Melancholy Mommy

I'm feeling down this evening. It was a tough night -- emotionally.

T Junior only took a 45-minute nap this afternoon and the two hours between then and bath time were long, to say the least. Normally a happy baby, tonight he was irritable.

Actually, inconsolable is a better word.

Dinner was difficult. He usually puts his food away pretty easily. Instead, he swatted at his spoonfuls of Split Pea and Carrot Soup and his oatmeal. The yogurt, of course, went in the mouth with no problems.

The cranky mood followed us up the stairs for his bedtime ritual, which I recently rearranged a little.

Our routine prior to last Friday: a soothing massage for his legs and feet with Johnson & Johnson's lavendar baby lotion, then four board books (usually "Yummy Yucky," "Noisy Farm," "Miss Spider's Tea Party" and "Dog"). After the last word has been spoken, I switched off the lamp next to the big comfy chair and he nursed, but not to sleep. When he was done, I picked him up, whispered "night-night time, love you, sweet dreams" and set him in his crib.

In the interest of freeing Mommy up in the evenings (eventually), he now gets all of this just in a different order: massage, nurse, books, lights-out lullaby and bed. So far, things have been going OK.

But tonight, after I made the room dark, and stood up to sing to him, he whimpered. It was the "I don't want you to go" noise.

I hugged him close, rocked and whisper-sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" in his ear. He turned and kissed me. Gently, though. It was not his rowdy open-mouth smackaroo. I tightened my arms around his baby body and swayed a bit faster. He turned and brushed his soft little lips across mine again. I looked into his eyes for a split second and saw something.

I'm not sure what it was. Maybe worry, maybe he was sulking or maybe he was just tired.

Whatever his eyes were trying to tell me, it was just the beginning of a short, but no less heartbreaking, struggle to sleep.

Now, he is quiet. Dreaming.

And I feel sad.

Actually, We Have Four Kids

AJ checks out T Junior at four days old.

We gave up on having children two years ago; surrendered the child-bearing flag to God's plan.

If someone asked whether we were going to have kids, I'd answer with a smile: "Nah, we're just gonna be crazy dog people."

And then I got pregnant.

As I got closer to my due date, we decided we'd better try to get our three boxers, Annie, AJ and Lucy, ready.

We drove down the street to the Goodwill store to look for a doll. We sifted through the worn stuffed animals, naked Barbies and scruffy babies with our finger tips, occasionally holding up an old dolly by the toes, like it was a slimy fish.

We settled on one that we decided would look real enough to a dog, but that wasn't too ratty to ride in the car with us. She had a soft cloth body, but her legs and arms from the knees and elbows down were hard. Her once-shiny plastic face was dulled from life and had dirt smeared on it like war paint. She needed a hot oil treatment, but her yellow hair wasn't knotted. We took her home.

I didn't want to, but I submerged her in the washing machine. I had to get rid of the discount store stench. The whole point was to make her smell like a real baby, not old clothes and shoes.

After she air-dried, Mr. T and I took her up to the freshly painted and furnished nursery.

It was April and the cool spring sun set the light mood through two large east-facing windows. It was quiet in there. Eerie. Almost like we'd stepped into the pages of a magazine and were standing inside a room that had never been lived in before even though we knew that only a couple of months ago it was filled with humming computers, and cluttered with papers and books.

But then the dogs came in and made their noises, shaking and flapping their lips, spraying snot out of their noses as they scanned the room with their short snouts.

I found a couple of newborn Pampers on a shelf in T Junior's future closet, and I took one out. It was soft and tiny with yellow Velcro fasteners. We set the doll on the dresser's changing pad, slid the diaper under her and Mr. T shot some talcum in there like Emeril Lagasse with a powdered sugar shaker. Next, we swaddled our fake little child with a thick yellow flannel blanket from Mr. T's mother.

Our three brown dogs hung out below, sniffing the air.

Mr. T cradled the faux baby and swung her low so they could check her out. Annie nudged the bundle with her nose as if she was on to us, as if she knew it wouldn't move when touched.

"That's the bay-bee," we cooed.

Then, we layed her in the crib and left the room. We rarely held her after that. She never cried. Sometimes, if we remembered she was upstairs in the nursery, we might say, "Annie. Where's the bay-bee?" and our oldest would run to the door and stand there or, if the room was open, she would sit next to the crib.

Before we decided to own boxers, we did our homework and knew they have a good reputation around children. We didn't know how ours would be, though, since they had only been around kids a few times, and never near a baby.

