Oh, people.
I laughed out loud at this. Laughed and laughed, until I ended up snorting like an asthmatic hyena who needed her inhaler. Because I think that I feel the same way about Spongebob.
I’m pretty sure that this completely explains 2 Corinthians 12:7.
Y’all have a good weekend.
So.
Do you know what is worse than a sick baby?
Not a lot, but cottage cheese, chicken bones and El Caminos come to my mind.
Because the cottage cheese?
Well.
I cannot even watch other people eat it without wanting to run to the bathroom and crouch in front of the potty, just. In. Case. And don’t try to hide it in a lasagne and invite me over for dinner. I’ll know it’s in there. And dinner will be a thing of the past at your house, because I will never trust you again. Who eats cheese that has gone so bad it has curdled itself into little, horrible balls that smell like the feet off of an 8th grade basketball player?
And chicken bones? People, I can’t even talk about those things on the blog. Chicken bones freak me out from hell to Tuesday.
And El Caminos? I’d like to know what man decided that it would be somewhat interesting to make a car that wasn’t really a full-on car, but SORT OF a car and SORT OF a truck. I’d like to grab him by the straps on his overalls and give him a shaking that was hard enough to knock his last few secured teeth completely out of his mouth and say, “Um, no. I don’t care if you DID think it would be convenient to drive it through the backwoods to haul the stolen parts to your moonshine still in.” Because honestly? I’m not even sure that I would actually GO if someone offered me the winning ticket to a fifty-four-million-dollar lottery in Pennsylvania and asked me to drive across the country in an El Camino to claim it.
But fifty-four million dollars? I’m sure Hubs would point a finger at me and say, “Drive that car, Baby, and claim that prize! Daddy wants season tickets to the Avalanche and plane tickets to get there every week!”
I’d put one of those silk scarves from the ’50s over my head and don some enormous sunglasses in an effort to be incognito and completely unrecognizable before I left on the little road trip. Not even James Bond himself would be able to identify me, let alone a Navy SEAL. I wouldn’t want anyone to ever ask, “Aren’t you that girl who passed me on the interstate in the El Camino?”
No. I don’t drive fast enough to pass anyone. It wasn’t me.
And then…
…sick babies?
Oh, people.
Sick babies with congestion and coughs and stuffy noses make my heart split plum in half with sadness. We have one of those at our house right now. He’s adorable, and he cannot breathe out of his nose, and he coughs and coughs and coughs, and he wants his mama to just sit herself down and rock him, back and forth, all day long.
And his mama doesn’t mind, because my heart melts when that little baby tucks his face into my neck and falls asleep while I pat his back.
And I don’t even flinch when he coughs on me. Or sneezes in my face. Or throws up on me. Or drools all over my shirt. Or spits his antibiotic down my hand. Because all of that has happened today. I have been in the middle of ALL THE EXPOSURE TO THE GERMS.
Mamas are quite used to being on the front lines, though, right in the very thick of things.
Which is exactly where I’d like to put an El Camino. Right smack on the front line of a good battle. And I would paint a giant target right on the windshield.
Happy Wednesday night, y’all. I’m off to kiss a chubby cheek and pat a darling little back.
Back in the day, the boy believed that anything could be successfully made out of paper and Scotch tape.
And by anything, I mean ANY! THING! He made costumes out of paper and tape. He made garages for his Matchbox cars out of paper and tape. He made spaceships for his Star Wars action figures out of paper and tape. If his mind could imagine it, paper and tape could be used to build it.
Crowns for kings? Been there. Did that. In fact, crowns were simply too easy for the boy.
And also? Kings always needed accessories. A flashlight and a coil of rope insured that you could scale castle walls in the dark, because the boy was always a “take action” sort of king. He was never really content to just sit on his throne and issue orders; he was the type of king who preferred to fight on the front lines with enormous swords and kill bad guys himself.
And a black pair of women’s gloves in a size medium helped you grip those castle walls during all the scaling.
He inherited a love for storming castles from his Navy SEAL daddy.
That year, Hubs and I took the boy to see the movie The Polar Express, and we all loved it. The boy was fascinated with the train conductor, and he decided that YES! He could become one of those with some paper and some Scotch tape.
He made a hat, and he taped a paper pocket to his shirt, because he didn’t have any shirts hanging in his closet with a decent pocket at the hemline. And then he made tickets, and he used the hole punch to destroy them, exactly like Tom Hanks did in The Polar Express.
(The fourteen billion tiny yellow dots that littered my house for two weeks made me want to slam vodka shots for breakfast.)
CNDUCTR.
Hooked on Phonics actually worked for us.
And then the boy grew up, and he decided that he could probably build most anything out of Lego bricks, and our Scotch tape supplies didn’t dwindle as quickly at our house.
(I miss the days of buying tape in bulk at Costco.)
Now, the boy’s six-year-old cousin K has discovered that a decent sheet of paper and some tape can be used to create all sorts of fun things. These days, he’s making pop-up books all on his own, by taping elaborate paper pieces inside a folded sheet of paper, and his creations make me grin, as I reminisce about the days when the boy would have done such a thing.
