May 25th, 2011

HEY!  Those of you who actually follow this on the blog, I've been sadly remiss in posting the new ones.  Sorry.  Check the Title for when I originally wrote the emails.

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Charlotte is a babbler.  Happy or sad, there is constantly some kinda noise coming outta that child.  All of you sniggering and making remarks about acorns and the distance from their parent trees, or chips and their respective blocks can bite it.  Elliot, too, is a bit of a noise maker these days, as he has discovered singing, and in almost all moments where he is not actively listening to something (music, TV, the sound of my mind slowly leaking away) he is singing.  See previous statement regarding biting it.  Anyway, his songs tend to be either (a) the music I listen to or (b) his own original compositions.  The stuff I listen to comes out both adorable and hilarious (a three year old doing his own personal rendition of Baby Got Back is pretty funny) but the stuff he composes on his own, quite naturally, comes out in a range that is suitable for HIS voice.  Which is high pitched.  And piping.  It sounds like I've got castrated owls forming a glee club in my kitchen, sometimes.

Today in the bath Waxor and I were tag teaming Elliot's questions.  Elliot has reached the "why" stage of development, so occasionally it takes not only two, but three or more adults just to satisfy his curiosity.  Elliot spies some dirty wipes in the trash, and announces unto us:

"Oh look, they have shit on them!"

Waxor goes with "Elliot, shit isn't a nice word."

"No," say I, "it's a special occasion word."

In again comes Waxor "If you want to say it nicely say 'poop'."

"But Daddy," replies our most precocious son, "poop IS shit."

Out of the mouths of babes.

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I'm gonna do something totally declasse here, so please, forgive me.  I am about to talk about - my weight.  I been losin' a liiiiiiddle bit of weight this past year.  Right after Charlotte was born I topped out at just under 200 lbs.  Now, I am short, people.  I am not statuesque, regal, or amazonian, I am SHORT.  And 200 lbs is an AWFUL lot of poundage on me.  My girl will be turning one in just a few weeks, and this morning the scale stopped at 152 lbs.  I'm pretty happy with that.  Now, here's my point - LAST time I weighed 152 lbs (not counting when I was gaining weight with Elliot, just when I was that weight normally) I was massively unhappy about it.  To be fair, this time, due to all the baby toting, my 152 has a great deal more muscle in it, but still.  I was looking at some old pictures, and I realized that, except for three or four years in my late teens, I have always considered myself to be overweight.  How stupid was I?  I was never happy with how I looked, even when I was perfectly cute and adorable.  Now, from the other end of the scale, I wonder how much time I wasted being discontent over nothing.

I still have some 20 pounds to go, but I will get there when I get there, and I have decided, from this moment on, not to stress about it.  I figure some day, when I'm lying in bed wishing my hip didn't need to be replaced, I will realize I was stupid for ever being discontent with my perfectly healthy, functioning body.   Even if it did look funky in a bathing suit.

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On a similar note... Zanne and i were discussing Kirstie Alley a few days ago.  She's on Dancing With the Stars this season, and I, at least, am rooting for her, but this week she was having some serious problems because she' not eating enough.  She told the camera "I just forgot to eat"  but we were talking about how that's just code, among dieters, for, "I choose not to eat, because I am trying to lose weight, but that is frowned on so I just say I forgot." and I think I said something along the lines of "Forget to eat, I NEVER forget to eat."

Of course, me and my big mouth, the next day I actually forgot to eat.  Put on your mournful face, this is a story of great woe.  See, I got up in the morning, fed the kids, got Charlotte down for her nap, grudgingly ate my breakfast (really, I dislike breakfast intensely, unless it takes place at 10:30 and involves Champagne), did some work, Charlotte woke up, I fed the kids, and we headed out to run our errands.  It was, at that time, a little after 11, and I didn't even think of eating.  I wasn't hungry, and we had a library to visit, so out we went.  Alas, after we left the library I remembered I needed to go cancel my YMCA membership, so I dropped by to do that, and then Elliot was so distraught that we were leaving the Y, so I decided to take him to playground so he could have some fun.  It was around 1:30 when we got to the playground, and I suddenly realized that my stomach was eating itself.  A quick check of the diaper bag made it clear - I had no snacks.  But we had JUST gotten to the playground, and I wasn't dragging the kids away from that.  I checked again.  Aha!  A cheese stick!  Salvation!  Then Charlotte spied my cheese stick.  Ladies and gentlemen, I tell you truly, if I must choose between being hungry or having my daughter hungry I will go hungry every time.  This is not altruism, this is self preservation.  Charlotte, hungry, is a thing best never experienced.  So Charlotte ate my cheese stick, and I sat there wondering how anyone, anywhere, could really forget to eat.  

AHM NOM NOM NOM.

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Elliot hates having his hair washed.  Hates it.  He hates water in his eyes, in his face, on his head, anywhere in any vicinity above his neck.  Yeah.  Waxor and I aren't super crazy washing people, but Elliot has a tendency to get really bad scabs on his head if we don't wash his scalp several times a week.  So, today, at his request, we shaved his head.  

I hear the agonized wails of the gradparents but really, he's cute no matter what.  And he's very happy that we can now clean his scalp with a wash cloth.

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The only thing more annoying than having to clean your whole house by yourself is having one other person helping you, when that person is a three year old.  Examples of Elliot helping me are as follows:

Waiting until I've bent down to pick up a toy and then snatching it and running off, shrieking "I'm helping, I'm helping" and then after making several laps of the living room throwing the toy in the general direction of the play area, without actually making it into any of the toy bins.

Grabbing his toy broom and taking my carefully gathered piles of dust and dog hair and sweeping them back out again.

Taking a dusting rag and running around the entire house, making sure to pass his sister ever 3.2 seconds, and each time yelling "Look out Miss Charlotte!" before assaulting her with the cloth.

Uh oh.  He just whacked her with something. Gotta go.