I’m about to go rogue on this blog, no-delete style (‘cept for misspellings and grammar, ’cause homie don’t play that). GO:

HELLOOOOOOOO!! I have fallen off the face of

[insert 1.5 hour pause here to go tend to woken up Max, take out my glued-to-my-eyeballs contacts and forget that I was writing this and putz on the Web for 20 minutes]

the earth

[clicked back over to Facebook for five minutes, because I have the attention span of a cracked out gnat]

slash have been the kind of busy that no one wants to hear about, but somehow you keep telling people about like OMG I HAD TO WORK AND THEN LAUNDRY AND ALSO CHILDREN SO MANY CHILDREN. I kept writing draft posts in my head during my commute these last blog-silent weeks, and they were always either 1. sappy to the max (not even to the Max, just the regular ol’ max) or 2. all about how I was so busy I couldn’t blog, which is borrrrring.

So let’s talk about random other things. This, I’m hoping will kick things off.

BYOB(aby) … to the polls

First up, the election happened! And I will make no secret of the fact that I am relieved at the outcome. So are these babies:

Ah HA, see what I did there? That is (scrawny-legged) baby Rosie on the left from 2008, wearing one of the two Babies for Obama shirts that my friend Allen made for her at a shower thrown for me when Ro was still in utero. [sidenote: Ack! All the puns that could have been made, had I shared her name before she was born! uteRO! Get it?] She made a newborn sized one and also a 12-month sized one, and so I am starting to think that either Allen really likes Obama, or she is clairvoyant. Otherwise, HOW DID SHE KNOW WE WOULD NEED BOTH? Allen, we need to talk about some lottery numbers. And Obama prolly owes you some monies.

Speaking of babies

What can I say about Max that doesn’t sound made up? He is the most deliciously delicious of the babes, and I feast regularly on his cheek fat. At 6 months, he weighs 20 pounds and is rolling over and staying there, thankyouverymuch. His 5-days-younger cousin is totally on the move, starting to crawl and such, but Max is content laying on his padded backside (or frontside, however he’s feelin’ it) and leak rivers of drool while smiling at anything and everything that breathes.

After work when I pick him up, he grins the grinniest grin you ever did see from his swing/saucer/workstation and then proceeds to clamp his chub-hands on either side of my face and french kiss my nose for a good 10 seconds. I have decided that this means I am his favorite of all the people anywhere. Sorry about your luck, everybody else.

Also, he is a bald-ish baby (not as bald as some I’ve seen, but compared to Noh-hair and Hairsie, he’s got chump change) which I sort of wonder at from time to time. It’s harder, I think, to imagine what he’ll look like when he’s older when there’s less template to work from. And, those eyes are sticking with blue, it seems. Team blue! Rah! We should start a gang, flashing our double recessive signs and snapping aggressively at the Browns while showtune music swells behind us. (<—This is the kind of thing that happens when I decide to do a no-delete post.)

Anyway, to wrap up: at approximately half a year old, Max is the best baby there has ever been. I checked on this with the Baby Administration and they confirmed.

Famecrawler

Tomorrow Max will be in his first photoshoot for the magazine. I’ve decided to be very stage mom about it and wear giant sunglasses at all times and ask for tepid Evian. Also, I will be approving all wardrobe selections (pretty sure he’s wearing a white onesie) and once he’s “on set,” I will make sure to motivate him properly behind the camera by making all his moves for him to copy. Look for the issue to come out — I’m sure Max will get cover.

Aaaand once again I’ve stayed up too late (it’s past midnight, which is a dumb time for someone who gets up at 5:45 to see on a clock) and have not finished even a third of the things that really need to have been done before bed tonight (putting away dinner, for example). But I did do this post! Which I have no ending for. But I’m not deleting, so lalala … goodnight. Be back atcha soon.

Editor’s note: We traveled back in time to recount the beginning of Rachel’s life as a mom of three. This post is from November 2012. She’s gotten the groove with her brood in Decatur. She blogs at yestertimeblog.com.