Stay Cool Babies

It is hotter than h-e-double hockey sticks in St. Louis today. The heat index is approximately 4 scorchillion degrees centigrade. With 8 meltillion percent humidity. These numbers may seem made up, but I assure you, they are not.

It's been building up for the last week, with a little reprieve here and there; this weather trend is likely to continue for the rest of the month if history is any guide. August in this city is possibly the absolute worst place on earth (again, you might think I'm exaggerating, but sadly, I am not). Especially now that we have an active toddler living in our house. As Justin said yesterday, "You can only play barn, Lola, and cooking so many times before you can't take it anymore". We've pulled out books we haven't read for awhile, made up new games (taking turns yelling is a current favorite), and taken 5 second walks outside. We've spent quite a bit of time at the Hartford and CooperElla, and I hate to admit it, but I'm starting to lose my love of the latte. And worst of all, Eliot is starting to seem a little bored.

Just GO somewhere, you might be saying. But there is no relief in that as our broke-down ass cars don't have working air conditioning, and while we are no longer under the crippling fist of a mortgage, we just don't have the extra dollars to either fix them or get a new car. We are saving in anticipation of summers ahead, which will be great, then, in the future, the time that is not now.

Any suggestions on how to entertain a toddler on no money in the midst of these hell-like temps?

Introducing: Lola Butter

Apparently I'm not the only one toying with the idea of growing this family from three to four. (When I told Justin I thought I had baby fever, he advised me to take a Tylenol.) I picked up this baby doll for E's birthday back in February, but decided that I hated the way she smelled. Seriously, it's a putrid combination of baby powder and old lady perfume and it's infused into every molecule of her chubby plastic shell. Justin was just really creeped out by her, specifically her unending stare. She must have been packed away for the move, and I just found baby girl last night in a vain attempt to try and organize the 'office' so we can paint. I had every intention of donating her to the toy pile at the Hartford, but Eliot saw her and of course fell in love. What could we do? You can't choose your child's happiness.

She has been dubbed 'Lola' as E is very good with pronouncing names with l's like Lila and Lala and Ella. And because she seems a little saucy.

Lola just loves her baby food! Eliot requested the Bumbo and the bib, as he is avery conscientious caregiver, much like his father.

Diaper changes are an important part of childcare. Note Lola only wears cloth!

Many children love to read and be read to.

Butter Bulletin: 17 Months

Dear Eliot,

On Monday you hit the seventeen months' mark. You may have noticed that I skipped a few months there, and honestly, I don't have a great excuse. I probably don't have to tell you that I am a big fan of procrastination, so just be happy that this is not Butter Bulletin: 17th Birthday.


Obviously, quite a whole lot has happened in the past four months. Most notably, you started walking shortly after the last Butter Bulletin. You were pretty hesitant at first, just a couple of steps a day, until one day you were just walking. Everywhere. All the time. It was as though you wanted to be really confident that you could do it before you finally had the courage to just stroll. And do it well. Though, that said, you have managed to fall on your face a couple of times. In one horrible example, you were walking on the sidewalk (yes, I think we all know where this is going) with Daddy at Grandmother and Pop's house, and your hand slipped out of his and you faceplanted in the driveway. It was a bloodbath. I have never seen your father so freaked out in my life. Did I mention the blood? There was tons. I was sure I would look in your mouth and see your few little teeth hanging by threads. Fortunately, you just busted up your lips (and good - you looked like a sad little duck) and you healed right up in no time. And the fall did nothing to instill a natural sense of fear in you. Apparently, one year olds are fearless little death-seeking machines, and you are no exception.


You are also a talking machine now. I started to keep a list of all the words you picked up, but then I realized I would be writing night and day and I wouldn't have any time to keep up with all the blogs I read or maintain my knowledge of useless celebrity gossip, so I decided to give it up. Here's a sampling of your favorite words of the moment:

• NO! - this word is being said by you a little more than necessary, in my opinion, anyway, so if you could start saying - YES! that'd be great
• Cheesie - means cheese, mac and cheese and goldfish crackers - this is your favorite word by far
• Doll - means doll and baby - you refuse to say baby for some reason, even though when you say 'Big Bird' it sounds just like baby
  
• Door - you love to close and open doors, and you especially love to pop out behind a closed door in an attempt to surprise someone
  
• Paw Paw -means cup; you say this word a lot, because you have an unnatural obsession with drinking containers
• Keys - which you love to attempt to put in skeleton key locks throughout the apartment
• More - which is no longer just a sign, but a gesture accompanied by a word "Mo"
  
• People's names: Lila, Emma, Hannah (Nahnah), Paw Paw (the person, not the cup), Maw Maw, Laura (LaLa), CeeCee, Na, and most of all JJ. "Who's on the phone, Eliot?" "JJ." "Who's at the door, Eliot?" "JJ." It's JJ this and JJ that. She must have been some freakin' awesome babysitter.

Your imaginative play has exploded in the last couple of months. You can be found playing with your kitchen (a set of pots, pans, and implements courtesy of Aunt LaLa as we will be referring to her from now on) and a cardboard box that I drew 'burners' on. If anyone asks what's cooking, your answer is always "Cheesie!" and it is always punctuated with an exclamation point. You love to feed your creation to anyone who's available for a taste, and that includes animals in books, dolls (real and alive), and action figures.

