The Best Video Ever

Last night, as we were getting ready for dinner, Libby overheard Norah in the other room. She was hanging dinosaur magnets on the fridge and every once in awhile one of them would fall on the floor. When it did she said, "Dammit." It was pretty hilarious, but we explained to her that it was a bad word with the requisite caveat that only adults could use that word (because, after all, that was how she learned it in the first place, as saying"dammit" is one of my unfortunate verbal habits when something damnable happens to me--which is just about everything).

After she was finished with the fridge, though, Libby quizzed her on what she'd said, and the result was GOLD.

Sadly, you'll just have to ignore the last thirty seconds or minute of the video as it's just Libby trying to pester something else funny out of Norah. But up to that point, GOLD.

Gabe's Christmas Program

So I still haven't gotten around to loading up the video from the Santa call to youtube, but I do have some video of Gabe in his Christmas "program" at preschool. And another one of the kids jumping on the couch (which I totally didn't let them do, Libby, I suspect one of our ghosts shot the video instead of me).

And jumping on the couch.

The Kids Receive a Call from Santa

Last night, the kids got a call from Santa. It went interestingly. Hopefully it's not too long for Blogger to accept.

An Uncomfortable Retirement

Almost fifteen years ago, shortly after Libby and I got married, I took a part time job at Ritz Camera in the Town East Mall. The store was only opened five years, and I started working there within a month of it opening (it was opened as part of an agreement with Simon, the mall's parent company--Ritz had to open many stores in small markets to get a space in the Mall of America, as I understand it). Ritz had to sign a five year lease on the space, and as soon as it was up, they closed our store.

Now, there is some debate as to whether it was OUR fault (besides me, my friends Brian and Kris worked there for most of those five years and my brother Jon was there for much of it as well--in other words, there really wasn't anyone to blame for the store doing badly except me and my friends, but we still found plenty of other excuses for why the store didn't do so well). But that is neither here nor there. All I know is that I was able to tape the two day marathon of Twilight Zones on the SciFi channel on New Years and watch it, in its entirety, while being paid at Ritz. Does that mean we were neglecting our job and making the business fail? Who cares, it was awesome (we also caught up on something like 10 seasons of Law and Order at the time).

By the process of elimination, and in no way reflecting my aptitude for selling cameras, I rose in the ranks at the store--becoming full time, then the assistant manager, and finally becoming the store manager for about a year and a half. Then, 4 years and eleven months after the store opened, we received a pallet-load of empty boxes with no warning and no explanations for what we were supposed to do with them. A call to our district manager informed us that the store would need to be packed into those boxes and we would be closing in a month. And then I became a college English teacher because I wasn't qualified to do anything else (and still am not qualified to do anything else).

While I was the manager, I received a piece of mail notifying me that the company was starting a 401K for me with a $100 initial deposit that I could continue to put funds into if I chose. At the time, we had zero disposable income, so I passed, but the account continued to exist and for the past decade I've been receiving quarterly notifications of how the account was doing. And, to this day, it is the only retirement that I have accrued because I have never had a real full-time job with benefits of any sort since. At one point, it had risen in value to about $175! But the market crash of 2008 cost me about 30% of my retirement, and for that I will never forgive Wall Street.

A couple months ago, I received another piece of mail letting me know that, since I wasn't doing anything with my account, it was going to be closed. I could roll it over into another account or receive a check. Since, as I said, I have no other accounts, I decided just to roll the dice and hope they would send me a check instead of just embezzling the money because, let's face it, I wasn't going to go out of my way to keep track of a little over $100. But, lo and behold, two weeks ago, I received a check for $122.57.

What would I do with this windfall? Pay a bill? Buy 2/3 of a cartload of groceries? Change the oil on BOTH of our cars? The possibilities weren't endless. And I decided to say screw it and take advantage of a Black Friday weekend sale Gamestop was running and bought a Kinect for my X-Box.

And I think it will pay off. I see decades of happy return on my retirement. At least as long as it's not me playing it because, I've found out, that most of the games that require jumping and actual exercisy movement aren't tailored to my sedentary body type. One day of messing around on there ended up with me sore and achy for a week. And I might have broken a hip.

But Gabe loves it. He especially loves Fruit Ninja. The game's concept is simple. You are a ninja, and someone below and in front of you throws fruit in the air, and you cut it with your sword--presumably to use in those fruit plates they sell at grocery stores or for the fruit juice industry, because I can't see many other practical uses for that much chopped up fruit.

But any opportunity to swing his arms around like they are swords is an opportunity that Gabe won't pass up on. He's gotten pretty good at the game, too (though he's still a bit short for the Kinect to properly read him standing in front of the TV, which poses some problems from time to time).

Gabe Ninjaing. He ALWAYS makes the sound effect of slicing his sword while playing. And he tends to roam all around the room while playing, which poses further problems for the Kinect to keep up with him. But he doesn't seem to mind that it often doesn't do what it's supposed to do. He just keeps blissfully swinging his arms and jumping around. And, even better, we've found something that he wants to do badly enough that we can use it as blackmail to get him to nap. He's already opted out of playing in favor of not napping once--which makes it an imperfect draw--but it's kept him in bed at least twice now, which I'll call a success.

Norah gave it a go, too--with me doing the actual slicing behind her because she was too short for the sensor to see. In the game, little bombs occasionally fly up and if you chop them something bad happens. What you can't see on this video, because it happens shortly after, is Norah getting a complex about the bomb that I exploded to end our game. For the past few days, she has thrown fits whenever Gabe starts playing the game, insisting that she needs to be upstairs so the bombs don't hurt her. For a day after this happened, she couldn't talk about anything but the bombs exploding--"Don't make the bomb explode, Daddy!" she would insist as we were driving in the car and there were no bombs in sight. Kids are weird.

The Holidays Begin

We had family in and lots of things going on this last week. It was great fun, but I think we all know how I feel about being busy. It never ceases to amaze me that we, as a society, feel it is OK to put ourselves through the wringer for a little over a 1/12th of the year. We CHOOSE to do this. On the one hand, we have a month that could go by like any other--low stress, low expense, high sleepability since it's dark so much. On the other, we have a month of running around to everywhere to eat too much food, spending outrageous amounts of money on things people will, at best, use a few times before putting it in some closet or thrift store box, and our nightmares are filled with chilling renditions of Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You."

Though, personally, my dreams are always haunted with the Band Aid guilt ripper "Do They Know It's Christmas," which has ruined every holiday season for me since the first time I truly understood what the song was asking in the late 80s. Well, and then I started working retail, which extra-ruined it.

But enough of my curmudgeoning! This is Christmas, dammit, and I DO know it! So I'll just share some pictures and videos of the kids from the last week.

