Monday, August 30, 2010

Charmer

My son is a very serious boy.



It usually takes some pretty determined tickling for me to get a smile or a laugh out of him.

Apparently, I'm just not his type.

My husband takes Sam with him to Costco whenever he goes, and this past circular had a good coupon for diapers. So off the men go to do the heavy duty diaper shopping. They come home, and Jere shows me that he has another diaper coupon. My son decided to flirt with the lady behind them in line, smiling at her with all the suaveness a 6 month old can muster, and she handed over her extra diaper coupon all aflutter.

Of course, when he comes home, he looks at me like this:


Normally, I would chalk this up to coincidence. A nice woman who obviously didn't need the diaper coupon just happened to notice that my husband obviously does. So the men went out again this past weekend to buy some more diapers using the nice woman's coupon. And when they arrived home, my husband had yet another diaper coupon in his possession.

My kid had flirted with another unsuspecting woman. I feel betrayed. I feel envious. But I can't blame these poor ladies. Who could resist this heavenly smile?



Of course, if his smile ever fails him, he can just show them his cute butt.



Today's lesson: Beware a man with a charming smile. They usually have an ulterior motive. In my son's case, you'd better lock up your coupons.


Sunday, August 15, 2010

The face of guilt

We left our son. For a whole week. We knew we had reached the end of our sanity. Every marriage needs nurturing. And between the dirty diapers and the spit up and the passing one another in the kitchen with a mumble while we get breakfast ready for the kiddo. So we handed off Sam to my mother and hopped a plane to Seattle, where we boarded a ship on its way to Alaska.

We drank (well, I drank).
We sang at the piano bar.

We ate so much that I was squeezing into my formal dresses by the end of the week.
A good time was being had. The glaciers, the cold wind, the 19 hours of sunshine that we blocked out with the blackout curtains so we could sleep at any time of the day, it was fantastic. We were having a lovely time.

Except for the face of guilt that followed us around all day. Jere's watch broke, so we carried my cell phone to tell the time, and there was our son on the front screen every single time we opened it up. We were told by everyone that we would be miserable without him. That we would worry. That we would miss him. But you know what? It wasn't that bad. We had a great time reconnecting with one another without a screaming, puking little person between us. We (and he) did just fine. No worse for the wear...except for that pesky guilt thing.

That is, until we got home. I'm convinced that the second we walked out the door, Winston decided to somehow accelerate his growth. He didn't even look the same! He was doing things and making sounds we'd never experienced. My husband even said, "I don't think this is our son. This can't be our son." Because no way could our son have grown up that much in a week.


Uh, Mom? Did you bring the wrong baby home from the mall?
Today's lesson: If you ever doubt how fast time flies when you have a child, leave for a week. You'll get a whole new perspective of what can happen in seven short days.