Tuesday, July 31, 2007

What a liar - 7/31/07

A friend of mine once told me that no one will turn you into a liar faster than your kids. You get so excited when little Lulubelle first claps or plays peek-a-boo, then later takes a step or does the hand gestures for Itsy-Bitsy Spider, so you want to share your glee and show off your little genius.

No matter how subtle you are about baiting them into doing their new accomplishment (because you don't want them to feel like a circus performer) they suddenly become paralyzed or mute. This even happens with behavior that's not much to brag about. An example, Kyle is playing with something that every time makes him scream when he gets to a certain task, so I whisper to Dave, "He gets so mad at this part." And what happens? Nothing.

This morning Grant did the cutest thing that made us, and him, laugh hysterically (he flung himself onto a huge stuffed dog that tumbled over on top of him). So I grabbed the video camera, at which time he decided to move on to the talking Elmo phone which, trust me, doesn't make for fascinating viewing.

Dave is off today since Laura and her two girls are coming from NC this afternoon. Kayla is two months older than Kyle (Annelyse is six) so I can't wait to see what new things Kyle will be doing a week from now. It's always fun to watch them pick up new tricks, err, I mean skills.

Enjoy your day,
Mary Jo

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Random - 7/29/07

So I've been doing alot of reading with the extra time I've had to lay around with my knee elavated. I borrowed some books from a friend who, like me, has varied taste in books. I just finished a book set in China in the early to mid-1800's and it was fascinating (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See). It had a great story line about a deep friendship, but it also had all this cool stuff about the customs like footbinding and the role of women in that society. I got to read a great book and pretend I was doing something intellectual at the same time.

Now I'm reading a John Irving book, The Fourth Hand, and it is odd odd odd, but entertaining. One character is a handsome, womanizing TV journalist who is doing a fluff story about a circus in India and while holding out his microphone for viewers to hear the lions roaring, gets his hand chomped off by hungry lions, (at which point the cute blond German sound technician faints into a pile of raw mutton that is meant for the lions) all caught on camera and watched repeatedly the world over.

The other character so far is the oddball hand surgeon who is going to do a hand transplant on him. You would not believe how many pages have been spent so far describing the hand surgeon. He is a near-anorexic compulsive exerciser who is obsessed with the evils of dog poop and whose favorite thing to do when he is running along the Charles River in Boston is to scoop up dog turds with his old lacrosse stick and fling them at the rowers (he thinks rowing backwards is absurd). The great news is that, courtesy of his nutso ex-wife, he ends up with a dog (he hates dogs) who eats everything - sticks, paper, garden hose and best of all, his own and other dogs' poo. (No, the dog's name isn't Molly and she doesn't live in my house - our Molly would never touch sticks, paper or garden hose - she had standards after all). And I'm only on page 70.

I'm sitting at the desk with a giant stack of papers that need to get filed or action taken in some way and what am I doing but writing a blog entry? My friend, Laura, is coming from NC on Tuesday with her 6 and 2 year old girls so Dave and I are frantically trying to get things cleaned and organized, all while entertaining a 1 and 2 year old! On the topic of the boys, they have been such a dream for the last month. Kyle just spent all of snack time sharing with Grant, and the biting has dropped dramatically. We'll see how things go when there is another toddler in the house in a few days!

I guess I'd better go. Enjoy your day,
MJ

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Poor little Roo - 7/26/07

The other day I was sitting on the couch and Dave was on the floor reading a musical Pooh Bear book to the boys. Not really reading the real words (because it’s actually a sing-a-long and I try to encourage Dave to not sing) but making things up. This involved talking about all the characters on the page and what instruments they were playing.

I hear him talk about Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Ratlet. Ratlet???? I kept my mouth shut because I wanted to see just who he was talking about and I didn’t want to interrupt. So I get my hands on the book a bit later to look for the rat who had infiltrated the Pooh Bear book. Nope. No rat anywhere. He thought sweet little Roo (Kanga is the mom and Roo is the baby Kangaroo; he’s the same size as Piglet) was a RAT!

Here’s a picture of Pooh Bear, Roo, Piglet and Tigger. Does he look like a rat to you?!? My poor kids are going to think that the Hundred-Acre Wood is the home of pig-sized rats. Or maybe they are kangarats. In all seriousness, it was rather endearing and now Roo has a new name in our house.



Enjoy your day,
Mary Jo

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Dinner out - 7/22/07

It is going to take me weeks to get the kids to recover when their Grammy leaves. They are having so much fun and Grammy caters to their every whim. My mom has told me that her primary goals are to have fun with them and to keep them from screaming, though not necessarily in that order. Mom assures me that this is a grandmother’s perspective and Grandma (Dave’s mom) backs up this claim.

