MOAR BIRTHDAYS

(In Which I Strive To Not Talk About Sad Things During Another Post For The American Cancer Society)

I was looking through stacks of old photos in hopes of finding some inspiration for this entry, something that would FINALLY maybe focus more on the "birthdays" part of ACS' More Birthdays campaign and less about, you know, the "cancer" thing. 

I'm not sure if I found inspiration, exactly, but I definitely found a theme.

And that theme would be: Cake, Pinafores and Unfortunate Bangs.

Oh, I'm kidding. But not about the cake part.

Aaaaaand maybe not so much about the bangs thing, either.

Sometimes I feel guilty about how few photos I manage to ever actually print out. About 99% of my children's childhoods remain solidly in virtual form only (albeit with a robust and slightly paranoid web of backups going on under the hood). There's something nice about sifting through yellowed stacks of photos, never knowing what awkward, poorly lit memory you'll hit on next.

Then again: No timestamps. Perhaps these photos were once labeled in an album, but are now floating loose and out of order, so I have no idea how old I am in the above photo. Five? If I had to guess, based on the handmade dress, which I think I remember from a preschool class photo. My obsession with Snow White burned fast and bright throughout my entire childhood (#1 reason: SHE WASN'T BLOND) and I don't know why the Smurfs seem to be there too. Except to shame the me of 2011 who "accidentally" and "maliciously" deleted my six-year-old's Season Pass to the Smurfs on the TiVo because HOLY GOD THAT SHOW IS ANNOYING AND TERRIBLE.

This photo pretty much sums up every birthday party ever: The "good china" set out at my insistence (including the cups and saucers, from which we would drink our juice). The cardboard crown. The "Happy Birthday" crepe paper that my mom bought exactly one roll of and used for a full 18 years of birthdays, as it unfurled like the loaves and fishes. At least one birthday present infuriatingly wrapped in Christmas paper. Sparse attendance thanks to it being so close to Christmas, save for my friend Laura, who was and always will be prettier than me. 

And my dad, right off to the side, because the birthday girl demoted him from his usual seat at the head of the table. 

Here I acquiesced to paper plates and cups, but please note the fancy candlesticks and cake stand. This makes it okay.

(Birthday crepe paper? Check. Hung upside down? Double check. Laura, looking just like Snow White so much it killed me a little inside? Still and to this day, people. STILL AND TO THIS DAY.)

A rare non-cake-related birthday shot. In fact, the only one I found. My crown says "6" on it so I'm Noah's age here. I think my teacher made me that crown, and I would  like someone to please tell me what the hell happened to my Tomy Fashion Plates set. OH GOD THOSE WERE SO AWESOME. 

Also awesome: Those pants. Purple jersey knit, high-waisted, with a belt. I think there were pleats involved. Definitely tapered ankles that I stuffed into multiple pairs of slouch socks. There is actually a companion photo to this one of me holding that outfit up on Christmas morning, already super excited at the prospect of wearing such a mature-looking ensemble at my birthday party instead of a handmade dress and pinafore. 

Like this one. I wish I still had that dress. I wish I still had all of those people.

My dad, my aunt Betty, my "uncle" Jack who my aunt always insisted was just her good friend but of course we all know better now, like we now know better than that giant ashtray full of cigarette butts right on the table, holy shit. 

I am four years old here. I know because this one is labeled. 

My dad was the one who labeled it.

 

 

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to print out some photos. 

This post is sponsored by the American Cancer Society's More Birthdays campaign.

 

 

All Blogs Are Hideous At Age Eight. It's Quite Normal.

Oh my God, you guys, this blog is eight years old today.

Eight years, I have been blabbering on about whatever it is I blabber on about. No wonder I'm running about of things to say. Can't I just tell the volcano story again? Or the oven fire or the bird or Newark and also luggage cart? Could I perhaps start a business selling ready-made birth stories for today's busy modern momblogger who is too busy writing sponsored product reviews to deal with the whole messy, overwrought emo side of the business? 

Eight years. I was in my 20s, in the city, in an office, in heels. I am currently in none of those things. Now it is: 30s, suburbs, work-from-home-bed-nest, bedroom slippers.

(Though I still own all the heels. I'm just more apt to whine about them when I wear them.)

There's also that whole THREE BOY CHILDREN plot twist that happened along the way. The me of eight years ago would NEVER have seen that coming, and probably would have been a tad horrified at the prospect, which makes me want to point and laugh at her, because man, that uppity bitch totally had this coming. 

