Norah Takes a Dump Then Falls Asleep--In About Five Minutes

Just a quick post because I thought this was worth sharing.

Because she is incapable of sleeping normally, Norah took a ten minute nap today. I took the kids to Wal-Mart to try and find some printer cartridges and to buy Gabe a new tow truck (he keeps losing the one he has, and, after losing it again this morning, I decided to try and find another one since it doubled our odds of being able to find one when he asked). Apparently, Wal-Mart doesn't sell tow trucks (or combines, or, really, any of the specific vehicles that Gabe has asked for by name), so I picked him up a pack of five random construction vehicles for $4 and he settled for that.

On the way home, Norah fell asleep--about a half hour before nap time. Usually when we stop and I start to unstrap her from her seat, she wakes up and then nap time is ruined for the foreseeable future. But today she kept nodding off in my arms while I carried her into the house. Not willing to pass up the opportunity, I took her up to her bed and laid her down. Then, to capitalize on the moment, I fed Gabe a quick lunch and put him down early too.

Ten minutes later, Norah woke up, but Gabe continued to sleep. So I brought her down and we goofed around for about two hours. She was even more lowkey than normal (when she's tired, she's either a brat or a stoner, this time she went with stoner--staring blankly at the walls or a book or whatever her gaze happened to settle on), so I came into the office to check emails and Facebook and what-not for a few minutes.

Usually, I can tell Norah is still fine and dandy by the constant stream of noise that comes out of her. After a few minutes, I noticed that lack of noise--which usually means that she's up to no good--so I went into the living room and this is what I saw.

I went in to check, just to make sure she was breathing (because that's the kind of guy I am), and was immediately struck by the smell. She'd apparently just taken a big dump, too. Which, as I'm writing this, is still in her pants. I'm not going to ruin some peace and quiet just to destink a room. And, apparently, if she can fall asleep just a minute or so after doing it, she doesn't have much of a problem with it either.

Poor girl. Look at the toys she was playing with before she konked out. A toy snake, a firetruck, a cup, a play bottle for one of her babies, and a pillow. I swear, she's going to learn to talk just so she can start asking for non-boy and non-mundane item toys.

A Big Week

It's finally time. Sort of. Gabe starts preschool this week and I begin the portion of my life where I become less a stay-at-home dad and more a chauffeur dad. I would be lying if I said that, on some levels, at least, I wasn't looking forward to this week. In some very real ways, parts of my brain leap with joy every time I think about the day that both of our kids are in school and I can do things like shave without having to do it at triple speed and with a constant ear to the other room to make sure someone isn't dieing while I'm preoccupied. And this week is the first step.

Honestly, I don't know how parents of bygone eras did it--in many ways. Never mind the fact that they didn't have the benefit of 200 television channels (though we only watch about three of them because I hate commercials and try my best to at least shield the kids for that bit of television evil, if I can't manage to shield them entirely from television itself--which, I hate to admit, I've failed miserably in doing) or the internet to escape to for a scant few minutes every once in awhile to see what's going on in the world around them while the kids are momentarily distracted with something non-pointy. What did stay at home parents do all day before this to keep from going insane? Clean the house? Cook long, complicated meals that demanded they stay in the kitchen and away from the children (one of the primary joys, I've found, in making dinner for the family, by the by)? I mean, besides play with the kids all day. It fills me with true respect for my mom and every other parent who managed to do it without going stark raving nutters. I'm not so sure I could do it.

And add to that the fact that my brothers and I didn't go to school of any sort until we left for kindergarten at five! FIVE! We were practically old enough to drive before mom was able to get us out of the house long enough to have a complete thought without someone screaming in the background!

I don't think that was the right way to do things, necessarily (not that she had a choice--being out in the middle of nowhere, I don't think preschool was even an option for us). I can still vividly remember my first few weeks of kindergarten. I hated it with a passion. Up to that point, I'd had little contact with strangers (again, due to our remote location and the few opportunities for socialization it offered us)--and even less experience with being away from my house and parents. I did not make the transition well. I cried and screamed and spent WEEKS adjusting. A neighbor child who was six or seven years older than me--who I was fairly familiar with--had to be brought in from his grade school classes for a little while during the first two weeks of school to draw and color with me to help sooth my nerves. It was a catastrophe that I think could have been avoided if I'd only had a little more experience being away from my mother at an earlier age. This, more than anything, is the reason why I have been a big proponent of getting Gabe out into the world as early as possible and why we'll put Norah into preschool as well.

That's not to say that I think I'm somehow inferior for my lack of early socialization. I'm not. I like me just fine. In fact, I strongly believe that if the majority of the population was more like me, the world would be a quiet, efficient, mostly problem-free world. But the majority of people AREN'T like me, not by a long shot, and I want Gabe and Norah to have as much chance at being successful as possible. And that means they need to be social creatures. Successful people are networking people. I hate networking, and the reasons for that, I think, can be traced back to my early, formative years.

Plus, it gets him out of my hair for a few hours a week. And thank Odin for that.

Last night was orientation for the preschool. Libby managed to get a few pictures, but it was with her phone and they are understandably blurry. Somehow we managed to forget the real camera. Dummies.

Anyway, it was a bit on the chaotic side as it was orientation for the ENTIRE preschool, not just his class. There were probably forty kids and another thirty or so parents all of them crammed into the one preschool room for about forty-five minutes.

Gabe was as happy as a lark and he really seemed to forget we were even there for most of it. He mingled with the other kids and did a fair to middling job of listening to instructions when the teacher gathered all the students on the purple rug for some little sample story times and activities (of course, when he wasn't directly involved in those stories or activities, he started to get pretty antsy, so I wish his teachers luck with breaking him of his ADD). When they declared it was time to go outside and play on the playground equipment for a little bit, Gabe ran up to the front of the exodus leaving the room and barely looked back to see if we were following.

I think he'll make the transition pretty well. This first year, the days are short--going only from 8:30-11:30--and there are just two days of school a week. But it will be good practice for when kindergarten starts--which is especially important since our kindergartens are full school days and not just half days.

For me, it will really not mean anymore freedom, as Norah without Gabe to distract and entertain her is often needier than both kids being home together. While she will sit and play with the same toy for twenty minutes and genuinely enjoy herself, she's only happy about it if I'm sitting right next to her the entire time. If I'm not, and Gabe's not around, she quickly loses interest, comes and finds me, and starts to whine until I come back in and let her hit me with whatever toy she's playing with or poke me in the eyes for awhile. Sadly, I can't even lie on the floor anymore and just let her play on or around me as I once could. Now, as soon as I lie down, she slowly backs up to my head and sits down on it. Sometimes she bounces. Add to that all of the time it will take to get them both loaded up, unloaded, reloaded, and unloaded again--plus getting dressed and ready and making sure everyone is sufficiently fed to make it through the morning--and you've got the recipe for me being five times busier than normal two mornings of every week.

