childrens stories

Yester-morning, Ms Squeaky and Mr Grunty were sitting on her bed, reading a book. Then Mr G said, “Count it Sque-ey, count it”.

Ms S – “one, too, for, five, six, nine, ten”

Mr G “good job, Sque-ey, good job!”

But don’t worry, earlier that morning, they were fighting on the number of stars.

Mr G “one, too, sicks, sevin, nine, ten”

Ms S “NO! one, too, five, sicks, sevin, ate, eleven, twelve”

Mr Cuddles is crawling all over. But the cute story of the yester-morn, was when I was changing his diaper, and I gave him a small, inflatable basketball to distract him, he had big smile, sticking out his tongue, palming the ball…it was a cute little Micheal Jordon impersonation. He recently has learned the fun of sticking out his tongue, he happened to discover it one night while we were feeding him, and so we had a little freak out that he was having an allergic reaction, to something he had already been eating for a week. He likes that ball, and will chase it around the living room. Aw-yeah…my boy hustles for the rebound!

Phrases from Ms Squeaky

“tord-ler” is for stroller, took a while for us to figure that out, we thought turtle

“Que-guen Muk” is question mark

“Ducky-dooo!!” for the sound a rooster makes

And from tonight, “Spider tastes good!” ….in reference to the sparkling apple cider.

stories of the week

One morning, Mr Cuddles was the first one awake. His siblings were sleepy, and slept in until 8AM. So, Mr Cuddle and I snuggled on the couch, made faces, he had his bottle, we made silly noises. And then, he wanted to look outside. So, as a baby is want to do, without warning he jerked himself around so he could kinda see outside. I adjusted him, and then his face was just barely peaking over the couch to look out the window. Yes. We were very cute.

This morning, Miss Squeaky & Mr Grunty both picked up their phone, “call mommy…hi mommy…you working…bye”.

Also this morning, I was lucky to have all of my childrens sitting next to me on the couch. Yes. We were cute.

The other morning, Mr G woke up, and was fussy. I picked him up to console him, because I understand, mornings can be rough. He reached out his hands, “papa, git it!”  and eventually, I was steered in the right direction, so that Mr G could pick up a little cloth-book for babies, and then gave it to Mr Cuddles. Then Mr G was happy.

“Papa, draw an ‘O‘ “, Mr G spent the evening telling me. The next night, he let me have a bit more variety, I was allowed to draw squares and triangles.

Happy 7 months, 5 days!

Mr Cuddles has a tooth!

He can use all four limbs for crawling position, but not at the same time, sometimes just arms (head way up high), sometimes just legs (but in the air), sometimes a combination.

lesson

I hope Miss Squeaky learned a valuable lesson tonight.

Do NOT leave an unguarded cake with your brother. She was helping MyBetterHalf give Mr Cuddles a bath. When she returned, very proud of being helpful, and wanting to reward herself for her good deeds, she found that her bowl had only coffee-cake crumbs.

She was not happy. We gave in and gave her another small bit.

Then Mr Grunty wanted more to. We tried to explain he had enough, since he had his and his sisters. We gave in.

Probably the lessons learned were:

• “If you cry, you get what you want.” Miss S
• “If you eat really fast, and then steal your sisters, then you can get more when she cries.” Mr G

I don’t think I’m wise enuff to be a parental unit.

Dash Point

Today, our good friend Shay, had organized a reunion of some folks I used to work with in the long-long ago.

At the beach, Miss Squeaky & Mr Grunty were very interested in the “wha-dee” and wanted to go walk in the waves. Previously this summer, they were afraid of the waves, but they’ve matured, and Miss Squeaky wanted to go wading in deeper than I would allow. Mr Grunty was tickled by the waves hitting his feet, and the sand being pulled away as the water drained back into the Sound, and the sea weed being left between his toes. Miss S did not like the seaweed after we left the water.

move childrens room

we did it.

Mr Cuddles, Mr Grunty and Miss Squeaky now share the biggest bedroom.

Doctor visits

Yesterday Mr Cuddles had his six month doctor appointment! He’s doing good, and seemed to enjoy all the attention he was getting, until he was stabbed twice for immunizations.

This morning…Mr Grunty’s eye looked worse than yesterday, swollen purple eyelid, but white of his eye was still white. So we called the doctor, they said bring him in.

As we were getting ready to go, Mr Grunty went to bathroom to brush his teeth, and Miss Squeaky went to bathroom to strip off her pants & diaper to sit on her potty for twelve seconds. Mr Cuddles was waiting patiently for his car-seat to dry in the sun, because a certain papa left it on the deck last night!

We dropped off Miss S & Mr C, and then we went to the doctor.

We got to park, I carried Mr Grunty so we could “urry fast”.   We got in a few minute before appointment. Mr G wanted to build towers with the blocks, which we did, because we were in waiting room for 20 minutes.   The nurse looked at his eye. We waited in the room. We looked at all the paintings of fish, bubbles. We played with trucks. We got a 2 ounce dixie cup of water and shared it, only spilling a little bit, which we then “klain-klain-klain” right up.
The 4th year resident came in, looked at his eye, asked questions. G was shy, and wanted to “go”.  Then we waited. Mr G was bored. I showed him pictures on my cellphone, he was happy to see “Sweeky, Mommy, Cuddles” and was confused when I told him the pictures from a year ago were him when he was a baby. He thought it was Mr Cuddles.   The doctor came in.   Mr G has a stye. We need to keep his hands clean. If, and only if, he allows it, we can use warm compress.     When we got to daycare, all the other kids were at the bottom of the stairs celebrating Mr G’’s arrival. And Miss S went up and give him a quasi-hug.
I am told, this morning Mr Cuddles was CRANKY, which I am told is very unusual. But the he had big poo, and then he went to sleep. I told them we just started him on cereal.
When I got back to house, to use bathroom, Oliver-kitty sprinted out once I opened the bathroom door. He had been in the bathroom for about two and a half hours!

imagination

As a papa, I am finding it even easier to use my imagination.

