The Final Frontier

As I've mentioned before, Anthony is quite a climber. But we always had the tall bar in our living area as a "safe zone" where we could put things we didn't want him getting into...the laptop, remote controls, dinner plates, glasses of wine, etc. But now...

...our refuge is gone, leaving two options: Put all the chairs in the hallway, because even Anthony can't climb onto the bar without the chairs; or continually pull a squirming, protesting little body from the precipice, the hope being that one day he'll understand and respect the fact that we don't want him up there (no, I'm not holding my breath on that one).

Unfortunately, neither option is ideal. The first means standing up to eat, work, read, etc.; and the second means stopping what you're doing every 10 seconds to pull Anthony out of harm's way. And even a glass of wine isn't that relaxing when consumed upright, or when each sip is punctuated by a toddler's screams of protest.

Crafty little sucker...

Saturday, 8 p.m.: Anthony goes to bed.

Saturday, 9 p.m.-11:30 p.m.: Anthony coughs incessantly.

Sunday, 1 a.m.-2 a.m.: Cough, cough, cough. Cough.

Sunday 2:05 a.m.: Administer doctor-prescribed cough medicine (no we don't just drug the kid up with Vicks).

Sunday, 2:30 a.m.: Accept the fact that someone (OK, everyone) is wide awake. Take Anthony downstairs to play as playing is preferable to screaming.

Sunday, 4:45 a.m.: Cough, cough. Hack, Hack. Wonder if there is toxic mold in nursery. Also consider possibility that Anthony is sneaking off behind the changing table at day care to smoke a pack a day of Marlboro Reds.

Sunday, 6:30 a.m.: One member of the family (I'll let you guess who...) is wide awake and ready to rock and roll, albeit coughing. Consider suggesting he at least switch to Marlboro Lites.

Sunday, 4 p.m.: Acknowledge that coughing is not improved and sending child to day care the next day (week?) is pipe dream.

Sunday, 4:05 p.m.: Call Grandma Char with a desparate plea for help.

Sunday 6 p.m.: Grandma Char agrees to provide Nanny 911 services.

Sunday, 6:05 p.m.: Plane tickets are booked. Day is saved.

Sunday, 8 p.m.: Anthony goes to bed.

Monday, 6:30 a.m.: Anthony wakes up.

Wait a minute...where was the coughing? The hacking? The sleepless night? The reason someone agreed to drop everything and travel 1,500 miles to bail us out?

It's kind of like when your car is making a funny noise, so you take it to the mechanic, and all of a sudden it's running like a well-oiled machine and the mechanic thinks you're just a dumb blonde. Or when you throw out your back and finally make a doctor's appointment and jump out of bed that morning feeling like a million bucks and everyone accuses you of being a hypochondriac.

I guess this just means I'll have to watch Anthony like a hawk from now on, because apparently he is crafty enough to plot and carry out an elaborate ruse so that he can see his grandma.

And to hide all those packs of cigarettes from us...

Anthony is 15 months old today!

Anthony enjoyed a visit with Grandma Dianne and Grandpa Harry last week, although he managed to get everyone in the house sick, up to and including Javier. Don't ask. (Seriously, because if you do, I'll recount in gory detail the night I stepped in cat puke IN MY BARE FEET.)

Anyway, with 15 months under his belt (do they make belts for babies? I kind of hope not.) Anthony is maturing, and we've seen the proverbial "lightbulb" go on several times.

While it would be generous (very, very generous) to say Anthony is walking, he is taking some stumbly steps.

And while it would also be generous to say he's talking, he is communicating: Sing the "Snuggle Puppy" song, and he'll crawl over to his bin of books, rifle through, and bring you "Snuggle Puppy;" give him a turkey and cheese sandwich and he'll whine until you produce the culinary gem that is PB&J, which will be greeted with a grin and an "MMMM!!;" ask him to point to the cat in a book, and he'll get it right every time save for that one page where he points to a dog, insulting Javier to no end.

It has been fun watching him "get it," and makes me feel like maybe just maybe some day he will get into college and move out of the house after all. Of course, at this rate he'll have to crawl across campus to get to class, but that's another story.

Happy Birthday To Me!

It's customary for a mom to say all she wants for her birthday is for her kid to "be good" so they can enjoy a nice day together. Personally, I'm still partial to thoughtful and/or expensive gifts, but, realizing Anthony is too little to buy me something nice or even make me some crappy craft at school that OF COURSE I will cherish forever, I understand the "just be good" thing.

Yesterday, the day before my birthday (that would make my birthday today, in case anyone's keeping score) I had to work at home with Anthony because his school had teacher training. I was dubious about it, because I had a lot of work to do and Anthony is not conducive to getting work done what with the climbing and the whining and the constant demanding of attention.

But apparently he decided to give me my birthday present a day early.

First, he seriously slept until almost 8, so I was able to get one project done and start on another before Anthony even said good morning. Things only got better from there. Anthony quietly ate his breakfast while I got more work done. Then he watched a cartoon and played while I worked some more. Lunchtime rolled around and I was whipping through my to-do list. By the time Anthony went down for his nap around 1 (by the way, no kidding, I took a wide-awake child upstairs, sat down on the rocking chair with him and 90 seconds later was putting him in his crib, sound asleep) I had accomplished what I wanted to and was starting to work ahead.

Happy birthday to me!

When I gave Brandon this glowing report, he said Anthony's good behavior yesterday means he'll probably be in rare form (and not the good kind) for my parents, who arrived last night to hang out with the little guy for the next week.

To which I replied, "That's their problem!"

Just kidding, of course. But, grandma and grandpa? Ummm...good luck!

I don't even want to know

So last night this sweet, innocent little boy...

...came home from daycare wearing this.

Yanissah is a little girl in his class.

So, I'm left to pick between three options. Either the teachers think my little boy looks like a Yanissah, there's some hanky panky going on at that there daycare, or, as I've long suspected due to the fact that the rate at which I refill Anthony's daycare diaper supply outpaces the rate at which I refill our home diaper supply by about 4-to-1, I am supplying diapers for the entire daycare.

I don't even want to know.