Song Memories

I'm a sucker for a good song, or even a bad one. And I, like many people, tend to associate certain songs with certain people in my life. Here's a short list of the ones for my family, so I can remember for all time.

Ryker: Corner of the Sky (from Pippin - one of the only songs that will calm him down), the theme song to CBS Sunday Morning (his favorite song ever), Let's Go Crazy (Prince's - he thinks it's HILARIOUS)

Jackson: In My Life (the song that calmed him down when he was a baby), the Muffin Man (forever burned into our brains), Manic Monday & To Be With You (current sing-along favorites)

Chuck: At Last (our wedding song), Fools Rush In (he sung to me the night before our wedding)

I have others, of course. And ones to remind me of family members and friends, or of times in my life. Like a photo album of songs.

My Shadow

Last night I was explaining to Jack that our new routine is going to be that I'll come home with the kids, get them dinner. Then Daddy will come home and Mommy will get to work out (either in the house or go running (?!) or biking or something). I wanted him to understand this plan. I knew he'd be a little upset at not being able to bother me while I was working out.

So to make things a bit more enticing, I said "Well, maybe tonight we could ask Daddy if he would give you a bath!" Baths are not an every day occurrence (don't judge), so this was exciting, as evidenced by Jack's new exclamation...

"What the...??!!"

Yes, he says that. Great. And how to you explain to a kid that they shouldn't really say that because when Mommy and Daddy say it, we're saying it so that we can leave out the swear word?

Anyway, I did get to work out, but Jack had a VERY hard time leaving me alone. He kept coming out to tell me things. Then he said he wanted to do yoga with me. I tried to give him one to do and he kept stumbling towards me, regaining his balance, and trying the pose right in front of me. It was adorable. I like my little shadow.

Really Awful Books

Sometimes I'm really stunned at how bad some of the books are that Jack is reading. They are awful. We all know that fairy tales have really bad story lines, complete with the damsel in distress. In many of the stories, the woman and man get married right after meeting each other because their parents and the town folk declared it so. Fantastic message. And there was SO much violence.

Anyway, I can write those off a little bit, because there was a formula to those sorts of stories. It was "normal" back then.

But not now. I just finished reading a book to Jack. It sounded good enough at the beginning - about a dog who ends up with a fire station. Fine. But then the plot unfolded. There was a kid who was cutting school. His dad worked at the fire station, but the fire station was not responding to fires fast enough, so the city manager was threatening to shut them down. But wait, there's more. The delinquent juvenile started investigating, and figured out that it was a local business man who was telling someone to light all of the fires. And guess who he was telling? THE CITY MANAGER (GASP). So they were arrested. And the dog got to stay with the fire station. The end.

Volunteering

A random thought. Lately I feel like my conversations with friends revolve around doing things for others. I have two friends, in particular, who are INCREDIBLY giving. One is going to donate a kidney! To a perfect stranger. I mean, really...It's amazing. The other spends several nights a week and a bunch of weekends a year volunteering.

I so admire them. It would never cross my mind to donate an organ to someone. It just wouldn't. I'd be scared. And I just don't volunteer anymore.

I used to do unto others as I'd have them do unto me, before the kids arrived. I coached younger kids in basketball all through high school. I worked at a camp for inner-city kids in StL every summer, and more basketball camps than I can remember. I served on the Human Rights Commission in Richfield, and had people talking to me about running for City Council or School Board. And I worked for four years at Big Brothers Big Sisters.

But now my time has gotten away from me. I need to get back to it. I need to carve out the time, or pick things that my whole family can do together. If anyone has suggestions, let me know. The problem is that I always feel like I'm taking time away from something that important - time from Chuck or the kids, time from work, time from my own exercising (which I'm pretty bad at carving time out for anyway). I definitely want to work for the schools that the kids will attend and coach teams if they decide to play sports, but that's a few years off.

So there is my random thought. Gotta think up something to do.

Up

We have been watching a lot of the movie "Up" at our house since Christmas. Ryker has taken to grabbing the remote, pointing it at the TV and yelling at us until we turn it on.

Chuck and I like to quote the funny lines. Our favorites:

• "I can smell you."
• "I have just met you and I love you."
• "I do ever so much want the ball."
• "I would be happy if you stop."
• "Hey, that is a bird. I have not seen one up close, but this is a bird."
• "I am warning you bird...I am jumping on you now bird."
• "His fool's errand will keep him most occupied most occupied indeed."
• "Why's he with that small mailman?"
• "Hey, I know a joke! A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, 'I forgot to store acorns for the winter and now I am dead.' Ha! It is funny because the squirrel gets dead."

