A joke.

Me: Knock, knock.

You: Who's there?

Me: Control freak. Now you say, "Control freak who?"

...

I used to send out Helen Updates via email to a whole bunch of people and get several replies back. Now that I've moved online, I have no way to see who's reading my entries, so it feels like I'm sending posts down a black hole.

For those of you new to weblogs, a quick note: if you click on the word "comments" below this entry, it will take you to a screen where you can type a comment for me to read. You do not have to have a Blogger account to make a comment.

I'm not soliciting compliments, I promise! It's a great way to keep in touch with us, and for us to find out who's enjoying this site. I'll also find out if I need to load up on Helen pictures, quit the not-so-amusing commentary, or press on with more knock-knock jokes.

Now Hear This.

Helen's ear infection got worse over the weekend, so we made an emergency office visit Sunday afternoon to get antibiotics and pain medicine. After giving her the goods, she ate an early dinner and passed out at 6 pm.

These pictures were taken on Friday night, when her fever had spiked back up to 101. Clearly, not a happy camper.

Unclean

A classic symptom of adenovirus is a skin rash. It looks like an allergic reaction - or what happens when you get the bright idea to try a new laundry detergent - but her little body is trying to fight the viral infection. Clearly it's not occupying much of her free time.


I took her back to daycare this morning and discovered Helen's not the only one with the virus. A full class has 12 kids, and yesterday five children showed up. Then the teacher sent home two kids with fever. Today it was five kids again. And yes, the entire room has been disinfected.

But after two days at home with no schedule, a full day at school wiped Helen out. She started asking for her bedtime bottle at 7:00 (an hour early) and was conked out 15 minutes later. Brian's out helping a friend tonight, so I actually have a free evening for the first time in a week.

Why can't I think of anything else to do but sleep? Hmm.

Overheard

Brian calls me at work after giving Helen an afternoon snack.

Brian: Oreos are not maintenance-free.

Me: Oh, really?

Brian: They're EVERYWHERE.

Helen: (in the background) ma-ma! ma-ma! ma-ma!

Brian: (to Helen) For the last time, I'm not ma-ma! Stop calling me ma-ma!

Helen: ma-ma!

Brian: Hagar! Hey, Hagar! How do you like that, HAGAR!!

...

Officially? I'm a mother of TWO kids.

Maternal Guilt

Helen came home from daycare yesterday with a temperature of 101.5. I gave her some Tylenol and a bottle of water, but it didn't seem to help much. She crashed hard at bedtime, then woke me up just before 2 a.m., crying. When I got her out of the crib, I realized she was pretty warm - up to 102.7. More Tylenol, and some cuddling. She was still feverish this morning, so I made a doctor appointment. By the time we got there, she had a rash all over, especially on her feet.

Turns out Helen has a virus that normally runs around daycare, and a right ear full of pus. So that week she woke me up every night, that was her ear infection screaming at me.

Helen, you remember all that cursing I did in the wee hours of the morning last week? I'm so very sorry, baby. *hangs head in shame*

Right now she's sleeping in her stroller in the middle of my office. Brian is on his way to pick her up and spend the afternoon with her.

This is when it would come in really handy to have a bunch of unemployed friends who like babies.

To the 80's, with love.

I spent WAAAY too much time laughing at this.

Did anyone else spend afternoons running around their neighborhood with their shirts tucked up and over?

I should have gotten a Barbie doll, who won't hate me in 15 years for dressing her up and taking pictures - and laughing.

Helen, I'm sorry. For the bunny outfit, for this picture, and for who knows what else will happen this decade in fashion. But if my mom spent the 70's putting me in brown plaid pants with an orange turtleneck and taking pictures, by god, you can deal with a tucked onesie that makes me smile, and reminds me of carefree weekends playing outside with my best friends, wishing we were grownups already.

The square root of D.W.I.

