Movin' Right Along

So Casa de Turpin is not a happy place lately, Calder is still teething, he and I have colds and Bruce is being "emo mr crankypants" according to one of his hockey players. Despite all this Calder is still growing and thriving. He has three complete teeth now and a fourth well on its way. Honestly there could be more but Calder will not let us even peek in his mouth for a second. He doesn't even want to chew on my finger anymore which was a nice means of checking out what was going on inside that sticky maw of his.

Calder is also becoming quite the little climber, pulling himself up on anything and even over stuff if he can do it. Pulling up is old hat for Calder at this point. In the mornings we sometimes find him standing up in his crib before he is even fully awake; he can do it with his eyes shut! Calder is also becoming quite adventurous in terms of creeping along the furniture and holding onto stuff to "walk" around. AT daycare he likes to push around a shopping cart to keep himself upright while he motors about the classroom. I should teach him how to hold on the vacuum, then we might get some cleaning done around here. Actually that's not true, there was lots of cleaning last week while Julie and Jay were staying with us for the wedding. Julie did my dishes, scrubbed my toilet and cleaned my fridge. I told her I would buy her a plane ticket any time she wanted to come hang and clean. It's only a bonus that Jay loves playing with Calder giving me time to do things like eat a full meal and pee.

Calder will not be content with merely pushing around plastic carts and creeping along coffee tables for very much longer. He's already trying to figure out how to stand on his own. Calder gets himself into a catcher's style crouch with both feet flat on the floor by placing his hands on the ground for balance and then starts to make motions like he is about to let go of the floor and push up. So far he just gets one hand off the ground and then wobbles back down onto his knees but you can really see it on his face how he's thinking the whole process through. It's only a matter of time until my super advanced baby is even more advanced. How can he be advanced, you say? He doesn't even crawl. Well my friends, he can crawl. Every so often, Calder will throw out a few feet of belly off the ground crawling at us and then plop back down into his army man action as if to say, "See, I am perfectly capable of crawling like a normal baby, I simply choose not to." So not only is my child advanced, he is also ornery. Shocking, I know.

Hahahaha, Gross.

What happens when you eat a jar of green beans and rice waaaay too fast and then cough violently?

Much grossness, that's what happens.

Friday Film Fest

Calder likes to eat pretty much anything he can convince u sto put in his mouth. ANYTHING. Well pretty much anything, so far the only food he has outright rejected has been this awful organic pasta dinner baby food. It is horrid. But, BUT, sometimes Calder likes eating so much, he'll keep on keepin' on despite the nastiness of his meal.

Sorry

Sorry no updates. We have friends in town and I am in the middle of a wedding cake odyssey. I will try to put something up for FFF later on tonight.

Seven Months!

Yesterday Calder turned 7 months old. How crazy is that? Sorry about no Friday Film Fest; for Calder's birthday we took him to the first ever Blackhawks Fan Convention downtown. Plus the teething has made him soooo crabby that he has not done much worth filming. Unless you consider 2-3 hours a day of crying and pulling my hair to be interesting. I sure don't. Plus Plus it's balls ass hot here and there is nothing we can do to escape the heat. NOTHING. Our air conditioner has gone from somewhat inefficient and annoying helper to trying to burn the apartment down while we sleep. I wish I was kidding about this. Last night I was awoken by loud snapping and crackling noises and my immediate reaction was, "Effing coddamn kids, why haven't they run out of the friggin' fireworks yet?" But then, THEN I realized that the crackling was coming from the A/C unit. Crackling noises and a light show to be exact. The stupid air conditioner WAS SHOOTING OUT SPARKS.

I will not lie. I did lay the for a few minutes weighing the options in my head. Is it really hot enough in here to risk dieing in a fire? How much hotter will it get in here is the place does catch fire? Is hydrant water cold? Will the neighbors get THAT mad if I burn their stuff down? How fast can I grab the baby, bag the cats and rustle everyone outside? (Yes, bag them. My plan in the event of a house fire is to shove the cats into pillow cases or canvas bags in order to get them out of the house with a minimum or scratching and ire.) Eventually I did unplug the bitch but damned if I will be with A/C for too long. I don't care if I need steal a shopping cart and push that bitch home from the store, I will not be denied!

So enough excuses how bout some baby talk? The top two teeth are finally starting to poke through! Yay! Yesterday I was letting Calder gnaw on my hand and I realized that it was hurting more than usual so I pried open his sticky maw and sure enough, there is one tooth that has almost burst all the way through and the second one has a corner out. Yippideedoo. Bruce has him back at the fan convention right now so I am not sure how much progress they made overnight but I am sure corn on the cob is in his near future.

