To this:
...in a scant five years.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Kodak moment
Actually, it's a Sony Cybershot moment; I thought it might be nice to follow up the tale of Action Hero and his Surprise NasalMist™ with something pleasant. Story first, then picture.
I may have mentioned a time or six recently that Action Hero is really into coloring lately. Last Friday, when I went to pick him up at my parents' house, he was sitting at a child-sized table coloring intently. He looked indescribably sweet, and I decided to move our own child-sized table, currently in the playroom upstairs, to the living room so he could color there. Perhaps, I thought optimistically, Boy Wonder would like it too, and they would sit at the table and color together! (Generally one of them sits at the coffee table, after they fight over the kid-sized chair, and the other sits ON the coffee table.)
At first, this turned out to be a very optimistic thought indeed. I moved the table into the living room on Saturday morning. Action Hero really liked it, and would occasionally drop his toy cars to sit at the table for a while. Boy Wonder, delivered home by my parents after his Grandparental Sleepover Night (this occurs every other Friday or so), said, "Hey! Why did you move things?" Then he and Action Hero, each having sorely missed the other (or the opportunity to clonk a small counterpart on the head with a toy), spent the next couple of hours fighting over markers, toys, cars, stuffed animals, and who got to sit on my lap more.
Then it happened. I left the room for some reason (to cook dinner, I think), and came back to find the following:
Behold the power of the Child-Sized Table. And the crayons and colored pencils, of course.
I may have mentioned a time or six recently that Action Hero is really into coloring lately. Last Friday, when I went to pick him up at my parents' house, he was sitting at a child-sized table coloring intently. He looked indescribably sweet, and I decided to move our own child-sized table, currently in the playroom upstairs, to the living room so he could color there. Perhaps, I thought optimistically, Boy Wonder would like it too, and they would sit at the table and color together! (Generally one of them sits at the coffee table, after they fight over the kid-sized chair, and the other sits ON the coffee table.)
At first, this turned out to be a very optimistic thought indeed. I moved the table into the living room on Saturday morning. Action Hero really liked it, and would occasionally drop his toy cars to sit at the table for a while. Boy Wonder, delivered home by my parents after his Grandparental Sleepover Night (this occurs every other Friday or so), said, "Hey! Why did you move things?" Then he and Action Hero, each having sorely missed the other (or the opportunity to clonk a small counterpart on the head with a toy), spent the next couple of hours fighting over markers, toys, cars, stuffed animals, and who got to sit on my lap more.
Then it happened. I left the room for some reason (to cook dinner, I think), and came back to find the following:
Behold the power of the Child-Sized Table. And the crayons and colored pencils, of course.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Non-Kodak moment
Brought to you by Gross Moments in Parenting, Volume MCXLD, Chapter 57: Noses and Their Contents. Anithe & Co., var. dates from 2003 to present.
The scene: a living room, shortly after dinner. Action Hero, reduced to stormy weeping because I'd dared to WASH his HANDS and FACE after DINNER, decided I wasn't so bad after all and turned to me for comfort, burrowing his head in my shoulder and generally being quite cuddly. He sat up on my lap, smiled, and did a variety of cute two-year-old things. He even let out a cute two-year-old-style sneeze, very dramatic, with a "KaCHOO!" sound effect. I said, "Bless you," and reflected on how cute toddler sneezes sound.
Right before I felt the fine mist settle onto the front of my neck.
Thank you for your support. Tune in soon for the next Gross Moments offering, Look Out Below, or, When Kids Barf.
The scene: a living room, shortly after dinner. Action Hero, reduced to stormy weeping because I'd dared to WASH his HANDS and FACE after DINNER, decided I wasn't so bad after all and turned to me for comfort, burrowing his head in my shoulder and generally being quite cuddly. He sat up on my lap, smiled, and did a variety of cute two-year-old things. He even let out a cute two-year-old-style sneeze, very dramatic, with a "KaCHOO!" sound effect. I said, "Bless you," and reflected on how cute toddler sneezes sound.