A solution to the word problem, from our friend Xander:

H = X * Y + Z / U where U is an undefined variable
J = (Z-3) + U + (SqRt (X*Y))

HU = X * Y + Z
HU - Z = X * Y
Z = HU - (X * Y)

So

J = ((HU - XY)-3) + U + (SqRt (XY))
J-SqRt(XY) = (HU-XY)-3 + U
U = J-SqRt(XY) - (HU-XY) + 3

Therefore, we can easily deduce that after a mere 4 days you attempt to purchase a tranquilizer gun, but are arrested on the way home for:
Driving While Impaired (sleep deprivation, I am sure)
Carrying a Concealed Weapon
Possession of a firearm without a license

...

I think I understood the part about "driving while impaired."

I was told there would be no math.

A word problem:

If Baby H consumes x amount of meals in a day, takes y number of naps and sleeps for z hours at night, where z has no correlation to x or y, and Mother J has slept for z-3 hours when she is awoken by Baby H for the sixth night in a row, how long will it take Mother J to locate, purchase and deploy a tranquilizer gun?

Don't forget to show your work.

Summer Time

Today I took about 20 pictures of her running around the house and out in the yard. This one was my favorite.

A Question

So, how do you stay awake at work after spending all night up with a crying child?

Helen woke up at 11 p.m. screaming like a banshee. I had been asleep for about an hour, so I dragged myself upstairs hoping it would cease quickly. Of course, it didn't, and after a restless night for both of us, she was up for good around 4 a.m. We decided this morning that she must have been teething. Yes, The Replacement Baby is back!

Cranky, definitely. And that's just me. Brian heard it all on the monitor so he's going sleepless today, too.

Being this tired reminds me of my single days, except I'm missing the skull-pounding hangover and the exuberance of a schoolgirl crush on a drummer from the band I saw the night before.

I had a little oatmeal for breakfast, followed by 2 Cokes and a big glass of water, and I'm still about to fall face-first on my keyboard. So if anyone has any good ideas about how to last through the day, feel free to share.

The Restaurant

Last week Brian mentioned that he had a dinner to attend for work - something about selling over his quota for the month, and his boss was taking him out to celebrate. I was invited to join them, so I lined up a babysitter. I have to admit, I got a little excited at the thought of a night out with adults. A nice glass of wine, and food that would not be eaten standing over the kitchen counter while Helen threw her cooked carrots on the floor - well, it was tantalizing, to say the least.

So yesterday was the big day, and mentally I spent most of the morning planning the evening - race to the daycare center, pick up the baby, make her dinner, throw on some earrings and liptstick, take the earrings off the baby and wipe off the lipstick. It'd make her look like one of those pageant contestants, really.

But after lunch, I got a phone call from the babysitter. She had gone to the doctor with a bad cold and learned she had an ear infection. She was still feverish, and probably contagious, and obviously not feeling well. So sorry - she'd have to cancel.

CRAP.

Brian & I spent the next 2 hours calling literally everyone we knew. Backup #1 was in another state. Backup #2 had a work dinner to attend. Backup #3 had plans with spouse at a local pub. Backup #4 had her own kids to pick up at baseball practice. And so on. You get the idea. With such short notice, no one could come over to watch Helen.

So I thought, there went my precious evening with adults, there goes the wine, bring on the carrots. But Brian said he'd rather have me there, so we took her with us. Having spent time in restaurants with Helen, I was worried that she would last about 30 minutes tops. She's been a little difficult lately, signaling it's time to go by throwing everything within reach on the floor, and screaming loudly. It's hard to get a 14-month old to listen to well-reasoned arguments about good behavior in public places. Brian agreed that if I needed to escape, I could snatch her up and head for the car, and he could get a ride home.

But surprisingly, she was fine for much of the evening. Charming, smiling, watching everything around her, and even waving to people at the tables nearby. After sampling the bread and spaghetti I ordered for her, along with the grapes & raisins I had brought for her to snack on (this was after eating a full meal at home, mind you), she got more than a little antsy, and realizing we'd hit the 30 minute mark, the appetizers hadn't even arrived!

The waiter claimed they made everything from scratch when the order came in, but it took so long our calamari fritte must have been out for a nice swim at the time.

