Mandajuice

Assorted

• My vacuum died today.  Well, it may have died a week ago, but I just noticed this morning.  It still sucks fine, but a certain toddler appears to have removed the doohickey that converts it to a handheld wand and he broke the suction pipe thingy in the process.  Confused?  me too.  And the very DAY we vowed to start actually FOLLOWING the fricking budget is the day crap like this choses to occur.  Which means I may as well say out loud the thing I've been fighting to accept:  I will never own a Dyson.
• Alex has some friends who are girl-girl twins, identical girl-girl twins whom we normally refer to as "The Girls".  Today we met The Girls at the mall for lunch.  The Girls look so much alike that even I have a hard time telling them apart.  Thank god they dress themselves and one likes red and the other likes blue, so I don't make too big an ass out of myself by getting their names wrong.  But here's the point:  Alex can tell them apart.  I'm pretty sure he's still colorblind since every. single. thing. is red, but somehow he's figured them out.  This shocks both his mother and I to no end.  Most of the other kids in our regular play group still think The Girls are really just one girl who gets around a lot; they usually call both twins by one of their names.  But not Alex, he identifies them by name separately and consistently.  It's amazing.
• I found the RAUNCHIEST spider in the kitchen sink this morning.  It was hairy and striped with a gigantic crunchy body and a skull-eating jaw.  It must've weighed ten pounds. Normally, I'm like "IF YOU KILL ANOTHER ROLY POLY, WE'RE GOING INSIDE AND YOU'RE ON THE NAUGHTY SPOT"  But spiders?  Today I, 1) shrieked, 2) freaked out and started shaking all the imaginary spiders off my shoulders, 3) doused the monster in Dawn liquid soap 4) held the boy up so he could see the SUPPOSEDLY dead spider while I explained that spiders are scary to mommy and that's why it's okay to kill them  5) screamed AGAIN when the beast bolted for the side of the sink and 6) yelled DIE SPIDER DIE as I squished it with a wooden spoon.  It made a noise like BONES BEING CRUSHED, if you must know.  It's the second HORRIFIC spider we've seen here in the last few weeks and now I am seriously freaking out.  Shiver me timbers.  Then my darling boy felt the need to keep reassuring me all morning "Don't worry, Mommy.  Spiders not scary."
• Tomorrow is the last day of my investments class.  Good news is that it will be OVER and SOON.  Bad news is that I still have to take the final.  More soon.

Happy little capitalist

Alex just hugged and kissed the "M" page of his Alphabet book and exclaimed, "I looooove money!"

The Nazi Fetus Diet

First off - thanks for all the weaning advice!  For the next couple of weeks I'm just going to focus on the day weaning (we're on day two of nights only!) and then I'll deal with the hard stuff when the time comes.  I think a combination of daddy taking over the bedtime routine and my being firm about the actual cutoff date will give us some success.  I've also decided that I want my husband to take LOTS of photographs of us nursing.  Not only so I have something to help me remember it, but also because I think seeing my GIGANTICAL child slurping away on my naked boob might even make ME feel weird enough to want to stop.  I look down when we're nursing and I still see a baby.  David looks over and sees a small boy invading his territory.  It would help me to have a fresh perspective.

What else?  I'm a little upset today after a long conversation with my oldest friend in the world.  She doesn't read this site even though she SHOULD, so I guess I could talk about her all I want and get it out of my system, but I won't.  I just love her and want SO MUCH for her to be happy (which HELLO! she totally would be if she would just DO WHAT I SAY).  But that's not happening, so it makes me sad instead.  Sometimes I feel much more like her mother than her best friend.  Unfortunately, I'm sure she feels it too.  Anyway, moving on.

The boy continues to amaze me with his stunning verbosity.  Twice yesterday he stumbled upon the concept of "almost forgetting" something.  As in (and I swear to god this is verbatim) "Oh no, Mommy! I almost forgot my motorcycle!" which he then ran upstairs to retrieve.  Later he said "I almost forgot my basketball!" while splashing around in the baby pool.  His dad was blown away last week when he begged for another smooch and was told "No, Daddy, I kissed you ALREADY."  I have no clue how a kid who's not yet two can even begin to understand stuff like this, much less SAY IT, but I'm not complaining.  I'm just glad I never talked to him in baby talk (a fact which used to make me feel like such an inadequate mother - it was too awkward for me!) because it probably just would've annoyed him as much as it annoyed me.

