Tag Archives: parenting

She Rests Her Giant Heed on Her Wee Pillah

Posted on February 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

When you have a kid going through a growth spurt the first thing you think in the morning when you see their smiling face hungrily gnawing on the side of their crib is, “Good lawd that’s one giant head!” as you are slowly pulled into their enormous noggin’s gravitational force.

That gigantic head has a life of it’s own: slamming into and splitting your delicate lips that are just trying to survive the winter, landing square on the bridge of your nose when you (and your language censor) least expect it, and colliding with floors/furniture/major appliances for no apparent reason.

And it only takes a few days of healthy head growth and sub-par hair sprouting until your precious baby goes from a baby skullet to this…

Good gah! She has a bad baby toupee!

As Boogie approaches the big second birthday, a milestone wherein the doctor will actually measure her head and give us an accurate idea of how it compares to normal heads her age, she now rests her giant heed on her wee pillah with a baby toupee that makes Gene Simmons’ toupee look convincing.

It’s a challenge having a baby with an ever increasing cranial circumference. What, with all the tugging that it takes to get her sweaters (all open in the back might I add) over her head each morning, and then prying them off her head each night. And having to constantly clear the air space when she gets to excited and that thing starts whipping around.

We’re just hoping that the rest of her body catches up before she starts looking to much like a Blythe doll, or before it turns into something like this…

(Also, I am tagging this post with big headed baby.)

devil horns | melody

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A Dark Place

Posted on November 16, 2011 | 1 Comment

I am the type of person who always wants the believe in the good in other people. I have been bitten by that hard many times in my life, but I continue to believe it. But at the same time finding out that Baby Tyler’s mother was responsible for his murder is one of those things that tries that piece of me in a way that is hard to recover from.

As a human we all have our dark moments, but it has to be one of the darkest places a person can go to be able to look at their own child and be able to beat them with such force, so often that their little life slips from them.

My gut reaction to hearing his mother had done this was tears. Tears that would not stop all day today. They caught my breath and surprised me. I cannot fathom that the last moments of that poor baby’s short life-one that had not had enough time to develop a callous, one that didn’t have time to become jaded-were spent scared and afraid of the person he loved the most in this world. A person he trusted.

And I can’t fathom just how dark of a place his mother could have been in to watch his fear, pain and suffering without being able to have one joyful memory call her back and make it stop.

I heard many people say they weren’t surprised to hear today’s news. That the Casey Anthonies of this world have become so much a part of our American psyche that they knew his mother was responsible before she was arrested today. What a sad mark upon the face of this world that is. I don’t blame them though, and they were right.

But as a mother it is so far from my comprehension and belief in people to be able to fathom that a person is capable of murdering their own child. And so many times this has happened lately. It tries a person’s resolve, and it is haunting.

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Never Will I Ever…

Posted on November 15, 2011 | 7 Comments

Today at 3:15pm my heart stopped beating for a moment. Not only my heart, but the hearts of hundreds of mothers around the St. Louis area stopped, too. That’s when many of us began hearing that 18-month-old* Tyler Dasher, a little boy the same age as my Boogie, was taken from his crib in the middle of the night and the police were searching for him.

Bits of information, the color of his pajamas, his blanket, anything that might help the search began furiously circulating on social media and local news outlets.

I can’t tell you how many times I have awoken in a panic to find the clock reading 9:30am, realizing I didn’t wake up to Boogie’s special brand of  morning screeches.  It’s a parent’s worst nightmare-something happens in those few, vulnerable hours when you aren’t there to stop it. Call it new parent panic, or just being a parent, it’s the kind of thing that keeps you up at night.

Tears burned my eyes just a few hours later when I noticed updates about the case had stopped scrolling across the bottom of my screen. The SARAA alert had been called off. I dreaded every second I watched the screen as I hit rewind, finally seeing those last few scrolling sentences say they had identified the body found near the boy’s home as Tyler’s.

I grabbed Boogie tight, gave her as many kisses as I could until she head-butted the bridge of my nose nice and good, and decided this…

Never will I ever feel sorry for myself because I had to clean up your spilled cup of milk.

Never will I ever take for granted that you will be there when my work is through.

Never will I ever promise a moment to someone who won’t appreciate it the way you would.

Never will I ever feel it can’t get any worse when I can hear your giggles.

