juliloquy

Interview with a Shmooie

For Mother's Day, Shmooie's teachers gave us a booklet compilation of answers to questions they had asked each kid, along with a couple of recipes.

You know, I think we're doing an OK job of raising him.

1. What does Mommy cook that you like to eat?
Pasta.

2. How does Mommy make it?
She puts it in the pot and puts it in the oven and she cooks it.

3. My Mom always says
"I love you."

4. My Mom really loves
my house.

5. My Mom and I like to
swing on the porch.

6. My Mom's favorite clothes to wear are
blue shirts [hmmmm, not sure I have any blue shirts. Methinks the interviewee was projecting his preferences onto me.]

7. My Mom is beautiful because
because she is.

My alias could be Mimi Muttgan

What do you think? Doppelganger?

My office is right next to her house. When I'm moderately dressed up I get quite a few double-takes when I walk across campus. If they look closer, they might think I'm her scruffy cousin. So, how can I use this power for my own good?

Seven months

my sweet embraceable Roo, originally uploaded by juliloquy.

Our big girl! Her eyes seem to have decided to be green. She sits up well now. Laughs riotously at the cats, then becomes frustrated at their audacity to walk away from her. Still idolizes her big brother. Her all-purpose words are "oog" and "ng-uh." Able to feed herself a cracker. Able to feed herself a grocery list. Each day I can't imagine loving her more, and then the next day I love her more.

How many stickers do I earn for this?

As a sleep-deprived parent, I've made my share of mistakes. Lapses in judgment. Delayed responses due to fuzzy-headedness. But once in a while, I manage some proud moments of on-the-spot thinking. Two recent examples:

I was trying to introduce Shmooie to the idea of buttoning his own clothes. Shmoo is not a do-it-himself kind of guy and he was resisting. So I made up a story that the buttons were little mice who wanted to run into their holes. (We've been reading The Dark at the Top of the Stairs at least daily - so mice are a current fascination for da Shmoo.) The mouse storyline intrigued him and he made several attempts.

Another brilliant moment was when I was encouraging Shmooie to use the potty before we left daycare. Someone had just cleaned the toilets, so the water was blue. Shmoo hesitated (unfamiliar situation = scary), until I said "Hey Shmoo - the water is blue and your pee is yellow, so what color will it become when you go potty?"  Oh the joy of a science experiment involving the bathroom! He knew the answer, and made it so.

Yesss!

I guess what this tells me is that the trick to parenting is finding successful ways to manipulate your children. I'd love to hear yours.

more stream of consciousness - election day!

I dreamed last night that I was pregnant again and having really uncomfortable contractions. I woke up to find [bulky] Loki cat sleeping on my stomach. Oh. Whew.

So there was an election today? Or something?

Just kidding. HPR and I voted first thing in the morning. Shmooie pushed the green button when I was finished. We boarded the bus going up 52nd and saw lots of clusters of folks with Obama signs, an enormous "West Philly for Obama" banner, at least 8 people in the El Station handing out Obama fliers. This was 7:45 a.m. Awesome. The air has seemed charged all day here in Philly. If only every election day could be like this! We received about 9 "get out the vote" calls today (including one from Samuel L. Jackson!), and several more in the days leading up to today.

As I waited for the trolley this afternoon, a man called out "Who ya think is going to take it?" I replied "Obama, I hope!" He smiled and shrugged, then said "I never thought I'd see the day in my lifetime." (He was a 50something black man.)

Then I got home and found out someone had been shot just a couple of blocks from my house.

Oh, Philadelphia.

I would edit this, but then it would never get posted

Some thoughts about da Roo:

We have made some little trips lately, and several people have asked us about da Roo: "Is she always this happy?" We think, we blink, and we respond "yes." Of course there's the RDA of fuss, but it's usually short-lived.

People sure do come up with some funny things to compliment. We used to laugh about the descriptor "alert" for babies. It seems to be reserved for when people can't think of something else nice to say, such as "cute." So I say we used to laugh about it, and then we started hearing it a lot about da Roo. Now don't get me wrong, I think she's the cutest baby since, well, da Shmoo. I am not objective at all, and I couldn't care less about whether others think she's cute or not. It's just funny. The other one I've heard on several occasions is "she has such a perfect head shape." Head shape? Way to go, Roo!

OK, but really, da Roo is the next Mary Tyler Moore. Because she can turn the world on with her smile.

Rambling while I have the chance.

