Nico News #5

Dear Friends and Family,
Having a baby makes you a better person. You begin flossing regularly. We've also started eating more vegetarian food. It's good for us and let's face it killing animals is not nice no matter how you think about it.

I've also started paying more attention to our two cats, Buckey and Bitsy, whom Nico adores. So....let me preface this by saying there was A LOT of cat hair. It was EVERYWHERE--on Nico's pacifiers, on our socks and plastered onto my black yoga pants. The cats have long white hair and our black things were beginning to look gray! And when I found cat hair on my contact lenses, I started fantasizing about getting rid of them.

But Nico loves the cats. He watches them with rapt attention and tries to grab them and Mike also has a deep affection for them. They are the first cats Mike has ever owned. Mike had a cockapoo named Salty growing up but Salty never let Mike hold him and he spent a lot of time ruining the front lawn of Mike's childhood home. Salty also humped guests. So when we adopted Buckey and Bitsy and they purred and cleaned themselves and let him hold them, Mike fell in love.

So with such a tight bond between Nico and Mike and the cats I came up with a compromise--the lion's cut. I know some of you will think I am cruel but the hair was driving me CRAZY. And desperate times call for desperate measures. The day the cats were to be shaved, the vet called me at home to make sure I knew what I was doing. "I can't glue the hair back on once it's gone," she said.

I admit the affect is startling. [Note photos in attached link.] Mike said they look like characters from a Dr. Suess book. Since the cutting, they've been especially needy. They keep looking at me like, "Do you still love us now that you can see who we really are?" Between trying to train Nico to sleep in the crib and the cats trying to get our approval, I haven't gotten a lot of sleep.

But, I've decided to keep exercising anyway in an attempt to burn off what we affectionately call the "Mommy pudge." Nico and I have joined Stroller Strides. This is an exercise class where about 20 mommies and babies in strollers gather. We stand in a circle and talk, talk, talk. Then we snag our strollers and take off jogging in a circle, our mommy pudge giggling. The instructor shouts out intervals: "speed it up, ladies," or "piggly wigglies"--where we touch the floor jump up and then tickle our baby's feet. As we go whipping around the room together, Nico looks up at me like, "Mommy, you've GOT to be kidding me." But it works. I'm shedding pounds!

We are about to have Nico try his first few bites of food. I'm nostalgic about this, soon he'll be driving and then moving away! I do look forward to his first words, however. What will he say? Perhaps, "Thank you, Mommy, for all you do for me." But, more likely he'll say, "Let's do the piggly wigglies."

Hope you enjoy the latest photos of Nico and his cats.
Love, Meghan

http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanmullan/NicoSFirstBite
http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanmullan/Haircut
http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanmullan/CarolinaDreamin

All photos:http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanmullan