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?

Two thousand what now?

A couple of weeks ago, one of the moms in my playgroup asked me how long The Husband and I have been living in our house. This question always stumps me, because I have absolutely no concept of the passage of time. It was not until I had been dating The Husband for about three years (then again, who knows how many years?) that I figured out the main reason I was always late to everything: You have to account for the time it takes to get somewhere. For example, if a movie starts at nine, you can't plan to leave at nine. The Husband is a very punctual person, and those three years were very long for him. (Side note: The Husband was early for our first date. He was very early. He was a half hour early. I had wet hair and was still wearing sweatpants, and no one else was home to answer the door.)

But I was talking about my concept of the passage of time and how I don't have any. If something didn't happen within the past week, I have absolutely no idea when it happened. Two weeks ago? Two months ago? Who knows? Sometimes I can date events by where I was living at the time, but sometimes that only narrows the date range down to a certain window. I lived in the same place for about three of my five years in grad school, for example.

So when my friend asked me how long we'd been in our house, I didn't know what to say. "Um, two years? I think?" I tried to do the math, but that's when I ran into my second problem. Sometimes - not always, but sometimes - I sort of forget what year it is. I did not realize that I was somewhat unique in this until this conversation with my friend. "I think it's two years, but I always have trouble remembering. You know how sometimes you forget what year it is?" I said.

"Uh, no. I always remember what year it is," she replied. And she also gave me a very funny look.

I have been doing some thinking about this since the conversation, and I decided that this happens to me because I am always surprised that things that seem so fresh and recent in my mind happened so long ago. It can't be 2007, because that would mean I got my Ph.D. three years ago, and I only just graduated! Still, that's not really a good excuse for forgetting what year it is. So let's all hope I never hit my head, because the doctors will think I have a concussion.

"What year is it, you ask? Wait! I know this one! It starts with a '2', right?"

Bring me the soft one who sings!

A while ago, The Husband put Jack to bed, a job that is usually mine. Meanwhile, I went to Target, all by myself. Par-tay.

I came home to a house that was, to my immense relief, blissfully quiet and full of sleeping baby. I asked The Husband if Jack cried before he fell asleep. “Yeah,” came the answer. “It was rough going for a little while there. I kept telling him it was OK, and he would look at me and it was as though he was saying, ‘I believe you, but I am not comforted by you. BRING ME THE WOMAN!’”

“Tough beans” is a legitimate expression

I know that it is considered gauche to post an excuse about lack of posts. Tough beans.

Top three reasons I have not been posting much lately and won’t be posting much until two weeks from now:

1. I suddenly have to prepare a talk on the stuff I did in grad school. And I have to start by finding out what, exactly, I did in grad school. I haven’t looked at that stuff in three years, and I swear someone else wrote it. Did I really know all of that? Man, I used to be smart.

2. For reasons that remain unclear, The Husband decided last week that the entryway landing needed to painted right now. I am not complaining about this, as our entryway is so ugly that I feel embarrassed when people see it for the first time, but I do have to wonder, why now? Really? Right now? When I have a presentation to work on? It’s been hideously ugly for two and a half years, we couldn’t have waited another two weeks?

At any rate, my free time that is not occupied by relearning what I used to know has to be spent – God help me – painting, because I will not live for weeks with furniture scattered all over the apartment. I’ve done that before, and it is not fun. The good news is that the paint, which we chose and bought two years ago, is quite lovely. The lesson here is that I should not be allowed to choose paint by myself but together, The Husband and I can pick a good color.

3. Five new teeth. The end.

The world may never know

It’s raining, and this morning I saw a couple of birds fly to the shelter of a nearby tree. This reminded me of a picture book I once read in elementary school, called, Where does the butterfly go when it rains? When I saw that book in the classroom library, my curiosity was piqued. “Where does a butterfly go when it rains?” I thought to myself. It seemed to me that a butterfly is fragile enough that a heavy rainstorm could easily kill it, but they must do something, or they would not have survived. So where did they go? I eagerly sat down with the book and looked for the answer.

“Where does a butterfly go when it rains?” it began. I turned the page and read, “A bird covers its head with its wing, but where does a butterfly go when it rains?” I turned the page again. “An ant hides under a leaf, but where does a butterfly go when it rains?”

The book continued on in this fashion for several more pages. I found out where a caterpillar, a mouse, a bumblebee, and a squirrel go when it rains. That was all well and good, but I was not reading for information on squirrels. The book had posed a question, and now I wanted to know the answer.

Well, too bad for me, because the book never explained where a butterfly goes when it rains. Although the question was raised on every page, the answer was not forthcoming. And if that isn't false advertising, I don't know what is.

So does anyone know where a butterfly goes? Anyone? Anyone?

Bueller?

Lessons in probability

Area of my kitchen floor: 209 square feet
Area of a Cheerio: 1 square centimeter
Probability that I will step on the single Cheerio on the kitchen floor and grind it into fine powder: 100%

Science magazine comes out weekly, too

Am I the only one who is consistently surprised that I have to buy groceries every week? And clean the bathroom? And vacuum? (Not that I vacuum every week. Ha.) It just always seems impossible to me that I have to do any of these tasks when I clearly just did them last week.

And by way of explanation for my non sciency readers, Science magazine is just about the most prestigious journal to publish in, and it comes out every week. Every single week. So if you stick your copy in a pile to get to later, you will quickly have a small pile of backlogged issues to read. And then you will have a large pile. And then you will have a large lump that used to be a pile, but the pile got too big and all the magazines slipped and you won't even bother to try to straighten it up because you know they will all just slip again. And then you'll let your dues lapse for AAAS because it will be the only way to get them to STOP SENDING THE MAGAZINES.

Life in this, the 21st century

This is madness.

How The Husband Very Nearly Ruined Mother’s Day

I’m an easy going person. You don’t get much more low maintenance than me. Take my birthday, for example. All I ask is that my mother calls me The Husband gets me a card. No one else even has to remember it. And I even remind The Husband when it is coming up!

Valentine’s Day? Whatever. A card would be nice, but if he forgets (which has been known to happen), I don’t really mind. Hey, he brings me flowers for no reason all the time, so who am I to complain if he doesn’t bring them that specific day?

And yes, I’d be pretty upset if he forgot Christmas, but only because that would mean he’d had some sort of major head injury.

So for my very first Mother’s Day, I had fairly low expectations. It’s not like I thought I’d have the day off – I’m still a major food source after all. But still, even I have my limits.

See, the night before Mother’s Day, Jack had a rough go of it. Of course, I’m talking about “rough” for Jack; basically, he woke up just when we were about to go to bed and required holding and rocking for about ninety minutes. And because Jack prefers me in the night, The Husband was frustrated in his attempt to give me a break and get Jack back to sleep, and I had to stay up a bit later than I would have liked.

Then, the next morning, Jack woke up earlier than usual, around 5:30 or so. Given that it was Mother’s Day, I asked The Husband if he would go get the baby and bring him to me to nurse in bed. Somewhat grudgingly, he did so. And wooo-eee, but did that baby stink. So I nursed him, and then said, “Do you think you could change his diaper?”

The Husband groaned and said, “I’m really really tired. Couldn’t you do it?”

So I did. And with only the teensiest bit of martyrdom, because, honestly, The Husband looked much more exhausted than I felt. I actually felt like I’d had a reasonable amount of sleep. And naturally, there was a little stinky Mother’s Day gift in the diaper for me. So I had to deposit the baby back in bed with The Husband and then deposit the gift into the toilet and clean up the diaper. (Remember, we use cloth.) Chore done, I returned to bed for what I thought would be an hour or so more of comfy family dozing.

Yeah, no. Jack was UP. He was awake. He was kicking. He was poking me really hard in the eye. And, as far as I could tell, The Husband was oblivious, sleeping away on his side of the bed. Finally, I gave up, got out of bed, and started to get dressed.

See, this is where my line is. I didn’t mind that I got less sleep than The Husband did the night before my very first Mother’s Day*. I didn’t mind having to get up and start my day an hour earlier than I had expected. I didn’t mind – much – having to change a poopy diaper first thing in the morning.

But I did mind The Husband’s sleeping in while I got up to take care of the baby on my very first Mother’s Day ever.

Any other day, I would have happily let him stay in bed, because he was clearly exhausted. But on Mother’s Day? So there I stood next to the bed, looking down at my comfy family, and feeling the prickly little feeling of self-pity and resentment. Should I ask him to get up? Should I let him sleep? I didn’t really want to ask him to get up, because, somehow, that ruined it. I wanted him to offer. And even though I knew he was tired, I really didn’t want to let him sleep in.

