Fun-Loving Four!

Weston turned four a week ago and he's quite pleased with himself for it. We spent the two weeks surrounding his birthday hosting out-of-town visitors and I think that might have been the very best present we could have given him. He loved every moment of having extra people around and he did his best to entertain us all.

If there's one adjective that best describes him, it's "persistent." At any given moment, he has an agenda of his own and he really doesn't care what anyone else might happen to think about it. When asked to do such-and-such or to refrain from doing this-and-that, his typical response is something along the lines of, "I wanted to since I like to." It really is unfathomable to him that he should be required to change his plans for something as mundane as accommodating a parental edict. Unlike his brother, he does not enjoy being quizzed and he absolutely will not "perform" for anyone, choosing instead to answer us with, "Bler-zoo-zim!" His keen sense of the absurd serves him well.

He is a loving, demonstrative child who gives out constant hugs and kisses--and yes, sometimes licks as well.) When he senses that I am less than enthusiastic about something he has done, he comes and tells me that he likes me. (His goal is to get out of trouble and to be honest, his tactic works embarrassingly well. It's difficult to continue to fuss at a person who's looking at you with adoring eyes, telling you that they like you so, so, so, so, so, so, SO much.) When asked what his favorite {insert any category here} is, his unfailing response is to consider the question for a moment and then say, "I like everything." I think it's pretty accurate, too. (That being said, if you really press him, he will eventually admit to preferring pink as a color and pandas as an animal.) He follows his brother around, wanting to be included in everything he does, even when Luke is annoying him to death. He follows Other Boy around too, and believes he can do no wrong. He loves Another Baby dearly--actually, he loves most people dearly.

We've spent a lot of time in the pool this summer, and he is learning to tolerate getting his face wet. He is working on overcoming his deep distrust of wheeled things and will sometimes attempt to ride (ie, be pulled around on) his bike or his scooter. However, he'd happily spend his entire day running around with sticks, pulling up bricks from our walkway, "planting" seeds from random weeds in the garden, doing science experiments (most of which involve food coloring and baking soda), and creating stories for and about his many beloved stuffed animals. His favorite stuffed animals happen in "Mama and baby" pairs and he is constantly searching for bigger or smaller versions of animals that he already owns. He has assigned names and personalities to all his favorite animals and when he misplaces one of them, he tears his bed apart, loudly calling the animal's name the whole time. Last night, after we had put him to bed, I heard him yelling, "Brown! Brownnnnn! Where are you? Come out here!" (Brown, of course, is a red-tailed panda. Her mother is named Red-tail and was apparently distressed that Brown had gone missing. I got sucked into the drama and went in to help with the search and rescue mission; my reward was witnessing the teary reunion between two stuffed red pandas. The things we do for love.)

I am looking forward to the changes that this next year will bring, but hoping that Weston retains his persistence, his enthusiasm, his love for everyone and everything he encounters, and his total goofiness.

Homemade Disaster

Last year, Weston's birthday party was going to be an art party, so I decided the perfect favor would be art smocks for each kid. And so, I bought fabric for 10 art smocks and two days before the party, I sat my procrastinating self down at the sewing table to make these 10 art smocks. And then came to the sickening realization that I had left the electrical cords to my sewing machine in Maryland. (I hadn't actually. I had left them in a plastic bag on my bathroom floor. The problem with plastic bags on the bathroom floor is that they are easy to ignore, so there it sat, ignored and unopened for about a month. It's a bad habit I have to return from a trip, put a bag on the floor of my bathroom, proceed to step over that bag for a month, and moan about whatever essential item I have "lost," which is actually inside the bag. You'd think I would have learned by now to just unpack that last bag promptly, but no. That would be most uncharacteristic and also, no fun at all.)