You spend lots of time organizing your things. You enjoy grouping things; all the cups go in here, oh, then you move them over there, oh and again, back over here and repeat. You have a very serious and determined look while carrying out these tasks. You genuinely seem to enjoy helping us 'clean up' and putting things in their place. This is all the proof your father needs to know that you are indeed his child. That and your obsession with all things sweep-related: brooms, mops, vacuums. You're smitten. You are a little domestic diva (or whatever the male equivalent is). I look forward to the day when you and Daddy work together to put things 'away' where I can't find them and constantly talk about scrubbing the floor. I know, its a crazy concept, but people actually scrub - with brushes - their floors. Regularly. I'm fairly convinced that these people are in a group consisting only of your paternal grandmother and aunts, but I don't have hard proof yet.


You are also obsessed with 'riding' your bike, which consists of us pushing you halfway up the block before you announce that you are "Done!" You are infatuated with playing with your Dadas - a small collection of your father's old GI Joe's, many sporting his trademark beard, hence the moniker. You are still over the moon about books, books, and more books. You are out of your mind crazy about splashing in the Tower Grove fountain or any water infused area. And you are on the edge of insanity when it comes to Sesame Street, especially Elmo and Grover - which is the opposite of what I thought you'd be into before I was a parent, which was that you would be obsessed with modern art and beat writers by now. But I guess that's what separates the parents from the hipster doofuses, and if letting you watch 10 minutes of the double S once a day is what it takes for me to brush my teeth and dress while you maybe learn about the letter C through the magic of Cookie Monster, I'm all about it.


We recently went to visit your grandparents, aunts, uncle, and cousins in Pennsylvania. It was really great to see you with Ava and Riley: playing, fighting, hugging, chasing, laughing. Now that you are more than either a blob o' newborn (at the 2 month visit) or the sickest kid in Western Pennsylvania (at the 10 month visit) you can fully interact with those two and you held your own. You're really lucky to have such a big family that loves you, in multiple states.

And another thing - you are an awesome traveling companion. You did great on both plane rides, which I will take some credit for, as I packed the most primo snacks, new library books, stickers, crayons, and your tea set. You snoozed in the almost 2 hour car ride each way, and were completely relaxed and ready for whatever we had planned each day. You slept and napped great almost every day, and I'm pretty sure you were teething for most of the trip. You did so great that I'm taking you (by myself) to Canada to visit your arctic cousins, and I'm hoping you and I will have lots of inside jokes and embarrassing stories to laugh about later.


And speaking of teeth, you finally sprouted some more, after not having any new chiclets since January. And then your gums savagely pushed five chompers out in a matter of 2 weeks. I was getting a bit worried that you were only going to have 6 teeth for the rest of your life, and those implants are kind of pricey, so you would have probably had to been partly toothless for a period. Like until you could get a full-time job. Though, I'm sure we could probably find some mighty fine dentures to fill in until then.

As for Nipsy: it's still a part of our lives. We have been slowly but surely weaning the past few months and now we are down to two meetings per day, once in the morning and once at night. I'm both looking forward to the end and dreading it. I had hoped that you would be the one to initiate the break-up, but alas, you are still in love with the Sssss. Fortunately, you have made up for your loss of nursing with lots of extra (and unexpected) snuggling.

We moved into our new apartment and frankly, we're loving it. You love your big room, and the openness of the place. I love that everything is on one floor, which makes chasing you a bit easier. We are in the center of the neighborhood, so you are making lots of new friends, as am I. The Butters are in a really good place right now. And of course, you are the very center of that place.

Love,
Mumma

Stranger Danger

As a nursing in public, (NIP - har, har), slinging, cloth diapering mother of an uncircumcised son (gasp!) I've had my share of disapproving looks from people who think I should put a blanket over my son's head while I shamefully breastfeed him in the nearest public bathroom after I change his strange diaper. But until yesterday, no one had ever called into question my parenting choices. Well, with the exception of my mother and sister having a mini-intervention regarding our strict no-cry sleep policy, which is a story for another time, if ever.

I was maneuvering Eliot in a shopping cart around a very bonkers grocery store yesterday afternoon, the day before Easter. We ended up in a cart jam, when an older woman, a stranger, says to me, "Honey, should he be playing with that?" I looked at Eliot, who was playing with a pen that I had given to him after a bout of the screams. A pen that I had determined to have a super difficult lid to remove. A pen that he was happily and QUIETLY slobbering all over.

So, I look at her and say, without missing a beat, "I'm his mother, so he can play with whatever I say he can play with." I felt like this was a sufficient dismissal. And as we were wheeling away, she called, "But couldn't the lid fall off?" to which I replied something like, "Thanks! Got it covered!" but which I would I have really liked to reply, "Hey lady, who asked you? Fuck off!"

Excuse my use of the f-bomb, but I was super pissed.

Admittedly, a roller ball pen is maybe not the safest toy for a thirteen month old. But how many of us have given in and let our child have a relatively safe-ish object in return for a moment of peace while you attempt to finish a task? It wasn't the ginsu knife or throwing stars I usually give him. Just a pen. Maybe not my finest parenting choice. And we all see other parents doing things that we think are not the way we would choose to do them. Unless a child is in imminent and real danger, I would not intervene in someone's parenting. I don't walk up to a woman feeding her baby a bottle and say, "Honey, you should really use your breasts for that", or to the mother carrying her baby around in a pumpkin seat, "Honey, here's my friend JJ's email address, get yourself a sling, babywearing is the way to go." I wouldn't even say anything to a mother feeding her child artery clogging, life-shortening fast food. Even though I kind of think that could be child abuse if done in excess.

Because you know why? Because it's none of my business.