"That's Not Food!"

If I hear one more person call out, "See you next year!" and chuckle like it's the most original thing they've said in weeks, someone's getting punched in the face. But not by me, my fists are small and weak, like the paws of a handicapped kitten. That might be the kind of thing little Andy will find funny in a couple years (kids have such unsophisticated senses of humor), but it's wearing on me a little thin. With the calendar flipping to 2012 in about 36 hours, I thought this would be a good time to discuss some of Andy's resolutions for the new year. I could write out my own resolutions, but who's really interested in hearing me talk about my fiber needs or the intimate details of my checking account? Everyone, that's who. But this blog isn't supposed to necessarily be about me. I'm just a supporting character here, the teller of tales revolving around a toddler who would gladly drink from the toilet if only we would just allow him h...

And so Christmas is over. After this past week or so of non-stop celebrating, I've come to the conclusion that having this new baby in 2012 is the best possible thing I can do for Andy's ego, which, by now, has basically inflated to the size of a volleyball. (Note: I've decided that standard ego size is approximately tennis ball sized, with more modest people hovering more in the golf ball range.) If Andy receives one more iota of love and affection or one more wrapped gift, I can only assume that his head will burst, creating the kind of tragic mess that will require five jugs of Resolve and ten years of therapy before things are even a little better. This holiday was truly all about Andy. Which is fine- it would kind of lame if we spent all weekend lavishing gifts and praise on, let's just say, me (although, I'll admit that might have been kind of nice), but, at this point, enough is enough. Andy, we all love you- nobody more than me- but at the tender age of 17...

I am done with my first trimester and charging full speed ahead into my second. That's it- a third of this pregnancy is already over. According to the "What Kind Of Food Is Your Fetus If Your Fetus Were A Food?" website, the baby is the size of a peach. A juicy, farm stand fresh Georgia peach. This peach of mine is in the process of forming teeth and vocal cords. I find it incredible that all this magical forming and growing and whatnot is going on somewhere not too deep inside me while I sit here and do something as inane as pick at my cuticles or daydream about Bradley Cooper. Wait, did you say something? Sorry, I was thinking about... cuticles. Due Date This first trimester has been so much different than my first trimester with Andy. The experience of previously giving birth to a textbook perfect, diaper-box adorable little boy has given me a more laid-back perspective this time around. Hey, I did it once, I can totally do it again. When I was pregnant with A...

Let me preface this blog entry by stating that if you are the parent of a toddler, you need to always know where they are, keep the bathroom door closed at all times, or, if for some reason you can't manage to do these first two items, at the very least, always put the toilet lid down. Some of you may see where I'm going. That's called foreshadowing. Good writers use foreshadowing. However, great writers use misdirection, so perhaps you DON'T know where I'm going with this. Nah. I'm a good writer, not a great writer. Andy loves the toilet. He likes to stick his fist in the toilet water and splash happily around. Many days, he's walking around the house with a wet, drippy sleeve of toilet water. The toilet makes him happy, and he'll do whatever he can to get his hand in there- even if I'm already sitting on it, making good use of it. He's recently discovered throwing toilet paper in there, which is a deed I am cautiously encouraging. ...

Andy's going to be a big brother. He's a little boy, practically still a baby, and he's going to be somebody's big brother. He will be just shy of 2 years old when this new baby is born, which raises the question, what the hell was I thinking???? And considering Andy's two greatest interests are biting and hair pulling, I'm pretty sure he's going to be a shitty big brother. Maybe I'm wrong. "We" (as if Chris gets to deal with the weight gain, hormones, sacrifice of wine, birthing process, and then the three solid weeks of wearing a maxi pad the size of a phone book) got pregnant on purpose, but at times it still feels like an accident. Here I am at just over 11 weeks, excited and happy to be pregnant, but also feeling pretty intense pangs of fear at times. I know I'm a pretty rock solid, awesome mother of one, but I feel like the transition of parenting one child to parenting two children is going to be trying. I am worried that I wi...

