Climber Monkey

With the standing and the occasional toddling has come, out of nowhere, an enormous impetus to climb stuff. We have more than once found him standing atop his new little-people chair, or even dancing on the little-people table. Because we have all these pillows on the floor all the time from Dad's floor-sleeping adventures, however, his climbing obsession has focused on the couch, easily mountable if one first stands on the pillows. Today he figured out that he could climb onto the back of the couch by himself also (after he took his pants off by himself while I wasn't looking), leading to a hi-larious photo shoot of baby antics. Now, before you judge, please keep in mind that I am easily within reach of him at all times, that the couch and floor are heavily padded with excess pillows, and that he also knows how to get down, all the way to the floor, without any help. That said, enjoy my baby's sheer climbing joy:
Aaaaaaaaaand UP we go:



"Must...stand...at all times...even on the precarious back of the couch..."



"I just flip this thing to let all the rain in, right?"



Happy screamer monkey:



Why does he want to lick the window? The world may never know:



Watching the hail outside; putting on a good show for the neighbors

Early signs of a potential career path

On his path to permanent and elected bipedalism, Isaac has taken the past two days to focus all of his baby-energy on standing. Wherever he is, whatever he is doing, he wants to be standing:


All. The. Time. For the past month he has been perfecting his stand, and now not only can he stand as long as he likes without falling over, he can even get himself into a standing position with no external support. Usually this happens quite gracefully, but when he tries to get a crawling start at it one ends up with what we have termed the "Bambi crawl" -- legs and arms straight and all touching the ground at the same time, and very cute and bumbling. Despite the fact that he is the fastest crawler in the West, crawling is suddenly becoming sooooo last month.

When he first acquired his standing proficiency, you could see two prevailing emotions, in rapid succession: 1st) "Yay! Look how hard I rock!" 2nd -- five seconds later) "Ummm...I'm up here. Grreat. Now what?" Since he has not yet perfected the bitty-guy shuffle and will only take a few steps at a time after MUCH encouragement (though this is quickly improving), he needed to find something to occupy himself while he was wayyy up there. And he did.

Weightlifting.

He's totally Seattle-ized now

Over the weekend we got Isaac fleece vest from REI, perfect for this not-too-cold not-too-warm weather of ours:

How cute is that?

Posting schedule

I've been slacking off on posting lately because I am finally trying to set a date for my thesis defense -- it will be sometime in late July, probably the 20th. I am also trying to write a paper to publish some of my results, taking care of my darling child half the day, and planning a cross-country move. On top of all this, I have realized that my days are really starting to suck if I don't go to bed at 9, simply because Isaac refuses to sleep past 5 most days. I enjoy writing this blog and sharing what our little star is up to with family and friends, but I think I will be posting less frequently until I finish my dissertation. It really breaks my heart to admit it, but it has become really difficult to do everything I have to do for work, have the time and mental energy to be all there for Isaac, and still have a little something left for poor neglected Dad -- the only way Dad gets a piece of the pie at all is if I cut out with some of the blogging. I apologize, and hope everybody is cool with once or twice a week.

More "what's he doing now?"

Inspired by checking Erin's blog just now...

* Last week Isaac figured out how to make little "motorboat"-style noises with his fingers and his lips -- saying "eeeeeee" and then flipping his lips with his fingers. Oh my, it is tooooooooo funny. No idea whatsoever where he got this, but I am lovin' it.

* He is a frequent clapper, especially if he's clapping along with somebody. He likes clapping along with me, but his favorite person to clap along with is the Go Baby baby. This Go Baby show has a theme song that is comprised of somebody whistling with a few well-timed claps. When the show is on and he hears the song, he starts clapping, but eventually tries to clap when he is "supposed" to. Also cute -- if Dad or I whistle the theme song outside of the show, he starts clapping.

* As of today, he can stand alone, in the middle of nowhere, for at least a minute. We had Mindy and Clayton and Clayton's Dad over for pizza tonight, and Isaac was eating his pizza standing up holding on to nothing. No more independent steps just yet, but it can't be too long now.

