Knocked Up

On Friday, Axel skied for the first time.  Well, really for the second time - a few months ago, we strapped his boots onto the skis that my brother and I first used, a plastic pair with leather straps, and he shuffled around the driveway of my parents' cabin.  Then the brittle leather straps broke, the skis fell off, and so we went sledding.  

 

But this Friday was Axel's first on-snow adventure at an actual ski resort, with working lifts, while wearing boots with solid plastic bindings.  After wrestling everyone into long underwear and snowpants, we drove to A-Basin.  Kids five and under are free - a deal offered at lots of the local resorts.   At A-Basin, the bunny slope is right next to the (free!) parking lot.  All in all, it was a great set up for a toddler's first outing on skis:  one grandfather/former ski instructor as his private coach, two parents to take turns hoisting a budding ski champion and his gear back and forth, a warmly bundled baby brother to cheer him on, and close proximity to snacks and hot cocoa.  

 

In the parking lot, next to the slopeside grill and a few happy golden retrievers, Sean shoved Axel's feet into the rental boots - size 7, the smallest available, which fit Axel's size 6 feet well enough, when worn with an extra pair of socks.   Then, we carried baby, toddler, diaper bag, three sets of skis, and multiple cameras over to the base of the lift, where Sean pushed Axel's feet down into the bindings.  And he was off!

 

Sean pushed him along.  After a few feet, Axel said, "No help, Daddy!  No help.  Axel do it!"  

 

 

 

 

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We love animals around here.  Axel counts dogs during drives to the grocery store, pointing out sorrowfully that none of the dogs are wearing any shoes.  Whenever our cat walks by, Jonas bounces with glee and stretches to grab his tail.   The zoo is just down the street - one of the benefits of living in the city is that we're less than two miles from lions, tigers, and bears.  We make frequent trips to ride the train and find out what the elephants are eating for lunch.  These zoo trips and a few picture books have made me realize how little I know about animals.  I can identify common housepets, and that's about it.

 

There's a whole stretch of beasts at the zoo that I call the wrong name - "Look, honey, an antelope!" 

 

Then I look down at the sign.

 

"I mean a gerenuk."  Of course.   It's not just a pronghorn antelope, which isn't even an antelope at all.  Thanks, biologists, for adding to the confusion.

 

The same thing happens with the warthog, which I frequently mislabel as a wild boar.  Then I notice the sign says, clearly, WARTHOG, and I go, "Oh, right, like the Lion King." 

 

Yes, what little I know about animals comes from cartoons and movies, which is why I frequently mix up the mountain goats and bighorn sheep, and why I can never remember if you're supposed to stand on your tiptoes and back away from a mountain lion or bark at it Lassie-style until Timmy comes to the rescue. 

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 Six months into the big adventure of babyhood, Jonas is starting to get the hang of things.  He prefers to fall asleep on his own - he won't settle until I put him down in his crib, thrashing and crying in my arms until I leave him be.  He's found a semi-solid food that he doesn't immediately spit in my face and doesn't require a soundtrack of the Itsy Bitsy Spider and disco tunes to get him to open his mouth for a spoonful  - pears and oatmeal.  He can sit up for minutes at a time, before wobbling back and forth and toppling onto his face, giving himself a nosebleed on one recent occasion.  He reacts with shock, quickly melting to deep sorrow, when his brother snatches a toy out of his hands, because he's now figured out that it was his toy, he had captured it and slobbered on it and claimed it all for his own, and it should not have been taken from him.  What's more, he's on the brink of crawling.

 

He gets on all fours, rocks back and forth, and cheers himself on by blowing raspberries and groaning like a zombie - the baby version of a stadium full of people doing the wave.  Axel gets in on the action by crawling around at high speed, proclaiming, "Jonas, see?  Axel crawling.  Jonas do it!"  Jonas smiles and giggles, then lets a glop of drool fall out of his gaping, gummy mouth.  

 

 

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 few days ago, some of my coworkers and I spent lunchtime discussing truly frightening things, like Oprah shows about sexually active teenagers getting it on in the middle of the dance floor at prom.  My reaction: Seriously?  That's the best location kids these days can find?  Ewww!   Oh my god, I said, "Kids these days."  Oh my god, I now learn about kids these days from Oprah.  Oh my god, my sons will be teenagers. 

