And now that Mr. T is almost nine months old (?!!??!!) and we’re back from Europe, I am about to dip my toes back in to being a professional X, Y and Z again.

I am not, in any sense, prepared to give up being Mommy at home with Torsten, but since many of the things I do can be done either from home or part-time (and all of them privately, if I so choose), I will soon be firing up the old brain and integrating some work (some combination of programming, writing and teaching – you didn’t think I got that CELTA for nothing, did you? ) into my weekly schedule.

We’ve always planned that I’d start working on getting this together once we got back from abroad, but now that we’re really back and Christian has Torsten for the day, I’m finally sitting down over a cup of coffee to work out the details, and I must say it feels pretty good. At the moment it’s low-pressure while I work things out, but it’s still nice to be on the path.

More on this as things come together…

Day five in the “Papa is out-of-town” marathon, and let me just say that Mama is glad tomorrow is the last full day of it, because… cripes (N.B.: I can’t believe that just came out of my mouth. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone use that interjection since the early 70′s…). I am just about used up.

But there are some benefits to being T’s mommy 24/7 right now, not least of which is that he’s decided to do all sorts of new stuff this week. Like really play games with me. And reach out to get stuff he wants from Mama. And get really mad when Mama does not give him what she has, and reach out for it on the table (hey, that’s attention span, and it’s all good!). And help Mama play peek-a-boo by pulling the blanket off of her head. And talk on the phone (he left Papa a voicemail today, mostly consisting of “mmmmboo”). And do a full push-up on his tummy all the time (now all he needs to do is get that little butt up in the air and we’ll have a crawler!). And pick up food and stick it in his mouth. And, well, we’ll count this as something new because I think it’s funny – he’s figured out how to drink from his squeezy toys in the bath, which is kind of funny, even if it’s not very hygienic. And rolling round blocks back and forth to Mama in the high chair, because, hey, Mama can play too.

Oh, yeah, and grabbing crap off of anything with lightning speed. I shall attempt to post a picture of this tomorrow. He’s clearly reached the “watch him like a hawk” stage…

There’s some other stuff too, but I’m too tired to catalogue it.

Unfortunately, this has also been the week for a new level of grumpiness. I suspect some of it is exhaustion (I know it is on my part) and my perception (see the first part of the sentence), but he’s developing a really heart-wrenching cry when he decides he’s grumpy, and it’s wearing me down I’m sure I’ll see it differently once I have enough time to, you know, use the bathroom without someone wanting to be held.

I know who he got the grumpiness from, of course, and I’ll give you a hint: the responsible party does not have a beard and still happens to share half of his genes. I know that’s an incredible mystery and all, but you can handle it.

Off to hang up laundry so we don’t have to go naked to our class tomorrow, and then… then I will pass out.

PASS.

OUT.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Day four in the “Papa is out-of-town” fiesta, and since it was supposed to get into the 90′s here today, Torsten and I went off to the children’s museum and then to the aquarium to bask in the air conditioning, let T play with other kids (which he adores now), and distract Torsten with pretty fishies.

Mama is now exhausted. But… Torsten had a fantastic time. I’ve never seen the little guy so pleased and excited. First, there were all the kids, and the nice soft playing pond and carpet to practice crawling, and the toys, and the kids, and the other kids, and, oh, more kids… and then there was the fire truck, and more kids… and after we finished at the children’s museum, there were all the pretty fish. And, oh dear Lord, the SHARKS. And… and… a tiger two inches from Torsten’s face.

No, really. There are, for some reason, some tigers at the aquarium – and we showed up around feeding time, and so we ended up right in front of one of the tigers, who looked Torsten up and down as if he were a tasty treat, and Torsten just bounced with joy, flailing all of his arms in the Baby Björn and giggling.

Mama, Mama, he wants to EAT me! YAYYYYYYY! BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE! I’m deliciiiiiiicious! Whee!

