It's beginning to be a Lysol Christmas...

I haven’t really considered myself to be one of those moms who is a complete germaphobe…until now. During Suttie’s first few weeks on the outside, I took the standard precautions: lots of hand washing and Germ-X and nervous nail-biting. When he got a little older and a lot bigger, I relaxed a bit and, until three days ago, was pretty laid back about the disease-ridden world in which we live. But things have changed, and today marks the day that I declare jihad on the spores of America.

My son has officially been diagnosed with the croup. After a night of coughing, sneezing, snotting, and vomiting, there are few lengths that I wouldn’t go to in order to postpone a repeat of this experience. In fact, I’m currently pricing air curtains for all of our doors and windows. So, if your child has a slight sniffle and there’s a chance that he or she may come into contact with my son within the next month or two, please give me a heads up so that I can Lysol his SARS mask and put on his babyGAP Hazmat suit. And don’t be concerned if I encourage the kids to play a game that involves residing on a planet where physical contact is punishable by death. It’s all in good, hygienic fun.

Oh and for those of you who were worried about Suttie’s illness dashing his weight-related Guinness Book hopes, have no fear. Despite his lack of appetite, Suttie managed to gain almost a pound since his last doctor’s appointment…6 days ago.

Tis the season...

Let’s take a minute to talk about man’s most heinous invention…the bulb syringe. Yes, Suttie is currently battling his very first cold, and the bulb syringe has become public enemy #1 in our household. I’m not sure what they’ve been using down in Guantanamo Bay, but, if they ever find that the bamboo shoot/fingernail combo isn’t working, they should try sticking a baster up somebody’s nose.

I also never realized how snot-nosed a snot-nosed kid can be. When he sneezes, I feel like I’m in the front row of a Gallagher show without the complementary poncho. Between that and his constant stream of drool, we’re basically living with Slimer from Ghostbusters. This assessment is even more astute when you consider Wikipedia’s description (yes, I, too, use Wikipedia for all my facts) of the gooey green ghost: “Slimer’s personality is one of tremendous gluttony...and [he] exists only to eat food.” If they had only waited fifteen years, they wouldn’t have had to use an animatronic puppet. They could have had the real thing.

But all jokes aside, I do feel terrible for him. It is so sad to know that a simple nose blow would help him so much, but that he’s resigned to mouth-breather status until he figures out how. So, for now, we pump him full of saline nasal spray and Tylenol, while rigorously testing the humidifier’s performance guarantee. With any luck, he’ll be better by Christmas, and his room will be slime free by early 2010.

"We'll call it Operation Pluto"

Suttie’s 9-month photo session was this week, and things seemed to go well. But whenever there’s a photo session looming, I begin to feel like Eisenhower on D-day. It’s all about strategy….strategies for what he’ll wear, what we’ll wear, and what the schedule for that day will be. It’s like choreographing a toddler ballet, you can put together a beautiful dance, but at the end of the day, you’ve got kids hanging from the stage curtains and somebody’s pooped in a leotard.

The first step in picture planning is to locate and purchase the perfect outfit(s). Does the perfect outfit exist? No. Do we spend hours (literally hours) trying to find it? Yes. I spent a week searching through the homemade goods of desperate housewives on Etsy looking for the perfect green knit hat. And I finally found it—an adorable number with knit teddy-bear ears. But when it arrived, I discovered that it wasn’t the same shade of green as the outfit it was meant to accessorize. Did I cry? A little. Did he wear it just the same? Abso-friggin-lutely…because, at that point, my hands shook when I tried to type “green baby hat” into a search engine.

Normally, the next step is to find our outfits. Thankfully that wasn’t a problem this go round because Suttie was the only one being photographed. Otherwise, I would have spent at least another week scouring the racks of our local department stores (twice) only to end up ordering our things online last minute.

And then comes the hardest process of all. Figuring out how in the hell you are going to work in breakfast, lunch, and naptime in an order that even remotely resembles his normal routine. Now this is where I start to channel Erwin Rommel more than Eisenhower because, no matter how organized or well-thought out my plan is, I always end up shouting like a Nazi with allies storming my dad-gum beaches. And by “allies,” I mean my naptime-fighting baby, and by “beaches,” I mean my sanity. If the 0900 nap is blown, then the whole mission is a bust. So in a desperate attempt to claim victory, we take to the road, hoping that the vibrations of the car will put him under. And they do…ten minutes before his session starts.

So why do we go through this? It’s not like I don’t have somewhere around 1000 photos of him that I took and had developed (almost for free) in albums that are stacked chest-high in his closet…

Oh, I’m sorry; were you waiting for me to answer myself because that question wasn’t rhetorical.

"Johnny, wake up, honey, and guard Momma's spot in line"

Suttie’s first Thanksgiving was a great success. He was able to try gravy, mashed potatoes, turkey, carrot cake, and cranberry sauce, and then refused to eat his baby food for the next three days. But for his dad and I, Thanksgiving dinner (or dinners in our case) was more than a meal…it was an essential bit of carbo-loading before our Black Friday shopping.

After Thanksgiving dinner (which followed Thanksgiving lunch), we dropped Suttie and all of his gear off at my in-laws and headed to town. First item on the agenda – see New Moon for the second time, thereby becoming indefinitely indebted to my husband. We had to sit in the Privѐ seats so that he could drink a beer before he fell asleep during the previews. But I have to admit that I like the fact that Sutton is not into these kinds of things. The overweight, 40-something gentleman to my right “oohed” and “aahed” like a pre-teen princess throughout the movie and had me poised to report an Amber Alert as we left the theater.

From there, we made our way to the Toys ‘R Us midnight sale. Our mission: save $30 on a wagon. To accomplish this mission: spend $45 on coffee, Hot Hands, and a bribe for a better place in line. To say that it was crazy is a vast understatement. Since we got there around 10:30 pm, we were able to secure a decent line position, but within another thirty minutes, the line had wrapped itself back around to the starting point. There is something called a Zhu-Zhu Pet (essentially a robotic rat), which people were figuratively (and perhaps some literally) wetting themselves to get a ticket for.

However, what I will NEVER understand is how parents can think that it is reasonable to stand in line with an 8 to 10 month old baby for two hours (or more) in the freezing-ass cold to save money on things that they really don’t need. If you can get a babysitter, great, come join us as we shake and shiver like the idiots that we are. But don’t bring a child out in this mess! You may get little Johnny that maze-running rat, but you will have also given him the gift of viral pneumonia.

