All The Babies Are Asleep

(And then they woke up – both of them, simultaneously, and ruined my blogging break, and this was Wednesday when I started and now it’s Friday, but I’m going to finish as if it were still Wednesday, because I don’t want to waste my lovely prose with all of the EMPHATIC CAPITAL LETTERS that I was apparently feeling it necessary to use on Wednesday).

Not without some struggles, though.  Margaret DID NOT WANT TO TAKE A NAP, THANK YOU, and then came out of her room holding her ear and crying, so I took her to the doctor, they said her ears were beautiful, and she fell asleep in the car on the way home.

Humph.

So she’s in her room sleeping it off for another 15 minutes, and Ellie has nodded off as well, and I have two hands for blogging.  Whee.

And Margaret at least SHOULD be tired, because for my first day of completely solo parenting of these two little people, we did LOTS OF THINGS.  Margaret started out making bold and bizarre fashion choices.

This effect, should you wish to try it at home, is achieved by putting your arm (in a sleeve) through the neck of your shirt from the bottom.  It doesn’t look comfortable (or for those of us past puberty and of the female persuasion, appropriate for public wear), but it’s certainly something.

Then we went to Forest Park and fed possibly the most frightening ducks that I have ever met.

Well, they weren’t frightening when they were in the water.

But you see the piece of bread just in front of the railing in this picture?  Yeah, Margaret’s not the best at getting distance on her bread throwing, and there was a bit of a wind, and so it wasn’t getting to the ducks.

Ducks get miffy about things like that.

So one of them flew up onto the bridge, and flapped about very aggressively.  I didn’t like it.  And I couldn’t figure out whether to protect the helpless infant sitting on the ground strapped into her carseat like a bear tied to a stake* or the reckless toddler who was happily exclaiming “ducks!” and holding bread out to him in her hand.

Life is full of difficult decisions.

And then we came home, and Margaret decided to take 20 minutes to crawl up the back steps on her knees.  It might be some bizarre Lenten penance, but I don’t think that she a)knows that it’s Lent or b) is into doing things that she doesn’t enjoy.

And then she came inside, took her shirt off, and stuck stickers on her nose until naptime.

Perhaps we have been reading her too much Dr. Seuss, particularly The Sneetches.  Perhaps she’s not old enough to get the message of that story, and has become instead fixated on having stars on thars.

So that was Wednesday.

Except that Leo finished the trial that has been keeping him at work at all hours of the day and night for the past month, and to celebrate, we went out to dinner.  So here’s Ellie’s first dinner out.



Margaret also enjoyed herself, despite her short nap.

*That is very Shakespearean, by the way.  Not that you’d get much sport from baby-baiting.  They don’t really fight back so much as look small and pitiful.  I imagine.

Margaret Tangles with Idioms

So Margaret and I had a slight disagreement as to the meaning of “take.”  I said I would take a picture, and I think she thought I was going to remove something from her grasp, as opposed to snapping a photograph.

And her face crumpled.

I’m not sure my explanation of the misunderstanding made sense to her.

Matching Onesies

With monkeys!  And matching pants that they had both, by this point in the day, managed to shed.  But very cute anyway.

Also, Margaret is pointing out to us in this picture that Ellie has a chin.  Which she does.  So that’s something to keep in mind.  In case you were wondering about it. 

Fixing the Bed

Margaret’s big girl bed had slats made of balsa wood plywood, and so – between her jumping on the bed before she was made to stop, and tired adults flopping into it when she started waking up at 4 in the morning, just to make things interesting for us – they snapped.

But I prefer to leave the story behind this picture to the imagination of the reader.

Book Review: Corduroy

Margaret: This book is marvelous.  It has a bear, who is missing a button off of his overalls, and he goes to a place with a bed and a lamp that goes crash, and someone says “Oh, Mommy,” and then at the end there’s hudging.  This book is the best ever.  Did I mention that he is missing a button?  He has green overalls.  And they’re missing a button.  And there’s hudging.  And a bed.  And he’s missing a button.

Summary: He’s missing a button, but there’s hugging.  Like so:

And so:

Beth: So it’s a sweet story and all, but WHAT SORT OF LOW-RENT NIGHT WATCHMAN ARE THEY EMPLOYING?!?  He hears a crash, comes down and finds the lamp knocked down, looks around for the intruders – because, you know, empty rooms don’t just spontaneously begin to knock furniture down – and when he finds a stuffed bear hidden in a bed, that answers the question for him?  He stops looking for whoever made the noise, and just returns the bear to his spot downstairs?  Really?  Does that seem like the sort of night watchman you’d want to employ?

