Unplanned Parenthood

Papier mache and dogs. Not necessarily together.

After yesterday's foray into staying home with Jack, I just want to give a HUGE shout out to all those stay-at-home and work-at-home-parents.  OMFG, was that the most exhausting day I've had in a long time.  Don't get me wrong, I survived it was awesome and fun and he absolutely cracked me up.

We're reading the I Can Read SpiderMan (oh, I'm sorry.  Spider-Man) books right now (which Sundry aptly called out on the CONTRACTIONS, for the love of Pete) and Jack re-enacted some of them for me at the park, including coercing me to drink the water from the park water feature as the potion that turned Lizard Man back into Dr. Curtis Conners (I know too much about SpiderMan. Ahem: Spider-Man); and he was super excited to make cupcakes (aside from the wholly unfair and approximate 100-year process of letting them cool); and, unfortunately, our first experience with papier mache and an attempt to make spiders was...unsuccessful.

Papier Mache with a 4-year old sounded like a good idea?  Really?  Really?

Part of the epic fail of this project is the fact that Jack has to wash his hands any time they are remotely sticky. Enter the flour/water papier mache glue that you apply with your hands. It was a less than statisfactory experience for everyone. Including the balloon.

P.S. Here's a tip for the wiener dog: it's a leaf blower. They're landscapers. I appreciate the NON-STOP BARKING for what it is: protection. Here's a little secret:  they come every Wednesday and have for the last 2 1/2 years that we've lived here. They will be here again next week. And the week after that. So, you've got that to look forward to.

All growed up

You may remember that my beautiful cousin and best friend, Vanessa, and I had our boys only about 3 weeks apart.  She and North came to visit me and Jack in Washington when the boys were about 7 months old and they looked like this:

"So, North, the square root of 21038098234098 can be figured out by dividing by 4 and carrying the 2."  "Jack, you're full of shit."

"What?  The oven mitt and lotion bottle on the living room floor make it avant guard.  It's called 'artistic license,' retards."

Just in case you're curious what happens when you blink and 4 years go by:

Jack preparing for college by honing his stealth skills of trying to see down the front of someone's shirt.  I'm just so proud.

"It is 100 degrees and you're making us sit still on a scratchy hay bale in our shorts for a goddamn picture.  We hate you."

Words just cannot describe how bizarre and lovely it is to see these pictures together.  Another blink and they'll be off to college, which, depending on the kind of day we're having, can be a blessing or a curse.  Some days I think, "Dude, I've totally got this.  He's amazing!  I'm amazing!  Bring on another baby!"  Some days I wonder why anyone would have children ever.  It mostly depends on whether he takes a nap.

The 'hawk. Don't worry, it was temporary.

I decided to take tomorrow off as a "Jack and Mommy" day.  We're going to do some art projects, have a picnic in the park, go to swim lessons and generally enjoy each other's company.  I mean, who wouldn't want to party with this kid?

 
 

A Million Billion Trillion Much

I didn't write for a long time.  And then I password protected this site.  And now...well, I just want to write.  I miss being here in my little space on the Internet.  My family and friends know the State of Things and it doesn't belong here.  I have had a hard time figuring out what to write about if I couldn't write about That Which Will Not Be Discussed because it's what is on my mind so much.  But the original, true purpose of this blog was to keep everyone (family, friends, random readers) apprised of what is going on with the boy (Jack) and his mom (ahem...me).  And after such a long hiatus, where do I start?  Let's start with...now.

Jack is four, and he'll tell you he is four and next year he will be five and did you know that Peter Parker turns into SpiderMan and, hey, mom, what does that sign say? did you know that a horse can gallop and shlalock (?) because that's what Finley said but also Darth Vader is a bad guy but I still like him because it's okay to like bad guys sometimes, right mom? but not if they have guns, they can only have guns if they're policemen and policemen help people and they only use guns for bad guys. except darth vader. i don't think the policemen know Darth Vader, but does SpiderMan know Darth Vader? at my swim lesson I dived to the bottom and got the SpiderMan from the bottom and isn't that cool, mommy? and I did big arms and practiced side breathing and we learned about pee at school today (WTF?  Oooohhhh, the letter P. Got it.) and it's almost halloween and...............................(starts upon opening his eyes in the morning and ends approximately .2 seconds before he goes to sleep at night.) (Those .2 seconds are incredible.)

He is so sweet, just so unbelievably, heart-meltingly sweet. He stops his monologues sometimes just to say, "Mommy, I love you a million-billion much."  Baby, I love you a million-billion much to the infinity power. Plus 2.

He has 6 pairs of socks that he will wear, all others will be discarded immediately upon sight.  He will only wear basketball shorts, preferrably with his (well-worn and falling-apart) Batman shirt.  It takes an act of congress and really unattractive pleading on the parts of his parental units to get him into anything else.  One day he went to school wearing Transformer swim trunks and his SpiderMan shirt.  I'm not proud of this, but I'm also not apologizing.  The child is 50 pounds of sheer will-power and he will gladly use it for good or evil.  I tend to pick my battles.

We've spent the summer swimming at our pool, taking overnight camping trips, going to the zoo, the train exhibit, Music in the Park with friends, swimming, swimming, swimming and more swimming.

If I could figure out how to get the pictures off my camera and onto our computer (it's suddenly not working and we can't, for the life of us, figure out what's going on.  Dad?  Help?), I would show you photographic evidence of these activities.

In the meantime: Hi!  What's going on with you?