Samson: Month Eight

So many new things things month--I'm still reeling from the shock. I'll let Samson tell you all about it.

Today I am 8 months old. Still, my parents treat me like a baby. They're all, "Samson, don't climb up the bookshelves," and "Samson, that bowl of water is for doggies and kitties, not for babies." If the doggies and kitties want the water so bad, they can come get it. As far as I'm concerned, anything below 27 inches is fair game.



So, have you found out about shoes yet? Oh my god, they taste SO GOOD. Especially flip flops. Delicious. Oh, and stroller wheels. try licking them right after a walk through the park, it's truly a singular culinary experience. Mostly, I prefer to lick things. Although I did grow these two crazy teeth this month, and I find that they're especially good for biting thumbs, spoons, water glasses and what not. Also for biting the edges of my crib, restaurant tables, high chairs, and shopping carts. My Ima keeps trying to prevent this by covering these edges with blankets and things, but a few good old fashioned melt downs in Safeway should put an end to that.



Right after our trip to Portland early this month, I figured out how to move forward across the floor by using my hands and knees. Every time I did it, everybody would shout and cheer and freak out--weirdos. But it's really useful for getting around the new place, particularly on the hardwood floors. So now that I've dominated the horizontal frontier, I've started working on my vertical skills. Standing up in the crib is a breeze, plus it makes my voice carry much further when it's time for Ima to wake up and come play with me. I'm also doing pretty well with the various living room furniture. For Father's Day, I've been working on rearranging the books on the bottom bookshelf--it's a daily project. I haven't got them scattered on the floor quite right yet.

With all of this newfound mobility, there's really no time for naps. Too much to do and taste. Once, maybe twice a day I can take a little cat nap, but that's really about it. I can't afford to miss a moment of the day--there's so much to keep up with! I have to find out if that cat is still behind that couch, I have to give Ozzy's dog collar a few good tugs to make sure it's on correctly. Oh, and the wires--I have to locate and taste any wire that might still be accessible. I'm very, very busy.



When Aba gets home from work, the real fun begins. We dance, we roll around on the bed, we bounce. Really, they're so cute at this age, these Abas. He still needs me in the bath with him (I'm not sure he knows how to wrangle the rubber duckies quite yet--one of my proudest skills), but I don't mind. It's our Guy Time.



As you can tell, I've got a lot of things to attend to today. Being 8 months old is hard work. I think by next month I'll be driving the car and playing Old Gray Mare on my French horn. I'll probably also have finished my first screenplay by then.

So long,
Samson

Samson fans aren't like other fans

Just having one of those days where I absolutely love that baby. And I just can't get over how completely awesome he is. Now that we're full on crawling, pulling books off of the bookshelf (I know it's wrong, but for now it's just cute), flashing that toothy grin, I just spend my days melting and then melting some more. We had to lower his crib mattress as he began pulling up into a standing position on the railing the other day. I just can't believe he's...growing up.

Eat it, part deux

My dog Ozzy. My dog Ozzy is a lovable, emotionally damaged sad sack of dog. My dog Ozzy is usually well behaved, inasmuch as he doesn't normally go about jumping onto counter tops to steal food. He does lots of other undesirable things, and he'd do just about anything for food. Lately, there have been lots of mini bagels around, which weird in it's own right. It all started back at Samson's bris in November where the guests noshed on mini bagels and Max's mom's chopped chicken liver. But it was Ozzy who noshed on the mini bagels when nobody was looking. Every so often since then, there have been mini bagels around our house and my parents' house. For brunches. For no reason at all. Not something either of normally keep on hand, but there you go.

And it turns out they go really well with peanut butter.

So today when I bought the bag of mini bagels at Target, I could almost taste the peanut butter on the one I would have at my mid-morning snack tomorrow. It was going to be delicious, I tell you! But Ozzy put an end to all of that silly almost-tasting, when he ate the entire bag not more than an hour after I got home.

I feel sad and bageless now.

Eat It

I've got another head cold (Samson, too!), so at least I have an excuse to go so long between posts right now. That and the 100 + degree weather we've had for the last few days. Today it was back in the 70's, it's no wonder I'm sick.

Yeah, also, screw the no meat thing. Maybe just not as much meat. I won't eat the cute animals, only the animals that are jerks to their mothers and pick on the other animals at school.

Only if they invent animal-gluten-sugar-alchohol-caffeine-free bacon

A couple weeks ago, Max and I decided to stop eating meat for a little while. We are not, however, totally nuts, so we kept seafood on the menu. To go from being carnivorous monsters to all out vegetarian so quickly would surely shock our fragile systems, sending us into a deadly tailspin of tofu and brown rice.

A couple of weeks ago. Feels like a damn eternity. And when Max reads this post, he will become aware of the fact that there may have been just a *teensy* bit of cheating up in Portland, but he'll still love me. Because he knows how hard it's been for me to give up turkey sandwiches. Ahem.

It's actually been pretty great. Not great eating or tasting (although not horrible by any means), but great feeling. Like I can actually do something different and leave my comfort zone. But the reality is, I'm not leaving my comfort zone. I'm leaving my bacon-steak-turkey comfort zone and settling nicely into my pasta-cheese-pie-potato-chip comfort zone. And how, exactly, does that involve important things like "doing the right thing" or "being a better person" or "living more healthfully?" Granted, not eating animals (except fish, yes) is all of these things. In fact, this whole challenge started when we watched Babe recently (who knew bacon was so damn cute??). But It hasn't given me the sense of hope and accomplishment that I thought it would, the hope that I could loose some goddamn weight and that I could have more energy and that I could feel better about myself. It's hard to have hope for these things when dinner has 3 different types of (delicious) full fat cheeses in it and and a quarter cup of brown sugar. So I like my pasta sauce sweet, you wanna make something of it?

Then Dooce and Mighty Girl jumped on the Oprah train and I'll be darned if I'm not thinking about trying this 21 day cleanse thing, too. Minus the meditation and visualization. Cause that's not how I roll.

Of course, all of this comes up right when I'm getting ready to start giving meat to the baby. If I can't have turkey sandwiches or bacon, I'll make sure he gets all of the turkey sandwiches and bacon in the world.

Buddy, can you spare some time?

This is my favorite shot from the crafty Father's Day card that I made for Max. I'm amazed I even got this done--between trying to finish unpacking (HA), traveling, and taking care of business, I've had absolutely zero time for crafts, projects, or creativity in general. It's really killing me, because for the first time in ages, I'm feeling the need and desire to do all sorts of crap. Especially photography (which is always part of my nesting procedure and the way I get familiar with a new neighborhood). I even feel a bit like weaving again, which is good because I owe MLK a blanket.

Samson is a good napper, and he still tends to take 2-3 naps a day. Now if I can only learn to use that time to do stuff, and not sleep or get lost in a Law and Order marathon. Doink doink.

No, really, BITE ME

Tooth number 2 arrived while we were in Portland last week, just in time for Samson to nibble on Auntie Mir's fingers. Four days of sightseeing, dining out, shopping, and walking around the city's lovely parks. But most importantly, four days with LDB and her new baby girl, Samson was fascinated with the squirmy pink thing, almost as much as we was with chewing on the leg of the coffee table. It was a great week, and we can't wait to go back again soon.

Max is getting in some good Father's Day COD4 time, and Samson is napping...I'm not sure what to do with myself! I mean, of course I could unpack on of the last straggling boxes, or fold some laundry, or vacuum...or I could read some blogs and take a nap. Hmmm, wonder which option I'll choose.

