Scary

I'm a little afraid of cooking right now. Wednesday I was preparing to make one of those boxed potato things with the butter and the cheese packet, just add milk and boiling water. But when I added the boiling water? My Pyrex baking disk exploded. Literally. I was shellshocked. I've poured boiling water into a Pyrex measuring cup. I've poured boiling water into a Pyrex mixing bowl. I swear I've poured boiling water into that particular Pyrex baking dish before. And I know it hasn't exploded before. So. Mr. b was, of course, in the middle of putting together our new TV stand (that matches our new leather furniture) on the kitchen floor. Thankfully Kirk was in his highchair. We were sent away so that Mr. b could finish the project and clean up.

I did a bit of online research to find out if that's a common Pyrex reaction. I found one mention in an Amazon product comment and that's it. Most of the pages dealing with Pyrex and boiling water were instead about heating your glass dildo. Interesting.

So I've been a bit gun shy about cooking. Starting small. Last night's mac n cheese and kielbasa was without incident. Kirk ate it up yum. You can't give him meat first thing if you want him to eat anything else. He was happy with his cheesy noodles and peas until he saw the pieces of sausage that Daddy was cutting up for him. Then that's all he wanted. My sister was complaining of the very same behavior today. He's like his father; meat is dessert.

But at least I'm feeling safe alone in the house again. Two weekends ago I kept hearing unidentifiable noises when I'd be trying to fall back to sleep after giving Kirk a bottle in the middle of the night. Floor boards creaking, rattles, that kind of thing. Not the normal noises my house makes. And then the house on the corner got busted for drugs. Not surprising in the least. But the troubling part is that they had a guy staying with them. An unregistered level 3 sex offender. Lovely. So my brain went *there* and I immediately associated the sounds with rapists. Not condusive for sleeping at night. Especially when Mr. b was scheduled to be gone all last weekend, gigging and recording.

So now we have thick dowels in all the sliding windows. Yeah, it's not going to prevent, but it'll deter. And I've got a cordless phone on my bedside table. Previously, I felt cut off from the phone in the kitchen. I know if something did happen I'd probably go into mother bear mode and the fangs and claws would come out. I'm not a scaredy cat by nature. But I felt comfortable by myself last night when Mr. b slept at the cafe after his gig. So I guess that's all that really matters.

Problematic

There's a new factor in the ongoing trial of getting Kirk to go to bed. He stands up in his crib when he's crying. Which is both heartbreakingly adorable and annoying. Because now there's really no way he's going to calm down and "cry himself to sleep". I need to work on being a hardass. Last night I would let him cry for 5 minutes, hold him for 5 minutes, let him cry for 5 minutes. He eventually fell asleep in my arms about 10:30pm. But he really doesn't know how to fall asleep by himself. I just imagine this is going to be a bigger problem as he gets older and bigger and not in a crib anymore.

He's already pretty much too big for me to burp on my shoulder after a bottle. But I keep doing it anyway out of habit.

And he was sick of his walker to we gave that to my brother this weekend along with Kirk's exer-saucer. Oh and his unused boxes of "Gerber's cereal for baby". Maybe as long as two months ago Kirk stopped eating cereal. Any kind be it rice or oatmeal or mixed grain or whatever. Even when I made it with juice. He refused. So now he eats a handful of Cheerios for breakfast or maybe half a banana or something. Yeah, he likes real bananas. I don't get it. He's weird.

Boring Fang

I have to read White Fang for book club this Saturday. And I can't get through it. I just know that I've read it before, but I can't really remember the plot or action. So as I'm rereading, I keep instead remembering how I didn't really care for it. (Which is much different than the sense of deja vu I got when rereading Robinson Crusoe, not having remembered reading it in the first place.) I don't like the dialect that the humans are using. Jack London, you are no Mark Twain. And just because Data told you to go to Alaska, and Sam Clemens told you to write what you know, doesn't mean I have to like it. I guess I'll have to skim it so I can at least keep up with the conversation. Hopefully I'll be able to pay attention while skimming. I skimmed The Invisible Man for a book club gathering earlier this year because I ran out of time to reread it in its entirety. But I kept actually reading passages because I honestly liked that book! It's too bad though. I really enjoyed London's South Sea Tales. Maybe because I just prefer that subject matter? I really am a sucker for seafaring adventure and shipwrecks in any form or sub-genre.

