection in Vegas was cut short because the plane arrived early, which meant I left a sleeping A and all our bags in the watch of a woman in a wheelchair and her family while I went sprinting to Burger King to get C so we could board the plane. C and I decided we really need to have a plane with seat assignments; it wasn't bad with a baby to pre-board (bulkhead 3 out of 4 flights) but it just wigs us out to find seats on the plane. But they certainly load those planes quickly.

Anyway, this trip was a good test of our travel abilities and new gear:

• Travel crib - okay, but we need to spend more time getting A comfy in it. Quite light and inflates quickly.
• New backpack-converting carry-on bag - great! C had nothing but good things to say about the design of the bag and pronounced it "well-engineered," which is high praise. We need to figure out how to pack a soft-sided bag again.
• Vacuum-packing bags that suck all the air out of your clothes and compress them - very cool, although they seemed to do the best with Polarfleece.
• 3 ounce bag rule - Fine except for contact lens solution, which stupid manufacturers aren't making in 3 ounce sizes I've seen yet. Nobody made me throw out my (gasp) 4 ounce bottle on the way back, however.
• Freebie tote bag - still not great for much other than our swim class bag. We need a different lightweight tote.
  

Swimming, the grand finale

This was the last of our swimming classes for the first session, so it was super. The instructor got to class early to allow us to ask questions about our children's progress. A is doing super. The next major milestone in swimming we'll be working on is holding his breath. I submerged him today; I was reminded of dog training that's really owner training. It's scary; A is big and long and I'm small and not quite so buff. But I did it twice.

We're signed up for another series of sessions and I even remembered to tell the woman at the front desk we'd be missing some in the middle for vacation. This week's quickly becoming action-packed. Tomorrow we've got our flu shot (sigh) and time in Balboa Park; Wednesday we have an invite to practice baby signing, and Thursday's our weekly play date. Woo.

Oscar night and grown-up updates

TiVo makes the Oscars palatable, especially when they're running 40,000 commercials during the program. Ellen is not nearly the cupcake Jon Stewart is, though she is funny.

This weekend, C's brother came to town to see our Navy boy, so we got to see both him and the Navy boy this weekend, which was lovely. C and K (his brother, not me) got an up-close and personal tour of the helicopters, which impressed the hell out of C. (I had a protective mommy moment where I thought the noise level on a military helicopter base would be a little much for my little darling A, so he'll have to take a tour later when he can appreciate the hearing loss.) Then we tried desperately to find a place open for lunch at 3PM on a Saturday in SD which turned out to be harder than we thought; found ourselves a burger joint and topped it off with IKEA. All the Coloradoans need to make the IKEA pilgrimage when they visit. Anyway, good to see him on his eye-blink of a visit.

I had grown-up time this week, so you're going to be lacking boy updates, although he is still cute and adorable and all that. First of all, I joined a writing class, which I promised Miss Julie I will blog about but I'm going to give it one more class (so it'll have to wait until next week) before I tear it to shredded crunchy bits on the blog. No matter; it's still good for me. I did have the completely gross moment of introducing myself as, "I have an almost-seven-month-old at home and I need some adult time." You'll just have to wait for my startlingly amazing blog entry about writing class.

Also for grown-ups, today I joined the plumeria society. It's so dorky but I had such a good time. I am sure the plumeria society falls below the AV club in geekdom. There were probably 200 people there, so I'm not alone in adoration of the plumeria or geekdom. No, they weren't all blue hairs, either; I was surprised. They had two speakers, one of whom gave me hope that my plumeria isn't completely dead from frost. The other gave such a reassuring overview of plumeria care that I think I won't kill another one if I get one. They had a raffle and enough prizes that at the end they said, "Anyone who hasn't gotten a prize, come up and get one item off the table." I got a book on Gertrude Jekyll, plus I had to buy their starter guide to plumeria cultivation in San Diego. Now if I join the camellia society, I can have garden club meetings (and flowers!) year round. I met some lovely people who talked with great enthusiasm about their frost damage and what new plants they wanted to try and who was bringing cuttings of what to the sale in April--and most of your eyes are rolling into your heads, but to someone garden-deprived like me, it was wonderfully refreshing. It's nice when you encounter members of your tribe, you know?

Irony of the day: the plumeria society meeting usually scheduled for the fourth Sunday of the month is re-scheduled in April because the Balboa Park commissioners decided as a policy to cancel all garden club meetings that fall on Earth Day.

