Don't B A Tom8o H8er

The post title doesn't really mean anything. I just wanted to write "tom8o h8er". Since you asked, though, one of our garden tomatoes is starting to get ripe, which means that the tomato avalanche is beginning. 9 plants X 35+ tomatoes per plant = I am a tomato farmer. Expect lots of pictures of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes soon. In case you hadn't noticed, I <3 tom8oz, and gardening in general.

You will be pleased to know that we have chosen a carpenter, one who did not quote us $28,000, but I'm not going to jinx things by claiming that it will actually cost less than $28,000. The water stain inside my office tells me that there's more than just a gutter that's going to need replacing. And that really worries me, because water stains definitely shouldn't be speaking.

And now, for the grandparents in the audience, stories about the kids. First of all, if you haven't been in Soren's company in the past month, you might not be aware that he can now identify every make of car in the US, or at least the ones we see in our daily travels, by its logo. We were driving on the freeway today, and I could hear him in the back seat saying, "That's a Nissan. That's a Lexus. That's a Bokeswagen." Etc. Some people ask, "Why are you teaching him all the kinds of cars?" Like I'm grooming him to become the world's foremost expert in automotive field identification or something. The kid wants to know what the different cars are called, so I tell him. And now he knows all of them. He also owns half of them, in the form of Matchbox cars. You'd think that with a collection of 9800000 cars, a few might get ignored, but he cherishes each and every one. Very sweet.

Sigrid, meanwhile, cherishes Soren's toys as well, and has been working on getting within grabbing range of them. She can scoot around on her belly with some speed at this point, and is now getting interested in pulling up. Soren's not a huge fan of this, but he still seems to like her. Don't tell him that when he's not around, I plop Sigrid down in the middle of his play rug and let her stick all his cars in her mouth. I wonder what my mom used to let my sister do my stuff when I wasn't around. Parenthood really makes you think.

Gutter Bawl

We have an old, old house with old, old wooden trough gutters which need replacing. To this end, I've been getting, or trying to get, estimates from a number of carpenters. I'm sure you'll be interested to hear my results so far.

Carpenter 1: Can't fit us in until mid-winter and also said that if I happen to know any carpenters looking for work, I should let him know. Good for him, I guess.

Carpenter 2: Won't take the job because it's a historic home and there's too much paperwork involved. Rough life.

Carpenter 3: Gave me a reasonable quote a long time ago and then disappeared off the face of the earth.

Carpenter 4: Tried to convince me that the preservation society probably wouldn't mind if we replaced the wooden troughs with seamless aluminum.

Carpenter 5: Very nice, professional, clearly knows what he's doing, wants the job done right, has plenty of experience with historic homes. I got his quote yesterday. For roughly 120 feet of wooden gutter, with related scaffolding, teardown, flashing, etc., he wants:

Wait for it:

Twenty-eight thousand dollars.

The estimate also specifies that the job will require about 530 man-hours of work.

I am still a little speechless about this, so I will just point out that Chris and I, an economist and a graphic designer, basically built an entire room on our previous house, and while we were lazy about it and took more than a year to get around to finishing the job, I don't think there's any way it took us 530 man-hours.

Here's the main thing. I'd rather spend four thousand dollars every ten years on the gutters than twenty-eight thousand dollars for gutters that will last seventy years. Because I will be dead by then. Also, I do not have twenty-eight thousand dollars to spend on gutters.

Luckily, I have at least one reasonable estimate from a guy who seems like he can handle the job, and a couple more quotes on the way. Wish me luck.

OMGWTFDMV

HOW TO TRANSFER AN OUT-OF-STATE AUTOMOBILE REGISTRATION IN RHODE ISLAND

1. Ensure that you have the correct documents: VIN inspection report; TR-1 Application; Form T-333-1; proof of residency; and vehicle title.

2. Have a full sippy cup and two kinds of snacks ready when you pick your toddler up from day camp, as well as a backpack which unzips to reveal a road playmat; fill backpack with Matchbox cars. This will keep your toddler entertained at the DMV.

3. Set off merrily to the West Warwick DMV, thankful that you don't have to go to the Seventh Circle of Pawtucket.

4. Resist the urge to listen to that voice in your head that starts up every time you try to go somewhere new in Rhode Island. This voice likes to wait until you're pretty sure you've missed your unmarked turn and then start screaming "BAIL BAIL BAIL OH GOD TURN AROUND NOW," and you used to obey, only to find that you hadn't driven far enough yet originally and so you had to turn around again, and lo, there was your turn about 500 feet beyond the point where the voice had started yelling at you. Anyway, resist the urge to bail, and bask in the glory of persistence, finding Rt. 33 East, and not being bossed around by crazy voices in your head.

