Genevieve is ten months old,

and she has a pretty new dress to show for it!

Heh heh. Her first curtsey...

She is turning into such a little person.  Baby G has four teeth, is pulling up to standing, going from laying down to sitting up on her own, and has taught herself how to crawl on hands and knees, although she still prefers an army crawl.  She insists on eating what we eat, and rarely allows us to even break it into smaller pieces anymore.  Her favorite foods are french fries and super processed white bread, like hot dog buns etcetera. Yes, I'm an early childhood nutritional god. Bow to my superior parenting.

(Clears throat)

I decided to take a photo of her doing the same thing that Payne was doing in his 10 month photo, so here is the comparison:

Squeeeeeeee! Look at the tiny Payne!

She looks like a toddler now.

(sigh)

Kids are weird. An exhibition:

He was walking up to the baby toy on the couch, pushing a button so it would play music, walking back to his "seat", and clapping when the music finished, over and over again.



He only wants to be in a photo if he wasn't the intended subject matter...



Payne spends more time in the playpen than Genevieve does. This is entirely voluntary.


Bench seats are for babies. Real men squash themselves into available cargo space.


She has no interest in toys, unless they happen to be in her brother's room.


Really?

(FYI. It's not Genevieve's fault her ensemble is a little whacked here. I tucked her dress into her bloomers so she could crawl around.)

And the finale. I walked by Payne's room at 10:30 at night to find this:


Alright. Who has been teaching my kid the finer points of dorm room etiquette?! THERE WILL BE BLOOD.

Why I shouldn't have any more children: Reference day 86.

I didn't set my alarm last night, as we just got back from a trip out of town for my sister in law's wedding (where, despite plenty of help in the childcare arena, my kids embarrassed me plenty) and I was exhausted.

I woke up to the baby monitor. It went a little something like " Ba. Ba. Huh. Baaa....OHMYGODIMDYINGWHEREAREYOUSOMEONEJUSTSTABBEDMEBUAAAAAAAAAAAAHHAHAAAAAAA! (SOB)".

I sprint into the baby's room to find her wee thunder thigh stuck between the crib rails.  I break a sweat. She squeals. Eventually she is disengaged. Naturally, the expressions of true agony and despair have woken my son.  I allow him to pee and then send him back to bed.

I give Genevieve a bottle. She does her best to shove the entirety of her finger up my nose, roughly 15 times.

Payne wakes back up, goes back into the bathroom, and comes out exclaiming "Mommy, my pee pee on your shower!".  I consider it best to go investigate the source of this juicy little headline, setting Genevieve down on the floor beside the recliner.  As it turns out, Payne has managed to pee all over the side of the bathtub while standing in front of the toilet ("My just moved my wiener, Mommy!").  I clean this up fairly easily, as similar incidents have given me fair reason to just leave the economy sized barrel of Clorox wipes in Payne's bathroom.

I return to the living room to find Genevieve happily splashing around in a puddle of her own spit up.  She gets cleaned up (wisely, I chose other methods than Clorox wipes).  Then Payne refuses breakfast and nails a barnacle impression while slumped on the couch watching his cartoons, as Genevieve alternates between crying at me and trying to pull up on the chair, while I drink my coffee.

Eventually I'm prepared for the day, and considering the baby took a nearly two hour nap I'm positive she's going to be a dream while we're out, so I call my Mom to meet us for lunch at a place with grown up food.  We run our errands and get done early. Hurrah! Payne has fallen asleep in the car so I let him snooze while Genevieve destroys the front half of the car and gives her all to the task of stealing and eating paper napkins.

Payne wakes up, is miserable (the usual post nap precarious emotional state + no couch = sobbing).  We get out of the car to wait outside for my Mom, as I'm hoping that will get Payne out of wallowing in the misery of polyester encased car nap sweaty head.  Genevieve wants nothing but to get down and crawl, so much so that she repeatedly and violently tries to wiggle out of my grasp.  If I lower her so she can stand with support, she simply pulls her legs up at a 90 degree angle, ass parallel to the ground.  I give up, set her down on the pavement, give Payne a snack, and return my attention to the baby, only to find her happily picking at a dried gum puck on the sidewalk.  I squeal, my phone beeps, Mom is running late.

