There Is No "Mommy", only "Zul"

The river is high, the dam is full, and the next several days should be pretty darn wet, but everyone is safe. Last night, instead of just taunting us by the side of the road, the river decided to submerge a few places, and Jon came home rather spooked, but safe. Until I lived on top of a river, I never realized what a palpable smirk it could have. I still spend a great deal of time worrying about Josh and the river, but we've been very firm about telling him that the river is pretty to look at, but that he should never get near it. I've been telling him there are snapping turtles and snakes in it...which is true, but there's also a wicked current right beneath our bank. The good news is that in a few weeks, a natural, very high, very thorny hedge will re-emerge between our house and the banks, and that tends to be an effective deterrent. Josh's vocabulary has been expanding again, and while I know we have been flippant around Josh, I know for a fact that we've never offered to "throw him to the snapping turtles"... a phrase he used on his father just the other day when Jon was tickling him...Josh pursed his lips and then spread them into a wry grin -- the way he does when he thinks he's pulling one over on us. Josh is very serious about snapping turtles...and anytime he sees the river, he tells us that there are snapping turtles in the river with a solemn nod that belies his years. "Oh, okay. " We respond. "Good to know." I need him to be very cautious about the river, but I don't want him freaked out about it...especially, as his room is closest to the river, and his window looks out on it, the last thing I need is for Josh to develop any massive phobias regarding it.

Josh is still sleeping with us...which means we are usually not sleeping much. I tried last week to get him back in his room one night, and he came into our room the next day with a head cold and great gallons of snot -- Honest to God, where does he store all of that stuff? I hate to say it, but we may need to wait for slightly warmer weather to switch him back -- his room always seems about five or six degrees cooler than the rest of the house (probably due to its proximity to the river)...and when we ratchet up the thermostat to accommodate, we end up broiling in every other room in the house. In the summer, this is the best room to be in...In the Uber-Moist springs we have, it's not that wonderful...I don't know why it doesn't seem to be such an issue in winter.

* * * * *

One of my dear friends in the Writers' Group is encouraging me to take up crocheting...I have tried this before, with laughable results...I was, without a doubt, incredibly gifted at making yarn snakes -- these puffy, droopy ropes of yarn...however, I could never make the yarn come together in a single flat piece...I'm having much better luck this time around. I'm trying to make a blanket...it isn't the loveliest thing in the world but it's slowly coming together, and perhaps it will be useful somewhere along the line. My initial plan was to give it to Carrie, just in time for her "September Sprog"...if it turns out well...(if it does not, well, I shall burn it and scatter the ashes and no one will ever know how horribly wrong it went -- Moo Ha Ha ha!)...at any rate, I have accomplished more this time around than at any prior attempt.

* * * * *

We've had to reschedule Josh's sleepovers at Camp Marsha and Dave for about two months now...every weekend we "snow checked" until the next, and then had to "snow check" again, and again...for now we've just decided to chill out and try again in April...theoretically, Mother Nature will have picked up a case of Motrin and gotten her act together by that point (and perhaps I will as well). For the first few times especially, it was really difficult for me...and as a consequence, I made things really difficult for everyone else...there haven't been rabid coyotes who growled and snapped as much as I did. At one point, I just got so completely ticked at the situation that I packed Josh into the car and made a run for it on one day when the snow had stopped and the road seemed clear. I wasn't ten minutes from home when the snow started falling in earnest, covering the road, and making it unsafe for me to pull off until I reached the second town between home and Z--- (the first town's parking lots looked worse than the roads). I had been cooped up for a few weeks due to the weather issues, and I just needed out. You know it was bad out when you have a two-year old in the back calling out, "Be careful, Mommy!" every few seconds. So, I turned around and slowly crept back home. (Jon was not happy with me, Tim was not happy with me...Rhonda may not have been happy with me either, but I think she at least knew where I was coming from.) The next week, I made it all the way to Z---, and the roads were clear and dry, until I got out to tank up the car at the midway point of the drive....then the temperature dropped about fifteen degrees, the wind ratcheted up, and suddenly there were huge flakes of horizontal snow...so it was another case of home again, home again...and just as well...as I pulled into our driveway, the weather let loose, and just dumped blizzard on us...I would easily say that we had at least eight inches of snow...and Jon made it home....but it took him nearly three hours of driving (he called it three hours of "controlled skid")...I spent hours calling my relatives and checking in with Jon's relatives to make sure all of our "little ducks" were safely in for the night. My dad ended up skidding into a ditch to avoid an accident in front of him, but was okay, one of my silly brothers decided to get a hair cut in the middle of a Level Two warning, but he made back safe and sound...and Irene, the one person we were SURE was safe (as she had tests at a Z--- hospital, and had told us she would stay there if the weather went south) careened into Harry and Helen's driveway around six. I was livid, and as ticked as Jon had been that I had been out in the mess the prior week, he had nothing on me when I was discussing the matter with Irene. She's what, 76? 77? and she acts like she's sixteen -- it's impulsive behavior like that that makes all of us forget she's supposed to be a grandmother...and truly, truly, I often feel that she's genuinely younger than I am. I think she caught it on all sides that day, just as I had the week before...and I at least got her to promise that if she was going to pull that stunt again that she had to call me or Harry and Helen before she started out so that we would know whether we would have to send out the calvary after a certain time. My point (as I was finally able to get through to her) was that no one even knew she was on the road, and therefore, no one would even have known to search for her if there had been a problem between here and Z--- because we thought she was safely tucked in at the hospital and not on the road in blizzard conditions, in a car with recurring maintenance issues.

