Update – loooong overdue.

I am at work and we will say this quietly because this never happens and I don’t want the work gods to hear me, but it’s (whispering) not crazy busy right now, so I figured I should use my time at work to update your insane life.

Since Thanksgiving (which was the last time I really updated this site in any sort of substantive way), a lot has changed. You are at Miss Emily’s still three days a week. You do seem to enjoy your time there. I think you very much like the interaction of the other boys and really dig having someone to play with. However, said interaction with other kids has produced the following:

*three ear infections – two of them bilateral
*tonsilitis
*countless snotty noses
*a penchant for climbing (more on that later)
*thinking throwing objects upon our trying to retrieve them is the way to handle that situation – seriously, like a crackhead dumping his stash while running from the cops.

Let’s talk climbing first. You have attempted to climb me, chairs, sofas, you stepped into a wire magazine rack to reach something on the table you desired, you have attempted to scale cabinets, lawn chairs, etc. It’s like you have no fear. Due to such endeavors, you have scraped yourself on your legs and one very grusome looking scrape that messed your nose up pretty good. (We will not discuss the arrogant pediatrician who took one look at your nose and declared that “we really should child proof our home.” Asshat.) I’m not sure how to curb this other than to allow you to fall and crack your head open on the ceramic tile. Oddly enough, I’d prefer to not utilize this particular school of discipline, so I’m sorta at a loss. You get so mad when I remove you from the kitchen chairs because me saying 400 times, “Buddy, you gotta sit” and planting your diaper-clad ass on the seat from the standing position is not working. I mean, mad as in arched back, contorted face in anger, very close to Linda Blair-esque neck spinning, pea soup-spitting. It’s like I flat out told you that you don’t rule the world and this is the first you have heard of this insanity.

You also get that pissed when you have it in your head that it’s outside time. And to you? It’s outside time 24/7. I mean, that’s great and all because I’m sorta outdoorsy (shut up), but that’s not condusive to say, 10 minutes before the bath/milk/bed combo or say when it’s like 40 degrees out and mama’s toes have frozen into one solid brick. You are not interested in my toe problems or scheduling issues. You want to be OUT.SIDE. RIGHT. NOW. You really don’t get why I can’t comprehend this simple request. I think you may have contacted my boss and asked him why the hell he hired me since clearly I’m an idiot and can’t follow simple instructions.

You also have finally given into the fact that shoes? Are notsomuch a luxury as a necessity. I mean, we have discussed ad nauseum my love of the toes. If it were up to me, we would live somewhere tropical (and by tropical, I don’t mean HERE) where we could live in sandals, flip flops and barefeet all year round. But here it is cold approximately 15 days a year so just for safety sake, you gots to wear da shoes. At first you were like WHAT? Then you realized that when you tromped around in them, they made noise and that’s like catnip to you. So then the shoes became sorta fascinating. You would stroll around with your head facing straight down just watching your feet move one at a time. It was pretty funny. Now, you made the connection that shoes means either outside or you are going out with mama or daddy and that’s just big fun right there, so you don’t even fight it anymore, which is great. You are all for anything that means you can sit in a buggy and continuously wave to people who are paying no attention.

OMG, speaking of outside. You did the unthinkable the other day. We were outside and you had just slid down your little slide deal. Something caught your eye so you bent over and picked up a bee like “Hey, what’s that? Is it edible?” I completely flipped. I had no idea what to do. I mean, part of me was like getthebeegetthebeegetthebee, but I was like frozen, because bees? They sting and ouch. Not you though, you just held it by what appeared to be its legs and it never stung you and then grandma sorta swatted at your hand with her cane and you let it go sans injury. Lord, son. That was no bueno, okay? I’m just glad your father was not there to mock me for my ridiculousness thereby necessitating yet another instance of me telling him to cram it and let’s see what happens when Jake brings a small snake home. I want to watch him try to cling to the wall like a big giant girl.