Bite Me

The Tooth Fairy better start saving her quarters now, Samson's first tooth came in yesterday. There wasn't any warning really, not that I'm complaining. This kid is pure gold.

Samson: Month Seven

I think we've hit that point where things just get better and better. I didn't think anything could be better than last month with the whole sitting up thing and the decrease in crying levels. But month seven has brought many fun and exciting things. Highlights:

Solid food! This kid was born to eat. We started out with jars of food, but have since transitioned into the home made stuff--because, you know, I love my son. And when you love your kids, you make their food at home. And if you really love them, you chew it up and regurgitate it for them instead of using a blender.



Anyways.

Samson loves him the applesauce. Sweet potatoes and butternut squash are also on the favorites list, but there's nothing he doesn't like. It's kind of like feeding time at the penguin area of the aquarium; it's a big attraction whenever we have guests. We have many friends who have fed and changed Samson. That will come in handy at his wedding.

Speaking of food, Samson is now a self-feeder. He holds his own bottles, event he super hefty morning 8 ouncer. The only bottle left for poor old me to hold is the bedtime bottle which is administered in the rocking chair, as part of the bedtime routine. This is kind of freaking me out.



Push ups are now commonplace, and the backwards inchworm move appears every so often. Full blown mobility is imminent. We moved out of the two story place just in time.

The cutest thing for sure is reaching for Max or me. He's always loved to be held, and now he can demand it in a way that is not to be taken lightly. Who can say no to big blue eyes and tiny little arms outstretched? This kid is going to be able to get away with murder.



If you come to our new house, you're sure to hear the sounds of babbling. It sounds like this: ababababababababa. Of course he's talking about Max, who is known as Aba. The babbling is often combined with the grabbing of a toy and the flailing about of said toy. I can watch this forever.

Finally, FINALLY he's sleeping through the night again. No 3 or 4 am feedings, it's bedtime at 7 and up again at 6. AWESOME. Nothing could make me happier.

The end of month seven saw the demise of the diaper rash that started early in month six. Not huge news for most of you, but a cause for great joy in our home. It's hard to see a baby with an angry red behind. Normal baby butt is one of the sweetest, most kissable things in the world. Dry, red, chapped baby butt makes me want to cry. The winning combo was a daily bath with cornstarch, Desitin with each diaper change, and Huggies sensitive wipes, for those who are keeping track.




Month seven also brought the announcement of the first directly inspired by Samson pregnancy! Our good friends are expecting in November, and I award complete inspiration rights to Sam.

Auntie Mir made her first appearance in month seven--first of many. A trip to Portland is in the works for month eight.

Grass! We have a big backyard now, and nothing is as new and exciting as sitting in the grass and pulling grass and eating grass. Except for sitting in the sandbox. Which lasted all of 1.8 seconds as he grabbed his first fistful of sand and promptly put it in his mouth.



Our first non-grandparent baby sitter! Rosa came over and sat with Samson so max and I could go see Indiana Jones last weekend. I think Rosa had more fun than Max did (I liked the movie, dammit).

Oh, and this is awesome: I clipped ALL TEN fingernails without clipping ANY fingertips! Obviously, I rock. It only took me seven months to get to this point. No autographs, please.

I'm feeling all around more competent as a parent this month. I seem to have found a pretty decent balance between not sweating the small stuff and doing what I can to raise a happy and healthy person. As anyone with a kid knows, the challenges are HUGE, to your sanity, your patience, your time management skills, your sense of self, your relationship. And the rewards make it completely worth it. Every day, things change just enough to keep me on my toes. One morning, he'll decide not to nap. Or he'll totally loose it at Target. Or he'll sit quietly on his play mat and entertain himself for over an hour. It's always something different, and lots of things just make me smile, and lots of things make me lock myself in the bathroom and cry. But everything makes me feel like we're getting somewhere, like we're accomplishing the stuff we're supposed to be accomplishing.



Onward and upward!

We'll Make It, I Swear

Just finished watching VH1's Greatest Hits of the Eighties. That was SO different from Greatest Hits of the Nineties.

(spoiler alert)

The top three actually kind of blew my mind. I can't say that I disagree necessarily, But my neck is a little sore form all those double takes.

3. Duran Duran, Hungry Like the Wolf
2. Def Leppard, Pour Some Sugar On Me
1. Bon Jovi, Livin' On A Prayer

Um, OK, VH1. Whatever you say.

A little bit of blog

Call it a creativity block. Call it post-moving mayhem. Call it napping whenever possible. Call it whatever you want, but the blog is just not happening lately. There are always colors, images, ideas dancing around my brain, but sometimes it's just so hard to let them out. Sigh.

I'm saving any bit of blogginess for the month seven Samson update next week.

We're going to have install a back-up camera in his rear end

Samson decided that it is now time to become mobile. Slowly at first, but the beginning of the end is definitely here. Luckily, he's only moving backwards, and very slowly, so it's not like he'll see a thing he wants and motor towards it. It's more like he's doing the worm, and then all of a sudden he's under the dining room table. I'm so proud.

The hammock arrived the other day. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Life, she is good.

I continue to love the heck out of this house, and to marvel at how much better it is to live in a non-rental. Improvements were made because they MAKE SENSE and MAKE LIFE EASIER and not because they increase the rental value. And let me say this: electric can opener. I have found my new religion. And that religion involves opening cans, electrically.

Up to my ears in boxes

The move went great, we're settling nicely into our new home--which I love. Blogging has been pushed aside by unpacking and by exploring the neighborhood, but I do have a couple of fun moving anecdotes that I'll post eventually. And pictures! Cats in boxes! Babies in boxes! Everyone in a box!

Don't forget to wrap my collection of tiny monuments in bubble wrap, guys

I feel like such an ass. For the last three hours, three nice Irish guys have been packing up my house. In the 95 degree heat. And what have I been doing? First I hastily threw all of the dry food left in our kitchen and garage into a box (we have Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger Mac! Two boxes! Who knew!). When that five minutes was up, I brought a patio chair into the garage and sat there as I caught up on the last 5 months of Overheard in New York. Then I fell asleep. Then I woke myself up by soring, you know, like when you fall asleep on airplane and your head dangles back? Like that. Then I sat in my car with the AC on full blast and charged my cell phone. Then I darted back inside and grabbed my laptop, and now I'm sitting in the garage again. Except one of the movers is five feet behind me, packing up my VERY IMPORTANT THINGS like a dozen kongs and 10 years worth of T-shirts. Because someday, I am going to make that T-shirt quilt.

The eff??

Thanks, Sancho. I think.

A little more back

Argh, so I'm over my cold and back into the swing of things. Except that the swing of things includes sitting on the floor with my 6 month old son and playing with puppets and blocks and dolls and balls and napkins and empty boxes and ANYTHING ELSE WITHIN REACH THAT WILL MAKE HIM HAPPY. Unfortunately, the swing of things does not include folding laundry, doing dishes or taking out the garbage. My poor, poor husband.

We are moving this weekend, because, you know, that's what we do every 10 to 12 months is we move. For a year, we acquire more and more things and then we decide it would be fun to pack it all into a moving van and take it somewhere else for a year. Except that when we moved back from Ireland, SOMEBODY ELSE packed all of our stuff and moved it for us. Oh, happy day when you pay someone else to do the crap work for you!

