Filling in the gaps

When it's a long time since I last blogged, it means I'm not getting much sleep, because instead of blogging in my off-time, I'm trying to get some extra shut-eye. I guess I should say that life is good; it's just that I'm awake for too darned much of it.


Zach is now basically sitting up by himself, though he's generally in tri-pod (hands out in front of him) position and he's pretty tippy. He's also happy and talkative and laugh-y (especially at 5:30 in the morning, go figure) and he seems like he's ready to swim the 500 freestyle: If you put him on his tummy, he arches his back and his arms and legs start flailing like one of those wind-up bath toys.

What else? He's practically a menace at the dinner table because all he wants to do is grab things and see what it looks like when they fall on the floor. That's not too pretty, as you can imagine. Oh, and now that his head control is so much better, he's really gotten a lot less jowl-y. So all in all, a few steps forward (unless you were very attached to the jowl look, which I kinda was, but it sure was hard to keep clean).

Last time I wrote about how I thought Luke was a natural politician. Now I'm thinking...film director. He has all of these elaborate stories/fantasies, and he spends an inordinate amount of time placing people in different positions and dictating what they should say. Example: Last week after we went to the aquarium, he had this thing going on at dinnertime where he was a shark with three rows of teeth and Dave and I were the divers who were feeding him ("Man diver, now you say to the lady diver, 'I think the shark wants another bite of his shark-turkey'") and it went on and on like this for so long that he was still dictating us our lines long after dinner was over and we were outside on our after-dinner walk. (Luke: "Now can the lady diver say to the man diver, 'Don't put your hands too close to the shark when he opens his mouth'" Dave: "Time for the shark to take a rest!") I know Luke is one of the oldest ones in his class at school and he seems to have a reputation as kind of a ringleader. I can only imagine what kinds of scenarios he's having people act out at school when he has their full undivided attention for the day.

In the "just how smart is he" category: Yesterday Dave was sitting outside with the sun shining on half his face. Luke said to him, "Daddy, you're just like Earth. Half of you is in the sun, and it's day time; and half of you is dark like it's night time." OK, so he can't count past 12 and can't write the letter "L" - but hey, he understands the solar system! He's an astrophysics genius! (As long as they don't require him to do any of that counting stuff...)

Talk about burying the lead: I guess the biggest headline is that this week I formally quit my job (as in, signed the papers and everything). I'll still be a "special contractor" but I'll essentially be the boss of my own time. I guess I just haven't thought about it that much - I'm so confident that it's the right thing that I haven't dwelled too much on the scary "not getting any more paychecks" part of it.

In a strange poetic twist, the week that I quit my job to stay home with the kids also happens to be the week that we found our dream nanny. Juana was my friend Lisa's nanny, before Lisa quit her job, and now she's filling in her time with odd hours here and there while she looks for a new family. As soon as Juana stepped into the house, we knew that she was our personal Mary Poppins. Within the first hour she had taught me things that I never knew about how to play with/engage Zach, and she had him laughing and moving around like a wiggleworm. On Friday she showed up at our door lugging two pop-up tents and a pop-up tunnel for Luke to play in. Side note: She doesn't drive, so she has to take three buses and a train to get to our house to babysit. How messed-up are the economics of that situation? Anyway, Luke and Zach both adore her and I'm thinking that we should just offer her our spare room downstairs for a while. And if she got up with them at night, so much the better.


Parting shot: Luke talks with a policeman about how to use a radar gun. Insert joke here.

Meet the Mayor

When Zach and I are home alone three days a week, we do quite a few retail excursions. Zach doesn't mind shopping as long as it is done at a quick clip with no loitering in front of displays. That works out OK for groceries but not so much for clothes. Exhibit A: buying a pair of jeans. In the past, for me, this would have involved several trips to several different stores, with plenty of time for mulling options. Boot cut or straight leg? Low-rise or mid-rise? Stone-washed? Premium denim? European sizing?

But today I just plain needed a pair of jeans, and I had no choice but to bring Zach along for the ride. As I pushed the stroller into Old Navy I could tell he was in no mood for mulling. So slowly, subtly, like a hawk gliding in to capture its prey, I guided the stroller in smaller and smaller circles closer to the displays, until I could read the sizes as I passed by each pair.

"Can I help you?" asked a sales clerk.
"Yes, I just need an 8-short."
"Which cut? Diva boot-leg?"
Still circling slowly, I surveyed the entire wall of jeans. "Doesn't matter - I'll take the first 8-short you see."

So she spotted some jeans and tossed them over to me, and -- as if in a small-scale, extremely boring version of the movie "Speed" ("This stroller cannot go slower than two miles per hour!") -- I dashed over to the dressing room - shorts off, jeans on, fits OK, shorts back on - and then off to the cash registers without ever stopping. Funny thing is, the jeans look just fine. Maybe I should try that at other stores too. I'll just wheel back and forth in front of, say, a shoe store, and call out, "I need a nice black pump in a 6 1/2!" and they'll toss a box out the door to me, without even breaking my stride.

Luke seems to have broken free of a lot of the crankiness/adjustment issues he had over the summer and now he's just back to being good old Luke, only more so. I really think he might be preparing to run for office of some kind. Like on Sunday, when he delivered an impassioned speech about dogs to a small crowd of people waiting for tables at our local coffee shop. (There might have been something in there about health care too, but I lost track after a few of the big applause lines.) Or yesterday, at school, when I learned that he had invited all of the teachers and the maintenance man over for dinner ("Mackerel and sculpin and ham sandwiches").

In the late afternoons, we've started going over to our little elementary school because it's kind of a neighborhood kid-gathering place. Yesterday, Luke took off when we got there and I was amused to find him hanging out and chewing the fat with some much-bigger kindergartners, first-graders, and second-graders. By the time I got in on the conversation, he had already invited them over to our house to play. "I'll come!" said one kindergartner/future campaign volunteer. "OK," said Luke, "but I want that one to come too," - pointing to the biggest kid in the group, a second-grader three heads taller than Luke. One of our neighbors was laughing as he watched Luke work his way through the playground making sure that he knew everyone's name. "He's like the mayor of Morningside Drive," said Scott. That's kinda true. But when he starts asking for campaign contributions, we're in trouble.

Laugh it up

In the past few days Zach has really started to morph from a baby lump to a real personality. For starters, he's smiling and yukking it up almost all the time. Diaper change? Big smiles. Time for pajamas? Grins from ear to ear. Wiping spit-up off his face? Laugh-o-rama. And I have never heard a laugh quite as contagious as Zach's - probably because it's a belly laugh that comes from deep down inside the yummiest, squishiest baby belly you've ever seen. When Zach was just a little bud inside of me, I watched an ultrasound where he tried to put his thumb in his mouth and kept missing, and then he turned his face toward the screen and moved his jaw up and down as if to laugh and laugh. At the time, I thought we had a little comedian on our hands. Now who knows whether he will be a real jokester or not, but at the very least I can tell that he seems to enjoy life.

He's also zooming through a bunch of milestones: sitting upright in the tripod (hands down in front of him) position; sleeping as much as 9 hours at night (though if he does this, Luke will wake up just to make sure that I don't get a full night's sleep); grabbing things and putting them in his mouth. But mostly it's the cheery disposition that has us completely charmed. Even Luke, who one might think would be jealous of Zach, is beside himself with excitement every time Zach does something new. It'll be fun when things really start happening quickly in the next few months.


And what about Luke, my 3-going-on-60-year-old? He surprised us all the other day when he went "swimming" across the pool by swinging his arms in a wild windmill motion. Who knew he even wanted to get his face wet?