Daddy and I have also made some changes in our lives as far as our health. I used to seriously work out for pure vanity sake (and then I fell into a pile of Cheetos and was eating my way out). I won’t even insult your intelligence by claiming it was anything other than “I want to fit into…..” (insert cute outfit here) That’s all it was. At some point though, I started trying to run. Notice I said trying. Oh son. It was funny in a “my lung may explode and did my thigh muscle just burst into flames” sort of way. For whatever reason, I kept going back for more (we shall assess my intelligence or lack thereof at a later date – or maybe you can use this as an instance of my lack of mental capability when trying to put me in a home later in life). Finally, after many weeks and countless setbacks, I ran for 30 straight minutes. Like in a row, son. A ROW. Something in me clicked. It was no longer about being size x, y or z or about wearing a tanktop without having batwing arms. (Although it’s a nice side-effect, but that’s all it is for me – a nice little side effect) I just wanted to see what I could do. So I kept on…kept adding time….adding distance until that distance became miles. In less than two weeks, I will run the Crescent City Classic. On purpose even. I won’t be the fastest. I probably will look a hot mess. I will probably have sweat in my eyes giving me the dreaded tomato eye look that is totally hot. I will probably make your dad drive the course from finish to start looking for the lobe of lung I am convinced I horked up somewhere around mile 4.3. But I will have done it and I will have done it for you and for me and for my health and for the cancer and heart disease and diabetes that runs rampant in the genetic deck of cards I helped to deal to you. I want the buck to stop here, son.

Somewhere along the line, your dad caught the bug. For months, he would watch me excrete more sweat than I thought my body could hold. He watched me set up routes online so I’d know my mileage. He’d watch me go out the door and come back red faced and sniffing (I really need to know why I get the snooty nose when I run. WHAT IS THAT?). And he’d joke when people would ask why he wasn’t out there with me. Something stupid about he doesn’t even DRIVE that far, blah blah blah. I didn’t bother even trying to get him to come with because when your dad does not want to do something, he will dig in his heels like a petulent 4-year-old. It’s a pointless fight so I just never bothered.

Well something in him clicked too. Now there are times after you go to bed where daddy and I slip on the running shoes, I strap on the Garmin and out we go. We do this for you, son. No doubt it’s nice to have a little less Liz and it’s great for your daddy to be off one of his medicines already, but at the end of the day, we do this for you. It’s not your fault that you got parents whose genetics sounds like a geriatric ward of some hospice clinic. We want it to stop here, son. We want to both grow old (your dad MUCH older than me) and watch you graduate from school, get married, have some kids and we want to be there to enjoy all that. I don’t want to be all laid up from heart disease or whatever else. I don’t want you to ever have to watch your dad get various limbs lopped off from diabetes the way your dad watched his own mama. It would not be fair to you. It’s not fair to us either. So here we are. Yeah, I will still salivate and if given the opportunity, swan dive directly into a pizza. And I have no doubt that your father would push me directly out of the car if there was fried chicken to be grabbed up somewhere. We don’t plan to become health nuts or exercise freaks. We just want to be here with you for as long as we can.

I mean, how else can we be a burden?

Mama sucks so here are some pictures.

Superbowl with my Daddy

First haircut.

Ash Wednesday

I don’t need no stinkin pants.

And there you are – in all your rotten glory.

I promise to take care of this blog to you again soon, buddy. We have already missed way too many great things that I’m afraid are going to leave my middle-aged significantly-younger-than-daddy’s brain.

(I have to hold things like his advanced age over him because you could NOT be more of a Daddy’s boy.)

(However…..those are still my toes.)

Thanksgiving

Today, we celebrated in a very quiet way everything that we have to be thankful for. Of course you were high on that list for both daddy and me. Specifically, for me anyway, I was thankful for THE TOES. I just love the piggies. What can I say?

This year, as opposed to last, when you were little more than a blob who, if memory serves, slept right through dinner in your car seat adjacent to the table, you were much more a part of our festivities. Last year, you were SO unimpressed by our gluttony. This year, you gleefully entered the land of way too much food and dove in with delight. I broke up some zucchini, broccoli, carrots and turkey for you into pieces and you just shoved pieces willy nilly into your trap. You even got a taste of some whipped cream from Grandma’s pie that she waited all of 3 seconds after dinner to dive into and really, once you know Grandma, you will know that those 3 seconds probably killed her as she pretty much woke up wanting pie since about 7 AM.

