Boardchic.com

Ack! I am very delinquent in my distribution of the cuteness. I don’t think it is considered a good thing to go to one’s site and have a blank homepage. I’m not sure that is very entertaining for anyone. Liam and I have been keeping busy and I have started reading again and, as I have proclaimed to the Internet in the past, I am nothing if not obsessive. When bitten by the reading bug, the writing itch seems to die down. Here’s a little cuteness for you. It could be titled “Boy vs. Wall” or “I Cruise, Therefore I Am.”

Liam and I have playdates set up for every day of the week next week. I will take the camera and actually take some pictures so you can see lots of babies eating sand and poking each other in the eye. Big fun.

This week’s cuteness has Liam sitting on Daddy’s lap while at Milestone’s with my inlaws this weekend. Liam is grandchild number 4, so they are pretty used to the baby-minding routine and watched Liam for us so that we were able to go to a movie and get an uninterrupted night of sleep. Well, uninterrupted by the baby anyway. I still woke up a few times–maybe because I was in a strange bed? I’m not too sure. Anyway, here is the cuteness:

I know you are probably thinking WTF?!?! What could this possibly be about? Cantaloupe is such a cheery muskmelon, how could one be sad with all the pretty orange flesh and the sweet smell? Well, every time I have cantaloupe I can’t help but think of Sam because that cat REALLY loved the cantaloupe. I would walk in the door from the grocery store and he would start mewing because he could already smell it. So sweet – I would always cut some up into little bits for him.

Yesterday I had my first cantaloupe since Sam disappeared and that simple act really drove home that he is gone. Tomorrow will be two weeks–at this point it would be near to a miracle if he showed up on our doorstep. Even though he drove me batty sometimes, I really love him and it tears me apart that he may have died alone and scared or in pain.

It makes me sad enough that I’m not sure if I’ll be buying cantaloupe again.

Poor kitty, I sure miss him.

We went on a grocery shopping trip to Safeway today and because I was still remiss in providing you with cuteness this week, I brought the camera along. I got a lot of really great “happy in the stroller” shots. Here is my favourite:

It’s so exciting to see him change from a baby to a real little boy. Man, do I ever love this kid!

I am 34 years old today and I don’t think that my son understands that on your birthday you are supposed to get your way. Liam should understand that on Mommy’s birthday it is not okay to wake up at 3 am and refuse to go back to sleep until 5:30 and then sleep in until 8:30 so that we miss swimming and then refuse to go down for a morning nap. Things are supposed to be easy and on schedule on Mommy’s birthday. There is seriously something wrong with the memo system in this household, because once again, I swear that I gave him the memo, yet here he is not following the rules. I mean, who ever heard of a baby that does confrom to the needs and wants of the parents?

I am another year older and I guess once again I don’t feel any different. Except that there is a baby yelling at me because he is refusing to sleep, so I guess I better go submit to his will.

And Happy Birthday to the Lauren half of Soapboxgirls, I hope you have a great time tonight and I wish we could be there.

Steve earned the Husband Who Rocks the Casbah title yesterday. Sam woke us up with meowing at 4 am, Steve went and let him outside. I could not get back to sleep because I was worrying about him being outside in the dark when raccoons roam about. I am pretty certain that in a battle of Sam vs. Raccoon, Raccoon would have no trouble kicking my poor kitty’s behind.

Then Liam decided that he needed to get up at 4:45 am. I nursed him back to sleep and then he woke up an hour later, so I brought him into our bed where he refused to go back to sleep. He did, however, take this opportunity in the big bed to crawl all over the place, bouncing and squealing and pulling hair and generally refusing to let Very Tired Mommy sleep. And do you know what Steve did? He got up, took the baby and let me go back to sleep while he got ready for work. I’m pretty sure that he was just as tired as me, but he did this incredibly generous and nice thing for me and I am grateful and I want him (and the Internet, I guess) to know how much I appreciate it.

I suspect that he was more willing to do this knowing that he was going to be out all evening playing hockey, but he didn’t have to and that’s what makes it so fabulous. He even got Liam dressed and gave him breakfast so I could just make coffee when I got up and not have to rush around. Yay! And it’s not even my birthday yet!

Get your groove on

Thinking about buying some new music but not sure what to get? Steve and Brishen have both posted their top albums of the year. Only three overlap, so take a look, you might discover something you’ll like.

You must really love me then, hey? If you are wondering where I’ve been, well, I got a new iPod nano and I have been busy getting music that I want for it, and you wouldn’t think that would be so complicated, but I don’t have any music on my computer, so I have to rip or download everything, ugh! I am nothing if not obsessive, so pretty much everything else has gone to shit. Hehe.

Liam has learned the cutest thing. He claps. This all started because we were at my Weight Watchers meeting and at the beginning the leader gives out awards for people who have achieved certain milestones, and everyone claps for them. Everytime the group would clap, Liam would look all worried and look around trying to figure out where the sound was coming from so I decided to teach him about clapping. So now everytime he is happy about something I say Yaaaaaayyyyyy! and clap, encouraging him to join me. And we sing If You’re Happy and You Know It. So when I sing, “if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands” and prompt him by taking a quick look at his hands he will clap. It is very cute and it dispels my worries about autism. He can obviously pick up on subtle social cues. I had no reason to think he might be autistic, just an irrational fear that I got into my head somehow – like worrying about him growing up to be a serial killer or a junkie. I also imagine him growing up to cure cancer or win a Nobel Peace Prize – it’s all about balance I tell ya.

I have a dilemma that maybe someone can help me with. Steve goes out a couple of times a week with friends. This means that I take care of Liam all by myself a couple of nights a week – not a dilemma in itself, but I’m jealous and we agree that it’s not fair. Steve has no problem returning the favour, I just have to figure out something that I can do once a week. Anyone interested in a standing dinner and/or movie date once a week? Or is there something going on once a week at night that you think I might enjoy? If you have any suggestions, let me know. I’m thinking about it too, but you know what they say about two heads…

Grrrrrr… Grumble, grumble, grumble. Yeah, so I was up 0.6 lbs this week for a total loss so far of 3.4 lbs. I don’t feel like I was off plan – though I’m still having trouble remembering to drink all the water I’m supposed and I probably did a bit less walking since I didn’t have as many errands to run as usual. The good news for this week though, is that I managed to get out for a run on Tuesday evening and I’ll be going again tonight and Sunday. Hopefully my results this week will be better. And that’s about all I want to say on that subject. I’ve been busy with other things lately and I have lots to talk about… things that don’t make me feel bad.

Liam is now 8 months old! I can’t believe that we’ve been doing this for 8 months already. And I am very proud to say that in 8 months I have not used formula once. There have been times when I’ve been tempted, but Liam is exclusively breastfed. You may think, “big whoop,” but have a baby – it’s challenging to stick with it and trust that it is working. Anyhow, I’m on a bit of a tangent – on to what you are here for – the cuteness!

This week’s cuteness features a special guest: Daddy! Liam and Steve in the pool at the YWCA. We tried putting a swim shirt on Liam in hopes of keeping him a bit warmer this time, but it didn’t work. We love that their pool is ozonated rather than chlorinated, but I think a baby his age really needs to be in a tot pool – the regular pool is just too cold. By the end his teeth (gums) are chattering (can gums chatter?).

I will stall no longer – behold the cuteness!