But apparently, The Husband’s guardian angel was on duty, because he had a prickly little feeling of his own. Opening one eye, he asked me, “Do you want me to get up with you?”

“Yes,” I said. And he did. And he fed the baby while I steamed some plums for later. Then he surprised me with a card that he put on the flowers he had brought home the day before. And then he acted in the exact same way as he does on every other Saturday and Sunday, and made me breakfast to order.

He makes it so easy to be low maintenance.

*The Husband claims that he was awake the whole time I was in Jack’s room. Since I was actually dozing, I must have gotten more sleep than he did after all. But I did not know this at the time.

I know not these “early sixties sitcoms” of which you speak

On Monday, I was feeding Jack on the couch, watching some Gilmore Girls, and I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. I glanced over to the dining room, and what should I see but a mouse, casually walking along the baseboard behind the radiator, bold as brass. In the middle of the day! This mouse didn’t even have the common decency to be nocturnal.

I heroically refrained from screaming out loud into Jack’s ear. No, instead I just gasped and then got up to try to see where the mouse went so that I could catch it. Or, more accurately, try to catch it, but actually just to scream and flinch and let it get away.

Unfortunately, I lost a line of sight with the mouse for a second and it disappeared. Secretly relieved that I wouldn’t have to go through the charade of trying to catch it, I put Jack down in his crib and called The Husband in a panic. He did his best to reassure me and said he thought we had some mousetraps by the attic. We did not. So I was left wondering whether I should cancel my fun plans for the afternoon in order to buy mousetraps, or whether we would be OK without a mousetrap for a few hours. And that was when I saw the mouse again.

This time I did scream. And Jack cried. And the mouse ran. I screamed again and the mouse took up a position under the table by the window, and I began looking for a bucket or something to put over it and leave as a little present for The Husband. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “Oh, come on! Your big plan was to leave it trapped under a bucket for five hours until your husband got home?”

Well you know what I say to you? I say yes. Yes, that was my plan. Except you forgot about the part where I was also going to leave the house in the interim.

At any rate, by the time I got the bucket, the mouse was gone again. So I went to get Jack and try to soothe him, and of course I saw the mouse make a break for the linen closet and screamed into poor Jack’s ear and put him back down in the crib, scared to death that his mother had gone mad. And as much as I wanted to scoop up the baby and make a break for it, I couldn’t stomach the thought of that mouse having the run of the house, so I went to get the bucket again.

But then I looked at the bucket and realized that the likelihood of my actually trapping the mouse was next to nothing, what with the flinching and screaming and all, and I was suddenly struck with the memory of the time my father made me help him catch a bat.

I know what you’re thinking. You’ve just finished reading about how I completely fall to pieces when faced with a loose rodent, and you’re wondering why my dad thought I would be any help in catching a rodent that flies. I cannot answer that question. To this day, I wonder what my dad was thinking. Had he not met me before? My entire life I have been a pointer, as in, “There’s the bug! There it is! There! There!” I do not squish the bugs. Other people squish the bugs.

So when my dad handed me a tennis racket and told me to follow him to the room containing the bat, I can’t imagine what he thought I would do with it. It would appear that he thought I would use the tennis racket to hit the bat, but he must have known that I would be incapable of this. What I did do with the tennis racket was to use it as a shield for my head whenever the bat made any sort of motion that could be interpreted as possibly flying into my general vicinity. I may also have waved the tennis racket ineffectually at the air with my eyes closed a few times when the bat was safely across the room, but, trust me, I was no threat to that bat.

But what does this have to do with the vacuum and the mouse in my linen closet? Well, once my father managed to stun the bat with his own tennis racket he used the vacuum cleaner attachment to suck it up. I very distinctly remember the ssscchhhhhllloooommp sound as the bat disappeared into dusty oblivion. And what is a bat but a flying mouse? So I thought that, while there was no way I’d be able to stifle the flinching for long enough to trap the mouse under a bucket, I would be able to stick a vacuum cleaner attachment near it.

So I got the vacuum out, set up the attachments, plugged it in, and, with one finger on the “On” button, I opened the closet door.

No mouse. But I did find a giant hole in the wall.

I put in a call to the exterminator, and my neighbor, who was out in his backyard, kindly came over and set a trap for me in case the mouse came back while I was out. I figured the mouse was coming in through the giant hole, so a trap in the closet would be sure to catch him.

But that very night, while The Husband and I were watching Heroes, I heard a soft rustling sound behind the bookcase in the living room. THE LIVING ROOM. What kind of mouse walks around in the day and then hangs out in the living room? The food is in the kitchen! Fortunately, The Husband was home to catch the mouse this time, which he did by trapping it behind the other bookcase and then, on my suggestion, sucking it up with the vacuum cleaner. I heard the familiar ssscchhhhhlllooooommp that let me know the mouse was no longer a threat to me, and then I made him change the bag.

During this process, I stood on a chair.

Shut up.

Incidentally, you get extra super bonus points if you know how this post got its title.

Congratulations, Maggie and Phillip!

Even though Maggie didn't get her week off between work and the baby, we're all very happy to see Jackson!

Congratulations, Cheungs!

Tupperware

We have a cabinet for Tupperware and non-brand Tupperware in our kitchen. It is chock full of containers and lids of a wide variety of sizes and shapes. We have tiny 3-tablespoon size containers and large 2-gallon containers.

Unfortunately, the number, size and shape of the lids bears no relation whatsoever to the number, size and shape of the containers.

Cringeworthy: Part deux

When I wrote the original “Cringeworthy,” I had lost the scrap of paper containing my cringeworthy memories. But I knew, I just knew, there were three of them. And I finally remembered the third one.

***
While in college, I once attended a classical guitar recital with an acquaintance of mine. He had to go to it for his music appreciation class; I went for the joy of hearing the music. I had never been to a classical guitar recital before, and this one was not very well-attended. Still there were maybe forty people in the audience.

I enjoyed myself, and at the end of the first song I started to clap, but no one else was clapping. “Oh, it must only be the end of the first movement or something,” I thought, and hastily stopped my boorish clapping. I had been embarrassed in the past by clapping at the wrong moment during an orchestral concert, and didn’t want to repeat that error.

So each time the musician appeared to finish a piece, I readied myself for applause, but waited for someone more knowledgeable in the way of classical guitar music to start us off. No one did. “I guess you just don’t clap till the end at a classical guitar recital,” I thought, and joined in the smattering of applause when the guitarist finally finished his last piece.

But now, looking back on it, I realize that the poor guitarist was actually getting more and more upset as he finished each song and not a single person in the audience clapped. Not one clap. Nothing. Silence. I don’t know if everyone in the audience was also waiting for someone else to start it, but I do know that the guitarist had a very, very bad night.

I'm probably doomed if we have a second one

Jack and I were at my sister's house on Monday, visiting. When brother-in-law #4 came home from work, we were all hanging out in the living room, and Jack was sitting on my lap, quietly observing the scene.

"Mo, is he always that quiet?" Brother-in-law #4 asked me.

I should probably take a moment here to mention that Elfin Nephew, Big Sister and Brother-in-law #4's eldest child, was a "difficult" baby. Not colicky, exactly, but he was a crier. He cried a lot. He cried whenever things were not precisely as he wished them to be. Whereas Jack cries... pretty much never. OK, sure, yesterday he got his 6-month shots, and he cried during the actual poking, but I gave him a bink and he settled right down. He also cried for a second when I accidentally stuck my finger in his eye today, but only for a second. And he was tired at the time. He's the easiest baby I have ever met.

So getting back to the scene in progress, Brother-in-law #4 asked me if Jack is always so quiet.

"Well, yeah," I told him.

Brother-in-law #4 considered this. Then he said, "I think I'm upset about that."

Cringeworthy

There are a few – OK, many – events in my life that still make me cringe when I think of them. Here are two.

***

The first and only time I have ever played Laser Tag was with Professor Lapp during our sophomore year in college. She invited me to go with her and a bunch of her friends, and I thought it sounded like fun. It was fun, too. It was fun right up until the point where I accidentally slammed my laser gun into Professor Lapp’s face as she rounded a corner. She tried to tell me that it was O.K., and not to feel bad. But it was hard for her to get the words out through the blinding pain.

Do you remember that, Professor Lapp? I imagine you do, as you probably still have a scar.


***

This one time in college, my friend Leah Lar and I were wandering the dormitory halls when we heard someone strumming a guitar out on the balcony. So we wandered on out to the balcony and struck up a conversation with him. The topic eventually turned to theater.

“Whatever you do, don’t go to any plays put on by the University Circle Players,” I told him.

“Oh, yeah?” he said. “What makes you say that?”

