Cue the laugh track

Back in the spring, I made an impromptu trip to Virginia to spend Passover with my parents. The kids were with their dad and I was feeling lonely and like I needed to be around family, and I had the miles, so off I went.

While I was there, Lisa came over to say hi. She sat in the kitchen and hung out with us as we all bustled around getting ready for the seder. It was a typical scene for us - my dad cracking goofy jokes, my mom and I laughing as we made preparations, gossiping and telling stories. Noisy and funny and slightly chaotic.

At one point, Lisa made an observation that I found hilarious.

"I love hanging out with your family. It's like a watching a sitcom."

Our annual trip to the Outer Banks (where Lisa and her kids joined us for the second week) lived up to the billing.

We always get a house with a pool, which is lovely for cooling off after a day at the beach. I'm sure the dude who comes to clean the pool thinks we're pigs because we get sand all over the place, but the non-salty water feels so good after all the salt and sand of the beach.

The kids are in the pool CONSTANTLY. I am always amazed at their ability to spend 5 hours in the ocean and then come back to the house and spend another 3 hours in the pool. But they love it, and they sleep well afterwards, so it's fine.

They stayed in the pool even when it was raining.

Now, there are a couple of things you should know going into this story:

1. Josie still has a hair trigger temper, and can go from sweet-and-calm to losing-her-fucking-mind in about 30 seconds.
2. Zeke has an oral fixation. He chews everything, and every year we go to the Outer Banks, buy noodles for the pool, and he proceeds to destroy them by taking large bites out of them. It's super weird.

Anyway.

My niece Hazel is the master at thinking up new and exciting games, and for the kids' antics in the pool she came up with Shark. The person who is "it" has to stand at the end of the pool-deck with her back to the pool. The people in the water try to swim across without the shark jumping in and catching them before they get to the other side. I played it with them a few times - it's pretty fun and silly.

One afternoon, I was inside while all the children were in the pool when I heard Josie yelling about something. I'm not quite sure exactly what happened, but when I went outside to see what was going on, there was a big argument going on. Josie was accusing Zeke of cheating, Zeke denied cheating, others from the peanut gallery weighed in. Zeke continued to deny it until Josie became more and more irate.

She proceeded to lose her fucking mind.

She was crying and screaming and furious, ramping up the anger and indignation with every insistence by Zeke that he was innocent.

"YOU'RE CHEATING!! YOU'RE A CHEATER! YOU'RE LYING!"

"I'm not! I didn't do anything."

"LIAR!! LIAR! YOU'RE LYING!! YOU'RE A STUPID MIDGET!! YOU'RE A JERK!!"

"Josie," I implored. "You need to calm down and stop screaming." She was sobbing and out of control.

I also thought to myself, "midget"? what the hell is she talking about?

"I CAN'T CALM DOWN! HE'S A LIAR! HE CHEATED!!" She then turned to Zeke: "YOU CHEATED! YOU STUPID NUGGET!!"

Nugget? So it was nugget and not midget? or maybe both? 

I was getting confused. I was also starting to laugh but I couldn't do it out loud, so I was shaking and trying to keep it together.

"Josie, I don't know what happened because I didn't see it. But if he's being jerky and you don't like the way he's playing, then don't play with him. You always have that choice."

This didn't placate her. She continued to scream and cry as I tried to get her to either calm down or get out of the water and do something else.

At the end of her rope, she was shaking with fury and bellowed at Zeke, "I HATE YOU! YOU'RE A LIAR! YOU MIDGET! YOU NUGGET!! YOU NOODLE EATER!!!"

Noodle eater.

He's a noodle eater. And a midget and a nugget. But definitely a noodle eater. There were, after all, bites of foam noodle floating around the pool at the time.

Can we get this added to Urban Dictionary as an epithet?

Eventually I got her calmed down. She got out of the pool and I dried her off and got her something to eat, and it blew over. It was time for dinner anyway.

I didn't think, when we sat down to dinner, to give Zeke a big grin and offer him a big plate of spaghetti and ask if he wanted to eat some noodles. So it's not quite up to par, as sitcom scripting goes.

I'll have to workshop it.

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a pray-er, a magic-bean-buyer...

