I've decided that Charlotte was a high born Chinese woman in a previous life. She cannot stand to have her feet restrained in any sort of fashion. Unless something else distracts her she will work diligently to remove both shoes and socks, and if I tried to put her to sleep with her socks on (for warmth) she cries.
***
If you are a parent, at some point in your child's life you will do something that you are, if not actively ashamed of, at least regretful over. Something that, like it or not, you really should not have done. For some this will be the time that you lose your temper and spank your child, for others it will be the time that you say something mean and ugly to them, something that you don't mean, something you only said to hurt their feelings. Some of us will regret the time we didn't hold firm, when we knew it was in their best interests for us to stay the course and deal with all the screaming that resulted, and instead we caved. Some of us will regret the time we held too firm, and didn't give our child that little bit of slack they needed, because we were too busy being "in charge."
Many of us will do more than one of these things. Some of us, the lucky ones, will only do them once or twice.
Some of us, the less fortunate, or, perhaps, suited less by nature to be parents, will do them many many times.
Whatever the case, for those of us that are parents we will all have moments when we realize that, if someone were in charge of us, now is the moment that we would be sent to time out. We have erred, mis-stepped, or, as my mother puts it, we have "stepped over the line, buddy." If we were our children we would even now be hearing something along the lines of "you get your ass in that room, and don't you come out until I SAY you can come out."
And we wish someone WOULD say this to us, because, honestly, we don't WANT to be in the middle of this altercation with our kids. We want to be having a nice, peaceful day, or, alternatively, be in time out in our rooms, thinking about what we have done, instead of still dealing with a baby/toddler/child/teenager who is bent on turning us into a raving lunatic.
Today, I had an epiphany. I realized that I was, in fact, being given a punishment. It just wasn't to be sent to time out, because, let's face it, time out isn't a punishment when you're the mother of two.
No, my punishment was that I had to turn to my son and hold him, and tell him that I would always be here, and that he never needed to worry that I would leave him. I have to give him a kiss and speak to him gently, when I was angry enough to beat the ever living shit out of him. And even worse, this was a punishment that I was giving to myself. Punishments you give yourself are worse than any other kind, I think.
There's a bit in one of the little house on the prairie books where Laura realizes that being an adult means you boss yourself around, there's no one to tell you what to do, you have to make yourself be good. She thinks that's pretty awesome, as a concept. Me, I think it blows.
***
I went and saw Thor yesterday. Now, I grew up reading my Daddy's old comics, so I am familiar with Thor's life in the Marvel Universe. I was, shall we say, a bit disappointed with the Hollywood decision to make Thor fall in love with a mortal woman, instead of Sif, who is, after all, a goddess, and a badass, and freaking fabulous in every way. I mean, seriously, people, Natalie Portman vs the living embodiment of all that is beautiful in the eyes of any Asgaardian, packaged with some fairly serious battle skills... who would you choose? Also, Thor as a mortal was still frikken Thor. He was, in no way, Dr. Donald Blake. Well, except in a fake ID kinda way. In the comics Thor really is a mortal doctor. Just saying.
Anywho... what I was NOT disappointed with was Chris Hemsworth. Now, Chris Hemsworth has several things going for him. (A) His smile reminds me of Heath Ledger. I loved Heath Ledger, and one of the things I loved most about him was that totally unexpected and awesomely charming smile he had. Chris Hemsworth has the same smile, and I love it. (B) He is totally capable of standing in the middle of a desert and screaming "Heimdall, open the bifrost!" and NOT looking like a silly ass. You might be blowing off this one, but I bet neither you nor I could do such a thing. I bet no one you know could do such a thing. I am telling you, if the man was actually standing in front of me screaming at Heimdall to open the bifrost I would not snigger at him. (C) Have you seen him shirtless? I have, cause it's in the MOVIE. He enters the shot walking away from the camera, and the first thing you think is "gee, how did the costumer find the perfect jeans, to ride the absolute lowest point possible without actually exposing any technical ass?" And then you think "My god, that is a beautiful man." and then he turns around to face the camera, and there is no next thing you think because your brain has become a puddle of formless goo in the face of his superbly gorgeous body which is STILL clad in only some VERY low slung jeans. I say "you" because of course this did not happen to me. This happened to everyone else in the theater. I had been turned into a puddle of formless goo fifteen minutes earlier by the mere realization that a shot like this was pretty much inevitable.
Oh, also not disappointed in Loki. Loki has no shirtless moments, and isn't intended to be a sex symbol to the masses, but has some decent acting chops, which is always nice to see in an action movie. Waxor overheard a guy as we were walking out saying, in all seriousness "I couldn't figure out that Loki guy, I thought maybe he was gonna be a good guy." LoL. I thought he did a good job of skirting it, so that people who knew he was the villain would see it all along, and people who didn't wouldn't get it until it was revealed.
