My sweet little boy has become more cuddly lately, even when he doesn't seem to be feeling bad. I have enjoyed this immensely. Except this morning as I was leaving daycare. Soon after we arrived, he had nearly vaulted out of my arms in order to get at the other kids and toys, then looked back at me and seemed to realize that I would be leaving in a minute. So he crawled back over to me, I crouched down, and he laid his head on my shoulder for a minute. Soon, though, he was done with me and went off in pursuit of hot oatmeal. Very, very sweet, but I had to block that out as I left. I can't wait to get back to him in a couple hours.
His latest noise sounds like doey doey doey doey- kind of like Joey Joey Joey Joey. It's very cute. Also, sometimes, when I sing the na-na-na-na song, he will sing na-na-na-na-na back at me. This complicated song goes, na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, hey hey hey, good bye. You know that song.
And now my rant about calcium tablets. Why on earth do suppliant companies think that it's soooooo freakin' important to make sure to get all your daily calcium in one huge pill? I hope they realize how many women don't get their daily requirements of calcium simply because they hate taking the actual pills. Last night, for the first time in nearly a year, I tried to take my calcium horse pill while paying attention to something else. Sure enough, I choked, couldn't get air for a second, finally coughed it up, accidentally chewed it, and my mouth was filled with this horrible chalk. I HATE THAT!!! I mean really hate that. I've spent I don't know how long in front of the calcium section a the drugstore trying to figure out how big the tablets actually are. But you never really know until you crack that bad boy open. Then you're stuck with $7 worth of pills you don't want. For a while, I would try to read the label to see how many I should take during one day. If I have to take more than one per day, chances are good that the pills are smaller.
Calcet has recently started selling Calcet Petites which I just found out while writing this huge rant. The price per day is ludicrous , but here I am thinking about buying some. The extra cheap version I have at home was like $7 for 100 huge pills, one pill per day. This Calcet Petites are nearly $10 for 100 pills, take 6 per day. Seven cents per day compared to 56 cents per day.
All this to make sure my bones bounce 50 years from now. Yeah, that's right, this little investment will pay off somewhere between 40 and 50 years from now.
*ding*
My baby boy is in the process of weaning himself. As a result, I'm pumping a pitiful amount of milk each day and no where near the amount he's typically drinking at daycare. He's not quite one year, but I've started mixing my breast milk with whole milk to make up the difference. I just refused to supplement with formula when my daddy was raised on cow's milk with corn syrup added and he turned out just fine.
I regularly read Amalah and absolutely love her hysterical writing style. Today, I visited her Advice Smackdown and found this bit about transitioning your child from breast milk to something else at one year. Go read her whole answer if you like, but I have to quote this paragraph because it is so freakin' funny and so applicable to my life right this second. She's so down to earth while also making sure to take care of her kids. Enjoy!
First of all, a heart congratulations and heartfelt FISTBUMP on breastfeeding exclusively for so long.
Second of all, yes. You’re totally overthinking this, but I do understand why. Please though, for your own future long-term sanity as a mother, try to steer yourself away, FAR FAR AWAY, from the “I will taint or damage my daughter if I ever let anything less-than-optimal pass her lips” thing. Trust me, that line of thinking is a one-way street to McNeuroticVille, with a side of annoying everybody else, and will probably result you spending a ton of time and money on things that may only offer a slight nutritional benefit over something else, but meanwhile your brain is all KERFFFLLLBBTTTZZZ, so what’s the point?
Eustis limped out of the discount store with his bag of socks in his hand.He got back to his car and collapsed sideways in the front seat. He threw his bag to the passenger floorboard and jerked off left loafer. He carefully examined the top toes of his shoe. He was glad to see there were no punctures.He stuck his fingers inside to see if the leather was damaged from the inside. Sure enough, it was. Next time, he might punch a hole in his loafer all together. Sometimes a little notice would help!He should be paying more attention. “That’s what I get for rushing around on my lunch hour,”he said to himself with disgust. After rubbing his sore foot for a minute, he got out a new sock, re-shod himself, and returned to the office and a bottle of pain killers.
At the wife’s insistence, he went and bought his own replacement socks at the store – despite the fact that his wife had been at the store the day before. How could he know she was planning a trip on a Tuesday, much less know where she kept her list?
On his lunch hour, he drove the short, but traffic filled, distance over to the store from his office. He stopped and got some lunch in an absurdly long fast food line. He did NOT drop hot sauce on his tie! Haha, what luck!
