Sunday, March 29, 2009

next size up

Pumpkin turned 6 mos on Thursday, while at the Gt. Grandparent's house. I am kind of sad at how fast he is growing - he is so amazing and perfect and fun at this age, I am not ready for him to be moving this fast.

While watching some home video from last Thanksgiving, Ahiru and I noticed how dark Pumpkin's hair used to be. For the first few months, it was almost as dark as mine! Now it is much paler, and we think he might end up copper-topped like my dad.

Which got me thinking about all the things that he has grown out of already, and all through the (7hr) drive home, I was listing in my head the things that he has already grown out of.

It makes me sad.

Size-wise, he is still comfortably in the 6mos clothes. He above average length, but lighter than the other boys (and some of the girls) in the Bto3 group. Not underweight, and not skinny, just not as chubby as many babies get. I personally am convinced that this is because it takes a LOT of calories to maintain the faux-hawk!

He has pretty much given up the booby-laugh. For several months, if he was hungry (but not to the point of fussing) he would give this little "heh-heh-heh" laugh when I lifted my shirt. Then it changed to a big grin at the shirt going up, and he would laugh (without unlatching :-) ) when the milk came down, which cracked me up every single time. He still gets excited to eat when hungry, but the sound effects have gone away, which I miss quite a lot.

He doesn't gurgle at me anymore either. When he first learned how to make a gurgle sound, he did it constantly and found never ending amusement when I did it back to him. Being such a big boy, he has moved on to raspberries. The first time he blew one, Ahiru and I just about busted a gut laughing. He pursed his lips, tensed up his entire body, made a couple "p" sounds, then some squeaks, then finally blew a mini raspberry. With about 3 quarts of accompanying spittle flying around the room. Now he can do them whenever he pleases, due to the 3 of us practicing constantly. What's a little boy without fart noises, anyway?

His spit-ups now are just normal baby urps. For the first couple months, when he had to urp he really went for it, and could hit objects (or the cat) several feet away. This disappeared around 8 weeks, and I hadn't really thought about it since. Can't say as I miss that particular habit, but it was part of life for a time.

For the longest time, the funniest thing he did was his burp-face. Not when he burped (boy is crazy hard to gas-out) but if I was holding him and I burped. Which happens a lot, actually. We all know that yawns are contagious, but no one ever told me that every time I burped him, I would generate one of my own! And every time I did, he would tense up, and shake his head, and turn to look me right in the face with a very surprised expression. An "oh! what the heck kind of noise just came out of her!?!" face. These past couple weeks, this has gone by the wayside too. I shall miss it forever.

I shall also miss the green sleeper with the moon on the butt, his fascination with a tiny stuffed zebra, and being able to set him on the bed while I folded clothes without worrying about him rolling off.



Jeez, Mom. Do I really have to be strapped in tighter than a frickin fighter pilot?

Sunday, March 22, 2009

so much for staff unity

If it was hard for
me, it ought to be hard for
you too. So petty.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Worst Mommy of the Year Award


I knew better, but I was in a hurry. I laid him on the desk, turned for 1.223 seconds to grab a folder, and off he rolled.

Seeing him there, in a little heap on the floor, I cannot describe the panic, the literally heart-stopping fear. I scooped him up, was actually happy that he was whole enough to scream (never thought I'd feel that way!) and started to comfort him, as my first conference walked in. He had a bloody nose, but was otherwise fine.

He forgave me as soon as he ate, but I haven't really forgiven myself.
However.

Tonight, we dined with the in-laws and ahiru's sister, her lazywhitetrashlieinggoodfornothing boyfriend, and their two kids. The elder child, almost 3, has the verbal capacity of a typical 18 month old. Which I attribute (optimistically) not to her inheriting her fathers IQ of about 70 (no lie, he recently had it tested) but to the fact that she has spent the last 3 years in front of the tv while her father smokes and drinks in the kitchen and mom works. The only 2 phrases I have heard her say clearly are "I'm gonna spank your butt" and "fuck you."

Give you two guesses what she hears all day.

This all to say, that tonight at dinner, she was given beer to drink. Not in a funny 'she'll take one sip and hate it' kind of way, but in a 'she keeps asking for it and so she got a couple ounces in her glass' kind of way.

She drank it all. And asked for more. And my sister-in-law clearly has watched her do this before, because her only comment was that it was a bit more than he usually gives her.

Seriously, I am about to call child services. Here I am, wondering if it is going to hurt Pumpkin's digestion to have a couple tastes of sauce off the end of my finger, while they are laughing about how sleepy all the beer will make the 3 year old.

So altogether, I do feel better about my parenting skills tonight.

Plus the fact that Pumpkin is undeniably the cutest little boy anywhere ever.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Making Pizza

He could flatten dough
spinning like a rolling pin
at the slightest chance