“I went to see their version of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead last semester, and it was just about the worst thing I had ever seen. That is until I went to see them do Waiting for Godot. I didn’t know it was the University Circle Players until after it started, but damn! Trust me, you do not want to see a badly done Waiting for Godot. And boy howdy! Those University Circle Players couldn’t act their way out of a paper bag.”

At first thought the balcony guy was just chuckling at my clever witticisms, but then something struck me as off. He seemed to be just a wee bit too amused. “What is it?” I asked him.

“I’m a member of University Circle Players,” he said. “In fact, I founded them. I actually directed Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.”

“Oh. Uh… oh,” I said.

***

Grad Lab Adventures: Where are they now?

A couple of weekends ago, we had a blast from the past at the Grad Lab Household. Grouchy Guy came to brunch! He has completed his post doc in Switzerland and is now a professor at my undergrad alma mater. Incidentally, it is also his undergrad alma mater. By crazy coincidence, Grouchy Guy and I actually went to the same college and grad school, and ended up in the same lab in grad school. It's funny, because I don't think we exchanged more than three sentences in undergrad. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure those sentences were, "Hey, Grouchy Guy! I heard you are going to Ivy League Grad School." "Yeah." "So am I!" Grouchy Guy was kind of reserved in undergrad. I didn't even know he was grouchy. (For the record, he also sported a hilarious moustache while an undergrad. I have our class picture, and this moustache* caused The Doktah great merriment indeed.)

But that is not the point. The point is that I got to hang out with Grouchy Guy for the first time in about three years. Living abroad must have been good for him, because Grouchy Guy is not particularly grouchy anymore. We had a very nice time at brunch. The Husband made omelettes to order, and I made a cheesecake and sangria. Also in attendance was Grouchy Guy's German girlfriend, whom I had never met, and my friend from high school, Loud & Cheerful. At one point, I had to excuse myself to feed Jack, and through the closed door I overheard the following conversation:

L&C (speaking to German Girlfriend): So are you planning to move to the States?
German Girlfriend: [inaudible]
L&C: Oh? What kind of visa issues?
Grouchy Guy: [inaudible]
L&C: What? Oh, I didn't realize! Well that's great!

There is a reason I nicknamed her "Loud & Cheerful."

At any rate, I didn't really give the conversation much further thought until I was walking L&C to the front door. "Why did you tell me German Girlfriend is Grouchy Guy's girlfriend?" she asked me.

"Huh? What do you mean?" I replied.

"They're married!" she told me.

"What? Grouchy Guy is married? But he told me she was his girlfriend!" I exclaimed.

"Oh! No, they got married. I guess it must have been recently." said L&C.

When I returned to the dining room, I confronted Grouchy Guy with this news. "Why didn't you tell me you were married?" I asked him.

"Oh, right," he replied. "Uh, we got married on Monday."

I offered my congratulations of course, but that Grouchy Guy sure is inscrutable. Because if I got married suddenly, I would probably lead off with that news. Maybe in response to, "How've you been?"

So, congratulations Grouchy Guy Who Is No Longer Grouchy and German Girlfriend Who Is No Longer A Girlfriend. I guess we know why the grouchiness has faded away!

*Confidential to Grouchy Guy: It is only hilarious in retrospect. It was perfectly normal at the time.

Overheard at the Grad Lab household every single damn day it seems

But I JUST CUT your fingernails!

Double standards

I remember once seeing a newsmagazine show about how teachers favor boys over girls in school, usually without even realizing it. They filmed a fifth grade teacher for a few days and then showed her the tape. She was appalled to discover that she called on the boys far more often than the girls, and that, while she would usually give girls only cursory comments like, “Good work,” she tended to spend a few minutes helping boys with their work.

I also remember thinking, “That never happened to me.” Not once in my long academic career did I feel like the boys got more attention. I never even noticed favored male status during my many years as a engineering student. This could be because all of my teachers treated everyone equally, or it could be because I was a pushy student who asked millions of questions and constantly raised her hand. I pretty much demanded attention. I WON’T BE IGNORED.

So I never noticed a boy/girl double standard as a student, but as a mom? It’s hard to miss. Every Sunday, The Husband takes care of Jack during Mass while I sing with the choir. And because he usually sits in the same pew, he and Jack have developed a small fan club. On several occasions, some of Jack’s friends have told me what a fantastic job The Husband does with Jack every Sunday.

The Husband also told me about a recent errand he ran on his day with Jack. He had an appointment at the bank, so he popped Jack in the sling. A little girl in the bank spotted Jack and pointed him out to her mom. “Yes, dear,” said her mom, “that’s a baby! And that’s a great daddy!”

Now, I don’t mean to dismiss The Husband’s parenting skills in any way. He actually is a fantastic father. But do you think that if The Husband were in the choir and I were holding Jack during Mass that anyone would be particularly impressed?

The habit of sleep

The Husband and I have been spending the past few weeks or so worrying about how Jack sleeps. He is now five months old, well over twelve pounds, and supposedly ready to sleep through the night. And as far as going to bed is concerned, we have been doing our utmost to put him down awake pretty much since he was born because we are very paranoid about his getting “addicted” to being rocked to sleep. We have been regaled with horror story upon horror story of two-year-olds who will not go to sleep on their own, and we wanted to avoid that particular problem.

And it was working! With hard work and patience, we got him to fall asleep in the bassinet, and then in the crib. I instituted and then lengthened a solid bedtime routine, and he was going to bed four out of five nights with no drama whatsoever. (That’s a batting average of 0.800, and any baby or child who goes to bed with no drama 100% of the time has parents who lie.) Better yet, he was starting to sleep for longer and longer stretches at night and was typically waking up only once after I went to bed. The husband and I congratulated ourselves on our superior parenting prowess. We rocked.

I imagine you can see where this is going. All of a sudden, about a week ago, he stopped sleeping well. He wouldn’t go to bed unless I rocked him to sleep, and he started waking up three or four times a night once again. Worst of all, he stopped going back to sleep easily after nursing in the night, and instead kept me trapped in his room for upwards of an hour shhing and re-binking over and over. It was a very hard to resist picking him up, given that he’d fall asleep in about five minutes if I just rocked him. Usually, I’d give in anyway.

And then the naps! He had been napping like a champ for weeks – a story, a few songs, into bed awake, and boom. Five minutes later he’d be asleep. But all of a sudden he required the rocking chair or the sling to get to sleep during the day. What had happened? Where had our easy baby gone?

Needless to say, The Husband and I were concerned. Were we instilling horrible sleep habits? Were we dooming ourselves to a lifetime of middle-of-the-night feedings? Were we going to have to rock him to sleep until college?

But we could tell that something was going on in that little head of his. He was undergoing the four-month sleep regression, or teething or working on a developmental milestone of some kind, because the kid has been atypically cranky, clingy, and oh, so very tired. The other day, he took two ninety-minute naps and woke up after each one with bags under his eyes. So clearly, we were dealing with something unusual here. But we were still unsure of how much we should cater to his rocking habit. It’s not that we were actually worried we’d be rocking him to sleep at sixteen. It was not for his sake that we were worried. It was for ours. We were trying to avoid that two-year-old rocking addict horror story we had be warned about.

So last night, after rocking him to sleep at bedtime, I called my sister, Big Sister #1. “I need someone with kids to tell me to relax,” I said.

“Relax,” she told me. “Relax, relax, relax, relax.” And then she told me that of her three daughters, her youngest was the easiest to handle simply because she was too exhausted by that point to spend any energy wondering about things like sleep regressions. “If she was hungry, I fed her. If she was tired, I let her sleep. If she cried, I picked her up. I remember nothing about her babyhood; and believe me, if she had screamed for hours all the time I would remember.”

“I’m just worried that we are setting ourselves up for a horrible time later,” I said.

And then she said something that changed my and The Husband’s entire outlook. “Look, he’s either going to cry now or later. So why not just rock him now and worry about it later?”

My sister is clearly a genius. He’s teething or something now, so now is when he needs to be rocked and held. And even if we do decide to fight the inevitable and try to get him to sleep without rocking, that is no guarantee that he will not cry later as well. And since he only needs about five minutes of rocking to get to sleep now, and since I secretly love to rock him to sleep because few things thrill me more than watching him fall asleep in my arms, what the heck are we killing ourselves for? I can spend 45 painful minutes in his room hanging over his crib shhing and re-binking, or I can spend 10 lovely minutes singing and rocking in a comfy chair. So we’re rocking him for now.

You know what else Big Sister #1 said? She said “You probably will have to work at getting him to sleep at some point. You’ll get him into a routine, but then he’ll be sick and you’ll rock him, and then he will want that the next night too. Parenthood is a job, and even though sometimes the job description isn’t exactly what you want it to be, you still have to do it. So just relax and accept it.”

