"That's Not Food!"

About two weeks ago, Andy decided that he no longer wanted to eat while seated in his high chair. This happened out of the blue, and caught me totally off guard. "Dinner time!" I called out to Andy, carrying his plastic plate of miscellaneous food stuff over to his high chair. Normally, Andy would trot eagerly behind me and wait patiently to be lifted up into his regal, if not totally caked in crumbs and various stickinesses, seat at the head of the table. I'll admit thoroughly cleaning off his high chair has not been a post-meal priority for me as of late. Or ever. Perhaps that's why Andy refuses to sit there- sitting in a gritty pool of old graham cracker bits stuck in gummy dots of carrot puree when we haven't bought either of those items in six months may not be the most appetizing setting in which to dine. I carried his plate over to his high chair, but Andy stopped short at the chair next to mine. Looking up at me with his big dark eyes, he pointed insiste...

I'm pretty sure that Andy came down with his first ear infection on the day I bought my new (new to me) car. I'm not saying that the two events are related, but that's the day he first showed signs of not quite being himself. Because I am the fabulous mother that I am, I basically ignored his symptoms and chalked it all up to a minor cold and some major teething. "Molars!" I cried out several times over the next couple days, shaking my fist skywards. But, first, let's talk about the car issue. Here's the most logical thing a family can do when the wife has pre -quit her job and they are about to survive without her significant, or shall I say significantly adequate, income: Buy a car! It's the only course of action that makes sense in these frugal times! But, hey, before we jump to any conclusions about the placement of our brains being somewhere in our ass areas, let me defend myself. I needed a new car. The Chevrolet Cobalt, while acceptable for th...

Here is a list of a few recent things that I want to remember. None of them long enough to merit a whole blog post- just a couple quick snap shots. Andy loves flap books- picture books where pulling down the flap on the page reveals another picture or some sort of surprise beneath it. He loves them so much that he expects every book to be a flap book, and when I read him plain old regular non-flap books, he scratches at the individual pictures trying so hard to pull down the non-existent flap. "No, Andy," I have to tell him. "It's not that kind of book." He looks up at me with betrayal in his eyes and then scratches at the pages harder, grunting in desperation. On Saturday, Chris and I enjoyed some sparking red grape juice, since I can't enjoy wine (the number one worst thing about pregnancy) in my current condition. Andy was really interested in the grape juice, and Chris gave him a small cup of some to sample. Andy had been sitting in his high chair wi...

Pretty much the first thing we saw on our ultrasound last week was a penis. Baby was not shy about showing off his junk, and he seemed to do so with a sort of amniotic pride. I had been preparing myself for months that Baby 2 was possibly, probably, inevitably going to be a girl, though, and even though Boy was my gender of choice- right then and there, hearing that I was having another boy, I felt a twinge of... something. Regret? Disappointment? A small dot of sadness? This is it, I thought to myself, hearing the news. As our projected family planning stops at the second child, I'm most likely never going to have a daughter. Sure, I know things can change, accidents happen, lotteries are won, and so forth, but, more than likely, this is my second and last pregnancy. Over the past couple months, I'd convinced myself that this second baby was a girl, and I was really beginning to warm up to the idea. There would be certain relationship aspects that I could share with a daught...

Andy needs a haircut. In fact, Andy's needed a hair cut for about eight months, but I am delaying his first official salon/barber/hair cuttery - atorium hair cut for a couple reasons. One, I'm lazy. Two, I'm cheap. There- lazy and cheap, that about sums me up, along with brilliant and bootylicious , of course. His hair's getting rather wild. I've done damage control for a while now, snipping off locks and pieces here and there as needed. This is usually done in the bath tub, while Andy is engrossed in sucking bath water from the wash cloth, transferring water from one cup to another, or carefully scratching his balls. The problem with this method of hair cutting, though, is that Andy sits facing forward or backward, thus giving me proper access to only side of his head. Therefore, I can snip one side pretty good, but it's much harder to stand up, lean over, and try to match up the other side of his head. The angle is awkward, and it's just not a recommend...