That Joke's Not Funny Anymore

When I was pregnant, Mike and I got into the habit of staying up late and watching "Cops." It used to be that there were back to back episodes on after one of the late shows. I'd eat my doctor mandated Before Bedtime Meat Product (seriously--I was forced to eat meat before bed. My doctor finally relented and let me switch to cereal after the first trimester)and we would shake our heads at just how dumb all the criminals were. Be it drugs or prostitution or burglary or whatever, it was always the same:

COP: Now tell me the truth...
PERP: I am, Officer!
COP: OK, is this your car?
PERP: Yes!
COP: Where's the registration?
PERP: I mean its my friend's car! It must be his crack under the driver's seat cause it ain't mine!
COP: What's his name?
PERP: What?
COP: His name--what's his name?
PERP: Who?
COP: Your friend who owns the car
PERP: Jim
COP: Jim who?
PERP: What?

And so on and so on. So last night after the kid went to bed we found an episode of "Cops" and it revolved around a bicycle theft sting operation. They caught this guy stealing a bike and he did a variation on the above dialog, but then they brought over this woman who he'd been working with. This woman and her 6 month old son. Who she'd taken with her to the store to shoplift steaks. She was all kinds of a mess but I had to ask Mike to turn it off--they showed one of the cops holding the kid while they questioned and cuffed the kid's mom and it was just too sad. Come take away my hipster membership card because I've obviously lost my ironic distance.

Worth the Wait!

I stayed home today while Dave from Molyneaux finished the new kitchen floor. Yesterday he put down the subflooring. I had never seen subflooring before and I was happy that it looked better than the now sub-subfloor. Dave started work at 8am today and did not leave until 7pm tonight. And I don't think he took a break. And, thanks to Dave, here is our fantastic new floor.


We tried to get Donovan to dance on it and he did a few twirls for us but, mostly, he just wanted to throw his fuzzy ladybugs around. Here he is in front of our very large new fridge, holding 2 of said bugs:. In downloading the floor photos, I found a few photos of the new wallpaper we had put up. It's vinyl and it mimics anaglypta, also known as lincrusta. Lincrusta is very much a running joke between Clayton docents of a certain age, myself included, so when the time came for wallpaper, I had to come as close as I could:



It looks a little brown in some of the photos as the paste was still drying. Now its all dry and lovely and waiting to be primed and painted.

Speaking of painting, let's tally up what still needs to happen before the kitchen is done:

* Walls painted
* Big Ikea cabinet with all the drawers put together
* Shelves installed next to cupboard where the old fridge used to be
* Everything put where it belongs.

See? Another 3 years and we'll be DONE!

While Dave was working miracles in the kitchen, I decided it was time to clean the rooms upstairs. I started with my closet and that became an oddly zen journey. First, it took almost all day (am I clothes horse? NO, but there you go). I decided I needed to get rid of what I don't and won't wear--I filled up 5 big paper bags full of clothes and shoes, some dating back to college, if you can imagine. Part of the zen-ness of it was that parenthood has VERY much limited the time I have to shop for clothes, the money available for new clothes and my physical mobility in going to places to look for clothes. Putting all these perfectly good clothes in bags for Goodwill, I'm taking a leap of faith that I will someday own more than 3 pairs of pants I can wear to work. I'm also choosing to believe that, if I'm good and I don't waste money settling for clothes I don't really like, I will eventually get back to a place where I like what I'm wearing just about any day of the week.

The clothes situation is one of those weird things about motherhood that I did not even consider. Which is why I mention it here. In case you were wondering.

The Hiding of Many Sins

Today, Sunday, has in no way been a day of rest. Today is the day we painted the new ceiling as the new floor is being installed tomorrow. We got the call about the floor last week and why I asked them to come on Monday, I'll never know. I was hoping to have all of our painting--walls and ceiling--done before the lovely new floor goes down.

In these rough times, its pretty disgusting of me to complain about how INCONVENIENT my BRAND NEW FLOOR is. So I'll shut the hell up.

That all being said, I was really loathing painting the ceiling. We had to prime it and then paint it and, in order to do so, we had to farm the kid out the grandparents. Mike is on his way over there now to get Donny and to pick up a Mineo's pizza because, as of 6:22 pm, the ceiling isn't done yet.

The good news, however, is that after priming the ceiling we had exactly enough primer left over for me to prime 3 of the 4 walls of the kitchen. THAT will save me TONS of time and frustration when I take my last two vacation days of this work calendar sometime this week to paint the walls. Or I'll take them next week. Sometime before March is over. Primer is fun to play with because it doesn't have to be perfect. Plus, being all thick and furiously white, once I slapped it on our dirty, tan Walls of Indeterminate Panelling Product, they looked 10x better. Much as I had to kick my sorry self into gear, the results are very satisfying.