Right before I felt the fine mist settle onto the front of my neck.
Thank you for your support. Tune in soon for the next Gross Moments offering, Look Out Below, or, When Kids Barf.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Memento mori
So yeah, that Somber Post. Or, "Why We are Very, Very Happy That We Visited Illinois on Easter Weekend."
Wednesday, March 26. The phone rang at 11:00 at night, and I woke up just as it finished ringing. I noted that the number was that of my mother's cell phone, and hit redial; she and my dad had gone on an overnight trip, so I couldn't imagine her calling so late unless there was a reason.
Boy, was there ever. My grandmother (my father's mother) had died. They weren't clear on the details yet, but by all accounts it had been fast. Probably her aneurysm, discovered by her doctor several years ago, had burst.
When I was growing up, listening to my grandmother was better than reading Nancy Drew and Little House on the Prairie put together. I loved to hear her talk about what it was like growing up as the only girl in a household with seven (yes, seven) brothers, how she would help her mother with everything, and how she and her mother would embroider yards and yards of the household linens every spring. And how her brothers took care of her, and were protective of her. They even picked her name; her mother, wanting an uncommon name for her daughter, sent her older sons out into the neighborhood to take a survey of girls' names and find something pretty that wasn't too common. They did. They also helped persuade their mother to let my grandmother buy her first grown-up (read: black) dress, when she was 16. (I remember her telling me that her argument was it wasn't really ALL black, it had a shiny multicolored rose at the belted waist, but that hadn't mattered to her mother until her brothers joined the discussion.) Her favorite brother, just two years older, took her out on the town for her eighteenth birthday. He also helped her buy a typewriter, so the two of them could practice at home and get good office jobs. (They did; in fact, this brother was the first man in the family to wear a white shirt to work, during a time when the distinction between white-collar and blue-collar jobs was literal.) She was a dedicated folk dancer, and also loved to go out dancing with her three best girlfriends every Friday night.
When we went cottaging up north (Wisconsin-ese for renting a cottage in the northern part of the state for a week or so during summer vacation), she would spend hours playing games with me and my cousin. We played lots of card games (our favorite was Royal Rummy), lots of Yahtzee, and plenty of Scrabble too. (She had a special Scrabble cheat sheet, composed of unusual two-, three-, and four-letter words, for the times when random, unrelated letters were sitting on your tile holder and you needed a really short word.) She also outfitted all of our Barbie and Cabbage Patch dolls in nicely crocheted creations, some of which are probably still in my parents' attic. And, when we took it into our heads to give impromptu singing and dancing performances, which we often did, she made us feel like we were the greatest. (We weren't.)
I sat there for an hour and a half remembering all of the above and more, until Dragon came to suggest I get some rest.
The next few days were a flurry of phone calls and visits, punctuated only by a baking frenzy (mine; I decided to bake a batch of my dad's favorite cookies, to be set aside for his own personal use, and then decided that baking made me feel useful, so I also baked two types of chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and two batches of Rice Krispie treats, and was about to start in on some cookie bars when I ran out of vanilla. And steam*).
Her funeral was the Monday after. Despite its pretty pink and white embroidered lining, it was hard to reconcile the coffin with my grandmother, who'd so recently been smiling as Boy Wonder colored at her kitchen table and Action Hero ate approximately half a carton of vanilla ice cream at same.
So I'll remember her that way. Smiling at me and my cousins. Staying up late with me and telling me stories; playing cards at her kitchen table or at the table of a rented cabin; holding a Baby Boy Wonder and then an Action Hero in her lap and smiling at her great-grandchildren.
*After the funeral luncheon, I said, "I sort of don't know what to do now." Dragon said, "PLEASE don't bake anything else, okay?"
Wednesday, March 26. The phone rang at 11:00 at night, and I woke up just as it finished ringing. I noted that the number was that of my mother's cell phone, and hit redial; she and my dad had gone on an overnight trip, so I couldn't imagine her calling so late unless there was a reason.