Luke and I also started our new science class, which for the moment we have all to ourselves because no one else signed up for it. So in our private science tutorial on Monday, Luke learned all about sound waves and how the inside of your ear works, and we did a little experiment building an "ear drum." I think he is just hungry to learn and his head is filled with so many exciting things each day it's hard for him to process it all and take it all in. "My head hurts," he told me the other day. "I have too many words in there." I think Zach is going to have to teach him how to relax and let it all out...

Friday I'm In Love

Dave is gone for many nights this week so I'm looking for new and adventurous things to do with both boys. Our garage is now chock-full of various transportation options. Some of you may recognize this jeep double stroller; Zach is big enough to go in the front-facing way now, which is exciting for everyone (at a time when the littlest thing can excite us). We also have a new Sit N' Stand stroller, which allows the older kid to either sit facing backward or stand up and "drive" it forward on a little standing board. It cracks me up that Luke can't seem to remember the name of the stroller; he'll tell people, "This is our new stroller. It's called a sit...a stand...a stroll...what is it called again, Mommy?"

Luke has had a little toddler rebellion thing going on for the past few weeks, which has been trying to say the least. The day after the dead-fish-on-the-pier meltdown, he must have remembered me saying something about me being the boss, because he announced, "Mommy, I'm the voss. You say you're the voss but I'm the voss." I figured I was supposed to be mad at that, but the only way I could keep from laughing was to agree with him. "OK, you're the voss. It's just that I am the boss. So you need to remember that."

This week, however, Luke has sailed into the sweetest of all moods: he's happy to help around the house and he is quick to apologize the moment I seem less than thrilled with his behavior. What was it that turned the tide? I don't know but I'm just going to try to keep everything exactly the same for as long as possible to keep this little alien visitor with us. Last night I pulled out Dave's and my wedding album, which Luke and I hadn't seen in ages, and Luke and I curled up on the couch to read it together. He was particularly taken by the picture of all of the male members of the wedding party - all of the uncles, grandpas, and friends we love. "Those are all of my favorite men!" he declared. "Yes - it was a great party. You would have loved it," I told him.

Oh, and Zach has really become a laugher. How sweet is that? The two people who can consistently get him to laugh the most are Dave and Suzi. Dave has to say something very specific, along the lines of "Goodley-goo!" to get him to crack up, but when he does, it's magic.

Not entirely related, but somewhat related: When Luke and Dave listen to music together in Dave's car, the playlist is carefully edited for musical authenticity, lyrical appropriateness, and cultural diversity. But when Luke is in the car with me, he gets pretty much whatever happens to be on the radio (Luke put some spare change inside my CD player more than a year ago, and we haven't gotten around to fixing it, but that's another story). Last week we heard "Friday I'm in Love" by the Cure, and out of the blue, Luke declared, "That's my favorite song." So Dave had to download it and put it on the Ipod, and we've been watching the video on YouTube, and listening to it over and over again in every possible venue, but the funny thing is, it's really one of my favorite songs too, and at this point I don't think I can get tired of hearing it. Doesn't it just make the day seem all dreamy?

Rat Pack

If it seems like I'm acting a little more rakish or debonair than usual, it's because we spent the weekend living it up in true Rat Pack style, at the former Palm Springs estate of Dinah Shore. There's just something about that desert lifestyle... the lush palms, the glamorous parties, the free-flowing liquor...oh wait -- my mistake -- that was milk and apple juice.


Yes, we did the trip with two other families and a total of six kids under age four, and not only did we live to tell, we managed to remain friends AND have a great time. The mercury topped out at 105 but we had a blast between bowling, a tram ride and hikes up the mountain, dinner and a band downtown, and lots and lots of swimming. We even wore the kids out enough to have some actual adult conversation time in the evenings, after we convinced everyone under four feet tall to go to sleep.

Luke was of course in seventh heaven with his two best friends Hatcher and Eitan, and plenty of moms and dads around to do book-reading duty. He had a few blowouts over candy-related issues (go figure) but for the most part he was just happy to be there.

And Zach - good little Goo that he is - actually seemed to be amused by his first-ever dip in the pool. I'm searching for words to describe what it's like to watch him swim but the best I can come up with is "surprisingly buoyant." Even when you try to push his legs and bottom down so that he is standing upright in the water, he still keeps popping back up. We were saying that we could probably just set him off on his back and he'd just float around all day.

One of the things that made me happiest was how well all of the kids got along. Even Zach and Daniel (the two littlest ones) seemed to have a good time just looking at each other for 20 minutes or more, and that's how all great friendships begin, right?

We volunteered to drive Hatcher home from Palm Springs yesterday (because Julie had two kids to herself) and it gave us an interesting view of what it would be like to have three kids. Luke and Hatcher had a great time together in the back seat and cracked each other up for the first 90 minutes. But then it was amazing how quickly it degenerated from funny word games into "Stop touching me!" "He's on my side!" etc. It all came to a less-than-perfect ending when Hatcher, who was closest to the door, cracked open the car door when we were on the freeway, leading to a slightly hair-raising ride to the nearest exit, where we pulled over at a small industrial park. At that point we handed Hatcher back over to his mom (who had been trailing behind), and we set the childproof locks in the back seat not a moment too soon.

The best compliment about the whole weekend came from Julie, who said, "I'm already planning our next vacation." Where else do you think the Rat Pack would want to go?

Super/bad

Luke is currently bapping me with his "bad" hand and preparing to have his "good" hand, aka the "police" hand, step in and mediate the situation. Lucky for him he has an alternate identity to manage/blame for almost every situation: There's Pontrow, the genial visitor, Rico Ratchet, the mischievous troublemaker, Baby Cat, who likes to snuggle and get food spoon-fed to him, and of course the bad hand/good hand duo. The other morning, after Luke had woken up in the middle of the night, I asked him why he got me up.
"Oh, it wasn't me," he said.
"Well then who woke me up? Pontrow? Rico Ratchet?"
He pondered this a moment, then said, "No, it was just some air." Ah. OK. Remind me no to be disturbed by any bad air tonight.

It was a great birthday weekend, really. Nice massage on Saturday, amazing restaurant dinner on Saturday night with both kids in tow (!!) (Luke was on his best behavior and Zach slept through the whole thing), fantastic lunch "date" with just Dave on Sunday...But then how prophetic was the Zachary Enzo blog that I just wrote about not taking anything for granted? After our "date" lunch Dave and I were in the theater, just 15 minutes into "Superbad" when we got the phone call every parent dreads from babysitters Suzi and Boom-boom: "Don't want to alarm you, but you really need to come home right now..."

Turns out Luke decided that a very tiny Lego part would be much better suited inside his nostril than on the racecar he was building. Next thing you know, it got stuck, and we had to come home, and Dave had to take him to the ER, and there was a very long fine surgical tweezer involved, and blah blah blah. Fortunately there were no tears shed and no lasting damage, but the irony of it being six months to the day from when I went to the hospital was not lost on me. Now I wonder, was it Rico Ratchet who put it up there? Or did it just go up there because of the "air"?

Zach and Luke both crashed early tonight after a long day at the beach. (That's me in the background, holding a very contented Zach as he watches the waves.) In Luke's case, he wore himself out running around and arguing with his buddies; Zach must have simply worn himself out with his non-stop babbling and cooing. He's getting a little frustrated because he obviously wants to roll himself over but he just can't seem to move his big hulking body around too well. I wonder if that is how talking is for an infant - he must have so much to say but he just can't get the words out. Whatever he has to say, I hope he says it soon - I'm looking forward to bringing a new personality into the mix.

23 minutes

Lying on the bed, nursing a sore back here. Turns out Zach, aka "Frank the Tank," weighs in at a whopping 18 pounds, 13 ounces at four months, so I'm not just complaining about nuthin'.