This year, we are hiring a company to pack and move for us again so that I can sit on the floor and make silly voices and play with toys while someone else does the non-baby related stuff. I'm so attentive to my son and there to respond to his every need. So it makes perfect sense that I put him down for a nap so I could call moving companies this morning to find out how many weeks my husband would have to work to pay for this move. Samson cried, and I let him cry it out. Of course he eventually fell asleep and I made all of the necessary arrangements--movers, cleaners, carpet cleaners, etc. When the baby woke up 45 minutes later and I went upstairs to fetch him, I dutifully changed his diaper. And I found SO. MUCH. POOP. Poop that had, for 45 minutes, been squished and sloshed around in his diaper, so much so that I was cleaning poop OFF OF HIS BACK AND ELBOWS. Like I said, back in the swing of things.

Still here, sort of

I've been sick. Fuzzy headed, mucasy, head as big as a Costco sick. Feeling better today, but still very yuck. So that's where I've been. In bed.

Solid foods! Samson loves him some oatmeal and some squash! Next is carrots, then some kind of fruit. Every day is a celebration in this house.

Samson: Month Six

Five plus one equals THE MOST KICK ASS of all months thus far. Month six is officially my all-time favorite thing, beating out long weekends and bacon.

Where to begin. So much terrific stuff happened this month, I don't even know where to start! Fortunately, everyone loves a good top 5 list.

1. Samson stopped crying during every baby boot camp class. Up until this month, baby boot camp was great for me, physically and mentally, but not so great for Samson. He pretty much fussed, cried and screamed the whole time, and my saint of an instructor would take pity on all of us and pick him up and console him. It wasn't that I was ignoring him, but I was mostly just zoning out and trying to pretend that he was going to stop any moment now. It was pretty much the longest 75 minutes ever, three times a week.



This month, I tried letting him sit in the stroller, sitting up and facing forward, and not in the car seat. Last time I tried this, he screamed as if the seat was made out of shards of glass. But this time, he was quiet and content, even a little bit happy! Throughout the whole class! And has been for four consecutive classes! Score!

2. Sitting up on his own. Oh my lord, this is the most awesome thing ever. Still not mobile, so I don't have to baby-proof my gun cabinet and vodka collection just yet, but a nice little pile of baby, sitting there and grabbing things and putting them in his mouth. And smiling! Clearly, spending six months laying on your back has got to be annoying, and there's nothing better then eye-level cats.



3. Flying to the Midwest. I love to travel as it is--including going to the airport, going through security, all that stuff. It's like a game to me, and I love anything that involves fitting all of your stuff into arbitrarily sized plastic bags. Yes, I know this is weird. So going through the already problem-solvingly fun task of flying with a baby was like extra double bonus fun for me. As it turns out, the baby crying in public is like the absolute worst thing for me, ever. Period. So traveling with a 5 month old became an additional game of do WHATEVER IT TAKES to keep the baby happy and quiet in the airport, on the plane, etc. I think we did pretty well.



Of course, visiting friends and family was awesome as well. I do love to show off this adorable little baby.

4. More food and prune juice. It turned out that Samson had lost a few ounces, and that's just not right. So the doctor had us increase his formula in both quantity and frequency. Plus, we added an ounce of prune juice to his morning bottle. That, my friends, is the recipe for a happy baby. Need I say more?



5. Spending two weeks with Israel Safta. Max's mom came out for her annual Passover visit, so Samson's grandparent quotient increased by 30%. Plus, this particular safta likes to wear big, beautiful beads around her neck and wrists, which is a really effective way to make instant friends with a 5 month old. I predict a long and sparkly relationship.



Other highlights included:

Meeting Auntie Mir! Yay!
Cold number two! Boo!
Finding new and exciting things to put in our mouths! Yay!
Starting to babble! Yay!
Mastering the back-to-front roll and getting very good at the front-to-back roll as well! Yay!
Going to the sushi boat restaurant! Perfect for a grabby baby! Yay!
Learning to ride in the baby swing! Yay!
First time sitting in the shopping cart! Yay!



Let it be known that month six is the best month EVER.

Hello, I Love You

The fancy first picture with my fancy new camera:



I. Love. This. Camera.



Obviously the Sharks pajamas worked, as my stinky team actually won last night.

DSRL-licious

Yum. Playing with the new camera while Samson naps upstairs, the wind is doing a number on the trees outside my window, and Nanna's snoring threatens to wake the two other animals sharing the sofa with her. Game 3 starts in an hour, and I just found a bar of chocolate in the fridge.

Best. Tuesday. Ever.

MLK Day is now in April

Happy birthday, my new little friend! Welcome to life. Don't worry, you ended up with two very cool parents--they have four cats between them. And Portland will be an awesome place to grow up. It'll still be a few months before you have to really learn about this thing we call horrible crap ass Pacific Northwest weather. And as soon as you're old enough to cut your mommy a little bit of slack, Samson and I will be up there to say howdy, and take lots of pictures of your sweet golden locks.

DSLR-adical

Our recent decision not to buy a house has left us feeling a bit more financially free and unfettered than we usually feel. Combine that with the new and exciting holiday of "Mother's Day" and you've got a recipe for a fancy new camera. I miss the good old days of film cameras, and that summer semester that I took photography back in college was one of my favorite for sure. I think that sense of nostalgia mildly influenced my decision to go with the Nikkon D40 over the Sony A300. Even though the Sony lets you shoot without holding the camera up to your face, I just don't think that's a feature I care too much about.

In awful timing news, my iPhone decided to break yesterday, just hours after Dedi sent me the text that she was at the hospital awaitng the epidural. There must be a new little baby up in Portland by now, and there's probably a wonderful voice mail with the details as soon as I get my damn phone fixed. Damn it.

Pics from the Sea Ranch

Happy Passover, and please pass the matza. We all had a great weekend at the Sea Ranch. Tennis balls were chased, deer were growled at, matza was gummed until it became a lumpy paste-like substance that I wiped on my pants. And Samson started to sit up! On his own! For extended periods of time! I'm still kind of shocked!

More pics are on Picasa Web.

Now it's all about counting the minutes until Auntie Mir gets into town tonight. I thinks it's around 540 minutes.

Back to Basics

We're off to the Sea Ranch for the weekend to spend Passover with our families. Samson gets all the benefits of being the first grandchild (even though his paternal cousin is 5 weeks older) and is sure to spend the whole weekend being whisked from lap to lap, being taken for walks, cuddled up nice and good, and shown more patience than he deserves. He's actually been awesome to be around this week, ever since I upped his calories per the doctor's recommendation and started giving him an ounce of prune juice a day. All it took was more food and a daily poop. See, he really IS just like us!

He's Defying Gravity

Funny thing, he really enjoyed the show tunes, but wasn't too interested in Bon Jovi.



So no house for us. This is OK, we are far too free spirited to commit ourselves physically to San Francisco or the Bay Area. We are a butterfly, free to flutter around wherever our whim takes us. And the best part is, I get my Sundays back.

MIA

I've been a little overwhelmed this week, and I'm having a hard time blogging. Chances are that this will continue for the next little while. Basically, we're having a hard time making a decision about the house, whether or not we want to spend the money it will take to make the house our home. This is a ludicrously difficult decision.

Samson is doing very well these days, except for the return of the constipation issue. He's generally happy, getting more and more active--lots of rolling over from both tummy and back, and climbing all over mommy's lap and legs. So all is good, the weather is amazing, my mother-in-law is in town for a visit, and we're off to the Sea ranch for Passover on Friday.

If anything happens or I get over my general sense of deer in headlight-ness, I'll post some more. But I probably won't be around much this week.

The Friendly Skies

We're back from our long weekend. All of my airport security anxiety, seating assignment anxiety, screaming baby on the airplane anxiety a distant memory. We had terrific visits with my Illinois family and our Minneapolis friends, and we're glad to be back so we can transition smoothly into escrow anxiety, loan anxiety, and home inspection anxiety.

