i resolve to get this hat off

t2 doesn't give up. i like that about him.
i'm thinking about the new year today. that means i'm thinking about my new year's propositions. we don't resolve anymore, we just propose.
i think this year instead of doing more, i'm going to do less. i already have a few layers that aren't quite right (the layer of leftover baby jiggle, for instance, in the midrift area), so it's proably best to work on things i've already done that need undoing rather than finding more undone to do.
wait, i'm confused.

thank you, santa

well, it's official. we have more noise making toys than anyone on our block. probably anyone in our neighborhood. possibly anyone in santa monica.
blingdigy, blink, blang, bling, bling, bling was pretty much the sound of t2's christmas. as for how it looked - lots and lots of paper, lots and lots of primary colored plastic and lots and lots of smiles. he loves every single thing he got. tayloe the dad and i are like two little kids playing with him & all his new toys.
brother/uncle geoff gets top prize for most annoying toy(s).
do you know geoff emery? maybe you do - he's the guy who tells his 10-year-old little brother to never, ever, no matter what let go of the tow rope when he falls water skiing and then laughs himself to tears watching said little brother get dragged around the rappahannock river.
he gets a sick, twisted delight in seeing others suffer. this is why i like him.
he really did it up with two blinking, moving noise makers. one is this box that weeble wobbles and sings and lights up. except tayloe and i can't figure out what it's saying. what it sounds like is, "my balls are magical, they wiggle and jiggle," which, i mean, completely and totally cracks us up, especially because the baby FREAKIN LOVES IT. we've listened to it like 1 million times, hoping that we're just hearing it wrong.
the other uncle g toy was this rolling ball that blinks and sings and rolls around. if you ignore it for a while, it eventually says, "hhheeeeyyy, come play with me. i'm over here!" isn't that sad? and also very funny?

five months

how could i forget. t2 was five months old today.
i love every minute of it, except when his little baby fist is clinched tightly around my hair and he yanks. and i don't really love it when he spits up down my back.
other than that, it's pure bliss.

c is for christmas

i'm just not sure who's more excited about christmas at our house. actually, that's a lie. i know its tayloe and i. of course t2 has no idea what's going on. he has no idea i hit the proverbial trumpette sock jackpot at the thrift store - seriously, i got like 15 pairs for less than $5 - or that i found the COOLEST wooden box toy thinger that he's way too young for but that he's going to love in a few short months or that there's a very special, very soft surprise for him under the tree. ooooohhhh, i can't wait, i can't wait, i can't wait.
it's been the most fun getting presents and decorating and thinking about all of the wonderful things we're going to eat.
and i have to tell you this - t1 and i are sitting in our living room with only the christmas tree and 'the sound of music' on. did you know t1 loves, LOVES, musicals? it's the funniest and sweetest thing.
so i'm going to shut this down and savor the moment.
ho ho ho.
oh, and i posted some new photos on flickr. can you believe how big he's getting?

christmas gift

did i post this picture? i can't remember.
tayloe and i had a date tonight, an early christmas present to each other. we left t2 with mirna our babysitter -- we had a delicious dinner at the lodge, lots of good conversation and got home at 9:30 totally sacked out and ready for bed.
we boh are amazed at this place in our lives. how far away are the days when stayed out until 4 a.m. seeing bands or slept in the backseat of our tiny sabb next to an 80 lb lab at a rest stop in pennsylvania or camped on the highway in miserable traffic in the pouring rain en route to see phish. (eeewww, that phish trip was especially miserable).
i get why people say having a baby changes your life and then don't ever seem to really be able to elaborate or explain themselves. i can't explain why all those times seem so far and also so near. we're in the backseat, tayloe and me, and the best we can really do is enjoy the view and tell the driver to slow down every once and a while.
moving on ...
sssooo, i can't even watch cnn because the story about the three mountain climbers on mt. hood just keeps breaking my freakin heart. the mother who said all she could think about was her boy cold and starving in an ice cave? ... owie. it hurts.
and speaking of hurting, i think t2 is cutting his two front teeth (all i want for christmas is ...). he has two little lumps on his gums and is grouchier than usual. wouldn't it be cool if they came in by christmas? i don't know one single thing about baby teeth - how long does it take once you can feel them and see little while lumps on his gummy gum gums? do i have a couple of nightmare nights ahead of me? i'm clueless.
and speaking of clueless, t1 and i just remembered that this time last year we were gearing up for our 3 month appointment, the first time we got a glimpse at t2 and heard his little heartbeat (wha-whom wha-whom wha-whom) and were able to confirm that we were in fact going to have a baby. now that little baby is sound asleep in the next room, his heart still wha whoomping soft and sweet in his dinosaur pjs.
WEIRD.

is this really us?

oh, friends. it's ugly.

one-on-one

we've been playing a man short since wednesday because tayloe had to go to dc. fatigue is setting in a little. i wish the coach would bench me. the orange slices i ate at half time seem years and years away. i'm gonna need some serious whirlpooling once this is over.
johnny taylor is grabbing at things like crazy and putting everything - EVERYTHING - in his mouth.
what's this?
it's soft and crinkly and ... well, i better just eat it.
what's this? it's hard and cold and .... it looks good. i think i'll eat it.
what's this? it's mushy and and wet and .... mmm, i'll eat it.
is it soft or scratchy or fuzzy or round or square? here, mouth. you decide.
i guess if i didn't have full control of my hands, i'd lick everything that was curious to me, too.
meanwhile, i have questions of my own. for instance, i woke up at 3 this morning for no apparent reason wondering if a child with white blonde hair is a toe head, a toehead or a towhead. and then i spent a good half hour wide awake wondering where that expression came from.
From wikipedia:
A towhead is a sandbar or small alluvial island in a river that often features a small grouping of trees.
A towhead also refers to a person with light blond hair. This is based on the hair's resemblance to tow which is coarse or broken flax prepared for spinning.
well imagine that, will ya? it has nothing at all to do with toes. huh.

oh christmas tree

i forgot to post this. we got a tree last week. a regular one. on the way we stopped at starbucks and got hot chocolate even though it was 80 degrees outside. we are nothing if not ceremonious.
said tree is now in our living room covered in colored lights and blue balls. tayloe's been having a really good time calling it the 'blue ball' tree. ok, that's not true. he hasn't called it the blue ball tree one single time. i, however, say it everytime i walk in the living room.
i'll admit i went a little bananas on the blue ornaments. they were on sale at the dollar store.
the dollar store - actually here it's called the 99 cent store, but nobody's foolin' me -- is my new favorite place. yesterday i went to get the spoons and bowls for the baby and also some laundry detergent and lo and behold they also had organic rice cereal, two boxes for ... 99 cents. it wasn't even expired.
the other great thing about the dollar store is the people. the lady who checked out in front of me brought her own shopping cart and had filled the space not occupied by cans and plastic water bottles with food. she had enough grub to feed an army, like 18 grocery bags full, and her bill topped out at 38 bucks.
of course to be a serious 99 cent store grocery store shopper you really gotta like poppycock, squeeze cheese & HiC.
also, cruising the aisles t2 and i saw a man with no arms picking food stuffs off the shelves with his feet. i'm not kidding. he saw what he wanted, pried his shoe off with the non-reaching foot, lifted his bare foot into the air and grabbed a box of cheezits with his toes.
kinda inspiring, right? i thought so, too.
we were in the food aisles because i was excited to find the rice cereal so cheap and so fresh and wanted to see what else they might have. but when i saw the foot shopper i lost my enthusiasm and decided maybe we'd just stick to the soap/baby/christmas aisles and only visit the food aisles if we were feeling really dangerous.
or really sorry for ourselves.
or sad cause we missed the circus.

eating 101

tayloe's commentary is the best. i heart dad.
this really only lasted about a minute. two bites in and he had a small melt down. we'll try again tomorrow morning.
and horray horray, tayloe taught me how to use imovie, so together we snazzied this up some. so fun.

