save it

Yesterday I read CDP's post in which she describes her son struggling with some of the same issues Jabber has struggled with regarding banks. Specifically, the idea of a savings account.

For a child who was thrust almost three years ago into a perpetual state of acute possession-awareness ("Don't let Monkey get my stuff, Mom!"), handing over the cash and coin, which he has been carefully threading through the slot in his porcelain piggy bank all his life, is not easy. I mean, this is literally his life savings. Why would he possibly want to give all of that away, to some lady he's never met before at a place we had to drive across town to get to?

"But what if I want my money back?" was his biggest question.

We've been doing mini-math lessons for most of the summer--Jabber's been learning to write his numbers, tell time, use a calendar, and count by fives and tens. We've been practicing by counting the money in his piggy bank. And although he has a lot of money, we decided to start with depositing forty dollars into this mystical and poorly-explained place called the bank.

Jabber agreed to open his first savings account.

So we get to the bank (the name and location of which shall be kept top secret, for security reasons but also because you know who you are, lady. More on that in a bit.). David and Monkey are with us this time (not like the last time we tried this and I forgot Jabber's social security number), so Jabber and I take a seat at the woman's wide desk and start answering her questions. Jabber answers like a champ: He tells her his full name and then writes it clearly on a form she had him fill out. He tells her my full name and his dad's full name. He points out his "sosha scurty" number and lists each of the digits for her. He repeats his phone number three times while she enters the information into her computer. He counts out his money carefully--three tens and two fives--and although he stumbles a little between $30 and $35, he gets it the second time through.

"And what's your address?" she asks.

Jabber spits out his phone number again.

"Oh, no, sweetie," she says, flashing a weird look at me. What was that look? "I mean, what street do you live on?"

"Oh," he says, and he tells her the street and also mentions the avenue that we are close to.

"But what is the house number?"

He shakes his head. He can't remember.

She gives me that look, again, and now I get it. It's disapproval. Judgment. "You're five, right?" she says to Jabber. "It's about time for you to learn your address. Before you go to school. That's very, very important." She gives me a final pointed look.

He nods, and the moment is gone. We finish up with the savings account, but now I'm irritated.

Save it, lady. Save the judgment. He knows his name, his parents' names, our phone number, and the two streets that intersect 25 feet from his front door.

This was such a tiny incident, but I found myself still annoyed by the attitude hours later while David and I were cleaning up from dinner. He said something, and I reacted, and then I said, "You know, maybe I'm too sensitive. Did you know I was seriously angry at that lady at the bank today when she made it sound like I was the worst parent on the face of the earth because Jabber didn't know his house number? Was I imagining that? Am I reading too much into people's innocent comments? Am I putting more pressure on myself as a parent that is just imaginary stuff?"

David laughed and shook his head. "No," he said. "She was just a bitch."

Do you actually, like, write?

I had a couple of hours of daycare yesterday morning, time for me to write, and I thought I'd try to figure out what I actually did during that time. To be fair, I did write about 2,000 words on my WIP (the Twelfth Night with talking seagulls YA story set here in my home city), but that's only a fraction of what "writing time" means for me.

So yesterday morning, I:

• read through my subscriptions to various writing-related blogs, noting items of interest to share with my online writing group
• discovered a newer agent to query and entered her information into my query spreadsheet for The Dharma Bum Business.
• discovered via the blogosphere that one of my favorite agents (I mean, favorite in the sense that I enjoy reading blog posts she writes and interviews she conducts...it's strange how writing becomes sort of a spectator sport at times!) is open for some types of submissions for the next month, and hey, my project fits one of those types!
• researched both of those agents for submission guidelines, etc.
  
