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Archives from 2002-2006

• Vacuuming the horrific piles of detritus from my car

• Experiencing fits of dread over our 7+ hour trip to Oregon next week

• Making holiday decorations with Riley:

• Wondering if I’m going to be permanently addicted to Red Bull or if this is, like, a temporary substance abuse problem

• Watching JB hang lights on the house (I know, it’s way early and we haven’t even done this the last few years, but he bought some LED bulbs he’s all geeked over)

• Creating a place to display kids’ artwork:

• Slowly flipping back and forth through a book of cookie recipes wondering if I should go ahead and make some or just cram the lustfully captured color photographs in my mouth

What about you?

Dylan has suddenly transitioned from his gutshot-soldier-dying-in-a-field-begging-his-comrades-to-just-leave-him-for-the-love-of-god forward movement that involved lying somewhat flat but gruntingly pulling himself along with one side of his body (other less than kind descriptions include the Stroke Victim and the Unmerciful Roadkill-in-Progress) to a slow-going but far more official looking hands-and-knees crawl. JB and I applauded his efforts last night as he lurched his way across the carpet in pursuit of an emory board (which he loves to steal and gnaw, making perhaps the most horrific sand-grit sound in the history of the universe), while Riley shouted that HE could crawl TOO, WATCH!

Riley is very good natured about his little brother these days and no longer seems to teem with jealousy, but he does have the hilarious habit of loudly announcing that he can SO TOTALLY do whatever we’re encouraging Dylan to do, then proudly demonstrating his 3-year-old prodigy genius skills of, say, waving bye bye. Or while I’m in the midst of trying to get Dylan to finish his dinner (and doing that helpless mascara-face thing where you open your own mouth as the spoon looms closer to the baby’s mouth, am I the only one who does that?), Riley will casually inform me that he knows how to eat all by himself. “That’s because,” he’ll say, shoveling in a mouthful of macaroni, “I’m a big strong pirate.” Indeed!

I feel like I spend half my time wishing Dylan would outgrow the various annoying stages of babyhood — the not-sleeping thing, the freakout screaming-and-crying when he’s impatient or tired thing, the constant need for attention thing — and the other half feeling panicked over the fact that in February he’s going to be a whole year old already, what the hell.

Perhaps the best example of this emotional dichotomy happens every single night when I’m changing him and getting him ready for bed, and he reacts as though I’m in the process of peeling his skin from his body — my god, the mighty protests! The thrashing, arched-back kicking! I grimly wrestle him into his pajamas while my ears ring and my blood pressure climbs and I’m thinking, holy shit I am so unbelievably ready to be done with this baby business, and then I hold him in the rocker and his body is this warm soft bundle and he burrows his head sideways into my chest and relaxes into me like I’m his personal Barcalounger. Then I think, I don’t want this to end, ever.

One of those wishes will come true, and the other will not.

*giant watery sigh*

Anyway! With our upcoming holiday card design in mind, I spent a fair amount of time last night trying to get an image of all four of us together, taking about a thousand different photos using the camera’s self timer. They all failed in various unflattering ways — I’ve decided it’s like trying to bend the laws of space and time to get two small children looking towards the camera with non-dopey expressions, not to mention the faces of the adults — so I resorted to some Photoshop trickery to end up with this:

I’m not even going to tell you what all is going on behind the scenes digitally in this picture, but fuck it, if National Geographic can alter the placement of the pyramids, then by god I can dummy up a halfway decent family photo.

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