juliloquy

missing and loving

Odd things I miss about our Philadelphia house:

- having a window in the bathroom. So nice to have it open in good weather to disperse shower steam, to have natural light, and as a weather/time cue. We have a window in our powder room here, but not in the full bath.

- radiators. I don't understand why these fell out of vogue. They are energy efficient and keep more humidity in the air. We haven't run the heat here much yet, but I'm not looking forward to the dryness and static. I'm sure the cats aren't, either. (Also, the radiators were such cozy window seats for our cats.)

- the front porch. Hanging out in the swing, greeting neighbors and passers-by, watching storms. We are also realizing how much dirt and debris were shaken off our shoes between porch steps and front door, now that we don't have as much transition space from outside to in.

- that it was built in 1919, and brick. We nicknamed it the Speakeasy. 

- the cheesy faux fireplace. The candelabra suited it so well. Also, to me, a mantle really signifies "home." Good thing we'll be in Oakland for Christmas, because I don't know how Santa will get in to this house.

- our dishwasher. We had remodeled our kitchen and our dishwasher was new. The dishwasher in this house isn't bad, but it doesn't hold as many dishes and doesn't seem to get them as clean.

- hot water dispenser in kitchen sink. Tea in seconds. It was great, too, for washing out baby bottles, although we don't have need for that anymore.

- hearing the trolley rumble by, one block away.

Things I love about our Frederick house:

- because it's smaller, it takes much less time to clean. (So one might think we'd clean more often, right?) We also have a designated play room, so toys stay there. More or less.

- back patio w/ sliding door from the kitchen. I often carry Roo out after meals to shake the rice or noodles off her clothes. Loved sitting out there this past summer with a beer while the kids drove their push cars around. Shucking corn outside while the water came to a boil inside. Impromptu picnics.

- fewer mosquitoes in the back yard. It's much more pleasant to hang clothes on the line.

- no plaster.

- carport. I just like to say "carport." It's convenient for bike storage, too.

- Bunnehs.

- washer/dryer. Came with the house. Some high-tech Amana h-e units. They light up like ground control and have more features than our Saturn and cell phones combined.

- hearing the noon and 5 p.m. whistles from a nearby factory. Seems so Laverne and Shirley.

meals on wheels

It's a good thing I signed on to the everyday-in-November thing. Typepad changed at some point when I was in not-posting mode. This will force me to navigate in the new set-up.

I announced on twitter and facebook that Roo is now in a big-girl bed. We had a few rough nights (funny - when Shmoo transitioned to a toddler bed, he didn't realize for several weeks that he could get out of it by himself. He called for me to get him when he woke up in the morning.) and a few limits-testing bedtimes (yes, you're cute, now go back to bed), but she has taken to it quite well. 

In the morning* she gets up and wanders through the living room, in case we're awake, then through the kitchen, to the powder room, and into our bedroom. This makes a nearly complete circle, since the 3 bedroom doors are all near each other at the end of the hall. She says "'ood morning, Mommy! 'ave dood schnooze?" I get up and we go to the living room for a nurse,** and sometimes we'll fall back asleep until the guys wake up.

ANYWAY with the time change*** Roo has awakened at 4:19 and 4:22 the past two mornings despite our putting her to bed at the standard time bedtime. This morning she came around to our room and said "Mommy, 'n I have nursey?" and I said OK. We went to the couch. When she was done, she slid off of me and started back for her room. At first I didn't understand what she was doing. I suggested a snuggle and then followed her. Then it hit me—she was going back to her bed. She crawled right in and I pulled the covers up. I was thrilled at the prospect of going back to bed myself even as my mind flashed to how I'd have to discourage the before-morning feedings, yet still chalking it up to the time change.****

Turns out I didn't have to think about new rules/boundaries because she got back up (for the day, alas) a few minutes later.

Both kids are currently napping, so I will do so myself.

* "morning" here defined, unfortunately, as 5 a.m. or later.

