Shovel 16 sidewalks and whaddya get?

I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, so I've always been more than familiar with snow, and I even made a fair amount of money in those years shoveling driveways, but I wouldn't say I became obsessed until after I was married and living in Northern Maine. (Refer to the picture above for an idea of what Northern Maine looks like much of the year-- that's my good old Dodge Spirit [RIP] under there.)

Once, when she was very pregnant with D-, J- slipped on a chronically icy stair, injuring her tailbone and causing an odd muscle tightness in her abdomen (which is bad). After suggesting once again to our landlord that he should fix the leaky gutter over the stairs, I began religiously clearing every speck of snow and ice everywhere on the property, at all hours of the day and night. I just fell into a routine, which was aided by the fact that it snows 8 months of the year in Maine. It didn't hurt that this was pretty much my only regular exercise at the time, so I allowed my OCD demons to firmly take hold, and now I just about cannot stop myself whenever I have access to a shovel and uncleared snow.

Though there are worse obsessions, I still don't wish this one on D-, but I feel it may be inevitable, as he already can't even stop at shoveling the sidewalk and my parents' deck. He frequently takes to clearing as much of the yard as he can before being convinced to take a break, and even then you can catch him all but twitching to get ahold of the shovel once again.

Unfortunately, most of the shoveling at our house involves the three flights of stairs up to our back door, so I can't put him to work too much here. It really is a loss-- you'd be surprised by how effective he is at his age!

Frosty's premies

A pair of these noble warriors stood guard at my parents' house until recently, when they finally met their match in a bout of slightly mild weather. But until then, they amused me each time I saw them (in amounts far exceeding their stature), due to the fact that they were as unaware of the uniqueness of their size as was their creator.

Despite the fact that we used to live in Northern Maine, D- doesn't have much experience with making snowmen, because when he was much younger, he hated wind in all its forms, and when he got older, he was more interested in throwing snowballs and stomping snow. He could stomp snow for hours, likely driven by a budding obsessive-compulsive disorder that is not yet powerful enough to drive him to tear down a ridiculously-proportioned snowman like this shortly after starting it. God bless him for that.

I'll admit that I can't remember even starting to make more than maybe two snowmen in my life, which I know may seem to some a tragedy. I just found the idea of snowmen boring as a kid, versus forts and snowballs. However, a parent's boredom doesn't matter much for activities with children, because many, many of those activities are mind-numbingly boring and/or exceedingly annoying. Mostly it's the repetition, I suppose, but then that's the only way kids learn. Sigh...

Anyway, I'm sure this plays a big role in his inexperience, but I'd be more than willing to help him make one if he wanted. I wasn't there the day he made these particular snowmen with my sister, but she found them as funny as I did. She was able to stoically refrain from laughing too hard while overseeing D- due to her ongoing training as an early childhood education major in college.

I honestly think that if I suggested making a snowman any bigger than these, though, we might get as far as constructing the regulation-sized base before D- would request permission to get a snow shovel so he could get back to clearing all snow from every horizontal surface to which he is allowed access. He presumably developed his slavish devotion to snow removal from watching me head outside each time a flake hits the ground, driven by a force I only slightly understand, but it may just be a coincidence... I'll post my thoughts about this tomorrow.

To offer a little perspective on just how tiny these things are, here's a picture with D- for reference:
I think we'll be making these guys and their baby-carrot noses into a family tradition.

A conversation with D-: A laugh in the forest

This morning, the kiddos and I were eating breakfast, while I was reading (Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, if you're interested), when all of a sudden, D- began fake-laughing hysterically. Naturally, I was curious, so I said, "What?"

D-: What? [with a completely blank expression, as if he had no idea what I could be asking about]

Me: You were laughing...

D-: Oh, I went [makes random, understated noise & face] to myself and so I laugh-did^. What were YOU laughing about?

Me: I wasn't laughing at all.

D-: Oh.

Fin.

^ This is how D- pronounces most past-tense verbs.

See the archive for more Conversations with D-.

Get it?? Get it?!?

Today D- walked up to me and spontaneously offered his explanation of why I spend time writing things down about him on the computer: "Cause I know how to make funny jokes, and you want to send them to people all over, to laugh. It's very silly."

In case you think he might be troubled by this habit of mine, keep in mind that he frequently tells goofy, nonsensical jokes and then tells me, "Write that down for people to read!"