At the risk of sounding ancient as all hell and get off my virtual lawn-ish, it's really gobsmackily crazy how different the Internet is now. It was so...small, and yet wildly exciting huge and untamed and new. I didn't even start a blog, I started an online journal. Because that meant you were more writerly, or at least longer-winded and less inclined to edit.

*puts on monocle and holds dainty teacup*

There were no ads or ad networks and the great Sell-Out debate centered around whether it was tacky to put an Amazon wishlist or PayPal button on your site. I had no idea how to handle drama or trolls or criticism or how to even be all that authentic. My early entries manage to be both embarassingly personal overshares and experiments in playing an online character. I was wildly excited to realize that people were reading and commenting and linking, and then I'd go home for the holidays and my dad would advise me to stop wasting my time entertaining my dumb friends online and get back to you know, real writing. 

Anyway, blah blah blah different time new world blogging-as-viable-career-path-cakes. Let me get back to what's really important, to what defines this blog-thing now, eight years and probably millions of run-on sentences later: GROSS STORIES ABOUT BABIES AND WHY BABIES ARE GROSS.

1) We took the boys to see The Muppets on Wednesday. Mini-review: Super-duper fun and awesome, especially for grown-ups, but perhaps about 15-20 minutes too long for little kids. That last quibble was perfectly evidenced by Ezra, who -- during the last of about three quietly emotional turning points in the movie where somebody learns something about the value of friendship -- decided to shriek I GOTTA GO POOP at the top of his lungs. 

2) Then we came home and I was playing with Ike on the couch, lifting him up in the air and making goofy faces at him, like mo-oooo-ooooom, you're so lame and embarassing, and he chose that exact moment to remind me that we are NOT fully past the days of the turbohork and yes, I am using my blog's eighth anniversary post to tell you about the time my baby barfed on my face and it got in my mouth. What of it? BEHOLD, MY LIFE'S WORK. IT IS RICH WITH MEANING AND PURPOSE BUT CLEARLY NEEDS MORE FART JOKES.

(Eight years and counting and I still haven't bothered to learn Photoshop.)

(And as God is my witness I probably most likely never will, because bleh.)

NOAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!

I COULD sit here and tell you what my weekend was like, with words and stuff, OR you could just go ahead and watch the following video over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over (breathes) and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over a few hundred dozen times or so and basically get the gist of things.

Overhung

NOTE FROM THE MANAGEMENT: Please direct any complaints about the lameness of this post (and I assume there will be multiple)to my husband, who decided it would be fun to make me a margarita at 11 pm last night, even though he KNOWS that tequila and I broke up over a decade ago for a very good reason, and that very good reason is that tequila likes to wake me up at 4 in the morning by clubbing me in the face with a two-by-four. 

Besides getting my ass kicked by a single mean-drunk cocktail, I am also running low on things to talk about. Seven other blog deadlines in addition to my regularly-scheduled freak-outs right here are fine and manageable some weeks. Other weeks I'm all panting and crazy-eyed by Friday, like OH MY GOD I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT BREASTFEEDING ANYMORE. (Seriously, though, it does come up a lot. Exhibit A, and B, and a totally cheaty C.)

TL;DR version: HERE ARE SUM PITCHERS I TOOK WITH MAH PHONE. SHUT UP, I'M TIRED.

School picture time! This is, without a doubt, Noah's best showing in a school portrait. While I am of course majorly biased in my belief that he is an incredibly handsome child, I have to admit that there is something about school pictures that transform him into a slightly demonic-looking gooberface. 

There's a big trend among this portrait companies to shoot in front of a green screen now so parents can select from a variety of cheesy-looking backgrounds. I geninely think they're missing out on an opportunity by not offering something like this one. 

And then there's THIS KID, who looked so absolutely adorable in the one-inch photo preview the portrait company sent home that I was POWERLESS to resist buying a super-expensive portrait package with a gazillion and one wallets, but who I JUST NOW NOTICED managed to dribble some kind of bright red liquid all down the front of his shirt. (Way to go, preschool! You apparent bunch of rookies.) He also has a band-aid on his arm, just to complete the "Don't Let The Vest Fool You, I Am A Fan Of Bar Fights" look and feel of the whole thing. 

Here's Ike, who we all know by now has two basic expressions: Schmoopy glee or WTF IS THIS SHIT, MILK LADY. 

Here's my makeup-less self showing Ezra how to use the Incredibooth app. 

And here's why that may have been a mistake.

I'm deleting about 20 of these A DAY, at least.

Also a daily occurrence: me attempting to get "fancy" with the morning sunlight, resulting in streaky, blurry photos of my baby's giant head.

