important jobs

A couple of days ago, in the morning:

Sam: Mommy, I’m going poo. It’s your turn to wipe.
(I’m in (early? pre? who knows) labor, and so delegate this to J, who’s having breakfast… Sam can wipe himself but does better with supervision.)
Sam: OK, Daddy, it’s your turn to wipe.
(He whispers urgently to me, before heading to the bathroom) Mommy, you need to make sure Daddy’s food doesn’t get moldy.
me: OK, I’ll watch his food and make sure to chase the mold away while he’s wiping you.
Sam: OK, you both have important jobs.

pics from Martha's Vineyard

Sam does a classic 4-year-old fake smile when posing:




so it takes a little art to get him to look genuine:


This is not the house we rent. This is about 4x the size.

still pregnant

I promised a friend I'd post a picture of my 9-month-pregnant belly, but haven't taken it yet. And I apologize for writing about not-Sam on Sam's blog (stay tuned for info about a new, Sam+baby blog). But I kind of liked the two metaphors I came up with this past week, one to describe how it feels to be walking around 9 months pregnant with a baby who "dropped" a couple of weeks ago (to a grad student in the lab who's male and hasn't had much of anything to do with pregnancy), and the second to describe how it feels to know that labor could happen Any Minute Now (but maybe not for another couple of weeks).

The first: Imagine you have intestinal cramps, and also a coconut shoved up your butt, and also 30 extra pounds strapped to your front. Now walk around and try to be cheerful!

The second: Imagine you have to run a marathon (or something similarly both physically and mentally grueling). You are as ready as you can be, that's not the problem. The thing is that you could be stopped at any time, day or night, and told to START RIGHT NOW. And in the meantime, you're supposed to go about normal life.
lalala sleeping: START RUNNING NOW
lalala working: START RUNNING NOW
lalala eating dinner: START RUNNING NOW

(Yes, I realize that labor starts a bit slower than this most of the time. But when you've been walking around with off-and-on crampiness for two weeks, it really is Any Minute Now, but also Maybe Not For A While. So yeah, it makes me a little pissy.)

In Sam news: two weeks of preschool left, then two weeks off, then kindergarten starting right after Labor Day! We had a lovely playdate/meetup organized by his new school, for incoming kindergartners/junior-kindergartners (the classes are all mixed, as is the whole school-- JK/K, 1/2, 3/4, etc). So we met some of his future classmates, but since they haven't yet determined who's going to be in which classroom we don't know which of the kids we met will be in Sam's class vs. in neighboring classes (there are 5 JK/K classrooms). Hopefully we'll hear next week; there's another playdate/meetup scheduled for next week as well.

Yesterday after we got home J. was heading out to buy some bread and cheese and lettuce (from the nearby Fancy Gourmet Food Store) to supplement the zucchini frittata planned for dinner. He asked if Sam wanted to join him-- Sam usually loves visiting this store, because he gets to sample all the cheeses. Sam said, though, that he wanted to go for a *plain* walk (i.e. one where "you don't go anywhere"), so we promised we'd go after dinner, especially because it was a nice not-too-hot evening. And we did-- a long walk, me waddling determinedly and Sam alternating between running ahead (he's finally gotten reliable about checking driveways as he passes them, turning his head and calling out "No cars!") and holding hands so he can jump over cracks or swing on J's arm. We're definitely enjoying our last bit of time as a family-of-three, even while anxiously awaiting the arrival of the next member of our family...

someone else's description of 4

from dooce: http://dooce.com/2009/06/25/44-time


Hooo boy.

projection? or manipulation?

Sam, this morning, having just heard that he was going to have dinner with his (beloved) Aunt S. and Uncle D., while mommy and daddy went to a 'grown-up restaurant':
"Won't you be lonely having dinner with just Daddy?"

(Dinner, btw, was fabulous-- S and D urged us to cash in a gift certificate they'd given us months ago, while they took Sam out for pizza, because if we don't do it soon who knows when we will be able to again.)

