Babysitters and Bathrooms

Yep. It's official. I've finally crossed the very last hurdle: I am a grown-up. I paid an actual teenage babysitter cold hard cash on Saturday night. I've been meaning to ask our neighbor to babysit for quite some time now but it finally happened. It was so nice not to have to drive her home when I got back from Mr. b's gig! Earlier in the evening Kirk and I even walked up to the store and bought babysitter food. I don't know what they eat these days so I went with Doritos, cookie dough ice cream, and a selection of 20 oz sodas (Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, Sprite, and Orange Cream). Now I feel confident that I can plan to attend Mercurial Rage shows with more frequency!

Another hurdle this weekend? Kirk's first time wearing underpants outside the house! We certainly didn't want to discourage it when he choose underpants right as we were getting ready to go out for lunch. And it was fine at first. We reminded him of his situation constantly while ordering and waiting for our food. He was as well behaved as he ever is, crawling from one side of the booth to the other under the table. Eventually he asked Mr. b to take him to the bathroom! They returned seconds later after not even an attempt. One other such trip and we rolled our eyes. Hey, at least he was asking, right? And then I looked over and he was standing in a puddle on the booth seat. Great. Awesome. He peed the restaurant. Thankfully we were already on our way out the door so I cleaned up after him and we dashed out. You'd think that wet jeans would be a deterrent but he honestly didn't seem to care. Well, he did walk all bow-legged out to the car. That was pretty hilarious.

Backyardigans

At some point towards the end of the winter, maybe in February?, we started letting Kirk play outside by himself. The backyard is fenced in and we have the gates "locked" - there's a carabiner on one and an unlocked padlock on the other to prevent him from lifting the latches. He asks to go out and will put his shoes on (he can do it by himself about 20% of the time) and gets all excited for his coat and hat and mittens. He loves it when the kitties are outside with him. He and Chloe the Annoying One will actually play games, like chase each other around! He's got a stash of sticks from our fire kindling pile that he plays with - they're the Doobie Sticks - and he can just generally amuse himself for at least a half hour with whatever toys happen to be in the yard instead of the garage porch. I peek out the window every 2 or 3 minutes though! If I can't see him or hear him I poke my head out the door and call to him. I'm not particularly worried but...he's 2. And I'm still not quite used to the idea of him being out completely unsupervised.

It's fun seeing the yard get used in such a complete manner. He's got all his little spots, like next to the air conditioning unit or along the side of the garage where I excavated a long buried sidewalk last summer. It seems like such a small yard but it's his. I find myself sometimes just watching him when I meant to do a quick check. I'll be mesmerized by his play, listening to his running commentary to himself with a goofy half grin on my face.

Dinosaurs & Rockets

This is what happens when you have a toddler. This is what you find funny. This is what you create when inspiration hits and you have a few moments to spend manipulating. And you make other versions.

Idol Gossip

Yesterday, while I was running down the stairs to the bus stop, a thought popped into my head: wouldn’t it be crazy if we had a pregnant American Idol contestant? I mean, what would the producers do?! And the show runs long enough that if it was timed right, we’d totally see her belly growing and everything.

This morning I was starting to catch up on TWoP’s conspiracy theories for AI. I read a spoiler that they’re going to have a wild card spot for the tour and bring back the 11th & 12th place finalists and also a select few from the semis to all compete for it. Then they’ll have an even more bloated results show – supposedly during Idol Hearts the Children So Very Much week. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. I sort of miss when the semis used to have the wild card round. Then I read someone speculate that it would make sense if they needed to replace a Top 10 finalist on the tour because Carly the Irish girl’s red, shapeless shirt onstage Tuesday night really was a maternity top!!!! Oh my gods I’m psychic! But it also clarifies so much for me. There’s an air of desperation about her that I haven’t been able to reconcile with her punk rock image. Why does she care so frickin’ much about Idol of all things? But if she was preggers, that changes everything. And it brings her hormones into play. And it explains why she’s been so out of breath after her performances. And why her posture is so effin’ weird all the time. Dude she is so knocked up!!

Of course that’s just my unfounded accusation based on speculation and internet rumors. But I like it and I’m going with it.

Sartorial Stymie

Kirk’s never really shown much interest in dressing himself. Sometimes he’ll help us get him undressed. He’ll take his arms out of his sleeves to be silly on occasion. He can pull his socks off but sometimes he has trouble getting his pants down. He can undo sweatshirt zippers but won’t unzip his jammies all the way, instead shrugging out of the arms and then struggling to get them off his legs while still zipped up to his waist.