So Helen & I took a little walk around the restaurant, and found a long hallway downstairs where she could run back & forth many times. After we got back, the appetizers had arrived, and I snacked quickly because she did not want to be in the high chair again. Back downstairs we went for more running around - and this same routine followed for each course. Quick snack, then back downstairs. Except for dessert - Helen got to eat some ice cream. Score!

I think she deserves a medal. It took over 2 hours to get through dinner, and she did very well. Even though I was so exhausted when I got home I went straight to sleep, even though she got spaghetti sauce all over her new white shirt, even though it wasn't the adult evening I had pictured, I'm quite proud of her.

But next time, I'm ordering dessert first.

Possums on the Half Shell

So I'm eating lunch at work and reading the paper when I notice this picture on the front page of our local news:



Now that's a slow news day.

Finding Nemo

Helen has a puzzle that she loves. I found a picture of it online and posted it here so you could see what I'm talking about:



Cute, huh? It has a fishing rod with a magnet for a hook. You try to get the hook to touch the metal spot on a fish. If you pull gently enough, the puzzle piece comes out and you've "caught" your fish. It's supposed to teach toddlers dexterity and manuevering. And possibly patience, although Helen's a little slow to learn that lesson.

So on Friday night, it's a wild party in the Wyatt house as Helen's doing her best to make sure no one's sleeping. So we resorted to a little bit of quiet fishing. I've been playing with this puzzle for some time now, and was quite surprised to hear Brian praise Helen with the actual names of the fish as she reeled them in. Like:



When I mentioned it to Brian, he said, "Yeah, what were you calling them?"

Um ...

Mom of the Year

It’s taken me a while to get brave enough to put this story online.

It was Memorial Day weekend, and Brian & I decided it was finally time to paint the master bedroom. We did a lot of painting prior to moving in last summer (okay, HE did the painting), and we decided that we could live with that color for a little while longer. But the long weekend was a perfect time to finally get this chore done. So we gathered up supplies at Home Depot and set up for what we thought would take a long day.

It took two days, of course. And that’s with me helping where I could, and Brian doing the rest. (Okay, HE did the job and I just taped a little bit of the trim.) But I played with Helen, and occasionally stopped by to watch the progress.

Meantime, Helen was absolutely fascinated with the stuff inside the bathroom cabinets. I have these large crates filled with toiletries stored under the sink, with lots of medicines, and she thought those prescription pill bottles were the best toys ever. Little stuff that rattles? Sign her up for a dozen, please! She carried them all around the room, shaking them and clearly enjoying herself. Since the tops were child-proof, and we were both kind of focused on getting the paint work done, I gave in and let her play with the bottles.

Helen & I spent most of the 2nd day upstairs playing, but as Brian finished up, we came downstairs, and I tried to help by pulling off the tape around the trim. So there were giant balls of that blue tape everywhere, and as usual Helen had gone straight for the cabinets to find her favorite little toys.

Oh! I forgot to mention that it was pretty hot that day, and Helen had made a mess of her shirt at mealtime, so she had spent the afternoon running around in just a diaper. So, let me make sure you’ve got this image in your head – diaper-clad baby, walking around with pill bottles, while I’m crawling around on the floor of our bedroom, pulling up blue tape. Got it?

The doorbell rang. Brian was in the garage, putting away the ladder & paintbrushes, and chatting with a neighbor who had stopped by. I wondered, who rings the doorbell when Brian is standing 10 feet away? Helen was clearly occupied with her toys, so I raced to the door.

It was our next-door neighbor, and he was holding a foil-covered plate of food. Turned out they grilled shish-kabobs and had plenty of leftovers. Instead of throwing them away, he wondered if we might want them? Of course, we had no dinner plans (read: what, me, cook?) so the food was greatly appreciated.

Now, this guy is a doctor. He’s married to a stay-at-home mom who just had their fourth child (yes, FOURTH) in February. She’s THAT mom, too – always has the kids in cute clothes, plays fun games outside every day, and packs the essential snacks & drinks & toys for the trips to the pool. Plus, she’s really skinny. You get the idea – all the moms in the neighborhood secretly loathe this woman.