***
Waxor and I have been watching the new Dr. Who. I should probably make clear that, for a long time, Waxor and I were total TV junkies. We had a show every night, sometimes two, that we watched religiously. Tivo made that pretty easy, we'd just save it all up for the weekends or a free evening. Now that we have two kids, and a house that needs work, and our own personal projects, not to mention a fairly consistent social schedule, we just don't have the time to watch a lot of TV. I don't know if that would really stop us, but it turns out we've been having a hard time finding shows that interest us. I mean, we loved West Wing, and Boston Legal, and Gilmore Girls. Most of the crap on now is just that - crap. But we have times when what we WANT to do is sit in front of the TV and veg, so we'll go looking for a series out on DVD that we can watch. Since Waxor used to watch the old Dr Who with his family we thought we'd try the new one.
I, in particular, was pretty obsessed with it. We both enjoyed season 1, with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, but OMFG, I am in love with the David Tennant Doctor. And now he's dead. I realize this is not a shock for those of you who watched the good Doctor when he was actually airing, and I realize that those of you who don't watch Doctor Who either don't care or are totally confused that multiple men have played him, but it is relevant to me so I'm talking about it. Thbpt! Anyway, I cried like a baby when he changed into Matt Smith. I hate Matt Smith. I don't want to watch Matt Smith. He is not MY Doctor. MY Doctor wore tailored suits and had spikey hair and wore glasses cause he thought they made him look smarter. MY Doctor was a charming Hard Ass. MY Doctor was the David Tennant Doctor, and no other shall ever replace him.
Phooey to Matt Smith.
***
Last week Osama bin Laden was killed, as I'm sure you're all aware. I first heard about it on Facebook, and then watched with a sort of stunned nausea as all the various forms of media I keep track of went on to throw a collective party. People were tweeting joyous announcements, texting some "boo-yas", and making jokes on the airwaves. If anything in my life has ever driven home to me just how divorced from reality we are, as a society, this was it.
I've come around to the idea that some people really do need to die. I don't know who gets to make that decision, but I know that I wouldn't hesitate to kill someone who threatened my children or my family directly. I can extend that, intellectually at least, to the idea that someone who would choose to kill many people given the opportunity should be killed themselves, to permanently remove that option from them. I still think it's one of the sickest aspects of society, that we would choose in cold blood to kill someone, but I think I can recognize the validity of it.
It's not that we killed him, although that does disturb me. It's the general attitude of "Hey bro, high five" that makes me want to vomit. We killed a man. Not a dog, not a horse, not a cow - a MAN. A real live human being, who had wives and kids and parents and relatives. A man we might have disagreed with, a man who might even have threatened us and made us less than safe, but a man no less. How can we have a frat boy mentality about that? Is it okay cause we weren't there, in the firefight? Is it okay cause we didn't hold the gun that shot his wife? Is it okay because none of us had to calm down his daughter, who was sobbing hysterically in the arms of her wounded mother? No, it isn't. It's not okay. This was an action taken by OUR government, so, like it or not, WE did this. We shot him in the head and in the chest, and then we went on to make jokes about it on Dancing With the Stars.
Does it make you feel like, as a society, we are completely amoral? Cause that's how it makes me feel.
And, let's not forget, in the cacophony of back slapping heard across the nation, there were very few whispered acknowledgements that, once upon a time, this was our guy. A guy we trained and outfitted. A guy we were grateful to have on our side. And then when he turned on us we treated him like a rabid dog and gunned him down. Then we threw a kegger.
If I seem angry or bitter about this it's because I am. I'm not ranting about the US here, I'm not arguing with the military action we took. I'm not saying that he didn't need to die. I don't know for sure, and that's not the argument I'm making here. I'm just sick in my soul about our attitude.
***
I realize that, aside from some well placed lust in the middle, this email has been really serious. Sorry about that. Blame it on the rain. I try not to unload the heavier thoughts I've got in this mass format, but sometimes my fingers fly away from me, and there I go, acting like I've got a thought in my head beyond mothering and being funny. Next time I promise to do better.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
April 28th, 2011
Well, I seem to have acquired a pair of mice.
See, Waxor and I have a mouse problem in our house. I mean, the place was uninhabited for over a year before we moved in, it's surrounded by some fairly lush vegetation, and it's old, so having a mouse problem really was forseeable. We love the fact that our house's "situation" makes our property the most popular one in the area for birds, we don't mind the groundhog that lives in our side shrubbery, and we've done a decent job of beating back most of the insects that thought they belonged in here. But the mice... the mice are persistent. And they leave little footprints in the butter.
