Mine mine mine, all mine

I just don't get it

Do a Google search on the term "missing teenager."

Go ahead. I'll wait.

Look at all those stories. And they're not all about Miss Natalie in Aruba. They're everywhere. The front page of my search showed me stories about missing teens in Richmond, Va., Valdosta, Ga., various places in the UK and Queens, NY.

There's no way you can be alive and breathing on this planet and not know that things like this happen.

But yet, I still see cluelessness in such astounding proportions that I wonder if it might not be such a bad idea to require IQ tests before people are allowed to bear offspring.

Allow me to set the scene, if you will:

Last night, Drew and I met Charles downtown for dinner after he got off work.

Now, we don't live in a bustling metropolis. Greenville is home to only about 56,000 souls.

<-----our city, for your viewing pleasure

Our main area of downtown is about two blocks wide and about 8 blocks long. Main Street is a shady street lined with trendy pubs and restaurants, art galleries, vintage thrift shops, sandwich shops, bars, a nightclub or two, fountains and a couple of mid-range hotels.

Sounds just perfectly Southern America idyllic, doesn't it? All you need is Scarlett hanging out on the veranda drinking mint juleps and fanning herself while screeching, "'Deed I do declare!"

OK. So, we're not New York City or Los Angeles, or even Atlanta. But we still have a proportional amount of the same problems that all cities have: crime, homelessness and our fair share of general crazies.

So, Charles and I are dining at Betty Pearle's Bourbon St. Bordello. We're having shrimp, Drew is having Cheerios. We're sitting at a table on the street, because an earlier thunderstorm has cooled things down to a manageable 85 degrees or so.

We like to eat out on the street, because people-watching is one of our favorite pastimes. One of our favorite games is trying to guess what kind of work a person does based on the way he's dressed.

Lawyers and teachers are the easiest. Oh, and prostitutes. Those are pretty easy to spot, too.

So, as we're playing our game, a quartet of teenage girls comes sashaying down Main Street. These are young teenagers - I'd say they appear to be in the neighborhood of 13 to 15 years old.

They stop a couple behind us and ask them for directions. I don't hear where they're trying to go, because I wasn't paying attention at the time, but I do hear the rest of the conversation. The couple explains to them that they're hell and gone from whereever it is they need to be, and that they would be better off going back to their car and riding, otherwise they're looking at about a mile or two hike.

One of the girls laughs and tells the couple, "Oh, we don't have a car. Our parents dropped us off here."

Charles and I both turn to each other with raised eyebrows and we indulge in a bit of parental snobbery as we assure each other that never will we drop our teenage child off downtown in any city, anywhere, a mile away from his destination, and just leave him there.

I'm sure those girls are fine, and that this morning they are happily bouncing away the last few days of summer before they start high school.

But the point is, that's not a given. There were probably at least 50 homeless people, junkies, people who hadn't taken their daily meds and lawyers between them and whereever they were going.

Anything could have happened.

"But...but...anything could happen to anyone at any time! You could walk out your door and get hit by a bus!"

Yeah, but if I look both ways before crossing the street, my chances of being mowed down by a rogue Amtrak are greatly reduced.

Charles tells me about a conversation he heard that morning on our local talk news show - The Russ and Lisa Show - wherein co-host Russ was discussing a similar issue with Greenville County Sheriff's Deputy Mike Hildebrand.

Russ asked Hildebrand what he, as a father and a cop, thought were some of the most dangerous places for teenagers in Greenville - like, where's the one place you would never allow your teenager to go?

Without hesitation, Hildebrand replied, "The mall."

The mall! Is nowhere safe? I used to hang out at the mall all the time when I was a teenager. You could shop, eat and see a movie without ever seeing the light of day.

However, Charles tells me, Hildebrand explained that there are many parents who, during the summer, will drop their teenagers off at the mall at 8 a.m. and not come back to pick them up until they get off work.

In other words, they're using the mall as a babysitter - or a teen sitter, if you will.

These teens get bored (I mean, come on, how much time can you spend in a mall with no money before you start looking for trouble?) and they migrate to the bathrooms or the parking lots, where they can use drugs or have sex, or they get into fights (and many of them are carrying weapons of some sort), or they shoplift.

Or they end up missing.

Required IQ tests for parents! An idea whose time has come?

sitting is for wimps and losers

Parenting experts call it "cruising" - when an infant pulls himself up on furniture (or parents' legs, or family pets) and uses that object to help him move from place to place.

Sounds relatively innocuous, doesn't it?

Well, it's not. Not in Drew's hands.

