I think I'm in left field

We're going to Utah this summer, a trip to let J see both sets of grandparents more than once in a year. And, since the recession has hit the travel industry especially hard, we are also going for the Christmas holidays. (We got an awesome fare for that second trip, even better than the first, but we have to travel on Christmas Eve--Fa la la la la!) J will see some of his relatives three times in one year! He won't know what to do with all the love!

So, right now I'm planning for our first trip, because that's what I do. Plan. A lot. In advance. (Regular readers of this blog are nodding sagely at this point.) This trip will not require the mammoth planning that London entailed, of course, but there are still details to be worked out.

One of those are our outfits for a family photo. We're doing jeans and a different color on top for every family. I chose green for us because, hello, duh! The husband and I wore green in the other family's pics a while back, and though we both no longer fit in those particular shirts, we both have green shirts a plenty because I am me and he is married to me. So I thought this would be a piece of cake.Enter (bigger and bigger) J. When I pulled out all our various green options and compared them with J's various green options, I realized one sad fact: baby green is a whole heck of a lot brighter than adult green. It's like our two sets of clothes were on a completely different end of the green spectrum from his. Everything that matched for us clashed with him miserably.

But I felt for sure this could be done and relatively cheaply, too, so I hit the kids consignment store and bought three green polos that surely would match something we had. And they were all cheap and adorable...and didn't match a thing. So then I decided I needed to do this in reverse: have us match J rather than the other way around. I got serious and employed one of my favorite tactics: overbuying and mass returning. It's a simple plan, really. One, buy all the seemingly suitable green clothes you can find in one mad dash around an outlet mall (or shopping spree online, as the case may be, or, you know, both). Two, bring/ship them all home. Three, lay everything out in the best natural light I can find. Four, compare colors and hope for synergy. Five, return everything that doesn't work. Done and done!
Right now, we're at step two. I'm waiting on an Old Navy package to add to my other purchases. Things are looking good so far, but we're not quite there. It turns out that clothes for men and clothes for little boys have less in common than you'd think or at least than I would think. J and I have some pretty close matches, but similarly outfitting the husband is proving to be my sticking point right now. But you know me; I'll keep you posted!

I can see all the obstacles in my way

I have finally faced facts: I need glasses. Not some of the time, not just prescription sunglasses (which I have had forever, thankfully), but all of the time. So I can, you know, see clearly in crucial situations like while behind the wheel of a car at night. Ahem.

Ever the alert shopper, I accosted a woman in a store months ago and asked her where she got her very cute frames. She laughed and then said she got them online at Googles4u.com. Intrigued, I visited the site later on, when I remembered the address, and found that they are a mail order glasses site that charges, get this, $29.99 for a pair of lenses and frames, SHIPPED. Ever the bargain shopper, I quickly began filling my shopping basket with frames I liked.

Eventually, I got my eyes retested, the husband took a digital photo of my prescription and uploaded it to the site, and I moved from virtual shopper to actual shopper. I ended up getting multiple pairs of glasses at first and, then, two days later, I ordered some sunglasses as well when Destructicon J demolished my prescription pair without which I cannot live in the sunny South. The glasses arrived today, and my seemingly frivolous overordering proved to be a boon when TooTall J reached up and destroyed one pair while my back was turned trying on another. (At that point, we had some strong words--NO! NOOOOOO! NONONONONONONO YOU DO NOT TOUCH MOMMY'S GLASSES--and some tears on both sides.) Fortunately, the other pair fits perfectly, though J did manage to ruin the green ones (OF COURSE), much to my chagrin.

Indeed, I'm pleased as can be with the glasses all around. The prescription is accurate, the frames are light and stylish, and they fit well. I have every expectation that the sunglasses will be just as successful. The husband came home the first night I was wearing them and said to J "The part of Mommy will now be played by Tina Fey," which is a compliment of the highest order! Now all I have to do is break myself of the habit of removing my glasses when I go inside (because heretofore I have only worn sunglasses, you see) and find a new way keeping my hair out of my eyes since I can't just push my sunglasses up on my head any more!

As the men made of stone

I went to see the gall bladder surgeon this week and, for multiple reasons we won't get into today (such as past and present medical history and the like), we are opting to control my gall bladder disease with diet for the time being. If things get really, really really bad, then we will revisit surgery sooner rather than later, but, in the meantime, it's all about a new and improved diet. Sort of.
You see, for the uninitiated, the gall bladder goes crazy with bile when you eat fatty foods. So, to limit the (over)storage of bile and the subsequent stones created from that bile and a lot of other nasty stuff, you need to avoid fat. Sounds easy, right? Oh, silly silly goose!

Yes, you need to eat a low fat diet, and, first, you should avoid greasy, fried food like the plague. This is a slightly easier task if you're not Mormon and don't live in the South, but whatever. I can persevere here. Oh, and especially no Chinese food. The doctor said 75% of the attacks she sees are triggered by eating Chinese food. Yikes! Second, you need to watch the fat in your dairy. Check. I hardly eat any dairy, of course, and what I do eat is always fat free and lactose free for good measure. Third, you need to watch your saturated fats, such as those found in red meat. Again, not too many problems here. We eat red meat about twice a month, if that. I'm all about the chicken and vegetables, people. So far, so good, right?
Unfortunately, there are lots (and I mean LOTS) of other foods that trigger attacks for many people. Among these (and the list is shockingly long) are pork, eggs, beans, onions, corn, carbonated beverages, artificial sweeteners, oranges, and nuts. Wait, what?! Hold on a second, eliminating these foods seriously hampers my default meals, which are hummus and pita with oranges, scrambled eggs with onions, lemon berry slushes from Sonic, and Crystal Light (at times, this is a meal, 'cause it's really hot here, my friends, and sometimes you just don't feel like eating in that kind of weather).

So, my plan is to try out eating these foods alone and check which ones cause problems. (I'm already suspicious that I may not be able to do beans, after a church function where we had a tasting menu made of recipes featuring beans. The dishes were great, but I felt some ominous twinges whilst eating that stopped as soon as I did, thankfully.) I'm most likely going to avoid talking about my experiments, except when they fail, and then only because I have to keep track. Fun fun fun for everyone!

So lost without you

The key to summer with (should I really be referring to him now as Toddler?) J has become supplies.

In my trunk, I now carry (or should be carrying: some of these items are in a pile ready to go to the car again) an extra package of diapers and and of swim pants, a stroller, a beach chair, an extra towel, a swimsuit for me, a cover-up for me, and assorted beach toys.

In the back seat, I now carry J's suit with built-in swimming vest (I just take it off and leave it on the back of the seat to dry when we're through), assorted back-up sippy cups, bags of heatproof snacks (we're fond of goldfish, pretzels, and animal crackers), a change of clothes for J, and light jackets for both of us (in the vain hope that it might be cool enough to wear them ever again).

In my bag (which was sold as a purse at Land's End but is HUGE and great for my purposes), I carry my stuff (wallet, calendar, phone, meds), a ziploc bag with diapers (and wipes, diaper cream, benadryl pen, and neosporin), sunscreen, all natural insect repellant (because while I am afraid of hosing J down with DEET regularly, we live in the South, people, and I am not afraid at all to hose him down with a mixture of geranium, cedarwood, and citronella oils when necessary), a filled sippy, more snacks (including applesauce and/or sweet potatoes in plastic containers and a spoon for meal-time emergencies), an extra pacifier, and retractable crayons. For church, I just switch the ziploc over and add toys and books and more snacks for keeping somewhat quiet in Sacrament.