Pictures will follow--Stay tuned!

Trust Me On This: It Was Great!

Somewhere on the road to parenthood we forgot to get a videocamera. Or a DVD camera. Or whateverthehell the kids are using these days. Normally I don't miss it but tonight I was witness to Donovan trying to jump. The best part was that he gave himself a highdive board: he put a book on the floor, stood on it, bent his knees and with much concentration....sort of propelled himself into a run without getting off the ground. Each attempt was accompanied by a multisyllabic grunt starting with a sound of concentration and ending with a "how do I stop running before I hit the wall?!?" series of squeaks.

The very best part is that the book in question is a book of poetry. 12 poems to be exact. He was trying to jump off a base that was 1/4 inch high. This went on for a good 20 minutes and it got funnier everytime.

The Boy Loves His Fruit

Hello, Folks. Not much new going on in Babyland but thought I would share some photographic evidence of how much my son loves fruit. Seriously. These photos document him eating an entire container of cut up melon at Whole Foods today.

Who Wants To Be A Muffinaire?

Well, I think I squandered a vacation day staying home with the boy. In my mind, "ear infection" means "miserable most of the day and really should'nt go outside." And while the kid was pretty clingy before his nap, by about 2pm it was obvious that he would have been fine at daycare today.

And I've taken a LOT of time off of work lately.

I decided that if I was going to be home with a basically well baby that I would try to get some house stuff done. That meant laundry, making vegetarian chili and making cupcakes. The cupcakes I made from scratch from a Hershey's recipe book that, as far as I know, has never let me down. I decided that Donny was old enough to watch, if not help.He liked playing with the whisk but he got a little to excitable when I tried to get him to handle the flour and sugar. He did alright with the cupcake papers, though.
Or maybe not:
Where I come from, the real reason you help your Mom with the baking is to lay unequivicable claim to the beaters. In this case, I thought the spatula would be easier to handle. Of course my son the Anti Sweettooth Kid had to have a fingerful of batter crammed between his clenched teeth before he would deign to try it. Once we broke that seal, however, he understood the situation and acted accordingly.




He's happier and eating better and is definately on the road to recovery. I'm going to attribute his recovery to cupcakes.

And The Verdict Is...

...Ear Infection. Mike took Donny to the doctors' today and that was the diagnosis. We never would have guessed that--he hadn't been pulling on his ears or anything like that. Who knew an earache could make you vomit? He'll be on antibiotics for a few days and, hopefully, that will take the edge off things.

Eeew.

And what a night last night was.

Everything started just fine--we had a good Sunday where we'd packed in church, some shopping, lunch and even some housework before going over to Mike's folks' house for Grammy Shanley's birthday. I had warned Donovan all week, "You better be ready to get kissed on because that Grammy of yours has some lost time to make up for." Donny rose to the occasion, laughing and running around and getting into a raspberry battle with his Grandpa. It was very nice.

Then when I put him to bed he threw up. All over both of us. Oddly, my first thought was, "Well, this has'nt happened in quite awhile." Still, I had to strip, he had to strip, the bed had to be stripped and he and I had to shower. Donovan does NOT like showering but, really, it was nonnegotiable. The whole situation made me wonder how that one woman in our childcare classes was doing. The only one in the classes who was alone. I think about her alot and hope she'd doing alright. Nights like last night humble me when I wonder if I would be able to be a single parent. Not even thinking of the finance, just the damn logistics of it all.

Anyhow, I finished showering, Mike dried off the kid, put him in new PJs and I read to him while Mike put fresh sheets on our bed (Donny sleeps in his own crib but we usually get him to sleep in ours). As Mike had writing to do, I laid back down with the kid. And he puked again. Not as bad as the first time (which was Biblical in proportions) but enough for everyone involved to change clothes again and for Mike to change the bed again.

Is that all too much detail? Sorry. I'll cut to the chase. The morning saw this pattern again and we said the hell with it and I stayed home with Donny. And I had to ask the gal I work with to come into work when she'd called off earlier that morning. Very messy. I'm not sure what was wrong with the kid but he was very clingy and sleepy all day. Which causes me much conflict. I mean, I hate that he's under the weather but its so sweet when he climbs on my lap and burrows into me. Most of the day he just wanted to be held, which was fine with me. By about 1 it was obvious he needed a nap. And he slept straight until 5. Then he was much closer to his old self. He even ate some apple sauce and blueberries which have not yet returned to greet us.

Here are some photos of him playing in his new playhouse, which replaces the one he grew out of. The box is what the dishwasher came in. They brought the fridge in sans box: now what type of messed up is that?