Bye-bye baba. The pediatrician warned that I had to get Andy completely off bottles by 18 months, otherwise he would grow up to be a lunatic with funky teeth. The pediatrician is very good at making blanket demands without any advice on how to get from point A to point B. When Andy, as a baby, refused to eat his cereals and purees (he basically didn't eat any solids until he was 9 months old), the doctor's wise advice was "Keep trying." As a new parent, this is not what I was looking to hear. Alas, Andy did eventually get the hang of eating, but I wish the doctor had said something like, "Have you tried cheese? This kid looks like he's going to love cheese. Take two tablespoons of Cheez Whiz and call us in the morning." Now that, that would have been some solid doctoring. The doctor made the bottle proclamation at Andy's fifteen month appointment, when I admitted that he still had two bottles, one in the morning and one before bed time. Perhap...

The gap between the words Andy understands and the words he can say is widening on a daily basis. It's alarming how much of what we say to him he actually seems to get, while, in return, he can only nod, shake his head, and say the following: Buh-bye Ball Mama Dada Duh (dog) 'Nack (snack) Yeah More Baba (bottle) Wawa (water) Muh (milk) Nana (banana) No Baby Dinosaur So, that's about fifteen words that my little linguist can say. I just wish there were some verbs in there. I wish he could say "Daddy purchases banana" or "Baby destroys dinosaur." Although, I suppose that "milk" can be a verb. It's possible that Andy's first full sentence could be "Mama milks dogs." But I don't milk dogs, so hopefully Andy won't go around telling his day care peeps that I do. Embarrassing! It's amazing that Andy can only say these fifteen words while he truly understands so many more. I'm starting to realize ho...

Andy's Thanksgiving meal. Thanksgiving would be a wonderful holiday if not for all the football. I spend much of Thanksgiving wishing that the three F's were food, family, and "Frasier." Or "Friends," or any other television show that starts with the letter "F." I can't stand football. I hate it. In a universe filled with boring sports, football is the worst of the worst. When I realized, a couple years ago, that sometimes time went BACK ON THE CLOCK during football games, I almost slit my wrists right then and there. We spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house yesterday, where there were four F's: food, family, football, and flea bags. They have two dogs. Sandy is the more pleasant of the two, and Rusty (which I found out yesterday is short for " Rustino ") is the troublemaker. Rusty has a loud, grating bark that tears through your very soul, and he is quick to jump on you, nip at you, and scratch at your legs. As much a...

"Oh my God," Chris whispered, staring at our son. "This is the greatest thing he's ever done." And there it was, Andy's finest accomplishment to date. We were in a casual restaurant during that depressing hour between lunch and dinner when only the very old and those with babies eat their late meal for the day. I'm not even sure it was five o'clock yet, and the group of senior citizens right behind us were so ancient that they were reminiscing, loudly, about being middle-aged during World War I. Eating out so early on a Saturday evening- technically, let's face it, still afternoon- was one of the many lame habits that we'd picked up since becoming parents, but by this point, we were barely fazed. We wore our lameness with a sort of delusional pride , much like the hunched over lady to our right boasted a lone pink sponge curler on the top of her head. "Wow," I breathed, awed by the actions of my sixteen month old. By this time, ...

If you buy your baby formula, make sure it comes in some sort of container. Andy had formula as an infant. There, I've admitted it. Cast your stones as you feel necessary. Just try not to aim for my face; I am nothing without my looks. I tried to breast feed, I really did. I think I lasted about four weeks and even that was with heavy formula supplementation. Anyway, when I finally gave up and went strictly to formula, it was both the best and worst feeling in the world. Best, because I was relieved to just be done with what for me, had been an awful and horrifying experience. Worst, because I felt like I had failed my child and that DCFS was going to burst through my front door at any moment, declare me unfit to raise a child, throw Andy into a pillowcase, and hustle him out into their waiting van. After Andy was born, and after the birthing room and I had both been sufficiently hosed down, the nurses wheeled me into a recovery room where they neglected to ask if I wante...

