self-service

bug is generally a good sleeper. she willingly goes to her crib and always wakes up bright and cheerful (unlike another child who will not be named, but it rhymes with kooka). however, sometimes weekend naps are merely 'quiet time' with her books, as opposed to actual sleep.

bug is also well into the stage of "my do it, " although she is bizarrely selective. putting on her own diaper: yes; feeding herself: no.

this past saturday these two seemingly unrelated traits met for the first (and, please God, only) time.

when i put bug in the crib, she claimed to be poopy. after using the infallible sniff test to determine that she was not, in fact poopy, i put her down and closed the door. for the next hour i could hear her reading to herself or talking to her many cribmates. as i was starting to doze off, i heard her get a little more agitated. she was insisting again that she was poopy.

when i opened the door i could see her standing bare-bottomed with diaper in hand. recalling my sister's stories of her children painting walls with feces, i rushed in to find what looked like an empty diaper. and then and i looked at her feet.

she was standing on a giant turd, and getting more upset about it by the second. as i whisked her out of the crib, the blob came with her. i deposited her, and it, on the changing pad and tried to minimize her squirming, which was certain to maximize the smearing, while also grabbing a wipe to contain the offending matter.

i have to admit i did a pretty good job wrangling, which makes for a less entertaining story, i know, but i won't apologize for NOT having poop smeared on myself and the floor, as well as my child.

i enlisted pooka to get bug hosed down in the shower while i cleared out the crib contents and threw her clothes in the washer. afterward, bug was completely content to get back in her crib and return to reading.

pew. phew.

i love my church family

never before have i been somewhere where they clamor to take care of your children. last year we went to a christmas party and people were grabbing bug left and right to hold her, carry her, feed her. after services on sunday, they often do the same, one day almost fighting over her.

this year, they moved kids' choir rehearsal to wednesday night at a time we couldn't make. the director volunteered to drive waaay out of her way to pick up pooka from latchkey and get her to church. when the logistics ultimately didn't work out for her, a friend whose daughter is also in the choir called and asked if i minded if she picked up pooka instead. mind? why would i mind? you guys are doing all the work for me!

i have now performed twice in the sweet spirit choir and both times i have heard compliments, "good to see you up there. you sounded great."

this place is chock-full of lovely individuals who truly want you to fully enjoy the atmosphere and experience the fellowship. i love it here! i'm so happy to discover what i was missing by running out the door as soon as the last amen was said.

reduce, reuse, recycle has a limit

i am a pretty strong force for the 3 r's in our house. we use canvas shopping bags, we fill our bin weekly with milk jugs and glass jars, and we reuse plastic containers as much as possible. kisu participates if he thinks about it and pooka follows me fairly closely. i think bug will be a believer, too.

butt, i think she may push it a little too far.

the other day while pretending to use the training potty, she got some tp and wiped (her belly button, mostly), put it in the bowl, then pulled it out and wiped again. she actually repeated this several times. thank goodness she hadn't actually used the potty. pooka and i were cracking up, but clearly we've got a ways to go on the training.

18 month bug

i can't believe how big she's getting. trite, i know, but look at her:



her personality continues to develop and shine:



she has lightened up on the bullying, at least at home. she responds better when you say, "no hitting," or, "be nice." she

her vocabulary is starting to expand significantly, as well as her clarity of speech. she likes to try out every new word she hears. friday night, all we heard was, "yook, yook!" as she pointed to her hand. she wanted us to 'look' at the marks she colored on herself.

it's funny, i don't remember pooka having any of those cute speech impediments that lend themselves to unforgettable family jokes. and at the time i was (inordinately) proud of her perfection. but bug uses 'y' for 'l' and i'm still proud of her. i know she'll grow out of it sooner or later. and for now it's part of her charm.

she is very self-assured and will let nothing stand in the way of what she wants. she has been known to drag the stool across the house to reach her goals. she is frighteningly fearless, climbing rocking ottomans (ottomen?) to reach forbidden items.

she couldn't be more different from her sister, and yet when they play together they are irresistibly cute.




we get her to do a little bit of show-pony stuff. we're still trying to get her to do the full "touchdoooooown michchchchigan!" but the way the season's going she hasn't heard it often enough to emulate.

who's in first?

pooka really enjoys school, except for the getting out of bed part. she likes her teacher, most of the kids, buying lunch, riding the bus, and the work. except the work is too easy.

