Night Walk

The weather's been beautiful 'round here of late, and it's awakened my need to be out there, mixing it up with nature, basking in the glow of a moonrise.  You know, Outward Bound shit. Except for only 20 minutes, and in my neighborhood, and with several ounces of bug spray.

Anyway.

Tonight I invited the Girl to take a night walk with me. She happily accepted, and slipped on her pink kitten rain boots. We walked up the hill , hand in hand, and she scooped up every dandelion that had gone to seed along the way.  She calls them "wishing flowers," because that's what you do with them. You blow the seeds off of the stem, and make a wish.

Her repeated wish?

That her good friend -- one of my best friend's daughters -- would marry the Boy. She realized a long time ago that if the Boy married this particular little girl, then they would be sisters. Once that little factoid manifested, she was cool with their nuptials.

As we summited the hill, the streetlamps came on, and I announced that it was time to go back down the hill to our house.  The girl turned to me, cheeks flushed, blond pigtails floating in the breeze, and asked, "Can I run home?"

"Yup," I answered. 

And off she ran, hair bouncing and streaming behind her like a contrail from a rocket.  She veered around a curve, disappearing from my sight.  I got a little nervous, but this is what raising kids is, right?  You try and game the scenario a little, so that they aren't in frightening situations.  But you let them go, knowing that you taught them to look before they cross the street.

When I laid eyes on her again, she was feigning sleep in our front yard, curled up against the decorative mini-boulder that hides a pipe. She does this when she wants to be carried up to bed, so I obliged. After slipping her in her pajamas, I tucked her in, kissed her on the cheek, and said good night.

And then she demanded snacks, two stories, four cuddles, and a lullaby.  And I thought the walk would tucker her out.

A Love Letter from My Daughter

"Mom, I think that you hate me."

What did I do to deserve such a lovely note? (Though, I should say I applaud her pre-K penmanship and grammar skills.)

This morning, the Boy and the Girl performed their usual morning antics while we waited for the big yellow bus to come scoop the Boy up for school.  By 'antics,' I mean that they both zip around on vehicles of their choosing.  He rides a Spider-man scooter, while she rides a Disney Princess bike equipped with (heavily abused) training wheels. 

They both like to go fast.

They both like to ride the same route.

It was only a matter of time before these preferences resulted in injury.  The Girl sped up the (slight) hill while the Boy raced down.  They clipped each other's handlebars, and he tumbled off the scooter. 

I was hauling plastic garbage bags of yard waste around to the curb (cue: "I Am Every Woman,"), so I saw this all from a few yards away.  I gave him a second to decide if he was hurt. The tears were kind of a tip-off that he decided yes, he was hurt.  Closer inspection revealed scraped palms, a wounded knee,  and a bruised ego.  For the latter, I asked the Girl to apologize.

Now, I didn't want her to apologize because she did anything wrong, but because I am trying to instill a sense of empathy.  When one of my kids hurts another -- accidentally or purposefully -- I want them to be sorry that it happened, and sorry for the hurt the other one feels.  The Little Guy is excused from this since his verbal skills would just confuse the others. Unless he's asking for pizza, goldfish crackers, 'Wiggles,' or 'Scooby Doo,' then he's clear as a bell.

The reason I'm insistent on these apologies is that I've run into (not literally) people who think that apologies are warranted only if they intended to do harm.  Accidents are the universe's fault, so why apologize for those?  If you mow over an old lady to get to the checkout lane that just opened up at the grocery store, well, there's no need to apologize, because you didn't mean to break her hip.

Those people are jerks.

Since I am the boss of my house (well, co-boss), I get to mandate that apologies are offered when injury results from intent OR accidental commission.  And the Girl, well, she has started declaring that she thinks we hate her if we make her do something that goes against her grain.

My response?

"No, honey, I love you, and I want you to grow up and have friends and people who like you and love you.  And if you're unkind to people, you won't have that."

Please don't think I say this beatifically while a short blond banshee wails that we hate her because we didn't give her the 47 pieces of chocolate that she wanted.  No, my calm explanations are at the low points of a dramatic sine wive.  At the zenith?  I usually have to excuse myself from the room so that I can go calm myself down.  And then after we all calm down, there are giggle fits and hugs and kisses.

I don't envy my husband ten years from now, when she's in the thick of puberty and I will likely be in the throes of menopause.

The Morning Routine

The Boy and the Girl are upstairs right now getting ready for school. I can hear them giggling, which I like. Giggling often turns into goofing, though, which then turns into me pulling on my Mantle of Stern and yelling, "What's going on? Is everybody dressed?"