My mom has been such a HUGE help the last 10 days that if she wanted to give the kids fudge for every meal I might be tempted to let her. She and Dave’s mom are definitely earning grandmother points for their help :-)

I hobbled out of the house on Friday night to go to dinner with Dave’s family. These people know how to pick the restaurants. Whereas I can lead you to the local Chili’s, Macaroni Grill and plenty of Mexican restaurants, they are up on multi-star restaurants such as the one on Friday night - The Oceanaire at the Galleria in Dallas. Fish is flown in everyday from everywhere – fish that you’ve never even heard of. It always intimidates me to go to places like this because I never know what to order and I’m not really excited about looking like the village idiot who only eats at Long John Silver.

The food was unbelievable and the six of us sampled each other’s dinners – all were great. Bobby and Gina (Dave’s brother and sister-in-law) go there often and have cultivated a relationship with a superb waiter who made it a wonderful dining experience! Even though my knee was ready to go home by the end of the night, getting out was exactly what the doctor ordered.

We’ve taken some cute pictures lately – I’ll post some tomorrow.

Enjoy your day!
Mary Jo

Friday, July 20, 2007

Too much Diego? - 7/20/07

You can tell I’ve been around kids and Go, Diego, Go! too long. When I woke up and saw my bright red eye, the first thing that popped into my head was, “I look like the baby alligator with the injured red eye on Diego.” And how sad is it that Dave and I actually get excited when there is an episode of Diego, Dora or the Backyardigans (the only three shows the kids watch) on that we haven’t seen? Pretty funny, actually – not sad.

I got my stitches out this morning. I think I offended the doctor because I didn’t shake his hand when he came in (he always shakes hands which I think is nice – he actually makes eye contact and doesn’t talk to me like I’m an idiot – big plus for a doctor). I have pink eye and I didn’t want to risk giving it to him. I explained that to him but I still think it threw him. I seem to get pink eye, or something masquerading as pink eye, every six weeks. I do everything I'm supposed to like throwing away all my makeup and even getting a new eye mask / shade (I sleep with one to block out any and all light). I think I'm going to give up the mask for good because it seems like being locked in there every night is giving all the eye critters ample opportunity to reproduce and eat my eyeballs. Fortunately, Kyle, Grant and Dave haven't had pink eye since Kyle and Grant left day care back in April.

Grant took his first sort-of step on his own today. I can’t officially call it walking yet, but it was definitely a step.

Enjoy the day,
Mary Jo

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Miscellaneous - 7/19/07

I am tired tired tired of being cooped up in the house with my knee still healing. I guess I'm more frustrated because I'm not spending the same quality and quantity of time with the boys. When I am hanging out with them it's hard for me not to get on the floor and play. And Kyle has figured out very clearly that when I am sitting on the couch with ice on my knee the chances of me getting up to put him in timeout are lower, so he's having fun calling my bluff.

Grant is going to walk any day now. He lets go of things and hovers for a few seconds and he loves holding onto hands and walking. Today he is down to just holding one hand! He may beat my theory that he's going to walk on July 29. Kyle walked when he was 14 months and 6 days old and that's how old Grant will be on 7/29. At least they'll be close so in 10 years when someone asks how old my boys were when they started walking I only need to remember one number.

Kyle is saying new words every day. My favorite thing is Waaaa-woooo? which means Where are you? If he's looking for something you better believe he walks around saying this over and over again. Yesterday when he couldn't find Grammy, he said his version of "Oh well." Too cute.

My friend, Laura, and her two girls are coming in 12 days from North Carolina! That's why I started physical therapy this week instead of waiting until next week - I want to be as healed as possible for the visit.

Enjoy your day,
Mary Jo

Monday, July 16, 2007

To moms at the mall - 7/16/07

As I’ve been laid up for the last several days recuperating from knee surgery, I’ve had time to compose a fantasy letter to the moms at mall play areas.

Dear Moms,

I realize that malls and mall play areas are the refuge of stay-at-home-moms (SAHM) everywhere – an oasis in the desert of our lives of all kids, all the time. But I’m afraid that some of you are bad play-area citizens.

Moms, let’s review the rules.

1. Your kids are still your responsibility. There is no magical threshold at the play area entrance that makes them everyone else’s responsibility. The “it takes a village to raise a child” concept doesn’t apply to play areas.

2. If your head is lolled over to one side and you’re drooling, you’re not paying enough attention.

3. Play areas are not for big kids, they are for little kids. There is a reason that amusement park rides have a measuring stick at the entrance with a minimum “you must be at least this tall” requirement, don’t you think? Well there is a reason that there is a measuring stick at the play area entrance that says “you can’t be any taller than this”. Big kids and toddlers don’t mix.

4. Play areas are a great place for you to teach your kids some lessons about respecting others and thinking about their actions. The future directors of overcrowded juvenile detention centers will thank you for this.