• reread the first seven pages of TDBB that I include in my query letters with an eye to polish it up even more.
• added a comma, removed an adverb
• took away the comma
• used a thesaurus briefly
• deleted the whole sentence that used to be home to the adverb
• followed a complicated process of saving as text to, one hopes, preserve the formatting when pasting the sample pages into an email (this process was maybe seventy-five and a half steps long and involved some burnt offerings and at least a dozen languages)
• personalized my query letter
• sent four queries and updated my color-coded spreadsheet
• read several agent threads on a writing forum as research and updated spreadsheet
• noticed that my google reader showed that several agents had updated their blogs
• read blogs
• made coffee
• opened notes file for WIP and read through the summary of scenes I have left to write.
• realized that the last time I was writing, I completely and shamelessly veered away from the "outline".
• adjusted "outline". (okay, so the actual words I wrote were: "Oh no, I just realized this will all fall apart after that last scene, so...figure it out, all right? fix this. make it clever and shit.")
• made toast to go with second cup of coffee
• wrote 100 words of WIP
• whined to writing group about how hard it was
• posted excerpt, received praise
• wrote another 100 words
• checked email, found a rejection
• cried
• updated spreadsheet
• reread query letter, trying to figure out what was wrong with it
• took a spin over to Query Shark to look at query letters that *had* to be worse than mine. Instead, the entry is an example of a perfectly awesome query that I sure wish were mine
• found that as usual, queries sort of all look the same to me, especially after I read a few in a row
  
• got a headache
  
• cancelled tentative plans to become a literary agent's assistant
  
• wrote 500 words of WIP in a fit of pure, unadulterated genius
• read a tutorial on synopsis-writing, and then another one
  
• tried to start a synopsis
  
• banged head repeatedly into desk
• searched cupboard for jelly beans
• sent myself a test email to make sure it wasn't malfunctioning
  
• checked clock, found only thirty minutes remaining before I had to leave to pick up the kids
• read over the last 700 words of WIP, found them to be utter crap
• deleted and wrote 1000 serviceable first draft words
• whined to writing group about how hard it was
• checked clock, found that I was now going to be late to pick up the kids
• sped away in the minivan like SuperMom, except unshowered and tardy and with no plans for lunch.
  

sometimes it's enough just to be adorable.

write now

I realize that I haven't talked about much in my life lately other than the kids and their shenanigans. This is a main purpose of the blog, of course, but I used to give a little more context of life outside of the mom part of me.

Part of that is that I started writing about writing in a super secret friend-locked lj so I can whine wallow in self-pity post excerpts of my works-in-progress for my four or five friends. It seems like novel-writing is something I'm insistent on doing, despite any logic or reason, and starting this blog was largely responsible for my return to regular, productive writing.

Since starting the blog, I've become a part of an amazing online writing community (many of whom are also blogging here), and I've also finished two novels and drafted 43k words on novel number 4! This current WIP--a young adult contemporary fantasy book that combines Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with A Wrinkle in Time and talking seagulls--has been a particularly enjoyable romp to draft after the more serious journey toward completion (or what can ever serve as completion, with a piece of writing...*polishes, polishes, polishes*)of TDBB, novel number three.

But the fact is, novel three is complete, and even though I periodically hate it in that "How could I ever have thought myself a writer!" kind of way, I really feel that this book is the strongest thing I've written. The periodic hatred crops up, I think, because the book inside my head, the book of my ambitions, is never exactly what emerges. But sometimes what emerges is actually more beautiful, in its own way. Whatever may be the case, the time has almost come to start querying this one. Which I have started doing--cautiously, selectively--even though I swore I was going to wait until closer to fall...or for the economy to pick up...or for the right stars to align...

It's just that doing this is really scary. And it makes for a lot of doubt. And dread. And hope.

But mostly doubt.

So I'm cautiously, selectively beginning. Researching agents. Getting critiques on my query letter. Writing a synopsis. Thinking about how to answer difficult questions about the book. Searching for books that have a similar style, a similar feel, a similar marketing plan.

And for now, I'm hoping to finish up this first draft of the new book before going back to work in an un-counted number of days. So there's my writing update, and now for a while anyway, it will probably be back to kid antics and parentingfail.

Three Funnies, or Three for the Baby Book

A big part of why I started keeping this blog was so that I could capture some of these fleeting moments, allowing me to go back and look at them years later and remember the joys and tribulations of this period of my life--things I won't remember because honestly I'm pretty much exhausted all the time and anyway, I can't really remember yesterday.

Except that's a lie; all three of these events happened yesterday, but I actually TOOK NOTES in my little notebook so that I would remember to write about them.