I think paper and tape are a heart-warming phase of childhood.
And that brings me to what I want to show y’all tonight, because I have a video for you. Hubs emailed me the link last week, and said, “Look! There’s another boy who builds things with tape and paper like the boy used to!” And, folks, I watched this video and I couldn’t quit smiling, because our boy could have totally created the cardboard arcade himself.
And had I been in East LA that day, I would have paid enormous sums of money to play at this little fellow’s arcade.
The video is eleven whopping minutes long, but it’s SO WORTH IT. It’s a feel-good sort of clip.
You can click right here to watch it.
And y’all have a great Tuesday night.
Before I go any further, I just thought that I would tell y’all that I had a dream last night.
Our family had six Wookies.
Yes, Wookies. As in, six pet Chewbacas. And all six of them were approximately three inches tall, and the boy kept them in an aquarium in his bedroom. They all wore their gunbelts and their bands of bullets slung across their chests, and they climbed little ladders that were set up here and there throughout the aquarium, and they dreamed of one day escaping captivity on the Millennium Falcon. And every now and then, I would pop the top off the aquarium and hand them earthworms to eat.
Knowing this, you may not even want to read any further tonight. You have been warned.
But really?
Well, our Mother’s Day Weekend was actually quite normal around here.
It all started on Friday morning, which was obviously The Holy Day Of Eating. Hubs and I had a breakfast date at a swanky coffee shop in the city (Sorry, Starbucks. We threw you under the bus on Friday.), where we devoured cinnamon rolls the size of basketballs and chatted.
And then I went to lunch with a whole pack of girls, because it was Amy’s big birthday celebration. We went to a little Chinese restaurant, and all of us crowded in around the table and swapped babies back and forth, because there were plenty of babies in our group to share. We all ordered off the menu and ate platters of sodium and questionable meat disguised as pork.
(I say that the meat may or may not have been pork, because I know for a SOLID FACT that Sister’s Husband’s Brother [Did you keep up with that?] used to catch turtles years ago and sell them at the backdoor to the Chinese restaurant. He got $5 for small turtles and $10 for large turtles, and I always went to the happy place in my mind that simply said the Chinese family was keeping them as pets in a giant aquarium.)
(Kind of like you do when you have a miniature Chewbaca and his band of five brothers living at your house.)
And then, because we hadn’t consumed enough calories yet, we all drove over to Amy’s house to hit the cake and ice cream, because what birthday is complete without it?
On Friday afternoon, we watched Cousin K play some soccer, and in the process of grabbing the diaper bag and the bottle and making sure I had packed extra diapers and getting Thing 2 buckled into his carseat, I nearly managed to leave my camera sitting on my dining room table. That would have been a total shame, because this was K’s very last game of the season, and he ran like a squirrel. After the game, his face turned green, because one boy’s mama brought green Fruit Roll-Ups for post-game snacks. Green faces always make for a special Kodak moment.
Unless your camera battery is dead.
Which mine was by the end of the game. But, I did snag a few cute shots of Cousin K playing soccer, since I had actually run back inside to… you know… GET the camera before we left the house.
After K’s game, we ate at McDonald’s.
I know. (And don’t judge us.) I swore off fast food, and most especially I criticized McDonald’s and their reputation of infusing their burgers with pink slime, but on Friday night, the boy was begging to hit the red-headed clown’s establishment, so we did.
And then we went home to die from all the crap that we’d eaten throughout the day.
(Obviously, my choice of words just bumped Jedi Mama, Incorporated into PG-13 territory tonight. I apologize. There just aren’t enough words to adequately describe our food intake on Friday, and CRAP pretty much ties it into a tidy little nutshell of description.)
On Saturday morning, ’round 2:30, Thing 2 got up for a bottle, which he slurped right down, and then that crazy baby grinned at me. And then he giggled. And then I pinched his cheeks, which made him giggle EVEN MORE, and then I tickled his chin, because, people, HOW COULD I POSSIBLY RESIST? The end result was even more hysterical giggling from the baby, and then he was WIRED.
As in, WIDE STINKING AWAKE, like someone had filled his bottle with Mountain Dew instead of Similac. He didn’t go back to sleep until 4:30 AM, and Hubs whispered, “I would just like to officially go on the record and say that this was all YOUR fault, because you made eye contact with him and encouraged all the giggling.”
Yes, Your Honor. I realized the errors of my ways on Giggle Number Nine, and Hubs and I have made a solid pact that there will be no more cheek pinches or chin chucks when the moon is out. We’ll save all of that for the daylight hours.
Of course Thing 2 got up at his usual time of 5:45 on Saturday morning, and Mama felt like she had been caught beneath the blades of a John Deere riding lawn mower.
Since I couldn’t possibly have felt any worse, I sat down at the table and paid the bills. It was the Great Money Exchange Day, as Hubs and I gave his paycheck away in small chunks to lots of different people, and then I began wondering if Hubs shouldn’t just go on ahead and get a second job.
