The times, they are a-changin'

Well, lots of things have been happening 'round these parts, Internet. My parents, for example, finally, finally sold their house. It had been on the market for THREE YEARS, people. That, my friends, is a long time to live in an open-house-ready home. A looooong time. We (meaning my sisters, brother, sister-in-law, and brothers-in-law) are all thrilled for my parents, but that doesn't change the fact that my parents are moving out of the home they have lived in for 37 years, the house that was my home for the first 24 years of my life, and I went there for the last time ever last Wednesday. That evening, as I was bundling Jack into his car seat, I felt like there should be some sort of grand ceremony marking the the last time I was ever to set foot in my childhood home, but there was only my own shouting through the kitchen windows for someone to come move Big Sister #4's car. So while I am filled with relief on my parents' behalf that their three-year ordeal is over, I can't help but feel a little sad. This is because I am against change. All change. Even change for the better. Back in my day, we didn't HAVE change, and we LIKED it.

I am, of course, lying, because there is another change occurring right now that I am in love with. I am a little bit afraid to discuss it because I don't want to jinx* anything, but Jack has undergone a Sleep Renaissance. About three weeks ago, Jack started waking up every night and requiring two hours of holding and rocking before going back to sleep. Then he started taking longer and longer to go to sleep at bedtime, keeping me stuck in his room rocking and singing for an hour or more. And finally, in exhausted desperation at 10:00 one Tuesday night, I decided to let him cry for 15 minutes so I could lie down for just a little while. Then I gave him 15 more because he was tapering off. At the 31-minute mark, just as I was swinging my legs out of bed, he fell silent and made nary a peep until 6:30 the next morning.

Well.

The next time we had to use this technique was in the wee sma's the following Wednesday, after The Husband and I had each taken a turn rocking him for an hour. I set the timer for 31 minutes, and he yelled angrily for 11 of them, rested for 4, then let us know he was still mad, but FINE, he'd go to sleep. And he did. Until the next morning.

The night after that, he took two minutes. TWO MINUTES. I'm positive. I timed it.

Despite these obvious signals from Jack that he no longer required me to rock him to sleep, The Husband and I still planned to ease him into this new routine, probably because I hate change. Jack, on the other hand, is all for change, and over the last week I have come around to his point of view. He's just too big to be comfortable in my arms when I rock him; he needs his bed. So now for naps, bedtime, and any night-wakings, I rock and sing for a few minutes, then I put him in his crib and shut the door on my way out. He usually yells for a minute or two, and that's it.

The part I can't stop discussing with The Husband is how sometimes he falls silent mid-yell. I'm used to babies whose cries slowly taper off as they settle down to bed, but about 25% of the time, Jack says, "Aaaaaaauuuuggghhhh! Aaaaaaauuuuggghhhh! Aaaaaaauuuuggghhhh! Aaaaa-..... (silence)." It is extremely bizarre. The other part I can't stop discussing with The Husband is how unbelievably awesome this new system is. I know how long it is going to take to put him to bed for the night! Where I used to have only about 75% assurance that I'd be out of his room in 40 minutes or so, I'm now positive. And of course I realize that sometimes he'll wake back up or have a bad night or whatever, but this life is so much better than before. The odds that I will be stuck in his room for hours are next to nothing, because whatever the case, I'm going to have at least 31 minutes off.

Even better, Jack is obviously much happier. There was one morning during the weeks of bad sleep where I found him in the morning with dark, dark circles under his eyes. The poor child looked like he'd been up all night chasing No-Doz with shots of espresso. There are few things sadder to see. But these days, he's active, alert, chatty, and smiley**. And he knows the right answer to "Where's Mama?" even though he refuses to prove it for an audience. Ah, yes, life is good.

Dear God, I hope I didn't jinx it.