T-26 days (or thereabouts). Not that anybody is counting.

girl

Sam came with us to the 18-week (structural) ultrasound a couple of weeks ago. Though he was convinced that it was a boy (at the time-- he'd been referring equally to "brother" and "sister" in the weeks leading up to it), we saw three clear parallel lines-- it's a girl! Or at least they're 90% certain that it is. Yay! We honestly would have been thrilled with either, but yes, I am already figuring out how to indulge my fetish for little girl shoes. And Sam quickly adjusted to planning his explorations of the "spiky mountains in California" (which we've told him he can start exploring on his own, a recent obsession, once he turns 18) together with his sister "when she gets bigger".

We're in FL enjoying being warm. Pics when we're back.

Birthday party!

We had Sam's bday party yesterday. It wasn't as bad as anticipated, for a couple of reasons: we instituted a "no siblings, please" policy, and then 5 of the 13 invitees couldn't attend in the end, so it was a very civilized 8 guests. Much of the time they just played with Sam's toys, but there was also a game of Twister:


Then sat on balloons to pop them (and get the stickers inside:



In addition to some snacks, we had RR crossing cupcakes (a train cake proving beyond my decorating skills):


And then some not-too-nutty gift opening (Sam is definitely in the age of the Fake Camera Smile! also that's frosting on his nose, not a humongous booger):


[We'd gone back and forth on the "opening gifts while kids are still there" question, but so many kids clearly wanted to see Sam open the gifts they had brought that we did it, but not in the organized-activity kind of way; it worked out pretty well in the end.]

So, all in all, it was a good time, nobody got hurt, the noise level stayed within acceptable levels, and Sam was very pleased. And he got some great gifts.

He'll shortly start posting his own pics to this blog, as well: Omi and Opa gave him a kiddie digital camera. So far his efforts have mostly been partial head shots (ears etc) with plenty of light fixtures etc, but I'm sure he'll get better with practice (and with outdoor photo-taking, where there's not as much of a delay for the flash).

Feb & March pics

In February, working with a magnifying glass and a flashlight to find bugs in Daddy's hair. (Just for the record, there weren't any, though Sam claims to have found some on previous occasions. There was a lice outbreak in his school a few weeks ago, so that might have contributed to his interest.)


And then earlier this month, posing with a particularly complex locomotive that he had just made:

concept

Sam coloring furiously on his Doodle Pad: "I'm making a concept."
I look over his shoulder, note only that he's colored in just about the whole surface. "What's a concept, Sam?"
"It's when you color the whole thing black."
"Where did you learn that?"
"On television."

Hm. This is what happens when I sleep in past the end of kids' programming on PBS on a Saturday morning, apparently.

In other news, we're picking up Sam's new bike from the bike shop tomorrow. Even though there's still a fair bit of snow on the ground, he and I are both excited. Hopefully the snow will clear enough for him to ride it soon-- maybe even on his birthday weekend (in two weeks). It has removable pedals, so it functions first as a balance bike and then as a real bike w/pedals, hopefully skipping right over the training wheel phase.

And next weekend we'll have 14(ish) 3-5-year-olds in our home (yes, our 1100 square foot home), not to mention their parents, for Sam's birthday party. That should be interesting. Sam's Omi is coming for a few days to help out and celebrate with him. At the end of the following weekend we'll head down to FL for some warmth and another celebration w/Grandma and Grandpa. Pics coming soon!

growing up

A list of the things Sam has said he wants to be when he grows up (over the past two weeks):

- a space shuttle driver
- a garbage truck driver
- a woman (not exactly that he wants to be one, but I think he said "when I grow up and my hair gets really long I will be a woman")
- a fireman
- a scientist who studies planets


In more immediate-term growing-up news, Sam's desperate to hang out with the slightly older boys in his class, a clique of 3, one of whom seems especially bent on excluding him. It's heartbreaking to watch; Sam's not quite at the age where he 'gets' intentional meanness and exclusion, so he just gets hurt by it. Obviously this kind of thing isn't going to go away for years (well, ever, really) but watching it as a parent hurts. (It's also a strange side effect of Sam's preschool/daycare being a co-op that I get to watch these interactions first-hand, and have to stop myself from throttling the kids doing the excluding.) While I don't feel like I want to micromanage his social life, we're also making efforts to schedule play dates and other out-of-school interactions with other classmates with whom he plays more compatibly.

analogies

This one made J. happy:

Driving along Memorial Drive on the way home from Trader Joe's the other night, Sam was asking us to name all the bridges we passed. One of them was the Weeks Footbridge, and J. asked Sam if he knew why it was called a footbridge. Sam thought for a minute then figured out, because it's for people to walk on, not for cars. Then he thought for another minute and noted that the other bridges should be called wheel bridges. He has a point, there.

heartbeat

OK, it's official: Sam's brother or sister is due August 10th. Or thereabouts. We saw the heartbeat today.

