Archive for April, 2010
We decided that it was about time to start training Miss Baby to sit in church, at least for the first little bit until the children’s sermon. She was delighted; she sat down to color the little children’s program, which was happily full of sheep. She turned around to admire the very large stained glass window of Jesus the Good Shepherd. “Baby Sheep! mommy, can you count the baby sheep!” (Many, if not all, animals are “baby” to her.) So we talked about how Jesus takes care of the baby sheep; she seems to have assumed that the guy depicted with the sheep was Jesus, and if he was OK with the sheep, he was OK with her, and she repeated, “Yeah, Jesus cares for the baby sheep! Good Night, baby sheep!” She was impressed with the organ, and when the choir sang, she sang along, making up her own words: “Baby sheep, baby sheep…”
I went down front with her for the children’s sermon, and she insisted on sitting with her brother in his class the whole time, which was OK, since she just kept coloring. Normally, she goes to the nursery for a little kid’s lesson, but not today.
So, there you have it: Miss Baby went to church and was as happy as a baby sheep, which is apparently pretty happy.
Filed under: ramblingPosted: April / 25 / 2010
On Wednesday, people kept telling me how tired I looked. When I got home, I found out why– I’d forgotten to wear makeup. I never realized it made any difference at all. I mean, yeah, I put it on in the morning and I can tell the difference between before and after, but I generally assume it wears off by lunchtime. No, I’m not going to go to the trouble of re-applying midday; I don’t even bother with lipstick. Folks may not notice when I do put it on, but apparently they do notice when I don’t. The next day one of my colleagues brought me her herbal sleep remedy. Hey, I’ll try it, and it was nice of her. It’s touching that my colleagues want to take care of me.
I also have a newish pair of shoes — navy heels. They turrned out to be a bit higher than I thought they were (I put them on, stood up, and bought them). They’re not even 2 inches high — OK, maybe 2 inches high — so we’re not talking about something shocking. But I’m very aware of them when I wear them. They’re tiring, for one, but — and I hate to say this — they do feel a bit empowering. Something about being taller, I guess. I stomp around, hoping I’m striding, but by the end of the day, I’m ready to kick them off.
Last night, the Little Guy and I went fishing with the Cub Scouts. One of the families lives by a lake, so we fished there. The Little Guy borrowed a pole and caught five fish –trout and bluegills — more than any other scout (and he was pleased with that without being rude to the other guys). He doesn’t really cast (and it was a full-sized pole), so I cast for him, most of the time. It didn’t have one of the new push-button reels, but I learned on the older kind, so that’s OK. It’s interesting how some things come back to you. I haven’t been fishing in years — I mean, years. I think the last time I went fishing was in undergrad; my parents and I and the guy I was going out with all went down and fished off the end of the pier. At any rate, after a few warmup waves of the rod, it all came back to me, and I could feel when I had it right or not. The Little Guy and I noticed the area where the fish seemed to lurk, so he kept encouraging me to get it “in the sweet spot.”
Generally, I enjoy fishing up until the moment when I actually catch something; I find the fish’s death throes distressing, even if we do toss it back in. They don’t seem to learn from it; one of the fish the Little Guy caught had several scars where he’d been caught before, and I and another mother theorized that he might be suicidal.
So that was nice.
This morning, my DH took the Little Guy to Parkton. There’s a guy who owns a couple of miles of otherwise abandoned railroad track, and today they are running little trains up and down the track, so of course they went. They got to sit up front, in the “Speeder,” which is a little tiny engine of the type normally used for track maintenance. Needless to say, he was thrilled.
Miss Baby and I had a girly morning. We started by spending about half an hour lying on the couch meowing at each other (isn’t that how you start your day) as Mommy and Baby cat. But when I said, “Let’s get dressed to go shopping,” she tossed aside the blankets and ran to her room to dress. We went to the “Shopping House” and had a fine time; she would pick up jewelry and say, “Put it down, Miss Baby!” Afterwards, we went out to lunch at Moe’s Southwestern Grill (like Baja Fresh). She was enthusiastic: “burrito chicken! yummy chips!” She did drop her plastic toy cow behind the booth, and we had to ask one of the people to get tongs from the kitchen and rescue the cow. He was very kind about it, and Miss Baby thanked him nicely.
So we have had a busy weekend, and it’s only midday Saturday.
The Little Guy came home this week with a note from his art teacher, saying that one of his pictures had been chosen to be displayed in the local shopping mall. You know how malls will display artwork from area schools; well, they’re doing that right now for the Cumberland County schools. He had no idea which picture it was, but once his friend Kya heard about it, he had to show the letter around, impressing all the girls (he impresses girls with surprising frequency).
We went to see the picture on Saturday, and it was impressive. He remembered it when he saw it, and explained that they were supposed to make a winter scene. He’d made a forest with stencils for the trees, and one of the trees had been a bit slanted, so he drew in a woodcutter at the base of that tree. In the distance (you knew this was coming), a train passed through the trees, which gave the whole scene a bit of depth, which I think is why it was chosen. His art teacher is quite good about allowing him to work trains into his assignments. The picture was accompanied by a story he’d written. There were only 16 pictures from his school, and most of them were by 4th and 5th graders, which we pointed out to him. He felt very special and important, and lingered a bit in front of the picture, hoping a stranger would stop by so he could discuss his work with them, just like a real artist.
