Toe the line

Dude can officially insert his foot into his mouth. Lord help us. I do it on a daily basis, so if he's inherited my gene for verbal diarrhea, he'd better learn to fight early. And dirty.

We're out on the East Coast visiting my famdamily. Yesterday was about a thousand degrees with a hundred and fifty percent humidity.

My stepmother had the dude in the kitchen while I was putting Perp down for the night. My brothers are brewing up a pretty tasty batch of beer (right now. This minute! And! we can't get into the kitchen to make our fucking dinner. We may have to sacrifice the baby to the cause.) and SM took dude out to investigate. First she handed him over to Bro#1, who isn't entirely sure about this method of (over)populating the planet. Babies, they unnerve him a bit. So dude was equally unnerved and looked over at SM like she'd just handed him to someone fresh out of the sewer. Bro#1 finally got the dude arranged properly and they both settled down and looked a little less like they were dancing naked in a snake pit

Then she handed my poor wee boy to Bro#2, who was sweating like a pig (why? pigs don't sweat.). Dude looked at her like, "Yes, I poop in my clothes but I have no choice. This? this you could have prevented."

Since we have yet to eat dinner (9 pm EDT), SM and I are merrily making our way through the remains of the vodka. Drinking this devotedly requires one sit down and enjoy the stupor. The dude, however, is an action junkie and doesn't like it when you sit still. Stand up, for fuck's sake, and bounce me! So it's been a merry game of musical couches, with SM taking a break to slup a glorious mess of peach nectar and vodka, then up and off again to pacify the little fucker dear tot. And the look! He shoots me a look when he wins. And he does win. 'Cause he plays dirty.

That's my boy.

Ass-vice

Okay. I know I shouldn't eat in bed. And I really know I shouldn't eat candy in bed. But I did and it was good. So what I need to know is how? HOW in the hell did the wax paper wrapper from my caramel--the wrapper I wadded up and tossed aside before I fell asleep--how did it end up in my ass crack? Are my underwear *that* gappy?

And an unsolicited warning: if your baby is teething and drooling like a St. Bernard, do not hold him/her over your head in flying baby mode while you have your mouth wide open.

Rampage

Four guineas. Nine pullets. All killed by some asshole's dog who decided to come over for a little exercise.

I swear by all that's holy, if I find out whose dog it was, all bloody fucking hell is going to break loose.

With wild animals, at least they eat the carcass. These were just tossed aside everytime they died, and it went in for another. Their first full day out of the coop, too. Why do I even bother, people?

AND! AND! It had the balls to play with my dog's teddy bear!*

So how was your day?

*I know for an absolute fact it wasn't my dog. She was in the FUCKING HOUSE, WHERE SHE BELONGS. Rantrantrantrantrant. I am still positively murderous in my rage. What an absolute fucking waste. Poor babies.

Bay City Roller

Remember way back on April 29th when I said the dude was rolling front to back? Yeah, that was it. He hasn't done it since. He's all over rolling back to front, even doing it in his sleep. But rolling back from his tummy? No, thanks. I'm fine right here. I'll just lie here and freak the fuck out sigh.

Because I'm a full-fledged member of LaBIA (Lazy-ass Bitch International Association-- ooh, can't wait to see the google references from that one!), I don't have any of Perp's milestones recorded unless I happened to snap a picture or a movie, in which case there's a date on it. But sitting up? Meh, maybe 6 months? Five? First tooth was 4-5 months so I expect the dude to pop one out anyday now. I know she walked at 10. I know she moved out of our bed around 11 months. I shouldn't feel bad; after all, there's no baby book for me and I don't feel bad about it. I guess it's just nice to have the information so that when either of them asks me, "When did I do A, B, C?" I can go to my handy reference and say, "X, Y Z!" It's really so I don't have to say, "Uhhhhhh..."

Maybe it's the scrapbooking nazis who have me feeling guilty. I do love seeing those pretty books with all the nice pages, but it's just not my thing. I'd happily pay someone to do it for me.

