Our kind of Christmas

So, despite my lack of bloggity blog these many months, I decided to contribute a lil sumthin' sumthin' to a holiday concert extravaganza called 

The Fifth Annual Blogger Christmalhijrahanukwanzakah Online Holiday Concert 

You'll find my contribution somewhere down yonder the page.  I make no claims toward it being good, healthy, talented, or even watchable.  Beware of that before you take a gander at that mess.  And yes, the children are adorable in it.

It was very difficult to keep a straight face through the whole thing, as evidenced by a few video mishaps.  Amos had had just about enough by the time we taped this version, so it took a little bit of "come on, man" to get him into the spirit.  Phil's contribution will probably haunt your dreams, and that's really all we could ask for.

Consider this my Christmas card to you, to make up for all the years when I asked for your address but never sent anything, when I asked what you wanted but didn't get you anything, and when I told you the cake was delicious but didn't actually have any.

Anything for the laughs

Just a warning that something wacky this way comes in about, oh, three days or so, as the crow flies.

In the meantime I raise my holiday drink to you, which I call Drank, which consists of vodka and some sort of Bailey's mint chocolate something-or-another.  

Hint:  It kinda involves this or maybe not:

Clickety click

Burying the Binky with a green thumb

After Arlo was born, it became apparent that jealousy had reared its ugly head in our house in the form of a three year old boy.  Poor Amos, no matter how much we had prepared him, just didn't know how to adjust to the sleep disturbances, round-the-clock baby matters, and loss of attention from Mommy and somewhat from Daddy.  On top of that, the Binky Fairy made a visit to our home to take all of Amos' binkies (pacifiers) away to little babies of the world who need them (oh, the lies!).  His response to that?  Refusal to sleep.  It's been a rough road for all of us since August.

Our solution:  get this kid out of the house.

Our first attempt at getting Amos into some kind of entertainment/education situation was to take him to a preschool for a few hours, two days each week.  It was great for him, until he brought home disease and a pox upon our house.  Out of the five or six weeks he attended, we all were sick for almost all of it.  He still has a nasty cough that erupts each morning from whatever the last nasty virus was to be spread amongst his sticky-pawed peers.  Instead of being a few hours of peace at home for us and time for Amos to play with other kids, it became a classroom-sized Petri dish that created even more stress for us at home.  Loss of sleep because of a newborn is one thing, but to add sickness EVERY WEEK for two months on top of it?  INSANITY.

So, here we are.  Amos is at home, and we are searching for other options.  I think I have a game plan.  Most days, we will go to the playground across the street and/or at the local school.  One day each week, I will take him to Newtown, PA for a toddler/preschooler gymnastics-type class (hopefully disease-free).  Then, we will shop at the local Amish market for delights.  Maybe throw in some playground time if needed.  At least one other day of the week, I will take him along to local farms (such as this one and that one and definitely that one) to buy organic veg, fruit, eggs, meat and whatever else catches our fancy.  Top that off with playground.  This area, Bucks County, is full of farms, farmstands, history and playgrounds, and I should be doing more to enrich our lives with them. 

Good idea?  Maybe?  I thought so.

I think it's important to show children where our food comes from. I think it's doubly important to teach about sustainable farming and organic methods.  That's why I'm hoping to plan an excursion to Rodale Institute up in Kutztown for a day of farm fun.  If you've ever seen Organic Gardening Magazine, these are the folks who publish it.


We'll see how viable this plan is with the winter months ahead.  (Suggestions for other things to do in the winter?  Anyone?  Must be fairly flexible activities for a preschooler and a Mom with a baby.)  Maybe I'll throw in some story times at libraries and book stores.  Maybe a local mom meetup here and there (I belong to local groups, but I haven't been able to attend anything yet).


So, in a nutshell, that's the plan.  I will get out of the house for a few days a week with the boys for fun and edutainment while Phil has some peace at home for his workaday stuff.  I haven't driven around the area much on my own (sad, but true), mostly because 1) I am not from this area and can't find a darn thing without a GPS,  2) I've been largely pregnant or saddled with a newborn on my breast for the entire time we've lived here, and 3) I'm slow to warm up to the idea of being out for hours on my own with a running and sometimes misbehaving boy and a baby in my arms.  Tired and pregnant or tired and nursing is not a great time to be driving.  Let's hope that I can slowly but surely accomplish these goals without falling asleep at the wheel.


