Product testers

Never let it be said that Ed won't do anything for his children. When Connor was a baby, Ed used to warm the diaper wipes in his hands before wiping Connor's bottom. We were too cheap to buy the diaper wipe warmer, but Ed wasn't going to let his son's bottom get cold.

Last night, we were bathing Helen and Ed asked "Do you think this soap can get in people's eyes without stinging?". I replied "I presume so. After all, Therese went to the trouble of making it and gave it as a baby gift. I can't imagine she would give Helen something that could hurt her." And at that, Ed promptly put the soap on his finger and put it on his own eyes. Now that is dedication. And, no suprise, it caused Ed no pain.

I told Ed he was clearly insane and as I sat there watching this unfold, I could hardly believe what he had just done. I would not stick something in my eye. I had opted instead to just be careful and keep it away from Helen's eyes. Ed looked at me and said very frankly "you have to be careful with these things. Why do you think I put the 'bad-ass booty balm' (a gift from our friend Dan) on Connor's bottom first?" And I was all, "uh...cuz you don't like Connor as much as Helen?" and Ed said "No, if I put it on my butt I never would've been able to see what was going on." And I'm sitting there thinking - you just made our toddler a product tester for our baby? Because you couldn't have just put the 'bad ass booty balm' on your own arm to test for a reaction. I guess it's tough being the first born sometimes.

Elaine

Things overheard in the past couple of days

"Do you like oranges, Connor?"
"Yes, I do."
"Have you ever had an orange before?"
"No, I haven't."
And with that, Connor promptly ate almost an entire orange. I cannot begin to point out how odd a behavior this is for Connor.

"Would you like to play trains with me?"
"Sure, but I would like to brush my teeth first."
"No, play trains with me right now."

"Connor, do you know where the little screwdrivers are?"
"Yes."
"Where are they?" (Said with an air of hopefulness.)
"I don't know."
Ed and Connor have actually had this conversation almost daily since our Oktoberfest party when Connor was allowed to touch the little screwdrivers while Ed changed the speaker routing on the stereo. Mysteriously, with Ed's back turned, every screwdriver in the set - save the one Ed had in his hand - disappeared.

"Is this a couch or a sofa?"

"Is this a car seat or a car carrier?" (Sorry, Connor, I forgot you like things to be called exactly one thing.)

"Fucking tape!" (Thankfully, this was said by Ed, who was trying to tape a package. By the time I looked at his tape mess, it looked exactly like the tape balls Connor hands me with a look of total confusion. As in, how could my beloved tape fold up on itself like this? All I wanted to do was see how far I could pull it out for no good reason.)

"Let's look for digger trucks!"

"How do you move a mountain?"
"Get a dump truck, and a digger truck, and a wheelbarrow, and a rake, and a shovel, and a hoe..." (The original text of the book stopped at dump truck, but Connor decided that was an oversimplification of the process.)

"My son called his brother to tell him he was at a house with a million toys!" (My cleaning lady told me this. Her kindergarten son accompanied her to my house today.)

"Why did Carmelina put all these toys in my way?"
"That's called putting them away, Connor."

And best of all...
"Wow, little dude is actually going to get a good nap today. It's already been almost 3 hours."

Happy Birthday, Ed

Today, Ed turned 38, although I'm sure it feels closer to 55. After one glorious night of uninterrupted sleep, Connor decided to wake up at 3:00 and stay that way for a while. I was feeding Helen (after waking her up!), so Ed answered Connor's call.

Connor was quite excited that there was a birthday in the house (coupled with a birthday at school which made the day double-good). We celebrated by frosting cupcakes for Ed. And no, you don't need to adjust your monitors, that is indeed, blue frosting. Is this sad, or what? I used to bake wedding cakes, but for Ed's birthday, the best I could muster was cake from a box. I just didn't have it in me to bake something with Connor from scratch yesterday, and this box of cake mix has been sitting in my basement for I don't know, 5 years, so it was time to use it up.

The results were not good (though the sprinkles were nice!), but Ed pretended everything was fine. I guess that's the wisdom that comes with 38 years. When your toddler is excited about blowing out a candle and putting blue frosting on a cupcake, and your wife is too lame to make you a decent dessert, you smile. Thanks, Ed.

Next week, we're going to the Neil Young concert to celebrate Ed's birthday. I promise it'll be better than today.

