Thursday Highlights - Friday Edition - August 31, 2007

Well, Thursday got away from me so I had to wait until today to contemplate yesterday.

I guess the big thing that happened was that I learned that Langston does not share my enthusiasm for bike rides. Or at least he did not share it last night.

I love a good ride around the neighborhood – I’m not militant, but when I’ve got This American Life in my ears I can’t hear my own wheezing panting (which depresses me when I do other forms of exercise)…also, I feel like a 10 year old again when I’m screaming down a hill at a million miles an hour, and have to resist the urge to really lean my head down between the handlebars to really get streamlined…and, it does give me a great opportunity to monitor the action on a variety of abandoned houses around SE Grand Rapids (oh ho, there’s a notice from the city on 1942 Plymouth….look at the height of the weeds on 321 Orville, that house must be abandoned...I see they finally posted an eviction notice on the house on Mulford…etc.) So, I had been thinking all summer of getting Langston out there with me. He enjoys walking around in the stroller so much I thought that he would REALLY get a charge out of riding along in the buggy!

So, after being donated a tow-behind buggy from a friend and buying a baby helmet and getting all the tires inflated, buggy cleaned, etc. – we were finally ready to go.

Of course nothing is as easy as it seems. I tucked Langston into the stroller while I got the whole bike contraption ready to go. I thought it would be so easy. Langston tried, unsuccessfully, to not be judgmental of my efforts as I struggled, tugged and despaired while bumbling my way through attaching the buggy to the bike. Two bikes, one wrench, one cut finger, numerous splashes of sweat, and one hammer later it appeared that we were at least equipmentally ready for action.

Langston’s confidence level seemed low as I wrangled him around into the buggy. Not really sure of which straps went where I pretty much just used all the straps available to pin him in. He was particularly unenthusiastic about the helmet. But I was not to be deterred…this was going to be fun! We were going to ride like the wind…laughter and joy were mere moments away!!

The first thing I noticed as we set out was that towing about 40 pounds does add an element of difficulty. I’ve been riding all summer…but I never had to start out in such a low gear just to get going. I was sure that it would get easier as I got used to it. Bwahahahahahahaha.

The second thing I noticed was that Langston was not, shall we say, loving it. For the first 3 blocks or so he alternated between grim endurance and wails of protest. But again, I was sure that as soon as he got used to it he would LOVE IT!!!

Yeah….as I started up the big hill at Plymouth that extra 40 pounds was really kicking in.

Yikes…am I only about a quarter of the way up? I’m dying here!!!

Oh man…I’m only half way there and I’m already in the lowest gear…the audible sound of my panting is stopping traffic.

Yay!!! Gasp…gasp…gasp….we…gasp….made…gasp….it….gasp….gasp….Lang…gasp….ston….gasp...whew…gasp.

I never realized how uneven the sidewalks are until every major break we went over made Langston bellow out in despair every time we went over one. So, for every 30 seconds of resigned silence there was another 30 seconds of loud complaint…and that doesn’t even count the piercing cries every time we stopped to cross a street. If we were moving, bump-free, then he could somehow stand it…but dare to stop or go over a bump and you’re gonna hear it, mom.

I kept looking back to see if he was OK and he was just kind of slumped…alternately crying and silently begging for mercy.

I kept thinking that he would start to like it….and that I would somehow get used to being the horse in the horse drawn carriage scenario…I kept waiting for it to become the idyllic vision of my imagination…when I realized it was just not ever going to happen I turned around and slowly headed for home.

About a mile from home Langston realized that he would have to amp up the complaints…so his irritated yowls of displeasure turned to shrieks of rage. So, imagine me sweating, beat red, muscles shaking…towing this buggy of howls…and having to pass my neighbors out for walks, children playing in their yards, families at the picnic tables eating ice cream…let’s just say they weren’t nodding and smiling in approval.

