Accommodating the Inchworm

Where Jake Stands

2009-06-20T15:15:00.001-04:00

I'm sure Liam made some silly rookie-in-charge mistake like using the recent chunks of time he's been left with siblings while I'm out to declare a general authority over Richard, because I overheard Richard say, "NO, you aren't in charge of the kids. MOM is! You're only in charge when Mom's not here."

Pause.

"And usually then it's DAD who's in charge of us."

Got that? It's not "Mom and Dad" who are in charge of the kids, it's Mom and THEN Dad when Mom's not here...and even then, only it's only "usually" Dad.

I personally would argue that if I'm leaving the house and Liam and Jake are both home, I would do best to put Cory in charge. Today G came out of the playroom to tell Jake that Timmy had a poopy diaper-- a REALLY smelly one, too, it's not like Jake should not have been able to smell it. Jake praised G for alerting him about the diaper, called to Tim, "HEY TIMMY! LET'S CHANGE YOUR DIAPER!" and went back to eating his soup. Guess what? Timmy didn't leave what he was playing with in the playroom to come for diaper change. I nursed the baby, came out to lecture G on not scripting in the playroom, couldn't find any oxygen in the playroom due to the methane off- gassing from Tim's diaper, felt Kayliegh do a diaper-bursting expulsion of her own in my arms, and headed to the bathroom to do a total diaper-outfit change, advising Tim that he was next.

Jake poked his head in the bathroom where I was wiping down K and said,"Oh, sorry, I was going to change him, then didn't. Um, I'm ready to take the kids to the library now, you don't need me for anything else, do you? We'll just head out." Jake apparently thinks that even though we have seven packages of baby wipes, two changing tables, plenty of floor space, and different-sized diapers for Tim and K in three different rooms so that one has non-competing stockpiles of diapers for each, and two adults who have diaper- changing experience, clearly changing diapers on two separate kids is a one-at-a-time activity and consecutive changes must be completed by whomever starts the first in line. Cory would be bright enough to get that nothing prevents simultaneous changes, and that attempts to ditch a poopy diaper (that smells like someone brought a cowpie in from a meadow, mixed it with dog poop, boiled it in cat pee and let it simmer on the stove) on me through either real or feigned ignorance of the possibility of simultaneous changes would NOT go over well with me.

So, Jake stands just ahead of Liam--usually--in the chain of command, and, if he's wise, out of my line of fire when I'm holding poopy diapers.

My Work Is Done...

2009-06-03T16:22:00.000-04:00

OK, Timmy is two and a little bit. He is not yet potty-trained, he still spills any cup without a lid on it (less because he isn't able to coordinate but because he likes to observe gravity and the motion of fluids), he makes a red disaster out of himself every time he eats pasta, he still lashes out occasionally to hit Dunc when Dunc pisses him off ("pissing off" defined as "not handing over what Timmy wants", which is frustrating because Dunc is big on the whole look-how-nice-I-am thing and if Timmy asked nicely in front of me, Dunc would hand it over every time just to be fussed over by Mom for his excellent sharing), he has to give the baby her pacifier all the time even if she's sleeping peacefully, has no idea how to whisper (in Freivald-speak "whisper" means "speak so that you can't be heard across the church over the priest, organ, and choir") and in general is not yet at all a civilized human being.

However, there are two developments that tell me that in the ways that count, my work is done. First, he can recognize and join in singing at least three Clancy Brothers Irish folk songs that mention whiskey (yes, believe it or not, some of them don't), and he identifies and verbally begs for any Calvin and Hobbes book. "Skews me, Mom, ree CALveh en HOPS!" Clearly we have set him on the right path early.

(Jake's work is done because he loves Dilbert--he'll watch Dilbert videos over and over, muttering a few phrases after the characters say them with an amused and knowing shake of the head, as if saying, "Hah! Oh man, isn't that just the way it is?!?!)

Why There's A Drawback...

2009-05-24T23:07:00.001-04:00

...to the usual advice to instill in young children a love of reading.

(And of course he was looking for one of the tiniest books in the avalanche!)

Kayleigh Freaking Freivald

2009-04-07T22:54:00.016-04:00

That's really "Kayleigh Regan Freivald", but one of the kids called her "Kayleigh Freaking Freivald" and somehow I think that'll stick for a while.

6 lbs 8 oz, 18.5 inches, 12:36 PM on April 7.

Update: Jake here. I posted under Sue's ID earlier, and as Elena Svitavsky pointed out, I had the wrong weight (I said 8 lbs 6 oz). It's now corrected.

My Latest Impulse Buy

2009-03-06T14:44:00.000-05:00

I am breaking in my most exciting purchase since--I can't even think of the last thing that was this neat. It is beautiful, gleaming, still clean and pristine and the best part as I sit and wait is wondering, "Once the water has boiled, I wonder if I can fit four pounds of pasta in it? Dare I try six?"

A stainless steel, 16qt stockpot, bought with the express purpose of being able to cook more than two pounds of pasta at a time. I know, you'd think we'd have a nice BIG pot by now, lots of people don't even have kids and they have big stockpots, but I got by with what I had and most nights for a while two pounds of pasta was plenty to make it through kids and Jake. Then Liam became a big kid, Mark moved in, and Timmy proved himself able to eat as much pasta as a people 14 or 40 times his age. (No, seriously.)

So now I'm getting ready to make a couple trays of ziti for company tomorrow and my one hope is that I won't have to boil two batches of pasta consecutively--lots of pasta, all at once. WOOHOO!

Look, Jake gets new Blackberrys, I get a new pot. It's work-related gadgetry all the same, and I get to be excited even if I'm unlikely (though tempted) to wear my pot on my hip all the time. But if you pity me because of this, feel free to send a Blackberry or iPhone if you must...

Jake's Shoes

2009-01-24T22:14:00.000-05:00

So, at some point after Christmas Jake realized that he was missing his new dress shoes. If I haven't mentioned it already, Christmas was the blessed birthday of our Lord and also the day I found myself, pregnant and with a cold and a minimum of sleep, as the only conscious adult out of five in a house with seven kids and the person packing about 98% of everything into the van. When others stirred from their places, and I had just hit the point where the van was almost stuffed full, a couple people, Jake being one, noticed the boys' blazers and dress shirts hanging in a closet and thought somehow that in my lone competence I must have overlooked them. Um, no, if I can make sure that every piece of Lego from every new set given was compiled and put in Ziplocs so that each set remained intact and distinct for at least the rest of the first day, and all the dirty laundry was packed and beds were stripped of their sheets and useful toys for keeping kids occupied in the car were placed in the appropriate seats a full hour before boarding, I assure you, I was not "missing" anything--I had taken my dad's offer of leaving behind anything we didn't need right away for them to bring down or us to retrieve during the next visit. It seemed that in the grand scheme of Christmas break, there would be little need for the blazers and the kids would rather have their gifts than their dress shirts.

* * *

This was a fine plan, only it turned out that we never went back to LI during the rest of Break, and then my parents went to visit a friend in Florida during the first week of January--which was when Liam was going to visit a potential high school and needed his blazer. I didn't figure it out until the night before his visit, which was also Liam's birthday, and though Jake and Mark might think that birthdays just involve showing up for dinner and cake (and in Jake's case, even dinner is optional, because what's the big deal about taking a later train on your kid's birthday?), there's actually a lot of planning that goes into the food and cake and presents that Jake thinks appear out of thin air from the Birthday Fairy, so being distracted by all that I didn't notice that the blazer was an issue until fairly late in the day. But sometimes God provides in spite of my resentment and pissy attitude, because Liam's friend's mom had dropped off two suit jackets her sons no longer fit into into over break, and one of them just barely fit Liam. As I was expressing both relief at our good fortune and disbelief that I didn't realize we WOULD need the blazers, Jake mentioned, "Yeah, and i think I left my good shoes at your parents', too."

"Your shoes? The new ones from Lands End that cost an arm and a leg?" I had reluctantly accepted the fact, after Jake went to Macy's and found their shoes even more expensive then LE, that for appropriate business attire that Jake would be wearing daily, it was in fact not unusual that they cost more than all the shoes I've ever bought in our entire marriage. (This is both a reflection on how much good business shoes cost and how infrequently I buy sneakers. The last time I went shopping for them, I was shocked that I couldn't find a decent pair of Adidas shoes for under $25.) And Jake, like the kids, often forgets that things don't get replaced when worn out by magic or, if they do remember that such things usually involve me, that sometimes I actually need a heads-up when, say, Jake's shoes are coming apart at the soles, because I don't do daily checks on every item in the house. In fact, I doubt Jake even thinks to register the state of his shoes when he puts them on each day until he's walking around and realizes that there's a lot more air circulation than one should have in closed-toe shoes. This time, instead of an all-out shoe failure like a few years ago when Jake rolled up some duct tape to hold the bottom of the shoe to his sock while he ran out to Macy's in the city, Jake noticed the decrepit state of his footwear in time to keep the shoes together with glue or something until we got him new shoes, which is progress I had to applaud and reinforce. Which is why i was so proactive in getting his new shoes ordered in a timely fashion even though it was right in the middle of Christmas gift-buying and an economic crisis and all.

"Yeah, I haven't seen them since Christmas. Or my nice black belt, either."