In the end, we got Suttie’s discount wagon without any struggle because, apparently, wagons (not being electronic rats) are not a hot ticket item this year, meaning that we could have waited until normal store hours to buy one. But then we wouldn’t have gotten to see the near fist fight in the board game aisle or the insane line system that Toys ‘R Us uses, which makes it impossible to reach half of the store’s merchandise. We also made a 4 am stop at the mall and a 6:00 am run to Target. We got everything on our list and saved almost 50% of the costs. So, was it worth the stress, the sleeplessness, and the cold, you ask? Absolutely. But don’t ask my husband because he’ll lie and say it wasn’t.

"Suttie, put down the Dr. Brown's"

A lot of kids have a security blanket or teddy bear that they cuddle as they’re going to sleep. These objects help them to feel safe and comforted wherever they are. It’s cute – think Linus in the Peanuts cartoons. And, then there’s my son, whose chosen security object is not soft and plush or cute and cuddly. No, the thing that he snuggles up to as he drifts off to sleep is hard and plastic with a silicone nipple on one end and ounce markers on the other. Yes, my son now has a security bottle. Or I guess I should say bottles because it doesn’t matter which one I give him as long as one’s there.

It all started when we happily discovered that Suttie can now hold his own bottle. This was a great thing because, instead of bending over his crib to feed him before naps and bedtime, we could just hand the job over to him and take care of other fun things like emptying the diaper genie or gathering up dirty clothes. And, yes, I do miss the days when I had to feed him because his tiny hands could barely get around my finger, much less an 8 oz. bottle. But he hasn’t let me cradle him for some time, so feeding has become more of a task than a bonding opportunity.

However, when Suttie finishes the bottle, I dare not take it away. I tried that the first night. He was just gliding into a soundless sleep when he sucked in the last tiny remnants of milk. I put in his pacifier and lightly tugged at the bottle to take it downstairs. That was a mistake. His eyes, which had been previously closed, snapped open, and he began to howl and yell in such a loud, obnoxious way that I’m sure they heard him at Super Griners, some three miles down the road. I immediately did the only thing that I could think of, which was to give him back the bottle. As soon as the plastic cylinder hit his hands, he fell silent. He examined the bottle for a few minutes, turning it over to look at it from all angles. Then, he tucked it underneath his arm and rolled over into his normal side-lying sleeping position, quiet as a lamb. Later in the night, I snuck back up and retrieved the bottle for washing, fully prepared to insert a decoy in its place. But I didn’t need to; by that time, he was comfortable and tired enough that he was willing to let it go.

So, do I find it odd that my child prefers a bottle to a bear? No. If you’ve seen him, you wouldn’t expect anything different. Am I willing to let this strange attachment continue? Yes, because whether it’s a blanket or a bear or a plastic Dr. Brown’s bottle, kids need something to hold on to, in every sense. I’m just happy that I’m wise enough to know that it can’t always be me.

Lights out on Cell Block D

Well, we all survived Suttie’s first Halloween (he and the dog were both bumblebees….terrifying, I know). This year we only had to visit the grandparents, and his loot consisted of a toy drum, a pair of shoes, and some baby food. Besides getting Suttie and the dog to sit still long enough to take a decent picture, it was a pretty painless process. However, I imagine it gets harder as they get older and start to struggle against the child leash.

So now we’re looking toward Thanksgiving, a day when Suttie will taste a substance that will become the apex of his food pyramid—gravy. “Why hasn’t he had the chance to try gravy yet?” you ask. Well, because the last meal that I cooked involved frozen Texas toast with pepperonis placed on top. I called it “open-faced pizzas,” but then quickly renamed it “Texas tizzas” when I realized that all pizzas are open-faced. I have made a vow that, when Suttie starts eating real food, not the tasteless puree that currently rules his diet, I will cook real meals. Until then, we have cheese dip for dinner one night a week, and I have no problem with that.

And beyond Thanksgiving is, of course, Christmas…a time of merriment, generosity, and baby cages. I have already picked out the plastic prison that will be my son’s home through the new year. It’s an early Christmas present to myself and is guaranteed to keep him away from the decorations, the tree, and the presents. And before you call DHR, it’s from Babies R’ Us, so it’s 100% socially acceptable. Now, I found this step necessary since my child has started to crawl (in his own awkward way). At first, he didn’t go far because, let’s face it, he’s a big kid and he tires quickly. But now, the amount of ground that he can cover with that gimped-up army crawl is truly alarming. The dog’s threat level went from yellow to orange in a matter of days. So, when you see our Christmas pictures and Suttie is opening his gifts from the inside of a 5x5 corral, don’t judge. You can thank me later for the fact that your present was intact and slobber free.

Say it, don't spray it

I never realized how easy it is to set a bad example for a child. I guess I should have had some clue because my childhood imaginary friend, Honka, was constantly a bad influence. I distinctly remember him forcing me to misbehave and then disappearing at just the right moment so that I would have to take the blame. But now it seems that I’m the bad influence, and I have a sinking feeling that it will only get worse as time goes by.

When Suttie started blowing raspberries around six months ago, I thought it was the cutest thing ever. So, I encouraged him to do it and would prompt him by blowing raspberries of my own. Now, it’s all he does. We’re in the process of trying to elicit his first real word, with little luck. Every time I say, “Suttie, say ‘Mama,’” he looks me squarely in the eye and blows a huge raspberry. I’m beginning to think that this is a permanent condition. When he’s sixteen, he’ll walk out the door and say, “Bye Dad, bye Bbbwwffff” (which is my interpretation of what a raspberry sounds like).

At this point, we’re trying to undo some of the damage that we’ve done by telling him “no” or “that’s enough” when he gets into a particularly violent episode of mouth-blowing. It doesn’t always work. This morning, as I was feeding him breakfast, I again tried to coax the word “mama” from his lips. He responded by blowing a huge, cereal and slobber-filled raspberry right at my face. So, today we work on “mama,” and tomorrow we work on manners.

"Tell me about the rabbits, George."

“Last Saturday, we went to the Tate Farms pumpkin patch and had a blast!” At least that’s what I would have said if we hadn’t chosen to go on a 40 degree, rainy day with a 20 mph North wind. Now, it’s widely known that the O’Neals are a luckless bunch, so I don’t know why I thought things would work out any differently. Suttie spent 90% of the trip in his stroller buried beneath several layers of blankets. He was so tightly bound that he was sweating. As for the rest of us, the only liquid being expelled from our bodies was the snot that was flowing freely from our frostbitten noses.

