What I need is two extra lights on the back of my car. The first one would be a super super bright strobe that I would turn on whenever people tailgate me. I never got the whole road rage thing until I had kids in the back of my car. Now when people follow too close, I’m flooded with all these horrible neurotic thoughts. What if I have to slam on my brakes for some reason, and they hit me with the kids in the car? Won’t my kids be hurt when they grow up motherless because I’m in jail for beating that other driver to death with an Evenflo fold-n-go stroller and the other kids at school pick on them and say “Haha, your mama’s a jailbird” and they have to clarify that no, actually, a jailbird is someone who goes to jail and then gets out and my mom won’t be released for several more years?

So I think a strobe light or something would be good.

The other light would look sort of like those stylish 80s “Baby on Board” signs, except mine would say “Screaming, horrible baby on board.” I swear I wouldn’t abuse it, I’d only light up the sign when Graham was crying. Which, really it needs to light up in the front too, or maybe – I’m just brainstorming here – the whole car could somehow light up with like a flashing red and white light. It would help to notify other drivers that they really should get the motherfucking fuck out of my way because oh my god, the noise. The light would warn oncoming traffic that I am probably going to run that yellow light even though in our county they shoot people for running yellow lights, but see with my system it would be okay and they wouldn’t shoot you for running a yellow if your screaming baby on board light was on.

It would help let people know that they should really let me over, or not tailgate me right now because I really don’t need the extra stress, or to hurry up with my goddamned food already. What, you think a crying baby is enough to stop me from driving through Taco Bueno? Addictions are tragic, the way they can tear a family apart. At the very least, any time you saw a car flashing it’s “horrible baby” light, you’d know to feel some sympathy in your heart for those people. Sort of like when you see an ambulance fly past you, but better because you wouldn’t have to face your own mortality or anything.

Today we were on the way home from picking Nicolaus up at preschool. Graham started crying because he was tired and because sometimes babies just need to express some things. Nicolaus said something from the backseat.

“What? Nicolaus, I’m sorry sweetie you have to talk really loud – I can’t hear you.”

“I said, Graham is crying!”

“I know he is…”

“And why IS he?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll be home soon.” I looked in the rearview mirror and added – because I love fighting pointless battles that I can never win, “Please get your finger out of your nose.”

The baby wailed like a siren, and Nicolaus said something else I couldn’t make out. I repeated that we would be home soon as I stepped on the gas to run a yellow light.

“Mama!” Nicolaus was sounding really stressed now, “Graham is just – he’s still crying. He’s so upset.”

“I know! We’re almost there I promise.”

And then the baby stopped crying. The sun came out and all the birds in the world spread their beautiful wings. It was like – like a miracle. Not a regular miracle, it was like one of those Christmas miracles they show on television. I could hear the radio. I could hear the tires on the road. I could hear my will to live another minute on this planet. Praise the sky, my baby fell asleep.

And then I heard him cough. And gag a little.

“Nicolaus, is Graham okay?”

“Oh yep, he’s okay.”

“Did he have his fingers in his mouth?”

“No. I just – I just let him chew on my fingers. So he would stop crying.”

Points awarded for thinking of a way to make the noise stop: 20
Points deducted for gagging the baby with your fingers: 15
Points deducted for how gross: 35
Points awarded for taking your finger out of your nose for three whole minutes: 10
Final score: -20

I’m a terrible parent. Almost exactly a year ago I bought a baby book for Graham. He’s five months old now, and I haven’t touched it since he was born. I’m sorry, Graham. I suck at things. I started to put your exact age in the title of this entry but then I was like wait – how many weeks has it been? October, November, December, January, February… it’s a short month… crap if I know.

But if it makes you feel any better, the reason I didn’t go look it up on a calendar is that you’re laying on top of your daddy right now and I’m on the couch with you guys. I don’t want to disturb you. Yeah, there’s a calendar on my computer somewhere, but you know, the number of weeks doesn’t really matter that much. If you want, you can grow up to be one of those really uptight people who wears a watch and carries a datebook and always knows what day it is. Just to compensate for the horribly free-floating days of your childhood.

Anyway, please don’t be mad… I haven’t taken the time to sit down and write all of those glorious details in your baby book because you are so insanely lovable that I spend all of my free time squishing you. I’m completely overwhelmed by you. I love you, as your grandmother would say, to pieces. To pieces that I then reassemble just so I can squeeze you and love you to pieces again. It’s like a big intriguing puzzle of cute, where all the pieces are cute and the whole thing put together is so painfully awesome that I can’t leave it alone. Look for yourself:

A few weeks ago you discovered three things…
1. Your hands. We never got to witness the moment where Nicolaus discovered his hands. I think he might have been born knowing he had hands. Or he discovered them in private, during that one fifteen minute nap he took in May of 2003. But you, you love your hands. You prefer them to any toy. You hold them up and twist them and gurgle your secrets to them. And if they threaten to blab, you punish them by shoving them in your mouth.