new stats

tay had his four month appointment today (he's actually four and a half months, but who's really counting). so we've got some new stats. he hit some kind of growth spurt cause he's gone from kinda low percentiles to really high ones. he's 15 pounds, 10 ounces, 26 and a half inches long and has a head that is .... um. i can't remember how big his head is, but i do remember she said it's normal and that's all i really care about. i also can't remember the exact percentiles. oh well. it's like 75 for one and 85 for the other.
the long and short of it is he's real healthy and doing fine. she was impressed with his alertness and his grabbyness and smiles and laughs and his strength, which made tayloe the dad and i proud. of course no trip to the doc is complete without getting stuck few times with a needle. his dad was with us this time, though, which seemed to make it all ok. a few screams, but no big deal.
let's see, what else? oh! she told us to go ahead and give him some rice cereal because he's grabbing at food and watching us intently when we eat. so i guess we'll start spoon feeding him some gruel sometime this week, maybe tonight if i can get my sh*t together enough to get out of the house and actually buy some. i guess i also need some spoons? and maybe a bowl? and some kind of plastic bib or some such. i'm gonna hit the dollar store.
the most exciting part about the doctor trip was the $5 off coupons for the formula we use (he gets a forumla bottle before bed. i was weary about it until he started sleeping from 7:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. and now i don't really care so much). $5 off!
so, um, i took every single one that they had. i felt a little bad, but then dr. roberts told me to take an entire booklet. when i told her i already had she laughed.
so that's all the news from pacific street.

chitter chatter

he talks and then he tries to eat the camera. or french kiss it. i can't decide.

such a pretty girl

i know. these are girl socks. but i found them while sock-drawer diving at the thrift store and fell in love (all trumpette socks are cute as hell -- are you reading this, santa?). there's very little else i love in the world more than cool stuff for feet. so sorry, kid. it's girlie socks for you.
and who's going to make fun of a little boy's socks anyway. bring it. i dare you.
anyway, i just pretend we're french when he's wearing them.
Tayloe, pensez-vous que votre mama est élégante et belle ?
oui, mama, oui, oui, oui!

how we roll

i have an all new love of this sling. i liked it when t2 was a little little baby, but it got pretty hot and uncomfortable after a while. now that it's a little bit cooler and he's a bit more alert it's super fun to sport him around. i gotta admit i'm also kinda inspired by all of tayloe's africa pictures and tales. ladies there wear their children to do everything. it's amazing.
like all things baby, it took some practice to figure it out. first i threaded it wrong, so i couldn't tighten it. then i got a little confused by all the different ways you can use it. the directions said, "your baby will love sitting face forward." so i put it on as it said, crossed his legs and chunked t2 down in it as instructed and then told him as he cried that the sheet of paper said he'd love sitting like that.
i tried again later.
only this time he saw it coming and refused to bend his legs so i couldn't even get him in it.
i gave up for a while and picked it up again last week. i caught him off guard when he was just a little too sleepy to really care or notice what i was doing. and before either of us knew it he was nestled in it, bottom down, folded nearly in half and happily chewing on his feet.
lately i've been using it when we go outside to play with wolly. t2 and wolls are kinda at the same place in their life in that they like to do things over and over and over. so little guy gets great, squealing delight from watching wolly toss the ball at me, prance, fetch, bring it back and do it all over again and again and again and again.
while throwing a slobbery tennis ball several times every day, every week, every month, every year (for almost 7 years) gets a little old, i have gotten great joy in watching the baby discover and delight in the dog.
in fact it's given me all new appreciation for wolly's endless (boundless .... infinate .... exuberant ....) energy. just a little bit of fun is all he asks of us, reminding me it's the little things that matter.

tea in the sahara

a video tayloe made for fun from their trip to africa. this song is on repeat in my head.

the entertainer

ok, so lately t2 has been doing a lot of things that make us think he realizes we're a captive audience and he can do things to make us smile. take this little antic. i have no idea if it's helping him build muscle or is a stepping stone to crawling or walking or just something he does cause it feels funny on his belly and helps him pass gas. all i know is that it's hilarious to watch and he sure does seem to know and like that i think he's cute.
could we love anything more? doubtful.

home again

this photo slays me. note that it's only cold enough to wear this little coat in the early morning and late evening. the weather has been the same here since august.
which brings me to christmas. back in greensboro/richmond, i was really getting in the spirit. lights, reindeer, giant inflatable santas, a plastic jesus here and there - they all had me humming carols. but los angeles feels like the land that christmas forgot. i'm not complaining about the weather, it's just hard for me to really believe that it's december 4. i should be cold and miserable and cussing about it.
instead, we're still barefoot and only turning the heat on at night. not only do we not have the heat on during the day, we have the windows open. weird. .... and wonderful.
i have no idea what our christmas tree is going to look like (palm?), but i know we have to have one so that there some sense of holiday normalcy around here.
anyway, we're all back under one roof and getting back into our groove. little guy seems to be readjusted sleep wise, which happened a lot faster than i thought. i gotta say i like travelling with the little man. he's really fun to have around, even on a cross-country plane ride.
tayloe the husband has all kinds of great stories from africa and he seems to have made some friends. on saturday a kind man named abu called from timbuktu to make sure he made it back ok. also, he can now tie the hell out of a turban and looks quite dapper in traditional tuareg dress. it's a good thing we live in los angeles.

love

i'm packing up to head home tomorrow and i'm sad.
sad to leave.
sad that we live so far away.
sad that my parents and tayloe's parents can't see t2 every single day.
(would they tire of him? hhhmmm... )
sad that we're spending christmas apart.
sad that i feel sad.
i'm trying to find the bright spot. i think it's that tayloe the husband gets home just hours before us and is so excited to greet us he's planning to land after his 24-hours of travel, go home, get the car and come back to the airport to pick us up. his devotion makes me happy. i know seeing him and hugging him and talking to him face to face again will make me happy. and i know we'll be happy back in our home, all together.
but there's always this pull. i keep thinking about tayloe's grandmother, who spent years away from her husband during world war II and even more time away from her own family. did she feel this same tugging, the longing to be in two or three places all at once? i imagine so.
this is what my dad would say, "sounds like life to me, honey."
and i guess he's right. i just wish it wasn't so hard.
sniffle. sniffle.

some photos

we made it

i guess cute kids run in our family. here's grandjane with my 8 year old niece eliza. i should say my 8 year old straight A student niece. so proud of this little cutie.
so we made it. the plane ride was just fine - no tears and only a little bit restless - and we both fell right into the lovin' arms of grandjane and poppy. thank god for them.
tayloe the husband is in timbuk2 riding camels and having a huge adventure. meanwhile t2 and i are on our own adventure in nc. he's seen rain for the first time, met his cousin eliza, his uncle tim, hung with godbrother cy and felt chilly november breezes on his sweet rosy cheeks.
technically this is t2's first thanksgiving, but it isn't really. i keep telling him that my churning belly certainly let me know he was around last year at this time.
i'm thankful, to say the least, that he's here with us. i'm grateful every single day that he's ours and part of this wonderful family. tayloe and i are the luckiest people on earth to be the guides of this little guy's journey through life.
tayloe the husband, we miss you terribly and love you deeply, truly, wholly. ride those camels, boy, and get your indiana jones ass back home soon.
i've posted some photos of our trip so far on the flickr site. check 'em.

some cute pics

lex, steph and i took t2 to the park for a picnic on friday. we pretty much had t2 for lunch since it's all any of us can do not to eat him up. gush, gush, gush.
lex, who is a massage therapist, worked some kinks out of my back which has been a total wreck since childbirth. homegirl has the best hands in the west. i melted.
check out t2's double chin. squish, squish.
and those ears. those are for sure my dad's ears. aawww.

