The Devil in Pink Pajamas

Ho Ho Ho

2010-11-21T15:52:00.003-05:00

After having been threatened with the ire of the (not so) Jolly Old Elf, The Devil wanders downstairs, after - apparently - having given this matter of Santa and his magical abilities some serious consideration, and says casually, over her shoulder, at me:

THE DEVIL: "You know, Santa is REALLY magic."

ME: "Oh?"

THE DEVIL: "Yes, he can turn into a submarine."

ME:" ... how... cool? But why would he do that?"

THE DEVIL: "Because he LIKES to!"

As I pause to figure out where this information might have come from - including taking a moment to wonder how she knows about the existence of submarines, and what nefarious uses she might have for such knowledge - she wanders back past me and informs me:

THE DEVIL: "Legos don't have submarines..."

(I notice she is holding some Legos. Sure enough, there are no submarines in sight. She may be on to something.)

THE DEVIL: "...because legos don't go in outer space..."

(A pause, complete with head-tilt, as she considers the matter further, and then)

THE DEVIL: "...because they don't go under water."

ME: (thinking myself clever) "But they could if they had submarines!"

THE DEVIL: (Scornful, and perhaps a tad fed up with mom being such a dolt) "But they DON'T."

ME: ""Why not?"

THE DEVIL: (Now openly disdainful) "Because Santa has all the submarines." (Eyeroll.)

And she wanders back upstairs saying "...and blah blah, Santa... blah blah..."

I confess that while I speak English and they appear to be spoken in same, I have no idea whatsoever what either of these little exchanges mean. But she's singing homemade Christmas carols to herself ("Merry merry merry happy Christmas time for all the ones merry merry and snow merry jingle ale ginger ale ginger bells happy Christmas birthday time...") so I guess it was a good conversation?

And only 33 more days till Christmas.

Mouths of Babes, etc.

2010-11-17T23:33:00.002-05:00

The scene:

The devil - age 3.5 - is sitting in her favorite toddler chair, cooing at an unhappy orange kitten clenched to her chest. Every time she loosens her hold one iota, the kitten scrabbles around on her, leaving nifty gashes to be shown off later to an admiring older brother. (I have no doubt whatsoever that in her world, she's a Viking, comparing battle wounds around some smoky fire and swilling grog.)

Finally, she eases her grip on the cat for one nanosecond while reaching for a shape sorter to stuff it into, and it launches itself away from her like it has been shot from a small evil cannon, propelled mainly by the power of its back claws.

The dialogue:

THE DEVIL: "Oh, that's a good kitten, you're so nice, you're such a - YOU LITTLE BASTARD!"

ME: (Shocked. But, in retrospect, I'm not really sure why. ANYway...) "KATHERINE!!!"

THE DEVIL: (Clearly wounded by my tone) "What? I didn't say you were a little bastard..."

/facepalm

Short Shrift

2010-09-22T14:41:00.002-04:00

See what happens when you don't have a disability (other than an insatiable urge to dominate humankind)?

Your mom neglects your blog.

So, by way of my renewed intention to blog here regularly, I offer the following, which seems appropriate, somehow.

OVERHEARD FROM THE DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM:

"WHY won't you POOP?!?"

Understand, please, that we have two new 6-week-old kittens who are, shall we say, somewhat lax in their attempts to use the litter box for anything other than a simple squizzle, and the box has recently (like, this morning) been moved into that same bathroom. So one could assume this question was being posed to one or both of them.

One would be utterly wrong, but still... one could.

If only.

No, when asked to whom she was speaking, Her Majesty replied, with no little scorn in her voice for having to actually say OUT LOUD such an obvious thing...

"My BUTT."

(I would add a comment, but, really, after that? What could I possibly say?)

Things We Have Done in the Past Week or So

2010-05-13T12:51:00.001-04:00

Hmmm, lemme think.

Since Wednesday...

We puked. In mom's bed. On Dad's pillow. WHILE HE WAS USING IT.
We ran a fever.
We hung out all day in Number One's bed with him while HE had a fever, watching Spongebob and taking breaks for chicken soup and ice pops, and no one had a poke fight or called for Mommy ONCE, alarming Mommy greatly.
We coughed so much we puked some more...a lot...
We sneezed.
We ran another fever, and another, and another.
We went to the doctor, and were diagnosed with strep.
We took antibiotics.
And Tylenol. (GENERIC. Dear GODS, I KNOW ABOUT THE DAMN RECALL, DOC, THANK YOU! Sheesh.)
We complained of tongue pain and stopped eating.
We went back to the doctor 36 hours after the first visit and were diagnosed with Coxsackie virus for these:

We took many more drugs, including some specially prepared concoction called "magic mouthwash".
We developed drug-butt from the all meds, creating some very.. um.. colorful diapers and bringing all potty training to a sudden and emphatic halt.
We went to the ER for the infected finger that the doctor had just looked at that morning but which had swelled alarmingly and was developing red streaks.

We were diagnosed with an "herpetic whitlow".
We had a new doctor who questioned the Coxsackie diagnosis.
We Googled "Coxsackie" and "herpetic whitlow".
We got yet another prescription, which the pharmacy didn't want to fill because the ER wrote the Devil's nickname instead of her full name, and we all know there's a red-hot black market for antivirals around here, yo.