Puzzling

Now that Kirk is big enough, I'm noticing that most of his shorts and pants have real, functioning pockets and real, functioning, zipper fly and snap or button. Why? He's a baby. He doesn't need a place for his wallet. Or even the leftover french fries from McDonalds that Mr. b apparently always had with him as a little kid. He's a baby. He wears a diaper. The actual usage of the fly is not necessary. I mean, it's all cute as hell! But I don't get it.

Speaking of clothes, I find myself missing some of my 'ternity wear. Not missing being pregnant! Just certain of the shirts and one skirt in particular I really quite liked. And I'm a little sad that they're no longer part of my wardrobe.

Walk the plank

Kirk’s upper left tooth is cutting through. We noticed the gum skin looking all jagged yesterday so hopefully it’ll hurry up and give the poor boy a break. Although now he’s going to look totally goofy since the right bottom tooth still hasn’t come in and the upper right is next.

We’ve come to the time of bathing-when-necessary. The instruction manuals all said babies don’t need more than one or two a week during their first year of life. Well, Kirk gets dirty now and twice a week just doesn’t cut it anymore. We’ve tried to switch off the Tuesday & Saturday schedule. I proposed Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday and Mr. b was more into Sunday-Wednesday-Friday. But it doesn’t matter because the boy was filthy on Saturday after crawling around in our friend’s backyard all afternoon. And I swear his knees are permanently dirty now.

It was so much fun watching Kirk playing on Saturday though. Our friend’s son turned 2 and there were lots of other kids just a bit older than Kirk that were there. Hilariously, all the boys kept congregating around the Playskool car with Flintstone’s style open floor. I guess they were talkin’ shop. We need to get Kirk a car!

Kirk wasn’t a bully to the other kids this time. Must be because they were all older than him (except for the not-quite-3-month-old, who mostly just laid on his blanket). And they were all walkers! Even the girl that was only 2 and a half months older. I keep wondering if that’s going to spur Kirk on. He noticeably improved his crawling abilities after my birthday party when the other babies had mastered that mobility technique. And now Kirk is constantly standing. He really isn’t happy just sitting and playing; he wants to be upright.

And he figured out how to open drawers.

Boys Will Be Boys

I'm finding the whole nature versus nurture thing fascinating anew as it unfolds before my very eyes. Kirk is such a boy. It's truly astounding. I mean, he's still got mainly unisex toys. But he gravitates towards the things with wheels/tires and that make lots of noise. His favorite way to play with his toys is to bang items together as loudly as possible. He frickin' loves rolling a ball on the ground. Oh and he is really into girls. Already. And I should say "women" because he adores college girls. He will check out our waitress anywhere we go to the point of ignoring his food. Particularly if she's blonde. Although I suspect that last detail is partly due to the fact that all his aunties are blondes.

Kirk has this steering wheel/dashboard toy that lights up and makes lots of noise. The horn beeps, the radio has different "stations", there's a noise for the shifter and for the turn signal. But it also has a little man in a race car on the top that shakes rapidly after a certain amount of activity. And it terrifies Kirk. Hilariously! But Mr. b, being a good Daddy, "fixed" it. He unscrewed the back and used his bomb disarming skillz to cut the wire to the shaking mechanism. So now it's totally Kirk's favorite toy. It didn't take him long to realize that the scary man on top was rendered immobile.

I think walking is just around the corner. Kirk is starting to free-stand balance for microseconds. He can pull himself up on literally anything. And he no longer likes his walker, despite his awesome wheelie abilities; it's too encumbering. He prefers his push-behind thing.

Dedicated Follower of Fashion

I don’t seem to be taking as many outfit-specific photos of Kirk anymore. I’m not sure what the change is. Maybe it’s because he gets stuff dirty sooner? Or because he’s not growing quite as fast so I see him in things for longer periods of time? Or since most of the gift items are done, the hand-me-downs aren’t that exciting? Whatever the reason, the last pic for fashion purposes was to showcase his Vans, given by Diablo and Jon. I even took a close up!



