My Little Boob Man

In my quest to find a superior photo site on which to post recent pictures of Sam for all of his far flung friends to see, I found Flickr. Now, Flickr has found Sam.

Flickr is a site that features a single photo on your personal page and updates kind of like a blog complete with a personal profile. I registered a page for Sam, called Sam-O-Lama, about two or three months ago and like most projects I have started recently, I haven't done anything more with it. Go figure.

Sam's profile is simple. He is male, single of course. His hobbies include climbing, crawling, and boobs. Because he is too young for humility, his favorite movie is Swingin' Sam.

Maybe you can tell where this is going already.

The other day I got an email for Sam-O-Lama from his new friend, My10GallonJuggs.*** It seems as though a woman: twenty, single, with obscenely big knockers wants to be Sam's friend.

My10GallonJuggs has a clever profile, where getting to know her is "as easy as ABC." Each letter of the alphabet stands for some little randy tidbit about her ample bosom. For example "K is for Killer Kisser with Knockout Knockers."

Just in case "B is for big, bouncy b**bs begging for a boning" wasn't enough to make me cower with the realization that I have won worst mother of the year award yet again, then her pictures were.

Yes, it is true. Each boob is bigger than Sam. Really, they are NO JOKE.

I have composed no fewer than ten emails to My10GallonJuggs to apprise her of her folly. But each time I stop short of clicking send. Can you blame her for searching for "boobs" and making all those with that hobby her friends? She has a gift, a rare attribute that she has chosen to make the most out of because a certain subset of society finds it irresistible.

It is not her fault that Sam's proclivity to boobs is all about the milk. Maybe some day he will want My10GallongJuggs as his friend. But for now, I can only hope she will step away from the eight-month-old.

Because I feel bad chastising such a clever opportunist, my only defense was to post a picture of sweet, innocent Sam for all of those boob fiends to see and hope that it will be a long, long, time before he makes any new friends over the Internet.

***You might have to log on to Flickr first and search for My10GallonJuggs to see the link. But aren't you curious?

Cherry Blossoms

It has been awhile, but baby-proofing our tiny apartment just before crawling Sam grabs the cable cord, licks the garbage can, or sticks his finger in the outlet has been keeping me busy!

We took a walk to the Botanic Gardens today in order to catch the Cherry Blossoms. Though the Botanic Garden is teeming with anal rent-a-cops who don't want people to drink their sippy-cups on the grass; it is the one place in Brooklyn that Sam can crawl merrily around and not pick up any dog excrement, shards of grass, or other wonderful big city surprises. So we enjoyed our visit and will return to gladly follow their strict grass rules.

To see more pictures, please click here.

Food! Food! Food all over the place!

Though Sam clears his plate, about half of his food is on his bib, in his hair, under his chin and all over me! What an adventure. Now that we must eat three solid meals a day I feel like all I do is watch him smear potatoes all over and then clean it all up to start all over again!

Too Cute

Note the cowboy shoes.

Sam likes it! Sam likes it!

After much anticipation Sam treated his discerning pallet to a little rice cereal today. Though the experience did not knock him off his little feet, he seemed to tolerate the new mushy invasion with a pensive enthusiasm. The rice cereal, which is a soupy, gloppy mix of dried rice cereal flakes and breast milk, dribbled down his neck, spattered into his eye, and coated his double chin; but he still managed to eat two whole bowls.

The selfish Mom that you all know and love is a little sad. I dearly love nursing Sam because it is something that only he and I share. I know that every bath I spend washing flaky rice off his cheeks is the beginning of the end of that time. But it’s okay because it will be so fun to watch Sam move from rice cereal to duck confit to tiramisu!

Old wives dictate that solid food makes a baby sleep through the night, though the plethora of books that have been uncontrollably taking over my brain like creeping Kentucky kudzu say that there is no connection. Bahhh.

I need to give credit where credit is due: the books have seemed to make a napper out of Sam. But I am taking a hiatus from their paranoia causing edicts in hopes that old wives win this round and we can all get a little ‘honk shooo’ tonight.

If this whets your appetite for more pictures of Sam’s tasting menu please click here.

The Great Sleep Debate

I hit a new low point this week. In order to get Sam to nap, I walked around Prospect Park twice in one day (3.5 miles a pop). Of that time, Sam slept for maybe two miles total. Add that much exercise plus constantly bouncing and dancing with Sam plus five months of sleepless nights and you get a total basket case.

