Fear and Loathing In The Diaper Pail

Liam has become fascinated with lights lately.

It started with the light to the basement stairs. I’d carry him down and when we’d get to the light, he’d turn up to it and laugh. I would say, “That’s a light! Shiny light, shining bright with all it’s might!” (I make up some weird stuff)

Then he moved on to lights in stores. Sitting in the grocery cart, he’d look up at the lights and occasionally point to them.

Now, we have to take a daily tour of the lights around the house. I carry him from room to room and he points to each light and then I turn it on and off. Not only does he know what lights do, he knows that lights can be different. That the dining room chandelier, the bathroom wall sconce and the little green shade lamps in his room all do the same thing. He also knows what light switches do. He doesnt just point to the lights, he points to the switches. In his own funny ham-fisted way, he can use a flip switch, dimmer switch and rocking switch. He’ll watch himself flip the switch and then try to look at the light really fast to see it go on or off. Or he’ll sit on the floor, look at the light and point for me to work the switch.

It’s just interesting to watch him figure out the world around him and to remember that there are things we just assume and take for granted that he has to experiment with and learn about. He’s a funny little person.

Woo Hoo! Liam turned ONE yesterday! I have succeeded in keeping an infant alive for one year! Now that he’s an official big boy, two things happen that make my life easier. One, NO MORE FORMULA. He can switch to whole milk, saving us one thousand dollars a year. Two, the car seat can be installed forward-facing, which I just did today. Getting him in backwards is harder than you think. Taking the car seat out and reinstalling it is even harder. I ended up bending my glasses, wrecking my hair and kneeling in the seat to pull the straps tight. But that seat ain’t goin’ nowhere.

My mom emailed yesterday and said, “I hope you feel better today than you did one year ago.” Yeah, considering I slept the night before and I don’t have staples in my abdomen, I feel pretty good.

Anyway, I’m really happy. I just can’t believe he’s already one. A whole year old. I can never again say, “This time last year we didnt have him …” The whole day of the 12th, I kept saying, “Right now I was eating ice chips,” and “Right now I got the epidural,” and “When he wakes up, he’ll be one!” Stuff like that. Because I’m a pretty sentimental sap when it all boils down.

So without further adieu, here are a couple pictures of Liam literally shoving things in his cakehole.

It happened.

He really did it, no doubt about it. A little while ago, Liam was standing at and playing with a toy. He turned around and purposefully took four steps into the middle of the room, stopped, turned to me and waved.

Totally and completely awesome.

I should have known that like all the other good stuff in life, some things you just know about.

I just wanted to add a quick update to the discussion on preventing teething on germy grocery carts. At the risk of sounding like I’m shilling for these people, I discovered Clorox Anywhere, a kid-friendly spray that you can use to disinfect hard surfaces, including baby gear. I’m going to put some in a small spray bottle and keep it in my bag to spray before and after using the cart.

You know what I like about this blog site? It tells you search engine terms used to get to your site. Recent search terms that lead to my page include “stinky flower paperwhite” and “cabbage muppet”.

The funny thing is, someone was searching for a cabbage muppet, was presented with a link to this site and then clicked on it … looking for the cabbage muppet. I do not have a cabbage muppet on here. If I can find a picture of the cabbage muppet, I will post it right away.

Adam mentioned this the other day and I didn’t believe him until I saw it this morning.

Have you ever noticed that at the end of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, when he changes back into his street clothes, that he takes off his sneakers but doesn’t put new shoes on? He just goes straight to the closet, puts on his sport coat and walks out, presumably in his socks.

Interesting.

It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive. It’s such a happy feeling: You’re growing inside. And when you wake up ready to say, “I think I’ll make a snappy new day.” It’s such a good feeling, a very good feeling, The feeling you know that we’re friends.                                              -Mr. Rogers

ps, we have the same birthday!

Well, we’re sleeping through the night again. Although I use that term in a literal dusk-to-dawn way. Last night in bed by 6:15, this morning up at 5. As in one minute past 4:59.

He’s doing some funny stuff. He knows the word, “tongue”. If you say, “Where’s your tongue?” he sticks out his tongue with his mouth open wide. I am trying to get him to learn “tummy”. He has this toy puppy that says the names of body parts when you squeeze them. And he knows where the PUPPY’S tummy is. If I say, “Where’s your tummy?” he pokes the puppy’s tummy, which appropriately exclaims, “Tummy!” But I can’t get him to pat his own tummy, no matter how many times I try to make the connection. “See? Puppy’s tummy, Liam’s tummy!”

