life of the party

if conrad had any idea his father and i could produce a baby for him to play with he'd probably crawl all the way to the store on the burning concrete for some marvin gay, oysters, red wine, and dark chocolate for us.

at the pool today, i witnessed my little eleven month old child scream with glee and laugh as he chased around the other kids in the kiddie pool. they were playing Shark and somehow conrad became It, with me as his fins.

here are some pictures i took on our way to the pool, and as we're drying off.

i swear i must have the most precious child in the history of children. just a moment ago i was giving conrad a bottle(after eleven wonderful months of breastfeeding, my boobs are unfortunately fading) before putting him down for his nap-he laid in my arms, gazing up at me while reaching his free hand towards my face-for the past few weeks he has been incessant with pointing to things to hear what they are-and so, as he pointed his index finger to my facial features i, with a soft voice, began to rattle of their names: nose, eyes, mouth, chin, ears. then, i pointed to his nose and whispered nose, then to eyes, his mouth, his chin buried under the bottle, and then to his ears, and at the sensation of my finger in his ear, the worlds most adorable giggle came bellowing out. i repeated this several times, and several times he did that same exact giggle, drawing in closer as if to cling on to me for safety from my tickling finger.

conrad and i were planning on going to the spray park out in jacksonville when in walked his father, hours before we expected to see him. i already had the pool tote/largest- most awesomest bag you have ever seen, because for some reason, going to the pool now involves more than a walkman, banana boat sun grease, and a beach towel, now it involves: two towels, spf 1000 sunblock, bag of snacks my mother would be proud of me for packing (hummus, cherries, cucumbers, whole wheat crackers), swim diapers, extra change of clothes for the kiddo, two hats, sunglasses, sippy cup, arsenal of toys, swim ring, and extra patience for when i go to put him in his swim diaper and he fights me at every cost to be freed from my "better interest" shenanigans.

i had gotten everything together during conrad's nap and was mentally set on getting out of the house to enjoy the nice summer day; and better yet, with jon being home, the three of us could go together, and instead of the spray park, i decided we should go to the public pool down the street. now, a few days prior conrad and i went. it was opening day and everybody and their mothers uncle, aunt, cousins, grampops were there; and not only that, but the medford swimming pool i found out was Ghetto, more ghetto than north grand prairie. we walk in and pay and are ushered through a womens locker room no decent women would ever claim belongs to our gender. the walls were tattered, the floors unmatted, the bathroom a toilet behind a curtain, and a rusty old bench against the wall. out at the pool, there was no benches or pool furniture, just the concrete and a tad of shade from the barbed wire fence surrounding it. i had no choice but to drop our bag and lay out our towel right there on the hot concrete and change conrad into his swim diaper and shorts. like the optimist i am, i made the best of the situation-i smiled as i stepped down into the urine drenched pool and conrad knew none the better: he splashed and kicked with his usual gaity. but now that jon was home, i thought we would try it again. perhaps it wouldn't be so crowded and perhaps, being opening day at our last visit, they weren't ready-things might be nicer. all such notions went flying out the window and back into the crapper once we got there. it was actually more crowded than opening day. none the less, jon and conrad and i jumped in and found a pocket of open water not occupied. then i went of the diving board and after my third dive i nailed a beautiful pikes peak. there is nothing like hitting the water like a knife and shooting down twelve feet effortlessly.

it only took a hour for conrad to lose interest, so we packed up and loaded him back into his car seat with his sippy cup in hand. looking at him back there i began to see the little boy and less of the baby. he is changing so much, and not only developmentally but a shift in the makeup of his stature.

today we went out to the ashland pool and man was it night and day. the drive is twenty minutes but it's wonderful out there: a grassy knoll around the pool with huge oak trees and lounge chairs and a baby pool and a fourth of the crowd. we were there for over a hour and by the time we made it home conrad was asleep. i opened the back door and just stood there staring at him...he was still my baby.

