One for the Grandmothers

I'd like to give a shout out to the grandmothers today! I happen to know that Nana (Kathy, my stepmom) checks every day to see if there's something new on the blog, which means she suffers disappointment about 95% of the time; sorry about that. I know Grammy (Margie, Chris's mom) checks regularly as well -- not sure if it's every day or every hour. That's a lot of pressure. Gramma (Claudia, my mom) may be subscribed to the RSS feed, so she gets some kind of trumpet fanfare every four months when I post something. The other two grandmothers might want to look into that to save time.

All three are clearly devoted to their lovely grandkids, and I should probably post more often so they can get more details about Soren's and Sigrid's daily doings. I certainly wish we could get together more often.

Happy Mother's Day, grandmothers! We love you!

Quiet Time: Now With Less Noise

Soren took an hour-long nap today! Taking all the scatterable toys (i.e. his three sets of magnetic letters and the butterflies from the Elefun game) seems to have helped keep quiet time a little quieter. Chris gets full credit for that idea. Soren spends more time reading books now and less time making crashing noises. I heard him sounding out some words yesterday -- "Ssss....mmmm....eh..ull...ull...yuh. Smelly." Pretty cute.

Last night, Chris was putting Sigrid in her crib, and I wanted to share my observation that she flips onto her stomach in one direction exclusively. If you put her toward the wrong side of the crib, she gets hung up against the bars when she turns over, which makes her mad. My advice to Chris, therefore: "Put her against the far end of the crib so she can move toward the middle, because that's how she rolls."

Aww yeeeeah.

The End of an Era

Soren has always been a good sleeper. He started sleeping 7 hours straight at 7 weeks old, and hasn't made a fuss about it since. He's even been excellent about taking a nice looooong nap (2.5 hours) pretty much every day in the last year.

But no more. He's only napped once this week. He's upstairs right now, actually, in the process of figuring out what "Quiet Time in Your Room" entails. (Hint: it does not entail yelling down the stairs every five minutes that you want to come downstairs)

I don't know about him, but I really need Quiet Time. Ever since he's been out of day care, I've tried to engage with him during the vast majority of his waking hours (except when Sigrid needs something or he's busy playing with other kids). I wonder sometimes if I should leave him to his own devices more often, since he hasn't been playing independently very much lately. Plus I have that other kid who seems to want attention sometimes. She seems mostly happy grabbing her toes and watching Soren do stuff, but I'm not sure that's a recipe for a fulfilling childhood. Anyway, Mama needs some alone time to recharge in the afternoon, and maybe I've been spoiled by both kids napping at the same time, but if it's wrong to be spoiled, I don't want to be right. Because being right is tiring.

We'll see how well the Quiet Time thing catches on. I've noticed he's quietest when he's doing things he's not supposed to be doing. Maybe I should stock his room with Sharpies, jars of rainbow sprinkles, and the diaper bag.

To balance out the universe, however, Sigrid slept from 9:30 to 7:30 last night! I'll take some more of that.

Singer/Songwriter

One of the fun things about having kids is the fact that you can make up weird songs for them and they won't think you're insane until they turn ten. I think my talents as a lyricist have been underappreciated, maybe because my fan base consists of two people under the age of three. But I sure do know what my audience likes. Take the timeless classic The Baby Truck Song, for instance. I've posted the lyrics on the blog before, but why not trot it out again?

[Sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star]

Baby trucks are very nice
Kiss them once and kiss them twice
Whisper something in their ears
I don't know if trucks can hear
Baby trucks are very nice
Kiss them once and kiss them twice

I've made up a couple songs for Sigrid which don't have set lyrics, per se; they're more improvisational.

[To the tune of What Do Ye Do With a Drunken Sailor]

What do ye do with a naked baby
What do ye do with a naked baby
What do ye do with a naked baby
Earlye in the mornin'?

