Why did I buy this?! I think I’m going to have to throw it out as I can’t bear to see the pale flesh colored fingers of processed meat bobbing around in the jar never mind opening it and feeding it to my kid.

I bought it because we went camping three weeks ago and I wanted to just have the ease of grocery store jar food that didn’t need to be refrigerated and as I was picking out the food I thought that maybe I should make sure I had things he can feed to himself. Turns out he didn’t really like a lot of the food I bought. All of it seemed TOO pureed, watery even and I could barely get enough onto the tiny baby spoon anyway.

He ended up eating much of the things we were eating plus cereal and milk and grapes cut in half.

The place we went camping was pretty cool. I will def. go back there next year. There were tent cabins, 3 prepared meals a day, playgrounds, a river with swimming hole, beach and beach toys and a bunch of short close hikes. Did I already blog this?! I can’t remember.

We only stayed one night instead of two. Rather than endure another middle of the night realization that the baby was way too cold we ate dinner and stuffed him into the car seat right at his bed time and then took off.

I think that this was the first time that I ever slept outdoors for reals. I didn’t sleep well but I loved it anyway. Next year we will be able to say, “cuddle up in your blanket!” to Jack and he will know what the hell we are talking about.

I am here

Yesterday… or was it the day before… Vim claimed that I was screwed and would not be able to snorkel. Man! a few tears and freak outs and my own husband writes me off as a useless case. humph!

The noodle people, I love the noodle and it is the only thing that has allowed me to snorkel. So far I haven’t really seen shit. Some raccoon fish, a box fish, yellow and black stripy fish, an eely thing, other small black fish, a fish that had an electric blue top stripe… but visibility is kinda crappy right here.

We did attempt to go to the turtle town that is like a 10 minute walk from here. Vim got in and told me that he saw a dead turtle and there was no way I was getting in there with a dead turtle and probably whales and sharks and shit. NO WAY. Plus, looming rocky underwater things that might grab me or bump into me.

The noodle makes it better because when I panic I don’t have to flail about trying to swim, I simply lift my head out of the water all casual and pretend that I am not imagining dead things and sharks and vicious sea turtles that bite your hand off.

So there Vim! I totally CAN do it!

In other news Jack HATES his rental car seat and every time we put him in there it’s a scream fest from hell. Piecing gurgling strangled shrieking with no end. Thusly, we have not strayed far from our watering hole. Which is fine with me as it is gorgeous and fun here.

The first day jack seemed to love the beach and the water so on the second day we raced him into the water and he freaked out. We have learned to let him approach the water on his own and the he has a great time splashing and shrieking (the happy kind).

It sucks to not be able to go snorkeling with Vim. We have to take turns. I am making reservations for us and my parents for next year. And I am doing it for BEFORE school lets out as the million teenagers on the phone and kids playing soccer are making me feel old and crusty.

There is a certain type of ‘roughhousing’ that adults do with kids that makes me VERY uncomfortable, angry even. It’s when the kids laughter or screaming ceases to be playful and borders on hysterical that I get bothered. Physical play, being thrown around, rolled and spun is fun (and good for a kids vestibular system) and can be done in a way that is fun for all and still respects a kids boundaries.

Moomin and Jack and I had a good romping tickle session when Moomin was visiting. When Jack woke up from his nap I made Moomin come help me get him up. This is when Jack is at his bounciest best. So Moomin and I put things on Jack’s head while he bounced and then we all played steamroller on the floor and then Jack and Moomin rolled around giggling and tickling each other on the fluffy chair. It was fun without crossing the line into intrusive.

Vim and I like to play steamroller with Jack. That’s when one person lies down and the other person rolls the baby over them repeatedly all the while saying “Steamroller!”. And now, when I say “steamroller!” jack flips his leg up and starts rolling over. It’s so cute!

I will now stifle the urge to gush about how cute and fun it is to cuddle and play with my baby. It is though!!

Jack is walking like a champ and seems really pleased with himself. He now walks four or five steps to go pick up a toy or to get to me or Vim.

We got one of those noodle floats at the drug store and jack has been walking around the kitchen holding it.

Jack definitely has a better diet than I do as my diet continues to be mostly cheese based while Jack luxuriates in yummy veggies and spices.

I just made a ton of baby food in order to use up all the veggies in the fridge. We’re off to Maui tomorrow so they would just go bad otherwise. thank goodness I have some use for them! I’ll miss making baby food for Jack. It’s kinda fun to make up weird food combinations and make him eat them. What does he know? I just made carrot with ginger, tumeric and basil and yellow pepper, celery, ginger and summer squash, zucchini, cheese, basil. Ha!

I swear when I get back I am going back to my ‘use everything up in the pantry’ mode because I feela  sinking feeling in my gut that I spent WAY too much money this month.

