Yet another reason Seattle rocks

Nothing too exciting happening around here lately, just normal life stuff. I turned in my lease car on Saturday *sniff sniff* so now we are back down to two. (Yes, DH is driving the new car and I'm driving his old car. But it's one of my favorite things so I don't really mind.) I have been struggling to get a second opinion on some tooth pain, and I'm gearing up to leave a bad review for our current dentist on every single rating site I can find online. DH is in the process of shopping around for some insurance, and as I am the lucky one who is home during the day, I had a lovely chat with three different, but equally enthusiastic, insurance salesmen. I experienced a minor heart attack when a bird flew into my front window and knocked itself unconscious. (Fortunately it eventually recovered and flew away.) When I was at the grocery store picking up a few things, the clerk gave me an obvious once over and then asked if I had any food stamps to use. I introduced a new breakfast to Bean -- waffles -- which he proceeded to eat, one bite approximately every 4 minutes. It took 7 hours for him to finish. (Okay, not really. But we are still easing into this real food thing.)

Wow, that all sounded really negative! But actually the past few days haven't been bad. My mom found cute decorations and supplies for Bean's first birthday party. And I have our first confirmed guests, Bean's former babysitter and her daughter and nephew. I discovered chocolate eclair flavored coffee creamer, which is so good it doesn't even matter that I use the store brand decaf instant coffee with it. And today we met DH for lunch and then Bean and I hit the mall. I finished a gift I was compiling for a preggo friend of ours. High five!

Speaking of good things, by now you've probably picked up on the fact that I absolutely love Seattle. It's super duper awesome. And I'm not the only one who thinks so! It seems that every time I read an article about the "best cities for this" and the "top cities for that," Seattle is somewhere on the list. Healthiest residents. Best recreation. Most literate. Breastfeeding friendly. Most caffeinated. Dog friendly. Most wired. Most desirable. Sure, it is also one of the cloudiest and most liberal cities, but hey, no place is perfect. (I kid. Some of my best friends are liberals!) Anyway, what I am most grateful for this week is the King County Library System. Fah-bu-lous. I was able to request my book online, receive an email that it arrived at my local branch, go over to the hold shelf to retrieve it myself, and use the self-checkout. So I didn't have to actually face another human being during the entire process of obtaining a book called A Hunger Like No Other. It's like using Amazon.com, but it's free! Back at our St. Louis library branch, I would have to ask a librarian to get the book for me from the hold shelf, which was behind their desk. Although I give them credit, they never batted an eye when I checked out books like So You Think You Have Multiple Personalities for school research. (Yes, it totally was for school research! Come on now.)

And the pics...

Bean cruises the furniture while Evey enjoys a well-earned snooze.


He loves to practice standing on his own, he's up to 3 seconds now.

Playing outside with Daddy and Evey.

He plays "smacka smacka" with the leaves. (It's easier if you take one glove off first.)


The leaves inside are fun, too!

Life is tough when you are cutting your top two teeth.

The pooch patiently waits her turn.

Two (maybe three) miracles, an award, and a meme

First miracle, thanks to all the wonderful tips from my fabulous bloggy and IRL (in real life) friends... Bean ate a big boy dinner today! Chicken and cornbread stuffing casserole, leftovers from what I made yesterday for me and DH after Bean was in bed. BRILLIANT! I don't know what I'd do without you all. Seriously. *wipes tear* Sure, it was one of the most painful experiences of my life, giving him a tiny spoonful and then waiting 7 minutes while he slowly chewed it, looked at the dog, smacked the high chair tray, stuck his finger in his mouth, looked at the dog again, took a drink, flapped his arms up and down, chewed, again at the dog, more tray smacking, reached for the vertical blinds on the sliding glass door, is the dog still down there?, giggled randomly, chewed, repeat cycle.... and finally tiny swallow. But somehow I survived without pulling all of my hair out, and I'm so excited about our new opportunities. Yee haw!