Unseasonably high temperatures in Chicago meant a nice afternoon trip to the park with my many little cousins, and included Samson's fist ride in a baby swing. Which. He. Loved. Yes, video will be posted soon enough. Unseasonably low temperatures in Minneapolis meant Samson's first glimpse of snow through the living room window, and it also meant that we spent the afternoon at the Mall of America instead of walking around one of the lakes because it was too damn cold for any outdoor shenanigans.



Samson did very well on all three planes, making friends and influencing people wherever he went. I won't say I'm in any sort of rush to fly with him again, but I'm much less scared of flying to Israel now. It may not be fun, but it certainly isn't as bad as it could be. It helps to be organized, prepared, and extremely flexible. Also prozac is helpful.

For reals this time

All right. We're in escrow, the loan is locked in and ready to go, I've signed my name about a billion times and initialed ten billion more times. The inspectors are scheduled for next Thursday. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Twelve hours from now, Samson will be on his first airplane trip, quietly playing with one of the forty eight toys that I've packed for him and razzing our neighbors. Mark my words.

Have a great weekend, everybody! Up, up and away!

Back on the roller coaster

OK, now is the time to buy stock in Prozac and any of your more popular mood-stabilizing drugs. And chocolate.

We seem to have bought our first home today. We passed the first hurdle anyway, which was getting our offer accepted by the sellers and signed. That took about a week and a half. The next hurdle will be to finalize our loan, and then to meet with inspectors and make sure the house isn't actually a cardboard cut-out of a house with flowers drawn on the front in crayon. Because it totally could be.

Aaaaaand in the middle of all of this we leave for Chicago and Minneapolis on Friday. First trip with the baby, and at this point I'm dreaming about quart-sized zip lock bags filled with baby Tylenol and Desitin.

Oh, speaking of baby, guess who learned how to razz today? And guess who looooves to razz? At his mom, at his dad, at the dogs...

Samson: Month Five

Dear Month Five,

I can't believe I'm actually doing this--I've never written a love letter before. OK, I've never sent a love letter that I've written before, but Scott Baio knew how I felt. He didn't need to read the letter.


I've never met a month like you before. You're different from all the other months. You don't contain nearly as much crying or constipation as month four did, and you've got more smiling than all the other months combined. Add that to all of the toy grabbing and rolling over and you just might be the best month ever.



I know you're not perfect. You've contained some episodes of extreme neediness and general disdain for Baby Boot Camp. And I'm not a big fan of this whole waking up every night at 4 am to eat thing that's been going on for the past two weeks, but I understand. We'll work on it together, maybe we'll even ask month six to help us out with this one.



I've got to hand it to you, month five, you really employed some slick new strategies this month. Every time I started to get antsy with some of your less desirable qualities, you took the perfectly mundane bits of everyday life and shone a new, softer and more perfect light on them. Like those morning smiles from the baby when I go to get him out of his crib...I just melt every time. And you've really provided a great backdrop for physical development as well--obviously, the rolling over is a huge milestone, and you played a tremendous role in that achievement. But you've also been involved in this fascinating almost-sitting-up that been going on for the last week or so...it's no wonder the baby gets so hungry in the middle of the night.



It's been great having you around, month five. I've completely and utterly fallen in love with you. Your playdates in the park, your excessive use of the jumperoo, your day trips to the city and meals with friends. Sure, you're not as flashy as month one. You're not full of airplane trips or visits from Israel Safta like month six. But you've been the kind of month a girl could really fall for. I'll never forget you.

Love,
Deborah

Oh, Come On

After our last potential house buying experience--which ended up with us not buying a house and what I consider to be more than my fair share of tension and anxiety--we're going to take a little break from house hunting. Just a few weeks, then we'll get right back out there and have our hopes and dreams dashed to pieces weekly, again.

One week until we leave for Chicago and Minneapolis! One week until Samson's first airplane trip! One week to figure out how the hell I'm actually going to get through this! More anxiety! Yay! Exclamation points!

Tonight, the Sharks could clinch the Pacific Division title. All we have to do is beat the defending Stanley Cup champions. Hey, no problem! Historically, the Sharks do really well against Anaheim when I have sushi for dinner. Happy to oblige.

Purrrrrrr

Nap Time

Yaaaay! I mean, booo! No wait, I mean, yaaaay!

We are constantly living the roller coaster ride that is real estate. Home buying-induced heart attacks and ulcers have to be somewhere in the top 5 list of causes of dementia. Or something.

We put an offer in on a cute little corner house in Bernal Heights yesterday, and we're still waiting to hear from the seller whether or not they are accepting our offer. So we get approximately 48 hours to get very excited, then terrified, then hopeful, then worried, then hungry, then nervous, then motivated, then sleepy, and repeat. Fun!

No more rolling over since Thursday, and that's fine by me. The sooner the baby can move around, the sooner he can run from me when I try to dress him in sailor suits.

Screw you, back! It's tummy time!

Momentous occasion! Life as we know it is over!

He mastered step one a few weeks ago...



...and he can now officially roll from his back (boring!) to his tummy (exciting!).



Which is awesome. I wonder how long until he remembers that he hates being on his tummy?

What a difference a night makes

So never mind about that whole house thing. It's going to cost way too much for us to fix that house up, and we are not house fixing up type people. Too much, too much. It's not for us. Some other handy couple with nothing but time can have it, and they can turn it into the 3 bedroom 2 bath with a hammock that it deserves to be. As for us, we'll take a little break then dive back into the choppy churning sea that is house hunting, blindfolded and with cement blocks tied to our feet.

Make a house a home

For the second week in a row, we found a place during our weekly Sunday house hunting appointment with our realtor that we were nearly able to squeeze into our very narrow and potentially unreasonable idea of what a house should be, where it should be located, and how much it should cost. On both occasions, we put offers in on Sunday evening, received counter offers on Monday, and lost out to higher offers on Tuesday. That's a lot of stress and anxiety to experience in less than 48 hours. Especially for someone as emotionally attached to houses as I am. None of these houses were love at first sight, and they're all far from perfect, so it already took some emotional convincing on my part to even out the offer in. And even though we're slowly establishing reputation as The Lowball Couple in San Francisco real estate and the chances that our offers will even be countered let alone accepted is like one in a million, I'm very good at playing out the whole process in my mind: the offer acceptance, getting the keys, moving in and sprucing up various kitchens, yards or bathrooms, and of course having 5 or 6 more little babies to run around the place while bake cookies and Max smokes a pipe and reads the Evening Post. So by the time we receive the seller's outrageously priced counter offers, I've already watched Samson put his first lost tooth under his pillow in the kid's room (all 7 or 8 kids will have to share a room because we can't afford anything over 2 bedrooms). It's devastating, repeatedly devastating.

So this week, one of our Sunday offers was accepted. Whaaa? The offer we put on an old, poorly maintained little house in Bernal Heights was accepted, and we are officially in escrow. I repeat, whaaa? This all happened very quickly, and it's totally blowing my mind. Unfortunately, being in escrow isn't nearly as fun as it sounds, and we have to get all kinds of inspections done now so that we don't accidentally buy a house that's falling apart or was built on some sort of Vampire infested landfill. As good as I am at playing make believe about the future of our new home in the 24-ish hours between making an offer and not being able to match the higher offer waiting right behind us, I am surprisingly bad at trusting that this particular house will pass inspection and that we'll actually be handing anyone a check on Friday

I foresee many more Sundays with our realtor as she drives around the city in her monstrous Acura SUV, blocking driveways as she ushers us into our fifth open house of the day, explaining once again how certain parts of Western Addition really aren't that bad, and mispronouncing Junipero Serra. And we'll make more offers. And we lose out to higher offers. And eventually, the right combination of house and offer will come together. Has that happened this week? I doubt it. But you never can tell.