See, the typical, 95%-of-the-time morning routine is this:  I hit the downstairs by 7:15 a.m. and make breakfast. (Often, the kids are already snuggled up on the couch. If not I haul them out of bed, literally). Next, if I haven't done myself a solid and made lunches the night before, I slap those together while they eat their cereal/pancakes/yogurt goo.

On late mornings, I'm sit down with my gourmet breakfast of non-fat Chobani and coffee at 7:45 a.m.  This is when the Goon Squad is supposed to shuffle off to their bedrooms to get dressed, then brush their teeth, and return to the downstairs for shoes, hair brushing, and shoving their schoolwork and lunches into backpacks.  We're out the door by 8:15 a.m. so the Boy can catch the school bus, and then the Girl and I zip off to Pre-K.

As I type this, there was a large thump from the upstairs hallway, and it sounds like the Boy has shut and locked his door. That usually means the Girl is pestering him while he's slipping into his clothes.

Sigh.

It may turn into one of those Volume-Gets-Things-Done mornings.I don't like to yell. Can you imagine me yelling? I avoid conflict like it's a needy drunken sorority girl with a mean streak.

My kids make me feel like Bixby-Hulk sometimes. "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

It's only 7:55 a.m., so I still have my hopes up that they'll arrive momentarily and just need a little help with the shoe-tying and the pig-tailing.

Brief Thought for Today: Ballet Class

I would like for the little girls' leotard industry to have a summit with the little girls' underpants industry so that they can agree on the angle of the cut of both of these things. This will soothe my OCD nature. Why? Because at ballet class, I have noticed that slices of EVERY LITTLE GIRL's underpants peep out from underneath the leotards. I mean, what are they supposed to wear? 5T thongs?

(By the way, I shudder to think of what yucko bots will happen upon this post. If I get any suspicious trackbacks, I will SHUT IT DOWN.)

My First Conversation with the Girl About Boys

"So, do you have any boyfriends in school?"

"Well, I like Sean."

"Oh, really? What do you like about Sean?"

"He has kind of a square head."

Watch out, all you square-headed fellas out there. My 5-year-old is on the prowl for you.

Yes! We're Doing Something Right!

The Girl started preschool this week. Why preschool instead of kindergarten since she's already as self-possessed as a 24-year-old? Because BaCo schools allow you to enroll if you turn five by September 1. If you're born before October 1, then you can be tested and possibly matriculated*. If you are born after October 1, forget about it. The Girl? She was born on November 6, so, off to preschool my daughter goes.

This morning, as I was dropping her off (only moments before, we were making up after a tiff over my too-rapid brushing of her hair), her preschool teacher pulled me aside to say, "She is a beautiful child. You're really doing a good job with her."

Yay! Validation from an (almost) perfect stranger!

*Oh yes, I used "matriculated" in reference to kindergarten.

Pajama Story Time

Last night, I took my oldest two kids to the Pajama Story Time event at our local library. It started at 7:00 p.m., which was the big selling point for me. See, 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. is the witching hour chez Vaughan. The kids are punchy, the Little Guy is usually sailing off to bedtime, and the whole span of time is usually filled with bickering and random blows. I thought the change of venue might help a little.

When we got there, I saw that the story time is intended for kids ages 2 through 5. Perfect for the Girl, not so much for the Boy. I just told him to pretend he was five, and was reminded of my father shaving a few years off of my age whenever we went to a buffet restaurant. Kids under thirteen always ate cheaper. No one ever looked askance at me. 'Tis a boon to be short sometimes.

The Girl was enthralled by story time, and I can see she is going to be SUCH a teacher's pet. Shouting out answers, doing exactly what the 'teacher' says, grinning from ear to ear when told she was correct. Oh lawd, she will love school. The Boy drifted away to the coloring sheets and crayons, which was fine by me. He could've read the selection of stories to the kids gathered together, so I could see that hearing them wasn't really interesting to him.

The whole story time took about 30 minutes. Since I'd expected to be out for about an hour, we decided to go into the library's play room, as did a bunch of the other story time kids. It comprises kiddie kitchen and food market furniture and paraphernalia. The Boy was 'running' the food market for a bit, and the toddlers would steal money from the cash register. He jokingly yelled, "I'm going to call the cops on you!" as they gleefully ran away. The Girl wanted to run the shop with the Boy, but he staunchly refused. Eventually, though, he got kind of bored with it and wandered off to play with something else, and the Girl took control of the shop.

