A lovely day

Harry reeeeeeeally wanted Mickey Mouse pancakes for dinner, but the restaurant that makes Mickey Mouse pancakes doesn't serve breakfast for dinner (but they so SHOULD), so I did my best. Harry and Jack consumed more HFCS in one small dinner than they ever have in their entire LIVES.

Also, Harry doesn't like syrup, which is his only non-Buddy-the-Elf quality.

Jack is totally ROCKING the Dora panties still, by the way.

I am off to grade research papers while Jack watches some Dora on demand before we have to go to Harry's swim and ballet lessons. The only reason I can even pop on to post these pictures is because Jack lost his shit at Little Gym this morning. He just sat by door drinking out of his Little Gym water bottle (natch) and saying "Bye bye! Bye bye! BYE BYE!! He even threw his water bottle on the mat and screamed NO! at no particular thing, and a hoard of scarf-wielding toddlers glided over and tried to clean it up.

So we left.

Meaning I have a minute to change the laundry, unpack my gym bag, and check my email-- a minute I was not planning to have, so it feels like a vacation almost. A vacation somewhere cold and damp. We left our windows open this morning (because it was overcast but pleasantly breezy.) When Jack and I came home, it was 57 in our house, and it's pitch black and pouring outside. A lovely day.

Harry noticed the rain on his way into school and screamed joyfully, "Mommy! We can play Play Doh today! You said when it's a rainy day! I love rainy days"

If you think being an academic means you get summers off, you are mistaken. Or maybe I'm doing it wrong.

Dear Universe,

I promise that I will never, ever, never procrastinate again.

Ever.

Because I understand, Universe, that you will totally screw me over if I leave myself just enough time to finish everything on my list and not a second more.

How do I understand that?

I have put in 12 hour days at the office this week, and I am STILL NOT DONE. Also, my kids got terribly sick at the same MOMENT on Tuesday after one of those 12-hour days, a couple of beers, and LOST. We were just putting our tired legs into bed when Jack woke up with a 102 fever. Ben settled me and Jack in our bed and abandoned us (kind of smugly) for the couch. Not 20 minutes later, Harry was up screaming with an ear infection. Ben said Harry may have stayed up all night watching Cartoon Network. I don't know because I was trying to sleep in between Jack smacking me in the face and kicking me in the junk.

One trip to the pediatrician, some antibiotics for Harry and a sore throat diagnosis for Jack later, and they're okay.

Guess what time I got home last night from work.

Come on, guess.

11 pm.

Guess what time Jack woke up and needed to come sleep with us. (translation: lay in between us and kick and in the process wake Harry, who paced back and forth from our bed to his for an hour)

3:30 am.

Good times.

These pictures are from the other day, when sleep was something I took for granted and my to-do list looked like I could get it to-done.

Jerky neighbor kid killed all our tulips but this one

Ben put in these bushes (and after I took this pic, he planted rose bushes, big thorny ones, between them) to keep the jerky neighbor kids away

The promise of a big-boy bike for his birthday has made Harry work on pedaling.

This bike horn? A big mistake, actually.

He looks cute until you have to push his bike around with that giant handle. Then? Not as cute.


Okay. I have written 2 exams and 2 answer keys. Now I just have to grade a set of exams and research papers and have some staff meetings. And then finish prepping my class that starts on Harry's birthday. And finish writing an essay. And edit another essay. And get my fall classes in order. Just in time for staff meeting in August. What happened to summers off? I definitely stayed in school for 10 years for summers off...

Jack, the kid who is so cute he makes me want more kids. Or at least a puppy

In the picture above, the little jerkface stole my pastry, but he's so cute, I had to forgive him. Also, he cried when I tried to take it back, and then I looked like a fat asshole stealing a pastry from a baby. A grabby baby.

Don't get me wrong, Harry, my privileged and entitled firstborn, is pretty damn cute, too (here he is mid-cavort while putting on a play. When he puts on a play for us, he lines up all his guys on the TV stand while we languish in bed and acts out a dramatic and violent scene with his back to us those whole time. What I am saying is this: if you are considering what to get Harry for his 4th birthday, think about a PUPPET THEATER-- his plays would be more fun for all concerned).

