New shoes

There comes a time in the life of every young man where he must...get some new shoes. We're pretty convinced that William recently had a growth spurt. He seems taller, somehow, and he probably is, even though we haven't officially measured him to find out. His summer rompers are all too small; it looks like he's wearing a dress because all the snaps always come unsnapped at the bottom. He couldn't stretch his feet out (or his legs) in his 18-month pajamas, and he's even starting to outgrow his Robeez. So I put away the jammies, bought a few new larger pairs, bought a bunch of fall clothes, and shopped for some bigger shoes.

Here's William in his first pair of Keds:




















The first pair of Keds, but at the rate his feet grow, probably not the last.

He really looks like a big boy now, doesn't he? He already had stopped looking like a baby, but the shoes really do it, I think. I also took him to the shoe store where his grandmother bought shoes for his daddy when he was little, and we got a pair of little white Sunday shoes. They are really cute, so I'll have to remember to photograph him in his Sunday School outfit this week, now that he has decent shoes to wear with it.

No more black eye. Bug bites and scratches instead.

William, playing with his new Duplo airplane that's technically not even new. It's been packed up since before we left California, and David just unpacked it tonight.



















I don't know if you can tell by the photo above, but the black eye is pretty much gone. No, it didn't last. But in its place, William now has two scratches and a bug bite on his face. As one of the ladies in my church group sagely noted, it's a good thing that we don't have any family pictures scheduled anytime soon. No doubt!

It's funny how you never really think about these things until they happen to you. Like, it would never occur to me to worry if my child's going to be all banged up before a big professional photo. But until recently, my child didn't really do anything that would result in, say, a black eye. I mean, I used to worry about getting a huge zit on my own face, or my hair looking really huge and horrendous, but now I have to manage bug bites and black eyes, too? Geez. We may never get photos taken professionally again!

By the way--and this is totally unrelated to everything I just wrote--William is getting some more teeth! David spotted them today: the canines are just starting to poke through on top. Sadly, William still just has those little two teeth on bottom. Pretty soon, he'll have all his top teeth--and just his molars and the front two teeth on bottom. But what can you do? You don't get false teeth for a toddler. Besides, he can put away food, even tough food like apple skins, without much trouble. It'll just be his little quirk. Some people have one ear that's higher than another. My left eyelid droops more than my right. William will just be unique.

Healing up

William's black eye is slowly fading, you'll all be glad to know. It looked worse on Tuesday and even a little bit worse than that yesterday. But today, it looks better. It's not the first thing you'd probably notice about him anymore. Yep. There goes my son, with his band-aids from his skin infections and his black eye. Aren't I the poster child for Mom of the Year?

I felt compelled to explain at Gymboree class yesterday why my child had a black eye, so no one would whisper behind my back or anything. Or call child protective services. But like he's the first kid to ever have a black eye. Here's how I see it: he's a toddler. Toddlers fall down. They trip over their feet. They trip over their shoes. They trip over each other (which is what happened with William). Plus, half of William's genes are mine, which means he's 50 percent klutz, genetically speaking. They don't call my dad Tanglefoot for nothing!

Plus, William wasn't even the only black-eyed child in his four-child Kindermusik class on Tuesday. A girl named Kyla had a real beauty of a shiner that even included a cut down the side of her face. Her parents said she tumbled down the stairs at school. I remember doing the exact same thing at about her age, except that I fell down the steps at church. I'm sure my parents would love to relive that little childhood memory. Ah, good times.

William gets a black eye

So my kid has a black eye.
















Yeah. You think that's bad? You should see the other fellow.

Okay, William didn't really get into a bar fight with another toddler. He stayed in the church nursery this morning while I attended a meeting. He fell into a toy car or something and another toddler fell into him, and well, he got a little banged up. However, according to the nursery lady, he handled it like a champ. She said that she's never seen a child so cooperative when she had to put ice on them for an injury. And the redness faded pretty quickly, leaving just the small bruise right by his eye.

Also, the nursery lady was impressed that he put toys back on a shelf after taking them off. She didn't come right out and ask if that was normal behavior, pre-black eye, for my little guy, but I reassured her that he's in that putting-in-and-taking-out phase right now. (Put the coasters in the basket, take them out, put them in another basket, take them out, put them in the coffee table drawer, take them out, ad infinitum.) So no neurological damage was evident. Maybe a few OCD tendencies, but no damage.

They came and got me out of my meeting to let me know there had been a "small incident." They reassured me William was fine, that he was playing just like he had been before falling, but that they just wanted to let me know. I managed to stay in my meeting for another fifteen minutes before finally giving up and running downstairs to check on him. Sure enough, William was trotting merrily around the playground with a group of other small children. He was carrying a large paintbrush, which I can't exactly explain, but he looked like he was having a good time, and that's all that really matters. And in the car on the way home, he ate Wheat Thins like they were going out of style. So he really was just fine.

Here's another look at the battle wound. See, it's right there to the left of his left eye. No blood. Just a bruise.















And here is William again, catching up on some light reading:




















I feel reasonably sure the bruise'll be gone in a day or two. It might turn crazy colors first, though. I really should concoct a really good story to tell about it. Taking a tumble in the church nursery doesn't have nearly as much drama as it could, you know?

Mabry's here!

Whew. We've been very busy the last three or four days. Miller and her daughter Mabry arrived Wednesday, and Nathan arrived last night. How fun it is to have old friends visit! And even more fun to have their new baby girl to coo over, too.

Speaking of Mabry, since I know everyone wants to see her, because let's face it, we all love new babies (especially when we get to coo over them but don't have to get up in the middle of the night and feed them). And isn't she a doll?















Being a new mother has not slowed Miller down in the slightest. She still has more energy now, at eight weeks postpartum, than I think I've ever had! As evidenced by this picture of her giving William a ride around the house:





















Okay, maybe motherhood slows Miller down occasionally.
















But not for very long. You'd be amazed at all the stuff she's managed to fit into this one trip to Nashville. We've swum laps at the YMCA twice--that should be one clue. (And my God, am I out of shape. Do you know the last time I swam laps? Yeah, no, neither do I.)

But wow. I guess I'd forgotten just how tiny a new baby can be. I know William's not that small anymore, obviously, but it's amazing to hold a new baby and think, "My child used to be that size. Do I even remember those days?" And for me, the answer is, "Not that well!" I was so sleep deprived. I guess I can go back and reread this blog and find out what I was thinking. If I was thinking anything at all--anything other than "please please please let me get some sleep." Mabry is just darling and so calm and sweet. She never seems to cry. She just fusses the littlest bit, and it's so cute. So different from William, whose cries could break glass even in the earliest days. And it just seems impossible that William was ever that size. Miller says she weighs around nine pounds. William weighed 26 pounds and 12 ounces at the pediatrician's office on Wednesday. (For yet another MRSA-related visit. Sigh.)


Miller's mom and dad have been here, visiting and spending time with their new granddaughter. They took a bunch of us out to lunch at this place called Pucketts' Grocery out in Leiper's Fork. They're brave to embark on a meal in public with three babies, William being the oldest. The others were Mabry, of course, and Yago, the (almost) eleven-month-old son of Shab and Santi. Here's a photo of Shab, Yago, David, William, Miller and me. The boys don't look that happy in the picture, but they seemed to have a good time during lunch.














