Bedtime

Everyone says that in order to get a baby to sleep in his crib, you should put him down while he's still drowsy. This way he falls asleep in his crib and won't get upset when he wakes up and isn't in your arms anymore.

The problem is, there is nothing sweeter than rocking a baby to sleep. I love the short interlude after he totally relaxes, but before he has fallen asleep. He just lays there in my arms, looking at me through half-closed eyes with unwavering trust. I am always flooded with an overwhelming sense of responsibility and a desire to protect this child from anything and everything bad in this world. And even though I know I can't, and shouldn't, promise that, I can't help but want to.

When you become a mother, I think you shift a portion of your own sense of self-preservation to your child. As long as your baby is safe, everything is OK. You know that if it ever came down to it, you would give up everything in order to protect him.

All these thoughts swirl around in my head every time I rock Chubbs to sleep, and I know that he is the most wonderful thing I have ever created.

So to all the sleep experts: keep your theories to yourself. And even if you are right, that I should be putting Chubbs in his crib before he falls asleep, I am willing to deal with the consequences. Because nothing is sweeter than rocking a baby to sleep.

La Casa Nostra

We are a 1920s crime family. By name, anyway. There's Chubbs, of course, who got his name long before he was born because Chris was mumbling, and I thought he suggested Chubbs for a nickname instead of something a bit more conventional. However, once I revealed what I thought I heard, Chubbs stuck, much to my initial dismay and eventual amusement. It's even funnier now since there's absolutely nothing chubby about him; this is one long, skinny baby.

Then there's Slim. This obviously refers to Chris, who is 6'3" and 170 lbs. I figure Slim is nicer than Stringbean. He was the one who liked to remind me that I outweighed him when I was pregnant.

My name has a bit of a background. Slim and I like to play a version of Scrabble in which you cannot use any real words; all words have to be made up, but they have to make sense phonetically (no "jqxy," even if you can put it on a triple word score). After placing the word on the board, you have to give a definition and use the word in a sentence. I highly recommend this version of Scrabble - it's more fun than the original version, and it goes faster because you don't have to spend 15 minutes each turn trying to figure out how to make a real word with no vowels. One of the best words we have come up with so far is jugsy, meaning a large-breasted woman. And ever since Chubbs came along, I am the full embodiment of that word. So I am Jugsy.

The dog is Chompy, since he has a most bizarre habit of randomly chomping at the air. I think he's trying to tell me that we don't feed him enough. Suck it up, Chompy.