Watergun Warriors!!!

I have a park a few blocks from my apartment, and when the weather was nice, we'd pack up our supplies in the stroller, and walk down the street to "the park with the monster's house" as Booger calls it.  This week was getting hot, so I decided that for this park trip, we needed to do something that would keep us cool if we were going to be out there.

Today's great Saturday adventure... 

WATERGUN FIGHTS!!!
 

We tracked down every watergun and spray bottle we could find, filled them all up, and headed down the street to the park.  The kids always have fun with Heaven because she likes to get in there and do exactly what they're doing.  I tend to get my Banana-bonding time in while the rest of the kids are off playing.  :)   Buddy, Ka-Diva, and Booger initially ganged up on Heaven, but Heaven has a way of convincing the twins that they should pick on Booger instead.  ;-) 

Poor kid was drenched!

Buddy getting his watergun on...

The Watergun Warriors

(Even Banana was getting in on the action...)

Ignore the craziness of the camera work... 

It's not easy to film kids running around and dodging water at the same time.  :-)

Banana enjoying watching all of the watergun action.

(Taken before she puked her entire bottle all over her Mommy.

Very glad it wasn't me! :-)

After we ran out of water, and Heaven was covered in baby puke, we decided to head back to the apartment so Heaven and Banana could get cleaned up.  Somehow, the kids managed to convince me to let them stop by the pool to "just test the water" to see if we thought we'd be able to swim anytime soon.  I told the kids, "Sure, you can test the water."

I guess jumping in fully-clothed was their idea of checking it out.  :-)

CRACK ATTACK!!!

(A direct result of not being prepared for an inpromptu swimming adventure ;-)

What might have been Banana's REACTION to Booger's "Crack Attack."

And so completes another successful adventure of the "Saturday Crew."

:-)

Why Risk It?!?

I went to Sonic the other morning to get my usual Route 44 Diet Coke with extra ice, and I witnessed the saddest display of "roller-skating carhop skills" that I have ever seen...  The poor girl spent the vast majority of her time clinging onto every available pole, wall, and automobile for dear life.  I was truly relieved that she wasn't delivering my order because I would have hated to see a perfectly good Diet Coke go to waste!

I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that I'm not sure it's worth the extra 25 cents (if it's even that much) an hour to deliver food on roller skates when you are at great risk of bodily injury due to your own lack of skill.  25 cents an hour vs. three months out of work while in a body cast???  I think I'd go with keeping my feet firmly planted on the ground, thank you very much.

(On a different note - There's another newly pregnant teen carhop at my Sonic!  And again...  It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut and not ask her if she has an adoption plan for her child. ;-)

Remembering #1...

Wow! I just realized that it was exactly two years ago this week that my little Immobile Munchkin came and went.  The Munchkin was my very first placement.  She was only with me for a week, but I learned so much from my experience with her! 

When I got the call for an 11-month-old little girl about to be released from the hospital with a broken femur, I specifically asked, "Is she mobile?"  I knew that with little ones, they often completely immobilize them in order to make sure the fractures heal correctly.  Apparently somewhere between HER case manager and MY case manager, she went from "being immobilized from the waist down" to "has a big cast on her leg" (SINGULAR). HER case manager hadn't even seen her... An aide brought her over from the hospital. And being my first placement, I didn't realize I was allowed to say, "Uh... This is NOT what you told me to expect!"

Poor baby girl was in a body cast from the armpits down to her ankles...  BOTH ankles...  and to make matters worse, she had to wear a corrective helmet 23 hours a day to help with a skull malformation. And to top it all off, she either had a cold or was allergic to Tommie because she couldn't breathe!  She couldn't lay down because she couldn't breathe. She couldn't be situated on her stomach because she had a hard time holding her head up from the weight of the helmet. She couldn't even SIT because of the position of the body cast.  I thought there was NO WAY that I (a single, working mom) could give her the undivided attention that she needed, and I couldn't take off of work for the next 6-8 weeks while she was in the cast.  I ended up having to ask that she be moved to a two-parent house with a stay-at-home mom.  I was SO frustrated because she was such a sweet little girl, and I felt like I was letting her down.  :(

The Munchkin was a trooper though!  She was the sweetest little thing, and did SO WELL considering everything she had been through.  She was understandably frustrated at not being able to move, but as long as someone was constantly entertaining her, she was a sweetheart.  :-)

From what I'd learned, she lived in a house with about 15 people, so she seemed to be a bit spoiled as far as needing your undivided attention, and being in a body cast made it pretty much impossible to entertain herself, so you had to get creative with positioning her and playtime.  You always know when she was having fun because she had the most adorable smile.  When she was REALLY excited, she shook her head side to side and shook her fists.  
 