After three hours in the indoor water park, replete with water slides and lazy rivers and tubing, we were on our way home to get some lunch and have a nap.  I looked behind me to give the kids a "come on, let's keep moving" when I noticed them leaning over a wall with their hands in a little fountain on the other side.  I realized they were rummaging for the coins people had thrown in there.

"Look, Mama, I have money!" Josie exclaimed.

"Honey, you need to put that back."

"Why?  People left it there."

"I know, but they left it in there to make wishes."

She looked confused.

"Sometimes people make wishes and throw coins in fountains because they think it helps make the wishes come true," I explained.

"That's stupid," she said.

"Is it?"

"Yes.  Wishes never come true," she said emphatically.

"Never?  I don't know, I think some wishes come true," I offered.

"No, they don't.  Mine never do."

"Really? Never?"

"No.  I keep wishing for a pet baby elephant, and I never get one."

I guess by those standards, she's right.

The fundamentals

Yesterday Zeke came with me and kept me company while I did my hunting and gathering at the grocery store.  I forget how the topic came up, but we started talking about friends and friendship.

"Jackson and I have a lot in common," he told me.  "That's why we're good friends."

I chuckled at how grown-up he sounded talking about having a lot in common with someone.  "What do you and Jackson have in common that makes you such good friends?" I asked.

"Well, we both have bunk beds.  And we like chalk."

"That's good stuff.  Anything else?"

"We have the same rug in our bedrooms."

It's the little things, really.

A is for "nipple," and other updates

Even though I don't really use this space as a daily diary -- obviously, given the paucity of posts this year -- I love going back and reading about things that happened last year or the year before or in 2006.  So when I don't post, I feel bad, not because I'm depriving the world of my brilliant musings, but because I'm depriving myself of an important took I use for tripping down memory lane.  And I'm a nostalgic kinda chick.  One of the reasons I love reunions so much (and why they make me so emotional) is that I've known so many wonderful people and experienced so many wonderful experiences and lived in so many wonderful places, and I have an overwhelming desire to remember it all and keep it with me, in my heart and my brain, as much as possible.

It's been a difficult, busy few months.

The good news is, I'm still alive and functioning (mostly).
I managed to shake off the depression that had been hanging around since September.  It sapped my productivity and my motivation -- I haven't been exercising as regularly or eating as well as I should, which has exacerbated feeling down and sluggish.  It's so stupid -- I am so obviously aware of how exercise and healthy eating contribute to my mental health, and yet when I need it the most, I can't make myself do it. Drives me nuts.

On the "what's going on with my brain" front, I had an MRI last week.  It was very noisy, but otherwise unremarkable.  I'm still awaiting the results.

In any event, I am getting back on track.  P90X3 was just released (get amazing results in only 30 minutes a day!) and I'm going to be doing it post-New Year's with a great group of people.  So I can get ripped again just in time for spring break in Nicaragua.  Cannot wait.

The bad news is sad.
J's dad died last week.  He had been sick for years, but took a bad turn when he had a stroke about a month ago.  He was in hospital and his condition was deteriorating.  We were in Virginia visiting my parents for Thanksgiving, checking in with the Aussie relatives the whole time.  When we returned, we received a middle-of-the-night call from J's brother, letting us know that the doctors didn't think there was much time left, and that if anyone needed to come to Australia to say their final goodbyes, it needed to happen ASAP.  So we got on the phone and got a flight departing the following night.  J was able to spend precious last days telling his dad everything he wanted to tell him - how much he loved him, how much he looked up to him.  He also got precious time with his brothers and sister, and they were all able to lean on each other.

Denis died on Tuesday, December 10 (the day after our 8th wedding anniversary).  J said that his dad told him that he was ready to die, and that he looked more peaceful in death than he did in his final days alive.  I know he had been unhappy and uncomfortable for a long time.  I'm glad his suffering is over.

But of course, it's hard for J.  As much as we can acknowledge that it was time, it's still his dad.  Denis was a good man and a loving father.  And in all honestly, he was the only parental figure from J's childhood that ever did right by him -- the others were either useless or downright abusive.  (And if any of J's family is reading this, sorry, but it's true.  Believe me, I'm the one cleaning up the resulting emotional/psychological mess they made.)  So J is grieving, and the kids and I are doing our best to give him TLC.  Life goes on.

