veggin' out

So I’ve been thinking about changing my status from wanna-be vegetarian (or as the Vegetarian Times cookbook politely—probably too politely—calls us, “flexitarians”) to lacto-ovo vegetarian. The title essay of David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster, which I read last week, served as a good wake-up call, as he discusses the Maine Lobster Festival and the public killing of these lobsters via the "World's Largest Lobster Cooker":

Why is a primitive, inarticulate form of suffering less urgent or uncomfortable for the person who's helping to inflict it by paying for the food it results in? I'm not trying to give you a PETA-like screed here--at least I don't think so. I'm trying, rather, to work out and articulate some of the troubling questions that arise amid all the laughter and saltation and community pride of the Maine Lobster Festival. The truth is that if you, the festival attendee, permit yourself to think that lobsters can suffer and would rather not, the MLF begins to take on the aspect of something like a Roman circus or medieval torture-fest.

Foster Wallace wrote this essay in 2004; I just checked out the MLF's Web site--the 60th anniversary this year promises a new, updated Lobster Cooker. In the context of the above quote, the new, updated LC plan seems bizarre:

The World's Greatest Lobster Cooker is getting a makeover!
You can be a part of the fun and excitement by purchasing a personalized brick that will be used to construct the new cooker. What a great way to have your name or message carry on forever. It's also a great way to pay tribute to someone you love, "In Honor of..." or "In Memory of..."
from http://www.mainelobsterfestival.com/release.php?ID=15

I’m not sure--actually, I doubt--that Foster Wallace is a vegetarian himself: he muses about the inhumane deaths of lobsters, but also critiques alarmist techniques of organizations like PETA. But I like that he seems to be honestly weighing these options: he claims that he hasn't succeeded "in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief [that animals are less morally important than human beings] is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient."

And there's the rub. My biggest fear in becoming a vegetarian is that I will eventually be unable to understand the decision of those who eat meat, which includes (will always include!) P. And this seems (a) highly hypocritical, as I’ve been a fake-vegetarian for so long, and (b) unbelievably selfish, as P does most of the cooking in the household, though that of course would have to change. So we'll see. I’ve cut out all the meat in the past week, but I have to admit that I’m finding it difficult to do. Feeling a bit spacey, but that's likely more psychological than anything.

more on bratz

A few months back I wrote about Bratz dolls. Bratz doll books are now apparently marketed by Scholastic in schools. See here: http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/news/bratzschools.htm. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood also has a petition going against it.

I’ve included an image of the Baby Bratz here. The bottle on the S&M chain is a nice touch, but I wonder if there might be just too much lipstick? No?

I was going to write something here about how I don't know how parents with daughters deal with all these influences, but that's only one part of the issue, really. How are we parents of sons going to deal with the increased sexualization of young girls, too? Though there is a powerful argument for getting such images out of school-sponsored Scholastic book fairs, we cannot completely shield children from Bratz dolls and the images that inspire them. I wouldn't want to. But how to start the conversation about these things with a teenage son in a way that encourages him to be a good feminist...

I know you're rolling your eyes at me since baby-j only turns 2 next month. I am, however, glad for the time (ok, years) I will need to consider this.

travel food

We all just returned from a week down at the Jersey Shore with my folks. It was fun, but we’re happy to be back. With all the traveling lately, we’ve gotten to be experts at keeping baby-j calm in the car (it involves lots of grapes—or “dips,” as baby-j calls them—and playing the same CD over and over and over). I’ve also gotten pretty good at helpign to feed P as he drives. Of course, I don’t actually feed him, but I’m decent now at wrapping a meal so it’s less likely to spill all over the car as P drives down the highway. On our last trip back from Michigan, we somewhat successfully managed meals like salads and thick sandwiches. This prompted a discussion of what our next challenge might be. P’s suggestion was spaghetti, which we decided would work well with bread dipped in olive oil in a dish that we could somehow affix to the dashboard.

Clearly, we need to spend less time in the car.

the best damn ringbearer in the world

For those of you who are wondering how my brother’s wedding went this weekend--the wedding in which I was a bridesmaid, P was a groomsman, and baby-j a ringbearer--well... suffice it to say that the rings were not well-borne.

But for those who wish more detail: baby-j screamed in my arms going down the aisle at the beginning of the ceremony, then screamed again in P’s arms exiting the church. Apparently he was calm during the actual ceremony, when he played in the kids’ room downstairs with P. That makes 2 weddings and a funeral that P has missed this year as a result of baby-j. I think we’ll wait until he’s about 8 to take him to another one of the former.

But there were sweet moments this weekend, too, like hanging out with baby-j in the air-conditioned limo Hummer (that’ll be the last time you’ll ever read that prepositional phrase on this blog), reading stories to him and my mom. Bopping him every 20 seconds on the head with the ringbearer’s pillow prompted all sorts of fun hysterical giggles. My new sister-in-law looked absolutely radiant, and being a bridesmaid got me up close on the altar to see my brother pushing back the happy tears at the ceremony. With the exception of our clearly-not-wedding-party-material-family, everything else, including the weather, conspired to make a lovely day. And once baby-j was finally passed out on the floor of the country club bridal room, P and I had a good time at the reception. In shifts, of course.

moving on

This picture was taken at baby-j's last day of "school" (the parent-child class we took him to this year). Goodbye, PA.

We finished moving in this weekend to the new apartment. No movers this time, so we did everything ourselves, including our couch and big-ass TV cabinet. P did most of the work, but I'm still amazed--by how much I was able to help him, and also by how much crap we have. You'd think that moving each spring for four consecutive years would have made a significant dent in the amount of crap, but it really hasn't. We could blame baby-j, but as we know, it's really more my fault, with all the papers and books and office supplies. P says we could open our own Staples.

u-haul blues

Feeling. Sore. And. Tired.

P and I decided we have spent far too much on moving costs over the past three years, and are planning to do this one ourselves, with toddler in tow. Today we moved almost all of the items from the basement and attic into the first U-Haul truck to prepare to move it tomorrow. It took all day. I think we have a little bit less than half the crap we own in there. The sheer amount of it really is amazing when I consider how often we've moved and how much Freecycling we've done over the past few years here in PA.

It's clear that my weakness (well, at least in terms of holding on to stuff) is old papers and student/teaching materials. I snuck a few peeks at old grad school notebooks as I packed them today; it's fascinating to read what I thought about just a few years ago. Note to self: if I want a good procrastination tool as I work on my dissertation, I have two boxes full of these things.

Sigh. I'm going to go take some preventative Advil now.

have your duckies been fed today?

My favorite part of this video is that baby-j goes back to feed the first duckie, who must not have been sated.

607 love letter

We’ve been busy over here. We put the house on the market last Tuesday and had multiple offers by the weekend; we chose one on Sunday and are currently under contract. (Wow!) We’ve already had the code inspection and the house inspection, and our closing date is currently set for June 27.

So come July 1st, P will be both jobless AND homeless. (He doesn’t begin at the new job until September.)

I have such mixed feelings about all this. It’s a wonderful thing, being able to move back to the NYC area where we’ll be closer to dear friends--not to mention my work. This point hit home as I sat in traffic for two hours getting home tonight. There will be no more of that once we move. No more covering over 150 miles each day just getting to and from work.