Sheesh...drama, drama, drama. And it just continued and continued, and by golly, wasn't I just doing my darnedest to escalate it. Josh and I simply could not get through to each other...there were a lot of time outs (for both of us) and too much frustration -- both of us with high doses of cabin fever and no let up in the weather...Josh never stopped asking to go out, but the temperature never seemed safe enough, and he was fighting a pretty bad cold. Poor Jon had been trying to beat a path through his overtime, and came home to a lot of loud evenings.


Josh had his 27/28 week baby checkup... In my brilliance, I scheduled his doctor's appointment an hour before his nap time...Dumb, dumb, and dumb. Once again, Josh had lost his glasses, and once again I found them...this time with my left foot...the lenses popped out like bubbles, but a screw snapped in half in one of the frames, and I couldn't for the life of me get it out to fix it. (I don't have his exact stats for you right now, but he's in the 90 percentile on height and 75th on weight.) He wanted nothing to do with the nurses, he wanted nothing to do with the N.P.... he was ticked, and thrashed and kicked and screamed...and barely held still long enough for the poor Nurse Practitioner to inform me that he had a minor ear infection that none of us had picked up on (well, that would explain some of his behavior), and once again I felt like a total heel. I didn't feel better when she told me she just happened to notice that he had been batting at his ear a little. I never saw it...I fuss over the least minor change if he's feverish...I can tell from his eyes when he's sick...but those signs hadn't been there. His outer ear was a little red, but he'd been on a screaming jag in the office --it was an inner ear issue, and wouldn't have come to light if she hadn't been able to have him in on just that day. There was a delay in getting his pink stuff...roughly a two hour delay, so an increasingly weirded out and exhausted Josh and I made a gallant charge down Dr. Ron's to see if the girls there could pull a miracle out of their hats...or at least a half-broken screw out of a pair of glass frames. This time, Josh could not get enough of trying on every frame in the place, and God love their hearts, they were able to set those frames to right. We made another dash uptown, and after an additional thirty minute wait, wherein poor, agitated Josh ended up upside down with the back of his head on my ankles and his knees on my knees ... and oddly enough he was calming down...I swear there is a reset button on the back of his head...and for some reason, he relaxes when he gets himself upside down. We finally made it home and after only the briefest (albeit loud) protest, he finally collapsed.... (He got a weeks worth of pink stuff and, thankfully, liked it, and would later take it only if he could hold the spoon and give it to himself.)

Carrie and Little Mark, and Auntie Suzing came home for visit, and any concerns that I might have had that Little Mark wouldn't want to play with Josh were negated the moment they saw each other. They became immediate members of the Josh-Mark mutual admiration society and played and ran and charged around like they had been together forever. When Josh jumped from the coffee table into Mom's lap, she commented on how high Josh could jump...well, that was a mistake. Little Mark climbed up onto the coffee table with hands on hips and firm foot stomps to emphasize his statement that He was the one who jumped high!! -- and proved it by nearly jumping onto Mom's head(and really, we all knew that was going to happen). Mark led, and Josh scampered after, trilling high giggles through the house. He and Mark kept referring to each other as "The Baby"...Mark called Josh that because he is still in diapers (yes, folks, we get to go through that joy this summer), and Josh called Mark "The Baby" because when Mark got upset, he fussed and pulled out all of the waterworks. It was very cute.

