Evel And Knievel

The doctor’s office called back- nothing abnormal showed up with the baby’s blood work. Through the nurse’s thick Latino accent I caught the words “urine” and “analysis”: she said that the doctor would talk with me about that at the baby’s appointment next month. Yippee.

At this point I don’t see a reason to worry about the fact that she’s so tiny. She is happy, healthy, and super active. I had to remove the little rocking chair from the living room because she has taken to climbing it and rocking it wildly back and forth while standing on the seat and facing in the wrong direction. Even though she has a great sense of balance she couldn’t resist throwing herself from the chair a time or two and whacking her head on the toys littered around the base of the chair.

Every morning after we descend the stairs to the first floor I make sure to pull the gate across the landing to cut off her route upstairs. This produces an almost otherworldly wail from the baby, as she likes nothing better than to scurry her way up those stairs and sit at the top laughing and clapping her hands while peeking over the edge.

While cooking dinner the other day, I heard a clattering sound under the table where I was stationed. I looked down and there was the baby peering through the slats in the chair; using the training potty as a ladder, she had climbed up onto the chairs and was lying across both of them. That was a new trick, and boy was she proud.

This child is dangerous. She frightens me. If presented with two paths across a room, she will usually choose the obstacle course instead of the clear route. It’s not enough that I have my hands full keeping her brother from riding his bicycle down the stairs, or jumping it off of the couch. Oh, no. I used to think that it was safe to watch old movies with children. It’s possible that I may need to rethink my opinion: believe it or not, he assimilated the bicycle stunts from a two-second scene in Singing In The Rain.

Look At The Crazy Lady

Yesterday, I was the person in the grocery store that you take one glance at, elbow your companion, and say, “Look at that nut.” Well, you would probably stare and not glance at me, because it would take more than a glance to figure out just what it is that I was doing. I’m not usually this person, but sometimes it just can’t be helped. Lately I’ve been too busy herding the whole family down the aisles, trying in vain to get through the store in less than an hour and a half while the toddler runs up and down giggling maniacally, dropping cans of beans and soup on his toes, and the husband stops at anything that looks even mildly appetizing because he didn’t eat enough before we left and now he’s hungry.

Last night, however, I decided that I really wanted to take an hour and go to the grocery store by myself. It helped my case a little that my son is snotting from his nose and I didn’t think it would be nice for other consumers to catch his cold simply because they were out of canned-squid-in-a-blanket at home and needed to go to the grocery store to buy a couple of cans. My husband graciously offered to stay at home with the children after I quickly nixed his proposal to go to the store for me with the standard, “It will be much faster if I go because I know where everything is and I know what we need. If you go I would have to make a detailed list. Thanks anyway.” (Always be sure to thank a helpful husband, because if you don’t he may not offer to be helpful anymore. Although, there are plenty of times where he doesn’t want to be helpful so much as he doesn’t want to be left home alone with sick kids.)

So off I went on my mission of mercy, bringing milk and chicken nuggets to a home and ailing toddler that had none. It was a chilly evening, and I drove along enjoying the feel of a warm and fuzzy hoodie on my skin, already excited for the fall even though there have only been a dozen or so hot days. I hoped that the baby hadn’t started crying for me yet, as she seemed a little leery on my leaving the house.

The first item that a shopper encounters at our favorite grocery store is nice, juicy (and seedless) watermelons. Now, I really have no idea where I picked up this habit, but I simply cannot buy a watermelon without first putting my ear up to it and giving it a good rap with my knuckles: if it sounds hollow that means it’s a good one. I swear I heard that somewhere. At any rate, if I tried to simply pluck a melon from the crate and plop it into my shopping cart I would probably have some sort of mental breakdown.

Somewhere along my journey I came to grips with the fact that I needed some sort of doughnut. I rarely buy junk at the store because I don’t want it in my pantry, taunting me until my eyes bug out at funny angles and I, in crazed desperation, rip open the package and devour its contents in one fell swoop. Okay, that’s a little extreme, but still. At any rate, there I was, methodically searching the bakery department wondering where they had moved the fresh doughnuts to. Since the dawn of time, the doughnuts have been in the same spot. I have ignored them time and time again, and now when I needed them they were not to be found. Ah, ha! Tucked away next to the fresh brownies and evil double-chocolate-chocolate cakes were a few large éclairs. “Well,” I thought, “that’ll do just fine!”

