—1—
Took my kids to an indoor playplace. You know the kind. Sort of like McDonald's play areas except bigger and with slightly less chance of finding chewed-up chicken nuggets in the ball pit.
I usually don't mind taking my kids here (it's not like I have to get in the ball pit, after all) but this time there were a few flies buzzing around and sitting there for 90 minutes with them landing all over me was like the extra tenth circle in some special extended edition of Dante's Inferno. I was almost happy when we had to leave due to a pants-wetting incident.
For an hour after we got home I was feeling phantom fly legs on me and swatting at myself like a crazy person.
—2—
I've never really been a craft person, and neither have my older kids. They sometimes receive a fun "Make Your Own XYZ!" kit from Michael's for their birthday and it goes straight to the Craft Graveyard, which is a shelf in our dining room where those kinds of kits go to die. No one will ever use them.
I know this, yet for some reason we have an entire cabinet stocked with pipe cleaners and glitter glue and stuff, just in case.
But something weird happened: my 4-year-old IS a crafter. I've never done a single craft with her and she's always making random things. I love the self-guided projects that come right out of her 4-year-old mind.
I still need to ask about her latest creation, which I noticed drying on the counter:
Googly eyes glued to a cut-up Dixie cup shot glass. Your guess is as good as mine. |
—3—
There's this bush in our front yard we've been watching out of the corners of our eyes for a few years, just waiting and wondering if we should pronounce it dead.
We are the Addams family (snap, snap.) |
Originally it was in the flowerbed next to our house, where it served as a land bridge for the ants to damage our wood siding and trim. When a storm came along and halfway uprooted the bush, we took that as a sign to remove it.
We thought we'd try relocating it to a sunny spot near the driveway, where it's been floundering for the last few years producing a few straggly blossoms and leaves at odd times after the growing season is over.
This year nothing at all grew, so I think it's time to call it. Time of death: 2:51 PM. Rest in peace, bush. I'll add you to the long list of plants I've murdered while trying to keep them alive.
—4—
I'm also afraid that this week marks the beginning of the end, as far as nursing goes. I have always loved to breastfeed my babies, reasons #1 and #2 being that it's easier and cheaper than formula, but also because it has emotional attachments for me.
I've always loved laying the baby next to me and snuggling during those middle-of-the-night feeds. I like the physical closeness and seeing them looking up at me and then letting go to smile.
For the last 4 months I've been exclusively nursing my baby, but we've been watching his weight drop from the 65th percentile, to the 40th, to the 8th. We've started him on rice cereal and supplementing with a few ounces of formula or expressed milk every day (I've been saving up, knowing that this day was going to come sooner or later.)
I've done both breast and bottle over the last 12 years, and I can definitively say that babies thrive either way, but it's always a little sad for me when I have to give up nursing before I'm ready. I'm not giving it up completely just yet, but it seems like introducing the bottle is always the kiss of death. Our babies say, "Oh, this is fantastically easy! I would MUCH rather eat this way from now on!" and that's that.
—5—
At school, my daughter had an assignment to design a utopian society and then answer a bunch of questions about it: what it's like, how it's governed, what types of jobs people have, and so on.
The person in charge of my daughter's utopian society is called the High Librarian and s/he is assisted by the Council of Lower Librarians, and that's about all you need to know about what's important to her.
—6—
Any suggestions for pulling out a really stubborn loose tooth? For months, my daughter's tooth has been able to turn almost a complete 360 degrees, and yet it's firmly attached at the same time.
At this point the adult tooth isn't even pushing it out anymore, it's just given up and grown in crooked next to the baby tooth (don't even talk to me about how expensive that's going to be to fix.)
Tying it to a doorknob and slamming it isn't an option, either. My daughter and I would both faint if we tried that. And maybe if we just talked about it.
—7—
My son lost a tooth at school, and the nurse gave him this little plastic treasure chest to put it in and take it home. Unfortunately it came open and the tooth fell out who knows where, so I told him to just leave a note for the Tooth Fairy and she'd understand.
He looked at me weird, probably because he already knows the truth about the Tooth Fairy. Even the 4-year-old, who hasn't even lost any teeth yet, announces about three times a day that "the Tooth Fairy is just mom and dad!" but I still make them act like it's real.
If I'm going to go to all the trouble to make sure I have cash on hand, actually remember to go in their room after lights out, and sneak in there like a Ninja trying to avoid stepping on Legos or waking up any of the kids, then they're darn well going to go along with it and act like they're having the most magical childhood of all the childhoods!
Oh, and here's his note, which made me laugh.
12 comments:
Oh man, flies are no fun! Occasionally when I'm at home with Peter, if I open our balcony door to get a whiff of fresh air, a fly will come in (no screens on the doors in our apartment complex!). Such a little creature can be so irritating. I always think of Emily Dickinson's poem, "I heard a fly buzz when I died." I'm sorry that you're having to begin the ending of nursing process before you are ready! While it is so sad, I think it is so admirable that you're willing to do whatever's best for your baby.
Probably time to let the dentist pull it out. My dads a dentist and we are all about letting the kid get it out on their own but if the big teeth are being stopped from growing it's time to just get it out:). Also, wish I liked breastfeeding as much as you do!
Ha ha - I love the tooth fairy note!
The flies- argh!! YAY!! A self directed crafter!! You are gonna have FUN!!
My condolences on the dead tree. Hi! My name is Melinda, and I'm a plant murderer too.
The rather eat bottle not breast happened with me too, second baby. At 9 months, I couldn't even TIE her down to breast feed anymore. My sympathies.
Oh, oh! I almost forgot the best part!!
The High Librarian, with the Council of Lower Librarians sounds like the Utopianist Utopia in all the universe!! I wanna go there!!
I think we might just have to do that. We've tried everything else (someone suggested sliding dental floss in there and trying to loosen it up, but that didn't go well.)
Doesn't that sound like such a great place to live?
At first I kept wondering, "Do I just really stink, or what?" But then I saw another mom swatting at the air so I felt a little better about myself.
Oh, and I've done plenty of tapping my toe impatiently waiting for the baby to finish, or being exasperated when he keeps looking around and causing me to flash everyone in public, or wishing desperately that I didn't always have to be the one to get him when he's hungry at 3AM - but overall, I do really like nursing.
oh my gosh that tooth fairy note made me laugh out loud
Hate for you to spend $ at the dentist, but my friend's little boy had a similar tooth, and when they got that sucker out - the root was INCHES long! I do NOT know how it fit in his mouth, but it would never have grown out. It was a pretty graphic picture in the palm of his dad's hand... Teeny tiny baby tooth, then this crazy long root.
I think if we haven't successfully gotten it out by the next cleaning, we'll schedule the extraction.
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