Fuzzy Love

Not a Good Day

You know it’s a bad day when you call your husband at work and threaten him with violence if he is at all late getting home from work. Today is such a day.

The day started out okay. Since Liam was sick on Saturday (just the one day), he hasn’t been sleeping well. Actually, that’s an understatement; he’s been waking up four or five times a night, emmitting a panic-stricken cry that not only wakes us both up, but has us bolting upright in bed. This sort of cry doesn’t go away on its own, but requires a parent to calm. So Mark and I have been taking turns going in there, and we’ve only really been out of bed about ten mintues a night each, but that little time does wear you out for the next day. Last night Liam slept through, and we all woke up in good moods.

This morning we even had some good errands to run (good errands are things like picking up the next book club book, bad errands are going to the grocery store) and then we met Mark for lunch. All in all, a nice and mildly interesting morning. Then, on the way home, Liam fell asleep in the car.

Only in the world of a toddler is a five-minute car nap an equal trade for a normal two-hour crib nap. Even when the car nap is broken up by said toddler’s mother frantically shaking his feet in a futile attempt to keep him awake. I tried to keep him awake in the car for those five minutes, and then I tried to keep him asleep for the walk from car to crib, and then I tried to get him to fall asleep again in his crib. I’m 0 for three. So now the little guy has been in ultra-cranky mode for about three hours. I eventually had to go to some drastic measures because kiddo decided the only thing that would make him happy was a blue cookie. Not a brown cookie, which we do have (oooo, did that bring on a fit), but a blue cookie. He could only be placated with a bowl of potato chips, his SpongeBob cup of milk, and some Little Bear on tv. Oh, and he’s not wearing any pants (he hates pants right now). Diaper yay, pants boo. Can you guess how long it took me to come up with that perfect combination for toddler contentment? A long time (it took so long I was contemplating what blue food coloring would do to a peanut butter cookie).

And, to top it all off, I got a nose bleed for no reason (well, I suppose pregnancy is the reason) and I got this far along in this post before, hit the back button on my mouse by mistake, and erased the whole thing. So I got to relive this day again.

I’m off to gently pound my head against the wall.

Sick Again

Liam is down today with a bug; he has a medium fever that's making him tired (yet strangely sleepless) and cuddly. A friend had it earlier in the week and it lasted less than 24 hours, so we're really hoping it will have the same effect on Liam. We'll see. We did call the nurse at his pediatrician's office this morning, who warned us that both strep and whooping cough are going around, just to make us feel better. But I doubt it's either of those.

So Liam's having a tough day. Mark was out this morning, however, and had a complete stroke of luck (or genius); he passed a garage sale with a huge Fisher Price workbench for sale and picked it up for a whopping three bucks. So what if some of the parts are missing? It made Liam's day. So much so that he didn't even mind that I had to obsessively clean the whole thing before he could touch it (a sign he is sick). So you know what we are doing this weekend: cuddles and construction.

Since we've been doing baby planning, check out what Mark found online that no reasonable parent can live without: the Lil' Squirt Weeblock. Honestly, how did we make it so long without one?

Cheers!

So I used the exact same embarrassing picture of Mark last year on his birthday. Funny: I went back through his baby pictures and liked this one the best again, completely forgetting I even did that to him before. Oh well. And here are some of the almost exact post-birthday pictures of the cake (it's even the same type of cake, complete with candles left over from Liam's birthday party). I'm amazed we have become so predictable. Sigh.

But Mark had a great day, and that's what's important. Liam likes to toast, especially the part where you say, "Cheers!" and clink the glasses together, so we toasted Mark about twelve times during dinner. Unlike last year, dinner turned out perfectly, which always surprises the heck out of me when I'm the one cooking. I even timed it properly. The cake was another story - this is the second cake in a row that has fallen, and I have no idea why. At least the taste is still passable; I just filled the empty middle with extra icing and we ate it anyway. But you can still kind of tell in the picture.

(Liam took a bath break between dinner and cake, which is why he's suddenly topless.) Anyway, Liam surprised both of us with a spontaneous rendition of the Happy Birthday song, which we didn't know he knew. Honestly, it just went like this: "happy birthday too you, happy birthday too you, happy birthday too you," and it sounded more like, "pee iray yoo yoo," but the tune was unmistakable. And it was a great surprise for Mark.

That kid is full of surprises. Yesterday he did something else new: he's been fascinated with letters lately and probably can point out about half (or maybe a third) of the capitals when he sees them. Well yesterday he tried drawing them! I know I'm his mom, but I think that's amazing. So what if only the O was recognizable? He's trying! He's also trying to draw fish, Fuzz, and SpongeBob SquarePants, but the O has been his biggest success so far.

