Dream home

There is still plenty of stuff to pack, but for the moment I have run out of boxes. Hopefully, more will be acquired tomorrow, but until then...

Tomorrow, we will be visiting Charming Bungalow for our final walkthrough before closing. I am perhaps feeling a bit anxious about this, as evidenced by a recent dream.

Now, Charming Bungalow is entirely vacant, and has been for some time. The seller, a realtor who purchases, updates, and resells homes as a nice side business, has never actually lived there. Occupancy after closing is immediate. However, in my dream, the seller had decided to move his entire extended family in a week before closing. And when we arrived for our final walkthrough, they were all there having a poker tournament.* Piles of clothing and furniture were everywhere, and no one seemed at all concerned about how they were going to move everything out in the three days that remained until closing.

On top of that, the house had rearranged itself, and the downstairs bedroom had increased in size by about thirty feet, and featured a sloped ceiling, stairs, and several layers of carpeting. Another bathroom, with a giant bathtub and a tiny, dishpan-sized hot tub, had appeared. There were some other differences, but I can't remember just what they were now.

I shared this dream with a few relatives and coworkers, and in return, I got to hear some interesting stories. A lot of people dream about houses, it turns out. One coworker, who has done the purchase-remodel-resell thing a time or two herself, said, "Well, when the kids were little, we never seemed to have enough space. I used to have these dreams where we'd suddenly discover a whole other wing, or sometimes just a room, that we'd somehow forgotten about." My mother said, "Remember the linen closet upstairs, at your grandmother's house? I used to dream that it was a bathroom instead."** I periodically dream that a door in my parents' attic opens to a library. Well, not exactly a library, just a nice carpeted room with the walls covered in bookshelves. Sometimes, this dream room is haunted; other times, it's just a bookshelf-lined room. Also, I used to have dreams that Dragon and I had just found a beautiful apartment, with all sorts of wonderful features, and once we moved in, we'd find out that something was drastically wrong with it. Maybe there were no locks on the doors. Or all the walls were glass, or it had been cleverly disguised and was actually located in the middle of the museum or a mall, so curious museum-goers or shoppers could peer in at us whenever they wished.

Anyway, houses are a big deal in many ways. No wonder we dream about them.

*Dragon likes to watch those televised poker tournaments. They have been on frequently lately. Scary that they're creeping into MY dreams now.

**This brings to mind an entirely different type of dream. I'll be running around a college campus, gym, museum, movie theater, or some other large building, walking in and out of bathrooms. Dozens of them. All of them filthy, or crowded, or otherwise unsuitable for use. Eventually, I'll wake up and realize that I need to use the bathroom. I discussed this once with a former coworker, and we both were (oh, no) relieved (sorry) to discover that we weren't the only ones to have dreams like that. As I recall, we practically fell out of our chairs laughing, saying, "And then you sort of start dreaming lucidly, and think, Why the hell do I keep dreaming about BATHROOMS, for crying out loud? Why can't I dream about something pleasant? Oh, wait. I better wake up now."

Boy howdy. If there's a graceful ending after that second footnote, I'm too tired to think of it. Have a nice evening, 'kay?

Homeward bound

Whoa. Just, whoa.

My household has gotten rather a lot accomplished in the past month.

1. I turned thirty.

2. So did Dragon.

3. Baby Boone is almost ridiculously beautiful. His post-bath hair is charmingly curly, and I just about melted with the cuteness when he smiled and squeaked in happiness after a bath earlier this week. He has also has been acquiring new skills at a furious rate; he WAVED at me in the grocery store today. I had been joking that he'd waved at me through the daycare window the other day, but really I thought that he'd just decided to take a good look at his hand, and any semblance of a wave was wishful thinking on my part. Now I'm wondering if he really was waving, because that sure was a wave in the checkout line today.

Also, from his daycare report sheet on Friday:

"Baby Boone had a little road trip today! I put him in the exersaucer and he really liked the steering wheel. He kept turning it. I don't know where he was going. :) "

Brilliant, that child.