Our first stop was the petting zoo. Do you know what will break your heart faster than a 2 lb. fluffy white bunny? Watching said bunny hanging limply in the clutches of a chubby, brown-haired girl with coke-bottle glasses whose lens could easily double as paper weights. Yeah, old Marcie (think Peanuts) had Fluffy in an unbreakable sleeper hold that could only be rivaled by Lennie Small. Fearing the safety of the other bunnies, I instinctively grabbed one to show to Suttie, putting it only close enough for him to brush with his finger tips (any closer and it would have been in danger of a fate far worse than his dangling friend). After the rabbits, we looked at the pigs and a llama. Then we came the goat pen, which we entered to let Suttie get a closer look. Immediately, a goat came up to me and started trying to eat the fringe of my scarf, upon which I said, “Listen, I know everybody likes Ann Taylor, but unless you have a piece of hay made of cashmere in that stack, you best step off.” Or at least that’s what I would have said if I wasn’t too busy saying, “Quit eating my scarf, you f*%& goat!” while standing in the middle of twenty or more impressionable youths.

However, despite the miserable weather and the goat attacks, I did learn an important lesson during our outing: a boy can grow into a man, but he will forever be captivated by excavation equipment and fire trucks. As we made our way to the car, stopping at every gratuitous photo op that presented itself, I noticed that Sutton’s eyes were transfixed on something behind me and to the right. It was an antique firetruck. For the next five pictures, I not only had to worry about capturing the attention of my restless 7 month old (whose attentions had undoubtedly returned to the squeezable quality of the bunnies), but I also had to threaten my husband with a trip to Hobby Lobby or the rental of a Matthew McConaughey movie to get him to look at the camera. Needless to say, by the end of our 20-minute trip, I went home thoroughly exhausted and showing signs of acute pneumonia.

Disclaimer: Our miserable trip was the result of our own stupidity (90% mine, 10% also mine) in picking what was basically a winter’s day to spend time outside. It is no way reflects on the quality of the Tate Farms Pumpkin Patch. In fact, despite the weather, we still had fun and got some great pictures (which was the whole reason for going).

"See, now you're glad I'm friends with Dan Satterfield."

On Saturday night, Suttie spent his first night away from home. A few days before, Sutton and I decided that we would go to Big Spring Jam to hear The Fray (translation: I decided that Sutton would come with me to Big Spring Jam because I wanted to hear The Fray). Here’s how that conversation went:

Me: “None of my girlfriends can go, so you have to come so that I won’t be abducted.”

Sutton: “If anyone abducted you, they’d bring you back pretty quickly.”

Me: “Sutton…you know they’d kill me.”

Seeing the truth in this last statement, he reluctantly agreed. Now, the only hitch was finding someone to watch our child. I called my mom, thinking that, because she has a broken foot, she probably wouldn’t want to handle a squirming, teething six-month old all night long. Wrong! I barely got out the request before she blurted out “Yes” and starting talking about buying a high chair. That kid is so spoiled.

So, the big night arrived. We took him to Mom’s around 4:00 pm so that she could have ample “awake” time with him, although she got far more of that than she bargained for. Apparently, Suttie, seeing the opportunity for getting three times the number of bottles than he usually gets, woke up every two to three hours. That kid is spoiled and smart. And this is when I learned an important fact: grandmothers have a unique talent for erasing unpleasant short-term memories of their grandchildren. As we were leaving the next day, Mom said that, since he’d gotten the first night over with, he’d be ready for next time. If I was her, I’d bolt the doors or move to Boca.

As for our big night out? It reminded me that I’m quickly reaching an age where I’d rather stay in and watch a made-for-TV movie than go out and party it up until the wee hours. Now, don’t get me wrong; we had fun. We started with dinner at Macaroni Grill, where I realized that it’s harder to get a good buzz going than it used to be. Then we headed over to the Jam to slosh through the puddles of a week’s worth of rain, where I found that I’m more uptight about ruining clothes than I was at 18. We walked around the park for a while, past hoards of teenagers who had yet to see one of the stages, thinking about days when we spent the entire weekend without ever knowing who was playing. At 9:30 pm, an hour before The Fray was set to take the stage, I started to yawn uncontrollably. At 9:35, Sutton checked his iPhone and, since he’s Facebook friends with Dan Satterfield, realized that it was about to pour. We sought shelter under the North Hall entrance and waited out the rain, staring in disbelief at the “kids” who got soaked in order to hold their front row spots. And even though I love the band, when they started to play at 10:40, I was counting down the songs and, in turn, the minutes until we were able to head home.

During the performance, we stood a few hundred yards away, at a comfortable distance from the body bumping and the speakers. About twenty minutes in, I wished aloud that we had brought our folding chairs, which we had left behind because we didn’t want to seem old. If we go next year, and that’s a big if, I’ll be toting that chair and, if I can find one, a folding footstool, too. When the band finished at 11:45, I seriously considered flagging down one of the Gator vehicles that circle the event so that I could hitch a ride to the car. At the very least, I grew to appreciate the utility of a Segway. Once we reached the car, we set our sights on Hazel Green. No bar stops for us, not even a late night Krystal run – just home…as quickly as possible. And after sharing the sentiment that we both missed our boy, Sutton and I each fell into a dreamless coma until it was time to wake up and retrieve him.

Momma who?

So, I was talking to my husband on the phone today, giving him the usual “pity me” shpeel about Suttie’s incessant teething and hellacious string of poopy diapers, when he said something that made me think. I was telling him about how Suttie had been fussy all morning and refused to nap, a serious “pity me” moment, when Sutton (that’s my husband) said, “He’s sad because the one he likes the most is the one who’s gone all the time.” Now, he said this jokingly in his characteristic “it’s funny to be a jerk” way, but there was a definite amount of truth to this statement. Suttie does prefer his father. When Sutton comes home from work, Suttie is all smiles and giggles, and his eyes visibly light up. When I come home after a 4-hour absence, he acts like I just ran out to the car for a second. He turns his head to see what the dog is barking at and then quietly resumes whatever he was doing before I arrived.

I have a friend whose child is 4 months older than Suttie, and she says the same thing: Daddy is the favorite. And we both agree that this unfair favoritism hurts our feelings. How are our kids so thick when it comes to who the most important parent is? I mean, who pushed their big heads into this world? Who hooks up a medieval torture device to her boobs four times a day so that they can eat? Who washes off and pretreats their poop-stained pajamas before doing the Mount Kilimanjaro of laundry piles? I’ll give you one guess; the word starts and ends with “m” and has an “o” in the middle. And despite this multitude of self-sacrificing, Suttie’s first word will surely be “da-da,” and Sutton will probably be the recipient of our son’s first real hug. I guess it’s par for the course. I better get used to the fact that moms are often overlooked and underestimated. They’re taken for granted because they are always there, but I think that’s also what’s so great about being a mom. If you’re doing the job right, your kids aren’t going to noticed every little thing that you do for them. If they did, that would mean that you’re not really doing enough and that, when you do finally come through for them, it’s a huge deal. So, if the choice is between being the selfless constant or the acknowledged, but fair-weather mom, then I prefer the former, and I’m sure Suttie does, too.

