Why wait years for the hangups to develop when you can start cultivating them today?

Okay, so if anyone has been thinking that I'VE been evil in terms of the embarrassment quotient associated with some of the things I've written about Milo on this blog, I suggest you check out what his FATHER has been writing about him.

That picture is going to cost us thousands of dollars in therapy sessions alone.

tongue-tongue weeps

For he has only one tongue with which to taste an entire world...***

I'm beginning to suspect that Milo has cannabilistic tendencies. I'm pretty sure he wants to eat me. And I'm not just talking about breastfeeding. Every time I get my face near his, he grabs my hair and pulls me closer, lifting himself up off the bed, change table, or bouncy chair as he does so, and tries to suck as much of me into his open mouth as possible.

(Have you ever had someone suckle your nose? I know, it sounds gross, but it's also kind of hysterical to see a little four-month-old baby stuck on to the end of your nose, looking around the room with a wide-eyed expression that seems to say, "Dum de dum dum, don't mind me, I'm just sucking on your nose here.")

Of course, it's not just me he wants to eat. It's everything. Whenever I give him something -- whether it's my knuckle, a toy, a blanket, or even a cloth diaper -- he stares at it with a happy smile of recognition and then hungrily tries to stuff as much of it into his mouth as he can. All the while wearing the same innocent, "Gee, how did that get in there?" look on his face.

He isn't the least bit daunted by the size of the object he wants to eat, either. I've seen him eagerly attempt to fit his mouth around toys that are three times the size of his head. And when things don't work out the way he expects, he gets quite perturbed.

He probably has no idea that some of the things around him are bigger than him while others are smaller. Some fit in that gulping baby-bird mouth of his, and some don't. My guess is that his ever-developing ability to comprehend is still so firmly situated in the realm of the senses (What's this feel like? What's that taste like? How does this form compare to that form, and what the heck's making that noise? And oh, look -- moving food machine thingy! Moving food machine thingy makes funny sounds and makes funny faces and carries me around to different places. I like moving food machine thingy!) that he doesn't yet have any real understanding of the concept of relative size.

He probably thinks that he is the entire universe, and that everything he sees, hears, feels, smells, and tastes rightfully belongs inside of him. Oddly enough, I'm inclined to agree.

Must... eat... favourite toy... or fist... or toy... or both... yes, both... but how the heck do I get them both to FIT IN HERE???

*** Tongue-Tongue is a character that appears in an episode of the animated cartoon series, The Tick. If you've never seen The Tick, oh my goodness, you have to keep an eye out for it. It's the FUNNIEST. CARTOON. EVER. Where else can you meet characters like "Can O' Man" and "El Seed," not to mention goofball superheroes like Sewer Urchin and Der Fleidermaus"? Or watch episodes named, "The Tick vs. Prehistory," "Evil Sits Down for a Moment," or "Leonardo Da Vinci and his Fighting Genius Time Commandos!"?

Would you trust this guy to feed your baby?

I just walked in on Rob making himself a snack in the kitchen.

“Peeuw, what’s that smell?” I asked.

Then I looked at what he was eating: microwaved potatoes and gravy.

“Ohhhhhh… I don’t think you should eat that, honey,” I said, referring to the gravy.

Rob looked at me, perplexed. “Why not?”

“Um, because it’s from Thanksgiving.”

(Canadian Thanksgiving, for those of you not in the know, occurs on the first Monday in October. Yep. That was almost four weeks ago. Now granted, we’re mostly vegetarian, so our gravy didn't have any turkey juice in it, but still. That stuff was waaaaay past the “best before” date.)

Rob leaned over his bowl and inhaled deeply. “Smells fine to me.”

I took another cautious sniff. “No, it doesn’t. Trust me.”

He shrugged and took a bite of gravy-smeared potato. “Tastes all right.”

I shuddered and left the room. He ate the entire bowl of potatoes, no doubt thinking that I was overreacting once again. He thinks that so long as you boil or nuke something long enough, it’s perfectly fine to eat.

I'm beginning to suspect the guy has no taste buds.

I always feel like somebody's watching me

And I get no privacy...

So I was just typing up an e-mail to a friend, dum de dum dum, when all of a sudden I felt like I was being watched. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The very air around me seemed laden with malevolent portent.

I turned around to see if Rob was perhaps giving me the evil eye from the kitchen for not washing out my breakfast cereal bowl (I couldn't -- the sink was still filled with last night's cold slick-slimy dishwater, something that instinctively makes me throw my dishes down on to the counter and flee to the furthest room in the house and hide behind a large piece of furniture), but he wasn't there.

So I turned a bit further and looked behind me and what did I see but Milo in his floor rocker, suck suck sucking away on his soother, his eyes wide and staring at me.

The horror.

He's SUPPOSED to be sleeping. I only put him down for his nap fifteen minutes ago. I'd been planning to use his nap time to parent-proof the house in time for my mom and dad's arrival later this afternoon.

(They're going to babysit tonight while Rob and I go to some big Casino Night bash my office is throwing for its employees -- yep, we've been having a good year. It's going to be Rob's and my first night out ALONE since Milo was born. Yay! Sob! Angst! Yay!)

But now he's awake, and it doesn't look like he's about to go back to sleep any time soon. In fact, it looks like he's the one who's ready to party.

Sigh. If only I could figure out where his off-switch was located.

This is what Milo's SUPPOSED to look like right now. Alas, he does not. Off I go to feed and otherwise amuse him...

se7en

I've been tagged. I feel somewhat like a drugged polar bear, wondering why my left ear hurts.