she brought home some reading books one day and i internally ridiculed the difficulty level. okay, not so internally. pooka agreed with me and i let her send an email to her teacher. this sparked a somewhat defensive response from said teacher. i had to apologize and smooth things over to let her know we weren't questioning her teaching skills or planned curriculum. however, we do hold pooka to some high standards and we expect her to be challenged at school lest she become bored and get into trouble.

at the same time this discussion was taking place, the principal sent home a letter informing us that the first and second grade classes were crowded enough that they had decided to skim kids from each class and create a blended class. parents were asked if they wanted their children put into the blended class. assuming that the work might be more advanced, kisu and i jumped at the chance to put pooka there. the current teacher agreed with us. when we asked pooka if she would like to go, she responded, "i need the more challenging work."

there was much email communication with the teacher and the principal. the whole process, as the parents saw it, took a week. monday they informed and we requested. wednesday there was an informational meeting (which we couldn't make, of course, because of this cursed commute), thursday was selection day, and the following monday the first day of the new class.

to notify parents if their child was selected they sent home a smiley face postcard. kisu said it was like trying out for football: your locker had a red ribbon or a green ribbon to let you know if you made the team.

of course, pooka was selected. she was very excited and we were extremely proud. not only that she was able to handle the change and the potentially difficult work, but that she was looking for that challenge. in our younger years, kisu and i would both have said thanks but no thanks. why should i work hard when i can coast and still get by? nowadays, our attitudes have changed (in some respects) but we are thankful that pooka is showing a more eager approach to education than we did.

she is technically still in first grade, and the principal has said that at the end of the year she will progress to second. the curriculum in her class, however, is supposed to be more individualized than in the others (a blend of montessori and public schooling?), so we are hopeful that, if the situation warrants, there will be testing to determine her appropriate place for next year.

some people would caution against children skipping grades as it can lead to social awkwardness, but i don't foresee any problems. pooka is already one of the oldest kids in her grade, thanks to a late birthday, but she is also a very mature kid. even before the medical situation that forced her to associate with grownups 99 % of the time, she was mature for her age.

she is now in her second week in the blended class and is doing well. they do split the kids up for the special activities, like computer lab and gym, but otherwise they mix together. there's not really that much difference between first graders and second graders, anyway.

now, if only we could figure out how to get her to wake up pleasantly in the morning...

album review

we bought the new laurie berkner cd last weekend. it's been awhile since we've heard new music from her and the band and it was a pleasant refresh of an artist our family really enjoys. i had forgotten how musical and fun her tunes are. they're not insipid like a lot of kids' music. classic nursery rhymes have their value, but a lot of children's artists don't get beyond the simplistic ryhmes of moon/june, etc.

her stuff has such broad appeal that kisu and i will listen when the kids aren't around. yes, i even took it to work to import into my itunes library.

like any good album, some tracks are instant favorites and others take time and repetition. on this album, the repetition is built right in for a song called 'going on a hunt' (5 tracks). at first it's downright annoying how many times you hear it, but then you realize that each iteration changes rhythm and instrumentation; from ska to blues to jive.

just because the songs are clever and engaging doesn't mean they aren't serious earbugs. just ask poppa; he spent an entire 20 hour drive singing 'boody-boody-ya-ya-ya'. currently, i have 'mouse in my toolbox' running through my head from the time i wake up.

i hear a bang, bang, bang of my hammer/ a turn, turn, turn of my screwdriver/ there's a paw on my saw and an eye on my drill/ and her little tail is wrapped around my pliers.

this rhythm is so catchy and the chorus so charming that you can't help but rock out to it. and it conjures up an image of a tiny rodent version of norm abram.

tough nut to crack

i have a peculiar bruise on my arm received when i was carrying a giant box of shelves into the house. located in the middle of my forearm, it bears an uncanny resemblance to a cross. it's actually kind of cool, except that it's upside-down to me.

it is extremely noticeable, though, since it is quite a deep bruise and i am pretty pale. kisu lamented that people might think that he abuses me (as if i couldn't kick his butt), but that would be a strange kind of abuse: beaten with a crucifix.

i kind of like it, though, because it's a temporary tattoo, and it draws attention to my sleekly muscled arms. besides, bearing bruises (received for innocent reasons) is an indicator of toughness (or clumsiness, but you know, let's focus on the positive, okay?)