With the holidays right around the corner, I've decided to put together a gift guide if you're so inclined to buy Andy a present this Christmas. Why should you have to wander aimlessly around the Dollar General trying to find little Man-drew the perfect gift without some sort of direction? Your discarded junk mail. Planning on throwing that flyer from Bed, Bath, and Beyond in the trash? Well, stop right there- that piece of paper is baby gift gold. A piece of mail is very entertaining to Andy, and he's found a dozen uses for a single sheet of advertisement. He can look at it, rip it, crumple it, put it in his mouth, and hand it to me... and then wait for me to hand it back. We spend entire afternoons sometimes just handling the mail. A balloon. Andy fell in love with balloons sometime around his first birthday, and that love has blossomed into a sort of psychotic obsession. Andy sees a balloon as a trusted, weeklong companion, one that he can drag around the house, ba...

Andy pulls hair. He pulls hair hard, and he doesn't let go. He pulls hair like it's his goal to somehow yank your brain out through your skull, closely examine it, proclaim it a "ball," and then hand it sweetly back to you for a game of catch. He has a surprisingly strong grip for someone with hands the size of kitten paws. He is also adept at getting individual hair strands wrapped around his fingers so that disentanglement rapidly becomes a horrible puzzle that you must solve behind your head while enduring the kind of pain that makes you regret every life decision you've ever made up until that very moment. I have to assume that Andy's not trying to be mean, and that there's a good-natured intention behind the barbaric and, let's face it, shitty act. Perhaps Andy somehow got the impression that savagely pulling a curl of hair was a non-verbal way of communicating, "Let's eat pizza together this Friday." It is true that Andy never see...

Naming another human being is a task that should not be taken lightly. Whatever you name your child is the name that they are stuck with through all of their formative years. In my opinion, the more unique you try to go, the more likely you are to be leaving work early in seven years to go pick up your son who was punched repeatedly on the playground during lunch because someone (you) thought it was a good idea to name him "Gaylord." It wasn't. You screwed up. And that shiner on your kid's eye, that's on you. It seems that girls get a lot more leeway with the unique names than boys do. You can name your daughter "Honeysuckle," and maybe she'll make it out of junior high with only a minor case of anorexia. It'll help if she's super pretty and well liked because of the shininess of her hair and eyes. Kids can be so shallow. But your son Pigeon Nugget is not going to be so lucky. Pigeon Nugget's going to get it pretty good, and he's go...

Look out single ladies of the year 2040- if Andy is still available, let me tell you, he will be quite the catch. I'm predicting it now- my sweet little boy is going to be one phenomenal husband. There are many reasons I'm sure this statement is true. First of all, Andy is very loving. He gives the kind of hugs that drive the Kohl's cashiers wild. Second of all, Andy is destined to be a high earner. Even though his main career interest right now seems to reside in plumbing as opposed to doctoring or lawyering, I hear being a union member can be very lucrative (Christmas present idea: his very own brand new toilet plunger. The brand new part is important here.). Thirdly, Andy is very handsome. He will be even more handsome after I stop haphazardly cutting his hair myself and he grows in the rest of his teeth. But the main reason Andy will be an excellent husband is because of his interest in cleaning. It is fair to admit at this point that, yes, Andy creates way more mes...

There's a lot to be said for the biological clock. It does exist, and it does start ticking. One day, seemingly out of nowhere, its alarm starts going off somewhere between the uterus and the heart, and no matter how hard you try, you just can't seem to find the snooze button. The alarm is annoying. It starts out as a low hum that murmurs, "Maybe you should consider have a baby" and builds to a deafening crescendo that screams so hard at you, it makes you break out into a sweat. "GET PREGNANT NOW," it roars, dispensing with the pleasantries. "YOUR EGGS ARE GOING ROTTEN DOWN HERE." My biological clock seemed non-existent for most of my twenties. I thought that maybe instead of having a clock, I'd been born with a biological blow dryer and one day I'd wake up, look in the mirror at my hair, and say, "THAT'S IT. I'VE HAD IT WITH THIS MESS." In fact, I'm still kind of hoping that I do have a biological blow dryer, becaus...