Stuff...

First of all, thanks to those who commented on my whole "Mama's gettin' an allowance" post. The shock to my system is slowly wearing away & I appreciate the fact that I didn't get any "well, go get yourself a real job then, bitch" comments because those would have sent me into a good six months of therapy (funded by, who else? Husband and his bank account). It was nice to hear that what I am doing now (finding creative ways of saying "no" until my ears want to bleed, rolling a ball back and forth across the living room until my head wants to explode, and singing "Free to be You & Me" no fewer than ten times daily, along with the requisite naps, diapers, mealtimes in which precisely no eating takes place, etc) is actually considered work. So thank you for that. My mind is more at ease.

On another note, you might notice that I added some daily reads to mah blog. I've been gathering them for awhile and actually found time and the guts to go back into my blog template (I fear html in a way that makes me wonder what my computer *geek* husband sees in me in the first place) to update the links. A few links are dead and I can't figure out why. I'd ask Husband, but I am notoriously bad at taking instruction from him. So the deadness of some of the links remain a mystery to me, but I am keeping them up because I love the blogs they no longer take you to. I will try to fix them the next time I venture into the html-osphere. Anyway, some of the new ones are written by friends of mine and some I have just stumbled over in my quest for online amusement when I should be doing loads of laundry.

And on yet another note--congrats to my pregnancy twin, Amy (second daily read down on the right) on getting knocked up! After having a pregnancy freakishly similar to mine, she is onto bebe #2 and I have to admit it, it is making me think. I am getting ideas in my fool-head (ssshhhhhh---do NOT tell my mother; she will have my head on a platter for even thinking the thought). But I'm thinking.

I suppose you want to hear a bit about the little man, huh? And why not. Did I mention that we went to visit Grammy & Grampy in South Carolina? Well, we did. Aside from having to dine at Cracker Barrel on the way to and from the 'rents, it was a fabulous time. My child is a bona fide beach bum. Please note exhibit A:







We are close to walking, but methinks it might never happen. I do think he's getting bored with cruising, but he's not motivated enough to actually let go of anything without just plopping down and crawling to whatever he wants next. Yesterday he started letting me hold his hands while he walked around the room. We shall see where that leads us (besides the chiropractors)

My favorite recent development started yesterday & I like to call them "yummy noises". When Ethan puts something in his mouth he actually enjoys (this is a rarity and I swear the sky opens up as the angels play their tiny little harps and weep with joy), he looks at me and goes, "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" very emphatically. I realized today that he has started doing it because it's what I do when I try to get him to put something in his mouth. I take a bite and make a big show out of how tasty yummy it is. Apparently I make that noise as part of my pitch. While the majority of the food still ends up on the floor or, somehow, in hiding in his diaper, he lets me know what he does like with his happy little yummy noise. The foods that, at the moment, enjoy a coveted spot on the yummy-noise list are bananas, graham crackers, string cheese, avocado, watermelon, blueberries, tomatoes, mangoes and that's about it. Makes for some interesting dinner combinations. And I have to take time to note the irony that our skinny little man eschews all fattening foods, preferring instead healthy fruits and vegetables. While kids around him are hopping on the childhood obesity bandwagon, I've got an 17 and 1/2 pound 14 month old who just wants a little nosh of salad. Did you hear that? That was another strand of my hair going gray.

First National Bank of Husband...

Well, I knew the day had to come. It is inevitable that when one makes the choice to leave the work force and stop drawing a paycheck, one will eventually find a gaping black hole of cashlessness in the space that was once their bank account.

It happened this week. After hording my money while on bedrest, alas, it is gone. Spent over the past fourteen months on diapers, groceries, baby clothes for Ethan, fat-girl clothes for me, baby food, too many lattes, more diapers, books, scrapbooking materials I have yet to use, a jogging stroller, toys, diapers, wipes, and more diapers. I'm sure there other odds and ends, but oh my god, the diapers!

