Another letter to Hank.

Oh, Mr. Baby.

You are now nine months old, but I started this entry back when you were right around seven. I hardly ever get a chance to sit down and write, but with the time change, you're going to bed earlier and giving your dad and me some much-needed free time in the evening.

So yes, as I said, you're now nine months old, but you're under the impression that you're about two years old or so. You've been pretty much anti-crawling up until recently, when you started pulling yourself along with your arms, folding one leg underneath you, and using the other foot as a rudder. You can get pretty far using this method. Your favorite thing to do is walk by hanging on to our fingers and pulling yourself up. You've even tried to pry our fingers loose from your hands to attempt standing on your own. It's especially exciting to go for walks (or stomps, as it sounds) right before your bath, when you're barefoot and down to just your diaper.

You haven't officially said your first word yet, but you've transitioned from screaming "DA DA DA DA DA!" to "Ma ma ma ma ma" and now have been working on "Wooowww... wow" at various pitch levels. You also love screaming with ear-splitting delight at cats, dogs and Elmo. Whatever it takes to keep Yo Gabba Gabba and Spongebob out of the house.

You're starting to discover the joys of feeding yourself. It makes a humongous mess, but sometimes I'll spoon out a little soft food onto your high chair tray and let you go to town. You also do a good job with your mesh feeder and the mess is significantly easier to clean up. You haven't been too excited about kiwi or avocado, but you love cottage cheese and bananas. I've also let you try things from my plate - this morning you had some biscuits and gravy - well, just the gravy. Your favorite seems to be tomato soup. You absolutely hate the pureed meat from a jar. I guess I can't blame you on that one.

What else? I'm proud to announce that as of November 1st, you officially have a tooth. You didn't seem to be too bothered by its arrival. You're also getting a lot more hair. Your eyes are more or less blue, and you go back and forth on who you look like. Your new favorite games (in addition to the old standby "Where's the Baby?") are "This Little Piggy" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." You've finally started to show an interest in books, although "Goodnight Moon" seems to make you angry for some strange reason.

Hank, there's just so much you've done over the relatively short time you've been here with us that I can't even sum it all into one blog entry or even an entire baby book. Your daddy and I - and the rest of our family - can't wait to see what you'll do next. We all love you so much that it's hard to even type those words without tearing up. You are our funny, ornery, sweet, smart, stubborn little boy.

Baby-Snarking Club: Kristy's Big Day (#6): Chapters 1 - 3

So if you're new to snark, this is where I basically dissect books/TV shows I loved as a kid and critique them with my adult bias at the helm. Today we will be snarking the first three chapters of Kristy's Big Day, my favorite Baby-Sitter's Club book.

The cover:

The tagline reads "Kristy's a babysitter - and a bridesmaid, too!" I guess it's not unlike go-getter Kristy to wear lots of hats, mostly of the collie-bearing baseball variety.

So Kristy is all bridesmaided out in her yellow empire waist dress with a white sash and some snappy slingbacks. Oh, and a wreath of flowers on her head. She looks roughly like a teenager, so good for Hodges on that one. He makes some major missteps later in the series, like losing his grasp on what Japanese people look like. 

Kristy is adjusting a similar flower wreath on stupid Karen’s head. To her credit, Karen does look pretty cute in her flower girl dress (also yellow with a white sash), ruffly socks and patent leather shoes. She has straight bangs and wavy, shoulder length hair, a far cry from the crazy top-of-the-head ponytails and Sally Jesse Raphael glasses she rocks in her own series.

Then there’s Andrew. Andrew is wearing a little blue blazer, creased khakis, a yellow tie and untied brown oxfords (a nice touch). However, instead of a normal-looking four-year-old boy like in the picture above, Andrew has Reese Witherspoon’s hair circa Sweet Home Alabama, ears like Jeep fenders and the face of Donald Trump. Seriously, did you click on the link to the cover? Here's a close-up:

Also, is he tying his own tie? I guess when you look like The Donald, you learn how to dress like him pretty quick.

Chapter 1:

Like most books in this completely unpredictable series, Chapter 1 begins with a quote. It's Karen, running her mouth about Ben Brewer, the ghost of one of her relatives that resides in her attic. Andrew's having an internal meltdown, which Kristy notices and tells Karen to STFU, even though she admits to be a little freaked out herself. "Why was I letting a six-year-old get away with this?" she asks. I've been asking the same question for years, Kristy. Every one of you in this series lets Karen get away with whatever the hell she wants and I can't figure out why no one's put their foot in her ass yet.

Kristy begins to give us the rundown on her family situation, which should be imprinted in your permanent memory bank if you've ever read more than one BSC book. Blahblah Bradford Court, Watson, mansion all the way on the other side of town. Then she says something that never really made sense to me: "Watson is okay, but sometimes he can be a jerk." Watson never came across as a jerk in an arrogant dickhead way; maybe Ann just wasn't familiar with the term "douchebag," which is more of the impression Watson gives me. Or maybe it didn't exist in 1987. At any rate, I just subsitute "douche" for "jerk" and it makes me like this book a little better.

So Kristy's mom interrupts her pondering to call her, Karen and Andrew to dinner; they're having pasketti. Kristy remarks that "ever since Mom got engaged to Watson, she's been in a great mood." 

We get a brief introduction to Kristy's younger brother, David Michael, and their two stereotypical teenage brothers, Sam and Charlie, who do stereotypical teenage boy things like eat a lot and drive cars. There's a random paragraph about David Michael transferring to Karen's private school, a reportedly "messy" situation that never comes to pass in any subsequent books.

