I'm too tired to even think of a title...

Wow. I am exhausted. Chubbs really took it to me today.

We started out the day at 6:10 am when Chubbs popped up in bed, stuck his finger up my nose, and attempted to dive headfirst off the bed. No sooner had I caught him around the ankle and lowered him to the ground a little slower than he would've gone by himself, when he popped up again (Chubbs doesn't understand yet that popping isn't really acceptable until at least 9 am) and ran out of our room and down the hall. Which meant that I had to jump out of bed and run after him lest he decide to also go headfirst down the stairs. And in my not-so-awake state I ran into the door jamb on my way out of the room. Hypothesis: running anywhere when you have just woken up is hazardous to your health. (Did you hear that, Chubbs? Wait, where'd you go?)

So after I had managed to wrestle him into some clothes while he scanned The Very Hungry Caterpillar and threw Crinkly-Fish into the bathtub, we went downstairs to have some breakfast. Chubbs lasted about 7 minutes in his high chair, during which time I was able to get some yogurt and Cheerios down his throat, before he twisted himself around entirely and demanded to be let loose.

Chubbs ran around the living room/kitchen/dining room arranging furniture and throwing blocks, while I sort of wandered about foggily and tried to drink my coffee as fast as possible. Through a combination of sheer luck and Yo Gabba Gabba, we managed to make it to nap time without serious injury to the dog or the Christmas tree. I gladly lay the sleeping Chubbs down in his crib (vaguely wondering how he manages to look so peaceful when he's asleep) and chose to shower instead of having another cup of coffee. In retrospect, this was my downfall.

It was fabulously hot shower, and I even managed to shave, although I cut myself twice while doing so, reminding me why I don't shave as a general rule. I took a pretty good chunk out of my ankle... Anyway, I was barely able to get dressed before Chubbs woke up early from his nap and would only continue to sleep if I was holding him. This was rather inconvenient as I was starving and had to pee. The third time trying to put Chubbs back in his crib seemed to be the last straw for him, and he dissolved into tears and screams of anger. The tantrum lasted a few minutes, and then he suddenly stopped crying, grinned at me, gave me a big, wet kiss, and slid off my lap to go play. It was 10:30 am.

Through some merciful act of who-knows-what, Chris came home early, arriving right after we had finished lunch and just in time to take the crazy dog for a walk. (Where do these dependents get their energy?) About halfway through the walk Chubbs decided he was no longer content in his stroller (imagine that), and he yelled and squirmed until we reached the playground and let him out. He ran around, climbed the cool purple hills made out of recycled tires, spun the spinny things, went down the slide and then did it all again. Keep in mind that the kid is 13 months old, so I had to run around behind him making sure he didn't tumble down the cool purple hills made out of recycled tires. Yeesh.

Chris put Chubbs down for his afternoon nap so that I could actually sit down for one second, and thankfully he ended up sleeping for a good hour and a half. He certainly needed it. But when he woke up he was ready to go again. The afternoon passed in much the same way as the morning did, with a few more measuring cups and pot holders amid the chaos. The highlight was Chris spending 20 minutes making a block tower, which Chubbs then destroyed in less than 2 minutes.

Dinner was sort of the Grande Finale to the day. Chubbs ate about 5 bites of dinner before once again protesting at the confinement of his highchair. In order to get him to eat any dinner, I literally had to chase him around the room with a spoon full of vegetable-beef pilaf and quickly shove bites into his mouth in between the blocks. He was happy to eat, but only as long as he was running while doing so. After the obstacle course dinner, Chubbs immersed himself in the baking cabinet; and when I tried to get him to come help me put away his blocks, he waved me off. The kid waved me off with a little flip of his hand and a glance over his shoulder, like, "Mom, can't you see I'm busy?"

Given the day, I thought an early bedtime was justified, and I put Chubbs down a full half-hour early. But I really hope that course of action doesn't come back to bite me tomorrow morning.

And people wonder how I lost the baby weight so fast.

Liars!

I just made some "beet chips." But the people in the magazine said they would crisp up as they cooled off. Well, they're cool and decidedly floppy. Rather un-chip-like. I'm gonna try the broiler.

