More Horrible Parenting on My Part

Sigrid took her first forward-facing ride in the stroller today! She seemed to think it was a good thing, what with all her smiling and foot-kicking and lack of crying, but she's wrong. It's stunting her language development, dontcha know. It is my parental duty to interact with her AT ALL TIMES. Even now. She's been napping in the stroller for a good 2.5 hours now, but I should probably be keeping her awake so I can talk to her and keep her on the college-bound track.

Just think how much more verbal Soren could be if we'd kept him rear-facing in the stroller all this time. The mind boggles.

Big City Adventures

Chris and I got back yesterday from a three-day stay in NYC! Grammy and Grampy were kind enough to come out and stay with the kiddos while Chris and I took a little time away. Sigrid has been a little iffy about eating from a bottle lately, but she apparently chose to break her hunger strike after only six hours, and thereafter took the bottle quite cooperatively. She also slept from 11 to 5 last night, maybe because she thinks I'll leave again if she doesn't start shaping up. I'll let her keep right on thinking that.

So here are some things I did in New York:

• Wore the wrong shoes, as I always seem to do when going to NYC, thus crippling myself temporarily and requiring a trip to a shoe store to get something I could walk in. Nice suede Merrill slip-ons this time.
  
  
• Didn't take any pictures. See next item.
  
  
• Left the backpack containing the camera (the point-and-shoot, not the SLR, thank goodness), Travel Scrabble, OH AND the breast pump on the Metro-North. Still no word on whether we'll be getting it back -- it takes a few days for the MTA to process found items.
  
  
• Bought a new pump -- a manual one, in case I get my fancy electric one back.
  
  
• Saw this at the store where I got the new pump. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
  
  
• Saw the orchid show at the Botanic Gardens.
  
  
• Felt all snooty about the people taking pictures of the orchids with their little pathetic cameras. Honey, you do NOT have the minimum focal distance to pull that off.
  
  
• Tried a couple different bagel places. Ess-a-Bagel was pretty good, but freaking crowded.
  
  
• Kicked a Jaguar (car, not cat) whose driver was trying to verrrrry slowly mow down a crosswalk full of pedestrians in Times Square. Felt good.
  
  
• Bought socks at Bloomingdale's.
  
  
• Strolled the MoMA.
  
  
• Tried out the whispering arch in Grand Central.
  
  
• Saw Coraline 3-D, which was AWESOME.
  
  
• Slept. Oh hell yeah.
  
  
• Ate at Babbo (Mario Batali's restaurant). The food and service were excellent! I'll write more about it if any foodies care.
  
  
• Failed to buy Soren a toy taxi. I'm sorry!
  
  
• Missed the kids just enough to come home.
  
  

It's good to be home! Please send backpack-retrieval vibes.

Spring is Coming...

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Originally uploaded by kirsten.anderson

This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

See, this is what happens when I try to take advantage of a teachable moment when Soren expresses an interest in both measuring things and going outside. I hand him my good straightedge and tell him we're going to measure how deep the snow is, and let him outside while I'm putting my boots on, and then when I come outside he asks me where the ruler is, and I ask HIM where the ruler is, and it turns out he's dropped it into the crawl space under the deck, and I'm not going under there because there are dead spiders, and so my good straightedge is gone FOREVER. And I have to buy a new one. That's it! No more learning.

Note: Comments pointing out that I shouldn't have given a toddler my good straightedge will be deleted.

Postcount++

Splitting my thoughts up into several short blog posts makes me seem so much more productive, if blogging counts as being productive. It's certainly more productive than Facebook Scrabble. I have six games going at once. What? Shut up.

We had something of a "Kids Say the Darnedest Things" moment yesterday. I had to take Soren and Sigrid along with me to a doctor's appointment in the morning, since the law has things to say about me leaving them at home alone, and they were their usual charming selves the whole time. Soren brought his lizard Beanie Baby (named, incidentally, Lizard Patrick Lizard) with him and made conversation with everyone who expressed an interest in him, Lizard, or Sigrid. Eventually, he remembered that doctor's visits generally involve lollipops, so I produced a root-beer-flavored Dum Dum pop for him in order to buy further good behavior.

When the visit was over, we got into the elevator with one of the receptionists, who asked Soren all the de rigeur questions about his sister ("Her name is See-gwid!") his lizard ("Lizard is my best friend!") and his lollipop. A transcript of the lollipop conversation follows. It is mercifully short.

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Receptionist: Hey, is that lollipop good?

Soren: This lollipop is brown! Like your face!

Me: Uhhhhh...

Elevator: Ding!
---

Now, it is true that the lollipop was brown, and the receptionist also happened to be brown. And she laughed, which hopefully means she wasn't offended. And it's not like it was offensive, right? I hope? I mean, it's not like the time when I was four and I told one of my mom's friends that she had a fat butt. If he'd said something like that -- or should I say WHEN he says something like that -- I would feel horrible and might actually die right on the spot. I think it was his wording. "Like your face?" Really? He couldn't just say, "Like you?"

Okay, I can't decide whether to feel bad about it or not, so I'll stop thinking about it.

Squid Hat Claims Second Anderson Child

The squid hat lives!