I survived Dave's three-night absence last week in relatively good form; the boys were easy on me. When Dave was gone on Monday night, Luke and I hit a little bit of a rough patch, but we held it together. Then today it all fell apart in very public fashion, with Luke having a call-social-services-type meltdown on the pier when I wouldn't let him take two large dead fish home. Poor Zach was just plain bothered about his shots from the doctor today so he contributed to the screaming. It got to the point where total strangers (think: a group of pre-teen surfers) were asking "Ma'am, can I help you with anything?"

But when Dave came home, things got all good again, like they always do when Dave is around, and Luke and I bobbed around in the hot tub and looked at the sky and tried to forget about the day.

Curious point: If I'm home alone with both boys, it is possible to get them both to nap at the same time, but their sleep schedules only ever overlap for 23 minutes exactly (and yes, I'm looking at the clock). Has the universe just established this number as an acceptable window of time for Mom to get a break?

On Monday night when Dave was gone, Luke kept popping up out of bed, and it was 10:00 by the last time I tucked him in. Then I could feel my own eyelids falling and I had a little internal debate: Do I try to keep myself awake until Dave's 10:30 pm phone call? Or do I just succumb? Last thing I remember was propping one eye open to look at the clock: 10:23 on the dot. My "personal" time was up; I was out.

Confidential to Bill-O: Thanks for the Zach pics. And happy anniversary to you and Suzi.

Confidential to Joe and Sara: Today IS your anniversary. Seriously, do I need to be the one keeping track of this? Hope it's a good one.

Put on a happy face

Dave is currently upstairs trying to convince Luke to go to bed; I'm downstairs dreading doing it for the next three nights on my own. There is some crying involved, which is not good for Zach's sleep future. Let's hope Luke cooperates. As Dave was trying to get Luke to go to bed the other night, he told him, "Mommy is trying to get to sleep. She needs her rest. She worked hard all day being a mommy." Luke said, "I know. I'm still teaching her."



One little-known fact about Luke is that he is positively obsessed with Christmas desserts. He carries around this one little Betty Crocker Christmas cookbook, which we "read" all the time, and he has it practically memorized. When Beatriz and Felipe came the other day, Felipe was amused to have Luke sit down and read him the recipes, page for page ("These are Chocolate Mint Brownies. This is Raspberry-Chocolate Torte. This is called Bundt Cake." etc). Sometimes when he wants to be lulled to sleep he asks me to describe for him all of the desserts we are are going to make for Christmas.

The reason this is relevant is that on Friday he just couldn't wait any longer to make Christmas cookies, so we made the recipe for Santa-face cookies and just turned them into happy face cookies. Look for more quasi-Christmas desserts in the months to come...

So we had a wild, exhaustive day at the beach yesterday with friends. Luke's highlight, or lowlight as the case may be, was when a giant seagull came down and swooped up the baggie containing his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This resulted in Luke screaming uncontrollably, various dads scrambling to chase down the seagull, and various moms rummaging to find new food offerings to appease Luke. After Luke pulled it together he led all of the other kids around using their shovels as "metal detectors" to find his sandwich. He later identified one bird as the "police bird" who was going to track down the perpetrator and "put him in jail." Then, throughout the evening I had to answer endless variations on, "What do you think a bird might say if he takes my sandwich?" By bedtime it was obviously still on his mind because he had decided he didn't want to go to the beach any more if there were birds there. I had to promise that we'd keep all of the food in the cooler from now on.




Poor Zach...The second child. Nowhere near as many stories about him. But I can say this - he sure loves any play that involves sitting up. He always has a comically surprised look when he's upright, as if he's discovering a whole new world that is vertical. Whoa.

Yesterday Dave pulled out the exer-saucer for Zach to try. Predictably, Zach looked quite surprised. Not as predictably, Luke was more excited than anyone. "Look at him! Look at him!" Luke crowed with delight. "He's in a baby manhole!"

A handful

Did someone mention that being home alone with an infant and a preschooler is hard, hard work? If you didn't mention it, why didn't you think to do so before yesterday?

We had a great morning with friends coming over to swim, and Zach conveniently slept through the entire thing, so I was able to hang with Luke and serve lemonade and fruit to the kids. But once they left, things deteriorated quickly. Zach kept crying inexplicably; Luke didn't want me to hold Zach, didn't want to take a nap, and didn't want to stop bapping me on the foot. By 3 pm I thought I was going to lose it so I packed the kids in the car and just drove around for 30 minutes (they both went right to sleep) until I could clear my head a little bit. It's TOUGH to entertain two kids who have such very different needs. I don't want to turn into TV mom, but just about the only thing that consistently makes both of them happy is to let Luke watch a movie while Zach and I walk and bounce around the room and into the backyard.

This sorta comes at a bad time, because Dave is planning to be gone for three nights in a row next week. Um. Can we just same some time and call for the Code Grey now?

But I should mention a few positive things...Zach rolled from his tummy to his back on Monday. He hasn't repeated it since then, but it's a start. Luke has been walking everywhere without asking to be carried - AND he's started peeing standing up (but we don't discuss potty issues in this forum so I will say no more). Dave is having great success in all manners of his work life. And hey - I have a massage on Saturday. It was a birthday present from last year that I had yet to cash in. Question: If I refuse to get up from the table, does that mean that they have to keep massaging me?

Fish for lunch

Here's what happens when Mom takes a break for a few hours (to write a speech for work) and leaves Dad with the two kids at the beach:

Ninety minutes later, the three-year-old shows up at the front door, dead bloody fish in hand, saying, "Mommy, I caught this fish and now we need to eat it for lunch!"
Try explaining why that's not going to happen and his eyes fill with genuine, jumbo-sized tears. "But it's from the OCEAN! We eat fish from the ocean!"

And so Dad finally troops up the stairs, with a sigh of resignation, and turns on the grill. When the "lunch" is finally "cooked" no actual ocean fish is consumed, as predicted. Said boy is given some teriyaki chicken, which he asks if it is ocean fish, and when given an affirmative, takes a tentative bite, then moves on to the next project.

But I should say this: His baby brother is all smiles, all the time. Well, OK, not in the car on the ENTIRE 30-minute drive from Dave's office to our house (think non-stop, this-can't-be-humanly-possible screaming, the whole way). But bring him to, say, a crowded doctors' office and he is all smiles the whole time and will sit patiently for an hour at a time while you get your eyes measured or whatever it is you might need to do. Whatta baby.

Rain, rocks, dreams

Every day, without fail, when we're walking in the door, some version of this scene is re-enacted at our house:

Luke asks to wait outside while I go in and close the door. Then he rings the doorbell and I open the door.

"Hi. What's your name?"
"My name is Pontrow. I'm just visiting."
"Well, Pontrow, come on inside. We're just about to have some breakfast/lunch/dinner."

He then proceeds to examine the house and admire everything with great enthusiasm.
"This is a wonderful house!"
"Why, thank you!"
"These are very nice big chairs. And this is such a nice play area for your baby!" Etc.

Yesterday he moved on to our bedroom: "This is a wonderful bed. And such a nice crib." Then he tugged on the co-sleeper/basinette to see how securely it was attached to the bed. "Nice and tight. Very good."

The enthusiasm continues at mealtime. "These are wonderful crackers!" "Did you make this spaghetti? It's delicious!"

Some who know Luke probably remember that he is notoriously finicky (Example: He stopped eating syrup on his waffles and pancakes because he does not like anything to be sticky). So it's actually a nice little change of pace to have his super-gung-ho alter ego come to our house every day. But has Pontrow expanded Luke's eating habits at all? Um. No. Still, it's enormously entertaining to watch such a big imagination at work.