For the record, last night he slept from 8:30 to 5:00.

Life is good.

I thought this only happened with women's clothes

Two shirts. Both size 6-9 months. Both Carter's brand.

Dignity, thy name is not "Mother"

Last week, I took Jack to “Wiggle Words” at a local library, which is basically a sing-a-long session for kids from 0-23 months. My cousin has a son two months younger than Jack, and we took our babies in order to meet other moms in the area. We didn’t really expect the boys to get much out of the session, but Jack surprised me and spent the whole time with big wide eyes, thoroughly enraptured. And we also met some play group organizers, so success on both fronts!

After the class, my cousin and I went to get bagels from the Bruegger’s across the street. Because I had to nurse Jack, we chose a table in the back section of the restaurant where there were no people. I am still far from expert at nursing in public. I can’t figure out how to get him started while under the blanket because I need to see what’s going on. Add to this the fact that he pops off frequently for a little look-see and a chat, and I end up spending most of the time with the blanket hanging uselessly from my shoulder or, more likely, pooled on the floor.

So when Jack popped off for the tenth time that session, I gave up and stopped pretending that the blanket was in any way assisting me in keeping my modesty. “It’s a good thing this room is empty,” I said to my cousin, as I helped Jack re-latch. At that exact moment, two construction workers walked by our table on their way to the back door. Two male construction workers.

“Don’t worry about it,” one of them said to me. “Seen one, seen ‘em all.” And they went merrily on their way. (And no, they did not seem extra merry.)

Those of you without children probably think that I was terribly embarrassed by this incident, but the moms out there know that, oddly enough, I wasn’t. Something about giving birth strips a person of any normal sense of personal modesty and dignity. I am reminded of an anecdote Erma Bombeck once wrote about after she gave birth to her first child. She was worried about the way something looked, so she went out into the hall and opened up her shirt to the first official looking person she found. “Does this look normal to you?” she said.

Unfortunately, he was a janitor.

A few things I have learned as a mom:

1. Breastmilk poop and solid food poop are two entirely different beasts. An important difference: solid food poop is not announced by a loud "pbbbttthhh" sound, and instead appears as a little surprise upon opening up the diaper.

2. At no other time in my life will the frequency of another person's bowel movements be so hugely important to me. I certainly hope.

3. If there is a chance I will fall asleep while nursing, I must make sure to lean my head back.

4. It takes about an hour to regain normal motion in my neck after falling asleep with my head hanging down.

5. If there is a chance I will fall asleep while nursing, I must make sure my legs are not crossed.

6. My mothering instincts are sound and will make me protect the baby should I happen to fall right down on the floor thanks to a complete loss of blood flow to my left foot.

7. It really hurts when a small person grabs the loose skin on my neck and gives it a little tug and a squeeze.

8. I have loose skin on my neck.

9. Baby kisses are slobbery, but very fun.

To sleep, perchance to dream

I remember this one time back in college, my friends and I were waiting for an exam to start and were using the time to discuss our preparedness. One of my friends made the statement “I only studied for five hours,” and I was struck by the dramatic difference between college and high school. In high school, the phrase “I studied for five hours” would not be qualified by the word “only.” In high school that comment would sound more like, “Oh my God! I studied for, like, five hours!” And so it is for relative amounts of sleep before and after having a baby. Where the childless complain, “I only got six hours of sleep last night,” a new parent will cry out with joy, “I got six hours of sleep last night! In a row!”

Ah, yes. Last night, I got six hours of blessed, blessed sleep. In a row. I think I may have even entered REM cycle. And without leaks! We have been having issues with our diapers of late. We use cloth, and they all of a sudden started leaking like anything overnight. We figured out that they had some detergent residue which made them less absorbent, but last night we doubled up the regular pocket insert with a Trader Joe’s bar towel (credit: Moxie). He wore a single diaper from 7pm to 6am with no leaks. It was very very exciting.

Speaking of cloth diapers, let me take this opportunity to say that, although I am very happy with the cloth diapering system The Husband and I have developed, I am not very happy with the effect the cloth diapers have on my getting myself to work. You see, cloth diapers are much, much bulkier than disposables, and I can’t possibly fit all 8 diapers and the requisite changes of clothes into one diaper bag. So on the days I take Jack with me in the morning, I have to bring the following items:
1. my work bag
2. breast pump
3. diaper bag containing clothes, wipes, vitamins, bottles, etc.
4. diaper bag containing diapers
5. plastic bag containing the enormous amount of food I have to bring for my own lunch (my word, but I get hungry these days)
6. usually another plastic bag containing the clean Tupperware my mother-in-law sent home the previous week full of food
7. Jack

When all of these items are piled up for transport to my car, it looks like a family of four is going away for the weekend. And it’s even worse on the way home because the items somehow get spread out among more plastic bags that my father-in-law hustles to the car before I get a chance to consolidate them, and then there are additional items because The Husband and I find it difficult to leave my in-laws’ house without food and gifts. I realize this is not a terrible problem to have, but Lord a’mighty, I’m schlepping a lot of stuff around.

So now you can understand why I don’t bring a change of clothes for myself. I’ll just stick to black pants.

Also, don't pour acid directly into your eyes

I'm currently working on a presentation for my company's annual safety training. In every lab safety training I've ever undergone, the trainer or pamphlet always makes a point of saying, "No mouth pipetting." (For the non-sciencey out there, "mouth pipetting" is when you take a little glass or plastic tube, insert one end into a sample of, say, bacterial cell suspension, insert the other end into your mouth, and suck some of the bacterial cell suspension into the tube in order to transfer it to another container.)

And every time I come across that rule written out explicitly, I think to myself, "Who would do that?"

And Where "Drying Your Hair" Is the Stuff of Dreams

My cousin had a baby about two months after Jack was born, and I remember talking to her when Luke was a few weeks old. Naturally, our conversation was mainly about sleep: how much sleep was had, and when the sleep happened. This is because sleep quickly becomes the most precious thing in a new mom's life after the baby. It goes: Baby, Sleep, Food, Husband. (Note: for nursing moms, it goes: Baby, Sleep, Food, More Food, A Little More Food, Husband, Food.)

"Luke frequently takes long naps, but I never know which nap will be the long one," said my cousin. "So sometimes I sleep when he sleeps, but sometimes I use his naps to get things done. This morning, for example, I took a shower."

Ah, motherhood. Where "Taking a shower" qualifies as "Getting something done."

I have more to say on the subject of sleep, because my darling baby, who for the past month and a half has gone easily and happily to bed at 7:00 almost every night, has suddenly decided that our putting him to bed at 7:00 is the worst thing that we could ever do to him. Why don't we just abandon him on the side of the road already? IT'S THE SAME THING. We have been resorting to either my standing at the side of his crib with my hand on his chest until he falls asleep, or The Husband's bouncing him to sleep on the exercise ball. (It's a core workout at the same time!) I know that we are probably setting ourselves up for some nasty habit breaking down the road, but we can only take on one sleep thing at a time, and we are currently attempting to get him to at least take STEPS towards sleeping through the night. Progress is being made on that front, but it involves my sleeping on the floor of his room. And I have to be the one to do it, because The Husband remains resolute in his refusal to nurse the baby.

Men.

Stupid apple

Last week, Jack and I visited Big Sister #4. While we were there, Elfin Nephew had to do a time out because he refused to wash his hands after using the bathroom. Normally, his time outs have a time limit, but this time he had to sit on the step until he washed his hands. And because he can be a stubborn little bugger sometimes, he was there for quite a little while.

He passed the time first by trying on his mother's ankle boots, and then by playing with the apple his little sister had left on the floor by the stairs. She's one, and she prefers her apples peeled.

"Mom," came the plaintive cry from the step. "This apple is making my foot all yucky."

"Well, stop rolling it with your bare foot, then!"

This is not the number you are looking for

Ring. Ring.

"Target baby department, may I help you?"

"Yes, I'm trying to find a Fisher-Price high chair that the Fi-"

"Hold on, I'll check and see if we have one."

...

"Yes, we have a few in stock."

"But you left before I could tell you which model I was looking for."

"Oh, OK. Which model?"

"I'm looking for the 'Easy Clean' high chair. The Fisher-Price website says they make one of the patterns exclusively for Target, but I can't find it on the Target website."

"Do you have the model number?"

"Yes, it's 'J24-'"

"No, it should start with three numbers, like '002.'"

"I don't have a number like that. The model number starts with 'J.'"

"No, it should start with a '002.' It usually at the bottom of the item description on the website."

"But I said I can't find it on the Target website; I can only find it on the Fisher-Price website."

