Out of the Mouths of Babes

All of a sudden, Nora is really talking. A new word here, a new word there. "Please", "Cheese", "Okay" "Tate" and, uh..."Gracias." I don't know if she's decided to be half Spanish, or if Tate is sneakily teaching her a foreign language in one his late-night seminars on How to Drive Mom as Crazy as Possible in 100 Days or Less or Your Money Back. One of these days they're going to playing in the next room and I'll hear Tate say "Vamos a ir a tomar una botella de vodka del armario y de un paseo en coche." Nora will reply back with "Si, senor diablo!". And I'll sit there in blissful ignorance and all of a sudden wonder why I'm missing a bottle of vodka, the kids, and the car.



I don't know what Nora's trying to say when "gracias" comes out, since she throws it out there at pretty random times. I do know, however, she's trying to say "thank you" when in fact what actually comes out of her angelic little mouth is "fuck you!". Yeah, that's a fun one. If I'm in a punchy mood at the grocery store, I'll hand her a bag of rice or something to play with just so I can watch people's faces as she shouts out "FUCK YOU, MA!!!!" with nothin' but a smile on her face. I have a feeling I'm pretty much known as the Crazy Mother with Strange Children at Festival by this point. Which I'm fine with. It was a long time coming.



She's also still bidding people "Die!" as she leaves them, waving her little hand frantically. I particularly enjoy when I lay her down for her nap, and after she's given me a hug and a kiss she'll lift her head up and holler "DIE, MA!" and then flop back down, curl in a ball, and fall asleep. Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling all through naptime.



Tate's favorite phrase is (get ready to judge me) "Oh...for God's SAKE!". He says it 300 times an hour. We also get a lot of double takes and strange looks in public when he breaks that one out. And apparently it's a pretty universal phrase. Happy, sad, angry, hungry, bewildered...it all merits an "Oh...for God's SAKE!" Examples:



Me: "Tate, can you get your jacket on, please?"

Tate: "Oh, for God's SAKE, Mom!"

Me: "Ok, say goodbye to your teacher before we leave."

Tate: "Oh...for...God's...SAKE!!!"

Me: "Goodnight, Tate. I love you."

Tate: "OH! FOR! GOD'S! SAKE!"

And on and on. Sometimes it's mumbled, sometimes it's shouted, sometimes it comes out of nowhere while he's watching Sesame Street (apparently Grover is extremely annoying). And, yes, since everyone's thinking it anyway, he learned it from me. I know. The Mother of the Year award is on it's way.

It Was Epic

Epic, I tell you. Ep. Ic.

What was epic, you say? Why, I say, the tantrum that Tate threw at the YMCA yesterday, that's what! I have seen more than my fair share of Tate tantrums (Tatetrums?). I've got enough stored up to last me until I am 9802 years old. This one, though, was one to go in the history books. I should totally write a book about the history of tantrums, and how my dear son has committed his very being to the art of sharing tantrums with the world at every possible opportunity, in every possible place, in front of EVERY POSSIBLE PERSON IN THE WORLD. I would rock that.

Basically, I wanted him to put on his jacket before going out in 40 degree weather. He disagreed, somewhat strongly. I told him that we would not be budging from the spot we were standing in until he put on his jacket. He would budge, I would replace him in his original spot, he would wail and thrash and lunge for the handicap button to open the door (his form of crack), I would replace him, etc etc freaking etc for 30 minutes. I know I am prone to exaggeration every once in a great while, but it was literally a half hour. 1800 seconds of hollering, caterwauling, bellowing, trying to remove random parts from Mommy's body with his teeth, what have you. Nora would wander off for a bit, come wandering back, frantically sign "eat" for a few minutes, realize I was not about to magically produce a plate full of ravioli from under my clothing, and wander back off in search of people to beg food from, or tables to scour for crumbs under. She was a peanut on a mission.

Finally I got tired of watching people steadfastedly, pointedly ignore my psychotic toddler as he tried to hurl himself through the front doors of a public venue and decided to get the jacket on, get through the doors, and get home where I could start pouring wine down my throat because I was thisfreakingclosetolosingmysanity. So I did...somehow. I still don't know how I did it, since he seemed to think the jacket was the spawn of Satan, but I ended up with him tucked under one arm, Nora in the other, and wearily trudging out to my car wondering why I ever decided to open my uterus for business. Good times.