So we set traps. We were gonna catch them alive and release them into a field, but we discovered two important things. (1) is that house mice and field mice are totally different breeds, and if you let a house mouse go in a field you might as well have killed the poor thing to begin with, because you're only condemning it to a life of starvation anyway. (2) is that it is actually illegal in MA to transport a rodent that you caught in your house or on your property OFF your property alive. Apparently all exterminators in MA carry teeny tiny gas chambers in the back of their vans. How gruesome is that? Anyway, having been given those two important facts we decided that we could be adults and just set traps for them and try to kill them as humanely as possible.
All last summer we caught mice, and when winter came their numbers tapered off, although I wasn't convinced that they weren't just hibernating. Sure enough, once the weather started to warm again we found more little footprints, and set our traps back out. We've only caught one or two so far, so it seems like maybe we wiped most of them out last year. Either that or the rest are still asleep.
So with that little introduction... the other night I was getting ready for bed, and I hear Waxor on the stairs.
"Jessica... Jessica, come here."
I go out and behold a truly remarkable sight - Waxor is standing on the landing of our stairs, facing off against a itsy bitsy teeny tiny mouse.
"Go get something for me to catch it."
So, I go to attempt to get something, but before I get back Waxor has captured the little bugger in our frog vase.
"What do we do with it?"
Both of us stare at one another. We realize that the smart thing to do would be to kill it. We've been killing mice for a while now, and we know we can't just let it go. On the other hand...
"I don't think I can kill it in cold blood."
"Yeah, me either."
So we put it in a large plastic box, give it some cheerios, put in an egg crate it can hide under, and plan on figuring out what to do in the morning. It is at this point that I make a serious mistake.
"Let's call him Tibbers."
Never, ever, ever, ever name an animal if you don't want to keep it. That's all I'm saying.
So, the next day the kids and I go get an aquarium and soft wood chips and a water bottle and set Tibbers up in his cage. But wait, you say, I thought you said "pair" of mice.
Oh I did.
That night I am going upstairs to get ready for bed. Same time, same place, and low and behold, there is ANOTHER MOUSE. Having worked so well as a mouse catcher before I once again utilize our handy frog vase to catch this one, and then I take it over and put it in the cage with Tibbers.
We're calling mouse #2 Nibbler.
So now we have two mice. They like each other, so they aren't both boys. We're hoping they're both girls. Otherwise, we will shortly have MORE than two mice, and I don't know what we'll do with them all. They really are adorable, though. I know, I know, some of your really hate rodents. Fine and dandy, but these guys are cute.
Speaking of cute... yesterday Charlotte was playing with one of Elliot's rain boots. She had her pacifier in her mouth, and the boot in both hands, and it seemed like she was trying to stick her hands down the boot, but that requires a bit more coordination than you might originally anticipate if you are sitting on the floor and shorter than the boot, and therefore cannot just stick your hand straight down in. Anyway, she was working at if for a while, and I couldn't figure out why the boot was holding her attention so well, when all of a sudden she succeeded and pulled two MORE pacifiers out of the boot! It was like a baby magic trick, and she was soooooo proud of herself.
Recently I sent a short email to just a few people which I began and ended with the announcement that my husband is a douche. Now, this was a joke, as he had done something monumentally silly, but it drew my attention to the fact that I am frequently derogatory of him in jest, and I wish to make sort of a public apology. The truth is that Waxor is a wonderfully patient and loving person. It cannot be easy to live with someone like me, "someone like me" being an individual whose hormones drive her moods to rival the inconstancy of the moon (no, not incontinency, inconstancy. Go read Shakespeare, you goob.) It isn't even easy living with me when you ARE me, and let's face it, I am pretty understanding of myself when I'm being an ass. So, to sum up, my husband is NOT a douche, he is, in fact, a lovely man, and I appreciate his vast capacity to deal with my BS.
On another topic, Charlotte is currently painting my toes with the cream cheese off her matzah.