On Tuesday at the farmers' market, Luke befriended a charming woman named Edith, a retired food writer, with whom he chatted on and and on about crabs, oysters, halibut, clams, sculpin, and barnacles. "This is a a kid who gets a LOT of interaction with his parents," she said to us. That left me and Dave beaming for the rest of the night, for as Dave put it, this is our luxury -- to have a life made richer every day by two amazing kids.

From the random file: I asked Luke what they talked about in school that day. "Weather," he said. "Oh, what's weather?" I asked.

"Weather - you know, like rain, rocks, dreams..." came the response. I guess the weather is just dreamy today.

Mem...ries...lightthecornersofmymind

Still basking in a post-Seattle glow out here ... Yes, it was tiring. Yes, it was chaotic. But even still, I can't wait for next year. (If pressed, I might even admit to having bookmarked several potential Bethany Beach homes already. )

Being so far away from everyone, this vacation has become a really important time for me. It's also increasingly an important time for Luke, and surely, Zach as well. Seeing Antonia, with her beautiful art projects, Sam, with his amazing speed and fearlessness, Helena, with her sweet helpfulness, and Lily, with her startlingly articulate conversation has made us all wish, as Luke did, to have his "brothers and sisters" with him all the time. And don't even get me started on how much I miss the grownups.

Oh, and hey - this vacation is the whole reason I started blogging two years ago (as a way of recording our trip to Cape May).

So I'm just going to enjoy it for what it is for now, until soccer practices, or summer theater, or swim teams, or whatever else get in the way. Then the kids can fly on their own to visit their cousins (like the two skateboard-toting preteens behind us on the plane, who displayed an endearing combination of confident swagger and vulnerable "I-love-you-Mom" on the cell phone.)

Will they ever be that big? Could they be halfway there already?

Here are some more pictures to hold everyone until we finally get The Disc from our faithful photographer.

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for making it happen!

Band-Aid Beach

Is Seattle just the best place in the entire world or what? Can you tell I just got back from a yummy Greek dinner and a (gasp) glass of wine?

At the very least it's a great time for Luke to be in Seattle because of his current fish obsession. Could he have thought that buying fish at the Pike Place market was as good as it got? Not after we spent half a day at Constellation Beach where the purple starfish are as big as dinner plates, the snails are bigger than grapefruit, and the crabs practically crawl up to you and ask to be cooked for dinner. At low tide, there's a long rocky stretch where you can walk out and see all of these creatures as close as you like, and/or slip on the rocks as appropriate...to the point where we had four out of five walking kids with bleeding injuries that required bandages. Joe renamed it "Band-Aid Beach." "It's like freakin' Normandy out here," he declared, surveying the casualties.

And where else but Seattle could it be not just bearable but actually pleasant to go out to dinner with eight adults and six small children? This Greek restaurant is the second place we've been where they have a special play area carved out for kids. By the end of our two-and-a-half-hour orgy of food, we had some kids busy in the play area and we had attracted some kids who weren't even our own to our table.

I'm just putting a few pictures out here to get the ball rolling. More to come as our adventures continue...

Ocean creatures

I think I've mentioned before that Luke is fish-obsessed. Evidence includes:

1) He will only eat if the food he is eating is described as some sort of seafood; i.e. spaghetti is jellyfish, tamales and sausages are lobster, rolls are clams, red peppers are redfish, etc.

2) He got a birthday card that folds out into a long chain with pictures of all different kinds of fish, and he keeps the card next to his guitar at all times. He uses it as "sheet music" to help him think up new lyrics to his ever-evolving composition, "Robot Ocean Clouds."

3) His favorite question is, "What kind of fish are we going to eat in Seattle?" Preferred answer: Salmon, king crab, Venus clams, lobster, monkfish, sculpin. Recurring follow-up question: "What do you think the fish might say?" Preferred answer: Please put me back in the ocean!

4) I asked him what they served at snack yesterday in school and he said, "Watermelon...and salt cod."



On an unrelated note, here's a pic not of ocean creatures, but of real-live air-breathing members of the family. Looks like Zach and I are the least cooperative of the bunch...

The party continues

What a week, with cousin Samson in town, big work party, lots of family events. I'm still trying to catch up but I thought I'd share another pic from Luke and Hatcher's party, courtesy of Super Photographer Bill-o (a.k.a. Boom-Boom). This is my "tropical" vegetable platter, during one of the rare moments when the palm trees weren't falling over. Little did I know the palm trees would become valued currency by the end of the party, with the kids fighting over who would get to keep them.

Not included here is what I like to refer to as "The Frosting Series" a group of about 8 pictures of Luke licking every possible microgram of frosting from his fork after he was finished with his cake.

More family pix to come soon...

Party pooped

Too tired to say too much tonight ... The party was great, but Luke ("I can subsist on cake alone") is currently melting down in the background so that's not much fun.

We had not four, not six, but nine ukulele players come and entertain us. They led the kids in hula dancing, then co-opted the adults to do a round. Amazingly, Dave and Stu were both willing participants - and this is after we got them both to wear sumo-suits at last year's block party (Dave: "I think I prefer the fat suit.")

Luke helped me make the cakes too...The only amazing thing about them, really, is that I got them done at all with a three-year-old leaning on my arm and saying, "I want to write the words!"

The big squiggle in the middle of the string on Hatcher's cake is when Luke pulled my arm to say, "I LOVE you, Mommy!" How can I argue with that?

Telling it like it is

Signs from today that maybe we have some more things we need to teach Luke before we can let him outside again:

In the restaurant this morning, as a lady with an exceptionally large posterior walks by:
Luke: "That's a big, big, big, big, big-"
Dave (cutting in with the first thing that comes to mind): "Luke! Will you close that door please? It's a little drafty in here."

After Luke struggles with it for a minute, Dave, who knows full well the door is solidly propped open, says, "That's OK, never mind." The great save is made, and the moment passes with the large so-and-so forgotten.

We think we're safe until tonight, eating dinner at the pizza restaurant when a Rasta-man with long dreadlocks walks in.

Luke: "Hey! There's a Muppet!"

Party time

Luke and his "brother from another mother" Hatcher are having their third annual half-birthday party. This year's theme: Luau. This year's invitation object: A pineapple, hand-delivered to each of their buddies' houses with the following tag:

Come to our luau - we'll play and laugh
As Hatcher and Luke turn three and a half
Jump in a bouncy house, eat tropical fare
While ukulele music drifts through the air!

My favorite response so far was when I asked one mom, "Did you get the invitation?" and she replied, "We already ate the invitation!"

Whole wheat flour

OK, do I need to explain how I somehow wound up with 15 pounds of wheat flour in my cupboard? No, I'll leave that one alone. But what's important is it led me to discover this recipe, from Betty Crocker, for whole wheat chocolate chip cookies that are so good I don't think I'll ever make the "regular" kind again:

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 cups Gold Medal® whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

1. Heat oven to 375ºF.
2. Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in chocolate chips. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.
3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.

Picky, picky

I continue to be confounded by Luke's picky and completely unpredictable eating habits. If what my mom says is true, I ate everything, all the time, preferably at the same time. Luke has a very limited repertoire of food that he will eat and he won't try anything beyond that (in other words, he's no Antonia or Helena eating crispy whole fish). We're lucky we started him early on tamales; otherwise there's no chance he'd eat them now.

Luke also has a fussy/meticulous side that I will attribute to Dave, because I am the world's biggest slob (true confession time) who will even avoid using utensils and will eat out of the container whenever possible. Contrast that with Dave, who, for instance, won't eat foods at the same time if they're going to run into each other, and who is famous for, when he cooks, somehow using every single plate and utensil in the kitchen. That's why I was amused but not surprised the other day when I gave Luke a cookie after dinner and he protested about eating it on the same plate as his dinner ("That's where the meatball was!") I mean, it's a cookie, for crying out loud.