I spent the majority of the day hanging out with Monkey, since Jabber spent the day with Dad. Monkey and I had our last swimming sessions, and he really wiggles like a little minnow. Afterward, since we didn't have to pick up Jabber right away from daycare, we went to a nearby coffee shop for some lunch. He's a fun lunch date because he talks to everyone he isn't giving the stinkeye stare to.

Aside: Monkey divides the whole world into two groups: people you talk to and people you glare at. It doesn't really seem to have any rhyme or reason. My sister-in-law: total stinkeye stare. One of the news anchors David works with? Also a stinkeye. Swimming teachers? (to keep this slightly on topic) Stinkeyes one and all.

Random guy in line at the coffee shop? Monkey decides to call him Daddy. "DADDY! THERE'S MY DADDY!" he yells, so that everyone in the coffee shop can hear. The guy looks nothing like David. It is confusing.

It is all resolved, but not until everyone in the vicinity is paying attention. All of the people in the coffee shop are people you talk to, I guess.

Later, after a non-existant nap. Elissa at the edge of collapse. Monkey insistently repeats the same, unintelligible phrase, over and over.

"POPPONDAWAH! POPPONDAWAH!"

I am clueless. He stomps over to the stereo and pushes the button to open it, growling in frustration and cranky fatigue. "POPPONDAWAH!" He points at a CD that has a bunch of kids' songs on it. I push play.

The first song is "100 Bottles of POP ON THE WALL." Gotcha.

And last night, Jabber and I are bonding over some Ramona the Pest. I ask him if he would like to be Ramona's friend. He gives me this incredulous look. "But, MOM," he says. "Why would I want a friction friendship?"

What? Well, nobody wants friction in their friendships, really. "But what do you mean?" I say.

"A friction for a friend! Ramona Quimby is...friction." He starts to look uncertain.

"OH! FICTION!" Haha, yes. "Good job on the genre," I say.

"Lasagna?" he says.

books and books and books

Jabber has started a LibraryThing account, and he is going to be rating and reviewing all of the books that we read together as our bedtime stories (he says he will rate and review his favorites of the picture books, but mostly only chapter books). It's funny because so far he has rated them all with five stars. I think he's just so enthralled with stories, they are just the most wonderful thing for him. We've read a lot of great books in the last year or so, and right now we are reading Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary. Even Monkey comes running up happily when it's time for "More 'Mona, Mama!"

So tonight's chapter was about mud. And trouble. And Jabber could hardly stand to listen, though he begged me not to stop.

Ramona got shiny, new red rubber boots and found herself unable to resist a construction site filled with gooey-wet mud. Jabber was on the edge of his seat, even flipping over and over on the bed listening to me, covering his ears and his eyes and his mouth. “I can’t look! I can’t listen!” he shouted.

“What are you expecting to happen?” I asked him.

He shrieked as loudly as he could. “SHE’S GOING TO GET STUCK IN THE MUD!”

We tentatively read on, and then sure enough! Ramona got stuck in the mud. Jabber shook his head and groaned. He wondered aloud, with his hands clasped all earnest and worried-like, "Will she get in big trouble? Is Miss Binney going to be mad at her? Will the construction guys come along and RUN RIGHT OVER HER?"

His relief, at the end, when Ramona and her boots are safe, and she hollers to Henry Huggins that she's going to marry him (with her pink worm engagement ring), was palpable. He sagged against me, sighing in happiness. He really likes Ramona, but she’s way spunkier than he is, so she makes all these choices that really worry him.

Reading aloud with Jabberwock is my favorite thing to do.

the serious business of learning

Jabber got an activity book about dinosaurs from the dollar bin at Target, and tonight he worked on a couple pages. He designed his own dino, and we talked about why we don’t know what color dinos are. This led us to have a pretty good discussion about rotting, about what is organic material and what happens to it when it decomposes. The whole discussion came into play a while later when we were hauling the compost bucket to the hardware store. We opened the compost bucket and experienced rotting with all our senses. Talk about hands-on science.

