Yes, indeed ... birthday cakes DON'T bounce. Thank you, Elmo.

We've developed a bit of an addiction to "Elmo's World," and by "we" I totally mean boy. He loves it so much that we watch it now ONLY during meal times (save the finger shakes -- I KNOW). I happened to discover sesamestreet.org, where there are five entire 14-minute episodes of "Elmo's World" as well as a host of other short Muppet clips, and it has totally saved my sanity.

In the "Balls" episode, Elmo discusses things that do and don't bounce. When Elmo gets to the part where he observes that "birthday cakes don't bounce," boy LOSES it.

There's a lot I love about this short video clip.

In no particular order:

1. The way boy ramps up his laughter as the delightful image nears of a birthday cake crashing to the ground.
2. The faces boy makes as he chews on his finger at the beginning of the second clip. He's making the classic "Hey, I just came from the beach and I have sand in my teeth" face, although whatever was in his teeth was probably only green beans.
3. The way, when I correct his "Yeah" to "Yes, mom" he starts to say and sign "Please".
4. The way he gets so excited when the "Elmo's World" theme starts up (I think he even begins to dance and wave), then immediately whines in dismay as I fast-forward.
5. The way his furrowed brow lightens magically when he realizes he gets to watch a cake being smashed AGAIN.
6. The laughter, of course.
7. And finally, the crazy assortment of toys on his high chair tray. I can spot a cast-iron tea pot, a toddler crayon, and a tube of toothpaste. Hey -- he can play with whatever he likes, as long as he EATS SOMETHING.

Why didn't they teach it to us like this?

If you've got to have the alphabet song stuck in your head, you could do a lot worse than this version with Ray Charles. You could probably even swing dance to this version. I LOVE IT.

Someone warn Dorothy ...

The answer to the question, "How did that kid eat all those goldfish so fast?" is apparently, "He shared them."

Take a close look. You'll find them. I'll bet that Muppet is stuffed.

Tastes like chicken, no doubt.

So we have these two nice, leather chairs that have at times resided in our library and our family room. They're cushy and comfortable and our favorite places to slump down to read, and they're really well made, so we think we'll get to keep them for a long time, maybe even give them to boy and any future theoretical siblings someday.

That is, if all the licking doesn't ruin them first.

I got it, kid.

Boy just unloaded a whole alphabet's worth of flashcards onto the end table, made sure they were totally out of order, then turned to me and announced, "Mess." As if to say, "Would you get on this, please? SLACKER."

Thanks a lot, kid.

"I got it, mom."

An actual conversation from this morning ... "Son, you look a little stuck. Do you need help?" 

Pause. (Tiny voice) "No." 

Seventeen months

Dear boy,

If you're counting, you'll see that I missed the chance to write you a letter on your sixteen-month birthday. Here you are, seventeen months old, and your mother didn't write you a monthly letter last month! I hope you're not ruined for life. (I really do feel badly, so I'm sorry, buddy. I'll make this one twice as ... whatever these are.)

Up until about three weeks ago, I was pretty good about not letting you watch TV. But one day I needed 12 minutes to take a shower and voila! Sesame Street was on! And I remembered how much I loved it as a child, how I adored Ernie and Bert and Cookie Monster, and thought maybe it would amuse you for the few desperate minutes I needed to feel like a human being again. Lo and behold, you fell for it just as I had years (decades!) ago, and now you look for every opportunity to watch it. Your interest isn't so much in the whole show, though, as it is in one particular Muppet. As anyone close to you knows, you've developed a deep and constant friendship with Elmo. Your Ellie and Uncle J found an Elmo for you and when they presented it to you, your face lit up as if someone had just told you that you'd never have to suffer the indignity of being fed a meal again (more on that another time). Not only do you tuck Elmo beneath your arm when you nurse before bedtime, you say his name every time you see a computer, TV screen or iPhone, since various people have shown you clips of Elmo on each of those devices. And as I've noted before, you can be very persistent. "Elmo!" you announce. Or demand. "Elmo, Elmo, Elmo, Elmo, ELMO, ELMO ..." You always keep saying it until someone has acknowledged you in some way, preferably one involving YouTube.

