I'm not sure what this means

I was in the living room talking with a friend on the phone this afternoon when Charlie toddled over carrying a book. He said to me "Book? Up?" so I pulled him into my lap where he produced a copy of "Taking Charge of Your Fertility."

Best Yard Sale Find Ever

Charlie made out like a bandit at a nearby community garage sale. He got two pairs of sneakers (7s and 8s because he's growing out of his 6s, yikes! Also, $2 for two pairs of barely used kids' shoes? Score! They light up, which I didn't know until I got them home) some shirts, a science picture book (to suppliment My Family of Planets, which he and Ryan read every night. Now he can learn some Earth science, biology, and chemistry along with astronomy), and THIS!



There is going to be a toddler fight in the culdesac on Monday! (Although maybe Charlie will finally leave the kid with the shopping cart full of chalk alone. That would be super). He knows how to put his feet on the pedals now, but we are still working on learning to push (and also how to steer. Many many tears were shed when he reached dead ends in our living room).

After training for the Tour de France we went back inside where Charlie found his new shoes, exclaimed "SHOES!", then sat down and took his shoes off so he could try on the new ones. He's sleeping in them now. Charlie's a little nuts about shoes. If I don't have any shoes on he will go find a pair of mine somewhere in the house, bring them to me, and insist I put them on right then. I think it's blowing his mind that he has THREE PAIRS all to himself now.

Mother of the Year Application Essay 2.0

Know what I'm doing right now? I'm sitting at my desk pretending the pounding noise I am hearing is three hot, shirtless contractors framing out the new bathroom spa addition Ryan decided to get me for Mothers' Day (in my fantasy, of course).

I'm picturing the pretty mosaic tile they would be using for the tub-surround, the super powerful shower head they would be installing, the wonderful slate floor they would laying piece by piece, leaving no detail unaddressed, no expense spared.

Because that is much more fun than picturing Charlie using one of his shoes to hack his way out of his crib, Shawshank Redemption style.

Cruel Mommy that I am, I put him down for his afternoon nap a smidge early so we could go to the pool this afternoon with our friends (because it is supposed to be ninety freaking degrees and if I took Charlie to the playground he would fry like a piece of bacon the second his chubby little legs got near one of the slides). But this is not a concept easily conveyed to a one-year old (who, despite repeatedly laying his head down on the floor while I was reading him books is now decidedly NOT TIRED).

UPDATE: Ummm, oops? Had not considered the possibility that he had pooped five minutes after I put him down? That would make me a little cranky too. I guess that's what four pieces of pizza and half a cup of macaroni salad will do to a tiny digestive system. Mwahahaha kids under two are free; obviously they've never seen Charlie eat. Mwahahahaha!


Pants all clean, time to swim, no nap, thank you.

18 months and the hat totally still fits

Charlie turned 18 months old on the second and today he had his checkup. I took him out for a breakfast taco (he gets egg and cheese) before the appointment hoping a full tummy might keep him calm for the doctor, especially now that he has teeth. Turns out he loves the doctor but is completely terrified of his nurse, which makes sense because she is the one who pins him to the exam table and gives him shots.

Charlie has seemed awfully huge lately to both me and Ryan. He is starting to look a little crowded in his crib and I can rest my hand on his head when we are both standing up (a good steering mechanism actually). Recently I haven't been able to carry him as far, but I thought it was because of the pregnancy and because Charlie starts kicking and squirming around when he is tired of being held. So I was looking forward to putting him up on the official scale. Turns out he weighs a sciatic nerve crushing twenty-eight pounds and is nearly thirty-three inches tall. Which means in the last three months he's gained two pounds and grown two inches.

The doctor was impressed with Charlie's thirty-five word vocabulary, although it's actually thirty-six because I didn't tell him Charlie can correctly identify tater tots. And knows they come from Sonic.

I did tell the doctor that Charlie helps himself to grapes out of the vegetable drawer and loves to read Goodnight Moon (which he calls "Bye Bye").

Here are some pictures of my giant toddler-baby on Day 1 and out on the swing today wearing his hospital issue pom pom hat that still fits on his 95th percentile head (barely). That was twelve inches and twenty pounds ago and even though he now occasionally screams "NO!" at me and drops to a puddle of misery on the floor in public we are having more fun than ever.