Of course, after this past summer, we are still cautious at this stage: we saw a heartbeat then too, and then two weeks later heartbreak. But we're optimistic.

But in the meantime, the very nice ultrasound tech printed a separate blurry picture just for Sam, which he examined very closely this evening with his magnifying glass (he is convinced of the magical power of magnifying glasses and microscopes after weeks of nightly readings of Flotsam). Sam is having mixed feelings (we don't bring it up that often, but he's known for a while); he sometimes talks about things he will show or teach the baby, but the other night as I was leaving his room after snuggling in his bed for a while, he asked why I keep having babies. Just one more, Sam, I told him, our family will have you and your brother or sister. But why? he said, I don't want to have another baby, I want to be the only baby. I gave him lots of kisses and reassurance... mindful of Penelope Leach's analogies between things commonly said to first children when discussing siblings, and how such things would sound when spoken by one spouse to another ("I like having you as a wife so much that I thought I'd get another one! You can help me take care of her!") and glad we have lots of time for him to begin to work out his feelings.

more potty humor

J. got back last night after 10 days away, and Sam has been beside himself with excitement. This evening they've been playing while I attempt to finish drafting a fellowship application that's due frighteningly soon. Yes, I have been procrastinating, but I've also been solo-parenting and grading last semester's final papers while existing on 3-ish hours of sleep a night, due to some miserable insomniac effect of hormonal wackiness. (Which seems to have abated just the past two nights-- the insomnia, that is, not the hormonal wackiness.) Anyway-- tonight after reconfiguring the tracks on the train table

and building walls out of big cardboard blocks, they went fishing over the side of the bedrail.


Sam's in his pajamas because it was Pajama Day at preschool, and had donned a fishing hat of J's (bit mysterious because I'm not sure J.'s ever been fishing, or at least not since childhood).

Anyway, Sam had been jumping around clearly needing to pee but denying it, and then finally realized what was going on with his bladder and ran to the bathroom, asking J. to pull down his pants because the urge was so desperate. And... Sam didn't quite make it, as evidenced by the brief yelp from J. coming from the bathroom, then Sam observing, "You got pee on your pants too."

gayline

So the other night we were eating twice-baked potatoes and Sam had broccoli on the side ("can I have some meat or something please?" he asked politely upon seeing his plate) and I had a raw carrot because broccoli seemed distinctly unappealing at the time; J. has been out of town writing. Sam finished his broccoli with gusto, as usual, then watching me crunch my carrot asked for a "whole big carrot" (as opposed to the usual carrot sticks), so I gave him one. And watched carefully to make sure he was chewing, and asked him to please chew carefully. He remarked on how hard it was to bite through, and said he would have to use his sharpest teeth to do so: "my gay-line teeth" he said. I didn't catch it and had to ask, "which ones?", upon which he clarified "these pointy ones!" Oh right! The gayline teeth.

Also: the kids illustrated and narrated books at preschool during a theme on stories and story-telling. Sam's was entitled "Poopy Everywhere" and though one might at first charitably imagine that he was following up on "Everyone Poops", an occasional favorite read of ours, closer inspection reveals that the style is somewhat-- ok completely-- different. For example, the last page reads: "And then he pooped all over the house, even on the walls and even all over the ceiling!" with an illustration that heavily features brown marker. His teachers told him he had to take it home, because they don't use bathroom language in the classroom (outside of the restroom area)-- but they stressed to me that they told him he did a good job and there was nothing wrong with the book, he just couldn't keep it at school (where all the other kids' books are displayed on a wall). He still seemed proud of it when we first looked at it, with lots of guffawing as we read it together, but after he overheard me telling someone about it, he got embarrassed, and now says he made a "book about a bad thing". Which is a tough one, because while the potty talk can get waaaay too exuberant (and there are seriously turds depicted on every page of the book-- all four of them, if you include the cover), I don't want him to feel bad about what he makes, either.

latest snudge

Two from tonight:
"I think skyscraper is another word for babysitter."
Really? why is that?
"Because skyscrapers babysit the sky."