Boy, was there ever. My grandmother (my father's mother) had died. They weren't clear on the details yet, but by all accounts it had been fast. Probably her aneurysm, discovered by her doctor several years ago, had burst.
When I was growing up, listening to my grandmother was better than reading Nancy Drew and Little House on the Prairie put together. I loved to hear her talk about what it was like growing up as the only girl in a household with seven (yes, seven) brothers, how she would help her mother with everything, and how she and her mother would embroider yards and yards of the household linens every spring. And how her brothers took care of her, and were protective of her. They even picked her name; her mother, wanting an uncommon name for her daughter, sent her older sons out into the neighborhood to take a survey of girls' names and find something pretty that wasn't too common. They did. They also helped persuade their mother to let my grandmother buy her first grown-up (read: black) dress, when she was 16. (I remember her telling me that her argument was it wasn't really ALL black, it had a shiny multicolored rose at the belted waist, but that hadn't mattered to her mother until her brothers joined the discussion.) Her favorite brother, just two years older, took her out on the town for her eighteenth birthday. He also helped her buy a typewriter, so the two of them could practice at home and get good office jobs. (They did; in fact, this brother was the first man in the family to wear a white shirt to work, during a time when the distinction between white-collar and blue-collar jobs was literal.) She was a dedicated folk dancer, and also loved to go out dancing with her three best girlfriends every Friday night.
When we went cottaging up north (Wisconsin-ese for renting a cottage in the northern part of the state for a week or so during summer vacation), she would spend hours playing games with me and my cousin. We played lots of card games (our favorite was Royal Rummy), lots of Yahtzee, and plenty of Scrabble too. (She had a special Scrabble cheat sheet, composed of unusual two-, three-, and four-letter words, for the times when random, unrelated letters were sitting on your tile holder and you needed a really short word.) She also outfitted all of our Barbie and Cabbage Patch dolls in nicely crocheted creations, some of which are probably still in my parents' attic. And, when we took it into our heads to give impromptu singing and dancing performances, which we often did, she made us feel like we were the greatest. (We weren't.)
I sat there for an hour and a half remembering all of the above and more, until Dragon came to suggest I get some rest.
The next few days were a flurry of phone calls and visits, punctuated only by a baking frenzy (mine; I decided to bake a batch of my dad's favorite cookies, to be set aside for his own personal use, and then decided that baking made me feel useful, so I also baked two types of chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and two batches of Rice Krispie treats, and was about to start in on some cookie bars when I ran out of vanilla. And steam*).
Her funeral was the Monday after. Despite its pretty pink and white embroidered lining, it was hard to reconcile the coffin with my grandmother, who'd so recently been smiling as Boy Wonder colored at her kitchen table and Action Hero ate approximately half a carton of vanilla ice cream at same.
So I'll remember her that way. Smiling at me and my cousins. Staying up late with me and telling me stories; playing cards at her kitchen table or at the table of a rented cabin; holding a Baby Boy Wonder and then an Action Hero in her lap and smiling at her great-grandchildren.
*After the funeral luncheon, I said, "I sort of don't know what to do now." Dragon said, "PLEASE don't bake anything else, okay?"
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Dream a little dream
Please enjoy the following tales of wacky dreams had by my immediate family.
Recently, while attempting to wake Dragon up one morning, I said, "HEY! Don't you have to go to work?" To which he replied, "I'm the last man on earth! Why would I have to go to work?" Then he woke up, and was a trifle confused. (He did rent I Am Legend the weekend the boys and I were out of town, so there's a logical explanation behind this one.)
That same morning, Action Hero, who had been transported to our bed in the early morning hours, yawned, stretched, and said, quite clearly, "Crayons." Then he sighed and continued sleeping. Well, okay then. I'll get right on that.*
And, to round out the trio, Boy Wonder apparently had a doozy while sleeping over at my parents' house last night. My mother reports that he woke up at 4:20 and said, "Grandma! Classmate just stole my pencil case and my cutting scissors and will not give them back! OH NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo." He was eventually persuaded that his pencil case and cutting scissors were just fine.