And tomorrow, I'm gonna make some kale chips. I have a feeling those will work out better. But you never know.

I really need to use up these veggies.

Cormac's Birth Story

Cormac was a week late. It was the longest week of my life. I wanted to stab forks in my eyes. Seriously. I stopped working a couple days before my due date, and so there was a week in there where I had nothing to do. If nursing weren't so freaking physically demanding, I probably would've asked if I could keep working until I went into labor, but I was way too tired. So I had nothing to do other than sit around the house and be angry. The only thing I could watch on TV without getting annoyed was sports, which wasn't a huge problem because the World Series was on. All my friends were trying to be supportive, but I only wanted to talk to and be around people who had kids, because if you haven't experienced pregnancy (and being ready to have that baby), then you just don't get it, no matter how empathetic you are.

So when I woke up with contractions that Sunday morning at 3:30 am, I was mostly annoyed. I figured there was no way I was in labor, and so I was mad that I wasn't sleeping. I think I managed to doze on and off until about 8:00 am when I finally just got out of bed. (And had I known that staying in bed until 8 am would never happen again, I might have tried to enjoy it a little more). I kept having contractions every 10-15 minutes throughout the morning, but didn't want to say anything because, again, why would I be in labor? At that point I was hoping this kid would come sometime before Thanksgiving.

But, if I was in fact in labor, I wanted to keep it going (dear god, please just keep having contractions!) so we went for a long walk. And when we got home, I was still having contractions! And they were closer together! So I did some laundry (I know, weird, huh?). As I was putting clothes away, it started getting hard to talk/concentrate/fold clothes during contractions, and I finally decided that I must be in labor. Finally.

But I had a long way to go. We gave our midwife a heads-up call (her biggest fear was that we wouldn't call her early enough), let my mom know that she should make her way over, and sat down to watch game 4 of the World Series. Well, I alternately sat and stood, as it was rather uncomfortable to have a contraction while sitting. Everyone got there at about 8 pm, and after some initial excitement/shock (wait, seriously? You're in labor?) we settled in for a long night.

The next several hours are a bit of a blur; I went from the tub, to the bed, back to the tub, to the birthing stool, all the while watching a chicken with its head cut off running around my head.

I look at the clock. It's 2 am. I decide not to look at the clock anymore.

I'm in the tub. I finish a contraction and start to relax into the warm water, when suddenly another one starts. "Oh for f*@$k's sake!" Everyone laughs. I'm not sure what was so funny.

I'm on the bed, feeling nauseous. "Grab that bowl," I say to Chris. He quickly picks it up off the floor and holds it up to my head. I yak. "That's another centimeter," says the midwife. Excellent.

I'm 9 centimeters dilated. And I really want an epidural. Which I realize is ridiculous because we're at home, getting into a car to go to the hospital at this point would feel terrible, I wouldn't be able to get an epidural even if we were at the hospital because I'm too far dilated, and I don't really want an epidural. But I want one a little bit.

I'm on the birthing stool with a towel around my shoulders. I'm almost ready to push, and I'm feeling totally overwhelmed. I pull hard on the towel to channel some of that anxiety. RIIIP! "Oh, geez. I ripped the towel." "You're a strong lady," the midwife says.

I'm almost done. I'm lying on the bed with Chris behind me. Cormac is halfway out and I reach down to grab him. "Just a second," says the midwife, "we've got a cord around the neck." "Oops," I say. She slips the cord over his head and I bring Cormac up on to my stomach. He looks around for half a second and starts to scream. He is pissed.

It's pretty amazing how quickly this year went by. I can't believe that the screaming, squirming, slimy little man I held on my stomach a year ago is now a laughing, babbling, toddling, little man. He is no longer slimy, but sometimes he does scream and squirm, mostly around nap time. And now I'm torn between wanting to see what he's going to do next and wanting him to stop growing immediately and stay my baby forever. However, the former is winning, as I would really like some freaking sleep.

Bacon Flu

It's all Chris's fault.

