Fragmented

• There are times when I'm looking out of the bedroom window and I see The Dog wandering around the yard, and the first thought in my head is, "Oh, my goodness, there's an ANIMAL out there!" Which is true enough, but when I think "ANIMAL," I'm not thinking "pet dog," I'm thinking "rabid beast." And though we might describe The Dog as a rabid beast from time to time, he isn't exactly menacing.
• I had trouble sleeping last night, so I lay awake, relishing the quiet and I realized something: Weston wakes up a LOT. I mean, he doesn't always wake ME up or ask for any help in getting back to sleep, but he very frequently stirs, rolls over, picks his head up and looks around, licks the mattress--yes, LICKS the mattress--and just generally moves around.
• Luke is pretty convinced that getting a ticket from the cops is something to be desired. He frequently talks about the prospect of being pulled over in a rather awestruck voice. I worry about that child, sometimes.
• Weston now pulls himself up on everything. Including Yellow Cat, who is not amused by this new development.
• McMoose was trying to toilet train the cats. Apparently, there exists a product that claims to do exactly this and this product actually has decent reviews, so we tried it out. Black Cat took to it superbly. Yellow Cat...well...let's just say he doesn't care for the concept. Ah, if only. But I have to admit, I would feel like I'm living in the house from Meet the Parents.
  

The First Day of June

The first day of June and we have a high of 99 degrees. I have 9 weeks to go in this pregnancy and every day that the temperature soars above 90, I wonder how I'm going to make it.

Two toddlers are running around like maniacs because even at 10 am, it's too hot to be outside. So far this morning, we've heard the firetruck sirens pass by the road outside our apartment five times. It seems cruel that anyone should have to deal with a fire on top of the crazy heat.

The belly boy seems to sense my discomfort and is trying to make himself more comfortable by stretching out his limbs. If I had to make a prediction, I'd say he's going to have long limbs.

The toddlers have two identical toys, thoughtfully purchased because Other Baby's mom figured that might decrease some of the fighting and make my days somewhat easier. One of the toys has been abandoned and they are fighting over the other one. Two-year-olds are just unfathomable little beings.

Luke informed me this morning that the firetrucks were going "to get some fire." Other Baby is sitting with a bucket on his head, saying "Boooooo!" The Dog is panting on the back of the couch, as high off the ground and as far from the toddlers as he can get. I imagine that has something to do with the fact that they tried to use their toy drills on his head not too long ago. Soon, they'll lure him back down with sticky hands full of raisins, just to try to use their (toy) circular saw on his back.

The air conditioner shudders and turns off. I hope this isn't one of the days it decides to stop working because I'm sick of seeing the maintenance man, who comes to our apartment, talks to the toddlers, and fixes nothing.

Luke licks a book, then tosses it into the basketball goal, where it gets stuck. Unfazed by the loss, he goes off to lick the wall instead.

The first day of June and the crazy heat seems to be bringing some extra crazy to our home.

My Day So Far

Who needs a bullet post? (Me.)

• I spent 15 minutes looking for my glasses today. They were ON MY FACE. Because apparently, the whole being-able-to-see thing didn't tip me off.
• I should really stop making predictions about Luke's napping habits. Today, I was SURE that he'd fall asleep really easily because he was just so tired. Barely made it through breakfast, in fact. And yet, it took a good 25 minutes of back-patting to get him to quit. twirling. around. in the crib. Oh, the endless twirling.
• We had strawberries for breakfast. I think I've mentioned before that Yellow Cat loves strawberries. So I finally got both babies down for their naps and came back out to the living room, planning to collapse in a heap on the floor, and realized that Yellow Cat had GONE THROUGH THE TRASH, pulled out several cut up strawberry pieces and dragged them through the carpet. The WHITE carpet.
• The strawberries seem to have acted as some kind of hallucinogen because since I've been out here in the living room, Yellow Cat has been tearing around, pouncing at the walls, and hissing at Luke's toys.
  

Does This Count As A Bullet Post?

