Pony Express Posts: Belated Announcement

Well, I suppose there's no point continuing to wait for a substantial, creative manner of announcement to float down from the heavens on a golden harp-shaped hovercraft, now that it's been a couple months.

My procrastination has been holding up a backlog of what's been passing for content here the past couple years (since we bought the house), as a lot of what I've thought of saying the past 6 months or so was in some way tied to this news... news which I had been trying not to just throw out there unceremoniously, much in the way I'm about to do right now:

We had yet another baby last month.  

See? That's her right up there, as proof. The second coming of M-, hereby to be known as A-. So we've completed our set of two boys and two girls.*

Yes, that's right, according to most people's reactions, as well as a quick flip through a generation's worth of census data, we are now the modern equivalent of that 8-kid family** people used to marvel at during the Baby Boom and Generation X's heyday.

Do we feel more complete now, you wonder? Have we started getting a human amount of sleep yet? Have we worked out some kind of daily routine now that school has started for J- and the kids? Have we any hope of shaking off the influence of our hypnotizing alien captors soon? Take a glance at the posting history here and then pencil in your guesses before I stop by with the answer key as soon as I can.

In the meantime, with this official notice out here, I should be able to at least get back to posting more lists of tidbits and such a few times a month, with more promises of actual paragraphs and thoughts and time and craft someday, once again.

It's the thought that counts, right?

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* This means I'll have to update the banner again, so soon*** after the last time.

** All I can say is those people are lucky they were able to delude themselves into thinking that small children wedged tightly enough across the bench seat of a station wagon would provide their own restraint in case of a high-speed accident. Otherwise, the country would either be a fraction of its present size today, or it would have been swarmed throughout the '60s with extended vans, RVs, and "Parental Sanity trailers" featuring a half-dozen kids suspended along the walls with heavy-duty straps.

*** Obviously a relative term, given that some of the pictures were several years out of date when I replaced them a couple months ago...

A conversation between E- and J-: Heaven in a handbasket

Now that my 2-year-old son E- is astronomically more verbal than he was just a few months ago, he can actually hold up his end of many straightforward (generally needs/wants-oriented) conversations. Of course, that doesn't mean he always chooses to do so.

Occasionally, he strikingly decides to barrel on in true LiteralDan form, hoping to wear down his opponent by sheer force of will. Exhibit 437 (of Thousands):

E- (to my wife J-, reaching toward his inconveniently hard-to-reach Easter basket): MY back-ket. My back-ket. MY BACK-KET!

J- ((patiently, while making dinner): Yeah, E-, that IS your basket. It's up high because you kept taking candy when you weren't supposed to.

E- (as if she hadn't said anything at all of import): ...My back-ket! My can-nee.

J-: Yes, it is your candy, but that doesn't mean you can eat it whenever you want...

E- (before she even finished her sentence, as if his point was too urgent to wait): Jehwy, beeeeeeans!!

J-: ...

E- (almost exasperated, trying to communicate with a simple foreigner): EAT! Can-nee! Jehwy beans!

Suffice it to say, he continued to be frustrated by everyone's inability to understand that, unlike most children, he quite enjoys eating candy, and would strongly prefer to consume it in place of, as well as alongside, any other foods he's offered. No one said it wasn't lonely being the outlier.

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You may enjoy my previous J- conversations, (2YO son) E- conversations, (9YO son) D- conversations, and (6YO daughter) M- conversations.

Self-inflicted sterilization on 500 channels

Just like your mother always told you whenever she wasn't trying to use the TV as an unpaid babysitter, TV will fry your brain cells. But beyond that, it seems, it might also destroy any hope you have of growing your family larger than it already is.

Or at least that's the hope of the Indian government:

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Less sex, more TV idea aired in India

On World Population Day this year, India's new health and welfare minister came out with an idea on how to tackle the population issue: Bring electricity to every Indian village so that people would watch television until late at night and therefore be too tired to make babies.

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While they just might be on to something here, I have to point out that we Americans are having no problems increasing our population at what's traditionally been considered a reasonable rate.

Sure, a lot of that increase might come from illegal aliens jumping the fences to get a better look at our monstrous TVs, but still, we keep the Labor and Delivery nurses on their sensibly supported toes all by ourselves.

If the Indian government's logic was as sound as they seem to feel it is, can you imagine if someone took away America's national average of 8 hours a day of television time? Or, worse yet, our additional 7 daily hours of dicking around on the Internet?? Three billion of us would be packed in here like a typical American backside in a Chinese airplane seat!

We might even, through exposure, manage to grow past our Puritan repression and resulting obsession with sex as something illicit and get back to doing something meaningful with ourselves! I mean, besides making more selves.

Anyway, I tend to agree with this heroic 24-times-a-father from Uttar Pradesh:

"After watching TV," he says, "when we look at scintillating things, we will probably want to make more children."

Yep, that's pretty much how it works, buddy-- you're ahead of the curve!

Even if he's wrong, it's worth noting that although the poor are only getting electricity, at long last, in an attempt to trick them into abstinence, they will eventually learn that it can be used to do other helpful things like light one's house and refrigerate food. They might then feel so happy and hopeful they'll have a few more kids just to celebrate. Jai ho!

Made with 100% of your RDA of cotton fiber

After he relapsed into the unfortunate habit of chewing on his shirt while he was lying in bed one night, I asked my 5-year-old son D- when I noticed it the next morning why he had chosen to nearly disintegrate most of the front of his jammie shirt.

He responded that he was just so hungry he couldn't help himself, trying to guilt me for rebuffing his attempts to stall bedtime just a little longer the previous night by declaring he was suddenly starving.

I told him it was an interesting theory to say the least, seeing as he had barely touched his cornflakes at breakfast. Being the logical wunderkind he is, he reasoned that he was "so full from eating [his] shirt all night, [he] just [didn't] have any room left."

I hereby swear, on all that is good and holy, that both this kid and I will somehow manage to survive the next 15 years without killing each other. After that, it's up for grabs.

Classic quotes, Vol. 12

Here are the latest quotes from my 5-year-old son D- and 2-year-old daughter M-:

M- (responding to my protest at her using her forehead to block another girl from playing in a little firehouse at the library): But I told her it's 'Un-a-BAIL-able'!

D- (after drinking generic Sprite for a day or so while sick, having had his eyes opened to a previously unexplored kingdom of sinful deliciousness): Now that I'm used to this drink, I want it for Every. Day.

M- (announcing when she can use a pen): I can have one when I'm bigger... and old.

D- (whispering to my mom after she put him to bed while babysitting the kids): Can you stay till Momma and Daddy get home?

M- (in an appropriate situation, though I'm not sure where she heard it): Holy Moses!

A conversation with D-: The story of sugar

The following is an exchange I had with my son D- after he drank what is probably the second and near-to-last Capri Sun he's had in his 4 years:

D- (eyes wider than usual due to increased heart rate): Daddy, one day, I wanna make this kind of juice.*

Me: Oh yeah?

D- (looking at the front of it): Yeah... it's about "apples".

Me: Yes, it might be about them, but I assure you it's not made from them, so I wouldn't really call it "juice".

D-: (blank stare)

His word choice actually creates an appropriate comparison, since Capri Sun has as much of a connection to actual fruit as, say, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

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* This means he wants to buy some but knows I'll say, "No, we don't need that," which I of course do quite frequently. He figures that by suggesting we make some ourselves, like the good, old-timey Americans we are, he might stumble through a back door to getting what he wants.