Yeah, NOW it's a funny story

Recently we have begun the dreaded process of house hunting. At first it's kind of a fun, exciting process, imagining all the possibilities, looking at pictures of houses online. Then you actually start to go look at houses and the excitement wanes pretty fast; at least in our little market it does. But the overinflated prices of old homes in serious need of repair in a town that somehow didn't burst with the the rest of the country's housing bubble is a topic for another time.

Something that I've noticed as we've looked at different housing options is what a different lens I see things through these days. It's the Ellie lens. I mean sure, there's always the basic childproof concerns about stairs, banisters (or lack thereof in the case of one house we saw), doors (Charlie is already opening doors and it's upending my life right now), knobs for the stove burners down low where the baby can reach and turn them on instead of up behind the range (who does that?!), that kind of thing. But life with Ellie has certainly opened our eyes to what is even possible to need childproofing. We'd notice in some houses some nice features like built-in bookshelves, which I think are great, but through the Ellie lens all I see are ladders and a challenge (currently all our books and bookcases are tucked away in the guest bedroom with a childproof handle on the door). A built-in desk seems like a nice feature, and Brady made the comment that we would have to get a nice big desk chair to go with it if we had that. After a moment's pause we both looked at each other and added, "someday," both envisioning the added climbing benefit such a chair would offer, not to mention all the adventures if the thing were on wheels. Someday.

Thinking on all this, I realized I never did record our classic Ellie climbing/getting into mischief/childproofing fail to date. The last person I told the story to asked me if I'd written it down, telling me I wouldn't want to forget it. I told her I was waiting for the trauma to settle, wanted to make sure no one would call the law on me, and does anyone really forget such moments?

When we were first moving into our current house and setting up the kitchen, I expressed some concern to Brady about leaving all the knives out on the counter in the big wooden knife block. This is the same knife set that, after he had tried them out for the first time and I asked him how they were, he described as, "one-and-a-half thumbs up!" holding up a newly bandaged thumb. Brady likes a sharp knife for cooking. But Brady thought they'd be fine on the counter and said we'd want them accessible.

One morning last fall I decided it would be nice to take the kids to story time at the library. They were both playing in the living room, so I ran back to the bedroom to just throw on some clothes really fast so we could go. While back there, I could hear that they had made their way to the kitchen and thought they had gotten into the cupboard with the tupperware (which is also childproofed now). No big deal, I thought. It would take two minutes to clean up. So I hurried to finish getting ready and headed back out. What I found was not tupperware on the floor. Ellie, for the first time, had climbed up onto the counter, and Charlie had crawled to the floor right below her. Ellie was pulling knives out of the block and dropping them on the floor below, blade first, one at a time. The block was almost completely empty. Charlie was holding two steak knives by the blades and waving them over his head, sitting in a pile of fillet, chef's, and other assorted knives. Ellie sat crouched in her own little pile of knives.

For half a second I couldn't even process what I was looking at, both my children smiling up at me, wielding these sharp, shiny instruments of death. It's one of those frozen moments where you can't think how to respond. Sometimes those moments call for taking a picture. Sometimes that would just be evidence for child protective services. After my half second of shock, I gingerly stepped over the knives, pried the two out of Charlie's hands, and removed him from the  kitchen. Then I did the same for Ellie. I grabbed a big bucket, rounded up knives and dropped them in, put everything in the pantry (which already did have a childproof doorknob at this point), and breathed huge sigh of relief that no one was hurt. Luckily, we ended up at story time still and not the ER. Can you imagine trying to answer those questions? "Well, see, the kids have this knife-throwing act, and usually Ellie's aim is spot on, but this time Charlie must have flinched or something. He's usually not so nervous, but you know how 10-month-olds can be . . ." (Incidentally, most of the knives still live in the pantry; just the chef's knife and the paring knife stay out in the kitchen because they get used multiple times a day, but they have good, protective sheathes and aren't out on the counter. Still . . .)

Now it's a funny story. Kind of. Funny for all of you who aren't constantly pulling this three-and-a-half-year-old off the counters, out of the cupboards. We have more and more empty cupboards in our house these days, and a pantry that is getting fuller and fuller. Sorry I don't have pictures of this. I also don't have pictures of the kitchen floor after Ellie discovered I hadn't put the syrup bottle away after we had pancakes for breakfast (sometimes I don't think that linoleum is ever going to fully recover).

I do have pictures of the time she made a snowstorm. Early this past winter I was in one room with Charlie when I heard Ellie yelling, "It's snowing! It's snowing!" I thought it was odd since I didn't think the forecast called for it. Then I saw that Ellie had reached a full box of tissues. (Pretty sure that one is right out the the Ramona books.) Now the tissues stay up in a cupboard that Ellie usually leaves alone.

Hopefully our new house will have lots of good hiding places.