I also used to think "preschooler" was a funny category of kid. "Infant" and "toddler" make total sense. Couldn't there be something more specific for 3- and 4-year olds, like "verbalizer" or "staller" or "no of course I don't need a nap. I'm not sleepy at all-er" or "must torment, startle, and otherwise bother baby sister every moment of every day-er." But now that I have a preschooler, I realize how apt a descriptor it is for this age. The kid is defined by my needing time away from him. To send him somewhere else for several hours of the day. Yes I love him. But holy. He can drive me crazy.

(Evolution has also been very wise in making children look so sweet and angelic when they're asleep. It has no doubt saved multitudes from being smothered in their sleep.)

Da Shmoo also has so many moments of awesomeness. He cracks me up and has such fun observations. When we can get beyond his stubbornness and my annoyance, we can really have a good time. Like last week in DC when he was supposed to be napping and instead was putting on a show for da Roo, who was also supposed to be napping. I just laughed, got them in their swimsuits, and went to the pool.

Shmoo and I were discussing Bob  L'Eponge recently. He asked me where sponges live and I said "Well, they're sea creatures, so they live in the water." Astute Shmoo responded. "Sponges don't live in the water. They live in the sink!"

We had broccoli recently, and I asked Shmooie whether he wanted Parmesan cheese. He did, so I brought out the green cannister. When he saw it, he said "where's the cheese?" It took me a moment, but then I realized he thought I was offering Parmis-on-cheese. So I got out a slice of muenster.

 

We went up to visit Nana this past weekend. (Nearly two years after that post, she is just now declining rather rapidly.) Shmoo was attentive, gentle, and loving with her. She would speak with us for a few minutes, but kept falling asleep. We let her rest, and then a nursing assistant wheeled her from the dining room back to her room. We were about to say our farewells and we told Shmoo that Nana was very sick and that we were going to let her know we love her. After she was situated, Shmoo walked right over to her side and said "I love you, Nana."

I'm no professional photographer, but . . .

I'm no professional photographer, but . . ., originally uploaded by juliloquy.

The kids' daycare set this up. They got good shots of them individually, but I don't know what was up here.

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know why

Thoughts for today:

I challenge you to find better 8 a.m. grocery store music than Barry White. Specifically "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe."

Dear peanut-butter- and caramel-filled Hershey's Kisses: You make me proud to be a Pennsylvanian. (I've lived here 5 years now. Am I a Pennsylvanian? Maybe a Philadelphian? This is bouncing around in my head as its own post. We'll see I ever get around to it.)

To JDS, aka Mr. Isoglossia - no, I haven't joined Twitter. Am resisting that and Facebook, thinking that they would become black holes for my scant spare time.

Cat hair is threatening to take over our house. Oh, did I mention that we took in a fourth cat? [Orange] Pekoe, formerly known as Sherbet, Mr. Sherbs, or Peaches and Sherb. He had been living in a box on our front porch. We resisted taking him in: He's neutered, see, so we thought he belonged to somebody. But then it got really cold, so we let him stay in our entryway for a few days. Now that he's been inside (for more than a month), he has shown absolutely no interest in going back out. He's the sweetest thing ever. So if any of you would like a cat, we have a couple to spare.

I have been able to search through flickr for my job for the last two days. Trying to find a good image of Cloud Gate to use for the Sept. 2008 cover of our journal. There are lots of great images, but it needs to work with our vertical format and have people in it, preferably people of diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Lorilea, I may be in touch.

Second post in March, wh-WHOO!

New rules! I'm going to try to post more than twice a month. This can only mean a drop to an all-time low in standards. Bulleted lists galore. A blog version of Twitter. Here we go.

Today

It is 45 degrees out, yet the ice cream truck has thrice driven by our house. The song it plays is "La Cucaracha." Not exactly what I want to hear in relation to ice cream.

Smart boy

The other day we were sitting around the table after dinner. Out of the blue, Shmooie said "Daddy, you're sirty-sree." We affirmed that Daddy is, indeed, 33. Then I said "How old am I, Shmoo?" He thought about it and said "you're twenty-six."

Book review

I finished What Is the What several weeks ago. My six-word review: "Please read this book. It's amazing." Got to go to the One Book, One Philadelphia finale last week. The entire crowd beamed when Valentino Achak Deng entered the room. Podcast is here.

How sleep-deprived parents amuse themselves

Part of Shmooie's lunch for tomorrow, customized by HPR.

HPR bought the thermometer below a couple of years ago, but we started to use an ear thermometer on Shmooie instead. Long story short, I busted out Bob L'Eponge* recently to take Roo's temperature. To take a baby's temperature. If you get my drift. Bob's expression was a bit disturbing to me considering the task at hand.

*Spongebob en français.