Stuffed Animal Olympics

At our house we are having the stuffed animal olympics, featuring events which start out recognizable, but, when modified to suit teddy bears, take on a Calvinball vibe. Tonight's event was allegedly beach volleyball. Only without the skimpy suits and with rules such as "If the ball goes out of bounds and into the kitchen, one point." After getting beaned enough times, Girl instituted the "If you get hit, that's a point for you." rule. Jones thoughtfully considered this turn of events, and then pitched the ball straight into his own head, yelling "I win!"

Blood on the Saddle

As Belle-mere and I were off on a business trip to Flagstaff, Beloved was on point with our two little angels. And it is no comment on his parenting skills that we returned to a scene that evoked a bloody mass-a-kree worthy of "The Country Bear Jamboree". Oh there was blood on the towels, and blood on the walls and, in the words of that celebrated balladeer, Big Al, "A great big puddle of... buh-lood on the ground."

Y'see, Jones used to have asthma. So we moved to the desert for the dry air. And now he has nosebleeds.

Big epic nosebleeds. Entirely my fault, really. Well, or my father's, truth be told. His father's, I shouldn't wonder. Asian nose. Teeny Asian nose. Tinse. It's exacerbated by the fact that he's not very cool about it. Despite our protests, he can't help but hork the whole nasty back up his nose until forced to sneeze a blood-booger-bomb the size of an everlasting gob-stopper onto innocent passers-by, such as, for instance, his mother.

We are comforted by the fact that, alarming as these attacks might be for the innocent passer-by, such as, for instance, his mother, there is no loss of any real volume of blood during a nosebleed. And it's just as well Jones face these inevitable occurrences with good humor.

So, apparently, he got one of these monster nosebleeds during an otherwise uneventful bath. And, being the delightful scamp that we know and love, he decided to make a, well, is there any other word for it than "bloodbath"? Oh, just when you think you have seen everything, that surely there can't be any undiscovered territory of gross and disgusting yet to be explored, "Eureka!" shouts your son.

Comic Widow

So, apparently there's a word for me and it's Comic Widow. A great moniker, that. Sounds like a bunch of hilarious women yukking it up at the wake. But no, the comic widow is merely the spouse you deposit poolside with the kids while you get your geek on at the con.

Yes, my beloved and our dear friend NiceGrl made the rounds while the kids and I took in San Diego's museums, beaches and pool.

We reconnected at dinner. They'd be all exhausted and freaky, loaded with swag, dumping all of the information from their crania at once, their eyes all bugged out with over-stimulation, and a little moony over some of the celebs. There may have been squealing.

Unclear what impression this is having on Jones, who went with them on one of the days. He likes him some comics and cartoons -- the usual super heroes and such. Beloved turned him on to Avatar, and he is frequently to be found practicing his "air bending skills". Time will tell whether he manifests into a true fanboy.

I think next year I will venture inside. I do think I'd like some of the panels. And I could be more of a helpmate, standing in for him when two events are happening at the same time, bagging more freebies, fending off wookies, or Japanese schoolgirls, as the situation demanded.

Socks

Have I hit on something universal? In his life, does every boy have to pull an Anthony Kiedis?

Too Much Information

I was opining aloud to My Best Beloved that Girl was at that point where she needed a proper bra when I thought, is this one of those marital TMI moments best kept to myself?

My Darling has no dog in that fight, as the gender roles are rather rigid in this particular domain. The integrity and maintenance of Girl's business is ceded entirely to me and likewise My Sweet owns the controlling interest in Jones's.

However, if this arrangement is demure, well, that is sheer coincidence. I cannot say it is because we're so very classy. Not as much as Jones delights in working the word "booty" into every conversation. (Also, dam. He'll pretend he's a beaver so he can say he's building a dam. Or he'll sing "We all go down to Amsterdam. Amster, Amster dam-dam-dam.")

No, our arrangement owes nothing to diffidence and everything to the birth order of the parents. My Love and are both reeeaally bossy. It's just a good thing for our union that we have one of each.

So, it occurred to me that Light-of-my-life might appreciate an accounting of my stewardship, but what's the rule?