Postscript: Thank you, Mom, for the twenty-six years and counting of pure martyrdom.

If her name is Adrian, we're outta here!

Last weekend, my husband and I made the biggest sacrifice that a parent can make for a child besides pushing their chunky butts into this world…we went to Chuck E. Cheese. When we walked in, I expected to see a modern day version of Dante’s fifth circle of Hell, with demon children fighting each other for tokens and future Zolofters sobbing over 5 cent “rewards” that require 100 tickets more than they have. However, I was shocked and somewhat disappointed to find the place half empty and to see that the kids who were there were relatively mellow. I mean, they weren’t meditating or anything, but the fact that it wasn’t a scene from the Lord of the Flies is truly saying something. Sure there were a few kids crying about empty token cups or smaller siblings stealing their turns at Whac-A-Mole, but I expected to walk away with hilarious stories of screaming children ripping off the ticket dispensers and toddlers clinging wildly to their father’s heads like rabid spider monkeys, screaming for just one dollar more. The only highlight was one exceptionally creepy little girl with big, coke-bottle glasses who was sitting in a little red car that takes your picture with a plastic Chuck E. She sat there, motionless, for five minutes straight, hugging this lifeless rat with a smile that raised my arm hairs and seemed to suggest that Rosemary had another baby. However, we were there for over an hour and not a single child tried to climb on one of those terrifying robots that sing the same songs on a ten-minute rotation. Weak!

So, what else is new? Well, my son has started to act as all boys do…inexplicably crazy. About four days ago, he started letting out ear-piercing shrieks for no reason. Now, he’s started fake coughing and growling in addition to being a terror in a walker. For three months, I have placed him in what I refer to as the “circular walker,” which is a walker that’s attached to a small activity table so that the walker can only go around the table. Well, this walker has been my go-to for times when I needed him to stay in one place and be entertained. This all ended two days ago. As I was preparing my lecture for class, I heard a rustling sound, only to look over and find my 6 month old dragging the activity table across our living room toward the kitchen, growling all the way. My husband has since informed me that boys are just like that. As he put it, “One day, Kate, he’ll just run as fast as he can at the front door and smash into it. Or he’ll pick up a stick and jab it into the electrical box. Boys don’t think; we just do.” In related news, we spent over $500 on baby-proofing supplies this week, although I’m starting to think that it’s more about proofing the house from the baby and not the other way around.

Why don't those things have brakes?!?!

Well, Suttie is officially sleeping in his room now, and I must say with a certain amount of pride that I did not sleep in there with him - not even the first night. Yes, Suttie loves his new bed...as long as he's unaware that he's in it. But when his well-rested eyes hit that paisley bumper, you better be close by because he's just realized he's behind bars and he ain't happy. It's also amazing how quickly children are to grab the things that can be most dangerous to them in any given situation. On the first night that we laid him in his crib, I forgot to take away a fleece baby blanket that was hanging over the edge of the railing. After only a few minutes of watching him on the baby monitor, we saw him reach over and grab the blanket so that it fell over his head and face. A few moments later, I was in the backyard burning said blanket.

He's also quickly becoming a walker savant, which is exciting but also quite troublesome. As he barrels around our house, he has no regard for any of the expensive furniture that his father and I (okay, who are we kidding)...that his father worked so hard to pay for. One time, I thought I saw him take several steps backward so that he would be able to gain more force before ramming our dresser. In the happy, golden days of three weeks ago, I could put him in the walker, and he would move a couple of feet in about an hour. But these days, as soon as his weight hits that groaning nylon seat, he's chasing after me as fast as those chubby little legs will carry him. Now, for those of you who know me well, you know that, to me, being chased is nothing short of terrifying. So, here I am running and screaming, tripping past the couch and the coffee table, with Suttie hot on my heels, squealing with delight. It's become a part of our morning routine, and after about 30 minutes, with several years robbed from my life, we both need a nap. Then, after a hearty helping of mashed carrots and peas, we're back in the chase...Mommy clutching her chest in fatigue and agony, and Suttie, maneuvering those 22 lbs. as if they were only 21, roaring with a kind of laughter that can only be described as maniacal.

Oh that? That's just spit up...

Well, Thursday marked my return to the adult world as I taught my first class in nearly a year. In the days leading up to reentry, my husband warned me that it would be hard, almost unbearable, to leave Suttie for several hours and then come home to find him asleep, knowing that I had missed so much of his day. But, for the six thousand, two hundred, and eighty-third time, my husband was wrong.

The plan was for me to drop Suttie off at my mother-in-law’s house around 3:30 pm so that I could get to school early enough to make copies and, more importantly, so that I could take a few moments to psych myself up for a room full of skeptical twenty-somethings. As so often happens, we were running late – Suttie picked an inopportune moment to test the durability of his diaper, so by the time I got him and all of his gear loaded up, I only had a few seconds to toss him wildly into his grandmother’s waiting arms before I had to get back on the road.

But once I entered my office, I discovered something wonderful. I was in a room that was entirely quiet. There was no pile of laundry on the floor, no dirty bottles in the sink, no hard plastic teething toys laying around for me to trip on or jump over. No cries for food or clean diapers or attention. Just me, my thoughts, and a dilapidated poster of van Gogh’s Starry Night. And while I love my son and all the signs of his existence, I’m not ashamed to say that I breathed a sigh of relief and gratitude. In that space, I was more Kate than Mommy, more teacher than parent, and it was a fantastic feeling.

And yes, I did miss him, but I was glad for the opportunity to miss him. It was easy to leave, to teach, to be away, knowing that when I got home I would appreciate him more – and perhaps he would appreciate me more – because of the absence, not in spite of it. So, it seems that I’m in the process of merging my worlds. I work on lectures at home while watching Baby Einstein, trying hard not to incorporate a lesson with puppets, and I show up to teach in clothes with baby slobber on the shoulder carrying a bag that contains a stuffed raccoon and at least one pacifier. And I show my class pictures of my son because he’s the most important part of my world, but they’re also taking up prime real estate, and I want them to know it.

