Thursday, July 27, 2006

roly-poly

Raisin usually poops the consistency of baby food. I thought this was a bit odd at his age but according to his doctor, it's fine. It concerned me a little because, not that he's close to being ready to potty train, but when toddlers are ready to start using the little potty, you're supposed to be able to just dump their poop from the little potty into the toilet. I figure it will be more like scraping it out with a rubber spatula.

With that in mind, I kid you not, these words came out of Ed's mouth at about 6 a.m. this morning while changing Raisin's diaper on our bed.


"Ooh, it's a roly-poly poopie -- the kind that mama likes."

(HOLDING DIAPER OUT) "Look mama, this is the kind you could just dump in the toilet."

(THEN THIS) "Uh oh, where'd it go?..."

I'm pleased to report, it was found.

Monday, July 24, 2006

a sign of the times

Now that Raisin is talking more and more, he's using his sign language less and less. As much as I love to hear him talk and am flabbergasted by how quickly he picks things up, I'm a little sad to see his signs go -- those pudgy little fingers moving in funny, expressive ways to tell us something that his voice can't.

Every once in a while I'll quiz him just to see if he still remembers signs for certain things. He does. And it's so interesting to me how there's usually only a slight overlap of signs and verbal once he's learned to say something. Even though he can now say the word "more", occasionally he still does the sign when he's very adament about wanting more or when he's very sleepy. My favorite time is at night when I sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" to him. He usually gives me the sign for more right when I get to the part that says, "Like a Diamond in the Sky," because he knows I'm close to the end and it's time for me to put him into his crib. Apparently he's too sleepy to say it -- or maybe it's the Nuk in his mouth.

So because I'm feeling all weepy and nostalgic about his loss of sign language, I bring you "Milk." This was taken in April on the beach in Florida. He had just started to use the word "milk" about a week before but here is the overlap with sign. I really miss that little cow-udder squeeze. Sniff.

gag him with a spoon

This weekend, while eating some yogurt, little e thought it was big funny to put the spoon way back inside his mouth to the point that it would set off his gag reflexes. We did our best to ignore him since any attention paid to our little entertainer would surely guarantee an encore performance. Despite our attempts, he continued to do it and laughed after each gag.

That is, until he hurled all down the front of chest.

Friday, July 21, 2006

um...i think i say "um" too much

Little e has started to preface things he's about to say with "Um." He also uses it a lot when looking for something. I blame the babysitter.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

murphy's law of running errands with a toddler

• At the post office, only after you've weighed your package, entered the destination zip code, replied no, you don't want any more services, and slid your card through, all using one hand with a boy who loves buttons in the other, the self-service postage machine will not accept your card and you will be forced to stand in line along with the obviously smarter people who bypassed the self-service machine.
• You will drop your keys, not one, not two, but three times while carrying your child out to the car.
• Only after you've heave-hoed him into the seat will you realize you got the shopping cart with the defective child safety belt.
• Then, only then, after you change carts and start to make your way down the grocery aisle, will you realize, lucky you, you also got the shopping cart with the bad wheel alignment that goes wobble, wobble wobble and pulls you to the left while everyone else points and stares.
• Continuing your effort to avoid interacting with the general public, you will make your way into the self-checkout aisle, ring up all your purchases while your child screams for cookies and curse all self-service machinery as it displays the message "please wait for assistance."

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

"mauuffff"

I usually give little e a half hour cool-down period before his afternoon nap. I've gotten to be quite anal about the whole thing in that I start to get the shakes if I'm even slightly off schedule. Our days just go so much obviously better if we're on.

Lunch usually happens at 11:30. Then 12:00-12:15 it's some sort of random play (usually basketball outside -- AGAIN). Then at precisely 12:15 I fire up the Baby Einstein to help him settle down. But before I do, I usually tell him what's going to happen next. (Like his mama, he likes to be mentally prepared.)

So a couple of days ago, we were playing a little one-on-one and I told him it was time to go inside to watch Einstein. His response? "Mauufff". To which I said, "Say what?" He repeated, "Mauuuffff". I said "Mauuufff?" He laughed. Silly mama she is dumb. He mustered up as much annunciation as he could and said in a very loud voice similar to an American tourist speaking English to a local in a foreign country, "Mauuffff." I still had know idea what he was talking about.

So we go inside and I start to insert the Einstein DVD. The trademark caterpillar appears and he grows more and more agitated. "Nooooooooooo." "No?? But you LOVE Einstein!" Clearly disgusted by my ignorance, he stomps over to the drawer where we keep our DVDs and pulls out a collection of old Mickey Mouse cartoon shorts. So I pop it in and he sits back and begins to laugh at the violent and un-PC antics of old-time Mickey Mouse -- er, MAUUFFFF.

