Bah Humbug

We're having a crappy week all around. The Doodles is sick. And a sick Doodles is an unhappy mother. Especially when Monday day care is canceled because of some stupid holiday that only the auto dealers celebrate and he's banished from Thursday day care because he hasn't been fever free for twenty-four hours (do I need to remind you he's only in day care on Mondays and Thursdays?). I have a ton of deadlines coming up and suddenly, no time to get the stuff done. I was supposed to go to New York for a night this weekend all by my little self, but seeing as how it's been a work-free week, it looks like I'll have to cancel my night away (my first night, I might add, ever away from my Doodles!). Yes, I'm being cranky. It happens. It would have helped if Doodles hadn't screamed for an hour in the middle of the night, but the fact is, I'm tired and I'm cranky. Sorry folks, you'll just have to deal with it.

Edited later: Ah, things are much better. I just got some naked tushie time. I don't think there's anything better in life than a naked Doodles tushie.

R.I.P.

Despite the fact that I'm neither a drug addict nor an alcoholic nor insane, I've always felt an affinity for Hunter S. Thompson. If you recall, Doodles did, too. He once said, "Some may never live, but the crazy never die." I guess he proved himself wrong.

"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over." --Hunter S. Thompson, Hells Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

No Turning Back

We are officially in Yuppiedom. Today we called a nutrionist for our 18-month-old Doodles. Ugh.

The Perfect Houseguest

Hannah came to visit us. Let me say, she was the perfect houseguest. We've had plenty of less-than-perfect houseguests (read: high-maintenance) that she was such a refreshing joy. She came bearing not just Peeps for me, but decorating Peeps! She entertained herself. She entertained Doodles even when he was acting less than friendly himself. She earned her position as president of the Doodles fan club. Future houseguests, the bar has been raised.

Glazed Over

If it weren't for the fact that he spends all of his time on Sons of Sam Horn, I'd think Adam was secretly behind this site.

Jobs You Wish You Had

Not all my friends lead as boring and sedate lives as I do. My friend Brian, in fact, has a pretty good gig. He wrote an aritcle about the cool work he does but be warned: this is not for the easily offended. It's may not even be for the difficult to offend. But I think it's pretty neat.

No Computer Time for Mommy!

I had planned on writing more this week, but unfortunately someone (and I'm not naming names here) doesn't seem to want to be helped by his lovely mother's helper today and he is instead standing by the kitchen gate shouting, "Momma! Momma!" And to think I was at one time so happy when he called my name.

The Primer for Parasitic Offspring

Thanks to Diane for passing this amazing translation of The Little Golden Treasures: My Little Book About God.

The Boy with the Blue Waffle-Weave Polo Shirt and Camouflage Pants

Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate everything Adam does. From what I hear, he does significantly more than most Dads out there. But there are days (today among them) when I long to post a sign on my child that says, "Daddy Dressed Me!"

Signs Point to Yes

I've decided that trying to have conversations with my son is really like trying to have a conversation with a Magic 8 Ball (Oooo, find out the secrets of the Magic Eight Ball!). I always get one of six answers from him, and it seems to be 100 percent, completely random which response I'll get. For instance, a questions as simple as, "Doodles, would you like to put on your jacket?" can elicit:

1) Yeah--Note, this has no bearing on what the question was and he shows surprise when I try to follow through with whatever action I asked about.
2) No--Usually this answer is dead on, accompanied by violent shaking of the head.
3) No Reply--This is accompanied by a willful turn of the head as my child ignores me to run across the room and become suddenly busy elsewhere.
4) Reply Hazy--This comes when I ask my child a question, he looks me straight in the eye and responds in some babble that I have yet to decode. It's usually a very long explanation and at the end of it, he looks up at me expectantly and hopefully, waiting for my response to which I generally shrug and hand him some Goldfish.
5) Bish--No clue as to what this is. It's said in great earnest, frequently and neither Adam nor I can interpret it.
6) Up!--Said when Doodles doesn't give a hoot to what we asked but he wants yet another Barney book read.

Smarter than a monkey, almost. Smarter than a Magic 8 Ball? I long for the day!