I'm not sure if this is a "wary" or "apprehensive" or "devious" look that she's sporting here, but I like how little cousin Paige seems to be falling gently from Norah's grasp. Norah spent the next several days carrying around and "caring" for one of her baby dolls, which she named Baby Paige. Oh, and Paige wasn't really slipping from Norah's grasp. That's what we in the business like to call an "optical illusion." Kind of like an Escher, only with suspended babies.

See? She's not really slipping closer to the floor, she's just fine. Illusion! And another thing, isn't it difficult to wrap the mind around the idea that Norah used to be this size? I mean, look at her meaty little hand. It's almost the size of Paige's head. And Norah is just a little over two years older. I think it's time for us to consider the very real possibility that she's a giant. Not like a frost giant or anything (come on, be realistic)--but possibly a hill giant.

The kids barely napped through the entire week. This made bedtime a little easier to abide by, but made the hours from lunch through bedtime an adventure filled with whining and crying and hurt feelings--kind of like a Harry Potter book without all of the good characters dying for no good reason.

We had a family meal at Stroud's (where they proudly wear shirts declaring that they "choke our own chickens"--so a classy joint. Libby worked there for a few months after we got married, if that tells you anything about the kind of people they will hire). Here's Gabe and Norah with their cousins Tanner and Sydney. All the girls we wearing pink tutus. Because you can't get away with doing something like that in public for very long and you might as well make the most of it while you can.

Sydney and Norah, posing in an appropriately cute way for a picture.

Tanner and Gabe posing in one of the creepiest ways possible for a picture.

Thanksgiving dinner. The kids are sitting at a bench, not a table. A small, wobbly bench that we scooted up to them after they sat down. Just how bad this idea was occurred to us not long after we took this picture when the contents of both of their plates spilled to the floor when Norah tried to stand up. Which they didn't mind because they are picky shits and didn't want to eat much of the wonderful food put in front of them anyway.

Gabe on Nana and Poppa's Big Wheel. This Big Wheel LOOKS awesome and tough. It makes noises and stuff, too. But it is even less drivable than most Big Wheels. The front wheel refuses to stay straight and requires more strength and coordination than anyone small enough to sit in the seat possesses. But Gabe did a few good pictures sitting behind the wheel. He looks like trouble, though the only trouble it's possible to get in with this thing comes in the form of the terrible crashes that happen whenever forward movement wrenches the wheel from the driver's grasp and jackknifes at top speeds.

I like this picture because it looks as if Gabe is preparing to give another driver the bird. If I haven't taught my kids road rage by the time they are old enough to own their own cars, then I've probably failed as a parent.

"Something Else," will be rocketing up the charts just as soon as I can figure out how to capitalize on my daughter's obvious singing talents. We will also invest in some sort of legit microphone so she doesn't have to sing into (and make out with) deer whistles on the fronts of cars.

There was also supposed to be a video of the kids decorating cookies last night, but I guess it was too big for Blogger to digest. Glad they've worked out the bugs that have been a nuisance since I started this blog almost three years ago. You'll have to either check Libby's facebook page or our youtube account if you want to see it. Stupid Blogger.

Gabe and Fire

I'm going to go ahead and make a prediction here. Either Gabe is going to be a firefighter, an arsonist, or he is going to be paralyzingly obsessed with fire danger/safety when he grows up. The kid has a thing for fire.

And he has since he's been able to process the things that are going on around him. He loved fire trucks first, which wasn't odd. Most boys do because they are big and red and make a lot of noise. And he's had his Truck Adventures video that I had to find on Ebay because we checked it out of the library as often as they would allow us to for six months. And then there was his Fireman Sam phase . . . .

Interesting side note. Gabe is over Fireman Sam now. But Norah LOVES him. Can't get enough of the show. Every time she gets to pick a show to watch, it's Fireman O'Sam, as she calls him, and has been for about three months now. But where Gabe liked the show because of the firetrucks and the "daring" rescues (it's a Welsh pre-K show that runs on PBS here, so it's not what you'd call intense), I'm pretty sure Norah has other reasons to fixate on it. If I wanted to be optimistic, I'd say she's going to love firefighters in a probably unhealthy way. But if I wanted to be realistic, I'd say she's mostly interested in learning the tricks of the trade from Sam's primary antagonist, Norman Price. Norman is a little delinquent who causes the majority of the problems that Sam has to deal with. I swear, if he had an adequate latchkey system or some reliable adult supervision, the fire department in their town certainly wouldn't need four people in their employ and they'd have little use for the rescue helicopter and other odds and ends that must be depleting the town coffers. And I'm pretty sure Norah is taking mental notes for when she's older.

Anyway, and he's had his volcano phase and presently, pretty much every night, he wants us to light a fire in our fire pit outside so he can watch it. All of these seem kind of normal and boy-ish to me. Fire IS awesome. There's no way around that fact. He's just given himself over to its awesomeness.

But he's also had some kind of, well, darker obsessions with fire over the years. Like when we had to leave the daycare we liked because Gabe couldn't get over the presence of the fire alarm in the room. One day while he was there they ran a fire drill, and the sound of the fire alarm sent him into panic mode. And for six months after that, every day when we dropped him off he pointed at all the fire alarms and then cried fiercely when we said goodbye to leave him alone with the big, bad, noisy thing. Until we finally had to leave because he just wasn't improving.

Then things went pretty normally for quite awhile, until a couple weeks ago when preschool had its F week and fire was discussed. Since then, Gabe has been all about fire safety. Hardly a day goes by where he doesn't ask me some what-if question. "What if a fire traps me in my room?" "What if you and mama are asleep and can't hear the fire alarm?" "Where will we live if a fire burns down our house?"

Last week, he asked Libby that last question and Libby said, "We'd probably stay in a hotel." "What's a hotel?" Gabe asked (we've only stayed in one with him once, and that was over a year ago, so he doesn't have much frame of reference). Faced with having to explain the concept of a hotel to a four year old--think about it it and tell me that is an easy concept to explain when you want a child going back to bed soon--Libby changed her mind and told Gabe we could sleep in his playhouse.

It was pretty cute, actually. He went back into the bedroom and, on their monitor (which we still keep on, not so much because we need to be able to hear them but because they say some pretty amusing stuff up there now before they go to sleep), we heard Norah say, "What her said?" Obviously Gabe had been sent on a fact finding mission and was reporting back.

He's also decided that, in the case of a fire that is burning downstairs while they are trapped upstairs, he will break out the window next to Norah's bed so they can escape. This SOUNDS like a good idea, until you think about a four and two year old plummeting from a second story window into some bushes below. So I took him around the front of the house the next day and showed him how high up his room was, then I pointed out that the window from Norah's old room went out onto the porch, which sloped down some and only had an eight foot drop or so. Still probably a leg breaker, but not AS dangerous. He was entirely unimpressed by that notion and swore that he was sticking with Norah's window instead.

