Quack quack

Something happened to my voice and if I try to speak I sound like a sick duck. I took Charlie to the park today to try to make some friends. I got all gussied up in a black tshirt and some brown capri sweatpants and even thought to dab on a little lip gloss as I got the stroller out of the trunk of the car but as soon as I opened my mouth to talk to a potential friend it was suddenly time for a diaper change or a nap. I’m probably the subject of some kind of phone tree now. Awesome.

We were in another town this weekend for a family wedding and while there I got to meet the wonderful and talented Kyla over coffee one afternoon. Her strength and ability to keep her sense of humor in a tough situation inspire me and I really enjoyed meeting her face to face.

Now for some pictures because I really need to go to bed soon so I can get some rest and Charlie doesn’t laugh every time I try to speak tomorrow like he did today.

Here he is before we went into the wedding. He made it through the bridal procession before he started getting chatty. I gave him his sippy cup which he snatched from my hand and then threw his head back to drink with such gusto that it made a loud THUD against the pew, eliciting giggles from people sitting around us. Then he started pointing at all the candles and saying “OOOH!” and when I picked him up to hand him to Ryan I grabbed him in just the wrong spot and he let out a big burp that echoed through the sanctuary. Ryan and I made some nice friends standing outside the front of the church.

Charlie was delighted by this huge dog that came to the reception pulling a carriage. He greeted the horse by sticking out his tongue and panting, which is what he does when we ask him what our dog Rossby says. The green hoodie is part of the “Oh shoot the reception is outside and he’s getting over a cold and I found this in the back of my car” collection.

He took a good nap after this terrifying experience. But at first he loved the lights and he clapped his hands and waved at his Nana and Ryan every time we passed them. “Bye bye!”

He was enjoying this swing ride so much that I just kept pushing him until he was nearly asleep. Then it was time to go inside for dinner and the birthday cake that our hosts had bought him.

He ate his piece standing in a Pack and Play that we pulled up to the table. Is that a happy boy or what? He tested the crib’s design limits by jumping up and down between bites. He had no trouble falling asleep in the car on the way back to South. He’s such a cool kid.

An open letter of apology to my sister…

Dear K,

I should have known better than to bring Late Afternoon Charlie out in public. I really should have known better than to bring Late Afternoon Charlie to your Starbucks where you were clearly already having a busy day. I thought he would be OK because clearly I have lost my mind.

I should not have let him see his cup of milk before I was ready to give it to him. I shouldn’t have pushed the straw issue so hard. Had I given up sooner there would have been much less milk to clean up and much less ungodly screaming.

I should have just shared my coffee cake with him instead of hiding it in my purse and taking little bites when he wasn’t paying attention. I should have known that it couldn’t last, that he would see one bite go in my mouth and demand to have some in that adorable loud way he has when he is tired and being forced to sit in one place and drink milk from a cup.

And when he started doing that “limp baby” thing as a means of sliding to the ground outside so he could pick up cigarette butts and rearrange all the deck furniture, I should have known it was time to go instead of insisting to you “He’s FINE!” as he got his head stuck in the arm of a chair and screamed until I freed him. Twice.

One day you may understand the itchy feeling of desperation to leave the house that sets in around 3:00. How it makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do, like push a manic almost one-year old around Target for an hour, mouth hanging slack, eyes wild, and then leave without buying anything. Or think things like “I need to buy mascara RIGHTNOW. If I go to the drug store two counties over I can burn like an extra thirty minutes in the car!”

It is my sincere hope that next time I come into your store I will be alone with my book and my iPod and I will sit quietly in a chair and read and not spill anything or alienate other customers by staring at them with milk dribbling down my chin. And I will not look like a meth head. You have no idea how much I want that to be true.

–Becca

When Green Goo Attacks: Mother of the Year Application Essay

Oh my goodness. We can never move out of our temporary apartment. And not just because of the orange ring of scum that’s forming around Charlie’s highchair.

Tonight I was on my way out and three kids were riding their scooters around in the parking lot while one mother looked on and chatted with the friendly woman who waves at Charlie every evening when she takes her dogs out when another mother walked out onto her balcony, clean plate and dishtowel in hand, and yelled “Get out of the street, right now!” at two of the scooter kids.

You may not know of my secret desire to live in a rowhouse where I can yell things out the front door at my cadre of children playing in the street. “Char-LEE! You better not be playing with that fire hydrant again!” I am fascinated by the huge family of my friend Godmother who is from Pittsburgh. I met them at Godmother’s wedding and they were FUN. She said something recently about having a big Catholic family of her own one day. That sounds way better than what we would be. A “big Methodist family”? Come on!

Does anyone know how to achieve a big family without ever going through a pregnancy again? Because let’s be honest, that was not a pretty time for me. And a lot of it was not fun. Feeling him move was cool, eating cookies all the time was cool, waddling was not cool.