As a mom, I've been trying to be more creative about sneaking new foods into his diet. I made a zucchini bread the other day and told him it was sugar-and-spice bread, and I only nonchalantly let it slip, once he had eaten the last piece, that there was zucchini in there too. The next day we made a zucchini chocolate cake together, and he knew that there was zucchini in it but he seemed excited about it anyway (though it turned out he was mostly interested in the frosting). Finally, the next morning, he turned to me wearily and said, "Mom, I just don't want any more cakes or breads with zucchini in them, OK?"

So now, given all that, explain to me how his interest in crabs came to pass. We have books about crabs, and he thinks they are cool, and he knows people sometimes eat them with a hammer, but we never really eat crab so I don't know where it came from. But on Sunday, Dave called me from the supermarket with Luke in tow: "I just want you to know that there's going to be a meltdown unless I buy Luke some crab."

Me: "Crap? Why is that news?"
Dave: "No, crab. He wants me to buy crab, and the smallest package I can find has a lot of crab in it."
Me: "Krab? I love that stuff. Sure - go ahead - I'll make a seafood salad."

Thirty minutes later or so they came back with crab, as in actual crab, as in slightly crabby-smelling disembodied legs packaged in supermarket styrofoam and plastic. Gross. But Luke insisted on having crab for lunch, so I held my nose and picked out the crab meat, heated it a little bit (it was precooked) and put it out for him on a plate.

He stared at it. "No mommy, I wanted to eat the crunchy part."
"Like the shell? You can't eat the shell."
"Well I don't eat this part, I only eat the crunchy part."

So there goes $11.99 down the drain. Next time he'll have to experiment with something a little cheaper, like beans. Anyone want some slightly used crab legs?

Random conversations

Luke: "Mommy, I don't like school."
Me: "Why not?"
Luke: "Because it's too windy."
(Luke was later heard to proclaim, "I love going to school!")

Me: "Luke, what's your favorite vegetable?"
Luke: "I don't like any vegetables."
Me: "Oh, that's too bad. Why don't we just eat these green peppers then?"
Luke: "Yeah!"
(We proceed to chow down on green pepper strips.)

Me (while Luke is eating french fries): "Luke, can I have a french fry?"
Luke: "Sure!"
(Luke grabs a french fry, climbs down from his chair, starts to walk over to me, but stops to sneeze...right on the fry. He hands it to me. I eat it anyway. I feel like a true mom.)

Luke (hugging me): "Mommy, I like to hug you. You smell like odorant."

Booger

So Papa and Luke are talking and playing, when Luke starts rubbing one small spot on Papa's face. Finally Papa asks, "Luke, what are you doing?" and Luke replies nonchalantly, "I'm putting a booger on your face."

"Back!"

Couldn't resist...Luke loves to play baseball, and when he swings and misses, he does a very energetic thumbs-backward sign (as if to say "You're out!" and shouts, "Back!"

I don't know why he does it or how he interpreted that as the thing to say, but it is darned funny...

hiatus

Beachbucket will be taking a little break for a while. For regular updates, see Zachary Enzo's blog. I'll probably combine them later...

check out

Mental check: When's the last time I went 8 weeks without wearing shoes? Infancy? When's the last time I went 8 weeks without wearing a shirt? During my own fetal development?

Zachary Enzo is here and he is as beautiful as anyone could have imagined. Tonight I'm getting my shoes on and doing what might seem like the unthinkable - going home and leaving him here. They've told me to prepare for a breakdown at some point. But here's what I know is true: He's in good hands, and I belong at home, not here. Let's hope it's not too long before Zach too gets to go home. There's a whole world outside waiting to meet him.

you don't say

Things Luke has been saying recently that crack us up:

To the nurses:
Nurse: "Are you in kindergarten?"
Luke: "No, I live in California."

To the baby:
Luke, with his hand on my tummy: "How do I make the baby kick?"
Me: "Why don't you try to talk to the baby?"
Luke, pressing his face against my belly button: "Hey, BABY!!!"
(The baby responds by giving him a swift kick in the face...)

To himself:
Luke, before going over to Garrett's for breakfast: "Daddy, will Garrett be wearing his pajamas?"
Dave: "I don't know - maybe. "
Luke, quietly to himself: "Will Garrett be wearing his pajamas? Yes, yes he will. "
Then to Dave: "Yes Daddy, he will be wearing his pajamas."

home stretch

Finally getting on Blogger after so many failed attempts...now I've figured ou how to get on thru the BlackBerry so let's hope my thumbs hold out. So...many...blog entries...backed up in my brain. But here I am in the home stretch ready to sum up rather than comment on any one individual day. Probably for the best.

I didn't feel like this before, but now that I only have a few days left I have a very calm peace about being here. I'm soaking up every last moment of peace and quiet. Now that I'm off the bedpan and can take regular showers I am sleeping better and feeling more refreshed. It's almost a nice feeling to wake up in the morning to total peace and quiet, knowing that someone will be coming in shortly to deliver breakfast. Fat chance of that happening anytime in the next 18 years (or some would say longer).

The nurses are mock-arguing amongst themselves about who gets to deliver this baby. It's funny that the normal experience is to just kind of check in and out, delivering your baby with a bunch of relative strangers. But I'll be with the same group of people that have taken care of me and gotten to know me round the clock for the last seven weeks. Some nurses are more personable than others, some are more cautious than others...I'm glad I've kept an open mind because there is one nurse whom I was all set to lodge a complaint about, but then she corrected herself and has gone on to become one of my strongest advocates.

I've also figured out all of the ins and outs - which meals to avoid, which special orders to request, which nurses ar most responsive, which nurses are most willing to gab. Too bad there's not really a way to pass on all of my accumulated knowledge.

Last Friday on a rare day when Dave and Luke couldn't come to visit I completely lost it and started bawling on the phone to Dave. They more than made up for it the next day by staying for 6 hours - but the point is, I would never have made it this far if I hadn't been able to count on nightly visits from them. I still don't know how Dave manages it all.

Luke has positively flourished here. One of the nurses told me yesterday, "We see lots of kids here, but with Luke it's an absolute burst of sunshine. He usually comes at the end of the shift when we're all dragging a little and he gets everyone so excited and happy. "

Having me venture out in the wheelchair seems to make him even that much more excited. The other night he was practically skipping down the hall, saying "I have a mommy and a daddy and we are all together!"

Luke seems to be relatively ready for a new baby too. The other morning he announced to Dave, "I'm going to teach the baby how to walk!" Besides, he's already told half his friends, "I have a new baby brother named Junior. "

I don't know what life with this baby is going to be like. Of course I'm still a little scared. How long will it be before I can walk around like a normal person and pick up one or even two kids?
How long before I sleep again? Will Dave have to declare a "code gray" at some point and have them drag me off to the insane asylum? Or might it be all sunshine and roses and long days at the beach?

And what will the baby look like? Will it have lots of black hair, like most of us, blonde hair like Helena, or even red hair? Will it have Dave's nose, as one of the ultrasounds seemed to suggest?

One thing that has been great all along is that even from the early, super-scary days, the baby has always looked healthy. Thank God for that. As for the rest, stay tuned....

I got nothin'

Hey - Anyone notice that I haven't been on in a while? I'm still looking for new and sneaky ways to circumvent this tightwad, non-blog-friendly wireless portal. So, let's run through the list...is there any minute detail of my stay (leg-shaving, anyone?) that I haven't recounted numerous times on the phone? Do I have any big-picture summaries that could somehow encapsulate the day-to-day tedium of being in the same bed every moment of every day? Um....no.