But it's an important first step--a first step that will lead to BOTH kids eventually being in school for ENTIRE DAYS and me being able to finally focus on something else. Of course, by that time, I won't even remember what I liked to focus on before we had kids, but that's neither here nor there.

The first gathering of children. This was right after she called them--Gabe happened to be right there already. Eventually, there was little room to move on the purple carpet.

Gabe playing the ukulele. This would be an excellent instrument for him to get into. It's small, quiet, and pretty much guarantees that he'll only be playing Don Ho style Hawaiian music or Blue Grass--preferably Blue Grass.

Gabe playing with a hippo. Considering all the strange things he knows, I was surprised that he couldn't identify a hippo. He should be able to now. I also went to great plains to explain to him that, even though they LOOK like harmless swamp cows, they are deadly, dangerous, angry, mean creatures that will never hesitate to snap him in two with their powerful jaws. Hopefully that sinks in, should he ever find himself on safari somewhere.

And that was all the pictures we got. Not the best photo-journalism we've ever managed. But what can you do? He starts Thursday morning, and I'm sure I will update more then, but I rather doubt we'll get many more pictures. Libby has a program that morning, so I'll be shuttling him there by myself, and carrying thirty pounds of Butts and trying to get pictures at the same time doesn't sound like a very successful venture. We will get SOME pictures, though, be sure of that.

The Art of Self Dressing

It's just not something that I think about--or didn't until recently--but putting clothes on isn't as intuitive as it first appears. For me, there is only a problem when I am either drunk or trying to dress in the dark, and even then, there's about a 50/50 chance that I'll accidentally put my clothes on rightside out and frontside forward. Well, actually, I guess that would be a 1:4 chance. No, that's not right. 1:8? Stupid maths. Except I rarely take my clothes off inside out, so that shouldn't be a factor, which takes me back to 50/50. Unless I'm drunk, then who knows how my clothes will come off, so maybe I have to factor in whether I'll even be able to find them again later. So many variables.

But USUALLY it's not something that I have to give much thought. USUALLY, it's just something that I do automatically thanks to the muscle memory of a few dozen of years of repetition. So I have a difficult time relating to the problems that Gabe is going through right now--and I am having an equally difficult time coming up with ways to help him short of doing all the work.

For Gabe is trying to master the art of self dressing--a skill that I am eager to impress upon him as it will mean far less time spent redressing him every time he goes to the bathroom. It also means fewer surprises after nap time. For the past couple of weeks, Gabe has been learning the out's of clothing (it's the in's we're still trying to master). Every day, during his nap time, he takes advantage of the privacy and strips down as best he can. Then, when he comes downstairs from his nap, I'm invariably caught off guard when my eyes are unexpectedly assaulted by little boy junk/butt. He SAYS he undresses because he's hot in his bed and he needs to cool down, but I think he just does it because he can, which is often his motivation for doing things.

We haven't, however, had much luck coaxing him into dressing himself. We've explained, time and again, the concept of "tags in the back" and how to put one foot into a panthole before the other, and time and again he's completely failed to show any interest whatsoever in cooperating.

But yesterday, after his nap, he came downstairs and my eyes were assaulted with something new--a fashion nightmare. But at least it was fashion and not nudity!


What you are seeing here takes a little bit to explain--it took me a little while to figure out what was going on and I was the one who dressed him in his Buzz Lightyear Hot Pants and Muscle Shirt combo for nap time.

The underwear is an easy one. It's on backwards. Why one side is pulled up so far that it is invading his crack and exposing his cheek, I don't know. Probably he got overzealous in pulling them up.

What's not so easy to figure out is the little green band of cloth going around his waist. Those are his Hot Pants. Instead of putting one leg in each hole, he put both legs in the same hole. Then, because the material is pretty stretchy, he was able to pull it up to his waist and twist the bulk of the cloth around to the front.

And the best part is, he was perfectly content to stay in his clothes this way. He was running around and playing like nothing happened while I found the camera to take this picture. If I hadn't stopped him and initiated a redressing, he would have spent the rest of the day looking like this. Which is awesome. No wonder I have no memories of learning to get myself dressed--it's obviously something that we want to block out and never remember.

Gabe Goes Naturing

On Sunday, Libby took Gabe and met some friends at one of the local lakes for a nature walk and some fishing. Because it was ridiculously hot all weekend, and because I didn't feel like wrestling her in a stroller along a nature trail, Norah and I stayed behind and had our own brand of fun (where I lay on the floor and try to doze while she stands right next to me and bounces up and down--often on my head--until I give up and help her flip through the pages in one of her books instead).

Gabe and his "bonkulars." This is about the exact distance one needs to be from the observational target to see it clearly in these binoculars. They are cheap plastic with "lenses." They do not focus or adjust in any way shape or form. But he enjoyed looking through them at things that were right in front of his face. Here he is examining one of the region's rarer plant offerings, the "fluff pustule."

Here he is closely monitoring the activities of the notorious "purple people eater" made famous in the song by Sheb Wooley back in 1958. Obviously, Sheb took some liberties with the creature as it doesn't fly, have a horn, or even a single eye. At this relatively young stage in its development, it's pretty safe for human observation--its primary diet consisting of kitten and other cute furry animals--but, eventually, it will develop a taste for dentists (Fun Fact: Audrey II in "Little Shop of Horrors" is loosely based on this carnivorous creature--"loosely" in that they only got the dentist eating part right). Despite the moderate safety of the situation, I'm still a little surprised that Libby let Gabe get this close. I suppose he has to learn someday, though, that being a dentist is a terrible idea.

Gabe sitting just outside The Fireswamp, waiting to tangle with his very first R.O.U.S.! Really, it's pretty extraordinary just how many cultural references can be traced back to this particular lake area. It is truly a remarkable region.

Gabe looking at dirt. Since I can't see what's going on anywhere else in the area, I have to assume that this is shortly after he vanquished the Jabberwocky. Sadly, due to poor camera work, we'll never know for sure what carnage lays just beyond the camera's visual range.

After the nature walk of doom, Libby and Gabe decided to do a little fishing. This was Gabe's first fishing adventure. Personally, I have a great distaste for the sport, partly because I think it's cruel, if you're not going to eat the fish, to jam a hook in its mouth just for the sport of it--I know I wouldn't appreciate someone tossing a piece of cheesecake into my line of sight then yanking a barbed hook into my mouth when I took my first bite (first bite, even! At least let me finish it!), but mostly because fish are slimy and gross and I don't like touching them to dislodge said hook. I know how to fish, of course, and it is a skill that I will doubtless make much less squeamish use of after the Rapture when I need to fish for survival, but, until then, I'll leave it to people who don't mind hurting other living creatures for the fun of it.

Not surprisingly, Gabe had a knack for it. He caught his first fish moments after his first cast.

