Love Story

My in-laws graciously bought Luke a children's Bible for Christmas. The Bible is the ultimate love story, and we're thrilled to start teaching it to Luke.

We opened up to the first page, and naturally, it started with the story of creation and Adam and Eve.

The instant I saw the illustration of Adam and Eve, though, I thought of a different love story. I knew I had seen these characters before.


It seems that Adam and Eve were modeled after Oliver and Jennifer. I won't be convinced otherwise! Don't believe me? Here, have another look:

Fortunately, the whole confess and repent message of the Bible was not confused with the movie's tagline, "Love means never having to say you're sorry."

Imitation is the Highest Form of Flattery

I don't want you to think I'm looking for a bunch of attention or sympathy, but I do want to talk about a disease that I have. I'm sure you've seen commercials about it on television. It's called Restless Leg Syndrome, or RLS for short. I've had RLS for about six and a half years, which, coincidentally, is exactly how long I've been married.

I have a very rare form of the disease. My symptoms only attack at night, and they're usually provoked when I hear a noise that sounds like snoring (I can't call it snoring because my husband does NOT snore). Other times, my RLS will start flaring up when my space bubble is threatened, or when my covers are stolen away from me. One of these catalysts provokes my system, and my legs just start kicking uncontrollably. They don't stop until they've hit my poor husband and he stops imitating a snoring person, or backs out of my space bubble, or returns my covers to me.

Last night, I was summoned at 1:45 a.m. by George over the baby monitor for the fourth time of the night. I laid there, head pounding, thinking, "If anybody wants me out of this bed, they're going to have to blast me out with dynamite."

After about five minutes of listening to his half-hearted "Waaaaaah" over the monitor, I felt something very peculiar. It was my husband's big toe jabbing me in the ankle. Apparently, RLS is contagious. I had no idea!

"No way, buddy," I thought. "You're not going to beat me at my own game." Joe got up that time.

There was one person who did beat everybody else at the game, though, and that was George. He woke up seven times last night. Sleep training isn't exactly going as planned. If that kid doesn't knock it off, I'm going to start co-sleeping and unleash my RLS on him.

I'm only kidding. Put down the phone--you don't need to call CPS.

I Get No Respect

For the past week, my oldest little treasure has handled some things that usually spin him into an oblivion of misbehavior extraordinarily well...when he's in his father's care. For instance, when we drop him off at Sunday School he usually pitches a full-body tantrum on the floor. He shakes the Dutch door, screaming for us to come back and get him. But not this week! This week, Joe took him alone, and the big man on campus just walked through the door, Thomas the Tank Engine backpack slung across his shoulder, all cool, and didn't look back.

When I take him to get his hair cut, I have to pin him using various wrestling holds. It's quite a bit like taking him to the doctor, actually. He screams, "She's hurting me! She's hurting me!" as the barber snips his babyfine hair. It's just plain ridiculous. This week his father took him, and it's a Christmas miracle--no tears!

It's not that he's never misbehaved or been difficult for his father. He just has a whole new respect for him ever since he put two and two together that his old man flies the same plane as Santa. Santa taxied in on a T-6 at the squadron children's Christmas party, like ten days ago. Since then, Luke has been reflecting on the events of the afternoon in his mind over and over. The other day, he said to Joe, "Do you fly the same plane as Santa?" Joe looked at me, a bit puzzled, and I nodded. "Yes," he said as it dawned on him what Luke was talking about, "I fly the same plane as Santa." And now all of a sudden, Luke thinks he's one degree from Santa Claus and that his dad is some kind of golden ticket. He probably pictures them together at the squadron bar after a long day's work, having a brewski, slapping each other on the back, playing Crud and sharing war stories.

And here I am, left with the typical misbehaviors and struggles. I don't think Luke will be quite as awestruck when I tell him that I once put together a design proposal for a well-known ambulance chaser in Little Rock. Maybe I could get some respect if I told him I play Mah Jongg with Mrs. Claus at the Officers' Club?