With these provisions in hand, J and I are ready for anything. Sadly, we're missing a camera right now; mine died an untimely death. A new one is on the way, but here are some shots to tide you over until we can document all of our well-supplied summer adventures:

Wind, wind, wind the thread

It's been a while since we've had a (less and less of a) Baby J quirks update, so here goes:

Whereas once we despaired of ever discovering J's verbal ability, in the past month or so he has increased his vocabulary by 75%. Of course, don't get too excited: this means he has progressed from one word to FOUR WHOLE WORDS! Yes, yes, yes, let the celebrations begin. Once all we had was "Daddy." Now we have expanded to "Oh oh," "no," and "yum yum." Beyond these paltry pieces of communication, J is still quite verbal, but his preferred method of communication is an expressive series of emphatic grunts, sparing use of high pitched squeals, and a range of imperious hand gestures. As one acquaintance put it, "He really talks with body language, doesn't he?"

On the other hand, J is quite adept at listening and understanding now. I have really felt for the first time in the last few months that we are actually understanding each other most of the time. When I tell him to go find his shoes and I think they are in his room, he usually beats me there and has already located at least one. When I tell him to clean up his toys and put them in their baskets, he quickly starts to do so. When I tell him it's time to put on sunscreen on bug spray, he obediently holds out his arms. Having a responsive toddler makes a world of difference in our interactions! For example, here is J playing on the stationary coin-operated car:


Here he is after he saw some other child get to ride a moving vehicle and insisted he be able to do the same: (We're still working on dealing with the unexpected consequences of our actions! The moving vehicle turned out to be not nearly as fun as he had anticipated.)

J has also become quite the routine lover. For example, every morning at a time set by him alone, J walks over to one set of our floor length curtains in the great room, tugs on them, and grunts in my direction. He wants me to tie them up, and as soon as I do that window, he walks over to the next one, tugs and grunts, and waits for me to arrive. He the proceeds to the next window, always in the same order, always with the same routine. Peril to the person who wants to upset his routines! You want to close the laundry room door without lifting him up to turn off the light? Silly, silly you! You want to go through the front door into the house without letting him ring the doorbell? Are you crazy?! You want to get him out of bed in the morning without tracking down every one of his pacifiers that have fallen during the night? What kind of hotel is this?! He is also quite insistent on your turning on or off stand alone fans when he passes them, bringing his own high chair into the kitchen if you plan on being in there for any length of time doing something he can't see on the counter, his sitting on one particular rug when you put on his shoes, and your helping him put anything he deems trash in the trash can immediately.

Discipline has become a big experiment around our house as well lately. For the longest time, J just laughed when we said no. Now, he instantly sticks out his lip and cries, the strength of which episodes usually increases in direct proportion to the strength of the admonishment. While the crying is annoying, I'm considering it progress, because at least he has realized that we are not kidding around any more. We have also implemented time outs, following Nanny 911's strict guidelines. J only has to stay in time out for a minute and a half, in accordance with his age, and the acts that most often get him sent there are pinching, biting, and pulling hair (we are raising a demon some days). At first, time out were a total failure, then, all of the sudden, all on his own he stayed put in the arbitrary corner to which we sent him, wailing the whole time, but quite contrite when we came to get him. I'm not sure he is connecting his actions with his imprisonment, but we're baby stepping, people!

It was always burning

We are starring in our own suspense thriller over here. It's called "Attack of the Gall Bladder!"

Scene 1: Young wife and mother returns from the chiropractor wondering why her stomach hurts. Assuming it must be gas, she takes steps to alleviate the symptoms and puts toddler to bed.

Scenes 2-20: A montage of shots of wife succumbing to increasingly severe pain, writhing on the bed, couch, floor, in the shower, where ever, trying to seek relief. Somewhere in here, toddler wakes up from nap and many shots include him staring quizzically at crying, supine mother while eating fruit snacks and playing with his toys.

Scene 21: Wife calls husband at work, saying something is wrong, two hours have passed with no relief.

Scene 22: Action shot of husband flying home on motorcycle. Husband walks in door, assesses wife's condition, brings her clothes to get dressed in (she hadn't managed to get redressed after the useless shower), picks up toddler, and rushes everyone to the emergency room.

Scenes 22-25: Loooong wait in the emergency room for wife, loooong attempts at amusing toddler outside for husband (luckily, there was a clown and snow cones outside, randomly, which helped immensely). Wife gets increasingly sick as the emergency room fills up with three people elderly people in wheel chairs, four large women with invisible ailments, one woman talking loudly about how her fiance was showing too much concern about her visit to the ER for diabetic reasons, because it wasn't like they were married yet or anything, one blind man, and several upset young men, relatives of other patients, who cursed out the receptionist several times.

Scene 26: Wife finally admitted to a bed. Husband comes in with toddler then leaves again to have him run through the halls after toddler calls the nurses several times inadvertently and disconnects wife's monitors. Various nurses and PA's arrive, all asking the same questions. Blood is drawn (by the more experienced nurse, after the less experienced tried multiple times and got scared). Finally, the one in charge, Crispin, decides we will have an ultrasound. But first, pain meds and anti-nausea medicine.

Scene 27: The pain meds work wonders! Wife is finally calm, though she forgets to breathe and is put on oxygen. Husband arrives just as toddler throws up (too much snow cone). Wife suggests dad call a friend to come get toddler since it appears they are here for a while. Wonderful friend comes and takes toddler away (and keeps him the WHOLE night--Thanks, Becca!).

Scene 28: Wheelchair arrives to take wife to ultrasound while dad is gone sending toddler away. Wife stands up and in promptly overcome with nausea and dizziness. Wife is not happy.

Scene 29: Darkened ultrasound room with wife fighting nausea and student tech fighting to read the monitor. Long scene.

Scene 30: Wife returns to ER, very nauseous and strangely hot. Crispin arrives and says wife has a gall stone. Gall bladder should be removed, not immediately but soon. Sets her up for a surgical consult.

Scene 31: Crispin and husband argue over meds to prescribe wife. Husband succeeds in getting Crispin to change all his prescriptions to drugs the wife tolerates better.

Scene 32: Husband and wife decide she needs more pain and nausea meds via IV before leaving. Nice nurse obliges rapidly.

Scene 33: Husband goes to get the car. Nurse talks to wife about discharge instructions (already given to husband). Wife falls asleep in the middle of nurse talking (pain meds are VERY effective). Husband comes to get wife and they all go home, some five hours after arrival.

Scene 34: Much improved wife blogs about it all.

All along the water, baby

For once I haven't been posting because we've been having all sorts of fun adventures, so let me give some updates.

Earlier this week, we went to Bee City, an exotic animal farm and apiary about an hour from here. On the one hand, the trip was great: lemurs ate cheerios out of Baby J's hands; there were wallabies, cavies, assorted monkeys, alpaca, llamas, foxes, and ferrets (mysteriously either hiding or escaped), not to mention assorted donkeys, shetland ponies, goats, turkeys, chickens, ducks, koi, goldfish, pheasants, turtles, snakes, and, of course, bees; many of our friends joined us (or we joined them) for the adventure; and we ate some good road side food in their little cafe (cheeseburgers, grilled cheese, and South Carolina bbq--yum!). On the other hand, the bees of Bee City were disappointing, with only one glass hive to inspect and not a lot of educational materials in evidence; the animals' pens were extremely muddy, making us wonder if the owners had permits for all these creatures; and even though they host school groups, the owner was extremely nervous about the 15 or so kids we had with us, ranging in age from a year to 13, which was alarming for everyone involved. It was a fun trip, not something we'll do again but worth one trip.

Later on (that same day, actually, because we're so cool), we went to watch the Charleston Battery play, our local semi-pro (?) soccer team. The stadium is on Daniel Island, a chic resort island with a manufactured downtown that is only semi-populated, as is the island as a whole. It's an odd scenario; makes you think you're in some sort of Twilight Zone episode. But the stadium itself is very nice, intimate, you're right on top of the field. Not that I really care all that much about soccer. I spent most of the night talking to friends and, after a few minutes of interest, J spent the rest of the night running all over the bleachers. But we all had fun and ended the evening exhausted.

