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November 24, 2003
November 24, 2003
20 Months
Because it has been basically a month since I last wrote, I must bore you with the factual minutiae of what has been going on in our lives for the past 30 days or so. It is boring, plainly stated and simple and if you don’t want to read it, I understand, so just skim on down to where I get to the good stuff, after Halloween. But I feel the need to write about this stuff just for Cameron’s sake, if he should (HA!) ever want to read any of this…
Steel Magnolias
This is without a doubt, one of my favorite movies of all time. Even though we own this film, whenever it shows on cable, no matter what part of the movie happens to be playing and even if it is the last scene, Charles and I must watch. We will watch it with the same anticipation and adoration we did when we first saw it years ago in the theater. I absolutely LOVE “Steel Magnolias,” not only because of the captivating and touching story of a woman who sacrifices her health so that she may have a baby, but because of the endearing personalities of the characters involved, the closeness of the residents of the town, and the love of a group of women who share an incredible friendship. I always wished that one day I could live in such a town, perhaps one not as provincial as the one in the movie, but something very much like it. I always wanted close women friends such as the ones in the movie, friends that knew me and my child and that were the ones I turned to when I wanted to have fun, and inevitably, the ones I turned to when I needed help. This is what I always wanted. I never thought it was a possibility.
So many times since Cameron has been born, I have had people, close friends even, ask me if I ever planned to go back to work, sort of with that tone of “are you actually planning to throw your life away/throw your education away/wipe asses all day/kill yourself?” And usually, after fielding questions such as these, I’d be barraged with various statements to the effect of “I don’t know how you stay home all day! I’d be so bored/miserable/lonely/frustrated…” And honestly, I can see where people come from with these sorts of feelings, I mean, if you have never stayed home all day with a baby and you have never had a good support system or a group of friends, it would be much harder to stay home than not. But I guess I just got lucky. I must say that unequivocally, I have the best group of girlfriends that I could possibly wish for. Besides the obvious group (my trusty, faithful email buddies and you all know who you are), that I chat with regularly, I have a core group of women that I see almost every day. We watch each other’s kids, we have outings together and we socialize together. We take walks together, work out together and hang out at each other’s houses. Our husbands all like each other and we have dinner at each other’s houses usually once a week it seems. We talk about things that have nothing to do with our kids and we go out sometimes at night and leave the kids at home with our husbands and we have a nice glass of wine and talk about anything at all. I can’t tell you how much of a difference this has made in my life. My friends mean everything to me and I truly wish everyone could experience this. I was reading an article in a magazine recently that stated that studies have shown that there are certain factors throughout a child’s life that affect his mental/emotional health, his happiness and his ability to be successful. I was surprised to read on that the most influential factor was not a mother who stayed at home, or a mother who worked, or the income level of family. No –them most influential factor (according to this magazine/study) was whether or not the mother had a great support system/ a large group of friends. Studies showed that women who have a lot of friends and who socialized often, whether they worked full time or not at all, had much happier children who were more successful in school and later in life. It seems logical, I suppose. I’m not sure if I actually believe it though, but since it seems to support my way of living for the moment, I’ll hold on to that belief. I know that it may sound like an awfully boring and empty life to some, but you know what, from where I sit, it’s pretty damn great. Never underestimate the power of good friends and good fun. Oh sure, it’s not without its drawbacks. I mean, my phone rings off the hook constantly and I never seem to have a free minute, but it is still really is great. I only wish I had had this network of women when I was pg. Hmmm…maybe next time…
Charles’ Birthday and Halloween