Baby swim and other bits

We've had a busy week or so. We've had play dates again with Miss M and L, last week at M's house and this week at ours. This required serious cleaning. The good news is that the house is now clean (mostly). Play dates require a certain amount of baby proofing that we are not up to yet but nobody died.

A has officially cut two teeth completely. They've not all the way up yet, but they're distinctly teeth. He's pretty cute. No, he hasn't bit me yet, although his latest trick seems to be pulling my hair. That's got to stop.

C had off Saturday, Sunday, and blessed Monday, which was fabulous after the long slog he's been putting in at work. This meant he could go to swim class with us Monday, which was super. A was a champion swimmer Monday. He was submerged and while I still don't think he enjoyed it, he didn't get upset or insulted by it. The other two babies in class bailed before the end of class - Miss M was submerged for the first two times. She looked as insulted and mad as A did the first time he went under. The other baby was just tired at the end of class, I think.

Saturday we took advantage of the sunny San Diego weather and went to the SD Wild Animal Park, which was great. They were having a camellia show. I might have to get myself one; they're pretty, like peonies. I love peonies.

We hosted a play date here yesterday. Everyone is fascinated with our cats. Jake was not prepared for babies that move faster than ours, but he was still faster than the babies. Niles got on top of the bookshelves and peered down from a safe perch. A is now apparently frightened by the vacuum cleaner, which is not good. It's amazing how quickly these things come on, like flipping a switch.

We haven't gotten A's passport yet, but we need to since we now have tickets to Italy.

Baby passport pictures...

...are the cutest thing in the universe. Really.

Happy Heart Day

I heart Valentine's, this year, anyway. Master A's little Valentine's present to C and me was sleeping through the night, like 8PM to 5AM. Boy howdy it's great to sleep.

C's been working a lot of overtime (all weekend, later evenings than I would like) for the last week and so there's been no time or energy to blog. A has cut teeth officially; one came through on Saturday and the other one came through Monday. This made him the crankiest he's been. I haven't been able to go anywhere errand-like, just places where I'm catering to A's needs (swim class, the zoo, so it's a ridiculous hardship, but still annoying when we have to go buy cat food and he's not cooperating). Saturday I thought I would run away and join the circus. It's been better this week but I'm just mentally exhausted from being solely responsible for A (almost) every waking minute of the day for more than a week now. C had a lot of time with him this morning, which was good.

A loves rice cereal, but I haven't been able to get to a store to buy him a sweet potato yet to try other new food yet. He seems pretty happy this morning so maybe we'll put the store on our list of errands (maybe after passport pictures but before IKEA). Feeding a baby is super messy and sticky. C and I are a little too type A for it. We discussed feeding him with a pastry bag this morning.

We had swim class again Monday. At first, A didn't look like he was having a good time. Then I realized that there are things he specifically likes in swim class (standing on the island and splashing, floating on his back) and things he doesn't (being on his side in the water, submersions). He had to chew on a toy the whole time to be happy. He actually got pretty close to free floating on his back; I was just supporting him behind his head with a few fingers. Our class is wrapping up in a couple weeks but I think we're going to sign up for another series of sessions. The instructor seems to be doing a good job of giving each baby one-on-one time and trying to expand on what each baby's good at/enjoying.

Play dates, teeth, and baby signing

We had a playdate yesterday. It was good but A was not in good form. None of us had gotten enough sleep and his teeth were really taking up most of his attention. I don't think he's in great pain, since Tylenol seems to have no effect on his cheerfulness. I can only imagine that he is just preoccupied the way anyone is when they've got something bugging them. I have a partial temporary crown right now that's already popped off once (damn you, almond croissant) and I know my mouth is sore from constantly probing the strange thing in my mouth with my tongue.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to future playdates. It's interesting to see how different babies are at this age. We met with L, who is a month older than A, and Miss M, who is three weeks older than A. They don't play together - other babies are more like other toys than other people. L is a friendly little guy who's already crawling, immediately crawled over me then scaled the vastness of my bosom to stand up. We've seen M off and on; she's happy to scoot around from toy to toy to see what it does. A gets frustrated and complains when he can't go to where he wants to go; he needs an occasional "You're fine, go ahead," from me and then he's smiling again.

I'm trying to decide if we're going to do baby signing or not, since we should start now. It seems like a load of trendy hooey, but my sister had deaf kids in her classes as a baby. She learned some basic ASL (eat, drink, hungry, please, potty) and I know she used it before she could speak. It's supposed to cut down on communication frustration and help explain concepts (the sign for more shows the concept of more, maybe). I just don't know how trendy a mom I want to be.

