My Son's Pink Boots

Now that I've got a son and a daughter, my usual levels of hyper gender-awareness are even heightened. It was easy to put my daughter in whatever clothes I wanted.  Dinosaurs or kittens.  Pink or blue.  And I did so at my whim, trying neither to diminish the feminine nor glorify it; an attempt to postpone the day that my wild, sensitive, stubborn, perceptive, loving child absorb a sense of the power or importance of "prettiness" before the world shoved it down her throat. 

Up until quite recently, it was a common occurrence for people to mistake Edie for a boy.  I keep her hair short, and on the days she had no signifying pink on her person, she was often thought a lad.  That does not happen anymore, because preschool happened.  And that means my sponge of a daughter now has an intricate classification system of what is for boys and what is for girls, and even tells me the exact source of her gender attribution from time to time.  "That," she'll say "is a Matilda shirt.  Da sleeves are puffy.  Wookit dat.  I smoosh dem."  One morning, as I tried to get her to put on some grey sweatpants, she collapsed on the floor in anguish, and after a some indecipherable blubbering, I gleaned between sobs that she was begging me not to make her wear "boy" pants.  These were in fact from a girls section of a store.  But they were 100% grey.  I've since sewn hearts on them - it's come to that.  Sometimes she'll wear them now, always taking the time to point out the embellishment that makes them acceptable.  This did not happen just a few months ago.  She wore a dress as happily as she wore a boxy navy blue tee shirt.  These preferences do not stem from her DNA. 

But I am decidedly not trying to raise Baby X, either.  I certainly read "female".  My family is not a performance piece, and I totally understand and respect Edie's desire to fall in line.  It's the pull to be part of society. It's natural. It's limiting. But right now, it's simple.  There will be days to come when it all gets more complicated for her, so I do appreciate the grace of this moment, knowing it won't always be so easy.  But I can't pretend to like watching my daughter in emotional pain over the thought of not displaying her gender the way she's been shown she ought to.

And then there is little guy Eli.  If you know me, you may have told me how much he looks like a little boy.  If you do not, you may well have told me how pretty my daughter is.  Both of these things happen. A lot.  I don't correct people on the s/he issue unless not doing so will result in my dancing around pronouns in a disingenuous way.  I mostly hate the correcting because people look positively stricken when they realize they've called a boy "she".  As a "she," who is raising a "she," I'm a little put off by that reaction.  Moreover, Eli is a baby.  He's not macho.  He's not femme.  He's cuddly and needly and giggly and drooly.  And, yeah, there is some male genitalia up in that diaper.  But besides a higher risk for getting your shirt peed on, it truly makes no difference at the moment.  I know that won't be the case forever.

Because as sad as it is to see Edie turn away from ways to express herself and to expend her precious energy on performing "girl," she does not devalue that which is for boys.  Not the way we all do when it comes to "girl" things for our boys.  Even me.  Even women's studies major feminist stick-in-the-mud me.  I didn't know the sex of either child before they were born (and folks: it's sex. Babies have a sex. You don't find out the gender.  You presume the gender and statistically speaking you may well be right.  But it's the sex the ultrasound tech can discern.  Not the psychosocial, behavioral, cultural, etc. experience of being a boy or girl.) So, I had lots of yellows and duckies and beige as far as clothes.  And, some boy stuff.  That is, clothing or decorations that say: boy.  But none that read: girl. I have had to face that a lot more this time around.  I have given away truck loads of Edie's old clothes only to replace them with the drab palette of little boy.  It's not just blue.  It's navy blue.  And his career choices seem to land him as either fireman or quarterback. Just aesthetically, it's depressing.

But again I am NOT trying to make a statement with my kids.  I don't mind a good statement, but I'll go ahead and make those myself.  So it's a fine line I walk.  I'm not about to put Eli in a tutu just because, hey, why can't boys wear tutus?  Because he's got no horse in this race at the moment.  And what I want for him is to feel love and comfort, and that means going with the (sexist) flow.  Now if he wants to wear dresses and tutus one day?  Well, he's going to have a mom who is particularly (perhaps peculiarly) ready to fight for his right to do that.  If he wants to denigrate dresses and tutus?  That will be a whole lot harder for me.  Especially considering I feel like a contributor to that eventuality at times, trading perfectly good butterfly shirts for yet another puppy dog brown number.

He will, however, be wearing pink boots this winter.  Because while I don't want to make him a walking (um, rolling) statement, I also can't help but want to push back on an impulse to keep pink away from my son.  Because there is endless beauty in the feminine.  And until the world and preschool comes in and teaches him otherwise, I do want him to develop as freely as his sister was allowed to.  Not in some gender vacuum.  But, ideally, with thoughtful and careful parents who try and stay mindful of not labeling our children and their preferences, behaviors, or other traits in limiting ways.  And because, these boots, these are really nice boots.  Thinsulate.  They stay up and keep him warm while he swings in the baby swing at the playground, babbling and laughing at his big sister, looking at her with pure love and admiration, not colored by pink or blue.

On Borrowed Time

The baby started to stir, and so I braced myself for his hostile takeover of my existence, but he inexplicably fell back asleep. Yet dinner has been prepped, I've worked out, I changed out of my flannel pants (questionable whether this is progress or regress), and have positioned the double stroller in the ready-to-go position once he awakens so we can go get big sis from school.  It's 2:30 pm and I am reveling in some sweet, sweet borrowed time.

Dad's annual poinsettia arrived.  Big smiles ensued.

Staying on theme, here's some other sweet, sweet stuff.

Last night, I went out with an old friend.  Not only was it great to see her, but she let me vent about why I really love vampires, but really really don't like Twilight.  Like, she let me talk about it for verging on half an hour.  Also, it made me think about the time in college that she and I went to a psychic for no other reason than we drove past a psychic.  Oh, to be 18 and in the company of someone great enough that you can dabble momentarily in the black arts without risking any judgment.  Shout out to Suze D!

Edie, as always, is into imitating everything I do.  Since I spend a lot of time cleaning, she's interested in cleaning as well.  But, she's also a free-thinking little lady, and if I get too pumped, she will put down the child-sized Swiffer forever.  It's a careful mix of encouragement and nonchalance, plus a genius selection of a task suited perfectly for her 3 foot frame.  So, I don't want to jinx anything, but I am on the verge of getting her to be decent at cleaning base boards.Yyyyyessssss.

The house is getting all holiday-spirit-y.  Not in a haunted way.  Just that we've decorated it. And I've had time to get crafty lately.  I've made yarn wreaths, felt rosettes,  and I just ordered some chalkboard contact paper.  It's enough to make Pinterest itself gag.  But it's good clean fun.

I went to a mall yesterday, Eli in tow.  And he didn't have a meltdown.  AND I got some jeans that fit, for 50% off their manufacturer's suggested retail price no less.  I did a little bit tear off part of my finger while over-zealously shutting an umbrella.  BUT, I had baby wipes to sop up my blood and a nice lady at Bath and Body Works gave me an excellent band aid.  Slam. Dunk.

Then there is the weather.  Not everyone is happy. And I get it.  It is borderline eery warm outside.  Like, mosquitoes tricked out of hibernation warm.  But. It's in the 60s and 70s.  Let's set aside notions of "should" and just agree that this is the best temperature range one could ever be in.  It is December and yet I am taking hour-long walks with the kids and dogs, everyone taking in fresh air without having to wrap oneself up in Thinsulate or slather balm on the babies' faces lest their skin get chapped.  It is phenomenal. 

Geez. I am so chipper, I might even go pet my dogs.

Road Tripocalypse 2012: my end is neigh. Live blogging the madness.

Alarm set for 3 am. Husband insisted. I lobbied for 2:30. "Rachael, that's not safe." YOU'RE not safe, I imagine retorting. But, maybe he's right. OH WAIT. It's 2:40 and like some cruel and twisted alarm clock, Eli is awake. And just for good measure, he was up at 11 pm too. Nothing about my life is safe right now. The baby is already playing dirty. All bets are off.

