seven quick takes

1. My little guy, who is not yet eight months old, is pulling himself up to stand where ever and whenever he can. Last night, in fact, I went to check on him in his crib because he was crying and he was standing in the corner of his crib holding on to the railing crying. The mattress is getting lowered tonight, folks. I knew that I needed to when the other day I went in to get him in the morning and he was sitting up with his hands on the rail. His learning curve startles me quite a bit. He's so deliberate with his actions and movements. It's completely fascinating to watch. P.S. He's now wearing size 18 month clothes.

2. I completely love reconnecting with people on Facebook. It makes me so happy to catch up with someone I haven't talked to in years! It's kind of tricky sometimes now though because my married name is very different than my maiden name. I quickly realized that if I kept my married name as my middle name and listed it, people would just not even try to say my married name. So I'm just Melissa Calo-oy everywhere and gently correct people when they say it wrong, or know it's me when someone is standing up saying "Uh...Melissa?" rather than Mrs. Calo-oy. But I make sure that my profile picture is me or at least as me in it so if someone happens to be looking for me, they can kind of see it's ME.

3. The losing weight thing is not going so great these days. It's not so much a plateau as it is a seeming inability to give up Dr. Pepper and not walking or exercising as much as I had been just a short time ago. I'm slowly starting back up again with walking at least once a day and taking S out so we can both get some fresh air and vitamin D. And I'm not giving up. I'm just irritated with myself. I understand that to lose weight I just need to consume less calories than I burn each day. It helps that I have jeans that fit better so I can feel when I lose a tiny bit... I don't want to go clothes shopping too much though because really, I need to lose such a significant amount of weight that I want to go shopping when it'll be a little more fun to buy clothes. And the baby stretches out the necks in all my shirts and I'm not ready to buy new ones just for them to get all stretched out again. I was thinking the other day that at S's first birthday party it would be fun to have a bunch of pictures out in a recap of the year and if I lose 30-40 pounds before March then I would get tons of compliments because it would be such a huge difference from right after he was born. Yes, I am shallow enough that this could work as decent motivation. But you know what? Already I've lost and kept off 52 pounds from the time he was born. That's nothing to sneeze at, it's just not as noticeable when you still have a lot to lose.

3. S will be 8 months old tomorrow. K and I are already daydreaming about his first birthday party. We're having it at our house and it'll be pretty low key except for the fact we are inviting a ridiculous amount of people. We won't be trying to top it when he turns 2 or anything! It'll be a BBQ or something similar with cake and whatnot and kids will be welcome of course but I don't know how many kids will actually be there. But we want everyone to come celebrate with us. It'll be so exciting for S to turn one but it'll also be so exciting to me and K that we survived the first year of being parents! Our first year of marriage was so crazy and we're starting to settle down a little bit and we feel like it's a good opportunity to be really excited about something and have a bunch of people over to be excited with us. K wants to make fliers that say "Samsonpalooza" We'll see.

4. I love Twitter and wish I knew more people in real life who used it. You can find me at www.twitter.com/meljamc.

5. The only thing I liked about my last job was on the weekends when the cooks would let me cook my own food. They showed me little grill cooking tricks like putting a little butter or oil on a bun and setting it on the grill to toast up. I think it would be kind of fun to get to cook like that all the time, with a huge grill right in front of you that was super hot. I would hate to have the hours that those guys did though. My hours as a food service operator sucked ass and they were always there when I got there and still there as I was leaving.

6. I really truly hope that one day I live in a spot where it gets cooler and stays cooler once Fall hits. Although sometimes I think with global warming that it's not going to be like that anywhere for much longer. I don't know, but the weather seems to act differently than it did when I was a kid. It's hard to say how much of that is fact and how much if that is me paying attention in a different way as an adult.

7. Sometimes at night, my husband will be snoring on one side of me and I will hear the baby snoring on the monitor on the other side of me. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. They're my two favorite guys, you know.

we're like good times that haven't happened yet

Last night, K and I went to go see Bob Schneider at Floore's Country Store. This is one of our favorite things to do and we really try to go see him every time he plays. We love his music and we also really love Floore's. We had even considered renting it out and getting married there, which I'm sure would have been quite the conversation fodder for my California family especially. There's boots hanging from the ceiling and a ginourmous Texas flag behind the stage. It would have been kind of awesome, but I'm still happy with what our ceremony was.

I love live music. I used to go to shows all the time and every time I get the chance now, I am flooded with memories of other live music events and the desire to add to the list as much as possible. It's tougher now. Southern California was an optimal place to live for going to shows, big and small. San Antonio is not so much. It's a big city, but generally artists go to Dallas, Houston, or Austin when they come through Texas. There's smaller venues, like Floore's, but it's trickier to get it all set up to be able to go out with the baby now. I'm basically content going to see Bob as much as we can here in Helotes and I'd like to see Dave Matthews Band and Ani DiFranco the next time they come through the state if I can. We'll see!

It's so much fun to me to watch other people enjoying the live music in various ways. There's people who crowd the stage, there's those with cameras, there's those who are so engrossed in conversations they seem oblivious to the music, there's those who dance, there's those who watch those who dance... And then watching the band is great too. Just because a song sounds great doesn't mean the band is really into it that night and vice versa. I like watching the small interactions between the musicians and sometimes the sound guy/gal.

Last night was another little milestone for us because we left S with a non-family baby-sitter. Everything went fine but as with any new thing I was a bit nervous. S was of course still up when we got home. I guess he went to sleep but then woke up a couple of hours later and was inconsolable. It just took about thirty minutes to get him back to sleep and he didn't wake up again until this morning. It's a strange thing to leave your baby at home or with someone else. I want everything to go smoothly, but at the same time there is a small piece of me that wants him to miss me a little bit. I want him to have grand adventures as a baby, a kid, and as an adult, but I want him to want to tell me about them right away. And I guess right now the version of that is him stubbornly staying awake until I get home. Hopefully soon it will just be a delighted smile and squeal when he sees that it's me in the morning. Being a mom is tricky. Hard, awesome, tiring, and fulfilling all at the same time.

Maybe we can have a regular date night again because that would be really great for me and K. Yay for free and cheap baby-sitting!