So apparently I gave birth to a crab

Samson's newest extra super fantastic fun thing to do? Pinch mommy! Not like how an evil toddler pinches people, but like a tiny little baby who clings to his mommy and is really just figuring out how to really use his fingers for important things, like grabbing the cat or grabbing the steak knife from the table or grabbing the chicken apple sausage from your plate. Or accidentally pinching mommy over and over again in the general upper arm area. Ow. But it always reminds me of this commercial, so it's not all bad.



No pinch, no pinch.

The only instance in which it is ever OK to refer to a 4 month old as sexy

The cold is continuing on its course and the baby now sounds like Kathleen Turner. Part of the hoarseness is probably from the massive amounts of crying he did Friday and Saturday--you know, when I was pinching him and putting all of his binkies in the Cuisinart? But he's developed a husky voice so it just sounds hilarious when he laughs (when I'm not pinching him and destroying his binkies) and he's also got this demure, princess-sounding cough that seems as if its going to stay for a while.

I'm really done with house hunting. No more condos, tandem parking, storage lockers or shared gardens. But also no more teeny tiny shoe box sized single family homes with lots of termite damage and dry rot in questionable--at best--neighborhoods. Just no more. This is one of those times when I really wish I hadn't gotten my hopes up so high.

It was over before it even began

I got fitted for new contacts today, Third time's a charm is what I'm hoping. The disposable store brand that I tried in 2005 just made my eyes feel tired. The Irish store brand dailies that I tried in 2007 literally make my eyeballs hurt. And since I can't take a hint, even when nature might as well have spray painted on my wall in 12 foot tall letters YOUR EYES WERE NOT MADE FOR CONTACT LENSES, attempt number three was today. This time, I asked for the most premium, top of the line, moisture filled lenses they make, and we'll see what happens. So far, so good.

So after I got fitted, I of course had to go to the Walgreens next door for the obligatory cheapo sunglasses that I love to buy and can only wear with contacts and are actually 99% of the reason I keep trying contacts. I found a great pair of huge glamor frames, and as I walked by the brightly colored aisle of Easter candy, I said to myself, "Self, this is going to be the first year I can remember where I go through the whole season without eating any Cadbury Creme Eggs." After all, I've been attending boot camp more or less regularly, I've been more or less sticking to the points diet, and I'm making some headway on the small elephant sized amount of weight I'd like to loose this year. But getting through an entire Easter season without eating ANY Cadbury Creme Eggs is tantamount to going to Disneyland and not riding Space Mountain. And not because it's closed for renovations, but because you choose not to do the most fun thing in the world ever.

And I didn't get a Creme Egg, and I didn't get any Mini Eggs. But my brain was not entirely convinced that this was a good idea because as I walked by the Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs, I reached out and grabbed one.

And I ate it in the car on the way home. And it was delicious.

And I will still get through Easter Season 2008 without eating any Cadbury Creme Eggs.

It's all about the accessories

In order to make up for the totally adequate yet mediocre all purpose stroller that I chose for Samson all those months ago, today I purchased an extra fancy jogging stroller. Because that's how I roll.

Funny thing about strollers and baby gear in general, you can get, again, totally adequate yet mediocre stuff that does the job but leaves you feeling decidedly un-fabulous, or you can shell out anywhere from a ridiculous amount of money to an obscene amount of money for increasingly upscale strollers, cribs, high chairs and what have you.

Once you filter out all the safety-wise unsuitable brands and models, you can spend anywhere from $100 to $1,000 (and more, I'm sure) on a stroller. And depending on your stroller-related activities, you could easily end up with four different models to suit different purposes. For example, we have the Graco Metrolite that fits nicely with our car seat, has abundant room for holding purchases, and the all important 2 cup holders. Not great for off-roading, but terrific for shopping, running errands, doctor's visits, restaurants, and--we're hoping--air travel. It's got pretty decent maneuverability, and it folds up fairly compactly to fit in a rental car trunk.

Then we have the umbrella stroller that lives at Grandma's house. It's not car seat friendly, but it doesn't need to be because it's primarily used to keep Samson entertained (he's a big fan of being upright) and it's just right for the occasional stroll around the block.

The new guy, now we're talking fancy. I got it to use at boot camp and for our longer walks by the bay, and this particular brand--Phil & Ted--has the extra bonus feature: it comes with an extra seat so that when Samson has a little sister, the two of them can ride inline in this sucker, in a variety of configurations. And who doesn't like multiple configurations? It's only a matter of time before I end up with one of those tetris-inspired minivans.

The extra super fantastic bonus: it's bright red.

No such thing as TMI in Baby Country

I'm cleaning the study tonight (no I'm not, I'm blogging. OK, I'm supposed to be cleaning the study tonight.) and I came across a nice pile of papers from Samson's first 8 weeks--with every bottle, every nursing session, every diaper change listed including time, measurement of intake, consistency of output...obviously, I need to save this for Samson's scrap book. Because someday this will help him understand just how neurotic his mother truly is. And he will know that on Monday November 26, 2007, he pooped 4 times, peed 7 times, and was fed a total of 11 times (5 bottles of formula--19 ounces total--and 6 nursing sessions followed by 3.75 ounces of expressed milk). The REALLY impressive part is that I'm able to even read the handwriting of a sleep deprived new mother at 4 am--or Max's handwriting at all--and that 4 months later, I can decipher all of the little codes I came up with to record these mass quantities of information.

Wait, what? 11 feedings?? Holy crap, I seem to have forgotten just how many times you have to feed a newborn and what that means about sleep. Sorry Dedi, I know you're reading this and all the color just drained from your face. Take comfort in the fact that when your little girl is 4 and half months old, sleeping soundly upstairs (or breathing like some little pig-baby hybrid if she has a cold), you can spend the evening cleaning your study and come across your crazy neurotic list of newborn bodily function stats.

My Little Mouthbreather

Samson has come down with his first cold. It's all at the same time heartbreaking and adorable. He seems friendlier in general, less likely to break into the fussing-whiny-screamy for no apparent reason mode throughout the day. But his audibly labored breathing is just so pitiful, and he's taken to sticking his fingers in his mouth while he eats so as to make it easier to breath through his mouth (WHAT a smart baby!) but a bunch of the milk runs down his neck. After two days of this, he doesn't smell so great.

So we bundled him up today and Max took the day off so we could give our visiting friend a tour of San Francisco. You could totally tell that we miss living in the city so so much; it was basically the Deb and Max heritage history tour. We drove past our old apartments, the restaurant where we had our first date (8 years ago this month!), our favorite parks, cafes and bars, even had a beer at our old neighborhood French cafe while Max got a hair cut at his old neighborhood barbershop. Sigh. We really miss the neighborhoodiness of San Francisco and the urban hum that accompanies living there. We appreciate the living space that renting on the peninsula affords us, and the amenities like backyards and 2 car garages. But we're just not whole without the corner store and terrible lack of parking. The outing really cemented the decision we made months ago, to move back to the city as soon as our lease is up this summer.

Soon after we initially made this decision, we decided it would be best to finally bid our rental apartment days goodbye and to buy our own place. 10 weeks and four trillion open houses later, we finally put an offer on a 2 bedroom condo in Northern Panhandle (I think that's a made up name for the neighborhood just east of Stanyan, south of Grove, north of Fell and west of Masonic) and were outbid in approximately 6.8 seconds. It was a learning experience and a relatively painless initiation into the cruel and messed up world of Bay Area real estate. Hopefully, the next time I blog about this, it will be to announce that I'm finally buying that hammock I've always wanted for the backyard or deck I've always wanted. In the house that I've always wanted.

