Happy Birthday, Tai

12-27-06: 5 lbs 10 oz
12-27-07: 20-something lbs


12-27-06: "waaaaaaahhhhh"
12-27-07: "mama," "dada," "uh-oh"


12-27-06: sleep, sleep, sleep
12-27-07: sleep, eat, walk, play, sign, talk

Jingle Hell

Dashing down the Pike,
Headed to the 'rents.
Kathy said, "oh crap!"
We forgot all the presents!

So around we turned
And headed back home, west.
Snatched up all the gifts
Our moods were not the best!

Oh! Tai woke up! Tai woke up!
He fussed all the way east.
He was hungry and grumpy,
Not to say the least!

Oh! Tai woke up! Tai woke up!
Nothing calmed him down.
Then of course, he dozed off,
Just as we rolled into town.

Tai's Weekend

As the calendar year comes to an end, so does the first year of Tai's life. We spent the weekend with friends and Tai managed to squeeze in several new "firsts" before turning one.

First eggplant pizza
First real trip into Boston (Logan doesn't count)
First Celtics game
***First time sitting in the LAST row, right under the luxury boxes
***First (and last?) time nursing near loud, drunk sports fans
***First time staying up WAY past bedtime
First blueberry blintzes
First time falling so hard he bit his tongue and bled
First time seeing, and being amazed by, a lit Christmas tree

Merry Christmas!

Bad Mom Story

Yesterday I desperately needed change for a $20 so that Tai and I could run a devious Christmas Errand on our way home from work/daycare. When no co-worker could change a $20 for me (doesn't anyone carry cash anymore?) someone suggested I pop by a local cafe and get myself a hot steamy treat, and the necessary change. I thought that sounded like an excellent plan.

After picking Tai up at "school" we headed straight to the cafe. Tai has been there a couple times for mommy-and-baby lunches (ah, maternity leave...the good old days) so he's familiar with the scene. With Tai on my hip I ordered my latte to go. As we waited by the counter for my coffee, Tai looked around the room at all the people enjoying lunch and made the sign for "eat. "

I pretended I did not see it.

Coming straight from work, I did not have the diaper bag with me, so I had no snacks for him. Not a single raisin or Cheerio. Nothing. And I was not about to buy him an $8 sandwich and make a big production out of sitting down and eating. (In my defense, he'd already had lunch at daycare). So I pretended not to notice that he was signing "eat" and staring hungrily at other people's plates.

When my latte was ready, I grabbed it and we headed out the door toward the car. Boy, did that piss him off! He doesn't speak English yet, so his protests were all in "baby" but I'm pretty sure they would have translated to something along the lines of, "What the hell? I thought you were taking me out to lunch?!"

Once we got back in the car, he settled down, but I think held a grudge for an hour or so.

I've Been Blocked

I just tried to email an elementary school, as part of my job, and their spam filter blocked my email and sent it back to me. The spam filter was, however, nice enough to tell me why I was being blocked. It was because my email contained the word "Cialis." In case you don't know, Cialis is a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction. If you don't know what erectile dysfunction is I'm not going to explain it here.


Yes, my email to an elementary school did indeed contain the string "cialis". Because the email started with "Dear Principals and Reading Specialists". Wow, that's a hard-core spam filter. They put me in my place.

Benefits of Motherhood

There are so many wonderful things about being a mother I could not possibly list them all here. They include the indescribable feeling you get when your baby looks at you and smiles and the warm fuzziness generated by watching your baby sleep peacefully. Not to mention the fact that you get to play with toys as an adult and not be seen as a freak.

But perhaps best of all is that I now have a ready-made legitimate excuse that gets me out of any social obligation. Specifically, I am unable to attend this year's Office Holiday Party because it's on a Friday afternoon and I'm home with the baby on Friday afternoons. Family members are not invited to the festivities, so I can't even bring him along. Aw, shucks. I'll miss out on eating lasagna off a paper plate while standing around a crowded living room as well as the never-ending 40 person Yankee Swap. There goes my chance to walk away with a wonderful gift valued at $7.50.