there are a few pregnancy related habits i have, eleven months later, yet to shake. one of which is farting...anywhere, without hesitation or inhibition; another is my belief that craving, say bagels, must be met, as highest priority, trumping everything else; and whereas i love that i can let one ripe and then blame it on conrad or make "buy cupcakes" number one on my to do list, crying in the animated movie, Robots, when i had only been watching it for five minutes, is really just too much.

i know, i know, "isn't he a little young for the park" you say. and sure, true he doesn't quite understand a slide is meant to be slid down, or that monkey bars aren't a snare for mommy to bang her head into, or for that matter, how to walk over to the swing set, but, in our defense, damn do we ever have a blast when were there.


this little girl Loved conrad and for awhile conrad was into her, that was until he discovred the playground floor was composed of wood chips that he could grap in handfuls. later this same little girl gave me daisies out of her undies, and was i to do except take them and put them in my hair.



no, those are not my green toe nails, as much as i'd like to lie and say i've moved on past clear nail polish, i haven't. nor have i yet to wear eyeliner or lipstick darker than nude. it is conrad's aunt jessica's snazzy toes and conrad wearing his sunglasses. this picture was insanely hard to take, as conrad was set on a. taking off his sunglsses and b. chasing me.




this is one of conrad's favorite games, he calls it "pull all the books out and then wait for mommy to put them back and pull them all out again". it's endless fun, literally.

us, 05/2007
squaw lakes (or indian bitch lakes as i like to refer to it)

something.

we packed ourselves in, the six of us, hoping and itching to find what we had set out for; looking out of the car window, i watched the clouds pull back to the empty landscape, the empty landscape open to promise and daydreams meet with a soundtrack of idle conversation and hissing wind. it was the dead of winter, a southern winter, and i had forgot to pack a hat and scarf. flow, a nickname launie had earned earlier that week after taking a job at a greasy spoon, none of us, not even dave, the poorest of us, was willing to take, but flow had fallen in love with a burger flipping line cook, and despite the groups incessant advice, had applied and been hired for the red eye waitressing shift.

like throw up in your mouth

"god missie, your so cute it's nauseating." -girl at work

followed by a later conversation in which my desire to put puppies in my mouth, i was told, is largely due to that nauseating cuteness i exude.

glad to know i've still got it.

;)

pate please

from what i've gathered via baby books and baby websites, once your little one begins to eat solids, you should encourage and offer different types of food; and so naturally, jon and i have been doing just that, and to our amusement conrad will eat just about anything not spinach. which makes me wonder if i should be offering escargot and pate in between his exotic cheese and wine flight...

so far the list of preferred foods reads:

avocados
pears
cherrios
peaches, bananas, and rice combo
soy hot dogs
nature's best teething biscuits
baby yogurt
spaghetti...bring on the garlic!
pasta salad (artichoke hearts and all)
cheeses: cheddar, mozzarella, feta, and gorgonzola.
my smoothies (including one with a good dose of carrot juice in it).
risotto cakes on a bed of marinara, basil, and cheese

the concept of permanence

i was in high school when my childhood dog passed away. her name was peggy sue, she was a full blood boxer, with the pointed ears and a chopped tail, who, as a child, i would paint her nails barbie pink and, when sad, wrap my arms around her and cry into her neck. i remember the day my parents took us to the breeders home, michelle and i sat there on the ground in the midst of puppies, laughing with unsurpasable joy as the they bombarded us with licks and tiny chews; peggy was so calm compared to the others, she was content to sit in my lap, and i was sure she was the one.

when lou came into my life he was already a Dog, passed his puppies days but his puppy behavior. jon and i were dating, and i had gone over to the "ponde rosa" to pick him up before we went out. his other roommates/band mates were there with the usual entourage, drinking bad beer, smoking good pot on the couch while watching Oprah. being a new person to their scene everyone felt it mandatory to show me just how wild and crazy the house dog was; then jon pointed out the five broken windows...broken that week from lou trying to get to the mailman, and, after being jumped on and knocked to the ground where the word "kisses" was chimed by everyone, i was left with a sloppy face and a love for such a wild dog.

