Stream of Consciousness

No unifying theme. None. At least, I don't think so. If you find one, let me know.

Kermit slept through the night. Twice. And then immediately got sick. Now he's back to waking 2-5 times each night, and I'm even more exhausted than before. It was like glimpsing an oasis in the desert, and now it is gone.

I have two (two!) final round interviews this week. I believe that I have a decent chance at getting offers for both of them. Interviewing for jobs may be my least favorite thing to do in the whole wide world.

I am desperate to get a job, desperate to get back to some semblance of normal life, and yet every time I think about actually getting full-time childcare for Kermit and starting a job, I cry. A lot. LL is so happy being at Natasha's during the day that I don't even blink about sending him there, but Kermit is so tiny and snuggly and fun, and I've never been away from him for more than a few hours, and it's making me weepy. I still want to go back to work, but apparently my hormones are intent on making me miserable about it.

I predict that Kermit will be crawling within the next 30 days. I set him on the ground surrounded by toys, and he immediately throws one of them out of reach, then goes up on all fours to try to retrieve it. Every time. He's 7.5 months old right now. LL didn't reach this stage until 10 months, and didn't crawl until 11.5, so I'm kind of in shock about the possibility of early mobility.

Can you say "possibility of early mobility" 10 times really fast?

S went to a bachelor party on Saturday, and he got shot. Sort of. Not really, but there was a gun and a bullet and an injury, so why nitpick, right? I don't know much of anything about guns, and I'm a little unclear about what happened, but it went something like this: (1) S tells me that the bachelor party is going to involve guns and alcohol. I am supremely uncomfortable around guns, and I get mocked when I ask, horrified, "In what order?!?!?" (2) S assures me that they are going to a shooting range before doing anything else, and that everyone will be very very safe, and that I have nothing to worry about, and to stop prefacing sentences with, "And if I'm a widow next week, ...." (3) S becomes the envy of all his friends when they hear me saying, "Guns? Really? Are you sure you don't just want to go to a strip club?" (4) S comes home extremely hung over, sporting what looks like an ugly black eye. Between (3) and (4), something happened where S shot a pistol and the hot shell casing (?) flew into the air, ricocheted off a wall (?), and lodged itself between the safety goggles and S's eyelid (?), leaving an ugly black burn mark. I'm particularly unclear on how something like that happens if you're wearing safety goggles. Also, I have not at all changed my opinion on guns, at least as they relate to bachelor parties.

S and I went to a wedding on Sunday. (Ironically, a wedding having nothing at all to do with the bachelor party on Saturday. That wedding isn't for another two weeks.) We had Rosie come and watch the kiddos, and it was our first night out since before Kermit was born. The minister referenced Steve Jobs twice during the ceremony. He told us that the bride's mother had recently passed away but was watching the ceremony from heaven, despite the fact that the bride's mother had just walked down the aisle moments before and was sitting right in front of him. He started reciting a quote about love, then realized halfway through that it was actually about death, not love, so he apologized but then felt compelled to talk about death for a while. And, bizarrely, he kept making references to rock climbing.

Ever since he got his Big Boy Bed, LL has been insisting that either me or S sit in his rocking chair until he falls asleep at night. If we try to leave, there is much crying and carrying on. We warned Rosie that he would want her to do this, but when she sat in the chair, he told her, "No, that's okay, I'll go to sleep all by myself." And he did. WTF?

I made the mistake of telling LL that his birthday was coming up. He's a little unclear on what a birthday is. He is also completely unclear on units of time. I have had this conversation with him two or three times a day for the past several months:
LL: Is it my birthday today?
Me: No, not for a few more weeks.
LL: After naptime it will be my birthday?
Me: Um, no....
LL: Oh, I will play, go to the park, eat lunch, then it's my birthday?
Me: No, you have to eat like 30 more lunches before it's your birthday.
LL: I'm not hungry. Is it my birthday now?

LL is talking nonstop these days. It's amazing how his speech is getting more sophisticated day to day. Some of it is pronunciation, some of it is speech patterns, some of it is vocabulary. Really cool to watch it unfold. People told me that I would want him to please just be quiet for a little while! by the time he reached this age, but it hasn't happened yet.

We leave next week for yet another wedding (our fifth one this year) but this one is several hundred miles away, and we're driving. I am ... apprehensive. LL is pseudo-potty-trained. Kermit hates the car and rarely falls asleep in his car seat. This particular drive has large gaps between exits and random bouts of stop-and-go traffic. Almost every single time we've done this drive, S falls asleep and I have to drive the whole way. I've been stocking up on car activities for LL, but I have a sinking feeling that we're just going to end up singing songs for 9 hours straight, punctuated with random crying. Wish us luck.