Gabe, with Libby keeping a close eye out for fresh water monsters, of which this lake is positively FILLED with.

Mother and son, posing for a picture in front of the suspiciously still lake.

At first glance, one might assume that the moisture on Libby's back is sweat. It did, after all, get up to around 100 degrees (about 40 hexawarms, for those on the metric system) that day. But no! Shortly after the earlier picture was taken of them standing on the dock, the gossamer clad hand of the Lady of the Lake shot up from under the dock, grabbed Libby by the waist of her jeans, and pulled her into the lake. She's such a bitch (the Lady, not Libby). After a brief scuffle, Libby used her Ring of Water Twat Repulsion ("twat" of course referring to the disposition of the Water Creature, and not its anatomical makeup--as ALL Water Creatures are notoriously sexless, just try to sex test a mermaid if you have any doubts) and escaped a watery death, but her clothes were soaked in the process.

Gabe with his first catch: a juvenile Makara. You can tell it's a juvenile because it has not yet developed its signature trunk. And it isn't as big as two houses. But, because they wanted to allow the creature to reach its full potential--in the hopes that it would give the Lady of the Lake a sound trampling, or whatever you call what a giant elephant-headed fish does in the water (a snorpling? a swimpling?). Not that it will matter. The young fish will almost surely be eaten by one of the rival tribes of Naga or Sleestak. They tend to fish the lake to near extinction every year before their hibernation season starts.

And that sums up Gabe's nature adventure! Pretty successful, by all accounts, but I'm pretty glad that I chose to stay inside with Norah instead. All we had to deal with was a single alien abduction attempt--and a pretty junior varsity one, at that.

Norah Update

It's been awhile since I've done a straight up Norah update, so I might as well, no?

First, let me start with a video:

As you can see from the video, she's getting around pretty well these days. Not as well as she'd LIKE to, but well enough. She'd really like to be able to climb up on the couch and the other furniture so that she can better get at the few places that are still inaccessible to her in the living room and dining room. Of course, this will be a pretty interesting milestone since she will also be able to climb OVER the couch at this point. I suspect she's going to be couch diving at a MUCH younger age than Gabe ever did.

As for her walking, I find it most amusing. Now that she's also figured out how to wave (her favorite thing to "say" right now is "hi," which she will often say a thousand times a day, usually waggling her hand one way or the other the whole time. Of course she wouldn't say it on camera. Anyway, she likes to wave while she walks, and I think it makes her look like a little chimp or orangutan or other big monkey. OR she looks like a really really fat person walking. You know how the morbidly obese sort of look like they are flinging their feet forward more than just lifting and placing them back down a few inches ahead? Like that.

Which I guess shouldn't surprise me. She does weigh a ton. I'm actually a little worried about it and wondering if I shouldn't switch her over to the 1/2% milk we all drink instead of the whole milk the doctor told us to use until she's two. She weighs more than most two year olds at this point, so maybe she should be eating like one. Dunno.

Question. Would it be cruel if the first phrase that I tried really hard to teach Norah to say (remember, this will be hugely unsuccessful, as my attempts to teach Gabe to say "Om nom nom" like a zombie also were) is "Bring me a bucket!"? I'm guessing probably. But would the comedy of it outweigh the cruelty in the eyes of the court?

Anyway, she's full on wearing 2T shirts now and mostly wearing 2t pants. The 18 month shirts tend to end up looking like tube tops as the skin tight bottom half creeps up over her belly and stays there until someone with some decency pulls it back down. And most of the 18 month bottoms are impossible to pull up over her . . . thighs and butt (I was going to say "enormous" there but remembered that some day she might read these and didn't want to insult her booty parts in a most embarrassing way--women don't seem to care for that. Hi future Norah! I hope you finally stopped finding great pleasure in poking me straight in the eye and laughing hysterically at my obvious discomfort!). She's a big girl!

Let's see. She's still not sleeping through the night, but she's doing a little better. She still gets up at least once . . . .

I'm typing this over the course of the afternoon (since Norah was kind enough to make a crap ton of noise and wake Gabe up after both of them had only slept about an hour, which didn't give me enough time to post while they slept), and Gabe just ran up to the office gate shouting "I've gotta pee pee! I've gotta pee pee!" He always sounds like he's two seconds away from exploding, even if he barely has to go. Anyway, I opened the gate, he came in, started running toward the bathroom, stopped, turned back abruptly, pointed at my head and said, "You've got hair!" "Um, yeah," I replied. "I sort of always have." And he turned around and went in to do his business.

Then I went in to see how Norah was keeping herself busy. She'd pulled a toy out of the cabinet and brought it into the living room and it was receiving her full attention. I was so proud, that I ran to the office to get the camera, but she spotted me, so she picked up the toy and followed me into the living room. I got a picture nonetheless.

My girl!

Anyway, what was I talking about? Right. Actually, I'm not sure what else there is to update on. Oh well. If I think of something, I'm sure I'll let everyone know.

Things I Learned at the Norah Jones Concert

Last night, Libby and I did something that we haven't done in well over a decade--we went to a concert. For the record, the last concert we went to was the second run of Lilith Fair in 1998 where we got to see a very inebriated (or possibly just crazy) Natalie Merchant run around the stage in a human cannonball outfit while other performers tried to sing an ensemble song to finish off the evening. It was a pretty memorable event, and I don't think it's a coincidence that her career had pretty much peaked at that point.

But before I get into the observations that I made at the concert last night, I feel like I need to clear the air just a little bit--to square things up with my conscience more than anything.

First, let it be known that I am not one of Nature's concert goers. I am not built for it, nor do I have the temperament. Really, this applies to ANY activity that depends on me sitting in one place for an extended period of time in a badly designed chair. Heck, even the relatively posh new padded reclining seats in movie theaters start to drive me crazy about thirty minutes into a movie. Plus there is a very strong case to be made--to my way of thinking--for avoiding any venue where many people will be crammed close together. I'm not a fan of "the masses," and sharing their imminent proximity is not something I relish. Not that I'm BETTER than the masses, as such, I just don't like the feeling that comes with knowing that all that separates me from being trampled to death by a stampeding hoard is the conscience of the lowest common denominator who wants to shout FIRE at the top of his lungs. Add to that my inherent inability to sit still for longer than twenty minutes, and it's not difficult to see why I haven't been to a concert in twelve years.

Second, last night, I felt especially like an interloper because I really haven't paid any attention to Norah Jones for about five years now. Libby and I were fans of her first album. We listened to it quite a bit for about a year. Then, her second album came out and I was quite excited to pick it up. We were planning our driving trip up to Canada to see Molly, and I figured this new album would give us something new to listen to for much of the trip up there. Within the first hour of our trip, I popped in the CD. We listened to it twice and were completely underwhelmed. It was nice to listen to--great music to have on in the background while you are, say, cleaning out a bathtub--but it utterly failed to grab our attention and singing voices in the same way that the first album had. Over the next few months, I tried to revisit the album several times, but no matte how many times I listened to it, none of the songs would stick in my head. And I never really looked back since.

