Metal Meredith

My grandfather asked my sister to get him a Halloween costume for this year. He admitted that he couldn’t remember the last time he dressed up. Why at 85 he decided he needed to is beyond us, but it was very cute.

Here are some photos of Henry and my grandpa in their matching outfits.

As I watched your brother tonight, splashing wildly in the tub as you recoiled for fear of getting a drop or two splashed on your precious face, I had to wonder what it is that made you that way?

Is it the fact that you are the first child? When you were born, neither your father nor I had any idea what we were doing. I read a bunch of books. I followed along on various web sites and message boards. I talked with other moms. I knew that you were our ‘experiment’ as far as our child rearing goes. But we really did do the best with what we had and knew. It is pretty amazing that even me, the queen of research could not prepare for you.

Did we protect you too much? Should have I allowed you to fall on your head a few more times? You just seemed so hell bent on cracking your chin on every surface when you started to pull up. Honestly, I just didn’t want to hear you cry. It was a scream that shot straight into the most deeply buried nerve in my brain and plucked it to no end. I know, it certainly didn’t help that the Zoloft was just kicking in, huh?

Speaking of crying, should we have let you cry some more at night? Your Dad had such a hard time hearing you cry that we both got used to rocking you to sleep. Every nap and each night one of us could be found in the rocking chair in your room until you fell asleep. Then, we had a precise and exact method to get off the chair, lay you down into the crib, slowly remove our arms from underneath you. Then we would pull up the sides of the crib and tip-toe out of the room. That darn floor creaked something awful. I remember sticking my arm out the door trying to sign language to Dad to turn off the hall light so I could escape.

I am not sure if it is the testosterone, the second child syndrome or his personality, but Henry is constantly toppling over with no tears. He just pops back up and moves along. He hardly cries when put in his bed. He doesn’t even WANT to be rocked to sleep, much less rocked at all when he is ready to be in his crib. Sure, he cries if I walk away. Honestly, after the last few years of you considering Dad some sort of hero, I think it is kind of sweet.

So tell me, at what point do I start blaming myself for you being so terribly whiny? Do I really have to wait for a shrink to tell you that it was ‘all your mother’s fault’ before we have a definitive answer? Until then, can you try to suck it up a little? Thanks.

Vivienne was either an easy baby or a horrible sleeper. I don’t remember the early time changes at all with her. I think maybe one time I was awake pretty early with her, thinking it was 6am and it was really 5.

This year, not sure why, both Vivienne and Henry are just killing me with the time change. Henry, my normally easy sleeper, is back to taking 3 naps a day while his body adjusts. Vivienne woke up at 615am the first day of the time change. We tried our best to keep her up last night, an hour past her normal bedtime (at 730pm) in order to trick her body back into the regular schedule. When she got up at the crack o’ dawn on Sunday morning, she told me to “Just go back to sleep in her room” while she watched tv in my bed with Phil ignorantly snoring away next to her.

Instead, since I was so unbelievably annoyed that I was awake so early, I just went downstairs and read some emails, made coffee and watched some Tivo until Henry woke up.

At one point, Vivienne came downstairs and asked why I wasn’t sleeping. It took all of my restraint not to throw the computer at her head. 

Like I have mentioned before, I am on a message board with 50 other women. We became friends on one of those public baby sites where all of our kids were born in June of 2003. After all hell broke loose, we decided to take our little circle of people and go private.

Every year for the past four, we have done a swap during the holiday season. We do not allow gifts for the kids, because we figure kids get enough crap. We just do one for each other. This year is no different.

I enjoy setting these things up. I like the work of hashing out a plan, setting up a time line and instructions and making it all happen. Sometimes without errors, most of the time with a few, it call comes together and I get to enjoy the Thank You posts on the board with photos of what people have received.

I am selfish in the fact that I like who people swap with to be a secret. I like to buy for one person and receive from another. It is always more fun to not know who might be shopping with you in mind. To get that present on the doorstep and have no idea what might be inside is pretty cool. I have also been lucky enough to swap with my friend in New Zealand two times now. Nothing is more fun than getting items that can’t be found at my local Target. I love to buy local for gifts that are being sent away.

This post really has no other function than to show you what a freak I am when it comes to organizing this thing. Everyone thanks me and says it is ‘such a big job’, but I just love it. I have a system that changes yearly. Allowing myself to become completely focused on creating an even exchange list lets me get away from the every day life that is my family and house.

I believe that I have a sickness. I have always enjoyed ‘busy work’ and puzzles. This is just the best of those worlds, combined. Perhaps I have a future in party planning or corporate contact organization.