Gulliver's First Professional Haircut

We have been very busy lately! Thanksgiving was wonderful and the food we ate left absolutely nothing to be desired (except that I dropped the ball by forgetting to bring Disgusting Turkey, but I'll redeem myself for Christmas... and it looks like I may have to blog about Disgusting Turkey in the meantime, because I figured I'd link to the post where I've explained it before, and it looks like I never have on my blog!!).

Friday, The Boy, Murray, Gulliver and I drove down to St. George to attend my Grandpa's funeral (on my mom's side). When a loved one passes away at an expected time, then funerals can be quite enjoyable, and this was no exception! I had a wonderful time with my siblings, my parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, Gulliver, and Murray. I plan on writing a little more about that later!

BUT after spending the weekend with my family, there were enough comments about Gulliver's mullet or Gulliver's long hair that I figured something needed to be done. When we got in last night, we threw Gulliver in the bath and when he was out, sat him down for a hair cut, in which I cut off his mullet (which wasn't actually a mullet---it just hung over his jacket whenever he was wearing a jacket) and was afraid to do anything else. Murray criticized my work because it was so blunt, and the hair needed blending. So he got out his trimmers and we both tried to figure out how to cut the hair of a squirmy, wet, naked 2 year old. The result was not pretty. Eventually, I called it quits, once Murray had shaved an almost-bald spot on the left side of Gulliver's head. I told Murray that we'd be taking Gulliver to a professional in the morning. Murray insisted that he be given the chance to at least try to clean it up a little, but I figured that we may as well leave as much as possible there for the professional to work with. Murray and I were NOT professionals!!

So here is a video of Gulliver's first professional hair cut. I have an "after" picture (he went in looking like a baby and came out looking like a little boy!) but it was hard to get him to sit still, so it's not the greatest. But you'll see more of it in the next few weeks, I'm sure!!

Help! Weird Baby Names!!

Hello Internets! I need your help again! I am throwing a baby shower tomorrow and I need as many weird baby names as I can get. You know. We all make fun of them. My aunt knows a little girl named Super Star Eight Jemima. No joke.

By tomorrow, I need at least 20 good weird names. By 4:00 MST. Please fill out my form and don't leave them in comments! I can share them after the shower, but before the game, let's keep them a secret!!

GO!!

Mole Tattoo

A conversation between me and Murray, as I administered a shot in his arse:

Me: I wish we could just get a tattoo right in the best spot for me to stick this so that I always get it right.

Murray: It could be a mole tattoo. Seriously how much do you think that would cost? Ten bucks?

Me: I have no idea how much tattoos cost. I can't imagine a mole would cost that much.

Murray: It really wouldn't be that hard. Just a brown spot.

Me: It could be irregular and that would be fine.

Murray: Yeah that wouldn't cost much at all.

Me: But can you imagine your accounting to God in the hereafter at judgment day? I mean, it's just a mole!

Murray: "I said no tattoos."

Me: "But it's just a mole! I mean, look all the ones that You did! And I just added one more!"

Murray: "I said no tattoos."


-- Post From My iPad, with apologies for the typos and for the self righteousness of admitting I have an iPad.

A Triumph of Motherhood

(Note: This is a long post all about looking for and finding toys, and may not actually be worth reading unless you are familiar with the Bible and understand that when a woman finds her missing piece of silver, she's gotta share the news with all the neighbors.)


Tonight I am celebrating a true triumph of motherhood. A week ago, I had a minor medical procedure done, which, sparing you all the important and very personal details, hindered my mobility somewhat. While I could get around, I was never truly comfortable, and the basic day to day efforts of simply existing were enough for me to handle without having to worry about performing my evening duty of picking up Gulliver's toys.

(A few weeks ago Murray and I had a major clean-up and promised each other that to maintain our clean house, we would each do two things: Murray would do the dishes and clean the kitchen every night and put away his clothes properly, and I would clean Gulliver's toys every night and put my clothes away properly.)

So it's been a full week since I have picked up Gulliver's toys myself and done a thorough sorting and putting away. And in fact, it's been more than a week that certain toy pieces have been missing, but I didn't have the energy to search for them.

Tonight I spent about an hour and a half fully dedicated to nothing other than sorting, putting away, and finding Gulliver's toys.

The first to be assembled properly was the stacking/nesting cups. No big deal since those are a favorite of Gulliver's and since i find a strange pleasure in collecting them and nesting them myself.

The next was 7 out of 8 stacking rings. This is one of my major major hunts just about every day. In fact, we bought a whole new set of stacking rings because one ring from the old set was lost, and I'm convinced thrown out accidentally in the garbage and therefore irretrievable, and the thought of having an incomplete set of rings forever completely justified the $6 purchase of a new set. (The old set is in a cupboard and is to be used as an "organ donor" for the current set when needed. What do you know, the missing ring is the exact ring that is missing from the original set.) I decided to continue gathering and hope that the 8th ring showed up.

And I also noticed the missing peg from the peg and hammer set. Are you kidding me? I've been working so hard at keeping that intact! Where are you, missing peg??

