What he missed - November 2006.

Do you know Dooce? It is a fabulous blog authored by Heather B. Armstrong. One of the highlights for me is the newsletter, a chronicle/love letter to the author's daughter. These newsletters are both poignant and pee-in-your-pants-funny. I think anyone who is a parent can relate to Heather's adventures in Mommyhood. But a small disclaimer: they are not for the faint of heart. I'm a cast-iron bitch and I've found myself tearing up a time or two during the reading of them.

Taking a page from Dooce's blog, I've decided to start my own newsletter of a sort. Not a month to month one like Heather's (I'm not that much of a copycat, plus I just don't have her energy) but a letter to my husband that documents what Munchkin adventures he missed while away. This will be the first one.

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Dear CPT Dick,

This was a small absence, only three weeks with the gift of a weekend here at home, but you still missed some great stuff. The Munchkin continues to be adorable but his nudist tendencies are increasing. Whereas before his pants would fall down just because his little old man butt was too small to keep them up, he has now figured out how to pull them down himself. As such, our daily battle to get dressed has been taken to a whole new level. I pull his pants up only to have him pull them down. And we continue this dance of power until I manage to roll down the waistband in such a way that he can't figure out how to pull them down (and I fear that I am cutting off all circulation to his lower extremities). It's exhausting. He's also started taking his pants off at school. Just nonchalantly stepping out of them on his way to the swings or the slide. And of course, they don't stay on long here at home either with Munchkin generally opting to take them off when company comes to call. What can I say? Our son is an exhibitionist.

Last night, we hit a major milestone. It was *officially* the thousandth reading of "A Monster at the End of This Book." You may think I exaggerate but I do not. I've been counting. I've read that book so many times now that I can say it in my sleep. I've read it so many times that I just keep reciting the lines even when the Munchkin gets impatient and pages ahead to the climactic ending. Note: We really need to get some new books. I feel like Drew Barrymore's family in "50 First Dates" after each viewing of "The Sixth Sense."

But when we do get those books, we need to make sure that they have Sesame Street characters in them. Because even though we don't have television and we've tried so hard to monitor what Munchkin watches, he shows a decided preference for any muppet. He stares intently at any book, DVD cover, or toy representing his Sesame Street crew. Hell, he'll even sit still while I change his diaper now provided I give him a Pampers diaper to examine first. This, my dear, is why I insist on going to the grocery store alone. I fear that if I bring him with me now, the only food I will end up buying will be co-branded with the Jim Henson company. And man can not live on Grover granola bars and Cookie Monster cereal alone. At least, I don't think he can. In any case, I don't want to find out.

This week Munchkin also took his first trip to the toy store as a non-sleeping infant. I could actually see the sugar plums dancing in his head as he took in all the cars, blocks and balls. I had him safely strapped into a shopping cart, even though I was there for just a small item, to avoid any possible mutiny. But it was absolutely amazing to watch him as we rolled through. I wonder if that brightly colored toy wonderland is the stuff of which his dreams are made. And then I have to wonder how long it will be before the dreams switch to scantily clad girls because our son, CPT Dick, is growing up so damn fast. I don't know when he became a little boy exactly but I do know that each day there are fewer and fewer reminders of the baby he once was. And even though I didn't exactly dig the baby stage, I find myself missing him sweet and needy and so cuddlicious. And yes, I'll admit it, immobile.

As an extra reminder never to leave the boy alone in the bath, he learned to turn on the faucet while you were away. Apparently, he finds this control (and the potential to fatally scald himself) hilarious. I'm desperately searching for some kind of baby-proofing device that can (a) work with our wonky faucet and (b) that I can figure out how to install. So far, I've only come up with duct tape and, as we already know, that is no deterrent for our little Einstein.

Munchkin is still addicted to DVD watching. He continually brings me DVDs (Sesame Street, what else?) to put in the player and when I tell him, "No, we're not watching any TV, sweetie", he breaks the cases open seagull-style on the floor. He can open the entertainment center door, press the eject button and place the DVD in the player itself, but like most of our guests, he can't figure out how the hell we wired up the TV to the DVD player and is quite frustrated when it won't play. But when it does play, he will sit still for half an hour, sometimes longer, and just watch those muppets. When he does get up, it is to dance his little white man's overbite to the songs that I now have memorized and find myself singing in the shower. I'm not sure whether this obsession with Sesame Street, and the things that he's learned to further it, are a sign that we are good or bad parents. Time will tell, I suppose.