I know, I know, another post having to do with Santa. You would think we don't talk about anything else around here. We do--we've been talking with Luke quite a bit about the true meaning of Christmas, actually. The only Jesus-related funny, though, was when Luke claimed to be Jesus. And really, that's not quite as funny as it is blasphemous.

Redemption

Luke knows that every once in a while, he has to do something really cute to redeem himself from his day's/week's/month's behavior. On Friday night, he pulled something out of his bag of tricks that redeemed a year's worth of mishaps.

We headed out to the city of Windcrest for their annual City of Lights display. It was so completely Texan in that these folks really go over the top with their Christmas decorations. And the fact that so much of the town participates makes it a really marvelous spectacle. We were awed by so many of the themes and ideas carried out. One house had a giant UFO crashed into a tree and green martians all over the lawn with a sign that said "Have an Out of This World Christmas". The craftsmanship was spectacular. One house had its lights synchronized with a local Christmas radio station, a la the Transsiberian Orchestra lights display video we've all seen on YouTube a hundred times.

One house had Santa Claus standing at the end of the driveway. Cars would stop and roll down the windows so that the passengers could speak to him. Luke has had a longstanding rivalry with the man in red, but he decided he really blew it at the squadron children's Christmas party, and has been asking me for a week, several times per hour, "Is Santa not scary?" A week's worth of reassurance must have given wee Luke all the courage he needed, because as we got closer, he said he wanted to talk to Santa. Joe and I looked at each other with skepticism. We asked him what he wanted to tell Santa. We couldn't believe his answer.

When our turn came, Joe rolled down the back window. Luke stared at Santa, sizing him up, eyes as big as saucers. It took a minute to remember what he was supposed to be telling Santa, but he finally spit the words out. "I want a hippopotamus for Chwissmiss."

We all had a good laugh, and as we drove off, Luke started sobbing. "Would you HOLD ME?!?!?" he repeated over and over, frantically. Poor little guy used all the courage he had to ask Santa for a hippopotamus for Christmas.

Bugger--now we have less than a week to go out and find Luke some sort of hippo, or else he'll never speak to Claus again!

Second Strike

My family is starting to have a real problem with maple syrup. In the spirit of transparency, I do not have a problem telling you that it was my fault this time.

My plan for the morning was to go grocery shopping. The conditions weren't great--it was cold and rainy outside and Luke woke up with a bout of diarrhea, but I'm a real party animal, so we went anyway. Usually, I try to do errands during "second period," the part of the day that comes after George's first cycle of feeding, playtime and nap, but before lunch and afternoon naps. Writing out a grocery list is usually the obstacle that keeps me from getting to the store in a timely manner, but today was different since the only word on my list was "Everything," so we got out of here pretty fast during first period. I threw my hair up in a clip, put some training pants on Luke just in case, and away we went.

Thankfully, George was asleep when we got to the store. Feeling pretty footloose and fancy-free, I took a little longer than usual getting through produce. I'd tell you why, but if I told you that Luke and I squandered away our peaceful shopping time watching a bird fly around inside the commissary and get into mischief in the birdseed section, you'd think I was a real twit, so I'll just leave it up to your imagination. By the time we got out of produce, George was alert and getting dangerously close to his next feeding time. He started fussing a little bit, and then about five aisles in, he was really wailing.

I decided it was as good a time as any to try the kid out on Cheerios. I pulled a box off of the shelf, opened it up, and started cramming fistfuls of cereal into various open holes in George's face. Ahhh, he quieted down just in time for me to get to the syrup section of the breakfast foods aisle. Good thing, too, because I stood there thinking long and hard about whether or not I wanted to allow any more of it into my household, and I needed an ounce of clarity. I decided to go for it. Seize the day! That's what I always say!