So anyway, by the time my parents got back from Florida later that week, Jake was still walking around in his old shoes. Being the wonderful wife that I am, I did in fact remember to ask my dad just before they came down a week later to keep an eye out for a pair of Jake's shoes. And when they arrived at our house, I asked after the shoes and got a negative from my dad who still promised to look more closely around the house. Jake never thought about his shoes in all this time.

So Wednesday, as Jake was putting on his shoes to go to work, I saw that one of them had no tongue.

"Jake, that shoe has no tongue! Are you still wearing your old shoes?"

"Yeah, I keep forgetting to ask your parents if my shoes are there."

Saying nothing about my almost certain knowledge that the shoes were NOT at my parents' house, I asked, "Do you know for a FACT that they were left there?"

"Well, no."

"And have you looked around THIS house for them, then?"

"I haven't had a chance to yet."

"You haven't had a CHANCE? You can watch clips of Jon Stewart making fun of Obama and read about ancient farm practices before bed, but haven't had a CHANCE to look around for a missing brand-new pair of shoes so that you're not wearing a shoe that's missing it's tongue to work?!?"

"I just keep forgetting, and these shoes have been missing a tongue for two months and no one's noticed, by the way, so it's not like it's making me look bad or anything that I keep wearing them--"

"If it doesn't matter that these shoes are falling apart, why'd we spend the money on the new ones in the first place, then?" Clearly years of living with me have not improved his skills at reasoning and arguing nearly as much as one might think.

"Fine, I'll email your dad tonight and ask if the shoes are there--"

"Which is a lot easier than actually looking around yourSELF--you need to thoroughly check this house as well, and it's YOUR job to remember this stuff, not mine. This is just silly."

Needless to say, he did not look or email my dad that day or night, and of course i felt somewhat responsible because I didn't remind him. Yesterday, no worry about shoes--Jake comes home, takes shoes off, forgets shoes. Me, I don't get to forget things once they're not being used, because if I do, I end up with a situation like I had this morning when Duncan was telling me he wanted his mittens and I could not remember where I put the pair he'd last worn or the unused-but-matched extra stash of mittens in the closet. Did I then go three weeks without doing anything about mittens? No, I began going through the closet to find the mitten stash...

Which is how I came to look inside a plastic CVS bag hanging from one of the coat hooks in the dead center of the closet, which had inside not mittens but a nice pair of black Lands End men's dress shoes, and coiled in one of the shoes, a nice black belt. In the front closet, which is where all the shoes are kept, go figure. Granted, they were hanging up in a bag, not piled on the floor with the two dozen other shoes, but then, to protect the brand-new shoes on the way home from Grandma's they would have been put in a bag, and a thorough search would have included looking in various bags and things whether or not one realized that they were likely to be in a bag. In fact, I seem to have a recollection of Jake heading out the door into snow and slush and telling him there was no way he was going to walk two blocks to the shuttle in that mess in his new shoes, which means they may have been worn after Christmas but put into a bag for the walk home from work and then hung up in the closet by Mr. Forgetful, whose brain then saved him from the trouble of looking for them by assuming that they must be at a house where someone ELSE should look for them....

I think I'm going to hold them ransom. What I'm going to ask for, I'm not sure, but I'm open to suggestions....

There is no try...

2008-11-26T10:56:00.001-05:00

This morning I noticed Liam's sneakers on top of the heater in the kitchen, and asked Jake what he wore to school. (Today is a Free Dress-down day--no uniforms--and I have never known LT to opt to wear his dress shoes on such a day.) Jake hypothesized that Lt wore his hiking sneakers instead, but we both agreed it was odd since Liam had actually remembered to come to us the night before and ask for help getting the dog poop off his shoes (as opposed to coming up in front of us at 6:30am ten minutes before departure and saying, "So, weren't you guys going to clean off my shoes?" which would have resulted in the shoes being placed someplace that was not on his feet and not un-poopy) and Jake had gone down to the basement sink to show him how to use water and a brush to clean off the shoes.

See, Mark had originally put forth the idea of leaving for Kandy's the Monday before Thanksgiving week, but asked if we needed him for anything before then I admitted that I had planned on him being around so I could go to my OB appointment and G's parent-teacher conference, so he kindly waited till Thursday. Now I realize what his real plan was--from his perch in the Red Room he could see the progress various neighbors were making on their leaves, and figured at SOME point we would realize that OUR leaves had to be done, so he spent from Monday to Thursday hoping he'd still escape before we got around to noticing ourselves. Sure enough, we didn't have a chance to think about leaves until Sunday, when I realized that everyone on the block seemed to be hurrying to get their leaves out to the curb (around here, leaves merely have to be piled at the side of the road, and then trucks and things come by and whisk them away by the truckload) and figured, correctly, that our street was scheduled for pick-up within the next few days. So Sunday afternoon, after mass and teaching religion and Liam serving a later mass and Cory's basketball practice, I came home and informed everyone that all was not done, as we had to do the leaves. Jake (inefficiently) used the blower, I raked, and Liam and Bot hauled garbage cans full of leaves back and forth between filling them at the backyard piles and dumping them off the curb while Cory babysat everyone inside. We got it all done in just two hours, but of course, a few of us got some dog poop on our shoes thanks to--well, the dogs.

Liam had been excused while Jake and I took care of the last bit, but when he noticed the poop on his shoes and tried the hose, he found the hose frozen. I told him that we could use the basement sink for washing any poopy shoes off, and to hang on while Dad got the brush which we'd uncovered in the leaves so he could use it on his shoes. But Liam had already turned and gone inside, thinking the message was that "we," Jake and I, would use the basement sink for washing his shoes and thus, knowing the shoes should just go in the basement, went inside to dump them there and forget them. I also forgot them. (Jake's strategy for poopy shoes is to take them off just by the back door, put them on a bench to expose them to lots of rain and weather, and then leave them there, well-seasoned, for the dogs to eventually chew up, at which point he tells me he has no idea where his sneakers are and he needs new ones. At least Liam is ahead of him on that front.)

So last night we found the brush again when Liam brought up the sneakers and Jake escorted him down to tell him what to do and pick up a bit while Liam went to work. Instruction was given, but apparently little direct supervision of the task was provided. Liam emerged with his hands held out in front of him like they were full of the plague and then made a turn toward the stairs.

"Where are you going?"

"Upstairs."

"Why are you holding your hands like that?"

"Because i need to wash them." Apparently there was no hand soap by the basement sink, so my brilliant child thought that the answer to making his hands free of the germs, real and imaginary, that had him holding them away from his body as far as his arms could go, was to traipse up three floors, opening safety gates and doors along the way with these same hands. I pointed out the obvious conflicts that this plan and his aversion to germs and dirty things posed, as he'd be handling those same gates and doors on his way downstairs eventually, admirably avoiding the actual word "stupid"--though, like Matt, I am very good at using many words to convey "stupid" as clearly, if not even more obnoxiously, than if I'd just said the word. He used the kitchen sink sitting a foot to his right, and that was all any of us thought about the shoes last night.

But now Liam was off to school and his shoes were at home and Jake and I were looking at them. As i served breakfast to G and Dunc and Tim I eventually had a chance to make my way over and pick them up, at which point I exclaimed, "Ugh, they're soaked!" Then, having just stuck my hand into yucky soggy teenage shoes, I turned to find someone besides myself to blame--Jake. "Didn't you tell him to keep the water on the BOTTOM of the shoes, not to get the body of the shoes wet?"

"Yeah! I told him to try not to get the shoes themselves too wet--UCK!" He had found the shoes as unpleasantly soggy as I had. "They're just SOAKED!"

"Jacob, you don't tell him to TRY not to get them TOO wet--this is the kid who 'wets the brush a bit to brush his hair' which turns into making his hair soaking wet while showering the whole bathroom with the water he flings around with the brush trying to get a half gallon applied to his scalp. If you tell him to TRY not to get them wet, and they'll get wet! You don't tell him to TRY not to, you tell him 'Don't get the shoes wet!' and then we'll have a manageable level of damp to deal with!"

"I can't tell him not to get them wet at all, they're going to get a little wet most of the time, so I can tell him to TRY hard not to get--"

I held up the soaking shoes before plopping them back on the basement steps to spend a few weeks drying. "TRY?!?! There is no 'TRY,' there is only 'DO!' "

Apparently resorting to citing Yoda as an authority on how to instruct a youth to wash poop off his shoes without making them soaking wet was very amusing to Jake, as he just laughed, and when he spoke again after I took this chance to make exclamations about soaking wet shoes and hair and how our son takes to both verbal instruction and water, he agreed that telling Liam to "try" not to get his shoes wet was not the way to go and he, Jake, would be more commanding in the future of the lack of wetness to be expected in any tasks involving water.

Reason to Vacuum

2008-11-15T14:01:00.002-05:00

So, I once had a friend--well, OK, I still have a friend, but she once said to me, "I can't believe you vacuum every day." (Keep in mind she was a previously-working, first-time mom who said at the start of her maternity leave before the baby was born that she was getting someone to come and clean the house "because I'm sure as heck not staying home to clean!" and who thus never used her vacuum herself, as there is almost no need in a house with two adults, one baby and more bathrooms than people--each bathroom gets used the equivalent of one person-day per week at that rate, and for that she needed someone to come clean? I could have done that cleaning while a baby is switching breasts...) I pointed to the crumbs on the floor after a feeding frenzy called "lunch" and said, "Sometimes more than once--what choice do I have?"

