juliloquy

Shmoo v3.75

Brief "darnedest things" items:

6 a.m. HPR, wearing only jammie pants (the Heff ones, Xiobhan!) greeted the recently-awakened Shmoo. Shmoo's response "I don't care for naked men."

He is also really bringing the sass these days. If we dare to speak to him when he's not ready he frowns and says "you're disturvin' me."

If he is trying to tell something to HPR and I respond he says "I was talking to DADDY."

A few weeks back I was at the end of my rope with his constant attempts to injure his sister. It was the end of a long day of solo parenting and I wasn't at my best. I said, "you know Shmoo, I'm not sure you really are able to do the right thing." Without a blink he responded "I will when I am 4."

November can't come quickly enough.

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.

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."

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.

Thus saith da Shmoo

Woe unto them that serve me breaded morsels of fowl which hath been marred in appearance. The very peppercorns that adorn them shall be plucked asunder and cast into the fire.

Verily I say unto you: Let not the morsel of fowl in any manner touch the nectar of ketchup before the time at which I shall appoint. Saith the scripture: "And the flesh that toucheth any unclean thing shall not be eaten; it shall be burnt with fire. . . . Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which pertain unto the LORD, even that soul shall be cut off from his people" (Lev. 7:19-20).

Manservant and maidservant, present not unto me cereal bars fissured in nature, neither shalt thou bestow unto me crackers nor pretzel sticks unwhole or otherwise impure. Saith the scripture: "whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer: for it shall not be acceptable for you" (Lev. 22:20). For my wrath shall be kindled against you and I shall smite you with great plagues.

"Ye shall keep my statutes. . . . thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed" (Lev. 19:19). Neither shall nourishment mingled of more than two ingredients come into me.

Herein ye have done foolishly: therefore from henceforth shall ye provoke my fury.

"To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence. . . . for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. For [da Shmoo] shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left" (Deut. 32: 35-36).

splash

Big news in these parts is there is yet another new member of the household. No, not Earl, newer. Last week, we met Shmooie's new imaginary friend.

She is a mermaid, and they do everything together. She has blue skin and blue hair, but her tail changes colors (green, purple, pink, red). Her name is Shelly. Shmooie has informed us that he, too, is a girl mermaid with a tail that changes colors.

I welcomed Shelly with open arms. Shmooie has been acting out a lot at home lately, and Shelly seemed to be steering him away from the direct path to juvenile delinquency. She distracted him from his usual checklist of torturing the cats, wrenching the limbs of his little sister, and poking her in the face.

Here is an example of a conversation from early last week:

Me: Shmoo, time to wash your hands!
[What Shmooie hears]: "Mwuh mwah mwuhmwuh MWAH mwuh MWAH mwuh [Charlie Brown grownups sound]
Me: Is Shelly ready to wash her hands?
Shmoo: YES! [They swim over.]

Turns out, however, that Shelly was just kissing up to me temporarily. These days, she tunes me out just as readily as da Shmoo. [sigh.] But she'd better watch herself. It's a pretty heavy load giving them both a piggy-back ride to school in the morning. I might just "forget" her at the bus stop.

kids these days

I have to say that I'm enjoying this 2-kids gig. The house is a mess and tasks that might normally take 2 hours stretch into 5 days, but man, I love these kids.

Polly-roo is now big enough to wear some of her brother's hand-me-downs, which evokes a lovely nostalgia in me. (Nostalgia is a difficult word to type one, handed, fwiw.) Today she's sporting a dark blue terrycloth number with a truck motif, a welcome break from all the pink and ruffles. (The pink is fun, too, but I prefer some variety.)

So that I don't curse myself, I won't really say the following: She is a sleeper. Can you believe that? A baby! Who sleeps! I didn't realize they came that way! She is also content to hang out in her lounge chair for actual lengths of time, not crying to be picked up the moment her butt touches a non-person surface. Not that I've ever known a kid like that.

She is just over a month old and has started smiling. They are the elusive Mona-Lisa type smiles, but they are all real. You'd think, since this is my second go-round in babies, that a little smile wouldn't get me all teary. But then you would be wrong.

Of course it's not all rainbow unicorns jumping out of heart-shaped clouds. Girl knows how to get her fuss on. My mom said we should have named her Porsche since she can go from zero to 60 in 5 seconds. She rarely latches on without the requisite kvetching about the service in this joint. Five p.m., when other people are enjoying happy hour, is her time to fart through some rage.* Ten-thirty to midnight is baby witching hour (but not every night! She likes to keep us guessing). But we're picking up on some of her cues to learn what works well to avoid these jags, and they're not terribly long-lasting.

