The other night Heather and I were going over cookbooks, making our plan for Thanksgiving dinner and all the other goodies we are baking/cooking up this week. Nic was doing his best to feign interest when we mentioned our fruitcake plans. (We decided we wanted to try one. A cake soaked in booze can’t be all that bad!)
“Don’t those take like a really long time to make? Like months?” Nic asked.
Heather and I looked at each other. The “where does he get this crazy crap?!” look.
“I don’t think so.” I said.
“I don’t think so” she said.
But we turned to the recipe more carefully to make sure.
Step five: baste in rum syrup once a week for at least a month.
D’OH.
I wanted Will to put on his shirt. He wants to spend the entire day naked.
I said “are you listening to mommy the first time?”
He said nothing.
I said “1…2…”
And he looked up and me and said “oh no! she’s counting!” and put up his arms for his shirt.
…why your three year old should not be in the room for Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
But perhaps the best reason is that weeks later he might come into the kitchen without pants and announce:
“Mommy, I’ve got a surprise for you.”
One of Will’s most favorite songs is “jingle bells” and I am thrilled that it is almost seasonally appropriate. My favorite part is the way Will sings it:
“almost fun it is to ride”
Other current Will mix-ups:
for the last few months submarine has been submermaid…but now it’s submermermaid. I’m pretty sure he’ll be ready to drop the mermaid soon!
he is convinced that pacifiers are “fire hydrants”
“lips” are “leeps”–he sounds like sebastian on the little mermaid (“you must pucker up your LEEPS like DEES”)
he has been calling me a “good boy” lately. with adorable phrases like “don’t cry mommy. it’s okay. you’re a good boy.” (I wasn’t crying, but apparently he thought I had cause.) 
And I shouldn’t forget to record one of Will’s favorite (if a little weird) games. He likes to “match tummies”…he lifts up his shirt, pushes up your shirt, and, well, matches tummies. It was a lot easier a few months ago!
Every so often Will will do something that truly surprises me.
Like this afternoon we were hanging out in the office. I have banned tv for the day, so he was working on puzzles on the floor while I fix up pictures of half-naked girls. Then out of the blue he said “Can I go lay down on your mommy’s bed?”
I said “of course!” and when I peeked in on him 20 minutes later (I didn’t want to jinx the magic!), he was just dozing off to sleep.
You dream and you dream about the day that he’ll take a nap without a fuss when you put him down…but you just never even think to dream about something as wonderful as a voluntary nap!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Posted in family
About once a year I put Will through a week-long television detox program. Cold turkey. No tv. One week.
The first day is hell. Constant “can I watch a show? please mommy, PLEASE?!” followed by tears. But that just strengthens my resolve. Clearly detox is needed.
Day two is better. Yesterday he didn’t cry about television until 8:30, which only served to remind us that it was bedtime.
Day three is when things start to turn around. When he’ll wander off to play by himself without me having to come up with an activity and stick around for the first half of it. He woke up this morning and didn’t ask “can we go downstairs?” because there was no reason to go downstairs…what with the television ban and all. He’s playing independently without constantly bugging me…and there’s no television involved. (except that he does happen to be singing the mickey mouse clubhouse theme to himself at this moment, but that doesn’t count.) 😛
I wish there was some way to do television easily in moderation. But when he’s watching it, he’s obsessed with it. He can’t think of anything else he could possibly do that would be as much fun. It has to be off entirely and out of his system for him to remember that he can entertain himself well for hours without it.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Posted in family
The thing I like most about preschool days is that I get a ton of work done.
The thing I like least is that if I go to the bathroom and suddenly discover there’s no toilet paper, there’s no three year old to come running to my rescue.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Posted in family
“Show and tell” is a big deal to Will. (Scratch that–to ALL preschoolers.) The first month we were aware of show and tell, Will he wanted to bring his knuffle bunny. So I sent him with the knuffle bunny and the two stories about knuffle bunny. A perfectly good show and tell. A toy plus a book. I figured the teachers would give me an A+.
The next week he wanted to bring a toy. We’d just gotten a newsletter saying that show and tell Wednesdays were the day to bring special toys, so we figured it was kosher. Nic even asked the teacher if Will’s Happy Meal toy was really an okay show and tell, and she said it was fine.
So we had a few weeks where Will would bring a toy to show and tell. He would usually pick it out days before the actual show and tell day, and it was obviously a big thing to his three year old self. The highlight of his week.