And yet, I love our house and our neighbors and our neighborhood. I love that we live right next to a college. I love that we live right next to the college stadium and I love how at night, when the stadium lights are lit up, there’s no need to turn on the porch light in the back. I love that baby-j can go "gar-diiin" in the small dirt pit formerly known as an herb garden out in our tiny backyard. I love that baby-j said his first words and took some of his first steps here. I love our home. I love that I finally feel at home. There is something about this house: even though for the first few months here all I saw were the many flaws, I have to say that it is the first place in my life that I have truly felt is mine. Ours. This is probably because of all the work we put into it when we first got here, but also because it’s such a great size for us. Wherever we move will be smaller, and a rental, and won’t have all the things to which we’ve grown accustomed to here. We’re headed out tomorrow to find a new place, and I’m just a bit sick about it.

This will be the fourth consecutive year that we’ve moved in spring, and I think this one, without doubt, will be the hardest.

big news

In the fall, P applied for a job 10 miles from where I teach. We had given up on his finding a job in the NYC area, but it came up, and so he applied. He couldn’t not apply. We figured it was unlikely that he’d get it, but he got it. He got it!

So... we’re moving. Again. For the fourth time in four years. Unlike the other three moves, though, this one requires putting our house--our house that we love and in which we’ve finally felt settled--up for sale. We may be here a while. I just got an email from family friends who’ve had their house on the market for a year and a half (gulp!), so I’m not holding my breath about this getting sold anytime soon.

But the craziness of all the crap we have to do to the house to get it ready to go on the market (for next week) might provide good blog fodder. See? There’s always a bright side.

the romans had 'em, and they didn't do too bad...

I watched some of SNL on Saturday night--I think it was the first time in about 3 years--and I caught this sketch. You gotta get yourself some.

stylin'

It’s been a beautiful weekend. We’ve been gardening, baby-j and I. Ok, so “gardening” means scooping and piling dirt, splashing in the watering-can stream and making mud pies. But it’s fun. Today we head out and I realize that the sun is really coming down, so I try to find baby-j’s Tigers cap to cover that little lightly-covered pate of his. After a few unsuccessful laps through the house, I come up empty, so I grab some sunscreen and slather it on. He isn’t too happy with that, as you can see here, but at least it did the trick. An hour later, when we come back inside, I try to get some of the sunscreen off. Sunscreen is thick; his hair is thin. Clearly this is not the hair product of choice for a twenty-month-old.

I cannot seem to get the sunscreen out, or even smooth his hair down effectively, so I grab his baby hairbrush, pin the writhing baby-j between my knees, and style his few strands of hair. It takes a bit of work to get it right, but I soon figure out that it’s more effective to brush it forward. With the sunscreen, each hair sticks neatly in place, and voila! A babycombover. Lookin’ good, baby-j. Lookin’ good.

While searching online to determine whether or not combover is spelled with a dash or a space (the answer appears to be neither), I discover that on Monday, April 16, Combover: The Movie premiered on the Sundance Channel. There’s an interesting tidbit for the day.

mama lyrics

You know that you’ve gone a little bit crazy when you’re creating new lyrics for songs that don’t quite fit. Over dinner, “Fever” was playing on the radio, so post-meal, I enticed baby-j up to his bath with the following little ditty:

You give me duckies
when you kiss me
Duckies when you hold me tight

Duckies!
In the morning
Duckies all through the night

Everybody’s got the duckies
That is somethin’ you all know
Duckies aren’t such a new thing
Duckies started long ago

easter outfit

This was the outfit that P and baby-j got last week at the store. Man, he cleans up nice!

apple's latest product

If you haven't seen this already, I urge you to go right now and view Apple's latest product:

http://www.glumbert.com/media/irack

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry: I think I did a bit of both.

sweet and weird

As I type this sitting at my office desk, every 30 seconds some guy on a bike goes flying by in the alley behind our house. Left... then right... then left... then right... I'm not watching, but I can see him out of my periphery.

It's been a crazy few weeks, including family illnesses, a death (my grandpa) and subsequent last-minute trip to Massachusetts, happy visits from the in-laws, and my first overnight conference trip without baby-j. Easter weekend was frenetically wonderful. There was much cousin fun and craziness, and even though I missed much of it by being away in Chicago, I got to enjoy having loads of people in the house Sunday morning. I promise to post some pictures once I can find the damn cord that will bring these adorable shots from my camera to my computer. For now, these crazy pictures of baby-j will have to suffice. I took them a few weeks ago. He's wearing his "Keep Austin Weird" T-shirt, which P purchased before baby-j was born, before we knew he would be baby-j and not baby-n, or baby-a, or baby-s, or any of the other names we had selected for a potential girl.

I love these shots. I love any picture or video of baby-j where he is laughing with such abandon. That giggle is infectious.

Alley-bike-rider is going backwards now. No, wait. He just turned around and is going forward. And left. And right.

fine dining

We found this table at a garage sale down the street. baby-j loves to sit at it and draw nowadays. He'll also have the occasional fake meal here. Here he is having tea with froggy.

And this shot was taken a few minutes later.

housiversary

One year ago today, P and I closed on our first house. We didn't move in until about a month later, but we've owned this house now for a year. A year! It goes so fast.

This picture was taken that day: March 24, 2006. I found it in my Kodak photo album with all the pictures from that day. I'm somewhat amazed by how much work we've done on the house. It certainly needs a lot more, but I would have completely forgotten how much we've done if we hadn't decided to run around the house and take lots of pictures of the vacant rooms and bare floors.

Baby-j looks so small here; he was only 7 months old then. Before having baby-j, I didn't quite understand why people referred to the age of small children in months, rather than in years and half-years. Part of the reason, of course, is to have space to mark the developmental milestones that occur in a child's life: first smile, first roll, first laugh, first crawl, first steps, first word. But there's something about marking time in months that slows the time, even a bit. Because when they hit a year, you can't quite believe it's only been a year, since those months added up so quickly and without your quite noticing, and your son has grown so very much.

I have my own litany of which baby-j is a part, and it's something like this: first apartment together, first car, first baby, first house. P and I have had 4 of the first, 5 of the second. I can't count higher than 1 yet for the last two.

...a new car!

Without this blog as a record, I wouldn't have realized that exactly one month after P and I debated the virtues of our respective automobiles, we decided to get a new one (well, new to us, anyway). We'll be doing a lot of driving this year, so we wanted something more reliable for my commute and for the family car, and so we got this:

It's a 2005 Ford Focus station wagon. I've wanted something with a hatch in the back ever since my (ok, my in-laws') Honda Civic died on us in 2000. I loved the idea of getting back to the Civic, and since a Honda is out of our price range and parts of it are too likely to be stolen, I've had my eye on the Ford Focus 5-door for a few years now. Add a kid to the equation, and our needs expanded the dream to station-wagon-length. However, its rear is still pretty cute: see?

This baby is supposed to get 32 miles per gallon on the highway, which--with my commute--is where it's mostly driven.

So let's gas 'er up and crank up the NPR.

book club

I recently sent along a letter from my friend M to continue an "informal book club." I was asked to send the letter to 6 people, who would in turn send the letter to 6 people each, and each of those people is supposed to send me a book. The idea is that each person only mails one book back up the chain, but gets 36 books total from the 6x6 people to whom he/she sent the letter.

Sound confusing? Well, the point is that I am supposed to have 36 books arriving in the mail, and I'm really interested to see what I get. I'm going to keep updating this page as a way to keep track... and to see how many of the 36 I get.

This week, I got 3:

1. Persuasion, Jane Austen
I love that I got this! I was/am a huge Austen fan, and Persuasion was always my favorite. I haven't read it in at least 10 years, though, so I'll have to add this one to my summer reading list.