Second miracle, Bean slept 11 straight hours last night, then woke up briefly and slept another hour. YES I SAID HE SLEPT 11 STRAIGHT HOURS. Which combined with a bit of a third miracle -- I didn't wake up worrying about him! -- means that I got 7 hours of solid, uninterrupted, continuous, undisturbed, restful sleep. Can you tell I'm excited? I'm not worried about jinxing anything, because I don't expect this to happen again for at least several months. And to prove my theory, Bean has already woken up crying twice since he went to bed a few hours ago. But damn, that was one amazing night...






And more good news... I received an award (above) and a meme from Coffeegrl at Okaasan mommy and more. The honorees of this award are to: A) first list 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep! B) pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap.

Here goes!

1. I really want to go back to school and get a Ph.D. in counseling psychology. I enjoyed my master's program (although not while working full-time, yucky) and would love to take it further. For various reasons, I think it's pretty unlikely that this will ever happen. It's probably one of those things that I'll think of regretfully when I'm 50. That and cutting my own bangs in high school.

2. I get very nervous in groups of people I don't know. This is probably not really unique, but being an introvert, the anxiety causes me to retreat into my head and remain quiet. Sometimes this makes me appear aloof, when really I'm worrying that I have nothing interesting to add to the conversation. Which is usually true. Moving on.

3. Sometimes when I am about to lose my mind in gridlock traffic, I imagine that there is a missile launcher on top of my car. One that instantly vaporizes its target, leaving no trace of the object whatsoever. I picture pushing a red button on my dashboard, releasing the missile, and vaporizing all the cars in front of me, one by one, to relieve the congestion. You know what? It works pretty well.

4. In the first weeks of Bean's life, I was terrified that I had made a mistake by fighting so hard to become a mother. Between the sleep deprivation and constant battle to breastfeed, I was absolutely miserable and longing for the days before DH and I had ever decided we wanted a child. At the time, I couldn't see far enough ahead to know it would get better, but thank goodness it did. Now I find myself feeling like I have finally arrived in my perfect-for-me life, there is nothing in the world I would rather be than Bean's mother.

5. I feel a stab of guilt when DH mentions coworkers with high-earning wives and their amazing houses/cars/boats/vacations/shoe closets. (So maybe he doesn't mention the shoe closets, but I can imagine.) While, as I said in #4, I wouldn't trade my daily life for the paycheck of an ER surgeon, I still wish I was bringing in some fat cash to get DH all those things that he'd love so much. Because he totally, totally deserves them.

6. I am so unreasonably competitive with DH when we play board games or video games, that we can only play on the same team. I'm not sure why exactly, because I'm not competitive with him in our normal life (I guess I think of us as a partnership?). But after a particularly brutal game of "Sorry" which landed DH on the receiving end of an extended silent treatment, we limit ourselves to games that we can play on the same side.

7. Ever since I finished the "Twilight" series, I have been obsessed with the real town where the story takes place: Forks, Washington. Okay, so it's only been like a month. But I think about it almost every day. I want to go there sooooo bad! But it's too far to easily take Bean. I have actually considered weaning him just so I can leave him with DH for the weekend and take off by myself. Even though I know that Bella's house doesn't really exist there, I want to go and try to find it anyway. I'm looking for a support group.

8. Sometimes I worry that maybe movies like The Sixth Sense and Ghost Town are right, and dead people do walk around on Earth and watch those of us that are still living (without being seen themselves, of course). I mean, I generally live my life in a way that I am proud of. But there are certain things that I do that I wouldn't necessarily like to think my grandparents are watching, know what I mean?

9. Although I think it was the right choice for me and DH to marry when we did, if Bean proposes to his girlfriend at age 20 and gets married while he's still in college, I'll worry that he's making a mistake.

10. Secondary infertility freaks me out. I am terrified that Bean won't be a big brother. But when I imagine raising two young kids out here with no solid support network, I am equally terrified that he will be one.

Whew! Are you exhausted? Because I'm exhausted.

I looked through my blogroll to pass along the award and meme, but I don't think I will right now. The award has already made the rounds, and many of my favorite bloggers either 1) get tagged by me too often or 2) are less active recently as they contend with newborns or moving. So I want to issue a huge THANK YOU to all the blogs I read, I find all of them wonderfully open and honest. I look forward to each post on my Google Reader!