3:50. Late start. This is, however, happening: we are in the car. My husband just offered me a "go team" fist bump. Edie wailed "why are you taking me out of my bed." This blog will hopefully serve as evidence of her non-kidnapping should she decide to continue wailing this at a patrolled rest stop.

45 min in. Edie is still awake. Not shocking. Eli finally passed back out. Some thoughts: are the waffles at Waffle House really awesome? Like all thick and fluffy? Why do I have a song from Dinosaur Train in my head? And not even the theme song. No, the B-side tune "Troodon Night Train." I want it out. Slightly better than when I got The Thong Song in my head during a 10 day silent meditation retreat, though. National corvette museum in 15 miles. That is a specific museum. I don't want to go to it. I DO want to go to the medical oddities museum. In Pittsburgh, is it? I don't know. But it looks crazy cool.

5:33. The screaming begins. Eli. Edie is awake. Super.

5:45. Screaming stops after crawling back to Eli and singing Hush Little Baby 9 times. Now he is chattering to his Sleep Giraffe. Cute, but, for real, go back to sleep. Edie lost baby Calin. But we found her after only one tear. Victory. Now SLEEP, creatures! The sun is way not up yet.

6:05. Eli "waaaah!" Edie: "my tummy hurts." Mom "it is not today, yet. Shhhhhhhh."

"If you lived here, you'd be home right now." is a really popular slogan for apartment complexes.

Passing through Louisville. Which is way hard to say properly. If you think it's "loo-ee-ville," think again!! It's some inexplicable back of the throat pronunciation. I practice when I'm alone sometimes.

Asked will if he thought Waffle House would be awesome. He said maybe. Do I want to try it? I said maybe. But he knows I do. Then he asks if I heard what their CEO did. Sigh. No, but I am guessing it will cause me not to eat at Waffle House. Yep. I was right.

9:03. But I think that accounts for a time zone change. Who knows. Anyways. Half way there. It's going ... mediocre with a dash of bad. Eli is massively unhappy. I nursed him when we stopped and he fell dead asleep. But him in his car seat, he immediately woke up and had been yelling at me ever since. Will broke the car outlet by trying to "fix" the mp3 radio device by jamming it in with all his might. He's pretty adamant that the issue is a shoddy outlet. I think that, by design, these outlets aren't meant to withstand full blown rage. Oh!! Oh!! Eli closed his eyes! Maybe? A nap?!?

10:40. The nap was 10 min long. He woke up mad. We had to pull over after awhile. Starbucks!! Small miracles. We get out, use a moderately clean restroom, order chai and whatnot. Wish we had eaten breakfast here, because, lets face it, we are inexcusably and irredeemably prissy and the Waffle House (yeah. we ended up at one. The screams, people!) made us feel lousy. City slickers (*knocks heel of boot against a rock and spits in dirt*).

Ok! Almost there! *ish*. 30 miles to go. Eli's voice is raspy with exhaustion and anger. But he perseveres, lest we forget that he never signed on to this. He has taken two 15 min naps. Yet I specifically ordered a baby who was not capable of substituting sleep for shrieking!! Customer service, these days. Dreadful. Edie is mostly delightful. The back seat is decorated on polka dot stickers. My toe is bleeding. Something under the dash cut me. I think a little blood is appropriate.

Current theme song: "We Gotta Get Out of This Place." by the Animals.

Traveling with Kids. Also, I am Scared of My Spawn.

Even though it is - I believe - common knowledge that young humans go to bed earlier than full grown humans, for some reason it doesn't fully register how that will dictate so much of your life until you are in it.  Bedtime is sacred, because without it, there is End of Days-type chaos, complete with blood curdling screams, gnashing of teeth, eyes rolling back in head, occasionally swarms of locust, etc.

