Levedy

Halloween 2006

LOBSTERRIFIC!

So her father thinks :)

Cake n' Steak

This weekend I made a pumpkin cake for my dad and nana's birthday:

I also finished the steak costume for Earen, complete with foam knife and fork:

Halloween 2006

I posted earlier in the month that Bean was going to be a lobster for Halloween.

Athena and I decided on Earen's costume this weekend: he's going to be a steak.

The two of them will be Surf and Terf. I think that's hilarious.

So yesterday I went to Wal-Mart and bought supplies to make a foam steak costume.

Wish me luck!

6 Months

Bean –

Yesterday you turned six months old. In preparation for these newsletters I try to keep a running list on my computer of cute stuff you do, hoping that when I sit down to write the newsletter it will create a flash of recognition of talking points that prove your overt, quiz-team crushing genius. This month, however, the list looked more like a bad Freshman Comp attempt at cool poetry:

Reaching hands
Poop
Lovey and turn
Barfing in the crib
Hidden Cheerios

We took you for your 6-month shots today, and we were betting that you would weigh 15 ½ pounds. No luck: you weighed only 14 pounds, which means that in two months you have only gained one pound. That puts you in the tenth percentile for height and weight. The tenth percentile is clearly unacceptable for your SAT scores, but I think that it's cute for your size. When you’re old enough to play hide-and-seek with your cousin, he’ll look like the Sta-Puft marshmallow man lumbering through the streets of New York in Ghostbusters while you will be a quick, sprightly little Tinkerbell. You’re healthy in your wee little tenth percentile, and that’s all that matters. I can always buy you stilts so you can wash dishes. There’s no getting out of that.

This month, you pooped on your dad for the first time. It was glorious. Your dad kept telling me “Honey, I think she peed, her diaper’s hot” which I took to mean “I’m playing my computer game and I have to cast a spell on this Dark Dragon of Big Nerdia, can you take her from me please?” and I did what any other wife of a hopelessly addicted-to-Warcraft husband would do: I ignored him and focused on my game of Solitaire.

I looked over a minute later and noticed poo sliding down his torso. I picked you up and whisked you away to clean you up. The funny thing is, I noticed the poop on him before he noticed the poop on himself. Bean, I REALLY hope that you don’t inherit your father’s comically myopic observation skills.

This month you learned to reach your hands out for me when you want to be in my arms. It’s an incredibly tender gesture, and I adore every time that you do it. It seems, little one, that you have forgiven me for letting you cry it out at night to teach yourself to sleep through the night WITHOUT A BINKY, BECAUSE WE’RE NAZIS.

Back in the bygone days of my childless life, my similarly childless friend and I would laugh at how ridiculous parents are about coddling their babies, and why can’t they just get over it and let the child cry? I wish I could meet pre-child Jen and slap her a good one across the mouth.

We made the decision that my sanity was being affected by not having a decent night’s sleep since, oh, my fourth month of pregnancy, and we agreed that you were going to have to sleep through the night before I needed restraints and anti-psychotics. It was three nights of sheer scrape-the-skin-off-my-eyeballs horror. The screaming and the hiccuping and the flying snot were horrible. And that was just me. After three days, though, you were sleeping a good eight hours at a go, and as of now you’re at about ten hours. I think it’s a good thing that at this stage in your life you have the memory of a striped bass, because you won’t remember crying yourself hoarse and crying so hard that you barfed in the crib (multiple times!) I will remember, and, while it was the one of the hardest things I’ve done, a good chunk of uninterrupted sleep is sooooooo marvelously delicious.

You have a solid nap and bedtime routine, and you do the cutest thing when we put you down. We put you in your crib, and hand you your Lovey. You hug him tight to your body and smile at him like you haven’t seen him in years, and then you roll over and fall asleep almost instantly. You get that from your father. That man can fall asleep in twenty seconds.