The little ones sharing the room with us were, child by child, snapped up by caretakers to go home for beddy-bye. After most of them had gone, another child and mama entered the room to play. They were African-American. The little girl, about three years old, wandered over to the shop. The cash register drawer popped open, and she helped herself to some of the money.

I think you can see where this is going.

The Girl very happily, and very loudly, shouted, "Call the cops! Call the cops! Call the cops!" AND SHE WOULDN'T STOP. Not for my grumpy face/head shake, not for my death whisper, not for my (hopefully) subtle gesturing. But I couldn't make a HUGE deal out of it, because I knew she was thinking, "Hey! African-Americans steal!" I KNOW she was just playacting what the group had done before, but the newcomers certainly didn't know that. And if I tried to explain it to the newcomers, that would also make it a bigger deal.

Aargh.

I Think This Is Okay, Right?

My daughter is enamored of pop music. Now, I loves me some pop music. I'm not one of those hipsters who chillaxes on the playground blaring Kings of Leon from an iPad to craft a childhood soundtrack for my kids. They're going to like stuff that I can't stand, I know. But she's four, and I really didn't want to hear about how before she leaves she brushes her teeth with a bottle of Jack. So, I decided to expose her to pop that isn't part of today's tween machine.

I will take a moment to acknowledge that I am putting old skool pop (i.e., '80's pop) on a bit of a pedestal. My head knows that it is not any better, critically, than today's stuff. But my heart? My heart defies you to compare, say, Katy Perry to Cyndi Lauper.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post.

My husband's car has a many-CD changer, and he grabbed some discs from my collection (yes, I still have PHYSICAL music, 'cause I'm vintage like that). I suggested Cyndi Lauper. I mean, I studied Cyndi Lauper in a Cultural Studies class ("Oh mama dear we're not the fortunate ones" being a subtle reference to women's rights.). That means Cyndi Lauper SHOULD be heard, right?

Yeah, I forgot about "She Bop." It's an ode to masturbation. And my daughter loves it. LOVES IT. Knows all the words. Still, I think it's better to sing along with this than getting footless drunk and waking up hung over in strange places, right?

Kids' Books that Creep Me Out

With a two-year-old and a four-year-old in the house, our family has been given an inordinate number of books. Books when they were born, books for their birthdays, books for visits from grandparents, hand-me-down books from my siblings, hand-me-over books from neighbors, books that were treasured by Super Ninja and came packed tightly among other presents from his parents.... Their collection of literature rivals ours. They've filled three bookshelves, and their over-sized books spill out onto the floor. WHY, by the way, are many of the books for little children HUGE? It would be like me reading a novel on poster board. This would make me very angry, and you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

Anyway, Super Ninja and I are huge bibliophiles, so it's no surprise that our children are quite fond of the written word. The Boy, who will be five in July, is reading independently. I can't take credit (much). It's all due to his daycare provider. He's not fluent, yet, though -- there are a handful of words in each book that he doesn't know. When he stumbles over one, he pads over to me, looks at me, looks at the word, looks at me, looks at the word, until I tell him what the word is.* You can tell that he's filing it away for future use, and I very rarely need to tell him what a word is a second time. The Girl is doing that pre-reader thing where she kind of makes up her own story to fit the pictures.

Periodically, these lovely children of mine will bring books to me that I really, really don't want to read to them. Because (shhh) I don't like them. They creep me out or irritate me in a big, big way. And then I feel bad that I'm imposing my taste on them. I mean, listen, they ARE going to love Depeche Mode when the time is right. That's a given. But when it comes to books, they should have freedom of choice, right? So I read them. Reluctantly, but I read them. Why? Because nothing piques interest like parental disfavor, right?

Here are the books that I may have to disappear from the collections:

1) The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein. Thing one against it? The monstrous picture on the back of Shel Silverstein in all of his gap toothed glory. Seriously, the guy looks like a Island of Dr. Moreau combo of a serial killer and a jack o'lantern. Forget the graphics, though. Let's talk about the message in the book. A boy keeps asking things of the tree, and the tree keeps giving, and giving, and giving, until the tree is a stump. And STILL the tree gives when it allows the boy, now an old man who needs to rest, to sit on her stump. You may tell me that the book was originally intended to be an ecological statement about all that nature gives to us. That may be true, but most folks I know interpret the tale as a metaphor for the parent-child relationship. And if you take it that way, the parent gives until s/he's eviscerated. The boy NEVER says thank you, never says, "Gee, you know, I've asked so much of you, it's time I figure things out for myself." Oh no. He's like, "Awesome, you've given me everything you've got to give. Anything else?"

