Eat to Live

This morning, I was getting ready and I heard August fussing downstairs. I yelled down, "Are you feeding him solids?" Eric said, "No, should I?" I said he could if he wanted, and he said. "I'm watching his little fontanelle pulse and it's freaking me out!"

I think he meant soft spot. Is fontanelle a word? I'm going to look it up.

Happy Holidays

Here's why we didn't sent out a holiday card, because this is what it would have said.

With one kid, I was smug. I thought I had this parenting thing in the bag. We could handle it. It was even easy most of the time. Then we got all cocky and decided to have another one and August is here. Been here for 6 1/2 months. And our house is a tornado of chaos, the noise all the work seems to have multiplied exponentially. When the baby screams, the three year old screams, then one or both of us screams. When the baby pees, the three year old pees on the floor or in his pants or in his bed. Plus, Kaj cannot keep his hands OFF the baby. This usually involves pinching his cheeks or sticking his finger in the soft spot. It is bizarre and makes me want to knock him into next week.

I won't say I'll never judge a parent again, but let's just say I won't judge too harshly. Since the Little Einsteins have taken over parenting our children in the morning, who am I to judge anyone? I'm just thankful that the baby will watch television. He's got a great attention span. We're very proud.

Curb Appeal, Sweet Curb Appeal

Second pic: our house, newly painted. And I could only be happier if we had a better "before" picture to show off. Kaj's first birthday group picture will have to do. At least you can see the yucky putty yellow the house used to be compared to the gray on gray-green action we've got going now. And the RED door. Love it. Everyone on our block was outside the last two days while it was being finished all complimenting us on how good it looks. It was very nice of them, but it really points up how really decrepit it must have looked. Jennifer Coolidge has a perfect phrase in the movie "Best in Show"--she says something like "Before I got here, this place was a real shitbox".

You're Sweet, "Anonymous"

Good lord, I'd forgotten about my blog. Really. I'm not kidding. But I got a couple of posts from "anonymous" who, I'm sure "anonymous" knows, is not really all that "anonymous" to me. Good thing though, because I was trying to take a nap, and I'm suffering from allergies and my meds are either hitting my bloodstream or flowing out (depends if you're sudafed (upper), benadryl (downer) or the newly OB approved Claritin) causing tears to flow out of my eyes when I lay down. Not crying, just uncontrollable-annoying-as-hell eyewatering. And as the sudafed/benadryl cocktail dissipates and the Claritin 24 hour takes hold, I am a restless, sleepless, weepy robot. This writing thing is good for something to occupy my mind.

Went to my 32 week OB appt today. Hence, the newly acquired Claritin. Because of gentle requests from mother and in-laws, I was required to ask my doc when I could expect to have my C-section. I am due August 6, and when I asked, Dr. Bridges casually replied, "Oh, about ten days before the due date is when I usually schedule these things."

TEN DAYS?! BEFORE DUE DATE???!! HOLY BUCKETS!

This is huge. With Kaj, I was a miserable freak of nature who had to go EIGHT DAYS past her due date. Getting those days back is like Christmas. But you know what? It's also a little scary. First my husband kind of freaked out....not in a Oh-my-God-why-did-I-marry-her-and-have-rugrats kind of freak out. He was merely reacting to the fact that very soon, we will have a birth date. And before the kid is born even, which if you're superstitious, is about the biggest fate-tempter imaginable. Then my mom kind of freaked out, her reason was that she thought the kid would arrive in August. Having it be the 24 or 25th of July seemed like too much to wrap one's head around. Is around a preposition? Well I don't care. I just ended a sentence with it.

It seems like we probably have to do a lot in six weeks. We thought we had 8 weeks. My typical response to having a lot to do in a finite amount of time is first, to want to lay down and take a nap, second, I get bursts of energy every three days or so that allow me to complete several annoying tasks. Alas, I am not an every day tornado of efficiency and achievement. On my lay-off days I am capable of thorough list-making, which makes the productive days that much more productive.

I did just read two books this past two weeks: A Changed Man by Francine Prose. I give it three stars out of five. Interesting characters and plot. Also just finished Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley, which I give five stars. Hilarious and super-intelligent. I'm so jealous that a person can be that smart and funny at the same time! Also, the New Yorker this week has some incredible essays written by troops in Iraq, as well as other war memoirs written by various people about different conflicts. Reading these may have contributed to the constant eye-watering. I suddenly realized that I'm going to have TWO sons and if they start drafting men again you can look us up in Vancouver, because that's where we'll have to move. It really is a beautiful city.

The skin off his nose.

Look at that poor skinless nose. He's like Raggedy Andy. He was distracted on Sunday nite right before we were leaving the house for dinner. The big kids were playing ball in the street and he was totally mesmerized as he came down the front steps. I was ahead of him, and all the kids gasped and when I turned around he was completing his flip with a twist down the stairs. Don't you hate it when blood is coming out and you don't know from where? Luckily he didn't break his nose or knock his teeth out.

The next morning, he said "I'm gonna take my owie to school". So apparently sidewalk burns are really cool with the pre-school set. 

Reading, writing, 'rithmetic. Or not.

This morning I went to tour another pre-school in the area that my friends kids go to. It is a co-op preschool which means you have to help out one or two mornings a month. Yet, curiously the prices are pretty comparable to where Kaj goes now...

Anyway, it's just not for me. All the kids are in one big room together, there is no separation of different activities for different ages. They don't "make" the kids participate in activities, so if they want to read a book or have a snack out of their lunch, they can. I know this is supposed to let the kids have some control in how they spend their time, whatever, but I really didn't like seeing some little girl eating by herself at a table. It seemed anti-social, and who's to stop her from eating her whole lunch? There were tons of parents there, and apparently a lot of them hang out and help or play, which seemed nice too. There was even a music teacher playing a guitar and the kids were having a ball dancing. So, I was basically having a lot of conflicting emotions about it, because it seemed like a fun place to play.

Then someone asked a question about how they handle nap time and the woman (a parent giving the tour) said that naps really hadn't worked out and a lot of parents didn't want naps while a few did and so they don't really have structured naptime now. Then she pointed to underneath a table, which looked like a fun place to make a fort, since it had pillows and blankets, and she said "some kids were napping there..." I'm sorry, underneath a table??? Who are you people?

The more i hear about co-op preschools, the more I realize you have to be careful. When decisions are being made by committee, by well-intentioned parents, who it should be noted DO NOT have Ph.Ds in early childhood development, it becomes more about what they want for their child, not what's good for the school and for a group of children. So your kid doesn't nap, but would it kill them to sit on a cot with a blanket and a pillow and read a book or color quietly? I don't get it.

And lastly, who are the parents? A different parent is on duty for co-oping every single day. That makes me a little nervous and I don't want to come to school every single day and monitor things, that's not what we're going for here. My friend who came on the tour asked about background checks for teachers and parents. I thought that was an excellent question. They don't do checks on parents, it turns out, but my friend is going to ask that they start. Also, the director of the school wasn't there, and there were five of us on the tour. Turns out she's only there two days a week. Another HUH?

Nothing added up. So I came home, called Eric, and burst into tears at the thought of Kaj going there. Eric said, "Hon, I think you just made the decision for us".