Getting back to the point at hand, once I came to that realization, I spent the entire rest of the afternoon and evening driving all over the city in search of a rental machine. I went to the fabric store--the cheapest machine they had was over $250. Well, no, the cheapest they had was $60, but when I carried it up to the counter, the cashier told me that between the two of us, every single one of those machines had been returned because it simply did not turn on. I thanked her for cluing me into that fact and decided to pursue other avenues. The other avenues, of course, being putting out a plea via Facebook and calling every store in the area that might possibly have sewing machine rentals. I found one, finally, and drove there in the middle of a freak thunderstorm, only to realize that it was run by a sewing-machine-purist who felt that any machine manufactured after 1958 was evil and unworthy. I came home with a heavy, metal monstrosity that passed his test for "good sewing machine," but which I could not even thread. Luckily, my Facebook friends came through and by 10 pm, I had a borrowed machine. I didn't get much sleep for the next couple of nights, but I did get those aprons sewed.

This year, we sensibly decided that we would buy favors at the store. No more homemade favors or decorations or anything. Except...cupcakes. Because cupcakes are easy and fun and also, easy. What could possibly go wrong with cupcakes? (Do you hear the ominous crack of thunder? Do you?)

Here's what could possibly go wrong with cupcakes: you could turn the oven on to preheat, go to the pantry to gather your ingredients, turn around to look at your oven, and notice that it seems to be on fire. You could go and open the oven door and end up with a face full of smoke, at which point you decide that yes, your oven is, in fact, on fire. You could turn off the oven, notice that the flame seems to dissipate, open the oven again, and notice that there are still sparks shooting around in the bottom of the oven. Your visiting mother-in-law could suggest that you flip the circuit to the stove and you could realize that you don't actually know where the circuit box is. (I mean, I do. It's in the garage. But at the moment, that information was not accessible to my conscious brain.) You could go and inform your spouse, who is working from home, that there is a fire in your oven and that spouse could then gleefully use the fire extinguisher, which in addition to extinguishing the fire could also coat your entire kitchen and dining room in a fine layer of whatever-is-inside-fire-extinguishers. Your kitchen and dining room which was, up until that point, pretty clean. (Pretty clean means not coated in glue, glitter, paint, tape, clay, etc. Pretty clean is also a state of existence that doesn't happen particularly frequently around here, so I was excited about pretty clean.)

Luckily, I once again called a friend, who allowed me the use of her kitchen to bake the cupcakes. Had I been in a slightly more reasonable frame of mind, I might have elected, at that point, to just buy the dang cupcakes, but it seemed to me easier to cart two boxes of ingredients to someone else's house and make three dozen cupcakes. Fires--even small, contained ones--evidently do not lead people to be the most rational version of themselves. Imagine.

So here's what I've learned from my experiences with Weston's birthday parties over the past two years: (1) I have a pretty great set of friends; and (2) next year, I am not making anything. Nothing. No. Thing.

Car Talk

Weston sometimes has an odd way of pronouncing the /th/ sound, so it comes out sounding like some garbled combination of /f/, /s/, and /th/. I think he has realized it, and instead of being worried or self-conscious about it, he has decided to use it to his advantage.

Weston: Mama, do you have a mou/th/f/s problem?
Me: Did you say mouse problem?
W: You said MOUSE problem! So that means you DO have a MOUTH problem! *hysterical laughter*



He also has a completely adorable tendency to mix up words. His brother seems to think it not so completely adorable.

Luke: Weston, what do you want for your birthday?
W: Hm...I did kind of like the stuffed animals at the National Zoo.
L, sighing: Oh, Weston. You mean the NashVILLE Zoo.
W: I said that.
L: No. You said the NatioNAL Zoo. There is a National Zoo somewhere, but it's not in NashVILLE.
W: Goobly-doobly-garblefunk.

(His outlook on life seems to be, "When in doubt or disagreement, say a string of nonsense words and no one will remember what you were disagreeing about.")

Truth

Luke was doing something--I don't remember what because the first part of this scene repeats itself a hundred times a day under a hundred slightly different set of circumstances--and Weston was making his displeasure loudly apparent. And when Weston is loudly displeased, he is loudly displeased in a very high-pitched manner. A manner which makes my blood boil and my brain bubble. No, I think that's an actual scientific thing. Some high-pitched noises shatter glass, others shatter my psyche.

