July 31, 2010: A bear and a sloth

Gavin and I were on our own today since Stacy was up north for a funeral. Rest in Peace, Great Aunt Vernice. I would have liked to go to pay my respects and be there with Stacy, but there really is no way a one year old is going to sit still during a Catholic funeral service. I only met Vernice twice but I am so glad that I did get to meet her. Every year she was always the first person we'd get a Christmas card from and she sent it addressed to Stacy and me. You know, like we're an actual couple. And then when Gavin was born she sent a card congratulating us. Gavin got to meet her, too, and she adored him. For his first birthday she sent him a birthday card with a bear on it and $5 in it (old people love to send cash through the mail). We never did get a chance to thank her. She died so soon after his birthday.

So instead of a funeral, I took Gavin to see bats. More specifically, Laura and I took Gavin to see bats. And greyhounds. And a sloth. And some flying squirrels. Even more specifically, we went to the Cranbrook Institute of Science for the Great Lakes Bat Festival, which celebrates, well, bats. While bats might seem like an odd animal to celebrate, they're actually really cool. They have a bad reputation because of Dracula and rabies and nighttime. But they're really insect eating machines. Mosquitoes are one of their favorites and any animal who slurps up thousands of bugs a night is A-OK with me.

Gavin really liked the dogs, which is not surprising, and shouted "dog" and "doggie" over and over and over again. He says "dog" with more gusto than any other word or word-like sound in his vocabulary. He babbles softly to him self frequently but when he hears or sees a dog it's shout time. The reason the dogs were there in the first place is because ReGAP (Retired Greyhounds As Pets) had a booth there. A volunteer came over with a dog and let Gavin pet him. The dog's head was about level with Gavin's stroller, which was perfect for petting. Thankfully Gavin didn't try any of his crazy animal "petting" stunts, like when he kneads the skin on Jasper's head with one fist while pinning his neck with the other. Pulling cat fur out is fun, too. As is yanking on dog collars, especially the jangly tags. Gavin's Aunt Laura has a greyhound named Emma. In fact, Emma is from ReGAP. She turns 14 tomorrow. Laura has had Emma since she was two years old. Gavin has gotten to meet her several times and while at first she was disinterested, as Gavin has gotten more mobile he's started freaking her out. She's an old lady. He's an insane pint size human who lurches zombie-like around the house and screeches in a language that sounds like a mix between German, Swedish, and something tribal and perhaps yet undiscovered. When he visits, probably all Emma thinks about is how brittle her bones are.

Having never seen a bat before, I think Gavin was a little confused at first in the Bat Zone. The rooms are relatively dark and the cages are lit with red bulbs, presumably to mimic the whole nocturnal thing. So it was hard to see even if you knew that you were looking for bats, and of course Gavin was not. He was equally fascinated with the fake greenery hanging from the ceiling and his own stroller, which was soon abandoned because it was a tight squeeze in there. I ended up carrying Gavin and hoisting him up so he could see. This resulted in what I would imagine a broken collar bone feels like. But once he saw the bats flitting about he quickly realized what he was seeing: flying dogs. He wasted no time announcing what species was being observed in the Bat Zone, lest the other people there not be as quick.

The sloth was also a dog to him, and a complete surprise to us. I expected to see bats and bats only, but for whatever reason the Bat Zone contains a sloth that Laura said is named Mo. She said it was in/on one of the many pages of bat-related literature we were given to accompany our visit to Cranbrook. Thankfully we arrived during one of Mo's active periods. And by active I mean that he went from hanging upside down with his giant toenails on the far size of his cage to hanging upside down in the middle of his cage where there was a basket filled with food. We got to watch him eat a strip of yellow squash. One of the Bat Zone ladies told me that his food intake is carefully monitored since his digestion is so slow. She also pointed out that he uses a litter box in the corner of his cage, thereby qualifying him to be an indoor pet. She then said that when he goes to the bathroom it is really, really stinky, thereby disqualifying him to be an indoor pet. (I am, of course, joking about keeping a sloth as a pet. I have a long history of decrying primates as pets). So yeah, sloths are awesome.

