We’ve been busy today, what with breakfast and gymnastics and napping and Easter shopping (clothes for Palm Sunday and Easter). The boy was napping just now and the girl was watching the Kim Possible movie* and I was looking at houses online. When the Crabcake woke up, he called us and I cracked open the door of his bedroom so I could squeeze my head through the crack and smile at him, but I was smacked with a double whammy: the stench of poop and the sight of the boy, standing in his bed, nakey from the shirt down (but still in socks!) and holding out the pull up he’d removed, for our convenience.

He’s been potty-trained for a long while, and he’s finally pooping regularly on the potty, but still, naptimes… There was poop smeared on the wall, all over the bed, all over him and on his animals and on the blanket-with-pleasant-to-the-touch-satin-ribbons-around-the-border-that-I-made-all-by-myself-although-that’s-not-legal and really, just everywhere.

The Husband came in to survey the damage and I said, “You know, I’d rather be dead, just now, than clean this up.”

But we did clean it up in pretty short order, while emphasizing that the Crabcake must just CALL US CALL US ON THE LINE YOU CAN CALL US ANYANYTIME the next time he has a sleep poop and we will clean him up right quicklike. We bathed the boy and his bedthings in the hottest water all could stand and we knew the boy was contrite when he suggested scrubbing his (still mostly bald) head and submitted willingly to the same.

And The Husband said, while Crabcake was still bathing, “See, you wouldn’t rather be dead, would you?” I said that for about 22 seconds I would have. Then I shaved the back of his neck, because I am a good wife, and poured two vodka shots because I am not. Every once in a while when we live through an annoyance, I pour two vodka shots. I will confess that I gagged when I drank it this time.

*We have cut out 98% of the television programs we used to let McPantses watch, including almost all of the Disney and Nick tween shows, for a few reasons: they’re terribly annoying, the evening commercials on Nick are inappropriate, and it’s brain-rotting to watch so much television. We agree that McP works hard at everything she does (violin is coming along swimmingly, but it still sounds like cats fighting to my untrained ears; she’s learning dressage and ready to graduate to tall boots; she’s reading The Mysterious Benedict Society, which I encourage you to check out; she’s in an art exhibit; she runs the right way and never cries at soccer, even though she’s playing with kids who are a lot bigger than she is; and she’s getting ready for a ballet recital, after which she will decide whether or not she wants to give up ballet and take gymnastics) so she deserves some sack-out time watching teevee, but we’re limiting it to Kim Possible, Hannah Montana (because, tweeny and annoying though she may be, she’s not awful and the show is tolerable) and Charlie & Lola, because it’s adorable. She’s not a tween. She’s 7. I’m pleased with our choice and more pleased with the fact that McP agreed that less television and a more limited viewing choice was in order. She’s just a good egg.

** Katie, will you please run your Norton thing here again and copy where this downloader evile bit is so I can make the webfolks take it away? They cannot find it anywhere! I would be very, very grateful for your help.

Oh: life is still good. We are happy and busy. Tonight, we (the adults) are going to hear an 80s cover band. It doesn’t start until 10 p.m. and Nana’s coming over at 9:40. I should probably go take a nap, shouldn’t I?

First, I assure you that no matter what google says, I don’t have malware on my site. My webmaster has scoured the site and removed anything remotely troubling and I checked the site through badware myself last night–nothing found. Good grief.

Tomorrow, the Crabcake will be three and he has requested a particular dinner. I imagined something like chicken and french fries, but the boy, still fighting the proteins, has dictated another meal altogether. Ready for this? Goldpish crackers, teddy grahams (chocolate only, of course, and by the way, have you ever tasted them? cardboard with cocoa powder), skittles and cupcakes. Seriously.

Naturally, that won’t be the menu.

The kids have enjoyed a bit of flu, a round of strep (the boy) and two ear infections (the boy) since December, with the flu and an ear infection in the most recent bout of illnesses. I have finally soaked up the germs myself and now have a touch of bronchitis with a fine side of walking pneumonia. Whee!

I cannot complain, though. This is the first year that I haven’t been sick the entire time since about November. Plus, I have my own nebulizer at home to snuggle up to, so that’s nice. My mother has diagnosed me with chronic bronchitis, but when I think about the fact that I’ve had a cough for ten years now, the prognosis is depressing, so I am choosing to ignore her.