She didn't like to be left alone at all when she was awake, and if you left her sight she would YELL to get you to come back (especially when it came to bedtime).  “YELL!!!”  (wait a second)  “YELL!!!”  (wait a second)  And she kept it up until you either gave in and got her or won the battle yourself.  It was about 50/50 with the two of us to see who won.  I told her that yelling wasn’t ladylike, but she didn’t seem to care much.  :-)

I hated that I wasn't able to keep her, but I knew that moving her was the best thing for her.  And I was proven right after only a week!  I found out that her new foster parents were friends of mine from my training classes, and they were even able to take in her big sister as well!  I never would have been able to take them both, so having her in a home with two parents and her sister was awesome!   The girls remained with my friends for about 15 months when they were ultimately returned home to their mother, and I pray every day that they are safe, happy, and loved.

Munchkin's Favorite Things:

* Being in the stroller - The stroller was the ONE place where she could feel like she was "sitting up" without me holding her.  She loved to be in whatever room I was in and watch me do whatever I was doing.  Who knew doing the dishes could be so exciting?  ;-)

* Singing, learning animal noises, copying faces and sounds

* Peek-a-boo (She liked to cover her own face with a cloth diaper and "surprise" me.)

* Putting Legos and the little bathtub "squirter" toys into a big bowl over and over and over again.  She would sit in my lap and do that for a solid hour!

* And her ULTIMATE favorite thing was to straddle my leg and pretend that she was riding a horse while I sang the "Bonanza" theme song over and over and over.  Any time I would stop, she'd bounce her head again like she was galloping so I'd start over.

* The Munchkin really liked being with Buddy and Ka-Diva.  You can tell she'd been around kids because she was always very interested in whatever they were doing.  Buddy especially (as always) fell in love with her.  He's always the little protector of my kiddos.  :-)

*  I gave the Munchkin a fluffy white Winnie the Pooh blanket the very first night she was with me, and she was NEVER very far from it (You can see it in most of the pictures that I have of her).  I sent it with her to her new foster home, and her foster mom told me that she had it with her ALL THE TIME.  Ever since then, I make sure that each baby gets a brand new fluffy blanket of their very own almost as soon as they come in my door.  :-)

It's funny how things work out.  That week was so hard (seeing as how I had absolutely no clue what I was doing with babies or foster care at the time.  ;-)  I actually think that if she came to me under the same circumstances now, I would be a lot better prepared and much more capable of being what she needed.), but God's timing was perfect (of course) because that week that the Munchkin spent with me ended up giving everyone involved the time to find the absolute best placement for her.  The Munchkin definitely ended up in the best home for her during the time she was in foster care, and 2 weeks later, I got my Booger Bear!!!  :-)  I learned so much from my experience with my little Immobile Munchkin, and as hard as that week was, I wouldn't change a thing!

Quarterly Inspection

Amidst all the new baby chaos of the past week, my foster agency's new Program Director finally made an appearance to introduce herself and to do my quarterly "inspection" (and I use that term loosely).  New Girl showed up 30 minutes early (a definite first in my experience over the past couple of years)!  She then walks into my house, straight to the dining room table, pulls out her paperwork, and starts writing "yes, yes, yes."  Not once did she get up to look at anything!

I've had previous inspections where caseworkers went so far as to dig around in my pantry to read expiration dates on green beans.  Another one walked around my house and had me physically show her how medications were stored by opening up the double-locked medication tackle box and showing her the expiration dates on the medicines.  That same girl also had me show her the pressure gauges on my fire extinguishers and demonstrate the P.A.S.S. method of how to use them!  She was also the one who told me that handsoap and a clean towel needed to be "readily accessible" for children to wash hands, but that handsoap needed to be "stored away from children."  HUH?!?  (Gotta love foster care "minimum standards.")