So right now, Mabry is off bonding with her grandparents and aunt Dorothy. Miller and Nathan are at the wedding they came to attend. William is in bed. David is watching the Red Sox game. And I'm finally, finally getting around to looking at all the pictures I've taken over the last few days. I'm glad I got a few good shots. Children change so much, so fast that I hate to miss the opportunity to capture the fleeting expressions.

Yesterday, I was holding Mabry and smelling her sweet soft little head, and I marveled that my own son was ever once like that, so small and helpless. I looked across the room and saw him gleefully tossing beanbags around the family room, and it just seemed like a very long time ago. Miller remarked that it must be nice to get feedback from my child, and I have to admit that it is. When I do something like make a funny face or read a book or even ask a question, William always responds. I remember, though, wondering if he'd ever do that. Isn't it amazing how much he has grown and changed in just these short months?

Isabel's birthday party

William and I hopped in the car on Saturday morning and made a trip to Jackson, TN to visit my dear friend Phuong. Phuong's elder daughter Isabel was celebrating her third birthday, and we were invited to the party. I was also delighted to see Phuong and Jessica, and Phuong and Eric's new baby Amelia.

William, of course, was delighted by any event that gave him the chance to drink juice boxes like the big kids and run around in the yard and make noises to his heart's content.






































And he got to play with Jessica.






































Then there was the bounce house. I confidentally said that I doubted William would want to get anywhere near the bounce house--that he'd be afraid of it.



















I mean, he's just now about to turn 17 months old. He's only been walking for a few months now. And those bounce houses are big! But while I was off chatting merrily away with some other adults, one of the older children gently coaxed William into the bounce house. And then Kate shooed some of the other kids away so he could give it a chance without being stepped on. And he wasn't scared at all!



















In fact, later one, he was willing to go back in the bounce house, while a couple of the other kids gently bounced the floor with their hands so he could feel the bouncing without having to stand up and do it himself.


















Amazing. A lady at church said to me on Sunday, "You know why children exist, don't you? To make liars out of their parents!" Sure enough. William was more than happy enough to try out the bounce house when I thought he'd be scared of it, and he also cried when I dropped him off at the church nursery when I had just bragged that he never even looked back at me when we arrived there each week.



















Anyway, the party was terrific. I was amazed that Phuong managed to pull off such a terrific party only a few weeks after giving birth. She managed to juggle countless friends, family members, her active three year old and her new baby. And still serve dinner. Now, I will tell you that she had a little help from Jessica and me: the three of us put up a tent in the yard. In case anyone ever asks, it takes three Rhodes graduates to put up a tent. Just so you know. And uh, it also takes a lot of trial and error and maybe a bit of mild swearing. But I'll have you know that that tent stayed up the entire party, with nary a shudder. See what you can do when you put together about 20 years of collective higher education?

William in his Angels shirt

William had a little naptime blowout while I was out running errands before dinner. David took care of it, and as he proudly announced when I got home, he even managed to dress William in an outfit that matched. Hee hee. The man graduates from medical school and completes years of grueling medical training, but he's all excited because he made his son look nice. Isn't he a good daddy?
















Notice, of course, that he chose a baseball outfit. But strangely, he didn't put the Red Sox shirt on William. Hmmm. I wonder if that shirt has gone AWOL. I need to find it before the playoffs get here. We don't normally dress our child in lots of sports-themed clothing, but we do make an exception for baseball. Plus, that shirt is William's Vladmir Guerrero shirt from the Angels game that we attended on his first birthday, so it has sentimental value.


















Next year, maybe we'll have to let William have his own team in our fantasy baseball league.

William's music box

When I was a freshman at Rhodes, I took an Old Testament class as part of our mandatory religion class requirement. Two of the guys in my class, Ravi and Bryan, were amused by all the Hebrew that we were learning, and somehow they came up with this word--either a Hebrew or a mock Hebrew word--"merrh!" and decided it meant "good value."

Here's how you might use it.

William's music box from his Pack n Play finally bit the dust about ten days ago. He had hurled it to the ground one too many times, and no amount of tinkering or fresh new batteries could coax life back into it. I found a replacement on the Graco Website, marked down to $9.99 from its regular full price of $19.99. Merrh! That is definitely an excellent value.

It's an especially good value, considering that David and I have often remarked that the price of the Pack n Play was worth it for the music box alone. The music box is just about the only thing that we've had since William was brand new that we were still consistently using. All the tiny 0-3 month clothes have long since been put away, and we've had to switch to bigger carseats and a different stroller, but the music box has remained. It has accompanied us on every single trip we've made since William was born. About the only place it hasn't been with us was in that hotel in Dallas in June--and that's only because it was stashed away in our checked luggage.

So the new music box arrived today--technically it's called a musical soother, I think--and I can't wait to put it on the crib railing tonight. I think William has missed it, if for no other reason than because he likes to fiddle with the little nightlight on it and then throw it to the floor.

The music has been such a part of our lives for so many months now that even just a snippet of one of the songs can instantly transport me back to those first few weeks when William was here, when he slept in the Pack N Play in our room. We turned on the music to quiet him down after changing him or putting him down to sleep. The songs are pretty standard, and yes, we could get tired of them after awhile, but I actually really liked one of them. David swore he remembered it from a music class at Princeton, and he managed to figure it out and buy a Mozart CD with the real sonata on it. It will forever remind me of my new baby son, of those breathless early nights when I could sink into a deep Navy SEAL sleep the instant my head hit my pillow and pop awake as William was inhaling to take his first breath upon starting to cry.

For the record, I emailed Graco to ask for the list of songs, and a very nice lady named Lynn emailed me the song titles so that we didn't tax our own knowledge of classical music too much more. Here they are: 1. Mozart - Eine Kliene Nacthmusik; 2. Brahms - Lullaby; 3. Chopin - Nocturne Opus 9 #2; 4. Mozart - Sonata in A major; 5. Claude DeBussy - Clair De Lune.

William doesn't really need the music to go to sleep now. He's been doing just fine with just his crib aquarium for the last week or so. But I think he likes the music box anyway. It's always been there for him. It's his, and he knows that.

And yay, now we have our music box back. Merrh, at any price.

The first day

I am so relieved. William did beautifully at his first day of school today.

It didn't start out so well, though.



















I like to chronicle all these Big Occasions, of course, so I thought I'd take William's picture with his backpack and lunchbox. And I had the bright idea of having him wear the backpack, like a big boy. Except, well, with all the stuff that I had to squeeze in the backpack, it was incredibly heavy....and well, William just about tipped over backward when I hung it from his shoulders. He was Not Amused. So that picture shows William fighting to stay upright and getting increasingly mad about it.

Here, he's happier in this shot:
















And finally, we loaded up the car and headed out to the church. William picked out a book to take to read in the car, and look how appropriate his choice turned out to be.



















He chose "Spot Goes to School." Pretty smart kid, eh?

Anyway, we arrived at the church a little early, amazingly enough. So I nervously made us wait in the car for a few minutes before I decided it would be okay to go on in. Miss Nora and Miss Theresa were there with one little boy who was even earlier than we were, and they warmly greeted both of us. William began to cry a little and clung to my legs for about five seconds, but then Miss Theresa led him off to look at some toys--toys we don't have at home--and that was it. He didn't even look back at me. I snapped a few photos for posterity, and I think this one should be titled, "Okay, Mom. You can go already."




