Let the birthday madness begin

Dad and I are hopeless early birthday freaks. We are completely incapable of waiting until it is actually the other person's birthday to give him or her his or her birthday present. This year I got lucky because Dad didn't actually get a chance to even shop for my present until the day of, but I was also cautioning him that we need to be better for Isaac's sake. I mean, what's the fun of having a birthday when you're a kid if you don't get heaps of attention (read: presents) piled upon you on that one day, your very own special day?

Well, he doesn't know any better yet, and it's not like it's super-easy to shop without him, so you'll have to cut us some slack this year. After tossing around lots of ideas, we in the end decided on a very specific "main" present, to be lavishly decorated of course with satellite presents. Our destination for high-quality birthday fun? Why, IKEA, of course. We see and hear all the time how much he adores sitting at the wee little munchkin table they have set up for the kids at his school -- he eats there, plays there, and as of late also fingerpaints there. Now he has his very own:


Here he is, seated (which he did by himself) at his table, playing with his bead-racer thing, stuffed lamb, and stuffed rat (yes, rat -- all also from IKEA). The table is actually sized for toddlers, but our Dad is terribly handy and sawed 4 inches off the legs of the table and chair. It also comes with another chair, but since there's only one Isaac and due to the sawing bit, we thought it might be wise to save that chair for a rainy day. Or a growth-spurty kind of day.

And because it is impossible to walk through the IKEA Jr. section without diarrhea of the wallet, I let Dad get another birthday present of sorts for Isaac -- fancy new decorations to create a super-cool jungle in his room:


Dad had been lusting over those enormous leaves since Isaac was a womb-dweller, and I finally let him buy two. We also got the snake from IKEA, but Dad splurged on a singing woodpecker (hanging from the right leaf) at the hardware store when he went to get the massive trusses required to create this fancy canopy, and there is also a koala bear shimmying up the stems -- I won him in a drawing at Babies R Us when I was 3 or 4 months pregnant, and now he has a home. Isaac adores his new room decorations, pointing at them and saying "tee!" (for tree, of course) whenever we go in there.

Rain? What rain?

Isaac and I have been ferociously enjoying the unseasonably warm and dry climate Seattle seems to have magically acquired. Never mind that we will be "rationing water" this summer -- whatever THAT means -- we are loving every minute of it, and taking all available opportunities to play outside. Last year when it was nice outside Isaac was immobile, so it is ten times more fun for us to go outside now and grab fistfulls of grass:


...or look at the sky wondering what weather-god is smiling on us and keeping the rain away...


...or playing in the big-kid tube until we discover it is full of wood chips that stick our precious fat little hands (yeah, good one, Mom):

Last week's update

New things he's doing now:

*Making motorboat-style noises with his lips by raking them with his fingers. Highly entertaining
*Saying "mama", mostly as a weapon to delay my departure from his school in the mornings
*Saying occasionally "tree" (="tee") and "yogurt" (="ho-guh")
*Finger-painting at school
And ......... drumroll please...........
Yesterday he took two steps. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. From a sitting position in the middle of nowhere, he stood right up, wobbled a little like a surfer, and took two steps to get to a chair. I had two witnesses, as Mindy and Clayton were over for a playdate. I must admit that I got all misty. I thought I was seeing something really special. Until Dad came home and told me Isaac did the same for him a few days ago.

I don't know if you can call it "walking" yet, since he doesn't seem interested in repeating this effort very often, but we are clearly marching towards our goal of walking to meet the grandparents at the airport in two weeks. And speaking of, we are going to have quite the crowd here for Isaac's first birthday -- Grandma & Grandpa O'Neal bought their tickets to fly out two weeks from today to see us. What do you say we make all these grandma and grandpas into scullery maids while they're here?

