Not for the faint at heart Moms.

Mateo likes to play peek-a-boo and BOO! games with my husband and I. The other day, Mateo was in our bedroom, I was in Mateo's bedroom, and my husband was just leaving our room, telling Mateo to follow him. My husband told me Mateo was trying to run to catch up. I stood in his doorway, waiting for him to come out of our room. As soon as he took the first step out of our room, I yelled, rather loudly, "BOO!"

Mateo immediately dropped to the ground.

He sat on the ground for 3 seconds, and my husband and I started laughing, because even though it was mean, it was funny because he dropped like a limp rag.

Because we were laughing, Mateo started laughing nervously. He picked himself up and kept walking, laughing as he went.

So yeah, if I ever do that again, I won't do it so loudly. And don't feel so bad for him; he'll get me back and scare the crap out of me as he gets older.

Two things

1. I bought cold medicine that has an artic blast flavor -- these are pills you swallow. So I looked, and it explicitly states NOT to crush or chew said pills that MUST be swallowed whole. Okay. So. Why the funky flavor? I don't usually leaves pills in my mouth long enough to get any sort of flavor, unless it's a bad pill taking session and my mind has told my body I can't swallow the pill without choking and then dying. Who wants to go that way?

2. Why does it seem every year, about several times a year, the news tells us this is the LAST time to see some amazing eclipse thing. Until the year 2483, when none of us will be around?

Just thinking.

Wow. I love Mateo's daycare!

Mateo was sick all last week, and I called almost every day to his daycare to tell them he wouldn't be coming in. At some point my husband asked if we only pay half the fee since he wasn't there the whole week, to which I responded: No. It has to be planned with a few weeks notice. That's just how it is, per the agreement I signed, I'm not even going there (although I would love to only pay half of his huge-ass fee darn those corporate daycares and their money grubbing...oh, lost my mind for a second).

So today I decided to pay his weekly fee. I opened the e-mail that has been sitting in my inbox for a couple of days, and low and behold....it says we only owe half of what we normally pay. I went online, and yes, that's what it says. And that's what I'm paying. And I'm not about to ask any questions.

Take the goodness as it comes. Thanks, daycare!

Complaint I'm sure I've complained about before.

I'm so sick and tired of really tall daddy long legs men sitting next to me on BART. Why do they insist on folding their bodies up so they can sit next to me when there are plenty of available seats with no seats in front of them? Why oh why?

I spent most of my BART ride this morning dealing with this 8-foot tall daddy long legs whom fidgeted to no end because I never once gave up an ounce of room for his spindly legs and arms. He eventually hunched himself over while sticking his bent legs off to the aisle side so he could read his newspaper. I don't know if these men assume since I am smaller than them that I am willing to squeeze myself up next to the BART train wall, but it's simply not happening. And yes, if you start pressing your legs up against mine, I'm still very much inclined to start whacking you with my knee.

And don't get me started on having to ask them to move so I can get out. The unfolding of the daddly long legs body takes an impossible amount of time.

Speaking of hamsters....

I keep thinking about the disaster hamster incident that happened when I as a teenager. For some reason, I decided I wanted a hamster. I think I was 15 or 16 at the time. We've always had pets as kids, and I happen to love to have as many little critters in my life to take care of and get annoyed by.

So I went to the pet store at the mall (remember those? With real live cats and dogs?) and purchased myself a nice female hamster. I don't remember what I called her, but I do remember what I changed her name to....

I kept her in a fish aquariaum. It was this octogan-shaped monstrosity on a stand. She made herself right at home. I was happy to have a new friend living with me.

My friend Brett came over a few days later, and I wanted to show him my new pal. I reached into the aquarium, grabbed hold of my hamster, and all these bloody red things dropped from her underside.

I think I passed out for a second. I thought it was her guts spilling out, and I couldn't understand how her belly opened up so her bloody guts could fall out of her.

That's when I realized they were babies. My female hamster had herself a whole mess of babies, and upon closer inspection, some of them were half eaten.

This was my introduction to wild life.

From this point on, her name was "Mama."

I was freaked out because 1. of the half-eaten hamsters, and 2. I ended up touching some of the living blood red babies. From my previous experience with....oh, nothing, I knew that touching the babies was not a good thing, and that they were probably goners as well.

A day later this proved to be true.

I gathered up my dead hamster baby bodies, put them in jewelery boxes and had a half-eaten baby hamster funereal in my mom's backyard.

Mama raised four babies. I kept two, my sister took one, and my friend down the street took the fourth.

Fairly quickly I knew I had a problem on my hands. I'm not sure how it's done, but if your domesticated hamster happens to have babies, those babies are not, by default, domesticated themselves. So how do hamsters become domesticated? Beats the heck out of me. I had one super nice hamster and two rabid, ready to kill anything that moved hamsters on my hands. They were also very clever and devious suckers as they figured out how to get out of the cages I had to put them in (they soon figured out how to get out of the monstrosity of a hamster aquarium -- don't ask. Devil hamsters?). Once night I heard a ton of racket going on, so I looked, and one hamster happened to be missing. Luckily I found it before it hid. I could have easily lost an eye or two that night.

My sister's hamster was just as bad, not to mention one fluffy little sucker. So fluffy that I was often convinced it couldn't be like one of its devil hamster siblings - until it hissed and bit. Imagine a big tuff of cotton ready to kill you.

I mean, these hamsters were pure evil.

So, without many options left and no love lost, we decided to rally them up and set them loose in a field. While this sounds mean, I think they were a lot happier out in the industrial area field, running free and killing anything in their path.

