May I have your attention, please?

Or, How do I let them know that because of the unfreezing process, I have no inner monologue?*

Just to forewarn those of you who haven't spent much time with children, you definitely need to be aware before you do so that anything you do or say can and will be used against you in the form of a public announcement.

To illustrate this with an inconsequential anecdote, yesterday evening J- and I were dividing and conquering at the store, and when we saw each other again we walked parallel for a few aisles until we got to a clear one we could meet in, which happened to be the "Wine and Spirits" aisle. I made some little joke about how J- must be there shopping from her own personal list for a perfect Mother's Day, and then D- all but shouted to us, two feet away, "What's ALcoHOL??"

Before I could even address this complicated question (for at least the fifth time so far), M- seconded him by shouting at the top of her lungs, which would be unbelievably powerful for a person thrice her size, "ALCOHOL!!!"

I have easily five thousand more examples, many of situations that were actually awkward, unlike this one, and that's factoring in that my kids are both pretty good in this respect, compared to other ones I've heard and J-'s reports from the various schools she's worked in. Little kids will ask, or repeat, absolutely anything that's on their mind, at any time, regardless of who can hear them. Volume control is developed pretty late in childhood.

I've tried to express to D- why it's not nice to talk about people when they are in your presence, even if you're saying something nice or (the best you can usually hope for) innocuous, but I haven't had too much luck so far, based on his behavior just this morning while the landlord and some "worker guys" were here fixing our windows. Beyond the nice and innocuous things, it seems pretty self-explanatory why you shouldn't ask or say something rude about somebody when they can hear you, but D- taught us long ago that the understanding of "rudeness" is developed some time after volume control.

Let me give you a quick rundown:
• "Why does that man have no hair?"
• "How come that lady's skin is all... crinkly??"
• (in a public bathroom) "What was that sound?"
• (re: more than one landlord) "Why is him in our house?"
• (re: our current landlord) "Why does him have no socks on?"
• (re: our former landlord, a Northern Maine potato farmer) "Why does him have dirt all over him?" and "Why doesn't he take his shoes off?"
• "I smell something baaaad."

And of course there's the ever-popular, "I don't like him."

Given time, I'm sure I'll remember at least a few dozen more quotes I've thus far almost completely repressed. How about you? Have you all got any good ones?


* A great quote from the original Austin Powers.

Women: Can't live with 'em, can't eat your own string cheese

The world didn't seem all that funny to me this morning... among other things, I hate banks.

So this is the kind of thing I watch on days like this:


Just click play, and enjoy the random sampling of the wonders YouTube has to offer our troubled civilization.

Something else to remind me that the world is funny: thinking of that time M- cornered a younger boy at library storytime "trying to get him to understand" that she wanted to eat his string cheese. She only knows people who share their food with her, so she quickly became desperate as she ran through her whole repertoire hoping something would register with him-- "mah, peez", "biiiiite, bite"... even signing for more.

And when I say signing for more, I mean she was standing over him, repeatedly signing right in his face. Not aggressively, mind you, but more like, "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth??" (funnier if you enjoyed the movie Rush Hour). I'm positive he knew exactly what she wanted, but he of course just wanted to squat in the corner and eat his string cheese in peace.

Even if M- had learned already how to instead use subtle hints and suggestions to get the boy to give her his string cheese and make him think it was his idea, he was nowhere near old enough to be blinded by any accursed motivation to allow this to happen. So she was destined for failure, short of using brute force, and he gained a valuable preview for the long life ahead of him.

And, for the record, this all happened very quickly, across the room, and by the time she was signing in his face I picked her up and explained that it was his string cheese and she had her own food to eat if she was hungry. Still, the bewildered and overwhelmed look on the boy's face was just priceless. If I'd had a stick of string cheese on me, I would have tossed it to him and just said, "Women, huh?"

And he would have stuck to his original plan of running back to his mommy.

Teach a man to fish...

As I sit here typing a blog post while D- happily vacuums, I'm starting to think that Cinderella's stepmother was onto something. Cindy just had a bad attitude-- she wasn't a team player. Let's all do our best to investigate and rewrite that history for the stepmother's sake-- just because Cinderella got to become queen doesn't mean we should all have only one side of the story.

I mean, what became of all those loyal talking animals of hers? I doubt she would let them cramp her style once she had some human friends (and slaves). I'm sure there's some horrible dirt to be dug here, worth at least one Lifetime Original Movie and a big fat check.

Anyway, welcome back from Tangent Land...

Now that D-'s got vacuuming down, I just need to teach M- better broom-handling skills, and then we can all move on to mopping, scrubbing, and dusting.

