This Is Sleep Jeopardy!

"I'm not sleepy!...zzz"

ANNOUNCER: Good evening, and welcome to Sleep Jeopardy! Let's meet our three contestants:

EGB is a stay-at-home-mom and would-be writer who is desperate for some shut-eye. When not walking around in a caffeine-soaked haze, Ms. GB is alternately irritable and weepy, leaving a trail of bitten off heads and damp handkerchiefs in her wake. Sounds like a real peach! Tell us, EGB, are you excited to be playing Sleep Jeopardy?

Me: Please, just a few uninterrupted hours. I'll pay anything!

ANNOUNCER: Ha ha! And here is our second contestant. JB is a mechanical engineer and silly dad who has been buying stock in Dunkin' Donuts coffee. And Starbucks. And Einstein Brothers coffee. And Coca-Cola. You get my drift. Mr. B is the strong, silent and stoic sleepless type weathering the sleep-related emotional changes in the B household with remarkable serenity. How are you handling having your wife change moods on a dime?

J: I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.

ANNOUNCER: What diplomacy! That brings us to our third contestant and the reigning champion of Sleep Jeopardy, young LO! LO is a toy-enthusiast and dog-lover who likes long crawls on the living room floor and moonlit nursing sessions. LO has won Sleep Jeopardy every night for nearly 13 months. Tell us, young man, how does it feel to carry such an incredible streak?

LO: I'm in it to win it, Bob! I know I can keep this streak going until college!

ANNOUNCER: Great attitude!

Me: [silently weeping]

J: [heavy sigh]

ANNOUNCER: All right, are we ready to play? To start, I need each of my contestants to remind our audience what they are playing for. EGB?

Me: I want the most sleep for the most members of the family.

ANNOUNCER: An admirable goal. Too bad you're doomed to failure. J?

J: I want to be functional at work.

ANNOUNCER: Seems reasonable--if you were childless! And that brings us to LO. What is your goal?

LO: No idea!

ANNOUNCER: That's the kind of can-do sleep goal that will keep you winning. All right, let's spin the big wheel of sleep options.

LO: Come on, big money, big money! No Whammies!

ANNOUNCER: And I see we have lit on co-sleeping all night. LO, tell us how that will go.

LO: Well, Mom will be so tired from 390 straight nights of not great sleep that she will fall asleep fully clothed and without brushing her teeth while nursing me to sleep. Around 1:30 am, I will start my nightly routine of nursing for 0.0048 seconds then unlatching and crying while kicking Mom repeatedly so that she starts crying in frustration loudly enough to wake Daddy. When she attempts to put me in my crib, I will emit shrieks loud enough to wake people who haven't been born yet. This will go on for approximately 5 hours until Dad's alarm goes off.

ANNOUNCER: Expertly played, LO. Machiavellian, in fact. Let's spin again. We have LO in his crib all night. Tell us, how will that night of sleeplessness play out?

LO: I'll go down to sleep easily enough. I don't want Mom and Dad to sell me to the elves, you know. But somewhere between 10 and midnight I'll wake up screaming. Mom will be able to rock me back to sleep, until I start screaming again. After several repeats of this, Dad will encourage Mom to put in earplugs and go to sleep, but I know it's only a matter of time before she comes to get me again. Advantage LO!

ANNOUNCER: Truly, LO, you are a master at this game. We have our final spin. And it looks like EGB will be moving to South America and sleeping on the plane. LO, it seems you have been outmaneuvered! EGB, what do you say? It sounds like you'll finally get some sleep.

Me and J: Zzzzzzz...

ANNOUNCER: And that's all the time we have! As a thank you for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts. For EGB, a matched set of under-eye bags. Looks like you're all set for travel, EGB! For J, we have this handsome case of low-level fatigue. I'm sure that will come in handy at the office! And for our reigning champion, LO, we offer you the ability to sleep anywhere! Plus this dinette set.

LO: Bob, I'm so excited!!

ANNOUNCER: Thank you, and we'll see all three of you again tonight for our next round of Sleep Jeopardy!