"Oh. Well, if you add it to your cart, the number I need should be right next to the description."

"No, you don't understand. I can't find it on the Target website. I only have the Fisher-Price model number, and I just wanted to know if you have it in the store even if it's not on the website."

"OK, I just need a '002' number to check the stock. Do you have a '002' number?"

"No, I don't have that number. You see, I'm just trying to find out if you have this specific model because the Fisher-Price website says that they make it exclusively for Target."

"Well I can check the stockroom if you give me the item number. It should start with a '002.'"

"But I don't have - OK. I guess you don't carry it. Thank you."

"Thanks for calling Target."

Ring. Ring.

"Fisher-Price, can I help you?"

Ahem.

Dear What Seems Like Every Driver In The World,

Please take the time to actually clean the snow off your car before you leave the house. (And by “house” I mean “place where you park your car.” I’m not asking you to clean the snow off without actually going outside. But if you know how to do that, email me.) Because although you can see if you clean only the windshield and the rear window, the snow and ice chunks hurtling off your roof at high speeds are sort of dangerous to the rest of us. And if I can not only clean my entire car but also shovel my whole driveway WITH AN INFANT STRAPPED TO MY BODY, you can certainly take an extra ten minutes in the morning yourselves.

Thank you.

Note: This entire entry was actually an excuse to brag about my amazingness at shoveling the driveway with the baby in the front carrier. Because that ain’t easy, folks. He’s HEAVY. But that doesn’t mean I'm not serious about clearing off your cars.

You know you’re a mom when…

…you are surprisingly unbothered by the fact that you are at work wearing clothes that are poop-stained^*. Hey, they’re black. No one can tell.

*Just so you don’t think I’m totally repulsive, I had no choice. I didn’t bring extra clothes for me to the grandparents’ house. This is because I am incapable of learning.

Puzzling

On Tuesdays, Jack and I usually go down to visit my parents because that is the day they have my 4 ½ year old nephew, The Charmer. Last week, my dad and The Charmer settled down after lunch to work on a puzzle. This particular puzzle was actually 26 mini puzzles, one for each letter of the alphabet. Each letter had a picture of something that started with that letter, and also contained the word itself printed at the bottom.

The Charmer soon lost interest in the puzzle and started wandering around the living room. My dad, however, kept plugging away at it, looking for the “ain” segment of the “train” mini puzzle. “Hey, The Charmer, stop stepping on the ones I finished,” my dad said to him. “Glorioski^*, this puzzle is really something else,” he said. He checked the puzzle box and exclaimed, “Ages three and up? I don’t understand why they would say this puzzle was for ages three and up!”

After a while, my mom came in and said, “The Charmer, are you ready for a snack, or are you still working on that puzzle?”

“Oh, he’s done with the puzzle,” I said. “Dad’s got something to prove, though.”

“I just can’t believe that they say this puzzle is for ages three and up!” my dad complained.

The funny thing was, just a few days before I had watched Elfin Nephew – admittedly with help from his mom – put together that very puzzle. Elfin Nephew is three. Of course, I am a very kind person, always considerate of others’ feelings, so I kept this information to myself.

No, of course I didn’t.

I told my father that Elfin Nephew did the puzzle, and my dad wasn’t about to be bested by a three year old, so he managed to finish it as well. Because the puzzle is for ages three “and up.”

*For those not related to my dad: He says “Glorioski.” Also “Whisht.”

Be prepared

The other night, we saw an ad for ABC’s presentation of Castaway. It was the scene where Tom Hanks manages to make fire for the first time. “I actually know how to start a fire without matches,” The Husband told me. “I’ve never had to do it, I just know how. It’s a really weird thing for me to know.”

“Weren’t you a boy scout?” I asked him.

“Yeah.”

“And isn’t that the sort of thing they teach boy scouts?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And did you learn how to do it in boy scouts?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“So it’s not really all that weird, then.”

“Shut up.”

Reason #912 The Husband and I will be an embarrassment to Jack and his potential siblings

On Sunday, The Husband made us pancakes for breakfast while I got dressed. When I emerged from the bathroom, he said, “I made church pancakes.”

“Oh?” I said. “Are they shaped like a church?”

“No.”

“Are they shaped like a cross?”

“No.”

“Are they shaped like the Holy Eucharist?”

“That’s just a circle,” he pointed out. “The traditional shape of pancakes.”

“Well, I know,” I said, “but I thought maybe you were just making a joke because it’s Sunday.” Then I sat down at the table and found amidst the standard circular – or Holy Eucharist shaped –pancakes, two pancakes formed into rings. Looking up, I saw The Husband grinning like an idiot and waiting expectantly. “Are they church pancakes because they’re holey?” I asked him.

“Yeah!” he shouted. And then he giggled for about five minutes.

Obligatory mushy post

Every time I go into your bedroom to pick you up after your nap, I sing the “Good Morning” song and you grin grin grin at me and kick your little feet with joy. And just when I think I love you as much as is humanly possible to love someone, I discover I now love you even more.

But that doesn’t mean I’m OK with the teething.

No, I will not read at your wedding

The summer after college graduation, two of my friends, J and B, got married. In fact, J is responsible for introducing me to The Husband. And I apologize for the lame-o pseudonyms, but I have had a long day of trying to get my teething baby to settle down and eat (Eat! Just eat! If you’re hungry, eat! Here it is! Stop turning your head to yell at me, and eat! STOP TURNING YOUR HEAD!), and I’m tired. J and B, if you’re reading this and can think of good pseudonyms for yourselves, I will accept suggestions.

J asked The Husband to be the man of honor, and she asked me to do a reading. Naturally, I was honored and agreed. So when the day before the wedding rolled around, The Husband and I were ready. The rehearsal went smoothly, and I did very well with my reading. I even heard J’s young cousin, the other reader, being reassured by her mother who said, “Well, she’s been to college, so she’s had a lot of practice. You did fine too.”

At the rehearsal dinner, we talked about the choice of readings. My reading was from 1 Corinthians, also known as “Love is patient, love is kind.” It’s a popular choice for weddings. “We just picked the readings out of the booklet they give you at the church,” J said. “I almost didn’t care as long as we didn’t use the ‘Wives, be submissive to your husbands’ reading.”

After the party broke up, we all headed home with an agreement to meet up at J’s house at 11:30 the next morning, an hour before the wedding was to start. Being the responsible friend that I am, I took my reading home with me so that I could practice it one more time before the wedding. I was very tired that night, but I made sure to set my alarm for 8:30, which would give me a good two hours to get ready before I had to leave.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I awoke the next morning to the sound of my mother calling, “Mo? Don’t you have to leave?” It was 12:00. I was supposed to be at the church in twenty minutes. The church which was forty-five minutes away. I was in bed, and I was supposed to be dressed and ready for a wedding in 30 minutes, 45 minutes away. It seems I had experienced an a.m./p.m. problem with my alarm clock, and The Husband had called my house when I was a half hour late, found out I was still in bed, and said, “Get her up!”

I gave a strangled cry and leapt out of bed. Through superhuman effort, I was in the car en route to the wedding ten minutes later. Unfortunately, despite J and B delaying the wedding as long as possible, I arrived at the church just after the readings finished. I got to see them exchange vows, but I missed everything else. Even more unfortunately, because I had the only copy of the reading they wanted, the priest picked the first one he came across as a replacement. Can you guess which one it was? Yes, it was, “Wives, be submissive to your husbands.”

Happily, J and B found it in their hearts to forgive me, probably due to a combination of freshly-wedded bliss and the sight of my tear-filled eyes as I apologized.

When my brother and sister-in-law asked me to do a reading at their wedding six years later, I of course agreed once again. I figured that I was safe because this time my family definitely knew what time the wedding started, and there was no way I could oversleep. Once again I took the copy of the reading home with me to practice after the rehearsal. Ever responsible, I looked it over in the living room one last time before we left, switched my belongings to my fancy purse and headed off to the church.

That’s right. I accidentally left the copy of the reading on the couch. “No problem,” I thought. “I’ll just ask the wedding coordinator for another copy.” Well guess what? Every single copy of the booklet of wedding-appropriate readings they had at the church had that page torn out. And do you think she could find a bible? You would think so, given that we were at a church, but she couldn’t find one anywhere. I think she ended up borrowing one from the rectory or something. Meanwhile, I was hanging around the back of the church until about one minute before the wedding, becoming increasingly panicked that I would be responsible for ruining a second wedding.

She found a bible just in the nick of time, and I’m pretty sure that Sister-In-Law never found out about this. Until now, because she reads this blog. Hi, Sister-In-Law! I almost ruined your wedding! Sorry!