Luckily, they usually make an effort to set aside Holiday Bonuses for those who cannot attend the party, so I should still get mine. I wonder what it will be this year? It's always some item with the company's name on it. Sometimes a t-shirt, or a pad of post-its. Last year it was a rape-whistle/flashlight/keychain combo. Very useful.

Job Interview Tips

If I could give folks out there just ONE piece of advice when going for a job interview it would be this: show up.

This past Saturday we were supposed to be interviewing a potential new dog walker (ours will be doing a semester in India starting later this month). Anyway, we set the interview for 10am Saturday morning and she never showed. And I have not received a call or an email from her with an overly detailed excuse either. Nothing.

Needless to say, she did not get the job. If I'm trusting you with my dog's bladder, not to mention a key to my house, you need to be able to be somewhere when you say you will. Is that too much to ask?

My Denim Identity

The only pair of jeans that fit my current body have recently sprung a giant hole in one knee. And since it is no longer 1992, I can't quite pull off that look. (At least, not without my plaid flannel shirts and Chuck Taylor high tops.)

So last night I ventured out to Old Navy in search of replacement jeans. It was not an easy task. These days, in addition to finding the right size, you also have to figure out what "jean type" you are. Determining your Denim Identity at Old Navy is a lot like figuring out your Starbucks order (are you a grande non-fat half-caf mocha? or a tall half-fat all-caf latte?)

Where Old Navy jeans are concerned, you first have to determine whether you are a Sweetheart, a Flirt, or a Diva. Apparently, Sweethearts like their jeans to sit just below the belly button, Diva's like them so low that their ass crack shows, and Flirts are somewhere in between. Once you have chosen the appropriate sluttiness factor, you have to choose your:

Length--short, regular, or long
Leg style -- boot cut, skinny leg, wide leg, straight leg, or flare
Wash -- light or dark

It was an evening of self-discovery. After two trips to the dressing room and 10 pairs of jeans pulled on and off my body, I now know that I am a Sweetheart, regular, boot-leg, dark wash, thank you very much.

Vacation: Part IV

It's Tough to be Three

Our vacation concluded with a four-day visit at the home of Minh's sister, brother-in-law, and three year old niece, Scuppy. During our stay there, Tai got lots of good quality time with his aunt and uncle as well as his grandparents and he got to meet his great-grandmother for the first time.

Apparently Scuppy and her mom had spent the previous week getting ready for our visit -- baby proofing the house, setting up the pack-n-play, and locating and washing all of Scuppy's old baby toys. She was very excited about the prospect of her baby cousin coming to live at her house for a few days.

Until we got there.

The first 90 minutes or so were great. Scuppy was so excited to see us and she and Tai were fascinated with each other. And then Tai had the nerve to start touching her stuff. Scuppy became very possessive of her things and frustrated at Tai's inability to understand essential English phrases such as: "Stop touching me," "You can't play with that," and the ever-popular "Don't crawl there."

The poor thing. She's three and (thus far) an only child. I understand that it's hard to have your world disrupted by a little crawly-grabby-drooly guy. All the adults in the house expended much effort talking to Scuppy about Tai and babies and about sharing. We'd never let Scuppy know, but Minh and I found it pretty funny the way she scowled at him. To the left is a picture of her patented Furrowed Brow that she employed whenever Tai got too close.

It was really too bad she had such a hard time, because all Tai wanted to do was be near her. Credit goes to Scuppy, though, for owning her issues and admitting them publicly. Tai was playing in the yard with some plastic cups and then Scuppy decided she wanted to play with them. Instead of battling her, we let her have the cups and moved Tai over to a very low swing that he could hold on to and swing back and forth. Suddenly, Scuppy announced that she wanted to use that swing. I asked her if she really wanted to use it, or only because Tai was using it and she proudly stated, "Only because Tai is using it."

