Fear and Loathing In The Diaper Pail

Liam is going through a “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” phase. He loves it. We try to get him to watch the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special so he can learn about Thanksgiving, but he won’t have it. So yesterday he’s watching Great Pumpkin for the umpteenth time and it gets to the part where Snoopy the World War I flying ace is on his Sopwith Camel and Liam goes, “That silly doggy! He has to get the Red Berry!”

So earlier I mentioned that Liam takes several trips to the bathroom in order to put off the inevitable lonely night in his bunk bed covered in dolls and trucks. A couple of nights ago, he tries to make a fourth trip, but by now, he’s got nothin’. He’s just sitting on the pot, waiting, and then looks down and says in this really upbeat, encouraging voice, “Come on pee! Come on! You can do it!”
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Yesterday Liam and I were playing with his GeoTrax train set and as it was heading down a hill, the track collapsed, sending the train and all its unfortunate passengers to their untimely Fisher-Price demise. “Oh NOOO!” I said. “The train crashed! Oh, the humanity!” To which Liam replied, “Mannity? What mannity?”
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I don’t know why this struck me as funny, but today after preschool, Liam was opening up his little trinkets from his class Halloween party and he got a bookmark with a magnifying glass in it. And he goes, “WOW!! That’s AMAZING!!!” This kid is watching too much TV.
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So Lucas is 7 months old now and about 800 pounds. He wears 18-month clothes. The sleeves fit like extra-long sausage casings and he can only wear sweatpants, because we can’t get regular jeans over his fat thighs. But he’s SMART! Today he played peek-a-boo with me, but with HIM doing the hiding. He actually pull his blanket up to his face and then he’d pull it down and smile. I’d say, “Peek-A-Boo!” and he’d laugh and pull the blanket up again. He did this maybe 25 times, so I know it wasn’t a fluke. This little guy knows how to play peek-a-boo! He’s such a smarty fatpants!

OK. It’s probably not. We live in an architecturally uninteresting, ’60s-era, three-bedroom ranch smack in the middle of Midwestern suburbia. Ghosts have other stuff to do than bother with us. But I think the Halloween season must be getting to Liam. He has recently been giving us more hassle than usual when its time for bed.

Seriously, this kid takes, like, 4 pee breaks before we threaten to shut his bedroom door on him. Then he’ll try to climb into bed with us two or three times a night. Adam carries him back to bed while he screams past Lucas’ room, “NOOOO! I NO GO BED!!! I SLEEP WITH MOMMEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” And in the last week or so he’s mentioned that he’s afraid of the dark.

I recognize that this is a common thing amongst the 3-year-old set. But when I ask him why he’s afraid of the dark, he won’t say. So I tell him there’s nothing to be afraid of, that it’s the same house and room that’s there in the daytime, that Daddy and I are just down the hall, that he’s safe in his nice, warm, soft, cozy bed with his bear and his Crack. That he has TWO nightlights. Eventually he just resigns himself to sleeping in the horrible shadows with the nightmarish shapes of God-only-knows-what looming over him.

When I came to pick him up from preschool today, he told me he wasn’t going home. I said, “Why aren’t we going home?” and he said, “It’s dark. And spooky.” Now, I’m not in love with the natural lighting situation in our house either, but it is NOT dark and spooky, especially at 11:30 in the morning. Dark and spooky. Somebody’s been laying some Halloween shit on this kid and when I find out who, I’m going to call them on the phone whenever Liam gets up in the night. Because if WE have to be up, THIS fool has to be up.

I know I haven’t written hardly anything lately. I would say nothing has been going on, but that wouldn’t be true. We keep busy with playdates and preschool and errands and whatnot. But the real reason I haven’t been writing is because I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time on Huffington Post, getting my daily dose of liberal outrage and reassurance. That’s really what I’ve been up to. Reading slanted news. But it’s MY kind of slanted news.

PS, Sarah Palin SUCKS MY ASS.

We’ve got a tooth!