Okay, I could go on and on. It's just so darn funny. But only to the people who have seen it. The rest of you are bored out of your minds.

Jackson also thinks it's funny, but the lines he likes to quote are a bit, umm, different and not, well, the actual lines. Here are his versions, with the real words in quotes:

• "There are no tigers in South America. Newology." (Zoology)
• "Who's Cabin?" (Kevin)
• "They called me a frog." (fraud)

Ryker just really, really likes the bobbies (balloons). While we are saying the lines along with the movie, he just keeps saying "Bobbie!" and giggling.

Blog Fever

I have blog fever. Sometimes I neglect the blog, I know. Sometimes I think that I should post something but I can't think of any stories. And mostly this is a blog to keep family up to date on the kids. But sometimes I read other blogs and decide that I really just want to write. About anything. Or nothing. And sometimes I spend all day writing acknowledgments for works of art (sans an art degree - try doing that sometime - it's HARD). And on those days (today) I just REALLY want to write something that doesn't include the the words "exquisite" or "iconic" or "aestheticism" or "interlacing ornamentation." Sometimes I want to write in incomplete sentences. Yes. And not about the kids. Or both.

So what is on my mind? Mostly just getting my head on straight. I have fallen off course a bit, but I'm getting back on. I had one of the first moments in my life where I thought "the Universe is telling me something" the other day. And after awhile - and some help from my awesome neighbor Nicki, who might be reading this now and whose blog got me wanting to write more on mine - I understood clear as day what the lesson was. It was a pretty powerful moment. And it led to me talking to my therapist (Dr. Tom - I don't think I've mentioned him on here - he's the anxiety doctor and deserves a post all to himself) about it. And without getting into it all here, I am confident I'm going to be a better wife, mother, friend, daughter, cousin, niece, (I seriously wrote "nephew" right here and had to delete it) and colleague for taking this lesson in and working on it.

There you have it. And take this post as a warning that this blog might take on a slightly more personal tone, so I apologize if you normally just come here to check in on the kids. They'll get plenty of mentions/posts too, for sure, but you might have to sift through some more of my ramblings to get to them.

NOT a Stay at Home Mom

Props to all of my stay-at-home parent friends. Holy buh-jesus. I am NOT a stay-at-home mom.

I had both kids at home yesterday. I started out really strong. We had breakfast. We did art projects, including one that Jack told me was "for Martin Woofer King." Ryker put stickers all over an envelope and seemed thoroughly pleased with himself. Then Jack and I threw a tiny bouncy ball into a tiny cup to see if we could get to "five and five." We had time, because Ryker was busy emptying all of our kitchen drawers. Then we played basketball.

It was somewhere right after that where I lost my groove. Jack wanted to watch a movie and suddenly it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. Snuggled up with my kids, I fought to stay awake. I made it, but only barely. I let Jack watch two of the Pixar shorts that followed the movie. I fed Ryker, but realized that he had eaten kid-versions of snack food all day. Oops.

Then I put Ryker down for a nap, and suggested another movie for Jack. I curled up on the couch and after awhile he mentioned he was hungry again. It was 1:30, and he hadn't eaten lunch when Ryker did. Oops. So I fed him, we cuddled and watched a movie. Then I gave him his vacuum and pointed him in the direction of the dust-bunnies. Once Ryker woke up, I decided we needed to get out of the house, but we didn't have that much time. So our outing? We went to the car wash. Ryker was not in his happy place. To calm down, we drove around Lake Nokomis. I thought it'd be nice and peaceful and we'd see all the pretty snow. Jack spent the drive insisting that I drive our van onto the lake, and me explaining that I didn't want to fall through the ice and into the water, and that NO, you can't just wait down there at the bottom for someone to come pull you out.

So that was my stay-at-home day. Not very educational or nutritious for the kiddos. I DID read part of Dr. King's speech, and Jack came and stood right next to me to listen. But other than that, the only lesson learned was that it takes a special kind of person to be able to stay at home every day with their children. And the stay-at-home parents I know all do a VERY good job of it. I'm impressed.

Little Things I Love

1. Chuck returning from vacation
2. My boys laughing and playing together
3. The sound of a basketball going through the net
4. Hugs
5. Fleece sweatpants
6. A fire in the fireplace (or fire pit)
7. Singing
8. Pets
9. Fresh sheets
10. Kicking the snow off of the wheel-wells of the car (don't ask)

Typing

Jack's sitting next to me at the computer as I am messaging someone. He goes "I want to write my name" and I prepare for a discussion about how you don't write with a computer, you type, and here are the keys and here is how you press them and do you see the little letters and numbers on them?