But it’s not my fault. I am clearly cursed. So, no. No, I will not do a reading at your wedding.

Just so you know who’s really in charge

I thought some of you would be interested in a follow-up. Yes, Jack will take bottles from me and The Husband. No, he will not take bottles from his grampa. This is the second week in a row where I’ve had to go feed him because he was in hysterics. And, while I certainly don’t object to the excuse to go visit him twice during the workday, it would be a bit easier if I didn’t have to. When I got there today, I nursed him to take the edge off, then tried the bottle, thinking that maybe it was being in a different house that was the problem. Jack took the bottle from me, albeit a might grudgingly. So then, once he was almost done eating, I tried giving him to Grampa to finish off the bottle. Instant screams which stopped as soon as I took him back. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that Grampa was sticking him with pins instead of feeding him.

Apparently it is not the different house that bothers him. Apparently, in his world, Mom and Dad provide the food, and no one else.

So there.

But the orange “A” blends right in to the orange square!

Jack has a toy Noah’s Ark that has animals mounted on shapes which fit into slots in the top and which fall through into the ark when you pull a lever or twist a knob or some such manipulation. Whenever I put this ark away, I make sure all the animals are sitting in their proper holes and – this is the important part – facing forwards. Because that’s how they’re supposed to go. Forwards. If the cow-mounted-on-a-circle is not facing forwards when I first put it away, I will rotate the cow-mounted-on-a-circle until it is.

Yes, I realize I have a slight problem.

But I am not alone. Just last night Big Sister #4 was telling me about putting away her son’s foam puzzle thing that has alphabet cutouts. She and Elfin Nephew were picking up the puzzle squares and letters, and she found herself with an orange “A” in her right hand and an orange puzzle square with an “A” cutout in her left. All the other letters in that puzzle square were yellow, and she was faced with a choice of finding a yellow “A” or just putting the orange “A” into the orange square.

“Mom,” said Elfin Nephew, “that ‘A’ doesn’t go there. That’s the square for yellow letters.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Big Sister #4. “It fits, so let’s just put it in here and put the yellow ‘A’ somewhere else.”

That’s what she said, but only because she doesn’t want to be responsible for creating an OCD monster. In her head she was shouting, “I know! You’re totally right! We clearly need a yellow ‘A’!”

Uh...I think he did it on purpose

Last night we watched The Office. I wasn't paying close attention at the beginning, so I'm a bit unclear on why, but Michael Scott was organizing a bachelor and a bachelorette party in the office. He charged Jim with hiring the entertainment for the bachelorette party. Jim told the camera that Michael wanted him to hire someone from "Banana Slings," but instead he hired someone from "Historical Figures of Pennsylvania."

"How could anyone get those confused?" asked The Husband.

What? What's the big deal?

Starting next Thursday, I'm going back to work. It's only for two days a week, and the daycare situation worked out like a magical dream. Right after Jack was born, The Husband switched his work schedule to four ten-hour days, and Father-in-law said he could stay home from his job one day a week and look after Jack. This is something we couldn't have asked him to do, but we're thrilled he volunteered. You can't beat free day care from a person who already loves Jack to pieces. As an added bonus, the in-laws only live ten minutes from where I work, so I will be able to nurse Jack at lunchtime one of the two days I work.

Now, we had been planning all along that I would be going back to work part time. As such, we started Jack on bottles when he was a month old because we wanted to avoid the trap so many breastfed babies fall into of refusing to take a bottle. The Husband gave him one bottle a week while I was at choir practice. He experimented with different fancy (read: expensive) bottles and nipples before settling on a combination of Dr. Brown's and Breastflow bottles, and we went to the specialty baby store to stock up. We spent quite a bit of money and went home, comfortable in the thought that we were all set.

But then I didn't go to choir practice because The Husband had the flu. And then I had the flu. And then it was canceled. And canceled again. In short, Jack went without a bottle for four weeks. But we were all set! He had been taking them no problem! We were fine!

Can you read between the lines of my incredibly subtle foreshadowing? That's right! He stopped taking the bottle! Three weeks ago, we left him with Father-in-law for five hours as a sort of practice run, and when we got back we learned that he had not eaten anything the entire time. So he was fine for the first two hours, but the last three were pretty tough on both Father-in-law and Jack.

I panicked for awhile, because I did not know what I would do if he wouldn't take a bottle, but after talking it over with The Husband, we arrived at a solution. First, we'd keep trying to get him to take a bottle. But, if he refused, I would just explain to my boss that I might have to leave work several times a day to feed the baby, and The Husband would have to come stay at his parents' house on the day he was watching Jack. Fortunately, I am lucky to work for a very accommodating boss who went along with this plan. Unfortunately, this plan is sort of a huge pain for me and especially for The Husband who would have to join me on my hour-long commute on his day off.

But babies like to keep you on your toes. Last week I spent about five days trying to get Jack to drink juice from a bottle. (We're having some digestive issues which I will spare you, but don't yell at me; the juice was doctor-prescribed.) He would have none of it for four days, and then all of a sudden on Thursday he accepted the bottle like an old pro. He acted like he had been drinking from a bottle for his whole life and what on earth was I getting so excited about? Sheesh.

The last thing I want to point out is that, although we are thrilled to pieces that he is finally taking a bottle, we are ever so slightly frustrated that he will not drink from the fancy schmancy expensive Dr. Brown's or Breastflow bottles. No. He will only accept the cheap-o nipples that are available at any and every drug and grocery store.

Does anyone need some gently used fancy schmancy bottles?

I no longer care about my permanent record

One of the last classes I took in grad school was CAMB 600: Cell and Molecular Biology. It was pretty much a graduate level intro class to cell biology. This was of particular interest to me as the only biology class I took in undergrad was "Biology of Cancer and AIDS" which fulfilled the general education bio requirement without actually being a biology class. You see, my bachelor's degree is in chemical engineering, but it was traditional chemical engineering with no biology at all. I didn't figure out till my senior year that traditional chemical engineering is unbelievably boring. Given that, you might be surprised that my Ph.D. is also in chemical engineering, but I didn't really do chemical engineering research. My thesis was much more cell biology based. Hence, my interest in CAMB 600.

However, given that the only cell biology I knew by that point was what I had taught myself, I was at a slight disadvantage in a class full of BS's in biology. As such, I found the class to be a bit of a struggle and by mid semester I was facing the possibility of a C. This had me worried, because I thought that a class would not count towards my degree unless I got at least a B, and I didn't want to have to take any more classes.

I expressed my concern to The Doktah, and she said, "No, I think that we just have to pass all the classes and maintain an overall GPA of 3.0 or higher, so one C shouldn't keep you from graduating." This was excellent news, but I wanted to be sure and went to see the graduate advisor to double check.

"That's right," he said, "you just need an overall 3.0 or higher."

"That's great!" I said.

"But you don't want to get a C," he warned me.

"Why not?" I said. "What difference will it make?" This class was my last one, and I had already gotten mostly A's, so a C could not possibly lower my GPA to below a 3.0.

The advisor looked a little appalled at my cavalier attitude. "Well, it will not look good on your transcript," he replied.

"But who's going to see my transcript?" I asked. "Do employers want to look at your transcript?"

"Well, no," he said. "But you don't want to get a C!"

I realized the problem. I was talking to a young professor at a major research university, ergo, I was talking to an overachiever. Earning a B would have brought him shame; had he ever gotten a C he probably would have had to commit hara-kiri.

"OK," I said. "I won't get a C."

And I didn't.

Baby book what now?

I was in a Hallmark store yesterday and I saw a lot of baby books, baby calendars and other accoutrements for recording your child’s milestones. But I did not buy one. Not, as you might think, because I already have one; I do not. I did not buy one because I know that I would not use it. Not even the kind that’s just a calendar with helpful stickers describing things like “First tooth” and “Doctor visit.”

But I was thinking about it, and have come to the conclusion that it is not because I am an lazy, unsentimental person that I am not using a baby book. No, it is because I am thoughtful. You see, as the youngest of six kids, my own personal babyhood went largely unrecorded. There are about four pictures of me before the age of three. Big Sister #1, on the other hand, has approximately four thousand pictures, and that’s just of her first two months.

I certainly understand the reason for this. Frankly, it’s a miracle my mother survived at all with six kids running around, never mind having to stop to write down what day it was when kid #5 lost her first tooth. Nevertheless, I did feel a teensy bit left out when I was growing up.*

Thus, by not keeping a baby book for Jack, I am not just being lazy. No, I am taking into consideration the potentially sensitive feelings of my hypothetical future children for whom I will have no time to keep baby books. Yeah! That’s what I’m doing.

Not lazy and unsentimental. Thoughtful. Yeah.