That said, Norah Jones has an incredible voice and is very talented. I thoroughly enjoyed her performance last night, I just wish I'd recognized more than three of the songs that she sang (and I will argue strongly with anyone who disagrees that those three songs, all off her first album, were, in fact, STILL the best three songs she had to offer).

Oh, and our Norah isn't named after Norah Jones, not really. Admittedly, Norah Jones was the first Norah I really knew anything about--and when we first started listening to her music I remember Libby commenting on how much she liked that name (and Libby did get to pick this name since I pretty much picked Gabe's). So, maybe it was Norah Jones inspired, but it wasn't a Naming After.

Anyway.

Along the way to enjoying our evening, I made a few observations and learned a few things as I watched the crowd and the people in it.

• Look! Bullet points!
• Actually, I can't stand bullet points. They, along with words like "proactive," have ruined many of my days. They are a cheap alternative to thinking up ways to transition through paragraphs and ideas.
• They are handy, though. Look how I can just move from one topic to another without so much as a parenthetical phrase.
• Weeeee!
• I don't even need punctuation at the ends of my sentences! Maybe I could start shortening my words into text speak, too, to save even more time.

That's enough of that.

Observation the First--It doesn't matter how upscale the crowd is (this one was pretty uniformly dressed as if going to church, the average age being probably in the early 40s), there will always be a few douchebags there to ruin the experience for everyone. Cops had to come in and wrestle out two big ole fat obnoxious people (Libby said she THOUGHT they were women, but said she might be willing to conceded that one was, in fact, a man) who were causing problems in one of the back rows. Even over the music, we could hear these dinguses shouting suggestions that the cops should eff off. Why these people spend good money on tickets only to get stupid drunk (or just be their stupid selves, whichever was the case) and get kicked out is beyond me. But there you have it. These were the people I was trusting my non-stampeded body to, I'm pretty sure.

Deuce--Appropriately, On the Behavior of Men in Bathrooms. Century II, where the concert was held, does not have the most accommodating bathrooms. The men's room nearest to our balcony level only had three stalls and three urinals. During the break between the opening and main acts, I decided it was a good time to stretch my legs and stop stretching my bladder. By the time I made it to the bathroom, though, there was a line of about a dozen dude stretching out the door. Because of this arrangement of potential pee-ers, anyone who used the toilet had to proceed past everyone waiting in line to exit the room. To keep this from being a walk of shame, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the men who were in there washed their hands. Typically, I view washing my hands in public restrooms as a lesson in futility. If I have to touch the faucet to turn it off, then what's the point of washing my hands in the first place? I'd be willing to be that there are considerably more germs on that faucet than there were on the parts of my body that I made contact with during the urinating process (actually, to keep hand washing in public restrooms from being necessary, I have a pretty good system developed wherein I "go" without touching anything but my clothes--except when I see the faucet is a motion activated jobby, then I don't worry about it and touch away since I know I can wash my hands without touching anything afterward). I'm pretty sure 50% would be closer to the number I usually see washing their hands, so it says something about the human mind and the importance of the perception of others.

3) Speaking of mob mentality (earlier moreso than with that last one--this one was going to be #2, but I figured the bathroom one pretty much had to go there), I witnessed a prime example of how mob mentality works and recognized an opportunity that lesser people probably would have taken. In between sets, there was a sizable break. Probably TOO sizable--about thirty minutes. After about twenty minutes, parts of the crowd were starting to get a little restless and anxious. One person, possibly sensing the opportunity, started to clap really loudly as if something important was starting to happen. Within three seconds, waves of reactionary applause started to spread throughout the crowd. This was the moment when a true Worker of Crowds could have stepped in, issued pitchforks and torches, and set the crowd loose on the creepy castle down the way. I recognized this moment, but didn't act on it because I am not a Worker of Crowds. I wouldn't know what to do with one. I'd probably ask someone to gather some sandwiches and big jugs of tea to pass around and ask them if they were having a pleasant evening. But that moment was there, and that's another reason why I don't trust big groups of people.

D) This is something Libby said that made me snicker, so I'll share it. A woman squeezed by us to get out of the row and I noticed that her entire butt was covered in rhinestones. "Nice use of shiny things," I pointed out to Libby. "If I had a butt like that, I'd put rhinestones on it, too," she replied (admittedly, the woman did had a pretty nice can--to use the formal term). "Maybe we shouldn't take this diet thing too seriously, then," I added. "I'd hate to have to buy a bedazzler." And that was it. Nothing earth shattering, but a conversation about bedazzled butts should always be worth sharing.

Bread) Olfactory Fatigue is not possible with certain smells. Some industrious soul set up a Bavarian Nut kiosk up in the foyer. These cinnamon toasted nuts have a nasty habit of stinking up everything--in fact, the whole concert hall was blanketed in a light smoke, the cooking process for these is so invasive. Mix this smell with those put off by the people around us, and you have the making of a noxious odor that the nose can never fully ignore. Throughout the night, the concert hall smelled like an extremely flatulent man chewing Fruit Stripe gum in a Waffle-Os factory. Occasionally my nose would get used to one part of the smell or other, but then the fart smell would ramp up and reset everything again. Really, it was very distracting.

Milk) And speaking of distractions. Cell phones and other digital things have made it impossible for audience members to completely submerge themselves in the music. They are a distasteful blight in these circumstances. In some ways, I want to compare them to the lighters of old, as people hold them up in support of the music as they once did their portable fire devices, because that is exactly what it looked like as I scanned the crowd. Little square lights, everywhere, blinking on and off, like geometrically improbable fireflies. Except I really didn't mind the lighter thing. The little wavy flames seemed somehow appropriate to the situation. Cell phones, however, are not appropriate for anything. Ever. Except making phone calls. In emergencies or when normal land lines are not available. Of course, I can hold this opinion because I have access to a computer and a land line all day. But as long as I do, I will hold people who can't turn their cell phones off in very low regard.

Vaseline--sorry, I'm working on my shopping list now) And, finally, Taking Pictures in Low Light Settings. It has been well over a decade since the popularization of digital photography. Flash photography, by that point, had been common place for several decades, but digital cameras worked somewhat better in low light settings than their film predecessors. Yet, despite having a decade to get used to using this new medium, and having several decades before that to get used to how well flashes work, people STILL think that the pictures they take at concerts are going to somehow be better if they use a flash. Look. Built in flashes on cameras are good for MAYBE twenty feet, if your camera is good. More than likely, you'll be lucky if it stretches to fifteen feet. If you aren't sitting in the first row at a concert, your flash WILL NOT MAKE YOUR PICTURE BETTER AND, INSTEAD, WILL ONLY BE ASSAULTING THE PERFORMER YOU HOLD IN HIGH ENOUGH REGARD TO PAY GOOD MONEY TO SEE WITH BRIGHT AND ANNOYING FLASHES. And you'll be making the experience much less enjoyable for the rest of the crowd, too, as strobe effects can cause epileptic seizures in some people, and nothing breaks up the rhythm of a good musical performance like having to stick a shoe in someone's mouth to keep him/her from biting off their own tongue. So turn off your flashes! Your pictures will turn out EXACTLY the same. I have five years of film developing experience that I'm willing to place on the line as my guarantee.