The first trip we took with Edie was when she was seven months old.  And it quickly dawned on us that if we wished to survive this ill-advised escapade, we would need to put her to bed relatively on time.  Ok, that makes sense.  But, what of you, the parent, once The Scary One is asleep?  Well, you can try to make some sort of game out of it.  (Who wants to play "Anne Frank?!")  Or you can do what we did.  Hunker down behind the hotel bed, plug in two sets of head phones into the DVD player you purchased under the duress of nearly-expired credit card points, and watch The Sopranos really, really (really) quietly.  Edie was unimpressed with our efforts, however, and sent us this message by waking up every. hour. all. night.  She woke up with this cute little peep.  Almost like "Hey, mama.  I'm not sure where I am. Can I have a cuddle?" Nope! That's not true! Hahahah!! Actually she woke up as if Boogey Man himself was playing peek-a-boo one millimeter from her face.  Edie's special brand of alchemy which converts exhaustion into rage is really something.  Edie has gotten better to travel with, now approaching three years old.  But, that's not really much of an endorsement considering the baseline.

We are currently planning a long road trip to the in-laws for Thanksgiving.  Seven hours according to Google maps.  To me, that is tortuously long. But, see, it's even a little worse than that. Because during the day, Eli nurses about every ninety minutes, requires being held in my arms for an absurd rain dance of sorts in order to defecate (and if the dance is done improperly, he'll just scream and writhe in pain indefinitely), oh and he poops half a dozen times a day, plus he hates the car and the car seat and will also scream about this particular brand of confinement/isolation for an amount of time whose limit we've not yet discovered.

Allegedly, there are babies who don't mind cars.  Some of these "babies"** even stay in their car seats while their parents eat out or socialize.  (**Maybe they're babies.  Maybe they're automatrons put into circulation by some underground population stimulation cabal.  And if so, hey, cabal! What's a lady got to do to get implanted with one of those automatrons?)  I don't make this version of child, though.

I am not not content to sit and worry, however.  I am a woman of action.  So a plan is in place.  And this plan is - ETD: Three In The Morning.

3:00 a.m.  Not a time for the faint of heart.  But we need to play to our strengths here.  Will and I are outmaneuvered by these children all the live long day.  And though they can and do haunt us at any time, statistically speaking, we are left alone for almost the entire night.  They do require some modicum of rest for survival, and their blessed circadian rhythms seem to pull them into slumber best during the darkness.  Will and I also require sleep.  But we have additional tools, including coffee, snack food, and a delicious adrenaline and cortisol cocktail produced by the fear state in which we live.

My fat-cheeked oppressor.

I have been introducing the idea of a middle of the night flight to Edie for a few days now.  She does not like changes or surprises.  And it seems like a messy ordeal to get an Amber Alert wiped from your record, which would inevitably result after our first stop on the road, as our tear-stained and drunk with exhaustion toddler would almost certainly yell out the window some variant on "Take me home! I don't want to go with you! Why did you take me from my bed! I don't like this!"  So I've been trying to make this all seem like an exciting adventure, with the end point being her beloved Grandma Sally.  So far, my campaign is a dud.  Our last conversation about it went like this: "Remember how we are driving to Grandma Sally's for Thanksgiving?" "Yeah" "Well, it's a loooong drive. It will take most of the day." (Child's eyes narrow in a "what's your point?" fashion) "So, to make it easier, we are going to leave when it is really early.  So early, it will still be dark out! And I will pick you up and wrap you in your soft blankets, put you in the car, and you can go back to sleep! Sound good?" (Eyes widen) "Why?" "Well, if you sleep, the drive will seem shorter" "But WHY?" "You will be comfy and so tired, so you should just sleep." (Eyes well with tears) "Why are you gonna do dat? WHY?!?" "Honey, we will all be there, it will be fine. And then we'll be at Grandma Sally's so quickly!"  "I'm NOT gonna sleep! I'm gonna SCREAM! And I'm gonna WAKE UP ELI!"  Fabulous.  Way to be a team player, Edie.

