Then all hell broke loose.
It
started with a toy. Of course, right? There's this train track. Not a
TRAIN, mind you, just the V-tech track that it runs on. We got it at
the Salvation Army a few weeks ago. The track has the alphabet on it
and you can play four or five different learning games on it. Great
toy, right?
WRONG!
See, the kids love
it. BOTH kids love it. So I pretty much treat it on a first come,
first serve basis, meaning that they have to share, but whoever started
playing with it first has right of way.
So this morning Charlotte was happily pushing
buttons ("V! This is the letter V! Very good!) when Elliot decided
that he was having none of this. Have I mentioned the toy folds up? So
he starts trying to fold the train track, with his sister inside it.
This does not turn out well.
"Elliot, stop trying to fold up your sister."
"NO!"
"Eya! Eya! Holp!"
"Charlotte, I am
helping. Elliot, I am going to count to three, and if you do not leave
your sister alone I am going to put you in time out, do you
understand?"
"I will not listen to you anymore because you're saying som'fin I don't like!"
"Nonononnnnnnnooooooo EYYYYYYAAAA!"
"One."
"I did not hear you, you stop!"
"Holp! Holp! Nonono!"
"Two."
"STOP SAYING THAT!"
"EEEEEEYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAA!"
"Three."
Boy is separated from sister. Boy is placed on stairs. Mother looks sternly at boy.
"You are in time out."
Boy starts to get off stairs
"Elliot, you better put your butt back on those stairs, or you are going to your room for time out, and I will SHUT the DOOR."
Boy sits back on stairs.
Charlotte
and I go back to what we are doing. In Charlotte's case this means
pushing the buttons. As Elliot sees Charlotte still playing with the
toy in question he begins shrieking at a volume that is only slightly
less than that which might possibly rupture eardrums and cause pregnant
women to spontaneous begin labor.
"
Pause for breath.
"--
I
calmly get up, go over to the stairs, and hoist my screaming son into
the air. About this time he realizes he has made a tactical error.
"No! No! I want to be with you! I want to be WITH YOU! Put me down! Put me back! You put me back right now! LISTEN TO ME!"
I
deposit my son on his bed, walk out, shut the door, and tie it shut
with my bathrobe tie. My bathrobe tie has been PERMANENTLY appropriated
for this usage, because otherwise I have to stand there and hold the
door shut. And Been? I was wrong, all those many years ago. It DOES
take more than once.
I go back downstairs and try to do dishes.
Charlotte, having forgotten that she's mad at Elliot, hears one of his
more pitiful screams;
"I'm firsty! I need my milk! I'm so firsty!"
So, being a sweet little girl, she goes and gets her
brother's cup of milk and carries it up the stairs to him. Upon
reaching the top of the stairs and discovering that she cannot complete
her delivery she, too, begins crying.
"Eya! Molk, Molk! EYA MOLK!"
Reality rarely mimics the movies, but I do, on occasion, actually beat my head against solid objects. It is oddly comforting.
I fetch the girl. I distract her (via a clever application of the jack-in-the-box that is actually a monkey.)
"Nomkey!"
I go upstairs. I open the door on my no-longer-screaming-but-still-
"Youdidn'
"Elliot, you are not to scream at me like that."
"I *sob* was *sob* screamin' *sob* cause you wasn't LISSENIN!"
"I wasn't listening because you were in time out."
"I didn't want to be in time out."
"I know, but you didn't listen when I told you to leave Charlotte alone."
"SHE WAS MESSIN WITH MY TRAIN!"
"No, she was playing with the train. You were messing with HER."
Thoughtful pause.
"But I'm so firsty."
"Would you like to come downstairs and get some milk?"
"Yes, but I need you to carry me."
"I don't think so, buddy. You can walk downstairs on your own."
"I cannot, I'm so tired."
"Then you're going to be up here a long time."
Do I really need to tell you what happens next? If you guessed "Elliot begins wailing again" then you are correct!
Wash, rinse, repeat. No, I am not kidding. We went
through almost exactly the same scenario a complete second time, with
the only real variant being that the second time I actually took the
train and put it away, and almost everything went faster, because he'd
expended so much energy pitching a fit the first time he didn't have the
stamina for the second go round.
***
Today is
Monday. Monday, November 21st. In case anyone has missed this, that
means it is the Monday BEFORE Thanksgiving. I have, thus far, received 4
emails from companies advising me that "Black Friday Deals Start Now!"
WTH?
I'm sorry, Mr or Ms
Email Person for Old Navy/Target/Amazon/Ebay/Etc. What you mean to say
is "Okay, we all realize that black Friday is completely arbitrary, and
only a giant shopping day because so many people have the day off from
work. We ALSO realize that if you're getting this email you are likely a
troll who does all your shopping late at night online, and don't care
if sales are high, you're still not going out in that madness. Since
that's the case, we would like the opportunity to secure your holiday
dollars for ourselves, rather than our competitors. Please come spend
your money with us, and we will pretend it has something to do with
Turkeys."
