mandalei

Today Jack is one year old. Last year at this time, I was coming out of the OR and feeling a little surreal about having a healthy and HOWLING little boy. We would find out later that the nurses knew who he was by his voice alone, since they could hear him outside of the maternity ward. When he was born, I learned two important things: the surgeon thought my insides were “very pretty”, and Jack was officially a “big boy”.

This year, we have learned just how much one little man can change our lives. We have watched his sense of humor come forward more and more, and his vocabulary (spoken and signed) develop: He has started saying “Mama” and “Dada” (and maybe “cat” and “up”). Jack loves animals of all kinds, can eat as much as an adult at any meal and still wake up hungry at 3 a.m. every morning, and try to snap his fingers when we snap in time to songs. He loves funk music and will bob up and down to it, and will try and mimic Seamus the Cat’s squeaky meow by squeaking in a high-pitched voice. He wrinkles and scrunches his nose when he smiles if he is doing something he thinks is dangerous and fun, or if he’s doing something he thinks is going to be funny or exciting for us.

But what really gets me is how loving he is. He will crawl–now walk–right up to us and put his arms around our necks and his head on our shoulders and settle in for a long hug. Sometimes a kiss (with or without biting). He’ll rest his head on our legs while we pat him on the back, and if we’re lying on the floor, he’ll come and lie on top of us and give us kisses and head-butts.

This year has been hard, since we moved to a new place so soon after his birth. I think Ben says it best, though, when he says that Jack fills a hole he never even knew he had. It’s been hard a hard year, but also one that we would never change for the world. Thank you, Jack, for being with us this year–we love you more than anything.

The icecream man drives through here every night almost.  It wasn’t until tonight that Ben pointed out his truck is named “Mr. Ding-a-ling”.

I have gotten out of hte habit of posting since I was away, and it’s been hard to pick it back up now that I am back.  Jack’s been teething like crazy, and has been really pretty demanding for the last few weeks.  He’s making giant leaps forward in terms of his abilities, and while we were in Nashville, he figured out how to sign “more” and “water”.  Learnign how to say “more” isn’t as helpful as you would think, since it introduces a whole new set of problems, mainly revolving around my attempts to interpret what it is he wants more of.  He uses it to say he wants more kisses, more raspberries on the stomach, more food, and more food-other-than-what-i’ve-got-on-my-plate.  And sometimes, when he want ssomething unspecified, he’ll use that sign and I am left scratchign my head over how to appease him.

He’s also gotten his first front tooth, so now we don’t call him Fang as much.  I wish the other 4 or so that are beginning to display their first bulbous beginnings won’t take too long.  I am not sure how much more freakish yelling I can take before going completely insane.  I actually cried yesterday because he just kept pinching me all day long, completely absent-mindedly.  Nevertheless, I am constantly in awe of our little boy and how fast he is growing and learning.  I feel very humbled to know that he’s ours.

OK, I need to run off and get some things accomplished while Mr. Crankypants is napping that I have been putting off… crap.  He just took the shortest nap ever.

via Southern Beale, please follow the link to read the great commentary there, but here’s the matter, in a nutshell:

McCain opposes equal pay bill in Senate

By LIBBY QUAID

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Republican Sen. John McCain, campaigning through poverty-stricken cities and towns, said Wednesday he opposes a Senate bill that seeks equal pay for women because it would lead to more lawsuits.

Senate Republicans killed the bill Wednesday night on a 56-42 vote that denied the measure the 60 votes needed to advance it to full debate and a vote. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had delayed the vote to give McCain’s Democratic rivals, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, time to return to Washington to support the measure, which would make it easier for women to sue their employers for pay discrimination.

This morning, something wicked this way came

I thought his aim was to turn me into a vampire, too, with those teeth! (which, upon closer inspection, appear to be bicuspids, not canines)

And then it hit me: he doesn’t turn to ash in the sunlight.

… he must be a hybrid.

We’ve decided to officially rename Jack to “Fang”.  I had originally opted for “Lestat,” but Interview With a Vampire was so 90s.

Jack’s got these teeth coming in, see, and they’re his canines.  Only his canines.  Both sharp, pointy, canines have come in during the last 2 days (fun and games at our house, hurrah!), and we think he’s also working on popping out the other four teeth that may exist in between his canines any day now.  Something has to change because he skipped his morning nap today (which is normally about 2 hours) and he only slept for an hour this afternoon.  Trying to take him outside (which normally worked) didn’t work so well today.

Your parents feed you a spinach and mozarella crepe for lunch, and your mom give you wee smidges of lemon gelato.