Promotional considerations provided by: 40 winks, the letter Z and Double Time Candles--the only candles you can burn at both ends.

Mother of the Year, First Word Edition

Through the course of my research for a writing job, I came across the alarming report that disposable diapers raise a baby boy's scrotal temperature so high that it can potentially cause infertility later on. The whole thing sounds like propaganda from the cloth diapering syndicate (you do NOT want to receive newsletters from these folks--they really do recycle everything), but the "information" has stuck in my head and has made me glad we're doing the whole cloth diaper thing.

Today, while changing LO's diaper, I noticed that (yet again) I had gotten to the end of the cloth diapers without leaving any for LO to wear while I did laundry. Conversationally, I remarked to LO, "I've got to put you in a 'sposie, but it's not good for your balls."

"BA!" he replied.

"Balls," I concurred.

"BA!!!!" he stated firmly.

"Yes, balls."

"BA!!"

This went on for some time. Clearly, despite the fact that LO has said "Ca!" when looking at one of our cats and has been repeating "Dada" around J, I think we can all agree that the young man's first word is really "Balls."

Further proof of why I should not be allowed to have this job.

Never Turn Your Back

Ways that the child has tried to give me a heart attack in the past week:

1. Being approximately 1 mile away from where I leave him after I step into the kitchen for a moment. This happens EVERY SINGLE TIME I step out of eyeshot of the child. And while his hybrid, right-leg-dragging (and pet-hair-pick-upping) crawl is certainly not Natty Bumppo-like, he still manages to be awfully quiet when he's trying to scare me to death. He likes to crawl back toward me after I quaver "LO...?" while trying not to panic. He has a shit-eating grin on his face each time he does this to me.

2. Learning how to climb stairs and not telling anyone. Yesterday, I left the munchkin happily playing on the first floor (that is, happily removing every item from his toy box and then strewing all the toys so that they cover every square molecule of the living room floor) and ran upstairs for some socks. A questioning "Ba?" (LO's favorite word) drifted upstairs, so I called out: "Mama's upstairs. I'll be right down."

"Ba!" he replied, but it was clear that the sound was much closer this time. I peeked down the stairs to find LO on about step five, grinning at me and reaching for step six. I hurried to him in a way that did not look like I was hurrying (because I was sure that I would scare him into falling) and brought him back upstairs with me. I set him on the floor and shut the door. He immediately burst into tears.

"Dammit, Mama! This is NOT what I want!"

3. Discovering the bottle of whiskey sitting on the bottom shelf of our baker's rack in the kitchen. Because it's not enough that we have perfectly safe tupperware, straws and cheesecloth in a drawer that he may play with. No, the child must pick up a glass bottle nearly as big as he is and make motions like he is planning on banging it on the floor.

4. Pulling on the baby gate we have installed at the top of the basement stairs. He looks something like a prisoner who is protesting his innocence. But he is also stronger than any of us realize. Apparently, the last time I closed the gate, it wasn't entirely locked because the gate shifted slightly while he demanded his lawyer and his phone call. Not enough to send him hurtling through the air with the greatest of ease, but enough to turn a few more of my hairs white.

5. Crawling directly toward the edge of the bed with the same assurance as the Road Runner, despite the fact that I know he has Wile E.'s gravitational skills. Every morning, J and I need to play "Catch that KID!" before anyone has had coffee. It doesn't help that LO is most definitely a morning person. It's as if he is ready to get the day started while his slothful parents are doing such unnecessary activities as turning on lights and shutting off alarms. So he sets off in the direction of his grand plans, because "if Mom and Dad aren't going to get my day started, then by Golly, I'll do it myself!"

Right off a cliff. Or, more accurately, the edge of the bed.

And these, ladies and gentlemen, are the reasons why LO goes to daycare while I do my writing. His baby show isn't even enough to distract him from imminent destruction anymore. If the next time you see us, LO is happily burbling "Ba Ba Ba" and my hair has gone completely white, you'll know that I'll have returned from the restroom to find him wrestling with a Great White shark.

"I would have won, too," LO will assure you.