Now I'm going upstairs to suck the mucus out of my baby's nose with a rubber bulb syringe. Which is almost as fun as hammock shopping.

Maybe you had to be there

But it sure was funny when it was spoken in my backyard yesterday afternoon. By someone who shall remain nameless. (Hint: it was Dana.)

"What's the name of that website that lets you rate your boss? Oh, rateyourboss.com."

Also, this just in: Be Kind, Rewind is kind of crap.

An Open Letter to My Four Month Old Son

Dear Samson,

I'm pretty sure you can't read yet, so you haven't been keeping up-to-date on my blog. Let me just tell you, you have been just a little bit difficult to deal with this week. Like other 4 month olds, you demand constant interaction, never-ending entertainment. In the two hour periods between naps, I dance, sing, make nonsense sounds, funny faces, parade an endless stream of toys 8 to 12 inches above your head then do it all again within grasping distance. We go for walks, drives, trips to the dog park, baby boot camp, playgroups and Gymboree. We play on the special baby-only carpet on the living floor, on your changing table, in your crib, on my bed, and on the sofa.

YOU EXHAUST ME.

Sometimes you reward me with a barrage of humongous smiles, or you'll do something new and exciting like try to eat my nose. Seriously, just the other day you acted as though you were trying to soak my nose in venomous juices so that you could LITERALLY DEVOUR MY NOSE. Now that you're starting to reach for toys and other things we're achieving a level of more or less constant cuteness. There's nothing like trying to watch a baby stuff a toy in his mouth when the toy is easily the side of his head. But usually, if I stop for even a second, you just sort of make this dying frog noise, which isn't so bad, but it more often not develops into a loud, screechy, whine. Which is annoying times 1,000. I know it's your way of telling me that you're bored or frustrated, but holy crap, kid, you're killing me here.

The noise you make is like one part amphibian, one part reptile and one part alien. I wonder if this is what baby dinosaurs sounded like? That would explain why they are extinct, their mothers probably got sick of that horrible noise and stepped on all of them.

The incessant whining really came to a head this week, and with your father out of town on business, it was just a little bit harder to deal with (thank goodness for naps and grandparents). So I thought about it, and somewhere my brain put 2 and 2 together: your obvious state of fairly regular discomfort or anxiety, your over the top love of your hands and stuffing them (and anything else you can get your sticky little hands on) in your mouth, and the buckets o' drool you produce hourly--could you possibly be teething? Your grandma had mentioned how much you liked chewing on the handle of her spoon the other night..sure, why not? So I went to the fridge, got out a carrot, scrubbed it clean and gave it to you. It's cold and hard, and the right size for your little hand to hold.

Silence.

As you gummed the bejesus out of the carrot, I smiled smugly and patted myself on the back. It took me a little while, but I solved All That Whining. I was already planning my shopping trip to Target to buy carts full of refrigerated teething toys when you looked at me, realized I wasn't actively playing with you or entertaining you, and the noise making started right back up again. Pride goeth before a fall.

Between your high-energy needs and the constant nerve rattling noises you make, it's clear that I'm going to have to take up afternoon drinking.

Love,
Your Mom

True Love

Oh, did I show you the Valentine that Max made?

Lucky for Samson

There were no baby sized lederhosen purchased in Germany. Ah, well. Such is life.

Samson is VERY happy to have his dad back home. Not as happy as he'd be if had actually pooped this week, but pretty close. Honestly, how can somebody go for 5 days without pooping? On a regular basis? I'm surprised he doesn't cry or scream or grimace more than he does. Which is a lot.

Thursday March 6th shall forever be known as the day that Samson mastered screeching. He's been letting out a few ear-piercing shrieks here and there for a month or so now, and it's really hard to tell the difference between the "This is great!" shriek and the "I hate life and I'm going to kill you!" shriek. But today was his first marathon stretch of screeching baby noises, over and over and over for an hour or more. Sure, my ears are still ringing a little, but it's just like everything else that baby does: so damn cute. Can you please shriek and chirp and screech a little bit more? Because someday you're not going to do that anymore, someday you're going to hide things from me and have friends with fast cars who only use monosyllabic words and you'll want to stay out late after the prom and we won't be lying side by side on the floor together, screeching at the dog while you grab my lower lip in your tiny slobbery fist and GRAB it with your sharp little fingernails and TWIST it so hard that it brings tears to my eyes.

I'm going to go upstairs now and watch you sleep for a little while.

Schnitzelbank

Max gets home from Germany tonight, and I hope I hope I HOPE he was able to find the baby-size lederhosen I requested.

This is not OK

Ugh, no energy to post today. Samson was in one of his moods today, and complained when I was doing--or trying to do--anything but dote on him. I couldn't even LOOK at something else without eliciting the Escalating Whimper Cry. Even when we went to Gymboree, he cried. The. Whole. Time. Perhaps this is a reaction to yesterday's immunizations? Either way, he's fast asleep now, the kitchen is clean, the laundry is folded, and it's time to crochet.

Deep breath.

Have I mentioned that Max is traveling this week? Really missing him right about now.

Ozzy Report

Ozzy got his nasty tubes removed today, hooray hooray. The vet said that all cancer had been successfully removed, and there was no sign that anything had metastasized. Yay! And now he gets to rock the uber hip shaved patch until his fur grows back in. It's like temporary tattoos for doggies.

In other doctor news, Samson's 4 month checkup was today. 15 1/2 pounds and 26 inches! That's a big meataball!

Ipso Facto

Funny how it works that a woman not being able to clean the cat box during pregnancy translates to pregnancy being the only time a man can change the cat box. Funny how that works.

Samson: Month Four

Hooray for month four! Our blinky, yawny little newborn has become a real live infant. One that smiles and laughs and naps on a fairly predictable schedule...and, dare I say, loves his mother. This was the month where we stopped answering the question of his age with weeks and began to say proudly, "He's three months old." That's right, 15 weeks and counting and we haven't badly damaged him or lost him or sold him for drug money. Parents of the Year award committee, you can reach me on my cell phone.

It's been a pretty terrific month, the weather's been great so there has been lots of going outside and plenty of bare baby legs and feet (shhh, don't tell my mom). February saw Samson perfect the baby trifecta: grab it, bring it towards your face, and cram it in your mouth. He's still a little wobbly with the smaller, more refined items such as dog hair, but he's got it down pat on larger, more readily available items like toys and mommy fingers. If Put It In Your Mouth were an Olympic event, this kid would bring home the gold.



Samson met both of his uncles this month, Israel Uncle and Brooklyn Uncle. (Due to a, er, camera malfunction--photographer malfunction is more like it--I don't have any pictures yet of Israel Uncle's visit yet. Boo.) He also met a couple of cousins from Long Island, who came bearing all kinds of wacky Jewish baby toys (like a plush mezuzah that plays Frere Jaques--who knew?). Ira came to visit, and we got to spend some quality time this month with most of our local friends, all of whom are very understanding and patient when our adorable grinning baby turns into a shrieking red-faced monster.

Thankfully, both the cradle swing and the jumperoo are no longer considered tortuous chambers of evil. Rather, they are now Places Sent by God Where Samson Can Quietly Chill Out For a Few Minutes While Mom Checks Her Email Or Makes Coffee Or What Have You. Most nights, Samson quietly and contentedly hangs in the Bjorn while we cook dinner, and is just barely starting to be able to stay sitting up for a few moments when he's propped up. Then, of course, he face plants into the sofa, and everyone has a hearty laugh.