4. Boy Wonder is rather brilliant also, having decided entirely on his own that wearing Big-Boy Underwear is the way to go. One Sunday morning, he asked to wear underwear, and I told him that if he stayed dry until it was time for grocery shopping, he could color with markers. (He loves markers, but his have been in hiding for some time, due to Excessive Coloring on Inappropriate Surfaces. Just because the markers are washable doesn't mean that you SHOULD use them on your breakfast plate and the coffee table.) He got to color with markers, and he has also remained dry since, except for a couple got-too-busy-playing-and-forgot-to-go accidents.


5. And, yeah. So. Remember that house hunt? All signs indicate that it is over. We found The House. (In correspondence with Hawkins, I've been referring to it as Charming Bungalow, and thus shall it be known here.) If all goes well, Charming Bungalow will be ours on Thursday. (Then, and only then, will I post the story of how we found Charming Bungalow. The whole thing reeks so strongly of of This Must Be Fate that I don't want to jinx it.) Hence the lack of blogging lately; I have been consumed with making an offer to purchase, waiting for the offer to be accepted, cheering upon the offer's acceptance, scheduling and attending a home inspection, securing financing, being nervous about whether or not we will really get financing, thinking about paint colors (we've been living in apartments for ten years; we REALLY want to paint a couple of rooms now), picking out paint colors, packing, calling the realtor and mortgage lender with last-minute questions, looking for packing boxes, packing some more, cleaning, packing, doing laundry, packing, trying not to lose any of the Important Paperwork, packing, wrangling Boy Wonder as he tries to help me pack, packing, shopping for appliances, and packing.

Speaking of packing...yeah, I've got some stuff to do.

Recognizing that you have a problem is the first step...

Today, in the car to and from various errands, we got to listen to The Tired Monologues, courtesy of Boy Wonder. Some of the monologues made sense; others, begun right after he woke up from dozing in his car seat, did not. My favorite: on the way home from grocery shopping, he said, "Sometimes, I get angry. I get angry when I am tired. And I get cranky when I am tired. I get CRANKY."

Truer words? Were never spoken. He certainly does get cranky when he is tired. And, since he is an energetic three-year-old who likes getting up at 5:19 and strongly dislikes napping, he is frequently tired. Sometimes, I forget to ask his daycare teacher if he napped during the day; however, I can probably stop asking entirely, as it soon becomes obvious on the drive home. If he is cheerful, eats his breadstick snack happily, and wants to go home and make pizza for dinner, he took a nap. If he starts out cheerful but moments later bursts into tears, says that he hates pizza, cries that he doesn't want dinner at all, shouts weepily "I DON'T LIKE PEOPLE!" (the latest tantrum-pronouncement, and I have no idea where he picked that one up), and then falls asleep, he has not napped.

Who's a slacker now?

Overheard on the way into the infant room at the kids' daycare:

"I am so sorry. I can't believe his dad didn't dress him today. I'll make sure he's wearing something other than pajamas tomorrow!"

The parent who said this really did seem horrified that her son, who is about six months old, had been brought to daycare in his pajamas. Wait, there's something wrong with that? I sent Baby Boone to daycare in pajamas a lot, earlier this summer. We had a cool, rainy spell, and it was really the most convenient way to make sure he stayed warm. Plus, wearing footie pajamas is a happy alternative to wearing those little baby socks that get kicked/wiggled off so easily.

Now, if someone had dropped a pajama-clad Boy Wonder off at daycare, I might have been a little irritated. He's three: they go outside, they play in the grass, they need to be wearing clothes and shoes. But in the infant room? They sit in bouncy chairs, roll around on blankets playing with little educational plastic toys, and are held a lot. For that, they need to be dressed in an actual outfit?