And then… then there were the pretty tropical fish. Ooooo… clownfish and bright yellow fish and blue fish and more sharks and… and… what the Hell is that guy in a diving suit doing swimming around? OOO, so not exciting. Move on, Mama. I wanna see more fishies.

Let me say this about the Denver Aquarium – it’s a tourist trap, it’s pretty cheesy in parts (yeah, I want to scuba dive with the sharks at the city aquarium, so thank you for advertising it with that weirdo swimming around while we were looking at the fish, and the face painting/pet the stingrays/blah blah carnival at the exit, and the constant advertisements for the aquarium restaurant), and it’s not cheap. And then there’s the robotic orangutan, and the macaws, and the tigers – I mean, seriously, it’s an aquarium… unless the aquarium is their dinner, what the Hell are tigers doing there?

But.

The fish are clearly well-cared for, and if you only look at what you came there to see and your purpose is to entertain a baby with colorful fish (and, ok, tigers) and to enjoy air conditioning, let me just say that it was pretty cool. Torsten loved it.

Loved.

It.

He loved it so much that he skipped his afternoon nap so he could giggle with wide-eyes and his big, beautiful smile on the bus and coo to all of the other riders about how awesome his day was.

Sure, he was a little easily upset this evening when he got home because he was tired, and he’s already awakened once tired and out of sorts now that he’s in bed, but it was one Hell of a day.

The most mind-blowing thing about having Torsten is this… every day, every single day, there’s a moment or ten or one hundred where he shows me something I’ve seen a hundred times or never thought about or didn’t expect, and we both watch wide-eyed, amazed and dumbfounded.

My God, it’s full of stars!

Every single day.

I could not love you – or being your Mama – more, my little boy.

(“Knowledge” picture from Scott Meyer’s Basic Instructions comic strip)

So the mind-blowing month of CELTA is officially over, and it was totally worth it. It was stressful and intense, and I learned so much I think my head may yet come apart at the seams, but it was awesome. Sometime after we get back from Europe this summer, I’ll start looking for part-time work around here so that I can put it into practice, but in the meantime, it’s just going to sit in there and stew, and that’s quite alright.

Meanwhile, I’d just like to congratulate everyone in my CELTA class (CELT-ites?) for surviving!

(Click to enlarge)

To Aram, Jon, Jedidiah, Joe, Nick and Richard: it was a pleasure working with you all, and I fully intend to be extremely jealous as you traipse off to the far-flung corners of the world! Thanks for being so collegial and for making the course a great deal of fun.

To our wonderful trainers, Giles and Betty: thanks so much for your candor and sense of humor, and most of all for sharing your expertise with us. It was well worth the pain!

And to anyone who’s thinking of doing the CELTA here in Denver, I highly recommend it. It’s a lot of work and not for the faint-of-heart, but as far as professional development goes, it’s a great experience.

Dearest Torsten,

The title of this month’s post came from something Mama’s cousin (your first cousin once removed – Mama only recently figured out how this works in English, which is pretty scary…) said, and she’s right – you’re losing that little baby look fast, and you’re growing into a big boy faster than Mama can keep up with.

This month has held a lot of firsts, and Mama hasn’t been there for many of them. You’ve learned to roll over from your back to your tummy, you’ve had your first fruits and vegetables, you’ve got a big boy laugh now which is horrendously infectious, and perhaps most significantly, you understand the idea of bedtime, and you’re not entirely happy about it. You don’t throw tantrums over bedtime or anything, but you do realize that the bedtime routine is about to mean bed, and your brain thinks it’d be much more fun to be awake than to sleep, regardless of how tired your little body is. It’s sort of funny.

And speaking of fruits and vegetables, now that you’ve entered the wonderful world of almost-big-people-food, you definitely have preferences. I’m inclined to think it’s related to texture. So far, what we know is this:

Pears? Ugh, pears. Here’s Papa feeding you your first pears…

Yeah, you could do without pears. You weren’t all that convinced 5 minutes later either, when Mama took a turn with your first fruit.

And you’re still not convinced.