An anonymous commenter asked several weeks ago where we got all Kirk’s groovy duds. If said kind person is still reading, I can certainly answer that. First of all, there’s a lot of DIY gifts. The Enterprise sweater was knitted by a fellow TWoPper. An employee of Mr. b’s added cool iron-ons, like the Ghostbusters and Yoda, to plain white onesies. Another friend ironed on letters spelling out "Captain" and "Hobbit". Then there’s the standard gift store for rockin' babies, Hot Topic. But I highly suggest not paying for those rad designs yourself as they get spendy. For regular clothes I make a habit of checking Target’s clearance racks each and every time I set foot in the store. Just last night I picked up a plain green t-shirt for under 3 bucks. And don’t forget the internets! There are tons of kick-ass sites these days. I got the For Sale by Owner for Kirk (that’s a big hit). A friend got his son the Nixon shirt available here. I recently met a lady brazen enough to have gotten one of these for a friend. So, I hope that helps you in your quest to outfit your impending baby in cool threads. Congratulations and good luck!

"Kuch dar nahin hai"

I just finished reading The Peshawar Lancers, by S.M. Stirling. I really, really liked it. I mean, it wasn't quite as good as the very best Alt History I've ever read (The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson) and it wasn't quite as awesome as my very favorite Alt History of ever (Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle). But those are pretty lofty marks to reach and Peshawar came damn close on both accounts. I seriously loved it. The premise is that in the 1870s, during PM Disraeli's term in office, there was a series of comet/asteroid strikes in the northern hemisphere, causing tsunamis and nuclear winters. And all the collateral damage of rioting and chaos and starvation and cannibalism and destruction that would go along with such an event. Disraeli was foresighted enough to evacuate a large percentage of the British populace, most to India, some to South Africa and Australia. Queen Victoria went to India and so the captial of the British Empire became Delhi. The book then takes place in the early 21st century. Clearly there was a massively different political structure at play in the world, as well as science and technology. But that's the fun of alternate histories. You get to really see how things would come to be with just a small change here or there. And the plot centered around palace intrigue and political conspiracies, so it was just an all around great adventure. Taking place in India, with lots of Hindi tossed in, so of course I adored that.

I came to realize during the course of the book that Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel was kind of like the perfect reference material for writers of alt histories. Christie had loaned me that a couple of years ago and I never dreamed that it would come up so much. Heck, I overheard a couple of guys at work discussing it this week. But Diamond's precise research into just how much impact science and technology has on not just the country of origin is key to planning your future in an alternate timeline. It has to be believable. It has to be real. It has to be logical. You have to learn just as much as you would reading a proper [well-researched] historical novel. And I really appreciate that thoroughness when reading. Otherwise it's just a fantasy novel. Not that I don't love those, too! Especially the ones that come with maps. And appendices.

Some Firsts

For the very first time, Mr. b and I were home alone, without the boy, on Friday afternoon. My sister brought him up to our parent’s house earlier on Friday and we met them all up there for the rehearsal for her wedding on Saturday. It was both weird and familiar to be in the house without him. It was nice to have spontaneous sex again, but it was definitely a bit odd to see all his stuff and not have him crawling about.

Kirk had his first shared bath while at my parent’s house that night. My brother and his son were there and we decided that it would be fun to have the cousins bathe together. Kirk is very active in the bath these days, splashing and kicking and trying to climb out, so it was a pretty funny contrast with 5-months-younger Lukas just calmly sitting there.


Kirk finally cut his first tooth, lower front left, sometime on Monday. My MIL had said that it would look like a bit of cottage cheese was stuck on his gum and sure enough, that’s totally what it looked like. A bit smaller of a bit than what I was expecting but still. It’s really hard to get Kirk to open his mouth in such a way that it can be seen. So far no sign of its mate.