So it was a bit surprising to me when yesterday, while driving to Auntie’s, he suddenly decided to practice putting his mittens on. He was just sitting in his carseat and it took a couple tries to get the thumb hole aligned with his thumb but he did it. And then this morning, when I asked if he wanted to do his mittens himself, he got them on almost faster than if I was helping him!

I sometimes wonder if his lack of interest in dressing is one of his impediments to potty training. Obviously he’s not going to make it to the potty in time if he can’t get his pants off his ass. But even when we offer to help him make it in time…he just doesn’t really care.

I’ve been telling myself that there are only two Big Things left for Kirk to master and then the transition to big boy will be complete: potty training and leaving the crib. But I finally realized that getting dressed is another one. I don’t figure he’ll do sleeves perfectly anytime soon or master snaps on jeans. It would be nice if he seemed to care though. And then I second guess myself by remembering the one day the other week where he managed to get his shirt on over his head all by himself before I started helping him with the rest of it. So maybe I need to back off. He likes picking his clothes out himself. And I let him. So I guess now I need to let him put them on himself, too.

Army of Darkness

My semi-annual vampire literature fixation kicked off with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Monstrous Regiment, so I decided to just go for it and read another one of Anne Rice’s books: The Vampire Armand. I find myself incredibly torn when it comes to her writing; I like the world she’s created and the way she’s modified existing vampire mythology. But I hate Lestat. Hate him. I find, looking at my last review, that I dislike him more and more every book I read. Armand is a fascinating character, however, and I love Marius so I was excited to get some backstory there. It’s interesting just how much she focuses on Christianity in her writing though. My first thought upon reading this article that superbadfriend sent me is, huh? How can people think that she’s doing something new and different with her Christ books? She’s been completely wrapped up in Biblical interpretation for several books now and Armand was no certainly change to that pattern.

I haven’t seen any of the film adaptations but jill loaned me her copy of I am Legend and I was very excited to read it. It was incredible. And frankly, I don’t know if I can handle seeing the newest movie now! Either they’ll change the ending and I’ll be pissed or else they’ll leave it alone and I’ll bawl. It was so intense and utterly unlike any other vampire tale I’ve ever read before. It felt more like a post-apocalyptic zombie story, or something like The Day of the Triffids. Several of Richard Matheson’s short stories were included in the volume after the Legend novella ended and it was nice getting to see more of his writing style. He’s very dark, almost horror, but not gory. There’s certainly a focus on things and people not being what they seem. He did a bit of experimentation with voices but on the whole they felt very much like self-contained Twilight Zone episodes. Which is a good thing.

It's a Girl!

Congratulations lis!!

Welcome to the World

Plan C

We've made it through one whole week of K's six week maternity leave. It was so wonderful of my sister to take Kirk back again. But we knew on Monday that there was no way in hell we'd be able to handle Auntie Daycare for the entire time. It's the drive. That remains the biggest thing. But it's also...that place. It's hard to describe but Kirk just doesn't get the kind of care and attention that he gets with K. I suppose that seems counterintuitive since it's family, but my sister is a busy Kramer-from-Seinfeld style entrepreneur and so even when she's physically there, she's not really there. Her husband is more wrapped up with their new baby so as much as he might like having another boy around, he's not going to be particularly focused on Kirk. He's certainly not exactly learning anything. That's not the point! We had already gotten into the mindset that this was like summer vacation and he'd be letting his brain rot the whole time. Heh. But it's still somehow different. A1 is in school, A2 is in half-day kindergarten, so he's not even getting the cousin time that he had before. He's on his own, left to play and amuse himself, or fend for himself in the crush of little girls from the building that pile in for after-school playtime. And he's not getting regular naps. "Oh, he got a good hour of sleep in the car" is not a regular nap. "He was asleep in [A2's] chair when we came back out to the living room" is not adorable, it's heartbreaking.

Mr. b and I have decided to each use a week of vacation and stay home with Kirk the last two weeks of K's leave. But three more weeks over there still seemed like too much for all of us to handle. He's been a wreck all weekend; some of it is all of us being sick right now but mostly, he hasn't had a decent nap in a frickin week! He gets all wound up and has no quiet time. And he's on reduced Mama and Daddy time because of the long drive and the subsequent earlier bedtime due to the lack of napping. My parents were babysitting last night and I asked them if there was any chance they could cover a week for us, too. So that brings it down to just two more weeks. I think we can handle that.