Short Takes

--All of my mom friends have e-mail. And at about 8 p.m., e-mail suddenly comes to life. All day long, I get one, maybe two e-mails. But once all those kiddies have been put to bed, suddenly I get six, eight, or ten e-mails at a time.
--Doodles's poops smell worse than other kids' poops. I unfortunately have empirical proof of this.
--Finally new videos up (if you want to see them but don't have the password, just drop me an e-mail). But in looking at what videos to post, I see that a good half of our videos have extremely abrupt endings. Generally as you hear me saying, "Doodles! No touch!" or you see Doodles do something like grab the telephone and start to dial and then suddenly, bam! the tape stops.
--I no longer believe in Darwinism. It's the natural selection part that's done me in. By the laws of natural selection (basically that nature selects the best adapted varieties to survive and to reproduce), there's no way my child would still be alive. Let's take his Sit N Spin. We have the same conversation multiple times a day. "Doodles," I say, "that's a Sit N Spin. Not a Stand N Spin. Remember what happened five minutes ago when you stood on it?" But apparently he doesn't because he flashes me one of his melt-me Doodle grins and proceeds to stand on it. And, hey, what a look of shock on his face when he goes flying off and hits his head on the floor!
--I rue the day I put batteries in his toys. In any of the toys. Truth be told, the toys taken individually don't bother me. It's when I have a CD on and Doodles runs to push the song on his Sit N Spin and then runs over to one of his song books and hits the button and then he sets off his Laugh and Learn Home at the same time. That reminds me: I need to put Tylenol on the shopping list.
--Aha! More evidence that the rules of natural selection do not apply in our household. I'm sitting at the dining room table typing. All of a sudden I looked up and saw my child's grinning head above the table, grabbing for my keys. Okay. He's allowed to have my keys. Except my child is quite short. About 30 inches. He's never been above the 25th percentile for his height. And the table is about 36 inches tall. I peek beneath the table. Did my child grab some books to stand on? Nah. What about his Lego Table? Not that either. Try his plastic rocking horse (I call it a horse; I'm not sure what it is. Rocking Blob would probably be most accurate. Most of these toys mentioned have been generous hand-me-downs from neighbors). He's standing on the one thing that doesn't have a flat bottom. Hey, guess who was surprised when he fell? Will wonders never cease?

Feeding the Addiction

How am I posting mid-day, you might be asking. I tend to be a late night poster, once the Doodles is safely off to bed. Well, Doodles got a present today from my mother. And suddenly, I can bring my laptop out and get work done, because there are no little hands begging for my keyboard. I'm not sure how healthy it is to feed Doodles's addiction, but hey, if it buys me five minutes of peace, I'm all for it. The computer is old and doesn't work too well. It does have Windows 95 on it. As soon as Doodles figures out that a computer turned off isn't that interesting, then I'll plug it in for him. However, at the rate he's going, I think that won't be for another few years.

New Doodle Tricks

He's wearing me out. Simply wearing me out. So many new milestones. So few of them restful.
--Playgroup at our house, Doodles, as usual, climbs the bottom rung of his high chair so he can latch the straps. One of the mothers says, "Is he allowed to do that?" "Oh, yeah," I reassure. "He can't climb up." In two seconds the kid had scaled the high chair and was happily climbing up the seat back. You know, whenever I say things like that, they bite me in the butt. You'd think I could harness this power and make it work for me. But apparently it only works selectively. For instance, just now I said out loud to no one, "Oh Doodles never does the dishes by himself." And lo and behold, the dishes are still not done.
--At the same playgroup, we had our first experience of Doodles trying to grab a toy from a child. Doodles pulled, the child resisted. Doodles had a full-scale meltdown of screams and lying on the floor hollering. It was so attractive.
--A positive thing: he now points. If you ask where something is in a book, he'll now point at it. He also has started putting things away. In music class, he happily put the instruments back in the bin.
--He's becoming a creature of habit. For the longest time, we couldn't get him to wear a hat. Finally, we won the battle with his red Old Navy winter hat. My in-laws came over and brought him an adorable new LL Bean winter hat. Very cute. Doodles had fun playing with it. And then it came time for all of us to go out to lunch. We put on Doodles's shoes. We put on his jacket. And then we put on his new hat. Or tried to. The kid ripped it off his head the second we got it on and dug into the pile of our jackets until he found his red hat. And refused to go out without the red hat on. I'm starting to see shades of my father in him, not necessarily a good thing... (Peter, don't even ask why that's like you. You are a creature of habit. Mom, back me up on this.)
--He says "ashes, ashes, dooooowwwwn!" when he wants to play Ring Around the Rosie. Although he hasn't mastered walking in the circle. Or falling down (on purpose; he is a pro on the accidental falling).