Adventures In Babysitting

Salem and I sat for our friends John and Amy's new baby last night. It was fun, having her assist me with the newborn, she was very willing to to help in whatever way she could, she's such a sweet little girl. During our visit, the baby started fussing--not a big deal, but I guess it frightened Salem.

her: "Mom! The baby...she's upset!"
me: "It's fine, she's a baby, they get upset and fuss, it's the only way she can communicate. She's letting us know that she's hungry."
The baby continued to fuss a little, just whimper or two, not even louder than my cell phone, and I'm talking about when it's set on vibrate.
her: "Mom! Can't you tell she's hungry? I think you need to feed her!!" She shrieked while wringing her hands and wearing a frown on her face. Her eyes were wide open as if she were corned by an aligator.
me: "I'm planning on feeding her, chill out! I'm mixing her bottle right now. Geeze!"
her: "Well, maybe you should hurry. She seems really hungry and will not stop crying. It's terrible!" (My, what a drama queen.)
me: "Babe, she's not really even crying. She's just fussing, it's not a big deal. Now calm down."

When Salem was a baby, she had colic, and it was BAD. She cried and cried everyday; sometimes up to 6 hours a day--solid. And by crying, I actually mean screaming, as if she were being squeezed to death by a bear trap. I tried 13 different pacifiers, swaddling her, rocking her, letting her suck on my finger, singing to her, bathing her and nothing worked. It was very hard to live with and to say the least, I had an extremely difficult time with her colicky condition as a new mother. To say that it was the darkest time in my life would be an understatement.

This little baby was a doll, hardly cried at all. I was indeed impressed and admittedly a little jealous of my friends. It's hilarious to me that a tiny whimper from her threw Salem into fits of worry and terror. While i mixed the baby's bottle, I chuckled to myself seeing this as possible future pay-back for when Salem has her kids....hee hee. God'll getcha.

A Clean Mouth...

We went over to our friends Alison and Zach's last night. We had fun hanging out and eating barbecue chicken, beans, juice, (i had rum...) and corn--yum! I left sort of late, around 9ish; a pinch past Salem's bedtime. She was tired, I could tell.

In the car, on the way home:
me: Hey babe, you were a good girl tonight.
her: Thanks mom. I love you.
me: I know you're tired, we'll get home soon and get you ready for bed.
her: Do I get a story?
me: Yes, I'll read you a story after we brush teeth and get our jammies on.
her: I'm really tired mom.
me: I know babe, we'll be home before you know it.
her: Hey mom, did you know that juice makes your teeth clean?
silence
me: No, I did not know that.
her: Yeah, it does. So, I don't need to brush my teeth when we get home, I can just go straight to bed.

smart ass.

Eat the Bones

"Man, I'm really hungry!" I said to myself the other day. Salem looked up from playing with her new Barbie VW Beetle and nodded in agreement.

her: "I'm really hungry too! I'm so hungry that I could break off my arm, drink the bleed and eat the bones!"

I guess our child is a flesh-eating zombie after all.

Happy Birthday Jamie!

Who loves you baby?!

Rockin'

That's right, she rocks.

Birthdays and Seat Belts

Today is Salem's birthday. I'm very excited for her as this will be a big year--she starts pre-K next month. She'll be going to a Montessori school just down the street from our house here in the ATL. That means she doesn't get to ride on a school bus. Speaking of school buses, I was having a discussion with one of my friends last night. She has made the decision to drive her kid to school in the fall because school buses do not have seat belts. I sat there for a moment thinking that may be a little over-the-top, something that we shouldn't dwell too much on or worry about. Hell, the seat backs on a school bus are made super high, as to retain the kid from shooting toward the windshield should the bus driver rear-end a Toyota Camry full of blue-hairs on their way back from bloody marys and bingo at 3:30pm. But the more I think about it, perhaps she's right. They should have seat belts, right? But who's going to stare my kid down to be sure she straps herself in regardless of extra safety features. Our kids are in carseats until they are 14, no one is allowed to play on monkey bars anymore due to falls, and everyone gets a trophy at the end of t-ball season regardless of merit. Is this seat belt issue just one more thing turning our children into a bunch of co-dependent weenies?

Happy Birthday Salem!

Window-goo

In the car last week, I noticed that the backseat window next to Salem’s car seat was smothered with what appeared to be a large quantity of mucus. The glass within her reach was covered with tiny finger prints and smears.

me: “Salem? Are you picking your nose and wiping on the window?
Chuk wrenched his head around to take a look at what I was referring to.
chuk: “Ew! Salem! That’s gross. Do not wipe your boogers on the window, what’s the matter with you?”
her: “Hey! I’m not wiping boogers on the window. It’s just the leftover goo from my lollipops that we get at the bank.”
chuk: “Well, don’t wipe ‘goo’ from lollipops or boogers on the window. We don’t do that.”

I then heard her mutter under her breath, “I eat those boogers; I don’t wipe them on the window.”

Advice

This morning, Salem offered some helpful advice: "Check your breath before you speak!" She said this over and over. And you know what? I don't think many people engage in this activity but it certainly would be helpful, as many times I find other people's breath to be unpleasant. Especially if they are close-talkers.

Dress-up Time!

The White Stuff in the Middle

My friends are aware that I have a ridiculous gag-issue. I get sick very easily, sometimes over the most trivial of things. (wet bread, disembodied barbie heads, cat breath, ect...)

Yesterday the kid and I were dining out and her lunch came with a little packet containing two Oreo cookies. Now, I LOVE Oreos, but I've always detested the white crap (nasty sugar-lard) in the middle. Since a small child, I'd unscrew the cookie and scrape out the bad part and dine only on the chocolate cookie halves, yum!

Salem, on the other hand, eats only the frosting on cakes, so logically she only eats the white part. Since the cookies came on her plate of chicken nuggets and french fries (a staple meal for Salem, she's made of nuggets), I made her eat lunch first before she could have them. They were warm when I opened them since they sat in the packaging next to the fried food too long. She took the first cookie apart and that white blob of a middle flopped off the cookie and on to the side of my bare leg--ick! As I removed it, it felt slimy, wet, and jiggly like a raw oyster--immediately I started gagging. She laughed and taunted me like we were in a school yard, grabbed it from the table where I flicked it and shoved it in her mouth as quickly as she could. I could see her eyeballing me with a smirk to be sure that ingesting the blob made me even more nauseated.

It did.

Carseat Driver

We were in the car yesterday near the house on a very busy road. (Yeah, I suppose any road in the ATL is busy, but I digress.) I had my blinker on to make a left hand turn and the stream of cars seemed endless. Tick tick tick went my blinker, you know the little noise it makes? Sassy-Salem, from the backseat calls to me, "Mom! Would you puh-lease turn your car? The stupid blinker noise is SOOOO annoying! Gosh!"

Offensive! Proceed with Caution

This post may be offensive to some of my Christian readers, please do not send hate mail--I'm just passing along information from Salem regarding Jesus.

me: "Good night babe. Sleep tight."
her: "I love you mom. So much. And I love all the people in the world, just like Jesus does."
me: "Aw! That is so sweet, sugar. Okay, good night."
her: "Mom? did you know that Jesus has a fire in his pants?"

I remained speechless. How does one respond to that? Any ideas on why my child would think that Jesus shoots flames from his pants? At least she didn't say "fire in his slacks." I hate it when people refer to pants as 'slacks'.