We wrote a demented blog post!

Nothing to report...

2010-05-04T22:46:00.005-04:00

... but we took this today, and it occurred to me you might be interested, oh wonderful readers of the Blog That Shall Not Be Named.

I give you the Scourge of the Sentient Universe:

Do not be fooled! She may be all sunshine and unicorn farts NOW, but just WAIT till she can read *shiver* or DRIVE *shudder* or TRAVEL INDEPENDENTLY *faint*

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Reassurance

2010-05-03T12:42:00.004-04:00

So... here it is. Visit-with-the-Oncologist-for-no-reason-other-than-to-set-your-mind-at-ease day. Know what we're doing (besides swilling caffeine to combat the abject lack of sleep this whole episode has caused)? Nothing.

Not. A. Thing.

No appointment. No call from the oncologist's office to cancel the appointment, either, mind you - which could have had us driving an hour to find ourselves SOL. I'm fairly certain that you would have heard about whatever happened next on the six o'clock news, so let's all just be grateful for small favors and agree that from now on, I call to confirm if the drive takes more than 20 minutes. Even if they just called me the day before.

And the reschedule isn't for another 2 weeks. (Sleep? HAH! I Laugh in the face of rest and downtime!)

AND I have no idea - because the oncologist's office staff had no idea - what preliminary paperwork they need (copies of tests, etc) from the pediatrician, or indeed, what they had already received in advance of this appointment.

BUT - we should fax... whatever it is... to Rita at the following number.

(Let us all also bow our heads and pray grateful prayers to whatever minor gods control my pediatrician's medical group, because at least between the nurse and the medical records lady there, they were able to determine what should be sent, and set it aside for me to grab when I take Number Two to his earache follow-up appointment on Thursday.)

Now, I confess that perhaps even a crack team of medical coders and receptionists appearing in lab coats on my doorstep, charts in hand, clipboards at the ready, ballpoints cocked, armed with cellphones and dispositions tending toward ruthless tenacity would not satisfy me at this juncture. I mean, after all, this is my precious (fallen *coff*) angel's appointment we're discussing. With a jesus-fricking-christ-are-you-SERIOUS?? oncologist, for crying out loud.

So...

..reassuring?

Not so much.

You Keep Using That Word...

2010-04-28T20:16:00.004-04:00

So the Devil has a glandular problem. (Yes, yes, I know this sounds like the lead-in to a terrible joke, but if it IS a joke, it is indeed terrible. Read on.)

The problem is, her glands - specifically, the ones on the side of her neck - are swollen, and HAVE been swollen, for well over a year. In fact, more like 2 years. We first noticed them 2 Junes ago when they erupted, Frankenstein-like, during what turned out to be a bout of strep. Antibiotics, and the strep went away. The swollen glands did not. The doctors at that point noted that often it can take much longer for such swelling to go down than it did for it to come on, and not to panic unless there was no change (or an increase) after several weeks. But - they went down. Not all the way, but a lot. So, fine.

Repeat this scenario time and time again.

And since no one was particularly worried, and her health was otherwise fine, we were reassured.

Now about a year ago, we got a new pediatrician when our beloved former pediatrician moved to Texas. [Insert "dumb old stupid Texas" comments from Spongebob, here.] We love her, particularly because she refuses to sugar-coat, refuses to panic, and is not one of those here-lemme-just-prescribe-a-bottle-of-something types. She believes in home remedies, in sometimes waiting to see, and in mother's intuition. So, yay.

And today, on yet another follow-up for yet another bout of swollen glands, she announced that although she is 99% certain it will be a colossal waste of our time, she wants us to make an appointment for the Devil with the Juvenile Hematology and Oncology Dept. at our local major medical center.

Oncology.

As in, cancer.

As in, HOLY SHIT ARE YOU CRAZY?!? DON'T USE THAT WORD WITH ME I'LL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN HOLY SHIT AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGHHH!!

So, yeah. I'm handling it well. The appointment is May 3. And I know it will likely turn out to be nothing.

But.

Cartoons Are Bad, M'Kay?

2010-04-21T11:49:00.004-04:00

Now we are all familiar with the ABC/Twinkle Twinkle/Baa Baa Black Sheep melody conundrum, which thwarts even the most musically-gifted Devil from singing any of those songs properly, and who among us could blame her? But, courtesy of THAT BLUE TRAIN (a.k.a. Thomas - and this must be shouted when we say it, I don't know why), we now face an even thornier dilemma: Windmills.

Yes, I know, they seem so innocent. And yet...

She: [Watching the opening scenes from Thomas] "What is THAT, Mommy?"
Me: "A windmill."
She: "A pinwheel?"
Me: "It DOES look kind of like a pinwheel, doesn't it? But that one is called WINDMILL. It's a big building."
She: "They spin aroooouuund!" (With arm motions)
Me: "Right! PINWHEELS spin when you blow on them. But WINDMILLS spin in the wind."
She: "It blow the clouds away up the sky?"
Me:"Umm... sure! Exactly!"
She: (grabbing a nearby pinwheel and spinning around holding it) "I blow clouds away! I a pinwheel."
Me: "You're a pinwheel?"
She: "NO, MOMMY." [Unspoken: You idiot!] "A PINMILL."
Me: "A windmill."
She:"PINWHEEL."
Me: "You're a pinwheel?"
She: "A PINMILL!"

