Today, the daycare spent the day brushing the rooms and toys with toothbrushes soaked in bleach. When I explained to people that I'm not a "career woman" today because our daycare is doing their yearly cleaning, the judgmental Stay AT! HOME! Mom (aka SA!H!Ms) at the park looked me straight in the eye and asked if that's the only time they clean.

Personally, I like to imagine today is more accurately the date all the teachers get together, drink scotch, roll around the floor and imitate the brats children under their care.
It's more of a cleansing of the soul, if you will.

In Franklin's case, this imitation will no longer involve all that screaming. Thankfully, he has been trying extremely hard to curb his behaviour and all of his teachers are supporting him. However, at the end of the day he sounds like he's been watching Dr. Phil as he tells me about how certain children "hurt his feelings", "make him feel like screaming", and how he "feels like kicking the truck" ("Mom, what does hurt my feelings mean?")

Of course, SA!H!Ms do this scotch thing everyday as well so ultimately, they are more superior in every way and if I was a "Good Mother", I'd be a bleaching drunk too.

I should add here that there is about a 73 mile wide crevasse between what, for me, is the difference between a Stay At Home Mom (SAHM) and a SA!H!M. My own mother was a SAHM and I love her for it. I think women who stay at home are wonderful as long as they are wonderful people. I'm sorry, but just because you are a SAHM, it doesn't automatically mean you are Wonderful Mother of the Year. In fact, just because we shell out the money we do for the daycare we have, it doesn't make us awesome either. When you start telling me I'm deficient in my parenting skills because of the well thought out and personal decisions that we've made for our child then, in my eyes, you have leap over the 73 mile crevasse and landed in SA!H!M territory.

*I'm linguistically wiping my hands, snapping my fingers and making that "Z" movement in the air" right about now because really, the one mother I know that is the most judgmental about staying AT! HOME! stays at home because she has no choice. I'd like to call bullshit on this chick's "tsk tsk"ing but to tell you the truth, staying at home with children is hard and I pretty much feel pity (and a smidgen of "Ah, get over yourself" spite) for someone in such a situation when they are clearly NOT happy.

This is a treasured photo of my little sister and I in front of our house in Vanderhoof, BC. I must be about seven years old here. That means my sister is about two. I have always adored my sister and admired her ability to horde her Halloween treats for months and months - providing me with a secret stash of goodies to pilfer from.

My sister is my shining example of how siblings can be born five years apart and still be close enough to be friends throughout their lives.

My sister is beautiful, graceful and lovely.

My sister lives too far away.

I miss my sister.

We're heading into a new stage of parenting. The "I Don't Recognize My Son" stage where he sounds like a squeaky violin scrapping across a chalk board and acts like a starving, needy kitten that hasn't slept in years.

At first, I thought he was just a little cranky because of the disjointed sleep he gets in his big boy bed - getting up to go to the bathroom and then settling back down again. Unfortunately, even when he has a great sleep, he's a cranky. He is having a couple of outbursts in daycare and it doesn't help that his best friend in the whole wide world and forever and ever into infinity is moving to an older toddler centre and leaving him behind with girls who play with dolls and toddlers who don't speak more than two or three words clearly.

However, even at home he's not all sunshine and roses. He has always had moments of frustration, but these days the emotional outbursts seem extreme. Even the daycare feels they are becoming inappropriate for his age. He's screaming at children when he's frustrated, but when told he could be taken away from the situation, he calms right down and uses his language skills to communicate his displeasure. It's almost that he knows the right response, but he's choosing the more effective route, which elicits an immediate response from everyone within a 2-mile vicinity.

Could he be a late bloomer - emotionally? Perhaps he just doesn't actually have the capability to handle frustration without first getting so worked up he explodes.
Could he only now be starting the "terrible twos"? He's still awesome to hang around with, but the whining, OH GOD THE WHINING.

