Beaver Boy

We have a beaver living with us.

Do you see those bite marks on this crib?  They're from The Boy.  He's gnawing his way through teething.

Well, why don't you buy those guards you put on the railings?  

I did.  There's a gummy one covering the railing on the left and there's a cloth/pillowy one covering the railing on the right.  The Boy is not to be deterred, however.  Notice he's gone to great lengths to chew on the very top of the ends of his crib (the other side looks the same).  In order to do this he must perform a pull-up, toes barely on the mattress and then hold himself up there while he gnaws away.

I don't know if I should be worried about his consumption of varnish or impressed with his physical feat.  It's a combination of both.

He's Everywhere!

The Boy is learning new tricks every single day.  The latest in his bag are:

1.  Climbing into laundry while it's being folded.

2.  Throwing folded laundry onto the floor.

3.  Rummaging through his dresser and throwing all folded clothes out onto the floor.

4.  Climbing up onto the furniture, especially when our backs are turned for 5 seconds.

Busy times here!

Payback For The Earlier Tantrum

Do you know when little boys begin exploring "down there?"  I do, it's pretty early on.  I've noticed that any time his diaper is off his little hands are off exploring his little privates.  Bath time has now become anatomy 101 lessons.

"Yes, that's you're penis.  Careful, that looks like it hurts!  Yes, Boy, that's your penis."

He alternates looking up at me as I say "penis" and then looking back down at the penis.  Then I start feeling weird focusing so much attention on his family jewels so I continue with the lesson.

"And that's your foot!  And that's your other foot!  Oh and what's that?  That's your nose!  And you have an elbow and an ear..."

You get the point.  I continue to teach him about all the other parts that make up his body, however, I've usually lost his interest once I stop talking about the penis.

He Really Likes Sunglasses

I cut my hair off.  Yep, that's what I did.  It was already in a short bob so lobbing off a few more inches didn't seem that drastic.  I couldn't help it, there's only so long one can endure the same hairstyle.  I can see why Kate Gosselin cut her hair into such an asymmetrical, choppy 'do--boredom!  Don't worry, I didn't get the "Kate cut."  It's actually a throwback to an old cut I had about 10 years ago.  Now I'll spend the remainder of this year and the next growing it back to the long length it used to be.  That's the process.

The Three C's

A lovely photo of the Japanese garden that is a 10-minute drive from our home in the San Fernando Valley of L.A.  It's close, it's cheap, it's calm-- criteria to live by when finding things to do with The Boy.  I may have to pay it a visit 3 times a week.  :-)

And To Think He Made This All Happen

Day 1 of The Most Amazing Boy's life 
and the nurse gave him a fauxhawk.   

The Boy is almost one.

!???!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?

Yes, that is right.  He will be one year old on February 1st as of 12:26 am.  (January 31st was a looooonnggg day).  I can't believe an entire year has gone by.  When I think back to all that has taken place in the year and 9 months leading up to now, I am amazed I'm still alive and well.

• I got pregnant.  
• For 4 months I could only drink lemonade and Gatorade.  
• We moved out of our lovely apartment after it was water damaged and not going to be fixed.
• We moved into a new apartment in our neighborhood that had no hot water the first week of living there.  Mr. Jarcy would heat water on the stove for his pregnant wife to bathe.  
• I began a new hobby of passing out while 5 months pregnant.  
• I began drinking obscene amounts of Gatorade to keep my dangerously low blood pressure elevated and gained obscene amounts of weight as a result.  
• We had a baby.  A beautiful, wonderful, most amazing little bundle of baby ever.  For 5 days we lived in a hospital and learned about baby.  
• Mr. Jarcy got laid off of his full-time job the same week amazing baby was born.
• We battled drunken landladies (who beat each other upstairs and locked one another out routinely) over frivolous things like heat, clean air quality and hot water.  Good times were not had.
• We learned the definition of colic--sleepless days AND nights, screaming for days AND nights (the baby and me) and a dairy free diet (anything to soothe the beast who had taken over my precious baby).  
• We decided to move to L.A. in search of work and a new life.  This meant leaving ALL of our family, a vast majority of beloved friends and the only life we had ever known in the state of Illinois.    
• We began packing and purging our possessions for the second time less than a year's time.
• We placed some possessions in storage only to have most of them destroyed in a fire-proofing project gone wrong.  Everything was covered in water and fire-proofing material and we had to fight for compensation.
• I began to really lose my mind. 
• We had to put our cat to sleep.  It was fast and painless for her but fast and painful for us.
• We signed a lease on an apartment in L.A.-- 2500 miles away from home-- that we had never seen.  
• We moved out of our Chicago apartment early, put all belongings in storage (a different storage facility) and lived with family and friends for a month to escape the drunken landladies and their crazy reality.  We lived out of suitcases.   
• We flew to Philadelphia for a friends wedding.  Most fun we'd had in a loooooonnnnggg time!  
• 3 days later we moved to L.A.  
• We began the process of setting up a new home and decorating the joint in mostly baby accessories. 
• I began to regain my mind.  

BIG HEAVY SIGH...

I am so thankful we are here at this point now.  We never could have gotten here if not for the love and support of our friends and family either.  I am soooo grateful for the help we've gotten...and needed!  My god, it was like Mr. Jarcy and I were the newborns plenty of times I'm sure! If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing...except for living in the apartment with the drunken landladies.  That part would be omitted for sure because it sucked hard core!  But the rest--as tough as it was--I would do again, colic and all.