But, I mean, come on. Can she really make good on this? She's two.  It will be the middle of the night.  I am trying to find some comfort in science, here. She's got to sleep, right? (Repressing memories of Edie staying awake for entire transatlantic voyages). WHAT DOES SHE WANT FROM ME?  My youth, beauty, and my iPad.  All these things I have sacrificed at her altar, yet she scoffs.  (Seriously. She scoffs at the iPad.  Once she realized it was a device we gave her for our convenience, she shuns it, often crying at its mere suggestion.)

That said, I am honestly looking forward to being at my in-laws for a few days.  And perhaps, living there forever if I am unable to work up the nerve to leave.

You Have Got To Be Kidding Me: A Baby Doll Story

Back when we lived in Munich, I developed a bit of a past time going to yard and consignment sales.  They did them on a large scale - entire neighborhoods at a time, for example.  The thrill of the hunt, plus the near certainty of getting adorable euro-fabulous kids clothes for cents on the dollar (Euro cents on the Euro?), and throw in the fact that I would typically go sans Edie and with my friend Lara, it was a delightful way to pass a Saturday morning.  A big draw for me was toys.  Oh, German toys.  So lovely.  So wooden.  So praktisch.  And so spendy.  Used was the way to go.  At one I found a teeny tiny baby doll.  I hadn't been looking for one.  Edie was only just over a year old.  But it was very cute, and the perfect size and feel for a little one to enjoy.  I bought it on a whim, as one does when the price tag is 1 or 2 €.  

As life would have it, Edie loved her doll.  She was just learning to speak then, and so it was simply "baby," which remained its name for sometime.  Baby was taken everywhere.  At 15 or so months, I remember seeing her "nurse" her baby, soothe her baby, and rock her to sleep.  When Edie got a little older, she loved to take the baby's romper off, and then hassle me loudly until I put it back on, so she could do it again and again.  During my pregnancy, baby became even more important to Edie.  With all this talk of my new baby, Edie began to treat hers with even more care and concern.  At some point, the baby got a new name: Bow-Oh.  I know it sounds weird and isn't a name in the traditional sense, but there were a few months there when Edie invented names and words for things she didn't know, and though she does it less these days, preferring to name things based on people or characters in stories, Bow-Oh stuck.  

Some time after Eli was born, Bow-Oh disappeared.  Edie asked after her all of the time.  Because she was so special to Edie, I was very careful never to let her take Bow-Oh out of the house or car, and if we did (as sometimes the fight was just not mine to win), I was very, very careful.  I lost two special "friends" as a kid - a stuffed dog and a Cabbage Patch doll.  I still remember way too much about the ordeals.  I did not want Edie to go through this if I could avoid it.  Nevertheless, somewhere in the chaos of baby brother's arrival, it seemed as though Bow-Oh truly went missing.

On several occasions over the past few months, I have gotten serious about finding her.  I have even been quite harsh on myself, thinking "Come ON.  It is in the house somewhere.  Quit your laziness and FIND THIS DOLL."  I've spent precious hours, when I could've been resting for once, instead tearing up the joint in her pursuit. Though thorough, I've tried to be strategic.  One of the adorable complaints I lodge at my husband is that when I ask him to help me find something, he opts for the completely random approach and then calls defeat. Honey, please, I cannot find my wallet anywhere and I am so late! Can you help?? [Will checks freezer, toilet tank, and bottle of ibuprofen.]  Sorry. I can't find it anywhere either.  I went through the entirety of her toy closet, nooks and crannies I know she favors, every millimeter of the floor of the cars.  I even sent a sad-sack email to all of the moms I know in Nashville to see if Bow-Oh had turned up somewhere.  Nothing.

For a couple weeks, it seemed like she'd forgotten about Bow-Oh.  But, even though she has not seen this doll in months and months at this point, she began asking about Bow-Oh in earnest again last week.  It was getting depressing.  Did some body take Bow-Oh, mom? Is Bow-Oh coming home, mom? Can we look for her? Yeesh.