"Daddy, would you prefer to have your ice cream another time?"


And from the past couple months...
(Having been told he couldn't go to the airport to pick up Aunt L., who was arriving late in the evening for Thanksgiving):
"When I am a grownup, I will do the things that grownups do."
Do you think that will be fun?
"Yes. I will go to meet people when they come to visit, and you... will stay HOME! and go to BED!"

(During a week-long focus on "friends and families" at preschool):
"What are grownups who live by themselves called?"
Hm, what do you mean?
"What are grownups who live by themselves called?"
(I think for a bit.) What are grownups who don't live by themselves called?
"Families. So what are grownups who live by themselves called?"

check us out

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

holiday gifts

We don't do Santa in our house. Christmas and Hanukkah, for us, are about giving and lights and the joy of thinking about other people in the cold of midwinter. Sam gets gifts from us and from lots of other people, and we figured Sam would give gifts to everyone as soon as he was old enough for that to make sense. So this year (starting, actually, with birthdays a few months ago) I started asking him seriously what he thought various people would like. Every kid we ask about, he's convinced would like a train. Or, if questioned again, ("Do you really think Zoe likes trains as much as you do?") he might switch to a truck, or a racecar. Adults, in contrast, he's sure all want glass trains. I don't think Sam has ever seen a glass train, or had such a thing suggested to him; my guess is that he can't imagine anyone not liking a train because, well, duh. But adults like finicky fragile things that you can't play with but instead just have to look at-- so, glass trains it is.

(We ended up going to the candy store instead of looking for glass trains for everyone. He can imagine people liking chocolate too, and I don't think anyone will be sorry to get it!)

halloween and spelling

Here's Sam Friday evening in his lion costume, in his preschool room at the end of the day. A bunch of the kids went out trick-or-treating together in a neighborhood close by the school that goes all-out (closing streets off, major decorating efforts, etc). So they had a quick dinner at school then got dressed. J. took him; I went home to hand out candy (and escape the mayhem).



On Saturday we had friends (J's postdoc and his wife) over for dinner. While we were talking after dinner, Sam was laboriously sounding out the spelling of a long and complicated word on his (3-letter-space) "word whammer" toy (a gift that's been unfortunately compelling him to make all words 3 letters long). He ran into the dining room excitedly to show it to us: ZLF. "I spelled xylophone!" he exclaimed with such pride that, really, how could we tell him he was wrong? Also, if he were writing in Hebrew, he'd be pretty close to correct (what with the optional vowels).

pics

Wow. So much for my attempt to post once a month... It's been a rough few months, but things are looking better on many fronts these days.

Here are some pics of Sam hiking in the woods and running on the beach on a recent weekend in Maine (our break between the end of classes/grading and the beginning of summer work). We stayed in Freeport, and went hiking at Bradbury Mountain State Park one morning, followed by a bit of shopping in Freeport (while Sam and Josh napped in the car); the next day we went to Popham Beach and walked around, then drove to Portland and went on the Narrow Gauge Railroad (a real steam train). Sam was actually more interested in the train tables we encountered along the way (three separate train tables) than in the steam train itself, but all in all it was a very nice weekend.







More hopefully soon...

Three years minus 2 months

I think I'm going to start posting every month on or near the 20th, just so I get a bit more regular with the posting again. Whew. Sam's nearly 3, and seems suddenly older (than 2, that is) these days. Not only has his language evidenced a notable spurt in sophistication recently-- examples soon, I promise-- but he's also shot up in the last month: pants that used to fit are all too short, and pants that we had to roll up no longer require rolling. He's still showing some charming 2-year-old defiance (when it's time to wash hands, he will wail dramatically, "nono I don't *want* to"), but one can explain many other things to him quite reasonably. It's fun. He's funny, too. His and J's silly-word games have progressed, and a current favorite is the "sometimes I wear a ____ for a hat" game (most memorable fill-in? "Sometimes I wear a grocery store for a hat.")

