Amazing Acts of Stillness

While my blogging may be way behind lately, Daniel is still 15 months old.  He is incredibly active and rarely stops for more than a minute or two which is why the events of this evening are blogworthy.

Tonight, we tried to video chat with my parents.  A comedy in itself and I never expect Daniel to last for more than 2 seconds.  Every time we try to video chat with my parents, they can't get their computer to work or whatever "high speed" network they're on doesn't really let them video chat as they are always sitting on their couch and just stuck on the screen.  They can see us perfectly fine so they continue to talk and blow kisses, but Daniel and I are just kind of sitting there looking at a blurry face stuck on the screen (I really can't do the humor justice).

Anyhow... tonight, Daniel sat on my lap in front of the computer for about 10 or 15 minutes while we tried to video chat (Tried is the key word here.  It never really happened and seeing my parents faces blurry and stuck on a screen is weird enough for me - I have to believe that it totally freaks out Daniel).  It was incredible.  He didn't wiggle and he didn't try to attack the keyboard.  He just sat on my lap playing with a couple of blocks and hung out.  Super sweet.

When it was time  to go to sleep, I asked Daniel to get me his favorite book (this was an experiment... I had no idea what he was going to do).  So, he went into his house and starting leafing through "Caps for Sale" (his father's favorite).  I scooped him and the book up and we sat on his chair and read the ENTIRE book!  People... the entire book (and not a picture book).  This was big.  Again, no squirming, no pauses, just the entire snuggly time of reading the book together. 

Two amazing acts of stillness! 

Unsuccessfully Playing Catch-Up

I asked my husband tonight if I was feeling sad because I’m so tired or because I am so overwhelmed with playing catch-up.  He didn’t know I was sad.  To be honest, I didn’t know either until 7:45pm when I started to think about all of the things I had to do, yet had no energy to do.  Guess that answers the question!

Daniel is 15 months old.  He’s walking, running, has a bunch of teeth (finally), is super tall (90^th percentile) so he looks like all of the 18 month old kids on the playground and he’s incredibly physically active. He’s hysterical.  Makes us laugh all of the time and he is still calling most animals “kitty” (in fact, we went to a farm today and he ran up to a sheep yelling “kitty”).  His hair grows so fast that he's on haircut #3.  I have amazing photos and videos from all the way back to our Cape Cod vacation with the Bahats in August, Jewish holidays in Atlanta (including a baby gorilla from the Atlanta Zoo which is insanely cute), visits in Philly and with his great grandparents AND one amazing essay from his cousin Lizzie.  Lots to post.
 
I’ve been traveling nearly every other week since the beginning of this year for work.  I can’t really say that it’s “starting” to take its toll as it’s a struggle each and every time.  But, something is different now and I feel like all of the time away from both Daniel and Matt has caught up with me.  Not only am I missing my boys all the time, but my every day to-dos get swept under the rug.
 
Living in a semi-gutted house is also starting to take its toll and I often start screaming while cooking begging for my kitchen to be done already!
 
Because of the half-gutted house, we don’t have a lot of space and have to use a storage unit.  I now have a massive pile in my room made up of things that need to go to storage.  Please someone set fire to this pile so I don’t have to look at it anymore! (that’s a joke just in case someone from the fire department is reading this)
 
I haven’t spoken to my dear friend, Heather, since she moved back home to Minneapolis and I miss her dearly
 
I missed my friend, Jennifer Geiger’s birthday (and probably a slew of others)
 
Oh yeah, I have a full time job that is more demanding than any job I could ever imagine.  Thankful as I am for the job… it’s still, once again, more demanding than I could have ever imagined.
 
I used to talk to my parents nearly every day.  I think I last spoke to them last week.   

This blog’s primary function is to chronicle Daniel’s life but as most of you know, I’ve barely been doing that over the last few months and putting all of the things that are overwhelming me down in writing is actually helping me realize that I’m actually not sad… I’m just fucking busy!  Pity party is OVER!

An Ode to Poop (the cat)!

Matt's (our) cat turned 16 years old today.  I'd like to dedicate this blog post to him.

Poop is one of the strangest, scariest and most beautiful cats I've ever known.  When I first started dating Matt I immediately tried to cuddle with Poop and get him to love me by loving him... mistake.  I quickly learned that Poop is not a "cuddly" cat and if he wants any sort of attention, he wants it from Matt.  Period.  I was warned that he was "homicidal" and quite a few friends of Matt's asked me if I wanted to hire a hit man to "take him out".  Yikes.

The bottom line is that Poop would much prefer to track down a small (or large) mammal, kill it and eat it in our living room than he would like to have a long pet on the couch. 

I spent a year or so slowly trying to earn Poop's trust (I was, after all, taking away his roommate and best friend).  I mean, this was a serious project.  Eventually Poop would sleep next to me and let me pet him or brush him (for about a minute at a time) but he would never come to me when I wanted him to and deep down I knew that the attention he was giving me was simply a product of his boredom with my saying his name over and over again.

Meanwhile, 5 years later, I love Poop and I know he loves me even though he still follows Matt around and leaves me in a split second when Matt walks in the room. 

We were a bit scared when we brought Daniel home because we didn't know how Poop would react (he left our friend's Pit Bull bleeding in a corner once) and there have been some moments when we've held our breath, but it's been pretty good. 

Nowadays, Poop pretty much ignores Daniel (that's a good thing) and Poop happens to be one of Daniel's most favorite playthings (umm, not always good).  In fact, Daniel now calls pretty much everything, "Kitty!" in a really high pitched, excited voice.  A bird in a tree?  "Kitty!".  A cute dog?  "Kitty!"  Certain kids in the playground? "Kitty!"  It's damn cute.  Check out this video (also great footage of our little walking monster):

So, Happy Birthday to our friend, Poop.  We love you and thank you for not killing any of us (yet).