Saturday, June 28, 2008

The Hoods are here!



Toby loves his hoodies. Not the hip shirts with hoods you see on all the young doods and petty criminals, no those I don't like because of the miniscule teeny wee chance he may catch it on something. You've seen The Incredibles?
Remember her rant re: capes? Nnnno hoods. Too dangerous, dahling.

Ennywho, the hoodies I mean are strawberries! Mount Hood STRAWBERRIES!! I can type it loud because he's sleeping, this human who once burst into tears of longing when we drove past a large strawberry billboard. As you can imagine, we don't mind an obsession with healthy and affordable finger fruits but we still regularly spell rather than utter the word "berry" unless we have the goods to represent.

So today we bopped up to the library to pick up some books on hold (one on the creative disciplines and another on creative discipline. It's where we at.) and zipped over to the farmers market across the way. I am using fun verbs because actually we schlumped our sweaty cranky unpleasantly clinging way over there, wilted little pasty white family that we are. It's hotter than Wil Smith's abs here today. I am running the A/C with wanton fiduciary abandon. Whee.

So we picked up the 1/2 flat and tried to hoof it back to the air conditioned marvel of diesel sucking engineering in a manner that would get us there very quickly but would not cause my inner thighs to spontaneously combust. It's like the running-in-the-rain dilemna, but lamer. It's similar to that walk we all do when trying to score the next spot in a line without looking like a pushy jerk: casually, coincidentally, noncommittally swift.

I believe it was worth all the dehydration just to see the look on his red stained gob. I refrained from yelling, No no no, you don't just hork it down! But realized one animated movie reference per day is enough. Besides, they are sooo horkable.




Friday, June 27, 2008

The Crappening

Just shake it off, M. Night. I know you're better than that. I am one of the four viewers who even liked The Village. Heck, I enjoyed Lady in the Water- that was a real movie, I didn't daydream that one, right?

I'm sure you didn't mean to presume I was so stupid you needed to tell me exactly what was going to happen just before it did in your should-have-been-a-short film. Unless that's what you really meant by calling it the Happening?

I was impressed with how much you made me hate Marky Mark, because I have always liked him and his cute little abs. Yes, even back when the bunch was funky. Who knew he could do simpering wuss with so few layers.

Also, if you'd like to preach at me about the environment and mother earth, please make a video lecture instead. I've heard incorporating a scissor lift can lead to some success there. You've got the condescending tone down pat already.

Holy plot, man, that stunk.

This one goes out to the one I love...



Just think, honey, we're almost there.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Back in the day...

I was the worst mom at pre-preschool today.

1. We were late.
2. I forgot his bag with the all-important diaper and cup.
3. His nose apparently ran.
4. Quite a bit.
5. I was the last mom to pick up.

Thankfully he's not embarrassable yet. Soon.

He had only one melt-down today, when I tried to leave his favorite unfoldy pop-uppy car wash toy thingy on the hood of the Jeep as we drove off. I couldn't even figure out what he was pointing at while waling for a second or two. After I retrieved it he kept saying in a soft voice to himself, "of course we won't leave it, Buddy".

I caught myself asking Isaac to put his arms through the carseat straps. One, he doesn't know any of those words or have the neurons to rub together and Two, he wouldn't do it if he could- he hates that thing.

At one time I had a functional brain.


Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Grumpy

Hummmm hum hum hummmmm.

So mostly around here we consider the "children's music" genre to be something like Siblings Day- (Did you miss it yesterday? Run out and buy some cards and stuff quick!) an artificial thing created to generate revenue for poorly crafted goods, that should be celebrated continually anyway.

I've rambled before about what we like to have on for the kids. But one guilty pleasure is to have Toby crawl into my lap when I'm on the laptop and ask for "the mujeek puhleez". I go to Noggin and we listen to a few annoying tunes.

Am I the only parent in America who doesn't care for Laurie Berkner? She seems sincere enough and all but her songs are cloying and she's out of tune. Moose and Zee, the Noggin mascots, are similarly lacking in musical quality but the music is not quite as over-perkified. I can deal with a couple of their tunes before closing the browser and telling Toby we're all done.

On a side note, I do like Lisa Loeb and wish she'd write and perform more stuff- Noggin should have put her stuff up all over. Apparently she's got a new cd, maybe they will now. I went to school with her talented blue-haired conductor brother, Ben. Nice guy.

Lately they have a new (to me) guy on there, David Weinstone from New York. I dig a couple of his songs and find him to have some redeeming musical value. He plays some nice guitar and sings with enough character & clarity to catch a child's ears (Toby comes running like I've opened a pint of strawberries). What I like most is that he still sounds like he's doing what he wants, and not what he thinks will garner him a larger share of the minivan contingent's credit card debt.

Here's Grumpy, easily one of his catchiest tunes. It's probably his most annoying to most people, I suppose, but I like it.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Happy Father's Day

Father's day was fun.

We used it as an excuse to grill with my parents, which developed into an excuse to make strawberry ice cream and drink Black Butte Porter with my mom. Not that we need an excuse.