The man came home last Tuesday complaining of feeling "gross." By Saturday, the entire family was passed out on the couch, coughing up lungs left and right, and moaning to no one in particular. Actually, it wasn't technically the entire family; Morris spent all day Saturday prancing around the house with his toy trying to get someone, anyone, to play with him. His attempts ended in failure, so he channeled his energy into harrumphing around the house, every now and then joining us in a collective moan.

Saturday morning started off with a bang. Chris and I felt like death, and according to Cormac's wails, so did he. To try making one of us happy (I won't say who), we went downstairs to watch some visual baby-crack aka Noggin aka Nick jr. (as it's now called, apparently). No sooner had we come downstairs to begin our malingering, than Cormac vomited all over himself and me. You'll be happy to know, however, that nothing got on the couch, making cleanup immensely easier. As for the rest of the mess, I decided to multitask by filling up our big tub so that Cormac and I could wash off at the same time.

I guess for Cormac a bath is also a form of baby-crack because he was suddenly happy the second he got in. He even started to splash. The bath relaxed him so much, in fact, that he pooped. In the tub. With me in it. And it wasn't just a regular-size poop; it was a monstrous, ginormous, I-can't-believe-my-kid's-intestines-could-contain-that-much poop. So, yeah. How do you clean up massive amounts of poop from a tub, you may ask? With a sieve. Yes, you heard me. Chris fished around with a sieve to get all the big chunks out, we drained the rest of the water, and then the tub got a good, hard scrub. And so did Cormac and I.

There were no other fireworks that day, besides the occasional sound of barking seals coming from our living room (who let those in?). We just napped on the couch and watched a combination of football and Yo Gabba Gabba all day. Cormac actually perked up a little bit that afternoon, and in addition to his usual path of destruction, found great delight in the kleenex box and a tube of chapstick. So now it looks like a kleenex box with chapped lips and a penchant for baking spewed all over our main floor. And it's probably gonna stay that way for awhile because no one has any energy around here. Except Cormac. Curse you, child.

So the Guxton family has survived the swine flu of '09. We're not too much worse for the wear, which is more than I can say for our tub.

P.S. Any future dinner guests can rest assured that the sieve used to fish poop out of the tub now has a bright future in the garbage.

We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

And we're back.  Finally.  We have just gone a week and a half without internet at our house.  You never realize how much you depend on the internet to stay connected to the world until you have to be without it.  I mean, I had to restrict my facebook time to when I was at work.  Seriously, how am I supposed to stay connected to my "friends" when I can only read their status updates at work?  Alright, I could have picked up the phone and called people, but where's the weird, voyeuristic anonymity in that?

And to make matters worse, it stopped working this morning.  After a measly 12 hours online, we were once again cut off from the world.  It was like, here, have a taste.  Delicious, isn't it?  Go ahead, have a little more.  So sweet...  Now NO SOUP FOR YOU!!!  Mwahahaha!

So I called Qwest and was connected to a very nice man named Antonio who assured me that we would "go through several steps and diagnose your problem, ma'am, do not worry."  And sure enough, several steps later, we had, indeed, diagnosed my problem.  In order to dispel any lingering doubt, Antonio then recapped the exact course of events that led to the diagnosis.

And so here I am, happily reading facebook status updates of people I haven't talked to in 10 years.  I have to admit, it is a bit sad that in order to feel connected, no, more than that, complete, I have to have internet.  I mean, I could probably survive without it, but it would be a sad, meager life filled with angst and tears.

And now I need to go to bed so that I can get 45 minutes of sleep before Chubbs wakes up.  Ugh.

Chicken With Its Head Cut Off

There's this song by The Magnetic Fields that goes "My heart's runnin' 'round like a chicken with its head cut off.  All around the barn yard fallin' in and out of love.  Poor thing's blind as a bat, gettin' up, fallin' down, gettin' uuuuuup.  Who'd fall in love with a chicken with its head cut off?"  It's as great song, and it's fun to listen to, but it gets stuck in my head rather easily.  In fact, I had this song stuck in my head the entire time I was in labor with Chubbs.  All. 27. Hours.