we've come a long way

this is part 2 of wolly + tay meet. they really do like each other. the sound on this video is a little up close and personal. i'm not sure i really need to hear wolly lapping up t2's face that well, but whatever. it's cute.
i'm heading to my parents on monday, just me and the baby. we'll be there through thanksgiving while tayloe's in africa. tonight i really started thinking about the plane ride. i think it'll be fine. i'm sure it'll be fine. it's just 4 and a half hours. it'll be fine, right?
t1's ears are getting a little better after i sent him to an ear, nose and throat doctor on friday. he's doped up and snuuffed up and jacked up with antibiotics, the hope being that something loosens it up by wednesday when he has to fly. ouch.
i think it's getting a little better, though it's kinda hard to tell because i think he very much enjoys not really being able to hear me.
so basically, send us some good air karma. we really need it.

are we on vacation?

it turns out santa monica is a really really fun place to live. since i don't know if there'll ever be another time in my life when i'm not working and i have an adoring, impressionable young baby to pal around with, i decided this week to start taking full advantage of what's around us.
on tuesday we found the main branch of the library. it's super with a huge kids section and baby storytime and even a coffee shop and cafe. granted, there are huge signs posted in the bathrooms that say "please do not set fires in this restroom" because i guess homeless folks have been known to do such things. but as we passed a man sleeping on the sidewalk on our way there i explained to t2 that there are all kinds of people in the world and we have to make room (or step over) them all. so i bet that sign won't alarm him when he's old enough to read it himself.
today we ventured to the santa monica pier because i'd heard that the aquarium reopened. on the way we had to stop and ride the carousel. t2 loved the fish and the pony ride. for the first time i found myself really thinking not about sleep or schedules or pumping or feeding, but about all the fun things we can do in the months to come. i really can't wait.
so i logged on earlier today to write a brief post about the horrifying hairloss i'm experiencing and before i did, i checked my friend reid's blog. lo and behold she's having the same terrifying problem.
there are so many dirty little secrets of pregnancy and childbirth -- too many to count -- but this may be one of the worst. this is not moderate hair loss or occasional hair loss. this is a mass exodus of hair. so much i'm looking for bald spots.
my locks had gotten so knarled in our drains that there was standing water in our tub. from tuesday.
ew. i just threw up a little thinking about that.
thank god for tayloe the husband because he fixed the problem this afternoon. i didn't ask how or for details.
i find hair everywhere - on my clothes, on the dishes, on my pillow, dangling from t2's hands. i for sure beat wolly in the shedding department. in fact, i bet he's looking around our floors and wondering when we got a golden retriever.
but if that isn't bad enough, here's what babycenter has to say about post partum hairloss:
A note to new moms with long hair: Strands of hair can end up tightly wrapped around your baby's tiny appendages, including his fingers, toes, wrists, ankles, and penis. This is called a hair tourniquet, and it can be quite painful for your little one.
um, did they say hair tourniquet? on his penis?
i guess i better watch for that to save myself a very uncomfortable and scaring conversation with him later in life.
oh. how. terrible.
ps -
t1 (or 'ol glue ear as i've been calling him) is borderline miserable because his ear infection is, um, sticking around. he can't hear a single thing out of it. everything we've read (and the doctor) says it could take as many as three months to clear up. and well, folks, one of us is going have a hatchet in our head long before that day comes. so i'm asking because i'm really, really hoping you do-- got any sage advice?

Vaya con dios...my darlings

t2 votes 2006

i woke up this morning at 4:30 and it was very quiet. i nudged tayloe, who's still suffering from an ear infection.
"he's not awake."
"What?," he said.
i went back to sleep.
i woke up at 5:30.
tap, tap, tap on tayloe's back.
"he's still asleep," i whispered.
"huh?," he said.
at 6 tayloe woke up and said, "do you think we should check on him?"
and so we did. there he was, sound asleep in his crib, where he'd been since 8:30 last night. he lasted another half hour even after that.
10 straight hours without a peep. i wonder if it was a fluke or if the work we did last week sunk in? parenting is just one big mystery.
so it's election night and we, with help from wolf blitzer, have been giving t2 lessons in civics. i didn't take him to the polls cause it was all i could do to figure out (a) how to cast my vote here and (b) what, exactly, to vote for because there are about 1,000 things to decide. i also think it was the first time i've ever worn a tank top, shorts and sandals to vote (it's crazy hot here right now). on top of all that, our polling place is at a sofa store. is that even legal?
anywho, t2 learned all about 'balance of power' and red states and blue states (gggggooooo BLUE) and why george allen and the marriage bill are evil and all the reasons we love nancy pelosi.
we're hoping his first word isn't mom or dad, but democrat.
if he doesn't sleep as well tonight it may not matter because i'm pretty sure we'll be awake watching the senate race in virginia. it's a nail-biter.
wonk, wonk, wonk.

alien encounter

zzzeeep. zeeeepppp. we. have. come. to. take. zzzzeeep. your. baby.
please. accept. our. beam. zzzeeeiiippp. he. will. be. the. savior. of. our. planet. hyasiayth.
zzzzzzeeeeeeeeiiiiiiipppppp.
he was on his way up until i told them he wakes up at 4:30 a.m. everyday and that the excersaucer goes where he goes. they moved on to the kids next door.
so it's been about a week since we instituted the new sleep plan and it's working out ok. the crib transfer has been the easiest part. it's been so easy, actually, that today we got a wild hair up our asses and decided to forgo our guest room, move the double bed out and make our second bedroom purely his.
this was a challenging project because it meant we had to first make room for the bed in the garage & then carry stuff together all while tayloe has an inner ear infection and can't hear very well (read: at all)
him: what's in this box?
me: i don't know. look and see.
him: what? this box?
me: LOOK AND SEE.
him: (looking). shoes and purses. shocker.
me: what?
him: what? let's move this
me: ok. hang on. ok.
him: what? got it?
me: yes. ok. wait. shit.
him: what? why'd you drop it?
me: because i said wait.
him: what?
anyway, we finally got it done and it's a bit of relief - now t2's changing table is out of our living room, we have a place to put the rocking chair and there's space to hide the saucer when we get sick of looking at it.
as for dropping the last night feeding, i think that's just going to have to wait. poor little guy is starving when he wakes up at 4:30. last night i actually heard his stomach growl. aaaawwwww. it killed me.
so yeah. we'll try again later.

my baby's got sauce

excer sauce. er.
it's horrid looking. but t2 really loves it.
turns out people are as opinionated (read: crazy) about excersaucers as they are about breast feeding.
they hinder development. they hurt their hips. they tip over and tumble down stairs.
deep breath. i'm just so tired of shoulds and should not's of baby rearing. it's all so exhausting.
all i know is what our little boy likes and it's this: (a) standing up (b) holding his head up and (sigh) (c) primary colored plastic.
so i got this today at the resale shop, thinking it'd give us both a nice break from the sometimes tedious roll over game. i wasn't 100 percent convinced that i really needed to buy it until the shop owner told me to just sit him in it and see how he liked it.
of course he grabed for everything and squealed in delight. he doesn't squeal in this video. he just finds the only natural toy in the lot, a set of wooden keys. that's my boy!
so there you go, kiddo. it's yours. get your sauce on.

