So I went to Yoga at the YMCA (henceforth YatY) last night. I almost signed up for a beginners’ class at this awesome yoga studio nearby… it cost twice as much but when I went in the whole place smelled like chai tea. And I love me some chai tea. Instead I joined the Y where I could swim laps and use the fitness equipment and take classes. AND for $3 I can drop Charlie off in the playroom and spend up to two hours breathing into a paper bag and rocking rhythmically because I can’t handle one more sleepless night, my goodness exercising anytime I want.

Right after I signed up I swam laps for the first time in a year. It felt great to be moving again. Despite my astonishing lack of athletic ability, swimming has always been something I enjoyed. I swam until I was 8 months pregnant with Charlie and the bounds of good taste prevented me from wearing my Speedo two-piece swimsuit in public any longer. Actually that moment probably passed much earlier, but since I couldn’t see most of my belly it was easy to think I still looked “cute” until Ryan came to the pool once to take pictures of me swimming. And then I was all “You know, I could be spending this time lying on the couch while you make me snickerdoodles.”

There are several YatY classes offered throughout the week and I decided to go last night (because the only other one I can make meets on Thursday nights and that’s when all the good TV is on). I got there early, hoping to get to talk to some of the other ladies in the class and maybe make some friends. There was one woman sitting near the door of the classroom reading a book. She had a fancy bag to hold her yoga mat and all of the fancy accessories I assumed weren’t necessary for an activity focused on simplicity and focus. But whatever. I said politely “Is this where the yoga class meets?” She paused, sighed loudly, turned her head to look up at me and said, with more hostility than was really necessary, “Yeah.” And then went back to her book.

So then I waited, silently, hands folded, ignoring Cranky, until another girl came down the hallway. She looked to be about my age and looked friendly enough. I smiled warmly, she scowled and kept walking, stopping a short distance away from me to lean on the wall with her arms folded, carefully avoiding looking in my general direction. Okey dokey, I’m in a class with Cranky and Scowly. I THOUGHT THE SOUTH WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FRIENDLY!

I enjoyed the class very much. Many of the poses were like the video I used to do before I had a houseful of people to witness my attempts to fold myself into the Standing King Dancer Position or the Inverted Lotus Flower Legs Aren’t Supposed to Bend Like That. It felt so good. Soooo good. I didn’t want it to end. Particularly the part near the end where we layed on the floor in the dark and listened to ourselves breathe. I think I used to call that sleeping, but I don’t remember.

At the end of class our teacher pressed her hands together and bowed and said “Namaste.” Cranky and Scowly mimicked her with great seriousness as if YatY was the core of their spiritual well-being. I giggled. I wonder if they’re writing in their blogs (Itakemyselftooseriously.com) right now “There was this mean girl in my yoga class who tried to talk to me before class and she kept smiling and then she GIGGLED at the end of class and now I’m gonna have to go to Yogalates on Wednesday just to get my center back to where it’s supposed to be. I hate her! It’s not FAIR! Namaste”

I can’t wait for next week.

On his way back to the North Pole, Santa swung by our place to drop off one more present that had fallen between the seats of the sleigh.

Charlie kept trying to climb out of the highchair to get to it until we finally got it all put together and let him at it. He knew what it was and even tried to ride the big blue piece right out of the box with no wheels. I think they have them at daycare and I think there’s only one which is a big problem in the 12-18 month room I would imagine.

Here he is right after Ryan got him out of the highchair. He was so excited he didn’t even finish his waffle or beg for Nilla Wafers.

That face says it all (and makes all the crow I will be eating re: not having primary colored plastic toys taking over my house taste like lemon icebox pie).

Once he got on he tore around the kitchen/breakfast area exclaiming “Bow! Bowwwww! BOWWWWW!” (Wow! Wowwww! Wowwwwwweeeee!) and squealing. He was so GOOD at it. I thought we would have to push him around for a little while until he got the hang of it but he was already quite capable of the push-coast-push-coast maneuver. He even got a little fancy and rested one knee on the seat and used the other foot to push. Then he turned around and drove it backwards.

Aside: Ryan, dressed for work, looks GOOOOOD. Hott even. He’s wearing my favorite shirt of his and it makes him look all professional and bringing home the bacon-ey (which he actually is right now, except he’s bringing home the Chipotle, after putting Charlie to bed, what a guy!).