The next day in my haze of exhaustion I found myself snapping at this adorable boy. While he screamed during my 2.5 minute shower, I yelled back, “Please, oh please just let me shave my legs!” Wrong. Just. Plain. Wrong.

In an act of desperation I am in the process of doing what I said I would never do. . .training Sam to sleep. (I seem to eat my words a lot on this blog.) I have read book upon book and have come across two main ideas: either let him cry or walk him to sleep. Clearly the walking is not working as both of us are too tired to function.

So sleep training here I come.

Logically it all makes perfect sense. I provide food, shelter, and comfort to Sam so why shouldn’t I equip him with the ability to fall asleep? It is a priceless skill that will make his life a much more pleasant one. But viscerally my body says NO! You are the worst mother EVER.

Tucking those gut instincts away for the time being I followed the directions of The Sleep Nazi (Weisblooth.) I watched for sleep signals and engaged in a sleep routine: the same routine that works magically every night at 7pm. However at 12:30 in the afternoon it is a disaster.

Oblivious to what was about to happen to him; Sam rolled and chatted to his plastic fish. That is until the music stopped. Then Sam cried. He rolled and cried some more. He lifted himself up on his belly and peered at me over the bumper, still crying. I cried. I called my sister-in-law for reassurance and cried. Finally after many minutes and many more tears Sam slept and I cried some more.

Today we did it all over again with much the same results and I feel like a failure. But why? I know that it is right to teach my son to be a good sleeper and I know that it is better now than later. I am simply trying to give him what I know to be a developmental necessity: daytime sleep.

Ahhhh. . .but my heart tears when I hear him cry. I feel guilty and the community of uber-moms who say “sleep training” like it’s a curse word are not helping.

I too want to do it better than my parents did it. But is everything they did wrong? Am I the worst mother in Park Slope? Oh the guilt.

Obviously it all stems from a much larger issue: the lack of confidence in myself as a parent. It’s why I have a blog. It’s why I flock to other mothers for advice. It’s why I live in a community of likeminded people. I know I need to just take the reins as Sam’s parent and do what I think is right, but how do I know I am doing it right?

I will make mistakes on the way, but so will everyone else. My parents did it without books and God knows my grandparents didn’t have a clue and everyone seemed to have turned out well enough. So why can’t we trust our informed instinct and run with it?

Grudgingly, tomorrow we will try again. I’m sorry Sam, but Mommy knows best, I think.

Valentime’s Day

Every February 14th my students would wish me “Happy Valentime’s Day” with balloons, cheesy teddy bears, and chocolate. It was always an annoying day as a teacher because the class would be distracted with mylar balloons and I would get caught up in my own twelve-year-old romanticized dreams of Valentine's Day... only to be disappointed later in the evening. (Well one year we did get engaged on Valentine’s Day commuted one day later... but that was only once.)

As I awoke this morning to wish Sam a happy Valentime’s day I thought about his future Valentines. I will some day cast judgment on his partner and perhaps I will even be a mother-in-law. Who might actually be good enough to be with my Sam? I wouldn’t want her to be stupid, ugly, or too pretty (lest she be too self-absorbed to appreciate Sam). I would want her to be supportive, just gorgeous enough, and accepting of all he is and all he is going to be, a flawless, perfect human. Who can fit that bill?

The answer is no one.

Wow, what a hard job it is going to be a mother-in-law. Yikes. Perhaps I will be less judgmental by that point. But probably not so BEWARE future Sam’s wife!

Forget Sam’s wife for a moment. What a hard job it is to be my husband on this first Valentime’s Day as a Mom. I worked hard today to cook, buy flowers, a card, and a Critereon Collection DVD while Sam cried and bemoaned the day’s activities so much so that the two of us cried around 6:00 awaiting Dad’s arrival home. Unfortunately there was not much to wait for because P called at 6:30 to call off Valentine’s Day, yes 6:30 PM, because he did not do anything for it.

Unfortunately for him that is against the rules. He had to endure my dinner, dessert, present, and complaining until I knew he felt sufficiently bad. Really though, how stupid can you be? You really want to skip THIS Valentine’s Day when your new wife is also a new mother wiping spit-up off her shirt and pacing the apartment with a cranky baby for three hours? I don’t think so.

Luckily I got over it and he got off with only doing the dishes, listening to me call everyone I know to tell them how terrible he was this ONE day of the year, and of course enduring this blog. Better luck next (valen)time.