"That's Not Food!"

Andy's been asking for a pet, and we all know how Chris and I feel about dogs .  Cats are even worse, because you basically spend a whole bunch of money on an animal whose feelings about you straddle the line between disdain and outright loathing.  I did at one time contemplate adopting a kitten, but then I saw this cat food commercial where an uppity-looking white cat ate a blend of brown rice, salmon, and spring vegetables off of a gleaming white porcelain plate.  "Forget this whole cat thing!" I howled aloud to no one as a little mustard from my hot dog dripped onto my sweater.  "Ain't no snotty cat eating better than I am!" No dogs, no cats, and certainly nothing that resembles a mouse (i.e., actual mouse, gerbil, or the like). I'd get the kid a pony if only we had a stable.  Snakes are super creepy, turtles are ridiculous looking and require no further comment.  But when Andy asked if he could have a goldfish.... "Yes!"  I proclai...

My mom and my aunt were giggling like maniacs, and my mother waved me over.  "You have to hear what Andy just told us," my aunt said through a guffaw.  "Nancy, you tell her." My mother related the story.  They were asking Andy about how he was going to get a new baby, and apparently Andy had replied, matter-of-factly, "Yep.  There's a baby in my mommy's tummy.  My daddy put it in there with his special tool." Special tool?  Hilarious!  Of course, Andy was just repeating what he had been told by Chris, who should know better than to refer to his wedding tackle as a "special tool."  Obviously, this was going to be repeated.  And some people, like my mother and aunt, were going to be greatly amused by this. Yet other people, like my father for instance, were going to wince and just walk away. Andy's been asking a lot of questions about the mechanics of conceiving and delivering a child.  I have told him the basics without actually ...

This Thanksgiving, we had one more little thing to be thankful for. "Was this an accident?" my blunt little sister asked me ten minutes after I had taken the pregnancy test and called her on the phone.  I called her first because we had just been talking; she had been asking me about stage two and stage three foods for her little peanut while I had been staring at the tests in the drugstore and contemplating just skipping the whole thing in favor of going to the dollar store the next day and buying one there.  Eight dollars for a pregnancy test?  Fifteen dollars for two?  Why would I pay this much when I can already feel the results in the pit of my stomach and the side of my boob?  Sure, the dollar store tests are a little more labor intensive- you have to find a cup to pee in and a little pipette to dispense the urine onto the test strip portion of the flimsy device- but the extra work is definitely worth the seven dollar savings.  Ah, screw it. ...

This morning, I had parent teacher conferences at ye olde preschool.  Alex was first, and a couple of words immediately caught my eye when I sat down and glanced at her written summary.  "Excessive drool?"  I thought quizzically.  "Is that really a standard measurement of preschool intelligence?" This is an excessively wet, sloppy kiss. The excessive drooling (I suppose all the slobber CAN be a bit much at times) is apparently indicative of his still maturing mouth and tongue muscles.  The teacher thinks that Alex may need to be evaluated for his speech, although I have to say I disagree with this assessment.  The kid has come a long way in these past four months, and his constant running commentary has exceeded adorable and gone straight to uncharted levels of annoyance.  He points out everything he sees, brings up topics from days and weeks past, and has started introducing his questions with "Can I ask you a question?" He is ridiculously frien...

If Alex were a pull toy and had a catch phrase, it would definitely be "Stop it."  The kid is always telling me to "Stop it," sometimes when I do something so simple as just to look over at him and smile.  There are a couple things he especially hates, though, number one being when we call him "Big Round Blond Head."  I can barely remember how that one started, although I vaguely recall some early morning in which Andy had climbed into my bed and then Alex had also come in and started bobbing around the room.  There was something perfectly cartoonish about his tow-headed skull bouncing in the early morning sunlight, and I said to Andy, "Look at that big, round blond head go."  Andy thought it was hilarious and started calling Alex Big Round Blond Head pretty much nonstop.  As did I, since the novelty of being directly related to someone with such light hair still hasn't worn off. And so we call Alex "Big Round Blond Head" occasi...

Andy's preschool teacher sent a letter home with all of the parents today stating that his class has a real problem with bathroom breaks- as in every child needs to use the bathroom constantly to the point where it's disruptive.  I know Andy is one of the offenders on this issue because I've had to wait for him at pick-up while he's dawdled in his classroom's bathroom.  At home, Andy spends a lot of time in the bathroom.  One time earlier this summer, Andy was in the bathroom for a very long time. Finally, when he emerged, he announced, "I need some help washing my hands.  I was touching my penis A LOT." Boys. At home, the problem is not so much the going to the bathroom as it is the substantially prolonged period of hand-washing that follows.  Andy can spend twenty minutes just soaping up his hands, making bubbles, talking to himself, and running over fifteen gallons out of the faucet and down the drain.  He completely loses track of time while hand w...