We will save the no talk-no text while driving rule for tomorrow morning.

This is called the cocoon. It is lots of fun. But most of all I like Charlie’s tiny Sesame Street Helmet. Which I guess since it’s made for two year olds is not so tiny after all Mr. 95th Percentile for height (Look how long this kid is! His legs have finally caught up with his torso and the result is a shockingly lean little boy body that surprises me every day with its non-babyness).

Now I will go lament my poor organizational skills and even poorer Matlab programming skills and still poorer critical thinking skills. And possibly finish off the bag of Almond M&Ms in the pantry that just two days ago I said we weren’t going to open until later but that is now 1/3 gone. You know what? It’s later!

Mmmmm, so crunchy and delicious.

(of poop)

Our realtor took us around on Saturday in this nice community where we would like to live. Each house she showed us was beautiful and spacious and within our price range. It was like some kind of dream. Then she took us to a house she said “was below our price range and a little smaller than the others but might work.” As we pulled into the driveway I commented on the ugly drainage pond surrounded by a concrete wall and chain link fence a few lots down; “Oh good, there’s a pool!” I said.

My definition of ugly was about to change forever.

The house was small, but cozy and nice. It had a nice formal dining room and a foyer with a coat closet, just like I want. But when I walked into the kitchen/breakfast/family room area which had nice big windows onto the nice big covered deck in the backyard I saw–you will never guess–PORT-A-POTTIES. HUNDREDS OF BRIGHT GREEN PORT-A-POTTIES all lined up in a field behind the house. And because the house was on a hill, it was ALL you could see out the window. Oh, and did I mention the five or six septic tank trucks parked back there? Yeah. Our realtor struggled to put a chipper spin on that. She said something like “Oh, look, the privacy fence is ten feet instead of six feet!” Unfortunately because of the hill the top of the fence was still two feet too short to block the expansive view of hundreds of plastic poopers from the window.

I can only imagine what it’s like when the wind turns. I just threw up in my mouth a little just thinking about it.

In my head I could hear the voice-over from HGTV’s Househunters saying “The third house was in good condition and was the least expensive but the deck overlooked a storage facility for portable toilets, you know, the kind they put behind the livestock tents at the county fair.”

We went back to the car and where I had been making notes like “Pretty floors” and “Updated kitchen” and “Swings in backyard” at the other houses I wrote “Crappers” and shoved it in the no pile. The heeeellllll no pile.

******

Guess where we’re going today!! That’s right, the Clogged Eustacian Tube Kid is back! On the ninth day of Christmas my mama gave to me… nine days of omnicef, eight nasty fevers, seven sleepless nights, six doses of Motrin, FIVE POOPS A DAY!!, four refused meals, three thrown tantrums, two sore ears, and a yeast infection in my diaper.

Silver lining: Next time we go to the pediatrician we won’t have to wait in the Sick Waiting Room because we will be waiting in the Charles H. Lastname Sick Waiting Room at the Academomia Clinic for Pediatric Ear Health. Or perhaps the will institute some kind of “Get your card punched! Buy nine ear exams, get the tenth free!” promotion. Or maybe instead of giving Charlie a sticker they will have my coffee waiting there for me when we arrive. And is it too much to ask that they take the playground equipment of death out of the waiting room? Even though he almost falls off it every single time we are there it calls to him like some kind of primary colored plastic siren. Let me tell you something, you who decide which toys go where, sick toddlers do not take kindly to being told “Please don’t climb on that” four hundred times. Especially sick toddlers who know EXACTLY where we are, thankyouverymuch. We need a big TV and some Cheerios and a few issues of Cosmo for me. Is that too much to ask?

Do all kids think tooting (our family word is ponking) is funny? Or is this another in a long string of things we are doing unknowingly that will no doubt send Charlie to some high-priced therapy in his late twenties?

Once when Charlie was very small, about six weeks, we were getting ready to go out somewhere with my parents. I don’t know where, but when you’re on week six of maternity leave does it really matter as long as it is SOMEWHERE? He was fussy, but I was on a mission. As my dad carried him over to the carseat the fussing turned into full blown crying. And then all of the sudden that tiny ten pound body made a startlingly loud BRRRRRRAAALLLLLLTTT!! Frat boys everywhere slapped eachother high fives. It was the breastmilk poo to beat all breastmilk poos. And just like that he stopped crying and smiled.