As I pulled a bottle down and put it in my cart, an elderly amputee in a Jazzy wheeled up and started to stand up to grab a bottle for himself. He seemed to be having some trouble, so I asked him if I could help him get something. He told me which brand he wanted. I really had to reach for it, and as I did, I knocked over Mrs. Butterworth. She fell to the floor and busted open, her lifeblood draining all over the floor.

As I picked the bottle up to prop it up in a way that would prevent any more spillage, I got some syrup on my hands. I immediately started to feel the symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Luckily, just as I started seeing the black swirlies and felt a dizzy spell coming on, a commissary employee turned down our aisle and he cheerfully told me not to worry, he'd take care of it. Phew, we reached an anticlimactic end to our saga. No dogs to bathe, no rugs to throw away. The evidence of my carelessness disappeared with a quick swish of a mop, and I didn't have to listen to anybody screaming in time-out. Although, if anybody had to go to time-out, it would have been me. Hey, I wouldn't mind having a time-out! Would somebody please put me in time-out?

As I finished up my shopping, I decided that if we have one more maple syrup episode, my family is going to go Euro and start eating pancakes with Nutella. You know, I really like Nutella. I might go ahead and set up a maple syrup booby trap for Joe to stumble upon later.

Let Them Eat Cake

George turned six months old yesterday, which meant time for our half birthday party tradition. I never meant to start a tradition when Luke was six months old. I simply had cabin fever. Luke had several colds back to back for three weeks. Pair that with several tornadoes in our area at the time, and I only left the house twice in those three weeks. That's two times. Twice. For groceries. I needed to do something out of the ordinary to break the monotony, so I made half of a cake and a silly party hat with a "1/2" on it, and the rest is history.

Now, twenty months later, I find myself repeating the same ritual, not because I want to, but because I have this genetic disorder passed down to me from my mother that makes me feel the need to make everything equal amongst my children. My sweet mom goes to great lengths to achieve absolute equality when it comes to my siblings (and our spouses) and me. She even makes the wrapping on our Christmas presents equal, even though we are spread across the globe. She seems to think we're all on the phone Christmas morning comparing the size and number of loops on each bow. If my mom spends Christmas Eve tossing and turning in her bed, or you see her stabbing sulkily at her beef tenderloin on Christmas night, you can bet it's because my brother asked for money this year, and there aren't as many ways to wrap up money as there are for the gifts she bought for the rest of us, and she's riddled with guilt over it. Don't worry about her, though, she'll be over it by President's Day.

So anyway, I don't want George to ever compare his and Luke's baby books and think, "Where are MY half birthday party pictures?" And please, please, please let Luke never ask me if his cake was made from scratch, because if my memory serves me right, it was from a box. I don't favor George, but his cake was from scratch.



I swear it was only his first cake--not his first Jack & Coke. Most respectable southerners wait till the baby's second birthday for such rites of passage.
Never one to be outdone, Luke dons his own party hat in the form of his bike helmet, and in his jealous rage, refuses to smile.

Now, if you're my sister, you're appalled by these pictures for several reasons. First of all, George has several pink dots on his party hat. Meredith would have gotten her ducks in a row and gotten some manlier wrapping paper. I'm lazy, so I didn't. Second of all, she's probably completely grossed out by my 25-50th percentile baby. Her son, whom she had with her 6'4" husband, is in the 95th percentile, which gives her license to boast about her milk supply and superior gene pool. (She doesn't really do that.) And third, she absolutely cannot believe I gave my baby cake. When I told her what we do for the six-month milestone, she laughed and laughed and told me what she was planning to do for her son, Jackson, when he turns six months in a couple weeks. She's going to...wait for it...the excitement is worth the suspense...okay, I'm going to tell you now...she's going to give Mr. Future Football Scholarship his FIRST FRUIT!!!! I can hardly wait for him to turn a year old so he can have his birthday dinner of bread and water. Different strokes, for different folks, I guess. Meredith is a really great and dedicated mom, though, and my nephew is even starting to crawl at five months. He's probably going to start doing his own laundry at age three and helping old ladies across the street at four.

