Some Things...

... of note from my visit to the lady parts doctor today.

-My doctor's office, along with several other lady parts and fruit of lady parts focused practices share a building with the world headquarters of Playboy Enterprises. Innnnnneresting. That must make for some AWESOMELY awkward elevator conversations.

-The nurse who weighed me said she thought her scale was broken because I could not possibly weigh that much looking as I do. Sure, it may be common flattery bestowed upon all of the recently (and not so recently) postpartum patients but I won't lie, the way to my heart is through complimenting my fat ass.

-I am fairly certain that my doctor tried to convince me to have another child. Uh, sure lady. As long as you pay for the day care for the second one and invent some way I can still drink beer while pregnant, I will get right on that.

The Age of Aquariums

So. Where have I been? Bruce's parents were in town so I had to be on my best behavior. That meant no swearing, cracking my knuckles or spending hours on the computer blogging, looking at funny cat pictures and reading spoilers for shitty reality shows that I don't even watch. It was painful. I had to, like, get up and go do stuff. Outside my house. In the open air. With other people. Lord love a duck*, I had to be a tourist.

The Canadian invasion began on Tuesday night while I was at softball despite the fact that Bruce had assured me that they would be showing up sometime Wednesday afternoon. I suppose it was Wednesday afternoon somewhere. Like, Tokyo.** Anyways, so real CST Wednesday rolled around and we needed something for the whole group to do lest we spend the day sitting around on my god awful couch judging my parenting and wifing skills. After I listed nearly ever museum in the Greater Chicagoland area*** we finally settled on the John G. Shedd Aquarium as I had only been there once and Bruce and Calder had been there never. Plus it was indoors so it was easing me into that whole out of the house, wearing pants while on vacation thing. Suffice it to say, like the real zoo, the fish zoo was a huge success. Calder sat down at the first display and watched Amazonian fish of some sort swimming for about five minutes before we dragged him over to the next one where he proceeded to sit down and watch for another five. After we hauled him over to the third tank I think Calder finally caught on that this whole place was filled with these magical giant fish tvs and that parking himself at only one of them was really just wasting precious gawping and pointing time. We managed to do nearly the entire place without a major meltdown. The only part we missed was the dolphin/sea lion show since it had already started when we first passed by and we weren't going to try to make Calder sit still for that long until we fed him. Which, surprisingly Calder behaved like a little gentleman at lunch in the fancier of the aquarium's cafes. Apparently the key to getting him to behave in restaurants is to make sure he's starving****.

The pictures all came out sort of questionably since there is no flash photography allowed in the place***** but I did get a few of Calder and his grandparents enjoying themselves and will also subject you to my amateur National Geographic-y wildlife photographer delusions.

This fish is pretty emo and clearly pissed that he has to live in a tank with such girly pinky fluffy anemones. How can he feel his pain, man, living in this pile of cotton candy?

Grandma did most of the toddler hoisting freeing me up for pictures and enjoying myself. As much as I love my son and experiencing new things with him, I enjoy it more so when I am devoid of crippling back pain.

This is what they were looking at, an open tank of stingrays. Bitchin'.

There were also quite a few touchy-feely type exhibits that Calder enjoyed although the fake coral walls in the Wild Reef disturbed him at first. Bizarro plastic knobules might be a tad much for a tired toddler to handle after Daddy scares the shit out of him while looking at turtles.

I have no idea what these things are, sea worms maybe, but they are goddamn AWESOME.

Surprisingly, much of the interactive stuff was down at Calder level so he got to play with the info touch screens and look at pictures of lots of different fish which was sometimes more entertaining than the actual fish. Honestly, unless they are freaky looking or have the potential to kill you, fish can be pretty damn boring.

I liked the starfish. They were immobile so I could take pretty pictures of them and not feel like a photography failure.

Calder was impressively engaged during the entire aquarium endeavor.

Ooooh. Jelly fish that change color. Freaky and dangerous. Waaaaay interesting.

Site of the aforementioned turtle scaring. Calder had been watching it sit still for a while and was fine until the turtle took off swimming just as Bruce came up from behind and started tickling the boy. It's probably best the kid's still in diapers.

