My Little Einstein

Adam loves the cartoon Little Einsteins. It's been on for only a few months but we've seen every episode several times. It's by the creators of Baby Einstein, which we used to abuse often. Adam particularly loved Baby Mozart and would watch the thing over and over and over and over. I guess the makers of the Baby Einstein series decided to capitalize on their popularity with parents who, no doubt, think they are doing something good for their kids by letting them watch something with the name "Einstein" in it.

It's true, the name does have some appeal to me. "If I let Adam watch this, he too will grasp the concept laws of physics", I reason. Little Einsteins is a cute cartoon, though. The four characters go on little adventures and introduce children to famous paintings and classical music and it is, visually, a pretty cartoon.

A few weeks ago Adam started calling his Little People by the names of the Little Einsteins. The funny thing is, they do kind of resemble the Einsteins (except for June as you will see). Then he decided that they needed to go everywhere with him. And if one was missing we had to find it. If I couldn't find it, I had to concoct a story about where that particular Einstein went. They went in the bath with him, had to be dried off like him, and even had to be covered up in their own blanket when they went to bed with him.

Here are Adam's Einsteins. From left to right: Leo, Annie, June, and Quincy.


Here are the actual Little Einsteins. You can probably work out who is who, although June is actually a little brunette girl and not a man with a helmet.

The Family Christmas Picture

I am not a traditionalist by any means. I am also relatively cheap. Combine those two factors with the fact that Adam has a phobia of professional photographers and you get exactly two professionl pictures in Adam's life. Sometimes I fear this makes me a bad mother. I always acknowledge the dozens of pro pictures of their kids at varying ages adorning people's walls and fireplace mantles and silently reflect on my own shame for not having enough of my own. But then I reason that I take enough pictures on my own and they generally come out better than the stiff poses of unhappy children you get in those photography studios.

I am not a good photographer but kids are really easy subjects. Especially when they are your own. All you have to do is follow them around with the camera snapping away and eventually you'll capture something cute or funny or revealing in a way that you had not intended. But I have never been able to get a good Christmas picture. Last year I had a grand scheme and the mental picture I took was fantastic. Two dogs with reindeer antlers and Adam wearing a Santa hat in his Christmas PJ's. It didn't work.

I had failed, in my fantasy, to consider the tired 18 month old who would refuse to wear his santa hat or sit still. Or the dogs attacking one another because they look like aliens with their antlers on. I guess that's how fantasies work, though. Here's what our one picture with all three wiggly little subjects ended up looking like:



It did not go on our Christmas card.

This year I tried again. Only without the dog. I figured I would have my hands full enough with two wiggly babies. To my surprise, they cooperated marvelously and the very first picture I tried to take turned out great. The only problem is that I tried to remove the red eye using the red eye feature of Photoshop. Being the genious that I am, I overdid it, making Adam look like the RCA dog. To further illustrate how intelligent I am, I saved over the original file!

Here's what it looked like:


I tried to fix it Photoshop and ended up making Adam's eye look like it was melting off his face so I scrapped that plan and re-washed the Christmas jammies the next day and tried again. The kids weren't feeling in the holiday spirit.





So I went back to plan A and found a good replacement eye for Adam. I patched it on there and blurred a few lines and it almost came out normal looking.



Notice they still have red eyes. Maybe this is why people hire a professional.

Where to begin?

I took my last final yesterday. Finished up my Christmas shopping today. Our tree is up and decorated and the kids both managed to survive fall quarter without starving to death. Thank goodness DH is such a good father. It's not every dad you could leave your babies home alone with while he cooks dinner, feeds both kids, bathes both kids, and gets them both to bed.

I hope to have my grades by the end of the week. If they aren't good, I won't share them with you. I do know that I got an A in Public Speaking, though. I really didn't want to take the class, but I was actually sad to give my last speech. It was quite a bit of fun.

Now I just need to get motivated to do the maid's work. She's really been slacking off this past month.

Finally Finals

Because it's finals week (it feels like it has been finals week for the past 3 weeks now), I just wanted to give you something to stare at as you wait for my next posts. I know you are all just sitting there hitting "refresh" over and over waiting for my blathering.

Adam and Natasha both holding their beloved "binkies" waiting for the camera to flash so that they can put them back in their mouths.


Adam holding Natasha. I didn't realize he had food all over his face. But they are both smiling at the same time and that almost NEVER happens (well, on film, anyway).


Here Adam is displaying his androgeny by carrying around his "baby" (a little cheap doll I bought him a long time ago whose eyes are supposed to blink, but one is stuck halfway open giving her a slightly crazed look - combined with her messy hair and smudge on her face, she looks rather like a doll of ill repute). Nontheless, not to be too feminine, he is also carrying around a bunch of cars and trucks in the sling. Hey, those cars enjoy a little attachment parenting every now and then (proof that Adam really does take after his dad).


I'll be back next week with lots of posts, I promise!

Inertia

I mentioned in a previous post that I registered for a marathon. In fact, I regiestered for the St. Louis Marathon, which will take place April 9, 2006, which is just under 21 weeks away. I am not sure I will be ready at this pace.

I am using the program devised by a Professor at the University of Iowa, which is a 16 week program that involves running only 4 days per week. Over 200 people have taken this course and only ONE person has not finished the marathon. Based on the success of the program, he published a book which has rave reviews on Amazon. So I bought the book and have been following their pre-training-training program (gets you up to 30 minute runs 4 times a week, which I have not been able to do for several years).

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1570281823/qid=1132105486/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-6276787-8671960?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

I've been stuck on the 6th week of pre-marathon training for two and half weeks now. First I had some issues with my ITB as a result of my knee injury a few years ago when, riding my motorcycle, I drove my knee right into the tailpipe of DH's motorcycle (don't ask, it's a long, embarassing story, about which I am sad to admit there was no alcohol involved. Just plain ol' distraction).

Here's the dent I made in the tailpipe:


After that, my ligament was damaged for several months. I couldn't walk on my left leg properly for months, but I found a way to run despite the injury. I think I was doing about 15-20 miles per week with the injury.

