I’m sitting here watching Ugly Betty off my DVR and I accidently stopped on a McDonalds commerical.  It occured to me as I watched the “hip” young people dancing around my TV screen that McDonalds never shoes it’s real customers in their commericals.  Where are all the people that have to order 2 seats on Southwest flights?  Where is my electician who carries ketchup packets in his tool belt and always has dried mustard on his beard.  I wanna see those guys on tv.

I learned 2 very important things during this trip home from Birmingham.

1) You cannot make a baby sleep.  There is nothing you can do to force a baby to close his eyes and drift peacefully into slumber.  The harder you try, the more you force them the longer they will stay awake.  And you can rock them and sing to them and walk them and snuggle them and feed them but they will not sleep on your command.  Connor usually sleeps wonderfully and on time, but you take a baby on a trip and mess up their schedule and they feel like you owe them something.  So the price they demand is whatever moments of sleep you were planning on having to yourself.

2)  You cannot force a baby to eat.  Connor just recently discovered this.  You see up until a few days ago he thought that if it was inside his mouth he had to swallow it.  Call it a reflex, and in my opinion its a good one.  Well about half way through dinner the other night he realized that if he held his mouth open, whatever food we just put inside it fell out.  So thus far he’s discovered this works on all varieties of fruit, veggies, cheerios, and all varieties of mushy food.   So I decided to counter his mouth open trick with one of my own.  He opened his mouth and I held it shut.  Well…. that was a monumental failure.  You see by holding his mouth shut I  opened a door for Connor to discover his new favorite  prank while eating….. blowing air through his lips with his mouth full of food.  No sooner did I shut his mouth than I was spattered with mashed potatoes.  Sigh, ah the joys of motherhood.