Then I took Nora to the grocery store and she dropped a full can of enchilada sauce on my foot. I'm convincing myself, perhaps futilely, that it was not intentional. If my 18-month-old starts trying to break my metatarsals on a regular basis now, I think it may be time to wave the white flag and just letting the kidlets start the dictatorship they seem so intent on cultivating. Hey, I tried. Not many 31-year-olds can say they got their ass kicked by a couple of kids who like to run around naked after bathtime and roll themselves up in curtains. That's something. It IS.

And Unto Tate, A Child Was Born

Tate and I had a fun conversation the other day. Sometimes I just gotta wonder what goes through that brain of his. The rundown:

Tate: Mommy, I have a baby in my tummy!
Me: Oh, really? How did it get there?
Tate: The spaceship flew it into there and then it had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Now it's living in my tummy. Remember when I did that? When I was in your tummy?
Me: Yes, I do remember that. Do you?
Tate: Yes. That was so fun. I'd run around and go "Wheeeee!"
Me: Well, sometimes it certainly felt like that. Do you remember doing your best to dislodge my rib with your heel? Cause that was really fun for me, too. What kind of baby do you have in your tummy?
Tate: A girl. Her name is Hammer.
Me: Always an option for the next kid. Not many little Hammers running around these days.

I tried to get him to continue the conversation but he got distracted by a patch of sunlight on the wall or something and wondered off. Later, when I tried to ask him about Baby Girl Hammer in his tummy, he looked at me like I had been sneaking hits from the bong when his back was turned. I guess it was a short pregnancy.

The four of us went to get our pictures taken this past week. I was not entirely optimistic, seeing as both kids were turning into snot fountains, Eric had worked all night the night before and not gone to bed yet, and I was annoyed at Eric for not being totally excited and exhilirated about getting his picture taken after being awake for like 18 hours. Small detail.

Anyway, things went surprisingly well. Tate had to be...himself, and did plenty of looking the complete opposite direction of the camera with his patented little smirk on his face while pretending he was deaf, but the creepy, ugly, freaky rubber chicken that the photographer waved in both kids' faces did a great job of coaxing a decent number of smiles out of them. I'm really happy with the ones we've seen so far. See? Look how cute we are.



And just for kicks, here are the little rapscallions at this time last year. Sniff. They look so little and innocent. Well, ok, only Nora looks innocent. Tate hasn't looked innocent since he came shooting out of the womb.

Take Me to Your Leader

I took Nora in for her 18 month check up yesterday. In the past 6 months, she's gained a grand total of 3, count 'em 3 lbs, bringing her up to a whopping 22 lbs even. Now, considering the fact that she shoves a total of 22 lbs of food in her mouth every 12 hours, this is somewhat impressive. I've come to the conclusion that she has either A) a hollow leg, B) a tapeworm, or C) some sort of alien DNA coursing through her veins. I have never known a human being to shove this sheer amount of food in their mouth on a 23 an hour a day basis and only gain like an ounce a month. She's from another planet. I gave birth to ET's sweet, plucky, teeny-tiny, second cousin or something.

Tate has learned the fine art of lying. We're extremely proud. I keep insisting that Eric take the credit passing down this laudable trait, but he seems to think it's something that can only be passed from a loving mother down to her mentally pliable, impressionable son. The other day Tate and I were coming in from the garage to the house. I had 4000 grocery bags in my arms and Nora hanging off my neck, writhing and squealing as she tried to separate my eyebrows from my forehead. This was our exchange:

Me: "Tate, can you please open the door for Mommy?"

Tate: "No. My hands are full."

Me: "Is it hard work, carrying all that air?? Open the door."

Tate: "I just CANNOT right now. My HANDS are FULL."

Me: "Oh, right. I failed to notice that gigantic speck of lint on your palm. I'm surprised you haven't been reduced to dragging your hand along behind you, grunting and groaning as you strain to take every step. Please, please let me put down my 600 pounds of groceries and stash Nora down my shirt or something so you don't pull a muscle by trying to balance a piece of fuzz in one hand while wrenching open the door with the other."