Unfortunately, I ran by avoiding bending and landing on the knee at the same time, which completely changed my gait. So now my left knee is much weaker than my right knee, which results in me placing all my weight on my right side and now, with the loosened joints from pregnancy, the extra weight from being a bloated pregzilla, and overly strong right leg, things are just all whacked out. My new Mizunos help, though. And after resting for a week and consciously focussing on properly striding, things are getting better.

But just when I thought I was back on the treadmill, I got The Cold. The first of what will be many, many, many colds this winter, I am sure. It started off rather benignly but stuck around for a long time and turned into bronchitis and laryngitis and another meeting with my dear friend Zithromax. So I decided not to run last week.

I am determined to make it past pre-training week #6 and move on to my 15/5 week (run 15 minutes, walk 5, repeat once. Do it 4 times per week). I'm gonna do this! Or die trying...

By the way, Adam is almost over The Cold. Natasha is sick with a double ear infection. DH had The Cold for a few days, but he seems to be better. I no longer sound like a smoky jazz club singer...

I Need Your Help

I am at a loss for my next speech topic. It's my final speech and must be as close to ten minutes as possible. I never have a problem with having enough to say about anything, so the problem with time will be for me to keep a narrow focus, not add too many asides, and not to add too many personal anecdotes to try to illicit a laugh from the group.

So far I have done speeches on the following topics
1) Sleep (importance, how much, what happens when you do it, what happens without enough, ways to get more)

2) Ukraine's Orange Revolution (I was assigned the country to do the speech on)

3) Nursing in Public (persuasive speech. I argued that it should be considered acceptable, why it's sometimes necessary, and that boobs are not just for selling beer. I also got to open my speech with the following words [because everyone was busy chattering when I took to the podium, and I had a picture of this book on the projector] "hey everyone! look at the boobs!". It worked!)



4) Affluenza. How you can do a few simple things to reduce your level of consumerism.

Now what should my next topic be on? Here's what I am considering. Please vote and help me! (Note: you have to scroll down a bit to see the poll because I am too lazy or dense to try to figure out how to change the html code so that there's not this giant space below this paragraph).

What should my next speech topic be?
Advanced Directives
Disaster Preparedness
Marathonning. You can, too!
Current results

Gotta Love Minnesota Weather

Today it was balmy for November in Minnesota. This morning when Adam and I went out for breakfast for our Saturday morning date we didn't even need coats. It was a warm 60 degrees out. I still have a few tomatoes growing in my barrels, for crikey's sake!

Things will change after tonight.

We are currently under a tornado watch. In November! I can't get over it. Hail, lightening, wind, rain, you name it. We're getting it. Next week is supposed to bring snow. Some sick part of me is looking forward to it. I think that means I'm becoming a true Minnesotan. The part of me that knows how insane I get after 6 months of being forced indoors knows better.

http://www.weather.com/weather/alerts/nswxcategory/MN

It Only Took Two Years!

Well, technically it took 25 months, but it finally happened. We can now go through our bedtime ritual with Adam and then leave him in his room fully conscious and he'll fall asleep on his own! It has been the routine for about a week now and I'm hopeful it's going to stick.

When it comes to Adam sleeping, we have tried just about every trick, tool, gadget, aid, piece of advice you could imagine. I have read no fewer than 6 books devoted to getting your kid to sleep more. The thing is, he sleeps more at 2 than he did at 1 month (when babies are supposed to be sleeping 16 or more hours a day).

Here's a few sleep things we tried with Adam. I'll describe them in chronological order (that is, the order in which we tried them).

Co-Sleeping
I tried sleeping with Adam next to me (co-sleeping as they now call it) in his first few weeks of life but he was a nonstop wriggler. His little arms would flail about all night punching me in the face and he didn't seem to like being too close. So I kicked him out of our bed and into the pack n' play next to us.

To the pack n' play! To the crib!
Every time he would move about in the pack n' play it would jiggle for a few seconds afterward and made these tiny scratchy noises. Well, he flailed every few seconds so the thing was constantly jiggling, constantly keeping me awake. So I moved him farther down the hall into his own crib in his own bedroom.

Adam Meets the Straight Jacket
After about a month of being outside the womb, his nervous system started to mature causing him to constantly startle himself. I would literally have to hold his hands down to get him to sleep. I felt like I was wrestling him. Once you laid him down he would startle himself awake again. Normal blankets didn't work for swaddling him so we had to find something stronger. That's when I found the Miracle Blanket, which does the job of pinning your darling angel's arms down for you so they can't startle themselves awake. It really did work miracles for him. It didnt' turn him into the fantastic sleeper all the other moms in the world seemed to be blessed with, but he did eek out a few decent naps a week.

God Forbid, CIO
Still, it was a 50/50 shot that he would wake up and not go back to sleep once you laid him down. So we got frustrated and tried the Cry It Out routine a few times. He would cry hours upon hours if you let him. I could not.

The Wonder From Down Under
Don't ask me how, but I eventually came across this contraption called the Amby Bed. By this time I think Adam was about 7 months old and I was so exhausted that I was willing to try just about anything. It's a hammock that is suspended from a frame (that comes with it). When the baby starts to move around it gently bounces and sways lulling your baby back to sleep. Plus, it swaddles them while they are on their back so they feel secure. Get this. The first night we put him in it, he slept 11 hours straight! After that, he caught on to the fact that it would make him sleep so he was a little more difficult to get to sleep, but we reached a turning point with the hammock and you could put him in it semi-awake rather than waiting the full 45 minutes until he was in "deep sleep", or stage 3 of sleep (infants take this long to reach stage 3; adults take less than 20).

More Black Eyes
After about 11 months Adam decided he needed to sleep on his tummy. He would get terribly frustrated at not being able to roll over in the hammock, which the Amby bed prevents. So we tried the crib, which he detested, of course. So he spent a few weeks in bed with us again. However, after waking up with his foot in my mouth, fist in my eye, and fingers tangled in my hair on several occasions, I had to boot him out again.

