I have no idea how we got from here

all the way to here.

B is walking and speaking gibberish and chasing and being chased. He is climbing and grabbing and searching and throwing.

When I was staying at home with tiny baby B, and all he did all day was stare at the light fixtures, cry, and toot, I wasn’t sure I was ever going to have a funny, smiley baby who loved to play. And now that new funny, smiley, playful baby is already here, and he’s getting to be less and less of a baby every day.

I wasn’t going to write something sappy, but it just kind of happened. It’s crazy to see how different B is now than he was one year ago. And it’s crazy how much H and I have changed too.

Today’s post was written by an anonymous participant in Blog Share. This means that I wrote a post that is on another participant’s blog. I hope you’ll check out all the posts and leave comments. The list of participating blogs is in the post below this one.

I’ve got a secret. There’s another man in my life, besides my husband. Actually, two.

But it’s not what you think.

Starting back in grad school, when I began dating the guy who would become my husband, there was a male classmate that I really got along well with. We had a shared love of music, tv shows and movies. He was always listening to music I’d never heard of, but always really ended up liking (O.A.R., Modest Mouse). I didn’t work very much during that time, so he and I would go to the movies during the middle of the day, or we’d go shopping together to make use of a GAP coupon one of us had. We had a great time. And the boyfriend was totally cool with it. (Even though in the early stages of the relationship, he didn’t know what our status was, because one of our dates to see a movie was with grad school guy and another guy in our program.) Ultimately, the two of them even joked about the situation. Grad school guy was my daytime boyfriend, and he was glad because that meant he didn’t have to take me out to dinner and buy me stuff. Boyfriend was happy I had someone to hang out with during the day.

Now, there are two men at work who are like my new daytime boyfriends. We talk on the phone or visit each other’s office several times a week. We talk about the frustrations of work and share work related gossip. And we share funny videos, movies and music with each other. On occasion we talk about stuff going on at home (one guy is married, and I know his wife, and the other guy is single). And, now that I’m married, it’s nice to let off some of the steam and irritations of my day before I get home with hubby. It makes life at home so much better because he is happy he doesn’t have to hear my rants over and over. It works well for all parties involved.

Do you have or have you had a “daytime boyfriend” and what did your significant other think?

The following blogs are participating in the Blog Share today. All should have anonymous Blog Share posts up by Thursday morning. Please stop by each and enjoy all the anonymous stories!

Not the Daddy
O is for Olson
Red Red Whine
Rediscovering Me
Reflections in the Snow-covered Hills
The Reluctant Grownup
Sauntering Soul
Serendipity Now
Snarke
So, This Is a Treadmill
Thinking Some More
Time for Change
Together They Come
Wondering and Pondering
And You Know What Else
Andrea Unplugged
Arctic-ulate
Bright Yellow World
Bwildered
Catheroominations
Did I Say That Outloud?
Dispatches from the Failed Mommy Club
Full of Snark
Heidikins
Hot Chicks Dig Smart Men
Just Below 63
The Little Goat

This isn’t the most original post in the world, but I’m ok with that tonight after working on Blog Share e-mails for the last hour. Without any further excuses, I present baby pictures.

I have selected my new work nemesis. We will call him RAN, which stands for Reply-All Nemesis.

At my office, people occasionally send out e-mails looking for specific help. The messages are things like, “Is anyone an expert on the legal issues related to transporting baby pajamas from Europe to Asia?” or “Can anyone provide a reference for a good family law firm in Miami?” If you are the expert on European-Asia baby pajama transportation, you just reply to the person who sent the e-mail and say, “I may be able to help you with this issue. Please let me know if I can be of assistance.”

But not RAN! No, RAN replies to everyone in the whole office with long explanations of why he is an expert. RAN writes (to everyone), “When I was in law school, I wrote a paper on that very topic. It was very interesting, and I spent many late nights working on it. I found that the issues related to baby pajamas are vast. I would be glad to provide greater detail at your convenience. Blah, blah, blah, suck up, suck up, suck up, I’m awesome.”

Many a time I have been tempted to reply to RAN with, “There’s a difference between Reply and Reply-All. Learn it.”

PS I sent out Blog Share e-mails to all the people signed up so far, so if you think you signed up but didn’t get an e-mail from me, leave a comment or e-mail me. Also, if you haven’t signed up but want to, posts are due November 3rd at 8 p.m.

Can we discuss holiday gifts? Good.

I think I have some good ideas this year.

For women:
*cashmere scarf - Macy’s has some too, but more expensive
*missing pieces of a collection someone has
*mustache ring
*personalized note cards
*cosmetic bags from Pottery Barn- I got these last year for two people, and I think this year I’m going to get them for myself

For men:
*beer of the month club – Kristin gave me this idea
*BBQ sauce of the month club – Abby gave me this idea
*wine of the month club – I gave this to both a friend and my dad one year, and they both liked it
*Lands End sweater blanket

Stocking stuffers:
*coffee mugs
*chip clips in the shape of breast cancer ribbons from Kohls
*a personalized address stamp

PS If you want your very own weather woman, I saw them at Kohls this weekend.

PPS At Target today I saw a Snuggie FOR DOGS. Here it is!

Any great finds this year? Please share!

Geez, Louise. Time to get the Blog Share post off the top of the page. Not that you can’t still sign up for Blog Share; you can! Just leave me a comment (with the e-mail address and website, please) letting me know you want to participate.