The decision was made to get her a new baby.  She has a couple dolls, but no baby dolls that meet the needs that Bow-Oh filled.  But still it was not an easy decision.  The kid is ... particular. I had to spend two weeks inoculating her to the eventuality of needing to switch sneakers because her current ones were getting too small.  It started with showing her the new ones online.  See Edie? Aren't they nice? * Yeah. ... But I am gonna wear MY sneakers. * Ok.  But your feet are growing. And soon you will need bigger ones. * Ok.  But today I am going to wear MINE. * But soon, these. * ... No. I like mine. I recently found out at parent-teacher conferences that it was upsetting Edie so much that her teacher spent one hour a day with the Kindergarteners, that Edie had to accompany the teacher so as to avoid an hour long meltdown.  Edie does not like change.  So our question was: would a new baby be awesome, or awesomely traumatic?

I had an idea of the brand of doll that hers was, but after much detective work, I could not find an exact replica.  There would be no way to convince her that Bow-Oh had returned. The stakes were high.  We ordered a doll, got it, but it was wrong.  Right face.  Too big.  I contacted a friend whose son had a similar doll.  She wised me up to the correct model.  First doll sent back.  Second doll, ordered.  I get an email saying that my shipment would be delayed because of Hurricane Sandy.  This both put things in perspective and made me impatient. Go figure.

Now, I get a shipping notice.  And so I begin to plant the seed.  The next time she asks about Baby Bow-Oh, I finally concede that Bow-Oh isn't coming home.  But before she is totally crushed, I gingerly offer that there are lots of baby dolls who need mamas.  She looks interested.  In fact, I say, the mail man helps these baby dolls find mamas.  And he just told me that there was a baby doll named Calin who needed a mama. (Calin is the name the company gave the doll.  I did not dig too deep here. Though I failed to consider that she still can't say "L" so this is actually a very difficult name for Edie to say.  But it's done now.  No going back.)  After I said this, Edie's eyes widened and she said - hand to God - Maybe I could be her mom?! Oh I'd be patting myself on the back for quite some time! Yes! I replied. That is a great idea! I will let the mail man know.  So we've been talking about Calin for a few days now.  Things seemed to be going great.  I even made a bed for her, planning to unwrap her and lay her in the bed, leaving her momentarily on the front porch for Edie to find.  I am a little bit great.

From a cardboard box, the dolly bed was forged.

Calin is set to arrive today.  Edie knows this, as Calin-fever has been raging around here, and details have had to be offered to keep her sated.  Edie is at school today, so while she was out, I was going to whip up a simple little pillow and mattress for the bed, and voila!  And then, on my way out the door for a walk with Eli and the dogs, I scurry through the house to grab some poop bags from the right drawer of the entryway table, and upon finding none, I chance open the left drawer - the drawer nothing, nothing, is in - and BAM.  Oh. Hello, Bow-Oh.

The smuggest baby doll I have ever seen.

So, what to do?  Oh, decision of decisions! Throw out or donate beloved, sweet, rummage sale Bow-Oh? And stick with Calin and the lies I've spun? Take the chance that Calin actually will become special to her - something that cannot be taken for granted? Or somehow convince Edie that Calin found a different mom, rendering her totally confused but perhaps ultimately happier? 

Or maybe, just maybe, I could get a life and think about important things? 

I don't know! WHY, BOW-OH, WHY DID YOU FORSAKE US FOR SO LONG? 

(Is there an election or something this week, btw?)

Nanny Wanted

I have been picking up more and more legal work lately, which means that any moment that Eli is sleeping Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I work.  On Thursdays and Fridays, when the children are both sleeping - which I believe occurs if Saturn and Venus align and the moon is waxing and the humidity is over 20% but not above 43% - I work.  And in the evenings, after 12+ hours with child or children, Will and I turn on a show and then - sadly - we both work.  I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have the skills and opportunity to work from home on a freelance basis.  But, I am getting in a bit over my head from time to time lately.  Especially as Eli transitions from sleepy newborn to short napping baby.  So, I have decided, without consulting my husband, to hire a nanny.