 

These are things that I may not have found so frightening ten years ago - a bit gross, yes, and certainly not the classiest of locations, but not scary - but now make my blood run cold.  Drinking, drugs, sex, high schoolers, oh my lord. 

 

My sweet little babies, with all of their nuttiness and spit-up, will soon become not so sweet teenagers with a different sort of nutiness and (perhaps) tequila-induced vomit.  One day, we may have real problems, not just trouble getting out the door on time.  Axel is a sweet happy toddler, and his "Hey, pretty lady, why don't you come over here?" attitude seems like it could easily turn into trouble on a seventeen year old.  Jonas, at six months, already worships his brother, and would make a pretty good partner in crime.  Oh, I hope not.  I hope, I hope that my sons are the sort of kids who have friends, but those friends like to play Risk; who make the honor roll; who do not keep me up at night by missing curfew.  

 

Here's why I sort of hope my children will be nerds:

 

STDs

 

Drugs

 

Alcohol

 

Driving drunk

 

Teen pregnancy

 

Science kits and math camp are much cheaper than rehab

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 The hardest part of my day: getting out of the house.

 

It doesn't matter if we're trying to leave at 7:50 am to get Axel to daycare before I go to work, or if it's trying to make a 3:30 pm playdate.  It's always a battle.

 

I wrestle one kid into his coat and shoes and mittens, only to discover that the other kid has taken his off.  One kid gets diapered, and the other suddenly stinks.  One kid is in his carseat, the other declares it is time for hide and seek and hides behind a chair.  One kid screams for a nap, and the other one sprints down the driveway. 

 

It doesn't even matter where we're going - if it's to the music class Axel adores, or to the doctor - we can't get out without chaos, my nerves unraveling, and yelling or tears from at least one of us. 

 

Throw the stroller in, which Axel currently hates, and I end up sweating from the no holds barred wrestling match. 

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It's inevitable...

 

That when you finally get the baby to sleep, you will tip toe out of the room only to slip on a Lego, yank the door shut with a bang, and stumble onto a squeaky floorboard

 

That, right when the baby falls flat on his face, giving himself a bloody nose, the toddler will chime in with cries of his own over the sorrow of an unsliced bagel

 

That, if you are in a rush, you will end up with boogers and/or spit-up all over your sweater - especially if that sweater is dry clean only, and you have a day full of meetings

 

That, if you are really, really in a rush, someone will poop

 

That the day you decide to bring the mini diaper bag, rather than the overnight-sized bag full of spare outfits and bandaids, the baby will have his first blow out in months, leaving you to decide if you let him sit in poop until he gets home, or strip him down to a diaper and hope that being wrapped in a fleece blanket is enough in the January weather. The old poop and a rash or frostbite dilemma...

 

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If you haven't already read this, check out this post on the Motherlode blog about the crisis in Haiti.  I couldn't have said it any better.

 

We are surrounded by needs, by real problems of hunger and health and disaster, in our local communities and across the world.  I'm ashamed that I so easily forget that in the face of the never-ending to do list of feeding and caring for my own family.  

 

I'm taking a moment to say thanks for all that I have, and to give generously to help those in need, both near and far.  

 

 

 Do you use the Mrs.?

 

When it comes to adults, we've been using first names.  We're informal, it's easier, and I don't always know the right last name to use.  But we haven't given it much thought, because we haven't really had to while living in the land of barely verbal kids.  

 

When I was growing up, all adult figures were Mr. or Mrs., if they weren't directly related to you by aunt or grandparent-hood.  I didn't know the first names of most of the adults in our neighborhood or of many of my friends' parents - it was simply Mrs. Stevens, or The Fletchers who live on the end of the block and don't want us playing in their yard, not even Kick the Can, because of that one time that the lit firework landed on their roof.   Adults were Mrs., Mr., or sometimes Ms., but never Bill or Carol.  

 

Now, it seems to be the opposite.  I'm not certain of the last names of some of the people who live on our street, and there's also the confusion of last names created by divorces, kids who have their biological father's last name but live with their mother and her new husband, couples who live together but don't share the same last name, and on and on.  In the case of our family, I kept my maiden name, but answer to either my last name or my husband (and sons') last name.  Yet rarely do I get called the Mrs., unless it's a telemarketer.  Usually, both big and little people call me Oz,  Jonas and Axel's mama, or, in places like the doctor's office, Mom.  As in, "Mom, I'm going to need you to strip Jonas down to his diaper for a weight check."  That last one is a little disconcerting - some of the nurses are older than me, yet they're calling me the current catch-all for unknown woman with a baby: Mom.  No Mrs., no first name, just label that covers the relationship to the child in question. 