...A moment to regain her internal fortitude before battling the obvious stupidity of this mother of hers...

She: "PIN. MILL. Mommy. PINMILL."
Me: "Pinmill?"
She:"NO!!!" [Throws hands in the air.] "Aye yie yie!" [Storms off, disgusted.]

So, yeah. Thanks Mr. English Language Creator Guy!

(Unrelated, but it happened next so you're getting it next, too:)

She gives up on THAT BLUE TRAIN and demands Tom & Jerry ("I LIKE 'poosycats'!"). The opening credits feature the MGM lion. She has seen them roughly 87 gajillion times, and each and EVERY DAMN TIME, shrieks at the top of her lungs, "THAT'S ONE BIG LION!!"

... and keeps shrieking it until I yell it back. EVERY TIME. I am powerless before the wall of lion-based noise and must yield!

Who run Bartertown? (HINT: Not me.)

A Wee Victory!

2010-04-16T19:39:00.003-04:00

The Devil, who secretly likes to loll around in Mommy's bed in the morning and snuggle, but don't tell anyone or you'll ruin her bad reputation - rolled over and looked up at me this morning mid-pillow fight and announced, with an air of great consideration,

"I believe I want to use the potty. I need to pee and use a tissue." (Pronounced "tiss-you", by the way.)

Suffice it to say we were in the bathroom at the speed of light. She stripped off her own (mercifully almost dry) diaper without hesitation, clambered up on the potty seat, and as I turned away to throw out the diaper... PEE!!

The Devil has officially begun potty-training, all on her own. Mommy and Daddy, who currently live in a shoe and suck on any discarded pizza boxes they find for nutrition due to the cost of having two children in diapers, are beyond delighted.

But... does this mean I have to change the blog name to "The Devil in Pink Pull-Ups"?

I'll Be Here All Week...

2010-04-13T13:11:00.006-04:00

The Devil knows a zinger when she sees one.

AND has a deadly-accurate sense of comedic timing.

Allow me to recreate the scene:

Number One and I, as is our habit, have retired to my big floompy (shut up, it is too a word) memory-foam-and-down-comforter bed of endless squishy joy, for our nightly pre-bed story. He has chosen a beautiful book created by a couple of wildlife photographers which chronicles the reactions of animals in a snowy wood to the sudden overnight appearance of a snowman. (See the website for the book, "Stranger in the Woods" here, and credit to Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick for their beautiful photos, including the one above.)

The Devil, as is HER habit, demands to be included in this activity. Since it is meant to be both mommy-boy time, and a wind-down in advance of sleep, I sometimes try to discourage this (it inevitably leads to horseplay of the break-my-bed and hurt-my-kids variety), but then again.. it's READING! And she wants to be with her big brother! And.. and.. READING!

(I know, I know, she's lulling us into a false sense of security.)

So, of course, I cave. With Number One's permission. So she sits in my lap and gets herself all arranged in the fluffy blankie and looks at me expectantly, and we begin, with Number One and I taking turns reading pages out loud.

At every page, she announces what animals we see. A reindeer! [Garden-variety white-tailed deer.] A moose! [Another deer.] A... penguin! [A chickadee. She gets points for the tuxedo reference.] A squirrel! (It was!)

For about 10 minutes, we are very much a nauseatingly sweet little group, reading our book, pointing at animals, and snuggling. I allow myself a small, smug smile and a moment's pity for all those people who lack such a charming family.

And then we see a picture very much like the one below (not the actual book pic, which I couldn't find online, but a very similar angle), and she says...

... "A cat butt!"

*siiigh*

(Thanks to Amy E Fraser's blog, Exalted Beauty, for excellent cat bu - er, porcupine pic!

OMG another post?!

2010-04-10T12:44:00.003-04:00

Yeah, yeah.

I just needed a place to document this so I don't forget. So hush!

Meanwhile...

The Devil loves yogurt. She loves it frozen, she loves it mushy. She probably would love it red hot if we'd let her try it. And the other night, Miss Independent decided to fetch herself a Gogurt tube and a juice pouch from the fridge, which she presented to me for opening with a self-satisfied smirk. Once consumed (in record time), she fetched another.

When she attempted to fetch a third in 3 minutes, I felt that, for the sake of everyone ever involved in cleaning up pastel yogurt-puke, I should intervene. So, we have the following exchange:

She: "I eat more yogurt?"

Me: "No. You'll get sick."

She: "I get sick?" ... (Pause to consider) ... "I eat yogurt! Yogurt is HEALTHY."

Curse you, Nick Jr!

She moves toward the kitchen. I jump in front of her.

Me: "NO. Your belly will hurt."

Ooo! Brainstorm! I can distract her!

Me: "I know! I eat your TOES!"

And before I can do more than raise my hands, zombie-like, she - she who is still 3 months from turning 3! - glances up at me with a delighted expression and proclaims...

"TOEgurt!!"

... and collapses under the weight of her own pun's hilarity.

I... am doomed.

Equal Time

2010-04-09T10:35:00.004-04:00

Now that her rotten little brother is a blogstar in his own right, I must give the Devil her due. Mainly because, well... what will happen to me later, when she can read, if I don't?

