kdiddy.org

This a picture of me, the baby, and our associates, SpongeBob and Patrick. This picture is significant because it was taken moments ago by the photo booth application on my laptop. On my (admittedly ugly) couch. In my living room. Yes, after months of incessant whining on my part, something finally snapped in the husband’s brain and he hooked up our wireless router. Now that we have two computers with internet access, this marriage just might make it after all.

This gloriously long weekend has served me well. I’ve slept in past 9 a.m. TWICE, which I haven’t done in a looong time. However, I’ve been doing stuff like school supply shopping and picnicking, so now I have to squeeze in laundry and homework today around spending quality time with the husband’s family. And I don’t think we’re going to make it to a grocery store today so I’m really not sure what I’m going to do for lunch tomorrow. I’m thinking maybe something from the ghastly overpriced salad bar at the UC. Can’t wait.

Saturday I went to a canoe club in Verona for a picnic with some other MAPW types. It was nice, despite the fact that the baby came with me and is still on his Campaign of Terror. He nagged professors, screamed, whined, and flirted with grad students. Sigh. He did get to go canoing, which he enjoyed and was cute as hell.

The baby followed up his fantastic behavior at the picnic by waking me up early yesterday morning, wielding a vibrator he had found in my bedside drawer, and asking me what it was. I think I mumbled something about an egg beater before shoving it back in the drawer, too tired to be embarrassed.

I feel bad for wishing this summer away, but I’m ready for fall.

Wrote this last night

One week of the semester down, 15 more to go.

Man, I really wish I hadn’t just typed that out.

We had another trip to the baby’s new school today to do some developmental tests and whatnot. We also talked to the school nurse about his tree nut allergy and she seemed mildly freaked out. I am not concerned since I think the plan of attack is pretty simple. Check foods for tree nuts and avoid those that contain them. If he happens to ingest some, remain calm, administer Epipen, call 911. Or you can skip those first two steps and just call 911, especially since there’s a fire station with paramedics right across the street. In fact, you wouldn’t even need to call 911, just shout out the window. Eh, whatever.

I know I’ve said before that I’m excited for him to start school and all of those emotional, “Oh, my baby!” reasons still stand, but now I’m really excited because I’m hoping it will mean an end to this end-of-the-summer dementia he’s experiencing. He doesn’t have any playmates close by and it’s been tough getting together with any of his buddies, so he’s been pretty bored all summer. I feel bad about that, but there’s not a ton I can do about it. Consequently, he’s becoming quite the pain in the ass, whining constantly, throwing fits, picking fights with the cat. Stuff like that. He’s currently attempting to play Rayman’s Raving Rabbids on the Wii, despite the fact that it’s a little over his head. He’s obviously failing at all the games and then shouting at the TV. The husband is very helpfully talking on the phone. The cat is scratching the couch. I gave a hearty middle finger to the dishes in the sink.

We’re all sort of resigned to the suckiness of this time of year.

At least the weather was a little merciful today. Having to deal with 95 degree weather at this point is just obnoxious and I’m sick of sweating and being sticky and greasy.

But in less whiny news, the husband picked up a cheap copy of Short Circuit on DVD the other night. We watched it with the baby last night and today and the husband and I had both forgotten how amusing that flick is. And Ally Sheedy was so…squeaky.

And now today, after I had to abandon this post to difuse the Wii situation…

The husband had to go play records last night so I decided to watch The Devil Wears Prada. I had seen the end of it a couple of times, but wanted to watch it from the beginning and I knew the husband wasn’t into it. You know, that movie’s not too bad. I chuckled at the beginning when they contrasted Andy getting ready in the morning with the other glamazons. The unkempt hair, minimal makeup and comfort-over-style manner of dressing is so, so me. Meryl Streep really is frighteningly convincing as the evil boss and Emily Blunt was fantastic. I really think Anne Hathaway has a fantastic career ahead of her, so long as she can break out of the “she’s had to overcome so much…being brunette and all,” roles. Hollywood really needs to quit it with that shit. Coincidentally, both Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway are starring in separate Jane Austen related movies.

I have some housework and an MAPW picnic to go to today. My mom and I are also heading out to buy the baby his school supplies. I’ve had two cups of Pleasant Morning Buzz and am feeling rather pleasantly buzzed.

I need a shower.

Our buddy Matt has a pretty great post up about his two-year-anniversary trip to New Orleans. I recommend reading it and also checking out his pictures on flickr. One disclaimer: Matt is, uh, not a Republican. If you are, his post might piss you off. Well, the situation surrounding his post SHOULD piss everyone off, but everyone has different motivations for their pissiness.

We went to the baby’s school last night for a Meet & Greet. I think I signed up for the PTO. I’m not sure. But we got to see his classroom and his locker and meet his teacher. I have such a good feeling about the school. Most importantly, the baby really liked it and didn’t even want to leave when it was time to go. I managed to hold back my cries of “HA! THAT’LL CHANGE! WELCOME TO THE NEXT 12+ YEARS OF YOUR LIFE, KID!” and merely snorted at him. But everyone there seems cool and his classroom is the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen.