I had to add an extra, mid-month "Things Luke is doing" post because (a) it seems like he learns something new EVERYDAY and (b) if I don't write it down, I'm going to forget it and writing it down here is just so much easier than hunting down the baby book, finding the right page, and then writing in super-tiny handwriting to get everything to fit.

• I think I mentioned last week that he knows how to take off his pants now? Yeah. Apparently, taking off one's pants is the GREATEST THING EVER and must be repeated at least 20 times a day. Needless to say, the kid's going to be wearing a lot of rompers and overalls this summer.
• The walking is really starting to take off this week. He can walk from one room to another...he can walk in sand...he can walk in his new sandals...in fact, he's starting to try to run. Granted, at the moment, most of his attempts at running end with a face plant into the carpet, but I see what's coming and I'm afraid. (So are the animals.)
• He gives hugs. The best hugs EVER. Except the cat doesn't think so. He wrestles Yellow Cat to the ground, halfway crawls onto him and then ever so gently hugs him and puts his head on Yellow Cat's back or belly. Yellow Cat is soooooo not pleased.
• Yesterday, we went to the playground, where Luke was trying to eat every piece of rock/gravel/wood chip. One time, he looked straight at me and put something in his mouth...or so I thought. So I asked him what in the world he was eating now and he gets a huge grin, reaches into his mouth, and pulls out...NOTHING. And then, says "Haaaaa!" Because apparently, he now understands How To Trick People And Then Laugh At Them.
• Also at the playground, he walked up to a random dog and started barking at it. The dog seemed confused.
• Other Baby and Luke now have crawling races. Most of the time, Other Baby is far behind because Luke has been doing this crawling thing for 4 months now and Other Baby only JUST started, but the times when it looks like Other Baby is going to catch up, Luke quickly reaches out and TRIPS him. Not cool, dude. Not cool.

See Spot Hide

I lost the Dog today. Just completely lost him. Looked for him for almost two hours, opened and closed all the doors in the apartment, even looked on the patio. In the end, I almost had myself convinced that maybe I never had a dog and maybe all the dog-related things in the apartment had been planted here by the CIA. Because that's what the CIA does, you know. Never mind terrorists, THEY HAVE IMAGINARY DOGS TO DEAL WITH.

As it turns out, the Dog is not figment of my imagination. He is, however, a very odd animal. See, Luke has targeted him as the Favorite Pet recently because the cats? They have claws. And they frequently use their claws when Luke gets too...shall we say...affectionate. The dog, however, is slow and not-too-intelligent, so he just stands there, moaning and looking beseechingly around while Luke climbs on him and pulls his hair and sticks his fingers into his (the Dog's) ears.

I've kind of suspected that one of these days, the Dog is just going to snap, and then, he'll eat the baby in two gigantic bites. And today? He totally SNAPPED. Luckily for me (and Luke), he did not try to eat the baby. What he DID do, however, was sneak off when no one was looking and hop into the pack and play. Because clearly, if the baby is going to be roaming free, it makes all kinds of sense for the Dog to chill in the playpen. Right?

Except that dogs don't have a ton of forethought, apparently, because he neglected to NOTIFY me of his hiding-in-the-playpen plans. As a result, he spent two hours sitting in the pack and play, UNABLE TO GET OUT. When I finally discovered him sitting in there, he was all shivering and whining ever so quietly, like he had just suffered through this great ordeal. I feel bad for him, I really do. But I mean, if the playpen had been SO, SO terrible, why ON EARTH didn't he just bark? Or make scuffling noises? Or, I don't know, send up smoke signals?

A Bullet Runs Through It

I know I'm supposed to be working on putting up pictures for Luke's 10 month post, and I'm doing it, I promise, but in the meantime, I'm doing a bullet post because I have a lot of thoughts rattling around my head at the moment.