Blahblah brothers and sisters discussion, Charlie wants some wine, wedding date is set, and we reach the point of the book: Elizabeth asks Kristy to be her bridesmaid. Then all canon jumps the rails as Kristy craps her drawers over wearing "a long fancy dress with flowers in (her) hair." Sam tries to remind Ann that Kristy is dyed-in-the-wool butch - "Since when do you like long fancy dresses and flowers?" - but Ann's having none of that. Kristy is EXCITED to be a bridesmaid. Andrew, of course, has to be a pansy-ass when his role in the wedding is announced - escorting Karen down the aisle. But as we know by the cover, Andrew puts on his big-boy khakis and does it anyway.

It's a weird place to end the chapter, but there it is.

Chapter 2:

Shockingly, Ann saves Chapter 3 for the long-winded explanation about the club's inner workings and its members' one-dimensional personality traits. This one is a long-winded exposition of how this wedding was only made possible by the Baby-Sitters Club. In a nutshell, because it's really boring:

• Kristy's mom's company (just referred to as "the company") springs a two-week business trip to Europe (also rather vague) on her, scheduled to overlap with the wedding. I really had no idea that Elizabeth's job was that lucrative.
• Someone already wants to buy the Thomas house. The guy is even willing to pay more than the asking price to be in there by July. This was the 80's, you know.
• All this mayhem has forced them to have the wedding in two and a half weeks. ZOMG PANIC TIME
• There are a lot of a lot of recipes for crab crepes on Google. I looked this up because I'd never really heard of using crepes as hors d'oeuvres as Elizabeth mentions, but maybe they're going to cut them up.
• "Mom went to her bedroom and called Watson privately."

• Kristy claims to be too old to whine about this inconvenient situation and the unfairness of it all. Oh, Kristy. You're never too old to whine, I promise.
• Kristy retreats upstairs to wax nostalgia about living next door to Mary Anne, then lets guilt overtake her and goes downstairs to help Elizabeth make wedding to-do lists. The forecast calls for lots of children. HOW EVER WILL WE DEAL WITH THIS!?!@

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 is the new Chapter 2 in this particular book. We do get an "outrageous" Claudia outfit description that sounds pretty moderate compared to most of them:

She was wearing a black leotard and skintight red pants under a white shirt that was so big it looked like a lab coat. Claudia's a wonderful artist and she had decorated the shirt herself, covering it with designs she had painted in acrylic. She had pinned back her long black hair at the sides with red clips.

We know you can do better than that, Klawdeeuh.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that Sam prank-called the club before Kristy got there, saying, "Hello, this is Marmee March. I need a sitter for Amy tonight, someone who has experience with little women." I'm amused and at the same time annoyed, because really, what 15-year-old boy would make a Little Women reference in a prank call?

The rest of the chapter goes something like this:

 Fin.

Since these take so long to do (and to read, I imagine), I'll only be doing three or so chapters per entry.

I feel stupid (and contagious).

I've been playing SongPop on my new phone, and it's pretty obvious by now that I'm terrible at it except when it comes the 90's Alternative category. (Seriously, if you want to win, challenge me at Modern Rap or Today's Hits.) I know nearly every song and can even remember what year of junior high or high school I was listening to it. Now I understand why my parents were always listening to Dan Fogelberg and Ann Murray in the car.

How I wanted to look in 1995.

Speaking of which, Hank and I were driving home the other night and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came on the radio. That song will always and forever remind me of a very important night in my freshman life that just didn't quite work out...

It was early 1996, maybe March or so, and I had started hanging out with this kid, David, whose personal hero was Kurt Cobain, much like a bunch of boys at that time, I'd guess. There were a group of juniors at our school who decided to form a band, Endless Nameless, and made plans to put on their first concert at a local venue normally reserved for 13-year-old girls' birthday parties. Everyone who listened to that kind of music and fancied themselves "grunge" was planning to be there.

With my ribbed turtlenecks and tapered jeans, I was so far from grunge it was laughable, but I so wanted to fit in with that crowd. (Interesting side note: Kyle, my future husband, was part of the most notorious group of grunge kids in the school.) But being a cheerleader and completely insecure, that wasn't going to happen. Still, I got dressed in what I'm sure was my best flannel shirt and Airwalks and walked over to the Frazee Center from my house with David and my friend Jackie, who had dated one of the guys in Endless Nameless.

How I actually looked in 1995.

When we arrived, the music had already started and kids were still flooding in. I balked. Flat-out refused to go in. I had an internal anxiety attack I had to fight to keep from becoming public. There was no way I was going in there with all those people who knew how to mosh and dyed their hair with Kool-Aid. I was sure I'd be labeled a poser, which was a huge insult to a 15-year-old in 1996.

Mercifully, the sky turned navy blue and a huge storm started to roll in. I convinced David and Jackie that it wouldn't be a good idea to be packed into the tiny building if a tornado were to touch down. The storm ended up being big enough that the show was called off.

I had looked so forward to that show, so I guess even if I had sucked it up and gone in, I would have been disappointed when the weather shut the party down. Still, being that insecure kept me from really being comfortable with how I looked for a long time, and I still struggle with it off and on even today. At that time, I was so afraid of disappointing my friends and my parents, who most likely would have loved me even if I'd decided to start shopping at Goodwill instead of Gap. I don't have many regrets, but not letting myself be myself is a major one. Someone get on that time machine business.