One of the nurses made me a calendar on Sunday: "Jeanne's Baby Countdown." It's funny, a calendar like that would have completely overwhelmed me at the beginning of March but now it is kind of cool. The perinatologist tells me that he personally wouldn't want to keep me past 34 weeks -- and even though my regular doc has the ultimate say, 34 weeks looks well within striking distance on my calendar.

Dave and Luke are truckin' along as a little team...going to the beach, doing projects, finding new and eclectic musical selections to enjoy during their long stretches spent in the car together (think Fugazi followed by Burl Ives). Dave has even been called upon to do such previously Jeanne-driven things as shop for clothes and new shoes. For the record, he scored on the shoe front, and Luke is happy, so I'm starting to believe that we really will pull through this relatively unscathed.

Luke is so thoroughly "in" with allof the nurses that the one night he didn't come in, I had to answer questions about why he wasn't there. He announced to the gathered crowd last week that we were going to throw a big, big party at our house and invite all the nurses, so I guess we'll have to figure out how to hold up that particular bargain.

Young Baby Squirt appears to be in good spirits, although it definitely has a mind of its own: burying its head and hiding its face during ultrasounds, squirming away once the nurse has finally found its heartbeat on the fetal monitor, growing big enough that I look like a watermelon pasted onto some stick-legs and arms, that kind of thing. I hope this little one realizes at some point that it is really, really wanted.

Oh, and hey - I started accepting visitors, which it turns out is a good thing. Why didn't someonne tell me sooner that it would really make time fly?

A few resolutions:

No feeling sorry for myself - lots of people are nowhere near as lucky
No more movies that involve someone slowly going crazy all alone in a room (ahem, Aviator)
No more iceberg lettuce
No more fretting about Sudoku - if it's not fun, don't do it
No more fanatical googling of preemie outcomes. We're going to have our own story and it will be a good one.

racer

So my two stunningly handsome men took 1st place in the stroller division of our neighborhood 5K this morning. The prize? Some guy saying "Hey, you were the first stroller!"

Trying to distract myself this morning because apparently I was having contractions....Hmmm..How bout a Luke vocab update, hospital edition?

Hop-sidal=Hospital
Mometer=Thermometer
Odorant=Deodorant
Elevator bed=Hospital bed
Listening radio=Console that controls the TV and calls the nurses
Medicine stand=IV drip hanger
That button= The big blue button located so temptingly within reach that sets off a hospital Code Blue, whatever that means. Just DON'T TOUCH IT, OK?!?!?!?

bed riddance

Unk told us last week, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." So He must have been splitting his sides when we talked about doing things in March and April and then having a baby in May. Heck, as of two weeks ago I was making plans to go shopping for bigger maternity clothes.
Now that the rug has been pulled out from under me, the new reality of these hospital room walls is starting to sink in. For the moment I have no choice but to do all the thing I am worst at: thinking only positive thoughts, staying in the present, not moving around, and being away from Luke and Dave. But I have to admit being obsessed with things like preemie complications and Luke's sadness and confusion. Plus - and this is terrible to say - but there are times when I think maybe a preemie would be OK if it jst meant I could go home. And no one wants that.
That's why I'm thinking that maybe I just want to keep this Luke-focused for the moment so I don't lose these past few weeks worth of funny stuff.

Luke at bedtime to Dave: "Daddy, look at my face. I don't like meatballs with sauce. I only like plain meatballs."

Luke to me: "I have twins in my tummy. Their names are Hickey and Mickey. "

Luke to the nurses in the nursery: "Where did this baby come from?"
Nurse: "It is resting here because it just came out of its mommy's tummy."
Luke: "I call it an oven."

That's all I've got for now. Let's hope we have lots more good stories ahead of us.

heavy tummy, heavy heart

Just as I'm ready to start processing the fact that Luke has been in school for a year now, we get the devastating news today that Luke's beloved Miss Beverly is leaving and today is her last day (well technically tomorrow, but Luke's not in on Fridays). Miss Beverly was the cornerstone of everything we liked about the school; from Luke's first day there she was a constant source of patience, comfort, affection, love, and auto-harp playing. She's moving to another school in the area, and even though I wouldn't just yank Luke out of his comfort zone at school at this point, the thought seriously crossed my mind. I told Dave that it must be pregnancy hormones that are making me so sad about this; he disagrees because he's equally sad. Luke will be sad at some point in the future, most likely, but for now, he, like the other kids, doesn't really know what it all means when she tells them she is going to another school.

It's strangely similar to another big change that Luke can't grasp entirely - the addition of a new person at our house. For the past few months when I'd tell him I had a baby in my tummy he just wouldn't believe me and he would laugh it off like the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. Lately he's started to take it a little more seriously. He is really fascinated by the "Your Pregnancy Week by Week" book and especially loves the diagrams of babies curled up in a tiny mommy-tummy space. I think the fact that several of our friends have just had babies as well makes it more interesting. When I told him that Robert's mommy had sent us pictures of the new baby she just had, he couldn't wait to get to the computer. We scrolled through the whole pile: baby, mommy and baby, Robert and baby, grandma and baby, etc. Finally Luke said in exasperation, "Mommy, I want to see the pictures of when he came OUT of her tummy!" I had to tell him...hmmm...They don't really take pictures of that part, or at least I hope they don't share them.

Luke is signed up for what seems like an excellent sibling class at our hospital. They ask the kids (ages 3-5) to bring a baby-sized doll and they will teach them to rock them, change a diaper, feed with a bottle, etc. Then they watch a movie about being a big brother/sister; then they all walk across the street to the maternity ward to look at all of the new babies. Trouble is, the earliest we could get in to the class was the end of April. With this massive clothes-stretching tummy, I hope I make it long enough for the class to be relevant. At least by then it should seem a little more concrete.

Luke has been bothering us in the past few months with an unfortunate tendency to wake up in the middle of the night and want to sleep in our bed. He calls it *his* red bed (our sheets are burgundy/red). We thought we had solved the problem at least temporarily when we got him some bright red sheets and he was beyond excited about his new red bed. But last night Luke was a wildman at bed-putting time: Dave couldn't get him to sleep until a ridiculous hour; he woke me up at 3:45; and he woke up for good at 6:40 this morning. Could it have been the fact that he didn't eat dinner until 8:15 at night and I let him have a half-cookie at 8:30? Could it be that the red sheets are too stimulating? Could it be some kind of radar that he senses something big is about to happen and can't seem to relax until he understands it? I don't know, but Dave is committed to putting him to bed again tonight, to maintain a consistent routine. Right now they are downstairs "building" Nut a "doghouse" and I hear them laughing about something. Let's hope it translates into a happy night.

Oh, and by the way, we went to the beach on Saturday and we ultimately had to leave around noon because it was too *hot*. Yep, that's right. But think of all the things I had to give up to move out here: decent pizza, hoagies, cheesesteaks, family. So it's the very least I deserve...right?

The curse has ended

Looks like we've finally ended the curse of Valentine's Day. For reference, the last three have been marred by 1) year one, sleepless with a screaming baby, driving around aimlessly looking for a place to have a nice dessert that would be tolerant of a screaming baby; 2) year two, Luke's eye surgery; 3) year three, weaning combined with painful hand-foot-mouth disease. Somehow Valentine's Day had become the Day of Misery.

But this year I was happy to be greeted in the morning with a soulful rendition of "Clementine" with guitar accompaniment, of course (picture Luke strumming while sitting in his little chair in front of his new guitar stand/microphone). Later he entertained me with a new song he composed for the guitar: "No hitting/No hitting people/Mommies say no/And they get mad." Verse two: "No pushing/no pushing people..." etc. etc.

