Story Provides an Update ...

To my fans,

Story here! And I’m writing my own update this week because my Mom is super busy with job interviews, chasing after me, and wiping my runny nose! I told her, “Mom, people need to know how many times a day I poop.” And she was like, “Story, Mommy only has two hands and right now I need both to pin you to the changing table to keep you from rolling around in said poop.”

I told her, “That is what toes are for.”

Well, she didn’t think that was very helpful, so I pulled up my iPad and got to typing. Let me give you the headlines: Mobility, Food, Poop, Sleep.

Mobility
The big news around the house is that two weeks ago I started crawling. Had I known the attention it would garner, the “oohs and ahhs”, I would have started it months ago. Seriously. My parents went nuts. Then three days ago, I decided to just stand straight up and hold my stance for a five second count. I thought my Mother was going to pass out right there in front of me. She gasped and cooed and followed me around the house with a video camera for the rest of the day.

Here are my top ten observations since crawling, cruising and standing upright:

1. Must my Mother follow me everywhere?
2. The view from 2’5” off the ground is spectacular.
3. Since learning to pull up and cruise, I noticed my parents have a lovely white couch stretched like a blank canvas across one entire side of the room.
4. My parents recently bought a cage and they throw puffs on the ground to entice me to crawl into it.
5. All of the chairs in our house are great teething elements, I especially enjoy the walnut finish.
6. Electrical cords are pretty much the tastiest things ever, I recommend you get the entire cord and plug into your mouth to really appreciate the sweet taste of copper wiring.
7. My parents have a lot of books, magazines, printer paper, newspapers and other munchies just lying around the house.
8. I’ve noticed a direct correlation between my increased mobility and the number of times my Father says, “No”.
9. There are so many rooms in this place! Who knew?
10. Did you know there was a little round sink in the bathroom just for kids?

I’m holding out on the walking thing until I milk this crawling/standing bit for all it’s worth. I figure if I pull out the big guns around Christmas then I’m getting all sort of new toys.

Food
Mom has me eating a bottle every four hours along with a breakfast, lunch and dinner of solid foods. Sometimes I just feel like I am eating non-stop. I mean, I wake up, I breastfeed and just two hours later I’m eating rice cereal, fruit, and toast. Two hours later I’m drinking a bottle, taking a nap, waking up and then, you guessed it, I’m eating again!! Lunch is rice cereal and vegetable puree and maybe some cheese. Well, I’m stuffed like a turkey on Thanksgiving by the time I get through the afternoon bottle and dinner. But Mom still feels the need to pop a boob in my mouth right before I go to sleep. I think the woman is trying to fatten me up so I fit in the 18 mos. sized clothes. Sometimes I try to trick her by taking my food out of the bowl and spreading it all over my high chair tray so it looks like I ate more. But she is relentless; she scoops it right off the tray and into my mouth. And don’t get me started with the songs she sings to try and get me to eat. It’s embarrassing. But it works! I just want her to shut up so I slurp it down as fast as I can. The only up side of this entire food experience is the puffs.

I love puffs. Puffs are these heavenly fluffy little star-shaped cereal bits that melt right in my mouth. I could eat them all day. And I do. You see, I hide them all over the house so whenever I want a snack I can just crawl right over to one of my hiding spots and pop one in my mouth. Favorite hiding spots include, but are not limited to, the following: Behind the door to my bedroom, under the couch, squeezed between the floor pillows, tucked into Mommy’s brassiere, pushed up under my car sear, in the sugar bowl, in the creamer, along the bottom of the fridge, in Daddy’s slipper.

Sometimes I find other things in these hiding spots. For example, today I was searching for puffs and found something special that I wedged in my cheek and managed to hide for around six hours until my Mother discovered it half way through swim class. I had just popped up from a dunk under the water when I thought it would be a good time to sneak a chew, but Mom gave me a puzzled look, stuck her finger inside my mouth and removed the fibrous end of a green onion I had been savoring since breakfast. She can be a real kill-joy.

Poop
Most of my fans know that I struggled with solid waste for a while. Well not any more. In fact, I’m pretty regular now. Mom even suggested to me that I slow down with the nasty output, but I can’t help myself. I mean, with all the food that woman crams down my throat it’s only natural that I poop three to five times a day. She acts like it’s all strange that I poop like a normal kid, reading the ingredients off my baby food, consulting blogs and taking my temperature all the time. I just want to shake her and say, Look, lady, it’s NORMAL. But the truth is that my Mom can just be a little paranoid sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I love her like crazy and can’t get enough of her soft lady lumps, but she worries about every little thing. Just the other day I was eating her parking ticket and it got lodged in my throat so I threw up like ten times in a row until I was sitting in a pool of creamy spew and my Mom just freaked. She pulled out the parking ticket, wrapped me in a blanket, plopped me down in the kitchen sink and started calling people on the phone. Really Mom, is this so traumatic that we have to use the kitchen sink? I’m bathed in the essence of breakfast and lunch, must I also be bathed in dish soap?

Sleep
All my Mother’s friends ask her if I sleep at night. Which got me thinking, what happens at night that all the Moms are trying to keep to themselves? Is there a Mom party at 2:00 AM? Does she serve banana pancakes topless at 3:00 AM? Do Grandma and Grandpa come over at 4:00 AM with a pile of gifts? I decided to launch my own investigation, waking up at various intervals to try and catch the adults off guard. I noticed it takes them at least five minutes to come and collect me from my bedroom. What are they hiding in those five minutes?

When I wake up at 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning, I need someone to come and get me so I can investigate the perimeter. If I just lay there and ask nicely for them to please come in and pick me up, they don’t even have the courtesy to come to my door. So I’ve learned that the only real way to get them to show some respect is if I scream with every ounce of energy I’ve got, turn purple and act like I’m throwing up. Mom is a complete sucker for this and will almost always come running, scoop me out of the bed, rip down her shirt and stuff her boob in my mouth. If I’m lucky, I can get her to walk me around the house to check things out. Dad on the other hand, takes a lot more energy. Whenever I realize it’s his shift, I just have to do a little cost/benefit analysis because chances are I’ll cry for twenty minutes before he comes in the room. It will take me another ten to get him to reach into the crib and touch me and then it will take a good fifteen more minutes before he finally wakes up my Mom who just comes in and puts her boob in my mouth. Sometimes it’s just not worth it and if my wails bring Dad I may just roll over and go back to sleep until I know Mom’s on deck. Annoying!

Mobility, Food, Poop, Sleep - those are the big headlines over here. A lot has been happening the last few weeks as we approach the holiday season. I've left out all the little stuff about how I smile all the time, give kisses, wave hello and make the sign for milk. To all you babies out there, save some big stuff for the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas holidays, it’s sure to mean more candy, more turkey, and more gifts. I’m gearing up for some big stuff this week that my Mom can show-off about with her M.O.P.S. group, ‘Mommy and Me’ sign and song class, swim lesson circle, UCLA wives clique and urban sewing club. I plan to use my new tricks to gather chocolate for Daddy on Halloween. I figure I can find a way to get the chocolate to make him pick me up at night. Stay tuned for a Halloween update with some pictures of a surely ridiculous get-up that my parents will make me wear.

To my fans – Keep it real. I love you all. Nigh Nigh.