Our Friday evening jaunt to Ikea ended in a little more adventure than planned courtesy of a semi clipping our back bumper and sending us across two lanes of traffic while doing a 180 and ending up with us meeting the guardrail with considerable force. Somehow, we’re all perfectly fine and we managed to miss every other car that we could’ve very easily collided with in the three lane interstate traffic we were in. We’re still not entirely sure how we avoided serious disaster, but we’ll take whatever the reason was. (Even the car emerged looking much better than I initially thought it would.)

Will, as you can imagine, was terrified after we hit the guardrail and as we were spinning around (which felt like 10 minutes instead of seconds) but he was remarkably unaffected by the surrealness of everything as soon as the police cruisers got there and he could stare at the flashing lights. He loved riding home in the police car, as well he should have, since it will hopefully be his one and only ride in one.

On a related note, if you have a child in a car seat and he or she is not riding in a Britax, stop reading this and go get one right this minute. Will is riding in his until he’s 15 or so. I’ve always been really concerned about car seats (probably annoyingly so) but after what happened, I would forgo whatever I needed to, including the copious amounts of brownies and peanut butter cookies I regularly consume, in order to get one.

It happened so quickly. We were driving along, minding our own business and less than 30 seconds later, we were facing oncoming traffic smashed into the guardrail. Will’s carseat didn’t move. He doesn’t have a single scratch or bruise anywhere on him. And if I hadn’t been convinced before, I am most assuredly convinced now. (I’m not a paid spokesperson for Britax, although I would gladly be, especially if a new car seat or two were thrown in.)

Moving on to a less dramatic topic. . .Will enjoyed the warm weather this weekend with a trip to the playground that’s close to our house. He LOVES the slide now. And the other playground-goers’ dogs.

He certainly doesn’t look like he’s someone who’s aware that he narrowly averted disaster the night before, does he? Then again, he also doesn’t look like someone who will dissolve into a puddle of tears when we try to take him inside when we get home, either.

What we do look like, though, is one very lucky family.

That’s exactly how I feel. Except she’s way cuter giving the thumbs up than I would be. It’s morning in America, my friends.

Our newest president also received Will’s unequivocal stamp of approval, as he kissed him squarely on the mouth (on tv, obviously) just as he was getting ready to take the oath of office. And I swear it was unprompted. It must be all that crazy “left-wing” NPR he hears . . .

Contrary to what you may believe, we’ve not been swallowed whole by the Moving Fairies (or perhaps I should spell it Faeries, now that we live in a pseudo-English village). If the moving fairies would unpack and put everything up though, I would gladly endure being swallowed and perhaps even regurgitated. Moving sucks, and we’ve figured out that it sucks triply with a little one in tow. Will, of course, thinks all the boxes and various items out and about are the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him but they’re just serving to clutter up both my physical space and my psychological space. And I need my psychological space. (That makes me sound vaguely crazy doesn’t it?)

Anyway, I took about 11 pictures total at Christmas and Will wore pajamas the whole day since I forgot to bring his shoes home. And we couldn’t find his Christmas sweater for Christmas Eve. So we were a traveling, disorganized nightmare this year but we were only home for about 24 hours so we were also a whirlwind. Anyhoo, now I can’t find my memory card adapter so we’ll have to hold off on any pictures. Soon, though.

Will’s doing well. He loves being here and is the happiest I’ve seen him. (It could be all the boxes . . .) He can usually be found tearing around here like a madman or reading books (he’s big on the extremes). He can sit and look at books for impressively long periods of time, and he’ll sit still while I read him entire chapters of Stuart Little now. I think he actually just likes the pictures, but I’ll take it regardless.

Will also never shuts up. From the time he gets up until he goes to bed, his mouth is constantly going. I have no idea what the vast majority of what he says means, but he’s pretty insistent about whatever it is. (This morning, he stood at the gate to the kitchen where I was eating a muffin and mournfully wailed “fuff fuff” until I caved and gave him some.) He’s not started telling me no yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

What we have had our fair share of is diapering-related meltdowns. After changing five million writhing diapers, I finally wised up and thought, “He really knows that he shouldn’t be doing this.” (I know, my parenting genius is, as ever, astounding.) So after a few days of time out in the the crib for his transgressions, I can change Will’s diapers without breaking a sweat. That discipline stuff is for real. You just have to actually do it for it to work. Imagine that.

Anyway, I’ll try to keep you all abreast of the newest developments here.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of our little town:

Will would like for you to see his new house!

PS. Please note the landscaping, as it will never look this good again.

I get this look a lot. And it’s every bit that cute every single time.

 

How’ve you been? I’ve been very, very negligent in the posting of Will’s latest and greatest, haven’t I? So . . .

1)Will was a spider for Halloween. A very, very scary (and cute) spider who didn’t quite know what to think of all the bowls of candy offered at Jamison’s office trick-or-treating festivities. He mainly saw lots of flashing lights and weird, moaning witches with gleaming red eyes and I mainly saw bowl after bowl of choking hazard upon choking hazard. I know, I’m always tons of fun like that. Come over next year to join in on my Annual Search for Hypodermic Needles and Other Evidence of Urban-Legend-Related-Tampering with Your Kids’ Trick-or-Treat Bags. It promises to be a real scream. (Pun intended. Hardy har har.)