5. Pull into a vacant spot right in front of the DMV building. Get a bad feeling.

6. Hop out and find that the West Warwick branch of the DMV appears to have been closed for some time, and maybe that's why it wasn't on the DMV web site even though you found it listed on other web sites. Wonder why you had thought there might be some secret ninja DMV branch that no one knows about. These things don't happen.

7. Refuse to dial Information on your cell phone because it costs a dollar, and try Google's phone thingy even though you know it only has commercial listings. Get the result you figured you would get.

8. Decide for some reason that you'd rather go to Pawtucket than spend a dollar dialing Information to find out where the Wakefield DMV branch is.

9. Attempt to be fancy about finding your way to the interstate, while in the process needing to turn around because you ONCE AGAIN mixed up east and west. For the love of all that is good and holy, you have three-quarters of an Ivy League education, so WHY can't you JUST ONCE get that right the first time?

10. Find interstate. Drive north. Stop at Whole Foods to pick up some coffee and a couple cookies -- one for you, and one for the so-far angelic toddler.

11. Make the requisite number of wrong turns in downtown Pawtucket before finally getting to the DMV.

12. See the number of cars in the parking lot. Ask yourself that timeless question that humans have been asking themselves since they became self-aware: Why am I here? Except, in this case, by "here" you mean "Pawtucket".

13. Sigh a mighty sigh and gather up all your children and supplies and head in to the DMV.

14. Where's the thing where you take the number?

15. Well, here's a long line for registrations. This must be where I'm supposed to go.

16. But what if this isn't right? What if I get to the front of the line and they tell me I should have taken a number somewhere and then I have to start waiting all over again some where else?

17. BAIL BAIL BAIL BAIL

18. See that there is really nobody to ask re: the take-a-number thing or the long line. Get back in line.

19. Give the kid a cookie.

20. When he finishes the cookie, open up his backpack and give him some cars, but not as many cars as he thinks you should give him, and then get down on the floor and play cars with him for a little while so he won't start screaming.

21. Bask in the admiration of some women who appreciate that you're down on the floor playing cars with a three-year-old. It's nice to have your good work appreciated.

22. Continue this for, oh, 45 minutes.

23. Finally get to the front of the line and present your complete and thorough folder of documents to the nice lady, who makes some chit-chat about how cool it is that your car is from Alaska and what you think about Sarah Palin.

24. At this juncture, the woman will see that you have everything you need.

25. Except you didn't get the signature of the second owner of the car notarized.

26. Come on, you knew something like this was going to happen.

27. And WHY THE @#&$^%^@# do you even have a second owner on the damn car? Isn't it enough that YOU own it? Why does your husband have to own it too??????? MOTHER$#*&%^&!@#&^&@#&$&&^&$#%^()*@#^&$&%^#

28. Think entirely in swears for about seven minutes.

29. Load everyone back in the car and go home.

30. Blow up your car. That way, you don't have to get it registered.

31. Be thankful for your two wonderful children who didn't throw any major fits. They are the best.

Bum Rap

On a recent walk, Soren informed Chris and me that he needed "a big big big big big big stick to measure your bums." THANKS.

East Greenwich Music and Wildlife 2009

Last year, it was bagpipes and owls and foxes; this year, it's brass bands and hummingbirds and deer. The bagpipers seem to have moved on to another venue, or maybe demand for bagpipe artistry is another victim of this economy, or else they all got some kind of brain infection that caused them to actually hear the instruments they were playing; in any case, Wednesday night is no longer Bagpipe Night at Ichabod House. Bummer. I guess.

I haven't seen any owls so far this summer, but I also haven't been looking for them. On the other hand, I also wasn't looking for a teeny tiny hummingbird nest in our ash tree, and I found that, so I guess I'm doing something right.

Have you ever found yourself in a position where you have to ask someone if they did something that only an idiot would do, and you know that person isn't an idiot, but the thing happened, and you can't think of a good alternate explanation, so you go ahead and ask the person anyway and make it seem like you think he's an idiot? No? Well, anyway, on a related note, I asked Chris last week whether he had happened to swerve wildly the last time he'd mowed the lawn, thus shearing off the tops of all the hostas along the edge of the backyard. With a look that said My God, what kind of idiot do you take me for? he replied that no, he had not shaved all the hostas with the lawnmower. In fact, we have been visited by a deer. I've seen her eating the shrubbery across the road every day for the past week, and the neighbor's hostas have been clipped as well, and I don't think Chris ran next door with the lawnmower just to destroy the landscaping, so all signs point to the deer.