Afterwards, we went to the food court, and celebrated by dividing a milkshake between the children, which pleased them both. Miss Baby didn’t know what she was celebrating, but she didn’t care. Of course, they both crashed hard and cranky an hour later in the grocery store, but it was fun while it lasted.
We’re going to a party tonight for a colleague who’s recently completed his PhD. The Little Guy was curious. First, he wanted to go, so he asked as tring of logical questions to advance his position: “Does he have kids? Will they be there? If they can go, why can’t other kids go?”
Then he wanted to understand the PhD. He has some idea of what grad school is, so I explained that this meant that my friend had finished grad school. “So he doesn’t have to go to school anymore?” Yes, and then I tried to explain the dissertation as a 200 page paper one writes at the end of the PhD. “Then I don’t want to go to the party. It would be boring to sit andwatch him write all that.” At this point I pushed the Monty Python Thomas Hardy sketch out of my mind, and went on. He had more questions: “What do you have to write on? Do you write about what you want to be when you grow up? Can you write on anything, even stuff they don’t teach in college?” I explained that you write a dissertation to show that you are an expert on something, and that, yes, if he got a PhD in history he certainly could write a dissertation on the history of trains.
Miss Baby uses language in odd ways. She consistently mixes up her word order, generally putting nouns in front of adjectives. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if it’s that, or if she’s dropping verbs, as in the phrase, “Miss Baby sad.” Sometimes she doesn’t need sentences, just strings of words: “Mommy! Baseball! Outside! Now! Shoes!” Lately, we’ve had some longer sentences, as in: “Wanna play blocks! Where’s MY Little Guy?” This afternoon, we were cuddling on the couch, and my DH came in and asked if she’d cuddle him. “No!” We explained that I needed to get up and cook dinner. She couldn’t get rid of me fast enough: “Mommy! Go a-cook the chicken!” She uses the “a” prefix a lot, actually, as in “Let’s go a-churchin’,” or “Let’s go a-shoppin’.”
Filed under: ephemeraPosted: April / 5 / 2010
Well, today I tried to dress in springlike fashion, it being Easter and all. I had a pink-patterned skirt, an off-white blouse, a pink sweater that matched one of the shades of pink in the skirt but not the main one, and worn-out brown shoes. I wished for a pink purse, but I don’t even have a brown one to go with the shoes. But I wore a hat, and nobody noticed anything else all morning. I was complimented over and over, nevermind that that my outfit was mismatched and ill-fitting — all anybody noticed was the hat.
Well, yesterday we went to the church Easter egg hunt. It was nice — one member of the church hosted it at her house, and we walked over there. They did several nice crafts, and spread eggs all over the yard. The Little Guy had a great time. Miss Baby, on the other hand, was exhausted and cranky and fussy most of the time. Every now and then, she would settle herself, but then become upset quickly for little reasons.
She’s been particularly fussy of late, and we decided that she’s freaking out over potty training. We’ve been working on it lately, and, while she can hold it at great length, she doesn’t like to be bothered by going to the potty. She has other things to do with her time. So we’re taking a vacation from the whole potty trianing process; when she decides to “just say no,” she really means it. Beats Nancy Reagan at her own game.
Miss Baby napped at length on Saturday afternoon, and was a bit better-tempered in the evening, and was quite enthusiastic about coloring eggs. My DH and I relaxed, did Easter-y stuff, went off to bed, and were awakened at about four in the morning by the Little Guy, complaining that his ear hurt. A little dose of tylenol, and he was back to sleep. That got the cat started, and he wandered the house meowing about every half an hour or so until it was time for us all to get up and seach for eggs. Me, I can go back to sleep after a meowing session or a fussy boy, but my DH never quite went back to sleep, poor guy.
This morning was egg hunting and sugar and crankiness; the Little Guy kept it together (mostly by becoming absorbed in the book on railroad signaling the Easter Bunny brought him), but Miss Baby lost it. She was OK at church, and happy afterwards, for a while at least. The Little Guy had his turn to be a bit cranky, but then Miss Baby blew up when dinner was delayed. I wanted to make a nice Easter dinner — my mom always did when I was a kid, and I usually go the whole ham-asparagus-potato route. We eat early-early, around 5:00 most of the time, and it took a little while to get everything in and out of the oven, so the food wasn’t on the table until 5:10, and she lost it. After she ate, though, she settled down, took a happy bath, helped the Little Guy clean up the living room.
My DH went to bed at the same time as the Little Guy, and I’ve been catching up on Law and Order and writing an exam for Wednesday. Should’ve graded; my students will nag me tomorrow. It’s just been one thing after another this weekend, though; all of it loud and much of it cranky, and tiredness leads on to tiredness and your functionality just erodes.