Anyway, I'm just an amateur writer, so I don't have a tidy or clever ending to this post. I guess I'll just say, "That's all, folks!"

Not Guilty

When your mom says you are not to eat any more candy off of the gingerbread house the two of you have just made together or else there will be big trouble, technically, you weren't disobeying if you remove a gumdrop (or "dumdrop" as some people around here call it), suck on it for a while, and then replace it.

In other news, Luke met his archnemesis, Santa Claus this weekend. It had been a year since their last encounter, but Luke quickly recalled the trepidation from Christmas past.

Tall Stack Morning

Well, we're having one of those days my mom warned me I would have. The kind that makes me want to print off this blog post and keep copies on hand for the next person who tells me how much easier it must be for me that I just stay home with the children.

I got up this morning, greeted by Luke with a huge smile on his face. "Good morning, Mommy!" he said so cheerfully. "Good morning," I replied with a smile. "I sorry," he said. "Sorry? For what?" I asked. He ran off to play with his pirate ship without so much as a reply, and I dismissed his apology. Kids! They're so silly. Little did I know that his apology was actually a prophesy.

I got to work making my boy some pancakes. Luke loves pancakes, and that's an understatement. He loves pancakes so much that sometimes, he asks to watch videos of pancakes on YouTube. Can you believe people write songs about pancakes and record them for YouTube? So there I was in the kitchen, a flapjack-flippin' fool, a scene that would no doubt bring a tear to Aunt Jemima's eye, and Luke was at the table scarfing them down, asking for more, more, more pancakes please. I absentmindedly brought the bottle of syrup out of the kitchen and put it on the table as I brought Luke his third and final round. I absentmindedly left it on the table as I attended to hungry George and started feeding him his fruit and rice cereal. *foreshadowing*

After I fed George, I got up from the table to get a wet washcloth to clean up George's pear & blueberry encrusted face and hands. When I returned to the table, Luke had emptied George's box of rice cereal all over himself, the table, his chair, and the floor. No big deal, I told myself. It's just what kids do. I went to the hall closet and pulled out my diaper bag, put it on the floor and pulled out the vacuum cleaner from behind it. I absentmindedly left my diaper bag on the floor. *foreshadowing*

I went about our morning routine and put the baby down for his nap. When I came out, I found that Luke had broken into the most important thing I keep in my diaper bag--my vast stockpile of lipsticks. He was glossing Dolley up, and frankly, he had chosen a terrible color for her. No big deal, I told myself. It's just what kids do. I gathered all my precious lipsticks and glosses and wiped down a few surfaces that he had smeared.

With George in his bed, I figured it would be a good idea to get a leg up on my beauty regimen. Joe would be home early, and we were all going to go out for a nice lunch to celebrate today being his graduation day--he now holds a master's degree in public administration! I was putting some finishing touches on my hair when my mother called. I put her on speaker phone and laughed as I recalled the events of my morning. Luke then appeared at the gate in my doorway and asked me, "Would you wash my hands?" I laughed as I asked my mom, "Any bets as to why Luke wants his hands washed?"

I came out to the living room and was nearly brought to my knees as I surveyed the grisly scene. "Oh no!" I shouted. "WHAT?!?!" my mom asked. "Maple syrup. It's everywhere." "I'll let you go," she said. I looked at Luke like oh no you didn't and he looked at me like oh hell yes I did. Conveniently, George woke up crying about this time. I ignored my poor baby's cries as I looked around for a moment, shellshocked. It was everywhere--on the furniture, all over the floor, all over the dog, who was wagging her tail like Christmas came early!

