if you’re not wearing GREEN! Happy St. Patty’s Day!

The Legend of the Blarney Stone

There is a stone there,
That whoever kisses,
Oh, he never misses
To grow eloquent.
‘Tis he may clamber
To a lady’s chamber,
Or become a member
Of Parliament.

Now is that poetry, or what.

I am so old now. I have a ONE YEAR OLD! AHHHH!

Last weekend we moved into an apartment in the beautiful (and hot in the summer) town of Lakeside, CA. Our complex is, uh, ethnically diverse, to say the least. Our next door neighbors were evicted last Monday. I hope that is not a sign of things to come… We shall see. The majority of the house is actually put away already. Everything except the babies room. Tee hee. All we did was shove the millions of half full boxes into his room and shut the door. Besides, he needs to sleep in our room to get used to the new place. Right?

Well, Mr. Mob is currently stranded in Las Vegas. Yes, his new(ish) car is a piece of metal that doesn’t appear to run smoothly. Hmm. What is he going to do, you ask? He is going to drive it anyway. Tee hee. Hopefully I don’t get a call in the middle of the night saying,”come pick me up in Barstow.” We shall see, and I am sure Mob will write more when he gets the chance.

I will pay you $20 a day to come and wash my dishes. Thank you Lord, for the dishwasher that is installed in our soon to be new home. Until we move there though, all these D@*# dishes will sit on the counter top. Dirty. Stinky. And full of bugs. Did I mention that I hate doing dishes?

Isn’t it supposed to be “goodbye, cruel world”? Well, what do I know. Somedays all I know is poopy diapers, and crushed cheerios on the floor. But yesterday I ventured out into the world sans baby. And it was JOYOUS. I heard the angels sing unto me a glorious hymn. And then I came home and my baby boy smiled up at me and squealed with such delight that I decided NEVER TO LEAVE HIS SIDE AGAIN. Until this morning, when he spit barley cereal on me. And this is the day in the life of a stay at home mom. The end.

Alright, here is the synapsis of this previous weekend: Mark, Emmie (friend) and I decided it would be fun to go visit Las Vegas. Let me remind you that we have a baby. An eleven month old baby. Who has a mind of his own. Yes folks, he is a little person behind those huge squishy cheeks. Anyway, we cannot afford much in the way of vacations, so we drove from San Diego to Las Vegas. DROVE with an ELEVEN month old (who in their right mind brings a baby to Vegas?), in the CAR on a trip that normally takes 4 hours (3 1/2 if you’re single and can drive 100mph the whole way). Can you see where this is going? We were smart on Friday evening by leaving from our house at approximately baby bedtime. He sleeps fairly well in the car, so we figured it would be no problem. And it really wasn’t a problem getting there. There was a smidge of rain (people in California FREAK OUT when it rains and lose all function of bodily limbs and crash their vehicles into one another) and few car accidents and only one stop for a potty break and diaper change. It was the first diaper change done completely while the baby was standing. I was waiting for the water fountain to begin flowing all over the driver side seat, but it didn’t happen. Anyway, the trip to get there was fairly uneventful and only took approximately 5.25 hours. HOWEVER, the return trip was not so great. I wanted to leave by noon on Sunday. Half of the trip between SD and LV is a four lane highway, with many many semi-trucks with trailers who drive 8 mph because of the 85 degree slopes of the mountains they must drive up. The cars dodging in and out of the semis drive 140 mph up the same mountains, which causes a bit of a ruckus when they get behind or cut off a semi. We got off to a late start (2 pm) and therefore were leaving Sin City at the same time as all the other crazy people who drive there. We were stuck in snail paced traffic for nearly a third of the trip. Let me tell you that babies do not like to be awake and in the car for extended periods of time. Ear piercing screams were going on inside of our vehicle for 1/2 of the trip. The boss (baby) demanded we stop at every rest stop and every town we came to. He demanded to be released from the clutches of death that is his car seat. And after he was sprung free and allowed some time to stretch his teeny tiny legs, he VIOLENTLY objected to being shoved back into said seat. Much blood-curdling screaming (mostly from me) and back arching and limb flinging (again, from me) did occur. Well, this fun little excursion to Vegas turned into SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS of sitting in a car listening to HAIR-RAISING HORRENDOUS SCREECHING. Oh, joy. How I wish we did this trip more often…

For the past month or so, Colin has been pulling up on EVERYTHING. However, he has not quite grasped the concept of getting back down. For instance, just the other day he discovered that his crib is a great place to practice standing up. I put him down for his nap, and then he would start screaming because he couldn’t get down. So, I would go back in, and lay him back down, and before he was even completely on his belly, he was sitting back up in order to pull himself up to standing. Several times this happened. He does have one method of attempting to get back down from standing. Instead of bending at the waist like most normal people do, he flings himself backwards while arching his back so that the first point of contact to hit the floor is his SKULL! Yes folks, I am raising a “challenged” child. Can you say, “short bus”? Anyway, the distance between the sides of his crib are just about the distance from his feet to his head. So, as he flings himself backwards in there, he cracks his skull on the opposite side. You may want to try this, for it must be fun. He didn’t do it once. He didn’t do it twice. No sir, he did it THREE TIMES!! Now he has three lovely bruised on the back of his cranium. I don’t ever need to abuse my child, cause he takes care of that himself.

Every month the San Diego Gas & Electric company people make their rounds to check all of our meters to charge us millions of dollars. And every month, as the SDG&E woman is about to enter the backyard to check our meter, she yells at the top of her lungs “SDG & E” as if to announce to the entire neighborhood exactly where she is. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. However, I never see her walking down the driveway, I just all of a sudden hear someone SCREAMING right outside whatever window I’m next to, and I about pee my pants. That is all for this post.