Augustus Gloop

The king of the deal arrived home yesterday and proudly called to me, ‘I got you a present!’

I proceeded to the foot of the staircase with caution.  I can smell a counterfeit offering like cheap cologne and his one smelled like a thirteen year old at his first make out party.  When I descended he opened a large non-descript cardboard box and proudly brandished a box of cereal at me.

‘What the hell is that?  We don’t eat that stuff,’ I said.

‘It’s for the baby!’ he delightedly replied.

I could tell that he knew this plan was flawed, nay busted, before he began.  I picked up one of the twelve jumbo boxes and read the ingredients.  To summarize, they were as follows: sugar, salt and chemicals…amen.  

Now, I’m not raising a vegan here.  The baby's already had some pre-packaged crap at grandma’s.  I mean, it was ‘organic’, pre-packaged crap but still.  It’s terrifying that vegetables could be poison to my kid.  You think I’m going to give him no-name oaty-o’s because they were cheap?  

Both grandmothers are waiting for me to break on this one.  I’m confident that one of them is quietly filling a warehouse in some industrial park with goodies.  

When I do drop the flag on sugar it will be by phone…when the baby is staying with Grandma.

Oh, the husband returned the cereal.

Pajama Dance

Seriously, these bowls are awesome.

Toys are dumb

An hour, he played with these for an hour.  I thought I loved these bowls before. 

Ch ch changes

I curse too much.  It’s part of who I am.  I don’t mean that I cherish this personality characteristic and don’t want to give it up, it’s not like smoking.  I just can’t seem to stop.

There hasn’t been a lot of call for me to quit.  My former workplace was littered with profanity.  My husband didn’t swear much when we first started dating but he’s just as bad as me now.  Most of my girlfriends are bluer than channel eleven on a Saturday night.  

There’s now call for me to quit.  I mean, the baby is having trouble with paddy-cakes…conceptually, so I totally curse in front him all the time.  But I’m going to have to cut it out.

Someday.

Private joke

Mwha ha ha ha

Living with a cat is like dating a musician.  When you want his attention he’s not available.  When you are engaged in something other than his needs, he’s all over you.  

I always thought of cats as ambivalent sunbeam whores whom you might pet on

occasion.  

Then we got Stan.  

He likes to fight.  He leaves mouse centric recreations of the Passion of the Christ on our doorstep.  His mournful meows can wake you from the most peaceful of slumbers.  The vet clinic has a ‘file’ on him.  If he could write he’d be the next Hemingway.

We are besotted with him.

We’re not sure, but we suspect that Stan is the product of inbreeding.  His mom only had the one kitten.  The litter of Stan!  So, he’s been an only child for some time.  His initial reaction to the new addition was more positive than expected.  There didn’t seem to be any overt resentment of his new baby brother.

Their relationship has soured in the last few months.  The baby used to be a warm blob that Stan would nap beside on my lap.  Nowadays, the kid is like a strip club patron who’s had too much to drink and keeps grabbin’ at the girls.  

Stan has recently instituted a self imposed restraining order.  There seems to be an invisible two foot barrier between him and the kid.  I feel no need to push them into a relationship.  He’s welcome to keep his distance.   I’ll do whatever Stan wants as long as he lets us keep the baby.

From the fall

Daddy

How many teeth?

Act Natural

Brothers, Adversaries

It's always tapioca pudding....shiver

    I called my girlfriend the other morning and asked her if she wanted to go to Costco.  ‘Would I!’ she excitedly replied.

    Said girlfriend and I used to enjoy nosing around boutiques and loitering in coffee shops till four o’clock when we could crack open the plonk.  We have kids now.  You can take a kid to a coffee shop but you spend more time playing D on your cappuccino than drinking it.  Having a glass of wine while caring for children is about as relaxing as doing your taxes on a balance beam. 

    I don’t like Costco.  It’s too bright, too crowded and when they’re always just out of sample wontons when I hit that table.  The husband loves the place.  Mind you, the only thing the husband loves more than me and the kid is a deal.  Paying retail is anathema to him.  Many women would be concerned if they woke up on a Saturday morning and their spouse was not in bed.  I know there’s a gate crasher special somewhere and he will be home soon with a shit load of toilet paper. 