Easter was pleasant...Jon made a decision to stay home and hunt for Josh's glasses...which were once again MIA for about a week...and truth be told, he needed a breather... He hadn't had a day to himself in over five months, and he really just needed to recoup, so I gave him the option. Going stag (or stag-lite with Josh in tow) didn't seem to amuse some of the cast and crew, but it was absolutely necessary, and honestly, Jon was so much more relaxed and cute and chipper when I came home that night, that he and I are seriously considering that all future Easters will be Official Jon Holidays. Josh and I had a blast...he played with Little Mark, I got to tease my brothers and my baby sister, and it was like old times...I think it was a lot of fun all around. The only real issue I had all day was a substantial inability to follow the clock properly...at eight p.m., my body and brain were telling me it was 6 p.m., but as I hit the first 3rd of my journey back home, it suddenly felt like it was 11:30 p.m. I was greeted at the door by a sweet-eyed, bouncy Jon, who snagged the boy from my arms, and had him changed and snuggled close and asleep again by the time I got Josh's stuff out of the car five minutes later. We locked the door on the outside world and snuggled on the couch together, watching our worn out little boy sleep. Nice...very nice indeed.

Hickory Dickory Dock...and the Art of Mom-jitsu

For months now, I've been completely convinced that we have a large beaver chewing on our house. I kept hearing what sounded like something big making gnawing sounds in strategic places just beyond our bedroom wall. The sounds seemed to come into play especially in the early morning or early dusk hours, and I confess, I didn't relish the idea of having a critter that sounded that big right next to my ear at night. Let's not even get to the "What if it chewed through?!" question, let's get straight to the "For crying out loud, cut it out!!!" ...Two days ago, I followed the noise to its source...this time it was just outside of Josh's window, so I was already eight-different kinds of spooked, and it didn't help that it seemed to be chewing at (my) chest level...and all I could think was "Oh My God, do they really grow beavers that big?!!! How did I get into my very own bad b-movie?! Where the heck do I find a pair of heels to run/twist my ankle falling in!" As it turned out, I had been badmouthing those "dam" varmints without just cause (ha, ha), because a flash of white and black bolted past the window just as I was about to look out. My audio Torquemada was nothing more than a brat of a woodpecker, who peeked out from behind a tree and (this I swear) grinned at me. As if realizing that I was still inside the house and therefore no real threat, the feathered twerp returned to its post on our siding and continued his attacks. He didn't go so far to stick his tongue out at me, but it sure as heck was implied.



That night, I faced an animal attack of a more sinister kind. Josh was asleep, with us, as usual...Jon had a rougher day than normal and was finally conking out. I was awake, also as usual...thrashing around, trying to get comfortable, removing Josh's foot from between my shoulder blades, my throat or occasionally, my belly button (apparently, it makes a good toe-hold...Who knew?). Sleep was coming, though. I could feel it...I allowed myself to be lulled...and then Koda decided to give me a helping paw. He had been jumping up and down from the bed several times...and at first I just chalked it up to the common occurrence of Jon kicking his fuzzy butt onto the floor whenever Koda landed on Jon's legs...then I thought perhaps it's just general Koda weirdness...and I concentrated on conking out. Just as I began to breathe heavily and my lashes lowered, something hit me in the eye. For a moment I was too stunned to do anything, and then, damned if that thing didn't begin to hop...Koda, a cat who can quote chapter and verse on all things Stupid and "WTF!", had decided to chase a mouse up onto our bed, and more importantly onto my eye. He then tried to follow his intended quarry, and I'm fairly certain the yell/scream/howl that erupted from me happened at that precise moment when his claws hit my face.