I've never shown him this DVD. The husband claims he's never shown it to him. And according to the babysitter, months ago she had shown about two minutes of it to him, but he wasn't interested. The only time he's seen it has been the couple of times his cousins watched it when the were over. Apparently that was enough.

Just when I thought he had Mickey-Mouse fever, a few days after that, he requested "Lady and the Tramp". He only watched the first 10 minutes of it but requested it again for today's nap-time feature. I'm not convinced he's over Baby Einstein, but I must admit, I'm happy to have a little break from it. Next thing you know, he'll be attending the Sundance Film Festival what with his new sophisticated taste in DVD entertainment,

Tune in next week when he selects "The Fight Club" from the DVD drawer.

Friday, July 14, 2006

long-distance dedication

This one goes out to Mark and Amy. Don't miss his hilarious debut on next season's "Last Comic Standing."

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

no more monkeys jumping on the bed

Last night we took my baby to the emergency room.

He fell off our bed and landed, what sounded to be, skull-first on the hardwood floor. Luckily, he's a quarter German and he has a thick skull otherwise maybe we wouldn't be so lucky.

He's at a stage when he wants to flirt with danger on the bed. He wants to get close enough to the steel headboard that he'll fall through the gap it makes with the mattress. He wants to run until he loses his footing in the bedding. He wants to jump. Only this time he was doing none of those things. He wasn't even standing. I don't know what he was doing but he managed to fall off in the approximately three seconds it took me to reach to the floor on the other side of the bed and get his milk for the last phase of his bedtime ritual. After hearing the worst sound ever, I was scared to death to turn around and see that he was no longer on the bed. I was hoping something had fallen in the other room. But he wasn't on the bed and it was with great relief that I soon heard the crying.

He didn't cry as long as I expected him too for the amount of pain I imagined he felt. I kept him up and busy while Ed called the nurse line to see what we should do. At that point he seemed fine but we didn't think we should let him go to sleep so soon after suffering a head injury. The nurse recommended we bring him to the emergency room just to be safe. So we did.

Every time I explained the story to someone at the ER, I imagined them tsk-tsking in their heads, thinking I was an abusive mother covering up some god-forsaken child abuse. I began to even second guess my own story, wondering if that really was how it happened. Was I really just reaching for milk? It all seems like a blur now. The good news is that he checked out just fine and we brought him home with just a Fred-Flinstone-like goose egg on his head (minus the circling birds) and instructions to watch him in the next 48 hours.

There's nothing like your baby falling off the bed when you're right there to prevent it to make you feel like a horrible mom. And that sound -- when his head came crashing to the floor -- it will forever be tattooed on my brain. Of course now that it's happened, if he so much as looks at something potentially dangerous, I steer him the other way. Which begs the question: Where is the line between being an over-protective parent who follows her child around with a safety net and letting him experience the simple joys of being a child like jumping on a bed, climbing, etc. without risking a cracked skull?

I sure as hell don't know.

Update: We just got home from a walk. As we passed through the park, three little boys were doing backflips off the picnic table. This motherhood thing is going to give me a nervous breakdown.

two broken big wheels away from white trash

At the time of this writing there are 13 balls in our backyard. (Admitting that there is a problem is the first step.)

Monday, July 10, 2006

don't forget to tip your waitress

I've got a joke for you. Hold on to your hats, it's big funny.

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Ball.
Ball who?
Ball ball!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
It's Raisin's first official knock-knock joke!

Sadly, that's about as funny as most knock-knock jokes get.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

road trip



Raisin and I made the nearly four-hour drive to meet the rest of my family on a lake up north. It was a cousin extravaganza and little e had a smile plastered across his face the whole time.

Grandma S. bought him a shiny new blue ball that we feared had been blown down the beach and lost forever. We come to find out cousin Izzy had snatched it and had been hiding it in her room. Sneaky, sneaky little girl.

One of the biggest highlights for the little man was captaining the boat on Grandpa S's lap -- complete with horn honking and a few "whoa, whoa, whoas" for good measure. And I'm pleased to report that no ducks went hungry.

belated 4th of july thoughts

Hot weather + 2 nervous dogs + hot dog breath = good times

I'm just grateful that there's only one holiday a year when it's completely acceptable for your neighbor to light explosives off right outside your window.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

darwin awards finalist

Let's say for a minute you were cutting up some chicken for your boy to eat. But let's just say the knife was upside-down. Then imagine, if you will, you're pressing on the back of the blade for leverage. Only it's not the back of the blade, it's the blade blade. Yeah, that doesn't feel so good. Especially when you say, later try putting your contact in with SALINE SOLUTION, using that same finger -- you know, the one with the inch-long gash down it?!?!?