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April 30 And speaking of CPS...At a friend's birthday party recently a mom, a very very pregnant-you-can-see-her-belly-coming-around-the-corner-mom picked up her kid, understandably lost her balance, and bonked his head into the picnic table.
Not hard. I mean, hard enough for her son to start crying but not hard enough to bruise. So, really, by our standards, not that bad at all
She felt real bad about that, as well she should. But she kept feeling bad even after her son had recovered and stopped crying. Her son is two years old and it was starting to seem as if this was the first time she'd bonked him.
Wow. Just today I bonked Ben's head with the car door. (It was a total accident (aren't they all?). We were parked on a hill, I opened the door and the door slipped out of my hand. Gravity pulled the door right into Ben's face. Sigh...)
Anyway, we tried to comfort her by telling her of the time we bonked Ben pretty badly and then took pictures of it (after we cleaned and comforted, of course). Not sure it really comforted, but I did promise a picture so here it is.
What happened? Well, back in May 2004 when Steve and I were looking for houses we found some new houses under construction. We went in for a closer look. We let Ben walk loose. Ben immediately went to the door, looked out, walked out.
Fell down three feet onto a bed of nails, gravel, broken cement.
Turns out no one had built the stoop and steps yet.
Turns out neither Steve nor I had our game faces on.
It was pretty bad.
I am so getting a call from CPS. Ah, the freedom of a fence...Seriously. Freedom. Sweet, sweet freedom.
Our yard is lovely and flat. Much nice green grass. Nice landscape borders all around. A little shy of plants but we plan to fix that after the fence is installed.
And why do we need a fence? Because our yard is built on a hill but to give us that nice flat yard, the entire back yard is elevated above the hill and ends in a four-foot high rock wall that holds it up above the rest of the ground. A nice fall for a boy. A nice fall for his toys.
We can't leave Ben alone in the yard with that kind of drop. While he's mostly safe, he still sometimes gets too close for comfort when he wants to look over the edge.
I can't wait till the fence is up. It should be going in Tuesday. Then, I can throw Ben outside (OK, OK, invite, encourage, send... You CPS types just take me too literally) and let him play safely by himself while I do stuff inside.
Oh joy. Oh heaven. Oh freedom.
Well, at least freedom till Ben asks, for the 176,415th time in a single day, "Mama, will you play with me?"
I can't wait. 2 nights in a row. Any takers on a trifecta?Saturday night. Put Ben to bed. Come downstairs. Sit on the couch. Get comfy. Turn on my laptop. 30 seconds later, about the same time my laptop's wireless connection actually connects, I hear:
Maaaaaa-maaaa. Pooooopiiiiieeeee. Poopy-poopy-poopy-poooooopiiiiiieeeee. Maaaaaa-maaaaaa.
So, I go upstairs. Change his diaper. Put poopy diaper out in the garage. Sit down on couch. Pick up my laptop. Open Outlook to check my mail. From upstairs, I hear:
Maaaaaa-maaaa. I'm pooooopy again.
Erg.
So, I go upstairs. Change his diaper. While I'm changing his diaper, I get the play-by-play.
"This one was easier to get out than the first one. It was faster."
Softer, too.
Nice.
This is what parenting does to a woman: makes her entirely, uncomfortably, knowledgeable about poop.
Fast forward to Sunday night.
Second verse, same as the first.
Seriously. Maybe three minutes between diaper changes.
Minus the, uh, color commentary.
What are the odds we'll do the same thing again tomorrow night?
Oh, and lest you think Ben is a few crayons short of a box, or I'm a lazy parent, we are in underpants all day long. We wear pull-ups for nap and night.
And Ben still has only pooped in the potty once. I think it was an accident... April 12 $24 for tickets...$24 for tickets to Curious George
$4 for popcorn
$4 for a bottle of water
Getting this picture...
Priceless.
Ben did really well at this, his first movie. He sat and ate almost the entire bag of popcorn all by himself for the first half of the movie. He got squirmy towards the end but he was also hot. He was fine swapping between my lap and Steve's when he was squirmy. Movie was a little over his head at times but all in all it was fun.
Now everytime he asks whether he can go with us whenever we mention we're going on a date to see a movie. Now, he knows what he's missing... Ben's favorite Grandpa shirtBen received a few flannel shirts from his Grandpa Frank this Christmas. He loves them.
Steve, on the other hand, is less than thrilled. Mostly because Ben insists on wearing the shirts with the sleeves all the way down and the buttons all buttoned. Right up to the neck. And with baggy falling off his butt khaki pants. Can you say hoodlum?
Here, Ben poses with his goofy smile and his flannel.
"I only sleep till the 3, OK?"or "I've created a clock watcher..."
Today, Ben got a chance to have an "eat-over" and a sleep-over at his friend, Luke's, house. Just lunch and a nap. (Luke's mom and I are swapping kids this week.) Ben was so very excited. Couldn't wait.