I take the kids into the restaurant. Payne is crying. I order, find a table. Payne is sobbing.  I go get a high chair off of the impossibly high stack of them with Genevieve wiggling on one arm while Payne trails after me sobbing.  He helps me push the highchair back to the table, sobbing, as other patrons of the restaurant start to look annoyed.  I set G down in the highchair. She starts sobbing. You can't crawl in a high chair, people! I go get my drink, as Payne trails after me, sobbing.  I sit him down. Both kids are sobbing. I stand equidistant between them and don't know what do to.  Other people are staring. Our food shows up. I start to cut some up for Payne as he sobs.  Then he manages to wail out that he has to go potty.  I leave our food and wordly possessions at the table and take him to the bathroom.  My Mom finds us there.  We return to the table and attempt to converse. Not gonna happen.  Genevieve squirts two pouches of baby food into her lap and as I lift her up to clean her (instead of flinging the goop covered pouches across the restaurant, as I dearly wanted) I realize she needs a new diaper.  I walk to the bathroom, only to remember that we're in the only restaurant in suburbia that doesn't have a changing table (Eff youuuuu Pei Wei! The under four crowd likes Mongolian beef too!), so I march her out to the car to change her, sweating and wondering how quickly my saucy lunch is congealing. 

After that things calm down a bit.  I mean, Payne spills his cheerios all over the floor and the manager comes over to fake sweet talk Genevieve in a way that says "Your squawky baby is obnoxious. Take her home." Ohhhh and she works in one of those annoying passive agressive digs by cooing "Oooh. You don't feel good, I can tell!" to Genevieve, because she has a runny nose.  She's TEETHING biatch! She's not sick. No that isn't why she's loud or crabby. She just is, so shut your face and put an age limit on the door if you can't handle some whining from a nine month old.

I'm such a peach.

Where was I? Oh yes, well, my Mom offers to take Payne since its obvious I'm not at my best. Ha. I happily accept.  We leave and as I buckle Genevieve into the car I make a happy discovery.  I'd been smelling this heavy, sweet smell inside my car for a day or so. It reminded me of antifreeze, so I was starting to worry that I had a leak somewhere.  Well, I opened my center console and, happy day!, it wasn't antifreeze.  My kid had very simply squashed a honey packet from McDonald's into my condiment stash.  The smell wasn't a car leak, it was my center console flooded with honey! I actually am thrilled by this discovery. The day is looking up, people! I scrub that mess out and add the wipes to the pile of garbage on the floor of the passenger seat.

Genevieve and I go to the grocery store.  I get a cart, get the baby settled in her seat, then grab all of my trash and head for the entrance. This woman walking out positively stares me down with a disgusted look on her face. All I can think is that it's because I'm carrying in a used diaper? I mean, it's not like its covered in poop smears or anything. It's just a balled up diaper.... Well, I decide whatever the reason for her animosity, she can eff off.  So, I give her my most winning smile. Heh heh.  I've never seen anybody break eye contact so fast.

The rest of the trip goes smoothly. I get G down for another nap, make most of dinner, do dishes, laundry, I ironed. Ok guys, I never iron.  The dry cleaner knows me by sight, I strategically use clothes pins to mash down little bows on baby clothes etc..., in college I used to race from the dryer back to my dorm room and set textbooks on laundry trouble spots.  So, obviously I decided such grown up behavior is worth a reward. Ice cream!

I get out my bowl, my teeny spoon (ice cream is always better on a teeny spoon) my Bluebell Red Velvet cake, and....

You know what? I'm going to bed.

Significant events of the last 24 hours or so...

Yesterday during lunch I informed Payne that he had to finish his chicken if he wanted ice cream. Genevieve had already finished her lunch.

I looked away, looked back, and found this:


Who needs a dog when you have a baby sister? I was sufficiently impressed by a)his stealth and b) his consideration in breaking up his nuggets into baby sized pieces, that I decided to pretend I didn't see the switcharoo go down.

I think Genevieve knows that I know, though. You've gotta watch those double agents...

This morning I accidentally "Mommy and Me"'d G and I.


(shudder)

I met a friend for a playdate that way too. Once we're all dressed there's no going back, since it probably took me a solid hour of hard labor to get to that point.

In other news, Genevieve started cutting a top tooth and taught herself to sit up from a laying position today. Therefore she has alternated between being mightily pissed off and immensely self satisfied...by the minute...all day.

Also, my son is probably the only person on the planet that eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a spoon:



He peels the sandwich apart, scrapes the toppings off and leaves the rest. I should probably stop wasting bread, but the alternative is...what...serving him a ramekin full of peanut butter, a ramekin full of jelly, and a spoon? Ewwwww! I prefer to prep his meals in sweet, sweet denial.

A little exercise.

So, a pregnancy lasts a little over 9 months, right?

I found this photo on my phone, taken two days before I had Genevieve:



So she was nine months and change "in" there.

Here's nine months and change "out".

My thoughts:

a) I'm incredibly glad that the gestational period for the average human isn't 18 months.

b) I should probably retire the Waldo shirt....or buy some black rimmed glasses and a beanie, just so I can make strangers uncomfortable in public places.