When we finally got home Langston had passed through despair and rage and was now just limp. The river of snot that had poured from his nose was now flowing all around his pacifier and into his mouth…his face was all blotchy and hot…his eyes were swollen and empty…all he could muster was the occasional “sniff…sniff………..sniff” as he noodled into my arms. I felt just terrible!!! Bad idea!!! Langston had a horrible time!!! I’m a rotten mother!!!! I tortured my child!!!!

After a glass of cold milk and some animal crackers the light started to return to his eyes. When his dad came in he gave him a grateful smile and lots of hugs and snuggles as Jeff took him to put on his PJs. He brought him out to give mom and hug and a kiss….and Langston wasn’t quite ready for that yet. He gave me a small, forgiving smile…but he wasn’t quite up to surrendering to my care at that point….his expression said, I think I’ll stay with dad right now if it’s all the same to you.

Um…maybe I’ll just take some solo bike rides for the next little bit.

Thursday Highlights - August 16, 2007

Well, today began with a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday sung by Jeff and me to our little baby one year old! I can’t believe that Langston is a year old. Although, while feeding him this morning I looked at my watch and cringed remembering that a year ago at that time I was being wheeled into surgery! Eek! But, how could I have known what a super fun and wonderfully amazing little boy I would now know. Yay!

After dropping him off at daycare I sped off to In the Image. I took a volunteer opportunity to hand out free shoes to Grand Rapids public school kids this morning. It’s actually a pretty great thing that Steelcase lets its employees do – volunteer on company time. So, I worked with families of school-aged children…helping them each get a new pair of shoes for school. Every family I worked with was Hispanic and in all but one family, only the children could speak English. It was very interesting – and very fun to send off these kids with brand new shoes. Although, it was boiling hot in there and by the end of my shift I was a total sweathog. One poor elderly woman I was working with was literally dripping with sweat. It really isn’t the heat…it’s the humidity….and the heat…that place was stifling.

Which wasn’t a good thing because after the volunteer gig I was going to pick up Langston to go get his (our) picture taken for his one year birthday! Since 99% of the time I am the one taking the pictures, I am never in them…based on our photo collection any stranger would guess that Jeff is a single parent. I had this wonderful vision of these adorable pictures of Langston (his first professional shots) and then a few thrown in there of him cuddling with his dashing, sophisticated – yet approachable - mommy. So, I stopped at home to perk up. I put on a plain black ¾ length sleeved shirt and a black skirt (see “sophisticated” above)…touched up the make-up to make my eyes pop and diminish my wrinkles (What? You’re his mother? You look MUCH too young!) Then after picking out some outfits for him to wear and his new toy truck (a FAVORITE hand-me-down from his cousin Justin) and a couple of his books I headed off to Appletree to pick up the birthday boy.

After an uneventful ride over to Pure photography (http://www.purestudiophotography.com/) we were ready for our close-up! Things started out so great….I had changed him into his totally studly khaki shorts and blue checked linen shirt…he was sitting adorably in front of the backdrop…smiling, cooing, charming the sox off all of us….oh, it was all working out so well….it was just like my vision!! Then the photographer suggested getting out the truck for him to play with. Oh my word! He just lit up…he started playing with that truck and it was like he was on fire he was so excited! Then the photographer suggested a change of scene…maybe a few with mommy (oh…well….only if it’s OK with YOU!!!) and that’s when the wheels fell off the truck, so to speak. He loves the truck so much that his only passion, from that moment on, became locating and reuniting with the truck as soon as possible. He was like the Terminator…nothing could sway him from his mission. So, pretty much any time I picked him up he started writhing and screaming….and basically became Langston crazy man for the rest of the shoot. So, I now call the event Sweathog II as I chased after him, tickling, chasing, cajoling, pulling away from the lights and cords, bribing with teddy-grahams, and then starting all over again. Oh my word…I just hope that she got a decent picture or two….I particularly hope she captured the beautiful moments of me “cuddling” Langston while he squirmed and squealed…really, he does like me…really, I promise.

