It seems that Mac is trying to make my head literally explode from cute overload.

Last night when I was putting him to bed, right before I sat down to rock with him I decided to do some quick shadow puppets on the wall.  He thought it was hilarious and awesome and wanted to try doing it himself.  So the entire time we were rocking, he was practicing turning his hands into shadow puppets and pretending to eat my hand with his hand.

I was dying of cute.

This morning when I went in to get him, there he was, standing up in his crib and practicing his shadow puppets once again.

I am now dead of cute.

Poop is ruining my life right now.

I don’t know what is going on, but Mac has taken to pooping only when he’s sleeping.  Middle of the night?  Great time to poop.  Early in the morning?  Pooping perfection.  Halfway through a nap?  Ideal for pooping.

The problem with all this sleepy time pooping is that it’s seriously cutting into his sleepy time!  He has been losing at least an hour/night to poopy diapers and he’s missing out on an hour of his nap because of pooping.  This is unacceptable.  I have no idea how to stop it, though!

How do you keep a kid from pooping?  I mean, I’m happy everything is moving smooth and easy down there, I just wish he could find a better time to evacuate the day’s meals.

This is ridiculous.  Poop is trying to make me crazy.  Poop is stealing my sanity!

It makes me sick to write this post.

Yesterday, I received word that the 16 year-old son of a former co-worker (more than simply a co-worker — a friend and mentor) killed himself Sunday afternoon.  The reason given for the suicide?  Bullying.

Bullying is one of my great fears for Mac.  I’ve seen first-hand the scars that bullying can leave behind.  My immediately younger brother was bullied throughout his life, but especially in high school.  Being a bitchy and self-centered older sister, I didn’t truly appreciate or care what he was going through, but I’ve seen how the cruelty has shaped him and it isn’t fair that any child should have to go through that.  And I feel terrible that I never did anything to prevent what he was going through (it seems I was a bit of a bully of a sister).  I will never forgive myself for not stepping in.

I don’t know why bullying seems so much worse now, though.  I suspect it’s because it’s ceaseless.  It isn’t just happening at school anymore.  It’s via text messages, IM, facebook — there’s no respite from the attacks.  And it can happen covertly so oftentimes it can go unnoticed by family and teachers.

The effects are quite obviously devastating.  And I’m terrified that one day Mac might go through the same thing.  I don’t want to be facing the same tragedy as my former colleague is, 15 years from now.

It needs to stop, and as parents — hell, as responsible citizens — we can stop it.  I’m reminded once again of how critically important it is to teach my child compassion and kindness.  To teach him not to make snap judgments about people and to embrace the differences in others.

I don’t want my kid to get bullied, but I also don’t want him to be a bully.  Hate is a learned action, and I certainly don’t want to be the teacher of hate.

If you’re looking for resources on bullying, StopBullying.gov is a great site for parents, teachers, and kids.  It gives advice on recognizing the signs of bullying, helping your child through being bullied, and what to do if your child is the bully.

Bullying is preventable, so please, join me in helping to put and end to it and preventing another senseless death.  The fact that I’ll be attending a funeral for a 16 year-old boy this week all because of the cruelty of others is completely unacceptable.

I realized last night that I can’t relax without the sound of the baby monitor. I decided to go to bed early since I had a particularly rough night of sleep at my parents’ on saturday night (or rather, Mac had a rough night of sleep and my ability to sleep is directly tied to his ability to sleep). As I was settling in bed to do a little reading, I found that I couldn’t truly relax until the baby monitor was turned on. Despite the fact that I was trying to sack out early and leave any Mac troubles to The Husband, I still couldn’t settle down without the comforting sounds of the monitor.

It turns out I’ve come to rely on the soft whoosh of Mac’s sound machine and his soft whines as he repositions himself in his sleep to relax me.

I sort of hated that baby monitor in the early days, but now it seems I have a much harder time without it.

Soooo it’s totally cool if I insist on him having a baby monitor in his room until he’s 18, right?

There is a moment every night as I’m rocking Mac to sleep when I’m on the third or fourth round of “Bye Bye Blackbird” where I can feel him just melt into me.

It usually takes a few minutes.  When we first sit down and I start singing, it takes him a little while to settle down, to stop looking for objects in the immediate vicinity that he can play with, and to find just the right position on my lap.

But then it happens — he settles in, puts his chubby little hand on my face, and draws me in close so my face is right next to his while I sing into his cheek.  And he melts.

Incidentally, it is at the exact same time that my heart melts.

And I completely forgot to wish him Happy Birthday this morning.

I’m seriously The Worst.