Also, as a heads up for anyone thinking about visiting the Bat Zone: it smells very strongly of pee. Like a hundred open diaper pails. Okay, maybe not that bad. But pee city, for sure. And it was not at all Gavin's fault this time.

7-28-10: Sock hop

I just watched Gavin, who is a bureau scavenger of the highest order, take one of his shoes out of the dresser, look at it, and then slowly bend over and methodically press the sole of the shoe onto the top of his foot. He held it there for a moment of intense concentration and then stood up and tossed the shoe aside in order to continue rummaging through the drawers -- the equivalent of shrugging his shoulders and saying, "Huh, this may be for my foot but I guess there's some kind of trick to it only mommies know."

The next thing he pulled out was a pair of socks, which he did not do the same thing with. Probably because for him socks are for taking off. It's difficult to keep socks on him, even when the situation requires it. Like today, for example. Stacy and I took him to Java Jungle and it says very clearly on very prominent signage that SOCKS ARE REQUIRED! They even sell socks there in case you forget yours. So Gavin had on his little boy sweat socks and was running and climbing all over the little toddler play area they have there (the play area for older kids is much bigger and more involved) and then just sat down and pulled at the toes of his socks until his little bare feet were free. "Sorry, Dude," I said, pulling a sock back on his enormously fat foot, "socks are required." Thankfully he accepted this with no fuss and went on playing. After awhile a few new kids showed up with three ladies who were obviously friends with each other. Only one of them had socks. One was barefoot and the other wore flip flops. To be clear, I'm not talking about the kids here. I'm talking about the grown women who probably know how to read. Now, I am no fan of bare feet. Gavin's bare feet are the only bare feet I love and it's a love that makes no sense but is real none the less. One of the reasons I don't do yoga is that I cannot stand the idea of being in a room with a bunch of barefoot people. The other reasons I don't do yoga include pretty much everything yoga involves. So I didn't like that this woman was walking around all naked-toed in the toddler area. But what I disliked even more was her friend with the flip flops on since they were clearly what she wore in from off the street and for all I know she'd walked through biohazard waste and they were all contaminated with Hepatitis C which lives surprisingly long outside of the body and for which there is no vaccine and no cure (I just finished reading a book about crime scene cleanup, which may have contributed to my discomfort). She even put her foot up on the side of the slide structure like, "Oh, hey, this is my living room and also my living room is disgusting." I wanted to be all, "Hey, SOCKS ARE REQUIRED, in case you didn't know." But I didn't say anything. For one thing, I don't like confrontation. For another, the sock requirement doesn't make a whole lot of sense if it's for sanitary reasons since you have to walk across the dirty linoleum in the snack area in order to even get to the toddler part. I mean, there's food on the floor and people are allowed to wear shoes in that part, so I guess what I'm saying is the whole thing is a Hepatitis outbreak waiting to happen, but Gavin had a really good time and was super cute. That's all that matters.

Speaking of confrontation, Gavin is trying out temper tantrums now. Feet kicking is involved. Also screeching, screaming, and various sounds of discontent. This just started in the last couple of days and I have yet to witness it full-on myself. Stacy is the bearer of this news. But rest assured, I will keep you up to date.

Also, I'm going to call it: Gavin's first word is "dog."  I know that I said earlier that his first word was "mama," and I guess it still might be, but "dog" is the only word that he has used consistently whenever seeing a dog or hearing a dog bark. I suppose "consistently" isn't true. He varies between what we think mean "dog" and "doggie," and who can blame him for the variance since we vacillate between "dog" and "doggie" ourselves when we're talking to him.When he says it the sounds are more like "da" and "dah-da" spit out in such a way that he kind of sounds like an angry German. Now a family with a dad in the house might hear these sounds as "dad" and "daddy," but "da" and "dah-da" are so tied to visual and aural dog cues that it can't mean anything else. I doubt very much that Henri, our dog, feels very moved by Gavin's canine-related auditory exclamations. In fact, the more excited Gavin gets about dogs -- and being able to say the word sure seems to have revved up his interest -- the more Henri thinks Gavin is insane and not good for anything besides flinging pieces of cheese and other assorted foodstuffs off of his highchair tray. That part Henri can live with.