It's the least they can do after waking me up (in tag-team fashion) this morning at 5:45 (hence this scattershot, sub-par post). On the bright side, I got to say goodbye to J-, I suppose. Still, I have a headache in my temples that is certainly not being assuaged by the sound of a plastic hammer banging a scrap of wood-- D- has finished vacuuming and moved on to simple home repairs.

Hmmmm... maybe I could stop handing him "pretend nails" on demand for him to "make magic with this wood" and instead hand him my drill, level, real nails, and all these pictures I'm supposed to hang. On second thought, I don't want them all hung 4 feet off the floor, giving him a step stool wouldn't be safe, and if I felt like helping him, I'd probably be doing it myself in the first place.

I'm a bad, bad, lazy person. But whaddya gonna do?

Household occurrences likely to revisit me in nightmares

Here are several events at our house, most from this morning alone, that I believe I'll be seeing replayed in some form in the coming nights whenever I manage some sleep:

1. M- firmly poking the bottom of an open box of cereal on the table and me lunging forward to catch it just before it turned upside down. I haven't always been so lucky. (In my nightmares, I'm sure the box will always be just out of my reach.)

2. D- standing on the rug between the dining room and kitchen saying, "I'm having an accident!"

3. M- streaking through the dining room with a Spider-Man fork stolen from the dishwasher.

4. M- climbing all over me like a boa constrictor, onto and off of the chair, moaning, "No, no, no, noooooo!" over and over again for no apparent reason other than sniffles and crankiness (it was before 8).

5. D- holding a ball and taking aim at my happy place while I demonstrate how to stand upon the parallel bars at the park. (Luckily it was only a Nerf ball so it didn't hurt, but still I saw the look in his eye-- it was a vicious one expectant of painful hilarity.)

6. M- taunting D- by walking across the family room with his Corduroy bear and, instead of giving it back as originally ordered, slapping him twice across the face with it (like Monty Python's Fish Slapping Dance) and running back away.

7. Driving off a giant mushroom and falling into a bottomless pit, like I did a couple times last night in MarioKart Wii. (In my nightmares, I'm sure the magic man on the cloud will never come to save me.)

8. M- splashing her hands in the toilet saying, "Pee-pee, pee-PEEEE!" (we've gotten thisclose to it several times now), before bidding it bye-bye while waving as she has been doing for the past few weeks.

9. Closing a fresh, clean diaper, standing up and turning around, and then detecting a dreadful hint of baby byproducts. Yes, M- tends to be picky where she defecates, but then so do some adults.

10. A massacre by a rampaging spoon-spork hybrid. Okay, I only read about it, but I have a very impressionable brain, and things like that tend to stick. At least it's better than a velociraptor attack.

Things that should revisit me in my dreams:

1. M- comforting a crying D- by saying, "eye-ing", offering a kiss and hug, and then sitting down to let him read her the book (Good Night, Maine) they had been fighting over earlier.

Betcha thought I wasn't posting today

Well, I considered taking today off from posting, for the first time since February, but I don't think my obsessive-compulsive disorder will yet allow me. Rest assured, though, as promised on May Day, I'll be taking a couple days off per week soon enough.

The reason I thought to take today off was not because I walked 7 miles yesterday; nor because D- woke me up at 6:45 this morning, wide awake and begging for food (after not getting to bed until 9 o'clock last night-- he normally sleeps at least 12 hours); nor because I have a million chores to do; nor because it is beautiful outside again today; nor because D- is standing next to me shirtless, slapping his belly and asking when we can go to the Exploritorium; nor because M- is a little clingy and has the sniffles. No, the reason is because my lovely wife also has the sniffles, which, when combined with some particularly fervent insanity at work recently, meant that when she woke up this morning, she decided today was not a day to persevere.

So I'm posting this little notice while she naps on the couch, but once I click Publish Post, I shall be gone for the day to have lunch as a family, walk to the park, visit the Exploritorium (score one for D-), play some MarioKart Wii (just got it=very exciting), make some dinner together, and maybe watch a movie.

And with any luck, several hilarious things will happen en route to bed to provide me with something to write about the rest of this week. Fare thee well!

The joy of caprice

As an antidote to yesterday's tirade, I will note that one plus of having a girl is that last season's pants become this season's capris, or at least they do when Daddy is in charge of her wardrobe. All you have to do is wait a couple extra months for them to cross the "I think she's grown out of those pants, sir" threshold into the "Oh my gosh, what adorable pants! I have to know where you got them!!" zone*.

Incidentally, both of these statements are likely to be met with identical shrugs from me at library time. While I appreciate a cute outfit as much as the next guy, I'd much rather buy an array of identical futuristic jumpsuits for each kid, and never have to spend another 10 minutes tracking down something to dress each one in that won't get me A) in trouble or B) on some kind of watch list down at Child Services.