quack, quack

who killed halloween? for the last three years, we've lived in busy, family-friendly neighborhoods and have had a grand total of 5 trick-or-treaters.
the ones that came to our house last night drove up in a car. a car! one of the girls was in her teens and barely said thank you when i dropped candy into her white leather purse. white leather purse!
it's sad because every year we're certain we're in a place where we can be witness to the kind of halloweens we had growing up. tayloe and i both fondly remember canvassing our childhood neighborhoods with a pack of kids, staying out way past bedtime and eating enough candy to kill a horse. both of my parents were willing players in the halloween game. my dad had a whole box of tricks and i think he found great joy in whipping out his scary mask and whoopie cushions and entertaining us and our friends.
i know our house ran out of candy on more than one occasion.
meanwhile, tayloe and i will be eating kit kats and mounds bars until t2's first birthday.
eventually we just gave up on trick-or-treaters, dressed up the little fella and went to a party. pretty much anywhere you go in la you can expect to see/meet/be given the bird in traffic by someone who is in movies. last night it was julie hagerty, aka elaine of 'airplane!' and fay of 'what about bob?' fame, who is stepmother to our good friend kelly.
we saw and met her. she did not give us the bird in traffic.
this may not seem like a big deal to you people, but airplane and what about bob are two of my most favorite all time movies.
tayloe and i both have to try very hard not to imitate the way we see family dinners happening at kelly's house. and by that i mean that we have to try very hard not to do it in front of her. at least not too much.
elaine looks exactly the way she did as a stewardess in 1980 except her hair is shorter and not quite as frizzy. she sounds exactly the same too.
her: um, um, catherine? what is the baby's name?
me: his name is tayloe, but that's not important right now.
in fact, it was a night of 80s celebs because we also met tom nolan. he was dennis the manager of all american burger in 'fast times at ridgemont high.' and that might be the only thing you would have recognized him in. he retired from acting and now i think is dean of students at crossroads school.
enough name dropping. the real star, of course, was t2. he was goo'd and gaa'd and held and played with. and it turns out he really likes costumes. he did a lot of staring.
is there anything cuter than a baby in a duck suit? a few more pics are here.

fun size

happy halloween

we had such a fun day, carving pumpkins and baking brownies for our friend brian's birthday party tonight.
but honestly, t2 looks so much like my dad in this picture it almost makes me cry.
more to come soon. bbbwwwwaaaaahhhhhh bbbooo.

sleep 202

i'm liking the crew cut more and more everyday. except now it's starting to grow out and he looks like a tennis ball. back to the shaver, kid.
last week i had my own run-in with the shears, which this photo makes painfully obvious. my hair has been kind of a disaster in the making, with the bangs being the main object of my rage. last week i just started hacking away until i'd really made a mess and was sure i needed a professional to fix it. $60 later i walked out with what you see here. my hairdresser actually said, "it's the best i can do right now. you really should leave the cutting to me."
wow. ouch.
moving on.
my good friend ginny gill visited over the weekend and in between seeing the city, i picked her brain for parenting tips since she's mother to 4. there's a special place in heaven for her.
we've got the night routine, bedtime and falling asleep down pat. naps are happening on a pretty regular schedule. the next step is getting a solid 10-11 (12?) hours in instead of the 6 1/2 to 7 hours stretches he's doing now. ginny suggested really filling him up with his bedtime feeding. now i know that sounds like a no-brainer, but for some reason i just hadn't thought of that.
so that's what we're doing. stuffing the little booger full.
t2 seems to like this idea. he chug, chug, chugs the nighttime bottle.
and since we're making sleep changes, i'm leaving the co-sleeper behind, too. it's not for any specific reason except that it just feels like it's time to do it. and i want my bedroom back, which i guess is a pretty specific reason.
so down the hall, into his own room and in his own bed he went.
everything i read said ease into the separation easily. put the crib in your room. then in the hall. then in the doorway of the baby's room.
you gotta be kiddin' me. why would i want to give him all that time to realize something is changing?
he drifted off just fine and slept the same amount of time he does when he's in the room with us - 8 to 3:30. well, that's not 100 percent true. he woke up at 1ish and i got up, shhh'ed him and he went back to sleep until 3:30 when i fed him. but i think that was just an 'adjustment/ time change' waking.
anyway, over the next few nights we're going to try to get him back to sleep without eating.
everything i've read (why do i bother reading?) has said not to try too many things at once. but here's my logic - (a) these things are all sleep related and (b) baby has his own nifty bed, his own nifty room and since that change went just fine and dandy, perhaps he'll be open to one big doozie change.
i'm sure he'll thank me later for teaching him to be so flexible.
i'm prepared for this to not work. 7 hours may be all he can do right now and if that's the case well then we'll just try again later. this is not awesome news for tayloe the husband since previously there wasn't much he could do at night since i'm the feeder. but now since tayloe the baby associates me and snacks so closley, it might not be cool for me to be the one trying to get him back to sleep without feeding him. we'll tag team it and see how it goes. there are two tricks - keep our eyes on the prize (a baby that sleeps 12 hours) and knowing when to quit when it isn't working.
so .... it might be a rough week at our house. if you don't hear from me for a few days, don't worry. if the silence persists into a week or more, please call the police.
on to more interesting things like pumpkin carving, which we're doing tonight. we're going to a halloween party tomorrow, too, so i'll be sure to snap shots of the critter in his costume. boo.

Mommy, what's a Clooney?

Look Mommy! That commercial we watched get filmed is now on TV!

a striking resemblence to ....

vern (or as tayloe said, "the fat kid") from 'stand by me.'
"Geez, Gordie, why couldn't you have gotten breakfast stuff like twinkies, Pez and root beer?"

bend it like baldy

not to bore you with more roll over video, but this one really shows his buzz cut. didn't his dad do a fine job? fuzz head.
plus, i really wanted to show his aunt cathy lipp his beautiful cobra pose. he's a good little yogi.
so rolling over is neat and fun and all that, but it's going to be more neat and fun when he figures out how to get back to his back by himself. everytime i put him on his gym mat he rolls over. he's good for about a minute and then he realizes being on his stomach really isn't that much fun. so he cries. so i help him roll over to his back. only for him to roll over again, obviously forgetting everything he just learned.
even wolly, the king of repeat behavior, moans in exhaustion after the third or fourth roll.
still, i keep doing it over and over and over again because it seems to be so good for his muscles and his spine and it gets his little heart pumping. plus, i know this is just the beginning of a laundry list of behaviors we'll do over and over and over again, so i guess i better get used to it.

HOOYAH!

tayloe is three months old today. we didn't wake up with a hair cut in mind, but that's kinda where the day took us.
i dunno, it just seemed like a good thing to do at the time. we started with a trim and then we carefully buzzed the rest. when we were done, t1 said, "well, i guess we'll get used to it."
i didn't think about it at the time, but it's kinda funny that tayloe the husband weilded the sheers because of the two of us, he's the one who failed scissoring as a child. his teacher actually called his parents in to discuss the wreckless abandon with which he cut things as a toddler.
sweetheart, you've come a long, long way. just look at yourself here, snip snip snipping away as if it were never hard for you. we're all so proud.
now before you go saying something like, "but his hair was the best part of him" or "it's bad luck to cut a baby's hair before he's a year old" consider first what a numbskull thing that is to tell a mother who's just sheered her child. and then know that he was developing several severe bald spots and the recessive hairline was moving further and further back. so we just went ahead and did what was going to happen anyway since it was pretty clear that hair wasn't going to stick around.
plus, he got some chewing gum stuck right in the top and it was creating a crazy ugly dreadlock.
ok, that last part's not true.
he's just as cute. now he just looks more like a marine and less like a baby.
baby cuteness is overrated anyway.
also, it's probably going to just grow back exactly the same.
and then what? will we cut it again? will we dye it purple? will we give him a maddox jolie-pitt mohawk? will we let it grow long, pierce his ears and change his name to jacqulin tayloe? ooohhhh, the suspense.
i can't leave this topic without noting that (1) in this video i'm the one who looks like she needs a hair cut and (2) i did save a few locks and even wrote what it was on the ziplock bag so i won't get confused later and think i tucked away a pile of wolly fur for safe keeping (it could happen).
to see the finished (cute) product, go here.
so i gotta give props to baby yoga. t2 and i had so much fun at the class we went to on friday, i've found myself looking around for others since that one only happens once a week. there were even silly songs that i didn't mind singing and he didn't seem to mind hearing and a couple of the poses flat out made him howl with laughter. at the end of the class, the teacher came over to hold him and said, "he has such a peaceful, easy soul." isn't that a kind thing to say?
for some reason, it made me feel very proud.

