Daring Young Mom

“He did start tilting to the side by the time we finished and as we left the grocery store, our hip black grandma checker gave Magoo mad props for his sweet ‘gangsta lean’.”

That Lady was so funny. She was wearing these super-glam glasses with gold and rhinestones on the side. I was so proud of my little gangster.

Kelly has asked us to look back to on past entries. She says:

Fun with your archives.
The rules:
1. Go into your archive
2. Find your 23d post
3. Find the fifth sentence (closest to)
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog with these instructions
5. Tag five other people to do the same.

My modifications: Consider yourself tagged, oh my readerly friends. Also for my friends who don’t blog or are new to blogging, go to the sent mail folder of your email account, go to your 23rd email and post the 5th line in the comments section of my blog. Tell us a story. Thanks Kelly. This was fun.

First of all, Laylee says today is Ducky’s birthday. Either it’s a desperate ploy to get cake or she just loves him and wants him to have a special day. Either way — CUTE! This is his 3rd birthday so far this month. My, he’s aging gracefully.

In other news, I feel like I got hit by a truck. My friend Sandra and I started walking again this morning. After a 4 month break while my hips relocated themselves somewhere around my pelvic region, we’re at it again. We get up at *like 6:30am and walk for health and friendship in the ”˜crisp’ fall air. We’ve been doing this for a couple of years now and we say we love it when we’re not actually doing it and somehow we’re crazy enough or guilt-ridden enough to get up each morning and not leave the other person waiting in the dark.

We always pass an impossibly tiny miniature woman who must be training for a marathon so hard that she has lost all of her actual flesh. We like Tiny Woman and it was comforting to see her this morning after so many months apart. There is also the little old man with the cane who shuffles along and greets us with a cheerful grin. We see him at the playground some mornings doing exercises on the swings.

One of my neighbors walks nearly all the time to control her depression, however she’s always cheerful and nice to me when I see her out and about, sometimes with hand weights, sometimes freestyle. She waves and smiles from under her green hooded jacket.

The strangest of all is purple-shirt-man. He runs every morning (I’m talking about real-morning, sometime around 10:00am, not why-are-you-sick-enough-to-be-walking-in-the-MIDDLE-OF-THE-BLEEPIN-NIGHT-?-morning) past my house……over and over and over again. I’ve counted him doing it as many as 10 times in one stretch and those are just the times I happen to glance over and see him. I don’t spend all day staring out the front window like a zombie. He has really good posture, too good posture. He never smiles and never moves his torso. He wears a skin-tight purple shirt and stares straight ahead.

During the weeks following Magoo’s birth when my anxiety was really high, I was truly scared of purple-shirt-man, thinking he was stalking our house. But then I realized that he never looks our way, or any way for that matter. I’m not sure if he’s a person or just some sort of bot, running a circle around our block to advertise purple shirts. I’ll try to take a picture of him some time.

In the mean time, I’d love to hear your stories of interesting people you’ve seen roaming around your neighborhood. Tell me about them and you will get…..a ducky birthday cookie.

*6:30 is when the alarm goes off for the first time. I don’t actually get out the door until around 6:50.

Your bowl sits next to me on the counter where I do my computer work. As you’ve seen, I’ve been catching up on projects and correspondence most of the afternoon. You swim around and play and as I catch your movement from the corner of my eye, I glance your way and we look at each other as though we’ve reached some secret understanding. I alternate between feelings of strange fishy companionship (you really are a good listener) and annoyance that there is yet another person in my house who refuses to nap and won’t stop moving.

It’s Official. We are old married people. We finally used (include in that returned or gave away) the last wedding gift from our marriage almost 4 years ago. Oh thou lovely pewter soup tureen, welcome to our family. With your help, I feel as though our marriage has now truly begun in earnest. You added so much class to our chile beans the other night that we can only ask ourselves why? Why have we not used you sooner? (besides the fact that you are purely decorative and pulling you out means washing yet another dish.)

We also have a new addition to our family. Jack the Beta Fish seems to be fitting in quite well. Before Dan and I were married we vowed never to have a cat or dog — too much work. I told him I could only make said blood-oath if he promised to be the one to tell little Timmy that he couldn’t have his heart’s one true desire. Dan said he had no problem with that. We’ll see how that all plays out as our “little Timmys” get older and more pitiful in their requests.

Today I took Little-C to the “mini-zoo” (read this PetCo) after finishing with our doctor’s appointment. Dr. Nancy asked Little-C if she ever went to the zoo and I thought, “Wow, it’s been a while.” So a quick stop to mini-zoo was in order. We said “hi” to the ferrets and parakeets, even the “so so cute” mice (trying to overcome a rodent phobia here) and ended up in the back with the Nemo fish.