Oh, and, obviously we don't have any pictures to share. The stupid flash didn't reach the seventy yards to the stage like I assumed it would. Sorry about that.

Plus, the kids didn't die! This was the first time we'd ever asked anyone to babysit our kids who wasn't a grandparent. Libby was worried (I was joyous), but it all worked out. So, hurrays all around!

Norah Has the Perfect Shaped Head--For Stacking Things on

Out of a mixture of boredom and curiosity, Norah and I (mostly me, obviously) invented a new game this morning while Gabe was upstairs playing with his cars and watching his "movie" about fire trucks for the fortieth time. While she sat on the floor, I put a series of things on her head and discovered that she has the PERFECT shaped head for holding things on top of. It's round, a little flat on top, and has a nice buffer of cushy hair for the objects to nuzzle securely into for stability. I'm not sure if this means she will meet the requirements of poise and proper posture as set forth many years ago, but I figure this is a start (my goal, not surprisingly, is to make her perfect so we can start tromping her around on the baby beauty pageant circuit because, clearly, the people involved in such things are well-rounded and stable and I really want her to have those kinds of horizon broadening experiences).

We were able to balance the following items for at least three seconds (the metric that I decided qualified a particular item as a "success" because if there are no rules, then what's the point): a play cell phone (with Elmo on it), a cup (both upside down and rightside up), an ice cream cone (a piece of toy food, not a real one), her sippy cup (not upside down or on its side, though), four different stuffed animals (because three or less might just be a fluke), a kazoo shaped like a saxophone (as all kazoos should be), a medium-sized Thomas the Train (on its side because her head was sloped just enough for it to roll off otherwise), a ladle ("fun" sized--because it's small, like the candy bars with the same labeling, not because it's actually more fun at this size, probably it is less so), and a purple marker (because purple is the most stubborn color, so I figured the other colors would fall in line after that).

We were NOT able to balance the following things on her head: a Yo Gabba Gabba guitar (actually, this one didn't even really get a shot because it's so big she could see it clearly sticking out over the top so she kept grabbing it, spoiling the test environment), a wooden tractor (the wheels are so big that they helped roll it off her head even when laying on its side), a cowboy hat (I know! The thing that SHOULD stay on her head she wouldn't leave on for more than two seconds!), a pinwheel (too awkward and long to properly balance), and a little plastic step stool (though her head is flat on the top, it's not as flat as the ground, apparently--though I was balancing it by the seat, so really I think it was just a matter of her not appreciating the addition of small furniture to her headal area).

I really wanted to get pictures of at least a few of these, but she was having none of it. At her best, she only left the stuff on for about five seconds, which is less time than it takes for me to grab the camera and get it going--then add a few more seconds for the auto-focus to do its thing and she was nearly standing up and grabbing for the camera before I could even get a picture off. I did, however, get a picture of some of the stuff on the floor around where she was sitting. It will have to do.

She's holding the ladle and ice cream cone. And, oh yeah, the little claw grabber thing on the floor there (a toy Gabe got yesterday because, weirdly, he's been asking for one for several weeks now) didn't stay for three seconds either.

So, I think I'm willing to call this little exercise a success. Successful what, who knows, but success.

I've also got a video of Gabe that needs just a touch of development before I share it.

Friday night, Libby had a little clothes swapping party with some of her girlfriends. Don't worry, it wasn't anywhere near as cool as the name suggests it might be. They all brought their old clothes to see if anyone else wanted them before taking a big haul to the thrift store. But it wasn't just the ladies that were involved. The kids all came, too. I was unlucky enough to be a boy, so I had to go away for a few hours while they did various, probably unsexy things with their clothes, but the kids were still bouncing off the walls by the time I returned. No, I said that wrong. I was unlucky enough to only have enough things to kill my time for a few hours and the kids were still bouncing off the walls when I got home. Yeah, that's a little closer.

Anyway, as the evening was winding down, Gabe decided to put on a bit of a show for anyone whose attention he could grab. He went with his go-to performance: falling off the back of the couch. After making several dives, he, apparently, was unhappy with the amount of attention he was being paid, so, like the showman he is, he called out to grab his audience's attention. "Watch this, girls!" he said and then he fell backwards off the couch. Then, because it got a pretty big laugh, he kept doing it.

Over the weekend, then, I was able to get a video of him doing it again, sort of.

Personally, I think he's got everything a good performer needs here: showmanship, adventure, and he even made up his own song in the middle (though, I think he's going to need to work on his lyrics a little bit--it's not ALWAYS appropriate to sing out the names of the objects directly in your line of sight--for instance, when you are singing to a group of handicapped people). Maybe we'll start putting together a USO show and he can tour with that while Norah is doing the beauty pageant thing. Changing it to "boys and girls" made it slightly less amusing in my mind, but what can you do. Actually, while he was behind the couch after I turned the camera off, he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, children blah blah blah." He muddled through the last bit because he couldn't remember it and just mumbled something we couldn't understand (I assume he meant "children of all ages"). Now, we're not exactly frequenters of the circus, so I'm not sure where he's getting this stuff.

Single Parents Have It Easy

I mean, really, they do. Single parents have it made. What with all their . . . forget it. I can't even pretend for the sake of being a purposeful jerk to try and make this argument hold water. It's just not the case. I can't think of many things I would rather NOT do than attempt to raise these kids by myself. It would be hell.

As you've probably guessed by now, Libby is out of town again. Just for two nights this time (last night was the first), but already I hate being a single parent again. And I have it comparatively easy. I'm a full time homebody. I don't have to work and/or go to school at the same time. If I did, I have a feeling that I wouldn't cope with it very well. Probably I would end up having a mental breakdown--not that I'm ruling that out even now. It might prove an interesting vacation.

Yesterday wasn't a problem. Really, it was just a normal work day where Libby didn't come home before bed time. Once the kids were off to bed, my evening went pretty much as they always do--I had a bowl of cereal, watched a few shows, and went to bed early, figuring I would need the extra sleep if Norah had a rough night. She did have a rather rough night--as did Gabe, for some reason, probably because it is so hot here now and he hasn't really figured out how to regulate his temperature by using just the sheet yet--but I didn't have any extra sleep to show for it. I tossed and turned until around midnight then broke down and took an Ambien to help knock me out. I knew that taking one so late would pose problems for me this morning, but I was nonetheless surprised by how things played out.