The poor turtle, of course, was blamed for everything.

Calder and Bruce looking at some weirdo fish that I cannot identify. If you care to find out what all these critters are, feel free to get a friggin' degree in ichthyology.

Oh, wait. I do know this one. It's the Lower Nile Smiling Fish. SO not making that up.******

We caught the tail end of the diver show in the Caribbean Reef. Calder seemed horrified that anyone would go in there voluntarily.

Well, horrified until he noticed the Green Moray Eel. Calder was quite taken with that thing. Lower left, btw.

For some reason there was a boat in the middle of one of the fish galleries? There was also a tent. Calder even managed to locate himself a dog. In an aquarium.

By the end the the day, Calder was all good with turtles again. He even quite liked them.

Which is why I rewarded him with a nice cushy stuffed turtle for being a sweet little thing and falling asleep in public for the first time since he became mobile. It's a wonder how much more pleasant being out with him can be when when instead of having a major snot-face gooby freak out he just passes out in his stroller like a normal kid.

*This is an actual phrase uttered by my father-in-law. This is how he curses. You can see my dilemma.
**Do not bother to check this. I am likely wrong.
***I am not kidding. I hit nearly all of them up to and including the International Museum of Surgical Science. I still kinda want to go there.
****The whole visit we were two for three on the restaurant trips. For the other "good" meal Calder was asleep but I am still counting it.
*****This didn't stop a whole shit-ton of yahoos from snapping away like eejits despite the fact that they were too dumb to figure out how to turn off their auto flash. Not me of course because I always follow the rules out of an irrational feel of getting yelled at by authority figures.
******Of course I am making that up.

Let Me Show You This

My in-laws are visiting. Apparently this means Calder must demonstrate every single toy he has for them. At least he has the good sense to trot out the stuff they bought for him first.

Things I've Figured Out

• The reason Calder is such a pain in the ass at swim class is because the instructors, other kids and parents fail to acknowledge that Calder is the uniquest and most specialest snowflake in the pool and thus he is not the constant center of attention and recipient of adulation. Unlike, let's say, at daycare. Calder is simply too used to being a lil' tyrant to cope when the people in charge decide to spread the love around a little bit. Plus he'd rather hoard all the toys in the pool than do any actual swimming
• There is no point in buying children's clothing in any colors other than black, brown, navy blue and forest green. Ok, maaaaaybe brick red too. The rest will inevitably end up stained beyond recognition, relegated to the "inside the house only" drawer lest others think you are a family of slovenly goobs who cannot eat a friggin' sammich without wearing half the mustard and all of the tomatoes. Also, patterns are good because they can help obscure the blotches of spaghetti sauce and chocolate. By the time he is able to talk in full sentences the second thing he will ask me will be, "Why do I have so many Hawaiian shirts, Mom?". The first question being, "Can I go live with Miss Kathy?".
• Older kids are well-known bath haters. Especially boys. Getting my little bro in the tub was like giving a cat a swirly. Except with more scratching. Do you know why this is? Because by the time a boy has reached 4 or 5 he has been bathed, showered, wiped, scrubbed down, hosed off and doused approximately eleventy hundred billion times. Children are simply all bath'd out by kindergarten. This past Saturday, Calder took a shower with Bruce before swimming, one with me before we got in the pool and then another one after swimming. Sunday was another shower with Bruce and then a bath by 2 pm because he had gotten into the shower and rubbed soap all over his body. I didn't mind the soap all too much, soap is in essence pretty clean, yeah? However, it made Calder way too slippery to deal with properly so into the tub he went. Of course that didn't stop him from banging on the bathroom door wailing "bathss! bathss!" when bed time rolled around.
• If you ask a toddler if he wants to go to bed, he will say no. It does not matter if he is slumped over in his high chair or laying prostrate on the couch yawning and rubbing his eyes. He will still say no. This is because toddler are big fat LIARS. Other things that are lied about. Poop in diapers, that puddle of milk on the couch and why there is a bunch of cookie cutters in the toilet.
• How to fold my big stroller. No seriously. I just figured this out, like, two weeks ago. I am a giant asshole moron apparently. I have been cursing this stupid thing up and down because what good is it if you drive a m-fing Echo and can't take it anywhere. So yeah, RTFD, Leah.
  