When T Junior came home from the hospital, they were curious about him. AJ would stand a foot away and get on the tippy-toes of his paws, stretching his neck out until his face was just close enough to smell this new addition. Annie sat and watched from a distance like she knew to give the new parents some space. Lucy, the baby up to that point, didn't seem to notice anything different.

Now that T Junior can go wherever his little hands and chubby knees will take him, and now that he can get a tiny fist full of fur and hold their noses up to his, or catch an ear or an eye or a lip, we are impressed.

Annie, who has had puppies, is the most tolerant. T Junior can do whatever he wants to her. AJ recently tried to get the baby's attention using the classic doggy "play pose." I sensed canine disappointment when the human didn't bite.

A few days ago, T Junior was pushing board books around on the living room carpet -- one of his favorite activities. I wasn't paying close attention until I heard thumping. I looked in the noise's direction to see what Mr. Busy Pants was up to.

Lucy was sprawled on the floor, her legs out behind her. She was awake, but holding still while T Junior picked up her back left paw and dropped it...repeatedly.

"Good girl, Lucy," I said with a grin.

I'm so glad all my kids get along.

T Junior makes reflections on the wall while AJ (left)
and Lucy chase them. Top photo: T Junior gives
Annie some love.

Back to Back to Waaaay Back

Say muhl-TIFF-ihd-us or
muhl-TIFF-ihd-eye, not mult-eye-feye-dus.

I'm trying to flex my multifidus, but I can't. This muscle in my lower back is so weak it is undetectable to the waiting hand of the physical therapist. In fact, I'm not even sure you could call mine a muscle since it doesn't seem to be doing anything useful.

Thanks to a friend and reader, I now have a chiropractor and a series of treatments scheduled for the next five weeks. I've already been twice. Monday's appointment was a diagnosis.

Right away, I knew the doctor would be warm and welcoming with such deep creases beginning at the outer corners of his eyes like rays of sunshine. Let's call him Dr. Nice.

After examining my posture and testing my stretching abilities, Dr. Nice explained what he believes is causing so much pain in my lower back.

A bulging disc. Maybe herniated, and it is putting pressure on my sciatic nerve, which I suspected. Dr. Nice says the leg pain and foot tingling is never good, but especially not for a 31-year-old.

The surprise, though, was when he said I probably injured my back in high school when I was a jock. He used that word. Jock.

I'd never really thought of myself like that. I just liked sports...a lot of them. And, my parents believed in letting me and my sisters try any activity we wanted to...and sometimes didn't want to.

Swim team. No problem.

Soccer. Already signed up.

Cross country. OK.

Baton-twirling lessons. Sure (although, not sure if it's really a sport).

Water polo. Go ahead.

Tennis, track, golf, volleyball, basketball, softball, ballet, jazz, tap. I even tried synchronized swimming once.

Now?

Nothing.

Sports don't inspire me like they used to. There's no team to join. No records to break. No game to get in shape for.

It's not as if I'm not doing anything all day. There are loads of laundry to carry up and down the stairs. There are stuffed toys, plastic toys, noisy toys to pick up off of the floor. A kitchen to be mopped. Babies to be bathed, well, just one baby...thankfully. There are dishes to be washed and stairs that need vacuuming. (Man, I wish there was a Roomba that could do these. Hey, Roomba people! How about a Stoomba?)

What I learned this week , after Wednesday's enlightening explanation of spines and cartilage and jelly-filled doughnut discs, is that I'm not living in a 16-, 18- or even a 21-year-old's body.

Perhaps that is obvious, but it hadn't quite registered with me until now. Apparently, the gray hairs weren't enough. I need to be stooped over first, brought to my knees by pain.

I guess some people just don't take hints very well.

Boy Meets Gills

We went to Maui for our honeymoon. One of the days we were there, we took a trip out to Molokini, a reef in the top of a sunken volcano about 2-1/2 miles off the coast. The ride there was better than snorkeling in the crater, though. Well, maybe for me anyway.

The sun made my skin tingle and my long hair stung my face as we sped along in the converted fishing boat. Mr. T and I didn't talk because the wind noise wouldn't let us. We bounced along enjoying the view. We gave another tourist our camera so he could snap a picture of us.