Jam Session

J and I recently proved our "city slicker" status. In our backyard is an arbor filled with gorgeous Concord grapes. Just look at them!

Despite the fact that we knew there were grapes in the backyard and the fact that we have a working internet connection (ahem) which is handy for looking up information about Concord grapes, and despite the fact that we both have working taste buds, we touched nary a grape in the year we've been living in this house (which covers two seasons of a delicious grape harvest). I can't exactly explain why we avoided the grapes. I only know that city slicker folks like us think anything without a nutrition label must be suspect.

When a friend pointed out the fact that we had gobs of free organic Concord grapes in our backyard, we even had him taste the grapes for us before we would trust that anything grown on our property was edible. Yes, we're city slicker morons.

Since we've got a boatload of grapes, we decided to start by making some jam with them. I've made jams and jellies before when my mom learned how about 15 or 20 years ago, but it's been that long since the last time I made my way around a Bell canning jar. I was worried that grape jelly is hard to make because you have to skin the grapes and strain the whole schlemiel, but it went pretty well. We had fun de-skinning the grapes:

Then came the part that seemed to take forever. We had to boil and then simmer the grapey goodness with sugar until it got to a thick enough consistency to gel.

I tend to be extreme in one direction or another when cooking--I am either impatient as all hell and create a giant mess or I worry that I'll burn whatever I'm making and proceed at such a cautious pace that nothing is completely cooked. I took door #2 with the grape jelly and ended up standing over the pot for over an hour wielding a wooden spoon (that will never be the same again. Hello, purple!).

And so we ended up with three(ish) jars of grape goo! It's fantastically sweet, as the grapes started out remarkably sweet to begin with and we didn't want to cut any of the sugar because it (theoretically) is what makes the jelly gel. Next time around, we'll use pectin and less sugar.

I've discovered the jelly(ish) is a little too sweet for toast use, but it really livens up a peanut butter and grape liquid sandwich and we're planning on making some (runny) thumbprint cookies.

It is important, however, to note that our resident taster has no complaints.

The Vaccinated

In Renaissance Europe, people believed that bad smells carried diseases. On the one hand, bravo to our pre-germ theory of disease ancestors for figuring out that people got sick when they were around nasty smells. On the other, it kind of cracks me up thinking about 16th century health nuts carrying scented handkerchiefs with the same ardor that you'll see modern hypochondriacs spraying down everything with gallon jugs of Purell.

I've been thinking about this lately because of the controversy over vaccination which no modern parent can avoid stepping in lately. I have often inserted my foot ankle-deep into my mouth by bad-mouthing the anti-vaccine movement in general and Dr. Andrew Wakefield (the doctor who fraudulently posited a link between Autism and vaccines) in particular. In the past, I've felt bad about being so publicly vocal in my opinion about doctors who encourage the fearful thinking about vaccinations, but I feel like it's time to get over my fear of offending.

Vaccines work. They have globally eradicated or nearly eradicated Smallpox, Rinderpest, Polio and Guinea Worm Disease. In many parts of the world, they have eliminated Malaria, Measles, Rubella, River Blindness, and Yaws. If you're unfamiliar with what happens to children who contract these diseases, do a quick Google search. See if you're not horrified.

Few anti-vaccine advocates would argue with any of the facts about vaccines' efficacy. Their concern is with things like vaccine overload or what compounds are in the vaccines or whether the vaccines cause other horrible problems like SIDS or Autism or what happens with allergic reactions. A few advocates are simply against the idea of anything being compulsory, citing religious beliefs, etc. Some have their tin-foil hats firmly in place and believe that the government is using vaccinations as a way of tracking us, or something. The tin foil hat brigade can be a little confusing.

If you read the science, you will find that few if any of the fears about vaccines are justified. Dr. Wakefield made up the Autism link in a self-interested bid to play on parental fears and the need for a scapegoat. The CDC and the AAP are on constant precautionary alert to try to make sure that all compounds found in vaccines are safe, pulling those compounds that are even later determined to be harmless. The only justified fear of vaccines is the possibility of an anaphylactic reaction.