HA!

ce kids' day

it ended up being a fun day, albeit a little warm.

i was worried that the older kids would be bored, but i wanted chris to see what an artist might be able to do at an ad agency. that didn't exactly work out as planned, but he said he had a good time regardless.

bug had a blast running around and charming everyone. pooka had fun in the bounce house and the inflatable slide. i think they all enjoyed making their art projects. (unfortunately, they didn't win their age brackets.) and my coworkers gracefully tolerated their presence: covering the floor with their art in progress, teen-age bickering, and toddler screeching.

are you afraid of the dark?

always good when a culture can laugh at itself. i sure did.

channel your energy

as i was leaving the gym today i was struck by the senseless waste of people using indoor cardio equipment. all those miles logged on treadmills and elliptical machines; all those flights racked up on stepping machines.

i'm not saying that exercise is a futile endeavor, of course i'm an advocate for being healthy. and it would be hypocritical of me to heap shame upon people who hide indoors instead of enjoying the beauty and the natural challenge of the terrain outside the gym walls.

my despair comes from thinking of the oodles of joules just seeping out into the ether. think about it: people are at the gym to burn calories, right? what are calories but units of energy!

why doesn't someone engineer equipment to harness that mass of energy? during its busy hours, the gym could collect kilowatt hours in a battery and release it during its less busy hours. the battery could power the facility itself.

power from the people!

****
upon further research, this idea isn't really feasible, much to my chagrin. the amount of energy produced wouldn't be enough to run the facility, although it could light up a bulb (CFL, of course) for a few minutes.

1 kilowatt hour = 8,598,452 calories (or roughly 8,598,152 more calories than i burn on a 2 mile run.) the equivalent of 2,456 pounds. that's weight loss on a slightly larger scale (thank God) than my paradigm. my efforts would be closer to producing 1 kilowatt second per week.

eh, in the words of emily litella: "neeeeever mind."

ballet universe

for the longest time pooka has declared that she wants to be a ballerina when she grows up. eventually, she'll realize that she's more cut out to be supreme ruler of the galaxy president. in the meantime, she takes ballet class courtesy of granny. granny found the studio, pays the bill, and taxis her to and from class.

since i have no interaction with the process, it's like a completely different world that she inhabits. i have no idea what goes on there. (well, i know what happens at a dance school. i myself took ballet for a brief 8 months as a child.) kisu went to a recent rehearsal, but i have never even been to the studio.

it's a bit frightening to be so ignorant of what is, really, a fairly large part of her life. it's her favorite activity. i don't know her teachers, her friends, anything about how she perceives her own ability. (she doesn't talk much about it--teenager already.) i don't worry about her because i know that granny is there, but it's awkward having that void in my picture of her life. at her age, i should still be all about the details of her activities and thoughts. but then again, she has always been a precocious child. i just don't want to get too comfortable with her having a 'secret' from me.

i don't know if she's any good. she could be the next...um, whoever's hot in ballet right now, or she could be a total clutz. one of those kids who staggers around stage, completely oblivious to the rhythm of the music or the steps of the routine they've been practicing for 6 months. i fervently hope that she at least holds herself together and makes a decent showing. i hope that she feels that she does well. that's more important than how i think she performs.

i asked her if she's ready and she said no. when will she be ready? according to her, "saturday." i don't know if she was intentionally naming a day AFTER the recital, or if that was some arbitrary day she chose. i thought it was pretty amusing, though. i don't want her to be paralyzed with stage fright. given her personality, i don't think that's likely, but she's never been on a stage this big before.

one way or another, i am going to be thoroughly surprised by what i see at friday's recital. (by the way, who schedules a dance recital--or any physical enterprise for that matter--on friday the 13th?)

seeing the gears turn

one of the fabulous parts about having kids is seeing them learn. i had two moments this week where i literally saw bug create new synaptic connections.

the first was in the bathtub. she finally hit the cultural milestone of 'giving 5'. she loved the sound of her wet little hand slapping my palm. the funny thing is, she would only use one hand. one of hers and one of mine. my attempts to substitute my right hand met with grunts of disapproval. she would simply use her non-slapping hand to pull my non-slappable hand out of the way.

she was content to smack away for minutes on end.

the second time was tonight at a restaurant. i had forgotten to bring a sippy cup for her, as i often do. (this differs from when pooka was a baby and i would bring our entire inventory of baby paraphernalia everywhere we went.)

i had tried to get her to use a straw earlier this week with no success. i tried again and she just spit it out. i tried to hold the cup and let her drink straight from it like she does with the measuring cup in the bath but that just resulted in lots of water pouring down her front, also like the bath version, except that this time it also ran down me since she was sitting in my lap.