We are also hard at work again attempting to make this boy a sibling.  We keep asking him "do you want a brother or a sister?"  His answer depends on whether or not Rosie annoyed Caillou in today's episode.  This is our third month of trying, so I'm hoping it will be the charm.  We'll see.  Since I ovulated yesterday, today is my first day of the fetus diet, just in case.  When gestating I become a total food Nazi - in addition to cutting out the obvious stuff like alcohol, rare meat and soft cheese, I eat absolutely no nitrates (which means no bacon, sausage or even lunch meat), no preservatives, no artificial colors (no Mike 'N Ike's!), no artificial flavors, no MSG, no fish and nothing I can't pronounce.  I even manage to SIGNIFICANTLY cut back on fast food.  It's no fun, but at least it makes me feel like I'm doing SOMETHING.  And because of my tweaked digestive anatomy, every bite of crap I eat is one less bite of something good I should've eaten.  Just wish me luck that this month it's not all for nothing!

In which there is even more discussion of my boobs

I have a bunch of random cuteness to report of late (like how the boy was hugging his grandpa goodbye Sunday night and threw in an "I love you" that made us all melt into goo), but I've taken such a long hiatus to work on my STUPID STUPID class that I now need to talk about something FAR more important:

My boobs.

The other night, Dave confessed to me that he's ready to reclaim his old territory without fear of developing an oedipal complex.  And I couldn't agree more, a man and his son should not be fighting over the scarcity of nipple resources.  It's time for me to wean the child. 

At first, considering how DREADFUL nursing was the first six weeks, I had hoped to at least make it through twelve months.  Even while working almost full time and pumping three times a day, we breezed through that first year and the boy never had a single ounce of formula (and now here's my Seinfeld imitation: NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT.)  My mother was extremely supportive and we just made sure her freezer always had a healthy supply of mandajuice (I bet you thought it meant something else!).

And then I quit my job and felt like I was making up for lost time, so I told myself we'd nurse another year, but NOT LONGER THAN THAT.  And here we are, one month away from the big TWO.  And mostly, the idea of him not nursing makes me incredibly sad.  I can cry just thinking about it.  BABIES nurse and weaning is just one more indication that my baby is gone.  I can't really think of any rational or logical reason why TWO is long enough.  But I also can't think of any reason why FIVE is a problem either.  I just know it's weird.  I also know that whether he's still nursing or not, my baby is gone and it's time for me to deal with that.  Preferably before it gets too weird. 

I had always hoped Mr. Pants would eventually just up and decide he was done nursing.  Isn't that how most women describe it?  "We were doing so well with the nursing and then Pickle just decided he didn't want it anymore and that was it."  Well, let's just say that my little boob nazi will not be giving up the fight so easily.   No Sir.  This boy likes him some boobage and all hell breaks loose when he doesn't get it.

If I get my ass out of bed in the morning, eliminating the morning boob will be easy.  He forgets about it as soon as you bring up Caillou and a bowl of oatmeal.  I can also ditch the before-nap boob by keeping him so active that he literally CRASHES to sleep in the afternoon.  So we can easily be down to once-a-day by his second birthday.  But it's really the before-bed boob that I am worried about.  I have a feeling I'll have to eventually just cut him off cold turkey.  So, Internet, I ask of thee - what do I TELL him?  So far all I've come up with is "Some day my boob will stop building more milk."  But then he just points at my boob and tells it "BUILD MORE MILK."  So that one's not really working for me.

Any ideas???

Bluff officially called

A QUICK QUICK tidbit here since I am BUSY BUSY BUSY studying for my STUPID STUPID class.  Yesterday we were attempting to leave for the grocery store and Alex would just NOT get into the car.  When we called him for the umpteenth time, he ran away and hid in the bushes in front of our condo complex.  So I went with the often-employed and never-enforced "Fine.  Daddy and I are leaving without you.  Bye Bye!"

Only this time, I got into the car and persuaded Dave to actually pull out from the curb a few feet.  You should've SEEN that boy's face!!!  He bolted out of those bushes as fast as he could, tears STREAMING down his face while he ran after us.  And once he was finally in his carseat crying his eyes out, Dave and I were just GIDDY with PRIDE, gloating and high-fiving our way to the store.  Tough love ain't so tough after all.

I'm just guessing here

But maybe he's not quite ready to eat yogurt all by himself yet...

Soilent green is PEOPLE

Do you ever look over at your kid and think "DUDE. We made a PERSON."??  I mean, I remember being pregnant and I remember his birth (all too well) and I know he's been around for a couple of years now, but every once in a while it just takes me by surprise me that he's a real, live HUMAN.  I know it takes a baby several months to realize that he's separate from his mother, but I'm beginning to wonder how long it takes for the mother to realize that the baby is not part of HER.  I'm guessing about two years because that's when babies start to act like PEOPLE.

