The Grand Unveiling

Tah-dah! Ben gave it a big thumbs up, and baby Becca seems to enjoy her swing, too. I posted pictures to Kodak Gallery and at some point I will figure out how to link to a slide show here... hmmm...

Anyway, Ben insisted on being pushed on the swing as high as he could go even though he is perfectly capable of doing it himself. Joel rapidly got tired of pushing him, and as I brought Rebecca inside to put her to bed I heard him say (apparently oblivious to the irony), "We'll play outside for two more minutes, and then we're going to go inside and watch cartoons."

Rain Delay

After a month of waiting, our backyard play set has finally arrived. Well, sort of. The installation team did not actually get here until after 2pm today, thanks to a backed-up schedule caused by yesterday's torrential downpour. (By the way, a note to self: the next time it is raining cats and dogs and you need to go out, take the extra two minutes to find your umbrella...)

Anyway, the guys worked for about 3 hours or so and then called it quits for the day. Tomorrow I promise: pictures of the kids swinging blissfully...

Ben and Rebecca's Naming Ceremony 5/23/08

Thank my sister for the crazy camera work at the beginning. (She says she was just "getting situated.")

Photo Essay #3: Best Friends*

*Or, what happens when you drink too much sangria at dinner and suddenly remember you have your camera in your purse.

Photo Essay #2: Heaven in Custard Sauce*

*Or, what happens when you drink too much sangria at dinner and suddenly remember you have your camera in your purse.

Mr Noisy

Imagine having to listen to this all day long.

Shop Till You Drop

New outfit: $86
New purse: $60
New bathing suit: $210
Spending an entire day shopping with Abby, kid-free: Priceless.

Generation Gap Bridged

This weekend Joel brought out his collection of Star Wars action figures from when he was not much older than Ben is now. It was love at first sight. Except, Ben seems to have lost Darth Vader already. Whoops.

You Pee on it, You Buy it

Earlier this evening we went to Home Depot to shop for patio furniture. As we stood at the service desk arranging for payment and delivery of a table, chairs and umbrella, I was quietly congratulating myself on having accomplished a difficult errand in a remarkably short amount of time, and looking forward to going out to dinner afterwards.

Ben's birthday-party-induced hyperactivity had gotten on my nerves, and I had sent him to sit on a lawn mower until we were finished. My self-congratulations were interrupted by a morose announcement from Ben: "I peed," he said.

I picked him up off the lawn mower to see my worse fears realized: there was a puddle of yellow underneath him, and as I stood him up he started making a puddle on the floor too.

I hustled Ben out to the car as fast as I could leaving Joel with the baby to finish up our purchase. When Joel emerged a few minutes later, Ben was enjoying the novelty of being half-naked in his car seat.

"Did you have to buy a lawn mower too?" I asked as Joel handed me the receipt.

"Nah," he said. "I just pretended I didn't notice."

Good plan.

Danger, Will Robinson

I am now the proud owner of an NOAA Weather Alert Radio. I have it programmed to broadcast alerts for the county that I live in. This was prompted by a tornado warning last week. It was not for our county, but it was for a county about an hour or so north of here. I decided that we need to be aware of severe weather warnings should they happen in the middle of the night, or when the power is out - or when the power is on but the satellite TV is out. There seems to be a lot more severe weather here - or at least threats of severe weather - than anywhere I have lived before. In the spring and summer, anyway.

So now, happily, my radio, which I have set up in the kitchen, will sound an alarm and switch to voice broadcast whenever one of sixty-some odd alerts occurs in my county, including but not limited to: Biological Hazard Warning, Civil Danger Warning, Earthquake Warning, Hurricane Warning, Volcano Warning, Tsunami Warning, and my personal favorite, Iceburg Warning.

When Doomsday comes, I will be one of the first to know. Whether or not I will be any better prepared for it is another question.

Beware the Ides of... May?

5:00 a.m: Rebecca wants breakfast
6:00 a.m: Ben wets his bed
9:00 a.m: In a state of sleep deprivation I spill hot coffee on my lap.
10:30 a.m: Rebecca sent home from daycare with pink eye.

Seriously, do these eyes look pink to you?*

*Don't look too closely

Teacher Appreciation

Having spent an hour as a substitute teacher in Ben's classroom, I now appreciate his teachers on a whole new level. Despite Ben's warnings, there was no screaming, biting, scratching or hitting. Well, almost none. There were, however, 14 three- and four-year-olds asking me repeatedly how much more of their lunch they needed to eat before they could have dessert. And I thought just one kid doing that was annoying...