Help ... Long-sleeved Gerber T-shirts

At Babies R Us a month ago we found the world's most perfect article of baby clothing -- the Gerber long-sleeved baby t-shirt. They come in packs of three, are accurately sized (as in, if you buy the shirt corresponding to Isaac's poundage it fits, even after it shrinks), are light-weight, soft, comfortable, and affordable ($8/3-pk). Yet now I can find them nowhere, only these dumb side-snapping numbers. Snaps are SO last year. Anybody seen them anywhere? His are covered with unrescueable spaghetti-sauce stains.

What to feed your baby with five teeth

I haven't blogged this past week because after all our efforts to sleep-train Isaac, he performed his wake-up for 2 hours schtick AGAIN almost every night. This was an enormous source of frustration for us, obviously, until I happened to spot yesterday that he has sprouted his fifth tooth. This one is a right secondary upper incisor, making 3 top teeth now. Now that he has several of these teeth, he really likes to give them a workout. None of that sissy food for him anymore:


I tried to cut up little bits of ripe plum for him, as the book says, but he would only pick them up and spit them back out, continually reaching for the whole plum, which I was eating. So I gave it to him, and he just tore it up.

Happy belated birthday to me

In addition to my romantic evening last Saturday and spa day on Sunday, Dad and Isaac really hooked me up on my actual birthday, which was this past Wednesday. Observe:


We have here a carrot cake from Whole Foods, a dozen roses, and four pairs of super-cute earrings. We also have a card from Dad with mushy stuff written in it and a card from buddy, signed with his thumbprint. I got lots of cards and well-wishes all this past week from family and friends -- thanks, everybody! It made turning "this side of 30" pretty fun.

Rawkin' the 'Hawk

Happy 11 months, my special guy. Sheesh. Only one more month to go till the big f-i-r-s-t birthday. Where does the time go? Does it goes so fast because I have the cutest and sweetest baby in the history of the planet? Or maybe even the universe?

I think one of my favorite things about him is his hair. It is so incredibly soft, and has a lingering, subtle, eau de Johnson's Baby air about it. It is also funny looking because he has a pronounced baby mullet. Despite his advanced age, he has little up top and so much in the back that it curls. We talk about cutting it all the time, especially when it falls over his ears on the sides because it's so long -- this mullet is so out of control that it may be sucking IQ points from him in his sleep. Regardless of his hair fashion sense, I think about his little blond locks (like mine!) all the time. When he was having his sleep issues and wouldn't sleep without me every night, I used to stroke his precious little head to bring his snooze on, and when he would fall asleep I would bury my nose in his hair and allow my heart to quietly break. When he's awake and we're hanging out, I'll absent-mindedly finger the back of his neck and play with his mullet-curls. Alicia told me once that he woke up from a nap at day care and was really fussy, no matter what she did, until she started playing with his hair in the back and then he collapsed on her and cooed contentedly. Much to Dad's dismay, I also enjoy styling his hair when wet into adorable and embarrassing coifs. My specialty? The mohawk:


At 11 months, he possesses four teeth, two top and two bottom -- a neighboring top tooth poked through about a week ago and I didn't notice because it snuck through in the front and not straight down through the middle of his top gums. He says "Dada" and "Kitty" not every time, but definitely with regularity, and there are unconfirmed reports as of this morning that he is trying to say "Banana". He now pets the cat gently and frequently, and I have caught him, as we do, lovingly fingering the cat's ear as they both stare out the window. He loves doing anything outside, and with the improving weather we are making outside time a new part of our repertoire. He can stand by himself for 10 seconds at a time, and has very, very occasionally made a move to step, but by and large seems to ignore the possibility of walking. Why walk when you are the fastest crawler ever? As detailed in previous posts, he is also working on falling asleep on his own and staying asleep through the night. Our goal, though, is to have him walking by the time Grandma & Grandpa Ross get here for his birthday, and Dad has a practice regimen and special orthopedic baby torture shoes, courtesy of Grandma Ross, to help us accomplish this goal.