*He has been coloring a lot recently, and watches Boy Wonder very carefully, perhaps hoping that he will soon be able to crank out impressive drawings of houses (Boy Wonder recently drew one that had a face AND was riding a skateboard) instead of covering a sheet of paper with colorful scribbles.
Recently, while attempting to wake Dragon up one morning, I said, "HEY! Don't you have to go to work?" To which he replied, "I'm the last man on earth! Why would I have to go to work?" Then he woke up, and was a trifle confused. (He did rent I Am Legend the weekend the boys and I were out of town, so there's a logical explanation behind this one.)
That same morning, Action Hero, who had been transported to our bed in the early morning hours, yawned, stretched, and said, quite clearly, "Crayons." Then he sighed and continued sleeping. Well, okay then. I'll get right on that.*
And, to round out the trio, Boy Wonder apparently had a doozy while sleeping over at my parents' house last night. My mother reports that he woke up at 4:20 and said, "Grandma! Classmate just stole my pencil case and my cutting scissors and will not give them back! OH NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo." He was eventually persuaded that his pencil case and cutting scissors were just fine.
*He has been coloring a lot recently, and watches Boy Wonder very carefully, perhaps hoping that he will soon be able to crank out impressive drawings of houses (Boy Wonder recently drew one that had a face AND was riding a skateboard) instead of covering a sheet of paper with colorful scribbles.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Two at the Zoo
I've had a Somber Post brewing for about a week and a half now, and I can't seem to get it right. Needs to be done, though. Watch this space.
Right now, watch the space below.
For TODAY, we are HAPPY and PROUD. For lo, two years ago today I was dozing in front of the latest episode of Lost - not something that I generally did, but entirely excusable considering that I had given birth about eight hours prior. That's right, folks; today is Action Hero's second birthday. He is now Two, with no sign of Terrible yet. To celebrate, the zoo in this here neck of the woods held Family Free Day!
Well, that's not exactly right. Proud as I am, I am also aware that the free-admission day was not actually in honor of my younger son's birthday. Several times each winter, and generally once in early spring, some corporate sponsor holds Family Free Day at the zoo, whereupon lots of people go and spend money on everything but zoo admission (generally $8 to $12). I thought they knocked it out of the park last year when Free Day fell on the Sunday before Boy Wonder's birthday, but we took having it fall on Action Hero's actual birthday as a sign that we were meant to take the kids to the zoo. Any weather-oriented deities also outdid themselves, as temparatures reached a sunny 60+ degrees, with a light breeze.
And it was a fine day for all concerned. We arrived early, before Free Day was in full force and everyone in this county plus the four neighboring ones got there. Upon entry, we were greeted by an array of "Everything $4.00" bins, filled to the brim with stuffed animals and other assorted zoo souveniers. The gift shop crew must have been totally patting themselves on the back for having that idea, but we liked it too. Soon, Boy Wonder and Action Hero each had his very own stuffed tiger (well, Action Hero had a "kiger" for a while, but I think he got the "t" sound at some point), as well as a shiny stuffed crab, WHICH DOES NOT HAVE A TAIL, in case anyone was wondering, and a shiny stuffed lobster, which does. I think the crab and lobster are pretty neat, actually, but the kigers carried the day, each one riding in the lap of its proud owner. (And now, each one currently clutched in the arms of its sleeping owner.)
Souveniers out of the way, we then went about the usual zoo business of animal-gazing, and had a nice time. Peacocks, which Action Hero displayed a great interest in, abounded, and he said, "Doggie! Woof woof!" to a charming little red panda creature. He was also delighted by various monkeys, and was mesmerized by a black bear that had climbed onto its wooden play structure. ("Bear aclimbin?" Yes. "Bear ajumping?" No, probably not.) Boy Wonder seemed to greatly enjoy the elephants and hippos, and spent quite a while watching the African fish in the maquarium (sic), but overall I think his favorite parts of the day were 1) eating popcorn and 2) riding the zoo train, which was the last thing we did before deciding that we were all pretty tired and cranky.