Woah. This is going nowhere. Charlie woke up at 3:00 this morning as happy as can be–babbling, waving bye bye, pointing at the fan. He had a fever that was making him goofy. I gave him some Tylenol and he went back to sleep. When he woke up he had green goo coming from his eyes and nose. I dabbed it off and we went to Little Gym and had a great time. I attributed his slightly cranky mood to not having had a morning nap and the goo hadn’t come back so I figured it was his environmental allergies. Sorry, sorry, sorry everyone else at Little Gym. After we had lunch with my dad I finally broke down and bought a new thermometer. I took his temperature in his armpit in the car while he whined and squirmed and I sang “Old Mac Charlie had a Farm” to try and keep him calm. When he finally got away from me his temperature was 99.2, but the thermometer hadn’t stopped going up yet.

The doctor taught me some new baby holds that I used to hold Charlie’s head steady long enough for him to look at his ears. There are not many good places to hold onto that adorable round head of his.

Guess what! First round of antibiotics didn’t even touch his ear infection! And now it’s in both ears! And also conjunctivitis.

Charlie remembered his manners near the end of the appointment and when the doctor was walking out the door he stopped crying, waved, and said “Bye bye!”

I think the baby holds are going to come in handy when it’s time to apply the conjunctivitis ointment. We should probably put a notice on our door or something. Something like “Sorry about the noise. We are not raising wild cats in our apartment” or “Please don’t call CPS. It’s medicine.”

Pictures, because my dissertation isn’t going to write itself*

Two pictures of Charlie with his favorite things on earth, dogs.

This is where we wait for Ryan to come home. When Ryan gets out of his car, Charlie waves and laughs and sometimes says “Bye bye!!” and jumps up and down. “Bye bye” is like “aloha” for Charlie. Hello? Bye bye. Good bye? Bye bye. A truck passes the apartment window? Bye bye. A dog is on TV? Bye bye.

Minutes before this picture was taken he was sobbing for me into my aunt’s shoulder (I was standing about two feet away. With my hand on his back.). He forgot all about how under-rested and clingy he was when my aunt brought this big dog down the stairs. Put me DOWN Mama! Adogadogadog! Bye bye!

*and apparently the only way out is straight ahead. whatever.

Back from the clutches of the rogue antivirus software that attacked my computer

Just back from two terrifying days during which I couldn’t comment on blogs or check my email unless I walked up a giant hill to the complex’s business center. I walked up the hill exactly once (and sat at a computer next to a guy who was Googling a slightly scary psychological condition) and that won’t be happening again. Interestingly, the fitness center is also at the top of the hill. Once I got there, huffing and puffing from the walk there, I was only able to eek out ten minutes on the elliptical and a half-hearted arm workout with some free weights I found. Hardly worth it if you ask me.

Which brings me to my next topic, post-pregnancy, post-breastfeeding bra shopping. Or, “They Only Look Small to You”. Because after nineteen months of looking like a fertility goddess, being able to wear a button down shirt again is exciting, but before you happily grab a bunch of cute little C and B bras off the rack and trot off to the dressing room you should consider your already fragile body image and perhaps start with something a little larger and work your way down. No one wants to be the one stalking out of the dressing room red faced and empty handed. Hate. HAATTTEEE.

I decided to postpone looking for a new pair of jeans.

So, no, I didn’t find anything.

Mr. Charlie is quite the cranky boy this weekend. He has this scream-choke-scream combo that works its way into your head and reduces your intellectual age to approximately six months. He was doing it tonight when Ryan asked if he should run out for some Baby Orajel and I answered by rocking and crying and making a low gutteral sound.

At the church luncheon he devoured half a banana without me cutting it up first. When he saw the banana he lunged for it and started signing “more more more” so I just gave it to him thinking he would suck on it like he does apples. I was pretty proud of him, and even bragged to the friendly strangers sitting at our table, until I fed him a spoonful of beans and he threw up three large unchewed chunks of banana and all the beans I had given him all over my pants. But when my mom gave him table food at dinner he sat in his booster and sobbed until we gave him some jarred turkey and vegetables instead.

Is this teeth? Or do we need to call a priest for an exorcism?

Happy to Help

Little Gym, my new BFF

We arrived a little early, at 9:15 for a 9:30 class. Which to my neurotic self is about five minutes late because the man who runs the place (and who is an alum of MyUniversity, GUNS UP!) asked me to get there early and 9:15 is merely “on time”. As soon as we entered the lobby Charlie began pointing through the windows into the Gym and saying “Oooooh!” over and over again and trying to wriggle free of my grip.

The class began with Bell Time (timid smile, gentle bell shaking) and then it was time to walk around in a big circle together. For Charlie, the youngest kid in the class, it was time for me to hold him by the elbows (“Spot from the elbows, Mom, so he can learn to balance all by himself” dislocated shoulders be damned) and drag him in a circle while his little feet struggled for traction. He loved it (huge smile, lots of shrieking).

