The Ironies of Childrearing, Part 1 (since surely there are many more to come)

WHY is it that this magical Trust that develops in the bond between parent and child does not manifest itself in the child believing its parent when said parent wants to introduce a new, delicious food (e.g., caramel-covered popcorn, for crying out loud!), BUT ONLY when said child has something nasty to get rid of (e.g., chewed-up food, newly-picked scab, large freshly-harvested booger, wrapper of any kind) and so hands it to parent/all-purpose garbage receptacle? WHERE IS THE TRUST?!!!

(And so verily, verily I say unto you, my dear oldest son, that Poppycock is indeed a snack food worthy of a child's love, the very nature of which is sweet, buttery and delicious, just as I have tried to convince you of for, like, forty days and forty nights. Its taste is entirely something wonderful and not like to that of festering insects or vegetables, as the look on thy scrunched-up face doth indicate thou seemst to believe. Behold, there, your younger brother, who stuffs his face even now with an abandon befitting this heavenly treat. Dost thou think he is crazy? Dost thou wish us alone to eat it all and feel disgusting? Why, then, dost thou also not sample this feast to which thy mother, in some unbelievably permissive mood, is inviting thee wholeheartedly? Ugh, whatever.)

She may LOOK like her daddy, but she's all woman!

I am so proud. My Monkey loves shoes. Since we got her new (pink) sneakers, she will bring them to me repeatedly during the day so I can put them on her feet. I wrestle one on, then the other, and off she goes marching around the house listening to the sound they make on the floor, staring at her feet the entire time. She does not need to be wearing daytime clothes- or clothes at all- to want her sneakers on. They are not functional to her as they are to most walking humans. They are decoration, like a sparkly shirt or the computer mouse she likes to wear on her neck like a feather boa. So maybe her taste is still a bit indiscriminate, but then maybe the next big thing in Winter Fashions is the computer-component as accessory- Watch out John Galliano.

The I.O.

Ironies

here are the ironies of my life:

I want out of the house most days but I don't want to go back to "work."

I Love my hubby but sometimes he annoys me.

I can't post anything vent-like on my blog about said hubby since he is probably our most faithful reader (I *sigh* with love!).

I Love my Monkey though she also annoys me sometimes- especially on days like yesterday when from three pm until 6:30pm (the moment hubby walked in the door) she was red-faced screaming and crying if I dared to look at something other than her face- including the delicious chicken and pasta I was cooking in order to satiate her Hungry-man sized stomach.

I hope Monkey will learn to love her veggies though I gorge on Totino's Pizza Rolls and Oreo cookies for one solid week each month.

My In-laws are sweet and love me and Monkey so much, yet I mostly do not like when they come to visit.

Having a budget (which I created) makes me want to go out to dinner.

I want my friends to call more often, but I do not EVER call them.

Dance Fever

Raising a child is such a wild experience. There are times when you're blown away by your kid's wisdom or talent or personality, and there are times when you just say, "what the ?!" The indeterminate interplay of nature versus nurture makes watching them grow so interesting ... and so nerve-wracking.

Case in point: tonight. We have just finished watching The Lion King 1.5, and with the rolling credits, on comes a song by Raven (of "That's So Raven" fame). It's a pop-ish kinda number, with a contagious beat, and I give both my boys credit for just feeling compelled to move to it spontaneously. Then came the aforementioned "what the ?!" moment, as I witness my five-year-old begin to perform what could only be described as an unmistakable kindergartener version of The White Man's Overbite. He was thrashing around a hair's breadth away from looking like he was having a seizure, with some impromptu break-dancing-ish moves thrown in, but you could see that he KNEW those moves were SWEEEEET.

Now of course he's only five, and no one's ever shown him how to dance or nuthin', and of course I am imagining a trajectory that may be unreasonable, but too many school dances either pitying or being the Girl Who Came With the Bad Dancer Who Thinks He's Good made me instinctively recoil internally. I began to worry and project. The girls will run! The guys will beat him up! My son is Urkel-in-waiting! Or worse yet, Screech!