Actually, the whining is making all the rest of the typical challenges harder for me. I'm trying to be understanding, but now the usual bossy directions of "Mom, you hold this car, you put your car here, you drive your car over to my car, your car says this and now it goes away, go away Mom, goawaygoaway, come here come here" have become playtimes I resent a bit. I know this is normal toddler play but since he doesn't seem willing to play with D in this way I'm his little playmate ALL THE TIME.
In fact, I find myself breathing deeply and counting to ten about 5 to 6 times a day.
I also find myself wanting to jump D and start making another baby so that I get a little reprieve from the tyrant - you know, create a little sacrificial lamb so-to-speak...

Even D, the emergent "Good Cop" in our household is losing patience.

A part of me thinks he needs me more than ever right now and that just when he seems the most challenging, he needs to be shown that I love him and that I want to be with him... but Lordy Lordy it's difficult.
Another part of me feels like he's gotten it too good lately. D and I are among the most laid-back parents we know and what if this isn't a good thing? I certainly don't intend to become a hard-ass, but maybe things need to get a little stricter?

I'm heading down to the bookstore this evening, because that's what I do when I need more information. I've also talked it over with my Mother and I think it's time to not only teach him that frustrations need to be handled differently, but that there are consequences for choosing to scream bloody murder when an 18 month old girl innocently decides she wants to see what your playing with...

However, I've been assured by the daycare that we aren't raising a psycho-killer (Qu'est-ce que c'est) so all in all, we're doing okay. Still, I'm sizing him up and wondering if I can stuff him back in somehow so that we can have a kind of "do-over"...

You know?

I am waiting downstairs for D so that the two of us can watch Sin City.

I thought it would be great.

Now I'm scared.

We had a friend over for dinner and she mentioned that someone she knew walked out after 10 minutes due to the violence.

Gratuitous violence of the comic book style, Japanese animation, Kill Bill variety... I can (mysteriously) handle. This is what I thought Sin City would be like.

Violence of the reality, drama, Schindler's List, babies suffering and crying out for their tortured mothers... are definitely NOT something I can watch, listen to, or read about without paying for it with about 6 months of insomnia.

I'm hoping it's a gratuitous blood splaying across the room and raining down on sullen, sexy breasts... kind of violence - where the bad guys always lose and the good guys are always in a bad mood.

Please. Please. Please.

(then again, school starting and insomnia might not be a bad idea)

EDIT: Okay, apart from the creepy farm reference that kept kicking me out of the show and reminding me of Willy Picton, the movie was amazing. Gratuitously violent, moody and probably quite a treat to see on the big screen. Bruce Willis - such a sexy guy.

Yesterday, I ran home from work while D and Franklin picked up dinner. I figured he might whip up something with the kale in the fridge - because I have no idea how to cook kale and kale is in season right now so that's what arrived on our doorstop.

I got home, sweaty and triumphant for making it up that last hill, only to see my son sitting on the couch slurping down a strawberry milkshake from MacDonald's.

Dinner consisted of chicken mcnuggets, fries (which Franklin miraculously hates) and steamed baby carrots - with blueberries for dessert. I haven't eaten Mickey D's in a while and holy moly, that stuff is salty. I read a statistic somewhere, I think it was in Fast Food Nation, that there are people (more than you'd believe) who eat there 4 or 5 times a week!

Later that evening, D had to play squash with his lover(s) and so he took the bath duty while I made myself a nice salad with local lettuce, avocado and red peppers (not from my garden).

I read to Franklin and put him down for the night, promising to check on him later (thanks for the idea Kyle, it works like a charm). When D came home he plopped down on the couch and revealed to me that Franklin had stayed in the tub that night until the water had all drained out.

And then he peed on himself.

And then he stood up and put his hands practically inside his butt and farted.

You know, I appreciate the information, but MacDonald's dinners, pee baths and fistfuls of fart are all things I really don't want to know about.

My "Red" bell pepper has been this way for weeks.

A friend of mine came over the other day and saw the plant. She said she had the same problem - that her peppers never grew any bigger than this.
Another friend mentioned the same thing and when she tried to eat it, it was most definitely NOT ripe.