Oh, yeah, this is where that whole candle starting the entire house on fire thing came from, too. I'm just putting that together now--that would have been just a day or two after the fire safety thing at school. Duh, Dad.

Finally, tonight, I just couldn't take it anymore. Most of his fears revolve around the idea that nobody will know if there is a fire. That somehow none of us will realize it's happening until everything but Gabe's room is engulfed in fire. So, when he came down tonight, again, to ask me what would happen if we slept through a fire, I hit the test button on the fire alarm on the stares. "Too noisy!" he said. "See? Nobody is going to sleep through that, and it goes off if we burn something in the oven."

This seemed to put his mind at ease, so he went back to bed. Where this exchange, which has nothing to do with fire, but which amused us greatly happened:

Norah, "It goes like this, Beep! Beep! (imitating our fire alarm)."
Gabe, "Shh! I'm trying to sleep."
Norah, "It goes like this, Beep! Beep!"
Gabe, "Shh! I'm trying to sleep!"
Norah, "It goes like this, Beep! Beep!"
Gabe, "Shut your pie hole!"

Libby had to inform him that this wasn't an appropriate thing to say--which we have to do FAR more often than can possibly be good. Though neither of us uses this particular phrase enough that Gabe should have picked it up, he does have a knack for hearing something we say once, out of nowhere, and then repeating it a few months later. But I prefer to blame it on the kids at school instead. EVERYTHING is the fault of the kids at school from here on out, I'm sure.

That last little bit didn't have anything to do with fire, but I thought it was worth sharing anyway.

Chinese Feet and Pooping Out Wubbies

Again, unrelated topics, but I enjoy the image juxtaposing these random things creates.

A month or so back, Gabe demanded that he be able to wear footie PJs like Norah had. So Libby went out and bought him a couple pairs. Size 5s. And they mostly fit, at least as far as the length is concerned. But one of the pairs had a glaring deficiency--the feet were too small (and here is where the first part of my title becomes relevant as I am making an implied--well, now expressed--commentary on the manufacturing of these PJs in China and the fact that the children who doubtless tried these clothes on to size them had much smaller feet than Gabe. Yes, I know, anything that requires this much explaining isn't worth the trouble, but now it's been done and it would be even MORE trouble to go back and erase it all. Such is life).

Every time Gabe wore them, he'd wake up in the middle of the night complaining about how bad his feet hurt. So Libby would just strip him naked and put him back to bed. But now that it's gotten pretty chilly at night, that's just not an option. So she decided to "adjust" the feet so they would fit on Gabe.

Gabe is on the left. Norah refused to have a picture taken that she wasn't a part of. Libby only snipped the foot open, she didn't cut off any cloth. So, basically, the feet on this pair of PJs was that small on him. Gabe does have big feet, but come on. It's like they fitted these for Pan or some other hooved man-beast-child.

These were the first pictures that I got. My instructions were, "Gabe, come here so I can take a picture of your feet." They both ran into the room and started posing. So I'm sharing.

And here is a video of Norah pooping out her Lulu. I don't think it needs much more buildup than that.

The Weird Things That Scare Kids

Up to this point, I think we've been pretty lucky on the whole "scared of things" issue. Gabe has not had too much trouble with it, and Norah hasn't really been verbal enough to truly express her fears. Gabe doesn't much care for total darkness, and Norah obviously didn't like to be alone in her room (proven by the fact that she stopped shrieking through the night as soon as she and Gabe shared a room). We've never had monsters under the bed or bogeymen in the closet or anything like that to deal with. They wake up from nightmares from time to time and we have to talk them off the ledge, but that's about it.

Or, rather, that WAS about it. Earlier in the week, Gabe had his first of what I have to assume will be many scaredy cat moments.

It was naptime. About thirty minutes after I put them down, Gabe came down the stairs and informed me that he needed to pee. Like usual. I was trying to nap on the couch, so I just turned my head and said, "Go pee, and go back to bed!" over my shoulder and tried to go back to sleep. After a bit, I heard him go back upstairs.

But the damage was already done. I had dozed off before he came down, and now that I was fully awake again, there was no going back to sleep. About fifteen minutes later, I got up. As I walked by the stairs, something caught my eye. Gabe was sitting on the top stair in the dark.

"Gabe, go back to bed. Go to sleep. No more noise, just sleep." I instructed and walked into the office. Two steps into the office and I hear bitter sobs coming from the top of the stairs. I back out of the office and look up the stairs.

"What's wrong?" I ask in the most caring voice I can muster through my annoyance at having naptime, once again, ruined.

"I-I-I'm-m-m scared," he stammered.

"Scared? Scared of what?"

"The-the-the c-c-candle!"

"What? The candle?"

"Yuh-yes!"

"A candle. You're scared of a candle?"

"Yes!"

"OK. Let me come up. You're going to have to show me."

I went upstairs and went into the extra bedroom, where he takes naps.

"Show me what is scaring you."

And he pointed at, sure enough, a candle. It was a medium sized, I don't know what you'd call them, canister candles? One of those bigger ones that are sold at candle parties that smell like something "wonderful." This one smelled like baby powder. Libby bought it when Gabe was a baby. Apparently, at the time, we weren't smelling enough baby powder as it was.

Anyway, I looked at him. He was dead serious. This candle, which was sitting on top of a small desk in the bedroom, was the cause of his worry.

"Why are you scared of this candle?"

Through his sobs, this is the message that I was able to translate, "Because the candle will start on fire and then it will burn down the entire house."

After wasting a couple minutes trying to explain to him that things don't just start on fire, and pointing out that this particular candle, even if we WANTED it to burn, couldn't because a year or so back Gabe had personally dug out both of the wicks with his tiny little fingers and spread what wax he could all over the furniture up there, I gave up and put the candle in another room.

But now I'm afraid we've opened a floodgate and the irrational fears are going to rush in and sweep us all away. As long as whatever they are afraid of keeps being amusing, though, I guess I won't take it too personally.

To Think Like a Child

I wish I could think like a kid again. Years of experience and education have jaded me to the wonder and discovery of childhood. And I miss it. Having the ability to think like a child again would certainly make communicating with my children easier because, for a change, I'd be able to figure out just what the hell is going through their heads that made them believe what they just did was a good idea.

Take, for instance:


Yesterday afternoon I found this stuck to my rocking chair. It is a lime green lego. At first I thought it was just sitting in the crease there, precariously resting. Which would have been a little strange as, even then, one of the kids would have had to set it there. But when I pulled it off, I noticed it was sticky, and that stick was keeping it on the chair, not gravity and luck. Upon still closer inspection, I saw what looked like remnants of gum on the lego. But Gabe hadn't had any gum in awhile. He did, however, still have some stuff left in his Halloween basket (specifically, the stuff that neither Libby nor I have much interest in eating).

