Talky

The podcast for the radio show isn't available yet. I don't know why they're dragging their feet and denying the Internet the chance to hear the MOST THRILLING 11 MINUTES OF RADIO EVER (har!) but rest assured I will link to it as soon as I can. God forbid you miss the part where I completely lost track of my point and the words coming out of my mouth and said something about how I'll look back and miss the toddler tantrums someday. What? WHAT?

And this is why I should not talk to people before 9 am. Or really, ever.

Anyway, I'm bummed that I don't have it, simply because I was hoping to take up a whole entry with it and thus not have to fill space this morning with the topic I'm going to fill the space with, because this topic makes me sound so high-strung and neurotic but I can't help it. I am high-strung and neurotic. I mean, I'm a blogger. Gawd.

Noah has a doctor's appointment today. He's getting checked for a speech delay.

I know! Aball! Abeer! And all the other videos I've posted of him chattering away. The problem is that's pretty much all we've got in the speech department. He says about six or seven words clearly (two of which he's said in the past couple days after I already made the appointment, of course), and then another five or six words that aren't really words, but we at least know what he means.

(He also seems to lose words as quickly as he acquires them, with "light" and "fan" and "plane" all getting reduced to "na" and "doggie" turning back into "da." I'm guessing this is a pretty normal thing for toddlers [right? normal?], but it does make it harder to get a real grasp on the sum of his vocabulary.)

He babbled early and noticed books early and was pegged by our pediatrician as "highly verbal." But then he was "slow" to point and clap and wave (can I stop with all the quotes? will you remember that I get how ridiculous it is to be using these words? do you understand that it's not like we have a milestone chart stuck on the fridge with a MENSA magnet?) and all the younger kids in Gymboree started talking and Noah continued to speak only in his own little Swahili alien language.

Personally, I think he is fine. I think he is stubborn. I think he is STUB. BORN. He's never been much of a mimic or interested in performing on cue.  If you ask him what the cow says you will get a withering look that clearly says, "You know what the damn cow says, woman. Stop bugging me."

But at the same time, he doesn't appear to know what the cow says. He won't say milk or juice or string two words together. He doesn't seem to have enough words to string them together. How much do you chalk up to temperament? And for how long?

I'm from a family of late-talking boys (my dad apparently spoke in a language only his big sister could understand until he was three, and then went on to become an English teacher), so I've been going back and forth and forth and back on this for months. Yes, Noah is clearly behind other kids his age. But he's not even two yet, for fuck's sake. He's taking his time. He'll bust out in sentences one of these days, just you wait!  It's not like I'm trying to turn him into the star of his Toddler Mandarin Chinese class or get him into a college-prep preschool. (I've already picked out his preschool. IT'S THE ONE CLOSEST TO MY HOUSE.)

My kid is smart. My kid is a freaking delight. He can identify a good half of the alphabet and loves looking at books and numbers and if I tell him he needs to put his shoes on to go outside, he will go get his shoes. His fine motor skills and attention span are insane for his age. He's all-around totally fine and okay.

They just make it really hard to trust your own instincts these days, you know?

At his 18-month check-up, the doctor (who wasn't even our regular doctor, because I'm an asshole who forgot to make the appointment on time) quizzed me about his vocabulary and admitted that he was lagging a little. She wobbled her head back and forth as she debated whether or not to make A Thing about it. She told me to bring him back in three months if he didn't make any progress.

It's been three months. He's said three more words. He's stopped saying two of the words he was saying three months ago. So we're going back in. 

I really hope he's okay.

A slightly freaked-out update at 12:31 am

So it turns out that I'm going to be on this radio show tomorrow morning? On Sirius Satellite Radio? On Channel 114, to be exact? On the Be Happy, Dammit! show, to be even more exact? There's some kind of snafu miscommunication going on right now about the time zone I just know it, but it sounds like I will probably be on around 8:39 am EST, but there will also be a podcast afterwards which I will link to but will refuse to listen to, because OH MY GOD THE SOUND OF MY OWN VOICE. Anyway, I am only barely sure of when the show will actually be on and I have no idea what they will ask me to talk about, so...yeah. This is gonna go really effing well. Hopefully I can refrain from making any racial slurs.