What else is new this month? You're chattier than ever, which delights me. Most days, you actually wake up saying a word. This word has ranged from "No" to "Pool" to "Mom" to "Elmo!" The other day, just for kicks, I made a list of all the words you knew and could communicate, whether it was through sign language, gesture, tone or with actual words. And I finally stopped at about 90, convinced I was forgetting some. It's astounding what you can get people to understand. (Although to be fair, I would say that 85% of the time, you're asking for a remote, a phone, or Elmo. So maybe statistically it's not hard to believe that yes, we GET it.)

Here you are, demonstrating that should a skunk appear, you would know how to handle it. I was also simultaneously demonstrating that 1) it's always laundry day around here and 2) I am really good at folding towels. 

You're quite the little ham these days, puppy, and the face below is one of my current favorites of yours. You don't really have a name for it, but you will paste this expression on the front of your head every time you sense that you're about to be in trouble. It never fails to crack me up. 

We've had some success lately with you feeding yourself -- you certainly know what to do with a toddler spoon, following along with my "Scoop and eat!" chant with perfectly accompanying actions. However, you're much more interested in the process of biting food off to chew -- it's only been within the last month that you have realized that if someone hands you a large piece of food, you are not obligated to cram it into your mouth whole. The process of biting off manageable nibbles enchants you, and you demand lots of crackers for practicing. Here you are with your first cheese quesadilla. 

Just last night, you gave me a tremendous gift. When you cried in your crib at 3:30 in the morning, your dad went to get you, and he brought you downstairs to snuggle up with us (our normal routine at some point in each night). Once you'd arrived, though, you seemed to have "lost your sleepy," and so after listening to you chatter quietly for 20 minutes, I accepted the inevitable and took you out into the family room so your dad could catch some more Zs. However, you really didn't want to play -- you wouldn't let me put you down. All you wanted to do was cuddle close to me in the lowly-lighted living room, and say, "Mom?" from time to time. I'd answer, "Yes, buddy?" and you'd tell me something in the unique and seemingly complex language you employ. I followed along as best I could, responding as accurately as possible, and we passed the most perfect 45 minutes in my recent memory, your warm weight a blanket around my heart. I will never forget that magical time with you in the wee hours, talking to my son as he lay with his head tucked beneath my chin. It was the first of many heart-to-heart mom-and-son conversations I hope we'll have, my boy, and it was special to me not just because you wanted a rare cuddle, or because your softly scented hair was right beneath my nose, but because you wanted nothing more than to talk to me, to have me listen to you, and to say, "Mom?" and know that I was there. 

I always will be. Always.

Love,

mommy

Talk about fresh air

For a while, we were putting swim diapers on the boy whenever he went out into our backyard baby pool. Then I did the math. The diapers are $7.99 for 11 of them. 

Yeah. 

We'll save those for trips to the community pool.

So yes -- he's in the buff above. I figure, hey -- it's his pool. He can do whatever he wants in it.

Things I have learned in the last two weeks

1. Even the good husbands sometimes take a short trip to Crazytown.
2. Because they're the good ones, they always come back.
3. Real estate issues will speed a husband's journey to Crazytown tenfold.
4. Even when you curse its lack of storage space and the stupidly-shaped powder room you can't seem to decorate properly, you can get VERY attached to the house you moved into when you got married. 
5. Especially since it's the same one to which you brought your baby home from the hospital.
6. And the one where he took his first steps.
7. (Sniff.)
8. Looking at potential new homes makes you realize weird things that are deal-breakers about the house you will or won't live in. Like, "I really want our next house to have a hallway."
9. Comfort food is named as such for a reason.
10. Chicken pot pie is my favorite entree comfort food.
11. I've been eating a lot of chicken pot pie.
12. Also? My jeans are getting snug again. (Maybe the dryer's too hot. Hmmm. You think?)

Among the moments that slip through my fingers like sand ...

Sometimes, a 40-minute nap just doesn't cut it.

On those days, you've got to finish your nap in your mom's lap. 

She doesn't mind. 

She's cool like that.

Yay, youngest brother!

My family has now welcomed one more college graduate into its ranks -- youngest brother has graduated from Texas A&M University with his engineering BS! Yay! Just about my entire extended family recently drove to College Station, Texas, to attend his commencement ceremonies.

Here's a shot of youngest brother with boy:

The trip to College Station allowed us a chance to introduce boy to the stomping grounds his daddy had roamed as an undergrad at A&M himself. We took some time to capture the sight of boy in a number of distinctly Aggie locations.