• It's Thursday again. Lately, I feel like Thursday accounts for approximately 75% of the week. Not that I'm complaining--Thursdays are good days. 2 days until the weekend AND I get to watch a new Grey's Anatomy tonight. Nope, not complaining AT ALL.
• Did you know that cats love strawberries? I had no idea until a few days ago, when I cut up some strawberries for Luke, turned my back for a minute, and by the time I got back, half the strawberries were gone and two cats were hovering around the plate. And this morning, I cut up some more and Yellow Cat has been going CRAZY. In fact, he's currently dragging around the bib that Luke was wearing while eating his strawberries. Who knew?!
• I'm pretty sure I'm going bald. I lost a lot of hair after Luke was born, which is normal, but then it STOPPED and now it has started again. Granted, I have enough hair for three people, so I could probably stand to lose some of it, but I'm thinking of stocking up on Rogaine, just in case.
• Luke's current entertainment: hitting himself over the head with a toy and saying "Oh-OH!"
  
• Did I mention that I have a new laptop? I have a new laptop. It's small and cool and has a battery life of longer than 20 minutes, which is to say it's a HUGE improvement over the old one. As a result of said new laptop, I'm completely hooked onto the Internet again.
  

Ten! (Part 1)

Luke turned 10 months old on Sunday and because this post is already two days late and I still haven't uploaded pictures from this past month from the camera to the computer, I decided that this could be a two-part post.

Recently, I've been thinking a lot along the lines of "This time last year..." It's hard to imagine that a year ago, I didn't actually know Luke. Oh, I knew that he was active and that he had a tendency to get grouchy when Yellow Cat tried to sit in my lap, but that was the extent of my knowledge about this person who, over the course of the past ten months, has been my almost-constant little companion.

Over the past month, Luke has become super social, which is great because I love to see him interact with other people. I have to admit though that it feels kind of strange, after 9 months of always having this baby in my lap or arms to suddenly have to look around the room to locate him. And when I do locate him, he's usually crawling furiously to try to keep up with any "big kids" who might be around.

He has pretty much decided that All Toys Suck and that it's so much more fun to play with the recycling and the dog food and computer cables and laundry. He constantly has black grease on his fingers because he sticks them in the runners for the sliding door. At first, I walked around with a wet rag permanently attached to my hip so that when he stuck his fingers in grease, I could clean them off immediately. Recently, I've decided that meh, a little bit of grease probably won't hurt him. (Right?)

He's a stubborn little person, which could have been expected, given the fact that after almost 5 years, McMoose and I STILL haven't learned the art of compromise. He follows Yellow Cat around and pulls his whiskers and fur and tail. Yellow Cat, for his part, is no fool and is perfectly willing to use his claws on anyone who abuses him. The baby, as a result, currently has several scratches on his hands, but still, any time he spies Yellow Cat, off he goes to sustain yet another scratch.

The child still has NO TEETH, which I find strange, but dude, I'm SO not complaining. I have heard plenty of stories of babies who have bitten their moms while nursing and I am not looking forward to this particular experience.

For the longest time, he was only able to stand if he was holding on to something, but for the past couple of days, he's been letting go and standing there all by himself. What this means, of course, is that he now has TWO available hands with which to grab everything in sight. And THIS is exactly why I wanted to baby proof everything while I was still pregnant--even back then, I knew McMoose and myself well enough to know that once the baby got here, we'd spend so much time saying "Oh, we'll do it next weekend," that the baby would likely be 3 before it got done. (Needless to say, nothing is baby proofed, which could be why I found the baby sitting in a bathroom cabinet a few weeks ago.)

I'll post the pictures for this month as soon as I get myself, the computer, the camera, and the USB cable all in the same place at the same time.

26 Minutes

It's 4:07. I nurse a newly awakened baby, helping him bridge the gap between Asleep and Awake. We talk quietly and smile. I change him, and when he protests, I point out a picture of a fish on the wall. We sing and blow raspberries and laugh.

It's 4:18. I spoon applesauce into the baby's mouth. It is promptly spit back out. Pudgy, dimpled hands smear it across the highchair tray--his first work of art. Illogically, I consider hanging it on the fridge even as I attack it with a wet rag.

It's 4:23. We chase the Dog until he escapes, hiding under the bed. We chase Yellow Cat until he unsheathes his claws, threatening to inflict yet another wound on the baby's overeager, but not overly gentle hands. We play patty cake. We sing a song about ducks that went swimming and never came back. (Why are children's songs so morbid?)

