Aye dee

Matt is on vacation for two weeks.  We are staying home.  We aren't quite one week in yet.  It has been, without a doubt or hesitation, the best week of my life.  Here are some highlights.

- We bought a used electric hybrid bicycle off of Craigslist, and the owner included one of those green baby seats mounted on the front.  It's awesome.  With the electric motor it goes up to 20 mph.  We bought another but it's in rough condition, we're hoping it can be restored so that we can take day trips up to Venice, LA, etc without the bother of traffic or parking.  Leo loves it.  LOVES.

- We clipped the tips off of all of Leo's pacifiers and now he's done with pacifiers.  This is huge.  At 16.5 months this week, he had gotten to the point where he wanted a pacifier all the time. It was interfering with eating and drinking. He'd drop them on the floor in grocery stores and cry, etc. We didn't just have a pacifarm in his crib, we had a pacimenagerie. He still doesn't sleep through the night consistently. And, he is talking a ton but it was definitely not helping his speech or pronunciation, and he's getting to that stage where he is frustrated when he can't communicate with us. So last night I sliced the tips off of all of his pacis (I saved a few in case of emergency). During his bath, he asked for a paci. We gave him a cut one and he immediately became ENRAGED and threw it out of his mouth into the water. This happened several times, followed by an intense pre-bedtime meltdown, then when I was rocking him to sleep - nothing. He was fine. He fell asleep in my arms as usual. He did wake up twice during the night but he was easily rocked back to sleep, and I did leave a few in his crib just to remind him (one wakeup sounded particularly angry). Today he's been fine. A couple of times he has chewed on a pacifier and then discarded it. He didn't even ask for one at bed. I clipped the remaining stash and in a few more days I'm just going to throw them all out.  This huge for our little family.  Magic.


- My heart swells with unbelievable love and joy at seeing Matt and Leo together so much.  I never knew, never realized, could never have grasped the intensity with which I could love until I saw my husband be a dad to our son.  And this week it's been in full force.  Tonight, Leo was having his usual postbath-prebed-peridiapering meltdown when he suddenly reached down, tickled his own toes, and said "Weeweewee."  It's because Matt does "This little piggy" with him.  He was asking for it.  So I did it.  He was not amused.  He repeated the weeweeweeing and Matt came over and did it to a chorus of laughter.  I know that my greatest joy in this life is going to be being a parent with my best friend, the love of my life.

- We bought a refurbished, discounted Vitamix.  Well hello, consistently smooth green breakfast shakes, we are happy to have you in our lives.  (It hasn't actually arrived yet, but this is how I hope I'll feel after it does)

- And finally.  Littlematt is obsessed with letters and numbers.  He can't really tell the difference between letters and numbers, but whenever he sees them, he says "Ayyyye-dee!  Ayyye-dee!"  (His version of A-B-C.)  And I mean WHENEVER he sees them.  Every time.  Think about how very surrounded we are by letters and numbers.  I'll give you an example: 7am - we wake up.  I go in to cuddle him and he spies the Huggies box on his shelf.  Aye dee.  Then I change his diaper and he finds his copy of Goodnight Moon (which we leave on the change table for his perusal).  Ayyyyye dee.  We go out into the living room to play and he sees his letter blocks...aye dee.  We go out for a walk - license plates on cars (Kah)!  Delivery trucks (Dut)!  Signs; words painted on roads; shirts with writing on them worn by people (Hi) walking dogs (ruff ruff ruff).  There are a lot of damn letters and numbers out there, folks.

sixteen months old

Don't give up on me

I haven't forgotten about you, blog. I've just been a little busy lately with this big FIFTEEN-month-old.

Flashback

I just love this picture of Leo sitting on my brother's lap. One of my favorite pictures of Leo, ever. He was 4 1/2 months old here. So cute!



Sorry Ryan...I cropped it a while back to get a closeup of his adorable face here, and I lost the original. You are cute too.

32.

I had the best birthday weekend.

Girls' night out with some of my mama friends on Friday night. Saturday evening, I got to go on a little shopping spree and picked up a couple of pairs of jeans, several tops and sweaters, fabulous! On Sunday, my actual actual birthday, Matt and I went to the first movie (in a THEATER) that we had seen since Leo's birth. It may have been the first film I've watched in its entirety since then, too, not sure. It was "The Grey." Kind of a dark, violent, twisted reintroduction to moviegoing. I loved it. We held hands and cuddled in the theater and ate popcorn. And on Sunday evening, we got to go out for a fancy dinner at one of our favorite places, Mangiamo, in Manhattan Beach. Sexy sexy Italian, yum. Matt gave me a spa day gift certificate. YEAH!

And, the cherry on top of the icing on the 32nd birthday cake: A quiet Monday morning shopping trip to Nordstrom's, by myself, to get fitted for real bras, not nursing bras, not sports bras. Real, nice, pretty, comfy bras, with no snap at the armpit. Brought to me by a sweet girl who measured me and everything.

