Don't Ask

Yeah, weird things happen in our house. Like I'm making dinner and Luke is suddenly very quiet and busy, and next thing you know his dog Nut and cat Chairman Mao are face-down in mixing bowls filled with raisins ("They were hungry."). Or I'm washing dishes and I look over and Luke has pulled out the meat grinder and is poring over the order form for new attachment pieces. ("Can we get this egg whipper?")

Of course toys are never played with the way they're 'supposed' to be. Musical instruments, books, figurines, cars - everything is a tool or a blade. The stomp rocket is a sewer cleaner. My colanders are welding masks. The exersaucer is...well...just a goofy place to hang out.

Zach is cool with the idea that anything goes. He loves playing ball with Dave and Luke and he thinks throwing the ball is hilarious. So he's decided, why wait for someone to give me a ball to get some good throwing action? If you sit him somewhere long enough, you'll have to cover your head before the blocks, chewy toys, or heavy stuff starts flying.

Maybe I exaggerate - our home is not a complete den of lawlessness. It's just a little bit of a mess. But it's sure not a bad place to visit. Anyone who comes over is likely to be smothered in wet, sticky hugs and kisses, invited for dinner, and asked to stay for dessert. You just have to watch out above and below.

Haircut 1.0

Dave took Zach and Luke for haircuts on Monday with Haircutter to the (Child) Stars Linda. "But Zach doesn't really have any hair," you might say. True, but HttCS Linda agreed with us that the top/middle and sides needed a trim to make everything even. He was fine, and they gave him the whole "baby's first haircut" package, and he looks cute and even a little collegiate.

As it happens, Zach is 9 months old today, and his time on earth thus far seems to be wearing on him. After countless colds and countless sleepless nights, he was diagnosed with a double ear infection today and given a new round of antibiotics (round three, for whomever is keeping score at home). The big question of the night is, how long will he sleep, on this particular night when Dave is not home? The first time I put him down it was just 45 minutes. That is a sign of a long night ahead.

Luke, who is also freshly shorn, is actually doing pretty well in the sleep department (knock on wood, please). Last night after he had been tucked in I came out of the bathroom to find him curled up outside the door of our room. "There are monsters in my room," he said.
I tried to think quickly of a tool I could give him. As it happened, he was sitting right outside the linen closet.
"You know," I told him, "Monsters are really afraid of rags. That's why when you say 'Rags!' they run away. Why don't I give you this washrag to use against the monsters?"
"Can I bring it to bed with me?"
"Of course!"
"OK, I think that's a really good idea."
So he snuggled up with the washrag, satisfied, and I didn't hear from him again until morning. Tonight the rag is back in bed with him. Let's hope it works its magic.

Mid-winter blues

It's true; we're all just a bunch of cranks over here, even though it's 70 degrees and sunny outside. Luke is having more potty issues, Zach is having more sleeping/teething issues, and I'm just plain old having issues. So let me try to think of some good things to say:

Luke had his four-year appointment and The Amazing Dr. L. pronounced him "incredibly advanced" (verbally) for a four-year-old and "one of her favorite patients." This is after he charmed everyone in the waiting room and invited them all over to our house for dinner.

We had a little talk with his teacher the other day about his "dominant" personality and tendency to want to direct the action. I noticed this at the train park yesterday, when he was driving the train, and was disappointed to find that there were no kids riding in the back. So he told another kid: "Will you get some kids to ride in the back of the train so I can drive them?" and the kid obediently started rounding up other participants. As I told Dave, this is how political campaigns begin...

The blade obsession continues unabated. Here you see Luke sitting in the back of our "trash truck" waiting for the "big blade" to come down and crush everything.


Zach is working on teeth #s 5 and 6, and it appears to be painful enough that it is keeping us all up at night. In the daytime, he wants nothing more than to stand up in most every situation. Oh, and he seems to say "Mama" at all of the appropriate times, so we really believe him to be talking. (After he finishes nursing, he also says, "Deese," which I like to think of as kind of teen slang for "Decent meal, mom.")

I was so happy to hear from a long-lost friend last week; she has three boys, ages 13, 10, and 7, and she says that at those ages, the order of the day is giving Mom lip and pretending you don't know her. After a few super-needy days like this, I could handle being ignored a little bit. Am I ready for it?

The next Ansel Adams

Here's a picture of Zach; what's remarkable about it is that it was taken by Luke on his new kid-camera (Xmas present from Grandma Bobbie and Granddad). Even though the resolutions are tiny, the pictures are astonishingly good, for a first-timer. I should let him do all of the photos on this blog from now on. (What's also astonishing about this picture of Zach is that he is sitting down, not standing up, which he wants to do 99.99 percent of the time. ) Luke also took some hilarious pictures of Papa, Uncle Joe, and Uncle Larry, but I wouldn't dare publish them in this forum for fear of retribution.

Yesterday we went to the aquarium and Luke marched along with his camera bag slung across his shoulder, National Geographic explorer-style, carefully snapping pictures of fish, rocks, divers, and in some cases, his thumb or the floor. Here's one of a grim-looking bottom-feeder. Don't you just love the composition and the tones, evoking a somber underwater mood? This kid's a pro, I tell you.

Dave is giving me the gift of a "free" afternoon by taking both boys to a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party. Not sure how I'll spend my newfound time but it's not likely to include bad pizza or video games. Lucky, lucky me.

Sleep set

Usually when I wake up I tally up my sleep segments (consecutive hours of sleep between wakeups) to see if they combine to make anything vaguely resembling a normal night. During the past few months it would go 5,2 or 4,3. When we were on vacation it shifted to something like 3,2 or 2,2 or the dreaded 1,2. I realized my sleep segments are kind of like my bowling scores. I'm lucky to hit more than one pin at a time, and I have to be super-lucky to hit more pins on the second try. So last night I had one of my best-ever bowling sleep sets: first 7 hours, then 30 minutes. That's because everyone cooperated, even insomniac Dave. A good set indeed. Pause for golf claps. Thank you very much.

Luke is still spending a fair amount of time wondering about the afterlife. "What's the name of that man up in the sky who made the day?" he asked me the other day. ("You mean God?" "Yes!")
The questions continue:
"When I am an angel, will I have a magic wand?"
"Will I be able to do magic?"
"What do I do after I'm finished being an angel?"
"How do I get up to Heaven?"

These questions are just one category of three that he'll ask about repeatedly, the other two being bodily functions (bones, organs, blood) and means of destruction (blades, grinders, choppers, etc. ). Sample questions from yesterday:
"How does the blood get the vitamins out of my food?" and "What do your organs that have the poop in them look like?"
..and also: "Can I see the blade in the pepper grinder?" and my current favorite, "How do you light a fire in the fireplace? Can we just shoot a cannon into it?"

Zach is all over the map - he's sick, he's better, he's sleeping, he's not sleeping. Today he wouldn't nap so I threw in the towel, so to speak, and walked down to the beach with him and put him in the swingset on the sand. Sometimes I do that when I just want to watch him laugh and laugh. Today the beach was so empty you could hear the footsteps whenever a runner came by. Absolute bliss.