Oh, and I got Bread and Cie this morning and I got to sleep in, woo hoo. Plus I have a palmier for later today. Sigh.

It's official: we have teeth

There are two tiny pearly teeth just starting to show in the center of Master A's lower gum. Sigh. This does explain how cranky he's been. I know he's supposed to have a cute two-tooth grin, but I really like his toothless big grin. He is continuing to chew on everything and anything he can get his hands on.

What other news? I got his picture taken for six-months which ended up being not great. The photographer made him cry twice, wouldn't show me the shots, and kept ignoring my requests for backgrounds "as plain as possible, please." No, I don't think Autumn Leaves is a good background. No, I don't want him to hug a big faux candy heart that says "HUG ME." I only like my tacky on kitsch mugs, woman, not my baby. She kept getting right up in his face to make him smile and he's just not into having strangers an inch from his nose. He can't stop smiling at everyone who keeps a healthy and respectful distance, so I don't know what her problem was. The photographer told me that she wouldn't be able to review the photos with me since the other guy had to leave and she needed to take more photos, but could I hang around another 15 minutes? Well, see, you made my baby cry and now he's upset, which means I have to walk him around for a while until he gets un-upset. I'll come back with his logical father and we'll buy no pictures. When I leave, the other photo employee peels out in the parking lot, scaring me and the other two moms with strollers. I'm thinking I'll look at the pictures then send a nice letter to corporate about my customer service experience.

We had lunch with C today, which was good, although now that A is high chair able, the state of high chairs in the universe scares me. We got our choice between the high chair with a center post and no straps or the one with straps that were too big and no center post. I've got to research the portable high chair thing (or structured backpack) for Italy.

Swimming, Week...3?

I think it's week three. We skipped a week and that shot all my record keeping to hell.

We had a fun time today in swimming except for submersion. Boy do we hate that. A cried angrily. It's so rare to see him angry like that; it wigs me out. I know he's supposed to learn and blah blah blah but I'm his mom and I hate seeing him mad and crying. The instructor gave him a toy to chew on to cope. He got over it pretty quickly; one of the other babies was having a sad day at the pool.

So let's dwell on the amazing A and his swimming abilities. He kicks and splashes like a pro. He's enjoying swimming. Today I let him float on his back only supporting him with one hand under his head, so he's getting the concept of buoyancy. He really likes the pool, just not going under water. He likes the songs, the splashing, and standing on the ledge of the island in the pool where he can support himself with his hands. He loves that. I discovered this week he was a big fan of "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" and we sang that today in class. Hot diggity dog, he was thrilled. Alas, the instructor only sang it once where I will indulge him twice or more, so he was irritated when we went on to "When you're happy and you know it."

Random baby-weight angst: I don't know if I've introduced the concept here on the blog that the other mommies in my class are drop-dead gorgeous and don't look like they had a cookie in their lives, let alone a baby. C disagrees with me but he doesn't go into the locker room with them. Anyway, I found out today that the most-rail-thin intimidating of them all actually wrote a (published) book on body image, which explains why the heck she's walking around nude so darn casually in the locker room (aside from being rail-thin--if I was that skinny, I might be walking around my neighborhood nude, I'd be so happy). In locker rooms, I try to minimize the amount of time I'm stark naked. This woman walks in, strips down, wanders around, plays a hand of poker--not quite, but you get my drift. She's nice; she's just extremely comfortable with her naked self in the odd public/private place a locker room is. Now I can be intimidated by the fact that she's both happy naked and a published writer (at least it wasn't fiction. I may have cried).

Too much mommy-pudge-angst, back to happy baby news: I think we're going to have teeth pretty soon. I'm going to take him for his six-month picture tomorrow (hopefully) because I think I see and feel something coming through soon in his bottom gum.

And crawling. We're still rocking and army-crawling around, but no actual crawling. A can do a single crawling step and then can't replicate on the other side. He also props himself into a sitting position mid-crawl, which gets distracting for him. But he wants to crawl. I don't know when he'll be crawling, but it's on the horizon.

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.

Six month checkup

I know, I can hardly believe it myself.

He's in super shape, in the 75-85th percentile ranges for height (27 inches) and weight (19 and a half) . He's pre-crawling, so that doctor says, and should be crawling soon. No teeth immediately on the horizon but they could appear any time now, just like at our four month visit.

He got four shots that I was too sad to hold him down for and made C do it so I could hold A afterwards. He recovered quickly but he was bright red and crying.

