Four Years

It's funny, as he gets older, my determination to stay away from mushy, embarrassing sentiment wavers more and more. He's no longer a baby or a toddler but a KID, and yet when composing this entry in my head, my first impulse is to fill is chock full of pet names and flowery goopy declarations of love and pride. "Mo-oo-oom," I can already hear him saying...but when? Two more years? Longer than that? Less?

We spent so much time this year focused on the future. Worrying about it, planning for it. Determined to prepare him for the next step, the next year, the next experience. We became Mama and Papa Bear, growling at anyone who dared question the potential of our cub, demanding that the forest clear a safer path for him...while also tearing our fur out because holy crap, this is hard.

And yet, oh, this boy. He is still my heart. He is still so smart and adorable and funny. He is such a kind, loving big brother and a kind, loving person. He surprises me every day, every hour, sometimes, with the things he says and thinks and can suddenly DO, just like that, and I am awed to be tasked with a child with this much potential.

"Are you happy?" he asks, whenever I look upset or worried. "Are you happy, Mommy?"

Yes, Noah, my love. Yes, I am. I am so happy.

Noah's Fourth Birthday from amalah on Vimeo, music: M79 by Vampire Weekend

Happy birthday, baby.

Public Service Announcement

It has been brought to my attention that reader Kari declared yesterday's post "the EXACT OPPOSITE of birth control," and that many, many of you agreed with that assessment.

Did you not read the part about the screaming? The terrible, terrible screaming? That he does in lieu of using anything remotely close to the English language? All the time, for everything and sometimes for no reason at all?

Oh, I see. The photos of the happy, angelically cute baby distracted you from that part. Well then. I'm afraid I'm going to have to break out the big guns. For your sake. For the overpopulated planet's sake. YOU MUST HEAR THE TRUTH.

Why You Should Not Have Babies, Exhibit #342 from amalah on Vimeo.

I think he's saying he would like more cantaloupe. Or maybe more souls. Could really be either.

ANNOYING DISCLAIMER: I gave him more cantaloupe. I did not purposely withhold cantaloupe for the purposes of this video, or sit there eating cantaloupe in front of him like Kate Gosselin.* He was simply expressing his supreme displeasure over my refusal to give him more than one piece of cantaloupe at a time, because if I gave him six pieces of cantaloupe he would shove all six pieces of cantaloupe in his mouth at once and then SCREAM ANYWAY because there wasn't any more cantaloupe on his tray.

*To my knowledge, Kate Gosselin has never eaten cantaloupe in front of Ezra either. 

LOLZ

Well, NOW how am I supposed to get anything done, ever?

Yeah, this blogging thing was fun and all but TICKLISH BABY GIGGLES YUM GOTTA GO BYE.

(This is technically the second time I got him to laugh. The night before I coaxed some giggles by screaming "GRILLED CHEEEEEESE!!!!" right in his face.)

(What?)

Night at the Roxbury

All right, enough talk of near-smothered babies. It is once again time to DANCE!

Here is Ezra, possibly rocking out to the beats of the 30-Day Shred DVD menu.

Night at the Roxbury from amalah on Vimeo.

Hey, if we're going to believe in guardian angels and all that stuff, I don't think it's too far-fetched to believe in a 12-week-old who has already mastered the White Man's Overbite.

(PS: the break in the video isn't really a break in the action, but a sloppy attempt to edit out the part where I said, "You wanna get in shape, Noa-- uh, Ezra?")

(PPS: the 30-Day Shred is everything you've heard it to be. If you hate gyms, hate working out, have absolutely zero patience and demand instant gratification, this is the workout for you. It will kick your ass up and down the block, but by day three you're no longer panting and gasping quite so much, and you can at least scream back at the TV to shut the fuck up about more jumping jacks. Progress, baby!)

He Just Wants To Dance.

Ezra slept for eight solid hours last night. I slept for three, thanks to a complete and utter inability to breathe due to the aforementioned Y.A.F.C.

Noah -- who has made a full recovery and is back at school today, probably contracting the next bacterial scourge as I type this -- slept for less than eight hours but more than three, as I heard him conversing until midnight with an imaginary scary goblin who lives in his closet and is his new best friend in the world, because he's a NICE scary goblin. They go on ADVENTURES. Shut the DOOR, Mama. I BUSY.

I am pretty sure the scary goblin is actually the garden gnome from our neighbor's yard.

I have no idea how he ever got so hopped up last night. It's like someone was ordering him to dance until he collapsed headfirst into the furniture in exhaustion right before bedtime, or something.


Noah's Dance from amalah on Vimeo.

(Totally gratuitous footage of the baby doing absolutely nothing of interest is at the end. You're welcome.)

(Also, yes, we are out of butter. Thanks for the update, Jase.)

All This & More, Thanks to the Wonder of Technology

Some of the hideous post ideas I started and trashed yesterday:

"My kitchen sink is drip...drip...dripping and aaaaaahhhhhhhhhstopit!"

"Dear Dog and Cat: How do manage to time your vomiting TO THE EXACT MINUTE we run out of paper towels?"

"Yeah, so I WANT to write another installment in the Deodorant Wars, but I've been struggling to come up with a plot line for my new stick of Dove Clinical Protection. Who IS she, as a character? What's her MOTIVATION?"

Then I was all: cop-out time! Noah photo! Belly photo!  But then all the camera batteries were all simultaneously dead. Simultaneously and AT THE SAME TIME EVEN. Clearly, the blogging gods were against me, determined that I should keep at least a few damn thoughts to my own damn self. This was, judging by the above examples, probably for the best.