The other day at TwinPonds, me, Mr Grunty & Miss Squeaky were climbing up the tall, covered tube slide. Me, I was pretending we were sneaking through the vents of the DeathStar. I’m not sure what they were thinking, but they were laughing lots.

As I mentioned regarding Holly Black’s Tithe… at night, my imagination will get the better of me when I hear one of them cry out or make a noise.

Fortunately, I haven’t yet started playing the “imagine what fabulous career my gifted child will have” game. So far, I haven’t given much thought to their career. Though for awhile, when they were in the can-stacking phase, I was pretty sure it was grocery clerk. I wonder what jobs will be around for humans in 20 years.  There are jobs that I hope they don’t have…for example crab fisherman. That’s dangerous. Is it hypocritical of me to eat crab?

rough days and nights

A bit ago, we had a heatwave. It didn’t cool down at night, and poor Miss Squeaky could not sleep. She kept waking up every few hours crying. I would hug her, take her to get a drink. She wanted to cuddle. I tried to explain that wouldn’t help. I got a cold wet wash cloth, to wipe her face off, but she didn’t want it. I then said, “can you wipe papa’s face off”, and she did with a smile. And then I said, “now wipe your face off.” And she did. I guess having a tiny bit of control helps.

During the heatwave, Mr Grunty and Mr Cuddles seemed to do alright at night. They slept. I would wipe them down with a cold wash cloth when ever Miss S woke up.

Yesterday, Mr G wanted to exert his independence. Normally he holds my index finger going down our front steps. Yesterday, I held out my hand, and he said, “Papa, no. I did it.” (It’s cute he uses past tense “to do”, I think it’s from me & MyBetterHalf saying “Yay! You did it!” when they accomplish something.)  So, I let him walk down the steps solo. He was very proud of himself when he reached the bottom, and went running down the lawn to get into the kid-mobile. He took a sharp left, lost his footing, and was sprawled out in the drive. Me, being a concerned parent, because it looked like a tough fall, dropped what I was doing immediately to check on him. He was OK. However, what I had been doing, was carrying Mr Cuddles glass bottles of milk. One broke. Ugh.

When I picked them up from daycare, Mr G wasn’t expecting me, and yelled “Papa, no! Work!” and pointed for me to leave. Usually his mommy picks him up.

Last night, we went to TwinPonds after work. When the toddlers finally were able to get into the swings. Well, hopefully Mr G learned to stay away from the swing path. Miss S totally knocked him over. Me & MyBetterHalf saw it about to happen, but she was on the opposite side of Miss S, and I was carrying Mr Cuddles, so we couldn’t stop the event. Mr G was in shock, and mad, and wanted to stand up, luckily parents were there to stop him from standing, or he would have gotten Miss S feet to the head again. But then Mr G was mad that we wouldn’t let him stand up. He was yelling at us, when one tried to comfort him, he would yell, “Papa, no! Mommy!” and MyBetterHalf would try, only to get “Mommy NO, Papa!”.

“Playing with Fire” review #11 of 2009

Gena Showalter’s Playing with Fire was bad. I was wishing I had picked up a Baldacci novel instead.

Story, girl meets boy, girl hates boy, but girl lusts after boy, they are stuck with each other for a week or two, they have a couple of sexual encounters, and decide to live happily ever after because they love each other. The twist, the boy works for a secret society that fights super-powered bad people, and the girl just recently got super-powers.

I didn’t care about the girl. She always had a smart-aleck remark, or an attempt at humor for snappy asides.

After girl wakes up to notice she had stopped breathing a couple of times, and also finding out her father may be in danger… “Whoever picked the brown color scheme needed a serious spanking. Talk about bland. Must have been Rome,….So, Rome needed a spanking, did he? My pleasure.” (pg 220)

later…girl sitting on boy’s lap: “Maybe I was a slot and a harlot (a slot?).” pg 229

later…trying to control her emotions to control her new super-powers, “I let images of sad things float through my mind. Lost puppies. The homeless. Orphaned children….World hunger. The amount of fat grams in a Krispy Kreme.” (pg 236-237)

And another thing, girl has new super-powers, which she quickly learns how to use. No need for hard work, just a couple of afternoons of training, and she is an expert. Evidently super-powers are easier to learn than say…walking, talking, driving a car.   At least in cheesy sports movies, they have a training montage scene with bad music playing, that shows how much work the hero puts into their craft.

I don’t know which message is worse to send to young readers…that love is passionate emotion, or that talent trumps training.

Ya know, after this book, I respect someone who says, “I didn’t see myself as a wonderful writer (and still don’t). I saw myself as an apprentice learning a labor intensive, solitary, often frustrating and yet time-honored craft that rarely rewarded its disciples with anything other than the cruelest of rejection.“  Thank you, Mr Baldacci, you write a good essay.