Toasty hands
I finished knitting the first pair of mittens!
It’s so awesome how this knitting thing is making sense now.
Owen loves them; he calls them his “Santa mittens.” When he puts them on he’s Santa, and I’m the girl elf, and Mac is the baby elf, and Iain is the boy elf, and we have to sit on the radiator and work the “present-making machine” churning out “City Legos”; he catches them in his mitts (because they’re hot off the presses!) and puts them in his imaginary sack.
He also asked me how to make Playmobil pirates, because he didn’t know how, and I told him we could look up the elf plans on the internet, and he pointed to his play house and said, “I don’t have internet here. Or a phone. Just a doorbell and a clock and a window and a mailbox and this thing for a dog’s bones to go in.” Man. Harsh digs up there in the North Pole.
Here he is, modeling his mittens. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cuter Saint Nick.
Holy ad nauseum, Batman!
Ah, you remember Halloween, don’t you? My kids won’t let me forget it.
Every morning, as soon as breakfast is done and they’ve played with all the toys in their room, the boys come running up to me with their Halloween costumes in hand, begging me to help them dress up. It’s way cute, honestly.
But if I have to re-tie that Batman costume one more time, so help me God. Owen puts it on first thing in the morning (over his “Bruce Wayne clothes”) and I have to fit it on him and tie all the different pieces and then untie all the different pieces and take them off every time he goes to the bathroom or has something to eat and people, that’s like 17 undress-redress times every day! I’m but one woman! Only these two hands!
Plus Mackie tugging at me saying “Bee! Bee! Beebeebeebeeeee!” until I put his bee costume on him and then he immediately dribbles milk from his bottle all down the front. I don’t even think dry cleaning is going to save that thing now. Five whole dollars were spent on that costume, I feel like telling him, so you better shape up and take proper care of your belongings! Babies in China would LOVE to dress like a bee every day!
My point is that I’m a stone cold bitch, I guess is what I’m saying. I just wish their irrepressible cuteness could be taught to tie knots. Then I’d get all the entertainment and none of the arthritis.
Warm lump of motherly love
Turns out there is no good way to photograph an injury on your rear end that you intend to post on the internet. There is no angle, no camera setting, that does not immediately say HEINIE!
So I’ll have to tell you, instead, with my powerful words of … telling stuff.
I can’t sleep right now, because I have a throbbing, heart-shaped bruise on my left hip. I’ve been thinking of it as my heart-shaped bruise of love, because it’s an injury I sustained while mucking around on the rocks in the creek at Double Rock Park. And I was mucking around on the rocks in the creek at Double Rock Park because that is what Owen loves dearly to do, and I dearly love him, so I do what I can to see that squinty, happy smile he does.
You may be able to tell, from my hockey-player’s toothless grin, that I am less graceful than most people. I have a strong tendency to meet the ground with body parts other than my feet. Between the moment I lose my balance and the moment I hit the earth, my body also forgets how to brace itself for impact. So I usually land pretty hard. Today I was following my little explorer up the banks of the creek when I stepped on a slime-covered rock and landed on my endside in three inches of orange-ish, germy, foamy water, watching my right Birkenstock sail downstream and hoping I caught it before it hit the pool with the dead worm in it (having already reconnoitered the area, I knew what horrors lay below). In that regard, at least, luck was in my corner. Sandal was retrieved in short order; with wet shorts, though, dignity was much harder to reclaim.
But later this evening, as I stared, fascinated, over my shoulder at my tangible proof of maternal sacrifice, I understood that river-smelly sandals and an alarmingly hot-to-the-touch butt bruise are a small price to pay for the mental photograph I captured today. My little brave son, standing with his chest thrust out on a smooth rock precipice 15 feet above me, dappled by leaf shade, shading his eyes against the glare and surveying his conquered territory. Seeing him as I knew he wanted to be seen — not as a preschooler in galoshes, but as a strong, clever swashbuckler, able to leap from rock to rock, outsmart his enemies and protect his loved ones from danger.
He loves the river, and I love him, therefore I love the river. Even when it bites me in the ass.