And to close, yes, you won the contest. He said "Dada" first (but as I tried to show you in the development books, that sound is easier for babies to make). But now he says "Mama" and means it. Despite the fact that he is still waking up at the crack of dawn, he now wakes up calmly, calling "Mama?" louder and louder until I come to get him. And when I lift him out of his crib, he smiles so big and hugs me with both arms. It makes waking up at 5:30am not only bearable but beautiful. And for a moment, just a moment, in that pre-dawn light I can pretend that my Munchkin hasn't already morphed from a baby into a little boy.

Come home soon, CPT Dick. He's going to be all grown up before you know it.

Love,
Me

Things I did (and did not do) this week.

CPT Dick will return from his field problem today. When I last spoke with him, he was in a foul mood. When I suggested that he park his 'tude before walking in the door tonight, he said, "You don't know how bad this sucks. What have you done all week?"

And instead of starting an argument, I decided to chronicle what I did, indeed, accomplish this week in my husband's absence. You see, I've decided that men are just innately wired to believe that women who stay/work at home eat bon bons and nap while their children run amok. And that's understandable, I suppose, as that's just what CPT Dick does when he's home and in charge of the boy. So for the record:

• I cleaned the house. And I mean, cleaned it. I mopped floors, decontaminated the bathrooms, filed, tidied, swiffered, dusted and scrubbed. (DISCLAIMER: This might not be obvious to the casual observer since I live with Munchkin the Destructor who, like his Daddy, considers a clean room to be a challenge).
• I finished two articles, lined up another one, sold an essay and started writing down some ideas for new essays.
• Ran 13 miles (divided up into 3 separate runs).
• Documented my angst here.
• Laundry, laundry and more laundry.
• Hosted the Developmental Nazis.
• Finished Christopher Priest's "The Prestige," which was pretty good.
• Attended three mandatory fun events to represent my wayward husband.
• Started (and finished) my Christmas shopping.
• And most importantly, I played with my son and saved him countless times from mortal peril. And there was *a lot* of cuddling, too. Can't forget that part.

And what I did not have to do this week:

• Run to the store in the middle of the night because my husband finished the the Munchkin's whole milk, ignoring the skim milk that he insisted I buy standing right next to it.
• Chisel dried batter from the kitchen cabinet doors because CPT Dick decided that some midnight brownies were in order.
• Find empty boxes of vanilla wafers in the pantry. (Can anyone explain this baffling behavior? When the boxes are full, CPT Dick refuses to put them away. But when they are empty, back in the pantry they go! And it's not like it's closer than the trash can. Totally flummoxes me).
• Wake up in the middle of the night and repeatedly punch my husband until he rolls over and I can get some covers back.
• Smell CPT Dick's nasty ass running shoes. I'm not sure if he let a cat piss on them or his feet create non-regulated toxic waste when he runs, but you can smell those suckers two floors away.

But despite all that, it will be nice to see him tonight.

Until, at least, he throws all his nasty battle rattle on the foyer floor and I'm left wondering how the hell he got so dirty during a computer-based training exercise.

My husband only washes his hockey shirts and all ring tones are irritating.

Sing it, my sisters and brothers. Sing it!

The Helsinki Complaints Choir

What constitutes breaking news these days.

With a war on several fronts, a new Democrat majority in the Senate and Congress, Blair saying something about an Iraq "disaster," and most importantly, the Michigan/Ohio State game today, CNN's breaking news banner says this:

NEWS ALERT: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have wed, People magazine reports.

Let me tell you, it's times like these that I am most proud to be an American.

Buyer's Remorse.

"My husband says that if I buy any more Pampered Chef stuff, he expects me to actually start cooking."

Declined E-vite to a Pampered Chef party.

The gift that keeps on giving.

For Christmas, we bought my in-laws airline tickets to come visit us. They haven't seen the Munchkin in a good long while (read: years) and we figured that it would be nice.