We are happy and busy. The girlchild has taken up soccer and has her first game this weekend. I am keeping a sketchbook and knitting when time allows and dreaming up baby gifts for someone I love who is expecting her first child this summer, after many years of waiting and trying and disappointments. I am thinking about driving with the girlchild up to North Carolina for a few days after school is out to check out a couple of summer camps. There’s a sort of crunchy one (Gwen Valley? Gwin Valley?) that interests me in theory. The idea is that we’ll check things out this summer in order to set her up for a week next summer.

I am reading Russell Banks’ The Reserve and enjoying it. His prose is elegant. I’m digging the PBS Jane Austen Sunday nights and have had my fill of Mr. Darcy over and over again on DVR–on to the next novel, please!

Oh! On my resolutions: I do feel improved, but I could use some exercise. Otherwise, every single day feels like a gift. Silly, no?

I have one resolution. It’s to improve. I’m not sure, but that might also have been last year’s resolution, and I think I managed it, at least partly. I found new employment and didn’t resort to becoming a barista. I gained 20 happy pounds over the summer and lost most of it this fall. I officially think for a living. I have improved.

My second resolution is to consume less, but not when it comes to shoes or yarn. Can’t help those, but on that front, I am having two pairs of shoes resoled this month. I want to consume less. I’ll let you know how that works out. You’d think that because I’ve managed to compartmentalize my entire life within about three square miles (or maybe four, if you count my parents’ house), I’d buy a bike and cycle everywhere, but not so much.

My husband’s resolution is to live with health and motivation.

I wish you peace and health. I guess if you’re possessed of those, genuine contentment can’t be far behind.

I got a lovely e-mail from the folks who make Taggie blankets informing me that an entry I wrote well over a year ago infringed on their incredibly broad patent. If you want some interesting patent reading about blankets with ribbon tags, head over to their website and check out the link to their patent’s PDF.

The brilliant and imaginative Taggie people, in their incredibly broad patent, have declared to the free world that no one on the planet is allowed to make a product so simple in construction that a child could stitch one up in an hour.

So, there you go. I deleted my entry. Reckon they want me to burn the blanket I made, too?

ETA (on 12/31/07): I’d like to thank my prosperous, hilarious, handsome, bright patent attorney, who is adored by all (especially his wife, who is surely a saint, and his three boys, including a brand new one). He said several wonderful things on the phone about my dire patent infringement situation and explained the difference between the kind of patent the blanket people have and the kind they seem to think they have and remarked, also, that no one induces people to copy blankets with ribbon tags more than the blanket people themselves, who include step by step instructions in their patent, to which I will link when I am not tired and tipsy. Air kisses, bourbon drinks and midnight scrambled eggs and bacon to my favorite patent attorney, who, when talking to me about this whole thing, used the eff word a dozen or more times, because he is a man after my own vocabulary.

Cheers!

that I:

* sat in a chair in the big back room where they clean all the kids’ teeth, waiting for the usual chit-chat from the dentist about cavities and crooked teeth when, instead, the practice’s orthodontist pulled up a chair to talk about my six yr old’s crossbite. She’s getting a palate expander next summer, although we could do it sooner and that would be good for her, he tells me. My tiny first grade girl is starting the big dental work. To prepare for that and to help her very small mouth right now, she’s having two baby teeth pulled the day after her seventh birthday (and the day before Thanksgiving). They will also try to fill the three new cavities at that time, but they don’t like to do any dental work for longer than 30 minutes on a little kid, so we might have to come back for that. Thus begins the long road of orthodontic work. Also, as we pull the third tooth in a few months, I assume the tooth fairy will have to pony up something significant.

* heard more than one fifteen year old say “that’s what she said” or “that’s what he said.” My husband thinks it’s refreshing that adolescents still say such silly things. Every once in a while, they nail it perfectly, too.

flipped through the newest Southern Accents and saw one of my favorite stationer’s calling cards featured in an article about the same. Checked out The Paper Menu lately? You should.

* watched my brave boy stretch out in the blue leatherette dentist chair (same big back room) and open wide, even though he didn’t like it and even though he most certainly didn’t want to.

* received a phone call while out for dinner with the Husband. My mother came over to hang out with the urchins while I had a stress-release dinner out (serious orthodontic work surprises require that I be coddled, it turns out) and before the drinks got to the table, the Crabcake called us to announce that he’d finally done the big stuff sitting on the potty. We’ve been working on the second half of potty-goin’ for MONTHS now and we finally promised the kid we’d buy him a fire station if he’d just produce. Turns out my mother is the magic man.