The rest of the week, J and I have been crowning ourselves king and queen of the water park. J loves the fountain features best of all, tolerates the lazy river about twice per visit to humor his mommy, is fearless about walking right up to and into the water regardless of depth, and wants, in theory, to go down the water slides but wasn't able to until when we went recently with his beloved friend Becca. He was all smiles going down both the open and closed slides like a big boy. The lifeguard declared him "a natural." (The lifeguard also said he never measured to see if children were above the 30" height minimum--J was, of course--saying "if they want to go down and they can walk, I just let them go." Perhaps someone should let Brock the lifeguard know there is no direct correlation between walking and swimming abilities...)

Tune in next time for more thrilling exploits! OMG, it's so exciting!

Life has new meaning to me

Over the last few months, I've been on a bit of a self-improvement kick. It all began around the time J's first birthday came and went and I still, STILL hadn't lost most of the baby weight. The child was walking, for crying out loud, so it seemed like my "he's still a baby" cover was blown.

To be honest, I've had mixed results across the board. As far as weight loss goes, that has been mostly successful, thanks to Weight Watchers and the Destructicon's vigorous schedule of running headlong into danger. I have been a bit perplexed by the fact that as the number on the scale goes down, my clothes don't seem to fit all that much better, since the new and improved post-baby body may weigh the same as the pre-baby body, but all the weight seems to have migrated to new places. And, I'm sort of regretting my heady days of tossing too-small clothes a while ago when I was frustrated with my weight, since now most of them would fit. But whatever, that's a small matter. The larger matter is that all the weight is gone! Huzzah!

Next, I cut my hair. The intent was just to get it shorter, but then I chopped off a TON. I was getting excited! But I really like it now and may, in fact, get my hair trimmed more regularly to keep it this length. A whole new world after my "cut my hair every 8 months or so" past.

Then, I was on to my teeth. Ever since high school, my front teeth have broken and been repaired more times than I can count. Essentially, all but the roots were fake and done by multiple dentists at many different times. As my current dentist pointed out in his oh-so-subtle way, my two front teeth were, consequently, "not very aesthetically pleasing." So he suggested bleaching and then reshaping the front teeth. Bleaching was fun...ish. Trays, gooey bleach, a yucky half hour process over the course of weeks, yadda yadda yadda. Then the tooth reshaping was...not fun. When we were done, the result was all about the aesthetics (it took my perfectionist dentish two and half hours to get it perfect, including redoing them half way through because he wasn't happy with the "asymmetrical midline." Umm, sure.). However, I felt and talked like Bugs Bunny. I'm convinced the teeth are slightly too long for my mouth, causing me to lisp just a little bit and making me feel like a rabbit. But I'm working through my issues to see if I can adjust or do need a bit taken off the bottom and the back. I go back and forth about this but since only a week has passed, I'm going to grin and bear it a bit longer and see. However, as everyone has said, the teeth LOOK great! My singing career is over, however, natch!

We've only just begun

Summer is officially here, ya'll. The temperature has reached into the 80's and decided to stay awhile and then climb higher. The humidity is still toying with us but appears to be deciding it might like the looks of the 80's and above as well. Hurricane season has begun. Baby J's black car seat is always toasty warm, even hot and we've begun to play a fun little game with dire consequences called "don't touch the metal fasteners!" And J has started to find all sorts of new ways to make me sweat.

We ventured into our first pool with the new flotation suit today, and I have no pictures because I didn't have a free hand. After two tentative steps into the pool, looking confused and cold, J decided he thought the water was fun and virtually threw himself in. Thereafter, I spent the rest of our short visit trying to save his life. His suit is great, but his muscle control is lacking, so when he tips forward, he starts to drown, pretty much immediately. He enjoys tipping backwards and semi floating on his back, but most of all he wants to be upright, though his limbs won't quite cooperate with him. Our friends at the pool had all sorts of inflatable pool toys with which to experiment and doing so has told us that water wings are useless at this stage for him while a small inner tube/ring wedged around his flotation suit makes him remarkably stable. We also learned that J needs water toys of his own or else he melts down into a LOUD pile of quivering, crying goo if he can't have everyone else's. The pool was lovely and mostly shaded in the shallow end, so neither of us got sunburned, which was great. Just in time, I purchased my summer waterpark pass last night, so once we get a ring of our own, we will be ready to while away many hours in the water, him floating around lazily, me practicing baby CPR in my head.

For we have raised a child who is unafraid of anything. Ever. Even the vacuum, which comes the closest to scaring him, he treats like an obstacle he just has to learn to overcome, almost daring himself to get ever closer to it each time we turn it on. But everything else, like giant pools of water, for instance, is just thrilling. For example, we went to the husband's work party on Saturday, at which they had a jump castle for kids and adults. We all went in together at first, and after maybe three bounces during which he looked a little concerned, J bolted away from us and began bouncing all around all by himself. In fact, we literally had to pry him out of the castle every 20 minutes or so to force him to drink and cool down inside. Even when one of the pharmacists turned the castle into his own private trampoline, using his full body weight and all his jumping skills to toss everyone around, J rode the wave in the middle of the castle, acting like he was a professional surfer or skateboarder, shifting his weight to counterbalance himself like a pro. At one point, he also climbed all the way up the 12 foot slide, wedging his fingers into the crevices on the side of the slide like a free climbing mountaineer. We thought for sure he wouldn't make it, but he was like Spider Baby, suctioning himself to the basically vertical slope while hanging from his little hand holds. The other kid his age at the party was very timid, sticking close to his parents and remaining leery of the jump castle, particularly the slide. Lucky, lucky parents. My child, on the other hand, also figured out how to climb up the soft ladder leading up to the slide on his own, because that's just the kind of groovy explorer he is!

And it's only June 1st!!

The things I should have said

Dear City Sanitation Department,

Thank you for making trash day, already exciting because of the big blue garbage trucks, even more special by following the garbage trucks with an orange front loader picking up oversized garbage and depositing it into yet a third big truck. My child's cup runneth o'er. Now, if you could just explain to me why a child being raised by me seems to have developed, all on his own, a fixation with large-wheeled construction vehicles, I'd appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Happy but Confused
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Dear Manufacturers of Flotation Suits for Toddlers,

How is it that your market research did not tell you that putting an easy access zipper in the front of your life jacket was a bad idea? It took Baby J all of 10 seconds to figure out how to unzip his, thereby making the entire device completely useless, not to mention dangerous.

Incredulously,

Water Baby's Mama
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Dear Kitchen Cabinet Designers,

Why don't you just go ahead and put handles on the inside of lower cabinets so little boys who like to climb in them and shut the doors after themselves won't have to squish their fingers?

Gratefully,

Future Secret Annex Mother
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Dear Child Protective Services,

Please disregard the state of my child. He got attacked by mosquitoes and is allergic to them, just like me. Hence the welts on his legs. And he falls down a lot, honest. Hence the bruises below the knees. And he falls on concrete sometimes, as well as on our brick steps. Hence the scrapes on his shins and elbows. And he doesn't look down, ever. And he's really into running right now but not so into stopping. And he may have inherited my inability to navigate my way through space successfully, the only thing he has inherited from me so far besides my hands. And that gash on his face? Umm, would you believe he fell into the door frame and found a jagged, unsanded edge and ripped open his cheek? Because that's actually what happened. I swear!

Fearfully,

Anonymous

I feel a little bit terrible

The husband has a new post up you should go check out before you continue reading. Go ahead; I'll wait....

I was feeling all sympathetic for my poor husband, who was feeling so sad that he made Baby J sick...until I saw the pictures. And then I thought, "How could anyone not look at those faces and think, 'man, this child doesn't look like he's doing so well!'" Especially that second one! J is practically SCREAMING I am about to throw up all over you! Sheesh!!