It took us all several minutes to regain composure.

Flash forward to now. Tooting is still hilarious, his own or Rossby’s, or even if you make the same noise with your mouth (which is why Ryan got a voicemail while on a business trip of me making fart noises with my mouth trying to get Charlie to laugh except instead of laughing he kept trying to put the phone in his mouth so basically I just left an obscene heavy breathing message plus some bonus fart noises just to up the creepy factor a few ticks).

Originally I thought the laughing might be because tooting felt funny to him, but now I think we’ve taught him this. How can you not laugh at a baby who, while sitting in his highchair, puts down his Nilla Wafer, turns beet red and grunts softly for several minutes then picks up the cookie and resumes eating like nothing happened (It’s especially funny that it still happens, except now he reserves it for nice family dinners or at restaraunts when the inappropriateness of it all makes it even funnier)? And what about the week-long string of mornings several months ago when Charlie greeted the day with a nice big ponk loud enough to be picked up by the baby monitor at the exact same time every morning? I DARE you to maintain a stony disapproving silence in the face of such hilarity.

Now that he laughs first it’s impossible to keep from cracking up. Is anything more little-boy-like than laughing at body noises?

My sincerest appologies to his future spouse. But what can you do?

At church on Christmas Eve each kid got to pick out an ornament to hang on the tree. After some coaxing that it was ok to touch them, Charlie picked out his ornament, a dove with real feathers for wings that Ryan and I both thought was an angel at first.

But then Charlie showed us how it flapped its wings. Now that I’m looking at the picture I have no idea why I couldn’t tell that was a bird. Hmm. Anyway, he was really proud of his Dove/Angel and made it fly during the walk to our seat. But sometime during the first song he handed me one of its wings and it was time for Mr. Dove/Angel to rest behind the Hymnals for a few minutes.

The children’s service was perfect for Charlie, who walked back and forth in our pew sometimes laughing, sometimes pointing at something and exclaiming “OOOOOH! BOW!” (which is “wow”). We sang all my favorite Christmas hymns and during each one kids brought their ornaments up and hung them on the Christmas tree. When Angels We Have Heard on High started up Ryan said “That’s us!” and grabbed Charlie’s hand. We headed down the aisle to help Charlie hang up his now one winged dove (angel?), each holding one of Charlie’s hands with Charlie walking between us. It was very sweet.

Here are some more church pictures that are here only because those overalls hurt my teeth they were so cute.

While Charlie slept (and by sleep I mean did not sleep AT ALL not even a little thanks to my insistance that he participate in the small birthday party we had for Jesus at 8:00 Christmas Eve. Cake + 1 year old + bedtime = no sleep for anyone. But man did he have fun!) Santa came and filled Charlie’s stocking. It was like Santa could see into Charlie’s little heart. There were Cheerios and Animal Crackers and stacking tupperware bowls! And books!

Santa even brought Charlie a ball because he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you flip out at Little Gym when it’s time to put the balls away so maybe you’d like to have your own (for goodness sake).

Later we had dinner with Ryan’s sister’s family. Charlie LOVED hanging out with the big kids (three and four). When they got close to the Christmas tree he warned them not to touch it with stern sounding babble and a wave of the hand (he must have inherited my obsessive need for everyone to follow the rules).

On the way back to South we got stuck in a huge traffic jam and went 20 miles in an hour and a half. It made our normally three and a half hour drive more like five hours but thankfully Charlie was asleep for most of the boring traffic jam part. Ryan finally had to drive over the grass to get onto the service road (at the end of a line of about twenty cars doing the same thing) because there was just no end in sight. When we got to the front of the huge line they had just closed the interstate because a truck had been involved in an accident and spilled some kind of hazardous chemical onto the road. Sooooooo glad we got off the highway when we did.

It was the simplest Christmas we’ve had since we got married and it was perfect.

Charlie LOVES Christmas. We are having so much fun. More later. With PICTURES!

But right now I am tired… because who knew that if you fed a one year old a piece of Jesus’s birthday cake right before bed he wouldn’t sleep well? Huh.

Did Santa bring Mama an open Starbucks? I was verrrrry good this year!

Ryan: [just out of shower, wrapped in towel, hair wet] “GEEZ!!!”

Me: “What?”

Ryan: “I was so proud of myself for getting Charlie’s diaper changed and PJs off while you were taking a shower!”

Me: “Yeah, thanks for doing that.”