Or, I could just give him a stick and some scissors and let him run around the basement.  I guess you can learn something from that.

Mighty random

That should be a superhero name -- Mighty Random.  He commits random acts of kindness or maybe just chooses to lay on the couch.  You never know.


I'm feeling sick today, and I almost gave up on writing something for NaBloPoMo.  Ah, but Guilt, she is a savage beast.  Also, Phil took Amos along for a trip to the grocery store, and Arlo is asleep in his swing.  I guess that means I'm free.


Here are random things, because I have no other ideas.




*  I read a study that says that women's brains increase in size after a few months of being a new mother.  It's meant to create feelings of love and worth, therefore causing the mother to care for the child.  See, now, I feel these warm fuzzies and such, but sometimes when Arlo is bobbing at my back as if that is where my nipples are and kicking me in the kidneys at night, instead of going straight to the warm thoughts of love and worth, I think, "Geez, baby.  Can't you just go make a sandwich and let me sleep?"  I kinda think it takes more than brain growth to break my habits.



*  Bottlecaps taste better than SweeTarts.  Laffy Taffy is useless and hazardous to teeth.  People who hand out pencils for Halloween should be stabbed with them.  I pound down strawberry Nerds like an Oxycontin addict.  Why does everyone buy Tootsie Rolls?  Chocolate trumps all.




*  Political calls are especially annoying when they follow you across the country.  Dear Colorado, we don't live anywhere near you anymore.  Please observe our area code, unless you really enjoy having our three year old answer your calls.




*  One of the best and strangest candies ever was that one that had a white dipping stick made of pure sugar that you dipped into two pockets of powdered sugar.  Sugar dipped in sugar.  It fulfilled every kid's need to eat sticks and powder.


*  Manimal died.  This pains me, but I'm glad my roof will be poop-free. (a little ditty for those who once read my blogs on Myspace)




*  We're having tortilla soup tonight.  Phil and I started making it back in our living in sin days when we lived in San Antonio.  We bought packs of seasoned fajita chicken from H-E-B (one of the greatest grocery chains on the planet), ate fajitas one night and then used the leftovers in the soup.  I wish we lived near H-E-B, just to get those packs of chicken again.  San Antonio, and Texas in general, is packed with flavor, from grocery store to restaurant.  Pennsylvania has shoo-fly pie and pretzels, which taste like sugar or salty cardboard.  I think you see what I'm saying, and I think you feel my pain.  Too bad a care package sent from TX to PA filled with a juicy pack of raw chicken would be fairly disgusting.




And on that note.

Actual conversations, part 5

In honor of My Attempt 3.0 of NaBloPoMo, I present a reprise of Actual Conversations.  Yes, I will try (nay, succeed!) at blogging (or blobbing, unedited) once a day for the month of November.

These words have been uttered in my home or in my general presence.  All characters are based on real people.  No animals were harmed during the vocalization of these phrases.



Phil and Amos playing Wii Sports Resort.

Amos:  I'm you. You're me.  
Phil:  Okay, I'm you.
A:  No, I'm you.  
P:  Oh, I sliced me up!
A:  Where am I?  
P:  Amos lost to Daddy!
Sarah:  No, Amos won.
P:  I'm him and he's me.
S:  Uh...
A:  I knocked me in the water!  Woohaha!
P:  I lost to me once again!
S:  You show yourself no mercy.
P:  I won!  
A:  No, I won.
P:  Indeed.

Shoots the ladders

Amos needs more stimulation than just playing the Wii and watching cartoons (I know, right?  How can he possibly want more than that?), so we've bought games and puzzles to jiggle his brain parts.  His newest game is something he likes to call Shoots the Ladders.  What you do is search your neighborhood and find a contractor who is clearing the house gutters, and you aim really tight so that the guy's ladder...  Naw.  It's his way of saying Chutes and Ladders.  His phrases are more adorable and disturbing than I could have ever imagined.  Yay for kids.

