The Wisdom Of Strangers

Remember when Luke was tiny and I hated, despised, and reviled breastfeeding? Yeah, fun times. Luckily, he got bigger and better at the process and I adjusted my expectations and everything has been chugging along for the past few months. So you can understand how I'm reluctant to mess with a good thing. But apparently, now that he's reaching the 1-year mark, people are getting a little bit less tolerant.

I was sitting IN MY CAR a couple of weeks ago, feeding the baby, when a random woman came up to "look at the baby." Now, (a) I have no idea how she knew there was a baby in the car, unless she was looking really, really closely and happened to see his feet kicking at the semi-open door. And (b) you're at a park. With lots of babies. Is it really necessary to go to someone's CAR to look at a baby? I mean, way to freak a mama out. So anyway, she came up, INTRUDED on us, and then, THEN, when she realized what I was doing, proceeded to ask, "Don't you think he's a little old for that?" So. Do I think my not-yet-1-year-old is too old to still be nursing? Even though the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a MINIMUM of 12 months and the World Health Organization recommends a MINIMUM of 2 years? No. No, I do not. Thanks for asking.

And then, last week, I went to an eye doctor who prescribed some eye drops and when I asked if they would be safe to take while breastfeeding, got all weird and said that I'd have to ask the pharmacist because he "didn't deal with THAT stuff." And then, proceeded to say that if I were really worried about it, I could just let the eye heal (from the side effects of pink eye that I had back in FEBRUARY) on its own and that it would probably take a few years, but he assumed that I'd be done with "THAT stuff" by then. And THEN, he told me that I didn't need to come back again because if the eye drops didn't work, he really couldn't help me any further. I mean, really? How are you gonna be rude to a PAYING customer who happens to bring up a valid concern? (And also, did he really think that I was PLANNING to go back to see him???)

I get the feeling that I'm either going to have to develop a thicker skin when it comes to ignoring strangers' opinions OR I'm going to have to let my inner sarcasm have free reign.

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.

Life on an Island

I feel like an island unto myself.

I'm not, of course. There's McMoose. There's Luke. There's Other Baby, whom I see every day and whose mom often stays and chats and hangs out when she comes to pick him up in the afternoons. There are friends whom I see often. There's my mom, whom I talk to a couple times a week and whom I see every couple of months. There's my dad, whom I talk to at least once a week and whom I text message and email at random moments. Clearly, I am not an island.

But the fact of the matter is that McMoose and Luke and I live far, far away from either of our families. The closest family members are my mom and step-dad, who live a good 5 hours away. And this was fine, in fact this was WHAT WE WANTED. Until Luke came along. And now, when I hear about how Other Baby sees his grandparents at least once a week, when I hear about friends getting together with their siblings for lunch, when I hear about people who can visit with their aunts and uncles and grandmothers at the drop of a hat, I get a little bit...wistful.

Because even though I may not be an island unto myself, there are many, many days when I feel like the three of us are an island unto ourselves. I think about how close I was to my grandparents and how much fun I had living close to my cousins and I do so wish that Luke could experience that, too. But since that isn't going to happen, we'll just have to make this a really big island, as I said to McMoose last night--we'll have to fill it up with friends and neighbors and kids and dogs and cats and frogs. And chickens. And maybe goats. (Because apparently, my island is also going to be a farm.)

Flab-solutely Terrific

I don't like to exercise. At all. Ever. I mean, given the option between exercising and having someone poke me in the kidney with an icicle, I'd be hunting down the nearest icicle. And up until now, I really haven't had to do much in the way of dedicated exercise. I am used to being a thin person, the kind of person whose BMI is always on the edge of "underweight."

So you can imagine my unhappiness when, almost a year after having a baby, I still have a pooch. I very honestly thought that all the baby weight would just kind of go away on its own. And truth be told, the baby WEIGHT has gone away, but apparently, the distribution of skin and, um, poochiness on my body is forever changed. So I've been exercising.

So far? I see no difference. Now granted, it's only been two weeks, but here's the thing. Not only do I not see any noticeable difference when I look in the mirror, but when I step on the scale, I've actually GAINED a couple of pounds. McMoose tries to make me feel better by saying that it's because I'm gaining muscle, but let's be perfectly honest here. It's not muscle. It's the extra slice of cake I justified by saying "Oh, I work out now. I can have two desserts!"

Basic Truths

I'm going to mention YET AGAIN that I worked at a daycare. For two years. With babies. So you'd think that a statement as simple as "Babies crawl" would come as no surprise to me, right? As it turns out, you'd be wrong.

Because dude, BABIES CRAWL. I mean, I knew Luke crawled and it necessitated some level of baby-proofing, although we didn't do nearly as much as we could (should?) have because, um, we're lazy. And because we're constantly watching him and it's a small apartment and I mean, we moved all the truly dangerous stuff like the scissors and the sewing needles (once we realized that it was utterly useless to try to teach him not to open the sewing drawer, that is...)