Call me by my Pirate Name
… “Old Popeye.” Owen gets to be Young Popeye, of course; Cormac is Sweetpea, and Dad is Bluto.
Places I have traveled today, the means by which I got there, and what I was wearing at the time:
- North Pole, by ship, with a pirate hat
- Caribbean white sandy beaches, by ship, with a pirate scarf and scabbard
- North Pole, by express train (I believe the line is Polar), no accessories
- a restaurant serving “Number Ones,” by ship, no accessories, but with a lot of gold treasure
And now I have a traveler’s complaint, so I’ll leave you to your weekend.
He’s super
Owen, aged 3.199 years.
Yesterday Owen asked me to make him a cape, so that he could be a Super. I fainted straightaway, because he never cares for anything I make for him. He certainly has never made any special requests. I let him choose the fabric (a goldenrod-colored polar fleece) and stitched on two golden ribbons to tie it. Then he showed me his running powers by zooming around the room, teeny legs pumping. He flung himself on the floor, arms outstretched, to demonstrate his flying form. Then he rescued me from the bad guys, gave me a huge smack on the lips and pronounced me his first baby.
I am a big ol’ puddle of goo. I love this kid so much.
Fate-baiting
Do I send in the non-refundable $75 registration fee for preschool in the hopes that, by Murphy’s law, we will have moved by next fall, thereby losing it? In other words, is $75 too low a price to pay to try to goad Fate into getting us a job back West? Is it really Murphy’s Law if you want a certain outcome to occur?
Here’s what I’m aiming for. I want to invoke the smoking diner principle — the minute you light up a cigarette, the waitress brings your dinner.
Never take your babies to the mall.
Oy! I always think it will be an enjoyable capitalist experience but it always makes me nauseated in some form or another. So last week, at my wit’s end, I remembered that the Murder Mall (where that professor guy was shot in the parking lot) has an indoor playground called Tiny Tot Town or somesuch saccharine swill. I promptly readied my offspring for the trip and, two hours later, when everyone finally had no urine stains on their pants (I’m not naming names, here, PRESCHOOLER), we set off.
Here’s what you do. You got to park on the fourth level, because that’s the level the Apple store is on, and you cannot go to the mall without stopping to lay some drool on Steve Jobs’ babies. Unload the stroller that is almost as big as your sedan. Do it without injuring yourself this time. Unbuckle the preschooler from his car seat and force him into the stroller. Walk around to unbuckle the baby and realize that he’s finally fallen asleep in the seven minutes it took to drive here. Do you: resign yourself, fold your child, your stroller and yourself back into the car and drive around aimlessly for two hours so he will remain asleep? No. You are out of gas. Also, peckish. The baby will survive.
So you unbuckle the baby as gently as humanly possible and carefully set him in the stroller, which, by the way, is not a double stroller, because you are a cheap bastard and those things are like $200. It is a stroller meant for one kid but you always fold the seat back so you can squash both of them in there and no one has arrested you yet. So you gently, carefully, quietly lay the baby in the back of the stroller, with each leg gently resting against the preschooler occupying the forward space, and thank God that he didn’t wake up. Lock the car so that no one will steal your cheerios and mismatched mittens. Turn around and see that your preschooler is plonking his Star Wars Sand Trooper against the baby’s (red, wailing) face.
Restrain yourself. You may wish to leave the parking lot for this, but you should probably stay near the kids.
Still with me? Now you have to get into the mall. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and hoodlums with a conscience will be smoking near the entrance, ready and willing to hold the double doors for you and your Continental of a child-moving device. But usually it is hairstylists on a smoke break, and they don’t hold doors. Fortunately you are lithe. Bend backwards, grasp the door with your left hand, push the stroller with your right, and tell your children to keep their legs, arms and heads inside the vehicle until the ride comes to a complete stop. Inevitably, someone will be mildly injured, but it is nothing that several Gerber Puffs won’t amnesiate.
Amnesiate.