YOU KNOW WHO'S REALLY ANNOYING? THE CAT. HE'S ALWAYS TRYING TO SNUGGLE WITH ME AND GET ME TO PET HIM EVEN THOUGH I MOSTLY JUST PULL ON HIS EARS BECAUSE HE'S JUST SO DAMN NEEDY AND...

He's...totally right behind me, isn't he? Crud. 

 

Aaaaaaannnnd that's all I've got. Time to go parent through a hangover, because I am a winner and an awesome grown-up and also a noted Internet parenting columunist who knows ALL THE THINGS, except how to see through my husband's transparent attempt to get laid and ruin my Friday. 

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED

Like many ineffective parents, we use a token/incentive system to bribe our children into behaving. If you can make it through a few paltry basic tasks without losing your everloving shit for no apparent reason, we will award you with a shiny magnetic star.

Accumulate enough of these shiny magnetic stars throughout the week by doing advanced manuevers in civilization (like "put your clothes on your body" and "hygiene" and "eat enough non-chocolatey sustenance to keep your organs functioning"), and you shall be rewarded with the prize of your choice. 

Oh my God, you guys. My kids are the biggest nerds.

The "Bad Guy Ship" that Ezra -- who is a mere three years old, may I remind you -- wants?

Would be this one. The Klingon Bird-of-Prey, as seen in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock.

ROAR!

(Note: Please don't tell him that Bad Guy Ships don't actually say "ROAR." It's cute and I'm allowing it.)

Noah wants the "Pointy Ship," also known as the Narada, Nero's Romulan mining vessel from Star Trek (2009).

BEWARE MY FEARSOME POINTINESS

Noah is particularly keen on reaching his goal this week, since he's already constructed the Romulan drill out of Legos and figured out how to make a black hole out of a t-shirt. 

(And of course, he already has good 'ol Bearius Care's ship, the Emperprise.)

SPOILER ALERT #1:

The ships have already been purchased in anticipation of the boys' success. (Along with some likely candidates for next week's objects of Star Chart desire.) The wait to get them out of the boxes may be killing Jason a little bit. 

SPOILER ALERT #2:

Oh, Baby Ike. You are just so doomed to inevitable dorkdom in this house. 

In Absentia

I was planning to write some kind of tribute. Something happy. Nostalgic and sentimental. I felt confident I could scan some photos, talk about the good times, tell a funny story or two, anything but more cancer talk. Anything but loss, death, grief, because no. It is his birthday. 

But instead the words are jumbled up inside, trapped within a knotty ball of discomfort somewhere above my heart and below my throat, but the idea of untangling it all seems more likely to result in heaving sobs instead of an eloquently written tribute. 

I just. It hurts so hard. I miss him so much. I want him back. 

I want to send him an Amazon gift certificate and talk to him on the phone. I want to hear about the yellow cake with chocolate frosting, his favorite. I want to visit him this weekend and cook for him or treat him to carryout from a restaurant and apologize for how loud the kids are being and for never knowing what to get him for his birthday besides another lame Amazon gift certificate. 

Because that's what I got him for his last birthday, and the birthday before his last birthday, before "his last birthday" meant something else. 

And yet...no. It wasn't his last birthday, because today is his birthday. And it will be his birthday next November 15th and the November 15th after that. 

Today will always be his birthday. 

Happy birthday, Dad. 

Thank you to the American Cancer Society for sponsoring this post, this day, as part the wonderful, dear-to-my-heart More Birthdays campaign.

Let's Go To The Zoo, Part Four

I believe I have made my feelings about the zoo known already. Several times, in fact. Wait, here's one more. 

So going to the zoo yesterday was the very definition of insanity, or completely understandable because my in-laws were visiting and getting out of the house is unbelievably critical because otherwise we all sit around while my mother-in-law helpfully folds my underwear in the living room and my father-in-law watches his laptop defrag for a couple hours. Not this time, I decided. So help me God, we will go to the fucking zoo and like it. 

CAN YOU NOT SENSE OUR COLLECTIVE JOY?

WAKE ME UP WHEN AMERICA REALIZES THAT PANDAS ARE THE MOST BORING ANIMALS EVER.

Noah and Ezra, to their credit, had less than zero interest in those dumb overrated pandas anyway. They wanted snakes. Lots of snakes. Are we at the snakes yet? Yeah, elephants, okay, whatever, OH DEAR GOD PLEASE TAKE US TO THE SNAKES.

Amy: If I'd known they were that into snakes we coulda just stayed home and sent 'em into the basement with a shovel and some flashlights.

Jason: A...shovel? 

Amy: I don't know. It just sounded right. Wiffle bats, maybe?