Tuesday night Kirk had his very first sleep over. My parents are staying at my sister’s apartment with A1 and A2 while she’s on her honeymoon so daycare is over there like normal. Mr. b had a big 666 gig and so we just left Kirk there for the night. Well, we stopped over after work and had dinner with everyone and fretted a bit about leaving Kirk and wondered how he would ever survive with “only” his Nana and Papa for a night, but we left him there. Ultimately, it was nice to come home exhausted after dancing and not have to tip toe, and to be able to sleep in a couple of hours in the morning. But I sure missed my little man.

Sleepless

Kirk won't go to bed! It's been a week now I guess. He just won't go to bed. He crabs and complains and even if he's showing all signs of tiredness, he will not go to bed. If we put him down, he'll scream and cry or sit up and play but not sleep. I have to hold him and rock him to sleep every night now. Mr. b took me out for my Golden Birthday on Wednesday (dinner and a movie--and pearls!) and Kirk was totally still up when we got home. As we knew he would be. I just don't know how he's going to be tonight up at Nana and Papa's house and dealing with the chaos of Auntie's wedding tomorrow and everything.

Ahoy Mateys

It's amazing to me just how quickly Kirk's movement abilities are changing. Friday he developed this goofy side crawl where he crawls using one knee and pushes with the other foot. It's very piraty. And he can go fast. But it's also worn a popped blister on his big toe.

Then Saturday was my birthday party and there were tons of kids. Kirk really wasn't interested in the smaller babies or the bigger boys and girls. And then his buddy Henry arrived. It was amazing how quickly Kirk paid attention. They haven't seen each other in several months but it was almost as though they remembered. And Henry knows how to crawl properly. Which Kirk definitely copied. He would take off across the yard for the decomposing stick I had already pulled out of his mouth. Now that he's on his own again, he's mostly back to his pirate crawl, but he'll do it right for short bits. We keep the gate up by the stairs at all times now.

But Kirk didn't get to play with Henry the whole time. He started being a total bully, just like when he was playing with Esther several weeks ago. Maybe it's because they're all so much closer in age? Kirk and Henry were hanging out on the blanket I had set out for all the babies, complete with toys. And Kirk would grab at Henry and try to bite his shoulder. It was hilarious! But then he did it again. And again. And again. Not so hilarious. So I had to take Kirk away. He went over to visit one of the doggies instead and got his entire head licked. Also hilarious.

It was so much fun having so many kids at my party. For several years now, whenever we'd all be together at a party or a barbeque or something, we'd talk about how soon enough we'll be having our kids running around while we're drinking and talking. And as a few of us began to reproduce, the family friendly party never materialized. I'm proud to have made the first for our group finally happen. Hopefully it won't be the last.

It was a little hard on Kirk though. All those people and kids were at his house. He didn't get to just go home and have quiet and calm. And it's taken him a while to recover. And he's being naughty, too. He's started screaming. Not just on occasion to see how loud he can get. That's been going on for a while. No, he's screaming to see if he gets a reaction. Or, as Mr. b would put it, he's fucking with us. Out to breakfast with our out-of-town guest yesterday morning was tough. None of the usual tricks--bottle, holding, toys, food--did any good to stop the screaming. I can ignore him at home but not out in public. I walked over to the deserted side of the joint to scold him. Not like it made any difference.

And after a truly shitty night's sleep last night, where Kirk was up multiple times and wouldn't stay asleep because he wanted to sleep in our bed or while being held in the recliner in his room, he's back to more screaming. Hopefully it's just a breakfast thing. Yeah right.

I'm Not Dead

Wow. It's been a while. Real life got turned to 11 and relief is still several weeks off. So, for the 6 of you that still check here, read at your own risk. It's going to be a rather disjointed attempt at some catch-up.

Georgia was fantastic. Kirk was a great little traveler. We always had someone sitting in the back seat with him so that he had entertainment when he wasn't sleeping. He ate several meals in the minivan, too. And occasionally, like while stuck in traffic in Chattanooga, we'd take him out of his seat to climb around in the back. My dad dutifully pretended that there wasn't an unbelted passenger on his watch. Driver's Ed teacher you know. But it worked out so nicely we plan to do the same thing in December and all drive to Texas for Xmas.

