09.29.07

Potty Etiquette

Posted in Parenting at 1:40 pm by Anne

Following a story-time adventure at a nearby library, I took the girls to the restroom. All three of them. Lily went into her own stall. Emma went into her own stall. And I took Piper with me into the last stall. I knew Lily could handle it but Emma made me a bit nervous. Sure enough, she took off her shoes, her shorts, and her pull-up and sat bare-arsed on the public seat while her various posessions lay strewn about on the floor. That was gross enough. Even worse, to me, was that in order to take care of business myself, I had to actually PLACE Piper on the floor (far, far from the toilet) without pushing her beneath the dang stall door. Because of my poor planning, in an effort to save time, I personally had to forego the toilet paper shield before placing my bottom on top.

Ew.

Hopefully I didn’t catch a rather indelicate case of the crabs. Is there much worse in the public restroom than having to go bare back? I think not.

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09.25.07

cookie monsters

Posted in Emma, Lily, Parenting at 4:04 pm by Anne

So the girls tell me they want a pear. Well, Lily does and as I’m washing it, Emma starts grabbing at one for herself. Okay, fine. You can both have your own pear. So they sit at the table and eat their pears for all of two minutes before Lily puts it down and skips off to play upstairs. Emma sits a minute longer but I think she just wants to make a bigger fruit mess than her sister.

I tell them, “No cookies until you eat your pears!” and I leave the scene to nurse the baby. Minutes later, Lily strolls into the room.

Lily: (crowing) I ate the pear!!
Me: Did you? Or did you throw it in the trash?
Lily: No. (suddenly worried) Are you going to look in all the bathroom trashcans?

Nice.

After feeding Pipes and putting her down for a much needed nap I walk into the kitchen and find only one pear sitting on the table. That must be Emma’s. And of the 12 freshly baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that were cooling on a rack, only 8 now remain.

So I walk upstairs and discover both girls macking down on a cookie apiece. Entirely too close to my white blanketed bed… with crumbs flying every which way…. their chocolate mouths drop open at the sight of me. I guess they ate the first one and were completing the second when I busted their asses. So I confiscate the cookies, make them wash their hands and faces, and promise that there will be no more cookies in their future tonight. and maybe none tomorrow night either. Sheezus!

Oh the transgressions. oh the humanity. I guess I’d better start checking the trashcans for that pear before it stinks up the place.

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09.24.07

wake up call

Posted in marriage at 12:28 pm by Anne

you and your drunk friends

Originally uploaded by Dux

this morning shan woke me most unpleasantly…in a way, i assume, that may be very familiar to other married women. (now don’t get nasty on me.) that’s right. he bonked me on the GD head.

there i was, dilly-dallying in la-la land when he decided (most unwisely) to hold his hand out above my forehead and shake it all about. that heavy, leaden, aggie college ring smacked into my head and i was up at 6 am.

thanks babe. you shouldn’t have. really.

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09.20.07

hair patrol

Posted in Uncategorized at 5:07 pm by Anne

little girl

Originally uploaded by Dux

Pipes hears all kinds of comments about her hair. Half the people suggest I trim it while the other half advise I wait until she is at least a year old. You know, for luck and all. But everyone who is anyone gleefully enjoys pointing out how uneven it is, how hilarious the patches are behind her ears, how the bald spot is filling in gradually.

And I stand back, watching my youngest daughter smile up at me with big beautiful eyes, both of us knowing it doesn’t matter one bit what her hair looks like.

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09.17.07

you know you have a problem when…

Posted in Piper at 10:00 am by Anne

gecko

Originally uploaded by Dux

rather than getting out the fly swatter you grab for your camera and pray you won’t need a tripod…while your 7 month old cries heartily from her perch on the floor.

I thought this was just a typical anole but after some light research (thank you google images) discovered this little feller is a mediterranean gecko. Hopefully it’ll be good luck to have him visiting, since he scurried up the wall and is now hiding in the top of a cabinet. Don’t ask me if we have enough spiders and small insects to fill its tiny belly…mr. gecko may need to grab some take-out every so often.

It’s time for me to share a few comments about Piper. At this tender age, she:

1) has two front lower teeth and enjoys biting…things
2) can sit on her own….mostly (and I don’t mean safely)
3) has the rudiments of crawling down pat
4) enjoys solid food as much or more than good old breast milk

I know she is growing and has been growing from the start, but it is still uncanny how quickly she’s gotten this big. Damn people, children make you feel so old.

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09.12.07

Take my pictures, please.

