Peanut had his first real haircut yesterday. My botched attempt a few months ago to trim the hair around his ears does not count. Hubby took him to a barber shop and now my little baby looks like a big boy. The shaggy hair almost in his eyes and the little curls on his neck are gone. Hubby made sure to save some locks (he knew he’d better not forget) and Peanut came home with a Certificate of 1st Haircut. The barber had the patience of a saint. The clippers freaked Peanut out (which was no surprise – he’s cries anytime we vacuum, although he will crack a smile if one of us hits it and calls it Bad Vacuum.) He’s also skilled – for all the wiggling and crying, Peanut has an even haircut. The lollipop at the end apparently made the ordeal worthwhile. Peanut finished it, coated with hair clippings and all.

***

A couple weeks ago, the shit hit the fan at several blogs. One blogger decided to make a spoof of blog awards and create not-so-nice awards. She decided to password protect the entries to limit who had access to them. I seriously considered requesting the password – hey, I love a good bit of trash talk as much as the next person, but decided not to. Partly because I had a feeling they’d get nasty and mostly because I wasn’t sure she “knew” me enough to allow me access. Yeah, pretty lame reason for taking the high road…no I don’t even think I was taking the high road. I weaseled out.

Well, they got nasty. Apparently really nasty and personal. And they were leaked to the subjects of the nastiness. A huge hullabaloo followed, with lots of comments on various blogs, e-mails, etc. The blogger behind the awards started receiving e-mail threats and within a day or two took her blog down.

OK, so the mean awards were a bad idea. I think most people could figure out what happened was going to happen…maybe they wouldn’t have been leaked, but the personal attacks and nastiness were a given. I think it was a bad judgement call on the creator’s part. But she wasn’t the only one involved. I never saw the awards or commentary associated with them, but she didn’t do it all alone. Yet she has become the devil in the center of it all. Certainly, she has her part of the blame, but it’s not all on her.

Since I didn’t see the awards, or her comments with them, I have no idea how mean she got. And maybe if I did, I’d feel different, but I’m sad she took her blog down. I *liked* reading it. Yeah, she sounds like she has a temper and can rile up a good snark, but I love her wit and that she’s able to take the shit she’s dealing with in life and make it into a damn funny blog. I hope she’ll be back.

No one but her knows for sure the precise motives behind creating the awards. My opinion is that she felt on the outside of a group of well-known and much-liked bloggers. The awards were a chance to vent some frustrations and poke a little fun…unfortunately it all blew up. I can relate so well to feeling on the outside, as I think many others can. It seems to be a common blog topic. I can’t say how many times I’ve read popular blogs and gotten jealous of the writer’s talent and huge following of readers. Or jealous of their financial situation. Or looks. Or artistic ability.

Peanut's 15 month checkup was this morning. Hubby said Peanut was running into the other kids and toys with the walker. He has no fear.

He's in the 25th percentile for height and 5th for weight. Short and lean like his mama. The nurse was a little concerned with his walking. I had notice he does a Frankenstein walk without bending his knees when he pushes the walker. But I think he still steps normally when I hold his hands and let him walk. If he's still doing the Frankenstein deal, he needs to go back in a month and may need therapy. It's not what we wanted to hear, but it seems to be something minor.

I've also been concerned about his vocabulary which is limited to dada/da-deeee, mama, baba, on ocasional eeee-ooooow (meow), Gu-gee (Lily), and heo (hello). The nurse said the best for that would be to toss the binky. Duh! Why didn't we think of that. We try to limit the binky to bedtime and car rides, but we're bad about giving it to him when we go out to public places. I think we just want to avoid embarrassing meltdowns, but the binky really doesn't help anyway. I'm going to make a better effort to read to him daily (I've been trying, but he'd much rather turn the pages than wait for me to read what's on them) and to say the names of things. We've been half-assed working on shapes and animals. E-I-E-I-O!