*Confidential to my mom: Speaking of sensitive feelings, this entry should in no way make you feel the slightest bit guilty. You are the best mom ever and I would not change a single thing about my childhood. I could not have felt more loved and cherished growing up, so rest easy.

Exploit this

Because I never have any idea what time Jack will take a nap or for how long he will stay asleep, I decided to go back to my roots and start keeping track of what time he eats and sleeps during the day. (At night I am too tired to be bothered; I figure if he sleeps through the night I’ll probably remember.) Basically, I wanted to figure out if he had a nap pattern that I could exploit.

So for ten days, I diligently made a note every time he took a nap or had a meal. I even wrote down for how long he fussed before falling asleep. And then I put all the data into Excel and plotted it. Look, it’s just how I think, OK? I am a very visual learner, and I need to see a graph. (And I thought of a clever way to plot it, if I do say so myself.)

Here’s the plot:



For those of you who are not visual learners, let me briefly interpret the data for you. Do you see those data points on the “Sleeping” axis? Each color represents a different day, and a data point means that Jack was asleep at that time for that day. You may have noticed that there is pretty much a solid line of data points. This means that, for any given minute during the day, Jack has been asleep for at least one day between January 1 and January 10. Well, except for the five minute period highlighted by the yellow circle; he was awake every day during that time for the days represented. Of course, he was asleep at that time yesterday, but I have given up on writing down all the times because there is obviously no point.

So, basically, he has no schedule. He is so anti-schedule that I cannot even guess at how many naps he takes a day, never mind at what time or for how long he will sleep. Oh well, he’s still pretty young, so maybe he’ll settle down into a routine during the next month or two.

Delurk!

I found out yesterday from Arwen’s page that this is National Delurking Week. In celebration, Arwen wrote a post soliciting suggestions for baby carriers and cookie recipes. Me, I am merely asking you to delurk. But I will certainly accept suggestions for baby slings and cookie recipes. (In all honesty, I’m mostly interested in the cookie recipes.)

So, if you’re reading, drop me a comment!

In other news: The earth is round

I get an e-newsletter from Real Simple magazine. This month has an article entitled "13 Secrets of Thin People: How They Get There, How They Stay There."

You want to know the secrets? You'll never believe what they are. You see, thin people, really thin people, I'm talking about people who get thin and stay thin, do it by - get this - eating in moderation and being physically active. I know. Who would have thought it?

Not a morning person

When I am pulled suddenly from a deep sleep, I am not always thinking my best, most coherent thoughts. In fact, there is a story about my sleep-induced stupidity that is famous in the Grad Lab family which involves a window fan and a broken car horn. I may tell you about that some time, but today I’m writing about the most recent occurrence of my addled thought process.

Last night, Jack got up 150 times to eat. It is possible that I am exaggerating, but in any case, when he started whimpering at 5:30 this morning I was loathe to get out of bed for the 151st time. “But!” I thought to myself. “The Husband gets up at 6:00 anyway, so why don’t I just ask him to go feed Jack?”

I was seconds away from waking him up when I realized that, unless he had started lactating during the night, he wouldn’t be much help.

Moral: Never remodel

So I bet you all thought the Bathroom Remodel was done, right? Perhaps you thought The Husband, Jack and I have been basking in our glorious new bathroom and rearranged pantry, taking bubble baths and sipping champagne. Perhaps you are all idiots. Because of course the Bathroom Remodel is not done. Sure, it’s “done” according to my the-baby-is-coming-please-I-just-want-a-working- shower-and-washing-machine criteria. And sure, both the bathroom and the pantry are fully functional with running water, cabinets, and appliances. But the painting. Oh the painting. If hell is tailored to fit each person, my own personal hell will consist of me, a paintbrush, and acres and acres of walls and porch railings.

Today I put the first coat of paint on one of the pantry walls. Unfortunately, when I opened the container, I found not the warm sunny yellow that I thought I picked out, but a yellow reminiscent of a fluorescent highlighter. I painted the first wall anyway in the vain hope that it would dry darker. No such luck.

I tell you, if my mother and nieces did not read this blog, this post would pretty much be a string of profanities. (I can’t swear in front of my nieces because I have to set a good example, and I can’t swear in front of my mother because I have to pretend I don’t know those words.) (Words like “gosh” and “goldurn it,” Mom! Because those are the only swear words I know!) So now I have to reprime the wall that I painted highlighter yellow and then get a new gallon of paint.

Goldurn it all to heck.

We don’t expect to be offered a cooking show any time soon

The Husband went grocery shopping yesterday, and bought whole grain tortilla chips. We had them at dinner with salsa which led to a discussion of salt content, as the whole grain chips are much saltier than regular tortilla chips – probably because whole grain is less tasty than processed corn. We compared the milligrams of salt in the two types of chips, and then The Husband read the ingredients on the salsa jar.

“Oh, so that’s why my homemade salsa never tastes like store bought. I don’t put any salt in my salsa, and this jar has 125 mg of sodium per serving,” he said. Then he added, “I wonder how much salt is equivalent to 125 mg of sodium.”

“That’s right,” I said, “because salt weighs more than sodium.”

“But we could figure it out,” replied The Husband. “It’s a simple calculation, after all.”

I considered this. “Sure, but we’d have to get a scale because most recipes call for volumes of salt, and we don’t know how much a teaspoon of salt weighs.”

“True,” said The Husband. “And we couldn’t use the density to convert it because salt is crystalline, so a teaspoon wouldn’t be uniformly dense.”

“Good point,” I said. Then I paused, and added, “You realize I’m going to have to blog this conversation.”

“I understand,” said The Husband

Stretch marks are of the devil

When I found out I was pregnant, I bought some anti-stretch mark cream knowing full well that it wouldn’t work. But I diligently rubbed it on my belly every day in the vain hopes that maybe it might do a little bit of good.

Yeah. It didn’t.

I have so many stretch marks that, when two of my college friends (Leah Lar and Minneapolis-Friend-Who-Now-Lives-in-Pasadena- And-Shall-Henceforth-Be-Known-As-Professor-Lapp) came over for dinner on Tuesday and I showed them, they visibly recoiled in horror. I showed them because they were asking me questions about what life is like post-partum, and I may have inadvertently scared them away from ever having children. They both read my blog, however, so it may comfort them to know that my mother said I have more stretch marks than anyone she has ever seen, and she was an OB/GYN nurse. It may comfort them, but it doesn’t comfort me.

But to anyone who might think that stretch marks can be avoided if you only firm up your belly through exercise, I pose the following question: How, pray tell, was I supposed to firm up my belly button? Because last night I discovered that there are stretch marks inside my belly button. And, seeing as how my belly button has shrunk back down and returned to its former state as an innie, these stretch marks are all compacted down and therefore very dark, and now my belly button is a completely different color than the rest of my skin. Frankly, my belly button looks filthy.

But it’s not as though I’ll ever be wearing a bikini a short shirt ever ever again, so I guess it doesn’t matter. And, perhaps as karmic compensation, I am currently two months post-partum and wearing pre-pregnancy jeans despite my lack of a rigorous workout routine.

I am also wearing a long shirt.

You like me! Or at least you don't suddenly hate me!

I have a stat counter on my blog and because I am vain, I check my stats at least once a day. So imagine my horror when, last Thursday, my hit count suddenly dropped to zero. Zero! Now, it’s not like I normally get hundreds of page loads a day or anything, but I get more than zero!

I figured it was just that people were too busy doing Christmas things and tried not to let it bother me. But when I still had zero hits as of last night I was forced to email Maggie and ask her if her StatCounter was working and could she please go to my blog and let me know that she did so I could check my stats.

Well it turns out that last Thursday, when I updated my Blogger template, the StatCounter code got erased and I forgot to reinstall it.

Thank God.

Ten more minutes!

This morning, Jack started to fuss around 7:00. I knew he was probably hungry, but I wasn’t quite ready to get up, so I sat up and tried to stick the bink in his mouth. Unfortunately, he was having none of it, because he knows the difference between me and the bink. He’s no fool.

It was around the third attempt at getting him to take the bink that I realized what I was doing. Sadly, the bink does not function as a snooze alarm.

Way up north where the air gets cold

For me, the Christmas season doesn’t begin until I’ve listened to John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together. I never saw the TV special, but we had the record when I was growing up and all six of us kids loved it. We played it over and over all through the month of December. My favorite song by far was The Beach Boys’ “Little Saint Nick” as covered by The Electric Mayhem.

When I was in high school our record player broke and I was forced to buy a cassette tape. But my car is too new to have a tape deck, so last year when I saw the CD for only $8, I snagged it.

