Mia Monday #121: Stealth Broom Edition

Day o' Mom

It cracks me up how the one thing we all seem to want for Mothers' Day is time away from our children. Which hells yeah, I want that too. I also want all the dirty dishes scattered around my house to find their way into the dishwasher and for someone else to make dinner. But hey, there's always next year.

My favorite part of Mothers' Day was when Chris made this really nice breakfast of waffles with syrup and fresh strawberries and powdered sugar. For himself. What with cooking and cleaning for the lunch we were hosting and feeding two kids and trying to make them and myself presentable, I didn't manage to get breakfast myself. But that's sort of how I think mothering should be - the little people come first and you don't always get around to you.

My other favorite part of Mothers' Day was the Survivor finale. Which yes, I still watch that show, but don't worry, I'm not going to talk about it. I like the finale though because I like to see how everyone shows up at the end when they have access to showers and pizza and know they are going to be on national television. I always think they look better starved and unwashed on the island. Not so much with the men, who don't seem to change that much, but the women always look overly made-up and excessively primped and preened and fluffed and I always think wow, you should go back to being covered in mud because it really was a better look for you. Is that just me?

Meanwhile, I've lost my position as the only healthy person in this family, in that a) Mia seems largely recovered, aside from the fat lip she gave herself this morning, and b) I feel like hell. So I am off to drink tea and offer my children ponies if they will nap at the same time today.

Owen, Month Three

Sweet Owen,

You are three months old today, clocking in at 17 pounds and 25 inches, and you are sick. Oh my little bear, you are sick and I am so sorry. You have a stuffy nose and a cough and it makes you very, very sad. Of course, by very very sad I mean that you occasionally squawk when your nose gets so stuffy that it wakes you up and sometimes cry for a minute after a massive coughing fit and scream like a lunatic when I attack you with the nose sucker. So by any other measure you are still an incredibly happy baby, but when you have the reputation of World's Happiest Baby to uphold these things matter greatly. You actually kept me up most of the night last night, which is only the second or third time in your life, but you were so sweet about it I couldn't even get very grumpy.

So, you are sick, and I've spent the past month ruining your perfectly wonderful nap schedule. You can't quite sleep through anything anymore, but we are almost always out somewhere or other in the morning and that somewhere or other is usually loud enough to wake you up. So you've trained yourself to take a 30 minute morning nap and then collapse for most of the afternoon as soon as we are home and giving you half a chance to sleep. I put you to bed at night between 8:00 and 8:30 and you usually sleep with very little intervention until 7:30.

Your favorite activity these days is smiling. You just love everybody and everything. You will let anyone hold you, let anyone play with you, and will happily spend an hour in a total stranger's lap. You are beginning to realize that you can cause your arms and hands to do your bidding and like to bat at toys, especially your purple elephant and the world-famous Ball of Wonder. You like to suck on your knuckles.

You are soft and squishy and chubby and nearly perfectly round, and if there is anything in the world I like better than a fat baby I sure can't think of it now. You are so chubby that when you chanced to look up farther than usual one day this week we found a collection of schmutz hidden in one of your deeper neck folds. I am starting to move you into your 6-9 month clothes, with most of your 3-6 month stuff folded in your drawers entirely unworn. There just weren't enough days when they fit to get around to wearing it all.

You favorite person by far is Mia. Luckily for you she loves to give you hugs and kisses and bring you toys, which thrills you, but all she has to do is look at you and it makes your entire day. You adore your father and just light up whenever you see him. But you also love your mommy. You love to nurse and you love to cuddle with me and you are perhaps happiest just tucked under my arm or up on my hip as we go about our day.

You have some sort of magnetism that people are powerless to resist. Nobody can keep their hands off you, and when we enter any room you are swarmed by people who want to admire your cheeks and your smile. You are especially attractive to children, who always love babies, but who stare at you as if hypnotized.

