100 things about me -- other than the boy and U.B.

All right, everybody does these things, and here is my feeble attempt. 100 things about Claire:

1. I just finished grad school
2. I got my Ph.D. in chemistry
3. Not that kind of chemistry, more biology than chemistry really
4. Protein chemistry, actually
5. I am published in Science, a big deal if you are in chemistry. or biology
6. I have two undergrad degrees
7. I have a B.A. in English
8. I have a B.S. in Biology
9. The major reason I got my Biology degree is because my English classes were so flaky and I didn't want that to be my life
10. I really enjoyed being an undergrad
11. I went to Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana, for that
12. I didn't like being a grad student so much, I think because research is not for me
13. I went to the University of Washington, in Seattle, to do that
14. I did like living in Seattle
15. It taught me everything I know about being a hippie (read: organic this and that, recycling this and that)
16. I never want to go to school again. Don't you think 9 years is enough?
17. If I had it to do over again, I would go to nursing school so I could work with people and not be trapped in a lab
18. I could have gone to med school and been a doctor
19. I chose not to do that because I knew I wanted to have kids before I was 30
20. I want to have 2 kids. Maybe 3. We'll see how we feel when U.B. emerges, if I can handle 3
21. My husband's name is Michael
22. Isaac is named after Michael's great-grandfather
23. I had never changed a diaper before Isaac was born
24. The day after Isaac was born, Michael told me that he thought he loved Isaac more than me and I cried. He bought me roses to make up for it
25. It took me a month to realize that that was how it should be, and that I loved Isaac more than Michael
26. I used to be able to sing very well
27. When I was pregnant with Isaac, my vocal cords loosened a bit and now my voice is not so great
28. I was in show choir in high school
29. My favorite color is green
30. My middle name is Jane
31. That's also my mom's middle name, and my aunt's middle name
32. I love being outside and doing things outside, no matter what the weather is like
33. I secretly hate TV, and I think my life would be much better without it
34. That being said, I religiously watch the Gilmore Girls. Including reruns
35. And Sex and the City
36. I dislike talking science with my husband
37. I only like talking about science, or reading about science, or even watching Discovery Channel stuff about science, if it's about biology or medicine
38. When I was pregnant with Isaac I was addicted to "Maternity Ward" on TLC
39. I love my blog because I love to write
40. As an undergrad I took some creative writing classes and really loved them
41. I'm really not that creative
42. I would like to write professionally but can't think of any good ideas to write about
43. I loathe shopping, especially for clothes
44. I would be a much happier person if I had a personal shopper
45. I don't buy clothes any more unless Michael has picked them out, because his taste is impeccable
46. I started wearing makeup when I was 23 because Seattle made me too pale
47. I got married when I was 22
48. I really, really hate doing dishes
49. I love to do laundry, especially because Isaac helps out
50. I love staying home with Isaac more than I ever thought I would
51. I want to stay home full-time until all kids are in preschool, maybe kindergarten. Maybe high-school
52. I think it's important for kids to have someone home when they get home from school
53. I believe in God
54. I don't go to church, but I want to
55. I'm deathly afraid of messing up my kid(s) because I don't know what I'm doing
56. I'm learning how to be a good housekeeper; right now I suck
57. This is the first time in my life I've ever prepared meals more than two nights in a row for myself or my husband
58. I love cooking, but don't know much about it. Trial by fire and the like.
59. My favorite part of my English degree, other than the creative writing, was medieval literature
60. I was a writing tutor for three years as an undergrad
61. I love grocery shopping
62. I am a tightwad
63. I like to think of myself as open-minded
64. I would consider myself a centrist-liberal
65. I hate politics
66. The only political issues I really care about are i) that everybody should have government-supported health care and ii) gay rights
67. Okay, one more: I think guns should be completely outlawed
68. Now that I've ticked people off -- other than these specific things, I am pretty conservative
69. I am weirdly proud that Michael and I are so fertile
70. It took us one month, each, of "trying", to conceive Isaac and U.B.
71. My favorite flowers are pink roses and lilacs
72. I have worn the same perfume, plain ol' Lilac, since I was in high school
73. My brother and I are ~2 years apart
74. My brother and I are thick as thieves
75. This is why I wanted to have Isaac and U.B. so close together
76. I get really mad that we are not saving for Isaac's college education right now
77. I love fruit
78. I hate most vegetables and vegetable dishes, including salad
79. I am, by nature, a messy person
80. This is something I am now trying to overcome in my quest to keep a better house
81. I like to exercise, but I'd rather walk
82. My dream would be to live somewhere where we didn't have to use our car and could walk everywhere
83. My other dream is to go to Hawaii
84. I've been to Great Britain and Ireland, but nowhere else
85. Not even Mexico
86. When the kids get older, I want us to take a month-long trip through Europe
87. But NOT backpacking
88. I like hiking, though
89. I've been hiking on almost all the major mountains in Washington, thanks to Michael
90. I love digital photography and would like to take a class to learn more about it
91. When not pregnant or nursing, I enjoy a near-nightly glass of red wine
92. My second favorite alcoholic beverage is scotch
93. I drank a glass of scotch the night before I found out I was pregnant with U.B.
94. I drank 4 or 5 pina coladas two weekends before I found out I was pregnant with Isaac (we were in Reno)
95. I'm actually a light drinker, but I like to know a bit about what I'm drinking: hence the wine and scotch
96. I am incredibly indecisive and I hate making important decisions
97. I won't let my husband manage our money
98. I wish I knew more about computers and HTML
99. I still haven't started Isaac's scrapbook
100. Does the blog count?

"Water!"