This chick, however...  Well, the most "inspecting" that she did that day involved asking me, "Do you have a gun?"  Me, "Nope."  New Girl, "Okay."  Heck!  I could have had a high-powered rifle laying out on my bed or an open hydrocodone bottle laying next to the babies' toy box and she never would have known!  If I had known she wasn't going to step foot out of the dining room, I wouldn't have bothered to hide my Tums that I usually have within arm's reach of my bed every night.  ;-)  It was definitely one of the easiest "inspections" ever...  It didn't exactly inpsire a whole lot of confidence in her dedication to her job though.  Hopefully, she just automatically knew that I am an awesome "minimum standards"-abiding foster mom and that she had nothing to worry about when it came to the safety of my house.  :-)

I was a wee bit frustrated when she ended the meeting with, "Okay...  So I'll be on the lookout for 3 children, ages 0-5 years old for you!"  HUH?!?  Um, NO!!!  Single, full-time working foster mommy here!!!  Let's start with one child, age 6 weeks to 18 months to start (as I have told her about 10 times now).  New Girl is already wearing me out!!! 

And Their Blog Names Shall Be...

"Pooper" (aka. "Thing 1")

7 lbs 3 oz

"Butterfly" (aka. "Thing 2")

6 lbs 12 oz

Sisters, Ka-Diva and Butterfly

Brothers, Buddy and Pooper

Let me just emphasize that, yes, I do realize that "Pooper" is probably not a very appropriate pseudonym for a precious little baby, but here's the thing...  Months ago when Chris and Christy were contemplating names for "the Things," they always made certain to include the big twins in the process.  One of their potential names for Baby Boy was "Cooper."  When Christy asked Buddy what he thought of it, he said "Pooper?!?  Why would you name a baby Pooper?!?"  Ever since then, that's the name that sticks when I've thought of Baby Boy (and if the nasty diaper that he had yesterday was any indication what's to come, it was probably a very fitting nick name).  So "Pooper" it is!!!

Buddy was also very insistant that Baby Girl's name be "Butterfly Crystal."  He has had that name on the brain for months.  When Christy asked why he liked that name so much, he said that he just thought it was a beautiful name and that baby girls' names should be beautiful.  Christy told Buddy that she would save that name special for him so that he could name his baby girl "Butterfly Crystal" when he is a daddy.  ;-)  I secretly loved the name though because butterflies are my little signs of happiness, so Baby Girl is officially blog named "Butterfly!"

Big thanks to Buddy for helping me "blog name" his baby brother and sister!  :-)

BABY DAY!!!

SO, SO, SOOOOO excited!!! 

Tomorrow is "BABY DAY" according to my niece and nephew!!!

Tomorrow morning around 7:30am, Ka-Diva and Buddy will become "Big Sister" and "Big Brother" to the newest additions to our family!

I can't wait!!!

(I told Christy that I will be much more help this time around now that I know what I'm doing with babies.  Although I also mentioned that I probably won't meet my absolute usefulness for a few more months yet, seeing as how all of my babies come to me a little bit older.  ;-)
 

Stay tuned tomorrow when I announce the births

and dub my new niece and nephew with their Official Blog Names!  :-)

"Hooray of the Day!!!"

Today's "Hooray of the Day"...

HOORRAAAYYY for No Mess Adhesive!!!

You are, quite literally, keeping my dining room table and my car from falling apart...

Foster/Adopt Land Update

So I haven't really mentioned Foster/Adopt Land lately, and there's a pretty good reason for it... 

I haven't heard from them in a month!!!

I haven't been the happiest of campers when it comes to my agency lately.  Up until March 9th, it had been going pretty well.  I'd been receiving potential placement calls several times a week.  On March 9th, my Program Director submitted my homestudy for a potential adoption.  And then...  NOTHING!!!

I let the next week go without contacting them.  It's not totally unusual to go one week without a potential placement call.  But when another week passed without a word, I decided to send a friendly little "Hey!  Don't forget about me!  :-)" email to my PD.  I was less than thrilled about what I got back...

"Glad to hear from you.  Can you give me an idea of who you would like to foster, age and sex, please?   I will begin a search for some children for you.  I am trying to make sure I know what children our foster parents want to serve."