So her man, who’s married to this paragon of motherhood, was on my doorstep offering me food, and I was thinking to myself, okay, this is going well, now if I can just get him off my porch quickly enough … but you guessed it. I heard a little rattle behind me, and in slow motion, I turned in horror to see Helen walking down the front hall with the biggest grin on her face, wearing just a diaper, shaking a pill bottle in one hand, and dragging along behind her a giant ball of blue tape, which is stuck to one heel.

I turned back to him, and said weakly, “Yeah, um, Mom of the Year right here.” He sort of nodded and said goodbye, and I thanked him again for the food. As I shut the door and carried the plate into the kitchen, I was so very ashamed of myself. Not only was I unable to provide dinner for my family, but my baby looked like she spent the afternoon hopped up on pain pills and paint fumes.

Later, I found out at the neighborhood picnic that he’s a pediatrician.

With Lots of Love, and a Few Tears.

This is a difficult update to send today. My grandmother, who has been a source of love and letters for as many years as I can remember, passed away this week.

Helen got to meet her great-grandmother almost exactly a year ago. She was about 7 weeks old when I flew out west with her to meet my dad's family - great-aunts and great-uncles and many cousins. We called it the Baby Tour 2005, since my sister, a cousin & I all apparently drank the same water that year, and all of us had babies in the span of 4 months. (For the curious, we’ve stopped drinking water.)

It was a special moment to hand Helen to this lady, and not only do I have pictures (oh boy, do I have pictures – see attached) but I will forever treasure that she was strong enough to hold each baby that week. She was so pleased with having the opportunity to enjoy the new additions to her family, but she worried that the great-grandbabies cried when she held them. Oh, but Grandma, I told her, that’s a baby’s job. They’re supposed to cry. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t ever learn how to take care of them, and you wouldn’t ever find out what makes them happy.

I’m realizing today that it’s still our job to cry when something’s wrong. What made me happy was knowing there was a special member of my family who wanted to know how I was doing and what my life was like. And I loved hearing stories from her about my family as they grew up – what my aunts & uncles were like as kids, and what she liked most about having a big family. She & I wrote to each other for so many years – I still have her letters. It was wonderful to get mail from her at college, or at summer camp, or at my first apartment. Sometimes she shared a recipe, sometimes she told me what was going on at church, sometimes she told me about a trip she’d been on with Grandpa. And often, she told me that she loved me lots. You just can’t go wrong having someone like that in your life.

So this week, I’m crying. It’s hard to lose a grandparent, and it’s hard to know how to go on without her. That’s a big piece of our family that we’ve lost and she will be greatly missed.

And you, Helen’s grandparents – you’re on notice. You have some big shoes to fill for Helen.

The Creation (of a Birthday)

Chapter 1

1. And the mother said unto the father, “Verily, I say unto you, I am headed to the grocery store to buy cake mix.”
2. And the father said unto the mother, “Make sure it’s low-carb.”
3. At the grocery store, the mother searched the aisles for cupcake wrappers, but they were very small and hard to find.
4. And the Publix staff did comfort the mother, and show her where they hid the cupcake wrappers.
5. As the mother put the bounty in the pantry, the baby found her cup runneth over in the kitchen cabinets. And the cat food bowl. And the trashcan.
6. So the mother gave the baby Cheerios in her high chair, and the baby said, “It is good.”

Chapter 2

1. And on the morning of the seventh day, the mother awoke to bake cupcakes.
2. And the father slept, as the seventh day was for rest.
3. And while the baby ate her breakfast, she knew not what her mother did.
4. In the afternoon, when the baby was hungry, her mother and her father brought her to her high chair.
5. They gave the baby a cupcake, and lo, the candle and the flame confused the baby.
6. But the chocolate frosting was tasted, and the baby said, “Ooo! That’s good!”



We never knew a year could go by so quickly. Thanks to all of you for your love and support of our little family – it’s appreciated beyond any measure.