But up until now, Other Baby did not crawl. Well, he kinda did, but he didn't get very far, so usually, I chased after Luke and Other Baby just sort of hung out in one spot and figured out brilliantly genius things like How To Put Together The Shape Puzzle. (Can I just say that Other Baby is going to be High School Valedictorian someday? Because people, he's not even 9 months old and he can already put in the circle and the square. On a puzzle made for TWO-YEAR-OLDS.)

As of today, however, Other Baby crawls. A lot. And of course, today was my long day with him, so my afternoon went something like this:

-Chase down Luke, who is busily splashing in the dog water bowl. Return him to the living room, only to realize that Other Baby is nowhere in sight.
-Have a half panic attack, then realize he's getting into the recycling. Bring him back. Now, Luke is gone.
-Look around, spot him crawling off into the office to push the button on the computer that opens up the CD drawer thing (By the way, McMoose, THANK YOU SO MUCH for teaching the kid how to do that. It makes my days oh-so-much more fun.) Catch him, tell him we don't touch the computer, bring him back and--can you guess?--Other Baby is gone again.
-Search frantically, find him behind the couch, licking the sliding glass doors (Um. The SAME sliding glass doors that the Dog frequently licks. Ew.) Bring him back.
-Now, both babies are in the same place, but Luke's pants are mysteriously missing. Apparently, he chose today to figure out how to take his pants off, which would be okay except that without pants, he has UNRESTRICTED ACCESS to his diaper. And he crawls around in a tripod position with one hand sticking into the back of his diaper. And I'm sorry, but my son is not going to be THAT KID. So I hunt down the pants and wrestle them onto a kicking, screaming baby.
-Of course, during all of this, Other Baby has vanished again and is soon found attempting to eat 12 pieces of carpet fuzz, which he had apparently been collecting and saving for a mid-afternoon snack.

So. Babies? They crawl.

Month Eleven, Part Two

I think this is the most, um, "relaxed" I've ever been when it comes to posting Luke's monthly pictures. Sorry, folks.

Here he is, modeling his explorer hat:

Trying out a new hairdo:

Another new hairdo:

We went to the Children's Museum this month, where Luke got to sit in a boat:

And splash:

And pretend to be a shark:

And finally, watch out, world! Luke can climb:

The Crazy is Back

Remember how when I was pregnant, I thought I was going to have a two-headed baby? And obviously, if I had a two-headed baby, I'd have to have a c-section, so not only would I have failed the natural birth class we spent HOURS going to each week, I'd also have, you know, major surgery? And then, the doctor on call would probably be drunk and cause all kinds of chaos and maybe cut my fallopian tubes and leave me unable to have any other kids? And then, after all that, we'd have to decide whether we wanted to separate the two heads of the baby, except that there would only be one body, so "separate" would just be a nice way of saying "decapitate one of the heads?" And then, if we *did* separate the heads, one of our baby-heads would die and the other one would be left resenting us for killing his brother, but if we didn't then which head would control the body? Would they take turns? Would we have to work out some kind of schedule? If they were having a fight and it was Head A's turn to control the body, would Head B randomly take control of an arm to use it to slap Head A across the face? And OH MY GOD, WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE MESSED WITH THIS WHOLE HAVING-A-BABY-RUSSIAN-ROULETTE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Yeah. Those were fun times, huh? Luckily, everyone got through it, no one got decapitated, no one had a drunk, fallopian-tube-cutting doctor, and we've spent a very blissful 11 and a half months enjoying our one-headed baby.

But I was lying in bed last night, unable to sleep (as usual), and I started thinking about the things I was afraid of when I was pregnant and I thought, "Gee, I was so silly. What ridiculous fears I had. Goofy, pregnant woman."

And then, I started thinking about how really, we've been so blessed this year because Luke is just such a healthy, happy kid. He's had all of two colds which were annoying at the time, but took care of themselves in time. No ear infections, no antibiotics, no food sensitivities, heck, not even a bad bout of teething yet.

And THEN, I started thinking about how maybe everyone has a quota of illness in their life and if he has had such a healthy first year, maybe it means that he'll have to fill his illness quota later on in life. Maybe it means he'll have the disease that turns people into trees, you know, the one that was on the Discovery Channel a couple of months ago that I didn't want to watch, but I turned to the channel and then couldn't turn away? Or maybe he'll eat some bad pork and end up with a tapeworm in his brain. Or maybe he'll have childhood cancer and need to have chemo and radiation and all his hair will fall out and he won't be able to keep anything down and he'll have to spend his nights all alone in a hospital because they won't let me stay with him.

And THEN! I started thinking about The Secret. You know. The idea that you "call" things to you by thinking about them? And what if that's true and I just called cancer, a brain tapeworm, and the tree disease to my baby?

And then, I pulled the blanket over my head and hyperventilated myself to sleep because GOOD GRIEF, WHO THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO LET ME HAVE A KID?