And I stayed to nervously chat with Miss Nora for a few minutes, making sure she understood that William needed Natty for his nap and that I had packed the nutritionally appropriate lunch. You know, I didn't want my child sent home from school the first day for not having the right lunch, of course. And I blathered on for a little while longer, just unsure if it was okay to leave and if William would be okay without me. But with Miss Nora's reassurance, I steeled myself. I signed the sign-in sheet with my name and cell phone number and walked out of the classroom.

I kept my cell phone with me the rest of the day, checking it every so often to make sure it was still working. But it stayed silent. Gradually I began to relax a bit. I finished up my bible study and my errands and headed back to the church around 2:20, again waiting nervously in the car for a few minutes beforehand. (I am such a dork.)

As I walked through the hallway, I caught sight of all the children's bags and empty lunchboxes, ready to go. I spotted William's. On top was a little report, noting everything he'd done all day. He'd eaten most of his lunch, the teachers wrote, took a nap, had three wet diapers, read a book about Zoey, colored a picture of the rain and watered the classroom plant. For some reason, I was teary-eyed while reading this sweet little report about my son's life when I wasn't with him. Until I saw the part about the classroom plant, that is. That just struck me as oddly hilarious. Then I sniffed again when I looked at the little half-sheet of paper with some blue scribbles on it. "Rain" was written at the top of the page in neat teacher handwriting, and "William" was printed at the bottom. I loved it. It was beautiful. My child did that! And he did it without me!

And you know what? I walked in the classroom door and joyously called out my son's name, and he looked up oh-so-briefly and continued playing! Apparently, there was much more to be done with the plastic pots and pans and bowls and plates in the toy kitchen. I walked over to him to kiss him and let him show me all the bowls and plates he was stacking up (he's very into stacking and sorting these days). The teachers told me about how he went right to sleep at naptime and didn't even want his binky (woohoo!) and how he loved it when they sang "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." And they were both so amused by how well he ate. That's my boy. It's when he doesn't eat, I told them, that it's time to worry. I got to meet the aforementioned classroom plant. Then we picked up his stuff, said "bye bye" to everyone else, and we both walked out to the car.

As soon as we got home, I hung the picture of "rain" on the refrigerator. And I gave my child a piece of cheese as a reward for being such a good boy all day long.

William's first day of school

William's first day of school is tomorrow!

Okay, it's just a church playschool, which is politically correct code for "Mother's Day Out," and it's just one day a week from 9 to 2:30. But still! He starts school tomorrow!

We attended the open house about two weeks ago, checked out the classroom, met his teacher and received our copy of the rules...er, the handbook. It looks like a great place, and William immediately took to all the toys. David met the executive director and told her the story of the time he and his little friend freaked everyone out in nursery school at that very same church by arranging their own after-school playdate without telling anyone's mom. David's mom showed up to pick up her son, and he wasn't there, and I'm reasonably sure that she completely freaked out because that is precisely what I would have done, except that I probably would have also passed out from a massive bout of hyperventilating. Obviously everything turned out okay, and David had just tagged along with his friend's carpool and was safely at his home. So I think Diane went to the little friend's house and retrieved her son. (Man, I wonder if Diane ever wondered if it would be ridiculous to ground a four year old?)

But anyway, back to William. I've been working on all the stuff that I have to send with him ever since the open house. And it was quite a list, surprisingly. I have to send...deep breath...a bag with a crib sheet, a blanket, a change of clothes, four diapers, a container of wipes, a lovey (which for William, is Natty, the soft green frog toy that I bought in Natchez last summer), a binky for naptime, two sippy cups and a lunch. The playschool has pretty rigid rules about what parents must send in their children's lunchbox, too. I have to provide a dairy, two veggies and/or fruits, a protein and a bread product. Dessert is optional, naturally. I have to make sure the lunchbox has coldpacks to keep everything cool until lunchtime, too. And everything has to be labeled. So I acquired a new crib sheet, blanket, lunchbox and a back-up lovey to send to school with my son. (William does not realize that the Natty he will have at school is not the original Natty, but I couldn't take the chance of sending the original to school and having him get lost. Natty is very important to our night-night routine, and no way was I going to jeopardize that.) I hunched over the list provided in the handbook and packed the bag this evening. Then I put as much of the lunch together as I could. Now I just need to finish packing the lunchbox tomorrow morning with all the cold stuff and then...and this is the tricky part...remember to put it all in the car with us before we leave for school.

For the record, William's first official school lunch will include the following: blueberry Yobaby yogurt, whole-wheat Ritz crackers, a cup of diced peaches and a small container of cooked carrots. And milk.

I was telling William in Target on Friday that in just a few years, we'll be shopping for real school supplies. We'll be shopping for a big sturdy backpack. We'll be stocking up on crayons, colored pencils, erasers, glue sticks, wide-ruled notebooks and No. 2 pencils. We'll be talking about homework and worksheets and sitting quietly and raising your hand in class. But I don't like to think too much about that, because that makes me sort of weepy. I'm not ready to think about my little guy being ready for real school. I'm already sort of skittish about sending him off to playschool tomorrow! But I think he'll have a good time. It'll be a good experience for him, and it'll give me time to attend my study group at church and run a few errands afterward. That's what I'm telling myself.

But I'm glad we're living in an era of cellphones. So they can call me if William has trouble at school. Not that I expect him to, but y'all know me: I'm a worrier. Best to be prepared for the worst.

To parent or not to parent

I've been reading this collection of essays titled "Maybe Baby" this week. The essays are divided into three sections: the writers who chose to not have children, those who have or are wavering, and those who decided to take the plunge. It's been a good read so far.

The essays written by the parents are the ones that resonate the most with me now, but perhaps not for the most obvious reason. Some of the writers chose to have children but worried a lot about it. Would they be good parents, would they make mistakes, would they love their children? I knew that I wanted to have William, absolutely, but I can't lie and say that I didn't worry about what kind of a parent I'd be to him. I figured that I'd have to learn along the way, which is more or less what I've been doing for the past sixteen months. But as I've said before, I wasn't one of those women who had their future children's names picked out for decades and were just waiting on the prospective father to come along. I wasn't convinced that I'd be the perfect instinctive mama. So it was very nice to read the essays by people who really considered why they wanted to become parents--and ultimately why they did take the leap of faith. And why they have never regretted it.

But I was also struck by some of the essays in the "no, thanks" category. I would never ever presume that everyone wants to have children or should have them. Nor would I ever tell someone without children that they'll change their mind someday. Everyone has to make their own path, certainly. And I really do believe that some people aren't destined to be parents because they just don't want to BE parents. All they need to say, honestly, is "I just didn't want to have children," and I'm perfectly okay with that. They should be, too. One writer wrote that she didn't want to pass along her genes because her family has a history of mental illness that she didn't want to pass along. That's fine, too.

But at least two of the writers used a version of this as one of their reasons: "I don't like ugly primary-colored plastic toys, and I don't want them spread all over my living room for years on end." I feel like that's just disingenuous. You don't want to be a mother or father. Just say it. Don't blame Fisher Price for your decision. That would be like someone saying "Well, I would get married, but you know, I hate bridesmaid dresses/altar flowers/monogrammed napkins so I'm just not going to bother." Besides, you don't have to sacrifice your living room to shape sorters/plastic blocks/toys that moo or quack. You can corral them in your child's room if you truly hate the sight of them. Or stack them in neat wooden baskets that coordinate with the furniture(which is what we've tried to do in our new living room). Or you can choose to only purchase handcrafted wooden toys. Or, when he's old enough, you can teach your child to clean up the toys and put them away.