Meanwhile, a pretty lady in jeans and sneakers was sorting through the boys underwear section looking for the briefs with cartoon characters on them. She could find plenty of those, just not in the right size. No one was much around on a Wednesday in the middle of the day, so she had sat down on the floor to search. In her search, she had made a huge mess on the floor of the shop. She had scattered the wrong packages around her on the floor.The very last package of cartoon characters were the correct size, and with a sense of victory, she held them aloft!
Suddenly, a man came barreling around the corner and nearly tripped on some packages of underwear and knocked straight into her. As he was falling, he tried to catch himself on her while trying not to hurt her as well.He grabbed her wrist with the underwear on his way down.He landed pretty softly on the scattered (and formerly organized) piles of boys underwear. His shoe seemed to have fallen off in the process.
They both started apologizingas soon as they got over the shock. Amazingly, she still had the correct package in her hand and quickly put it in her basket before it got lost again. The man seemed to think he had made the mess and started trying to pick up the strewn packages. Then he noticed his left foot. His shoe was off, his foot hurt, and there were foot long toenails amongst the clutter on the floor. He stopped and looked at her.
He looked at her closely. She didn’t appear to be poor or abused, or needy in any way. She was still hurriedly stacking the packages. He was just going to have to ask.
“What do you need that you haven’t got?” he asked.
She was still busy cleaning up her mess. “What?” she asked with a laugh.
“I’m in a rush today and short on time, so I just have to ask: What do you really need that you haven’t got?”
She became very still. She’d heard about things like this. In Guidepost magazine types of stories, where God provided from unexpected places.What the heck, she thought, why not.
She stared into his unwavering gaze. He seemed serious. “An engine block and new brakes,” she said.
His brow creased in thought.No way one set of nails could do all that.Three sets might.
“OK, this is completely bazaar, but you have absolutely nothing to lose, OK?”
“Ok?” she said cautiously.
“I have way to provide those two things for you, and you’ll just have to believe me. Because you need things that are so large, I can’t give you demonstration here in the store.”
Puzzled, she said, “I also need a second package of these,” holding up the cartoon underwear skeptically.
“OK good. You see these long nails?” he said picking them up. “They can turn into things that you really need. Here, take one nail in your hand, and say ‘cartoon underwear size x’ for whatever size you need.”
It seemed a bit odd, but she did it. “Cartoon underwear size 4.” The nail suddenly melted in her hand, flashed, and became an identical package of underwear.Her mouth fell open.She looked at the other four nails in his hand and started thinking.
Eustis noticed that the labeling was identical on the packages, meaning that she would have to pay for the underwear at the register. “Can you afford those?”
“What? Oh yes, we can afford necessary clothes for the kids, but we can’t really afford a new engine block for one car, and new brakes for the other right now.That’s a lot of dough at once, you know? How did you do that? And why toe nails?”
“I don’t know why it works, I just know that it works.But there’s no way that four nails will pay for all that. Here, shake my ha…. wait a sec.”He looked at his sock, but the first batch of nails had already shredded his sock when it shot his shoe off his foot. “Oh never mind. Here, shake my hand.”
She gave him a wild look, and held out her hand. As soon as their hands touched, she watched the nails on his left foot suddenly grow a foot and then snap off by themselves. As soon as they snapped off, another set started to grow.Those grew to about 12 inches and snapped off. Then they grew another 8 inches and snapped off.They both kept staring at his socked foot, but it seemed to have stopped.
She let go of his hand. “OK, now what?” she asked, taking it all for granted.
He got out his hanky, thankfully clean if a bit stained, and wrapped all the nails up in his hanky. He handed them to her.“When you’re at the mechanic, and once you know exactly what you need, hold a bunch of these in your hand and request the parts you need. If nothing happens, put more nails in your hand and try again. Keep adding nails until you see the melting and flashing and then make sure you don’t drop the parts on your own foot! You might want to do it at the mechanic’s so you don’t have to try to transport an engine block.”
A slow grin and relief spread across her face. “OK, how can I ever thank you for this?”
“You can point me to the men’s sock section.” She turned and pointed asking for his size. “14,” he said.
“Really?! That’s one big foot. Umm…” she started flinging wrong sized packages on the floor with the rest of the mess. He watched with amusement as a shower of socks surrounded them..
“Is this always how you shop?” he asked with a chuckle.
“No, but it’s the most effective today, it seems….HERE! Here’s your size. One pack or two?”
“Two! You can tell I’m going to need them! Thanks!” he said with a smile. He turned to race back to the checkout while looking at his watch.
“WAIT!” she called. He turned to look at her. She shoved a package of handkerchiefs at him, saying “You’re going to need these, too. What do you call yourself? My husband will want to know.”
