orichalcum

When I dropped Mac off at school this morning, I noticed a new project on display. Last week had focused on dinosaurs, which Mac of course loved. For a group project, the kids took a giant cutout of a real dinosaur footprint, and then traced their own feet inside the dinosaur footprint. Their teachers asked them, "How many of our little feet can fit inside the dinosaur footprint?" and then wrote the answers on a big chart, after noting that the correct number was 28.

Most of the kids said, "2!" or "5!" or "2...um, lots!"

Mac apparently said, "Just green. I want a big dinosaur, actually."

Sigh. I'm starting to wonder if he may have the same issue that his dad and I both had as kids (and arguably as adults) of being really good at difficult things and bad at/bored by basic skills. It does boggle me slightly that a child who can cross-reference images of toys across different children's books ( "Look, Mommy, Curious George has toy plane like Little Blue Engine. But that plane really big. This just little plane.") can't remember the difference between green and blue, or that he can sing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" but not count to 5. Toddler brains are strange and wondrous things; it will all work out in the end.

In other amusing verbal news, Mac has decided that "hammer" is a good all-purpose adjective, useful for phrases like "It's a big hammer train" and "I want big hammer pants." (Yes, we giggled.) I asked him what "hammer" meant, and this was more or less his response: "Hammer is...only one at school. Only. special. My hammer!" My current deduction is that "hammer" therefore means "special" or "unique" because, unlike the other toys at school, there's only one hammer. It's a working theory, at least.

Meanwhile, Eowyn is reacting to the advent of spring by trying to eat as much grass as possible, with predictable results. However, she's gotten into a much better relationship with Mac, thankfully, and will even happily let him brush her after she comes in wet from a rainy walk. I remain incredibly thankful that we have a dog gentle enough that, even when a overenthusiastic toddler accidentally pokes her in the eye, she'll just look at me imploringly rather than getting hostile or aggressive.

I mentioned to Mac the other day that Eowyn was going over to play with Finn, the Davis-Wilson's dog.
"I want to play with Finn!"
"Mac, you know Finn doesn't really play well with you. He's scared of you."
"I give Finn treats! Then he not scared! Then he not bark!"
Can't say Mac isn't learning the basics of dog training early on!

In recent weeks, Mac has graduated up from sentences into actual narratives - of sorts. If you ask him a question like "What did you do today?" he will often respond by giving a present-tense version of his own reactions and statements to events that happened. Reconstructing the actual facts of the matter, especially if you weren't there - now that's the amusement and the challenge.

( Three examples to amuse your Monday: )

Some other amusing bits of dialogue from our road trip back from L.A. yesterday:
Mac: (singing) "Jingle Truck! Jingle Truck!"
Me: "Oh what fun, it is to ride, in a four-wheel open truck, hey?"
CP: "That wasn't the rhyme I was thinking of."

Mac: "Where's julianyap? I want to see julianyap! And ladybird97!"
Me: julianyap's in Singapore right now, very far away.
Mac: "Take plane see Julian?"
Me: "No, we can't do that. But soon, you're going to see jendaviswilson and redhound! And Finn!"
Mac: "Okay. I like Finn."

When we came home, he ran to the picture of friends from Gencon, and pointed out the people he knew, "There's Julian! And ladybird97! And Daddy! And mrmorse (actually xse99, but, well, they've both got curly brown hair)! And redhound (actually havenstone, a fairly reasonable confusion.) " Then he paused, upset. "Where's Mac-y?"
Trying to explain to him that there was no way he could have been in a photo from the summer of 1998 did not seem to go over well.

Mac has just spent the last twenty minutes in his crib wailing "I Want Sleep!"

Yes, Mac. So say we all. There's an easy way to get it, too.

And no, we are not cruel parents. There has been the hugging and the ritual offering of food and beverage and the gentle words and even the Tylenol, when it seemed that his teeth were hurting.

This is the result of three weeks of indulgence of letting him come in for midnight visits and an afternoon at his preschool festival full of way too much sugar, plus a week of preschool and all the confusion and upsetness therein. (It's not that he dislikes preschool, we're pretty sure; it's that he's happiest when Mom and Dad are both within six feet and focused on him.)

At some point, there needs to be a limit. And right now, that means me listening to him cry, and waiting for him to sleep.

It's hard to be a big kid.

I guess the connection between capitalism and politics does start at an early age. Seriously, though, these kids are brilliant.

In other kid-related news (before we take off for four days in Albion, CA, near Mendocino), Mac appears to be adopting an upper-class British accent, possibly in imitation of my supposed accent. I keep catching him saying "I wohnt dah-dih!"