I've been in a state of internal upheaval these past few months. For those of you that don't know, I had post partum thyroiditis, which is a fancy way of saying that my thyroid went through a hyperactive stage and then a suppressed stage after I had Charlotte. The hyperactive stage was great, I felt awesome; but the suppressed stage kinda sucked. I had low energy and felt like the world was ending. The thyroiditis is cleared up now, but my hormones have been in some kinda hideous wacky flux - I went to my midwives and they were like "yeah, if you start bleeding cups an hour then go to the hospital, otherwise, it'll clear up." The physical symptoms of that aren't that bad to deal with, but the mood swings - yikes. Anyway, like I said, internal upheaval. This has all coincided with my least favorite part of the year, aka, spring that is still really winter, cause it's so damn cold, and with Elliot deciding perhaps it's time he got into the "mommy I love you so much that I must be with you every second of every day and oh by the way if you don't do exactly what I want when I want it I will scream at you for hours on end" game. It's not a fun game. It's more like a game that makes you want to run into the road and get hit by a car.
So a few days ago I was ruminating on PPD (that's post partum depression, for those of you who don't already know that) because Kay was down here last week and observed that I was sort of hiding from my children, and mentioned that she thought I might have it. PPD, that is. So I was thinking about that. One of the things they always tell you to look for is the urge to hurt yourself or your children. I was watching Elliot working his way towards a full blown tantrum and thought "Show me a mother of a three year old who hasn't wanted to slap the shit out of the little fucker at least once, and I'll show you a friggin saint." It's true, no? So how do you TELL if you've got PPD or are just a normal person with a limit to your patience? Maybe it's all in the level of intent. As long as you're just thinking about it randomly, sort of in a "wouldn't it be nice if I could" kind of way you're fine? As for the hurting yourself - I don't think about hurting myself, that would HURT. I do daydream about winding up in the hospital for something temporarily serious, though, so that I can have a few days to myself. I keep trying to come up with something that would require hospitalization but wouldn't require me to have a lengthy convalescence at home. I mean, yeah, a broken leg might put me in the hospital for day or so, but then I'd be home with the kids AND a broken leg. No, I need something serious but immediately reversible. I'm thinking appendicitis. Quick surgery, a few days of peace, and then home again with a new scar and a well rested psyche.
What does that say about a person that they think emergency surgery sounds restful?
On the upside, the weather here is improving. This might sound like a minor thing, but it isn't. It means the kids spend time outside everyday - making them both happier and more content, not to mention allowing them to sleep better at night. I get to open my windows, which makes me feel less trapped in the house, even on days when I don't go anywhere. And I get to wear my sundresses. I love my sundresses. A day in a sundress is always just a little better than a day in pants, even if the exact same things occur. Sundresses MAKE it better. If I just had a friggen bonnet I could be cheerful all the time.
Yesterday we spent a couple hours outside. Elliot repeatedly buried and then excavated his green rubber duck. Charlotte discovered a specialized mix of peat moss and fertilizer and moisture holding pellets, formulated as prime seed starting mix, and left outside in our last rainfall. So... dirt. And then she ate it. I let her. She was so happy. And dirty. Then she clapped her little hands and held them out in the imperious manner she has which indicates she is ready to be held. I laughed at her naivete and carried her at arms length to the tub, where I immersed her completely in warm water until most of the dirt parted ways with her body. She loved it.
I'm'a go ahead and send this now. Surely I've forgotten something I was going to say, but then, that gives you something to await with baited breath,doesn't it?
See, Waxor and I have a mouse problem in our house. I mean, the place was uninhabited for over a year before we moved in, it's surrounded by some fairly lush vegetation, and it's old, so having a mouse problem really was forseeable. We love the fact that our house's "situation" makes our property the most popular one in the area for birds, we don't mind the groundhog that lives in our side shrubbery, and we've done a decent job of beating back most of the insects that thought they belonged in here. But the mice... the mice are persistent. And they leave little footprints in the butter.
So we set traps. We were gonna catch them alive and release them into a field, but we discovered two important things. (1) is that house mice and field mice are totally different breeds, and if you let a house mouse go in a field you might as well have killed the poor thing to begin with, because you're only condemning it to a life of starvation anyway. (2) is that it is actually illegal in MA to transport a rodent that you caught in your house or on your property OFF your property alive. Apparently all exterminators in MA carry teeny tiny gas chambers in the back of their vans. How gruesome is that? Anyway, having been given those two important facts we decided that we could be adults and just set traps for them and try to kill them as humanely as possible.
All last summer we caught mice, and when winter came their numbers tapered off, although I wasn't convinced that they weren't just hibernating. Sure enough, once the weather started to warm again we found more little footprints, and set our traps back out. We've only caught one or two so far, so it seems like maybe we wiped most of them out last year. Either that or the rest are still asleep.
So with that little introduction... the other night I was getting ready for bed, and I hear Waxor on the stairs.
"Jessica... Jessica, come here."
I go out and behold a truly remarkable sight - Waxor is standing on the landing of our stairs, facing off against a itsy bitsy teeny tiny mouse.