Your motor skills are improving all the time. You can sit unassisted for about twenty seconds or so, and you are getting pretty good about picking up Cheerios with your thumb and index finger. I always sprinkle a few Cheerios on your high chair tray for you to fidget with while I’m getting your food ready. You pick them up, but can’t manage to hang onto them for very long. The lining of the high chair has become known as The Tomb of the Unknown Cheerio, since slobbery, nameless bits of puffed oats go there to die. Unless, of course, they fall into your diaper: then it’s a real shocker for the next person who changes you.

You babble all the time now. Nothing resembling mama or dada, but you have your piece to say all the same. For now, it’s cute. When you’re thirteen and yakking constantly on the phone, I might revise that statement.

I love you Bean, and if you like dropping cereal in your pants, that’s alright by me. Just don’t plan on running for public office if you choose to continue it into your twenties.

I love you little Bean,

Mama

Department of Redundancy Department

Dear Verizon:

Stop slowly sucking the soul from my body.

Thank you -

Jennifer Rodis

Reason 456 why I hate cell phones: Verizon Voicemail.

I dial in:

"You have one unheard message. Playing first unheard message. First unheard message, sent today at 10:15 am."

blah blah blah

"Message deleted. Message playback. First deleted message, deleted today at 10:17 am. blah blah blah. Confirm permanent deletion?"

YEEEEEEEEEEEAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH.

No wonder my dad refuses to get one. No wonder I never check my messages.

Malawians are the new black

If you're truly interested in expanding your family and adopting a child who would otherwise have a shitty life, great.

But don't pretend to be all quixotic when you fly a private jet, select a child from a pre-screened field of 12, and hop back on your jet back to London, leaving the baby for your nanny to pick up and bring home.

Don't bring a camera crew with you to film every minute of your genuine care and concern for the human race.

Pure charity is anonymous. What you did was pick out the newest in trendy handbags and show the world how stylish you are for having bought it.

Granted, this handbag will get all the material goods a handbag could ever need or want. I just hope that you provide the important stuff as well.

Dirty Tricks - Spouse Edition

Feed the baby a bunch of pureed prunes and then leave for the rest of the day on an "oh, I have to install hard drives...for eight hours" errand.

Dirty Tricks - Parent Edition

Numb your child's gums with baby orajel - and then give her a bottle to try to drink from.

Social Services can reach me at jen@levedy.com

Kat's Ear Hat

this was the first time she wore it. What a difference!

More at Flickr (link to right)

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

The Bean screamed for three hours last night, at 1 and 3 and at 5.

Sheesh.

Wal Mart and White Trash

If I don't like Wal-Mart, why do I always go?

The other day, I was waiting in the 20 items or less line (yes, Susan, I know that it should be 20 items or fewer, but c'mon, this is Wal Mart) and the woman in front of me had a FULL cart of 50 or more items.

This is one of the unforgivables in my book, right up there with peeing on the seat in public restrooms. There's simply no reason to cannonball through the express line so you can get through faster, but everyone has to wait for your ass. Seriously, unless your transportation says Air Force One on it, you ain't important enough to do that.

Not only was I peeved that this woman was wheeling her monthly groceries through the express line, but what came next was SO much worse. She didn't have enough cash on her to pay for both her groceries and her cigarettes, so she made her little kid put back all the cereal in the cart so she could get enough of the cheap, Wal-Marty brand of cigarettes.

Seriously. The kid went without cereal so momma could have a smoke. And trust me, that cereal was the healthiest thing in the cart.

And then the mom starts telling the cashier how she's making such a sacrifice by going for the Wal-Marty brand cigarettes rather than her regular Marlboros.

Ugh. I would rather she have peed on the seat.

Cribtanamo Bay, Day 4

8:30-5:00 silence (8 1/2 hours! Holy Seratonin, Batman!)
5:00-5:20 wah (note: not WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH)
5:30-5:45 silence
5:45-5:50 whimper
5:50-9:00 silence

YESSSSSS! We're almost there!

Halloween 2006

I figured that I might as well start embarassing her early. Here's Bean's costume this year:

Cribtanamo Bay, Day 2

Getting better.

