jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

I may have mentioned that I like to pick up pop culture trends at least a good five years late. I like for the ways I waste my leisure time to be carefully vetted. This is how I come to find myself watching American Idol for the first time.

A few things are disturbing me:

— That I’d like to have sex with two of those guys. a) I think all these people are just north of fetus age. b) It’s American Idol! I’m not telling you who, but if you watch I’ll bet you can guess.
— That the group sing numbers seem choreographed with the intention of humiliating the contestants.

Other disturbing developments: I was told yesterday (in an affection way, if you can believe it) that I have college-girl hair. I can’t help it! It grows so freaking fast! I don’t know what to do.

Watch this space for an exciting announcement in the near future.

Oh, it’s nothing. Literally. How nice. We’ve just finished up a lovely visit with my mom and cousin. Damon has piled into a car with them and headed off to Penn Station. After they left, Alden boiled over from the accumulated stimulation and had a half-hour meltdown. Did you know you can ruin a baby’s day by offering to nurse him? Or put him down? Or pick him up? Well you can. But a little of that goes a long way and he pretty promptly passed out and is now sleeping deeply in his crib. The lights in his room are off. His door is closed. I think he’ll get at least a good hour in and, if I know him, wake up happy and ready to hang out. So. I’m alone in the living room with my laptop and my lemonade. Lovely.

This morning before work I looked down at my son. He was in my lap doing one of his super-luxury-post-nursing stretches. He was fast on his way back to sleep, with his little froggy legs and limp, dangly arms. He looked so, so precious. Seeing him like that I thought, “I’ll bet this is a lot like having a monkey.”

I’ve been following a blog called Flotsam for a while now. It started as an infertility story and has morphed into a family story that puts my heart in my throat and could wring tears from the stoniest reader. Or so I thought.

What the hell is wrong with some people?

Easter is around the corner, which reminds me of how far away I’ve moved from being a church-goer. When I was in high school we were members of the

Hey, thoughtful post on faith interrupted by my baby turning over for the first time!

Until I had a baby I would not think you could parse concepts like “rolling over.” But allow me. This is the first time he has rolled over without assistance of a physical, mechanical or emotional sort. He’s 5.5 months old, which puts him on the later end of this feat. That can be attributed to two things. The first is that he’s ginormous. Someone likened it to flipping over an air craft carrier. The second is his Serenity Now philosophy. As our pediatrician said, he’s had all the necessary motor skills for a while now but none of the motivation.

As a matter of fact, at his 4-month checkup she said to me, “Don’t feel badly that he’s not trying to sit up yet.” To which I said, “Um, wow. Was I supposed to be worrying about that? Because he’s totally just a bag of custard that can’t even reliably hold its head up and I wasn’t really sweating that.” Or rather I said, “Okay” but I thought the former. All was clear when, at the end of the exam, she laughed and said, “Oh wow. I just did a six-month checkup on him. He’s just so big.”

So, we’ve been playing what we cleverly call The Rollover Game. And doing lots of cheering and a small bit of cheating. So we’ve seen some rolling over already. But tonight… it was all baby, baby.

Here’s the bad mom part of the story: I missed it. I didn’t even know he did it until I heard him saying, “Mrph. Mrph. Ack! Argh!” and I looked over to see him laying on his face with his arms pinned underneath his big belly. In my defense I’m a little under the weather tonight. I stuck him on a quilt on the floor and then crashed on the couch to watch House Hunters. I made it up to him with a big, overblown celebration of his mad skills, followed by an energetic nursing session. Now I’m back on the couch and he’s riding in his swing, which I think should keep him from hitting anymore milestones while I explore the budding love of Monica and Chandler.