OK! Onward! It’s 12 noon and you are famished, and you promised the preschooler a hotdog, and the baby doesn’t understand why he’s being jostled about. Head to the food court. But brave the Elevator Button Tantrum you know is coming — it’s best just to let him push it a few times, and then, when he’s distracted, push it firmly yourself so the car actually arrives. Head on down to Boardwalk Fries. Order the hotdog, and some french fries. And a coke. And for dog’s sake, get the nacho cheese for dipping. I would recommend ordering a beverage for the kid, too, because once you’re seated and have the baby in the high chair and the preschooler half-undressed with a napkin tucked into his t-shirt, there is no getting back in line.
Feeding children at a food court is no more difficult than feeding them at home. Mind the adolescent girls, though. They will make funny faces and talk in pipsqueaked voices to the kids, flirting and cooing. They will ignore you completely but your children? They love. Which works out because they keep the kids occupied while you wolf down your fries. Here’s a tip: Make sure your lunch is not the same color as your baby’s baby food. Otherwise you will, without fail, dip your french fry into Gerber Stage Two Sweet Potato Casserole rather than the nacho cheese God intended. You can’t spit it out, either, because you are in public. At a food court. Where teenagers and security guards are. Also, I suppose that would be gross. I guess.
Make sure you take three times as many napkins as you feel comfortable taking. Take an embarrassing amount of napkins. You will use them all and want to steal more.
When everyone is fed, it’s time to wander aimlessly along the third level, hoping for an elevator that will take you to floors one and two. Hint: It’s by Nordstrom. This will let you out near H&M, where you can laugh at the skinny young people buying fashionable clothes that will remain unbarfed upon for hours, and then only receiving barf that has a high Jack and Coke content. On the inside, they are jealous of you and your sturdy hips, and your practical shoes. It’s best not to remind them of what they are missing. No, press onward: cock your ear for the headsplitting shrieks that herald the open doors of Tiny Tot Town and its Tiny Community Association. Park your stroller, but don’t leave anything of value underneath it, because frankly, I don’t trust the kind of people who take their children to a mall playground. They’d probably get fake cheese on your Graco, maybe steal your diaper bag. I realize that I consume fake cheese and take my own children to a mall playground but at least I am not conducting cold calls to international residents like the ponytailed man sitting in the corner, taking notes on a clipboard and not even pretending to be watching over a kid. He must rack up some kind of minutes on that phone of his. (“Is this Maria? Maria? Is there a Maria there? Maria. Is there one? I’m trying to reach a Maria?”) Don’t sit next to that guy.
Otherwise, it doesn’t matter quite where you sit, because this place has zero visibility. Kids are hanging from the rafters but you can’t see them. There’s some sort of bend in time-space, maybe a mirage/light refraction thing going on, because no matter where you sit you will not be able to see more than three feet on either side of you. It might be better if you remember to bring a bell to tie around your preschooler’s neck. If you don’t hear it jingling, you’ll know to alert mall security.
Oh, and just when you remove your kid’s shoes and shove him off into the jungle of strange, germy, strangey kids, your other child, the baby, will just … how can I euphemize this? He will drop one. A big one. The smell alone will alienate other parents from your bench.
You have two choices: Pretend it didn’t happen, leaving your precious infant to stew in rash-causing matter. Gross. Or, change him right there, knowing the risk of getting diaper-blowout poop everywhere. Also gross. You could call that diaper Morton’s Fork. I leave the decision up to you, as an individual, and your public-poop comfort level.
Once you’ve made peace with your decision, try to find your kid so you can take a cameraphone shot of him having a good time. You’ll be able to wield it as proof, later, when your spouse wonders why you let the kids watch so much TV — because getting them out of the house is a motherfucker, that’s why. Only, guess what? You can’t find the kid! I told you to bring a bell.
This portion will get your heart racing and really test your reflexes, because you’ll need to hang on to your baby as you run around the Greater Metropolitan Tiny Tot Area, panicked. Don’t worry, your kid is safe. He is laying on his back at the foot of the slide, having some sort of moody, adolescent crisis because the boy in the cool Ravens jersey isn’t playing with him. Tip: Never let them see you sweat. Kids can smell fear, as you know. Pretend you were just going to remind him of how much fun he’s having; otherwise, be prepared for a meltdown. Actually, prepare for a meltdown, regardless. In T-minus three minutes, your baby is going to finally vocalize his opinion of a napless afternoon, and you are going to have to convince a preschooler at the zenith of a good time to put his shoes on and go home.