I certainly don't regret sending Kirk to Auntie Daycare when I first went back to work. I think it was perfect for both of us. He was so little and I was a first-time mom going back. It would have been much worse to send my kid to some random stranger. But things are different now, for my sister as well as for us. The circumstances have changed and Kirk's older and I just don't think it's the right environment any longer. I'd love to somehow cover the remaining two weeks but I feel vastly better knowing it's down to just those 9 days - Mom's sleeping over with us on Thursday night so will stay with Kirk the following day. It's not a perfect solution but it's a plan.

Movie Star

Mr. b got busy with the iMovie last night and created this awesome look back at Kirk's two-and-a-half years so far. Kirkie loves watching videos of himself and sometimes asks to see specific ones. So he adored this one. When I left for the bus stop this morning they were already on their third viewing. "That's me! I'm messy. I'm a bald baby. Look, I'm a big boy! I have hair."

For the Writers

Kirk's got this green, 90s-Madchester-parka-lookin' coat. Whenever Mr. b puts it on him he uses his best announcer voice to tell the kitties, "As given to him by Academy Award Nominee Diablo Cody."



He's going to have to revise that statement to, "Academy Award Winner Diablo Cody." Congratulations!

Islands of Thought

I had a hard time figuring out how to categorize For the Time Being by Annie Dillard while I was reading it. I eventually settled on "philosophy". It was an interesting format: each chapter flowed through the same set of topics (birth defects, sand, clouds, ancient China, Jewish theology come to mind) but spent more time on one and less on another and came at each from a different angle than before. I think ultimately I enjoyed the book but it’s not something I would recommend to just any reader. It’s really well suited to someone who is a Searcher. I would have eaten it up while in college when I was actively pursuing knowledge of other religions and belief systems. I’ve since moved away from that mental stance but it still gave me much pause for thought. I liked how she used so many differing methods, from the temporality of clouds to the eternity of sand, to illustrate the infinite and just how minute we really are.

Sand was an important part of Island of the Sequined Love Nun as well but really only because it was set on a small island in the South Pacific. Like the only other Christopher Moore book I’ve read, Fluke, it’s tough to describe. I could say it’s about a fucked up pilot who ends up making good. But that’s like saying Fluke is merely about some whale researchers. Yet if I go beyond either of those summaries, hooboy, spoilers abound. And I wouldn’t want to ruin the zany fun. This guy has a wicked sense of humor and injects fantasy elements in such a way that they are not only completely believable but logical as well. Mr. b’s already read another of his books and I fully intend to as well. I predict we’ll both catch up with his entire oeuvre by year end.

I read Jane Eyre about a year ago at the behest of my aunt. I never did get around to reading The Eyre Affair, but it’s a good thing I did read the original. Book club’s February book is Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. It was really intense. Obviously I knew it wouldn’t end well since it’s the story of the mad woman inhabiting Mr. Rochester’s attic. But it was so evocative and lush. I think I was supposed to end up hating Mr. Rochester but I couldn’t. Antoinette was doomed to be a complete nutter by genetics, circumstance, upbringing, location, everything. Nature plus nuture. It was a good read but I don’t know that I need to see the movie.

My aunt is also determined to get me hooked on Terry Pratchett. She picked out Monstrous Regiment for me at the end of book club last month. I loved it. Totally unlike anything I’ve ever read. Polly cuts off her hair, dresses as a man, and "Oliver" enlists in the last batch of new recruits for a backwards country fighting a pointless and futile war. Hilarity, hijinks, wackiness, and shocking revelations ensue. It was fantastic! I always enjoy stories where having vampires and ogres around is no big deal, they’re just other citizens in that world. And by the end of this book I wanted more. I simply loved the journey, both literal and personal, that Polly went on and I wanted more. I wanted to see what she does next. I’ve been told that it doesn’t matter what order you read his Discworld books in because it’s the rare series that barely links up. That both saddens me that I won’t get a Polly sequel and also excites me that there are so many other books set in that same world. It’s a shame that he won’t be able to write many more.

Status Symposium

Daycare was a half-day on Thursday and I decided to just take the whole day off and spend it with Kirk. Mr. b had taken a random Friday off to hang out with the boy (they went to the Children's Museum) and so I was feeling a bit jealous. Well, maybe that's too strong. I just haven't done any fun Mama and Kirkie outing and I guess I was feeling like I was letting him down. But I couldn't think of anything exciting to do with him. Certainly nothing that could compare to going to the museum and driving by his favorite place in the universe: the Minnesota Capitol. But I wanted to try. I read an article once about a mom taking her son on a mini-vacation just the two of them shortly before she had another kid. And I really like that sentiment but don't think I need to wait until I'm pregnant again to start doing it.

