Food and Boo Boos

Monday, 8/27/07 (I'm a day behind on posting this)

We’ve had a productive morning over here. In an attempt to acclimate Ari to the fun of feeding himself, I decided to throw caution to the wind, strip him down and let him have at it with a plastic spoon (which he quickly chucked to the floor) and a pile of cottage cheese on his tray. You’d have thought I handed him a pile of extension cords, he was so happy. Of course, not much of the cheese made it to his mouth after he swipe-swipe-swiped his arm back and forth over the tray. However, the floor and pretty yellow walls soon boasted a lovely smattering of white fleck. I sat down next to him with my oatmeal, feeding him a bit of that and some fruit to make up for the carnage left on the floor. As I was finishing my oatmeal, I noticed how cheesy his hands were…just as he reached up to scratch the back of his head. Now, my son never touches his head – unless he’s in his high chair sporting the grimiest hands you’ve ever seen. What’s that about? After wiping his hands on his hair, he grinned at me and I noticed that he had, after all, been eating some of the cottage cheese. At which point, he blew me a great big, loving raspberry. Cheesy Mommy.

I must say, it’s amazing to watch these little buggers develop into big buggers. Over the past couple days, Ari’s developed a slightly more gourmet palate…meaning, he digs cottage cheese, egg yolk, “banana nuggets” (house recipe) and little bits of flotsam off the floor along with the ubiquitous Cheerios and fruit puffs (i.e. infant junk food). Just recently he’s been initiating his own sippy cup action, lifting it up to his mouth with one hand (frequently with the sippy part jammed into his chest) to get a slurp. Today, he realized he needed two hands in order for it to really work…but only after repeatedly pushing my hands away when I tried to help. Okaaay, hint taken, backing off.

After the feeding cyclone had passed, I mopped him off and set him down to jam with a little Elvis in the living room while I attempted some kitchen clean-up. He laughed, pointed at me, sucked on the CD case and “danced” while I sponged up the floor, myself and the dozen or so items it takes to feed an almost-toddler breakfast. I remember reading, while Ari was in utero, that “babies don’t take up much space”. Ahem. Now, I’m sure these books were trying to tell you that you don’t need a nursery or a fancy play room to have a kid in your life. In fact, you could just “appoint a corner of your bedroom” for the new baby. Bullshit. Our entire home has become BabyVille. “They don’t take up much space”? That’s crap. They take up all the space.

But they also fill it with a lot of laughs, smiles, sloppy hugs and cheesy raspberries…so I guess the swap is worth it in the end.

On the home front, we finally found an arrangement for our living room that works. Thank God, because I’ve been pushing furniture around since we moved in and, frankly, I’m tired. By 11:30 last night, things were looking pretty damn good and I decided that I was going to move one last speaker. This speaker weighs 30 lbs. Big ass speaker. And I dropped it. Wisely, to break the fall and avoid the expense of a damaged floor and broken speaker, I tried to "catch it" with my shin and foot. Bad idea. The speaker weighs 30 lbs (did I mention that?). Immediately, the impact site swelled to a nice egg-shaped lump, enhanced by gash down the middle. I sat down, trying to avoid shock, and got ice on it right away so today it's just slightly swollen but I’m sure it’ll be a lovely shade of purplish yellow in a few days. Should’ve left “well enough” alone…but that’s not really my style.

But the living room looks great.