So!

Since it has been quite a while, I present to you a compendium of cuteness, Devil-style, to catch you up on She Who Must Be Obeyed:

Lito & Kiku

The Devil has officially renamed every dog "Lito". And then it became a noun, as in "Oh, Momma, look at that cute lito." (This is also applied, very occasionally, to some cats, though they seem to mostly be spared... proof of their demonic allegiance?) This is also what she does to every little girl she encounters (even those whose names she knows full well), to whom she refers as "Kiku".

Bonus points (and my condolences) if you know which TV show has so melted her little mind that it is now the ultimate point of reference for her social interactions.

AEEED's

The Devil hates to be out of the loop, as we all know. And what better way to insinuate herself into our collective psyches in advance of world domination than to blog, have an FB account, and tweet? So, to that end (I am quite certain), she has embarked on a rigorous regimen of alphabet memorization that can only be viewed as a hostile prelude to a text-based campaign of terror. So far, however, humanity has been spared by the miraculous serendipity of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" sharing the same tune as the alphabet song - which leads to sweetly-sung tunes like "A e b c d d d, how I g a a a c, yes sir, yes sir a c b c." (Repeat ad nauseum.) I'd correct her, but it's so cute when she does it, I just can't bring myself to. Also, as mentioned before, I fear for all of our safety once she can read (and thus follow the instructions on things such as cell phones, blogs, and nuclear devices.) So let's all just smile indulgently and move along, shall we?

::backs away slowly from singing child::

Orange you glad...

So I'm making food of some sort and Her Ladyship joins me in the kitchen, no doubt to make sure I am not lacing her food with tranquilizers to gain a moment's sanity.

She: "What's dat?"

Me: "Food."

She: (hopeful) "Food for Katie?"

Me: (all wide-eyed and innocent) "Katie who?"

She: "Knock knock!"

Baskets full of Babies

First, a moment of oh-how-cute: Number 2, being hungry, was standing around flapping his hands and hooting, because he observed his sister getting graham crackers and - quite sensibly - assumed she would never share. Much to all of our surprise, she not only decide to give up her stash, but broke them into little pieces according to his specifications, and presented them to him making reassuring comments along the lines of "There you go Jamesy, it's okay, don't be hungry."

Now you may all think this is charming, and I suppose, in its way, it is.

Except...

Another moment: I look up from my computer to see Legion cradling a small stuffed bunny. She has ensconced it in the little padded bed that came with a puppy toy, and wrapped it in a wee blankie, and is very diligently trying to feed it "carrots" (orange crescent-moon shaped blocks from the shape sorter) while a variety of other stuffed critters, large and small, look on. I watch her a moment, thinking deep thinks on the maternal instinct and generally being overcome by the sweetness of it all, when I hear her say to the bunny, "Hurry up and eat this. You have to get fat, the bear is hungry!"

Uhhh... yeah.

Welcome back.

Gone Fishin'

2009-01-07T09:51:00.004-05:00

So Number One Son has a new food fascination: Pepperidge Farm goldfish. Specifically, the pizza flavored version, which is covered in a brilliant dark orange, spice-flecked dust that makes the formerly neat (and much beloved, as a result) snack taste the way our local Mexican take-out joint smells, and leaves delightfully Renaissance-inspired Titian powder all over everything the moment you open the bag.

Now you might not suspect this - unless of course you've read any of the other posts on this blog - but the Devil has a sensitive stomach. So we have not introduced her to this gastronomic pleasure, mainly because the prospect of cleaning up flame-colored vomit does not thrill. Also, since she tends to enjoy expanding her tactile horizons by engaging in free creative expression in a variety of media (read: she likes to smear an appalling array of things all over the house when I'm not looking), I have no intention of setting her loose with something that generates residue the color of carrots, and, I'm morally certain, stains the very air. However, the Devil has Number One thoroughly beguiled. So, when I - ever so foolishly - was doing something I reckoned was infinitely more imperative than maintaining a constant state of vigilance against the Devil's mind-control games with her sibling (say, feeding the Small Boy, or earning a living, or some other ridiculous task), Number One caved in and gave her the end of the bag of fish.

Let me repeat that, in case the full implication has escaped you. He gave her... THE BAG. Not just the fish OUT of the bag, which would have been bad enough, no! He gave her the bag full of crumbs and dust and oil and several heaping handfuls of poisson d'or. I would have complimented him on his generosity, except - and this is the truly terrfying part - I DIDN'T KNOW HE HAD GIVEN IT TO HER.

Cut to the next morning.

I am aware, peripherally, of this bag of fish perched on a windowsill up out of the Devil's reach. If I considered it all, I'm sure I simply dismissed it as being a cast-off, and of no interest to her because she had never had any - but upon reflection, I'm equally sure she used the Jedi mind trick on me to make me think that.

The Devil has ways, you know.

So, secure in the knowledge that the Devil was safely confined in the Babyproof Zone, I exited the room for a moment, only to become aware of the sound of a bag crinkling, punctuated by low giggles. It took me a moment to figure out what I was hearing, and once I knew, I confess that I simply continued on my original errand resignedly, pausing only to call back over my shoulder "You're not eating those goldfish, are you? You know Mommy doesn't want you touching that bag..." because of course, we all agree this will immediately stop all illicit bag-touching activity in its tracks.