"Go get something for me to catch it."
So, I go to attempt to get something, but before I get back Waxor has captured the little bugger in our frog vase.
"What do we do with it?"
Both of us stare at one another. We realize that the smart thing to do would be to kill it. We've been killing mice for a while now, and we know we can't just let it go. On the other hand...
"I don't think I can kill it in cold blood."
"Yeah, me either."
So we put it in a large plastic box, give it some cheerios, put in an egg crate it can hide under, and plan on figuring out what to do in the morning. It is at this point that I make a serious mistake.
"Let's call him Tibbers."
Never, ever, ever, ever name an animal if you don't want to keep it. That's all I'm saying.
So, the next day the kids and I go get an aquarium and soft wood chips and a water bottle and set Tibbers up in his cage. But wait, you say, I thought you said "pair" of mice.
Oh I did.
That night I am going upstairs to get ready for bed. Same time, same place, and low and behold, there is ANOTHER MOUSE. Having worked so well as a mouse catcher before I once again utilize our handy frog vase to catch this one, and then I take it over and put it in the cage with Tibbers.
We're calling mouse #2 Nibbler.
So now we have two mice. They like each other, so they aren't both boys. We're hoping they're both girls. Otherwise, we will shortly have MORE than two mice, and I don't know what we'll do with them all. They really are adorable, though. I know, I know, some of your really hate rodents. Fine and dandy, but these guys are cute.
Speaking of cute... yesterday Charlotte was playing with one of Elliot's rain boots. She had her pacifier in her mouth, and the boot in both hands, and it seemed like she was trying to stick her hands down the boot, but that requires a bit more coordination than you might originally anticipate if you are sitting on the floor and shorter than the boot, and therefore cannot just stick your hand straight down in. Anyway, she was working at if for a while, and I couldn't figure out why the boot was holding her attention so well, when all of a sudden she succeeded and pulled two MORE pacifiers out of the boot! It was like a baby magic trick, and she was soooooo proud of herself.
Recently I sent a short email to just a few people which I began and ended with the announcement that my husband is a douche. Now, this was a joke, as he had done something monumentally silly, but it drew my attention to the fact that I am frequently derogatory of him in jest, and I wish to make sort of a public apology. The truth is that Waxor is a wonderfully patient and loving person. It cannot be easy to live with someone like me, "someone like me" being an individual whose hormones drive her moods to rival the inconstancy of the moon (no, not incontinency, inconstancy. Go read Shakespeare, you goob.) It isn't even easy living with me when you ARE me, and let's face it, I am pretty understanding of myself when I'm being an ass. So, to sum up, my husband is NOT a douche, he is, in fact, a lovely man, and I appreciate his vast capacity to deal with my BS.
On another topic, Charlotte is currently painting my toes with the cream cheese off her matzah.
I've been in a state of internal upheaval these past few months. For those of you that don't know, I had post partum thyroiditis, which is a fancy way of saying that my thyroid went through a hyperactive stage and then a suppressed stage after I had Charlotte. The hyperactive stage was great, I felt awesome; but the suppressed stage kinda sucked. I had low energy and felt like the world was ending. The thyroiditis is cleared up now, but my hormones have been in some kinda hideous wacky flux - I went to my midwives and they were like "yeah, if you start bleeding cups an hour then go to the hospital, otherwise, it'll clear up." The physical symptoms of that aren't that bad to deal with, but the mood swings - yikes. Anyway, like I said, internal upheaval. This has all coincided with my least favorite part of the year, aka, spring that is still really winter, cause it's so damn cold, and with Elliot deciding perhaps it's time he got into the "mommy I love you so much that I must be with you every second of every day and oh by the way if you don't do exactly what I want when I want it I will scream at you for hours on end" game. It's not a fun game. It's more like a game that makes you want to run into the road and get hit by a car.
So a few days ago I was ruminating on PPD (that's post partum depression, for those of you who don't already know that) because Kay was down here last week and observed that I was sort of hiding from my children, and mentioned that she thought I might have it. PPD, that is. So I was thinking about that. One of the things they always tell you to look for is the urge to hurt yourself or your children. I was watching Elliot working his way towards a full blown tantrum and thought "Show me a mother of a three year old who hasn't wanted to slap the shit out of the little fucker at least once, and I'll show you a friggin saint." It's true, no? So how do you TELL if you've got PPD or are just a normal person with a limit to your patience? Maybe it's all in the level of intent. As long as you're just thinking about it randomly, sort of in a "wouldn't it be nice if I could" kind of way you're fine? As for the hurting yourself - I don't think about hurting myself, that would HURT. I do daydream about winding up in the hospital for something temporarily serious, though, so that I can have a few days to myself. I keep trying to come up with something that would require hospitalization but wouldn't require me to have a lengthy convalescence at home. I mean, yeah, a broken leg might put me in the hospital for day or so, but then I'd be home with the kids AND a broken leg. No, I need something serious but immediately reversible. I'm thinking appendicitis. Quick surgery, a few days of peace, and then home again with a new scar and a well rested psyche.