"Gabe, is this taffy on your lego?" I asked.

He kind of squished up his face a little bit, giving me my answer.

"Did you stick this lego in your mouth while you were chewing taffy and then stick the lego to the chair?" I further deduced.

"Yes," he openly, and I think proudly, admitted.

"Why?"

"I don't know." I wish that made sense to me.

Earlier still, I opened the refrigerator and found a stick from our yard nestled between two gallons of milk on the top shelf.

"Gabe, why is there a stick in the refrigerator?" I asked.

"Because I wanted a cold stick," he answered plainly enough.

"Huh," I replied back, because what else could I say?

Well, I also told him that all he had to do was leave the stick outside and it would get plenty cold as winter was rapidly approaching, but that doesn't make for a very entertaining narrative.

At least the little stuffed penguin we found in the fridge last week made sense. Penguins SHOULD be kept in the fridge. Sticks, not so much.

Learning One of the Most Important Social Skills

As we grow, we learn thousands of different social skills. We learn them from keys we pick up along the way (or, in the case of my children, through constant, nagging reminders delivered at varying pitches and volume, sometimes accompanied by largely idle threats of future repercussions or denials of privileges). They vary wildly in their importance. From learning to put the toilet seat down whenever supposedly liberated women are also in the household (come on--I have to put the toilet seat UP, so how is it not equally fair for someone else to have to put it DOWN?) all the way up to knowing when not to sock someone in the nose when being annoyed. Most of us learn these skills through one method or another. But what is the most important skill?

Gauging importance is difficult and there are many different qualifications one could use to rank these skills. For instance, if living together in a large, happy society is considered the most important qualification, then perhaps politeness, empathy, or an ability to fart discretely might be the most important skill to learn. Or if the child in question is being groomed for a life of super-villaindom, then an ability to manipulate or dominate another's personality would be the most important skill. For the sake of this post, I've decided to go with what I think is the most key element of social interaction--the very survival of the human race. What are the most basic and, thus, most important skills that we need in order to survive as a species.

Clearly this list could be argued and many nuances could be debated along the way. Loyalty and dependability are important skills to learn, and without them we cannot form cohesive bonds with other people. So those seem rather important. Being able to comprehend abstract notions of justice or fairness also seem as though they would lend themselves well to forming permanent bonds and creating lasting interpersonal relations.

But let's face it. Basic survival relies on our ability to live with one another. To not be actively repulsed by the people we share space with. On a Maslow's-type scale of importance, loyalty and fairness and all of those other skills would make a showing, but I think there can be little debate that the very foundation of the scale has to be our Ability to Not Excrete on Other People. Few other skills, it seems to me, can illicit a more negative reaction in another person than a lack of this one. And, in fact, if humans had no ability to control such things and divert away our various yucks, then society as a whole would quickly devolve. Nobody would want to have anything to do with anybody ever.

But I will take this one step further. Waste excretions are a problem. Few people want to be peed or pooped on--and those that DO want such things have MANY social problems of their own and likely aren't what you'd call "built for society" anyway. They are anomalies, and they deserve to be peed and pooped on for being so weird. That will teach them. But waste excretions are more or less contained by our inability to survive without clothes. Run around naked such that you could pee or poop on someone else freely and chances are pretty good that you'll be dead from exposure or some infection before you've had the chance to loose your bowels on many unsuspecting folks--not that they'd let you get that close anyway since you're naked and probably covered in your own filth. Thus, that problem eventually takes care of itself.

Then there's puke.

An ability to puke other than on the ones we love is, I think, the most valuable skill that we learn growing up. What is better than not being puked on? Nothing, that's what. Nothing makes me want to love and nurture someone else more than the safe, comfortable feeling I get from trusting that, no matter what, they will choose to puke on something other than me. And I can't wait until my kids learn that skill.

Not that I, personally, get puked on all that much. I would rather have my children puke on EVERYTHING in my house that isn't me. I'm a bit squeamish about the vile stuff. But Libby is a real champ about it. She has, on many occasions, put herself between our belongings and one of our kid's upchuck. She probably deserves some kind of honorarium for it. Maybe someday I'll build her a small statue, or not puke on her myself the next time I'm sick, in appreciation.

All of this is a round-about way of getting to the day of Halloween activities that Norah decided to make more interesting with the zesty combination of stomach contents that she yacked around a few different venues yesterday.

I know, I know. Poor baby. It sucks to be two and to not be able to describe what is wrong because you not only don't have the words to describe it, but you also don't have the frame of reference to understand what is wrong. Sure she used to be a major puker, but she doesn't remember any of that anymore. It's been, what, five months since she used to work herself into a puking state every time she started crying in bed. She deserves sympathy. But so do her parents. Especially me, because I am writing this down and clearly play some part in it all no matter how little I was actually barfed on.

She spent most of yesterday lying pathetically curled up in my rocking chair (which, thankfully, only smells a little like ralph today), and it looked as though she was going to keep the two of us home while Gabe and Libby made the trick-or-treating rounds. But, right at the last minute, she threw a mighty tantrum that convinced me that, no matter how much she threw up on everyone and everything along the way, that would be a lesser evil than trying to keep her home while Gabe was out doing something fun.

So we all went out and she rallied beautifully. Over the course of the day she had managed to only eat one bite of breakfast with a few sips of milk--which ended up on her shirt and in a bowl while we were at the bookstore for a "spooky story time"--and drink a glass of water and a glass of Powerade. Yet, while we were making the rounds in the neighborhoods, she managed to suffer through whatever candy she could get her paws on and then ate an entire bag of popcorn before we got home.

This, of course, she bathed herself and her bed in about 1:00 this morning. Despite a thorough washing of EVERYTHING around her bed, their room still smells like a frat house minus the desperation.

The start of our day. See? Perky, bright eyed, not the least bit looking like a vomit factory. We even managed to get her in her fairy princess costume. Though she takes after me in many ways, we don't share a love of costuming yet. She is not much of a fan of dress up. Probably she thinks there are enough REAL problems in the world to be adding fits of whimsy and fantasy into the mix. Kids these days.

Less than thirty minutes later, she was weepy and moping in Libby's arms at the store. This was after she demanded we take off her costume, but before the spewing started.

Spooky story time. About some poor woman who is being set upon by haunted clothing. Then she industriously invents the scarecrow with them. I question the authenticity of this story, though, for several reasons.

After story time, we took Norah home and Libby stayed with her because any suggestion that I stay home elicited shrieks and hysteria. Gabe and I went to his preschool for their trick-or-treeting event. His school is so cool. His teacher had each of the kids stand by her easel while she drew pictures of them in their costumes.

