What There's Time For

Mr. Pants Howls the Day

7:30 AM — MOMMY awakes from a surprisingly deep sleep to find MR. PANTS apparently vanished.  Calling for him inside and outside eventually brings him out of hiding.  A small smear of chocolate is visible at the right corner of his mouth.

MR. PANTS:  Mommy!  I have something to tell you!  A little boy came in our house last night and climbed up and got our Halloween candy and ate it under the chair!  Come see!  He left little pieces of chocolate on the floor!

MOMMY:  [maintains placid silence]

MR. PANTS:  He lives here!  He doesn't live in our house, but he lives here.  I'll show you.  [runs to the back window and points]  He lives over there!

MOMMY:  [maintains placid silence]

MR. PANTS:  It wasn't me.

8:30 AM — Departure for school.  MR. PANTS — still in pajamas, bare feet, and a soaked diaper (see Monday's post for explanation) — hops and howls across the cold pavement of the driveway.

MR. P:  My feet are COLD!!!!  Ah ah AH AH!  It's COLD!  MOMMY, OPEN THE CAR DOOR!  AAAAAH!!!!   It's COLD!!!!!!!

MOMMY:  [maintains placid silence]

12:30 PM — Driving away from school after picking up MR. PANTS.

MOMMY:  We're going to stop for just a few minutes at Home Depot on the way home.

MR. P:  NOOOOO!!!  I DON'T WANT TO GO TO HOME DEPOT!!!!

MOMMY:  [maintains placid silence]

MR. P:  Can we go to the one with the car carts?  Can we get one of the car carts?

MOMMY:  We can get one of the car carts, but you have to share it with Shmoogie and if there are any problems between you and Shmoogie, we won't get a car cart the next time.

MR. P:  OK!

12:40 PM — MOMMY wrangles the oversized shopping-cart-cum-double-steering-wheeled-car down the paint and stain aisle.  MR. PANTS and SHMOOGIE are squishing and slapping each other, shrieking and crying. 

MOMMY:  That's three.  Next time we won't get the car cart.

MR. P:  [instant wailing]  AAAAH!!!!!!!  NEXT TIME WE WON'T GET THE CAR CART!!!!  BUT I WAAAAANT THE CAR CART!!!!!!!  I JUST WANT TO AAAAALWAYS HAVE THE CAR CART!!!!!  AAAAAH!!!!!!!!

MOMMY:  [maintains placid silence]

MR. P:  [shoves his sister particularly visciously while also denying her access to both steering wheels]

MOMMY:  [hauls MR. P out of the cart; loses placid silence]  Alright, we're NEVER coming here EVER AGAIN!

MR. P:  AAAAAAAH!!!!!  WE'RE NEVER COMING HERE EVER AGAIN!!!!!  I'LL NEVER GET THE CAR CART EVER AGAIN!!!!!   AAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

MOMMY:  [regains placid silence]

SHMOOGIE:  [stands up in cart, holds out arms adorably, chin trembling]  Mommy?  Up?  Up?

12:50 — MOMMY shoves the monstrous car cart into the check out line.  MR. PANTS now commandeers the entire driver's cab while SHMOOGIE stands in the basket portion of the cart, contrary to many illustrated warnings and common sense.

MR. P:  Can we get that snow globe that I saw with Santa and the deer?  Mommy?  Can we get that snow globe?

MOMMY:  Not today, honey.

MR. P:  But I really want it!  Mommy?  MOMMY!!!  GO BACK!!!!  MOMMY!!!!  I WANT THAT SNOW GLOBE!!!!  I WANT IT!!!!  I REALLY REALLY REALLY WANT IT!!!!!!