OR you know what? You can say "I love my child. My child loves this toy. I'm not going to get all worked over the fact that it's in my living room. He's eventually going to outgrow it anyway, and it will get shunted off to the basement or Goodwill. Is it really worth expending major angst over the fact that it's occasionally lying in front of the coffee table?" It's okay to not want to have children. It's okay to want to have them. But I think people should be honest about those reasons, at least to themselves.

And yeah, I sometimes grumble when I pick up the little rubbery animals from the Noah's Ark toy for the four millionth time. Sure, it'd be nice to have a beautifully appointed house that looks like a Pottery Barn catalogue at all times. But I think that it's more than fair for what I get back in return: a giggly little boy who adores me and his daddy and who can't get enough of us. Who smells like Johnson & Johnson baby wash after his bath. Who pulls up his shirt from his round little belly and points to his bellybutton and crows "Bel bo!" Who nestles his head up against me and says, "Ma ma ma."

But maybe society does expect people to have a long list of reasons for why they chose to remain childless (and I've only been referring to people for whom it's a deliberate choice). Maybe people do feel pressured to defend a list of reasons, like a dissertation. I hope I've never producted that reaction in anyone. I hope I never turn into a mommy evangelist. But my gosh, I'm glad that I have my son. I'm glad glad glad.

(Even if he does insist on throwing food off his high chair tray.)

William's second big boy haircut

As you may have noticed from recent photos, William was starting to look a little shaggy. Even though I realize this would mean he'd be in style these days, I don't think it's important for 16-month-old babies to be particularly stylish. So I took William to the nearby SuperCuts to get his second official Big Boy Haircut yesterday. Sadly, I have to report that it didn't go nearly as well as his first Big Boy Haircut at the beauty salon on the base in Twentynine Palms. No Miss Nancy. No horsey to sit on.

I should have known that it wasn't going to be a very good experience when we showed up at the salon and no one talked to us for about five minutes. We just stood there awkwardly, waiting for the lone haircutter to notice us. William squirmed, so I put him down and he enthusiastically banged on the glass door, which I'm sure endeared us even more to the SuperCuts folks. Finally, the woman said she'd be "right with you" and then took William's name. He ran back and forth between the aisles of beauty products, but I was vigilant about making sure he didn't touch anything or knock anything over. Luckily we had Cheerios and some board books with us, although as it turned out, running and banging on the glass were more fun.

Fast forward through the 20-odd minutes that he waited (a LONG time with a toddler in tow) to the actual haircut. The lady asked if William wanted to sit on my lap or the booster, and I figured, he'd be fine on the booster. Wrong-o. For some reason, the booster seat freaked William right out, and he turned and buried his face in my legs and clung to my knees and began sobbing. I tried to perch him on top of the booster, but oh no no no. I gave up and sat him on my lap. And William still was suspicious. After the first few violent head wags and some tears, I dug a dusty binky out from the depths of my first and asked him not to tell his daddy that I was going to let him have it for a little while. He settled down a little. The trimming began.

The woman didn't even bother to give either of us a little cape, so we wound up covered in hair. A few times William began to be upset, and would snuggle up against my chest. I'd convince him to sit back up. A couple of times, he even began to smile, and I started to relax, thinking, "Okay, this is going to be okay." He offered me his binky and giggled when he managed to pop it into my mouth (yuck).

But then, the haircutter made a critical strategic error. She didn't remember that small children can get freaked out by the smallest thing if it makes loud noises and they don't know what it does. She came after him with the electric clippers. Tears. Sobbing. Tears and sobbing. Clinging. Much clinging. She tried to show him that the clippers don't hurt, and she held them up to her arm, then mine. Didn't work. William was not placated. She gave up and finished snipping around the edges with the scissors. I asked her to even out a few pieces. Done. Thank God. There has been way too much drama associated with hair in our family.

We got home and William, wrung out from the drama, was ready for his nap an hour ahead of schedule. I brushed off as much of the little curlicues of damp blonde hair as I could and gently lowered him into his crib.

Later, I took a few photos. It's not the best haircut, but I guess it could have been a lot worse. And William is still pretty cute. And doesn't he look grown up?


















And here is William reading one of his new Richard Scarry books:



















And here's a funny shot:

Labor Day

Aaron and Diane took William and me to the Franklin Jazz Festival for Labor Day. We staked out a place on the steps of the old courthouse where there was a nice breeze and hung out to listen to the live jazz music.
















The other good thing about our little spot was there was plenty of room for William to run around. And dance. And run around. And dance.




















And we all did our fair share of chasing William around--and helping him go up and down the courthouse stairs.




































William had a pretty good time, we all agreed. He didn't have to sit in his stroller the whole time (anathema for the busy toddler), and he liked the music. He clapped every time the rest of the audience clapped, too. And sometimes he was just moved by the music and clapped anyway.



















And after the whole thing was over, we came home and ate barbecue with David and Mark. Not a bad ending for a nice day!

Getting ready for fall

It seems like I spent almost the entire week getting ready for the fall.

First, we all attended our first Sunday School class at church on Sunday. David and are joining a class for young families, while William technically isn't in a class, but he's going to the nursery.

Then, I signed William up for a weekly Kindermusik class and a Gymboree class. I know, I know, it's bad to overprogram children, but I wanted to find something he and I could do together that would also give a little structure to our weeks. In Twentynine Palms, he and I attended the breastfeeding group at the hospital and then, later, a Playtime with Baby class at the Y, which we referred to as "William's school." Here, we needed to find a new version of "school" to entertain him...and er, me, too. So we'll be doing Kindermusik on Tuesday afternoons and Gymboree on Wednesday mornings.

Originally, I had thought we'd go to library story hours a couple of mornings every week. Then I actually took William to story hour a few times. And then I began to reconsider. See, here's the deal with storytime: they, yes, read stories. And the children are supposed to sit and listen. That's a tall order for a toddler like mine. He pays attention sometimes, but oh, is that a cat on that book over there? Hey, look at the fan! Is he eating raisins? Can I have some too? Let's just say that William can be easily distracted by all the other interesting sights and sounds, so I end up doing a heavy amount of baby-wrangling. The downtown library's storyhour is a little more active--includes puppets and singing and dancing, so we'll probably still go to that one sometimes. But with Kindermusik and Gymboree, William is actually supposed to get up and down and dance and make some noise. I think that's a little better for him at this point in time. Plus, we read plenty of books at home.

Let's see. What else is on tap for fall? Oh, that's right. William will go to Mother's Day Out at a nearby church on Mondays. So David and I went to the open house yesterday to meet his teacher and check out the classroom. William immediately threw himself into the toys while we chatted with the teacher and looked at the handouts we received. It was hard to pry William away when it was time to go home. I think he'll do just fine there. And while he's in "school," I'll be in a study group at our church. I attended an orientation meeting for that the other night.

