24-7

My husband put all the "24" episodes on our Netflix. The first two DVDs arrived today.

DAMN YOU JACK BAUER. You have sucked us in.

Hope you all enjoy the archives, since I won't have any time to blog anymore. Because I will be watching "24" marathons all the time.

That damn cellphone

Jack's grandmother thought he needed a cell phone. The little Elmo phone he had was not realistic enough, so she gave him her old Verizon phone that is no longer in service. It turns on and takes pictures and does voice commands, it just won't make calls.

Yes, my 16-month-old has his own cell phone.

Anyway. He adores this phone and carries it everywhere, flipping it open and "talking" to who knows who. He also enjoys shoving it down the middle of the ball popper. For those not in the know, it's a cool little contraption that blows little balls out of a circular slide kind of thingy with a small air compressor. It plays music while the balls pop out and Jack inevitably grabs the balls as they pop out and tries to shove them back in.

I present to you, Exhibit A.


But what to do now? It's freaking stuck.


A-ha! A wooden spoon. That has freed the cell phone from its evil clutches before.



I am only succeeding in shoving it further into the contraption. Damn you cell phone. "Flight of the Bumblebee" starts playing every time I shove the spoon in as I try to get leverage on the popper.


I am sweating. And missing breakfast for this. The child? COULD CARE LESS. He's so over the ball popper and cell phone. Gimme a set of All-Clad, woman.


Screw this (literally). I am taking the damn thing apart.


I can't get it apart. Too many tiny screws. I will just take the top part off. Oooooo success! I can now just push the phone all the way through. Brilliant!


EXCEPT IT's TOO BIG FOR THAT END. God damn it.


Now I am getting really pissed. I am shoving the wooden spoon right up the ass of the ball popper.


Finally. Good thing I never get manicures.


I hate you ball popper.


And clearly, my blood, sweat and tears meant everything to my son. He was so happy to have his beloved phone back.


So glad he then threw it on the floor and didn't play with it the rest of the morning.

Jumping Jacks

See Jack. See Jack on the chair. See Jack jumping on the chair.



See Jack fall on his fool head two seconds after I take the picture and warn him repeatedly "Sit on your butt. SIT ON YOUR BUTT. You are going to fall. I promise you, it will hurt."

Sleeping in the nude

I just went to check on Jack and was confronted with the family jewels.

He took a while to fall asleep tonight and we could hear him up there singing and talking and playing with his crib soother for almost an hour. But then he settled down and fell asleep.

Apparently, while he was playing, he managed to unsnap all three snaps on his onesie and removed his diaper. He was lying on top of it and thankfully, he had not yet peed.

Can you imagine if I hadn't checked on him? Pee everywhere! Wet crib sheets! Laundry at 3 a.m.!

I seriously laughed out loud when I saw him. I made Josh take a picture and then I got a diaper on him and snapped him back up. He was groggy and tried to just roll on his tummy with his butt in the air, which made it somewhat easier to re-diaper him.

This kid is getting too smart for his own good. Next he'll learn how to climb out of the crib. God help us all when that happens.

Death of a dandelion

Yesterday we were walking on the grass in the park and Jack spied a dandelion stalk.

He toddled over to it and bent down to inspect it. As he went to grab it, the white fluffy part disappeared in his fingertips and flew away.

He looked confused, then tried with another one. Same result.

This time, he just yanked the whole stem out of the ground. He looked at it and then decided he wanted it back in the ground.

So he tried to stand it back up in the grass. It fell over. He picked it up and tried to stand it up again, this time using two hands. It fell down again.

At this point, I don't know if I should laugh because it was so cute or cry because it was heartbreaking to watch him learn from a mistake.

Triage at The Children's Place

Last week, as I was leaving The Children's Place with Jack, I was trying to manuever the stroller out the doubledoors while not bumping the tires on the glass and keeping the sun out of his eyes when I sliced the shit out of my foot.

One minute I was about to catch the door with my heel and the next I am practically seeing my tendons falling out onto the sidewalk. There was a lovely sharp piece of metal on the corner of the door, which I now believe is still inbedded in my foot.

Nevermind I am surrounded by children, 99% of whom are not my own, I yell out "SHIT" and grab my foot. I really don't know how parents are expected not to swear in such situations. I was in pain, it was a surprise. Can't be helped. The mother in the young boys' section should be glad I didn't drop the F-bomb in front of her kid.

Blood immediately starts pouring from my heel and I look down to see two huge gashes in my heel. My flip-flop is catching the rivulets of blood and I am not sure what to do.

Do I calmly try to walk it off, hoping I don't pass out from blood loss before I reach the Old Navy across the parking lot? Do I just drop in a heap in the doorway and hope no little children trample me when leaving the store? Do I go back inside and bleed out in the sundress section?

What to do, what to do? Of course, being the Drama Queen that I am, I go back into the store.