See, I can dance quite well (though I.O. was always a smidge better) and hubby can dance pretty well (though he has only, like, three moves, he has good rhythm). Look a little further up the family tree, however, and the horror begins. My mother can dance (if she's biting her lip and closing her eyes and it's a 50's song), but my father, well he can only embarrass -- a point he last proved with a stunning performance at our youngest sister's wedding in 2000. No one knew what to say or do except look on in wonder. There were a lot of thrashing, tribal-slash-hillbilly-type moves, all executed with great enthusiasm and a red face from the exertion. I don't think he'd had more than Coca Cola to drink, either. None of us will ever forget it.

So should I be worried? The two of them (my son and my father) have proved to be quite similar to date in many other ways. Like their love of rocks. And a fondness for pick-up trucks. Although my boy can sing in tune, and my father loves to sing but does so somewhere in the vicinity of the tune's parking lot. Maybe there's hope. Plus, I always have another son.

It's Life, Jim, but not as we know it

Should I be sleeping right now? Yes. The only problem is that my mind was just blown by a little factoid the Hubby shared with me. Voyager one is now outside the known solar system and transmitting data. Woah. I hope there's a bunch more systems out there with non-violent goverments who can give our pres. a good talkin' to ( or maybe they call it "A Boot in the Ass" in Texas...) I want to see pictures of other solar-sytems. Maybe they'll find the planet where all the lost socks and orphaned power-cords go to live a life free from war and poverty.

Meanwhile on our little green planet, I have joined the ranks of the Camera-phoned. Yes, dear brother in law and family, I have stayed brand loyal to put some crumbs on your table, so unbunch those panties and relax. In the words of wireless-company guru Eva, "you get a phone free, so you might as well get a camera-phone." (subtext- "just buy a dang phone so I can get out of here") So, now I can take pictures at the flip of a phone and charge myself a quarter for getting to use them anywhere other than my phone, or I can flip the phone open at the pool in the summer and make like those new-parents I saw three years ago who I wished would slip on a wet-spot on the textured-concrete pool deck and get a nasty case of deck-burn. Here's why (and I quote):

"ETHANLOOKATDADDY-LOOKATDADDYETHAN-HEYETHAN-ETHAN-SMILEETHAN-SAYHIETHAN-LOOKATDADDY-ETHAN-ETHAN-HEY-LOOKATTHECAMERAPHONEETHAN-HEYETHAN-ETHANLOOKATDADDY!!!!!!!!! etc etc" I swear this went on for at least three sets of ten minutes, with a minute or two pause between sets. It was like circuit training for annoying locution.

So I got the dang camera phone, "'cause why not" and now I promise and solemnly swear never to try more than three consecutive times to get a picture of my sweet monkey girl. (at least in public). By the way, Ethan was like, three months old. yeah.

I also sold out to the brand-name-sneakers-for-little-newly-walking-children set tonight. To jusitfy, they are SO DANG CUTE and we only paid half of the 29.95 for them due to a well-meaning grandparent who got the Monkey some shoes without trying them on her first. So we returned the small shoes and replaced them with Sketchers, so now Monkey can grow up to be just like Christina Aguilera. Oh Crap, now I've gotta return those shoes- because though she may have a phenomenal voice talent, Miss Aguilera's sense of style is definitely lacking (okay, so it's really just clothes in general that she's lacking. Oh, and modesty.) Those of you who know me know how important the sense of style is to me. Monkey and hubby and I spent saturday morning at the mall play-area identfying fashion dos and don'ts and crawling through the plastic tube-tunnel. Thankfully, Monkey and I are in total agreement so far about who should appear on the back page of Glamour magazine. But then again maybe that pointing finger and the accompnying "UNGH!!" meant get me some of those pink shiny hot pants made especially for toddlers complete with the big-butt allowance for diapers!! NOW!!!!

God, help me!

The I.O.