**yes, still nursing and not interested in weaning. I don't nurse her until morning (see fn* above). I can often distract her during the day; the bedtime nurse is just perfunctory, but the morning one THOU SHALT NOT MESS WITH.

***GRRRR

**** cf. note ***

a story

My Peace Corps training was held over 11 weeks during the summer of 2000. The 65-odd trainees* all lived with host families in a town in western Bulgaria named Dupnitsa.** The Jerman River*** flows through Dupnitsa and I would cross it every morning on my way to our training classes.

Bulgaria, to my knowledge, does not have anti-littering laws, and although it is not a "disposable society" to the extent of the United States, you will find trash strewn about any open space in Bulgaria.**** The Jerman River was always choked with trash, most of it plastic bottles.

We idealist and energetic Peace Corps trainees took note and decided to do a big river cleanup. About 20 of us, along with some host-sisters and -brothers, worked hard throughout one clear Saturday morning. When we finished, the 3-block section of the river was completely void of trash. It was lovely.

As we sat back, weary yet satisfied from our efforts, a friend said "Crap, we forgot to take a 'before' picture."

Without missing a beat, another volunteer quipped "Just wait a week or two. Then we can take the 'before' shot." And verily it came to pass.

This is now the story of the state of my house. Although replace "a week or two" with "an hour or two."

The End.

*Some odder than others, oh-ho-ho.
**Dupnitsa means "little hole" in Bulgarian. Fitting name. But I have no complaints about my training or host family experiences. Oh! I see the letter I wrote back in 2001 is still part of the Welcome Book [unattributed, pages 89-90 of this pdf. But I just noticed that they took out part of the last sentence on page 89. It was supposed to read ""If you’re a teacher, be prepared to wrestle with tough educational issues: how to teach to multilevel classes, what to do about students without textbooks, and whether to teach the 'smell like a monkey' version of the Happy Birthday song."]
***I totally had to look up the river's name. 
****Bulgaria could stand to run the Indian crying commercial.

Our everyday, 4 days a week

Rather than do another day-in-the-life post, I thought I'd describe our usual M-Th routine. (HPR is home with the kids on Fridays, I am on Sundays, and we are all together on Saturdays, which start out with waffles, turkey bacon, and usually a trip to Clark Park.)

Various times through the night: Roo awakens and I pause to see if she settles. If she doesn't, I go in and give her a nurse. (We have had some success "sleep training" her in the past, but it has only worked until the next teething/travel/illness crops up. She also inexplicably began sleeping through the night at the end of 2008, but that didn't last. I realized in the past week that she has stopped sucking her thumb, so I suppose they're related. Shmoo started sleeping well only after he was weaned, so I expect the same with Roo. I can tolerate it for now.) Shmoo occasionally wakes with night-light or slipper issues.

5:45ish: HPR's alarm goes off and he gets up. If I stir, I pray that Roo doesn't awaken as HPR goes downstairs to start the coffee deliciousness. He eats his breakfast and geeks out on the weather, Linux, and probably other even more geeky things that I don't want to even know about.

Somewhere between 6:00 and 6:30, usually: Roo awakens. I go into her room and nurse her. When she's done, she says "'k! 'k!" which is her request to read books. I take off her diaper, sit her on the potty, and we read books. At some point, Shmoo usually wanders in, often grumpily. Sometimes Shmoo goes downstairs to get breakfast with HPR. I get Roo dressed and clean out the potty if we've had a potty success. I get clothes out for Shmoo and either try to get him dressed (if he's upstairs with us) or bring them downstairs for after-breakfast dressing.

7:00: HPR, having had breakfast and gotten the kids' packs packed, comes upstairs for his grooming ritual. The kids and I go downstairs and I am at last reunited with my true love, coffee. I help Rooie (as well as Shmoo, as needed) with breakfast. I try to pack up some leftovers for my lunch. After breakfast the kids usually play a bit in the living room. If they look like they won't injure each other too badly, I sneak upstairs to throw on some clothes and makeup and brush my hair. If the kids are in each others' faces, I'll bring Roo up with me and hope she can entertain herself without too much fuss/clinginess. 