There's a magnificent tree on campus called Century Oak. It's enormous and stately and graceful, and very old. The tradition states that if a man proposes to a woman beneath that tree, their marriage will last a hundred years. The last time we visited campus, husband offered to recreate our proposal for me under the tree for the sake of good luck. Since I was seven months pregnant at the time, I passed -- it would have looked a little suspicious to passersby for a guy to be on one knee in front of a clearly pregnant girl. Anyway, we visited Century Oak with boy. Here he is walking beneath one of its impressive boughs with his daddy.

Very close to Century Oak, there's a statue of the first president of Texas A&M University. I forget his full name -- I think it's got "Sullivan Ross" in it -- but everyone calls him "Sul Ross" for short. Another of the Aggie traditions is that if you need some extra luck on your final exams, you put a penny at the foot of Sul Ross's statue and hope he'll lend you a hand or put in a good word for you Upstairs. When we stopped by the statue right after graduation, there were stacks and stacks of pennies at the foot of the statue (not to mention more than a few dimes). Boy put a penny there as a head start for his own tests someday.

I never claimed to be an artist.

I present to you: 

A collection of drawings that an-only-slightly-artistic mother created on her iPhone to amuse her 15-month-old son.

Enjoy.

And then God smote me.

Remember when I alluded to the fact that boy was eating better, more easily, with less fighting? I guess he heard me say that. Because now? Not so much.

These days, I have to get food into him by preparing not one meal, but TWO. Meal portion #1 I call the Food of Value. That's the stuff I really want him to eat -- veggies and meat, fruit, that kind of thing. Portion #2, though, I call the Food of Interest. It's what I have to basically entice him to eat with, then slip in bites of the Food of Value in between. 

Sample Foods of Value:

• Beef with carrots and green beans
  
• Chicken with squash and peas
  
• Bananas with apples and pears
  
• Turkey with sweet potatoes

Sample Foods of Interest (a.k.a., Things You're Appalled I've Fed to My Child):

• Cinnamon graham cracker bits
  
• Goldfish (the crackers, not the pets)
  
• Torn pieces of string cheese
  
• Kraft macaroni and cheese
  
• Ramen noodle bits (he adores them)
  
• Oscar Meyer bologna (ok, it was 98% fat free and all-beef, but STILL, right?)

I'm not sure why he's such a picky eater -- husband and I aren't what you'd call difficult eaters ourselves. But my mother has (rather gleefully, I might add) reminded me that I went through a phase as a one-year-old when I would eat literally nothing but hot dogs, cheese and Cheerios. And though I'm horrified that I was such a little toot about it, I'm somewhat encouraged that my child will someday be able to get through a meal of normal, regular food that I actually want him to eat. I feel so sneaky these days when I feed him -- I have to wave a piece of string cheese at him until he looks at it, then drop it on his high chair tray and while he's engaged in picking it up, I tiptoe in with two or three bites of the real food. And it's a battle I'm losing, because he gets more dextrous every day, whereas there's a limit to how quickly I can get a spoon of mushy food from the bowl to his mouth. The faster he gets with the fine motor skills, the less time I have to get those precious bites of vegetables into his jaws. 

Please -- someone tell me it gets easier.

I do. I really do love him more than cookies.

There's a fine art to baking the perfect batch of cookies. The uninitiated might think it has something to do with having the right recipe, but that's really only about 25% of the magic (for the record: Tollhouse. Or the Alton Brown recipe for chewy cookies, the one with lots of brown sugar. But I digress.).

See, if you want to sink your teeth into the perfect chewy cookie, you have to commit to the process. It's not just about letting your butter and eggs get to room temperature before starting your mix. It's not just about getting real vanilla extract and not just the imitation stuff. It's about the REAL details -- like using parchment paper on your baking sheet so that none of your perfect gems stick to the pan. It's about knowing that your first batch will take longer to cook than the range of time on the recipe, and that you have to hover by the oven door to watch them, like an overprotective stage mother watches her kids in tutus as they pirouette. It's about getting the fact that your cookies should come out of the oven not DONE, but ALMOST done -- they'll keep cooking on the pan for a bit. It's about being willing to stand and watch over that pan in the oven for just the right second to take them out, and then waiting three to four minutes (but no longer) before you slide a very thin spatula underneath them to get them onto a waiting cooling rack. And finally, it's about knowing that as much work as you put into them, there's only so many cookies you can (or should, really) eat -- so when the chips are down (ha), you've put in all that work for someone else's enjoyment.