Grandma vs. Disneyland

Last year my parents went to the funeral of an old family friend. My dad remembers her doing all kinds of things from being the den mother for scouts to being the bus driver for school. She was quite a character. When they got home from the funeral, my mom threw her hands in the air and said, "I give up. She wins. She is the world's best grandma." She then told some of the funny memories people shared at the funeral about this lady, all the fun things she did for kids and grand kids.  One of the most notable stories was when one of her kids were taking their family to Disneyland. Their youngest was a little young to really enjoy all the features of Disneyland, I guess, so they decided to drop the baby off to stay with Grandma while they were on vacation. As the family was getting ready to leave Grandma's house to go to the greatest place on earth, the next youngest sibling got really upset and whined, "Why do I have to go to Disneyland? Why can't I stay at Grandma's house?"

My kids don't even know Disneyland exists. We'll see how long that lasts. For now, I think they get as much thrill out of Grandma's house as they could from Disneyland at this point. And here are just a few tips for Disneyland from one grandma's house:

Put light switches in reach of babies. Hours of entertainment. Charlie loves lights, practically jumps out of my arms every time we go past a light switch, trying to reach to turn it on and off. It was so nice to have on he could just play with by himself.

Provide princess tent beds. We recently discovered that Ellie sleeps better when she has her tent bed to shut out the outside world (we discovered this when we took down the little tent over her bed and she stopped sleeping through the night, staying up for hour and a half stretches in the middle of the night, etc.). With her tent bed, she seems to get a lot more sleep, so we go with it for now. My mom rigged up this little number so Ellie would feel at home while visiting. Worked like a charm (stayed in her bed until 6:55 a.m. most mornings), and Ellie loved it. 

The first night I tucked her in Ellie said, "I'm really glad I came . . . so glad." Then she started squirming around and crying out, "Ooh! Ouch! Ouchie! Oh, I hurt!" Alarmed, I asked her where she hurt. She responded, "Oh, no. There is a pea under my bed." We decided it would make it better if I "ate" the pea, and all was right in the world again. Quite the little princess, that one.

Of course, the main attraction would probably have to be cousins. A close second is popcorn and movie parties.

Hang in there, Baby Ian. Someday you can knock him down!

This is the only picture I have of these two cousins together. They were fascinated with each other, and especially with each other's pacifiers. They never tried to suck on the other's, but loved pulling each other's out, and (sometimes) trying to put it back in again.

The most important thing we learned, though, whether it's Grandma's house or Disneyland, is never, ever, EVER forget Blanket Dear or she will have to be shipped to you and you will be inventing stories for a couple of days about all the adventures Blanket Dear is on to try and comfort the distraught three-year-old in your life. It was a rough couple of days followed by a joyous reunion. They had lots of secrets to tell each other and don't part company much while at home these days.

Charlie's ABCs

This is Charlie's latest trick. Not bad for 16 months old. He likes to watch Super Why with Ellie and gets really excited whenever they sing or say the alphabet on the show. We noticed he was starting to recite letters, saying them when he was pretending to read books, trying to guess letters when the characters on the show would ask questions. Soon he started doing a string of several letters in order. Yesterday I thought he might like some alphabet flashcards, so I downloaded a free app on my phone with just the letters and someone saying the letter. You can't see it on the video, but he's not identifying the letter on the screen, he's telling me which letter comes next. The kid hardly talks yet, except for jabbering and occasionally giving us a word here and there, he was slow to walk, and still fights the sippy cup, but he knows the alphabet. We'll take it.

(He almost always skips E and N, and consistently pronounces W that way, and kind of pronounces G, H, and J like Daffy Duck, but come on, he's a baby. He also skips 7 when counting. Also, Brady cut the video off before Charlie started clapping. He loves clapping for himself.)

Easter ties are for the birds

As Easter approached I raided my stock of consignment finds to see how my children's springtime wardrobe was faring. Not great, but I did rummage up this little number, which I thought would do nicely for Ellie for an Easter dress if the weather was nice enough (it was; we reached 60 degrees even).



But poor Charlie. Still at an age where he outgrows his wardrobe every couple of months, and so big I don't dare buy too far ahead for him since he might just outgrow it before it't the right season to wear it anyway.



Determined not to leave him out, but realizing I had nothing Easter-y for him, I decided to make him some ties. I made this one first because I knew I would take pictures of it, and I knew that one day he would see these pictures and ask, "Why in the world did you put a mustard-colored with teal polka dots  tie on me when I was a baby?" The more conservative striped pattern just won't have that effect, and everybody needs to have that experience of being dressed in something that's a little trendy as a baby, but totally ridiculous when you're a teenager.





While I was working on it last night, I was listening to Wives and Daughters, by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. (The novel is about 800 pages long, and I have to have it finished for my book club by April 9th.) The characters were talking about preparations for an Easter ball and how they all needed to have some new article of clothing to wear (preferably a bonnet or dress, but worse case gloves or a handkerchief--at least something that would show) or else they would be in ill favor with the birds. ?!?!? I know. I had to back that one up too. I was re-threading a bobbin at the time, so wasn't sure I heard that right.