Confessions of a slack-jawed reader

So, a while back I read the book Confessions of a Slacker Mom. I was expecting to like it, a lot. I thought it would be sort of like, "Well, I let my kid eat at McDonald's and watch Sesame Street, and that's OK!" What do I get for having expectations? I get, "Well, I was raised a certain way, and my brothers and I turned out JUST FINE, thanks. So that's how I'm raising my children. Everyone should, really."

There are many things about this book that bother me. Here are just a few of them.

1. The author grew up on a ranch in Wyoming. She's from a ranching family, and grew up doing ranching chores on her family's ranch in Wyoming. Her ranching family did things a certain way on their ranch in Wyoming, and she and her brothers turned out just fine after growing up in a Wyoming ranching family. Did you get the part about the ranch in Wyoming? It's OK if you didn't catch it the first few times. The subject comes up frequently.

2. The author doesn't like to take or organize photos, really. Her mother wasn't really into keeping photo albums either. Therefore, women who make scrapbooks are building little shrines to their children; their scrapbooks are full of trivial and predictable content, and their children will develop an overinflated sense of importance (and be totally embarassed) when they see the scrapbooks their mothers made. Oh, but due to her personality type, she could no doubt make a wonderful scrapbook if she felt like it. But she doesn't.

3. The cardboard tube story! This one sent me into fits. As a toddler, the author's daughter found a cardboard tube from the inside of a paper towel or toilet paper roll, and began playing with it: using it as a musical instrument, looking through it, whacking a fence with it. The author seems very impressed by this, and later wonders if her daughter is a prodigy, or if she was just using her imagination to turn the cardboard tube into a toy because she wasn't overloaded with regular toys. My vote goes to, "She's a kid. They do that with cardboard tubes. Whether or not they have other toys." In my family, we even have a special name for them; we call them doodle-oos. This is because every child in my family, when presented with one of these, would put his or her mouth to one end of the tube and say, "Doodle-oodle-ooo!" or some variation of that. Generally, dancing was involved as well. We have home movies of my cousin and I dancing around on a beach with a couple of cardboard tubes. I have a picture of Boy Wonder using one as a telescope. I think it might be universal.

Anyway. Where did my point go? Oh, there it is. There seems to be no middle ground in this book. (Which I suppose is par for the course if you're coming up with a parenting philosophy. It's your philosophy; better stick to it!) The author was raised a certain way, so that's the way to do things. The author doesn't care about pictures with Santa or the Easter Bunny, so no one should. The author does not believe in praising children for doing everyday things, so all parents must save praise for carefully selected special occasions. The author doesn't buy a lot of toys for her kids...etc. And, finally, someone invented the LeapPad, so children will turn tnto dullards who can't read books for themselves.

Well, Boy Wonder has a LeapPad. He likes it; it makes fun sounds. But it hasn't turned him off of traditional books. And he sure as hell doesn't ask the LeapPad to read him a bedtime story. He asks me (and Dragon too, of course). And I will try my darndest to be there at his soccer games (or school plays, or chess matches, or whatever his activity of choice might be). I'll praise him for small things, and I might make a scrapbook or two filled with photos of him. And I'll do the same for Baby Boone, and for any other children I might have someday. I'll even buy them toys (although my relatives pretty much have that covered). Because that's how I was raised. And I like to think I turned out JUST FINE, thanks.

But I'm not about to write a book advocating that people do things my way.

News in brief

1. The biggest news of the week: Baby Boone rolled over! The milestone way, from back to stomach. He did this about a month and a half earlier than expected. I put him in his crib, and he rolled onto his side and began wriggling around, frantically trying for some reason to eat the crib sheet. I walked into the other room, and said to Dragon, "Poor kid, it looks like he's trying to roll over! It will probably be a while, though." Then I walked back into the boys' room to check on him, and said, "Or, not. Hey, he rolled over! Come and see!" We praised him for being clever, and I rescued him from the crib, whereupon he frantically began trying to eat my shirt.

