Keeghan: (opens mouth as though to bite my finger)
Me: no. No bite. Mommy is not a food.
Keeghan: (tries again, with dimples)
Me: no, no. No bite.
Keeghan: (laughs, tries again)
Me: (straight faced, with more emphasis) NO. No bite. Do I look like I am laughing?
Keeghan: Yes.
A certain sneaky baby thinks I don’t know he can walk. All afternoon, I’d say “you know I can see you, right?” and he’d give me a sweet, innocent little face and get down on all fours. then, the minute he thought I wasn’t looking, HE WOULD DO IT AGAIN.
Sly, sneaky baby.
In one of our moments of random family geekiness, we were looking up music trivia before 7 am today. Specifically, The Zombies and The Kinks.
Ian: Mommy, Keeghan is a Zombie Baby. Why is he a zombie?
Me: Well, he’s very tired, and he’s making a zombie face.
Michael: Yeah, he’s hungry for our brains.
Ian: I’m the one who attacks the Zombie Baby. AND RIDES ON HIM.
Me: I don’t think you can actually ride your brother.
Keeghan: MMMMMMMMMMMMM!
So, once Mommy Raccoon and her two Bitty Raccoons had decamped, my husband stuck his head into the cubby to investigate.
007: Hey, I can see daylight!
Me: What?!!?!
007: Come and look.
There is a chimney flue going up behind what we thought was a storage nook. We’ve lived here five years and never guessed.
The next time someone said they had a surprise for me, this happened:
Michael heard squeaking behind the shelves on the back porch and concluded we had squirrels getting in somehow. So, he pulled the shelves out, and promptly came face to face with a mother raccoon and her two babies.
He looked at her. She looked at him. There was profanity. Doors were slammed. And then I ran out the front door to go around the house and observe from the yard. When I got there, she was on her hind legs with one of the kits in her mouth. She spared me just enough of a backward glance for me to see that, then scrambled up into the attic.
I took advantage if her absence to sneak a peek at her other baby. This is as close as I ever want to get to a wild mama and her babies. His eyes aren’t open yet. I give it about 20 minutes before Ian draws the obvious parallel and names these guys Mommy Raccoon, Ian Raccoon, and Keeghan Raccoon.
When one thinks of one’s “Great Grandmother,” I suppose one naturally tends to think of her as having been elegant. And refined. You know, “old fashioned.” And perhaps a bit… stuffy. I should know better. We are talking, after all, about the woman who raised the Wise and Wonderful Betty Gray. Who raised my father. Who… well, you see where this is going, right? The family Zydeco Dance Band had to come from SOMEWHERE. (What’s our Family Zydeco Dance band? Three dudes, a cowbell, and a kazoo. Need I say more?)
Thanks to my dad and my uncle, Barry, I can tell you that THIS is what I should be thinking of when I think “Great Grandmother.”
Maybe it’s a fluke. Ok. Here she is with my great grandfather:
Oh dear. Well, perhaps she talked him into it. Surely he was occasionally dry and refined.
Or not. I bet they had a family Zydeco Dance band, too. Although they had three daughters, so I suppose they’d have to have been Dudettes.
Total mileage this morning: 1.23 miles
My three Thugs. (Nobody shot them, so it’s ok.)
Self Portrait
This one only wants to eat things he can bite now. He’s getting pretty good, too. Hide your crackers. They aren’t safe.
Total miles today. 4.3!
Ian was so tired that he barely protested getting ready for bed at 4:30. But when he woke up hungry a few hours later, we decided to make the best of it.
Upon picking your baby up from his crib and unsnapping his overalls, to say, “WHERE IS YOUR DIAPER?” then you already fully appreciate the poop-laden horror of the next few minutes.
If you have not, then words will not suffice. Let me just relate that when Keeghan stood, naked, in the tub, screaming ” I DIRTY I DIRTY I DIRTY,” He Had Never Been More Right.
You may now resume your regularly scheduled nap time.
We have all these studies now showing that “unstructured time” is so wonderful for children.
Nobody EVER tried to say it does the parents a lick of good.