It's 4:28. We have a small battle of wills about whether the DVDs are appropriate playthings. It ends in tears of frustration, which are soothed by another song, this one about monkeys that get eaten by an alligator.

It's 4:31. The baby finds a shoe. The shoe is removed. The baby finds a wood chip. The wood chip is removed. The baby finds a cat toy. The cat toy is removed. The baby finds a remote. The remote is removed.

It's 4:32. It's 4:32? I get up, find my cell phone, and check the time again. Yes, it's 4:32. Either we're moving around the apartment at the speed of light or time has slowed down. It's 4:33.

(It occurs to me 2 hours later to send the universe a retroactive "Thank you" for allowing this applesauce-and-song filled afternoon to be my Everyday.)

Nine!

Here it is, the official nine month post...three days late, incidentally, but McMoose has been working from home all week and he and Luke have somehow worked it out so that every time Luke naps, McMoose has a phone meeting, which means that I NEVER, EVER get to use the computer.

It kind of blows my mind that Luke has been on the outside now for just as long as he was on the inside. I mentioned this to McMoose and he was all "Uh-huh" in a very unimpressed manner, so maybe this is the kind of thing that only matters to the person whose inside actually housed the baby for the first nine months, but I find it completely insane that it has been THAT long since I was pregnant. And also, I'd like someone to explain to me how come the nine months of pregnancy felt like they took an ETERNITY and the nine months since have felt like a blink of an eye.

So Luke crawls. I don't mean that in a "Hey, he finally figured out how to crawl" kind of way because I already wrote that in his eight month post. No, I mean it in a "Luke crawls. Every minute of every day, he crawls. In the middle of the night, he crawls around his crib, hits his head on the bars, and wakes up grouchy as a result. When I'm trying to nurse him, he crawls off my lap. When I'm trying to change him, he tries to crawl off the table" kind of way. He gets himself into some weird situations as a result--under the end tables, behind the clothes in the closet--basically, places where I would expect to find a Dog or Cat, but not a Baby.

Earlier this month, we had to take all the door stoppers off our walls because he got into the habit of pulling the white tips off and collecting them in his mouth. One morning, I noticed that he had been entertaining himself quietly for about 15 minutes, so I followed him around and realized that he had three of them in his mouth already and was going after a fourth. (He has now figured out which drawer we were keeping them in, so we'll probably have to move them soon.)

He also stands and cruises around the furniture and pulls Yellow Cat's tail, and then when Yellow Cat emits an annoyed "Mmmrrrr," Luke grins and replies, "Mmmm." (And then, he does it again, and again, and again. Earlier this month, Yellow Cat let us know that his patience with the baby had come to an end by scratching Luke's hand because Luke was following him around with a blanket in a misguided attempt to interest him in a game of peek-a-boo.) He goes after dog and cat toys every chance he gets, he pulls all the books out of his bookshelf, he tries to jump to reach things that are (purposely placed) out of his reach. He devours cheese and yogurt, but feeds his veggies to the Dog. He licks the walls (and laughs). He growls at the Dog (and laughs). He goes towards something he knows he isn't supposed to touch--the DVDs, a computer cord, my shoes--and then turns back to look at me, waits until I notice him and tell him "No," then grins, tucks his head down, and crawls as fast as he can towards the forbidden object. Oh, yeah, this kid is going to make a GREAT toddler in a few months.

Here he is, with a blanket draped over his head. This, incidentally, was the same blanket that was used later that day in the Yellow-Cat-peek-a-boo incident.

His winter coat, which he finally got to use during our blizzard...

Boxes are fun, Part 1:

Boxes are fun, Part 2:

Playing with a dog toy. A dog toy that dispenses dog food. Which he then tried to eat.

All dressed up and waiting to go to brunch to celebrate his Paati's (my mom's) 50th birthday.

Bad Morning, Good Day

I woke up in quite the snit today. (Now there's a word that gets vastly underused: snit.) It was 30 minutes earlier than I expected to wake up, and for some reason, Luke was bouncing around his crib and babbling LOUDLY over the monitor. (I don't think he has a quiet volume just yet. So far, everything he does, be it laughing or babbling or crying or burping is LOUD.) So I turned off the monitor, dragged myself out of bed, tripped over a cat, tripped over a dog, grumbled all the way to the nursery, got Luke out of the crib, grumbled all the way back to bed, tripped over the other cat, and finally got back under the covers.