little did it occur to me that a few years later that same wild dog i witnessed terrorize a living room would be a roommate of mine. our differences ( and by differences i mean, me thinking trash was trash and therefore meant to stay in the trash can while lou believing trash was food and therefore needed to be saved from the trash can, or, me insisting my panties weren't a chew toy and lou insisting otherwise) were vast in terms of agreeable living conditions, and after conrad was born, they were really,really vast; but lou was my dog, my great big, 115 lb, full of personality, singing rottweiler Dawg. seeing him the past week with all his verve gone, his back legs so swollen he could hardly pull himself up, his appetite non-existent (not even a steak could persuade him!), and his big brown eyes heavy with discomfort, practically broke my heart right in half.

last night i thought for sure his time had come. i sat in the kitchen with him, gently running my fingers down his shiny black coat, letting the tile floor catch the river of tears that poured down my face, telling him all about heaven and how lovely it would be, how there was a mansion there for jon and i and how he needed to guard it for us till we could be there with him, and how, Peggy would be there too, and, believe or not, but a select few cats get into heaven too, so as to not maul to death precious or clover, whenever he arrives.

then around 5:30am this morning i woke up to a yelp and realized lou was trying to stand up-he was still with us and still in great pain. jon and i had discussed helping him along his way if lou still showed no signs of improvement by this morning, and there it was: no signs of improvement- the cancer had taken hold of his body and lou was slowly and painfully dying.

so this morning, jon did what no loving master ever thinks or wants of having to do; him and his brother helped lift him onto his legs and into his kennel, then off to the vet to aid him in meeting his other master.

a few months back i read about how conrad was learning the concept of permanence, and that was why games like peek-a-boo are just so much for him. then a few hours later, i was doing the dishes, the back door was open, and i looked over without thinking, expecting to see lou at the screen door staring in at me like he always did.

there is a buzz around the house lately, of constant chores being done, and ideas being hatched, and conrad crawling and climbing into and onto everything, and of dealing with an impending great loss.

last week, jon and i both noticed something awry with lou dog; foremost, he wasn't him old self-no chasing cars as the drove down the alley, no howling with the downtown sirens, no crashing into the back door when we would call for him to come in-just this lethargic dog we had never seen before with a swollen neck.

after calling the vet and describing the symptoms, they suggested we give him two benedryls, as it sounded like he might have gotten bite my a black widow. which seemed like a perfectly normal scenario, afterall, lou often will take his ball into the garage/shed and get it stuck in the darkness of all those boxes and miscellany items, where black widows like to live.

but after a week the only changes we noticed we're slight, marginal at best; his condition was still worrisome, and so, on monday evening jon and his brother brought lou to get looked at.

a hour or so after they left jon called me to tell me lou had lymphoma and would only be with us for, maybe, three months.



since that call we've been waiting on lou hand and foot...this is harder to write about than i imagined and i'm having great difficulty in going any further, as further...i just can't. i'm asll tears. i'm wanting to believe in God for a canine miracle: for lou and for my husband. the good news is that the doggy doc gave him some presidone and so he is in much better shape.

this weekend we'll be taking him up to squall lakes with us, and i'll be sure to take lots of pictures of it.

Conrad, 10 months 1 week.
weight 21 lbs
height 30 inches
perfect, angelic, silly, fast, uber inquistive


conrad sleeping...

as you can see his crib has become home to a plithre of stuffed animals, aka wrestling foes/snuggle buddies.

conrad playing...and mesmerized, as usual, by the dangling camera strap.

t'shirt reads, "My Heart Belongs To Daddy". it's a lie, we both know it belongs to Me...Mommy.

conrad discovering...