We spent a long, long time in the reptile house, pointing uselessly at windows.

LOOK LOOK IT'S OVER THERE CAN'T YOU SEE IT I MEAN I AM POINTING RIGHT AT ITS GENERAL DIRECTION FROM 10 FEET AWAY JESUS CHRIST NEVER MIND IT'S JUST A DAMN TURTLE ANYWAY.

Okay, that's more like it.

That's...probably actually a stick. Good pointing, though! 

And that's...locked, right? Seriously, I would not put anything past this one. 

It's hilarious, of course, that I have boys who love snakes and lizards and other scaly weird things. A love that has obviously developed entirely independent of me. Because no. Not really a fan. I spent about 15 minutes trying to get them to even look at a freaking lemur later in the day (IT'S SO FLUFFEEEEE), but no. If it wasn't a giant ass snake, it had to at least have giant ass teeth for it even register on their interest radar.  

But I do a good job around them of swallowing my general terror of...well, ALL OF IT.

HI THERE. I AM GOING TO KILL YOU. JUST FYI.

Ezra was not afraid of any of the snakes or lizards or other assorted helldemons in the reptile house, but was kind of freaked out by the monkeys. Especially once the orangutan went all King Kong across the famous O Line. 

GAH NATURE IT'S JUST SO HORRIFYINGLY REAL SOMETIMES

(Note that a zoo employee will guard the sidewalk underneath and warn you that yes, people totally do get pooped on, so best wait until he's across to keep walking.)

Ezra liked this fascinating exhibit about plastic trash cans much better. 

BUKKITS!

Ike woke up some time around the tigers and remained unimpressed with everything except boobs and also boobs. 

(And before anyone has to even ask, shout-out to Red Charlotte on Etsy for the Ergo sucking/drool pads that Ike is quietly, discreetly slimeing on in this photo. I also highly recommend her Stuff Sacks for keeping your baby carriers from taking over your house and life with their octopi-like strappiness. Mine matches my drool pads, because OF COURSE IT DOES.) 

After the snakes, Noah requested dinosaurs. Um. Well, honey, the thing is...

Aha! Wot's this?

And for once, zoo did not disappoint. At all. 

Double Indignity

Very early this morning, the bathroom door opened. I protested because, well, it was closed for a reason, if you get my drift, and I think that you do. 

A still-sleepy-looking small child appeared in the doorway, clad in old-man-style plaid jammies, holding something. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a not-insignificantly-sized, perfectly-formed ball of poop.

I should note that he was still wearing his pajama bottoms, and that everything...usually involved with this sort of thing was perfectly clean, as if his offering simply materialized in his hand like some kind of goddamned Mr. Hanky of a Christmas Miracle. He was quite pleased with himself, apparently, having bypassed his own bathroom to purposely make his way into mine so he could show it off before depositing it neatly into our toilet.

And the You Know You Have Too Many Small Children punchline to this story is that my only reaction was to shrug and think: Well, that's a timesaver.

WE ARE

Penn State.

Unfortunately.

I ran upstairs last night and shook Jason awake. JoePa! They fired JoePa! And then we stayed up for hours watching ESPN, watching the students wander aimlessly around downtown while the eternally-present-and-obligatory group of drunk dickheads smashed some shit up for no reason, just like they did 14 years ago for reasons I don't remember. We won? We lost? We were pissed about increased late fees at the library? I don't know, but it always ended with a couch getting pitched off a balcony and set on fire. FUCK YOU COUCH YOU ARE DRUNK.

We stayed up watching the Paternos step outside their house -- a house I remember driving by, and the whole car went reverently silent once it was pointed out, because it was JoePa's house -- to blearily thank the "kids" who'd gathered on their lawn, only to be completely flummoxed and shocked by the giant seething mass of media that swarmed their doorstep instead. Because they probably still don't get it, how big this is, how awful. That it's not that you didn't do "enough," it's that you didn't do anything. You didn't do anything. Nobody did. 

At 19 years old, I didn't know much of anything. I'd already attended and changed my mind about two different colleges already. I'd already lost track of how many times I'd changed my major and my career goals. I scored a dream job as a reporter at The Collegian and quit two weeks later. I thought maybe I'd try film, or literature, or social work. I didn't know how to get a fake ID but usually managed to get tanked regularly without one pretty well. I didn't get to go to many football games because I was broke and needed the weekend  hostessing shifts at The Corner Room and also liked having the job as an excuse when my parents asked me if I'd found a church yet. Beacause I didn't know how I felt about that anymore, either. 