I think you were born three months old - settled and happy and big and strong. And now when I see other babies I naturally compare them to you when guessing their ages. I frequently decide that another baby is your age or maybe slightly younger only to find that he is six or seven months old. You are big, yes, and so strong that the pediatrician keeps telling me you shouldn't be able to do the things you do, but you are also so alert and engaged that it is hard to believe that until today you still qualified as a newborn.

One day this week you were having trouble falling asleep so I held you and rocked you for a while, thinking of the many things I needed to get done once I finally got you and your sister to sleep. But then I realized that none of those things were as important as sitting there and holding you. I feel guilty sometimes that I don't spend three hours a night rocking you to sleep, that you aren't taking every nap for your first six months in my arms they way Mia did, but you don't need those things and you don't want them - won't allow then, even. It makes me treasure those rare times when I can steal a quiet moment with you, when I can spend an hour watching you sleep, watching your lips move as you dream about nursing, hearing you groan and sigh as you wander through your nap.

Sweet Owen, my bug, my little bear, you are a wonder and a marvel and being your mommy is a great and tremendous pleasure.

Later, gators

Sick toddler plus sick infant plus beshingled husband plus the brunch I am hosting on Sunday equals I do not have time to talk to you people right now. Instead, you can hit my much neglected flickr account to score some bonus shots of the world's happiest baby, who kept me up literally all night last night but was so damned sweet and happy about it that I can't even bring myself to complain.

June Effing Cleaver (reprise)

Mia loves to bake. Cookies, cakes, brownies, most especially cupcakes. Her ideal is to bake something chocolate that she can then decorate with sprinkles. And so, we bake. Sugar cookies, gingerbread men, shitty cupcakes from a box, decent brownies also from a box, etc. I hate it.

Mia wants to do all the measuring and pouring, which means there is going to be flour or shitty cupcake mix all over my kitchen, and I spend the whole time trying to keep her fingers out of the mixer blades and the raw egg out of her mouth and her head out of the oven. Every couple of weeks I brace myself and embark on another kitchen adventure, because that is the kind of fabulous selfless mom that I am, but I dread it every time.

Yesterday though, I found the perfect solution. You know those peanut butter cookies with Hershey's kisses on top? Well, unwrapping four dozen pieces of chocolate is an excellent way to keep a toddler busy while you do all of the non-toddler-appropriate prep work. Brilliant! Well, except for the part where I ate an entire dozen cookies between taking them out of the oven and getting them boxed up for "later." Dude! Those things are small! A dozen is, like, no more than eight regular sized cookies. Totally.

(BTW, I live on candy and cookies and ice cream and have lost two pounds in the past two weeks. God I love nursing.)

Owen Wednesday #12: Toes Edition

Alltop gave my husband herpes

Guy Kawasaki says I can't keep my dead last listing on Alltop's momblogs page forever, which oh my god, isn't he mean? (Yeah, I know, that page crashed your browser. Mine too.) I am a little bitter about that, because it is sort of fun to be dead last on a list of 4000 or so mommy bloggers. It sort of says "Hey, you suck, but Aimee made us put you here." (Hey, do you remember when I made you guys vote about whether a) my husband resembled Aimee's husband and, b) you would do them? Well, next up is a vote to determine whether a) my husband's colon resembles Aimee's husband's colon, and b) you would do their colons. It's going to be awesome! All we have to do is convince Chris to get a colonoscopy and we are in business.)

Anyway, since I can't remain dead last on Alltop, I have decided to try to be the first person to get kicked off of Alltop, because that's a distinction, right? Which is why I feel I must tell all of you that Alltop gave my husband herpes.

Ok ok, so he doesn't have herpes. But he does have a prescription for a herpes medication to help clear up his shingles, and the instructions for his herpes medication instructed him to wear a condom, which I found hilarious because yeah, right, I'm letting his skeevy, open-sored person anywhere close to me, latex or not. Also, the shingles are on his arm, so I don't see how the condom is going to help.

We are watching Owen carefully for specks, which I hope like hell do not materialize, but if they do I will be sure to come back next week and tell you that Alltop gave my infant chicken pox.

Tune in tomorrow to hear how Alltop stole my credit card and used it to buy porn.