Rice Krispies treat

In preschool this morning, Teacher S. had a table filled with Rice Krispies for the kids to play with. Bean *loved* it and consumed more of them than all the other kids combined. I think he was trying to make me look bad for always asking the other moms for suggestions on how to get him to eat.

Step one: A little exploration... push them around with fingers.

Step two: The first taste. Better than floor lint.


Step three: Continuously shove them into mouth for 20 minutes. Plaster some to face, hands, and shirt for future snacking.

Step four: Assist with clean-up by eating errant puffs off the ground.

Next week the table will be filled with water. We'll strip the kids down to their diapers and let them go to town. Hopefully I'll get some good pictures of that!

I thought it was cute that he crawled to this toy among the preschool's collection, which is one that DH had and adored as a child. When Bean first met Happy Apple six months ago and 2200 miles away, he was less than impressed.

Finally, I recently tried to capture Bean's fist-waving dictator persona using the video capability on my regular camera. He wouldn't cooperate, getting calm and quiet whenever I'd point the lens at him. Such is life with a budding toddler. Nevertheless, here he is, doing nothing interesting whatsoever. (And for the record, we have since lowered the crib so he can't hurl himself over the edge. You can hang up with Child Protective Services now.)

Zoom zoom

DH made it back safely, and double good news, his boss agreed that DH did not need to travel to a meeting back east this week. Whew, that was close! He's still working very long hours at the moment, but at least I get to snuggle with him at the end of the day. As much as I love spending the day with Bean, I just don't feel complete unless DH is home for dinner (even if it's 8 pm).

We did go shopping for DH's commuter car on Saturday, and what do you know, we made a purchase our first day out! After spending several months researching reliability, safety, gas mileage, and cost, DH selected a used Mazda3 to test drive that day. He even brought his clipboard with inspection checklist -- which the sales manager said was a first. Apparently he hasn't sold to many engineers. When we sat down to negotiate, we discovered that between our employee family discount (my Grandpa retired from the applicable one of the Big Three), bonus cash, and ridiculously low interest rates offered only on 2009 models, it was actually less expensive to by a brand new one than any decent used one. Needless to say, DH is now zooming to work in his new wheels. And Bean, for his part, was a tough negotiator. His first tactic was to use his utter cuteness to totally distract our salesperson, who was about 25 with two young daughters of her own. His second was to pretend he wasn't interested by falling asleep in my arms for about 30 minutes of the six hour process (yes, I said SIX HOURS!). Third, he expertly used silence to his advantage, uttering almost nothing the entire time except a few authoritative declarations complete with fist waving. I'm thinking perhaps a future lawyer, but DH sees him as a dictator, standing on a balcony and bellowing to the masses below. Not an evil dictator, though. Most likely.

I did get one unpleasant surprise on Saturday, however. When the finance manager ran our credit, turns out our scores are 40-50 points higher than I told Suze. DOH! What an idiotic mistake! How often do you get a chance to chat with Suze about your credit, and I am too lazy and cheap to spend money on an updated credit report! (I used the scores that our mortgage lender pulled last spring when we were buying the house. I thought they'd be the same.) It wouldn't have made a difference in her answer, and maybe it's just foolish pride. But I'm so mad I could just spit. Grrrrrr!

Anyway, after the excitement of the car purchase, it's been a low-key couple of days. Sunday was our typical chore day (laundry, grocery shopping, wash the pooch). On Monday, Bean and I just kicked around la casa. Today was stroller skating with the MOMS Club. But even though our calendar has been rather stagnant, that doesn't mean Bean has been. He's been cruising around the furniture, crawling into our closest to eat lint off the floor, walking with help from mom and dad, babbling up a storm ("dat"/"det"/"dit"), teething his top front teeth, and dancing to the banjo music on his activity table. He has also started to recognize more sign language. DH taught him "light" (or what DH thought was "light" based on the picture *ahem*). When you do the sign, Bean will immediately look at the light fixture in the room, his mouth slowly curving into a tiny little smile as he awaits your celebration.

There are two issues I'm struggling with now, advice and opinions appreciated. It's a prime example of be careful what you wish for. First, now that I have an awesome napper (10 am and 2 pm daily), it has become very hard to attend functions with the mom's groups. He already misses his morning nap on Wednesdays for preschool. On other days, almost all the events start at 10 am. I love that he naps well, but then we don't get to do any of the fun activities and make friends with other families. I woke him up for stroller skating today, and I've felt guilty ever since. A no-win, it feels like. I'm looking forward to that transition to one nap, but it's months away, I think.