Words of Advice

Tomorrow from 11:30 to 1:00 another mother and I are subbing in Ben's classroom so that his teachers can attend a teacher appreciation luncheon. This morning on the way to preschool Ben offered some advice.

"Keep an eye on Ava," he told me. "She bites. If she bites, or hits or scratches, send her to the timeout chair."

"Okay..." I said, not paying much attention.

"And Rami needs to sit by himself during lunch," he continued.

"He does? Why?" Paying slightly more attention now.

"Because he screams."

"He screams?"

"Yes. Like this." Ben demonstrated loudly. I wasn't looking at him because I was driving but I could see his arms flail over his head in the rearview mirror.

Now Ben has my full attention. "Why... why does he scream?"

"I don't know," Ben said, "But he screams during lunch. If he screams, send him to Ms. Tootie's office. Do you know where Ms. Tootie's office is?"

"Yeah.." I am suddenly having second thoughts about this...

Uninvited Guests

Last night Joel took the hanging baskets down so Ben could water them. As you can see, one of them contained a surprise. I am sorry Mama Bird - I didn't know. I will stop watering your babies now...

Thunder Thighs

At 4:45 this morning Rebecca woke up. This is about an hour or two earlier than she normally wakes up. I lay in bed listening to her on the monitor, hoping she would fall back asleep. But then I noticed I was not just hearing her on the monitor, I was also hearing a thud-thud-thud-thud coming from upstairs. It sounded like someone was stomping around very loudly. For a minute I thought it was Joel getting up to go to the bathroom or something- when he is on call he sleeps upstairs in the guest room so the pager doesn't wake me up and the kids don't wake him up. But the noise didn't stop.

Then I realized that the thud-thud-thud-thud was being followed by Rebecca's laugh coming over the baby monitor: thud-thud-thud-thud-hehehehe-thud-thud-thud-thud... After mentally envisioning the layout of the house - Rebecca's room is directly over the master bedroom - I realized the noise must be coming from her room, and the only thing that could possibly be causing it was Rebecca herself. It sounded like she was jumping up and down in her crib, but since that is impossible, I finally decided she must be kicking her mattress very hard.

When she actually does start jumping up and down in her crib, it's going to sound like there's an earthquake going on up there.

Uncomfortable Questions

This weekend Ben finally asked what happens when we die. He'd been skirting the issue for a while now, so I suppose I should have taken some time and figured out how to answer. But I didn't. So Saturday we were heading out for our morning errands and one of the CDs he likes to listen to in the car has a song that goes "Old Roger was dead and lay under the ground/Under the ground/Under the ground/Old Roger was dead and lay under the ground/Way down under the ground..." What a terrible song. So of course Ben asked why is Roger under the ground? I tell him it's because he's dead. He asked who put him under the ground? I told him that when people die usually they get buried in the ground.

This of course seemed to horrify him, and he asked was he going to die? I told him everyone dies sometime, but he wouldn't die till he was a very very old man. He still looked horrified, and said he did not want me and daddy to bury him in the ground. In a desperate effort to ease his fragile psyche (and Ben's psyche seems to be very fragile indeed) I told him that it would only be his body buried in the ground, and that his spirit would go to Heaven to be with God. After having to explain what a spirit was I then had to launch into a much longer than anticipated explanation of Heaven, God, angels, and so on. The thought of Heaven did not seem to reassure him, since he was very concerned about how he would know how to get there (I told him angels would come show him the way but he was not convinced). I should have known - he is very concerned about riding the bus to kindergarten a year from now, after all.

Then, in a very troubled voice he finally said, "But mommy, if I die you won't have a little boy anymore." I almost cried! I told him he would always always be my little boy, and some day we would all be in Heaven together. And with that, I hoped he would drop it.

But of course, on the way to preschool this morning, he brought it up again - very concerned this time about how long it would take the angels to come down from Heaven to get him once he died, and how they would find him. He apparently doesn't want to have to wait around for them. I finally gave up (in retrospect I should have given up long ago) and told him I did not know all the answers because I have never been to Heaven before so he will just have to wait and find out. And at last, blessed silence from the back seat. Until -

"Put the Roger was dead song on, Mommy."