Jack is a huge pain in the ass, to be sure. Yesterday while I was getting dressed for work, he washed his face in the toilet (I was washing my face, and I heard him saying happily "Me, wawa. Me wawa, Mommy" followed by a splashing noise. It took me a minute to realize where he could reach water to splash in. Blech.), colored my bed spread with a blue highlighter, and went in my closet where he pulled every feminine hygiene product out of every purse he could reach.

He will do ANYTHING Harry is doing, even (and especially) if it is something we have just asked Harry NOT TO DO

But he is so happy all the time, it's really hard to get annoyed with him.

He did a nice job of giving me some volume on top here. Forget a Bump It, I'll just put Jack on my shoulders after I do my hair. Maybe I should give him a can of hairspray.

In summation, Harry with a man in a duck suit.

Book Worms

Last night, I put Jack to bed, and while Harry and Ben read stories, I took a shower. As I was shutting off the water, I heard a huge crash and assumed Ben fell down. I laughed a little as I applied layers of non toxic hippy lotion anticipating his tale of woe, but on my way downstairs, I caught movement through the crack of the boys' door. I peered into their room and saw Jack sitting up in bed in a pile of books. As a I watched he yawned, grabbed a Toy Story early reader and flopped down on his tummy to "read."

On my way to bed a couple hours later, I sneaked in with my phone to investigate and take pictures.

The crash was Jack leaning precariously over the edge of his crib and swiping an armful of books from his shelf, knocking many onto the floor and many more into his bed.

This is how he fell asleep

like a plush, snoring doll.

Uploading my phone pics this morning, I found this one of my office that I took last week as I ran out to pick Harry up from preschool.

I also like to live among messy book piles, I guess. Also, wrapping up the semester while prepping for summer and fall? NOT A PRETTY SIGHT.

Ballet: also textbook, if that text is a gender studies book

Harry had the nicest shoes in class, which he should have because I drove all over town visiting dance boutiques to find shoes in a Harry-requested "boy color" that didn't have bows. He really waned to wear a tutu, but the dance store lady told him that male dancers should wear white shirts and black pants to class. He wasn't a big fan of jazz pants, though, so he went with soccer shorts.

I love how small the class is. Harry listened and followed directions very earnestly, and the teacher told me that 2 more boys are going to be there next week. She also brought us a brochure from the Milwaukee ballet company for Harry to look through so that he could see all the cool costumes male ballet dancers wear, and she drew his attention to a picture of the whole troupe, telling him that there are as many boy dancers as there are girl dancers.


When Ben came home from work, he asked Harry what he learned at ballet. "I learned how to leap and flutter," Harry was happy to report.

Even though I always understood that gender is a social construct, having kids has made me realize how fragile it is, how hard to maintain. To want to maintain.

Look at his serious little face-- he loved watching himself in the big mirror, my stocky ballerina.

I want an iPad. Of course I do.

Clearly we love our iPods. And also our iPhones.

From left to right:
My Mini (that I got for my birthday in 2004 from my parents and was my first iPod and one of the best b-day gifts EVER. It still works as long as it's plugged in, but it will no longer hold a charge. I LOVED that thing and still have the cute little Urban Outfitters cover I used to carry it in and the armband I used to jog with it), my Classic (I got this in 2006 from a textbook company because my class did a pilot study with our textbook on iTunes-- it didn't work, but the iPod is still going strong almost 4 years later. I used it as a brag book when Harry was a baby because I had just learned how to sync it with my photo library, and I still have a slide show of him from the summer and early fall of 06), Ben's Nano (whom he named Valerie-- a 2009 birthday gift that I now use in my car), Ben's Touch (he got himself this only months after I got him the Nano, hence the ungifting), my phone, and Ben's phone (which is cooler than my phone because it is a 3Gs, and Ben always acted like iPhones were stupid until he got one, and now he knows they're totally awesome).

We're just loyal Mac customers all round, I guess. Notice my computer is wounded and needs a sticker to cover its gaping hole? Yeah. it is. I need to take it to Best Buy, but I have dreams of replacing it with a MacBook Air...