You can do all the planning and list making in the world for your birth scene, nursing, sleeping, eating, pooping, and playing needs, but you always comes back to being humbled by this little person in your life to put all your plans aside and just be whatever he needs you to be. Before I had Jack, I was a person who liked to plan. I was a list-maker. Who am I kidding, I still am, when I can be, and I am already planning my list of things to bring with me to Nashville in about 2 weeks… My favorite part of any story is the preparation for the journey ahead. But being a mom to Jack, he’s taught me that sometimes, lists are really just good for eating.

Jack is 10 months old today, and has already had some great experiences to put on his Great List. He’s been to Michigan, Tennessee, Deleware, and South Carolina. He’s eaten hummus, cherries, spinach sauteed with garlic, and a teensy bit of chocolate cake (and other stuff, of course, like dill pickles and lemon, and, oh yeah, actual baby-type food).

He’s been to a beach and hung out on the front lawn and been to the Adironacks. He loves the sun on his face and the wind in his long hairs. He got his third tooth today, a real beauty of a right canine, and the left canine is not far behind. Without the other top four middle teeth, though, he looks a bit vampy. It will only get better worse the longer they get, and I can’t wait to take pictures. I mean, poor kid, people will think he’s evil.

At night, when we put Jack down for bed, he’s started to stand in the corner of his crib and bang on the top rail. Tonight, when Ben went in to go lay him on his back, Jack was almost asleep standing up with his head on the rail. When he heard Ben, though, he jerked his head up and started crying, as if he suddenly remembered what it is he was supposed to be doing.

I love that he will crawl up to me, and scale me like a ladder to plant a big open-mouth kiss on whatever part of my face he can reach. I love that he accosted the little neighbor girl and kissed her, too, and she put up her hand all like “oh no…stay back!” and kept trying to get away from him. What can I say… he likes being affectionate, and I love that he is.

He’s learned how to take things out of boxes. But not put them back. I hear that this won’t ever be something he learns. I’m not sure either of us are the parents who can teach him that, either!

[crack was intentional]

I love that he has learned how to lure the cats to him with a cat toy,

and has an obsession with the broom and dustpan.

I love that he can’t handle dominoes stacked up and I take advantage of his inability to sit down from a standing position to taunt him.

So, happy birthday to my boy, who has a long list of things he can do ahead of him. I hope I can help him to accomplish some of them, and encourage and help when he needs it.

No, I’m not talking about the guy in the checkered pants holding aloft his victory burger with the weird eyes (how can he see with a wedge-shaped chunk out of them?), although he does share some similarities with ten-month old Jack.  They both have rather round bellies.  And like ground beef.

I have always had a problem managing my weight, from the time I was on Nutri-system as a sophomore in highschool, to the Atkins diet (it worked!), to now (the “all organic eat whatever” diet, which isn’t so much a diet as it is a food choice).  I remember being told as a freshmen in college by a junior “you would be so hot if you just lost 20 punds.”  Gee, thanks.  Needless to say, weight is kind of a flash point for me.

At Jack’s 9 month appointment, he was in the 75th percentile for height and 90th for weight.  As near as I can tell, this is the same a month later (although I haven’t checked his height recently).  Our doc said to limit his formula intake to 16-20 ozs a day*, and as near as I can tell, that about 4-12 ozs a day less than any other guidelines I can find, and while she didn’t explicitly say it was for his weight, after we left I wondered.  I don’t want my kid on a diet when he’s less than a year old, but I also don’t want him to grow up to be overweight.  He eats a fair bit in addition to his bottles, but all the things I have read say that kids at this age eat because they’re hungry, not because of any other motivation.

I don’t want to get in the way of his being able to figure out the signals he gets when he’s still hungry or if he’s full.  Child of Mine has been a great read for all of these issues (how to feed your baby), but I guess I still worry about it.  It’s hard not to, when people comment on it all the time:

He doesn’t miss many meals, does he?
What a big boy he is!
You’re a chunky one, aren’t you? [except, he isn't.]

it makes me feel defensive, for both of us.  And I don’t want him to have the same feelings I had (and have) about weight and body image.  I want him to have a healthy relationship with food.  And exercise.  I want him to feel at ease in his skin, and I am not sure how to supprt him in that, since I don’t have it myself.

We were watching “The Conscience of a King” (Star Trek, season one) tonight, and there were some truly fantastic quotes… I had to share them with you, they were just *that good*

McCoy: This is the first time in a week I’ve had time for a drop. Would you care for a drink, Mr. Spock?
Spock: My father’s race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol.
McCoy: Oh. Now I know why they were conquered.

***

Lenore: (to Kirk) All this power, surging and throbbing, yet under control. Are you like that, Captain?

***

Kirk: Worlds may change, galaxies disintegrate — but a woman is always a woman.

***

Kirk: (searching for the phaser set to overload and blow up the ship) Double Red Alert!

And for your further edification, here’s a breakdown why you never want to be wearing a red shirt in the series.

Edited to add: McCoy also gets his drunk on in the sickbay!  On duty!  Awesome.