Then we got a newsletter saying that EDUCATIONAL show and tells that fit their monthly theme were encouraged and just plain toys were not cool. Educational show and tell is just another way of saying “weekly giant pain in Traci’s ass.” Now every week if Will wants to bring something, I have to figure out something that is in some way educational, AND related to either the water cycle or fall. So we’ve been skipping show and tell lately.
Today is Wednesday. Will asked if he could bring a giant yellow bear for show and tell. I told him it wasn’t right for show and tell, sorry buddy. So we get to school and not only does he not have a show and tell, he also is sans his green monster backpack, which I couldn’t find. The first thing he does is pointedly look at the row of coats and backpacks.
“I don’t have my green monster backpack” he tells me. “It’s lost.”
Oh the guilt.
I tell him that Daddy and I will find it tonight and he can bring it next time. He says “Daddy will find it.” Because clearly his jerk of a mother isn’t going to put it on her priority list.
Then he walks over to the bucket that the teachers keep all the show and tell stuff in. He looks inside it. I look inside it.
And what do I see?
TOYS.
THOSE FUCKERS.
“Sorry, buddy.” I whisper. “We’ll bring a show and tell next week.” And I stand there while the mix of hope and sadness and curiosity and left-outness on his face is burned into my heart.
And then I contemplate spending the rest of the morning standing outside the room waiting for other parents to show up with non-educational show and tells so I can punch them in the junk.
halloween
It’s Halloween, and it’s one of our favorite holidays. Mainly because Will loves pumpkins SO MUCH and costumes SO MUCH and we all love Papa Murphey’s jack-o-lantern pizza SO MUCH.
Last year Will said “Happy Ween!” and “Trick Treat” and “Pums” and this year it’s all “Happy Halloween” “Trick or Treat!” and “Pumpkins” (or usually “plumply dumply pumpkins” like in his favorite story). We’ve been playing spooky ghost and scary witch games all morning. We’ll be going to the pumpkin patch this afternoon and Will still loves pumpkins as much as last year…but this year he hasn’t insisted on taking any to bed with him every night.
We don’t expect many trick-or-treaters at our house, and trick-or-treating here would be all walk and no treats, so we’ll be heading over to our old street early this evening for our trick-or-treating and then coming back to watch movies and eat our papa murphey’s pumpkin pizza and hopefully hand out candy to a trick-or-treater or two!
Will thinks the words to “yo ho yo ho a pirate’s life for me” are ‘yo ho yo ho the pirates of the sea” which actually makes a lot of sense so I haven’t corrected him.
Disney had a commercial on hulu the other day that started with that song and Will came sprinting over. “Do you remember when we went on the Pirates ride at Disneyland?” I asked Will. “Yeah–we rode in a boat. And we had to go flying in a BIIIIGGGG jet.”
He does remember!
I was disappointed tonight to discover that the bat pajamas I’d been waiting to go on sale for Will were all sold out. He is a big lover of bats and batman (the whole thing is all mixed up to him since he’s never actually seen a batman show or movie, so it’s all just stuff he hears at school) and I knew the batman pajamas would have been a big hit. But then I thought about it and realized it wouldn’t be so hard to make him a little batman “costume”–after we use his grey sweats for his wall-e costume tomorrow I can just sew a yellow circle and a bat to the sweatshirt and make him a little cape. I’m sure I already have everything for it here, and the thing about Will is that it doesn’t have to be perfect–he loves anything that’s remotely close to what it’s supposed to look like!
So tonight I told Will that on Sunday I’m going to make him a batman costume. His whole face lit up and he said “you WILL?” And in promising that yes, we’ll make him a batman costume on Sunday it was like he understood just how much I love him. All because I’m going to stick a bat silhouette to a yellow circle of fabric and sew them both to a gray sweatshirt.
As I left Will’s room tonight I heard Willie say “good night, babies” to his two baby dolls. Soooo cute!
In the new house we’ve upgraded Will from his crappy crib-to-toddler/mattress-is-waterproof-and-makes-him-overheat-and-get-sweaty bed to our bed. (And we’ve upgraded to a tempurpedic mattress…on the floor. But the new bed is coming. Or so Costco says.) We got his room all set up this weekend, including pictures on the wall, glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and the Disney princess nightlight he picked out at Lowes. He’s got his playroom downstairs, so really the only thing in that room is his bookshelf, a box of stuffed animals (still need to get a basket for them) and his clothes.
Having a queen sized bed for him is pretty awesome–not only does he seem much happier to sleep in it (and therefore to leave us just fighting amongst ourselves for space in a spacious queen instead of fighting for the millimeters of room he leaves in his wake), it’s also awesome at storytime to pile the whole family into the bed with a stack of books. Much nicer than sitting on the floor!