Put her in her crib until she's sober
Put her in her crib until she's sober
Put her in her crib until she's sober
Earlye in the mornin'!

Hey-oh, and up she rises
etc.


And this one, inspired by her nickname (Schkernky), "sung" to the "tune" of the admittedly vulgar song Berserker from Clerks:

She is wearing stripy pants, a Schkernker
And she has a fuzzy head, a Schkernker
Kicking with her tiny feet, a Schkernker
Does she need a diaper change, a Schkernker

Not all my most popular works are kid-related. There's one I like to sing when we're making toast, because our stupid toaster oven insists on making an annoying ticking-timer sound the ENTIRE TIME the heating element is on, like I need a constant reminder that it's doing something. Anyway, the song goes like this, and is sung along with the ticking.

Making toast, making toast
Here I am, I'm making toast
I hope you will like the toast
That I make for you

Would you like butter on your toast
Or would you like jelly on it
You can have anything you like
On your luscious toast

Now, the tune to The Toast Song.... well, you know the "Helllooooooo!!!" voice on Seinfeld? I think one of Jerry's girlfriends had a weird-looking belly button that looked like it was talking to him, and he made up this funny voice for the belly button, and he and George and Kramer went around for a while saying "Hellllooooooo!" to each other in the weird voice. Anyway, imagine that belly button singing a song about toast, and you pretty much have the tune of The Toast Song.

Of course, I didn't come by this songwriting talent completely out of the blue -- I have to give full credit to my dad, who is bit of an accomplished singer/songwriter himself. I'll leave you with the lyrics to one of his best works. This song meant a lot to Erica and me when we were growing up, and I think I speak for both of us when I say that it still brings tears to our eyes. Without further ado: The Dump Song.

We're goooooooo-ing to the dump
To the dump
To the dump!

We're goooooooo-ing to the dump
To the dump
To the dump!

We're goooooooo-ing to the dump
To the dump
To the dump!

[ad infinitum]

Eye Candy

I have things to write about, such as Easter fun, my deep fear of wind turbines, and an analysis of why Facebook is better now for old people like me than it ever will be for subsequent generations of old people, but I don't have time to deal with any of that right now. Instead, please enjoy some lovely children.

Trash Talk

I was playing Mario Kart last night for Soren's amusement, racing the courses he requested (usually Bowser's Castle and Mushroom Gorge) while trying to hold Sigrid in my lap and keep her from grabbing the controller. So my usually superior skillz were severely compromised. At one point, when I fell off a bridge into a lake of molten lava for the third time, this conversation ensued:

Soren: Mama, what's that sound?

Me: Um, what sound? I'm not sure.

Soren: That's the sound of you not playing very well.

Did I just get smacked down by a two-year-old??? Excuse me? Well, at least we know where he got the sassiness from.

Dear Sigrid

Darling daughter, sweet sweet treasure,

PLEASE start sleeping through the night. It's been at least nine months since I got seven uninterrupted hours of sleep, and holy crap, I want those seven hours. That's what you can give me for Mother's Day. Except I'd like my present early, like tonight. You'll never have to get me anything ever again, as long as you can live with the guilt of never honoring me and my sacrifice on the day which Hallmark hath set aside for such an occasion.

Because I am trained as an illustrator, here is a story illustrating my tiredness:

Last night, I was tasked* with making couscous, and I put the water in the microwave and set the timer instead of the cook time. Then I realized my mistake and turned the cooking magic on, and your Daddy started laughing at me, because it turned out that I hadn't really put the water in the microwave, and it was still sitting on the counter, and I was cooking air. And that's why Daddy and I split up.

In sum, the dents between the fat rolls on your thighs are deep enough to hold a pencil in, which means you surely have enough stores to last seven hours without a meal. And your brother slept through the night starting when he was seven weeks old. Why can't you be more like your brother?

All my love,

Mama



*People who know me will be SHOCKED to see that I am fatigued enough to use "task" as a verb.