Elaine

Thank you Helen and Connor...and my German roots

Yesterday, I told Ed in front of both Helen and Connor that I needed my children to sleep at night. And, apparently they were listening in on our conversation. Helen went to sleep around 10:00 and slept until 3:00 - and she might have slept longer except she stirred a bit and I decided to go ahead and feed her. Miraculously, she went back to sleep immediately after finishing her meal and slept until just past 7:00. Connor, bless his heart, stayed in his room the entire night, and didn't come bounding into my room until after 6:00. I was feeling so good that after he had his morning bottle, I went downstairs and played with him which meant Ed got to sleep until Helen woke him up. Normally, Ed is the designated waker with Connor because I have spent at least an hour with Helen in the middle of the night trying to coax her back into sleep and I am too tired to entertain the thought of getting out of bed when Connor is ready. Let's just say, we are all feeling good. Right now, Helen and Connor are napping and Ed is running an errand. Usually, either Ed or I need to take advantage of naptime by napping ourselves - sometimes both of us!

With all that sleep, it seemed only natural that we would tackle the landscaping project again today. This time, Helen and I helped out. I figure my German ancestors are quite proud that I had Helen napping out in the cool weather this morning. I can almost hear my mom telling me how good the fresh air was for her.

After toting a few loads of mulch in his new wheelbarrow, Connor decided he'd rather serve as project foreman.


Elaine

More Mulch

We've redone the back stretch of the yard. When we first started landscaping, we had visions of beautiful, flowering bushes that would grow huge, screening the back of our lawn from the neighbors. But, uh, we learned you have to take care of those beautiful bushes, or they will die. And, the weeds around them will be taller than them on occasion (just ask my dad who spent a full day with a hoe last fall finding bushes as if they were Easter eggs hidden from obvious view).

For the second landscaping attempt, we installed leyland cypress trees, which we have successfully grown in another portion of the backyard, and butterfly bushes. The trees are good because they grow fast, and as they grow, it is nearly impossible for weeds to grow beneath them. The butterfly bushes are all transplants from my butterfly garden. The mother ship bush spawned a dozen or so little bushes this past growing season, that needed to be removed from the garden, lest they take it over completely. I figure they'll provide nice color in the back - and they're VERY EASY to take care of, which is the most important ingredient to any landscaping plan.


We planted the bushes before Helen was born, and now we're ready to lay down the weed fabric and then cover that with mulch. We knew Connor would be excited about the project not only because a real live dump truck would be visiting our house dropping off that mulch, but because it could then be carted about the yard. For this project, we purchased a new wheelbarrow, much more substantial than his old one.

After working a bit, he got out his thermos and poured himself a glass of apple juice, which he later told me was 'refreshing'. Helen and I took an extended nap while the boys worked. We needed the sleep after the party we had from 4 AM to 6AM last night!


Elaine

Rules

Now that there are two little people in the house, we've had to implement a few more rules. Today's rules were "no head to head contact with your little sister" and then later "no touching your sister's head". When presented with the first rule, Connor did clarify that he could still head butt Ed on occasion. A few mornings ago, Ed had to tell Connor that he couldn't gauge his eyes out - because I guess that's not obvious to Connor. And, Connor attempted to show that he was clearly more man than Ed because he offered to gauge his own eyes out if he couldn't poke Ed's eyes. I'm just hoping at least one of them has eyesight by the end of the week and we don't end up in the ER with a head injury at some point. Connor's intentions are always sweet, but he's still a toddler, and toddlers have coordination issues that can foil the best intentions.


In other news today, Connor not only watched Ed vote, but cast a few ballots for him, Helen slept and spit (oh yeah, she does this every day), and Connor and Helen shared a bit of tummy time.

Three toys

I've been thinking about inviting one of Connor's classmates over for a play date. I figure if he sees some of the children more than weekly, he'll become more acquainted with them, and ultimately have more fun with them at school. So I asked Connor today, would you like me to see if "A" can come over and play, or maybe "B", and Connor said "Yes, and maybe 'C'". I told Connor "'C' will destroy our home". You see "C", while a fun child, is also the most energetic child in the class. He's been known to throw stuff all over the room and daily has to be taken from various areas of the room because he's being a bit more destructive than our teacher thinks appropriate.

Tonight I went to a meeting of parents from the class. The monthly meetings provide a forum to discuss classroom issues and also learn more about the Waldorf philosophy. In casual discussion, it came up that "C" has THREE toys. And, he must put one toy away in order to get another toy out. The dad explained that perhaps his son was a bit destructive in the classroom because he was overwhelmed with all the choices. Uh, welcome to the real world, pal. I am so overwhelmed by the thought of a 2 year old in a house with 3 toys that I cannot even think about all the funny things Connor said today that I was going to write about. Now I KNOW "C" would destroy my home...so if Connor asks about that play date again, it will surely take place at a nearby park.