So we took the bus downtown and checked out the new Central Library. I still hadn't been in there since it was finished! There was baby storytime earlier that morning and I knew they had some sort of free-play scheduled in the children's area for a while yet. Kirk was the oldest kid in the storytime room and probably the second oldest in the entire children's section. And the moms of the babies were obviously full-time moms that derive all of their self-worth and identity from being moms. They all hovered over their only children instead of letting them crawl around and explore. Or they held them instead of letting them play with the bin of infant toys. And the discussions were all about what early childhood development class they were taking. Where the best infant yoga offerings are. Various other baby activities offered in the swanky west and south suburbs. It was kind of gross and stereotypical and it made me uncomfortable. And I felt compelled to broadcast that I actually work for a living; seeking out status for practicing baby genius flashcards is not something I'm interested in. And never have been.

The funny thing is that just a few minutes earlier, a couple of women on the bus had been floored at Kirk's language abilities. The one woman said he sounded like her 4-year old grandson and she about keeled over when she heard him rambling on about the capitol. So I don't feel like I'm depriving my son of any education. I think he's learning more by going on outings to places that aren't necessarily part of some approved McMansion curriculum. But I definitely felt out of place and I'll have to keep that in mind next time I want to have a day with my son. And it's always nice to have a reminder that being a stay-at-home is not for me.

My Valentine

The Darndest Things

No Mama. You can't talk me like a person! [I know what he means. It's a proto-"you're not the boss of me" statement. But...like a person? I don't get it!]

No, not dang'ous. [This applies to any warning given about anything.]

Green grocery store name Rainbow. Red grocery store name Target. Blue grocery store name Walmart. [These color assignments at least make sense by the colors of their names. Mr. b, being a smartass, told Kirk that Walgreens is the purple store. We'll see if that one sticks.]

We going to blue library? [I just don't have a clue why the book club library became blue. As far as I can remember he's only been to a different library once - for a grand re-opening party. He was totally traumatized by the giant BurBur and Anna foam headed costumes and Goldy Gopher, who actually pulled his name out for the kid's prize drawing.]

[A2] broke Nana's c'ock. [I'm 12. I giggle every time he talks about the broken "c'ock". Nana shouldn't have had that stupid clock sitting so precariously in the first place. But it was hilarious to watch Kirk scolding his cousin after she was already in time-out for being so spastic that she knocked the dang clock off in the first place.

We go Cap'tol and see horses and get horses down need ganker and bomp and ride them at Cap'tol. [Your best guess is as good as mine on the whole ganker and bomp deal. He tells this story all the time. Mr. b took him to the state capitol while killing time before my charity choir concert this winter and he became obsessed with getting the gold horse statues down from the top.

Watch Your Mouth

I should have seen it coming. Kirk's been occasionally using the phrase, "Oh. My. God." for the past month or so. But last week he busted out with, "This puzzle sucks!" And while it was frackin' hilarious to hear out of a toddler's mouth...he's two. I don't know that he should be saying sucks yet. It was so hard not to laugh though! He even says it just like his grandpa; he draws out the S and ends with a percussive report of consonant so it becomes, "sssssssssuCKs". I feel like I do a good job of watching my sailor language around him. Mr. b? Not so much. But neither of us really considered these low-level pseudo-swears. I've been trying to nip this particular bud by reminding him that things are awesome or rule. He's still young enough to be distracted by bait and switch. The biggest problem is going to be "gate". As in, "That giraffe is so 'gate'." Um...yeah. Not going to correct him. But that one is 100% Mr. b. He calls things gay all the time and I just don't know that he's got it in his power to stop. Even though it's not the 80s and he's not 10.

Puzzling

Kirk has really gotten into jigsaw puzzles the last month or two. I think it's awesome because I still love doing puzzles. For Christmas, Mr. b got him a really cool set of four wooden puzzles in their own neat and tidy box. But he didn't stop there. He also got two more wooden puzzles, these on planks so they can't be as easily put away. And then he took Kirk to the MoA and had a picture puzzle made with Kirk, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto! That one is friggin adorable. I'm not even mentioning all the hand-me-down, prize drawing won, and gift bag puzzles we've collected. Kirk loves doing them all and is really good at them. The problem, as always, is how to put things away.

Last night we played a game called Ten Things. It involved Mr. b going through the toy bin in Kirk's room and pulling out ten things that are too baby or too old or too annoying to keep in regular rotation. I then secreted them downstairs into the storage bin I've designated for toys. It made a big difference but doesn't really solve the puzzle problem. We can't just dump the puzzles into the bin; the pieces would end up strewn all over the bottom. Same goes for the ever growing collection of crayons and coloring books. I'm really not sure what we're going to end up with. I think we need a shelf system of some sort. There's just not really any room at the moment. Kirk still has both his crib and his bed set up and until he switches over to the bed, it's going to stay that way.