We have gotten a ton of care packages lately. Our thanks go to Great-Grandma & -Grandpa Peetz, who sent Isaac his new ultimate-favorite book, a book of Wiggles songs that has midi recordings of the songs that you can play with the push of a button. Press Henry the Octopus's head, hear "Wave Your Arms Like Henry". Push Wags the Dog's head, hear "We're Dancing with Wags the Dog." Isaac can't get enough. Someday soon I should blog about his Wiggles addiction. Thanks also to Grandma O'Neal, who sent us rugs for our basement, a bundle of new tupperware so we can toss our old, disgusting stuff, and a push-it-and-it-goes-real-far red truck for Isaac that he greatly enjoys taking for a spin on the new rugs. And today, one from Grandma Ross, with cookies, quick bread, and a micro-sized pool for our water-lover. We just had to go outside and give our pool a spin, but it turned out that Isaac was more interested in the garden hose (sorry, grandma!). However, he enjoyed spraying himself and turning his super-cutey blond hair curly. Look!

Sleep, glorious sleep

For basically the past month, Isaac has adopted a more forgiving sleep schedule than in months (years?) past. Longtime followers of this blog will recall that my boy is a HORRIBLE sleeper, and that we have had many fights with him about not just staying asleep, but also going to sleep.

Well, those days are gone, perhaps due to him being older, and our discovering that he only requires 9 hours of sleep a night. At 9:30, Isaac and I do our little sleep dance and as if on cue he yawns and rubs his eyes. I put him in bed, cover him up with a nice warm blanket, and place his blue doggy near him. He reaches out to scoop doggy tight under his armpit. I leave the room, and we don't hear another peep. The whole process takes less than 3 minutes. And he stays that way until 6 or 6:30 in the morning, unless he wriggles his head into a crib-corner or wiggles out from under the covers in the middle of the night. Case in point was two nights ago, at 3:30, a "Mama mama mama mama" from his room, not so much horrible wailing, but plaintive asking. I went in to see what's up, and he was standing at the corner of his crib nearest the door. When he saw me, he flopped back down on the mattress in his usual "I'm going to sleep now position", clearly indicating that he had kicked his blanket away from a preferred position and wanted me to replace it on his poor little chilled bod. I put it back on him, left the room, and didn't hear from him again until **8:15**.

So, even better, it appears that he is working his way into a later wake-up time. Dada discovered serendipitously last week that, if Isaac wakes up between 6 and 6:30, he can usually be rocked back to sleep until 8 or 8:30. If this is a trend....think of the possibilities!!!!

And now that I've blogged about this, surely I have cursed it and the delicious sleep-nectar will run dry.

My poopy diaper badge

I am currently the owner of two beautiful FuzziBuns cloth diapers, and I love them. Two is not much, but Isaac wore them today for a total of about 5.5 hours with great success. In the last diaper, he bequeathed me my very first cloth-diaper poop, something I knew would happen from the zero poops of yesterday.

It's funny, reading the Fuzzi Buns directions: "When removing a dirty FB from your baby shake, or knock any solid bowl movement from the FB. You can rinse any residing BM off the cover if you would like, but this is not necessary." I think they assume in saying this that people's babies don't produce the spackle-consistency doo-doo my son is famous for. "Shaking" or "knocking" does not remove this kind of poo. Only scrubbing in a bathroom sink with one's hands and even fingernails will remove this kind of poo. Evidently, machine-washing manipulations which get pee-pee diapers perfectly lovely-smelling also fail, and leave light stains and smells behind, with this kind of poo. I just put the dipe back in the wash with additional detergent, as recommended for particularly problematic stains. Unfortunately, I feel that I should wait to expand my FB collection until I figure out how to banish the poo. And I need to figure it out soon, cause I just bought a pack of Luvs from the Dollar Store, and MAN do they suck.

When I grow up, I want to be just like Dada

His new favorite place to climb and then sit -- Dada's Man Chair. If I try to sit in it with him, he says, "NOOO!" and pushes me out. Dada sits in it alone, therefore Isaac must sit in it alone.



After dinner, Dada likes to unwind with a nice TiVoed Simpsons episode. Observe how quickly this trait gets passed on to the offspring (note larger, brown-haired lump on the couch, compared to blond lumpkin on the chair):

Campus walks

Isaac and I have taken to having a little afternoon campus walk for ourselves, because it's beautiful and interesting and usually there are sprinklers on for Isaac's soaking pleasure. Isaac especially enjoys the attention of the hot campus honeys, whom he tells all about the "blah blah blah SQUIRREL!" and "blah blah blah WATER!"

Peering into a fountain, watching dragonflies:



Retrieving his ball:



Trying to climb into the fountain:

Filth updates

1) I went to the dentist today. I have no cavities whatsoever [insert big ol' sigh here]. What I DO have is a few spots of plaque on the areas where my gums have receeded a tad, thanks to my preggo snack habits, but these are not decayed and thus I don't have to have the 14 fillings and/or teeth-pullings I had suspected. This dentist is a lady! and was recommended to me by our new friends Sara and Del. I like her. She carries a big "NERD" badge openly on her sleeve, like she knows everything and its mom about your teeth and she'd love to tell you if you ask.

2) Isaac's new cloth-style poop containers arrived today, FINALLY. I bought two dipes from NaturalBabies, and the lady who runs the site was very communicative and helpful, but MAN did it take forever to get my stuff. I washed them and put one on Isaac for two hours before his bath and he didn't even soak through the insert. I was so disappointed -- I had visions of having to buy 50 gazillion of the super-thirsty hemp inserts for my little champion pee-er. But I took off the diaper, and instead of having little red paper wrinkle-prints all over his precious bottom, it was soft and smooth and without mark, and though the insert had obviously been christened, the fleece lining the diaper was dry and sooooo soft. I want undies like that. Especially for the pee-in convenience, mmmmmm. Wouldn't that be great for pregnant-lady night-times?

But I digress. Of course I instantly want more more more, because they are so much easier and cuter than I could have ever imagined. And then the hubs is like "Maybe we should buy him a potty instead." So we made a deal, that I would use my measly two dipes through the week, and then if I am still lusting for more I can buy more. Oh, and I will be.