2. We went to visit Nanny and the raspberry bushes again, and Baby Boone was awake this time, so Nanny held him while Boy Wonder and I headed out with our little plastic containers. We filled them with raspberries and headed back indoors, and Boy Wonder once again scarfed down a bunch of raspberries. Later, on the way home, he fell asleep, and I deposited him in the living room recliner for his nap. He kept turning over, and after a while I noticed his hands moving: one of them was moving across the chair, grabbing at something, and the other was reaching for something in the air. I think he was still picking raspberries.

3. The Wild Hunt is on: Dragon and I have begun house-hunting in earnest. We went to several open houses on Sunday. That was fun.

House #1 lacked a basement, which meant that the laundry facilities and water heater were behind a curtain in the kitchen. (Gong noise.) This is how our current place is laid out, so we're sort of trying to ditch that. Also, the listing mentioned "beautiful murals," one of which was of a unicorn flying over a rainbow. Er, no. (Whack that gong.)

House #2 had a fabulous basement, but was rather cramped otherwise, with two tiny bedrooms. (Gong noise.) However, if there had been THREE tiny bedrooms, we might have considered it. Also, the realtor was fairly pleasant.

House #3 was quite attractive, with a stained-glass window and a built-in china cabinet, but had about three feet of counter space in the entire kitchen. (Gong noise.) And, we think the homeowners were watching us on a webcam somewhere; there were tiny cameras stationed all over the house, and a large server in the basement. The realtor claimed to have no knowledge of such a thing. We did not believe him.

House #4 was an impromptu stop; we saw an open-house sign, decided to go check it out, and were rewarded by being shown a very attractive home. Another fabulous basement, along with four reasonably sized bedrooms, a kitchen with more than two feet of counter space, and enough storage for all of the table linens my mother keeps passing along to us. Sadly, this was all accompanied by a high property tax and an even higher price. (Bang the gong slowly.)

4. Baby Boone has amazingly long eyelashes. They brush the tops of his cheeks.

5. Boy Wonder has amazingly loud tantrums, although it didn't stop him from falling asleep in the middle of one tonight. I suspect he did not take a nap today.

6. Quoth the spam filter:

Hi, opera cloak!
Your health, melba grass
Order status, peacock ore
Order status, flower blaster
Your cash, nerve-trying

I have to argue with that last one, there; in fact, my LACK of cash is what's nerve-trying!

Good night...

"Good night, Boy Wonder. Have pleasant dreams."

"NO! No pwesant dreams. Daddy told me to have SWEET dreams."

Hey, whatever works.

Twelve weeks

I am realizing that I post about Boy Wonder a lot. Well, duh; I started blogging mostly so I could blather about my children. But I have two, and what I meant to say is, I haven't posted about Baby Boone very much. And, although he might not initiate surreal conversations, put on puppet shows, or loudly sing the alphabet on the drive home, he's definitely worth talking about. So here goes.

Baby Boone was born on 4/5/06, which is a pretty neat birthdate. He has lots and lots of dark hair; right now, it's about collar-length. We're not sure what color his eyes will be; under a strong light or outdoors, they look almost gray-green, but in normal light, they look gray-brown. We'll see what happens. He's very contact-oriented and cuddly. So cuddly, in fact, that for the first few weeks we were home, he woke up crying after twenty minutes in the bassinet, but would sleep soundly for several hours if cuddled against someone's chest or in someone's arms. Usually mine; on days when just the two of us were home together, I'd park in the recliner with the baby, the remote control, and a pile of books, snacks, and beverages. He would wake up to eat, and then drift back to sleep in my arms, and I would hold him for hours.

He's a very mellow baby. Boy Wonder was pretty easygoing as well, but Baby Boone is seriously laid-back. He is also a very quiet baby; until he started cooing recently, he was eerily quiet. He does like to coo, though, and will sometimes interrupt a meal to gaze up at me and say, "Lah! Hai. Oooh," and other charming, vowel-heavy things.

