Sloppy Seconds

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2038628470_e9e5b092e0_o.jpgIt's got to be tough to be the second child (not to mention the third or fourth). Ben's infanthood was pretty idylliic. He cried, I immediately soothed. Sam cries and I say "I'll be there in a minute Sam," which if course really means ten minutes. Because at that point I am usually trying to keep Ben from breaking his neck jumping off the couch or lighting the house on fire. Sometimes I feel so badly for Sam. As my mom says, it will probably make him a better person, but I grieve for the loss of the infant love affair I was able to have with Ben. When it was just he and I being lazy in bed all day. We just slept and nursed and I read to him. It was such a wonderful time. For Sam it is quite a different existence. His comings and goings are dictated by everyone else's needs and schedules. At least he and I have Tuesdays and Thursdays together alone. Once we drop Ben off at school and run a few errands (you'd be shocked how often one person can go to Costco) we come home and have some quiet time. I usually have to work some, but we get a little snuggle time in. I took six months off of working with Ben, but I have been too anxious to get back to work this time. It is so hard to put your career on hold for so long and then ramp up to get back into it. And I am so lucky to like what I do that I want to get back to it quickly. I just hope that Sammy doesn't feel cheated. I want him to know how much he is loved and how important he is to us even if he must live amongst the chaos of our lives.

I Blame My Mother

Ben loves to clean. I know, go figure. How could the product of Josh and I possibly LIKE to clean? But I know who to blame. My mother! My mom is the cleanest person I know. She and my dad run a tight ship and you really could eat off her floors. And the organizational stuff is crazy. EVERYTHING is labeled and in its proper place. When I went to see Sleeping with the Enemy with my parents, after the scene where Julia Roberts is madly arranging things in her house so that all is neat before her husband comes home, my mom leans over to me and say "That's what it''s like living with your father". But as far as I am concerned they are perfect for each other. Two neat peas in a pod.So back to Ben. Sometimes when we are getting ready to go somewhere Ben will say that he can't come. He's cleaning. And every time he sees a cleaning implement he says "Nana". My mom laughs, but I know that she is secretly very pleased.

Ladies Night

Last night I had so much fun that I snorted FIVE times while laughing. Five! Can't remember the last time I did THAT. We had a MNO (mother's night out) last night with one of my mom's groups and we played Texas Hold 'Em at Tanya's house. SO MUCH FUN! I drank beer while the others favored more sophisticated beverages and we just had a great time. I even stayed out until 11:00. That's PM baby!By the end of the evening we must have asked "Is it me?" 100 times when we were all wondering who we were waiting on and another favorite was "I'm not the dealer am I?" One of the best things about hanging out with other moms is that I didn't have to worry about baby brain. We all have it. Another evening favorite of mine was that every time we made a bet we would calculate what percentage of a latte from Starbucks (or as Stephanie Klein calls it, Fourbucks) it would be. But the best line of the evening was Geni saying "I would have had a great hand if it weren't for that silly, red four". Silly, red four indeed. _MG_7309.jpg _MG_7311.jpg _MG_7329.jpg _MG_7288.jpg _MG_7322.jpg _MG_7338.jpg

Melanie and Sam


Melanie and Sam, originally uploaded by lazygirl.

I love this photo of my dear friend Melanie with baby Sam. That same night she insisted that I needed photos of me nursing Sam. I relented in the name of documentation and she took some very sweet ones. But I will post them here when hell freezes over because I am weird and uptight.

Moments

Ben is at that stage with his speech where he gets frustrated when we don't understand him. So he will keep repeating the word until we get it. By the fourth and fifth time he is really bored by our stupidity and he starts saying the word really slowly and loudly. He does it in the same way that Americans tend to yell at non-English speakers as if they were deaf.So we were driving home the other night and Ben said something that sounded like "work at the store". Then I thought it was "walk to the store". And I finally understood (silly me!) he was saying that he wanted to "walk to the stars". And then my heart melted on the floor.

The Miracle

DSC_0081_rev.jpgYes this IS a photo that was actually taken by someone other than me and yes I am actually in said photograph. And yes our ENTIRE family is in this photo. And yes one of us is crying. This time it's Sam. Thanks to Kirby for being the photographer.

Unprepared as Usual

We were on our way home after I picked Ben up at school today and suddenly he decided to open his car door. While I was moving. We had another 20 minutes or so of driving and are just about to get on the highway when I realize that I do not know how to engage the childproof locks on the doors. It's dark out by now so fishing for the car manual and searching for the instructions doesn't seem like a good option. So I do what I always do when I panic about not knowing how to do something. I call Josh.Unfortunately this is one of the rare times that he is as clueless as I am. If we were responsible parents we would have investigated this months ago so that we were prepared. Hell I didn't even know Ben could open the door much less unlock it and THEN open it. Josh does think that the switch is on the inside of the car door jam. WHAT?! You mean I have to get OUT OF THE CAR to do this?! What moron came up with this plan? Something tells me it wasn't a mom. So I pull the car over to the side of the road looking for a street lamp to make it easier to see. But who am I kidding? This is Austin. No street lamps here. I pull the manual out of the glove compartment and out tumbles more junk than you'd find at a thrift store. I find the instructions and yes the switch is indeed on the inside of the door. So I get out of the car and activate the switch on the door and Ben says, "What are you doing mommy?" to which I replied, "Spoiling your fun for the first of a long line of times to come."

Hard to Believe


benny_blswtr_02.jpg, originally uploaded by lazygirl.

This is Ben when he was 8 months old in a blue sweater of his own.

What IS the Moral of this Story?

I was listening to KUT (our local PBS station) the other morning and they do these snippets where Austinites talk about their experiences here and tell some quirky story. In this particular segment a woman was saying how fifteen years ago she left her purse in the bathroom on the UT campus. When she realized she had left it behind she quickly went back to retrieve it. By then it was already "gone". That's the word she used. Gone. Like it had flown off on its own. She didn't say "stolen" which we all knew it was. It was as if "stolen" was the word that must not be named.She goes on to say that fifteen years later she got a phone call from the UT police saying they had found her purse. The thieves (she did not use such a coarse word) had taken the cash and left it behind an office filing cabinet on campus and it had just been discovered. I was at a loss at to which aspect of this story was supposed to be heartwarming. That her purse was stolen in the first place? That it took the UT police fifteen years to recover it? That someone hadn't cleaned behind their filing cabinet in FIFTEEN YEARS?