2. Your feet. The first time you noticed your feet, you were propped up on the couch. You looked down, and holy shit! FEET! You wiggled your toes in amazement.
A few minutes later you started crying – still staring at your feet – and Nicolaus rushed over. “Awww,” he told me, “Graham’s crying because he doesn’t like himself.”
I don’t know why you were crying, but since that moment you’ve been in a whirlwind romance love affair with your feet. You even do that stereotypical baby thing of laying on your back and holding your toes. How do we have wars and suffering and other bullshit happening all over this planet? Babies hold their feet! Maybe these people, they do not realize that babies hold their feet. Because if they realized, surely they wouldn’t have time for all that evil stuff. I barely have time to shower once a week for all the looking at baby feet holding.

3. Your brother. Well, you noticed him a long time ago, but he did his best to ignore you. Suddenly he noticed you back, and to your delight he wrestles gently with you almost every morning. He tickles you and you squeal and grab his hair with both hands. He squeals, but not in delight, it’s more of a ahh mom, help, he’s got my hair squeal. As I untangle his hair from your fists, he tickles you again.

A few minutes ago you woke up and grumped, so your dad handed you to me. I fed you while I typed this until you fell asleep. So now you’re flopped across my stomach, snoring quietly. My god. When did my life become perfect?

The whole house is napping except for me. I’m too stupid to sleep.

My day started with the cheerful words, “The sun’s up!”- and I almost fell for it because it’s been raining and dark out all week. Then I was like, wait a fucking minute – why am I so tired that I want to die? Hey, that’s not the sun! That’s a goddamned street light.

Every morning we have this little tug of war, where Nicolaus tries to convince me to get out of bed and start the day, and I try to entice him to crawl into our bed and read books or pretend to be a dinosaur or surf the internet or eat cookies or do whatever he is willing to do in our bed that will let me sleep for another thirty minutes.

This morning I won, but it was a Phyrric (”crappy”) victory, the kind where I get a little extra sleep but then have to clean up a massive tinkle accident because I didn’t take him to the potty when he first woke up. It was amazing, he was stunned by it himself. He slid off the bed and said, “Oh! Some tinkle is about to -” and then there was just the sound of pee hitting the old wood floor. The sound went on for a very long time. I think I might have fallen back asleep for a few minutes, and when I woke up, he was still standing at the foot of the bed, still peeing. He looked down and wimpered, “Ohhh I’m still tinkling.”

And then it went on for several more minutes. Praise whatever you’ve got that he didn’t launch the morning urine sequence all over my down quilt cover.

I have so much I want to write about, so many deep and wonderful things about the beautiful world but look what happened? I wrote about pee.

Yesterday he asked if, on a prettier day when it’s not raining, we could take him to a barn somewhere so he can meet a real halloweeno horse. You know, a blond horse with a white mane. Like Mr.Ed.

Kevin and I have decided to stab anyone who tells him the word is actually “Palomino” because seriously, does life get any better than having a small person walk around with a plastic horse telling you that he is osessed with halloweeno horses?

We have no money to spend on entertainment. Don’t take this away from us.

That’s not what I was going to write about either. Shit. Obviously I’m way too tired to be typing words and putting them on the internet. In conclusion, go see Curious George. It’s very cute and sweet, although you should know that there is one grown up part in it where (SPOILER) some dinosaur bones fall down in the museum. They are actually apatosaurus bones, but they might look like carnivore bones, and it might look like the carnivore bones are coming alive. But they actually aren’t.Not that Nicolaus was scared, and not that he was seriously shaking and gripping my shoulder with a look on his face like he was going to cry and maybe throw up during that part, but he thinks you should be warned in case you freak out easy.

I would pay $400 for eight continuous hours of sleep right now.

I was really excited to get the Playskool Lullaby GloWorm. But I have to say after playing with it I was disappointed. At first glance, operation of the product seemed intuitive enough – however I quickly became frustrated. I tried again and again, but could not get any milk to come out. I am giving this two stars instead of only one because the light is cool. I wish everyone’s boobs did that.

Graham is sick. He has rotovirus, which contains “rot” from the latin, rotary which means “to twist”. The name describes the sudden twisting motion that parents make when they are holding a baby who makes a small coughing sound, in a ridiculous attempt to avoid the horrific stream of baby vomit that’s about to engulf them. It doesn’t work though, hence the rest of the name “avirus” which means “haha baby barf.”

The good news is that yesterday Graham threw up all over my mother in law. It rocked. When Nicolaus was two weeks old, he pooped on my mom and her beautiful new white shirt – a move that we continue to verbally praise him for to this day. So when Graham was born we eagerly awaited the day when he too would reach this glorious milestone. We watched, we waited, we tried to be patient. Would he EVER christen his grandmothers? They held him, they burped him, they bounced him, nothing.

Over the last five months he has pooped on me thousands of times, showing us that he had the basic idea and the physical coordination to perform the task, but then when the time would come, nothing. Test anxiety? Stage fright? It was really annoying. Look Graham, we don’t ask much out of you. Your work here is pretty simple.

So in honor of the 2006 Olympic games, yesterday he performed a breathtaking vomiting move. My mother in law had to change her:
* shirt
* pants
* bra
* religion to one where it’s okay to curse in front of babies

Which, in her world a really bad curse word is “Well foot!” but we all know that totally means the f-word.