His smile is like the dawn breaking, and I will do any number of silly things to see it spread across his face. He seems to enjoy watching his brother, as Boy Wonder dances around his bouncy chair waving a stuffed dinosaur at him; this morning he smiled hugely, and made a noise that was almost a laugh.

He is beautiful. He will always be, to me, and you can quote me on this. Even in twelve, or thirteen, or fourteen years, when he will no longer be a cuddly baby and might tell me that he hates me, or that the way I dress, or talk, or walk, or do anything is horribly humiliating to him. His sweet baby smile will always be with me.

Baby Boone is twelve weeks old today. Happy twelve-week birthday, kid. May you have many more.

The peacock scared my popcorn

Another statistically improbable phrase! Here's how it came about.

We were at the zoo on Saturday. Boy Wonder was happily ensconced in the front portion of the double stroller, looking at a polar bear and munching on popcorn (we'd placed some in a plastic cup instead of giving him the whole giant bag). Then it happened. A peacock sauntered by, casually glancing at the stroller scene...and then it turned around, postured, and squawked in Boy Wonder's face. Loudly. Boy Wonder jumped about a foot, bursting into tears and tossing his cup of popcorn into the air. Popcorn scattered, tears flew, and passerby were highly amused. Boy Wonder was provided with more popcorn, tears stopped flying, and the peacock once again sauntered by casually, heading straight for the scattered popcorn. (I think that was her intention all along.)

This post brought to you by my spam filter

Messages with the following headers were quarantined as possible junk or virus-infected mail today.

Your cash, nose dive
Your cash, peach aphid
Your cash, nerve-shaken
Your cash, night-singing
Your health, moon taught
Your health, nit grass
Order status, noble metal
Order status, mouse-colored
Order status, passage boat

I can't imagine why those were all quarantined. I mean, those sound like they are the subjects of perfectly legitimate emails, don't they? DON'T THEY?

Odds and ends

On the home front: Our upstairs neighbors appear to be moving out! I'll admit, I was very startled to see them carrying various pieces of furniture out the door this afternoon. I would have expected to see them leading out a herd of elephants, a road construction crew, six Clydesdales, and the entire cast of Lord of the Dance. I am not kidding. I have no idea how two normal-sized grownups can make that much noise, unless they eat a lot of canned goods and are the two clumsiest people ever. Now, we live on the second floor, and we have a child who is currently fascinated with hopping and jumping, so I can't imagine that living downstairs from us is a real treat either. We're working on that. In fact, the air fairly vibrates with all the cries of "Boy Wonder! STOP JUMPING NOW! There are people downstairs!" However, at least Dragon and I, the grownups, are trying to be courteous by not stomping around ourselves.

On the road again: I took the boys to visit my grandmother, aka Nanny, today. While she watched Baby Boone sleep in his carseat (he wasn't feeling social today, I guess), Boy Wonder and I went to go pick raspberries in her yard. (My late grandfather grew up on a farm and loved to garden. The raspberries nearly took over the whole yard a few years back, but were tamed slightly. Still, there are a lot of raspberry bushes.) Boy Wonder was wildly enthusiastic about raspberry-picking, and I had to supervise him closely (well, duh, he's three; of course I did). I was trying to explain which berries to pick, and finally settled on telling him to pick the ones that were "all the way red" before he stripped the bushes of the pale pink ones. Which led to many shouts of, "Is this one all the way red? Where are some berries for me to pick? It's my turn to pick one!" We didn't pick that many, which may have been a blessing in disguise, because once we got back inside he proceeded to scarf down every single one.

On the home front, redux: Soon, we hope to emulate our upstairs neighbors--not by making noise, but by moving out. Having a second child makes things a bit more crowded than I thought it would, and I think that fairly soon the closet doors will come flying off because they are all ridiculously full. It is Rummage Sale Season around here, and I keep seeing all the signs and saying, "Hey, we should go! Oh wait, no. Where would we put anything else?" So we are sort of in the beginning stages of looking for a house. With a basement.