We had lots of excitement yesterday, and Liam slept soundly, but woke up super-early this morning and is tired. I'm letting him watch Charlie and Lola (I did say 'no' to cake for breakfast) and so this is what he looks like right now:

Well, time to get the little potato moving. Have a great day.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday Mark! Yes, today is his birthday, and he is (da da da da!) 39 years old! I know: whoa. Next year is the big four-oh and the pressure will be on for me to do something spectacular. But this year he's only 39, so he just gets an embaressingly cute picture on this website (surprise honey!). And presents and a cake and dinner and other special stuff; he should have no complaints. So if you see Mark today, make sure you are noisy about it being his birthday. He'll love that.

Speaking of birthdays, it's now only about twelve weeks until this family has another one: baby bee has been cooking for 28 weeks now. All three (four?) of us went in for my appointment this morning and all is well. Unfortunately, it was the dreaded jelly bean appointment, otherwise known as the glucose test. So exactly one hour before the appointment, I had to eat 16 huge jelly beans with no water or anything to wash them down, then come in for a well-timed blood test. I know, it doesn't sound so bad, but it's horrible.

They look so harmless, don't they? But those are big beans and they are sickeningly sweet and you can't have a drink and they stick in your teeth and by bean thirteen I thought I was going to throw them all up. Yuck, yuck, yuck! And of course Liam saw them and wanted some, but I didn't have enough to share, so he was having a little fit while I was trying to force them down. Oh the fun we have. But it seems that I process sugar just fine, so we can move on with life now.

I promised a picture of Liam's handsome new haircut, much improved by the removal of the hair gel (did you know they actually sell hair gel and spray for little kids?). It's a really crappy picture, sorry, but he looks so damn cute I'm posting it anyway. And now I'm off to make a cake.

Big Boy Bedrooms and Other Things

So I went to the consignment store (with the rather long name of Mommy-to-be & 'Lil Me) today to see about putting some of Liam's baby things up for sale. It's a beautiful store; they are quite picky about the stuff they put in (we'll see just how picky next week after I've got the boxes together) and the used clothing is augmented with new accessories, furniture, and other odds and ends. After they choose which of my items they will sell, I will get 40% of their sale price back, as well as a 10% discount on anything I buy. Sounds good to me, (especially since there were a ton of people in there on a Wednesday morning) so I'll be getting some things boxed up this weekend and we'll see how it goes. This is the beginning of the fall season, so they won't take any summer things, but it is perfect timing for selling that snowsuit.

Part of the reason for the basement-clearing is that Liam needs a whole new bedroom, and he needs it fast. He needs to vacate that crib and get into a big-boy bed pronto. It would be helpful if he has settled into the new room before the other big life change happens this fall (although I'm not really looking forward to Liam being free at bedtime - the jail bars really work for us). But the guest room he's moving into contains the usual mish-mash of left-over furniture, half of which is painted black (yes, that would be my old stuff) and isn't too exciting to a two-year-old. So we buckled down this weekend and shopped for some new furniture, eventually with a little success.

Early on, we realized that poor Liam would not have a lot of solid wood in his new room. Nope, it's nothing but engineered wood products for our little boy! We just couldn't see shelling out $500 or more for a new bed, especially since he also needed a bedside table and a bookcase. And possibly a dresser. Plus I couldn't find anything nice for little boys, which I think I've mentioned before (boys generally get the shaft on designed stuff), without paying a fortune. So we went to Target, home of decently nice cheap stuff, and discovered their Country Lane Pine Collection. Doesn't that sound like nice stuff, even if there is very little pine involved? But the price is right and I actually like the design. We took home a bookcase to get a closer look and it doesn't look too bad; it's a simple pine-esque slightly-country style that works for little boys, even though it isn't designed for kids. We'll eventually get the headboard, dresser, and the nightstand. Here's an example:

Side bitch about Target: the headboard is only available online. It costs $99.99. The shipping is $69.99. There is no way around this (we complained). Still, this makes the bed way cheaper than anything else we've seen, so I guess we'll suck it up.

I'm hoping to keep the furniture cheap (we can replace it piece by piece later, I suppose) so we can make the rest of the room exciting. It will have a planes, trains, and automobile theme, because that's what gets Liam excited. So here's the bedding I really want:

Is that cute or what? And it's Pottery Barn Kids, so it ain't cheap. But all we really need is the quilt (well, the double-size quilt) and a pillow sham, so it won't be as bad as it seems. The walls are that light blue color and he'll have navy accents. And between Mark and Liam, we have lots of plane, train, boat, and other transportation-type things that can go in (some on high shelves) to make the rest of the room fun too. I'm really excited about it, and how Liam will react, since Mark insists on doing a Trading Spaces-style reveal.