Consequently, J- and our female friends and relatives are in charge of all children's clothing purchases, and I am merely the middle manager who issues them on most days.

In my defense, I'll say that if they're good enough for Catholic (and gang-combatting) schools, the inevitable future, and most low-paid workplaces, uniforms are good enough for our kids and the rest of society. Three cheers for The Unitard of Tomorrow!


* I never got into the latter zone when D- was younger. Without fail, pants would somehow change from looking fine to making me look like a mental defective once I got him to daycare. This was especially an issue with overalls, due to their devious ability of the straps to allow the pant cuffs to hang down to the feet even when the crotch was somewhere around their knees. Am I really expected to notice this fine detail when I'm in a rush to get to work?**

** I still occasionally have this problem with M-, as no one yet makes capri-style overalls. Yet.

A onesie for all seasons

Having just yesterday packed to the gills a 22-gallon tub with baby clothes M- has outgrown, I can promise you that I have quite a few issues with the children's clothing industry. Let me further clarify that, as a man, and in fact at least in this respect a super-man, when I pack a tub, you can be sure there's no need to worry about moths because there isn't more than a cubic centimeter of air left inside that thing.

That's a lot of clothes. And I'm not quite done yet.

Like most corporations, the clothing makers in this country (and now worldwide, as the virus spread long ago) have discovered that with fiendishly effective planning, they can make sure most of their products are functionally useless to anyone shortly after their purchase. If they play their cards right and things last just long enough that people forget exactly when they bought them, no one will be surprised or even upset by their deterioration. It's a fine line to tread.

For instance, people have forgotten by now that cars used to last for decades without fatal problems-- you could easily be driving a car today from the '50s in roughly the same condition as a car from the '90s (I can personally vouch for the low quality of American cars from the '90s). Anyway, that's a separate rant.

As I packed away clothes, some of which M- never got a chance to wear, I saw things marked 9 months that were smaller than things marked 3-6 months, and on down the line. I mean, I expect shoes to vary a bit by maker-- I wear a size 13 in Nikes, Reeboks, and most dress shoes, but I can get by with a 12 in New Balance and some other more generously-sized shoes. With baby clothes, I'm talking about M- still wearing 3-9 months onesies, while we pack away 12-month-sized pants and shirts.

The stated size on clothes is nearly meaningless except in relation to other clothes of the exact same type made by that particular company. I say this because even within a single company, you can have absolutely no faith in the actual size of a piece of clothing or the way it will fit. This leaves people (like me 4 years ago) who have no idea what a baby looks like at a certain age, or what is appropriate for one to wear, to just guess at what they should buy for a gift and to be wrong most of the time. Out of guilt, the parents will put the kid in it once and take a picture, then it's off to a consignment shop at best, or a garbage dump in most cases.

The same happens often when parents themselves buy something and find out one maker prewashes clothes for a more accurate sizing gauge while most others do not, and some of them make clothes so primed to shrink to half their size at the slightest touch of moisture that I'm surprised boxes don't violently implode on loading docks across the country whenever it rains a little.

The worst of all wasted kids' clothes are the holiday or season-specific clothes. Granted, it may be cute to have a timely piece of clothing on a baby, but do you know how maddening it is to later have a perfectly good onesie sitting in the drawer unavailable for selection on laundry day just because it says, "Bee Mine" or "SomeBunny Loves Me"? I'll answer that rhetorical question for you-- it's quite maddening.

I can promise you that you and your child will not be greeted with quite the same amusement or adoration when people see the same whimsical clothing they loved so much earlier in the year out of that season. I can also promise you that your significant other will not appreciate your efforts to "Fight The Man" by taking her kid outside the house wearing a shirt with a kitten in a witch's hat popping out of a pumpkin anytime outside of October.

I saw pieces of clothing yesterday I would have thought were meant for dolls had I not seen them only lightly stretched across a much larger baby not that many months ago. I saw several shirts wider than they are long, and if you think I'm exaggerating, I encourage you to double-check the name of this blog and then be assured that I did in fact take out my tape measure so I could report to anyone who cares that at least one of these shirts was eight inches long and TEN AND A HALF INCHES wide from seam to seam. The visual effect of this differential is hard to capture in words, but unfortunately I don't have a picture for you because this particular shirt is currently gasping for breath somewhere in the middle of the aforementioned tub.

My answer to this problem is for more clothing manufacturers to remember that just like there is a finite number of customers for their products(hence the crappy quality of most merchandise), there is also a finite amount of space on this planet for useless products. Make more timeless clothing, more unisex clothing, and more clothing that allows for differently-shaped and -sized children, as well as the constant growth of said children.

