Mandajuice

The Internet - she is lovely.

I feel pressed to post something really exciting tonight since, god forbid, people I met may actually come looking here to figure out who I am.  I swear I'm more than just poop stories and sappy photos! 

Just not right now.  Right now I'm going upstairs to smell the baby's head and get some sleep.

Blogher

I get to pick JenB up at the airport in couple hours.  I'm so excited I may pee myself.

I'm going to at least TRY not seem like a drooly, oogly fan all weekend.  I promise not to beg any of my favorite bloggers to sign my boobs.  And that's going to take some serious restraint. 

Oh magnificent fruit of my loins

Lately Alex has been a bit, how shall I say this, enamored of his butt.  He's always sticking his hands down the back of his pants to cop a feel and can't seem to be persuaded to LEAVE HIS CORN HOLE ALONE FOR GOD'S SAKE.  I could understand him wanting to fondle and love his front-side parts (after all he IS a boy), but this?  Is gross.  And dirty.  And GROSS!

But today I decided to let him go at it, hoping he'd just get it out of his system.  When he begged me to take his diaper off and go naked, I let him.  And while I busied myself ironing clothes?  He took a massive crap on his bedroom floor and proceeded to smear it EVERYWHERE.  All over his butt, down his legs, in his belly button, even in his left ear.  If it had happened while Dave was on watch, I think he may actually have called 911 out of panicked desperation. 

But not me.  I employed thirteen pounds of baby wipes, calmly turned on the shower and thought to myself "AT LEAST HE DIDN'T EAT IT."

A clarification

Our child was not drunk.  When Alex asked for vino, Dave gave it to him (after cutting it half and half with water) with the expectation that he would spit it out.  Or at least make a putrid face.  I didn't grab the camera until we realized that he loved it.  We took it away before he could use it as evidence of poor parenting at a future AA meeting.

Tomorrow: "Italian by injection" and how I only now realized my horrific (and often public) misuse of this phrase.

Starting him early

Mmmmm, vino! (pronounced "bean-o")  For me? 

Yes, Bambino, for you.


Dude, you guys have been holding out on me!

Chug-a-lug, bizzatches!

My parents are so. cool.

Hell no, Dad.  Get your own!

But, DAAAAA-DEEEEE, I don't have my buzz on yet!!!!!

You people suck!!!

The whole wine-with-dinner thing would've been truly funny - if moments later he hadn't hurled himself off the couch at mach speed.  He knocked himself on the corner of some plastic toy and started bleeding.  Profusely.  Everywhere.  Dave's first reaction was to put his pants on so he could drive us to the hospital.  It was that. much. blood.  I (calmly so as not to harm the child) freaked out because his eye filled up with blood and I was sure my baby was permanently blind.

But, alas, it was just a wee gash and he is fine.  Although couch diving is now officially prohibited.

It's official

My boy speaks English.  In fact, the only thing I can think of that he CAN'T say is yogurt.  It comes out "eh-met".  Don't ask me why.  He can say "Yo" and he can say "gurt" but his brain hiccups when he puts them together.  Anyway, talk-talk-talk-talk-talk is all he does:

"Daddy, come ah park wif me."
"Mommy, Hawwee ate ah choo twain twack. No Hawwee!"
"Mommy, Ah want a go a museum."
"Ah get chu, Daddy.  Rawwrrr!" (wearing the oven mitts on his hands while chasing Dave around)
"Gah mornin mommy.  Daddy farted!"
Try and figure out this one:  "Boob need time ah build moh milk."

Yesterday we were outside (in the oppressive heat - sorry Bloghers, it's miserable) throwing the ball for Harry.  After a few minutes he started talking to one of the neighbors who'd joined us.  At first I couldn't make it out, but he said "You ah good thrower!"  I was stunned.

Earlier when I was trying to feed him "eh-met" and write this list of things to post, he said "Wait ah minute, Mommy.  That mah yist.  No dwawing!"  (Translation:  quit ignoring me and shovel the yogurt faster!)

And just now when I went in to check on him he saw me through the gate and said "Mommy, come in.  Sit here wiff me.  Play ah Hummer."  (He distinguishes between Hummers and Jeeps, too).

English, people.  My child speaks English.  He never ceases to amaze me.

Ah. Sweet relief.

Night one back in the crib was flawless.  The child didn't cry.  He woke up once around midnight and I was able to get him back to sleep within ten minutes sans boobage.  Night two was downright miraculous.  I nursed him till he was "ti-derd" and put him down awake, and abra cadabra - he fell asleep on his own without even a tear.  He did wake up at three AM, but again, I was able to get him back to sleep without any boob.  Although I did bring him back to bed with us this morning at seven in the hope that he would sleep in.  And he did.  Till NINE AM!

So all is right with the world again.  At least with my little slice of it.  And because I just now bragged to the internet, tonight is sure to be a total nightmare!

Running a boy ragged seems to help the bedtime routine, so this week alone we've hosted playgroup, visited the fountain in downtown San Ho and even been to the beach.  It seems to be working.

I have a bunch of photos uploaded at Flickr but no idea how to link them here.  Anyone know?

Pep talk!

So finally at 3:30AM last night, after having MAYBE 45 minutes of undisturbed sleep in my own bed, I put the boy in his crib.  He was totally asleep, so he didn't even notice.  And magically, he slept till 7AM when Dave got up and went downstairs. 

So.  I've decided I just pushed him in to the big boy bed too soon.  My plan is to nurse him in the rocking chair tonight and put him in his crib once he falls asleep in my arms.  Tomorrow night I'll plop him in there slightly awake.  Which means I need to set limits.  I'm not even going to go down the "thirsty! different blankie! one more kiss!" path this time. 

