Give me just a little more time

I just read an article in the paper about the lack of tinsel being put on live Christmas trees and I quote "people don't decorate the way they used to, they don't have the time." THEY DON'T HAVE THE TIME? Whoa. I've heard about people who don't have time to clean their houses or bake cakes from scratch or write letters, work in the yard, knit, join committees, vote, etc., etc. But not having the time to hang tinsel off a Christmas tree? What they heck are people doing with their time anyway? I drive home an night and see a TV screen glowing from just about every house I pass - do you really mean to tell me that during commercials people can't hoist themselves up from their Lazy-boys and throw a little tinsel on a Christmas tree? Wait? Isn't this a job for the kids to do anyway? Are they too busy as well? That's just pathetic!

song: Give me just a little more time • artist: The Chairman of the Board

bad, bad, leroy brown

Toddler #1 has been going to a home daycare two mornings a week for almost two months. Everytime I pick him up I get to hear the "Zac report". Zac is one of the other boys at day care, more specifically he's the bad seed of day care. One day it was "why did Zac pull the hermit crab out of it's shell?" Then it was "Zac ran into the street" and "Zac threw a toy at the photographs." Last week Zac stepped in dog poop and when I picked my son up, Zac was being reprimanded for trying to break the plastic pinwheels outside Becky's house. In all honesty Zac's not a bad kid, he just doesn't know his own strength and hasn't got a lot of self-control. What? A toddler with little self control? Who ever heard of such a thing? Anyway, he'll probably turn out to be my son's best friend so I'd better get used to the Zac report.

song: Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown • artist: Jim Croce

who's your daddy?

My 3-year old has started calling me momma instead of mommy. And though you wouldn't think it would be noticeable, it is and frankly I find it completely annoying.

you put a spell on me, baby

Here it is, the beginning of a bad speller's worst nightmare. My 3-year old has started asking me how to spell things. And yes, I realize I should spell out the word three, I said I was a lousy speller - I'm okay with grammar. Anyway, it started innocently enough: cat, dog, truck. The other day he asked about elephant, and though it was tricky, I think I got it right. I didn't bother explaining about that 'ph' making an 'f' sound though, it didn't seem pertinant. The first thing I got wrong was the spelling of Erskine, a friend's dog. I was thinking Urskin - you know - like Ursela. When actually he was named for Erskine Bowles, a senator from North Carolina. How was I to know? It would have been okay, he would have believed Urskin, except daddy was there to contradict me. Damn him. I guess by the time he starts asking me to spell things I really can't spell, he'll already be well into the stage where mommy knows nothing anyway so I should be ready and able to reinforce that urban legend.

just another manic monday

No hot water for my shower this morning because - surprise! - we were out of oil. While waiting all day for the oil guy to show up, not that we had anything more exciting planned than a trip to the library, the three of us had to make an emergency run to the pediatricians because toddler #1 stuck a bean in his ear! Correction, not a bean, a split pea. I also made an arrugula pesto using arugula from our last CSA pick up, which turned out most definitely NOT to be arugula. Either that or arugula pesto tastes really bad.

Crying, Over You

So I used to think that people in cars who were driving erratically were just morons but now I think that people who are driving poorly might, like me, have a screaming baby in the back seat. Except for people talking on their cell phones, they are just morons.

It's My Party

We had a little birthday cookout for toddler #1 over the weekend. out kids, 15 adults and 2 toddlers, plus Alex and Laela's kids but they aren't really toddlers. It was totally stressful for me as I felt responsible for watching the other children and making sure toddler #1 played with them and orchestrating the cutting of the cake and the opening of the presents. Alex and Laela brought their dog to the party and at one point toddler #1 is totally fixated on watching the dog and petting him and all the other kids were ripping open his presents. It was pretty funny. Our neighbor gave him these magnetic words for the fridge and they came in a little tin lunch box, Sophia, who is three, helped the birthday boy open it up and then she held the lunchbox up and declared "all this is yours." Like he was the ruler of a small kingdom or something. Also pretty funny. I think he was a bit over excited by the whole thing though, he slept really late on Sunday then proceeded to throw up breakfast just after eating it - just like the cat does!