Backtracking a bit, Charles turned 41 on October 27. Quite an interesting little tale - I had wanted to surprise Charles with new golf clubs for his birthday, these “awesome” (his words, not mine) clubs that he’d been wanting for 2 years. As far as I am concerned, a golf club is a golf club. Doesn’t matter if it’s made of plastic, wood, iron or the brand of Fisher Price, I just don’t get it. I am not a sports fan at all and of the sports I can suffer through watching, golf is not one of them. That stupid stick. Those annoying little balls that I find all over the damn house. That infuriating TV featuring men holding that stupid stick and tapping at those annoying little balls. Makes me want to scream. I am kidding of course, I don’t really hate the sport, it looks like it could be fun, IRL. But watching it on TV – now THAT is painful. However, Charles loves the game and seemed to believe there were better clubs out there than the ones he had so I decided to bite the bullet and get them. Not having the first clue what kind to get, I emailed his brother, aka golf expert, and asked him to tell me exactly what kind to get/what kind Charles wanted. My BIL emailed me back the exact name and type of clubs and when I received the email, I immediately hit the reply button to tell him thanks and how I was going to surprise Charles with his gift. Well wouldn’t you know it, Cameron started yelling about something he wanted, so of course I ran to fetch whatever it was he needed, and in that small frame of time, Charles jumped on the computer to play, what else, a little Tiger Woods Golf. But not before he read the entire email that I had so stupidly left up on the screen. When I returned back to the room, I saw Charles grinning from ear to ear and I knew immediately what I had done. I could have cried, in fact, I think I did. I had planned and planned and saved for this birthday and I had so wanted it to be special. And now I had ruined it, I could have killed myself for being so incredibly dumb. So – to make a long story short, I ended up ordering the clubs anyway (through a great friend, thanks Jenny!), with the intention of surprising Charles after his birthday. On his actual birthday I bought him this “decoy” gift, a shirt and pants that he had wanted and admired in the store. About a week after his birthday, when the clubs arrived as instructed at my GF’s house, we went to her house under the pretense of dropping off a package that she had ordered from the store, and surprised him with the clubs there. Charles was just more than a little shocked and probably the happiest I have ever seen him. You would have thought he had won Lotto. So, even though it came close to being ruined, the surprise was still a success and it was a great birthday.
Halloween was a lot of fun this year. The day before Halloween, 7 of my close GFs and I took all our kids to a pumpkin patch that was absolutely amazing. This place was HUGE, it was more like an amusement park than a pumpkin patch, complete with huge slides, rope swings and hay rides. The place had to be at least 10 acres in size and I am not kidding when I say there had to be a 1000 people there. I have never in a million years seen anything like it. My MIL was with us and she enjoyed watching Cameron as he took it all in. He watched as I milked a cow, (I nearly Purell’d myself to death after that one), and was in his glory when I took him down one of these huge slides sitting on a potato sack. My favorite part was the hay ride, as I had never been on one and had always wanted to go. Cameron insisted on standing the whole time – lovely. At the end of the day, he chose (read, grabbed) a pumpkin to take home and just had a ball. The only bad part of the day was when he got stung by a bee. Naturally I panicked, not because he was crying but because I was worried he was allergic to bees and we didn’t know it yet. Luckily, he isn’t and stopped crying after a few minutes. It was all in all a totally exhausting yet satisfying day.
For Halloween, we dressed Cameron up as a court jester (see webpage listed below) and he looked just too adorable for words. We took him to a Halloween party at our good friends’ house with all our other friends and their kids as well. The kids trick-or-treated at a couple of houses and played and then we, (the adults) basically sat back, drank wine and had a great time. Note: Halloween is also our anniversary and Charles had made reservations for a nice restaurant in Washington, D.C. But we ended up having such a good time with all our friends that we decided to go celebrate another night, plus, we didn’t want to leave Cameron. Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that this won’t be the last time we don’t celebrate our anniversary on the actual day?
Ok – now that I have managed to catch you up/bore you with the factual information of what has been going on in our lives for the past month, let me get to the good stuff.
But I LIKE Wine!