My baby is a person.

Never was I more astonished by this fact than on Tuesday night while driving back from my investments class.  I called Dave on my way home and, as usual, he handed the phone to the boy.  The boy who proceeded to carry on an entire FIVE minute conversation with his mother.  Five minutes doesn't sound like much until you really think about it.  He's not even TWO.  And it was a REAL conversation. 

Boy: Hi Mommy!  Coming home now?
Mom: Yep, I'm on my way home.
Boy:  Mommy go a class. (all prepositions - to, with, at, etc - are "a") Comin' home now!
Mom:  Did you have fun with daddy?
Boy:  I did!  Brrrmmm brrrm'in' cars!  Brrmm!  Brrrm!
Mom: What did you have for dinner?
Boy:  Asagna!
Mom: Was it good? 
Boy:  Mmmmm.  Nummy.
Mom:  Guess where we're going tomorrow?
Boy:  A beach!
Mom:  Guess whose gonna be there?
Boy: Hmmm (this is what killed me, he kept pausing to ponder my questions)  Nadia!  Sheewa!
Mom:  That's right!  Who else?
Boy:  Joe!! Jamie!
Mom:  Yep! 
Boy:  We a goin' a beach! See Grandma Mumma! See Papa Shaw!
Mom:  Yeah and we're going to dig in the sand.
Boy:  Buildin' castles!

I could go on and on here, particularly about the full minute of "No, I love YOU!"s  But I'll spare you the sappy dialog.  The point is that I'm freaking out a little bit.  At first I was happy he was such an early talker, proud really, but now I'm a little sad that he's growing up so fast.  That adorable stage where you can barely understand what they're trying to say and every. single. word is the cutest thing you've ever heard because your BABY is TALKING - it's going to be over soon.  Soon he'll be a KID.  His own person.  His own MIND.  I have a hard time getting my brain around the idea. 

It reminds me a lot of childbirth - in the birth-prep classes they tell you that walking around will help your labor progress faster and you think - hey, that sounds like a good plan!  But they DON'T tell you that the faster you progress, the more PAINFUL it is.  As much as you want the contractions to come closer together, you also want them not to come at all.  Watching your baby grow up too fast is the exact same feeling.  As much as you love watching them grow up, nothing prepares you for how much it will hurt.

Today we went to the beach. But that's not what this post is about.

We had an eventful weekend from which I am still recovering.  The highlight (or lowlight, really) was a series of discussions with a woman who may perhaps be the most caustic person I've ever met.  The funny thing is that I had actually looked forward to seeing her.  I hadn't seen her since before her gastric bypass surgery a year ago and I naively thought we'd have so much to talk about!  Thirty seconds into our conversation, she started giving me the third degree.  You're not working out anymore?  You're not eating 90 grams of protein every day?  How is your cholesterol?  Has your lab work been normal?  And then came the clencher:  "Well, I've seen what happens after a few years when post-ops stop worrying about gaining weight.  I'm not ready to give up yet.  Like you." 

Don't you just LOVE those people?!?  Those people who are so utterly obsessed with their "healthy lifestyle" that they can't see how HORRIBLE they are?  It's like they've found Jesus in their daily regiment of a colonic, wheat grass juice and my newest favorite - Pilate's.  It's nice to be enthusiastic about how great YOU feel, but honestly, I'm perfectly content to sit on the couch eating Mike 'n Ike's, reading trashy novels and NOT drinking putrid whey protein and wondering how they process milk so its SEE-THROUGH, thankyouverymuch.  I feel no need to be converted.  I remember being a little bit that way myself for a few months after my surgery and this is my formal apology to everyone who knew me back then:  SORRY I WAS SUCH AN ASS. 

I generally find it difficult to dislike anyone, a trait I'm grateful to have inherited from my father.  But this woman was just SO ABRASIVE.  She even managed to disparage the fact that I'm still nursing.  When I told her I was in the process of trying to wean, she said "No you're not.  If you really wanted him to stop nursing, he'd be weaned."  Which, duh, is obviously true, but STILL!  So I asked her how long she nursed her youngest son and she told me six months.  And three hours later I wanted to KICK MYSELF when I finally realized how I should've responded - "Oh, I guess I'm not ready to GIVE UP.  Like you did."