Free toddler to good home

Poor Isaac must be going through something personal, because he is a little monster today. I screamed at him, I mean really screamed, for the first time ever. I was cleaning out cat-brother's filthy water dish, and Isaac was right there with me, exploring the kitchen cabinets as he always does. This is fine. But in a split-second, he turned his beady toddler eyes on his favorite illegal obsession -- the cat food dish and bags. He picked up the bags -- fine -- unfolded the tops -- again, fine -- and then took cat-brother's favorite food bag, upended it, and spilled the entire contents all over the kitchen floor, including into the heating register, all while I was screaming "STOP STOP STOP!!!!" at the top of my lungs.

This is not the first time Isaac has ran afoul of the cat food, and each time he gets a "time-out" of sorts, AKA kicked out of the kitchen for a few minutes. Does this work? Of course not -- like a moth to a flame; my baby to cat food. It is infuriating.

Anyway, after this enormous mess, I was just livid. How many times do I have to ask you to leave the cat food alone? I query. Why don't you stop when I tell you to stop? I wonder (loudly) aloud. I place him out of the kitchen and put up the gate, with him screaming back the whole time while I clean up the kitty food everywhere. Then I undo the gate, lead him into the front room, and calmly tell him that I'm sorry I yelled, but that I don't understand why he doesn't listen to me. Then I sit down across from him and start bawling.

Isaac does listen occasionally. When I tell him to "sit", he will usually sit. When we are in public and I tell him "no touch" or "yucky" about some strange object, he won't touch it, though my line may require repeating. Several times. But there are some things that are much more important that he just doesn't get, or care to. "STOP!?!?!?!!?!" for example, yelled at ear-shattering volumes as he toddles directly towards the road. If you were to say, or even yell "Isaac..." he won't so much as look your way. I realize that he isn't even 17 months old yet. But it makes me tear my hair out because it is OBVIOUS that he knows I don't want him to do the things I am preventing him from doing, and when I try to stop him from doing these things, only horrible wailing awaits me. Now, he does seem to be especially cranky these past few days, so I wonder if he's not getting new teeth or whatever, but still. Somebody has to live with him, and that somebody is me. Oh, and that Dada person.

Beachcombing

Today we took a day trip to Rehoboth Beach...



...a popular destination in southern Delaware where East-coasters come to frolic in the mighty Atlantic. Evidently this used to be an insanely popular place for government officials from D.C. to summer, earning it the nickname "The Nation's Summer Capitol." We figured Isaac would be a big beach bum, since the beach combines his two greatest loves -- sand and water. The sand part was super-fun:



We especially enjoyed running up (and sliding down) big sand piles left by the currents coming around the jetties; chasing after seagulls; burying people. As for the water part? Well, it wasn't too cold, but the ocean was pretty active, with some strong waves coming in that pull the sand out from under your feet. Isaac was at first a little tentative, but eventually he would get near the water:



And then his dumb mom, anxious for a shot of him wading in the water, put him right where the tide could get him. This is Isaac in the process of getting knocked over by the surf (that went over REALLY well):



The highlights in our visit were the super-friendly beach goers. A mom and dad beached next to us brought along lots of toys to entertain their 20-month-old, and they let Isaac have his way with them. Especially with their ukelele:





We called him our Beach Troubador -- he took the ukelele all over the beach and entertained unsuspecting sunbathers with his occasional strumming and stories about "Water!" and "Dada!" and "Wiggles!"

Fun, fabulous Friday

When summer rocks, it really rocks, don't it? After breathing super-saturated, oppressive air for the last three weeks, this whole week we have experienced deliciously low humidity, with sunny, low-80-degree days. Today was so outrageously beautiful that, at 9:30 this morning, Isaac grabbed his sandals and headed to the door, looking up at the doorknob pitifully and whining until I, genius that I am, realized he wanted to go out and play. We took our brand new tub of sidewalk chalk outside and had a blast. A little later, we went to the orchard, where there were lots of little dudes congregating in the Barnyard Buddies area. We fed the chickens and the goats (the goats ate out of our hands!), and helped the farmers throw bruised nectarines to the pigs. This afternoon would have been perfect for the pool, but I was too tuckered out, so I brought the pool to us using a garden hose, a pitcher, and a plastic tub. Later, we went for a walk on campus, made exceptionally gorgeous for the students' arrival, and Isaac found some sprinklers to run through, eliciting seemingly endless squeals of glee. After all that activity, it was time for a little family drive, where he enjoyed some quiet time with "The Polite Elephant"...


...and fell dead asleep less than two minutes after this picture was taken.

Quit annoying me

Dear college boys in the Navigator,

Please turn off your earth-splitting bass. Do you think you look cool? I see panties vibrating off of no one. My baby is asleep in the backseat, and you are rousing him with your gawd-awful noise. I would roll down my window and share my favorite expletives with you about your obvious lack of family jewels, but would you hear me? No.

------

Dear creepy overeager male freshmen and fathers of,

Please quit approaching me and my baby, who are defenseless in front of our house, and ask me if it is okay for you to park along the street to give you more convenient access to the dorm for your moving in. Do I control this, a public street? Just because I am outside, and trying to ignore you, does that signal that you should approach me and ask for help strategizing on where you should park for the big move-in tonight? Do I know the difference between Gilbert "A" and Gilbert "D"? Do I care if you want to park here? Park where you want; it is a free country, after all. Just beware of the ticket on your window when you return because I (oops!) neglected to point out the sign, less than 10 feet away, that says "NO PARKING ANY TIME".

Love,

Claire

Unclean! Unclean!

Tonight I made a truly scrumptious dinner -- spice-rubbed salmon with home-made peach salsa and roasted potatoes. Yum, yum, and low-fat. I am trying to institute weekly Fish Night at the O'Neal estates, and though Dada is usually anti-fish, he agrees that it is a healthy thing to do.