Obviously I couldn’t just pick the first one from the shelf and place it lovingly into the basket. No. I had to stand there and lift each plastic container from the shelf and look to see which was the largest and which had more chocolate on top. Yep. Don’t mind me. By the time I got home I really needed that extra creamy frosting. I stink at picking which line to stand in at the checkout. I’m happy to say that I didn’t ruin my batting average either. There were only three open lanes and I picked the slowest. Sigh. I even tried to be a little scientific. I not only considered the number of carts in each line and how full they each were, but I also made an attempt to judge which of the employees scanned and bagged the fastest. What? Forget that I was probably going home to a screaming infant, a boogery toddler, and a husband who would never let me leave the house childless again. I was in a bit of a hurry to get home and eat my éclair.

He Fought The Porch And The Porch Lost

After multiple trips to the hardware store and a good amount of finagling, my husband has managed to get the porch railings up. I’m very proud of how he engineered the whole project, although it may have been wiser to spend twice the amount of money and get really pretty, and somewhat sturdier, rails instead. It is such a temptation for people on a tight budget like us to go for the less expensive products; but a person wonders if it would have been relatively easy to justify a bit of splurging.

I suppose I’ll just have to be happy if my son doesn’t rip them down or crack them with a baseball bat. Not that he has a baseball bat. I don’t think I’m ready for that caliber of destruction yet. It’s just that while actually in the store, with all of those costly price tags staring you in the pocket book, it isn’t always easy to tell Common-Sense to leave you alone.

At any rate, my big strong man did a marvelous job. The cuts are nice and straight and he didn’t make any mistakes. Even though the porch slants at an impossible angle the front railing looks almost level. Once the porch is painted to match it’ll look swell. Given our track record, the actual painting might happen two or three months from now.

After all of the work on the railing, the husband even managed to replace the front door knob as well. The knob hasn’t worked for about a year now, but it fell off completely yesterday. Not so good. At least it’s fixed now and Nana can sleep soundly and not have to worry about a burglar busting in during the night.

Big, Large Projects- How I Loathe Thee

Having made the huge decision to buy our first home in February of 2007, it seems that there is no end in sight with all of the projects that need to be done around here. The house was in decent shape when we bought it, but it’s over one hundred years old. The task for this weekend is to replace the porch railings, as they are starting to rot and look generally horrid.

The city we live in is rather hilly and slanty; in other words, our home has funny angles and probably could pass for something drawn by the late Dr. Seuss. Last year we replaced both front and back storm doors; one was curiously narrow, while the other was inordinately tall. Neither of them was terribly straight. Our porch is sloped, so the spaces for the railing are an odd measurement.

It is a gloomy errand going to the hardware store with unusual measurements. During the hour we spent in the aisle with the wooden and vinyl railings we went back and forth between the two trying desperately to figure out how to reconcile our needs with the products on the shelves. The baby eventually fell asleep, but the little guy can only stay in one place for so long before he starts climbing up shelving and pushing displays around the floor.

Our custom, when dealing with home improvements, is to make at least one futile trip to the store where we don’t buy anything and we come away almost as perplexed as before. So, of course we finally called it quits, unwound the zany toddler from the ceiling fixtures and went home to lunch.

After lunch daddy went to another store, by himself, and called me a half-dozen times to confer about what merchandise to buy. This sort of thing completely stresses me out. As much as I would like to, I don’t have an aptitude for jobs that require power tools. As it is, I’m on the edge of my seat the entire time, just waiting for some catastrophe to take place.My hubby has a good instinct and he feels manly when he can break out the big tools, so I’m going to squeeze my eyes shut real tight and wait for it all to be over. Oh, and I’ll be doing a lot of pleading praying. Even though the husband isn’t quite as much of a perfectionist as I can be, I know he’ll do his best. As long as we don’t have to scrap the entire project and start over, that will be good enough for me!

Give Me A Rainy Day

It is a dreary, wet day today. The sky is the color of the dirty white walls in our house, and a steady rain has been beating the sidewalk and street since before we rolled out of bed this morning. Although soggy, the grass looks greener for the rain and the cars on our short little street appear thankful to have had the bird waste washed from their doors and the paint freshened up by the removal of dirt and grime.