 

 

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 Before I had Jonas, a few people told me that, once baby number two reaches six months, it gets easier.  Well, I've been a mother of two for six months now, and they were right.  Just like morning sickness doesn't disappear at the magic thirteen week mark, it hasn't happened overnight, but it's smoother.

 

There's a semi-reliable rhythm to our days, a sleep schedule three days out of five, a toddler who entertains himself for fifteen minute stretches, a baby who has discovered the joys of nibbling his own feet.   Sometimes - when Axel goes to sleep and Jonas eats a full lunch - there's a full hour of overlapping naps in the afternoon, long enough for me to eat a meal, shower, and even brush my hair.

 

The thought of the four or so nights a week that I'm alone with the two of them no longer fill me with a 4:00 pm dread brought on by anticipation of the chaotic hours of dinner time, clean up, bath time, marathon nursing sessions, and books.  Now, I usually have time to wash the dishes before bedtime.  There's time for Axel to dump extra chocolate chips into a batch of cookie dough.   There's time to spoon rice cereal into Jonas' mouth, and for him to smear it in his eyebrows.

 

 

 

There's time for a post-dinner shimmy to Dancing Queen, blowing raspberries on Jonas' cheeks to get him to giggle while spinning in synch with Axel  - yes, to Abba.  By the time the boys reach six, they'll no longer let me choose cheesy disco tunes for our dance parties, and may not even do the hustle with me at all, so I've got to enjoy it while I can.   You can dance, you can jive...

 

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I've read your responses to my last post with interest, and had a few revelations:

 

Revelation number one:  Breastmilk is not an all or nothing endeavor.  I had this knowledge stored in a dusty corner in the back of my mind, but hadn't retrieved it to apply to me and Jonas.   One baby can have breastmilk and formula in the same day, for multiple days in a row!   The options for nursing are not a simple yes or no - there's the option of nursing sometimes, and offering formula other times, and pumping a little less.  Wow.  You don't say. 

 

I'm blaming my inability to reach the above conclusion on my own on the combination of a family-wide cold and sleep deprivation, the same combination that caused me to realize halfway through Target that I was still wearing my slippers.  Then, I started giggling at my fuzzy footwear, and so I was the crazy woman with unbrushed hair and slipper-shod feet, having a laughing attack in the middle of the diaper aisle.  At least I wasn't wearing hair rollers and a robe - I left those at home, with my shoes.   Clearly, I'm not functioning at a high level these days. 

 

Yesterday, Jonas had a test run of formula, and he found it to his liking.   We're also starting to have adventures in eating/wearing food - rice cereal makes a great hairstyling product - which will, as some of you helpfully pointed out, eventually mean a little less consumption of mama's milk. 

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For the last six months, Jonas has feasted on nothing but breastmilk.  I'm reaching the point where I'm wondering if, perhaps, it's time to make the switch to bottles and formula. 

 

Blocking off thirty minute pump breaks - I need two or three a day to feed the growing boy - is getting harder to do, and still get my job done.  I do have one of those super duper amazing (if sort of weird, but hooking one's chest up to a machine designed to suck out milk is weird) hands-free bra deals, so I can type and pump.  But, to get maximum milk production, I have to pause, relax, and think about Jonas' sweet chubby face - not think about financial statements and the meeting coming up in four minutes.  It turns into a stress spiral - I worry about fitting in time to pump enough milk, which then affects my milk supply, which then makes me worry that I don't have enough milk and will need more time to pump, which makes me worry that I'm not going to meet a deadline.  Very soon, there will come a time when the amount I've pumped isn't enough for Jonas.   Our nanny has already dipped into the freezer stores a couple of times.  Just two back-up bags remain, nestled next to the frozen waffles and blueberries. 

 

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The adult world is full of confusing, unspoken rules.  These rules aren't taught in drivers ed.  They don't cover them in home ec or in Sunday school.  They're rules I didn't even think about, until having children forced me to articulate them, and then to find all of the i-before-e style exceptions.  Rules like this: Don't bring cats to parties.