I mean, really. I have two jobs.
And then, with the bills paid and Thing 2 ready for a nap, we drove out to watch some soccer games, because there was an enormous soccer tournament in town this last weekend, which drew approximately 5,000 visitors to Small Town, USA.
Our restaurants thrived.
Our motels were booked solid.
Parking spots were as hard to find as Big Foot is.
The boy’s cousins and good buddies were all playing, so Hubs put Thing 2 in what we like to call “The Hangover Pack” and wore him on his chest all day.
Even though his daddy looks a little dorky here, because he’s smiling like a goober, I am still head over heels in love with that man.
And Thing 2 loves “The Hangover Pack.” He slept and slept and SLEPT in it on Saturday morning, and that is saying something, because Thing 2 doesn’t believe in the healing powers of a good nap. Thing 2 is more of an anti-nap lobbyist. I may start sending him in the pack to work with Hubs.
Everyone played great soccer on Saturday.
Cousin W manned the defensive lines well, and prevented 498 shots from reaching his goalie. Way to go, Dub-ya.
While Cousin W loves the defensive side of sports, Cousin B is all about the offensive positions. He runs hard, he kicks hard, and he scored two goals in the first game we were there to watch.
B got a celebratory “man hug” from one of his teammates after his second goal of the morning.
We got to see the boy’s good friend Quinn play a lot of soccer on Saturday, too. He was in desperate need of a haircut, according to his sweet mama, and he had the European Look going on with his headband.
Headband or not, that boy played some outstanding soccer on Saturday afternoon, and he even managed to snag a goal of his own, too.
There may or may not have been a few manly chest bumps after Quinn scored his goal.
We watched our friend, Patrick, play on Saturday, too.
Kellen was out at the soccer tournament with us, and he and the boy made a couple of trips back and forth between all the games and the concession stand. When you’re a boy and you’re eleven years old, it is hard to go forty-five entire minutes without a meal.
Kellen had jalapenos on his hot dog. The boy ate one. Hubs declared that they are officially MEN now.
For their second trip to the snack stands, they had to pool their money to see if they had enough silver coins to buy kettle corn.
Or M&Ms.
Or Starbursts.
Or even more red Gatorade.
It looked like some serious gambling going down.
Or pirates counting their loot.
They managed to come up with enough money for kettle corn, but I think that’s because a smiling adult handed them some extra cash in the form of PAPER.
Quinn’s little brother, Bae-John, also managed to snag a bag of kettle corn for himself.
On Saturday evening, we got to watch Cousin M play soccer. We haven’t gotten to watch him play this season yet, because every time that we can go, he’s playing out of town, so Saturday was a treat to finally see him in action.
(It should also be noted that M’s team won the championship game in his division.)
(And that Cousin M may or may not have scored the game-winning goal in said championship game.)
(Yay, M! We are so proud of you!)
This next picture was of Cousin M shooting his first goal of the day…
Cousins Dub-ya and B watched their little brother’s game from the sidelines. They look tired. I have no idea WHY.
Even Thing 2 was awake for M’s game. He was awake and happy, because “The Hangover Pack” is apparently a prime spot for napping and refreshing one’s self.
Miss A endured all the soccer games on Saturday.
In between games, there was racing…
And grinning…
And kicking…
And then we left the soccer tournament, as evening was settling in.
The boy went to a birthday party where all of his friends were hanging out, and he reported it to be one of the very best parties of all time, because HELLO! Scavenger Hunt in the cemetery! And pizza! And wrestling his friends! And boys chasing girls! And a movie! And all of his friends were there!
I didn’t have quite as much fun as the boy did. I ended up with a migraine, and I went to bed to die.
And that was Saturday.
On Sunday, the boy and Hubs showered me with flowers and framed paintings by my favorite artist (READ: The Boy.) and cards, because it was Mother’s Day.
And we went to church. Thing 2 stayed awake for the entire service and made noise. Lots of noise. Lots and lots of noise. So much noise, in fact, that Thing 2 had to be taken out of the sanctuary four different times so that he didn’t prevent people from getting A Word. Thing 2 was HAPPY, and he wanted to talk and squeal and giggle while the sermon was going on. Thing 2 has a difficult time being serious.
And then we went out to eat with my parents and Sister and her family, because my mama treated us to a Mother’s Day lunch at a little hotspot in Small Town. I had a delicious grilled salmon and asparagus. Hubs had a meal that had the words Southern Fried and Gravy in the title.
He immediately regretted that choice on the way home, because he said his gut was going to explode and that he felt like he might surely die.
This is the big one, Elizabeth!
So he laid down on the sofa to recover, and he took his two-hour Mother’s Day nap.
And then we went out for Mother’s Day ice cream.
Hubs just had a drink.
The Southern Fried and all the Gravy still hadn’t been digested.
And then the boy threw his ice cream in the trash and said, “I’m going to throw up. I need to go home.”
So we did. And the boy put himself to bed at 6:30. He self-diagnosed himself: Sore throat. Stomach ache. Headache. Need to sleep.