shake, shake, shake

clearly this gym mat is command central for trying new things. he's been shaking the hell out of this rattle toy thing since we got home. virginia must have given him all new strength.
today we're going to try a yoga class together. it may turn out to be way too california for me, but i'm willing to give it a go. t2 is such a social kid i feel like the best thing i can do for him is to get him out to interact with other people. i've even thought about joining a mommy and me group. euhguthgh. sitting in a circle singing songs with a bunch of strangers? i dunno, it sounds like something i probably won't like.
so you gotta know - the airport on the way to virginia was, well, kinda awful. we arrived early (cough cough, of course), but rushed our way through. security was the worst.
coat off.
shoes off.
computer out.
baby out.
who holds baby?
fold stroller.
stroller won't fit through the machine.
squish stroller, shove it through.
set the alarm off.
sweat, sweat, sweat.
words, words, words.
collect shoes, jacket, baby, stroller, coat, computer, purse, diaper bag, license, boarding pass ..... ack.
it was such a hassle.
i had lip gloss and i think also a lighter in my purse, so that made it extra fun and special.
we stressed us out and the baby had nothing to do with it. in fact, i think he just smiled the whole time and made eyes at the TSA folks.
"yes, those are my parents. have mercy, they're new."
on the way home, though, we were ready. knowing what to expect we hashed it all out before hand -- who'd carry what, who was responsible for what and the like.
we divided. we conquered. we rode first class.
go team.

ok, we're back

i love this picture. it was just me and him out there, watching the sun go down.
i posted a bunch of shots from our trip on my flickr page, so be sure to check those out. i didn't do the best job of capturing all of the great moments from our week away. for example, i don't have a single photo of my parents with the baby and i don't have one of tay and i with him in his gown.
i have a major case of the flakey flakes lately, so these facts don't surprise me.
speaking of which, before i forget here's what i want to remember for next time:
(a) you can't pack too many burp cloths and bibs. stash them everywhere.
(b) if you're prone to losing things - like, say, your wallet - make a copy of your license and give it to someone who isn't prone to losing things.
(c) don't worry that you've become the family no one wants to get behind in the security line. you are those people. you're lucky to be those people, in fact, so just get over it.
(d) don't pack a single thing you don't absolutely need. if you find yourself packing something you don't need, take it out and replace it with a burp cloth and bib.
(e) switch your diaper bag over to a small backpack. it makes getting through the airport much more comfortable.
(f) if you can do a load of baby laundry before you come home, do it. unless, of course, unpacking poop pants makes you happy.
(g) pack the baby's clothes in zip lock bags, putting onsies, pants, bedclothes etc all together. this helped tayloe navigate t2's suitcase without rummaging through it like a opposum in a trash can. erhum.
(h) in the airport, use the baby to your advantage. never be too shy to say, "we need those two vacant seats in first class because we have a baby."
remembering all of this made me tired. more later.

he does tricks!

um, i don't even know where to pick back up so i guess i'll just start with the most recent stuff and work backwards.
just before we left virginia on monday, t2 rolled over onto his belly. before i know it i'll turn my back for one second and he'll be out the door and on his way to the coffee shop around the corner.
it's actually a really funny thing to watch. he kicks his legs up, flips on his side, grunts a lot, puts his foot on the floor to get a little leverage, pulls the arm underneath him out and then flops over.
i think it must take a lot of energy because so far he's only rollypollied just after a meal. that's somewhat problematic because he's full and laying on a full belly causes extreme puke. also, it's not like he's rolling all over the place. he'll do it once or twice and then go back to regularly scheduled programming of laying on his back and solving the world's problems with the purple elephant.
anyway, enough of that. watch the video for the full 411.
our trip to virginia was awesome. we saw so many people and had so much fun and t2 handled himself beautifully. now i'm pretty sure he thinks everyday is a party and he should meet no less than 12 people in a 24 hour period. i have pictures and stories, which i'll share later this week.

just briefly

two things.
for some absurd reason, i watched nanny 911 last night. if you're a parent of young kids or you're thinking about being a parent of young kids, don't ever ever ever watch this show. it's terrifying.
also, i'm deliciously close to prepregnancy weight, but many of my tops and dresses still don't fit because - and this kills me - my chest is too big. bbbbbwwwwwaaaaahahahahahahahaha.
that might be the funniest thing i've ever written.
it should be noted that prepregnancy weight and prepregnancy body are very different things. there's one word to describe me right now.
squishy.
i make a lovely pillow for the baby.

hablo español

i decided that there are some things spanish anna will need to know on sunday while we're gone. just the basics, like our number and the pediatricians number and how much to feed wolly and the baby. instead of taking an extra hour to act things out when she gets here and enduring lots of blank smiles and 'yes's,' i'm going to try to print some instructions out in spanish. i'm going to do this using the free translator doohickey on the internet. we'll see how well it works. i've always kind of wondered.
i'm sure she's going to think i'm a complete idiot.
today's our 5th anniversary. this morning tayloe and i recapped the events of our wedding day to t2. we even told him how the bishop didn't really have the authority to marry us in virginia and how when we got back from our honeymoon, our priest had to declare us wed in the church parking lot after a sunday service. i kinda wanted to leave that part out.
i have all of these great memories from that weekend and that day but my favorite is leaving our reception with tayloe, our little saab packed to the ceiling with camping gear. it was symbolic.
i told tayloe i'd marry him after 3 short months because i knew he was a trip i had to go on. people kept telling me i was certifiably crazy to say yes so soon, but it was like someone knocked on my door one day and said, "hey kid, wanna go on an adventure around the world? it'll be wonderful and it'll be terrible and it'll rain and be sunny and you'll break down and get up and get up again. you'll always be filled with love. it'll be the most beautiful time you've ever had."
and it has been. whenever i doubt my instincts, i think about saying yes and all the amazing things just letting go and doing what felt right has brought me. not the least of which is another tayloe.
and there's so much more ahead of us.
Tayloe mi marido y mi amor, yo le adoro. Aquí está a nuestro viaje.

does every post have to have a title?

i remembered i had this zoot suit today and was so psyched that it fit him. i think it'd tucked it away because it was so absolutely huge the first two months. of course i took, like, 4 million pictures of him in it. i'm pathetic.
last night on the news there was a story about a group of women who donated their breast milk to starving orphans in south africa (there are some 3-4 million AIDS orphans in Africa, whole generations of kids growing up without parents of any kind).
i'm inspired by this and just now have printed out the form to see what i have to do. i'm not exactly overflowing with extra food, but something about these orphans - little babies who have no mother at all - really tugs, yanks actually, at me.
there's this one image that tayloe took in africa of a little girl in a south african orphanage, maybe 10 or 11 months old, in a pair of overalls that have a butterfly on them. she's wobbly on her feet, but standing and smiling right at him. i cried the first time i saw it and whenever i think about it i crack.
what can i say, my heart bleeds. i don't have a choice, really. i gotta pitch in a little.

i see purple elephants

forgive that this video is upside down. if i'd done it right side up, t2 would have seen me and since i'm infinately more interesting than a purple elephant (erhum) this video wouldn't have been possible. yeah, right.
anyway, he's deliberately grabbing for this thing and we think that's pretty cool.