The Devil Went Down to WalMart

Ugh, I had to go to the WalMart yesterday it was a huge ordeal. First we were totally out of diapers for toddler #1 which never happens as Ken is usually stocking up on diapers whenever they go on sale. So I said I'd go buy some and he's like "go to WalMart, they're cheaper." Ick. But I do because they stock the ones that have the cute little drawings by John Lennon around the waistband instead of things like Muppets, Mickey Mouse, Sesame Street or Winnie the Pooh which I don't like. And I wanted to buy one of those plastic needles so todder #1 could make necklaces out of fruit loops (or the Amberwaves healthy equilivant of fruit loops) and there's no where else to buy those. So anyway I get all the stuff and then I pour through their selection of band aids looking for colorful ones that don't have Scooby Doo, Spiderman or Care Bears on them (there's only one kind that's not dull beige but rainbow colored instead), the I get in line except that they only have two cashiers working in the largest store in town so there's this huge line. So I go over to the self check line even though I've never done self check at WalMart, there's like four of them open and they are pretty backed up too. So I wait and wait and wait and I've got baby #2 with me and luckily he's not crying. Finally I'm next in line. The woman in front of me is buying back to school stuff with daughter who looks like she's in middle school. The daughter is scanning all the stuff and having to scan everything like 20 times a piece to get them to ring in. Then she gets to the end and the total's $45 and the mom's only got $40! So she tries to delete stuff off the list but of course that doesn't work so she pushes the button for help but no one shows up. Who the heck shops without a credit card these days? Finally she manages to void out her entire order and pushes her cart off to find some help or something and I get to ring in my stuff except that half my stuff is so obscure I have to type in the UPC codes because they won't ring up! It took forever and was just gastly, I think I spent twice as much time in line as it took me to gather together all the stuff to purchase.

Heaven

So my almost three-year old was overtired from being at the fair last night. Don't get me started on the fair, I'll save that for another time. Let's just say that at least it's not as bad a Disney World. Anyway, we spent the morning at the library, followed by an hour at the playground with another mom and her two kids. Home for an hour or so and then into the car to pay $32 to fill the tank and drive around so #1 son would fall asleep, hopefully before #2 son woke up. It took much longer than usual and was accompanied by a lot of questions. If you answer the question it prolongs the falling asleep part. I was switching radio stations (nothing good on NPR, there's only so much news from Iraq that any sane person can take), so it's the "oldies station" and wouldn't you know it, the oldies station or maybe it was the "easy listening" station, was playing the theme song from my senior prom: Heaven by Bryan Adams. It somehow seemed ironic you know, back when love was so much THE thing. Who would have thought back then that love could lead to aimlessly driving around your hometown trying to get your kids to fall asleep. I was thinking about how, with toddlers, everything is so black and white, either it's right and you have to stop at the red light (never mind trying to explain the right on red rule, or why mommy has a hyphenated name), or it's wrong as in "coyotes are bad, Papa said so." But even when we were 18 things were still black and white. LOVE. Love was the thing that was going to save us all. It would be heaven. So by that definition heaven is aimlessly driving around in my car at 3PM on a Wednesday afternoon.
Well at least I got to choose the radio station.

And if it rains I don't mind...

All this rainy weather has been testing my "crafting" abilities. Today I cut out paper teddy bears for toddler #1 to decorate, ultimately I'm going to string them together and hang them up but we haven't gotten that far. On Tuesday we played with clay for a long time except that I made the mistake of making a pinch pot and then making in into a potty (because that's what it looked like!), then toddler #1 wanted me to make a man pee-peeing in the potty and he had to be anatomically correct of course and then Ken came by and saw it and was mortified and we referred to the little clay man as potty man for the rest of the day. Today we also cut some bugs out of colored paper and stuck them to the windows in the living room but I mostly did that project myself and toddler #1 just taped them to the window.
So toddler #1's been asking me if girls don't have penises, what then do they have? So I have to tell it like it is and so I say "girls have vaginas," which will totally mortify Ken to death, far more than potty man, but really, what can you say? But the funny thing is that toddler #1 can't say vagina at all and it comes out sounding like "pajamas" so he's going around saying "girls have pajamas," which sounds pretty innocent if not downright funny.