The plant is growing fine, there's even a few more flowers that are about to bloom. Will this mean that there will be even more stunted peppers?

Can anyone help me out?

From now on, whenever Franklin pleads that he absolutely NEEDS another train, I will show him the following photos and then discretely hide that blasted Thomas catalogue.

Tell me, why the hell do we buy the toys when he has so much fun with his old crib sheets?

By the way, financial drainage aside, have I mentioned lately that having a toddler is fun?

Well, it is. It's absolutely amazingly fun fun fun.
Seriously, I'm not kidding.
Phun.

I would have posted the pictures of the signs last night.
I also would have make cookies for work and truffles for a friend.

I was in the process of rewriting my resume.
I was in the process of reworking a letter for community garden support.
I was in the process of listening to a really bad show on television with some dorky American Pie actors but I have no idea what it was because I was just using it for background company.

However, last night Franklin fell out of bed.

When we first set up the bed, we were concerned about the falling out factor. Yet, as the nights continued and a strategically placed pillow seemed to be doing the trick, we thought it wasn't needed.
I have no idea why we thought that.

There's a reason we don't routinely sleep with Franklin - it's like getting in the middle of a kickboxing match. Why the hell we thought that once he had a big bed, he would suddenly sleep like an immobile chunk of rock, I couldn't tell you.

Wishful thinking.
Kind-of like when I thought that I could get rid of my raging mastitis without antibiotics because I was super woman who delivers babies in 5 hours.

The rest of the evening Franklin couldn't seem to get relaxed enough to sleep for more than 3 hours at a time. D and I weren't sure if it was the falling off the bed, some sort of sprained ankle (train accident earlier in the evening), growing pains, cramps.... AAAAAARGH!
Nothing we did seemed to comfort him.

Sometimes it's good to remember that I have no idea what I'm doing.
Sorry Franklin. We got all cocky and lazy for a bit. A bed rail will be purchased tomorrow. Tonight you will be strapped to the bed with duct tape.

Anyway, the pictures were loaded on flickr this morning so take a look. It's not all that exciting. My cartoon work lacks any true artistic ability. Of course, I hadn't actually thought I would be showing the internet when I drew them.

(I always have to make a self-depreciating remark when I show something I've made - why do I do that?)

Ever since the big boy bed, Franklin has decided that we should be sleeping together. There's no longer any excuse of my weight crushing the crib. In fact, when he asked me why Daddy and Mommy get to sleep together and he has to sleep alone, I jumped into bed and agreed whole-heartedly. Why the hell do we sleep in another room?

It’s because we like to sleep, that's why.

Saturday afternoon, I woke up with my nose perfectly enveloped by Franklin's wide-open, snoring mouth.
I had been dreaming of the ocean.

However!
I have found a “Franklin acceptable” way to leave him to fall asleep on his own without any desperate conversation extenders concerning caterpillars, toes or how would be the best way to lift a train out of a frog pond.
I need to have a mission.

This can't be any mission; this must be a specific mission worthy of leaving him alone in his caterpillar-saturated room. He must approve of the purpose.

I discovered this when I was rearranging his bedcovers and accidentally scratched him with my fingernail. While I was leaving the room, he asked me where I was going. I told him I needed to clip my nails so I wouldn't scratch him anymore.
Out popped his little hand from underneath the covers to wave me away.

"Go now Mommy.”
“Good night."

miracle.

Friday night, I was excused to get ready for the yard sale.
Last night I was excused to make signs. In fact, he made me a list of signs to make.

"No Wolves Allowed"
"No Bees Allowed"
"No Peacocks Allowed (too loud)"
"No Ants Allowed"
"No Horses Allowed (too big)"

These signs are now pasted to the front of our door. I'm sure the newspaper and mail carriers are amused.

(I'll post the photos after work)

The yard sale today wasn't all that successful. At least, not in terms of selling anything. I think we made about negative $180.00. We bought our neighbour's bed. They have just bought "new" and "soft" but we want "firm" and "couldn't give a rat's ass if it's used as long as it isn't as used as the one we currently have".
We're easy to please.

