from whence it comes

We went to the Museum of Natural Science this week and there is a volunteer named Jean-Claude who's been there our last few visits. He is in charge of a table covered with trays of rocks and shells and fossil fragments where kids are encouraged to use tweezers and magnifying lenses to dig and discover. Jean-Claude is stooped, almost gaunt. He has hearing aids in both ears, which seem to work approximately not at all. His English, though perfect, is heavily accented. He really seems to take great pleasure in helping the kids find tiny shells and fossils, holding out his wrinkled palm to receive each new specimen. Harper, as is her wont, had brought a little something with her to the museum. It was the plastic cover from an old thermometer (NOT rectal) and she was using it, she had patiently explained when I asked if it were absolutely necessary that she bring it, as a Special Lens For Dinosaur Viewing. As she busily dug in her tray of fossils, she put her Special Lens near the top of the tray. Jean-Claude happened to spy it as he was helping her put a tiny mollusk shell in a small paper cup. "What is zis?" he asked, puzzled. Oh, she brought that from home, I explained. His hearing aids didn't properly amplify my reply, so I repeated it. Twice. Finally he exclaimed, "Parthenogenesis!" with great delight, and a hearty chuckle.

Later that day we played outside a little while with the hose until the mosquitoes drove us in. We then spent about 15 minutes detangling Harper's hair. She was less than gracious and I reminded her that if she would not insist on spraying the water on her head, the unpleasantness could be avoided. She said, in an accusatory tone, ''It's YOUR fault! For LETTING me!" I don't speak Yiddish, but I'm pretty sure that called for an oy, vey. I only wash her hair once a week because it is quite an undertaking. Around 6 years ago, I babysat for my friends Eugene and Heather who have 5 kids, 4 of whom are daughters with glorious long, golden hair. What Eugene and Heather had NOT told me beforehand was that it was hair washing night. I did my best, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that Cara might still have a small knot at the base of her scalp even now.

One of Hudson's favorite activities this week has been repeating what Harper says. He is not sophisticated enough to be doing it to evoke a response, he just finds her VERY worthy of adoration and emulation. "I don't like repeaters," she said firmly, one morning at breakfast, "I don't want a repeater named Hudson John." Well, I said, you could pretend he is a parrot--like Beau. (Beau belongs to our friend Izzy's grandmother. He hails from the Congo and can meow like a cat AND yell "Halleluia") "Nooo, no.." she said slowly, almost scornfully. "THAT is not pretendable." Here is Beau, helping us celebrate Izzy's birthday today.

repeal of prohibition

I'm trying to be deliberate with the Positive Mothering this week. Instead of saying (or yelling, as the case may sadly be), "Stop YELLING," I am saying, "Use a quiet voice, please." Although by the time I've gotten that statement out, the yelling has already awakened the sleeping baby. Instead of, "Stop WHINING!" I say, "Use a normal voice, please." Instead of, "STOP coloring on the coffee table," I say, "Color on the paper only, please." You get the picture. Although I was flummoxed, just minutes ago. I couldn't think of a way to put a positive spin on, "Stop smearing Desitin all over the pack-n-play."

Also, we had a raccoon. In our attic. The husband boarded up the point of entry and we have not seen her in a couple of days, which hopefully means she was just nesting and had not yet birthed any baby raccoons. That's what I'm telling myself. And, no offense to Beatrix Potter and Mrs. Tittlemouse, but I was rather grateful that it was a raccoon we had been hearing rustling around up there and not something else.

Hudson calls buttons "butts". I push the BUTT! I have BUTT on my shirt! You have BUTT on your shorts! Comedy, I tell you.

I am on page 640 of Atlas Shrugged--just 400 pages to go!

comparative and superlative

Of all the five points of Calvinism, the one that's never seemed remotely puzzling to me is Total Depravity. Now, I confess that I have moments of gazing at sweet Helena in which it's possible to put aside good theology and think that, just maybe, she is Innocence Personified. Then I realize that in a few short months, that precious mouth, so quick to smile and coo now, will form itself just so, and will proclaim, probably with some volume, the word "NO" in response to something I have told her to do. And I will be sad but not surprised.