Of course, Luke took this to mean that I was trying to put him back to sleep, and he didn't WANT to go back to sleep, so the happy babbling turned into enraged, high-pitched shrieking, and right that moment, any hopes I had of waking up slowly and peacefully were shattered. (Any hopes McMoose had of doing the same were also shattered, but somehow, he manages to handle these situations with grace and patience, while I moan about how all I want is 10 more minutes of sleep, IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK FOR?)

And when I got in the shower, I ran out of hot water right when I started shampooing my hair. And then, the Dog stepped on me and I hit my (already hurting) wrist on the doorjamb and the baby whined at me while I was trying to get dressed and I could not, for the life of me, imagine how I was going to survive the rest of this day.

Until I remembered reading something the other day about how a woman noticed that if she expected to have a bad, overwhelming day, she invariably did. So I made the conscious effort to smile at McMoose and coo at the baby and pet the dog. And by 9 o'clock, my day had taken a drastic turn for the better. And furthermore, so had Luke's--I don't know if he sensed my mood or just enjoyed having his playful, laughing Mama back, but his whininess disappeared and he has been the picture of glee all day long.

Now if only I could remember this the next time I get woken up too early...

The Ever Beleaguered Dog

The Dog has officially put in his petition to be relocated to a different family. Apparently, he has had it up to HERE with us and his only regret is that McMoose won't be able to go with him. I mean, first, we brought home Yellow Cat, who spent many weeks convinced that the Dog was his mother and trying to nurse from him. And then, just when he finally made his peace with sharing the humans' attention with Yellow Cat, we brought home Black Cat. And then, THEN, if that weren't bad enough, we had the gall to go and get a baby. A BABY, for crying out loud...and in fact, the baby spent much of his early months doing just that.

Then, when he finally accepted the fact that his life had changed and he had now been eclipsed by YET another little being, we put him in the car for a 16-hour drive, and at the end of the drive, we forced him to spend two hellish weeks with a two-year-old who chased him and made weird noises at him and spent a lot of time saying "No!" to him. And then, to add insult to injury, the baby, whom he had finally befriended when he realized that he could skulk under the high chair and get free handouts, went and decided to start CRAWLING.

Which means that the Dog has spent all morning being chased, headbutted, and laughed at. Now granted, the Dog could just hop up on any of the pieces of furniture we have in our apartment and then, he'd be well out of the baby's reach, but the Dog? Not the smartest creature ever created. So instead, every time he gets headbutted, he jumps, looks startled, and moves 6 inches away. And then, 2 seconds later, he gets headbutted again.

Of course, he did manage to get his revenge after lunch, when he licked the baby from head to toe in an attempt to get every stray molecule of pasta and egg. I guess this is as symbiotic as their relationship will ever be.

Home. Sweet, Sweet Home.

I wonder whether, when Luke is in elementary school, they'll learn all about how people thought the world was going to end when the computers hit the year 2000. Remember that? That was a DECADE ago. The mind, it boggles.

As you can see, we're back from our trip. We had a dubious start because we had planned to drive to Mississippi overnight so that Luke would sleep through the 13-hour drive, but of course, here in the Land Of No Snow, they had forecasted a snow and ice storm for the night we had planned to leave, so that was a no-go. Instead, we left the next morning (oh, and for the record? We had NO SNOW), which meant that the 13-hour drive turned into a 16.5 hour drive because we had to stop every 2 hours to let Little Bug stretch out his not-so-little limbs.

But other than the excruciatingly long drive, the trip went surprisingly well. The Dog did not eat any cat litter or pecan pies or get into any fights with any cats or vomit in the living room, all of which he has done in the past. Luke was friendly to the family and adjusted as well as can be expected to the changes in his schedule. I did get sick, which wasn't so much fun, but if I had to be sick, what better time than when McMoose was off work for 2 weeks AND we were surrounded by grandparents and aunts and uncles who were happy to hold and play with Luke?