2. Empire Falls, Richard Russo
I read this already a few years ago... loved it, though nothing can compare to Russo's Straight Man. I need to re-read that this summer.

3. Shopgirl, Steve Martin
I haven't read this one, but I'm definitely interested. And the person who sent this gave me the audio CD, which is GREAT for my long commute. Plus, Martin narrates it. (I've discovered that nothing kills the audio book experience faster than a crappy reader. Just "read" the audio version of The DaVinci Code and you'll see what I mean. Of course, it might not have been the recording on that one. Maybe I would have been eye-rolling at the book in print had I read it that way.)

March 16:
4. Moo, Jane Smiley
Ok--not only have I read Moo, but it was the book that I sent back the chain to the person on the back of my letter. Too funny. Well, I guess I got it back! :) P and I are starting to wonder about the kinds of books I'm getting. It may well be that I read the same things as the people to whom I sent the initial letter, and they read the same things as the friends to whom they sent the letter.

March 22:
5. Daughters of Copper Woman, Anne Cameron
I haven't read this yet, but am looking forward to it after checking out its Amazon page.

Sometime at the end of March:
6. Stones from the River, Ursula Hegi

7. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
I started to read this during my conference trip to Chicago and I am really enjoying it. Thanks, J! Now I need to find some time to finish it. So much fun.

So far I have 7/36 books, which is many more than I thought I'd get. Whoo-hoo!

towhead

Check out the hair on baby-j: it's coming in fast! It's probably not fast enough for him, though. He has total hair-envy when he sees other kids. He wants to grab it, run it through his fingers, smell it, yank it... oh wait, he's made the kid cry. We're working on that. Soon he will have hair of his own to brush, which will be a very good thing, because baby-j's way of wielding a hairbrush is a bit frightening.

baby-j's treadmill

I took this video last week of baby-j dancing on the "boot box." Actually, I think it was initially intended to store quilts and linens, but it's a perfect surface on which to bounce, as baby-j will demonstrate for you here.

ABD

Finally: I (successfully!) defended my dissertation proposal today (and even enjoyed it!). I've gone through one more hoop on the way to my doctorate. Now I "just" have the dissertation itself to write.

So it's official: I am ABD. My friend M forwarded me the All-But-Dissertation Survival Guide site a few years back and I took a look, thinking how nice it would be to even be considered "ABD." It feels a long time coming. I was realizing today as I roamed the campus that it's been 10 years since I began my M.A.

I like the picture on the top of that Web site, that guy on the mountain. He's all like, I finished my dissertation. And then he's all like, I think I'll wear capri pants because I'm done with my dissertation. And then he's like, I'll stretch my arms up real high, like this. And I'm all like, You go, Mr. Guy On Top Of The Mountain.

howdy pard-ner

baby-j has taken to flinging P’s belt all over the living room and kitchen, and he seems to enjoy it when I wrap it around his waist twice. The look is especially nice over pajamas, as seen here. I also have many of him wearing this belt with just a onesie, which I’m sure will go in his category of “Embarassing Pictures That Mom Took Of Me Before I Was Old Enough To Know To Run Away."

New words for baby-j include “tiger,” “oh man,” and “aye-yai-yai.” (I guess I’ve been saying the last two a bit too much lately.) “Cow” was the big word this morning. (“Cow. Cow.” “What does the cow say, baby-j?” “Cow. Cow.” “What about the sheep, baby-j? Aren’t those nice?” “Cow. Cow.”) The big word tonight was “door.” He’s had this one down for a while, but tonight it meant “I am going to close the door on you and you cannot come in.” Lately baby-j’s been spending the first part of the night on a mattress on the floor of his room, which is connected to ours (he can’t get to his room without going through ours) and he’s starting to take ownership over it. Hence, this use of the word “door.”

I started to get panicky that he was already--at 18 months!--closing me out of his room. Outside the door, I went through various stages: Oh, he doesn’t want me around any more. Then, Well, it’s a natural part of growing up. Then, You know, I guess I’m proud of him. After about 15 minutes of “Door. Door. Door,” he permitted me to enter, at which point I realized what he was doing in there, which had less to do with his growing up and more to do with his sitting down. And he had just taken a bath, too. Ah well.

and the winner is...

Will you vote for me for Miss Universe?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlZk9tGZz-Y

in which I share pics of baby-j

I've calmed down since my last post, which is good, because I truly don't intend to argue with feminist writers and drop the f-bomb in every blog entry. Maybe just every *other* blog entry.

Anyway, here are some recent pics of baby-j that I just love. Many thanks to D for sending them along...

a rant in which Naomi Wolf goes all "stepford wife" on me, and I cry

I was perusing an old New Yorker article by Margaret Talbot that P left out on the table today about Bratz dolls. We’re familiar with them because my 12-year-old cousin has had some for about 4 or 5 years now and in our pre-baby-j days, we had time to play with her and her toys. Talbot describes Bratz dolls, accurately, as having “large heads and skinny bodies; their almond-shaped eyes are tilted upward at the edges and adorned with thick crescents of eyeshadow, and their lips are lush and pillowy, glossed to a candy-apple sheen and rimmed with dark lip liner.” I can see the appeal of these dolls in that they look “ethnically indeterminate” (as Talbot describes them) and so, rather than being an African-American or Latina doll, they simply “convey difference.”

What disturbed me when I first saw Bratz was that (again quoting Talbot) “they wear the sly, dozy expression of a party girl after one too many mojitos,” and that to take off their shoes, you rip off their feet at the ankles. Really. Scared the hell out of me when my cousin showed me for the first time how to change from the stiletto sandals to the stiletto boots.

So I’m reading Margaret Talbot’s article, and then, out of nowhere, is a quote from Naomi Wolf:

...if I were betting on culture as a form of stocks, I would get out of skinny Barbie and into multi-ethnic, imaginative Bratz dolls.

Say what? That can’t be right. Naomi Wolf, who wrote The Beauty Myth, promoting Bratz?

I just had to check out the context of this quote for myself. Sure enough, two Google-hops later, I was reading the The Dove Report: Campaign for Real Beauty, where Wolf originally wrote the above in an essay for the Dove company.

If you read the entire essay, Wolf goes on...

And I would invest in Curves – the breakout phenomenon that welcomes women of all sizes into fitness – and not invest in liposuction equipment. Most of all, I would notice, for purposes that extend far beyond body image and physical self-esteem, where the future lies –not in the outdated image of teen girl struggling with bulimia, gazing at Seventeen and wishing she could look like a model so she could feel complete, but rather on the teen girl with a picture of Mia Hamm on her wall, both a prom dress and soccer cleats piled in her closet, who likes herself just fine, who thinks her mom is the most beautiful woman she knows, and who is listening to “Girl Power” and “Together We Can” from the Cheetah Girl’s CD.

I’m torn about the report itself, which appears to be rooted in the company’s latest “pro-age” campaign, which I certainly support, but research done by a commercial organization--regardless of what I feel about the results--always makes me skeptical. That’s another topic entirely.

So back to my point and never mind the fact that this essay was written in support of research done for the Dove company.

Hey, Naomi Wolf: What the f*** happened to you? Bratz? Curves? The organization whose founder backs anti-choice groups that have recently claimed abortions increase one’s risk of breast cancer? Promoting Disney's Cheetah Girls? Yeah, the Cheetah Girls don’t look like they’ve subscribed to the “beauty myth." Methinks Wolf has been possessed.