    The baby still requires a morning and afternoon nap.  I used to be able to strap him into his car seat and he would sleep wherever.  He’s now persnickety about the nap thing and requires naps to occur in the crib.  For some unknown reason, I helped train him to do this.  If I take him on the road during nap time he won’t sleep.   Normally, my child has a sweet disposition, if he doesn’t have his nap he morphs into Lindsay Lohan lookin’ for a fix.

    So, daytime outings are limited to a small three hour window.  Going for a walk during this time would be great if I didn’t live in Nova Scotia and it wasn’t winter.  So what do you do?  You want to take the baby somewhere that he’s going to enjoy right?  Apparently, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree cause you know who else loves Costco?  The baby does, that’s who.  There are lights and people and brightly colored goods to look at. 

    You do a lot of stuff to make the baby happy.  You do a lot of stuff to get out of the damn house once in a while.  I’m sure that someday my girlfriend and I will return to our old habits.  For now, a trip to Costo is good enough.

The new laugh

Legs

Who's hungry?

The Sting

    The kid is starting to move.  He’s not crawling yet…that I’ve witnessed.  If I’m watching him he doesn’t make much progress.  He just rolls on his side and gurgles innocently.  But, if you turn your back and turn around again he’s three feet from where you put him down.  It’s like he has a teeny teleporter.

    I suspect he’s better at this crawling thing than he’s letting on.   He’s met all his other developmental milestones suddenly.  I would have put money on his inability to roll over a few months ago.  The next day he rolled like he was stuck in a hay bailer.   I think he’s secretly practicing these skills when I’m not around.  It’s like I’m beating someone at pool who waits for the big money to come out and then blows away the table.  He’s like a pint-sized con artist. 

I’m on to him though.

Lips

Duck and Cover

    Years ago, while chatting with my boss, I pointed out that he had a stain on the shoulder of his shirt.  He shrugged that shoulder, sniffed it and said, ‘Oh yeah, one of the kids barfed on me this morning.’

    This is a pretty together dude.  I remember wondering if he were heading on some sort of vomit splashed downward spiral.  I mean, what could be happening that would keep you from changing your spew stained shirt?

    I thought of this yesterday when my girlfriend said that her little one had peed on her sheets and she might wash them. 

‘Was there a LOT of pee?’ I asked

‘No, hardly any.  Not to mention the fact that I JUST changed the sheets.’

‘Well then, screw that.’

    I now understand why buddy didn’t change his shirt.  When you have a kid, your stuff is reduced to acting as quarry for liquid projectiles.  You can’t keep everything clean all the time.  You have to quantify the ratio of your stuff that’s glop covered to not and hope for a reasonable percentage of cleanliness.  They’re just going to puke on it again anyway.

Looking like a little boy

A little too much like a little boy if you ask me.  I would like him to stay a widdle bebe forever.  

Coooo.

Whatever works

If the little guy is happy then I'm happy.   Even if that means leaving him unconscious in the middle of the living room floor for an hour...in his snowsuit.

Nice shot of the new chompers

Below the belt responsibilities

    Most every night the husband will turn to me hopefully, waggle his toes and ask, ‘Would you like to rub my feet?’

   Why would you even need to ask?  Who wouldn’t want to fondle those sweaty hooves?  Has that black ass toe nail fallen off yet?  No?  Well maybe if I put in a hearty effort the gooey remnant will peel off in my hand. 

    I don’t even like to touch my own feet.  Every spring I get a pedicure.  The next week’s activities are sometimes stalled as I gaze in wonder at the beauty of my smooth heels and brightly colored toenails.  I swear, every year, that this is it, THIS is the summer that I keep my feet looking nice.  Slowly, the polish will begin to slide up my toenails and my heels will return to looking like something you might use to cut diamonds.  

    Now that I have a kid, I’ve got ten more nails to worry about.  For some reason, evolution has decreed that tiny newborns require claw like talons.  My little guy came out of the womb with hands like a skeksi.  The prospect of using nail cutters on the tiny appendages is terrifying.  Any mother will tell you, it’s not a matter of if you will cut your delicate babes fingers.  It’s a matter of when.  I would liken the task to using an industrial paper cutter to slice off a feather on a butterfly’s wing. 

    You have to do it so you do.  I don’t have to rub the husband’s feet but sometimes I do that as well.  What can I say?  Sometimes you do gross ass stuff in the name of love.