Then, we stopped. But we weren't at Molokini, we were floating with nothing but sea between us and, well, nothing. The captain came over the speakers. He was too excited for it to be an emergency. Soon, the boat crowd was scurrying and jostling for a good view -- fifty pairs of hands cupped over 50 sets of curious eyes to scan the calm blue.

But we didn't need them to see what we had been told to look for. The backs of a mother humpback whale and her calf broke the surface, and all of us onlookers gasped.

They weren't that far away from us, maybe a couple of city blocks. They were breeching. Beautiful nature. This one-time wannabe marine biologist was in awe. I didn't grab for my camera; I didn't want a lens between me and this magical memory.

Recently, when I asked Mr. T about what we saw on the way to Molokini, he said, "Whales? What whales?"

*sigh*

Anyway, he took Friday off of work and we decided it would be a good day to take T Junior to the Seattle Aquarium since our boy is part baby, part fish these days.

(I really wanted to go, too. I love strolling through these tributes to ocean life, peeking in on their mysterious underwater world. I don't like having aquariums in my house, though. Surprising, I know.)

We could tell T Junior was enjoying himself.

He was doing the fishy face like nobody's business.

Out of Laundry, Out of Room

Good news: I finished the laundry. And, not just for the day. I mean, it's ALL done. Baby socks and pajamas, bathroom rugs, dog puke towels, random blankets, and every pair of "last resort" underwear.

A couple of weeks ago, the washer started leaking water and we had to buy a new one (and a dryer, too). Luckily, we were able to find and agree on some new machines rather quickly.

We purchased high efficiency front-loaders and had them stacked in our broom closet of a laundry room/pantry. The plan is to put in shelves next to them where the old dryer used to be (but you know how long it takes for "plans" to actually come to fruition, so I'm not counting on them).

Since the new machines were installed, I've been a crazy-laundry-doing-lady. If I'm going downstairs, I'll grab an armload of towels or jeans or baby clothes. I push a couple of buttons and voila! There's even an upbeat tune that happily alerts me when a load is done.

Sure, when the clothes are dry, I take them upstairs and drop them on the bed and forget to fold them until it's time to go to bed and I'm too tired to do it. But, I do anyway because it's only one little pile instead of a two-week-tall mound of socks and sheets and shirts like it used to be.

I'm not sure why it's so much easier to do laundry with this new set-up. It could be that the machines tell me exactly how much time it will take until they are done. It could be that I'm excited to use my new toys (if you want to call them that), and this laundry love will wear off.

Or, it could be that with the stacked machines, I can open the door all the way and no longer have to summit a pile of jeans and t-shirts to reach the washer.

There's a problem, though.

Now that everything is clean, it is apparent that we have more clothes than we have room for. Our bedroom-sized master closet has space, but we don't own enough hangers, and both of our dressers are jammed. White cotton socks and nylons spill out of one of my drawers . If my mother saw it, she would say, "It looks like your dresser is throwing up socks." Lovely thought.
Of course, T Junior has a large dresser and a beautiful organized shelf system in his closet. His stuff is all put away and easy to find.

But, Mommy and Daddy don't have anywhere to put our clothes. Currently, there is a pile of folded t-shirts living on the top of one of the wire dog crates in our room. When Lucy needs to go in her house, the pile is transferred to our bed. When we sleep, it goes back to the crate, and so on. We try to wear stuff from that pile first.

Hopefully, we'll have some more dirty laundry soon.

Are You Going to Have Another One?

I like being a mom. I have one son.

I don't know if I want more children.

I almost didn't write that.

The oldest of four now-grown girls, I was the built-in babysitter. The second mom in charge. I broke up physical fights, helped with the dishes, the weeding and, later, the driving. I whined about fairness and was mean on purpose. I watched my six-year-old sister threaten my mother: "I'll jump," she challenged from the top of the eight-foot brick retaining wall next to our pool.

These things have a lot to do with why I was "pretty sure" I didn't want to have a kid.

But.

I cherish my baby. I brush his whisps of hair, plaster white Desitin over any red, laugh when he shows me what the fishy says and hold on tight during morning squeezes. My heart races when he lays his head on top of my shoulder. And, seeing his eyes crinkle as Daddy walks in the door, I have to take a deep breath -- inhale this blessed life.

But.

I fret over fevers, rashes and the dried oatmeal on his face. I cry as I pack teeny socks in a blue bin. I store swings, bouncers and play mats because it is too heartbreaking to get rid of them. I panic that the sweet scent of his feet will be replaced by the stench of sour teenage boy socks, and those six little teeth in his mouth may as well mean he's a man.

