Happenings unrelated to bologna barf

1. New this week! Harrison gives hugs on demand. Oh the sweetness of that soft hair and those little hands reaching around my neck...
2. New this week! Harrison figures out that the sound of sound changes if he inserts index fingers into ear-orificies. Harrison inserts than removes fingers repeatedly while giggling.

I hate bologna

I can't remember the last time I had bologna, but I do remember liking it as a kid. We used to go to the playground at School 80 in Buffalo at Highgate and Eggert in the summer. They had a free summer program with arts and crafts and games and free lunches. I remember being afraid of the teeter-totter...always worrying that the kid on the other end would jump off and I'd plummet to the ground and get hurt. I also remember that the free lunches would get dropped off in a cardboard box by a big truck. The bologna sandwiches in those lunches were chilly because the food was kept so cold. The little plastic cups of apple juice were filled with sweet apple slush that you had to eat with a spoon or slurp out of a big hole in the foil top. We only got wheat bread at home, so the processed white bread was a treat, just like the bread at grandma's house. I used to love to squeeze two or three packs of yellow mustard onto those bologna sandwiches.

Fast forward 10 years to high school, when I realize that bologna is the lowest form of luncheon meat and that eating it is akin to consuming cold hotdogs.

Fast forward to college and my quasi-vegetarian days where I banish all sausage and cured meats from my diet. (Insert crude jokes here.)

Fast forward to present day where I've done a total one eighty and decide that to dine on cured and mystery meats is a worldly and cultured pursuit: Vietnamese banh mi, Italian salami, panchetta, and prosciutto, burritos with locally made chorizo, gumbo with spicy andouille..yum yum yum!

Still. Bologna is pretty much where I draw the line. Bologna is a little too processed. Too pink. Too…creamy. (Also on the other side of that line are processed meats with the word "loaf" as part of their name (like "turkey loaf") and items that contain the word "food" in their name. Like "cheese food"---if you need to clarify that the cheese is food, then actually the cheese is not food. And it probably isn't cheese.)

But I digress and will get to the point: Friday Harrison had a stomach bug and hurled up an entire day care bologna sandwich all over my kitchen floor. Now I'm thinking that 2005 is the first year for me to not just hate bologna, but to despise bologna. To loathe bologna! To curse bologna!

It was bad. I had to put Harrison in the exersaucer and leave the room because I was retching. That's how bad it was.

Damn you bologna!

Image: Superman

This is the costume I made for Harrison. More views are here.

Image: With Gramma

Image: By Aunt Val

I am green and it'll do fine

This is a birthday gift from the heavens, by way of Doug.
Yes, there are times when I actually start welling up because it makes me that fucking happy.

Harrison keeps getting blonder and blonder, and I'm beginning to question whether there was some kind of infant switch at birth. If he ends up not liking The Muppets, that will be the proof.

Harrisonese

Is it wrong to encourage Harrison to say nonsense words like "Dah DOO!" just because they sound so darn cute?

Man, we could make him say ANYTHING. I'm drunk with power.

Sweet baby Jesus, I'm a slacker.

We are recovering from our week of insanity, where I only slept in my own bed two out of seven days and poor Harrison was subjected to nearly 1000 miles of car travel. (Yes, I Mapquested this just for fact-checking purposes-- that's how dedicated I am to accuracy on this here blog, folks.)

The wedding weekend was perfect. There were many memorable moments, which you can ask me about privately, but the hellion-related low/highlights were certainly Harrison struggling out of my father's grasp during the end of my reading of the Song of Solomon and running up to "help" me end with a big finish, to the amusement of the guests. And then there was the time Doug and I took part in the vow renewal (just like Moonies!), while we held Harrison and he struggled and cried, ran away, and then started playing the piano in the reception hall. It was really romantic. (Strangely, Doug has had this running joke where he says to me in his best soap opera melodramatic voice, "Sarah, will you marry me….AGAIN?!" The "again" is about two octaves lower than the rest of the sentence. Anyway, he was angry afterward that he had forgotten to ask me this right before the vow renewal. Yes, he's corny. Yes, I love it.)

Alas, there will be no pictures of Harrison dancing, because by 7:15 he had passed out in his stroller with his feet propped up on the piano bench like a hobo (you know the type: those 23 pound hobos that sleep in strollers near pianos). He was whisked away at nine by my parents because he needed to go to bed. My mom argued that he could sleep in their hotel room under the guise of giving Doug and I some alone time that night, but when I checked in with them after we arrived back at the hotel around 11:30 the Monster was sitting up in bed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with my poor exhausted parents who couldn't get him out the door fast enough.

