Mama Bean may need to change her name

I was so much more tired with this pregnancy. That was the first sign. I hadn’t regained my period from nursing yet, so there wasn’t a period to miss, and the morning sickness waited to show up, but the exhaustion just sucker punched me. Every day, between 11 am and 4 pm (give or take three hours) I could just collapse at the drop of a hat, and remain blissfully unconscious through crying Beans and husbands for hours. I mean, I’d been generally tired since Bean was born, that’s just the way of mama-things, right? But this was weird. And so I peed on a stick to answer my questions.

My instincts had an inkling, you see, because after months of little (read: zero) interest in together time, suddenly it appeared, and that should have tipped me off (the way falling down the stairs should have tipped me off last time) that something might be up with the ovularious activities, and perhaps trigger some protective strategies against such eventualities. Are you catching my drift? But it didn’t. So here we are. Only two or three months earlier than we planned to be in this way. Which, to me, is an improvement on the six to eight months earlier than we planned for Bean to be. So.

So I was super tired. And when the nausea did appear, it wasn’t so bad, or I was better at dealing with it. I limited vomiting to less than ten incidents altogether (vs. ten incidents per week), almost all in the evening. Basic strategy involved eating a handful of food and calling that a meal, and doing that every three hours or so. Although it has passed, I still can’t eat more than a handful or two at a time. And it’s better to avoid food or beverages after dinner. And I’m still pretty tired, but not for so much of the day, and only slightly more than normal motherhood levels.

I am pretty sure Sprout will be another boy, but Papa Bean is holding out for a girl. There are two shreds of “evidence” he can cling to that something different inhabits my belly. First, my belly itself is different. My abs seem to have bunched up at the top, and it feels hard, while the lower abdomen is like fluffy mashed potatoes and my uterus is still well within the pelvis. Maybe this is just the disorganization that comes with having already pushed one out. Second, my cravings are totally altered. Last time, it was ice cream, all day, every day, yes please now. This time, all I want is steak. And dumplings. Meat and salt and yes please now. Weird, eh? So maybe it’s a girl. But I doubt it. The Y is very strong in PB’s family.

The internal monologue of the pregnancy after a first child is an endless variation on the [x pregnancy-related phenomenon]-is-earlier/later/different-than-last-time theme. I am amazed by the difference in our life circumstances alone. Last time, I was more or less unemployed, home alone with ample time for self-pity during the worst weeks of vomiting, then suddenly the owner of (new debt! and) a Chiropractic business, having spent the previous eight months unsure I even wanted to be a Chiropractor. Having just started attending a new church at that time, I was reflecting that many of my patients and church friends have only ever known me pregnant. In fact, when I get an appointment with one of those once-a-year patients, so many of them only remember me at all because I had a big ol’ belly on me!

This time, Papa Bean is in a new job and taking classes at the same time, on top of church activities, bass playing, hunting, and all his other hobbies. I am happily chiropractoring in my happy clinic with happiness. I picked up a hobby of my own, and will soon be taking guitar lessons. And I have a busy little Bean who keeps me constantly occupied with bottles, meals, naps, diapers, protecting the CD shelf, etc. Plus, I’m awakening to a new, inner urge to Make Home. To be a HomeMaker. Friend K and I were discussing just the other night this new aspect of parenting, and thinking back on the memories of home we carried forward from childhood, and how foundationally important that sense of place becomes; my heart and soul as a mother tell me this is my job, that I am building a nest here for my nestlings, and, as with Everything Else, it’s beyond not-just-about-me anymore, it is deeply and necessarily about them. And soon there will be two! But oh how my (lazy) head (and tired hands) argue with this, and sap my energy to fulfill the urge. However, it’s not going away, so strategies will have to be devised. I fear this little chopped up mid-century house is conspiring against me, but I will push valiantly onward.

Because of the busyness and new circumstances and Bean and all the rest, I don’t have the navel-gazing luxury for this pregnancy to rest anywhere near the forefront of my mind. It mightn’t cross my mind for a whole day. It’s taken weeks just to find enough minutes to write a dang post about it! I certainly don’t have the running commentary of worries and concerns and things-that-aren’t-safe-to-eat-when-you’re-with-child buzzing in my ear, because there’s enough other buzzing going on. It gets saved up for bedtime, when I realize, crap! I ate unheated sandwich meat for lunch. And then I go to sleep, because even if it really is that Big Of A Deal, I can’t keep my eyes conscious any longer. It makes me feel like I’m less excited, somehow, because I’m less obsessive (?) even though I know that’s not true. The excitement is just much calmer and less edged with anxiety and really just much more internal. I didn’t count down the days until the first trimester was over and I could broadcast the news on facebook. I haven’t sent out any sort of email of facebook announcement at all, in fact (talk about failure to update my status! lol) I haven’t been telling every patient in the first thirty seconds of their visit with me. There is no megaphone attached to this pregnancy.