*My belief in jinxes is an interesting little idiosyncrasy, because I am not superstitious, and I am very disdainful of people who are. I'm a scientist! Superstitions aren't real! I am the type of person who demands to see a data set tracking the number of odd occurrences at different times of the month when someone attributes weird behavior to a full moon. I will always point out that people just count to three and then start over in response to the claim that bad things happen in threes. I walk laughingly under ladders in the house with my umbrella up while smashing mirrors and spilling salt, but when someone says, "Well, at least it can't get any worse," I cry out, "Shut up! Do you want to jinx it?" Because, apparently, I am also the type of person who is a hypocrite.

**And his smiles involve four teeth! Yes! The top two teeth I've been talking about for months have finally broken through! In an unrelated note, I find that a cool washcloth is wonderfully soothing to tiny teeth marks on my nipples.

He and I lead different lives

Things Jack is afraid of: The hairdryer, the vacuum

Things that The Husband is unaware Jack is afraid of: The hairdryer, the vacuum

(In defense of The Husband) Things Jack is probably afraid of but I wouldn't know: The table saw, the router

Things I sort of wish Jack were afraid of because then I'd have an excuse: Paintbrushes

We have learned NOTHING

Tomorrow, someone is coming to our house. This person is bringing a contract for us to sign. This contract will say that we are hiring this person to knock down our horsehair plaster kitchen walls and replace them with drywall and wainscoting. (Yes! We're finally getting the wainscoting!)

Somebody hold me.

Pros:
1. When it is over, our disgusting kitchen walls will be gone and we will have shiny new walls that are not covered in grease stains.
2. I am not pregnant.
3. There is no plumbing involved.
4. We are hiring professionals who will work during the day and will not have a full time job doing something else.

Cons:
1. For "three weeks*," kitchen cabinets will once again be scattered around the house.
2. I have a mobile baby who will probably be walking by the time this actually takes place.
3. Electric work is involved.
4. We are hiring professionals who cost a hell of a lot more than The Husband and my brother.

All in all, the pros outweigh the cons, because the kitchen, it is awful. It makes me cry. I actually hated the kitchen more than I hated the old bathroom, and remember the old bathroom? With the gross crumbly grout and the ugly wallpaper and the soap dispenser?

The kitchen is worse.

So, new walls! Yay! But weeks of construction on our kitchen with a baby in the house! Boo! And also, we have to choose a paint color or else figure out whether we should paint the cabinets to go with the yellow that we already picked out but which, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit does not actually complement the cabinets. Should we do that? Should we paint them? I think we should do that, but what color?

Next year, we plan to refinish our floors. Because apparently, we enjoy suffering.

*Or so they claim at the moment. I expect six weeks, because we have learned a few things after all.

Mama? I know not this, "Mama."

Attention, Internet! Achtung! Achtung!*

Jack can say "clock." Granted, it is a distorted version of "clock" that is closer to "cok" and occasionally just "kuh," but he consistently identified the kitchen clock as a "kuh" or "cok" many times this afternoon. And I successfully recorded it as proof. He also unfailingly pointed to the clock when asked where the clock was. Whether this will continue after he wakes up from his nap is unknown, because he no longer raises his hand and squeals when I ask him who the best baby is even though he seemed to have that down last week.

This clock thing is interesting for a couple of reasons. The most significant is that I feel like I've only told him what the clock is a few times, whereas I am constantly telling him what the fan is, but he can't say fan and is also unsure of the proper response when I ask him where it is. The other interesting reason is that he knows where the clock is, and he knows where daddy is (provided he's in the room), and he recognizes the SIGN for "daddy," but the syllables "mama" have no meaning for him WHATSOEVER.

Here's how it goes in our house. "Jack, where's the clock?" (points to clock, possibly says "cok.")

"Where's daddy?" (looks over at The Husband)

"Where's the fan?" (gets expression on his face indicating that he feels he should know this one, the fan, the fan, it's somewhere in the room...)

"Where's mama?" (blank stare)

Sigh.

*As I was writing this entry, I had a flashback to the summer I interned at a chemical company in Germany even though I don't speak German. Every Friday there was a test of the emergency alert system, and there would be a alarm followed by a woman's voice calmly saying, "Achtung, achtung. Sprechen ziety scmesty oiken. Blah blah blahbitten blechen." Except the part after "Achtung" probably wasn't spelled like that and didn't even sound like that and was apparently some sort of instruction about how to get out of the building**. Or something.

