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.