In other news, my kids are crazy and hilarious and fun.
Winter is upon us, which means it's ski season.  Zeke started ski camp a couple of weeks ago (it's 3 Saturdays in a row), and he LOVES IT.  The first day they stayed on a tiny little hill with an incline of maybe 2 degrees, going up and down via a magic carpet.  When I picked him up at the end of the day, he insisted on showing me how he was able to jump on his skis.  So we went over to the little beginner area and he skied down the hill, stopped half-way down, jumped in place on his skis, and then came down the rest of the way.

Zeke tears up the slopes.

Last Saturday they learned to use the rope tow to go up a slightly longer run that had some curves and terrain (little jumps) built in.  He mastered that, so I took him on his very first chair lift, to the top of a short green run.  He got off the lift perfectly, pointed his skis downhill, and whooped and hollered as he skied down.  So much fun.

Josie is a sassy little thing, and getting so smart and mischievous.  Whenever we're in the car, Zeke likes to play an alphabet game, where we pick a letter and then say words that start with that letter.  Josie can play, but she mostly likes to crack everyone up by coming up with some random word that starts with a different letter.

Zeke:  Let's do "M."
Me:  OK.  Machine.
J:  Macho!
Zeke: Motorcycle!
Josie: Mama!
Me: Monkey.
Josie: Apple!

And everybody cracks up.

We finally decided that when Josie uses a word that starts with a different letter, then the different letter is now the letter we have to use.

Josie:  Apple!
J:  OK, now we're on "A."
Zeke: Allosaur! (he just watched a documentary about allosaurs)
Me: Aardvark!
Zeke: America!
J: Africa!
Josie: Nipple!

And everybody cracks up.

'Tis the season to get some rest.
I'm tired.  J was gone for almost two weeks, and while my kids are crazy and hilarious and fun, they're also exhausting.  Between the logistics of being the one to do morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up and dinner and bath and play-time and bed and ski camp and laundry and on and on, I could use an extremely long nap.  So the Christmas break comes just in time.  I will be on leave from Monday, the 23rd, through January 1st.  I'll do some baking and we'll open presents from Santa and we'll ski and sled and watch movies and go to museums.  And, I'm hoping, get some sleep.

Aussie Word of the Day, Unmentionables Edition

It's been a while since I did an "Aussie Word of the Day" post.  I think at this point I'm so accustomed to Aussie-isms that I now use them myself.  More than once have J and I been discussing the timing of completing a particular activity, and I've said, "no worries, I'll take care of it this arvo."

Now Zeke is getting into it.  He finally embraced riding his bike without training wheels about a month ago, and now rides at every opportunity he gets.  He's allowed to ride around parts of the neighborhood by himself, and many afternoons, J picks him up at school by riding his bike and carrying Zeke's bike with him (dude is seriously strong) so that he and Zeke can ride home together.

Apparently on one of these trips, J explained to Zeke that an Aussie-ism for bike is "treadly."  Zeke thought this was hysterical and now uses it at every chance he gets.  "Mama, Daddy and I are going out to ride our treadlies," followed by uncontrollable giggles.

He has taken to asking J how to say different things in Australian, and takes great pleasure in working his new vocabulary into conversation.

The other morning I was getting him and Josie ready for school, and brought down their clothes to put on while they watched the Sunny Side Up Show.  Zeke looked at his pile of clothes and said,
"time to put on my Reg Grundies!" 

I was definitely giggling hysterically along with him.

I should print bumper stickers.

All I can say is, I'm really glad that when we went to Fake Steamboat, I didn't know what Real Steamboat looked like, because I would have cried.

I've been to some extraordinarily beautiful places in my life -- southwestern Australia, the Carpathian Mountain region of Romania, the northern mountains and lakes of India, just to name a few.  North-central Colorado gives all of those places a run for their money.

We experienced HORRIBLE traffic on the way out, but we finally arrived at our campsite late Friday night.  It was too dark to see our surroundings, but we were way out of town and the stars were incredible.  Millions of bright stars everywhere, plus we could clearly see the Milky Way.  It was hard not to spend all of our time looking up at the sky.

When we woke up in the morning, we discovered that our campsite was in the middle of a field of wildflowers.

A couple hundred yards away was the head of a little hiking trail that the kids couldn't get enough of.