Bookends

Harrison's great-grandpa Harold (Doug's mom's dad) passed away on Friday. He was 80, at home, and surrounded by family when he went. He was the last of Harrison's great grandpas and often called him "Hamilton." It was genuine forgetfulness the first time, but after that we suspect he was just taking the piss. He was a good guy and a loving grandpa, and we will all miss him.

It's been an exhausting and sad week, but I was really struck by how much better it was because of Harrison's presence and shenanigans. He kept us all engaged, and he made everyone laugh and say repeatedly, "Is he always this busy?" (Our answer was "Yes. Every waking moment.")

Having started the week with a sad event, we end it with a happy one: Val and Tara's long overdue wedding reception in Massachusetts. I'm catching a ride up early with Jenna and am not feeling much regret about not sharing the five-hour car ride with a screaming 1-year-old. That honor will go to my mom, who undoubtedly will be in hog heaven.

I will be sure to post some pictures of the beautiful brides--and of Hamilton shaking his groove thing out on the dance floor.

Jeremiah and Jedidiah

This link will take you to a CNN article about a family that just had their 16th child. The article reveals that the father is a former Arkansas state representative named Jim Bob and all 16 kids have names starting with J, including the atrociously named 11-year-old Jinger, 8-year old Joy-Anna, and the newborn Johannah. (The latter two aren't so much atrocious names as it is atrocious that they were named so similarly. From there it's not really such a big insanity leap to name their inevitable next two sons Prince Michael and Prince Michael, is it? Thankfully they couldn't do that because apparently whatever freaky religion they belong to maintains that God will smite them if their babies' names don't start with J.)

On the one hand, I'm thinking, "16. 16? 16!!! How do they handle it when I am just scraping by with the management of one?" On the other hand, I'm thinking "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" On the other hand (yes, I have three), I'm thinking, "At some point enough people actually voted for this nut for him to win!? That explains a lot about the South."

One thing I have learned

Washable crayons help keep walls clean, but also dissolve in saliva.

Another guilt-ridden rant

Ashley and I have been discussing these posts from the Baby Center forum on potty training.

My son will be 3 in six weeks and has yet to go on the potty, I've tried everything so I thought till a co-worker suggested a big sticker callendar and an explained treat at the end of the week for a certain amount of stickers. That will be my next try till then good luck with the potty training.
8:07 AM on 09/28/2005 Rhonda

Hi I'm a parent of an almost 2 year old who is potty training- I would like to encourage Rhonda in something- if you are not home with him during the day, it will probably be even longer till your son potty trains, because there is no consistency between daycare/babysitter and mom... Maybe you should consider staying home to raise your son if you can, so that you can potty train him, and then he will have the benefit of having a parent around all the time... I don't know your situation, but that is one thing I know makes a huge difference, in all aspects of a child's life, is having a parent there to do those important things. Good luck, though...
1:55 PM on 10/03/2005 Anonymous

Let us put aside Rhonda's apparent disdain for punctuation and focus on the many levels of idiocy in Anonymous' response-- the worst of which being that trying to persuade someone who might actually already be a stay at home mom to stay home so that they can clean up another human's shit and piss from a variety of surfaces and fabrics is just not very persuasive. Gee, Anonymous, thank you for pointing out that children benefit from having parents there to do the "important things." I'm sure Rhonda never thought about that before. I'm sure now that Rhonda's son is 3 and about to start preschool that she really should reconsider her choice to be a working mother. Everyone who reads the forum thanks you, Anonymous, for your incredible insight and prowess at solving these complex problems.

Still...despite my recognition that Anonymous is truly dumber than a box of hair, I am still manipulated into feeling guilty. How ridiculous is that?!

And since we're on the subject and already in ranting mode, if I have to hear Oprah say one more time that being a stay at home mom is the toughest job in the world, I am going to bludgeon myself with the remote control, because being a mom that has to work is pretty damn tough.

Not So Fine Motor Skills

For the last couple of months Harrison has been pointing to his mouth whenever we ask, "Where's your nose?" At first we tried to ameliorate the problem by instead asking, "Where are your lips [teeth/gums/mandible]?" Then, amazingly, he managed to get the answer right every time.

Now, however, he points to the right side of his head whenever we ask him about his nose. The thing is, if we ask him, "Where's daddy's/mommy's nose?" he gets it right, so he knows what a nose is.

I think we may have figured out the problem yesterday at dinner when he poked himself in the left eye with a spoon and then reacted by grabbing the right side of his head.

It's turkey time

Looking for a great book that will help you teach your child to gobble? This is the one to do it.

Man, we are so going to have to start watching our language.