Second, he's started getting into more finger foods, yeah! But this is so far limited to string cheese, Gerber puffs, and Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers (he's apparently weight conscious, which explains why he's only in the 10th percentile). I've tried a few other things, and usually I'll get a few bites out of him, then the rest gets thrown over the side of the high chair for the dog. I want to step it up, but I'm not keen on spending a half hour making a real meal for him that just ends up in doggy deposits on our lawn. And I can't just give him a portion of our dinner, because Bean eats at 5 pm, at least an hour before DH and I are ready. Once again, I'm shocked at how hard it is to feed this little creature.

And finally, because I get scolded when I don't post them, pictures of Bean.

It's fun to cruise around the house and destroy explore things... pants optional.

PSA: Are you ready?

In one month, all television stations will broadcast a digital signal. Don't wait until the last minute to prepare!

I could use a drink

A brief review of my week. Implied, of course, are all the usual daily happenings like performing minor miracles to convince Bean that his food belongs in his mouth and not on the floor, and squirting the dog with water to prevent her from overzealously protecting our house from the skinny kindergartner with Spiderman sneakers.

Monday.

• DH leaves for week-long business trip. I take a deep breath.
• Run errands, including trip to the ATM. Stand outside in the rain, balance Bean on my hip as he tries to press the touchscreen, and try not to drop my purse while filling out the deposit envelope. Curse the greater Seattle area for not believing in drive-thru ATMs.
• Read books to Bean, including one about Danny Duck, who is afraid of water and stands under Henry Horse to avoid the rain. Give Bean a brief lesson on enabling and codependency. After moving on to a book about mischievous piglets who wreak havoc on a farm, consider teaching him where bacon comes from. Maybe tomorrow.
• Timing of afternoon nap means we don't make it to mall gathering with MOMS Club. Shopping trip nap casualty #1.
• Bean goes to bed for the evening, I'm feeling good. Decide I will decimate to-do list in DH's absence. Install baby gate, pay bills, and type up tips on early breastfeeding for two friends due in March.

Tuesday.

• Take Evey (and Bean) to the vet. Immediately after walking in, Evey takes a huge crap in the middle of the floor. Clean it up with paper towel in one hand while holding the leash and Bean in the other. Discuss with vet how to get dog to stop licking her butt while juggling Bean to keep him from crawling on the exam room floor. She recommends adding Metamucil to dog food to help clean her glands. Use $10 coupon and pay the remaining $60 bill.
• Practice making grilled cheese for playdate on Thursday. Burn one side of the sandwich. There really is an art.
• Bean turns in for the night. Start cleaning the house for the playdate to the tune of wanna-be singers auditioning for American Idol.

Wednesday.

• Answer call from the mom of twins suppose to come over for playdate on Thursday. They have RSV, have to cancel. No need to finish cleaning the house.
• As we are leaving for preschool, find a sweet and frightened golden retriever at our front door. Unsuccessfully try to locate the owners (collar does not have a tag). Dog leads me to what is likely her house, and after not getting an answer at the door, I leave her sprawled comfortably on the porch.
• Spend most of preschool worrying about the dog and berate myself for leaving her alone.
• After preschool, immediately ring doorbell at house where I left the golden retriever, who is no longer on the porch. Dog comes to answer the door, a human doesn't. I'm satisfied.
• Have panic attack about planning Bean's first birthday party. What if no one comes? What if everyone comes? What if the cake doesn't match the invitations? Call my mom to bait her into coordinating the details; ignore tiny voice in my head mumbling about codependency. Crisis solved.
• Bean goes to bed. The motivation of earlier in the week has dwindled. Flop on couch to watch another two hours of American Idol, and despite not caring for the show whatsoever, I am totally hooked.

Thursday.