Harper has been grappling with her place in the world. Sometimes it's innocuous: "I am older than Hudson." Sometimes it is boastful:"I can swing higher than Hudson." Sometimes it is obnoxious: "I have more friends than______." She got in big trouble for that one, even though I'm pretty sure she saw it more as a mathematical assessment than anything else. It's a really hard thing to teach a kid about humility. Where do they even get the idea to start comparing themselves to others? It's not as though I walk around talking about how I can push the stroller faster than Mrs. Byrd, or that I have more pairs of flip-flops than Mrs. Rives (I'm pretty sure those are both patently false, incidentally). And why don't kids say things like, "You know, Hudson is being more obedient than I am today?" Why are they always on the positive end of the comparison? Total depravity, that's why. The husband has been in meetings and new professor orientation all week and yesterday morning, he had to leave before Harper woke up. She asked where he'd gone and I explained that he had some meetings. "What are meetings Mommy?" I wanted to give a really sarcastic answer but refrained and said something like, "it's when people get together and talk about things." Her response, after a couple of seconds to finish chewing her waffle, "They talk about ME. How I know about things like roaches. And limousines. And LOTS of things. Because I'm VERY smart. I'm the smartEST one."

The roaches and limousines comment reminded me of this backyard Bible club that I helped with one time when I was at A&M. The kids were all sitting in a circle and we had sung "Noah, He Built Him, He Built Him an Ark-y Ark-y" and someone, my friend Tara, I think, had told the story of Noah and his ark-y, and she asked the kids to name some of the animals they thought might have been on the ark. "Roaches!" yelled one. "Rats!" yelled another. "Fleas!" said a third. Then silence. When it came to animals they encountered on a daily basis, that was about it. I think we finally managed to get dog and cat out of them, but I remember feeling sad that there could be little kids living in Bryan, Texas, who hadn't experienced, even in a book, a giraffe. Or an elephant. We went to the zoo yesterday and Harper got pretty grumpy at one point because it was so hot and I wanted to tell her how fortunate she is. To know about roaches AND giraffes. But I didn't. Lest she compare.

splendor in the grass

Last Thursday I attempted a little photo shoot because Grandmother Pate's birthday was this weekend and Harper and Hudson had made a frame. My friend Carrie (who often leaves sweet and insightful comments here, under her nom de plume 'Ken') and I once joked that while our husbands were in school (which, it should be noted, was approximately 572 years between the two of them) our parents pretty much knew that each and every birthday, Christmas, Mothers' and Fathers' Day meant a photograph of the kids in a home-made frame. My mom still claims that there is No Better Gift. The last time we attempted a studio shot was six months ago and I'm pretty sure every single employee and shopper unfortunate enough to be in or around Memorial City Mall that day is stilll wondering about the poor child who was apparently tortured for 30 minutes in the back studio of The Picture People. The Hudson boy, for all of his easygoing sweetness, is Emphatically Against having his image captured for posterity. So, thinking that surely I was less sinister than the noisy Picture People guy, I got everyone out of their pj's and marched them out into the backyard and placed them just so under the bougainvillea. See for yourself what a huge success it was.
And the winner, chosen because I giggled every time I looked at furrowed-browed Helena reaching out to comfort the weeping brother, which had just the opposite effect, much to Harper's dismay:

Six months today.