Cribs
Back into the crib he went. He did a little better after he learned to get himself onto his tummy in his sleep. But we still had to go into his room several times a night. A few times I even fell asleep in his crib WITH him.



After this, I decided it was time to make things easier on everyone. I bought Adam a twin-size mattress and put it on the floor against the wall in his bedroom. This way, he could climb in and out as he wished. Roll around all he wanted. And if we fell asleep with him trying to get him back to sleep, we wouldn't wake up with leg cramps and crib rails embedded on our foreheads. One of the best decisions I've ever made.

For many months, Adam's twin bed was, admittedly, his and DH's bed. The queen bed was mine (it's not called a queen bed for nothin'!). Now it is, properly, mine and DH's bed again. Natasha does join us in the middle of the night after she wakes up to eat at 4 am, but she's not like Adam, practicing to be an NHL enforcer in her sleep. She's pretty still all night long. Adam taught us a lot of tricks that I have used on her. She's definitely easier to get to sleep, but knowing so many tricks certainly has helped.

So tonight, after Adam had his bath, watched his 1/2 hour of tv (these days it's usually Little Einsteins, but tonight it was Dora), he got his one book read to him in his new bed (a really cool upgraded bed - it's a bunk bed but he doesn't know that there's anything on top yet) while his "stars" were on (it's a spinning lantern). We said goodnight to him and left him alone listening to his sleep tunes CD I made for him.

Wonders never cease to exist! Only two more years and maybe the second kid will be going to sleep on her own (and sleeping through the night).

Go on! Google Yourself!

Seriously. Do this now.

Go to http://www.google.com

In the search field type in your first and last name and click Search. See what you get.

I used to be way more popular than I am now. In fact, the first few links that popped up were actually about me. Then, a few years later, most of them were about the Jenny with the same last name, but this Jenny happened to be some leader of a gay and lesbian organization. I swear I'm not leading a gay and lesbian organization in my copious amounts of spare time (between the hours of 11 pm and 5 am, during which time I should be sleeping but am putting off sleep or am being interrupted by Natasha to feed her).

DH was a very well-known college wrestler. What's your alternate identity?

House WiFi

I am so connected. But not by wires.

If it weren't for DH, I would still be using my old desktop we procured about 8 years ago. I wouldn't have an iPod, would have no clue about wireless modems. You see, I am by all descriptions a "late adaptor". I rarely see a need for new technology. I don't have the desire to learn a new technolgy, don't want to spend money on new technology, so it must first change society before I even consider buying it.

Fortunately I am married to someone more forward looking than I am when it comes to technology. He bought me my Vaio, against my protests. I love this thing. He bought me my iPod for a birthday (or Christmas or mother's day, I can't remember which), which I protested against. Tonight, after a very trying 48 hrs he sent me to a coffee shop that I usually go to on mornings that both kids are at daycare to do homework.

So here I sit, connected to a network, able to surf, download U2 songs for my iPod, drinking a glass of wine, watching the musician set up for his live show, and I'm doing my homework! God I love technology. God I love DH.

Happy Ween!

I know it's late, but things are hectic. So happy belated "ween". That's how Adam truncated the sentiment.

He did pretty well this year. Once he caught onto the fact that going up to strange houses in the dark meant getting candy his fears started to fade. He definitely got the hang of saying "trick or treat". However, his normal bed time is 7'ish so the festivities did not last long.

Natasha was clueless, of course. But that made it easier to dress her up like a monkey since she couldn't object to wearing the silly hat. As you can see, she didn't really know what to make of Adam wearing the hat.

He loves the bag, too

Adam and I were out in the back yard yesterday raking leaves. Well, I was raking, he was plowing through the piles. But that's what you're supposed to do, right? Anyway, he came over and told me again, "I love you, mommy". I responded in kind with the same amount of affection that overcame me the first time he said that. Then he walks over to the bag of raked up leaves and lovingly leans on and says "I love the bag, mommy."

It was a very special bag.

The Sweetest Thing

The other day when I was getting Adam out of his car seat I gave him a hug. He wrapped his arms around me, laid his head on my shoulder and played with my hair gently, like he used to do when he was a baby (this was how he fell asleep; always playing with my hair - it put me to sleep, too). Then he said, "I love your hair, mommy".

For a moment I didn't know how to respond. He hasn't played with my hair in ages. I haven't been able to comfort him in ages. Well, more specifically, since Natasha was born. But lately I have been making a concerted effort to reconnect with Adam and spend some good one-on-one time with him. Is this the fruit of my effort? I don't know, but I don't care. I have been enjoying our one-on-one time more than I could have thought possible.

Having Adam randomly tell me that he loves my hair...well that is icing on the cake. But, get this...right after that he said, "mommy, you're pretty". My heart has never melted faster. There is no greater compliment I could receive because I know his assessment isn't based on how my looks compare to women in fashion magazines, but he knows "pretty" is a compliment and bestowed upon women you admire, and to be a woman that my son admires, well, there is nothing sweeter.

Life is all about perspective

I substituted for our daycare provider on Friday for 2 entire hours. It was the most exhausting two hours of my life.

First, let me state that with two kids in diapers, I do more before 8 am than I used to do in an entire day. Yes, I was lazy before, but by anyone's standards, I am busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest these days. So even before I left the house to head to Cheryl's house I was already wiped out. DH does help quite a bit with getting the kids ready these days, but it still involves more effort than my caffeine and sleep deprived body is ready to deal with.

Nonetheless, with only one cup of coffee in my system and having just a few hours of sleep the night before I stumbled over to Cheryl's house and proceeded to care for 3 2-yr olds (including Adam), 3-4r olds, a 1-yr old and Natasha (6 months). Most of the kids were quite charming and just as Cheryl informed me would happen, I was a mere formality most of the time. They all knew the drills, cleaned up their messes, charmed me with their talents, and competed for lap time. There was only one moment of tension involving Adam when Taylor, one of the 2-yr olds said "My Jenny!" to which Adam promptly responded "No! Mommy my Jenny!". I think I had 4 kids on my lap at that point.