8:45-2:45 silence
2:45-3:00 WAAAAAAAAAAAH
3:00-7:30 silence
7:30-7:45 slurp slurp slurp
7:45-9:00 silence

And So It Begins

Tonight (Friday) begins the "Tough love - mama's going to let you cry it out until you sleep through the night" saga. I've read this book and this book, and discarded this book and this book as retardedly hokey.

I know that she won't remember this, and this will hurt me more than her, but I have to sleep, people. Bean wakes not because she is hungry, but because she's looking for a 98.6 degree pacifier. She also has a hard time falling asleep without a binky in her mouth.

So the binky's gone at naptime and nighttime - cold turkey. This weekend and the next week (God help me if it's longer) will be hard, but she's gotta learn to fall asleep with no binky and learn to stay asleep at night.

When she wakes up in the middle of the night, I'm not going to pick her up and nurse her. She only nurses for five minutes anyway, and with my milk supply these days, that can't be any more than a few teaspoons. She's going to have to cry it out for progressively longer periods of time until she figures out that it's just not worth her while to wake up several times a night.

Wish me strength.

5 months

Dear Bean -

You turned five months almost two weeks ago. I haven’t been procrastinating, it’s just that the past two weeks have been a little busy. For one, your Thea Athena and Uncle Pat were married last Saturday, and you and Earen were baptized on the following Sunday.

You adore your Uncle Pat. When you’re having a meltdown at YiaYia’s because Mama had the AUDACITY to leave you there to run errands, Uncle Pat is the only one who can calm you down. He attributes his magical baby-laudanum nature to his ubiquitous dweebiness, something I only partially believe. He has a knack with people who have a ten second memory. His goofy faces and funny voices have you giggling through your tears in no time.

Your Thea and Uncle Pat had a beautiful wedding. You slept through the whole gig. Athena’s side of the church was packed, and Pat’s had maybe six people, including your cousin, who giggled and screamed through the entire thing.

The next day was your baptism. You and Earen were baptized together, and we have many naked pictures of you that I am fully planning to pull out on the occasion of your first date. After the naked skinny dip in God’s pool, your godmother dressed you in a pretty, but too big dress that made you look like a giant white cupcake.

All went well, and you’re now a full member of the Greek Orthodox church. This means lots of volunteering at food festivals for the rest of your life, so I suggest you learn to do dishes and make gyros now.

Also true to your Greek nature, you have become adept at eating copious amounts of food. You plow through more food than I think your stomach can hold, and most of the time you manage to keep it down. Sleeping through the night, though, still eludes you.

*sigh*

I think I’m going to have to institute some tough love measures to get you to sleep through the night. It’s clear that mama needs sleep when she tries to put a diaper on backwards and the binky up your nose at 1 (and 3, and 6) a.m.

During the day, though, you are a source of wonder. You love the color blue, and will grab at and stare at anything that has that color. You are an observant little thing, even for a baby. You stare intently at everything, trying to figure out how you can possibly get objects into your mouth, be they binkies, batteries, or broom handles. People tell me that means you’re smart, which doesn’t surprise me, seeing as you clearly took half of my brain with you when you came out of my hoo-hah.

I love you little girl, and I can’t imagine taking a single breath without you. Even when you have banana and sweet potato breath, I love to feel it on my face.

I don't normally get all Jesus-y in print, but in a post about your baptism seems as good enough a time as any. I thank God for every second with you, and I understand the nature of Mary's sacrifice now that I have a little beastie of my own that I love more than anything.I love you, I love you, I love you, and I thank the heavens above that I have this time with you.

Now, go wash some dishes.

Love,

Mama

More to come

I'll post about the weekend later today. Right now I'm busy washing every towel and sheet I have in the place.

I had 11 people staying at my house this weekend, about 80 party guests over two days, and I think someone smoked a doobie...in the nursery.

Yeah, you read that right.

Bean wants Doritos every time she wakes up from a nap.