I think I have mentioned in the past that we are not religious people. We believe in religion and God and we have faith and we pray but we do not strictly follow any one religion. We would like to join a church one day and expose Cameron to religion, its history and its practice in general, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. Combine these beliefs with the fact that I cannot STAND solicitation of any kind. Do you see where I am going here? Well, one fine day I decided to take Cameron out for a walk. It was a beautiful day and the walk was quite relaxing. As I approached our house, I looked forward to putting Cameron down for a nap and settling down with a good book. Imagine my surprise when I saw two young men, probably in their early 20’s, dressed in black pants and white short-sleeved shirts, standing on my front steps. I had NO clue what they wanted with me but I walked up to them and as I did, they asked me if I lived in “this house.” I replied that I did and then these two men began asking me all kinds of questions about religion, did we practice, did we believe in God, etc., etc., etc. And then they told me that they were Mormons. I answered all their questions and after they were through, they asked if they could come back one evening so they could talk to us about The Book of Mormon. Now, this is where most people would say “Aha! I know Corinne told them to beat it and get of off her property!” But I didn’t. I must be softening in my old age because these two sweet “boys” just seemed so kind and nice I just couldn’t say no. I figured, what could it hurt? Of course, when I scheduled the meeting for the following Tuesday night at 7:00, I knew better than to tell Charles about it before 6:59 that night. When I did tell him, (as the doorbell rang), I thought he was going to murder me. I told him that I didn’t think it could hurt just to listen to them and let them talk to us and we could tell them we weren’t interested afterward but they at least deserved the opportunity to have their say. Charles just muttered something about me ruining his evening as he opened the door. So, we let these two men in and showed them in to the family room where we could all talk. For the next HOUR AND A HALF, Charles and I on one sofa, the two young men on the other, we sat while they asked us every religious background question they could think of – did our parents teach us religion, did we believe in God, did we pray, did we have faith, etc. They had us each take turns reading from the Bible (quite painful) and they asked us to interpret certain passages as well. Asking me to interpret anything from the Bible would be about the same as asking the Pope to read and translate from the Torah. Impossible since I have no religious upbringing whatsoever. I’d read a passage and then one of them would ask me “Now what does that mean to you?,” and I would be sitting there sweating bullets struggling to come up with an answer. I tell you, it was pure misery, I felt like the world’s biggest idiot and I am sure they thought so too. They also asked that we all hold hands and pray together, something that made me very uncomfortable seeing as how praying (for me) is a very private thing and something I do not wish to do in front of others, especially not in the company of strangers. So after nearly an hour and a half, I decided to try and wrap the whole thing up so this could all end. They asked if we had any questions for them and my only question was “What are your rules?” They looked pretty dumbfounded as if they didn’t understand my question. I tried to explain that what I meant by that was, I know that Mormons have certain rules they must abide by and I was curious to know what they were. I figured that after an hour of a half of listening to them, I at least deserved an answer to that question. So they told me that as a Mormon, you must remain chaste outside of marriage (not a problem as we are a married couple), you must refrain from taking drugs (no problem so far, we threw our bongs out long ago), and you must also refrain from drinking coffee, tea or wine. Charles and I no longer drink coffee, but I do like tea occasionally and I certainly enjoy a glass of wine. I think that I actually have a problem with the whole wine thing because correct me if I am not mistaken but didn’t Jesus drink wine? I know that a lot of religions have strict rules about these sorts of things but as a person who doesn’t practice a formal religion, I have a real problem with this. Not the rule against alcohol per se but the principle behind it. Bottom line is, we never in a million years would have become Mormon so the restrictions would not have changed anything, but it is just not a religion that I feel would be for us. Not because of the rules or anything as petty as that, but because of some of their beliefs. I respect their beliefs and admire the religion, but it is not for us in any way, shape or form. And we were about to tell them this very fact until somehow they convinced us to let them come back ANOTHER night the following week after we had thought about it. Don’t ask us why we couldn’t say no, but it was like we were overpowered and incapable of speech. So, the following week arrived and this time, Charles and I completely forgot about our appointment with these two young men. I was upstairs bathing Cameron and completely engrossed in that task. Charles was downstairs farting around in some form or fashion, I am sure. After I was done giving Cameron a bath, I went downstairs and realized that every light downstairs was turned off, as was the TV. I immediately flicked on a light in the foyer and went into the kitchen to see Charles sprawled out on the floor, cheek pressed to the tile. I said “What the hell are you doing?” and Charles said “Get down! Do you want them to see you???” as he yanks me down to the ground as well. I said “What are you talking about?” and he said that the Mormons had rung the doorbell and that instead of opening the door, he turned out all the lights (real smooth Charles) and “ran for cover.” In complete FBI fashion, Charles whispers in my ear to “stay down until the coast was clear.” I felt so bad for those poor guys because it really wasn’t fair to them to tell them to come by and then not answer the door. We should at least have had the guts to tell them face to face “Thanks, but NO thanks.” But what can I say, we are gutless. I went to look outside after a few minutes and the young men were long gone, probably deeming us the worst of sinners and praying for our souls which honestly, at this point wouldn’t be a bad thing. All I have to say is, there is clearly a place in Hell reserved for the two of us. But then again, this sort of scenario could ONLY happen to Charles and I, now couldn’t it?