I also have not commented on………let’s call it Gift Fest 2009, or what others probably call your birthday party. Dude. It was not a huge lavish affair, because sorry I just don’t roll like that. I like family and friends to come and eat and enjoy each other’s company which is basically what we did, but yeah, they brought you gift after gift after gift. It was borderline obnoxious. I mean, don’t get me wrong – you are loved. Holy shit on a stick, are you loved. In that way, I thought it was wonderful, but how many toys can one little boy play with, I ask you? Some of them I have stored up in your closet and we will have to rotate them out and others in at some point in the future. We only have so much room, buddy. I hate to ask people to not get you gifts because I remember when Aunt Krista had Wrenna and she was all “Don’t buy her a lot of crap – if you want to give, please contribute to her college fund.” I was like “OK, you big fuddy duddy – we’ll see.” Yeah, now I see. Aunt Krista was on to something brilliant there. She knew first hand just how much STUFF you little people collect. Insert “Mama’s purse fund” in where Aunt Krista has Wrenna’s college fund and I think we have a winner. WHAT? I’m kidding. Sorta.

Actually we just recently opened you up a little savings account of your very own. How stinkin’ cute. Ya know what’s not stinkin’ cute? That on certain days like one day before payday or the day after I pay a crap ton of bills, you have more money than Daddy and me. What the piss is that about, son? That’s some bullshit right there. I’m just sayin’. We work for our cash, son and can I point out that most of THAT cash goes to you too???? You just sit around…..show people the toes and collect the dinero. Something stinks in Denmark.

You are getting closer and closer to walking. You are now balanced enough that you can hold just one hand to either us or whatever and stroll around. ONLY IF YOU ARE IN THE MOOD. You have totally discovered that you can just collapse those fat legs of yours if you are not in the mood and there is not a damn thing we can do to get you to cooperate. You also keep forgetting to hold on constantly and at times, you have let go of the sofa or whatever toy you are leaning against and stand for a moment all on your own and then of course, I very cooly shriek like an idiot and you fall. Why do I not learn this lesson?

Your adjustment to going to see Ms. Emily three days a week is still going well. She tells me that you play with the other boys and she has yet to mention any hair pulling/biting/bitch slaps etc so I guess you are not in danger of getting kicked out yet. That’s always good. It is always such fun to drive up and if Emily hears me, she will open the door for you to see me coming. Man, you truck your little butt up to that door and start banging on it like “Did you know it’s dark? It’s dark, mama, and you not get me ALL day and now you are just coming and HELLO, it’s dark.” I pick you up and sometimes you just look at me like “Hey, you came back again…..cool.” And then my most favorite, is when I pick you up and you look at me and then lay your head down on my shoulder like “I just stay here, okay?” Man I love that.

One of the funniest things you do and it’s sorta in line with you beating ass to the door at Emily’s is you love to lean against the storm door here and look out. If I, heaven forbid, go out to take garbage out or check the mail or whatever, you fly over to the door and I inevitably come back to the door to find a very irate little boy with both hands flung up over his head banging away. Then once you see that I see you, you scream in happiness and bang even harder. It’s hard to not find that irresistible. I mean, it’s just that cute.

Well buddy, this year I am thankful for you and the fact that you are healthy and usually happy (USUALLY) and that we are able to take good care of you. I can’t imagine being one of those people who look at their children and worry about feeding them or making sure they are safe. Daddy and I belly ache sometimes about working hard and moan, whine, bitch, whatever. I guess that’s normal, but we are so blessed, buddy. We are able to keep you warm and fed and clothed and just having the ability to do that for you brings me a level of contentment that heretofore only came with the purchase of a really pretty comforter or a purse with such soft leather, it made me utter words IN PUBLIC like “ooooooh, it feels like buttah.”

So you now trump purse and comforter purchases. That’s pretty big. You can brag to your friends later in life about that one.

What a difference a year makes

This time last year, I was getting ready, preparing, getting anxious about being gutted in a few short hours. The things I took to the hospital were laughable really. Stupid. I had no time or energy or yearning to do my hair for God’s sake. I was impressed when I took a damn shower. I was too busy trying to get you to latch on to a boob (a trick you and I never did master together) and trying to sleep on my back which does NOT work.