Shmooie is adjusting as well as can be expected. He asks several times a day to touch his sister and in his enthusiasm nearly squishes her every time. He regresses in play, pretending to be a baby human or fish or seal or cat, and we indulge him. My mom the social worker thinks that he has worked through lots of emotional things by role-playing in this way, and it's probably part of why he has nailed the potty stuff (finally!). I haven't talked about the potty stuff much here out of respect for him (he has become self-conscious when we talk about him), but I can't help sharing something we heard over the monitor when Shmoo was supposed to be napping:

Shmoo: 'Tink,** do you want to come out?
Shmoo, impersonating the 'tink in a high-pitched 'tink voice: No!

Another overheard gem was in the bathtub. Out of the blue, he exclaimed "I'm naked, so I'm having fun!" Now there's a motto to live by. I should design a t-shirt with that - oh wait, never mind.

Shmooie's daycare teachers asked him where he would like to go on a school trip for his birthday next week. Without prompting, he chose the library. I'm so proud.

I was explaining the concept of subtraction to him the other day. "You had two of the yellow sponge capsules, and we used one. Now there is one left. So two minus one equals one." He looked at me and said "Mommy, are you speaking Spanish?" So, um, I guess we have another language/literature geek on our hands. We should let him know there's more money in engineering.

I can't post this without giving a shoutout to my fabulous HPR. He is so in love with Polly-roo and it's adorable. And he and Shmooie have had their share of bonding time, capers, and hijinks. And he is weathering the stress a newborn brings to the house, leavening it with humor. The other night after he changed a diaper, he asked me to reswaddle da Roo. I grumpily said "you really have to learn how to swaddle." His response: "I can't manage to wrap a gift; why would I be able to swaddle an infant?"

Oh, and Halloween.

Me: Do you want to be a train driver for Halloween?
Shmoo: No.
Me: How about an engineer then?
Shmoo: Yes!

Polly-roo went as an acne-ridden, milk-breathed, incontinent freeloader. Cha cha cha.

*I'd love to take credit for this turn of phrase, but I think I first read it on byrneunit.
**Our family word for poop.

still more Shmooieisms

Because the window of Shmooie's only-child status is getting smaller and smaller, I must indulge myself in more Shmooieisms. I keep remembering more after I hit "publish."

Catch phrases

Whenever Shmooie hears mention of Philadelphia, he chimes in with an excited "That's our city!" Guess he doesn't know yet that he's supposed to have a defensive chip on his shoulder about the city of his birth. We'll have to teach him "yeah! and who needs New York?"

Likewise, whenever someone mentions electricity, he says "That's what the trolleys use!" We then have to go into detailed discussions about the overhead contact system and what the driver has to do if the trolley pole disengages (this happened in the tunnel on one of the boys' recent commutes). As a result, I know more about pantographs and catenaries than I ever thought I'd need to know.

The electric transit discussion often leads to conversations about what else uses electricity and what fuels other vehicles. Shmoo gave HPR a great joke opening recently when he asked "What does a coal train use?" HPR lost no time in saying: A saxophone! (Get it? Allow pop-ups to hear the music.)

The parrot

I suppose it's adult vanity that makes us think it's so cute when kids repeat what we say. But, well, cute it is. Here are some

"I have an idea! Let's play."

Last night, as we were singing his bedtime song (Embraceable Shmoo), he started to say "I have a feeling that . . ." HPR and I kept singing (trying to ward off the stall tactics), so we didn't get to hear what his feeling was, but I wish we had let him finish.

Through a child's eyes

Then there's the parental cliche about how observant kids are. It is pretty amazing the things they pay attention to that adults might otherwise miss. We were reading a Franklin book from the library and got to this page (click to embiggen). After I read "Franklin couldn't believe his ears . . ." Shmooie said "But he doesn't have any ears!

Authority figure

Sometime over the summer, we started the bad habit of allowing Shmoo to take a sippy cup of soy milk to bed. This is a bad idea for his oral hygiene and also our rest: Sometime in the night, Shmooie would finish the milk in the cup and ask for more. We knew we had to break the cycle, but how to do it without major fuss/protest? Cue Dentist. The only thing we had to say was: "The Dentist says you shouldn't have milk in bed; it's bad for your teeth." Shmooie has never even been to the dentist (once again, bad parents). The only dentist he knows about is P. Sherman in Finding Nemo. But it worked like a charm. Maybe too well. When he was sick this past week, he hardly ate anything during the day and had thrown up once, so I was fine with sending him to bed with milk in a sippy. But Shmooie protested: "The Dentist says no milk in bed." I told him the dentist said it was OK when he's sick, but Shmooie was VERY reluctant to break the rules.