But back to the iPad. Do you have one? Do you love it? Tell me why or why not!

Textbook

Harry had his first T-Ball practice last night.

When I got home from class to change clothes, Jack met me in the laundry room. "Mom!" he screamed (yes-- we've gone from Mama to Mommy to Mom). "Ball!"

Ben and Harry were just as excited, and we piled in the car and drove to the cutest little park with a cute little jungle gym and a cute little bike path and a totally precious baseball diamond.

I thought it was going to be disastrous because Ben and I were a little cranky from a lack of dinner (I got home too late to eat, and Ben got home early and fed the kids but instead of eating with them, he cleaned up the kitchen, picked up their toys, and got stuff ready for their bath because he is awesome). Harry and Jack were excited, but practice ensured they'd be about 40 minutes behind their bedtime schedule, which is usually a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing. I was particularly worried about Jack because he kept asking "Me? Ball?" and seemed a little perturbed when we told him were just going to watch Harry play. He was somewhat mollified by the jungle gym, and by mollified I mean a total pain in the ass because one of us had to watch him instead of watching practice. We took turns; it was fine.

Better than fine. Completely perfect, actually. A textbook blissful suburban evening. The reason people have kids is for nights like this, watching your kids play with their friends learning skills you learned as a kid, laughing at confused little people trying to figure out the order of the bases, cheering on preschool friends and exchanging smiles, chit-chat, and exclamations of "isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen?" with their parents.

Harry didn't know his name when the coach called roll and asked for Harrison. He also didn't want to share his super awesome Hot Wheels bat (but he did, grudgingly and under duress). As soon as he was done batting, he started yelling, "Can I go to the park now?"

Jack picked me a bouquet of dandelions and then plopped down on the grass and patted the ground beside him. "Mom," he said. "There. Snuggle." He sat on my lap in the waning sun, and we watched Harry at bat for the first time ever. When he hit the ball, Jack burst into applause and screamed "Harry!"and we watched him run the bases like a drunk, and I wondered how the park could be more joyful than it was at that disgustingly wholesome moment.

Then I turned my head toward the playground and saw a puppy going down the slide. No joke.

Harry and his friends have 8 weeks of spring training (spring training! how freaking cute!) before they start playing other teams, and that's good because they need a little work on catching, throwing, hitting, running-- just a few minor details.

The kids took a practice run of the bases before they worked on fundamentals.

Not sure what they were talking about. Strategy probably.

Harry learned to throw overhand at Little Gym where his teachers told him to listen to the ball. He always pauses by his ear and swears the ball says "throw me."

I was stunned by how well he listened and followed directions

I spent a fair amount of time on Jack duty

He was taking the whole experience extremely seriously.

Throwing? Catching? Not sure.

I'm pretty sure he was fielding his own toss here

He's a teeny little baseball player!

You might think a ball rolled between his legs, but he was actually just resting his head in the dirt.

He looked like a little bobble-head doll in his giant helmet.

We were definitely as excited as Harry -- maybe even MORE excited-- when it was his turn to bat.

The coach showed Harry how to hold his bat, and Harry listened very seriously.

Harry hit the ball on his first try!

Harry took off running toward first base at the coach's insistence, only stopping to admire his hit for a second. He was totally confused when the next batter got to first base with him, but then he realized-- with a little help from Ben and the coaches-- that he needed to go to second. Then in a few minutes, to third.

Running in the general direction of home-ish.

Then they switched sides, and Harry got to do a little fielding. He's throwing it to the catcher.

Yep. He's doing a dirt summersault.

"Dude. My glove is totally ready. Where's the ball?"

Nah, Harry didn't slide into base or dive for a ball. Just some more dirt frolicking in lieu of fielding. Although in lieu of is not totally accurate when no one hits the ball past the coach's foot (except this one girl who struck out a few times and then smacked it into deep center field. Awesome).

Jack running away from the field. Again.

By the time it devolved into total glove-on-the-head screwing around time, practice was over, and we all adjourned to the playground.