Drew pulls himself up on anything and everything that will stand still long enough and that looks somewhat stable - couches, chairs, ottomans...cardboard boxes, his bouncy seat, his canvas toy box.

Then he putters alongside the object for a minute or two, until he gets so excited that he has to clap at himself - forgetting, of course, that he has yet to master a small but important skill called BALANCING, which, let's face it, is why he's holding on to furniture instead of walking.

To date, he has fallen on his head more times than I can count.

The fall is followed by a look of incredulity (the floor jumped up and hit me in the head!), a quick look around to see if I'm watching (did you SEE what that floor did to me?!?) and then a lusty wail of mixed fear and pain (the floor hurt and scared me really really really really really really very much!).

So I kiss and hug him, and then we start all over.

You may wonder what I'm doing while my son is hurling himself to the floor in reckless abandon.

I am getting drunk, that's what I'm doing.

OK, OK. Put down the phones. I'm not really drinking. I wish I was drinking, but in reality, what I am doing is hunching over like an orangutan with arthritis and chasing my son around the room with my arms outstretched, in a usually futile effort to be behind him when he capriciously decides to let go of whatever is holding him up at the moment.

Because I'm not allowed to actually hold on to him while he's cruising.

No, holding on by Mommy is strictly prohibited in Drew's Learning to Walk world. I may present an arm or a hand, and he may, should he be so inclined, grasp the proffered arm or hand, merely to steady himself, mind you, but at no point am I allowed to grab, hold or otherwise impede his ability to fall headfirst to the floor.

Needless to say, I grow tired of this game much more quickly than he does.

At this point, I attempt to encourage Drew to sit down and spend some time with his neglected toys, or watch TV, or cuddle, or do anything that doesn't involve standing.

How it works is this: I grab Drew under his arms and lean him slightly backwards while at the same time pressing down gently.

In the past (i.e. last week), this would result in him bending his hips and knees and landing, voila! in a sitting position, at which point I would distract him with a ball or stuffed animal or, in desperate situations, one very pissed housecat.

But Drew has me figured out.

Now, as I'm leaning and pressing, he locks his hips and knees and becomes completely rigid.

I press a bit more firmly. Still with locked knees, he begins to backpeddle with his feet, forcing himself up against my legs into a standing position, at which point he claps at himself.

Not to be outfoxed, I pick him up, rest his back against my chest so he's facing out, slip my hands under his knees and push upwards, hoping this will unlock his knees so I can sit him down.

He responds by stretching his whole body straight out and then wriggling as hard as he can, which puts me in the precarious position of either dropping him or lowering him gently to the floor...in a standing position.

I choose to drop him.

No, OK, I don't. He's still standing up.

Guess who gives up first?

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On another note, my friend Nancy has a new blog.  You can read about her drama here: Isn't the Lettuce Brave?

She's a liberal, but we won't hold that against her, because she has greyhounds and she's cute.

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Oh! And I think I've found a theme for Drew's birthday party.

No, I won't tell you what it is - it's a secret! You'll all find out in two months.

theme time!

I do realize that it's two months away, but I still feel the need to start planning Drew's first birthday party.

I mean, come on. The first birthday is a big deal.

Yes, yes, he'll only turn one once. You could say that about any birthday, though, unless you engage, as I occasionally do, in a bit of creative math. (I, for example, have turned 29 for the past five years.)

It's not that. It's that it's my first (and maybe only, who knows?) child, and September 29 will mark the end of our first year together on this planet.

No other year in my life has contained as many emotional, physical and mental changes as this past year.

And by God, that in itself is cause enough for celebration.

OK, so. I was planning to just have a nice, small family picnic at a local park, with lots of balloons and hot dogs and cake and various streamers, candles and other random and maybe color-coordinated bits of fluff.

However, I have been informed that I must have a "theme."

The "theme", apparently, is the glue that will hold together my heretofore chaotic and tumultuous party.

The biggest proponent of the "theme" is my sister Jennifer. In her defense, she is an elementary school teacher by trade, so she spends her days immersed in Spongebob-and-Wiggles-laden paraphernalia.

Jennifer suggested that, since I am having a picnic, I should go one step further and have a...(here comes the "theme") TEDDY BEAR PICNIC.

I'm not sure what this would involve, but I'm pretty sure there will be bears of some sort or another.

That's pretty good, but I imagine I could think of some other "themes" that might be a bit more in keeping with what we've experienced in Drew's first year, and what we anticipate experiencing in his coming year:

1) The Year of Puke theme. We could decorate each place setting with plastic fake vomit!