I do love fall. I love the start of all the new activities. I love the beginning of football season and the baseball pennant races. I love Halloween and all the stuff leading up to it. And I still love buying new school supplies, even though I haven't really needed them for years. There's just something special about a smooth new notebook or a brand new box of crayons with their even sharp tips, you know? But I admit that I bought William a new lunchbox. And I really feel like I should go out and buy a new Trapper Keeper or something. Do they even still make Trapper Keepers? Wow. One day, my son is going to give me a funny look and say, "Mom? What is a Trapper Keeper?" Heh. In the meantime, I guess I'll be content with the new lunchbox, the new activities and looking forward to cooler weather that, please God, will arrive soon.

Talking and walking: an update

William has weirdly decided to sleep in today, so I thought I'd snag a few minutes to talk about what he's been up to lately, not counting the boring old sickness stuff.

So a month or so ago, William started saying "Mama." He's been saying "Dada" since, oh, January. I carried the child for nine months, threw up in strange bathrooms all over California for most of those months, and gave birth to him, but whose name did he say first? His dad's. David crowed with delight when William started calling him by name around the time of his (David's) birthday, and I waited anxiously for William to begin saying my name, too. I figured, it wouldn't be too long. Ha. But I have to say, it was well worth the wait. I'll say, "William, can you say Mama?" and he smiles and says in a I-know-how-much-you-love-this-so-I-am-going-to-be-as-cute-as-possible-when-I-say-it tone of voice, "Mama!"

Sometimes, he adds an extra syllable for emphasis, so I become "Mamama." 'S okay with me. It's really so very wonderful either way. David tells William that he could probably get away with anything as long as he coos "Mama" to me first, and sadly, he's probably right. I'm a sucker for hearing William's little voice say that word.

Of course, the other side of this is that William's word for "monkey" is very similar to "Mama." Uh huh. I'm not sure what to make of that. David swears they are different, and they are, if you listen closely. "Monkey" is "munmun." But then again, William's current versions of "car" and "cat" sound almost identical, too. Nothing else sounds like "Dada," though. Hmmm! When William hears the garage door open, he always shouts "Dada!" He knows his daddy is arriving home at last. Usually he continues to say "Dada" until he actually sees David walk through the door. David says that, after a long day of seeing patients, it's really really nice to be greeted by a small boy with a face covered in spaghetti/macaroni/cantaloupe juice shouting "Dada" with a big smile on his face, as if you are Elvis walking onto the stage in front of a delirious frenzied audience.

Oh yes, and William is starting to try to imitate more words. You already know about "wow" and "go." Now he's trying to imitate "stinky" and "dirty," which, as you may have guessed, tend to accompany diaper changes. He understands so much more than he can really say, so if I ask him if he's dirty, he sometimes will grab at his diaper and look hopeful or he will grab a fresh diaper out of the bag on his changing table. He knows what I'm asking, but he doesn't yet have the vocabulary to answer me very well. But he's trying. Sometimes he just throws up his arms and speaks gibberish, and we just know he's desperately trying to tell us something. We jokingly have started saying, "William, use your words!" I bet it's only a matter of time before he has even more words to use.

So he continues to try to talk more. And he's now practially running, not just walking. I literally chased him around the parlor at church on Sunday morning, as he gleefully ran laps around the furniture and the chattering church members after the 11 a.m. service. Imagine a small tornado in a blue smocked outfit and red Robeez dashing around, occasionally falling splat! on the floor only to get back up and lunge forward again. That was William after church. Now that he more or less can run, he likes to take advantage of wide spaces that let him do so. Church is the perfect venue for that. We had to chase him down in order to take him home, and he was Not Pleased about that. Poor kid.

Well, I hear him talking in his crib at last. That's all the news for now.

Doing much much better

A week after the whole MRSA/cold/asthma flare-up, William is doing quite well. Thanks to everyone who has called or emailed to check on him!

Here's the basic update: the wheezing is gone, and the cough is just barely hanging on. The MRSA lesion on his leg is healing nicely; you can't even feel a nodule under the skin, and it's a lot smaller and scabbed over. We've still got a couple more days left of the sectumsempra med (by the way, the reason I started calling it that is because David calls it Septra, and I couldn't remember that name, and I liked the Harry Potter allusion anyway), and we're still putting muciprocin on the leg twice a day. We've cut back on the flo-vent to one puff, twice a day, but we'll continue to administer that for the foreseeable future, to see if we can ward off any future wheezing episodes. But since the cough is just about gone, we'll probably stop the albuterol treatments in a day or two.

So, by Wednesday, I expect that William will be getting flo-vent once in the morning and once in the evening, and that will be all. Whew! I practically needed a cheat sheet to keep all the treatments straight, what with twice-daily antibiotic administration, four albuterol treatments each day, two flo-vent inhalations, and the muciprocin three times a day. Oh yes, and singulair at dinnertime; we mix the little granules, which look like salt, into a small dish of applesauce and serve it up that way.

David rolled his eyes when I said he needed to write it all down for me, but my gosh, it's so easy to forget something when you've got that many things to orchestrate. One of us was forever quizzing the other: "Wait, has he had his antibiotic/singulair/albuterol yet tonight?" or "Ooops, I forgot the flo-vent. Can you run downstairs and get it?" And admittedly, I am terrible about taking medicine myself. About the only time in my life I've been good about remembering to take my own medicine on the appropriate schedule was when I was pregnant and my potent anti-nausea Zofran pills were the only thing standing between me and, well, me not standing.

William, to his credit, has been a champ during this entire time. He has willingly taken his medicine, in whatever form or fashion, nearly every single time without a fuss. A couple of times, he's started to get really wiggly after the third or fourth inhalation session ("I didn't inhale!"). But for the most part, he's been such a trooper. I felt guilty about inflicting so much medicine on him last week, despite the fact that it was for his own good, so I bought him a couple of new wooden puzzles. He loves carrying the pieces around and depositing them in strange new places. Hey, if it makes him happy...

Read to me

An Associated Press article in the Tennessean yesterday announced that one in four adults in the United States didn't read a single book last year. And of the adults who did read a book last year, most only read four or five, total.

Man, that made me really sad. Both on a personal level--I love to read so much and can't imagine not doing it--and on a larger, societal level--how are people learning? I know, I know, I have friends who don't read much. Too busy, not interested, other hobbies and interests, etc. etc. I guess I so frequently have my nose buried in a book that I just can't imagine going months on end without even picking up a book, let alone finishing one and sighing with a big round "ahhhh." Reading has always been my first hobby. You know how it is when you love, say, a movie so much that you can't imagine how anyone could not also love it? It's sort of like that with me and reading. I can't not read. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I read toothpaste tubes. I have to read the paper if I'm eating my cereal at the breakfast table. It's just what I do.

So I knew before William was even born that I was going to make a concerted effort to persuade him to love books and to love reading. My mother patiently read an ocean of books to me as a child. Little Bear, Harry the Dirty Dog, you name it. When I got old enough to read on my own, she humored my interests and bought me books by my current favorite authors (Carolyn Haywood, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Maud Hart Lovelace) or on a favorite topic (ballet, ghost stories). My dad read Jack London's "The Call of the Wild" to my brother and me at bedtime over the course of a few weeks one year. I remember sitting on my brother's bed and puzzling over the name of one of the characters: I didn't understand how "Francois" could sound like "Fran-swah." I saw my mother check out books at the library for her own enjoyment, and I saw all the books on the floor-to-ceiling shelves in my father's study. I was raised on books. My child would be raised on books.