This means that now I am officially and truly a "kept woman". I have to admit, it makes my skin itch a bit in a way I didn't think it would. This is something Husband and I talked about & planned for prior to getting married. My being a stay-at-home type of mom was a foregone conclusion way back when Ethan was still a mere concept to us rather than the tornado of joy & frustration that he is now. It was what I envisioned for myself way back when the first fantasies of mommyhood flickered in my brain. I didn't think the idea of not having or making my own money would resonate with me on any level whatsoever, nevermind one that set my teeth a bit on edge.

I realize it's not the idea of being a stay-at-home mom that makes me uncomfortable. I am not one of those women who feels passionately that there is a right or wrong way to *do* motherhood in terms of continuing a career or taking time out of "professional life" to raise a child. Whatever works best for each family and each mother is the best choice for those particular people. I think this anxious-to-the-toes feeling is more about the fact that having a job and making money has been a part of my life as long as I can remember.

I have been working and making at least spending money since I was 14 years old.
My first job was washing used cars off of Main Street in Nashua, NH, the summer between 8-9th grade. I endured creepy men driving by slowly asking if I was included in the price of the car, but it was a kick-ass, out in the sun all day, not using your brain summer job for a teenager & I always had money for the R-rated movies I was sneaking into.

I have worked at a shoe store, an cheesy, cheap accessory store, a hospital nutrition office, a medical filing office, a dining hall, Express, Filene's, a one-hour photo booth, a bookstore, as a tutor, and at five schools. Each of those jobs gave me some amount of money, either to spend frivolously with my friends, to save for college or, finally, to live off of and support myself. For the past 21 years.

This week, I had to ask Husband for money. We needed, what else, diapers. And the whole "you are now a woman on an allowance" smacked me upside the head with a force I had not anticipated. I was suddenly 12 years old again, with my hand out waiting for spending money. Oh, the agony. Isn't this what I spent 21 years of my life working against? Isn't this what the cynical feminazis call "institutionalized prostitution"? Why can't completion of a master's degree come with a pension? That seems reasonable.

Don't get me wrong. I am not one of those cynical feminazis. I consider myself a feminist in the truest sense--believing that a woman should have the freedom to choose and do that which is best for her, regardless of what the feminist movement of the day says that "best" option is. I don't believe that I am prostituting myself in any way, shape or form. But I realize that others do.

It's not much different from the time in Economics class in high school when we were revealing our plans for our future careers. I attended an all-girl high school where the majority of the honors level girls were anticipating careers in medicine and law. I was looking forward to a career as a teacher. I endured countless barbs and snide comments about how I should be trying to do more with my life. How we lived in a time when women could be anything, why would I want to be something I could have been 100 years ago. I was looked down on. My dream was poo-poo'd.

It is much the same now. When Ethan was about 3 months old, I was asked by a well-meaning, but at the time clueless girlfriend of mine how I liked, "being a lady of leisure." I plastered a smile on my face (she was a few months pregnant and I didn't want to burst her bubble with too many horror stories of the sleep deprivation and oh my dear god in heaven, the colic). It struck me that whenever one isn't actively putting in a full day's work on someone else's clock, they are "at leisure". It didn't matter that I was up at 4:45 every day, bouncing a crying baby, doing 5 loads of laundry a week, pumping breastmilk, rocking a baby to sleep every 2 hours during the day and trying desperately to entertain a fussy, miserable child for the hours he was actually awake. I was at leisure because no one was cutting me a check bi-weekly for my efforts. (That friend's child is now 6 months old and I'd venture a guess that she'd not ask the same question again).

And although no one knew that before last week I had my own money and this week I don't, I feel like it is plastered on my forehead, nice & loud. "MAMA'S BROKE!" "WILL PROVIDE MATERNAL SERVICES FOR FOOD."

But what is to be done? Nothing. This, as it seems to be with everything in my life, is a matter of self-perception. I will take a few deep breaths & realign my idea of what, to me, success and prosperity are again, through yet newer eyes. And clearly, when I look at Ethan, I am reminded that life's truest riches are not found on any bank statement, but in the feeling of complete and utter trust and love when his head rests on my shoulder as I carry him upstairs for a nap.

Like Father, like Son...