And he spent the entire day in bed today, listening to books on CD. (Because that is much easier than actually… you know… READING them.) I’m happy to say that the boy is going to pull through, and he’ll probably be back running around at recess tomorrow.
And that, in a long-winded nutshell, is how Mother’s Day Weekend ’12 went down at Casa del Jedi.
Happy Monday night, people.
Well… I feel doubly blessed today. Blessed enough that I know what it means to have your cup runneth over.
Thank you, Jesus, for these two little darlings. I love them to the moon and back, a thousand times.
So this morning started early. And by early, I mean that Thing 2 decided that YES! 4:30 REALLY IS A LOVELY TIME TO GET UP AND JUST GET ALL COMFORTABLE SO WE CAN SEE THE SUN RISE, but thankfully I talked him into going back to sleep by reaching a numb hand into his bassinet to rub his feet.
I had been sleeping on my arm — apparently WRONG — when Thing 2 started fussing. I glanced at the time and saw that it was RIDICULOUS O’CLOCK, so I slung an arm his way to rub his toes, which works like magic 17% of the time to put him back to sleep.
And that’s when I realized that the arm I flopped into the bassinet was completely numb and asleep, and I COULD NOT FEEL IT, and WHOA! SWEET HOLY MOTHER OF THE ASPARAGUS PLANT! THE PINS AND NEEDLES! Once I had the arm IN the bassinet, I was helpless to get it OUT OF the bassinet, so I just flopped my fingers around somewhere near Thing 2′s toes, hoping that we could buy us some extra sleep time.
And it worked.
Thing 2 went back to sleep until precisely 5:15, and seeing as how I couldn’t manipulate my arm in any given direction on purpose, I went back to sleep with half of my upper body in the bassinet as well.
And at 5:15, the Magic Toe Massage struck FAILURE. We went to DEFCON 1. Hubs and I were up and running, because today also happened to be the morning of Muffins for Moms at the boy’s school.
Muffins for Moms happens at an obscene hour. I have no idea what the PTO was thinking when they suggested that WOULDN’T IT BE FUN TO MAKE MOMS SCRAMBLE AROUND THE HOUSE LIKE RATS ON ANTIHISTAMINES, AS THEY PACK LUNCHES AN HOUR EARLIER THAN NORMAL AND TRY TO ASSEMBLE THEIR HAIR INTO SOME SORT OF ACCEPTABLE HOUSE-LEAVING STATE, all so that they can head to the school while the traffic lights are still flashing on Main Street to eat a muffin and enough apple juice to fill a shot glass.
The moms at our table this morning grumbled about the fact that the PTO hadn’t seen fit to set up a traveling Starbucks wagon outside the school’s front doors, so that we could secure GENUINE DECAFFEINATED coffee to go with our muffins, and then someone threw out the idea that perhaps Margaritas for Moms at 6:00 in the evening might actually be the vision of the future.
In all honesty, I wouldn’t have missed Muffins for Moms this year for all the stock in Starbucks, because, people, this was our last year for it. The boy and I have gone into the school, blinking at the harsh overhead lights in the cafeteria at such an early hour every year together since kindergarten for this event.
And today…
…our history with the muffins concluded.
I came home, sat on my closet floor, and simply rocked back and forth, because I’m not sure that the kids willingly invite their mamas to come for muffins at the junior high school.
So yes.
That was exactly how our day got started, and my people are already in bed. The boy went to bed at 7:00 tonight. A week of soccer, soccer and yes, soccer has worn him out, and he couldn’t fall asleep last night until after 10:00 because he was thinking about some specific Lego mini figure.
(In all of my months battling insomnia before Thing 2 was born, I never stayed awake dreaming of Lego mini figures.)
(Not even once.)
(It’s what separates the boys from the girls.)
Thing 2 has had a very busy day playing and giggling and kicking his feet, and he was sound asleep at 7:30.
And yes, with a quiet house and a clean kitchen behind us, Hubs went to bed, too.
(People actually want to BE us, what with the adventurous, exciting lives we lead.)
So tonight, instead of a lot of words, you’re getting some pictures from our week.
You’re welcome.
Our niece, The Nanny, has been at our house twice this week to rock Thing 2 and help organize his bedroom closet, because she loves putting his little clothes on tiny hangers and ooh-ing over LOOK HOW CUTE THIS IS! I wouldn’t mind it if Miss A, the Nanny, just moved in with us and pulled her weight around here by taking the 1 AM feeding.
The boy had a lot of soccer this week, and, as of last night, we have officially put that sport to bed. Spring Soccer ’12 is a thing of the past for us now, and the boy has already hauled his golf clubs out and called his PE teacher, who has promised to take him golfing very soon.
(That’s a little perk of having known the boy’s PE teacher for one hundred and six years. He’s a good friend of ours.)
The boy played goalie this week, and he looked incredibly handsome with his new haircut.
The boy stopped every single ball that came his way while he was goalie this week, and his mama may or may not have clapped like a mad woman on the sidelines for him.