What's up with cloaking corporate interests in feminism?

Between Bratz and the Cheetah girls, it's clear that despite what Wolf writes in her essay, the beauty myth is still alive and well. It's just even more inclusive.

And now I cry.

valentine's day

Today was a snow day, which made for a wonderful Valentine’s Day: P and I got to spend it at home with baby-j. The neighbors came over in the morning and we got a chance to relax at home.

In other news, I submitted the final draft of my dissertation proposal and the defense of the proposal is set for March 5. Whoo-hoo!

In other other news, we laid out more money for my car, which was in the shop again this past weekend. I’m hoping that this is the last time it needs to be fixed for a while—in part because of the money, but also because I’m sick of defending my car to P in lame conversations. We almost came to blows this weekend over the most ridiculous fake-argument I’ve ever heard. I started in on how my car has served us well in the four years since we bought it used; P didn’t seem convinced... At one point, there was the following intelligent exchange:
“Don’t be dissing my car.”
“You’re dissing my car. Don’t be dissing my car.”
Um, yeah.

sweeties

My composition students are currently working on an essay in which they write about the rhetorical appeals of their chosen advertisement. I just had to share this one that a student sent along to me for approval. Hope you enjoy it.

my bag

The words are coming very very quickly. My current favorite is “yo-goo” for yogurt. Baby-j also loves my purse, which he calls “BAGG-EEE!” with glee. Actually, I always call it my purse, but it really is more like a “BAGG-EEE!” since it’s a kind of small messenger bag. I’ve had a version of this bag for a while, and I love it. I often move on for a few months to other purses—usually in my attempt to downsize and carry fewer things to work. As it stands now, when I head out the door for work, I take a rolling suitcase, my lunch box, my breastpump, and my purse--sorry, I mean my BAGG-EEE! I’ve worked to try to whittle down the amount of crap I carry back and forth to work, but since I’m usually gone for 12-13 hours at a time, these four bags are essential to the snacking, the pumping, and the rolling I need to do.

Tonight when I got home, baby-j was smiling from the window, and then as I got closer, he began to pant. I thought he was excited to see me, but then he kept on with the BAGG-EEE! BAGG-EEE! BAGG-EEE! until I had placed it on the floor and he could have at the cell phone and the Kleenex. Good times.

spoon dance

I've been a very bad blogger lately. No updates on baby-j. No updates on P. Well, until I have time to write more, I shall pacify my few readers with yet another video I uploaded last week. This is baby-j's spoon dance, cut short by an NPR report. Note that he does, of course, take a break from the spoondancin' to listen briefly to NPR.

(By the way, I do typically join him in the spoon-dancing and pot-banging, but I've spared you here.)

do you wanna rock?

Some readers of this blog have been asking for something like this, so here it is: baby-j in action. We got it on video.

good news

I got my sabbatical for fall! We found out on Friday. My first reaction was Wow, I’ll actually get to write my dissertation and finish this doctorate.

My second reaction was Wow, I’ll actually have to write this thing to finish my doctorate.

And so even though we had already planned to do so, P and I spent Friday afternoon checking out some daycare options for baby-j for September, when I begin this sabbatical and need some time without baby-j in order to write. We’re looking to get him there for four hours in the morning, four days a week. We’ve found a place for him that we really like: it’s brand-new (not so important to us), provides a lot of outdoor time during the day (pretty important to us), and would give him time to socialize with other kids (very important to us). And there are no “three strikes and you’re out” biting policies.

He’ll be 2 in September. That’s just crazy to me. Do I have to refer to him as toddler-j at that point?

froggy

This is a photo of baby-j watching his cousins skate during 1 of 2 ice-skating outings while we were in MI. The holidays feel long over, and I have to admit feeling generally a bit down.

Some good news, however: P just found out that a major journal is going to publish one of his articles! Whoo-hoo! We are so excited.

Baby-j also started swim classes at the local Y. He seems to really enjoy the water. Most of the time during the lesson, he bobs up and down so fast I can barely hold him. The teacher says he’s mastered his “froggy kick,” though I am not quite sure what that is. What he’s doing looks more like butterfly stroke from the chest down. If he weren’t in water, he’d probably be giving me bruises.

true story

At dinner the other night, I delivered the following admonishment:
“baby-j, we don’t bitch-slap our sippy cup with a green bean.”

daddy oh daddy

It’s been an exhausting past few days. We headed into NYC the other night to spend the night at the apartment of the wonderful and amazing D and N. I had to work the following day, and D (bless him!) took care of baby-j the entire day. P better get back soon--you hear me over there?--as baby-j started pointing to D and calling him “daddy.” Of course, he will often call me “daddy” too; I think the label is more an acknowledgement of a favorite person. We should all be as favored by baby-j as P is.

The trip was loooong (90 minutes there and then 2 hours back the next day), but surprisingly, baby-j was pretty good in the car. The silence was interrupted by a short, loud (but not angry) shrieks from time to time. I figured out quickly that the shrieks would stop if I changed the song on the CD. As the day grew darker, and time in between shrieks grew shorter, the song-switching grew faster. Happily we arrived home before I had to resort to keeping one hand on the CD player and one hand on the wheel.

blamin' jersey

As a Jersey girl by birth with conflicted feelings about it, I have to say that I was both amused and not surprised by this CNN report on yesterday's odor:

New Jersey sniffed out as source of stench

Of course it was.

We (baby-j and I) spent this morning running around, cleaning, sorting recyclables and, after cleaning the kitchen floor, lamenting its perpetually dirty state (ok, so baby-j didn't do much lamenting on that front). In all the bustle I must have not given him enough to drink: I turned around at one point to see him sucking all of the water out of his Aquadoodle pen. (For those concerned that he was gnawing on a pen, be assured that it contains only water.)

I gave him a sippy cup of water, but then took it away when he began to water his puzzles with it.

venice

Today P set off for Venice today, heading out from New York despite the mysterious odor. So it's Day One of a Week With Baby-J. He was pretty calm about the whole leaving this morning: we played a bit in his room and he rocked on his stuffed whale. He hasn't yet mastered the "r" sound yet, so "rock" comes out like "f*ck." F*ck, f*ck, f*ck.

Yes, indeed, baby-j sure wowed both sets of relatives over the holidays with that one.

happy new year

Yesterday I overheard P swearing at the computer: “This pardeepants-lady needs to update her damn blog.” Subtle.

There’s actually not too much to update over here. We had a wonderful if somewhat hectic few weeks with the holidays, and now we’re scrambling to clean up the place before we have to get back to work next week. Actually, I have to head in tomorrow for a brief stint during which I will sit in front of a computer for 4. 5 hours helping students to register even though I know virtually nothing about the process since I only do this for 4.5 hours twice a year.

We went to our favorite Turkish restaurant in the area tonight (ok, the only Turkish restaurant in the area, or at least the only one we know of that exists in the back of a semi-vacant deli). There is much garlic breath in this household right now; even baby-j got in on the garlic-action.

stupid question

As part of baby-j's Friday morning class, parents are encouraged to do crafts. This usually involves cutting, or folding, or--my favorite--knitting, which I've recently taken up for projects not related to school. I'm not very good at it, but I enjoy how keeping my hands and eyes busy forces me away from the computer. I like doing these crafts; P's not so crazy about it. One of my current projects is a stuffed cat for school, complete with ears and whiskers. I'm almost done; I just needed a last minute consultation. So a few minutes ago, in our living room, I asked P how long he thought the tail should be.