I mean, I guess we've been somewhat spoiled. J was not a child who ever spit up. I mean, I think it happened a handful of times early on and then that was that. And he hasn't had the flu or food sickness or anything yet (where is that wood so I can knock it!). So, one could argue that the husband is simply not familiar with a child who gets ill. One COULD make that argument, that is, until one saw the photographic evidence.

And why is there even photographic evidence to begin with? This is perhaps the worst piece of the story. "Umm, honey, I made the baby sick. It was so sad. But I got PICTURES, so it's all good!"

Ahem.

Something new instead of something old

Today I'm going to do something slightly different: as of this moment, I'm part of a Blog Tour, which is vaguely like a book tour, only instead of an author peddling his or her wares to bookstores and media outlets, I'm part of a cadre of bloggers who are all reviewing the same book. In return, I get nothing other than a copy of the book and the satisfaction of a job well done...or something! Really, as you may have guessed, I'm in it for the free books (yay!) and the chance to keep my English professor skills sharp...ish.

Our tome for today really isn't a tome at all. It's the sleekly svelte Obama: The Historic Journey produced in conjunction with The New York Times. A generously oversized volume, this book is filled with high quality photos, including all those you might expect, like shots of the iconic, Andy Warhol-esque images of the then candidate, pictures of impressively well-attended Obama rallies, and the obligatory candidate-holding-a-baby scenes. In addition, however, the volume contains photos I'd never seen before, such as a picture of the President's 5th grade class at Punahou Elementary in Hawaii (a picture I loved because all the kids in Hawaiian wear reminded me of my own similarly attired elementary school photos) or a photo of Obama drawing a flow chart on the board while teaching a class of some sort (law? business? community organizing? it's not clear from the context) or a shot of him during a pick-up basketball game with Reggie Love. In fact, the photos are nothing if not comprehensive, down to a picture of the text message sent to someone's Blackberry announcing Obama's pick of Joe Biden for VP.

The book is divided into eight sections, with titles such as "The Path of a Politician" and "Time of Transition" (not all are alliterative, though those seem to be, don't they?). My one quibble with the book is that if the pictures are spectacular, the text is a little less so. The cover proclaims this to be the "young reader's edition," though I have yet to determine what they mean by young. One hint about the possible age range the author is trying to reach occurs at the end of the volume, in a section which includes copies of letters several Latino children between the ages of 7 and 12 wrote to the new president. (My favorite reads "Dear Barack Obama, I'm glad you're cool. Good luck. From, Juan.") However, the author appears to believe all young readers are afflicted with an inability to focus, as these already short main sections are all sub-divided into as many as four smaller sections, often consisting of as little as a page of text. In addition, the book contains catchy quotations from the President printed in huge block letters on arresting red and blue backgrounds. These red and blue boxes also contain definitions of terms like "delegate" or simplified lists of Obama's and McCain's positions on various issues. Indeed, the volume does seem to be making a special effort to explain as much as possible via maps (of electoral votes) or detailed captions for most photographs, perhaps a nod to those "young" readers. For example, the section entitled "A Skinny Kid with a Funny Name" includes a picture pedigree chart visually explaining Obama's somewhat complicated genealogical as well as geographical past. And the overall bildungsroman structure does lend itself to younger readers familiar with the narrative arc running from birth to fame (although more often that fame takes the form of super hero status or princesshood).

I did appreciate the, for lack of a better term, trivial information the book provided, such as Obama's favorite books (though, really, Moby Dick??), his shoe size (11), and his favorite television shows (Sportscenter, unsurprisingly, and The Wire, proving his street cred, I suppose). However, the sidebar on Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin in the section on "The Primary Race" seemed out of place, particularly since there was no mention of Fred Armisen's (admittedly much less entertaining) portrayal of Obama himself, and the sub-section entitled "Inside the Times," which detailed the writing of the cover story on the Obama victory at The New York Times, seemed a bit gratuitous but perhaps understandable given the Times' involvement in this publication.

If I were interested in a memento of this historical campaign and election, I think I might skip the young reader's edition and head straight for the adult version instead. I'm sure it contains all the same photos, more than likely even more, and you could use those to tell this story to your children in language that you can be sure they'll understand and appreciate, at whatever level that might be. That being said, the young reader's edition of Obama: The Historic Journey is now a welcome addition to my growing collection of children's books my son and I will share one day (as soon as he learns to stop tearing out the pages). If you don't have a youngester more interested in destruction than instruction, you can get your copy here or here.

Rainy days and Mondays

Oh my, a week with no posts! I'd like to say this situation occurred because we were just too busy living fabulously interesting lives to blog...but that would be a lie. Indeed, there are weeks like this one in which I can't tell one day from the next because they are all wrapped up in a cloth of sameness.

Which is not to say things didn't happen this week, because of course they did, but these things weren't all that noteworthy. But let's just pretend they were, shall we, and spend some time talking about J's latest developments.



J has become a climbing fiend! Here he is (blurrily) climbing on the kitchen he has turned into a jungle gym. He has also mastered climbing up onto all our couches and is working his way up our shelves. He powers up and down stairs now at breakneck speeds. Today at church, his little friend who is two months older came down some stairs they had climbed backwards in an army crawl, and J just stood at the top and stared at him, wondering what the heck he was doing, then calmly descended the stairs facing front, using the handrail. Of course! In fact, J is quite advanced in terms of physical development. Sadly, however, his verbal development still lags behind. Besides the perpetual "daddy" and the occasional "nana" for banana, we've had no other distinguishable words. Lots of chatter, lots of animated "discussions," but nothing else we can definitively declare words. He's a social, communicative little boy who feels no compulsion whatsoever to talk when grunting and babbling and pointing seem to be doing the trick just fine!

He has, however, increased his vocabulary. All on his own, with zero coaching from us, he's begun to identify body parts when asked, shocking me, his totally unhelpful mother. He gets hung up on his nose if you ask about that one too early, so you have to be strategic to get any kind of results. And he is showing an amazing aptitude for distinguishing between various types of construction vehicles, his favorite being the crane they are using to repair a bridge near our house. One of these when he's ready, he will launch into a discussion of the relative merits of painting cranes orange versus red, but for now he's happy just to squeal and point.

Sweetly singing all the day

Happy Mothers' Day, to you and you and you! (yes, I'm putting the apostrophe there on purpose. Deal with it!)

My mothers' day has been low key but heartfelt: Baby J and the husband brought me breakfast and a homemade card in bed (Raisin Bran, Baby J's new favorite, so he could share). Then we all got up and readied ourselves for church. The husband even dressed J and packed the diaper bag without a reminder and everything!

At church we heard the requisite odes to mothers, witnessed the always endearing musical number by the children, and got the requisite rose delivered by the teenaged boys. This year, the roses were not flowers of death with half inch thorns no one thought to remove, thank goodness! And this year, again, I was able to be grateful I wasn't in the position to be singled out from the pulpit as I was a few years ago, during another of the talks on mothers. "Everyone is a mother, even Sister X (me), who has no children, because she is the leader of the children's organization!" Umm, thanks for that, really!

I had visions of getting a picture to mark the day, but once we arrive at church, we are always so busy I don't know when I thought we'd have time. As it was, today the husband spent all of the first hour chasing J around the chapel while I spent all of the second hour rocking him in the mothers' lounge so he could take a much needed and much delayed nap. And we won't even discuss the third hour, the busiest of the three for all of us.