Summary: I want to go rob the department story in Corduroy.  Perhaps that’s what the sequel, A Pocket for Corduroy,* is really about, and he needs a pocket to cart away his loot.

*I have not read this book, but I am certain that at some point, Margaret will learn of its existence, and I will.

Book Review: Fox in Socks

(For those of you who read this for the pictures, I should warn you that there aren’t any pictures in this post.  But it is chock-full of Margaret anecdotes).

I was reading another blog last night (because if you had to sit on the couch and feed Ellie four and a half hours out of the twenty-four, you’d find yourself reading a lot of things), and the author was doing book reviews from her perspective and from her child’s perspective, and it struck me that I spend a lot of time reading aloud to Margaret, and it would be nice to record her reactions to books before they vanish into the mists of my sleep-deprived brain.  I’m starting with Fox in Socks, a classic Dr. Seuss title, because I just read it to her before leaving her reading it (and her orange cookbook) and hoping that she’ll take a nap.  So my impressions are fresh, but I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to quote it exactly, because she has my copy.  I apologize.

Margaret’s review: This book is great.  It’s got a fox.  And he’s wearing socks.  And sometimes the socks are on his hands, which is FUNNY.*  Also, there is someone named Sue who also wears socks.  And then there is goo, a duck, and OH MY GOSH, THERE ARE NOODLES.  I DIDN’T NOTICE THAT THE TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND TIMES THIS BOOK WAS READ TO ME BEFORE, BUT NOW I KNOW WHAT NOODLES ARE, AND NOODLES!!

Hey, it’s over.  Huh.  Now read me something else, Mommy.

Summary: Really good book, with lots of my favorite things, but now that it’s over, we can look at something else.

My review: Oh goody.  Tongue twisters.  Again.  I thought I “disappeared” this book once.  Apparently cleaning under her bed was a dumb idea.  Oh well, here goes.

Does anyone else think that Knox looks a lot (and behaves a lot) like the non-Sam character in Green Eggs and Ham?  Is it the same?  Where is Green Eggs and Ham?  Should I compare them?  Is it the book that’s digging into my back in bed? And even if the artwork isn’t as similar as  I’m remembering, isn’t it interesting that Dr. Seuss has created such similar characters, the put-upon straight-man for the zany characters?  Oh, we’re coming to the bricks and blocks.  The pronunciation may actually take some concentration here.  Back in a minute.

Also, why Fox and Knox?  Does this have something to do with major figures in the Reformation?  Should I be reading this allegorically?  And if I am, does that make Sue the Whore of Babylon?  That’s probably a little deep for a children’s book.  Also, I can’t really fit the new blue goo into this framework, so I’d better leave it.

Why the heck are Luke Luck and his duck licking lakes?  That is really silly.  As is the poodle/noodle intrusion in the tweetle beetle battle.  It’s only a rough rhyme, and I think he could have done better.  On the other hand, Margaret likes it.

Summary: Eh, it’s fine.  I have to pay a little more attention to it than I like, without the pay-off of a really good story, and I do want to know about Seussian stock characters.  Perhaps this is telling me I need to get out more.

*I wonder if this is the origin of her name for mittens, which is “handsocks.”  Also, she doesn’t know that foxes don’t have hands, and I don’t think that this book is likely to convince her that they do, because the fox behaves in a most unfoxy manner, walking around on his hind legs and tormenting people with tongue-twisters.

Um, Help?

So the other morning, Margaret got up at some ungodly hour of the morning (5:45) and was rampaging about in the living room with Leo,* and Ellie announced that she wanted her breakfast, so I fed her in bed.

The cat came in to join us, and was disconcerted to find that we’d added another one of these small, tail-grabbing, non-self-cleaning people to the household.**

Anyway, he seems to be taking it rather hard.***

I’d worry, but although Ellie looks like she’s sleeping, she’s clearly got this one covered.

So Puck better be careful.  The kid clearly knows what she’s doing, and has a mean right hook.****

*Leo was almost certainly not rampaging.  Probably lying on the couch with one eye open.

**You may recall his justifiable dubiousness at Margaret's introduction to our domicile.  You may also not, and that’s fine with me too.  You’re your own person.  Do what you want.

***I’m pretty sure that’s the flash reflecting on his weird cat eyes, but it may be some sort of supernatural rage.  Whichever.

****Unfortunately, the only use she has put said right hook to thus far is to scratch her face, which while it demonstrates her strength and viciousness, only hurts her.  So she’s still got some learning to do.