No, you greedy bastard. I'm JUST A STUMP.

2) Love You Forever, Robert Munsch. Okay, all of you weepies out there. I know that you lose it at the end of this book when the Circle of Life rolls along and the man carries his graying tiny mother to bed, just as she put him to bed when he was an wee babe. I get it. Know what I don't get, though? The page where the mother, under cover of darkness, props a ladder against her adult son's house, sneaks in through a window, and gazes at him adoringly. As a woman married to a man who's mother might do something like this, I shiver a little when I get to this page.

3) Rainbow Fish, by Marcus Pfister. I want my children to share. Really, I do. And I want them to be nice to other kids. But I don't think I want them to give of themselves until they are almost completely depleted just so that other kids like them. Isn't that what the message of this beautifully illustrated book is? The rainbow fish is a little hoity-toity about his sparkly scales, the other fish don't care for his big ego, so he gives away all of his scales to the other fish so that they, too, have sparkly beauty of their very own and will be nice to him. What are my kids supposed to do? Pluck strands of blond hair and pass them out at recess? I think that would earn them a trip to the guidance counselor for a psychological evaluation. "Hello, Mrs. Super Ninja? This is Mrs. X from the Boy's school? Yeah, he's got trichotillomania."

Awesome.

4) Any book that makes noise. Not that these books are all bad or anything, but the Girl has been keeping herself awake at night by secreting one of these under her covers and then pressing the buttons relentlessly. So, I am only against them because in the morning I get a grumpy toddler to, ahem, enjoy after one of her late night adventures.

I'm sure this list will grow, but those are the only ones... For now.

*Right now, the Boy is physically incapable of ASKING for help. We're working on this. I don't want to fall into a pattern where I'm helping him simply because he emits a grunt of frustration. Know what that gets you? A grunty kid whose mother interferes before he has a chance to solve his own problem, and then, before I know it, I'm in the middle of a pattern where he's allowed to be mad at me for not fixing his problem AND he's mad at me that I tried to fix it without really knowing what the problem is. No thank you. I want him to request help and to state what the problem is so that (A) I don't have to guess, (B) he doesn't take his frustration out on me, and (C) he acknowledges that I am doing him a solid by helping him, and that he should be grateful and not grumpy.

Yesterday at the Playground

The Boy: I'm Sunny Superhero!* And you, (he points to his father) are Dark [sic] Vader!

The Girl: I Pink Hulk!

So, yeah, I think we're doing a fair job of introducing our children to Nerd World, and ensuring that they will have a limited number of friends.

*This is a super hero of his own invention. Sunny Superhero can fly, and "has the power of sunbeams," which basically means he can shoot laser beams of sunshine from his fingers.

Mother Moment

For better or for worse, I don't define myself as a mother first. If someone asked me what I do, that wouldn't be the first thing that I mentioned. Even if I were a stay-at-home mother, I don't think I'd answer, "Well, I have two kids..."

There are some who would be horrified by that, and they would assume (a) that I am incredibly selfish, (b) that I don't love my children properly, (c) that I take the Boy's and the Girl's wonderful presence in my life for granted, or (d) all of the above. None of those things are true about me, but go ahead and be all judgy.

Anyway, I know there are scores of people who define themselves as parent first and foremost. Just take a look around Facebook and see how many profile pictures of your friends feature their progeny. Cripes, some of my friends' profile pics don't even include themselves. It's like they can't even wait for people to look at their bios or stats or whatever to see that they have children -- that bit of news is FRONT AND CENTER, baby.

Truth is, my children's welfare is always, always, always the first thing I consider in big decisions. For instance: Super Ninja and I are looking to move so that we can be in a really good school district as opposed to the dicey one that we're in now. Oh, and sidewalks. My kingdom for a network of sidewalks.

Perhaps my low-key-itude is overcompensation for my own mother's attitude toward motherhood? Ask her anything, ANYTHING, about herself, and the fact that she has seven children will come up within 30 seconds.

Let's analyze that later.

