Travels With Children

This is a post about how things go when you have small children. Just precisely this way. I'm letting you know so you'll be prepared.

First of all, Soren, Sigrid and I went to visit our friends Ian and Renee (4-year-old and mom of 4-year-old, respectively). Sigrid napped for a while out in the car (in the driveway, far removed from the road, visible from the window, plus it was National Kidnappers Take the Day Off Day); Soren and Ian occasionally fought but mostly played, as they do; and Renee and I took on the kind of parenting responsibility that we usually adopt in this kind of situation, by which I mean we played Scrabble and told the boys to work out their own disagreements and popped up every few minutes to look out the window and make sure Sigrid was still a) in the car b) sleeping.

Eventually, I had taken a commanding enough lead in Scrabble that Renee wanted to quit, Sigrid had woken up and eaten trace amounts of lunch, Soren had refused lunch, and the boys had started doing more fighting than playing. We then decided it was time to go to an awesome indoor gym for little kids, about 20 minutes away, so the young ones could jump around on large foam things. We checked the gym's web site to make sure they were open, crammed all three car seats in the back of my car, and set off! Merrily!

Shortly thereafter began the screaming. It is not for me to speak of the screaming of the child of another, plus Ian wasn't doing that much of it anyway, so I will speak only of the screaming of my own progeny. There was a lot of screaming, mainly regarding the hunger one can only experience when one has refused to eat lunch. There was also the wordless rage and/or sadness of one who has spent too much time in the car already, or who has eaten only trace amounts of lunch, or who the hell knows because she's only one and can't talk yet. The back seat was a vortex of screaming.

I started playing a Beatles CD to try to distract Soren from screaming. What happened instead was that he screamed a bit, heard what was playing, and then started screaming about how he wanted me to start the song over again because he'd missed the beginning of the song because he'd been screaming.

Renee and I kept our cool. The promise of kids jumping on foam gym equipment stuff was our prize, and we kept our eyes on it.

And finally! We arrived! At the gym! We piled out of the car and ran to the door! And read the sign! Which said, "Closed for the day! See you soon!"

Moms throw tantrums, too, as it turns out. There's less screaming, but just as much pouting, and a lot more brainstorming regarding composition of angry emails to the proprietor of the gym.

Quick thinker that she is, Renee decided we should go to the Kettle Pond Nature Center, which has a bunch of fun stuff for kids to do, and which is also free, so that's a bonus. Perhaps there was less screaming on this leg of the trip, or perhaps I have repressed it. Either way, we arrived, and it was open, and there was fun stuff for kids to do. We colored a bit, and then Soren, Ian, and I did some puzzles while Sigrid and Renee kept coloring. At one point, I thought I smelled a suspicious smell, but discreet butt-sniffing failed to reveal any of our kids as a source; Renee said the one other kid who was also coloring seemed to have had beans for lunch, and we left it at that.

We then moved on to a different room, which featured displays of various local flora and fauna and an aquarium full of frogs and tadpoles. Soren and Ian were very interested in the frogs, and both stood up on a little step-stool to watch them; Renee and I started going through drawers and found fun things to play with, like some little devices that seemed to serve as bird song quizzes. I bragged enough about Scrabble earlier, so I don't think I need to talk about how hard I rocked the bird song quiz. Common Nighthawk BOOYAH.

Then Soren came over and asked, very innocently, "Why is there poop on this stool?" Ignoring the "stool/stool" pun potential, I looked at the step-stool in question and was very disappointed to find that there was, in fact, a little turd sitting neatly on the top step.

Whereupon began the process of figuring out who left stool on the stool: a delicate dance comprising gentle accusations; leading suggestions; point-blank interrogation; none-too-subtle smelling of the butt region; a voyage to the restroom to perform a thorough hand-washing, since he claimed to have touched the poo; and, at last, a visual inspection. Results: Soren was clean, and I felt bad for thinking it was him. On the other hand, I couldn't exactly go around accusing other people's children of pooping on the furniture.

Renee also determined that it wasn't her kid, so we were left with the unsavory task of telling the nature center docent about the poop which was not the fault of either of our children and must have been left by the other kid who had since departed. I offered the docent a handful of paper towels and gave her a look which clearly said Sorry to make you do this, but there's no way I, a mere visitor, am cleaning up some stranger's poo. We approached the stool. And the stool. She reached down with the paper towels. Picked up the turd. And laughed.

"It's scat," she said.

I then gave her a look which clearly said Well -- yeah, I guess, although they don't usually call it that unless it's animal doodie, and what's so funny anyway, and wait, did an animal really come in here and do its business? When? Huh?

"It's a model of animal scat. To help with identification. There are a bunch of different ones - we keep them in the drawers over there."

A fake piece of animal poop. Very realistic, I must add. We laughed, and took our leave.

It would be great to end the story with a hearty laugh about plastic muskrat scat, and singing of Beatles songs all the way home, but all the kids remembered they were hungry as soon as they got in the car, and OH GOD. THE SCREAMING.

Birthday Girl

Sigrid turned one on November 20th, but it's been a Birthday Gala Month full of celebration and pomp.

There was family: Chris's parents came out a few weeks ago to throw Party #1; and a whole passel of my family (my dad, stepmom, mom, sister, and brother-in-law) came for impromptu Party #2.

There were cakes: one a delicious white cake from Providence's best bakery, impeccably decorated with amazing buttercream; and one made by Ichabod House's best baker and decorated sloppily with pretty purple and black icing to try to disguise the messed-up part. But it was also delicious, if I do say so myself.