 

As we were preparing for a small gathering, hosted by a neighbor, Axel named off who, from our house, was going to attend - Mama, Daddy, Baby Josi, Axel.  When he reached our cat, I told him that, no, Muldoon wasn't going to attend.  It was a human-only party.

 

He responded with, "Cat no go?  Oh no.  Cat!"  

 

I explained that we don't bring cats to parties.  I've been to parties to which people brought their dogs, but never cats.  No one has ever asked me if his/her cat could come along to a party at my house - boyfriends, golden retrievers, and cousins, yes.  Cats, no. 

 

That's because we don't bring cats to parties, as I told Axel.  It's sort of a rule.   The cats wouldn't enjoy the black eyed peas or egg nog, anyway, so they don't mind. 

 

At this same party, we talked about another rule I've found myself repeating lately:  ask before you tackle someone.  Axel likes to go in for a hug, and then pull down his unsuspecting friend with a full body slam.  Yes, this often ends in tears, thus the pre-tackle request rule.

 

Unless you are playing a sport, like football or hockey or rugby or full-contact shuffleboard, of course, but I don't amend rules for toddlers, so Axel will just have to figure that one out when (or if) he plays a sport with a high probability of serious head injury. 

 

This rule makes my husband laugh (out loud), which makes it a much weaker rule.  I have to admit that it is silly when you imagine asking for permission to pull someone to the ground: "Excuse me, Bobby, do you mind if I tackle you?  No?  OK, then.  Here goes!" 

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It's that time again - time to make promises to yourself that you won't keep.  Usually, I skip this tradition.  If I really wanted to stop eating chocolate, I would've done it before January 1.  But it's the start of a whole new decade.  Instead of resolutions, I'm thinking of this as my partial To Do list of the decade.   I'm not going to pledge to give up chocolate or never again buy a pair of shoes.  Instead of making negative resolutions,  I'm going to make positive resolutions, things that I want to do more - run, laugh, dance. 

 

So here goes, a partial to do  list for the next decade.

 

In the next ten years, I will...

 

Sleep through the night

 

Make more things for my boys (like these felt strawberries and homemade Halloween costumes)

 

Make a lemon tart from scratch

 

Take family trips to the beach, to the mountains, and out of the country

 

Take a trip with my husband, just my husband, even if it's only an hour away

 

Go dancing with my girlfriends, possibly while wearing four inch heels

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We have a house full of moisturizers - calendula lotion, thick white goo, jars of Aquaphor.  That's what happens when you've got alligator-skinned children - those adorable red cheeks aren't an ode to elves.

 

 

 

 

Nor is it blush.  Those red cheeks are eczema.  Oh, and that facial expression?  That's not Axel trying to be a Gremlin - it's what happens when he says cheese.  I think he's trying to intimidate his stuffed animals, or audition for a role as The Littlest Vampire in the next Twilight movie.  

 

I never met a lotion I didn't want to try.  I'm also a sunscreen junkie, so we have tubes of the stuff stashed in every drawer, diaper bag, and pocket you can think of.  Axel, reveling in the "me do me do me do" phase, loves to slather up with cream, to waste half a bottle of Weleda on his (previously dry) sweatpants.  

 

Yesterday, while I was nursing Jonas, Axel came in to share two pieces of important news with me: he had eaten all of the imaginary hot cocoa and chicken soup he'd made with the mustard and salad dressing from his new wooden condiment set (he's a creative chef) and would not be serving me any as it was "All gone in tummy!", and, more importantly, his diaper was filthy. 

 

"I'll change you up when Jonas is done," I said.   His sensible response was to dive to the floor and log roll out of the room while giggling, and I resumed wishing I had something to read other than a board book version of The Carrot Seed.  

 

About five minutes went by, and the clanging of pots and pans in Axel's cardboard kitchen gave way to a rustling and a few unintelligible words from somewhere else in the house.  Jonas was almost off to dreamland, after a tough morning spent growling at teething toys and enduring tackling from his older brother, so I waited for a few more minutes until he was snoozing.  As I left Jonas, I noticed the silence, never a good sign when an awake person under three is involved.  

 

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Pop quiz: In which of these places is a baby's cry especially loud and piercing? 

 

A.  On an airplane.  Magnitude increases by each 15 minutes the plane has been trapped on the tarmac.

 

B.  In the middle of a religious service, especially in the silence that follows the words, "Let us pray."

 

C.  In the emergency room, as you watch doctors poke and prod at your child and have to sit on your hands to keep from tearing the needles out of their hands.