Except -wait, what? The noise actually ... stopped?

Because I have been a mother for more than one and a half seconds, the silence filled me with a deep apprehension of the type that - I can only assume - makes soon-to-be-slaughtered campers stop and look behind them at exactly the wrong moment when being pursued through the night woods by chainsaw-weilding madmen. Dreading the inevitable, I return to the living room post-haste, when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but the Devil sitting sweetly in the rocker, a small smile playing on her lips.

Her bright orange lips.

And so begins the inquisition:

"Legion, did you touch Number One's goldfish?"

Solemn headshake: No. Please note, the Devil is only 19 months old, and has already figured out she should lie about this, despite being unable to actually talk. Chilling.

"Did you eat the fish?"

Another headshake, big blue eyes peering up at me innocently from under long lashes, her little pink - and orange - bow mouth pursed in contrition: No, of course not.

Frightening. And vastly amusing, considering the state of her face, with its cheddar-based clown make-up.

"Are you sure...?"

Another headshake, but this one seems somehow tentative... and then...

Giggles. Vast, belly-jiggling, shoulder-shaking giggles, well on their way to becoming outright guffaws, stifled only by sheer force of will and desperately clenched apricot lips, out of which suddenly spews a mass - a flood, a cascade, a deluge! - of damp, sticky goldfish.

And I, in my infinite maternal wisdom, can have only one possible response - one reaction which summarizes all my experience, knowledge, and hopes for my beloved progeny:

Ew.

Devil on Pause

2008-12-18T16:10:00.007-05:00

Sometimes, the devil is kind.

However, the devil hates for people to know this.

In an effort to stem the rising tide of toys and other baby paraphernalia that threatens to overrun our living room, we have installed a huge, roughly rectangular wicker basket in the corner in which to catch all the toy flotsam and stuffed animal jetsam. When I say "huge", I don't mean big enough to park the car in, but certainly I could put all 3 children in it, if I stacked carefully and made Number One Son scrunch down a little. And believe me, it's tempting.

So, as you might imagine (were you prone to imagining things about wicker baskets, which I frankly hope you are not), this basket is quite heavy when full. It has built-in handles on the short sides, and is more cumbersome to lug about than, say, a laundry basket loaded with soiled sleepers and fouled footies, and about twice the height.

The devil, just as a point of reference, is about two and a half feet tall. This thing is up to her chin.

So the other day, as I am sitting at my computer playing Mob Wars on Facebook and pretending to work on a website, Number Two begins a half-hearted whimpering as he sits in the walker. I say something high-pitched and hopefully soothing at him, to no effect. I am just debating whether to get him out and try to put him in for a nap when I observe the devil meander casually over to the basket, all nonchalant, and peer into it with an expression of deepest puzzlement, as if trying to decide which wine goes best with Cheerios and Pasta Pick-Ups. After a good while, she appears to have arrived at a conclusion of some sort, and thrusts her arm with great vehemence straight into the pile, until she is being poked in the armpit by the rim of the basket and so can reach no further. Her brow furrows.

The devil will not be thwarted by mere woven rattan.

She swirls her arm around, but not very well, and whatever she is attempting to achieve, she clearly does not, because she pulls her arm out again with a decided lack of good grace and gives the side of the basket a swift kick. She smiles thinly at the crunching noise this elicits, pushes at it again with the sole of her foot, I assume just to let it know that just because she's smiling, doesn't mean it can get away with anything while SHE'S in charge, and drops down abruptly onto her bum with a bemused "Huh."

She glances over at me and I quickly look back at my monitor. The devil hates being watched.

Several minutes pass, during which time she alternately pokes at the basket, glances at Number Two fussing in his walker, and repeats "Huh." Finally, she jumps up, grabs one of the handles, and begins dragging the full basket across the living room.

Let me remind you that her father issues a soft grunt when he moves this thing, and he's a Merchant Marine who throws massive iron chains around the deck of a ship for recreation. I have no idea how she is accomplishing this, but I am rapidly coming to a terrifying conclusion:

The devil has the strength of ten men.

I am watching openly now, more out of awe than curiosity, although I am wondering just where she intends to go with her new luggage. I'm also wondering, given her newly-displayed feat of strength, whether I'll be able to stop her if I don't like her destination. At this point her father looks up at me from the couch, and, seeing my expression, follows my gaze toward our intrepid explorer as she drags the basket across the carpet like the world's smallest Sherpa on the world's lowest Himalaya. She tugs it across the entire room, a good 15 feet, until she reaches her father's feet, at which point she delivers what is clearly a command, albeit an unintelligible one: "Gaish!"

He looks at me questioningly. I shrug.

"You heard her," I say. "Gaish!"

He shoots me a look of unmistakable hostility, then looks down at her and says "What, honey?"

Imperiously, and with ill-concealed impatience, she repeats herself: "GAISH!!"

Oh boy.

As if giving voice to the tiny flutter of fear growing in my mind (I, after all, will be the cleaner-upper if this degenerates into crying and puking), Number Two begins wailing. I sympathize privately, but it does no one any good to demonstrate fear to the devil. She glances in my direction. I remain stalwart.

"GAISH."