A funny thing happens when I don't blog for a week or so. People start asking me if I am depressed. Way back when, when I first 'fessed up about the PPD, I said I realized that I had it when I could no longer muster an interest in blogging and let the blog slide for the better part of a month. Now, Husband and a few good friends seem to keep tabs on the frequency of my postings as a benchmark of my mental health. So let me assure you, friends, family and internet in general, Sarah is NOT depressed. She is just chasing a constantly busy little person around the house at all hours of the day, feigning fascination with the never-ending opening and closing of cabinet doors and warning against the dangers of extreme kitty tampering. Apparently one claw to the forehead was not enough to teach the little man that pulling a kitty's tail can lead to ouchies.

But I have found a quiet moment, so here I am. And as it is Father's Day weekend, here's a little glimpse at the father/son bonding that's been going on in the Little E household as of late...

Husband demonstrates the fine art of being buried by the tide at the Carolina shore

Naptime is not kind to their hair...hence the need for daddy's hat....

You can find IT on Ebay...

When I was young and behaving obnoxiously (me??!! never happened), my parents would jokingly (I think) discuss selling me to the gypsies. Apparently, NH in the 70's was rife with roving bands of baby-buying Slavic nomads on the lookout for a bargain. I would definitely have fit the bill.

This morning, Husband & I had the 2007 equivalent of that conversation, as Ethan whined his way through the 5 and 6 am hours in between us.

Me: You're going to list him on E-bay today, right?

Husband: Yes.

Me: Good.

Husband: Actually, I'll put him up on Craig's List. It's local. He'll be easier to unload.

Me: No. Ebay. If we do Craig's List, he might find his way home.

To Sleep, perchance to dream...

Apparently Ethan has signed up for some sort of scientific research that he failed to tell us about. The experiment seems to have something to do with sleep deprivation and it's effects on two parents who were just starting to believe that they would actually get an entire night's shut-eye before their child went to college. I guess we will actually be waiting until we are empty-nesters to luxuriate in 8 hours of uninterrupted, blissful sleep. Now I know why Keats wrote an ode about sleep. As someone who's only slept in 3-5 hour increments for over a year, I can assure you that peaceful sleep truly is ode-worthy.

But I only imagine sleep these days, remember the good old days of those 3-5 hours of snoozing at a time. As I mentioned, there is this experiment. It involves taking one okay-ish nap in the morning and then kicking and screaming and fighting the afternoon nap until Mama is a beaten down shell of her former self and gives up, letting him remain awake for up to 8 hours between nap and bedtime.

The first time this happened, the stinker lolled us into a false sense of security because after refusing the afternoon nap, he was so tuckered out that by 8pm, he smiled at Husband, rolled over and was asleep in a hot second. We dared (foolish, foolish fools that we are) to think that maybe he was done with the second nap and would become an example of the perfect nighttime sleeper with this whole, "No, daddy, don't worry; I'll put myself to bed!" routine he had going on.

HA. FREAKING. HA.

That didn't pan out to be the case. I guess in the description he received from the evil sleep researchers, he was supposed to make us think he had taken a giant leap forward in his sleep habits when in fact, he was really going back to about, oh, 4 months of age or so. This was, I suppose, to enhance our shock and disappointment when the next time he refused the afternoon nap, he didn't actually jump up at 8pm to change his own diaper, throw on his jammies and bid us goodnight as he sauntered up the stairs to bed.

No, yesterday, when he refused his afternoon nap, he also refused his bedtime. Over and over and over again. Joy.

There was *some* sleep, but it was restless and fitful and punctuated with random crying jags. I know I was awake from 2:30-4:30 am pretty consistently. Not much happening at that hour, except the sound of my own internal voice saying, "It's fucking late!" or, alternately, "I'm so fucking tired." It was a pretty deep monologue.

So of course, after no nap and craptastic nighttime sleep, he HAD to just pass out for his morning nap today, right??? Um. No. Nor did he sleep for more than ten minutes this afternoon. It defies reason. I am tired just thinking about how tired he must be.

I don't know what the outcome of this little experiment is going to be. There is no way to know. Maybe tonight we will all be sleeping like angels on a happy puffy cloud of dreams (can you feel my sleep deprivation, people? I said a "happy, puffy cloud of dreams". Help me!) Or, Mama could be digging out the Benefit makeup she got a month post-partum to hide the deep dark circles of exhaustion under her eyes. Good times.