We've been pretending that we're at school lately, having "lessons" in each subject, since Jabber is pretty hesitant about the whole idea of going to school. He thinks (probably correctly) that he will have a hard time sitting still and paying attention. I worry that his perfectionism will make him anxious and unable to move forward on things, so we're working on having a "practice sheet" to make him feel like the stakes aren't quite as high the first time around (he gets sort of a little bit terrified at the thought of messing up a workbook page or a drawing or what have you...), and having a place to practice helps out a lot. Good thing to know, to be able to mention to his teacher.

We also got a little dry-erase board from the dollar bin at Target that has handwriting lines on it. You know, with the red line on the bottom, and dotted lines in the middle, and a blue line at the top? Jabber LOVES it. We're working pretty hard on learning the right way to form his lowercase letters and how to keep them in the lines. He loves it because he knows if he screws up, he can just wipe it off easily and start over. Then, once he has mastered it on the white board, he has no problem writing it on his real page.

Tonight we had "Phys Ed Class" by going for a walk/gallop/sashay with the compost bucket down past the road construction to the bin behind the hardware store. On the way back, Jabber spontaneously pulled all of his limbs and brain into concert and LEARNED TO SKIP. It was terrific, and we skipped hand-in-hand until he said, "Mom. I'm out with my breath!" But he was so happy and felt so important and grown up to have finally found his body coordinated enough to do what his brain was telling him to do. A very big day around here, indeed.

Guest Blogger: Jabberwock Talks...

This is Jabber, your guest blogger for the day, and he is going to talk to you about building a robot. Here, in case you are interested, is a photo series he worked on yesterday. More of his work should be showing up over the course of the summer.

This is my robot, and this is the first robot I've ever made. I don't know how to make any more robots, so this will be the last one I ever make, too.

Here are the steps to making my robot. First, I got a blue lunch bag. Also some construction paper. Mine was already cut up into pieces. Next, I got some glue and scissors from a grown-up. Last I glued pieces from my jet onto the lunch bag. I drew pictures of different things like the Statue of Liberty and towers and in the back I drawed buttons on it.

The coolest part was where I got to fold up the robot arms.

I think my robot is pretty cool. That's all that I think about my robot.

old news, mom...

So Jabber and I were hanging out during Monkey's naptime reading our new books, and we were enjoying a little Ramona the Pest, which was one of his read-aloud picks this time around. I admit to gently encouraging the book, as it's about Ramona at age five, going to kindergarten for the first time, and Jabber is getting increasingly curious and apprehensive about kindergarten, which is to be expected.

So we're reading about Ramona's first day, and I'm explaining things like what it means to sit "for the present" and what "the dawnzer lee light" might be so the two of us can kind of giggle at Ramona and her silly naivete...

...and we get to the part where Ramona sees this boy, Davy, and instantly she decides that she would like to kiss him. I can't remember exactly how our conversation started, but essentially Jabber confessed to kissing Cute Girl from Daycare.

"Oh, did you kiss her on the cheek?" I asked.

"No, on the lips," he said, and his little mouth tweaked up at the corners like he wanted to smile but wasn't quite sure if that was cool or not. "I mean, Cute Girl's the one who said to kiss her on the lips."

We read a little more Ramona, and then the following exchange:

Me: So you kissed CuteGirl? Why?
Jabber: She told me to.
Me: So she told you to kiss her, and you just did?
Jabber: Seemed fun. She's the one who said it was to be on the lips.
Me: *cannot speak because she's holding back a laugh*
Jabber: I mean, half the time she doesn't even like me, Mom. But when she tells me to kiss her, I just do it.

I'm doing laundry now, so I have to go. Gotta fold all those little tiny kindergarten uniforms I just washed. Maybe I should check the pockets for condoms? Yikes. :P

This moment of momfail...

I have become a nagger. A ranter. A yeller. A font of negativity.

I have become that woman who rattles about the house flinging toys irritably in the direction of toyboxes while muttering things at a variety of volume levels--most of them sarcastic and an embarrassingly large number of them including the words "ungrateful" and "bend over backwards for you."

I have become a person who delivers long, angry monologues to a two-year-old. Who very obviously has no idea what I'm talking about anymore and clearly cannot remember the incident I'm ranting about.

I have become a mother who is out of patience, out of hope, out of tricks. Out of control.

