File under: first really embarrassing public moment

Nope, it wasn’t nudity, but good guess. That happened several times in early potty learning, and I didn’t care when he stripped in public. Not my parts, don’t care who sees ‘em. And lordy, did that boy drop trou inappropriately. Nope, not tonight. Nor was tonight’s “Holy crap, who said that? Couldn’t be my kid. [...]

So I’ve mentioned before what a weirdo I’m raising. Not to be dismissive or judgemental or anything. But he’s a weirdo of untoward proportions. This coming from a HUGE weirdo.
I’m taking a shower in the new house, and he comes running in. “Mommy. I need you, I call you.” Um, there’s a few words missing [...]

Does this thing take quarters?

On a long drive home today, I put in a CD and heard a lovely, nostalgic sound–a jukebox swallowing a quarter. My CD player, however, is not a jukebox, and just after the quarter dropped the right speaker went out. Then a high pitched squeal. Then the left speaker went out. I turned around to [...]

I don’t know if we’ll make it through today.

Here are two tasty little morsels from today, which has been a never-ending stream of the same.
M: Do you want to pull the laundry basket?
P: No. [walks off and up the stairs.]
M: Are you sure you don’t want to help?
P: No! Peanut no want pull laundry!
M: [whatever, fine by me] Okay. [starts pulling basket and [...]

Onebody, twobody, redbody, bluebody

Peanut, at the playground: Not anybody here….
Hey! Onebody here!…………….
Mama! Twobodies riding bicycles!…………………………..
Hey! Allbodies here is ladies!
The linguist in me loves this stuff.
Makes me want to dust off the letters of rec. and start working on a linguistics PhD this fall. Everybody else says have another kid. I say I have things to do and this [...]

But what I really want to do is direct

Peanut: [handing over toothbrush] Mommy turn.
Mommy: [taking toothbrush] Okay. Open, please.
Peanut: [snatching brush back] Mommy don’t want it.
Mommy: [puzzled] Okay. I don’t want to?
Peanut: [yelling and shoving the toothbrush back into mommy's hand] Peanut say DO it, Mommy DO IT!
I swear we’ve never said anything that sounds anything like that. But if I knew he [...]

Fire fighters in bite-sized, 100-calorie packs

Have you seen the Chronicle Books imprint’s book Porn for New Moms? Hilarious. Pictures of men tending a baby while vacuuming, cooking dinner while cooing at an infant, and so on. Fully clothed (mostly, except the shot that offers to rub your feet while you talk about baby’s day), and only erotic in that “actually [...]

New Sheriff in town

Okay, buddy. For the next few minutes, I’m going to channel the parent you’re bringing out in me. All my attachment, gentle, loving parenting is getting me nowhere fast, so here’s the mom I’d just LOVE to be this week, since you hit a major warp-speed, two-and-a-half jerk-fest. Here goes:
No more compromises. No more respecting [...]

Oy, you’re gonna be a great teenager

So Peanut bangs his head on the toilet paper holder and begins to cry. I make a sad face, kiss the red spot,  and cuddle him. He flips his face up to look at me and says, giggling, “Peanut laughing at Mommy sadness.”
You still call a truck a “doot” but you can say that you’re [...]

Toddlers or Anarchists: the Multiples Addendum

Oh, what a little “ess” to make a noun plural will do to the whole theory.
Here’s my good faith effort at a multiple-children addendum, for those who posed the question on “Toddler versus Anarchist“.
I’m guessing that, as with children, anarchists in groups can be either more or less work, depending on what “projects” they set [...]