I should've been more specific

My favorite episode of The X-Files is "Je Souhaite." (I always liked their Monster/Supernatural Entity of the Week episodes better than the whole Aliens + Government arc anyway. But I digress.) In this episode, a genie grants wishes that end up causing more harm than good, because people just aren't specific enough when making them - or because they don't consider the consequences. Want to be invisible? Great, but remember that trucks can't see you when you go outside to run around. Wish for peace on earth? Well, Earth is awfully peaceful with no one else on it. Late in the episode, the genie reveals that she, too, wasn't all that smart about wishing - one day, back in fourteenth-century France when she ran across a powerful genie, she made two practical wishes. Then she wished for great power and long life...and that's how she ended up rolled up in a carpet for six hundred years, granting wishes to everyone who unrolled her. She says, ruefully, "I should've been more specific."

Having a three-year-old is kind of like that - the having to be more specific part, I mean. My problem is, I don't always realize how specific one needs to be around a three-year-old. Apparently, when I said to Boy Wonder, "Hey! Get your finger out of your nose!" I should have added, "And just in case you're thinking of sticking puzzle pieces in your nose, don't do that either! Same goes for markers! And action figures!" And when I said, "Stop kicking the TV stand!" I should have also said, "And don't put a cup over your foot and kick the TV stand, either! And don't whack the TV stand with an action figure!" And don't..."

21st-century digital boy

Boy Wonder picked his own outfit today. Last time he did this, he ended up with dueling camouflage: a light blue camo shirt with desert camo pants. This morning, he left the house wearing a Buzz Lightyear T-shirt, an Elmo sweatshirt, and Thomas the Tank Engine light-up shoes. (He has a thing for Thomas footwear, even though he doesn't like the show. Last time Grandma took him shopping, he picked out Thomas bedroom slippers. The furry Elmo slippers freaked him out a little.) Oh, and Spiderman underwear. Kids' pants: the final character-free frontier.

When I went to go pick him up at daycare, he and the rest of his class were playing outside. He and another boy were each sitting on big plastic blocks, with another couple of plastic blocks in front of them. I wondered what they were doing: flying rocket ships? Driving cars? Steering fire engines?

"Hi, Mommy! I'm watching the TV." said Boy Wonder.

"You're...watching TV?"

"Yeah! I have a really big TV!" the other little boy chimed in.

"Yeah, I'm watching TV here. But you know what? This TV's not working very well, Mommy. I think we should go watch TV at home."

Yo(ga), baby

Baby Boone is on the move. On Saturday, he started crawling. On Sunday, he started assuming the above position, which I've been informed is a reasonable approximation of the yoga pose "downward dog." As he is only five and a half months old, I've taken this opportunity to explain to him that he is not actually required to start walking for quite some time yet (and we will never require him to take up yoga). But he persists in attempting even greater feats; as of yesterday, he began trying to move his feet while striking the above yoga pose. Rather like he's trying to walk on all fours.

I wonder if he has any superpowers.

The annotated home

Everybody sing!

In the first week of residence, my new house gave to me
A garage with a padlock, not a key.*

In the first week of residence, my new house gave to me
Two clogged drains
And a dad who snaked them out for free.**

In the first week of residence, my new house gave to me
Three dirty floors
Two leaky faucets
And some locksmith guys who came to re-key.***

In the first week of residence, my new house gave to me
Four new appliances****
A third leaky faucet
Two smallish closets
And a guy installing cable TV.*****

In the first week of residence, my new house gave to me
A BASEMENT GAS LEAK
Four trips to Home Depot
Three trips to Menard's
Two trips to Target
And a credit card that wept, "Stop using me!"******

In the first week of residence, my new house gave to me
Six cans of paint
A BASEMENT GAS LEAK
A wet basement floor
(But at least the floor drain works)
Two wet feet
And a centipede as big as a tree.*******

In the first week of residence, my new house gave to me
Seven garden tools
(Found in the garage)
A BASEMENT GAS LEAK
Fifty billion boxes
Lots of misplaced things
Several strong curse words
And a thousand prayers to St. Anthony.********

I am totally running out of steam now. Perhaps I'll see what verses present themselves over the next several weeks.


*Fortunately, Dragon pointed this out before I had a chance to lock myself in the garage. The side garage door now features a proper doorknob that can be opened from the inside.
**Boy, have I got a nice dad.
***And had to come back for their toolbox, after they left it in the middle of the living room floor.
****And we only had to pay for two! The other two were purchased to be sold with the home.
*****"Hi, I'm Boy Wonder. How are you doing today? The Disney Channel is broken. So is Mommy and Daddy's bomputers. You are here to fix them?" Also, the cable guy left a large box of cabling here. He has so far not come back to retrieve it.
******Some things (like sobbing credit cards?) you just can't buy. For everything else, like the 5,637 things you need upon purchasing a house that was built in 1924, there's MasterCard.
*******OK, so it wasn't quite that big. It was big enough, though. The shriek/WHAP combination is big around here these days.
********Who totally rocks. Why, just this week, St. Anthony has helped me locate glasses, keys, and buckles for the high chair.