Side bitch about Pottery Barn: where do they get off charging $69.00 for a plain blue bed skirt? Jeez.

Liam also had a haircut today, and looks very mature, but the hairdresser put gel in his hair again and he just doesn't look quite right. I'll take a picture after he has a bath. This has been a very long post; I promise cuter pictures and more cohesiveness tomorrow.

More Hormone Craziness

A few days ago, Mark brought up some of Liam's old clothes from the basement and I started going through them. Knowing we always wanted another baby, we've kept every little sock and t-shirt Liam has owned, and, quite frankly, the boxes are piling up down there. Now knowing we are going to have a little girl, I feel free to clear some of that out (although most of it isn't going anywhere until we actually have visual proof of the sex). Stupidly, I was actually excited to do it. After all, since we didn't find out that Liam was a boy, most of his littlest things are gender-neutral (read: green or yellow), so I thought it would be fun to pull out some things for the second time around. I soon remembered that Liam was a summer baby, so none of his old early stuff is very warm (and therefore useful this time), but mostly all I could think about was my little baby that's all grown up and who will soon be off to college. Honestly, you know how quickly time passes. And I cried. I cried at the little newborn things that Liam will never wear again. I even cried at the stuff Liam wore last summer. And I cried hard. So hard, in fact, that Liam got concerned ("Mama cry! Okay Mama? Mama Okay?") and Mark rolled his eyes and left the room. So I did the responsible mommy thing and smiled, and told Liam I was fine, and when he went off to join Mark I cried some more. Even for a pregnant woman, I admit this was a little ridiculous.

But through all the tears, I did manage to be useful. Instead of all those boxes, we now have four piles of baby clothes: those suitable for a winter baby (a pitifully small pile), those too worn out or stained to be reused (to be sold at a garage sale, probably), those that are nice enough to pass on to friends (all very boyish things), and those that are too nice to give to friends (more about those later). Oh, and there is one more pile, and I am impressed with how small I've kept it: the clothes I love too much to part with; those items that make me think of tiny baby Liam (and on up to toddler Liam) every time I see them. They will be kept forever, not to pass on to grandchildren, but just because I hope to pull them out and cry more in the future.

So back to the clothes that are too nice to pass on. I'm dropping into a children's consignment shop tomorrow to ask about selling some of Liam's better things. By "better" I mean things that still look new and that have familiar brand names. Things like last year's snowsuit and winter boots, that were expensive enough at the time and should have a reasonable chance of re-selling. We'll see. If it doesn't seem like a great deal, there's always E-Bay. But the longer this stuff is in the house, the greater chance I'll find that I just can't live without it. And now that we will have two children that need entire new wardrobes every six months, that's really ridiculous.

Liam vs the Playground

First of all, here's a picture, since I haven't posted any for a while and they do make for a better post. The other day Liam's uncle Sean and aunt Heather sent us a box of clothes: more pink things and some stuff for Liam too including a lobster shirt (you'll know that one when you see it). They also included a couple of books for Liam, like this board book that can be colored in. He knew just what to do.

So last night, at my insistence, we went to Chick-Fil-A for dinner. Not that I had a craving for fast food chicken or anything, but they are giving away free books in their kids' meals, and that beats the crap McDonald's gives away any day. Fast food was necessary since were out in the middle-of-nowhere Denver trying to find Liam his first big boy bed. We discovered that designers put a lot more effort into beds for girls than for boys: there were lots of rustic, cheap-looking things and absolutely nothing I would put in my house. Anyway, we're at Chick-Fil-A and lo and behold, they have an indoor playground. Mark ordered our food while Liam made a beeline for it and I followed. Now, as you read this, please keep in mind that the play space (according to a large sign on the door) is designed for children three years of age and under. It is set up with a tall tower on one side, going perhaps eight feet up and about three/four feet in diameter, with plastic windows in the side. Inside the tower are platforms every couple of feet up. Each platform takes up exactly half the size of the tower (this is important later) and is on alternate sides, so, as they climb, the kid gets on one platform, turns around and climbs up on the next one. Eight feet in the air is a tunnel that crosses to one of those enclosed twisty plastic slides, that, I might point out, Liam hates. He prefers slides that are open to the air.