In any case, we're in that weird twilight zone between vacation life and regular life. Physically, we're back and thrilled to be home, but at the same time, it's awfully quiet with just the three of us around. And now that Luke has fully figured out how to crawl (and pull up on furniture, gah!), we'll be spending the next couple of days cleaning and baby-proofing because we've been home for all of 6 hours and we're ALREADY sick of saying "No, don't EAT that piece of fuzz/dog hair/shoe/other inedible and usually gross object."

They're Quadruple Teaming Me

Back when I was pregnant, I anticipated all kinds of weird issues cropping up between the animals and Luke. This anticipation was only heightened by all the fliers in my OB/GYN office that said things like "Help your pets cope with your new addition!" Hmm, I thought, apparently, pets are so routinely traumatized by the addition of a new baby that they need help COPING. And of course, I kept meaning to figure out exactly what I should do to help them cope, but in case you don't already know this about me, I procrastinate. A lot. So I kept putting it off and before I knew it, we were driving home from the hospital with a very small, angry person in the back seat.




You can imagine my surprise when we brought the small, angry person into the apartment and the Dog sniffed us, sniffed him, and then went off in search of his toy. Then, Black Cat sniffed us, looked warily at him and disappeared for two days. Then, Yellow Cat sniffed us, sat on us, sniffed us, purred, and generally acted like the high maintenance cat that he is, but other than trying to claw at the baby's head a couple of days after we got home, he adjusted fine too. In fact, he's the one who now lets Luke pet him (read: pull out handfuls of fur).



So now, seven months into this endeavor, I was feeling pretty confident that hey, babies and animals are a BREEZE. And then, a couple of days ago, I was in the shower and Luke was chilling in his little chair when I heard a growl, followed by loud screeching. My first response was, of course, to leap out of the shower, prepared to defend the baby against whatever evil was coming to get him. The evil, as it turns out, was Black Cat, who had a firm grip on the toy that Luke was playing with and was trying with all her 11 lb might to pull it away from him. He, in turn, was pulling back and screeching and making horrible, horrible faces at her.


About 20 minutes later, after averting that crisis and finishing my shower, Luke and I headed out to the living room, where I immediately noticed that the bottom of our Christmas tree had been savagely attacked. Tinsel was strewn everywhere, ornaments were littered across the floor and one ornament in particular was...dismantled. It was one of the little balls and the metal hook and string were there, but the actual ball was not. I searched high, I searched low, I interrogated the cats, but to no avail. I still haven't found it and I'm absolutely convinced that one of these days, I'm going to turn around and Luke's going to be playing with it, which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that it's glass and, you know, fragile.



So after all this, I was already doubting my whole "animals + baby = easy" equation, so it certainly didn't help that I put Luke on the floor and left the room for 30 seconds and then returned to find this:

Animals + baby might be easy, but animals + mobile baby? Not so much.

Welcome To My Fragmented Mind

• This is a bullet post. (See? I'd make a great twitter-er. Tweeter? Whatever.)
• I missed my nap this morning. Those two or three blissful hours that Luke and I spend cuddling and snoozing each morning are more essential to my well-being than his because he's acting perfectly normal while I'm grumpy as can be. (Also, I just read this bullet and realized that I am seriously spoiled. Who over the age of 4 has the luxury of a daily nap?!?)
• In one week, we'll be packing up and driving 13 hours overnight to Mississippi and as usual, I am BUZZING with excitement. Except, unlike usual, I can't plan to take a day or two off next week to pack and clean so that'll be an interesting task.
• The. Rotten. Stinkin'. Plant. Is. Still. Budding.
• Yellow cat was spotted drinking out of the toilet this morning. I thought cats had more self-respect than that. Shame on you, Yellow Cat, shame.

First Thanksgiving: Mission Accomplished

I love, love, LOVE that McMoose takes the whole week of thanksgiving off from work because it means we can actually get in a decent visit with whichever family member is willing to house the three of us plus the Dog. This year, it was my mom. This was a rather momentous occasion actually, because the Dog lived with her for the first six misspent years of his life and when she delivered him to me, she told me that she loved him dearly but didn't want to ever see him in her house again. Fast forward four years and lots and LOTS of what can only be described as intensive rehabilitation for the miscreant of a Dog and he was finally welcomed back into her home. Her NEW (rented) home. Where he didn't pee on the carpets or eat the bed linens or steal the turkey. And that right there? My definition of a Most Successful Visit.