But Kirk did not sleep well the whole time we were gone. I think it was the unfamiliar surroundings. You can only handle so much weirdness at once, and if you're road weary on top of it, well, that's not a good combination. He did better while we were staying at my cousin's house since that was a few days in the same spot. And there was a kitty. She was the best kitten ever. We all wanted to bring her home.

We'd take turns keeping Kirk in bed with us when he wasn't sleeping in his pack n' play in the hotels. I guess the two beds thing comes in handy after all! I had a hard time getting any decent sleep with him laying next to me. So I was pretty wrecked by the time we got home and had to take an extra day off work to recover. (Kirk went to Auntie Daycare that day so I could actually rest.) Then it turned out the episode of House I had recorded while we were gone featured a newborn getting smothered by his mom and dying from complications. Mr. b and I had a hard time with that one.

Thankfully, we're all in good health. Well, Kirk is on antibiotics again. We took him in on Monday because he had been batting his ear all weekend. That's one of his tired tics so it was hard to know if we were being alarmist or not. Turned out, once again, no ear infection. But he has some sort of not-quite-strep throat infection. Apparently his tonsils were disgusting, one worse than the other, and white spots. All pretty classic strep signs, right? But the strep test was negative. The doctor decided to put him on Amoxicillin anyway since it was obviously something.

It's way harder getting Kirk to take his medicine than when he had the nose infection. This time the dispenser is one of those hollow tube spoon things, and not a dropper. He no likey.

He's also continuing his campaign for skipping crawling. Though he inches closer to actual proper crawling as he's doing it. He'll take a couple of crawl steps and then sit. Or roll. Or go up to his feet and gorilla walk. He actually gets around quite well with his series of goofy-ass moves. Especially when you include pulling himself up on furniture and walking along the edge. The Squirrel is not amused. This means she is no longer safe just because she's up high.

Weightless

I’ve started counting calories. I figure I can Weight Watchers myself for free if I just do it. I’m not trying to actually cut calories right now, just get a feel for what my average intake is. But since I only started last Monday, I don’t really have enough data yet. And I’m also leaving on a road trip this afternoon so there’ll be a gap in the information. I’m not being hard on myself about perfect record keeping. I’ve decided that even if I don’t have calorie info, as long as I keep the food diary aspect of it going, that’s good enough.

I did the math and found out just what I need to loose. I gained 22 pounds during the pregnancy. Then, while breastfeeding and not paying any attention at all to what I ingested, I managed to gain back the weight of the baby, placenta, and water, as well as an additional 4 pounds. No fair! You’re supposed to loose weight while nursing!

I was aiming to have half of the baby/nursing weight gone by my cousin’s wedding on Saturday. I’ve lost 12 pounds so I’m very close. But I doubt I’ll hit it exactly, what with no exercise and gas station food. But still, I think I’m doing well. Once the baby weight is off I need to keep going though. According to my BMI, I was 5 pounds over my max weight to begin with.

I can tell a difference with some of my clothes. I’m back to wearing my pre-preggo belts finally. The first pair of back-to-works pants I bought need to have belt loops added because I need to wear a belt with them now. But it’s hard to know if I actually went down a size or not because women’s clothing sizing is so retarded and varies from store to store, from brand to brand, from item to item. Pants shopping is the bane of all of our existences!

I just need to keep up as much activity as I can manage to fit in a busy working mom’s schedule. I take the stairs at work. I go for a walk in the afternoon around our campus. I try to do at least one 10 minute pilates routine at night. Every little bit helps!

Let's Get Physical

Kirk's mobile now. I wouldn't say that he's crawling, exactly. But he's definitely mobile. He's got this whole system of not entirely fluid movements, from sitting to climbing to rolling to crawling-esque that get him all about on the floor. So he's not going to disappear from sight, like when he's in his walker, but he definitely can get around. Especially on the hardwood floors. There he doesn't even have to stay up in proper crawling position. He can just pull himself along on his belly using only his arms.