 

D.  When you're sleeping right next to the baby, having just drifted off after working to release the tension that comes from waiting for the baby to wake up and cry, and you're desperately trying to hush the baby to keep him from waking the other child who's asleep in the same room.

 

E.  All of the above.

 

 

Yes, it's E, all of the above.  C, in my opinion, is by far the worst.  D?   That's what our last few nights were like.  

 

This holiday, we spent time together as a family, in very close quarters.  The four of us shared a room, up in the mountains at my parents' cabin.   For a few moments, it was lovely - the first night, both boys drifted off to dreamland on a coordinated schedule.  When I crept into bed a few hours later, I snuck a peek at my snoozing angels, and thought, oh, how lovely it is to burrow under mounds of covers in a mountain-top cabin, while snow falls gently all around, and your two beautiful children sleep, especially if one of them is snoring a little bit.   Peaceful, warm, adorable...

 

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It seems that, in every couple, one parent is the disciplinarian and one is the softy.  In holiday terms: one parent lets their children eat cookies before, after, and for dinner, and the other parent restricts gingerbread man beheading to after a real meal; one parent lets the kids open a present (or two) early, and the other parent wants to wait for Santa's actual arrival. 

 

Based on our pre-baby selves, you might have thought I would be the enforcer and creator of the rules.  I am the one who pays the bills.  I am the one who finished college in three years.  I am the one who has never dyed his/her hair or had a mohawk.  Let's just say that Sean has a longer history of troublemaking than I do, and that my youthful attempts at making trouble were weak, uninspired, and low on follow-through. 

 

But I'm the "yes" parent.  I'm the parent who introduced the toddler to eating chocolate chips by the handful.  I'm the steady source of holiday cookies.   I'm the parent who shrugs when the child plays musical chairs at dinner, and lets him eat all of her dinner.   I'm the parent who looks at the child, gleefully shaking milk out of his sippy cup and exclaiming, "Big mess!" and just hands him a paper towel to clean it up, then goes back to washing the dishes.  Sean is the one who, in the same situation, says, wisely, no.

 

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The children are our future. So why are the children so hell bent on using up all the resources before we get to the future? I'd like a little water to be left in 2030, but at the rate Axel's washing his hands, flushing the toilet, dipping his toothbrush under the running faucet, and scrubbing clean dishes, we might not have much left.

 

It all started with my brilliant idea to let Axel play in the sink. It was about 5 degrees here. During the day. At the warmest point. We'd played fort under a camo comforter, danced around, and eaten all the Play Dough it seemed safe to eat. Then I thought - ah hah!  Two of our friends' kids love to wash dishes.  We should try it, too!

 

At first, it was a great success.  What's not to love?  He got to stand on a usually forbidden stool, splash around, wield a scrubbing brush.  Washing dishes provided multiple thirty-minute stretches - yes, that's right, a whole blessed half hour - of focused no-TV entertainment inside of the house. No one was crying or hitting or figuring out how to wedge a plastic horse in the printer or trying to pull a lamp on his head. And that happened two or three times a day, each day, for about a week. I thought I'd discovered the creme de la creme of toddler activities.

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Jonas has become, as Sean likes to call him, Nonas 2.0. He's gone from floppy bundle of fluids and basic urges to a real live baby. I suppose he was a baby before, but they just don't feel like actual people, like real human babies, until they smile and interact and intentionally spit on you.  They're more like extremely high maintenance goldfish.  Goldfish that you love and cherish, of course, but less interactive than even a kitten. 

 

Now that he's a baby who can control his neck, he's developed a few favorite things.  Because, as the less active little brother, he's been overshadowed a bit by his walking talking dancing and potty-using older brother, I thought I'd devote this post to Jonas' Favorite Things (sort of like Oprah's, but cheaper).

 

First on the list - standing up. Like his brother, and many other babies before them, Jonas thinks that sitting or sprawling on the floor is for, well, babies. He's five months old. He's pratically a teenager. So, he needs to be in control, to observe his kingdom from a firm - OK, not firm, since his knees regularly give out and his chubby thighs are more pudge than muscle - standing position.  It's much easier to bathe things in drool if you have gravity to help that saliva splash down, from your standing position.

 

Then, there's Ziploc bags. Really. 