"Why bother? It's just going to look like this anyway tomorrow, so why not just leave it?"

I stared at her, dumbfounded, trying to remember she had not yet experienced a child who eats more than milk as I choked out, "Because if I didn't vacuum, by tomorrow this would not look like this, it would be TWICE as much food and dirt on the floor, plus rats!"

I admit, my standards have been worn down somewhat--I don't vacuum every day because I no longer have that automatic lull known as Nap when I can do a quick tidy and vacuum of the playroom/kitchen, make myself some lunch, and watch Law and Order in grown-up mode for about 38 minutes. Now the playroom is four times as large as in the old house with four times (almost) the kids and mess, I don't need to clean it up to be sane because I don't eat lunch in there or watch TV in there and sanity is a lost cause no matter how clean the playroom is anyway, I don't get to watch L&O anymore because there isn't a time when all the non-school-aged kids nap simultaneously, and I'm just a little more tired and lazy than I used to be in the cleaning area. And now that I have folks coming to clean half the house every two weeks, I admit, sometimes if it isn't THAT bad and no guests are expected I have occasionally gotten that "it can wait till the cleaners come, can't it?" attitude sneaking in.

Only, we have two dogs now, and we have a Timmy.

Timmy is not officially a toddler as he is not toddling yet, but he does hippity-hop (an odd form of mobility that is not crawling but gets him from here to there fast enough) and cruise (for the non-parental, "cruising" means standing up and moving while holding on to things--essentially, walking sideways with handholds) and explore. And so the dirt/dog hair becomes an issue.

I'm sure you think I wish to protect my little wee one from the perils of dog hair, dirt, and fallen foodbits he may come across, but not really. Unless it's a wad of hair or a half-eaten carrot or something else he could possibly choke on, I'm not that concerned for the child. Yes, his hands are constantly on the floor, and yes, they are also constantly in his mouth, but this is, I'm convinced, how babies are naturally supposed to build up strong immune systems--why else would God have put dirt and babies on the same geographic level of creation?

No, my concern is really for the environment. It's about wasted water.

Toddler-to-be explores. Toddler-to-be takes out bowls, cups, assorted unbreakable things that to good mother has put in the lower cabinets and drawers just so he can open doors and safely explore to his stimulatory delight. LOTS of bowls, cups and assorted unbreakable things (think how many cups and plastic containers for leftovers alone a family of nine might have on hand, add in measuring cups, mixing bowls, the holiday cookie cutters you can never find a good spot for, and every bright plastic anything that isn't actually a toy you can throw in a bin just so a baby can play with it, then multiply it by how many years experience you don't have running a household with kids and you might have half the idea). Toddler-to-be is very happy, very cute, very oh-look-at-his-development-happening-right-in-front-of-my-eyes as he dumps and distributes all the contents of all the cabinets all over the kitchen.

At some point, though, you have to clean up, and this is when you find out just how well dog hair is attracted to plastic.

Is there any item you might eat or use to prepared food that isn't covered in dog hair if I failed to vacuum in the past five minutes? Nope. That means everything--as in EVERY, SINGLE, THING--needs to be rinsed off. IF done in the sink, it takes up more than the sink, more than the dishdrain, more than all the counter space I have, while if I use the dishwasher it would require starting with an empty dishwasher and dedicating it to rinsing all these items when there's already a backlog of actual "dishes" waiting to be washed. Either way, it's a grand use of space and time and effort I can ill afford.

And as I tell the younger kids when they want to play with the faucet indefinitely, we need to leave some water for the fish. When I have to rinse off every plastic item Timmy can tear out of the cabinets, the fish are getting very worried indeed.

So this is why I now vacuum every ten minutes. I do it for the fish.

Duncan's Use of the Passive Voice

2008-11-12T21:35:00.000-05:00

I think Jake would call it the passive voice, but it's whatever one calls it when someone says, "Pee is spilled all over me" instead of "I peed in my pants." Duncan makes excellent use of it when it comes to his recent spate of accidents.

"Oh no, I'm wet."

"Why are you wet? Did you pee in your pants?"

"Um, no, the pee is just all over my pants...."

Perfect little kid technique for avoiding the unpleasant acknowledgment of wrongdoing and still getting someone to help you with those uncomfortable pants "with pee on them." There's also the denial technique, in which he simply denies the reality of the wet pants.

"Duncan, your pants are wet! You should have gone to the bathroom!"

"Um, no Mom, my pants are not...and I will wear my blue Thomas shirt to school tomorrow. And after you get me NEW pants, we will have dinner! Isn't that great?!?!"

Today was an interesting example of the "acknowledgment of accident via uncertainty" method. I poked my head outside and asked, "Duncan, are your pants dry?"

"Huh?" A bad sign. Duncan would usually have a quick and exact reply, so this ambiguous answer was a red flag.

"Are your pants wet?" I enunciated clearly and increased the volume to make sure I was heard.

"Um, no."

"Are you SURE?"

"Yeah." Then he gave a little sideways glance upwards as if thinking intently and dropped his little bombshell. "I'm not so sure about poop, though." Then he acted quite upset and confused about why I wasn't happy with him--he can take denial to an impressive extent!

Cory

2008-09-26T14:38:00.001-04:00

So, the other night Jake came home and put the second-floor kids to bed, and when he came down to get sippy cups for the little guys, I was just going to get Cory a cough drop and saw Garrett's vitamin case. "Did you give G his vitamins tonight?" I asked Jake. Garrett has been taking vitamins daily since he was three, and yet Jake consistently forgets to give them to him for some reason. Kind of like me and trying to mail anything.

"Yup." Jake replied.

"Wow. You're awesome!" (Trying the whole positive reinforcement thing.)
Cory pops right out with a dry, "Well, TODAY, anyway."

I immediately turned on her: "Corinne Elizabeth, that was not at all respectful of your father--and very nicely done, I might add."

Quote from Homework Time

2008-09-16T16:53:00.001-04:00

I'm at the table as I type, overlooking G's homework and keeping Bot on task as well, with Cory roughly keeping herself on task, and Alex begins to grumble with frustration at some Lego issue or another.

Bot doesn't even look up as he says, "Alex, you don't even know what a hard life is, so stop pretending you're having one."

Cory spits out an immediate, "Neither do YOU."

I'm keeping my mouth shut--barely.

Happy School Year!

2008-09-04T09:37:00.001-04:00

Well, from where I stand, which is at the kitchen counter at 6:35 in the morning, it's an auspicious start. Granted, Jake got up and interpreted "Hang around upstairs and help move Bot along" to mean "Be too dumb to pee before waking the kids and then, when they're awake and using up both upstairs bathrooms, go all the way downstairs to pee so that by the time you slowly make your way back upstairs Bot probably already skipped brushing his teeth and is ten minutes behind" but at least I thought to tell him that if he's going to go all the way downstairs he might as well put Bot's oatmeal in the microwave so it's done when they come down. Liam came down looking for socks because "get everything you need for the morning as far as clothing goes" is generally interpreted as "everything you might already have upstairs is good enough until you get dressed in the morning and realize you're missing something." Richard, when I told him last night to go find the basket with the neatly folded white polo uniform shirts, asking Cory where the basket was if necessary, and pick one about three shirts down because that would be his size, picked instead a winter turtleneck in Liam's size crumpled up in a pile, not a basket, of all winter stuff that had no hope of having a "three shirts down." When he came down to the second floor so clothed in wrinkled, long-sleeved knit polyester from his ears to his knees, and my eyes got wide, Jake did the most useful thing he did all morning besides walking them to the bus stop, which was to quietly tell me, "Let's keep it positive, keep it positive, we're getting him the right shirt, it's OK..." So I wanted to throw a fit, but didn't. Jake then took this calm demeanor to the kitchen where he stopped Bot, the slowest eater of the bunch, to give him a shoelace-tying lesson. Yes, at 6:15 in the morning, when Bot hasn't seen 6:15 since early June. I'm sure he learned a lot. Liam then made a "what? I was just sayin'..." comment about how it's interesting that Bot should learn shoe-tying late when Liam learned how to tie his laces early, to which Bot self-consciously started to say, "Be quiet, Liam!" before I shushed Liam and whispered that there is no Freivald mythology in which he was an early shoe-tie-er (tyer? Tier? Tire?) anyway. Liam claimed innocent befuddlement over what he possibly could have done wrong, making such a comment to the touchiest, most self-conscious, tear-prone kid awake at 6:15, and then followed Jake's cheerful pointing out the Bot had a plumber's crack and should pull up his shorts with, "Yeah, he's always showing his butt when he bends--" before I whispered that he was simply not to speak to his brother until lunch, and if he made him cry before school he was in trouble and don't worry about telling me why he's innocent, just be quiet.

The kids and even Mom were cheerful at the door, where they posed for pictures, and the bus showed up at not too far off its appointed time--6:47am--so Jake wasn't left waiting forever down the block. Now, Garrett is woken up but is relatively quiet under threat of doing math sheets if he's loud, there might be a little kids awake but they have yet to figure out we're up and downstairs, I'm emailing, and Jake is chortling over Ann Coulter's latest column and it's just about 7am. Other than the fact that we're up and Mark is still asleep (jerk), it's not a bad morning so far.