Her tone indicates she is NOT KIDDING, and as I cast my mind around for something - ANYthing - with which to distract her from this single-minded pursuit of... well, of whatever it is she's pursuing so single-mindedly, her father - bless the man! - tips the basket on its side, spilling it out like fruit from a cornucopia, and offering her the full range of its contents for her perusal. She favors him with a brisk business-like nod and plunges in with great determination, grabbing out from among the gazillion expensive doodads a simple green plastic ring from one of those stacking toys.

I am non-plussed. That? All this fuss for THAT?

I probably would have pondered this oddity much longer, except at this point, Number Two graduates from whiny grumbles to a full-blown tantrum. I rise from my chair, intending to pick him up out of his chair, when I am stopped cold by an unprecedented sight:

The devil is handing him the green ring.

He grins. SHE grins. He puts up one fatsy baby hand and she leans into his reach, resting her cheek momentarily in his open palm, says, "Awwww," pats him lightly on the head, and toddles away...

... and slaps Number One, who has the misfortune of being in her way, resoundingly across his bare upper arm. She grins when he squeals in protest.

Ah, yes. Business as usual.

Vomit Satori

2008-12-16T14:52:00.002-05:00

SATORI: A moment of sudden enlightenment, after which the person's perspective is irrevocably altered.

You'll need to know that later. But for now...

The devil has a problem with puke.

Okay, let me rephrase that. The devil has no problem whatsoever with puke; she does it with alarming ease every time she cries hard for a really long time. You know, like, after two minutes. Faster if she has a cold. (Mucous, ew.)

The problem is - well, obviously, the problem is that the devil spontaneously pukes. The reasons this is problematic are several, not the least of which are the ick factor and the clean-up factor, but the part I thought really bugged me was that it rendered us completely unable to do the whole stay-in-the-crib-screaming-crying-until-you-fall-asleep trick. We are not a tricky parenting unit; without this ploy, we've pretty much exhausted our entire get-her-on-a-sleep-schedule repertoire. So the devil is often running amok at odd hours. This leads to parents who cannot sleep, which leads to parents who cannot think, which leads, inexorably, to parents who write semi-coherent blogs about not sleeping.

So you see how ugly the progression gets.

So the other evening, the devil - who had slept practically not at all the night before - got cranky. A cranky devil is a petulant and demanding devil, and when she didn't get her way (by which I mean, when we refused to allow her to sit on the cat's head until it stopped moving), she began to do this charming cry-whine-keen combo thing she does that I'm fairly certain kills small mammals in their tracks for a 50-ft. radius around her. (This is, at any rate, my explanation for the sudden spontaneous reversal of our burgeoning mouse problem.) This sets off instant alarms for me, because I know that genuine crying is right around the corner, and we know what comes after THAT. So a part of me (the part that hates the smell of bleach) is immediately moved to comfort and cajole, but the part of me that has any sense at all rebels at this idea of catering to brats, and even - dare I admit it? - wonders if she doesn't do this stuff on purpose. I am torn.

So this night, as anticipated, she starts crying. However, it's just kind of slow steady drizzling sort of crying, and it seems like maybe we'll be able to distract her. We try. Oh, how we try! We put on Wubbzy. We dance, we sing. We read stories. We recite the entire script of the "Little Bill" episode that follows "Wow Wow Wubbzy", including acting out the parents' parts. We are a two-man Vaudeville act unrivaled in this day and age, but our many talents are wasted on our small, weepy, hiccuping audience. By now, we've also managed to awaken Number Two, who I'm pleased to report has a much greater appreciation for the finer points of physical comedy, but he is in a fine mood and requiring nothing.

So, despite our best efforts, she remains in a really prolonged crying fit. This is unprecedented, in that it so far has not involved peristalsis of any sort, reverse or otherwise. As a reward (okay, as a further attempt to bribe her out of her mood), we realign the complex network of baby gates to allow her to run freely from the living room to her bedroom, which she does with great gusto. The sobbing, however, continues unabated.

Let us pause for a moment here for me to explain how this day began.

As mentioned earlier, the devil refused to sleep the night before, and consequently, I got to see parts of the whole nighttime-to-daytime metamorphosis that I don't really care to witness firsthand. Some time later in the morning, when the day had officially begun (for normal people who have sleep to delineate one day from the next, that is), I was changing Number Two when he peed at my face. Notice I say "at", and not "in", because I was nimble - and caffeinated -enough to avoid disaster at that point. Shortly thereafter, I picked up the devil, holding her, grinning, over my head, and as I lowered her to my face for a big smooch, she sneezed. HARD. With... um... projectiles. *shudder* At lunchtime the cat attempted to hack up a hairball. I'm not going to say he was aiming directly for my foot; perhaps that was merely coincidence. But I began to sense a general trend for the day involving body functions and the trajectories of their attendant fluids which unsettled me.

So: back to the devil. I follow her down to her room. She is playing, but still crying. Nothing is pleasing her. All her toys are conspiring, her body language suggests, to purposefully piss her off. She stomps her feet. She whines through her tears. She starts to hurl objects in a most unattractive way sure to get her banned from debutante balls later in life, and I feel I must intervene, if only I can figure out how. Having pretty much done every thing I can think of to jolly her out of this, and being unable to identify any reason for this endless spate of tears, I finally resort to what we call "concentrated luvin", and I scoop her into my arms to reassure and soothe her.