Naturally, Thing 2 was hauled from game to game this week, too, because the Department of Family Services insists that he’s entirely too short to be left at home alone yet. He was a trooper this week at the soccer fields, and he only blew his diaper out with poo at one game, which necessitated an emergency changing station being set up in the bleachers.
(Note to self: An emergency changing station established in the bleachers can effectively clear the bleachers of all the young children, thus making room for more of your friends, because apparently young children want to be as far away from the ALL THE STINK as possible. File this away in USEFUL BITS OF INFORMATION.)
Yes, it IS a little unfair that Hubs and I have the two absolute cutest children in America, but apparently that was God’s plan, and you can’t argue with Him.
The boy also played every other position on the field this week, too. He did a whole lot of running and kicking and gazing at the sidelines, trying to determine which mother brought snacks and what said snacks were going to be.
(Because everyone knows that a package of bright orange, cheese-flavored crackers can often times trump a win.)
We even had cousins show up at the boy’s games this week. L and K were there to cheer him on, and steal leftover ice cream snacks at the last game.
(Mam decided that the boys all needed Dilly Bars from the local Dairy Queen after their last game. Grandmas are like that. Mam dashed off at half-time, and when she came back, she had paper sacks loaded with The Good Stuff. The HOLY COW, BUT THOSE ARE SOME BRIGHT YELLOW SHIRTS team all wanted to adopt Mam for their own grandma.)
There’s L, looking darling, as always. L had just come from her own soccer game, where she scored yet another goal. L is going to be in the Olympics soon for soccer.
And there’s Cousin K, with his adorable little freckles.
After the last game, I managed to corral the wolf pack for a group photo. I’m not sure if this is a group of boys from a soccer team or the Safety Patrol Committee, sporting their BE SEEN ON THE STREETS AND FROM NEPTUNE shirts.
There’s Bek, the boy, Teegan and Cody, devouring their Dilly Bars and looking cute manly. I know I’ve said it a hundred times, but Hubs and I thank Jesus frequently for the boy’s tribe of buddies. Jesus has blessed that boy richly with some pals.
And that’ll wrap up our week here at Jedi Mama, Inc.
Happy Thursday, folks.
A couple of weeks ago, my friend, Evelyn, and I were talking, and she said, “You know, you can play that Baby Card now and get out of some stuff.”
I asked her, “Like what kind of stuff?”
Because folding laundry? Well, that sounds like something I would seriously enjoy getting out of. And also cooking dinner.
Evelyn said, “When they need cupcakes for a fundraising bake sale, you can just sigh and say, ‘I would love to help, but I can’t; I have a baby.’”
And then we invented others.
“What? You need someone to drive carpool this week, and pick up all SIX kids? Oh, I’d love to help out. It’s just that I can’t. I have a baby.”
“You need someone to teach Sunday School this week? Oh, that’s such a worthwhile ministry, and I would absolutely love to help, but I can’t. I have a baby.”
Naturally, I have been using this on Hubs frequently.
“What? You want me to mow the back section of the yard? Well, normally I would, you know. I’m all about the entire family pitching in, but I can’t. I have a baby.”
“I really would have loved to have gotten all the laundry done today, but you’ll just have to wear dirty jeans to the office tomorrow. I have a baby.”
And then not long ago, Hubs was holding Thing 2 in the living room, and I asked if he would maybe come help me quickly load the dishwasher and clean up the kitchen. He sighed and replied, “Honey, normally I would love to. I wouldn’t mind helping at all. But I can’t tonight. I have a baby.”
And then there was the boy. The boy has a VERY! STRONG! AVERSION! to singing in front of crowds. The aversion is such that the boy pretty much just doesn’t participate in anything that involves him praising something with song. It’s why he threw the TRY OUT FOR CHOIR THIS YEAR flyer away before he even walked out the front doors of the school. He said he didn’t want me to see it and make him join. It’s why he wouldn’t do the Christmas program at church this year; he had heard through the grapevine that there was some “choir time” involved.
For the past few months, his Sunday School class has been practicing songs to sing for the congregation, and last Sunday was the day. I had no idea. As in, I learned that the Sunday School would be singing moments before they actually took the stage. The boy had failed to remind me, thinking that if I didn’t know, he wouldn’t have to do it. And then, during church but well before the singing began, the boy grabbed Thing 2 and cuddled him close. He rocked Thing 2 to sleep, in fact.
And when the pastor made the call for all the Sunday School kids to move forward and take the stage for some songs, the boy looked at me and whispered, “You know I’d love to go up there and sing, but I can’t. I have a baby.”
And tonight?
Well, I’d love to write a decent blog post that is both witty and sentimental, but I can’t.
I have a baby.
And that baby is a full ninety minutes ahead of me in sleeping tonight, which means I have to head to bed and catch up.
Happy Wednesday night, y’all.
I think it goes without saying that I have a love for all the reading. Oh my word! The reading! I think I’d rather put my jammies on and crawl into bed early with a delicious book than do just about anything. Voracious readers are like that.