One Year pictures...

So here they are--Ethan's official "I'm 1 year old!" pictures. We took him to get them done yesterday, but two minutes before our appointment, the stumblebutt took a nose dive into a table and gave himself a big old red mark above his right eye. I swear, I am going to include a "today's boo boo" update daily in the blog from now on--I am fairly certain he is going to give me plenty to write about in that department.

Fortunately the mark didn't morph into a shiner and today there no facial blemish to be seen (he still has that vampiric quality babies have where they heal almost before your very eyes). So off to the photo studio we went. And here are the results. Ethan's first serious crush must be on this photographer--this is our 3rd set of pictures from her and each time he sees her, even though it's been 3 months since the last time, he lights up and giggles and practically begs her to adopt him and take him home with her. Hmmmmm....not sure how much I like that, but at least he smiles for her and makes some fabulous pictures.

Chicks Dig Scars....

This is a good thing for my little man. It has been the weekend of the boo boos in the land of Ethan. It seems that the child needs to be in a bubble to protect him from kitty claws and table edges and boxes to topple off of. And, if we could remove his teeth while he's awake, that would be good, too.

See, Ethan enjoys climbing now. And why not?! What a wonderful change in perspective to be 4 inches higher than he was five seconds ago? It's like a whole new world. The problem is that he is not yet so good at staying on top of whatever he scrambles up onto. This would apparently be no big deal, if he didn't have teeth. His head is like concrete (I know because he likes to head butt me around 2am), so I don't worry that a 4 inch drop is going to do to much damage to the old noggin, you know?

What does cause some silent hysterical crying (you know the type--the mouth is open, the face is red, but there is no sound coming out.....until....."WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"), is when he falls off of something and lands with his top two teeth stuck in his bottom lip. Oh yeah. That'll rev things up a bit.

Today, Ethan face planted off one of his toys' boxes and gave himself the aforementioned bite, which resulted in a gushing bloody and swollen lip. Again, much screaming. Much crying.

Finally a popsicle fixed the situation and we have a happy, smiling, giggling, fat-lipped little boy.

Kitty 1, Ethan 0

Yeah, so today was not a banner day in the Little E household, thanks to one curious almost-toddler and one cranky old lady kitty.

It started off like any other Saturday--happy little waking up noises from Ethan, followed by a fabulous trip to Starbucks to flirt with everyone in sight (Ethan, not me--my flirting days are long over. Have you seen the size of my ass lately? I can't, in good conscience, flirt while toting that thing around). I had my cinnamon dolce latte and Husband had his tall no-foam and Ethan ate his madeliene cookie. Then we returned home, to the scene of the impending catastrophe.

See--here's my dilemma and the root cause of the aforementioned impending catastrophe. Baby gates are up. Our home is fairly Ethan-proofed, so I tend not to follow him from room to room, helicopter style. Also, considering we live in a shoebox, I can hear just about every breath Ethan takes regarldless of where he is in the house. So I tend to let him roam at will, chasing balls and throwing toys and...ooops, tormenting kitties.

Up to this point, Abby & Penny have been saint-like patient with this child. He loves to squeal, "Kitty!" and try to love on them (which is generally in the form of a full-force swat). He seems confused when they run away from him. Go figure, little man, cats aren't so much with the face smacking and whisker pulling.

Today, apparently Penny kitty had had enough. While Ethan was off exploring the kitchen, husband and I relaxed a bit in the livingroom--clearly mistake #1. There was general baby-generated noise from around the corner; Farmer Tad on the fridge was telling us what pigs sound like and all that good stuff.

Next thing I know, I hear a quiet whimper. Odd. Ethan is not a whimperer. If it's worth complaining about, it's worth a scream, damn it. No fear, mama! Before I can get off my fat ass and into the kitch, the whimper has turned into full on panic scream. Mommy pulse starts racing. It is not a good sound.

