P's & Eeews

Contrary to my last post, we are enjoying a bit of Indian Summer. I'm savoring these last few sunny, long shadowed afternoons--riding bikes, climbing, swinging, peeing...yes, peeing. It happens everywhere these days. Bear just finished his first week being diaper free and he's doing great! He always tells me when he has to go: right after I strap him into his car seat, or in the shopping cart, or as we enter the playground. Never before an activity, always during.

There’s a multitude of things I had no clue about before children, poop and pee are two of them. Especially how much more of it there is now that they're out of diapers. When I excitedly bought the sweet little potty chair at Target, all I heard was the siren song of "potty trained". However, between diapers and potty trained there's a lot of pee: on carpet, in the pants, not to mention the dumping, splashing and cleaning of that sweet little potty chair; and when your kids decide to help by carrying it to the toilet (more splashing, more rinsing, more carpet cleaning). Then there's the poop: in the pants, on the hands, on the floor (when it falls out of the underpants they've removed cause they're ‘poopy’). I can only be grateful they've never painted the walls with it.

My "aha" moment was when Boo yelled, "Mama! Poop on the table!" and I realized that I wasn't even phased to see little brown nuggets on the coffee table. (Future houseguests: I do sanitize things, usually before you arrive.)

In spite of my griping, I’m so happy that we’re moving out diapers and into our next phase. These kids move forward so quickly, I know all of this poop & pee will soon become a distant memory. But I may never want any yellow or brown in our home décor again.

A Reluctant Welcome

The first day of Fall. We're enjoying an Indian Summer, an entire one day of it. No worries, I'm not feeling as bad as this song suggests, but I thought some of the lyrics here were fitting for an Autumn that is here too soon.

(Artist: Hawksley Workman. I heard this on "The Vinyl Cafe" last weekend and was struck by his real-ness.)

I'm sorry that I haven't posted much lately, I'm currently bogged down with a volunteer project that is consuming every evening. I actually added a new label called "Volunteering" since I'm sure I'll be writing more on the topic, but I'm thinking that maybe I should have called it "Overcommitting" or "Sucka".

WORD

This morning I received a text from a friend asking what "word" means. No, I don't mean the actual word "word". I mean the slang term "word".

I told her I thought it meant..."ya, I know what you mean" a term of agreement. The truth is, I"m only guessing based on my obsessive viewing of "The Wire", where "word" and "true dat" and "mothaf***er" are mumbled every 10 seconds or so.

"Oh, god am I totally old that I don't know what this means?" she texted. "What's worse, is he's my age!" I mentioned this to M and he said "Word, bullshit, that's not a slang". For the record, so all of us over 40 can keep up, here is the official "googled" definition of WORD


Word: It is short for saying "you have my word". Instead of saying "you have my word" you simply say "word."
For example: "I did not check out that girl. You have my word." instead you would say, "I did not check out that girl. Word."

It is the absolute truth, the authoritative word. "What you are saying is absolutely true."

My First Best Friend

This week I received a Facebook 'friend' request from a girl who was my absolute bestest friend in grade school. Her initial message was really an inquiry....asking my maiden name, did I go to St. B's, etc... I was so excited to hear from her that I immediately responded with a lengthy, two paragraph email, giving her the highlights of my life. (As if you can do that in two paragraphs and email emoticons.)

We enjoyed years of young girl best friendness: sleep overs, passing notes, prank calls, imitating Ann & Nancy Wilson (you know, the band Heart), Disco roller skating, swooning over the Bay City Rollers and writing screenplays with 70s celebs like John Travolta and Leif Garrett. As we grew older, our friendship was occasionally challenged: she made out with a guy I had a crush on for over a year, but it turned out OK since I got together with a guy I had a crush on during the years before that. (Ahem, small school, you couldn't be too choosy)

We broke off our friendship in ninth grade, she stayed on the straight and narrow and I became a party girl (not necessarily a good thing). When I think back now to our last fight, I can't even remember the details of what happened. I only remember her pain, yelling how much she had trusted me, and my adolescent way of shrugging it off while dying inside. I almost want to ask her what she remembers...but I'm chicken, since I was probably a total jerk.

We'll see what happens, she's already responded back to me,and I know I'll send her at least another paragraph or two. It's refreshing to actually get a meaningful email from someone on Facebook. And who knows? Maybe I'll even get the courage to ask her why we broke up, and maybe I'll share it, maybe not. ;-)

Moonlight Once More

I didn't exactly hate this tree, but I began resenting it...a lot. It blocked the sun in the morning, in the afternoon and even the moonlight. I would spend the day at work, anxious to come home and enjoy the sun, only to wind up freezing in our backyard. (Where we live, there are only a handful of days where shade feels good.) At first, M. & I talked about limbing it up, we didn't want to be rash and cut it down. But day after day, I watched the tree, it's long limbs reaching over our roof, stretching to the fenceline while our yard stayed deep in it's shadow. The idea grew in my mind...silently, guiltily. When a friend doing a backyard design for us asked, "How attached are you to that tree?", I nearly kissed him. So as the day approached, I felt some guilt, but I was excited. Finally, some sun! But I never expected it to be such a carnage. I have to admit, as I watched the poor tree denuded and it's limbs fed into the grinding maw of the chipper I wondered if we made the right decision.



Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see the kids’ reaction when they came home, but M. did. They were shocked and upset. They wondered why the 'tree broke'. So, in the tradition of parenthood, I made up a story about how the tree was old so we had to take it down. Then I told them about all the flowers and veggies we'll grow in our garden next year while I watched the twilight moon rise through the window. It's so nice to have moonlight again.

Transition to Normal

8:59 p.m. Six minutes since I left my kids room and Bear is still crying. Ugh. I shouldn't even be posting right now. I really need to be ordering electricity for our booth at an upcoming trade show next week. But here I am.

9:08 p.m. Went up, soothed him, but now he's at it again.

We've had three weeks of houseguests, beloved houseguests, but nonetheless we're feeling the transition back to our regular routine. We've all gotten used to staying up & sleeping a bit later, but now it's back to work. Our ten year old granddaughter came up, so I was able to hear the newest Black Eyed Peas cd (20 times), see the third Twilight movie, Eclipse at the drive in, hear all about Jacob (lovesick werewolf in aforementioned vampire movie) and see way too much of the Disney channel (the scariest of all). M & I also enjoyed the wonderful treat of spending four days together alone at the ocean, thanks to my sister, who watched the kids for us. It's amazing how much your kids change just after four days. Bear is talking in sentences, and can add a forlorn "Mommmmmmyyyyyy" to his cries, like right now. Boo has increased her already large vocab by giving answers like "of course" and "not quite yet, Mommy".

9:30 p.m. OK, I went up again, calmed him down by standing at the door for a few minutes. I hate hearing him cry.

Summer is winding down so quickly, I suppose it's so much more bittersweet since the real summer heat is just starting to kick in. If we're lucky it will last for a few days. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm rather excited for Fall. The kids will attend a brand new Montessori school (started by our wonderful caregiver)and we'll have a whole new schedule. If only the summer weather would stay for a bit longer, and my son would stop crying.

9:39 p.m. It's finally quiet. Whew.

Some Days, You Just Need a Tutu