He answered with four successive questions:

Why are you asking me this?

Then, immediately,
Haven't we agreed I suck at crafts?

And,
Do I like cats?

Then,
Am I not grading papers right now?

Um, the man has a point. Not much to say after that.

done!

Hooray! I am officially finished with the research-paper-grading and my final grades have been handed in. Now I can get worried about the upcoming semester instaead of the current one.

ribbon

baby-j and I are alone today: a loooooong day. What did you do with the boy today? P will ask when he returns.

Well, let’s see. There was some holiday cookie baking. There was laundry folding (on my part--baby-j prefers to just throw the laundry down and hump the warm, scented pile). There was an attempt at wrapping Xmas presents. There was much ribbon strewn about. There were a few meltdowns on my end because the child has only napped for 30 minutes total all day and it’s 5:30 and I have about 8 million desperate student research-paper-related emails to which I must respond. And there was the inevitable explanation to baby-j that mommy is just not as good at these long days as daddy, followed by the acknowledgement that, due to my teaching evening classes, daddy’s simply had more practice.

But now he’s singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” while shaking some bells, and all is right with the world. Oh, and I did give him a bath today.

scary sights

We are completely screwed. Last night I was cleaning up in the kitchen while baby-j played in the living room. I heard some movement of the window blinds and ran out of the kitchen to find him kneeling precariously on the arm of the chair, with window blinds in one hand, and a branch of the Christmas tree in the other.

I guess he can climb furniture at this point.

charlie brown

I was reminded that I never did post some of the shots of baby-j as Charlie Brown for Halloween, so here they are. They're not great, though these are the best of the bunch. The rest of them were yellow-and-black-blurs as baby-j whizzed by me.

This was my first attempt at fabric glue, so there was way too much of it, forming a crunchy zig-zag around his belly. This may be why he was never too keen on wearing the shirt. Ah, well... all in good time. I will become The Craftmaster. Oh, yes. I will.

fun stormin' the castle

I am sick. Baby-j is sick. P is not sick yet, but he still has some scary looking poison ivy residue. Blech.

Some new baby-j words, though... like “aff” = “giraffe,” and we heard “goggle” at breakfast. And my favorite one happens at mealtime, when we tell baby-j about the “fire fairies” who light the candle on our table. Now he says Figh...uh, Figh...uh even before he gets in his highchair. It really is quite cute, so I try to prolong the moment by imitating him. Figh...uh, Figh...uh . Unfortunately, my imitation sounds a bit like Carol Kane in The Princess Bride.

bean

baby-j is way into into cannelini beans, and so we've added yet another word this weekend: "Beh-heh-heh." Said, of course, with a growl.

These phonetic spellings leave a bit to be desired. The "heh-heh"s especially might make it seem that we're living with our own little bald Beavis.

baby-j

Don't ask: I'm not sure what he's doing here either.

veggie pie

Whew: that last entry was pretty depressing. Today was a far better day, due in no small part to the fact that baby-j took a 2-hour nap this morning and another 2-hour nap this afternoon. I even had time to make (gasp!) dinner for P and have it waiting when he got home. Such an occurrence is rare, obviously, or I wouldn't be writing about it. I made Savory Potato Pie: I found the recipe a few months ago in my Vegetarian Times Cookbook. I suck at cooking. I'm also only a wanna-be vegetarian. Translated, this means a) that I don't eat red meat and b) I'm too lazy to be a real vegetarian. The only meat I eat on a consistent basis is fish, and I'll occasionally have chicken or turkey, though I'd like to eliminate those altogether. Unfortunately, I've inherited some weird blood sugar issues (ok, my faithful lack of regular exercise has also contributed to these weird blood sugar issues), which means that when I need protein, I need it, and I'm often not prepared or together enough to have vegetarian options at hand. Thus, my laziness = the eating of a turkey or chicken sandwich.

The Savory Potato Pie is pretty good--even P likes it--and it's pretty easy to make. My favorite part about it is the generic reference to something like Boca Crumbles as the ingredient "meat," which is in quotation marks. I was thinking about this usage today as I perused Wikipedia's entry on quotation marks. The entry as of 11pm this evening reads:

One important use of quotation marks is to indicate or call attention to ironic or apologetic words. Ironic quotes can also be called scare, sneer, shock, or distance quotes. Ironic quotes are sometimes gestured in oral speech using air quotes.

Certainly, this reference to air quotes is an important part of the Wikipedia entry: the more I think about it, the more I realize that the air quotes are an essential part of the ironic quotation marks. When I read in my vegetarian recipe that I should stir potatoes and peas into the "meat," my impulse is to extend those four fingers and jab them into the air.

Hmm. Why do I keep going on about the "meat"? Perhaps it is because the use of quotation marks there gives that ingredient emphasis, though it is the potato that should be emphasized; I mean, it's given more credit in the recipe title. But then, I guess Savory "Meat" Pie has all sorts of other connotations.

thinking

Things I don’t want to think about today:

• All the work I have to do
• The fact that I should, right now, being doing this work
• The poison ivy that I underestimated in a previous blog entry
• The fact that this poison ivy has attacked P even more than it has attacked me
• baby-j STILL not being over his ear infection
• The fact that it’s going on a month since he was infected during his brief four-hour stint at stupid-ear-infection-givin’-daycare and he has to go through another round of antibiotics
• How hard it is to revise my dissertation proposal with 100 student papers calling my name each week and an adorable but very active toddler running around
• The fact that I’ve officially been working aforementioned dissertation proposal for a year now
• The fact that I appear doomed to never complete aforementioned dissertation proposal

Can you tell that I’m more than a bit down today? I started this entry with the intent of writing about what I do want to think about today so I don’t have to think of the above. Here’s what it is: baby-j’s pronounciation of the word “pancake” this past Saturday morning (also now known as Pancake-Makin’ Day). Let’s see if I can do it justice...


“Can you say ‘pancake,’ baby-j?”

(said with a growl and, oddly enough, a German accent)
“P-ah-ah-ah-ahn, Kehhh, Kuh. Kuh. Kuh.”

Makes me smile just to think of it.

after the turkey

It was good--albeit quiet--Thanksgiving. At least, it was quiet by Thanksgiving dinner-time. The morning was spent witnessing the festivities going on a few hundred yards away with the big football game between the two high schools in the area. People go crazy for this event. Despite my being momentarily startled by a face at my kitchen window and subsequently running a drunk guy off our property, the morning was a lot of fun.

Me: “Um, is there a reason you’re pissing on the side of my house?”
Drunk Guy: “People haven’t seemed to mind before.”
Neighbor, Watching in Amazement from her Porch: “Really? Where’s that?”
Drunk Guy: (runs off, giving us both the finger)

The last two post-Thanksgiving, pre-back-to-work days have been wonderful, consisting mostly of much playing with baby-j. He’s really gotten into books lately, and not just for eating! He’s taken to pulling half his books off the shelf, and then picking them up, one after another, for me or P to read to him. As much as I enjoy watching baby-j smile when the books are read, I think I enjoy P’s reading of these books even more: from the exasperated puppy-dog voice to the New York accent he’s for some reason given to the toy clown in The Little Engine That Could.

what's that?

I'm not quite sure what baby-j is admiring here: it's either his belly (who wouldn't admire that?) or his new snow boots. No snow yet, but he'll be ready. We can't get him to take the things off whenever he sees them.

