The Last Random Thoughts of 2003

• Adam and I have decided that we're just going to make a list now of all the things the Doodlebug is going to want to discuss in therapy when he gets older. It'll save him the trouble of having to remember everything himself.
  
• More proof that the Doodlebug won't become a MacArthur Fellow anytime soon: He loves to suck on hands. His own. His mother's. His father's. Anyone within a three-foot radius of his stroller. But he's easily confused on how to get said hand into his mouth. He'll take someone else's hand in both his hands. But his left hand will pull the hand in while his right pushes it away. So the hand is in drool limbo as it gets close enough to his mouth to get a nice dousing before his other hand shoves it away. The Doodlebug is befuddled! He sees the hand. He's holding the hand. Yet the hand is nowhere near his mouth! The agitation grows. He wants that hand! Oh, to gnaw on that hand! Finally, the holder of the hand must show mercy and overrule the hand pushing it away and find its own way to the Doodlebug's mouth. As a friend once said, someday our child will be smarter than monkey. I hope.
  
• The Doodlebug is showing some definite improvements in other areas. For one, he's taken well to solid foods. For another, he's started laughing! What a wonderful sound! Doodlebug laughter.
  
• Of course, there are some not-so-wonderful improvements. Like the teething. It's exciting to know that someday our Doodlebug will be able to do some damage if he ever learns to guide the hand into his mouth, but in the meantime, the screaming isn't that much fun. And he's turned into a fountain of drool. But I could live with that. What I'm having a hard time with is that he's using me as a teether. During breastfeeding. Ouch.
  
• I find it disturbing that the Doodlebug's Baby Mozart DVD has a "Play Once" and a "Repeat Play" option. Repeat? That's simply evil.
  
• One of my New Year's resolutions is to purge. No, not my stomach. My stuff. I hold on to way too much crap for sentimental value (my new favorite show is Clean Sweep). I need to start ditching things that I no longer use no matter who it came from or what memories I have attached to it. I've gotten to a pretty good start, but there's one object I'm having a very hard time parting with. For Hanukkah, I got the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Oh, how exciting! So many new words! But I've had my 10th edition for, well, ten years now. The Tweedle Twirp bought it for me when it was brand new. I'm emotionally attached to that dictionary. All those wonderful words I've looked up! I can't seem to part with it. So now I have two dictionaries. Which makes me already behind in my New Year's resolutions.
  
• I got Adam the first season of The Office on DVD for Hanukkah. Besides the fact that the show is hilarious (and we can't watch it on TV because we no longer get BBC America), the amazing thing about this set is we can understand it! We just turned on the subtitles and no longer do we have to ask, "What did he just say?" "What is with that accent? I missed that whole exchange." We've decoded British English! And you know what? The show is even funnier when you know what's going on.