We'll see how tomorrow goes--Garrett starts but does not yet have a bus pass, and neither does Alex, who starts on Monday, and dealing with the lady at Transportation in the district is always fun exercise of her telling me she can't do anything and me knowing she CAN if I can just say the right things to not piss her off but make her feel that spending a couple minutes now fixing the issue is better than putting me off and having to deal with me later, and both Alex and Duncan still claim they are not going to kindergarten or preschool (though I bet if I switched them, Alex would be fine with going to preschool and Dunc would walk into a class in which he's too young to be in, just like he happily wanted to stay last year in the very class he refuses to go to this year--once I get them in the school, slowly getting them to the proper location within the school should be no problem, right?)

Dunc's stomping down the stairs--we're discovered, and the party is over.

Quick Alex Quote

2008-09-03T16:18:00.000-04:00

So, Dunc starts hollering from the playroom, but since it's after 3pm and he's doing away with his nap to the misery of all around him, I'm not overly concerned. Yes, he probably thinks he got hurt, but it's extremely unlikely that I need to go to him, and he'll make his way to me to tell me what i need to kiss. Sure enough, he comes wailing mildly into the kitchen, but Alex reaches me first, to tell me hastily, "I hurt him on the head by ACCIDENT, Mom. It was only by ACCIDENT."

"You hurt him, though?"

"Yes, by ACCIDENT."

"With what?"

"The floor."

Both Cory and I can't help but giggle, which I'm trying to hide from Dunc because it will only piss him off, so I attempt a straight face as I ask, purely for Cory's entertainment, "So what, you picked up the floor and hit him with it?"

Now Alex is laughing, but I'm not sure he gets why WE think this is funny. "No, I just tickled his neck and he fell backwards."

So kisses to the back of Dunc's head and off they go. I need to make sure I don't just leave the floor lying around where the kids can get a hold of it, though.

An Alex Morning

2008-08-14T20:57:00.001-04:00

So, this morning Alex was up after the littlest guys and Garrett, so when i went upstairs to find clothes for people he was there in bed ready to give me lecture on the Bionicle guy he was playing with. He got dressed and came to find me plopped in a chair in the red room, having gotten underwear for Dunc and given in momentarily to feeling yucky. Alex walked in and said, "What're you doing?"

"Sitting."

"Why?"

"You know the baby growing in my belly? It's making me a little sick."

"Are you going to die?" I wish I could flatter myself and say there was fear and concern in his voice, but it was all straightforward, matter-of-fact curiosity.

"No, it's not that kind of sick. It's actually a good sick, it means the bay is growing nicely. You know when you're sick and feel like throwing up?"

Alex made an excellent sound effect to indicate he understood throwing up and could act it out, which helped bring me just one step closer to doing it in reality.

"Well, it's just that kid of sick feeling, that's all. See, when..."

"OK, let's go have breafkast now, come on..." So much for any lessons on babies and hormones or concerns for my health.

On the way down the stairs, though, he returned to the topic: "I don't want it to be a girl baby."

"You don't? Why not?

"Because I only like boy babies."

"Why?"

"Because boy babies are cute."

"Girl babies are cute, too."

"Okaaaaaayyyy...." In that tone which says he won't argue with me but he isn't really buying it, either. I have little desire to prolong any conversations on which gender folks want, as there is nothing any of us can do about it except wait three months to find out what it is, and if anyone is disappointed in the results *I* am the one who's going to hear the complaints and have my belly glared at accusingly--no one ever glares at Jake, even though it's his fault, so I changed the topic myself and took him to watch the last ten minutes of Sesame Street. Once that was done, we returned to breafkast issue.

"Well, what do you want for breakfast, then? Cherry or strawberry Pop Tarts?" Jake had gotten a variety of flavors when he took them shopping, including the one that was about to do me in:

"What about the SMORES Pop Tarts?"

"Sorry, you guys finished those yesterday."

Usual sulking ensued, as not having the food option he was looking forward to is one of Alex's greatest miseries in life, but I would not let him leave the kitchen to go do it forever. I made him sit until he decided what he would have instead. Finally, he got verbal again and asked what the options were. "Cheerios, cherry, strawberry or raspberry Pop Tarts, or pancakes."

HUGE sigh. "I guess I'll have pancakes." So I turned on the oven and found a bowl to mix up the batter, since we do our pancakes in the big bar pan nowadays, one big rectangle of pancake baked in 15 minutes.

Then Alex says, "Mom, I would like ROUND pancakes, please."

"Oh, but Alex, those take so much longer to make!"

"That's OK, I like waiting. I can wait for round pancakes, it's OK."

Fine, I know I didn't have to give in, but the sulking the second disappointment around was going to be a lot longer and he was being very cute and after all, he did put a blanket over me when we were watching Sesame Street because to Alex all ailments are made better by the application of a blanket, and pancakes off the griddle *are* tastier that the baked version and I was starting to want some, so he had his round pancakes. But I made no guarantees about the baby brother thing, and I expect some sulking the likes of which Smores Pop Tarts never saw if Bot gets his way and the baby is a girl.

Seasoned Mom Moment

2008-08-12T23:16:00.000-04:00

...can also be a Stupid Mom moment.

So the other morning Jake was annoyingly disciplined and got up an hour early to write, or work, or do something other than sleep. Me, I chose to sleep to the late hour of 7am, but then, I'm sleeping for two. Duncan came in at 6:45 or so and said something about Timmy being poopy, and being determinedly half-asleep I said something about go downstairs and tell Daddy. He went downstairs and Jake said something about going to play in the playroom, and off went Duncan to the playroom, Jake went back to his computer, and I went back to sleep, which meant when Jake jumped up to get ready for work and I jumped up to go walk my neighbor's dogs before Jake left for work, neither of us with time to spare, it was less than fun to discover poor Timmy, with a poopy diaper that was only half attached to his bottom.

Of course, the extra time we all spent sleeping and writing and playing in the playroom gave Tim plenty of time to roll around (silently, I might add--there was not a peep from to even indicate he was awake before I walked in) and get lots of poop on himself and the crib sheet and, horror of horrors, the Beloved Blanket. I told Jake to start the bath running on his way into the bathroom to shave, and for some reason he felt that a poopy baby meant it was necessary to protect the non-slip mat in the tub from coming in contact with a messy baby, instead of leaving the mat there to protect the very poopy baby from slip-sliding away all over the tub while I tried to scrub dried poop off him. So I had to stand there holding the poopy baby out in front of me to try and maintain my poop-free status while telling Jake in as few words as possible that he should replace the @&#^!*&% tub mat so I could put Timmy down. Luckily, Tim had managed to coat mostly the lower half of his body, with only a small amount on his hands and cheek. The latter parts were scrubbed first, and then I showed him how neat it was to play in the running water so that the hands kept nice and rinsed while I went to work on the rest of him.

Needless to say I did not make it up the hill to walk the dogs before Jake had to leave, but Tim was cleaned up in short order (without the unhelpful panic attack I would have had back in my Baby Liam days about baby in contact with poop and the bacterial nightmare my imagination would blow out of proportion--seasoned motherhood knows that yucky as poop is, the gameplan is still to turn messy baby into clean baby ASAP and panic, though helpful in other situations, usually does not significantly speed along a bath), and then Garrett made some excellent comments about Dad not leaving yet for work and asked to drive him to the railroad station. Driving Jake would give him an extra ten minutes to hang around, would get me and the kids in the car for a loop up the hill to let my friend's dogs out to pee, and would of course, of COURSE, allow us to get some Cait and Abby's, our bakery by the train station which magically yields cookies or muffins or chocolate croissants to Daddy when we drop him off and wait for his return from the pastry-filled depths of the station before heading to wait for his train.

So, we all hop in the car, we go to the station, Daddy gets out, Daddy comes back with a bag containing two smiley face cookies (for Alex and Bot) and two dinosaur cookies (for Dunc and G) a mini muffin (for Tim) and a chocolate croissant (there's a reason I never lost the baby weight from Timmy--and a lot of the baby weight came in the first place from the mysterious way chocolate croissants appease the queasy tummy). If you're wondering about Liam and Cory, they were off at a sleepover and therefore did not qualify for bakery privileges. Off we went to let out the dogs up the hill and then back home, where i settled everyone who went with me with their treats and when Alex and Bot appeared from sleeping in presented them with theirs. (Don't worry, Uncle Mark was home sleeping in as well, I didn't leave the dogs babysitting.) I put the Beloved blanket right in the washer so it might have a shot of getting clean and dry in time for Tim's nap, having thrown out the poopy crib sheet, Jake and I agreeing that a crib sheet that we've probably had since Liam was born was not worth the effort when we had plenty more of both cribs sheets and other laundry to expend the effort to redeem this one item (though once i realized that we really hadn't bought new crib sheets in forever and it might very well be one of our first crib sheets I did wonder if it should have some status as an antique and be restored.)

Timmy ate his muffin, but since he isn't an idiot and is my child he did not fail to notice that his treat had no chocolate and mine did, so he did convince me to part with a small piece to appease him and send him toddling off. I finished, took heart in my momentarily content tummy, and made the rounds of the ground floor. Collected a few plates, ordered G and Dunc to pick up the popsicle sticks they had dumped all over the playroom floor in order to recreate a crash scene out of a Thomas story, and came across a Tim with stuff on his face.