I had already told Luke half a dozen times to listen to his brother's words or to find a different way to play or whatever other semi-patient, somewhat reasonable thing had occurred to me as a way of delaying the moment when I order them to go to different floors of the house and stay there until I tell them they can be together again. (This happens a few times a week. And when it does, Weston acts like I'm a giant meanie who has ruined all his fun, even though he was the one getting annoyed and shrieking and melting my brain in the first place.) ((Also, when it happens, they both gradually drift towards the stairs, and then the upstairs kid throws things at the downstairs kid and the downstairs kid taunts the upstairs kid by bringing out snacks from the pantry and eating them in plain sight, but out of reach.))

Me, gulping down a big be-patient kind of breath: Luke.
Luke: What?
Me: You are annoying Weston.
Luke: No, I'm not.
Me: No, you are. And I think you know that you are. He has made it very clear that he wants you to stop what you're doing, but you're not stopping. So what I want to know is: why are you annoying Weston?
Luke, thinking it over for a moment: Because he's my little brother.

I think it might be the truest thing he has ever said.

Separation Anxiety

The first time we left Luke with anyone, he was not quite a month old and the people with whom he was left were his grandparents. The first time we left him with a non-family member, he was a little over a year. Both of those times--and all the times in between--I didn't worry about him. I didn't think he would be inconsolable. (Well. The not-quite-a-month-old time, I thought he might be inconsolable, but inconsolability was pretty much his state of existence at the time, so it didn't seem like it would matter all that much whether he was inconsolable with me or with a set of loving grandparents. And in his first moment of irony, he slept the whole time we were away. It was the longest non-screaming stretch of his first three months, that joker.) I was not an anxious mess.

The first time we left Weston with anyone...well, I don't actually remember the first time we left Weston with anyone. I imagine it was, once again, with a set of loving grandparents. The first time we left him with a non-family member...well, I don't really remember that, either. I do think he was considerably older, simply because we got too busy to find a baby-sitter. So he was, maybe, two? In any case, I once again didn't worry about him. I suspected that he would either be completely happy or completely inconsolable--it's always hard to know with Weston--but either way, I knew that whoever was with him would hold him and love him and that in the end, it would be ok. Again, I was not an anxious mess.

This weekend, we're leaving the dog for the first time. In a kennel. Without us. With other humans. And dogs. And who knows what else, really. And I'm worried. See, unlike my children, who were generally pretty fond of people, Elsa is not fond of people. Not even a little bit. Her go-to response for meeting a stranger is to hide behind me or McMoose and bark with a great deal of uncertainty. When Another Baby's mother came to get him--which, of course, she did on a daily basis--Elsa would raise the hair on her back and try to look like a menacing hyena, even as she made a hasty retreat to the farthest corner of the room. What this dog is going to do in a kennel, I have no idea.

Well. No. I do have some ideas. I think she'll bark and whine and howl and cry and be sad. Dogs can be sad, right? That's not anthropomorphizing? In any case, I think she'll be sad. And although she has never been terribly aggressive, I do worry that if she's stressed out and scared all weekend, she might snap at someone. (Also unlike my children the first time I left either of them, Elsa has teeth. Big and sharp ones.) And that's bad news, right? What do they even do with dogs that snap at people? I don't know! (I know I could easily find the answer via Google, but I'm not sure I want to know.) This time, I am, perhaps, a bit of an anxious mess.

Fluff and Nonsense

• Earlier this week, I asked my children to kindly clean up the toys in the living room so that I could sweep the floor. They did a surprisingly thorough job of it, but after I swept, they did an equally thorough job of returning every single toy to the exact spot from which they had picked it up. Apparently, the mess in my house isn't incidental--it's highly planned and carefully executed. I feel better knowing that, actually.
• Last weekend, we went to a reptile convention. Yes, a reptile convention. We now own a baby snake. Or a toddler snake. Some kind of not-yet-fully-grown snake. He's called Hobbes (after the tiger, not the philosopher.) From time to time, McMoose brings him out of the cage and carries him around and I look at him with a great deal of mistrust.
• In case you were counting, this means that we now have two adults, two children, two cats, a dog, three hermit crabs, and a snake. I think we might be able to apply for a zoo permit at this point, don't you?
• Remember that garden I wrote about a couple of months ago? It has now reached rain forest level. The squash and cucumber plants have spread out on top of everything else and the pumpkin plants are growing halfway across the lawn. I go out and look at them every few days and gingerly reach in to harvest a squash or a snow pea, fully expecting that one of the monstrous plants might suddenly decide that I look like I'd make a nice snack. Next year, I'm sticking to one tomato plant. One. The end. (Yeah, right.)