Things didn't get too bad until little Alex arrived. He's the 1-yr old who is quite high needs. I mean, Adam was very high needs as an infant, but once he learned to crawl and wear himself out things got much easier. Alex literally screamed unless he was being held. Well, Natasha was starving and I couldn't feed her because I had 7 kids to get out the door after their school lesson (pumpkins, color orange, letter "i"). Turns out, I'm pretty good at keeping two kids on my hips while tending to a bazillion other kids. But that's only because Cheryl has done such a wonderful job of teaching the other older kids how to be patient, take turns, help one another, etc.

After those two hours I was sweating. I felt like I had run a marathon already. I keep saying that caring for two kids in diapers should be a sanctioned olympic event. Being a daycare provider would be the decathalon. I don't know how people do it for a living. But I do know that we have an exceptional provider. And I love all the kids that Adam gets to see every day he 1goes. Also, I am thankful I get to sub but man, I couldn't do it more than once or twice a month!

"I'm a Superhero"

This is what Adam yelled in Natasha's face a few days ago. Then he looks at me and says "I say for Tasha 'I'm a superhero'".

My little Adam. He is my superhero.

Today Cheryl, his daycare provider told me, "Adam is just one of those kiddos that outshines everyone. Every once in awhile a child will come along that can do no wrong (mostly). The last one was several years ago. Adam is so special I just love him".

I couldn't be any prouder. That totally made my entire...life.

Sometimes it's hard for me to remember that he's only 2. I have to remind myself of this fact from time to time when I feel frustrated by his demands. I've just become accustomed to thinking of him as much older than he actually is. He is spectacularly gentle and engaging with Natasha. She thinks he is the funniest, coolest person ever (or as Adam would say "ever ever ever ever ever!").

Of course, I have bragged on here that his verbal skills are on the level of a 3 or 4-yr old. Counts to 11, can sing his ABC's, puts together 7-word sentences on a regular basis, uses articles, prepositions. Yet he still surprises me on a daily basis. Today he put on his hard hat and said "Mommy, I'm a carpenter!". As he was carrying one of his toy trucks he asked "Where's my backhoe, mommy?". I said "in your hand, Adam". Correctly he retored "No, mommy. This my crane. Where is backhoe?". He caught me. It was the crane. I just didn't know where the backhoe got deposited (probably flushed down the toilet). I was hoping to outsmart my 2-yr old, but I didn't.

Some other delightful things Adam has said lately to elevate my mood:

"Don't cry, mommy" (when I am nowhere near crying, so it's totally random but completely hilarious)

"MMMM! Delicious!" drinking a spoonful of water

"I think I do!" in response to DH telling him "I don't think you need chocolate".

"Daddy go to work and make money....for mommy" I am positive someone must have planted this in his head. He knows "daddy go to work" and "make money", but the "for mommy" part? I have no idea where that came from.

My little superhero is already smarter than I am. I have to finish college so I can help him with his 2nd grade homework.

Empathic Exhuastion

I got so tired of reading "Man's Search for Meaning" the other day. It's partially an account of a man's experience in a concentration camp and partially a discussion and explanation of his theory of Logotherapy where he states that in order to live a full life, it must have meaning. He quotes Nietzsche several hundred times, "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." It's a compelling read and I'm getting a lot out of it, but I couldn't take any more concentration camp tales. My mind cannot, absolutely refuses to understand how such a thing could have taken place in human history and what it must have been like for those who suffered.

So I opened up my laptop to take a break. I was sick of reading about baby related stuff so I opened the NY Times. Not because I have a superiority complex, but because our own local fish wrapper of a paper actually charges you to read their content online whereas the NYTimes doesn't. I was just surfing for something to catch my interest. I couldn't take any more news regarding huricane victims since I've thought about that so much my head hurts. I couldn't take anymore news about the recent earthquake in Pakistan, or the war in Iraq, or gas prices. So I happened upon a story about a doctor in Africa that does a surgery called a Fistula.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/international/africa/28africa.html?ex=1129694400&en=8692228c20e723b8&ei=5070

I wanted to stop reading it but I couldn't. I should have, though.

Women in Africa marry and give birth quite young. A 12-year old's body isn't as capable of pushing out a baby as an older woman's body. So the babies of course, get stuck. The moms give birth at home many miles away from any medical help. The babies die. The moms have to somehow be transported to a medical facility (usually this takes at least a day including walking, being carried, on a mule, on a city bus, or all of the above) meanwhile the baby's head is partially hanging out. No drugs, of course.

Well, aside from the trauma of losing their babies, their nether regions are ripped to shreds. They are completely incontinent and cannot control either their urine flow or their bowels so their husbands leave them and they become outcasts. Some women cope by refraining as long as possible from eating or drinking. A fistula is a surgery to repair their bowels and urethra. It only takes 20 minutes and the women are immediately better. Unfortunately, there are very few doctors that can perform this surgery and the numbers of young girls giving birth and experiencing this trauma outpaces the rate at which the doctors can perform the surgery.

After I read the story, I thanked my lucky stars for being born in the Western world, not being in poverty, having two successful c-sections, and then I closed my laptop and watched The Real World. It's tragic that Danny and Melinda can't make their relationship work more smoothely but it's a tragedy I can handle.

My Pod

I have been having lots of problems with my iPod. I admit, I am not easy on my electronic equipment (my Vaio can attest to this). My Nokia phone has been wigging out on me for a few months now, but it was free. When I spend several hundred dollars on a piece of equipment that I could have easily lived without, the thing had better live through being dropped on the ground once or twice. The iPod hasn't even been fed peanut butter or flushed down the toilet for crying out loud!