Now, in the past Jake's made fun of my tendency to check a baby's diaper by sticking my finger in the diaper. "That's one seasoned mom, to just stick her finger in there knowing what she might encounter..." I never thought much of it--it was often faster than getting a good view of the interior of a diaper, and if the child is poopy what better way to force yourself to change him promptly than to end up with poop on your finger? Changing the diaper involves poop anyway, so take child and finger to the baby wipes and everythign gets clean....

But this time I found myself picking up Timmy and, looking at his smudged face, I rubbed my finger at a smudge and licked it before I even realized that I was essentially making sure that this brown stuff was chocolate and not poop, and I was doing it in a most stupid of ways. Now, instinctively I'm sure I knew that this was surely chocolate because getting poop on the face is not a common toddler occurrence, gifted as they are for getting themselves into trouble and mess. But he did wake up covered in poop that morning, and the fact is I did check--by TASTING it.

Thank goodness it was chocolate.

Bot's Self-Esteem

2008-08-04T22:53:00.003-04:00

It has been a little while since Sue has posted anything, so I'm putting out this email from January 2008. "Bot", of course, is Richard, our fourth child (of seven), who was seven when this was written. --Jake

OK, I admit I sometimes worry about my middle child--he truly is the forgotten child sometimes, and seems easily brought to tears, whether it's because he knows he did something he shouldn't, because Liam won't share Lego parts with him, because he's convinced that he will NEVER manage to buy the cool Bionicle Liam has when HE is twelve because he might never earn enough money and in five years Lego might not even MAKE that one anymore, because his world is miserable because he has to do homework, or because Duncan is crying and so Bot cries because I might just decide it's Bot's fault. So I tell him I love him even when he puts his shirt on backwards, skips brushing his teeth to get in more time reading Peanuts strips, and puts an extra juice box and four extra fruit snacks into his lunchbox, I make a point of fawning over his long eyelashes (from MY side of the family, I tell him) and the cute faint freckles on his nose, I tell him that he is quite good at saving his money and if Lego doesn't make that one by the time he has the money for it, I'll search eBay (which really means I'll dig it out of Liam's stuff and stick it in a shipping box), and otherwise try to find ways to bolster his confidence with comments on his intelligence, cuteness, kindness to babies, insightful questions, etc. (This makes it sound like I'm a much better mom than I am, because you may assume I do all this ego-boosting *regularly*, when in fact I'm lucky if I've done any of the lovely deeds I've listed more than once each--and when it comes to the HW tears, I have pretty much barked that HW is a part of life and these particular tears are forbidden till he's out of college because I'm not going through this melodrama four times a week. In fact, one time when he started with the whole, "WHY do we have to do homework? I don't think we should have to do it if we already know this stuff from doing it already IN SCHOOL! This isn't FAIR! Why do *I* always have homework, and for the next TEN YEARS!" I spat back that if he really wanted to debate the philosophy of homework he should take it up with Mrs. Carmody or Sister Lena and I'd be happy to schedule an appointment with them for that purpose right now if he said one more word to ME on the topic--and by the way, he didn't take into account college in his tally of homework years. He did his homework quietly, but as he went to put it in his backpack he muttered under his breath that if there was more homework involved he wasn't going to college, he'd be an adult by then and he'd have RIGHTS... Fine, I thought, one less tuition to pay and one more grunt for the USMC if you're *lucky*, or I'll throw you in the they-even-took-Uncle-Joe-the-dancer-so-go-cry-there Army, you little twerp...where was I? Oh, self esteem and my loving style of mothering Bot--see, I only thought it, I didn't say it OUT LOUD. Pretty darn loving given that he was whining about twenty subtraction problems while I was making his dinner, feeding his brother, doing his laundry, and putting up with his father.)

Anyway, it turns out that in all this focus on his intelligence and cuteness and his ability to make Tim smile and his finally being able to put his clothes on not-backwards after seven-point-five years on earth and my general love and fondness for my fourth-born, it seems I might have missed the trait that is the real key to his self-esteem...

Today was Bot's First Reconciliation, and I took him all alone to the service since juggling seven kids by myself (yes, Jake is at the annual sales meeting again, hopefully taking the time to read this so he remembers that Bot was introduced to another sacrament today and he should comment on such to the child when he returns) was not my idea of supporting and focusing on Bot--plus they designate each pew for two about-to-confess kids and their respective family members, and there's no way we'd fit in half a pew. All went well, Bot was adorably pleased and happy about the whole thing and says he got used to it while doing it this first time already and now that he's used to it we should go all the time. Good little Catholic boy! Since it wasn't a traditional throw-a-party occasion, still, it was an event in his life and Grandpa was over watching everyone else and so we stopped at the bakery on the way home to pick up a cake, just because. While we were backing out of the new pay-by-space-number parking by the train station, Bot was just blurting out words with gusto and randomness: "Credit card! Attention! No parking! Parking! Cake filling!" I was only half-listening as I was trying to navigate the crowded parking lot (so much easier in my dad's zippy little car--he has an Odyssey), and absently asked, "Is this just a random word-association thing you're doing?"

"Yes!"

"You're weird, you know that?"

He responded with such matter-of-fact pride: "Yes. It's what I like best about myself."

Apparently Bot has done some serious reflection between comic strip readings and has come to this bit of self-awareness. Weirdness--makes so much sense now that I know...So now all I have to do is keep pointing out how weird Bot is--a very simple task, way easier than giving compliments--and he should be happy, right?

Naked Like Alex's Friend

2008-07-08T09:46:00.004-04:00

[Editor's note: This was written by Sue as an email, even though Jake posted it. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.]

In case you were wondering (and I know you were), Michael is now a part of our everyday language as "things related to being naked." Every time Dunc goes to the bathroom (which he is now consistently doing on his own, woohoo!) I know about it because he thinks that it is necessary to completely take off his pants and underpants in order to sit on the potty, and that it is unnecessary to put them back on when he's done. Whenever Dunc suddenly appears with nothing on from the waist down, we know another successful trip to the potty has taken place. (This also serves as a quick alert to ask if he peed or pooped, as Dunc ALSO considers wiping unnecessary--no wiping plus no pants means sitting is not a good thing...)

So, a few times he's come down without a shirt, or he just takes his shirt off in the course of his disrobing, which leaves him completely naked followng his potty trip. Yesterday he showed up totally naked and announced, "Oh, Mom, you are SO happy to see me naked."

"No, actually, I'm not."

"You're not?"

"No, I'd like you to put your shorts back on."

Awwww...But you are happy to see me naked like Alex's friend Michael!"

Later in the day he said something similar to Uncle Mark. "I am naked like Alex's friend Michael!" I find it very funny the word "naked" does not exist in its base form for Alex and Dunc without "- like-Alex's/my-friend-Michael" added to the end, all because of one apparently very memorable playdate in which some naked dancing occurred. Cory's friend Jane used to strip down in our living room regularly for two years when they were Alex/Michael's age and Cory and Bot never associated her with nakedness like this....

Sneaky Timmy

2008-06-23T23:22:00.003-04:00

OK, I'm the first to admit that though I can, when pressed, get all seven of my kids gathered, shoed and in the car in under ten minutes, the nutritional aspect of their upbringing has gone inadequately addressed. Well, they know what junk food is, thanks to vast and repeated experience, but I don't think that qualifies as adequate education. Actually, I was doing OK for a while, back when Garrett was on his special diet--not only did it help him when he first went on it, but in all the reading I did on food sensitivities and chemical sensitivities and toxins and such I ended up knowing more than any sane person should know. (Half of what I love about watching Monk is listening to the catchy theme song and having this dark chill go down the back of my brain: "This is SO true, so true...") So we did all organic, we made chicken chicken nuggets with chickpea flour, we limited junk food (except for me when I was pregnant and nauseous, or pregnant and tired, or just tired, which is to say, not limited for me at all)--but after five years of never, ever being able to get take out or eat out and not have to make or bring something along for G, when he gradually came off the diet, not only did he love having pizza but I loved being able to ORDER pizza and not have to make anything for him. A couple pregnancies later and dinner, always the bane of my existence for more reasons than there are rear ends in this house that can't stay in their seats, was more often than not a convenience-oriented endeavor. Chicken nuggets, pizza, hot dogs (though the hot dogs are always uncured and nitrate-free, just as the apples are always organic even though I pay as much in toaster pastries as I do in organic produce--hey, I am a mother of contradictions.)

Eventually, though Jake won the battle to get me to not CARE that dinner was not a complicated from-scratch feat each night because, after all, my most guilt-ridden dinner choices were invariably the ones eaten most happily by the most kids, it was only sort of a victory of denial. I still felt the guilt deep down, even as I acknowledged that with this many mouths to get food into, the caloric victory as well as the potential waste of food and financial resources for every meal attempt that was met with rejection was not unimportant. Still, there was guilt.

Enter our beloved Miss Kelly, who mentioned one day that she had been leafing through this cookbook she'd heard about, The Sneaky Chef, and how it was all about sneaking healthy stuff into yummy, familiar foods. I was intrigued, as my guilt popped its head up and told me this might be a thing worth pursuing. (The whole Make Veggies Look Appetizing approach simply doesn't work for kids who don't already like veggies. I have more than one kids' cookbook that shows making cute shapes or even a skeleton out of all different veggies, and I never bothered because really, the kids aren't stupid--cauliflower is cauliflower no matter what part of the body it's pretending to be.)

