Happy Fun Baby just put his arms around me, snuggled up close, and pressed his cheek to mine. My heart went all a-twitter. He then turned until his mouth was against my hair and said, right in my ear, “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH,” as loudly as he could.

That’s my kid.

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Last night I got to do three things I love: hang out with a bunch of seriously fun women (who also happen to be mamas), drink moscato d’asti, and eat an obscene amount of dessert. Does it get better than that?

We met up at Pix for their Dim Sum Yum Yum dessert extravaganza and got to sample all sorts of delicious things. I met two – no, three new mamas, who I liked very much, and got to spend two whole hours sans baby. Not that I don’t like my baby, or babies in general; it’s just novel to be able to use both my arms at the same time.

(Speaking of arms, my shoulder is a lot better. It still hurts, but it didn’t keep me awake last night so I feel wonderfully rested.)

Not So and the baby spent some quality time together while I was gone. Ellison was in an extremely clingy mood yesterday. Not So had grand visions of getting some housework done while I was gone, but the reality of a small child who bursts into miserable tears the moment you set him down sort of put the kibbosh on that. In fact, Ellison was so clingy that the only way he would calm down was to be walked around the room on Not So’s shoulder. As you can see, he got really calm:

My boys are very cute. I like them muchly.

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Oh! And I figured out what’s wrong with my shoulder. It wasn’t the stroller after all! Or, at least, not entirely. The day after the day-long shopping excursion of doom I had to go over to Safeway to pick up diapers for the kid. No big deal, right? Well, the mega boxes of Huggies were on sale, so I picked one up, and the mega bags of wipes were on sale, so I picked one of those up. That’s a lot of stuff to carry when you’re also schlepping a baby, but we live right across the street from Safeway so I wasn’t worried about it. Ellison, apparently, had other ideas. He refused to cling to me like a normal baby with a healthy sense of fear; instead he tried, head-first, to reach the ground. I was trying to keep him upright using the power of my mind while holding a grocery bag and using my other hand to carry the huge box of diapers. By the time we got to the door, he was sort of see-sawing out of my grip and my shoulder was screaming something to the effect of we are never doing this again!

I had forgotten about that part until this morning, when I picked up my extremely wriggly baby with my left arm, as usual, and carried him down the stairs. My shoulder had been feeling a little better, but by the time I got to the living room it was screaming again.

So, umbrella stroller: I owe you an apology. You may contribute to my hunch-backedness, but you didn’t jack my shoulder. I’m sorry I was so quick to lay blame. Maybe we’ll all go for a walk later, huh?

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I almost posted a long, self-congratulatory stream of consciousness last month when we finally decided on a division of labor that seemed not just fair but feasible. Ha, I almost said, we are the embodiment of modern domestic bliss. See how we share responsibility? See how we do not nag? You wish you were us right now. It’s okay to admit it.

What is this magical prescription for housework-related joy, you ask? It went like this:

I would take care of the day-to-day household chores (dishes, laundry, etc.) while Not So would take care of the weekly chores (vacuuming, changing the cat litter, garbage & recycling, bathrooms). Since mine were everyday tasks, I had fewer of them, while his would take up, at most, one weekend afternoon – which meant he could chill after work on weekdays, instead of worrying about housework. See? Fair! Feasible, even!

Week One went swimmingly. Had there been a mountaintop from which I could shout my joy and relief, people would have heard me and thought to themselves Now THERE’S a woman with an equitable division of labor.

Week Two and Week Three went…not quite as swimmingly, but to be fair, we had guests and they threw off our routine. Plus, heat wave! No one can be expected to clean during a heat wave. I skipped the laundry/dishes combo a couple of times, but since I’m home all the time it’s easy for me to make up for it. Not So, who is at work all week, does not have as many options. Also, it became clear (to me, anyway) that several of Not So’s tasks would need to be biweekly instead of once a week. For example, cat litter. And the downstairs rug, with a newly mobile baby crawling all over it, needed somewhat more vacuuming than originally anticipated. But hey, that’s okay, right? We roll with the punches around here.

This week I managed to not only jack my shoulder but also be visited by emotional trauma my mother, so I was somewhat more useless than usual. Not So helped me out by putting a load of laundry in the wash. Also, the garbage & recycling were dealt with, the downstairs rug was vacuumed, and the cat litter was changed. Yay, Not So, right?