MOMMY:  [maintains placid silence]

MR. P:  IF I DON'T GET IT TODAY THEN SOME OTHER BOY OR GIRL IS GOING TO BUY IT AND TAKE IT HOME AND PLAY WITH IT AND THEN IT WON'T BE HERE ANYMORE AND THEN I CAN'T EVER HAVE IT EVER AGAIN!!!!!   AAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   I REALLY REALLY WAAAAAANT IT!!!!!!!!  I WANT THAT SNOW GLOBE!!!!!  MOMMY!  MOMMY, GO BACK!!!  GO GET THAT SNOW GLOBE!!!!!   AAAAAAAH!!!!!

12:55 PM — The parking lot.  MR. PANTS is beginning to recover himself, now wants to know why the snow globe cannot be purchased today.

MOMMY:  Well, there are a few reasons that we're not getting the snow globe today.  Can you think of what they might be?

MR. P:  [tremulously]  Because it wasn't on our list?

MOMMY:  That's one reason, that's true.  Can you think of any other reasons?

MR. P:  [stumped silence]  Can we put it on our list for next time?

 

 

Baby Fine

How many minutes *should* a mother spend every morning to keep her daughter's hair out of her eyes? Maybe I'll get faster.

Trying Again

Mr. Pants was happy to make this "little glihwee tree" with me this weekend and I am happy that for the next month at least I can just turn these star lights off after he goes to sleep instead of climbing into his bunk bed and reaching over his snoring head to switch off his bed light.

The truth is, our disasterous morning and bedtime routines need a lot of streamlining, since they've only become louder, longer, and more stressful in the past few months.

Inspired by the ease of the "little glihwee tree" and a reread of What Shamu Taught Me About A Happy Marriage (which Mr. Right emailed me after seeing that it is now the most emailed article ever from the New York Times), I am officially back on the bare-bones spartan wagon of reasoned parenting.  No more nagging, no more pleading, no more yelling, no more getting sucked into the thousand and one daily tar babies of my babies' making.  

A grand idea, but let me tell you I was definitely feeling the rough cold boards of said parenting wagon this morning as I walked up to Mr. Pants's teacher fifteen minutes after normal drop-off time... with no child in tow... to ask her advice on what I ought to do now that Mr. Pants had called my final bluff.  (He hadn't gotten dressed at home, hadn't gotten dressed in the car, and was now sitting motionless and scowling in the parked car — having completely *un*dressed himself — waiting for *me* to dress him, which was exactly, obviously!, what I was NOT going to do.)

Encouraged and armed by the teacher with the extra motivating knowledge that Mr. Pants's best friend had brought birthday cupcakes for snack, I returned to the car and set the timer for five minutes, at the end of which, if he wasn't dressed, we would simply turn around and go home.

Still he dawdled!  Long enough that I had given up hope and was merely waiting for the timer to run out so I could drive him away from his friends, the playground, the art room, the reading room, and cupcakes.  I wondered whether he or I would be crying harder.

But then he started putting on his socks.

Slowly.  Painfully slowly.

There was one minute left on the timer.

I suggested — with as much nonchalance as I could muster — that he put his underwear and pants on his naked self first and then I would help him with his socks.

He took my suggestion without a word and I surreptitiously paused the timer.  (It doesn't count as a cave if he doesn't know I caved, right??)

Just as the last of the kids were walking in to school, we got to the door.  The teacher welcomed him warmly and chuckled as we passed, which had Mr. Pants asking me with irritation, "Why is she laughing at me?!"

***

(Remember how well the you-get-yourself-dressed-for-school-or-go-naked battle went last year?  The cold weather hit right after that and I completely lost my impressive resolve, thus we are back at square minus-1).

Thankful

Mr. Pants scowled at me when I asked him what he's thankful for (he was engrossed in bubble blowing on the deck), but then he grinned and said, "I'm thankful for helping me shoot the water gun and fill the air with bubbles!"

Thankful. Such a nice word.

Baby Chainmail

It took me years of knitting to be able to knit anything remotely complex on the fly, but now it's great fun.