So, yes, we are searching for entertainment and education for our son.  You might call it edutainment.  I call it Necessary Items to Distract the Older Child While Mommy Stuffs a Boob into the Baby's Face.

I curse Vincent Van Gogh.  Actually, I curse the people who thought it would be great to turn Van Gogh's Starry Night into a 1,000 piece puzzle that I felt compelled to buy at Target during our game-buying spree for Amos.  Have you ever looked at Starry Night?  I mean, REALLY looked at it?  Sure, post-impressionist paintings are great and all, but after staring at 1,000 pieces of blue, green, yellow, and muddy brown blobs, I kinda wish good ol' Vincent was still around so that I could cut off his ear myself.  

I find myself looking wistfully at the 24 piece Lightning McQueen puzzle, harkening back to the good old days when lines and colors made sense, and the puzzle consists of nice, fat and thick pieces that you could lob at someone's head, much the way that Amos does with anything small.  But Starry Night?  Good grief.  This blob sort of leans that way in a green and blue mash of insanity, then a brown blob of something -- is it a tree?  a bush?  a mountain? what the hell is it?! -- stands lone in the blobbing, unfocused wave of murkiness.  The yellow swirls of hazy stars just float there, taunting me, saying, yes, I know you can put us together because we're the only defining portion of the painting, but don't blame us for your silly thought that you could put this thing together and make it a project with your son.  Then the baby starts crying, and I'm all, "Baby Man!  Hush up!  Can't you see that Mommy is staring senselessly at 50 brown blobs and fruitlessly hamfisting them into each other in desperation?!"  And Amos begins to throw a few hazy blue pieces toward the ceiling while yelling, "It's raining sky!"  Just then, Phil pops around the corner holding a red-faced Arlo who is shoving his entire fist into his gaping maw and trying to tear the flesh off, and he says, "Um, I believe this child is hungry" while the sky continues to rain itself into my carefully collected pile of brown mush.  This is the part where I would reach across the table and slice off an ear.

So, I place a boob into the baby's mouth and try to balance about 11 pounds of human while muttering, "Little blobby brown mush piece with a speck of mushy blue, where is it, where is it..." This is how I spend a little bit of time each day, getting frustrated with a dead artist and the person at the puzzle company who knew I would fall for their marketing ploy.  No, I don't want the unicorn in a forest puzzle.  I want the puzzle that shows how much I like art.  Impressionist, blobby, undefined art.  And I want to share this love with my son in the form of a puzzle with far too many tiny pieces of recycled board so that we can do a project together and like it, damn it!


Me thinks the lack of sleep in postpartum world is clouding my judgment when it comes to finding appropriate time wasters (nay, edutainment) for my son and myself.  But, it will make a great story for Amos to recall one day.


"Hey, Mom. Do you remember that time when you tried to do a 1,000 piece puzzle with me, and then you got so mad at it that you threw it into the backyard and yelled, 'How ya like that, Vinnie?!  How ya like THAT?!'  That was a lot of fun!"


And I bet he learned something as well that day.  See?  Edutainment.  It works.

Being God, not unlike being John Malkovich

And blarb blarb blarb.  I had a baby.  I get one hour of sleep between slapping a boob into said baby's mouth.  And how was your day?

Anyhoo, sometimes random thoughts enter my delirious head while the above situation is happening.  Also, I really hate that guy in New Jersey for making me regret every time I use the word 'situation.'

I just told Phil I have to use the bathroom, to get him to take the baby.  Instead, I'm typing this.  I lied to my husband to tell you these things.  APPRECIATE MY SACRIFICES, PEOPLE.  Also, I really do need to use the bathroom.

So, here is what I was thinking.  I really like the new doohicky thingamajig that my local news station spent a gazillion dollars on, just so that I could know, to the street level, where a storm is.  I've been using this website for a week now, during heavy storms that have bordered on apocalyptic nightmares.  This is how exciting this has been for me:

S:  "Behold, and the rains shall come henceforth in yea, oh these many two minutes."
P:  "Wuh?  Barble barble mulbah."  (He doesn't sleep either.)
S:  "Look to the west, young man, and ye shall be rewarded with wetness."
 (Rains arrive, much to Phil's amazement.)

