Just to Explain, She Learned it From Her Big Brothers...

Marin still has an abnormal interest in bathing. Yesterday she was throwing things in the bath and making a mess so I made her leave the room.

Me- “Ok, that’s enough. You’re done. Go downstairs.”

Marin walked out but I heard her say, “Mommy, asshole.” (She says “a-ole” but it’s pretty clear what she’s saying.)

I ignored it but the Katie came running to report Marin.

Katie- “Uh-oh! Marin said the “A” word!”

Marin didn’t deny it and confessed instead- “I say it, “A” word.”

This morning she was over the side and in the bathtub with me before I had a chance to object.

Me- “I guess you’re taking a bath with me.”

Marin- “Yeah.”

We had a few moments of peace before Marin announced, “I peed!” I briefly toyed with the idea of calling her an asshole but elected not to.

Naked Babies are Trouble

I have been a bad blogger. I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know, but if it makes you feel any better just be assured that I do feel guilty about it. It’s kind of like when Grandma is in the nursing home and you don’t visit for a while. Then you feel guilty for not visiting and stay away even longer. And then Grandm's dead and you're pretty much off the hook for visiting anyway.

Marin has been a handful lately; which is one of my excuses, I mean reasons, for not updating more regularly. She has learned to take her clothes off and practices this skill daily. When I put her down for a nap, she immediately busies herself in the task of throwing every stitch of clothing over the side of her crib. I am almost always greeted by a naked baby after her nap-time.

As you might imagine, this is less than ideal for the obvious reason that babies are not potty trained. There are many days that this behavior necessitates multiple bedding changes. Sometimes she is thoughtful enough to strip her bedding and toss that over the side as well, it’s just not always prior to an offensive incident.

I have tried everything I can think of to keep her from getting her clothes and bedding off. She is just determined and nothing less than constant supervision seems to work. I have resigned myself to extra laundry and just possibly lost some of my will to live. Anyone that has had a baby knows about the nightmare of changing the crib bedding.

I have a lot of crib sheets from Target since they have cute stuff from Amy Coe. I found some stretchy flannel sheets years ago that are the easiest sheets ever to fit on a crib mattress. I have never seen them since. The stretchy sheets are wearing out but I use them anyway. I have devised a system of putting a regular crib sheet on first, then the mattress pad followed by the flannel sheet. This way Marin has so many layers that there is at least a possibility she won’t wake up naked on a bare mattress, crack house style.

The regular crib sheet has proven to be an almost impenetrable layer between the baby and the mattress. The problem is when it requires changing. I think the only mother that could quickly and easily replace a regular crib sheet would be a female body builder. And I don’t think they even ovulate, let alone baby-sit. So I find myself sweating and swearing while struggling to provide the baby with fresh bedding, mentally composing a letter to Amy Coe.

Dear Amy Coe,

I love your baby bedding with all the cute patterns and flowers. I continue to peruse the aisles at Target and get lured into making a purchase. You hooked me that one time that I got home and discovered the stretchy crib sheets. I keep thinking that it’s going to be like that again but it’s just not. My one suggestion is that if you are going to branch out of stretchy into non-stretchy (and less forgiving) fabrics you just might need to measure a fucking crib because they don’t fucking fit.

The fact that I can remember the almost impossible task of changing crib sheets for Claire when I was nine months pregnant with Katie doesn’t do anything to improve my attitude towards Amy Coe. It’s a miracle that kid ever got clean sheets.

Knee Surgery and the Kicking Baby

I had my second knee surgery last week. It went a lot better than the first. My biggest complaint was probably the horrible dry mouth I woke up with in recovery. I remember complaining about that to the recovery room nurse and she told me that it was from the KY jelly they use for the airway. I would have sworn they used Elmer’s glue to secure it in my mouth. To make matters worse, they gave me toast. I was so hungry but the toast mixed with the glue was just a bad deal. Beyond that, I had to use crutches for just a few days but now no longer have a limp and I can walk up and down stairs. Last time I was lurching around like Frankenstein for at least a month.

The baby was thrilled with the crutches, again. It is great fun for her to grab one, laugh and run, fully expecting that the chase is on. Try talking a 20 month-old baby into returning a crutch. Yeah. Doesn’t work.

It is also a challenge to change a diaper on a not always cooperative toddler. 20 months is not exactly known as an age of reason, to put it mildly. I have to be very careful with the diaper changes since Marin is likely to kick.