Early to bed

And later to rise, I guess? Boy Wonder went to bed at his usual time last night, and slept until 6:15 this morning. He woke up in a pretty good mood, too. Whew.

On the other hand, this evening he spent ten minutes (and harnessed a lot of screaming energy) telling me, "It's not bedtime! It's still LIGHT out!" Nothing like a kid who's about to fall asleep on his feet screaming that he's not TIRED, it's still LIGHT out, he doesn't WANT to go to bed. These statements are particularly amusing when accompanied by huge yawns, extensive eye-rubbing, and the special Tired Salute*. After several books and a bedtime story about an upcoming zoo trip, he finally went to sleep. I wonder what time he'll wake up tomorrow.

*He holds his hand in front of his mouth, almost like he's blowing on his wrist to cool it off. He has been doing this since he was about six months old.

Mission accomplished! Well, sort of.

This morning's mission: get out of the house by 7:10, get children safely to daycare, get self safely to work. Status of this morning's mission: complete, with a few technical difficulties along the way.

I woke up at 2:00 this morning (Baby Boone was hungry) and couldn't help noticing that I had a roaring headache. Baby Boone ate and fell asleep again, and I went back to sleep as well, hoping that sleep would cause the headache to quit roaring. It didn't, as I discovered the next time I woke up, at 4:40 (Baby Boone was hungry again). As I was feeding Baby Boone, I heard another voice:

"Mommy? Mommy? Is it morning yet? I want a waffle and orange juice! Is it time to get up?"

(For some reason, Boy Wonder has been waking up ridiculously early lately. He used to sleep until about 6:15 or so, but the past few weeks have seen wake-up times between 5:13 and 5:47. Fortunately, if I turn on his bedroom light he'll play quietly for a while, until it actually IS morning.)

"No, not yet." I called back. "But as soon as I finish feeding your brother, I'll come turn your light on and you can play for a while."

"No! NO! It's morning! I want to get up! It's light out!" And then I heard the sound of a tantrum starting to be thrown. Well, usually he's fine with playing quietly for a while. (He was today, after a few minutes of blowing off steam, and the official getting-up time was 5:55.)

The morning proceeded fairly smoothly after that, with Boy Wonder being presented with orange juice, cartoons, and a waffle. Baby Boone was still sleeping, and I was able to shower, dress, quickly pack two diaper/extra clothes bags, one lunch, one breast pump and its assorted equipment, one general stuff-to-take-to-work bag, and a partridge in a freakin' pear tree.

Then, the time came to put on Boy Wonder's shoes. As he'd already been awake for two hours, he was becoming somewhat cranky and wanted to wear a pair of dirty socks that had been hanging out on the kitchen floor for a few days. (Note to self: clean kitchen floor more often.) I think I had just said something like, "Get over here and get these clean socks on NOW!" when thunder crashed, Boy Wonder looked very startled, and I jumped about a foot. Then I opened the door to reveal a full-blown summer thunderstorm, complete with torrential rains. Seriously, I started wondering if someone had received instructions to build an ark, and I'd just missed the memo.

Boy Wonder (who was eventually persuaded that clean socks were better than dirty) and I got soaked during our twenty-foot dash to the car, although he did get a kick out of running in the rain. The foot of Baby Boone's car seat got a bit damp, but he remained dry. And I pulled out of our parking spot at exactly 7:10!

Just in time to knock over my water bottle, which I'd carefully placed on the seat beside me after forgetting that I lost the cap about a week ago.

Tomorrow is anothah day.

Here's your fizzy water!

Disclaimer: No one has ever actually asked Boy Wonder to bring them a beverage of any sort. He's just started doing it on his own; last time we had dinner at my parents' house, I heard my mother getting me a can of sparkling water and Boy Wonder saying, "No, I want to bring Mommy her fizzy water!"

