my big boy

bbb is three! THREE! unbelievable. he's such a funny/interesting/crazy little man. he astounds me and confounds me (and drives me absolutely crazy) every single day.

we spent the weekend putting the house back together after the floor remodel. have i mentioned that i LOVE the floors? they are gorgeous. it's like we live in an entirely new house.



monday the fam came over for bbb's party. pirate theme. i fixed jerk chicken and red beans and rice. first time i ever worked with scotch bonnet peppers. so hot they burned my nose when i breathed around them but very tasty.



i tried my best to make a fancy looking pirate cake. it looks nowhere near as nice as i wanted it too but it tasted pretty good and i'm fairly certain bbb liked it.



nothing too taxing on the horizon at the moment. settling into the routine of winter and second semester for mmm. nice, quiet, homey times.

barking seal cough

is there any other way to describe it?  you're sound asleep.  deep, deep middle of the night sleep. and then you hear it.  the repetitive "ark, ark, ark" of the barking seal cough.  you're disoriented. what IS that?  then you hear the rustling and the whimpering.  it's your kid.

so that's how our night went last night.  b was up from a little before one to a little before six.  he slept til about 8.  i slept pretty much not at all.  we spent the day watching videos and being low key.  he seems to be feeling better, but we won't know for sure til later in the night.

sleep for me soon.  uneasy sleep with one ear on the door!  i just hope my little guy can rest tonight.  

b's second birthday

i don't know where to start with this post because it really needs to be broken down into two separate posts.  part of me just wants to talk about the day b was born.  the other part just wants to talk about the cake i baked for him today!  

i'll start with the cake.  we had a train theme for his party this afternoon.  i purchased a nordicware baking tin that produces 9 detailed train cars.  i made the snickerdoodle cake recipe that came with the pan (mostly because i knew it would be the right amount to fill the tin).  the cake turned out great.  i didn't lose a single detail- the cars slid right out of the pan.

had a blast decorating them.  buttercream, skittles, chocolate chips and twizzlers.  i think it turned out just as i had hoped.  most importantly, b loved it.  b loved everything about his birthday.  he was showered with gifts almost to the point of obscenity.  

now to the reflecting.

two years ago today was a very cold day.  a winter storm had blown in and wiped away all of the temperate weather we'd been having.  it was a wednesday.  and i'd been in labor since sunday night/monday morning.  i'd been to the hospital and sent home once already, much to my dismay and terror.  i was ready for drugs.  finally on wednesday morning i felt confident that they wouldn't send me away.  contractions were 4 minutes apart.  i hadn't slept or eaten since monday evening.  not night.  EVENING.  

we trekked across town in the cold cold pre-dawn and joyfully walked into the hospital.  i wasn't scared.  i was ready.  but mostly i was just ready for drugs and sleep.  i am not a hero.  the dear, sweet anesthesiologist worked his magic.  i not only got the epidural, but something to make me sleep and something to make me feel less nauseous.  and sleep i did.  from 7 am to 3 pm i slept.  slept my way to fully dilated.  

and then it was time to push.  i foolishly thought it would take an hour, tops.  HA!  try THREE HOURS.  and while i know she was right, i still think my midwife was some kind of sadist.  "it really will speed things up if we turn the epidural off."  fast and painful sounded better than slow and painful, so i said yes.  

and i think that's when the swearing began.  i'd scream and curse and yell with each contraction, then apologize profusely to the midwife, the resident and my husband.  actually the time between contractions was very pleasant.  lots of chit chat and excited rambling on my part.

then, FINALLY, at 5:59 pm my little guy decided to finally get his great big head out into the world.  i snatched him right up.  so traumatic.  unfathomable trauma, to be born.  but soon he was swaddled and nursing and watching basketball with his parents. 

so here's to my little guy!  happy birthday buddy!

where did i go wrong?

my child.  my sweet sweet child who is a little under two months away from turning two.  an amazing creature, to be sure.  he's smart.  and i know, i know i'm his mom so i'm biased.  but really, he's smart.  crazy smart like his papa.  he says words like "delicious" and "relaxation" and uses them appropriately.  he can say his abc's and count to twenty.  he memorizes books after one sitting.  he knows what gas stations are and what you get there.  he distinguishes between target, kroger, walmart and sam's.  he has our extended family all mapped out in that brain of his.  who lives with whom, where they all live, how it all works.  it's amazing to me. and maybe, you know, that's just how toddlers are, absorbing everything.  i still submit that he's more than a little bright.

so what's the problem today?  aside from all the usual toddler antics (screaming for no reason, crying uncontrollably at any resistance to his evil plans, irrational fears involving bathtub drains, erratic sleep patterns) he has decided that he is a pirate.  now, i do know WHY he has decided to become a pirate.  it's because of this video which he and his father watch daily.  he asks to watch it.  he loves it.

you can tell the he has flipped into pirate mode when he turns his hat sideways and uses part of it as an eye patch.  and sometimes he'll say "i'm a pirate."  i'd love to take a picture of it, but, being the sociopath that he is, he refuses to let me.  

main squeeze

i try to tone down my b talk as much as i can.  i know that listening to someone go on and on about how cute their kid is can be terribly annoying.  don't want to be that person.