Here are the basics:

First, the pay is dismal.  I mean dismal.  We can't afford you at all.  So basically, I'll look at where we're at in the old bank account come month's end and I'll cut you a check based on any surplus.  On the upside, maybe you are thinking about applying to grad school but have suffered no hardships that you could write about in your application essays?  Perhaps you never have any good stories to tell at parties?  Maybe you are a trust funder with time on your hands? I don't know.  That's really your thing to figure out.

The snack situation is also not great.  But you are welcome to whatever health food scraps you find.  That tub of hummus I buy from Costco is large and deelish, so dive right in!  There will also be sporadic batches of brownies.  Their occurrence will be dictated by my mental state, conjured up either because of the precise level of happy or sad has been achieved.

Ok, next, I'll be around all the time.  Because I am a control freak and I don't ever plan to ever let anyone else manage care of my children.  So I'll butt in, give you endless suggestions, and basically hen peck you until your spirit is broken and you are remade in my own image.  This sounds awful, I know.  But it apparently totally liveable.  Just ask my husband! He's alive and everything.

What will your responsibilities be?  They will widely vary.  You will get me water when I'm nursing.  You will change poopy diapers while I coo at my baby from the stink-free end.  You won't need to feed the baby because I love nursing him and cuddling him and also I am very (very) afraid of babies not sleeping enough, so I would just as soon handle that whole situation.  If he does not sleep enough and is freaking out accordingly, I'll want you to take him from me and pace around.  And then I'll demand him back a short time later because I can do it better.  But know that I did, truly, appreciate the reprieve.  I just needed to catch my breath.  Thank you.  Go ahead and figure out a way to sit between the car seats when I drive, because I am done with the emotional torture that is driving with my car-phobic baby.  The wails are just too much for me to bear, so squeeze on in there and solve that.

And you're going to run a lot of toddler damage control. Keep her quiet.  Dear lord, just let me live in peace.  Unless I am making her laugh, or she is making me laugh, in which case take a bathroom break or something and I'll hand her over when she's good and wound up.  If I need to go somewhere and take the toddler, I'll give you a heads up and then you can walk six inches behind her, convincing her not to be distracted by a toy, a dog, or a dust particle so that I may actually leave the house at some point.  If you feel like letting her change her socks ten times, as is her wont, then do so but just get her in that car seat RIGHT NOW!

Cleaning.  There will be a lot of this.  You see, I adore a clean house.  In spite of what the state of my abode would often suggest, I want a place for everything and all things in their place.  And these places ought to be dirt and germ free.  While I love a clean house, I take no particular pride whatsoever in cleaning it myself.  So, go nuts on this.  I'll let you run the show.

Things you should know about my kids: they are crazy.  I mean they can drive me up a wall.  Other people say their kids are challenging, but, come on, mine are doozies.

Also re: the kids, my kids are hands down the best kids in the world.  I don't advertise this often since it's both boastful and self-evident, but have you seen these two? They're amazing. Eli is the cutest, cuddliest, smiliest, most happiness-inducing baby in the world.  Edie is the smartest, funniest, most loving and sensitive kid there is.  I'm going to need to know that you get this.  Otherwise, I can't really let you touch them.  You will, however, still be permitted to clean.

As if I don't deal with enough poop on the serious.

Humor is not easily defined, and indeed ceases to be humor if you try.  I had a rather blunt English professor as an undergrad who, during a final-paper topic roundtable, told a student not to even endeavor to write about the role of humor in her selected literary work because the result would be terrible.  I imagine this professor read a great deal of terrible things, so who can blame her for nipping one in the bud, given the opportunity to do so.  My memory also flashes back to sitting in this particular professor's office, trying to get productive advice but wholly and infuriatingly unable not to cry every time I tried to utter a word.  I'd go in all Hello Professor. I would love to discuss the progress on my paper.  Then she'd say something like Well, I think your second point is quite weak and needs work.  Aaand, commence trembling and blubbering.  It is just an exquisitely awful experience when your emotions betray and shame you like that.  A handful of authority figures have had that effect on me.  But that is another story all together.