For whatever reason, I chose to go in the bathroom and pick my teeth after dinner. I was scraping away at this and that, when I noticed a brown spot atop my left top premolar. I scraped with the fingernail. I brushed with a toothbrush. I even had the hubs come and try to scrape it off with a dull fingernail file, at which point we realized that this brown "spot" was actually a rotting pit, and that there was a similarly colored spot (though not a pit) on a neighboring tooth.

I *never* get cavities. Never. I have had one in my whole life, and Mike and I are convinced that this "cavity" was actually not a cavity, but a contribution towards a downpayment on our shady dentist's yacht. *Now* I may very well have not just one, but two, and they will likely only get worse because of the specialness of pregnant-lady mouth chemistry. Worse yet, this "pit" is on a tooth people can actually see, and though it isn't exactly too noticeable... come on, tooth decay is just ugly, and too redneck for my liking.

That evil U.B. is attacking my previously impermeable teeth. Well, him/her and my midnight donut/ice cream sandwich binges. Must go to dentist tomorrow...or life will surely end...

Random news

No coherent thoughts tonight, but lots going on.

We started a new institution in our house, that of the Baby-Daddy bathtime. As in, Mike is the new, official bath-giver, and I officially get a half-hour of all-to-myself mommy-time each night. So far, so good, especially since Isaac is newly discovering the joys of dumping bathwater from one cup to another in an endless cycle, leading him to take some looooooong, luxurious baths.

Dada's job is going well, but is causing him a lot of stress. He has to teach a class starting next week, to grad students, and is scared to death (unfoundedly) that he'll make a fool of himself (which he won't). He had a day-long new-employee orientation yesterday, learning about insurance this and investment that and now we have to make lots of grown-up decisions. Blech. Something he did enjoy was his first faculty meeting today. Unrelatedly, he also learned that he will likely be granted adjunct status in the Geology Department on Friday, which opens new avenues to him for teaching and having grad students. It's all good, and we can't wait for school to start so Dada can remember how much fun he has teaching.

Isaac and I went to a playdate at the house of our new friend, Sara, yesterday. There were two other moms there with their charges; Judy, with her two daughters of (1) 3 years and (2) 7 months, another Sara with 7-month-old Ella, and hostess Sara's two boys of (1) 4 years and (2) 7 months. You would have thought this would make Isaac an odd-man-out, but he sure didn't think so. He found hostess Sara's oldest's Wiggles guitar and jammed on it for like an hour; when we went outside, he made playing in the baby pool (with your street clothes on) look so fun that everybody did it. We stayed a long time, and had lots and lots of fun. And Sara gave us 3 dozen newborn-sized cloth diapers she had either bought or made for our February arrival.

Family Fun Night

Tonight was Family Fun Night (really, officially) at the Brandywine Zoo, a small zoo in downtown Wilmington, and about a half-hour's drive from our pad. It was Isaac's first trip to the zoo, but this one was super-special because there were lots of kids to party with and $1 hot dogs. What's not to love about $1 hot dogs? I suppose there were animals, too. Here are the boys admiring some llamas:



There were also tigers, miniature monkeys, a sloth, some sleepy otters. Ever the exotic one, Isaac's favorite were the ducks, likely because they were on his level and he can point at them and say their name repeatedly. The zoo is situated in the gorgeous Brandywine Park, so beautiful and serene you wouldn't know I-95 is almost right overhead. Here's Isaac throwing some change in a fountain on our way out of the park:

Bitty footprints, Mommy's foot for scale

Taken in the sand volleyball court near our house

Trying something

Dear blog readers:

I *love* your comments. I love reading them, and usually mercilessly check my blog several times a day to see if a new comment lies in wait for me. I do not, however, love those comments not written by humans. Unfortunately, the comment-spam machines are threatening to take over my poor little unsuspecting blog, often leaving up to 6 useless comments per post per day, and action must be taken. Right now, a quick fix (for me) is to enable word-verification upon commenting. This means that you go about commenting as you usually would, but with one more step. If this gets to be a major pain, please let me know; other alternatives exist, but they are necessarily more labor-intensive and likely to wipe out all the comments currently on the blog, which is no fun for anybody.

A very very very fine house

Especially for Grandma Jane, some long-awaited pictures of our house's interior.

You enter through the front door into the living room, here facing one way:



...and here the other, which we've turned into an office area:



If you were to walk towards the TV and across a very small hall, you would be in Isaac's room, aka the Toy Storage Bin:



If you go straight out Isaac's door, you are in our bedroom; if you turn left, you are in the bathroom. I purposefully didn't include pictures of these because they look gross, especially the bedroom, which is basically transitional housing for unpacked boxes. Have I told you what a terrible housekeeper I am?

Say you are back in the living room. If, instead of heading towards the TV, you go towards the bookcases, you would be entering the kitchen. At the end of the kitchen is a neat little eat-in area, replete with a bay window and window seat:



Turning left from the eat-in area brings you to the spare room (AKA box receptacle), which in turn connects to the tiny hallway with the bathroom, Isaac's room, and our room. A big circle!



Off of the eat-in area to the right is the back porch, which is completely wallpapered with sectioned, louvered windows:



And looking out of said windows is our big backyard, with a swing in the tree:



That's it, our cool little rental house. Well, there's also the basement, but that's really not much to look at. It's fun for now, especially since it's a house! not an apartment! Isaac and I enjoy blasting our music during the day, not having to worry about shared walls and the like.

And this is from........

Please note the ugly red/pink circle on Isaac's face, siblings of which can also be found on his arm, wrist, back, and leg:


What is this?!?!?! A bite? Mosquito? Ant? Chigger? Cicada?!??????

Again, no bugs in Seattle; this is a new arena of panic for me.

Isaac hearts Daddy

Since I started staying home, Isaac has been a mommy's boy, hard core. But the early week has become Daddy's time to shine, since we are still fresh from our weekend full of Daddy-lovin'. Mondays and Tuesdays, Isaac can usually stand it if I leave the room. The boys seem to have an exceptionally good time together when we are out and about, as we were tonight on our family walk. Here they inspect a strange metal sculpture outside one of those shops that sells "magical crystals" and "ouija boards":

Note the colorfully-named wing establishment in the background, one of the beauties of a college town.