July 25, 2010: Good hot fun

Well, I did it. I managed to throw a birthday party for a one-year-old and that party didn't suck. The weather did, mind you. Rain and thunder storms all day with an added bonus temperature of 92. But we think we showed people a mighty fine time in spite of it, complete with bear cupcakes (from Clare Crespo's excellent Hey There Cupcake), a bear piñata, and really cheesy bear decorations from the dollar store (don't even get me started about how hard it is to find bear party decorations and favors and stuff. Monkeys? No problem. They're everywhere. Even "tractors" is an easier to pull together theme. But bears? Nobody likes bears any more, I guess. If you want to have a bear theme it had better be Winnie the Pooh, Care Bears, or Kung Fu Panda, otherwise you're out of luck unless you want to spend a zillion dollars and/or make everything yourself because time and money are never in short supply with a one-year-old at home.

Piñatas are pretty much the best thing ever at a birthday party, I am convinced. Our bear piñata was purchased from Honey Bee Market in Detroit and is an authentic piñata, not the mass produced Dora the Explorer garbage you can buy from, say, Party City or K-Mart. You can tell that ours is authentic because when it was cracked open the layers of newspaper inside are all in Spanish. One of the most prominent visible headlines was about a family being killed in a fire. Happy First Birthday! I went a little overboard in stuffing the piñata considering there were only four kids at the party and in the presence of kids most grown ups will not, for some reason, descend on the extricated contents. Probably out of a self-conscious sense of dignity or something. Our friends' two daughters, for example, made off with more from our piñata than they got from their Halloween haul. Because it was so hot and humid everything that emerged from the piñata was damp and sticky, but this was no deterrent. Stacy insisted that we include little boxes of raisins and I am sad but not surprised to report that these did not fair well under the constant barrage of swings from the murder bat, an old wooden bat we inherited from Stacy's mom's husband, I believe, that looks like, well, a murder bat. In fact, when it was piñata time I came up from the basement with the bat and some nylon rope -- let's just say I was given a wide berth.

Bottom line: Gavin had a really good time and people managed to squeeze themselves in throughout our very small home. Stacy and I also had a good time as did, I believe, many of our guests who told us so themselves (granted, they could have been lying, but some folks even put it up on Facebook and as everyone knows, nobody lies on Facebook, ever, because it's public and all).

Gavin and Stacy and I are lucky to have so many good people in our lives. Sadly a lot of them are far away. But I try to look at it as if Gavin has a national fan base. Even international, since our friend Janeski is in Canada. That way when he goes on tour we'll always have a place to stay.

July 21, 2010: This has been, no doubt, the most exhausting year of my life.

Well, it's happened. As of yesterday Gavin is one year old. One whole year! In some ways this seems impossible. Could 365 days really have passed since a nurse first handed all 8.8 lbs. of him to me at the hospital? Yet in other ways, it's pretty irrefutable. No longer is he a little baby who doesn't do much more than cry, eat, and fill his diapers. And he's long passed the under 10 lb. mark (he's at about 25 lbs. right now, and I'd add the caveat "give or take" but I really think only "give" is applicable here). We have a one year old in our house. A very willful one at that. Take now, for example, when our "baby" boy is supposed to be napping and is instead sermonizing from his crib. Whatever he's saying, it is very grave, very important. But I'm not getting him up because he's supposed to be sleeping. He hasn't been in there long. It could happen. Yesterday he babbled for about a half hour and then sacked out for two.

Stacy said she's feeling sad about our boy growing up. I can understand that. I mean, for one thing, the end of nursing is in sight, something Stacy will really miss. Once Stacy goes back to school in the fall she doesn't plan to pump any more, so Gavin will only nurse in the morning and at night. Some ladies say that this isn't enough to sustain their milk production and they dry up. I know that would be sad for her. But I'm also curious to see what happens once Stacy isn't the milk mom any more. We'll see if Gavin still prefers her. Or if he'll cast us both aside as damaged goods. But I don't really see that last one happening. Not until he's a teenager at least.