This Kid Needs a Helmet

It finally happened. My Evel Knievel child made a bid for freedom by leaping off the couch. Okay, so it was more of a slide and flop than a leap, but in any case, he ended up on the floor and we both ended up in tears. Ever since he started rolling over, my husband and I knew it was only a matter of time until he plummeted some feet from a surface of our choosing. But I don’t think either of us expected it to happen so immediately.

Now, I claim 100% responsibility for this accident, except for the 10% that was Suttie’s fault for thinking that he could fly and the 5% that can be blamed on Pottery Barn for making their furniture so damn solid. Otherwise, it’s all on me. Suttie had just finished draining a 7 oz. bottle in 4 minutes flat – a new record that I have yet to inform Guinness about. He was lying on his Boppy pillow on the couch in a position that has been the norm since his birth. As he sat there, lazily examining his burp cloth, I took the opportunity to go to the kitchen and wash out his empty bottle. Big mistake (I knew that cleaning would get me into trouble eventually and have since given it up entirely). The next thing I hear is a soft thud followed by a piercing wail.

You can imagine the scene. Suttie crying loudly and in such a tone that can only mean one thing – he’s hurt or scared (okay, two things) and extremely unhappy. I’ve only heard that cry once before when he was in the middle of what was undoubtedly a horrific nightmare about empty or unreachable bottles. I scooped him up and held him close, while also trying to examine him for broken bones or signs of bruising. Through my own tears, I saw a red spot on the back of his head on the right side and decided to call the definitive source – my mother. Now, being the intelligent, educated woman that she is, she calmly reminded me that the pediatrician would actually be the best person to talk to about a possible injury. See, I knew it was a good idea to call her…there’s always a light on up here (**tapping my head now).

At last came the part that I subconsciously had been dreading since I heard that tell-tale thud – calling the pediatrician and admitting that I let me 5 month old fall off of an elevated surface. After the advice nurse answered and asked what was wrong, I quickly mumbled the words, running them together as if ripping off a bandaid, “mysonfelloffthecouch.” No luck. She asked me to repeat the offense, necessitating a clearly delivered, well-pronounced, “My son fell off the couch, and I think he hit his head on the coffee table.” I cringed, waiting for the lecture on attentive parenting that I so obviously deserved. But thankfully, it did not come (which begs the question, how many of us lame-ass parents let our kids fall off of stuff that the nurse doesn’t even waste her breath to read me the riot act?). Instead, she went over some signs to watch for in the event that I’d caused any real damage and told me to wake him up a couple of times in the night just to check on his alertness. Fortunately, he is just fine and is young enough that he won’t remember this, which means that I will still have a shot at convincing him that I really was a flawless mother.

But in the present moment, my parenting score is down for the week. On the one hand, I scheduled my son’s first birthday party 7 months in advance – a mommy feat that borders on insanity (which is where I live…comfortably on the border. It’s like the Gaza strip but with smiley face to-do lists and an array of costume catalogs). However, I’m pretty sure that allowing your baby to fall squarely on his head would put you in the hole, so we’ll just have to call it a wash and try to do better next week.

We're waiting on your call, Gerber...

Well, the honeymoon is officially over. Suttie has now figured out how to roll from his back to his belly, making it impossible to leave him alone unless he’s strapped into some kind of baby-containing device. Thankfully, we invested in a number of socially-acceptable baby cages before he was born. Because of this latest acrobatic feat, our new game involves laying him on his back, watching him flip over, then repeating the process again and again until he collapses from exhaustion. That way, everybody wins.

So, what else is new? Well, I was in Babies ‘R Us the other day spending a small fortune on diapers, when I noticed that they had Halloween costumes for sale (yes, in early August). Now, while I think that the tiny giraffe and the cuddly polar bear costumes (each of which could teach a lesson in irony) are quite cute, I would like to find a costume that really suits my son. Something like a giant, drooling turkey leg or a crawling rack of ribs. So if anyone sees any ham-cured costumes, please let me know asap.

Suttie also had his four-month pictures taken recently, and they’re, of course, adorable. I say “of course” because what mother is going to say that her baby’s pictures look like doo? Unlike his sleeping newborn pics, these show some of his zany, attention-seeking personality as he twists and turns in his crib to look at the camera. He may very well have a future in plus-size modeling or, at the very least, as a spokesbaby for Gerber’s new Husky line.

"What is A Clockwork Orange."

The subject of this blog post is more about me than it is about my son, which marks a departure from the martyrdom that is motherhood. As my husband and I were lounging quietly on the couch the other day, both with our respective laptops perched in front of us, he turned to me and said, “Your blog sucks; there’s not enough of it.” I was at once offended and flattered. But his remark got me thinking. Why don’t I blog more often? And the answer is simple…my life has become boring and, for the most part, follows the same circuit of events day in and day out, varied only by the occasional lunch date with friends and the choice of whether to get groceries on Friday or Saturday. I’m not complaining; I’ve discovered over the last few months that I like the mundane, but such a static routine doesn’t leave much in the way of fodder for posts. So, I’ve decided to embrace the ordinary and dedicate this post to a description of my day(s).

A basic day in the life begins between 7 and 8 am (my husband is currently smirking, knowing that it’s closer to 8 than 7 and closer to 9 than 8). After a feeding, clean up, and diaper change, Suttie and I are ready to start the day. We play – on his playmat, on his circular walker, on the vanity, making faces in the mirror…anything to keep him occupied for more than 5 minutes at a time. About an hour later, he goes down for his first nap, during which time I read, trying to better myself for a career I may never have and a book I may never write. Over the last 3 years of my unemployed existence, I’ve found that I enjoy the distance that I’ve put between myself and ambition. I was always putting far too much pressure on my grades and my job, and, until I can reenter the working world with a revamped set of priorities, I would rather not do so at all.

Now we’ve come to the point in my day when I start to transform into an 80-something year old woman. Around noon, Suttie wakes up for another diaper change and bottle. During this feeding, I usually flip on the noonday news in time to hear about the Monte Sano Quilting Club’s Annual Stitch-Off or whatever other non-newsworthy item happens to be on the docket for today. But what I’m really waiting for is Jeopardy, which starts at 12:27 pm on the nose. During the 30 minutes that follow, I use every bit of my 6 years of higher education to answer 9 out of 10 questions abysmally wrong. Then, during the breaks, I become intensely wrapped up in the commercials that characterize daytime television, thinking, “Maybe I do need additional Term Life Insurance…That is a good price for diabetic testing supplies…and why am I suddenly hungry for oatmeal?”