Anyhow.  Humor.  Yes.  I grew up in a family in which a high value was placed on dry wit.  After I grew out of my painfully shy period of my early years, I became a big old jokester.  This made me exceedingly popular with boys,* since I was always zinging them left and right. (*No it didn't.)  And it made me exceedingly popular with girls, too**.  (**No it didn't.  But I bonded very closely to the few that liked my nonstop talking and joke making.)  I ended up marrying someone who has just an inhuman ability to tolerate my nonstop jokes.  If you know me and you think I'm funny, know that a lot of work-shopping has to happen for me to create that appearance.  My husband is a one man workshop with a bottomless fount of patience, as well as some thick skin.

Welcome to Edie's Laff Shack! We're About to Get Gross Up In Here!

Edie is now on the threshold of humor.  She's always loved to laugh, and it's clear to me that she can tell how much I value humor.  From a very young age, she joined in laughing whenever her dad or I chuckled.  "Funny" is one of the best compliments she can give a friend.  But lately she's started to venture beyond just silly-as-funny into the more nuanced stuff.  And lemme tell ya, the learning curve is steep.

I think the Billy and Sugar jokes started during some desperate attempt to keep her from melting down during dinner.  Billy and Sugar, our dogs, are always a good source of laughs for the kiddo.  So I capitalized on this by telling a joke in which Billy and Sugar went some where (a park?), Sugar said I smell something and Billy replied I don't and Sugar said It's terrible! and Billy said I don't know what you're talking about and finally Sugar realizes Billy! You POOPED! It stinks! PEE-UW! It's low brow, for sure, but that suspense build up and the final just-a-little naughty ending was a huge hit.  But these jokes quickly dominated all family conversation.  They became tedious, of course, but I also began to regret my forethought-less decision to incorporate dog excrement jokes into our dinners, on account of the gross factor.  I've told a couple of variants without any bodily functions. The only ones that got any play, however, involved Billy and Sugar going to a restaurant and the server doing something abusive to Billy like dumping a bowl of soup on his head.  But even at the end of those, she would request amid giggles for a joke where Bih-wee and Sugah go to a restaurant, Bih-wee POOPS! And den FAHTS! Of late, I'm trying to enforce a stodgy new rule that we don't tell poop jokes at dinner, consistent with my dualistic role as family comedian and family buzz kill. 

In an effort to make the no poop jokes rule more practicable, I've tried to introduce some new jokes.  The first one she's been able to understand goes like this: What does a cat say if some one steps on its tail? ... Meee-OW!  She likes that one, though it's gotten a bit darker through retelling.  She has this beanie baby cat who she is quite attached to.  Its name is Margot.  The joke now goes What does Mah-got say when I STEP on her? Meee-OWW OW OW OW! Hahahahahaha (maniacal toddler laugh).  I've tried to explain that the joke isn't about what happens when she intentionally abuses felines, per se.  But, at least we're out of the bathroom for a spell.

I've also brought some knock-knock jokes into the mix, but these have proven too subtle as of yet.  Of course, she still wants in on the funny, so she now insists on knock-knock jokes many, many times a day.  And she won't even let me tell her the jokes. Even though I am - without a doubt - way better at knock-knock jokes than she is! No.  Edie would like to be the performer, thankyouverymuch.  So we now endure numerous, senseless knock knock jokes. Her foray into joke telling has also dove-tailed nicely / horribly with her new interest in anatomy.  At lunch yesterday, I got, Hey Mom! Knock-Knock! I bite.  Ok, who's there? She searches her punchline bank and then answers with eyes gleaming: PENIS!! Bwahahhahaha! I think I managed a Penis who? just to see whether she'd gotten that far, and her response was something like Penis I needa baf and let me in! which is an amalgam of two classic knock-knocks, involving  "Anita" and "Lettuce."  Her dad heard her PG-13 ending from the next room, and although I was able to play it cool, it got big laughs from him.  So if you see Edie any time soon, there's a good chance she'll try to get some more mileage out of this one.