All the World is Football Shaped

Last night I finally cashed in my first Mother's Day present, a massage gift certificate. I got the same thing this year - I'm sensing a tradition in the making. An excellent, Mama-pleasing tradition. Let me say that if I had the means I would get massages a lot. A lot lot. There's nothing like a really well-done massage and last night's fit my definition. A lot of deep work on my back, neck and shoulders (I like to get beat up a bit before I can relax into it, I'm a sick puppy) followed by attention to my favorite spots: sacrum, head and feet. A few years ago I was looking into training to be a massage therapist, and I still haven't abandoned the idea, but it's got to be a draining vocation. I think that to be a truly gifted masseuse you have to fall in love a little with each client, because that kind of touching is so reverent and intimate. No, not THAT kind of touch - not THAT kind of massage. Even if the after-effects of a really great massage often duplicate those of really great sex (dreamy smile, allover glow, totally messed up hair), the experience is of a different realm. I left that place with a year's worth of hunching and bending and baby hefting erased from my frame. It all came back the second I snapped HR out of his crib at 5:30 a.m., but I have another one looming in my future so how can I complain? I can't, and won't.

It's funny, I have no qualms about flinging my mostly nekkid body onto the table or having a total stranger touch me - that's the whole point, and his job besides. The thing that's challenging for me when getting a massage is to turn off my brain and not waste the hour thinking about things that aren't what's going on with my body. By the time I get the hang of it, it's already near the end and it bums me out. It shouldn't be so difficult for me to go blank, but it is. Again with the terrible problems of my life.

I haven't done an HR development update for awhile, so for fun:

-he's down to one nursing per day, and will be probably weaned in the next week or two.

-he's taken to not wanting to eat dinner, or at least any of the dinner foods he previously loved. If it's not a carb-based finger food (toast, pancakes, bananas, the occasional fruit like strawberries), he wants no part of it. I swore I'd never be this mother, but we've taken to pureeing veggies and cooking them into pancakes just so he'll get some nutrients.

-no walking yet, but I think we're close. He's gotten skittish for some reason.

-no 100% identifiable words yet, but he can point to a picture of something when you ask him to, and he says "daw" when he sees a dog. He's obsessed with dogs, so I imagine that will turn out to be his real first word.

-the kid can't get enough of books, and is now in the repetition phase where he wants the same one over and over again. I don't care how sick I get of a single book, and I don't even care that he seems to prefer crappy little throwaway books (and birthday cards and DVD cases) to books that measure up to my snobby esteem, I'm just so happy he likes books period. After all, I expect him to carry on the NERD UP! legacy.

And now for a little XTC to play us out.