Neil Diamond Fills My Empty Brain

Day 2 of 30. Was hoping for something a bit more meaty to write about. I was so excited to share the minutiae of my work and toddler upkeep duties. How fun, right? Wouldn't you all like to ride the back of the Woo through the ins and outs of this celebrity lifestyle?

As exciting as it sounds, not much happened. All quite lame actually. Maybe blogs don't need a daily commitment, but keeping an open mind, let's see. I'll pull out my bucket of judgement at the end of this informal reality venture.

I could bore with a mundane rundown of the day. Not that there's anything wrong with that but I was hoping to squeeze some juice out of these 30 days of self induced assignment. I could tell you about the well coifed, pin-striped bow tied man on Lake Shore Drive intensely watching and waiting for his two pugs to do their business. Just a bit too intensely. Uncomfortably intense. Or I could tell you about the chicago cop talking on a cell phone who slowly rammed his squad car into the Honda in front of him outside of a Starbucks, got out (still on the phone) checked for damage, left the cars in a bumper kiss and proceeded into the 'bucks for a latte.

I pray to god it was a latte.

Or I could let life be, unwritten, unexamined and link to some real meat. Neil Diamond. The Diamond is the oracle that rocks my world. It's like he's singing right to me. It is now the official theme song for the Woo.



I've become "a grown up girl." Not a woman mind you, a grown up girl.

Just where I should be.

Suck it George Vernon Hudson

Whoever invented the daylight-standard time rodeo obviously did not have children, specifically toddlers experiencing their first post-Halloween candy, tiger print hangover. Here's the Wiki situation on this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time

B. Franklin had 17 children. He's somehow tied to this catastrophe. Ole Ben must have stored his numerous tots in the barn on this day and let the cows tend to them. George Vernon Hudson (the true architect of the disaster) had no children. So there you go. The bastard had spare time to screw around with the well being of his broody neighbors.

Thank you Wikipedia for useless nonesense related to daylights savings time.

Now back to present time. Holy crap. Misho awoke bright and frisky on the dot to what would have been his normal time of wakening and woo. I caved and sent Big D to do the morning needful. I stayed in bed, with a sore throat, attempting to make myself sicker than I was. I was sick. I am sick. I'm not kidding. But I did feel guilty. And then the day just spiraled downward from there.

Misho was cute. He's always cute. Evidence below:



But then he got sort of evil. Like the play on time made him realize his evil powers as a toddler. His nails instantaneously grew five inches. Blood spouted from his nose (he actually had a nosebleed from the runny nose he's been sportin for five days). He spoke in tongues. He went for the eyes. His head spun. I blame the timechange, plain and simple. Out of sorts, longer time till first nap, strange fall to winter lighting - good for a movie but not good for playtime - sun quitting early, parents wanting a nap desperately, perhaps just five minutes of this precious additional time so graciously bestowed to us by bastard George Vernon Hudson.

It was rough. Not real rough, but rough enough to provide some material for day one of "30 days and 30 blog entries." Some exaggeration allowed.

But serious, this is what I stared into most of the day:



Those eyes were staring at my throat. So cold...i'm so cold...

Boo!

Misho's first cognizant Halloween. Viva la difference:

Last Year - 2008



This Year - 2009



He still retains suspicions of animal costumes put upon him. Who wouldn't? But he's definitely more relaxed and a gamer. Laid chill in his ride (stroller) for the trick or treat parade. Said, "thank you" in the most charming of ways to each house, except ours. Dada got a grunt. Ate a toddler's fill of candy. This had the expected effect - hallucinations, screaming, cold sweats, requests for water and cold towels, lots of "I love you man" and then he crashed.

All in all a great H-ween.

Here's some highlights:



A tiger roar or bowel movement. Not sure.



Mama having to be weird.

Again.



His m.o. for most of the trickertreater cruise. "so this candy is 'free'?" kind of look.



Mama in her nighttime candy distribution outfit. Or, Blanket Jackson escaping Dubai.

Happy Halloween everyone!

30 posts in 30 days

The Big Woo has once again been MIA. But now, I've somehow been self-compelled to participate in a blog challenge. 30 posts for the 30 days of November. I'm not sure if this is a wise expectation to place on my head, but I'm gonna give it a shot. If interested in joining blogpeople, here's the link: http://www.nablopomo.com/

I noticed Julie at "the eyes of my eyes..." took up the challenge and she has TWO kids. I would die and be unable to function with two Mr. Ms roaming around the house, so I figure, with one, I could squeeze a verbal burp out at least once a day.