Anyway, at some point I was out with Cory at the bookstore and I found The Sneaky Chef book and bought it. Cory then drooled over the pictures, and began reading to me the weird ingredients in each recipe...Brownies with spinach, pizza with sweet potato, etc. I warned her not to mention to anyone else that this was healthy food or go over the hidden ingredients in case they decided to reject the foods ahead of time on principle, so of course the next day Richard was found reading the book at the kitchen table and loudly listing all the ingredients. Even so, the pictures and the idea that healthy could be yummy enthralled him, and he was on board with the whole Sneaky Chef adventure (so perhaps I haven't totally neglected their nutritional education, just their nutritional intake.)

Well, it took me a while to get around to the recipes. (I did try one recipe on the fly a couple weeks ago, which called for rolling chicken in Ranch dressing mixed with "white puree" of cauliflower and zucchini, then breading with crushed cereal flakes. However, I didn't have the puree made and didn't remember that it was for skinless cutlets, not skinful drumsticks, so we didn't add in the sneaky healthy stuff or remove the less healthy part, but boy did it taste wonderful!) I had to get the stuff for the purees involved at a time when I knew I would get around to prepping and pureeing all the produce before it went bad, and the end of the school year is not a good time for finding chunks of hours free for spending in the kitchen doing make-ahead stuff. (Neither is the start of the school year, the middle, or any school breaks when the kids are all home.)

But this year I attempted to be ready for the first summer week when the whole crew was home--you know, that week when you sit there at lunch time and realize that no one made their lunches the night before and since they're at home they don't want the usual lunch-box fare and you have only as many chicken nuggets as a 1, 3, and 5-yr-old would eat (which combined is half what Liam would take, and a quarter what Cory would) and the Dora yogurts don't cut it with the school-aged crowd even though to me, strawberry yogurt is strawberry. So I sat down with Richard and did a reality check on what everyone finds palatable for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and which fruits and veggies went over well--this is a constantly changing list, as kids change their very specific tastes with no notice and just when I finally remember which five eat apples and which three eat grapes and that Cory only likes the whipped Yoplait in strawberry or chocolate or the regular Yoplait in banana strawberry but not strawberry, while Richard will take strawberry in any Yoplait variety while Liam does not like strawberry but will take orange creme Whips or vanilla in any brand, one of them switches to Stonyfield black cherry and I'm thrown off for months. Finally, I asked which dinners we should have for the next five days, and he immediately grabbed the sneaky chef book. So fine, Sunday i went on a two-hour shopping trip, making sure I had everything involved for the recipes we chose. Only Sunday night kind of got away from me as I cleaned up in preparation for having them all home (every summer i feel this urge to take the chance to teach them all sorts of things, to read them all a dozen developmentally appropriate books each, read some Bible stories, make them math whizzes before the new school year starts, and bring Garrett's language skills up to normal with much conversation and exercises and activities. To do this, I feel the need to have things ordered and organized the night before. It helps for those first ten minutes, and then the plan pretty much evaporates into an occasional worksheet or book until the following summer.)

So, this brings me to Monday afternoon, when the menu plan stated "Power Pizza" and the recipe called for Orange Puree and White Bean Puree, both of which involved pureeing something I had not yet pureed, and it was 4:30pm. Duncan helpfully fell asleep in his chair sitting at my computer, so his cranky late-afternoon attitude was absent. This left Timmy, who after an extended morning nap was not quite sure what to do with himself at a time when he'd normally be waking up from an afternoon nap he didn't take today. I'd already fed him an adult portion of leftover grilled chicken, so I felt I could manage to prep dinner without undue bother from him.

First step in this whole Sneaky Chef process was to peel the yams so I could boil them and the carrots until soft. This involved finding the vegetable peeler. So while Cory was trying to tell me that she can help if I need her to, I was washing yams and attempting to describe to her what a vegetable peeler looked like and what three places it might be in, and Timmy was figuring out that there was food prep going on and wanted to see what we were hiding from him up on the counters. So, having figured out that there is no way to describe to a 10-yr-old by purely verbal means what a vegetable peeler is, I waddled around looking for it myself with Timmy wrapped around my legs, because once I picked him up I knew I'd never have my hands free until I fed him something. I peeled while Cory cut yams into pieces, I got stuff into the pot and then picked up Timmy and gave him some watermelon. Then I took out the cans of beans to puree, at which point Timmy decided he was done with watermelon and informed me of this fact by the usual method of crawling across the high chair tray--I do usually catch him before he goes over the edge, don't worry. So, Tim was back on the floor while i rinsed the beans, and when I turned my back on the sink to use the food processor he zoomed in on the fact that the doors under the sink were unlatched and immediately took out the box of garbage bags and started checking all eighty bags individually for quality assurance purposes. When i noticed, I realized that as long as the bags were all over the floor and not in his mouth, he was occupied for the two minutes it took me to finish pureeing the beans, measuring out half a cup into a bowl for the pizza sauce, and packing up the rest for freezing except for the mound I dumped in front of a now-plopped-in-high-chair Tim. I then picked up all the bags and put them back in their box and the box back under the sink and the sink back to its latched state, and went to drain the now-soft boiling yams and carrots--right after I swooped Tim off the high chair tray, having downed his pureed beans. I then had to explain to Dunc, Alex and Garrett that they HAD to close the back door when they went out because the mosquitos were set on getting in and Tim was set on getting out. Every time the door opened he made a break for it and howled when it was closed before he got there. But I couldn't take him out, I had to finish this Orange Puree so I could make this pizza...

Timmy was now at the pantry cabinet, mocking the onions, and though I stated for the record that he should not be in there I knew he wouldn't listen and I was OK with that since he'd do little more than throw all the juice boxes and ziploc bags he could get his hands on on the floor in the time it took me to puree the orange veggies. But in the time it took me to dump the veggies from the colander to the processor bowl, he pulled a new move and had the oatmeal canister on the floor, opened and dumped. I noted this, and naturally I let him play with the oats in his lap to keep him happy till the pureeing is done. Of course, he heard the noise of some machine on the counter and correctly guessed that there was foodstuff involved, so back into the chair he went to eat some pureed yams and carrots. I threw some oats on his tray as a fine motor, tactile activity, but it did little to delay his desire for more food or descent from the chair. Since this process was taking a while and he was acting tired, I gave him last night's leftover pasta in case he had to go to bed before dinner was done (because clearly he had not eaten enough yet to qualify as "fed.") I added the Orange puree to the bowl and packed away the rest.

In case you were wondering, when you make Orange Puree, Sneaky Chef Make Ahead Recipe #2, the finished product looks something like this:

At this point, Duncan was asleep, everyone was inside except Garrett, who was out on the hammock refusing to come in but complaining about his mosquito bites, and I was ready to be done with the messy part and just make the darn pizza already, which was really quite simple at this point--mix the puree stuff with the tomato sauce, spread it on some pizza dough, and bake. Timmy was all over me, though, so in my distraction I was unwilling to believe that the refrigerated pizza dough I'd bought was not in the fridge. I'd indulged in the luxury of conversing with the neighbor across the street after my Shoprite run yesterday and a lot of the perishables were put away by Jake and, he now claims, other helpers, so I went through the whole fridge four times before I called Jake to ask him where the heck the pizza dough was. While the guy who doesn't even remember his own birthday or what he said thirty seconds ago swore that he knew for a fact that he handled no such food item yesterday, it occurred to me to open the freezer. Two rolls of pizza dough, sitting there with the labels declaring "Do Not Freeze or Microwave." Jake suddenly had to go and catch a train. So, what now? Order normal pizza and be done? Make pizza bagels out of cinnamon-raisin bagels? Something else entirely?

Well, first I took little Tim, now suddenly and adorably resting his head on my shoulder, and put him to bed with the quick addition of a dry diaper and pacifier and subtraction of all orange-contaminated clothing. Next, I informed the troops of my dilemma, at which point Richard welled up with frustrated tears. Now, having gone through the Orange Puree Process with Chef Timothy, I had little sympathy, and might have said something along the lines of unless we live in a third-world country and this pizza was his only food for the week, I hardly found this grounds for tears so cut it out and go sit on the couch until he gained some perspective. (I haven't yet made it through _Raising Cain_ but if anyone wants to tell me I'm being unfair to my boy-child by telling him not to cry, trust me, I'd have been just as obnoxious to Cory if she resorted to tears in such a situation. And how either gender benefits from having parents indicate the it's OK to cry over such a trivial matter when Mom is the one covered in orange, stray oats and Tim's snot and they are not is beyond me anyway. Perhaps that isn't nurturing, but then, did you see that picture of Tim above? How am I supposed to be nurturing to seven of THOSE?)

So Bot made a valiant and possibly resentful effort to suck it up while I went into the kitchen determined to make this stupid thing work our of sheer stubbornness--if it also pleased the kids, so much the better. I plunked the dough in its packages into a bowl of water and waited fifteen minutes, thinking with some satisfaction that at this rate Jake would not, in fact, come home after dinner was done and cleaned up. I tried one roll, which unrolled halfway but was still frozen in its core, and with Cory now watching I slowly coaxed it to stretch out, plopped some sauce and a hefty dose of cheese on top, and shoved it in the oven. I then added some warm water from the tea kettle to the bowl with the other roll still in it, and began to clean up a few things when it popped open and scared the heck out of me. Stretched that one open as well, dumped on sauce and cheese, got the first one out, and unceremoniously dumped squares of Power Pizza onto plates and called the kids to the table. The kids at least were pleased with the miracle of the frozen dough that came back to life and settled in to eat, except Alex.