After seven years of marriage, this will be the first bed D and I have owned together. Up until now, we have been sleeping on the same two futons that D had slept on during his swinging bachelor years. I believe he even bought them at a garage sale.
They are what many the entire world would call... old.

Now we have a box spring and a mattress. We are soooo grown-up.
Miraculously, I have a use for the bed skirt we received as a wedding present - too bad I sent it to charity a year and a half ago.

As well, I finally let go of the last vestiges of my skiing and scuba diving equipment. It helped to picture myself hauling the old relics up the mountain (or down to the shore). This way, I realized that if I ever have the chance to do either of these sports in the future, I would much rather spring for something a little less “vintage". However, since no one seemed interested in my 210 flat-nosed downhills, I still have something to boast to my grandchildren about.

Something else I found in my old ski-bag: Ephedrine.
Half a bottle of those little white petal tablets was stored in my left ski boot. I can't remember where I got the bottle from and why I put it in there but if it were 4 or 5 years earlier, I'd be yelling SCORE!

Now, all I can think of is;
"Who the hell was I back then?"
"Why would I want to do such a thing to my body?" and
"What if something had gone horribly wrong?"

I'm such a parent.
Jeeez.

Franklin has diarrhea. I'm worried it's all those rhubarb oatmeal muffins he's been eating. "They" told me to eat oatmeal when I was having trouble after delivering Franklin...

I dunno. Will too much oatmeal give you the runs?

Regardless, we're at home planting stuff and painting paper mache sculptures. Not much else to say as I'm currently trying to get ready for the yard sale tomorrow.

Here's a picture of me when Franklin was a mere terrifying notion of adulthood just waiting for me one year later:

I have no idea why I was wearing it. It's not Hallowe'en. Some guy who also worked at the bar had a bunny costume he would spontaneously dress up in for his friends. I put it on. I posed. I wasn't even drunk. This is just what happens when friends let other friends dress up in rodent costumes.

Yesterday I got a call in the middle of the day from daycare.

The daycare hardly ever calls unless they feel the need to either warn me of a large goose egg on Franklin's skull that will welcome me when I arrive at the end of the day or inform me that he's "not coping well" and I might need to come pick him up.

("Not Coping Well" seems to be a code for, "I think your son's sick or something because OH. MY. GOD. He's crying a lot". To me, it's code for, "Your son is driving us insane and he's coming down with something. Please come and get him or we'll ship him over to you with our provincial child care, subsidy funded catapult.")

Anyway, upon learning who it was, I asked what was wrong in a panicked, crap-I-thought-all-the-daycare-germs-thing-was-over-with voice.

The teacher responded singing;
"Noooooothiiing... but Franklin told us the happy news!!!"
Then she giggled - kind of.

Silence

More silence

Crickets are chirping

His teacher cleared her throat - probably getting a tad weirded out while I desperately racked my brains for anything special we had done that Franklin could have told them.

Then she added, "Franklin told me at lunch that you have a baby in your tummy!!!"

Silence

More silence

More crickets chirping

Then I broke out in laughter.

Hilarious.
I can't believe they took him seriously.
A two-year old!
The same child who told them that his father was 5 years old and drove an excavator named Scoop. The same child who told me that he had ants in his bed and caterpillars between his toes last night. The same child who explained to his friend's mother that we are going to move to Abudhabi on the weekend (someone we know has just moved there).

There's a baby in my tummy?
Not unless I ate it, there isn't.

Have you seen that Woody Allen movie called Shadows and Fog? This may sound crazy but although I had seen a gazillion (or at least most) Woody Allen movies before this one came out, I had no idea who he was. It wasn't until "Shadows and Fog" that I started to become interested in this sexy little creature everyone calls a pedophile.

Yes. I find Woody Allen sexy.

Okay, stop laughing now.
I'm serious.


