Watch Out Spielberg...

The boys have decided they want to make a movie. So last night, Steph started telling them what they would need to do to begin, like write a story, come up with storyboards etc. So Chas asked me to go buy them storyboards. We clarified and today, after playing in the snow, Eddie got some paper and drew out the storyboards for their first feature. The working title is "Sea Flux." It is heavily influenced by "Finding Nemo." I am now going to have to find a way to film this. Which is going to be a neat trick, since I had to get Eddie to confirm for me which side is up. Anyway, at the risk of having a studio steal their movie, here is the storyboard for the epic "Sea Flux!"

SNOW DAY!!!!!

So the downside to being president of the boys' preschool is getting a call at 7 a.m. about the snow. Followed by roughly 300 additional calls in and out to make sure everyone knew we were closed. The upside is that I was up, so when the boys stirred about an hour later I could whisper "Go look outside." I've never seen them strip off their pajamas so fast.

After grudgingly eating bowls of oatmeal, they put on their snow pants, hats and coats and headed out. We made a snowman, pictured here. They tried for snow angels, but it was kinda iffy. (Eddie initially wanted me to cover his eyes because he doesn't like to look at the sky when he's lying on his back -- because it's so far away it's kind of scary. I guess the opposite of a fear of heights?) They threw snowballs at each other and at the older neighbor boys who were genuinely impressed with their packing skills. Then they took their jeep out for a spin to watch it make tracks. When they got stuck with too much snow on the tires, the older girls converged on them (see below), clucking over them and generally battling to be the most helpful. Too bad the feminine attention is wasted on 4-year-olds.

The only tragedy of the day is that Eddie bogarted the whipped cream for the hot chocolate, leaving Chas bereft and highly suspicious of the mothering skills of anyone who would have a single, nearly empty can of whipped cream and a pantry devoid of any marshmallows. I gotta say, he's onto something.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day from a 4-year-old perspective

According to Eddie, we celebrate MLK Jr. because before him, dark-haired people had to sit at the back of the bus and there were different schools for dark-haired people and light-haired people and he said you should be able to go to school and ride the bus together because it doesn't matter what color your hair is.

As I tried to figure this out, I realized they had read a book about King in preschool. And skin color means absolutely nothing to my boys. But, with one of them a blondie and the other with "black" hair, (brown, but don't tell Chas) hair color differences they get. In fact, it defines them in some ways, as Chas more than once has called himself "the black boy" because he has black (again, not really) hair.

I wonder when skin color will be a part of the equation for them. Not for a long, long, long time, I hope. And I can only hope that segregation based on race will always seem as foreign and absurd to them as segregation by hair color.

The thing about Moms ...

According to Chas, the thing about Moms is that they have boobs and jay jays. Oy.

My son the potty-mouth

Today when I picked the boys up from preschool, their teacher pulled me aside to explain an "incident" during circle time. (It was all I could do not to say "Oh, shit," when she said she wanted to talk to me.) It seems one of their little friends was absent, and after sending her good thoughts, Chas raised his hand to elaborate. "I thought poop," he told the teacher, or something to that effect. Wisely recognizing that this was going to set off a veritable poop-storm of such utterances from the whole class (as "poop" is just about the funniest word in the English language when you are in preschool), she told him it was bathroom talk and inappropriate. He apparently got quite red-faced, teary-eyed and she said she was pretty sure he cried.

I tried to be sensitive and reassuring, prompting him to tell me all about school, hoping he would volunteer and thus give me an opening to talk about it. The closest he came to 'fessing up was to blurt out "I didn't cry" when I asked if anything upsetting happened during circle time. So I just told him I knew the story, which probably wasn't the coolest thing in the world, reminding him of what must have been a mortifying moment and worse, letting him know that someone told his mom about it. Anyway, I told him about how we all make mistakes and that he wasn't the only kid in his class who has done this. I also told him the truth: that I was as much to blame for it as he was because it's my job to teach him when words aren't appropriate and that I've just laughed along at the poop jokes for too long. We then agreed we would try to help each other clean up our vocabularies.

I figure this is just practice for dealing with the inevitable F-bombs that are in his future.

Is this a symptom...

of having to stretch a story about a nondescript building to 2,000 words as I recently had to??? That last post was a long one. Sheesh.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

As of now (well, yesterday actually) it has been five years since I left my home in the morning and trudged off to work. Five years ago the sainted Dr. Dashow put me on bedrest for the duration of my pregnancy and I never went back.