O'Neal Family Date Night

As joyously anticipated by an earlier post, last night was the first time in Isaac's life where he was left under the supervision of a non-relative. Certain reports have it that Alicia is his favorite teacher at school, and she readily agreed to babysit him while Dad and I went out to dinner to celebrate my birthday/Dad's new job. I really don't think we could have had it any better -- at no time was there even the temptation for me to call home and check up on my special guy, since Alicia looks after him almost as much as we do. However, because I am a new mom and entitled to my freak-outs, I did prepare all of Isaac's dinner beforehand and had it ready in labeled containers for Alicia to nuke, and I also wrote out two pages of notes for her, including a suggested itinerary. I kept asking her if I was leaving anything out, and she basically kicked us out of the house and told me to quit obsessing.

Dad and I left the house giddy. All day long I had been fantasizing about this grown-up world of 'cocktails' and 'coffee with dessert', and here it was, ready to come true! We went to this fancy place where we have had a standing Valentine's Day date for the past few years, so I suppose you could also add "belated V-Day" to the list of things to celebrate. This place is on a marina on Lake Washington, and because it was the most gorgeous day ever, we had a stunning, full-on view of Mt. Rainier from first the bar and then our table. I had wine, red wine (though I held myself at one glass for the sake of the boobie juice)! From their private label! Dad had microbrews from the tap! We chatted with the bartender about Husky basketball and Dad's obsession with raw oysters, a half-dozen of which he consumed right in front of us! Then we were seated at our table and served dinner, which consisted of the juiciest, most delicious hunk of USDA Prime red meat for Dad, and an enormous salmon fillet on a bed of Dungeness crab-filled ravioli for me. Regardless of whether there was actually room for it, of course we were having dessert. And coffee with that dessert to make my fantasy complete. This place is kind of neat with their coffee; it is exceptionally tasty, but what makes it great is that they serve it with its own gourmet condiment bar -- a ramekin of neutron-star-dense whipped cream, cream of the non-whipped variety, brown sugar packed into a ramekin, and an assortment of quality packaged sugars, a la Sugar in the Raw. May I suggest, if you have the opportunity, to take your coffee with whipped cream? It floats for a bit, like grown-up hot chocolate with marshmallows. Also something I have learned from this restaurant: a terribly underrated dessert at high-class establishments = ice cream. Everybody always goes for the cheesecake, and they are missing out. This particular restaurant imports its ice cream from a small artisan ice-cream-craftery that makes their product 3 gallons at a time, and the restaurant only ever has one flavor. This time it was bordeaux cherry chocolate, conveniently served in a hot-fudge-coated bowl (with two chocolate sticks for melting in one's coffee). You would think that there *are* words to describe how fabulous it was to eat a real dinner with just my husband since I've just written a paragraph about it, but really there aren't.

We got home to find an ecstatic Isaac (changed into PJs!) showing Alicia his upstairs domain. He and Alicia went for a long luxurious walk shortly after we left, went swinging, ate a bunch of dinner, and then wrestled around for a bit until he greeted us at the top of the stairs. We were gone for a little less than three hours, which is the *perfect* amount of time to be away from one's baby -- long enough that it feels luxurious, but not so long such that there is much opportunity to miss him. We already asked Alicia if she would hook us up again next month. Where should we go next time?

Operation "Bloody Murder": Days Four & Five

A little catching-up to do, and alas I have been lax with taking detailed and scientific notes about the CIO process, mainly because it has been working so well.

Friday night: From what I can remember, putting Isaac to bed was similar to Day Three -- 15 or 20 minutes of arguing about being in his crib, despite his obvious exhaustion, but he gave way. I vaguely remember Dad getting up to deal with Isaac at 11 or 12, but as for myself, I was half-conscious. The recap from Dad was that Isaac was screaming half-heartedly at that time and not even standing up. A few pats on the butt from Dad and Isaac was off to dreamland until his usual 5:00 wake-up time.