This time, I feel like it’s a bright, fuzzy secret I’m holding behind my hands, deep under the fluffy mashed potatoes of my belly. I feel like I want to keep Sprout all to myself for as long as he (or she) really is all to myself. This is probably partially a byproduct of knowing this will likely be my last pregnancy, as we’re only planning to have two children. he tenor of this pregnancy is quieter and softer and a little bit secret. I’ve got one Bean, outside of me and growing like weeds, and time rushes faster faster; I didn’t know, last time, what it meant for pregnancy to be precious. What it meant that these are the only nine months they are physically joined to you, and then they rip out your heart to carry around with them as time hurtles them further and further away from you. I hope the world won’t begrudge my selfishness. I’m holding this one inside me, a little more quietly, but with no less excitement, and no less love.

Sprout is predicted to arrive mid-March. We’re at 16 weeks. I don’t think I’ll be changing my name to Mama BeanSprout, or anything like that, but the thought crossed my mind. This time, for sure, I am enjoying every minute of pregnancy hair.

Mama Bean is feeling a little isolated

Let's just blame it on hormones.

Although, isn't "hormones" just another form of "hysteria"? Which is to say, isn't it just another H-word created by the Patriarchy to explain away the fact that women have emotions by blaming it on the fact that we have a uterus. Only now we know it isn't the Collective Uterus' fault directly, but rather the impact of these nefarious chemical messengers of emotional doom that rise and fall and trip us up with their never-ending cycle of volatility and instability and feeeeeeeeeliiiiiiinnnnggg.

As if men don't have hormones. As if men don't have a higher concentration, and are more innately influenced by the more volatile of the hormones in question. As if someone out there hasn't already dedicated their Womyns' Studies PhD. doctoral thesis to the ways all the Universe's problems can be directly attributed to testosterone. And not my testosterone. Not the Collective Uterus' testosterone. You. know. whose. I. mean.

But this post is not meant to be a feminist screed against patriarchal words that are meaningless. This post is meant to be about how I feel a little alone, and a little down, and that's making my days a little long. Or maybe the long days come first.

Maybe I'm just a little depressed.

Isolation is the hallmark of depressive onset for me. I don't have to feel sad, I would probably rate my overall satisfaction with life fairly high for awhile yet, but I do start to feel cut off from people, and then I convince myself it's because people are purposefully cutting me off, and then I feel like I deserve to be cut off, and then I decide I will embark on self-imposed exile because that will just make everyone happiest. Including me, obviously.

So, let's truck out the old getting-over-myself toolbox and identify triggers and stressors, etc. Papa Bean is back at work full time. I've increased my hours one day a week, so that I'm there over lunch, for a full day, which feels impossibly long and tiring and FULL. We leave Bean in wonderful, loving, fun care four days a week that is nonetheless not us, but someone else (who is wonderful, loving, and fun, but you get my point.) When I'm not at work, Bean is not in care, but PB is at work, and I am alone with the baby. Which is the root of my isolation. And tada! I've solved the mystery, I'm. So. Smart.

And somehow I imagine this is going to be better, let alone manageable with another one? Because that is the plan, to grow by Sprouts and bounds, of course. And I tell myself this will be SO GREAT because they will play with each other! Leaving me free to... do what?

Commit myself to the housework I so diligently complete now?

Pursue my numerous hobbies and talents?

Advance in my super fulfilling, ambition-driven professional life?

Play with pre-adults for even more hours of the day?

Be alone with my thoughts?

Well this isn't a very productive line of inquiry. I just figured if I'm going to wander around in an isolation fog, I might as well bring the gloomy haze to the blog. Because, after all, this is where I fill in the words between, behind and around the status updates. So that's what's going on right now, and as with so many of these episodes before, no doubt it will pass in two weeks.

Hormones. Hysteria. Feelings. Depression. This too shall pass.