I don't really have much else to say today, other than to issue a warning to anyone in the DC area: hey! You know what's a bad idea? Like, a really, really bad idea? Blindly following your GPS, even when it's telling you to turn left onto a one-way, do-not-enter street that happens to be oh, directly in front of the PENTAGON.

Luckily, the cops let us off with a warning. "Try not to drive into any lakes next time, okay?"

Sigh. I've really got nothing today, except for the crushing need for my 27th burrito of the week. Take me to Chipotle, GPS!  I can no longer find my way out of a paper bag, thanks to you.

Here. This is video of my kid screeching into my laptop's built-in camera for five straight unbearable minutes. Special cameo by my chins and belly.

Hams from amalah on Vimeo.

08/08/08

We've outlasted the marriages of people who predicted the demise of ours. We've ended up a million years from where we started, and from where we probably expected to be. I tumble into tired clichés every time I try to come up with words worthy of this anniversary, this milestone, this day like any other day, really. We'll wake up on 08/09/08 and...keep at it, for another 10, 20, 60 years. If I get to be that lucky.

10 years, in two-and-a-half minutes. It feels like that, sometimes.

10 Years (Take Two) from amalah on Vimeo.

Music: Together Forever in Love by Go Sailor.

(EDIT: Sorry for the video glitch. I uploaded in the middle of major site maintenance at Vimeo and lo, there were Issues. I've reuploaded it and I think everything is working now.)

 

He Calls Them Veedy-Ohs

Things We Have Learned This Week:

1) We've got a LOT of chronically incontinent, publicly flatulent, oops-I-crapped-my-pants, weird and wonky-boobed bitches up in here, and I love y'all for it.

2) Breastfeeding. Is a touchy subject. Still. Noted, and moving on.

Things We Are Not Talking About Today:

1) Breastfeeding, and thank God.

2) How UPS held my new fetal doppler hostage all week, and yes, I know I said I wasn't allowed to rent one this time, but nobody said anything about BUYING ONE. So I bought one. And then UPS wouldn't give it to me.

3) And then UPS finally gave it to me, but I haven't really been able to find the heartbeat yet but we are not talking about that today, LA LA LAAAAAAAAAAAAAohshit.

On that ominous note, allow me to present the Tonedeaf Family Sunshine Singers and their rendition of "You Are My Sunshine."

This is, admittedly, not their best work, but SOMEBODY forgot to actually hit the "record" button during an earlier and far-superior take, and then SOMEBODY ELSE refused to perform like the little performing monkey that he is and frankly, I don't think they're going to get it together enough in time for the world tour. Expect low ticket sales and eventual cancellations blamed on exhaustion and acid reflux.

It's Another Blue's Clues Day. On the Couch. Winning Mother of the Year.

Whenever I happen across a blog entry about someone's kid having the stomach flu, I always cluck sympathetically, and then CLICK CLICK CLICK AWAY EW PLEASE DON'T TALK ABOUT YOUR KID'S VOMIT.

Commence clucking, y'all. And the little X up in the corner over there will show you the way out.

Noah woke up wailing around 3 am last night. "A MESSTH! A MESSSSSSTH!" he sobbed, pointing despair at his bed. He cared much less about the messth he made in our bed an hour later, and an hour after that he was over messthes completely and viewed our proffered plastic trash can as just getting in the way of his good time, man.

This continued all night and morning and well past the time when it finally occurred to Jason that he had a JOB he could go to instead, fuck this noise.

(Tangent! Did you know that the Noggin network airs 24 hours now? [Much to the despair of dozens of tweens who depended on the 6 pm switchover to Degrassi reruns, I'm sure.] But did you know that this is a LIE and an ILLUSION and if you actually do decide that all you need in the world is a damn episode of Blue's Clues or Dora or holy hell, I'd even accept Little Bear at 4 in the morning, you will instead be confronted with bizarre Barney-like imports from the mid-90s that involve a lot of neon and a bunch of very, very tall children playing leapfrog and singing to the camera with eyes that clearly say, "I AM GETTING NO RESIDUALS FOR THIS, THANKS MOM.")

(We switched to Cartoon Network and watched old Hanna-Barbera cartoons that were chock full of ethnic stereotypes and cavalier attitudes towards cigarette smoking instead.)

So while all plans for today were obviously hosed, we've managed to stay entertained, mostly through the power of Photo Booth, which Noah absolutely loves now that he's made the connection that WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY to record his every move and mug and deep thoughts on aballs.

(One day we're going to have to have a talk about where blogs come from, but I am not ready for that, frankly.)

Anyway, since I have sheets to wash and odors to...deal with...I'd like to present Noah's First Podcast. Today he'd like to talk about Dogs, Dessert, the Firefox Whee! Video and also Some Random Point On the Ceiling He'd Like Us All To Look At.

The Noah Report from amalah on Vimeo.

Uh. What up?

I just got back from New York, where I've been for several days now. Alone. With a toddler.

I don't even know where to begin. The screaming? The train? The 150 pounds of luggage that contained zero pairs of socks? The screaming? The getting locked out of an apartment by two semi-naked toddlers and having to explain how THAT HAPPENED, EXACTLY?

Fine. I'll start with this. More tomorrow, or...you know, ish.

Rockstar Lifestyle from amalah on Vimeo.