The whole reason I started writing this post is because I had one of those didn't-think-it-was-weird-'til-later moments over the weekend. Let me set the scene: the Girl seems to have a bit of an allergy to something floating in the air 'round our manse, so she's been a bit stuffy. But two-year-olds aren't proficient at the whole nose-blowing thing, and the air has been a bit dry despite prodigious use of humidifiers, so the end result was a crusty glob of yuck plugging up her nostrils. It was particularly bad yesterday morning. From several feet away, I could hear her exhalations whistling around the chunks in her nose.

So, I did what any mother would do.

I bribed her with M&Ms. Why the bribe? To allow me to pick her nose, of course. That's right. No tissue was going to get the job done. These things required extraction. But when the yuck gets that big, the removal is a little painful, even it it is softened up a little with some of this stuff. The M&Ms were to tempt her to stay still for a nano-second so that I didn't accidentally pierce her nose or anything like that. Four M&Ms later, we were done.

Victory.

The thing is, I wasn't grossed out by it. I wanted to do it. I was compelled to do it. And, when all was said and done, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I scrubbed my hands thoroughly afterward, to be sure. But I didn't dry heave or anything like that.

And that's the kind of quiet moment that defines motherhood to me. It's not proclaiming from a mountaintop that I am a mother. It's just being one. Showering my kids with affection, and truly being eager to roll up my sleeves and do the grunt work that helps them, be it teaching them to read, explaining social interactions, or pinning them down and picking their noses so that they breathe more easily.

So, suck on that, ye doubters.

There Ain't No Party Like a Gymboree Party 'Cause a Gymboree Party Don't Stop

The kids are invited to not one, but TWO parties this weekend. They are social butterflies. Their parents are introverts. So this should go well.

Actually, the hosts are college friends of Super Ninja's, so it's not like we're going be mingling amongst perfect strangers. The kicker, though, is that both of the parties are at the same place: Gymboree. If you are not familiar, Gymboree is a kids' clothing store-cum-arts & crafts learning center (among other things). I've not taken the kids there for any kind of educational purposes, and I rarely shop there, because I am a little suspicious of any place that sells adult clothes that match the kid clothes. You know, for those perfectly coordinated family photos.

Given my hesitations, I'm going to go ahead and bet that the kids LOVE both parties this weekend, to the extent that they will beg me to go back until my head explodes. Should be a hoot!

Big Girl Beds

The Girl embraces change. The Boy kind of needs to be talked into some things. But the Girl? Not so much. Take this past weekend, for example...

Super Ninja and I have been dithering over her sleeping arrangements. We moved the Boy into his toddler bed when he turned two, mostly because we knew we were going to need the crib for the Girl and we didn't want him to feel like we booted him out of his comfy crib in favor of the new baby. Which, in fact, is what we were doing. But he loved his toddler bed, and we loved that we didn't have to sweat the consequences if he tumbled out of it.

Anyway, most books and other other parents will advise that you leave a kid in a crib as long as she isn't make any attempts at a prison break. The Girl is quite content to sit and snooze. I've never even seen her stand up in the crib, so there's no pressing need to move her into a regular bed. At least not from our perspective.

On Saturday afternoon, though, she said she was tired. A few minutes later, she was nowhere to be found. She's too little to open heavy doors, though, so we knew she was probably upstairs. Super Ninja crept into her bedroom (he is after all, a ninja) and found that she'd grabbed her stuffed dog, crawled into the guest bed that eats up a corner of her room, pulled up the covers, and drifted off to sleep.

Guess she made the decision to move to the big bed on her own.

A footnote to the story: that night, when I was putting her to bed, I told her that now that she was sleeping in a big girl bed, she was becoming a big girl, and would need to think about giving up her pacifier. She informed me, "I not a big girl. I little tiny." Which leads me to believe we're going to have as much fun breaking her of this habit as we did with the Boy.

Some things are the same from child to child, eh?

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

And I don't mean this guy.*

Last week, the Girl turned two. I didn't write about it, because I am inspired to write only when there's an opportunity for sarcasm or it's cousin, snark. But the Girl is sweetness and light. I mean, really. When she has a tantrum, she kind of whines and mopes over to the stairs, and lays down on the bottom step. The Boy also employed this civil disobedience-style tantrum, but he would do it right in the middle of the floor, or sidewalk, or whatever. She tucks herself away in a corner. Can I complain about that? Not really.

What else would I write about? That she's turned our lullaby routine into a duet, but prefers to sing either in a growl or a a squeal because she knows it makes me laugh? Or that she gives kisses on the cheek? Or when she sees me says, "Mommy! Yay!" Seriously, do you want to throw up now or what?

But, there is some aftermath from the perfectly lovely birthday party that I need to describe.