So in the past week I have been forced to accept no less than 3 iTunes updates on laptop which is quite annoying and utterly time consuming. And of course I have to remember to deselect all the little checkboxes that say "do you want iTunes to automatically come on and prompt you to use iTunes as your default e-mail text editor every time you open your internet browser and also install no less than 200 shortcuts on your desktop as well as check for updates 2.8 times per minute" as well as 187 other little checkboxes that all ultimately mean "how can we prod you to let us further take over your life other than making you update your software every 2.4 days?".

Since then I have had several problems it iTunes as well as iPod software. I'm telling you, before I had my iPod, I had no desire to own one. I was getting by quite fine without it. Now that I've had it for a year or so, I don't know how I lived without it. But I'm starting to feel like it's time I learn. As Neil Postman said in Technopoly, technology creates new paradigms. Society with the gun isn't the same as society without the gun with a simple addition of the gun. The gun permanently alters society so that it is incomparable to what it looked like before.

I am this close to becoming a luddite. Do you think they would accept me living among them with my treadmill? (and TiVo, and by extension television and cable box)?

Kimmie & Como

We are so glad our Kimmie is here with us in Minnestoa! I told Adam on Thursday that we would be seeing her on Saturday and he talked about it until we finally got to go see her. He was also excited to see Zac-a-mer (Zac, the shih tzu). I had to tell him several times that Grandma and Grandpa wouldn't be there, even that Justin wouldn't be there since he associates them with seeing Kimmie.

Once we got near the airport and he saw the airplanes he thought we were going to pick up Grandma Toody and Papa "from Seattle" (he actually said that), so I had to disappoint him once again. But I think all his disappointment was forgotten when Kimmie & Zac accompanied Adam, me, and Natasha to Como Park. It's an awesome place and today was the perfect fall day for such an activity. Everyone had a great time.

Here is Miss Kimmie and Adam having fun (they moved too quickly for my picture to turn out well)


After all the walking around, Zac got tired so he got to ride shotgun in the double stroller

Natasha still has mixed feelings about Zac


And, for good measure, here are my two babies together. They get along so well together these days. Nat thinks Adam is the funniest thing alive and he always says "I yuv Tasha!".


So much love to go around!

What I actually did today

First thing a.m., Adam pounds at the door.

Get up, change him, do some puzzles with him in his bedroom.

Get DH up and moving.

Natasha is awake by now (no surprise since Adam is there screaming in her face "Tasha awake!" because he is so excited to see her; Desi is right there with him).

Feed her and change her diaper and clothes.

Take DH to work.

Drop kids off at daycare.

Come home and sleep for an hour (trust me, this almost never happens).

Get up, do dishes, laundry, pick up toys, vacuum.

Brush Desi and try to get some of his fur off him (he's in his molting season). Give him a Greenie.

Regiester for the St. Louis Marathon! I did it! I am registered! 23 weeks to go.

Finish Reproductive Technology chapter.

Pick up kids from daycare.

Feed Natasha.

Put Adam down for a nap.

Try to put Nat down for a nap but it lasts only 20 minutes.

Chat with DH.

Nat's up. Feed her again.

Start folding and putting away laundry.

Adam wakes up in his normal post-nap grouch state.

Hold Adam for 20 minutes so he won't cry.

Fix him some "monkey cheese" (mac and cheese).

Try, unsucessfully to get Nat down for a nap again.

Get fed up with Nat's not sleeping and put her in the jumparoo and do play doh with Adam.

Change Nat's explosive poopy diaper (no wonder she couldn't sleep).

More play doh with Mr. Adam Pants.

Feed Nat.

Do the ethics quiz on the reproductive technology section. Score a 90%. For some reason the average grade for the rest of this class on this section is a 67%. Hmmm....

DH comes home and rescues me and plays with Adam but the smell of play doh makes him sick so I start a bubble bath for Adam. Get him in it and put the play doh away.

I finally get Nat down for a small nap.

Run and pick up dinner.

Eat, get Adam fed. Nat wakes up.

Feed Nat cereal.

Read a couple dozen books to Adam to get him to sleep.

Feed & change Nat.

Get her down again while watching poker on TV and falling asleep.

Read some of my psych book.

Feed Natasha again and get her to sleep again.

Now here I am....too tired to do anything productive. Too revved up to not do anything.

Avoidance

Adam and Natasha are at daycare for one more hour. It's my day off today.

Here's what I should be doing:
- Reading the chapter in my ethics book on reproductive technology

- Starting the book "Man's Search for Meaning", for which a book review is due on 10/31

- Working on deciphering what in the hell "What the Butler Said" (a short story I picked from Zoetrope which is Francis Ford Coppolla's short story magazine) means so I can prepare a presentation on it.

- Rewriting my first paper on which I earned a B- (ouch!)

- Practice my speech on Affluenza (I get to talk about my swiffer addiction in this speech!)

- Finishing the chapter in my psych book on interpersonal communication.

Or
-Tackling one of the 82 piles of laundry (man I wish my mom were still here!)

- Doing the dishes

- Vacuuming

- Dusting

No wonder I can't get my act together. Look at all that work just waiting for me! Mom, where are you?

Best in Show!

The AKC Eukanuba dog show was on animal planet tonight. Quite clearly there was nothing else on, but I admit that I enjoy watching dog shows every now and then. I amuse myself at the thought of Desi, our first monkey (who is actually a Boxer doggy that I nicknamed "monkey" early on), ever competing in anything other than being well...Desi. He's so-so on obedience. Well, who am I kidding? He's terrible unless he's positive you've got a treat. He's a bit neurotic, a tad high-strung, surprisingly wimpy, but he is without question, the best dog possible for our crazy family.

Here is Desi the day we brought him home. He weighed only 8 pounds. He would walk halfway down the block and then exhuastedly sit down in protest.


He withstood the move from Seattle to LA fine. We had a great time walking offleash in the desert down there. He breezed through obedience class. He was still a clown, though. He would make me laugh every day. Here is Desi giving Tyler "five". Tyler is a kid that came over specifically to visit Desi. Just about every day.


