Lions and Tigers and Goats, Oh my!

Before you read any further, please look at the above picture, think about petting zoos and tell me what animal Anthony is looking at. More on that later.

Anthony took his first trip to the zoo this weekend!

He saw a Florida fave, flamingos...

Rode the carousel with daddy...

Checked out the elephants with mommy...

and much, much more...

Anthony was pretty much take-it-or-leave it regarding the zoo -- he didn't hate it, but he wasn't exactly jumping up and down (I know he can't jump up and down yet, but if he could, he wouldn't have been, I could just tell) -- but he definitely perked up when we visited the petting zoo. There, he giggled and grinned as he got up close and personal with this creature.

As we were leaving the petting zoo, a zoo employee asked us how our little boy was enjoying the zoo. Not wanting to call out the zoo for more or less boring my child to sleep (actually, had the zoo put Anthony to sleep, I wouldn't call it out, I would bow at its feet) I just said, "Oh, he really loved petting the goat."

The zoo employee fixed me with a condescending gaze, and said, "Well, he would have loved it, if that were a goat. But it's actually a (insert variety of exotic, obscure goat-looking sheep) sheep from (insert exotic, obscure country where they call their goats sheep). "

Then she proceeded to give Anthony a baseball card-type thing about the GOAT (ha! take that, zoo lady!) which he of course thrust in his mouth and chewed on until it fell apart and threatened to choke him. Gracias, zoo lady!!!

Anyway, like I said, aside from petting the GOAT (ha!) Anthony was just kind of OK with the zoo. Still, it was a nice family outing on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning. I'm sure we'll be back and that Anthony will enjoy the zoo more in the future, like when he's old enough to walk up and feed the GOAT (ha!)

Laughter

No one can make Anthony laugh like his Grandmas.

Months ago, when Anthony had just "learned" how to laugh and Brandon and I would do just about anything, usually in vain, to prompt that precious sound, my mom had him in such stitches from a game of Peek-A-Boo that I thought he'd pee his pants.

Oh wait...

This past weekend it was Grandma Char's turn, and she had the little guy going CRAZY with more Peek-A-Boo and rounds of "How big is Anthony? Soooo big!"

Which, as you can see from the following video, he's totally learned how to play, and loves until something horrible happens, like he drops his toy.

(That video's a little deceiving...sometimes it takes him a while to catch on, but you can tell he's having fun nonetheless. Mom and grandma ask that you ignore their hijinks in the background)

I love watching Anthony interact with other adults, and not just because it means I get a break from being the entertainment committee. OK, that is why, but Mother's Day is coming up and I want to make it sound like my child's happiness is the ONLY thing I ever think about.

One reason it's fun is that Anthony LOVES the attention. He LIT UP every time Grandma Char played with him. I can't wait til my mom and dad are here next month because (I won't have to be the entertainment committee) I know he'll be so happy. It's like he knows I'm gonna play with him because I'm his mom and I have to, but he thinks it's so cool when another grownup wants to be his playmate. Or maybe the grandparents are just more fun than me, who knows.

One thing's for sure, Anthony is really fun these days because he's getting more and more social, and seems to really be developing a sense of humor (people always say that about babies, and before I had one I used to smirk dubiously, but now I think it's true).

Anyway, go ahead an smirk dubiously if you want, but Anthony really seems to get the joke.

When we laugh at something, he'll laugh too (OK, this actually deserves the dubious smirk, as we're usually laughing at The Daily Show or some crazy video Brandon found on YouTube, which isn't exactly baby-friendly). Still, whenever it's Anthony that makes us laugh (cause we're always laughing WITH Anthony, not at him, right?) he gets a big grin on his face and repeats whatever he did to make us laugh in the first place. So much fun!

Anthony is 10 Months Old Today!

It's been a month of crawling (Anthony's), chasing (ours) and running away (Javier's); as well as -- drum roll, please -- no visits to the pediatrician!!!!! Yay!!!!

Now that I've totally jinxed my child, here's what Anthony's been up to this month:

He actually slept through the night. Once. He made it from about 8 p.m. to nearly 5 a.m. (my interpretation of "through the night" is as liberal as my politics) at which point I gave him a bottle to try to coax him back to sleep. No dice, so I lay down on the guest bed with him, where he played happily for about 15 minutes. Then, he let out an alarming belch, and promptly threw up all over the place. Needless to say, he has not come close to sleeping through the night since: ("I slept through the night once, but it made me puke, so I'm not gonna do THAT again!")