You're kidding me, right?  Not only was the reply from a person based out of a city four hours away, but she wants "to begin" searching for children for me?!?  So I reply with another message asking if the PM is no longer there, saying that I guess that would explain why I hadn't heard from anyone in weeks, and I tell her what my requirements are.  She copies some woman I don't know on the message and replies with:

"PM has left our agency.  We are very sorry for the loss, but have to keep moving.  I will keep in mind you want a younger child and need CCMS.  Thanks for checking."

Again, I am very kind in my reply with an "I was just wondering because it's really unusual for me not to hear from you guys..." tone.  Although what I really wanted to say was, "It sure would have been nice two weeks ago to know what was going on!"

So then I emailed my Family Specialist just to say hi and see how she was holding up with the PM gone.  I never got a response.  Not good.

Two more weeks go by, and nothing!  Not a word from the agency!  So on Friday, I emailed the faraway lady and my FS again.  This time, I notice that the FS's message was also forwarded to the faraway lady's address.  Faraway lady assured me that she is on the lookout for me, and didn't mention a word about the fact that FS is apparently no longer with the agency.  I am less than thrilled.

There are only three employees in my local office as it is!  The PM, the FS, and a receptionist.  This office is the agency's foster care office.  The location four hours away manages group homes.  Call me crazy, but I would think that if the two people who are single-handedly responsible for managing the foster care side of the agency are no longer with the agency, someone should have notified the foster parents!!!  I only found out because I tend to hound the crap out of them when I'm between placements.  What about the poor "newbies" who are afraid to bother them?  They probably have no clue what's going on!

Fast forward to last night around 9:00pm, and I get a phone call from a number that I didn't recognize.  I decided to go ahead and pick up because I figured bill collectors wouldn't be calling that late, and it turned out to be the new chick from the local office...  The one who had been copied on all of the emails for the past few weeks and who I still hadn't heard from to that point...  "Hi, New Lady!  What do you have for me?!?" (thinking she finally had a potential placement... Why else would she be calling at 9:00 at night?!?)

Oh, no...  She wasn't calling about a potential placement.  She was calling to schedule a time to come to the house to do my 2nd quarter inspection.  Yep...  An INSPECTION!!!  When I've had no kids in the house since THANKSGIVING!!!  I told her that I'd cut her a little slack seeing as how we'd never met and all, but that the next time she asks to come to my house, she'd sure as heck better have a baby with her!

I guess I'll give the agency another month as the new staff tries to get acclimated, but if I don't start getting potential placement calls soon, I'm going to highly consider going straight through DFPS and not an affiliated agency.  You can't convince me that there have been no babies coming into care in the past month...  Not when there are nearly 1,000 children in foster care in my county alone right now (and 3,000 in my region)!  I'm only being nice because by the end of this week, I will have three new babies to love and spoil rotten on top of Booger, Buddy, and Ka-Diva!  My honorary "grandbaby" 2-month-old Banana who I love like crazy, and my new niece and nephew who will be joining us on Thursday (if Christy doesn't go into labor before then).  :-)

They have one month.  Then Bipolar Girl will rear her ugly head.  I want a baby at my house, thank you very much!  I'm not putting up with all of the CPS red tape for the fun of it, you know!

"Hooray of the Day!!!"

I've decided to start a daily "Hooray of the Day" segment.  Just a quick little blurb to salute someone or something that I feel deserves a little bit of praise, thanks, or recognition...

Today's "Hooray of the Day"...

HOORAAAYYY for Mashed Potatoes in a Box!!!

You make this girl's life a whole lot easier... ;-P

At a Crossroad...

Today, I find myself at a major crossroad in my life.  We are all faced with them from time to time.  Those moments when we are presented with conflicting options and must choose the road we feel is right...  "What is the source of my dilemma," you might ask?  Take a look for yourself...




Why, yes!  That is a Justin Bieber/Rascal Flatts single!  Now WTF am I supposed to do with that?!?  On the one hand, in my humble opinion, Rascal Flatts is freaking awesome and as far as I'm concerned, can do no wrong when it comes to making music.  They could sing Ernie's Rubber Duckie song from Sesame Street, and I'd totally melt.  On the other hand, there's that whole Justin Bieber thing that I'd have to live down if I ever publicly admit that I like this song.  So what is a 36-year-old woman to do when faced with a dilemma of this magnitude?  Fine!  I'll own it!  I like this song!!!  I'll just chalk it up as a "guilty pleasure" and everyone can just accept it for what it is.