Saturday night: This was O'Neal family date night (more on that later), where Dad and I hit the town and Isaac spent the evening all alone with his best girl Alicia. We got home shortly before 7, the official bedtime, and Alicia was chasing a super-flirty giggle-monster Isaac all around the upstairs. She musta wore him out while we were gone -- I gave him his boobie nightcap, during which his sweet little eyelids kept getting droopier and droopier. But in our new sleep-training world, there is no nighttime falling asleep at the boob, so I detached him, turned off the lights, swayed with him around the room while we said his prayers, and then put him in the crib and wished him goodnight. There were two cries (not two minutes of crying, no, just two cries), and he was out. AND HE SLEPT TILL 4:15 WITHOUT WAKING UP and I couldn't believe it it was so wonderful. That's 9 straight hours there, people.

I hope it's not too early to say, but I am pleased beyond words at how this whole "tough love" approach has turned out. I must admit that I had been skeptical of this kind of sleep-training, and I will even say that I was really not ready for it until now. I remember following other moms on the April 2004 Playgroup bulletin board and hearing them talking about "Ferberizing" a baby as if it was akin to selling him for crack. [For the unindoctrinated, this term comes from some dude named Dr. Ferber who is a pediatrician and a sleep researcher and suggested this whole 5 then 10 then 15 minute kind of approach that we have been loosely following]Hearing this method so defamed by the moms on this bulletin board, and following my initial instincts, where I was flatly horrified at the thought of "letting" my baby cry for extended periods, both Dad and I agreed that we would never do that. Turns out "never" becomes "until he approaches his 11th month and is still waking at least every 3 hours and usually wanting to stay up for a two-hour-period at night and won't fall back asleep unless Mom kicks Dad out of bed to make room for the baby." Despite the obvious rewards that we are reaping now, I think it's good that we waited this long to sleep-train Isaac, simply because I could handle the sleep-deprivation before and wasn't desperate enough to realize that this could really turn out okay. The crying was actually a lot easier to take than I thought it would be; for those looking into this method I suggest starting it on a night when there are veritable mountains of dishes to be done -- a noisy and hand-busying task to help you focus on other things. Anyway, everything is just fabulous so far here, but if this sleep thing sticks I think we might try to shift bedtime to 8. It might be nicer to wake up at 6 rather than that god-awful hour of 5.

Operation "Bloody Murder": Day Three

Isaac took about 15 minutes again to fall asleep, mostly on his own. This time it was very little in the way of non-stop screaming -- more like occasional protesting -- but he finally went down, as it seems he likes to do, when Dad comes into the room and gives him permission to go to sleep. He has been snoozing for almost two hours now, so far so good.

Today he did GREAT at day care. I was worried after yesterday and I even called in the middle of the day to make sure he was surviving. They said he was totally back to normal. Maybe even better -- he did the cutest thing when I dropped him off this morning. Usually he is pretty reluctant to let go of me, so I cart him with me around his school room as I drop off new food, clean clothes, fresh boobie juice, etc. Today I had to set him down to label a jar, but he kept reaching for me, so I just sat him on the floor and sat myself down next to him. He hung around for a little trying to grab my Sharpie, but then decided that I was suddenly boring and took off. First he crawled behind me and started banging on some shelves. Then he ventured a little further away, and his teacher Nicole followed him, offering him a baby piano of sorts to work with. He tickled the ivories with such gusto that he completely forgot I was there. At first I thought I should use such a situation to just slip away unnoticed, because sometimes (usually) he gets upset when he sees me leave. But my mommy needs got the better of me, and, keeping my distance, I brought myself into his view and waved goodbye. To my excruciating delight, he stopped what he was doing, turned to me, waved exuberantly right back at me ("Bye, Mom!"), and then turned back to the piano and continued his musical exploits. So....cute....could have died right there....

Operation "Bloody Murder": Day Two

Last night it took Isaac about 15 minutes to fall asleep.