***

I have an awesome idea for an invention. You know how in hamster or gerbil cages there is a bottle of water, and the animal can go over and get a drink whenever it is thirsty, but the water doesn’t drip into the cage? Why isn’t there one of those things for babies in cribs?! I could hang a bottle of formula inside B’s crib, and when he gets hungry in the middle of the night, instead of screaming, he could just crawl over and get a drink. I can’t believe this product doesn’t exist! I am going to make millions, suckers! (Heh, that pun was unintentional, but I’m leaving it.)

***

H and I take the baby when we go grocery shopping every weekend. H and I have grocery shopped together for six or seven years now, even before we lived together, so we just incorporated B into the routine. Today I tried taking B by myself. Whoa. How do other parents do this? Actually, B wasn’t too bad. I just spent the whole time worried that he was going to start whining, crying, or screaming at any time, so I raced through the aisles and fretted the whole time.

H just told me that I was racing so fast that I forgot the granola bars he wrote on the list. I told him that granola bars weren’t on the list. He went and got it to prove to me that granola bars were on the list. He brought the list to me, and he was right. BUT in my defense, I folded the list in half (it was on an 8×11 sheet of paper). So to me, the list looked like:

3 breakfast quesadillas
bananas
1 gallon OJ
peanut butter
6 Granny Smith
6 20-ounce Gatorade red
3 sweet potatoes

But if I had unfolded the list, I would have seen:

3 breakfast quesadillas
bananas
1 gallon OJ
peanut butter……….. granola
6 Granny Smith
6 20-ounce G-ade red
3 sweet potatoes

The best part is that I even forgot the peanut butter when I went through that aisle and went back to get it at the end. Oh, well. Now we have plenty of Skippy.

It has been over six months since the last Blog Share! I think we’re due for another one.

The point of Blog Share is that you write a post about anything you want. It will be posted anonymously on someone else’s blog.

Here’s how it works. You tell me you want to participate. Then you e-mail me your post by the due date. I delete all identifying information and forward it to the person who will post it on his/her blog. On the appointed day, everyone publishes their anonymous posts.

I will create a link list of all participants. I will send all participants a copy of the list, but you don’t have to publish it if you don’t want to.

There are only two rules: 1) You have to publish whatever post I send you on the selected date, and 2) you can’t publicly acknowledge which post you wrote. Even if your post is bland or funny, it’s not fair to everyone else if you admit which post is yours. However, do keep in mind that someone may still be able to figure out what post you wrote.

You don’t have to write about a big secret. It doesn’t have to be scandalous. Last time there were posts about dog poop, sex drives, friends and loneliness, and naked roommates . There’s no pressure to write a masterpiece. Sometimes the best posts are the most random ones.

So I guess I should tell you when the next Blog Share will be. Let’s make it soon. How about November 4th? You will need to send me your post by November 2nd. Sound good? Good.

It snowed yesterday for at least seven hours. In October. In EARLY October. What the heck!

Oh, if you follow me religiously on Twitter, as you probably should if you don’t want to become my new nemesis, you will be aware that I have been freaking out about getting the flu shot for B. I called my pediatrician’s office 5 or 6 weeks ago to get him the shot, and the office said that they only had the nasal spray (for 2 to 5 year olds) at the time, but that the office had ordered the flu shot for babies and that I should keep calling in every day or so to find out when the flu shot had arrived. So I called three times a week for 5 or 6 weeks, and they never had the shot. AAARGH. STRESS. My baby is going to get the flu, and it is going to be all my fault. My pediatrician’s office has been wonderful up until now. I’m not sure what the deal is with this whole fiasco. Did every other parent who goes to my pediatrician think to get their baby the flu shot in August or what?

Finally, I called the Department of Public Health and told them the situation. The lady I talked to pointed me to a list of flu shot clinics, told me she had no idea whether any of them would give the flu shot to someone under the age of 1, and then told me that I had better get him the shot right away. Kind of helpful, but NOT REALLY. So I called Minute Clinic, Walgreens, CVS, Cub Foods, Rainbow Foods, ET CETERA, and no one would give the flu shot to anyone under 18 months old.

Anna, blogger extraordinaire and kind-of-neighbor-of-mine, offered me her pediatrician’s info. Before I called her pediatrician, H finally got involved and called the clinic where he goes, and they agreed to give my baby the flu shot. Wheeee! I can’t wait until we get to go through this whole rigamarole again for the H1N1 vaccine.

Every week I have these grand plans to post every day, and then I wake up early, work all day, take care of the baby, and just want to sleep. I think that’s good: work, family, and sleep/taking care of myself should all have priority over writing here, but I miss it sometimes. So here I am!

I went to a wedding last weekend. It was the only wedding I’ve been to all year. The lesson I learned this weekend is don’t sit with your coworkers if you don’t have to. There were perfectly nice, but it was all “be on your best behavior” instead of “be silly and have fun.” However, I do have to say that the happy couple really looked fantastic, and they seemed to be having a fabulous time. That’s really all that matters.

I need to start a feud with someone. I don’t have a work nemesis anymore, and my life is so much less interesting because of it. (To be honest, my former nemesis and I have had very limited contact since the winking incident. I’m afraid I may have frightened him. I did have a pregnancy nemesis for a while, but I’m kind of over that too. Yes, she lost all of the pregnancy weight immediately and is probably even way more fit than she was before she got pregnant. And yes, she claims that her baby has slept through the night since he was a few weeks old. BUT, hello, B is the cutest baby ever, so really, she can’t compete.

I don’t even have any good nemesis candidates right now. Suggestions?