I looked it up later. This is what Wikipedia taught me. If you didn't have new homespun at Easter, then moths and crickets would eat your old things, and rooks would nest around your home. Then there's the old Irish saying, "For Christmas, food and drink; for Easter, new clothes." Not super catchy, is it? Maybe it sounds better in Gaelic. And then there's the 15th-century proverb from Poor Robin's Almanack [sic] (yep, Ben Franklin didn't think up Poor Richard's all by himself), "At Easter let your clothes be new,/ Or else be sure you will it rue." Kind of some verbal gymnastics just to get to rhyme scheme right; could have just said it's bad luck not to wear something new on Easter.



So, turns out all this hoopla about Easter finery is based in old European superstition (I'd like to see some department stores set their Easter marketing campaigns based on this). But really, what of our silly traditions aren't really pagan or superstition anyway? The date for Easter itself is determined not by any religious calendar. It is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.  I think it's time we just picked a day and settled it. Worked for Christmas. Second Sunday in April. Every year. Done.

At any rate, Charlie didn't seem too thrilled with all the evil rooks I was warding off for him and all the good luck I was getting for him this coming year. Not to mention all the homespun goods of his that I saved from crickets. Or, at least, he wasn't too happy about getting his picture taken.

Heads or Tails or Tummies

Ellie has been fascinated with coins ever since she saw her cousin Tommy carrying some around all during Christmas vacation. She thinks every coin she she sees around the house is actually his and is always asking if she can play with them. Today while I was getting ready in the bathroom, this is the conversation I overheard in the bedroom, where Ellie had found some coins and Brady finally agreed to let her play with them.

Brady: Here, let me show you a game. See this side? This is called "heads" because it has a head on it. So this side is called "tails." So when I throw it in the air, you guess which side will land up by saying "heads" or "tails."

Ellie: No, I want it.

Brady: Just a minute. First you have to guess. Say "heads" or "tails."

Ellie: Heads or tails. [who didn't see that one coming?]

Brady: No, you have to pick one. Say "heads," or say "tails."

Ellie: No, I'm gonna pick tummies.

Brady: No, look. There aren't any tummies on the coin. Just heads or tails. See? I'm going to toss it and guess heads. Look--I was right.

Ellie: Now I'm going to teach you a game. It's called "Krauger aaannd . . . Snails."

At this point I had to rush off to choir practice, but I'm willing to bet that Krauger and Snails is a lot like Head and Tails, only with Ellie throwing all the coins but still getting to keep them all in the end, no matter how they land. We've already decided she's coming with us to negotiate terms when we're ready to buy our next car.

And sometimes it takes 30 minutes just to change the sheets

Which isn't so bad when you consider that also includes making a ship for space pirates' travel and a cave for hiding from dragons.

The Inadvertent (Intermittent?) Housekeeper

This is Ellie playing with her new "telescope." About a month ago I caught her walking out of the kitchen with a mostly full roll of paper towels. I stopped her and told her that those were for cleaning, not playing. She turned back, looked at me and said, "Sorry about this, Mommy. I'm so, so sorry about this, Mommy," and then continued walking out. Wait--what? I stopped her again and told her she could have one paper towel to play with and promised her the telescope inside once the roll was empty. She just now finally got her telescope. Does it seriously take me that long to go through a roll of paper towels? Part of me would like to think it's because I'm so environmentally conscious, but another part of me suspects I just don't really clean the windows or mirrors enough, let alone other messes around the house.

Don't be alarmed. The house is sanitary enough. I'm no fanatic, but I have my limits on what I will tolerate. I try to keep order, and get a good routine going for a while, and then my back goes out, or we all get sick and the routine goes out the window and we go into survival mode. I find an orderly house comforting, a broad expanse of newly vacuumed carpet soothing, a kitchen with all the dishes put away relaxing, and a tidy bathroom is so pleasant. But I also know my limits of health and energy and kids the ages mine are. So we do our best. 

I mean well, with a list of to-do's every day. Sometimes I feel bad for not getting to everything on the list, until I realize just how much I actually do get done every day, just not the things on the list. Who plans to scrub a 15-month-old's scribbles off the walls, or sop up the spilled liquid hand soap-turned-skating-rink on the bathroom floor (the three-year-old's ingenious idea) when they get up in the morning? Or who can forget this lovely spill? One time while I was scooping up a pile of Cheerios that Ellie had spilled all over the living room floor, the thought actually crossed my mind to just leave it there since Charlie seems to prefer to eat things off the floor than off his plate. Maybe I'll just sprinkle green vegetables behind me as I vacuum next time.

Someday my house will be perpetually tidy. People will drop by unannounced and it will look like I was just sitting there waiting for them to come over and inspect. In the meantime, I will start the day with a blank to-do list and fill it in as I go and see just how much housekeeping I actually get done during a day, rather than how much I don't get done. That or get the kids to only spill Cheerios on the floor on Mondays and Thursdays when I plan to vacuum, spill juice in the kitchen on Saturday when I was going to mop anyway, and save wetting the bed for laundry day. (Oh, who am I kidding? Every day is laundry day.)