P and I spent this past weekend preparing our front yard for Thanksgiving. As noted earlier this year, my previous attempt to do so led to a vicious bout of poison ivy. We waited for the bushes and vines to die a bit before attacking the front yard again, but we knew the PI was still there. I do have a bit on my face and arms (yes, I was covered when working on the front yard), and P has some on his neck, but so far we've managed to escape relatively unscathed.

So the front yard is now a dirt pit. I still think it's better than what was there before (crazy, creepy overgrowth that didn't allow us to walk through to the side of the house), but there's a lot more work to be done. We've now moved inside for our preparations. At first we thought we'd have 9 for Thanksgiving dinner, then 7, and now, only 5, but with P cooking, it shouldn't mattter... it will be delicious. :)

seeds on nuts

I've mentioned before that as a SAHM/WOHM/SAHD/WOHD couple, P and I can learn much about the other's parenting from the daily diaper update.

After a particularly difficult changing session yesterday, I'm wondering if P might ease up on the kiwis with baby-j.

hooray: an icon sans bottle!

It is amazing how pervasive the bottle images are. I was happy to see that the Mothering breastfeeding symbol I voted for won. It's quite a cute image, see?

Hopefully it will be used. Actually, I think I'll use it now on the right here. :)

rough week

It's been a few days since I've last written, primarily because it's been a rough week. Highlights include baby-j going on more antibiotics to fix the ear infection he got at damndaycare, and my brakes locking up on me Wednesday morning on the way to work when the two cars in front of me stopped short, causing me to slam into the car in front of me--a two-week old Honda Civic. Then the wireless went out, and I spent 2 hours on the phone with Linksys to get it back, but P says it's not quite right, and I'm getting sick from baby-j's being sick, and I'm very very worried about a friend at work who's having major health issues.

However, I did get to make some cookies tonight: chocolate chip, P's (current) favorite. I don't know what's up with The Joy of Cooking, but their recipe is basically chocolate chips and butter held together by the smallest amount of flour necessary to make the thing qualify as a cookie.

baby-in-a-bucket

Belly laughs are a good thing.

dates

P and I went out this weekend twice for pre-birthday celebrating. It was crazy, and decadent, and of course it was not without feelings of guilt for leaving baby-j, particularly as he's still somewhat recovering from being sick.

Friday night we went out to see a neighbor perform in his band at a local pub. I had some pumpkin ale, which was quite good, though the highlight of the evening was when the bartender put on the whole Tenacious D album--the old one, not the new one coming out this week. Tenacious D is my favorite band, so it was a very happy birthday surprise. I sang along to the lyrics with the bartender. P and I had a great dinner. We spent the first hour trying to figure out when the last time we'd gone out was, and the second hour thinking about where we might go on our next date, which, at the rate determined by the conversation of the first hour, will take place sometime in March 2008.

Saturday was a shorter evening, though we caught Borat and then went out for Indian food. All in all, a pretty great weekend with the man. And the dates with P were pretty great too. :)

working

Here's baby-j at my laptop. Is this bad? I certainly have higher hopes for him than being chained to the computer, as I typically am...

a beautiful rainy morning

It’s a gloomy, rainy morning and I barely made it to work on time since the commute took 2 hours. But you know what? There are at least 28 reasons to be happy about this morning’s “reshaped political landscape.”

a sickie

I took baby-j to the doctor today because he's been feeling poorly since last week, about the time he went to crappydaycare. (He woke up throwing up and had a fever this morning.) Besides the usual teething issues, he has an ear infection. It's his first, so we're a bit inexperienced in this department. The pediatrician said we were lucky he hasn't had one until now (15 months old). Is it coincidence that he got his first ear infection right after his day at crappydaycare? I think not.

And for anyone keeping track, baby-j's weight seems to be evening out. He is "merely" 31 pounds now. :)

yea, tigers...

So here's baby-j, watching the Tigers with his cool new cap (thanks grandma/grandpa!). So Detroit didn't do so well, we admit, but now baby-j has a new word: hat. Hat. H-hat. As with his beautiful pronunciation of apple, the word begins with a sweet aspiration.

Ok, I admit it: I am a complete sucker for the baby-j-words.

As you can see, it's taken a while for me to get this photo up. With the daycare debacle, we had a rough week. baby-j was sick for most of the week, and is just now starting to get better.

I think I'll have to reference the daycare mess via hyperlinks in each blog entry for a while. It's therapeutic, this referencing, like spitting out the worst parts of my day to P when I get home from work--it's out there, out where it can be dealt with. Who needs daycare anyway? Daycare is really overrated.

Damn daycare. I feel better already.

jack-o

Just had to post a picture of this year's jack-o-lantern. It's been a week since it was carved, and I really need to throw it out... at this point the teeth have shriveled up into the mouth and the thing is generally a gnarled mess. But here's a shot of it in its glory.

I really do love Halloween. We only had about 25 kids come by, but it was the first time in a long time--at least 10 years, maybe longer--that we've been able to give out candy. I guess that comes from a whole lot of apartment-dwelling. baby-j was/is under the weather (we're blaming the daycare since it makes us feel better about his getting kicked out), so there was no trick-or-treating, but we did dress him up as Charlie Brown and he ran to the door each time kids rang the bell. Pics of Charlie Brown will be posted here soon, I hope.

bye bye daycare

A few weeks ago we got a call that baby-j’s number was up--he was being offered a spot in a daycare we visited a while ago. We debated this for a while. He does need more exposure to other children, and we need some more time at home to work. At the same time, we were reluctant to send him. Perhaps it was the dazed look in the other kids’ eyes when we visited last Friday, or perhaps it was the fact that baby-j was bouncing around the room when he got there and trying to hug all the other children he saw. It made us dubious. He gets very excited around other kids, and unfortunately for them, his frequent way of expressing it is a smile and a cuddle, followed quickly and unexpectedly by a bite. His bites are powerful, and this was one of our concerns when we went for a visit.

“What do you do if he bites?” we asked.
“We write a report,” they replied.
“What do you do if he bites again?” we asked.
“We separate him from the other children,” they replied.
“Hmm,” we thought. “Because he has a tendency to bite to show affection,” we said. “At home we have to watch him to make sure he doesn’t do that,” we said.
“We call you to pick him up,” they replied. “If he can’t adapt to our program we do ask that you remove him permanently,” they replied.

It took less than a half-day of daycare for baby-j to get expelled.

After a good morning at home on Monday, P dropped baby-j off at daycare at 12:00. K and I did some discourse analysis of the short reports that are filed after each “incident,” and I encourage you to do your own.

10.30.06

12:30
Your child: bit another child for no reason while playing by the climber.
Therefore we: told him it’s not nice to hurt your friends & to use gentle touches.

According to the daily report, baby-j slept from 12:45 to 3:00. (P and I were pretty impressed with that.) For the time he was awake, he was quite happy, according to one of the women there.

3:35
Your child: bit his friend (it’s his friend now?) on the nose for no reason.
Therefore we: told him to use gentle touches and he was separated from the other children. Parent called.

3:40
Your child: bit his friend both on the arm and face.
Therefore we: told him to use gentle touches and he was separated from the other children. Parent called.

P was indeed called, though at the time he was surprised baby-j made it for almost 4 hours (not realizing that he had slept for 2 ½ of those hours). Later I found out that the woman on the phone called baby-j “vicious.” Vicious. The word keeps playing over and over in my mind. My son is vicious. My 14-month-old son is vicious. I am one of those moms; I am one of those parents. The one with the bullying son.

