Sleep!

I just need to post this so I have some written proof: my son has slept past 7 am for SEVEN DAYS IN A ROW.

And not only that: we’ve been sleep training again, since after travelling and illness and all sorts of disruptions it was not going so well. The plan was eventually to break the 4:30 bottle habit, but after a few days he broke it all by his lonesome. The first time he did it - slept from 8 pm until past 7 - we got up to check on his breathing three times between 6 and 7:15. 

Halle-frickin’-lujah. This is a thing of true beauty. We are both new women. And he is one smiley boy.

Also, as an aside: I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, but apparently I need a resolution to post the damn New Year’s post already. It’s mostly written, really. It will be up before, um, February. I promise.

Mommy

After a full 17 months of trying unsuccessfully to get Roo to call me Ima, the Hebrew word for Mom, we spend 3 days with a friend and her almost-2-year-old and he decides that I’m Mommy.

He’s being saying Mama for a month or so, and we weren’t sure if he was calling us both Mama, or if he meant NSG and it was another symptoms of the recent Mamas. Not only is he now saying Mommy, he’s clearly differentiating us by name. This morning he slept till 7:15 (please pause while the angels sing a hallelujah chorus) and then called for Mommy and waved when I walked in. Oh, the cuteness.

So do I just go with it, or keep working on Ima?

Anyway, Happy New Year. The obligatory New Year’s Day post is coming.

Pig pile

Also known as hog heaven. I’ve never seen such filthy - or such giggly - babies.

Toddler v. 1.0

Sunday afternoon: we’re in the drugstore.

Roo picks up a bottle of hair oil from the shelf and starts to walk away with it. He’s freakishly talented at unscrewing bottle tops, so I reach down and take it from him, offering him some hairbands as an alternative.

Instead of taking them, he falls immediately and with great drama to the shlocky drug store carpet, face down, screaming, kicking his legs, and pounding his fists on the floor.

We did the only thing you would expect of empathetic, patient parents:

We died laughing.

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Please oh please oh please can’t we just get a little more sleep?

My heffalump

Halloween at the tot lot. Picture 4 zillion toddlers in costume hopped up on sugar. May. Hem. Really friggin’ cute, though.

I’m thinking about doing NaBloPoMo again this year. I’m thinking this might be a good way to get back into taking pictures, too. Don’t hold me to it, though.

Cute feet

Cute feet

Originally uploaded by Roundisfunny1

Thanks for the new shoes, oh crafty one.

Blah!

Do you ever have those conversations where you have so many things to say that your brain can’t sort them and so you open your mouth but can’t do anything but stutter because all the different sentences are trying to get out at once?

That’s where this post seems to be going.

Vacation was fantabulous to the nth degree. This was our first actual vacation as a family and it was a blast, and particularly fun since the last time we spent any extended time there NSG and I had only been together 9 or 10 months and were still very much a new couple.

Roo was beside himself at the beach, and we dubbed him the Mayor of Small Beach Town, since we was so social all week that by the end of the week we were walking into stores and restaurants and people were greeting him by name.

Damn, does that kid ever sleep like crap when we’re away from home. We took his mattress and shoved it into the corner of our tiny bedroom and barricaded it with a nightstand so he couldn’t get out. It was safe, but it meant that when he stood up his little face was approximately 11 centimeters from NSG’s face, which he though was very funny, particularly from about 2:30-4 every freakin’ night. And he was up at a quarter to 6 every day, which would have been unredeemably sucky except that it meant that he and I went for a walk on the beach with hardly anyone around (except other parents with toddlers letting their co-parents get a little sleep) every single morning. Copious amounts of sunshine and iced coffee also took the edge off.

It was so much fun to play with my wife on vacation. I know it’s a no-brainer, but relationships are so easy on vacation. We’re both devotees of the bust-your-ass-to-make-it-work school of relationships, but really? Easy is fun.

Our last day there NSG’s mom and stepdad drove out and took Roo to the beach, and we went to a different beach on our own for a date and neither of us had to remove a rock from anyone’s mouth, NOT EVEN ONCE. 

So back on Saturday, and then yesterday was the first day of our new family day care. More to come on that, and how incredible it is that NSG is finally, finally her own boss, and I also want to write about my friend-who-isn’t-my-friend moving to Canada and not saying goodbye and how incredibly sad I am about it, and this incredible book I’m reading about SNCC and how inspired I am in a way I haven’t been in probably a decade, and my new fear about being the white parent of a biracial child, and… that should keep me going for a while.

Also, why does anyone care about High School Musical? Can someone please explain the appeal of this? Am I just missing something because I’m neither straight nor 15?

Oh, and: the kid is WALKING. In earnest! We are in so much trouble.

Am I at the beach yet?

Last weekend we took Roo to see some friends who adore him (and who happen to be the parents of a whole slew of kids we adore) and spent a few days on Fire Island. It was the first time he’d been to the beach. Now, this kid is a water baby through and through - he screams in delight when you turn on the tab and strip off his diaper - but this was something else.

He took one look at the waves and lost his little mind. Squealing. Face planting in the sand. Chasing the waves as fast as he could as they washed back out. Drinking mouth fulls of salt water and then sputtering and laughing at the same time. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a human being have so much fun without drugs.

And then there was this week. NSG left her job (this was planned but still a transition). My job was unexpectedly chaotic and stressful, partially in that pre-vacation way and partially in that my-contract-manager-is-an-asshole way. NSG’s sister was a big pain in the tush, which is not new, but her MO this week was particularly exhausting and aggravating. Even Roo was in on the starry misalignment, pitching over the guard rail today and ending up with a fat black eye.

But tomorrow… Can’t wait. See you when we get back!