The weekend passed too quickly, as usual. Dad and Stepmom came for a visit. They arrived Friday night shortly after Peanut went to bed, but were able to get a peek at him when he woke up for his 10pm bottle. He barely even woke up, so Saturday morning, he started and stared at them, wondering who they were and how the heck they snuck into our house. Within 30 minutes he was over it and wanted to be held, cuddled and played with by Grammy and Grampy. He really took to Grammy this visit and had great fun playing with her. He even fell asleep on her lap for his Saturday nap. She rubbed his back and tummy while they watched TV. He fought sleep, but eventually leaned back against her and zonked out.

On Sunday, we went clothes shopping for Peanut, which is becoming a tradition when they visit. Peanut is 15 months old and between the gifts of clothing from family & friends and the hand-me-downs from SIL, we've had to buy very few things. We weren't too smart about the timing, though. By the time we shopped, waited for a table and ate lunch, it was 2 pm. Naptime is around 12:30. Peanut had a full-on meltdown when Hubby tried to put him in the carseat. I had to get in on the other side and the two of us managed (after about 5 minutes) to finally get him strapped in. He turned into a limp noodle and slid out the seat. Then he suddenly had a back of steel and arched his way out. I thought he was going to puke lunch up the crying was so hard. As we drove home, the crying subsided into sobby-sniffles, then to sniffles, then finally, he fell asleep.

They left to stay near the airport last night and should be on a home-bound plane now. This time they booked a cheaper flight out today instead of the usual Sunday night. Which worked perfectly as all the northeastern airports were closed yesterday during the storm. Neither of them were sad to miss it!

Peanut is almost walking. He'll take a couple of steps here and there. Of course, the first time he did it was at daycare. At home we've been encouraging him to use the walker. I get frustrated, though, because he continually gets backed into a corner or against some other obstacle. Saturday morning I got him set up with the walker and he turned to go around the corner of the couch. Then he got in front of it and pushed it backwards away from the wall. When he fell down, he was able to stand back up without me holding the walker or picking him up myself! Later in the day, he was so confident, he would actually lift the walker off the floor to turn it. He'll definitely be walking on his own soon.

I guess I never posted the story referred to in the previous post. I went through the archives and couldn’t find it. Maybe I did post it and just didn’t find it. Who knows. I’m sleep deprived and half out of it.

Anyhoo, the story: A friend of Hubby’s, I’ll call him Bob*, worked as a grocery store bag boy in high school. One day he was bagging groceries for an elderly man. The old guy grunted and farted very loudly. Bob was a bit taken aback, but not terribly distressed. Next, the old guy shakes his pant leg and out pops a turd which rolls across the floor. Bob takes one look at the turd, books it to the back of the store, clocks out, and announces “I’M ON BREAK!!”

Classic.


*of the squished squirrel and kid-on-the-roof fame. I know I posted those stories.

This morning got off to a bad start. I’ve been fighting a cold/sinus thing for a couple of weeks and started feeling worse and slightly feverish yesterday. I woke up feeling the same today with the addition of Ny-Qu1l-induced grogginess. Ick.

Peanut didn’t want to wake up this morning, either. He started with a crying fit and wanted Daddy only. Daddy is still getting ready for work when Peanut gets up, so I’m the one who dresses and feeds him weekday mornings – fuel for the fire. His hatred for diaper changes has recently been renewed and he flailed, rolled, tantrumed, sat up, squirmed, and tried to take a header off the changing table. When I got the diaper open, I noticed Peanut had a turd-encrusted butt which required much wiping to clean. During which time he peed on me. Twice. And continued to kick, scream, twist, and wiggle. I got so frustrated I yelled. At my 14-month old. Great mom that I am. Hubby finished dressing Peanut before I completely lost my marbles.

Peanut was so worked up he didn’t want much breakfast, so I held him while Hubby finished getting ready for work and loaded his and Peanut’s lunches into the car. Peanut was out of sorts and still wanted Daddy. He didn’t want me to put him down (he became a limp noodle as soon as any body parts touched the floor) but he didn’t particularly want me holding him, either. I finally sort of calmed him down by giving him a binky and holding him tightly against my chest while rocking.

Teething may be the issue. His missing top front tooth looks ready to erupt any second now (bye bye jack-o’lantern smile) and another bottom one isn’t far behind. Over the weekend he drooled profusely.