On the cover of the newest issue of Time is a story about single children. Not, of course, children who aren't married, but children who have no siblings. "The Only Child: Debunking the Myths" by Lauren Sandler is a good read. Before having Gavin I had never really given much thought to single children. I have three sisters and one brother, for one, and being a twin on top of that means that I have never spent any of my life as an only child. But of course, the whole question of whether or not I want another kid in addition to Gavin is huge. Stacy does, while I lean in the opposite direction. And I have definitely felt guilty about this and have worried that I would be doing a disservice to my son by not giving him a sibling. After reading Sandler's article, I definitely feel much less insecure about my desire to have one child. Apparently it's all the rage now and not just because of the economy and because sports cars sans child seats are so fun. In other words, it's not just because people have less money and are more selfish. Though that's part of it. But is being selfish all so bad? I mean, it is, if you're selfish and only selfish. But being selfless can be equally destructive. And, as Sandler writes, in order "to be good parents, we have to be happy people." Unhappy people don't really make good parents. I mean, I doubt Sylvia Plath ever won any Mother of the Year awards.

I think the most important thing to take away from Sandler's article is that if Gavin is an only child he's going to be okay. In fact, better than okay. This whole idea that only children are sad bastard weirdos is completely baseless. There's nothing to back it up and yet it's still wedged into the crack of cultural consciousness like an ill-fitting thong. In fact, studies have even shown that in terms of intelligence and achievement, an only child typically does better. After all, an only child doesn't have to divide his or her parents' resources, whether we're talking about money or time or love.

One of the mothers Sandler talked to said that, in terms of her only child, "being a mother, and loving being a mother, means being his mother." Right on, lady. Right on. Another mother talked about the "light at the end of the tunnel" philosophy, which I definitely relate to. Talking about her daughter waking up over and over at night due to teething she says, "I can be fully present for this and do my best at trying to appreciate it, because it's like this is the only time I am going to do this." While I think this woman might be a better person than me, her sentiments strongly correspond with my own.

The comments following the online version of the article (I read the whole thing in the magazine, which I got from the library), are also really interesting to read. A few people say that Sandler is selfish since she says that she's had to sacrifice for her children. Apparently you have to love every second of raising a child and pouring your entire being into someone else's life without ever feeling like you're trading one thing for another. Except you are. Sacrifices aren't always a negative thing. People make them all the time, some more willing than others. But maybe "sacrifice" is too loaded a word since it evokes virgins jumping into volcanoes and Jesus on the cross and stuff. Maybe if she used "compromise" would come across as less "selfish." Having a child is a pretty unselfish thing to do for the most part. I mean, sure there are exceptions (Joan Crawford, for example), but as I said before, you can't be completely selfish, or selfless for that matter, and be a good parent. It's kind of like a "having your cake and eating it too" thing. Though let me be clear, you should never eat your children. That is one thing I think we can all agree on. That's our common ground here. Everything else is up for grabs.

July 18, 2010: Leave a sleeping baby be

Gavin is screaming right now and it's all Stacy's fault. She wanted to take a peek at him sleeping. She wanted me to go with her. I should have said no to both of these things. "Other parents do this all the time," she said, right before opening his door, which gets stuck by the summer humidity. And she got her peek, too. Only it didn't take long after she shuddered open his door for him to wake up. In fact, he woke up and turned his head toward the door right after Stacy walked out, precisely as I was standing alone in the doorway peering through the poorly illuminated bedroom to catch a glimpse of what had, just a nanosecond ago, made Stacy swoon.

No doubt this sent him a very clear message: "Mama D just barged into my room and woke me up. In the middle of the night. For no reason." Understandably, he started to cry and I whirled around and brandished my finger at Stacy, "YOU!" I whisper shouted. "YOU!" She lunged by me and yanked the door shut as quickly and quietly as possible. "You're grounded," I said as Gavin shrieked.

Thankfully the screaming didn't last long. Dude is tired, after all, or he wouldn't have started crying in the first place. But it's hard not to hold my breath every night that he cries from his crib remembering just a few short months ago such an outburst could result in a prolonged sleep interruption for me and for Stacy. He skipped his morning nap today, too, which means he was primed for a potentially rough night.