And so far, so good. William often prefers to "play" with or "read" his books rather than almost anything else. Not that he doesn't love a good rousing game of "carry the chip clips all over the house" or "scatter puzzle pieces all over the living room" or "hide the coasters," but he does seem to love his books. Right now, he's very into all the touch-and-feel type books, the Maisy books, which have flaps, and oh yes, "Are You My Mother?" and "Go, Dog, Go." We must read "Go, Dog, Go." about 50 times each day, often four or five times in a row. And William and I have a deal: if I buy a book for myself at a bookstore, he gets one, too.

Some studies have shown that children who are raised by parents who read--and see their parents read--learn to read at an earlier age. I guess that it's good that I still read as much as I can find the time and energy for. I would do it anyway, so it's even better that I'm supposedly setting a good example. It's not that I'm reading high-brow literature all the time because I'm definitely not. But I do have a pretty wide range of interests, and I try to find books that at least occasionally address them. And yes, sometimes I bury myself in Harry Potter. And I'm still longing to buy myself a whole fresh set of the the Little House on the Prairie books, the ones I loved to tatters as a child. And I admit that I really do love discovering new books for William--and rediscovering old favorites, too. For every "But Not the Hippopotamus" (which if you don't have, you must must get), there is a "Pat the Bunny." They're all fun, especially when you're William and someone will read them to you over and over and over and over and over...

Like, for example, Mama Dee:

A double whammy

We've had some drama around here lately.

Saturday evening, we noticed a spot on William's leg, one that sort of resembled a bug bite. By Sunday lunchtime, it was a big red angry blotch, weeping a yellowish fluid onto his calf. David freaked out, immediately speculating on all the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad things the lesion could be.

At the same time, William seemed to be coming down with a cold. He started coughing on Saturday night, too, and he even...and you know how strange this is for my child...woke up in the middle of the night and had to be comforted. There are a couple of key ways I can tell when William is not feeling well: when he doesn't sleep well and when he turns down food. So we knew something was afoot. I took him to his Mama Dee's house on Sunday morning so I could go to Sunday School, and he seemed to be feeling okay. But the cough got a little worse, and so did the congestion.

Naturally, William chose to get sick the very first weekend that David was on call for his new job. And so let's just say that David was already stressed out by the endless barrage of Mommy pager calls, some silly and some serious but all requiring his time and attention. William's health issues sent David's stress levels skyrocketing.

Luckily for us, David's new boss/partner and William's new pediatrician, Dr. Keown, lives in our neighborhood. David called her up, and she came by on Sunday evening. After making the appropriate fuss over how adorable William is (she speaks my language!), she examined his leg (and the diaper rash that seems to be hanging on, regardless of what we slather over it). She agreed with David: looked like a classic case of MRSA.

MRSA, for you laypeople out there, is the abbreviation for Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It tends to more common among people who live or work in healthcare settings, particularly those with compromised immune systems. But not always anymore. And it's also possible for people to be carriers of the bacteria but not actually get sick from it, and guess who works in a healthcare setting and then has to come home each night? But we have no way of knowing for sure how William contracted it. In fact, David and I are speculating that William may have had it before, back when we were visiting Natchez and he developed a big lesion on his leg that I assumed was a spider bite. That lesion eventually healed up on its own, with a little assistance from our trusty friend Neosporin.

So now we're just treating William. According to our old pal Dr. Google, community-associated MRSA is not yet as resistant to as many antibiotics as hospital-associated MRSA, which has been around a lot longer. So that's good. But it is evolving. And the Mayo Clinic reports, "CA-MRSA can be particularly dangerous in children. Often entering the body through a cut or scrape, MRSA can quickly cause a wide spread infection. Children may be susceptible because their immune systems aren't fully developed or they don't yet have antibodies to common germs." So even though we don't know for sure how William came down with it, the important thing is that we're getting him treated for it quickly. And everyone thinks he will be fine. He definitely seems fine. He's taking a super-antibiotic that I've dubbed Sectumsempra, in homage to the Harry Potter spell, and I'm putting special cream on the lesion. Dr. Keown saw William down at the office yesterday afternoon, and she thought it already seemed to be improving. The diaper rash seems to be slowly improving, too.

As for the cold, well...we're getting a little more serious and a lot more consistent about the treatment. We've been using albuterol, a bronchodilator, in an air chamber whenever William develops wheezing associated with a cold. We first started doing that last winter when he had RSV. Now we're going to up the ante by giving him an anti-inflammatory med, a corticosteroid called Flo-vent via his little inhaler/air chamber twice a day, along with regular hits of a combination of albuterol and something else that goes by the name Combi-vent. Dr. Keown said she wants him to stay on this regiment for the time being, perhaps until it gets cold, to see how well it controls things. Apparently, symptoms and presentation can change in small children, so we're just going to go forward with this plan and monitor things.

Since he really doesn't wheeze unless an illness has triggered it, I'm not sure exactly why he would need the meds all the time. But again, maybe it will help. I'm just relieved that William is pretty agreeable about submitting to the air chamber now. He doesn't fight it anymore, except in rare instances. We hit on a wonderful solution last time around. In desperation, we held the inhaler up to one of his teddy bears. "Look, William, look at how Mimi Bear is taking her albuterol! Oh, it helps her breathe and she feels so much better," we'd say enthusiastically while pantomiming the whole procedure with the purple bear.

Eventually, William caught on, agreeing to sit still and breathe through the mask. Now he smiles and claps for himself every time he finishes a puff. I can't emphasize enough how much better that has made it for all of us. Used to be, he'd buck and twist and scream with rage, while I frantically tried to keep the air mask clamped over his nose and mouth. Now we don't have to work so hard, and I guess it's not scary anymore.

The doctors at David's new office were very impressed with how calmly William took his albuterol yesterday. They tried to administer some meds via the old electric nebulizer machine, and let's just say that did not go over well. William reacted the way he used to with the air chamber. The physician's assistant put the mask over his nose and mouth, while I tried to hold him still. At first, he was suspicious but not angry. But then the PA turned the machine on, and it began whooshing and clicking noisily. William freaked out, twisting on my lap while I whispered desperately, "It's okay, baby, it's okay. We're almost done. It's okay, it's okay, sweetie. Look, it's your Curious George book." But William was both frightened and nobody's fool. Curious George was not going to make him settled down and submit to the big scary noisy machine. As he wheezed through the mask and glared up at me through a river of tears with a betrayed look, he seemed to be telegraphing to me, "Et tu, Mommy?." Oh, that look!

God, I hate times like that. William trusts me to take care of him, to make things all better, and that trust is a beautiful, gorgeous, shimmering strong thread that connects us. He didn't know that hooking him up to that machine was part of my promise to take care of him and help him feel better; he just understood that it was scary and that I was allowing it to happen. I was just as relieved as he was when he wrenched that mask off, and the PA turned the machine off. Whew.

Now he's more or less back to his old self: toddling around the house and making a mess and laughing and eating as much cheese as I'll let him. We played a wonderful game of Chase this afternoon, in fact: William "chased" me around the island in the kitchen until we were both laughing so hard that he fell down and flopped on his belly and I collapsed next to him. Honestly, those are the times when I think, "It really doesn't get any better than this."