This isn't meant to be a sad post, a poor-me post, really. I haven't ever really felt like being a mom is a competition. I'm not really interested in what my friends and neighbors think of me as a mom, as long as they keep it to themselves. I'm just interested in finding a way to actually enjoy being around my kids more often, to feel competent in my own right at being a parent. To feel like my kids are presentable--no, not in their appearance (so what if there's old oatmeal in Monkey's hair and Jabber has a snotty nose?), but in the more important things. Are they well-behaved in public? (No.) Do they have good manners? (No.) Are they, in general, kind to each other and other children? (No.) Do they listen to me when I try to keep them safe? (No.)

I know things aren't as bad as they seem. I know there are phases and extenuating circumstances. I know there are people raising twice as many, three times as many kids as me who are probably way more stressed out than I. I know I could definitely be screwing them up worse than I am.

But it's still no good. I feel like every moment I am with them (when they are awake) turns into a screaming match or a power struggle or a complete breakdown of everything good. I feel like I can't take them anywhere by myself, which makes me feel completely helpless and trapped here. When I do take them places--places I think will be a fun outing for us as a family--it ends up being a miserable disaster because they won't listen and be good and be safe, and then we get back to the nagging, the ranting, the yelling, the spouting of negativity. I don't know what to do.

So I'll just wait. And hope that eventually this too will pass. (And whine, I guess...)

Okay. Sometimes they're cute; I'll admit it. So here are two cute things they said lately to lighten this horribly negative and hopeless confessional of a post that I should really just delete.

One, I was talking to Monkey and used the word "frankly"--not exactly in most two-year-olds' vocabularies, I admit, but whatever, I'm not so good at speaking simply. So I said something like, "Well, frankly, I'm a bit surprised you managed to find that permanent marker and destroy yet another item that is precious to me in the four minutes it took me to shower." And he, indignant as only a toddler can be, stomped his tiny foot and said, "My name isn't FRANK! It's MONKEY!"

And two, (this one had David and I giggling for a while) Jabber was bouncing around the house, bored and determined that he should be watching television or something else we had forbidden at the moment, and he said, "There's nothing to do in this whole and tired house!" Well! I'd be tired too if I were almost a hundred years old and had to contain two fiery little boys, too!

I mean, I'm only 33, and they exhaust the hell out of me.

up to our ears in hats...

We have a lot of hats.

Hats are awesome...they keep the sun off, they keep my ears warm, they keep the world from seeing that I still haven't washed my hair today. (Sadly, they cannot hide the fact that I'm not yet wearing actual pants...)

They also sort of drive me nuts, in that cluttery, never-to-be-found-in-the-same-place kind of way. Most mornings this school year, there's a distinct possibility of me actually getting to school on time, if only I had been able to locate all of the proper hats at the proper time. Our hat collection is impressive. Our organizational system for the hats is not.

In fact, it may be slightly telling to reveal that after that photo, I shoved the majority of those hats back on a shelf sandwiched in between a stray mukluk and a basket full of old batteries and pens that don't work.

I could have a hat storage area, maybe, like a hall closet or a mudroom. Except we don't have either of those, so the hats just sort of flutter down off of heads somewhere in the vicinity of the front door and then filter from there out into the home--landing on various hooks, chair backs, radiators, shelves, floors, and sometimes even toyboxes.

Truthfully, I'm sort of scared to store them too close to each other. What if they multiply?

Painting Pictures

Lazy picture post again today...sorry, I've been working on a new novel, and all my words keep getting diverted to this new creative venture...but we had some fun today while Jabber and David went "rambling" for the afternoon...

monkeying around

Just a quick picture post from today...Jabber and his cousin enjoying our climbing tree.

shackin' up

We moved Monkey's bed into Jabber's room today, and both boys seemed to enjoy the idea of it. Monkey jumped into the bed and pretended to sleep right away, so we let him try it, but the two boys got so wound up that it didn't work. Tomorrow night our niece will be sleeping in there maybe, so Monkey just went to sleep in our bed, like usual.

But here is Jabber showing off his new room. He was so excited by it, he asked me if he could "just sit and look at his room for a while." Luckily he hasn't asked for any of the toys I threw away in the process of cleaning and reorganizing his room!


