Dude, we’re at the beach!

No kidding, vacation is the best. It rules.

We’ve been doing a lot of hanging out at the beach. I’d say that Conal loves it:

And, I’m a little embarrassed to say, the moms have been spending a bit of time on the computers. Right now? As I’m posting? Yeah. There are four of us, sitting in the living room, working the laptops. Six of seven kids are in bed, the last one is heading there now. Nighttime peace — time for the moms to catch on our blog addictions.

 

Overtired.

For a one-year old little boy, overtired means running for hours and hours and hours on empty, refusing to nap and when you are finally put in the pack-n-play (do kids really play in those things?) for a nap, pulling the lamp off the dresser and onto your head so you end up hysterically screaming and with a big bump on your head.

For a 30-something daddy, overtired means lounging poolside and foolishly taking the monitor away from your wife after she has struggled to get your toddler to take a nap, then promptly falling asleep so when said toddler starts wailing at the top of his lungs, you don’t hear him, nor do your react.

For a 30-something mommy, overtired means flipping out when said daddy does not react to said toddler’s screaming and, after running inside and calming your toddler down, feeling remarkably sad that your poor little guy was alone, in a strange room, hurt and crying and crying.

For a family of three, overtired means writing off the first day of vacation and promising to start anew on Day 2.

And so we are. No longer overtired, we’re enjoying hanging out with our fellow vacationers, Conal is taking a long morning nap, Owen is resting and I just returned from a run.

 

So now I know what 4:30 looks like.

In the a.m., that is. I’m well acquainted with 4:30 p.m. But 4:30 a.m.? Now that Conal sleeps through the night, I don’t see much of it. And when Conal was still waking up, if he woke around 4:30, I was practically sleep-feeding so I wasn’t paying much attention to what 4:30 looks like.

Now I know.

It’s dark. Quiet. Not many sane people out and about. Except for those of us trying to beat the traffic when heading off to the beach for a week’s vacation. We beat it, by the way. The drive to the Jersey shore was uneventful.

And Conal is already having a blast:

 

Funny stuff, not my own.

Oh, ha ha. Here are some funnies for your Friday:

From Breed ‘Em and Weep: That baby is drunk.

From The Wink: She asks, she scores.

Some kittens, biting.

 

Again!

It has begun.

Conal has added, “Again!” to his vocabulary. As in, “Again! Again! Again! Again! Again!” This is usually urged when I am doing something that is particularly exhausting, like pretending to jump rope while counting to 10 and then landing in a plie and making a silly face. Since it’s often said amid belly laughter so strong that it causes Conal to tumble over, I give in. And do whatever it was that brought on the laughter, again. And again. And again.

 

Score one for the mommy.

I’ve been terrible at clipping Conal’s nails since Day One.

When he was an infant, I used a soft emery board to file them and that worked fairly well. I could file while feeding him and since his nails were so thin each one would only take a stroke or two to get in shape.

As he got older, the task became harder. He would squirm. Pull his arm away. Whine. Cry. Fight with vigor. And I became weaker and tried to ignore the nails. Pretended that they weren’t really growing.

Of course, that didn’t work. So, I would snip a nail here and there and feel guilty whenever I noticed the long nails. Guilty, that is, until tonight. Tonight, I sat Conal on my lap and I clipped those nails through the squirms, the whining, the crying and the vigorous fighting. I did not give in. I won.

Small victories, with a toddler. Small victories.

* * * * *

And now for a bummer. I just found out that a friend’s daughter may have to have surgery for the second time in her short 13-month life. So, I’ll ask you all to send some positive vibes to the Princess, with hopes that everything turns out well!

 

Updates! Get your updates, here!

I’m like a bad scriptwriter. You know, the kind that introduces plot lines only to drop them a few pages later. Or, has new characters that pop out of nowhere, and then disappear.

That’s me with posts. I post about something that is really super-duper important right then and there when I am posting, and then I never come back to it. As a reader, that’s gotta tick you off. But maybe that’s why you keep coming back — you have high hopes for updates. You come over here to The Little Jobber, hoping that today will be the day with a follow-up potty post! And then when there’s no potty post you virtually wander around aimlessly, virtually kicking the empty beer can in the virtual deserted alley, hands stuck in the pockets of your virtual baggy khakis, glumly thinking, “Again, I have come here only to have my hopes dashed! I thought today surely would be the day that she’d tell us more about the potty. Why won’t she update us?” And then you raise your virtual fist to sky and shake it angrily while gritting your virtual teeth.