Baking cookies is a lot like motherhood, I'm learning. When I think of the things I've sacrificed for boy (like reliably taking a daily shower, going out after dark, running errands on the spur of the moment instead of fitting them in around naps and meals, not to mention the quality of my sleep, the QUANTITY of my sleep, and the abysmal state of my body, post-pregnancy and mid-breastfeeding), the list makes me wonder why there aren't MORE families with only one child. Looked at objectively, it doesn't seem like the kind of experience anyone should be willing to repeat. 

Luckily for all of us, though (and here's where the cookie analogy breaks down), there's so much more to the equation than just what you give up. Tonight as I rocked my boy to sleep, I buried my nose in his fuzzy, just-shampooed-and-towel-dried hair, and breathed him in. And though you might not have known it to see me do it, gently and peacefully so that his sleep wasn't disturbed, I do it with a desperation I can only barely contain. The ferocity of my love for him sometimes shakes me to the core with its strength and power, and it's saved from being bestial only because I pray fervently while I love him fiercely. 

I can type those words, and others like them, and while they ring true to me, I know there are some of you reading this who may just shake your heads in confusion. I don't blame you. The words, put together, don't really make sense. I don't know how to tell you that the act of breathing in the baby-fresh scent of my son's hair is the purest form of prayer I know. I don't know how to explain that just feeling the perfect, unblemished joy of his smooth skin contains within it entire volumes of prayerful pleading and gratitude. Loving him has, ultimately, brought me closer to God, because He has entrusted me with a gift I can hardly understand -- the right to love and protect and guide my boy.

(On a completely unrelated note, I found out today that my son doesn't like warm, fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies. In fact, he doesn't really like cookies or desserts of any kind. I'll pause while the enormity of that statement sinks in for you.  ...  I KNOW. If I hadn't been there when he was born, I might have had to wonder if he was really, indeed, mine.)

Fifteen months. (Wait -- WHAT?!)

Dear boy,

Even your pediatrician said it at your last check-up. "Has it been fifteen months already?" I am tremendously late in getting this letter written to you, so I'm sorry for the delay. The last month has been packed with excitement and activity, and I'm just now getting a chance to take a breath.

First of all, my boy, you've definitely decided that walking is for suckers. For the last few weeks, we've watched your running evolve from a simple somewhat-speedy waddle, to the current tuck-the-left-arm-swing-the-right-arm-and-make-a-mad-dash-for-it version. As I watched you fly by me today, I noticed that both your feet are actually off the ground at the same time, which makes it official -- you're a runner. This is occasionally disastrous when you're wearing your socks and zipping around on the ceramic tile floor, but it's also highly entertaining, and luckily it wears you out enough that your naps are getting to be sort of in the neighborhood of predictability. Meaning, you take at least one at SOME point almost every day.

Your dad took off a WHOLE WEEK from work this last month, and we took that precious family time to do some fun things together. You visited the zoo for the first time ever, and although we were certain you'd adore the animals, you were just as interested in the sign posts and food stands and trees and passersby. So this time around, the giraffes and elephants failed to impress, but we DID score big-time when we introduced you to the merry-go-round. Thank goodness something we did that day was a hit -- you really enjoyed it, although next time, I'm going to do the filming and daddy will hold you on the rotating device of torture. I was nauseous for an hour after we got off. Sadly, this is no exaggeration.

Later that same week, we took you to the Children's Museum for your first visit, and had an unqualified success there. You LOVED it! There's a section of the museum set aside just for little tykes like yourself, and you roamed around to your heart's content, ringing doorbells on scaled-down doors, flipping light switches, climbing up stairs, whooshing down slides (on your belly), and honking the horns of mini-cars. It was so much fun that I can't wait to take you back there, and I'm sure you'll grow to love that place more and more as you get older and we can check out the other exhibits.

One of the most remarkable things we've noticed about you over the last month is your broadening and deepening sense of independence. When we reach for your hand to help you over an obstacle, or guide you around something, you tuck your paw into your armpit, as if to say, "Step BACK -- I GOT this. SHEESH." Your desire to do things your own way leads to some funny sights from time to time, as you repurpose things from their original usage into a new and adapted function. Like your poor little yellow Bumbo chair.