No matter where we looked, the views were spectacular.

We went into town on Saturday and went tubing on the Yampa River.

That night we made a huge campfire and looked at the stars and made wishes.

We finished the trip by going to see Fish Creek Falls.

When we were driving up on Friday, Zeke asked about dying and heaven.  He's been all into talking about dying lately, because I guess he's realizing that he is mortal.  He asked about heaven, which I was having a hard time explaining well, given that as a Jew, I don't believe in heaven and haven't really given it much thought.

As we were talking, Josie started to cry.

"What's the matter, sweetheart?"  I asked.

"I don't want to go to heaven.  I want to go camping!" 

Amen, little girl.

Dodged a bullet

In spite of the fact that I am an unabashed and, indeed, enthusiastic user of foul language (is there any greater word, with more versatility and character, than "motherfucker"?), the only swear word my children have ever heard me say is "damn it."  I also throw "Jesus Christ" around quite a bit, because it just rolls off the tongue so easily during moments of exasperation.

Occasionally, Zeke will say "dammit" just to see what the effect is -- I always reprimand him and tell him it's not a nice word to say.  Last week, we were at a professional lacrosse game and Josie exclaimed, "look at all these people!  Jesus!"  Once I was able to contain my guffaws, I told her that she shouldn't say that.  Seeing me laugh, she then proceeded to repeat it ad nauseum.

Knowing that they are little sponges, and that they love being cheeky,* I'm very careful to hold my tongue around them.  The few times I've messed up and said, "shit" or something similar, it was either out of their earshot or they weren't paying attention.

 This morning, I was pulling out of the driveway to take them to school.  We live on a somewhat busy street (not a highway or major thoroughfare, but it is on the bus line and there are shops and restaurants on the next block), so sometimes getting a clear shot out takes a little while.  Plus there is a coffee shop across the street, so in addition to cars driving back and forth, people are constantly pulling in and out to park.

I saw an opening and pulled back.  But then I saw one guy backing out of the coffee shop parking lot, another pulling out of a space on the street, and another turn on to the road from one of the cross streets.  Everybody seemed hesitant and it was hard to tell who was doing what or going where, so I pulled back into the driveway and, without thinking, said, "what the fuck is everybody doing??"

Realizing what I had said, I was silent and braced myself for the onslaught of "fucks" from the back seat.

After a moment, Zeke said, "Mama, I think you mean, "what the heck, right?"


Riiiiight.

_______________________________
*It's like living with Beavis and Butthead.  I can't get changed without them giggling and saying, "I see your boobies! Heh heh...boobs!  Boobies!  Boobs!  Booty!  Heh heh heh."  

Working through the universal taboos, one at a time...

The other day the subject of marriage and weddings came up.  Since J and I got together, we have done an annual yearbook on Kodakgallery (or Shutterfly now, since they bought KG this year), so we have a nice series of photobooks chronicling our life together.  The kids love looking at them, especially pictures of themselves as babies, and pictures from our weddings.

Zeke and Josie were looking through the books and talking amongst themselves.  They then declared that they had an announcement to make.

"Mama," Zeke said, "when I grow up and Josie grows up and we're both grown-ups, I'm going to marry her."

"You're going to marry Josie?"  I asked.

"Yes.  I'm going to marry Josie."

"You can't marry Josie."

"Why not?"

"Because you can't marry your sister."

"Why?"

"You just can't.  It's against the law.  It's one of those things you just can't do.  Plus it's weird.  If you marry someone, you have to marry someone outside of your family."

We went back and forth about this for a while.  He seemed unconvinced.

Josie said, "OK, then I'll marry Juliette [one of the girls in her class].  Because she's tall."

"That sounds great.  If you get older and decide you want to marry Juliette, you can.  It'll probably be legal everywhere by then."

A couple of days later, J and Josie were sitting on the couch together, being snuggly and cute.  Josie said, "Mama, I don't want to marry Juliette anymore.  I want to marry Daddy."

I considered whether to base my response on the incest or the polygamy angle.  And then decided that no response was necessary.  She lives with the man and has seen how he eats, dresses and farts.  She'll change her mind soon enough.

Chaos theory

My theory about chaos is that it appears to be the default state for my life.  Things have been absolute insanity for the past month.