7:30: We wrangle socks, shoes, coats, and accessories onto kids and selves. Roo usually loses her $#!+ during this time, often literally.

7:40ish: Head out the door to the trolley stop. Pray for a not-too-crowded trolley.

8:10ish: Transfer to blue train at 30th Street Station. If we're running late, I will continue eastbound to help with daycare drop-off. If we are on time, I part ways with the fam and catch the westbound train to 40th Street.

8:20: If we need anything for home, I stop at the Fresh Grocer or CVS on my way from the station. They are conveniently located one block from my office.

We work. HPR is on the clock from 8:45-5:15 with a half-hour lunch break, plus he has to change into an out of his uniform. I work the cushy 9-5 with an hour lunch, although I often eat it at my desk while goofing off online. I pump, usually mid- to late morning.

5:05: I leave for home, on foot. I love this part of the day, especially now that there is still a bit of daylight. Sometimes I stop at the library on the way home if I have to return anything or to get new material.

5:35: I arrive home and start dinner.

6:15, 6:30ish: HPR and the kids get home. We de-mummify them, wash hands, and sit down to eat.

7:00: Play.

7:30: If it is bath night (every other night), I head up to bathe Roo. HPR usually plays a board game with Shmoo; sometimes they watch short videos, such as a few Thomases on YouTube.

7:50: HPR and Shmoo come upstairs for Shmoo's bath. I dry off Roo and get her into her pajamas.

7:55: We sing "[Rooie/Shmooie] Goodnight" to the tune of "Goodnight Irene." First verse for the kids, second verse for the cats, and third verse for Mommy and Daddy. The fish are left out. I nurse Roo, sing "Embraceable Roo," and put her to bed.

8:15: I rejoin HPR and Shmoo at the end of his tooth brushing/pajama/feed the fish ritual. We read a chapter out of whatever book we're reading. When we finish, Shmoo pretends to fall asleep in my arms. I exclaim: "Oh, look, Daddy - he just fell asleep, right in my arms!" Shmoo continues to pretend to sleep as I tuck him in.

8:30: We sing "Embraceable Shmoo" and kiss goodnight.

8:35: HPR and I go downstairs and break out "Mommy and Daddy's Special Juice." Shmoo often comes to the edge of the upstairs safety gate to ask for one more kiss or his slippers, if we forgot to bring the latter upstairs earlier. We allow one such stall tactic.

8:40: Usually HPR spearheads the lunch-packing movement (with me as chief consultant) while I clean up the dinner mess. I will frequently get a load of laundry going.

9:10: Emails, phone calls, tidying, a shower or bath for me, other projects. Once in a great while, we'll watch a DVD, but we're usually too tired to get through a full-length feature. We've been watching the John Adams HBO series, but we don't get to more than one episode per week.

10:15: The time we should go to bed, although it's often . . .

11:15.

11:30ish: Rooie always seems to stir about 20 minutes after we've gone to bed. Repeat of the way the day began.

my life has become a cliche

Shmoo picked his own birthday gift out of a catalog. He chose a baseball batting thing, which surprised us, because HPR and I are not really competitive sports kinds of people. (Although we certainly like spending time outside and getting the blood flowing.) We double-checked with him, and indeed that was what he wanted. So we ordered it.

We had it waiting for him on the morning of his birthday. It is a pretty cool machine, and the balls are nice and lightweight - like soft nylon-covered whiffle balls. There are sound effects, and the ball basket rises to bring a ball up to the hangy-thing.

Shmoo took several initial swings and kept missing. We didn't want him to get discouraged, so when he was distracted by something else, we didn't push. After a few minutes, he came back to the machine and got into a leftie stance. HPR said "are you sure you want to hit it that way? Isn't it more comfortable to lead with your right hand?" [Shmoo seems to prefer his right hand for eating and much else.*] Indeed, he wanted to try from the left. And sha-ZAM, he nailed it. We wondered if it was just a fluke, but time after time he hit good hits.

