no, no, noooo she's too young

i find it hard to believe that a person, a child, hell a baby can know how to work the "system" at the age of 15.5 months. to clarify, when i say system i'm referring to the institution of parenting. i am well aware that by age 13 one has the system down to a science. but a baby? seriously?



i think robert (our roommate) and i laughed for about 15 minutes the other night when calli began her life-long pursuit of testing me as a parent. at first my jaw was on the floor but then i thought, oh my god... she is smart (insert single tear about half way down my cheek). for so long hillary and i have said-- "well if nothing else our kids well be cute." now that's not us being too proud of the way we look, we just thought we needed something to justify how our kids were more than likely, not going ivy league.



so, robert and i were sitting on the couch watching my darling daughter roam the living room in search of any two things she could smash together. when from the corner of her eye she caught the light bouncing off the edge of an oh so tempting cd case. with all other thoughts and plans quickly forgotten, her only goal in life was to get there and grab hold of her favorite. beck midnight vultures. instead of getting off the couch i simply called her name in the hopes that she'd listen to me, see the wrong in what she was doing and turn to apologize.



yeah, you're right.



so i called her name again this time with that stern dad voice. again my attempts have apparently fallen on deaf ears. she finally reached the basket of cds and turned to look at robert and i. she then set up distraction with a smile and not so subtlety reached behind her back and grabbed a cd. i am completely shocked at this. how the hell does this child, who has been walking for maybe a month and a half and can barely say anything other than poop, know how to manipulate. i tried so hard to remain the parent but my efforts were useless. and we laughed. and we laughed. and we laughed. not laughter from the humor of the situation but rather "oh shit i cannot believe this"laughter. at that moment i saw myself... and my life became difficult.

there must be humor somewhere in this

well... here we are again. it seems as though calli may be a bit sweeter than we thought. as you can see, she has been bitten again while at daycare. oh no... you're not mistaken, i too count five different bites. so what exactly is a parent to do at this point? my instincts tell me to take this kid who has bitten my daughter for the second time and shake... well... let's just say i know that's not the right thing to do and have, reluctantly, moved on to more appropriate measures. have my wife take care of it.

wow what a puss. why couldn't i have stepped up to take care of the situation you ask. my justification went like this.

"well, you spoke with them earlier and i think maybe you should continue to work on this matter. there's no telling what i could say and at this point i can't really control the amount of expletives that may fly from my normally clean mouth."

yeah, you're right she rolled her eyes, became the strong one and called. they were extremely apologetic and assured us this would never happen again. they also removed the girl from calli's class.

you know, these are the times that parenting seems an impossible job. you want to look out for your child's best interest but at the same time you have to realize these things happen. but how much do you let happen before you pull a child for one facility and enroll them in another where biting will inevitably happen?

all i know is that convenience is a total bitch. but you better believe the next time something like this happens, there will be hell-to-pay.

*since beginning this post the culprit has been moved to a different class and believe it or not has done it again. i'm not sure what has been done but when i find out i'll let you know.

oh, the art of toilet sitting

calli came down with rotavirus a week ago last thrusday. now for those lucky souls who have no idea what this means let me "briefly" explain. diarrhea. lots and lots of diarrhea. not to be too descriptive i'll leave it at calli had to be prescribed a burn cream due to wet wipe irritation complications.

now, hillary and i managed to avoid the highly contagious condition by constatly washing and sanitizing till our hands bled. but oh... low and behold this was not enough. no no. mr. rota found his way through our cleanliness this past friday (just in time to ruin or weekend) and attacked and attacked and attacked until we could take no more. he even took out hillary's mother (and i assure you, i would not even wish this on my mother-in-law) when she came to help us care for calli so hillary could return to work. thank god it was only a 24hr thing for us. poor calli had to endure the pain for about 10 days.

it's now tuesday and i'm still breathing deeply and cautiously. if toilet sitting were an art form, we would all be on permanent dispaly at the guggenheim.

once bitten

i've been saying for sometime now the first word calli would learn from me was going to be "bitch." hard hit on the b, drawn out i, and a nice finish on the tch. and it comes across as a heavy handed question. you know, "what the hell were you thinking" should be expressed when delivered correctly. the word, if used properly can be quite versatile. she could use it to adequately express her disdain for the nurses administering the many shots received during doctor visits or perhaps to assist me when dealing with lovely a-holes on the road. either way,the effectiveness of the word is immessureable. still, no other time seems as apt as the other day.

calli recently began an arduous journey into the world of daycare. much to our chagrin we did this because we had to. the first week roled by as expected. it was in the second that all our fears came to life. the sweet little girl, whom we thought had been adjusting quite well, reached out to a peer and yanked her "binky" from her mouth. i won't get into how inapproiate i think a "binky" is after the age of one but keep in mind it's been noted. so the girl, in her shocked state, grabed calli and bit the side of her face. i mean individual teeth marks still present by the time i picked her up at 430pm. the daycare tried to reach me twice and then finally spoke with hillary to inform us of the situation. apperently they were affraid of what my reaction would be if i didn't know in advance. i'm not sure what that means, but i guess i've left some kind of impression in the past.

with all that said, i wish she had already learned "bitch." could there ever be a better time for her to put it out there?

*this post is old but i felt it had to added. i will now get off my ass and post in a more timely manner... i promise... no really... i promise. however the pic is recent and pretty cute right?

with a mug like that...

i don't really have much to say about this pic, but i couldn't resist sharing this darling face with the world. when calli sees a camera this is what she gives them. quite cute don't you think?

well, the day we've been dreading has arrived. calli starts daycare tomorrow. we're not happy about the idea but we know it has to happen. we're siked however to see how she interacts with other kids. she's been around her own friends of course, but an entire class is a whole other world for her. will she be the shy baby off by herself? will she be the fat, happy baby making everyone laugh? or (god help us) will she be the baby who pushes, slaps and pinches anyone who invade her personal space? i'm reluctant to say i think she'll be the latter but at least the other kids will know how she rolls right? i guess this is where the real parenting begins. it keeps getting harder and harder but much more worth while at the same time. having children rocks!