I went to Vegas for my big annual coach's convention for Beachbody.  It was really incredible - I got to meet tons of cool people, worked out with all the celebrity trainers (including a 5000 person workout outside on the Strip), went to some fancy parties, and attended a number of business training seminars, plus presentations on new product lines and inspirational stories about people who lost 200+ pounds doing P90X or coaches who were bankrupt 2 years ago and are now making 6 figures helping people get fit.

But it was certainly not a relaxing 4 days.  I was up most days by 5 or 5:30 to exercise, then going all day with the various seminars, then the parties and events.  Plus I was staying in a room with 4 other women, but the room only had 2 queen beds.  Memories of spring breaks gone by...

So I was kind of tired by the end of it, and eager to get home and hang with the kids and have some down time.

Except that when J picked me up at the airport Sunday morning, he had broken out in terrible hives.  Like, giant red welts that were itchy and burning.  It took two days and two doctor's visits for us to finally determine that the culprit was a new laundry detergent we had bought, but by then the damage was done.  So I spent the next 5 days washing everything in the house with hypoallergenic laundry detergent while trying to keep J comfortable and entertain the kids.

Here's a little slice of what that was like.

One afternoon after work and school, we decided to go to the movies to see Brave with the kids.  It was hot, so we thought it would be nice so see a fun movie and cool off, especially since the heat exacerbated J's hives.

All was well until we got to a scary part of the movie and Zeke crawled into J's lap.  Problem was, he was wearing clothes that had been washed in the bad detergent, and the contact between Zeke's clothes and J's arms caused the hives to flare up horribly.  The end of the movie coincided with J's skin being unbearably itchy and burning, so we left.  On the way out, Zeke bumped into something and got a bloody nose.  And did I mention that the elevator from the movie theater (on level 3) to the parking deck is perhaps the slowest elevator in the history of the world?

So we're standing there, waiting for the elevator to make its molassas-like ascent to us, J clawing his skin off, Zeke with blood pouring out of his face, Josie crying, and me wishing I could be back in Vegas sharing a tiny hotel room with 5 women.

Eventually, things calmed down.  We got the laundry all decontaminated.  J's skin got better.  We got a handle on the mice that like to invade our kitchen at night (our house is 116 years old and has gaps and holes in the wall all over the place - I have seriously found half-moon shaped mouse holes that look like something you would see in an old cartoon) - I've been going to town with the foam gap filler and shutting those fuckers out.

But the chaos is getting ready to start up again.  I'm leading a team of Beachbody coaches in a business competition that runs during July and August. And I'm participating in a business bootcamp for my coaching business that started today and runs for a month.  And I've got multiple fitness challenges that I'm moderating.  And we're going to the beach on Friday ("4 more sleeps, Mama!!").

Like I said, it's my default state.  But I'm happy with it.  It staves off the boredom.

I will leave you with a hilarious exchange between Zeke and Josie.  They were arguing over her new pink kickball.  Zeke wanted to play with it, Josie didn't feel like sharing.  My feeling on sharing is, I'm not going to make anyone do it.  I tell the kids, you can't make someone share with you.  What you can do is be a good friend and treat them nicely and be really fun to play with, and then people will want to share with you.  And if you're not sharing your toys with your friends, they're not going to want to be friends with you.  So work on your game.  (The first time I told Zeke this, he promptly stopped yelling at Josie and said, "Josie, I love you.")

Zeke:  Josie, you're not nice.  You're the meanest girl in the WHOLE WORLD!  AND YOU'RE NOT THE CUTEST, EITHER!!

Josie:  Oh, yes I am the cutest!  YES I AM!!

The girl knows her own currency, I'll give her that.

Goodnight, nobody

Josie threw herself out of her crib last week, so last Friday I went to IKEA and got her her birthday present from her grandparents - new big girl (or should I say, little girl) furniture.  She and Zeke both love it so every night we sit on the couch in her room, turn off the overhead light, turn on the little pink flower light over her bed, and read books together.

It really is a different room now.  It flows better, it's more comfortable.  I don't know anything about feng shui, but my sense is, this room has it.  With the new furniture and new layout, everyone wants to be in there.