WRONG.

She immediately launches into a series of screaming howls, struggling mightily against my interference, and begins wailing hysterically, as if instead of hugging her, I had clutched her with arms slathered in, say, battery acid. I am, at this point, sitting in her pretty pink wing chair, with my feet on her brand new rug.

You know, of course, why I'm mentioning this.

She begins to vomit. And vomit and vomit and vomit and vomit. Paroxysms of puke! And I, in what may well be my most graceful move of the month, somehow manage to sweep her gently over my arm in such a way that she does NOT puke on me, herself, the chair, the table next to us, the ottoman by my feet, or the new rug. NOTHING! She gets bare floor and nought else. And I...

...I find myself full of a small but very, VERY definite sense of satisfaction at this accomplishment.

And there it is, my moment of Satori. My life has been reduced to this: that my greatest satisfaction in an entire, irreclaimable day comes from properly aiming a puking child.

I suspect this would be a good year to make sure my New Year's Resolution involves increasing my alcohol consumption.

The Penis Chronicles

2008-12-16T11:23:00.001-05:00

I have a beloved girlfriend - you know who you are! - who blogs, and who recently wrote movingly about her small son's ...um... stiffy (http://wisewillow.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-giant-new-penis.html). Not to be outdone by anything as mundane as a mere woody, I now offer the following terrifying testicular tales, in two (of course) parts:

PART 1: Kindergarten

At the time, Number One Son was the only child, the DiPP not having been born yet, and Small Boy (a.k.a. "Number Two" when his diaper makes it appropriate) not even having been considered. So I was full of maternal pride, and - dare I say it - even a little bit misty at the prospect of Himself shuffling off to Big Boy School. And when he came home the first day clutching 'artwork' (which I dutifully hung on the fridge, and later tucked away in a trunk), I found my throat full and my eyes watery and avoided outright mawkishness only by a masterful display of self-control. And so it was in the land of the Hallmark moment, when Day 2 dawned bright and full of potential, and we trundled off to school again.

2 hours later, the phone rang.

"Mrs. Parent?" [Note: that is my actual name. O, the irony!]
"Um.. yes?"
"This is Mrs. Br----, the Assistant Principal at LES."

PANIC!!! He's HURT!! Some big nasty lummox pushed him on the playground and my PRECIOUS ANGEL IS HURT AND THEY'RE CALLING TO TELL ME HE'S IN THE HOSPITAL!!!!

Er - Wait. Wouldn't the Nurse be calling if he were hurt?

"...Hi... What can I do for you?"
"Well, there's been.. an incident. Involving Number One Son."
"An incident."
"Yes."
"An incident?"
"Yes, an incident."

Pause.

Is she going to tell me, or is it standard op that parents have to guess these sort of things? And just what does she mean by "incident", anyway? Did my son throw up on a visiting Japanese dignitary? Mistakenly sink a cruise ship in International waters? Does he o-ffend?

"Okay, what kind of incident?"

"Weeeellll..."

Pause spins on into infinity.

"... well, he, uh... it seems he was walking with several other boys to the boys' room, and, um..."

Second pause, longer - if that's even possible - than the first.

I begin to wonder: does this woman have regular contact with the public? If so, we may have to switch districts.

"... they were in the hallway, with other classes going by, and... well... your son, um..."

The woman is deeply hesitant.

I am starting to understand something. (Sing, choirs of angels!)

The something I am starting to understand is that problem here is not, in fact, that the woman is an imbecile, or even simply tongue-tied. The problem is that the woman is nice, and doesn't want to have to tell me whatever it is she has been charged with telling me. She is, in point of fact, embarrassed.

This indicates to me that very soon I will likely have to be embarrassed. My misty weepy feeling, so recently replaced by utter panic, is now freshly replaced by a seeping, amorphous dread.

"... well... "

deep breath

"...Your son pulled his pants down a little early, before they reached the bathroom in fact, and... er... shook himself at the passing children."

Shook himself, I think. Shook himself? Since when is shivering an offense? And why would he pull his pa - OHHH! "SHOOK HIMSELF".

Oy vey. *snerk!*

No! Stop that, this INSTANT! This is serious. He did this AT SCHOOL, and now the damn ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL is on the phone!

*giggleSNORT!*

Okay, it IS kind of funny. I know just what he did, too - something he does when he's drying off after a bath, which I refer to as the "hippy hippy shake", where he wriggles himself head-to-toe like a wet dog, head first, then shoulders, then working the wiggle down until, as we say only in the confines of our own bathroom (I hope, I hope), his "ding-dong dangles in the whing-whang."

Okay, OKAY! *grin* Try not to laugh at the nice lady. This is serious, really. Seriously. This could go on his permanent record! (Do they even have permanent records in Kindergarten??) He could be eternally labeled, branded a...a... a penis-shaker! A hip-wiggler! A DING-DONG DANGLER!!

Oh my god, STOP ALREADY!

*helpless giggling, stifled behind a fake cough*

So I manage to contain myself long enough to make some appropriately appalled comments:
"Oh my god, I'm appalled. He's never done anything like this before!"

(True. Well, in public, anyway.)