As I was locking up the doors and getting my shit together, Hubby came back in and asked for a jump-start. After dropping Peanut off at daycare, he realized we forgot the daycare check (due today) and he left his gym clothes at home, in addition to being late to work.


Peanut is now set up in his own room. We moved the crib and accessories into his room Friday night. Peanut loves to play in there. Already, the wipes-warmer has been moved out of reach, as Peanut absolutely LOVES to yank all the wipes out, one at a time. Then stuff them back in. Then yank them out again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. The diapers also get untstacked and re-stacked. And then there’s the bookcase begging to have all its contents stewn across the floor…and lots of pages to be ripped. (Luckily the only ripping so far has been to his magazines which I’m brain-farting on and can’t remember the title to.) Sorry Gramma. I’m sure in about 5 years Peanut will love the magazines, but right now the allure of shredded pepper is overpowering.

Friday night Hubby slept in the guest room with the baby monitor so I could get a good night’s sleep alone. Well, I use the term “slept” loosely. He stayed up till 4:30 am and Peanut woke at 5:30 for a bottle. After which he spent the rest of the time tossing, turning, and farting in bed with Hubby until he decided wakey-time was 7:30. In short, Hubby got 1 hour of sleep.

Hubby trundled back off to bed as I finished giving Peanut his breakfast. Peanut was in a happy mood playing with his toys, so I decided to clean the bathroom…I could keep an eye on him at the same time. Peanut started grunting and straining and covering his eyes (I have no idea why, but he recently started doing this when taking a dump), so I let him go about his business while cleaning. He decided to scoot into the bathroom just as I was getting ready to clean the tub. He happily grabbed the potty (which had just been cleaned, so was only teeming with thousands of bacteria instead of bazillions) and stood up. And a golf ball-sized turd dropped out his pant leg. After several “Oh Jayzuses” I laughed my ass off and carried him to the hated changing table for a major clean-up.

I almost woke Hubby up with a loud “I’m on break!” But being the loving spouse I am, I let him sleep.

Gramma always used to say this little rhyme...

Spring is sprung,
The grass is riz,
I wonder where the posies is?

I googled it and found a bunch of websites that have variations on the rhyme, but couldn't find an author. Hmmph.

She taught me this one, too:

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill can hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak, Food enough for a week,
But I’m damned if I see how the helican
(Dixon Merritt)


Spring (if you can call it that) has arrived. It's another rainy day, which reminds me of springtime in the north. The trees have had noticeable buds and flowers for the past couple of weeks and this week I noticed lots of fresh yellow-green new leaves flushing out. The swampy areas are especially spring-y.

I wish we had more of a spring season (as well as a fall) here. I love the progression of flowers, grass, and leaves visible in more temperate areas. I love the return of birds, especially robins, in the springtime.

But I know in a few more short weeks it'll be uncomfortably hot. Then ungodly hot. Summer will be here.

Arrrgh. WTF happened to my comments? I realized they were missing, checked my template and saw they were turned off (which I don't remember doing...but may have) so I turned them back on. But all the comments are GONE. They had links to a couple of blogs I don't have bookmarked. Dammit.

Mom is slowly feeling better. She's eating solids now and seems more comfortable. The visiting nurses are coming daily to check on her and it's doing a world of good. She's going to contact a lady who worked at the ALF Mom lived at a couple years ago and see if she'd be willing to come a few hours a month for housework and conversation. I've got my fingers crossed her hourly wage isn't too much.

As I was sitting in the work bathroom, I was nearly overcome by airplane glue fumes. Maybe paint. Or Wite-Out. All I could think was that someone was going to find me in there and think I passed out due to my own stink. That would bite.

One of the other labs has a funk. (It smells like ass.) No one can figure out what stinks...it may be a drain, but both sinks have been recently used, so I doubt sewer gases would be coming up. And it doesn't smell exactly like sewer gas, more like a dirty diaper. Anytime I walk in there my train of thought goes something like this.. "It smells in here. Like a dirty diaper. I miss Peanut." I'm sure Peanut would love to know that dirty dipeys remind me of him.

Just call me the stink connoi-sewer.