Spring Into Summer.....

We're so fortunate, me and Ziggy (and My Beloved Mister, too), to have our vast & versatile community of mama friends & their children!!

Dizzy Busy Bees.

Ziggy's hale, hearty and sporting FOUR teeth!
Yep. That's four. With two more shortly to make their debut. Our work and social schedule has racheted upright along with it. I've written a couple more little reviews for Frank and his bunch over at PureMusic. We've hung with some mama pals, enjoying a picnic and Ziggy's first swim. We're shortly to attend a retreat at the very wonderful Penuel Ridge with a group of women, some of whom attend Friends Meeting, some of whom are part of Middle Tennessee's Eclectic Homeschooling group and a handful of whom attended the Mother's Day Parade for Peace.

This week there's also our local Attachment Parenting group meeting, my bi-monthly Stitch & Bitch (Ziggy will hang at home with Daddy) and no less than two swim parties.

I'm also on the late end of Spring Cleaning into Summer.... continuing the process of baby proofing (ohhhhhhh, we are so far off) and readying for a yard sale.

Off go I to prepare pimiento cheese, humus and straw & hay pasta with green and gold veggies. Mmm.

One year ago.

Ms. Booty Homemaker Explains It All To You is one year old.

While having Ziggy here is positively amazing, marriage is a differently complicated life these days.
It's good sometimes to go back for inspiration.

Happy Father's Day, Mister.
We love you very much and appreciate all you do.

Our piglet has a snuffley snout.

all night: ziggy coughed and cried. sniffed and sneezes and tossed and turned.

his father walked him across the floors to sleep near midnight.

my watch was the remainder of the dark hours. walking. holding. slinging. singing. talking.

poor throat scritchy scratching. poor eyes glassing over.

poor snuffley snout.


this morning, mama booty rose early, debating the merits of yet another pediatric visit while sweeping floors.

noises from the bedroom. from the doorway i see one very tired daddy booty snoring away, and one tenacious baby booty crawling to the foot of the bed, looking for his mother.

scooping up my little nursling, i marvel that during this latest round of sickness, he has learned to pull up to sitting from his commando crawl and at last, he is releasing the pincer grasp-- which means: the cheerio or the bite of banana makes it not only between his thumb and index finger, but into his mouth, too.

poor little fevery piglet.

nothing, but nothing so heartbreaking as the inability to take one's child's pain and discomfort away.

cleaning, cooking, organizing all will again take a back seat to cuddling up my boy baby. reading Owl Babies for the umpteenth time. stacking rings, snapping beads, "cooking" soup of rubber ducks, keys and other small things by stirring it all together with a wooden spoon in my piglet sized stainless pot.

he'll be a baby so short a time, really. already, it is fleeting..... i have had him outside my body for almost exactly the time i had him inside.

my cup runneth over.

Stuck In The Middle Again.

The weekend was cross words between the adults and a poop reprieve.

Monday brought about a renewed effort toward calm -- with the first playgroup outing in two and half weeks and a trip to Target for home organizational goods-- only to be swiftly dashed by late afternoon's dog park visit. Fussy Ziggy wanted out of the backpack and into Mama Booty's arms when a good natured canine tumble got loud. He ate a mere pittance of his pretty homemade organic supper: brown basmati and zucchini with chicken broth.

Slight fright and supper disinterest moved into inconsolable crying, a temperature which spiked from seemingly nowhere, and a pleading look in the eyes that was heartbreaking. Too distressed to nurse, Ziggy writhed in Mama Booty's arms in the middle of the big family bed, then projectile vomited everywhere everywhere everywhere.

The night culminated in a family fieldtrip to the ER at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. Ziggy's history makes GI issues serious business. The poor little man was so utterly upset that a team of three triage nurses were unable for quite a time to even get a set of reliable vitals.

Hours, X rays and many loose stools later, the Booty family made its way home to settle in with Rotavirus Round Two.

And here we are.

As of late last night, Mama Booty has succumbed with heaving visits draped over the commode.

Effluvial Plain & the Total Ass Explosion (Band Name Alert).

We have, at last, after TWO WEEKS of the evil wicked mean and nasty rotavirus: normal poop.

That a whole family's existence can be so pinned upon the state of poop is astounding, yet entirely common for parents of infants and young children. Do I hear an Amen?

The poo poo boundaries of old become completely non-existent, even for one sort of curmudgeonly mid-western Scandanavian Mister who isn't generally given to talking to just anyone about anything, let alone bodily functions. And yet, when witnessed passing upstairs Good Neighbor Ben in the foyer in recent days, our very own Daddy Booty was heard to say, "He's still having weird poops, but he's feeling better," prompting Ms. Booty Homemaker to step out into said foyer and apologize for the way effluvia has taken over the lives of this one family with very little ability to hold back on the shit talk.

To that end, I can say that Shit Watch 2006 continues, but with a new focus: The teething poop. Some of you know that of which I write, I KNOW you do.

Ziggy can't catch a break. What with all manner of new skills being honed (from commando crawling to command of the pincer grasp), a new complexity to his emotional life (we're talking Interiors for the infant set, thank you, m'am), and a voracious suckling to go along with an early growth spurt into month nine, the boy is cutting his two top middle teeth. Which means copious ammounts of drool. And the aforementioned teething poop.

While Googling something about rotaviral poop recently,-- oh, would I have saved the link!!-- I came across some daddy-man's blog which talked about a poop log he and his wife created for their young darling. The very best part of the entry detailed not the poop content or consistency, but the couple's short hand and acronyms for the log, my most favorite bit being TAE, for Total Ass Explosion, a phrase so brilliant, I can not help but use it for these teething blowouts, and frankly, whenever there's an opportunity.

It is far too enjoyable for a nearly forty year old woman to say Total Ass Explosion. My Beloved Mister is often alternately amused and appalled by my base childlike humor. I make no apologies.

Say it with me, now: Total Ass Explosion. Now, don't you feel good?

Surrender, Dorothy.

Okay. We're on day fourteen of this bug. Better, yes, but we've not reached the all clear.

Dear Kaki came over Sunday afternoon to watch the babe so I could do a much needed supplies run. Papa and Diggy came to visit on Monday (for a change of scenery and some outdoor action, we picnicked in the park on Heavenly Hog BBQ) and Daddy Booty returned from his solo Michigan run to see his people on Tuesday night. I've been more than grateful for extra pairs of arms to hold and cuddle and soothe my Ziggy. He has needed it, as have I.

I've done much prayer and meditation in the name of letting go....

I've done little other than hold and bathe and nurse and love on my little one for two weeks. (IS there more important living to do? No, m'am. Not at present.) We have, when possible, taken walks with the dog. I did get a little writing done, a little laundry and survived a migraine, but that's really it. That, and polish off an entire carton of peach ice cream and watch crazy television like middle of the night infomercials (must get some Bare Escentuals!) & the Arts channel. Daddy Booty laughed when yesterday I pointed to the clip of Sunset Boulevard's Broadway Norma and told him I'd seen it four times in two days. (No, I'm not a fan of the television for the little one, but we're talking mama desperation here. And I confess here that I did actually turn on Daniel Cook for both of us to watch one day between diaper changes.)


Ah, Ziggy needs tending. Off go I.