I also got a few minutes of mommy out-of-the-house time tonight to run to the store (by myself!) and pick up a few things. This is how I left my boys (one of them post-bath):

Lazy, hazy, crazy days

Surprisingly to me, we are quickly getting used to this new Delaware climate of ours, with its 100-degree heat indices and near-constant sunshine. It took us awhile, mainly because we forgot that people usually wear shorts in the summer. This is a novel concept for us folk from Seattle, and especially for me because it means I have to shave my legs (gasp!). Dada still hasn't caught on and runs around in pants, complaining how hot he is. I am loving it now that Grandma Jane has sent me some daisy dukes that fit under my expanding belly, and the discovery that the faddish new peasant skirts (!) are both cute and exceedingly well-ventilated. Keeping a constant sippy and sunscreen bottle in hand, then, Isaac and I can stay out for hours. Here he is mowing the sidewalk for us, evidently a very serious business:



Other items cultured by this kind of weather that we are getting used to:
*Bugs, of the mostly harmless but exceedingly loud cicada variety...


...and then the not-so-harmless mosquito variety, which seem to be attracted to my son's chubby thighs. Our new friend Sara, ever the granola mom, suggested wiping him down with a light coat of white vinegar to keep the bugs off and avoid DEET-ing him to death.
*Poison ivy, like the kind that runs rampant in our backyard. There were a bunch of weeds overrunning a garden patch near our porch that we had some dudes tear out last week. Isaac and I visited the now-bare backyard to inspect their razing, and though I touched nothing, I have a heinous breakout of poison ivy on my elbow that is just now clearing up. Luckily, Isaac escaped unscathed, and I pray he inherited his father's miraculous immunity to the plant, because evidently all I have to do is walk near a place where it might have once existed and I break out. Grrr.

We also managed to escape the homestead for a bit today to get to the mall, where we finally bought cat-brother an ID tag with our new home info, as well as a long-awaited rug for the family room floor. All-in-all, a fun, hot, busy day.

U.B. grows -- 13 wk 5 d

More like preggo-belly, less like sorority-girl belly!

A few shots from bathtime

Making sure Mom gets her bath, too:



The lady-killer eyelashes:

Millburn Orchards

Our new stay-at-home mom advisor, Sara, suggested we check out a local orchard near her house if we were ever hankering for something to do. This place is a pick-your-own apple and peach orchard, but perhaps more importantly, they have an enormous (FREE) area set aside for kids. There are all kinds of wooden structures upon which to bruise oneself:





A sandbox surely intended for the offspring of giants:



And, most importantly, barnyard buddies to scream at and feed. Lots of chickens:



And lots of goats!


The goats were by far the most entrancing. All that rickety-looking wooden stuff, and the little tykes playset behind the fence there? That's for the GOATS. The white billy goat pictured here walked the entirety of the highest plank for us, coming over from a nearby meadow, because he thought we might be chucking some goat-chow his way. Dada disowned me as a true country girl because I didn't know that farm goats liked to climb.

You can take the girl out of Seattle, but you can't take the Seattle out of the girl

I would not necessarily classify myself as a crunchy mom, but rather a mom open to crunchiness. We come from a distinguished lineage of rednecks largely opposed to hippie-dom, with occasional exceptions. We here at the O'Neal estates, perhaps influenced a little bit by our time in Seattle (town motto: Where Hippies Come to Die) do have a few badges of crunch:

1) I breastfed Isaac for a year. I didn't do that because I am Earth-Mother, hear me roar! but because I am a biochemist and have studied a bit of human physiology and understood that Isaac would benefit enormously, nutritionally and immunologically, from a year of breastfeeding. The first six weeks were enormously hard, but I was supported at every step by the hubs and by my mom, who ardently tried to nurse me and who was fabulously successful at nursing my brother. At exactly a year, did I have longing visions of him as a five-year-old lifting up my shirt for a nip? No, I had fulfilled my major obligation, according to the pediatrician, and was happy to dislodge him from the boob, a move which happened for us gradually and without a second thought from him about what he was or was not missing.

2) We give Isaac his whole milk and yogurt in organic form. Blah blah blah hormones blah blah blah chemicals -- I figure, this isn't a hard thing to do, and it's probably a good bit healthier for him, so why not?

3) We try to recycle. In Seattle, this was so easy. Here, they make it almost prohibitive. Isaac and I visited a recycling drop-off last week, a scary number feet away from the Mopar plant and bazillions of power lines. Did you know you can recycle your cans, your newspaper, your mail, your corrugated cardboard there, but they have NO facilities whatsoever for recycling lighter-weight cardboard (say, cereal boxes) or yogurt cups?

In parenting, we don't automatically opt for the crunchy methods, but do what works for us. I was adamant that we would not cosleep with Isaac, but with breastfeeding it became so convenient that he slept with us (or with me) for about the first 6 months. But after that, he became a thrasher, and now he is banished to his crib, where he and we can all get better sleep. I was open to the concept of baby-wearing, and we desperately enjoyed the simpler days of the Bjorn, but Isaac is a husky fellow and my poor little bones could barely handle carrying him for 9 months, let alone all-day everyday beyond. At first, we considered doing the cloth diaper thing, but since we weren't staying at home, we would have needed a diaper service. They had a good one in Seattle that came highly recommended by crunchy friends, but we calculated it out and our beloved Target generic diapers were half that cost per month.

Enter the new and ambitious stay-at-home mom.