2) Drew's Diaper Dance theme. We could devote the party to the one object to which we've dedicated most of our first year...buying them, changing them, cleaning them up, smelling them...it's all about the diapers! This lends itself to a variety of fun party games, including Guess What Drew Had for Lunch!

3) Fall Down and Go Boom theme. Instead of toys that Drew will ignore in favor of boxes and wrapping paper, guests could help us prepare our house for a toddler by buying me stair gates, corner guards and a year's supply of Xanax! Or they could offer to babysit until Drew turns 18!

So...I'd love to hear about what any readers out there did for their child's first birthday (s).  Give me some more ideas, people.

Drew at the zoo - a pictorial

Drew's first trip to the zoo.

First, we went downtown for lunch. Drew had Cheerios, although he would have preferred to have eaten my shrimp.

Then it was off to the zoo. Drew at the zoo! The zoo and Drew! Drew sees the zoo do you?

It was a Dr. Seuss kind of day, yes it was.

As you can see, Drew was quite excited about the zoo. I don't think it had anything to do with the animals. He preferred watching all the people. So, OK. We paid $10 for him to watch a bunch of people. Nooo problem.

I kept kissing Drew on the head. He put up with it briefly, as you can see by his long-suffering expression.

Then he got sick of it and told me to get off him already.

Drew says, "Mmmm. Bacon."

He did manage to give the Vietnamese potbellied pig a perfunctory once-over before turning his attention back to the gaggles of other babies and kids.

I call this one, "The Shadow of the Goat."

It was hot. And Drew really really wanted to go for a swim.

Drew says, "Take me home. Now."

This is the conclusion of Drew at the Zoo. This production has been brought to you by the number 3 and the letters P, I and G.

As a footnote, I'm kind of bummed today.
I got the new Harry Potter book on Saturday and I finished it last night. Charles kept exhorting me to slow down, but it was really intriguing and I just simply couldn't stop reading it.
Now it's all gone, and it'll be another 4 and a half million years before J.K. gets that last one done.
I guess she figures she's all rich and famous now and she can make us wait ungodly amounts of time for her publications because we'll buy them no matter how long she takes.
She's right, of course, but that's neither here nor there.

A week of firsts

One of the joys of parenting an infant is being a part of all the "firsts" - first smile, first tooth, first time rolling over...

However, "firsts" can also be quite daunting and, well, less than joyful. First time falling down the stairs, for example. No, that hasn't happened. Yet. It's just an example.

First bruise. First scrape. First time blood comes out of my tiny child.

All very bad "firsts".

This has been a week of firsts.

On Monday, we experienced Drew's first wave bye-bye. I was carrying him out of his bedroom after changing him, and he waved bye-bye to his crib. Little hand up in the air, palm out, fingers closed, fingers open, fingers closed.

Bye bye.

I handled this in my usual cool and collected manner by screaming "THAT'S GREAT DREW YOU WAVED BYE BYE OH MY GOD THAT'S SO AWESOME YOU'RE JUST THE SMARTEST BABY IN THE WHOLE WORLD."

I don't think he'll grow up with any insecurity issues. Perhaps some arrogance issues, but definitely no insecurity.

The rest of the night was spent trying to get him to wave hi and bye over and over. SAY HI TO THE TV, DREW. SAY HI! WAVE HI TO THE DOGGIE! WAVE BYE TO THE KITTY! BYE BYE KITTY KITTY!

Needless to say, Drew didn't really grasp the magnitude of his accomplishment and proceeded to show his boredom by throwing up.

OK, the second first was hand-clapping. This event took place at approximately 7:36 p.m. last night.

Drew was hanging out in his swing while I finished making dinner.

Apropos of absolutely nothing at all, he started clapping. I think he was applauding my excellent chili-making skills, but I'm not entirely sure.

At any rate, dinner was delayed by some minutes while his father and I bounced around him clapping and exhorting him to clap with us.

He quickly grew bored and threw up.

Throwing up seems to be how he expresses his discontent lately.

The third first, which was actually chronologically the second first but since it's a bad first I'm relegating it to third first status, occurred yesterday during daycare.

I arrive to pick Drew up and notice a small, round, purple mark on his upper left arm.

Upon closer inspection, I see that the purple mark is actually four separate small marks that suspiciously resemble...yes...they are, in fact, teeth marks.

Someone bit my child. His first bite!

The Daycare Person handed me a written report about the Incident, which explained that my son and another child, who apparently has to remain nameless for fear of retaliation, got into a fight over a toy, and this other demon child bit my son on his arm chub.