It rained last night and this morning brought a beautiful fog to cover the campus. I'm not sure how they did it, perhaps Carlo Di Palma is on staff, but I truly believe Victoria (and Vancouver for that matter) looks so much better in the fog and rain. It's more romantic and mysterious - well it's that, or I've watched too many episodes of The X-Files.

Franklin's new bed is situated under his window for the time being. We have kept the crib in his room for the week so that he can have the option of moving back if he wants to. The toilet training, underwear, big boy bed are big steps and it's not like we're having to use the crib for anything anytime soon - although that's a whole other story I should tell you guys.

Anyway, his bed is under the window until there is more room. This means he can hear a lot more than he could hear before. He called me into his room at 1:30 in the morning because he thought someone was "walking and knocking" outside his window.
His bedroom is three stories up.
It was the rain dripping off the eaves.

Regardless, we opened up the window together and watched the rain pour down. It was nice.
Yeah.
Nice until he decided he was too excited to go back to sleep and wanted to partake in another wee hours of the morning chat. He definitely wasn't interested in going back to bed - knockers or no knockers.

I need a coffee.

I completely forgot to post yesterday.
I realize this isn't such a big thing to many of you, but to me... Whoa.

I am what you would call a regular blogger. If I'm not posting it's because I'm either extremely busy or on vacation. Even on those days I usually find time to post something. I realize I have been a little more lax lately, but to completely forget to blog.
I don't think I had even one thought about blogging all day - even when I have a son who is successfully sleeping and napping in his big boy bed (!*$#%!!!) ... crazy.

So... right. After that amazing tidbit of my incredulous brain fart...

Franklin.
He's sleeping.
No fuss.
This is a total dream.

The first night was such a novelty that D and I ended up sleeping with him if only to celebrate this new accomplishment. We are such sappy parents. It astounds us that we are parents of a child who NO LONGER SLEEPS IN A CRIB. Just the fact that we are parents of a child and not a baby blows me all the way over to Saskatchewan!
The best thing about sleeping together was the 1am chat in the dark. Franklin was telling us the most amazing things, and with such insight too. Of course, in our sleepy fog the next morning, D and I were racking our brains to try and remember what the heck he was saying.

To tell you the truth, I was dreading the "Big Boy Bed" thing. I had heard of tales of little kids, upon learning that they can wiggle themselves out of their sleeping quarters on their own, leaping from their rooms and demanding that naptime was officially over.
Never mind naptime, they were also demanding later bedtimes!
I took solace in the fact that August is a month without coursework and so the lack of sleep and increased time taken for this new stage would not be heaped on top of my regular 2am study marathons.

Turns out this whole "teaching your kids to value their sleep" is a goooood thing. Franklin understands naptime. He also understands bedtime. For a child who took 9 months 12 days and 13 hours and 23 seconds to sleep through the night, he's a champion now.

(And don't you dare call me lucky. D and I worked pretty damn hard to be consistent with Franklin's nap and bedtime sleeping. Travel plans were thwarted, food was left uneaten in restaurants, and dates were completely abandoned - never to be recovered again.)

Of course, there is still the bathroom thing.
Franklin's a little hesitant about going on his own and as he's quite the consistent nighttime pooper, we get up with him to help him do his thing.
What's making me especially happy is the fact that he gets up! He's not wetting the bed or relying on the diaper we still put on him for safe keeping at night.

(One of my co-workers gave me some pull-ups after her daughter was potty trained. He hasn't been able to fit in them until now and so we are using them until they run out and then we will just keep on with the "gaunchies" as D calls them. )

We are still alarmingly (to Franklin) deficient in Thomas the Train underpants and bedding. However, Franklin mentions it less and less. I figure since his birthday is coming up and his regular size 2 underpants are starting to cause little marks around his belly, I will cave and get these cartoon theme undies and sheets.

We'll mix a little capitalistic flare with our regular communistic house standard.

The weather was absolutely fantastic this weekend. We did go to Sidney Spit. It was marvelous. I think the British contingent in my group (meaning all adults but me) felt we should have left earlier but what can I say, sometimes I just can't get everything and everyone out the door in a timely fashion.