• Feeling stir crazy, I hope to attend a mall meet-up with the LLL group at 10 am. Bean goes down for a nap at 9:45 am. Shopping trip nap casualty #2.
• Must leave house. Faced with limited opportunities, we go on our one outing of the day: back to the ATM for another check deposit. At least it's not raining this time.
• Bean burns some energy crawling around the main floor. Somehow crosses the family room and kitchen in 2.3 seconds. I hear splashing; find him playing in the dog's heavy ceramic water dish. I grab video camera. He overturns the bowl, creating a big puddle in the kitchen, just as the caller ID lights up with my mother-in-law's number.
• Bath time for Bean. Undress him in his bedroom to put wet clothes in the hamper. Stand him up on bathroom floor, his little hands holding onto to the side of the tub while I fill his ducky bath. He decides to relieve himself before getting in and uses the linoleum as his own personal urinal. I guess it's better than peeing in the bathwater.
• Bean falls asleep for the night. Type blog entry and run out of time to watch my click flick; DH will have to suffer through a romantic comedy with Dane Cook and Kate Hudson. I don't feel bad.

DH's plane lands on Friday at noon, I can't wait. Then after a brief recovery and some seriously killer spicy chicken teriyaki, we'll be spending the weekend negotiating with used car salesmen as we get ready to turn in my lease car and purchase one. Would anyone care to join me for a Bloody Mary?

By request

Okay, Mary, because you asked, here are some recent pictures of the Bean. But before I comply with that request, I have one of my own. It is Delurking Week, or so Mel tells me, and I'm making my official plea. A lurker, of course, is someone who regularly reads a blog but never leaves a comment. I know I have a few, because I sometimes check on my number of visitors, and I doubt my mom is going to 20 unique computers every day and pulling up my blog. If I were a real techie, I could figure out where you were logging in from and gather all sorts of other cool demographic info, but alas, I am not. So please take a few seconds to say hello. Just go to the bottom of this post, click on the link to the number of comments I have, and if you don't have an account, you can just reply as "anonymous" and let me know your first name, nickname, CB radio handle, etc. I'm making it easy for you, because this post is all pictures of Bean. There is no deep thought required to comment on the topic of Bean's sweet little mug, just a basic "He's so adorable!" will suffice. (Comments like, "Eh, he's okay." or "I hope he doesn't have your big nose!" are not appreciated, and you can just keep on lurking. Thanks.) Okay, enough of my begging, here's what the little man has been up to -- or into -- in the past few days.

Still crawling out of his pants. Evey can't imagine why I still think it's so amusing. It just is.

He just loves the activity table. The banjo song is his favorite, it almost looks like he's trying to dance when it comes on.

He loves to crawl under and into everything. The task of babyproofing is overwhelming... soon there will be nothing left in our house but a couch and a bunch of drawers that none of us can open.

Top attractions: cords and dog toys. Luckily for Bean, Evey shares and mom would rather take a picture than take the yucky stuff away.

He's such a happy little munchkin.

Can't forget the pooch! Nothing comforts cold, weary winter bones like curling up with the heating pad.

Last but not least, I just had to show you the cute shoes I bought for Bean. I searched everywhere for some affordable black shoes for him to match the new 12-month outfits he got for Christmas, and I eventually turned to http://www.shoes.com/ for these Converse. Thank you, Chuck Taylor!

March 7th

Me and Suze. Chatting it up. Watch for it. (I'm pretty sure this time.)

The wait continues

Thanks to everyone who watched for me on The Suze Orman Show tonight. No, I wasn't on when you went to the bathroom... you didn't accidentally fast-forward your DVR right past me. It was a bummer to get excited and then not appear on her show, but I'm kinda glad I didn't have to follow that guy whose wife left him because he lied about their finances. Man, that was really sad.

Now I get to freak out about the possibility of hearing myself on television for at least another week, or maybe forever if my call gets cut permanently. But if that happens, at least I'll retire wealthy, because I'll gain a ridiculous amount of knowledge on personal finance from tuning in every single week, just in case. And if just one of my friends and family gets a tip while watching Suze that turns their financial life around, the delay will all be worth it.

Yes, I'm sure there is a higher reason that I was not on The Suze Orman Show tonight other than my call was lame. But girlfriend, I'll keep you posted.