The days are dark and rainy, winter is upon us, and that's the time when the Woo gets weird. And think how much weirder it could be with pressure (of some unknown origin) to write something, anything, every day.

My call for questions reared one. From the delightful PooPooFart gang in Oregon. I'll leave the answer to that question for next week when I'm dying for content.

Otherwise, Mr. M is doing splendidly. He can now walk backwards, or moonwalk, as I like to exaggerate.

More musings to come. And oh yeah! I'm going back to Ethiopia November 27th. More about that later.

In the meantime, here are some pics of the French-Pehlke men enjoying the fun of eyewear.




Shelby

The First Day

October 3rd, 2008 was the day we met our delightful Mr. M. The event was life changing, crazy, scary, amazing, wonderful, surreal and everything in between. Nothing in your life can prepare you for this. There is video but I can't figure out how to cut it down for sharing purposes. You are escorted into a room full of babies. A very good looking Ethiopian camera man video tapes you. A delightful woman in blue lovingly hands you "your son." Cut to emotional breakdown. The video shows two overwhelmed trembling tall people, pimping their best baby selves to Mr. M, while trying not to break down into tears.

We'll celebrate this day differently each year. Today we hung out over very delicious pizza, attended a b-day bash for Mr. M's BFF Asher, and watched the video of our first meeting. I gathered the M on my lap and clicked play. He gazed at it like something he knew but didn't and then some recognition of the main players took place. He seemed really into it for about a developmentally-appropriate one minute. Smiled a sweet smile the whole time, identified all the right folk, and then abruptly yelled, "car!", and he was off to find one of his rides. We'll try for a full two minutes next year.

Shout outs again to our fabu travel group. Nowhere would my meager, yet timely Sarah Palin impersonation have gone over so well. We were in Ethiopia during the whole the pres/vice-pres debates & global stock market crash fiasco. Ethiopians would kindly come up to us and ask if we had a home to go to when we returned. Frankly, at that point, who knew?

Tried to get a one year anniversary shot for the archives. Well. Here's what we got.

The Family of Spaz.

The Budding Skillbase of Mr. M (and a Big Woo invite for questions)

We're working on Mr M's resume.

So far, he's demonstrated a real talent and inclination for Swiffing (hence reducing the need to promote my latest invention: The Swiffer OnsieTM). This makes me extremely excited. If I can find a smaller version, his efficiency for cleaning up dog hair could increase by 50%.



He also enjoys inspecting the insides of cupboards or armoires for doggies, cars, or bottles.



We're trying to get M into music but currently he seems more interested in guitar descruction. We thought we'd start him with street performance. Here he is. Busking. We made a couple of quid.



While we're obviously hard at work developing M's skill base, I thought I would shake things up here at the Big Woo and get into some deeper analysis and rambling retrospection about adoption, transracial parenting, and other deeper motherhoodian concerns. Shocking! I know. Where did my commitment to the shallow and mundane go? It will still be there, but I thought I'd stretch my little brain a bit and give some deeper stuff a go. Now, we all know where my commitment to a blog post a day went, so don't hold the collective breath too long. This could be a random post here or there that I bust out like a summer month.

Anyway - to start the party, I thought I would put out a call for questions. Anything really. Many Woo visitors are exploring adoption as an option and perhaps there is something about our experience that you would like to know more about.

Is this how Dear Abby started? Or, should the Big Woo keeps its big lid shut? Let's find out.

Shelby

Big Woo Sick. Outside Rain.

The Big Woo is sick. Everyone. The whole tribe is hacking like slot machine playing grannies in Reno. I blame the weather. Poor Misho was cheated out of a decent Chicago summer. Only a day or two over 90 degrees! I like it hot. And steamy. I want to be overcome with the vapors and flit around in flowing fabrics proclaiming my desire on some street. I believe Misho has the same desire but the poor kid can't seem to catch a break in the weather department. We've been rained on most of the week, and thank god he's been sick. Didn't feel like going out in the first place. But, the collective pants are getting itchy, cause he's twirling around like a dervish and climbing the walls. Or the bed.





I'm doing weird things to entertain him.



Whether he's into Psycho Mother Butterfly (my name of choice this week) is another thing.

Winter sucked. Summer blowing pretty hard. Don't get me wrong, I hugely heart rain and all it's natural consequences. But now I'm a parent. And there's daily agendas to put together. It's not even winter and we're engaging in weird indoor antics.

Most disturbing, and through no effort on my part, the rain filled air causes my hair to spontaneously bust out into an exploitative baby beauty pageant up-do.



I'll work on my baton twirling.