Later he completely blew me away with one of his memories. We were reading a book that mentioned termites, and he asked what a termite was, and I said it was a tiny, tiny bug that liked to eat wood. He thought about that for a moment and then asked, "Did a man come to look for termites in our old old beach house?" Whoa. I mean, that was more than six months ago! Who knew that little nugget was still lodged in his brain? So the day turned out pretty well, all things considered, especially given the amount of sugar.

One thing that I increasingly love about Luke is his confidence about asking adults for what he wants. When we went to the library yesterday, Luke and I went looking for his favorite library book -- the Berenstain bears go to the dentist -- but the book was nowhere to be found. "Well, we have to go ask the lady then," he announced, and marched straight up to the reference desk and asked the library lady, "Where's the dentist book?" (Further investigation revealed that both copies were checked out.)

Then at McDonald's for lunch, while I was cleaning up our table, Luke went back over to the counter and started chatting up the cashier about the cookies on display. I didn't hear the conversation but I know it had something to do with how much he liked cookies and how much he might want one. I also knew that he had already had candy that morning, plus cupcakes to come at our V-Day party later, so I ushered him out the door without a cookie. I was actually congratulating myself for having dodged a bullet because I was thinking that at least at a super-corporate place like McDonald's, the employees can't be talked into giving away the food. It was to my huge surprise then, that we were halfway out the parking lot when the McDonald's lady came running after us with a cookie in a bag. "Wait! He said he wanted a cookie!"

Something tells me that if we fast-forward 25 years, we're going to see a guy who is holding on to an America West ticket from Boston to L.A., but he decides that he really would rather fly United, and so he pokes around and asks a few questions, and a few hours later he is flying home first-class on United. Who does that sound like to you?

Spag-a-weenie

I think we can agree that the worst days are not when Luke is totally under-napped, or over-sugared; they're the days like yesterday when he is a total wet noodle. Luke spent the majority of yesterday throwing up, due to some stomach virus or something, and it was sad and extra-hard. The worst of the worst is when all he wants to do is eat or drink something, then it comes back up again, and then we have to convince him (!) to wait for a reasonable two-hour window before eating or drinking again, ha, ha. I can only listen to the whimpering and moaning for so long before I give in to caregiver exhaustion and have to turn it over to Dave for a while (which I did, and he used the time to take a somewhat cheerier Luke to Home Depot, ending in a car splattered with bananas). Anyway. At least Luke has the good sense to start these things on Friday night so we have the whole weekend to work it through together.

Luke's wet-noodle condition was so extreme that I was able to sit next to him on the couch yesterday, cutting out little red paper hearts for valentines, and his only reaction to the scissors was a labored glance of a glazed eye over in my direction, then eyes back to the TV (compared with typical reaction: "OH! I need the scissors for a project!!") At one point I suggested using the shredder (a favorite activity) and when we found out the shredder was broken, he simply stared mutely in my lap for 10 minutes while Dave and I discussed what might be wrong (compared with typical reaction: "What happened to the shredder? Why is it broken? Who's going to fix it? What do you think Daddy might say? What do you think I might say?")

The only time we got him to crack a smile was when we were watching the Food Network and Emeril couldn't get the spaghetti pasta-maker to work and he had to make fettucine/linguini, and he called it "spag-a-weenie." That got the weakest little sick-person laugh out of Luke, and it was a rare moment of sunshine in an otherwise wet noodle day.

Today he's cheerier but he had the meltdown of all meltdowns when we went to the store and I told him no, we are not going to buy the Yard of Gumballs. We finally made it back home after a detour for a green popsicle and now he's telling us his ear hurts. So we could be back to the drawing board tomorrow, but I'll take an earachey guy over a throw-uppy guy any day.

Call me Mo

No one loves a new word as much as Luke. He'll turn it around in his head for a while, then try to find every opportunity to use it. Example: In a new book, where a kid slides down a banister, Luke wanted to know all about banisters. A little while later, he announced that his name was Banister. The next day he decided that he wanted a dog named Banister and a cat named...Manister. And so on.

As a somewhat unrelated aside, he'll decide what he wants us to call him on any given day depending on who he's been playing with or what he's been thinking about. For a while after he read "Knuffle Bunny" he wanted to be known as Mo (the author's name) and there were a few moments when somewhat inexplicably, he insisted on being called Picnic Mo. Lately he's been insisting that we call him Chef Sam Nikita. But it's OK, because Chef Sam Nikita took it upon himself to rustle up some breakfast in bed for me this morning (a slice of banana bread).

In our latest book there's a scene where a boy makes a face at drinking a warm can of what is labeled "budget cola." Luke wanted to know all about what the soda was called and what budget cola meant. So I told him, "Budget cola means that it is cheap soda."
"What does cheap mean?"
"It's something that isn't very good, but it doesn't cost very much money so you don't really mind. Like things at the 99 cents store."
"I like the 99 cents store!"
"Right, I mean it's just something that maybe doesn't taste as good as a soda that costs more money."

Shortly after this conversation Beatriz and Felipe came over and Luke announced to them that he was drinking budget cola for breakfast. "Budget cola is cheap soda, like you get at the 99 cents store," he informed them.

Of course they had no idea what he was talking about but I had a good laugh at Chef Sam Nikita's expense.

What do you think I might say?

Life is strange, living in the subjunctive tense. Every day Luke has new issues to examine, new possibilities to consider. Like when Ferdinand the bull sits on the bee: "What do you think Ferdinand might say?" "What do you think the bee might say?" Further contemplation is necessary about the idea of Luke sitting on a bee: "What do you think I might say?" "What do you think you might do?"

Or if we go to a park with some particularly appealing toys: "What do you think some boys might do?" (take the toys) "What do you think I might say?" (Noooooo!) Or if I'm getting ready to leave for work: "What do you think I might say?" (Goodbye mommy) "What do you think you might say?" (Goodbye, Luke, I hope you have a nice day). "What do you think you might do in the car?" (Feel sad about leaving) "What do you think I might do when I get to school?" (Have fun, I hope)

Luke's teacher tells me that he's the king of all questions, and it's true - it's an all-day affair. By the end of the day on Friday, I was just on question-answering autopilot, but it must have come to a shock for Dave to come home to Mr. Non-Stop Subjunctive.

Truthfully, Luke and I have a pretty good rap down these days. I'm not so completely exhausted that I can't deal with him, he's been taking naps again with some regularity, and we're working together (two steps forward, one step back) on the potty thing. Dave is gone for two nights this week, which two months ago would have been inconceivable, but now seems like it's just routine.

Unfortunately, Luke has this new devil-child-freakout thing that he does at bedtime where he won't make a move to cooperate getting ready for bed; then he gets mad when you try to do anything for him. Last week I had to strong-arm him to get him to brush his teeth, then I dumped out the "old" water standing in his cup and put new water in for him to drink. This resulted in a 20-minute flip-out session ("I want to drink the OLD water! Not the NEW water!") that was ultimately resolved by Dave reassuring him that when you dump the old water down one bathroom sink, you can get it back by turning on the faucet in the other sink. We've managed to avoid the devil-child-freakout by starting bedtime preparations a little earlier, but it's still dicey enough that I'm hoping to avoid it for the next two nights.

We asked the doctor at Luke's three-year appointment about his focus on small motor skills (read: tools and guitars), possibly to the detriment of large motor skills. It comes up every now and then, like when he can't seem to get the hang of the tricycle or Big Wheel. But the doctor has reassured us that it'll all catch up in time, and for now, he's focused in what he's interested in.