I am going to burn that CD.

Photo Essay #1: Tranquility

Ben and Maya Plus...14?

This morning when I dropped Ben off at school I ran into one of the other parents, who relayed the following conversation he had recently with his 3 year old daughter:

DAD: What do you want to be when you grow up, Maya?
MAYA: A mommy!
DAD: That's nice! How many children are you going to have?
MAYA: Fourteen!
DAD: Have you picked out a Daddy for them yet?
MAYA: Ben!

The Difference Between TV and Reality

Yesterday when I picked Ben up from school he greeted me with one of his usual questions: "Did you get me anything at the store today?"
"I got you chocolate and vanilla protein shakes [Pediasure]," I told him.
"Did you get me orange juice?"
"No."
"Did you get me cherry juice?"
"I don't think there's any such thing as cherry juice," I told him.
"But Mom! On Max and Ruby they have cherry juice," he informed me.
"Yes, but Max and Ruby are also talking rabbits."
"I know that, Mom! But they also have cherry juice!" he said with exasperation, the point entirely missed.

The Evolution of Humor

Stage 1: Burp jokes. As this video demonstrates, even very young infants appreciate the innate humor associated with burping. As humans mature, so does their appreciation for other types of humor. Nevertheless, quite a large percentage of human males never progress past Stage 2, even once adulthood is reached.*

*Stage 2: Fart jokes

The Usual

I am well known at the local Starbucks. So well known in fact, that I merely have to walk in the door, and the barista is already starting on my grande skinny caramel macchiato. She doesn't even bother to ask "The usual?" anymore. Which is convenient, really. I don't even have to open my mouth. Except... what if I wanted to change my mind? What if I wanted to exercise freedom of choice? What if I felt like a tall decaf white mocha? I would have to interrupt the well-oiled Starbucks routine. It might never recover. I briefly toyed with the idea of going to a different Starbucks a couple of miles away just so that someone would ask me what I wanted, for once. But that would add at least ten minutes to my already rushed morning routine.

And then this morning it happened. The face behind the counter was only vaguely familiar. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't remember your drink."

Quick! Now's your chance! Order a venti green tea frappucino! the voice in the back of my head screams. "I'll have a grande skinny caramel macchiato," I hear myself saying.

Dinner

With two kids, dinnertime is sometimes - ok always - a lesson in multitasking. So tonight there I was, eating my dinner with one hand, feeding Rebecca Muesli With Yogurt and Raisins with the other hand, and negotiating with Ben over how many more bites of chicken, rice and salad he had to eat before he could have chocolate animal crackers. When Joel asked to be excused, I reflexively looked over at his plate to see if he'd finished his dinner.

"Did you just look at my plate to see if I finished my dinner?" Busted!

The Incredible Shrinking Woman

Over the course of the last four months, I have lost twenty pounds. I now weigh probably 12 pounds less than I did before I got pregnant with Rebecca. Or Ben for that matter. A few more pounds and I will be back down to what I weighed in high school and college (well except for one very skinny year of college when I weighed around 112 pounds). Today, for the second time in four months, I had to go buy new clothes. I am sure The Gap appreciates my business. I appreciate the way they size their clothes, starting with 0, which means I now fit into size 1 or 2 pants, depending on the style. I think I will have a skinny caramel macchiato to celebrate. Oh wait - I already did.

Barack Obama is my Daddy

Translation: Get that camera out of my face and go vote! Go on! Look what you have done - the thought of having to listen to Hillary accept the Democratic nomination is making me spit up my YoBaby.

Wasting Time

In my line of work as a programmer, I waste a lot of time trying to avoid wasting time. I can't stand to have to do any sort of manual work so I usually end up spending so much time writing code to avoid manual labor that I could've just done the manual labor and been finished faster. Case in point - today I spent 2 hours trying to code a way to pull a set of criteria that changed for each state, instead of manually typing out 50 different criteria sets. Probably just typing the 50 different criteria sets would have taken about half an hour. But where's the fun in that?

The Occupational Hazards of Archaeology

I am sure Indiana Jones would have quite a few to add, but number one on Ben's list is getting dirt in your Crocs.

Today we went to the Israel @ 60 celebration at the JCC. It was a beautiful afternoon - sunny and 80 degrees. Ben's favorite part was looking for pottery shards in the little archaeology dig they had set up for the kids. He took it very seriously, once he came to terms with the inevitability of getting dirt in his shoes.