Today the birds are sighing from the strong branches of the trees across the street, fluttering their wings in acceptance of the rain but caring little for song and gaiety. A stray cat or two slinks down the road in search of a free meal, its drenched bedraggled fur clinging to the ribcage that juts out even more exaggeratedly in the downpour.

A little boy pokes his face through a section of broken blinds, his own little window to the outside world, looking for his daddy to come home because, after all, it seems to be dark out there and dusk is daddy’s usual time for coming home. After keeping a lookout for a bit he resigns himself to the couch to watch his favorite movie-of-the-week, Singing In The Rain, which today seems oddly appropriate.

His little sister is snug in mommy’s arms next to him. An occasional sad-sounding cough reverberates through her chest; her eyes red and runny. These types of melancholy days are more conducive to forgetting the housework and nestling a sick baby as opposed to bright and sunny days that energize and demand productivity.

Never mind the pile of folded laundry that awaits its return to the dresser drawer where it will sit until worn, soiled and washed again. The dirty dishes will still be in the sink later, or tomorrow when perhaps the sun will find its way from behind the cloaked sky and make the chore a little more cheery. There is a particular amount of satisfaction to be had in passing a dreary afternoon with one’s babies safely tucked away in their mommy’s arms.

Take It Slow

I thought it might be prudent to continue yesterday’s topic of the expected unexpected in relation to the raising of children. A subject that I had not broached was that of a new mother’s desire to hurry along the growth of her child. By this I mean the thrilled anticipation with which she awaits big milestones like baby’s first steps, first words, etc.

When my first child was born, I adored every stage he went through and looked with eagerness toward the next. The pride in being able to say that Junior is five-months-old instead of only four-months-old; counting away the days until one can safely proclaim him to be five-and-a-half-months-old. “I can’t wait for him to say ‘mama’” and “I can’t wait for him to be able to roll over” is just the beginning of the “I can’t waits”. What the mother does not realize is that once the child begins to crawl, walk, and even talk, her life will never be the same.

The baby that once stayed put in the same spot on the floor now crawls toward the pet food dishes in search of a snack, or opens all of the kitchen cabinets and drags the Tupperware out all over the floor. Once they can walk, children gravitate in the direction of the telephone or the stairs. Cute little fits of crying when the child is removed from the bathtub turn into all out tantrums when they need to be strapped into the car seat. “Mama” all too quickly becomes “no”.

It is so much easier for me the second time around to savor the present instead of being on the lookout for the next stage. Babies grow all too rapidly without any help from mom and dad. Of course I am crazy in love with my little ones no matter where they are in their developmental journey; I just don’t want to rush it or wish the time away.

Why Can't I Tap Dance On The Table?

My child has tiptoed across the line into the phase where he will go back to the thing he was just told not to touch, climb into the object he was removed from a minute ago, and resume hurling the ball he was just told to roll on the floor so as not to break any of mommy’s few remaining un-broken possessions. Really. And people honestly believe that humans are inherently good? As soon as my back is turned my toddler turns into a Mister-Sneaky-Pants.

It is the as-long-as-mommy-can’t-see-me-I-can’t-get-in-trouble mentality. Even though a mother knows to expect these things, it still garners a certain amount of disappointment when the said time arrives. Like the first time your child tells you “no”; or hears you say “no” and does whatever it was he wanted to do anyway.

Never mind trying to explain to the child that “mommy tells you ‘no’ because she doesn’t want you to hurt yourself”. That sort of reasoning only begets a blank stare, and when mommy’s back is turned the tot continues in the dangerous occupation and breaks his leg. Endeavor to recap the explanation after the accident happens and the mommy is likely to elicit the same blank stare.

My husband, God love him, has so very many talents and interests. Unfortunately, common sense is not one of them so I fear my children have a fifty-fifty chance at continuing on in their present bewilderment as to why certain things are unacceptable and, even, what those certain things are in the first place.

Some days I find it rather tricky to keep my sense of humor when having to repeat the same admonishments over and over and over and over again. It really can be quite tiresome. There have even been phrases I have had to speak that had never occurred to me prior to being a mommy. “Don’t sit on your sister’s head,” for example, or “Do not drink the water in the bathtub- you just peed in it!” Ah, well. I suppose common sense can be overrated.