I guess it makes sense, then, that while in the past it had never once occurred to him to do anything but ride in the cart at the grocery store, the story became completely different when donuts were involved. Yesterday when we got to the store, the donuts were the first thing he saw, and he nearly had a coronary. "Oh! Oh! I have to get out of the cart!" he said, as he wriggled to a standing position and appeared to be preparing to jump out. He studied the donuts for only a moment, then very authoritatively grabbed the kind he wanted and tossed them into the cart. For the rest of the time there, he rather huffily insisted on walking and pushing the cart, as if I might somehow make another ridiculous error like failing to pick out donuts.

I'm weighing the idea of giving him a donut tonight. On the one hand, I know he'll ask for it. On the other hand, there's sugar-induced craziness. So I think I'll put it in the simplest terms: Donut, yes, but only if there's no follow-up freakout. And then the questions will begin: "What do you think I might say?" "What do you think I might do?" "What do you think you might say?"

Take my stuff, please

Our garage sale unfolds:
7:15 am: Luke wanders downstairs in his pajamas, finding us setting up outside and meeting the first customers (garage sale starts at 8 am)
7:16 am: "Luke! Put down the weedwhacker!" Luke: "I don't like garage sales."
7:20 am: In the kitchen, preparing breakfast: Luke: "Are we going to sell our refrigerator? Are we going to sell our food?"
7:45 am: The first big pile of towels sells. I bring out more towels and linens.
8:00 am: The sale is in full swing. People are looking for specific things we don't have: surfboads, skateboards, sporting or stereo equipment, antiques, books. Hmmm.
8:30 am: A group of people drive up in a truck and buy 90 percent of the furniture we are selling, rendering our garage sale basically over except for the junk. More people buy towels. Fleeting insecurity: Did we have enough stuff for a garage sale? Are we just total novices? Should we start putting out things we hadn't intended to sell? I bring out more towels.
9:00 am: Relief arrives in the form of Silvia and the boys. Luke takes them upstairs and I can hear him jamming on instruments and laughing hysterically with his "big brothers."
9:30 am: Silvia takes Luke and the boys out to IHOP, and buys the rest of the towels I put out. I go find some more.
10:00 am: It is so dead that Dave and I sit outside relaxing for a while, then start cleaning up the office and the basement.
10:30 am: Luke arrives back from breakfast, covered in syrup and dirt.
11:00 am: Luke greets our last customer: "Hi! Where's your money?"
11:15 am: We wrap up the last remaining items. Total revenue: $231, including five sets of towels, almost all of our furniture, most dishes, and zero clothing.
11:20 am: Whoops - we forgot to put out the wrought-iron patio chair and table set. As Luke would say, "Wah, waaaa." Picture-taking for Craigslist items commences.
12:00: Dave drops off all of the remaining items at Goodwill. We haven't changed the world, but at least we have a little more space.

Finally - feeling better

Am I allowed to say this - or will I superstitiously make things worse? I'm feeling better. Even good.

-- I'm a functioning member of our household once again
-- Today we will go from being, oh, about a million dollars in debt to having $$$ in the bank (no house, but at least we're not holding on to a depreciating asset)
-- Luke has been wearing underwear for about a week, and accidents notwithstanding, he seems to be doing alright
-- Luke seems to have stopped his middle-of-the-night wakeups as his cold gets better
-- Luke came out from his three-year doc appointment today with gold stars and all-around cheers for how smart and great he is. (Aw shucks.) He even volunteered to get a shot today, even though he only technically needs it sometime within the next year, with no protest and in fact extreme interest in examining the needle before and after
-- The director of Luke's school can't stop talking about how advanced and engaged he is (apparently he wanders into her office all the time for chats)
-- Dave is poised to make a move on a car that will finally make him happy (a 2001 zippy red Volvo wagon)
-- We have actual adult furniture in our house
-- We are ready for a garage sale on Saturday that will make a big dent in our remaining clutter
-- Dave and I have a long-awaited date night on Saturday to cap off a great week.

Smiles all around.

The Age of Nut

OK, it's clear, Luke needs a sibling, or at least someone else to talk to in our house. Dave and I are amused/alarmed by the fact that he is repeatedly asking us to help him talk to any number of inanimate objects in the house. Example: "Can the hamper talk? Hamper, what are you doing?" We felt we'd seen the worst of it when he wanted attention from the banana on the counter: "Hey, banana, watch me vacuum!"

Probably no one has received more of this kind of attention than Nut, Luke's small stuffed dog. Nut is Luke's constant companion while reading, sleeping, and throughout most meals. When I see Luke coming in to our room in the morning, I usually see Nut at the same time (unless like yesterday, he pops his head in, and says, "Wait, I forgot Nut!" and does a quick turnaround). Nut gets to try food, drink milk, and occasionally take medicine. He's often asked to use tools and play instruments. He even came along in a bag on Luke's trip to the music industry convention last week with Suzi and Bill.

Why Nut, as opposed to any other animal, or, say, the toaster? To be fair, Chairman Mao is a somewhat constant feline companion, and yesterday after he "hurt" himself he needed to be ministered to and now sports a Spongebob band-aid. And Otter has made his share of appearances at meals and booktime. But there's something about Nut and his soft floppy compliance that seems to make him both portable and ready for anything. If we lose him, we're sunk.

Speaking of favorite dogs, Luke loves the idea of "favorites" so he helped me answer the following questions about himself:

Favorite color: Red and pink and green ("Daddy, what's the difference between pink and red?")
Favorite ice cream: Chocolate
Favorite breakfast: Waffles and meat
Favorite lunch: Wahoo's
Favorite movie: Dumbo
Favorite tool: "Hammers, mallets, wrenches, screwdrivers...lots of tools"
Favorite music: "I like lots of music"
OK, favorite song: "I like lots of songs."
OK, favorite Raffi song: Baby Beluga
Favorite book: "I like lots of books" (OK, never mind)
Favorite restaurant: In N Out Burger
Favorite dog: Nut
Favorite cat: Chairman Mao
Favorite snack: Goldfish and Triscuits
Favorite dessert: Chocolate chip cookies
Favorite shirt: Cat shirt from Sam (Puma shirt)
Favorite pizza: Mushroom
Favorite room in our house: "Your bed, Mommy"

Up or down/In or out

Haven't blogged in a while, in part because I'm just not sure: Am I in a great mood, on top of the world? Or am I crushed under a huge rock of depression? Seems like every day it's a little different. Saturday I felt great; couldn't wait to get some stuff done around our long-neglected house; Sunday I realized just how badly I overdid it and my tiredness leaked out and brought everyone down. I had just about recovered on Sunday night, and curled up peacefully to sleep, when we were awakened a little before 1 am with a croupy Luke gasping for air. Two and a half hours and a watching of Dumbo later, Luke was peacefully at sleep, breathing somewhat easier with the humidifier humming, and I finally stumbled back into bed. Today I thought for sure he'd crash at naptime, but no such luck - he was still running around long after my body had decided it needed a break.

But enough about me - let's kick off the year with a list of what's in and out for 2007:

In:
Our long-forgotten furniture from Pacific, 90 percent of which we don't have room for.
Using the potty (see diapers, below).
Fuzzy pajamas (uncharacteristic cold snap in the air)
Carrot sticks, hamburgers with the bun, spinach omelets, red onions, and a world of previously ignored food
Dumbo
Renting
Cigars/Champagne (two things Luke has picked up on from the Dumbo video, and which he asks for all the time)
Altoids ("What's your favorite Altoid?") (thanks a lot, Dad)

Out:
Tommarp and the Bus Chair, two vestiges of our former furniture life
Any boxes we haven't opened for the last three moves
Diapers, at least part of the time for Luke. He spent the morning perfectly happy in underwear and has been waking up dry in the mornings!
Footless pajamas
Naptime
Owning
Regular blog entries

Hahahahaha. Just kidding about that last one. I'm sure there will be lots to say in the coming weeks as things get more and more interesting.