Real Life Drama

I've noticed something somewhat terrifying about L.A. news coverage--they show life-threatening scenarios as they play out. Examples include--

1. A hiker was stranded on the side of a canyon's ledge. Rescuers had to be hoisted up with a fire truck to a dangerously high level to save him from falling to his death. Just to make contact with the rescuer the hiker had to take a leap of faith and leap into his arms.
2. A man was trapped holding onto a tree in the middle of raging and frigid flood waters while rescuers attempted to save him by lowering down in a helicopter. When the man refused this option because his bike couldn't be rescued as well (!?) they resorted to Plan B which was diving into the treacherous waters while tied to something permanent and swimming over to get him. I never saw how that one played out but the bike must have been something special. I gave up watching after the rescuer dived several times into the water only to get carried downstream himself and then dragged back to safety.
3. High speed police chases. We all are familiar with the O.J. chase and how the cops followed him for what seemed like hours at low and high speeds down the freeways. Well that seems to happen frequently in these parts and we get to watch it all go down on our TVs. This week's caper was finally stopped and arrested but not until after some tense moments with big guns drawn and traffic collisions narrowly avoided.

I'm not used to this level of coverage and scared out of my wits it will end in disaster. We could watch some poor soul's demise right then and there as we eat our lunch and fold the laundry! Of course my eyeballs are glued to the set.

7 Reasons

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy living in California? I do. Here are some of the reasons--

1... It's warm. It's been hovering around 75 degrees during the day ever since I returned from Chicago on New Year's Eve. It had been much cooler before I left, so much so that we had the heat on. My mother bought The Boy all kinds of sweatsuits, pants and long-sleeved shirts because I had told her how cold it had gotten. Now I'm putting him in shorts everyday. I tend to keep this information to myself when I speak to friends and family who live back in Illinois or further east. It seems cruel to mention unless asked.

2... It's sunny. There are places which may not have warmth AND sun. LA has both for the most part. YEAH! This is the first winter when I don't feel seasonally affected.

3... My apartment makes me happy. I have hummingbirds dining off a feeder hanging over our balcony, the rooms are big enough to live in and it feels cozy. It's just good.

4... I saw a guy driving a yellow convertible Mustang and wearing yellow matching sunglasses today. How fun is that?! It's fun.

5... I enjoyed a Japanese garden with The Boy and a friend yesterday afternoon that is only 10 minutes from our home. It was so peaceful and serene and cheap.

6... The other day we saw a dude from old Guns N Roses in the frozen yogurt shop down the street. I LOVE old school G 'N R so this was so thrilling. And hilarious to see this beat up rocker in a froyo joint with his kids.

7... I feel like I'm fulfilling my destiny. I'm still not sure what my career path will become but for now I am enjoying my days with The Boy, The Husband, The Friends and The LA.

These are just a snippet of the reasons why I'm enjoying L.A. There are plenty of reasons to miss Chicago (family, friends, the city in general) but I'm going to focus on the positives while we're here as much as I can.

Awake

Hello!

I'm awake, are you? You probably are if you live on the east coast and not if residing here on the west. It's 4:45am and I have been up for almost 2 hours. Not sure why either although all that late afternoon coffee probably didn't help. Am I forgetting something? Did I leave the oven on? I'm not sure.

I've spent this time in the middle of the night wisely--I've consumed two large pieces of Hawaiian-style pizza and read any and every gossip site I can find. Now if I could just locate some chocolate cupcakes I'd be a happy, sleepless woman!

Here's a random photo of The Boy because no post can go without a mention of him. Isn't he adorable? Yep.

Another Post On Sleep

Why oh why do I continue to turn to "experts" when I want to better understand my baby's sleep patterns? It does me no good. The Boy is asleep right now and has been for 2 1/2 hours. This is his new norm. He sleeps almost 3 hours in the AM (the new year is being immensely good to me!) and then has had a 20 minute catnap in the afternoon. "Mr. Chicago Sleep Expert" states in his book that babies ALWAYS phase out their morning naps first and hold onto an afternoon one instead. Well that is definitely not going on here. In fact, very little about The Boy's sleep habits has coincided with what I've read in books. I wish that were not the case because I so desperately have wanted a how-to manual but it just hasn't worked out that way. I know better and yet have continued to waste precious online shopping time reading the various sleep bibles in search of answers.

New Year's Resolution #1-- Put the sleep books down once and for all!

Childless ladies and gentlemen of the Internet who plan to have kids in the future, remember to toss these books out the window from time to time and know that only your baby is the expert on his/her sleep patterns. And then just roll with it. Improvise, if you will. YES, the baby is now asleep AND, therefore, I will use this time to sleep as well/play tetris/watch "The Housewives of Orange County" marathon. It will serve you much better, I promise.

Happy New Year!

After almost 3 weeks of living out of suitcases and traveling between families, we are back in sunny California. It was an exhausting but enjoyable end to a very exhausting but overwhelmingly wonderful year. The Boy was beyond thrilled to be back in his home I think. He immediately began the re-acclimation process with all his old toys, as if that was the real Christmas. Then we all went to bed long before midnight. Now we're watching "Planet of The Apes." You know, something light and uplifting for the first day of the year, heehe.

Much love to you all and here's to a wonderful new year!