I told Marin that I had an owie and showed her the bandages. Now she looks at my knee, points and says, “Owie” right before she kicks me.

Talking Babies Can Swear, Too

I had a leak under the kitchen sink recently. The baby was upset by the puddle of water on the floor. Apparently it disturbed her sense of order. She immediately leaned over to get a closer look at said, “Oh, shit.” I was a little surprised just because normally she’ll just cut loose with the “f” word. Ok, I am just kidding about that, but the “oh, shit” part is true.

When you have kids you have to expect a little of that sort of thing. The proper response is to down play the incident to avoid more of the same in the future. That’s a little difficult when you have older siblings around that find a swearing toddler to be humorous.

Another thing about having kids is all the stupid things that come out of your mouth that seem to make sense when you are saying them. Just the last few days I have said both “Get off the walls!” and “Quit licking that baby!” And I’ve probably said “Oh, shit” a few times as well.

Overheard Today

Baby, standing on a chair to reach the light switch- “On. Ot. On. Ot. On. Ot.”

One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, Blue Fish

My computer has been acting up lately. It started when I had some new RAM installed and it turns out that it wasn’t the right kind. Since then there have been some other issues. My anti-virus program found a couple of viruses that were removed. Two of them were in system restore files so naturally when I used system restore to fix things, instead I had viruses again.


I have since gone through and manually removed things from the system registry, which is scary business to say the least. I have downloaded different system utilities trying to get everything fixed. I have been making progress but it takes me forever to do stuff like that. One of the system utilities does all kinds of things to speed up your computer. It freed up 16 gigs from my hard drive that was just old restore points and stuff like that. One of the things that you have to do is run disc defragmenter if you want your system to be as efficient as possible. Let me just say that it turns out that when you haven’t done it in over two years, it takes a really long time.


This morning I was checking the defrag progress after having it run overnight. I was at nine percent. I gave up on that for a while since it makes things run too slow to do anything else and I didn’t want to give up my computer for the whole day. Marin crawled up on my lap to “help” me with the computer. By help, I actually mean slam her little baby hands on the keyboard and run off with my wireless mouse. After that she said “eye” and stuck her finger in my ear. This makes her crack up laughing, but it’s only a matter of time until she loses interest. Then she lifts up my shirt, says,” Butt” and pokes me in the belly button.


Marin hasn’t been laughing much today, however. She has been really grumpy. In an attempt to distract her from fussing and poking, I turned on my laptop on a shelf on my desk with the hope of entertaining the baby so I could at least check my email on the other computer. I pulled up the PBS kids website and found some Elmo videos. Marin was enthusiastic despite not having a clue about Elmo previously. She began pointing, saying, “Mo-Mo!”

It’s nice that Elmo made her happy but sometimes I just have to question the judgment of those people at PBS. One of the videos had Elmo talking about how he likes to play with Dorothy, his pet fish. If you happen to have kids and a fish, you could probably see the potential for trouble. What’s next? Elmo plays with electricity? Elmo uses the stove?
These educational TV types are just trouble.

Ignore the Smudged Windows

Here is a picture I took of the baby and me. It was close to bed time so Marin wasn't quite as perky as usual. I have been busy with way too many projects but hopefully regular posting will resume tomorrow or the next day.

Also, I plan on updating my blogroll soon. If you would like to be listed, send me a note.

Baby Talk

Today the baby learned to say “hello”. I realized after hearing her repeat it multiple times that she sounds a whole lot like one of the dogs on the talking dog video. It’s more of a “hewo” than “hello”. But that just makes it cuter.

Baby with Purse and Cell Phone

Heads or Tails

The baby has just reached a new, important developmental milestone that they never mention in parenting books. The baby now knows how to take her clothes off. It’s a little startling to be greeted by a naked baby first thing in the morning.

In other news, I ran over a snake with the lawnmower. I stopped the mower when I saw the snake lying motionless and noticed that it looked remarkably intact considering that it had just been run over by a lawnmower. The only obvious problem was that it no longer had a head. Imagine my surprise when I made the next pass and discovered the snake was gone.

I'm thinking it's probably a good thing I decided against vet school. Veterinary pathology, for sure.

What Kind of Monster Does She Think I Am?

Today I had the baby in the bathroom with me while I took a bath. Unfortunately, she was not the only member of the audience. There was also a cricket waiting patiently to hop at me given half a chance. The baby is not a big fan of the insect world so she gave the cricket a wide berth.