We reminisced and I realized yet again that I hope J and I can give our boys even some portion of the fun we had while growing up with our parents. Go ahead, roll your eyes internet. My college friend said we sounded like the Brady Bunch. Looking back I can hear the tinge of longing in her voice, but at the time I felt like it was just one more way in which I was a goody two shoes from a freakishly small town.

The rarity of our intact and more importantly enjoyable families isn't lost on us. Usually. Unless you're talking about me in Junior High, in which case I'll plead the fifth...

Hope you had a good day, too.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Bonding begins with 99 cent die-cast metal.


Toby has taken upon himself the important task of educating Isaac about the deep importance of all things wheeled.


Isaac adores him already, and is very trusting. Plus, he likes the bouncer to bounce.


Toby's favorite pose as big brother.

Well, I never.

It would be nice if, after calling and asking to see our house in 20 minutes, house hunters would at least come inside and have a look. I know it's not their fault that I ran around for 19 minutes tidying, picking up and shoving the boys (one of whom I woke from a nap) into the Jeep. But still, you could pretend you want to see it as I'm driving away instead of sitting in the driveway talking about the next place on your list.

At least the place was in order, if only for that one shining moment.

Do you think free viola lessons for a year with the purchase of our home would be an incentive or disincentive?

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Aisaac

I think I went back to gigging a bit too soon.

Don't get me wrong, both the orchestras I've played with this past month have been great. The first was for a conductor I adore who reminds me of a favorite uncle and we did Missa Solemnis with lovely soloists and the only thing I can think to complain of is that the venue was a shmancy catholic church and sounded exactly like a deafening bathroom. My hands would have been protecting my ears if it weren't for the viola they were full of.

Isaac was only a few weeks old at the first rehearsal for that noise, so J brought him to me at the breaks to eat. Let's take a minute and be thankful someone invented this nursing privacy blanket thingy, shall we? I'm working on making myself a couple of knock-offs so I can have one in every bag. If you have a pregnant friend who's planning to boob the kid, get them one of these puppies and I swear she'll remember you in her will.

I also played with the Portland opera, and I am trying to figure out if the woman who sang Aida sold her soul to get her voice or is simply an angel on break from the sparkling gates of heaven. She reminds me of Renee Fleming, whom I might cyber-stalk if I were a socially dysfunctional tecky dude. Amneris kicked it old school, too. I had no idea how much I enjoy Aida- it was almost never a countdown of page turns to the final notes, which really are haunting despite always being described as such by critics.


The conductor, who must be very closely related to Jerry Stiller, was fantastic. I am not kidding- these are four-hour rehearsals and the time skips by. Everyone calling him Gigi made me feel more familiar than we are, like I might bump into him at a streetside cafe in Venice, peer over my huge black sunglasses and offer to buy him a glass of wine while he fawns over my adorably precocious yet incredibly well behaved wonder children.

So why then, in the midst of all the wine and roses, did I wish I weren't working?

Isaac's early weeks were, as everyone warned, entirely different than our memory of Toby's. We joke that he had two moods: asleep and pissed. He has an adorable scowl. Once after I got stuck in old-people traffic exiting the hall's parking garage, J greeted me with a screaming baby and "What HAPPened?" before I could even put down my case. In his defense, there are few circles of hell deeper than The Baby Won't Ever Stop Screaming. Now that Isaac's got a few months under his wee little belt, the learning-a-stick-after-driving-an-automatic phase has mostly passed and we've laid off comparing every single thing he does to rosy memories of his big brother. That, and he has indeed stopped screaming. (mostly)

It surprises me, though, how much just one gig on my schedule made in the feeling of a day or even a week. He probably picked up on my tension. I've probably ruined him something awful by failing to grow my hair seven feet long and wear gingham recreationally, but he was in trouble from the beginning what with a viola being practiced within earshot and such.

In conclusion, if we have another one of these things, I hope I remember to beg off any work for the first three or four months. Even though he was only ever in my hands or his dad's and even though it was nice to get out and smell the Egyptians (Aiiiiida!).

Monday, June 09, 2008

Was that it?

Was that the longest I've gone without posting? I hope so.

So what's up with you, outside world?

In our little compound it's all about placating the insane and caring for the incapacitated. Two and a half is an interesting mental arena. Nine weeks of age can be summed up as a constant state of leakage. I can truly say it keeps me busy.

I'm in the fantastic dreams and daydreams stage of post-partumdom. I hated it last time, and this time it's even peachier. Most nights just as I'm falling asleep a short scene plays doubletime, something like the opening of CSI or House but it horrifically stars either one or both of my boys. I see what's coming usually and can stop it from playing out in my hormone-pickled brain, but still it's no fun. I'll be glad when whatever gland's going off gets itself stabilized.

Whew. Well, I've been asked to come outside and clean up the 'piders. One of life's deepest pleasures has to be having a toddler come take your hand to assist in a task or complete an adventure. Sometimes it's empty webs or flecks of dirt, sometimes there are actual arachnids involved when he mentions his beloved bugs, so I better go see.