Fast forward to about 6:00. Norah is apparently feeling better as being around people other than me and Gabe has pushed the icky feeling stomach into the back of her mind. She REFUSED to be dressed in her costume, though, so the hand-me-down Spiderman hoodie had to suffice for dress up. Gabe, in case you're not up on your terrible 5-10 aged programming, is the Red Power Ranger. Finn is Bumblebee from the never-should-have-been-made movie version of Transformers. Gabe, it should be noted, HAS accepted my love of costume. Perhaps a bit too much. He would have worn that costume every day since we bought it six weeks ago if we'd let him. Though he claims not to be the Red Ranger in it. He thinks the Red Ranger is kind of lame. He wants to be the White Ranger (there isn't one in the show he's watching--yet), but I keep trying to explain to him that being White is even more boring than being Beige and he should pick a more interesting color. Say, purple. Or go way out there with a hunter-safety orange. He'll have none of it.

Speaking of Gabe and Power Rangers, I don't think I've shared what he wants to be when he grows up. When he first discovered the Power Rangers, he declared that he wanted to be one when he grew up (which wasn't surprising since he'd already said he wanted to be a Transformer and a G.I. Joe when those shows still caught his fancy). But the first few times he wanted to watch P.R., he caught on to the obviously negative vibe I was sending out about the show. If you've ever watched any of the early incarnations of the show, you know how bad it is. And, currently, it's even worse than it used to be. And he picked up on my snark. After a week or two, he decided that he didn't want to be a P.R. anymore because I didn't like them--those were his actual words.

I felt pretty conflicted about that. On the one hand, I had dashed my young son's dream of being a P.R. with my off-handed negativity. On the other, I had dashed my young son's dream of being a P.R. with my off-handed negativity! I was molding his taste and, hopefully, encouraging him to like things that didn't suck so hard and so fast! Nonetheless, my sense of guilt outweighed my hope that my kids won't like stupid things, and I carefully explained to him that just because I didn't like something didn't mean that HE couldn't like that thing. And that if he wanted to be a P.R., I would be very proud of him and help him keep his suit clean and his big mechanical animal thing serviced.

But he had moved on already. He decided that he wanted to be an artist. Which lasted a couple weeks. Now, he's decided that being an artist might not be that exciting, so he wants to be the first Power Ranger Artist. We'll see how that works out.

Anyway, Norah and May (she's a red crayon) in the wagon. The girls were having a tough time keeping up with the treating pace the boys were setting, so they got to ride to most of the houses. I'm actually a little apprehensive about the day when the boys are big enough to go off t-or-ting on their own. If they kept their focus and really applied themselves, they could easily cover a few dozen blocks and strip the population of a trash bag full of candy. We hit about six blocks--pretty sporadically participating blocks--and they filled their candy buckets before we quit.

Power Ranger and Transformer, bromancing and working together. It's a magical world we live in.

At the last stop of the night, Gabe was asked by our friends to show us his muscles. This is the pose he chose to do it. Not shown in the picture is Norah devouring an entire bag of microwave popcorn.

And, finally, a non-Halloween picture that I thought I would add because I saw it on the memory card and figured I would never remember to talk about it if I didn't do it now. Libby's cousin Kelly is a cheerleader for the Chiefs (I know, pretty cool, right?). Her folks, Kent and Kathy, sent the kids some Chiefs gear, including this little cheerleader outfit for Norah. And this picture makes me laugh because she looks a little psychotic. Cute still, but psychotic also. Which made it worth sharing.

A Love Letter

Dear Sausage from Meridian Grocery,

I love you. There, I said it. There's no reason to beat around the bush or play coy. Let's just get that out in the open and let it breath.

I must admit, I've never felt this way about a food before. Sure there have been mild lapses in judgment inspired by fetching foods. Ice cream binges. Macaroni and cheese gorgings. Pizza gluttonings. Candy corn fixations. Marshmallow Peep face-stuffings. But these were never more than flings--the basest kind of short-sighted and self-destructive whimsies or cavings to cravings.

Never before have I wanted to make a food part of me. Don't take this the wrong way, but I want you inside me. All the time. I want your hot, spicy tube. In. Side. Me. Now. Always.

Don't let anyone turn this into something disgusting. It's beautiful. You're beautiful. And perfect. You are a perfect food.

Shh. Don't talk. Just get in my belly.

Love,
Pat

My Napping Theory Is Shot to Hell

You know how I said Gabe was a complete mess on the days when he doesn't take a nap--and since he's not taking naps very often anymore, he's been more of a mess than not for awhile now. Yeah, turns out it wasn't the naps that were making him normaler.

Yesterday he took a good, long nap. Almost three hours. But from the time that he woke up until he went to bed he was non-stop spaz. We went outside to work on the playhouse some, and very little actual work got done because I spent most of my time unwedging him from things.

First, he decided that he needed to climb a tree.

This tree. A redbud. Maybe. I'm never very clear on tree names because, on the whole, they all do about the same thing in my world: provide an obstacle to mow around.

I have to admit that my feelings towards tree climbing are a bit dubious. On the one hand, tree climbing is a good, wholesome, traditional "boy" thing to do with an afternoon. Norman Rockwell would have approved of the activity. It also, I suppose, trains some coordination skills and teaches kids valuable lessons about planning ahead and gravity. On the other hand, Gabe is terrible at planning ahead and gravity has never been his friend. We've so far managed to avoid breaking any of his limbs (I say "we" but his role in the prevention has been on an unwilling participation level only), but we've also managed to keep him from being higher than a couple feet off the ground. Now that he's branching out . . . ha ha . . . it's probably only a matter of time before a trip to the hospital.

Especially if he keeps going after it like he did yesterday. He tackled this tree with gusto if not exactly prowess or skill.

Really, I have nobody to blame but myself because I'm the one that pointed the ideal climbing nature of that particular tree out to him. It seemed like an innocent enough move at the time, and I was doing it to protect another, smaller tree from Gabe's wrath. The tree he originally picked out is only about four feet tall and just a couple years old. He would have destroyed it. And when I spotted him trying to "climb" it (he wasn't able to do anything more than straddle one of the small branches that was close to the ground because the tree is only about an inch thick at its base), I pointed him to the far more substantial redbud. I thought, "No worries. That first fork is a few feet off the ground, still too high for him to get into."

So he asked me to put him up in the fork of the tree to start off. "Nope," I said. "Tree climbing isn't a team sport. If you're going to do it, you'll have to do it on your own." I thought this would buy me a few more months, anyway. Or, if nothing else, keep him discouraged enough that he would find something else to do and I could work on the playhouse.