After loading him back up in the car seat and turning the air conditioning on full blast I started counting down the minutes to the Heath flurry I decided to reward myself with. In the all the hub-bub I forgot about lunch and by 2:00 I was cranky and starving and convinced that every picture I’d just paid an arm and a leg for would now feature a crazed lunatic child with his sweaty, flustered, nutjob mommy.

And now…I’m in the peace and quiet of work…I’ve already written to my husband to let him know that I will not be whipping up cashew chicken for him tonight…I just don’t think I’m up for it. Which shouldn’t bother him because He is very excited that the 3 foot Costco birthday cake he bought is ready for pick-up.

I stole an idea from a mall photo studio and we are going to attempt to duplicate it tonight. Get a ginormous cake decorated…dress your kid in his skivvies…plop him in front of the cake…and fire away. They’ll probably end up being cuter pictures than the ones I paid someone to take. Oh well. It should be a pretty big riot at any rate.

So, that’s the day…oh man…I can’t believe it’s already been a year!

Thursday Highlights - Friday Edition 08/10/07

By mid-day yesterday nothing had happened, really, at all. So, I couldn’t bear to write a recap. So, I decided to wait until today and see if Thursday evening picked up at all. Actually, it kind of did…

All day Thursday I was in the final day of a 3-day class at Steelcase’s learning center. It was the last class in a series of classes my boss asked me to complete. Really the only thing that kept me going was realizing it was the last class and soon I would be done, done, DONE!!! This class was called EXECUTE and it was all about leadership and coordinating and synergizing and leveraging and A3s and Gibson’s Grids and FMEAs and objectives and SIPOCs…can you see why I felt like I had nothing to write yesterday? Did I mention that I’m now done with not only the class but the series??? You can’t see me but right now I’m doing my own interpretation of Jeff’s signature “Vegas Dance” which includes a shimmy, some fist pumping, and a soundtrack of ya duh dun duh duh dah!

The class actually broke a little early so I had time to book it out to a shoe sale…buy one pair, get 2 pair FREE!!! Of course I felt obligated to get 3 pair of shoes…but one pair was for Julie, so I feel like I was spreading the love.

I left right at 5:00 so I could get home in time to make a picnic dinner since we were planning to head out to Fredrick Meijer Gardens for a concert.

When Jeff came home he said that the refrigerator people could deliver the new fridge that night (Yes, our fridge died the previous night… it’s never fun to reach for the fudgcicle you are craving and get a handful of mush in return…fortunately we could haul up grandma’s mini fridge from the basement so we could save important things like milk, yogurt and jello! That thing has really come in handy…you just never know when you might need the services of a mini fridge…and it’s very exciting when you remember, hey, we’ve actually GOT a mini fridge!). This was good news but also bad news since it meant we had to totally clean out the old fridge (running at about 50 degrees) so they could haul it away. In a way it was very freeing. I mean, what a wonderful excuse to get rid of the 12 bottles of salad dressing with only 2-fingers of dressing left in the bottle…GONE! The jar of pickles where only 2 pickles remain…GONE! The jar of chocolate fudge sauce with the caked-on lid and 2 spoonfuls of sauce…GONE! It was actually quite a relief. But, it did add a pretty big job to an already limited time schedule.

After totally racing around with no time to catch our breath, Jeff’s mom and dad came in to babysit Langston. He was napping in his crib, woke up, and just started screaming…as if on cue. So, then I did some running around trying to pull together milk, food, diaper change, etc. And I felt bad that we were then essentially leaving the parentals with a very unhappy baby.

Sorry mom and dad…um….we’re off….uh…have a good time!