Except that the floors hadn’t been swept, the upstairs hadn’t been vacuumed, it’s been two weeks since the bathrooms have been cleaned and the stove – I don’t even want to talk about the stove. Which, hey. He was worn out this weekend. I was too. I understand. But there was a bowl of cereal on the floor. Why was there a bowl of cereal on the floor? Why, after your son spilled an entire glass of water, which had also been left on the floor, would you then leave a bowl of cereal in almost exactly the same place?

I am having to stop myself from making always/never rules and posting them, dorm-like, on the fridge. ALWAYS throw onion rinds and suchlike into the garbage, instead of leaving them at the bottom of the sink for your wife to find. NEVER leave bowls of cereal and/or piles of easily swallowable coins within easy reach of small child, who will totally go for it. Because do I want to be that kind of wife? No I do not.

I got everything done this morning. Coupled with two days of dishes and laundry (and an extremely dirty baby who really, really needed a bath) I feel pretty productive. (And sore.) So once again we’re going to have to revisit the whole housework/division of labor thing. I for one am hanging my hopes on the kid. In just a few more months he should be able to take care of all this for us, right?

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My neck is jacked. I blame two things: the umbrella stroller, which is just short enough to make me hunch, and my terrible posture, which…makes me hunch. As it turns out, there are nerves in my neck. Nerves which do not like to be pinched. My understanding is that a nerve is quite small. However, the pain. The pain is big.

Happy Fun Baby sounds about how I feel right now. He’s cutting a top tooth and apparently it’s somewhat uncomfortable because he’s been wailing for the past hour or so. Thing is, he’s really cute when he cries. The lip comes out, and the face crumples, and the chin – oh, the chin. There are different degrees of infant misery, of course, but the chin-trembling is just irresistible.

We were at Meier and Frank (soon to be Macy’s) the other day, Ellison and I. (Come to think of it, this was the day I fucked up my back – see how I tie this all together? You’d think I did this on purpose.) Upstairs in the juniors section (what, you don’t think I’m a junior? You want a piece of me?) Ellison charmed the pants off the checkout girls – one of them actually got off the phone (gasp!) to make goo goo eyes at him, and he rewarded them with several full-face grins (“Oh, he has two teeth! You’re just the cutest thing in the world, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”)

Then we went downstairs, where the exact same thing happened – only with a gray-haired, frazzled saleslady in an ill-fitting dress. She got all up in his face while I was checking out, and Ellison took one look at her and burst into tears. This is the funny part: as we were leaving the store we had to go through this maze of construction corridors, and every single person we passed remarked on how cute he was. While he was wailing his heart out.

The Sad!Baby face: gets them every time.

Note: he is older now, and the sad face gets more potent with age.

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We had a wee bit of “extra” money this month, so I hit the discount stores and managed to find not only a pair of jeans ($5.50! Marked down from $44!) but also some shoes. Allow me to have a moment of silence for my formerly glorious shoe collection; I now own one – count them, one – pair of shoes in the proper size. What is that size, you ask? Why, 9 1/2! A full size larger than the “on the large side” shoes I wore before my pregnancy. A half size larger than what I thought my feet were before spending the day trying things on and thinking “How odd…they still pinch.”

Having shoes that fit has sparked a renewed interest in walking. Funny thing: pinched toes? Not so good for the motivation. But I am all about the walking now. Unfortunately the umbrella stroller is exactly the wrong height for long walks. I’m hunched over just enough to jack not only my lower back but my shoulders and neck as well. We trekked all over downtown the other day and last night my neck hurt so much I could barely sleep. Is a jogging stroller too much to ask? Nothing fancy; I don’t need a Bob (although, dude, if I were in the mood to covet? They are almost as covet-worthy as a Bugaboo. Which I also do not need, as I am forced to remind myself on an almost daily basis). In fact, the one I want is relatively inexpensive (especially at Baby Depot, although apparently they don’t carry it online). Perhaps I will abjectly beg ask for one for Christmas. Or the baby’s birthday. Because the baby totally wants a jogging stroller.

We went out today to look at office stuff today, and I wore my new shoes and my new pants. (It’s too bad I don’t have a new midsection to go with them; that would really be nice.) The office is coming along, slowly. The desk was finally delivered (yay!) and we’re in the process of getting liability insurance and then internet access, at which point we’ll set up the computer on the new desk and be good to go. Which is probably a horribly backward way of doing things, but what are you going to do, right? I’ve got so many ideas for making the space look pretty and I’m antsy to start making some money. This staying home with the baby thing? It’s nice, but I miss getting a paycheck. And having more than one pair of shoes.

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Cranky Mama and Happy Fun Baby, mugging for the iSight.

Blogged with Flock