Except he found a chair. So he used the chair to get into the fork of the tree. But that was as far as he was ever able to make it. And, obviously, it was too high for him to get down from--which he couldn't do anyway because as soon as he got in there he wedged either his crotch or his shoes into the fork in such a way that he couldn't move anymore. I have to give the kids props for trying, though, and sticking with it when it didn't work. Every time he got stuck, he yelled to me to get him down, and when I put him on the ground he declared that he "needed to try it again," always with the same result. So, every five minutes or so for a half an hour I was called over to free him up, and eventually he gave up.

After the tree, he decided to feed the chickens some "salad," one of his favorite things to do right now. He walked around the yard, picking grass and throwing it through the fence to the chickens. But this time it only kept him busy for a few minutes.

I was cutting a piece of particle board for the wall and out of the corner of my eye I saw Gabe on the picnic table. He sort of seemed to be jumping up and down. Dancing maybe? Or just being weird. Who knew. Because being on top of furniture is pretty common for him, and I didn't see where he could really hurt the picnic table being up there, I instantly dismissed it and went back to my own business.

Not a minute later I heard, "Uh, Dad? Help?" in a not very loud voice--as if he knew he needed help but REALLY didn't want to face the lecture that was going to come attached.

This was another stuck-in-a-rocking-chair moment for Gabe as he was forced to remain stuck until I had time to go inside and get the camera (which I should have done anyway to get a picture of him wedged in the tree, but I figured I would have LOTS of opportunities for wedged-in-tree pictures as the years go by). Here's what I found:

For some reason, he refused to smile for the picture.

He didn't REALLY need my help, as he pulled it out this way on his own, but I'm glad he called me all the same because I wouldn't have gotten the picture of him if he hadn't. Really, he does a great job of letting us know when he's done something he knows he's not supposed to do. I guess that's the advantage of there not being huge, terrible consequences from me whenever he screws up. He knows the worst he'll get is an earful or maybe some time out, so he hasn't discovered that it's easier just to act like something didn't happen and then lie about it when I inevitably discover it. That's good, right?

And here's his explanation of what he was doing when he punched a hole through the picnic table.

Or maybe he just doesn't lie to cover things up yet because he's not very good at it. I'm reasonably sure that he was actually just stomping on this soft spot in our picnic table--which we've known for a couple years needs to be completely rebuilt, but who wants to take the time to pull apart and then put back together a picnic table when it can still SORT OF perform its function? Now, I guess, we're not going to have much choice.

And, no matter how much of a dork he is, I'm still going to keep trying to force naps on him until he's in school. It's just my way.

The Hits Just Keep on Comin'

Gabe has become a completely unreliable napper now. Two, maybe three times a week, I can either browbeat or guilt him into staying in bed long enough for him to accidentally do what his body really wants him to do and fall asleep. But most of the time he just hangs out in his room, making noise, and coming out every fifteen minutes or so to pee or poop or shout down the stairs to ask if it's "waking up time" yet.

At this point, it's worth noting that I recognize it would be easier--and there would be fewer problems with him waking Norah up--if I just abandoned his nap time altogether, let him play downstairs, and dealt with the fact that the only quiet time I will get for myself will come when I have a complete meltdown and lock myself in the bathroom. But I am loathe to give up my Me Time without a bitter, knock-down-drag-out fight. I have also maintained throughout that my kids are not going to grow up expecting the world to bend to their whims. It is vitally important--to my way of thinking, at least--that children learn to keep other people happy. It is, after all, what they're going to spend the majority of their working life doing every single day. Nobody gets to whine and cry and tell the boss they have to poop to get out of doing something they don't want to do. That's just not how the world works. That doesn't mean that my kids don't eventually erode away my resolve (sometimes quicker than normal if my tolerance for whining is particularly low that day) and get what they want, but they have to work a little to get it.

So, in my effort to at least make things more difficult for Gabe as he transitions into a napless world (which just seems preposterous to me--who wouldn't LOVE to take a nap every day and have the world resigned to take care of your every need and deal with all your problems so you can sleep carefree), we're doing "quiet time." In theory, quiet time starts when I put them both up in their rooms (Gabe sleeps in the extra bed because otherwise there's no chance Norah will go to sleep either) and it lasts until Norah wakes up. Since Norah can now nap about three hours, the odds that Gabe will be able to entertain himself quietly in his room for that long without major disturbance is about the same as of having your winning lottery ticket struck by lightning. It also doesn't help that he can't tell time, so I can't tell him to stay in his room until, say, 2:00 (there is a pretty good chance that he WILL be able to tell time before he gets to kindergarten, though, because I show him the clock and try to explain how it works with some regularity hoping to get him to recognize what two hours of quiet time looks like).

But I try anyway. And when he comes down every fifteen minutes, I inform him that he needs to go back upstairs until Norah wakes up. And I repeat that mantra every fifteen minutes until I get bored with it and let him stay up.

Yes, I realize that my Me Time is already non-existent because I'm spending all of it coaxing him back to bed. Yes, I know I'm just wasting all of our time in a futile effort to establish myself as the alpha in our household. But, so far, I haven't given up the pipe dream that I'm the one in charge around here.

But that is beside the point of my post today. One sort of advantage of Gabe not napping is that his mildly sleep deprived brain comes up with some pretty amusing stuff from time to time.

Today, for instance, he was sitting at his computer . . . .

Did I mention that we found an old lap top and gave it to Gabe for the express purpose that he could play games on an online educational site called abcmouse.com? I have to admit, the notion of letting my four year old play computer games sounded like a TERRIBLE idea when I first heard it. I already feel bad enough that my kids are borderline TV junkies (OK, probably no "borderline" about Norah's relationship to TV programming). The last thing I needed was to feel even guiltier that my kid was also addicted to video games before he can even read.

But, I tell you what, we've seen some pretty astounding results from him playing this game. Put aside the basic computer skills he already has (he can work a mouse and perform any of a number of drag/click functions, he's becoming quite familiar with the setup of the keyboard, and he's starting to come to terms with the reality of having to deal with ten year old technology being completely obsolete for doing something as basic as playing a pre-K game on the internet). He's made HUGE strides in learning his alphabet and numbers. Considering just a couple months ago we couldn't even tell if he recognized half the letters of the alphabet, now he not only recognizes them, he can identify most of their sounds, can find them on the keyboard, and he's beginning to grasp basic economic concepts (he wins tickets for playing the games on there then can buy items to decorate his "house" in the game). I'm still not saying that it's the best method out there, and it's almost guaranteed that he's going to be a video game nerd when he gets older, but so far I think the positives outweigh the negatives.

Anyway, sitting at his computer. He had a little sheet of paper that he'd stuck several different stickers on. He peeled one of the stickers off and put it above his lip like a mustache, and then he started to make up and sing a song to me. I grabbed the camera and coaxed him into doing it a few more times (he had to keep using different stickers and moving them around, too, I guess to find the perfect costume). Here's what I got.