She is kind to me. She tells me it's just kids being kids, boys especially, and that the unholy fascination with their dangly bits that grips them - you should pardon the pun - so firmly after puberty begins well before then. That he is, in that respect, right on schedule. She even goes so far as to tell me that her very own son did the same thing when HE was in Kidergarten, only it was much more humiliating because she worked in the school.

And just when I am on the cusp of being mollified... Just when the sudden overlap that had appeared between my safe Mommyland this new and hostile Educational Incident Territory seemed to be retreating... she says, in a voice so sweet it would give a gingerbread man Diabetes:
"Of course, I have to notify the parents of everyone he exposed himself to. I won't use his name, but I want to call them all before the kids come home and tell their parents all about Number One Son's penis!"

And they wonder why I never attended any of those PTA meetings.

Breeders First

2008-12-15T19:25:00.000-05:00

Motherhood.

I don't even like the sound of it.

I hear it and my head is instantly full of smarmy, soft-filtered visions of beatific women smiling like the Mona Lisa, gently cradling the heads of their peacefully sleeping infants - all blissful themselves. It's matronly. It's cloying. It's domesticated.

It's a LIE.

"Motherhood is the toughest job you'll ever love."

More bullshit.

If motherhood were a job, we'd be paid. Or, at the very least, we could put it on our resumes, and people wouldn't wet themselves laughing before herding us, ever-so-gently, out of their offices, nodding meaningfully at Security to make sure we leave the building. We'd be insured. We'd have a union. We'd get DAYS OFF.

(I know, I'm deranged. Where would we find time to form a Union?)

But this what I thought, before I was a mother.

This "job", I thought to myself - newly pregnant and full of self-satisfaction at my cleverness for being so aware, dontcha know - this "job" that I am about to sign on for, will be so meaningful (can you hear the earnest whine in my voice, even when I say it in my head?) that no matter how unglamorous, how difficult, how arduous the task - it will be a pleasure to do. Always. NO MATTER WHAT. The Zen of Motherhood. Motherhood is next to godliness. Heck, Motherhood IS godliness: I am becoming the Goddess, who birthed the world and suckles it nightly on the milk of moonlight and feeds it daily on slices of sunshine. I am Mother, hear me roar! And my children are living proof of the glory of all creation.

Um... yeah. (We'll talk later about the danger of hormones when mixed with a human brain, but suffice it to say, anything you think about your impending motherhood while actually pregnant for the first time should be viewed with deepest suspicion, at best. Preferably, it should be written down, saved, and taken out sometime around your baby's first birthday to be read to other mothers who will point, laugh, and pat you condescendingly on the head, right before they take a group nap.)

So, 3 children later, here's the real truth about motherhood: The devil wears pink pajamas.

The devil wears pink footies, and thinks it's hilarious when Mommy can't stop the baby from pulling the cable box off the TV onto his head.

The devil does not, as advertised in commercials or on sitcoms, flush pets or valuable jewelry down the toilet. She DOES, however, unroll all the toilet paper - but only on new rolls. She also locks herself in the bathroom and shreds the toilet paper. And she hides the toilet paper in the bathtub, and figures out how to turn on the taps... but not how to close the drain. The devil thinks watching tubs full of swirling clots of shredded toilet paper overflow is the very pinnacle of jocularity.

The devil, apparently, has a real problem with toilet paper.

The devil can tell you her diaper needs changing - but only after she manages to unhook one of the velcro tabs (through her clothing, mind you), allowing the diaper, and all its glorious contents, to slide gracefully to her ankle, where it will remain, hidden and ready to disgorge, until you attempt to find it by laying the devil on the couch or bed and beginning to undress her by lifting her legs, at which point you will get a nasty surprise. The devil thinks this rivals toilet paper and floods in comedic content.

The devil has siblings.

Sometimes, the devil IS the sibling.

Now, I'm not saying I don't love my children. I do. I would gleefully bite the throat out of someone merely thinking about hinting that someday they might threaten to contemplate doing them harm, and I would walk away grinning when I was done, humming the theme from "Max & Ruby".

But a little perspective is in order.

My children, my precious angels, my godsends, my perfect cherubs - those little ratfink maniac bastards who steal my sleep, spill on my furniture, and have an outright vendetta against family heirlooms and delicate tchotchkes - are not all I am. They do not define me in my entirety. They have not completely undermined my intellect (yet). And they are not perfect. They never sleep when I want them to, and certainly never all at once. They whine, usually in public, and espcially when I need them to be quiet. They engage in unseemly biological processes at heinously inconvenient times. They often refuse food with a vehemence that suggests I am trying AGAIN, and quite transparently, to poison them, even though they ate the same exact thing the day before at their own request. And they do it all with a level of mirth that can only mean they are evil (EEEeeeeebil!). They are possessed of a wily cunning and an appreciation of the finer points of humiliation. They are, in short, naughty.

But damn, they're cute.

And so, I welcome you to my blog. Someday, it wants to grow up to be a book, and have shelf space of its very own, next to my collection of pregnancy guides and other fiction. Until then, it will simply have to be content with being dedicated to the noble pursuit of happiness through the judicious application of scathing honesty to that thing we call "motherhood", and those other things we call "kids".

Shoes off at the door, yes you can have a snack, and don't say I didn't warn you!