I should say that it was not all bad. They did indeed have some stretches of quality time together (see picture, right). This was excellent practice for Scuppy, though, because in March 2008 she will be getting a baby brother. Luckily, he won't be born crawling and grabbing at her things, so she'll have several months to warm up to him.

Vacation: Part III

Ten Things I learned while in California:

1. Californians do not wear pantyhose to weddings. Not even the women.

2. Everyone in California owns a dog. I think it's a state law or something.

3. California is not the best place to order a Philly cheese steak. (Not sure why I didn't just know that one intuitively. )

4. A little hair gel goes a long way.

5. Enormous plates of cheese during the cocktail hour of a wedding are incredibly baby-friendly.

6. I can, in fact, take part in a wedding ceremony without swearing on the altar. I didn't even mess up the reading.

7. Pandas really are that cute in person and hippos and polar bears are surprisingly graceful swimmers.

8. The plain old ducks and pigeons that live at the zoo are more interesting to Tai than the peacocks and flamingos.

9. The "Brockton Villa" in La Jolla is really nothing like Brockton, Massachusetts at all. It's MUCH nicer.

10. Never mind the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, and other attractions....all Tai really needs to be happy is a patch of grass to crawl on and some seagulls to watch.

Vacation: Part II

Everybody Loves Milk.


The night before we headed to the San Diego Zoo, we used our dying laptop and the shaky internet connection in our villa to check out the live panda cam. What did we see? A mommy panda nursing her cub. Then the two of them fell asleep all snuggled up together. It was ridiculously adorable and got me even more excited for our trip to the zoo.


The next day, while touring the zoo, we happened upon a family of Red River Hogs having lunch. Well, the babies were having lunch--they were nursing. You can see in the picture below the underside of the mom's chin is on the right. She's laying on her side nursing the three babies.



About an hour later, while we were visiting the African elephants, we saw this:





It might be hard to see, but that momma elephant has a baby standing just behind her front left leg, nursing.














At the end of the day, as he headed out to the parking lot, Minh spied another exotic creature feeding its young.

This little guy must have gotten hungry watching all those other animals drink their milk. And none of those mothers even had the decency to cover up!


















Just after Minh snapped it's photo, the baby wild animal popped up with a very satiated, "milk-drunk" look on it's face.

Vacation: Part I

Travelling across the country with an infant is every bit as fun as it looks.


We are now "those people." You know, the ones you see in the airport and think "why don't they just stay home?" The ones you HATE to be stuck behind in line. We descended upon Logan Airport with 4 suitcases, a car seat wrapped in a black trash bag, two carry-ons, and a stroller. Oh, and a baby who did not want to be in the stroller. With the help of my parents, we navigated the hour-long line to check bags and get boarding passes. (Jet Blue's computers were all down, so there was no self-check-in and they were giving out hand-written boarding passes.)

Once that hurtle was conquered, we glided through security relatively unencumbered. With the stroller folded up on the x-ray belt, I carried Tai through the metal detector, after passing up two opportunities to make breast milk jokes to the TSA folks. I can't tell you how hard it was to restrain myself when they said, "If you have any liquids for the baby you need to take them out."

This was our first time flying Jet Blue. We mostly chose them because of the insanely cheap direct flight from Boston to San Diego. But the fact that there is a mini-TV in front of each person didn't hurt either. They even have a Google Maps channel that shows you your current air speed, elevation, and location on a map of the US, so that every now and then you can flip to that station and think, "Oh god, we've only come as far as Indiana?"

We figured the TV might help keep Tai calm and quite during the flight. But he was actually not all that interested in it. He was much happier peeking between the seats at the people behind us and giggling at them. Once he fell asleep, though, I found the mini-TV very useful. Or, at least, I thought it would be useful. There I was, 37,000 feet in the air, belted into my seat with Tai sleeping deeply on my full bladder, at 9pm EST on a Thursday. Time for Grey's Anatomy. But wait, Jet Blue offers 37 channels of digital cable and not a single ABC affiliate! It was like some little-known level of hell, sitting there having to pee and knowing that Grey's was on and I was unable to tune in.

