The things you find in your closet...

Yesterday afternoon, Son One was playing quietly in the living room, Daughter One was asleep in her pack-n-play... and Son Two was nowhere to be seen. As I roamed the apartment frantically, I noticed that I'd left my wardrobe door open, and sure enough the kiddos had gotten into it, scattering clothing all over the bedroom floor. I tried to close the doors, but something was blocking it. In a hurry to find my lost sheep, but not wanting more mess to happen, I just tried to shove the doors close enough to closed so that I could secure the child lock. Suddenly I hear a shriek. And there was Isaiah, curled up for a nap on the second shelf of my wardrobe, snuggled up with his favorite pillow.

Chinese water torture

Most businesses that routinely put people on hold for inordinate periods of time play carefully engineered selections of music designed to put callers at ease and defuse as much frustration as possible. While waiting to speak to someone at California Public Health Services, you can enjoy the beautiful sound of silence...

...interrupted every 40 seconds or so by a bored voice saying "your call IS important to us."

Torture. Sheer torture.

Stanton McDonald Wright, Conception Synchromy 

Stanton McDonald-Wright mapped the twelve colors of the color wheel onto the twelve tones of the chromatic scale, and then proceeded to paint in the various resulting keys and modes. His "synchromies" are astoundingly beautiful---music for the eyes. I've been fascinated with the concept ever since I saw an exhibit of his work at LACMA four years ago... so I spent Sunday afternoon experimenting around with the color wheel while my guys were dooping around the park. 

 

Synchromy

A standard I-IV-V7-I progression in the key of red major.

Trucks

The boy-wuggies like trucks. Trucks are lots of fun. Grandma Duck brought them a fun truck to play with. It came out of her big suitcase. The truck is very fun. It makes lots of cool noises. Some of the noises sound like a drill. That makes it extra fun.

The boys like talking about trucks. They loudly announce it whenever they see a truck. Or when they see something that looks sort of like a truck. The oil drills at Huntington Beach look like trucks. Mommy isn't sure what it is that looks like a truck at church, though.

"Tr" is a very hard sound to make. That does not keep the wuggies from talking about trucks, though.

Mommy is beginning to regret all the time she spent helping the wuggies learn to say "flower" and "foot."

Dadders tried to teach the wuggies how to say "chruck." Mommy thought it was supposed to be "truck." Grandpa Duck and Grandma Duck went to school for a long time to learn about making funny sounds, so it was a good thing they were there. Everybody had lots of fun talking about how to say "truck" all the way home from the beach.

But Dadders still says "chruck." Mommy still says "truck." And the wuggies still say... something else.

Office Supplies

Ways to distract while in early labor...

--Read
--Watch a movie
--Practice breathing excercises
--Visualize soothing waves on the beach
--Listen to soothing music
--Take your toddler to the emergency room

Saturday night, August 27, the contractions were getting pretty fearsome, and I wondered if it might be time to head on over to the hospital. I sat down in the rocking chair, in good view of the clock, to start timing the contractions.

Before I'd had the chance to even start timing, however, Nathan clambered up on chairs (carefully stacked up where they couldn't use them to climb up on the kitchen table) and from there, onto the table by the door. He, the big metal-rimmed basket, and the lamp, all tumbled down in a big tangle.

There was blood everywhere. Andy was at work, and I couldn't get through to his cell phone. The blood was coming from underneath lots of thick blond hair, and I had no idea how many cuts there were, or how serious it was. Isaiah very much wanted to help me clean his brother up, and brother very much did not want to let me clean him up. And I was going into labor...

I eventually got through to Andy via email. He came home and took us all to the emergency room. And the doctor stapled my son's head back together. With actual staples, just like the ones I use to attach hold multi-page documents together!

I'm glad that September decided to wait until the next day to be born. And I'm especially glad that she's a little girl. Little girls provide enough drama of their own sort, or so I hear.... but it doesn't usually involve getting covered in office supplies.

Bob

All through my pregnancy, we couldn't help thinking of September as a little girl. It wasn't just that we wanted a little girl--though we desperately did! Try as we might, we simply could not imagine a third little son being nestled in my tummy. Of course, we were well aware that there was a fairly good chance that we were having another son regardless of whether or not we could conceive of it (no put intended), so we were eager for an ultrasound to clear up the mystery. As Andy put it, we couldn't wait to "find out if September is herself, or Bob."

But the ultrasound didn't clear anything up at all because September (or Bob) was a very modest little baby.

And so we embarked on the difficult task of finding the perfect name for a little person that we couldn't bring ourselves to believe might actually exist. After listening in on lots of conversations about "what do we name September if she turns out to be Bob?" the boys figured out that my belly was called "Bob." They would poke my blossoming tummy, gleefully saying "Bobm!"

We never could agree on a boy's name that we both liked, until one night I had a dream about giving birth to a little boy named Matthias Robert. The dream itself was one of those bizarre pregnancy nightmares, but we loved the name--and it was quite a relief to finally be prepared for the possibility of Bob.

After our little September-girl made her appearance, Dadders brought the wuggies in to meet their little sister. The boys tiptoed into the room, quiet and alert, almost reverent. Nathan came up to me, as I sat on the rocking chair with September on my lap. He looked at my deflated midriff, then at the squirmy little thing on my lap, and pondered for a moment. After considering the situation, he grinned and announced, "Bobm!"

The boys like Bob a lot... and the other day Isaiah spoke his first sentence. "Bobm wuggy!"

We wondered and wondered, and now we know. September is herself...

...and she is Bob!