Then, this afternoon, we undertook a family cleaning project in our bedroom as we tried to locate the husband's wallet, which J had grabbed and then hidden yesterday. We found the wallet relatively quickly (on the floor of my walk-in closet, under some shoes) but then pressed on to make some real headway in that room, the messiest in our house by far. We were inspired by our new Expedit bookcase at the foot of the bed. It looks so crisp and clean you want everything else to match! J eventually took another nap in there somewhere, and, when he woke up, we worked on straightening the living room while watching Slumdog Millionaire (we're not done yet, so no review), which a brief break for dinner (two new dishes: black bean, corn, and tomato chowder and sweetened balsamic strawberries--both great, with only slight tweaks to the recipes). The husband is bathing the baby now and then we'll finish the movie and head off to bed. Yay!

Teach me all that I must do

Random connection for the day (with an unnecessarily long prelude).

First, the back story: the husband and I watched (the vampire television series created by Joss Whedon) Angel together in syndication when we were first married. It came on at a convenient time (dinner-ish, I think), and I had told him how much I had liked (the preceding vampire slayer series, also created by Whedon) Buffy and how fabulous I thought the first little bit of Angel was. I'd missed most of the seasons after the first one, so it was great for us to watch the rest together. (Plus, broody star David Boreanaz was a local boy, the son of a Philly weatherman.) Unfortunately, neither of us knew at the time that Angel had been cancelled abruptly, so the disappointing ending to the last season was actually the incredibly more disappointing ending to the entire series. The husband was (and is--just ask!) very, very, very bitter about that (or don't ask, if you want us to stay friends).

However, he forgave me eventually, sort of, and later we watched Whedon's Firefly, another clever series killed before its time. This time around, however, Whedon finished things with a satisfying movie, Serenity, which we also enjoyed. By then, I had completely turned the husband into a fan of the Whedonverse, so much so that, even later still, when Whedon released Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, a sort of mini musical made for the web, the husband was the first to hear about it, buy it, and watch it, all by himself. Soo, when Whedon's latest network show, Dollhouse, finally debuted, we were both watching on Hulu (and every once in a while in real time on Fox).

Cut to the present: when I was catching up on the last episode today, I noticed there were some web-exclusive clips which seemed intriguing, though I never watch these sorts of clips. (I'm interested in the episodes only, thank you.) But I clicked on one, in which Eliza Dushku, the star of Dollhouse, was talking with her new web guru (since apparently she's techno-phobic and had some contest to design her Myspace page...?). He was explaining something to her, and she sat down and cooed "Lead me, guide me, walk beside me," a line which will just seem clever(ish) to my non-Mormon readers but which will set off all sorts of recognition bells for the LDS crowd, these being the lyrics of a common children's song.

A little Googling later, and I discovered I was right: Dushku was raised LDS. Or, as several of the blogs/bios I read hilariously put it, she is "ethnically Mormon." (What does that even mean, people?) Of course, given that the show is all about wish fulfillment using often scantily clad "dolls" for hire, it's clear she's no longer practicing, but hey, as I've said before, we're everywhere!!!

Who came to class today?

This weekend was a quiet one, for once. The husband went with a bunch of guys to see Wolverine late Friday night while I went mercifully to bed early (J had had a bad night the night before, waking up at 11:30, sobbing til 12, and then being awake with me until after 1 am). Saturday we had some (mostly free--hooray for coupons!) Mexican food and did a little grocery shopping in between J's naps. The husband spent some time in the garden (new yellow cherry tomato plants, very exciting!) and playing with J's new golf set (part of the husband's birthday present). J only sort of understands how to hit the ball but is very excited to play caddy with his rolling bag just his size. Both were very cute while practicing!

Sunday was a usual Sunday: long, with non-existent naps, an angry, tired toddler, and lots to do at church. Baby J is attending nursery with one of us as supervisor for about half the time now. He's not actually old enough to attend on his own, but they don't have a lot of kids in there and we decided to start acclimatizing him early. He's actually doing quite well with the playing and snack time, though the lessons sort of boggle his mind and cleaning up seems completely foreign to him. Music time is also touch and go. But he's making great strides in learning to share and interact, so we're going to keep this up for now. Plus, it's MUCH easier to corral him in a place with toys than chase him through the halls!

And there you have it! I know, our activities are the stuff of killer screen plays. Wait! What's that, Hollywood's calling? Gotta go!

Beach baby, beach baby

We had a great day yesterday. The husband came home early from a conference, so we got to spend some extra time together because he had the day off. In the morning, after we unpacked the rental car (he went to Ikea for us, which was fabulous!) and returned it, we took Baby J in to get a much needed second hair cut. He was absolutely fabulous, totally cooperative, and he looks adorable, once again. More cute baby, less shaggy dog!

After afternoon naps, we decided to go take advantage of the beautiful day and go to the beach. At first, J was reluctant to touch the water, clinging to our hands and running away from the tide. After we generated lots and lots of enthusiasm for the water, he was finally, grudgingly, willing to wade in up to his knees. Eventually, the husband sat in the sand in the mini-waves and held J in his lap. Apparently, being encircled in the cove of safety of the husband made Baby J completely relaxed, and soon enough he couldn't be bothered to even notice the waves, no matter how high they were.

After we retreated for some water and snacks, we went back to the surf (such as it was) and J discovered the fun of the tidal pools. For some reason, he was much happier to wade into the pools, even above his waist, hardly holding on to my hand or dragging me along behind him. He even started stomping through the shallow pools, giggling the whole way.

So, a success!

This picture is not from the beach but from our earlier slide adventure:

I enjoy being a girl

Side Note: I've recently discovered I have all sorts of previously unrecognized readers out there, including the husband's grandmother/Baby J's great-grandmother (Hi, Grandma Van!). And, suddenly, I'm all self-conscious....does Grandma Van really want to hear about my bosom-induced swimsuit shopping travails?? It's almost enough to make me change my ways. Almost, but I'm too lazy! (Sorry, Grandmas Beth and Van!)

Moving on...should you have forgotten, I am raising a boy. Here are just some of the latest examples of J's boy antics:

Yesterday, I walked into the room and saw J sitting on the floor, staring delightedly at a new book. "Wonderful," I thought with pleasure, "he does like this one. What a good choice I made!" I was feeling quite self-congratulatory until I got closer...and saw the string of drool stretching from his mouth to the book. Indeed, in reality he was smiling in glee at having hocked his first loogie. What a treasure! (To give you some idea about my pleasure in that discovery, suffice it to say that in order to write this post, I had to look up how to spell both "hock" and "loogie," so foreign are these words to my vocabulary. Shudder!)

Later that same day, we went to the near-by park. Generally, we stick to the baby swings at this park, so as not to rumble with the older school-aged children who are having an after-school program at the community center there. This day, however, they weren't out playing, so J toddled over to the jungle gym, complete with stairs with multiple handrails (just for him) and three slides, all about four and a half feet tall. After rushing up the stairs, he was a bit confused about what to do next, until I sat him down on a slide and stood next to him as he slid down. He LOVED this and wanted to do it again, so, of course, he immediately tried to climb back up the slide in his plastic crocs, which resulted in his slipping and falling repeatedly. He was MOST put out that he couldn't get back up! Eventually, after I stopped laughing, I pointed him back in the direction of the stairs, and back up he went. Each time, I would point him to the stairs and then go and wait at the top of the slide to help him get situated, then meet him at the bottom. However, after three or four times down, he abruptly changed direction at the top and decided to go down another slide, far away from me, one we hadn't tried and one with twists. As I leapt over the intervening obstacles to get there in time, because WHO KNEW how fast this one was going to go, he also must have thought "Hey, going down on my bum is fun, but what if I just go down headfirst on my tummy?!" Just as I reached the bottom, his head hit my legs. Actually, I should say his smile hit my legs, because he was pleased as punch with himself. I, on the other hand, was a tad out of breath!