And here's proof that I did try to organize the bookshelf. The boys each have a treasure chest on top full of all their favorite things!

Jump Right In!

So we got to Jabber's first swimming lesson early. Too early, I guess. The lessons themselves were running late, so when we got there, apparently the older, bigger, more experienced swimmers were still in the pool. Which caused us some drama, but I'll get to that.

First, we arrive and check in, and we are told that adults of the opposite gender cannot accompany children into the locker rooms and that kids over four (actually it says kids who "look four or older" as though if you have an uncommonly tall toddler, he is automatically a pervert or something) can't be in the opposite gender locker room. Okay. So this means I have to drop Jabber off at the door to some weird, labyrinthian locker room, clutching his little bag of stuff, and have him enter alone, get himself changed into his swimming suit alone, take a shower alone, and find his own way to the pool.

"Oh, but there's a locker room attendant, don't worry," she says, beckoning to a boy who might be sixteen. I restrain myself from asking for a copy of his background check. I mean, I'm trying not to be a helicopter parent, but there's also the fact that he's only five years old. He doesn't go into men's rooms alone, and he can't really find his way out of a paper bag by himself, much less find his way through a crowded locker room. (At the restaurant where we ate breakfast, I sent him back to put the tip on the table, and he couldn't find it. It was three tables away from where we were standing at the time.)

Anyway, so I get him dressed in the bathroom instead (in the girls' bathroom, omg I'm such a rebel), and it was a good thing, since he didn't remember that underwear need to be removed first. Then I bring him to the door of the locker room and luckily, a kind grandfather with a small boy of his own offers to help Jabber to the door of the pool. I figure to hell with a shower; do they understand that the child has to be bribed to let us pour water over his head to wash his hair like twice a month?

Then I have to walk all the way around to the other side of the pool and in through the girls' locker room. I find my way through my own labyrinth and emerge in the pool room, only to see my son being taken by the hand toward the water, where those aforementioned bigger kids are splashing away.

"This is Jabber," I hear her say. "Go ahead, Jabber. Jump right in!"

So my son, who is cautious and hesitant about everything in life, jumps right in. And goes right under. And has no clue that he could just stand up, because he has never been alone in that much water before in his life.

(edited to clarify: she did help him to the ladder, and she didn't mean this literally...but he didn't understand how to use the ladder and jumped off the ladder. The pool lady was very sincerely sorry and said that Jabber just seemed so confident, but still. It was scary for everyone.)

At this point, people who have seen me take Jabber swimming (Mary? Ellie? Remember that?) might recall that even when I walked into the water with him, he scrabbled at me like a barnacle and nearly strangled me with his frightened grip and screamed in a way that made me nervous the spectators would call Child Protective Services when I tried to get him to enjoy the water.

Yeah, I was actually pretty proud of him for doing little more than blinking back some tears when the pool lady hauled him back out of the water and set his shivering little self back up on the edge. But in the next fifteen minutes, while we waited for his real beginner lesson, he began to cry and told me he didn't want lessons after all.

In the picture up there, you can see the way he was *supposed* to be introduced to the water, surrounded by two licensed adults who are being careful and supportive. Even so, once his toes hit the water, he latched onto the side and clung to it, shaking and crying, for much of the first lesson. They were really good with him, and got him relaxed and talking, but he still would only go in the water attached to one of the trainers (like a barnacle, with a stranglehold). Now he says he doesn't want to go tomorrow.

I don't know what to do, really. It seems awfully callous to say, "Too bad. I paid forty bucks for this, and you're going." We talked and talked about how he can touch the bottom of the pool (he can), but he doesn't believe me. I asked him one thing he was proud of about today and one thing he wants to try tomorrow, and then I told him six or eight things I am proud of about today and one thing I'd like him to try tomorrow. Right now I'm not even sure he will get in.

On the positive side, he did manage to get himself dried, dressed, and out of the locker room, unlike the other little boy with an opposite-gendered adult; he got lost for a little while. (His mom, carrying a toddler and an infant in a car seat, handled it much better than I would have, I'm sure.)