Last night's book selection was Goodnight, Moon.  Josie loves the part about "goodnight, mush" because she thinks the word "mush" is hilarious, and the part about the old lady whispering "hush," because we love to whisper the word "hush" together.

When we got to the end, "goodnight noises everywhere," Josie looked at the picture, with everything dark and quiet, the little rabbit asleep, and the old lady gone from her chair, and said, "where's the old lady?"

"She must have gone to her room to go night-night," I surmised.  Josie pondered that for a couple of seconds.

Then Zeke said, "I think she passed away," and cracked up laughing.  Josie started giggling and saying, "passed away! Passed away!"

I totally lost it, and soon all three of us were laughing uncontrollable.

Poor old lady.  And poor me, because clearly, neither of these goofy monkeys was going to sleep any time soon.

Family tradition

When my brother Joshua was little, I'm thinking maybe 4 years old or so -- in other words, close to Zeke's age now -- he and my mom were out together.  Grocery shopping, running errands.  Doing something out in public.

And my mother noticed a dwarf was standing near them.  (Or "little person," whatever.) 

Her stomach sank, because she knew that Josh would notice them too.  And would be incapable of not commenting on this person's short stature. 

Loudly.

"Mom!!"

"Yes, Joshua.  Shhh."

His body was practically vibrating with excitement at this point.  "Mom!  MOM!!  Look!!  Look!"

"Yes, Joshua, I see, please don't point.  Shhh.  It's not polite."

"But Mom!  Mom!!  Look at that person!!  Look!  LOOOK!  MOM MOM MOOOOOOM!"

"Mmmhmmm, hey, we need to get out of here, pleasestoppointingI'llgiveyouanythingyouwantjustpleasestop ohmygodjustlettheflooropenupandswallowusboth.  Shhhh.  Please."

I know most parents go through a similar situation at least once. 

But it's hard to be prepared.

Yesterday Zeke and I went for a late afternoon swim at our community pool.  It's a short walk from our house so it's nice to go late and get the kids tired and hungry from swimming -- dinner and bedtime tend to be a breeze.  Josie didn't feel like going so she stayed with J and they went for a walk or something, and Zeke and I walked over for a swim, just the two of us. 

We were hanging out in a corner of the big swimming pool and Zeke was practicing swimming from the wall to where I was standing, about 10 feet away.  There were a couple of ladies sitting on the edge of the pool with their feet dangling in the water.  They were both a little on the heavy side.

At one point Zeke said, "look, Mama, that lady has a baby in her tummy."

I hadn't noticed any pregnant women in the vicinity, so I was looking around trying to find who he was talking about.

"Where, sweetie?"

"Right there!"  He pointed to one of the ladies sitting near us.  Who, to me, looked chubby rather than pregnant, though I couldn't say for sure. 

My chest tightened.  I threw a Hail Mary.  "Oh, do you mean that pregnant lady way waaay over there down by the fence, really far away from where we are now?  Is that the lady you were talking about?"  My efforts were so pitiful and obvious to me that I was practically rolling my eyes at myself.

Zeke started swimming again and appeared to lose interest in the maybe-chubby-maybe-pregnant lady.  I figured we were safe and concentrated on teaching him how to time his breathing and float on his back.  We meandered around the shallow end a little bit.

We drifted back to our old position.  Near the lady.  He glanced at her and her stomach a few times, obviously trying to work out what was going on, but then would go back to swimming.

Then at one point, Zeke swam from me to the wall, right next to where she was now standing in the water. 

And said to her, "hey!  You have a big tummy!"

I grabbed Zeke's arm and whisked him away to give him a talk about how people don't like to be told that they have big tummies.  I was uttering parento-babble-bullshit, hoping to distract and somehow persuade him at the same time. 

Thankfully, the lady was deep in conversation with her friend and either didn't hear Zeke or did a great job of acting as if she hadn't heard him. 

But still, I was mortified, and I keep thinking I could have handled it better or differently, though I'm not sure how.

Parents out there, what would you have done?  Any tips on dealing with a situation like this?

Will work for underpants

I'm putting the kids in the car to take them to school.  As I'm buckling Josie in, I'm saying to Zeke, "come on, sweetie, hop into your seat and I'll come and strap you in."

"Where are we going, Mama?"

"We're going to school and then I'm going to work."

"Why?"