I'm like a female wizard, which is what Phil calls those old hippy ladies at street fairs who wear loose caftans and have flowing gray hair.  I'm Hermione Granger, correcting that ginger kid with "Levy- OH- sa!"  I'm a mother-effin' deity, man.  And sure, I'm a wolf in milk-stained clothing (er, uh...) who just revealed my bag of tricks, but oh well.

This reminds me of something I received far too much pleasure from doing while traveling the nation in a beat up VW van (with a snazzy dot-matrix looking photo of a trout jumping out of water on the side window) when I was a kid.  When you travel through Texas or New Mexico with a family of vagabonds, led by a father who refuses to play the radio, much less install a radio in the vehicle, your thinking can become a bit cloudy during the insane amounts of boredom that flow over in your overactive child noggin.  I used my female wizardry on my sister, and it was deliciously evil.

S:  "I know something."
M:  "No, you don't."
S:  "See that bridge up there?  The one over the highway?"
M:  "So."
S:  "It's 13 feet, 6 inches high."
M:  "Shut up."
(Wonky van passes the bridge, with a sign on it that clearly states 13 feet, 6 inches.)
M:  "Whoa..."
S:  "That's right.  I am awesome."
(Twenty miles later...)
S:  "That bridge is 14 feet 10 inches."
M:  "Nuh uh."
S:  *smirks over the pending, crushing defeat of her sister*
(Wonky van passes the bridge, and lo, S was right.)
M:  "No way.  How did you do that?"
S:  "I am awesome."


I'm not sure at what point she ever discovered that, when she wasn't looking, I was secretly reading the signs posted on the road that precede the bridge by about a quarter of a mile or so, but it was wicked fun while it lasted.

And now I use the bathroom.

Do you smell something?

That's what Amos said to me last night, a gleam in his eye, after he had spent some time under the dining room table doing his business.  He isn't fully potty trained yet, and his favorite spot for the big moment is to grunt under the table.  He ran over to me, put his hands purposefully on the side of the couch, and said as if we are playing "Blues Clues", "Do youuuu smell something?"


Indeed.  I did.  I didn't need a paw print over his britches to figure it out.  It was completely hilarious and foul, and this is my kid.

I figured out why he said it.  First, he is awesome and has our senses of humor.  Many times after Amos gets the business out of his body, I am the first to smell it because I have the curse of the pregnant nose.  I can smell what my neighbors are doing with their windows closed.  I know what you ate for breakfast -- in Zimbabwe.  I see people with bad teeth and I recoil at what I suspect will hit my face at any moment, which isn't entirely fair to the dentally-challenged, but it is what it is.  

Going to New York City for a few days was a complete assault on my being.  We would stop at a street corner, and I would grasp Phil's hand and ask, "Are we literally standing inside a tank of human feces right now?"  I couldn't fathom that there was any other explanation for the odors smothering my nasal passages.  Every puddle (which was on every corner) was a sewage fest just waiting for me to take in its acrid delights.  We exited our hotel to walk to breakfast, and I gave Phil a rundown of all odors I encountered every few feet.  "Fish delivery.  Last night's Kim Chi special.  Homeless urine.  Drunk tourist urine.  Yes, there's a difference.  Now there's a scent of rotten fruit stomped by smelly feet.  Oh, because there's a fruit stand with a guy without his shoes.  Dead bird.  Wait, stop!  I smell one blooming gardenia up there on the fifth floor!"

So, really, having me around right now is totally fun if you want to identify mysterious and offensive unpleasantries.

Anyhoo, like I said, I know why Amos said it to me.  When I catch a whiff of his surprise, I tend to yell out, "DO YOU SMELL THAT?!"  Which, I admit, is totally passive-aggressive behavior in which I am attempting to get Phil to change a diaper while I recoil under a blanket.  My son has caught on to this, and now he's decided it will be a fun game to bring the odor closer to me, to help me figure out that, yes, something is definitely rotten in the state of Denmark.  He's very helpful.

Just another snippet of my life as a pregnant woman.  A very, very pregnant woman.