Gavin's birthday is in two days. His birthday party is on Saturday. We're scrambling (and by "we" I mean Stacy and me. Gavin is preoccupied with other things like running around the house and taking clothes out of the dresser in our room and putting our underwear in the sock drawers and vice versa. Dude's got plenty on his plate) to get the yard ready so it looks like people live here and not just another foreclosed house on our block. But it's hard to get anything done outside with Gavin. Someone has to wrangle while the other person works. And Gavin loves to dump things out. So I end up spending as much time putting weeds back in the gardening bucket as I do pulling the weeds in the first place. We even got him his own bucket, which he likes very much, but he doesn't have the patience to fill it all the way up yet. That's Mama's job, apparently. In any case, I'm hoping that some of my family members will be willing to come by some time this week to help us finish things we've been planning on doing all summer like put wood chips down and pull weeds (though not necessarily in that order). Even if they just hang with Gavin and make sure he doesn't, like, put rocks in his mouth while Stacy and I work that would be great.

Oh, and poison oak alert: Stacy still itches like crazy and new little patches are still cropping up. I told her she is never allowed to go outside again, but have very lax enforcement of said statute since I need her help in the yard.

July 17, 2010: Belly baby dance

Right this very second I am watching my very pregnant wife dancing in the living room. She is wearing a mask. It is kind of freaky. But it's not nearly as freaky as it would be if it was happening in real time right now. No, we're watching it on our TV. It's a video of her dancing her "mother dance" at a hafla back in April (she's a belly dancer, BTW). In the video she's 26 weeks pregnant and, if I do say so myself, looks pretty awesome (except for the mask. That scary, scary mask). It's not that I'd forgotten what she looked like when she was pregnant, but it was really amazing to see her again all big and round, carrying Gavin. Carrying Gavin! He's, like, inside of her body! It's the weirdest. Pregnancy is amazing and beautiful and magical and everything, but it's also really fucking weird.

We also watched some early videos of Gavin, one from right after he was born and the other a week later. I can't believe how tiny he was (and I know "tiny" is relative. He wasn't abnormally tiny. In fact, he was over 8 lbs. so he was a very good size). His skinny legs and feet! The dark brown hair on his head that's since fallen out and been replaced with blond. His little jerky movements. The sniffing sounds he used to make, like a puppy or something. And now's he's just days away from being one. He's a big, strapping toddler. With teeth! It's crazy.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010: Klever Kiddie Klubs

The following words just left my mouth: "No, no, no, no! Oh, wait. I thought you were eating poo. I'm sorry, Honey." This was not directed at my son or my wife, thankfully. It was directed at my dog who, upon climbing the deck steps on his way back into the house from his evening potty break, was very voraciously chewing on something. It turns out the object in question was an unshelled peanut, no doubt being saved for later by a neighborhood squirrel who will be all kinds of pissed off when he or she comes looking for it tomorrow. But you can imagine how an unshelled peanut dropping out of a dog's mouth at night lit only by the porch light could look like a rather unseemly bed time snack. And I am all too aware of Henri's fondness for cat poo that ends up in our yard because cats are animals people don't deem deserving of living in houses most of the time. I once had to actually floss Henri's teeth with dental floss, so crammed in was the cat filth. Just brushing his teeth didn't cut it.

I know, I know. What does this have to do with your son? "Save this for your dog blog," you're thinking. Well for one, I don't have a dog blog, and for two Stacy and I actually had a conversation about Gavin eating poo today. To be honest I can't remember how we got on such a topic. Probably I said something inappropriate. In any case, Stacy thought that it was unlikely that Gavin would eat poo because it smells bad and is clearly not for snacking, but I disagreed saying that a baby's sense of smell was toast when faced with a baby's curiosity and, if left unattended, a baby would eat poo or at least try it. In this scenario, by the way, said baby would be left unattended and his parents would be morons. So obviously this is not a theory we ever want to intentionally test.

Anyway, moving away from poo. But never far enough since I do, after all, have a child who is days away from being a one-year-old.