There was one family there that squicked me out. The dad had a Larry the Cable Guy hat with a confederate flag on it. Now, I’m not implying that Larry the Cable Guy fans are automatically racist, though I will state that I think that they have terrible taste in comedy and delight in giving money to someone who is basically mocking his audience. But the confederate flag tattoo on his arm gave me pause. The mom, who my husband said bore a slight resemblance to Marilyn Manson, yelled at her three kids, the oldest of which was maybe 7 and all of whom were rather obese. Now, I’m making snap judgments about these people, admittedly, but I have a feeling that we might not get along. Not to worry, though. At least I’m not the confederate-sympathizing moron sending my kids to a city school. Way to make yourself miserable.

Alright, enough being a bad, judgmental person. First week of classes is almost over and I am so relieved. I’m also supposed to weigh myself tomorrow, but we don’t have a scale at the house and I don’t trust the university to properly calibrate the gym scales…or maybe I’m still paranoid about the last time I did a short stint on Weight Watchers last year and in three weeks on the program gained six pounds according to the gym scales. It was around that point that I said, “Fuck it,” and started eating everything in sight. I guess I should have sought a second opinion. Oh, well. I find that periodically relinquishing control over one’s self is liberating, I just relinquished for too long. Or some shit.

On Saturday, I got a little piece of mail. It came in a security envelope, the ones that require you to tear off strips of perforated paper along the edges. Inside was the baby’s school bus schedule.

Ever since then, the reality of this big transition has really been racing through my head. I was telling a friend last night that we really have to start working our way out of this summer routine that involves staying up kind of late and taking advantage of the fact that school is out by leisurely arriving at my quiet office. The baby gets the bus at 8 a.m. and so I am going to have to make sure that he starts going to bed an hour or so earlier. I am going to have to start going to bed much earlier. Watching movies until 1:30 a.m. is probably not going to cut it anymore. I’m also going to have to start doing really responsible, adult things like pack our lunches the night before and making sure that all backpacks have everything that they need. Juggling work, the baby’s school, the husband’s school and my school is going to be a real challenge and I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t slightly terrified.

I feel like we’ve been kind of skating along up until this point, dabbling in only the bare minimum of responsible habits. The baby growing up and starting kindergarten and really moving into the realm of Big Kid is forcing me to really knuckle down and do the things that I know I should instead of just letting them slide in favor of some self-indulgence.

It might be a little easier if the baby was just totally gung ho about the whole thing, but he’s a little nervous. Last night, we were talking about the bus and he asked if I was going to go with him. I explained that I wouldn’t be and he got a little upset but I said that there would be other kids on the bus and some of them would be nervous, too. But when they get to school his teachers will meet him and they will show him where to go. I think we’re both struggling to let go of the idea that I’m just shooting my kid into the unknown with no real plan. Millions of kids start kindergarten every year and mine is going to be just fine.

To top it all off, we were watching Big Love last night (I said I was a bad mom!) and the baby said that Nicki was his favorite character. I asked him why and he said it was because she’s pretty. I asked him if he thought she was the prettiest, meaning the prettiest on the show and he said, “No, Mum, you’re the prettiest.”

Alright, I have to go melt into a puddle somewhere.

The baby has been working on his first loose tooth for well over a month now. This morning he came running into my room and said, “Hey Mum, my tooth came out! My tooth came out!” and immediately dropped the tiny and newly liberated tooth on the floor. He found it, though, and presented me with the most darling gap-toothed smile I’ve ever seen.

Congratulations, dude!

Gah. First tooth lost and in about three weeks he starts kindergarten.

I think I need a drink.

Shockingly, Baby Einstein videos don’t make your kid a genius. I will be the first to admit that, as a parent, I’m susceptible to drinking the Kool-Aid that is the marketing of children’s products, but I never got into Baby Einstein. Some friends of my parents (incidentally, these friends were very into products and were the type who insist on $800 strollers because obviously that’s the only good and safe stroller) who had their first baby about a year before I had the baby gave me some of their videos, but I was just really uncomfortable with the idea of the baby watching TV. My general guideline was that he wouldn’t watch it regularly until he was 2 and we were able to stick to that more or less. That’s not to say that I shielded him completely from it, but I just didn’t really present it as an option. Now, of course, he seems to be on a mission to make up for those two years that I cruelly kept him from the joys of Cartoon Network.

Anyway, Baby Einstein…it just seemed like bunk and while I guess you could say that they would be a good tool to use with your baby, I have yet to meet the person who can honestly sit through one of those videos more than once. They’re boring.

In other news, PUPPIES!

Completely unrelated to anything mentioned above, I’m finding that I still feel very awkward in this new forum, like I’m still finding my voice. It’s all very dramatic. I need a room of my own!