“Thanks! You’re right. Call myself? My wife calls me Captain Daggerfoot when I shred my socks like this.”
The lady looked at her son’s cartoon underwear, and the hanky full of nails and said, “Captain Daggerfoot it is then!”
He smiled. As he raced away, he heard her say, “Captain Daggerfoot” the same way he remembered hearing “Captain Cave Mwaaaaaaawaaan!” on cartoons growing up.
Mid-Process was funny looking: And the After: Last night, I was combing out my hair in order to braid it before bed. At 10pm, I was ticked off that, once again, it took me 30 stinkin' minutes to just comb out my hair. So while I was still annoyed by that, I decided to cut it NOW! Hubby was amenable to cutting my hair for me. There's two aspects of that: he was amenable to me having "shorter" hair and also was willing to do the cutting. Not that I have to have permission to cut my hair, or anything, but I didn't want us to possibly BOTH be upset that it's shorter.
And I love that it's shorter!!! I love that I can run my fingers through it now! It's not too long to do that now. My hair was nearly longer than my arm, which is ridiculous. I love how light it feels. I love that I can swing it back and forth.
So now I have two braids in my bathroom. I have not decided yet if I'm donating it or selling it. So don't ask!
Here's my guy on a better day than he had yesterday. When I picked him up yesterday (20 minutes later than usual), Priscilla's husband said something like "oh thank goodness you're here!" Hmmm...that doesn't bode well. Apparently he had been crying for 30 minutes or more, 20 of that on his watch, and even Priscilla couldn't figure out what was wrong. Not good when Priscilla can't figure out what's wrong - she's the pro! And a nice layer of guilt for me since I had been at home visiting my husband for those 30 minutes.
He was sitting in a Johnny jump up - one of those things you attach to a door frame and he can bounce up and down. He was pitifully sobbing, and doing that diaphragm spasm thing every few seconds. I picked him up and he cuddled into my shoulder immediately. Also not a good sign. My baby boy is not the cuddly type and will only lay his head on my shoulder when he's really tired or really feels like crap. So I just held him for a while out in the parking lot and seriously thought about breaking the law and cuddling him in the front seat during the 3 mile drive back to the house. He fell asleep in the carseat within 2 blocks of us leaving the daycare.
Once home, we nursed and cuddled and rocked, and gave him some Advil at 5:45. We pried his little mouth open and felt of his gums. Looks like a tooth on each side of the "eye teeth" on the bottom are coming in. When I touched them, he went into orbital shrieks. Even while nursing and all cozied up, he would still have those diaphragm spasms.
At 6:15, completely asleep, he was still having diaphragm spasms. I had Hubby call the choir practice babysitter and cancel for the night. I wasn't going to go to choir at 7pm with my baby still basically crying in his sleep! And I knew even as Hubby called her that Quint would miraculously feel better at 7pm.
And he did! At 6:58pm, he woke up, sat up, and struggled to get down to his toys. We finally fed him dinner and he even laughed a little. But at nearly 8pm sharp (the end of choir practice) he started getting whimpery again and I put him down for bed at 8:15. He went down without a whimper and here at 5:30 am, still has not made a peep. I'm up because I HAD TO PUMP!
Even though he felt absolutely horrible, I really really enjoyed getting to cuddle my little boy last night. He slept in my arms for over an hour and that never happens. I do sometimes enjoy being the only one who can make it better.
Maybe I'll try to go back to bed. But I bet he'll wake up as soon as I get all spooned up with Hubby, or drift off. You know, Murphy's Law and all.
______
I did get back to sleep! Delicious sleep too.
As Quint and I were getting him ready for daycare, I pulled out a stool and sat him on it to put on his shoes and socks. He started to get down and I said, "just sit there for a minute, Honey, so I can put on your shoes and socks." I swear he said, "OK"! Alright, so it sounded more like Oh-gay, but he stayed put, even while I put my shoes on. I said he could get down now, and he slowly inched his booty off the little stool until his feet touched.
If anyone else in Tennessee loves Sue Grafton novels (Kinsey Milhone series), I'd love to email you back and forth. I'd love to visit Santa Barbara one day and visit all the code name streets in the book. I suspect the Cabana Blvd in the book is Cabrillo Blvd for instance. I'd love to visit the bird refuge (oddly located near the 101) and walk her jogging route.
On another note, our little boy is quite the sleeper. Last night we put him down for his 7pm nap, which is usually about 30 or 45 minutes. He woke up at 10 pm, nursed a bit, and gave me the body language that says, "lay me back down" so I put him back to bed. He nursed again at 3 or 4, but slept through until 7am! That's 12 hours of sleep my little man got.