5. If your kid even comes close to decapitating another, this may be a good indicator that you should get involved.

6. If you see behavior like that in number 5 and are too lazy or disinterested to do anything about it, have the decency to look away quickly when it happens. Better that the other moms think you are not paying attention.

7. Get off your cell phone.

8. If you are on the cell phone and another mother who doesn’t even know you has to catch your runaway kid or keep them from doing something dangerous, get off the phone and fake embarrassment. Don’t look irritated at the other mothers for interrupting you.

9. If your kid is 13-years-old and weighs more than you do, he’s too big for the play area.

Thanks,
Mary Jo, mom to the 1-year-old your kid almost gave a concussion to and the almost 2-year-old who was terrified at the mere presence of your towering giant

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Knee surgery

My knee went out yesterday and my hopes of putting off surgery for a few more weeks are dashed. Surgery is tomorrow so I'm taking a few days off from blogging. Hold a good thought for me!

Friday, July 6, 2007

7/6/07

I’ve been feeling kind of emotional about the boys lately – a good kind of emotional.

Kyle has the biggest, brightest smile I’ve ever seen. His laugh is like a drug to me and I can’t get enough. To hear him chattering incessantly when he’s riding in the car is like hearing the best music; I have to control my urges to constantly look at him in the rearview mirror. He’s our clown and our little monkey.

Grant is turning in a little ham. He loves to do something cute and then look back and forth from Mommy to Daddy to get confirmation that, yep, they still think I’m cute. This is also what he does when he’s throwing a fit or shrieking – just wants to make extra sure that everyone is paying attention.

I’m not sure what it is about the last few days that I feel especially overwhelmed with love and gratitude. I’m not skipping around the house and giggling like a child with glee and happiness. I just feel quiet and thoughtful. And grateful.

Good night,
Mary Jo

Thursday, July 5, 2007

No need to blur - 7/5/07

I'm sitting at our new desk in our bedroom. When Grant came home last November we actually thought he and Kyle would be sharing a room within a few months so we could temporarily deal with having limited access to our office area / guest room. He's been home eight months and it's clear that he and Kyle won't be sharing a bedroom anytime soon, so we're moving our stuff and actually giving Grant a room he deserves. All he does is sleep in there - all the playing and living happen in the rest of the house - so it's been easy to ignore all the junk we have in there and justify not decorating it (I know this makes many people cringe), but he deserves to have his own space.

Yesterday was the 4th of July and we mostly relaxed. We went to the pool for a whole 60 minutes before the storms moved in. We tried a new section of the pool area that winds around and the water flow kind of pushes you along. Grant loved it. Kyle liked it fine but about every two minutes a big giant 4 trillion gallon bucket dumps out and if you're in the wrong place (or the right place depending on how you look at it) when it happens it's loud and unpredictable and, well, wet. Kyle's not wild about big loud unpredictable things. I'm not sure how he tolerates me :-)

After we got the boys home and took their suits off, we let them run around naked for a few minutes, something we'd never done before. Who doesn't love the sight of little baby butt cheeks? We took a few cute pictures and I figured we could always blur the pictures to hide their little willies (highly technical medical term), but there's no need. Why? you ask? Well because neither boy would let go of himself, if you know what I mean. So basically, we got pictures of our kids touching themselves. Sigh.

Grant isn't the best napper in the afternoons even though he clearly needs one. So take a tired almost-toddler and add in his teething and the 4:30 to bedtime window becomes rather unpleasant. He's managed to find a pitch, tone and volume for his screaming that he should probably win some sort of award for. This afternoon's meltdown was super-sized and Dave almost ran screaming from the house at one point. He's the king of patience and compassion so you know if it gets to him, it's serious!

Dave was off today and I got to have some me time. This morning I went to Barnes & Noble and then Half-Price Books all by myself! Then after lunch Dave took the boys to the mall for a couple of hours. I had big plans for what I could get done with some time here by myself, but Molly (our yellow lab) came and told me that the rain on the skylight in the master bath was just too loud and scary and would I mind coming to lay down with her and Katie. So what choice did I have? As an animal lover I couldn't ignore such a request and had to snooze with the puppies as the rain hit the skylight. The sacrifices I make are truly staggering.

Enjoy,
Mary Jo

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Stop on red, right? - 7/3/07

Today was a good day. Two days in a row and Kyle was only in time-out once! Unfortunately, his teeth made pretty solid contact with Grant's arm the one time he bit him, but Grant would probably get confused if there wasn't some sort of souvenir on his arm all the time.

We met Julie and Matthew at the mall for our morning walk today. I can't walk fast because of my knee, but we stroll for over an hour; sometimes we stop and the kids play. This morning there was quite a wild little banshee girl who almost took Kyle's head off when she was jumping around. In fact she just about injured all three boys in various ways so Julie and I decided that since her mom or nanny was too busy on the cell phone to worry about the fact that their little firestarter (I'm predicting the future) was out of control, we'd get back to our walk.