And then there is the stupid color spectrum puzzle that I never should have bought because the colors are wildly inaccurate, and as artists, our heads might explode if Gulliver ever calls "chartreuse" what THEY call chartreuse. Nevertheless, an incomplete puzzle is an incomplete puzzle. And it has been incomplete for a while now. Stupid missing inner tiny piece. Damn you, lilac!!

But then I actually FOUND lilac, which was amazing, and I went to assemble the puzzle and finally reunite all the pieces... only to discover that ochre was missing.

One of the most baffling missing toys was a larger dinosaur. I mean, missing puzzle pieces, rings, and pegs are one thing, but a whole 8-inch dinosaur? I'm not going to find that under a couch cushion!

And finally the monkey. Oh, the monkey! I love Gulliver's monkey finger puppets so much. They are at the top of the hierarchy of toys for me. So important, in fact, that I don't really let him play with them, unless he is closely supervised. I store them on display in the living room, on top of some framed pictures they are art to me. Recently, Gulliver was crying because I had to go to work, so I lingered a little while, holding him, and he saw this as an opportunity to point out the monkeys to me. I got him the monkeys, and was able to leave just fine after that, because the sorrow of my leaving was replaced with monkey finger puppet joy.

Tonight, upon my initial cleaning, I only found 3 out of four monkeys.

So. Without going into every detail, because this recounting of toy hunting and sorting is already too long and too mundane, here is a reminder of my missing items:

1 ring
1 puzzle piece
1 plastic peg
1 dinosaur
1 blasted monkey

And all of this was STILL missing about 45 minutes into the process, after I figured I'd already inspected every nook and cranny, and certainly all the usual hiding spots.

So the next 45 minutes consisted of some more intense exercise (in addition to my walk today! Today is also a triumph in pregnancy!!). I moved both couches, neither of which produced any results. I moved every single cushion/pillow in the living area (there are plenty) and I found the missing stacking ring! Yay!

I downloaded a flashlight app for my iPhone, looked in behind the electronics attached to the television and found the ochre puzzle piece! Yay!

I emptied out the blocks bag, the Duplo bag, and every single toy bin (and put it all back together again) and found the peg. Yay!

I puzzled long and hard about the dinosaur, which I expected to find under the couch, and wondered where such a large toy could be hiding. I realized the only place other than behind the couch was in the pile of stuff I've had to deal with for weeks (eek!) at the bottom of the stairs. I looked through it and found the dinosaur! Yay! (I promise I'll deal with it tomorrow.)

Then the monkey. Ohhhhhhhh the monkey. Where else could I look? I had already moved couches, gone through my pile of mess, gone through every toy bin and bag, checked under every single cushion, checked all of the usual spots to no avail! The only place left was the shoe bench, which needed attention anyway because there are still flip flops in it. I went through every. Single. Pair. Of shoes. And in the VERY last shoe..... I found the monkey!! And I literally called out, "Monkey!" and leapt right up from my sitting position (no small feat for being pregnant!) and reunited the monkey with his monkey friends on the picture frames.

Tonight, friends, is a true triumph of motherhood. (The house needs vacuuming, and I left all of the shoes in disarray so that i could immediately record this moment of joy.)








-- Post From My iPad, with apologies for the typos and for the self righteousness of admitting I have an iPad.

Spam Email?

So in the last few days, I've gotten spam emails from friends' hacked email accounts several times a day. Today I think I got 5 or 6. Yesterday it was about 3. I wake up every morning to spam emails from my friends, and then later in the day, I receive the mass email that they send out to everyone apologizing that their account was hacked and to delete the email they sent earlier.

Is everyone else receiving these too? What is going on? I can't find anything about it online.

B-U-T-T-E-R-F-L-I-E-S

Gulliver loves butterflies. He says "Fa-fly!"

Moths must be a November thing because they seem to be all over the place right now. And they wait by our door and fly into our house when we go home. And every time Gulliver sees them, he points and says, "Fa-fly!"

So last night we were sitting around and Murray spotted a moth on our ceiling. He grabbed the fly swatter, went over to the moth, and THWAP! killed it.

Gulliver saw the whole thing and upon the deathly blow he said, "Ohhhhh!"

To which I replied, "Ohhhhhh! THAT's what we do to B-U-T-T-E-R-F-L-I-E-S!"

We're at least TRYING to preserve his innocence.

Christmas Cards!

I think that when you get married, you're supposed to send Christmas cards every year. Some very ambitious single people do this, too, but I certainly never did when I was single. I haven't, either, for the past two married Christmases. But I'm not going to repeat that mistake on this, my third married Christmas!

(It also doesn't hurt that a major major project this year was creating probably about 50 different Christmas card designs for a client.)

If you would like to receive a Christmas card from me this year, fill out this form! Even if you think that I know your address by heart (unless you're my parents or Auntie B, I do not know your address by heart), please add your address so that I have all addresses in one central location!! (And please don't hesitate to add your address, even if you don't feel worthy of a stamp. Trust me. You're worthy of a stamp. And because I'm a designer, I can do the whole thing on the cheap, so the envelopes and cards won't cost that much, either.)


