This isn't about Christmas

As a typical 18-month-old, Nora loves other babies. “Baby! Baby!” She’ll say whenever she sees a baby out someplace. She loves babies so much, she’ll often say “Baby! Baby!” while pointing to what is clearly a child older than she is. If the kid is being carried or is in a stroller, it must be a baby as far as Nora is concerned.

At times, however, she can carry this to the extreme. We have a pamphlet from the Poison Control center on our refrigerator, and Nora can see it when I’m changing her diapers. “Baby! Baby!” she yells, and points to it. “Haddat,” she will add, which I like to translate as “May I have that please?” but which, if we are honest, probably translates more as, “I will have that. Now.”

This is the pamphlet:



I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “Well, there IS a baby on that pamphlet, Maureen.”



Ah. True. But what you do not know is that the magnet holding the pamphlet on the refrigerator was covering up that baby. So this is what Nora could see:



This leads us to the only possible conclusion, which is that Nora thinks that old woman is a baby. OK, yes, she’s not THAT old. Not elderly. Fine. But I think we can all agree that she is not a baby.



In conclusion, I finally gave her the “baby” and she proceeded to clutch the pamphlet to her breast and rock it, while singing “Rock-a-bye baby.” But she stopped as soon as I got the camera, because she’s mean like that.

Stir crazy

I've been feeling very very cranky the past few days. I was hoping that this last week before Christmas would be relaxing and fun, but instead I've been trapped in the house with first one, then another sick kid. I finished the chores that are do-able while the kids are awake, so I'm also incredibly bored. (Don't tell Jack, but I don't find playing cars quite as fun as he does.) And this is what my house typically looks like by about 2pm these days:







Yes, the smiling toddler does help matters. As does the fact that making this happen



keeps 'em quiet.

STILL AND ALL. Do you see that first picture, with the chairs? I actually did that one; it is the only means I have of keeping Nora off the kitchen table and away from the knife block on the counter. Because that little monkey can climb, and she also knows how to push a chair to where she needs to reach. I give it about a week before she figures out how to lift the chairs up, and a week and one day before she drops a chair onto her head.

But today I've decided to pick Jack up from school with the stroller. It will get me exercise AND out of the house, so it's a win-win. Well, until Nora falls asleep in the stroller on the way home and screws up her nap, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Friday photos!

I bought myself a party dress last month, and I finally got to wear it tonight to Andrew's annual work Christmas dinner. I did my hair all fancy and everything. I had my sitter take some photos, and Jack photobombed us in this one. There were better shots of me, but his expression is too priceless not to share.



This week we made a gingerbread house because the internet was all alight with rave reviews over what a fun family activity! So fun! So easy, because of the kits! Ours took two days. We had to take a break after our first attempt because SOMEONE threw a tantrum. It was me. But in my defense, I had never made that type of icing before and the recipe said to add five tablespoons of water, and then add by 1/2 teaspoon increments, if needed. "The icing will be thick" it clearly said. The 1/2 teaspoon increments is what really got me, because this was a huge bowl of icing. It seemed to me that a 1/2 teaspoon of water was a negligible amount. So I added water slowly and painfully and then tried to glue the house together by squeezing what was essentially a solid out of a cheap disposable pastry bag, and my hands nearly broke and bag burst and the stupid house fell apart when I went to put the roof on and I HATE THIS STUPID HOUSE AND WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS STUPID PROJECT ANYWAY.

Oh, right. Mine.

So I smeared the icing onto the gingerbread with my fingers, stuck the house together and called it a day. The next day I readjusted my expectations, thinned the icing out so that it would actually squeeze, did NOT throw a fit when the pastry bag burst again, and it was all fine. And then we took a photo and my children posed with completely relaxed and natural expressions.





Finally, there is this:



That thing is the jar lifter from the canning kit I bought this summer. Nora found it a few months ago and decided it was a perfect place to put her baby to bed. There is a part of me so impressed by her ingenuity that I almost don't want to give her the doll cradle we got her for Christmas. But I think I will anyway.

A few things

First of all, it is of vital importance that I document the fact that Nora thinks that “Nope” means “Yes.” Why, yes! This IS very confusing! But I don’t mind, because it is also hilarious. And we’re getting more and more used to it, so the lag time between her telling us “No” and our understanding that she means “Yes” is getting shorter.

My favorite part is the way she gets the intonation exactly perfect, if only she were saying “Yes.” Today she called out “Treat! Treat! Treeaaaaattttt!” from the car seat. I asked her if she dropped her granola bar, and she plaintively cried, “Noooooooooooooope!” So I stopped the car and got out to get her granola bar, which she had dropped. Like she said.