I generally have a pretty thick skin and I managed to pretend she didn't get to me.  But she did. Later that night I kept catching myself reliving the torture of her conversational skills over and over again in my head.  And then I finally figured it out - she didn't bother me because I really think I should be exercising or eating more protein or weaning my son (even though all those things are true); she bothered me because I didn't LIKE her.  And I wanted to like her and I tried awfully hard to like her and I gave myself many, many chances to like her.  And I just couldn't. 

So that was my Saturday - I met someone I didn't like.  Fortunately, the day wasn't a complete waste.  Alex witnessed his first pinata and for the rest of the weekend he kept repeating the story of the magical, furry creature, "Candy come out of it!"

Dave got plenty of quality time with his monkey.

And to answer the question y'all keep asking: How do I keep myself from eating him up?

I don't.  

See what I mean by CUTE?!

"Dis mah beefcase.  I goin' a work now.  Gimme a kiss!"

It's a good thing toddlers are so cute

While I was washing my face in the bathroom sink this morning, Mr. Pants decided to turn on our Jiffy Steamer - even though he KNOWS it's completely off limits.  It's almost physically impossible for him to resist any device with an on/off switch he can reach.  Of course, I immediately turned it off, scolded him for even touching it, and then went to go find some underwear.  The second I turned my back, he grabbed the rubber hose part of the steamer, which gets hot enough to HURT LIKE A MOTHER, but not hot enough to actually burn him.  (If I unplugged it so he couldn't turn it on, then the outlet would be exposed and I figure burned is better than fried, right?)  Cue - Oh My God That Hurt Really Bad And Now I Will Scream As Hard As I Can Until Snot Runs Into My Mouth And Then That Will Make Me Scream Even Louder As I Attempt To Sob Out The Word "SNOT!"

I was finally able to distract him by calling the dog over to lick the snot off his face.  (Don't judge - that is one less towel I have to wash!) Then I turned around for like, maybe TWO seconds to finally put my panties on, and in that time he knocked over the box fan on our bedroom floor (which was not plugged in or turned on, fortunately), stood on it, and then scraped up his foot when his weight broke the plastic grill and he fell through it.  More screaming.  More begging for boob! hair!  More of me gently reminding him that HE KNEW BETTER!

Only two things are off limits in our master bedroom:  the fan and steamer.  How lovely that he managed to defy the direct orders of his mother, not to mention his own better judgment, all in under ten minutes!  Aren't toddlers just THE BEST?!  Such rational, calm, little well-behaved angels, no?!?

Later on my sister Audrey joined us for lunch at a Mexican place that I used to like.  From now on that place is going to be called - The Have A Little Quesadilla With Your Cilantro-eria.  Gross.  Why do all the uppity places overdo it with the cilantro and under do it with the lard?  Whatever - back on topic - this post is about toddlers, specifically mine and all the ways he drives me to the bottle each day.  After lunch, I put the diaper bag on the back seat next to the boy so Audrey could sit in the front.  As we get going she turns around to make silly faces at him and learns that he's rummaged his way through the diaper bag, found a pen and has managed to COAT himself in ink - in under three minutes. 

At least yesterday he was an angel.  By noon, I had completely run out of ideas for what to do with the rest of our day.  The house was (relatively) clean, there were no playgroup opportunities, all of Alex's friends were either sick or unavailable and I NEEDED TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE, far enough so I couldn't hear all the e-mails calling my name.  So I took him to a movie.  It was all I could think of! 

We caught the 12:30 showing of Madagascar, a perfect first movie for an almost two year old and at the perfect TIME for an almost two year old.  By 1:15, he was drowsy enough to sit on my lap and snuggle for the remainder of the (mercifully short) movie.  He only mildly annoyed the people in the adjacent rows when he discovered that the arms! of the seats! go up! and down!  Mostly I was able to bribe him to stay in his seat with popcorn and gummy bears while the animals danced around singing "I like to move it move it".  He was enthralled and I was AMAZED.  I only expected him to last half an hour.  So, for anyone keeping tabs:  Hollywood: 1, Canada: 10 (CAILLOU, people, the Canadians made CAILLOU, not to mention Jenandtonic), Mom: 0.  I am already allowing, even encouraging my child to fork over a crapload of cash ($8 for a matinee) for 80 minutes of computer animation (and 25 minutes of coming attractions).  Go me!

The highlight of the movie itself was that the main character (the voice of Ben Stillar) was a NY city zoo lion named ALEX.  So when we got home, I printed out pictures of the lion for my own little Alex.  When he saw the pages, he was enthusiastic with his praise -  "Mommy! You a good draw-er!"

I guess we'll keep him.