Wait a second. He’s only 14 months old. I don’t think any baby that young can truly be vicious. Is he “vicious” because he bites “for no reason”? If so, that cannot possibly be the case: everything is done for a reason. baby-j bites to show affection.

This is where I start to get nervous: surely the mothers of serial killers are also able to rationalize their children’s behavior in such ways. But again, he’s only 14 months old.

Can you tell that I’m starting to lose my mind? Monday was an awful day. P was humiliated and I was in tears.

But it isn’t fair to say that baby-j got expelled; that’s like saying that I got kicked out of my sorority in college (for those who haven’t heard it already, that’s another story for another time). I guess you could call what actually happened in both cases a preemptive strike. I talked to the manager of the daycare on the phone yesterday morning, who told me that even though the bruises/wounds on the other children looked “nasty,” they were will to give baby-j another chance--with the understanding that if it happened again, we would have to remove him permanently. I told her to forget about it; we would not be bringing him back. I apologized profusely for his hurting the other children and told her that he’s not ready for daycare yet. He needs closer supervision when around children.

The office manager was quite nice. I told her that perhaps we’d try again there in a few months. Of course, this was before I heard about one of the caregivers using the word “vicious.”

For those of you who are wondering, baby-j is still going to the parent/child class with us on Friday mornings. They have been wonderful for him. He is able to socialize quite well with the other children there, and as the weeks go by he is less tempted to bite. I wonder if the biting to connected to being with unfamiliar people. That is, as with food, he needs a taste of new things--including people--to see what he likes.

There I go with the serial-killer-mom rationalization again. Obviously we need to work on this biting issue before our happy little biter turns our lives into a version of Cannibal! the Musical.

bakin'

I've taken to baking and doing other things around the house on Friday afternoons. It's a needed relaxation after sitting in front of the computer/steering wheel for most of the rest of the week.

Today I made a version of these chocolate with peanut-butter filling cookies (only the ones I made were from my Big Cookie Book). Mmmm.

new words!

Our neighbor L. asked if I have been recording the new baby-j words, and I haven’t, so here are some from the past week:

oval (Heard by both me and K, on separate occasions, when actually looking at an oval!)

f*ckie (We’re not sure what he’s referring to with this one. P. maintains that he’s saying “Frankie,” a reference to a stuffed frog that I named and so baby-j’s new word f*ckie is all my fault.)

ah-ight (Referring to “light,” not some super-cool pronunciation of “alright.”)

up (I think he means “on” when he says this, as in turn “on” the “ah-ight.” So there’s a lot of gesturing to the ceiling and “Ah-ight. Up. Ah-ight. Up.”)

baby-j, you ah-ight up my life.

Ok, time to stop blogging and finish alphabetizing and checking the 300 references for my proposal. I will, I WILL get this damn thing finished this weekend and defended this semester.

bruises, part 2

Ok, so I know this blog will get boring quickly if I keep chronicling baby-j's bruises, as he is likely to have many more of them in the coming months (days? minutes?). So I'll be quick: we had a slight scare last night and almost a trip to the emergency room when baby-j fell down about 6 attic steps. He landed head-first into the wastepaper basket, which I think saved him a bit. No goose-egg on the forehead, but he is now sporting a Harry Potter scar. As long as I know he's going to be ok, the scar is even a bit cute to me.

matching bruises

baby-j’s tendency to flip over benches has us both bruised this week.

Some background: our dining room table is a family “heirloom,” originally used by my grandmother for a dancing school she founded and ran in the 1950s. It’s not a formal table; it’s a sawbuck table with benches on both sides... ok, it’s basically a glorified picnic bench. Even though my grandmother wouldn’t dream of putting it anywhere in her house (she’s an interior decorator for the wealthy and consequently her tastes have changed accordingly), the few times she’s come to visit, she compliments us on it. Well, I guess she’s complimenting herself, as it’s hers. She always reminds us to keep it in the family if we decide not to use it anymore. My family gives us those kind of reminders quite a bit, knowing how our constant moving has turned us into frequent Freecyclers.

Anyway, baby-j likes to pull over the benches and then slide them around the front room of the house, as seen here recently with his cousins. We’ve given up turning the bench back over for the most part and usually leave it upside down, another addition to the kid-inspired décor of the front room. Yesterday morning, the bench was right about where it appears in this picture when, in a tired haze, I ran down the stairs to head into the kitchen and tripped over the corner. I yelped loudly; as a result, baby-j began to cry in his highchair, and P was forced to try and calm both of us down at the same time. I knew that it was bad, but I didn’t realize that when I got to work and took off my sock, I would discover the toe next to my pinkie toe to be black. I don’t know if it’s broken, but from what I hear I guess there’s not much that can be done anyway. My students were remarkably concerned as I taught my classes sitting down yesterday: I’d like to think it was out of genuine concern rather than the appeal of my having to stay home for a few days. Unfortunately for them, my driving foot was not the one affected.

No, it’s my left foot, just like the spider (?) bite that I got this summer. Unlike this summer, however, I’ve made a decision not to risk comments and make any more readers of this blog ill by posting pictures. :)

Apparently, I was not the bench’s only victim. P informs me that a few hours after I limped out the door, baby-j tripped over the bench yesterday while I was at work, giving him a scary-looking bruise on his chest. He seems to be doing well and not harboring any resentment toward the bench, which has already slid back and forth across the room several times today.

diaper update

Most weeks, baby-j splits the time between mom and dad: P and I go in to teach every other day. This ideal has been marred recently as I’ve had to go in, say, four times a week rather than two or three, but in general, baby-j has a “mom day” followed by a “dad day.” Having to cram a full-time teaching load into 2-3 days means that I don’t get home until 9:30 or 10:30 at night. When P has rehearsal, he gets home even later. The inevitable result is that P and I swap abbreviated baby-j updates either late at night or early in the morning. We don’t always have time to share everything.

And since baby-j can’t talk yet, how wonderful that the contents of a diaper tell a story.

I know, for example, that yesterday P must have fed baby-j some corn (a relative newcomer to the baby-j diet), and perhaps some oats. In addition, it looks like baby-j read--or rather, consumed--some kind of story with the word “sleep” in it.

I hasten to add that this is not a criticism of P; I admire his determination to add new foods (i.e., the corn) to baby-j’s diet slowly but consistently. And as for the book page, well, it was a very small piece of paper, especially compared to the entire bar code sticker from Barnes and Noble that we found in his diaper several months back, presumably devoured on my watch.

shake it like a polaroid picture

Yesterday we got baby-j's first pair of hard-soled shoes. (We've gone through a few pair of Robeez already, but we needed something he could wear outside, especially when it's when wet... a few bouts of "pruny feet" settled that.) After an unsuccessful trip trying on shoes at Target, we decided to get his feet measured at an actual shoe store.

So here's the style we got: KX500. Although we didn't plan it, they're New Balance, like his dad's sneakers. Actually, we didn't plan on sneakers at all: we basically bought these shoes like we buy our pre-owned cars. ("...so what are the cheapest ones you have in the store?") He'll be in a bigger size in 3 months anyway.

After realizing that these would be his first hard-soled shoes, a few tears were shed (by me--what a wuss I am), and the salesperson took a Polaroid photo of baby-j that went immediately in their custom "First Steps" card, with his name, date, brand, and size. (For what it's worth, baby-j is a size 7 extra wide. Yikes!) The shoe store has got the marketing down, haven't they?

stage four

I've been known to take many a photo-shoot of baby-j.