And there you have it. Orthodontia, calling cards, poop. That’s what SHE SAID!

So, in the last couple of months I have learned something about shame. It’s the single most useless tool for a parent or, really, any adult in a position of authority over kids, to use as a directive. Shame really only seems to motivate change when it’s personally felt, not when someone else lords it over you.

I was a child of the seventies and I think my mother used shame as a parenting tool pretty frequently. Heck, every once in a while she still does. I don’t think shaming a kid effectuates any sort of positive change. I don’t think it does anything more than make a kid feel like shit for a little while, unless it’s a frequent punishment method and then it probably fills a kid with resentment.

I have heard kids repeat things their parents say to them a lot lately and I’m floored by some of what I hear. I realize how much our words affect our children, how much they need from all of the adults in their lives and how much positive leadership and parenting means to them, even when they can’t (or just plain don’t care to) show it. They need to know that their actions have consequences and that, ultimately, they stand or fall on their own. They need parents to back them up and enforce rules, too, but they just don’t ever need us to shame them.

In addition to the things I’ve heard kids say lately, I’ve also heard adults speaking to groups of kids. Adults need to remember that kids can think for themselves. Kids don’t need to be led by hand through the garden every single time. Sometimes they need an opportunity to wander down the path themselves. I loathe hearing adults talk down to children of all ages and I guarantee that whatever the down-talking adult is nattering on about is going in one ear and out the other. I can almost see the kids click off at that point. Kids aren’t stupid. They’re just shorter than we are and dependent on us.

(I have never been so happy in my adult life. I have never, I realize, been blissfully employed until now.

I get more value out of my free time, too, and the crafts I’ve just now picked back up thrill me.)

Lazy: hoping, hoping, hoping that your child doesn’t lose yet another tooth today (that would be my six yr old’s NINTH TOOTH, including the freaking tooth she lost LAST WEEK) because the Husband is out of town and the tooth fairy is out of cash and most goodies and couldn’t manage a stop for money during the busy day.

Selfish: after the girlchild pulled her own tooth at the dinner table (can anyone say mmmmm, yummy!) and I was worrying about the tooth fairy haul, I remembered a cool great big coloring book hiding in the guest bedroom and an even cooler book, Blackstock’s Collections, by Gregory L. Blackstock, that I’ve been hiding away in the closet forever, because I originally planned to give it as a gift but I wanted to keep it for myself. It’s full of amazing pencil drawings.

She’ll love it.

I wish I could keep it for me. The tooth fairy gives good gifts at my house, though, and this book’s a winner.

Note for locals and Alabamians: I went to Tuscaloosa on Saturday for the first time in many years and spent a wonderful day tailgating. Every second of the football game was nerve-wracking, and when Georgia scored that winning touchdown in overtime, I was standing in the top row, right under the Jumbotron in the other end zone, so I missed it and waited for about eight seconds to see if it was good.

It was a long eight seconds and a disappointing end to a long, fun day.

On the way out of Bryant Denny stadium, I passed a father in Georgia garb holding his son’s hand and I tapped the kid on the shoulder and said “Some game, hunh?” He looked a little scared of me. Alabama fans outnumbered Georgia fans about ten to one in Tuscaloosa, so many Georgia fans were quiet on the way out. A minute later, I told the dad that he certainly picked the right game to bring his son to and he said, “Yeah, and it’s his first game, too.” His son was ten. It was sweet.

But, still. Georgia. Geezelouise.

The boychild has renamed himself. He’s Ladderhorn now. It’s a fireman thing.

Boogeys? Mama, you got any boogeys in yah tunnels? (Nostrils are now tunnels.)

In the past month, I have lost ten pounds. I haven’t had a single moment where I’ve checked the clock, waiting for the end of the day. One night last week, sitting in a stifling place for the hundredth hour in a row (it felt like), sweating my hiney off, I thought to myself, “I am really happy.” One night this past week, I ended up in bed for the night at 7 p.m., fully clothed and on top of the covers. I got under the covers at 1 a.m., finally.

Funny that I’d run out of things to say and the time in which to say them not long after this page gets a little better to look at, hunh?

The vanilla bean poundcake recipe is at the Smitten Kitchen website. She’s revamped her site to include a separate page for recipes. I’m a new Nigella Lawson fan and highly recommend her Ritzy Chicken Whatever they’re called–soaking chicken in buttermilk all day and then dredging it in ritz crumbs is yummy.

Screaming boy. More another day.