smacky and bucky

We had a good appointment with the cardiologist. Won't go into too much detail, but he assured us and we have a follow-up appointment in a year, so that's comforting.

The little guy loves to stand up holding on to things and he is also enjoying dancing. I played this video on my iPad over the weekend and we danced together:



The kiddo doesn't understand the lyrics, but he loves the melody and the beat! I was saddened to hear Jermaine Stewart died of AIDS, especially after he had a hit with the song promoting drinking and dancing over getting naked.

Mobile baby means baby proofing!

Not too long ago, I put three IKEA bookcases in a line on our... front porch? Sun room? Not really sure what to call it. It's a front porch that has been enclosed, so it's part of the interior of the house (insulation, AC, etc.). Yesterday I installed doors with tempered glass in them to keep the enticing items behind closed doors for a few years (until he can reach the handles). It's a lot of random junk there now (which Laura will organize as she sees fit) and I still have one more set to install, as you can see below...


...but we're making making progress. I also installed a child latch on the cabinet under the kitchen sink were we keep all the cleaners.

Good thoughts for the little guy, please. The pediatrician heard his little heart murmur (which the cardiologist said he would outgrow by one year), so we have a follow-up appointment this afternoon with the cardiologist.

We started celebrating the Father's Day weekend Saturday. Laura made me a bacon, egg, and cheese English muffin for breakfast while Henry and I watched Sesame Street (he giggles at Cookie Monster).

We went into downtown DC for lunch at Hill Country Barbecue. Man, it was good. YUM. I had beef barbecue sandwich, bourbon sweet potatoes, chipotle deviled eggs, and a black cherry soda. Laura had barbecue chicken and mac & cheese.

Then we walked to a fancy cheese shop and got three different cheeses (one aged in a cave in Switzerland for FOUR YEARS. I picture it sitting next to Nazi gold and stolen paintings. I am a child of Indiana Jones.)

Our next stop was a fancy chocolate shop where we got some fancy chocolates. One thing I got: chocolate covered applewood smoked bacon with sea salt. There's a blog post coming about that one sometime!

We headed home for a sec and then headed out on foot for the Columbia Pike Blues Festival. Holy crap, it was fun! Great music. Good beer. Lots of couples with little kids (seriously, south Arlington is jammed with couples just like us. We have to meet some of them someday!). I wore Henry in the harness carrier. I know at least one person took a photo of us, so I just need to find where they posted it.

Henry was beat after our big adventure, so he fell asleep pretty soon after we got home.

Sunday morning started in dramatic fashion. Henry projectile vomited on me and himself. He looked exhausted when it was over, then he was giddily happy. We need to figure out if he just has a virus that will pass or if he's developing acid reflux of lactose intolerance. This makes three mornings (not in a row) that he's vomited formula. But the rest of the day he drinks it and he's fine.

Laura made a big breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and eggs.

I had a list of items I needed to pick up and decided to take the kid on a Target run. Well, as soon as I lifted him out of his car seat (sorry, this is going to be graphic, so skip to the next paragraph if you're easily disgusted!) poop was running down his leg and covering his foot. WTF. It took quite a while to clean him up (and I considered just throwing the clothes away!) Luckily we keep a change of clothes in his diaper bag. But I had to walk around Target with some of his poop on my shorts. CLASSY! So, for the record, on my first Father's Day, the boy vomited and pooped on me. Makes me think it's more virus than anything else.

The kid and L have been napping the last two hours. I installed an IKEA cabinet in the bathroom. Did you know that the wall in our bathroom isn't flush? It BOWS. Makes it very interesting to install a cabinet when it won't rest flush with the wall. Oh well, the house is 77 years old.

We'll be having a private happy hour later with fancy cheeses and a little wine, then I'll be grilling two filets Laura picked up while she makes spinach and parsnips. YUM!

Vomit and poop aside, a pretty wonderful weekend.
Seriously, how the hell did I help make something so freaking awesome? I'm convinced my brain releases endorphins when I see him, because he just makes me smile so much.

This morning the boy awoke at 5am and was content to stare at me for 30 minutes before deciding he had had enough and it was time to get up. Just as I got to a standing position, he projectile vomited formula on me, again, and again, and again. I carried him to the bathroom to grab a towel and stared at us in the mirror. I had to laugh. We were both covered in white vomit. He had even gotten it on my chin, making it look like I had in fact vomited on him. He too looked in the mirror and smiled. At that age, post-vomit is about the happiest time of your life because all you know is that you feel better.

And that's how my day began.

Oh, did I mention that a colleague retired last week, and finally, after more than eight years, I will be getting her office. The big office with a wall of three windows. I'll post pics when the move is complete. Here's what it feels like:



I love this song. Probably my favorite song of an artist with MANY songs I love.

Yesterday, around 2pm, our boy started crawling. After weeks of only going backward, it just clicked in his head what he has to do. And suddenly, the world has opened up to him. Things catch his eye and he heads straight toward them. Suddenly, his two baskets of toys hold little interest compared to mom's purse across the room.

Now, it starts to get interesting...

This is post #1,230, by the way. Nice number for a monumental (in our house) event.

I received a call on my cell phone at 10pm last night from a number (and area code) I didn't recognize. I reluctantly answered and was surprised to discover it was a friend of mine from Peace Corps. He was calling from a hotel in South Dakota (traveling for business). He said he didn't want to tell me this in a Facebook message so he was calling. I tensed up, wondering what the heck he was talking about.

Well, he told me quite a story. He discovered a few months ago that his wife was having an "online affair" (what exactly that means I can only speculate. I certainly didn't ask for details!). It had been going on for NINE months. Whatever an "online affair" entails, it's serious enough that they're in counseling and she said she wasn't sure she still loved him. (They have two kids, by the way, ages 6 and 4).

The kicker? The reason he was calling me? The "other guy" in question was my college roommate senior year! My Peace Corps friend's wife "met" him through me via Facebook. I've seen the college roommate once since graduation (17 years ago!) yet I was the conduit to this thing. I feel a bit guilty, like I brought a sexual predator to a party without realizing it.

I "defriended" the college friend after the phone call, because damn, if I'm gonna take sides, I gotta side with the married father and not the "other guy."

None of the people in this have met each other in person, and likely never would (unless the online affair had somehow become a physical one, which seems unlikely, as she lives in South Dakota and he lives in NYC, but the heart is not rational, so of course that could have eventually happened.)

I feel like I'm on the fringe of a crazy Jerry Springer episode.

This is going to be a busy weekend. We have L's stepfather's SUV (since he and L's mom are traveling across the country in a rental car) and we have it FULL of stuff we are going to attempt to sell at the Arlington Flea Market tomorrow morning (7am-1:30pm). We'll have toys (still in the packages!), books on a variety of subjects, household items, and other odd knickknacks you know you want. If you're in the area, stop by, say hi, and buy something!

Anything that doesn't sell will likely go to Goodwill, rather than being brought back into the house.

If it's a success, we might do the next one in July too (it's the first Saturday of each month, from April to November, and over 1,500 people usually show up to browse and buy. COME BUY OUR GREAT JUNK!

:-)

After all that, we have a few hours rest and then a cookout a couple is hosting. It's one of Laura's knitting group friends. She told me one of the girls in the group "has a husband like you." So, he's awesome? Or a sci-fi geek? I guess we'll see if I make a new friend or walk out of there feeling terribly offended by the comparison.