Here are a few things that have happened since the end of October:

- Sam has become fully day-time potty trained. No efforts towards night-time potty training, though. What's the point, really?

- Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt L. came to stay with us for Thanksgiving (which Uncle D and Aunt S hosted most fabulously). Sam had a great time with them, and they were a major help, especially since I'd gotten a call scheduling a job interview for the following week just the day before they came (so was frantically prepping a job talk and teaching demo, and prepping for my interviews w/the members of the department).

- I interviewed for a job. Fingers crossed.

- We celebrated Hanukkah. We didn't light the menorah every night, but we did it a few times, and the other nights we at least lit the big candle that we keep on the dining table, and which Sam loves to have lit for dinner. We also went to a lovely Hanukkah party one night at our upstairs neighbors' home. Sam has been enjoying his "doctor tools" and puzzles from Aunt S and Uncle D, and his car tracks and Colorforms (do you remember colorforms? I totally did) from us.

- We had Sam's daycare classroom's potluck. Note to self: don't try to make a last-minute hors d'oeuvres for an event to which you'll be coming straight from work, which you're also organizing, and to which you'll be late because you have to stop and pick up cards for the teachers along the way. The potluck was fun, though. We stayed late with a couple of other families, put on music, and the kids danced and danced (while we sat around drinking wine and chatting). How cool is Sam's daycare?

- We took Sam ice skating for the first time, outside of the Charles Hotel. He wasn't as into it as I thought he would be, given how much he likes to slide around on the ice in his shoes (and on the floors pretending to skate). But it was fun for a few minutes at least:



Then we flew to MN to spend Christmas with Omi and Opa. We had dinner with my HS friend D. and her family. Brownie sundaes for dessert keeps four (one off-camera) kids very quiet.




We did some fun winter-snowy things with Sam: a couple of small snowmen (the snow was too dry and powdery to attempt anything bigger, sadly), and some good sledding. Sam wasn't as enthused abotu the sledding as we'd imagined, either, though he liked it. He did say many times on both sledding occasions, though, "I don't like the dust part" (the snow blowing up into his face when we'd hit some powder).



Doesn't he look spiffy in his coordinated winter things? G'ma and G'pa bought him the jacket, hat, and boots for Hanukkah. Sam had been asking for orange winter boots; they arrived just before the first of several snowstorms we got in Boston.

On the way back from sledding with Sam and Sam's Opa, J. slipped on the icy street and broke his wrist. Fortunately it's his left, so he's only been slightly disabled-- with the most recent version of the cast he can even type. But our car is a manual transmission, so he hasn't been able to drive since we got back. The cast should finally be off this Friday, and I'm not sure which of us will be more relieved.

Sam and I baked and decorated some cookies:




On Christmas Eve we lit the candles on the "crimmus tree" (J. can't stop picturing the whole thing going up in flames, but while I share his anxiety-- we do keep a bucket of water nearby-- it's overcome for me by a combo of fond tradition and just loving how beautiful it looks). We sang carols and opened presents. The bullet train from Uncle M. and Aunt R. was the runaway (no pun intended) hit of the evening, and of the days to follow.









It was competing with the Spiderman scooter Omi bought when he couldn't stop riding it around the consignment store, and of course the tricycle he got last year which was rediscovered with joy when we arrived, and which he rode at alarming speed through the house. Next year I'm sure it'll be an "outside toy."

We got home a couple days later and geared up to host a "New Year's Eve in Spain" party-- continuing the tradition started by friends who began hosting New Year's Eve parties set in locations 6 hours to the east, in order to be able to toast the New Year at 6PM (midnight Paris/Tunis/Barcelona time) and get kids in bed at something resembling reasonable. (I note with a bit of embarrassment that for our Snudge lately, bedtime has been something like 10PM... but embarrassment only because there seems to be this ethic that children should be in bed by 8. Sam sleeps til 8:30 (sometimes later). It's all very civilized.) Anyway... the party was a blast. Some of our favorite parent-friends joined us with babies and toddlers, and some of our favorite nonparent-friends joined us too and marveled at the chaos.

Here's Sam (and J's cast) in exhausted post-party-ness, Dalí-esque mustache still faintly evident: