And then I got up and planned to write, but we three had a Sunday morning cuddlefest in bed once C awoke, and, eh, nothing beats that.

And then I realized I didn’t have my LaTeX environment set up on this desktop the way I wanted to start writing, so I did that…

And there was some Torsten-wrangling, and a bath, and some breakfast, and…

And now it’s 12:45 pm. The usual NaNo procrastination appears to be well underway, because I haven’t written a word.

(To be fair, no real procrastination is involved except for this post – this is just a typical weekend day with kids, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I just want to get writing, because this novel is a very tiny part of what I plan to get done this month!)

So I still haven’t gotten my slew of Mr. T pictures posted (I have posts nearly ready to go, but things keep getting in the way of me finishing…), and I haven’t written anything of substance here in months either.

Life has just kind of been like that of late. I just wrote the nth email unintentionally containing less-than-complete sentences (where n is greater than 2 and I am too tired to mourn that there’s no way to get those emails back), I lost my wallet on the bus the other day and had to cancel all of my credit and debit cards (though I’d like to shout a big thank you to the kind, anonymous person who dropped it into our mailbox yesterday completely intact), and I went to the doctor today forgetting I had neither debit nor credit cards and was  thus forced to have them bill my copay because I am one sleep-deprived dingbat. On top of that, some days I walk out of the house with my shirt on backwards (which is an improvement over my first three months of motherhood in which I more than once nearly answered the front door without pants), my clothes are usually coated in various Torsten-related substances anyway, and I’ve totally turned into the kind of person who says things like, “Damn you kids, get off my lawn!”^[1]. Well, ok, I say things like, “Guys, it’s 2 am, come on,” in my grumpy old mother voice, shouting out the window to the noisy new neighbors. Same diff. The point is that I’ve been out of it. Yeah, I win.

There are a lot of reasons for the lack of writing and the scattered brain – Torsten is huge and capable and implementing his world takeover scheme already, exhausting both Mama and Papa (And thank you, JoAnna, for warning us ahead of time about tall babies and doorknobs! Taking care of that early has been a lifesaver… we’ve been calling him Houdini since about birth, and he shows no sign of stopping with his evil mechanical escape tricks), I just got back from four days away taking a big-assed German exam in Chicago, the evil husband has been working his butt off and teaching a lot of hours, and there simply aren’t enough hours in the day for two people to get all of the work done (though Torsten, who’s almost 15 months old now, actually helped his Papa sweep the kitchen today, so that’s something .

It’s not all bad news, of course – we’re finally able to handle the above, even if we’re positively loopy some days. Having an older child means it’s becoming easier to start doing some things for grownup Krista as well as being Mama, and that’s a very happy thing indeed. There are some big things in the works, actually, but that’ll have to stay cryptic until I have some more information. In any event, in spite of me having Mommy Brain something awful, things have finally started to come back together on this end.

Of course, that’s no guarantee I’ll actually get pictures up soon, but it does mean I’ll try

Anyway, for those who just can’t live without their dose of Torstenosity, here are a few tidbits:

• T has grasped the concept of binarity and can say (and understand) up and down, off and on, open and shut (which, amusingly, does not sound like “shut”), in and out (where “in” is usually the occupied bathroom, and “out” is where he’s supposed to be), etc. This means lots of flipped lightswitches and slammed cupboard doors, but it’s neat to see that he gets it.
• He has become Mr. Climbing Monkey, and he is totally silent when doing things he probably shouldn’t be. This led to Boudreaux’s Butt Paste being smeared all over our very high dining room table and the things on it, and us not noticing when he did it. He’s good.
• Torsten is still the most awesome kid ever, and has learned how to give big smacking lovey kisses to Mama of his own accord
• He now plays lots of clapping games, and he hasn’t tried to beat Mama for singing “If you’re happy and you know it” yet. Yet. This is a major feat for a baby who loves music.
• He’s not a real fan of eating. Unless it’s something we are eating. As I tell Christian when I steal his chocolate, “stolen tastes twice as good,” and apparently T agrees.
• While I was away, he actually bitched me out on the phone before bursting into tears because I was gone. You haven’t lived until you’ve been told off at length on the phone by a 15-month-old.
• It’s official – he now repeats the worst things Mama says, especially when driving. Mama will have to finally clean up her act. Boo.
• He’s still the biggest flirt ever. Ladies everywhere are no match for the Toothy Grin of Torsten ™
• He’s very tricky when playing games, sometimes legitimately tricking us. We’re in so much trouble when he can talk…
• He has a bunch of teeth, all the better to eat you with!
• He is still the nicest baby in the world. Really. He loves to snuggle and kiss and giggle.
• Mr. T loves books. This makes me incredibly happy.
• He has finally sold Mama on Elmo, because he loves Elmo so very much. This is as far as I am willing to go – there will be no trading up to Barney, the Abominable Purple Dinosaur.
• He can climb up and go down the big kids’ slide at the park by himself. Of course, we’re always standing nearby to catch him, but it’s cool.
• He’s about the size of a two-year-old, which makes squirming at diaper-changing-time not fun.

These random tidbits of Torstenmation have been brought to you by the letter T and the number 0.  I make no claim that anything in this post has made any sense whatsoever.

Anyhow, Saturday is tentatively looking like a good day for me to work on Torsten-stuff, so I may get more posted then. But don’t hold your breath – Mommy Brain is insidious and might cause me to spend the day snoozing instead

^{[1] Does anyone know where that phrase is from anyway? I see it everywhere and have no conclusive answer. (And if you say “Gran Torino”, you are too young to answer this question.)}

And then… it happened.

Christian and I both got the Evil Death Cold of Doom ™. And when I say “evil” and “death”, I’m so not kidding.

It sucked.