Standing is still Calder's favorite pastime. At daycare he likes to climb up onto one of the bouncy seats and hold onto the back and bounce himself up and down. Calder has A LOT of energy these days. All day long he's up down up down up down and creeping along the edges of stuff, always trying to get at the most dangerous thing in the room. I swear, he has some innate sense that compulsively draws him towards whatever thing or situation is most likely to kill him. He'll make a beeline to any set of wires in baby range, try to fling himself off the changing table or lunge for a knife on the counter. It's guaranteed. Of course it doesn't help that Bruce has no baby safety common sense whatsoever. Like none at all. Sometimes I think I would be better off tying Calder to the dog and leaving him there while I do the dishes rather than leave Bruce with him unsupervised. He is slowly catching on though. After the fifteen billionth time I admonished Bruce for putting Calder on the floor and leaving the room, Calder managed to pull one of the dining room chairs over onto himself. Thankfully he didn't get hurt but I think there was enough of a possibility that he could get hurt that it scared Bruce into acting like a parent for at least a few weeks. It's shit like this that makes seven months seem like a coddamn miracle.

OMG Just Get Here Already

If these top two teeth don't bust through soon, I am going to start punching strangers in the face.

That is all.

What a Pain

Last night while Bruce and I were eating our dinner, pork tenderloin and corn on the cob, we kept giving Calder little bits of meat so he would continue to bounce happily in his jumper and allow us to eat dinner in peace for once. Calder was not content with sharing only a portion of our dinner and would looked longingly at the corn every so often. After a few gurgles and shouts I finally had to tell him that he needed at least two more teeth to be able to eat corn on the cob; middle bottoms and middle tops are the minimum required tools to eat such a thing.

Well crap, what a thunderous mess of suck did I bring down on myself. Starting early today, oh five-ish I'd say, Calder started wailing. He eventually went back to sleep and stayed in bed until 8 am which is a rare and delightful treat. I thought we were in for a good day. Oh ho ho was I stupid. After he killed his first bottle he kept chewing on it long after the milk was gone. Hmm, this is curious I thought. On a whim, I managed to pry open his mouth long enough to stick my finger in and feel his top gums. And there are bumps. Biiig bumps. FINALLY! He is teething again and acting accordingly. So instead of having a nice leisurely Sunday to enjoy as a family, we spent all day rotating medications and making asses of ourselves to keep his mind off of his owie mouth. Before we put him to bed, Bruce was able to get his mouth open wide enough so we could see inside. The poor little guy's tender gums are all fiery red and blistery looking. It looks like his 3rd and 4th teeth will be showing up shortly. I guess Calder was really serious about getting his hands on some of that corn.

Thank god he is going to daycare tomorrow.

Friday Film Fest

Now that Calder has the pulling up thing down the next logical step of course, is using his new found talent to better harass the dog. He doesn't have it down totally yet but here Calder tries to creep his way over to his most favorite person, Elby,

This Thing is Just LIke That Thing

Having a baby is just like having a cat or a dog. Srsly. They all barf, poo and need to be fed constantly and never ever want to let you sleep in. See? It's exactly the same. What, you still don't believe me? Fine. What follows is incontrovertible photo evidence that there is no difference between having babies and having pets.

Cats like to play with and destroy the paper towel roll.

So do babies!

Cats like to sit in boxes.

So do babies!

Dogs like to chew on plastic bottles.

So do babies!

Actually, perhaps having a baby is better than having a cat or a dog. Even if they cry all the time, cost a bajillion dollars to raise and act like giant assholes when they become teenagers babies will actually play with the expensive toys that you bought for the animals and that have been treated with nothing but disdain by them since.

Lil' Baller

Friday Film Fest

Back after a short layoff, here's your Friday Film, BabyJaws, holiday be damned.

Big Boy

Most current stats after the latest trip to the doctor:

Height - 26inches
Weight - 18 pounds, 12 ounces
Head - 40ish cm

Hot done got big, yo. Thats 2.75 pounds more than he weighed on the last visit about two months ago. All that big people food is starting to stick. And as Dr. Merens told me, despite what I think, Calder's head isn't all that huge. Actually, his height and weight are in the 50-70th percentile range while his head is only in the 20th. I hope it catches up then 'cause I don't want Calder to end up with a big, beefy body and a tiny, little head. I make fun of people like that and I don't want to have to make fun of my own son. Other than that, the visit was pretty typical. He got a bunch more shots and took them like a champion. A crying, biting, hair-pulling champion that is. He didn't pee on Dr. Merens for what may be the first time ever so that was pleasant. For her too I'm sure.

Calder got his first taste of sweet, sweet cheese a few days ago. I needed something to entertain him while I did the dishes and Elby is no good at cleaning up Cheerios so I wanted something that I could be certain I wasn't going to have to sweep up later. Calder enjoyed his cheese immensely. He got right into stuffing his face with those tasty shreds of goodness, like he'd been cheesing it up his whole life. I'd probably return him to the hospital if he didn't take to the cheese right away because there would be no way he could possibly be our son. We are a cheese-eatin' family and that is that. No exceptions. We shun vegans here. SHUN SHUN!

It's Official

He can do it. Calder pulled himself up on the glider at daycare today. My baby is advanced, yo.

He has a doctor's visit tomorrow so we will be updated on his height, weight and melon measurements. I am guessing he weight will stay in the middle percentiles but I think his height may move up. He seems very, very long lately. Even the 6-9 month one-piece outfits pull in the diaper area. Separates aren't a problem though so perhaps Calder just has a ridiculously long torso.