We expect a growth spurt at any time now. I guess I should mark his height on the door facing downstairs like tonight!
I've got a bunch of supplies for my scrapbook project. I choose a 12x12 inch scrapbook with a 3 ring binder. This morning, I put all the stuff with dates in date order. I've got one picture I need to print of seamen sleeping in hammocks - Bob isn't pictured, but he makes reference to the hammocks in his letter. I've got a pile of page protectors and a package of "black refills". Neither package is enough for the whole project, but I really don't want a lot of left overs from this project. If I finish it this weekend, I can send it to the family reunion in September! Right now, that seems possible. We'll see once I get into it tonight.
Ok, I loved that video that I included the other day so much that I watched it like 20 times at work. I could visit my son while I was at work! So here's another video.
Quint got a new push/ride toy this weekend. Instead of paying $37.54 (Walmart) or $50 (Amazon) I found it on craigslist, within 10 miles of me, for $10! And the guy was so grateful that I was taking it off his hands, that he gave me another push/ride toy. So I basically got it for $5! I love craigslist! I'll have better pictures of it later, I'm sure, seeing how he absolutely beams when he's pushing it.
Last night, just before bed, he was pushing it around and when he would run into a wall, he would cry because it wouldn't go anymore. So I started readjusting it every time he'd run it into a wall. In this way, we went all the way around the dining table multiple times, traveled that big stretch between the pantry and the fireplace, turned around and came back, rounded the dining table, and then went from there to the front door. Over and over again. I figured out how to attach reins to that lion's head and things got better.
Non-family members should completely ignore the following paragraph: Quint's birthday is coming up! If you're wondering what our little guy might "need" in the coming year, I've thoughtfully included a list on a separate page on this blog. It's at the bottom of the right hand column of the blog page.
Seeing how I think there is a snowball's chance in you know where that Hubby will read this, I'm going to let everyone in on a project I'm doing for his Christmas.
My mother-in-law sent me a crumbling old scrapbook of Hubby's grandfather's WWII experience. I've started separating the articles from the quickly disintegrating paper and learning how to preserve them properly.
So, first step is un-sticking them. Second step is scanning them into the computer. Third step is deciding how I want to preserve them (will everything go into protective sleeves, or should I re-mount some one sided things? Should I organize things by date, or keep the original order?) Fourth step is actually creating a scrapbook out of the nearly 70 year old pieces of paper. Fifth step is making a digital scrapbook with all the pieces so other people can have a less delicate copy.
The separating and scanning have to be done at home while Hubby is not home and Quint is asleep. I'm not hauling my computer and printer to work to scan them in while I stay late to work on this. After that messy process, I can do the rest at work (not on the clock of course). I'll be able to store all the parts and supplies in a box, spread them all out on a conference table, and re-store them all pretty easily.
So far, I've spent exactly $12 on supplies for the project and haven't wasted any money so far! I've used a fancy spatula to un-stick glue and I've bought a new exacto knife. I'm halfway through unsticking them and probably only a quarter (or less) of the way through scanning them.
But here's some fun pictures from what I've scanned so far. If you click on the images, the computer will give you a bigger version that you can read. Click the back button on your browser to get back to the blog. Don is on the left and Bob is on the right. These three are of the same image. On the old scrapbook page, someone had labeled this photo Mr. Adams. Here's some photos for genetic comparison. And the eyes have it!
The following ridiculous tale is fiction. Any resemblance to real people or places is purely coincidental.
"Honey?" she says.
"Yeah?" he says from down the hall and around the corner.
"What happened to all your socks?"
Long pause.
"What?!" he says, as if he couldn't hear.
"WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL YOUR SOCKS?" she shouts.
"What do you mean?" he says.
"What do you think I mean, Captain Daggerfoot?" she mutters and walks down the hall to confront him.
"Six months ago, I bought you 12 pair of new, identical black socks and now I can only find 7 socks like those. What happened to the other 17 socks?" she asks, holding up a sock.
"Um, I don't know. The dryer ate them?" he says while still playing his video game.
She reaches over and presses pause for him. "Look at me. Have you been using your toenails to help out downtrodden women again?"
He swivels his chair to face her and says, "Honey, they really seemed to be in need! The one yesterday had a baby the same age as Quint?! She couldn't buy milk! What was I supposed to do?!" he asks with hands raised in question.
"You were supposed to take off your sock first, that's what!" she says, shooting daggers of her own with her eyebrows.