Southern Living
Have you ever heard of a Southern Living party? I never had until recently I was invited to one. A Southern Living party is basically the same concept as a Tupperware party but with home goods like dishes, plates, knick knacks, pottery, kitchenware, prints, mirrors, and other things for the home. When my GF invited me to hers last month, my first thought was, “Oh man – I SO do not want to be roped into this shit.” Literally – that is what I thought. And I can honestly say that my opinion since that point hasn’t changed all that much, but it was an entertaining experience if nothing else. One of the main reasons I did not want to be bothered was the obvious – in my mind I envisioned this tacky shit that someone was going to try and pawn off on me, right before the holiday season when you have the least money to begin with. Second, as my husband works for Crate and Barrel and as he has access to all these beautiful things for the home anyway, and since our house is loaded with stuff as it is, the last thing I felt like doing was adding MORE stuff. But – as a friend, I agreed to go and even dragged my poor MIL along with me. FYI, my MIL is about as into this stuff as I am and unfortunately, she is about as immature as I am as well, meaning, God forbid should we be presented with something we thought was hideous during this presentation because she and I would both be in hysterics, we are the worst when it comes to laughing when we shouldn’t. So – fast forward to the night of the “party,” where we found ourselves in the living room of my GF with about a dozen other women. Also in this living room were a ton of products as well as catalogues, in case the IRL version of the product wasn’t good enough. Picture silver plated serving spoons with fake Mother of Pearl handles. Picture wrought iron serving trays with curly cue designs all over them. Picture stoneware serving pitchers in bright yellow with purple flowers all over them. Picture Corinne and Irene (MIL) kicking each other under the table and pinching each other’s legs, suppressing rude giggle fits. I seriously don’t know how these women can actually go out there and sell this stuff. Don’t get me wrong, even though I am making fun here, some of the stuff is really very nice, it’s stuff I might actually want - but I guess it is just more what the whole thing represents that bums me out. I mean, you have this “consultant” – a term I use loosely, who is demonstrating to the “audience” (read hostages) how the “All Around Serving Bowl” has 1001 uses. In my mind, the only way I can see such a thing serve 1001 uses is if you picked it up, threw it against the wall and watched it smash into 1001 pieces. I would imagine that would be quite satisfying. So this consultant takes this glass bowl, sticks some of that creepy green florist foam in the bowl, then jams three candles (one red, one white, one green – how charming) into the foam. She then proceeds to empty out into this same bowl, a whole bag full of that nasty, plastic looking Easter basket grass that gets all over the carpet and that you still find remnants of in your house for the next 10 years. Except this plastic grass isn’t green, but instead is the tackiest color of pearlescent white. The whole concoction was so pathetic, the attempt so lame, I just wanted to jump up and help this poor woman but I just sat back, watched the comedy unfold and prayed my MIL wouldn’t look at me and send me into hysterics. And the sad part of it all is that once you make a holiday decoration out of this bowl, all you really see is the decoration – the bowl just sort of disappears proving that you never really needed a $30 bowl in the first place and that if you just go to Target, you can accomplish the same effect by buying a basic bowl for about $20 less.
I guess my real problem with this sort of thing is I just don’t get how people can seriously sit back and sell this stuff with a straight face and a clear conscience. I feel like it’s the duping of America at its best. Again, some of it is really nice and looks wonderful but then it’s so overpriced, especially after you pay for shipping and handling, you’d be better off just hitting the TJ Maxx home goods department.