Scratch that. CPT Dick thought it would be nice. He must have because he made those plans (and promised his parents those tickets) without consulting me first. I'm not even going to continue talking about that because between the audacity and the cost I think my head might explode if I tried.

The reason the outlaws have not seen their grandson is such a long while is because of a spat that my mother-in-law and I had during their last visit. It was only a few weeks after my son's birth and I was sleep-deprived, cranky and scared shitless that the authorities would realize their error in allowing me take home a real live baby and come looking for him. I guess I snapped at my MIL once or twice -- although, I don't think I did anything but snap at people when I wasn't practicing motherese with the baby -- and she decided the appropriate course of action was to leave early without bothering to kiss her grandson goodbye. She wouldn't even look at him. It was a horrible incident and I'm trying hard to get over it. So far, I'm not all that successful.

Since then, our phone rapport has, over time, gotten better. Everyone else likes to pretend nothing happened. And so we (well, CPT Dick) made these plans.

Fast forward a few weeks. Of course, now it looks like CPT Dick will be off training when they come. The idea of being on my own with them is vexing me something fierce. My son is now old enough to understand what's going on and I'm not sure if I could handle another scene like the last one. But I suppose what's done is done and I have to make the best of it.

It is amazing how many facets of my life involve having to make the best of it. Got to love life with a military man.

The luck of the potluck.

Of course, if you invited me to join your potluck, you may not be so lucky.

In the military, almost every event is an occasion for a potluck. After a while, it really sort of gets on my nerves. I'm the kind of person who realizes around 4:15pm each day that, oh yeah, I have to actually cook something for dinner. People are depending on me -- me, of all people! -- to eat. And sad to say, I usually realize this only after my son starts to get cranky and starts rummaging through the pantry. As he starts upending random boxes in his foraging attempts, I rush to figure out what kind of meal one can exactly make from the groceries that are in my house. The other night, I had to make magic with some farfalle, a package of frozen peas, sour cream and a lime. The meal wasn't horrible but it's hard to think ill of any food that is immediately followed by vanilla wafers for dessert.

So if I get this discombobulated about just making dinner for my family just imagine how I get when I have to make a dish for 50+ people. One, since I didn't register for my wedding, I don't have any actual dishes that are (a) pretty or (b) big enough to serve in public. And two, I usually don't remember that I have to bring something to the potluck until, oh, about an hour before I actually have to be there, which sort of limits my options.

Last night, I somehow managed to make some macaroni and cheese to take with me to a farewell potluck. The sauce was homemade, following the recipe as much as I could with what I had (numerous substitutions were made), but the noodles, well, let's just say they were not the real deal. With no type of *real* pasta in the house, I just opened up 4 boxes of Kraft's The Cheesiest and stole the noodles for my own ends. I can't quite figure out if this constitutes cheating or sheer brilliance. When I finished the mac and cheese, I searched high and low for an appropriately sized container to place it in. The only thing that jumped out at me was my son's sand bucket. It's got side handles and a lovely raised shell pattern on the sides. And I figured if I was stooping that low, I might as well just use the matching shovel as a serving spoon.

So, yes, I'm not proud but I took my ghetto mac and cheese to this dinner in a sand bucket and served it with a kiddie shovel. Hey, at least I cleaned it thoroughly first.

And you know what? People loved it. They thought it was so cute. And I don't think they were lying either. My desperation somehow resulted in my looking crafty, as if I had put a lot of forethought into my dish and its presentation. I was floored.

Now I just have to figure out how many times I can repeat this performance before I'm found out.

My boy's one fart smeller.

In the bath tonight, the Munchkin was idly splashing in the tub when he farted. It was an impressive emission, the kind of fart that would have received some serious laughter and high fives if it had occurred in a room full of guys drinking beer or in a Farrelly Brothers movie. Surprisingly, I didn't laugh. Not because I'm the kind of girl who doesn't like a good fart but more because I was sort of stunned by the loudness and length of it. I began to wonder how I missed the trumpet Munchkin had stuck in his butt when I washed him only moments earlier. And somehow, the water had not muffled the roar of his gas but amplified it so it echoed in the tiled acoustics of our bathroom.

