Monday, July 11, 2005

Another weekend blew by

Friday I started writing a long post about grocery shopping. I’ll post it soon. It’s thrilling. And you can’t wait to read it. I swear. I’ll give you a hint – have your register tapes at the ready. PLEASE.

Friday night we visited Casa de Oliver for Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit. It was a long overdue visit to their new pad. Jen was incredibly thoughtful and serenaded Patrice and I with cupcakes alight. And all the kids were incredibly fun and well behaved. Even Jon Oliver. In some sort of miracle that I can only refer to as Mark – our breeder team was victorious. I knew there was a reason we were populating the planet with our progeny.

Saturday was a wash. We didn’t go anywhere or do anything. ‘Cept of course parent our monkey.

Sunday morning Mark scolded me for not taking better care of myself. Despite feeling completely exhausted in the morning and Mark’s offer to take Noah away so I could return to dreamland – I got out of bed. And for a portion of the morning I was a zombie – coming out of my haze merely to be bitchy. Mark had a long talk with me about how if I wasn’t in tip top form that we all suffered and requested that I get better at asking for what I need from him. He’s a smart man.

In the midst of my grouchiness we scanned every room in our house and made lists of all the safety and baby-proofing concerns. The expense and the impossibility of it is what really got me miserable. With all the outlet covers, cabinet locks, furniture anchors, drawer locks, knob locks, faucet restraints and gates we’re expecting to spend about $500. INSANE. Right? And that isn’t even taking into consideration the fact that in order to properly gate our first floor steps we need a carpenter to install a banister. I’m certain that putting Noah in a cushiony hamster ball is a far better solution. More economical, easier to install, and obviously more fun. But what kills me about this baby-proofing stuff is that I can’t imagine I’ll let Noah out of my sight for long enough to even warrant most of it – but I’m paranoid that the one thing we won’t do will result in tragedy.

In the afternoon we visited with Noah’s new pal Ezra and his parents. Ezra is five months older than Noah and lives on the next block. And they both have four letter biblical names so they HAVE to be buddies. It’s written in one of those Testaments – the popular culture edition, I believe. His parents make me feel shameful. They’re former Peace Corp. members who are also artsy political activists and organic-eating, composting urban gardeners. I really admire when people put that sort of idealism into practice – but at the same time they make me feel SO inadequate because I’m obviously too clueless and lazy to be so hip and righteous. Maybe Noah can learn better values from them, especially since they’re Quakers too.

2 comments:

hazel said...

are people still quakers? I didn't know you could still be a quaker anymore. I thought those friends schools were just for pretentious snobs and the only real quakers were still chained to their oatmeal making machines, wearing powdered wigs and being secretly happy that people were once again buying knickers. shows you what I know.

I laughed at your babyproofing comments. I can't imagine you not following noah around constantly for long enough to allow him to even enter the perimeter of anything that could be remotely thought of as unsafe. maybe you can just fit yourself and him with magnets?

Katy said...

Wow, that's a lot of perfection all rolled in to one family. I suspect they're aliens sent here to find out all our deepest darkest secrets.