And now? I’m not as sore but I’m still very tired. Wait – before my internet connection drops I need to do the pictures.

First, you know those pictures they take of babies in the hospital nursery so you can look back later and see that your cute amazing cutie cute super cute baby was actually kind of weird looking? They charge like THIRTY DOLLARS each for those things. And they aren’t even that good. We’re not talking natural light photojournalist style photography here. They don’t even bother to use a different background for boys and girls. So instead I spent the thirty dollars on eating out and then downloaded the low-resolution photos off of their website and made this commemorative little animation. I think it is every bit as beautiful as ordering prints and stuffing them into a baby book would have been.
You’ll need to click the image below or hit refresh to see the animated thingy, because I talk too much and now you missed it already:

There’s more to say, but we’re fried after a long week and a perfect little party for Mr.Graham. The DSL connection’s going to die in a minute anyway. I’ll do the annoying sappy post soon because DUUUUUUUUDE. I love me some Graham. But not now.

(Hey! I still have 1 gud internet! Okay, edited to add some quick highlights for the day…)

1. Ballooooooons. OMG Blew his little bitty mind.

2. The entire gift unwrapping thing went over his head entirely. Each time he just stood there and admired and hugged the card until one of the bigger kids couldn’t stand it anymore and marched over to tear the motherfucking package open.

3. Before the party, it was clear that both kids needed a nap. I’m awesome so I got them both to sleep at the same time. Never before done by any mother on this planet! TWO kids asleep during the day! At a desired time!

4. Exactly five minutes later, one of them woke up and bounded cheerfully into the living room. “Sometimes? I just take like a shorter nap! You know?”

5. So Nicolaus was kind of a grumpy asshole at the birthday party. The babies would grab at things and Nicolaus complained loudly, “OhhH! They’re just all like: We want EVERYTHING to be only ours. And everyone else? Can just have NOTHING to play with.”

That’s his new thing, inferring what people or dogs or toys or the force of gravity are all like.

We tried to convince him that no, actually, babies are all like: “Hey, something! I want to grab it. Hey something else! I wonder if I can grab that too. Hey! Something! Shit, wait. Did I grab this already? Oh well. Grab grab.”

But Nicolaus stuck to his original assumption, that babies grab things because the universe is horribly unfairly stacked against him and because everything and everyone does everything on purpose to piss him off.

6. But Graham had a grand time, playing earnestly with each of his new (incredibly awesomely NON ELECTRONIC THANK YOU JESUS) toys and eating pizza and cake and shouting out the two names he can pronounce, Baba and Papaw. Oh and wooooooo balloons. Can’t forget wooooo balloons.

7. We convinced Nicolaus to cheer the fuck up by giving him the important task of pouring colored sugar onto some extra little cakes. And by telling him that if he didn’t cheer the fuck up we were going to put his ass to bed. Except without the word fuck or ass. You know.

8. Tomorrow I will post pictures of the exciting balloon fun and other things, including my amazing cake decorating skills. Which if you remember Kevin’s birthday cake, you know that I don’t mean amazing in a good way.

When I laid Graham in his bed tonight he didn’t cry. He looked at me with big, calm eyes just like he did that first night in the hospital when the nurses came in and said, “You know you don’t have to hold him all the time. You can lay him in his bassinet and get some rest.”

“I know,” I told them, “But – he’s looking at me.”

I couldn’t stop staring back at him and wondering what in the heck I ever did to deserve anything this nice.

Tonight when I put him to bed he smiled at me in the darkness, laughing at some secret joke about me like he does, and then he just stared at me quietly. All I could think was thank you. Thank you so much, Graham, for an amazing year.

Dang it, I guess this was the sappy post afterall.

Our internet has been down most of this week, bringing my internet addiction into the uncomfortable glare of daylight. How can I think if I can’t write? And how can I write anything if I can’t post it? And how can I post anything if I have no internet connection?

This would all loop through my brain until the feedback caused a funny burning smell, and then I’d force myself to stop thinking about it by:

1. Eating some of the cookie dough that I secretly made for myself

2. Working on art projects

3. Going to Target and spending $40 (I’ve determined that all of the items at Target are actually free. But the plastic Target bags cost $20 each.)

4. Watching The Magic Schoolbus on DVD with Nicolaus, which really doesn’t help because it’s so boring after the first time through that all I can think is… damn, I wish I could surf reddit.com right now.

Okay damn it. The internet just went down again. I had written out all kinds of funny things but and I could rewrite it if I had the energy but no no no. It’s all gone now so screw it. I’m going to Target.

Six years ago: I’m not pregnant. This sucks.

Five years ago: Why the shit am I not pregnant? This sucks.

Four years ago: Oh God I am pregnant and the fetus hates me and wants me to die in a sea of my own vomit.

Three years ago: We live in Tyler, Texas. WHY GOD WHY?

Two years ago: I want another baby. I neeeeed another baby. I’m not pregnant. I was earlier this month for like 20 minutes, and now I’m not and oh my god will somebody please knock me the hell up before I go insane.

One year ago: Although my body is the size of the wyoming international airport, assuming that Wyoming has an international airport, and even though my kidneys hate me and I am in labor or something very much like it all the time, and even though my husband is working nights and we are having intense relationship/life meaning talks in the dark hours of the early morning when the house is quiet, and even though my kid sometimes poops on the floor just to be hilarious, I feel fully and totally alive maybe for the first time ever. It’s all very Velveteen Rabbit. And it turns out that real rabbits? Have to pee like nine times a night.

September, 2006. I’m not pregnant and for the first time since I found out where babies come from, I’m sort of fine with that. I’ve been busy, and I have (it seems) an ovarian cyst or something, and yay! Kidney stones! And I’ve been sick almost all month. But you know who else was sick with me?