I threw the dog in the bath and started washing her, furiously. Luke stood there crying that he wanted his hands washed, that he didn't want Dolley to play with his bath toys, and that he didn't want Dolley to have a bath at all. I think the last part was sympathy--would you believe that Luke is uncooperative in the bathtub? That he hates the water and bucks like a bronco when I try to wash his hair? I wiped out the tub and put Luke in it while I went around wiping surfaces with spray cleanser. And I'm ashamed to admit it, but I rolled up my rug, taped it up, and threw it outside for the trash. Were my furniture not leather, I'm not so sure it would have been spared. I returned to the bathroom, where I washed Luke down. At the risk of you thinking I'm a mean, sadistic mother, I'll tell you that I didn't feel one iota of guilt when I dumped water over that child's head and he cried about it in protest. Then, I went into poor George's room and started feeding him.

Joe came home a few minutes later to find a sobbing wife. I told him about our morning. He listened, shaking his head. He then told me, "Oh, by the way, I signed us up for the children's Christmas party." The squadron party where Santa will taxi in on a T-6 and deliver toys to the children. "Oh swell," I replied, "I'll get a lump of coal to wrap up for Luke."

Joking aside, I've already bought Luke's present for the Christmas party. I don't think I can give it to him, though. See, I bought him a book called Curious George Makes Pancakes, and I don't think I need a curious little monkey to give the child any more ideas.

What I Said/What He Heard: Snack Edition

I like to give my Luke some choices in his day. Nothing major, just small A or B decisions that let him have a tiny amount of control over some miniscule aspect of his life. Sometimes, though, he tries to stage a coup. Take yesterday at snacktime:

He Said: Can I please have a cracker?
What I Said: Sure. Do you want a circle cracker or a rectangle cracker?
What He Heard: Pick a shape, any shape, and I will produce a cracker in that shape. And if I tell you we don't have a cracker in the shape you name, I am probably just playing mind games with you. We have every shape under the sun, and you should argue with me until you get the shape you want. May I suggest a triangle?

He Said: Can I please have some apple slices?
What I Said: Sure. Do you want green or red?
What He Heard: Pick a color, any color, and I will produce an apple in that color. Apples come in many colors besides red and green. Your only limitation is your imagination! Name a color, and *poof* I will make an apple in that color appear from our magic refrigerator! If I tell you that there's no such colored apple as the color you name, feel free to pitch a fit, complete with bodily convulsions. May I suggest purple?

I am pleased to report that his coup was unsuccessful. In fact, he almost had to spend some time in exile. There was no way he was going to get his way...seriously, we don't have triangle crackers or purple apples!

Christmas Giveaway!

It seems like every blog worth its salt these days is running a contest with fabulous prizes. And since I don't mess around, I decided I have to have a contest, too. I'm not really sure what's going to be involved in my contest. I just know that the loser is going to receive my dog.

You might be thinking, "Laura, that's so insensitive! You should appreciate your dog! Our family dog just died and we we miss her terribly!"

My response: Enter my contest. It'll be a win-win situation (er, for the loser and me)!

It's not that I don't love my dog. I do. It's just that I haven't felt the same about her since she ate Luke's umbillical cord stump...or broke into diaper genies, or cut naptimes short with her incessant barking, or snatched graham crackers out of little hands, or tried to "deflower" my helpless babies while they were lying on the floor...

So now that you know the truth about Dolley, you'll want to be Johnny on the spot whenever I figure out my contest rules, or else she might end up on your doorstep. I'll even throw in whatever kibble I have on hand at the time of the giveaway. I'll put a bow on her, if I have time--I'm pretty busy these days sweeping up chewed-up food that my charming oldest son has spit onto the floor.

My sister, who lives in Germany, shouldn't think she's off the hook. You can ship a dog to Germany--I've already checked!

Best of luck to all four of my readers!

Desperate Measures

Well, George has ignored my gracious request.