There are several stages involved in the baby photo-shoot. Stage One, or "Camera on the Other Side of the Room," features full-length shots (as seen in nice legs). Stages Two and Three, those that I like to refer to as "Bewildered Candids" and "Wandering Towards Mom," produce the best shots, featuring a purposeful baby-j, usually with toy or half-eaten book still in hand.

This is baby-j in Stage Four, otherwise known as "Camera Attack." Half-eaten books are forgotten at this point.

Photos taken in Stage Five, or "Camera Grab," are often deleted immediately after being downloaded from the camera. They typically depict a blurry bald head and a flash of teeth.

tennis, anyone?

Today baby-j and I went to the outdoor tennis courts, which are a block away and a recent discovery of mine. I mean, there are large signs all around them that state they are for the students and faculty of the local college, so prior to this week, who was I to intrude? But a walk with a neighbor and her dog--during which we entered aforementioned unlocked tennis courts--showed me that there is a very cool space to walk around with (i.e., to exhaust) baby-j.

By the way, I love this, this walking with a neighbor and her dog. I have never felt such a sense of community in my life since moving here... which means, of course, that we are soon destined to move yet again.

Back to the tennis courts. We were there for an hour, engaging in baby-j’s favorite activities, which include chomping on leaves, twigs, and old Powerbar wrappers; giggling while chasing his shadow; and kicking his blue mini-soccer ball which P. purchased on a whim during a Target trip many months ago.

P. is in the city now, rehearsing for one of his many projects. And I must stop blogging in a second, as I prepare for a chat with my online students while keeping one ear alert for baby-j, who is soon to wake up from his post-tennis court nap.

nice legs

Those are some nice legs.

I really can’t get over baby-j’s legs sometimes. They’re just so... lumpy. They’re wonderful. Sometimes I worry about how large he is. I mean, he is large for his age, but not in an eatin’-Doritos-all-day-long kind of way. He’s strong. When I look at him, I’m reminded of my own younger days, particularly when, at fourteen, I spied the notes my pediatrician had written in my file about me at age 10: This is a girl who is large for her age. I know he didn’t mean “fat,” not quite... he meant tall, and thick. But it was shocking, reading that line about me in the folder. In one sense, it was yet another factor contributing to the body/self-loathing that was to come in college. I think it was more than that, though. Reading that line, it dawned on me that in the eyes of a doctor, I was no more than a subject, a body to be analyzed and dissected. And so now, I want to acknowledge that baby-j is--will always be--much more than his beautiful, delicious, chunky body.

P and baby-j just finished watching Wedding Crashers on cable. Now they’re dancing together around the living room singing to The Long Winters. It’s a good, happy Saturday night.

a is for apple

P and I are officially recording baby-j's first word as "apple."

Sure, he's said a lot of "da-das" and even "ex-ee." But last week, at our first parent/child class, the teacher passed around a morning snack of sliced apples, and without even prompting, it came: App-uh. App-uh.

It is the mark of a parent when the word takes on a life of its own. P said he never realized how beautiful, how textured the word apple really is. And it is. Isn't it? :)

car-ful o' fun

This has been our first full week back at work, and I don’t know about baby-j, but it’s sure been rough on his parents. Especially when his mom’s car threatens to break down.

Forty-five minutes into my ninety-minute commute Monday, my car started shimmying and shaking, especially when accelerating. Thankfully, I was able to make it to work and back Monday. (Though I was going 50 mph in the right lane with my hazards on… and those damn NJ drivers were still on my ass. I mean, what do you have to do to just get those suicidal drivers to pass you?)

We took the car in to the shop Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, both P and I had to go to work. So he headed off in his car, and I rented a car. The only car that Enterprise had available? A big blue pick-up truck. New and beautiful, but still: a huge truck, particularly for someone who avoids large cars (ok, mostly SUVs) as a general rule.

Yes-indeedy, I looked mighty cool rollin’ into work.

Luckily, the shop said all we needed was a tune-up (rather than a new transmission, which would have meant P and I would be looking for a new car). So we got the car back Tuesday night and dropped off the rental truck. I won’t mention that P got pulled over by the cops in my car on the way to drop off the rental. ;) I mean, he was speeding for good reason--testing out the engine on my car. Luckily the officer took pity on him and gave him a warning. Otherwise, that would have been one of the most expensive days in the history of our relationship.

But Wednesday was much better. I had a productive day at work, and it sounds like P had a good day at home with baby-j. It warms my heart just to think about it. At the risk of sounding like a complete sap, I cannot imagine P being a better dad for the j-man.

a photo a day...

I've been having great fun exploring YouTube (yes, I'm often late to the hip Web sites that the young people enjoy these days). I like to fool myself by saying that it's all for school and research--that's partly true, as I'm going to require students to use hyperlinks, images, and video in their research papers this semester. However, I've been enjoying YouTube on its own. Last night, I was looking at this one:

Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years.

It's nice. But then, after looking at the above, you have to check out a review at this link:

Re: Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years.

And then, when you get pretty slap-happy, try this:

Phil takes a photo of himself everyday for 2 days.

Minutes of enjoyment for me and P last night, I tell you.

sweepin' up

Well, I'm back at work and I can tell already that it's going to tough to keep up with the blogging when I'm grading papers for 4 different writing classes. But I promise to try. The issue is that I'm also writing to my other blog for dissertation purposes, so it's hard to keep all these things straight in my head.

baby-j is starting school next week! Ok, so it's not school-school: it's a parent-child class one day a week and I'll be with him, which is definitely a good thing, since he still enjoys nibbling on other children. (We need to work on that.) We got a letter in the mail from the school yesterday explaining how the class will run. I'm very nervous about it, because the class encourages the adults to work on "purposeful activity" (like various crafts) while the children wander about freely and help as they can. However, we're also expected to maintain responsibility for our child, which I fear means that my "purposeful activity" will entail running around the room after baby-j so he doesn't eat another child.

If he has something to do, though, he should be ok. One of the activities is cleaning (yes, we're paying to clean together), and baby-j does love sweeping. This is a picture of him sweeping up while we were on vacation in MI. Apparently, once he got a taste of how exciting sweeping can be, he was hooked. We have a Swiffer at home that I use occasionally. (Ok, I use it rarely--so rarely that I've had the same box of Swiffer cloths for at least 3 years. Using that much paper to clean is bad for the environment anyway... yeah, that's why I haven't used them).

Ahem. Anyway, baby-j will grab that Swiffer and just won't let go. K (our amazing babysitter) said that this week, when she tried to take it away in order to put him in his highchair, he wailed hysterically.

Don't try to separate a baby and his broom.

babylegs

Wow: it's gotten cold(er) here over the past two days, making it difficult to pretend I don't have to go back to teach next week. It already feels like fall. There are good things about fall, though: the first of which is that baby-j can wear things like his babylegs. These things are supposed to be "one size fits all," but honestly, baby-j has some chunky thighs that challenge such a declaration. Since they roll down his thighs, the babylegs look more like legwarmers, particularly his "funky green jester" ones.

He's also getting more accomplished as a walker. I'm not quite used to how fast he moves. Today I mistakenly left the bedroom door open to dispose of the goodies he left in his cloth diaper, only to turn back and see him quickly waddling towards the stairs. He was giggling, holding a shoebox through which he had just gnawed a hole. And he was wearing only a diaper and some babylegs.

I think it's the teeth--when he grins maniacally you see the gap between the front two teeth and the gums above them--that make surprising moments like that hilarious for his parents.