Turkies?
Turkii?
TURDUCKEN!!!!!!
I love turducken. Anyone who does not is either crazy or a vegetarian.
(Lil side note: I even know vegetarians who like turducken. It's hard not to like.)
***
Charlotte
adores baby dolls. I mean, she loves them with a passion. Elliot
likes them, too, but he no longer LOVES them (although he did.) Anyway,
when we go shopping ANYWHERE the kids always want to cruise the toy
aisle, and, being a fairly magnanimous dictator, I generally allow them
to do this. We hit the vehicles ("Oh look, there's THOMAS!"), we coast
on by the expensive V-tech stuff ("Mommy, can I have my own computer?"),
we take a gander at the stuffed animals ("It's a cat!" "Mee-yow!
Mee-yow!"), and inevitably we come to the doll aisle.
"BAY-BEEEEEEEEEE!"
It's
like her little head explodes. Elliot will generally point out to me
the more activity oriented dolls (like the Strawberry Shortcake who
comes with a color change dress and a little spinning platform you can
spin her on. He spins that sucker like mad, and I can't help but feel
bad for the little red-headed piece of plastic.) but Charlotte goes
straight for the baby dolls. Doesn't matter how realistic or what it's
intended to do, she loves it.
This obsession of hers has led me to many long minutes in the doll aisle, and I've come up with a few questions.
Why
do they make drink and wet dolls? No one thinks it's fun to change a
baby's diaper, why do we assume that a little kid will want to do so?
Also, why on earth would we give a child who may, or may not be potty
trained ANOTHER way to pee on the floor?
Has anyone told the people who make those babies that laugh spontaneously when they sense motion that their dolls are CREEPY?!
Why do dolls only come in caucasian and caucasian-painted-brown?
Why do they bother selling outfits for dolls that
are intended for children under the age of 4? The kid is just gonna
strip the baby naked and never dress it again, first chance they get.
If I spend long enough in the toy section I get the urge to
go home and throw all the kids toys away. I feel like they could have
more fun and get more out of some cooking lessons, or being taught the
practical applications of geometry.
***
I
took an IQ test on my phone the other day. It was fascinating. The
questions could be divided firmly into two sections - most of them went
into the "whether I answer this correctly or not, I understand the
pattern/logic they are asking me to apply" catagory, but a few went into
the "whaaaaa? Where's the pattern?" catagory. I wish I could go back
and look at the exact same test again, and show it to some other
people, and see if they can identify the pattern for me.
They were invariably the kind where they showed you
pictures set up in a square, and a question mark in one of the slots,
and you were supposed to identify the picture that needed to go there.
It's not that TYPE of problem that I can't answer, a number of them
were fairly simple. But some of them were... really weird. At least,
to my own personal brain's way of thinking. I just could not find a
pattern.
***
Do you
believe in random psychic (for want of a better word) STUFF? I was just
putting Elliot to bed, and he was lying there and I was playing sudoku
on my phone, and all of a sudden I got this really strong impression of
one of my friends, like he was there, with me. Anyone find this weird?
Plausible? An excellent plot for my next book? Speak up.
Speaking of my book... I have gotten to THE scene.
The scene in which our hero and heroine, in all their youthful joy and
blooming innocence, finally, at last, after much soul searching
_get_it_on_.
I am somewhat at a loss. They are in a wood. In the middle of winter. See what I'm saying? It's COLD, people.
There's
something DISTINCTLY non-romantic about saying "she shivered and pulled
the fur back over her shoulder, squealing at winter's bite on her
tender skin."
It just doesn't evoke that head over heels FEELING.
Commentary is invited. Unless it's snarky. If it's snarky, you have to take a number.
***
So, since this is likely the Thanksgiving edition for the year, I should say something thanksgivey, right?
Hmmm... There's a hymn we sang recently, it goes like this:
For the beauty of the earth
For the beauty of the skies
For the love, which from our birth
Over and around us lies
That covers it, doesn't it? For these things, we are thankful. For the beauty, for the love, for that which graces our life with generosity and strength and truth, we give thanks.
Also for flowers that bloom unexpectedly in winter
And for good dance music.
For anything that makes your blood beat faster
And for the exhilaration you feel when you make an impossible jump.
For scents that remind you of every good time you've ever had
And the laughter that went with those times.
For the hard times
Those moments that bring us back to ourselves no matter how far we have strayed.
For all this and more, our lives in their completeness
We give thanks to the universe, to whatever else might be out there, and to the people who share our lives with us.
And on that note.... Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all.
You'll likely hear from me once more in December, and then, holy
bejeezum crow, it's gonna be 2012 and a whole new year. Which means
we'll be headed into Year Four of the Life In The Slow Lane Cycle: Year of Changes.
(power of positive thinking. don't be a downer. go with me on this one.)
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