The security guard looks at my bloody stump of a heel and offers me a ratty piece of rolled-up gauze out of his pocket. It looks like it may have been there since the Reagan administration. I decline, not wanting to introduce the flesh-eating bacteria directly into my wound.

I ask if I could perhaps have a bandaid and a wet papertowel? The cashier looks over and the smile fades from her face when she sees the blood. The same with the customer, who says out loud, "Oh that's a bad one."

They have me go back to the storeroom, where they bust out a first aid kit. It contains an ice pack and sterile pads, but no bandaids or antibiotic ointment.

NOTE TO SELF -- If child is every injured at The Children's Place, run home to fix it. Do not attempt their voodoo way of fixing things.

After finding some of those icky brown paper towels you find in public restrooms, which, incidentally, feel like sandpaper on a gaping wound, I was reasonably cleaned up and decided to chance it on the mean streets of Lincoln Park without a bandaid.

I rubbed about a gallon of Neosporin on it when I got home. I also managed to hobble into Trader Joes before going home, so I could get an apple pie. Because pie is the cure-all for everything.

Weeds be gone

I will defeat the weeds in my yard, mark my words.

We don't even have grass. We have a patio and a bunch of landscaping rock. With the little weed-blocking fabric underneath it.

YET I STILL HAVE WEEDS.

But not for much longer. Today, I sprayed the hell out of them with some weed killer. All the good I have done by buying organic products for the last year were undone in a single afternoon when I polluted everything in site.

I figured as long as Jack doesn't pick up any rocks, he'll be A-OK. I am sure all of you drinking the Chicago water supply won't mind a little poison in your tap. By the time it gets diluted in the lake, I am sure it's probably harmless. Or not.

Hopefully, the weed poison will also wreak havoc on the neighborhood rats. Doubtful. It will probably just mutate them into super rats that will be even bigger than they already are. And when you see a rat as big as a squirrel in your alley, you can't imagine them getting much bigger now can you?

Shoehorned

This evening, Jack had his 15-month doctor appointment. It was after dinner and because it was raining, and my hair tends to curl like a mountain switchback at the slightest whiff of moisture three states away, I didn't feel like walking the five blocks over there.

Well that, and I didn't want Jack to get wet either. I am attentive like that.

So I decided to drive over and quickly got Jack out of his bath and re-dressed. I grabbed his sandals and put them on and away we went.

When we arrived at the doctor's office, I had to fill out new insurance info. Of course, the master squirmer was having none of that and insisted on being allowed to try to run out the office door into the parking lot.

I could see his little feet moving a mile a minute and thought, "Huh. That's weird. His toe is hanging over the edge of that sandal. We just got him new ones this weekend. How can that be?"

Then I look and announce out loud to the receptionist, "Bad mom alert -- I put my son's old, too-small sandals on him as we left the house."

"Correction, I put ONE wrong sandal on him. Ha ha, isn't that a riot? He's wearing two different shoes. Don't they look similar?"

"Umm, yeah, and he's also wearing the one old sandal on the wrong foot. I swear to you, I wasn't drinking before I brought him here."

(For those playing along at home, my little skinny-minny man is now weighing in at a whopping 24 lbs (50th percentile) and over 32 inches (90th percentile)! Holy gigantic baby batman! I guess all the fat in his diet and the whole milk is doing his body good.

The newest member of our family

Jack has a new cousin and Josh and I are now a proud aunt and uncle!

My sister, Beth, and her husband, Paul, are adopting a baby from Guatemala. After a three-year struggle with infertility, they were thrilled to receive their referral for a baby boy from Guatemala last week.

Introducing: Owen!
6 lbs, 17 inches
April 6


Jack will show him the ropes when he comes home this fall. We are so thrilled!

Still alive

I'm not dead.

Just busy.

More posting next week.

Chocolate goodness

You know what's the best part about having a 15-month-old?*

The fact that he drinks whole milk.

Because that means we only have whole milk in the fridge.

Have you ever made instant chocolate pudding with whole milk? Have you? HAVE YOU?

Because it's sinful. Decadent. Delicious.

*Well, besides the fact he is the light of my life and makes me laugh every day with something new and gives me big hugs and shares sticks with me at the playground and woofs when I open his door in he morning and smiles at me when I close his door at night.

Bubbly bubbles

Seriously. This is what we do all day.

Status changes

So...

No more diaper rash.

Hooray!

Three new teeth cutting through.

Not so hooray.

Being virtually a single mom four days a week.

Definitely not hooray.

I am trying to blog more, but during Jack's two-hour nap I try to eat lunch and work my ass off on Snarky Babies. Then after he goes to bed, I eat dinner, clean up the mess of the day and work more on Snarky Babies.

By 10 p.m. I am exhausted and it seems like writing is the last thing on my list. Weighing my choice of sarcasm or sleep, sleep wins out every time. So bear with me as I navigate my new situation.