**In an orderly manner, undoubtedly. I was in Germany.

I particulary disliked U-571

Before I had a baby, I considered myself to be a pretty empathetic person. I couldn’t stand to watch war movies, for example, not even war movies about fictional people, because those things have happened to someone, somewhere, at some point, and why can’t we all just get along? Most significantly, when I used to hear news items about children being harmed in some way, I would of course be appalled and make “tsk” noises to myself while feeling terribly sorry for the victims and their parents. But then I would forget about it an go make dinner. Or, more likely, eat the dinner The Husband had made for me.

It’s different now.

I knew, of course, that having a baby would change the way I saw things, but I was unprepared for how I felt upon learning, to take one recent example, that some children had died after their parents administered medicine tainted with glycerin. I immediately – and involuntarily – imagined how I would feel had I given my child medicine that turned out to be poisonous, and I almost threw up.

It’s not as though I obsessively worry over every horrifying thing that might happen to Jack; on the contrary, I consider myself to be a pretty relaxed mom, willing to roll with the punches, and able to stay calm when he falls down and bonks his head. But when I am confronted with true-life stories about babies hurt despite the best efforts of their parents, my stomach clenches up and I have a little trouble breathing for a second or two. It really is like having a piece of myself out there crawling around, and the thought of him being seriously harmed, especially at my own hands as in the case of the tainted medicine, is so horrifying as to be unbearable.

I know that The Husband feels the same way. While we were watching the news recently, a story about a sick baby came on, and we both fell silent. “You’re imaging how it would be if that were Jack, aren’t you?” I asked him, and he nodded, a sick look on his face.

So is this the rest of my life? I guess so, right? I suppose I’ll eventually have the relief of knowing that we are no longer 100% responsible for his health, nutrition, safety and development, but that will bring with it the problem that we will no longer be 100% in control of his health, nutrition, safety and development. Eventually, he’ll be responsible for his own self, and he’ll even have the right to fly in an Ultra-light Trike if he wants to. Or – frightening thought – a hang glider.

I do not mean to imply that parenthood is a depressing downward spiral of worry. Not at all. Just that the joys of parenthood come packaged with a slew of very surprising, very intense emotions. Intense emotions and the unexpected ability to act as a jungle gym, should the need arise. Which it does. Often.

Save the milk! The MILLLLLKKKKK!

Yesterday, when I took my nightly "sip" of The Husband's daily Coke, I noticed that it was not really all that cold. This was odd, because he had just removed it from our only two-year-old Maytag refrigerator. You know, the brand of appliances that portrays the really bored repair guy on the commercials? Because he has no work to do? Because their appliances so rarely break down?

I commented on its lack of coldness. "Well, it was in the door, closest to the part that opens, and you've been going in and out of the fridge and it's hot out," he replied. So I didn't worry about it.

Those of you smart enough to pick up on my incredibly subtle foreshadowing probably know that I should have worried about it, because this morning we discovered that the fridge is not so much keeping things cold. Nothing beats throwing the baby into the car to make an ice run at 7 in the morning! But I did get to the store and moved the daily-use stuff into the cooler with some ice, and called my friendly neighbors to ask if they had space in their fridge for the rest of it. Luckily, they have an extra fridge, and Mr. Neighbor even came over to help me transport all the condiments and beer. He would have done so even if I had not told him he could drink the beer if he wanted, because he's a good neighbor.

"Is that everything?" he asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "The freezer still seems to be working, so I just needed a place for our refrigerated stuff."

Then I called Sears to get an appointment with their repair service. The first available was for Friday, which is two days from now. Two hot, summer days. Fortunately, they were able to narrow the scheduling window down to "sometime between 9 and 5," so, you know, there was that to console me.

I hung up the phone and glared at the traitorous refrigerator. "At least the freezer still works," I thought. And then I thought again. What if the freezer doesn't work? What if it just takes longer to warm up because it's starting from a colder temperature? I thought about the four days' worth of breast milk I had stored in there. And then I packed it all up along with the frozen pot roast and chicken drumsticks and hustled it right over to the neighbors. Happily, they also have an extra freezer. Apparently, they need to keep lots of things cold.