People have taken to calling J a "little bruiser," which isn't far from the truth. He walks like a little linebacker. He's also a bit of a daredevil: he has no fear, no inhibitions, and an uncanny ability to figure something out after having seen someone else do something similar once. A few days ago, I walked into the kitchen to find him halfway up our steel shelving unit. He's almost figured out how to climb out of his crib using a daring arial gymnastics move he invented after learning how to jump on his bed. Our dining room chairs now rest permanently on the dining room table when not in use, since he's learned to climb up on the table and launch himself off the side. He routinely attempts to jump out of, off of, or over anything or anyone that attempts to contain him. Sigh.....!

It's a masculine party around here, my friends!

I'm trying to be like Jesus

Three tales from early morning seminary:

Teacher: What kind of wars are we currently involved in?

Student 1: The war on terror.

Student 2: The war on drugs.

Student 3: The war against pirates.

Teacher: Umm, sure...

Student 4: The nuclear arms war.

Teacher: We actually refer to that as the nuclear arms race.

Student 4: The Cold War.

Teacher: Actually, that war is over now and has been for a little while.

Student 5: And we can't forget World War II.

Teacher: The question was what wars are we CURRENTLY engaged in, so World War II doesn't qualify.

----------------------------

Teacher: Let's see how many of the sins outlined by Paul in 2 Timothy are happening around us today.

Student 1: Why is covetousness a sin?

Teacher: Well, it involves several sins, such as pride, jealousy--

Student 1: (interrupting agitatedly) But why is it a sin to say "I want what he has so I am going to work really hard to get it."

Teacher: It's not, because ambition is not the same as coveting. As I was saying, coveting involves--

Student 1: (still interrupting) But if I want what other people have and I'm willing to work for it, how is that coveting?

Teacher: (sighing) To review, it's not. Once again, coveting is--

Student 1: But, BUT BUTBUTBUT

(and I think you get the idea--it went on like this for quite some time.)

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Student 6: I have a question: why does God keep tricking the Jews?

Teacher: Umm, tricking? What do you mean by tricking, exactly?

Student 6: Well, he keeps telling them they are the chosen people, and then he says "na na na na NAH na" and punishes them.

Teacher: I don't think He says quite THAT, and there is a bit more to the story, as you would know if you had been paying attention ALL last year when we covered the Old Testament, but, to put a couple thousand years in a nutshell...

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Somewhere, over the rainbow

Because we are the kind of people we are, up for a random challenge or a new experience, the husband and I sometimes stumble into offbeat situations. This weekend didn't disappoint, as we ended up attending an Anglican church service for the second Sunday of Easter (who knew this day was even celebrated?) at one of the pre-Revolutionary war chapels here. For full details about the history and pics of the historical marker, see the husband's blog entry on the subject. I've decided to confine myself to J and my adventures during this strange event.

We took the husband early for his call time (we were going at all in connection with a performance of the Charleston's Men's Chorus--always good for a random story! Did I mention the time we ended up at a picnic sitting next to a guy who has an entire room in his house dedicated to the Confederacy? Or how, at that same picnic, even though we arrived late--on purpose--we somehow managed to break protocol and start eating before anyone else had and before they'd SUNG grace? So much fun!), and J feel asleep in the car on the way over (he was getting progressively sicker, right before our eyes, but was as yet alright). So I dropped off the husband and drove around Goose Creek with my sleeping baby for a while. Eventually, he woke up, and I realized we were close to a Mormon chapel, so I headed over there to let him run off some steam in the gym (found a basketball for him to roll around, of course!) and change his diaper in a properly equipped bathroom. When he tired of the semi-dark gym, we found a park near the Anglican chapel and played until it was time for the service.

The chapel was cute but tiny and not child-friendly in any way. As this is the one service per year held there, it was also full of spiders and bugs, as was the cemetery surrounding the building. We were still early, so I let J romp on the graves (after having seen lots of the actual guests children doing the same--ever trying to avoid a faux pas am I!). Finally, the service began, just as J decided to have a meltdown. Even with a pacifier on the last pew at the back, we were a disturbance, so I headed back outside. And there we stayed, for the interminably long proceedings. A full Anglican service, with a very enthusiastic minister. While all that was going on, J and I explored the grounds, watched a tree frog, avoided a very noisy mama dog, talked with another mother who soon joined us with her three year old daughter (who informed me proudly she had given all her "passies" away to Santa, who in turn brought her an Ariel Barbie), discovered the stickiness of spider webs, ate snacks on the tombs, and played with the ancient iron gate. We also made (and by we I mean J) a LOT of noise at inopportune moments. Sigh!

Eventually, the sermon and service ended, and we were joined outside by Charleston's venerable citizens with their sun-dresses, hats, linen suits, and gracious Southern accents. There was a picnic to follow the event, but it was an odd combination of communal and personal food that wasn't designated in any obvious way, so I decided we should leave rather than risk yet more embarrassment by accidentally eating someone's favorite fried chicken. Plus, there were things like plates of deviled eggs appearing out of people's SUVs in the parking lot which made me more than a little concerned about food safety. Instead, we headed home and wondered about how we end up at such events in the first place!

Yellow polka dot bikini

Caution: PG-13 post ahead. And possibly too much information...

Once upon a time, I was a normal-sized girl who could buy a swimsuit off any rack in any store that I chose. (Okay, to be completely honest, I could buy any modestly-cut one piece or really modestly-cut tankini, which limited me significantly when it came to styles I could purchase but not when it came to size. Because, to review, I was a normal-sized girl.)

Then I had a baby.

Then I (oh so eventually!) lost all my baby weight and tried to fit back into the many cute swimsuits I'd accumulated over the years.

Then I suddenly became a porn star.

You see, though I am basically at my pre-baby weight, the weight has redistributed itself in various new places, including, most relevantly for this post, in my derriere and my, ahem, boobs, to put it less than delicately. So suddenly all these cute swimsuits still in my ostensible size are, well, practically X-rated. (You're welcome, Google, for the mention of porn, boobs, and X-rated all in one innocent post. I pity the disappointed people you steer here today.)

But I am not one to be daunted by such a thing, particularly when the answer involves shopping. Unfortunately, I didn't realize my days of off-the-rack shopping are OVER! Apparently, my shopping forays informed me, when one's chest reaches a certain size, no matter what the size of one's jeans, one can only buy swimwear from a specialty vendor, most likely online (or at least only available online for me, the fact that I live in a BEACH TOWN in the heart disease belt of the US notwithstanding). In addition and most dishearteningly for I've-just-lost-weight me, the suits available are all thick, chunky straps in dark, "slimming" colors on plus-sized models. No more cute tops or cute cuts in cute colors for you, my friend, because you had a baby and got a little junk in your trunk. (UNLESS you had a boob job and are super skinny with huge fake boobs--then there are lots of string bikinis around with your name on them...somewhere...in very small letters so it can fit on the teeny, tiny pieces of fabric.)

Enter (dare I say it?) Land's End. Normally, I shy away from this particular retailer as their clothes are generally, one, too boxy for my taste, and two, mostly designed for cold weather, which I shun. But they do specialize in swimwear for the larger chested, and the suit options aren't terrible looking, either. Plus, a big plus, all their merchandise can be returned for free to your local Sears. Huzzah! (I HATE to pay return shipping!). In the end, I sent myself almost $400 worth of swim options (lots of duplicates in two different sizes so I could return what didn't fit and perhaps still find a few options that worked in all that) including overstocks, tankini/bikini bottom separates, and full suits, some 10 or 12 possibilities. And today they arrived (very fast shipping) and, lo and behold, two suits/combinations worked beautifully. They fit, they were comfortable, they had sufficient coverage, and, most importantly, the girls were locked and loaded. Porn star no more! Were they the cheapest options? Sadly, no. But I am planning on wearing them out this summer while J and I live at the beach and the water park, so we're worth it!

The tiger comes at night

Have you seen this video? If not, it's worth the seven minutes, I promise!