Can I do it all again someday? I figure I have a few more years to decide.

An Unwanted Guest Returns and is a Giant Pain in the A**

It was a cool Saturday in early December of 2007. Inside our house, the gas fireplace was warming me, or maybe it was because I was coming up on 5-months pregnant.

I was decorating for the holiday. Three St. Bernard-size Rubbermaid bins were hogging floorspace in the living room, and I was unwinding tattered tissue from my Santa collection, detangling shiny plastic bead garlands, rediscovering the Hallmark ornaments I bought the day after Christmas in 2006 and hanging the little wooden ones my mother saved for me from when I was a baby.

My in-laws would be arriving from Florida in a couple of weeks, so I wanted to make the house festive. I love dressing our fake-but-realistic tree, setting up my Dept. 56 Dickens' Village on our oversized mantel, and arranging my collection of snow globes and stringing little white lights all around the house. I think Mr. T once described my holiday decor like this: "It looks like Christmas exploded in our living room." Thanks, hon.

(Mr. T loves this description, by the way. He recently used it to describe T Junior's day care provider's front room, which was littered with Girl Scout cookie boxes. "A Girl Scout exploded" is kind of gross, though, if you ask me.)

Anyway, back to 2007. Later that evening, the tree was done -- sparkling with clear white lights, red and silver balls, plastic Snoopy ornaments, wooden toys, reflective beads, ribbons and glittery red clip-on poinsettia's -- but I noticed an aching pain running down the back of my left leg. It was like someone was pulling a muscle that connected my left butt cheek to my toes. Soon, my five little piggies started to tingle and a sharp pain began sticking me in the lower back. An electric shock.

Soon, it hurt to sit. It was painful to lay down. Standing up straight was no longer an option. I could not make it past the bent-over position. I felt like an aching 80-year-old woman -- except with a baby bump, and no wrinkles and no pain mediciation!

I suffered through the night -- rolling myself out of my bed, falling a fast three feet to the floor, landing on my hands and knees. I crawled to the bathroom in the moonlight. I used the edge of the soaker tub to heft myself as upright as I could get, then hobbled to the toilet. My teeth practically drew blood from my lower lip when I sat down.

I wasn't any better on Sunday. The electric shocks happened less often, but they were just as breath-taking. Monday I called in sick to work. I could barely move my legs, how was I supposed to drive? I called the doctor's office and the nurse told me there was nothing I could do except ice and heat. At least that alleviated some of the sharpness, but it left behind an ache, an ice cream headache in my back and leg.

The next day, the pain was a little less, and the next day a tiny bit better and so on. I don't think it ever went away; it just got mixed in with the other achy, bloaty, puffy, creaky feelings I was experiencing in late pregnancy. Then I delivered my baby boy and I had other things to worry about.

Two-and-a-half weeks ago, I was holding the 20-pound squirming octopus. I was about to sit on the couch to feed him. I sucked in air and held my breath as my body bent and gravity pulled me down. It was back. The piercing pain shot like an arrow from my the left side of my lower back down to the tips of toes on my left foot. Every time I breathed, it stabbed me.

Today, I still have the pain. It's sticking around like the last guest at a party that has gone on too long. It is not as strong as it was, but it is enough to make me wish I had a chiropractor.

I guess I should get one. I don't know how or why I have put up with it this long. Maybe after experiencing childbirth, I'm stronger. Or, maybe I'm just lazy. Or, maybe I just don't know what to do.

Anyone else have sciatica? What did you do? I'm "this close" to doing something about it. Seriously.

The Order of Things

What does it mean when your baby tells you to get on with it?

Last night, after T Junior's bath, dinner and massage, Mr. T was giving him good-night kisses before we settled in for books, then bed.

The kisses Mr. T gets are different than the ones I receive most of the time. For Mommy, he usually opens his mouth and places it on my cheek or lips. For Daddy, he leans his forehead forward for Mr. T to smooch. But Daddy wants a real kiss, T Junior!

So, Mr. T was trying to get one last night. I held T Junior as Daddy tried over and over again. But he just kept sticking his head on Mr. T's stubbled face.

After a couple minutes of quiet pleading, er encouragement, T Junior stopped. He turned his head and reached toward the big comfy chair.

"BUH!"

For those of you who don't speak the language*, "BUH" means books.