Maybe I'll start collecting these jokes, like today's example, which consisted of him holding up a stuffed monkey and saying, "This monkey wants a real banana!"

Witty as that may be, I greatly prefer his unintentionally funny lines. In the shower this morning (okay fine, this afternoon), while reaching up to put a toy on the windowsill, he had to sternly yell at M-: "Don't grab penises!!"

I mean, that's just good advice, but still I had to stifle a laugh.

I really do love my kids, honest!

For all you non-parents out there, here's one great thing about being a parent you might not be aware of:

You know that horrified panic you feel when you suddenly realize your mind was wandering while someone was talking to you, and you stand there awaiting sentencing once this person inevitably says something like, "So what do you think about that?"

When three-year-olds are most of the people you spend time with, you almost never have to deal with this feeling. Though when you also split that time with one-year-olds, you do have to run the risk of falling asleep while people are talking to you. Even three-year-olds notice that... trust me.

At least half the time, though, when a little kid is rambling at you, even they don't know what they're talking about. (I've actually checked on this periodically, in case you think I'm just as mean as this post makes me sound.) So you don't even have to feel bad tuning in and out at will while they practice their "conversation skills". Listening too intently all the time only results in logic-induced headaches and unanswerable questions (again, trust me on this one).

In fact, D- is standing right next to me going on and on about something completely nonsensical as I write this post, asking only that I occasionally offer a "Really?" or an "Oh, wow!" in response to his tone before deliberate pauses.

Warning: You should make sure to check in here and there, though, or you'll miss stuff like this:

Luck favors the prepared parent

You wanna know a great way to torture a suddenly hungry baby? Take her down the baby food aisle at the store and try to explain why you can't just sit down on the floor, manufacture a spoon, and begin feeding her each of the jars she has pointed at (while loudly saying "Num-nummmm!!" and signing for "more").

While you're at it, rush her past rows and rows of various bottled drinks and describe to her (over her protests) what a water fountain is and why it'll have to do at the moment.

Go ahead and try it-- it's a blast!

(Before you think we're complete idiots, we weren't totally empty-handed, M- just quickly exhausted our meager supplies today.)

Let's play dress up

Apparently Amazon thinks my audience is at least heavily made up of people interested in dressing up like "Asian" caricatures, based on this ad I caught in the sidebar the other day:

I highly doubt this is so, but then again, how would I really know the tastes of all you folks? Who am I to question Amazon's mighty recommendation engine?

A public service announcement

This is a banana:

This is a banana that made the mistake of lingering in a grocery bag in the same kitchen as a near-starving baby on the hunt for num-nums:

Any questions?

Daddy: Destroyer of homes

This weekend, D- took his Lincoln Logs out to the dining room to build himself a house safely beyond the reach of pudgy little hands. Left completely to his own devices, I think he built a pretty impressive little shack (folks back in Maine might call it a 'camp house'):

When I saw it, I told him how great I thought it was, then I told him it was nap time. He asked if he could keep the house together so he could show it to Momma when she got home, and I of course agreed.

After nap time, he walked out into the room, saw the house, and said, with surprise and awe befitting the son of an unrepentant, vindictive, pathologically lying demolisher of childhood hopes and dreams, "You didn't wreck it!!"

I have no idea why he said this, much less why he said it with such unexpected joy, but I couldn't help feeling defensive. I just said "Of course I didn't-- I said we could save it for Momma, silly."

He just smiled with wizened amazement, wondering which of his slave duties was performed well enough to warrant such a magnanimous gesture from the tyrannical taskmaster he is unlucky enough to have to call Father.

No thank you, I'm full

Now, given that my son is still only three years old, I like to think that I have the edge over him in the brains department, and days like this reassure me of that.

When I took out some watermelon juice (which, like most juices, Juicy Juice would have us believe nature makes primarily from apple juice...), he asked why I was taking out "that waterlemon juice". After I corrected him, he pointed to the picture of watermelon slices on the label and said "I looooove those. They are my favorite. I don't say 'I'm all fuuuullll'- I eat them all up. I don't say 'Daddy, I'm all full, I'm not hungry'- I eat them alllll up."

Of course, I've been onto his Convenient Fullness game for some time, but here he just laid it all out for the record. If only I could make him understand what he's done, he would know how much I own him now, and he could fully appreciate said ownership. Instead, my maniacal laughter falls on deaf ears.

I've got to find a more sophisticated nemesis.