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| 2005/2006 |
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| June 30, 2006 Well, it's nice to have some sunlight again. So we celebrated and went and picked blueberries today--a whole colander full. It made me miss our friends Nate and Lori back in Illinois, who brought us on our first blueberry-picking trip two years ago. This time around wasn't much different--I picked as much as I possibly could, Josh picked a little, ate it all, then picked a little more, then wanted to go home. It was all very Blueberries for Sal, minus the bears. The biggest news of the day is that Joshua up and kissed me for no good reason this morning. This rarely happens, partly because I'm always kissing him so much that there's a certain amount of "how can I miss you if you never go away?" But also, Josh has made it pretty clear lately--ever since Sebastian was born, really--that I'm not as fun as Dad and he loves Dad more. At this point, I think he's mostly doing it to get a hurt reaction from me, which I give in my best B-actress way, but we've all acknowledged that if someone's away from home all day, it seems like all the time they spend at home is fun time; when someone's in charge of keeping the home, a lot of the time together is going to be about laundry and dishes. And sometimes, if the laundry gets thrown all over the floor, there might be a little shouting and step-sitting. So when I get those kisses, I feel like maybe he appreciates my presence in his life too. June 19, 2006 It's been a nice week. We're started "home school" again, which basically means that Joshua and I spend about an hour a day doing things together that some people might construe as educational. We're making up stories (as at right) and looking up asteroids and black holes on the Internet. My favorite thing we've done this week is to take a corner of the yard and turn it into Leprechaun National Park, just like I used to do with my campers when I worked at the Norman Bird Sanctuary. There's a quahog shell swimming pool and a popsicle stick path that leads from one rock to another, a slide made out of a clothes pin, and a seating area from the little plastic diases that sometimes come in pizza boxes. (And since we never order pizza--enter Kevin Nealon : cough, cough, every other day, cough,cough--that was a sacrifice.) I even found I tiny evergreen shoot that I'm going to transplant to the park. For Father's Day, (Fathers' Day?), Josh gave Jim Rampage 2 and Sebastian (OK, I) gave him Space Invaders. We did manage a walk in the sweltering heat, but most of the day was spent in front of the screen. I'm kind of hooked on Invaders. It's one of the few games that allows me to carry over skills from my teenage years. Anyway, as I was playing, I had occasion to mutter, "I really need to learn my left from my right." Josh pipes up, "I can teach you, Mom. See, this is left and this is right." "Oh, thank you honey," I say, "I appreciate that." And then he goes, "Not a problem." June 8, 2006 Today's the big day. Josh has preschool graduation in about two hours. Right now he's at the doctor's with Jim. I don't think I warned either one of them that shots would be involved. We'll have to see how they do. I don't think Jim's been present for any of either of the boys' inoculations, and I was feeling bad for him. He's missed out. Josh tells me they've been practicing singing songs on stage, and I've heard that they'll actually walk across and get a "diploma." Joshua is very blase about the whole thing. "You know," he told me a few weeks ago, "It's not a real graduation. You only graduate once, and that's from high school." "Who told you that?" "The schoolhouse on Elmo's World." OK, now I wasn't actually watching the Elmo's World with the talking schoolhouse, so I'm assuming there was some misinterpretation going on, but come on, Sesame Street. What about college? Grad school? Or is it only dweebs who march after they get their Ph.D.'s. At any rate, I'm sure the "Parent/Child Olympics" that follow graduation will bear little resemblence to the Athens Games, so maybe Josh has got a point. I'm charging the camera battery as I write, so you'll soon be able to judge for yourself. May 4, 2006 Well, the entire house is in some stage of a gross cold that Joshua brought home for us. I'd heard that preschool was good for spreading the plague, and it does seem to be so. Fortunately, none of Josh's classmates are traveling to the parts of the world where bird flu is a problem. I have to say, I think the worst part of mothering is when you have to do it with a head cold. Four-year-olds don't really cut you much slack, they just notice that you're out of