then i tried to pipette the water into her mouth. that seemed to work, both for neatness and for actually teaching how a straw works. i kept my finger over the end of the straw and made her suck the water out. after a few sips, i put the straw back in the cup and let her try it big girl-style. presto! she learned how to use a straw.

it was amazing to see her adapt so quickly right before our very eyes. two little skills we take for granted, and now she's mastered them.

only 46,204 more little skills to learn.

gems from a 6 year old perspective

last weekend we attended the christening of our friend mary rose. pooka was very curious about everything: the church, the ceremony, the people. she was asking a ton of questions and wanted to explore the church after the ceremony was done. i'm glad she was interested and actually paying attention, especially considering how long the ritual ran.

some of the highlights:

how do melanie and her husband kiss? i was at a loss on this one, wondering what kind of answer she was expecting, when i worked out that she was confounded by the significant height difference between the two people involved. after my face lost its blush, i laughed. later kisu reminded me that i could have just said, "the same way you kiss daddy."

i explained that aunt nancy lost her sister at a young age, and pooka couldn't understand how a kid could die (confirming our suspicions that she has NO idea of the gravity of what she's been through the last 2 years). she thought there should be an age requirement for dying: a venerable 200 years. when my mom heard this, she groaned, "i'll never make it."

the church had an enormous wall of pipes for the organ. it was impressive. we went to get a closer look and i realized that the biggest pipes could accommodate pooka's head, if not her whole body. when i verbalized that idea, pooka refused to get near them. i had a wicked vision of her getting stuck in a pipe like augustus gloop.

how to tell that you've raised a geek

well, those countless hours precious few minutes pooka spent watching the sci-fi channel have obviously made a big impression.

after taking a nap throwing some dinner in the oven, i came downstairs to this sight:

this is the entrance to her play area. notice the plastic board taped to the side of the entertainment center?

that's a biometric security panel.


"i put my hand here and it knows who i am so it lets me into my play area."



btw, that's not a turd on the floor, it's a plastic hot dog. the cat has stopped pooping outside the litter box, well, she stopped pooping outside the laundry room, anyway.

being smart is always cool

pooka has been very interested in sacagawea lately. i'm not sure how it started, but when it started was two weekends ago. (she has seen night at the museum, but not recently, that i know of.) on the way to sam's we got on the subject and i quickly exhausted my knowledge of her role in the lewis and clark expedition. unfortunately, we had already been to the library and missed our opportunity to get more reliable information.

the next day, we looked her up on the internet and pooka couldn't get enough. i'm not entirely sure if it was a sincere interest in the historical figure or just delight at being with me for some one-on-one time.

at any rate, the next weekend we made sure to take another trip to the library expressly for the purpose of checking out some books on sacagawea. we got two, and have spent the past week reading them. (history is not my strong suit, but turns out, i did a pretty good job recollecting the story.) did you know that she was just 16?

fridays are show and tell days for pooka. this week's theme letter was 's', which dovetailed perfectly with her recent fascination. did she want to show off her sacagawea dollar coin? don't be silly, mom! "i want to show my slinky, like i said right when i first got it at reagan's birthday party!"

a slinky, of course! why would you want to show something interesting that the other kids might not already know about or have seen? choose something that every kid probably has at home. i don't remember doing show and tell when i was little, but as a geeky mom, i would choose the new and unusual item over the run-of-the-mill toy everytime.

but then again, i never was popular in school.

music critic

driving home from work last week, i heard a song that shook me up a bit. on the one hand, i rather liked the music and the rhythm, but i was dismayed by the lyrics.

(as if anyone was inclined to misidentify him) the singer declared "i'm not Jesus. Jesus wasn't fair."

sure. life isn't fair. Jesus wasn't fair. Jesus was extremely unfair. Incredibly biased--towards others. what did he do to deserve his punishment? everyone else gets out of eternal damnation. yeah, that's fair.

then he goes on to say, "your God is looking down on me" and "i'm not Jesus, i will not forgive."
i have grudge-holding issues myself, but i always aspire to be better. this guy is just wallowing in self-pity and rage for whatever was trespassed against him.

religious blather aside, i suspect that the songwriter made a syntactical mistake. he says "I’ve thought you talked to god. Your hippocratic messiah and child abusive turned satanic."

i can't help but think he means 'hypocritic' here and it just makes me crack up.

(for the record the band was apocolyptica.)

but let's disregard my issues with lyrical malapropism and enjoy the irony that was created with the juxtaposition of the next song; one diametrically opposed on a theological scale. nickelback's "If Everyone Cared".

i love that song. musically, it's like an empty-calorie snack, but i love the message and i can't help but feel uplifted after hearing it.