It was a pretty sticky night, threatening rain, hot. We didn’t think there would be a big crowd to see Dar Williams and Over the Rhine. And we were right. We walked right in and got a nice seat, met Julie there, started our snacking and then, kind of randomly this woman takes the stage with a guitar and starts singing. I am sorry to say that none of us knew who she was. Was she an opening act? Someone who just saw her opportunity and wandered on stage to serenade us? What was up? After about the 5th song we decided, hey, this must actually BE Dar Williams (this was about 2 songs after Julie had said…hey wait…that’s a Dar Williams song…but, this girl doesn’t sing nearly as good as her…so, I don’t know…) Oops. It was about this time that we noticed the woman in her 40s sitting right by us in a very determined lotus position. She seemed very proud of her flexibility given the many, many, many times she felt the need to bend at the waist and pick up something (what?) in front of her. She also knew every single song that Dar Williams sang (and there were many….most what I would classify as “complaint folk”) and sang along loudly and with a lot of expression and hand motions. I am not kidding. She was also the first and loudest to laugh at anything that Dar Williams said that even resembled wit or humor….including thigh slaps, head thrown back, and then, the inevitable bend forward to bang the ground. It was pretty fascinating. And annoying. We bet that this woman followed poor Dar Williams from venue to venue, sending love notes, filling albums with news clippings and photographs…and is possibly on the receiving end of a restraining order which necessitated her present viewing location at least 250 feet from the stage.

We also became pretty fascinated by this very sketchy looking guy who was just kind of roaming around everywhere. He would kind of mosey up to the stage. Then kind of stroll around behind. Then he would head off into the crowd. He was wearing this oversized baseball cap, weighed at least 400 pounds, seemed to do a lot of sidling up to security cards, etc. Imagine our surprise when it turned out he was “Juicy” the sound engineer for Over the Rhine! Too funny.

We really liked OTR and wished that they had been the opener. Dar was just kind of a downer and that crazy woman was just too distracting. But, we only stayed for about 30 minutes of their act because it was getting damp and dark, we thought our baby might be going wild on his grandparents, and it had been a long week.

But, there really is no better place to watch a concert. So relaxing.

We got home and heard that although he had been pretty cranky for awhile, a healthy dose of Tylenol had seemed to do the trick (he finally has his appointment with the ENT on Monday) and he had played hard, taken a long walk with “Papa”, and fell immediately to sleep.

After they left and Jeff drove our cast-off groceries over to his aunt’s house (they have curby pick-up today) I was alone in the house and wandered into the nursery to pick up sleeping Langston. I rocked and whispered to him and prayed for his future and our wisdom and snuggled him until the cares of the day melted away to nothing. With many smooches and whispered “I love yous” I put him back in bed.

A good end.

Thursday Highlights - August 2, 2007

This morning I woke up and went in to get little boy out of his bed and was greeted by a wall of stink. I had to part the odor like a beaded curtain to get into the room! It was slithering down the walls and hovered like a green cloud just below the ceiling. How could Langston be smiling and playing in his crib? Didn’t he realize that he was projecting a skunk-like plume of reek right at me??? As much as I love him, I almost didn’t want to pick him up…I was afraid of what might shoot out of the diaper onto my freshly showered self. But, I was the mom…I went ahead and picked him up. I tried to lay down some prep work on what I knew would have to be tactical perfection in order to remove, dispose of, and clean up after this explosion. I put several cloth diapers down on top of the diaper changing pad, flipped open the baby wipe container with wipes at the ready, pulled out a fresh diaper…and cautiously laid him down. His newest fascination is a flashlight…so, I turned it on and plopped it in his hand and gingerly started the diaper removal process. So far, so good….it was a crazy, freaky, ridiculous amount of bright orange slush…but I was super proud of myself as I used wipe after wipe without contaminating myself with even a droplet of ooze. Hey, it was actually going pretty well. After about wipe number 10 I thought I was ready for stage two of the process…onesie removal. Slowly and carefully I started shifting it up his little bod…and was just about ready to start the sleeve transition when…oh no…not really…oh come ON…yeah, unbeknownst to me a very generous amount of sludge had actually shot out the top of the diaper into a fat pile in the back of his onesie…precisely where I had put my hand to take it off…are you KIDDING me??? So, all my hard work had been for nothing…the diaper pad got all crapped on, I won’t even speak to you of what was going on in my hand…and I still had to get the thing off of him! Gagging and blowing and shifting on the balls of my feet I was finally able to free him. At which point I hollered for Jeff. There was no way I was finishing this on my own. After about the 10th yell (he's no fool) he came in and helped me wipe down Langston’s back, shoulders and neck…yes, neck…what kind of projectile offal was I dealing with here??? And then took Langston into the shower with him because no amount of baby wipes could remove all the traces of that load. Yikes. Yikes. And again…yikes!!!!