Between the Joys of Kodama the blankety-blank cat, ego-maniacal woodpeckers, and the omni-presence of every telemarketer and their mother lately (No! I am not a supporter of Teamsters to Stop Global Warming. I am not interested in receiving literature from the Young Republican Dyslexic Agoraphobic Cheerleaders for McCain, not even the special swimsuit issue. And no, my husband does not want the swimsuit issue either -- *pointed glare at my husband, repeating myself in a slow growl* No, Jon, you do not want the swimsuit issue either. Yes, I've already voted....Goooo-Ah-WAYyyyyyy!!!), "Napping the Boy" has been an ever more difficult pursuit. Once he's down, he blessedly sleeps for nearly three hours, but the getting, that's the trick. Apparently, my mother has mastered the art of just holding him close and scratching his back with the tips of her fingernails and after a few minutes (or so she claims) he is out, all sweet and innocent, cute and drooly. For Jon and I, getting him out, either at nap time or bedtime, means one or both of us must lie down with him (because of course, he doesn't want to crash out in his room, alone, all by himself, with nothing but dozens of toys between him and "whatever") and gently hold him while he proceeds to thrash about in an effort to break every bone in our heads. Jon and I have perfected the ancient martial arts of Dad-kido and Mom-jitsu during these lovely sessions. While simultaneously bending our own necks backwards at a 90 degree angle to protect our faces, we use the trick of holding him just enough that he can't hurt us and just enough that he can't damage himself...while loosening up our arms so that he doesn't totally freak out. In this way, while we cannot claim that he is in anyway amused with the proceedings (amusement doesn't actually enter into it, as he is, erm, rather tee-ed off ), we wear him down and THEN he conks out a little while later, all sweet and innocent, cute and drooly. As we are on the receiving end, it feels like we are wrestling a greased elephant seal, but he suffers no ill-effects, I promise you. Once asleep, he snuggles in close and breathes whuppered little baby breath onto our necks and looks as close to an angel as God made 'em. We snuggle close for a bit, than carefully extract ourselves to go in search of some Advil for all of our newly acquired pinched nerves.




It occurs to me that Josh simply doesn't have enough toys. I say this because on rare occasions, I can still walk in a reasonably straight line through our living room without seriously dislocating a knee. (Yes, Greats and Grands, I am being facetious...this is not an invitation to go out and buy up ToysRUs. Don't make me break out the whip and chair, people. ) Recalling the wit and wisdom of my dad, known here as "Grandpa Dave or Papa Dave", I am reminded that he has often commented that he had children to have a cheap form of labor...or at least that was Dad's favorite quip before Mom would glare at him. (It may also have been his favorite quip before all five of us got our driver's licenses, the car insurance, phone and electric bills, too...)



At any rate, I decided to put this theory to the test. When Josh helps me pick up his toys really, really fast, I'll pull out the shop vac and he gets to sweep. You do not know what a cheap thrill it is to see a two-year old whip around with a sweeper hose. I merely point out a conspicuously crumbed area, and he goes to it with a determination that could wear down steel wool. Every speck gets an enthusiastic shout, "Yay! Crumbs!!!" and he has decided that all of his rubber ducks (and I mean ALL, as in ALL nine of them) must learn the art of sweeping too. He shows each duck the on-button and then carefully shows them the nozzle, taking great care to explain to each duck that "it's ok, duck" -- the sweeper will not eat them. Twenty minutes later, I have a decent looking room, and it's time to turn off the machine...Of course, that last part never goes well... if he had the option, he'd sweep until the shop vac overheated, exploded, and was worn to nothing but a nub, and believe me, he has tried.




I find myself intrigued with the possibilities of further toddler domestication...I wonder if I can teach him how to clean a gutter...hmmm. Knowing Josh, he'd rather hang off the roof by one hand, whipping his cowboy hat around with the other, yelling, "Whoo-Hoo!" all of the time. Can't see the Grands and Greats approving of that. Maybe not gutters then...maybe just some routine plumbing and car maintenance...



I can see it now, Josh in the garage, with his Curious George sippy cup parked above the headlights, a diaper wipe slung out of his hip pocket, the hood open, and my son turning to me saying, "Mommy. Needa Oil. Needa Tire-sss. Cost bout um... El'phant, maybe El'phant! Cookieeee! Shoulda Ride -a Tracto!"



Hrm...I may need to rethink that particular career path after all.

Goldilocks

Once upon a time, my mother didn't spend so much of her free time laughing at her eldest daughter. No, seriously. I can still remember when I could just take my troubles to her, bury my head in her shoulder, sob about the creepy boy on the school bus who kept bonking me in the back of my head with a soccer ball...and my mother would whisper nice, soothing, "It will be alright" things into my hair.



Nowadays, as I explain my never-ending trials with "Napping the Boy", she just laughs at me. Not little snorts, not the wry grin you can hear over the telephone...nope, the shameless wench just rolls her head back on the couch and laughs until she can't sit up. I have been given to understand that I was not very fond of naps or bedtime when I was his age (and perhaps, I recall a particular stalling tactic where I once hit up each member of her entire bridge table to read me a bedtime story) and Mom's reaction is that ancient evil "Mother-Humor" coming back to bite me in the @ss...that in theory, in time, I too, shall get to fall down laughing at my own singular progeny. "But you're always trying to get him to sleep." she told me. Well, YEAH!!! A sleeping boy means sleeping parents...sleeping parents mean (in theory) functioning, pleasant, playful parents the next day. I mean, seriously, how much therapy will a squirrel-boy need if his parents are the lead zombies in a John Carpenter movie (brains...brains...brains..)? More sleep for all of us just increases everyone's overall survival rate, and we are as pro-surviving as we are pro-sleeping.