Suze called me "girlfriend"

DH and I watch The Suze Orman Show every Saturday at 6 pm. Actually, we record it, because we are catching a quick nap before we head to the bar at 11. Okay, FINE. We record it while we eat dinner and put Bean to bed, and we watch it after he's asleep because we are apparently "adults" now and have to be "responsible" with our money so Bean can do things like "go to college" and "eat." Thus our regular weekly date with CNBC.

This morning, I found myself having a lovely phone conversation with Suze herself. Here's a timeline of all the critical events that led up to the momentous occasion...


LATE NOVEMBER

Get letter in the mail that sparks a question for my favorite financial guru, Suze Orman. While it is not even in the top 10 of my money concerns, I decide to post it on her web site, as I was all caught up on Google Reader and had nothing else to do while eating lunch.

MID DECEMBER

The phone rings, and I answer it despite my suspicions that the unknown caller wants to sell me identity theft protection or supplemental life insurance. Wait... what's this? It's a producer from Suze's show! They like my question and wonder if I'd like to be a caller on the show. (As if they had to ask.) The producer says I will get a call from them on January 6th between 8:30 and 9:15 am Eastern Time -- which is 5:30 and 6:15 am to me. Apparently Suze doesn't take callers in the afternoon, bummer.

LAST NIGHT

7 pm -- Bean goes to bed. My nerves strike. I start freaking out, frantically waving my arms in the air and generally driving DH nuts. Rewrite my original question and begin to practice reading it.

8 pm -- Watch the latest episode of The Suze Orman Show as "homework" to prepare. Continue practicing my question.

9 pm -- Attempting to relax, I turn on the episode of Million Dollar Password that I recorded because Craig Ferguson was on it. Although Craig was funny and even Regis had some good lines, it wasn't enough to make up for the fact that the show gets unbearably boring after 15 minutes. Continue practicing.

9:20 pm -- Watch Property Virgins and Jon & Kate Plus Eight. Continue practicing.

10:15 pm -- I reveal my biggest fear to DH: that Suze won't like me. I'd be so ashamed! I could never watch her show again! He reveals his: that she will suggest I leave my husband.

10:30 pm -- After one final explosion of freak-outedness, I drift into dreamland to the sounds of Seinfeld. (And what a great episode, The Stall. Can you spare a square?)

11:30 pm -- Bean's first wake-up of the night. Mommy's coming, sweet boy.


TODAY

2 am -- Bean's second wake-up. Hmmmm... looks like I'm not going to be getting much sleep tonight.

4:56 am -- I wake up four minutes ahead of my alarm. I turn off my back-up alarm and change DH's alarm setting back to music from the insane horror-movie beep so he won't have a heart attack when it goes off.

5 am -- Head downstairs, sip coffee (decaf, but still), and practice my question some more.

5:29 am -- Bean's third wake-up. DH goes to comfort him, but he screams angrily and looks around for his mommy. Suze could call at any minute, but I run upstairs and nurse Bean back to sleep. Success.

5:35 am to 6:04 am -- Check email while glancing nervously at the phone. Mom has sent an encouraging note. "You have never babbled unintelligently and you won't start now." Although that specific fear had not previously crossed my mind, I now start to worry that I will babble unintelligently. Netflix informs me that they received my movies, and "Eagle Eye" and "An American Carol" are now on the way. Sweet. Continue practicing my question.

6:05 am -- Suze's producer calls and let's me know they are running a little late. They will call back in 15 minutes. I focus on practicing my question and not barfing.

6:15 am -- Phone rings; I am put on hold. Forced to listen to current CNBC show while I wait, which is some high-strung financial guy babbling about a merger or something. This makes me more nervous. Make mental note to suggest to Suze that they use classical music instead. Or better yet, oldies. Continue practicing.

6:20 am -- Suze comes on the line and greets me. I am pretty sure she called me "girlfriend," although the whole experience was kinda blurry and it may just have been my imagination hoping she'd call me that.

6:20 am and thirty seconds -- I stumble on my words when asking the question. DOH! Should have practiced more.

6:21 am -- Suze responds to my question. Interesting answer! She doesn't seem to hate me, and she doesn't suggest I get a divorce.

6:22 am -- Suze signs off, and someone else thanks me for calling The Suze Orman Show. Any time, girlfriend!