What does that say about a person that they think emergency surgery sounds restful?
On the upside, the weather here is improving. This might sound like a minor thing, but it isn't. It means the kids spend time outside everyday - making them both happier and more content, not to mention allowing them to sleep better at night. I get to open my windows, which makes me feel less trapped in the house, even on days when I don't go anywhere. And I get to wear my sundresses. I love my sundresses. A day in a sundress is always just a little better than a day in pants, even if the exact same things occur. Sundresses MAKE it better. If I just had a friggen bonnet I could be cheerful all the time.
Yesterday we spent a couple hours outside. Elliot repeatedly buried and then excavated his green rubber duck. Charlotte discovered a specialized mix of peat moss and fertilizer and moisture holding pellets, formulated as prime seed starting mix, and left outside in our last rainfall. So... dirt. And then she ate it. I let her. She was so happy. And dirty. Then she clapped her little hands and held them out in the imperious manner she has which indicates she is ready to be held. I laughed at her naivete and carried her at arms length to the tub, where I immersed her completely in warm water until most of the dirt parted ways with her body. She loved it.
I'm'a go ahead and send this now. Surely I've forgotten something I was going to say, but then, that gives you something to await with baited breath,doesn't it?
April 13th, 2011
So the other day, Elliot accosts me in the bathroom.
"Mommy, what are you doing?"
"Shaving my bits." (Oh yeah, you're all like TMI, TMI! But really, it's not that bad, and it's integral to the story. Just suck it up.)
"What does bits do, Mommy?"
"Well, when you're an adult they grow hair."
"They grow hair?"
"Yup."
"Are you shaving your penis, Mommy?"
"No, honey, Mommy doesn't have a penis. Boys bits are penises. What I have is called a Vagina."
"A Jina?"
"Close enough."
"But what does bits do Mommy?"
"Well, they grow hair. And also, when you're an adult, you can use them to have sex, and make a baby."
"What does Jinas do, Mommy?
"Well, like I said, they grow hair, and they have sex, and then babies come out of them when they're born. You and Charlotte both came out of my Vagina."
(at this point Elliot looks skeptically at this particular portion of my anatomy)
"But, how does the baby get in there, Mommy?"
"Well, when your an adult and you're ready to have a baby, a man puts his penis in a woman's vagina, and thewoman has part of the baby, and the man has part of the baby, and the parts go together and a baby grows out of them, and when the baby is done baking, it comes out the woman's vagina."
"The parts go together?"
"Yup. They're very tiny. Like when we plant seeds in Mommy's garden and the plants grow from the seeds. Theseeds are very tiny and they grow big plants, and the parts of the baby inside Mommy and Daddy are very small, and they grow babies. Sometimes."
"Bits grow hair?"
"Yup."
Colossal sigh and shrug
"What next?"
Later he tells his Yaya the following information: Babies grow like seeds in gardens. The parts go together and then they bake and come out Jinas. And when you're into adult, bits grow hair.
:)
Since I've related a conversation with Elliot, it seems only fair to do the same for Charlotte.
"Hi Miss Cha Chizzle."
"Bleeeerrrrrrraah."
"Really?
"
"Okay, hold your horses, I need coffee first."
"ANGAH angah ANGAH!"
"I don't actually think your head will explode in the time it takes me to pour my coffee."
"
"Or, I could be wrong."
Okay, so, seriously, I'm only sending this email out because someone mentioned to be that it had been ages since I sent any pictures of Charlotte. And I have a ton and will post them to the internets soon, but, in themeantime, here are pictures of both my charming children. :)
The stories are just an added bonus.
April 12th, 2011
Note to blog readers: for some reason I can't make it stop highlighting the word "the." Sorry
Of course, it isn't really like that.
Nursing is an interactive event. Sure, you might get a few days of soothing bliss right after your baby comes. Those are the same few days that you get in which you think (foolish you) "Gee, my baby just sleeps all night!" It's before your baby really wakes up, see. They haven't realized yet that they've joined the world. Once that realization hits they wake the HIZZY up, and along with that comes your introduction (or, sometimes, REintroduction) to the sport of competitive nursing.