Now bananas… those you’ll do, once you’ve figured out after the first two bites that they aren’t pears, and you’re very decorative with them:

But what is it that you really go for? The choice that will stain the most: sweet potatoes! Ooo, yes, the sweet potatoes, they are good. Mmmm sweet potatoes. And really, they’re so good that you really need to put your fingers in your mouth afterwards to spread the joy. Eventually they’re all over your face and hands and, well, I guess that’s what babies are supposed to do.

But yes, that’s right – given the choice of tasty foods, you want to be sure to eat the stuff that’s going to turn everything orange once it gets all over everything. Next in the “learn to eat” queue is either carrots or green beans, and I’m pretty sure you’ll pick the carrots for their staining value. We’ll see.

Anyway, enough about food. This month has been Papa Month for you, and you are totally enjoying it. I admit to being jealous – when Papa comes home with a new story about what you’ve done that day or tells me what your latest trick is, I do wish I’d been there to see it. That said, I don’t begrudge you two your time together or Papa his own discoveries about you – it’s pretty awesome to have a Papa who’s so involved in your life, and I know your Papa agrees that you are the best thing since… well, anything.

(Note that Papa found that you can totally bring down your lion playmat gym (above), and you think you’re totally cool when you do it. Also note that the *ahem* interesting sock fashion was chosen by Papa!!!)

But as I said, you’re growing up fast. It’s not just that you’re bigger, though you are – you’re nearly 19 pounds! That’s pretty normal, actually, just a bit above average, but you’re super tall as well (in the 98th percentile), so you’re still our skinny snuggly little thing. Oh, and your head is in the 96th percentile or something, meaning that there’s a brain in there just ready to make trouble. So yes, you’re bigger, but more importantly, your personality is really shining through. You talk, you laugh, you imitate Mama and Papa, and you have opinions about lots of things. You’re so curious, and you take such delight in things. This morning, you and Mama watched a big yellow butterfly land on a rose, and you were just in awe. You’re a sweet little boy who loves people, although you’ve started to get upset when Mama and Papa leave the room, and you sometimes just can’t help smiling, even if you’re so tired and cranky you want to pass out.

Also on the “new things this month” front, your hair is growing back a lovely light brown, except for that little bald spot you keep rubbing on the back of your head, which seems poised to stay around for a while:

(You can tell I’m your Mama by the way I think the back of your head is really cute )

What’s probably most exciting is that you’ve turned into a sturdy little guy who can do things – you can sit or stand up with very little support, and in point of fact, that’s what you’d rather be doing most of the time. We got you a jumperoo to play in, and you bounce up and down and up and down and giggle and smile for long periods of time. We’re pretty sure that once you’ve learned to move from Point A to Point B (something that’s probably coming extremely soon), we’re in big trouble. You’re probably going to be the kid who disassembles the DVD player and puts it back together to make a sentient toaster. But first, you’ll observe the DVD player for a while to see what it does. You’re definitely a combination of both of your parents (and, I think, probably the best of us both).

The cool thing about you being such a grown-up baby (as opposed to the fragile, newborn kind of baby) is that you’re ready to experience a lot of things you couldn’t before. You’ve played in the big bathtub and the shower now (and boy, do you think the splashing potential of the bathtub is awesome!), and you’re ready to take some Mama and Me classes at the swimming pool, something Mama is looking forward to.

You get a lot more out of walks than you used to as well, and you really love them – you love looking at the trees and the cars and the people, and you’re definitely aware of everything around you. You really enjoy being outside in the garden with Papa and you love looking around at colorful displays and objects at the store. According to Papa, you have a propensity to giggle at women, especially those with long hair. At least you don’t do to them what you’re still doing to Mama, which is to remind her that you really miss breastfeeding, and that if you wanted to, you could… ahem… gain access all by yourself if Mama didn’t stop you when you try. That last bit is pretty funny, because you do it with the most endearing smile on your face and cute babbling, like “C’mon Mama, I’m cute, you’d do anything for me, right???”