When I got back, I tried calling Maytag directly to see if they could come earlier than Sears, and the oh-so-helpful automated voice menu guided me through the scheduling steps. After several painstaking, clearly enunciated menu choices, Maytag asked me for my model number, "one digit at a time." Since I am incapable of speaking all of the digits simultaneously, I assumed this meant I should pause between each digit. I assumed wrong. I got as far as "M... F..." when the phone robot interrupted me to say, "I'm sorry, I need you to give me your model number, one digit at a time. If you don't know your mode number, say 'I don't know.'" Heaving a sigh, I said, "M...F..." and the phone robot broke in again to say, "Thanks! Let me check for the next available appointment."

Needless to say, there are many more digits in the model number after "MF." And then the next available appointment was for Saturday. So I hung up on the phone robot and called a local place to see if they could come today to repair the fridge, and of course they could not. They could, however, come tomorrow, and they gave me three two-hour windows from which to choose.

Suck on that, phone robot! In your face, Sears!

To sum up: Maytag and Sears are on notice; but my neighbors are awesome. And it is too muggy to come up with a clever ending.

P.S. Can babies have nightmares? I'm pretty sure mine did last night.

JACOB! Jacob and sons!

My cell phone recently died. As long as the battery is charged it works just fine, but it can no longer charge the battery. And since the phone is about three years old and has a rotten battery life, this flaw basically renders the phone useless. The Husband and looked into switching carriers and getting new, cooler phones, but it turns out that our current plan costs less than any plan out there and it also turns out that The Husband and I are cheap. So. No new plan.

This meant I had to get a new phone, but buying a phone without signing up for a new contract is surprisingly difficult, even if you are willing to pay the non-contract "retail" price. So, to make a long, boring story short (too late!), I ended up buying a pre-paid phone which came with 104 minutes which I decided to spend downloading ringtones and wallpapers, something I've never done before (see above, re: cheap).

Now, every time my phone rings, I find myself singing "Your Racist Friend" by They Might Be Giants a few minutes later. Not because my ringtone is "Your Racist Friend." No, it's because "Your Racist Friend" comes after "Dead" on the TMBG album Flood, and "Dead" is the track after "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," and that is my ringtone. To sum up: My phone rings to the tune of "Istanbul." I answer it, have a conversation, hang up, and start singing "I returned a bag of groceries, accidentally taken off the shelf before the expiration date!" without consciously realizing it. I finish singing "Dead" in its entirety to myself and transition into the next song: "This is where the party ends, I can't stand here listening to you! And your racist friend!" Unfortunately, I don't quite know all of the lyrics to "Your Racist Friend" and get stuck in a loop of singing the first verse to myself and only then do I realize what I am doing.

It took me about a week to realize why "Dead" was getting stuck in my head so frequently. When I finally figured it out, I was reminded of the summer I spent temping in Boston and somehow ended up singing songs from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to myself during my commute. For weeks, I could not understand where these songs were coming from every single day, but then I noticed that there was a billboard advertising the show on my route. Although I never consciously registered seeing the billboard, it was obviously having a subliminal effect on me, dooming me to a drive time ritual of singing "AND IT WAS red and yellow and ruby and gold and scarlet and peach and asher and rose and something and something and pink and orange and BLUE!"

Where does this leave me? It leaves me with the somewhat embarrassing admission that I know all the lyrics to almost every They Might Be Giants song out there as well as most of the lyrics to most Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals (not Cats, though). See, I had a recent revelation when Emily and I were having an IM session. I was telling her how I've never heard of [fill in the blank with pretty much any current musical performer], because all I ever listen to is NPR, and I added that my pop musical education has always been a bit stunted, as I "discovered" Pearl Jam in college. She asked me what I listened to in high school, and I typed, "Pretty much They Might be Giants and musicals."