"Mom, you make the best pizza in the whole WORLD. But, can i have something ELSE on it?"

"Like what, like parmesan cheese?" This is a frequent request in our house since our friend Mallory introduced us to the heavenly combination of pizza and parm.

"Um, no, not parmajon cheese."

"What, then?"

"Like, maybe something like parma-JON cheese" Cory began giggling at that, and I came out with the cheese and sprinkled it on his slice. "NO! Not that!"

"WHAT do you want on it, then?"

"I don't know."

"Then could you please stop asking me for a topping whose identity neither of us knows and just TRY the PIZZA?"

"Oh, okay, okay, okay!"

Jake walked in then, in time to see me with sauce and puree on my shirt, my face a picture of exasperation, the kids all asking if there's more pizza even as I announced for the third time in thirty seconds that the second pie would be out in five minutes, and Duncan arising from his bed to come claim some pizza, and my husband pulled out of a bag...his empty commuter mug. Then he pulled out of another bag a bottle of Bailey's. When I smiled and told him really, a small bag of M&M's would have sufficed, he produced that as well. I might have to wait thirteen or so years to witness one, but Jake does have his really amazing moments...

Little Nutcase Kids

2008-06-05T21:02:00.002-04:00

You all know the story, "Guess How Much I Love You?" Little Nutbrown Hare tries to out-do Big Nutbrown Hare in describing his love, and each time that Big Nutbrown Hare one-ups him, adorably, even when the little guy falls asleep and he whispers that he'll love the little hare "to the moon--and back." Awwww...

Well, we aren't quite that adorable in this house.

(This is mostly fictional via exaggeration, but based on real live nutcases...)

Little Nutcase Kid: "Guess how much I love you?"

Big Nutcase Mom: "How much?"

LNK: "I love you so much that I will trust you not to kill me when I come home the day before a final without my textbook, my tests, or my notes to study from."

BNM: "Yeah? Well, I love you so much that I might possibly not kill you--AND still give you brownies for dessert. Unless you make those annoying repetitive noises at the table in an attempt to be funny--I keep telling you, it isn't funny, it's annoying."

LNK: "But it IS funny when the mouse from Narnia comes in to the room and says the funny line about--"

BNM: "Hey, don't you-who-forgot-his-books have something to say now that it's your turn?"

LNK: "Um, no."

BNM: "About how much you love me?"

Littler Nutcase Kid: "Mom, now that you love me--"

BNM: "I've loved you before now..."

Littler Nutcase Kid: "Oh, fine, now that I love you, I have something wonderful for you."

BNM: "Really? What is it?"

Littler NK: "A book, for you to read to me. Sit here and read it NOW."

LNK: "Oh, yeah, the I love you thing. Um, I love you so much I forget how tempermental and strict and unreasonable you can be when I'm not at a save spot even 45 minutes after the 45 minutes you gave me on the Wii is up and make me shut it off ANYWAY, even though I couldn't SAVE, so much so that I will unflinchingly look you right in the eye right after forgetting to bring home anything to study AND after having Wii privileges taken away for going over my time limit, and will ask you to play Wii, because even though you can be really grumpy I love you so much that I think you're the best mom. Ever. Even though I told you when I was five that Lucas' mom is the best mom because she yells less, I still think you're one of the best moms."

BNM: "Wait, I just went from 'the best mom' to 'one of the best' in a sentence."

Littler Nutcase: "MO-om, I SAID I love you, now COME over here and READ to me!"

LNK: "Well, can I play Wii?"

BNM: "Can pigs fly?"

LNK: "As my religion test might say, and which I know because I studied in school already for the last five minutes of homeroom and will do really well on the final even though you're mad i didn't bring home my books, with God, anything is possible."

BNM: "I think that might be 'Nothing is impossible with God.' "

Littler NK: "Awww, you're STILL not reading to me!"

LNK: "Either translation would still mean that pigs might fly."

BNM: "Saying that they might, or that it is possible or not impossible, doesn't mean they CAN at this moment, just as the fact that it is not impossible that I would grant you Wii time doesn't mean I WILL. Because I won't."

LNK: "But don't you know how much I love you?!?!?"

Littler NK: "Well, I don't love her very much, she's not READing to me!"

BNM: "Are you SERIOUS? I love YOU so much I will manage to only yell, not scream, that you can't be irresponsible about your schoolwork and then expect me to forget that you already have no Wii privileges and let you have Wii!!!"

LNK: "But what ELSE am I going to do, I don't have any homework because of finals!"

BNM: "Because you're supposed to be STUDYING!!!"

LNK: "But I don't have my STUFF!"

BNM: "Whose fault is THAT? You can do chores, empty the dishasher..."

LNK: "You gave that job to Richard because he has so much less homework than I do!"

BNM: "You don't HAVE any today because you didn't bring home your books!"
Little-but-older-than-littler Nutcase Kid: "Why doesn't HE have homework? Grrrrrrr, why do I always have so much homework?"

BNM: "I love you, but don't START with the homework whining, it's a single worksheet. YOU, go empty the dishwasher! And that's only going to be the beginning!"

LNK: (grunt and groans of protest)

BNM: "Yeah, well, I love you so much that I still love you at this point, even though it's only because you're lucky you're CUTE! Because THIS is a ridiculous conversation!"

L-B-O-T-L-N-K: "My HOMEwork is ridiculous!"

Littlest NK: (dead serious, low, threatening voice): "You're not reading to me yet. I'm waiting."

Love them to the moon and back? Hey, with God anything is possible, but it won't be a peaceful trip, that's for sure...

Alex's Latest

2008-05-05T23:54:00.003-04:00

Alex has had some gems recently, not least among them declaring his status as "guest:"

"Mom, which one is the guest, me or Duncan?"

"Neither of you, because you both live here."

"No. One of us has to be the guest. But Duncan is too bossy to be the guest."

"He's too bossy to be the guest?"

"Yup--so I will have to be the guest."

"OK. What does that mean, then?"

"It means we do whatever I say."

"Soooooo, Duncan is too bossy to be the guest so you get to have people do whatever YOU say?"

"Yeah!"

Then there was the singing banana at cousin Hannah's--Alex took part of the peel and moved it up and down singing the Alleluia chorus. Even when the peel went away, the gusto with which he continued to sing in a banana voice (I bet you didn't think bananas had voices, but they do) was very amusing.

But today he showed some of his now-becoming-usual logic in greeting a child who once upon a time while visiting our house stripped down to her diaper. Little Catherine is the youngest of seven, is six months or so younger than Duncan, but has nerve, charm and personality enough to spare. Today I picked her up after dropping Alex off at preschool so she and Dunc could play, and this week I wanted to stay out and about so Timmy didn't sleep until after we were home from the pick-up part. So we went to Shoprite and got some snacks and groceries (they were much more excited about the bagels and raisins than the raw chicken cutlets--probably just as well) and then played at the playground and then walked back over to school to get Alex. (In case you're worried, yes, I brought along an insulated bag for the chicken and other perishables.)

When Alex emerged from the depths of the Early Childhood Center, he squinted and blinked as I told him Catherine was over on the grass and then took off to greet her. She, of course, assumed he wanted to chase, and kept running away. FINALLY, after several false starts in which Alex caught up to her at the stroller and took a deep breath to say, "So, Catherine, so nice to--" before she ran off again and he'd take a tired little sigh of a breath and go off after her, I was able to keep her by the stroller and convince her and Dunc we were going to the car now so that Alex could get out a full sentence.

"So, Catherine, hi, it's nice to see you here getting me from my preschool. Are you going to get naked at my house today?"

I cut in at this point. "Alex, we don't ask people to get naked at our house. Technically, we don't ask people about getting naked in general."

"But, but MOM, she DID get naked at our house before."

"Yes, and that was fine, she's a little kid, and if it should happen again that wouldn't be a big deal, but we don't ASK her to do it, or if she's thinking of doing it."

"But My Friend Jacob likes to DANCE naked when I go to his house,
and that's OK."

"Yes, but you shouldn't ask him to dance naked--if he happens to do so, that's fine if his mom says so."

"But I wasn't asking her to get naked--I just asked her IF she was going to get naked."

"Still not polite to bring it up." (Anyone have a better word to suggest than "polite" in this situation?)

So we went back to the car, got four kids into four car seats, gave out two water bottles, two half-remaining bagels, two boxes of raisins, one sippy cup, and one good pout because I hadn't gotten Alex a PLAIN bagel. For two years my kids have wanted nothing but cinnamon-raisin, and today Alex becomes a plain-preferring bagel purist. (Let's face it, if anyone can think a bagel from a NJ Shoprite is actually a bagel, he has no business telling me he's too picky to have just any old flavor of pretend bagel.) As I ignored him and started home, I caught the word "naked" coming from the second row, where Alex and Catherine were sitting.

"Alex, are you talking about her undressing again?"

"Um, no, not really. But Mom, if I, um, I wanted to say something,
I would need you to not hear, so I need you to put on earmuffs.
Mommy earmuffs."

"I don't have any earmuffs, Mommy-style or otherwise, dear."

"Hmm. But I need you not to hear."

"Not possible, sorry."