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I'd like to interrupt the stream of sleep-related posts to bring you this late breaking news:  Axel used the potty. 

 

Last night, while I was doing the regular post-dinner scrubbing of the dishes and pump parts, Axel started chanting, "Potty!  Potty!  Potty!"  This has happened before.  He likes to push down his sweatpants - he's in a sweatpants and Carhartt overalls-only phase - sit on the potty for two seconds, flush the toilet four times, and then dance around, pantsless, in the bathroom.  We've been very casual about it all.  We have a potty, we have a potty book or two, we've talked about where toilet paper goes (in the potty) and where it doesn't (strewn across the house by the toddler toilet paper fairy), but Axel didn't seem ready.  Just two days, I talked with his teachers at daycare and they said to wait until he was closer to two and a half. 

 

But this time was different from all those other casual two-second potty sits.  He demanded I take of his diaper so he could pee.  Then, he pulled the little green and white potty into the kitchen. 

 

Yeah, that was a little odd, but by that point, Jonas was wailing about the turtle on his exersaucer who likes to taunt him, so I figured, hey, why not bring the potty into the kitchen?  Perhaps the lighting is better. 

 

Axel plopped down on the potty and told us all - all being me, Jonas, and the pets - what he was about to do.  Then he requested some light reading material, specifically Go Dog Go. 

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 The latest germ is now making the rounds.  Axel's gone and caught the anti-sleep virus from Jonas. His major symptom?  He's on a nap strike. 

 

For three days in a row, Axel's skipped his afternoon nap.  It's not the first time he's decided not to nap, but it's certainly the most days in a row.  Three times seems like a very bad trend, the toddler equivalent of tight rolled jeans or bad perms.  

 

It goes like this:  

 

Noon - lunch

 

12:15 -  A bit more playtime, cleaning up.  Playtime here often consits of Axel grabbing his stuffed lion (otherwise known as "Roar") and cow out of his bed, along with a soft yellow blanket his grandmother made for him.  He swaddles the two animals up.  He puts them on the floor or on the couch, and he curls up with them and proclaims that they are all sleeping.   Then he tells me "No nap.  No nap, mama!"  Apparently, immobile stuffed animals need to sleep, but two-year-olds who sprint about all morning do not.  

 

12: 30 or 12:45 - We read books in Axel's room.  Well, I read them.  Axel leaps around the room and climbs up on the ottoman, falls to the floor, and follows with a few backspins.  Usually, around this time, Jonas goes down for a brief nap.  Axel and I read another book, often a Richard Scarry transportation book, and we have to find Goldbug on every single page.  Axel adores Goldbug.  I find him a little annoying - really, why must he be on every single page?  Can't he share the spotlight with some of the other bugs?  And if his name is Goldbug, why is he sometimes green?  

 

1:00 - A drink of water, a hug, then Axel gets tucked in.

 

And then he doesn't sleep.

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My sweet, lovable, daytime smiley puss baby Jos (so dubbed by his older brother) continues to morph into an evil, wailing, bastard child at night.  I am, again, obsessed with sleep, wih who's getting, and who's not.  It's hard to think of anything else.  Why is he waking?  Why won't he, for the love of God, go back to sleep?  He falls asleep on his own.  I give him a chance to do it again at 11 am and 1 am and 3 am and nothing, nothing I have been trying works.  I am throwing cottonballs at a brick wall of stubborn wakefullness.  And then, when the baby is finally asleep, the damn dog wants to go outside and pee at 4. 

 

I am now so tired that I cannot spell.  I write "wonderfull."  I type male instead of mail - as in, "I'll drop it in the male."  I won a spelling bee in second grade!  I used to be GOOD at spelling, and now I mix up men with the United States Postal Service.  I have also lost my once firm grip on punctuation, and discover that I've been sprinkling emails with unnecessary apostrophes as if they were glitter intended to fancy up boring sentences.  Instead of that Blackberry/iPhone message folks include at the bottom of emails, I'm considering adding a line to my signature that says, "Sent from an exhausted parent.  Please forgive typos and incoherence." 

 

I am now losing my hair, at the same time that Jonas sprouts a headful of soft fuzzy fluff. 

 

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What do you keep from your kids?