Then I stared at that sentence and thought, "That can't be right. Is that right? I must have listened to something else. TMBG and musicals? That was it? Really?" and I ran through what I could recall of my tape collection in high school. Let's see, there was They Might Be Giants, Miss Saigon, Les Miserables (both French and London original cast recordings), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ, Superstar, an all a capella compilation...

Oh, Merlin's beard.

This new practice of using swears from Harry Potter is not helping my case any, is it?

Neither do I bungee jump

While we were driving up to Maine, The Husband and I spotted a flying contraption. Yes, contraption. "Merlin's pants!*" I exclaimed, pointing at the contraption. "What the heck is that?" There seemed to be one person in the "cockpit" which was not enclosed in any way, and, to my untrained eye, appeared to be powered by pedals a la Leonardo da Vinci. The Husband, however, was familiar with the flying contraption in question and told me it was called an "ultralight trike" or something, and that it was a perfectly legitimate air vehicle**.

"Legitimate nothing!" I cried. "You would not catch me in one of those things! It's completely open! It doesn't have an INSIDE! I require an inside on any vehicle that will be transporting me through the air."

"Oh, come on," replied The Husband. "It's no worse than a hang glider."

A hang glider. Right. Good argument, The Husband. Because, of course, hang gliding is a perfectly reasonable pastime. I go hang gliding all the time. Why, I was just out hang gliding this morning.

Look, I'm sure that both hang gliding and the ultralight trike are thrilling. I bet it feels just like you're flying on your own without mechanical assistance. The sights, the sounds, the feel of the wind in your face... all wonderful I am sure. But that is only if you can get yourself past the blind terror of knowing that there is nothing but a few straps and buckles preventing you from experiencing the sights, sounds, and wind in your face caused by plummeting one thousand feet to the earth. And, given that I am the chicken who refused to go down a water slide for about five years after that one time when I was seven and I accidentally turned around backwards en route, I think that I will pass on the flying contraptions.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to put the training wheels back on my bike.

*The Husband and I are trying to clean up our language before Jack is old enough to start repeating things back to us, and I'm attempting to replace my naughty phrases with wizarding curses. The funny looks will all be worth it if we can get Jack to imitate these phrases.

**Apparently, this is one of those products that emits guy particles.

These eyes!*

I don’t post pictures of Jack on this blog. This is because the internet, while fantastic, is full of scary, freaky people, and I have no way of filtering those people out. The unfortunate result of this is that you, my friendly blog audience don’t get to see how adorable Jack is, and I, your friendly blog author, don’t get to read all of the comments from you telling me how adorable Jack is.

So I have decided to share with you Jack’s best feature. Why, yes, I do get a lot of comments on his eyes! In fact, it has gotten to the point that if we meet someone new and that person does not admire his eyes, I feel vaguely insulted.



Wouldn’t you?

In other news, I am considering moving my blog to Wordpress. I either want to do that, or figure out how to change my Blogger template from this boring, standard one, but I have no idea how to do that. What do you guys think? Are there Blogger and Wordpress users out there? Has anyone used both? Which do you prefer? Also, if you have a Blogger account but use your own template, can you tell me how you did that?

*Shout out to The Doktah. THESE EYEEEES!

The boy (or mom) who cried, "Tooth!"

Remember those teeth I claimed were coming in? Twice? No sign of them yet. Unless, that is, you count crankiness, neediness, a slight fever, and very bad sleeping habits a sign of teeth. And maybe they are! I certainly hope they are. But the very best sign of teeth I could have right now would be an actual tooth, because I would be immensely relieved if there were a clear reason for the recent behavior. Especially for the poor sleeping behavior.

I have an easy, easy baby. I realize this. In fact, I often find myself thinking, "Man, I'm glad Jack doesn't do that," when I hear or read the horror stories moms tell about their crying, screaming, tantrum-throwing babies. Unfortunately, my comfortable smugness never lasts long, because I always follow up that thought with, "Moron! You mean you're glad Jack doesn't do that yet." It is true; Jack does not throw toys at my head, scream, "NO!" and fling himself on the floor, kicking and wailing. But he is only 9 months old. He doesn't yet have the coordination to throw toys at my head, scream, "NO!" or fling himself on the floor, kicking and wailing. He does have the wailing part down, though. He's been practicing.