At what age can kids grasp the concept of red light / green light? Kyle wants the van to be moving all the time and when it slows down or, heaven forbid, stops, I hear, "Mommy. Go. Mommy. Go. Mommy. Go." at least 12 times. I explain that we stop on the red light and can only go when the light is green. Keep in mind I'm not sure he's totally got his colors down so I'm reaching here. I'm telling you, this is driving me nuts. It is nonstop. I found myself today mapping out the route that had the least traffic lights to try to minimize this. How sad is that? I think part of the problem is that in Kyle's mind, what he's doing is working.

How am I supposed to explain the concepts to a less-than-two-year-old when there are so many variations? Honey, we stop when the light turns red and can only go when it turns green. Except we can take a right on red after coming to a complete stop so in that situation disregard the rule. Oh, and when we're in a left turn lane, all the lights can be red except the little green arrow in which case we can go. All the lights in front of you that I normally tell you to look at can be red and we will still go (just like you want to). Oh and don't forget when the traffic light is malfunctioning and blinking red... then we actually go through it (after stopping completely and listening to you demand that we go).

Before I had kids I had no idea that I would spend so much time thinking of something so mundane. Of course I also had no idea how these little people whom I adore, whose curiousity I find fascinating, whose determination is often endearing can drive me absolutely nuts. On a more mundane note, that's an odd phrase as are its variations... drive me nuts, drive me batty, drive me ape sh$% (my late dad's personal fave).

If you think about it, you just fill in a noun of your choice at the end of the phrase - drive me . I think I'll try my own variations over the coming days.
* If I hear 'Go' one more time it's going to drive me bridge pylon.
* The dogs are driving me paintbrush.
* The neighbor's singing is driving me frog guts.
* Dave is driving me candle wax.

Dear reader, you really must try this as it's quite therapeutic.

Yes, these are actually things that go through my head. At least I'm never bored, right?

Enjoy your night!
Mary Jo

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Personal space - 7/1/07

Here I sit on the couch, breakfast goo on my shirt courtesy of Kyle and Grant, writing a blog entry with Kyle sitting next to me desperately wanting to get his grubby little mitts on the keyboard. Dave and I decided that he has to learn at some point that the laptop is a No-Touch zone even if it's right in front of him. Yeah, good luck to us.

Yesterday was a rough day at our house. LOTS of screaming and crying and just a general got-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-crib kind of day.

Our class at The Little Gym was good; Kyle has gotten better about sitting in the circle when we're singing songs but he sure likes to get out on his own when it's time to get on the equipment. He does not like the teacher to touch him at all, but I suppose I really wouldn't want a stranger manhandling me either. He definitely likes his personal space.

Whereas most parents use a trip to the store to start teaching their preschoolers the concept of money, I'm going to have to teach Kyle how to deal with people who come up behind us in line at the grocery store and pretty much stand on top of you, completely invading any and all personal space you hold dear.
Step 1: Do a triple-take looking behind you at the person, then lean your torso forward with a horrified look of "Dude, you'd better jump back"
Step 2: See how slowly you can pay. Act confused about the process in order to draw out the transaction.
Step 3: When you enter your PIN on the card swipe machine, lay your body across it so your pal behind you can't see. Not that he would look, but you want to clearly communicate, "You must be trying to steal from me since you practically have your chin resting on my shoulder."
Step 4: Do a single-take, crinkle your face and say, "Do you need something?" or say, "Dude, I'm married." Of course, the latter really wouldn't apply for Kyle at this point, or wouldn't apply for me if it's a woman in my zone.

If none of those work, you're just out of luck and your best bet is to move along. Then jump him as he comes out of the store.

Okay, back to yesterday... after Little Gym it was off to Costco which we like because they have shopping carts with two seats so both boys can ride side-by-side. After shrieking almost all the way there, he decided to continue the trend inside Costco which made us quite popular with the other shoppers. I joked with a grandfatherly man in the produce section, "Would you like to take him home?" He laughed and shook his head NO so fast I'm pretty sure he either got whiplash or injured a vertebrae in his neck.

Today the sun is actually shining for the first morning in about two weeks. If I were the complaining type I would mention the steamy humidity but thank goodness I'm not the complaining type! Hopefully a little sun will help everyone's mood around here. Even Dave and I snapped at each other yesterday. Of course that lasted about 90 seconds and we were over it, but I'll blame that on the weather, too. I think we're going to try out the pool at the rec center today.

Dave made awesome fried rice last night - mushrooms and the chicken-apple sausage that jumped in our cart Costco (funny how random obscure things like to come home with us sometimes). He's hit some major homeruns lately and I told him that if I weren't already married to him, I'd be inclined to take the leap based solely on his cooking.

Gotta go clean my closet. Yippee.
MJ