I can't understand what he's singing about half the time, but that kind of lyrical styling is perfectly acceptable in most forms of popular music, so I think I'm going to nurture this phase.

Boys Are Weird

By now everyone should be aware that my kids are weird. Funny weird, not creepy weird. Well, maybe a LITTLE creepy weird:

I have no idea what prompted him to think this was a good idea, but, then, the male brain prior to about age 25 is full of bad ideas that seem good.

Oh, and at soccer practice the other day, Libby taught Norah how to do this:


It started off innocently enough. Norah had a boo boo on the finger and was showing it to everyone. She's actually got pretty good form already--she's a natural bird flipper, if you will. She doesn't have to hold down her other fingers or anything, just BAM, the finger. Fortunately, she wasn't grasping what she was doing, so I won't have to worry for a little while longer that she's giving me the finger when I tell her to clean her plate or go to bed. My only hope is that I can convince her that she can only flip off the devil and she'll sit down here flipping off the heat registers some day (for relevant context, go here). Then the circle will be complete.

Misconceptions

Things are rarely as they seem, and kids only complicate that old adage. Many and varied are the times that accurately seeing what's going on in our house has taken a double or triple take. Almost always the vision in question revolves around a "mess," which can be loosely defined as "everything children do with things," and how that mess catches my eye at first and then changes the tone of everything upon closer inspection.

Case in point, a few days ago, I approached our bathtub to start a bath for the kids. While standing over the tub, I looked down and saw a black spot. Like this:

At first blush, I had no idea what this was. Because I've had small children in my house for four years now, I automatically assumed that it was poop. Someone had left a floater in the tub the night before and we had missed it. I should note, this has NEVER happened, but that's still the first assumption I make. It's a sad place to be in, where I automatically assume a new, awful occurrence with poop has happened instead of something more innocuous, but there you have it. However, there was still a slim chance that I wouldn't need to get a kleenex to clean it up, so I bent in a little to get a better look.

Huh. That's not poop. That's . . . huh.

A head. Stuck to the bottom of our tub. Peter Parker's head, to be specific. From Gabe's Spiderman sticker book. Even he had no idea why it was there. Just one of those things.

Norah also came up with my favorite misnomer to date (well, of hers, anyway--Libby and I decided that our favorite one from either kid so far is still Gabe's "resternaut"). Wal-Mart had a bunch of summer toys on clearance last week and we bought her a pair of Dora walkie-talkies for $5. She has no concept of how to use them properly, but she loves the fact that they make ceaseless noise. And she calls them her "walkie tacos."

Yeah, I don't know. That one might be better than resternaut. I mean, sending a place to eat into outer space is funny and all, but whatever circumstance that would call for a walkie taco might trump it.

I Really Need to Be Better About Updating

So, on a whim, I put the card in the reader to see if I had anything on there for a random update. Turns out I've got a mess of things on there rather worth sharing. So . . . yeah, you're going to be here for awhile.

I can't believe it's already been three weeks since school started back up. And I'm just now getting around to posting pictures. Sheesh. But here's the traditional first-day-of-school-on-the-front-porch picture.

And here's a traditional first-day-of-school-on-the-little-bench-in-front-of-the-school picture.

And here's the traditional me-carrying-a-screaming-Norah-away-from-something-that-she-insists-she-should-be-doing-instead-of-what-needs-to-be-done picture. I'm getting quite a collection of these. Norah has not been pleased about not getting to go to school with Gabe. Last year, we always went in with Gabe and she got to play around for a few minutes before we left. This year, we've had to stick to just dropping Gabe off at the front door while Norah waits in the car because, if I let her out, she throws a fit when we have to go in a few minutes. All the same, she's been screaming and crying the entire way home every day after we drop Gabe off. Once we're home, she kind of likes it, though. I've explained to her that, while Gabe is at school, she can watch whatever show she wants--instead of having to take turns with Gabe--and play with all of Gabe's toys without having to ask or share. She likes not asking and not sharing. Then we've made a habit of going to school fifteen or twenty minutes before it ends so she can play in the playground there. This is a habit I'm going to quickly start regretting when it gets too cold to be outside, but that's a problem to deal with another week.

Norah's first camp-out. The last two weekends, Libby and Gabe have been spending at least one night out in the tent. The first night, they tried it with Norah, too. They went out around 8:00, but after two hours of them screwing around and not sleeping, Libby had to give up and bring them inside. The other nights they've spent out there, Gabe has to go up to bed with Norah (because she doesn't like it when he's not in the room at night) and stay in there until she falls asleep. Then he comes back down and goes outside with Libby. Probably that's a little sneaky and underhanded, but what can you do? That's kind of the place we're at with Norah right now--we have to figure out sneaky ways to convince her that what she's doing is the funnest thing possible.

Gabe with a bubble beard. Nothing particularly special about this picture, but I figured I would share anyway.

Norah making faces. It's fun to have her go through her repertoire of emotion faces--sad, happy, scared, surprised, mad, whatever. But I fear that what I'm really doing is teaching her to create emotions. And, as manipulative as she already is, I can't imagine that she won't use her ability to create emotions to her advantage. I mean, she's already doing that, but right now all she's mastered is Screaming and Crying and Say No. When she masters the subtler emotions, we're going to be in trouble.

No idea what this emotion is. I'm going to call it Nixon.

I think she's trying to wink and smile at the same time. Not sure. Actually, the other night, Libby took five or ten minutes to teach her to tilt her head to one side, say "Please," and bat her big brown eyes at us. I REALLY dread the day she masters that one because I don't think there will be many people who will be able to say no to her when she does it.

Grammy and Grandpa sent a couple new outfits for them a week ago or so, too. But more than sharing the pictures of the outfits, I wanted to comment on Gabe's faces for these pictures.

He wasn't in a bad mood or anything. He just thought this look was what he wanted to do for these pictures. And when I look at these pictures, I can't help but have a haunting premonition of all of the pictures he'll be in from adolescence until he's probably out of college where he's too indifferent or too cool or too fed up or too angsty or too whatever to smile and admit that he's having a good time. But, then, as much as he likes to see himself in pictures and on video, maybe he'll just save that attitude for special occasions, because looking at pictures of yourself being a tool isn't nearly as much fun as looking at pictures of yourself being silly.

Last night, Libby decided to get Gabe his Halloween costume. The Red Power Ranger. Ugh. He's left Transformers and G.I. Joe in the past now and focused his entire being on the Power Rangers. I couldn't be more disappointed and can only hope that this phase just lasts as long as all those before it have. Because Power Rangers have actually managed to get worse in the past twenty years. And, considering they started off as terrible and unwatchable, where they are now is beyond painful. He kept the costume on all last night (even while he was at the store for the reception that we had for the artist we'll be displaying for the next month or two) and had to put it back on first thing this morning.