I have always loved to read. Always. Since I first learned at the age of four.
(Because of all the brains that I have.)
(Even though Hubs asked me last night, “You just went to college for the boys, didn’t you?”)
(It’s because the boy said to me last night, “Factor 434 to the 5th power, Mom,” and I wanted to die a little inside and tell him, “Scrub the dadgum toilet, Boy!” in retaliation.)
(I think it’s relatively safe to say that verbs and nouns and dangling participles are my specialty, and that words like factor and 5th power make blood slowly trickle out of my ears.)
(Just give me a nice x + y formula, and let me solve for z. I can plug numbers into an equation like a professional number cruncher, and your head will spin with all the amazement that you will have for my abilities. And that’s pretty much where I bottomed out at math, and honestly? I haven’t ever had anyone say to me, “Can you prove this geometry theorem in nine steps” since my sophomore year. They tell you that geometry is something you need to know for life. They lied.)
But really? Back in the day there were books that changed my life. I wanted to run away from home and live in a boxcar with my band of brothers and sisters, even though I didn’t have a big band of brothers and sisters, and even though living at home for me was as easy as Ward and June Cleaver made it seem on the old black-and-white television sets with the bent rabbit ears. The Boxcar Children series made me happy.
And Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle made me howl with laughter.
And Harriet the Spy made me grab my own notebook and launch my own detective business which, sadly, saw very few customers.
And then…
…there was Judy Blume. I think every young girl in ’80s America has been forever changed by Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. And Blubber. And Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself. Those books dealt with difficult issues in life, from getting your period (And there. My male readers just closed this blog post down for the night.) to bullying to divorce.
Besides, carrying around a beat-up paperback copy of a Judy Blume book in the 6th grade made you as cool and as mature as every high school girl out there. We were just sure of it. We had our Farrah Fawcett hair. We had our Jordache jeans. We had our OP shirts. (Which should not be confused with the OP that you can now buy at Walmart, because back in the day, OP was EXPENSIVE and COVETED and not sold at discount stores. And you had to do a whole lot of babysitting to earn enough cash to buy an OP windbreaker, but SWEET MOTHER OF SYLVESTER THE CAT! It was totally worth all the hours spent pushing little children in swings and making them peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches.) We also had our Nike tennis shoes. And we had our Judy Blume books, with the earmarked pages so we could show our friends, “Yes! She really DID type a cuss word when she wrote this book!”
Because cuss words in books? That was an absolute shocker when we were in the 6th grade.
Times were different, and we didn’t wear bike helmets, either.
Today, I’ll read just about anything, unless it has to do with science fiction or is a work of non-fiction dealing with electronics, electricity or automotive repair. I think it’s a no-brainer that the NAPA Auto Parts industry isn’t putting out best sellers these days.
Nor have they in the past, come to think of it.
The sad thing is that since Thing 2 arrived, I haven’t had the TIME to read, because Thing 2 has thrown all of my normal sleep patterns under a bus, and we’ve had to start over, inventing what we now refer to as SEMI-NORMAL SLEEPING. And I’ll tell you one thing: When you are sleep deprived, there isn’t a Judy Blume book out there that will make you want to stay up any later than you have to.
But really? This is what I’m currently reading right now:
I’m loving it, people, because John Grisham can WRITE. He puts all of his periods in the right spots. He uses the semicolon appropriately. His sentence structure is stellar. And I have always had a soft spot for good baseball movies and decent baseball stories in hardcover.
Of course, I have no expectations of actually finishing this book before Thing 2 is potty-trained, because it’s one of those I READ IT IN TWO DAYS sort of books, and I’m not quite halfway through it.
And it has been three weeks since I bought it.
My dad even borrowed it, read it, and returned it the next day, seeing as how I wasn’t actively using the book.
Plus, considering that I started The Hunger Games the week before Thing 2 was born, and then simply gave up on ever finishing it and saw the movie instead to find out how it all ended, I don’t think y’all should hold me accountable to give you a detailed book report until mid-October.
Of 2015.
And then there is the boy.
The boy began reading when he was four years old, too. He reads incredibly well. He reads at the post-high school level. He can pronounce enormous words like hierarchy, optimize and regurgitation. He can read something once and commit it to memory for life. He has always been in the very highest reading group at school, and has, in fact, been sent to upper grades when he was a little mite, so that he could read books that were actually AT his reading level.
And…
…he hates, loathes and despises reading.
He would rather be told to mow the yard on a sweltering day in the middle of August, while wearing a thick jacket made out of camel hair, than sit inside, in the enveloping arms of the central air conditioning unit, and read a book.
I know that he’s read the first three Harry Potter books from cover to cover, and that he has been working on the 4th one since he was nine years old.
(He’s eleven now, so it’s been a while, but heck! It’s a thick book!)
And then he devoured The Hunger Games book. DE-VOUR-ED it. He read it, from cover to cover, in less than a week, which is a full-on record for him, because it captivated him. I was convinced that this book and all the reading it was bringing about would draw the boy closer to a love for the written word on real pages, but alas. It did not. It was a one-time wonder.