He FINALLY came to his senses.

We've been having a harder and harder time getting Mateo to go to sleep sort of willingly at night. The little guy is just so excited about life that he doesn't want to sleep. He'd rather stay up and whine until I can't take it anymore. Whine and flop himself on the ground. And yes, Mateo's Grandmama, he is very much a crab apple at night. Unbelievable as it is.

My husband has spent many nights coddling Mateo and snuggling him until Mateo goes to sleep, even though I oftened stated we're creating a monster (cute one, at that), and that he's never going to learn to sleep well on his own.

The other night, Mateo was just not having the snuggling my husband was trying to give him, and I heard shrieks and cries and wails from the baby monitor. Then I heard my husband say something I never thought I'd hear him say: If you don't want the comfort, then you're just going to have to cry it out.

I smiled.

It's taken almost a year, but he finally gets it, I thought.

He left Mateo's room, Mateo continued to cry and wail and scream. I knew that Mateo had a total of three hours sleep at daycare, the second nap being right before I picked him up, so I was pretty sure Mateo wasn't tired. It was only 6:30.

I went in, turned on the light, grabbed myself a snotty whining Mateo and some books, and sat with him and read. He never once showed signs of being seriously tired. So we went into the living room and watched an episode of Teletubbies, and then he went off to bed after that. Sure, there was a couple minutes of crying, but he got over it, and so did we.

Yesterday I put Mateo to bed, and he was tired and whiney as ever. Putting his PJs on was a wrestling match (I won), and reading a book was impossible (until I turned to the page with the fuzzy bunny fur that he likes to manically touch, touch, touch), and after he had his bottle, he was restless in my arms. So I stood up, kissed him goodnight, told him to have good dreams, and put him in his crib. He had other ideas about that nonsense, and he immediately tried to stand up while wailing. I put him back down and told him it's time for bed, to go to sleep, have good dreams, etc..

Then I walked out. He immediately stood up and wailed at me.

Ah, I remember the days when doing that would cause an intense amount of guilt to flow through my body. Now it's nothing. Where's that second baby we need to have so I can prove to myself how easy it is to do such things when they're 4 months and older?

I digress.

When I closed the door, I saw my husband was in the bathroom, hanging laundry. He looked at me. I said that his crying shouldn't last long because he was tired.

My husband then said something that shocked me again, but even more so: He's got to get over it - he doesn't control everything.

Whhaaaat? I did a little tap dance and said, "YOU FINALLY GET IT!!!" He just stared at me.

I guess he finally realized that losing almost an hour while holding Mateo and waiting for him to fall asleep so that he won't cry in his crib as soon as he hit the sheets was getting to be a bit much, especially with the amount of work to be done around the house (not to mention the TV shows to watch).

And I was correct; Mateo cried for maybe 5 minutes and then went to sleep.

Ah, good times. And yes, watch this, don't just roll your eyes at me.

Since I'm now hooked on these darn video podcasts because of my xmas present (iTouch video iPod), I'm always looking for really funny things to watch on my way to work and back. (Books? What are those? Eyes are for watching video podcasts, not reading. Pishshaw!)

This is one that made me laugh out loud on BART, something that is always fun to do because it's already weird enough that I'm staring at a little box that I periodically tap at, let alone laugh and smile while my eyes glitter with glee.



This video gave me even more school flashbacks (I know, I know, I said I'd write things about my past men (more of a joking statement than you'll ever realize), and about kid TV shows - and I will! I shall. I will.), especially all the journals I kept where I basically bemoaned my existance or complained about boyfriends. I still have them. They're packed away. I'm too afraid to read them because I really don't want to come to that realization of how silly I was as a teenager. I likened myself to dark and brooding -- the creative type people just didn't understand. I'm still dark and I still brood and I'm still creative and people still don't understand me, but my attitude about it all has taken a serious 180 turn (partially thanks to meds, thanks meds!).

Anyhoo. I hope you watch it. You. And you know who you are.

We've got a con baby on our hands.

Admittedly, my husband and I haven't been the best with getting Mateo to go to sleep on his own (aka "lay them down when they're drowsy but still awake" method). Tonight I put him in his crib and then stuck around, doing some hand holding and back rubbing and "no, no, it's time for sleepies," as he would try to stand up and cheese at me.

So there I was, sitting on the footstool of the rocking chair, thinking he was finally going to go to sleep, when he plucked out his pacifier, reached out his hand and let it drop on the rug. Then I heard a very nonchalant, "Uh-oh, uh-oh...."

Even though it was dark, I could see his eyes wide open, looking at me intently.

As I was trying to find the pacifier, he said "uh-oh" a couple more times. When I found it, I got up and put it back in his mouth. He got all giddy and laughed.

What else could I do but declare him a big booger, pick him up and snuggle him until he fell asleep?

Yes, I'm a sucker. And yes, he sure does know how to yank on my heartstrings (and hair...).

Sad day in the history of TV. And some other TV nonsense.

Montel Williams show will be over and done and dead as a mouse stuck in a trap after this season ends. Who else will feature Pyschic Sylvia Brown every single flipping Wednesday? Where will she go?

Luckily, the other man in my life, Dr. Phil, is going strong.

Lost began its 4th season last night -- I'm still on Season 3, disc 3, show 3 of 4. But thanks to my lovely iPod touch, I'm plowing right through them all and should be caught up by next week. And yes, I'm recording season 4 so I can have a Lost day on the couch.

WE will be showing High School Confidential in March. Now if I can only remember to record it.

Why is it with the writer's strike going on, our DVR is filled to the brim with new show goodness?