Well, grit your teeth no longer! If you promise to continue to come back, I will give you some updates.

Thank you.

OK, first up, the potty. Yes, we’re still in the three month introductory phase, wherein we sit Conal on the potty whenever we think of it, just to get him used to it. He sits on it and looks at his book, until he decides he’d rather run around the bathroom with a naked fanny.

The neighborhood party. I’m 75% sure we’re going to do a party in September, when fewer people are off doing those summer things that people do. The delightful Barbara has suggested that we hold a pink flamingo-themed party. Feel free to let me know what you think we should do!

Then there is Mo. We’ve been better with the shots and the fish oil. The shots are still an ordeal and the whole thing just really sucks. But, we’ve been doing them more regularly and, as such, Mo’s health seems better.

And, last, I know I mentioned that Conal was starting to walk a while ago. He’s a full-on walker now. He walks everywhere, mostly away from me and toward all kinds of danger.

So, potty, party, Mo, walking. You’re all set, folks!

And look! It’s a baby-wearing-big-sunglasses-photo!

 

OK, teeth, I’ve had just about enough of you.

I’m going on the record as absolutely hating this whole teething thing. It rots. And it makes me sad. It is rotten, sad stuff that I would like to do away with now and forever.

Won’t happen, will it?

Didn’t think so.

Sigh.

As you know, Conal’s molars did a number on us last week. I was driven far, far over the edge and my poor little jobber was a crying, screaming mess. This week, things are better. No more day-long scream fests, no more clinging and crying.

At night, however, things have not been so great. Conal’s been waking up a few hours after he goes to bed, somewhat inconsolable. The same thing happens very early in the morning. At least this time I know that the teeth are to blame (no more cold sweats about errant vaccinations) for his screams. But, it doesn’t make them any easier to handle. The whole thing just makes me sad.

I get so very sad when I know Conal is in pain and there is little I can do, other than squeeze some cherry infant Tylenol in his mouth. Can you imagine what I’m going to be like if the kid ever has to (please, please don’t let this ever happen!) go to the hospital? If he, say, breaks a bone? Twists an ankle? Stubs a toe? It won’t be pretty, I can assure you.

Sigh, again.

But! There is exciting (to me) news over at The Happy Runner. I signed up for a challenge. And you are all welcome to join in the fun (fun? I guess you’ll have to judge for yourself whether or not this particular challenge is fun).

 

This is not Tofurkey.

It’s a real turkey.

This funny looking guy (gal?) hangs out in our back yard. I don’t exactly know where it lives but I know it spends a lot of time under the tree where we’ve hung several bird feeders.

Thanks to the wise Internet, I learned that, unlike their domestic counterparts, wild turkeys can fly. And, they have excellent hearing, but they don’t have ears. Don’t ask me how they hear without ears. The Internet did not share that information. Maybe you can look it up on your own, and report back. Thank you.

Completely unrelated, I also learned that if you design a house and make the layout really weird and sort of creepy, it doesn’t matter how large the house is, it probably isn’t going to sell. I guess because people don’t want to be creeped out in their own homes. Just a guess. I didn’t learn this from the wise Internet, but from the open house we went to today, just because we were curious.

So, a day of learning all around!

 

Talking.

The little jobber doesn’t really talk, yet. He says what I believe is “out,” “down,” “done,” and “dada.” But that’s about it.

Other kids, however, are chatterers and seem to have lots to say. We’ve seen a few of them at our playdates this week:

• One little boy, about 3 years old, at the library train set, said to Conal, “No, baby! I no want you here!”
• Another little boy, maybe around 4, at the puppet show booth, said to his mother, “These puppets are dead. Dead. I can’t use them.”
• Yet another little boy (we’ve been around a lot of boys this week!), almost 4, at his house after I asked him about his abacus, said to me, “I use this with Daddy. Not with ladies.”

And with that, I leave you with this pic from Janis, of Conal and Ava playing on her deck: