wheze is awake.

The S-Bs have once again enjoyed a busy week, and I figured I'd catch up on bloggage whilst the wee one slumbers. In preparation, I went to pour myself a nice mug of coffee. I added my sugar and poured the milk . . . straight into my water glass. Below, Merc asks, and I quote, "what the hell is that?"Much has been afoot on the Rowan front. In top news, his daycare provider can no longer provide services due to a family matter, so we got the boot. I was pretty bummed, as it was a good situation and I feel nervous about the prospect of entrusting my baby with someone else, but we just returned from interviewing someone. It seems like her parenting/childcare philosophies are pretty similar to ours, so we'll see. Child care is rough to navigate . . . you have to decide on the type of situation you want (in-home, either yours or the provider's, day care center, etc), negotiate the money issue, and then, most difficult of all, assess the safety and quality of the situation. This particular provider is asking for a monthly amount that's about the same as our mortgage payment . . . and that seems pretty reasonable. If you're gonna pay for anything in this world, it oughta be to ensure your kid is well cared for. But still, it's a reminder that babies ain't cheap.

Ro also is battling the terrible trifecta of a cold/teething/diaper rash. Ugh. He still manages to be pretty jolly when he wakes us up at 5:30 every morning (see evidence above, below).And he's enjoying solids. Some. Usually. We had a pretty enjoyable day yesterday. After some yellin & screamin during Friday night's debtes, we headed to an Obama rally right here in Greensboro. It was a pretty rad--and well-attended (~20,000 folks) speach. And what a demographically-mixed crowd! I might even have seen Obama. I mean, I definitely heard him, but at the distance of a couple blocks, it was hard to tell anyone apart. The guy I watched gesticulating on stage could've been Obama. Could've been Biden. Could've been the Secretary of Agriculture or a security guard. Anyhow, at risk of sounding cheesy, we left feeling pretty good about this country.

But . . . then we went to WalMart. We were in that part of town and needed some groceries. The parking lot was a nightmare. We decided to just park whereever and turned up a lane. And here's what went down:
Humongoid white SUV in front of us sees some activity eminating from a car three spaces in. The SUV's driver decides to park there, turns on blinker to signify this. There are plenty of available spaces about 30 feet further up, but that's okay, we'll wait--the SUV is totally blocking the lane. About two minutes pass. The driver of the parked car has now opened every door of her car and is taking out several small bags. The white SUV ain't going nowhere. Mercer, getting slightly frustrated, taps the horn. A few more minutes pass. The driver of the parked car is standing there applying lip gloss. The white SUV still refuses to budge. After a couple more minutes, I can see smoke eminating from Mercer's ears and Ro has started to fuss. Mercer finally manages to squeeeeze by the SUV on the left and shoots the driver a dirty look. We park a few spaces up. I mean, how can anyone be that lazy? HOW? And then somehow WalMart is set up to make me frantically purchase as much zero-nutritional-value crap as possible. When I lived in Farmville, we relied on WalMart to get basics you couldn't buy anyplace else in town. Now that big city living has transformed me into a liberal elitist, I say never again. Plus, who wants to be surrounded by McCain supporters? I need to stick to my liberal roots and support urban farmer's markets and overpriced, quasi-hip food chains like Panera and Starbucks and read the New York Times.

Anyways, enough being a huge, fussy jerk for one day. Let's!!!!!!!!!!