Here are my rules (I'm just posting them here so I stick to them):
1) He can nurse till the milk runs out.  Then I'm cutting him off.  No more of this 30 minute my-nipple-as-pacifier crap.  It hurts.
2) After nursing, he gets a kiss and a hug and is placed in the crib.
3) Then I go downstairs.  Period.  I won't come back up no matter how long he cries.  (This is the hardest rule!)
4) If he wakes up in the middle of the night during our first week at this, I'll rock him in the rocking chair for a few minutes and then put him back in the crib.  No boob until morning.
5) After the first week, I'm going to let him cry it out if he wakes up in the middle of the night.

This all sounds so mean, even to me, but toddlers his age CAN and SHOULD sleep through the night.  I feel like I've become a total wimp lately and perhaps giving in to him at night is to blame for him being such a boobie whiner during the day.  I just need to remind myself that being firm, but kind is best for BOTH of us.  He needs his uninterrupted sleep just as much as I need mine.  And he needs limits.  I've been too slack lately about pretty much everything and I can see the change in his behavior.  It hasn't been for the better. 

And?  I'm TIRED, y'all.  The first sign that I'm not getting enough sleep is that my feet and legs begin to ache.  And these dogs are BARKIN'.  I also DRASTICALLY begin to lose patience, which doesn't help me keep my disciplinarian hat on.  When you're tired, you pick your battles, but you end up picking fewer and fewer of them until you're just a pansy.  And I will not be a pansy.

We'll see how it goes.

"Bih Boyie Bed"

Have I mentioned that Alex stopped sleeping in his crib a few weeks ago?  If not it's only because I haven't been able to write about it without all the angry expletives.  Basically instead of listening to him scream for an hour in his crib, I'm now LAYING WITH HIM for an hour in his bed.  I'm not allowed to MOVE AN INCH until he falls all the way asleep, at which point I can tip toe quietly back downstairs to my life.  Bye bye evenings!

And as if THAT isn't bad enough, I'm getting about as much sleep as the mother of a newborn.  Last night he woke up every TWO HOURS - at 10, 12, 2, 4 and 6 - at which point he refused to fall back to sleep.  Of course every time he wakes up, he walks over to our room, stands next to my head and gurgles "MOMMY!" followed immediately by "BOOB!".  So I have to rinse and repeat the hour of laying completely still next to him while he falls asleep.

Anyone with wisdom on this subject out there?  I feel like I'm training him to wake up since every time he does, he gets rewarded by having me lay down with him again and nurse him back to sleep.  And he is nursing WAY TOO MUCH.  Seriously.  I think someone is putting crack in my breastmilk.  It just can't be THAT GOOD.  He asks to nurse at least 10 times a day and then over and over again all night long.   I wanted extended nursing to be a pleasant experience, not one that makes me feel like a drug dealer.  "Just give me one more sip, I swear, it's the last time I'll ask!  I'll eat all my vegetables and put all my toys away if you just GIVE ME MORE BOOB!"  It's getting pathetic.  And sad.  And I have NO IDEA what to do. 

I can imagine a time in the future when my baby is no longer nursing and he doesn't ask me for it eleventy billion times a day.  And I'm not sure if I'll be happy or sad about it. 

And I got 88 (out of 100) on my midterm. Beeyotches.

I spent much of today cleaning in my most obnoxious anal-retentive way, which means I vaccuumed cobwebs, degreased the leather sofas, scrubbed the baby gates and then ran out of time to finish doing the dishes or the bathrooms.  I'll have to get up early tomorrow to finish the REAL cleaning.  Although the cleaner my house is, the LESS likely it is that anyone will actually show up for 9AM playgroup.

Someday I'm going to refer back to this summer as the Great Tomato Debacle of 2005.  Two months ago I bought and planted a Better Boy from Home Despot.  It loves the evil-hot sun of our patio and has really thrived.  I'm only a week away from my first harvest.  The harvest which my husband has REFUSED to eat and which I am expressly forbidden to feed to our son.  We're talking about tomatoes here, fresh, grown in my own yard, and yet, according to my husband, unfit for human consumption.  The reason?  I'm "too lazy" to let the hose run before I water the damn things and Dave thinks the water that sits in the hose "baking in the sun all day" is pure poison.  And that eating my tomatoes will give you cancer.  I think he needs a lobotomy.  You decide.

Normally, I just go along with these crazy idiosyncracies (hello! I scrubbed the baby gate today with a toothbrush!), but I keep forgetting to let the hose run before I water the plants and he keeps spying on me while I'm out on the patio and so we keep fighting about it.  Over and over again.  And it's fights like these that come to mind whenever I watch cheesy romantic comedies that always, always end with the wedding.  There should be more movies that end, say, 8 years in, after the couple really, truly runs out of IMPORTANT things to fight about.  Because these idiotic fights about nothing are INFINITELY MORE entertaining.

One more tiny anecdote before I go make hot love to my husband so he'll forgive me when he reads this post tomorrow:  our garbage disposal stopped working on Friday.  So I called my Dad to the rescue (thank god for my dad!  I don't have a honey-do list, I have a Papa-do list!)  So, while they were in the kitchen trying to figure it out, Dave went to turn it on and flipped the switch for our patio light instead.  We've lived here for over a YEAR and my husband has never used the garbage disposal.  Not once.  Screw "domestic goddess" - I'm a fricking domestic SAINT.