Instead, he reaches across me for the J - then goes "now Shift?"

"Umm, yes, actually"

Jackson

"There."

I guess he knows how to type.

Feedings

Warning: If you are squeamish about nursing moms, or moms who nurse for a longer time than "normal," stop reading now. I'm serious - I don't want to make you uncomfortable. This post is more for me than anyone else.

So tonight was (I think) the end of nursing with Ryker. And yes, that means I nursed him until he was almost 18 months old. As I was putting him in bed I said to Chuck that that is the last time I feed a baby myself. That's a really surreal feeling, as it was one of the best things I have done. I felt like I wanted to write about the whole experience while it was still fresh in my mind.

I definitely planned to nurse my kids. In the beginning Jack and I had a rough time. For the first two weeks of his life, Jackson went 90 minutes on, 90 minutes off - all day and night long. We got him on a better schedule finally, but it was still hard. I remember crying during feedings - partially out of pain and partially out of frustration and a feeling of failure. Chuck kept encouraging me and getting me to go just one more week, and then another, and surely enough we found our rhythm. After awhile we started cutting out feedings one by one. I say "we" on purpose - I tried very hard to pay attention to what Jack seemed to need and feel comfortable with, and to do the same for myself. The weening was very natural. Finally we were down to just a morning feeding, which would only last a minute or two. We were in St. Louis and he started to nurse but sat up immediately, pointed at the kitchen and signed for milk. That was it. We were finished. He was fifteen months old and I was grateful for the experience.

With Ryker it was easy from the beginning. I knew what I was doing and he was a good eater. I was fully expecting to stop earlier than I did with Jack. I knew my time was much more limited, both because of having two kids and because of my job. But the months just flew by and we were still doing feedings. For quite awhile it was morning and night, and then in St. Louis (not sure what it is about that place) he stopped his morning feedings. We've still been doing the night feedings, until tonight. He sat in my lap and I got ready - but he sat back up and covered me up. And that was it with him.

I know that nursing is an incredibly personal decision, and that every mom and child must figure out what's best for them. For us, it worked. I've taken my share of criticism, seen glares, stares, and gaping mouths. But I listened to my kids, my husband, and myself and I'm proud of that.

Off-topic

As Jack and I were coming home from school today he started quizzing me about Martin Luther King, Jr. I was so excited to have a grown-up conversation with him.

Jack: "Was I alive when he was alive?"
Momma: "Nope. I wasn't alive then either."
J: "Yeah, I wasn't alive and you weren't. And not Daddy, not Ryker, not energy bar....Would that be a big meal?"
M: "Huh?"
J: "Energy bar, waffle and orange juice."

I thought it was funny in a childish sort of way that he couldn't stay focused on the topic, until I realized that most of my conversations veer off the intended path and onto a more chocolaty one.

The Language is Coming! The Language is Coming!

We have two very communicative little children in our house right now, and they are both on the verge of major breakthroughs.

Ryker is figuring out how to communicate better and better each day, and is now showing us that he knows more signs and words than we thought. The two new ones are "hot" which comes out more like you are in a huff "Huh!", but which he accompanies with a sign; and "bobbies," which are balloons. We watched the movie Up about fifty times this weekend - a movie in which balloons play a starring role - and each time we'd start up the DVD player, Ryker would start screaming "BOBBBBB-BIESSSSSSSSS!!!! Bobbies! Bobbies!"

Jack is VERY close to reading and is writing new words every day, all on his own. He's sounding words out and writing things like "bed" and "mom" and "logan" (a friend at school). He also noticed that the word "Chart" on his Vacuum Chart "starts the same way Charlie does." The kid never showed interest in reading or writing until a few months ago and now he's really taking off. It's adorable and he's SO proud.

I thought we might be on the verge of teaching Ryker how to use the toilet too. After his bath last night he wandered, naked, to one corner of his room, turned around to face me, and squatted down. I leaped over to him yelling "No Rykie!", scooped him up and ran him to the potty, as visions of no-more-diapers danced in my head. But then he sobbed, thinking I was dropping him forevermore in the potty-prison. So we'll have to wait on that one.

The Songs

I got Jackson to sing for the camera (not that hard to do). The Christopher Columbus song is the one he did as a solo. The other one is another song they sang at their concert. I have issues with the lyrics - we told Jack that that is "one version" of what happened. Poor kid has to deal with hippie parents. Anyway, enjoy.