After crashing and burning at trivia, I again try to entertain my son. We walk the dog, play in his nursery, call his dad…ticking off items on a limited list of things that might appease a 4 month old. Then, to both my relief and his, it’s afternoon nap time. While he’s snoring in his bassinet, I’m usually in the laundry room, going through an entire bottle of Spray-N-Wash on sleepers and onesies that have only the slightest chance of survival. It never ceases to amaze me how he can get poop stains half way up his back, nearly up to his armpit. And then, just as I’ve finished with the laundry and am ready to sit down for a bit of rest and relaxation, I hear it…those first piercing cries of a baby who is awake and mad about it.

So restarts the cycle of diapering, feeding, and playing until his dad comes home to give me a well-earned break so that I can finally bathe. Now, if you’re thinking that this is the part of the post where I sum up its contents into some sort of lesson, you’re wrong. Like I said, I haven’t had much in the way of significant events lately, so to fill blog space I’m giving you a window into a typical day here. But, I guess if you’re going to force it out of me, the lesson that you should take away from this is that someone who once had great ambition, who once thought that her life would be filled with achievement is now quite happy to sit back and enjoy the repetition of a day in which her greatest accomplishment was scotch-guarding the couch. And I’m sure one day soon, I’ll be back in the throws of the classroom full time, both as a student and a teacher, but until then I’m going to relish the time that I have with my son, even if it means scrubbing his more colorful stains.

Randoms and a discovery

The first thing on the agenda for this blog post is to apologize for my sluggish blogging. This will likely be a recurrent problem, so it will be best if you accept that I’m slow so that we can both move on with our lives.

The second thing I’d like to address is the fact that all of my t-shirts now seem to have holes in them, particularly around and within the armpit seams. Granted, most of my t-shirts are at least a decade old, including a gray rag from a 1996 softball tournament that I refuse to toss. My husband has formulated a theory that my armpits give off some kind of corrosive acid. This is the same man who, four months ago when I was a postpartum wreck, told me that the reason my newborn wouldn’t latch on for breastfeeding was because my “pits stink.” I know, I know, but I’m sorry, ladies…he’s taken.

On a different note – you’ve probably heard this before from too many boasting parents, but my child is advanced….in all things regarding food. I kid you not; he’s the Kobayashi of the baby food world. So, it came as no surprise at his 4 month checkup when the doctor told us that we could start adding solids to his diet. Now, by solid food, I mean rice cereal mixed with milk and/or formula, apple juice, and mashed bananas. Basically the diet of someone who recently had dental surgery or someone who will never require the expertise of a dentist again. We decided to start with rice cereal mixed with breastmilk. The first day, things went smoothly, with Suttie inhaling everything but the bowl and the spoon…and those survived only because of a death grip that I developed while shopping at a Walmart on Black Friday. But on the second and, then again, on the third day, Suttie would cry a few bites into his meal and refuse to eat.

And this is where I say, thank goodness for mothers and their unsolicited advice. I was absolutely stumped as to why my normally ravenous child would reject the prospect of food. Fortunately, my mother stopped by for a visit during one of these frustrating episodes and suggested that he didn’t like the taste. At this point, I was dumbfounded…my behemoth of a child decline food based on something as trivial as taste?!? It didn’t seem possible – not for this baby who gobbles up his heartburn medicine, which is widely known to have a terrible taste, even while he’s scrunching up his face in disgust. But, I was desperate and would try anything, so we added apple juice to the cereal instead of milk. As soon as I put it into his mouth, he made a sound that could only be interpreted as “Oh, thank God...finally.” After that, he was back to his usual voracious self, attacking the spoon with the same ferocity that a lion would attack a baby zebra on the Discovery Channel. So, it would appear that, despite his obsession with all things edible, my son is a picky eater, which should make those sticky toddler years especially interesting.

Note: In reading back through this blog, I see that it’s basically a disjointed mess. However, I’m not going to fix it because that would go against the indolent persona that I’ve tried so little to cultivate.

"They call him Six-Gun Suttie..."

I must be one of the most lackadaisical bloggers there is. You can expect my next blog to start something along the lines of “Today is Suttie’s 18th birthday…” Since my last blog, Suttie has sprouted a tooth, albeit a very small white dot of a tooth barely cresting the surface of his gums, but a tooth nonetheless. Now, there are many things that a mother hopes her child will do early – talk, walk, potty train (Lord, please yes, potty train). But teething is not one of them. I don’t know why anyone would relish the fact that their sweet newborn baby has turned into a drooling, crying, gnawing machine. Of course, the fact that Suttie’s developmental milestones are centered around processing and digesting greater quantities and varieties of food is no surprise to anyone.

Another change is on the horizon as well. It is becoming increasingly clear that Suttie is outgrowing his bassinet. I’ve been in denial about this for a while, but as I walked into our bedroom last night and saw his feet at the end of his bed in a widespread squatting position, I knew that, if a change isn’t made soon, I’ll be raising a son who walks like he’s about to engage in a wild west gunbattle. So, I’ve removed his sleep positioner, which should buy us another month or so, but after that he’ll be moving upstairs. And, there’s a 50% chance that, at that time, I’ll be investing in a full-size air mattress for the floor of his room. Now, before you judge me, remember that I didn’t contend with you when you decided to have that Botox party, even though we all thought you were crazy. Sometimes, friends don’t tell friends the truth – they lie and say, “No, it’s normal to sleep on the floor of your one year old’s room” or “Wow, that injection made you look just like Angelina Jolie.” You know it’s bull; I know it’s bull, but the important thing is that we don’t say it out loud.

"Hello, Dr. Stewart. Welcome to the Gun Show."

I’d like to know what kind of sadist goes to school for 8+ years to stick babies with needles? As you might have guessed, Suttie went to the doctor yesterday and received not one, but two shots, each of which fights against a rare condition – infantile comfort and contentedness. Luckily, the shots were immediately followed by an oral vaccine, which meant that Suttie became more interested in the prospect of food than in his recent trauma. His most tearful and anguished cries didn’t result from the pain of the shots, but from the fact that the sweet-tasting medicine had run out. So it would seem that my son has one chink in his armor of fussiness…he’s a sucker for a full belly. Now, my favorite part of any visit to the pediatrician’s office is when they put him on the scale. We really should form a betting pool for guessing how much our son weighs. It would be a nice jump start to his college fund. At this particular visit, Suttie weighed in at a whopping 18 lbs., which put him in the ….*drum roll, please*…97th weight percentile. So, while he may score an 820 on the SAT and be an eater of paste, only 3 kids out of 100 bested him in this. A few moments later, the doctor declared that he had good muscle tone, at which time I had to choke back a snort because the dimples in my son’s elbows and knees don’t really scream “Future Mr. Fitness.” All in all, Suttie is perfectly healthy, well-vaccinated, and not scheduled for another doctor’s visit for 2 months, which means that we’ve only got 8 weeks to overtake that other 3%.