Looks like it won't be Sebelius. Sigh. :(

A few amusing moments in Mac conversation the last few days:
Yesterday, I was going to skip his morning shower, because he'd gotten an evening shower and we were in a hurry. He started crying and jumping in the tub.
"I'm sorry, Mac," I said. "I know this isn't your normal routine."
"I Want My Normal Routine!!!!" he wailed.

At dinner tonight, CP leaned over and said, "Mac, are you all done?"
"Pants!" he answered clearly and decisively.

He gets a report card every day from preschool. Predictably, he spent a great deal of his first day proclaiming "I want outside! I want slide!"

Meanwhile, Eowyn has made a new friend, a 1-year-old black Lab named Benny, who she spent a bunch of time with both them lying next to each other on their backs, stomachs exposed to the sky. Also, our courtyard neighbors have a 12-week old white furball puppy, but Eowyn (who tried to submit to it) isn't allowed to play with it yet, cuz it hasn't had its shots. She's behaving better and  calmer every day; all the exercise and socialization is really good for her.

So sayeth George Takei.

Special congrats to ellinor, who helped make Equality Day in California happen!

And while I'm at it, check out the Middleman, the new show of another great Angeleno, spyscribe, whose username is becoming all the more appropriate and whose voice I can already begin to hear in the awesome character of Wendy Watson.

39 As a 1930s wife, I am Poor Take the test!

Score of 39, probably getting bonus points from my willingness to help out my husband with his job and my lack of red nail polish. :)

If, hypothetically speaking, one's toddler had taken a glue trap, unfolded it, and placed it glue-side down on the carpet in one's rented apartment, and one had managed to get the cardboard off, but there was still a quite sticky residue, untouched by multiple washings and applications of carpet cleaner solution, what should one do next???

Reassuring a mom anxious about her daughter's precarious walking ability that I didn't walk until 16 months is, perhaps, slightly less comforting when wearing a large ankle brace.

"Well, it's great that you've worked all the kinks out" is the wrong metaphor to use when discussing a relationship, generally speaking.

Mac has been throwing temper tantrums entirely connected to our refusal to let him model all adult things. Example #1: Taking money out of my wallet, being very possessive out of it, and then, strangely, attempting to throw it out the window (luckily we have the aforementioned screens.) #2: Getting very upset when _he_ wasn't allowed to write checks in the checkbook.

He also got extremely angry yesterday when I failed to be appropriately appreciative of all his hard work in carrying over a piece of his playfence next to the stereo table, wedging it against the wall to form a ramp of sorts, and scrambling up it so he could stand on the stereo table and start throwing CDs around.

Of course, he got a big bump and Totally Insignificant cut on his eyebrow from running into the TV table two days before my mother-in-law arrives.

New word-phrase of the day: "Lion Roar!"

And what about Eowyn? Well, she was being a very barky dog for a long while while CP was the only one walking her. Since I've been doing some walking again, we've been working on the training and it's been getting better. However, there is one odd new behavior I can't curb. She used to totally ignore our babysitter, who's not really a dog person. For the past few weeks, since our babysitter advanced to the stage in her pregnancy when the baby started kicking, however, every time she arrives Eowyn runs up to her excitedly and insists on sniffing and pushing her head right up against Y's belly. She's particularly insistent on Tuesdays when she hasn't seen the sitter for four days - it's like a checkup. This isn't really thrilling Y, although she understands what's going on.

Sometimes I do feel a bit sad that Eowyn will never get to have her own puppies.

Mac just went to the bathroom, tore off a bunch of toilet paper from the roll, ran back to the living room, and tried to rub the big purple bruises off my foot. This was ineffective and kinda painful, but really sweet.

Yesterday, when we needed to make a quick trip outside to the FedEx office (Someday I will learn Not To Be Stupid and to Pay Attention To Deadlines), I started putting on my shoes without socks, since my ankle is too swollen. Mac ran over and started pulling the shoe off my foot. "No! No! Socks!"

Last night, when I was making dinner, he ran over to try to help (or maybe to get food.) He wanted to be able to reach the pot, so...he stood on my feet to try and gain extra leverage. Much pain and danger ensued.

And in a reverse instance, on Monday when I was trying to nap and so was he, I suddenly heard screams of pain coming from his crib. I hobbled in to discover that he had stuck his legs through the bars of his crib and gotten completely stuck around mid-thigh. About 10 minutes of pulling and pushing and screaming ensued. Finally I grabbed the Aquaphor and greased his legs, the bars, and my hands and managed to squeeze his chubby little thigh out. Thankfully, he stopped crying and started laughing as soon as he was free again.