Contrition, Walking Babies, and the Great Hot Dog Dilemma Solved

Let's get this out of the way: Feh. Work. Worky work work. Cold. Fever! Very high fever! The croup. Another cold. Teething. Holy Mother of God, MOLARS.

Now you're caught up with me. What's new with you? You look great. Seriously. That's a really good color on you. Have you lost weight? I love what you're doing with your hair!!!

And now we hug and you forgive me for being such a loser. Everyone wins!

Actually, let me self-flagellate a little more: I'm on summer break! The first of two (I don't have all summer off, but have a two-and-a-half-week break in June and another three weeks off in August). And MOTH is finally done with his part-time gig on evenings and weekends, so work stopped being an excuse a week ago. And I had Big Plans to post every day to appease the blogging goddesses (this means you), but, well, see above. And next week we're driving to Jackson Hole, Wyoming for a family wedding. (I know! Two 12-hour trips in a car with a 15-month old within a five-day period? Who's jealous? You are.) And then in-laws in town, and then work starts up, and, and, and...I know I've asked this before, but HOW DO YOU PEOPLE DO THIS? Seriously, how do you find time to blog and knit and cook and paint and do non-essential life stuff? We don't have a TV (although I do keep up on Glee and Modern Family on the interweb...Mama likes her stories, dontcha know), I only wash my hair once a week...where is the time I am wasting? Because at some point, I want to do all those things (well, except paint...I'd love to paint, but unless you follow that with "by numbers," it's not likely to be a worthwhile pursuit for me) and when I stop breastfeeding I need to find some time to work out, and God I STILL haven't figured out how to work my videocamera...

Hm. I seem to be a bit of a runaway train today. Let's go with that, because otherwise I'm gonna get all het up about how I haven't posted in three weeks and now any post I write must rise to some David Sedaris level of brilliance, and that way lies less posting, and more insane muttering around the house. Therefore, in no particular order...

Things I Was Going To Tell You, Baby-Related:

1) Tankbaby is walking. I know that this is not news to anyone outside of this family (excepting possibly people I work with, because we are early childhood geeks and developmental milestones are the equivalent of, like, new iPhone unveilings to Mac nerds), but I have to say I find it entirely awesome. Like, I am literally in awe of these previously useless--if delicious--steamed pork bun baby feet that now propel chubby legs all over the house in a tiny drunken stagger. There is not a single ounce of grace in this movement, what with the stampy steps and the slightly flailing arms, but it is functional and hilarious to watch. He has progressed from tentative steps to being able to squat, pick up something, and stand back up without holding on to anything. Our pre-bedtime hour is now spent watching him toddle from place to place, moving objects from here to there according to some odd toddler feng shui. Last Friday he moved every single pair of his pants from the drawer to the living room. MOTH kept coming around the corner with a pile of discarded pants and a sigh.

2) We can just call this the category of So You Think You Can Childproof (there's a show you won't see on NBC, although wouldn't you like to see, like, Tori Spelling try to figure out how to install cabinet locks?). The walking? Is awesome. The added mobility, height, and access? Not so much. MOTH told me that earlier today he had to repeatedly pull Tankbaby away from the silverware drawer--where the KNIVES are--because Tankbaby had somehow gotten the child lock off the drawer, and...hidden it. Wah-wah.

3) Only tangentially related to the baby, but it cracked me up: on Father's Day, MOTH was cleaning the baby up after breakfast and made up a Tom Waits-esque growly spoken word song thing called "Banana-Headed Boy," which included the lyrics, Banana-headed boy/Can't find hats that fit/And has a heck of a time getting on elevators.

Things I Was Going To Tell You, Non-Baby Related:

1) Work has kinda sucked. My student teacher remained lovely, but also very passive and quiet, which means that for nine weeks I spent all day at work feeling like I was the chatty one desperately trying to keep up conversation on an ill-advised blind date. It was tiring. And there's been lots of kid drama, as kids I work with go in and out of foster care. I kept coming close to writing about it, because it is interesting, but it's also depressing as hell. Like, a two-year-old I used to work with had been reunited with bio mom, but is now back with her old foster family, because mom was leaving her and her 15-month-old sister alone in the apartment at night. Locked in their rooms. Where the neighbors could hear them crying, "Mama, let me out!" See? Depressing. And infuriating. And nauseating. And it mostly makes me want to come home and hug my own baby. Well, and sit in a watchtower with a hypodermic rifle and shoot sterilization drugs into crowds of people. (Hello, crazy Googlers! Please seek professional help!)

2) My dad's visit, while lovely, made me quite sad for a few days following, and not just because he lied about that dwarf thing. We've lived here for seven years, and I spent the first four miserable to be so far from my sick mom. And then I finally got to a place of relative peace, and now I have this baby, and he sees his grandpa three or four times a year. Which I know isn't unusual, but I also know people whose parents babysit on random Thursday nights, and who are around for trips to the pumpkin patch, and who know their grandkids' bedtime routines, and...it makes me sad. We live here now, we have roots, and I no longer fantasize about moving back, but...it makes me sad. For all of us.


Argh. There's more, but the boy has been awake for a bit now, and is tiring of playing with Mama's breast pump. (What?) So, rather than end on those depressing notes, I will tell you of MOTH's latest idea: hot dogs with holes drilled in the middle, so that, when sliced into coins, they are "like Cheerios," and thus less likely for kids to choke on them, because of the breathing hole and all. Now if you'll excuse me, we're off to patent that shit.

P.S. I am, as mentioned, a late-adopter, so I know you've all already seen this. But it still makes me giggle. "I'm her mom!" "No...she's not!"

Apologies All Around...

What, you say, apologies for not writing in over a week? Old news.

Apologies for being so behind on reading and commenting on all of your superior, more prolific blogs? Feh. Been there.

But, an apology for inadvertently contributing to the spread of a ridiculous story via the internet, in a blog read by fives of people? Well, sign me up!

Yeah. Big freaking sigh. My poor dad. He was so befuddled when I told him. It was, after all, his cousin who told him the story, and now he maintains that no-one is trustworthy, especially Iowans. My sister also found out (after repeating the story several times) that this myth was on Snopes.com, and is now recommending that we also question Dad's whole "false alarm shooting in the church story."

So, in sincere contrition, I offer you an almost equally ridiculous story, one that involves Actual People I Know Personally, sources apparently more reliable than my lying father.

Until Tankbaby was born, MOTH and I went each summer to Burning Man. What, I never mentioned that? Yes, yes, we're big hippies. Anyway, one year, some friends of ours from Chicago drove out to join us. At the end of the week, we were all dusty, filthy, and grinning. One couple, Jill and Eric, got their entire bodies painted (Jill in a stunning blue-green, Eric in red), as you do when you're out in the desert with a buncha weirdos. So, picture if you will this dirty, dusty SUV, with four people, all unwashed, one wearing a fisherman's hat with cat ears attached, one painted entirely red, one entirely blue. On the drive home, somewhere in the Midwest, they pull up next to another car at a stoplight. They look over, and there's a guy dressed as Ronald effing McDonald driving the car.

He looks at them. They look at him.

Ronald rolls down his window. Eric does the same.

Ronald says, "Hey, man. What's McHappening?"


Almost as good, yes?