I am not 100% sure if/when I will be on her show, but I believe that you can hear me fumble ask my question on January 10th. Her new episodes are always on Saturday evenings, don't be fooled by the twenty five reruns between now and then. Here in Seattle, she's on at 6 pm on CNBC (channel 46 on Comcast). According to my TV menu, the show is called "I Want My Wife Back!" With any luck, you'll get to hear Suze exclaim, "And now Christine from Washington state!" (Washington state not to be confused with Washington, D.C., of course, which is not a state, but something else altogether. It doesn't have as much natural beauty as the state, but it's got really cool monuments and the president lives there.)

So that is my little piece of excitement this week. If you tune in, please be kind when you hear my call. Remember, it was early, and the coffee was decaf.

****

I also have a tiny little favor to ask. Mel over at Stirrup Queens is a finalist for the Weblog Awards in the best medical/health category. As she is infinitely awesome and helps thousands of us navigate the murky depths of infertility, please click HERE and then vote for the Stirrup Queens. That's just two easy clicks. You can vote every day, and I know you will, right? RIGHT? Thanks!

All good things must come to an end

Ain't that the truth? Here are a few good things coming to an end right now...

Whose bringing home the bacon? Tonight is the last night of DH's holiday vacation. It's been wonderful being stay-at-home parents for the last two weeks, it really suits us. Neither one of us goes to work, but the paycheck comes anyway. Seriously brilliant. We'll be spending this evening the same way we've spent most of the rest, curled up on the couch watching our latest cinematic delivery (this time it's Ghost Town). To make the night extra special, I picked up some Red Vines licorice and tiramisu-flavored creamer for our coffee when I was at the grocery store. Let's go out with a bang, I say.

Good boy. Overall, I think Bean has a fairly average temperament. He is usually happy and always on the go; interspersed with some grumpy, whiny, and clingy moments when he's tired or sick or just wants to drive me crazy. When we are in public, though, we have been lucky that he never displays the ornery side of his personality. At a restaurant a couple of months ago, the waitress serving the section next to ours made a point to come to our table and remarked that Bean was the best behaved baby she'd ever seen in their establishment. When I was getting my teeth cleaned and DH waited with Bean in the dentist office lobby, the receptionist came back to tell me I should have ten kids because Bean was so good. The owner of the teriyaki restaurant we keep in business sometimes patronize calls him "The Angel" -- in Japanese no less! I'm not sure what I did to deserve this bit of luck, but karma has turned and it seems to be over. Yesterday at Target, he let it loose. He wanted something and I couldn't tell what it was (my best guess is that he wanted his feet on the ground and his hands pushing the cart handle bar, a physical impossibility for someone barely over two feet tall). It wasn't the frustrated, angry screams themselves that concerned me, because I simply went outside while DH stayed to pay for our stuff. It was the fact that Bean had decided it was perfectly acceptable to throw a tantrum in the store, something which had not worried me in the past when the two of us have been out without DH, but now will make me paranoid every time I leave the house. I dread the day I have to abort a grocery trip because he is unruly, but I know it will happen. Yesterday was the death of my dream -- however unrealistic -- that my child would remain angelic, at least in public, until he left home. Damn.

Breaking Dawn. Yes, I have finally finished the "Twilight" series. Whew! That last book was intense and long. I found it mostly super creepy (that kid! shiver!), and then I was freaking out during the fantastic suspense building for the big ending, and then... eh. Sure. Whatever. Just as with the previous books, I was totally obsessed and annoyed at the same time. The author leaves some threads open for the future, and I both eagerly anticipate and rue the day she pens the next novel. Luckily I'm a woman and these conflicting emotions don't bother me.

But even as these happy things come to an end, I have some others to look forward to. Our calendar is full this week, starting with a coffee/playdate with Jen and Jillian tomorrow morning. This way I won't be sitting around feeling sorry for myself that DH has to go to work while I stay home alone with the baby. (Oh, life is so unfair!) We are also back to preschool this week, and my two mom's groups have the first meetings of the year. Not least of all, Monday also starts a new month of Bean's life. I can only wonder what delusion will be shattered for me next. Don't tell me he'll get a bump or scrape one day. I don't do blood!