Mr. T clasped both hands over his mouth to push back the laughter, and I had to bite my tongue. Bedtime is supposed to be soothing and quiet. We didn't want to stir the night.

"OK, honey," I said with a grin, and we got on with our routine.


*Other words in T Junior's repertoire right now: Dada, Mama, Dah (dog), Diddeh (Tigger), and Baboh (we're not sure what this is -- could be bubble or bottle).

When a Fever is Just a Fever

It was 3:30 a.m.

I crept into his room lit only by a nightlight. I didn't want to startle him, but the door squeaked. The box fan rippled my pajama pants. I squinted in the dark. He was awake. Still. Eyes open. Not yet able to roll over, he was waiting there for me on his back.

Maybe he heard me coming in. I made a mental note. "Got to remember to WD-40 that thing."

I picked up his light 5-month-old body and we went over to the big comfy chair where I settled in for a 45-minute nursing session. His head rested on my sleeved arm, his body on the Boppy in my lap.

Once his tummy was full, I kissed his cheek and gently set him down in his crib.

At 6, I snuck out the front door into the cold late-October morning. Going to work twice a week seems like a good idea, except at this hour.

Ten minutes after 9, my cell phone rattles across my desk. T Junior's day care provider is telling me he has a temperature of 103. My heart races as I call Mr. T to go back and pick him up -- it's only a few minutes after he dropped him off. Next, I punch in the doctor's number.

Mr. T beats me there. T Junior is on his back. His velvet-soft baby blanket is a barrier between the cold, crinkly cushioned table. My heart squeezes like a fist and I can feel the tears coming fast.

He is still. Eyes open. Hot. His cheeks are fire engine red. He doesn't care to look at us or smile or show any emotion at all. He doesn't even suck his fingers. His knees are drawn up over his belly button. His arms are at his sides. They look limp.

Mr. T tells me T Junior's had green diarrhea twice this morning.

The doctor is worried. She doesn't like how he's not responding. And, his temperature is 104 and climbing. We must go to the hospital immediately. She will call ahead and let them know we are on our way.

The hospital is in an adjacent building so, thankfully, we don't have to get in the car. I cradle my listless son as we walk through the corridors to the hospital. Me and Mr. T don't talk. We're too shocked.

I see people cooing over my baby, but I don't smile. I don't look at them. I can't even cry; I'm so scared.

Three days in the hospital -- after blood tests, stool tests, a spinal tap, IVs and antibiotics -- and the doctors finally determine T Junior has salmonella sepsis. The bacteria is in his blood stream, which, they say, is very dangerous for an infant. The doctors tell us that without antibiotics it could settle in a major organ, like the brain or heart. He probably got it from me since I was sick a few days before, when I thought I simply ate something that didn't agree with me. A couple more days go by and we finally get to go home.

That was nearly five months ago.

Now every time T Junior gets sick, especially with a fever, I go back. Back to when I missed all the signs of my very sick baby. That middle-of-the-night feeding? I didn't feel he was hot because I had long sleeves on. He was awake because he was in pain, not because of a squeaky hinge. And, then, I was at work in the morning when he needed his mommy the most. I wasn't even there.

T Junior has had a fever for a couple of days now. It is not 104 and he doesn't have diarrhea. He's tired, but not lethargic. He plays off and on, and asks for "BUH!" (books). But sometimes he cries for no reason, and that's not like him.

"He has a cold," the doctor said today. Back in the car, I cried. Embarrassed, because this isn't the first time I've done this.

Will I ever be able to get over it? I don't know.

Supermom's Super Fever-Sniffing Nose

I don't mean to brag with the whole supermom reference, but...

I can smell a fever.

When I picked T Junior up yesterday and inhaled his scent from the top of his head, I could tell. He smells like hot hair, as if he just got done blow drying.

Of course, if his fever is that high, he feels like a baked potato, so I'm not sure this superpower is all that super.

Too bad I don't have the feel-all-better power. That would be a bit more useful.

Catching a Little Wave of Reality

My favorite way to roll.

You know how mid-life-crisis-having men who drive Porsches give other mid-life-crisis-having men driving Porsches a little acknowledging wave of superiority as they pass one another on the road?

Moms have that, too. But not in flashy German sports cars. It's more like dirty running shoes, a dark pair of Old Navy jeans and a Granny Smith-colored zip-up hoodie. Official mommy-wear. Stacy and Clinton would not approve.

And, I was not out on the open road in the trusty blue minivan. Nope. I was where all the cool moms hang out in the middle of a week day: the mall.