yes, suri, it's dyed

i've been meaning to pose this question for some time and i just keep forgetting (which, frankly, is a trend with me lately).
but honestly now, do you think they dyed suri cruise's hair for those vanity fair pics? i think most of you have heard my reel on tomkat and how fake i think it all is and why. and now i actually live in la and know how totally and absolutely unreal people here can be -- even people who aren't celebs --, so i just can't get it out of my head that there's a good chance, a better than good chance, that this child went under the dryer for these shots. or maybe not.
if it's not dyed, there's for sure product in it. do they make hair gel for babies?
there's no product in t2's hair, by the way. it just naturally looks like we combed it with a pork chop.
so this is our anniversary weekend and on sunday we're celebrating by going to a steelers game (vs. the chargers) in san diego. tayloe usually plans such things, so as a surprise i one-uped him and got the tickets and hired the babysitter behind his back. mmmwwwaaaahhh.
i tried to get mirna, but she couldn't make it. however she offered up her aunt for the job.
mirna: one thing is she does not speak as well.
me: she can talk just fine, she just doesn't speak english, you mean?
mirna: she does not speak as well.
me: english?
mirna: hm?
me: she doesn't speak english well?
mirna: no. she doesn't speak english.
me: ok
mirna: i think this is ok because your baby do not speak english either.
good point, mirna.
all of this reminds me that my mom once had a housekeeper who didn't speak much english. mom asked her to spray the trash can with lysol after emptying it, thinking the gal understood what that meant. a famous hand-talker, i think mom just made some spraying motions to get the point across. (can't you see my mom doing this? "oh honey just [hand-flick, hand-flick, hand-flick] spray a little, you know [hand-flick], of this smell-good stuff in there and be done with it. [hand-flick, hand-flick, hand-flick] ok?)
anyway, days later when mom took out the trash, she saw that the bottom of the can was covered in silver spray paint. that story's always made me laugh.
not to come home to a baby that's gulping a bottle of espresso or asleep in the bathtub, i'm brushing up on my spanish. here are some of my favorite phrases:
(1) Si él es los chillidos, llama por favor su geoff de tío.
if he screams or if there's a major problem, please call his uncle geoff.
(2) Mi otro marido que él recogerá en 11 de la tarde.
my other husband will pick him up at 11 p.m.
(3) Preferimos que él come sólo césped.
we prefer that he eats only grass.

a crappy walk to the park

i have an 'are you kidding me?' file in my head and a couple of recent news stories definitely belong there.
today's amish school shooting is one of them because it took place in paradise, pennsylvania. god, that's maybe the most awful, terrible thing i've ever heard.
the other is that perv. Rep. foley, who had a little too much fun im'ing young boys, was co-chairman of the missing and exploited children's caucus and made a big to-do about cracking down on online predators.
the later proves my long suspected belief that the more people hoot and hollar about something, the more likely it is that they believe and do just the opposite. there's a laundry list of people who prove this point, but i think foley's shenanigans are enough to make it clear for today.
so in short, if your neighbor says to you over and over again "i'd never molest children. it's disgusting. i hate those people," and/or you live in a town that has a happy adjective name, you should probably move.
on top of all of this george michael was found slumped over in his car. again. sigh.
today's t2 news is just a bit happier, but no less absurd.
he woke up at 7 and didn't seem to want to go back to sleep so i rallied and got up and was all ready to go for our morning walk. we were movin', we were grovin', we were up and at 'em. while i dressed, i put him on his gym mat. i left him alone for maybe 5 minutes and when i came back he was sound asleep (see below). he has a habit of bailing at the last minute.
i loaded him up anyway.
on the way to the dog park, a bird crapped on my head AND on the sun shade of the bugaboo. i mean, does that bird even know?
then on the way back, wolly had diarrhea which made a 10-block trail from the park to our house. at first i tried to clean it up, running along behind him holding the carriage in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. but picking it up was like trying to pick up a puddle, so eventually i just gave up and decided if anyone said anything i'd tell them to f off.

i'll fly away

i think he's starting to realize that his extremities are attached to his body. a couple of times i've caught him staring at his feet (and drooling), wiggling his toes as if to say, "are those mine?"
so we're going to virginia next week and i really need to start thinking about how it's all going to go down. it's kind of overwhelming me because just getting out the door to go to the grocery is a 45-minute ordeal and there isn't a
time deadline.
the time component is major factor because tayloe the husband and i have very different definitions of late. to me, late is when you miss the plane. to tayloe, late is arriving at the gate and you aren't the first person there and there's only time to read the entire october edition of vanity fair and eat a three course meal.
we've had such tribulations at airports in our married life that by the end of our time in d.c., we'd pretty much resolved just to meet each other at the gate once we'd parked the car.
i have kind of a funny mental image of how us catching the plane at LAX with the baby is going to go. i won't dwell on the details, but i'll bet we get there no later than 9 a.m. and i bet we look like the beverly hillbillies trapsing through the airport and i've even more certain that there'll be some "words" many of which will be off-color. i gotta just hope the baby is in a blissed out mood and snoozes through it all.
to get through it, im going to keep thinking about the attendant saying,"families with small children may board first." it'll be my moment of zen.

sleepy do

he's getting pretty good at putting himself to sleep. so good, in fact, that there are few things that'll keep him from drifting off when he really wants to zonk. he tries here to convince me that he's awake, but he just can't summon up the energy to keep up the act. it's kinda how i feel.
he's had a few longish naps today because i don't have the heart or umph to keep him up the way i usually do. i hope he has mercy and still sleeps a good long while tonight.
so did i tell you that bono sent us an autographed children's book? and inside it said, "John Tayloe, Welcome to Earth. There's a lot of work to be done. All the best, BONO." he dated it and drew a little bono face (i know it's a bono face because it's wearing sunglasses).
that should be an interesting thank you note, dontcha think?
tayloe the dad and i were both touched and felt pretty special, but now i'm stumped on the acknowledgement.
I get this far:
Dear Bono,
and then i just seems too weird. i know it'll get to him and i know it's the right thing to do, i'm just not sure really what to say except "hey man, thanks," but that doesn't come anywhere near filling up the white space on the card.
i guess i'll just say thanks and we'll be sure to let t2 know he's to save the world when he's old enough and i admire the work he's doing. i need to practice my penmanship so all of this is ledgable. i have terrible handwriting.
aaaaahhhh, the gremlin has awoken from his very short nap. and rightly so - it's nearly happy hour.

copy cat

little homey is a mimic. last week i stuck my tongue out at him and he did it back to me. since then, we've played this game pretty much every day, sometimes for more hours than seem natural. it's the funniest thing and makes me laugh over and over and over again.
today we went with tayloe to the latest ONE commercial shoot at raleigh studios in hollywood. i was a little nervous that t2'd be noisy cooing and gurgling like a gremlin, but he was so fascinated by the light and dark shadows and preoccupied trying to look cute for admirers that he stayed hushed most of the day. he got to meet alfre woodard and don cheadle. luckily, i'd prepped him earlier in the day, so he was able to speak smartly with don about what basher tarr has up his sleeve in the next 'ocean's' movie.
so, this is a little weird - everytime someone looks at him and says, "oh, look at his pretty hair," i feel compelled to tell them it's falling out. why do i do that? am i afraid they'll notice? am i trying to beat them to the punch? do i really think someone's going to say, "oh, cute baby but his hair is falling out. how sad."
it's just random jibby jabby chatter and i need to stop doing it.
i will no longer tell complete strangers that my son's hair is falling out.
i will no longer tell complete strangers that my son's hair is falling out.
i will no longer tell complete strangers that my son's hair is falling out.

spitty, spitty,everwhere

PHOTO GOES HERE (but blogger isn't working right)
i just dropped cathy at the airport, and i feel sad. her help was tremendous and i feel so lucky to have such a good friend. she washed dishes and cooked and took trash out and played with wolly and got me out to yoga and fed and washed and loved the baby and was, as always, highly entertaining and good fun to be around. she did it all. you know how it is when someone is so good to you all you want to do is be good back? that's how i feel.
anyway, having someone else around during the day to help take care of tay really shined the light on the regularity of his bodily functions. he's a slobbering, pooping mess. it gets worse as the day goes on so by nightfall he's usually a damp, powder-caked, spikey-haired wreck.
he projectile vomited on cathy and this morning he christened her with his manly powers. there's just nothing in the world funnier than having your son wee on your best friend. she took it like a champ, but i'll never forget lying in bed and hearing her whine, "ooohhhh gooooodddd, he's peeeing on me! CATH! he's peeeeeeiiiing on me!" good times.
john tayloe prince of santa monica is molting. it was just a matter of time before his hair started to fall out. and it has. every morning his little hairline is further and further back and it's starting to look as though he's wearing a toupe. left behind is a soft, downy layer of white hair. oh wait. it's mine that's turning white (er, gray). his, i guess, is platnium.
i think the whole process is going to take some time, so i fully expect that when he heads to virginia to meet the rest of his family, he'll have some kind of wild ass hairdo that's somewhere inbetween what it was and what it eventually will be. that'll make for some pretty christening pics, eh?