"Sven is to play Mr. Mistoffelees, you don't say!"

Before Suttie’s arrival in this world, I had a serious plan for his life. It went something like this: moving into his own room at 6 weeks, losing the pacifier at 3 months, exhibiting a genius-level vocabulary at one year, starting private school at 5, attending Columbia at 18, graduating from Harvard Medicine at 28, and buying me a house in the south of France at 36. But not 3 and half months into his life, that plan has already suffered some major setbacks. First of all, Suttie still sleeps in our room, and I don’t want that to change anytime soon. While I was pregnant, I read numerous parenting books by Dr. Know-It-All and Professor Never-Had-Kids that suggested that a child shouldn’t stay in his or her parents’ room past two months because of attachment issues. And it seems that they were partly right. For, while I think Suttie could sleep anywhere and care very little, I am panicked by the thought of him sleeping more than a foot away. So, he’s stayed…to the point that he only has inches before he outgrows his bassinet. Now, before you give me some sage, oh so cliché advice about letting him spread his wings and explore the world apart from Mom and Dad, I must tell you that I don’t care, so don’t waste your keystrokes. I may be a new mom, but I’ve quickly discovered what is perhaps the most important thing that anyone can understand about parenthood. It’s fleeting. One day, he’s laying in his bassinet, clutching a burp cloth and saying a word that sounds like “leg” but obviously means something else entirely, and the next he’s driving away from me in car that his father and I bought with the hopes that it would see him through the next four years of college. So, I’m done listening to the books. He may not need to lie beside me to sleep, but I need him to. And for now, that’s reason enough.

The same goes for his pacifier. I read somewhere that I should take his passy away before his 4-month birthday to prevent him from developing a relationship with it that would be hard to break. And again, with a few months of motherhood under my belt, I cry “Fie!” There are many times in the course of the day when I literally need to stick a plug in my child. If it weren’t for his silicone friends, we would have no groceries, never attend a church service, avoid group gatherings, and, for all extensive purposes, be veritable shut-ins. If you see my son with a passy in his mouth at age 5, then, by all means, pull me aside and gently tell me that I’ve missed my cue. But, until then, the passy lives to comfort and quiet for another day.

So, I have a new plan for my son’s future: play it by ear. If the only words that he can get out at his first birthday are “more” and “food” (a likely verbal combination), then great! At least he’s clearly expressing what is most important to him. And, if at 18, he tells Sutton and me that he wants to go to a state school or barber college or join a traveling revival of Cats with his boyfriend, Sven, then that’s fine, too. The point is that any plans that you make for your children are, at best, tentative. And you better start being flexible, or you’re sure to break.

For Betty...

Of the hundreds of things that I didn’t expect about becoming a parent, one of the most unexpected was the insane degree to which other children would be attracted to my son. Some of these children we know; others we don’t. Such as the little, pig-tailed girl in Walmart, who peeked her smiling face inside my two-month old’s stroller, and then subsequently sneezed on him. Luckily, her mother was there to lead her away, or she and I would still be going rounds. Similarly, it seems that nowadays church not only functions as a time of worship, but it’s also the perfect storm for children swarming around Suttie’s face, hands, feet, and any other body part they can manage to get a hold of. It’s really rather cannibalistic as he becomes an object for consumption, helping them to realize one of their playtime fantasies…a doll come to life. For instance, my goddaughter, Katie, whom I love dearly, will come up to me with arms outstretched, silently and expectantly awaiting the handoff of “Bobby Tut Tut” as if saying, “I’ll take him; I know you need a break.” The poor dear doesn’t realize that her 30-pound frame would be instantly toppled over by his 20 pounds of mass.

And then there’s the sweet as pie, six-year-old girl, Colleen. She’s the kind of little girl you’d want to have if you had a little girl…possibly with one exception. She’s obsessed with my son. There’s no other word for it. She no longer sits with her parents during the service; she sits with my husband and me so that she will never be more than two-inches away from “Baby Suttie.” As the preacher works his way through the requisite prayers and affirmations, Colleen will sit quietly (well, as quietly as she can) and lovingly rub her face all over Suttie’s head, cheeks, and hair. This is her Nirvana. She is always careful to ask me for permission before kissing him, an act that I appreciate and am still shocked by. She also apparently has a sixth sense regarding my son’s needs and desires, which she exhibited the other day by telling me, “I feel that he wants me to hold him.” Not having a similar telepathic connection to him, I kindly obliged. Her little sister, Kaitlyn, is fast developing a powerful draw to Suttie as well. At a luncheon meeting after church yesterday, she covered him with a healthy coating of lemon bundt cake crumbs while tirelessly rubbing his face and head. For the rest of the day, it made kissing him a delicious treat.

So, at this point, you might be asking, “Well, Kate…what does all this have to do with today’s events?” Well, I’ll tell you. Today, Suttie took his first trip to the post office. At first, it was a very uneventful trip. He sat in his carrier on the floor, while I stood at the counter, filling out the necessary addresses and paying for the always elevating postage. Then, a mother and her son came in. Within seconds, the little boy, who appeared to be about four years old, was pushing back the sunshade of Suttie’s carrier and delivering kisses to his face and forehead. Please bear in mind that I do not know, nor have I ever known this overly friendly child who has a blatant disregard for personal space. But his interest didn’t stop there. He then noticed that Suttie’s pacifier was hanging loosely from his passy clip. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about children, it’s that they cannot stand for a pacifier to go unused. So, Mr. Too Friendly picked up the passy and tried to put it into Suttie’s mouth. As any well reasoning individual might have figured out from the fact that it wasn’t in his mouth to begin with, Suttie didn’t want the pacifier. So, the little boy starts yelling at him, “OPEN YOUR MOUTH! OPEN YOUR MOUTH!” as if delivering vital commands over a loudspeaker. During this time, Suttie had worked his still developing facial muscles into a menacing scowl and was clearly wishing that he had full control of his limbs so that he could rain down a world of hurt on the unsuspecting boy. Thankfully, the child’s mother, who stood laughing the entire time her son was molesting mine, had completed her transaction and was now ready to leave. As I watched them exit the building and walk slowly toward the parking lot, visions of sexual harassment lawsuits floated before my eyes, and I realized that Suttie was perhaps the first in a string of victims that would culminate with poor Betty So-and-so in the stockroom of some second rate Applebee’s. Speaking of, it’s time for dinner.