About 7:00, I awoke from my coma to the sound of Gabe saying, "I want some chocolate milk" to me from beside the bed. "Uuuuuuuuuhhhgh," I replied. "OK," I added. I got up, figuring that he had just gotten out of bed himself and come to get me. As we went downstairs, I quickly saw that hadn't been the case. He'd obviously been up for awhile. The dining room light was on and about two dozen cars and trains were scattered on the floor. I went into the kitchen to get him a cup for his milk and saw that he'd already plundered the room for anything that struck his fancy to eat.

He'd pulled an apple out and taken one bite of it, then thrown it in the trash, apparently displeased with what it had to offer. Then he attempted to peel a banana, but hadn't had much luck breaking it open properly. Instead, he'd mangled and mashed it until one of the sides split open. I couldn't tell if he got a bite out of it or not before he abandoned it as a lost cause on the butcher block. He had also opened up the cabinet where we keep the cereal and pulled out a pop tart, which he also wasn't able to open. So he moved on to the fridge. The door was still open because he'd pulled open the crisper drawer where we keep the yogurt but couldn't close it again. I didn't find a yogurt cup anywhere, though, so either he gave up when he couldn't find what he wanted or I'll find a surprise somewhere around the house in due time.

I'm not sure how long he was awake, but I'm guessing about a half hour. Frankly, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I LOVE the idea of Gabe getting up on his own and coming downstairs to take care of himself while we continue to sleep. The day that he and Norah can both do that on their own will be a magical day that I look forward to like Triple Christmas. On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure that Gabe can be trusted. The messes, well, they're just par for the course (actually, the kids were well ahead of schedule with their mess making today, so I got a few pictures at 8:00--just thirty minutes after Norah woke up--which I'll share in a moment). But things like the fridge could pose a problem. And then there are the doors to the outside. For the past few months, since Gabe started showing some signs of being able to come downstairs on his own when he's awake, we have made sure to use all of the locks on our doors to keep him from testing his freedom. But the kid has a knack with mechanical devices and a determinated focus that is otherwise foreign to his character when it comes to figuring out how to get at and operate things that he knows he's not supposed to mess with. So, I guess it will just take time for him to convince us that he's ready to be trusted.

Anyway, so the kids got up and around, but, because I took an Ambien at midnight, I was little more than walking dead for the first two hours I was up this morning. I collapsed on the floor in the living room and submitted to letting the kids use me as a climbing/jumping/stacking-things-on-top-of furnishing (after carefully putting a pillow over my junk, since this seems to be the place both of them like to spend the most time jumping or walking on, probably because assaulting it elicits the most amusing response from me). They didn't JUST use me, though, they also went about their business otherwise. Here is photo documentation of what they managed to accomplish during that time.

Norah, two-fisting her bottles amidst the chaos of our floor. The milk bottle I gave her. I'm not sure where the water one came from. We've been missing two of the little water bottles since the beginning of the week. I think she's hoarding them somewhere, but I'm not sure where. At least it's just water in them and not orange juice or milk, I suppose.

Gabe's "ladder." He showed it to me proudly. I know he never actually used it to climb up onto the table because of the lack of screaming. Our table is awful and incapable of handling any weight on its sides. The high chair, the table, and everything on the table would have collapsed to the floor with Gabe in the middle of it if he'd used it. But I know the intention was there, because it always is with him.

Not the most flattering picture of her, I know, and it really doesn't adequately show what I wanted it to--the tables next to the rocking chair. Over the past three days, Norah has focused the entirety of her being into getting behind that rocking chair (a spot, I'm sure some will recall, that she crawled herself into a few times when she first started moving around). Before this, we used the tables and the big round baskets to block off her access. But she's figured out how to use her girth to her advantage, and now she can wedge herself between the chair and the tables and just keep pushing forward until she gets back there. Yesterday, she knocked over the lamp doing this, so I relented and moved one of the baskets to give her free roam. She uses this new access, once in awhile, but still prefers to tabledoze her way back there no matter how many times I pick her up and show her the proper way back there.

In addition to the mess, I also learned a valuable lesson about navigating our house while half-stoned on sleep aids. It's a bad idea. Shortly after Norah got up and I had her changed and suchlike, I began my routine trips back and forth between the living room and the kitchen to gather up whatever breakfast foods I thought I might be able to coax into the kids and arranging them and the kids in such a way as to make them desirable (usually by giving two different food items to them, then, invariably, they both decide that they want what the other has--though this usually only lasts through the first few bites, when they again decide they want what the other has). On the first trip, with a piece of cinnamon toast in hand, I completely miscalculated the lift I had on one of my feet (which seemed unusually heavy this morning), snagged the baby gate, and very nearly fell face first over the top of it onto the hardwood floor in the dining room. Had that happened, this would have been a very terrible morning indeed. Instead, I managed to fling the cinnamon toast into the dining room and awkwardly grab the door frame. This allowed me to "catch" myself by the skin of my leg on the gate and keep from propelling forward.

This is what the top of an accordion style baby gate can do to naked flesh if gravity and coordination are working against you. Also, the gate has a nice new bend to it that it didn't have before.

Gabe did go ahead and eat the toast, though, even after he watched me pick some cat hair off it--but only because I put it in front of Norah first.

After that, the morning began to progress normally. Thankfully. Though Gabe is a bit obsessed with the ouchie on my leg. He keeps insisting that I put a big band-aid on it and refuses to acknowledge the validity of my arguments against it (that band-aids + leg hair = sheer agony--though, as you can see from the picture, I don't have much lower leg hair anymore. I don't have an explanation for this, except that maybe lower leg hair growth is somehow attached to head hair growth, and my body has declared both to be unnecessary to my survival).

Also, I got a little video of Norah walking, just because I haven't really posted much on that subject since she's started to get around with a bit more confidence.

She still has a habit of throwing herself into something when she gets a step or two away from it (as she does when she approaches the couch in the video). This despite numerous instances where the thing she's throwing herself into can't support her weight and they both go cascading into the distance. But I guess she'll learn sooner or later.

Norah Eats Snakes, Gabe Wusses Out

Being a toddler must be strange. On a daily basis, the world throws new things at them, and they have to come up with ways to address these new experiences.

As adults, we have many years of experience to guide us to one reaction or another. Take this weekend for example. A mud dauber buzzed around my head when I was outside and I quickly, and ungracefully, removed myself from the area as quickly as possible. I had no rational reason to do this. I quickly identified the insect as a mud dauber. The rational side of my brain immediately informed me that, as far as I knew, nobody had ever been stung by a mud dauber. They aren't aggressive unless they are being messed with (and, actually, even when people have messed with them, I still can't think of anyone being stung by one). Yet, instinctively, because it looks like a wasp, I shied away from it with a bit of a flourish--which could, doubtless, have been viewed as an aggressive act should the dauber have been interested in stinging me. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been stung by a wasp--and I've never been stung by a bee of any sort--yet my body insisted that I get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

Toddlers don't have that luxury, if it can be labeled as such.