I turn the corner to see my son and cat on the floor, facing each other, my cat's claw IN. MY. SON'S. FOREHEAD. Yes. You read that right. In his forehead. In the skin. Stuck. She swatted him and got her claw stuck in his skin. It was not a pretty sight. I don't know what he did to her (that would be because I was relaxing like a delinquent in the other room), but she had clearly had enough.

There was much screaming (Ethan & me) and cursing (me) and trying as gently as possible to extricate the cat's claw from my son's head (me) and throwing the cat down the stairs, also as gently as possible (me) and crying (Ethan & me).

There was some bleeding. There was some puffing up of skin. We slathered neosporin on his forehead and did some serious cuddling. The crying stopped and he commenced with the eye-rubbies that mean a nap is not far behind. Now, from the quiet above, I can tell he is sleeping soundly, perhaps dreaming of his revenge on the kitty.

I suppose I should have known this confrontation was inevitable. How could I miss the "just you wait" in this picture?

Bye, Bye Birdie...

I mean, boobie.

Yes, my lactating days are over. For quite some time (I'd say since the teeth turned Ethan into a biting, blood-drawing demon), we've only been nursing once or twice at night. On his first birthday, I rather unceremoniously packed up the pump and storage bottles, telling myself, "Good girl! You made it to a year!" and tossed them into a dark part of the basement, presumably never to be heard from again.

I figured we would nurse during the overnight for as long as the little man wanted. It is an incredibly easy way to convince him to go back to sleep--admittedly, I have been more of a pacifier than a source of nutrition for quite awhile. So for the past almost two months, the boobs have been a bit of Baby Ambien rather than the belly-sating milkshake of days gone by. I thought it would last for at least a few more months.

Nope. Last night Ethan, our up-all-night (or at least every hour) baby, slept from 8pm and, at present (7:05am) is still sleeping, with no late night boob snack. He's been doing the 8am-8pm sleep for quite awhile now, but it is always broken up by at least one or two quick fusses and latches, neither of which any of us really wake up for. But not last night.

There's a part of me that's thrilled--I've been wearing regular, non-nursing bras for over a month now and it's fabulous. There is something lovely and empowering about having my entire body back to myself after 1.5 years.

But then....it's letting go of something that's been a part of my body for 1.5 years. In a tiny way, it is just one more step on Ethan's path towards independence. Again, a lovely thing and I love watching him become his own person, but a mama's gotta feel a little pang of sadness when she realizes that her baby doesn't need her the way he did just a few months ago.

Open Letter to 95% of strangers who have commented on how cute my little girl is....

Dear well-meaning but mind-numbingly stupid "oh how cute-rs" out there:

My child is a boy. Please take note of this the next time you approach me to tell me what an adorable little girl I have. Yes, I am sure. I have checked.

I know that long eye lashes tend to be a girl thing (at least after Maybelline has had their way with them), but truly, he's a boy.

And I'm fairly certain that POSSESSING a penis is more of an indication of gender than the length of one's lashes. I took 8th grade biology and I don't remember even one paragraph in my text book about boys and girls having different eye lashes, and nowhere in the whole super secret girls go to one room and boys go to another for the, "What's happening to my body?" film strips is there any mention of lashes. Therefore I feel supremely confident in my assertion that my child is, indeed, a boy.

And to the lady who actually tried to ARGUE with me about this inarguable fact ("Oh no!! She's too pretty to be a boy!!") : I invite you to change a diaper. It doesn't get any clearer than that.

So that's it. Lush lashes aside, my child is all boy! TYVM.

"I'm a Little Bit Country...."

Oh, wait. No, I'm not. At. All. I could say that, "I'm a little bit rrrock and roll," but do I have the edginess to quote Donnie Osmond? Am I that "rock & roll"? I mean, I don't even have one pair of purple socks.

Either way, last weekend, the Squirmy E family descended upon the home of country music, Nashville, TN (or Nashvegas, as I learn it is "lovingly" called by some) to visit Husband's sister & brother-in-law. What we didn't know when we got there was that we were really entering into one of those "stay free for the weekend IF you come to our no pressure time share presentation" deals.