but, damn, if that kid is not just the cutest little person i've ever seen.  here is a sample of cuteness, just from the last three hours.

first, on the way home from gram's he decided that his ipod (a toy mp3 player that plays over 30 songs sung by creepy british children) is actually an iphone.  he was playing music and suddenly stopped the songs and held the box up to his ear.  "hello?  hi jack (his cousin).  no, no, no jumpin' on bed.  no.  take your shoes off.  i'm fine, thanks.  ok bye."  which, i gotta say, is a fairly in depth imaginary conversation for a twenty month old.

second, he has somehow gotten it into his head then when water drips off of him in the bath he's actually melting.  we do not know how or why he has come to this conclusion, but he is generally unhappy at bath time now.  tonight he was revved up and getting into everything, running from forbidden item to forbidden item.  "ok, kid, you're gonna get a bath now."  "ok!  ok!  i gonna melt!"  if he had the vocabulary i think he would have said something like "yeah, a-holes, i'm gonna do it!  gonna melt away to nothing and THEN you'll be sorry!"

third, we rounded out the evening by reading the halloween book that tew got for him.  i ask him what the pictures are.  "what's that?" "SNAKES! night snakes.  hug"  and then he'd hug the book.  "what's that?"  "ROBBER!!!  hug robber."  and so on and so forth through the ghosts and skulls and spiders and pirates.  yup, that's my sweet, creepy little guy.

ok, hopefully that is out of my system for a little while.  

almost forgot

this is what a grouchy baby looks like.

two loaves and a crazy kid

today was a long, lovely day.  baby b and i woke (at 5:15!!!!) and lounged around in our usual way.  he likes to chat now in the mornings, as much as a nineteen month old can chat.  8:30 rolled around and we headed into to town to the farmer's market.  picked up some eggplant and potatoes that i hope to turn into something yummy for mmm's return tomorrow.

we got back home and i set my mind to making bread.  nothing fancy, just two plain loaves of white bread.  used the recipe from baking with julia and it turned out as textured and full as ms. childs promised.  

i will not dwell on the rest of my day here.  it was full of this sound "no, b.  no.  i said no!  do you want a time out?  hey.  hey!  don't turn on the dishwasher!  no!  what's in your mouth?  stop.  stop.  stop.  stop."  ugh.  he was going full speed ahead today.

he had a thick warm slice of homemade bread for his night night snack, topped with cherry jam from the cherries off of our tree.  gotta say, i felt some pride feeding my babe a 100% homemade treat.  

who's the comedian?

will the person who taught my son to do spit takes please stand up so i might beat you over the head with a sippy cup?

all this and i forgot the tortillas

made the egregious error of going to the grocery store today after work.  don't know what i was thinking.  overflowing with not-nice people.  yelling-at-their-kids-in-public kinds of people.  things had been completely rearranged since last i'd been there and i couldn't find a thing.  

baby b was also quite unhappy to be there.  he wanted to stay in the car with his magna-doodle.  (he's getting very good at the magna-doodle).  baby b, being the sociable fellow he is, proceeded to say hi to every person we passed.  so we're talking, what, a minimum of 30 hellos?  yeah, i'd say about two people said hi back.  what is wrong with these people?  i'm afraid they are eventually going to wear him down and give him low self-esteem.  

left the store with half of the items on my list.  praise heaven that my husband does the grocery shopping.  if not, we might starve.  

home sweet home

sat through a speech this afternoon that i can only describe as singular in its incoherence.  not only did the examples used have nothing at all to do with the (supposed) topic of the talk, the tone itself jumped from accusatory to reverent.  and the worst part?  it was way too long.  

long ride home thinking about jack and family.  

the little character in the picture above brought a smile to my face as i climbed the stairs.  waist deep in bubbles, playing in the tub with dida.  

baby and music

listening to much music this morning.



whiskeytown, kasey chambers, feeling small town. feeling dirt roads and heartbreak and hard liquor.



feeling caught up in lyrics. beautifully turned phrases. like this. whiskeytown "empty baseball park":

"Why should I hate you?
After all, its been so long
Since Ive lived in town.
Let it go for now.
Have a drink at your favorite bar till dark.
Stumble into empty baseball park.
Strike one and strike two...
I guess were both out.

Stumble past the record store
End up at the movies.
Try and think of something else.
Nothings comin to me.

Stumble past the record store
End up at the movies.
Try and think of something else.
Nothings comin to me.You do this to me.

You do this and I oblige.
And I fight it.

Why should I miss you?
After all, its been so long
Since I felt your kiss.
Did it come to this?

Stumble past the record store
End up at the movies.
Try and think of something else.
Nothings comin to me.
tumble past the record store
And end up at the movies.
Try and think of something else.
Nothings comin to me.

I let you do this to me.

I must be crazy.
I must be crazy.
I must be crazy.
I must be.....I must be.
I must be."

on another note:


set up baby ben's play kitchen last night and he love love loved it. it's an old wooden kitchen that belonged to his cousins. it has much character. he prepared a hamburger, several waffles, and a lot of glasses of milk.



he seems to think the wooden fish that came with it is a cell phone. this leads me to believe that i spend way too much time on the phone.