Dude, where's my post

Dear Teacher,

The cat knocked an oil lamp onto my pile of papers and the blog post I meant to write was lost in the fire.

Signed,
Habitual Liar


I have no idea where I have been or why I haven't been posting. Let's just say, I wish it were sleeping - but it wasn't.


We went to a lake house on Saturday. Lake House was big fun. My kid went in a tube pulled behind the boat. He had a blast! Mr. Long-Suffering drove 1.3 miles per hour around teh lake while I yelled at him that there were Other Boats On This Lake so Move Over so my BABY doesn't get hit by a boat. At which point, he asked me to be quiet (or some other words, you know, whatever). I will state emphatically, that my child never saw my white knuckle freak out and that is a good thing. Chuckles's 4-year old cousin was not so sure about this behind the boat stuff. That was rather funny. There was water volleyball and a full-moon cruise around the lake, stars, food, fun, scooters, a tournament of bags (in which I did not play because I pulled the pregnancy card and took a nap in a lounge chair). Did you know some people call the bean bag tossing game "cornhole"? There is something terribly wrong about that.


Sunday we went to Build-A-Bear and then pizza. It was the birthday party of a turning-4 year old girl. My kid really oddly enjoyed the lip gloss in his officially sanctioned Build-A-Bear gift bag (and then we had to give him a good scrubbing because that stuff is just grease). He did not build a bear. He built a turtle whose shell is a back pack and then dressed him in a hard hat (all the girls picked gymnasts and princesses for their dolls). They had firemen and policemen, Spiderman, army men outfits. But just a hard hat (like Daddy’s). Well, you know, mommy wears a hard hat too, but that’s OK. And he named his turtle “Goggy”. This is why he’s not allowed to help name New Baby. Or maybe we just don’t stage manage him enough. I’m pretty sure the other kids didn’t come up with those names (Georgina (a monkey in honor of Curious George), Lucky, and Fluffy) on their own, is all I’m saying. We thought he should name the turtle Titian like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (you know, a Renaissance painter, but Goggy it was). Goggy rhymes with Groggy.

Oh, we got THE QUESTION on Sunday.
Chuckles: Mommy, who put the baby in there?
Me: Uhhh, Daddy did.
Chuckles: Oh, ok.
Me: Whew.

He also told me that Daddy didn't have any babies so he could not possibly be married, but he has FIVE babies in his back so he is married. To whom? Mommy. I love his little Oedipal-ness. But it's OK that I am married to Daddy (but I guess marriage is not a reflexive property since Daddy is not married to me, ok).

This morning, I wish I had heard the traffic report on the radio BEFORE this one…the traffic report I heard went like this: “I-55 is reopened in both directions. The buffalo are off of the road.” So, what? Were there buffalo on the road in Chicago? And yes, it turns out there were 4 buffalo on the road that escaped from somewhere and were shot by their owners after shutting down the interstate. It was not in the city proper but in what I would call a far-outlying subarban-type area.

My aunt, who once upon a time was a Certified Nurse Midwife, had me lay down on Saturday and she poked around and found baby head and showed my how to do it and then we found what were either hands or feet. And now I know how to do it too. This will be a party trick for the next x weeks (wherein I hope x is greater than 10). Baby had gone head down-ish. Aunt Midwife was not worried about the placenta previa since it is so common post c-section and I am not bleeding yet. She's even hopeful that today's ultrasound will show migration of the placenta. I am cautiously optimistic about that, since it is the most likely scenario, but let's say I'm not scheduling the VBAC right now.

In other news, Husband might not be able to make the ultrasound after all, in which case, I am looking between the legs and asking, but I am not telling. It will be my little secret. Mine Mine Mine.

***Abrupt Topic Change***

I have basically three, no wait, four, no five, six, six criteria for naming a baby:

1. Thou shall not be named anything trendy (it should have been in the top 100 names at least 100 years ago…oddly, I dislike the name Mary, the #1 girl name of all time). If you can screen name someone Overused-Last-Name-As-A-First-Name, the name is right out. That's right, I'm looking at you: Tyler, Taylor, Jefferson, and Madison.
2. The name shall not rhyme with swears or slurs (or fart). And it should not rhyme with itself. Naming your son Harry when your last name is Carey is not my idea of a good time.
3. The initials shall not spell bad words (or really anything). Just ask Aaron Scott Smithson about this.
4. The name shall reflect or honor your family in some way. You need not name the child after anyone, but giving your kid his grandfather's initials might be nice.
5. The first and middle name should sound nice together. For example Corrine Lauren doesn't sound that great together (I think it's the N sound at the end of each name), but Hannah Lauren is nice and Corrine Leigh sounds fine, so it's not necessarily the names that are the problem but the combination. Johnjacobjinglehimerschmidt is right out as well.
6. The name shall be obvious when you read it. So, naming your kid Gretyl and saying, "It's pronounced 'Betsy'." is not OK. No need to add extraneous Ys and extra Hs and Qs into the name either. However, I think Jamie Lynn Spears would have done well to name her daughter Maddie Briann something more like Madeline Brianne (so that Brianne is clearly a girls' name instead of like Brian and I feel the more formal name would give her more options as an adult). We can ask Jennifer Granholm, Michigan's governor, if she'd prefer to be called Jennie, but someone named Jennie, probably won't be going by Jennifer.