And since I’m writing things that need to be documented, have I mentioned how she loves to blow zerberts on my belly button? Which she calls a “butt”? Not because she has the anatomy wrong, but because that’s how she says “button.” She’s doing it right now, as I type this. “Butt? Butt? Butt?” she is saying, while tugging at my shirt. Now she is putting her ice cold hands on my belly and going “Woooooooo!” And now she is blowing zerberts. And now she is biting me. Excuse me whilst I put her uselessly in time out, a hilarious game she finds highly entertaining.

Second of all, Nora’s current favorite book is Goodnight, Gorilla, and I love reading it with her because when we get to the page where the lights are out and all the animals say “Good night,” Nora does the voices. SHE DOES THE VOICES.

Yes, I will attempt to get it on video, but she is remarkably uncooperative with such things.

So that brings me to the issue of my glasses. How does it do that? Do not trouble me with details. It brings me here. That is all you need to know. Many months ago, after Nora repeatedly broke my glasses and my optician closed the branch in the next town over, I decided it would be wise to have a back up pair of glasses that I don’t hate. Since Swistle had such recent success with Zenni Optical, I figured I’d give them a try.

Now. I have been wearing glasses for… let’s see… carry the two… twenty-four years. In the course of those twenty-four years, I have made my fair share of unfortunate glasses choices, like when I was eleven and picked out the exact same pair my mother wore. (I’m not trying to put down my mother here, it’s just that glasses suitable for a grown woman are not necessarily the best choice for a eleven-year-old girl.) Even worse was the entire period between 1989 and 1993, when everyone decided that oversized glasses were flattering. Note: They were not.

The Era of Huge Glasses was particularly hard on me because I have an abnormally tiny face. On the upside, it was photographic evidence from the period that made this fact clear to me. Well, the photographic evidence combined with having to push my enormous glasses back up my nose unceasingly for four straight years.

And this brings us once again to the issue of my new glasses. When I started choosing frames at Zenni Optical, I tried to first measure my current glasses, which I love, so that I could find glasses at Zenni of a similar size. I even looked up my current frames online to see if they listed measurements. It was then that I learned that the “JB” in my frame style number, “JB-2701,” stands for “Jelly Bean.” (Insert ominous foreshadowy music here.)

I ordered two pairs of glasses and a pair of sunglasses. It did… not go well.


Current pair. Love!


Purple pair. Not so much with the love!


Blue pair. Gaaaaahhhh!


Sunglasses. Photo included for completeness.

Note the way the new glasses make my face appear shrunken within them, so that the sides of my face outside the glasses do not line up with the sides of my face inside the glasses. "Deformed face" is not typically a look I aim for when selecting eyeware, so this was kind of an issue.

I sent back the blue pair. I kept the purple pair, because Zenni only refunds 50% of the cost of the glasses anyway and I need an emergency back up pair. But I don't wear them or anything. And I don’t think I’ll be buying glasses online again because I clearly need to try on the glasses first. The experience made me wonder how I found such small frames in the first place, so I went back to the website that listed the style of my current frames, only to discover that the glasses I am wearing on my face right this very second, the Jelly Bean 2701s, are children’s frames. I have to buy CHILDREN'S FRAMES. To fit my freakishly tiny face.

In summary, I will now tell you the joke for grown-ups that Jack taught to me, because he specifically requested I tell it to all the grown-ups I know. It goes:

Knock knock! Who’s there? House. House who? House interrupted.

HAHAHA! (Don’t worry; if you don’t get it, it just means you’re not a grown-up.)

***
Completely off-topic, what do you all think of that shirt I am wearing? I bought it because it fit so well when I tried it on, and it was only $7. I bought two, actually. But I am having second thoughts about those layered ruffle things. So am I pulling that shirt off? If it helps, only look at the picture of me in my normal glasses, since you won't be distracted by my deformed face or my incredibly awkward "casual" pose with my arm out to the side.

Thankful tree, take 2

I thoroughly enjoyed making the thankful tree last year, so today we did it again. I had to, it is on the list of "Monday chores" for getting ready to host Thanksgiving this week.