He became the poster child for baby-proofing...

...crawling at breakneck speed (this morning he chased after me, screaming, as I left him at daycare...so cute and so sad at the same time)...turning lights and TVs on and off (we are bad parents and allow...OK, encourage...the watching of cartoons because sometimes it's seriously the only way to get to work both on time and fully clothed)...climbing the stairs; apparently, Anthony didn't inherent Brandon's dislike of open heights...opening drawers
..continuing his campaign of terror against the cat

...and tossing hand grenades -- INCOMING!!!
OK, it's really a giant "pop bead" that Grandma and Grandpa Lantau sent him for Easter, but it does look disturbingly like a hand grenade, you can't deny me that.

With that frightening image of baby warfare in our minds, Brandon and I finally got smart, and bought a gate that keeps Anthony away from the stairs, kitchen and bathroom and keeps us from having to jump up and give chase every 30 seconds. Anthony seems OK with it as long as someone is with him on "his" side of the gate. As soon as he's alone in there and we're both in the kitchen or something, he realizes he's being left out and starts to protest.

Anthony also said his first word this month! That's right -- one day as I got him out of his car seat to head into daycare, he looked me straight in the eye and said the word every parent longs to hear: "dada." OK, obviously I'm being sarastic here and I don't really think that counts as a first word, unless I also want to believe Anthony suffers from major gender confusion. Or that after nine years of marriage, I'm starting to look like Brandon.

Anyway, the little guy had a good month (did I mention we didn't visit the doctor ONCE???!!!) and is becoming more his own person all the time. Now, he (by which I mean Brandon and I) are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Grandma Char this week and Grandma and Grandpa Lantau next month.

What our society is coming to

So I'm in Publix today grabbing a few groceries (actually, all I needed was formula and wine, but you can't go in and buy only formula and wine, it's just wrong, so I threw in some avocados, cereal bars and index cards for good measure) when something kind of depresssing happened.

As the clerk rang up my purchases, she commented on how expensive the formula is. I said something nonchalant, like, "Yeah, the stuff's not cheap," because I'm not really that appalled by what it costs to provide my first-born's major source of nutrition.

Anyway, she proceeded to tell me I should "get the WIC." I explained both my husband and I are working, so we're not really what the government had in mind when it set up WIC. She continued, "Oh, you can still get it even if you work." For some reason, I felt the need to defend myself for not "getting the WIC," so I explained that not "getting the WIC" is kind of one of the reasons why we work in the first place. She seemed genuinely confused by this, but said, "Oh, I guess."

It reminds me of one of our all-time favorite parenting moments. We were in the pediatrician's office when Anthony was just a newborn, and two moms were complaining about the cost of baby goods. One of them said she didn't qualify for any government aid, then announced, with all the righteous indignation a person can muster, "So I'm going to have to BUY his milk."

Now, I'm all for our government helping people who are genuinely in need, especially when those in need are little babies. And heaven knows, in this economy, there are plenty of people who truly need assistance, often through no fault of their own. But maybe we are going a little too far with this culture of bailout... should someone who is fortunate enough to still be employed and therefore really doesn't need federal assistance be told to go out and get it anyway?

Should that even be an option?

Shouldn't a person instead to be encouraged to, if possible, find a way to pay for what they need -- whether that means cutting back on their spending, or putting their kid in daycare so they can go to work, thereby ensuring that the kid is sick all the time and the parents are in turn also sick all the time and no one ever sleeps and everyone's kind of miserable for a couple years?

Ummm...where do I get those WIC forms? And does it cover my wine?

A Day at the Park

With six months of heat and humidity approaching, I decided to take advantage of a reasonably pleasant day to introduce Anthony to the park. I mean, what kind of kid doesn't love the park?

Mine, apparently. The new surroundings must have been a little too overwhelming, because Anthony -- who is not known for holding back and never met a person/object/animal/electronic device/etc. that he didn't want to grab and stick in his mouth -- was suddenly extremely tentative. Despite being exposed to all the fun a (small) park has to offer, he pretty much stayed in one place and clung to my keys and/or the bottle of baby sunscreen we brought along.

Here are some pictures from our day at the park (as you can see, I couldn't even get Mr. Serious to crack a smile!):

Taking a tumble in the grass...


A trip down the slide (with mommy as copilot, of course)...


I thought for sure he's want to play with the rollers behind him, but no dice...

The rock wall...a perfect place to practic pulling up, one would have thought...

Is that the barest hint of a smile on the bouncy horse?

The swing was definitely his favorite...