Rebecca's favorite part was napping in her stroller.

My Babies With Their Bottles

Here's to You, Diet Coke

I worked until midnight last night, and got up at 6. But because of you, Diet Coke, I am full of nervous energy.

Like Riding a Bike

Yes, riding a bike is like, well, riding a bike - you never forget how. Six years ago, I spent $500 on a bike. I have not ridden it since before I was pregnant with Ben - so, call it four and a half years, at any rate. The bike spent our entire 3 years in Blackstone in the basement of our house.

Today - drum roll please - I removed it from its new home in the corner of the garage, wiped off some of the dust, inflated the tires, and went for a ride at lunch. The first couple of minutes were a little less than graceful. Anyone watching would have realized I had not ridden a bike in a long time. But after a couple of laps around the cul de sac I got the hang of it and biked up the road to Rebecca's day care - though I did not stop in because she's at the age where she will cry if she sees me and I leave without her. Then I circled my way back home, riding down to the next entrance of our subdivision and back home that way. The entire process, including my practice laps, took less than 20 minutes. But it's a start.

Bug Zoo

Today Ben's class was having a Bug Zoo - all the kids were supposed to bring a bug in a jar for the class to look at and then set free. So yesterday afternoon I wandered around outside in search of a bug. I checked the sidewalk, the tree trunks in our yard - nothing. It's amazing how few bugs you see when you are actually looking for one.

Finally I spotted a lizard on one of the front porch columns. I figured he must know where the good bugs are. So I watched him for a little while and lo and behold a little black and red beetle wandered by. I corraled him into a container before the lizard could eat him for lunch, and Ben brought him to school this morning.

On the way across the parking lot of his school Ben spotted a caterpillar, so I scooped it up and took it inside with us. I figured it would get run over in the parking lot, and the more the merrier for the bug zoo, right? Well, you would have thought I'd brought a poisonous snake inside the school from some of the looks and squeals I got from both staff and parents. However, Ben's teacher was appreciative of the extra bug and found an extra container for him, and Ben lorded it over the other kids - "I brought TWO bugs for bug zoo!"

Rebecca's First Cheerio

Here is Rebecca eating her first Cheerio. I don't think she liked it.

Jellybean Starts With K

Ben is learning what letters make what sounds, so he likes to go around listing words and then saying what letter they start with. Sometimes he gets a whole bunch right in a row, and sometimes he gets a whole bunch wrong in a row. This morning on the drive to preschool he was on a losing streak.

"Jellybean starts with B!"
"Nope."
"S!"
"Nope."
"Y!"
"Nope."
"K!"

"Jellybean," I enunciated carefully for him. "If it started with K, it would sound like Kellybean." I couldn't see him since I was driving, but he sounded perplexed.
"Kellybean? Can we eat that?"
"I was just joking honey. There's no such thing as a kellybean."
"But would it taste good?"
"Nevermind..."

Conversation, Interrupted

The following conversation is "creatively remembered." Ben, Rebecca and I joined 3 other moms on our cul de sac and their children at Five Guys for dinner last night. So in total there were four moms, four boys ages 2-4 and two 7-month-old girls.

[Cheryl to Elizabeth]: So how does Kevin like his new job so far?
[Cheryl to Carson]: Carson! Sit still and eat your dinner!
[Elizabeth to Cheryl]: He likes it so far but --
[Julie to Mason]: Sit down, honey.
[Elizabeth to Matthew]: Matthew, sit down in your seat! All your friends are sitting in their seats.
[Carson to Elizabeth]: Mason isn't sitting down.
[Elizabeth to Cheryl]: It's only been a week so far -
[Elizabeth to Matthew]: If you want to play on the playground you need to eat your dinner.
[Ben to me]: Excuse me.
[Ben to me]: Excuse me mommy.
[me to Ben]: Yes Ben?
[Ben to me]: Matthew's not sitting down.
[Me to Ben]: Don't worry about what Matthew's doing, just eat your dinner.
[Elizabeth to Matthew]: Sit down and eat your dinner.
[Cheryl to Carson]: Sit down and eat your dinner.
[Julie to Mason]: Sit down and eat your dinner.
[Baby Rebecca, to all]: Waaaaaa!