(Exactly like the song “Three Little Pigs” by Green Jelly. Never heard of them? They were a one-hit wonder that only Hubs appreciates. I think he was the president, vice president and treasurer of their fan club.)
(And also the only fan club member.)
And that, people? Well, THAT is the entire list of books the boy has read for fun in his life.
Until this week.
Because the boy found a 544-page book entitled Professional Android 2 Application Development. Clearly, it is riveting, because it’s all about writing your own apps for your Android phone, in case you can’t find an app for something you wish you had out of the 99 billion preexisting ones. The chapters are captivating, too. I peeked at the table of contents.
Hello, Android.
Creating Applications and Activities.
Creating User Interfaces.
Intents, Broadcast Receivers, Adapters, and the Internet.
Databases and Content Providers.
Telephony and SMS.
Blah. Blah. Blah. And my brain is officially bleeding.
Hubs and the boy have been reading this book out loud together every night this week, and the boy can hardly wait until dinner is finished and the dishes are done, so that he and his daddy can sit down with the book. Our child is reading for pleasure, people. And apparently he is understanding it completely.
And that is why he asked me to factor 434 to the 5th power.
I asked him last night if he wouldn’t just like to read some nice Encyclopedia Brown books, and he shook his head of hair which was in desperate need of a haircut (But which is no longer in desperate need, because the boy announced, “I need a haircut!” with gusto this afternoon, and I pretty much turned the Suburban around on two wheels to head in the direction of the salon, before he could change his mind.). Hubs said, “Bill Gates probably skipped Encyclopedia Brown books, too.”
I guess all this time Hubs and I were simply encouraging the boy to pursue the wrong genre. We should introduce him to hardback books covering computer programs that will shape a nation like Windows did, cold fusion, quantum physics, advanced life sciences, matter and energy, HTML code, and how to design your own motherboard using nothing but a roll of Reynolds Wrap and a hair clip from your mother’s bathroom drawer.
Apparently the boy is going to grow up to be smart enough to earn many American dollars. This translates into a FINE and EVEN DANDY and SPA-LIKE nursing home for Hubs and I in our old age.
And by then, Thing 2 will probably be old enough to actually sleep, so I’ll have time to finish my John Grisham book before the strained prunes are served for lunch.
I had every good intention to throw a blog post up last night.
(And actually, you can go ahead and interpret that first statement there any way you like, because sometimes throwing a new post onto the blog is exactly like I’ve simply chewed up a bunch of words, choked them down, and regurgitated them right here for y’all to read.)
(I apologize.)
But then last night, when I turned the computer on for the first time all weekend, the Big Mac locked me out.
As in, I typed my password into the initial boot-up screen, and Big Mac said, “Um, no.” And since my philosophy with computers is simply that if it didn’t work the first time, you should keep trying (because God forbid you attempt to TROUBLESHOOT the issue), I tried my password again. And again. And again, until the agains equaled nine hundred and fourteen, and that’s when I snarled and barked at Hubs that FOR THE LOVE OF PETE’S GRANDMOTHER’S FAVORITE KITTEN! DON’T WE KNOW A DECENT I.T. GUY IN THIS PART OF THE FOREST?
And Big Mac? Well, he locked Hubs out, too, which brought pure joy to my heart, because if Hubs cannot break through a computer’s security system, there ain’t nobody who can.
(I know this for fact, because long ago, Hubs used a website to download maps on a weekly basis for work. Said maps were free, free, free. And then, all of a sudden, said maps were NOT free, and Hubs was irritated, because WHO WANTS TO PAY FIVE AMERICAN DOLLARS FOR A MAP I USED TO PRINT OUT FOR THE COST OF A GIANT-SIZED PIECE OF PAPER IN THE FIRM’S ENORMOUS PRINTER? Hubs vowed to boycott the company and find free maps elsewhere, because Hubs is stubborn, and, back then, five dollars could buy a whole lot of gasoline. Or even lunch for two at McDonald’s. About a week later, Hubs called me over to the computer and grinned and said, “I can still print these maps for free.” And, people, Hubs had STINKING HACKED THE MAP MAKERS’ WEBSITE. He had taken an axe in his hand and a coil of rope in his teeth, scaled their firewall, and chopped their bolted door right down. And then he said, “I won’t do it, because it’s clearly not right, since they want me to pay for their maps now. But I just had to know that I ABSOLUTELY COULD get those things for free, if I wanted to.”)
(Please don’t think your systems are secure when Hubs is around, people. He has been known to drive around town, find unsecured internet access points, and hack people’s personal space.)
(And that’s when I said, “LEAVE MY COMPUTER ALONE, DADGUMIT!”)
(And, truth be told, there’s nothing of value on my computer, because who cares that my Gap Kids account currently has a balance of $20.99 or that my high score on Scrabble Blast is only 4,699 points?)
No matter.
Hubs got out his Big Mac Be Good stick, and he beat it down, and today we are able to access our desktop once again.