The first attempt at anything still isn't guaranteed to go right, but usually it's at least close.  As in, a baby "chainmail" hood (makes sense if you know the baby's father) that looks pretty good on a mini-basketball but doesn't fit quite the way I intended on a baby with a neck, which I thought four-month-olds didn't have but it turns out at least this one does.  :)

It was super fun to knit, though, and looks pretty hilarious on the baby (you'll have to take my word for it).  Which was the point.  Obviously.

***

The yarn was less than a full ball of super wash wool from Lana Grossa — I think it was a DK weight, but I'm not sure.  I cast on at the face edge and knitted in the round for a few rounds of garter stitch, then left the under-the-chin stitches on a holder and knit back and forth in reverse stockinette for a while for the top and sides of the head (in the first row of rev. stock. I did a single increase at each temple and a double decrease in the center of the forehead, then on the next row did one set of short rows between the two temple increases).  Did a few (two sets?) of short rows over some portion of the center of the stitches in the last two rows of the side/top of head section and then worked back and forth on the middle set of stitches, knitting together with stitches from the sides at each edge until I'd worked down to the back neck and had a hood shape.  Then pick up stitches along the bottom edges of the sides of the hood and knit across the under-chin stitches and start working in the round for the collar again.  I should have worked some short rows at the back of the neck to make the collar lie flat.  The collar is just a circle of reverse stockinette (knit a while (I should have knit longer), then increase by *k1, kfb*, knit a while (longer), same increase, knit awhile) border of garter stitch and a cast off (Elizabeth Zimmermann's "sewn cast off" really is fantastic; a pain on that many stitches because of the length of the working yarn you're dealing with, but a beautiful stretchy finish that blends in perfectly with the garter stitch).

 

Shmoogie "Knits"

She's very serious about it.

Makes a serious mess of my yarn, too.  ;)

***

Happy Friday!  I'm going on a bug hunt...

Keep Your Ends in Order (tutorial)

The "tail" of yarn that's left when you cast on a knitting project can be all kinds of annoying if you just let it hang.  I guess some people go ahead and darn it in at the very start, but I rarely feel like I'm ready to do that until the end of the project.

Which is how I came to open my car door this morning to pull out my knitting bag and found that most of the (stupidly long, it's true) tail had been dragging through the rainy muck all through the drive to and from school.

I cut off the gunky part and moved on.

But then I started a new project, which uses two balls of yarn, meaning two tails hanging ready to tangle up in each other or with either of the working yarns.  After untangling twice, I wanted a solution.

This incredibly simple idea occured to me and it works just great.  It probably would be simpler to just darn the ends in at the beginning of the project, but where's the fun in that?

Materials:  

• Two large buttons (non-shank), preferably with some kind of indented shape that will hold the elastic well.
• A short piece (about 5 inches) of very thin elastic or elastic cording.

 

Thread the elastic through one button from back to front and then front to back, so both tails are at the back.

Thread the long tail of the elastic through the second button from back to front and then front to back, so both tails are now inside the button sandwich.  Now tie the ends of the elastic together, making sure to leave the loop the buttons are on long enough to wrap itself around the button sandwich once or twice but short enough to keep said sandwich together when a little yarn is wrapped between the buttons.

To use, pull the elastic up into a loop on top of one of the buttons and stick a fingertip through it.  Wind the tail of the yarn around the elastic between the buttons as if you were winding a yo-yo.

Wrap the loop of elastic that has been around your finger back over the buttons to lock the yarn in place.

Do you darn your ends in or would you like something like this to keep them under control while they hang?

Hoohoo Haha

As a general rule, Shmoogie calls animals by their sounds.  A dog is a "woof", or if it's a really exciting dog, it might be a "woof woof".  A dinosaur is a "roar" (as is a lion).  And her stealthily-acquired-by-squatters-rights-now-much-bemoaned-by-her-brother stuffed monkey puppet is "Hoohoo Haha".

This is a temporary stage in language learning, of course, and these anamatopoetic giggle-inducers are already starting to be replaced by the real words.