It continues to suck for Christian, anyway – I’m much better now. I can only hope the baby doesn’t get it, because that would be horrid.

In any event, the point of all of that whining is that I’ve had no time at all to get pictures up, and I’m not promising anything right now, either. I have a huuuuge German test to study for that takes place next month, and until that’s over, I’m totally slacking on everything else except for the care and feeding of a baby Torsten.

I have so much cuteness to post – low-quality video of snuggly toddler waddling around in snowsuit, birthday pictures, etc, but it’ll just have to wait. Sorry grandparents and stalkers… them’s the breaks.

I’m still crazy busy, so the Torsten pics and post have been pushed out, but maybe I’ll get to it tonight and you can all worship him in his snuggly glory.

In fact, I think I’ll just post a sneak preview here, for friends, family and stalkers who haven’t seen it elsewhere…

Torsten's Christmas Picture

I’m afraid he doesn’t look like a baby anymore (well, ok, he looks 2, but that’s another story and is all my fault for marrying a giant), but he is supercute if I say so myself!

And of course, he is still the Super Awesome Mr. T

Back to the grind, but have a good new year out there, everyone!

Those monthly Torsten letters? Um, yeah. Turned out that with a bunch of stuff that’s been going on plus an active 10-12 month old, that’s not particularly easy or high-priority either. C’est la vie.

However, I will get a one-year-old first-birthday update post up soon, complete with pictures of all of the things Super Baby has been up to, because he’s pretty darned awesome.

First, though, I have more real life to attend to. Sorry, but the Mr. T Show will have to wait another week or so

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…

We leave for a month in Europe – all over northern Europe – in a little over a week. Torsten will get to see Opa and Oma again (and boy, do I think he will enjoy them now, since he’s big and full of energy and likes to move – not to mention social and curious, just like he’s been from early on), and to meet more family in Sweden and Germany. Mama will get a week alone to see things and do novel research. Papa will get to attend a conference and give some talks and see his family and his hometown. So there’s lots to look forward to (ok, I realize here that it looks like Christian will be doing a lot of work, but he always is…), and a crapload to do to get ready.

In addition to putting holds on mail and the milk delivery and blah blah blah, I must, in the next week, even with a baby, somehow complete the following:

• Finish Torsten’s christening gown. A master seamstress I am not, but I am determined to finish this. We’re having him baptized in the little town Christian’s aunt (Torsten’s soon-to-be godmother) and grandmother live in so that his family can participate (this is the only reason we’re not doing it at our church here – I admit I’m a little sad at this, since my friends at church have been so supportive since from the pregnancy onward and they are all so amazingly fond of Torsten), so he needs something to wear other than an Elmo T-shirt More on this later if I don’t completely foul it up.
• Do hordes of laundry. No, really. It’s amazing how much laundry accumulates when all you want to do is stare at a blank wall for an hour or two at the end of the day because you are just sapped. (Note to various deities in control of the weather, especially the one my son takes after: this freaking heat is not helping. A good week of thunderstorms (not interfering with our flight) would be appreciated.) I can’t seem to keep up.
• Clean up the house. This is an ongoing battle anyway, but really, who wants to come home to complete chaos? (My study excluded – I’ve almost given up on that, which is annoying, because I like my study)
• Finish typing up our itinerary. Now, before you think I’m so anal-retentive and organized (hahahahaha! anyone who knows me in real life has just laughed so hard at that idea that I promise you that there is currently mass pants-changing going on worldwide) that I schedule every second of my vacations/travel, understand that our trip is insanely scheduled and was cobbled together manually. I haven’t used a travel agent since the mid-90′s, and with the advent of the Internet, it’s quite possible to spend hours and hours figuring out exactly what you want and getting it if one site or the other isn’t giving you what you want. So in avoiding centralized sites (e.g. getting train tickets directly from Deutsche Bahn or some other national rail service when Rail Europe isn’t giving you any options or isn’t giving you a good price, going directly to hostel websites when the HI site doesn’t do family rooms or isn’t giving you information or whatever, comparing ferry services from Finland to Sweden and manually telling the U.S. travel agents that exclusively sell their tickets in the U.S. to bite you for taking a week-and-a-half to respond to a faxed request, etc.), basically, I have to take all of these arrangements and put them together into some portable and comprehensible form so that we know where the Hell we are/are going/are fleeing/etc… I’ve been working on this for days in my off-time, which is pretty scary. Then again, I’m on the move basically for the whole trip. I’ve never taken so many trains so far in such a short period of time as I will this trip. Should be interesting.
• Getting Torsten’s stuff prepared for the trip. This falls into a whole separate category from packing, because seriously… 14 hours on planes with an 8-month-old? You’d better have your shit in order.
• Packing. We’re going to try to go with one suitcase, because we really don’t want to be dragging two suitcases along with a baby, various carryons, a stroller, a diaper bag, etc, over land from Finland to Germany while switching trains, entering and exiting youth hostels, getting on ships, etc. We’ll see how that works.
• Getting Torsten video onto DVD and getting pictures onto DVD/prints made for the less technical relatives. I’ve been meaning to do this for months, and I just never get time.
• More various administrative crap for the trip that I’m sure I’ve forgotten.
• Start my new drinking habit immediately

I know there’s got to be more – I can feel it in my bones – but that’s quite enough, I think, to drive me nuts.

And now I have wasted an entire naptime whinging about what I need to get done. Go me!

I am the awesomest procrastinatrix evar.

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

Bah!

So I have a listening lesson tomorrow, and I still have a grammar lesson on the passive to teach Friday. And I am so ready to be done. And if not enough students show on Friday, I’d have to do it the next week with the new CELTA students, which would really suck, but it doesn’t look like that will have to happen.

Still, I hope I get to do this early enough on Friday that I can join the CELTA peeps for beer, because we all so need one!

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!