PS: I FOUND A CAN OF BARBADOS SAND BITCHES! WOOOOOO! (Thank you, Erin! #1094 in the hizzzzzouse!)

PPS: Dear lord I am tired and yet still. I cannot stop watching Flight of the Conchords reruns. What is wrong with me?

A Million Shades of Beige

Mmmffh.

Mmmmmmmfffffhwa.

What?

Oh. Hi. I'm sorry. I'm just a little busy over here, lying on the ground, making kissy faces to my new floors.

No, I'm not actually kissing my new floors. That would be weird. Also I could smudge them.

Jesus Christ, take your damn shoes off! These floors are not for walking on. My God. They are for admiring. From over there. A little further. One more step. Outside the door. Yes. Thanks.

Can you still hear me? I'll shout, if that helps.

So the floors are done. And there's not much else to say except that hey, the floors are done. I'm actually kind of shocked about it, since the guy we hired said they would be done in a week and lo, they were done in a week. And they cost exactly what he told us they would cost, which was suspiciously not very much at all. I'm actually more than kind of shocked about that. Every day I kept waiting for him to tell us he'd made a mistake, that the job couldn't be done for the price he quoted, or that his team couldn't work tomorrow like they thought, but how's our August look?

When we remodeled our kitchen and floors at our old place (while I was pregnant), we were told the whole thing would take about two weeks. Five months later (and still pregnant) I couldn't even write about what we were going through because it seemed very likely that we'd end up facing our contractor in court. Utterly delightful, and hey, did I mention I was pregnant?

Now the only challenge that remains is some painting. Scuffs and dings and things. The previous owners graciously left all the paint they used, but neglected to label any of the cans, and we've since discovered that every goddamn wall is actually painted a slightly different color.

If you just walk through the house, you'd swear that every single goddamn wall is a sort of yellowish beige. But they are not the same yellowish beige. But oh no, we have Bronzed Beige. We have Yosemite Sand. We have Powell Buff and Lancaster Whitewash and Putnam Ivory and some phantom shade of beige in the master bathroom that does not appear to be ANY of these shades of beige, and I am going to kill the master bathroom because I AM NOT REPAINTING THE MASTER BATHROOM ANOTHER SHADE OF BEIGE JUST BECAUSE OF ONE GODDAMN HOLE IN ONE GODDAMN BEIGE WALL.

(The previous owner actually attempted to patch the hole prior to our final walkthrough, and admitted that he'd used the wrong paint color. "I used Yosemite Sand," he said. "And now that I think about it, the bathroom walls are Barbados Sand." He looked and sounded like a man beaten down by his wife's love of the Benjamin Moore Palette of Barely Different Beiges, so I didn't ask if there was a can of Barbados Sand down in the basement.)

(There was not a can of Barbados Sand in the basement, and Barbados Sand does not appear to exist anymore, at least not under that name, and again, I am going to kill the master bathroom, or perhaps just start hanging really random towel racks all over the place.)

(Hey, it worked for the downstairs bathroom. Each one of these animals is covering some sort of Jason-inflicted wall damage, since we haven't been able to figure out this shade of green either.)

(I'm pretty sure it's Fernwood Green, since I brought every single greenish paint chip home after discovering a big ding in the wall under the toilet paper holder. It's time to stop hiding our laziness with woodland creatures and buy some damn paint, I think.)

Jason insisted I was crazy when I told him I suspected that the living room, dining room and foyer were actually three different paint colors. Like, he got angry with me. Like I was being difficult on purpose.

I hate being right all the time, I really do.

Wall-related melodrama aside, we're happy. The house looks like our house now. It feels like our house.

And I really don't mind yellowish beige.

Further Proof of How Stir-Crazy the Hardwood Install is Making Us

"Noah, today we're going to teach you the meaning of America."

"Let's go eat some wings and ogle some waitresses."

Noah was unimpressed and possibly a little embarrassed for bringing Dora to such a tacky place, although our waitress scored some points for knowing all about Swiper the Fox (I'll BET she does, heh heh) (I have no idea what I even mean by that).