Regardless, it was wonderful - especially memorable for me as it was the first time Franklin peed outside, as in projectile, as in write your name in the sand, as in "guy stuff" that I have only attempted with a funnel and a rubber hose.
Of course, I have it documented in pictures just like everything else in Franklin's life.

This kid will be able to attach all his photos together in one BIG book and flip the pages in order to watch the moving biography: "My Life according to Mother". Of course, that's not including the video we have, my personal journal and obviously, this weblog.

Anyway, if any of you ever get a chance to come out this way, make sure you visit Sidney Spit on a sunny day. Nothing beats it (except perhaps, Tofino). You take a 20 minute open air boat ride to the island where long strips of soft sand and camping grounds await you.
Franklin and his friend even got to sit up in the captain's chair and steer the boat. Almost expectantly, he tried to press a button that would apparently shut off one of the propellers and send the boat careening violently off to the left. That captain has some mighty fast reflexes. He can baby-sit for us any day.

Of course, there's more that has happened...
There's the big boy bed and our adventures of self-induced sleeplessness due to cute baby little boy factors far beyond our control.
Yes, there is photo documentation for that too. We are outta control, I tell ya.

I'm just pooped. The weekend was packed and still have a zillion things to do. Also, D is coming down the stairs and I want to do obscene things to/with him.

(excuse me)

We are officially putting Franklin's "Big Boy Bed" into his room this weekend. I know I mentioned that we were doing it a couple of weekends ago but life happens - people have snot coming from their noses. papers are getting finished and golf gets played.

Snot, papers and golf are no longer on the agenda. Sidney Spit may throw a wrench into it - but only if the weather improves.

Crappy weather = Big Boy Bed.

Actually, we should really do it no matter what. Franklin keeps asking us for his bed. He's got the whole thing figured out. There will be two pillows and two blankets and two people on this bed - Franklin and Mum. Daddy can sleep there too, but not when Mum is there.
This is a two-person bed.
He keeps asking me to hop into his crib with him. I did it once when he was really sick and I was really tired and the logic of my body mass versus those four little screws went right out the window.

Franklin has the entire scenario so well mapped out that his speech to me before he goes to bed comes out in one big soupy slur:

"momwhenigetabigboybedtherewillbe2pillows2blankets2peopleyou&meandwewillsnuggle"

The only downside to this indescribable cuteness is the fact that he thinks his bed will look like this:

When in actual fact, it looks more like this (minus the extendable ikea factor):

Which will look like this in Franklin's eyes:

Suck it up little man. No plastic beds for you.

Who knew life without a billion things to do would be so pleasurable?

Or not.

I have no schoolwork.
No. School. Work.

What to do when there is nothing to concentrate on? Obsess about my body, of course!

I'm planning to get in some physical fitness on my lunch hour. My body is going to go into shock what with the water and the sleeping and the exercise. I'm thinking I should take up smoking again so that I can balance it all the hell out.

Have you seen fitday.com? Freak Girl (aka Joan) mentioned it on her blog and now I am so addicted it's not even funny. Seriously.

Ha! I love saying that. "Not even funny. Seriously".
I know a couple of English profs who, after reading this dribble, are dreadfully sorry they gave me an "A". No worries guys, I get much better when I know I'm submitting it to professionals who subsequently throw it in the trash. Your efforts weren't entirely wasted.

I think I'm a sucker for small tasks. My water bottle has a measurement for 1000ml of water. When I finish off one of those babies, I feel good. It's a small goal and something I can accomplish in about two hours while sitting at my desk. I like these mini "assignments for health".

Looking at the amount of inches I want to lose, and the fitness level I want to go back to, it all seems so far off. I'm an immediate gratification type of girl. I want to see/feel/taste the result now, multiple times even...

This fitday quenches another thirst for me - visual tracking.
Reports!
Tables!
Pie Charts!
Calculators!

