Hammie is seven months old! More than any other of these milestones in either Hammie's life or Fraser's, this one has left me feeling like "How the hell did that happen???" For the i-don't-even-know-th time I have counted out the months on my fingers to make sure that he is in fact seven months, and not actually four months, like it seems he should be. I know everyone will point out that it is rather cliche to say "It goes so fast" but this isn't fast, this is light speed. This is "On Monday I blink and suddenly it is Thursday" kind of fast. All at once I can understand how people look at their kids graduating from high school or college, getting married or having kids of their own and wonder where the hell all that time went.

Part of this new "Light Speed" lifestyle I am apparently now living is that I never seem to have time to update this blog, or complete entire thoughts about what I might actually say in a blog entry should I ever actually seize upon five minutes of time for myself. Instead, I generally have half formed ideas or observations which could really only be presented in sort of a scatter brained, half assed list which would probably only make sense to me and that select group of people who know me well enough to follow my insane ramblings to their eventual, though pointless, conclusion. So, if you're one of those people, enjoy (if you aren't, well, consider this a rare but fascinating glimpse into a mind on the verge of child-induced mental illness).

1) On June 22nd Hammie was baptized along with his cousin Lily. Lily was very cute and very sweet and very cooperative from the time the water hit her head right through the photographs afterward. Hammie screamed absolute bloody murder from the time he saw the church until he finally passed out somewhere in the middle of the service. I don't know exactly when it was in the service since I had to take him outside (a) to avoid having him disrupt the entire service from beginning to end and (b) lest people start wondering if the little spawn was protesting our surrogate renunciation of satan. Fraser, incidentally, also went totally f-ing berserk in the middle of the service. That's right, there were two kids who screamed through the baptism and they were both mine.

2) For some reason when Andy leaves for work now Fraser looks at him very seriously and says "Boats." Andy responds "Okay, I'll watch out for boats." Fraser then nods and makes a very serious humming noise. This happens every single day and I have no idea what Fraser is thinking.

3) Hammie is now getting up on all fours and rocking in his "road runner thrust move" preparing to crawl. It is really funny to watch, until he gets irate that he isn't going anywhere, falls flat on his face and starts to scream.

4) Last Wednesday I left Hammie with the sitter and took Fraser to the Ecotarium for a little "Fraser special time." I figured after the baptism weekend Fraser might need a little reassurance that he is still very important. I imagined that we would have a lovely morning checking out all the environmentally friendly exhibits. Fraser could have cared less about most of the exhibits. He liked the 15 minute train ride and thought the giant blow up dinosaur was okay. Mostly he just wanted to use the non-Hammie time to insist that I carry him around the entire park. The adorable little klingon is 30 pounds. My back may never be the same. On the way home Fraser fell asleep in his carseat and I tried to quietly open a bag of chips so I could have something to eat. As soon as he heard the bag crinkle Fraser woke up screaming for hot dogs and chips. I gave him four chips. He fell back asleep. I found three of the chip on the floor of the car the next day.

5) Hammie's eating has improved considerably and he is now trying a variety of pureed foods. Interestingly, he refused to eat the rice cereal, I think because of the texture, and he was fairly unreceptive to the jarred baby food I bought. He would eat it, but begrudgingly and only after making sure he had crammed a fair amount of it in both ears and up his nose. As soon as I got around to making my own baby food though, he has been totally cooperative and eating like a champ. Apparently my little gourmet weasel prefers fresh produce.

6) Fraser's friend Eva, who is almost exactly the same age as him, is now potty trained. I regularly have to chase Fraser around the house after I ask if he has poop in his pants so I can sniff his butt like a pig routing for truffles while he screams "No Poop, Only Pee!"

7) No, Hammie does not sleep through the night, but he now only getting up once or twice, which I think is pretty sweet. The doctor increased the dosage on his acid reflux meds, and I think that has made all the difference in the world. Thank God for better living through chemistry.

8) At some point pretty much every day now Fraser will come up to me and say "Bye Bye Mama" to which I respond "Where are you going?" He says "The store" (which sounds like "da ore"). I ask "What are you going to buy?" He says "Hot Dogs!" sometimes he will also add "Chips" (Ips) or "Pickles" (ickl). Once he said "Beer!" Let's not look too deeply into that one though.

9) Somehow I am back to making (and drinking) an entire pot of coffee a day. It has gotten so bad that when we have house guests I lurk around the coffee machine like an overzealous coke head. I tell myself I want to make sure there is a fresh pot in case anyone else wants a second cup. I ignore that voice in my head that wonders if I should consult one of those "How to tell if your are an addict" check lists.

10) Fraser's Godmother, and my best friend from high school, came to visit this past weekend. (That's her in the photograph of the boys in their matching diaper covers). At one point in the weekend she commented on how different our lives are. She (approximately) said "I have my apartment with my little yard covered in hay, my dog and my computer, and you have this big house and yard with all these people to talk to and take care of." Now I love my kids and my husband and my pets (and most of the time my house, occasionally my yard) but for that moment I thought "An apartment, a dog (or cat, I'm really more of a cat person) and my computer, that sounds pretty freaking sweet to me." So now I have to remind myself "Thou shall not covet thy best friend's peace and quiet and decent nights sleep." I'm pretty sure that is in the bible somewhere.

11) It is now 8:51 and I am going to go get ready for bed. For those of you who think that is kind of sad I will say "You are wrong!" the sad part is that I looked at the clock, realized it was 8:51 and thought "Damn! I wanted to be in bed an hour ago!" Time flies when you teeter on the brink of insanity...

11.5) P.S. for those of you who are wondering where my loving husband is tonight, he drove out to western MA to pick up another tractor. That's right, ANOTHER friggin tractor. We are dragging this one up to Maine with us this weekend. I could not BE more thrilled to be hauling this (how shall I put this delicately?) expensive P.O.S. behind us the entire way. I realize men need their hobbies, but why couldn't I have married one who just wanted to spend Sundays watching football or was obsessed with Star Wars? At least then I would have have someone to hold em off while I made the calculations for our jump to light speed....