The Pulp of the matter

We call Ray the pulper. He loves table food. And by that I mean that he loves not baby food but food you wouldn’t normally give to infants. He puts it in his mouth mashes it up, moves it around with his tongue and spits it out. He does not swallow. So at the end of normal meal Ray is covered in a plethora of slimy gummed pieces of cheese stick, banana, pretzels, veggie booty, fruit leather, apples, oranges, etc. It’s actually pretty nasty to clean him up. And the baby food – bah. He’ll eat a few spoonfuls of fruit but he could take it or leave it.

Ray loves to stand. He’s in love with anything that is the perfect height to hold on to. Like the dishwasher. He could stand all day at the open dishwasher pulling silverware out and tossing it to the floor. It’s making Mark’s job very hard. He also adores the tub. Not just the water, which he really adores, but also standing at the side of the big tub. Leaning over, trying to throw himself in. And he’s climbing stairs. May the Gods help us. We haven’t gated. Our house has hard to gate areas that may never be gated. I guess we better keep our eyes on him.

And once again Noah is all about the egg hunting. I am not exaggerating when I tell you we have about 20 a day. He hides the eggs while I pretend to sleep, then after I seek we switch. We’ve also begun putting little toys in the plastic eggs so that we can surprise each other with our bounty. The funniest thing is that Noah will just show me where he has hidden the eggs if I hesitate even a moment. Unless of course he forgets where one is and then he tells me he was being “tricky” while we look together.

Tonight I went out with the girls. I agonized about it for a week. What would I wear – and the answer was nothing of interest. I decided in the end not trying was better than trying and failing miserably. What would happen if I was away and they needed me? Amazingly enough no one self destructed despite bedtime issues. Mark handled everything quite admirably. Especially for someone who doesn’t get enough credit. It was nice to be out. It helped to alleviate some stress. At least some of the stress I was feeling about going out. And I was only a little heartbroken when Mark told me that before Noah fell asleep he asked “Why do those three people not want Mama to bring me?”

Noah is downright obsessed with The Backyardigans. We bought one of the discs last year and listened to it quite a bit and Mark bought Noah a new one a couple of weeks ago. Oddly enough we were more familiar with the music than the actual show. So as Noah is now watching the episodes he gets super excited when he recognizes the songs. He is also constantly talking about the cast. He refers to them as Pablo, Uniqua, Tascha, the Moose and Austin the Kangaroo. And he’s constantly amazed that not every character is in every episode. After he watches one he tells me who was there and who wasn’t and then guesses that maybe Austin was out shopping with his Mama. I’m pretty sure I have the bulk of the songs memorized and that I also hear Backyardigans songs in my dreams.

We’re finally getting out more. SPRING IS COMING! I have plans to do something with the boys everyday between now and next Friday. Tomorrow Noah’s class is having a rollerskating party. I bought him trainer inline skates today. He needs a lot more practice. I guess tomorrow I’m going to be hauling him around the rink in my sneakers, with a baby who is missing his naptime strapped to me of course. It should make for an interesting two hours.