Tonight, I made the drive home in very little traffic thanks to Veteran’s Day, picked you up from Miss Emily’s and brought you home. You were introduced to chocolate milk today from Emily. Judging by your death grip on the bottle, I’d say you liked it. She said the first small amount she gave you, you just upturned that bottle and never took it down for breath. You will be so popular in a fraternity in years to come if you adopt that particular drinking posture in your later years. I’m just sayin’. You ate a very light dinner since you were chock full of the milk and I baked your birthday cake for tomorrow. It’s just a simple white cake and tomorrow I will whip up some buttercream icing for it. We will then allow you to annihilate it and make a general mess – the way every kid should get a chance to do when they hit such a milestone of a day.

We have both changed so much, buddy. I love watching you change and grow and figure things out. I love when you have something rather small in your hands and you just study it like “hmmmmmm.” You are very contemplative about so many things. Sometimes you are a very typical boy and just plow through life very roughly banging yourself about with nary a thought to, ya know, your skull and its proximity to hard surfaces. You delight in driving Gage crazy. When he starts to do the crazy laps like he was doing tonight, you go into that shrieky type of laughter that I can’t help but laugh at myself.

You have never been a typical or good sleeper. I don’t know why, but for the most part, I stopped struggling against that a few months back. It’s just who you are. I have no clue if at some point you will lay down at night and then not even think of rising for a solid 12 hours, but I suspect not. I think you caught the insane gene from Pawpaw. Your Uncle Kenny got it too. It skipped over me, but as time has gone on, I suspect it landed smack on you. The insane gene is that ridiculous crap that despite whatever time you go to bed, you are ready to say hi to the world at 5. AM. In the morning. Before you, I had long thought that 5 AM was merely a fictitious time made up just to balance things out since there was, ya know, a 5 PM and I was totally acquainted with that 5 o’clock. I never saw 5 AM. I slept right through that crazy ass hour. Not you though. Not only do you get up, but you are UP. And happy. And wanna play. With the loud toys. That’s while mama cowers on the sofa under a blanket and watches TV shows she DVR’s knowing that well hell, might as well, I’ll be up and Lord knows there is nothing on.

You are still not walking alone, but you are awfully close. You fly around the sofa and occasionally will lunge hands free to the other side if you are close to the inside of the L. So your bravery is coming along. It is only a matter of time that you just let go and come on over to say hi one day with no idea of what you had done. Until of course I scream like a lunatic or like the Steelers just scored and completely freak you out and you fall down and cry.

Oh Buddy. I can’t even try to put into words how you have changed my life. I can’t speak for Daddy, but in one way it seems like you were always here, but in others this year has flown by at lightning speed. I am not sure what I expected, but I did not expect you. I mean I knew I’d love you and find you cute and crap like that, but I was ill prepared for just how much I’d enjoy your company. How much you would entertain me. How much I would do to entertain you with not one thought of just how stupid I look or sound in public singing the “I love my Jacob” song in Target or singing Sweet Caroline in Mo’s just to make you laugh. I never thought that I’d ever be okay with sleeping so little and actually SMILING at what woke me up in the first place. I mean, you try to stay annoyed at a little boy in a sleeper bouncing in his crib in glee because FINALLY lady, you got in here to pick me up. JESUS. It’s impossible and if it’s not impossible, well then you are just Hitler.

You love to play Peekaboo and my absolute most favorite thing you do is you thrust your fat foot up in the air at me when I tell you in the rear view mirror how much I have missed those toes and can I please see them – if only for a second? The first time you did that, I laughed so hard I cried. It was so damn funny and I thought for sure, a fluke. But you have repeated it several times since – me begging to see some toes and then all of the sudden, nothing else on your body moves, but your leg goes out at a 45 degree angle from the rest of your body and FLING, there goes the toes for my viewing pleasure.