2)So, Halloween, and then what? Election Day and a barfing bug. Actually, more like a car that didn’t start, and then discovering that Will had the previously-mentioned bug after noticing that there was something vaguely pomade-y and very stinky in his hair that hadn’t been there when he’d gone to bed the night before and, finally, voting.

Long story short: Will seemed fine, we put him in his stroller, walked to our polling place in true yes-we-can spirit, cast the most satisfying votes we may ever get to cast, pondered the potential significance of what we, along with millions of others, had just done, walked back home, went about our day as usual, gloated a little bit as election results came in, and went to bed. Even with the unexpected vomit thrown in there, four words: Best. Election. Day. Ever. (I guess I should clarify that by “ever” I actually mean in my voting lifetime.)

And, to celebrate our country’s giant step forward (hopefully that forward-stepping will continue for a long, long while), Will continued to throw up for the next few days. That basically means that we did a lot of cleaning of the carpet, since 19-month-olds tend to be not-so-adept at warning you about what’s coming. Nonetheless, Will was remarkably unbothered by the periodic forceful ejection of his stomach’s contents and recovered within a few days. During this time he also seemed to redevelop a fierce attachment to his pacifier, which we gladly gave him since a sick baby in any way,shape or form is about the most pathetic thing there is, really.

3)Let’s see. . . where was I going with this? After the election, we had lots and lots of normal days here that were filled with the reading of somewhere around 1543 books between 9 am and 2 pm and another couple hundred between 5ish and 8 pm. And while I’m really, truly thrilled that Will enjoys books as much as he does, one can only read The Three Bears so many times before one starts to hear their brain slowly melting inside their head.

4)Speaking of my brain melting, I actually think that we’ve finally bought a house! (Or that we’re really, really close to doing so, anyway, since we don’t close until next Friday–the day after my 30th birthday nonetheless. . .) I’ll not give away any details until it’s done, but this one is looking like it’s actually going to happen. No vague and strangely-orchestrated mold tests or inexplicably missing records of prior water-damage repairs or anything like that this go-round.

And I think we’re caught up for now. With my own post-election honeymoon state of mind still hanging on, I’ll leave you with this:

“We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no
matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can withstand the
power of millions of voices calling for change.

Yes we can.” — President-Elect Barack Obama

Indeed.

Instead . . .

Quite the ham, as ever.

He’s almost as tall as the doorknob now. I can practically watch him get taller.

Mommy’s little arachnid

That would be a good four ounces of milk everywhere in his high chair. About half was on the tray and the other half poured directly in his lap. The half on his tray allowed for lots and lots of happy splashing fun, as you can see. (Just FYI, the Born Free sippy cups aren’t spillproof. All in the name of BPA-free. Whatever. But in fairness, his regular old Nuby sippy cups are supposed to be BPA-free and are a bit more spillproof. You know, for those of you in the market for a good sippy cup.)

Will and I have both been sick for the past week. His ear infection was discovered during his 18-month checkup. (24 lbs, 2 oz and 32 1/4 in., for those of you interested.) He hadn’t really been acting all that differently, just suffering from a major runny nose, but I didn’t think for one second that he’d have an ear infection or anything. So, in short, no Mother of the Year title for me. Again.

Although I do think I deserve an honorable mention for our outing this morning that involved all of the following:

(1)Aforementioned (and afore-pictured) milk scene 15 minutes before we were supposed to be heading out the door

(2)Frantic gathering of library materials to be returned, including one heavy book and numerous other smaller, awkward books, cds, and dvds

(3)Screaming child corralled in crib (with his shoes on! yuck!) while I

(4)Made three, count ‘em!, three trips down three flights of stairs, one with a heavy stroller, one with books and other various media and the last with a writhing pile of toddler who wanted to walk down the stairs on his own

(5)Lots of sweat

(6)An hour of music and clapping, swaying children singing happily together. Oops, I actually meant three minutes of Will clapping and swaying and saying “cack cack” to the stuffed duck at the library’s little music class and approximately 57 minutes of chasing him around the library, keeping him from tearing books off the shelf with wild abandon or destroying the library’s entire computer collection or hanging out with library staff in the workroom (which he, quite impressively, found completely by himself, even though the door was only cracked a wee bit).

(7)I’m leaving out a bit here, but a surprisingly hot afternoon in which I had to push a heavy stroller loaded down with more books and various media, as well as some fruit and other items we got at the store, up a few hills and then make the same three trips up and down the steps, this time corralling Will in the crib first and listening to pitiful wailing each time I returned.

(8)More sweat and possibly an ice cold Coke as my reward for so courageously making my way through the wilds of Loveland to get to the library, a half mile or so away.

But, really, enough complaining. Our apartment building just needs an effing elevator already. It’s like they expect us to be in shape or something. (Aren’t we in America, the land of convenience and ease and laziness? I thought so.) We’re really looking forward to getting a house, possibly one with an elevator so I don’t have to climb stairs ever again. (More on that grisly saga later [the house, not the elevator], perhaps after I’ve poked my eye out with an ink pen.)