Do I miss "working outside the home?" Not really. I thought I would and, truth be told, once in a while I get nostalgic for the newsroom atmosphere. Outside of home, that's probably the environment I'm most comfortable in. I do still get to stretch my writing muscles with freelance work. And, honestly, one of my favorite things about working in a newsroom (aside from the bad jokes and worse wardrobes of almost everyone in the room) was always reading the wires. Imagine, just sitting at your desk and being able to click and read hundreds and hundreds of AP news stories at will! Why, it's almost like having an internet connection! Since that little thrill is now available at home, why leave?

Ahhh. Friends and colleagues. Yes, I miss seeing some of them more regularly. But many of them have moved on -- waaaay on -- and I wouldn't see them anyway. The ones I really care about, I'm still in touch with -- albeit irratically. And now that the boys are in preschool, I have a whole new set of friends who are mostly younger than I am but still in the same "stage" of life as me. They aren't newsies -- most don't even follow the news. But, I like them and we have a lot of fun on our "girls night out."

I hear people say that being a stay at home parent is the hardest job in the world. I disagree. Parenting the most important job in the world, but it's not harder just because you stay home to do it. It's easier -- at least for me. I can't imagine the chaos of trying to get boys, Steph and me out the door on time every morning. Heck, they're late for preschool more than half the time, an it doesn't start until after noon. Speaking of which ....)

So, I'm happy staying home. I think it makes me a better mother. I don't think it makes anyone else a better or worse mother to make a different choice or even the same one. I'm not a martyr for doing it. (Good God when I hear mothers talking about how much they are sacrificing on the altar of their children by staying home, I want to scream: "GET A JOB!" Because I think if you are unhappy, unfulfilled and full of resentment, you probably aren't doing your kids any favors.) To the contrary, I do it because it's much, much easier for me. I know I am going to pay for it in things like career growth, future savings etc. (Note to some "feminist" scholars who like to opine about women fooling themselves into thinking they can take time off from the workforce without paying a price: "Stay-at-Home" is not a synonym for "brain dead.") But it's a trade-off I'm happy to make.

In other words, even after the boys are in kindergarten next year (gasp, sob) don't be expecting to see my resume popping up in your inbox...

Cherish is the word ...

We were driving back from Chuck E. Cheese this evening with my nephew Gavin and his friend Gibson in the back seat. They are 9. Eddie and Chas are 4. Gibson quite seriously offered Eddie and Chas this nugget of wisdom: "Eddie, Chas, cherish this time in preschool. And next year, cherish the time you are in kindergarten. Because in first, second, third grade, you'll have homework. And that's baaaad."

Meet Harry, The New Year's Eve Chicken...

This afternoon, while the boys decorated yet another Christmas ornament (don't ask) I looked up to see a chicken looking through the window on our back door. I called the boys to look and took a couple of snapshots. Chas named "him" Harry. After a while, they got bored watching him and I only got occasional reports of how he was near their swingset etc. Then, Harry was gone.

Early this evening, however, Chas started laughing and pointing out the window to the front porch and saying something about silly Harry. Lo and behold, the damn chicken was settling in to a hanging basket full of dead flowers that should have been removed months ago. (By this point, it's almost a challenge to see how long I'll let it stay.) He's been up and down a few times now. I was going to ignore him until Eddie said, very sweetly, "But Mommy. He's far from his home. We have to take care of him while he's here." So Harry got some corn and some cornmeal. My sister came by and reports there are neighborhood cats skulking not too far away. Steph called to question about whether chickens will freeze to death in current conditions. Now despite allowing him to be named, I truly do not care about Harry. Circle of life and all that crap, you know? But my boys would be traumatized to find Harry either mutilated or frozen to death. So I just hope the dang thing has the sense to find her way home soon -- wherever that may be.

UPDATE -- 5:47 p.m. Eddie just walked in, looking very somber. He's been looking for Harry. "I think a cat might have got him," he reports. I assure him we would have heard the clucking, then go investigate for myself with a flashlight. No Harry. Fortunately, no Harry parts, either... Eddie has now, completely independently, come up with an explanation for Harry's absence. "Maybe he made a new friend!"

You may call it Wretched Excess...

But around here, we just call it "Christmas." Yes, the Jolly Fat Man has come and gone and left behind a veritable toy store. But we had two boys jumping up and down in glee and excitement, gasps of pure joy and overall giddiness Christmas morning, so I don't regret a single overly endulgant purchase. Not even the ones I forgot about until late Christmas Eve when we finally got the boys to sleep and managed to drag out the hidden loot.

