TheMommyBlog

Thursday, February 12, 2004 Tidbits on the Kidbits

The charmed evening lasted for a while, and then regular programming was resumed. After the baths, Logan sheepishly beckoned me into the bathroom to give some plumbing assistance. As we both stood there, arms crossed, looking at the distressed appliance and waiting it out, he observed, “That is one cloggy toilet.”

Then, after they were all dried off and jammied up, we held tumbing practice on Mommy & Daddy’s bed. Flips and gainers, aerials and cannonballs. Amidst the mayhem, Dylan perked up and said, “Mommy! I have a secret for you!” I must have looked hesitant, because he immediately reassured me in all seriousness, “Don’t worry, Mommy, I’m not going to spit on you.”

Monday, February 09, 2004 Tidbits on the Kidbits

Hey everybody, let’s sing it together!

Oh, it’s 1:30 in the morning
but we’re all wide awake!
Dylan wants his mommy
and Logan made a big mistake!
He fell asleep a-watching Beauty take her rest
and forgot to wake back up and is driving his mother up the fucking wall with his whining.

Seriously folks, sometimes it’s really easy to get your kids back to sleep in the middle of the night, and other times it’s, well, like tonight. I fell asleep with the kids watching “Sweeping Booty” at 8:30, and woke up at 12:30 to spend some quality time with the blog. (BTW, Lee, that cursed flash program is stealing my soul). Ten minutes into it, Dylan started whimpering. I tiptoed in, tucked him in, and tiptoed out. Another ten minutes. Whimper. Cry. Repeat routine, but throw in a five-minute lie-down for good measure. Repeat four more times. On sixth rep, try to wait it out. Go back in when cries wake up the other sleeping child in the room.

Decision point: calm the freshly tearful child in the hopes that he will be an easy soothe? Or go to first one to make up for having ignored his cries on appeals five and six? Right. Go with the one screaming the loudest, or you’ll soon have three crying children.

Logan was wailing about not being able to fix something, and I thought, “Ooooh, he must be dreaming--I can fake him out.” So I started out tellling him that it was all right, that we could fix it. He protested that it was impossible, so I turned it up a notch. “Look, hon, it’s almost done… Look! We fixed it!” “Nooooooooooo! We can’t!” “Why not, honey?” “The clock can’t go backward! Waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!”

Uh, oh. He’s got a point. The space/time continuum does not respond to my ministrations. Shit. I continued to let Dylan wail over on his side of the room and dropped the charade. “What seems to be the problem, Logan? Why do we need to turn back time?” “I fell asleep and forgot to wake back up!” “OK! Well, there isn’t anything I can do about that for you. We are all trying to sleep, and if it helps you feel better, I was right there with you. Out cold and drooling on my pillow by 9 pm.” “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!” I looked up at Gil standing behind me. “Well, I’ve done what I can. He’s all yours.” And I climbed in with Dylan.

I usually try to stay on top of the covers, because it wakes him up if I try to slip out from under the comforter when I leave. In fact, I could hear Gil rustling under Logan’s blankets and thought, well, he’s toast. He’ll be there till morning. So, I lay there, shivering, teeth chattering, thinking, “It’s frickin’ cold in here (or as Lee would say, letting his facial lips go limp and blowing them out so that they flap like a hound dog’s ears in a stiff breeze. “brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrr!”)!" And, being the blog nerd that I am, I thought, “Well, at least I have something to post while I wait to be sleepy enough to go back to bed. But, holy tomatoes, it is frickin’ cold in here! Brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrr.”

But soft! I hear Daphne now, and she sounds pissed! Time for the midnight shuffle to begin again…

Saturday, February 07, 2004 Tidbits on the Kidbits

This is what I heard my eldest son announce as I was merging onto 101, on our way to IKEA. I almost drove off the road.

Me: ”Hon, what do you think that means?”
Logan: ”It means… it means… um… it means… if he doesn’t stop bothering me, I’m going to bother him right back.”
Me: ”Well, actually, it means you don’t get to keep your job. If you work somewhere, you don’t get to keep working there.”
Logan: ”That would be great! Because then you’d get every day off!”
Me: ”True, but then we couldn’t live in our house or buy food or clothes or gas or anything else, with no money.”
Logan: ”Oh."
Logan: ”Mom?"
Me: ”Yes?"
Logan: ”You know when those people went away, and you got more work to do?”
Me: ”Yeeeeeessss?"
Logan: ”I bet they got fired.”

Note to self: don’t discuss the reduction in force at home until the kids are old enough to understand severance packages.

Saturday, February 07, 2004 Tidbits on the Kidbits

So I’m standing there in my skivvies this morning, getting ready to go to IKEA to pick up Mom’s birthday present, when Daphne comes in for her morning review.

First, the ritual greeting dance:

[walking around me in a circle, one hand trailing around my tummy, around my back and then back again, singing over and over] “I love Mommy, I love Mommy, I love Mommy, I love Mommy, I love Mommy, I love Mommy, I love Mommy, I love Mommy, I love Mommy, I love Mommy, I love Mommy!”

