tequila dreams

I just heard from a college friend, with whom I'm really horrible at keeping in touch, that she has a new baby. Now, by sheer coincidence, I was looking through some old photos last week and came across a picture of her doing a tequila shot...with the resulting "ughhh" face close behind. I have dozens of pictures in this genre. Two whole photo albums, in fact. Which begs the question, how on earth did we (and those like us) become mothers? How we made it to motherhood, without severe alcohol poisoning, is beyond me.

And yet...here we are. Joyous. Slippery with sunscreen and slobber. Tearful...or wiping their tears when the ear infection is ouchie beyond words. Which brings me to my next point...

We started our quest to find a new pediatrician out here. I "interviewed" our first doc this week...Filled out three sheets of paperwork while holding onto a squirming Ari, after repeatedly asking the receptionist if this was necessary for a simple consult. Waited 45 minutes for a 15 minute "interview" that turned into an examination (after informing the doc twice that it was a consult) with a $15 copay. Afterwards, I found myself outside on the sidewalk wondering what the heck just happened. Was I just "processed" (I detest being processed). Do doctors not do a quick, no-money-involved consult anymore? All I wanted to do was see if I liked this doctor and/or the clinic for Ari. On the plus side, he found a nicely matured infection festering in Ari's right ear (so that's why he's been grabbing his ear, I had thought it was because of the teething. Mom Radar down, apparently). So now the little bugger's on an antibiotic. Luckily, it tastes of grape.

Otherwise, Ari's week was mostly about the resurrection of toys from patio purgatory. When we moved in, there was just no room to put his big exersaucer and walker-car. So they were relegated to the patio for the time being (i.e. 3 weeks). Hey, it doesn't rain here. No prob, right? Huh. The prob is that the sun beats down like Satan from Hades here (or whatever simile you'd like to employ). We now are the proud owners of a yellow, blue and pink walker car. Ari doesn't seem to mind. After I cleaned them up and brought them inside, you'd think he'd never seen them before. Oh joy. And I unabashedly plopped him in the exersaucer in front of his Baby Einstein DVD three times this week...so I enjoyed them all over again as well. Seriously, though, here's a video of the kid learning how to walk behind his walker car. That was really fun for us and Ari was SO proud. He's learned how to do it on his own now...however, the car's really too big for our living room and keeps getting snagged on furniture...a constant source of irritation for him, which is a little funny for us.