He also says, “Uh oh!” but not usually at appropriate times. This morning he closed a picture book and said, “Uh oh!” He knows to say “Uh oh!” when he drops something on the floor, which can be a fascinating game. He can spend HOURS pitching toys out of his crib, dropping bottles and forks on the floor and emptying drawers. The other day I came to get him from a nap and every single stuffed animal, pacifier, sippy cup and receiving blanket was on the floor. Like he just dumped it all out and then said, “Well, I guess that’s that,” and went to sleep.

Anyway, this isnt a very interesting post, but I wanted to get it down. It’s 8:30 in the morning and I’ve been up for 3 1/2 hours, which is ungodly. I’m not too funny this early. … Hell, I’m not too funny pretty much anytime.

Holy Moses Smell The Roses. I am tired. Like the kind of tired you are during finals week in college, where you’re still truckin’ because your system is on autopilot and you’re on your second, third and fourth wind.

So as I’ve complained, I am not well this week. Some sinus whatever that makes my head feel like it’s about a thousand pounds and makes my throat hurt. Of course I can’t find any medicine because you know, I might be trying to start up a meth lab, so nobody fricking carries anything decent. Just what I want to do when I’m sick is go all over God’s Green Creation looking for medicine.

Liam has chosen this week as The Week I Will Not Sleep. He has taken two naps in three days and woken up in the night every night for three nights … and stayed up for hours. Yesterday was an amazing demonstration of an infant’s ability to function on no sleep. He woke up at 5:30 a.m. Did not take a nap until 10:30 a.m. and only stayed down for 45 minutes. Then stayed up until 7:30 p.m. and woke up AGAIN at 11 p.m and stayed up until TWO-FRICKING-FORTY-FIVE in the GODFORSAKEN MORNING.

The beauty part is, there’s nothing wrong with him besides this minor cold he has. No fever. No digestive issues that I can pinpoint. When you pick him up, he’s just fine, but as soon as you go to leave, he hollers, so all he really wants is the company. But that’s not a habit I want to get into. It’s night. Night is for sleeping, not playing. So we decided to make it a battle of wills and see if he’d cry himself out. He yelled for TWO HOURS. And not screaming like he was hurt or sick, it was more like he was yelling AT us. It had this conversational tone to it like talking. Finally I caved after two hours of nonstop yelling and brought him some water and took him downstairs to watch TV. You’d have thought it was the middle of the day. Laughing, bouncing, climbing all over the sofa, yelling at the TV. Unbelieveable. I finally put him down at 2:30, where he bitched for 15 more minutes and then passed out. He was up at 6:45 this morning.

So why this sad tale of woe, you may ask? No reason. I’m just draggin’ with a head cold and 4 hours of sleep, that’s all.

See my pretty flowers? I grew them. You can see my purple hyacinths and a paperwhite. More are coming soon. My head is all stuffed up but I am still able to get a faint whiff of the hyancinths, so I can only imagine how wonderful they really smell in real life. I hope I get better before they wilt so I can smell them. I planted these back in October or November. I also have daffodils and tulips in those pots, so maybe I can get a continous bloom throughout the spring. When they’re spent, I’m going to put them in a narrow flowerbed on the side of the house and we’ll see what they do next year.

The crazy tree-looking plant is one of my Hawaiian plumerias, which has yet to bloom. Apparently it takes a year or two and I planted this oh, maybe a year and a half ago. Anyway, I thought you might like to see a little springtime with these flowers.

I’m sick today. Dying sick. Adam is taking care of Liam today. I know that little snottypants is the one who gave me this supergerm.

And by snottypants I mean Liam.

I’m in the mood to go to Key West. Who’s with me? Let’s go! I have this vision of myself in an adirondack chair under a palm tree with lemonade, surrounded by bougainvillea and listening to the surf while some invisible dude in the background plays the guitar. Later I get cleaned up in a sundress and flipflops and head to Sloppy Joes for a Full Moon Fish Sandwich. Check out this boffo culinary delight by clicking on the link to the left. Check out more KW pix at the Rob O’Neal link.

L8R.