So naturally, we went to a restaurant for a late lunch, whereupon the boys ate like stevedores (whoo for fresh air!) and Action Hero was presented with a complimentary dish of ayecreen. Excuse me, ice cream. There was also singing, but quietly and just at our table; a crew of singing waiters would have freaked him out. Then we went home and keeled over from exhaustion. (Not really. We watched a lot of Scooby-Doo DVDs, and bedtime came early tonight.)
So, hooray for Action Hero, my small and smiley two-year-old! May he have scores more happy birthdays (though they may not all involve stuffed kigers).
Right now, watch the space below.
For TODAY, we are HAPPY and PROUD. For lo, two years ago today I was dozing in front of the latest episode of Lost - not something that I generally did, but entirely excusable considering that I had given birth about eight hours prior. That's right, folks; today is Action Hero's second birthday. He is now Two, with no sign of Terrible yet. To celebrate, the zoo in this here neck of the woods held Family Free Day!
Well, that's not exactly right. Proud as I am, I am also aware that the free-admission day was not actually in honor of my younger son's birthday. Several times each winter, and generally once in early spring, some corporate sponsor holds Family Free Day at the zoo, whereupon lots of people go and spend money on everything but zoo admission (generally $8 to $12). I thought they knocked it out of the park last year when Free Day fell on the Sunday before Boy Wonder's birthday, but we took having it fall on Action Hero's actual birthday as a sign that we were meant to take the kids to the zoo. Any weather-oriented deities also outdid themselves, as temparatures reached a sunny 60+ degrees, with a light breeze.
And it was a fine day for all concerned. We arrived early, before Free Day was in full force and everyone in this county plus the four neighboring ones got there. Upon entry, we were greeted by an array of "Everything $4.00" bins, filled to the brim with stuffed animals and other assorted zoo souveniers. The gift shop crew must have been totally patting themselves on the back for having that idea, but we liked it too. Soon, Boy Wonder and Action Hero each had his very own stuffed tiger (well, Action Hero had a "kiger" for a while, but I think he got the "t" sound at some point), as well as a shiny stuffed crab, WHICH DOES NOT HAVE A TAIL, in case anyone was wondering, and a shiny stuffed lobster, which does. I think the crab and lobster are pretty neat, actually, but the kigers carried the day, each one riding in the lap of its proud owner. (And now, each one currently clutched in the arms of its sleeping owner.)
Souveniers out of the way, we then went about the usual zoo business of animal-gazing, and had a nice time. Peacocks, which Action Hero displayed a great interest in, abounded, and he said, "Doggie! Woof woof!" to a charming little red panda creature. He was also delighted by various monkeys, and was mesmerized by a black bear that had climbed onto its wooden play structure. ("Bear aclimbin?" Yes. "Bear ajumping?" No, probably not.) Boy Wonder seemed to greatly enjoy the elephants and hippos, and spent quite a while watching the African fish in the maquarium (sic), but overall I think his favorite parts of the day were 1) eating popcorn and 2) riding the zoo train, which was the last thing we did before deciding that we were all pretty tired and cranky.
So naturally, we went to a restaurant for a late lunch, whereupon the boys ate like stevedores (whoo for fresh air!) and Action Hero was presented with a complimentary dish of ayecreen. Excuse me, ice cream. There was also singing, but quietly and just at our table; a crew of singing waiters would have freaked him out. Then we went home and keeled over from exhaustion. (Not really. We watched a lot of Scooby-Doo DVDs, and bedtime came early tonight.)
So, hooray for Action Hero, my small and smiley two-year-old! May he have scores more happy birthdays (though they may not all involve stuffed kigers).