So now I'm fully and completely aware of how dirty the floors are at any given moment. And it's not like we're particularly slobby or have a whole menagerie or anything. But one little kitty does shed and hardwood does tend to collect dust bunnies. I'm going out of my head! I'm constantly looking at a new spot of crumbs or whatever and wondering, "Didn't I just clean that?" It's ridiculous. I'm going to turn into my father. He's totally obsessed with clean floors. One poor year we did all our gift shopping at the dollar store and got him a mini dust pan and mini hand broom. He still has it! It's like the best present he ever got.

Good Luck Charm

I find it interesting the different levels of freaked-outedness that other parents of young babies show regarding what their baby puts in his mouth. Mr. b and I are very lax. Kirk was out in the yard last night while Mr. b was putting up gutters. (Murphy’s Law states that the day you buy said gutters, because you don’t have any on the house at all, it will then rain non-stop for 3 days so you can’t put them up.) He was eating grass and dandelions and clovers the whole time. He thought it was great! He had spit-covered clovers glued all over his head and neck! I wasn’t at all concerned. Why should I be? Those are all edible plants and we never did put weed n’ feed down on the lawn so it’s chemical free. Of course when I took him inside for a pants change I found he was sucking on a rock. Oops!

Contrast with my brother and his wife. They were washing their son’s hands after their own dog licked him. Because they didn’t want him putting dog saliva in his mouth. The dog was all o’er Kirk, licking his hands, face, whatever. Kirk loved it!

Don’t leave me!

I think Kirk might be going into the dreaded Separation Anxiety phase. I don’t know. I haven’t been keeping up on the reading in his instruction manual so I’m not sure what to be expecting this chapter. But he’s definitely freaking out when I leave him behind to go into another room. Yesterday morning I had to bring him into the bedroom with me while I was getting ready for work. He wouldn’t just play toys by himself in the living room like normal. And he’s been crying when I put him into his car seat and then shut his door and go around to the driver’s side. And bed time! Sheesh. He’s been getting worse and worse there. Last night he fell asleep just fine. But woke up 2 hours later at 10:00pm and wouldn’t go back to sleep. I tried. Then Mr. b gave him a bottle. Then I tried again. As soon as you’d leave his room he’d start crying. I finally gave up and brought him into bed after an hour of that crap. “Just let them cry themselves to sleep” isn’t an option. He wails and then pauses to catch his breath or play with a crib toy and then starts up again. He gets himself too worked up to fall asleep on his own. So I transferred him back to his crib at about Midnight but even then he woke up just enough to fuss a bit about it.

Mr. b says he’s fucking with us. I don’t know. It’s weird though. And makes me worried about our upcoming road trip to Georgia. I had assumed he’d be fine since we’re renting a van and driving down there with my folks. So there will always be someone in the back to hang out with him. We’ll see.

Then again, Mr. b just claimed that Kirk is “broken” because he hasn’t started crawling. He’s totally spending all his R&D on standing and walking. His balance is still crap but he’s beginning to haul himself up by climbing up Mommy and he will walk along the edge of furniture if you stand him up there. And he does wheelies in his walker by picking up the entire frickin’ thing while he’s running around in it!

I guess I WAS made for these times.

I am just not cut out to be a single mom or a stay at home mom. I can’t handle it. I need a break. Not a long one. And I don’t even need to get away. I just need to have someone else be in charge of the boy for a while. This weekend was hard on me. Mr. b was in the recording studio all day Saturday and all day Sunday. Sure he was home Sunday morning, but by the end of the night, the effect of his assistance had waned. It’s especially hard for me in the evening. I need time to wind down on my own. I need to make food for my own damn self. I’ve already spent all day playing and going for walks and feeding and caring and naps and diaper changes and bottles and everything and I need a break.

