One Billy Goat Gruff

Recently Nathan has been trying to climb onto things. His little-boy-ness is so innate. Like climbing, for instance. In the past 2 weeks, I've looked over from the stove to see Nate with a desperate grip on the other side of a kitchen chair, grunting like an over-burdened ox and trying to heave his body up. In my infinite wisdom, I let him struggle. Not for his character's sake, but rather for my sanity, because I knew that once he could climb, it was all over... again... like when he started to walk.

The other day, I heard the familiar scrape of a chair being pulled out from under the kitchen table and the ox-grunts as he tried to climb, but when silence ensued, I looked up and he was standing on the chair, grinning like a fool at his mother as if to say, "Look what I did, Sucker!"

He then, being a newly established Billy Goat, proceeded to climb on top of the kitchen table.


In my infinite wisdom, I choose to empty the table of fragile items first, instead of hauling him to the floor, because I knew he would just climb back up while I was saving my hoard of breakables, that were up there for the sole purpose of being out of his reach. I got most of them and as I was going to grab the last one - a vase wrapped in paper - my own dear godzilla, destroyer of all that is good and holy, grabbed the corner of the paper and unrolled the glass vase onto the floor, where it shattered.

It wasn't even my vase.

And it was a special order.

Sometimes I get to this point in the story and I can't decide on the next line. A sentence is never enough to express my feelings, which are usually a mix of exhaustion, extreme exasperation and a tiny bit of hidden affection. He may be a horrible rotten monster who destroyed my body and is slowly chipping away at my sanity with his Billy Goat hooves, but he's my rotten monster. And for some unknown reason, I have a hard time being mad when he grins at me so endearingly with each new dangerous accomplishment.

Which is why babies have survived to this day. If they hadn't learned to grin before they were two, the human race would be extinct. And if we were extinct, there would be no one to feed Henry.

Therefore, God was not only looking out for the future of the human race when he programmed "smile" as one of the first learned tasks, but also for large yellow labs.

So I have a vase to replace.

And such is life.

Haiku #1

Studying at night
The dog yawns at my hard work
"Laziness pays off"

Anorexia Lite

I kind of get girls who struggle with anorexia. I totally understand the need to act out in some way in order to feel in control when my situation is anything but controllable. And at times like these, when the husband is deployed, the baby has become a throw-everything-away-because-trash-cans-are-cool toddler and the toilet breaks and the care needs brakes, I consider the need to control things.

Don't get me wrong, though. I have a complete and utter obsession with food. I don't have the self-control to be anorexic. One look at a chocolate cupcake and I'm done. I read cooking magazines like romance novels. And just like romance novel readers imagine themselves in the arms of the shirtless, rippling-muscled Maximuses in the stories they read, I imagine myself slowly stirring the roux and steadily adding the cheese... maybe a little extra... like a block extra... and baking it for an hour with macaroni and bread crumbs and finally when the anticipation is too great, EATING the divine casserole for all it's worth and basking in the afterglow.

I'm a little hungry just thinking about it and I forgot what I'm writing about.

Okay, but the point is, I've noticed something about myself since the Navy kidnapped Jon. On bad days, when I'm exhausted and it's been rough and I find a toddler shoe in the trash AGAIN while looking for a sippy cup there, because I can't find it and that's where my offspring chooses to hide things, I rebel. Before bed, I survey the damage; it could be dishes in the sink or the remains of what used to be my makeup... and I do nothing about it. Let us be very clear it. It is not the exhaustion that keeps me from washing the dishes or my face. It's rebellion.

I get this little foot-stomp going in my brain and say, "I don't have to put up with it any longer! Too long have the tyrants of toddlerhood and housekeeping and beauty regimes held me under their power, but today I say NO! Yes, watching babies and cleaning house and trying to keep a bad complexion at bay all make perfect sense. But that's the problem. They're right. And rebellion requires a little bid of bad. So TAKE THAT, status quo! I'm NOT washing my FACE TONIGHT!"

After my personal revolutionary riot, I go to bed, feeling quite in control. It's anorexia lite. Act out without severe consequences.