1. One (1) small person who today very discreetly turned around in the booth at our local diner and — with his ass directed at everyone else in the restaurant and his legs sticking awkwardly out in the aisle — pressed his face into the back of the booth, up against my side. He was there for a long time, and I didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. People were staring.

“Hey – what are you doing?”

He leaned up a little and loudly whispered, “I’m picking my NOSE.”

The rules of society are so complex. You think that Stop that. No one wants to see you pick your nose will cover it, but no.

2. And another (1) small person who cries when his nose runs and points to the stream of snot because the sensation is so very unpleasant, but then when the stream reaches his mouth instantly stops crying because “oooh, what’s this then? Some sort of delicious liquid is pouring into my mouth!”

Do you SEE what I’ve created here? He is the world’s first perfectly efficient germ-transmission perpetual motion machine. Now I’m not telling you people what to do, but I can’t nominate myself for a Nobel Prize. So you just do whatever seems right.

3. My very funny and loving husband, who according to Graham looks like James Dean. No really. For some reason, at lunch today we asked Mama’s little snot recycler “Where’s Daddy?”
Without hesitation he spun around and pointed at a life-sized cardboard cutout of James Dean.

So my throat still feels gross and there’s still crud coming out of gross people’s noses, but they’re MY gross people and I am so grateful to have them in my life. In September of 2000 I was working hard to do well on some lame work project that didn’t mean a fucking thing to anybody. Same for 1999 and 1998. Lord, grant me snot any day.

ps. Graham’s birthday is Saturday. Brace yourself for a crazy blissed out baby lovingathon, complete with photographic evidence of the stupid amounts of cuteness over here. Because if the world needs one thing, it’s more pictures of some random jerk’s cute kid.

My baby is walking around in little courageous bursts, sometimes pausing to point down at the squirrels on his shoes. He spent the summer barefoot, and last week when I put shoes on him he cried and cried. He also hates long pants (and halloween costumes but we shall cross that bridge in a few weeks), but you pick your battles. Shoes! Shoes are too cute to be negotiable; I will absolutely battle for shoes on the baby. So right now he’s wearing a bright orange t-shirt that says “old navy 95″ and awesome little squirrel shoes. No pants. Everyone wins.

****
I forgot I had written that stuff – that was Saturday, when I guess I was feeling better enough about the world to jot down a few sentences, but not better enough to actually click on the “publish” button. Clicking on the “save” button is easier.

So we’re all feeling better, little by little. Just in time to send Nicolaus back to school tomorrow so we can get ourselves another heaping helping of awesome super happy fun germtime.

It is ironic and sad that there are places in the world where people are dying because they have no snot and yet here we are drowning in it. If only there was some sort of snot sharing system set up, this family would be quite relieved to spread our wealth of sinus-lubricating fluid among those who are less fortunate than we. But there isn’t – damn that George Bush, damn him straight to hell – and so we must suffer our glut while others go without.

Nicolaus keeps bringing home new and more exotic germs for us from school. Probably our punishment for hounding him about what did he do today? Was it a good day? What did you do? Anything? Anything good?

Our lives are boring. We get a big thrill out of asking him because A) his answer might give us some endearing insight into what his days there are like and because B) man, he is fun to harrass. You didn’t do anything at school? Nothing? Did you just stare at a boring wall all day? Are you sure?

Finally he’ll throw some small anecdote out for us, just to shut us the fucking fuck up. And then he hugs us and coughs in our faces. Which we deserve.

But deserved or not, it suuuuuuuucks. Graham was slapping his head with both hands and crying, which is Baby Sign language for “You are awful parents” so finally we got the hint and took him to the doctor. Double ear infection and a sinus infection. Is that like a full house in sick baby poker? I assume that medical professionals all gamble on diagnoses. I swear – SWEAR – at my OB’s office I heard a nurse yell out “BINGO!” when I was diagnosed with a UTI one time.

What the hell am I even talking about? This isn’t writing. It’s… laying on the couch not going to the storeing. You poor blog-reading blog reader. I’m sorry.

Bottom line: This week can bite my ass. Today especially. My throat hurts and the guys all have sinus infections and unrelated but the dog keeps having seizures and throwing up on things. He was doing so much better, so I’m bummed.

And because they don’t feel well, the boys keep arguing – how is that possible when one of them can’t talk? I don’t know but they do it and their positions are always very clear. I mean it’s not like they’re battling over the correct interpretation of the role of the protagonist in a Beckett play over here…
“Hey! That’s MY KITTY.”

“Nicolaus took the kitty away from me. This is unacceptable. I will retrieve it.”

“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

“You dick! You knocked me over. You KNOW I have vertical stability issues. I shall now paralyze you with my screeching.”

“MAMA. Graham just wants me to go away and have NOTHING and never have any toys again. He wants me to like DIE.”

“Yes, that would be excellent. And then Mother, please give the stuffed kitty to me.”

I was going to write all kinds of nice, funny things about these guys — Graham is starting to really walk and Nicolaus sounds exactly like the Wonderyears-aged Fred Savage when he’s sick and it’s one of the things I love most about him — but then they spent the afternoon yelling at yecheddar so this is all I’ve got.

It’s 6 PM. They’re both asleep at the official worst hour for a nap possible. A smart mother wouldn’t let them nap so close to bedtime, but I cheered (quietly) when they both fell asleep. If a bunch of smart mothers showed up right now and went in there to wake those boys up, I would motherfucking stab me a bunch of smart mothers in the motherfucking throat.

My name is Tiffany Ard, and you have my word on it.