Frankly, we were a little disappointed to learn how very un-subversive it is these days to take a toddler to Hooters.

The wings were awesome though. So there is that.

I did end up taking him to the playground, by the way. We do occasionally participate in enriching and age-appropriate activities.

Oh, who am I kidding. I only took him so I could show off my new iPhone to all the hot SAHDs.

It's a total man magnet, ladies. And I highly recommend it.

It also takes pretty good pictures.

Just remember that in the 30 seconds it takes you to think, "Hey, I wonder if I got any new blog comments or email or I wonder what the weather in Paris is right now," your child will have run clear out to the parking lot and you'll suddenly be the asshole with the iPhone who can't find her kid but hey, have you ever seen that sneezing panda video? It's hilarious. Let me show it to you.

Moronatouille

We took Noah to a movie on Saturday.

I'm going to sit back for a second while you absorb that sentence. And then I'll file my nails while I wait for the cries of horror and WHY WHY WHY WHAT WERE YOU THINKING to die down.

Ready? Okay. So we were going a little stir-crazy, what with the construction and the floors and all. Add all the steaming hot idiocy coursing through our veins, and you've got two adult morons who suddenly decide that a movie will take up a nice chunk of time, and OF COURSE our toddler will sit through a movie! He'll sit and stare at the television for nine hours straight! Not that we ever LET him sit and stare at the television for nine hours straight, HAR HAR AHEM, but please: he'll totally sit through a 90-minute movie.

A couple flaws in our plan:

1) We forgot to check the running time and ended up seeing a 110-minute movie.
2) We only packed enough juice to get us through the previews.

We saw Ratatouille. We went to a 10:45 show, figuring that was most likely to be mostly kids and families, and it would be over before we hit The Great Wall of Nap.

So listen, Ratatouille is hilarious. It's smart. Witty. And the animation will simply blow your mind.

The problem is that all of this is BULLSHIT to someone who thinks Dora the Explorer is pretty much the pinnacle of animated fare. Noah was all, "What's with this existential purpose-in-life crap? Where's your damn backpack? That right there is your problem."

Honestly, Noah really did pretty well, considering. He sat patiently and stared at the screen in complete bafflement for awhile, then allowed us to placate his growing restlessness with dozens of chocolate cookies. If the movie had been about 30 minutes shorter, I think we could have done it. We could have made it! The end credits were within our grasp! But then what we thought was the final montage gave way to another 20 minutes of denouement and Noah just plain melted down.

Jason hustled him outside while I watched the ending. It was nice. I could get as teary and blubbery over it as I wanted to. (And I can get teary and blubbery if the music for the Please Silence Your Cell Phones message gets a little too swelly and inspirational, so actual happy endings to movies just about kill me dead.)

In conclusion: we are dumb. And we're already laughing at every commercial for Ratatouille like, "Oh my hell, remember the time we took Noah to that? Remember how young and naive we were? Oh, the hubris of clueless, first-time parents. Ha. Thank God for the eventual wisdom of Tuesday."

Floor guys are here. I think maybe we'll try a playground today.

Boom!

Day Three of Operation Hardwoods. The downstairs is almost done. Tomorrow they start on the upstairs. I hope to have my house back sometime between next Saturday and 2012.

It's always a little weird to go into your bathroom and discover that even the toilet paper is covered in sawdust.

But lo, there is progress.

There is also this, unfortunately.

I've spent the last couple days begging the floor guys to leave our router plugged in and undisturbed, which is stressful because I don't know how to say "I NEED THE INTERNET TO DO THIS BULLSHIT 'JOB' THAT I DO" in Spanish. Do air-quotes translate?

"I WORK REALLY 'HARD'. WILL BE UPSTAIRS IN BED WHILE YOU PULL UP PEE-STAINED CARPET. ADIOS."

The floors look really great so far, except that now I think I want new kitchen cabinets. But I'm not going to say anything about that to Jason until all the sharp and deadly power tools are out of the dining room.

Noah is not so very sure about any of this.

(Translation for anyone who doesn't speak toddler: OH NO! OH NO NO NO! etc.)