Dad put him down at around 7, and they did their dance before Isaac collapsed in a heap of blankets. He screamed for a bit at 8:30 and I went up, hugged him through the crib rails (his new thing -- he knows now that we won't pick him up, so he pulls us to him through the crib rails and leans his sweet little noggin against our chest so we can kiss it and pet it and that's how he gets his soothing in), put him on his tummy, patted his butt, and walked away. He instantly fell asleep. He woke up again at 10:30 (with both Dad and I asleep. In bed!), and I dealt with it in a similar fashion; this time he didn't fall asleep, so I repeated the process after 5 minutes. He persisted, and Dad suggested I not go back in. Weaving in and out of sleep, at some point I realized there was no more crying. I also vaguely remember at another point in the night hearing screaming from his room, and my foggy brain told me to stay put...give him just a few minutes...and I fell back asleep without ever going in to check on him. This is how tired we are, people. But this also meant I kept waking up on my own between the 2 and 4, wondering how he could be comfortable with all his blankets beneath him instead of cozy on top of him. He woke up for good at 5 -- I tried to get him back to sleep, but something about his demeanor made me realize it wasn't working. I picked him up and he smelled sweet and non-Isaac-y -- I thought I had accidentally smeared some frosting on him from the birthday cake Mindy brought over for me last night. An hour later (again, this is how TIRED we are) I realized that this smell was a giant poo. Who knew rainbow-chip frosting and baby poop had so much in common?

We figured there couldn't possibly be much fight in him last night because he was absolutely exhausted from Day One. Perhaps that's because he got up at 4:30? Hrmm? You think? I was quite triumphant and motivated from Day One, though, feeling like we were finally being proactive in combating his snooze-problems. Then my heart completely broke when I picked him up from day care yesterday and Nicole said, "I think he must be getting sick or something. He hasn't been acting like himself all day. He won't do anything unless he is clinging to Alicia, and he's had really spotty napping." I hadn't told her of our experiment the night before. Yet we persisted, and I think you will agree that our behavior modification program has already seen dramatic results. Viva sleep!

Operation "Bloody Murder": Day One continued

It's 4:30 in the morning here, and I'm serving my first CIO shift. This hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought it would be -- there was the initial hour-long scream-fest, which, again, I somehow thought would last most of the night. I was grateful that this was handled by the strong-willed and non-milk-bearing Dad. There was an initial hesitation (by me, of course) of whether to keep on with the crying should he wake further in the night, since he is used to quite a lot of boobie juice at night, but in the end we agreed that he is a big boy now and it is highly unlikely that he needs it, that we would go full-speed cold turkey. After his collapse at around 8, he slept until 11:15 -- Dad was still awake (not me, having learned my lesson from last night), and volunteered to take that shift, too. Noting that we were waking up the neighbors, Dad shortened his visits, doing a 5 min followed by three 10 min checks before Isaac fell asleep after ~ 30 min. This is the first time he's awakened since then, which means despite all the screaming he's getting one of the best night's sleep he's had in weeks.

Even cooler: I think he's already catching on. Obviously it didn't take as long for him to fall asleep when we let him cry at 11:15; now he is in the other room making only intermittent warbles after only 15 minutes of trying, and they are nowhere near the opera-singer efforts we witnessed at the beginning of the night. Hopefully this is not because he is hoarse.

Operation "Bloody Murder": Day One

It took Isaac 54 minutes to cry himself to sleep tonight.

Last night was the worst night yet; probably one of the worst since he came into the world. He went to sleep at 7:45pm or so and slept fitfully -- I think Dad had to do a quick soothe back to sleep at 9-something. Dad and I stayed up and watched TV until 11, because we are dumb. I went to bed then, and Isaac woke up at 11:15. I went to him as he dutifully stood there in his crib waiting for me, and he reached his sweet little arms out for me to pick him up when I came in the room. Of course I did, and nursed him back to sleep. But as soon as I tried to transfer him to the crib, AWAKE! Well, I didn't want to mess with my child and his chronic inability to fall asleep, so I took him into bed with me, as we have done almost every night for the past three weeks. He lay there, chirping, fussing, wrestling, thrashing, crawling around, or hitting me in the face or my upset stomach for two hours before I couldn't take anymore and was screaming at him and calling him a big jerk. I handed him off to Dad at 1:30 and went to sleep until I was awakened at 5:30 by the "Come Get Me" scream coming from Isaac's bed. This is all with me still trying to recover from the stomach bug of this weekend. Though Dad has this bug as well, he got all of one hour of sleep last night.