Premature Balding

Some active toddlers make their parents want to pull their hair out.

Others do the job for them.

September Persephone

Our little girl made her way into the big bright world at 10:09 on the evening of August 28. She arrived almost a month before we expected her, but she was 7 lbs., 20 inches long, with a robust apgar score of 8.9.

And she hiccups just as much as she did in utero.

Counting

Yesterday morning, Natebug was munching on a slice of bread. When he'd had enough, he started tearing off bits of bread and throwing them up onto the table, one at a time. "Fun... Foo... Free... Foe..."

I have no idea what to make of this.

Meanwhile, in the afternoon, while Natebug was helping Dadders pick up some groceries at Vons, Isaiah helped me bundle our loose change into rolls. He was enthralled as I counted out the pennies into stacks of ten. It was enormously exciting.

"Gum-gum-gum-TEN!!!"

A sober reminder...

Last night we took the boys to the park to feed the ducks, and on the way home we saw a huge commotion in the Bank of the West parking lot about a block from our apartment. Traffic backed up, police cars everywhere, the middle lane blocked off with orange cones... very strange indeed. It seemed that they were doing a random sobriety check. But they didn't stop us, since we were going the other direction.

As we pulled into our parking spot, Andy turned to me and said sheepishly, "I'm half tempted to go back and drive through it, just for the fun of it." I was half tempted, too... so, given that two halves make a whole, we followed our irrational impulse.

The officer took one look at Andy's license, and sternly informed him that it had expired. Gulp. No, wait... it expires on the 30th. He has a week to take care of it. With everything else going on in our lives, we never would have remembered on our own!

As we breathed a sigh of relief, the officer glanced over to the passenger side and saw my bulging belly. It was his turn for a scare. "You aren't on your way to have that baby, are you?" We reassured him that no, I was still weeks away from my due date... but he sent us swiftly on our way nevertheless! He looked a bit shook up at the possibility (however minute) of a woman giving birth while waiting at a random sobriety checkpoint.

Straw Men

Straws are lots of fun. Not only are they good for drinking, and often handier for parents than sippy cups, but they're super for blowing bubbles.

But there's an art to drinking out of a straw, and the pickles haven't quite worked out all the nuances. This afternoon I gave Isaiah a lid-less cup with a little bit of water and a straw. Straw in mouth, he carefully tipped the cup so that he could drink the water. Of course, he just kept tipping it further and further, and never got any of it anywhere but down his shirt...

It never occurred to me how counter-intuitive the method for straw-drinking is. Nor how exceedingly different it is from the method for sippy-cup drinking.

Salty

I oversalted the deviled eggs tonight. The wuggies wouldn't touch them.

I take that back. They would touch them, smoosh them, smear them, scatter them... just not eat them.

I just caught Isaiah taking measures to make sure that such a mistake never happens again.

I'm glad salt vaccuums up easily.

I wish that were the case for deviled eggs.

Drill Bits

My wonderful husband spent Saturday altering the bookshelves so as to make them even more pickle-proof. This was a lot of fun for the boys, who are utterly fascinated with Dadders' tool box. (Please-please-please can't I play with your hack-saw?) The boys were entirely fearless in their fascination with these truly dangerous objects. However, there was one tool which aroused in Meepo the proper degree of fear... and then some. And then quite a bit, actually. He was absolutely petrified of the drill. Once he heard the dreadful noise it could make, the mere sight of the thing would send him into hysterics.

But then Wuggidy taught him how to make that noise right back, and suddenly the drill was okay. Not as much fun nearly as the hack-saw, and certainly something requiring a safe distance... but okay.

And this morning, as we got ready for church, Wuggidy continued to perfect his drill impression. It's getting quite realistic. Andy tried to make the drill sounds back at him, but it didn't sound nearly so drill-like. What a talented son we have!

The Numerous Personages of Our Household

Last night, as I was sifting through the mail, throwing out credit card offers addressed to Andrew Da Johnston, the phone was ringing off the hook for Andrewdarre. Andrewdarre has been getting a lot of phone calls lately. Whenever I hear a telemarketer ask "May I speak with Andrew, dear?" I'm tempted to respond "Why of course, pumpkin."

I was busily examining a voter registration notice for Mr. Elena Johnston, when the phone rang for the fifth time. This time it was for Mrs. Elena AndyJ.

All this is rather harmless and amusing, but last month our auto insurance policy was cancelled because the underwriters discovered that in addition to me, there was also another Elena Johnston in our household. She was apparently a few years older than me.

I just hope that Schroder Management Company never finds out just how many people are living in this apartment!

Lemming Pickles!

The other day, I left the boys' mattress at the foot of our bed for a bit, and the wuggies found a new game. They would clamber up at the head of the bed, run down the bed as fast as their little legs would go, and leap onto the mattress, one right after the other, screaming gleefully all the while.

Then they went out to the living room, and discovered that they can also play this game on the couch, by standing on the back of the couch and jumping down onto the cushions.

This can be a bit startling for anyone who happens to be sitting on the couch at the time.

Irony

This school year, my husband will be commuting all over SoCal in a gas-guzzling Ford Explorer.

And I will be attempting to cram three carseats into the back of a tiny little Tercel.

Looking on the bright side, we'll get great gas milage on our little trips around town. And we aren't the ones paying for the gas that goes in the SUV.

Nevertheless, the green in me is indignant at the flagrant waste of non-renewable resources... and the rest of me is green with envy.

I'm grateful, I really am. It will be so nice to have a car while Andy is at work. But I'm having a hard time getting over the absurdity of the situation.