We're supposed to start solids now, but neither C or me is very excited about the prospect of stinky poop, being spoiled by the relatively non-stinky breastfed poops (C maintains that it smells like turkey and I think it smells like buttermilk). But A stares at me with laser-beam intensity every time I eat, so we'll probably be out and about today getting baby food.

First up: rice cereal mixed with breast milk. I'm going to have to pump.

Squirmy boys are hard to type over

I got my new wrap and we gave it a fairly successful run at the mall today. A wants to be forward-facing, not side facing, so I'll need to figure out one of the front carries. He is, of course, the cutest baby in the universe and got fussed over by many people. I would like to go out with someone to have them check the security of the wrap.

No swimming, sigh

No swimming this week. A boiler valve broke over the weekend. The pool was only up to 80°F at one hour before class, so they canceled our class to prevent cold babies. All that's officially on the agenda for the week now is our six-month check-up on Friday.

One of the other babies from birth class (a month older than A) is crawling. We're going to need to babyproof pronto.

Sunday night and boy's asleep

It's amazing but I've had two nights of actual rest. After a bad stretch of not-sleeping, I ordered two more books about sleep. One of them suggested that an extra-thick coating of diaper cream would do the trick; lordy, if that author was here I would kiss her with serious intentions. A's been sleeping for longer stretches ever since we've been greasing him up like a pole. Cross your fingers that I didn't just jinx it.

This is not to overlook the efforts of my darling husband, who has been whisking the boy away yesterday and today when A loses interest in the toys in his crib and wants attention so that I can get a couple more hours of sleep. This makes me profoundly grateful. It also allows me to quote charming notes found at my bedside, like this morning's: "Boyzilla and I are running some errands. Back with breakfast." Sleeping alone (well, with a small black cat curled up beside me) feels like an incredible luxury right now. The decadent hedonism I used to associate with a day at The Spa is now associated with the two extra hours of sleep when someone I love is taking care of the boy.

A is the cutest little thing in the universe. He's smiley and happy most of the time and giggles like a fiend now when tickled or babbled at. He loves being carried around in the Bjorn and grins at everyone. A woman stopped us in Target to ask, "How old is he?"
"Almost six months."
"He's beautiful. You know, I had six children, all naturally, no painkillers. And now I have eleven grandchildren." And she smiled hugely and went on her merry way. People do that all the time when we're out with him. C pointed out this morning that people driving by are now checking out how cute A is from the sanctity of their cars. I have a lot more sympathy for the paparazzi now just in how much time we spend out and about talking to strangers. (I don't mind talking to strangers about how cute my boychik is. I can't imagine how annoyed I'd be if people wanted to harass me about what I was wearing or how my marriage was. I'd be all Sean Penn.)

And hey, I ordered Italian CDs today, so I guess we'll have to go to Italy.

RIP, number 8

After a week with no sightings, another mouse met his match in our garage. As soon as it's available, I'll be planting peppermint around our garage to hopefully ward off his friends. But there wasn't any at the Home Depot. No, I have not gone to the nurseries to find some. I'm not even sure where there are nurseries. Nurseries are places that will make me want a house so I can grow all the terribly delicate hothouse plants that I could never grow in Colorado, like angel's trumpet*, plumeria, and French Lace roses. I'll find some eventually because I'd like to have more pots in containers (although I'm doing a pretty crappy job of keeping the ones I have alive).

A seems over his cold now, which is good. We had had a couple nights of really delicious sleep, but last night was awful and I am tired today. A's had one nap so far this morning and more are coming. I'm going to see if we can get a trip to the zoo in this week.

* It's fascinating what you learn when looking for a link. I found a couple warnings not to plant it saying, "My friend made tea out of this and died." Since I'm not Julie, I can honestly say I've never had the compulsion to eat something I grew that wasn't an herb or a veggie (or that I ran across outside somewhere). I would never make any of my ornamentals into tea, for example, even the lavender and roses. Anyway, angel's trumpet is apparently hallucinogenic and some dumb-asses who thought that would be fun have died ingesting angel's trumpet. So when I get some, don't be smoking it, you wild and crazy types.

Swimming lessons!

Master A is going to be a pro swimmer. Bask in the cuteness that is A in a baby wetsuit. My boy will be burning up the lanes at the 2024 and 2028 Olympics, so get your tickets now. I'm not just saying that in the proud mama way; his father also thinks he's a super swimmer.