We were watching "Team Umizoomi" today while eating dinner.  I'd read somewhere that watching TV while eating dinner was bad for children because it led to mindless eating; thus, since my children don't eat, it stands to reason that TV watching during dinner might actually be a good thing.  Plus the pediatrician's office has a big poster in it that says "Two Hours of Screen Time A Day!"  Since we're overachievers, we try to keep it in the five to six range. If you don't know what "Team Umizoomi" is, it's a cartoon featuring two miniature, sibling superheroes (Milli and Geo) and their epileptic robot that gets the "crazy shakes" at the end of each episode.  They just love math, and they cruise around Umi City looking for ways to show off their math skills.  I heard Umi City has a pretty big teenage runaway and drug problem, but those social issues are never quite addressed during the allotted twenty-two minutes airtime. ...

Andy, Alex, and I went on a walk after dinner tonight.  This is what our walks look like.  Andy rides ahead on his bike while I call out his name, repeatedly, to use his brakes and stop at corners. The whole neighborhood knows his name.  I keep up a peppy stroll behind him while dragging the wagon, inside which sits a super-chillaxed Alex, all lounging and enjoying the ride.  Alex wears his helmet out of choice, looking a bit odd. It's like he's got cranial issues, which I suppose he does, since he is constantly falling and hitting his cranium. Just today, he got super excited when he saw that I had one of those cheese and breadstick snack packs (the kind where the ratio of golden cheese type product is way off in terms of stale little breadsticks).  He ran wailing towards me to get a taste of breadstick and cheese, went to grab the snack pack, missed completely, stumbled, and then slammed his head into the refrigerator.  What a klutz.  At least it dis...

The boys are enrolled in a preschool at a church, which is quite funny if you remember how I struggled with sending Andy to one specific Christian preschool when he was two.  That one I had a couple of issues with, though, mainly the fact that it operated out of somebody's house and just felt... wrong.  I went with my gut on that one, and after two years of being preschooled at the park district, we switched to a very lovely Lutheran school that we are all quite happy with.  I'm mostly impressed at the level of CONTROL the teachers seem to have over the children.  At the park district, you could always hear a lot of ruckus and yelling coming from the preschool room.  At the church preschool, the children file in politely, know where to find their seat, and begin to quietly work.  I have to imagine that the children are better behaved in part because of the teaching style employed and in part because they all are now living with the absolute fear of God. ...

Well, it took long enough, but Alex has burst onto the scene with his vocabulary, combining words and making short sentences as if he were Billy Collins, the Poet Laureate with the best poem titles including "Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House," about a neighbor's barking dog, and my all time favorite poem title, "Picnic, Lightning," which really appeals to my particular brand of paranoid neuroses. This poet would kill your dog if only he had a gun. Oh, right.  Alex.  Also, the above paragraph is probably the single longest sentence I've ever written, or at least top five. But I digress, because we're talking about how Alex is suddenly answering questions and making statements like the official poet of the whole goddamn nation.  My worries have been quashed by his sudden linguistics.  His first full sentence came out a couple weeks ago, and it was perfectly poetic.  "Andy popped balloon," he bemoaned, to which an e...

Today, Andy found his Perfect Friend.  We were at the park, and I would have gotten Perfect Friend's contact info if not for the fact that her male caregiver seemed kind of skeevy and slightly sex-offenderish.  In fact, when I first saw him sitting on the bench, I immediately assumed he was a pervert and made a mental note to make sure my kids didn't run by him. Mental note:  Pervert on the bench.  Also, get more goat cheese from Aldi. Captain Andy, sliding into the ocean. This girl was either his daughter or granddaughter, hard to say.  But she approached Andy with a smile and a just-happy-to-be-here attitude, accepting Andy's matter-of-fact statement.  "I'm the captain of this boat," he told her, gesturing to the playground structure that was acting as his ship. "Oh, captain!"  the little girl replied.  "Okay!"  She then proceeded to follow Andy around his boat, asking of various playground features, "Captain, what does THIS ...

Yesterday was the boys' first day of school.  Andy, as a four year old, is now entering his third year of preschool, which begs the question of, honestly, how many ding dong years of preschool do we actually need before REAL school?  I mean, this is longer than Chris attended college !  Well, the answer was staring me in the face as I sent Alex off to his first day of two year old preschool.  Three years of preschool.  They start at age two and they just go forever, from preschool to kindergarten to grade school and then eventually the exact right two year program at the local college.  Which brings me back to my original point.  X-ray technician? Two years.  Preschool?  THREE years. Sure, we could just skip two year old preschool (and probably three year old preschool, let's be honest), but then where would we be?  As a family, we'd be at least $140 richer per month, sure. We could probably trade paying for preschool into paying for c...

There seems to be a bit of confusion as to Alexander's name.  Lately, we've been having the same serious conversation with this kid over and over again, and, without fail, it goes like this. "What's your name?" "Andy!" "No, your name is Alex.  What's your name?" "Andy!" "No, that's not right.  What's your name, Alex?" "ANDY!" "NO!  Is your name Alex?" "Yeah... Andy!" Like most things, I'd probably just ignore this incorrectly answered question and move on to asking other, more pertinent ones ("Where is the remote control?"  "Why does your FACE smell like PEE?"  "Do you have any blurred vision after falling on your head for the eighth time this week?"  "Did your or did you not lick that ice cube and then put it BACK in my drink?").  But the thing is, Alex is starting two year old preschool in a week, and I fear that his struggles ...

