Uncouth

Lyla will look at these photos in five years and be like, "Wow, Grandma's phone is ancient."

My son-fetus isn't kicking yet, but he's certainly swimming around a lot, occasionally bulging out his mother's belly in alien ways. "Is that his elbow?" I ask, my hand on a bulge before it disappears. "His head? His butt?" Julie knows where this is headed. "Is it his knee? Hey, you don't suppose--"

"Dan, I don't understand why you think you're funny."

"What? You don't even know what I'm going to say."

"You are going to suggest, as you always do, that our son's penis was pushing out my stomach."

"That's uncouth. I would never say that."

"Whatever. And don't put it on your blog either."

Snot particle ferris wheel

Lyla has a terrible cough, possibly due to her secret unending love of cigars. "But I don't inhale, Dad." Sure you don't, kiddo. Sure you don't.

It's the worst at night when her horizontal sleeping position allows gravity to pull her snot into her throat's most ticklish spot. Then she coughs, shooting snot particles upward from her mouth, where they arc parabolically before plummeting into her nostrils again, and the cycle continues. Come over and watch; it's like her head is powering a turbo-speed snot particle ferris wheel.

And so now, just shy of 22 months old, Lyla is still not quite allowed to take decongestants. I don't know why; I think it's some backroom deal where the decongestant companies get a cut of the profits from all the extra coffee I have to drink just to appear alive.

Of course, now an ear infection is a foregone conclusion. Maybe Lyla will end up with tubes, which I've never quite understood. "Oh, just get tubes put in her. My kids all had tubes. Tubes tubes tubes." Is there a do-it-yourself tubes kit? Can you rig the tubes so they drain into little cups taped to the outside of Lyla's shirt? That'll impress the kids at school.

Grand theft jacket

That's Lyla's flower girl dress for Auntie Jen's wedding. Apparently she's also wearing perfume.

Lyla's daycare teacher told me that Lyla struggled to listen to directions today. She was allegedly pulling the other kids' jackets off the hooks and trying them on. Then when the teacher asked her to stop, she did not stop. And when the teacher asked her again, Lyla threw a jacket on the floor and then ran away laughing.

We had a serious talk about it in the car.

"Lyla, were you trying on jackets today?"

"Yeah."

"And did you throw a jacket on the floor and laugh at your teacher?"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

It must have been a case of mistaken identity.

Afternoon slice

Julie picked up Lyla from daycare today so I could take Tulip the diarrhea dog to the vet for a second time since Monday. On a side note, I might never eat creamy peanut butter again.

Sorry if I just ruined your lunch.

The kids were in the little gym area, and when Julie looked through the window she saw Lyla holding a hula-hoop and sobbing. As soon as she opened the door, Lyla saw her, dropped the hula-hoop, and sprinted over.

"Lyla, what's the matter?"

"Up peez." Sniffle.

A teacher came over and pointed to the wall, where other hula-hoops were hanging. "She's crying because she wanted a different color."

By this time, Lyla was happy again. "Bye bye!" she said and waved to the teacher. Then she and Julie came home, where I had already given Tulip her first dose of shit-thickening medication and started making pasta.

And pasta is why Lyla looks like an Oompa-Loompa in the above photo.

The big helper

That's a mirror.

Today the daycare nugget was that Lyla said no to something. Her favorite word is yeah, so she has a reputation among the teachers as being very agreeable. The teachers in the two older toddler rooms are fighting over who will get her in two months when she moves, though I have a theory that the fight is partly due to how handsome I am.

It's not a serious theory.

So today Lyla said no, and her teachers were like, "She said no! Lyla said no!" The conversation went like this: "Lyla, do you want to help us put toys away?"

"No."

She helped anyway.

Despite it all

Auntie Lori asked if we had cut Lyla's hair.



Uh, nope.

We have bees. Had bees. The Orkin man came out today and caused a bee-pocalypse in the nest below our porch. On Saturday the dogs got attacked, swarmed and pelted by those things, to the point where Tulip wouldn't even run away, just cowered there and howled, so I had to enter the fray and grab her. I couldn't detect any welts on the poor dog, but that was about the point she stopped eating for two days, opting instead to spend most of her time hiding under the couch.

The vet got her to eat, though. Nice how that works out: I'm playing my 6th game of iPhone cribbage in the waiting room, when out comes the "doctor" (yes, I know vets are actual doctors, but this girl was like 25 and introduced herself as "Dr. So-and-So," all fresh from graduation and self-important as hell, before taking my dog to the back room to stick her finger up its butt, I mean seriously) and...where was I at the start of that sentence? Oh yeah, so Tulip ate a liver treat from the doctor, so we're all good, just give her some of this canned prescription food, and that'll be $68, please.

Anything conclusive on the rectal, doc?

She was clean.

No shit.

I guess you could say that.

So before the vet but after the Orkin man, I picked Lyla up from daycare and brought her home to her mother, who has thrown out her back somehow and stayed home from work today in agony but is convinced that she'll be in tomorrow guaranteed, but just in case, could I go to her sister Jen's place, who picked up her laptop from work today, in case she actually does stay home tomorrow, so she doesn't have to use my school laptop again like she did today. Are you with me? Oh, and bring home a McDonald's McFlurry on your way home, snack size should do, Reese's, and feel free to get yourself one, too.

Dinner?

Order pizza.

So Orkin, Lyla, vet, pizza, Jen's, McDonald's, and now I'm home. But here's the thing: when you put Lyla to bed and you're holding her with the fan on and the music on and the lights off, she puts her head down on your shoulder. Every time. But sometimes, and tonight was one of those sometimes, she lifts her head from your shoulder, says "Other one," and lowers it onto your other shoulder. And those are the last words she says all day, and you think to yourself that despite it all, everything's cool.

Sock club

Those are all singleton socks, socks that don't have a buddy, socks that only an amputee would wear. I think Lyla must have an identical set stashed under her crib mattress or something, all part of her master plan to stall the morning routine.

Look at her:


You have no idea what she's capable of.

Example:


She climbed to the top of that today. I contorted myself under it and kept hands on her the whole way, but I didn't help her. At the top when I finally intervened (she was horizontal and a wee bit precarious) by threading her between the bars and lowering her to the ground, she cried. Then she did it all again.

And she's becoming a respectable dog walker.


And an excellent bee.


(Thanks Great-Auntie Jean!)

So anyway, I'm convinced Lyla is behind a high-level conspiracy to rid the household of half her socks. Maybe she started a club at daycare. "The first rule of sock club is, you do not talk about sock club. The second rule of sock club is, you DO NOT talk about sock club." And then they pummel each other with socks.

Hey, the truth might be stranger.