First of all, babies do not, I repeat, do NOT come with a GPS locator that tells them where your nipple is. Recently Charlotte's preferred method of finding my nipple is to ignore it completely, and instead attempt to dive headfirst into my armpit. I don't know who told her there was breast milk to be found there, but whoever it was should be found and shot. Anyway, where ever YOUR baby thinks your nipple is, be it shoulder, armpit, or naval, you will find yourself wrestling with your baby to get them back to breast level. Once you've got them correctly located you will, of course, have to let go of them in order to grab your boob and steer it into their gaping maw. And, once you let go of them, they're going to dive right back into your armpit. Or naval. Whatever.
Let's say you actually get them latched on. Hooray! They're gonna let go. That's right, as soon as they get thebeloved nipple they have been so arduously spelunking for they are going to spit it out. Why? Well, because you haven't actually had let down yet (aside for all the non-nursers out there - let down is when all the water in your body suddenly rushes into your boobs, rendering the stored milk fats therein drinkable, and rendering you, thenurser, totally thirsty. Babies can't get much out until let down occurs) so they think you've given them the wrong nipple.
"Not THIS one, Mom!" They say in their tiny baby minds "THIS one doesn't have any milk in it. If you would just give me that one in your ARMPIT I could get somewhere!"
So you stick your nipple back in, because, after all, it is the baby sucking on said nipple that causes let down to occur (unless you're in public with no breast shields, then EVERYTHING causes let down to occur, thus soakingthe front of your shirt.) But your baby is disgusted with you.
"MOOOOOOOOOOOOM. I SAID that there's not MILK in this one. Knock it off!"
You, being an idiot, start to reason with your baby, who cannot speak English, only tiny baby Gurgles.
"Sweetie, I know you're hungry, if you'll just stay on there a minute the milk will come out."
"Bleghcrassssssssspth."
Which means "You can't fool me lady. Stick me back in that armpit."
Sigh.
If you're unlucky let down will take so long that your offspring will begin shrieking in rage at you. Then, when all of a sudden your boob starts squirting out milk, the poor thing will drown. It sounds roughly like this.
"AAAAHHHHHHH!"
"Baby, just latch on."
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
"Sweetie, I promise the milk is coming."
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"Let me just stick this right back in there for you."
"
Perhaps what you should take away from this is that nursing is rarely calm, advertisements lie, and babies are dumb.
****
My back has been giving me trouble recently. Those of you who have known me as an adult are probably thinking that this isn't really news, but my recent back issues are more than my typical gripe. I seem to have overstretched or under flexed or wickey wonkied my lower back somehow with all the lugging about of small children that I've been doing. It's getting worse and worse, and now it's to the point where I can't stand up without taking 15 seconds and forcing my back to go fully upright. It's like my back is about 80 years old. ANyway, Wednesday I have an appointment with a chiropractor, who I hope will tell me something like "The only way to fix this is for you to go to Greece for a month" but is far more likely to tell me something like "I'll realign you, and then you really need to spend less time lugging kids around." Keep you fingers crossed for the greece thing, though.
Fast forward like, a month. Hey, I've been busy. Turns out it WASN'T Greece and it WAS more serious - I really messed myself up sneezing in the wrong position, and I've been to the Chiropractor about 15 times in the past four weeks trying to get everything straightened back out again.
************
Sometimes I look at Charlotte sleeping in my arms, and I think how comfortable it must be to be a baby and have a mommy. As we grow older mommies are still good - after all, we love them and they love us - but no longer can they fix every ill in the world. Eventually we become sufficient unto ourselves, and our mommies are sad but proud that we don't even truly need them anymore. But as a baby - how awesome to have a mommy. Mommy fixes everything. Mommy makes all the hurts better. Mommy comforts, consoles, and brings joy.
Of course, Mommy also straps you into the car seat and leaves you there to suffer, but that is beside the point.
***************
ZOMG!!!! I started this email in October of last year. Now it's January. I knew I would be busy of the holidays, but this is a little re-donk-ulous, isn't it?
I'm feeling a little guilty about my lack of emailage. Not because of you guys - after all, most of you never write me, so I only think it's fair when I don't write you back. :) No, I feel guilty because of the perponderance of email I sent out detailing Elliot's little advances, and I haven't been good about doing the same for Charlotte. I keep imagining conversations with my daughter when she's in her teens, in which I hand each of them a stack of print-outs, and Elliot's is several inches thick and Charlotte's is four sheets of paper, and she looks at me and says "What the HELL!?" and I say "Sweetie, you gotta understand, two is a lot harder than one. Less alone time on thecomputer." and she looks at me in disgust and slams the door to her room and turns the stereo up to manslaughter and I go have a glass of wine.