Mistah C had the day off yesterday, so he accompanied us to the palace of youth culture for lessons. A got in the water and started splashing. The other kids in class weren't quite into kicking and splashing, but he was. He had a jolly old time until we got to the submersion part of the class. Then he looked outright insulted and started to cry (at which point I realized how little he cries since it's very rare to see his absolutely upset pouting crying face), but he calmed down quickly. We've got another six weeks of swim lessons, so we'll see how this goes.

What other news? We got an exersaucer thingie this weekend at the resale shop. It gives me a minute to go to the bathroom, heat up lunch, etc. It bounces up and down which he seems to like.

Oh, and he finally slept last night with the long part of his sleep from 1AM-6AM, which made us so happy to not be awake at 4AM. I can't say how happy we were about that. Maybe it's the exercise?

More sleep. No more mice.

No more mice have appeared. This is a good thing.

We went to see the X-Files doctor today, and she said his cold was a cold. We'll just have to live with it, with breast milk and a cool mist humidifier. No worries unless he can't breathe (!) or spikes a fever. She gave us a prescription cream for his diaper rash (which gave me an excuse to be at Trader Joe's to buy gingersnaps). He's 18.5 pounds officially, for the weight watchers.

A and I start swim lessons Monday. It'll be seven weeks of excitement. I got A swim diapers (reusable) yesterday, and next I'll have to turn my attentions to my own bathing costume (oy vey--why did I buy a bag of gingersnaps today?).

Does an application of prescription diaper cream count if he pees on it immediately?

Latest mouse count: 7

But none in the last 24 hours, I think. No sign of them on shelves and whatnot.

My car's back and the cruise control still doesn't work.

A is sick (head cold probably picked up in Colorado) and I'm still waiting for the triage nurse to call back to tell me whether or not they need to see him. Since I'd like to get his swim things outfitted today, I'd really like them to call back soon so I can figure out the rest of my day.

And it's really hard to buy infant international airline tickets online.

Julie, you don't want to read this

Right now the mouse count stands at three, two in the house, one in the garage. We need to go out for more traps now. Bait of choice: cream cheese.

C got to bed past 1 and A woke us up every hour until 7, so he's home today with us on the logic that sleep deprivation equals bad code and definitely bad driving.

The cable guy came out and offered two horrible solutions, neither of which will meet HOA standards. It's a dickens of a day here.

Wonder of wonders

I woke up not half an hour ago (still fully dressed), changed the yelling little baby with the wet pants and laid him down in the crib, then went in search of my husband. He was still cleaning post-mouse-calypto. Shelves were bleached, items on shelves were bleached, and he'd taken out three bags of trash of expired/questionable foods. But he said with a wicked, sleep-deprived and slap-happy grin, "I caught one of the f*ckers."

Happily, not with his bare foot. He set a trap in the garage behind the freezer and there went Mr. Mouse. Cats were fascinated. Like I said before, they're lovers, not fighters.

This is not the most amazing part of our evening. C says to me, "Where's the boy?"
"In his crib."
"Is he sleeping?" We listen. Silence.
"Must be."
"Did you swaddle him?"
"No." Beat. "Let me go see if he's alive." Yup, sure enough, A's rolled over on his tummy and gone to sleep his sweet self. Makes you want to sing some Fiddler.

There are weekends that are super and there are weekends that seem to take a death spiral. This one seems to be the death spiral variety. But I have good reasons!

• My car's cruise control didn't work after the mechanic replaced the turn signal/hazard lights button assembly, and it's still not working. So that has to go back Tuesday for a replacement piece. The mechanic tried to tell me that it was just an old car, and I said, "Well, it was an old car with a cruise control that worked before you replaced the turn signal assembly, so..."
  
• We went to the Baby Hellhole twice to look at high chairs, eating equipment, Earth's Best baby food, and convertible car seats. We ended up getting a high chair eventually. Target didn't carry the high chair we wanted, fine. I don't think we're looking forward to A having solid food. Actually, we're not looking forward to stinky poop. He's not starting solids until he's at least six months due to allergies, but we thought he would enjoy sitting in a high chair at mealtime with us.
• Yesterday I got myself two treats at Bread and Cie, but discovered the woman had given me not an almond croissant but a bear claw. The bear claws have coconut, which I'm not fond of. The something else I got was okay but not fabulous.
  
• I've got a new book on making your own baby food which is scaring me more than anything else. The woman has gory examples for everything bad you could consider happening to a baby, from eating drain cleaner to scalding a kid with hot beverages. It's not the uplifting read I expected it to be. I finished it and am trying to decide if I want to use her recipes as my main source or if I want another book instead.
  