Please note that if I don't recognize who you are, I may not send you a Christmas card :(  OR, I may do an anonymous Christmas card. Hahahaha. It's a possibility.

Lip Trauma 2010

Some of you may remember Lip Trauma 2009 when Gulliver was crawling under our kitchen table, slipped, and bit into his upper lip. It was traumatic, but we all survived.

Well, now I bring you the sequel, Lip Trauma 2010, which is MUCH more traumatic.

Two nights ago, Gulliver was in the bath. Murray and I were both home. I drained the bath all the way and then I went into Gulliver's room to fetch his towel while Murray stepped into our bedroom for a moment. What could possibly go wrong? I heard a thump and then a scream and knew that Gulliver had hurt himself more than normal.

I went into the bathroom and saw that there was some blood on his finger. "Oh no," I thought. He slipped and bit into his finger and now there's a long little cut on his finger!"

Then I realized it wasn't his finger at all. Gulliver had actually bitten THROUGH his bottom lip, in a horizontal line, about an inch long. He was bleeding on the outside and on the inside.

At the moment of this realization, I became a little bit upset. Some (Murray) might say hysterical. As Murray was holding our naked bleeding baby boy, I kept repeating, "He bit through his lip! He bit all the way through his lip! Oh no! Oh no!" We managed to get a diaper on him and two sleeves of his pajamas and then set out to find medical assistance. As any hysterical mother would do, instead of buckling my distressed baby boy into his car seat properly, I just held him in my lap to drive to the Instacare a few blocks away. (Although I was hysterical, it did cross my mind that things would be a lot WORSE if we got into an accident and he was killed just because I didn't want to put him in his car seat.)

The moment we started driving, Gulliver stopped crying. I couldn't believe it. My baby with a gaping hole through his lip stopped crying. The thrill of sitting on Mom's lap in the front seat of the car was much better than any physical pain he might be feeling. I didn't stop crying, however. I cried most of the way to the Instacare. Which was closed. So at THAT point, then yes, I strapped my baby boy into his car seat, and miraculously, he still wasn't crying. I stayed in the back seat with him, and let him play with Murray's iPhone and he played happily---really, actually happily---for the whole ride to the hospital, 15 minutes away. I, then, also managed to stop crying for most of the ride to the hospital.

At the hospital, we got all checked in. Calmly. Because still, Gulliver wasn't crying. When we were in triage, they asked if any of his teeth were broken, which kindof made me want to start crying again because it didn't even occur to me that in addition to biting through his lip, he may have broken his teeth. But his teeth all were okay, although the gums around the front teeth were also bleeding and bruised. Poor, poor Gulliver!

We were taken to a bed in the emergency area, and funny enough, Gulliver seemed to really be excited about his bed! He lay on his back with his head on the pillow, got comfy, and continued to happily play with Murray's iPhone. Any time he was poked or prodded, he took it all with a good attitude.

The doctor came and we discussed stitches vs. glue. He said he'd do glue if it were his child. And after we considered it all for a little bit, we decided that we would go with the doctor's recommendation. Only then he looked again and changed his mind. He said that on second thought, it was worse than what he had first noticed, and that he would recommend stitches.

So THAT was when Gulliver started crying. And I started crying again, too. A nurse put his arms in a pillow case and put the pillow case behind his back so that the case held his arms to the sides. Another nurse held Gulliver's head while Murray held his legs. I didn't have to do any restraining and just was able to touch him and be there for him. He was shot up with the numbing needle a few times, and screamed and cried then. And then of course he cried during the whole stitching process. During this time, he called out many many things, among which were, "Mamma! Dadda! Cracker [Milk]! No way! No! Hug [he says that whenever he wants to be picked up] Baby!" To which the doctor replied, "Baby?" Yeah, that one was a surprise, to me, too.

All in all, it was an emotionally harrowing experience. When he was all done, they gave him some apple juice, which stopped the crying.

Back in the car, Gulliver DID cry this time when I put him in the car seat, and although I was still back there with him, this time he cried all the way home, repeatedly asking, "Hug! Hug! Hug!" So sad.

Once we got home and I was able to take him out of the car, he stopped crying again and since it was much later than he is ever usually out, there were lots more stars in the sky than he has ever seen. Gulliver LOVES stars. So I took him out to where he could see the most stars and he said, "Wow!" I asked him he if could count them, and he started pointing and counting, "One, Two, Three," pointing to a new star each time. It was pretty adorable and a good way to end the traumatic evening.

The next day, you would hardly even know that anything had happened. Because the stitches are almost right in the crease of his chin, they're kindof hidden so you don't even see the stitches right away when you look at him. And the wound, to look at it now, is hardly anything you would think could cause so much drama. In fact, I asked him where his owie was and he thought about it a little bit and then pointed to his wrist. Nope. So if he doesn't even know where his own owie is, then I shouldn't have to worry too much.

(Although I still get sick to my stomach when I relive the moment of hearing him scream and seeing the wound for the first time.)

Our Family Update!

Yay! We are very excited to know that we're expecting a little girl at the end of March! Murray can now sleep easy, knowing that we'll have one of each.