I mean, when I came of age, my mother reported the news to my father, who, being the more ceremonious parent, made several awkward gestures at celebrating the event. Y'know what? Probably doesn't need to be a beautiful bonding moment with your father, actually. (Especially as, once, when I was laid up with cramps, my sire consoled me with the wisdom that all of this could have been avoided if Eve hadn't sinned in the garden. Yeah, thanks for that.)

I think that I probably need to hold back. As much as I have to fight the tendency to treat my daughter like a girlfriend, I should probably also fight the tendency to treat my husband like a girlfriend. But, Dear Reader, I can still blab to you, can't I?

A good deed punished

I went with a neighbor to a naturalization interview today. This was a favor, as we are moms together. Her girl is in my scout troop. Girl has slept over at her house. Jones has gone to her daycare. I often sit with her at PTA and community meetings. I know her and her husband to be block-watching, whistle-blowing, field-trip-attending, cookie-baking, carpool-driving parents of the highest order.

There was an embarrasing moment when she had to answer questions about a "hit" that came up when the FBI ran her prints. Seems she was a foster parent and her ward presented with a broken bone. When she brought the child in she was questioned as a routine matter but exonerated and charges were presumably brought against the perpetrator.

The computer print-out merely says that she was released. You have to have the actual court records to see that she was exonerated and that in fact she is the one who reported the problem. There was a scramble through all the papers, but we did have the court records, so it didn't hold her up.

The interview went well and she burst into grateful tears. When she apologized for blubbering, the officer demurred. No, she said, it is gratifying to see someone take citizenship so seriously. So many people take it for granted.

I always find these scenes of gratitude a little bit uncomfortable. Because often the person has had to tolerate a lot of indifference and bureaucracy to get to this point, and the humility just emphasizes that power differential.

I was still dwelling on the FBI "hit". Why is the burden on her? How begrudging, how indifferent, how bureaucratic was the investigating officer not to simply make a note in her computer file that she is the good guy here? She is the person whose impulse to mother, to volunteer, to speak up, to advocate for a child brought the abuse out in the open and the perverse result is that she gets stuck with a "child endangerment" label for the rest of her life?

It makes me think back to all of the times that as an involved mother I have had to agree to a background check -- volunteering at the school, as a girl scout leader, as a camp chaperone. I fully support the background checks, of course, but how awful would it be to have to explain the alarming note on my file every single time?

My hope for her, as for many of my naturalization clients, now that they are citizens, is that they prove their American-ness by getting a little more uppity.

Circle Supper

Well, I hope that I read everyone else right, but I think the circle supper was a success after all. Americans spend so much of their time breaking into age-appropriate groups that there isn't hardly ever any real inter-generational give-and-take. And it's too bad, because I do think that something is lost.

I think the retirees got something out of having the kids around. They were mostly well-behaved, although Jones spilled some sauce on the carpet. I really got a lot out of seeing people enjoying their well-planned active retirement. For me, where I am in life, I need to feel that there is a pay-off.

I feel like this was a milestone for Girl because she really held her own in the grown-up conversation, piping up at more-or-less appropriate lulls in the conversation and inserting more-or-less relevant tidbits. She doesn't completely have the feel for it, but the crowd was an awkward mix anyway, so there wasn't really an established rhythm for her to throw off.

Beloved and I pride ourselves on our timing. We hardly ever make the rookie parenting mistake of if the party's fun now, it'll be even more fun in an hour. But we did miss the witching hour by about fifteen minutes, staying for coffee when we should have bolted after the cake. Still, I think we escaped any major bad behavior. We made to leave and he said, "Finally," but I don't think anybody heard.

Kids say the darnedest

I had the girl scouts over tonight making fake sushi out of pound cake cut in circles, iced, with flaked coconut for rice, green fruit roll-ups for seaweed, and swedish fish. Sour starburst microwaved for ten seconds and pressed with thumbs were our wasabi and pickled ginger. They turned out really darling. Will post photo when it's e-mailed to me.

Beloved fled to Sonic to procure burgs and Route44-sized beverages for all.

Munching a tot, Jones queried "Why does that say Happy Whore?"
"Um, what?" choking on a fry. "Where?"
"There," he said, pointing to Beloved's cup.
"Happy Hour, son. That says happy hour."

