Don't Want To Dig The Dirt

I'm not scared of bugs. I don't really enjoy having them on my physical being or anything, but I won't shriek at a cockroach or do the oh-no-oh-no-a-bee dance. I'm generally the relocator of spiders whenever the need arises. I've helped numerous palmetto bugs find alternate accommodations. No big deal.

Rodents don't really get to me, either. Not the small ones, anyway. I find mice to be a bit of a nuisance and I'm not interested in sharing my pancake mix with them, but when Cha Cha kept seeing one scurrying through the kitchen, my only effort at trapping it was to throw some painters tape over the crack next to the dishwasher that it kept popping out of.

So I was thinking, in my general day to day life, that I was pretty brave about undomesticated critters. And then I was proven completely and totally wrong. Because, as it turns out, I have a raging, irrational and uncontrollable aversion to one particular creature, and this creature, just to really mess with me, keeps showing up when I'm most vulnerable.

I am afraid of slugs. And they keep getting into my shower!

Maybe "afraid" isn't the right word. It's more of a revulsion, a core-deep feeling of wrongness when I reach over for the Ivory and see those two tiny antennae waving at me. Now, obviously they aren't going to leap from the tile and attack me with their 57,000 slug teeth (shudder). It's just the very principle of their existence that bothers me. I was faced with an epic dilemma when I considered de-slugging the shower - I had to decide between sharing my daily routine with invertebrate visitors or actually touching them. It was a tough call, and it took me three days to get up the nerve and fortitude required to grab a wad of toilet paper and flush the little suckers (hey, I saw Flushed Away, they'll be fine down there as long as they don't mess with Le Frog).

I don't remember actually seeing a slug before moving to Memphis - the gastropods where I come from seem to prefer staying indoors, anatomically - so this isn't a lifelong fear. It's something that seems to have emerged fully formed on a day that I can still clearly remember. A night, actually. I stepped outside to feed the dog and felt something soft and slimy and cold and possibly demon-possessed slipping underfoot. It was so deeply and soul-penetratingly unpleasant that I can't look at them without recalling the sensation of suicidal slug between my toes.

"Yes, yes, SAM, all very fascinating, but why should we care?" the hypothetical readers exclaim. And so without further ado, I bring you ... Miss M's new favorite book.

U Got The Look

Okay, I have to admit it. I've been harboring a secret ambition, one so silly and superficial that I've been a little embarrassed to discuss it, but I trust that my loyal readers (hi, mom!) will be gentle with me. So ... I've been thinking about going into ... modeling.

No, no, not me, goofus! Baby modeling. It has recently occurred to me that, as the mother of the world's most baby-esque baby, I really should be capitalizing... er, sharing the beauty of Mr. Baby with the world. Or at least whoever pays really close attention to the kids in local pediatrician ads. It just seems wasteful to let his perfectly round head go unappreciated.

Of course, Mr. Baby is not my only gorgeous child. He is, however, the only one whose temperament is suited for professional image-making. He will go to anyone, smile for any reason and generally leaves an echo of "awwwws" in his wake. Miss M, however, has a tendency toward shyness around strangers, plus the pressure of having her picture taken often makes her act like she's being Tasered. So although her beauty is, quite unbiasedly, astounding, it is, quite sadly, unmarketable. At least until she's a grown-up model and it's considered perfectly acceptable to throw food and scream unintelligibly at the photographer.

But come on, seriously ...


(Staff photo)

The Second Hand Unwinds

You know that thing about a watched pot not boiling? I think the same may be true about a blogged baby. In the few weeks that I've been on hiatus (again), Mr. Baby has:

- popped out his first two teeth (bottom front)
- begun sitting up on his own with 93% reliability
- perfected a hyper-speed commando crawl
- branched out from breastmilk to dietary newcomers like sweet potato, bananas and his currently most beloved peas
- pulled himself to standing with minimal assistance

Miss M started walking at almost exactly eleven months, but I have a feeling Mr. Baby won't make it two more months without getting on his feet for good. Mostly because Miss M is moving plenty fast herself and he's going to need to come up with a more efficient escape method.