You have won 2nd prize in a beauty contest. Collect $10.

Our neighborhood has hosted a community picnic each May for the last 30 years. This year’s picnic included a pageant for girls, with the specific instructions “no pageant dresses and no makeup.” They only wanted sunsuits. Let me state for the record, I am SOOOO not a pageant person! But the casual aspect sounded good, and it was a Saturday - I thought it would be fun if I took Helen and paraded her around. If she won, it would make a great Helen Update, right?

And it was fun. Helen took a stroll across the stage with her mommy, noticed some posts at the edge of the stage, and bent down to touch them. It’s like she didn’t even notice all the people standing in front of the stage, looking at her! I was hoping for a big smile and a flash of those blue eyes, maybe even a little wave, but you can’t put that kind of pressure on a toddler. The best you can hope for is “no crying.” After everyone walked across the stage, they had us line up and the judges started whispering to each other and pointing at their clipboard. That was where all the fun stopped, in a hurry. It was like I forgot there would be judging involved. (duh!) I was ready to go home at that point.

But we had to see who won, and our Helen took 1st runner-up, along with some flowers. When they tried to put a sash & a tiara on the winner, the little girl cried and buried herself in her daddy’s knees. The sash fell to the ground, and naturally Helen reached down to pick it up. ;)

This past weekend we went to visit Brian’s uncle & aunt on their farm. Helen got a chance to walk around their big yard and chase their border collie. Too bad the cows took an opportunity on a hot day to hang out in the creek on the other side of the field, or else Helen would have had a chance to hear a real “moo.” But she charmed J. & L. in true Helen style.

Yesterday we tried the pool for the first time. SHE LOVED IT. She played on the steps for a little while, splashing everything near her. Then I held her and walked around in the pool, getting in deeper water. After about 20 minutes of trying to drink the water by putting her face down in the water then rubbing her eyes to get the water out, I noticed a little red rash forming around the eye area. Turns out she was rubbing the sunscreen on her hands into her eyes, and she must have been allergic to it. So we had to go home and get the Benadryl and take a bath to wash all that sunscreen off. But the pool sure was fun while it lasted.

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day!

Back from Canada, in one (expensive) piece.

I’m here to report that Montreal is lovely, folks. Architecture is stunning. I had no idea you could do that much with concrete. Seriously, everything we saw was made out of concrete. I guess it survives the winter a lot better. Lots more churches than I expected in such an urban area, and a lot more French paired with English than I expected. Signs on the street, in the museums, on the Metro maps - everyone we ran into spoke both languages fluently, so it was no problem getting around or communicating. But you wince whenever you buy something. I think it’s because they’re making it in the US and shipping it to Canada and then we’re trying to buy it there with a much weaker dollar. Then everyone laughs at the stupid American tourists, trying to fit all those expensive souvenirs in their luggage. I paid $8 for a souvenir jar of maple syrup. Oh, but it’s Canadian dollars, you say? Go price maple syrup at the grocery store. I still think I got screwed.

MasterCard is running a commercial these days that asks you to write your own. Here’s mine:

One bottle of wine and a French dinner in a Montreal bistro, ordered in our best Southern accents: $140.00 (Canadian).
Two tickets to the 1976 Olympic Park, looking for a possible 50-mile view from a 90-story tower in light rain & heavy fog: $63.00 (Canadian). (No refunds.)
A beer in a crowded bar during the hockey playoffs, and you’re the only American in the room: $6 (Canadian). (Can I have that beer to go, please?)
Getting enough sleep in a week’s vacation to catch up on a year’s worth of deprivation: Impossible. Ha! What were you thinking?

Boy, howdy, we missed that baby while we were gone. Her Nana B survived the week with flying colors, including one rough night of teething, but the rest was spent in blissful solid rest and lots of playing. Helen even got a nap or two, I hear.