On my 30th birthday, I was in kind of an unhappy place, dealing with a little depression, not happy in my job at all. It was a hard birthday. Last year, we spent my birthday at the La-Z-Boy store, recliner shopping, with a 6-week-old wrapped in a Moby on Matt's torso and/or being breastfed in the backseat of our car...I was happy but exhausted, confused, anxious, unsure of myself. This year, I feel like I am exactly where I was meant to be. I love where we live. I have wonderful, supportive, fun friends. I am crazy in love with my husband. Our son is learning, growing, healthy, thriving, and so attached to Matt and I. I have a nice routine down in my daily life as a stay-at-home-mother and have truly grown into the role - I know how to push through the daily struggles that are so hard when you are a brand-new mom - and I know that nothing is permanent. I have become a much better and more consistent cook than I used to be - and more confident. I can prepare dinner with my toddler-baby at my feet. I am striving to be healthy and take care of my own body, something which is a constant struggle for me, but I am working on it. Physically, I am somehow more flexible than I was pre-baby and I am using this change to my advantage, trying to get into a more regular home yoga practice.

I am truly, truly happy.

Also, happy 36th anniversary to my incredible parents. I love you so much.

Dear Leo.

I am kind of overwhelmed by it tonight, and just had to tell you how very much I love you. I don't know if I really have the words to describe it, but I will try.

We were alone most of the day; your papa is on swing shifts right now so he sleeps late. When he got up, he took us to brunch and then we walked around the Redondo Beach pier and you chased seagulls. Then we came home and the three of us wrestled and cuddled and played in the living room. I kept you awake as long as I could because I wanted you to enjoy being with Papa.

After he left for work around three, you surprised me by taking a long, late second nap and didn't wake up till 5pm! You usually get up by four at the latest, and usually even earlier, so I knew tonight would be a late-bedtime kind of night.

You didn't take a bath until almost eight (you usually bathe around 630) and didn't go to sleep until after 830. You were up a lot last night and I was rocking you, so I am really tired tonight and I was looking forward to having lots of "me" time after you went to bed to watch a movie, relax, et cetera.

Instead I am up blogging about you and posting this quick picture I snapped tonight of you wrapped up all cozy in your towel after your bath. Because you've been asleep for not quite an hour, and I miss you.

That's how much I love you. Now I am going to watch my movie!


[addendum: I just found this picture, taken one year ago today - out to brunch with Papa! Probably your very first trip out to brunch - five weeks old! I had to add it to this post/love letter.]

Au naturel

Disclaimer: This post may or may not be about baby poop. If you find that sort of thing gross, I suggest you mosey along. If you have a child yourself, you will probably find this amusing.


Tonight.

Matt is at work. Around 645, I removed Leo's diaper; as per our usual evening routine, I let him run around the house diaper-free for a few minutes while I prepared his pajamas, bath, etc.

Oops! I noticed a small puddle on the floor. Gross! No worries, pee happens, I quickly wiped it up and cleaned the floor with vinegar while he ran into the hallway and kept playing. I silently praised myself for my green-cleaning choice. "A little pee is no problem, think of how wonderful it is for my son to have this time to just run free. Maybe I'm the best mom ever!"

A few minutes later, I walked into the hallway to grab something and I felt my foot hit it. Another puddle? I looked down and a long-held nightmare stared me in the face. Poop. On the rug. On my foot. POOOOOOP ON MY FOOT.

I looked up and there was my sweet boy, running through the living room, happily oblivious to the shame of human nature. I stood for about five seconds too long with my foot hovering in the air while I decided whether I should chase him or hop into the bathroom to wash my foot. Those five seconds were all he needed to brown-bomb the living room, as well (though, thankfully, floor only). I hobbled into his room, grabbed a wipe, quickly cleaned off my foot and grabbed a dirty sock out of the laundry basket in the hallway and put it on so I could chase him. He is usually fussy at diaper changes but I think he sensed my urgency as I tackled him and wiped him down before he could step in anything more and make the night even more hilarious.

Baby cleaned, I set out with bleach in hand (green cleaning? HAAAAA) and quickly cleaned the living room floor (Housekeeping tip: it IS safe to use bleach spray on hardwood floors! but only if you live in a rental), then oxycleaned the rugs while the baby sobbed for the oxyclean bottle (I just want to cleeeeeeaaaan, mommmmmmmmm). I then scrubbed the rug spots with a rag and then finished by mopping the living room.

I threw in the towel and joined him during baby bath time. So we're all clean and poop-free. The real test will be tonight at 4am when Matt gets home from work. If he does not detect the stench of baby naked time, oxyclean and I will consider our evening a relative success.

RIP, Baby Naked Time.