Josie, who is in that stage of language acquisition in which she repeats everything she hears without necessarily knowing what it means, parrots, "why?  why?  why?"

"Why do I have to go to work?"

"Yeah.  Why, Mama?"

I think for a second.  "Well, you know what money is?  What we use to buy things at the grocery store?"

"Yes."

"The way you get money is to do something for someone, to do some work, and then they pay you for it and give you money.  So Daddy goes to work and he gets money for the work he does, and I go to work and I get money for the work I do, and then we take that money and we use it to pay for the things in our life, like our house, our cars..."

"And food?"

"Yep, food's a big one."

"And underpants."

"Exactly.  Underpants are very important."

"Yeah." 

He goes back to looking out the window and humming to himself, satisfied that he has covered the bases.

Potato, Po-tah-to. Also, how do I get into these conversations with a 3-year-old?

I have this beautiful ivory carved necklace that I inherited from my Grandma Ruth that looks like a figure of the Buddha (capitalize?  no?  I'm not sure.  Anyway.)  I wouldn't buy ivory, but Ruth had some beautiful ivory pieces from way back before anyone gave a second thought to the process by which it is extracted from animals, so I wear them because they make me feel connected to her. 



I think it's the Buddha.  I dunno.  Could just be a guy sitting around. 
But I have always thought of it as Buddha.

Anyway, I'm wearing it today. 

When I was dropping Zeke off at school, as I picked him up to get him out of his car seat, he was right at eye level with my neck.

"What's that, Mama?"

"That's a necklace."

"Who's that man?"

"That's Buddha."

"Buddha?  Who's Buddha?"

How does one explain Buddha to a 3-year-old?

"Uhhh, he was a man who lived in India a long time ago who taught people about how to live peacefully and without fighting."

"Buddha?"

"Right, Buddha?"

"Who was Buddha?"

We're in a phase of repeating questions ad nauseum.  It's really fun.

"Like I told you, Buddha lived a long time ago and he taught people about his ideas of how to live properly and behave properly."

"And that's the man in your necklace?"

"Yes."

"Buddha buddha buddha!   Buddha buddha buddha!"

I think he just likes the word because it sounds like "booty."

Good night, Gracie

Zeke, being the responsible older brother, is often tasked with looking out for Josie.  We don't ask or expect him to supervise her or anything, but sometimes they'll be upstairs playing together in their room and they're perfectly happy and safe, so J and I will leave them alone while we're downstairs cooking dinner or something. We just ask Zeke to call one of us if Josie is getting close to the stairs, because while she is now walking everywhere, she hasn't figured out how to go down the stairs in a way that won't cause her serious injury.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Last night we had a bunch of friends over for a football-watching barbecue and the kids were mostly in the room with us, but at one point Josie climbed up the stairs and Zeke followed her and they were upstairs playing. 

J told Zeke, "if Josie gets too close to the stairs, or if you need help with anything, call out for Daddy."

Five minutes later we heard Zeke yelling, "out for Daddy!  OUT FOR DADDY!"

Let it not be said that the kid doesn't pay attention.

Another in a long string of (unsuccessful) attempts to raise the discourse 'round these parts

J was in Vail last night, so I had the kids.  We went to the park after school and Josie crawled around and ate wood chips while I pushed Zeke on the swings.  She crawled around and ate grass while he sprinted across the playground pulling the wagon behind him.  Then it was time to go home.

Zeke managed not to bump into the curb too many times, thereby increasing the comfort level of the ride

At home I fed them dinner (corn dogs!  Mom of the Year Award is a lock!) and we watched some Backyardigans and then I decided that we had watched enough TV.  I took Josie into the play room and we played with some musical toys and I started reading to her.  Not being able to resist being in on the action, Zeke ran in to join us.

Of course, he was naked.  Because he's always naked.  He's going through that naked phase that all kids go through, and when he's in the house, I'll give at least 1 to 5 odds that he's not wearing any clothes.  He walks in the house and immediately strips down.

I'm kind of jealous, actually.  It seems comfortable.  And it's helped immeasurably with the potty training, because he will use the potty every time when he's naked, but the minute there is some piece of something covering his nether regions, be it a diaper or big boy pants, he's much more likely to completely zone out and wet himself (or worse).  He's making progress going to the bathroom when he's wearing clothes, but I don't mind the nakedness if it means I don't have to clean shit out of a pair of underwear.