The latest running joke in the on-going saga of conking the boy is that he has decided that at eight-thirty or nine at night that he's ready to go to bed, and will even obediently hop and skip under the covers...Now, it's OUR bed and OUR covers, but he does indeed crash out within a few minutes of climbing in. It began with Josh escaping his confines in the morning and coming into our room (it's so cute to hear those big-little feet pad-pad-pad onto our bedroom's wooden floor everyday)...then after a quick "Mommy?" he will pull himself bodily up onto the bed and crawl-thump, crawl-thump his way to the middle of the bed, where he will demand "Blanket." and I oblige by covering him up and he will be out with in minutes...I've finally discovered how his snooze alarm works -- he then sleeps until eight or nine. Over time, though, and quite frankly because Jon gets all gushy (and because it make the night SOOOOO much calmer)he's been going to sleep in our bed...At first, it's so sweet to hear the rhythm of Jon's breathing with Josh's softer counterpart...but if I succumb to it and fall asleep myself, I get roped into a never-ending night of resounding baby-kicks to the kidneys or throat, or a crashing blond skull into my nose or temple. Jon's also on the receiving end, and between Josh and Koda, we nearly get kicked out of our king-size bed every time we stage one of these "sleepovers". When Josh isn't trying to score body-shots, he's knocking his head into the wall at the head of the bed or sliding into the space between the wall and the bed (we don't have a headboard or footboard because Jon's just too tall, and kept cracking his arms and feet against them). We've tried to rectify the situation by placing pillows strategically between the wall and the bed, but Josh's favorite sleeping moves consist of thrashing around near our heads and the pillows usually fall down again...don't worry though, a good throat kick guarantees that we'll be awake enough to get him sorted out again quickly. I've been trying to stay awake and get Josh resettled in his own room...sometimes, though, it's only slightly successful (Jon is absolutely no help on this one...he gets the same kicks I do, but falls asleep with this goofy, contented expression on his face, snuggling Josh like he's a teddy bear). Last night I shuffled him off at 10, and went back to bed. Hours later (and we've been giving him a free ride after 5 a.m.) he came back in and conked out. I thought it was after five. It was three-thirty. I have more bruises on my back than an MMA fighter, and he came THIS CLOSE to breaking my nose. Many years ago, my dear little sister Carrie had a snore that could rattle panes of glass three miles away, and was also the grand-master-kidney-kicker. Many's the night that my other sister Denni and I would stand over her and watch her sleep the sleep of the innocent...and put a pillow over her head. So far, Josh's inherent cuteness has continued to save him from a similar fate, but one more crushed vocal chord, and I will not see the humor of the situation. Jon will just pretend he's asleep, even if Josh has kicked out Jon's own spleen ...maybe I should put the pillow on Jon's head?




Josh continues to grow, mentally and physically. He's getting better at wearing his glasses and has fallen in love with MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO, an anime that Jon and I have long adored. For now, it's taken the place of Godspell, and putting it in guarantees that Josh will calm down and relax for a while. He's such a hoot. He marches with the opening song, he runs around telling everyone about Totoro, and the Chesire-like Catbus sends him into gales of delighted screams.



For a long while, we've been working on Josh's manners...He's getting so much better at "Please" and "Thank you". Once, Josh wanted a cookie and I tried reminding him for twenty minutes to say please...I finally caved when he gave me a kiss instead. He bounded away with his cookie, and turned back to me, holding his cookie up triumphantly. He grinned and only then did he say, "Please." before running away laughing.


It's another just accepted joke that several of the ladies in my family have a different definition of the word, "Hurry." One day, I was trying to snag the last few things on the way out the door, and Jon (thinking he was funny) decided to snap his fingers at me to get me moving. I threatened to lop of his arms and call him "Stumpy" if Josh ever picked that up, and I turned to firmly tell Josh not to follow suit. No sooner do I catch my son's eyes than he raises his tiny hand , grins and snaps. I gave Jon the Eyebrow of Doom.



Jon tried gamely not to respond, but he started laughing too hard. Then he began to choke and nearly coughed himself to death. Serves him right.