Mama Bean has a tip for new mamas

Instead of using the vitamin D drops for infants, I suggest using the vitamin D(3) drops made for grown-ups. It's the same stuff, but more concentrated (so you give baby less at a time) and it's unflavoured, so no added sugar, colourings or flavours.

We started out giving Bean the infant/toddler vitamin D. We bought the generic brand, because name brand was $3 more per bottle. The recommended dose is 1 mL/day, which contains 400 IU of the vitamin. When Bean was brand new, 1 mL seemed a HUGE amount of liquid, as we were struggling just to get 30 mL of actual nutrition down his gullet. He didn't seem adverse to the taste, but he knew it wasn't breastmilk, and he didn't just slurp it down. I'm not sure why they choose to make it sweeter (like a thousand times sweeter) than breastmilk (or formula, I imagine). I don't think that actually makes it more palatable to them (nor would the strange fake banana flavouring, which I happen to love, but babies don't know what real bananas are, let alone fake ones...) and we worry so much about putting extra sugar and additives in their food otherwise...

Then, it always made Bean gassy or burpy or generally spit-up-y, so he would promptly lose those 30 mL we'd so painstakingly installed in his digestive system. Even when we waited, in between feedings, he'd still find a couple tablespoons of delicious baby-puke to spread liberally upon my lap. And the effect might even last until the next feeding. It was frustrating, to say the least. We were not terribly consistent with his vitamin dosing in those Delirious Early Days, because it just seemed to add to the Delirium.

We visited a healthfood store in Cowtown over Christmas, and noticed a bottle of D3 drops without the baby-friendly packaging. These drops have 1000 IU per 1 mL drop, so to get the 400 IU for a baby, you only have to give 0.2 mL. The stopper is conveniently marked at 0.2, 0.5 and 1.0 mL. It was more expensive for the bottle, but we're getting five doses for every one dose of the infant-type. And then I found out D3 drops in a regular supermarket drug department are even cheaper than the baby brands, AND more concentrated so you get more doses per bottle, and it's just the bargain of the century!

So, the dose is so small, and tasteless, little two-month old Bean didn't even notice us put it in his mouth, he just swallowed it down like so much drool. Even now he doesn't really notice the drop of liquid, so much as he wants to chew on the dropper. And I get to feel frugal and clever every day I give it to him. And I am much more consistent now about actually doing that every day haha.

However, I did notice the drops are supposed to be refrigerated, which I haven't done for these eight months, so I'm worried the vitamins have been degraded by heat and/or light and I'm just giving him worthless vitamin D metabolites. So if you do get these drops instead of the infant drops, check if chilling is necessary. (Is chilling recommended on the infant ones, too? I don't have a bottle anymore to check...) Anyway, just a little tip I wanted to share, because it was a daily annoyance that we found a way around, and maybe other people who are daily annoyed by the same issue would like to make the switch.

Mama Bean sings a lullaby

We are very blessed that Bean has the temperament to be put down for naps/sleep while still awake. When he was very small, up to about four weeks old, I would nurse and then rock him to sleep, or Papa Bean would rock him down for naps. But when we discovered the Swaddle, we stopped rocking. All the Baby Pundits said he would "get used to it" and "be spoiled" or "expect it all the time" which didn't sound like fun, so we started swaddling as our primary sleep cue, plus a soother, and he was quite amenable to then falling asleep by himself. Sometimes we'd even strategically angle the blanket edge over the soother to hold it in his mouth, which is sooooo contrary to all the SIDS punditry, please don't hate us, but it worked.

Not that I think swaddling and soothers are the answer to sleeping babies. I think Bean's just a chilled out relaxed little dude, and we did something consistently, and he rewarded us. Nice little Bean. We even did some of that "sleep training" stuff, and let him cry, or we'd go in just long enough to give back the soother, and then let him cry, and he would go back to sleep like the lovely, accommodating baby that he is. Nice, nice little Bean.

Even giving up the Swaddle wasn't so bad, especially when the weather started to heatify and muggify into a real Prairie Valley summer. Then the problem became his tendency to roll over onto his tummy and forget how to roll back, so he wakes up crying. (But, if he somehow stays asleep on his tummy, he will sleep for ages and it's lovely. Weird.) We put rolled up blankets and pillows and padding around him to keep him from rolling around, but it doesn't always work. And now, more often than not, he's just playing with the stuff, tossing it around (and out of) the crib so that he's twisted 180 from where we laid him down, with a pillow over his legs, a blanket under his left side, and two blankets twisted over his right hand. Again, SIDS infractions galore. But he falls asleep by himself, and wakes up happy (usually) and I just count my blessings every day (about three or four times, between naps and bedtime...)