I'm in heaven. Even if I were to balloon to my first year university days (which to be honest, is about 5 pounds away from my current weight), at least I would be able to track it!!

This is actually really good for me as I'm pretty much a dunce regarding the nutritional value of food. I understand that whole wheat is better than bleached white and organic is better than not, but is it better to eat a carrot or a banana? See, I have no idea.
Funny enough, just about the entire book club I belong to consists of dietitians. Do you think they would mind if I emailed them a couple times a day, asking them if I should eat a yogurt or a granola bar for my afternoon snack? Yeah, I think you're right. Probably not a good idea.

Anyway, with this website I can check all these things out myself and hopefully gain enough knowledge to not have to use it any longer.

My Lord of the Dark side, am I serious in thinking that I'll eventually not want to track my daily/weekly/monthly/yearly body measurements?!?!

I think I could have a problem on my hands...

Last night wasn't anything special, at least not special in terms of what normal people do on their birthday. There were no no cocktails, parties, or candlelight dinners. However, on the weekend Franklin picked out a nalgene water bottle for me...

"It's red! Mom! And you turn the cap like this! Mom! And you drink it like this! Mom!"

... and D practically stole a wireless keyboard and mouse.

Yesterday was a normal day at work and then we all came home - where D surprised me with chocolate cupcakes lit up with candles...

... jube jubes! Mom! There's THREE jube jubes on your cupcakes! Mom! I'll help to blow out your candles! Mom! Like this! Mom!

... and we ate dinner together. Then I ran off and left a sick D with bathing and putting Franklin to bed so I could be one of three in a meeting for the Urban Harvest Initiative, which is the group trying over and over and over again to get community garden plots set up for Hillside/Quadra residents.

Everyone has either left the project or is just about tapped out. The entire process has been dragging on for years and has been exhausting for all involved. I'm lucky (and unlucky) to be relatively new to the project. My enthusiasm had me leaving the meeting with about a dozen bigwig Victoria residents to contact for support.

I'm nervous, but excited. I'm not the kind of person that just boldly strides up to incredibly influential people and ask them to support my cause. However, I think I can get over my timidness for this.

When I got home I found a drained and half asleep D who was in no way ready to watch my period costume movie of the year (I seem to only get around to having the time to choose, rent and watch a movie once a year these days), Vanity Fair.

All in all, it was a good night.
It was an ordinary day with some extra special jubes jubes, dirt and apparently detectable levels of Bisphenol A thrown in.

Many summers ago, while walking through Lifecycle's Organic Demonstration garden, aka "The Hive", I saw the most magnificent plant.

The Artichoke. It's huge; a couple feet across and about 5 feet high, gorgeous and a haven for bees. It became just one more reason why I wanted a garden of my own.
I can grow these things here!
This almost makes up for the fact that I don't live in a land where snow falls (and stays put for a few months) in the winter - although I learn here that if we were to move, it would be do-able.

(I shouldn't be surprised. Gardening is "do-able" anywhere. I saw some tomato plants growing in the window of an abandoned building the other day. I wish I had had my camera with me. It was beautiful.)

My parents used to entertain a lot and with five kids (I now believe they were/are insane). Regardless, I love them - both the parents and the vegetable. There would always be artichokes served as an appetizer. Always. It was always a big hit too - I know this because I would hide on the stairs and listen to them talk.

Mmmmmmmm. Ripping off the leaves, dipping them in the hollandaise sauce and scraping off the meat with my teeth.

Yum. Yum yum yum yum yum.

Oh, and may I just add: What may have taken me 30 or so minutes to find the exact photo I wanted among the many diversions that are flickr, took mere seconds using their new Explore option. I swear, it's right up there on my golden list with compost worms and artichoke.

Bravo flickr!

Franklin has the most adorable little friend at daycare. They have started to call themselves Little Rascals. They do everything together and best of all, they share like Mahayana Buddhists.

What's mine is yours and what's your is mine, my dear little rascal.