Norah with her popcorn. She has a thing for popcorn. Well, let's not fool ourselves, she has a thing for food in general. But she is VERY protective of her popcorn and she can eat a lot of it. She ate this entire bowl, which was the better part of a bag. That's perfectly normal for a two year old, though, right?

Norah playing catch. It really is weird how much better she is at it than Gabe was at that age. Actually, she's about as good at it as Gabe is now. He just doesn't have the patience to throw and catch a ball. He's good with throwing it if it's going to hit something and make it explode or fall down, otherwise, meh. I can sympathize, somewhat. I have never been much for ball throwing either. Just never came up with any practical application for the skill. I mean, if I lived in a ninja infested region and I could hone a skill for catching and returning throwing stars, sure, that's useful. Or if I was being divebombed by bats all the time and I wanted to be able to catch them and throw them in someone else's hair, that makes sense. As it is, I don't often need to catch and throw things. Just not something that I need to do.

And I saved the best for last. Take a moment to soak this picture in.

McDonalds Happy Meals have Power Ranger toys this month. One of them is a little plastic gun thing that shoots these paper disks out. For reasons that could only be clear to Gabe, he poked one of them between his but cheeks and started running around like this before his bath the other night. Libby tried to get a video, but he wasn't really cooperating by that point and it has full front nudity on it, so I'll be saving that one for the special movie viewings with his high school girlfriend. This picture will be popping up at inopportune times in his future, too, I'm sure.

Gabe Has an Idea

I am doing my best not to be a helicopter parent. How well I'm doing, I suppose, probably depends on what your definition is. I've heard that term used to describe parents who swoop in whenever anything dangerous presents itself, grabbing up the child and cuddling after the smallest of bumps and bruises. I've also heard the term used to describe parents who hover over their children, constantly ruling over their lives and micromanaging them.

Let me tackle the second definition first--begging the question, why didn't I make it the first definition instead of the second, which is a valid question that points to an obvious lack of clarity and forethought on my part. Suck it.

In social situations, I have to admit that I am a helicopter parent. Well, maybe not in the micromanaging sense, as such, but I certainly hover around my kids, eager to keep them out of everyone else's hair as best I can. I know that I overdo it somewhat in this sense, but, being someone who is not overly fond of other people's kids, I naturally assume that other people don't want my kids yelling at each other and jumping all over everything and everyone. I grew up in a "kids should be seen and not heard" world, and that world seems more and more perfect in its serenity and calm each additional year that I have small children. So, yeah, I helicopter around them in social situations.

But in the first sense, the swooping in to keep them out of danger sense, not so much. In addition to not really liking kids all that much, I'm also not a fan of crying (who was it that put me in charge of kids again? Sounds like I'm about the worst person in the world for the job). I don't cry. Ever. I did growing up. Then one day I guess I just stopped, and I haven't been able to start again ever since. Not that I really WANT to cry--I don't. Crying is a messy waste of time. All that wet and snot and slobber and noise and blurred vision and vulnerability? No thanks. But I rather feel like I OUGHT to cry. It's what the sensitive guys do these days, right? But, try as I might, I can squeeze sweat out of my eye holes. It makes me sad. Just not sad enough to cry.

And, to my way of thinking, the best way to reduce the amount of crying that goes on in our house is to not encourage it. Big ouchies, sure. Those should be cried over. But anything minor--and I consider anything that isn't bleeding or includes a body part pointing in the wrong direction as a major symptom to be minor--is met with a "Can you still use it? Is blood getting on the carpet? Then shake it off." Most of the time, this borderline callous approach is met with even more furious crying and an insistence that I attend to the perceived injury with haste, sympathy, and care. But, from time to time, they actually DO shake it off and go about their business.

Well, Norah sometimes does, anyway. Gabe almost always does now, unless he's really tired. I can usually tell when Gabe needs a nap or to go to bed by how much he whines when he hurts himself. When a bonk that didn't bother him the least when he did it or throughout the day all of a sudden becomes a major issue, then it's time for bed. Otherwise, he's developing into quite the indestructible little guy, and I'd like to think that my shake-it-off attitude has helped make him that way.

But he might just BE that way, because I'm sure not having a lot of luck with Norah. Maybe it's because she's a girl and girls are just . . . well . . . pussies. EVERYTHING is an ordeal with her. Or maybe it's just because she's two and wants my undivided attention all the time no matter what else is going on around us. The kitchen is on fire, ninjas are jumping in through the shattered windows, and a tornado that giant robots created is savaging the entire town. Norah catches a foot on the edge of the carpet and falls on her knee, and THAT, to her mind, is the lead story. Kids and their priorities, I swear.

Anyway, part of the whole shaking it off philosophy is to actually let them get some banging up in the process. It's tough to teach them to deal with their own minor discomforts if they never suffer any minor discomforts. So I try to take a measured approach to my interventions when they are playing. Crawling head first down the stairs? Yeah, that's not going to fly (I'm pretty sure my kids will be permanently and irrevocably terrified of stairs their entire lives with how often I tell them to "take the stairs seriously" and "never play on them or you'll fall down, break your neck, and never be able to walk again"). Messing around near my power tools? Huh uh. Testing the boundaries to see if you can sneak into the front yard and play by the road? Inside, suckers!

However, if the possible damage that could be done is relatively minor, and the chance of success is low, many times I will just give a warning/prediction and see where nature and gravity take them.

And, every once in awhile, I let something that is truly a bad idea slide, just to see where it goes.

Today was one of those days.

Well, really, it wasn't that I let it slide so much as I didn't see it happening during the brainstorming session and decided not to step in once it had reached the point of implementation. Gabe had gotten to the point where he was trying out his bright idea anyway, so I grabbed the camera and prepared for the outcome.

Which, I should mention, never came, so I guess I was justified in letting him play it out since nothing bad came of it. Not that I need to justify my bad parenting. Bad parenting is my right as an American, dammit!

As I said, I missed his preparation as I was pulling the nails out of a piece of recycled lumber to use in their playhouse. But they had been quiet for a few minutes, which invariably means that trouble is soon to follow. And, when I went to check on them, this is what I found. A rocking horse on a porch swing. I'm pretty sure Norah just wanted to stay close so she could participate in the aftermath. She hates it when Gabe hurts himself, but I think she also likes it because she gets to use it as an excuse to scream and cry in response to him screaming and crying.

Nothing bad came of it. However, I did still get to say, "Shake it off" to Norah right after I turned off the camera. And, really, how is it that we live to adulthood? Especially boys. Defies all explanation.