Like any concerned parent, my first question was, "So, who won the toy?"

Under the "Action Taken" section of the report, it informed me that the wound, which didn't break the skin, was washed and that Drew was given "Lots and Lots of TLC."

Yeah. He'd better have gotten lots of TLC. You'd better have been kissing and hugging him all afternoon long while shooting mean looks and mumbling under your breath at the deranged infant that dared to lay a tooth on my child.

So, I wasn't really too terribly miffed, honestly, because it wasn't that bad of an injury, Drew was fine when I picked him up and the Daycare Person told me this was the first time the hellspawn child had ever bitten anyone.

I hope Drew threw up on him.

That definitely wouldn't be a first.

Thoughts and prayers

Please join me in sending prayers out to all of the people in London after this morning's attacks.

My prayers and thoughts especially are with my friend Liz, who lives in London with her husband and young daughter. They are safe, according to her blog, but no doubt they're scared.

I remember how I felt after the 911 attacks here; even though nobody I knew was hurt, it was still so frightening to feel that vulnerable.

Hopefully this will simply strengthen the resolve of democratic and civilized people everywhere to continue the fight against terrorism.

supersized

Yesterday, Charles and I were strolling Drew along in downtown Greenville when we passed a dress shop called 'Goddess Plus'.

Goddess Plus claims to cater to the 'full-figured' woman. Goddess Plus informed me, in large letters on a glaringly bright banner, that 'full-figured' means sizes 12 to 26.

Double-take.

Size 12? I'm a size 12.  I'm considered 'Full-Figured'? How is that possible? I wear an A-cup bra for Goddess Plus sake!

So this morning I got dressed, turned to Charles and said, "Does this outfit make me look....'full-figured'?"

"I swear to God, I'm gonna go firebomb that store right now," Charles muttered as he stomped out of the room.

(legal disclaimer: if, for some crazy, cosmic reason, Goddess Plus ends up a smoking ruin some time in the near future, Charles does not now nor has he ever owned any explosives of any kind nor do we associate with the kinds of people from whom such things can be purchased.)

Whatever.

I refuse to let the obviously brain-damaged owners of Goddess Plus define who I am based solely on my dress size.

Their clothes are tacky anyway.

Enough about me and my delusions of slimness. (here I was all excited that I was down to a size 12 - I won't tell you what I wore right after Drew was born - but I'm not bitter about this whole full-figured thing I swear I'm really really not...)

We had to lower Drew's mattress this weekend because he's figured out how to pull himself up on the railings. Now that he's discovered this new power, he tries to pull himself up on anything that looks even remotely stable - the couch, my legs, the cat...

Last night he pulled himself up by the edge of the couch. He then got so excited with himself that he waved both arms in the air over his head...and promptly fell over backwards.

The look on his face as he went down was priceless - a "Oh shit I really screwed up THAT one" kinda look.

"You know, there's concrete under that flooring," Charles said helpfully.

I have a feeling we're in for a good many tumbles and falls in our near future.

I admit, it makes my heart jump and my breath stop when I see him falling and I KNOW I won't make it to him in time to catch him. I also admit that when he does fall, I scoop him up immediately and cover him with kisses, which is probably the absolute wrong thing to do.

But you know, I don't care - my baby fell and hurt himself and all I can think is, "Make it better Bad-Mom! Make it better!"

I know he's going to hurt himself, and I don't want to raise a timid boy, so I'm trying to find the fine line between being protective enough and being OVERprotective.

I think it's going to take a lot of practice.

olfactory assault continued

You can read all about yesterday's excitement at my workplace here.

So yes, I got to go home early because the courthouse flooded out. And I went home early to....a flooded house!

Talk about taking your work home with you...

Fortunately, Septic-Tank-Man (that's his superhero name) arrived yesterday afternoon after only three increasingly frantic calls to his office.

After digging a large, unsightly hole in our backyard, he told us that our septic tank was clogged with....get this....toilet paper.

So.

I know you aren't supposed to flush diapers, feminine hygiene products, articles of clothing or small mammals.
But toilet paper?
Isn't that, like, where it's SUPPOSED to go?
I mean, people, it's called TOILET paper for a reason.
If it wasn't supposed to go there, they'd call it Bury-It-In-Your-Backyard paper.

We asked Septic-Tank-Man how we could prevent this from happening again, you know, after our house's warranty expires when we'd have to pay him a gajillion dollars just to remove rogue wads of toilet paper from our septic line.

His astute reply?

"Use less toilet paper."

How 'bout I just go pee in the woods behind my house? Would that solve the problem?