One might assume that I will now go into a story about Gabe and a wasp, but that isn't the case. That story really doesn't have anything to do with anything except that, when it happened, it reminded me of the little piece of video we got of Gabe weeping over a small cut he got on his finger. Why did it remind me of that? I blame a lifetime of experiences--there, I tied it in, sort of.

Here is Gabe in the bath tub, clearly upset by the cut on his hand.

His reaction to this cut seemed remarkable to both of us because, up to this point, Gabe has been pretty indestructible. At any point from now back to when he first learned to walk, you could undress Gabe, closely examine his body, and easily identify at least three bruises, scrapes or other minor injuries. He is hard on his body and always has been. And, for the most part, he's taken these lumps in stride. Occasionally he will cry right after something happens, but we've decided it's more from the shock of the experience than from the pain that went along with it--and the crying stops almost as soon as it starts. Usually, a quick kiss to the afflicted area cleans the slate and he'll go about his business. Generally speaking, if I hear Gabe crying loudly, I know that he's just done something comparatively serious and it's time for the worrying to start.

This cut was odd because it actually happened a day earlier. It was a paper cut that he received while playing with either his tape measure (which would make it a tape measure cut, I suppose) or with one of his books behind the couch. I could never get a straight answer from him, but those were the only two things he had behind the couch, so it had to be one or the other that did it. After it happened, he freaked out a little, we put a band-aid on it, and he moved on pretty quickly. That night, the band-aid came off because he can't sleep with band-aids on for some reason, and the next morning we put another one on. Halfway through the day, he removed it again.

Later that night, this happened:

Gabe having a good old fashioned freak out in his pool. Actually, this was after the REAL freak-out, of course. Once the video started, he couldn't quite find his mojo again.

It was after this that he noticed the cut on his finger and Libby had to bring him into the house, put him in the bathtub, and address the wound like it might be life threatening to appease Gabe's sense of urgency.

And I found the entire thing fascinating enough that I thought about it two days later when a probably harmless insect buzzed around my head.

See, isn't it weird how the human brain works?

I guess that is my point. I'm sure I had something going through my head when I started writing this post, but I'll be damned if I can remember exactly what. Sorry.

Oh, and Norah eats snakes.

OK, so it's just one snake, and it's made of rubber. And the video isn't as adorable as it SHOULD have been. She was pulling it and stretching it out then letting go and snapping the TV stand (remarkably, it never backfired into her face, which would have doubtless ended up in about ten minutes of hysterics if it had). But, you know, it's a new video, so appreciate it for that, I guess. Obviously, not all of my posts are going to be "gold." Such is the problem with trying to put something on here two or three times a week.

One of the Funniest Things I've Ever Seen

Just a minute ago (the kids are asleep, so I figured I better get this whole image down before I forgot any of the details), I was sitting here at my desk and I heard some shouting from outside. There was a group of four kids, probably between 10 and 12, in my yard.

This isn't all that unusual during the summer. We have a small drainage creek that runs along our property and dumps into the Sand Creek. Throughout the summer, these kids wander into our yard to fish this little drainage creek (which seems like an absurd waste of time to me, especially since we haven't had any rain in a month and the creek is little more than sludge right now, so the only fish brave enough to live in there have to be the freaks who are one good drought away from walking on dry land).

Typically, I leave the kids alone. I probably SHOULD run them off, I know, since, as the property owners, we'd probably be responsible if one of them got hurt--despite the fact that they're trespassing in the first place. But I don't, partly because I hate to discourage kids from doing something outside (though I would always appreciate people discouraging me from doing the same), but mostly because I am non-confrontational to a fault. Plus, I really don't want to set myself up anymore as a curmudgeony old guy by also being someone who shouts "Get off my lawn, you damn kids!" at our neighbors' children. I'm sure I will get to that point eventually, possibly before my own kids are even in middle school, but that's neither here nor there.

So they were out there, but there's one more little piece of setup information that I need to add before I get on with my story.

We have a squirrel infestation in our yard. They are everywhere. And they are FAT squirrels this time of year because they gorge themselves on the fruit that's available. They literally cleaned out our peach tree in less than ten days. ALL of it. It's not a full grown peach tree yet, but there were a few hundred peaches on there, and the tree went from all of its branches breaking under the strain of all its fruit to completely devoid of fruity goodness in a ten day period. The worst part was, we didn't get to eat a one because the squirrels always pulled them down about a week before they were ripe enough to properly enjoy (so they might be masochistic squirrels, too, purposefully torturing themselves by eating unripe fruit--and that might add a nice shade of nuance to this story that makes me love it even more). In addition to the peaches, we have pears, some apples, and mulberries--plus they tend to sift through whatever food we put out to compost. In short, these squirrels are well-fed and, because of that, they breed like nonsense and never go very far beyond the confines of our yard.

And they don't have to, because we have an abundance of trees, too. It is possible for them to start in the trees by the road and scamper their way all along the edge of our property and into the big, tree-filled adjacent lot without ever touching the ground.

Almost. There are a few stretches where branches or entire trees have fallen over the years where the squirrels have to do a bit of aerobatics to get from one tree to the next. More than once, I've wondered what would happen if they didn't make the jump as sometimes they seem REALLY close to losing their grip on the branches/leaves they cling to on the other side.

So, this afternoon, I hear the kids in the yard. Usually, I'll just look out my window here in the office to make sure they are only fishing and not trashing our yard (because a line has to be drawn somewhere--but even that line, if I'm honest with myself, would probably be drawn in very light pencil, just in case). Then, when that's what I see, I'll go about my business and leave them to wasting their afternoon sitting in the heat. But today, I couldn't really see out my office window because the zebra grass we have growing out there has all but completely blocked my view. I went to the living room and tried the window in there, but couldn't really see much there either. So I crept upstairs, careful not to wake the kids with our noisy damn stairs, and looked out the west-facing window up there.

And I saw something wonderful.

The kids were indeed fishing, and it only took a few seconds for me to verify that, but during those few seconds, a magnificent thing occurred. The kids were shouting about something--nothing in particular, just messing around. These kids are a noisy lot, and everything they have to say to one another, apparently, has to be said at a shout or they can't hear it. I blame the MTV. And none of them was really paying that much attention to what was going on around them. Until the squirrel missed his jump and landed smack dab in the middle of the group.

Suddenly, there were four very anxious boys jumping up and gathering up their things and running around as if, well, a small tree-favoring creature had just fallen in their midst with a thump that I could hear through the window. Really, I can't fault them for their reaction. I would have freaked out then got the hell out of there, too. It was like watching a Vaudeville routine. They were bumping into one another and clamoring up the hill and racing to the road, all the while trying to keep their little tackle boxes and rods from getting loose (I couldn't see it, but I think one of them had to wind up his reel from the road because I could see the little bobber he had attached scurrying across the lawn).