Thursday I had the most gawd-awful time. Now, I don't know where a lot of stuff is around town yet, but I trust my shopping instincts enough to know where to find the basics at the right price. KMart is literally 5 blocks away from our house. In a diaper emergency, Isaac and I spent a good 20 minutes looking all around this store for diapers and wipes, to find that they carried none. NONE. I was forced to go next door to a drug store and shell out $11 for a 30-pack of Pampers. This struck a major chord in me, because I aspire to be a miser. I remembered a recent experiment conducted by a fellow, completely un-crunchy blogger regarding cloth diapers. I remembered that I actually enjoy doing laundry. And I remembered that, more than anything, I love to shop online. So now two juicy-fresh FuzziBuns are headed our way, and we are going to take this cloth diaper lifestyle for a test-drive. Wish us luck.

More words

Quickly -- a few words I forgot to add to the verbage list from a few days ago:
yummy
yucky (used frequently)
apple
flower
tree
bird
juice

Adios, pizza-face

I weaned Isaac sometime in May, and immediately upon doing so, my face broke out like I was 13. No matter what I did, or how often I cleaned my face and with this or that supposedly oil-stripping agent -- it was like I was doing nothing. I got preggers with the UB within the month, which only seemed to fuel my zit infestation. At first I thought it had to be all hormones, but surely even hormone-fueled pimply monstrosities could be tamed by regular scouring? The answer, my friends, was no. So I persisted, even through my dissertation defense, looking like a scrubby teenager. This was highly depressing, mainly because I'm not able to finish a conversation with my husband without his gaze drifting to my forehead -- "Can I pick that one?"

Today I woke up and looked in the mirror, and suddenly all my zits are disappearing, conveniently with the onset of my second trimester and a subsequent taming of the hormonal onslaught. Finally, time to look like a serene and glowing 26-year-old expectant mother instead of a pudgy, pimply-faced high-schooler.

Dear Stay-at-Home-Moms, past and present

What kind of schedules/routines do you keep during the day/week with your munchkins? As we are getting more used to our surroundings, I think it would be nice to try to establish a little weekly routine; you know, like we go to playgroup on Thursdays, grocery shopping on Wednesdays, the pool on Fridays, yada yada, but of course I am interested to know what others are doing.

Also, what kinds of activities do you do with them to try to engage their precious little brains? I keep trying to google for ideas, other than reading books and playing with his endless supply of toys, for activities to occupy the Isaac-monster on these days when it's too hot for outside, but that seems to be inexplicably impossible -- either you find crap-sites or sites with only stuff for home-schooling and nothing for toddler entertainment.

We are very much enjoying our standing weekly playgroup appointment, but feel our schedule would be ideal if we had one more playdate/playgroup we could go to during the week. Does anybody know where one could look to find out where such entities or opportunities exist?

Any and all comments on this matter are most appreciated for a fledgling SAHM and her little charge, who is probably bored out of his gourd with her lack of imagination.

What he's doing now

In light of my not posting for his 15- and 16-monthdays, perhaps we are due for a development update.

Language
Isaac's language is in the process of exploding. He has acquired almost more words than can be recounted, though here I will try my best to list his vocabulary off the top of my head:
daddy
mommy
kitty
doggy
squirrel
animal sounds (woof, meow, moo, peep-peep, grr!, roar!)
ball (now has become "bo-bo")
balloon ("bah-oo")
coffee ("ca-ca", and isn't it just?)
book ("book")
choo-choo
vacuum ("bah-kyoo")
more
thank you
bye, bye-bye
hello (also, evidently, what telephones are supposed to be called)
night-night
pickle
Wiggles
socks
shoes
Michael (to my endless amusement and Dada's endless consternation)

He is also trying, occasionally, to string words together. On the drive out, as Grandma was turning off the Wiggles, he said, "Bye Wiggles." Last week, as he finished a pickle I gave him during lunch, he turned to me, signed for "more" and said something that sounded very much like "want more pickle".

Of course he understands much, much more than this. If asked to put things back, he will usually try. If asked if he wants to eat or if he's hungry, he'll go to the kitchen. Yesterday we ran into our neighbor on the street; she greeted him and he told her something involving his "bo-bo". She nodded politely and he turned back towards our house and took off running. "Where's he going?" she asked. "Oh," I said, "he's going to show you his ball." And sure enough, he ran behind a fence, where we had kicked his ball and left it, more or less hiding from view, no less than 15 minutes earlier, and brought it out to her. So fun to see people's jaws drop because of your genius kid.

Gross motor skills
He is now running, though really in terms of speed it's a mere trot and still not hard to keep up with. He can throw overhand extremely straight and far, something that now makes us fear giving him blocks and other potential projectiles. He can also kick balls well. He can turn in circles, usually accompanied by a "whee!", and can walk and crawl backwards, something he finds endlessly amusing on the slicker hardwood floors here. The climbing is endless, though his shorty-legs occasionally frustrate him by not being tall enough to get a leg-up on, for instance, our couch.

Food
He can drink from a cup quite well, sitting it gracefully back on the table when he's done. He will also stop to right a tipped sippy on the floor. He's becoming better and better at using utensils; often he will start off a meal solely using his fork and/or spoon, but usually after a few misses he gets impatient and either yells at me to stab at or scoop up something for him, or goes for the gusto with his fingers like a good little cave-baby.

Critters
He has suddenly taken a shine to stuffed animals; his favorites are a blue doggy given to him at birth by a lady who gave me a fellowship from the chemistry department and an orange kitty from Grandma Ross, though today he wouldn't part with a baby-friendly beanie bear from Great-grandma and -grandpa Ross. He will put his animals in a cart and push them around, and sit them upright, or at least face-forward, if he sees them oriented improperly. He hugs and kissses them and makes Dada and I hug and kiss them, too, and is really enjoying having them to snuggle with at bed- and naptimes. Also, this afternoon he noted that a particular singing chicken of his did not have on shoes, and he brought over his shoes and tried to put them on the chicken's feet.