Today we were for the first time willing to face That Which We Had Agreed Should Not Come To Pass -- letting our darling lovely codependent child figure out how to fall asleep by himself. And we both were in full agreement about this one.

Did I tell you our pediatrician actually recommended at his 9-month checkup that we do this? She asked if he was sleeping through the night; I said no; and she said, and I quote, "It might be time for some 'tough love'." She recommended the procedure where we put him down in his crib, awake, after typical soothing bedtime activities. Tonight we took our evening bath and read some books, and then it was showtime. I put him in his crib (I tried to lay him down, but he was of the opinion that he should stand and scream instead), wished him goodnight, left the room, and set my timer for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes of solid screaming, I sent Dad in to NOT pick him up, but pat his sweet little sleepy tush and reassure him in a soothing voice that he needed to sleep. Then 10 minutes of solid screaming were allowed to pass, though this screaming started to get a little less energetic; repeat Dad-soothing event. Then 15 minutes of persistent moaning; repeat Dad-soothing event. Then 18 minutes (Dad jumped the gun by 2 minutes) of sporadic protest-whining, a Dad-soothing event, and blessed sleep.

To parents contemplating this maneuver: make sure your house is dirty first. Best to keep your hands scrubbing at dishes and baby-food stains on the high chair so that they are too occupied to run in his room and scoop him up and ruin the whole thing. Anyway, I'll let you know how the rest of the night goes, but so far so good. I don't know why, but I thought this would take him hours.

Adventures in Babysitting

Aside from Grandmas & Grandpas (all of whom live 2000 miles away), we have never left Isaac with a babysitter. I don't really understand how people do it, at least yet. Leaving my baby with a STRANGER?!?!???? NEVER! So Dad and I just haul the buddy along with us when we go out to dinner, which is not so frequently.

Enter last Thursday, when I picked up Isaac from school. His school fills out "reports" each day detailing the time and quality of each eating, peeing/pooping, and napping adventure. At the bottom of these reports are a few lines for parents or teachers to write notes to each other, like "Claire will p/u @ 2:30" or "Isaac needs more diapers at school." Well on this particular day, I went to remove Isaac's report from the clipboard where all the kids' reports lie in a stack. Atop the stack was a note from his classmate Iris's mom to the teachers -- "Can anyone babysit on Saturday from 11 to 3?" And in reply, layered with yellow highlighter to catch the eye: "Alicia will!"

{rubbing eyes} You mean to tell me that these adorable, fantastic teachers who look after Isaac every day, who know Isaac's routine, cues, likes, personality...these people moonlight as babysitters?

How convenient that I have a birthday coming up. We have already lined up Isaac's best girl Alicia to sit for us from 4-7 on Saturday so Dad can take me out on a REAL DATE! for my birthday. Score!

Aww...his first puke!

The O'Neal family has been beset this weekend by a stomach bug. I was puking my guts out Saturday night, and Dad has been complaining of tummy aches for several days now, so we figured it was only a matter of time until Isaac tossed his precious little cookies. And he did, today, at school, and Dad picked him up early. Evidently that was all it took, though, since he's been eating better this evening than he has in the past two weeks.

That yet another illness has stricken my young man makes me absolutely irate with my boobies. There were many reasons why I decided to breastfeed Isaac, and I have never regretted that decision. Well, never past his sixth week, when the exterior of the milk delivery system finally acquired the texture of beef jerky and made the whole process, erm, less painful. But one of these reasons was that I was PROMISED that my plentiful antibodies, delivered thus, would protect him from all illness. So what's the deal? Where are these so-called antibodies, and why have they forsaken us?