Angry Baby

I thought the vomiting had ended. It had been about nine days since the last unfortunate episode. However, Wednesday morning I was brushing my teeth, and as I went to spit out my toothpaste, I got more than I was expecting. Owen was right outside the bathroom. He walked to the doorway and asked suspiciously, "What are you doing, Mommy?" I told him I was sick, and he declared, "I'm going to shut the door, so I won't be scared." When I came out out he asked if I was still sick. I explained that I was fine, but that sometimes when mommies have babies in their bellies, it makes them throw up. His next question was the kicker..."Is the baby still angry?" This led to discussion of the fact that the baby isn't angry with me, it's just the way God made pregnancy. Thus Owen's next associative declaration..."God is in my belly." I know this sounds strange, but lately he asked where Jesus lives and my answer was "our hearts." He knows that the baby is in Mommy's "belly." Bellies and hearts aren't very far apart, so you can see how this might confuse a two-year old. Big questions for such an early age. We'll be discussing politics next month.

Television

Owen loves watching television. As his mother, I'm doing my best to keep this under control. I'm one of those moms who is super grateful that he will indeed sit down and watch something when I'm desperate for half an hour to get something done, but try very hard to limit this obsession. So we have an arrangement...one tv show in the morning, one after nap (God bless the people who invented tivo). Which leads to my story. Saturday morning Owen awoke early, ate breakfast, and watched Thomas the Tank Engine. Will got up soon thereafter, so I took the opportunity to go upstairs and shower. As I was walking around upstairs, getting ready to go shopping, I heard Will and Owen discussing watching tv, so I called down to remind Owen that he had already watched his morning program. He then said, "Hey Daddy, how 'bout when Mommy goes shopping, we can watch a tivo show. That's a good idea." Hilarious. I don't think he was trying to be deceptive. It's not like he tried to whisper it. But he's learning to work the system. Of course, when I got home, he immediately said with a big smile, "Mommy, I watched Bob the Builder!"

Work on the House

We're having a little work done at our house. Nothing huge, just a couple of ceilings being replaced. Apparently the former homeowners thought that if you have a giant hole in your plaster ceiling, the best way to repair that is to throw quarter-inch plywood over the whole shebang and roll it down with some textured paint. Seriously. The comment from one of the workers was, "I've been doing this for a long time, and I've never seen anything like this." I'd love to have a chat with the do-it-yourselfers who used to live here. Find out if they were doing drugs at the time. But anyways...Owen loves having people working in the house. He would sit and watch them for hours if we let him (and probably run and get his "tools" to help). Today after we arrived home from the grocery store, I ran upstairs to put some clothes in the wash. I came back downstairs to discover that Owen had gone out on the deck where the guys were eating lunch. They had given him a cookie. He was happily showing them his Thomas book. He looked at me and said, "Mom, why don't you go back inside." This brought hardy laughter from the workers. One declared, "He wants to hang out with the guys, Mom." My son cracks me up.

She-she poo-poo

One of my best friends uses the above phrase occasionally. Being able to understand context clues, I have come to interpret her use of it to mean what us country folks might call high falutin'. So for some reason, I was thinking about this tonight and wondered, who originated this phrase? I assume my friend didn't make it up all by herself (though her family does have a history of making up words ;-) To the internet I ran. Isn't it amazing what you can learn on the internet?! And so I found a website started by a Ms. Taylor Sparks, which contained this heading: "What is She-She/Poo-Poo Time™ ? She-She, is for women, grown women, only. Poo-Poo, is all about Rest, Relaxation and Replenishment." You might note that she has trademarked this phrase. Amazing. I also noticed that many of the uses of the phrase on blogs and other websites seemed to use it the same way my friend does. So how did that happen? Apparently she didn't intend it to have this definition. However, I couldn't find an actual definition anywhere else. Not even urbandictionary.com. Do any of you have any information about this phrase? You might be thinking that I have way too much time on my hands, but cut me some slack. I was an English major. Stuff like this fascinates me.

My Awesome Husband

For the past month or so I've been the worst housekeeper ever. The nausea has left me wanting to do absolutely nothing, so I considered it an accomplishment to plan meals, go to the grocery store, and do the laundry--all while keeping Owen alive. Everything else was left to the dust mites. My sweet husband has not complained once. You may think to yourself, of course he shouldn't complain. But this is a man who works ridiculous hours. Who also has to work on research projects and personal statements and attend crazy conferences where he has to participate in a super-nerdy form of Jeopardy. The pinnacle of my appreciation for him came yesterday though. I realized that at some point he had scrubbed both of the toilets in the house. I made a point to tell him how much I appreciated that, and he told me that he was worried I would become nauseous and have the situation made worse by bad smells from the toilet. Maybe some of you are reading that and thinking, "gross," but my heart was warmed.

Cards

My family visited this past weekend. Unfortunately, I'm terrible about taking pictures, so there are no photos to post with this entry. However, we had a great time. Owen was in heaven. He loves when we have visitors. He particularly likes suckering anyone and everyone into constantly building garages with him. The sweetest line came at the end though. He looked at me and said, "Mommy, they're trying to leave me, and I want them to stay." Nearly choked up this weepy pregnant lady.

I must say the highlight for me though was the many rounds of cards. We taught my little sis Kellie to play Crap and Spades. Very fun, even though she consistently beat us at Crap. I can't tell you how many fond memories I have of sitting around a table playing cards with my family. A summer Sunday afternoon, after eating lunch together and swimming in the pool. Vacations at the beach in the dead of winter (you can only swim in the indoor pool for so long). Random, lazy evenings. One memory stands out the most in my mind. My parents took my best friend and I to the movies. I pitched a fit about something. I was far too old for such behavior, and I'm sure I was acting like a total brat. My dad yelled at me. For those of you who don't know, my dad is NOT a shouter. For all I know, I may have even warped this memory a little. He probably just used a really firm voice. Either way, I decided to sulk. As soon as we got home I stormed off to my room (best friend in tow) and shut my door. It wasn't long before my soft-hearted dad was knocking at the door. All he said was, "You wanna play some cards?" And that was all it took. I couldn't be mad at him. I'm sure I subconsciously knew I deserved whatever he said. And there was no way I was going to turn down the chance to play Spades. So take note. If we're ever together and I'm sulking, just get out a deck of cards.

Poop

It's amazing how much poop you can tolerate as a parent. Poop on your hands, poop on shoes, poop anywhere and everywhere. Tonight we went out for a little dinner, Italian ice, and time at the very cool church playground. It was while on this very cool playground equipment that Owen declared, "I pooped." At the time, I was paused at the top of a slide, encouraging him to follow me down. He had already pooped today (and is usually a one poop a day kind of guy), so I assumed that he really meant that he pooted. So I calmly explained, "It's okay to poot on the slide." So he follows me down, gleeful all the way. We both climb back up the steps, and I encourage him to race me down the parallel slides, to which to replies, "I pooped again." This time I decide to actually take a peek down the back of the diaper, and lo and behold, there is some poop in there. Unfortunately, I didn't take the time to think my next action through. I encouraged him to go down the slide. Bad, bad idea. Poop no longer contained in the diaper. Or in the shorts even. Poop now dripping onto the shoes. Poop on the mulch. Gotta love it.