I bought an expensive sewing machine.  My car crapped out, the alignment problem again, so I bought two new front tires and some tie rods. I bouht some  too big sale clothes for future Jack and I went to Whul paycheck too many times. and we ate out too many times.

So when we get back it’s brown rice, chicken from the freezer and frozen veggies for us for a week.

I feel a mad craving for a fad diet.Sometimes I just want to believe the stupid shit out there about ‘detoxing’ or whatever.  Yesterday I picked up ‘dr. weil’s 8 weeks to optimum health’ book from our bookshelf. TOO COMPLICATED! Damn. He wants you to fart around with water filters and shit. I swear his chapter about water is 45 pages long and requires you to have phone sex with the municipal water company.

I’ll try it anyway but it requires you give up coffee. Is anyone willing to do it? I mean, besides the lovely spastic feeling coffee gives you it TASTES GOOD and is comforting. Health can’t be worth it.

Jack is fine, btw. For his afternoon nap we gave him some benadryl to see if it would make him sleepy or if it would make him spastic. Don’t worry! We calculated the dosage correctly!

There are like a million Canadian message boards touting the brand name med of Gravol as a baby airplane sleep aid. It’s just Dramamine and I find it interesting that there wasn’t much about using it for baby travel.

Jack woke up too early this morning and I was a bit grumpy and then I was grumpier when the downstairs of our house was a giant crappity mess. So I played with Jack a bit and then started cleaning.

As I bent over the washing machine I heard Jack fall off the arm of the couch onto the concrete floor right onto his head and he did flip landing on his back.

And then the blood welled out of his mouth and came out his nose.

I totaly panicked and was an idiot.

My doctor said to just watch him to make sure he’s acting normally, which he is.

Jack is 13 months old and I still don’t have the emergency numbers up by the phone. I will be getting right on that.

It all comes out even. He spills apple juice on my computer and then my cat spills coffee on his comic book. See? Even.

I’m reading a book called “A Bride Goes West” in which Nannie Alderson tells her story of going west with her new husband in like 1860. She know how to make biscuits and that’s the extent of her housekeeping knowledge. All their things are burned by Indians. She doesn’t leave the ranch for 2 years and only sees another woman once in all that time. She has her 4th child on the kitchen floor. Etc.

Me? I’m cowed by having to take care of two kids for 3 days. And one of them is sweet and quiet and undemanding and happily coloring in the American flag next to me while I write about him. The other is napping.

We went to the public pool near my house for public swim time yesterday. Imagine a giant malstrom of screaming kids and the only adults being 10 lifeguards with bullhorns screaming from the sidelines. If I was a kid confronted with that there would have been NO WAY IN HELL that I would have gotten in. I think.

I had Jack in the new WaterTot neopreen sling. This thing is rad. I almost_ didn’t get it when I showed it to Vim and he scoffed. But then I thought, “shit. let Vim attempt to have a good time while desperetly clinging to a wiggley baby while in the ocean on Maui. I’m gonna get me a water sling”. and so I did. and lo! It rocks!

Jack was mostly into it. He cried a few times and was a bit tense as it was LOUD with screaming kids. He loves kids and loves it when one of them gets in his face and giggles at him. Towards the end he started his own leg kicking and splashing.
So I have a baby strapped to me and Moomin on my arm. 3 other random kids immediately glommed onto me as well. I had to tow them all around.  I’m always amazed by fearless kids who talk to me. I never would have suddenly clutched a strange adult and demanded they play with me. But where were their own grown ups?

I live in a  the second crappiest, poorest, gang ridden district of Oakland. These kids were not there with their stay at home parent who lovingly gets to play with them all day. They are there with a camp counselor or something who is there with a bullhorn shouting. I felt a little sad for them that there was no grownup there to invent games for them to play. So I did my best.
The thing is, I think I’ve forgotten a lot of what it was like to be a kid. I remember some of it but it’s all tainted with my own grown up bullshit and grumpiness.

I was (and am) a crappy swimmer. I hated being splashed and I’m pretty sure I didn’t put my face under until I was pretty old. Being splashed made my eyes sting and gave me a choking suffocated feeling (still does, tho not as bad). So when Moomin’s face was splashed by some older kids and he freaked out and cried I totally understood and was able to safely tow him to shore towards a towel and safety. I was also annoyed and part of me wanted to say, “suck it up! wipe your eyes with your damp hand and let’s get back to playing!”.

I wouldn’t have said it but part of me sure wanted to and now that part of me is making the other part of me feel guilty.

It’s weird to suddenly have an 8 year old. What are the rules? What can an 8 year old remember/do/think? I haven’t a clue.

And anyway, does it even matter since every kid is different?

Jack is all over Moomin. VERY excited. What is it about other kids stuffed animals that is so exciting? I mean, Jack loves his couple of crib stuffies but he REALLY loves Moomin’s cuddle turtle. I’ll have to get him one.