But one thing I know -- hindsight be damned -- is that if my 19-year-old self heard that there was a chance a child was being abused, she would have done something. If she'd been the one to round that corner in that locker room, there would have been screaming, kicking, hair pulling, something, to make sure that assault ended right then and there. If she'd been the one told about something possibly inappropriate going on, she would have hit 9 for an outside line to the police instead of to the office down the hall so it could be handled internally. No. Because something. You have to at least do something. 

And I didn't need college to teach me that. 

We are Penn State.

And we are soooooo disappointed. 

Five Months & Change

The baby is sick. A terrible, awful, hideous-sounding cough that I KNOW is just a cough and nothing to get worked up over, except TOO LATE. I am a little worked up.

Three kids in, and I still completely suck at sick babies. My nerves cannot take sick babies, because my nerves believe they are single-handedly responsible for keeping said sick baby alive through the power of staying completely alert and on edge for 48 straight hours.

He's coughing! I better go check.

He's not coughing! I better go check.

I am much better at handling sick children, once they're older and already have a few dents in them. (And I'm allowed to dose them with an assortment of sticky liquids and droppers and meltaway chews and other things that say MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS FUCK YEAH.) But when a previously mint condition baby gets sick and your comforting options are limited to Vicks BabyRub, steamy baths and getting your boobs sneezed on? That just kind of stresses me out. 

Although Ike had a better run at health than Noah OR Ezra, making it all the way past the five-month mark before succumbing to one of the many, many strains of pestilence his brothers have brought home and/or attempted to smear his face with. I am grateful for that, though it's making little difference in my belief that he's somehow contracted swineRSVmoniacroupflu, or some other superbug that I accidentally willed into existence from too much Googling. 

Possible swineRSVmoniacroupflu aside, Baby Ike At Five Months is doing quite well. On the advice on our pediatrician, we started solids a wee bit on the early side for turbohork-related reasons and I am thrilled to report that I have not been projectile vomited on since last Friday. And when it happened I realized that not only did I not have a burp rag nearby, I did not even have a burp rag on the same floor of the house, because I haven't needed them. Praise ye gods of rice cereal and sweet potatoes, but that's a phase I am happy to be leaving behind. 

(Speaking of solids, I am thinking of maybe making a section/sub-blog thing about homemade baby food and cooking for kids and other assorted nerdery? Because clearly I just don't talk enough on the Internet already? Y/Y?)

In other suspect advice from our super-old-school pede, I attempted to break Ike of the swaddling blankets. His doctor maintained that any sleep habit can be curbed in three nights -- by night four they won't even remember what they're pissed off about, she insisted. (Or course, she also was like, "just let him cry for 45 minutes or so, he'll get over it" and I was like, "I'm smiling and nodding only because this is my third baby and I have figured out that I actually don't have to do everything you say, because LIKE HELL, LADY.") 

But I decided to try to get Ike to sleep sans Miracle Blanket, which he's pretty much outgrown anyway. I hedged this plan by buying a SwaddleMe Blanket in the next size up, just in case, and sure enough! I managed to get Ike asleep and in his crib on the very first try! It's like he HEARD me accidentally throw out the receipt and remove the original packaging! 

Our adventures in swaddle-less sleeping lasted three nights, and on the fourth night Ike suddenly remembered that HEY WAIT THIS IS BULLSHIT and started thwacking himself in the face several times a night and waking up supremely pissed off at all that terrible freedom. Also, his hands were really cold. 

Long story short: Ike now sleeps swaddled in not one, but THREE goddamn blankets, none of which are the completely useless SwaddleMe, which he can bust out of and turn into a Baby Toga costume in like, 15 seconds flat. Bedtime now involves a complicated set-up involving the arm part of a Miracle Blanket, the leg part of a Sleep Sack and then a Winter Papoosening with a crocheted wool blanket to seal everything up for freshness.

AND I AM NEVER MESSING WITH ANY OF THAT AGAIN. I WILL SEND HIM TO COLLEGE WRAPPED UP IN A KING-SIZED SHEET IF I HAVE TO. HE CAN WEAR THE SWADDLEME TO FRAT PARTIES.

Sleep disturbances aside, he is a good baby. ("We'll keep him!" she says, finally and symbolically tossing the receipt.) He is such a good baby that every time a certain neighbor up the street sees him she announces that he is the best, most adorable baby she's ever seen and doesn't cry ever and I feel this weird urge to like, apologize for my good fortune and insist that of COURSE he cries sometimes, but she always shuts me down like, "NO. HE IS BEST BABY. NO CRY EVER. STOP LIES, MAMA."  

Fine. Baby Ike is the best baby ever. Just following orders, Internet.