Gravity Hurts

Caught Jones singing the Bionicle anthem. Mark my words. That's my singer there.

Forget Norway (More like Snoreway)

Of course, then Jones reminded me of this primer on Kenya, which we used to play all the time. Slightly less charming, I'm afraid. I swear, they're going to stop inviting me to chaperone these trips.

Welcome to the zoo, zoo, zoo

I am an enormous fan of all things humongous and wish there were more brainy, clever, games like those. On a field trip to wildlife world, I had the whole bus singing this nifty tune from Putt Putt. Wipe off your windows so you can see, the elephant, the monkey, and the chimpanzee...

Jump Rope for Heart

It's Jump Rope for Heart time and Girl selflessly sat this one out so that Jones could earn all the good swag. Check out Jones's fundraising webpage

$4,000

I have similar ambivalence toward Jones's self-declared BFF. $4,000 is the youngest child of a woman who looks to have had a hard life. That he's the youngest is significant, because, unlike his more rough-cut siblings, each of whom has a different last name, I take it he was raised in the marriage that "took," that made it out of the ghetto and into the suburbs. This is a total guess and I am probably a big fat racist for assuming, but it is a pretty common phenomenon in my neighborhood.

His disposition is sweet and helpful, but to the point of ingratiating. He offers to carry my groceries and wash my car. He is endlessly fascinated with Jones. At first I thought it was just his toys. Mind you, he IS inordinately interested in the toys. But it's more than that. He has taken to grilling me on our customs and inviting himself along on our errands, as if to study our ways.

Some of this is oddly racial, as when a group of Black kids attempted to evict all of the white kids from the back of the school bus and $4,000 protected Jones. "I have his back," he has taken to declaring. I am grateful for these reports, because both of my kids are so oblivious that I would never get the dip from them.

You get the feeling that $4,000 and his siblings suffer from association with us. That they persist in coming over to our house speaks of some vaguely creepy calculation that throwing in with us is a better bet. That maybe I have something to tell them about suburban life. In fact, I do. Which is great, except for where I'm the stargate not because I'm a nice smart mommy in the neighborhood but because I'm white.

I have tried to correct the record and make the case for our Black cred, but dood, my son is blond. They just stare at me blankly.

Baptism by Committee

UU's don't baptize, since, as the saying goes, the Universalist thinks that God is too good to damn him and the Unitarian thinks he is too good to be damned. What we do is a "dedication." We had our children dedicated a few Sundays ago. Some weeks prior, the minister had had the group of us parents in to personalize the ceremony and we had filled up a white board with our brainstormed blessings.

A lot of our personal baggage shone through. As many of our group are lesbian/ gay, there was a big emphasis on thinking the unthinkable and on unconditional parental love. Also, many were new parents, still in the first throes of I love you so much it hurts; and hadn't quite gotten to our stage, where it's more like, please let some of my civilizing influence sink in. We veterans were in the minority.

Well, the minister was ill and so it fell to another of the staff to distill our thoughts into something coherent for the dedication. The result was that we all stood and recited the following aloud:

We want for our children to be happy, healthy, adventuresome, and to have a reverence for life. We hope that they enjoy growing up and remember their childhoods findly. We want them to be curious, inquisitive, and always have a sense of humor. We want for our children to be strong and wise, to discover and explore boundless opportunities; and to know and never lose their sese of joy. We want them to grown up in a community that is supportive, sustaining, welcoming, and safe. We wish for them to live a life of love with a sense of enduring hope and the knowledge that no matter what they for and where they go, we will alwys look after them, and never love them any less. We hope that they will trust us and know and remember that everything and anything is possible. We want them to have the strength, wisdom, and courage to make the world a better place -- and to do it together. We wish for them to be frank, forthright and just [mine], and to model it in the world; and that we as parents and a community will provide strong examples of that. We want them to have a spirituality based in many traditions and ideals, and to know the fulfillment of work, reaching out to others, and putting forth effort [also mine]. We want them to know that they will never be lost or forsaken; and that they be able to count on themselves, each other, and the rest of us. We hope that they will find a spiritual path at an early age, but to never stop questioning; and to have a sense of meaning and purpose always, no matter what life brings. We want them to find a path and life that they choose, and always know that they are loved beyond our measure.

