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Archives from 2002-2006

April 14, 2006

As part of the never-ending funfest that is our remodel, we upgraded our plumbing to copper piping instead of galvanized, which is something I don’t fully understand but apparently is Very Good in some intangible, expensive way.

As a result of this effort to provide us with Very Good pipes, for a few days while having our main water line tinkered with we had the world’s most disgusting substance spastically coughing from our faucets. It was rust-colored, it emerged in violent sputters, and it left a residue of tiny rocks and grime in the bottom of the tub. I guess it was water, but I can’t be sure.

Because I am not a brave little toaster who can buckle down and endure the absence of life’s luxuries, I launched into a full-scale whining campaign that expanded to include the great injustice of not being able to take a bath at night, the expense of bottled water, and the likely DNA mutations being triggered in our house’s mammalian occupants by our proximity to whatever in the HELL was emerging from those pipes.

JB, who has shouldered the entire load of planning and managing all of this work, manfully restrained himself from Gorilla-Glueing my trap shut and derailed my complaining by building a surround for the massive tub he’s having installed in our new bathroom.

Oh yeah, baby. Show me your jets.

The plumbing work has been completed now for the most part, and our pipes are free and clear. However, all is not well, and I’ll tell you why: our toilet has become a low flusher.

Our guest toilet used to be the toilet you’d want to use if you had maybe eaten a shitload (haaaaaaa) of fiber recently, you know what I mean? It took care of business; whatever went in there disappeared in one flush and there were no floaty little peekaboo wait-forever-for-the-bowl-to-refill-jeeeesus-christ surprise endings, either.

For some reason, the inner workings started failing, and for a while we had to constantly lift up the tank lid and fiddle with the…doohickey, the lever-whatsit, in order to get the tank to fill. So JB asked the plumbers to go ahead and replace the broken parts, and now? Our powerhouse turbo could-flush-a-blanket-if-need-be toilet flushes like this:

Ga glurg….glurg….glurrrrrrrg (siiiigh).

The toilet is a pansy now.

I’ve been informed that all modern toilet parts are designed to conserve water, and that if you want a toilet that flushes like God intended a toilet to flush, you have to buy one in Canada. Can that be true? I have to smuggle a bathroom fixture across the border in order to minimize the risk of being confronted with an encore appearance of my digestive output? And for some reason we have regulations that turn our country’s toilets into wusses but anyone can buy a freaking Hummer?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should abandon the noble effort of water conservation, but maybe we could turn off that Bellagio fountain for a couple weeks and everyone could flush their morning glory on the first try, you know?

Because seriously, no one wants to hear this shouted from behind a closed bathroom door: “Just a minute, I’m trying to get rid of Pete and Repeat.”

:::

As an apology for today’s subject, here is a far more pleasant visual:

April 13, 2006

JB and I trade off on whose turn it is to take care of Riley when he first wakes up in the morning. This has been an outstanding compromise and has prevented an untold amount of resentment from building up over who is the better actor when it comes to faking a deep and impenetrable slumber (“Hey. Hey. I think the baby’s crying.” “Shit. I mean, uh, SNZZZZZZZZ.”).

Yesterday was my turn, and Riley woke up at 3:30 AM, working rapidly from a blurred whine into a full-fledged angry howl while I staggered out of bed and groped my way to the kitchen, stubbing my toe on his exersaucer in the dark (“Cow! Vaca! MOO!”). I went to bed last night smugly secure in the knowledge that *I* wouldn’t be the one getting up just when REM mode kicked in, and the boy slept without a peep until 7:15, when he began happily babbling to himself and playing while JB took a shower, got dressed, and leisurely got a bottle ready.

Hello? Did I not carry that child for almost a full year inside my own body? A little favoritism in my direction, is that too much to ask?

Other than the occasional wee-hour wakening, which truthfully is never that bad because he pretty much hoovers a bottle and falls right back to sleep, Riley has been spectacular lately. I feel the need to give press time to this fact, because I’ve certainly griped enough about his less-than-desirable stages, such as the tooth that we worried might in fact grow to become a giant razor-edged tusk protruding from his left eye socket, given all the discomfort it seemed to cause him, and The Week O’ Aqueous Feces, which coincidentally was the same week we found out what a diaper “blowout” actually entails (a powerful washing machine, for one).

Riley is so curious about everything these days, and so pleased by so much. He trails his hands through my hair and marvels at the sensation, he ecstatically bashes a plastic measuring cup against his highchair tray and crows over the noise it makes, he squinches his face and laughs with delight when we gobble his belly. He makes a ridiculous old-man-sucking-a-lemon face as he runs his tongue over and over his new bottom teeth, he literally shakes from head to toe with excitement over the dog catching a Frisbee. He smiles so easily and so often, it makes my heart strain its confines, it makes me feel like a bright and shining beacon.

Whenever I’m out in public without Riley, I want to grab everyone who passes me by and tell them that they’re not seeing all of me, that the whole of my parts just isn’t visible at the moment. Hi, perfect stranger, I just wanted you to know that I have a little boy at home who is a sparkling Christmas snowfall, a firefly-studded August evening, and a million birthday candle wishes all bundled inside a rather spiffy pair of feety pajamas. Yes, pleased to meet you too.

We seem to be at a new level of understanding Riley’s needs because the drudgery is at an all-time low; there is very little crying on his part, or frustrated temple-rubbing on our parts. These are such good times, such a makes-everything-worthwhile streak, I can hardly believe it’s me living this charmed life.

Click! Flash. File: Save As. Stay, stay this moment. What a wistful joy it is to look forward to everything that’s next, while everything that happened today fades away.

I never imagined that parenthood could be as hard as it occasionally is, but I also didn’t anticipate how much humor one tiny person could bring into our lives. In the last few weeks he’s started expanding his belly to insane proportions while we’re diapering him, just like a horse inflating in order to shake the strapped-on saddle afterwards. It is the silliest thing to see, his brows flatted in concentration, his tiny stomach puffed into a taut round beachball. Oh, he banishes every imaginable bad mood, that kid.

Riley makes me laugh so much, and while it is often at his expense (“Haaaaaaa, you have a washcloth/diaper/perfectly balanced apple on your head!”) I like to think he enjoys our laughter as much as we enjoy his.

:::

While I wish I could cheer you on your way with a festive display of My Son’s Gert Big Belleh, I do have a link that is definitely share-worthy: WHEE!

If that doesn’t about make you soak your gauchos, I don’t know what will.

:::

Cheeky monkey.

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