Eating to Live

I was a picky eater as a child. I mean a really, really picky eater. As in, here is a complete list of what I would eat: eggs, white rice, yogurt, idlis (an Indian breakfast food). The end. Four things. For YEARS. There were times, here and there, when I'd try something different--chicken, ground beef, fish--but for the most part, I subsisted on the above list. And clearly, I grew. I'm fine. I don't have rickets or scurvy or pica. I now eat more than four things. Heck, I even eat my veggies, as long as it's not in the form of a salad (because silly humans! Salads are for rabbits!)

As for McMoose? He claims to have eaten cleaned his plate as a child. As an adult, however, he refuses carrots, sweet potatoes, beets, spinach, salads (can't blame him there), most forms of avocado, mangoes, and although he'll eat other veggies and fruits if pressed, he doesn't generally gravitate towards them.

So of course, I was thrilled when Luke ate everything. And even better? He ENJOYED everything. Fruits, veggies, cheese, bread, whatever--he was an equal opportunity eater. And then, he turned one and realized, apparently, that he has choices. And now, he's all "Hm...I don't care for that....this has an odd flavor....I don't believe I want to eat today." Yesterday? He ate 2 bananas, a container of applesauce, 2 spoonfuls of oatmeal, 3 crackers with hummus, and some cauliflower. All day. That was it. A month ago, he would have easily eaten twice that and then tried to mooch off my plate.

I'm hoping that this is a phase that passes QUICKLY because there are few things as annoying as spending an hour cooking a meal that you THINK someone will enjoy, only to have that person inspect the food you hand them for 2 seconds and then toss it to the Dog. (The Dog, by the way, is THRILLED with this new development.)

The Search Is On...Kind Of

Ever since Thanksgiving, I've been meaning to find a baby-sitter so that McMoose and I could, at some point, have dinner conversation that didn't involve the phrase "Please don't put food in your eyes." In fact, we even had an interview scheduled with a friend of a friend (or rather, an acquaintance of an acquaintance), but she stood us up at the last minute, which led McMoose to label her Unfit To Care For His Child. Finally, last week, I got around to posting a job description on the career services website of the local university and man, those students are on task! I've already received several email from people asking if we've filled the position yet. (Um...I posted the thing on Friday...it's now Sunday...of COURSE I haven't filled the position yet.)

Except have I mentioned? McMoose is paranoid. And not just in the slightly-quirky-but-still-rational kind of way, but rather in the over-the-top-cannot-be-reasoned-with kind of way. For example:

Me: Hey, here's an email that sounds promising. She's an elementary school teacher, has lots of references, and is looking for part-time work because she and her husband are saving up to adopt a baby!
McMoose: So in other words, she's going to kidnap our baby.

And as we all know, I have some experience with ridiculous paranoia myself, so then, THEN, the thought gets implanted in MY head and in the midst of my fantasies about maybe being able to go out for ice-cream without worrying about healthy menu options for Luke, I start thinking that what if we DO end up with a psycho baby-sitter who gives us fake references and then runs off with Little Bug at the first opportunity? Or what if we leave him and he cries the entire time and thinks we've abandoned him and then grows up to be an evil dictator and blames it all on us? Or what if he chokes on something and the baby-sitter doesn't know the Heimlich? (Of course...I don't really, exactly, specifically know the Heimlich either...but that's beside the point.) And while I'm sitting here, imagining all kinds of ridiculously unlikely scenarios, McMoose has happily moved on and is playing video games.

And this is EXACTLY why we're no closer to finding a baby-sitter than we were six months ago.

Babies

Earlier this week, I went to my first movie, post-Luke. You'd think that after having spent the past 12 months constantly looking at a baby, I'd have had my fill, but what movie did I go to? Babies.

If you haven't heard about this movie, it's a kind-of documentary that follows four babies from four different countries around for their first year of life. To be perfectly honest, I expected the movie to be kind of boring. I mean, there's very little dialogue, what with the main characters being non-verbal and all and how interesting could it be to spend 90 minutes looking at short clips of strange babies? Turns out: very.

There are so many child-rearing conventions that are taken for granted: don't let your kids eat rocks because they will choke to death. Don't leave your baby alone near water because babies can drown in as little as an inch of standing water. Don't leash your baby to the bed because (a) they could strangle on the rope and (b) they might start believing themselves to be a dog and then, they'd start licking themselves in rude places and how are you going to explain that to the family?

But as it happens, all of these rules are cultural, as shown by the genius (seriously, genius) editing of this movie. It was funny (not necessarily ha-ha funny) to see the differences between the concerns of the parents in the two developed countries versus in the developing countries. It was funny (ha-ha funny) to see all four of the babies acting like...well...babies, regardless of whether they were wearing a loin cloth or a designer onesie. All in all, it was a great choice of a first movie AND it made me appreciate my baby all the more when I got back home.

Sweet, Little Lies

I took Luke and Other Baby to the playground today because there was a Very Gross Incident involving Other Baby and cat vomit and we just needed to get out of the apartment and get a new lease on the day. It's been raining here recently, so the sandbox was pretty pool-like and all the sensible moms must have kept their kids home today because it was just us and one other mom with her two kids. Her younger child was about Luke's age and they were completely fascinated with each other, so the mom and I started talking while Luke and her daughter "played" together (ie- the little girl would pat Luke on the face, he'd giggle and run away, then he'd pat her on the face and she'd run away, etc.)