Ah, the guilt! And you show every sign of remaining übercute as you get bigger, so I’m really terrified of what you’ll con me into once you talk.

But I’m looking forward to it anyway. You’ve reached such a fun age, and you’re really the best kid ever. We’re having a great time being your parents, and Mama is really, really glad she’s able to go back to being Mama more often now.

We love you lots, Torsten Monster!

Love,

Mama

I feel like I’m learning so much about teaching in such a short time. It’s going to be a while before I can integrate all of this crap into my own brain and teaching, but I’m having a blast. Of course, the other folks in the course are a riot and great to work with, so it helps, but I feel like I’ll really be in a good place for teaching when I decide to go back to work.

Of course, being home with Torsten and Christian this weekend (well, only today really – I was in Colorado Springs this Saturday at the State Democratic Convention which completely sucked for various reasons I’ll disclose in June, after my course is done and I have some time to really write) made me realize that I’m totally not ready to be back at work yet – having the opportunity to enjoy my son’s early months with my husband is so wonderful that I can’t wait for June to come and to be at home with him again, even if I go stir crazy from time to time.

Anyhow, five minutes of non-course writing is all I can allow myself – if I do anymore, my paper and lesson plans will never get done, and that is, quite frankly, not an option!

So when I say that I read somewhere that around the 4-5 month mark, most parents start to feel as if they’ve emerged from a cave and begin to start to see glimpses of the life they led before the baby, I mean that I read it somewhere. Like maybe Parents magazine. Or the back of a can of formula. Or a diaper advertisement. I have no idea.

That said, it is true. All of a sudden, life is returning to something which, if not normal, is at the very least human. I’ve been writing on my book all week for the first time since Torsten’s birth (and my spectacularly impossible post-C-section last-minute NaNoWriMo win), and I’ve decided to enroll in a CELTA certification course next month which will presumably eat all of my non-sleeping time for the month of May so that at some point after the summer I can either teach ESL/EFL part-time here in the area or can privately tutor foreign students. (Note that I can only do the course right now because Christian is a) officially on paternity leave, and b) a really nice husband…)

Oh, and this week I got to plan a few days of research in London while we’re in Europe in August. Muahahaha.

In other words, for the first time in months, in addition to being Mama, I get to be Krista too.

Not that I don’t love being Mama – I love being Mama – but it’s sort of exciting to be able to be doing other stuff too. A Mama who is also Krista is a better Mama for Torsten to have – I’m sure of it.

And let me repeat this: my husband is awesome.

Woo hoo! Go go developmental-milestone-monster!

Oh, and he talks to us alllll the time now. It’s awesome

That’s all for now. Hope everyone is well, and I hope to be back with more soon…

Now, I could just extend the curtains with some extra unpatterned fabric in a complementary color (I did this for our dining room and it worked beautifully), but that would involve a trip to the store, and more measuring, and more sewing. Yuck.

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I bought the fabric originally, but no matter.

A solution was already in our cupboard, and it’s one which makes my job in making the curtains even easier.

See, when we lived in LA, we had a bunch of curtains that were crappy, but sufficient. But we had no kitchen curtains, so my mom went out when we were sleeping and got us some, because I’d mentioned that we needed them. C disagreed about putting them up (and I admit, the pattern is not my favorite) and so they stayed in their package, coming with us here but never being used. Granted, the fabric is thinner than what I got for the bedroom, and I don’t like the pattern as much, but they are also blue (something we wanted), and they are larger than the length I need for the bedroom windows. And they are hemmed.

What this means is that while I won’t get exactly what I wanted for the bedroom windows, I can get close, and I only have to cut two sides of the material. And not hem it. So my square-cutting nightmare will apply to the lining, but it will be significantly less for the fabric everyone sees. Joy for all around.

Yeah, I’m not happy about committing to a pattern I like less, but it matches, and more importantly, these bastards will get done.

File under: how to make curtain-making a religious experience.