We had our first go-to-the-park-and-sit-on-the-grass outing, which lasted a whole 7 1/2 minutes before I freaked out about there being too much sun and we had to pack it up and move along. There was also the first thing-with-Samson's-face-on-it made at Shutterfly (the first of many, I'm sure). It was a mug for Max's Valentine's Day gift. There was no shortage of cheese this month.

Then there was Samson's first trip to the eye doctor, a sure sign of things to come.

I think my favorite new thing from month four is how he's starting to associate cause and effect, specifically during his nightly bedtime massage. When I put the lotion in my hands and rub them vigorously together in order to warm it up, his eyes get all huge and he starts kicking his legs frantically. It's freaking adorable.



It's been a lot of fun having a three month old, and a lot of work. Not the chasing a crawler kind of work, or the getting up every 2 hours to feed the baby kind of work, but the kind of work that involves NOT relying on the TV to entertain the baby, no matter how much you may want to and how easy it is (well, not often anyway.). And making a habit of reading to the baby everyday, even if he hardly has the patience to make it through the first half of Nutbrown Hare, because all the experts tell you how important it is to raise a baby who is familiar with books and how it will make him a better person in the long run, and that's all you really want for your son is for him to grow up to be a good person. It's a lot of work to talk to the baby all day, to describe what you're doing and tell him about the cooking and the cleaning and the everything else, because the experts tell you how important it is that a baby hears as many words as possible in these early months and how it will make him a better person in the long run, and have I mentioned how much you want your son to grow up to be a good person?



And it's the kind of fun that means nine nights out of ten, you get to see this before it's time for bed.

Thanks a million, month four. You can come back any time.

Baby Day

I spent the first half of today simultaneously having a great time and getting a dose of some serious birth control. I babysat my friend's adorable 10 month old daughter--who was, I must say, a prefect angel and a total sweetheart. But one is enough for now, thank you very much. How does a person even carry two babies? Ozzy the Train Wreck was more than happy to help, but Nanna looked at me like, "What, another one? Really?"

My take-away from the experience: they need to invent a baby cereal that dissolves as needed in baby's mouth but does not consequently turn into quick-drying cement when mixed with saliva for baby to spread on her face, shirt, toys and other babies heads. Yum.

Samson was absolutely enchanted with our little guest, and I think it really encouraged him to get his ass in gear--about an hour after she left, Samson actually rolled up on to his side! With no help from mom! Honest! No need to worry though, he's not growing up just yet. He's still the same old Samson: at one point I gave him one of his baby washcloths to keep him busy while I did something or other and, in typical Samson fashion, he reacted as if I'd given him a pony. His eyes got huge and he smiled as big as he could and clutched that washcloth while he rolled from side to side and kicked for joy. Then he crammed as much of it into his mouth as he could. I don't think that shit flies for 10 month olds.

Son of Frankendog

So I'm sitting here on the kitchen floor next to Ozzy who looks like he's been hit by a train. Two massive rows of stitches--both with these horrible plastic drain tubes sticking out--one of those awful clown collars, and most pitiful whimper you've EVER heard in your in your life. This is one unhappy dog--unhappy, but alive. I had a real bad feeling about this surgery, so I'm very glad that he made it through. Now I get to spend the next 12 hours sitting next to him on the floor and petting his paw which seems to be the only thing that lessens the whimpering. THANK GOD the baby is down for a nap. And Max is on his way home so that we can take turns caring for the baby and comforting the dog.

Really, this is god awful. Anyone who's met Ozzy knows that he has a very special set of vocal cords, and the whimpering is just heart breaking. I know it was a really small tumor, easily removed and he should make a full recovery, he'll even be a lot better by tomorrow morning, but right now it just seems so wrong to put him through this.

They're delicious with fava beans and a nice chianti

Cooking dinner last night, Max wearing Samson in the Bjorn, getting the baked potato out of the oven.

Me: Careful, you don't want roasted baby feet.
Max: Mmmmm, roasted baby feet.
Me: A delicacy in some countries, they're generally frowned upon here.

But how about some fresh baby noggin marinated in olive oil? A new friend from boot camp says that olive oil applied one hour before bed time will get rid of the mysterious flakes that mysteriously appeared on Samson's mysterious head this morning. Baby dandruff, gross.

Just spoke with the vet, Ozzy did great during surgery, and all the lumps and tumors and such were removed and he's starting to wake up. I'm so thrilled! Ask me how thrilled I am in a few hours after I've picked him up and they've shown me how to empty and clean his drainage tubes. Doggie juices, gross.

The steak comes with extra love

Just gave Ozzy his last meal before surgery. I don't think he noticed the extra pieces of left-over steak on top; he eats every meals as if it's about grow legs and sprint away. He'll be eating at home again tomorrow night, but something inside makes me want to treat him extra special tonight. Which means I'll just be feeling a little less sorry for Max tonight when I wake up and see that Ozzy has expanded his corner of the bed to include 45-60% of Max's side. Never trust a 75 pound dog who can make himself the size of a cat.

I even had a salad for lunch

Back to Baby Boot Camp today. Paul's visit last week provided me with a good excuse to skip class, and to eat lots of tasty things that probably definitely had more points than I should be eating. But today's sunshine and Samson's good mood made it a really nice way to spend the morning--enough so that I'm even looking forward to going back on Wednesday. It will be a good way to keep my mind off the poor Oz's lumpectomy. Maybe one day, some day, I'll actually achieve my dream of not loathing exercise more than anything else in the world ever. Certainly more than superlatives.

ps. It's not entirely surprising that I hate exercise so much. See what I had to deal with as a child? Do you see any bespectacled chubby girls in those commercials?

pps. Found this while writing the last post (re. the dead pheasant). Have been messing with dog ever since.

Entertain Thy Self

Samson was lying on the living room floor on his fuzzy blanket this morning--I'm a genius, see, I've been training the dogs to KEEP OFF of this one fuzzy blanket and to KEEP THEIR NASTY GERMY DOG TOYS OFF of this one fuzzy blanket so that Samson can have a nice little place to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling or eat dog hair or do whatever 3 1/2 month old babies do when they can't roll over or sit up. Um. And let me tell you, there is NOTHING that Ozzy wants to do more than lay on that one fuzzy blanket. And there is NOTHING that Nanna wants to do more than place her disgusting slobbery tennis ball or dead pheasant on that one fuzzy blanket. It takes great control of every fiber in her being to place the disgusting dead pheasant half an inch from the blanket and not on the blanket. She's such a good dog.

I was reading this article in Parents magazine--you know, the one that contains nice orderly lists of all of the things I'm doing wrong? And nice four-page layouts of all of the things my baby should be doing at this age but isn't? It wasn't an article as much as a brightly colored ad for various baby products I need in order to be a good mommy. It was in the form of a time line on what to do during the day to keep your baby happy. And there were at least three different activities that called for baby to entertain himself, amuse himself, and hang out solo, and there were little captions about how important this skill is and how if your baby doesn't master this crucial skill immediately, he will most likely grow up to become a serial killer or a dog kicker or a republican.

Samson's big on NOT being alone. He can spend a few minutes here and there entertaining himself while I feed the animals in the morning or fix lunch, and we have a very specific routine that buys me about 20 minutes, allowing me to take a shower and, if I'm very lucky, wash my hair. But all this self-entertainment is kind of like some wonderful dream, one where my baby plays contently in my spotless living room, my impeccably groomed pets at least 12 inches from his fuzzy blanket, and I am folding laundry UNINTERRUPTED for THIRTY WHOLE MINUTES.