So have you figured out where this is going yet? Liam climbs up the tower, gets into the tunnel, and refuses to come back down. For twenty minutes he sat at the top of the slide, with other kids climbing past him to go down themselves, and didn't move. Other parents tried to get their kids to help, but little could be done short of giving him a shove (and thankfully no one suggested that). Besides, the oldest kid in there was about two and a half, and probably not able to push that hard. In the meantime, Mark has ordered and our food has arrived and is set up on a table getting cold. There is no way Mark is climbing up that tower - his shoulders are probably three feet wide - and we didn't need them both stuck. And I wasn't exactly excited about trying to get this belly through there either. But Liam wouldn't budge. Finally, as I said, after about twenty minutes, I hoisted myself into the tower, climbed up, and grabbed him. I dragged him through the tunnel and, very awkwardly, maneuvered him back down around the platforms (I'm not proud to say there was a lot of grunting involved). Of course by that point all the other mothers were saying things like, "oh no, you're pregnant, let me do that for you" but it was too little, too late.

We ate a lovely meal of cold fast food chicken and then of course Liam threw a fit to go back in and play some more (uh, no). At least we got the free book.

Conversations With Liam

Although Liam is learning to talk better and better each day, we still sometimes have a hard time understanding what he is saying. The following conversation took place today:

Liam: Something we couldn't make out.
Mark: I'm sorry Liam, could you say that again?
Liam: Again!

I am, however, proud to announce that Liam is starting to string together real sentences, such as, "No Mama, don't dance!" and "No Mama, don't sing!" and, after Mark had been on the road for four whole days, "Mama, where'd Daddy go?"

Of course, what we hear the most is "Mine!" Liam seems to own everything in our house, including the cars, the laundry, and all three of our dinners last night. When he wants to make sure you get the message, he'll change it to, "Dontouch! Mine!" or, when he really means business, "No! [with hand held up in stop position] Dontouch! Mine!" Then you better back off quick, mister.

Finally, Liam can now count to eight: "One, two, tree, four, five, eight!"

New Habits

Liam has found something new to do with his time. Now, we still have the baby monitor set up, since he doesn't really know how to get out of his crib yet (he has done it a couple of times, but thankfully hasn't made it a habit). So usually I wake up to the sound of him bellowing, "Mama!! Comere! Mama!!" But lately he's been somewhat quiet since he's been up to something: stripping! That's right. First Liam strips the bed, tossing out each of the stuffed animals. I have to listen carefully for this if I am to get in there since it is potentially the noisiest part of the operation, depending on what he manages to hit. Then he pulls off each blanket and throws them over the side. Next he takes the sheet off and over it goes. If I haven't made it in to his room by this point, off come the clothes and the diaper. The other day I went in to get him and was greeted by a little naked boy standing on a bare mattress and holding a diaper: "Here, Mama, biaper." Oh, thanks.

The other habit/hobby Liam has developed is a bit more dangerous. He's taken to collecting pillows (large ones, like those on the sofa), piling them, climbing to the top, and jumping off. This isn't too bad on the floor, but potentially disastrous when done on the bed. I guess this is a stage little boys go through: how high a thing can I jump off of? I suppose some boys don't ever leave this stage, but I'm hoping Liam will soon develop a stronger sense of self-preservation. In the meantime, wish me luck.

Oh, and I just can't resist: http://www.stuffonmycat.com/

Work Woes

Mark has been in Philadelphia all week. He left very early Monday morning and isn't due back until late Friday night. The woe is that he has been done with the project since noon on Wednesday (the group was supposed to meet with two customers, but only one was necessary), so he's been working out of a local tech center, waiting for his Friday night flight. You'd think that he'd be able to change the flight, but the charges turned out to be more than two more nights in a hotel (gotta love the airlines), so he must stay put. Of course, Mark's office doesn't much care where he is, as long as he is working. I, on the other hand, prefer him at home. So this turn of events had me sad about the world, and then I talked to a friend (who shall remain nameless) and got really depressed.

Said friend works for a certain telecommunications company I know. Every few years, the union there threatens to go on strike and, when they do strike, the non-union employees must take over and cover the critical positions that are left empty. That means not only working twelve hours a day, seven days a week, but flying to whatever city the company decides and doing whatever there. Needless to say, this is hard on everyone, but when a person is a single parent, this becomes down right impossible. My friend happens to be a single parent of a child too young to go without babysitting. The father is out of the country at the moment (he's involved, just elsewhere), and she has no grandparents available that could fly here for what could be as long as three weeks. School starts soon, so she can't fly her child off either. What does she do? Well, if she doesn't work, she'll be unceremoniously fired. So she's calling up friends and hoping they will be free to babysit, assuming she even gets to stay in Denver.

It all makes me sad.