Did you ever hear the This American Life show about the woman who wanted to document every. single day. of her daughter's life? Seriously, now. That'd be like a half-time job, taking the pictures, uploading, printing, cropping, journaling (how I hate the verbing of America, but that's another rant for another day). Anyway, it's at This American Life 7/25/03, Act Two.

How we love the archives! It's too bad I suck at creating them.

Howdy, Stranger

Ree's comment (hi! thanks for stopping by!) got me to wondering again: where are you and how did you end up here? I know from stalking you all at Site Meter that I get a fair amount of traffic from the next blog button in Blogger, but lots of folks get here other ways. If you didn't come here from CM or via that handy little button in the upper right hand corner, how did you wander over here? C'mon, 'fess up. Seriously.

Smear campaign

We had a number of interesting experiences this holiday weekend. So far.

Of primary interest and most potential for laughs (and of course it didn't occur to me to take a picture until we were mid-bath but):

We spent the day at the ILs' place. Romping, running, piling, watching Hed Rogers and Pa-moos the train, the usual. Perp went down for her normal naptime in our normal way: there's na-na. There's stories. There's hugging and kissing and saying night-night to various objects about the house. Then I tromped downstairs to mingle with the baby and MIL.

Two and a half hours later, I heard Perp burbling on the monitor, so I tromped back up the stairs to fetch her. When I opened the door, it was obvious there was a diaper change in the offing but that's not at all uncommon. She's a stealth pooper and prefers bedtime privacy to do her business. Hey, who am I to judge?

And then I saw it.

On her hands. On the sheet. On her face. "Uh!" I grunted to the monitor, hoping MIL could hear me, "We've got a bit of a situation up here." I lifted her out (carefully) and hauled her downstairs, held well away from my body, and presented her to MIL.

"!!!" she yelped. Yes. !!! indeed.

My theory as follows: Perp had an itchy butt and the rest was history. She's got eczema that's spreading like wildfire, and now it's below the waterline, as it were. So it comes as no big surprise that she was rooting around in her diaper, it's just that her timing could have been better. So she reached in to scratch. She came back with a handful of poop. But then the kicker: She shook her hand to rid herself of said poop (MIL noted there were a few piles on the floor). She also tried wiping it off on the sheets. Then I guess she got an itch on her face... etc., etc., etc.

TWO baths. Hair washing (gnashing of teeth! wailing! hysterics!). Cleaning of potty which was also smeared with shit. We, including Husband, were really glad he wasn't there to see it.

In other news, we went to see Wilco on Sunday. Holy crap and Jesus God, they're fantastic. It's been at least three years since we saw them last (in a relatively small, smokey club) and I'm absolutely kicking myself for not seeing them every chance we get. So if YOU get the chance, go. Go! No, stop arguing with me and go.

They're one of those bands where you'll hear the album and think, "Man, they're great. That's amazing stuff they're doing/my they've changed since last album, etc.," and then you see them and think, "Lord, their studio stuff is practially anemic compared to this dynamic, electric, intense live shit. I must find some bootlegs." I'd say seeing them live versus hearing their studio stuff is a lot like seeing Tom Petty live. I haven't, but I have heard from several people I trust that TP&TH is a live band who happens to record albums now and again but their reason d'etre is touring. Wilco is like that, I think, at least for me. They do great studio stuff, to rave reviews, blahblahblah, but they're all about the live show.

And Jeff Tweedy appears to be properly medicated or something because he seemed positively giddy. Last time it kind of hurt to watch him, he was so morose and skinny. So yay, him! Here's to many more.

Go see them. Seriously. Go!

Lastly, but certainly not least ... ly... I got to spend the whole. day. alone. Whole day! Alone! And you all know it's not because I don't love DH and the sprogs (hi, honey!), but seriously, you spend four months without any time alone (and I don't mean upstairs in bed early ... hey, they're home! ... I don't mean not taking a nap when they do, I mean alone. It was more than I ever imagined it could be. And now I feel more relaxed (though another couple days like this would still go a long way), so I feel more happy and patient, which I'm sure makes Husband feel more happy and patient. I guess it's true: if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.