Cynical Mom

Sometimes it's a good thing

David and I were sitting on his bed reading him books "silly style" which means that we mess up the words on purpose and he corrects us ("Maisy had to wet the floor" "No mama, she had to DRY the floor!"). Out of nowhere while reading Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus[1] we have this exchange:

Jared: "Mommy - cry!"

Me: "What?"

Jared: "Cry! Like this!" [he wrinkles his eyes and makes whining noises] "Make a sad face!"

Me: "Um, ok..." [I make a sad face]

Jared: "Awww. Here, take my blanket. That'll make you feel better. Can I kiss you?" [he leans over and kisses me] "OK. Feel better now? I can take my blanket back? Daddy, I share!"

Meanwhile I am trying so hard to stop real tears from pouring out of my eyes, my god what an amazing thing it is to be a parent.

[1] The best preschooler book I have ever read, hands-down.

Toddler in revue, one minute and twenty one seconds

I read once that one way to stop a toddler temper tantrum in its tracks is to take a video of the toddler in question. Supposedly the kid will become so self-conscious that he will stop having a screaming fit.

Well, in our experience, the video doesn't stop the tantrum... but it did let us get this priceless 81 second snapshot of what it's like to be the parent of a toddler, aka "From 0 to 60 to 0 in 81 seconds".

How long do the "poop is funny" years last?

My son, singing to himself at the dinner table last night:

"Itsy bitsy spider went up the water POOP." <he collapses into giggles>

"Ashes, ashes, we all fall POOP." <more of the same>

That's not how *I* remember it going...

"One, two, buckle your poop."

Closing in on four months

I am regularly freaking out over how quickly time is passing and how much she is growing. Must... get... pictures... more, more, I'm still not satisfied!

The first time around, I couldn't wait for Jared to reach each new milestone, from rolling up to sitting up to crawling to walking to talking... this time around I dread them. Please stop growing up. Stay my little baby forever.

Or at least stop growing long enough so that I can burn the image of you as the little darling you are into my retinas.

My politics

Emilin & Brooke from Name That Mama just had their baby. I only stumbled across their blog a few weeks ago but immediately subscribed after reading a few entries. I've been reading the countdown to the end of the pregnancy eagerly, and was so excited to see the post a couple of days ago with pictures.

Unfortunately, some assmunch got nasty in the comments:

I pity people like you, you'll never have real families, but unfortunately this child will not have one, either.

And if that weren't bad enough, she threw in some personal attacks:

I swear, I think I'll see pigs fly before I'll see a homosexual woman that looks decent enough for any self-respecting man to be interested in her.

People like this commenter are one of two reasons that given the choice between the two major political parties in the US today, I am a fierce liberal. Tax the hell out of me, I can handle it, but don't you dare try to tell me that someone else is not my equal because they choose to have romantic relationships with someone of their own gender.

And the worst part is that it wasn't a random post, but the post where they posted pics of their new daughter! I can't even conceive of someone doing such a thing on my "she's here" post, a result of my own hetero privilege that I can assume I won't be attacked - at least not for that.

AGHH. It just makes me so angry.

If there's a place you gotta go, I'm the one you need to know, I'm the map.

Driving Jared & Audrey home from daycare this evening, we were talking to Jared about inane things as we always do.

Partway home, David says "Jared, in order to go home, we're going to first go over the bridge... go past Microsoft... and then we're home!"

David and I immediately look at each other and say "Bridge... Microsoft... HOME!" in this really dorky voice and collapse into giggles.

Jared, natch, picks up on this and starts repeating "Bridge... Microsoft... Home... <giggles>. Bridge... Microsoft... Home... <giggles>. Bridge... Microsoft... Home... <giggles>."... and so on and so forth you get the picture.

Have I mentioned that one of my least favorite parts of Dora the Explorer is the part where the map repeats the stupid triad eighteen stinkin' times?!? (And WHAT is with that voice?!?)

But when it's my l'il boy saying it, somehow it's hilarious, every single gigglin' time.

You know you're overtired when...

You're looking for your glasses which you swear you put down on your computer desk somewhere, but you can't find them... so you think hey, maybe I'm wearing them. So you put your hand up to your face with perhaps a little too much velocity, and somehow manage to simultaneously poke yourself in the eye, scratch your cornea and slap yourself in the face at the same time.

In retrospect, the hand configuration that this maneuver requires is a tricky one to master. And to think I just stumbled on it out of pure dumb luck... what's chances?

I just need a couple of nights to catch up from this massive sleep deficit, and then I'll be sane, I think... I love this part of parenting, really I do. Really. Um.

I gather that we say "good job" a lot

Me: "We're going to see the dentist, Dr. Cederbaum! Can you say Dr. Cederbaum?"
Jared: "Doctor See der bow!"
David: "Dr. Cederbaum!"
Jared: "Good job saying Doctor See der bow, dada!"

Betty Friedan died

Wow:

Friedan died of congestive heart failure on Saturday, her 85th birthday, at her Washington, D.C., home.

What a fascinating woman.