Tonight he used the particularly manipulative “one more story” stalling technique, but I’ve been working super hard with him on “what I say I mean–no matter how cute or manipulative you are the answer is not going to change” and I didn’t want to risk my progress, so I told him that I would read the trucks book to him first thing in the morning. No dice. So I told him he could read the book after I left, but it was still hugs/kisses time. Usually he gives up at this point because it’s not about the book, it’s about extra mom/dad time. But he actually held onto the book! So he got his hugs and kisses and I told him I’d leave the light on and come back and turn it off later.
Later came, I checked on him…and he was sitting in bed with a now bigger pile of books reading quietly to himself. (And while it’s snowing here in Black Forest, I did check and hell hadn’t actually frozen over.) I gave him a kiss, told him how proud I was, and that I’d be back in a little while to turn off the light.
When I came back ten minutes later he was still happily reading away. Quietly reading away. All tucked in under the blankets–he was clearly grabbing a few books, putting himself back under the covers, reading those books, and then going out for more. It was more than my heart could take!
So I gave him more kisses, told him what a good reader he was, and left. When I checked on him next, he was sound asleep under the covers, hugging his two baby dolls, surrounded by a sea of books.
If he wants to stay up at night quietly reading until he passes out with his baby dolls, he’ll find no objections from me.
We have been telling Will for the last couple of months that “we’ll tell Santa about that” whenever he’s at a store and there’s something he wants that we don’t intend to buy. Or when he’s being a good boy. (Or sometimes when he’s not.) Anyway, it’s adorable to hear what he thinks we should tell Santa about. Like today we saw a deer on the way to preschool and he pointed and said “Mommy? We tell Santa bout dat?”
I think he thinks that maybe we’re just storing things up for some massive conversation we’re going to have with Santa this Christmas!
This morning Will invented a game. He shouts “BOOO!!” at my belly and then looks at me mischievously and brags “I cried him.” (Which translates to “I made her cry.”) “How about you make her LAUGH?” I suggested. To which he replied “NO! I *cried* him!” and gleefully shouted “BOOO!” into my belly a few more times.
Not awesome.
Will is often “William Francis” when things get serious. So it greatly amused us when Will wanted Nic to do something today and upon getting no response the first time, he broke out “Daddy Francis.”
The new teacher in Will’s class started calling him William. All of his schoolwork says William, his coat tag says William, when I drop him off they say “good morning, William.”
The other kids have started calling him William. Sometimes at home he says “My name’s William!” (if we should dare to call him something else, like a little bear or something like that.)
It’s making me crazy.
HIS NAME IS WILL.
I’ve tried everything. I say loudly every morning “Bye Will!” and loudly every afternoon “Hi Will!” On his family tree homework project I wrote WILL underneath his picture. When I talk to the teacher about him, I say WILL.
I told Nic that it was really pissing me off that they are calling him the wrong name at school and I’m about three minutes away from talking to the front desk and asking that they call him Will, as I requested on the registration form a year ago.
He laughed at me. He said the child’s name IS William. And I said only on his birth certificate, driver’s license, wedding invitation and when he’s sworn in as president. Will is his name. Or Willie. NOT WILLIAM.
We were driving by the elementary school the other day and a football team was practicing. “GO THIS WAY, MOMMY!” Will shouted from the back seat, pointing to the street that led to the school. We were going that way anyway.
“Soccer!” Will said as we got closer.
“No buddy–that’s football.” I explained.
“I go play football?” he asked.
“Sorry, honey. You’re too little. But when you’re a big boy, you can play.”
“I will?”
“Yep.”
“Can I play football first?” (“First” he uses instead of “now” probably because he’s constantly hearing sentences like “first we have to go to the store, then we’ll go to the park.”)
He was so earnest in his desire to join the team. It broke my heart. And then I realized something very important.
You can marry a man with no interest in sports, but that doesn’t keep you safe. You can still find yourself getting dragged into a world of weekday practices and Saturday games in the name of love.
hardwood floors all through the downstairs = bike riding indoors. Round and around he goes in little circles in the kitchen.
Will adds a “v” to the end of a lot of words. Like “die” is “dive.” And instead of the word kill he uses “die” as a verb–like “I dived the yucky bug, mommy.”
The “v” pops up most often in “score” which becomes “scorve.” He is always inventing new games–one of our favorites is “scorve ball.”