Yeesh.

That. Is what happens when you are blessed by committee.

What didn't make it into the Christmas letter

My friends and I are at an exhausting time of life, it seems. Where, not five years ago, our Christmas letters were full of deep reflection and high spiritual (not to mention, material) ambition; this year’s batch sounds more like, whew, we made it out of the year with the same crew we brought in, and not too battered by the journey.

I am humbled to note that my Jones, who had the most obvious milestones to report -- starting kindergarten, learning to read -- hearkens back to but one event of 2007. And that is, the day Mom popped the zit on my bum.

Why has this event taken on such epic proportions in his 6-year-old cranium? Well now, it WAS a monstrous zit. And it was already established that any assault on his bodily integrity was cause for great alarm (To his credit, he’s wailed inconsolably when I’ve cut myself, as well). But I think that the most likely reason of all is that the telling of the tale has tapped something deep and ancestral. You can almost hear the drumbeat by the fire.

Because, logistically, he could not bear eyewitness to the goings-on, he has been forced to imagine the sparks and lava and dragons that were unleashed into the world on that fateful day. And the story grows with each retelling, until he has me wrestling the demons to the ground.

Yes, he’s my little Ralph Wiggum. Remember Ralph Wiggum on his discovery of a couple sneaking a kiss in a closet? “They were making babies and I saw one of the babies and he smiled at me.”

Only the ending remains the same, the most chilling part, “And then, there was a little bit of blood. And you had to get a bandage.”

So long as I write the Christmas letter, you’ll hear about scout camp and promotions at work. But to hear Jones tell it, we emerge from this year panting from cataclysmic battles. And I can’t help but consider that Jones has it right.

Backyardigans

Can I give you my testimony about Backyardigans? http://www.nickjr.com/home/shows/backyardigans/index.jhtml

I watch A LOT of tv and this? This is the best thing on tv.

First of all, unlike most kids shows on tv, this is entirely suitable for really little but really smart kids.

Jones is but three and a half, and I don’t relish explaining why the police put Gadget Boy in jail, even though he’s the good guy; or how the Cute but sinister Kitty did that thing with his eyes to enslave the Professor into taking over Townsville.

Or, on the other end of the spec, I don’t want my kids modeling these dopey whiny little imports. I pose to Caillou http://www.caillou.com/language.htm the same query as Ralphie May http://www.ralphiemay.com/Home_Frame.html put to his “Last Comic Standing” adversary, “ I can’t tell if you are a b**ch--*ss punk or a punk--*ss b**ch.”

What are you looking at, Ord http://pbskids.org/dragontales/index_sw.html ? You’re next.

Also, I bring my own particular pet peeve, which is anthropomorphism issues. These, I’ll admit, aren’t so much reprehensible as they are just unaccountably stoopid. Like why a DRAGON who can, y’know, FLY, would employ a wheelchair. Or why the cat should resist the peer pressure to eat, rather than enjoy the companionship of, the mouse. I mean, listen to yourselves!

OK, I think WAAAY too much about this stuff.

But oh Backyardigans. Backyardigans is brilliant. Oh. So simple.
This moose,
this penguin,
this kangaroo,
this hippo,
and this pink creature named Uniqua live in suburban duplexes backing onto a large yard. Each day they meet and imagine themselves on a different adventure – pirates, knights, detectives, cowpokes, etc. – in broad cheery caricature. Like, if they’re pirates, there won’t be any swords or stealing, but they will say “Arrr” a lot. There’s maybe sometimes a moral, but it’s really just this anarchic playtime that ends when one of their tummies rumbles and they cut back to reality for a snack.

But – here’s the beauty part – it’s musical. It’s a different musical genre every time – Cab Calloway, 19th Century Broadway, Tango. All original tunes. And choreography. Like real people do the dancing and then they CGI the creatures on top of it.

You will be captivated. I am not EVEN kidding.

My fave is Pablo, the penguin. Even though sometimes when he rolls his eyes, he looks a little like he’s in blackface.