A note to my future daughter-in-law

Hello, dear,

I hear you like my son. I don't blame you a bit, my dear, because he is wonderful. He chose you because he thinks that you are wonderful, too, and I am so happy. I promise to be warm and kind and excited, and I will do my best to be a very good mother-in-law. I don't have a mother-in-law around, and therefore don't have a vivid example of the dos and don'ts, but in general I hear that I should go easy on the advice. Done. This shall be my mantra: do whatever you want and I'm sure it'll be great. Except this: don't put tuna in a casserole dish for any reason. There. Now you and I will be fast friends, I'm sure. May I ask a favor?

Please, be gentle with my mother heart and remember: he used to be mine.

One day, I held the wiggly, squirmy weight of him on my lap and I saw the light from the window behind him fall on his round baby cheeks and he was mine. It was me he waited not so patiently for in the morning, chubby little fingers wrapped around the crib rails and a brilliant smile when I opened the door.

Before he was yours, he was mine and I lifted him out of his high chair with Cheerios stuck to his belly. I saw the way his baby eyelashes closed onto his soft, pale cheeks when he fell asleep.

He scratched my face in his eagerness to play, grabbing at my lips and nose and eyeballs while he laughed and screeched in delight.

I clipped those sharp fingernails. I washed his bum and wiped his nose and blew raspberries on his belly. I sang the Piggy song and tickled his toes and laughed about how the second one is shorter than the third.

I watched him take his first awkward Frankenstein steps and he was nobody else's but mine.

And now maybe he is yours but not entirely. The part of him, the part with the little rosebud lips and the way he waggles his head back and forth to make us laugh, that part isn't yours because it wasn't his to give.

It's mine.

And even though I am so excited to have you near, I'm going to keep just that one little part all to myself.

All my love,
His Mama

(P.S. I guess my feelings on tuna casserole really aren't all that strong. Do whatever you want. I'm sure it will be great.)

Poop makes startling entrance, abrupt exit in local home

A local woman suddenly found her home covered in human feces after an unexpected stomach bug afflicted her one year old last week, sources say.

Mister Baggins, age one, cried from his crib/poop cage in the wee hours of a morning last week before spending the next 3 days alternately vomiting all over his clean clothing and making a complete mockery of diaper after diaper. According to the boy's parents, days of force-feeding him Pedialyte, repeatedly washing his bedding, and subjecting him to excessive baths have resulted in a full recovery.

"I didn't realize what a sad little grump he was being while he was sick, " his mother stated. "It wasn't until he was feeling better that I remembered why we like him so much."

"He smells a lot better now," added the boy's father, noting that the child's diapers seemed to have magically regained their ability to absorb excrement in the days since the illness. 

Experts are unsure the cause of the outburst. Residents are warned to keep plenty of carpet cleaner and Clorox 2 on hand in case what is being called a "stomach bug" should unexpectedly strike.

Mister Baggins, fully recovered. No wonder I love him so much.

 

Lessons on tempered glass

I think I may have mentioned on ye ol' blog a time or two the great epic saga of the exploding stove. Basically, one time when I was about 13 I was at my dad's house in Bountiful keeping an eye on the whole gaggle of siblings I have. I pulled a Papa Murphy's pizza out of the oven, stepped over to the counter to set it down, and the entire glass front of the stove exploded outward on to the floor. I heard later it had something to do with the glass not being tempered correctly, but really I just remember thinking that none of the adults in my life seemed as concerned about the possibility of future EXPLODING OVENS as much as my siblings and I were.

Anyway, fast forward like 16 years to a couple of weeks ago. I was feeding Baggins some sort of delicious vegetable mash for lunch and decided to reheat some of the super fantastic roasted potatoes I'd made for dinner the night before for my own meal. I popped them into the oven on broil on a glass plate, and sat back down on the ground cross-legged to finish shoveling puree into my hungry bird's gaping mouth.

At some point, I cocked my head a bit to the side and thought to myself, Hmmm. I betcha that glass isn't temp...

But I didn't even finish the thought before a loud POP and a sizzle came from the oven.

Sigh.

A day at the zoo causes me to burst into song.

Each spring there comes a day when the yellow inversion lifts, the sun shines, and I feel full to bursting with AWESOME. I am tempted all day to strap on an apron and spin around like Maria soon-to-be-von-Trapp on that mountain side singing at the top of my lungs, and at some point I acknowledge the awesome and think, huh, I don't remember snorting 8 lines of cocaine this morning. I wonder why I feel so fantastic?

And then it hits me. What I really feel is NORMAL, but after months of trudging along in the snow with my head down and my heart encased in ice, I nearly forgot what it felt like to not feel gross. Maybe this sounds a little overly dramatic. 

IT'S NOT. Hello, Vitamin D. It's nice to see you again.

Anyway, yesterday was one of those days. The sun was sparkling and the weather was perfect and then Stacey said, "hey, want to go to the zoo for free?" and I was like, "THE HILLS ARE ALIVE!"

And that's how we spent a perfectly perfect day at the zoo. Proof:

 I ended up pushing my giant Cadillac stroller all over that darn zoo and Bug never climbed in it once.

 Can you even stand how cute these two girls are in their pea coats?

Mister Baggins didn't have any shoes on, mostly because due to a recent growth spurt we don't own shoes that fit him. It wasn't really a big deal since he's mostly content to chill out in the the stroller and was bundled in blankets, too. At one point when I was letting him check out that orangutan close up, though, I thought to myself, "Huh. My kid is standing on the floor of the gorilla house in only his socks." And then I got distracted by the fact that my hair was in a side ponytail (is that only for high schoolers? I'm undecided) and figured I'd wash the socks when we got home and chalk the whole episode up to strengthening immune systems.

Have I ever mentioned that my kids are wildly intolerant of having the sun in their eyes? Clearly, Bug wasn't willing to sacrifice retinas for a family photo op by the elephants.

The thing we love very most about our dear friends the Ortons (besides their free zoo pass, obviously) is the way they love our kids. Stacey even kept loving Bug when she asked eighty six times in a row if we could stop for lunch and then, as soon as we sat down to eat, started asking when we could see more animals. We are lucky to have such patient friends. We had a wonderful time, and the time outside was just what the doctor ordered for the severe case of the Februaries that's been floating around our house.

I'm starting to believe that maybe, just maybe, it won't be icy forever. 

Plus, I like meatballs.

I think I'd really enjoy Sweden.

I am, of course, basing this entire assumption on how much I enjoy shopping at IKEA. (I really hope people from other countries don't make the same assumption about the US after visiting a Walmart.)

Mister Baggins thinks he'd really enjoy Sweden, too, and he's basing that entirely on the cinnamon rolls he ate at IKEA.