Posted in Uncategorized at 9:43 am by Anne

delphinium serendipity

Originally uploaded by Dux

For the past couple months I’ve been learning how to take photographs in manual mode. Little by little, thanks to many a telephone conversation with my personal photographic guru Cecily, I am slowly understanding the big three concepts and how they interrelate to one another.

Now I don’t have any bullshit ideas about my abilities but every so often I get jacked up over a particular photo, and as cheesy as this one may be, I love it. I love the color, I love how I discovered the hidden shape this arrangement made, I love the aperture setting and the subsequent frothiness. In fact, I love it so much I almost wanted to keep it to myself, to hoard it away, only to peek at it periodically to my tiny and bitter heart’s content.

Instead, I’m sharing it with ya’ll. Sharing is good plus, I like you.

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09.11.07

First Day of School

Posted in Uncategorized at 3:55 pm by Anne

Helping the sister out

Originally uploaded by Dux

It finally came and then it was gone: the first day of preschool.

Lily and I walked Emma to her room. I hung up her backpack, separated her lunch and her snack and Lily gave her a kiss. Then we opened the door to the room and saw half the class at a large table fooling around with playdoh.

Playdoh is one of those toys I don’t let my kids play with. It sounds bad, I know, I am cognizant of this, but the mess I have to clean up after a roll in the hay with a few tubs of playdoh is just not worth annihilating the remaining shreds of my sanity.

As a result, Em surged forward without a second glance and I left her there with no crying or clingy business.

Wah-hoo for school!

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09.08.07

devils food with ganache filling and a cream cheese frosting

Posted in Uncategorized at 5:02 pm by Anne

devils food with ganache filling and a cream cheese frosting

Originally uploaded by Dux

Note to self:

The next time you use fresh flowers to decorate a cake, please check to make sure they are not TOXIC first, unless you want to actually kill the birthday girl and her guests.

Who knew this about hydrangeas?

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09.06.07

Posted in Piper at 4:32 pm by Anne

The other day I went to Target with Mom and the kids. What started out as a great trip, scanning the steals and deals at the ends of certain aisles, turned into pandemonium when Piper began tuning up. Ordinarily she is very much a happy smiling baby. So much so, that when strangers comment on it as they lean over looking at her I often reply, “She has to be, otherwise we would have left her at the hospital.” I’m only half-kidding.

So there we are, with two shopping carts between us. I’ve got Piper in the babyseat and Emma is in the front seat, while Mom has Lily in the front of her cart and Piper is screaming. And crying. People are looking over at the disheveled women and filthy children wondering what crime we are committing against an infant. I do the only thing I know to do, which is to unlatch Piper and pick her up.

Piper stops the racket almost immediately (bless the child) and as I try maneuvering the cart with her in my arms, I feel something on my arm. It is most distinctly wet and even worse, it is warm. Yes, my youngest and decidedly last child ever to be born from the fruit of my loins, had crapped past her diaper and all over me.

It. Was. Awesome.

My Mom saved the day by booking it to the baby aisle and coming back with a new package of diapers and wipes. I was able to change her nastiness and wipe her clean in the back of the shopping cart. Then Mom handed the befouled dipey by giving it away to a nearby Target employee, who I imagine was thrilled to be on the receiving end of such bounty.

The small matter of my tank top being covered in brownish babypoop went away when I pulled it over my head and tossed it into the bottom of the cart. I tend to wear two tanks at once (to conceal the fat straps of my nursing bras) so I basically finished the shopping spree in what appeared to be a dingy white wife-beater.

No one ever told me I’d become even less of a fashionista with the third kid but you know, shit happens.

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09.03.07

learning to flush

Posted in Lily at 9:43 am by Anne

I’m having some trouble understanding my oldest daughter.

Here is the situation: Lately, whenever I walk into the bathroom and lift of the toilet seat, I will find the distinct evidence of someone else having gone number two without flushing. Sometimes, based on the fetid air that rushes out, it seems to have been sitting for over a day (and may or may not be dried to the side of the porcelain bowl.) Most of the time, my human instinct takes over and I flush without a second to lose…grimacing and breathing as shallowly as possible before fleeing. Occasionally, I muster the strength to bellow “Lily!” and she marches uptairs only to flush her own metabolic waste products away but these moments are not the norm. Maybe this is the problem. Again with the consistency (or lack thereof) factor.

So what gives? Why this disinterest in flushing poo? My Mom suggests that Lily might want to see what she is evacuating. Is it possible she is merely forgetting to complete water-closet etiquette? And finally, if anyone else has experienced similar behaviours I would be very interested in learning how you handled it.

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