The Girl is waaaaaaaaay into Disney Princesses right now. Some women won't let their kids within 100 yards of all the princess stuff. Me? I don't intend to raise the child to think that a magical person, talking animal, or a rich doof will rescue her from day-to-day life. Rather, I want to raise both of my kids to understand that a life partner is someone who makes the day-to-day stuff seem magical. And I don't think some dolls and movies are going to undermine that.

ANYWAY, I bought a truly enormous Mylar Disney Princess balloon for the Girl. She loves it, the boy loves it, everybody loves it. But I don't think it loves me. In fact, I think it has it in for me. It's following me around the house. You could say that it's haunting me. It is gently swaying about four feet away from me right now. It started out upstairs. How did it get down here? Malice. Oh, fine, it might be the air current from my fancy schmancy central air. But if I don't post again, you can rest assured that it is the demon balloon that did me in.

*Oh, God, Super Ninja. What have you done to me? I can't reference things like a normal person. I DON'T KNOW WHAT CONSTITUTES COMMON KNOWLEDGE ANYMORE.

Take that, Malibu Barbie.

A validating conversation was held amongst my family on the way to daycare drop-off yesterday. I was not in the car at the time. Super Ninja, a man among men, does the daycare drop-off and pick-up because he works closest to home. He relayed the following exchange to me:

"Dad?" said the Boy.

"Yes buddy?"

"I love...Mommy."

(melting...I'm melting...)

"I love Mommy too, Boy."

"I love Mommy...too?" said the Girl.

"Yes, Girl, we all love Mommy."

"Mommy is...bootiful."

(oh my God I'm infused with warmth I thought was only possible through shots of whisky...)

I'm thrilled that my almost-two-year-old girl thinks that I'm beautiful, even though she has no idea what that means. Considering her main frame of reference is the Disney Princess collective and some stacked superheroines, I have stiff competition.

The truth is, I experienced a moment of terror soon after she was born. Well, I guess there are many moments of terror with a newborn. But this one was different from any that I had with my son. See, I realized that I was going to be the standard of, well, not beauty necessarily, but maintaining one's self for my daughter.

Kids look to their parents for examples and standards, right? Boys usually look to their fathers, and girls to their mothers. This is why I henpeck Super Ninja to go to doctors and dentists. I'm a big believer in leading through example -- you can tell kids it's important to brush their teeth, but until they see you brushing, flossing, and going to the dentist, they might write it off as another one of those things that you're telling them they must do when it's really just optional.

And I also believe that the way you take care of something is an outward sign of how much you value it. When you drive by a house that has junk in the yard and grass that is outrageously overgrown, you don't think that the people who live there cherish their address, do you? So, if you're wearing stained and ripped clothing, you're kind of telling the world that you just don't care. Which, come to think of it, may be the point. I'm looking at you, Punk era.

It's such a tricky line. I want to instill in both of them that they need to take care of themselves, and that the world does judge them by how they present themselves. But how do you reconcile that idea with the reality that they should, in turn, only judge people by the content of their characters and not whether or not they have 10 pairs of Guess? jeans and a different Forenza sweatshirt for every day of the week*.

Not sure where I was really going with this. Maybe I'm just glad that my daughter notices, at her tender age, that I make an effort? Then again, I think Jabba the Hutt, Jr., probably that that Gardulla was the cat's pajamas, so p'raps I should not read that much into this....

*Sorry. Bitter moment from 1987.

Look at Me, I'm Raggedy Ann

While on vacation, my daughter was watching a Baby Einstein video. If you haven't been treated to one of these, let me explain what they are... Basically, someone found a lot of cute and colorful toys, and filmed them doing whatever it is they do. Rolling, hopping, sitting still. I firmly believe that they are actually watched more by kids who are stoned than kids who are teething, but I digress.

Anyway, one of the toys featured on this particular video was a Raggedy Ann doll. When Raggedy Ann's visage popped up on screen, The Girl yelled, "Mommy!" At first I thought she was simply drawing my attention to it, but then I realized that she thinks that I LOOK LIKE RAGGEDY ANN.

This is not the toy that most women would like to resemble. Barbie, Jem, maybe a Bratz doll if you're a hooker... But not Raggedy Freakin' Ann. I mean, look:

I shared my ire with the husband of one of my college roommates, and he looked at the image, then at me, then at the image, then at me, and said, "Well..."