Never will I ever take one smile, one moment, one day for granted. Not as long as I am your mommy and you are my Boogie.

My gratitude mixes with pain as my heart, thoughts and prayers go out to the mother and family who are today facing their worst nightmare.

**Updated at 10:02pm, Tyler was actually 13-months-old at the time of his murder, not 18 months as I had originally read.

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Baby, It’s Hot Outside… Like Really Hot

Posted on June 7, 2011 | 1 Comment

Like taking ice cream from this baby...

I don’t mean to be all apocalyptic, but I also may or may not be hoarding food-stuffs in my basement.

What used to be welcome signs of the first tender days of summer, the quiet song of the cicada and the face-warming temperatures of late-Spring, have turned on everyone. They have become the deafening roar of horny, obscenely large bugs, and the sweltering stickiness that I usually associate with the end of summer, when my liver is so exhausted from patios and margaritas that it has chosen to travel alongside me on a skateboard.

We are only a few weeks into summer and it is shaping up to be about as appealing as eating a Blowpop while grooming a collie.

Because my uterus has essentially delivered up a tether to my front porch in the form of Boogie, I have been spending most of these sweltering days indoors. It is slowly becoming an elective quarantine though since the few occasions I’ve ventured out have done more to instill the fear in me than they have for curing my cabin fever.

Is there anything worse than taking ice cream from a baby, your baby no less, then being dive-bombed by a cicada as you are trying to stuff her very angry, very chubby little limbs into her car seat? Probably not. Unless of course you include that horny, obscenely large bug landing in the handle of your car door, and an entire restaurant watching as you roundhouse said door trying to scare it from its lazy landing spot. Or if you were to compound it with that awkward teen drive-thru worker who simply came out to offer assistance, probably at the beckoning of the lone patron who could breathe out a plea on your behalf in between laughs, only to be greeted with you screaming in his face like a banshee because he walked up too quietly behind you (the better to infiltrate that horny, obscenely large bug’s enemy lines of course).

Not that that would happen to anyone.

And we aren’t going to talk about how many times horny, obscenely large bugs have hitched a ride inside prompting you to strip off your pants, shirt or other assorted piece of clothing and throw it outside overnight.

Not that that would happen to anyone either.

Anyhow, I need to get back to buying canned goods and water… you know, not that storing food has anything to do with that earthquake that woke my arse up way too early this morning.

devil horns | melody

Photo credit: J Pollack Photography

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Year One: Much Better Than The Movie

Posted on May 2, 2011 | 5 Comments

Hey man! Where's the party?

Dear Boogie,

One year ago you officially joined our family, though for many months pending your arrival you had been sharing your personal brand of zeal for life with my rib cage and lower back. It took 34 hours, but you finally came to us, covered in goo, with swollen cheeks and puffy little eyes, your button nose perfectly perched above your tiny little lips. We were so happy to meet you.

One year later you have grown so much, from a tiny little bundle of bones and fat rolls to a tiny little person, complete with a few more emotions outside of mad at the world, more sophisticated control of your extremities, an actual chin, knuckles that are more than just decorative dimples, and an inexplicable fondness for dog food.

I am convinced that this transition has indisputably proven your superior intelligence.

You are curious and fearless, as evidenced by your lack of concern for bodily harm. You are empathetic and loving, as we see with every slobbery kiss and concerned tilt of your head. You are every laugh and smile your Daddy and I ever shared together, on two marshmallow-man legs and with a set of killer lashes.

There are some days when I wouldn’t trade you for all the riches in the world, and others when I would for a stick of gum. And though I may spend the majority of my days just trying to keep you from getting crusty, I assure you that when I scrub your cheeks until they are raw it is not without all the love in my heart.

The last year has been somewhat akin to living with a perpetually drunk Japanese midget, but we have enjoyed every challenge and every finger that has inexplicably ended up in our nostrils and somewhere in the vicinity of our ocular nerves.

Tonight we are going to take you out on the town, stuff you full of black olive and mushroom pizza until you stop banging on your tray like a medieval king who isn’t afraid of gout. And as we tuck you into your bed, snuggled in with your rabbit, we will embark on year two with you, looking forward to the moment when you stop going peeing your pants every few hours and start letting us in on what all of those judgmental faces really mean.

With all the Love in our hearts,
Mommy and The Mister

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