I felt like I was in War Games, when Joshua says, “Greetings, Professor Falken. Shall we play a game?” Only today my Big Mac simply said, “Dude. I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize your retina scan, and I panicked and froze the gates. Jesus will forgive me, and so should you, and Hubs has already made me feel SOLID SHAME for my behavior last night.”
So as far as news goes, guess who turned a whopping two months old on Saturday?
And there is that dimple that we are all head over heels in love with! There isn’t anything quite as sweet as a little boy who grins at you while his cheek caves in.
He’s hanging in there as a little runt; he weighed an even eleven pounds today at his two-month check-up, which threw him in the 10th percentile for size. I’m not sure that there’s a cuter baby out there, though. We like little tiny guys; the boy still hasn’t made it out of the 15th percentile for height and weight!
Also? Well, Hubs and I are not sure that a baby exist who naps as little as Thing 2 does, either. Oh, the nighttime is getting SO MUCH BETTER! Hubs and I cannot complain there, because Thing 2 is sleeping a solid four-and-a-half to five-and-a-half hours at a time now, and we feel like brand new grown-ups who are, once again, cable of driving the Suburban with catlike reflexes instead of in the fog that we drove in during March and April. There is something to be said for being able to sleep four hours in a row; five hours in a row gives a person the strength to compete in the Olympics and win a rousing yodeling competition with enthusiasm.
In trade for all the good nighttime sleeping, Thing 2 has COMPLETELY GIVEN UP daytime napping. He is two months old, which is still ITTY BITTY and VERY MUCH TINY, and on Saturday, Thing 2 slept 30 minutes in the morning and 40 minutes in the afternoon, and was awake for thirteen hours. Today Thing 2 took a 15-minute catnap this morning, and then he miraculously slept through the boy’s hour-long soccer game this afternoon, and that was it.
By dinner time, Thing 2′s head is usually spinning, and Hubs and I expect green goo to shoot from his eye sockets, but he still refuses to give it up and TAKE A NAP. So, we’re just going to go with it. We have the only non-napping baby in all of Small Town.
BUT… DID Y’ALL HERE? Thing 2 slept six hours in a row last night!
As parents, we can’t have everything.
The rest of our weekend was quite wonderful.
The boy went home with Kellen after school on Friday, and when I picked him up, he was dirty enough to resemble a soldier in the desert. His filthy face split into an enormous grin, as he announced with pride, “Kellen and I dug a hole in the field that was deep enough to be almost up to my waist!” I have no idea why hole-digging has become a lost art to the female population, but it’s still thriving with the male tribe. I asked the boy WHY? WHY DID YOU DIG A GIANT HOLE? And he said, “Because we found a shovel.”
Of course. Thank goodness they didn’t find matches.
Also? The manual labor involved with digging a hole that is up to a short boy’s waist is EXHAUSTING, and it wears a kid completely out, and isn’t that the entire goal of parenting?
I can hardly wait until Thing 2 can hold a shovel.
On Saturday morning, we had a truck pull into our driveway. The driver announced, “I just have a load of household debris, and a battery to recycle.” Um, excuse me? Apparently he thought this was the city landfill, so I showered, skipped the make-up part of my morning routine, rolled up my sleeves, and I tackled the housework.
And by tackled, I mean STEP ASIDE, DEVIL. MAMA’S USING THE CLOROX AND THE TIDE AND THE FURNITURE POLISH.
We’re under control here now, people. Our house is back to normal, and I finally mopped the living room floor where all the Moon Dough was used. I should probably feel more shame that the Moon Dough was used so long ago, and that we have simply said to one another, “That first step into the living room is a doozy. It’s slick! Watch yourself if you’re only wearing socks,” and no one has taken the initiative to drag out the cleaning products and remedy the situation.
But now?
Oh, Moon Dough remnants! You are history.
On Sunday, Hubs and I secured a babysitter for the boys (Which means they went to Mam and Pa’s house, where they were spoiled plum rotten.), and we went to see the movie October Baby at the theater, in the form of a REAL and GENUINE date.
It was probably the very best bag of butter with popcorn floating in it that either one of us had ever eaten. Oh, Theater Corn! You were divine on Sunday afternoon!
And the movie? Oh, people! I bawled all the way through it. It’s about adoption and parents who want a baby over mothers who don’t. I’m sure it comes as no surprise to y’all, but the issue of adoption is a very moving one in our family, because of Thing 2. And because of the boys’ cousin, Little H. And because of Hubs, who was adopted by his parents. And because of Hubs’ sister, Aunt Pink, who was also adopted. So yes. October Baby hit every raw emotion I have about adoption, and I cried my way through it. And when we got back to our boys, I had to hug them both close and just feel their little bodies against my cheek. Because honestly? I’m not sure that two MORE WANTED boys exist than ours. We gave birth to the boy, and we adopted Thing 2, and Hubs and I love them both so much, our hearts get all squeezy.
Even if they do dig holes in the ground for no reason.
And refuse to nap.
Even then they are thoroughly wanted.
Happy Monday night, people.