The mom has landed. In her own blog that is!

Here is a picture of my mom with a cow:

Here we are pretending to be meercats:

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and here is my mom getting an airplane ride from my new boyfriend Vim:

Heh.

Go check out her blog and say HAI!

She’s into horseback riding and is in the middle of some huge heinous remodeling project dealing with contractors that eat your soul and are secretly the devil. She is bravely dealing with her aging parents who live in a different state. She recently retired from her library science job.

Go mom!!

Oh, also, she is coming to BlogHer this year and will be showing off all her cute shoes, learning the blogging ropes and getting giggly on one glass of wine. :)

Go say Hi and add her to your RSS reader! http://libraryhorse.blogspot.com/

oh Speaking of Blogher… who else is going?!?

Zombiegrrrl had her baby!

It has a pretty darn cute RL name. What will it’s blog name be? Zombiebebe? zombiekid? The smallest zombie on the block (szotb)? Zombie McCuddlesworth??

It’s a pretty cute baby and shockingly, it looks JUST like zombiegrrrl and Mudge… combined. At least we know Ms. Zombie wasn’t sleeping around.

:P

Someone over there get on the ball and blog this birth! I’m all wiggley and excited!

I came up with a new name for Mr. Pants today.

It’s Archy McSquirmlsons.

You know how babies do that arching and twisting action… I swear I can’t keep hold of him sometimes. This morning I just had to let him writhe around on my lap for a bit. then he got down and collected all his comfort items from the floor (he throws everything from his crib in the morning) and tried to hold on to everything at once. He cuddled and clutched his 46 thousand blankets and gathered 3 pacifiers all of which he kept switching which one was in his mouth. Trying to decide on his favorite? Making sure one pacifier wasn’t used more than another and thusly have it’s feelings hurt? who knows.

Mr Archy has a cold. We had to pin him down and saline his nose and the squeegee it a few times last night.  He licked another child’s toys over the weekend and that child had a cold (I didn’t realize til afterwards).

Anyway, even if I had known it’s not like I can keep him from licking stuff. This kid licks anything including the beach. yep, the entire beach. He leans over and sticks his tongue out and coats it with sand. He has also started licking his bath water and the faucet. Yesterday while cuddling he licked my stomach. He would def. lick that cat if he could catch her.

Incessant noise is one thing I can not stand. Whether it be music, talking, machinery… or WHINING NOISES or MEOWING.

Just now, in the car, I thought I was going to explode, I could feel all my muscles tightening and my head got that red buzzy feeling that only a good yell will make go away.  Can I yell at my baby while driving down the highway (or anywhere)? NO.

Instead I sang the ABC’s very loudy. It shut him up but still, the NOISE or my own singing. ugh!

Also? Vim’s cat is fucking fired. I hate her right now.

Jack is almost 13 months so I think I’ll do a little update for poasterity here. Not that anyone will ever read back through this…

When I was little my parents kept a daily log of what we did. I got to pick out a calender and then each night one of them would write in what we did that day in the little square.I still have them and it gives me great satisfaction to look at them. I don’t have one in front of me but the entries would go something like this:

Sunday: Played horses with Kelly and then came home and played with Ann.

Monday: Helped mom iron clothes, went to liz’s allergy appointment, had waffles for dinner.

And so forth. In my head I’ve been doing the same thing for Jack but haven’t gotten it together enough to get him a calender or journal.

Today it might say something like..

Sunday: Refused to eat tofu even tho I ate it with enthusiasm yesterday. whined a lot but was also cute and being “cozy” with blanket on floor. played with computer program dad made. harassed the cats. went to target and grocery store with mom.

heh. For some reason having a day compressed into a few lines is very satisfying. Kind of like twitter in a way.
So yeah, he’s been a little fussier about food than usual. I think it has a lot to do with temperature? maybe?  He ate his room temp tofu but hated the cold. but he wants his yogurt cold. anyway, it’s slightly annoying only because I often make him something and then he rejects it and I have to run around making something else.

He’s into climbing but isn’t so hot at it yet. He hands me stuff that he can’t figure out and makes a questioning noise. and then, he hands it to me over and over again trying to get me to do something. He has taken a few steps but apparently isn’t in a hurry to actually walk. He likes to roam in and out of the house, bounce on the bed and couch, and he carries on cute little conversations with me (and himself).

I started recently to have some qualms about bad habits. Like, if i give him this cheddar bunny to stop him whining will it make me a bad mom and he’ll grow up to be a huge asshole? where do Idraw the line for making things easier for myself vs. instilling a bad habit?

I decided to not stress. No one has ever been a failure at life because their parents let them eat too many crackers. I did tho, stop giving him his snack trap while we are in the car… and I have been giving him blueberries, grapes and carrots instead of mostly crackers.