Yesterday morning, after a rough night, I woke up an hour earlier than normal to a crying baby with wet pajamas and a two-year-old standing at the baby gate in his doorway singing made-up songs about Elmo and diapers. I opened my stinging, bleary eyes and told Joe I had an extra little item for his honey-do list. "What do you need me to do?" he asked me delicately. I told him I needed him to go to the pet store so he could get one of these to install in George's crib:



Just the bottle, not the hamster. Now if I could just figure out what to put in it. Yoohoo? Ovaltine? My mother, in her infinite wisdom, suggested Brandy Alexanders. It sounded like a good idea at first, but on second thought, that's way too many calories. Suggestions, s'il vous plait?

Mail Order Bride

It's catalog season, and somehow, they've found us at our temporary address. The catalog companies must use ruthless means to collect their intelligence. I'd bet my Boppy that they use waterboarding in the cutthroat catalog industry.

The other day, Joe walked into the living room to find Luke thumbing through the pages of Pottery Barn Kids. To me, PBK is total eye candy, full of moderately expensive wooden toys, and plush bedding emblazoned with names like Caroline and Oliver. These items are set in vast new-moneyesque McMansion spaces, devoid of any eyesores the rest of us normal folks have in our homes, like baby-proofing devices, stacks of mail, or breakfast dishes we haven't yet had the chance to put away. The kids are in adorable coordinated outfits, which I'm sure their mothers ironed and had them dressed in by 8:00, and have no visible juice stains dribbled down the front. There is nary a ketchup smudge nor snot trail on their faces. Without a hair out of place, these kids are precious. And, oh, the babies! They have cherubic little chubby cheeks, they look like they've had ten continuous hours of sleep, and the expressions on their faces whisper, "I wouldn't dream of spitting up on you."

Luke wasn't looking at the pages of boy toys. He had skipped the Star Wars and pirate merchandise in favor of the pages with Madame Alexander dolls and pink play kitchens. And here's the funny part--the part where Luke "pulls a Luke" and says something that makes us fall over laughing. He looked up at Joe and explained, "I'm just wookin' at the girls." Not to worry, Daddy, he doesn't want a doll for Christmas. He wants a girl!

Dear George

Dear George,

I know you read my blog. Usually on your third cup of coffee, right after you read the Wall Street Journal, and before you check woot.com (today it's an ultraviolet toothbrush sanitizer and holder--a total waste of your time, considering you have no teeth). So anyway, I know you will read my message, and given your laid-back disposition, should be more than willing to comply.

Please stop waking up so many times every night wanting to eat. You are 5 1/2 months old now. Eating around the clock is child's play. You are a big boy now, time to cut it out. Remember that one time you slept from 10:00 until 6:00? Remember how I burst into your room and shouted, "WASN'T THAT FUN?!?!?!" and then I spent the rest of the day grinning like an idiot and hugging complete strangers? Well, it WAS fun, so fun that I'd like to do it again. And soon!

You know your cousin, Jackson, who is 18 days younger than you? He sleeps through the night. No eating! Zia Meredith has to put his pacifier in his mouth a couple times every night, but he doesn't want to eat. I'd be happy to do that for you. I've tried--and you usually look at me like I've completely offended you, which makes me totally buckle under the pressure. See, I'm a people-pleaser and I want people to like me, including you, my little puddin' head! Hopefully you're a people-pleaser, too, and you'll understand that I'd be happier if I was getting at least one session of delta sleep per night, and you'll be content to wait until 7:00 to eat. Too greedy? Okay, 6:00.

Now, I'm not an unreasonable mom--I expect a little quid pro quo in this game. Okay, some call it bribery, that's fine. I will buy you 800 thread-count Egyptian cotton crib sheets if you knock it off before you turn six months old. Dupioni silk from Posh Tots? That's ridiculous! Okay, fine, you drive a hard bargain. I'll do anything to get a little extra shut-eye.

Besides, if I have to get up several times to feed you, how am I going to have the energy to get up and deal with your two-year-old brother's multiple wakings?

Love You Forever,
Mommy

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Ever been so desperate for sleep, you'd write a blog post to your baby, practice voodoo, or stand on your head in the corner of the nursery all night if it meant no night feedings?