...learning about how his index finger, when applied to the spout from whence the water came out, could control the water shooting out (he also discovered that day that he could push down the side and all the water would pour out onto the yard and from there, mud.)

conrad rock climbing...

no exaggeration. that little man really rock climbed, i simply kept my hands under his tushie in case he should loose footing.

last night i had this wonderful idea of dumping a bag of flour on the floor and then placing some measuring cups and bowls with water in them down there too, and to top it all off, add conrad in just his diaper to the mixture ( i was hoping for tasty baby pie and ended up with a sticky,doughy baby ready to have newspaper machete all over him and made into a vbs craft time balloon). so of course, that is exactly what i did, and what i did was not think through this great idea; no, i did not take into consideration that flour plus water equals glue, and that, glue on a tile floor means there can only be one way to clean it up, and that is on all fours with a knife, chiseling away like a mad women. nor did i really think through just how conrad and i would get clean taking a shower together, or that all that dough being washed off conrad would end up getting stuck in my muff. that's right, i wrote it: flour glue in my muff! but lordy, was it just too much fun watching him make dough and realizing dough don't taste like pears, not a damn bit.

i've been sitting here in front of the computer, gazing, reflecting, re-hashing the past few days events and what i should purge from my crowded mental cavity, only to keep rounding a personal dilemma: post-natal baby hair regrowth retardation.

i don't remember if i ever blogged about my hair loss after conrad was born or not...but, yes, i did. i lost it in clumps and handfuls, down the drain, and all up in my hair brushes business. i joked around with jon that i would soon look like gollam and thank god i never did though i did come close and even started mumbling diatribes about "my precious" and catching fish with my hands.

not too long ago, oh let's say, a month ago i started noticing little cute baby hairs popping up all along the edge of my hair line and on top of my head; and sure, it was exciting and encouraging at first, dare i say, dainty. but then they started to grow, and grow curly, sticking out from underneath my straight hair like a bad wig.

i thought that my hair dresser might be able to give me a hair cut to hide them but then he cut my hair and i came to the conclusion he pretty much sucks and i probably need to find a new hair dresser, regardless.

my sister has one of those uber fancy straighting irons that, when she was here, i used and was able to get some control, but now that she's gone and i'm left with my $20.00 Revlon Straightner, and cursing at my hair.

the downside of upside and the upside of downside



conrad's first art project. he calls it,
"ketchup and mustard reflections"

i've blogged before about the trials and tribulations in changing conrad's diaper, cross comparing to him to a twirling, spinning river otter. that was about a month and a half ago: a month and half ago before he was actually crawling and pulling himself up to standing positions. if before he was a river otter he is now a flapping and jumping and impossible to get your hands around, determined to pull his diaper off before you have it fastened on, attempting to jump off the side of the changing table, crawl away bare butt(ed) 22lb fish. it makes me miss the days of getting a urine shot in the eyeball and epic assplosions, and that's saying alot. really, i don't think jon or myself knew just how good we had it.

lately it seems everything is becoming a little more complicated, just not the diaper changes. our typical 2-4 night wakings have turned into 4-6; and i would desperately like to let him "cry it out" but the problem is no longer the issue of him feeling abdonned or not but of him standing in his crib unable to figure out how to sit or lay back down from that position. even getting him down for naps and bedtime has become a full on ordeal due to his infatution with not laying down and pulling his diapers out of the dragon-diaper-holder-thing we have on the wall next to his crib. sometimes i'll go in there after thinking i have him down for a nap and find him chest deep in diapers with a huge tired grin on his face.

of course, along with all these new challenges has come the joy in watching him discover his ability in pulling all the tupperware out of the drawer or the look of accomplishment he gets when he, incessantly, pulls the drain out in the tub when i'm trying to bath him in water is left, or the way he defeatidly hums along as i sing him to sleep; and so, so much more.

none the less, i wish they made infant sedatives for doing diaper changes. :)

re:conrad's first time in a pool

i'm almost positive if i were to strap conrad to the back of a rocket and blast him off into space and then him land on the moon and meet a few aliens and have indian food with them, then come back earth to me, he would be clapping and smiling for more; there just isn't much you can throw at that kid that he doesn't Love and Love whole heartidly.