He did not withstand the move to Minnesota quite as well. After the 4-day drive he has since hated riding in the car and convulses every time we force him into our vehicle. Then we went and had a baby. We were terrified he wouldn't adjust to a baby being around because we had lavished Desi with non-stop attention, but he surprised us by doing exceptionally well. In fact, aside from licking Adam's face raw, he was the ideal dog for having a new baby around. He adjusted to being neglected quite well.


Adam and Desi became partners in crime getting into all kinds of messes together:




Here Adam got the sorbet out of the freezer. Desi chewed the lid off and they both went at the tub of sorbet together.





Now we have Natasha and Desi is still behaving wonderfully despite being relegated to an even lower position within the pack. We love this doggy. He takes daily beatings and all he'll do is sigh and walk away. He was our first child and we are so proud of him despite how goofy he is.

A new face for Mt. Rushmore!

I'm sure that there is a theory in psychology that describes the process I go through with authority figures. Whenever I start a new job or meet a new teacher I am immediately enamored with them. They are what I want to be when I grow up. Then time passes and they slip up. They are human, after all. But they make a mistake and accidentally use a wrong word when speaking or write "who's" on your paper when they should have written "whose". And that's it for me. My illusion is crushed. Are there no more heroes in this world?

Since catching onto this pattern of mine I have tried to stop constructing monuments in the image of new instructors the moment I meet them. Likewise, I have also tried my hardest to not let any minor err on their part result in the complete destruction of respect I had for them. I've tried implementing this with 4 different instructors this semester and the results have been pretty good so far.

It's hard to say a lot about the instructors of my two online classes since our relationship is inherently much less personal. My Ethics class is an online class. This is the class I was most afraid of. My only other experience with an online class resulted in my lowest grade achieved in college so far (A "B"). I had good grades on my tests, a perfect score on my final paper...it was my contribution to the online discussions that got me in trouble. The class was "Anthropolgy of American Culture".

I made some good points in my arguments, but it turns out that "arguing" doesn't work really well online. My intentions were good. I wanted a good debate. I was open to ideas. I wanted to back up statements not made clear in my original post. But, I was new to the forum of online bulletin boards. What I have since learned is that in a standard online debate nobody becomes enlightened. It's just some flaming here and there. The instructor actually posted to the whole class that the point of making posts is to summarize, in your own words, what you think the author of the text you are reading is saying. My inner thoughts were "well, if 82 other people before me have done that then what the hell am I contributing to this discussion? Everyone has said the same exact thing!". That's the rote part of school.

Thankfully my Ethics class instructor is more accepting of our discussions. For instance, we have already discussed capital punishment and abortion and I have only enraged, like, 8 people so far. But for all of those 8 people there are many more that force me to flesh out my arguments. Can you believe that I have actually changed my opinion in one case (I will not say which here since I really wish to not exclude any of my readers). So, of the class I feared most, I have been quite relieved. I think that early learning experience of my anthropology class was valuable since I have held my tongue quite a bit since then.

In a related note, I took a silly little test in the workbook that came with the textbook for my current psych class. It's to see how argumentative you are...

DH can attest to the results.

I ranked high on the scale of argumentativeness.

Ok, don't let me forget. I need to tell you about my English instructor. I love her. I am so totally going to carve a likeness of her face into the canyon walls at Whitewater Park!

It's a Strawberry!

I get a lot of questions about the red spot on Natasha's forehead. Mainly from kids younger than 7, but occasionally from adults without the compunction to audit their behavior. So if you are wondering, that red bump on Natasha's head is a "strawberry hemangioma", combined with a slight "cavernous hemangioma".

It doesn't hurt. It might get larger, it will not interfere with her development, and it will go away on its own. As our pediatrician said, it's there so we can "pick her out of a crowd".

Please visit this site for more information:
http://www.drgreene.com/21_1107.html

Edited to implore you read this site instead:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/invoke.cfm?objectid=A71EAE4D-E0FE-4BE9-AC8C585B0146E35C

Little Nani

She is 5 months old already!

It's incredible, but I couldn't tell you what Adam was doing at this age. I think we were feeding him rice cereal, but I'm not sure. I know he was sitting up on his own. He wasn't rolling over because he was a chunky monkey. I think he was in 12 month clothing, but again, don't quote me.

Natasha is rolling both ways, eating her feet, laughing with little effort from you, the entertainer. She eats like a horse from morning until well, the next morning. Hence, I have decided that it's high time she learn to eat something other than mommy's milk. The last two days she has devoured cereal so I am hopeful.

I predict my little lady will challenge me in all the ways Adam did not. Although Adam was high maintenance, I could always reliably lay him in the middle of the bed without him rolling away. He wasn't very fearless so I never had to worry about him jumping off the bed or standing on the dining room table or swinging from the ceiling fan. I promise you Natasha will do these things. Check my blog 5 months from now and you'll see a picture of such a thing or hear a story about it.

For now, she is confined to the contraptions I place her in. When Adam was this age I couldn't wait for him to crawl, stand, walk, and run. I know better this time around!

Birthday #2

He's officially out of toddlerhood and into the preschooler stage. Let the terrible two's begin!

Mr. Adam Pants had his second birthday. The celebration happened on the 19th, a Sunday, but his real birthday was on the 21st. His grandparents from Seattle came to visit him, Papa for one week and Grandma "Toody" for two weeks. So it's basically been his birthday celebration for two whole weeks.

It has been confirmed by sources other than myself that Adam is indeed quite bossy. When Papa was playing with Adam he was assigned specific toys and was given detailed instructions on how to play with those toys. He has also thoroughly entered the stage of expressing his independence. When we are crossing the street he knows he is supposed to hold my hand. At the intersection I say "hold mommy's hand, Adam". To which he responds "No, I hold my own hand" and then he proceeds to hold his own hand and start crossing the street.

It's a mother's myth that you get back as a parent tenfold what you dished out as a child. I fear it may be true. I took everything literally and no piece of information was taken for granted. I never accepted euphemisms or generalizations or half-facts and always wanted to know more. I exhausted my poor mother. And now I fear, my child may just do the same thing to me.