That was the reason stated by a parent (whom I do not know) writing on a mothering web board I frequent. To me, deciding to view the remote possibility of a severe allergic reaction as too dangerous compared to the horrors of the diseases the vaccine will prevent is a little off-putting. My father nearly died of measles as a small child. Polio crippled one of our greatest presidents. Yes, it would be terrible to have my child suffer from an anaphylactic reaction to a vaccine--but seeing a resurgence of a disease that used to kill children with regularity is the much greater danger.

I know that this post will probably not change people's minds. Those who are frightened of vaccines are having an emotional reaction to a decision that should be made rationally. As Americans, we have a national problem with our ability to make rational decisions about our children, fearing for them in so many situations when that fear is unnecessary or even harmful. This is a situation wherein the harm that comes from fear is certain. We can't keep our little ones wrapped in bubble wrap and protect them from our own fears. We can vaccinate them and make sure no one else loses a kid to a preventable disease.

Okay, I'll step back off my soapbox now.

What We Need Here is a Cardboard Box

I'm a man on the move!

Mobility has opened up a brand new world for LO. He is now able to explore the kitchen and bathroom, terrorize the cats, and find all the home hazards that he shouldn't be able to access (aren't those little socket plugs supposed to be DIFFICULT to remove? Taking them out is his new favorite game), but LO has also found a wonderful new source of food--floor snacks.

I was prepared to realize that I ought to sweep and mop more often once LO became a crawler, but apparently my level of housekeeping is rivaling that of a nearsighted frat brother. The snacks that LO has been finding on the floor tend to be the foods that LO himself throws on the floor, but one would assume that I pick those foods up before the child has a chance to discover a delicious morsel hiding out just under the couch.

One would be wrong.

The solution, of course, is to find a way to immobilize the child.

And you thought I'd suggest cleaning more often. Oh, you're funny.

Everybody Needs a Bosom for a Pillow

For about a week now, the young man has been slightly out of sorts. He has had the Runny Nose from Hell (which he hates to have wiped, choosing instead to leave Demon Snot on the Sleeve of Mom). His appetite has been off, which means that when you present him with food lovingly prepared for him, he takes it from you, and then throws it on the ground as if to say "That's what I think of you and your waffle!" Mostly, though, he's been a tired cuss.

One would think, after having read a year's worth of my posts that can mostly be boiled down to "The child won't sleep! Ha ha!" that him being super sleepy as he gets over this cold/runny nose from hell/thing would be a good development. Unfortunately, LO is only interested in sleeping if he can splay all over his favorite piece of furniture--me.

Believe it or not, I was prepared to be used as a tissue (see demon snot, above), a jungle gym and even a chauffeur. But it never occurred to me that LO would decide that I am a portable bed. It makes sense, after all. Not only do I have comfortable padding, a fully adjustable frame and a built-in lullaby player/soother, but I also dispense a beverage so that a parched young man does not even have to get up from "bed" or even wake up fully to quench his thirst.

It was actually sweet and charming on Monday when he fell asleep on me. Luckily, Shrek II was on TBS (when is it ever not?) and that being one of those movies that never gets old (so far), I was able to watch and snuggle and snuggle and watch. It was lovely. Then on Tuesday LO wanted a repeat performance. So we snuggled all morning. Ditto Wednesday. And Thursday. Today, I'm ready for LO to take a nap on his own. Or feel better. Or something.

Sometime next week, when the child is running me ragged as he makes his way from one unanticipated hazard in the house to the next (ooh, battery acid!), I know that future me will laugh at the naivete of this week me. I thought it was a pain having to hold the tired child all week. Ha ha! If only I knew!

But I am ready to retire as LO's bed. He tosses. He turns. He's a flop sweater. He wipes his boogers on brand new sweaters.

Okay, I'm lying. I'm totally going to miss the snuggling. I'd just like to get something accomplished other than deepening the ass print I've made on the sofa.

Veteran Parenting

"I've done things, man. Things you wouldn't believe."