So these past three or four days have been my first real wake-up call that Jack is not going to stay relaxed and easy forever and ever. We're going to have some tough times. I understand that molars won't come in till he's one? At any rate, today I am in a funk. I'm having one of those days where I'm lonely but I don't want to talk to anyone, it's too hot to go for a walk, Harry Potter is all done, and there are ninety more minutes till The Husband gets home to keep me company. I have therefore decided that instead of cleaning up the kitchen from lunch, I am going to make a list of the top ten things that are impressive, but only if a baby does them.

Top Ten Things That Are Impressive If Done By A Baby

1. Using hand gestures to reveal the fact that that thing up there, that ceiling fan thing? It goes 'round and 'round.

2. Using a similar hand gesture to explain that the washer and dryer also go 'round and 'round.

3. Possibly using a similar hand gesture to say goodbye, but then again, maybe just waving your arm around at random.

4. Asking for a book by pointing.

5. After five minutes of playing with a completely different toy, remembering that there is a decorative bird hanging from the china closet when someone says, "Tweet tweet!"

6. Snuggling your face into a blanket.

7. Drinking from a cup.*

8. Self-serve breastfeeding.

9. Rolling a plastic circle across the floor.

10. Discovering the Grand Unification Theory.**

*This would be even more impressive if it happened more than once.

**Technically, this would be impressive if done by anyone.

Done and done

Attention, Internet:

I have finished the book. You may commence discussion.

What? You mean people have already been discussing it? But I told you not to!

Muffliato!

At least, that's the spell I'd like to use on myself until I get a chance to finish HP7. The Husband and I got to go see Order of the Phoenix last Monday night*, and during the movie I realized that I have forgotten many things and must re-read HP6 before I can read HP7. I'm only a quarter of the way through it. (If I could hold it open with one hand, I'd be much farther along because I'd be able to read it while nursing, but such is life.)

So I'm asking the internet as a whole to please refrain from posting anything about the last book before I have time to finish it. That would be great, thanks.

*At first we couldn't find a babysitter, but then Father-in-law volunteered to drive to our house after work and sit for free while The Husband and I went to the movies with Leah Lar and D and then went for ice cream afterwards. Jack was awake when we left, asleep when we got home, and stayed asleep until 6 the next morning. It was AWESOME.

Things to look forward to

So as you are aware, or at least should be aware, I have a lot of nieces and nephews. (Jack, however, has no nieces or nephews, despite recent reports to the contrary.) And as you should be equally aware, they are pretty darn adorable. For example, while in Maine, I discovered that Elfin Nephew, 3.5 years old, has taken to channeling a Jewish mother. "Mama," he said at the table, "I am very hungry, but this corn is so hot!" Turns out he wanted some of those corn-on-the-cob shaped corn holders. At the next meal, he was heard to say, "Mama, do you see how low I am?" He wanted to sit in the old-fashioned high chair, you see.

His little sister, the two-year-old Spitfire, was doing some channeling of her own, but in her case she was copying her own mother. "Elfin Nephew, stop whining," she said.

"Spitfire," said her mom, "you mind your own business. You are not the boss of Elfin Nephew. If you tell him to stop whining again, you're going to get a time-out." Meanwhile, Elfin Nephew continued to whine.

"Mama, I just want to tell him, 'It's OK, Elfin Nephew, it's OK.' Can I just tell him it's OK?" asked The Spitfire. She got permission, and then turned to Elfin Nephew. "Elfin Nephew, stop whining." Into time-out she went.

I will leave you with another heart-melter. The five-year-old Charmer said to his mother yesterday, "Mommy, sometimes I feel like you love me so much, I get heart bubbles."

Non sequitur

This is a bit out of left field, but I just felt the need to tell the world that I cannot believe that "bling" has become an acceptable word for non-ironic use. It reminds me of how I used to jokingly give people a thumbs-up which slowly transitioned from being an ironic hand gesture into a way for me to genuinely tell people I thought something was well done. It had just become a habit! And while an ironic thumbs-up does not detract from a person's cool quotient, an earnest one most certainly does.