Tai was a trooper. He slept for about 1/3 of the flight and only really got stir-crazy for the last 20 minutes or so. And even though we landed in San Diego at 9pm (midnight, EST) and then had to get our bags, shuttle to the car rental place, and wait for our car for about 45 minutes, he held it together.

With the exception of potato chips on the flight, Minh and I had not eaten since about 1pm EST. originally, I thought we'd stop and get something to eat on the way to the condo, but by the time we got our rental car it was so late and Tai was so tired, that we just went straight there and went to bed. Of course, Tai woke us up at 4am the next day, ready to go. We fed him some baby food and played with him, and the proceeded to wait a very long time for restaurants to open. There was no food in the condo and the tap water tasted like dirt. It was a painful 4 hours--I almost broke down and ate a jar of baby food. Needless to say, we were waiting outside the door of a local greasy spoon when they opened at 8am.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Purple Nurples

I have thrush. For those of you who don't know, thrush is a yeast infection of the booby. It's awesomely painful when Tai nurses.

In addition to a 10-day course of Diflucan, everyone who knows anything about thrush recommends gentian violet as a topical treatment. So, that's what I wanted to get. I called a local CVS and was thrilled to find they had one bottle left (apparently the stuff is kind of hard to come by, even in the hippy-dippy valley). Later that afternoon I was amazed at how....well, violet...the gentian violet is. Tai's been going to school each morning looking like a goth high schooler wearing deep purple lipstick. All he needs to complete the look is a black onesie and a book of poetry under his arm.

I am also stained deep purple...though not on my lips :)

Update

Well, the San Diego fire is even worse than I realized when I first posted. I talked to Charlie (the San Diego groom-to-be) yesterday and he described all the smoke and ash in the air and how it feels very Katrina-esque there. And he's not even IN San Diego yet.

The bride's family, as well as Minh's California family, are all safe and sound, though some have been relocated from their homes.

Charlie assured me that the fires are not in downtown San Diego, where the wedding will take place on Nov 3rd. He's confident the wedding is still on, but is waiting a bit before making any final decisions. So, we're sitting tight hoping that mother nature sends some rain their way...

San Diego's on Fire!

We're flying to San Diego a week from Thursday and, unfortunately, SD county is currently ablaze. People are being evacuated and losing their homes. And my friends must be terribly worried that this will ruin their wedding plans (and to think, I was all stressed out over a little rain on my wedding day).

Even worse, the Wild Animal Park is closed. And this is after we purchased three-park-passes from Costco to get us into the Zoo, the Wild Animal Park, and Sea World. Perhaps I am destined to never get my day at the Zoo? At least Sea World should still be open despite the fires, since it's underwater.

You Know You Live in The Valley When....

...you accidentally step into someone else's black Dansko clogs and wear them home without noticing.

You see, in order to go into Tai's "classroom" at "school" you have to take off your shoes. They like to keep the floor very clean, what with all the babies crawling around. So last Friday I apparently slipped out of my brown clogs and went in to pick up my boy. After chatting with his teachers and another mother for about 15 minutes, I left the room and stepped into the other mother's black clogs and went on my way.

I didn't realize what I had done until Sunday morning when I noticed that our shoe shelf at home contained two pairs of black clogs.....and no brown ones. I instantly knew what I had done. Luckily, the other mother was good natured about it (and willing to wear my brown clogs home Friday afternoon). She emailed me yesterday wondering if perhaps I knew where her shoes were spending the weekend.

Apparently, I need some more distinctive shoes....

