:: If It's Monday And You Know It, Whine Some More ::

Probably somewhere birds are chirping. The sun is shining and birds are chirping and flowers are opening themselves to the sweet smell of their own pollen. But not here. Here, we’re all whining. Whi-i-i-i-ning.

So far today, mommy has tortured Evan by trying to scoop something that, as Christina is right in pointing out, looks an awful lot like paste into Evan’s mouth. Never mind that three times this weekend Evan loved this stuff, opening his eensy mouth wide wide wider for each sticky spoonful. Never mind that he’s swallowing every bite and opening up for more. This is still torture wrapped in a big dumb gluey bow.

Also today mommy and daddy have gone through two outfits between them. First it was spit up down mommy’s sleeve. You want to know something funny? Like, really really funny? Mommy somehow had it in her big dumb head that once babies started eating solid foods, they wouldn’t spit up anymore. No one ever told her this and in retrospect she knew it was too good to be true, but she kind of thought that once food was involved, it would be called throwing up and not spitting up and no one ever talks about how their kids throw up after each meal. Not unless they have 13 year old girls and yes I know I should not be joking about bulimia.

Next it was more spit up (yay! more!) all down mommy’s leg. You should note: the spitting up occurred while mommy was holding Evan semi-upright after his big morning meal of paste and formula and attempting to eat her own breakfast of Special K (dry, always dry) and a banana (eaten separately from the cereal). Evan, who had refused the last of his own rice cereal, was reaching for my bowl like an Olympic swimmer reaches for the wall and whimpering softly as if to say, “Mommy, how come you won’t let me eat? How come you’re making me go so hungry, mommy?”

I wasn’t buying it. And then I got spit up on. Evidence that he really was full or spiteful attack? We’ll never know, I guess.

Twenty, maybe thirty minutes since he’d been up and already I’d stuck him in the Exersaucer. “I think we need a little break from each other, Evan,” I said (I really did), and then I ran upstairs to put on Brian’s pajamas figuring at least I wouldn’t feel as bad when I got spit up on again because I’d be in daddy’s clothes, not mine.

A little bit evil, I know.

Our lovely birdless, whining morning continued when I got back downstairs to find Evan still whining in his Exersaucer and holding his little arms up like a saguaro cactus, the international baby sign for “get me out of this damned thing, lady” and “don’t think you can get away with feeding me paste and then refusing me Special K.”

So mommy put Evan on the floor and started handing him toys. He took each, put it to his mouth and wrinkled his little face, and then deposited it on the floor to his right. A pile grew. A pile of toys that Evan didn’t want to play with. The only way to keep the whining at bay was to kiss his belly over and over. I’m not kidding: I kissed his belly so many times my lips were getting cramped. Yes, this is possible.

As mommy is kissing Evan’s belly and wishing it were still Sunday so that she could somehow convince daddy to start kissing Evan’s belly so that she could slip quietly away until such a time as Evan would be more amenable to playing happily, daddy says, “Your latte’s ready” and then slips out the front door, briefcase and his own latte in hand.

I do a quick calculation: only 11 more hours until he gets home.

Only, the next thing I know, just as Evan grows tired of belly kisses and starts whining again (“Mommy, can’t you please find some more interesting way to keep me occupied until naptime?”), Brian returns, latte held in two hands. I ask if everything’s OK and daddy sounds sad. He places his mug on the counter and heads upstairs, but not before showing me the giant wet spot on his pants.

“Did daddy have an accident?” I ask Evan quietly, cruelly satisfied that I am not the only one changing clothes this morning.

Now Evan is “sitting,” which means that he’s sometimes balancing on his butt bones and sometimes falling over to the side and leaning against my leg for support, and playing with his "jardin des carillons” (chime garden – a toy consisting of five twinkling flowers that play music). Daddy comes down, newly dressed for work but grumbling something about buying a new travel mug today, and I realize that the jardin is playing “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and the irony is too much for me. Too, too much.