Of course it didn’t help that Kirk was out of sorts much of the weekend, starting Friday. My sister reported that he had been quite crabby that day and sure enough, he was quite crabby for us at home. No matter, he went to bed before my dad even got there to watch him while I was at Mr. b’s gig. But before I left to see Mercurial Rage play, Kirk woke up. My dad was naturally excited to get to see his grandson even though he was being naughty by being up past his bedtime, after having gone to bed already. When I got home from the gig I found out that Crankenstein had stayed up crabbing and crying until 11pm. Teeth? Insomnia? Fucking with Grandpa? Who knows. But my dad finally got to see what a bad bedtime is like. We had previously just smiled and nodded when he would remark that Kirk never fusses up a storm. He finally got to experience the little guy’s not so little temper. Which he gets from the paternal line. Definitely.

But it’s not to say that Kirk was a pain in my ass all weekend. He was adorable at book club on Saturday. And he was alternately a cute bully and a sweetheart while playing with la’s adorable daughter on Sunday. But I’m still just exhausted. I’m burnt out from being the sole caregiver. My hat’s off to all those parents that stay home all day every day. And to those that don’t have someone else to give them a hand. I couldn’t do it.

Bus Stop Baby

I’m 0 for 2 for normal mornings this week. Kirk had his first ride on the city bus.

Whenever Mr. b meets me at work on his bike, it’s my key in the car ignition as I’m the one that unparks it. I’ll grab my key back from him when we walk in to my sister’s place to pick up the boy and that’s that. But yesterday afternoon we had to go out to the government center where she was picking up her marriage license. So everything was weird and I never got my key back.

This morning Mr. b called me at about 6:30am to say that he had my car key still. Hooboy. Before we had a kid that wouldn’t be an issue. But now? So I started brainstorming. What time does Shogunmoon go to work? Would he be a willing courier for us? Maybe I could take the bus with the boy to Mr. b’s café and then bus back home with the key and then drive back to the café to fetch the boy. Or we could just wait until the next person comes on shift and hope they’re not such a moron that Mr. b couldn’t just leave them behind the counter for an hour while he rides back home and then we drop him off. But Mr. b’s idea was better. So I took the bus to work with Kirk and my sister picked him up here after A1 got on her school bus.

My sister was worried that the bus wouldn’t be safe for a baby. Feh. There’re kids on there all the time. Kirk really liked the bus. There was lots of good people watching! He didn’t even fall asleep until we were on the south side of downtown and there were far fewer riders to distract him. And then he was the star in the office! He got passed around from adoring lady to adoring lady and cooed at and just generally treated like a total rock star.

Thursday is slated to be weird again because my sister has a doctor’s appointment that morning. I’m still not sure what our Plan B will be. Hopefully tomorrow and Friday will be normal at least!

Scary

I’ve seen some freaky ass shit on the highways around town, from burning cars to 480˚ spinouts to my (not a cop) dad directing traffic on an icy on-ramp. But I’m just now coming down from the adrenaline high of the supreme weirdness I saw on my way to drop Kirk off at my sister’s house this morning. I was driving west on Highway 7, between Louisiana and Texas. There’s that slight hill before you get to the Texas light. I was almost at the crest of the hill when suddenly, a red SUV started coming over the 5 foot tall concrete barrier separating oncoming traffic! What the fuck?!? I swerved, and thankfully there was no one in the right lane or I would have hit someone. I was just tripping out. How do you drive up a vertical barrier? My brain just can’t wrap around the Newtonian physics of such a sight. Waiting to turn left at the next light, I could see traffic piling up in my rear-view. I heard the sirens on the way as I pulled Kirk out of the car in my sister’s parking lot.

I thought maybe the SUV got rear-ended in order to have enough force to get up the barrier. My sister’s theory is that the SUV could have ridden on top of a smaller vehicle for that lift. When I called Mr. b he figured that the small amount of slanted footing at the base of the barrier would be enough for a vehicle to ride up to the top. I’m sure I’ll never really know. Normally you can only see the tops of cars on the other side of it. Not their front wheels coming at you. But if there hadn’t been the wall? I would have been hit front-on. At high speeds.

So I just sat at my sister’s house for 20 minutes or so before taking an alternate route to work. I needed to hug and kiss Kirk. Cuddle him. Calm myself down from the adrenaline shakes. I felt bad because I was threatening to change his name to Cranky Mr. Crabby Pants this morning. I love him so much.

Cowboy Diplomacy