Fever all through the night

Would that my title were ironic or obscure or, you know, anything but an apt description of last night's insanity. J got three vaccinations yesterday (due to the doctor's being out of chicken pox last time we went). He was very brave, not crying at all. Actually, that's not really accurate. With the first shot, he was shocked; with the second, hurt; and by the third shot, he was really, really angry. He practically growled at the nurse, wrenching his arm away from her so violently I almost dropped him when she was trying to put on the Band-Aids. He was most put out, but just with her, thankfully! (It's her job; I feel no guilt about being happy he associated all his bad feelings with her.)

As usual, they said he might have a fever later because of the tetanus and then again (a fever or a rash or something) 10-14 days later because of the polio or chicken pox or both. In the past, he has had a mild feverish reaction every time we get shots, so I dosed him with tylenol after we left the office, and we went on our (not so merry) way. That evening, I forgot to tell the husband to give him another dose before he put J down, but J seemed totally fine, so I didn't pursue it.

Big mistake. HUGE.

At 11 pm I woke up to hear a strange, frenzied, keening kind of crying. It was so odd, I went to check on J. I found him huddled on his haunches in the corner of the crib, rocking back and forth rapidly. When I picked him up, he felt like he was on fire. His temperature was at least 105 (I stopped measuring at that point and moved into prevention mode). We had some Tylenol, drank some water, took off some clothes, turned on a fan, and wet his head. Then we rocked and rocked and rocked and I prayed and prayed (because what else can you do? Take him back to the doctor who gave him the fever in the first place??). Finally, with a very awake baby in my lap, we got up.

And up we stayed for many hours. He didn't fall back into anything resembling sleep until almost 3 am, and even then he wouldn't let me leave his side, so we both crashed in the guest room. He slept fitfully while I passed in and out of consciousness but was mostly in, unfortunately, as I tried to keep us both from falling out of bed. At 6:30 am, he woke up again for good this time, so I took him into our bedroom, woke up the husband, explained he still had a temp and needed more medicine, and cried that I had to get some actual sleep before the husband went into work or we both weren't going to make it through the day. Thankfully, I got another solid hour and a half of sleep, and we survived today, barely, with an ongoing fever and a desperately unhappy baby who didn't know what he wanted from one minute to the next.

Right now, it's 7:20 pm on a Friday night, and I am about to get into bed. J is already in his, with still more Tylenol on board, and the husband is working late. I'm exhausted. I had a nightmare that J got chicken pox. I think I was hallucinating at one point this afternoon. Let's all be grateful the day is mercifully over....

Another day older

Happy Birthday to me! (Subtlety, thy name is...)

In honor of my birthday, I decided to get food poisoning last night. I thought that might be really festive, you know, what with all the cramping-violent-sickness-throughout-the-nightness of it all. It was bad rotisserie chicken, ya'll, and may have been the straw that compels my camel to buy its own rotisserie oven.

Then, this morning, just after the husband went to work, the power went out in a spectacular display of sparks. Luckily, it came back on in an hour or so, since we are having a serious cold snap here in the South, but not before I had jumped in the shower after belting J into a much too small baby papasan so he wouldn't wander away and hurt himself. I had to shower, you see, in case we had to leave the house and camp out somewhere else if the outage dragged on, since we couldn't very well stay here in the rapidly cooling house for too long.

We did go to Charlestowne Landing with the Mommy and Me's and the older kids on spring break, where we saw various egrets, a lazy puma, and an even lazier alligator, among other things. J tried to jump off the replica ship into the marsh/ocean, which was more exciting than it needed to be, and he decided that all the items I had brought for lunch weren't nearly as tasty as everyone else's choices, turning himself into a nuisance as he begged for food from the other little girls. All in all, however, it was a nice visit, particularly once it warmed up.

In other, less horrible news, I got the best, most frivolous, most exciting birthday present ever from the husband. After just a few wistful comments on my part, he got me this lovely item:Isn't it beautiful?? In person, it's a darker green than it appears here, more mossy than yellow, which is perfect for our decor. And it's surprisingly comfortable, given its armless nature. I love, love, LOVE it!

And getting caught in the rain

"A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign." Matt. 16:4

In my church, we talk a lot about signs. There are some signs you should heed, like the signs of the times, for instance, but, generally speaking, we hew pretty true to Matthew here and say that you shouldn't look for signs and base your decisions on them or use them to determine your path. Because, well, that's wicked. And also adulterous, apparently.

So I'm not one to consider things that happen in my daily life as "signs." Which is certainly helpful on days like today, when, if I were a believer in signs, I would have assumed I was doomed. Instead, I am able to laugh (and blog) about it all after the fact. Tra la la la la, no wickedness here!

I decided, mostly last minute, to have a brunch today. I've been craving Easter brunch recipes, but we can't really have an Easter brunch because of our church schedule, so, instead, I decided that since today is semi-annual conference day for us and church doesn't begin until noon in our time zone, I would have a brunch today. (And also, I ordered some run-on sentences, apparently.) I called a few of our friends, found a few recipes I wanted to try, and spent a few days cleaning my terribly messy house. (When there's actual mud on your bathroom floor from your son's trips into the garden before bath time, can you still really call that messy? Oh, good!) I was even a planning genius and made most of the food last night, so there would be minimal prep today. And the chopping and assembling and baking last night went splendidly. Huzzah!

Cut to this morning. J woke up at 6 am, which was early but fine because we still had some cleaning and cooking to do. At precisely 6:04, the husband's work called. Pharmacist down, husband must go into work and (praypraypray) find a replacement or (nooooooo!) work the shift himself. So off he went, leaving J and me to "clean" together, which largely consisted of me mopping and him taking everything out of every cabinet and tracking through the mopping. But whatever, we shouldered on.

Then I inspected my monkey bread, which I had left out to rise the night before as instructed by numerous recipes. Only it hadn't risen at all and instead was a mound of hard, tiny dough balls and butter and sugar. No worries! Okay, many worries, because this was my sweet, so I dumped it out, grabbed some Pillsbury mini-cinnamon rolls, broke them up and tossed them in the same pan and put them in to bake immediately in case that didn't work, because who knew if it would?? (It did, only I forgot to turn them out of the pan soon enough, so lots stuck and were lost).

No problem. We still have plenty of time! I'll just go work on the fruit salad, very calmly. J will like that, since it involves grapes he can inha--I mean, eat. And, to save time I no longer have, I'll use these handy cans of Dole pineapple chunks! Except, what to my wondering eyes should appear when I popped open the first can but a thick, furry, green island of mold! In a can! From DOLE! And these were new cans, too, not even cans of questionable length of time in my cupboard (because Lord knows I've got those). And they were brand name cans, not even questionable store brand, knock off, severe and therefore suspect sale versions (which I also have in droves, of course).

By the time J refused to go down for a nap and the husband finally got a replacement and arrived home at 9:30 am, just a half hour before guests arrived, I was frazzled. Luckily, however, I don't believe in signs, and everything else went smoothly. The ham and spinach strata, a new recipe and the one thing I was actually worried about? Lovely and yummy. The fruit salad (with the other, much inspected can of pineapple) in the trifle bowl? Great. The pseudo monkey bread? One of the little girls wanted to make sure her mom brought some home with them. The veggie squares? A hit as usual. My friends brought pina-coladas, which were fancy and delicious, and chocolate muffins which were secretly made with wheat germ and blueberries and all sorts of healthiness and were great. There was lots of food and no one cried, including me. Success!