I was terrified to weigh myself this morning after three weeks of solid fast food and absolutely no work-outs since we decided to move. Was thrilled that I am still right on track to gain 25lbs. 14 weeks to go, and I’ve gained 11lbs so far. I weigh as much now, entering the third trimester with ellie, as I did entering the second trimester with Will!! Thank God for three year old physical trainers!  The thought of coming home from the hospital and only having 15 lbs to lose instead of 40 is pretty amazing! In fact, I’m gonna go celebrate with a cookie.
Will is always on the look-out for new ways to say “no.” Except they frequently don’t mean no. Like the long period where he would say “no problem” meaning “no, that’s a problem.”
The latest is “nothing special.” Or (from Monsters vs Aliens) “never ever ever ever ever again.”
This pregnancy is just FLYING by. I can’t believe I am one week shy of the last trimester. Of course, we have a lot more going on than I did the last time, but it still seems like my first pregnancy could be measured in dog years compared to this one!
I picked up my latest Zofran refill today (I’m down to only needing it about once a week) and realized that I hit the $1k mark with this refill. 120 pills, 6 months of pregnancy, $1k worth of nausea. And that’s the generic–if I was going with REAL Zofran we’d be looking at something around $5k! Thank goodness for insurance–I’ve paid $80….they picked up the rest.
I watched a friend’s three month old and three year old earlier this week. Wow. I can’t believe we’re about to go back to that world. It’s a little terrifying. Will is at such a good age I’m not sure I’m really prepared for the giant time sink the baby will be. I didn’t even really realize what a difference there is between 4 and 3. Will was so independent compared to the three year old, that I was happy about our kids’ 4 year gap for the first time!
Will’s not been all that into the pregnancy. He loves, loves, loves babies…but the pregnancy has clearly been a little over his paygrade.
But yesterday morning, for no particular reason, he woke up singing (as always), then scooched down, gave my belly a hug and said:
“That’s my best friend baby. That’s my baby stister ellie.”
He gave her hugs and kisses and even sang her a song.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Posted in seasons
We went into town tonight to buy a tempurpedic mattress (one of my life’s goals). In town, there was no snow on the ground. Here, we’ve got around 6 inches. Will and I had driven out in it, so I knew what to expect as we drove home. In other words, as you cross into the forest, be prepared to cross into the North Pole.
My Civic is equipped with snow tires, which makes it like the most bad ass Civic ever. Our neighborhood road isn’t plowed, which made leaving pretty exciting. It was definitely the deepest snow I’d ever attempted driving in, and I’m guessing I’ll only get more seasoned as we head into actual winter! I passed a Jetta that was stranded and being pulled out of a ditch by a neighbor, and another Civic out on our main road that was in an accident. We made it safely to town, though, and I marvelled at everything I’ve learned about snow driving in our last three years living at 7000ft. To think the very first day we lived here I totally had a panic attack driving around with just a little ice on the roads and sobbed the entire way to our house closing!
We bought our mattress, grabbed dinner, and headed home. Will opted to ride in “Daddy’s monster truck” (the Jeep) versus “Mommy’s race car” as is his usual way. And we all set off for home.
You wanna know what’s not fun? Watching in the rear view mirror as the car your child is in drives off the road.
Nic’s a good winter driver, and the Jeep does pretty well in the snow (not as well as the Civic with snow tires, but well nonetheless) so when I saw their lights cross into the wrong lane my first thought was “what are they doing?!” and then when I saw them spin around and turn into rear lights I thought “did he forget something?” It wasn’t until I watched them cross back over the road and end up in the ditch that I realized it was time to be freaked out. We were going all of 25 mph, so it’s not like it was a high speed crash, but when your child’s wobbly head is in any kind of car-out-of-control situation, it’s still scary.
I got a call from Nic to let me know that they were okay, and that Will wanted to talk to me. Nic said Will was okay, but thought he might be a little S-C-A-R-E-D. Will got on the phone and the conversation went like this:
“Mommy?”
“Yeah buddy?”
“Ummm. [pause] Mommy? [pause] We’re crashing!”
“I know buddy–it’s okay. You did crash but you’re okay now.”
“I scared.”
“It’s okay sweetie–we’ll be home soon. Everything is okay.”
We got home and Will got out of the jeep and leapt into my arms. “Mommy? Daddy crashed his monster truck!”
I just keep thinking about how cool it is that he’s old enough to tell us these things now. For him to process what happened, put a narrative on it, tell us about it and how he feels, and get the reassurance he needs. So different from a year ago when he just couldn’t talk to us like this!
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mom - I am exactly the same way!
shannon - We seriously need a detox here… sounds doable if I can get through the first few days… enjoyable even…
alibeach - It is just so much worse as they get older. Totally going to detox Slater now. Starting tomorrow!