That's why his name is Chris-to-fur

I knew I would forget one until after I hit "post." Here's a bonus Shmooieism.

Shmoo, feeling neighborly, welcomed himself onto the stoop of Clay, one of our neighbors who has dreadlocks and rarely wears a shirt. He sat down right beside Clay, sized him up (especially the forearms), and said "my daddy has fur."

Out of da Shmoo

Hi. I'm still here. Still pregnant. Feeling huge and awkward; narcoleptic by day and insomniac by night, wheee!

But I want to talk about Shmooieisms. I've been meaning to post them for a while, so some of these stretch back a few months.

HPR and I have been a bit surprised at how verbal Shmooie is/has been. He had such a reserved nature as a baby that we figured he'd just soak it all in and be the strong & silent type. Not so! He is very chatty and quite intentional and exacting in his word choice and conversations. His pronunciation is careful, which is nice for us as I think we've been able to avoid a lot of tantrums just by virtue of understanding what he's saying.

Tip your waiters, folks. Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week.

I've mentioned before his interest in imposing dialog on nonverbal things, like "what does the trolley say to the passengers when they get on?" Or "what does Bucky car say to the fish?" A lot of these sound like joke set-ups; we take turns being the straight man:

Shmoo [loading his Thomas trains onto Noah's Ark]: What does the boat say to the trains?
Me: Umm, all aboard?
Shmoo: No, the boat doesn't have a mouth.
zing! He got me with that one!

Shmoo: What does the cow say when the horse tries to take away its food?
HPR and I, in unison: HAY!

The language police.

One morning he was playing with his train set and I made the mistake of referring to the breakdown train as the "breakdown truck." Shmooie's eyes narrowed with disdain and he said: "Mommy, you're happosed to say 'breakdown train.' Say 'breakdown train.'"

The ever-popular who-has-which-set-of-genitals discussion.

Shmoo says "v"s like "b"s, so there are several daily requests to "watch a bideo." One Saturday, Shmooie and I were going through a few of the YouTube videos we had favorited during his earlier bus obsessions. Later on, at the playground, Shmooie was hanging on my legs on the play structure, then smiled up at me and said "The Bagina Bus." I responded "Are you thinking about the video we watched this morning, the Spadina Bus? "The Bagina Bus," he repeated. I tried to play dumb: "Ummm, the China Bus?" He gave me an I'm-not-letting-you-off-the-hook grin and asked (as he's done hundreds of times) "Mommy, do you have a penis?"

Don't let the door hit your tail on the way out, Loki, he's over you.

One sad thing: our cat, Loki, disappeared as of Sunday. Either we forgot to get him back in the house before we left for the day, or he got out when we got home in the evening. Shmooie helped me call for him around our block on Monday. On Tuesday, Shmoo and HPR called for him as they went to the trolley. Then Shmooie said, plainly, "we will have to get another cat."

The close-talker.

We went to the Strangeafeet household recently to see new-big-brother Noah and meet baby Ray. Shmooie had asked ahead of time whether baby Ray "had wings that flap." He was thinking of Mr. Ray, Nemo's teacher in Finding Nemo. Anyway, Noah, who is Shmoo's same age, has some great lines of his own. We were a bluster of excitement coming in the door and greeting everyone. We had primed Shmoo for the visit and Shmoo was eager to play with Noah's trains Noah. Noah hung back and said "I need to warm up."

Noah had potty sticker charts in his kitchen just like da Shmoo. As soon as he saw Noah's charts, he was impressed "Wow, Noah peed alotta times!"

We often encourage Shmoo to act on his own in social situations rather than filtering everything through us. So when he had a question for Noah, we said he should ask Noah directly. Shmoo went around the table to the not-yet-warmed-up Noah, stood by his chair, and asked him whatever the questions was. Noah seemed uncomfortable and didn't make eye contact. As a result, Shmoo got closer, right up to his face, and repeated the question. That's when we parents intervened and reminded Shmoo that Noah still needed to warm up.

Makes me tired to think of all the social knowledge we impart along with the more intentional lessons for our kids. Good thing most of it just soaks in from the day-to-day.