I take it back. I guess you ARE still sitting in it, anyway.

Two things you still love -- two anchors in the ever-changing landscape of your growth and development -- are reading and short excursions. Here's a pic of you with a book ...

And here are a few shots of you exploring the campus where your mom when to college and grad school and where your dad earned his masters degree also. Someday if you decide to enroll at Rice, you'll have these shots to look back upon and smile at -- but if I'm being honest with myself, I'll admit that I didn't take these for you, but for me. There's something that both warms my heart and breaks it to see your tiny strides measured out along the stone passages where I spent so much time walking as an undergrad -- like two disparate parts of my life colliding together. I guess that's because I found so much of myself while I was at Rice, and now that you've become the central part of my life I've had to reinvent myself once more, and to see you in that place that changed and bettered and strengthened me -- well, it's special, to say the least. 

And you look really good there, too. Like you belong. No pressure.

While I'm being honest with myself, son, I'll be honest with you, too. I started this letter to you blaming its tardiness on scheduling and the fullness of our days, but truthfully, I've been putting off writing this month's missive. I've delayed because when I started writing these notes to you, I did them to catalogue what you were learning and doing, as a way to record the days of your babyhood. And as these pictures clearly capture, those days are past. You had been on the cusp of toddler- and boyhood for some time, and I think you've finally crossed that threshold now, irrevocably and irreversibly. So for the last few days, I've been at a loss to know how to write this letter, how to address a baby whom I remember only fleetingly now. The little guy you are fills up my senses so much that I have to work hard to recall how your bouncy baby self fit in my arms, how your crawling self struggled to get around, how you had to work hard at sitting up. There are hours when I mourn the fact that I won't get to hold that baby again (even while I delight in the boy he's become). 

I was contemplating all of this tonight as I nursed you to sleep. You'd only had one nap, so you went to bed earlier than usual, and your nursery was still infused with enough light coming through the blinds that I could see your sleeping face, long since asleep and done with your bedtime breastfeeding. Normally when you sleep, you do so with great abandon, your limbs thrown askew and your lips parted as you breathe evenly. Tonight, though, as I cuddled you close, I looked down and saw a glimpse of the baby I'd thought never to see again. Your lips, soft and pink, were still puckered as if you were nursing, and moved rhythmically as you nursed in your sleep. It was such a "baby" thing to see that I felt grounded again, relieved to see evidence that you are indeed the same little guy who used to go through five burp cloths a day early on, the same baby who came home from the hospital weighing only six pounds, the same tiny angel who used to fit into the t-shirts that look like doll clothes to me now.

And I guess that's the secret truth of it. No matter how you grow and change, how big you are, how old, I will not ever lose the baby you were. That's because even when you have to lean down to hug me, long after we've exchanged your car seat for a booster and then eventually when you start driving me around, even then -- you'll be my boy. My heart, my son, my baby.

Love,

mommy.

Benchmarking

Skills I used to possess, which I am no longer certain I could manage:

• Swing dancing, and swing dance teaching
• Holding any conversation longer than five minutes not containing the word "diaper," "sleep" or "poop"
• Being away from home for more than three hours at a time
• Watching an entire movie without 1) falling asleep, 2) wondering if it's turned up too loudly, or 3) being interrupted by a crying baby
• Eating a meal that is hot both when I start it AND as I take the last bite

Skills I now possess:

• Managing a 20-second diaper change in the pitch-dark every night
• Sniffing a baby's hindquarters in public without batting an eye or feeling an instant's worth of self-consciousness
• Knowing by gut feel when everyone is just about to run out of clean socks and underwear, and doing laundry right before that point
• Being able to distinguish "nice-and-quiet" from "too-quiet" without even looking
• Not laughing when the boy "flutter-lips" his spoonful of dinner all over the place
• The ability to name most, if not all, of the characters from Sesame Street, Oswald, Max and Ruby, Blue's Clues, and Sid the Science Kid
• Knowing how many bits of string cheese are just enough to keep the boy interested in his dinner, but not too much (which will have undesirable effects on his digestion in many subtle and vicious ways)

I am not at all certain that these lists reflect an overall improvement.

