An open letter...

Dear Sydney,

You are nearing the 6-month mark and I am constantly astounded by both your girth and seemingly endless supply of smiles and good will. You are the most charming small person I have ever met in my life. Every morning when I go in to get you from your crib, you greet me with the widest, face-cracking smile that showcases your two razor sharp teeth and, without fail, it melts my heart. Any grumpiness I have at getting up is immediately evaporated by the sheer wattage of your grins. And they are all for me.

You are a voracious eater and will consume large quantities of cereal and fruits, of which you have turned down none. You aren't particularly fond of peas, but you will devour any other vegetable with glee. When we eat, you focus your attention on what we're doing with laser-accuracy, eager, I'm sure to join in on the deliciousness that is my cooking. (Except for last night, when for some reason I decided to BROIL FISH and we can all agree now that was a BIG MISTAKE. PU.)

You are very much in love with your brother, and will cry when he is (inevitably) crying. You share both his victories and defeats, and with this albeit adorable camaraderie comes a lot of DUAL CRYING--I cannot get on-board with that. I am enjoying this pure and symbiotic relationship while it lasts, because I foresee some dark ahead as soon as soon as you start crawling. I predict that you will do this with lightening speed (you are very coordinated already!) and directly towards all of Jack's stuff, which, let's face it, is pretty much everywhere. I hope you have a hard skull my little chubby friend, and a lot of patience, because that one is his own whirlwind of terror these days.

You were introduced to the bouncy-seat this week, and it is apparently the best thing that has ever happened to you (besides being "borned"). You love to bounce-bounce-bounce ad infinitum, and I usually have to take you out of the seat before you have tired of it because, if left to your own devices, you would bounce to China.

I love you so much little butter bean. You have redeemed all babies everywhere, and I have some awesome guns now due to carrying your enormous ass around. All I have to do is picture your little fuzzy-peach head, gummy smile, and sparkling blue eyes and I forget every worry or care I've ever had. You are my excuse to be endlessly cheesy and doting, and I am taking full advantage! I love you bubba-loop!

Love,
Mama

Applesauce

Jack loves applesauce, but is hesitant to eat it unless it is decorated with approximately 74 sprinkles. (We have had many arguments over how many sprinkles are TOO many.) Usually he's pretty amenable to getting any sprinkles at all (after a particularly nasty incident) and we use this as leverage to get him to eat the other, more nutritious things on his plate. As in, yes you can have sprinkles if you finish your fried okra and catfish. JUST KIDDING. He doesn't eat fish. KIDDING AGAIN.

Tonight we bartered some bites of steak for sprinkles, and Dan teased him that there weren't any left, holding up a mostly empty sprinkle container. Jack looked over to me with his head tilted down, through his eyebrows in a kind of creepy manner, and said, "yes there are" in a growl-y voice.

"Whoa Children of the Corn!" I laughed.

Well, Jack thought that this was hilarious, and for the rest of the evening he was chanting, "Children of the Cor-in, Jack of the Cor-in!" Because extra syllables are requirement in Southern linguistics.

First Words

You know, it is kind of monumental what a person's first words are, in an ironic sort of way...I say "ironic" because my first word was "star" and I am so clearly not one. But I digress.

Sydney has been blabbing up a storm (A STORM) and her two first words are, I kid you not: "Mama" and "Blahblah-Blahblah". Just say it, that second one. If it sounds like a cartoon noise than you are spot on. Now these two seemingly unrelated utterances are the exact opposite of that: I truly beleive, in my CORE, that it is not a coincidence. To her, they are relational constants. Mama=blahblah-blahblah.

You know how all of the baby books tell you, "TALK to your infant, they will use your constant stream of verbal incontinence to learn how to communicate!" and my darling child has done just that. She has learned how Mommy communicates: BLAHBLAH-BLAHBLAH. I think that maybe Jack has gotten to her.

I know, I know...(and a poop buffet)

I have been remiss. But the title of this post is not an apology. OH NO. It is the repeated phrase that follows any sort of instruction that I give my sage 4-year old. The good news is that sometimes he follows it up with "I was supposed to...(insert instruction here)" and then does it. I choose to take this as a positive sign that a) he is miraculously listening, or b) he can accurately read my strong desire to toss him out of a window and diffuse it. Sort of. That second one, besides being a great survival instinct, is pretty much the only way that 4-year olds are awesome...unless you count creating an unbelievably enormous pile of crumbs under their chair at the dinner table and then falling OFF OF THEIR CHAIR and into it during the meal as awesome. In that case, he is awesome every night.

On a completely different tangent, the brilliance of the spacing in my children's ages is not (as one would think) due to ovulation, but is more based on my own experience growing up. My sister is 3.5 years younger than I am, and I remember taking care of her even as she was an infant, and I figured that worked out great for everyone...well, except for maybe her, so let's DO THIS.

Today Jack proved his might as an older brother yet again while he "babysat" Sydney (she sat in his mini-club chair while he played don't-let-the-baby-fall-out) so I could clean up the utterly disgusting remains of a recently devoured poopy diaper. YES, my life is that gross. I won't get into any more detail lest you vomit on your computer, but let me just say this: dogs suck. And this is coming from a DOG LOVER. The only way the situation could have been worse is if she, demon-dog, after consuming said poo-wonton, had then upchucked THAT on the carpet. Let's keep our fingers crossed for the night, shall we?

My Alias

Jack finds it hysterical that my parents and Dan have other names besides "Pop-Pop" and "Daddy," etc. He was going around the dining room table at dinner, announcing people's real names and when he got to me he said my name was, air quotes included, "Lauren 'My Mommy' Frances."

Overheard

While in the bathroom cleaning up after Jack had puked on my mother's dining room table: I can't BELIEVE that I throwed up!

Raisins

Jack is a huge fan of raisins. He loves to eat them right out of the little red boxes, usually while snuggled on the futon upstairs watching cartoons. Now, Jack is, at best, a careless eater. So therefore there are often rogue raisins in and around the futon, and when I happen across these, my first thought, as someone who has lived through two terrible cases of PPSD (Post-Puppy Stress Disorder), is "Please God let that be a raisin."

The interesting thing, as Dan points out, is that I KEEP GIVING HIM RAISINS. The way that I see it is a) they are fruit, and b) they are not Cheetos.

This week Jack and I, as a rare treat, went to the grocery store alone together (this is only moderately easier than going to the grocery store with Dan, the cart-packer). While in the produce section, Jack spied some dates...which, to the uninitiated, are just very large raisins. He convinced me to buy some and, thinking that they'd be easier to contain than their smaller cousins, I agreed.

Fast forward to later that evening, at snack time, when Jack is eating dates. Fast-forward again to when I find a half-eaten date STUCK TO THE ARMREST OF THE FUTON. Ironically this was not upsetting to me, as I knew immediately what it was. It would, however, be quite worrisome to perhaps someone who had lived through PMST (Post-Monkey Stress Disorder.)