Vacation, had to get away!

A couple of months ago, I signed up for weekly newsletters from BabyCenter.com. They often provide helpful quick tips targeted for moms with babies exactly Jack's age. Just yesterday, in fact, I learned that eight-month-olds like to play tug of war, and it turns out they are right! Since that is not a game I would have thought to play, I have to hand it to BabyCenter.com.

Nevertheless, sometimes BabyCenter.com thinks I am a complete moron. For example, at the start of the summer travel season, there was an article on "Seven secrets to successful travel with a young child." Seeing as how The Husband and I were planning a trip to Maine, I clicked on the link to learn these seven mysterious secrets that would make my life easier. Except as it turned out, they weren't particularly mysterious after all. Take secret number 2: "Pick a family-friendly destination." Really? A family-friendly destination? Not a couples' resort? Not a hike through the rain forest? You don't say.

The final "secret" was to take practice trips; that is to say, start out with a short one or two night trip to see how your kid travels before you head across the country for three weeks. Once again, this seemed obvious to me, and is actually what we were already planning. My sister had invited us up to her family beach cottage in Maine, and we went for one night. This past Sunday night, in fact. We had been slightly anxious about how Jack would do sleeping in a strange place, but we needed to get the heck out of our house for a while, and a beach house complete with free babysitters in the form of cousins seemed perfect to us.

Our plan was to drive up during Jack's morning nap, but of course we couldn't pack everything he needed until Sunday morning because he was still using a lot of it on Saturday night. This meant that we had to use Jack's two hours between his getting up and his going down for his first nap to feed him, dress him, pack all his stuff, and get all the stuff to the car. Oh, and The Husband also had to go to Home Depot to buy brackets or some such for the new porch railings we had to put in on the downstairs apartment. (These railings need to be painted, by the by. Someone kill me.)

Do you realize how much stuff babies need? Even for one night? The Husband and I had one suitcase between us; Jack had a suitcase of clothes and diapers, a suitcase of blankets, toys, and books, a Pack 'n' Play, a booster seat, and a bag of groceries. And we still managed to forget some stuff.

Happily, the trip was fun. Not as relaxing as a trip without a baby, but Jack napped just fine in the afternoon and went to bed without complaint. He did wake up again when The Husband and I went to bed four hours later and he naturally had a leak. That was when we discovered that we forgot to bring extra overnight stuffers for our diapers and we that had only brought one pair of pj's. But eventually he went back to sleep and we did well until morning.

Unhappily, Jack woke up at 5:00, the worst possible time for a baby to wake up. At 5:00, the baby has had lots of sleep, so he is less tired and takes longer to go back to sleep, if he ever does. You know what doesn't help matters? Moronic parents. Because a travel tip that BabyCenter.com left out was that if your normally contented baby is crying and fussing after 6 hours in the same diaper, his diaper just might need to be changed. I tried to get Jack back to sleep for an hour, and The Husband and simply I could not understand what could be wrong! "What is the matter, Jack?" we kept saying. "Just go to sleep! Why won't you go to sleep? We can see you are tired! What could possibly be making you uncomfortable? WHAT COULD IT BE?" Eventually, The Husband got up to take Jack away somewhere and give me another twenty minutes or so, and lo and behold, he had leaked through again. And was also poopy.

But still, Jack - and therefore we - had a great time. The weather cleared for an hour or two on Monday, allowing us to go to the beach. Although we put Jack in his retro bathing suit for the sheer adorableness of it, neither The Husband nor I wore our bathing suits. This is because the water in Maine is cold. Very very cold. Bone-chillingly, painfully cold, and we are getting older. Besides, we figured we would only be able to stay at the beach for an hour or so before Jack got hungry for lunch.