The League

Rereading the first two volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen only served to remind me what an extraordinary piece of storytelling Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill have created. Anyone that might dismiss this work on the basis of its graphic novel nature is depriving themselves of possibly the most fantastic work of literature in our modern fin de siècle world. That it takes place in the original fin de siècle only makes sense. The interweaving of the characters and plots from famous or unknown, important or trashy, Victorian works is quite seamless. I've made it a point to use the League as a reference when I am feeling the need to read a "Classic" book. I've read the source material for all the of the members of the League (Dracula - Miss Murray [Mrs. Harper in that tale]; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island - Captain Nemo; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - eponymous; The Invisible Man - eponymous; King Solomon's Mines - Allan Quatermain) and have delved into dozens of minor characters and plot elements as well. Each panel, while vibrant and vivid, is also chock full of subtle references to other works. The thorough and incomparable annotations compile all of these details and have been invaluable to me when I need to find out just where someone or something is from. It's like stopping to look up a word. Only I'll stop to look up an allusion. Lost wishes it did literary allusions as well as League!

The end of each volume is also home to some fascinating prose. The first volume has a wonderful short story, again, extremely Victorian and Steampunk. I found it much more enjoyable this time and some of the events were referenced in the second volume. The second volume contains a tongue-in-cheek travelogue, listing all the fantastic places found on the globe. This was tedious as times. It seemed like it was merely a name-checking device to show off how well read (or well researched?) the authors were. More fun was when they would dig a bit deeper into the action, like talking about the follow-up party that went searching for the rabbit hole that Alice went down, and the terrible repercussions that followed. Rather clever, that. I didn't know it at the time but this catalogue of the phantasmagorical would be extremely important in the most recent tale of the League.

I didn't know what to expect when I started The Black Dossier. It turned out to be an exponential leap forward in storytelling from the already leading edge League. It managed to expand the League both forward and backward in time. And instead of just using allusions in comics panels, the authors appropriated the very writing styles of the authors (real and purported) of those times. A long lost Shakespearean play. A bit of gossip from Bertie Wooster. An excerpt of a beat novel from Sal Paradise. This took the notion that all of these fictional characters are real and part of a secret organization to another level. And it was amazing. A bit dirty. Somewhat maddening. Often silly. But intense and compelling and beautiful and utterly unlike anything else I've ever experienced. And now I have a whole new list of Classics that I am desperate to read.

Yay Diablo!

From little Kirkie’s babysitter to Oscar nominee: the incomparable Diablo Cody. Congratulations to Diablo, Ellen, and Jason!

Six-Pack

My abs were sore all weekend long. I did a group exercise class at the work gym on Friday and was appalled to confirm just how out of shape my abdominal muscles still are. Sure, I haven’t really been focusing on them in any sort of consistent fashion since having Kirk but I guess I didn’t expect them to still be so very weak. I don’t know if full-on diastasis recti happens for all preggos but still, the muscles do have to move apart to make way for the uterus. And I haven’t been doing a very good job of trying to strengthen them back up. I’m not even talking about getting rid of the muffin top. I’m fully resigned to that. And frankly, it doesn’t really bother me. I still go out in public in a bikini because I don’t care. Besides, the kinds of crunches and serious ab work I have in mind won’t get rid of belly fat. I need massive cardio to do that. I’m talking about actual medical reasons for getting my core strength back. The most shocking thing about my soreness was that it wasn’t even necessarily my abdominals themselves. It was all the points on my trunk that connect. So my hips felt it and my neck and my armpits. Clearly I have a lot of work to do. It would be legitimately smart for me to do something before I go off the Pill again.

Milk Fed

It's amazing how much more well-rested I felt this morning after Kirk sleeping through the night. For a change. How did I ever handle him getting up every night? Sometimes multiple times?! The problem isn't just that he's waking up. That happens. He'll need milk and then either a pants change and/or to come to bed with us. No big deal. Quick enough that I don't have to come to full consciousness. But this week he's just been a total dick in the middle of the night. Crabby, cranky, and bitchy. He shouted for milk and yet when Mr. b went in he screamed, "Not you! I want my Mommy get it!" That one ended with both of us up and stumbling around while he freaked out and complained. The following night when he shouted for milk? Of course he didn't want me. The moment I opened the door he exclaimed, "No! My Daddy get it!" I told him that his daddy was sleeping and that if he didn't want me to get it then he wouldn't get any. Then I went back to bed. A half hour later I heard, very politely, "Want more milk, Mommy." Heh.