Pthfff.....

My husband played water polo in high school. Each year, the school puts on an alumni vs current student game and my husband played in it this weekend.

Hubby and I attended different high schools and graduated two years apart (let's pretend he graduated first - well.. ok... if you must know, I'm the cradle robber) so our circle of school friends rarely crosses. But as I stood on the sidelines, cheering at my drowning husband (turns out, he's far more out of shape than he thought), the father of a long-time friend came up to me.

"Hey you!" he said, "Long time no see. How long has it been? 10? 15 years? Is this your little guy?" he pointed at baby boy.

"Oh hi!! Yes, this is my son!" I said proudly.

We chatted about old memories and old friends when all of the sudden, baby boy opens his mouth as wide as he can and blows his version of a raspberry on my cheek.

Spit flys everywhere.

"Heh. Kids" I say embarrassed.

Baby boy, clearly sensing his duty to continue to embarrass his mother, bites onto my neck and starts growling.

My friend's father remained silent, staring intently at my rabid child.

"Hm. Well. I'm gonna... um... change his diaper. See you later" I say over my growling child who has now started to slip in barks.

So. Here's a lesson to all the folks out there who will one day have children. Don't blow raspberries on your child's stomach... and it's not a good idea to let him or her play with the dog either.

He will be fully capable of returning the favor at precisely 9 months old...

and he will want an audience.

Heavy...

Looking at us, you'd never guess my husband and my packing styles. While we both look relatively low maintenance, my husband is an extremely heavy packer... and I'm lucky if I pack more than 2 pairs of panties for a 2 week trip.

Before the birth of our bouncing baby boy, this wasn't a problem. I'd toss a pair of jeans and a t-shirt into a backpack and hubby would dump the contents of his closet and half the linen closet into his military sized duffle bag. He'd tote his bag, I'd tote mine.

Now?

"OK, I have the baby butt paste, the baby carrier, the baby bath soap, the baby bath sponge, the backup baby bath soap in case the other one leaks, the lullaby player, baby books, baby videos, the big stroller, the little stroller, the baby backpacker..." he says while checking off his list.

"You forgot the rectal thermometer" I said dryly.

"Oh yeah!" he said while running for the closet.

"I'm kidding"

"Oh" he says while scribbling it off his checklist.

"It's not like we are going to a third world country. If we forget something, we'll swing by Target and buy a new one. Relax."

"But we may not be close to a Target. No need to take unnecessary risks" he says.

As one of the most passive aggressive people you'll meet, I'm not a fan of confrontation so...

I waited until he fell asleep to remove 90% of the contents of the baby bag.

Amazingly, we survived just fine without that rectal thermometer.

Yes... he's brilliant

We've been enjoying Seattle, the sunshine bright and warming our skin each day. We wake up in the morning and walk to the local bakery, saying hello to the nice ladies behind the counter. A young couple stood in line behind us this morning with their 9 month old. Cash was smiling and laughing at everyone. Gleeful in a way I've never seen him before. He picked up his tiny hand and started to wave at the little boy. The parents saying, "Wow, he waves?!? He's so happy! What an amazing little boy! So bright! Our son isn't quite there yet." Did I say, "Oh no. This is the very first time he's ever waved"? Did I say, "He's usually a grumpy pants in the morning"? Nah. I smiled and pretended he's always like that. Great. I've turned ino the one of the mothers I hate.

Excuse me sir...

Cash has never been on a plane before so I was extremely nervous about our long flight north. We boarded the first leg of our flight and the flight attendant, seeing our small child, blocked off the rest of the row so we could have it to ourselves. Cash was mostly fuss free but he let out a few good wails from boredom toward the end. We got some dirty looks from the single passengers around us (karma for the dirty looks I shot to parents with young kids) but I smiled at them knowing one day, they'll likely be in my shoes. For the second leg, we were misinformed that the flight was completely booked and were not able to get a row to ourselves. More kids boarded, all at least a few years older. People would start to sit in our row, see the young baby, and move toward the back of the plane to take their chances with older, better behaved children. Something I have done many times myself. An older gentleman sat near us, looked at Cash, and said, "I've got six sons and three grandsons. Feel free to let him wail. Won't bother me a bit" as he wedged large earplugs into his ears and started to doze before the plane had even begun to taxi the runway. As soon as the plane wheels left the ground, Cash snuggled into my arms, and fell fast asleep. 10 minutes after takeoff, the 'safer bet' older children started screaming and running up and down the aisles. Fits were thrown, passengers mumbled. Cash continued to sleep. I wanted to shake the man next to us, "Excuse me sir? You can remove your earplugs. Since my son is being the world's perfect baby right now, I desperately need a witness." But he slept as deeply as Cash. The plane landed with a thud, the engines noisily revving, the man and Cash snored. We gently had to shake the man, he smiled, picked up his bag and de-boarded the plane. I panicked. "Um. Can someone PLEASE noticed I had a small baby and he was awesome?!?! Cause it's kinda a big deal!!!" But the only comments I heard were about the devil children at the back of the plane. Now I know how all the people feel who have seen Elvis since his 'death'. No one believes me and there are no witnesses.

A Trip to the E.R...

Baby boy sliced the skin off his hand over the weekend. After a valiant effort, we were unable to get the bleeding to stop and were forced to make a trip to the children's hospital emergency room.

While filling out the required paperwork, the nurse asked how the injury happened.

"With a putty knife but not on my watch!" I shouted.

The nurse stared at me.

"Well. I just don't want you to think I let my kid play with putty knives regularly. I'm not a bad mom. I love my baby. Heck, I won't let him play with anything that has hard edges..." I babbled.

"We understand that accidents happen" she said, clearly judging me for being a nut job.