Then, the review:

“Mommy, is that your underwear?”
“Yes, it is!”
“Do you love them?”
“Sure do!”
“Hm. Let me see.” [pulls waistband down and peers inside]
“Yeeeeecccchhh.”

Monday, February 02, 2004 Tidbits on the Kidbits

I forgot to jot this one down, but it has helped me feel warm and fuzzy just remembering it:

I stayed indoors all day Saturday, feeling crappy and flu-ish, and needing to nap. Gil took the two younger ones out for a while, and Logan came in to check on me after a while. I was snuggled down in Daphne’s bed, enjoying the pink thistles on her sheets and the soft, thick duvet with ladybugs and swirls.

Logan: “Mommy? What are you doing?”

Me: ”Oh, honey, I don’t feel well, and I think I’ll lie down for a while.”

Logan: ”I think I know what will help you feel better.” He climbed up into the bed and nestled himself beside me and stroked my hair and gave me a kiss. Then he got up, rummaged around in the toy basket for a teddy bear, and tucked it in beside me where he had been a moment earlier.

Logan: ”There, that will give you something soft and furry to snuggle with.”

Me: ”Oh, thank you, honey, he feels wonderful.”

Logan: [hesitating] “Hmmmm. I’m trying to think of what else will help you feel good.”

Me: ”You’ve already helped! I think maybe just some quiet time will be best. Can you go play for a while and let me sleep?”

Logan: ”Of course!”

Me: ”Thank you honey, you’re being very nice.”

Logan: ”Mo-om, all 5-year-olds are like this with their mommies. Aren’t they?”

Friday, January 23, 2004 Tidbits on the Kidbits

Logan and I had our own Friday Five last night while reading bedtime stories. Last night’s story was Everybody Cooks Rice, whose message is that “We are all one family, especially when it comes to the way we like to eat.”

It turned out to be an apt choice, because Logan had been learning about diversity in kindergarten, and the teacher had come up with some great ways of putting things.

OK, it’s an overly small subset, but he gets the general idea. Later, after we read about all the different ways rice can be prepared in different cultures, he asked me a whole series of questions.

Tuesday, January 20, 2004 Tidbits on the Kidbits

Never use the word “streetwalker” in front of a 5-year-old.

Monday, January 19, 2004 Tidbits on the Kidbits

Look at the post footer, just down there...it’s the middle of the night, and I am sitting here fixing my css. Just a small thing, but one that has been bothering me, and it’s quiet and I can’t sleep anyway.

A little while ago, my 3-year-old son started crying on and off--you know, the cry accompanied by the flopping thing: cry, flop, silence, cry, flop, silence. I went in and pulled up his covers, kissed his head, and tiptoed out again. Ten minutes later, it started again. I went back in and saw that he’d kicked the covers off.  I gently pulled his sheet back up, and then the duvet, and then his quilt, tucking it around his little body and up to his neck. I laid my head down on his pillow and whispered to him.

He turned over and curled up, and I spooned around him and snuggled down into his neck. Moments later, he was breathing quietly, sleeping peacefully.

[sound of heart creaking]

And of course, [sound of wooden toy being kicked across room on exit]

Monday, December 08, 2003 Tidbits on the Kidbits

After baths tonight, the children and I sat down to watch The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride. Near the beginning, Simba, predictably, was telling his daughter Kiara not to wander too far and to stay on the path he marked for her. Now, I recommend you pay close attention here, and learn what not to tell a 5-year-old.

Logan: “He didn’t mark a path for her!”

Me: “Actually, he probably did. Remember how lions mark their territory?”

Logan: “...???...”

Me: “You know, they pee on the borders and important parts of their territories so that everyone else knows who it belongs to.”

Logan: “You mean they can tell whose pee it is?”

Me: “Yep. Lions can, but um, humans can’t.”

Logan: Man, I wish I could pee on the floor.”

Me: “Well, I’m glad you don’t.” [and I’d better not catch you trying it, either]

Logan: ”I wish I could, because then when anyone comes from outside, they’d smell the pee and keep away.”

Me: ”So, you don’t want any of your friends to come over?”

Logan: “Well, if a friend comes, they’ll smell the pee and keep away, and then we look out the window and say, ‘Come on, it’s only for people who think it’s an empty house!’”

Thursday, December 04, 2003 Tidbits on the Kidbits

Last night (out of the blue)…

Logan: “Mommy, do you know who pulls Santa’s sleigh?”

Me: “His reindeer?”

Logan: “No, caribou! Did you know that caribou is another name for reindeer?”

This morning (picking up right where the conversation left off)…

Logan: “Why doesn’t Santa come out in the daytime?”

Me: “Well, he does visit sometimes at the mall.” [hating myself for promoting the commercialism] “If you like, we can go see him and you can tell him about the toy wildebeest you want him to bring.” [Gil’s eyebrows going up, indicating that we don’t know whether he knows that’s not really Santa]

Logan: “Well, there’s only one thing I want to say to him. I just want to ask him how his caribou are doing. And maybe he’ll ask me what a caribou is, and then I can tell him that caribou is another name for reindeer. And then maybe he’ll ask how come I know so much about caribou, and I’ll say that I have two animal books and know a lot about animals.”

Me: “........” [Now my eyebrows are up in the air alongside Gil’s]