I stopped him right there. Look, I KNOW that I look like R.A. I know it. I don't wear an apron or candy cane stockings, but I have a big moon face and a halo of hair that looks reddish at times. I KNOW THIS. But man, you don't want anyone to TELL you this.

My only consolation in this is that Super Ninja owned and loved a Raggedy Ann doll when he was little. So maybe, at an early age, he already knew his type. Don't know what that says about him, but it kinda makes me feel better about the whole thing.

Everyone Should Get to Wear a Cape

The Boy is back to full-on superhero worship, to the extent that the first thing he does when he gets home and slings whatever cape-like apparel is available around his neck. His bath towel, a dish towel, anything can be a cape. And sometimes, he has an actual cape. My sister gave me a homemade Robin costume a few years ago, and while the boy has outgrown every other piece of it, the cape, of course, still fits.

My heart explodes with happy whenever I see the three-and-a-half-foot Boy Wonder run by in his yellow cape.

Oh, and the Girl has learned how to make "whoosh" flying noises, so when she chases after her be-caped older brother, she punctuates her actions with "fyooh fyooh" sounds.

This Could Be the Start of a Beautiful Friendship

The Boy and the Girl really seem to enjoy each other's company. I mean, I guess they could be faking it for our benefit. But I figure that kind of deceit is at least four years in the future, so their giggles must be the real deal. I couldn't be more relieved...

About a month before the Girl was born, I had a total meltdown over how the Boy would handle his world's imminent upheaval. In my mega-progesteroney state, I fretted that Super Ninja and I had decided on having this second babe, and that the Boy, who is a rather important part of our family, had NO vote in a matter that would drastically affect his life. And then I took a step back and rationalized that I hadn't asked for my younger brother, and I'm desperately glad that my parents went for a seventh kid. Besides, the Girl was a fait accompli.

Well, the Boy has been about as sweet as any child could be with a younger sibling. There have been many hugs, kisses, tickles, and offers of toys. You may think that I'm making this up, but it's all true. Feel free to sip some Mommy haterade, 'cause I know I'd be annoyed with someone like me if my kids were twisted up in a fistfighty knot every day. Who knows? Those days may yet come.

But today? The Girl would snatch a toy from the Boy's table of trains, and giggle as she ran away with it. And what did the Boy do? Giggle, chase her and try to snag Cranky back from her. Once he retrieved the toy, he handed her another toy that she could run away with, so that he could chase her, his Superman pajama cape flapping in the wind.

An Experiment in Gender Roles

Last night, the Boy discovered Superman. He knew about Superman. You can't grow up in the home that Super Ninja and I have made without knowing about Superman. But we are the recent recipients of some hand-me-down toys and videos, one of which is a compilation of three 1940's era* Superman cartoons. I should've known what was coming when Super Ninja was going through the videos and pulled out a stack that he wanted to watch, excitedly muttering something about "Fleischer cartoons!"

Sure enough, after the Girl was tucked away in her crib and I was doing the dishes, I heard some forties-era bombast blaring from the TV. Superman was rescuing the good people of Metropolis from some Japoteurs.* Happy to let the father/son bonding continue, I called a college friend and finished tidying up the house. Moments later, I peeked in on them again, and Super Ninja was flouncing around the living room with a blanket tied around his neck. this was especially funny to me because, in order to complete the Clark Kent/Superman transformation at the Boy's request, he had to whip off his glasses. Super Ninja is as blind as a mole without his specs, so his flouncing was replete with shin barking. But he happily took one for the team. I mean, what self-respecting geek wouldn't do the very same if his son was applauding his Superman role play?

As for the Girl...

This morning, she toddled over to me while I was putting on a tricky bracelet. She pointed to it and grunted, which usually means she wants to hold something, which is usually followed by stuffing it into her mouth. This is a sturdy bracelet, so I held it out to her and asked her if she wanted to hold it. She gave me a look that quite clearly said, "No, that's not what I want. Guess again." And she held her hand out again, but held it still. Lightbulb moment.

"Do you want to wear this?" asked I.

She smiled and applauded, so I wrapped the bracelet round her wrist. She crunched her face up so much that her eyes disappeared in her smile. Then she walked over to her father and her brother to show off her bauble. Then she circled back around to me to return it, which I thought was quite mature of her.

Yeah, so that nature vs. nurture thing? There's definitely a mix of both. We give the Girl cars and tools to play with, and we give the Boy dollies and pretend food. (Not exclusively -- we're not going all the way in the other direction.) But he wants to play superheroes, and she wants to wear pretty jewelry. Go figure.