Lemme Drop Some Cuteness on You

I don't really have anything to say. This weekend, like most weekends, spending two days straight all Calder all the time has wiped me the hell out. He's been pretty effing cute lately what with the chunky cheekums and the adorably mispronounced words. This is probably why I haven't yet mailed Calder to grandma's or sold him to gypsies in exchange for a new couch. Seriously, it's very difficult to remain annoyed with someone who's just clocked you in the face and given you a fat lip at 8:30 in the morning when the next thing he does is show you the new pictures in his "anny anny no-book!"* It's like, c'mon child, please let me be irate for five seconds about my new Lisa Rinna face because if you make me forget about it with your huge blue eyes and disarming personality I will go outside later and be totally confused as to why people are giving Bruce funny looks.

Sharing apples with Molson.

Dancing. I think? Or he's got a big load in his pants. Maybe both.

Trying to hug a napping Sam.

Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.

Baby's first corn dog.

Reading about animals and numbers in one of his favorite books.

Pretending that it was Elby who just colored all over the living room with markers. Washable, thankfully.

*Handy dandy notebook! We love Blue's Clues here now. Or as Calder calls it, Bloos loos! Bloos loos!

Tagger

Calder, like any toddler, likes coloring. He's almost at the point where you can leave him alone with his marker/crayons and paper without worrying that he'll do more art supply eating than coloring. ALMOST. Yesterday Bruce found out why snacking on crayons is the least of the reasons a one-year-old should always be supervised with writing implements.

Office

Filing cabinet in office

His bedroom door

Doorway to bedroom

Kitchen cabinets

More kitchen. And let's pretend he's responsible for the mess on the floor too.

Basically, Calder tagged every white space in the apartment except for the bathroom and I am pretty sure he didn't hit that because we have to keep the door shut lest he entertain himself by flushing cookie cutters again. Bruce wonders why sometimes I criticize his parenting skills.

Catching Up

Some of you may be wondering if Calder is over his illness. Yes, in fact he is. I knew for certain his insides were feeling better when last Wednesday when, while taking a bath, Calder handed me a very lovely and perfectly firm piece of poo. Calder was immensely proud of himself for this. I guess I'd be pleased about my first solid bowel movement in five days too.

He was actually pretty much all better by his doctor visit earlier that day although I am sure it was still affecting him a bit since I cannot believe he only weighed 26.5 lbs. It must be hard to maintain one's weight when one cannot keep food in either end for very long. Seriously, that can't be all he weighs. According to Dr. Merens he is approximately 36 inches long. That's three feet tall, yo. He's gotta be more dense than that. Dr. Merens is pretty impressed by his development altogether. She was really impressed by his vocabulary and memory (he went right for a cabinet of rubber gloves that he had been playing with at the appointment three months before) and really impressed with his physical dexterity. This is probably because I spent most of the visit trying to stop Calder from getting the instruments down from the wall via climbing up the sink.

The doctor did have one minor concern however. She found that Calder had some fluid in his ears, not too worrying since he's talking quite a bit so it can't be affecting his hearing all that much but the boy has had two ear infections already. Since he wasn't feeling all that well and wouldn't be able to get all his shots that day, Dr. Merens suggested that we schedule another appointment to have his ears looked at and get the rest of his vaccinations. Hopefully, the fluid will be gone and nothing else with have to be done other than the shots. I'm going to let Bruce handle that trip to the doctor. I though watching my poor kiddo get jabbed with needles was bad before but it was nothing compared to when he knows what's coming. It's very difficult not to grab your child and flee the room when he is clutching you and screaming, "No, mommy! Noooooo!" in the most piteous manner a toddler can muster. Well, it's difficult when it's about big ass needles any way. Thankfully motherly instincts don't apply to stupid swim classes. I'm gonna make certain Calder uses up my $80 worth of water fun.