• This morning we had to be up and at 'em by 8AM for the cable guy who is going to re-wire our dish to make the HOA happy. I'd been up since 5:30, unable to sleep after A's last feeding. Cable guy looked at what we wanted him to do and said he'd have to get his supervisor out to look at it. That can't happen until tomorrow morning, of course.
• Mistah C then went to Bread and Cie again after the cable guy was here this morning to get me an almond croissant, then had to return once he was there and realized he didn't have his wallet. So that was a long time on the weekend with just me and A alone. It was an awfully good croissant, though.
• Mistah C spent dinner prep time on the phone, which put me into dinner-prep mode. The kitchen was covered in dirty dishes (it doesn't take much with our kitchen) but all of that needed to be cleaned up before I started prepping raw chicken so everything wasn't covered in chicken bits. So dinner was pushed out until late (even for us).
  
• Then I discovered mouse droppings all over the pantry shelves and that was it for my patience for this weekend. We are going to get the landlord to call in an exterminator now, although that should be fun with cats and baby and me around.
  

C's cleaning up the mouse droppings. A is sleeping. I am reading Under the Tuscan Sun until I feel better. Oh, and this week, we may be setting up swim lessons for A.

Baby push-ups

Master A is doing push-ups now, with all his weight on his toes and palms. He's not quite got enough strength for forward momentum yet, so he gets frustrated and yells. At some point, he'll figure out he has knees, right? I'm not sure how to show him that he has knees, but I'm sure he'll figure it out. He's figured out how to creep around pulling his weight with his arms, and I certainly didn't show him that.

We've got a full day of errands planned so I can avoid cleaning the office. Cleaning will have to happen tomorrow when my car goes back to the shop, because there are papers everywhere and A likes eating paper. C missed A eating some stickers (all were found, none ingested) and I missed A eating my credit report (nothing strange appearing in the dipes, lost years 2003-2004).

Traveling, Christmas, and New Years

ETA: This is a really funky picture I inadvertently took of the reflection of my IL's living room while trying to take a picture of the snow. It's surprisingly interesting, at least to me.

Howdy folks. I have been sick with a head cold ever since we got back from CO. The night we got back, we went to bed at 8; the next night, I was groggy all day and went to bed at 5PM and didn't get up until 5AM the next day. I'm still not at my finest, but I can blog. We made all our flights with no problems other than ordinary, moderate (half-hour or so) delays, so we have no horror stories of DIA.

A is a good traveler, or so we think without any means of comparison. The people in our shuttle van to the airport wanted to cry when they saw us coming with our gazillion bags of stuff and a baby. A was fine in the airport (even when some of the TSA people in SD were unfriendly and rude), getting his usual amount of admiring glances from those seeing baby strapped onto C with the Bjorn. I would personally like to thank the woman who put her baby through the X-ray machine for now making it a requirement that all car seats are turned over with cushion face-down on the disgusting conveyor belt, even when you can brandish the baby at the TSA authorities and say, "There's no baby in the seat. See?"

A was fine on the plane. We had a moment of panic when we had to strap him in before the plane started moving and he began screaming. But once the plane started moving--a minute later, although it felt like an hour to us--he settled down and was asleep for take-off. I had to wake him up to feed him half an hour before descent, then he laughed the whole way down.

Our rental car was there as promised. The Hertz Gold Club #1 service where they let you off the bus first and you walk to your car, bypassing the counter and the line inside, is fabulous. When you come back, they scan your license plate, send you to the front of the line, and greet you by name. Lovely, especially with the boy and his stuff in fresh snow and slush.

It feels like we didn't get to spend enough time visiting (I'm looking at you, Mr. and Mrs. Bump) and that we need another week off to recover from traveling. But many people who hadn't met A got to meet A, which is good, and he got lots of quality time with his grandparents, which is great. Fun fact: if the grandparents are keeping the same hours as the baby, you can hand the baby off to the grandparents for early-morning quality time while you go back to sleep until your internal body clock says the kid needs fed or until you actually get enough sleep. I haven't seen C that well-rested in months. Five months, to be exact.

We also finally got to meet our niece, who is absolutely adorable. Our nephew was expecting A to be almost-three, but they did seem to hit it off.

A is now demanding attention, but I'll just note the one baby-worthy thing on animals, since we've had a lot of animal contact. Niles the fluffy white cat was so glad to see us back that he tolerated A grabbing a handful of fur. He's now allowing me to move A's hand over his head and back. Even cautious Jake has succumbed to being petted by A (while guided by me). They seem okay with him, even when A wriggled quick and grabbed Jake's ear tightly in his little fist. Those ears are pretty tempting. Yesterday at Trader Joe's, we met a Bernese Mountain Dog who loves babies. This dog immediately turned his attention from all the other people and sniffed at A, licked my hand, sat directly in front of A and stared peacefully at him. Sweet puppy!