Of course, today, poor Eddie paid in what can best be described as the preschool version of a hangover. He was sick and vomiting most of the day. He may have contracted a bug -- his cousin was sick last night. But it's just as likely that 48 hours of a diet that consisted of 80 percent sugar coupled with extreme self-imposed sleep deprivation was simply too much. Either way, I spent the day either snuggling a sick boy (the best part of the day), holding his head over the toilet (the worst part of the day) or playing with the healthy boy who desperately missed his much more fun playmate. I have too much work to do to have a day like this -- two deadlines loom at the end of the week, the kitchen is a disaster area and I have a turkey to cook Friday -- but that's what late nights are for I suppose.

At any rate, Eddie's much better -- he requested a trip to Red Robin for dinner and promptly stole his auntie's most garlicy french fries -- and the bedding is in the dryer, so all's well that ends well.

Best. Christmas. Present. Ever.

And it's not even Christmas Eve. Eddie has been working on this card for his Mama and Mommy this morning, pestering me to help him spell some stuff. This is what I got after I agreed to spell out "Love, Kids" to him, and write "Santa Claus comes tonight" as a sample for him to copy. Note the word "love" is mysteriously topped by a heart. What can I say? The kid knows how to suck up before Christmas.

Squawkers McCaw is a Squawkin', Talkin', Pain in My A**!

The boys reallly want a Squawkers McCaw talking parrot for Christmas, so we got 'em one this weekend at Costco. It was in the back of Steph's car so, while the boys and I were supposed to be sleeping this morning, she brought him in to hide. But there's a problem in that the little F'er seems to be motion activated. So I heard a screetchy "HELLO" as she came in. No biggie. Except that Chas apparently heard it to and it yanked him into full consciousness.

"I heared a talking parrot!"

"It must have been a commercial."

"But the TV isn't on."

"A commercial on the computer."

"But that's not what it says on the commercial."

"It must have been a dream."

"It wasn't a dream. It was a talkin' parrot!"

Things went like this until Steph came in to kiss us goodbye and confessed that she'd been "talking in silly voices." I'm not sure he was entirely convinced and I'm wondering how the hell Santa's going to put him under the tree without waking up at least one boy.

Robo Ed

Last night, after the boys were in bed, we heard complaining from Eddie. Not unusual. So Steph drew the short straw (also not unusual) and went to investigate. When she came back a few minutes later, she looked at me stone-faced and said, "You're gonna laugh."

Seems that Eddie was tired and trying to sleep but Chas kept pestering him. Chas explained that he had a question that he really, really needed Eddie to answer. So Mama asked what it was because maybe she could help. "Eddie, if you were a robot, would you tell me?" Eddie was trying to sleep and wouldn't answer, so Mama assured Chas that he would confess. Part of her wanted to say, "It depends on what kind of robot he was. If he were an evil robot, he wouldn't tell you." But for the sake of everyone's night, she didn't elaborate. Thank God.

Just when I thought my children were geniuses, a couple of dough balls knocked on the door...

OK, for the record, I've never thought Eddie and Chas were actual, bona fide geniuses. But sometimes I allow myself to think that they are very, very smart. And then something like tonight happens, and I have to reevaluate.

It began, innocently enough, with dinner out at Chevy's. Chevy's is one of those places that gives more than crayons to keep the kids from getting bored and screaming loudly enough to disturb other patrons. It also gives pre-flattened, pre-cooked tortillas to amuse them. Yes, dough balls. Last time we were there, the boys were utterly bereft to have left the dough balls behind. So I said they could bring 'em home. Which would be fine, except that on the way home, the dough balls fell to the floor of the car several times, gathering enough dirt and God-knows-what to turn gritty and a bit gray. The dough balls were endlessly amusing to the boys who stuck them on the windows and giggled. Then someone got the idea to let the dough balls drive. Steph put them on the steering wheel and we had a laugh riot when they were unable to make a proper right turn to get us home. This put us on a dead end street next to a field. I said the dough balls wanted to go home to find their families and Steph "threw" them out the window.

Now, we played this little charade to see if we could get rid of the dough balls without having to listen to excessive crying. We could not. So shortly after we got home, the boys heard a knock at the door, opened it and found their dough balls sitting on the porch, waiting to be let in. (I would have said they were shivering in the cold, but that woulda been ridiculous.)