Today being Father's Day, the boys had some cards ready for Dragon. (I purchased the cards, of course, and then Boy Wonder customized them with some crayons.) So this morning, I sent Boy Wonder to perform the Wake Up Daddy ritual, and gave him the cards to take with him. Dragon was sleepily looking at the cards, and I suddenly heard Boy Wonder rummaging around in the refrigerator.

"Boy Wonder, what are you doing?" I called.

"I'm getting something for Daddy!" he replied.

I started to hear things falling over in the fridge, and went to investigate. Then I saw what Boy Wonder was carrying, and became too busy cracking up as I followed him back into the bedroom. Where Dragon was very surprised indeed when Boy Wonder said, "Here, Daddy! Here's your fizzy water that I brought for you!" and presented him with...a beer. At 8:00 on a Sunday morning, no less.

La leche post

First of all, a big shout-out to the local convention center, the staff of which did not bat an eyelash when I arrived there for an all-day event and brandished my breast pump at them. A nice gentleman showed me into a room with tables, chairs, and a sink, and then got on his walkie-talkie to spread the news that the room would be in use.

And now: Oh, for the love of heaven

Now, I'm all for breastfeeding. I own a copy of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. I nursed Boy Wonder for sixteen months. Except for, like, three, bottles of formula he had during the week we were both hospitalized and on IV antibiotics, he received no milk but mine until he was nearly ten months old, when I just wasn't able to pump as much during the workday. And by "not as much," I don't mean "less frequently;" I was actually pumping more frequently, but I think by that point he was drinking three 6-ounce bottles a day, and that is a LOT of milk to come up with on a daily basis! My supply was still fine when he was nursing (babies are much more effective than pumps), but I did need to supplement his daycare bottles with formula for the next couple of months, until he switched to drinking regular milk. Even after that, he still nursed at naptime and bedtime until we were through. And, obviously, since I have a two-month-old and was using a pump yesterday, I am nursing Baby Boone. He has not yet had any formula; my employer provides a secure and private space for nursing mothers, and I'm still in the heady days of having a rockin' milk supply. My freezer, it runneth over.

But I am sick, sick, sick of hearing it implied that mothers who don't breastfeed their babies for very long, or don't breastfeed them at all, are causing their children grave physical harm. Yes, breastfeeding is the best nutritional choice, and it would be very easy for me to say, "Why doesn't everyone just give it a try?" But I had a good supply, no big problems, and babies who latched on easily, decided breastfeeding was just fine with them, and proceeded to gain weight rapidly. (And, let's not forget, I also had/have employers who said, "You want to pump? No problem; we'll slap a lock on the empty office down the hall. Here's your key; use it as needed." Not everyone has that.) And, I am here to tell you that even if the nurse who teaches your breastfeeding class tells you that all of her breastfed children never, ever, ever got sick, and only visited the doctor for their well-child visits, not everyone has that experience. By the time he was ten months old, Boy Wonder had had three GI viruses, RSV, pneumonia, and four ear infections.

I have rather a lot to say about this, but very little time. So, in summary: Breastfeeding is good, but formula is not poison, yo. And, if you want to encourage women to breastfeed, provide every new mother with a free, high-quality breast pump, free in-home visits from lactation counselors, and free whatever else is needed to ensure that they'll breastfeed. Maybe with some of the money that's being spent on this ad campaign.

The mother monologue

Here's what I said on the drive home today. See if you can fill in the other end of the conversation.

So, you had a fun day at school? Oh, good.
I'm sure Grandma will take you to the flower garden. You'll have to ask her, though.
You can call Grandma when we get home.
NO. You can call Grandma when we get home.
Yes, I know I called Daddy on the way home yesterday. (Whoops.)
I'm sure Grandma will think that's fine.
YOU CAN CALL GRANDMA WHEN WE GET HOME.
You had what for lunch?
And did you like it?
Yes, Daddy likes meatloaf.
I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa do too.
No, your brother is too little to have meatloaf.
No, he can't even have little meatloaves.
I know he's getting bigger. But he's not big enough for meatloaf yet.
Yes, you're growing and growing!
Yes, the big sign with the dancing man is gone.
I don't know.
No, I'm pretty sure our neighbors didn't move it.
Yes, it was a silly sign.
ABCDEFG, HIJKLMNOP. QRSTUV, WXY and Z. Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me.
Because the light is red.
No, green means go.
No, red means...never mind. You'll figure it out in a few years.
No, I don't have a lollipop for you.
I'm sure the doctor will have a lollipop for you next time.
That's right, your brother can't have a lollipop.
Not even a little one.
Yes, he just made a little noise.
No, it's not because I said he couldn't have a lollipop.
Oh look, we're home!