High School Revisited

First of all, this is Cathy Cooper writing, and Cathy Cooper has a little problem with "change." I prefer progress without changes. Catherine has been big on separating the two of us, Cathy Cooper and Cathy Lipp that is. Cathy Cooper can't believe her best friend has a baby- it's all so bizarre ya know? The last time I spent 5 days and nights with this girl, A: she was a teenager or early 20's at least and B: She's got some real knockers now. We decided it must have been either Camp Thunderbird or Keystone Colorado when we saw this much of each other, and man, Cathy Cooper is just a little freaked out. Where is the talk of clothes, boys, parties and fake ID's? I mean, DAMN- Cathy Leitch has a stroller that's worth more than my first car (Bug-a-boo?) In high school Cathy Cooper drove a 1987 2-door Ford Tempo....Thanks Elliott. And the last time I tolerated another man around for the whole time, I'm sure it was an ex-boyfriend who didn't like my Keystone campfire cooking style. True my relationship with T2's definitely better than some of those early love interests. Between Cole Dejarnette, Jason Woodle and Chad what's-his-last-name, I'll take this adoring little man any day. Oh Yeah, Cathy Cooper is feeling a little possessive and shell-shocked. Here, Cathy Lipp the well-adjusted-yoga instructor wants to write something.

Hello World! If you haven't met T2 yet, he's the sweetest, cutest, coolest baby! I'm in the camp of he looks quite a bit like his daddy, gonna be a hunk! So, my time here has been a whirlwind of cool activities. I love Santa Monica. I got a Porsche ride thru Malibu via big Tay, an interview on Fox News about the new hip soda "Cocaine," met a professional singer Shantal (LOVED HER!), tried Anti-War Yoga class, had dinner with someone who worked for HBO that almost knew as many movie lines as I do and a very interesting hike thru Hollywood. And lots of cuddle time with the new guy. Catherine Emery looks beautiful and sooo happy if not a little sleep deprived. Tayloe seems very connected with his new son and wife and immune to the craziness as he's zany enough to keep it all in perspective with a sense of humor and a story for everything. I'm going to sound a little like Cathy Cooper when I say that on some level I can't believe my best friend has a precious little baby. Jamie and I've got this picture in our guest room bathroom of she and I in 7th grade at her parents lake house on Lake Gaston, holding fishing rods and looking very tan (her) and lanky. I think she still looks exactly the same, so I just gotta factor in the newest guy. By the time he graduates from College of Charleston I'm sure I'll have gotten used to the fact that she's married. Namaste!

two months old

technically, not until tomorrow. but the latest stats are in:
10 lbs, 8 oz. 23 1/4 inches long.
the shots weren't so bad and the doc said she was amazed at how happy and alert he is. hopefully we won't have to go back there until the 4 mo. mark.
tayloe is off on a solo motorcycle adventure and my dearest friend cathy lipp is visiting from charleston, sc, so she and i are playing with t2, ordering indian and watching movies.
it's really not to far from how we spent our middle and high school friday nights, minus the baby. although, we won't be toilet papering any houses later or sneaking out to ramble rouse the neighborhood.

the things we say

you gotta feel a little bit sorry for him here, right? he's totally defenseless to my whims. i could dress him head to toe in pink and parade him around like a clown and he couldn't do a single thing about it.
i understand why adults need therapy.
i can't believe what loons we turn in to when it comes to entertaining this child. and the crap we say. for eg, here are some of the names we call him --
fussy bucket.
weird ear.
darth tater.
tay woah.
little guy. only we say it like this, "leet iill guy." and sometimes that morphs into, "supa fly leet iilll guy." and most times, we say these things over and over and over again, changing the inflection in our voice until we get a reaction. normally a whine.
this is the song i've been singing to him lately (it's not original. i ripped off a phish song) --
verse 1:we've got a baby.
cause we are a fam.
and we've got a baby in the fam.
verse 2:
we've got a dog.
cause we are a fam.
and there is a dog in the fam.
our fam is grand.
verse 3:
well, you don't need to know verse 3. you see where it's going. and honestly, verses three, four, five, six et al tend to be improv depending on my mood. in stressful times, for example, verse 3 goes
my back is killing me
cause you're getting heavy
and we've got tension in the fam.
some shots i could slam.
but there i go, telling you verse 3.
sometimes when i wake up i have this song in my head and can't get it out. i need a new song.
tomorrow t2 has his 2 month doc appointment and he's going to get stuck at least four times. i've been telling him all day it won't be bad and i'll give him some tylenol before we go and also that it couldn't possibly be as bad as the hospital stay or the emergency room (which i learned today cost our insurance $11K. ouch for them).
i'm bracing myself now for the screams. it hurts me already. my sweet baby supa fly leeet illl guy.

happy sad

see, i can't go back to work. who would take pictures and video of t2? wolly's a mess with a video camera. full time work is just going to have to wait.
he's happy. no, he's sad. no he's happy. no, he's sad. maybe he's just mad? what in god's name is going on in his little mind?
honestly the critters on his playpen look like the byproduct of a bad acid trip. i feel a little guilty just leaving him in there to sort it all out. he's the most vocal when he's lying there, but he also tolerates it for the least amount of time. 10 minutes and he's screaming bloody murder. THE BUGS ARE COMING! THE BUGS ARE COMING!
speaking of screaming bloody murder, we launched operation peaceful sleep last night. i can't believe how much time i've spent pondering my sleep/bedtime philosophy, but i had to get it straight in my head. otherwise, i become paralyzed by options and never really settle into any one thing.
before i was just hoping he'd get it on his own. he'd one night go to sleep and wouldn't wake up until morning. but i think the truth is that sleeping well, like everything else, has to be learned.
so here's the nut of it: bedtime should be a blissful happy time when we're all together. i'm willing to go the extra mile to help him learn this. so we nurse, bathe, read a book and then finish nursing. if he's not asleep we rock or nuzzle until he is. it's pretty much what we've always done (the book is new), just a little earlier. it works just fine.
what's different now, though, is what happens in the middle of the night. the days of me being a human pacifier are over. if it's a dire situation and nothing else will comfort him, ok. but he can comfort himself, i've seen him do it, and that's what i'd much rather have happen. a little late-night wailing never hurt anyone.
so last night he woke up at 1 a.m. he ate, got fresh pants and was rocked. everytime i put him down, he flailed around and whined, which lead to crying. i'd pick him up and let him nurse, but then the whole episode would repeat. eventually i'd just had it and rolled over and let him cry. after about 10 minutes i gave him a pacifier. he drifted right off. he woke again at 5:30, ate and went right back to sleep until 8:30.
hoepfully he won't fight it every night. hopefully eventually he'll learn to let his full belly and warm bed surround him and allow the snooze to take over.
is this too much boring information? sorry. but the thing is, healthy sleep is a big part of baby-ing. it's a vital part of a happy life, the start of every good day, so it ranks right up there with the most important things we teach them how to do.
all hail the zzzzs.