Reflections upon having husband at home for a week

• I am dangerously, dangerously good at living like a hermit. Left to my own devices, I tend to snuggle deep into my comfortable world and ignore everything else. Especially when I get to see my husband every day during daylight hours, for seven straight days. BLISS.
• We are an anomaly in that we could totally be together all the time and not get sick of each other. And yes, I know exactly how lucky I am.
• I also got super-lucky in getting not only an incredible husband but an amazing partner in parenting. Two nights ago, boy was throwing a fit about bath time (which is a sure sign we started the bedtime routine too late), and as I headed up the stairs to join boy and his daddy for the tail end of the bath biz, I braced myself to hear husband scolding the little guy -- it was my gut expectation based on my own history. Instead, as I rounded the corner and found my two favorite guys, boy had calmed down enough to play happily in the tub, and his daddy was quietly telling him how proud he was of him, and how much he loved him. 
• As much as I hate to admit it, boy responds much more quickly to The Daddy Voice saying no than my own.
• I do more laughing when my husband's around. Because I am always free to be myself around him, I find that I am WAY more in touch with my inner goofball when he's around than at most other times. The impressions we do, the songs we sing, the ridiculous dances we make up for boy -- all I'll say is, thank God there are no nanny-cams around to catch our antics. Because we'd probably look certifiably insane.
• I do less housework when my husband's around. The laundry can wait. Mostly.
• Husband could easily win Olympic medals if napping were a sport. Before I met him, I seriously would never have believed that 1) anyone could stand more than one nap a day, 2) anyone could fall asleep so easily and quickly, and 3) night-time sleep is somehow separate from naps and isn't affected by one's napping. I hate napping, and only resort to it when absolutely necessary to make it through the day. I always feel like I'm being either supremely unproductive-slash-lazy, or that I'm missing out on whatever's happening while I'm down for the count. Husband, clearly, does not share these sentiments.

iBet iMnot the first to come up with this iDea

Dear Apple,

I write today to update you on the status of Offspring 1.1. (We had been living with Offspring 1.0 until January of this year, when Offspring 1.1 suddenly appeared in its place, so that's been our platform ever since.) Here's a quick rundown of the performance of various software as of today:

Applications with bugs

iSleep. Had we known that this application would have so many glitches, we would have insisted on it being installed before delivery. (You can be sure that, should we ever acquire an Offspring 2.0, we will insist upon this.) However, as it is, you know that we've attempted the recommended installation on a number of occasions, to no avail. We're currently running the application with a great deal of manual (ok, fine -- mammary) intervention, occasionally causing the MPU (maternal parent unit) to run iDragAss, and simultaneously causing the PPU (paternal parent unit) to run iStress and iWorry, but we're hopeful that with time, we can iron out the kinks in this app so that it runs overnight as it should.

Applications growing steadily more reliable

iEat. Offspring 1.0 seemed to run this app only grudgingly. However, now that Offspring 1.1 is a mobile unit, this app engages more easily and processes more input. 

Applications running smoothly

iCharm. Offspring 1.1 runs this one like a pro. This app seems to run especially well when Offspring 1.1 is in the presence of the GPUs (grandparental units), or when Offspring 1.1 requires a reprieve from some failed task. Like running iSleep all night.

iLearn. We have been astounded and delighted with how well this app runs on Offspring 1.1. To date, Offspring 1.1 has learned the names and sounds of a host of barnyard, forest and jungle animals, the names of the MPU, PPU and GPUs as well as other related units, and much more. At times, this app runs almost too well, as Offspring 1.1 has also learned how to open and unload the diaper wipes container, how to pull tissues out of a pop-up container and distribute them around the room, and how to shove small items under heavy pieces of furniture just far enough that those items elude recapture by the MPU and PPU. All in all, though, we find that the excessive learning is worth the installation of this app in the long run.

We continue to be impressed with Offspring 1.1 and look forward to acquiring other applications to test. 

Sincerely,

The MPU

Reflections upon visiting the zoo with a one-year-old

Noon: "I can't wait to get to the zoo! It's been probably over twenty years since I've been there. It'll be incredible to see it again through our son's eyes. And it's such a pretty day, and we were smart enough to come on a weekday so it won't be so crowded -- this is going to be great. I keep thinking ... he loves dogs so much, you know? And he's SEEN dogs in person. So maybe ... maybe he'll be able to CONNECT to other animals once he sees them, you know?" [Husband does an excellent impression of digesting this information as if it actually makes sense.]