Just last week at the playground, she was getting upset and looking for something and I knew she was wanting the monkey that she'd left in the stroller, so I asked her, "Are you looking for Hoohoo Haha?"

And every mom at the playground stared at me and laughed.  Because Hoohoo Haha sounds a lot like one of the many slang words for one of those things that people like to come with stupid slang words for.

I rushed to explain the origins of our Hoohoo Haha and turned to Shmoogie for vindication, now that I was holding the beloved toy out to her, "Here you go, sweetie!  What's this called?"

She looked at Hoohoo Haha, she looked at me, she looked at my mom friends waiting expectantly on her answer, and she said, "Da's moan-kee."

Depend ye not upon thine two year old for the saving of thine face.

The Weirdest Thing About Blogging

The weirdest thing about blogging is that when you're woken up in the middle of the night by your four-year-old who then spends the next hour rolling around and crying about how much his stomach hurts before he conks out sprawled across your bed and stays there disrupting your sleep and creating the requirement that your just-changed sheets be washed again, you end up thinking to yourself that at least if he needs an appendectomy, it could make for a decent blog post.

But he doesn't need an appendectomy (and I am grateful for that, blog fodder aside). The latest theory is strep throat (who knew that could cause tummy pains?) so we're off in a minute to get a culture.

Oh, the suspense!

Things that are working for the moment

• One song on repeat for weeks on end.  Most annoyingly, this is the only way the kids want to listen to anything.  Most mercifully, they almost always agree on which song must be playing.  After the big roadtrip this summer (sound track provided by my cool sister), we listened to "Oh oh oh oh" for at least six weeks (that would be Britney Spears, Till the World Ends).  It got so bad that whenever Shmoogie caught sight of phone, she would beg, howl and scream for "Oh oh oh oh" until I got it playing and let her hold the phone.  Then she would smile and dance bouncy-like until it stopped and the cycle started over again.  Thus the discovery of the one song repeat function.  We have since been through a slightly shorter period of obsession with "Night!  Night!" (the music video is not family friendly (also, depressingly unimaginative) so I'll just link to the music with lyrics on screen: Black Eyed Peas, I Gotta Feeling).  And now, in a classic mixed blessing, we have moved on from catchy tunes the children love with disturbingly sexual/druggy lyrics the children do not understand to a catchy tune the children love with disturbingly martial lyrics the children do not understand — "Moon, Moon!" (The High Kings, By the Rising of the Moon).  (Mr. Pants, who has lately been asking penetrating questions about the causes of "The Civil Whir", seems to believe this song is a lively celebration of night time.)

 

• Mindless knitting while watching WWDC sessions about preparing your app for iCloud syncing.  It's true I sometimes have to rewind to listen to something again to really get it, but it's actually less often that was happening when I tried to be serious and just watch.  My mind kept wandering.  The knitting seems to help prevent that through the information-poor sections.

 

• Paper chain motivation.  We've had a sticker chart going for months with very little success.  It was too complicated (Mr. Pants could earn up to seven stickers per day for putting on various articles of clothing by himself, then seven stickers translated to $1 which he could spend on whatever).  This is simpler and clearer:  he wants a Lego space shuttle set.  It costs $25 on Amazon.  I helped him make this chain with 25 links in it and when he's completely dressed himself for the day, he gets to take one link off.  So far, he's motivated.  And it's obvious to him how much farther there is to go (instead of the old system where he didn't really understand the concept of stickers translating to money and didn't really understand how much money things cost and kept asking me if he had enough for xyz yet and then having a tantrum when I said no).

 

• Candy Rules:  one piece per day; you pick when you want to eat it.  Even if it's before breakfast (which it very often is).  I got the idea from It's Not About Nutrition and I'm liking it much better than the Great Pumpkin mistake of last year.

 

• Staying busy enough that it is easy to maintain my delusion that Christmas is still months away.

 

What's working for you right now?

***

Now that I've written this, I realize it's partly inspired by Ask Moxie's post, How is running a factory like raising children?  So I might as well link that.  :)