I just stopped writing for a few minutes because William was crying. That's the second time in four nights that he's woken up, crying. David thinks he's gassy because the antibiotics are kicking in, and that may be making him uncomfortable. I lifted him out of his crib and settled into the glider in the corner of the darkened bedroom. Two seconds in, William snuggled his head beneath my chin, collapsed against my body and sighed, and began to breathe evenly. I rocked for a few minutes, just enjoying the baby scent of his soft hair and enjoying the (even and wheeze-free!) breath against my neck. Now that he's a toddler, William rarely wants to sit still long enough to cuddle with his mama. So I have to savor the few minutes that I get. And they are precious.

Cruel summer

So we are working on about Day 4,000 of Drought 2007. Despite my jubilant blog post about rain one day in July, we really have had no rain at all in recent weeks. Nashville--and the rest of Tennessee--is just brown now. It's roasted in a series of 100 degree days that would give Twentynine Palms a serious run for its money. I moved from one desert to another. Hmph.

So I've been working on a little project. I've been trying to teach William how to do a rain dance. Now, given a lack of Native American heritage, I sort of had to, well, make up my own rain dance (which may be why it's not working). I made it up the other day, late in the afternoon, on a day in which gray clouds hung in the sky as if it oh, just might rain but didn't.

Here's how you do my rain dance: shout rain! rain! rain! and squiggle your fingers downward in the universal itsy-bitsy-spider-down-came-the-rain motion, first to the right, then to the left, then to the center. Then you do a little jig in place for about five beats, making sure to wave both arms over your head a lot. Then you repeat the whole thing. And repeat it again until you're exhausted.

This is big fun when you are nearly 16 months old and have gallons of energy to spare. William especially loves the rain! rain! rain! part. He's even starting to catch on to the finger-squiggle part. Maybe if we do the dance often enough, it will help?

But you know what's funny? When we lived in Twentynine Palms, we rarely had rain and we knew not to expect rain very often. So I rarely even thought about rain. I may have missed it, but only in an abstract way. The area's default status was dry and brown, and I was accustomed to it. Here in Nashville, it is supposed to be green and lush, and well, it's not. It's sad. It's still greener than the desert, of course, but everything that is supposed to be lush is parched and shriveled instead.

So William and I have taken to staying indoors as much as possible; every day, we find a new thing to entertain us inside. In the last two weeks, we've hit three different story hours, gone swimming in the indoor pool at the Bellevue YMCA, had a play date at a friend's house, gone to the library about four times, gone to the Green Hills mall, gone to the Cool Springs mall with another friend and her toddler, gone to the play area inside the Bellevue mall and so on. I really want to take William to the zoo, but in this weather? No thanks. And I haven't pulled out the water table in weeks, either. It's just too hot out there. Even without the desert's relentless sun, the heat and the bad air quality make the prospect of hanging out in the yard sound kinda yucky.

So here we are, in in the midst of what feels like it will be endless summer. And I thought I'd only feel that way in Twentynine Palms!

In the tub

William in the bathtub tonight.















It looks like he doesn't have any front teeth from this picture, but I promise, they're still there. I meant to get some pictures of the monkey shower curtain, to show off the new bathroom decor, but I got all distracted by the naked wet baby in the tub!

Loonies in the cereal aisle

So William and I went shopping for groceries today at the local Kroger. We were contemplating my hastily-scrawled shopping list and methodically trawling up and down each aisle, when an older woman pushed her cart up next to ours. She beamed at William, happily swinging his legs from his seat in the cart, and said, "Oh what a beautiful little girl!"

I smiled nicely and said, "Actually, he's a boy. But thank you! It's the long eyelashes."

She said, "Oh, well, then. Those are beautiful eyes he has, so it was just easy to make the mistake." She smiled and waved at William and trotted down the canned vegetable aisle.

On the very next aisle, as I was trying to figure out where the heck the Kroger people stock the raisins (William's newest favorite snack), we came upon the same lady. "Hello, there, you are such a pretty girl!" she called to him and waved.

Huh. Had she not heard me when I said he was a boy? Not that it really matters, but it's been a really long time since anyone mistook William for a girl. He's a toddler now, and he really looks like a boy now. An amazingly handsome boy, sure, but a boy nonetheless. Plus, he was wearing navy-and-white striped shorts, a very plain, non-ruffly T-shirt with sailboats printed on the front, rugged brown sandals, and a denim hat. He definitely looked like a little boy. Which he is.

I didn't bother to correct her, but William looked up at me with a bemused expression. He knows he's not a girl. Pretty, maybe, but a girl? No way! Now this is the really weird part. We encountered that woman at least twice more and both times, she commented on what a pretty girl my son was.

And that, my friends, is why they invented the "smile and nod." So useful when you encounter dotty old ladies in the supermarket who insist that your grass-stained boy is a sweet little girl. I mean, heck. If I had a little girl, you really think I'd miss out on the opportunity to dress her up in girly little clothes? I mean, hello!

But hey, it got me thinking. So when it came time to make dinner, I donned my apron and I put one on William, too. What's good for the goose, etc. etc. He looked pretty good, I think.

Minor league baseball cracks me up

David's office organized a "welcome" event this evening: everyone received tickets to attend the Nashville Sounds game against the Albuquerque Isotopes at the Sounds' Greer Stadium in a sketchy part of downtown Nashville. Despite the fact that the Sounds, the triple A affiliate for the Milwaukee Brewers, are a pretty good team, they play in a stadium that makes the old Memphis Chicks stadium (i.e. the place that had to hold 25 cent beer nights to get people to come) look upscale. The Sounds' stadium itself is like something time forgot: I've seen nicer high school baseball stadiums. But it's appropriately ramshackle and cheerful enough to suit the weirdness that is so integral to a good minor league baseball experience.

Here is why I love minor league baseball games: they're so hilariously bizarre. The game is almost...okay, definitely...secondary to the spectacle. The games, the contests, it's all so random. Even David and I, avowed baseball fans, get distracted by the weirdness, and we don't even mind. How can you mind? It's half the reason to go!

"I feel like we're in Bull Durham," I said to David as we took our (rickety) seats on the third base line. No snorting bull patrolled the outfield wall, but there were terrific advertisements for Hamburger Helper and a service that extolled "let's talk trash!" And man, if I thought that airline seats were close together, clearly I had forgotten what it was like to attend a minor league game. Even when we stood up to let other people pass by, they barely had room to walk. We perched happily on our seats and hoped they wouldn't collapse and looked around.
















So what if it was hot and the stadium not exactly pristine and new? Not one self-important person halted us to make sure we had tickets for our section. No one searched my bag when we walked through the gate; no one confiscated my whole-wheat Goldfish, raisins and cups of water for the little prince, even though the signs said that no outside food was allowed. No one accosted me to apply for a credit card and receive a cheap beach towel. No creepy over-eyeshadowed American Idol-wannabes crooned the national anthem as if they were dreaming of morphing into Shania Twain; the singer was a young boy who was there courtesy of the Make-A-Wish-Foundation, and he was off-key and flat the whole time, and it was one of the best and most sincere renditions of the anthem I've heard, and it was wonderful. And they were selling Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in the concession stand!



