Unless of course cold dish water is considered a severe consequence. Which, in my book, it kind of is. Cold dishwater is a personal pet peeve. Gross. So anorexia of all kinds comes back to bite you in the butt, I suppose. But at least I have a butt, since I never said no to that cupcake.

Have a butt to bite, Choose Anorexia Lite!

Gimme Some Advice

Today Nate got together with his best friend Braydon and they begged for candy at a local shopping center that was hosting a Halloween thing. Jon just sent us these awesome "Thai Boxing" shorts for Nate, so he went as a boxer.

We tried to get some photos before we left. Notice the chucks. Also note that he got abs added with eyeliner for the actual event.
One of the restaurants giving out candy was also handing out fortune cookies. Nate's said, "Many people are seeking you for your sounds advice", which makes me wonder. Do they mean sound as in *shriek* *yell* *holler* or are they referring to advice? Like the time we went to our friend's wedding in September and just as the bride was asked if she takes this man to be her blah blah blah, Nate yelled, "Uh-oh!"
That's probably what they meant.Here he is with abs a bit faded, but still visible. All that candy is totally going to ruin his 6 pack. Maybe he'll learn, "Look both ways before you cross the street".

A Dear Jon Letter

Why write two updates in one evening? Here is an excerpt of tonight's spousely email for your reading pleasure:

Henry won't shut up. He barks ALL the TIME now and he's SO loud and he won't stop when I tell him to and if you get a box in the mail with breathing holes in it, it might not be Nate. It's possible that I've sent the Navy a top-of-the-line alarm system that runs on table scraps. And by runs, I mean walks, because running is past the capacity of this particular model. It's slightly defective. But there's nothing wrong with the volume. This one goes to eleven.

I love you more than I love cold weather, chocolate cake, eyeliner, Henry, massages, boots, throw pillows, Stella Artois, cute undies, umbrellas, our Element, whiskey, clean sheets and cheese... combined... plus 20. Which is to say... a lot.

Look What I Found

This is what over ten pounds of baby looks like, four days late. I'm so glad he made it OUT and a year later looks like this:
The All Stars just melt my Southern California hipster heart.

Obla Dee Obla Da

We have mice. Which I do not approve of.

Correction: I do not approve of mice in my house. Despite Dr. Seussical rhyming, mice do not belong where people live, at least not while they still carry hantavirus. Maybe in heaven they will be disease free and we can contemplate their small furriness and twitching noses without spraying them down with Lysol. Until then, they aren't allowed in my attic.

Which leads to my dilemma. We set up traps and hid some poison up in the attic, away from the Man Child of Destruction and Eating Things That are Not Meant to be Eaten. And the practical side of me is content that the mice will soon be gone.

But the other part of me (not that there are only two parts of me - but these are the only two that pertain to mice) is a little stricken by the idea of killing mice. If perhaps there had been a book about giving a rat a cookie ... or if Beatrix Potter had portrayed mice as evil and not put sweet blue waistcoats on them ... maybe if they had red glowing eyes... I don't know.

I'm not even a vegetarian. But MICE. They're LITTLE. And CUTE. And I can just see the little mouse memorial service for the wayward teenage mouse who was warned against the evils of the trap, but didn't heed. Or the groups of maimed and brain-damaged mice in "Poison Eaters Anonymous". Call me ideological, but it's really hard to be responsible for killing cute things.

If only I needed to cause the death of sharks or snakes or spiders or cockroaches or fire ants (I. hate. fire ants.) or fascist, hairless cats... not that I want any of those to infest my house, but at least I wouldn't mind KILLING them.

But isn't that just the way of viruses? Hiding inside cute things to trick you into catching them? I mean, that's how the common cold gets around. Kids are cute, but when you get down to it, they're mainly just snotty factories of disease and malfeasance. Oh man. I came with that word all on my own, too.

But I didn't know how to spell it, so I had to look it up.

My point is, mice are really cute. And I hope they eat the poison but go off somewhere nice (and away from my attic) to die, so that their last hours are spend by the soft murmur of a peaceful stream.

That would help.