However, once Debbie tried to put Ben down for a nap, he asked her to turn the clock around so he could see it, because, "I only sleep till the three, OK? I only sleep till the three."
Debbie reports that once Ben woke up shortly after three, he called to her through the monitor using his best sing-song voice, "Miss Debbie... I only sleep to the three..." April 09 And an apologyI must finally apologize for blogging while under the influence. I would not normally publish such things as my current political ideologies (wich I am having trouble seven spelling tonigh) or whatever else i've just spouted off. I'm off to bed with deepest apologies to anyone I may have just offended.
I really should not have just moved my head.... Actually, Family Pancake House makes better pancakes...Every weekend we have a bit of a ritual around here. Steve and I swap days to sleep in (and by "sleep in" I mean till 7:00 AM). On those days Steve doesn't sleep in, he makes pancakes. With Ben.
Altho he doesn't let Ben crack the eggs anymore.
They've been doing this for some time now; several weeks. Maybe even several months.
Lately Steve's been mixing it up a little and making tiny quarter/Ben sized pancakes first, then Mama-sized pancakes, and last Papa-sized pancakes that just about fill the entire diameter of our dinner plates.
(I really can't lay down right now or I'll just pass out. I should drink a lot of water and a dozen aspirin right now...)
Anyway, today, while eating Papa's pancakes, and in front of Aunt Karen, who was visiting for a spell, Ben said, "Actually, Family Pancake House makes better pancakes."
Steve, hurt, clutched his chest. Aunt Karen, in a valiant attempt to save the day, said, "I think Papa's pancakes are better."
To which Ben replied, "No way!"
To which Steve relied, "Who taught Ben 'no way'"?
This should have led to a long discussion on whether the phrase we grew up with as kids, "no way, Jose" would now be considered racism (or was perhaps always racist) and should no longer be allowed but in fact became a discussion about Firehouse Tales and how Samantha Scoop the fire-fighting airplane said "no way, no way" in a recent episode in which she was competing with Spinner the fire-fighting helicoptor.
An entirely too long discussion, actually...
(Still sober enough to add a link, it seems... at least, I hope that's the appropriate link!)
Anyway, I still owe you faithful readers the story of Ben's first movie, Curious George. But it won't happen today. About to fall over in my chair as I just moved my head and the world started spinning just a little bit...
More later! And the new neighbors are...Met the new neighbors today.
Well, the potential new neighbors.
And I must say, I'm rooting for them.
Heather and Andrew stopped by today after viewing their new house for Heather's first time and Andrew's second. Very nice people. They have three kids: the oldest is a boy Ben's age who likes trains, trucks, and playing with other boys. Yahoo!!
Plus, they're Republicans. Closet replublicans. They've lived on the left coast too long to admit to it freely but while Heather was feeding her baby, she admitted to me, almost like a confession, that she should just get it out in the open now and tell me that she and her husband are Republicans. Another Yahoo!
We're a dying (hunted?) breed out here, us Republicans. Steve likes to make fun of me and switches between calling me a neo-con or a fascist (usually when I start spouting off how this country should have a flat tax and everyone should pay something since everyone benefits from a government). Funny thing is back when I lived in St. Louis, people thought I was a flaming liberal. After I came out here, people thought I was a conservative, but my views hadn't changed.
And now I'm a neocon. Not that I actually know what a neocon is, but I have wikipedia for that. And maybe when I'm sober I'll actually look it up and see if the label actually fits.
Anyway, even if the nice Republican family with the three kids didn't have a kid who wanted playdates with Ben so long as they didn't let their dog poop on my yard they'd be alright with me.
Oh, wait. They don't have a dog. Yahoo! Friends don't let friends drink and blog...Husbands on the other hand beach themselves on the couch and let you do what you want...
Tonight was my birthday dinner. No, it's not my birthday, not yet. Not till Easter. Tonight was the first night my friends could join me for dinner so we went to Maggiano's. As I said in my invitation, "it's my birthday and I'll eat if I want to."
And, ohmigod, did we eat. Maggiano's has a special family style dinner theme where you get to pick two appetizers, two salads, two pastas, two entrees and two desserts. To share with the entire table.
So we went that route. With drinks and wine to top it off. I was feeling it by the middle of my first cosmo.
I think I have to lay off the cosmos from now on.
Because after that entire cosmo I only had one glass of wine, from a bottle split six ways, and I'm still feeling it while I write this. As long as I sit very very still I don't notice how the world is spinning just a very little bit. Just enough to make it tricky to navigate the stairs.
Oh, and what did we eat? Oh wow... that food was just too good....
Let's see... I think a bulleted list would be the best way:
Ohmigod. So much food. So good....
But let's not talk about the price... I think I will have to offer free babysitting to my friends for a few weeks to thank them for joining me!
And if there's typos I missed (a much higher number than usual this time around, for obvious reasons), I blame the kind waiter who offerend the fancy clear cranberry cosmo... |
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