31? Uh-huh

Welcome to the mish-mash of jumbled up stuff that’s been rattling around my head for a week. I’ve been meaning to organize and expound upon a lot of this, but I simply haven’t had the time.

So pardon the lack of transitions and cohesion.

31. Yeah, so I turned 31 on Monday. No biggie. Hubby made for a great weekend though: I came home Friday to a clean house, and he arranged an afternoon massage for me on Saturday. Then we celebrated with friends by competing in an elaborately designed, 21-game Beer Olympics. Which was more fun than I ever imagined it could be. Medals were won in games ranging from quarters to hula-hooping and puzzle assembly to jump roping. I took home gold in flip cup and a spoon-and-marble type game that instead involved ladeling beer out of a big tub, then walking briskly with that spoon-full-o-beer a distance to carefully transfer the beer from the spoon into a cup. Aaaaand, repeat. For as many times as possible in two minutes. Really, tons and tons of fun. That is, until Gregger broke his leg. Literally. In retrospect, making a long jump competition the 18th event of the night probably wasn’t a good idea. Neither was the actual act of long jumping, at 1 a.m., in the dark, from a flat surface to a sloped hill. So Beer Olympics came to a screeching halt as Colleen’s tires screeched out of the driveway to the ER. Greg is recovering fine, and the take-away from Beer Olympics is this: Damn, was that fun, but holy shit was it stupid. I will certainly advise my own son against Beer Olympics in the future. Or at least I’ll make sure his long-jump competition is at the beginning of the night and on a flat surface.

Uh-huh. That’s Cayden a lot lately. But he’s got the inflection kind of wrong. He says uh-huh, rather than uh-huh. As in, “you want some goldfish?” “uh-huh, go-go-go-go.” And he’s sooo vocal lately. Babbling and shouting and growling (like a lion) at everything. And all while pointing. I anticipate his verbal breakthrough will come more as a flood than as a trickling stream. He’s almost there – trying his darndest to tell us what he thinks, wants, sees – but he just can’t get the words out. Except for a random word every now and then that tends not to be repeated beyond a day. Daisy (the cat), banana, circle – they’ve all been uttered, but only sporadically repeated with meaning.

Daddy. Wanna know reason number umpteen-and-seventy-bajillion why he’s so awesome? Because he makes the breakfast oatmeal with hand-mashed fresh blueberries. And a sprinkle of cinnamon. And a squeeze of honey. Gourmet stuff, because he doesn’t want to feed the chicken anything he wouldn’t enjoy.

Radio. Guess who learned how to turn on the clock radio in his room? The boy. And now every morning must include a little classic rock or late ‘90s hip hop, so Cayden can get his dance on. He stands in front of the radio, holding on to the table by the rocker with one hand, bouncing his little buns away while grinning the biggest grin you ever saw. We’ll just assume Mama and Daddy are far too mature to break out college dance moves, air-guitars and faux gang symbols while little boy dances. Riiight.

Speaking of Buns. Ooooh, a real and actual transition! Anyway, at what point do baby buns turn from cottage cheese to smooth cheeks? 'Cause this chubber still has a serious case of cottage cheese ass. In fact, Brian won’t let me post the picture I took of his naked butt last weekend. The one Brian says makes it look like the boy has elephantiasis.

Perfecting the pincer grasp. So now that his pointer-finger/thumb dexterity is on-point, why is he intent to pick up every spec of lint, cat claw, pine needle and three-day-old scrambled-egg booger he finds on the floor? Not that there are a lot of scrambled egg boogers and cat claws on our floor, but dude I can’t vacuum and swiff every day. So there are a few, and he finds them all, then promptly tries to consume them.

Hmm, that information dump felt good. Now to try to figure a way to work more of them in my starting-to-catch-up-with-me, full-time work schedule.

Cayden is a year and three weeks old.