Today we took Gavin to Wobbler Wednesdays at Kiddie Klub (which Stacy initially told me was called Klever Kiddie Klub. Because "KKK" ha ha ha). One of Stacy's co-workers had told her about it. Wobbler Wednesdays just means that kids under two get in for $5 rather than the usual $7. Gavin definitely got more than our five bucks out of it (so much better than the $24 it cost us to go to the Troy Aquatic Center for him to play for a half hour). He had so much fun. The place is basically a big indoor play center with toys galore and a giant climbing structure with slides and stuff. When we first walked into the place his eyes got all saucered as he took it all in. Gavin's favorite thing was to push the kiddie-sized shopping carts and other push toys around. The majority of the place is carpeted but in the middle there's a pathway of tile floor that Gavin took to with lightening speed. He's still too young to be really interacting with other kids so he mostly played by himself and with his moms. But he loved watching the other kids. And occasionally trying to take away their toys, which is still one of his prime modes of interaction. It's not that he's taking stuff to be mean or to instigate, it's just that the toy someone else is playing with is always more interesting. Kids are like dogs in this way. I also think it's a way for him to initiate interaction with kids, he just doesn't realize yet that toy-snatching is frowned upon by most of toddler society.

On Monday we took Gavin to the Detroit Science Center to play in Kids Town. He loved that, too. And again he interacted with other kids primarily by wanting whatever they were playing with. I don't think that most folks think of the Detroit Science Center as something really little kids can enjoy, but Kids Town is actually pretty awesome (though they do need to restock the play pretend food in the kiddie cafe because it has been very heavily, uh, consumed. Gavin really digs being someplace where hardly anything is off limits. And we dig that, too. There's a water table in the center of Kids Town that Gavin probably would have loved playing with but he got tired out playing in all of the other rooms before we got to that. So next time we'll bring him in a wetsuit. We also really want to check out the Detroit Children's Museum. I have never been there before and am not really sure what
is on display at such a museum. I can't help but think of that Twilight Zone episode where the little girl sends her mom and dad to the Children's Zoo and then picks new parents out from among the captives. I really hope the Detroit Children's Museum isn't like that. I don't think I'd fare well locked behind glass where everything I do is on public display. I have a hard enough time peeing in public restrooms. Plus it would be so sad to not be Gavin's mom anymore.

In any case, both Kids Town and Kiddie Klub definitely get the Mama D Seal of Approval. Although on the way home Stacy remarked, "Isn't it sad that just a generation ago parents felt safe enough to send their kids to play on the playground but now we pay to let our kids play inside somewhere?" Yes. That is sad. Though of course we would never send a one-year-old off to play by himself anywhere, indoors or out. If it was a nice day, meaning not 90 degrees, then I would have loved to take Gavin to a park. But on sweltering hot summer days and the crummy winter days in the not-so-distant future Kiddie Klub rules.

July 12, 2010: Dead mosquito

I just killed a mosquito. Between my palm and the living room wall there was really no chance for the guy. Or girl. Probably girl. Mosquitoes love my sweet, sweet flesh. This is something else Gavin gets from me (besides his blue eyes and curly -- curly! -- hair). They love him, too. Especially his head. They totally take advantage of the fact that he has so little hair. So if killing mosquitoes is wrong, I don't want to be right.

When I was a kid my dad would knock over lamps and break shit to kill a mosquito in the house. It was all a little much back then, but in retrospect it makes perfect sense. A mosquito in the house is a Grade-A Emergency in my book. I absolutely cannot fall asleep if I know there's a mosquito in the room. Stacy, alas, has a bad habit of letting into the house. She doesn't, like, beckon them in or anything, but she thinks nothing of holding the door open while she takes the trash out or while she's waiting for the dog to come in from outside. Best case scenario: Gavin acquires my vigilance sans my neuroses.