So of course this article-advertisement made me feel incompetent and I decided that today Samson would play BY HIMSELF in the morning, the time during which I am usually lying on the floor next to him, endlessly shaking jingly jangly toys above him and encouraging him to reach and grab (he's getting soooo good at grabbing, by the way), or inflicting the cruel torture of tummy time upon him, or reapplying a sock that has been expertly removed. I'm also singing dumb ass little songs to him about zebras jumping on beds and where the hell is Thumbkin and an itsy bitsy spider who crawls up to Samson's nose over and over again. It would probably be quite amusing and more than a little pathetic to be a fly on my wall.

Instead of all that fun togetherness, I gave Samson a pacifier, put his softer than god's toilet paper giraffe in his arms and made sure there were at least 800 toys under his arms and at his fingertips, easy for even the most sedentary of babies to grab and shove in their mouths. Then I sat on the sofa, about three feet away from him and began to fold laundry. Everything was awesome for about four minutes and then his squeals of delight started to morph into moans of discontent. Anyone who's met this baby knows that he can go from zero to sixty in no time flat, so once he started furrowing his eyebrows, I knew that this experiment was going to end badly. The horrible whiny fussing started, and I did my best to ignore it and fold laundry while Samson figured out that we was going to have to AMUSE HIS OWN DAMN SELF so that he could grow up well adjusted with a high earning potential. But oh the howling. Ozzy looked up at me with eyes that said Why aren't you doing something to make it stop? And Nanna looked up at me with eyes that said WHY AREN'T YOU DOING SOMETHING TO MAKE IT STOP??? And I crawled over to Samson and sang him the song about the zebra jumping on the bed and all was right with the world.

Maybe we'll work on self-amusement next month.

But who's counting

Here's me one year ago this week, hanging out in an Irish pub in Ennis, County Clare.



Notice the lack of Guinness in my hand. That's right, one year ago this week, I peed on a plastic stick that would change my life. Unlike all those plastic sticks I had peed on just cause, well, you know. Who doesn't like to pee on stuff. Becoming pregnant was lots of fun for me (ahem); I had a very easy time of it. We made it on the first try, no morning sickness, no scary test results or bed rest or anything like that. Other than being so far from our friends and family for the first 6 months, it was a real cake walk. Even the distance thing wasn't so awful, I found a real great support network in Dublin that continues to be a part of my life back in the states.

Nothing can really prepare you to go from this to this. Read all the books you want, go to all the classes, bug your friends and read the blogs and adopt an exceedingly needy dog and you still won't be ready to be a first time parent. Thankfully, they're too cute in the beginning to get rid of, and by the time the cuteness wears off and the sleep deprivation sets in, you've already bonded so you have to keep them. God is very sneaky like that.

I've been a mom for 112 days and 5 hours. I'm pretty sure that's longer than the time the people in Lost have spent on the island. I won't even try to count how many diapers or bottles that is, although I thinks it's 2,417,236 and 1,284,702 respectively. It's one hell of a lot of spit up, buckets of tears (baby and mommy tears both--the baby tears are tastier, according to Ozzy), and an awful lot of bouncing and jiggling (maybe that explains the copious amounts of spit up?). 112 days and 5 hours of totally awesome. One year of having Samson in my life, and it has been fantastic. Even the emotional roller coaster bits, the hormonal changes, the extra 35 pounds. Let us celebrate this amazing year with a new batch of pictures and a giant ice cream sundae.

The rest of the story

OK, yes Ozzy has a malignant tumor on his hip. But the vet is real confident that she can remove it without any complications and that it hasn't spread. While he's under, they're also going to remove the tumor on his third eyelid, the fatty tumor on his ribs, the benign lump on his chest, and the two small but getting bigger skin tags on his regular eyelids. And they'll clean his teeth while they're at it.

So after the vet explained everything to me and it became clear that this was most likely not a life threatening episode, I showed my true colors and began to obsess over just how much money this is going to cost us. I love my pets, don't me wrong. But I loved them so much more when they were young, cute, and didn't get mortally ill every other Tuesday. (Keep that in mind, Samson. As long as you're cute, young, healthy, and relatively soft and fuzzy, you're in.) Ozzy is ten this year, and that's like, 400 in dog years, so it's not too surprising that he should start to show some wear and tear. Guess I should have bought that extended warranty.

But none of this really bothered me, not even today's astronomical vet bill for the cats' regularly scheduled dental cleaning (and Milhouse's unscheduled tooth extraction--now he has one less weapon.). Why? Two words.

Rock. Band.

I am so totally and utterly hooked, and I tell you what, I look damn fine jamming out to Weezer and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs with Samson strapped to my chest in the Baby Bjorn.

Happy Valentine's Day Yesterday

It's been respectfully requested that I hurry up and blog already so that yesterday's depressing post can get moved down out of view. Out of sight, out of mind. So please to enjoy this lovely video. And yes, it is the girl from the Juno soundtrack. Yum!

Crap

Can I just have one dog without cancer? Just one? Please? Stupid Ozzy's stupid lump is a stupid malignant tumor. So now he gets to eat whatever he wants, sleep wherever he wants and fart as often as he wants until he makes a full recovery.

Stupid tumor. I'm so sick of this crap. CRAP.

You Vet Your Life

Have I mentioned lately how much I like difficult things? I'm a huge fan of impossible tasks, or at least doing stuff that involves military-style planning and a small army to get them done. And I like to do these things alone. And when they don't go smoothly, I get pissy and blame other people. Yeah, I'm a real doll.

So my day today appeared to be calm, not too much running around or getting dressed, just a leisurely lunch with my mom and my brother Paul who's visiting from Brooklyn.

Well screw that.

I decided that today would be a great day to bring the cats to the vet for their annual check ups and their vaccines in preparation for their teeth cleaning appointments next week. Not so horrible on the surface, except for catching, caging and transporting two furious 14-ish pound cats. And let's not forget about the baby.

Since I was already going to the vet, I might as well bring the dogs just to get their intranasal bordatella vaccines so that they can go to doggie day care tomorrow while we're all having lunch at Greene's in the city. They were just in last month for their respective lumps, so we know that nothing's wrong with them.

Ha!

The vet noticed Ozzy's new red eye spot--it's been there about 2 days and I've applied my new "watch and see for one month before freaking out and going to the vet" philospophy to it. After looking at his eye, the vet announced that Ozzy probably has a tumor on his third eyelid, a common condition in dogs with unpigmented eyelids. Since we were there, the vet might as well check out the new lump on his rear end--another "wait and see" test for me--and that one had to be sent out to the lab for further diagnostics.

Sigh.

Let me just add that my mom rocks for not letting me take on such tasks solo. Even if she did lock herself in the backseat of the car with Samson, ha ha.

Baby Boot Camp, or Oh, Walking Lunges, How I Hate Thee

Samson and I started Baby Boot Camp today. Because, you know, I like it when my legs ache and my arms feel like jell-o. And Samson likes to watch me huff and puff and get red in the face while I curse the nice instructor lady under my breath.

Wow, I have gotten really out of shape. I knew this was going to be hard, getting active again and maintaining some sort of physical routine. And as hard as it was this morning, I really did enjoy it. This crazy awesome Spring weather didn't hurt either. Every time I start a new fitness routine I'm reminded how good it makes me feel. I say to Max, "Max," I say, "the next time I complain about feeling down in the dumps or I get the blahs, remind me that I like exercise, remind me that it makes me feel better about my self and the world." Or maybe it's just the sun and fresh air.

And somebody better remind me of that tomorrow when I can't climb up the stairs or lift my own baby.