It took me a while to notice, but one day I realized that I did not remember hearing “Little Saint Nick.” “I must have just missed it,” I thought to myself, but then I checked the song list.

“What the hell?” I said aloud.

“What?” The Husband responded.

“‘Little Saint Nick’ isn’t on the CD!” I cried. “I don’t understand it! Why would they take that off? That was the best song!” Sadly, I had to finish out the Christmas season without ever hearing the best Christmas song ever.

And yesterday, as I listened to my amputated album in the car, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t heard “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with John Denver and Rowlf. I checked the album cover to make sure. “Well, dammit!” I shouted. And “When the River Meets the Sea” was gone too!

What had they done to my beloved John Denver and the Muppets? Why were they removing songs? And if they had to remove songs, why didn’t they take the annoying one about Alfie the Christmas Tree?

So when I found the “Collector’s Edition” of the album with “Extra Tracks” on Amazon, I bought it. Again. Hopefully, this is the last time I’ll have to buy this particular album.

“Extra” tracks my left foot. Hmph. If they were so “extra,” how come I already know all times that Animal shouts “RUN! RUN RUN REINDEER!”

Needlessly difficult

For the first three or so weeks of his life, Jack would tell me he was done eating by closing his mouth. It was all very clear and simple. He would shut his mouth tight and that’s how I knew he was done. But then, when he was around four weeks old, he decided that a better way to tell me he was full was to yell. Loudly. While appearing to be straining for the breast.

Needless to say, this caused me a teensy bit of confusion, as the way that he tells me he is hungry is by yelling loudly and straining for the breast. The only upside is that he sounds really really funny when his yells are muffled by a mouthful of breast.

What? How else am I supposed to make sure he’s not asking for more?

Christmas? Huh?

I do not feel particularly Christmas-y this year, because Christmas has totally snuck up on me. Perhaps because Advent is only three weeks long, thanks to Christmas falling on a Monday. But I think it's more likely because I am somewhat consumed with the care of a new baby. New babies are a lot of work. Who knew? And, thanks to the lots of new baby work, The Husband and I have not been able to decorate as usual. We didn't find the Advent wreath until the second Sunday of Advent for a start. And last week, although I planned to decorate the house during the day, I got sidelined by mountains of laundry and trying to clean up the general chaotic mess that is constantly overwhelming us. 'Cause of the new baby work. I suppose I could have done it had I stayed inside and done nothing else, but that would have resulted in my going completely mad. I therefore sacrificed the decorating at the expense of visiting people.

Thanks to the lovely, lovely internet, I did get all my shopping done. A few things I bought in person, but most of my purchases were online. I got the nativity set up about a week and a half ago, last week I put garland up on the front porch, and two nights ago we got the tree up. We fully intended to put out the rest of our decorations last night, but instead The Husband got the flu. His copious vomiting - and I'm talking COPIOUS; I think I saw an old boot - pretty much put the kibosh on our decorating plans, as I had to take care of him and the baby without his help because he is currently not allowed to touch the baby. So we have a nativity set, a tree, and red bows on the chandelier. That is it.

But hey, think of the time we'll save undecorating!

While we're on the subject

Now that I am watching Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes as an adult who is free from any embarrassing youthful crushes on Wil Wheaton, I can understand why it is that so many TNG fans hated Wesley. I used to kind of like Wesley, but actually he's incredibly annoying.

By the by, I am not admitting to a youthful crush on Wil Wheaton. I am just saying that right now, I do not have a crush on Wil Wheaton circa 1990^*. That's all I'm saying.

^*Or circa any other year, lest you misunderstand me. This is a Wil-Wheaton-Crush-Free household, thank you very much.

I'm a doctor, not a TV historian!

The Husband and I are currently watching Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 on DVD thanks to Big Sister #1 who loaned us the discs. But Dr. Crusher is mysteriously not on board the Enterprise. Wesley is there, but instead of Beverly the ship's doctor is some woman with short curly hair. The Husband, who claims to have seen every TNG episode when they were originally aired, has no idea where Dr. Crusher is.

Does anyone know?

Pressure equals force times area

MO: Don’t you just love holding him when he’s all snuggly like that?
THE HUSBAND: Yes, but I don’t love it when he punches me in the throat.
MO: Yeah, I don’t like that much either.

Priorities

The Doktah was feeling overwhelmed with her laundry list of tasks to complete. In addition to her regular experiments, she was also working on a paper submission, an abstract for a conference, and one of The P.I.’s grants. Since there was no way she could finish everything that week, she asked The P.I. which things had the most priority.

“Everything’s a priority,” he told her.

Ah. Thanks so much.

Thanksgiving traditions

Post inspired by Miss Doxie.

2002 (The first year Mo and The Husband had Thanksgiving together):
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Would you like some squash?
MO: Oh, no thanks. I don’t really like squash.
MOTHER-IN-LAW: How about you, The Husband?
THE HUSBAND: No, I actually hate squash.
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Oh! I had no idea!

2003:
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Squash, anyone? Mo?
MO: No thank you.
MOTHER-IN-LAW: The Husband?
THE HUSBAND: No, Mom. I hate squash.
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Oh, you do? I didn’t know that.

2004:
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Mo and The Husband, do you want any squash?
THE HUSBAND: No thanks, Mom. I don’t like squash.
MO: I don’t really like it either, actually.
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Oh, sorry! I didn’t realize.

2005:
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Here, Mo. Have some squash.
MO: Oh, uh, no thanks.
MOTHER-IN-LAW: No? OK, well pass it over to The Husband.
THE HUSBAND: Mom, we don’t like squash.We’ve never liked squash. We hate squash.
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Oh my goodness! Really?

2006:
(Mo returns from soothing the baby; The Husband goes to soothe in her place so she can actually eat dinner on Thanksgiving)
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Mo, do you want any squash?
MO: Oh, no thanks.
MOTHER-IN-LAW: Do you think The Husband will want any when he gets back to the table?
MO: (laughing) No. Because we hate squash.
MOTHER-IN-LAW: You do?
MO: Yes.

Note to self

I just finished addressing the Christmas cards which, naturally, are pictures of Jack in a Santa suit. I used a gold pen to write notes on the photos, and the pen leaked a little bit. This morning I noticed some gold stains on my laptop. The ink is a little bit rubbed off and there is no luster of gold, so I think I'm going to have to write myself a note explaining that the stains are not dried poop despite being pretty much the same color. Because at this point, I pretty much assume it's all poop.

Whom do you love?

I’m not a mushy person. Nevertheless, Jack’s drooly smiles have me pretty much wrapped around his little tiny pinky. And this morning, he started to cry when The Husband put him in his car seat as we were getting ready to go to church. He stopped crying as soon as I walked into the room, because, apparently, he missed his mom.

Discovering that my very presence was enough to make Jack feel better certainly pulled at my heartstrings, but, Jack, you had me at [gummy smile].

The Husband felt a little sad that Jack sort of likes me best right now, what with my spending every day with him and feeding him and all, but I reassured him that soon, Jack will be hero-worshipping his dad. How could he not? The Husband can do all kinds of things that I can’t do. He can manipulate sports equipment, for example. Me, I fall down a lot. The Husband can also build things out of wood. And Legos! To be fair, I can also build things out of Legos. It’s just that those things are basically stacks of Legos.

So, rest assured, the day is fast approaching when Jack will prefer his dad to me. Oh, sure, he’ll probably run to me first when he needs comforting, but the rest of the time he’ll rather be with his dad. Because, let’s face it, his dad is just plain more fun. His dad is the one, after all, who made Jack laugh for the very first time today.

Oh, yeah, we are whipped.

An ounce of prevention

This morning, The Husband asked me to please wake him up when I feed Jack from now on. This is because last night, for the second time, The Husband accused me of putting Jack back to sleep without feeding him. He woke up and saw me swaddling Jack up to get him ready to put to bed, and said, “Did you feed him?”

It had been over three hours since the last time I fed him and I get increasingly weary with each nighttime feeding, so there was more than a little testiness in my tone when I snapped, “Yes, The Husband, I fed him.” But who wouldn’t be at least marginally insulted by the implication that they are using the “starve the baby back to sleep” method of child rearing?

Thus, The Husband’s request that I wake him up whenever I feed Jack from now on. He is attempting to avoid a future incident wherein I completely lose my temper at being accused of starving my child. The Husband does not like it when I lose my temper. Because I so rarely get angry (Confidential to The Doktah: Shut it.), he once told me that being the recipient of my wrath is “like being savaged by a chipmunk.”

The good news is that I don’t have to shoot him death looks anymore.

This post has been brought to you by Emily, who is an Internet Rock Star and linked to me again! So I had to write something new for her legions of fans who are checking me out. Hi, Emily’s readers!