Stupid Internet Explorer

Stupid upgrade. Stupid making everything puke and fail. The internet is my tie to the outside world during the freaking day.

Now I've installed Firefox and can blog. But I've burned through a lot of my baby-free time today dealing with stupid Firefox-wannabe-IE so you get no updates, just the no news message that Microsoft does indeed suck the big wee-wee.

All I want for Christmas...

..is a maid and a massage therapist, so the therapist can whisper, "Lulu is cleaning the house," as he rubs the tension out of my shoulders.

We had Christmas and it was super. We are now home again. Jake is happy; Niles is pouting. Would write more but A is apparently hungry.

Leaving on a jet plane

Or so we freaking hope.

We had a lovely dinner with J & T and J's 'rents last night, an indulgence since we're going to be in CO when T makes pierogies for Christmas. They were delicious (and so was the ham). We got home around 10PM.

A slept (mostly) while C and I packed. It took us until 2AM to pack every thing. A woke up at 5:25 on the nose to eat, so I fed him and gather the last essentials we'd forgotten in our midnight stupor (infant Tylenol, wipes) that still need to go in the suitcase. This is all the crap we'll be lugging along:

• One huge-ass suitcase big enough for the entire damn family to climb in. Checked.
• One Pack-N-Play, with sheets. Checked.
• One matching bag with books, food (cookies!), second-string back-ups for A and my other nursing bra, since you just can't go buy a huge-ass nursing bra at the 7-11. Carry-on.
• One duffle containing winter gear: boots, hats, scarves, etc. Carry-on due to essential nature of winter gear coupled with lack of desire to wear Bean boots in SD airport.
• One diaper bag, filled to the freaking brim with diapers and A's first-string back-up outfits. Carry-on.
• One purse, filled with all the liquids that I can't replace easily in case I am separated from my checked luggage. Carry-on.
• One freaking huge car seat, with base, to be lugged on the plane. Carry-on.
• Coats for all. Not taking the full-length wool. Carry-on.
• Baby Bjorn and Peanut Shell baby carriers for baby portability. Carry-on.

We're sleep-deprived, but we're traveling. I MUST shower. Have a merry Christmas if I don't catch you until after the merriment.

Sleep deprivation and snowstorms

I'm really so tired that I'm having problems completing coherent sentences.

C, A and I took our alphabet soup selves to Julie and Terry's last night to help in the pierogie-making process since we're going to have ourselves some merry little pierogies before we leave town. We were there late, then we had to get up early today for trash and the mechanic's. So we're tired here (everyone but A, it seems).

I get clumsier when I get tired. I was doing a Christmas-surprise-related chore that required being on hands and knees on the floor, and in my tiredness stood up under the dining room table. I might be short, but I'm not that short. So now I've got a nasty mark on the small of my back.

I had grand plans for today that involved packing, laundry, and Christmas-surprise-related chores, but I think the next grand plan is going to be take A to bed and try to nap. Ugh. Don't even get me started on trying to call the airline or DIA.

Anarchy in the diaper nation

I have become one of those mothers. You know, the mom who changes her baby on the bench at the zoo.

But I was driven to it by Staples. And A was on a changing pad the entire time and nothing gross touched the bench. The diaper came home with us to be discarded, like the zoo doesn't have waste products but we are of a "pack it out" mentality here.

A and I got the task of shipping off the holiday gifts, so we found ourselves at Staples yesterday. This required putting A in the sling, getting a cart, unloading the boxes from the car, and waiting in line. A made it all through the addressing of four boxes before he started to have a fit. Then he started wailing.

He needed a new diaper, so the nice lady at Staples reassured me that I could go change him while she printed up my bill. There was no changing table in the bathroom, so I ended up on the floor, trying to spread a ghastly amount of paper towels under me, my baby, and the diaper bag. Bathroom floors are gross.

How does this relate to the zoo? Well, once I felt like society really didn't care about my diaper-changing needs as a mom, I decided society had left me at large to determine my own problem-solving mission for meeting those needs. Hence, anarchy in the diaper nation.

But it's truly a cop-out, since I know the zoo has diaper changing tables in the bathrooms. But the nearest bathroom was far away and I swear he didn't touch the bench. Plus there wasn't anyone around (I wouldn't change him without asking nearby people if it was okay) and we were on a less-traveled stroller/wheelchair access route through the zoo.