I was actually amazed at the number of women who bought cookbooks. I think it is pretty safe to say by now that I pretty much despise cooking. Just hearing the word “recipe” makes me angry, as in, “Oh Corinne – making pot roast is SO easy! I can email you the recipe!” Seriously, I’d rather receive a set of instructions on how to fashion my own noose and hang from a shower curtain rather than be subjected to all that measuring and pouring. I always laugh when people say they that if they were rich they’d have a maid. Screw the maid. Get me a cook, he’d be worth his weight in gold to me. The only purpose in me having a fancy kitchen is so that I could get off on it every time I walked into it. Actually dirtying it by frying up some greasy concoction would be more than I could stand. I say all this now but of course when the day comes that Cameron eats regular meals with us, I will be more than happy to cook. But for right now, it sucks. Now baking - THAT is a completely different story. I LOVE baking – cookies, pies, cakes, desserts – I LOVE it. Speaking of which, I am going to a cookie exchange party next week (everyone shows up with a different batch of cookies and when you leave, each person takes some from each plate and leaves with an assortment of a ton of cookies), and I need a good holiday cookie recipe. If anyone has any good ones, please post them on my board, that way we can all share. I wonder why it is that I hate cooking but love baking? What is the psychology behind that, I wonder.
Getting back to Southern Living, after I have just completely bashed the thing to bits, you will probably be shocked to know that not only did I BUY two items but I also agreed (was brainwashed) into having a Southern Living party at my house next spring. I know, I know. Me. Corinne. Hater of all salesmen and their cheesy demonstrations. But then again, look what happened to me with the Mormons. I couldn’t say no to them either. Somebody please help me. All I know is come hell or high-water, someone this Thanksgiving will be using a set of silver plated, fake Mother Of Pearl serving spoons, even if it means I have to shove it down their throat.
What Cameron’s Up To
As you know, Cameron’s surgery was cancelled due to a small cold and to date has not been rescheduled. As I am in no rush to put Cameron under anesthesia, I have no problem waiting for a rescheduling. He is perfectly healthy, his reflux is almost cured and aside from the small issue with his ear, he is extremely healthy and happy so why look for more trouble earlier than I have to?
Cameron was weighed at the doctor’s office the other day (we brought him in for an ingrown toenail) and to our great surprise, Cameron has gained 3 lbs in exactly one month. They did not measure his height but I know he has grown by the fact that his 18-24 month pants now fit perfectly. He went from being the shortest of all his little friends to being the tallest. He weighs 26 & ½ lbs and is quite solid. We are thrilled, to say the least, who would have thought, our child is not short! Not that there is anything wrong with that but what boy wants to be shorter than his mom?????
Cam’s umbilical hernia is almost gone, thank goodness. I didn’t think that thing would EVER go away. It is still there but it is much better. It has gone from the size of a large olive to a large chick pea. Clearly I won’t be satisfied until it is invisible but at least it’s not getting caught on anything anymore.
Cameron has recently developed a fascinating and endearing little skill that I will always treasure. He has discovered that if he stands on the coffee table in front of the sofa (which I am lying on) so that our bodies are perpendicular to one another, it is great fun to belly flop with his arms outstretched right onto my stomach. He doesn’t care if you are ready or not, he just does it. The first time he did it, he scared the crap out of me, not to mention took my breath away. I thought that if I just removed myself from the couch that he would stop but that only motivated him to belly flop onto the sofa itself. I often find myself wondering how in the hell he will make it to age 10. Even more astounding is how I will make it to age 35.
I don’t know WHAT to do about Cameron’s hair. Half the people we know tell us to shave it off, the other half say they’d die if we cut it. What should I do???? I mean, I’m afraid that if we cut it, it will look worse. (Not that it looks bad but it is a tad wild). I am also afraid since his hair is so straight at the roots, that if we cut it, it will have very little curl to it once it’s short. Someone told me that once you cut the hair, it will grow in thicker and stronger and all the bald patches will come in thick and evenly. So, we are tempted but scared. I don’t know why we are placing so much concern on something so superficial. Any suggestions?