Lucas has been drooling since he was 10 weeks old. Copious, nasty amounts. When you hold him, all the sudden you feel something cold and wet on your arm and it’s spit. His shirts are always wet around the collar. Soooo gross. So I’ve been checking his gums all the time, especially when he’s inexplicably crabby (because he’s never crabby) and for weeks now there’s been these two, light colored rectangles juuuuuuust under the surface. Like just a few cells separating his teeth from freedom. And for the past week or so, he hasn’t been sleeping well. He’d wake up in the night and throughout naps just because his pacifier fell out. So you can imagine how fun it was to finally see a little patch of real, true white tooth on Monday night. Woo hoo! I felt it today, too. Teeth!

One down, 19 to go.

Wanna see something that sucks? Rent the Simpsons movie.

Ho. Lee. CRAP! The Springsteen show Saturday night was AWESOME. And I mean, AWESOME. He played for three and a half hours. Opened up with a cover of The Crystals “And Then He Kissed Me”. Let a little kid come up on stage for Out In The Street, sat him on his lap, let him sing the chorus and then after the song, bodysurfed him back to his parents. Picked a teenage girl to dance for Dancing In The Dark. At one point he went around and grabbed people’s posters with their song requests, rummaged through them and played a bunch of them.

When you see the E Street Band, you know what you’re watching is legendary and it’s really something else to see these guys live. You’re watching and you’re thinking, “That’s ACTUALLY LIttle Steven Van Zandt! That’s ACTUALLY Clarence Clemons! In person! For real!” But the best part, by far, is watching Max Weinberg. That guy is absolutely phenomenal. He didn’t stop the entire time. It’s a real treat to see him live.

Anyway, it was just a whole lot of fun. And I gotta say, this guy may be pushing 60, but he looks great. The best ass in rock ‘n roll.

Meanwhile, Liam thinks the song is called “Miss Mary’s Place,” after his preschool teacher.

Here’s a clip, (it ain’t great, I know) of the penultimate song of the night, a poster request cover of Chuck Berry’s “Little Queenie” … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0i3ZSXoKbA

note to my mother-in-law: this post bears a striking resemblance to the email I already sent you, as I am a hack.

Liam had his first day of preschool yesterday and it went off without a hitch. We packed up his Goldfish crackers and sippy cup into his Cars backpack and listened to a little Dan Zanes on the way. When we got there, one kid was having a total meltdown, the whole kicking-and-screaming-on-the-floor routine, complete with the embarrassed/guilt-tripped parent trying to get him to stand up and go inside. I prayed Liam would not think this kid had some horrible insider knowledge of preschool that would cause such a rebellion and follow suit.

Prayer answered. His teacher, Miss Mary, met him at the door and invited him right in and lo and behold, in he went, without even a goodbye! I stood outside for awhile, debating whether to go in and say goodbye myself. I dont want to be that mom who sneaks off, but then again, going in to say bye would have certainly started a whole drama involving tears and “Mommy come back!”s. So I took the dirty way out.

Lucas and I went to Target and the grocery store and were done with both in all of an hour. It’s amazing what you can accomplish without a three-year-old. Blogging, for instance.

When I came to pick him up, they were listening to music and hitting rhythm sticks together. He was having a great time. I also saw his name on a large piece of construction paper with these weird foam peanuts that stick when you wet them on it. When he came out of class, his teacher said he did great, that he was giving the other kids toys to play with. She sounded completely amazed, as if no three-year-old has ever been so benevolent. Of course, she is right. My child is awesome.

Liam wouldnt tell us much about his day, but we did get him to admit to going outside and riding a tricycle. Add that up with the music, the foamy paper project and the half-eaten bag of Goldfish in his locker, I’d say he had a pretty full morning.

Here is Liam, on the very first day of his academic career. May it not put us too deeply into debt.

Is this not the cutest picture ever? He even has a little bug over his head!

I’m goin’ to see Springsteen! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Do not anger the small person.