it while insisting that you engage in whatever activity they're currently interested in. So yesterday was a lot of, "Mom, you can't step on the rug because that's the ice water and it takes away your life. Mom. Mom! Are you listening to me?" And I'm just floating around in my mucus, cursing the gods who afflicted me with a cold and Josh with an excess of energy on the same day. He never takes a nap when I need one. Ever. So I did what I've finally learned to do in these situations. Road trip. We drove to Purcellville to the cool paper store and bought supplies for Josh's party invitations. Actually, that's one good thing that came from yesterday. Josh and I were having our daily hour-long Martha lovefest when we saw her make a monkey-head cake. Josh really liked it, and we decided to have a monkey-themed party. Works well since I'd already decided that we'd just have people over for lots of different games. Now we're calling it monkeying around. So we drove to Purcelville to Cami's Paperie, and got lots of cool paper for making monkeys in the jungle. And a sweet little monky stamp that should come in handy for favors and thank you notes. On the way there, Joshua pointed out that it was Sebastian's first time in Purcelville in his whole life. This struck me as very sweet. I hadn't thought of it, but Josh was treating it like a trip to Disneyland. That's partly because there's an old-fashioned coin-op helicopter ride in one of the shopping centers that he gets to go on for special treats. So we came home and I got to work on the prototype for Josh's invites, and the whole time he's trying to get me to do stuff with him, and I'm, like, "Can't you see I'm busy? What's wrong with you. Don't you know I'm doing this for you? So you can have the perfect invitations for your birthday party. Other mothers would just buy those fill in the blank Blues Clues, but you have a superior mother who's creative." Of course I'm not saying this; it's just floating around in my cold-addled brain. And I at least was able to realize that I wasn't doing it for him at all. I was doing it because you can only make so many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before you need more of a creative outlet in your life, and making a monkey that looks like a monkey is the most fun creative challenge I've had in months. He did seem to really like the finished product, and at the end of the day, after Jim had come home and made dinner while I read about Anne Lamott's struggles with her teenaged son in Plan B, I was much better-equipped to deal with Josh's enthusiasm. (I noted, with a certain amount of satisfaction, that by this point Jim had no patience whatsoever, which makes me think that maybe a lot of what I percieve as Jim's superhuman patience comes from walking among adults who appreciate his for for eight hours of every day, along with the fact that he rarely has to make dinner and take care of both children at once.) So when Josh was running up to me and poking me in the arm while repeating the same nonsense phrase every time, I asked him, "Josh, are you doing that because you're trying to cheer me up?" And he allowed as how he was. And I said, "You know what would really cheer me up? If you would tell me one thing you like about me." "Well," he said very sweetly, while stroking my arm, "I like you because you make lots of arts and crafts. When you're far away and I'm with Daddy." And I thought to myself, "OK, Josh. Point taken." April 29, 2006 Time flies when you're diapering babies, I guess. But it's Saturday, Sebastian's sleeping, and Josh is watching Dora, so I've got a little time. The biggest news, for which I haven't downloaded pictures yet, is that Josh has just come back from a visit to Seattle. He had a great time with his cousins this visit. He's finally old enough to be another kid, albeit a very young one (especially in comparison to his sporty, tree-climbing cousins). Amazingly for the adults, the three boys are finally at an age where they can keep themselves occupied with video games or books while their parents play games and eat indian food. To me, it felt like a miracle to be able to have a conversation that lasted more than two minutes. We enjoyed it while it lasted--Elena, the oldest of the three youngest cousins, started walking while we were there, so we'll be entering the second phase of toddlerdom the next time we're there. One odd moment while we were out in Seattle happened when we were visiting Jim's Aunts Carol Ann and Jo Jean. While waiting for lunch, Jim asked Josh what he was going to be when he grew up. We were expecting his by-now-standard, "Policeman and Football Coach," but instead he said "Street mime." Street mime? WTF? Where