That much is true

Have you heard? The CIA is looking for a few good men...actually, women would be good, too. Foreign language experience a plus. Minorities encouraged to apply (particularly those who speak Arabic languages, natch). Are you interested? Or, as the ad campaign puts it, "are you a person of curiosity and integrity" and "are you ready for a world of challenge...a world of ambiguity and adventure?" I don't know about you, but to me these ads seem to be sending a somewhat mixed message. Or maybe not so much a mixed message as a confused one. Do people seeking a "world of ambiguity" strike you as the same people who would describe themselves as persons of integrity?

The husband and I have a running joke that he should never quit his day job and try to be a spy, because he is the least stealthy person I know. I, on the other hand, once seriously considered applying for a writing instruction job at the CIA because it paid so well (starting salary for someone with my qualifications was over a hundred thousand, unheard of in my business). I didn't apply, largely because we had just moved South at the time, and moving back to DC wasn't really an option, unless we wanted to follow the pattern set by a lot of his pharmacy school friends and live apart but married, which always struck me as absolutely beyond the pale. So anyway, I gave up my career in intelligence, but only temporarily, I like to think. To stay in a heightened state of readiness, I am practicing sneaking up on my son, blending inconspicuously into new locations (my most effective disguise? harried mother), and describing random passersby to imaginary sketch artists. Clearly, the CIA wants me!

Best kid in the neighborhood

I'm on another quest that is taking far longer than I anticipated. Luckily, I have started very early, many months early in fact, so I shouldn't lose my mind...much.

You see, I'm starting to think about transitioning J from the crib to a Big Boy Bed. Fortunately for him and his wildly acrobatic sleeping habits, "his" bed will also be our queen-sized guest bed, which will continue to double as a guest bed when guests appear. Sadly for me, queen-sized beds are not really the norm when it comes to kids' bedding, so my search has already run into a few snags. In addition, I really don't want to ditch the minimal decorating I've done in there already (ie the green curtains), nor do I want a design he'll grow out of in a short amount of time, so I have given myself other restrictions that are making searching even more fun than it already was!

Why all the earnest fuss? Because I've done my homework, and I understand that one of the keys to making a smooth transition is giving the child brand new bedding all his own. I can already see the logic of this. J loves items we make special for him, from his Big Boy cups to his J-only hiding places to his sleepy-time time teddy bear. So giving him a blanket picked out especially for him seems like a great idea.

But wouldn't you know it, the child industry has figured this fact out as well and raised the prices of such quilts and pillowcases accordingly. I mean, honestly, if anyone thinks I'm going to pay three figures for a machine-made quilt, they've got another think coming! And what is it about boys options, anyway? No, I don't want camo, or Camp Bravo, or Army adventure quilts, thank you very much! And can you explain to me the appeal of red, white, and blue designs? I can understand red, white, and blue nautical themes, but red white and blue planes, trains, and automobiles? Really? So far we've narrowed the suitable options down to sports (mainly assorted balls), some dinosaur options, and airplanes, not that J has shown any affinity for airplanes, but the designs are among the least obnoxious and often include some green in the color scheme, as do the other two.

Now, some out there might be thinking, why don't you just make a quilt with your new sewing machine? See my last post: my domestic skilz don't cover whole cloth creation, people! However, after seeing all these prices, I may change my mind! We'll see....

It must be high or low

So, anyone who knows me (or has met me, actually) can tell I'm not Domesty McDomestic. Some people mistakenly believe my outside veneer of organization translates into organization in all areas of my life. Those people have clearly not been to my house! I hate housecleaning; I don't get excited about new and different methods of spring cleaning or new sets of baskets or caddies to corral the mess. I once listened to a conversation in which multiple women explained that the last thing they would do before evacuating for a hurricane would be run the dishwasher and vacuum, and I honestly couldn't imagine doing such a thing. What would be the point? My pantry is relatively organized, but it stands alone in the disheveled sea that is my kitchen. My books are perfectly in order, but you have to crawl around and over obstacles just to get to them. And let's not even talk about my bedroom, a complete hazard. In short, my domestic victories are few and far between, largely because I don't care enough to pursue them.

Which makes strawberry freezer jam that much more rewarding. It's so easy: chop and crush strawberries. Mix sugar and pectin. Combine sugar mixture with strawberries. Ladle into containers. Wait half an hour. Put in freezer or fridge. THE END! The whole process takes 45 minutes, including the wait time. And then you get to feel all virtuous and economical and, well, domestic! It's great!
But don't get me wrong, I'm not going to turn into a domestic goddess overnight or, most likely, ever. But I am going to have some great sandwiches and pancakes!

Big cheese, make me

Recently, while on a shopping trip, J tried a sample of beefy cheesy mac, macaroni and cheese with ground beef. To say he loved it would be putting it much to mildly. He inhaled the stuff, one generous scoop of it, and was crying for more.

So, I decided I would make him some macaroni and cheese at home as a treat, and I picked up some Kraft because that's what you eat when you want mac and cheese fast, right? But when I made it I thought, "This stuff is edible?? It hardly should count as food! I can't believe I'm feeding this to my child!" I went ahead and gave it to him, regretting it every moment. And he loved it, as did the husband later on, but I felt too guilty to ever serve it again.

However, I dreaded learning how to make macaroni and cheese from scratch. Down here, in the south, making this particular dish is serious business. Women hide their family recipes in locked cabinets, guarding their particular combination of cheeses like state secrets. Making a batch can take half a day and the praises can be sung for a week after it's served. Intimidating, to say the least.

So it was with great trepidation that I embarked on a mission to find a recipe for homemade mac and cheese that wasn't going to make me cry in frustration and take a year to prepare. Fortunately, I found, get this, a three ingredient recipe: noodles, grated cheddar cheese, and butter! Huzzah. It's prepared on the stovetop and takes about 13 minutes from start to finish. Of course, I couldn't just stick with the recipe as written, so I added some cream cheese because, well, I had it on hand. I also added some chopped ham and frozen peas and carrots, all of J's favorite foods wrapped in one cheesy package. And it was a huge success, judging by the quantity he ate and the two-fisted shoveling into his mouth going on.

Now, when I make it again, I will change the recipe slightly. For example, I don't think one needs all that butter, so I will substitute milk. And the key is the sharpest cheddar I can find and more spices (or any, for that matter). J was fine with the medium cheddar, but the husband likes things a little more flavorful. The ham I'll probably keep; it was a tasty addition.

Next food update: strawberry freezer jam!

Little children never said a word

What has happened to me?? A week between posts? I'm ashamed of myself. And there's not much of a reason. I've been no more busy than normal, but time for blogging seems to keep slipping away. So let me repent:

Today, for Mommy and Me, we went to a park to see ducks and seagulls. Actually, from J's perspective, we saw DUCKS!!! SEAGULLS!!! PUPPIES!!! TURTLES!!! and, most importantly, FOUNTAINS!!! He was in heaven. I was, umm, slightly terrified, because where there are ducks and fountains, there are also ponds, with no guardrails. J came very, very close to the edge many times in his excitement, overwhelmed by the proximity of the animals. He was so unruly some guy with a huge dog passing by was acting a little afraid of J instead of the other way around. When the Irish Setter's owner is afraid of your son, should you be proud?

J also loved climbing up..and falling down a foot bridge. He got the concept of being careful on the way up, but then raced headlong downhill, building up speed until he fell head over heels and skinned his elbow. Oops! Of course, he's tough, so I didn't even notice until some other mom pointed out the scrape...cause that's just the kind of observant mother I am! We've since learned about band-aids and anti-bacterial ointment.

Play group also involved edible paint for finger painting, but J was having none of it, except when he tried to abscond with the purple for some reason. He's at a strange age for play group. There are lots of 3 and 4 year olds and lots of baby babies and then J is somewhat in the middle: toddling around but unable to speak and/or interact very much. So he's sort of the odd man out, too young to run alone with the other kids, too old to sit still with the moms and nursing babies. Hopefully we'll find our place soon enough.

I took pictures but can't seem to get them off my camera so to be continued.