12:15: "Wow, is this the line of cars to get into the parking lot?! I guess we weren't the only ones who thought today would make a good zoo day."

12:35: "Is that lady arriving or leaving? I hate stalking pedestrians like some kind of serial killer."

12:45: "JUST DROP ME AND THE BOY OFF AT THE ENTRANCE ALREADY."

1:15: "Look, son -- big fish! In a huge tank! No -- no, honey, you're pointing at PICTURES of fish on the wall. Why don't you look at the ACTUAL fishies? Mommy and daddy did not pay $10 each to get into the zoo after fighting for half an hour to land a tiny parking space in the parking lot so that you could look at PICTURES of fish. We can do that in our own living room. In our pajamas. For free."

1:35: "Hey, sweetie, look! Seals! See them in the water? Over there? No, son, over THERE. See them? I know -- they're not exactly moving around much, are they? Trust me. That brown floating thing in the water, the thing that looks like lifeless driftwood, is a living creature! A seal! It eats fish, and can be very playful! CAN be. Looks like not today, though. Ok, never mind. Let's go see the giraffes!"

1:45: "Wow, buddy -- giraffes! There are ... let's see ... two, four, six, ... like, TEN giraffes! Including one baby giraffe! Aren't they cute? Look at their long necks! See how tall ... no, son, don't pick up that cigarette butt off the ground. Come here. Whoa -- did you poop? Oh, no -- that's the GIRAFFES. Let's move on. Quickly. While holding our breath."

1:55: "Ok, buddy, I know you'll like these guys -- ELEPHANTS! See how big they are? Wait -- let go of the chain-link fence, please. SON. Let GO. Look at the elephants! That one's raising his trunk in the air and -- Whoops, no, buddy -- that's not your sippy cup. That one belongs to that nice little boy over there. (Who IS looking at the elephants.) YOURS is right here. Ok, fine. If you're not impressed, we'll go find some monkeys."

2:05: "THERE'S an orangutan. A mommy and baby monkey! And ... ew. The baby monkey ... threw up, and ... is eating ... blech, comeonlet'sgo."

2:10: "See the baboon? Or, gibbon, whatever? See it? The shadows are falling on it there in the tree so maybe you can't, but it's there. Believe mommy, it is. Ah, crap. Daddy? WE NEED DIFFERENT ANIMALS."

2:15: "Aw, the tiger's sleeping. See the sleeping tiger? It's laying there on the rock in the plain sun, so I know you can see it. What, wait -- where's it going? Are you KIDDING me? Why would they even BUILD a cave for it that's so deep you can't see it? WHATEVER."

2:20: "HERE'S something fun. Let's ride the carousel! There's a nice tall stationary giraffe you can sit on while mommy holds you tight. Daddy, you film us. What? No, daddy, it's ok -- I won't get motion sick. It only goes around, like, five times. No worries."

2:25. "Take the kid. I'm nauseous."

2:30: "Ok, definitely time to go. Where's that map, daddy? We need to find our way back to the exit. So we can hike to the car."

2:32: "I AM A SMART WOMAN. WHY CAN I NOT UNDERSTAND THIS STUPID CARTOON MAP?!"

2:35: "We will be stuck here in this zoo forever. Because I cannot read this map. I KNOW we have to go past the hoofed animal exhibit. But the signs here in the zoo don't say 'hoofed animals' like the map does, and I DON'T KNOW IF WART HOGS HAVE HOOVES."

2:45: "You put him in his car seat. I'll load the stroller. And for Pete's sake, let's not come back to the zoo till he's in grade school."

How to annoy me

Say any of the following to me, regarding boy:

• "He's not sleeping through the night? Why not? Didn't you let him cry-it-out?"
• "He sure is tiny. Are you sure you're feeding him enough?"
• "You never give him [XYZ food that I fed my kids]? Why not?"
• "He probably doesn't sleep well because you eat too much sugar/are still breastfeeding/he's too stubborn or naughty to go back to sleep on his own."
• "It's cute that you still tiptoe around the house when he's sleeping. We always put a radio in our kid's room when he was a baby. That way he got USED to noise. You should have done that right away."
• "He doesn't take a bottle? That's too bad. If you'd gotten him used to one, you could maybe go out at night once in a while and not be under house-arrest."