July 11, 2010: A deer in the bush is better than poison oak in the hand

So Stacy has a raging case of poison oak that she picked up in California during a solo trek up and down a hill (she calls it a mountain) near Lisa's house. It's primarily on the inside of her left arm, though there are small patches here and there on her arms and legs. I'd post pictures, but they'd most certainly be stolen and posted to ThingsThatWillDefinitelyMakeYouPuke.com. Thank God Gavin doesn't have it, as Stacy remembers coming back from her walk and picking up the baby (why she didn't wash her hands immediately after her walk is beyond me). She was exposed a couple of days before we left California and it really didn't start showing up until Wednesday. By Friday she had at least two huge blisters that looked like boils weeping pus tears of sadness down her arm. Her doctor's office was closed so she wanted to wait until Monday to go. Earlier in the day at the drug store she'd asked the pharmacist what he would suggest and he said she should see a doctor. Do I need to mention that I also told her this? No, no I do not. He also said that what the doctor would likely prescribe would potentially leach into her breast milk so she was paranoid about going to an urgent care clinic without seeing her doctor -- who, not incidentally, is also Gavin's doctor, first. I was paranoid about my wife not having any skin left on her arm come Monday so I called her doctor myself and left a message on her after hours line. After a conversation with a doctor Stacy has some kind of topical "creme" to use and hopefully that helps. It looks a little better today, but I am only basing this on the fact that the pus-filled boils have popped and there is no more weeping. That is, to me, a huge improvement.

I currently have a mosquito bite on my back and when I said, "It itches like crazy," I thought Stacy was going to hit me. Gavin has a tiny mosquito bite on his head. We were all at Stacy's dad's today and we went for a walk in the woods to see his new deer stand. He has about 15 stands he's built in the woods and he likes to show them off. His new one he calls his Mega Stand and it's 20 feet in the air. We took Gavin up in it and he did not seem at all phased by the height. In fact, his biggest concern was how to get the door open once we were inside of it. Thankfully it latches from the outside and only a grown-up arm is long enough to do any unlatching.

Is it weird for me, someone who doesn't eat animals, to have my son up in a deer blind? Yes. Not only for the height issue (after all, it's pretty much impossible to be up there without thinking, "If he fell, he would die. And then I would have to die"), but because of how much Gary (Gavin's grandpa) talks about hunting one day with Gavin. And I love the whole idea of bonding with Grandpa Gary. But I'd much rather Gavin "hunt" with a pair of binoculars and/or a camera. But in Stacy's family hunting is totally normal. Stacy's brother has bagged a deer or two in those very woods as has Gary. In my family no one hunts. We never had guns in the house and we never had venison in the freezer. I remember my Grandpa Mitch had a gun in his apartment. A big old shotgun leaned up against the wall behind his front door. I have no idea if it worked or was loaded or what. I do recall a story about my Grandma Lucy using a shotgun to chase a robber out of her apartment when she and Mitch lived in Detroit. She shot down the shaft through the top of the elevator trying to get him. She also had a tattoo on her arm of a man's name. And it wasn't "Mitch."

So yes. Hunting. Not my favorite. I don't think people who hunt are necessarily bad people (except for "hunters" shooting penned animals or picking off wolves out of helicopters), I don't know how I am going to explain my feelings about animals and non-violence toward them while reconciling the fact that his grandpa kills deer for fun. Not to disparage him, of course. He absolutely reveres nature and is one of the most knowledgeable people I know when it comes to the outdoors. See why it's hard? Dear family and friends: Can't you all just be uncomplicated for the sake of my son?

July 7, 2010: Babies on a plane

It's hard to choose the best part of our flight home from California. Was it Gavin sleeping through 99% of it like a beautiful little angel? Or was it me getting a nosebleed in the middle of the flight and spattering my son's leg and sock? I don't know. Both were pretty awesome.

Gavin, it turns out, is a far more flexible traveler than we'd thought. Hell, he's more flexible than we'd hoped. He adjusted very quickly to California time and will hopefully adjust quickly back to Michigan time. Last night was a little rough. He didn't get to sleep until after 10 p.m. But he did sleep until after 9 a.m. so all is well.

We took the red eye home and there were actually quite a few babies and toddlers on the flight. A little play group even formed. One of the mothers had a bunch of toy cars and Gavin, her son, and another little boy all played with them. The car mom's son hit Gavin in the face and head more than once, which made her flip out a little bit. She grabbed his hand and stared straight into his face while saying, "No! No! Bad boy. Bad boy!" No doubt this solved the problem and her child will never hit anyone ever again. Actually, not long after this her boy came up to Gavin and she hustled over and grabbed him saying to me, "He's unpredictable. I don't know what he'll do," as if he was going to pull out a shank or something. Granted I didn't spend much time with him, but he seemed like a pretty average two-year-old boy.

