juliloquy

we propose this toast

Shmooie requested French toast today, then helped me make it. This is our conversation as I put it into the skillet.

Me, reviewing [everything's a teaching moment with us, poor kids]: So, what is the mixture we dipped the bread into?
Shmoo: French!
Me, laughing: egg and [waiting] . . . milk, right?
Shmoo: Why do we call it French toast? Is it French?
Me: I don't know - I don't think so. Maybe people just wanted a fancy name for it . . . Oh and we put cinnamon in it, too . . .
Shmoo: And cimmanim comes from French, right?
HPR, from the next room: Cinnamon comes from India.
Shmoo: So we should call it India toast! Indian toast!
Me: Yes indeed. India toast!

how now

him: When I tell my friends at school that I drink cow's milk, they say "ewwww!"

us: What kind of milk do they drink?

him: They just drink regular milk.

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.

"F" is for fairy

Shmoo is going through a bit of a tranny phase. I say "phase," but we can trace it back at least to the silly girl bison days.

He gets into my makeup, especially the lipstick. I let him have a Fanta-scented lip balm and he's obsessed with it.

He frequently asks me to paint his fingernails. I do, sometimes. I don't have girly colors, so he ends up with gold, metalic blue, or bronze paint. HPR doesn't approve, but I don't want to get into the whole "that's for girls only" mindset. He has plenty of time to get all self-conscious about his manliness; he's not now, and I certainly don't want to project that onto him.

When we told him about Roo's impending arrival, he had no interest in a brother and only wanted a girl baby. He plays mostly with the girls at school. I can see it now: years of token-guyhood.

Whenever he pretends to be an animal, it is a girl animal or a mommy animal. To wit:
"I am an orca. A mommy orca."
"I am a girl baby."
"I am a mommy lion."
"I am a fairy. And fairies are only girls."
"I am a girl rooster." (I didn't have the heart to point out the impossibility of that one to him.)
"I am a mommy mermaid sea monster."
"I am a girl dragon. My 14 babies just hatched from their eggs and I am nursing them." (Again, we didn't get into the technicalities of eggs = reptiles, nursing = mammals, although he would probably have grooved on such a discussion. Sometimes when he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed we say "hey, Grumpy Gills" ala Dory and he responds "I don't have gills; I have LUNGS")

Besides the nursing and babies, the animals don't do anything overtly female, like sashaying or primping or tee-hee-heeing demurely behind their gloved claws. So we're a bit mystified about the importance of gender in Shmoo's imaginary world.

HPR started to ask him, the other day "why aren't you ever a boy dragon?" but then thought about it and said, "well, I guess you'll be a boy your whole life, so I can see how it would be more fun to pretend you're a girl."

In related news: Roo makes the bbbbbbbbb noise when she pushes toy cars and trains. Another gear-head!

out of da Shmoo

A coupla things.

At Shmooie's school recently the teachers asked kids what they want to be when they grow up. Shmoo thought about it, then got a big smile on his face and said: "I want to make donuts!" I'm so proud. (So you see the obsession has continued. I look forward to the family discount.)

_____

Last week we were walking back from the park, the kids in the urban minivan. As we crossed the street, someone turned left and blasted right by us, a few mere feet from the stroller. Before I could censor myself* I said "Shit!"

The car didn't hit us and as I regained my composure I wondered whether Shmoo had noticed the new vocab word. He didn't say anything for a long while. Then he chuckled and said "Silly Mommy. You're supposed to say 'shoo' for flies, not cars." I laughed along with him—heh heh heh Shmoo, you're so right. Silly Mommy.Whew.

*We're not big swearers. I admire the artfulness with which others swear, but it's not us. We are in fact the Flanders family, you know, with our usage of words such as piggers and bunsers. I did go through a bit of a cussing phase when I was in Bulgaria, however, because I was nostalgic for American swearing.

status of pants: on fire

We've had another first in our household. Shmoo told his first lie. (Or was it the first lie he was caught telling? We'll never know.) And also the first spinning of the lie.

Yesterday morning I was hanging out with the kids while HPR got ready. Shmooie asked me if he could eat some of the candy left over from a birthday party goody bag. I told him he couldn't eat it right then, but that we could put it in his backpack to eat on the way home from daycare that afternoon. He agreed.

When HPR came downstairs I dashed up to finish my toilette. I could hear a bit of discussion from downstairs and then Shmoo headed up, looking a bit forlorn. HPR had sent him up to brush his teeth. I asked Shmoo what was the matter. His spin: "Mommy, I forgot to wait until later." When I realized what he meant, I asked "Did you eat the candy?" He confessed. I laughed, tousled his hair, and helped him with the toothpaste.

HPR filled me in when we got back downstairs. First Shmoo had said that he didn't eat the candy, but showed HPR the wrapper and then admitted that he had indeed eaten the candy.

HPR and I praised Shmoo for telling the truth because we're down with the current research. I can think of a few politicians who could make use of Shmoo's tactics.

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."