How many MacGyver references is one allowed in a lifetime?

The other night, I was peacefully curled up, reading in my favorite ugly recliner, when a movement across the room caught my eye.

I glanced up and saw this:



See the little round thing poking out from behind the wall? The one with a kid's arm attached to it? That is a mirror from a baby toy, which my son located in his room and was actually using to spy on me.

I should probably comb his room for any objects with shiv potential...

Additionally, I have been missing a pair of nail clippers. No big deal, you say? I would argue that yes, it is a big deal. Everyone has their weirdo things and one of my weirdo things is that I hate all of the nail clippers in my house except for this certain one. I was incensed when I had to cut the kids nails (twice) with lesser hardware, and I was positive that Dan had taken my preferred clippers out of the bowl that they lived in (and I threatened to harm anyone who moved them from their home base bowl) just to mess with me.

Then, Payne came to me one evening with an old tin that I believe once contained a gift card. He wanted to show me his "tings".



So...important tools for future use, in Payne's world, include a large metal screw, one half of a clothespin, and my very favorite nail clippers.

Perhaps he's been tipped of regarding an upcoming zombie apocalypse and this will all come in very handy. Who knows.

I totally waited until he went to bed and then stole my precious clippers back.

Don't you judge me.

Events of note.

This took thirty seconds:


And I wonder why Post-its always make my grocery list...

I looked up one morning and saw this:



(love the "Heck yeah! Rock on!" face here)

I said "holy crap!" snapped a photo, and texted it to Dan.

Then, I looked up and saw this:



So I yelled "Holy crap. Don't fall!" snapped a photo, and texted it to Dan.

Heh.

We went to the zoo to see the new animatronic dino exhibit:



I'm all "smile kids!" and they're all "Uh, Ma? WE'RE GONNA DIE."

I love them,



especially when they're asleep.

The Beach (on cinco de mayo but we sort of forgot that until we got there).

We went to the beach!

so the kids could play in a kiddie pool with a view.

"It's like raaaiiiiiin, on your weddin' day! A free riiiiiide, when you've already paid..."

Let met explain. We wanted to take Genevieve to the beach for the first time (well, the first time since she looked like this):


but we've been burned in the past.

When Payne eight months old we took a trip to florida.

(Sorry for the scary face. It was either this or a close up of my right boob.)

Yay! Beach!

Except not so much. Payne haaaaaated the sand. Hated. He would gleefully grab fistfuls of it, and then rub his face, and then start crying because it was in his eyes, and then start snotting from crying, and then wipe snot and drool and sand into his mouth, and then start crying harder because there was sand in his mouth, and then become hysterical, and then one of us would carry the poor quivering mass of misery back to the condo for a bath and a nap.

So he ended up spending a week chillin with a view of the pool:

I was afraid that Genevieve would be the same way. Plus, I die a little each time one of my offspring munches on sand. Horrifying...

I was voicing my ocean recreation reservations to a friend and she was all "Well we just bring a blow up baby pool for the little ones and that way they stay out of the sand".

I was like...

(BLINK, BLINK)

"That is absolute genius."

As it turns out, Genevieve is cool with sand all over the place and cool with eating it as well (gag).

(Okay guys, check out the lack of knees. There is a little crease where a knee should be, but that's all she wrote.)

Oh, and see my son? He still exists! He just hates pictures. Blarg.

So the sand was a success, but the beach was full of spring seaweed and there was nowhere to play near the water easily so we busted out the world's tiniest baby pool anyway:

(Also, note that I carefully shifted that hat the left so the fabric bow was artfully placed "just so" over and over, and then by magic it would ooch and she would become a bownicorn again. Hmph.)

They both loved it!

I did not love wading through seaweed thirty times to fill up my pitifully small bucket in order to get the damn thing "full" with about four inches of water, but hey, next time I'll bring a bigger bucket.

The moral of the story: My friends are the MacGyvers of motherhood and I need to consult them on the best ways to schlepp mini people to any and all locations.

My Little Gila Monster...

There's no mistaking it. Little Girl is mobile.



and as you can see, she gets around in the manner of a very large lizard.

There are a few things I've remembered since she has taken to "across the house" exploits.

A) She wants to do what the big kids do:



She thinks she's hot stuff at the playground these days, as I internally cringe at the grossness of the carpet and keep a sharp eye out for four year olds rocketing towards her on feet to big for the rest of them.

B) My dogs should probably be sainted.



She was laughing and slapping Ethel on the rump here.

C) The golden rule of child rearing:



Silence is bad. Always.

I realized I hadn't heard any noises in about 3 minutes, went to investigate, and found her stealthily snarfing business cards as fast as she could manage.