Perhaps as a kind of compensation, Car Mom gave Gavin one of her son's little Matchbox cars as we got in line to board. "Oh, no, you don't have to do that," I said, in large part because I felt like the car wasn't age-appropriate for Gavin (the wheels and the little hinged hood screamed "choking hazard"). She insisted and Gavin was quite pleased. Soon after, however, he chucked the car at her. "You don't like it?" she asked, seeming genuinely hurt. "Sorry. No, he's just at that throw everything stage," I said. I did not retrieve the car.

Lo and behold, sitting next to us in our row was one of the other kids from the impromptu play group and his mom. She was visibly pregnant. He was almost two and giantly tall. He scooted into the space between their seat and the seat in front of them essentially blocking his mom from sitting down. She tried in vain to lift the aisle arm rest so she could slide into the seat, but no luck. So I grabbed her son and put him on my lap so that she could sit down. This is not something I ever would have done before becoming a mom. And it is because I'm a mom that this woman was thankful and not freaked out. I also steadied milk she had in a Starbucks cup between my feet during take off. This was in part to be nice since there was really nowhere for her to put it and she had no free hands due to the future NBA star toddler folded onto her lap. But truthfully, I think milk is gross and not only was my purse was on the floor, but the last thing I wanted was to spend five hours surrounded by milk soaked carpet. Of course, I doubt she wanted to spend five hours sitting next to a woman with blood pouring out of her nose, but hey, we don't always get what we want (and to be fair, I did not bleed for five hours, even though it felt like it).

July 5, 2010: Beach bums

This morning I was looking for a marker and Stacy told me to look in her purse. Sure enough, she has two Sharpies, one blue and one fine point black. The following exchange occurred:

Me: Apparently you travel always ready to get someone's autograph.
Stacy: On my hoots.
Me: (Shakes head)
Stacy: I'm trying to teach Gavin to read.

Alas, we have not run into anyone famous or even semi-famous while in LA, unless you count the guys in super hero costumes down at the Santa Monica pier who would let you take your picture with them for money. Spiderman was especially upsetting since he had dirty gym shoes on and his costume head in his lap as he sat smoking a cigarette. Thankfully Stacy did not let him (or Batman, or an incredibly inauthentic looking Dora the Explorer) anywhere near her hoots.

Speaking of hoots, we took the babies to the beach yesterday I got a sunburn at the beach, but thankfully not on my hoots (the last time I was on the beach in California, I DID get a sunburn that included half of one of my nipples in the causalty list. This was due to an ill fitting swimsuit, not indecent exposure. Yesterday's burn is just a little along my hairline on my forehead.

The babies did not get a sunburn because we slathered them in sunblock. They also didn't eat sand or drown. Thus, beach success. Gavin really loved feeling the waves come in over his feet, although one of the waves was bigger than the others and knocked him in the face and on his butt. Stacy was holding his hands the whole time, so it isn't like we let him get dragged out into the ocean. He did get a little salt water in his eyes, but he was largely unphased.

We tried very hard to get pictures of Gavin and Brenden together -- and by "together" I mean both looking at the camera and smiling -- but no luck. We have not given up hope, however. It's really hard to get Brenden to smile for the camera. Gavin is much more fast and loose with his grins.

Traveling with a baby is exhausting. On Saturday we had two crabby babies in the car, Brenden screaming. Gavin crying. Stacy feeling carsick. Good times, good times. But yesterday not only did we do the beach, but we went to a 4th of July party at Lisa's friend's house. Gavin got to play with another baby there besides Brenden, and see some sparklers. He was up super late (past 8 p.m.!). He was a wild man. And yet he still woke up at 6 a.m. this morning. Alas.

I can't believe we have to leave tomorrow night. It feels like we just got here. I hate that Lisa and Brenden live so far away. I am against distance. This will only serve to kill me when Gavin goes to college.