I don't know if Eddie and Chas think they've witnesses a Christmas Miracle or what, but they seem to truly believe that the dough balls knocked on the door. They had to call their Auntie and two cousins to relate this amazing story -- which they could barely tell because they were laughing so hard.

Perhaps the worst of it is that, after being told that Mommy could make them more dough in the morning, they were perfectly willing to let us throw their miraculous door-knocking dough balls away because they were, by this point, truly disgusting.

That thing in Paris

After watching a particularly enthralling episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, in which Mr. Rogers plays with some blocks, Eddie ran back to pull out his own blocks. This was his second creation. "What do they call that thing in Paris?" Eddie asked when showing his creation to me. "The Eiffel Tower," I replied. "Yes. That's it. This is the Eiffel Tower."

Playing Favorites

This morning, after a looong night of coughing, Xopenexing (Yes, I have decided to make Xopenex a verb.) and restless sleeping from Eddie, we all woke in surprisingly good moods. Chas announced that he loves Mommy, Mama and Eddie. But the person he loves the most is ... Eddie. He's sticking to this decision. It's very sweet. Maybe it's because last night we took them to see "Fred Claus," which is all about brotherly love Santa-style. (Near the end of the film, Chas announced, "This is a great movie!") But whatever the cause, with his bad cold and nasty asthma symptoms, Eddie can use the love today.

He knows when you've been sleeping, but he's got no clue about your family...

Took the boys for their annual photo shoot with the jolly old elf today. Once I realized malls are starting to do this before Thanksgiving, I became enamored of early pictures because it means I can get them printed up for Christmas cards AND miss much of the long lines that form once the turkeys are nothing but carcasses.

Shortly after pulling them onto his lap, Santa began asking questions. Personal questions, really. First thing out of his mouth was "Do you mind your mom and dad?" I sort of sucked in my breath, wondering what the boys would do or say. Eddie, concentrating as he was, refused to risk disrupting his perfectly fake photo smile to answer. Chas, however, put Santa straight. So to speak. "We just have two moms," he said, pointing to us on either side of him, shooting video and stills. give the old guy credit, he didn't get confused. Flustered, but not confused. "Well, some people have two parents and some children only have one and ... I'm just going to stop now." Then he went into a whole spiel about keeping their rooms clean. Chas was not nearly so honest when that came up -- he is trying to make himself look worthy of the "Nice List" after all.

Anyway, they were very excited and asked for two gifts -- having arranged prior to the visit a plan to write a much, much, much longer list to mail to the North Pole. For now, Eddie has requested a Dinoco 400 race set and Chas has requested Willly's Butte race set, both from the greatest movie of all time, Cars. I have it on excellent authority that they will not be disappointed -- at least not as it pertains to these particular requests.

An epic poem by Eddie

This was composed several weeks ago, but I just came across the paper I scribbled it on.


Bumpy coral in the sea;
Swift, soft coral in the sea;
The whales and sharks are eating
Their salad and
Their fish.

OK, Robert Frost he ain't.

Chicken Nuggets Are ANIMALS!!!

So the boys are still reeling from the laugh riot that was "Chicken Run," our family movie night selection last week. They keep repeating the line, "I don't want to be a pie. I don't like gravy." Which seems a little weird, but whatever.

Anyway, tonight I was reading them one of their all-time favorite books, "Robot Dog." Apparently the picture of the robot dog factory machinery reminded Eddie of the chicken pie machine in "Chicken Run." We talked for a minute about how most pies are sweet but some pies have gravy then he asked, quite innocently, "Is there really such a thing as chicken pie?" I said that was true and his expression quickly became a cross between perplexed and horrified. "Amimal chickens?!" Yes, animal chickens. Now horrified is pushing perplexed off the face. "Do we really eat amimal chickens?!" At this point, Mama has been called in because I recognize this as both A. potentially damaging to my lunch options and B. Sweetly funny. Mama was not helpful.

"Yeah, Buddy," she said. "What do you think is in chicken nuggets?" His little face registered an expression that let us know this little factoid was a little like learning that "Soylent Green is PEOPLE!" We told him it was OK, that's what the chickens are for and that there aren't WHOLE chickens in pies or nuggets. (Though God only knows what parts there are in them, they are only parts.)

And just like that, another piece of childhood innocence is gone.

Growing boys

What a difference a year makes. Amazing, really. I mean I hadn't realized just how much they'd changed until I looked at these pictures. It's not that they're so much taller -- though they are. But they had such little baby faces last year. And now they are darn near manly. Sigh. My little Punkins.