New Life in the Neighborhood

Two of our neighbors have just adopted new pets. One one side of us is Jerry, the 8 week old grey tiger kitten. And across the street is Miles, the 8 week old German Short-haired Pointer. They are both adorable and we are taking full advantage of every opportunity to play with them both. Buttons has met Miles and it seems like they will be good friends. Miles enjoys chew toys and rough-housing. I think he'll be interested in chasing Buttons around before too long, which will just delight her to no end. Tai has met both Jerry and Miles, and is particularly taken with Jerry. Jerry enjoys chasing after kitty toys and coming to a halt so quickly that his whole body flips over. He's also into snuggling on his mom's lap.


This is all happening just a few days after I stepped outside to visit with some neighbors and realized that we have three little boys in the neighborhood, each only six months apart. Tai is the youngest and the oldest will turn 2 at the end of next month. And the two young couples who have adopted the pets are each at different stages in the popular cat-then-dog-then-baby plan. So it looks like we'll have even more babies around before too long. Pheasant Lane is just bursting with new life! I love it!

Life's Little Pleasures

The other night I dreamed that Minh and I won a year's supply of chocolate milk and Chicken McNuggets. It was the best dream I've had in a long time.

The Shit Hit the Fan...

...of course, by"the fan" I really mean my feet.


The other night Minh was out returning a piece of rented equipment to Home Depot (yes, we rented more heavy machinery...more on that in a future post, if you're good) and I was bathing and putting Tai to bed by myself. No big deal--I often handle bath and bedtime by myself. Usually the only tricky part is wrestling a squirming Tai into his PJs without (1) letting him climb down off the changing table, (2) zipping his wriggly skin into his PJs, or (3) cursing at him. I can usually manage to avoid pitfall numbers 1 and 2. Let's leave it at that.


So, fully aware of the green beans and baby carrots boiling on the stove, I plopped Tai down in the bathtub and we proceeded to have a delightful time splashing, playing, and washing. This is always the best part of the day for both of us. But just as the fun was ending and the last drops of water drained from the tub, Tai pooped. Excellent. He's pooped in the tub before, but I always had backup. This time I was on my own. But really, since the tub was already empty this was pretty easily fixed. I plucked him from the wreckage and left the poop there to be dealt with later. Mentally reminding myself to check on the beans and carrots as soon as Tai was in his crib, I carried a dripping wet, and rather poopy baby to the changing table. Once his ass was wiped and diapered I dried him off and forced him into his pajamas.


OK, now I just had to nurse him, put him to bed, and go check on those beans and carrots. Oh, and THEN go clean the poop out of the tub. I had everything under control.


But actually, Tai was the one in control. He has instituted a new regime of Refusing to Go to Bed. Despite the smell of poop saturating his room, I nursed him to sleep. But as I lowered him into the crib he snapped awake and started screaming his head off. We returned to the glider and nursed and rocked some more, still marveling that the poop could smell so strongly that the odor was wafting across the hall, under his closed door, and into his room. A few minutes later, when I walked near the crib with him in my arms, he started screaming again. OK, back to the glider for more rocking with a pacifier and Emmit, Tai's favorite stuffed animal. We rocked and rocked and rocked. He was not falling asleep.


Suddenly I smelled another odor, layered over the smell of poop. It was the smell of...well, of burning. "Oh shit," I thought, all the water must have evaporated from that pot and I was about to burn the house down. Like it or not, I put Tai in his crib and ran to the stove to find that the beans and carrots were now black and becoming one with the bottom of the pot.


Just as I was heroically saving us from a house fire (that would have been my fault) Minh arrived home tired, sore, sweaty, and dirty after a long day of manual labor. He came in to find the house smelled like fire, the baby was SCREAMING in his crib and his wife's feet were smeared with baby poop. Apparently, some poop fell out from between my son's ass cheeks and landed on the top of my foot and then I crossed my feet at the ankles while nursing Tai and rubbed it all over both my feet (no wonder it smelled so bad in his room!)


Good husband that he is, Minh cleaned up the poop in the bathtub while I washed my feet and then went back in to nurse Tai some more (when in doubt, give 'em milk, right?) Tai finally went to bed, the house is still standing, and poop washes off. So, in the end, all was well. Whew!