You brighten my day and my entire world in a way I just never expected. This last year has been the absolute best in my life. I promise you, Buddy, that I will try every day to be a good mama. I will try to get you. I will try to make sure that you feel safe and content. I will try hard to make sure that the bad things in life stay away for as long as I possibly can. I will always remember that you love to play with a little toy while on the changing table. I will make sure that we never run out of Ritz Bitz with cheese. I will keep trying to toss you in the air despite how much it hurts my arms and even though I can’t do it nearly as well as Daddy. You take such delight in it and that’s enough for me. I just promise to take care of you – in every way for every moment of every day.

And all I ask from you is to please keep showing me those toes.

Thank you for a perfect first year, my Jacob. I love you, Buddy.

My Sweet Boy’s First Halloween

My two firemen.

You, Daddy and Jenea.

I love this face.

Annnnnnnd you’re done.

Times, they are a-changin’

Tomorrow, for the first time ever, someone other than a family member will have you in their care. Only ONCE have I left you with your sister and frankly, I’m not sure I was even ready for that and THAT was only maybe 5 or so hours. Something like that. Other than that, you have gone with me pretty much all over – the grocery, Target, various errands. Sometimes you would hang here with Grandma, especially if I left midnap, but normally? Nope, you were with mama and I liked that. I mean, let’s face it, you are pretty darn good and I am lucky as shit to have you be that way.

But mama made a decision to go back out there, into the big world, and make a living. I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to work from here all through my pregnancy and through almost your first year of life. Most women do not get that honor. I am well aware of just how lucky I am.

But you are ready. You are a hair shy of one year old (we shall not discuss that or I’ll cry) and you need to be around other kids. I’m notsomuch into the whole playgroup thing, so you have been really denied that sort of interaction and I see now, particularly in church, just how fascinated you are with other kids. You just stare like “hmmmm, well he’s loud” or “hmmmmm, I think I might want that toy she has.” You will be with a nice lady who takes care of allllll boys. God love her. There will be a special place in heaven for that chick. Lord. No wonder she is so little. I doubt she has time to eat with all the activity and I’m sure she is on the move from dawn until dusk.

Anyway, buddy, there is part of me that is excited for you, excited for me to, ya know, be able to pee without company for a period of time every day and knows that both of us are ready for this. Right now, I don’t feel particularly ready because I am just going to miss that face so much. I was packing up your supplies to take over in the morning and I just got so sad. 9ish hours without my buddy? WHAT? Sigh. It’s going to be good, Poot. This opportunity was waaaaaay too fantastic to pass up. And by fantastic, I mean, more money to buy you crap. Lots and lots of crap. Gots to love that.

So be good for Miss Emily okay buddy? Show her your wonderful, hilarious, darling, loving ways. Show her just how funny you can be. Show her Peek-a-boo. Show her how fast you are on not just your knees, but your feet – provided you have support. Show her how much you LOVE Ritz crackers. Show her the staggering capacity your little mouth has to hold so much food – so much so that your cheeks take on a really funny chipmunk quality.

And of course, you must must must show her…….the TOES. However, they are my toes so I shall inspect them nightly to make sure she did not eat one as they as just that scrumptious. I completely understand the temptation will be there and really, she is only human, but damn it, those are my toes.

The world is your ottoman.

You are, right this moment, sitting to my left in your highchair with a mouth full (and I know this due to you showing me) of chicken and broccoli. Your dad and I decided as of yesterday that we were O.V.E.R. feeding you from a spoon. You were so damn difficult to feed because you have the attention span of a 10-year-old kid with ADD who has only ever spent his waking moments fused to a video game machine. If you are not distracted a little (and it can only be a little – not too much because then it’s like wrong, wrong, WRONG) then you flat out refuse to eat. This seems like just giving you a toy would be a nice easy fix, but no. You also love to toss things from your highchair tray and then watch them hit the ground. After you toss each thing, you look at whatever idiot is feeding you like “Bring me more toys, minion.” It’s cute. And by cute I mean, it’s freaking annoying as shit. This morning, I decided I had enough so after suffering through half a jar of oatmeal and then you deciding that you were bored in your chair, I figured screw it, got you some Cheerios and let you eat those. Once you finished what I had given you, I moved on to wheat toast and you ate roughly half a piece. You seemed pretty content. Now lunch is going a bit differently. I put the cut up chicken and broccoli on your tray and you sorta stared at me like “But you aren’t going to be my slave???” You get that look a lot. I suppose it’s warranted as I have been much been your step and fetch girl for going on 11 months. Nice. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to move on.

