The Now

When your body clock clicks on and gives you dreams about motherhood,
the dream is never in the now.

Everything is always in a soft golden light,

and clean.

The truth is,

that you never dream about stumbling through the ever-filthy garage,
with the baby carrier clutched in your hands,
smashing your elbow on last years Christmas goods...
Wishing that you'd had time to put this mess right before having the wailing child...

But you did have time. You dreamed, you chose.
You were fully aware of your "now", you just never thought that the soft golden dreams were trying to trick you into organizational haste.

The truth is,

that you dreamed about the perfect nursery (in the golden haze),
and you had nine terrifying months to make that nursery the "now",
so you forgot about the garage, and picked the paint color for that nursery.
You forgot about the lawn, and picked the crib,
you forgot about the water heater,
and picked the paintings,
forgot about the GFCI,
and picked the bedding.
While the garage stagnates; the nursery is everything you imagined.

But you never dreamed about the time to come, when the cranky toddler loves Steve and Blue,
and wants creepy puppets scattered about the nursery and race car sheets and an extremely large hanging of an Owl--Whooo-Whooo,
gave this child his decorating sense?

But the truth is, that this, this acceptance is the shape that love takes; and that is the "Now".

Who's Who in the Family

T does not call me a name. He expects me to do his bidding without addressing me properly. This cannot continue.

I have been practicing with him. I point at him and say "T...". I point at myself and say "Mama"( I have even gone with the term "Mama" to make things easier for him). I take his hand and point at his chest and say "T..." and I take his hand and point at my chest and say "Mama".

One of these teaching methods did not work as expected.

In response to, "What's your name?", my son points at himself, cocks his head to the side confidently and says, in a high womanish (and slightly patronizing) voice that is exact mimicry of the "teaching" tone I use with him, "Ma-Ma".

The Diva at 5 months

Terribly Incriminating Evidence Just Revealed.

Click the photo to view a larger image.

Once upon a time, when Miss M was a tiny baby, she got a terrible infection and had to be hospitalized for 7 days. The cause of the infection was never found.

M's doctors reassured Mommy that it was NOT Mommy's fault and that Mommy should under no circumstances blame herself for the illness that had befallen her daughter.

Including, I am sure, the following circumstance.


Is that a pink pacifier in T's mouth?
Let us never speak of this again.

T's Tea Party (by F)

Set up Carefully. Etiquette is required.

Always give special attention to your guests.

Have DAD clean up. (No picture of that!)

Teach Your Children Well

Spring Soccer Schedule

J will be playing spring soccer. Games are on Saturdays. Shoot me an email if you want to know specific times and dates.

The Visit

The visit went well after all.

Here's Jill.

And Christina and M.

And T, saying, "Finally, I have someone intelligent to discourse with."

And M, lamenting, "Why, oh why, can't my hair be as good as Jill's? WHY?"

For the record, Christina and Jill are both equally intelligent and both have equally good hair. Darn them.

Mr. Crankypants

I have girlfriends coming over in a few hours and look (below) at who we will have to contend with.
Mr. Crankypants.
Seriously, T is not a happy camper today. He laid (lay?--Robin, help me with the grammar here...) down with a blanket and pillow in front of a t.v that was off and looked at me like, "Woman, turn this confounded machine on for me." So I did. And I am going about my business, without him, because there will be no pleasant interactions today. My friends will see him (below), Mr. Crankypants, and they will never want children.

This I Believe: 2

Similar to the NPR broadcasts only in title...

In this, a second in a series of posts, I am going to write about something that I believe to be true. It may be my mother told me that it was true; it may be that I read it on the Internet; it may be something that I saw with my own eyes, but somehow, somewhere, I've picked it up along the way. Dispute or support the reality, likelihood, or feasibility of it in your comments.

And No Fair researching the matter before you come to the table. That just wouldn't be as much fun.
I'm a librarian. I can find information on anything and twice, but I'd like to hear about your gut instinct.




This I believe:



I believe that spraying PAM into an already hot pan could cause an explosion of some sort. Now don't get me wrong here, I still do it on a weekly basis; but each time I do, I really fear that "this time it may be the last..."

I back off from the pan, turn my head away and do a kind of duck and cover. An explosion has never occurred, leading me to think that this belief may not be based in reality.

Lullabies--Addendum

Last night, prior to bed, T chose his own book again. He selected Lullabies, edited by Fiona Watt.
!

Lullabies, edited by Fiona Watt

It is with great sadness that I report I will no longer nightly sing T his Lullabies storybook that was given to him by his Godfather Mark.
F and I sang the songs from the book to T every night at West Cook street. When we moved, and F started to get home later than T's bedtime, I continued on, staying with the same melodies and sound effects that F had made up to go with the song lyrics.
However, I have recently noticed that T is no longer really enjoying it. Sure, he politely listens, and smiles at times, but he does not look up at me in wonder anymore as we go through the nightly ritual.
Last night, I decided it was time to let him pick out his own book for bedtime. He selected "Animals in the Woods" which is an out-of-print board book from 1987. It was a sound choice and we read about the box turtle, fox, and skunk.

He went right to sleep.