And it only got better. We had a row of happy, uncynical preteen kids behind us who loudly and enthusiastically cheered for their team--we love team spirit, yes we do!--and they waved and yelled at the mascot, a muscled-up anthropomorphized animal named Ozzy (a dog? a wolf?) who was prone to dropping to one knee and pumping an arm a la Jim Morrison/the Lizard King or swiveling his hips as if he were attempting to channel Elvis but somehow evoking Jose Canseco. William didn't care much about the juiced-up mascot, but he loved these kids. He was constantly standing up on my lap to watch them cheer and clap and sing. We're munching on ballpark food, watching our team drop about a hundred fly balls in the outfield while a gaggle of sixth graders belt out, "Spider PIG, Spider PIG, does whatever a Spider PIG does. Can he swing from a web? No, he can't; he's a PIG. Look out! He is a Spider PIG!!"




















When he wasn't trying to leap off my lap to hang out with the cool kids behind us, William ate an entire Chick-Fil-A sandwich all by himself. And then he tried to eat mine. And he made noises of interest at David's hot dog. But while we held firm on the "no hot dogs" front, we gave in when it came to ice cream in a helmet. I mean, if you can't have at least the ice cream in a helmet at a baseball game, what's the point of going?



















Weirdly, our ice cream helmets had the St. Louis Cardinals logo printed on them. Did they run out of helmets with the Sounds logo? Or did they never exist? Have the Sounds always sold paraphernalia with the logos of competing teams (or the parent organizations or competing teams), or was this a special occasion? No one knows. Our stadium cups (a dollar each!) had the Sounds logo on them, which makes them perhaps more appropriate souvenirs but less bizarre, which is somehow less fun.

But the best part of minor league baseball is all the weird stuff they plan to appeal to the fans. No superstar players here. I guess the marketing folks worry that baseball, just baseball, isn't enough to hold people's interest, so they hold all these weird events all during the game. We watched two boys--Hal and Cal or whoever--compete against each other in the "who can put on the frozen T-shirt the fastest?" contest. Both boys got to keep their frozen T-shirt when the contest ended. There was the keg rolling contest down the third base line. One keg ended up in the home dugout. I think the event was rigged. However, it is also possible that the kegs were not full. I couldn't tell. There was the dizzy bat contest with the acoustic guitars. There was the grocery-pick-up contest, where several girls huffed and puffed all over the field, picking up cans of something or other and putting them in bags (did someone win? I don't know). Two other sets of teenagers fastened cords to each other and dressed in helmets and pads before dragging each other up and down the right size of the outfield in some bizarre relay.There was probably a point to that one, but I missed it. Or maybe not. In fact, I think it would be that much better if there was absolutely no point at all.

So you've got the pitcher warming up with a few pitches, while ten-year-olds chug by just a few feet away with an armload of Del Monte green beans. Or you've got the infielders tossing the ball around to stay loose while Ozzy the...er, dog? fox? wolf? mascot races a four-year-old around the bases and pretends to collapse and die of heat exhaustion, lying prostrate on the ground, just shy of third base.

You just don't get this stuff in major league games. Okay, yes, in a major league game, you typically get much better baseball. And okay, usually the players are people you've heard of. But there's never a keg-rolling contest. And not once have I ever left a major league baseball game with a loaf of bread. That's right; we left the game at the end of the eighth inning with the stroller, our souvenir cups, our St. Louis Cardinals ice cream helmets, the diaper bag and a loaf of Sara Lee whole wheat bread. How's that for a "thanks for coming"?

It just doesn't get any better than that.

Worries

I recently learned that the son of a girl who attended Rhodes with me was critically injured in a freak accident in the home. Apparently, the little boy, who is around William's age, pulled a television set over onto him. By the time, the paramedics arrived, he was not breathing, but they managed to resuscitate him and rush him to the ICU at Vanderbilt.

When my friend Mary Clare relayed the news to me via email, I sucked in my breath in horror that something like that could happen. I actually felt my heart rate speed up. Then I had that urge to immediately check on William to make sure he's okay, the sour rush that shoots through my stomach and up my throat anytime I hear about something horrible that could happen to my own child. My next reaction was to feel intense sympathy and helplessness for the parents of that little boy. He is receiving excellent care, but I know they must be completely exhausted and traumatized.

David caught me staring at our big-screen television last night and said something to the effect that our TV is too heavy for a toddler to pull down. I guess he's right, but it still made me worry. So many things can happen that we can't anticipate. I never fully appreciated that before I had a child, but now it never completely leaves my head. Even when I'm not consciously thinking or worrying about something happening to hurt my child, it still stubbornly lingers there at the edges of my subconscious.

Is that something that accompanies parenthood? I guess I'd have to say yes. My parents say they still worry about me and my brother, and it finally makes sense to me. You can't control everything that happens, but by George, you can worry about it! I guess the things you worry about change over time, but the concern never goes away.

I hope the little boy in the ICU at Vanderbilt continues to make progress. I simply cannot imagine being in the place of his parents right now, but I ache for them.

More advice, plus the tale of a tantrum

Two more good pieces of advice to add to my list from a few days ago.

The first is courtesy of my own dear old dad: when you're 17 (or 21 or 30), and your father offers to buy you some tools, don't scoff; take him up on it because one day you will need them. You may not appreciate screwdrivers when you're 21 (except for the Smirnoff variety), but you sure will be thankful that you have them when you are a new parent and every single freakin' baby device requires the deft use of a Philips head screwdriver. Take the tools. Tools=good.

The second is this: when you're cooking, err on the side of adding too little salt rather than too much because you can always add more salt later. It's harder to take it away when you've already dumped it in there. Then you end up feeding your poor starving resident husband too-salty scrambled eggs and he gamely eats them anyway because he's wasting away from working without eating but you know they were lousy and doesn't he deserve better than that for working 100-hour weeks in the NICU?

On a completely different note...William is still somewhat in the clingy mode, almost a week after returning home. He's started screeching really loudly when he wakes up, and it just escalates. When I walk into his room, he has big wet tears on his red face, and he's nearly hysterical. Then it takes forever for him to really calm down, and woe unto you if you pick him up and then try to put him down while he's still wound up. Earlier today, he woke up too early from a nap. He was a mess. Screeching, crying those big tears, arching his back, having a regular ol' fit. But nothing made him happy. Not milk. Not ice water. Not reading one of his Maisie books or an issue of Babybug (his current obsessions). Not being held.

Finally, he stopped shrieking enough to sit in my lap and lift the flaps for a few pages of a Maisie book, but as soon as we reached the end of the book, he went nuts again. It's like he is trying to let us know that he is an honest-to-goodness toddler now, and with that label comes the right to have regular loud tantrums for no discernable reason. Luckily, he eventually consented to drinking some milk and reading the Maisie book again, and that seemed to do the trick. Weird, though.

And he was in perfectly fine spirits the rest of the evening, even though I dragged him to the library to check out books. When we got home, he just toddled merrily around the family room, depositing chip clips (for some reason, he loves to steal the chip clips out of their drawer and play with them) in the end table drawers and bringing the animals from his Noah's Ark over to me and then snatching them away and running off with a giggle.

Toddlers=weird.

Misplaced post

Well, heck.

I just published a whole long post that I'd saved as a draft, and it appears under the most recent post of the Holden Beach pictures. Humor me and scroll on down to read it, wonchyou?

Gracias.