It was successful in other ways too. We survived the drive there and back without too much crying or getting lost. We got to see one of my friends from college, which is always fun. We had thanksgiving with people I haven't seen in ages. I cooked two pies, one of which was entirely vegan (take THAT, Sara Lee.) And Luke? The baby who decided before we left that he resented all solid foods and was going to revert back to a milk-only diet? He spent the entire week eating EVERYTHING in sight. Avocado. Bananas. Sweet potatoes. Rice. Banana puffs. Peas. A (small) slice of apple pie. Indian things.

And since I fall on the lazy side of the parenting spectrum, most of these things were fed to him directly off my plate. After feeding him all this nonsense, it occurred to me that if he'd had an allergic reaction to something, we wouldn't have had the slightest clue what caused it, but luck was on our side. Of course, now, every time he sees me eating anything, he throws an unholy fit until I share with him, which is maybe not the best habit to be instilling in him, but...meh, what are you gonna do?

Catchin' zzzzs

I've always liked the idea of co-sleeping with your baby, of having them nearby, of being able to respond to their nighttime needs quickly and without too much disruption to your own sleep.

I loved the first two months when Luke slept between me and McMoose, when we could check on him by putting a hand on his belly, when we could cuddle him back to sleep before he even woke up. And then, he figured out how to move around in bed and we started finding him lying sideways between us, which meant that he took up 50% of the bed, leaving McMoose and me with 25% each. Obviously, that wasn't working for us, so we put the crib right beside my side of the bed and he slept in there for part of the night and beside me in bed for the other part.

And then, his nighttime sleeping began deteriorating and he went from being able to sleep hours at a time to only sleeping for about 45 minutes at a time. After spending several weeks being convinced that my kid was the worst sleeper ever, it occurred to me that between McMoose snoring all night long and the Dog sneezing and whimpering and clawing at the carpet, maybe we were waking him up instead of the other way around.

So this past weekend, we moved the crib to his room, and of course, he's been sleeping like a normal human being again for the past two nights. I, on the other hand, am very grouchy about this new development because (a) no baby to cuddle at night and (b) since Luke lives in his own room at night, the cats have once again been allowed into ours, which means that they spend all night chasing each other around and attacking my feet under the covers. Seems to me the better alternative would have been to give the animals their own room at night, get a king sized bed, and buy McMoose some no-snore nose strips.

Confession

When Luke was just over two months old, he outgrew his first set of newborn clothes. As I was folding them up and packing them away, McMoose sat rocking the baby and I turned to him and said I want a baby. His response, the only sane response, was to laugh and point out the fact that we had a baby. Right there, in his arms, was our baby. And yet, I felt like his babyhood was already over as I packed away the clothes that we had so carefully chosen when I was just 18 weeks pregnant, the clothes that I had washed and folded (and then unfolded and refolded about 15 times, just to have something to do), the clothes that I had taken out and looked at every time I felt like the pregnancy was taking forever and I needed a reminder that someday, it would come to an end and on that day, it would all have been worth it.

And just two short months after that day, I was packing them away. And ever since that day, I've been regularly telling McMoose how much I want another baby. With every new skill Luke learns, I'm reminded that he's not a newborn anymore. I can no longer hold him nestled in one arm--I need two to accommodate his 15 pounds of deliciousness. Before having him, I thought that the need to have a baby would be greatly diminished once I had one, once I saw how much they actually cried, how much they woke up at night, how hard this parenting thing was. And yes, he cried. Oh, how he cried. And yes, he wakes up at night. Last night, in fact, he woke up no fewer than EIGHT times. And certainly, this is not an easy job.