And there was the birthday girl herself, full of joy and smiles (unless I left the room or tried to cook dinner). It's been an exciting year from the start, in good ways and bad, and we're enjoying her more and more every day as she enters year number two, which frankly I hope is a lot less exciting.

TRICK A TREEEEEAT

I feel slightly ridiculous for dumping photos and a blog post online fifteen minutes after we get back from Soren's preschool Halloween party, but I'm trying to stay on top of things.

Soren, light of my heart, announced some time ago that he wanted to dress as a leaf pile for Halloween, and that made me love him even more than before. Dressing as a leaf pile is creative, pretty funny, and, best of all, requires no particular sewing skill on my part. Maybe it's weird that someone who's as addicted to knitting and other artistic pursuits as I am doesn't like sewing, but I don't. It's tedious. And I suck at precise measurement because I'm impatient. And sewing machines scare me because they make too much noise, so I have to sew everything by hand.

Oh, so how's this for a backhanded compliment? At the preschool today, one of the Pre-K teachers walked by and said to me, "I love his costume! It's just my kind of costume! When my kids were growing up they were always complaining, 'Mom, why do I have to wear this? You're so bad at sewing!'" Uh. Thanks? Is there even a compliment in there? Maybe it was just a big ol' backhand.

Anyway, judge for yourselves, and then keep it to yourselves unless it's an actual compliment. I think he looks pretty cute, myself.

Blast From the Past

Okay, so I've been wasting time looking at files I archived in 1996. To celebrate, I will now share with you a poem I wrote about my work environment in the dining hall at Brown. Enjoy.

Dishroom: a complaint


As we slump in the dishroom in the morning,
We can imagine the most frigid landscape to be idyllic.
There must be birds chirping out there,
There must be cars honking or people walking,
Breezes blowing or laughter or fun or even sleep --
Something better than the monotony of conveyor belts,
The steam rising from the diabolical dishmachine,
The defective beeping of the soap dispensers.
O you mess makers, you half-eaters of food,
You pourers of excessive syrup,
Takers of a thousand juice glasses --
Who scrapes the soggy pancakes from your saccharine plates?
Who pries apart your bowls stuck together with Cheez Whiz?
Who feeds your soup cups into the infinite, rumbling dishmachine
And retrieves them at the other end when they emerge, bone-white and
hotter than suns?
When you send your silverware through with your tray, who screams in
frustration at your trespass?
We, we few, we miserable few,
Denizens of the humming room, the stagnant, humid room,
We who watch the milk curdle as we mix it with orange juice,
We who sweat and scrape at 8:45 when all of you leave at once to make your
9:00 classes,
We struggle to keep the conveyor belt from stopping.
There is no fun, no laughter in the dishroom --
There are only the conveyor belts.
I would like to write on the conveyor belt
An endless message to travel around and around,
An enduring inspiration for future prisoners --
I would like to write this thing, this monument,
But the conveyor belt runs the wrong way.
My hands are covered with syrup
And they won't even give us a radio.

Little Victories

It's not all failed DMV trips, rotten gutters and busted Hondas around here. Good things happen, too. This week has had lots of little bright spots, which I will now list so that I have something to look back on next time all my tomato plants get completely fungified and have to be destroyed.

• Not only has my tiny orchid NOT died, it has even successfully bloomed and is now gracing the kitchen windowsill with a 1" spike of 1/4" white flowers.
  
  
• I tried making Cook's Illustrated's quick puff pastry recipe for homemade apple turnovers, and even though I totally didn't bring my A-game to the dough shaping, they turned out AWESOME. And then I ate three of them, so I am no longer suffering from a saturated fat deficiency!
  
  
• My much-anticipated root saw arrived yesterday, and I used it to finally remove the 11" arborvitae stump from the front yard. My mystical quest to remove all existing bushes from the entire yard is now underway, and my weapon is called Yewbane.
  
  
• I cleaned the bedroom.
  
  
• Sigrid looks really cute in the dark teal hooded sweater I made for her.
  
  
• I scored a big play rug (printed with roads, of course) for Soren for $10 at Job Lot. This was especially amazing because I went to Job Lot looking for that specific item.
  
  
• Soren got to participate in a child-development research project with a Brown student yesterday (at the Children's Museum). It was pretty cute to watch, and yay for science!
  

Soren's Friend Cheerios

Soren's been composing lots of songs lately, and although they seem impromptu, he clearly puts some work into composing (or at least remembering) them, because the lyrics are mostly the same from day to day. Chris managed to transcribe one the other day; it's about one of Soren's matchbox race cars which is apparently sponsored by Cheerios. And now, without further ado:

My Friend Cheerios

My friend Cheerios
He's the best
My friend Cheerios
He's the best
My friend Cheerios
He can split Cheerios into a bowl
My friend Cheerios
He can string Cheerios on a necklace, as cars do
My friend Cheerios
He can make space on the couch for all his friends to sing
My friend Cheerios
He can have a birthday cake -- but only one

A Penny Saved is a Penny Spent on Something Else

I just thought that up, but I like it.

We're just saving money all over the place this year! The gutters did NOT cost $28,000! The car is still under warranty, so we won't be spending $3800 on a new engine, unless Honda goes through some major contortions to avoid paying out, like declaring that the engine is no longer part of the powertrain! I love the word "powertrain"! And the word "harbormaster"! But that's neither here nor there.

On the other hand, who knew that it would cost so much to have a big pile of branches taken to the dump? And who could have guessed that we would end up paying someone to paint the new (wooden) gutters because we didn't feel like doing it ourselves? Actually, I guessed that last part.

In all, though, if you operate under the "a penny saved is a penny earned" philosophy, we made some decent money this summer, and we should totally spend our windfall on a huge TV and a pony.