They say it takes nine months to put on the weight, so it should take nine months to lose it.
This time, "they" were right. You may commence with the hate mail.
My baby has been out here in the world longer than it took to grow him. He becomes more and more determined and frustrated every day, eager to be walking and getting into things.
He weighs a little more than 18 pounds, which puts him in only the 13th percentile. In an effort to get him to bulk up, we'll be trying to feed him more real food. He loves bread, so much so that he ate it with wild abandon this morning and then threw it up all over himself, me, his chair, the floor...
In the eighth month of Fletcher's life, he has rocketed forward. When he sees what he wants, he will crawl and climb to get it. He pulls himself up to standing using the couch, coffee tables, bathtub, and even my pants legs.
He amazes me. This is the face of a person becoming.
He sits and hops up and down when he's excited. Or when he's on his back, he bangs his happy heels on the floor.
He's endlessly curious, and often easy to distract.
Today, he managed to climb up to kneel on the first step.
His favorite thing to do is climb the step to the dining room and start causing trouble.
He can feed himself a bottle, and he makes good use of his feet.
He's always delighted to see Walker.
Sometimes, if we aren't close enough to catch, he tumbles off the step. And lands with his face.
He may be practicing his Michael Jackson pose here. Or Al Bundy, sans pants. Or doing the robot.
I see you!
He gives hugs and kisses freely. I cannot exaggerate how it makes my heart swell.
What? I'm not doing anything.
Baby-zilla
nom nom nom
Every moment that he grows, changes, discovers, learns, hurts, heals, and loves, so do I.
I don't have many childhood memories of my brother. What I have are impressions of him as the funniest person in existence, of wanting to be like him, of knowing he saw me for the dork I was and wishing I could be cool. He was like Zack Morris.
One of the memories I have of being with my brother is after school, watching our (his) shows on a console TV.
Do they even make Zenith TVs anymore?
That beast wasn't pretty, but it worked. And worked. In fact, my brother inherited it when he moved out in his 20s, and it was still working when he sold his place and left the TV on his lawn to be taken by whoever may need a '70s era set that will live forever.
The show we both loved was Saved By The Bell, and in those days it played on multiple channels during the post-school afternoon hours. I don't remember a single real conversation taking place during these afternoons, but that had no bearing on the fact that I loved it – the show, the routine, my brother. Other shows were in there too, most notably Family Matters, but Saved By The Bell was the best.
After enough time, I knew every episode of the "real" show (the high school years). But we grew up, time passed, I no longer had cable, and the show disappeared from my life.
Now I have a home, job, husband, baby. I have a new routine. And Saved By The Bell is back in my life with a vengeance. Not just the high school years, either – I've been exposed to the middle school years (Good Morning, Miss Bliss, repackaged as Saved By The Bell) and the College Years, as well as all the special episodes (Malibu Sands, Hawaiian Style, Wedding in Las Vegas, Jessie's dad's wedding, the Christmas mall episodes...).
Every morning, when I'm done getting myself ready, Fletcher and I go downstairs and turn on the TV so that the show can be our background noise while we play and eat and finish getting ready for the day (or in Fletcher's case, getting ready for his big morning nap).
That dumb show will always have special significance for me, will always be "classic," always entertaining. If TBS keeps it going, my son will grow up learning not to drive drunk or he won't be able to participate in homecoming, not to do drugs like Johnny Dakota, not to take caffeine pills (I'm so excited! I'm so... scared!!), and that constantly lying like Zack Morris to get what you want, while entertaining, has its consequences.
It's a shame I don't know any of the New Class episodes. Or is it?
More than 10 years ago when I went on my first date with Andy, I was too nervous to eat dinner in front of him so I only ordered a cookie, and even that I ate self-consciously.
Today, as I was rushing out the door on my lunch hour, I took the cover off a big chocolate cake and proceeded to shovel it into my mouth by the forkful as he and the baby looked on.
One week ago, I made oily slabs of rubber steak for dinner. In my defense, the time we had to cook and eat before Andy left for work was about 20 minutes.
In a voice that expressed just how fed up I was that my natural cooking skills were once again missing in action, I told Andy I had ruined dinner. Don't even try it.
He did the good husband thing -- it's probably not that bad -- and bit in.
Immediately, with a jerk of his shoulders and a loud gagging sound, he spit the turd food back onto his plate. He couldn't help it. His heaving disgust was followed quickly by his chagrin at failing so profoundly at the good husband thing.
That night, I spent a decent amount of time upset by my huge, flopping failure and all the ones before it. Annoyance took its place. Then weariness. "I'm done," I told him. "I'm just done with cooking."
I wish that were true, but it isn't an option.
I can say with complete sincerity and with no underlying meaning that Andy has been making better dinners than I. That neither of us knows what we're doing, but he's made better decisions, with better results. That I'm proud of him for taking on a large amount of the cooking, as well as the other household chores and child raising. That I expect to continue being let down by recipes as well as my instincts, but I'm resigned to continue to try, because we need to eat and it isn't fair to expect Andy to cook every meal.
But you know what? My failures have been so horrendous that I'm kind of proud of that too. I'm probably the only person on planet earth who could make something so bad that my good husband would gag on it.
He crawled to the patio doors himself. Climbing, crawling, cruising. The faster he moves, the prouder we are.
Andy spent nearly three hours trapped in a parking-lot-turned-snow-cave this morning, locked out of work, finally using his feet to kick a path out, then forcing his car down poorly plowed streets to try to get home to us. To say I was worried is to put it mildly. Forced to park in a lot near our home, he then ran through two-foot drifts of snow to arrive at our blocked front door.
The blizzard has trapped our little family indoors now, lucky to be safe and warm.
Fletcher is up to five teeth and counting. He's working on pulling himself up, loves standing more than ever, and is a breath away from officially crawling on his knees.
