Nobody puts Baby in a corner (or... Baby's Big Day)

Hey kids,

It was errand day today, and Jakob elected to stay home and work on his unauthorized biography of Spongebob (photos tk), so Baby came with.

I see that I always refer to you as Wavy in this blog, but nine times out of ten, in the real world, your daddy, Jakob and I call you Baby. I never thought much of it until your SLP called us out on it after I referred to you as "Baby." She asked if that's what we normally call you. It wasn't accusatory or anything (I think), but of course I started to wonder if we were doing you irreparable damage. I imagined you someday in your teens, vacationing with us in the Catskills, sneaking around with the hired help and doing naughty dances.

Anyway.

The day started out with you tinkling in the toilet, which you do two or three times a day now. Potty training isn't the all-or-nothing endeavor with you that it was with Jakob. You do your business (#1 AND #2) according to your whims, either in the toilet or in your diaper. The Potty Power DVD has you in its grip, and its message is top-of-mind with you throughout the day. When I'm putting your first diaper on you in the morning, I can hear you softly singing, "No more diapers for me, bye-bye! No more diapers for me..." Or when you're wiping your bottom after a visit to the toilet, no surprise to hear, "Wipe your bottom! (wipe your bottom...) Front to back! Wipe your bottom!" The foundation is built, and every day you're that much closer to being completely potty trained. I envision you being diaper-free long before you start Montessori in July.

Here's an unsolicited factoid: At two and a half years old, you weigh three pounds less than your five-year-old brother.

-- First stop out the door today was a trip to the dump. The large, loud machinery that delights Jakob when we visit was out in full force, much to your dismay. You spent most of our time there in tears, terrified of the bulldozer and its menacing noise. The clerk that took our money afterwards gave you a sucker, though, and that cheered you up immensely.

-- Starbucks. I got an iced americano and you got a carton of vanilla milk, which you can suck down in about a minute flat.

-- Pita Pit for lunch. I had a chicken souvlaki pita and you had the cheddar quesapita. You weren't very hungry, and mostly just picked at my Baked Lays.

-- Kinkos. I still occasionally get requests for my Cracker/Camper poster from last August and now for my April 1 Cracker poster. These are the only two things I have ever gotten printed there, and I always get the same clerk. He must think I'm a very boring one-trick pony.

-- Hair salon. Is that what you call it, a "hair salon"? It seems an uppity term for one of those discount hair places. We've found a very decent one that we always take Jakob to, and that I have started frequenting myself in this economic downturn. I've been pretty happy with the results, enough that I wonder why I would ever regularly pay $50 plus tip for my usual haircut. I am a sucker, though, and when my regular gal calls and leaves a message wondering where I've been, I will probably go back, at least once.

BUT! Today you got YOUR first haircut!



It went much more smoothly than I had anticipated. You were quiet and didn't fidget, and the stylist managed to lop a couple shaggy inches off the back. But each time she headed for your bangs, you jerked your head firmly to the right. So either daddy or I will have to take a shot at your bangs a little later.



Your nana will probably be heartbroken that she wasn't the first to take you to get a haircut, but they won't be here until July, and *I* wasn't going to make it until then. Your messy 'do was driving me nuts.

-- WalMart. To stock up on the staples that will sustain us through the plague of monkey pox. You started to fall asleep in the cart about halfway through, and your head was "lolling about like a bladder on a stick," (...said Patsy to Eddie in the AbFab ep where they vacation in France) and you finally put your head down on your folded arms and snored away. I spotted another mother there with a sleeping child in her cart, and she had fashioned a makeshift pillow for him with a pack of toilet paper. I mentally filed that away for future use.

-- McD's drive-thru. I couldn't help myself. Ever since that episode of 30 Rock a couple months ago that prominently featured McFlurries, I have had wicked on-again, off-again cravings for that creamy, bland goodness. My lactose intolerance is a built-in feature that keeps me from indulging every day, however. So we shared a small M&M McFlurry in the parking lot and watched the traffic on 395 go by while we listened to NPR.

-- The playground at the park. It's 6 p.m. at this point, and while it seemed like a busy day to me, from your point of view, there was an awful lot of driving around, then hitching a ride in a grocery cart and sitting here and sitting there. So I took you to the playground to blow off a bit of steam before heading home to Jakob and daddy and daddy's chicken and dumplings.

So there you have it. Baby's Big Day. We ended with a round of homemade American Idol on that funny machine that nana and papa gave Jakob that puts you up on tv while you sing into a mic along with some pre-recorded songs. The cartridge that came with it reflects the year that he received this gift: "Sk8er Boy," "Hey Ya" and "Who Let the Dogs Out" thrown in for good measure. Time to look up some new cartridges on ebay. Not that it matters to you, cuz all you wanted to sing was your new favorite:

On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed.
It rolled off the table and onto the floor,
And then my poor meatball... rolled right out the door.

Oh Baby. Baby, baby. Thanks for keeping me company today. Love you both.