It must be this crazy weather.

We had a bit of a rough evening here. Gabe did that awesome toddler thing where he would intentionally create a small disaster, and then while I was cleaning it up, he would relocate and create another small disaster. For example, he refused his dinner in a definitive manner (he threw part of it on the floor), then while I was cleaning up dinner, he got into the pantry and managed to create a small shower of Rice Krispies in one corner of the kitchen. Then, while I was cleaning that up, he got a mostly-empty Diet Coke can out of the recycling bin, some orange peels out of the trash can, and combined the two decidedly icky items to make a very sticky art project in the opposite corner of the kitchen floor.

Wheeee.

Just when I was feeling super exhausted and approaching the end of my rope (and huge to boot - I look like a cartoon character with my ginormous belly), it was bedtime. We did our normal bedtime routine of milk and stories and rocking, and then I dimmed the light. We cuddled in the rocking chair for a few minutes when Gabe suddenly hugged me very, very tightly and said, in his sleepy voice, "I got you. Doan worry. I got you."

Much to my surprise I felt tears in my eyes. (Damn pregnancy hormones.) I hugged him just as tightly and said, "I got you too, baby." Then, after a moment or two, I settled back in the chair to rock more easily.

He was not having that. He grabbed my wrist and placed my hand on his back, where it had been during the hugging a minute before. "More hand, Mommy. More hand."

"Of course, baby," I replied, tears blurring my vision now. "Of course." He nuzzled his chin into my chest, curled his body around my belly as best he could, and thirty seconds later he was fast asleep.

Orange peels, Diet Coke, chicken, Rice Krispies all on the floor...all forgotten. It sometimes astonishes me how very much I love that little person.

Books, etc.

I keep seeing all these blog posts where people have committed to reading 50 books in 2010, or even 75 books in 2010. I could get that done no problem, assuming "Meet the Gabba Gang" with Yo Gabba Gabba counts towards my total. If you count "Professor Wormbog and the Search for the Zipparump-a-Zoo" then I am well on my way to 100 books and it's only January.

(Off-topic note: I went on Amazon.com today to try and buy a copy of Professor Wormbog for a friend's child, only to discover it is out of print and worth $125.00. One hundred twenty five dollars, people. Clearly I should not let Gabe be touching our copy with his grimy applesauce hands, ever ever ever.)

So I rule at reading books. I kind of fail at blogging though. I kind of fail at a lot of things related to motherhood these days, including:

• Uploading/organizing Christmas and Hanukkah pictures. I have not done any of this. I haven't even looked at them to delete the bad ones. Instead, the approximately 658 pictures we took throughout the holidays are merely cluttering up every single one of our memory cards, thus ensuring that if Baby #2 decides to make an early arrival there will be absolutely no way to document the momentous event. MEMORY CARD FULL, you know. That's what we will tell her.
  
• Organizing Baby #2's room. This one is not strictly my fault, as we are waiting on some minor construction on the condo to be finished. It's scheduled to wrap up January 25th, which gives me five full days to assemble the baby's room. Don't say I don't plan ahead. Because clearly, I timed this one with excellent precision.
  
• Convincing Gabe to brush his teeth in any sort of effective manner. I live in constant terror that he's going to be the only two-year-old ever with cavities. The toothbrush spends approximately twelve seconds in his mouth, and then twelve minutes "cweaning walls. I cweaning." It's gross.
  

In better news, here are some things I am good at:

• Having heartburn.
  
• Growing a really gigantic baby. Seriously, at my 35 week appointment last Monday the ultrasound technician told me the baby was estimated to weigh in around 7 pounds, 3 ounces. Dr. M predicts a nine-pounder if I continue at this rate. (!!!) Then he laughed heartily about how her head was measuring huge and I was lucky I was scheduled for a repeat c-section. Ha ha.
  
• Throwing up. (Sorry. Pregnancy is not pretty, kids.)
• Frantically trying to wrap up projects at work since this Friday is my last day before maternity leave, several of which I am behind on because I have spent too much time at work staring out the window and daydreaming about/mooning over upcoming baby. (Not doing anything practical like ordering newborn sized diapers or onesies, mind you. Just mooning.)
  
• Laughing until I cry when Gabe says "Peace out, friends" and flashes a peace sign at his teachers and classmates as we leave daycare. (I have some stellar video of this action, but putting it into this post would of course involve me actually, you know, uploading some video, and clearly that's not going to happen tonight.)

OK. Must go to sleep now. Will try to do better. I probably won't, because of the newborn coming to live at my still-under-construction house, but I promise to try. Peace out, friends.

This Can't Continue

The baby is surviving on carbs and applesauce, people. (And now that I think about it, apples are pretty much the carbiest fruit. So really he surviving solely on carbs. Great.)

He rejects all vegetables, except for Trader Joe's Veggie Sticks WHICH ARE NOT ACTUALLY VEGETABLES. They are POTATOES with carrot and spinach FLAVORING. Trader Joe's, you sell me nothing but LIES. Lies and potatoes.

I tried to trick him tonight by dipping one end of a Veggie Stick into a tiny bit of hummus. It worked, in the sense that he put the hummus end into his mouth. But then the hummus touched his tongue...and he decided I was trying to poison him and he made crazy, crazy faces and spit the hummus all down his shirt. So that was pretty much a fail.