When it was time for Do Whatever You Want Time (or as Charlie called it “so happy I’m going to explode time”) I let Charlie go and he crawled faster than I’ve ever seen him go over to a giant foam ramp. He crawled up the ramp and then beamed at me proudly. He also loved the tunnel, where he crawled back and forth so fast I thought I would have to go in there to get him (this was similar to a game we played at TheOldHouse in which he would crawl under the dining room table and I would run around to the other side and “scare” him and he would collapse in a fit of happy screaming and giggling. He could play for hours if I wasn’t such a selfish mommy who wanted him to eat dinner and take a bath). He loved trying to hang from a wooden bar and his teacher helped him do a flip (he demonstrated readiness by hanging his head back when held on his back near the bar, or something).

Once he even seemed to forget that he doesn’t know how to walk yet because he stood up in my lap and tried to take off after a little girl on the big foam ramp.

Ball time, where the bigger kids learned to throw while Charlie satisfied his oral fixation, was fun until it was over and then it was NOT FUN, but by that point he was totally exhausted.

He had such a good time that even before I knew how well it would make him sleep I paid for the rest of the semester. And then I went to Ulta to pick up some nail polish and clippers to replace the ones that are in storage because oh my gosh I was not prepared to have to take off my shoes. And also a hairbrush because they packed that too and I was tired of looking like Steven Tyler. Nine years in TheOldTown have not been good for my personal grooming standards apparently.

Charlie fell asleep immediately when we got home for an hour, but the best part was that he slept an hour later than normal this morning. I rushed through my morning routine expecting him to wake up any second but soon found myself watching the Today Show and periodically checking his vital signs.

I can’t wait for next Wednesday.

Late Mom

There are fifty-three minutes between now and Charlie’s first Little Gym class. Where is Charlie? Why am I sitting at my computer and not sipping a caffeinated beverage in the not-local coffee shop that shares a shopping center with Little Gym? Because someone needed some quiet time in his crib.

You see, he is having some trouble dealing with disappointment. In particular, he learned to turn on the TV today. At the exact moment he turned it on there was a commercial for dog food on that showed one life-sized dog face after another. The ecstatic shrieks of delight came to an abrupt and angry end when The Today Show came back on. After that nothing would do but trying to climb into the fireplace or chew on our wireless modem. Suggestions to do something else were met with angry sobs. He was asleep in less than a minute.

And now the caffeine headache that began on the back-right side of my head has spread to the top middle. And soon I will be “Mom Who Shows Up Late with the Mad Baby and the Starbucks Drink.” But hey, we’re in the big city now! When in Rome, right?

At least he’ll learn to make his bed neatly and shine his shoes

Guess who has his first day in the toddler room tomorrow! Yeah. When the hell did THAT happen?

When I visited all the babies were sitting on tiny chairs around a round table having cheese and crackers.

Always eager to please, I assured the director “Oh yeah, he’s eating table food,” which to me I guess means “food that can be placed on a table and not sucked from my boob” and then she handed me a calendar with their daily menu. Cheeseburger day promises to be a struggle.

Know what happens after morning snack? Arts and crafts time. Am I the only one who is having trouble picturing a kid who rubs mashed bananas in his hair like it’s leave-in conditioner patiently gluing macaroni to a cutout of his hand?

And also? No cribs. They have funny little cots. And only one nap. Apparently in South “daycare” is a euphemism for “military school for babies.”

I visited another center today that was very nice except that all the other kids in Charlie’s room were eight feet tall and they wore shoes and ran and were very very loud. Charlie clung to my chest and looked very concerned. He would have been trampled! I cooed “Oooh, Charlie, look at all the other kids! Aren’t they having fun!” as I backed out slowly and then ran to the car once I passed the main office.

(speaking of “ooooh”, Charlie’s newest thing is pointing at something he finds interesting and saying “oooh!” I wonder where he learned that! Ryan noticed it in the lights and fans section at Lowe’s)

So anyway, it’s only two days a week. I’m still a nervous wreck (imagine!). I can get some work done, Charlie can learn a few things during “Applied Physics and Rocket Science Time” (which is just after afternoon nap).

Stay tuned for a blubbering mess of a post tomorrow.

They call it "the cable"

Did you know you could hook a wire up to the back of your TV and get like ten million channels? It’s true. We have one in our swank corporate apartment. Correction, we have TWO in our swank corporate apartment. We also have a cookie sheet. Together they made for a nice evening of eating cookies and watching the Law and Order SVU Marathon. Perfect. Only problem is that our balcony faces a road and it sounds like the Space Shuttle is taking off outside every time the light turns green.

Charlie and Phent are sleeping off an ear infection diagnosed by a friendly doctor who saw Charlie nursing when he walked into the exam room and said “Hey, Little Man! Having a little afternoon snack?” then helpfully offered to hold Charlie while I “got reorganized.” Charlie amused himself during the wait by crawling in and out of the automatic sliding door and loudly shrieking with joy every time it opened. We were totally that family.

Ryan and his parents and all my clean clothes are still on the way down from the old house. I think I’ll move the bedroom TV out here and watch two shows at once. And eat some Oatmeal Cream Pies.