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.

Soccer and More Dancing

I've really got to go through the stuff on this camera and get some updates done. It's actually been a pretty busy past couple of weeks.

School has started back up for Gabe. Norah is VERY displeased about this. She is seeing zero advantage to being at home by herself. Today, we dropped Gabe off. Norah is no longer allowed to get out of the car while I do this because, the first day of class, she threw a MAJOR tantrum when it was time for her to leave. So, now, I let Gabe out and open the door and let him go in on his own. And Norah screams and cries the entire time. Today, she didn't show signs of stopping until we were about five blocks from home.

Through her sobs she said, "I want Momma home now."
To which I replied, "Momma is at work.
She'll be home tonight the same time she usually comes home."
"I want Momma!" she demanded.
"Sorry, honey. You're just stuck with me again."
"I don't want to be stuck with you!" And that pretty much sums up her attitude towards spending time with me for the past couple months.

Anyway, in addition to school, Gabe started soccer last night. Or footbol. Or footie. Or The Running Back and Forth for Two Hours Game. Or The Sport that the Rest of the World Thinks Matters. Whatever you want to call it. It was . . . interesting. Seriously, it's a good deal he's been in preschool for a year because I can't even imagine what his instruction following skills would be like if it hadn't been for that previous exposure. As it was, he was pretty much all over the place doing his own thing. And often his own thing didn't involve kicking the soccer ball. And, once in awhile, he'd end up back with the rest of the group to stand around for ten seconds before wandering off to do whatever again.

I got some videos, but because we're so far away, you can't hear much. And, of course, he rather failed to be super entertaining while the camera was running.

After awhile they started to play a game where Clark (their coach) was a crocodile (or alligator, I can't remember which, though I'm sure it's a very important detail). The kids were supposed to dribble past him while he chomped in their direction. If he caught one of them, they became a crocigator too and helped catch the kids on the next pass. Until all of them were crocigators. After the first game, many of the kids (Gabe included) lost interest in kicking the ball and, instead, tried to get caught so they could be crocs.

Honestly, how anyone can have the patience to coach kids this age is beyond me, but I'm thankful that people with that degree of patience and dedication exist. And, hopefully, Gabe will show some improvement in his listening skills when it's all said and done.

Yesterday we also received a package from Libby's folks that contained a princess/fairy/ballerina dress in it. After Norah put it on, we had her do a little dancing for us. I'm not banking on the idea that she's going to become a world class dancer some day--unless there is a world class in interpretive dance, that she might be able to achieve.

Hire My Kids to Shill Your Product

The weather has been exceptionally nice the last few days. It's possible, of course, that it hasn't been THAT nice but that it just SEEMS nice because it's been such a miserable summer (we broke a record set in 1936 for the most days over 100 degrees--I think we ended up with 53 or 54, and that is a sucky summer by anyone's standards). Either way, though, we've been spending a fair bit of time outside.

I think it was the last time Libby's family came to visit, almost three years ago, when Libby and her Dad built a little foundation in our back yard that we could build a playhouse on. That foundation has been lying bare ever since as we've never had the energy or, really, ability to do construction work with the kids around. Kids have a nasty way of wanting to touch saw blades and eat nails.

Mostly the problem was Gabe because he's got his hands and face in everything. But this year he finally reached a point where we could explain to him how painfully his hands would be ripped from his body if he touched the drill while it was running, or how his eyes might explode and drain out of his head if he didn't pay attention to where the dust from the saw was flying and stay far enough away. And also that ALL of Daddy's tools are coated with a fine layer of poison that will eat his skin away and leave him a pile of stinking, sloppy bones on the ground if he lays a finger on them.

Well, maybe not THAT kind of message, but we've at least been able to convince him to work on his own projects with the scrap wood and his hammer and a few left over nails or screws instead of having to be all up in our business.

Norah, of course, isn't all that interested in what we're doing. Really, if we can convince her that she can hit a ball with the bat on her own and we don't have to play catch with her every second we're outside, we're able to go about our business without much trouble.

So back in early June, when we had a nice weekend, we got started on the playhouse. We framed out two of the walls.

And then it was a hundred degrees or more for two months.

And this week we finally got back to building! I was able to mostly finish a third wall yesterday (it's still pretty slow going with both kids out there, but at least it's going).

While we were out there, though, the chickens became a distraction to the kids and Gabe demanded that they needed to be fed. I remembered that we had a box of Cheerios in the freezer outside that I had picked up about two years ago. Libby, apparently, is off Cheerios--and the kids had never really cared for them at all (after they were past the "finger food" phase, anyway. So we've had to boxes out in the freezer for quite some time. And I decided to feed them to the chickens because they pissed me off every time I saw them going uneaten in the freezer.

So I pulled the box out and let the kids feed most of it to the chickens. After the third or fourth handful that Gabe dumped into their little trough, he decided that he wanted to try the Cheerios again. And he decided that he loved them. He refused to let me feed anymore to the chickens because he wanted to eat the rest of the box (which was still about half full).

Norah also decided to try one. She poked her tongue out of her mouth, touched the Cheerio, made a face and said "Yucky!" I tend to agree. They taste like those corn starch packing peanuts (yes, I've eaten corn starch packing peanuts--they taste like Cheerios). Plain cereal is boring and pointless. If I wanted to eat a plain piece of bread with milk on it, I could eat a plain piece of bread with milk on it. I want ZAZZ in my cereal. Or at least a mess of sugar. Norah obviously agrees.

Gabe took the box over to the picnic table and got to work on it. Norah went along because that's what she does. Even if she didn't have any interest in eating the Cheerios, she wanted her fair share because Gabe was having some. I went back to work for a bit but, when I looked over, I saw Gabe sitting on top of the picnic table, Norah sitting on the bench beside him, and they were sharing Cheerios, quite picturesquely. It looked like someone was staging a commercial in my backyard. They were laughing and Gabe was shoveling handfuls into his mouth and then dropping the next handful onto the table so Norah could play with them.

I ran in to get the camera to try and capture it. Of course the best, most cliched bit was over by the time I got back, but I went ahead and got a few videos of them afterwards. And I think people should pay my kids to sell their stuff, because they apparently have a pretty good knack for it after being in front of the camera so much for this blog.

Old Timey Fun

The bookstore has an old manual typewriter in it. Over the past few months, every time he went in the store, Gabe would pound away at the keys for about as long as he'll stay focused on anything not involving guns or mud, so when Libby found one for sale at the thrift store here in town, she jumped on it. It's been a popular toy here for the past few weeks, and I got a few videos of Norah making the most of it.