She motioned me to the next window, where the receptionist handed me a double sided 8 point font form to sign. Now, if you know me, you know I refuse to sign anything I haven't read fully - drives hubby nuts. I'm reading this paper, not holding up the line by the way, and the receptionist states, "You can just sign it and I'll bring you a copy when he sees the doctor."

I stare at her, "Doesn't that defeat the purpose? If I sign it, I'm committed to it. For all I know, I could be agreeing to sell my kid's body parts... WHILE HE'S STILL USING THEM."

She said, "It doesn't say that."

I'll have you know, I did not bang my head against the counter - as much as I wanted to.

We finally get into the ER waiting area where we are surrounded by screaming kids. On our left, a 2 year old suffering from a horrible allergic reaction that was disfiguring her face. On our right, a crush fracture leg and an arm needing sutures. In front of us, a kid recovering from a Grand Mal seizure.

By the time the doctor got to us 2.5 hours later, she asked what was wrong. After all that time listening to the horrible calamities befalling those children, I felt like saying, "My kid has a boo boo" especially since he had fallen asleep.

I felt vindicated when she pulled off the gauze and he was still bleeding... a lot. I'm such a bad mother.

Because the skin was sliced off, she couldn't do stitches and put on a blood clotting material. What she failed to mention? The stuff BURNS.

How bad and for how long?

48 of the longest hours of my life.

Hubby and I rocked our screaming baby for hours and hours, his shaking from the pain bringing tears to my eyes. I was holding him with one hand, Googling 'how to make a bubble boy costume' with the other.

Baby boy is doing much better today but he'll be stuck with his 'oven mitt' of a hand for our trip to Seattle.

No Bueno.

Before you murder me… let me clean…

I’ve become a fan of the Investigation Discovery channel. The channel replays the 48 Hours programs and lots of quality shows like ‘Who the @#() did I marry’ (focusing mainly on the spouses of murderers). I don’t know why I’m so crazy about these crime shows. Heaven knows they scare me to bits when I’m home alone. Maybe in my past life I was a criminal investigator and I’m hailing to my God given call. Plus, somewhere deep down, I think they help me to avoid my own murder by making my psychotically lock my windows and never answer the door when strangers knock.

Which has turned out to be a real problem for Fed-Ex deliveries… but that’s another story.

Anyway, I always stare in shock at the crime scene photos. Investigators take pictures of the entire house, ie the crime scene, as evidence. Most of the time, the houses are relatively clean. Beds are made, no clothes on the floor, kitchens free of dishes.

I remember the day when my house used to look like this. I gleefully spent Saturdays brushing the grout in my floors with an old toothbrush, inhaling the beautiful smell of bleach. I’d blare the music while dancing with my Swiffer.

These days? I’m lucky if all the dirty diapers land INSIDE the trashcan. There are baby toys everywhere. The walls are cluttered with the baby swing, the baby high chair, the baby exersaucer, the baby runner, the baby stroller… my house has never felt so small… or dirty.

As I watch the murder mysteries, all I can think is, “Dear Lord. Please don’t let me get murdered at this moment in my life. I’d sure hate to have photos of my house blown up on someone’s 50” TV. They wouldn’t even care about my lifeless body, they’d simply be confused as to why there are hairballs on my floor when I don’t have a cat. So please God, not now.”

I imagine a murderer breaking into my home, shouting, "I'm here to murder you!" (OK, so I don't actually think he'd say that, but roll with me here)

I'd shout back, "Wait! Let me Swiffer first! Oh. Could you hold the baby for a sec? I've simply got to scrub the toilet. Sure, you can have a beer, but only if you take out the recycling."

Hubby would come in the door, tired from working two jobs, and say, "Oh no! My wife is dead... hmm... but the house smells just lovely. I think I'll enjoy this a bit before calling the cops."

Sigh. Please, please God. Now is NOT the time for me to die. I'd be too embarrassed.

Does This Pencil Have Spell Check?

My sweet niece mailed me a hand-written letter on Monday. It was carefully crafted on flowered stationary, her perfect handwriting showing the time she spent on it. Wanting to return the gesture, I decided to respond in kind. I shuffled through my house for stationary, finding none. I wanted to stay away from the computer since it lacked the personal touch she had extended to me, but I found myself searching online templates so I could at least have something other than a 8 ½ x 11 sheet of blank white paper to write on. I downloaded a flowered border, thankful it printed light lines for me to write on. I haven’t actually used a pen to write a letter in years, so I’m a bit out of practice at keeping straight lines.

I started writing the letter, trying to remember the format since I didn’t have Word to help me cheat. When I finally figured that out, I began to write… then quickly had to toss it out since mistakes in pen must be corrected with scribbles.

There were just too many scribbles to be considered respectable…especially coming from an ‘adult’.

So I started fresh… with a pencil.

I wrote away, talking about Cash, the dogs, etc. Pausing for a moment to review my work, I noticed there were some misspellings. I don’t think I even own a hard copy of the dictionary so I found myself typing certain difficult words in Word, letting it correct my atrocious (a word I CANNOT spell without help) spelling.

I then realized my young niece (turns out, a word I often misspell ‘neice’…and I can’t even spell ‘misspell’ without help) had likely written the letter without computer assistance…which only made me feel like a bigger idiot.

I looked at the letter and realized I had interchanged ‘their’ and ‘there’. Sigh. I’m lost without my green grammar squiggles (great, just discovered I can’t spell ‘grammar’ or ‘squiggles’ without help either).

Really, it was so nice to receive the letter, but…

I didn’t need it pointed out that I’m a buffoon without my computer holding my hand AND…

That my 10 year old niece is 100 times brighter than me.


*Note* Argh! And according to the green squiggles, it’s stationEry, not stationAry. Paper, not an exercise bicycle.