Elaine

Revenge

Ed has often remarked to me that his favorite day of the year is the day we "fall back". He loves it, of course, because he gets an extra hour of sleep without having to admit he slept until noon (or 7:15, as the case may be these days). While we knew toddler-time might not reset itself with the rest of the United States, we were hopeful that Connor would stay in bed a half hour later than usual.

Unfortunately, my poor diapering Saturday night meant Connor would wake up soggy. I was downstairs feeding Helen when Ed found Connor wandering the hall and asking Ed to change his diaper. This is a rare request indeed, these days. Ed discovered that he had to change the diaper, pajamas, and linens. And each moment Ed labored, Connor just seemed to wake up more. "Daddy, it's wet here, and here...you just dropped 'dog train dog', where is my ..." Ed figured there was no way Connor was going back to sleep, but indeed, he did. Only, Helen's nose was a bit stuffy, and I decided to give it a bit of a cleaning after I had fed her, and this caused her to yell, which Connor took as an invitation to come on in my bed. In some ways, Helen deserved to get to wake Connor up since this seems to be among his favorite activities when it comes to her. "Helen, it's wake-up time" or, even better, when he goes in to see her sleeping because "I have to see Helen" and he shrieks "she's sleeping!".

All Ed could think about as Connor kicked him, punched him, and generally made certain Ed could not sleep was that his very favorite day of the year was positively ruined. Perhaps it is days like these that inspired Ed to say a few nights ago "I think that we should get to sleep in on our birthdays - and I'm not just saying that because mine is less than a week away". I told him he could sleep in when my parents were here, because they always volunteer for morning duty (hint hint!).

Elaine

That's my girl...and hangin' in the kitchen

Helen is back to sleeping quite a bit - except for a couple of hours at night (which means she is just like her Aunt Linda, according to my dad). But tonight, she decided to play for a few hours after Connor was safely tucked in bed. And to start off that play, she opened her eyes, pumped her right fist in the air, and let loose some very noisy, loose poop. And most remarkably, that pooping was not accompanied by projectile spit-up, as it usually is. That is a miracle. And, it is with great pride that I can say that excitement over accomplishing this feat surely means Helen is going to fit in just fine in this family.


Ed posited earlier today that the reason Helen can spit-up so much and still gain weight is that she actually digests her food completely and then, rather than having it travel through her intestines, she just pukes it right up, but she's already gotten all the nutritional value from it. Thoughts, my fellow google MDs?

And the laughs keep coming. Just right now...do you know what funny thing you did just one moment ago Helen? After eating heartily, and then being held very still for at least 30 minutes - 30 minutes where neither your dad nor I risked doing anything so radical as sneezing, or heck, breathing heavily because that might encourage you to toss that entire meal, your dad changed your diaper and clothes (because even with all that holding still, you managed to unload a bit of that big dinner). And then he looked at you, and looked at me, and said "I think she's making some hunger signs, which I know doesn't make sense, but see what you think". So I looked at your dad as if he was crazy, because so far as I know you do not have a tapeworm, and I held you. And you looked up at my enormous breast, pursed your lips tightly together, and looked at me like you could think of nothing worse than swallowing one more mouthful of milk. At which point, your dad said "uh...maybe I was wrong about that".


After a rather tedious couple of hours this morning, Ed asked Connor if he needed a nap (two hours before he normally takes a nap) and Connor said he did. So, off Connor went to take a THREE HOUR nap, and after that he was in a much better mood. Note to Ed: please do not let our toddler stay up an extra hour when I am gone, even if you are just trying to prepare for daylight savings. It can make for a rather horrible morning. We went golfing, of course, because if my parents can be on the course in November, so can we! And then we came home and made pie dough for pot pies and made alphabet cookies with the left-overs. Connor had an enormous dinner, followed by several of these cookies. Turns out, he can reach up on the counter and pull down a tray full of cookies and serve himself. And I thought he was too short for that.

Elaine

Bring it on!

My friend, RMADILLO (who claims the glass of wine she had been drinking might have been doing the talking), has challenged me to participate in National Blog Posting Month. The goal is to post every day for the entire month of November. I missed yesterday (the challenge came after I had turned the computer off for the evening), but if I succeed in posting every other day in November, I'll tag on December 1 to complete the challenge.

So here goes...a daily account of what's going on in November. I'll try and not repeat too much, despite the fact that my life tends to repeat itself a lot. To get the obvious off my chest...spit-up...projectile spit-up...poor me, no chocolate...Connor just said something funny...Connor has OCD...and, don't forget the spit-up.

Today we learned that the miniature golf course near our home has reduced their hours even further, and starting in November, is only open on Saturdays and Sundays. Bummer, since we went to the course this afternoon. Connor seemed to take the news - which could have been devastating - in stride, and was happy enough to head to a playground instead. We'll try again tomorrow...