See, Tia E is pretty keen on having us relocate. To Nashville. Keen enough that she printed out a home-for-sale listing and had it waiting for us on her coffee table, complete with pictures and specs. She referred to it as "your new house", when she handed us the listing. "Our new house" IS lovely, for sure. And disgustingly affordable. In our neck of the woods, that house with all of its glorious separate shower and sunken tub-ness would go for well over a million dollars and that my friends is a big HA HA HA for us. There, we could move into it without a discussion of "well, Ethan will just have to pay his own way through college. Oh, and buy his own groceries from now on, too. And maybe we should start selling our blood."

But. Alas. It is Nashville. And I am a Northerner. We're in a bit of a pickle, Husband and me. I am from the frozen North and he is from the tropical South. He won't move further up into the arctic tundra that is New England, and I am firmly against transplanting to anyplace without clearly defined seasons (although I guess those don't exist anywhere anymore, TYVM global warming). Thus we are stuck in the DC area. It's the south, but not every sentence uttered is finished with, "Bless yer heart" and not everyone is referred to as "Sugar". I can live with that. We still have winter here, but it's only really bad from mid-December to mid-February instead of the November to April season in New England. He can live with that.

So I fear Tia E is going to have to live with the minor disappointment that we won't be living across town from her in a giant house with 4 bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen, a huge backyard and a sunken bathtub in which I could carry on a Calgon-laden existence. Wait...can I reconsider? Bless yer heart, Sugar.

Anyway, we had a fabulous time. Ethan again traveled like a rock star (minus the first class seats and hotel room demolition). He loves airplanes and thankfully, his ears think they are on the ground the whole time. We are fast running out of "lap baby" time because this baby wants to be anywhere BUT the lap during most of the flight. I dread having to buy him his own seat and lugging the massive Britax along for the ride, but those days are not too far in our future.

The weekend, which was Mother's Day weekend, was very relaxing. There was much SLEEPING LATE and GOING ON A DATE WITH HUSBAND, which was exciting enough to deserve all caps. There was a fabulous brunch on Sunday with MIMOSAS. There were botanical gardens and crazy OpryLand Hotels to visit. Sadly, I did not see any sign of the Kidman-Urbans, which was quite the disappointment. I did, however, see at least two statues of Elvis and one bar that had a toilet seat planter in it. Again, both ringing endorsements for the whole relocation campaign.

Here are some pictures from our trip:

Excuse me, wooden Elvis, but have you seen Nicole Kidman?

Who doesn't love a giant guitar airbrushed chock full of honky tonk icons?

Yes, that IS a bar. A stained astro-turfed, terlet tank flower-planted bar.

This is why I can't move to the South. I fear the use of both the words, "howdy" AND "y'all"

I suppose I should also include some pictures of mah baby as well, no?

"The pilot has turned off the seatbelt sign. Feel free to wiggle off mommy's lap and peruse the Sky Mall magazine."

Even Ethan is taller than Tia E :-)

Tia E often confuses cameras for telescopes. Not a fan of zoom...

Truly tastier than his face is letting on.

Psssst, Ethan! Don't look now, but there is a giant metal pumpkin behind you!

The King of all things cute...

Again with the Tia E panoramic shot. We are the dots in the middle of the picture, sitting on the rocks. Actually, it's for the best as it hides the fact that I still look about 8 months pregnant.

Twelve-ish months...

Gee, did I miss the monthly update for his first birthday, or what?! Please, pass me the "good mommy award" (you'll have to rip it out of Britney Spear's crazy, head-shaving, car-pummeling, rehab-hopping hands, but still...) I have just been so busy and so (insert lame excuse here), that I never got around to it. I hang my head in shame.

This past month has been a whirlwind of activity. My baby now looks like a little boy, not the tiny little floppy infant I was so afraid of in the early days. His features are so developed and his personality is so strong, sometimes I am completely overwhelmed by just how much of a real little person he is.

I spent several late nights re-reading my blog from May 5, 05 to present in the days leading up to his first birthday and I have to say--it feels like the blink of an eye and yet I can barely remember what it felt like to have a newborn and to be so exhausted and so overwhelmed that it seemed like I simply couldn't do it. And, declining wit and writing abilities aside, I am so glad I have this record of his life and the memories that it has captured for me. For most of the entries I read, I can recall writing them and I certainly have clear recollections of the events in them.