"Aw, MAN!" He spent a few moments staring out the window, then turned back to Catherine and said, "Catherine....do you...REMEMBER....when you took off your diaper at my house?"

Got me on a technicality. I'll have to forbid reminiscing about things it is impolite to ask about. But by the time we got home, Catherine's diaper didn't smell so great and Alex has lost all interest in whether or not it comes off now or ever in the future.

Snow-Averse Peace

2008-01-08T09:28:00.000-05:00

So, I had just finished feeding Timmy his morning breakfast (which these days involves putting him in the high chair and taking out the Cheerios box just to watch him give the wide smile and joyful giggle he reserves for his reunions with his Beloved Food, letting him viciously attack a handful or two, and then spooning applesauce into him while trying unsuccessfully to avoid a tug-of-spoon with his teeth at every mouthful) and was walking through the dining room to plop him down with some toys in the living room when I passed Alex and Dunc. They have been obsessed with the Lego City Fireboat I put together for them yesterday ever since, well, since I put it together for them yesterday, but also since Dunc finished breakfast this morning, and were both at the table with the thing.

As I passed the table, Alex said cheerfully, "Oh Mom! We are talking about peace!"

"Really?"

"Yes, peace!"

"Peace as in no fighting, or piece as in Lego piece?"

"Peace as in no fighting."

"Oh, well, that's great, Alex!" Maybe he was trying to come to terms with their mutual obsession and the necessary sharing that is naturally not coming naturally to them, and we'll have less squealing and shouting over the thing, or maybe some of that Christmas "Peace on Earth" terminology got through to him after all...

Alex turned back to Duncan and said, "OK, peace does not belong in snow. Got that?"

No, nothing he's said since has shed any light on his concept of snow-averse peace.

UPDATE:

This just out of the mouth of our star quotee, after the peace talks, Dunc put the walkie-talkie in a spot on the boat that Alex insists is not the right place for it and refused to follow Alex's directions to remove the communicator and return it to its rightful place, so finally Alex sputtered, "Take that out and don't put them in there anymore or you will never be seen again!"

Sounds peaceful, doesn't it? I don't understand, there isn't any snow or anything...

Alex's New Year

2008-01-04T10:56:00.000-05:00

Alex is a hoot, when he isn't just absolutely grating--he's jumpy (half the time that's because he hasn't noticed that he has to go to the bathroom, and the other half he's just enthusiastic but looks like he has to go to the bathroom, so that every time he gets excited about something my first response is "Go to the bathroom" and if he tells me he doesn't have to go, *I* go, because his antsy jumping just demands that some bladder in the room respond) and he talks in a super-fast, demandingly repetitive tone which is adorable when he's enthusiastic (unless you're trying to actually think about anything-- thinking is hard when Alex is talking, and in fact thinking only makes talking to Alex harder) and just awful on the nerves when he's unhappy. And I've started explaining the details of as much as possible to him because it is quite clear, from what comes out of his mouth sometimes, that he is oblivious to most of what goes on in the world (THIS world, he'd say, as in "Mom, do the birds in this world fly over there?" "Mom, do people in this world wear gloves when it's cold?" As if we need to clearly differentiate this world and the creatures in it from all those other worlds I have no doubt are hiding in his head.)

So, New Year's Eve I was putting him and Duncan to bed, a drawn-out process as I wanted to keep them happy and distracted until Jake had gotten the older four out the door for the walk up the block to our old neighbor's house (not that our neighbors are old, it's that they were our neighbors at our old house, which is only a few blocks away) for their New Year's Eve party--and Jake getting out the door without my assistance and supervision is a drawn-out process in and of itself.

As I was helping Alex untangle his pajama and put them on, being very aware of Alex's haziness on all things concerning time, I repeated the cheerful "So it's New Year's Eve, that means this is the last night of 2007. Tomorrow it'll be two-thousand and....?"

He looked thoughtful, then said, "Eight?"

"Yup!"

"Aw, MAN! I don't want it to not be 2007 anymore!"

I was unaware of any emotional attachment to the year of our Lord two thousand and seven, so I was a bit taken aback. "You don't?"

"NO! I want it to still be 2007, I don't want it to be 2008!"

I was tempted to ask why not, but then realized that would only reinforce this concept and lead to a long and sad conversation, so I was inspired to use the always-useful concept of "Birthday."

"But listen, we already had your birthday in 2007, we already had Christmas and Halloween in 2007, all the fun stuff is over because there's only one of those each year."

"Only one? I only have one birthday in 2007?"

"Yes, but if it's 2008, you get another birthday, and another Christmas, and you even start kindergarten this year, and--"

I was abruptly stopped by a huge bear hug from this tiny, skinny little urchin (he's a master of unexpected hugs, topped only by Bot's sudden jumps onto people's backs to hug them, something we're trying to discourage since Bot is seven and bigger and can do serious damage to the old, infirm, and unprepared). "Oh, YES! That's RIGHT! I'm so HAPPY it's going to be 2008 and I will have another BIRTHday! That's so wonderful!"

"Well, good. Happy New Year, Alex!"

"Oh, yes, HAPPY NEW YEAR, Mom! Hey Duncan, I will have aNOTHER birthday in this new year!"

Duncan started jumping up and down in imitation of Alex, saying, "Haf nudder Thomas birfday party! Yay!" (Duncan doesn't care who's birthday it is as long as there are Thomas decorations involved--when I told him Christmas was Jesus' birthday he said, "We haf Thomas cake?") while Alex chattered on and on about what joys 2008 would bring, mostly involving birthday and Legos.

I left the room quickly while I was ahead...

UPDATE:

As an addendum to Alex's story, this very afternoon he and I met on the kitchen steps and he gave me a hug. Then he looked down at my belly and said, "Mom, is there a baby in your---wait. Um, is it 2008 yet?"

"Yes, it is. What's that about a baby?" I knew what was coming, but still, I wanted him to say it.

"Oh, it is, good. Then, oh, is there a baby growing in your tummy yet?"

"Uh, no."

"No? Not YET? Hmmm." And he thoughtfully rubbed my belly like it was hurt or broken and he was trying to make it better.

Giving Pregnancy a Good Name

2007-11-05T09:44:00.000-05:00

So, you'd think that in having seven babies I'd manage to give pregnancy a positive image--it is, after all, something I do often, and get excited (and cranky, and nauseous, and tired) about, and Bot especially looks forward to the babies and gets all cutesie about them. But as for Bot's image of pregnancy...

G was helping pick up train tracks in the playroom after I asked Alex to help clean them up and Alex refused, when Garrett said out of nowhere, "Mom, do you have a belly button?"

"I do. Does everyone have belly buttons?"

"Yes."

"And does everyone have a penis?"

"Yes."

"Nope--only boys have them. Girls don't."

Bot turned at that one. "Why the heck" (everything these days is "the heck" to Bot) "are you talking about THAT?"

Good question, and I'm not totally sure, but I guess I figured with G and Alex and Dunc around for the anatomy lesson, I should just cover the bases and make sure we were all clear on the basic boy-girl differences. But it did make me wonder if going from belly buttons to more private anatomy in one jump was really appropriate, so I got self-conscious and opted not to mention the whole Kindergarten Cop "Girls have a vagina" line. But my mouth was already opening so I limited what came out to "Girls have babies. Can boys have babies?"

G was hesitant and gave his default answer: "I don't know."

"No. Boys can't have babies--only women can have babies."

Bot then chirped up. "I am SO glad I don't ever have to deal with all the--the--" I was so sure he was about to say "the pain of childbirth" since the deliberate use of an overheard phrase like that would be so like him, but instead he blurted: "The getting huge and looking like a hippopotamus!!!"

He beamed a huge mischievous smile at me, and I grinned right back with mock indignation, but I did note that he was sticking close to the doorway of the playroom, and also noted that it was a wise move. Not a dummy, my son.

Of course, I still know where he sleeps. And few people know what stealthy hunters hippos can be.

Update: A friend of mine sent me this link after reading my email--looks like hippos and I have a lot more in common than pregnancy!

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhippo.html

Dates...

2007-04-16T23:21:00.001-04:00

So, last week the dentist's office called Jake to inform him he was due for a cleaning, so he asked for the next Saturday appointment knowing it would be pretty far out and then caught me as I walked through the kitchen and said, "Hey, is the morning of June 7 free, or do you think anything will pop up?"

I made an exasperated gesture toward the newborn in my arms and the pages of the calendar between now and then indicating "How the heck should I know about something that far away, I'm tired because I just had a baby!" and when he got off the phone I barked at him, "How the heck should I know about June 7? I'm tired and i just had a baby! And you put me on the spot and expect me to just know about something two months away instantly?"

"Well, I figured some holiday or something might be then...or you might know about some--I don't know!"

"What holidays are there when the dentist would have hours? What holidays are there in June? Father's Day, that's a Sunday and late the month, so it has nothing to do with June 7--"

Well, then maybe some kid's birthday or something..."

"How about YOU think about this instead of asking me to do it for you? THINK, what happens in June?!?!"

"I DON'T KNOW! MY DAD'S BIRTHDAY! See, I remembered! SO THERE!"

"Um, that's in July." At that point I just started laughing and couldn't stop.

"Really?" That's when he started laughing. "But isn't someone's in June?"

"Yes. Mine." Liam couldn't figure out why we were laughing so hard...

Seven

2007-04-04T21:10:00.000-04:00

A few pictures!