A friend of mine had a baby about a week before I had Bean, and she is similarly well disposed to falling asleep by herself. They follow the sleep training thing, and they swaddled, and their chilled out little dudette is lovely and accommodating also. But we've noticed another similarity. Neither baby is particularly cuddly. Bean doesn't really like being held close, he doesn't lean his head or body into mine, and he definitely doesn't fall asleep while I'm holding him. Only when he's really really tired can I sometimes trick him into sort of falling into me while I'm holding him, and sometimes when I carry him up the stairs to bed, he'll start sucking on my shoulder, but that's really more about what he knows is coming next. I didn't want to "spoil" him, but I didn't realize that might mean giving up rocking him at any time, ever again, so help me God. I wonder if there's some sort of in between...

Maybe it will all change as he gets a little bigger. Certainly, they just become more and more cognizant of interpersonal dynamics, and the importance of the child-parent relationship. Maybe some of what's so hard in the Delirious Early Days is that they are so utterly dependent, and you're doing every possible thing to keep them not only alive, but comfortable and warm and cozy, and it's completely thankless. Because they have no fricking clue, right? So you're just doing and doing and giving and giving and they don't care. They only know how to neeeeeeeed. But then they hit that two to three month mark, and start giving (non-gas related) smiles. And their eyes clear up a bit, so they look like they can really see you, and recognize you, and know that you are the centre of their tiny, comfortable world. And every interpersonal milestone in the first year or two is really about you the parents. Making strange with people that aren't you, reaching for you for comfort/out of preference, learning to call you mama and dada, etc.

And somewhere in there, hopefully, having some hugs and some cuddles and sweet, quiet moments of trust and love. I'll just keep waiting.

Regardless of whether he likes it or not, after his bedtime nursing, I hold Bean in my lap and sing him a lullaby. Even when he bending over my arm to reach for the nail clippers on the table. Or climbing over my shoulder to scratch the chair fabric. Or just generally trying to get away from me. (If he's fussy and crying I put him in his crib and sing through the crying, because I'm trying to be consistent, and really, I think this exercise has become more about me than him. Motherhood is twisted; I embrace that.) I sing him a song I call Bruce's Song*

When moonlight falls across the hills
and through your windowpane
You'll close your eyes, and say your prayers
and think about your day

Did you laugh enough, and play enough?
Did you show the world your smile?
Did you catch the light, with both your hands
and hold it in your heart?
Well don't worry 'bout that now
It's time for your lullaby

*I wrote the song for my best friend, when she was pregnant. She doesn't know this, and has never heard the song, because my grand plans to record it on a disc of lullabies has not happened. Yet. But it could! One day... don't hate me, K...

Mama Bean has to get Papa Bean a really good birthday present

At our weekly breastfeeding support group, we have a little discussion period, and one time we were asked, "What have you learned about yourself since becoming a mom?" Most of the answers centred on the way a child necessitates an almost immediate loss of putting your self first. It's not that self-interest goes out the window, that the pull of selfishness isn't there. It's just that it always ends up second to the needs of the baby. Because they are so utterly helpless, and they really do depend on us for absolutely everything.

The needs are greater, in a Maslow's Hierarchy kind of way, at the beginning - those foundational basic and safety needs of food and cleanliness and a warm place to sleep. My nightmares, at that time, focused on catastrophic inabilities to fulfill those needs. "What if we were in a car crash in the middle of a storm, and I couldn't keep him warm enough, and I didn't have enough food or water, and my breastmilk dried up, and he just cried and cried from hunger until he fell into exhaustion, and we all die?" Or, after the Haiti earthquake: "What if that was me? How would I keep him protected from the sun? How would I change his dirty diapers? Where would we get water? Could I keep feeding him?" You know, basic mom fears.

As he gets older, it's assumed you've got those bottom-of-the-pyramid things covered, and increasingly we're responsible for those higher emotional and self-actualization needs. How exactly do I help my nine-month-old self-actualize anyway?