Anyway, I will ask before I change my baby next to you. I won't change the baby on the table at a restaurant. I will use the diaper changing stations when available and prudent. But I understand where that mom in Wendy's was coming from now.

Dental December

Niles got his teeth cleaned last week and did well. Jake got his teeth cleaned Monday and had to have a couple teeth out, which makes us officially horrible kitty parents. Our bad cat dental care karma bit me in the ass when I broke a tooth while Jake was under the knife. It also just could be the generations of toothless and snaggle-toothed in my ancestry catching up with me--I'm doing great to still have my teeth. So now I've got a temporary crown (my first one) and our dental bills for December have climbed into the four-digit numbers.

Mistah A is ferociously biting his hands and our knuckles, but no teeth yet. I'm hoping we'll still get time for a family portrait before he cuts his first tooth but that may not happen. We're on a growth spurt officially again, eating every two to three hours or more often, which is cutting into our sleep and our holiday preparations like you wouldn't believe.

Woo hoo, nine hours of sleep!

That's right, A-fans; the boy slept from 7PM until 4AM last night. Now his stupid parents didn't go to bed until 10PM, but wow, last night was a nice night.

Competition and babies...

...go together like cops and robbers. I was going to say maple syrup and ham, but the baby competition is nowhere near that delicious.

I have a sibling with developmental disabilities, which I realize now was a really good lesson in enjoying babies for who they are and where they are. I had no idea how terribly competitive mothers are. Example: at the vet, picking up Niles, a woman asks me how old A is. I tell her and she says, "He's a big boy."

I say, "Yes, he was almost sixteen pounds at his four month checkup." I wasn't bragging. I was being quantitative and I haven't gotten him weighed lately.

She says, "I have a five-month-old daughter. She was sixteen and a half pounds at her four month checkup. 97th percentile! I told the doctor, 'I swear I'm not feeding her every time she cries.'" I felt the compulsion to simultaneously explain that it was actually 3 and a half months when A had his checkup and that we're breastfeeding and not formula feeding so we're still feeding on cue. There was probably a small lecture about breastfeeding in there too. I squashed it all.

The baby competition is something fierce. How big is just the start. There's the wildly popular "Is he sleeping through the night?" because hours of sleep is absolutely correlated to superior parenting. There's also the always nebulous, "Is he a good baby?" No, he's a bad baby; he's been hanging out with the Baby Mafia and they have some shady money-laundering activities going on. He's not colicky, but he's also not willing to wallow in his own crapulance.

I can't imagine the competitiveness that's going to happen once he can crawl, walk, and talk. I'm not having any of it. I'm pretty sure I have the cutest, sweetest baby in the universe and I'm pretty sure every other parent feels the same way.

Flu shot

I got a flu shot Tuesday. I got it at the local supermarket because my GP was all out of his first batch of vaccine and didn't know when the next one was coming. As the "primary caretaker of an infant," I get to be in the category of high-risk people who should get one.

I head to the local supermarket at the appointed time. The guy giving the shots takes my money to pay for the shot (in his latex gloves), then gives a shot to the guy ahead of me (without changing the gloves). I've got Mistah A in the sling and so I watch the guy give shots to the next two people (and touch the cash register) without changing gloves. I just read Dr. Oz's patient book (which is excellent, btw) but it will give you the heebie jeebies if you see someone trying to give you a shot with non-sterile gloves.

So I lie. I say, "Say, do you have to change gloves after you touch the cash register? I used to work in a deli and we always had to change gloves after we touched the cash register." I feel okay about saying this because it's not, "You disgusting man, what are you doing?" and I used to do mystery shopping for a grocery chain and this is one of the things I was told to watch for.

"You know, they didn't cover that in training." He changes gloves and is very nice about it. We make small talk about how wonderful babies are; he has a ten-month-old son. He gives me the shot.

Tuesday night (late), I wake up and realize I have a raised puffy red patch about two inches in diameter around the injection site. I call my doctor's office and they say, "Hmm, bigger than a quarter? Big as a half dollar? Come on in." I said it was the size of a silver dollar but apparently the new dollar coins have messed up that reference.

Anyway, long story short too late, the guy injected the vaccine too low and I'm having a mild reaction to it. But that was Tuesday and I've still got it today, although it's less pink and puffy. Grumble grumble.

ETA: The photo's not the best in the universe and the spot isn't brilliant puffy pink anymore, but this is what it looks like six days after the shot.