*Japanese saboteurs. Yes, I recognize the anti-Japanese sentiment. The Boy is too young to understand that these were made at the height of World War II paranoia, but we don't want to inadvertently instill Japanophobia, so we're just calling them saboteurs.

The Post in Which I Reveal Myself to Be One of THOSE Mothers

On a scale of 1 to 10, I think my kids would rate about a 7 for appropriate behavior in public. The Boy hasn't quite learned what an inside voice is. And he's developed a fetish for a clean nose. Suffice it to say, he digs for gold about as often as Yukon Cornelius.

We're working on it.

But for the most part, they don't pinball around waiting rooms, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. They aren't particularly whiny or tearful. And they are usually pretty cooperative. So when I perceive that people in the business of rendering service to children are less than friendly, well, it's annoying.

Last night, we took the Girl to an ear, nose and throat specialist, to whom we were referred by her pediatrician. The pediatrician wanted her to be seen by said specialist because the Girl developed her first ear infection about a month ago. Despite being on Amoxicillin for 10 days, it became two ear infections. After second round of antibiotics (Cedifir, this time), the two ear infections raged on, and the Girl was placed on a third, different round of antibiotics which seems to have knocked it out of her system. Despite that, her pediatrician wants to diagnose the need for Eustachian tubes for the Girl early, if at all. Dr. G doesn't want to continue to pump her full of antibiotics, which I support, because I don't want the Girl to become resistant to their effects.

Wouldn't you think that a place to which I am referred for the treatment of a one-year-old, a place that accepts an appointment for a one-year-old, would have medical professionals who have a better bedside manner and equipment for toddlers? They wanted to weigh the Girl, but they didn't have a children's scale. They just asked me to hold her and stand on the scale with her. They didn't weight me separately, though, so they took my word for my guess as to what I weigh (we don't have a scale at home, so I honestly don't know). Yay for imprecision. Then they asked me if I happened to remember how long she is. I couldn't. But did they measure her? Nope. They just left it blank.

When the doctor came into the room, he asked me about the reason for my visit. So, I told him (I'd already told the physician's assistant, who typed it into a laptop where one would assume the doc could read it). He asked me if she seemed to be having trouble walking. Well, yeah, but that's only because she's one and doesn't really walk without holding onto to furniture. Then, he asked me if she's talking. Again, not really, on account of her being one year old. She's mastered, "Mama," "Dada," and "Bah" for bottle, but that's about it. He gives me one of those, "Oh really?" looks.

Now I'm feeling like my kid is behind the curve, when she's most assuredly at least in the middle of the pack for her age.

We've now arrived at the time when the doctor needs to look in her ears with the otoscope. Fair enough. But I have to restrain her so that he doesn't puncture her ear drum. The Girl is kind of big for her age, so this is no mean feat. Speaking of feet... Well, I'm not Lakshmi, so I couldn't hold onto her feet as well as both of her arms and her head, so she delivered a few good kicks to the doc's solar plexus. He briefly mentioned this after the exam, when he was sending me down the hall for another test to measure the amount of fluid he detected behind the Girl's left ear.

Great. So not only did he imply that she's not developmentally up to snuff, he also implies that she's, ahem, spirited.

I pick up my daughter and my work bag, and traipse down the hall to the other little room for the test. The tech says something like, "I hear you're a kicker!" She then explains that the test we are trying to do involves inserting a plug in the Girl's ear for about 5 seconds. Easy enough, right? Oh, except the test is invalidated if she cries. Have you ever tried stick something in a one-year-old's ear for five seconds, prevent her from ripping it out, and expect her not to cry? Didn't think so.

The tech and I had been trying to accomplish by distracting the Girl with toys for all of two minutes when the doctor poked his head in the office to see if we'd finished yet. We obviously hadn't. We tried a few different tacks, none of which panned out. The doctor came back after two more minutes, and said we'd just have to schedule a follow-up for a month from now to make sure the fluid had drained from the left ear. At that point he said to MY DAUGHTER, "And maybe we can schedule it for earlier in the day when you're not so tired."

This was a full two hours before her normal bedtime. She wasn't tired, she was annoyed. It could have been nine in the morning, and she'd still be grumpy about strangers poking things in her ears.

Yeah, so I think I'll be scheduling her follow-up at the other branch of this particular practice. You know, where they might grasp that a one-year-old will be docile during this kind of inspection if they are (a) asleep, or (b) drugged.

Sheesh.