Other Mom: How old is he? (Referring to Luke)
Me: He just turned 1 a couple of weeks ago. How old is your daughter?
OM: She just turned 1, too. She just started walking.
Me: Yeah, he did too.
OM: Is he walking yet? (Referring to Other Baby, who was in the sling because it was too wet for him to be crawling around.)
Me: Oh, no, not yet.
OM: Are they twins?
Me: No, this one is my friend's baby.
OM: Are you sure?
[Um...seriously? Am I sure that there was only one baby in my uterus? Am I sure I didn't *accidentally* give birth to two instead of one? Am I sure that I only have one baby living in my house? YES, I'M SURE!]
Me: Uh...yeeeaaahhhh...
OM: Because they look like twins.
[No. No, they don't. Except for the fact that they are both male children with brown-ish hair and blue eyes, they do not, in fact, look anything like each other.]
Me: Huh.
OM: So...they're not twins?
Me: No.
OM: Really?
Me: Okay, yeah. They're twins.
OM: They are? (With a delighted look on her face)
Me: Sure.

I'm not proud of lying. But it just made her so damn HAPPY to think that they were and who am I to deny her that (very weird) joy? And also, do these conversations happen to other people? Ever? Or am I just a magnet for Weird?

A Good Morning

Lately, Luke has been sleeping until 6 or 7 (or 8 or 9) in the morning without waking up, which has been kind of amazing. Mind you, it has made no difference whatsoever in the amount of sleep that I get because as he's gotten better at sleeping through the night, I've moved my bedtime back, so I'm still tired and grumpy all the time, it's just that I no longer get to blame it on the baby (um...the toddler?)

Last night, he threw me for a loop and woke up at 4 and then again at 5. And, um, I was kind of, sort of, secretly glad. Shh, don't tell anyone. I'm the person who ENJOYS having her sleep interrupted.

But it's just that he went from sleeping in 4-hour stretches to sleeping in 7 or 8-hour stretches practically overnight and I'm just not used to going that long without seeing him (YES, I know how ridiculous that sounds.) AND when he used to wake up in the middle of the night, we used to just bring him back to bed with us and then I got to cuddle a little, warm body for the rest of the night and now, I have no excuse to do that anymore. People, it had been DAYS since I've gotten to cuddle with a sleeping baby and that is just unacceptable, especially when there's a baby conveniently located in the apartment who sleeps fairly often. So when he woke up at 5 and I got to bring him back to bed for the next two hours, it totally made my day. (Even though he then proceeded to spend most of those two hours kicking and twisting in his sleep and generally acting like a crazy fool.)

High and Dry

The week before Luke's birthday party, McMoose and I had a TON of work to do to (a) get the apartment presentable and (b) get all the food and supplies ready for the party. So of course, chores that didn't contribute to one of the above two goals got postponed. Chores, for example, like the laundry. Now we generate a fair bit of laundry each week, what with the baby clothes and the adult clothes and the bathroom mats that the cats often pee on and the diapers, so even under the best of circumstances, it usually results in about 4 loads per week and it can be hard to keep up with it. So last Monday, after all our guests had left, I was so looking forward to spending a good two days taking care of all the laundry for the past week, as well as the sheets and towels that the guests had used and the new clothes that Luke had gotten for his birthday. I started, as usual, with a load of diapers.

I should mention here that when we got our washer and dryer, we picked out the cheapest ones that money could buy because I was in grad school, working at a daycare, and routinely neglecting to buy groceries in favor of paying the electric bill and McMoose had JUST started working at IBM full time. And at the time, we weren't living together so we were paying rent and utilities on TWO apartments (one of which was used largely as a storage area) and McMoose had to pretty much feed himself, me, the Dog and both cats.

As it turns out, the cheapest dryer that money can buy usually isn't so great at actually drying clothes, so it usually took a good two hours to do the diapers and at least three to do everything else. So I put in the diapers. One hour later, they were still soaked. Two hours later, they were still soaked. Three hours later, they were not quite soaked, but still really, really damp. Four hours later...are you getting the idea here? Apparently, the heating element had decided that it hated its job and it no longer wished to heat things up. You can imagine my sheer panic when we figured out that this wasn't going to be a quick or easy fix because dude! We had AN ENTIRE CLOSET full of dirty clothes! Dirty clothes were TAKING OVER THE WHOLE WORLD! Pretty soon, they would BLOCK OUT THE SUN and then, human civilization WOULD BE OVER! All because I had put off the laundry for a week.

Luckily, we were able to manage for a week because (a) we used the apartment complex laundromat for one load of must-haves, (b) we re-used a lot of pants, (c) I don't even want to TALK about underwear, and (d) we hung up a load of diapers on every hang-able surface in the apartment. And bright and early this morning, our NEW DRYER got here. *Insert joyous celebration here!* People, our new dryer has lights and music and a bazillion different settings and a sensor that stops it if the clothes are dry so you don't waste energy and the thing that I'm most excited about: a CHILD LOCK. So Luke can push all the buttons he wants without messing with the settings. Is it possible to be in love with an appliance? Because I totally think I'm falling for this dryer. (I shall call him Moe.)

Twelve Month Pictures

Pushing his car around at a park. Hard to believe that just a few short weeks ago, he couldn't walk outside without holding onto something.

Luke-in-a-box:

(Very) early college prep:

I think it's pretty safe to say he has blue eyes...