It’s time to withdraw the troops before further casualties occur. Once the screaming subsides, package the kids up in the stroller and aim for the elevator. Kick yourself for parking near the Apple store, which will taunt you with teeny, glossy, touch-screened sirens. Kick yourself for spilling the last of your Coke. Kick yourself for — oh, any number of things. But the kicking can wait until you’ve figured out a way to get you and your precious cargo up three floors and out the double doors without causing harm to innocent bystanders. If you can manage that, I’ve got a country for you to run.
Or at the very least, two precious children for you to baby-sit.
The cretin stole candy from my baby
Iain’s truck was broken into last weekend. The lowlife or -lifes responsible found fit to steal:
- a roll of pennies
- a roll of toilet paper
- a roll of Pez.
That Pez was part of Owen’s reward for a successful week of potty training. He diligently answered nature’s call from his thronely repose many, many times a day. He carefully placed each sticker in its own grid-like box on the chart I made him by hand. He earned that candy, man.
And some dumb cluck mucked it up. It’s not a great loss, I know. But I wish I knew what kind of dunderhead breaks into a parked vehicle in the dead of night to steal toilet paper, pennies, and a kid’s candy. He must be pretty hard up.
The resurrection of Mister Woof
Some highlights while I flash Cormac over there in his exersaucer the Borat thumbs-up:
- Cormac takes a binky now. I KNOW. It’s fucking awesome. I don’t know how she did it but my mom worked some magic over Christmas.
- Also awesome: that both boys go to bed at 7:30 now. From 7:30 onward I get quiet time. I am speechless.
- With Owen’s old Mister Woof stuffed dog, Cormac will sleep from 7:30 p.m. until 5:30 a.m. Straight through.
- He also takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap. It’s like he’s on some sort of schedule, hey? And my quality of life has improved about 3.5 million percent.
- Owen has a new toy pirate set that will occupy him for entire half-hour chunks at a time.
OK, so add all these things together. I’ll tell you the sum: I ain’t crazy! I might be touched in the head, but I ain’t crazy. I even got a little sewing done last week. We’re turning the beat around on this bad boy called Life With Two.
Happy third birthday, Oh-boy
Owen turned 3 yesterday. I haven’t had such a fun day with him in ages — we made play-doh pizzas, construction-paper party hats, and a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles. We did the grocery shopping together and split a bagel. All day long we giggled at each other, swapping “Happy Birthdays” and running around. After dinner he blew out all his candles and was most impressed with the playmobil pirate set we gave him. He played with it up until and then way past bedtime and then this morning, first thing — ran right past me, disregarded breakfast entirely, and sat down to the important business of making pirates shoot each other and find treasure.
He is now officially a preschooler in my book, not a toddler any more; any kid who can read his own name isn’t so babyish as all that. While the specter of potty training looms over us this year, so does the beckoning angel of preschool. He is madly eager to ride the bus to school, where he’ll do his “work,” and asks me each day where his school is. I tell him we haven’t chosen one, which is true, and I’ve broached the subject that most schools won’t take a boy his age in diapers. We’ll see how that particular stumbling block gets dissolved.
He’s just so much fun. I love hanging out with him, following where his mind goes, keeping up with his interests. I love the way he dresses up, too — always pulling his hat down over one eye to serve as an eyepatch, cocking his construction helmet to the front to be a football player.
Two was pretty good, but I think three is going to be even better.
recent flickr
-
my sewing tutorials
See my tutorials featured on SMS' Handmade Holidays!
Me, elsewhere
- del.icio.us bookmarks
- flickr photolog
- last.FM music profile
- please send vodka
- ravelry knitting notebook
- twitter tiny updates
Et cetera
blog hosting: Meancode Media