I now present to you Jack's list of things he is thankful for, in the order he mentioned them:

1. my scooter
2. food
3. chicken [Technically, items 2. and 3. were presented as "food and chicken and stuff." -ed.]
4. shows [A repeat item! What can I say, the kid loves TV.]
5. Mommy [Daddy didn't make the cut, but don't feel bad, because he's the thing Jack is thankful for at school.]
6. apples
7. my bed
8. fishing [Note: he has never been fishing.]
9. my helmet
10. our house
11. my family
12. the color yellow
13. corn on the cob

For contrast, here is my list, which I made in order to subtly suggest to him things that might be good to put on the tree:

1. the dishwasher
2. our house
3. Jack
4. Nora
5. Daddy
6. clothes
7. the internet [What? I'm also putting on things I'm actually thankful for, after all.]
8. my bed
9. pancakes
10. Grammy and Papa
11. clementines

I also made a list on Nora's behalf. It includes one item.
1. my baby

Andrew made his list when he got home:
1. gum
2. superbowl parties
3. the Merritt parkway

Now Andrew's list needs a bit of explanation. First, Jack requested that he put on gum. I think because Jack is planning to buy gum for Andrew's birthday present, and he wanted to be sure he really does like it. "Well, I guess I am thankful for gum," conceded Andrew. As for the other two, well, Andrew and I met at a superbowl party and got engaged on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut on the way back to grad school/ his job.

Excuse me, I have something in my eye.

Blathering on

I remember visiting a friend at another school when I was a freshman in college. One of her roommates had her computer on, and she was looking up something on the web. I gazed in awe at her computer screen and said, “You mean you can use your computer to see things on other computers?” I found the idea mysterious and thrilling, but if I had no way of knowing then what “the web” would come to mean to me.

I am a social being. I need to talk to people, grown-up people, and I need to talk to them every day or I will go crazy and start talking to my plants. And I don’t even have any plants because I can’t grow plants; they all just die. So what I’m saying here is that if I didn’t have the internet, I would be a crazed, wild-eyed lunatic talking to dead and/or nonexistent houseplants. It wouldn’t be good, is what I’m saying.

Sure, sure, I could call people. But calling people requires a time commitment; and what’s more, it requires a coordinated time commitment with another person. TWO people have to be able to speak and listen to a series of complete sentences, and right in a row! On the internet, it doesn’t matter if you have to stop mid-sentence to cut gum out of someone’s hair, and it doesn’t matter if your friend’s reply comes three hours later.

I don’t even know what to say about attending The Blathering this weekend. I originally planned to write something along the lines of how I had wonderful time and how fantastic it was to meet all these women in person. But then Elizabeth went and wrote down everything I think, and expressed it far better than I ever could. So I’ll just say that I can’t imagine my life today without my friends in the computer. I think I speak for myself AND my theoretical dead houseplants when I say thank you. Thank you all for writing and tweeting and going to Chicago to eat and drink and blather on.

Bad Children’s Literature: Yap and Hap

I’m at the library right now, and I should be using this babysitting time to work and not write blog posts. But I’m going to return books before I go home, and I couldn’t do that without telling you about one of them first. Oh, sure, I’ve written about bad children’s library books in the past. But this one is my favorite so far.

First, let me say that Jack picked this out himself. He tends to choose books based on the tried-and-true technique of whichever book he happens to lay eyes on. And this is how he ended up choosing the timeless children’s classic, Yap and Hap Go to Wee Care Catering School.

We read it that night. It’s about two twin dogs, Yap and Hap, whose Aunt Bark runs a catering service, and who wants some cheap labor and therefore volunteers to send Yap and Hap to catering school. Jack claimed to have liked it. Perhaps he did not listen, but only looked at the pictures, which, I have to admit, are lovely. But for me, the pictures did not distract enough from the text, which includes passages like:

Yap is always eager to learn new things, but Hap isn’t so sure about Aunt Bark’s idea. She would buy their chef coats and hats, as well as pay all school costs including fees, books and bus ride expenses.

and:

Mr. Chow greets his two new students as they enter the classroom. He gives them an outline of their schoolwork. He explains the paper and lab work. Mr. Chow expects class participation.

and:

For several days Yap and Hap stayed after school to clean classrooms and food labs. The twins learned never to do damage to property again and agreed not to play pranks.

You will be relieved, no doubt, to learn that Yap and Hap graduated from catering school with honors! I can only assume they then went to work for Aunt Bark at sub-minimum wage, probably to pay back all of the fees, books, and bus ride expenses she covered.

After we finished the book, I found the “About the Author” page, which goes a long way towards explaining things:

Pat Nekola ran a catering service for 18 years. She is a twin and loves dogs. Pat created the Yap and Hap books to entertain and teach children ages 5 to 7 about catering, proper values, ad being responsible for any wrong actions.

Here is her train of thought, as I imagine it. “Hey! You know what children aged 5 to 7 want to learn about? Catering! And as a caterer, I am the perfectly suited to write a series of children’s books. And they should be about dogs. Because I like dogs. And, ooo! I’m a twin! So they’ll be twin dogs!”

But seriously, what kid aged 5-7 doesn’t want to learn about catering, am I right?