While Grandpa and Bubbie were in town to celebrate LO's first birthday, Grandpa helped us to (finally) childproof the house against LO-the-faster-than-the-eye-can-see-destroyer-of-things. We posted a gate at the top of the basement stairs and pray the cats can fit through the bars. We stuck those prongy things in our sockets in the hopes that LO will not electrocute himself. And we made it so that every time I reach for a utensil in our kitchen in the next month, I will wonder what the heck is wrong with our drawers before I remember how to work the new latches.

Grandpa J put the tools away and looked around for other possible hazards. He pointed out our antique jelly cupboard in the dining room and reached authoritatively for another safety latch.

"It's okay," I said to him. "Look, it latches from the inside on the left. We'll just move all the breakable stuff to that side."

"Not enough," Grandpa J said with the weariness of a veteran who has seen it all. "He'll climb in there."

I looked at him incredulously.

"You haven't seen what a two-year-old can do," he said. "I have, man. I've seen things you don't even know. I've seen stuff you wouldn't believe."

Apparently my sister and I put our father through the wars. What's the statute of limitations on apologies for premature gray hairs?

The Birthday Cake Disaster

I have a delusion of myself as being a Martha Stewart/Earth Mother type. In my head, I can throw together a five course French meal with the organic vegetables from my massive backyard garden in between sewing a quilt from scraps of discarded tee shirts while simultaneously knitting LO's Halloween costume from the cotton I am growing myself in the previously mentioned garden and whipping up nutritious whole-wheat pastries that are a treat for eyes as well as the mouth.

Unfortunately, my reality tends to fall somewhat short of my delusions.

Case in point, the birthday cake I created for LO and his Grandma Marian, whose birthday is today.

To begin with the puncturing of my self-image, the cake recipe itself came from a nice lady named Betty, who also did all of the dry ingredient mixing for me, and who is not particularly concerned about bleached flour. (I also used her icing.) So already, I'm making a cake from a box and I'm not even doctoring it. Both Martha and Mother Nature are wagging their fingers at me.

Then, I decided it would be cute to make a teeny-tiny layer cake, using a wee springform cake pan that I've had for years and have now used three times if you count each of yesterday's layers once. Unfortunately, the teeny-tiny layer cake just looked unpleasantly...brown once it was iced. I decided to try sprucing that bad boy up with the 9-piece Cake Decorating Kit I recently bought. (Mental process when purchasing: "THIS will make me the Ace of Cakes guy!") All the "decorating" did was make this birthday attempt even more of a nominee for the Cake Disasters Hall of Shame.

As you can see, LO was not impressed.

No matter. The important aspect of cake, as many a watcher of those ubiquitous art cake competition shows ends up shouting at the screen, is how it tastes. And while I may not be able to decorate a cake for love or money, even I cannot mess up Ms. Crocker's age-old recipe.

And again, there was that disconnect between my expectation of LO's first birthday cake experience and reality. Because, you see, as soon as we presented LO with a delicious slice of chocolate cakey goodness, the child vomited all over himself. J was not quite quick enough with the camera to get the bubbling up of nastiness, but you can see a little on his chin as he gives me and the cake equal looks of horrified disgust.

I am not used to quite this reaction to my cooking. (Although there was one instance when J came home and, without a hint of irony, asked me if we had a gas leak once he got a whiff of the new recipe I was trying out. I threw that dish out without tasting it). Luckily the other birthday honoree thought the cake was quite tasty, so I don't have to worry about the future of any potlucks I attend or dinner parties I host. ("Oh, EGB, what did you bring? Cake? [Sound of vomiting]").

This will not be LO's final attempt at birthday cake eating, of course. He will have another opportunity on Saturday when we host his birthday party. Since he seemed to have an upset tummy yesterday (damn dairy allergy!), I am hoping we'll be able to have some of the more traditional baby/birthday cake pictures that litter photo albums and scrapbooks the world over. And I have not decided to hang up my cake decorator's hat. (It's like a chef's hat, but with more chocolate stains.) I will probably just write the child's name on the next cake, though, and work up to the "pretty" flourishes. I don't want Martha to scold me.