Her sisters have pointed out crickets to her and they think it’s funny when she points and says “Ewww! Ewww!” Of course, I think it’s funny as well. She doesn’t act like she is merely repeating her sisters; she seems to be truly offended by the presence of the crickets.

So if I know there is a cricket in the house, I will ask her where the bug is. Then she’ll point, say “Eww!” and generally avoid going anywhere near it. So then I might ask her if she wants to get the bug. Of course she’s horrified at the notion and she’ll say “No!”

After my bath, I was in the kitchen with the baby, fixing her bottle. She was standing a few feet away, bending over by something on the floor. I walked over to see what she had found and it was a cricket. It was on its back and not moving. I think that must have been the reason that the baby didn’t immediately recognize it. I grabbed the flyswatter and all of a sudden it came back to life. The baby stood way back as I escorted, via flyswatter, the cricket out the back door.

After feeding the baby lunch, I cut up a brownie and put it in a bowl for her. She’s generally a fan of anything sweet so I thought she would like it. I didn’t even give any thought to the fact that she had never had a brownie before. I set the bowl on a rug where she likes to sit and eat snacks.

Me- “Look Baby, it’s a brownie for you. It’s good.”
Baby, looks in bowl, chuckles and refuses to get near it again.
Me- “Come eat your brownie. It’s good.”
Baby- “No!” She was also eyeing the bowl with suspicion.

That’s when I realized what was going on. The baby thought I was giving her a bowl full of crickets.

Proud Parenting Moments, Pt. One

The onslaught of crickets continues. This morning I watched a cricket slowly hop across the living room floor. The baby saw it as well, and began following behind, toddling as the cricket made it’s way to the floor vent.

It briefly flashed through my mind that maybe I should stop her. If she had managed to catch it, it would have undoubtedly gone straight into her mouth. I thought that the odds were pretty much in favor of the cricket since Marin isn't super precise in her stalking games. Therefore I did nothing because I really didn't feel like walking the seven feet or so that it would have required.

In retrospect, I think I was really lucky the cricket made it to the safety of the vent. After all, I would have been the one that would have had to dig a bug out of that baby's mouth.
I mean, in theory.

Katie Quotes

Katie, as the baby attempts to bite her on the leg- “Hey! That’s not a pork chop!”

Baby Waiting Patiently

Spring, Cops and Dogs

Spring is finally here. It's a relief for everyone to finally have a break from the cold and to have the flowers blooming. It's also a relief to have the girls able to play outside.

They were trying to be creative with indoor activities but honestly, they were just running out of things to do. The day they were giving the baby rides in a cakepan was the day I realized these kids REALLY needed to get out more.



























Dave helped me replace the battery in their little car (by 'helped', I mean he did it) and now they are spending a lot of time playing and driving in the yard. The only problem is that the neighbor's dogs have been escaping from their yard and getting into mine. One of the dogs is a nasty little Dachsund that hates kids. The girls are normally afraid to even get close to the back fence because he is so aggressive. They used to have another equally aggressive Boxer but thankfully that one died. It was replaced by another Boxer but he is young and just acts like a big, dumb puppy.


So these dogs have been loose in my yard approximately ten times in the last few weeks and it is getting old. The neighbors are aware it is a problem but still persist in putting the dogs out. I have started calling the police hoping that they might eventually get a ticket.

The first time I called, the officer told me that he would talk to them about fixing the fence. I was fine with that because that was all I wanted. I explained that I did not want the dogs to scare my kids in their own yard. The end result was nothing. The dogs were constantly running through my yard. I called again and once again, nothing. Then a couple of weeks ago I was out in the yard when the dogs got loose again. I had the baby and the girls were driving around when the dogs began chasing them. They were both screaming and crying hysterically. I called the police again. This time I was angry because I knew it was going to happen and no one would do anything about it.

When the cop finally came over, I walked back to the back fence with him to show him the problem dogs. The Dachsund immediately came under the fence with the Boxer right behind him. The cop shooed them back over to their own side as I was telling him about how the Dachsund was mean but the Boxer was just a big puppy so he wasn't the one that really concerned me. The cop walked closer to the fence to pet the ecstatic Boxer and said, "He's just a great big bundle of love, yes he is, yes he is."








My hopes of a dog-free back yard have just about gone. So just don't be surprised to hear that the girls are driving their little car around the living room with the baby being towed in a cake pan. It could happen.

Baby Marin

Tired Baby on Christmas Day