I suppose while I'm fessing up to guilty pleasures, I might as well own up to a few more.  If I'm going to be mocked by my peers, I might as well give them some genuine ammunition.  ;-)

1.  I LIKE BOY BANDS! - That's right.  You heard me.  I became a closet boy band fan as a teenager when my sister became a "loud and proud" New Kids on the Block fanatic.  We're talking proud-owner-of-the-bedsheets, thousands-of-photos-covering-every-inch-of-wall-and-ceiling-space-in-her-bedroom, memorized-every-lyric-and-choreographed-routine FA-NA-TIC...  At the time, I refused to admit that I went to the concert.  I definitely refused to admit that I enjoyed the concert.  But now, 22 years later, I'll own it.  NKOTB, all the way, baby!!!  While my personal preferences lean toward the more "mature" Backstreet Boys, I can still bust out the choreography to "The Right Stuff" to this day!  :-)

2.  I think that "Galaxy Quest" is one of the funniest movies ever! -  I know!  I know!  You're probably all shaking your heads at me right now.  But you have to admit that this movie was so stupid that it was freaking hilarious!!!  And unlike other films like "Space Jam" that "starred" athletes for crying out loud, "Galaxy Quest" starred people who knew what they're doing!  Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman...  I'll even go one step further and admit that I owned the VHS and replaced it with the DVD when the big transition from VCR to DVD players happened several years back.  It's a funny movie, and no one is going to convince me otherwise.

3.  I take Mr. Bubble bubble baths! - Yes, I am a grown woman.  Yes, I realize that there are other bubble bath products on the market that are actually geared towards grown woman.  However, having compared multiple products, I have found that you just can't get good bubbles with any of those "grown-up" bubble bath liquids.  If I'm going to go to the hassle of filling up the tub, pulling out the candles, setting up the relaxing music, etc. I want some serious "bubbleage" in that tub that will last longer than 5 minutes!  Mr. Bubble, it is!  I'm not sure I'm willing to cop to occassionally drawing with the kids' bath crayons yet though...

Mock away if you must!!!  But just remember that one day, I might sneak up on you while you're busting out your best "Macarena" moves or belting out your favorite Air Supply song in the shower (Why, yes...  I do own Air Supply's Greatest Hits ;-P)...  They're called "guilty pleasures," and we all have them.  I'm just brave enough to own up to mine on the World Wide Web for all to see.  :-)

Out!!! Out!!!

When the Booger first came to live with me, I wanted to make sure that he developed a love for books.  Sure, he was only 7-months-old when he first arrived on my doorstep, but in the year that he was with me he fell in love with "reading."  He loved to sit and "weed" on his "poppy" (such a "man" thing to do...).  I ended up keeping his library collection on a low shelf that he could reach so he could read any time he wanted to.  He was very serious about taking good care of his books, and always put them back on the shelf after he was finished with them.  (I'm not sure if that was good parenting on my part, or if it was just the OCD clean freak part of him taking over.  To this day, he still loves to clean!)

Our bedtime routine always began with the Booger Bear picking out a couple of books for me to read to him (our "winding down" part of the evening).  His selection usually varied, but there was one book in particular that never failed to make the reading list for the night.  The short "board book" version of "Put Me in the Zoo..."  J called it his "Out! Out!" book.  Anytime someone would ask him if he wanted to read a book, he'd run to his bookshelf and exclaim, "Out! Out!"

"I will go into the zoo.

I want to see it.

Yes, I do!"

"We do not want you in the zoo.

Out, you go!

Out!!!  Out, with you!!!"

When the Booger went to live with his daddy, I debated long and hard about whether or not to send the "Out! Out!" book home with him.  It was one of those things that meant so much to me, but it was his favorite too, so of course I sent it with him.  I can always buy another copy for myself.

Heaven, Booger, and Banana spent the day at my house yesterday along with my mom, Ka-Diva, and Buddy (different post on the day's events to follow).  Booger was getting grouchy, so I had him go pick out some books for us to read.  Heaven mentioned that he still loves to read, and that he always wants to read every book he owns before bedtime. 

Then Heaven said something that made my heart practically leap out of my chest.  "He has this favorite book that he always makes me read.  It's about this thing and the zoo and it changes colors and stuff."  It's been 13 months since the Booger Bear went to live with his daddy, and the "Out! Out!" book is still his favorite.