I WAS going fast, though. On foot. Weaving in and out of the lunch-crowd left-overs. Men and women heading back to nearby offices. Meandering retired couples. Young mothers in jeans and hoodies carting little children to and fro.

I was on a mission to find socks. Before me, one stroller containing a squealing barefoot 9-month-old, one cannister of strawberry-banana puff cereal, one clip-on stuffed monkey and a purse.

Approaching me on the left-hand side, a mom. Before her, a double-stroller containing two toddlers holding two more toddlers on their laps and enough paraphenalia for six toddlers because there were two more walking alongside! I could tell they were siblings and I know she was the mom from our "wave," which actually is a smile-nod because, HELLO, our hands are full.

But in that one-second smile-nod combo was an entire conversation. It went like this:

Me: Holy CRAP!

Her: *sigh* I know.

Me: How are you even doing that?

Her: I don't know.

Me: Well, it looks like you've got everything under control. You go girl!

Her: Thank you. Enjoy having just one.

Me: I will. Thank YOU for the reality check.

Wash in Peace, My Friend

I live by this motto: I'll just ignore it and it will go away.

That's right; I treat every annoyance in my life like a bee.

But today, when the Sears repairman asked me, "How long ago did your washer start sounding like a 747?" I had to face reality. At first, I told him a couple months. But he kept questioning me, so I confessed like a guilty child.

"It might have been last summer."

I wondered if I was about to get scolded for not flossing, too.

Turns out the washer was sick. Real sick. In fact, there's no hope for it. (Well, technically there is, but we could buy three new washing machines for the amount it would cost to fix this one and, frankly, I'm not that attached.)

I like appliance shopping about as much as I enjoy pulling a waxy string between my teeth, but the thought of not having a washer is the worst. With three dogs and a spitting crawler, that loud thing has been running all day, every day. I just shut the door so I didn't have to listen to it.

I hope we can get a shiny new one right away. I don't like the idea of traipsing to a laundromat with a squirming 9-month-old. I don't even know where one is.

Meantime, I'm thinking about getting a new motto.

Any ideas?

Just a Mom

Tonight, I was sitting on my favorite end of the couch indulging in coffee ice cream and sort of watching "American Idol," but mostly reading Facebook Status Updates.

Then I heard something that made me pause mid-slurp. A woman was talking about being cut from the show and then called back when she said, "Yesterday, I was just a mom and today I'm in the top 36 on 'American Idol.'"

Wait a second.

JUST a mom?

I understand being on a television show watched by 25 million people is special. I don't want to discount her experience.

But, JUST a mom?

Mommyhood is the most difficult thing I have ever done in my 31 years of life. It is scarier than being on stage in front of Simon. It is harder than hitting the highest note in "Unchained Melody" and more challenging than matching Barry White's low tones in "You're the First, the Last, My Everything." And, let me think. When was the last time I had my makeup done and my clothes picked out for me? Let's see. Um. Never. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Never.

Being a mom means maintaining cheeriness on two hours of sleep. It means not falling apart as you stretch your baby from end to end Gumby-style in a plastic X-ray tube. It means spending long nights curled around your feverish infant on a tiny fold-out hospital chair.

Moms have to postpone hunger, sleep and general hygeine for the sake of their children. They must endure Barney, Elmo and The Wiggles. They become numb to various bodily fluids. And, they get used to doing things they NEVER thought they would do.

Which leads me back to "American Idol." Us moms have to sing, too, you know, even if we know we aren't good. Before T Junior, I flexed my lungs only in the safety of my car or shower, but now I sing all day long to soothe, humor or distract. I've even broken out into "C is for Cookie" in public. Sorry.

Maybe I'm JUST a mom and only have an audience of one, but he's the only one than matters. Those other 24,999,000 people can kiss my minivan.

A Few of His Favorite Things

Spitting. Better than pulling Mama's hair, but not nearly as rewarding as doing raspberries with mixed veggies in your mouth.

Knocking down a tower of blocks. More fun than stacking them, but not as great as throwing one at Mama.

The remote control. Way better than any $20 baby toy that Mama and Dada lovingly picked out just for you, but not as enticing as a laptop.

Paper. More digestible than board books, but not as tasty as the sole of one of Dada's Crocs.

Things that roll. More exciting than things that drop off the side of your high chair, but less thrilling than things called No.

Things that roll.

Things called No.