Utterly exhausted I gathered up all the offending materials…diaper containing Chernobyl-like fall out, 35 used wipes, 2 cloth diapers, and the onesie and headed into the kitchen for bagging.

Then I toweled off and dressed the now super clean baby (traces of the stank still lurking in the air…kind of like smoke damage after a house fire) and got him dressed. Lately, he is pretty happy to just be popped back in the crib to be warehoused while I finish getting ready. As long as I turn the lights up, throw in some toys and put in an energizing cd -- (these days we’re playing the broadway cast version of Guys and Dolls…he particularly enjoys “I’ve Got the Horse Right Here”…and this morning he got a bit of a giggle out of the line “call it hell, call it heaven, it’s a probable 12 to 7 that the guy’s only doing it for some doll”…I kept singing that line as we left the house and he kept bouncing and giggling…show tunes…oh, his father would be so pleased) so long as he doesn’t think I’m putting him to bed, he’s good to go.

We left the house in a flurry (as always) and shot off to Steelcase employee sales.

I bought two small pedestal/file cabinets to replace the ones I’m currently using as bedside tables in our bedroom. The new ones I bought are shorter by a drawer – which will allow for my new lighting concept per the bedroom update I’m working on. I needed some more vertical space and I think these new cabinets will be perfect. This week-end I hope to paint them white and glue down the tops. Anyhow, I had to go and pick them up. I really can’t wait until I get my mini-van (could be any time!) so I don’t have to keep facing the baleful expressions of the guys at employee sales who have to maneuver my purchases into the Buick. If I had a quarter for every time Frank sighed, “that’s never going to fit in there” and then magically, with some additional pointers and suggestions, was able to fit it all in…well, I think I’d at least be able to buy myself a decent meal. Anyhow, they got all loaded up and off we went to Appletree.

Langston really seems to like it there and was smiling and laughing and scooted off to play as I told Miss Carrie and Miss Amy why I had brought Langston an extra set of clothes for the day. Apparently this is going around…a little intestinal bug. Since Langston’s been on anti-biotics for about 30 days, I am not surprised that he is extra susceptible to viruses. They said they have a 3 strikes, you’re out policy on “loose” diapers…but, no phone call yet…so, he must be doing OK.

I then headed off to the Speedway for a pop…and….well….I have to make a confession: trash pick up day isn’t until Monday…and it’s just way too hot to put that in the garage…and no diaper genie in the world could possibly contain that diaper….so, I took my double-bagged sack of spoilage and tossed it in the gas station trash can. I’m not proud…but I just didn’t know where else to turn!

The rest of the day has passed fairly uneventfully. The heat drove me to try a new, and possibly sketchy hair do. I put part of it up and flipped the back. I’m not sure if I’m working it…or if it’s working me. I had a very long meeting where the end result was a list of people to invite to another meeting. I printed out a visitor’s guide to Door County, Wisconsin…which I have pitched to Jeff as a potential spot for our family “mini-break” in August. I got the world’s most annoying sales call. I checked out televisionwithoutpity’s recap on So You Think You Can Dance.

Tonight I am going out with Jeff and Auntie (Jeff says to me this morning…I didn’t realize that was a ME, you and Langston thing…I thought just you and Langston would go with Auntie…um….no) because Auntie wants to buy Langston some shoes for his birthday (which I can’t believe is days away). That’s actually very nice of her. Of course we are not headed for Value City or Target…we are going somewhere at Breton Village Mall. Should be a riot.