As far as live animals go, he is better at being "gentle" to cat-brother, though he still pulls at the tail/fur. He has become rabidly obsessed with squirrels. Whenever we go on a walk, especially if he's in the stroller, he'll mercilessly point at every single tree -- "squirrel?" Dada calls him The Boy Who Cried Squirrel. But we didn't realize just how extremely interesting it really was until last night, when he was falling asleep in the car on the way to Best Buy, something we wanted to prevent. I tried and tried to keep him from dropping off, but all my efforts were to no avail. I was ready to throw in the towel when suddenly Dada pipes up, "Buddy, is that a squirrel?" From a DEAD SLEEP, the child bolts upright -- "squirrel? squirrel?" To lessen his deviousness, Dada proceeded to explain to Isaac that what had occurred was actually a Squirrel Watch, and not Squirrel Warning.

Fine motor skills
He is not the greatest in the world at stacking blocks, unlike certain other budding engineers, though I did manage to capture his latest record of a tower of six, built atop a pyramid constructed by mommy:



I am trying to teach him how to color (and next -- for a whole new world of messy -- fingerpaint!), but it seems to be more for my enjoyment than his:


Except for the eating of the crayons. That seems to bring him great glee.

That's all I can think of for now. Off to (hopefully) a good night's sleep, and then playgroup tomorrow morning!

Must...sleep...kill you stupid baby molars...

The insomnia. It's bad. BAD. Like someone else, I am known in many circles as a champion sleeper, a direct foil to the hubs who can only fall asleep if the TV is on and the moon is in a certain house. When my sleep juju is stolen by a mysterious force, it upsets me greatly. Especially since now I have to be conscious for most of the day to cater to a highly demanding audience of one.

Because I am pregnant and it is my God-given right to blame most things relating to my body to U.B., of course I blamed the insomnia on him/her. But the past two nights have taught me that my insomnia probably has very little to do with U.B., and probably everything to do with that evil firstborn of mine and how he and the hubs have me whipped like a toothless sheepdog.

Saturday night at 7:30, Isaac fell asleep in his stroller during our evening walk to Starbucks. His "usual" bedtime lately has been the subject of much consternation for us, as it seems that he is not exactly taking to the three-hour time change from his birthplace, but has only aquiesced somewhat, going down between 9 and 10 EDT. He used to be pretty regular about an 8 to 9-ish bedtime PDT, so obviously he has made some strides, but this pushing-10 crap is a little frustrating for mommies and daddies who just want to lay around and watch TV. Or for pregnant mommies who want to stuff their faces without fear of toddler food envy. But I digress -- With the 7:30 bedtime, we hoped he was just tired, and that he would sleep through, as he does more frequently now. But no -- dude was up and wiiiiiiide awake at 1 AM. It took me until 3:30 to get him back to sleep, and that was with about an hour of interrupted screaming in his crib in the dark to get him used to the idea that is so very bourgeoise to us, that people need to be asleep when it is dark as death outside. Clearly he has a full life waiting for him on the club scene. After that, he slept until 8:30, but I woke up pretty much once an hour, anticipating a screaming, wakeful relapse.

Last night was a similar adventure, but for me, not him. He was down at 9:30, then up for a second at 10:45. He slept through till 6 this morning, but Dada said he coughed a lot until 2, and would intermittently cry out once, then go back to sleep unscathed. I didn't know any of this, but evidently all of his noises woke me up, because I slept fitfully and kept waking throughout the night.

I have blogged before that I am the sole responder to Isaac's night wakings. We tried, very briefly, to have Dada help, but he is completely useless because, even once the deed is done, Dada himself is incapable of getting back to sleep. So the burden falls on me, a job I willfully and gladly take, but all I can think is that these boys better get their act together on the sleep-end before U.B. emerges, or I will be the living dead.

All this said, Isaac really is getting much, much better at the sleep thing. Most nights, actually he will sleep through, but we have found that his sleep quota is a completely unluxurious 9 1/2 hours a night, tops. But then today I discovered why the past few days in particular have been such a struggle for him. Two weeks ago, his first top molars poked the tiniest little periscope through his inflamed gums, both at the same time. Today I felt around in his poor little mouth, and the top left molar has evidently been trucking since then and is almost all the way through. As if that wasn't enough, his left and right bottom first molars have each sent a pointy little scout up to start the process. All together? This means the boy is erupting FOUR molars ALL AT ONCE. Is this supposed to be biologically possible? His pediatrician told us to expect one at a time -- I guess he's a mutant or something.

That's "Doctor" Mom to you, bud

Today we signed up for Costco memberships, having none of our beloved Sam's Clubs in the area. The Costco powers-that-be insist that I have a prefix to go along with my name. The dilemma: should I choose the demure and lady-like "Mrs.", or the in-your-face, you-dern-right-I-got-me-some-schoolin' "Dr.". Lemme tell you, it was almost worth nearly 5 years of blood, sweat, and tears to have a Costco card emblazoned with "Dr. Claire O'Neal".

And speaking of, hot off the presses yesterday, check out the "Reports" roster in Science Magazine. Unfortunately, you can't download the article from that website unless you have a subscription (most universities do), but you can see my name in lights in a journal considered by most to be the creme de la creme of the science world.

Oh yeah, and there's that, too...

In all this hubbub -- the dissertation, the moving, the family-visiting, the settling-in -- I keep forgetting to think about U.B. Yes, I am taking daily steps to help ensure his/her health, such as napping when Isaac naps, abstaining from caffeine, alcohol, blahdeeblah, and taking my vitamins all like a good little expectant mommy. I blogged earlier that I was having some hellacious morning sickness, like daily, day-long bouts of buzz-killing nausea. Since my defense, that has largely stopped, and only when I don't get much sleep at night do I feel bad. Luckily, Isaac has been sleeping largely through the night, so that sleeplessness crap is mostly my fault. Evidently I also get to be an insomniac with this pregnancy. So there's the only occasional morning sickness (though it does seem to last most of the day when it comes), night waking on my part, and recently the appetite is really starting to ramp up, so much so that I have to have a Hot Pocket before bed or I won't make it through the night. Not too bad, though not as luxurious and nearly symptom-free as when I was preggers with the Isaac.

