Baby co-op, playdate and a French Maid

"I have always wondered why babies scream so much louder than humans. Maybe its because their pressure of excitement is higher?" Alexander (Age 7)

Wren was in fine form this afternoon when we went to fetch Frost and Alexander from school. Alexander ran up to the car saying "hello Wren" and Frost arrived yelling and hooting and swinging his backpack. From that moment on Wren decided to scream his own version of shouting. He was not unprovoked because Frost has the mistaken impression that shrieking back will be entertaining. It is not.

Somewhere on the way home I decided we needed an easy and crowd pleasing dinner so I stopped at Safeway for hot dogs, buns and instant cornbread mix. How the mighty have fallen. In 1996 I was cooking and grinding my own soybeans to make tofu and feeding a green tree frog from my hot compost heap. Now I am reading The Erotic Secrets of a French Maid (I kid you not, most of my excitement happens between the leaves, not sheets) which is a library book and am feeding my son hot dogs. These are not even Whole Foods nitrite free happy turkey hot dogs. They come from the aisle with that liquid cheese and meat that you can peel.

Anyway, Wren is well and enjoyed his baby group except for the part where I went to the discussion group without him for ten minutes. He also enjoyed his afternoon except for the part where I left him with a babysitter, awake, for an hour and a half. Yes, there is a theme here. Wren is very attached to me and is confident and exploratory and happy if I am within sight. If not, he cries and looks for me. It is tiring. At times he clings to my legs and follows along crawling and crying until I pick him up. This makes cooking difficult. I know this is a phase but I would like him to be a little more relaxed around people he knows so "I can go out without anxiety and return to a baby who is happy not crying and fixing me with gulping guilty stares.

What else? Oh, my blood test results came back showing I am once again calcium deficient. It seems whenever I go off calcium supplements it takes only a couple of months for calcium deficiency to rear again. I am taking that chalky supplement at night.

Yesterday, old family friends Brenda and James visited. It was very good to see them. It is surprising how important friends and connections from "home" are for the psyche. I feel very energized and appreciated for who I am after their visit and hope they enjoyed meeting the children. Yesterday, was a big digital day so Frost was not ultra-social. He had just noticed Joshua had bought and installed an X-Box 360 and the High-def cable had been turned on. As a result we could interest James in the intensity of our TV signal on the new screen as well as keep Frost mesmerized with HD eye-candy that came free with the X-box. He is now playing breeding pinata and feeding them fruit:

"I am making a garden of pinatas and building them houses and letting them have marriage cos then they can make babies" Frost (6)

Uh oh. I hope he doesn't do the math on his birth certificate.