Questions I've Recently Woken Up To...

I'm a person who believes that the first five minutes of the morning can set the mood for the rest of your day. Given some of the questions my children have asked me during those early moments, it's little wonder that I've had a series of odd days lately.

1. How much blood does a person have to lose before the doctors need to put new blood into their body with a needle?

2. Does a fruit fly only eat fruit?

3. Can we go to the pool on the first day of July? Unless the first day of July is more than two days away because then, I want to go to the pool two days before the first day of July. Unless the first day of July is more than four days away because then, I want to go to the pool four days before July and two days before July and on the first day of July. So can we do that?

4. What does a cat whisker taste like?

5. I'm hungry for something I've never eaten before. What can I have?

6. I think if I move my body like a shark, I could swim faster. I think I need a fin. Can I get a fin?

7. Do you think we can teach Yellow Cat to read?

Dinosaur Footprints

We spend most of our vacations visiting with family or friends, which is nice because we have limited vacation time and far-flung relatives, so we enjoy seeing them as much as possible. But at some point last year, it occurred to me that the only trips we've ever taken by ourselves have been two overnight trips to the zoo and one weekend camping trip. And none of those seemed to really count as a vacation. For one thing, vacations should be longer than 48 hours, right? And for another, vacations should involve hotel pools and strange places and perhaps theme parks.

I started thinking about all the places we could go to and all the things we could see and after dreaming about the possibilities for a while, I found myself in the midst of a conversation with the children about how cool it would be to see real dinosaur footprints. Luke suggested that we go to some place in South America (as Luke is wont to do) and Weston suggested that perhaps we could go to Extra-Planet (as Weston is wont to do) and I got to work researching more practical places where we might encounter dinosaur footprints (as I am wont to do.) All that research turned up a place in Massachussetts that had a random trail of dinosaur footprints and since I have an odd obsession with New England, I was intrigued by the possibilities. Once I found out that some of the possibilities included a park with Dr. Seuss characters and hole-in-the-wall museums and a nearby Six Flags, I was sold.

So a couple of weeks ago, we loaded up the kids, the dog, and an unrealistic number of bags and headed north towards dino tracks. It was pretty much the perfect trip because the kids are old enough to not cry endlessly in the car, but not so old that they think everything is boring and trite. They thought the dinosaur footprints were amazing and the museum was amazing and Six Flags was really, really amazing. But most of all, they thought the unlimited access to TV at the hotel room was a-maz-ing! They even enjoyed the icy cold pool, despite the fact that they started shivering and turning blue about 45 seconds into our pool adventure.

I continued the trend of forgetting to take pictures by...forgetting to take pictures. But! I did remember to get some at the dinosaur footprint place, so at least there exists some evidence of this trip. Someday, when my children tell me we never took any vacations, I'll be able to point to the following:

What happens when you leave your sunglasses in the car at a rest stop? If you ask nicely enough, you get to borrow Mama's.

This is Weston's current favorite pose for pictures. I...don't understand.

Of course, it rained for most of our visit, so we ended up balancing precariously on a rocky, wet hill. Still, it was fun! Here, both kids have their hand in a footprint.

And here's Weston standing beside a footprint. He had to demonstrate just what the dinosaur might have looked (and sounded) like.

Can you see them?? We all had fun taking enormous, dino-sized steps in this line of footprints!

Weston quickly got bored and moved on to building "dams" and "islands" in the footprints.

Walking in dinosaur footprints!