Feb
1
JB and I woke up this morning to the sounds of Dylan fooling around with his aquarium crib toy and playing the tinkling little music that accompanies its electronic lights and burbles, which was a peaceful, lovely sort of way to start the day, at least until two minutes later when he suddenly downgraded his mood from Patiently Chilling Out to DEFCON 1 WARNING WARNING EXPLOSION IMMINENT.
Oh, what an OPINIONATED baby he’s been lately. I mean, still a good-natured, happy kid for the most part, but good lord, I’d almost forgotten how very small children are essentially roiling storms of emotion, with no warning or delay as they tumble headfirst from one state of mind to the next. Happy! Angry! Laughing! Screaming! One second they’re full of pure sunshine and joy and love, the next, they’re Clint Eastwood at the end of Unforgiven: “Any sumbitch takes a shot at me, I’m not only gonna kill him, but I’m gonna kill his wife, all his friends, and burn his damn house down.” All because you wouldn’t let them gnaw your Macbook power cord.
He’s been doing this thing where if you take a Dangerous Object from him, attempt to redirect his attention, or otherwise thwart his constant attempts at self-mutilation, he collapses to the floor and buries his head in his hands and weeps inconsolably. It is piteous, dramatic, and more than a little bit hilarious. I remember Riley going through this stage and how I’d just stare at him, unable to process that he was seriously throwing THAT big of a shitfit over the fact that I’d just saved his damn life for the millionth time. What a thankless task it can be to spend your entire day trying to keep your child from harm, only to be rewarded with angry screams and rabbit-kicks to the belly.
Oh, and let’s not forget the backwards head-arch. Does your kid does this too, where if they’re pissed about something they THROW themselves backward in a curving fishflop, apparently in order to smash their skulls open on the floor? Jesus christ, babies are one big Darwinian FAIL. Actually, come to think of it, Riley’s not much better, what with his ongoing attempts to fling himself off couches and slip in tubs and run smack facefirst into walls. When exactly do children develop a sense of self-preservation? And when am I going to realize that yelling “BE CAREFUL” all day long is about as effective a mode of communication with these kids as waggle-dancing figure eights around the house like an Asian honeybee?
Moments before disaster, as usual.
Jan
30
For those who might be interested, I’ve created a Twitter account for Bodies in Motivation, and am posting twits/tweeps/twalerts when new entries go up on the site. Also, if you’d like to see follow-up discussions on any particular post at Bodies without having to keep coming back to the site, I just installed a plugin that’s supposed to notify you via email when new comments show up. Oh, and let’s not forget the little piece of code I put in that releases the refreshing smell of vanilla every time you click a new link!
(What, VanillaPuff 1.0 isn’t working for you? It’s probably your browser, sorry about that.)
I’m busying myself with blog-tinkering instead of housework this afternoon, because jesus god there is so much clutter and cleaning to be done it feels completely insurmountable. Seriously, I don’t even know where to get started: the towering piles of laundry? The filth-encrusted kitchen? The floors, which appear to be coated in several inches of dog hair and cheese cracker crumbs? Faced with these unpleasant options I have chosen instead to hole up in the living room, surrounded by a mountain of toys and snot-smeared couch pillows, in order to waste every last second of naptime dicking around on the internet.
Suck it, FlyLady. I got your Super Fling Boogie right here. In my crotch. Which I just grabbed. See, visual insults don’t work nearly as well if you — nevermind.
I’d also like to announce that yesterday Dylan both spoke his first clear word (well, clear to us, anyway: gee gah, for kittycat) and took four or five steps unassisted for the first time. After he performed these tricks I whipped out the video camera and prepared to capture his first differential equation or croquembouche, but he seemed to have shot his intellectual wad for the night and spent the remainder of the evening blowing raspberries and subsequently got a rash on his chin from all the slobbering.
Still, it’s feeling less and less like we have one little baby and one big boy, and more and more like we have a couple of . . .
Well. Rhesus monkeys, maybe.
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