We are a flurry of cruising and warp-speed crawling right now. There are moments when I think he is having a birthday cake sugar rush flashback because he moves at such a pace and with such enthusiasm that I can't believe he isn't training for some baby Olympics events. He cruises as far as he can, plops onto his butt and then pulls up at the next available piece of furniture. He received several walking toys for his birthday, but he has yet to get the hang of these. He is currently holding on to them and slowly falling to his belly as they move further away from him. It's like that awkward moment in high school when you and your girlfriends are trying to be cool like the cheerleaders and attempting splits. You get about half way down and realize...."I can't get any further down. Oh wait, I can't get up, either. Super cool."

So I let Ethan belly flop to the floor because I figure if I go rescue him every time, he'll think the walking toys are just fancy mommy-callers. Mama sometimes just likes to watch.

He is also pretty proud of himself because he thinks he has discovered cupboards. Like, he's the Copernicus of cupboards. If a Nobel Prize was awarded in great achievement in cupboard exploration, Ethan would be a shoe-in. He can clearly discern a cupboard from say...anything that is NOT a cupboard. He can open them; he can close them. He can rifle through the contents of the cupboard like it was his job. It's quite impressive.

And the baby-proofing begins in earnest this weekend. But I ask you, internet, how do you baby-proof the bathroom trash? Because....yuck.

My weight-challenged munchkin was just shy of 17lbs at his 1 year appointment. Big sissy, drama-queen that I am, I cried. I really wanted him to be at least 18lbs and of course I took it as a personal failure that he didn't quite make it (I am such a freaking sucker for the mommy guilt! Bring it ON!). But now, the little stinker will take formula...in his whole milk. So I have been loading him up with formula-spiked whole milk and I swear, I feel the difference already when I pick him up.

We nurse only once at night now. The teething thing, sadly, did us in. He got 4 teeth within one month and mommy's boob was his favorite teething toy. No matter what diversionary tactics I tried, he could not be deterred and so we added more whole milk and cut out the boob more and more, until we were only nursing when he was at his groggiest and least bitey. That would be about 4am. It is lovely that we still have that--you can't beat middle of the night cuddle time and as we still co-sleep, it is so easy and perfect and it can stay like this for as long as he needs or wants it. I will say, wearing non-nursing bras rocks (more mommy guilt!)

So much more to write about, but I am about 3 glasses of wine into my evening and I must curl up and sleep now.

Oh yeah, I forgot...

I have a blog.

I have an excuse, though, internet. God help me when the child actually starts walking. I have spent most of the past two weeks chasing my cruising child around and trying to keep him in one piece...

I will post more later. When, against all odds, this child actually sleep.

One Year...

The party has come and gone. My baby is a one year old. I am still digesting this (and the cake).

I will do the 12-month round up and party pictures sometime this week...until then, you will have to make do with this:

What a Difference a Year Makes...

Get a haircut, you hippy!

Well, actually my son is, um, blessed with "old man" hair. It's wispy and he rocks a mean comb-over when it grows out. He has been sporting some kick ass Farah Fawcett a la Charlie's Angel's flips over his ears lately too. I've noticed a marked increase in the number of "What an adorable little girl you have!"'s in recent weeks. I have to believe it is the free-flowing girly locks he's got going on.

Here are some pictures from the last month to demonstrate the "problem areas", if you will:

Notice how it grows rampant down the middle of his head and tapers to almost nothing on the sides--is Ethan really David Letterman's love child? This hair would certainly support that theory.

Good God! I can't even begin to comment on all the things happening to his hair in this picture.

Please note the wing above his ear. There's another one just like it on the other side. He could fly from here to Timbuktu on those suckers..

So today we took our otherwise gorgeous child to get his first professional haircut. Sigh. We brought him to the children's salon, Cartoon Cuts. Let me tell you, their trick is to overload the kids' senses with music, DVDs, and giant green elephant hair dryers--this way, the kid is so overwhelmed by what's moving and singing around them that they hardly notice the razor sharp scissors doing their thing inches from their eyeballs. And thank goodness for that.