But to sweeten the deal for the Munchkin, it created all kinds of bubbles. So many that after fart had left his tiny little body, he stood up suddenly and proceeded to bend over to try to look at his own butt. It is fair to say that he did not succeed but he did stretch much further than I would have estimated in the trying. Once he raised himself back up, not finding anything different about his booty, he looked up at me with an expression of such joy and wonder. I imagine that he was just marvelling that his body could create such magic.

No doubt about it, my boy definitely takes after his father.

And McCain throws his hat in the ring.

I should probably state upfront that, historically, I vote democrat. Given my husband's career, this has gotten a lot of laughs and a fair amount of heckling. To be fair, I've only been able to vote in a handful of elections so far, and with the exception of a ballot for Harry Browne in 2000, I have happily checked boxes next to the names of Clinton and Kerry.

I would argue that I am a fiscal republican and a social democrat. I understand that it is a paradoxical thing to be but that's just where I am these days. And as for morals, well, I just think they are a bit to slippery to even attempt to legislate. CPT Dick believes that I will become more conservative over time and though I can see a bit of that, I don't think it's in the way that he thinks. Because the only place in which I want to draw lines about how people conduct themselves is in terms of personal and fiscal responsibility. And slowly but surely, I'm beginning to believe the possiblity of legislating common sense is about as likely as Nancy Reagan coming out as a cokehead.

But let's go back to the election in 2000. Sure, when you mention it, everyone gets all fired up one way or another. It's the "stolen" election or the election that showed that Joe America cares about strong moral and family values (which don't include, apparently, oral sex from interns). But for me, that election is all about dirty pool. It is the election in which I might very well have voted Republican, if the GOP had the sense enough to put John McCain on the ticket. But they did not because a political mastermind named Karl Rove twisted both the history and the words of Senator McCain to make him seem weak, immoral and psychologically unsound. It was a disgusting display of negative campaigning and I was very sad to see that the majority of Republicans were stupid enough to fall for it.

But I am hopeful that the very attributes that were used against McCain in 2000 may be the ones that get him the recognition he deserves this time around. During a time of war, would it not be in America's best interest to have a leader who has actually fought for his country? When we are so carefully walking a line between intelligence gathering and torture, do we need the input of "echelons above reality" staff or someone who can speak to the experience of both a prisoner and a serviceman?

Will I vote for him in 2008? I do believe that Senator McCain is the kind of leader that this country needs. I think he is honest, forthright and an outstanding public servant. He is the kind of politician who doesn't make you feel dirty, who you really feel is working for the best interests of our country instead of the best interests of himself, his family and his business cronies. But he is also a staunch conservative who is against legalized abortion. That is a tough one for me. Though he has publicly stated that a constitutional ban on gay marriage is "un-Republican" and is working with Ted Kennedy of all people on guest worker legislation for immigrants, he is not a "soft" Republican and anyone who thinks otherwise is dead wrong.

A while back, a friend of mine went to hear McCain speak during his book tour. She, like many, wondered if perhaps McCain was more of a Republican in name only. She saw many democrats and independents in the audience that day probably wondering, like her, if the Senator from Arizona might be the kind of candidate they could get behind. But McCain opened his speech with the following line:

"Make no mistake about it. I am a conservative Republican."

So can I, in good conscience, vote for McCain? I can't rightly say. But his ability to be so forthright when he's just warming up the crowd for 2008 has got my attention.

So Senator McCain, I'm listening. Let's see what you have to say.

The future of Donald Rumsfeld.

I hate to say it but I'm a little worried about what's going to happen to Don Rumsfeld. Given that just a few days before the election, President Bush was saying that ol' Rummy would remain Secretary of Defense until the end of his term, I doubt that Don's resume was in order. What, oh what, will become of Rumsfeld? As he considers his next move, I have a few career suggestions based on some of his more famous (and fabulous) quotes.

• Fortune Teller. "I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."
• Professional Tracker. "We know where [the WMDs] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
• Grief Counselor. "Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."
• Communications Consultant. "I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said." And my favorite Rummy quote, "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."
• Literature Professor. "Well, um, you know, something's neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so, I suppose, as Shakespeare said."
• Venture Capitalist or Government Contractor. "I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty."
• Geographer. "You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe."

Whatever he decides to do next, I wish the man luck. I'm not sure he'll be missed.