has he even heard of a street mime? Jim, ever the opportunist, suggested that Josh start practicing right there and then. That lasted a few seconds before Joshua said that he was done with practicing and that he'd like to be an envelope licker instead. Envelope licker? We thought maybe this had to do with his job at Christmas of doing the envelopes and stamps for all the cards, which he did really like. Yesterday, though, the mystery was revealed. I was sitting with Joshua on the couch, folding laundry and watching Martha Stewart, when Josh looked up at me and said, "I want to be a clone of my parents when I grow up." What? Where is this kid getting this stuff? Then I look down at the book in his hands--Bart Simpson's Guide to Life, opened to a list of twenty-five things not to be when you grow up. Number one? Street mime. Number seven, envelope licker. And the last item, number twenty-five, a clone of your parents. January 27, 2006 I gave Joshua a dollar on Wednesday, and you'll never guess why. I'll give you a hint--it was for helping me out with something at home. Did he put all his books away by himself? Well, actually, yes, a few days before, but that's not the reason I paid him. Did he pick up all his toys? Not any more than usual. No, nothing as ordinary as that. What happened was, a friend was coming over with her daughters who are almost three and six months, and I couldn't bear the thought of the six-month-old sitting on our dirty floors. So I got out the mop and bucket and made ready to mop the kitchen floor. But first I went to Josh and told him I was going to mop, so he wouldn't slip and fall on the wet floor. When I told him I was going to mop, he said, "I'll help you mop, Mom." So, fine. I figured he'd dip the mop in a couple of times and get bored. But no, he learned how to ring it out, and then he went and found every single spot of dirt on the floor, and mopped it away, insisting that he do it all by himself. I couldn't believe it. I mean, who thinks a three-year-old is capable of doing housework? And I must say, his standards are somewhat higher than mine, so I don't know when our kitchen floor has been this clean. He's been doing a lot of this sort of thing, lately, surprising us by how responsible he can be. If anything, we're inclined to expect a little less of him right now, so it always sort of shocks me when he handles things so well. We were better prepared for the pretending to be a baby behavior, which he's also doing. We never told him that he had to be a responsible big brother now, because we didn't want to put that baggage on him or Sebastian, but he seems to have instinctively taken on the mantle of big brother all on his own. January 19, 2006 Big news today. It was PJ day at school. Jim says all the kids were very excited. Josh certainly was. He wore his new snowman PJs. He didn't get the joke when I acted all shocked fifteen minutes before it was time to go and said, "Joshua! It's almost time for school and you aren't even out of your PJs!" Very earnestly, he said, "No mom, it's pajama day." I think we must be giving off some kind of out-of-it vibes that three-year-olds can pick up on because he thinks we're serious when we say the most stupid things. For example, he just came down from his nap and found Jim in the kitchen and me at the computer. "Who's holding the baby?" he asked. Jim looked at me and I looked at him, and I said, "Oh no, where's the baby?" while Jim said, "Aren't you holding him?" Josh said, "No, I was having my nap." Jim said, "Maybe he went out for a walk." I said, "Maybe he took the car out for a drive." Josh said, "Babies can't walk or drive cars." We suggested increasingly ridiculous things and Josh really seemed to think we'd lost it. Finally, he heard Sebastian on the baby monitor, and then he got the joke. "He's upstairs somewhere. Maybe he was sleeping with me in my bed," he said. January 1, 2006 Happy New Year! Joshua had a very late nap and actually stayed up to ring in the new year. Actually, he kazooed it in. I slept upstairs while Jim and Josh watched a Felix the Cat DVD, and Jim kindly woke me at 11:55 so I could come down and have some sparkling cider and a kiss. I don't know when Josh fell asleep, but I'm pretty sure it was after us. He still was up by 8:30 this morning, and more interested in keeping Jim company in bed than coming downstairs with me. Heh heh heh. Not much more to report, really, except that I'm looking forward to preschool starting up again. There are a lot of games in this house, and only two people during the day, one of whom is very enthusiastic about all of them. Enough said. Baby Sueygupla seems well. The doctor's happy, anyway. He keeps telling