Where to begin?

First off let me tell you that Blogger has been very cranky. With the whole new beta program in the works, that same program has prevented me from logging on to regular Blogger. Oh joy. Hence the dearth of posts from yours truly - ok, that's an excuse and only part of the problem but I'll take it.

Where to start ... hmmm. So much has happened in the last little while. Imri is growing by leaps and bounds - he is crawling all over the place and really starting to explore everything, especially when we say "no" ... imagine that. Sleep issues have not improved. We tried CIO ... yes boys and girls, we did.
Imri went to sleep and awoke at midnight. Cried for boob. I gave him said boob and tried to soothe him back to sleep - no go. So, we let him cry. I went in after 5 minutes, 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes and he didn't stop screaming at the top of his lungs the entire 2 hours. Snot pouring down his face, tears streaming, the whole nine yards.

After two hours, John and I had had enough. I mean - there's only so much you can listen to your child scream as if his heart is being broken - two hours is a long, long time. It took us another hour and a half to calm him down enough to get him to sleep, which brought us to 3:30 am and I needed to be up at 5 to go to work. I knew that CIO wouldn't work for this child. *shrug*

Yeah. It was not a fun day. Neither John nor I were willing to do that again so it's been back to the usual "bring him into bed" story. Only he doesn't sleep well with us either - he sleeps better when it's just me or just John in the bed but with two of us he tosses and turns all night long - which wakes him - and us- up. Not to mention the need to nurse constantly. I am a very tired person these days and I hope fervently that when he starts to walk, I'll be able to tire him into sleep by chasing him around a lot. Amen.

We also had my immigration hearing this week. It went well - they asked a bunch of questions and asked to see lots of documents, particularly Imri's birth certificate and stuff we owned jointly. Fortunately, John remembered my birthday and place of birth - I remembered his, so all was well. I was then asked if I planned on committing any number of felonies while in the USA, including espionage. Right.

The INS person told us we should be hearing good news soon, so hurray! Green card, here I come. Now if only I can have my citizenship in order for the next election, that would be wonderful ...




After the hearing, the three of us headed down to Baltimore's Inner Harbour and had an absolutely lovely time by the water. Water mellows me. It nourishes something inside my soul that allows my nice half to come out, instead of the bitch that's usually on duty. It didn't hurt that we had a nice lunch at the Cheesecake F@ctory and that Imri was his usual well-behaved self.




John was also very mellow and relaxed - immigration shit really gets you worked up, so knowing it was basically over did us both good. I kept repeating to him "I can't believe how relieved I am!!" so the whole thing had obviously gotten under my skin more that I had anticipated. We had such a nice time that we headed home, hoping for adult time while Imri slept (yeah, I hear you laughing) only for me to put my back out from the strenuous activity of sitting down. Oy. *sigh*


Jr has registered for college part time and we are all delighted. Because he left it for the last minute, he has a Saturday class which cuts into his time with the biothing who, instead of congratulating him on being in college and for being the first in her family to ever go to college and in some cases, graduate from high school, (including her stripper daughter), berated the poor boy for taking a Saturday class because it cuts into her time with him and she pays (minimal) child support, damnit. Yeah, it's all about her. Jebus give me strength. Funny how suddenly she can drive out all this way to pick him up after his class, whereas before it was too much for her ...

But onto more pleasant things - Imri is growing by leaps and bounds. He weighs nearly 25 lbs now and we call him "bruiser". He is definitely going to be an All-Star tackle one day, seeing how he delights in pouncing on the kitty. He has developed a huge appetite for table foods, rarely eating baby food anymore and demanding a taste for whatever we happen to be eating (see: Factory, Cheesecake). He is exploring his world and checking out everything that moves - or doesn't. He loves music and dances to most anything and I have been playing him everything from Echo and the Bunnymen to Ella Fitzgerald. DMB is playing now.




Speaking of music, we took our young man to Nissan Pavilion to see Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young a couple of weekends ago. I had purchased an Ergo carrier (and I recommend them to all those who love wearing their bruiser-sized babies!) and it was an opportunity to use it as the Pavilion doesn't allow strollers. Imri was wonderful and the concert was excellent - it started off a little slowly, a lot of newer material, mostly Neil Young stuff but towards the end it was old tunes time - with a very strong anti-war flavour, including interesting video and Young's song against the President's lies. For all the concepts of love, peace etc, the t-shirts still cost 35 bucks each. I guess love and peace come at a price, man.

But for me the beauty was hearing those great songs again; Wooden Ships, Judy Blue Eyes, Woodstock to name a few. Yeah, the voices are rusty with age but the harmonies are still beautiful. I saw CSNY in Toronto not long before I moved here and it was a better concert in many ways, but this one was special for so many reasons - I was with my husband and my son. Nuff said.

As I mentioned earlier, Imri is crawling and eating regular food and growing in leaps and bounds. He is talking up a storm and is learning to wave hi and goodbye. Can I begin to tell you how utterly cute that is? He has even started to say and indistinct "hi". He feeds himself and has learned to feed his mother too, delighting in placing food in my mouth. He loves fruit and veggie dip, yogurt and cheese, goldfish and Gerber puffs. He claps his hands together proudly and beams when I say "potchy potchy hentelach" (Yiddish for clapping the hands). His giggles when I say "how does a cat make" and then meow loudly make the world light up.

Imri has learned to play peekaboo, hiding his own face delights him, especially when mommy pretends she can't see him - that laughter is something I embrace with my soul. He loves climbing all over me when I hide my own face under the pillows, rewarding me with sweet drooly kisses when he finds me.
And he is in love with anything that moves - especially cars - so his besotted mother bought him a Pooh Bear firetruck that blows bubbles - which in turn blows my boy's young mind. He is amazed by those bubbles.




Oh, and Budget wrote me a huge letter of apology and refunded my entire car rental fee, something I told them was unnecessary but hey, money is money. Yeah, about $300 worth ... so there you have it. And it's a good thing too, because John was in - count em- two fender benders last week and that money will be paying for the car rental he is currently using. And no, we didn't rent it from Budget. Oh, and they are also looking into changing their website to let people know that they don't install car seats. I'm not holding my breath.


In parting, I leave you with Imri's attempt to become an All-Star tackle - he loves that cat and she puts up with his manhandling with grace. Amazing grace.