TV Movie

Ok, to play catch up:

First, i realize I've been a bit remiss in doing a monthly recap for the Manling. The 20-degrees-below-normal weather including snow has really thrown me into a pit of depair and general despondency. That's not his fault though. Since the last recap for 14 months 6 weeks ago, he has become an absolute cham-peen walker. He hasn't quite figured out running; the day he learns to sprint I think I will just give up and start smoking cigarettes by the carton and eating nothing but lard-chips because at that point I seriously will not be able to keep up. He has experimented with walking backwards, and in circles, sometimes both concurrently. It's pretty funny to see him learn to use his body.

He's really become a lot more interested in using a spoon or fork while eating. Food on the utensil have to be pretty viscous though, because he likes to stare at it for a while before it slowly makes it way to his mouth. Notice I did not say into his mouth - that happens maybe 1 for 4.

We have slowly had a decrease in the amount of hitting. Before anyone calls child services on me, it's him hitting me, not vice versa. I have shown him the ASL for "hurt" and when he whacks me, I make the sign, point to the afflicted area, and pretend to cry or at least look very upset. He will come over and let me kiss him. The beginning of empathy is there, but he just doen't get it yet. Another fun activity which can bring out the hurt sign is throwing. Anything portable becomes a projectile missile. The boy has an arm on him that just won't quit. Mark keeps making jokes that he will be a multi-millionaire pitcher or a quarterback and asks if that will be acceptable. I can only shake my head. My worst career nightmare. Besides maybe drugdealer and the like.

We start Signing Smart classes on Tuesday evenings this coming week. I'm really excited, and I think Mark can come too, so we'll all be on the same page. Which reminds me: the Manling has learned (finally) how to do the sign for "milk" (I call it "nurse"). It's awesome. He gets this huge grin on his face and throws it at me like a gang sign when he's getting tired or exceptionally cranky. He's been doing that for about 2 weeks now, and in the last few days has started doing it with both hands. Mark thinks it's hysterical, especially since his grin gives you the impression he's saying something like hey, who can deny a face like this.

The National Western Stock show on Tuesday was a blast. Rather like entering another dimension, however. We walked around exhibits for what seemed like forever, and didn't even get to see much of the livestock. We took the Manling into a petting zoo that had ducks, pigs, a donley, sheep, and 2 llamas. The Manling and I entered first while Mark paid $2 for a cake-cone full of feed. As he navigated the series of gates and doors and pulled out the camera, several goats jumped up on him trying to get to the feed while one of the llamas, who kinda resembled Falkor the Luckdragon from the Neverending Story. It was pretty funny and I was quite pleased that I had the foresight to make Mark get the feed and not me.

As to the fore*skin reference I made in the last post, a few nights ago when I was changing the Manling's diaper, I saw that his fore*skin was extremely red and inflamed. As my doctor pointed out the next day when I took him to be checked out, the p*enis is a wonderful thing and constructed to balloon precisely in that manner for erec*tions. (Asterisks to reduce my Google hits) Mark got the fine duty to buy some vag*inal yeast infection/antifungal cream by himself, and now the little dude is back to regular size. Since he is intact, we do see the occasional redness as the smeg*ma builds up, but this time it was scarily huge. I'm just glad he's okay. And that my doctor didnt tell us to get immediately to the ER when I had called the night before, and an emergency ritual gen*ital mutilation was averted.

Man, finding an appropriate song title post is going to be hard!

Lastly, tonight was one of the rare occasions that a movie made me cry. I have to confess I was watching a Lifetime movie, Mom at Sixteen. The story deals with a teenaged single mom (duh), her mother, her teachers who are suffering from infertility (IVF and adoption are both heavily covered), and how she ends up having an open adoption with those teachers. The end shows her son at age 5 who says something like my birth mom knows how much I love her because "I'm the only one who knows what her heart sounds like from the inside." I don't know what it was, but that made me bawl and bawl.

Ah ha! And that embarassing confession gives me my title: TV Movie by Pulp.