She didn’t even have to ask. I just caved on my own.
C: “Look, it’s the FISHEEEEYS!”
Me: “Hey, Little-C, would you like a fish of your very own to take home?”
C: (eyes bugging out of her head, mouth dropping open, lets out a whisper) “yeesss”

So she named him Jack, one of the names rejected in the hospital when Big-O was born. We had planned to name him Jack after Dan’s Grandpa but a nurse in the hospital was kind enough to say, “Yeah, Jack’s a great name. It’s really popular now. I bet almost half the boys born here get named that.” So, moving on we named our son after a major tire retail chain.

Speaking of the O, he is rolling around the living room as I type this, bonking into things.
Roll
Roll
Roll
Laugh
Roll
Roll
Roll
BONK!
AHHHH! WAHHHHHHH!
Soothing and comforting by moi
“Roll, Roll, Roll, BONK!” I say
O laughs hysterically
I put him down
Repeat…..and fade……..

Dear Female Members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir:
For years I have loved your music. I grew up with you as a fixture in my life, especially around Christmas time and have enjoyed listening as you’ve evolved and improved. In recent years since President Hinckley threw down the gauntlet, encouraging you to be a little better, sing a little more choiry and stand with a little more posture (I don’t remember his exact words), you’ve really stood up to the challenge. I find myself enjoying your music more and also admiring your beautiful billowy dresses.

Your dresses are the reason for my letter today.
For years one of the funnest parts of General Conference has been a game I play with friends and family called “Guess What Color Dresses the MoTab Ladies Will be Wearing for Each Session of Conference.” It is a fabulous game, a game which I have rarely won but at which I always enjoy trying my hand.

You are so tricky. Just when I think I have a pattern figured out, you switch things around and I am left in confusion, “How could they wear white for Sunday morning? I thought they always wore red.” I have enjoyed the way you playfully mix it up to keep me and my friends guessing but this October Conference I feel you have taken things too far and you must be stopped.

Friday night my husband and I made our predictions. White for Dan, blue for me. When your clear and beautiful voices rang out Saturday morning, we rushed to the TV where I conceded victory to Dan, thinking that you were clad in billowy white chiffon. As the camera zoomed in however, we could see that your dresses were indeed pale blue. I had WON! And so we made our guesses for the next day. I chose majestic red and Dan chose to play the odds by going with white for the second straight day.

Much to our chagrin we woke up Sunday morning to find you wearing blue AGAIN! Aren’t there rules about this sort of thing? Don’t you have any feelings of sportsmanship or fair play? No one could have called blue two days in a row and you made it impossible for anyone to win. I know you’re probably just trying to make us work harder, to make the game more challenging, but there comes a point where it’s so hard that it’s just not fun anymore. Please consider this as you choose your wardrobe for April.

Yours Sincerely,
Kathryn

Don’t you love it when you’re right? Like when you tell everyone “This baby seems really big.”
Everyone: Yes, everyone says that.
You: No, this time it’s different.
Everyone: The second time people always think the baby’s bigger.
You: No, I have stretch marks from my knees to my lower lip and can hardly walk.
Everyone: Uh-huh, yes. That’s what they say.
You: AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
Everyone: Oh, my! He’s stuck in the birth canal, he’s really wedged in there. This baby might be larger then we thought.
You: AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
Everyone: OH! Get some help. We may have to break some bones to get him out.
You: AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
Everyone: Why didn’t we know he’d be this big? This kid is 10 ½ lbs!!!
You: Aaah-HAH!

Not that this happened to me 4 months ago or anything. I’m just saying. Anyway, today was also a day of vindication. Since Big-O was born, I’ve been telling everyone that he looks a lot like my dad but no one believed me. I can understand this because my dad is 5’11’, a fairly big guy and wears a full rugged beard. Big-O is 27”, ”˜only’ weighs 18lbs and never even needs to shave. However, I knew that behind all that hair, my dad was hiding a face that very much resembled my son.

So today for the first time in years, my dad shaved his beard clean off. As he caught his own reflection in the mirror, he said, “Wow, I look like Big-O!”

Me: Aaah-HAH!

Here’s some evidence:

In some sad vindication news:
Dan is always telling me to follow the instructions and not sleep with the heating pad on. When he says this, what I hear is, “Yadda yadda blah blah, I’m afraid of burning myself on a lukewarm piece of plastic covered in a protective flannel blanket.” Well, sadly he was vindicated today when my mom called to say she had burned her back on her heating pad. The burns are so bad that large blisters have formed, the last one popping painfully as we spoke. Ummmm……guess I was wrong……for once……how big was that baby again?