Ethan sat in the big boy seat and never flinches, freaked or flipped out. Huge relief. We think it was mostly due to the fact that most of the time he was busy watching some baby get his hair cut (um....E, that's YOU in the mirror, mkay?) A

Anyway, here are some pictures of the process itself and then a couple of my very handsome, unmistakably boy, boy...

Hey there, ladies. How you doin'?

Since we're getting all nostalgic...

Today I took Ethan to the park with a couple of my mommy-friends (as an aside, how long do I have to know these women before I can simply call them "my friends"? It's a weird delineation between the women I knew before I was Ethan's mama and the friends I have made since, and by and large, because of him. Doesn't mean I like them any less, but I always feel compelled to identify them beyond just "friend". Weird.)

As I was saying...we went to the park. The same park that Husband & I took Ethan to several months ago when he was just a wee lad.

Okay, maybe not so "wee" considering that onesie still fits. It's tighter, but it fits...

Today, the swings were far more the stuff that giggly childhood fun is made of.

One hand on the wheel, one out the window...my little man is the king of cool

Ode to a Snugride...

One thing I am discovering about parenting is that it's not always the standard milestones that pull at your heart strings. It is the things you don't expect to move you that really sneak up and kick your emotions in the ass. Yes, it is exciting to see your baby roll, smile, crawl, and cruise for the first time. Thrilling, even, in a "thank god he's meeting his milestones" kind of way, plus it's very cute, right? But who would have thought that going up a size in clothes or diapers would result in a mommy dissolving into a mess of tears and giggles?

Today you took your last ride in the infant car seat. We went to Home Depot to get flowers for the yard and the poof! It was gone. Your snugride is now taking up space in the livingroom until we decide what to do with it next. It looks so small now.



The carseat we brought you home from the hospital in. You had to be able to sit in it for 1.5 hours without any breathing problems before they'd let us take you home from the NICU. We were terrified about how tiny you looked in it, even with the head support and receiving blankets rolled up around you.

May 12th, 2006--working hard on your carseat test

Clearly exhausted after acing your carseat test--we get to bring you home! You can't tell from our faces, but we're scared shitless!

Bye bye to the carseat we first took you apple-picking in. At the time you were going through a pretty fierce "I hate my carseat phase" and would scream non-stop when forced to endure the agony of sitting in it. Thankfully you slept most of the way out to the country and only fussed for a bit in it.


You took your first road trip to see Grammy & Grampy in South Carolina in the Snugride. It was the day after your 6 month shots and you magically slept almost the entire 8 hour trip. The ride home we weren't so lucky and you screamed from Richmond all the way back home. Even your plethora of "carseat flair" didn't distract you from your mission to rattle mommy & daddy with the high pitch of your protestations for 2 hours straight. Stubborn little man.

Ah, the flair...

And let's not forget the countless trips to Starbucks.

Dude, that latte's as big as yer head!

This was the carseat we took to Honduras! Packed it up, put it on a plane and toted you to the city, to the beach and back again in it while we were on vacation. You jet-setter, you.

And now, it has served it's purpose and is waiting to be hidden in a closet somewhere (like there *might* be space for it). Just like the clothes you've outgrown, the receiving blankets and burp cloths we no longer use, your carseat is a part of your past now. What a tiny little life to have already started gathering a "past", but there it is.

Daddy installed your Roundabout while you played in your jumperoo on the porch with me. I was potting some plants and just mindlessly said, "Oh, why don't you install the carseat?" to daddy, without even thinking about how momentous an occassion it is for you to go from your infant carseat to your toddler seat.

As I write this, it is hitting me that you are not my itty bitty baby anymore. I love that because you are so amazing--each day you learn something new, your personality grows and you are so much damn fun to be around. But I hate it because each day that passes I realize you are slipping away from your babyhood. "Time flies" just rolls off the tongue thoughtlessly; but when it applies to your baby, it takes on a whole new meaning. This year has gone by in a blur (and not all of it sleep-deprivation induced) and I wish I could do it again, and remind myself to be more mindful of every moment that I get to share with you.

In an hour or two you are going to take your first ride in the new seat. I have the camera ready, little man, because even though it's not in book of milestones, this is a big day.