You've got to be kidding me

When I was pregnant with Charlie I had cravings for JUNK. I remember the first one so clearly. I was at home in my pajamas watching something awesome like Law and Order while Ryan spent a few extra hours in the lab. And that's when I knew. I HAD to have cheese fries. With bacon. And ranch dressing. Nothing else would do. I called Ryan and in twenty minutes we were sitting at a sports bar near the university tucking into the biggest plate of cheesy, baconey goodness you've ever seen.

Later it was spicy food. Again I called Ryan, this time crying in the marinade section of the grocery store because I couldn't find anything spicy enough. He took me out for wings and I ate until my eyes started watering.

So what was my first craving this time? The one thing I just could not stop thinking about? The thing I HAD to HAVE or I would just not feel right the rest of the evening?

Romaine freaking lettuce. With balsamic vinaigrette.

The family on Wifeswap (again with the quality TV) was having a huge bowl of salad and it looked so yummy. Eating cool, crunchy lettuce was all I could think about. I started to feel vaguely sick when I thought about eating anything else--even the slice of apple pie I had waiting for me in the kitchen.

In particular the Cesar greens with balsamic vinaigrette from the Macaroni Grill was what I wanted. Ryan offered to go get it for me, a trip that would have taken about an hour round trip, but instead I ate nearly five cups of lettuce from the fridge with the last of a bottle of Paul Newman's Family Recipe Italian dressing. At 9:00 at night. AS A SNACK.

I don't even recognize myself.

In other news, Ryan thought it might be good to have Charlie's potty out in the house so he could become familiar with it before we start potty training (I have no idea when that will be), so I set it up in the kitchen. We've been making a big production of taking him with us to the bathroom and saying enthusiastically "Charlie! Mama is going POTTY!" and when we change his diaper we say "Ooh! You went POTTY!" Last night we showed him his throne and told him it was HIS POTTY and Ryan sat him down on it with his clothes on. Charlie beamed and shrieked "POH-TEEEE"!

Ryan thought he might like something to read and I snapped this for the high school graduation slide show.


(Here he is pointing to a picture of the Pope and saying "Papa!", which is AWESOME because I didn't even know he could speak Spanish, let alone name world religious leaders from pictures in a magazine)

This morning he asked to get down from his high chair and as soon as I put him down he headed for his potty to finish his juice in private.

Later he realized its potential as a huge 3-D puzzle.



I don't think using the potty as a giant cup holder is a sign of readiness, do you?

Guilty Pleasures

What rituals make you feel like a human being again?

Maybe we can just say we took him to the Catholic Church first.

Topping the list of dubiously appropriate places to take your toddler is Eeyore's Birthday Party. Even though it sounds like a Pooh themed children's event (and there were tons of kids there), it is actually a hippy celebration of spring complete with costumes, hula hoops, men in skirts, and lots and lots of weed. As we walked down the hill from our car we could see a cloud of smoke rising over the park (which was probably mostly from the grills at the concession stands but the whole time we were there we were asking "is that pot or incense? Should we stand somewhere else?").


We dressed Charlie up in his tie-dye shirt and shark hat and carried him there in the hippy approved Ergo carrier.

One of the main attractions of the event (besides the pot) is the drum circles. Instead of an actual circle it was more like an amoeba of dozens of bodies with instruments of all kinds--some marching band style drums, hand drums, maracas, tambourines, horns, kazoos, and even five gallon water jugs--all playing and moving together as one. The energy was infectious and we wanted to get closer to be a part of it. We got as close as we could but still couldn't see more than a couple of the people with drums. The sound was exhilarating. Charlie loved it.


Drum circle is somewhere in there.


Eeyore Statue of Liberty marks the location of the largest drum circle.

We met up with my sister and brother-in-law and their friend and after we watched some kids tie a man dressed like a giant to a Maypole we settled in for some people watching.



Sister, friend, Brother-in-Law

That's when things got really interesting. My brother-in-law came back from getting drinks and excitedly related seeing a couple dressed in elaborate bird costumes performing "a crazy bird sex dance" up on the hill where he said "all the really crazy hill people were" (a really remarkable statement considering we saw a man dressed as a tree, a woman who had been hula-hooping since six in the morning, and a man wearing only a thong and a bandanna before we even got near the hill). Then Eeyore himself walked by on a leash held by a man who could have been Willie Nelson's brother. THEN a guy came by and discretely offered us hash brownies for a bargain price of $5 each.



Charlie was too wiped out for a bath when we got home last night so he went straight to bed. This morning I cuddled him in my lap as I was putting on his shoes and OH MY GOSH we sent him to the church nursery with his hair smelling of incense.