When I came to pick her up, Helen looked so different. She had grown so much in a week! She was walking everywhere. And she says “Uh oh” all the time now. It’s her first official word. She’ll take her pacifier out of her mouth, look at me and say, “Uh oh” and then hurl it to the floor. She’ll look down at the paci, then at me, like, “Hey, get that, would ya?” In the wee hours of the morning, she’ll hurl it out of her crib and then cry until I show up to give it back to her. So there went all that sleep I caught up on.

We enjoyed watching Helen’s Uncle S. graduate from college – congratulations, S.!! - and at an after-party, Helen got to play with her Aunt M. and cousin M. M. *loves* to hug Helen. Thankfully we got a picture of it before Helen used her daycare karate chop on him. She’s a quick one.

Last week we had a giant rainstorm in the middle of a sunny afternoon, and afterwards there was a beautiful double rainbow. We even managed to get a picture of our pot of gold, too. Enjoy.

Installment #2 of Helen's Updates to Canada.

Dear Mommy,

Did you get my letter from Camp Grandma yesterday? I had fun visiting your friend and all of Aunt M's friends at big school yesterday. I got to play in the hall outside the computer lab cause the air conditioning didn't work in the lab and Nana said it was too hot for me in there. I really think it was too hot for her--boy, was her face red. When she took me out in the hall I discovered that there was the neatest echo if I screamed really loud. All the kids in the hall thought that was soooooo cool. I waved bye-bye to all of them and all the little (big to me) girls were oohing and ahing. Aunt M. introduced me to all the kids in her class but we left when I started adding letters and other neat stuff to one of the kid's PowerPoint show. I was having fun--don't know what that kid's problem was. But that might explain why Nana hasn't taken her computer out of its case (at least that I've seen) even though it has been upstairs ever since I've been here.

Today Nana said we are going to the bank to deposit Aunt J.'s check. She said I am going to play outside on the deck too. That sounds like fun. I can push the big truck around and see if I can beat my cousin M's record for dropping things over the edge into the garden below. That will reinforce the "uh-oh" that I love to say. I hope she remembers to take the camera outside... Did you get the pictures we sent yesterday? Nana and I hope you and Daddy are having a good time.

Love,
Helen

Helen Sends an Update to Canada.

Hi Mommy & Daddy,

I hope you guys are having a good time. Nana and I are having fun down here. Just thought I'd drop you a line and give you an update. She (Nana) is doing well and we are getting alone just fine - we did have a bit a a rocky start on Sunday, getting used to each other and all that. You'd think someone that old could get accustomed to a baby faster than that. I thought old people could stay up all night.

But now things are great and we are having fun. Yesterday we went to big school. Nana and I interviewed the special ed teachers at Ms. J's school so we could write our final paper. They all loved me in spite of the fact that I gave them a present during the middle of it all that scorched the paint off the conference room walls. (We left Coach a little present in the men's room trash.) We got the Nana's paper done and e-mailed it off by three. By four o'clock the professor wrote back and said we earned an A in the course! Yeah! My first college project!!

Last night Aunt C. and Uncle P. came over and stayed with me since Nana had choir practice. (Too much church, Nana!) We had fun and Aunt C. took all my sugar. Uncle P. is funny too--he kept saying he wanted to go home and leave Aunt C. with me. I think he really wanted to get away from that big doggie.

Today we are going over to that big grey school after our nap (what's with all the big schools, Nana?) to visit Aunt M. We went to the grocery store this morning and I tried to go home with one of the clerks but Nana was having none of it.

Nana broke out her camera this morning too. Good grief! She kept muttering things like "if only I had my camera upstairs." Just because I was washing my pacifier in the bathwater? And she really wished the camera was closer when I walked all the way across the kitchen and pulled a drawer open. Gosh, Nana's cabinet drawers open fast. It surprised me so much that I fell down on my behind, and I landed so hard it blew the paci right out of my mouth which made me laugh out loud. In fact it was so much fun, I tried it again but Nana said enough--time for lunch.

I told her to send this while I'm napping and be sure to attach some pictures since that annoying camera is out. Have lots of fun and I'll see you soon!

Love,
Helen