(This is why I don't listen to the radio in the car anymore. The live entertainment can't be beat.)

Note to one of my neighbors: your son needs to wash his hands

The Monday Night Screamfest almost drove an utterly bizarre experience straight out of my mind, but fortunately I remembered it today.

So I was standing outside the car, planning my strategy for transporting a sleeping three-year-old, a sleeping infant, two diaper bags, and my purse from the car to the apartment (not as difficult as it sounds, trust me), when I heard a noise behind me. I jumped about two feet, and the voice continued...

"Look at meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I have a live birdieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

I turned around to face a young boy, perhaps seven years old. He was indeed holding a live birdie: a very uncomfortable-looking pigeon.

"I liiiiiiiiiiiiiike birds," he said.

"Oh. How nice. Bye now," I responded.

The boy and the live birdie moved on. I briefly wondered if I should be concerned about the pigeon's welfare, and decided against it. A moment later, I noticed that the live birdie had staged an escape, and was leading the boy on a merry chase.

Good times.

Cue circus music

Three-year-olds are a trip.

Yesterday afternoon, Boy Wonder fell asleep on the way home from school. He's been doing that a lot lately, since he pretty much quit taking naps. Sometimes, he will fall asleep on the way home and sleep through until the next morning. While I am fine with him doing this once a week or so, I don't want it to become the status quo. The kid weighs 29 pounds; he doesn't need to be skipping meals. So we usually wake him up for dinner. Mostly, he is fine after a few cranky minutes. Sadly, last night was not one of those times. Waking him up resulted in more than an hour of screaming blue hysteria. First he agreed to calm down if he could talk to Grandpa on the phone, so I called my parents and explained his urgent need to speak to Grandpa. For whatever reason, though, my mother decided she'd try talking to him first. I am unclear as to why she thought that was a good idea. More screaming blue hysteria ensued, and by the time Grandpa got on the phone, Boy Wonder was absolutely incoherent and had to lie down on the floor. He finally calmed down enough to get in the bathtub (after half an hour of "I don't like a bath! No bath! I had a bath already! I don't LIKE a bath!"), where he mostly sulked for a while. Then I put some shampoo in his hair; this was the wrong thing to do, apparently, as he started in with the dramatic weeping again, and finally shouted, "I don't want to talk to you! Don't look at me!"

Then, thirty seconds later, he looked up at the ceiling, smiled, and said...

"Is it starting to rain in here?"

Huh?

Wow

Baby Boone slept from 9:00 last night until 4:45 this morning. He is only two months old, so I wasn't expecting that for a while. I can't remember Boy Wonder doing that until he was nearly four months old!

Statistically improbable phrases

No, not the ones that are part of Amazon's search feature; I'm talking about an entirely different sort of improbable phrase. Once you become a parent, you find yourself uttering phrases that you never in the world suspected would come out of your (or, really, anyone's) mouth. This is especially frequent once your child begins talking. Some of these phrases, such as "Is there corn in your nose?" and "Did you just hit your brother with a spatula?" and "No, you can't throw a pillow at your brother in his bouncy chair. Where did you get that idea?" are probably pretty common. However, some of them, such as "No, you were not born at the zoo," and "Not all airplanes are flying to Arizona," and (my current favorite) "Yes, your pink blanket is on vacation with the giraffes," are not so common. They're pretty darn entertaining, though.