The other night, when Chris had plans, I decided to let Andy and Alex stay up late.  I called it a "sleepover" and really hyped up the opportunity that I was presenting to them: a chance to come downstairs after bath time and watch a movie with Mommy instead of going to sleep.  They would be up past sundown for the first time since daylight savings began!  And yet they would probably still end up in their beds by the time other kids normally went down, as I know that my strict bedtime of seven-fifteen is probably, especially for Andy, a little ridiculous. But who are you to judge until you've spent all day with these hyper little monsters. I would, however, totally let Andy stay up later every night if not for the fact that Alex won't go to sleep without him.  And so, as history does dictate, the little, more annoying sibling ruins it once again for the older one.  Sorry, Andy.  I can't have that cannonball of a toddler bouncing around the house past seven ...

As Andy was to buses at this young age , Alex is to airplanes.  He's obsessed with them, calling out "Airplane!" gleefully during car rides when one is spotted.  He commands that I perform Google image searches of "airplane," and one of his first two word linked phrases was a stunned "yellow airplane?" when he spied one on page 15 of said Google image search.  He brings me a pen and paper to draw him pictures of airplanes, and when he saw the Caillou episode when they take their first airplane ride together, he crapped his pants.  The poop may or may not have already been in his pants before the episode started, but that's beside the point. His fixation on airplanes has lately taken an interesting turn.  Now, when things go missing, he blames airplanes.  Hat Teddy's hat has disappeared, and when I ask Alex where the hat is, he shrugs, points upward, and then says, "Airplane." "Oh, the airplane took Hat Teddy's hat?...

Andy and Alex know that I existed before they did.  They (or at least Andy) is clear on that much.  I have told them the stories of how they were born.  Mommy had a baby in her belly, and one day she went to the hospital, and the doctor took the baby out.  The baby cried and cried until Mommy got to hold the baby. Then the baby stopped crying, and Mommy looked down and said, "I love this baby soo much! I'm going to name this baby Andy/Alex."   A couple times, Andy has asked, "But how did the doctor get the baby out?"  To which I smartly replied, "I don't know, Andy.  You'll have to ask a doctor." I anticipate more questions about my pre-parenthood life as the kids grow up. Just for fun, here are some answers that I've decided to pre-record. How did you and Daddy meet? Well, Andy and Alex, when a girl reaches the ripe old age of 22 and starts to get worried about her declining youth and fertility, she finds herself turning to the solac...

And so we have reached that magical, mystical time in my life as a parent in which I am actively, constantly lying about the ages of my children.  Perhaps you've heard this story before, but I cannot remember a time in my life in which I was more horrified than when my parents lied about my age to get in somewhere and said I was ELEVEN when I was actually FOURTEEN.  Obviously, there were plenty of more horrifying moments in my life, but that one really stuck with me.  Why don't you all just rub it in that I don't have any boobies? That I am not some super hot teenage girl and instead look like I should be playing with dolls?  Why don't we just knock down my self esteem another half dozen or so notches just to save two dollars on general admission?  I'm in high school and I look ELEVEN?  Really?  Why must you people ALWAYS DO THIS TO ME? Of course, now here I am (almost thirty-four and ironically praying that I don't look a day over twenty-seven), and...

Alex has been threatening to climb out of his crib for a while now.  Not so much in sentence format, but the threat has existed.  It was there when I watched him expertly climb up the rock wall on the big kids section of the park.  It was there when he started insisting on scrambling into his car seat on his own.  It hovered in the air as he started climbing up on the stools at our breakfast bar.   This kid can climb , I heard someone (God or perhaps a commercial) whisper into my ear.  You're on borrowed time with the crib. It finally happened on Monday.  The boys went to bed, and then Chris heard Andy calling for him just a few minutes later.  "Daddy, something's happening in here!"  Andy yelled.  From my spot on the couch downstairs (as it was past seven and officially Wine & Vampire-Related-Movie-or-TV-Show time), I then heard Chris calling for me.  "Jackie, you're going to want to see this." And I did want to see it,...

Four years ago today, I was thinking, "Tomorrow is my due date, I am so unbelievably ready for this kid to come out."  Four years ago tomorrow, I had my last day of work before maternity leave and went home with slight contractions, thinking, "Okay, this is it.  He'll be here by tonight!"  I called the doctor, went in for a stress test, and it was nothing.  Chris and I went home, watched "Avatar," and I went to bed hoping that I'd wake up in the ever so gentle throes of labor.  Four years ago two days from now, we went to the library and out for breakfast as if it were any normal day.  I blinked back tears when the librarian said something about my books being "due," as I was starting to feel a little sensitive about that word.  Four years and three days from now, I took a long walk around the neighborhood feeling like maybe I could exercise the baby out.  Four years and four days from now, I finally went in for my induction and had my b...