Week 11 Day 5: Eight months eve

Tomorrow Gavin will be 8 months old. Nevermind that I've been telling people he's 8 months old for nearly a month now, thinking he would, in fact, be nine months old tomorrow. Then again, I can hardly remember how old I am or how old Stacy is. Math is hard. Parenting is hard. Doing them both at the same time? Impossible. At least for me. But tomorrow really is Gavin's eighth monthiversary.

Speaking of knowing how old my son is, did I mention that I basically told the United States Census that Gavin does not yet exist? Per their instructions, I listed Gavin's age as 0, since he's under a year old. Unfortunately I also put that he was born July 20, 2010, which, of course, hasn't happened yet. I guess I'll chalk it up to my traumatic census experience. But just like John Edwards will one day have to apologize to his illegitimate daughter for claiming she did not exist, I will one day have to apologize to Gavin. Though for something a lot less serious. Way to go, John Edwards. Way to go.

I know you're dying to hear what today's Big Outing was. I'll give you three possible answers. Was it
A: Meijer (which, really, is Meijer's, since nobody calls it Meijer)
B: Target
C: A walk
D: A pawn shop/check cashing/scrap metal yard/gentlemen's club/gun shop/firing range/liquor emporium/drycleaners supercenter

If you answered "D," you are incorrect, but please tell me where such a place exists as I could get so much done under one roof. If you answered "All of the Above, Except "D," you are correct and win the grand prize of feeling smug.

My big mission today was to find bibs, specifically hand towel-sized bibs made of terry cloth that pull over the head (and by "the head" I mean Gavin's). Gavin can make quite the mess when he eats and we don't have a lot of feeding bibs. The drool bibs are really no match for peasycarrots (what I call the carrots that I sneak peas into so Gavin will actually eat peas) not to mention oatmeal and rice cereal which hardens into a cement-like substance as it dries. I had actually found the exact kind of bib I was looking for at Target, but they had Elmo on them, which, as you know, is a no-go for me. So I figured I could find something less offensive at another big box store. When I was pulling out of my driveway I hadn't yet decided if I was going to Meijer or K-Mart, but quickly realized that I did not want to take Gavin to K-Mart. He's just too young to witness that kind of sadness. The last time I was at K-Mart I took note of the display on the wall behind the customer service counter. There were photos of employees, such as the store manager and the employee of the month or whatever, and some signs regarding return policy, etc., all housed in very cheap frames that were wildly crooked. No framed item shared angles or degrees with any other, as if a blind person had been tasked with hanging them. All I could think was, "Someone did this on purpose. Someone stepped back from this disaster and said, 'Yep, that's the best I can do. This is totally acceptable.'" Pretty much sums up why I don't like shopping at K-Mart.

After Meijer we went to Target to return some rugs (Fun detail. Read: not important!). As I had planned on just going in, returning the rugs and dashing back out, I didn't bring Gavin's cart-seat protector thing. But as we were leaving the sun was very bright in the parking lot and Gavin was squinting into it and I remembered that I had wanted to get him a sun hat. We go for a lot of walks and though his stroller has a shade, it can't always be positioned to keep the sun off. And so we went back into Target and I put Gavin in an unsheathed cart. I wiped the handle down with hand sanitizer, but before I could even finish this task Gavin wrapped his lips around the metal bar. So probably he has hoof and mouth disease of something now. But hopefully he won't get skull cancer from the sun since we did, indeed, find him a sun hat (I say "we" but actually, I found it. Gavin was no help at all, busy as he was making out with the shopping cart). And sunglasses. Though we haven't tried the sunglasses yet, the hat looks mighty cute even if it is a bit babyish. But as Laura pointed out, Gavin is a baby.