Adam is, at two years old, talking at a 4-yr old level. I thought this was fabulous until I realized that he still has the temper of the average 2-yr old. So, he can quite eloquently demand what he wants and then proceed into a massive temper tantrum when you don't give it to him (for instance, M&M's at 6:30 am). Here is where I must grow as a parent and learn to not cave in the face of those forceful demands. Everyone just keep your eyes out for us on Supernanny one of these days. My little tyrant explicitly detailing what I need to do for him every second of the day...He's hyper intelligent, very sensitive, and quite loving toward his younger sister. But he will most definitely require DH and myself to constantly educate ourselves as parents. Thank goodness he's so tough!

Here's our preschooler on his birthday:


Here was the little Booger at 10 pm refusing to go to sleep. He went and put the party hat on as if to say "hey, this party a'int over, you party poopers!"

New Material Please!

There is a tool for bloggers that allows you to see referring URL's that people have used to access your page. Most of my referrals come from my girls over at blue moon (you know who you are!), but some get here by means of search engines. Seeing how people arrive here through various search terms and phrases has been somewhat enlightening.

Most used to get to my site:

monkeys throwing poop
calling in sick
monkeys breastfeeding (????)
cleaning crayon marks off walls

There is no telling if people searching for these things find my site in any way useful. I haven't exactly written anything about monkeys throwing poop yet, but I fear it may one day be in my future.

I Make a Mess!

"I Make a Mess" is an phrase Adam delightedly screams at least 3 times a day. He thinks it's a good thing. So he makes his little mess and then tells me all about it. Some other more-than-obvious statements he likes to share these days: "I cryin'" after he stops to take a breath after 5 minutes of waling, screaming, & sobbing. And then the obvious answer to my dumb question "what are you watching, Adam?", he says, "TV!". Guess I should be more specific...

Here's a little retrospective of some of our favorite messes caught on film within the past two years:


Making a cake for mommy


Stealing the dog's water


First birthday cake


Eating a smoothie at Grandma Gilmer's house


Playing with green bubbles


Painting


The other sentence he likes to scream a lot is "Mommy clean it up!".

I Two Old!

When turning two years old, it's important that you learn how to tell the world both your name and how old you are, for these are questions you will often be asked. We've had the "My name Adam" bit down for awhile so we started working on "I'm two" while holding up two fingers.

Our first challenge was getting over Adam's denial that the number two exists. The kid counts to 11 easily, but always forgets the number 2 for some reason. One, three, four...and so on. So I got the expected result the first few times I asked him old he was. "I thwee!" as he held up 6 fingers. "No, no, sweetheart. You are TWO years old". After a couple of days he started saying "I two". Then he decided to try to add "years old" except he keeps forgetting the "years". So he's always saying "I too old!". Yeah kid, me too.

I can't believe he's gonna be two already.

Here's him this time last year:


And now:

Old Monkey

I just had my birthday (8/30). My warranty expires at the end of this year. As if to hammer home how old I'm getting I learned last Monday that I am officially the oldest person in my Honor's English class. For our first exercise we had to partner up with another person, interview them, and then write five different pieces about them. The first thing I learned about my partner was that I am almost twice as old as she is. She's 16! It was a fun exercise. I had to write a police report about her (I made her an arsonist), a personal ad (felt kind of sick doing this for a 16-year old), a fake e-mail about her, a letter of reference, and a piece identifying her for someone to pick her up at the airport. I know I'm nerdy for finding these activities fun. It's time I let my inner nerd out, though. Let her run free (until she trips and gets her hair tangled in her braces and breaks her glasses, because, you know, nerds are clumsy)...

Anyway, classes are going great. Except for the really boring speech teacher. But I have learned I can use his lecture time to catch up on other important homework. The kids are doing a relatively good job of behaving well for DH when I'm gone. Natasha just decides to wait until I get back home to eat. I'm hanging in there, DH is hanging in there. We're not doing too badly for such old geezers.

Everyone Talks About Poop! Right?

Boy, you can never spend enough time talking about poop, can you? Well, I can't. Because I clean up the poop of 3 living creatures (not including myself). My life is all about what goes into and what comes out of these creatures. Plus, now that Adam Monkey is almost 2, we have been spending a lot of time talking about poop and pee, where it comes from, and where you are supposed to do it.

I have NOT been looking forward to potty training. Adam first went pee pee in the potty when he was a mere 16 months old. He's been telling me when he's poopy for many months now, but with a newborn around I just haven't had the motivation to try to chase around a 2-yr old trying to get him to go on the potty and then cleaning up the messes that ensue when he can't quite make it. But he drags his potty chair out all the time and asks to sit on it. Then he asks for "poop book", which is "Everyone Poops". We have reserved it for potty time so that he has a positive association with potty time. I think he still believes the potty is a place where you sit while mommy reads to you.

He rarely actually does anything in the potty. Rather, he just enjoys the quality, one-on-one time, I think. Good tactic.

So the other day I made a major mis-step. Adam's poop was...um..."formed" as they say in pediatrician talk, which meant he was minorly constipated. Upon changing his diaper I said "oh, you have poop nuggets". He repeated it back to me and it was so funny coming out of the mouth of a 2-yr old that I couldn't help but laugh. Another wrong move. Laughing when your toddler does something is another way of telling them "Do it again!". So he did. All day and evening. He ran around the house yelling "poop nuggets! poop nuggets! I have poop nuggets!". I tried really, really, really hard not to laugh.

How deprived of social interaction am I that such a phrase makes me laugh so much? I can't wait until he masters more refined comedy and can start using sarcasm and parody.

Doesn't matter. I must learn to retain myself no matter how funny the phrase is. When we were in church the other day, during a realtively quiet moment, Adam pooped in his diaper. Immediately after he yelled "I POOPY!". Immediately I covered his mouth with my hand and ushered him out as fast as I could. My goal was to get out before he yelled "poop nuggets!". Which he did, but fortunately for me, he waited until we got into the bathroom. *Sigh*.