Utterly hilarious. To me, at least. I'm afraid that I haven't done a very fair job to the humor of the story in this description. Slapstick often doesn't translate well to the written word.

But I hadn't seen what happened to the squirrel, and, as I said before, I've always wondered what would happen to one if it didn't make the jump. In the bustle the boys made, I lost track of it, so I endeavored to check. By the time I made it downstairs, the kids were all gone, so I ventured over to the spot near the creek to check the damage. The drop was probably about twenty feet, but I have no idea how fragile a squirrel body is and how well it can survive that kind of abuse (though, if these are masochistic squirrels, maybe they do it regularly and this was nothing but a lark on the squirrel's part, to shut up the boys that invaded his usually nice, peaceful yard), so I had no idea what I was going to find.

Turns out, it doesn't bother them all that much. I saw the squirrel about midway up the nearby tree (at least I assume it was him, it might have been an audience, I suppose), carefully examining me and the place I was standing, which was where the squirrel landed. Evidently, he either ran up one of the kid's legs and that was part of the reason for their anxiety or he made it to a nearby tree. Whatever he did, he wasn't dead.

So now I know the answer to two of the pressing questions in my life: Can squirrels survive a fall from way up in one of our trees? and How can I get the damn kids off my lawn without sounding like a cranky 70 year old? Pat's day equals Win!

Hidey Holes

It never ceases to amaze me how different kids can be--and our two kids do a pretty good job of covering most of the developmental options that are available. They are about as close to being polar opposites as one could imagine.

In some ways, Norah seems to be catching up to Gabe rather quickly--probably because she has no problem sitting still and focusing on a single project for longer than the forty-five seconds Gabe will usually give something before getting bored and moving on to the next shiny thing. A few times in the past weeks we've set Norah down with crayons or markers and she's shown an interest in putting pen to paper that Gabe still hasn't really shown (he likes playing with his art supplies, but I think mostly he just likes getting all of the stuff out, appraising the inherent value of supplies, and then he decides that the potential of the colors could never live up to the reality of his abilities and focuses his interest elsewhere--just kidding, I'm sure it's nothing so abstract as that, really I think he just likes to take all the stuff out because he knows that, inevitably, one of us will have to clean it up and he likes to make us do stuff like that).

Norah coloring. Admittedly, Libby did most of the work, but Norah sat on her lap for nearly a half hour last night working with the crayons (while Gabe at mashed potatoes).

In contrast, here is a picture of Gabe from Saturday (that's spaghetti on his face) wearing a paper hat Libby made. He lost interest in the hat less than five seconds after we took the picture (meaning it held his interest for nearly thirty seconds, all told).

Norah has also shown a rather advanced concept of "my space." It has only been in the past six months that Gabe has started to appreciate the idea of having his own room, or having special places that he can go to do his own thing. But Norah, from the time she could crawl, has had her little spot behind the chair that she goes to regularly to sit and ponder her navel.

But now they have a joint "special place" that they've spent a goodly amount of time sharing over the past week. And, amazingly enough, they both seem to enjoy going in there TOGETHER. Gabe even asks if he and Norah can go back there and play together--and Norah, for her part, can spend a half hour back there with Gabe letting him entertain her with his antics. Really, Gabe is great at playing with Norah. Well, maybe that's not entirely right. He's great at entertaining her, as long as she is entertaining him at the same time. He's not really grasping the "we have to be careful of how we play because Norah isn't very coordinated" notion, so when she can't wrestle or jump around or do the other physical stuff that he wants to do, he loses interest pretty quickly (but he DOES still give playing with her a go before giving up, so I have to give him credit for that).

The relative safety of their "nest" behind the couch, though, changes that landscape somewhat. Since there are two feather comforters, three miscellaneous blankets and sleeping bags, four pillows, and however many stuffed friends Gabe was able to throw down from his room, this is about the safest place the two of them could play together without having an actual padded room.

Norah doing her Kilroy impersonation from behind the couch.

Granted, I have to keep a pretty close ear on them (I can't keep a close eye because, as soon as I put Norah down back there, Gabe says, "Shoo away, Daddy," and won't play until I retreat at least to the other side of the room) for fear of her getting trapped in a feather comforter or in case Gabe gets a little too rambunctious and a head gets bonked on the wall, but it's still something that fills the time rather nicely during a long morning.

Mostly, I think Gabe just drops pillows on the pair of them and they laugh, but sometimes, as you'll see in the video, they play the Sitting Down game. Norah stands up next to Gabe then drops her full weight down on him. He thinks it's a hoot. Except yesterday, when he didn't pay attention to where she was going to sit and she smashed down on his head two or three times. He started yelling for her to stop, but she wouldn't until I got over there to pick her up and move her a foot or so to the other side.

As usual, the action wasn't quite up to par when the camera got involved as Gabe especially became more concerned with it than with going about his business. He did, however, illustrate his eagerness for Norah to squash him (and she eventually obliged, after he pulled her down on top of him a few times).

Croutons are Beautiful and Yummy

Nothing important to report. I just took a few videos during dinner tonight because the kids were being amusing.

Thanks to a personality type that can best be described as "morally flexible," I don't have a problem with handing Gabe a few croutons from the salad bar at the grocery store as we pass by. As such, he's grown to love the "crunchy squares," as he calls them. So, while shopping yesterday, I picked up a bag, and today I broke them out to supplement the kids' meals.

This was supposed to be a video of Norah chipmunk cheeking two croutons at a time. However, once I started the video, she had already mostly eaten the first three croutons that she was trying to cram into her mouth at the same time (she, apparently, likes them too). Gabe demanded some of his own--because, as he said, they were "beautiful and yummy." So I gave him a small handful also.

Then, because he says funny things, I took another video of Gabe shortly after he decided that he didn't want to eat any more (we've been working hard on the concept of dinner being the last food of the night--and that food shouldn't be wasted--with him for the past two weeks, with mixed success, and threats of cold mashed potatoes waiting on the table through the night for him to finish at breakfast time coaxed him back for a few more bites).

Libby commented that, when she was growing up, her family was strict about NOTHING interrupting dinner time. Obviously, we're not carrying on that tradition as you can hear the TV on in the living room and Libby gets up to answer the phone just in the minute and a half that this is running. Probably that's my bad influence. Dinner (or supper, as we called it) was not a dining room meal for our family as Mom never seemed to eat much dinner and Dad often didn't come in until around dark. Usually us boys sat in the living room and watched The Wheel or whatever 80s equivalent was on around dinner time. Take that, family tradition!

Oh, and oops. The phone call was in the first video, but I'm too lazy to erase anything I've already typed. I stand corrected, but I shan't be correcting.