But what I neglected to consider is that when he cries? I can turn his tears to smiles, just by picking him up. When he wakes up at night, I have a warm little body to cuddle back to sleep (although it is hard to see it that way when it's 5 in the morning and it's the sixth time I've been woken in as many hours). And even though it may not be easy, this is also the most fun I've had, ever. So OF COURSE the baby fever hasn't gone away. If anything, it's about 20 times stronger than ever before. Luckily, this current baby fever isn't the same awful ache that I felt before we had Luke; the raw need to have someone to hold in my arms and my heart. This is more a reconfirmation of how much I'm enjoying my life right now. This is the acknowledgement that I love having a baby every bit as much as I thought I would, even at 5 in the morning, even when I've been home with him all day long and my arms hurt from carrying him, even when he's being a complete pain in the butt (which he often is, especially when I'm tired and grumpy and just want him to take a nap already so I can get a break, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR?).

This isn't the right time for us, for our family. I know that. I want Luke to get to be the baby, the only baby, for a good long time. I want to focus on him, and then on getting that ever-elusive Ph.D. We want a house of our own, a place where we can sit out on the porch, where Luke and the Dog can have the run of the yard, where the cats can find a cozy spot near a window and stay for the next ten years. So. I'm trying very, very hard to get a handle on this I-want-a-baby stuff. I'm trying to remember that we HAVE a baby, not to mention three animals who think they're babies, and that all of these creatures take up lots of time and lots of attention. And yet, every time I see a pregnant woman, my first thought is Oh, she's so lucky!

Bulleted

Bullets. Because I haven't done a bullet post in ages. And also because The Bug--er...Luke--is napping right now and so far, all his naps today have been ridiculously short. So in the interest of getting the most for our time:

• Why does blogger turn bullets into flowers? Just wondering...
• McMoose and I went to dinner at a fancy restaurant in fancy clothes last Friday without Luke. We both got to eat our meals--including appetizer AND dessert--without having to feed, change, or entertain a 2-foot-tall human being. It was exhilarating. And also, oddly lonely.
• I found Yellow Cat sitting inside the dryer this afternoon. Clearly, a habit we'll have to break before we end up with a cat-kebob.
• Apparently, Luke is of the opinion that it's time to grow some teeth. To that end, he has decided to chew on everything, drool on everything, and stop sleeping. After waking up with him approximately every 40 minutes last night, I turned on the fount of wisdom that is Google to find out how long I can expect this awesome phase to last and did you know babies can teethe for months before actually getting a tooth? MONTHS. M-O-N-T-H-S! Guess I'd better start developing my coffee habit now.
• To offset the drooling, chewing, and non-sleeping, he has also decided to become ridiculously endearing. Even more so than he was, I mean. He watches football with us. He burps and then chuckles about it. He entertains himself while I fold laundry or eat lunch or whatever it is that I need to do. He giggles when the Dog licks his toes in the car. The tiredness sucks, but still, I'm loving this stage.

When Dreaming Ends

I had almost constant dreams--er, nightmares--early in my pregnancy. Then, at week 18, I had an ultrasound and from then on out, not only did the nightmares end, but I actually did not have any dreams that I could remember. This continued until about 2 weeks ago, and since then, I've been making up for lost time with some very odd dreams:

-McMoose turned into a merman and decided to live in the Atlantic and drive submarines.
-The Dog started hypnotizing everyone to do his evil bidding.
-The baby developed magical abilities that allowed him to disappear into thin air, but then he couldn't reappear, so I had an invisible baby and everyone thought I was nuts.
-Teeth were discovered to be the new fossil fuel and everyone gave up their teeth except me, so I was then being hunted for my teeth.

I've always had strange dreams, but this is just ridiculous!

An Apology And A Warning

Dear Dog,

I appreciate the fact that you've adapted so well to life with a baby. I understand that we didn't consult you before bringing this screaming person into your life. I'm sorry that you've lost all you favorite spots on the couch and the bed to the baby. I'm even more sorry that we rarely have time to play ball with you anymore. I'd like to think we're making up for that by (a) rarely putting you in the cage anymore and (b) taking you for longer walks.

I still love you dearly. However, the next time you decide to go lick the baby's face and wake him up after I spent 45 minutes trying to get him to sleep, I'm selling you to the nearest camp of traveling gypsies.