So good, in fact, that this was the result (click to embiggen):

That is our interior door to the entrance vestibule. Looks a bit tricky to replace the glass. /sigh/

In other cliche news, my daughter is a genius. Beyond her handful of words, if you ask her what a pig says, she snorts. And people, these are the most adorable snorts in the history of snorts. She also makes bubble sounds when she sees pictures of fish and pants when she sees pictures of dogs. I thought the whole "look how smart junior is!" stuff would be out of my system with child #2, but I am wrong. And it doesn't bother me in the least.

So what's next - me yelling at the kids for tracking mud across my freshly-scrubbed floors?

*It appears Shmoo may be more comfortable writing with his left hand, too. Who would have thought?

random stuff a post makes

Here are some things. A topic-jumping extravaganza!

I finally got to meet Lori! The kids' daycare was closed on Veteran's Day, so I took the kids to see the giant high-def screen in the Comcast lobby. We were the ultimate white trash tourists, sitting on the floor and pulling out snacks; Roo crawling around. Afterwards we went downstairs to find the secret hallway to SEPTA's Suburban Station and there she was. Lori gives the rundown, but I have to add that I actually told Shmoo, as I introduced them: "This is my friend from the com-PYOO-der!"

Also Comcast-related, through Facebook I discovered that a friend of mine from high school is a consultant there. She lives in northern New Jersey but takes the train in and stays overnight 2x per week. So she came over for dinner on Thursday. I wonder how many near-misses we've had in the 2+ years she's worked there. Another hooray for Facebook.

Shmoo turned 4 on the 8th. We secured a bouncehouse for his party and set it up at Clark Park on the rain date, November 9. Despite our chronic disorganization, it went well. I've said it elsewhere, but 1 bouncehouse + ~10 kids + no major head wounds; everything else was gravy.

Shmoo still wears pull-ups at night. He had said to us "when I am 4 I won't need a pull-up at night." So we brought it up as we were getting him ready for bed on the night of his birthday. Wouldn't you know, he got up to use the potty at least once that night, and was dry the next morning and also the following morning. And my fellow parents are waiting for the "but" - then followed 4 nights of wetting. I got tired of washing sheets every day, so although he protested, I sneaked in after he was asleep and put a pull-up on him. He protested the next morning ("I didn't want a diaper on") but that's our decision for now, and we'll try again later.

Roo is on the cusp of walking, and has been for several weeks. She has now passed the age where Shmoo was taking his first steps (13.5 months), so I'm hoping she will do so soon. This seems to be the pattern with her: take her sweet time with physical milestones, just past the point where her pretty-low-key parents start to worry, make phone calls, and set up assessments, then voila, bust out the skill with no fanfare, as if she had been doing it all along.

She has also been adding to her vocabulary of words that only her family can understand. I love the verbal stuff. She's doing lots more imitating and self-sufficient stuff, like holding her own sippy and pushing herself on a plastic car - things that Shmoo didn't deign to do until he was much older. She's also cut most of her one-year molars in the past few weeks. Open letter to teeth: bite me.

I'm probably going to have some moles removed from the left side of my face. One I've had since birth that started out as kind of a kicky little "beauty mark" has - ewww - grown since my pregnancies (could just be due to the aging process, wheee!) and a couple new ones have - EWWWWW - sprouted up in the past few years. I feel self-conscious about them, like it's the first thing people see when they look at me. Anyway, when Shmoo was having quiet time on Saturday I went into his room and saw that he was stirring. I lay down on the bed with him. He touched the largest one and said "what's that?" I explained what a mole was and that I was thinking of having them removed. I asked him what he thought and he said "just [the largest] one. I like this one [pointing to the on my upper lip]. It's my favorite." Then he gave some reason like it's the happy one - wish I could remember the words he used. So, with the doctor's input, of course, I'll have all of them removed except that one.