Ryan: “But while I was in the shower you got yourself all ready for church, got Charlie dressed for church, and packed our suitcase! How do you DO that?!”

Me: [makes gun shape with hand, blows on tip of finger]

Yesterday while I was working at home my phone rang.

“Do you have a small white dog?” said the voice.

“Not again” I thought, my mind racing through all the terrible possibilities… that dog has used up his proverbial nine lives and more. In the old town he ran across six lane streets four times that we know about once arriving at the mall where he jumped into the car of two strangers who called us to come and get him. I’ve pulled him out of strangers’ backyards once, and Ryan had to fish him out of a nearby pond another time.

“Yes, I do.” I said, holding my breath.

“He’s in my garage… Are you in TheOldTown?” said the voice. I haven’t had new tags made yet.

“No, I’ll come and get him.” I said. She gave me the address of a house just up the street. She came out of her garage with Rossby on a leash and met me halfway.

“I don’t know what happened, but there is some blood on his paw” she said. Sure enough there were several streaks of red blood on his right-front paw. What I thought was a tuft of fur was sticking out of his snout.

“He must have scratched himself when he climbed under the fence” I said as I non-chalantly looked up and down the street for dead or maimed housecats. Rossby has a dark history when it comes to cats and there are about a dozen that I see around here on a daily basis. Each fluffier and cuter than the last. Rossby being out of the yard meant a dark dark day for the cats of South. I thanked the woman profusely and took Rossby home. Once inside I plucked the loose tuft of fur off of Rossby’s nose and was horrified to discover that it was PART OF A CAT’S CLAW.

“I got beat up by a cat, yo!“

I think I’ll spend the day Christmas shopping so I’m not around when the angry neighbor stops by with his sobbing child to explain that the vet did everything they could but couldn’t help poor Snowflake and would I please keep my dog in the house from now on.

This morning he was going all Captain Hook v. Ticking Arm-eating Alligator through the window at some poor cat who dared sleep on one of our patio chairs. I hope he has learned something from this.

Of course moments like this may have contributed to his delinquent behavior.

Here he is! Dr. Ryan! He’s reluctant to accept the title, but I’m working on him. Like “Thanks for pumping the gas, Dr. Ryan,” “What would you like for dinner, Dr. Ryan?” “Would you please change Charlie’s diaper? After all, you are a doctor!”

Guess where he is now while Charlie and I chill at the Embassy Suites.

He’s in his lab with his advisor. Yeah. Someone should really tell him that he’s done with school forever.

Anyway, here’s a picture of Charlie during the approximately five minutes he was able to stay in his seat with us (notice this is even before the graduates arrived).

We only brought enough milk and Teddy Grahams to make it through the processional. He waved with us when Ryan walked in. He laughed when Ryan put on his mortar board and laughed when the president of the university appeared on the Jumbotron wearing his. I think it was the tassel.

Of course we had to do this before we dropped Ryan’s robe back off at the bookstore. The hood reached the floor when Charlie had it on.

We are back in our old town for the weekend and we’ve been visiting all of our old favorite spots. Today we drove by our old house. The rosebushes I trimmed right before we moved were all in bloom and the purple, yellow, and white roses looked so pretty against the snowy lawn. (Oh, right, it SNOWED) I could see the outline of the curtains I made for Charlie’s room through the window. I wonder if it’s still the same pretty blue color we painted it. I wonder if the new owners are using it for their baby.

(I wonder if either of them has gotten spit on while trying to brush their teeth simultaneously in our tiny master bathroom yet. Because it WILL happen. Someone should warn them.)

I dropped in at the old coffee shop this afternoon and I wanted to go to our old grocery store but I didn’t want Ryan to think I am crazy so I didn’t say anything.

I wish we could stay here. I like where we are now and I love having family so close. But I think the stress of the last three months combined with our recent sad news are making me crave the stability of living in a town where I have lived for the last nine years.

But like I said, it SNOWED. And it is FREEZING. I am not interested in living like that again. The coats, the gloves, the hats, the shivering. No, no, no, and no. And the ice scraping… double no!

I had a meeting with Dr. Advisor that I barely remember because I was so coked up on cold medicine but I think I can put the pieces together with the notes he took and then gave me to take home.

We go back to South tomorrow afternoon and now that graduation is behind us I hope we can settle into some kind of predictable rhythm.