nano nanny

i can't stop taking pictures of t2 . it just never gets old cause to me he just keeps getting cuter. yes, i'm that mom.
i hired guatemalan mirna after knowing her for 5 minutes. she watches most of the kids on this block, has two boys and instantly took to tay. she also likes wolly and he likes her, so i knew it'd all be fine.
she got here on time, picked him up the minute she walked in the door and started talking to him in spanish. i'm not sure who i love more, her or t2. when we got home, he'd been fed, bathed and put to sleep. heaven.
but now for for the first time in a very long time, i'm kinda hungover. with a wine headache. ouch.
i guess between the magazine launch and a late dinner at casa del mar and being so overjoyed that we had a sitter we trust and not feeling at all guilty or anxious i just lost track of the cocktails.
on top of the headache, i have a very sore and i think broken baby toe. three days ago i jammed it into, of all things, the GD diaper trashcan. i taped it to the toe next to it and i've been limping around just toughing it out since then. yesterday we walked to the farmer's market and it was feeling ok so i think i thought i could handle the heels i wore last night.
the trouble with me sometimes is i just don't know when to quit. i have some perfectly lovely flats that would have looked just as nice. instead, i limped around looking like i (1) had no idea how to walk in heels and (2) like i'd either had a raucous night in the sack or i hadn't fully recovered from child birth.
i know, if nothing else, how to make an impression.

i am not prepared

isn't this a cute photo? that's our best good friend pete (who, along with uncle geoff are t2's godfathers) and tayloe strolling the babe in venice. maybe i meant to type strolling for babes. if only i hadn't been tagging along. and if only, um, they didn't look kinda gay.
anyway, we had good times with pete who was here for a few days this week. the most fun thing about having a baby i've found is sharing him with the people we love.
a brief word on the name game: we're just calling him tay or tayloe. it just seems to fit for now. also, i've banned formula from our house unless it's an extreme and dire emergency (such as i'm dead), but more on that some other day.
i was in whole foods on thursday and i heard a little boy talking to his mother about expiration dates on power bars. she was scrounging around trying to find the ones that would last the longest. i thought that was kinda psycho, but then i heard her explain to her boy that she was buying them to go into a earthquake preparedness box for their family.
earthquake preparedness box. hm.
then, later that day i was at a friend's house and as she was giving me a tour of the room she just decorated for her 10-month old, she noted that she didn't hang anything over or near the child's bed because of earthqakes.
someone's trying to tell me something.
of course, i'm generally not prepared for anything. it's kind of my m.o. i worry about stuff only when doom seems imminent. it's sunny and beautiful everyday in los angeles, so i don't especially feel as though the end is nigh.
but la county isn't exactly a low-risk zone. so i gotta read up. the weird and scary thing about an earthquake is that it just hits without warning - middle of the day, middle of the night, while you're on the freeway or on a bridge or taking a walk or on the toilet. there's just no telling. they're evil that way.
my mission this weekend (or early next week) is to get us stocked. water, dry goods, flashlights and batteries and trashbags and dog food and probably (definately) a big bottle of whiskey and maybe (absolutely) some smokes and some sleeping pills.
for the first time in my life, i'm going to try to be ready for something. maybe this will 100 percent guarantee that an earthquake won't happen as long as we're here.

not all smiles

oh sure, he smiles a lot and is happy most of the time. but when he frowns, he gives it his all. a face like this takes 110 percent.
it's debatable whether he's really sad here or if he's just upset that his dad is wearing a velvet track jacket.
for kicks, let's assume he's actually upset.
are we supposed to take him seriously? if this is his 'please take me seriously' face he's really got some work to do because all it makes us do is laugh. that's probably going to really make him mad when he gets older.
today i'm going to meet a woman who may become our babysitter. i don't feel especially hyper about hiring someone or about leaving him with whomever i hire. i think if she speaks moderately understandable english, knows how to put a diaper on and isn't creepy i'll probably sign her up. in fact, i'm hoping to enlist her for this saturday night so tayloe and i can go to a party thrown by a magazine i hope to start writing for.
hi. nice to meet you. here's our son. have a nice time.
it probably won't go so smoothly, though. in fact, i'm going to go ahead and assume that the hiring-a-babysitter process is way more complicated than i think it is because just about everything about having a baby has turned out to be way more complicated than i thought it was.
getting my day started, for example. for some reason, i can't seem to get my shit together before 11 a.m. we wake up. i have to eat. he eats. wolly demands ball throwing. there's usually a fit somewhere in there (either me or him). i get sidetracked by laundry or 'the view' or cleaning something and before i know it half of the day is gone and i haven't gotten dressed or brushed my hair. because of this, i can't accept any invitations or assume any real responsibilities before noon.
i realize i've probably lost my mind, but my solution to this is to start putting him to bed earlier at night so he wakes up .... earlier. jesus. i can't even believe i want that to happen.
part of me is reluctant to change his schedule up because we've pretty much got it down and it works for the most part. the other, smarter part of me knows that it doesn't really matter because in a couple of weeks (days?) he'll change it up himself and i'll be left in a fangle trying to catch up.
so this time i'm going to beat him to the punch.
yes. i know. i'm only kidding myself. but hush. just let me believe, if only for a moment, that i'm in control.

they meet.

soon enough t2 is going to own the floor so i figured he and wolly should become better acquainted. 'ol wolls hasn't done too bad making room for the baby, but i think that's because he still has the floor. when the shit hits the fan, he can hide in the laundry room or in the corner of our bedroom and he knows he's pretty much safe. he's going to be very, very bummed when those days end if he doesn't have some warning first.
we let wolly near tay on a regular basis. mostly wolls just comes over and licks his face, sniffs and then walks away.
he gets it. he doesn't like it much, but he gets it.
tay usually closes his eyes when wolly gets close, so i think maybe he didn't fully realize that we have a dog. maybe he just thought his dad was giving him an especially wet kiss.
but today it all came together in a very big way.
here's what i think t2 is thinking:
um, what is that?
if that's our dog, he's much bigger than i thought.
woah man, does he look bigger from down here.
he's very very big, maybe the biggest dog ever.
he isn't getting any smaller.
what's this i'm sitting in? it's not a chew toy, is it? mom, am i sitting in a chew toy?
i'm going to just (hiccup) keep (hiccup) my eye (hiccup) on him.
here's what i think wolly's thinking:
great. this is just g-r-e-a-t.

and there's more

little guy's latest love is flying. he holds his head up with purpose and gets all bright eyed. he also drools a lot. in this award winning video, my dad acts as the engine.

i'm zonked

i've always thought my dad had a particularly calming quality. obviously, our son thinks so too.

poppy 101

my favorite people. my dad arrived just in time to catch the final phase of t2's cold - the most becoming phase i might add. lots of sneezes and snots and coughs. still, he made time to look cute. videos 'a comin'.

babyland

i could take a million pictures like this and never get tired of them.
i looked around our house today and realized that tayloe the baby has just about taken over. he's everywhere. the final straw was a playpen which takes up a large amount of living room space. i sat here looking at it, trying to think of a way to make it blend a little more and realized it was just pointless. there just isn't a way to make a bright blue playpen with a multi-colored caterpillar, orange tweety bird and blue frog hanging from it mesh with our decor.
so we're just hanging out, me and him, because tayloe's in toronto for the film festival. we're having pizza and celebrating our first 24 hours alone together. we spent the first 8 hours on the couch asking each other what we should do. i wish i'd asked tayloe for a review of dvd player operating instructions. i could just start pushing buttons until something works, but usually when i do that i break something.
tomorrow we'll need to get out of the house. i have a big plan in my head for us to walk to the farmer's market in the morning before my dad arrives. we need to walk because i think i may have eaten close to 15 small chocolate chip cookies while tay was having his mid-afternoon meal. he was munching and i started munching and zoning out and before i knew it 15 minutes had passed and the cookie bag was considerably lighter.
the trouble is most of the time my big plans and his big plans don't jive. i think, "let's walk to starbucks and take wolly to the dog park." he thinks, "let's sit on the couch, watch the today show and then poop our pants!" he usually wins.
latest stats: weight - 9 lbs, 13 oz. length - 23 inches.

swinger

my boys

we're just a little excited.