So he rejects vegetables, he rejects hummus, and he also rejects animal protein like chicken and turkey, OR SO I THOUGHT. It turns out there's s one other thing that he WILL eat, but I am almost too ashamed to mention it here. Then again, since no one really reads this, I can confess. He ate cat food tonight.

CAT FOOD.

FOOD CREATED FOR CATS.

I'm serious. After he had rejected the nice healthy dinner I prepared for him (except for the applesauce and Veggie Sticks, which he ate with relish once he decided there was no further hummus around to torture him), I put him down on the ground to crawl around while I rinsed off the highchair tray. He said "hi" to the cats in an excited voice, and crawled towards them. "How nice," I thought to myself. "He's going to pet the cats. He's getting so good around Magnum and Phoebe, so sweet and gentle to them." Then I turned to watch, just to make sure none of the cats tried to swipe him (which they almost never do these days).

They didn't. But he swiped food from them.

Yep, Gabe had one hand in Phoebe's bowl and one hand crammed into his mouth, shoving cat food down his gaping maw as fast as he could. Oh. My. Goodness.

I ran over to him, tried to force the chicken pellets from his mouth (FAIL), and forced open his fist to remove the uneaten pellets from his hand (SUCCESS). He got pretty mad at me for taking his delicious chicken pellets away. Crying was involved.

So basically the $7 organic free-range chicken breast from Whole Foods = REJECTED.
The disgusting chicken and rice cat food pellets from Centinela Feed & Pet Supply = YUM.

I need a glass of wine. I also need to lay off the ALL CAPS, probably.

(Don't) Eat, (Don't) Drink, and Be Merry

Tonight for dinner Gabe consumed:

1. Thirty-seven sweet potato "puffs" (junk food version of otherwise healthy sweet potato, created by Gerber);
2. Astonishingly large volume of Pirate's Booty (mmmm...delicious Pirate's Booty);
3. Zero bites chicken;
4. Zero bites cheese;
5. Three molecules pureed carrots;
6. One sliver of dried apple fished out from crevice of highchair with pudgy fist (possibly left over from breakfast this morning?); and
7. One eighth of a teaspoon of water from bear-shaped sippy cup (approximate; this is the amount he appeared to drink before flinging the sippy cup at me with a surprising amount of force).

That is some quality parenting right there.

The good news is that we went and weighed him today, and he is just over nineteen pounds! That's a gain of about three quarters of a pound in two weeks. Hooray! (Perhaps he is absorbing calories through osmosis or similar? It's either that or Pirate's Booty has more calories than I remember, and I should stop eating it myself.) Just look at that round little face and the tummy protruding from the shirt. Excellent all around.

(That's my brother in the picture with him, in case you were curious. Gabe and Uncle Ross are big fans of each other.)

The other good news is that Gabe has a vocabulary of four whole words now. He says "dog" and "cat" and "duck" ("duck" sounds remarkably like "dog," if I'm being honest), and most of all, "hi." He's very good at saying hi and very offended when people do not say hi back to him. If ignored he becomes more insistent and determined, saying, "Hi! HI! HI!" while waiving his tiny little hand back and forth as fast as he can, determined to get the attention of occasionally unfriendly strangers. I'm talking to you, mean lady in the produce aisle at Whole Foods who looked down her nose at us and refused to say hi back to a charming and talented ten-month-old-baby when he said hi to you. I hope you're happy with yourself. Way to crush a kid's blossoming social skills.

Luckily Gabe was undeterred by the foregoing Rude Produce Incident and went on to say "hi" to the avocados and bananas while we continued wheeling towards the seafood counter. Not that he would eat avocados or bananas, mind you. But he'll waive and say hi to them in the produce aisle. He's friendly like that.

I am an awesome mom and never miss obvious solutions to annoying problems.

Gabe sleeps beautifully in his crib at night. We put him down to sleep between 7:00 and 7:30 every evening, and he usually just hugs his lovey lion, rolls over, and goes to sleep. Fussing is rare.

Naps, however, are a different story.

I can count on one hand the number of times we've managed to get him to nap in his crib. Usually we lay him down, hand him the lovey lion, and kiss him...and he looks at us as though we've crushed his little spirit. After about thirty seconds when he realizes that we are serious and we really do expect him to stay in his crib because we are the meanest parents of all time, he starts screaming and then rolls over and pokes his hands through the crib bars in a desperate attempt to escape. It's pathetic and awful and after five minutes of listening to him cry I inevitably give up and go pick him up.

He'll nap in his stroller, Ergo sling, and car seat no problem, but he hates the crib. (Silver lining: taking Gabe for two one-hour walks a day in his stroller or sling went a long way towards helping me lose the baby weight. Hooray!)

Anyhow, I am sick (yet again, I know), and lack the energy for a good long walk, so I decided I would make an effort to get Gabe to nap in the crib this morning.

And much to my shock and surprise, he babbled quietly to his lovey lion for about five minutes, then rolled over and went to sleep. NO CRYING!!! It's practically a miracle!! That's right, after eight months of struggling we achieved a successful crib nap!

What did I do differently, you ask? What marvelous parenting technique did I employ?

I closed the blinds in his room so it would be dark in there.

I am such an idiot.