But what bugs me is that, unlike when I was cooking Isaac, I feel that U.B. is not getting the mental attention from myself and Dada that he or she deserves. I don't even really think about being pregnant until I pass a mirror and see my growing beer gut, or until I, almost robotically now, order my latte sans caff. And my constant worry is not for U.B. and getting this or that for the nursery like I did for Isaac, but whether or not Isaac will be cool with U.B. when he/she comes. In our short time as near shut-ins together, Isaac and I have become very tight -- you can tell that he LOVES it that I'm there for him all the time. How will he feel when he, necessarily, can't be the focus of my every thought anymore? And poor U.B., who will never be able to have the 24-hour, constant and undivided attention of Mom and Dad like Isaac enjoys. And let's not even start to think of what might happen if something goes awry with this pregnancy and I get put on (gasp) bed-rest, as I was for a week during my 7th month with Isaac. What's a mom to do?

Our house

Here it is, with the munchkin on his ride-on toy for scale:



It's literally on campus, with two residence halls right next door. Now, that's great, and it's quiet, and Isaac is enjoying playing in his giant-sized sandbox (aka beach volleyball court) in front of the dorms:



How-EVER, we have been informed by Sara, wife of Michael's colleague, that in the fall, replete with students, it might get a leeeee-tle loud. Kiddos walking down the street at 2 and 3 in the morning and such. But Dada and I have our plan of revenge -- our 8 A.M. walk to Starbucks, which takes us and a rowdy, rowdy monkey right by all those dorm windows. Mwoooo-hoo-hoo.

At the pool

Now, I am really new to this whole stay-at-home mom game. My bag of tricks is severely limited, and I plan, soon, to blog about that and beg for advice. But if we were back in Seattle, said bag might be a little more robust simply because of the weather. I mean, is it actually safe to take your 16-month-old out in this gawd-awful 90-degree, 1200% humidity weather? We drive by parks that, on a normal sunny Seattle afternoon, would be crawling with younguns and their stay-at-home supervisors. Here? {Tumbleweeds}. What's a gal to do? I have made my vow that my darling boy will watch no more than 2 hours of TV, as suggested for toddlers by the American Pediatrics Association, and we can only play with his sexy new IKEA train set so much before it gets old, old, old.

Then suddenly, it hit me. Where did **I** go when I was a little kid when it was hot? We lived in equally sweltering Illinois, and we went to the pool. Sure enough, the University of Delaware has this totally awesome public outdoor pool, replete with a securely-fenced-off, 6" baby pool. Though it took me the better part of 20 minutes to convince Isaac that actually getting IN the pool would not result in his permanent disfigurement, when I did, it was awesome.


And here's the best part: we brought along some of our lame-o, uneducated-about-pool-going toys -- a cup and an inflatable beach ball. I inflated the beach ball upon our arrival, threw it in the pool, and it was immediately snatched up by an older kid. We didn't see it the rest of the time we were there. "Why would that be the best part," you ask? Because, unbeknownst to me, there is a tacit, reciprocal agreement between all moms/dads who bring toys that anyone and everyone can take your toys and play with them and that the playees will do their best to return the toys when they are done. So basically Isaac got to do his very favorite thing, play with other people's toys, for about an hour and a half, until he was ready to drop. We are SO going to the pool next week.

Tired? Teething? Don't let this happen to you

How to entertain a toddler for a 2-day drive

Step 1: Get car with VCR (or more modern movie-playing device).

Step 2: Insert 1.5-hour-long Wiggles tape into VCR.

Step 3: Play said Wiggles tape.

Step 4: Repeat step 3 until even the cars next to you know "Can You Point Your Fingers and Do the Twist?" by heart.

Observe the contented child that results from application of this procedure:

A few reasons why Delaware kicks Seattle's granola butt

1) We can shop at Wal-Mart without incurring the wrath of friends and coworkers who think we're supporting The Man:



2) We can feed our toddler ice cream, in public, without fear of someone glaring purposefully at our poor idea of nutrition:




(His first ice cream cone, by the way -- Grandpa O'Neal's suggestion)

3) The parking lots have loooooooots of space. Like, enough to hold both cars and people:



And there are others, of course. Like that we get to eat at Bob Evans and that I can once again buy my favorite yogurt, Columbo, not available in the Pacific Northwest. That we will be able to buy a house without using a 50-year mortgage (you think I'm kidding?) to do it. That it's a smidge closer to the grandmas and grandpas. That people can drive without worrying about what flavor of karma you're bringing on yourself unless you engage in all this you-go-first hand-waving crizap. That we're two hours from D.C. and NYC. Now, of course there are some drawbacks (see above post), but I think we are definitely East-Coast people.

What we did in Indy

While we were waiting for Dada to come and then go, Isaac and I had a lot on our plate. Observe the marathon games of peekaboo with myself and Aunt Jean:





Then we learned how to lay around with Uncle Chris:



There were intensive piano lessons with Grandma Ross:



And sand-engineering lessons from Great-Grandma and -Grandpa Peetz:



The Grandpas taught Isaac how to mow with Grandpa Ross's industrial-strength big-boy toys:



Then Grandma O'Neal roped him into organizing her spice rack and participating in her new kitchen-based step aerobics class:






And let's not forget the water sports with Grandpa O'Neal and cousins Sarah (pictured), Nate, and Emily:



So much work deserves rich rewards, such as a ride in a Sarah-drawn carriage across Grandma O'Neal's backyard:



Or a visit to Uncle Chris's and Aunt Jean's luxe downtown apartment, where we were treated to a live rendition of "Free Bird" (click for a movie!):



As you can see, it was clearly torturous and exhausting, with Isaac having to pander to audience upon audience while his lazy Mom sipped iced tea and took naps. Because, you know, he isn't rapidly evolving into a shameless ham or anything.