Moral of the story: Never say anything to your children you don't want them repeating in church. And never laugh when they do something that is as inappropriate as it is funny. No matter how hard up you are for a good laugh. Oh yeah, and get out more.

Calling in sick

Sorry. It's been a hairy week. First Adam got sick. Fevers, crying, non-stop consoling. It lasted for two days. The day he got better Natasha and I both got sick. I only cried a little, but she has been miserable and unable to eat or sleep for 4 days and has been crying unless you walk around with her. She's better today, but the whole week has been, I fear, a foreshadowing of what this fall and winter will be like...

Apropos of nothing, here are some pictures of my little monkeys.

Here is Adam right after he got home from the emergency room (they gave him stickers and bubbles, and Desi loves to eat bubbles)


Here is Natasha in one of the few hats that fits her tiny little head

I got a raise!

My monkeys talked it over and decided I needed a higher salary for my job, which has felt pretty hard the last few weeks. Adam decided he would chip in by coming up to me, on his own free will, throwing his arms around me and saying "I yuvs you, mommy!". My heart just melts. Of course, he did exclaim while getting his diaper changed "I yuvs Carol" (Carol is our next door neighbor girl, 6 yrs old, who comes over and plays with Adam). Still...it means the world to me.

Natasha decided she would start giggling and even belly laughing when I play with her. She has the cutest chuckle!

Right Tools for the Job

Last night's television viewing was a representation of extremes. Nothing else was on when I was feeding Natasha so I ended up watching Trading Spouses. I was excited to find a mother on there from Minnesota. I thought surely she would be the reasonable one. Interestingly, Trading Spouces was recruiting at the Mall of America one weekend when I was there. I didn't sign up, but now that I have two little babies it could have made for an interesting experience for the mother in my place.

Sadly, the Minnesota mother was extremely obsessive about cleanliness and order. And she was a major bitch, to boot. The house she was traded to was pretty dirty, but the family seemed extremely nice. I wish she could have lightened up a bit. Minnesota mom started each day with lists. Vacuumed her floors twice daily and nothing was ever out of place. Exactly the kind of person that would have a heart attack were she to visit my house.

Later that evening, DH stumbled onto a new series called "World's Dirtiest Jobs" or something like that. If you have not seen this show (or even if you have), I do not recommend watching it. Basically they follow people around who spend their day cleaning up poop. People poop. Bird poop. Dog poop. If it poops, someone cleans it up and WDJ will follow them around with cameras.

It occurred to me that WDJ could do an episode on a stay-at-home mom with two kids in diapers, and a dog that poops like a buffalo. My day really is all about cleaning up poop (and pee, and spitup, read my post on Blood, Sweat, and Tears).

After a night watching tv like that it's no wonder I woke up inspired to clean. Inspired, but not very motivated. Looking around a house where the dishes need to be done, 2 days of laundry waiting to be sorted through, trash to be taken out, floors cleaned, crayon on the walls, it's really hard to get motivated. I don't care how much coffee you drink. The only time I can generally get motivated to clean the house is when there is an alternate, more boring task waiting to be done and I can simultaneously clean and practice the art of avoidance.

I decided to go ahead and try to tackle the crayon on the wall first. I had a box of unopened Mr. Clean Magic Erasers waiting for me. Let me tell ya, those things actually work! I did manage to get a little too into the job actually rubbing for so long and hard that I managed to remove some paint. I tend to go crazy on jobs that involve elbow grease. Same with weeding. I will neglect my garden for weeks at a time only to get started one night and weed like a maniac until midnight not even stopping to think about what I'm doing or stepping back for a moment to make sure I'm not getting out of control. I'll run into the house from exhaustion only to find the 80 foot pile of weeds the next morning wondering what the hell I was thinking the night before.

I have to say, I was hesitant to try the magic erasers. I felt like it was a gimmick, just one more thing the new product development and marketing team at 3M could dream up to extract money from bored stay-at-home moms and obsessed Minnesota Moms who appear on Trading Spouces. But they win. I'll keep buying them at $90.00 a sponge, or whatever I paid.

Now that I have succumb to their marketing ploys and gave into the magic eraser I am afraid I might go even farther. Maybe the eraser is like some gateway drug for cleaning products. I need to move into harder things like disposable toilet brushes and disposable dusting cloths just to get the same fix.

And when did EVERYTHING start becoming disposable? When I grew up, your toilet brush sat next to the toilet. Granted, you stayed as far away as possible from it as you could, but it did the trick. So did the cloth diaper and furniture spray you used to dust. Ditto the regular old rag and baking soda to clean your tub. Today, there isn't a cleaning product you can dream up that doesn't come in a dispense-one-at-a-time tub and can be thrown away.

Here's a glimpse of a few products. I'm sure each of you owns at least TWO items listed here.

The beloved eraser. Capable of destroying pen marks, pencil marks, and even crayon markings.


Disposable duster. Although I'm not sure why you need a duster to be disposable.


Another one I don't completely get. You wash your tub with a disposable cloth at the end of a stick.



I'm giving in. The toilet brush is rather disgusting. The sponge at the end is disposable, of course. The stick, you get to keep.



And let us not forget Swiffer, who invented this whole genre of cleaning products.



Here's one I have never thought of. Disposable dish rags WITH dish soap!


And here's one you can't get yet! Quick! Put your deposit down and be the first on your block to have one!


I can't decide if I love or hate this new disposability. Does the thrifty, environmental side prevail and I can continue to make do with an old rag, or does the side obsessed with cleanliness (we've all seen the Dateline special where they tell you how many bazillion kinds of bacteria live in your kitchen sponge) prevail?

I guess for me, the answer is neither. The lazy mom who hates cleaning and has a toddler that can mess things up faster than she can clean them is usually the one that wins. Maybe I'll track that Minnesota Mom from Trading Spouces down and invite her over. An obsessive compulsive like that couldn't NOT clean, right? I just hope she can remember which sticks go to which cleaning products!