Well, the Firefly has officially entered into the developmental stage I like to call Able To Scoot With Enough Skill To Reach Toys That Are Completely Age-Inappropriate. The blue car you see above had been carelessly abandoned a good three feet away from her. I walked into the kitchen, put a glass into the dishwasher, and turned to see her accomplishment. She still can't sit up unaccompanied without folding over, but boy, can she move when she's on her tummy. Here are some other stats:
1. Two long naps (2-3 hours each) and 12-14! hours at night with one feeding around 4 am. This may be the month I tend to getting rid of that feeding. But..
2. She is so teeny!! SOOOO teeny. Not really on the charts teeny. Around 13 pounds. So she probably really needs that 4 am feeding. Nothing other than breastmilk yet. We start solids later than normal around here. Maybe next month we'll try some sweet potatoes.
3. She loves to grab things (hair, toys, her toes) and bring them to her mouth.
4. She can get up on all fours and rock.
5. She spends lots of time just playing on the floor, rolling and flipping and reading books:
6. Her eyes are still blue but I think they are looking a little smokier, and I wouldn't be surprised if they change by the time she's one. She has crazy long eyelashes.
7. She cries rarely and laughs often.
8. She loves to sit on my lap and will do so quietly for the longest time--even through an entire church service.
9. No signs of separation anxiety yet.
10. She takes a bath on the counter in a big pink inflatable duck tub. She loves to kick and splash.
11. It is pretty tricky to change her diaper and get her dressed because she is so wiggly and kicky and back-bendy. The changing table is her personal gymnasium.
12. No signs of teeth.
13. When she wakes up (assuming she gets to do so in her own time and is not awakened, for example, by a smallish boy wandering into her room while yelling, "MOMMY WHERE ARE YOU?") she will play with her blankets and make the sweetest quietest little talking noises until someone gets her up.

She is a joy and a delight. I'm so thankful.

Shorn

The Hudson bear got himself his very first haircut on Friday. Papa Bear did the honors. The trimmings filled a sandwich sized ziploc, but there is still plenty of curly wonderful goodness.

Cankled. Rankled.

Most mornings around here go a little something like thus: I lounge in bed until around 9:30, until our man Jeeves comes in with my coffee and a crisply folded copy of the Wall Street Journal which I peruse until about 10:15, at which point I have the children, who have been fed, dressed in starched pinafores, and drilled on their Latin declensions by their individual nannies, brought in to sing a little song in three part harmony. In French, sometimes Italian. Then I am ready to start my day.

OR. I wake up around 6:45 am to Hudson singing, loudly and off-key, the ABC song. It was technically the fifth time I'd been awake since I went to bed (Helena had a rough night, Harper had a bathroom trip) and thankfully, the husband, who is much better with mornings than I, always gets Hudson and Harper up and gets them their morning milk so that I can have a little while to right myself until Helena gets up. I DID read the front page of the Wall Street Journal (as a general rule, most of it bores me to tears AND makes me feel stupid--not a great combination) as I ate two banana oatmeal muffins on a paper plate (made for us by our new neighbor!) whilst standing by the microwave holding Helena on my hip. And there, on the bottom of the page was this:

"Chubby Lower Legs, Latest Styles Don't Mix As Women Fight Costly Fight Against 'Cankles.'

In case you aren't in the know, "Cankle, a portmanteau word combining calf and ankle, refers to 'the area in affected female legs where the calf meets the foot in an abrupt, nontapering terminus'..." Now cue the Hallelujah Chorus because, "Gold's Gym has declared July "Cankles Awareness Month" and is offering a customized "cankles-busting workout." The article goes on to detail some of the measures women are taking, including ankle liposuction and special flip-flops, to tone their cankle region. There were also a couple of paragraphs (because this IS the Wall Street Journal) in which an MIT professor gave us some other examples of slang used throughout history to "unflatteringly describe the human anatomy." I think my favorites are 'wide in the boughs' (19th century, to denote wide hips and an ample bottom) and 'bay window' (19th century, for a protruding gut). So, the next time you find yourself wondering why the world in general dislikes Americans, you might want to think about that banner flapping in the wind outside of your nearest Gold's Gym. Because we care about things like cankles.

I was thinking about good parenting advice. When I had Helena, the pediatrician who saw her in the hospital was a delightful, 60ish lady with cool dread-lockish hair and three grown kids of her own who made this pithy statement when I asked whether or not you need to take a newborn's temperature on a regular basis. She said, simply, "Sick babies don't eat. Sick. Babies. Don't. Eat." And as I was sorting clothes to wash today, I thought about something my wise friend Tara, mother of three boys, once told me regarding laundry. She said something like, "If is isn't dirty, they can wear it again." Now that Harper is fairly neat at mealtimes, this actually happens. Anyone else have any pithy advice for me?

We got a new easel at Ikea.