Right now, the accommodation for this "startling phenomenon" is a niche market, catering to those who care, but it shows that it can be done. Someone even came up with a shoe that can expand to cross over (I think) two full shoe sizes, which means it's one pair taking the place of four. I saw it quite awhile ago so I don't have a link for you all, but if you're interested, I'm sure you may either already know of them or know where to find them.

I'm breaking off the end of this post into a new one for tomorrow, since this is already so long, but rest assured I'm spent and tomorrow's post is much more fun.

Can't you smell that smell?

So recently, the office in our apartment (which is really more like an overgrown screened balcony) has taken on, shall we say, a horrendously unpleasant odor. Now, I don't mean to insult the office by suggesting it smelled like our neighbors were cooking again, because this was quite a different smell. Nor did we think we had somehow left a diaper in there (we closed up shop during the winter and don't go in there often).

No, this smelled distinctly like some kind of animal, such as a mouse, had crawled into a corner somewhere and quietly shuffled off this mortal coil.

Upon further investigation, it turned out to be merely the smell of damp old carpet, due to a leak somewhere in the wall. After even further investigation, however, it turns out I was partially right (one can generally assume that I'm always at least partially right). When moving everything away from the wall where the rain was leaking in, I discovered what can only be described as a mouse that is not alive:

How long this poor bastard lay there decomposing, I'm not sure, but I don't envy the condition or stench of his surroundings. Of course, he's clearly been dead, or possibly undead, for decades or longer, so I doubt he noticed much.

A wake was held between 1pm and 1:01pm on Friday, May 1, at My Office Funeral Home. The deceased was then laid to rest in Toy Chest Memorial Cemetary.

Classic quotes, Vol. 1

Here's the inaugural collection of random quotes from around our house:

J-: I hate when people are generous with my time.

J-: (on phone after a bad day at work) And I was just thinking, "What's going on, and who turned on the vacuum switch to my soul?"

D-: Do you have any more of those tasty nuts?

D-: We should have a boy-girl next year, that would be fun, wouldn't it? We should grow that next year.

D-: (after I picked up a Lincoln Log) That's my hammer stick! Don't drop it in the box or I won't be able to tell which one it is!

D-: (very pissy) Is it helpful that they give me a bunch more little tiny ones [Lincoln Logs] so I can't build a garage for this house? No, it's not helpful.

D-: (sternly) Daddy, there is no drink in the refrigerator for me, and I'm very frustrated. (now very pointedly emphasizing each word while seeming to look over imaginary glasses) There's no drink in the refrigerator, and I'm very frustrated.

D-: Look how much I can fit in my mouth!

D-: (posing with his guitar at his microphone stand) This is a song about 'bisheradda'. I don't know what that means, but I'm gonna sing it.

Me: [Something insanely witty and hilarious-- I'll pause for laughter]

M-: (after being told her crackers are all gone, placing her finger on my eyelid and holding it there in a vaguely threatening manner) Eyyye.

Note to self: Insert funny title later

Well, I'm coming up on 100 posts, and I feel like I'm slipping into a little lull as I've done about once a month so far. I'm then usually saved by a day or two where I write most of 7 posts or so all at once, so don't worry.

I think after I hit 100, I'll try switching to posting only 5 days a week, since it seems like most of you take the weekend off and just catch up on Monday, anyway. I'm sure it's best in the long run for my ability to keep chugging away at crafting these teardrops of genius I call blog posts. (Humor me, please.) I haven't yet had much tangible success in getting the kids to write their own entries, but I'll keep working at it.

I mean, wouldn't you rather hear it straight from the source why M- chooses to 1) snack on dust bunnies, 2) put shoes on her head while laughing maniacally, or 3) demand tributes of Rice Chex she doesn't want to eat? Or why D- 1) is obsessed with blankets and cloths, 2) doesn't allow anyone else to pretend about what he is pretending, or 3) doesn't understand how everyone else knows when he has to go to the bathroom before he seems to?

Anyway, I think you can expect roughly the same amount and quality (whatever that may be) of content, just distributed a little differently. If you happen to have some free time on an off day and curse my very name for not allowing you to procrastinate the way we all love, please do peruse my blogroll and other links on the right for some reliable entertainment. Then you can keep the dishes and chores at bay the same way we do around here!

To help this post qualify as such, here's a miniature Conversation with D-:

D-: (responding to my suggestion with a serious, patronizing face, burying his amusement) My books could not swim in the water and bite me like a fish.

Me: (unable to contain laughter at his demeanor) You make me laugh!

D-: Yes. I do. Write that in your bwog.

Ever the obedient servant, I've done as commanded.