Play date

Max and I met up with some friends and 10 new babies.

Beforehand, I was concerned about Max's first big play date. How would he interact with the other children? Would he be a bully? Would he be a wimp? Would he share? Would he be an outsider?

Upon arrival, I set him down and he plowed past adult legs and baby accouterments to arrive on a play mat covered in toys. Sitting on the mat was Libby, an adorable little girl just a couple of weeks older than Max. Eying each other, they played side by side for a while. Thank goodness she has an older brother, though. Because when things got physical she knew how to take care of herself. Max is new at kissing and likes to try to kiss the top of our heads. (He also likes to pull hair, but none of the older children had enough to endanger them and the teeny-tinies were usually protected by carriers or mother's arms.) He tried kissing her, and climbed over her to get to her head. He left slobber all over her and made her cry.

Actually, he left slobber a lot of places. I think he's teething again. I hope he wasn't trying to use her cute little head as a teething biscuit.

Nonetheless, he tried making up to her later. Extending his dimpled arm, he offered her a ball. She looked at it and crawled away. He stared after her. I swear he shrugged before looking at the ball and cramming it in his mouth with his pudgy hand. I was happy to see that he took rejection in stride.

Allison, the oldest little girl was our hostess. Toddling around in her pink dress, she greeted everyone and offered her toys. I was handed a puzzle piece of the soft mat, which I don't think I'm smart enough to piece together. She looked genuinely happy to have so many children playing with her things. Of course, the most gleeful expression I saw was when one of the cats appeared and she tore off after it. Those cats knew just how to move to avoid her...and later to avoid Max who found patting their noses a new favorite pasttime.

Babies abounded. Two sets of twins arrived. Each set was a boy and a girl. Two baby singlets were there, too. Max was enthralled. All the babies were dressed so cute. Max definitely has a thing for shoes, which is strange since I can't even seem to keep a pair of socks on the kid. At least two times I caught him nibbling on baby shoes. Luckily, the babies were too young to fear for their toes. A few times I caught him peering into the face of a sleeping baby. His face was close enough to kiss them...but he didn't. Whew! One of the times, little Haley wasn't sleeping, but she didn't seem to mind. She just stared right back at him.

One of the teeny-tinies began to cry. (Max had nothing to do with it.) A chorus of babies joined that single cry. At this point, Max had crawled under the high chair like he does at home. When they cried, he looked up at me and blinked. He looked confused like he wasn't sure if he should join or not. However, the high chair distracted him so tears were avoided.

At another point, all the babies needed changing at the same time--except one. Avery's mom teased that she only changes her diaper once a day. I need to learn that trick. Avery is a few months older than Max. He was enamoured with her. They took off crawling after each other. I was concerned that he was too aggressive, but like Libby, Avery knew how to take care of herself. Max likes the spunky girls.

I look forward to another playdate. Hopefully, some of our other friends will be able to join us. Since Toral is moving her twins all the way to Florida, it might be a while before we get to see them. But I'm hopeful.

After all, we know miracles happen.

New York Auto Show March 29, 2008

While my mom visited, we had only one pretty day--and it was frickin' cold. So we went into the city and checked out the New York Auto Show. Garrett claimed it was the biggest in the nation and we'd be impressed. Surprisingly, for a gal who usually can identify a car only by color, I thought it was pretty cool. That's G and my mom in the pic above.
It didn't take long for me to get exhausted--and hungry. So, yeah, I ate the whole pizza by myself. You didn't think my face could get that round just from the baby, did you? And, that pooch around my belly... well, that's not my shirt bunching up--which is what I thought when I saw it.
The most exciting aspect of the show was seeing this car--even though a bunch of guys and little boys made no effort to get out of my way so I could get a better view. Do you recognize him? It's Bumblebee! From Transformers! I just know that if those people would have gotten out of my way, he would have transformed and had a chat with me. I'd like to ask him why the amazing theme song from the cartoon didn't make it to the movie. Seriously, I was so disappointed that I had to sing it to myself. It probably annoyed Garrett.
Isn't she pretty? This is my new car. You can't exactly tell from the picture, but this little Jag looks like a kitty cat in the face. Me-ow.

February 24

My mom and I watched the Broadway production of August: Osage County. The guys went to the Natural History Museum, which they said is nothing like Ben Stiller's movie At the Museum.

The first act was especially good. I thought it seemed to have elements of Steel Magnolias and Terms of Endearment. Tracy Letts created a believably kooky family--even if a certain subplot was a little icky. As the play continued for three acts I wondered if the theater was trying to add to the setting of an Oklahoma August by smothering us. I think I'd seen a show in that theater before and remembered a leaky roof that did not help the fact that it was frigid.

One of the reasons we'd wanted to see the play was because the playwright was the son of Oklahoma's own Billi Letts, who wrote Where the Heart Is (you know, the Oprah book that became a movie and was about the girl who had a baby at Wal Mart). Letts has such a knack with creating characters, we wanted to see if her talent rubbed off on her son. We met her at HAWK's Heartland writing workshop last summer, and she glowed with pride as she spoke of her son's play. Below is a picture of some of my writing pals with the author:

The show was a family affair. Her husband Dennis Letts played the father. His monologue opened the show. We were disappointed to see that someone was filling in for him. When Mama returned home she explained why the actor missed the show. After reading local Oklahoma papers, she learned he'd died that Friday--two days before the performance. My heart goes out to their family in their loss. I've heard her speak a couple of times, and she seems like a sincere person whose pride and love for her family are evident.

February 21-24

We were thrilled when we saw it was going to be pretty when my parents visited. They were expected to arrive around 11 in the morning on the 21st. Instead, their non-stop flight got delayed (although it eventually arrived a few hours before they did). They were sent to Texas and then New Mexico. At least three of their scheduled flights were cancelled and they couldn't even get on one to go home. Thankfully, they managed to catch a flight that had them arrive at 2:30 in the morning on the 22nd.


On our way to pick them up, we noticed it started to snow. My dad called to see where we were just as a car in front of us had slid across several lanes and hit the concrete barrier along the road. As the snow picked up, the street disappeared. We eventually arrived at the airport. I was so relieved that my parents had arrived safely. Here's a pic of my dad juggling two phones in an attempt to locate their luggage: We cancelled our weekend trip to Hartford because of doctor's orders. However, we managed to have a good, low key visit and they helped us immensely by cooking and cleaning and shopping. They even helped me lug laundry to a laundromat since I'm not supposed to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. My mom's favorite aspect of their visit was our trip to IKEA. We're still accumulating things for our apartment, and the curtains my dad installed make our bedroom much cozier. We went to Palisades Mall. We ate lunch and tried to see No Country for Old Men, but they only had three tickets left. We saw another Oscar nominated movie on pay-per-view when we got home: Michael Clayton. Good movie.

Below is a picture of Garrett trying to win a stuffed animal at one of those crane games that's in the mall. He was once quite good at it because he and his father would play at lunch each week. His mother accumulated quite a batch of animals. The best carnival-esque gamer I know, though, his Aunt Anne. The woman is a master at everything from the crane to the shooting games.