Another Step Out of Babyhood

This is the CJ we all know and love. The unruly curls are so adorable, aren't they? Such personality on that wee head. That is until you try and get a comb through those suckers. It was becoming a knockdown, drag out, no holds barred Ultimate Fighting cage match every morning. And I can't say I blame him. He wakes up with dreadlocks, and try as I might, I could not keep from yanking his poor little scalp despite a lot of detangler and patience. During each battle, I would think, it is time to get this mop cut, but then it would be so cute and fuzzy when it was all done. He was my baby.
But finally, I couldn't ignore it anymore. I had to let my practical mommy brain get louder than my STOP-GROWING-UP-SO-FAST mommy heart. So I called my hairdresser and made a double appointment. Momma's gotta look good too.
Leila had a nice visit with her Thi Thi while CJ and I went to the hairdresser. CJ didn't quite know what to make about leaving his sister behind. He kept looking over at her car seat. Mommy heart squeeze right there.
Barb, the hairdresser, is a fantastic lady and very good at her job. CJ and I both got a cape, and he sat on my lap. We jumped right in with what I was afraid would be the big scary clippers. CJ though had no problem with them at all. He got his very serious I-Am-Watching-Everything look and was glued to the mirror. He was amazingly good. Surprisingly it was the scissors that scared him a little, but all he did was turn around and hug me. Sigh. So finally, here is the end result.
And he is still so adorable, but it is now a little boy adorable. I can no longer pretend he is my baby boy. It is the way it is suppose to be, but some days it feels like each milestone goes by as quickly as each curl was cut and fell.
Still those, the hair is so freakin' cute.

The fun of being a parent

We haven't posted here in awhile, so I figured I'd talk about this morning - because, after all, a "random morning" is a pretty good way to figure out how parenthood is treating us, right?

• Alarm goes off at some ungodly hour


• Walk, feed dogs


• Lie back down


• Duffy: "I'll get up to run as soon as I get CJ back to sleep".


• *whoosh*


• Duffy: "Aaaaaaagh"


• Me: "What the hell happened?"


• Wife: "He puked on me!"


• Me (getting up for paper towels): "That sucks"


• Wife: "It's in my ear!"


• Son: pukes all over bed


• Me (picking up son): "let's change you"


• Son: pukes all over me


• Me (under breath): "Lovely"


• Daughter: starts laughing maniacally


• Duffy runs into the shower to clean the puke from her hair/ear

So, that was this morning in Casa de Batzer. The fun started at 4:20 when the alarm went off...by 5:30, Duffy admitted that she was too frustrated to work out (and, besides, she had already showered, so what was the point?), and since I knew I wasn't going to get back to sleep, I went downstairs to spin.

---

Since we haven't posted here in awhile, some updates are in order.

• CJ is up and running around . . . has been since he was 10 months old, but he's getting more & more sure on his feet every day.


• Leila is doing a whole lot of rocking on her hands & knees, and if you turn your back on her, she mysteriously moves across the room. I'm not sure if she's crawling, but she can get where she wants to go, as long as you're not looking at her.


• CJ is saying an isolated word or two. For example, the other day I went to change his diaper pointed at myself, said "I'm daddy" and then pointed at him and said "and you're CJ." CJ then pointed at himself and said, clearly "Ceej". Duffy said that, yesterday, when she went to change his diaper, he said "diaper" from the changing table.


• Leila babbles incessantly, but doesn't say much outside of "dadadadadada" and "mamamamamama" (and she uses them interchangeably when looking Duffy or me, so I'm not sure there's a whole lot of actual meaning behind them) and "dididididididi" when she's really pissed off.