Anyway, that day, I didn't have any deep answer to the question. I'm sure I've learned things about myself since being a mama, most of them something along the lines of "I had no idea I could DO [insert parenthood related activity - change ten diapers of day, clean yellow poop off three outfits in a row, absorb liters of breastmilk and spit-up into my clothes, without batting an eye or "spitting up" myself...]" And I have learned all the right lessons about leaving my selfishness at the door, and taking extra food at dinner because I know some of it's going to go into my mooch of a son's tummy instead of mine. And I have learned all those other nice things about how I didn't know I could love someone so much, etc. I mean, babies! Gawd! They're just so gall-darned ADORABLE!

But.

Here's the immediate thought that popped into my head when I heard the question: since becoming a mom, I have learned how much my husband loves me. Which doesn't really answer the question, since it's not something I learned about my self. But it's something I've learned related to my Self and Immediate Well-being, not to mention my Heart. Or my Soul.

My husband loves me A LOT. More than I ever thought I knew, and I thought I had a pretty good idea. I have learned, more than anything else about my own personal capacity to love and care for another, little tiny human Beanlet, that I absolutely, positively married the perfect man for me. I have learned what partnership means. I have learned, from him how to love Bean more selflessly, how to live life more patiently, and how to feel everything more fully.

In those first Delirious 24 hours, when we were getting up every three hours to boil the water and pump the colostrum, and fill the feeding syringe, and he was holding Bean while I positioned myself in the chair, with the feeding pillow, and arranging the nipple shield, and then holding the syringe and slooooooowly pushing the plunger down, as we coached the tiny beast to suck more, and faster, and harder, and stay awake for crying out loud! and please please just take a little more you're doing so well, 20 mL already (20 mL! How long does it TAKE to drink 20 mL? An eternity? Oh, sure, only an eternity at 2 o'clock in the morning...) and then changing the tiny diaper, and putting all his tiny clothes back on, and we did it all as a team, sharing the load, sharing the immense weight of uncertainty and worry that we somehow Were Not Doing Enough - I tell ya, my eyes were opened. To a whole new Papa Bean. And even though we learned plenty of lessons about what love is during our previous eight years together, it was like a totally different level of the pyramid, y'know?

That's a good man, right there :)

I don't think you have to have a baby to experience this with your spouse. I think I just realize, now, that this is the undercurrent of marriage, this constant growth into stronger, more loving partnership. When you live life together, you don't just keep falling and falling into love. You walk around, side by side, dealing with shit. Dealing with life. And you share it, good bad and in between. There's a lot of in between. And in the process, you see each other in new and deeper ways, and then, then you fall deeper into love.

Listen to this song, and don't worry if it makes you cry. It totally made me cry.

Mama Bean has a garden update - with pictures!

Before I was a mother, when I met people who are poorly socialized or behave maladaptively, I would probably think a little less of them, or think I don't want to be around them more than I have to be. Or if I were forced to spend a great deal of time with them, I might save up mocking stories about them to laugh about later. Because I can be cruel and judgmental just like everyone else. Now that I am a mother, I find I just wonder, "How do I parent to avoid this in my children?" What do I have to do to raise up little people that become big people who aren't jerks, and aren't weird? (I mean, in a maladaptive way. Lord knows I'm plenty weird, but I get along in the social world alright, with only tinges of Awkward, occasionally. Occasionally often. Moving on...) And I realize that most of these people have lovely parents who didn't do anything "wrong" and that it's not About Parenting. But I still feel the monumental Responsibility of it all. And at least I'm not spending as much time remembering cruel, mocking anecdotes, right? Motherhood will make me a Better Person before we're through, as God as my witness!

I don't know why that thought just popped up. I'm having a listless, melancholy day. I am tired. I probably should be taking a nap as Bean naps, but then I can't fall asleep at night, no matter how late we go to bed (which lately has been quite late, thus the tiredness in the first place.) So. Anyway, I didn't come on here to be morose. I wanted to share the drama that is life with a garden.

Did I mention it was a rainy spring?

Last year we planted seeds and seedlings on May Long Weekend, like everyone else, and then we had a freeze on June 5th. It was a sad lesson learned. We vowed to be more cautious this year. So we didn't plant May Long. Anyway it rained that weekend. And then it rained two days out of three for the next three weeks. So when it was finally kind of dry enough to sort of plant some things, it was two days before we left for a vacation to Cowtown. So I just shoved those seeds in the ground and hoped for the best. But we only planted half the plot, and not everything we had planned made it into the ground. Anyway, another sad lesson learned, or maybe just a completion of the same lesson. Many seeds can take colder temperatures, even potatoes planted deep - certainly peas, and lettuces/spinach, carrots and beets. I should have planted those as soon as the dirt could be worked. Next year!