Of course, I neglected to consider that Jack would try to eat sand for lunch. And then, after tasting it the first time, try to keep eating it. In fact, we spent a lot of time this weekend fishing foreign items out of Jack's mouth. One in particular that he was loathe to relinquish turned out to be a mysterious black slimy thing that we didn't even want to think about until someone realized it must have been a piece of Oreo dropped by his two-year-old niece. Hey, I would also be mad if someone held me down and took the Oreo out of my mouth.

But all in all, it was a successful "practice trip." We now know that Jack will sleep in the Pack 'n' Play in a strange house and that we should always bring extra pajamas. We know that sand and Oreos are equally delicious and that it is not possible to stay clean at the beach with a mobile infant.

Oh, and we know that sometimes, he needs his diaper changed.

Signs you're getting older

1. Bridal shower gifts are no longer dull; in fact, you sort of covet those hand towels.
2. You know what wainscoting is.
3. You care what wainscoting is.
4. You really wish you had wainscoting in your kitchen.
5. Conversations about mulch are now interesting.
6. As are conversations about wainscoting.
7. After falling down the stairs and skinning your knee, you find that your entire body is sore and achy, not just your knee.
8. You think staying up till 11:00 is crazy.
9. Kids you used to babysit are getting married.
10. Married, people! You remember when they were BORN.
11. You no longer want to go swimming if the water is too cold.
12. Although you can still sit on the floor with your legs bent under you, you really really wish you hadn't when you try to stand up.
13. All you ask for in life - besides wainscoting - is to get your hardwood floors refinished.
14. And to get the rest of your woodwork painted.
15. And your yard landscaped.
16. With mulch.

Teeth

Remember how I claimed that five new teeth came in? It turns out that was not exactly true. First of all, I did not actually mean to suggest that five new teeth were coming in all at once; I meant that three new teeth were trying to join their two brethren. But even if I had made clear the actual number of teeth making an appearance and had not inadvertently implied that I am rearing some kind of mutant five-tooth-spurting… uh… tooth spurter, I still would have been misleading you. Because as it turns out, there weren’t any new teeth.

There are now, though. We have a confirmed new tooth sighting on the upper gum area. It looks like a canine is erupting, and I just now suddenly realized that this will make Jack look like a small vampire.

I hope the other canine is the next tooth to show up.

Some of my best friends are flakes

My recent post about my stellar memory evoked a first-time comment from Big Sister #4. I am not surprised by this. In fact, I think that most of my family will enjoy that particular post. Why? Well, I'm glad you asked.

There is a famous anecdote in my family about me in the first grade. You see, my teacher had been trying to teach the class something, and we were not getting it. "Why are you guys acting like such flakes?" she finally said in exasperation. This caused the class some confusion, because no one understood what she meant. Seeing this, my teacher asked "Don't any of you know what a flake is?"

Good student that I was, I shot my little arm high into the air. "I do!" I shouted. "My family calls me that all the time!"

War paint

This weekend was a productive one, in that we finally finished painting the landing. Of course, I am using the word "finished" in the Grad Lab Household sense of "not actually finished but with only smallish things left to do which will probably take us the next five years to complete." Still, the horrifying blue with white patches is gone. Gone I say!

Recall what the paint looked like when we moved in:







Lovely, no? And this is the very first room visitors see when they enter our home. (To answer your question, that filled in doorway in the first picture used to lead out to a second floor porch which is no longer there. Now, if it were not filled in, it would lead out to a doozy of a first step.)

Now the room looks like this:







So far, I've hung the mirror over the radiator and brought down my diploma and two frames of flower pictures from the attic. I figured I'd post the pictures now, though, because Emily has been pestering me for pictures of the new color, and if I wait until we finish hanging all the pictures and getting furniture that is not ugly and figure out a way to organize the office area so it doesn't look like a bomb went off, we'd all be dead of old age. Still the color is much improved, and I no longer have to force people to enter our home with their eyes closed.

Finally, I present you with a parting photo. We are doing some completely un-fun renovation work in the basement, so we had to take all the stuff out of there for the week. What follows, my friends, is the reason that I never ever ever ever ever want to paint anything ever ever ever ever again.

Cleverness in babies is overrated

Guess who figured out how to undo his diaper? Through his onesie?