Thus ends the post.

early morning snippet

Shmooie's bedroom is on the opposite side of the house from ours.

This morning at 5, I hear pad pad pad pad of Shmoo-sized feet down the hall. He comes to my side of the bed:

"Miss Michelle [preschool teacher] says I can't have Nemo as my friend at school. She says that nighttime pets aren't allowed at school."

"That's the rule," I respond, and roll over.

pad pad pad pad back down the hall.

Thirty seconds later pad pad pad pad back to our room.

"Mommy, you hurt my feelings."

"Here, let me kiss them."

*kiss*

pad pad pad pad back down the hall.

Grown-up dance party

Last Friday via the Shmooiecam I noticed all of the preschoolers doing some crazy moves on the red oval rug. When I asked Shmoo about it at the end of the day, he said they were having a grown-up dance party. Apparently a grown-up dance party involves running in circles, with the occasional half-cartwheel. On Saturday, Shmoo wanted to do a reenactment. He chose the radio station. I love Roo's squeals; you can tell she adores him. If you know what the song is, please let me know.

Grownup dance party from Chris Elbich on Vimeo.

Holiday Road

I may have mentioned that we live in a rather scruffy neighborhood in West Philly. I love it — I do. One prominent feature of our block is the Holiday Rambler.

When we moved into our house in early 2004, I was rather suspicious of the Holiday Rambler. Houses on our block (and in most parts of Philadelphia) do not have garages. They do not have driveways. Our block is mostly twin homes, and people park on the street. The Holiday Rambler was parked directly across from our house. It never rambled. Did someone live in it? Was it a roving (but not really roving) meth lab? I would peek out of our bedroom window, looking for signs of life.

A few months later, we saw a neighbor clunking around with it. There was much revving of the accelerator and cranking of . . . other parts. I was relieved that I could attach a person to the Rambler. Yet still it remained in its non-rambling state. We began to joke about it - use it as a landmark when giving directions to our friends. ("Turn left at the old firehouse, then a quick right, then a left, and we're right across from the Holiday Rambler.")

After a few weeks of our neighbor's tinkering, I woke up again to the characteristic ignition roar. I thought our neighbor was getting an early start on his daily mechanical bricolage. But then something amazing happened: It drove off.

It was gone for about a week and then resumed its spot across the street for another 51 weeks. The next summer was a repeat: a few weeks of tinkering, then gone for a week.

Last summer we noticed a bright orange citation slapped on the RV's window with an order to move it. We weren't sure what our neighbor would do. (You may have realized by now that we don't really talk with this neighbor. We at least say hello to most folks on the block, but we honestly never see this guy except for the few times he's working on the Rambler.) I was relieved when I noticed that he merely moved it around the block. As captured on Google street view. (Click "street view," then the arrow to SW Pentridge.)

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the Rambler was back in its original station across the street. The neighbor has been clanking around in his free time. And yesterday morning at 5, the familiar gunning of the ignition. Easing off the emergency brake, then putter-putter-putter-ROAR down the block. I was wishing I had advance notice so I could pack a picnic breakfast for the front porch swing. It seriously felt like a ghetto space shuttle liftoff. Mimosas for everyone!

I rolled over in bed and smiled. I wasn't even mad that the noise woke up the baby.

Did this post's title get the song into your head? No? Well then here:

Having a Lucille Ball

I had just pumped and was leaving my office to put the milk into the company fridge (disguised in a brown paper bag, of course) when the phone rang. I dashed back to answer it, placing the bag on the edge of my desk. Of course the bag wasn't balanced well and fell off the edge of the desk. Of course the lid popped off. Of course in the tangle of phone cord I didn't get to the bottle before 8 oz had spilled out. (I rescued 2 oz, however.)

Of course it was a sales call.

It's not the end of the world. I have lots more milk stored in the freezer, and anyone who has seen da Roo recently knows that she's in no danger of starving.

The chair mat caught most of it, so I didn't have to sponge too much of it off the carpet.

Still, my office is sure to smell like gjetost tomorrow.