You are now up to a grand total of six teeth. Your top two middles came in hard and fast and you were not happy. I can’t even imagine how that feels, but you handled it better than I would have, that’s for sure. Now your incisors (fang teeth) are in which is why I figured you could handle some softish food in small bites. Teeth always throw you and your schedule into a tizzy. You tend to get up at 4 as opposed to the rational hour of 5 (that was sarcasm, son – get used to it) and are generally irritated with the world for a solid day or two. That’s not at all your normal demeanor so it’s pretty clear that something is amiss.

The big news is that you are now cruising around furniture like a champ. You love it too. It’s hilarious to watch you climb up, thinking, thinking, thinking the whole way up about where to put this hand and how your feet should be and then once you get completely up, your expression is priceless. So damn proud of yourself. You sorta sway from side to side in what I can only assume is a bit of excitement that is toned down because you are well aware of your rather precarious position being up on two feet. And by that I mean you have the balance of a guy named Mo who has started drinking his scotch very young in life. There is a definite teeter-totter quality to your stance and steppage.

Daddy and I am in the very beginning stages of planning your first birthday party. It won’t be any ridiculously large affair that I guess some people like to do for a first birthday but those who are nearest and dearest will be here to celebrate this year with us and frankly, the fact that we made it through. Let’s face it son – you tried to kill us. You were sent here by the Russians to put us through various sleep deprivation techniques and sound torture (screaming) to send us right to the whacko hut. However, we prevailed and I think even did fairly well. Your dad and I are still speaking (over the screaming) and shockingly enough, still like each other and more shocking still, have managed to still like you. I think that’s total success. Go us.

One of your favorite things to do is chase/torture the pets. Hoss takes this all in stride for the most part and allows you to paw at him not terribly gently while rolling over and taking the attention/abuse. Reba makes herself real scarce when you are around. In fact, it’s not uncommon to forget she lives here until about five or so minutes after your bedtime, she all of the sudden appears and it’s like “oh….right….we have a cat.” Gage does NOT like you. He makes it super clear in that if you get within 5 feet of him, he tends to growl and move away. This would deter some kids, but not you. Apparently you think that is like a beckoning of some sort and just keep following him. It stresses him right out and just so you know, during your nap time, he is passed right out on the sofa in a very blissful state.

Thankfully, with the exception of your ass crack rising time, your sleeping is wonderfully regular now. Lord that was ROUGH. The fact that I know I can get 6-7 hours of sleep a night is quite nice. I am all spoiled now. It’s sorta funny. I remember that awful time, but it’s hazy now. I imagine it’s hazy due the fact that I could barely form a sentence for several months at a stretch, let alone retain any sort of long term memory. It took a while, but the gift of sleep is pretty darn awesome and I am beyond thankful.

I’m trying to remember what else you have been up to lately. Oh. You are tall. Like really tall and you are not gaining weight (I assume from being so active and tooling around all day long) so your gut has sorta stretched out and is pretty flat now. However, your legs are still wonderfully fat. I hope that sticks around for a bit because it’s so damn precious and yummy. Anyway, you are hanging in at 26.5 pounds – steady as she goes. Considering that prior to just recently, you had sometimes gained 3 pounds a month, the fact that you have not gained any weight since your 9 month appointment is sorta shocking. Maybe when you go back at 12 months, you will be on the growth curve. That would shock the crap out of your doctor.

Well, buddy, it has been a big month for you with lots of changes – from loads of toofs to being up on your feet now more than ever. It’s so neat to watch you get bigger and watch your personality evolve and assert your independence (without screaming would be delightful). Your dad and I have said on more than one occasion that you will undoubtedly be a challenge as you age due to your willful nature, but your personality is so funny that I think when we are at our most exasperated, you will probably make us laugh, so that’s good, right?

It will not keep you from getting whippins though. Just sayin’.