me that I'm measuring three weeks ahead, which I've done consistently since my first appointment. But I can't get him to say that I'll probably go into labor early. Sigh. It's as if he's delivered hundreds of babies and knows better than to try to predict anything. Dr. Tchabo is a great doctor. He even signed our birth plan, which many docs won't do (I've heard) because it's a legal document. He's especially cool to do ours, since we asked for some pretty radical things like "nutritional snacking for prolonged labor" and "refrain from cutting cord until pulsation has ceased." Of course, with Josh, we played Durufle's requiem (I had just finished singing in a performance of it) while they operated on me, so I guess weird requests are a family tradition at this point. The big change with Suey, from my point of view, is the daily experience of Braxton Hicks contractions, which for me manifest as periodic sensations of having my uterus instantly transformed into an overinflated basketball for a minute or so, accompanied by the sensation of a very full bladder. I don't know which causes which, but it's a very odd feeling. No painful at all, but it doesn't seem like flesh should ever be so rigid. I mean, you could get a mean bounce off of a superball. If you're one of those people who likes to taunt pregnant women. I'd better not mention it to Jim. December 26, 2005 Merry Christmas. We had fun at home--never left the house all day, I don't think. Joshua came into our room a little after 7:00 as he always does, and wanted to open the advent calendars (he did it again this morning, too). We just happened to have one with a 25 on it, so we let him open it, and then I asked him whether he'd like to go downstairs. Did he think that Santa had come? No, he didn't. (I don't know why.) When we got downstairs, we revisited 2003 and he went straight for the candy that Santa had left around the gingerbread house. In fact, he's had a pretty much nonstop candy diet for two days straight. I'm always conflicted about whether to allow him to just eat it at once and have two days of terrible nutrition, or to spread the load over a few weeks. Hopefully his pancreas can handle it. It was two hours before we'd even finished opening our stockings because he wanted to stop and play with each thing. We let him. What did we care? We weren't going anywhere. By the time we were about halfway through the presents, we were glad to take a break for a game--he was so overwhelmed. In fact, by the time he took his nap, Jim and I could hardly keep our eyes open. It's a lot of work keeping a three-year-old calm. So after a big day of new toys, what do you suppose he's playing with right now? His old faithful magnadoodle. "Look! I made a snowman!" he just cried. February 18, 2005 Ok, I know it's been, like, forever, and everyone has probably stopped even looking for updates, but Josh did a couple of things that are so sweet I had to record them for posterity. The first thing happened when we were eating dinner a couple of nights ago. Since we started watching Supernanny, we've instituted a two-bites rule at dinner. He has to try two bites of anything on his plate. We're surprised by how little resistance he's put up. He's actually trying new foods again. On the night in question, we had turkey dogs and peas for dinner, and by the end of the dinner, he'd eaten everything on his plate. Not unusual for any other time of day, but virtually unheard-of for dinner. So I, trying to "catch him being good," as the schoolteachers say, said to him, "Joshua, you ate your whole dinner. You're really growing up!" To which my son responded, "Yeah. I am, and I'm going to be a police officer--or, no, I'm going to be a writer like you. And I'm going to write a sentence: 'I love my Mom,' by Joshua Ferry." Oh my God. I swear, that one little sentence makes up for, like, the first 12 hours of labor (or one of the really hard hours). My boy. Sigh. OK, and then the second thing he did is just bizarre, but I'm writing it because, like I said, posterity. He brought home a book from the library last night called the Absolutely Awful Alphabet and wanted me to read it to him this morning. Well, may I just say in my defense that I'd already read it to him twice, and it had been in our home for less than twenty-four hours. I was reading my own library book, so I told him when I'd finished, I'd read him his. Fifteen minutes later, I'd finished my book and went to read to him, and what do you think I saw? Joshua was sitting happily on the couch with the book beside him and his Magnadoodle (a 'dustless chalkboard') on his lap, rewriting the book, word for word. I'm not joking. He never even asked me to read it to him. |