Of course, if she doesn't do it about the emails she's bound to do it about something else, so there's not much point in worrying, is there?
******************************
Alright, this is getting ridiculous. It's now April I haven't sent one of these out in, like, 8 months. So, real quick, before I get distracted again, here are the familial updates:
Charlotte is a crawling, standing, cruising, shrieking velociraptor of wonder these days. She very happy, very energetic, very on course developmentally, and very, very loud. Takes after her mommy like that. She's adorable, and she has some of her own made up signs that morph depending on what is most important to her atthe moment, but I understand her so that's okay. She gets into everything, and I fear for the day she figures out how to climb stairs. She adores her big brother - he is the light in her universe and the joy in her daily life. She chooses to express this adoration by pestering him no end, wrecking all his train tracks, and shrieking at the top of her lungs if he refuses to grant her the attention she so obviously deserves. :)
Elliot is a little delicate these days. He loves his "baby sister, Miss Charlotte" but he fiercely resents the fact that Miss Charlotte gets carried and he has to walk like a big boy. He mostly didn't want to be carried, or held for long periods of time, or snuggled with during the day, before Charlotte was born. Now it seems like every time I sit down I have one baby and one toddler attempting to turn me into the world's crankiest bean bag. I feel compassion for him, but somehow that doesn't keep me from wanting to tear my hair out every time I hear "Mommy, pick me up, put Miss Charlotte down and Pick ME UP!"
Aside from his realization that he is not the center of the Universe, and his ensuing crisis of faith in Mommy's love, Elliot is doing well. He's bright and creative and really super cute. Also a pain the butt, but that kinda goes with being a three year old. Good days are the days when he is less of a pain then he is adorable, but I will tell you frankly, not all days are good days.
Waxor and I are both doing really well, within certain strictures. I've had some health problems, mostly related to being post partum. We're both having some tired issues, mostly due to having children. Aside from those two very significant things we're great, though. We're mostly handling the crazy 3 year old issues well, as well as theshrieking velociraptor. We've got games to play and friends to hang with and places to go often enough that we don't go stir crazy, but not so often that we never get to be home. All in all life is just fine.
I hope everything is fine with all of you, and I seriously would type more, but Elliot is throwing a fit about going outside and Charlotte is pointing to her mouth and Waxor just took off upstairs (like a coward. :)) Gotta go. Hopefully it won't be 8 months before I send another one.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Per request
Waxor inspired me this morning, so I'm sharing. Just imagine my Kermit voice:
"Why are there so many quests about Murlocs?
It's like they're a master race
I'm really not kidding, you can search every quest zone
They're fucking all over the place
I've killed them too many times to start counting
And still there are millions more
Someday we'll find it, the Murloc Connection
Just what are the bastards for?"
"The chorus of gurggles, first heralds the danger
And then they will swarm like flies
Kill them, then loot them, and then comes confusion
Why don't they all have two eyes?
Each little fucker has twelve goddamn clams
And I've got to open each one.
The Murloc Connection means they're everywhere
But killing 'em ain't no fun"
"Ladeeladeedadadum We know that they're all homiciiiiiiiidaaaaaaaal"
"Who says that Murlocs get bigger and stronger
As I make my way through zones?
Someday we'll see one, a Murloc End Raid Boss
Whose gurggles will make you moan
Colossal and evil with eyes that shoot lasers
Enslaving our pets to his will
The Murloc Connection, is just Mega-Murky
A fucking impossible kill."
"He's gonna swallow the world, da da da da da deee da duuuuummmmmmm."
"Why are there so many quests about Murlocs?
It's like they're a master race
I'm really not kidding, you can search every quest zone
They're fucking all over the place
I've killed them too many times to start counting
And still there are millions more
Someday we'll find it, the Murloc Connection
Just what are the bastards for?"
"The chorus of gurggles, first heralds the danger
And then they will swarm like flies
Kill them, then loot them, and then comes confusion
Why don't they all have two eyes?
Each little fucker has twelve goddamn clams
And I've got to open each one.
The Murloc Connection means they're everywhere
But killing 'em ain't no fun"
"Ladeeladeedadadum We know that they're all homiciiiiiiiidaaaaaaaal"
"Who says that Murlocs get bigger and stronger
As I make my way through zones?
Someday we'll see one, a Murloc End Raid Boss
Whose gurggles will make you moan
Colossal and evil with eyes that shoot lasers
Enslaving our pets to his will
The Murloc Connection, is just Mega-Murky
A fucking impossible kill."
"He's gonna swallow the world, da da da da da deee da duuuuummmmmmm."
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