Yikes.

beach bums

Just a quick picture post today: my boys at the beach, watching some random scuba diver guy braving the freezing cold water and big waves to explore the unknown. The kids were fascinated by watching him wade out and slowly, bit by bit, disappear under the water.

"Hey, Jabber, where did he go?"

"He's under the water, Mom!"

"He just disappeared, though."

"I know! Wouldn't it be weird if he was under there when we were throwing rocks, and then we threw a rock on his head?"

This idea now has me actually worried, a little. I could be happily chucking rocks into the waves and clock some poor diver in the noggin. Oh, dear.

a tough call

Jabber: Mom? Which do you love more, me or your computer?

Me: I love you way more than my computer, sweetheart. Way more. A bazillion times more.

Jabber: Well, if the house was burning down, which one would you grab first, your sons or your computer?

Me: Baby if the house were burning down, the ONLY things I would care about would be you, your brother, and your Daddy.

Jabber: What if your computer burned all up?

Me: As long as my family was safe, it would be okay. What about you?

Jabber: What about me?

Me: If the house were burning down, and you could only save ONE thing, would you save your Mama or your toy cars?

Jabber: I would save you AND my cars.

Me: (laughing) No, no, no, you don’t have time for saving both. Which one would you choose?

Jabber: (also laughing) I would push you out the door and then go back for my cars.

Me: You goofball, you can only choose one.

Jabber: Well, our house would never burn down.

Me: Well, okay, that’s true, but IF you had to make the choice, would you choose me or your cars?

Jabber: I would throw my car out the window while I was saving you.

Well, at least he would save me! :)

The Boys Get New Bikes

Backyard Boys

Before the Big Leaf Burglary Drama that hauled us indoors...

("The sound you make when your little brother steals your pile of leaves should not resemble the sound you make when a rabid alligator tears off both your legs, Jabber. That's enough. Get in the house. NOW.")

...we actually had a nice time this evening hanging out in the backyard. So here are a few pictures proving harmony sometimes happens.


Here's Jabber actually enjoying himself.

Jabber holds the leaves in question, while the perpetrator digs a hole to hide the evidence.


Monkey denies all charges. He is outraged at the accusations.

Elbows off the Table

My kids are currently impossible at the table. Every single meal involves at least five or six occasions of me or David asking them, "Is that good table manners?" and them replying with a reluctant "Noooooo...."

I would like to be able to eat at a restaurant someday, not that we used to eat out all the time or go to super fancy establishments or anything, but we never had to completely abandon restaurants when Jabber was a baby. Sure, we had to bring a lunch from home for him since the odds were extremely high that he would be allergic to everything on their menu, but at least we could bring him places. He would sit, mostly quietly, and color/snack on Cheerios or whatever until it was time to eat, and then he would eat in a way that suggested he was a slightly inexperienced but well-meaning human, and we would clean up, leave a big tip, and go home. No dirty looks or anything.

Now that Monkey has joined us and become mobile, etc., we cannot even handle the most casual of formats for a dinner outside the home. I mean, we can barely keep it together for a meal at McDonald's. Once we went out for a sit-down dinner at a very kid-friendly casual place, and I swear, neither David nor I had a chance to say one word to each other, what with all the trips to the bathroom and the picking things up off the floor and the walking the baby to the windows, etc. That was a year ago, and I cannot even begin to imagine what a restaurant trip would look like today, now that Monkey is firmly entrenched in the terrible twos, so to speak.

Dinner at our home now includes things like constant interruptions (conversation? only if it closely aligns with Jabber's agenda), spitting, tossing, scraping of forks, tipping over of chairs, yelling, funny noises, standing on chairs, food stolen from other people's plates and eaten, food removed from the mouth and placed on my plate, clothing used as napkins, beverages used as fingerpaint, table used as jungle gym...basically it bears little resemblance to dinner.

It's not that we don't value manners; we're constantly trying to show them good manners and enforce/reinforce them. I don't get it, but we've informed them that we'd like to eat out occasionally but can't until we see that they are capable of exhibiting human-like behavior during the course of a normal dinner.

How do you teach your kids manners, or are they just beautiful little darlings who wouldn't ever dream of using yogurt as hair gel?