But when a Queen commands you to do something, there's no ignoring the royal summons.

I got to tell you, though, if it had been a mere commoner who'd asked me to do this, I probably would have refused. Lists scare me. They hurt my head. I end up spending far too long on them, wracking my brain for the best possible answers, always certain that there's a better one out there IF ONLY I COULD JUST THINK OF IT.

All right, here goes... But I just know that as soon as I go to bed tonight, a million better answers are going to occur to me.

7 things I want to do before I die

• Finish my frickin' book already (and get it published -- aye, there's the rub)
• Go on an onsen tour of Japan
• Poke around inside the Great Pyramid
• Ride a horse in a place without fences -- without a paid guide there to smirk at my ineptitude
• Learn how to make my grandmother's fudge
• Learn as many languages as I can
  
• Help promote a "word of mouth" revolution that results in the demolition of an economic system dependent on the production of countless tonnes of crap and instead promotes the value of quality over quantity

7 things I cannot do

• A cartwheel
• Bake a pie
• Design my own web site
• Tolerate intolerance
• Mow a lawn
• Make pretty things with textiles (e.g., sew or knit or crochet)
  
• Believe that there's only ONE right way to access the Divine, and that all other ways are WRONG WRONG WRONG

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex

• Intelligence
• Sense of humour
• Confidence
• Groundedness
• Open-mindedness
• Musical talent
• Skill in the kitchen

7 things I say most often

• "Who's my little cutie pooty pie?"
• "Oh! I think I hear the boy."
• "I'm tired."
• "I've DEFINITELY got to do yoga -- tomorrow."
• "Can you hold him for a minute? I've got to go to the bathroom."
• "Inuyasha ga daisuki desu!"
• "It's probably up your ass." (It's true. I do say that quite often. But never in a dirty way.)

7 celebrity crushes

• Dean Ween (WEEEEEEN!!!)
• Gene Ween (WEEEEEEN!!!)
• Luke Doucet
• Danny Michel
• Steven Colbert
• Don McKellar
• Owen Wilson

7 people I want to do this (for those of you who don't blog, you can post your lists in my comments)

• Meg of Blogcabin (Hah! Yet another opportunity for you to indulge in your list fetish!)
• Pinksaturngrapes
• Sandra Smith (not the one who was the last woman to be hanged in South Africa)
• Cindy Lou
  
• Laurie
• Ms. Mama
• Zandperl
  

Ha! Now YOU'RE it!!!

Things that make you go, "ewww"

So in case you're one of the few people who haven't heard me go on and on and on about my new obsession, we're using cloth diapers with Milo.

Whenever he graces us with a poopy diaper, we usually throw it into an ice cream bucket before rinsing it out in the bathroom sink and then tossing it in the diaper pail along with the rest of the soiled dipes. We usually try to deal with the poopy ones right away, but sometimes we forget, and they sit in the ice cream bucket for a while before we remember to rinse them out and put them in the pail.

Fortunately for us, our exclusively breast-fed son's poo doesn't smell (much... yet...), so a poopy diaper out in the open doesn't make our house smell like a charnel house or anything. Too bad, almost -- if we had some sort of olfactory reminder of the poopy diapers just sitting there, we'd probably be more vigilant about rinsing them out right away and putting them in the diaper pail, where they belong.

And that would be a good thing.

Yesterday, after we'd returned from taking our dog Nell for her afternoon walk, Rob and I were in Milo's room, taking off his little bomber jacket while both marveling at how cute he looked in it (as only lovestruck new parents can do), when suddenly we heard this noise behind us: slurp slurp slurp.

This isn't the kind of noise you want to hear when there's a poopy diaper in an open bucket on the floor and a dog in the room.

Sure enough, I turned to look, and lo and behold, what did I see but Nell with her head in the ice cream bucket, chowing down on a big ol' helping of diaper pudding.

Okay, so I'm the first to brag about how my baby's sh*t doesn't stink... but I draw the line at suggesting it might be tasty.

The needle and the damage done

We took Milo for his second round of immunization shots yesterday. Now, I've never been one to fear a needle -- they're so thin, and the point of insertion is so tiny, and the blood that comes out is such a pretty shade of prom dress red -- but even I get squeamish when we take Milo for his shots. When compared to Milo's tiny little squishy four-month-old thighs, the needle takes on the relative dimensions of something you'd expect to see stabbed into the haunches of a horse (or a professional athlete hoping for the stamina or muscle mass of a horse).

It wouldn't be so bad if he had to have just one shot, but no, he had to have three -- two in his right thigh and one in his left. Thankfully, his objections were dampened somewhat by the infant Motrin we dosed him with prior to leaving for the health office. He screamed bloody murder as he was given each needle, but recovered fairly quickly. Yet another example of better living through careful chemical management...

All in all, I'm sure the whole ordeal affected me more than it did him. After I'd rearranged him in my arms to prepare him for the final shot in his left thigh, he recovered from the tears caused by the first two shots and looked up at me, wide-eyed. Just as his mouth began to stretch tentatively into a smile, the nurse stabbed him a third time. The look of betrayal in his eyes was far more painful than any stupid old needle.

"HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN TO ME???" it screamed.

Somehow, the "it's for your own good, sweetheart" excuse just didn't seem to cut it. Sigh. I feel like I just gained official membership into the parent club.

Stay tuned for future quality acts of parenting, such as the one in which I tell a much older Milo that Santa Claus doesn't exist....