Singing Amen, I, I'm alive
Singing Amen, I, I'm alive

[Chorus:]
If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died

don't you just want to hug someone?

a visitor from outer space

she came out of the bathroom stammering like a robot:

i'm an alien.

i'm an alien from planet....

i'm an alien from planet doofus!

crack-alackey

today granny and i took pooka to see a high school/dance school production of the nutcracker. pooka sat on the floor right in front of the stage with other kids, while the adults sat in the way-too-small seats. it was a nice show. we got treats afterwards. that was my favorite part.

pooka said she enjoyed it very much. her favorite part was when her ballet teacher was front and center. i'm not sure she picked up on much else. she doesn't know the story, and of course there's no talking (or singing, for that matter). she said she would like to be in the production some day, after a few more ballet classes.

yippee.

i consider myself a cultured person. i am aware of, and enjoy, many of the fine arts disciplines. i can't afford to go to as many events as i would like to, but i can still appreciate them.

but of all the fine arts i know, ballet is my least favorite. i would rather go to the opera anyday, and twice on sunday. even if they are singing in a language i don't understand.

perhaps i just don't have a firm enough grasp on the technical details of ballet to truly appreciate the beauty. i only took classes for about 8 months when i was 10.

whatever. i just know that from now on, i'm not going to any dance performances unless my kids' are actually in them.

new adventures in old clothes

my sister is a thrift store junkie. she knows how to get some really great deals. i'm not so certain. i've only ever bought furniture at a thrift store before. but lately i've been thinking about diving in head first for clothing.

the problem is that pooka is hard to shop for. we try things on at the store and then after the first wash, they don't fit. it's difficult even to find things that fit at the store. she has kisu's long torso and short legs. plus, she's got my husky arms. it borders on a nightmare.

so, i figure at the thrift shop, everythings already pre-shrunk (cuz even when new stuff says pre-shrunk or 'minimal' shrinkage, it's bunk.)

tonight was our first foray. we have tickets to see a certain d*sney movie adapted for the stage on friday, and she needed theater clothes. i was very pleased with the dress we found. she loved it, it fit, and it was perfect for the theater--and Christmas! all i have to do is tack on an extra ribbon to cinch it up a little in the back and presto. all for $4.55. beauty.

****

fortunately, she was healthy enough to go to the store with me. she spent the day home with poppa after puking at school.

oddly enough, i had put poppa on call last night for bug. i picked her up from daycare and she had a mild fever. one dose of tylenol took care of it and she was fine today. then school called to tell me that pooka made a mess. oops.

pooka was fine for the rest of the day. might have been chemo-related or it might have been some old strawberries she had for breakfast. either way, it looks like she'll be good for the show on friday. thanks for watching her, dad.

closed for the season

i tore down the garden last weekend. we want to have one again next year, but with slightly different contents. i picked every fruit or vegetable i could find so that it wouldn't seed itself over the winter, but i left all the greens laying in the garden area to mulch and fertilize. i also left all the sycamore leaves that fell into the garden. that should make a nice blanket to insulate all that nutrient-rich soil.

i was surprised at just how much i was still able to harvest. i finally pulled the beets. i thought i could do something with them even though they were pretty small, but they were also very dry and cracked (and i'm too lazy) so i didn't.

the carrots never did amount to anything. as i was clearing, i could see some nubbins that were about the size of bug's fingers. mostly the greens pulled off leaving the carrots in the dirt. we'll see what happens with that. aren't the seeds of a carrot in the greens?

i was completely blown away by the number of tomatos still clinging to life on those monstrous plants. i especially wanted to get rid of those so that the garden isn't one giant tomato patch next year. the cherry tomatos from the small planter the year before ended up all along the fence line this year, thanks to hapless seed distribution. some of them just rotted and fell, others were helped along by the local vermin.

i feel very sad about this baby eggplant that will probably never get a chance to fulfill its destiny, namely, filling my tummy. there are two of these right now, but i don't think they will survive. i had another one earlier in the season but it only got to tennis ball size before a critter took a big hunk out of it.

kisu took this wonderful bounty and made pasta sauce from scratch in the crockpot, with some spicy italian sausage. it was heavenly! it melted in our mouths. pooka even ate two pieces of sausage before she realized it was spicy.

witness the garden's last hurrahs:

oh, and what's up with these squatters? i didn't plant these. i wonder if they're edible varieties?