Tate: "Ok, Mommy."

Then we have the typical situation where he pushes Nora down while standing 3 feet in front of me, then quickly saying "I didn't do anything!" Right. I may be a little slow on the uptake sometimes but I'm pretty sure he's not able to inadvertently knock people over with an innocent flick of his eyeballs.

I took the kids on a hayride this morning. Nora, as usual, was so thrilled she simply lost all expression in her face. It takes a lot to impress this kid.

What the hell, Ma.

Tate and good ol' One Eye.

I may be a liar, but I'm stinkin' cute, too.

It was a really good time, but the whole getting-in-and-out-of-the-car process made me really, really not excited for winter. It takes 45 minutes to get everyone's crap into the car, and then you get where you're going and take another 3 hours to get both kids crammed into their hats and mittens and jackets and boots and other stuff they insist on wearing because they want to be warm or something. After I'm done getting them ready in their 40 layers of clothes, I'm about to strip all mine off because I'm panting and sweating and about to fall over from fatigue. Then Nora poops in her diaper and Tate starts screaming because he doesn't like the way his zipper smells and I start mumbling that this taking the kids out stuff is for the birds and next time we're just staying home and wearing the same clothes for 2 weeks at a time because even though I remember all the kids' clothes I inevitably forget something of mine, like, oh, my shoes. It's good times.

Can't wait for winter. Can. Not. Wait.

I Got You, Babe

I know. Yes, I know. Really. You all have been tormented and left feeling strangely alone and unfulfilled by the lack of blogging. Well, too bad. I was in a really bad mood for about a month and any nugget of humor in my life was hiding deep under all the clutter in my family room. So I didn't have any desire to put my bitchy moanings and rantings down for all the world to see.

But I'm back now. Clap, clap.


To jump right in, let's start with the recent makeover we had. This is what my dear little Nora had been looking like:
Lovely, isn't she? Just pure sweetness and delicacy. What a little flower, all abloom with dainty and cute. Actually, to get the real picture, you'd have to imagine this 'do with food and lint and, I don't know, baby raccoons hanging off of it. She was like Little Miss Dustmop Head. Plus there was the whole issue of her not being able to, you know, SEE. We got tired of hearing the thumps as she careened into walls and took headers down the stairs. Kidding.

So I took her in for a little snip snip and here she is now:

Or maybe this is her. They've pretty much got identical hairstyles. She's still working on the moustache, though. I'm trying to get her to start answering to "Sonny" and teaching her to sing "I got flowers, in the spring....I got you, to wear my RIIIIING". It's slow going.

She's learning a lot of new words, although her favorite is still "BladabladaBLAHBLAHBLAH". So far that's seemed to have meant "cup", "sponge" "blackened banana peel" and "Mommy's arm fat". But she's also got "Doggie" "Airplane" "Thank you" (which comes out sounding like "Dankmnn"), and still, of course "BOB!!!!!! STOP!!!". She also likes to bid people adieu by saying "bye", although when she says it, it comes out as "Die". So I often hear her sweet little voice warbling "Die, Ma! DIE DIE, MA!" It's a little disconcerting. I keep expecting to turn around and see her coming at me with a stick in her hand or something.

And let's not forget about this little tornado:

I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear he's still the same bounce-off-the-walls, yell-at-the-top-of-his-lungs, make-Mommy-drink-straight-out-of-the-winebox little dude he always was. He's in preschool now and adores it. I've also got him in swimming and gymnastics in vain attempts to burn off some of the energy he has stored. He enjoys those classes too, but refuses to let them tire him out in any way, shape or form. Truly, how daft and moronic of me to hold out any pathetic little morsel of hope. I chalk it up to sleep deprivation and just pure desperation. Can I get an hour of downtime in the afternoon, people? No? How about 20 minutes? 10? Periodic escapes to the bathroom where I feign gastrointestinal troubles? Nope. These children follow me everywhere.

And now, my brief reintroduction back into the world of blogging must end for today. Nora is chucking cut up fruit at the dogs and Tate is trying to crawl into the dishwasher and shut the door. Better I don't do too much all at once anyway. I don't want to pull a muscle.