Pretty sure I felt my heart smile...  :-)

Fat Girl Rationalization ;-P

I decided to go with the Chili Cheese Fritos for lunch today because it just seemed like more of a well-rounded "meal" than the competition.

Chili = MEAT

Cheese = DAIRY

Fritos = CORN chips...

Can I rationalize my horrific eating habits, or what???  ;-P

The Sinking Mattress of Pain

"So what is this?" you might ask...  This, my friends, is how I spent the vast majority of my day today.  Laid up on the couch with the remote control, a 500 count bottle of Ibuprofen (Yes, I realize that it is not securely locked in the Fort Knox medicine tackle box, but seeing as I how I have no foster children at the moment, I thought I would leave it out in the open within arms' reach.  I am such a rebel that way.  Take that, CPS!), a heating pad, and an ice pack...

I've known for a couple of years now that I really do need to get a new mattress.  I've had the same queen-sized, double pillow top for about 15 years now!  And being single, no amount of mattress flipping is going to help get rid of the Grand Canyon-like crater in the middle of my bed from which there is no escape.  I can't tell you the last time I got a comfortable night's sleep.  Actually, I take that back.  It was last month when my sister and I spent the night at my grandparents' house, and I slept on an air mattress!  Best night's sleep I've had in a year!!! 

I'll admit that the thought crosses my mind every night around 2:00am when my back is in knots and I can't get comfortable that I really do need to take the money and get a new mattress.  But every morning when I get up and start moving around, the kinks in my back magically disappear, and I completely forget about The Sinking Mattress of Pain.  That is, I completely forgot about it until last week when the little kinks in my back somehow progressed into Giant Knots of Burning Fire that have only gotten progressively worse as time goes on.

I knew I was in trouble when I got to work one morning and the tele-recruiters were doing laps around me.  You see this picture of the overweight elderly woman on a walker?  That's not me!  That would be a fairly accurate depiction of the women who were passing me on the way into the office.  So yeah...  It's pretty bad.

I left work this morning after one hour of torture.  I couldn't even bring myself to go tell my boss in person that I was leaving.  I emailed him.  I didn't think that I could tell him that I threw my back out in bed and that my butt was going numb with a straight face.  Ordinarily, I would probably mess with him and make him as uncomfortable as humanly possible just because I'm a little snot that way.  (Fortunately, everyone at the office gets my sense of humor so surprisingly, I haven't been fired for it.  ;-)  Today though, I was hurting too much to think quickly on my feet.  Heck!  I hurt too much to be on my feet at all!  So I emailed him and ran crawled out the back door.

I made it home, and then did what any other self-respecting woman would do in my situation.  I called my Mommy.  (Yes, I realize that I do that a lot.  In fact, I do that so much that I have now created a blog label entitled "I Called My Mommy" for easy accessibility.  ;-)  I had good reason though!  This is a first for me.  I've never thrown my back out before.  My mom, on the other hand, does it all the time.  I just thought I'd go straight to the expert to see what works best to make it stop hurting!  I very much appreciate her advice, because it seems to be helping a bit.  I do not, however, appreciate her laughing at my sister and me because she is moving faster than we are right now.  Christy is about 98 weeks pregnant with twins, and I (as Ka-Diva put it earlier today) have a "broken" back. 

I made the mistake of mentioning that I can see how a cane would be useful at times like these to my mom, but politely declined when she offered me one of hers for the weekend.  To me, a cane is like a fanny pack.  Yes, they can be incredibly useful, and I often secretly wish I had one, but those are just two of those things that you let your mother be the proud owner of.  There is no amount of "bedazzling" that could make either of those things "young or hip."  I might be getting old enough to throw my back out in my sleep, but I refuse to admit that I'm old enough to use a cane or a fanny pack. 

So as I lay here like an invalid, alternating ice packs and heating pads, and single-handedly keeping the makers of Ibuprofen in business, I can only hope that I'll be able to move enough to go to the furniture store and replace my Sinking Mattress of Pain soon.  As it is, I've decided to take up residence in the nursery on the twin-size bed.  Watch me get a placement call too!  Those calls always do seem to come at the worst possible times.  "Sure!  Bring me a 9-month-old!  But you don't expect me to be able to carry him, right?"  ;-)