His card is in the mail

According to my 3-year-old niece, “Princesses don’t dig at their butts or their privates…it’s bad manners.” Well, someone needs to explain this to my son (not it!) because he spent most of the day doing his best Al Bundy impersonation with his hand down the front of his diaper. I noticed that it was a little warmer in the house than usual, so after Suttie had soaked his second outfit with his Exorcist-style puking, I thought to myself, “I can either turn the air down and face the mutterings of my annoyingly cheap husband, or I can put a shirt on him and let him Porky Pig it for a while.” I chose the latter. Within minutes, Suttie’s hand was half hidden, resting comfortably underneath the waistband of his diaper with his thumb hooked around the edge. I don’t know what it is about males that program them to do this. It’s like their hands and their manly bits are magnetically linked to each other. The same mystery surrounds their obsession with peeing outdoors. I will never understand why men and boys alike refuse to pay homage to the wonder that is indoor plumbing. Instead, they insist on making the world their own personal toilets. One day, twenty minutes before our friends were due to arrive for a BBQ, I look out the window to see my husband standing with his back to me (thank God!) in what is obviously an “I’m writing my name in the grass” pose. This was only slightly more mortifying than when I caught him drinking a can of beer in the shower.

So, it appears that my son is well on his way to fulfilling the innate destiny attached to his Y chromosome. Between the farting in public, the fact that it takes him at least 30 minutes to work out a poop, and the vacant look he has when I’m trying to talk to him, he most certainly qualifies for membership in the boy’s club.

Play gym meet Suttie, Suttie meet play gym...

When I was pregnant, anxiously awaiting the birth of the little UFC fighter that was assaulting my internal organs, I thought that it would be so much fun to play with a baby. And it is...for about 15 minutes. During those 15 minutes, I am a hardcore "good mom," making strange sounds and embarrassing faces, while pretending to eat his feet or do anything else that elicits his elusive smile. But at 14 minutes and 59 seconds, my brain starts to wander, and I begin to get bored. I used to feel guilty about this. Why should I wonder about the world outside of my baby's narrow, blurry vision? I'm a stay-at-home mom, which means that this baby is not only the epicenter of my life, but he's also my full-time job. So one day, I told myself that, for one straight hour, I was going to do nothing else but play with him and coo at him and basically flood his senses with stimulation. And, to this day, that was the longest hour of my life. I kept looking at my watch, only to find that two, maybe three minutes had passed since the last time I'd checked it. But after about 20 mintues, I started to notice something...Suttie was getting tired of playing with me, too. His eyes were glazing over, and he was no longer interested in the hilarious antics that I was showcasing for his enjoyment. I have to admit that my ego was a little hurt. I thought I was much more entertaining than his glassy-eyed daze suggested. But, I discovered something important...we both needed a break. So, he went onto his infant play gym, and I turned on CNN (and shortly thereafter switched over to E!). Now, if I start to get bored while we're playing, but I think he needs more mommy time, I talk to him about the upcoming election in Iran or, more often, about Lindsey Lohan's downward, drug-induced spiral...albeit in a funny voice that sounds like Julia Child with a lisp. This is how we compromise and, more importantly, how we keep mommy from wearing one of those backwards white coats that buckles securely in the rear.

In closing, I'd like to say a brief thank you to Baby Einstein, Bright Starts, and Fisher Price for your tireless efforts at entertaining my child. It might look like I'm purchasing your products for their developmental value, but we all know that, without you, I would have lost my tentative grasp on reality long ago.

He's Coming for Their Quarters...

So, it's been a week since my last post. New mom tip #1278 - you rarely have time for the nonessentials. Today, Suttie went swimming for the first time. New mom tip #4756 - Pampers Splashers do hold in poop, but it smears all over their wet little butts, resulting in a Class H Hazardous Waste emergency. New mom tip #4757 - DON'T dip said poopy butt in the pool for a quick wash. People will notice, and they will ask you to leave.

Suttie loves the water; I assume it reminds him of happier, carefree days in a land far, far away called the womb. In fact, he's so comfortable in the water that he sat in a float and almost immediately fell asleep. That's my son - a whole new aquatic world to explore, and, if there's not a bottle in sight, he'd rather pass out than waste valuable calories splashing around needlessly. Of course, his swim shirt rolled up over his large catfish belly. All he needed was a can of Natural Light and a NASCAR tattoo,and he would have been the epitome of the white trash pool-goer.

An aside: When I was buying his swim suit, I discovered that my 3 month old now wears a 12 month size. So now when people ask what "developmental level" he's at, I confidently say one year. If they don't distinguish between mental and physical development, then I don't see why I should. I mean, it can't all be up to me to get the facts straight, and I'm sorry if your child is still in the clothing size that matches his or her age. We can't all win the race. At any rate, my son is clearly taking after his father, who, at his age, had more rolls than Sister Shubert. You might call it fat, I might call it healthy, but, regardless, my kid is stealing your kid's lunch money, and that's all there is to it.

I had no idea there would be so much pee!

I knew when I had a baby that there would be a lot of poop and pee to deal with. All jobs come with a catch, and messy diapers is the ultimate catch of motherhood...although at my other jobs I've at least had the perk of occassionally stealing pens and printer paper. What I wasn't prepared for was the renegade peeing that would occur as soon as Suttie's (that's my son...yeah, I know it's a strange name) diaper was cracked open. For example, today I was changing his diaper and, of course, as soon as the air hit his man parts, he was shooting a solid stream of yellow back toward the wall behind his playpen. Okay, I've dealt with this before. I wipe down the wall and the adjacent console table and floor lamp that have also fallen victm to his golden shower. It appears that my son is the R. Kelly of the southeast corner of our living room. A multitude of wipes and a slathering of Desitin later, I'm closing the clasps of his diaper, but before I can get the second clasp secure, he's peeing again. No shower this time, just a steadily growing pool that my son is laying in the middle of. Now we need a bath and an entire outfit change. I'm on a mission to prevent my excrement-covered boy from becoming the "smelly kid."

Flash forward to a bath scene. Suttie is lounging in his blue plastic tub, looking quizzically at his mom like he always does. I constantly get the feeling that he's judging me, but that's fodder for a different post. He's been lathered with Johnson's products, shampooed and rinsed. Just as I'm moving to turn off the water, he's peeing upward and onto his newly clean bod. It's like he's repellent to cleanliness. So, while I totally expected to be elbow-deep in dirty diapers, I'm apparently at war with a guerrilla-style terrorist - the blitzpee.