earlier today conrad and i went over to shahala and zion's house for our first play date. zion was sleeping so i took the oppurtunity to feed conrad a jar of food and then he enthusiastically explored the new house while shahala and i chatted and had a cup of tea. shahala was planning on taking zion to the pool afterwards and so our play date turned into a pool date. we ran home and threw some towels and swim trunks in a plastic bag and made our way to the YMCA.

the first few minutes in the water conrad seemed more interested in watching zion, then, like magic, the awesomeness of this giant mass of water that he was in and i was in and his new friends were in, dawned on him and he began to kick and splash and laugh like nothing in his life had ever been so wonderful, not even lou dog licking his face or daddy tossing him vigorously through the air.

within thirty minutes conrad was attempting to blow bubbles and wanting me to superman him across the surface of the water, and though his bathtime gave me every inclination he would be a water baby, i wasn't quite expecting him to figure out the doggy paddle so quickly.

we rinsed off at the showers, and conrad squealed and grasped at the water falling; we dried off, and conrad gibbered away to zion; we went out for thai food and conrad banged on the table; we came home and he nursed and fell asleep. if only everyone was as happy and easy going as conrad.

pictures from michelle's fantastic-but-never-quite-long-enough visit:

i have enough of this set of pictures to keep me laughing
for years to come.

i honestly can not descibe the "protective big sister" feeling

that came over me when taking this picture; she is seriuosly

a foot away from death by violently crushing water.

easter morning service on a blanket in the park, brilliant!

under the shade of tree at a park in jacksonville.

the saga of sickness continues here in the eggert-world. i would only bore you if i were to list the symptoms and conditions and medications we've experienced and taken. currently, it's that same cold bug i blogged about a month ago: she's back. the on again, off again of good health has left things undone and unkept around here-to the point where i really don't know where to start to catch us back up. bills have been paid late and we're all out of clean towels, again. conrad is hauling ass now, crawling around like he's been doing it for years, taught classes on it, wrote a "how to" book or two on the subject. it's pretty damn exciting to watch him boogie from room to room but all that To Do of baby proofing is timely imperative now; because our house was built before infant life expectancy, actually baby proofing it has proved to be more than a chore, a magic trick. since all the flooring is either tile, old vinyl, or slickity slick hardwood, anything that is not super sturdy and heavy poses as a falling hazard. already he is pulling himself up on furniture, attempting at standing (which i imagine leads to attempting to climb). we've already had to move the coffee station into the pantry and move that shelve of pantry into one of those plastic drawer things that had kept all our glass recyclables, to which i tossed out. but then this morning jon informed me that, that isn't quite working out for him-he finds too much difficulty having to pull the coffee maker a few inches out to put the water in it. we also have to replace all our trash bins with trash bins that have lids, as conrad has demonstrated his will to discover what mommy's dirty kleenex's taste like after a few days of getting all crusty. and then there is the need for two more baby gates and a office chair that doesn't have wheels and some sort of contraption to keep conrad out of the kitchen cabinets (nothing from Target has worked yet) and something or another to hide the cords going from the middle of the wall over to the computer; it seriously is a baby proofing nightmare. and i really should be taking this time he naps to get some of this done.

as timing would have it, conrad discovered his ability in crawling and sitting up in his crib on the same day that cold bug- that had me in it's death grip- gripped conrad as well. which made for the longest attempt at getting him down for his nap, a whole hour devouted to nothing but convincing conrad sleeping when your eyes are blood shot red and your habitually yawning and your sick is way more interesting than realizing you can pull yourself up on the crib railing and throw your pacifer to the ground. and last night was no better, according to jon ( i was at work). jon said it took him a miserbale hour and half before conrad finally passed out, and not in his crib but in jon's defeated arms out in living room watching Planet Earth; and if that was where this story ended i would still postulate us to be lucky and fortunate. however, and unpleasantly, the amalgamation of a sick infant, and a sick infant who went to bed in a state of displeasure and stress, resulted in me being up every single hour last night to either rock him back to sleep or feed him back to sleep or simply put back in his pacifer. i can only say, thank God our bugs didn't doing any amaglamating and that at least i have the "energy" and dry nose to do it.