Here's what made it into the Big Garden:
Section 1: ruby queen beets, nantes touchon beets (nantes have a blunter tip than imperator type carrots) and red cored danvers carrots (not sure if these are imperator or not)
Section 2: improved long green cucumbers, another type of smaller pickling cucumber whose package was given to Bean to chew on and now I don't know what they were called. Gardening with kids! Yay!
Section 3: stoplight beans! royal burgundy bush beans (red-ish?) improved golden wax bush beans, and tendergreen improved bush beans.
Section 4: sugar snap peas (edible pod) and little marvel peas (shelling)
Section 5: longstanding bloomsdale spinach, early great lakes lettuce, fordhook giant (white stalk) and rhubabrd (red stalk) swiss chard, buttercrunch lettuce, and sweet basil.
Sections 6-12: some cabbage transplants, struggling butternut squash plants, grass and weeds. Oh, and a random green bean plant from last year and sprung up as a volunteer! We'll be planting a vetch-based green manure in this section to control the weeds and restore some nutrients to the soil.

top left: greens (lettuces, etc. crazy chard in the centre), bottom left: stoplight beans, centre: peas, top right: cucumbers, bottom right: great beets needing thinning, patchy carrots.

What didn't make it:
Onions, which were to be interplanted with the carrots and beets - Section 1, the root ~fiesta~
Potatoes
Zucchini or the white marrow (like white zucchini) I picked up on a whim
Tomatoes (save some plants for Russian giants a patient passed on to me, which are planted in our front flower bed)
Peppers
Thyme or sage (thought they were perennial, but nothing came back)
Kohlrabi, also picked up on a whim

Our basement growlight worked great for the early seedlets. We started soy, but didn't plant it out in time, and it died while we were on vacation. The giant pumpkin, acorn squash, and cantaloupe did survive, and are planted in our Little Garden out back. One acorn squash plant has flowered brilliantly, and I've been pretending to be a little bee, hand pollinating diligently. The giant pumpkin has so far only sent up male flowers, which is very disappointing. It's looking to cross-pollinate with another plant, but unfortunately, only one survived from the basement. So that whole project (which is really Papa Bean's baby) may be a wash this year. Anyway, here are some pictures!

top left: giant pumpkin wants to take over the world! bottom left: female squash blossom (saying that always get Fat-bottomed Girls stuck in my head) centre: pumpkin tendrils, top right: leeetle bebe acorn squashlet, bottom right: more spirally vinedrils of doom

Mama Bean and Papa Bean are winners

Papa Bean has a personal conviction that the words "one" and "won" are pronounced differently. Even though they're homonyms. (Or are they?) Arguments of homophone or homograph notwithstanding, let's agree, for the purposes of this post being funny, that these two words are pronounced the same way. Unless you're Papa Bean. Then, "won" is said as in "won ton" or even, somewhat, the named Juan. Try it in a sentence!

Spain won the 2010 World Cup.
The children won many toys at the carnival.
Mama Bean won the husband lottery. (Awwwwww...)

Feels funny doesn't it? Like your mouth is working overtime for no good reason. Because you could just say "won" like "one" like a normal person.

Pioneer Woman posted a little joke recently that goes like this:
11 was a race horse. 22 was 12. 1111 race. 22112.

Get it?

I didn't get it either.

It means this. One-one was a race horse. Two-two was one, too. One-one won one race. Two-two won one, too!

Cute, right?

Buuuuuuuuut if you're Papa Bean, the joke doesn't make sense! Because "1" and "won" cannot be punned!

:( for PB, n'est-ce pas?

Anyway, this post is really just an extension of our offline life, in which I constantly mock him for being silly about this. Every time he says "won" I pretend I can't understand him. "The children did what at the carnival?" And if he's not really paying attention, he'll actually repeat himself until he figures out I'm just giggling at him. Which just makes my day, because I get to hear him be goofy all over again! And then sometimes I'll make a joke about wanting won ton soup. But he doesn't laugh.

Just like he can't laugh at PW's cute horse joke!

Poor PB. Good thing he's so darn cute!