Not so much the whole chorus, as the "gettin' up, fallin' down, gettin' uuuuuup" part.  As annoying as it got (especially after the 18-hour mark), it was how I got myself to keep "getting up" after every contraction, something that got harder and harder the longer I labored.  My midwife was of the mind that in some ways a long labor isn't necessarily a bad thing: it helps you keep things in perspective later on when your child won't, oh, let's say, sleep.

Let me pause here and say that I hate lessons.  They really irk me.  It's like the Universe is saying, "I told you so.  I told you there's a reason for certain life experiences."  I'd like to give the Universe a good, swift kick in the shins.  But sometimes the Universe is right.  Grumble, grumble.  So there you are Universe; you were right.  Let's not make a habit out of it.

Anyway, I often think of my long labor (as well as the week leading up to the long labor when Chubbs was overdue and I wanted to stab forks in my eyes and Chris feared for his life) when I'm having a particularly rough time with Chubbs.  Like today.  I spent, count 'em, 73 minutes - that's an hour and thirteen minutes - trying to get Chubbs back to sleep after he woke up in the middle of a nap.

Ok, lemme clarify.  I had no trouble getting him back to sleep.  What I did have trouble with was getting him back into his crib to continue his nap.  I tried five (yeah, you heard me) times to put him down, and every single time he immediately woke up and got upset.  After the fifth time I just gave up, which came back to haunt me this evening when Chubbs got really crabby and started sounding like a constipated cat when he cried.  One can only take so much.

Anyone with a child knows how freaking annoying it is when said child won't sleep.  Not only are they crabby because they're tired,  but you have no time for yourself because you spend all your time trying to get them to sleep.  This has been going on for a few weeks for Chubbs and me, and I'm really ready for it to be over.  I need sleep.  And as exasperating as it is to continually have to pick him up, get him back to sleep, put him in his crib, and repeat, I know (hope?) that it will eventually come to an end, and in a few years I will wish that my little boy would let me hold him while he sleeps.  But in the meantime, I just keep reminding myself that I have to keep getting up.

Of Boxes and Bathrooms

So apparently this is my first post for August, which is a little sad.  But things have been a bit of a whirlwind lately, so I think I have a pretty good excuse.  We sold our house (after only 9 days on the market, I might add) and bought a new one, and we move in a week.  We started packing today.  And packing with a little one around the house presents some fairly tricky obstacles.  We found that we can get about 20 minutes of work done before Chubbs wakes up/is hungry/is tired of Noggin, which means you can really only pack about one box per hour.  This is going to be a long week.

In the interest of being optimistic (only because I have just had a large bowl of ice cream to cheer me up), I am super-excited about our new house.  We will have a big, gorgeous kitchen with cabinet space up the wazoo, a full, unfinished basement to do with as we please, and a master bathroom with...wait for it...two sinks and a separate tub and shower!!!!  I am now drooling.  I should mention that Chris's favorite part is having the toilet in its own, separate area with a door.  He's really excited about this.

But in order to get there, we have to pack.  Thank goodness my parents were able to come over today and help us out.  We got a lot done, but now we're sort of at the random-crap phase, where you have all these extra bits that you can't really throw away, but you're not really sure how to pack them so that there is some semblance of order.  I will probably end up just throwing them all in a box, and then avoid opening it until I absolutely have to.

Speaking of throwing stuff in boxes, we tried to get Chubbs to amuse himself with a few toys in a box today.  Most kids love playing in boxes because it's a small, secure area that the have all to themselves.  But Chubbs was not content unless he was standing in the box and rocking it back and forth, or hanging is upper body over the edge.  He got a little taste of freedom when he jumped out of his crib earlier this week, and I think he's looking for another high.  Good thing we didn't buy the house with the all-too-easily-accessible ledge overlooking the living room.  Although the kid will probably just find something else to rappel down.

I hit mental gridlock at about midday, which is why I'm eating ice cream and messing around online instead of packing.  So if anyone wants to come over and help me throw random crap in boxes, I would appreciate it.  I pay in beer.