Ah Uff Ooo
Cameron is talking more and more. Of course, a lot of it is still unintelligible to the untrained ear, but we clearly understand him. The other day we heard him “counting,” his Matchbox cars. From the kitchen, we could hear him in the den, “Un, oo, fee.” Like I said, no one else would be able to tell what this is, but we know from drilling it into his head. He knows two letters, he won’t say them but he will say the sound they make and he can point them out if you ask him which letters they are (A&C). He says “All done” every time we are finished bathing him, and he will say “Mmmmmm, good,” when eating, but the “d” sound is slightly dropped off the end of the word. So it’s progress. Certainly nothing out of the ordinary but thankfully, NORMAL – which is all we are striving for at this point. One of the best things we have heard him say lately is “Ah Uff Oo.” When we say I love you to Cameron, he will repeat the phrase back to us. He will never say it on his own, only in repetition, and of course, the phrase is totally garbled but we don’t care, we understand him perfectly. And even though we know he has no clue what we are saying to him, or what he is repeating back, we like to dream that he does.
A Final Word About Juice
There seems to be two schools of thought on whether or not a child should drink juice. And it seems to me that those opposed to the “demon drink” are just a tad bit over concerned with respect to the matter. I like to refer to this group as the “Juice Nazis,” and as you have already probably guessed, you can tell which group I belong to. Now this is not to say that I think kids SHOULD drink juice, I just don’t think that one should keel over and die simply because their kid managed to somehow get a sip of it. Example: I have a very good friend who is a complete stickler when it comes to juice. I love her dearly but I don’t get her reasoning at all. All she allows her 19 month old son is water and the occasional soy milk (a he is lactose intolerant). I see no problem with this whatsoever. A child doesn’t NEED juice. A sip or two seems like a refreshing treat in my opinion, but the kid surely won’t be scarred because he is unfamiliar with the joy of liquid apple. However, if he SHOULD so happen to taste it, I am quite sure that his world won’t come to a pitiful end. The other day, this GF and her son were at our house. Her son, (B) and Cameron were both drinking out of sippy cups. B had water and Cam had baby apple juice, halved with nursery water, as I always give it to him. He hardly drinks it at all anyway, he is not a big drinker, so I am not too concerned about a sugar overload. Nevertheless, my GF’s son decided he wanted what was in Cam’s sippy cup and grabbed it out of his hand. Before he could so much as bring it to his lips, my GF damn near leaped across the room in such a way that would have made an Olympic long jumper proud and ripped the cup from this child’s now parched lips. I sat back and simply said, “P – where’s the fire?” She then proceeded to tell me that she just doesn’t want B getting all hooked on juice and that if he never tastes it (completely unrealistic), he will never want it. Despite the fact that I find this to be completely insane logic, because regardless of what P thinks, one day her son WILL somehow taste juice, I said to her that in this lifetime and in our family, there are only two parents, Charles and I. And while that is the case, there will only be two people on this planet who decide what Cameron can have and can’t have. Therefore, if or when the day comes that Cameron demands juice for whatever reason, both Charles and I will have no problem telling Cameron “No – you can’t have it because 1) you have already had a glass, 2) you didn’t drink your milk, 3) you are going to rot your teeth – he can pick whatever reason he wants. But I feel fairly safe knowing that while Cam is a young child, he can’t just go out and buy juice on his own, so unless I cave, and this would surprise me, Cameron will have no more juice than I feel is necessary. Therefore, as far as I am concerned – PROBLEM SOLVED. Bottom line is I think that with respect to a child’s nutrition, there are many more important things to worry about, like what kind of FOOD our kids are eating – is it healthy? Is it full of preservatives? Is it chemical ridden? Is it pure crap? As lax as I am about the whole juice issue, you can bet your ass that Cameron will never overload on fast food, not while I am alive. It seems to me that less and less people seem to care about that but they care about this damn juice – I don’t get it! I grew up on orange juice and any juice I wanted and I never had a cavity or a weight problem, so go figure. But getting back to my GF, here is the kicker: as my GF got ready to leave that day, she told me that (once again) she is in no mood to cook dinner so instead she thought she’d just stop by MacDonald’s on the way home and get her son a Happy Meal for dinner.
I rest my case.
Recent Updates on the Web
Even though you may have already seen them, I am attaching the link to Cameron’s webpage which I updated not long ago. Go to: http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/s/swiss/
Warmly,
Corinne and Cam
Born 3-15-02
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