Are you kidding me? Stop it.

Oh. my. God. Take the words, the basic premise here, and you have… I was going to say my mother, but let’s not lie. It’s any of the women in my family, up to and including me.

Eight months old!

And there was so much to celebrate! Not only is my little man eight months old today, but MrP has been transferred back to the downtown location. It’s good news - so much closer to home, shorter hours, more bus/metro options. MrP was off today and had to go down to pick up his keys and whatnot, so we met up there after work for a little dinner.

We also gave the new Fisher Price highchair cover a try tonight. It’s fabulous. Well worth the $10. I picked it up after taking him out to a few restaurants with truly nasty, grungy high chairs. I’m no germophobe, even when it comes to the baby, but I’ve been amazed at the high chairs at a few restaurants. I’m going to put my tiny little special Nana’s angel blessed baby in some crusty old chair? No, I don’t think so.

MyDC: High time

Thank God. I’d been thinking, what this neighborhood really needed was a good hemp store. I haven’t checked it out yet, so I don’t know if it’s just overpriced hippie hemp store or head shop. Or both. Without comment I’ll just note I’m no longer in the market for anything they might sell, so I haven’t had much cause to pop in.

But oh, I know these people. Let me tell you a story: The program I took back in college required an extensive undergraduate thesis, and a 20-minute presentation. Mine was on women in sitcoms. So I decided I would put together a little soundtrack of TV theme songs to play behind my presentation. Fabulous. Well, as I was… not in my right mind… I decided, wouldn’t it be awesome if I could time it so that, as I discussed a particular show, its theme song would start playing. Okay, TV theme songs are short. It took hours to time it all out*, but whatever, man. I had a pack of smokes, a bag of Cheetos, what.ever.

All this came to mind when I saw they’d mosaiced the wall…

*It worked beautifully. Afterwards someone actually asked me, “Did you know, as you talked about a show, its theme song started playing?” “Um. Yeah.”

Mama!

I was trying and trying to come up with this great eloquent post about Mother’s Day - my mother, Nana, how amazing they are and how grateful I am to have been raised by these incredible women. I couldn’t ask for a better relationship with my mother. She’s fun, funny, compassionate, understanding, completely in my business and respectful of my boundaries. Nana is one of these all-too-often overlooked women of her generation, the ones who regularly cooked these epic meals, who raised three girls (with little help from Pap) and ran a little beauty shop out of their basement, who provided endless childcare  and who cared for Pap round the clock from the day he got sick until the moment he died. And did it all without complaint. At the most you’d get a shrug and a “What are you gonna do?”

I’ve always said the differences among the generations can be summed up like this. At the kitchen table, a man - Pap, MrP, whomever - says, “Oh, I forgot a glass of water…”

Nana jumps up and gets it.

My mother gets it, if she’s closer, or already up getting her own.

I say, “Oooo, pour me one while you’re at it…”

When babies attack!

I meant to get something up last night, but you know, it just didn’t happen.

So I was happily taking a little video of Joe and his new Leapfrog acivity table. I don’t know if you can hear, but the music’s not half bad, right? He’s also gotten to be pretty damn good at standing. Look at that - one hand, he lowers himself up and down. I got a kick out of his determination to keep that pink teether in his hand, and his absolute inability to do so.

But you’ve got to be very careful working with babies, because they can attack at any moment!

Something to do

Lift a meme from frog.

TECHNOLOGY

Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer? A shot of some snapdragons.

Q. How many televisions you have in your house? Two, although neither have been turned on in ages.

BIOLOGY

Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed? Right

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body? My original nose, a mole on my wrist (which keloid right back), tonsils, wisdom teeth

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted? The baby’s getting pretty weighty.

Q. Have you ever been knocked out? I passed out once, does that count? Right on the sidewalk. I still have scars on my knees.

BULLSHITOLOGY

Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? No.

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to? I already did. I wouldn’t change it again.

Q. What color do you think looks best on you? Red.

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item? Well, sure. Probably the most interesting was the time I swallowed a bunch of tiny beads, just to see how long it would take to… reappear. (Two days.)

DAREOLOGY

Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100? I’d take the money, but I’ve done it for a hell of lot less.

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000? No.

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000? In a heartbeat. Then I’d launch a new “online journal”

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000? Maybe. I mean, it doesn’t have to be Hustler. It could be some very tastefully shot Annie Leibovitz pictures…

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000? Lord, no.

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000? Probably not. I mean, no.

DUMBOLOGY

Q: What is in your left pocket? No pockets today.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie? I’ve never actually watched it all the way through. It doesn’t keep my attention.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house? All hardwood

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower? Huh? I haven’t sat in the shower since my big partying days back in Columbus.

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own? A few… I threw most out at the end of last summer.

LASTOLOGY

Q: Last person who texted you? My sister.

Q: Last person who called you? The renters insurance place

Q: Person you hugged? MrP

FAVORITOLOGY

Q: Number? 4

Q: Season? I like them all for various reasons. No, I’m serious. Even winter has its charms.

Q: Color? Red

CURRENTOLOGY

Q: Missing someone? Always

Q: Mood? Vaguely annoyed

Q: Listening to? Last.fm

Q: Watching? Nothing.

Q: Worrying about? Money

Q: Wearing? Striped nursing top, black skirt.

RANDOMOLOGY

Q: First place you went this morning? Walked to work

Q: What can you not wait to do? Get out with the new wagon this weekend.

Q: Do you smile often? Not as much as I should.

Hard at work

In addition to the wagon, the Leapfrog activity table also showed up the other day. I think it’s a hit. He played with it for a long time yesterday while MrP made dinner and I changed after work.

I love how hard he works at playing.

And I don’t know what it says about me that I’m pretty amused by it, too. The music is much, much, much less irritating than any of his other toys. It’s, um… it’s not half bad, the jazzy bits. I deeply appreciate the toys that don’t hurt me when they play ad infinitum. Of all the brands, I like Leapfrog the best at this point. They seem to offer the most “real” music - the jazz this table plays? It’s real instruments, and real child-friendly jazz, even with a little scat that makes me laugh. Shoo be doo be doo! I’ve decided, if I were going to try out to be the voice of a toy, I’d try out for Fisher Price. Their voices/music is far and away the most enthusiastic. “Yellow! car! Yeah!” Their toys reminds me of kids TV. Very up! up! up!

On the other end of the scale is Baby Einstein. During the Babyplays fiasco (did I ever tell you about that?), we got this Baby Einstein Color Kaleidoscope, and oh my God… I don’t know if all their toys are this bad, but the voice on the kaleidoscope was like… German engineered, lab tested, to make babies smarter. This very serious woman’s voice said “yellow” and then a selection from Mozart would play. It wasn’t so much teaching the babies as indoctrinating them. Scary.

Isn’t it always the way

Wagon? Brand new.

Exersaucer? Newly pulled apart and rearranged.

And the baby? Totally enthralled by a string.

The more things change

Just a little compare and contrast.

Back in January:

But now Joe’s way too grown to sit inside the Exersaucer anymore - that’s for babies.

#1! #1! #1!

Tip: pick a relatively obscure name for your blog, and you too can be the #1 search result in Google for it.