As for the brass band, there was a small brass ensemble playing at the church ice cream social up the street. I don't have a witty story about that. We enjoyed hearing it.

Potty Mouth

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that this post actually has nothing to do with the potty.

Since Soren learned to talk about five years ago, I've been pretty good about watching my language in front of him. In fact, he's only picked up one curse from me, and it isn't one of the really bad ones, so I consider that a victory. He was taking a bath a few months ago (he's had a couple more since then), and I remembered that I'd forgotten to bring my library books back or something like that and said "Dammit!" Of course, as soon as it left my mouth, I knew it would come back to haunt me, because kids and parrots love to repeat words spoken with a lot of emotion. Leland never did learn any curses that we could decipher, but now "dammit" has entered Soren's vocabulary. He's only said it a couple times, and only busts it out when our friend Bryn is around, for some reason. She must be a bad influence. (I kid)

So yesterday, Bryn and her boys were visiting, and Soren dropped the D-bomb. I calmly called him over and let him know that it wasn't a nice word, and that if he said it again, he would get a time-out. A couple minutes later, whaddya know, I had to give him a time-out.

He sat out his three minutes without much trouble, and when the timer went off, he came down for his usual hug and non-specific apology, which prompts me to ask for a little more detail because I want to make sure he remembers what he got in trouble for in the first place:

"Sorry, Mama."

"Sorry for what?"

You know what's coming, right? Because I did.

"Sorry for saying 'dammit'."

So I sent his butt straight back into time-out.

Awww, no, not really. I just let him know that maybe next time (not that there will be one, right?) he could say "Sorry for saying a bad word" instead.

Blogging is Hard

It involves typing so many WORDS all right after each other. Lots of things have been happening lately, too, which means even more words need to be typed to communicate all the happenings.

Our little boy turned THREE on June 2nd! We went to the Children's Museum with our friends Bryn, Xavi and Maxi the morning of Soren's birthday, so he got to run around and play and get all tuckered out, and then he took a three-hour nap, and then he woke up on the wrong side of the big-boy bed and whined the whole time he was opening his presents from Grammy and Grampy. Besides that, it was a very lovely day. We have since abolished naptime, since it seems to be doing more harm than good lately.

We had a little party on Sunday and invited Soren's friends Ian and Xavi (as well as their associated parents, since they needed rides, and Xavi's baby brother, since he couldn't very well stay home alone). I baked a red velvet cake (Soren had asked for a red cake after I suggested that his original request, a white cake with white frosting, might need a little color), which was well-received even though it wasn't red enough, and the boys played in the yard while the grown-ups ate oysters and grilled pizza and drank sweet sweet sangria. Your typical third birthday party. Hey, we sang Happy Birthday and ate cake, and he got presents and had fun and felt special, so we got the job done. I'll upload the (very cute) pictures soon.

As proof that he is officially a big boy, Soren is fully potty trained! He is completely diaper-free -- even at night, which blows my mind. I'm very proud, and so is he. I still can't convince him to use anything but his potty chair, though, so we'll have to work on introducing him to the full-size toilet unless we want to start carting the potty around everywhere we go. I'm not sure how to go about making that transition -- he's really resistant to it so far. At this point, though, I'm way too happy about his progress to worry about it much.

Schkernky is also doing well, and is working on rolling all over the place and sitting independently. She's also working on making my life miserable by waking up several times a night and being unwilling to fall asleep anywhere but the swing or the car. The potty training success has left me feeling like I can do anything with my crazy parenting skillz, so I am now picking a fight with Sigrid about sleep. She will learn to fall asleep in her crib. This is my mission. It is a mission fraught with much crying and wasting money on expensive Fisher Price Aquarium Bubble And Light Action Crib Soothers That Don't Seem To Be Working. But I will not back down, and I will face these obstacles with back-patting and shushing at intervals of increasing length over the course of each night, as well as a thorough review of Babies 'R Us's return policy. In the end, I will emerge victorious, with a self-soothing baby in her crib and $44.99 credited to my Visa. It will be beautiful. You just wait.