So we're sitting in the playroom, and I'm mentally patting myself on the back for getting my children away from the idiot box and engaging them in reading and educational play.  Josie is enjoying Tickle the Pig as Zeke squats down and listens and occasionally points something out to her.  He's a really sweet big brother.  "Look, Josie, there's a caterpillar!  See?  See?"

I praise him for being such a good boy.  "Zekey, you're being so nice to Josie.  You're a really good big brother.  I appreciate it."

He looks at me and gives me a big smile.  I'm feeling the love.

"I put my thumb in my butt, Mama!"

*sigh*

Ask the young, they know everything!

Remember, as far as anyone knows, we're a nice, normal family.

                                                -  Homer Simpson

July 19th is a big day.  It is my brother Sam's birthday, my cousin Zara's birthday, my friend Susan's birthday, and my brother Josh's wedding anniversary.  Happy happy, all!

As I've said before, Sam is one of my favorite people in the world.  Of course I love him because he's my brother, but he's also funny, super-smart, creative, and interesting.  He was like that from the day he was born.  Always seeing things in a new way that nobody else thought of, coming up with random, intriguing stories.  When he was about 11 or so, he wrote this very dark mystery story about a detective in Anchorage, Alaska, investigating a murder after finding a severed hand in a field.  A) He's never been to Anchorage, so how totally random, and B) WTF??

Plus he has my ability to see a movie once or twice and then be able to recite most of the dialogue.  So frequently our conversations will take these bizarre detours when something reminds one of us of a quote from a movie, so we'll say the quote, and if there are other people around, they're all, what the fuck are you talking about?


But Sam and I, we don't miss a beat.  We'll know exactly what the other is talking about, we'll share a good chuckle, and then we'll continue with the conversation.

Lately, when Jason and I look at Zeke, we've remarked to each other how much he's starting to resemble Sam.  In particular, there's this hilarious photo that my dad took of Sam when he was about a year and a half old.  We were at the beach and the lifeguard was giving some safety demonstration.  Sam felt like standing with everyone else didn't give him enough of an appreciation of what was going on, so he went closer to get a better look.

There's something about Sam in that picture that just says "Zeke" to me.

Do you see it too?

Then at my reunion a few weeks ago, there were some AES yearbooks from my junior and senior years up for auction that a friend of mine bought.  We had a good time looking through them and signing them ("Best friends 4eva!  Have fun in college next year!").  I decided to look for pictures of my brothers, and found this picture of Sam:

Sam's the one on the right.  He's older than Zeke in this picture, but I look at it 

and see what Zeke will look like in a few years.

Jason and I both looked at it and said, "Holy shit, that's Zeke!!"

They're alike in other ways than just appearance.  

When Sam was about 5 or 6 and we were living in Israel, some friends came out for a visit.  It was the family of a girl I had been friends with in Virginia when I was in 4th and 5th grades.  Her parents had always let me call them by their first names, but Sam wasn't sure about this.  

So he asked the dad what he should call him.

"Do you want me to call you David?  Or Dr. L?  What should I call you?"

And Dr. L, being funny and sweet, said, "Sammy, you can call me anything you want, as long as you don't call me late for dinner."

Sam thought about it for a second, and being literal-minded, said, "OK, Penis Breath!"*  

Oy.  But also, hahahaha!

So while I'm on the verge of spraining my eyeballs from rolling them at all of the penis talk in my house these days, at least Zeke comes by it honestly.

________________________

*This was right after the summer that E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial came out.  Sam had seen it in the theaters and it made a big impression, particularly the line when Elliot calls his older brother "penis breath."  Also, hat-tip to my friend Susan L., who read the post about Zeke thinking milk made his penis strong and reminded me of this story about Sam.

A conversation with an almost-3-year-old boy

(while drinking milk)

"Mmmm, Mama. I like milk."

"I like milk, too."

"Milk's good."

"Yep.  And it's good for you, too."

"Yeah."

"It makes your bones strong."

"It makes your bones strong?"

"Mmm hmm.  And your teeth, too."

"Yeah. ..... and it makes your penis strong, too!"

*sigh*  Seriously?  Already?