"Right, like that's not going to draw attention in the middle of the dairy section of Kroger. A man in a suit taking off his loafer and sock in the grocery store is subtlety itself, much less the flash of light that follows."
"Hmph... well... you could have ducked into that doorway that's right there," she concedes.
“You know I have to be in contact with them for it to work,” he says, his voice gentling. “Would you rather have a husband who can see a woman in need and NOT provide for them, even if it costs us some extra socks?” He touches her arm, trying to make her understand.
She heaves a sigh, “Of course I want you to help them. I just get tired of buying new socks. At least the seven remaining socks can still form 3 pair. That’s why I buy so many pairs just alike when I buy you socks. That way, the orphans can still be used. It is really hard to find socks big enough for you, though.”
“I know,” he says, “but I’ve got a wonderful wife that could probably find somewhere online to buy large size black bulk socks.”
“Hmm… you might be right,” she says as she goes back to the laundry.
“Oh,” she pauses, an amused smile on her face, “how did she smuggle the milk out this time?”
He chuckles to himself, “the label was printed in Korean this time. No way they had it on the shelf at Kroger.”
“You’re kidding?!” she laughs.
“Yep! The only English on that thing were the words “Vitamin D milk”. I couldn’t believe it myself! That’s a first!”
The day before, Eustis was popping in to Kroger at his wife’s request to pick up yogurt, crystal light, whole milk and 2%. He had collected the chips, Dean’s dip, crystal light, diet Ginger ale, and yogurt when he saw her.
She was neatly dressed and obviously fresh from the office. She had a 3 year old boy by the hand, and a year old girl in the cart. The little girl had blond ringlets and was sucking her thumb. The boy had brown sandy hair and was a little wide eyed staring at all the cheeses. She let go of the boy’s hand to dig through her purse. She pulled out a calculator and her change purse. First, she added up a few figures, obviously prices displayed in front of her, and then added the tax. Saying the number out loud to the boy, she asked the boy to remember the number. Then she started silently counting out her cash and change into the boy’s cupped hands.
As she counted, Eustis examined them more closely. Her suit was clean and pressed, but was wearing thin at the cuffs and collar. The kids clothes were pretty clean for the end of the day, but with obvious hand stitched repairs in places. The boy’s pants had had patches on the knees for a while.
“Mama, can I have string cheese in my lunches?” the little boy asked.
She finished counting out the change and dug through the bottom of her purse looking for more change. “No, baby, not this week. But you can have the sharp cheddar you like instead of the mild. Would you like that?”
His shoulders fell a fraction, but he said, “OK, Mama.”
She noticed that Eustis was watching and listening. “I’m out of lunch makings at home and the kids have to take their lunches to daycare every day.” She explained while searching for more change. “We’ve got too much month left for the money. The food stamps have even run out.”
The little boy was distracted and dropped a coin or two. Eustis bent down to get it and touched the boy’s hand as he gave it back. During the connection, Eustis suddenly knew that the kid’s dad was around but away on a business trip right now. He saw a flash of a happy home with a sparse pantry.
Eustis nervously glanced around. There were quite a few people in the dairy section right then. Twenty feet away, someone digging through the frozen pizzas suddenly had all the pizzas slide off the shelf toward them, sending pizzas flying everywhere. Everyone stopped to stare and/or help with picking them up.
Now was Eustis’ chance! He slipped off his left loafer and touched the woman on the wrist. She looked up at his face quizzically, and then his foot. His toenails were in the process of growing right before their eyes. The sharp, dagger points broke through his sock. The nails grew and snaked out across the floor, a foot from the end of his toes. With a flash of light, they suddenly snapped and broke off. He picked one up off the floor, held it in his hand, and said quite clearly, “gallon of whole milk”. The huge, pointy toenail quickly melted into a blob, and then reformed itself into a gallon of milk.
He looked back at the little family. All three mouths were hanging open. He handed the mother the gallon of milk, which she dumbly took without thinking. Eustis quickly whipped out his handkerchief and picked up the remaining four toenails still lying on the floor. He wrapped up the nails and stuck them in her purse.
“Once you get home, hold them in your hand one at a time and say the name of what you need, including the size, and it will transform. Like "twenty ounce block of sharp cheddar". It will work just like you just saw. Wait until you get home so you won’t have to pay for the groceries,” said Eustis.
While they were still speechless in shock, Eustis grabbed a half gallon each of whole and 2% milk and darted away before the woman could recover or the pizza distraction was cleared. The boy recovered quicker. He said, “I wonder if the milk will taste like toejam?”
Eustis calls down the hall to his wife, "oh and Honey?"
And the eyes have it!