 

Lately, I've been thinking about the many ways that I shelter my boys.  The job of a parent of very small children is so often about protection, about keeping them alive and safe - babyproofing, immunizations, car seats, anti-SIDS measures, acting as a buffer against an overzealous older brother.   It's about giving them room to take risks, but safe risks - giving a budding walker the chance to stumble off of a low step on to the grass, but not the chance to tumble off of  a six-foot-high playground structure.  

 

It all started with an Elmo video.  Lovable, fuzzy, gratingly chipper Elmo.  At the start of Elmo Visits the Firehouse, there's a grease fire.  Unless you've got a kid under four, you probably missed this flick, but let me tell you, it's a classic.  Red monster + trucks + NYC fire department = two tiny, sticky, enthusiastic thumbs up.   Anyway, Elmo is so scared he quivers in his furry red skin.  As soon as he started shaking, I found myself telling Axel how it ends (Spoiler alert!) - Elmo's OK!  It's not a big fire!  No one gets hurt! 

 

When I told him this, Axel nodded - I'm not sure if it was just in afirmation, or to get me to stop talking so I wouldn't ruin it for him.  I admit, it was a little too far.  It was a grease fire in a fictional pizza place on Sesame Street, not a slasher flick. 

 

It got me thinking about my role as in-house censor. 

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This Thanksgiving, three kids under three took over our house - two of them live here, and one was just visiting. Here, the story, with pictures.

 

First, Axel welcomed his cousin Elsa to his house.  He gave her a hug.  He gave her a kiss.  He showed her his toys.  And then he showed her which toys she was not to play with.

 

 

 

He also made delicious invisible mashed potatoes with his blender - twice the love and 0 calories! 

 

Axel likes babies, especially immobile babies.  Babies who can eat and babble adorably and move and take his toys?  He likes those babies, too....some of the time.

 

Usually, they all played well together.  Elsa decided to explore the Legos.  She tested them out.  She and Jonas compared the flavors - here's Elsa offering Jonas a delicious red block to complement the tanginess of the yellow one.  

 

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One of the less acknowledged benefits of the holidays is that it prompts heavy housecleaning.  We talk about the opportunity to gorge on pie, family togetherness, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, but not about finally getting around to scrubbing the toilets. 

 

If it weren't for visitors, I don't think I'd ever disinfect toys.  I am actually planning to submerge germy Legos in a tub full of hot water.  The floors, which I vacuum when the tufts of dog hair approach the size of Jonas' head, will get a rigorous cleaning.  Dog hair is good for my kids - it builds up their immunity!  makes them stronger!  teaches them about mammals and the insulating properties of the fur coat! - so I let them roll around on the ground.

 

 

But when it comes to my brother's daughter visiting, I don't even want a single visible strand of hair on the floor for her to ingest.  My brother, his wife and baby daughter, and my grandmother are all coming to visit, so I'm breaking out the mop and pail.  The clutter on our mantle/impromptu bag and book storage area, which has accumulated for months, suddenly becomes intolerable if my grandmother is going to see it, even though I know she's not going to be focused on the pile of books on the bedside tables - she'll be looking at her three great-grandchildren, at this 

 

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Learning to talk is hard work. My boys like to practice. I think this means that they are going to be big talkers, like their dad, and I am going to be surrounded by a chorus of male voices and will have to slam my hand on the dinner table to have a chance to ask someone to pass the potatoes.

 

Right now, I've got a bad cold that, overnight, snatched away my voice, so I'm talking less than usual. I'm trying to communicate important concepts to Axel like, "No climbing on the bookshelves!" with body language - arm waving, head shaking.  Yeah, it's not working.  If I was trying to tell him that I was trapped in box and had a jaunty beret and some white face paint, perhaps it would work better. Miming just might be an effective tantrum prevention strategy. 

 

Between two kids, work, flu and cold season, and the incredibly germ-spreading abilities of toddlers, it seems that one of us has been sick every week since I've returned to work, and most often that one of us is me. Hmmm...wonder if my body is trying to send me signals through the snot, like, "Hey! Slow down, lady.  Take a nap!" 

 

While I'm talking less and using a word or two in place of a sentence just like a toddler - cheese, nap, hot, no! cough cough cough -  the boys are talking more. 

 

Jonas' practicing takes the form of a near-constant gurgle and coo. It sounds like a cross between a cat purring and a lawnmower heard from three blocks away, with a heavy dose of saliva. Geee geee rrrrrr geee gee rrrr, bubble bubble bubble. 

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