This is amazing since Franklin will still occasionally get into crazed bouts of paranoia where he's certain that Harry (our cat) is trying to take away his trains or destroy his play dough.
I think he gets this from his father.

Regardless, this curly haired partner in crime is having his third birthday party on the weekend and his invitation included a photo-shopped image of himself flying through air with Spiderman. I tell you, Franklin is so damn proud of his friend and his apparent connections. I think I'll have to pull out Orestes and Pylades for some male bonding reference.
See? Who says you can't put an English degree to good use other than explaining our crazy grammatical rules to students in Vietnam?

Not I!

Along with the invitation is a RSVP to this little guy's very own email address.
His very own email address with the word MOFO in it.
This child has parents who gave their kid an email address that contains the acronym for Mother Fucker.
I had to look it up in order to know this. I must have taken the wrong courses in that afore mentioned degree.

I need to set up a few play dates for tutoring.

I'm sure there's a web link somewhere that explains this new developmental stage Franklin's on, but I'm not in the mood to find it. I'm actually feeling a tad bitchy today - things to do with preconceived ideas of my personality and loud people who seem to be constantly calling attention to me. I wrote another post about it earlier, but I can't publish it. It's snarky and too revealing (of others) and really, who needs more drama in your life?

Not I.

Instead I will return to my son, the source of most of these posts, because once I'm done writing about Franklin the crappiness of others tends to look like small potatoes - except that I love small potatoes and I wouldn't want crappiness in any way associated with them. Instead, I will say the crappiness starts to look like small aphids on my nasturtiums - annoying and a bit of work, but not altogether too much stress.

Franklin has become a little director - a bossy, yet patient director.
For example, much of our time spent together consists of this type of dialogue:

"Mommy, you are the tent now."
"Noooo Mommy, you can't do it that way"
"Mommy, you're Bulstrode, I'm the giggling freight cars"
"Stay still Mommy"
"Stand right there, Mommy"
"Noooooo Mommy, right there"
"Daddy, no singing"
"Mommy, you make the red car with green wheels. I will drive it."
"Nooo Mommy, you don't play with that"
"Mommy, hold this"
"Higher"
"Touch the ceiling Mommy"
"Nooo, not like that"
"Daddy, noooo singing"
"Let's make a nest"
"You be the Mommy Bird"
"Give me food Mommy"
"Nooooo Mommy, not with your hands, with your mouth"
"Silly Mommy, birds don't eat raisons"
"Feed me some worms, Mommy"

On Monday I told him I was getting frustrated when he couldn't decide what to wear.
He told me to "Stop and take a deeeeep breath".
Then he breathed with me.

Last night, as we were going up the stairs to the bath, he kept giving me different toys to tuck in. When I complained that I didn't have enough hands to hold everything, he sighed patiently and asked me to put everything down. Then he showed me how to pick each item up again until it all fit.

The child is bossy and has exceeded my intelligence.
I am in so much trouble.

I was snubbed today. I pretty sure I was snubbed anyway. I stood there, waiting and waiting and waiting.... and I was ignored.

Snubbed.

But never mind because I discovered TWO tomatoes on my yellow cherry tomato vine. I can hardly wait.

Hardy wait.

I was so excited, I took this blurry photo of the perfect fruit. In fact, this may be a tomato that you would like, Chair. They aren't as acidic as regular tomatoes.

Actually, I have no idea why I feel the need to find you a tomato that you will enjoy. There must be some old Italian Mama inside me.

Speaking of the force-feeding Italian stereotype, I remember performing a piano duet with an Italian girl when I was young. She decided that we both had to wear baby blue to the performance because her skin looked good in baby blue. My only baby blue dress was incredibly too small for me. It was too small because her mother kept feeding me cookies whenever I went over to her house to practice (I like to blame my weight on other people). She didn't speak English, but I understood what a plate of cookies in my face meant.
Ah, the universal language of force-feeding, I mean, cookies.
Nevertheless, squeezing into that baby blue dress resulted in finishing the song at the concert without being able to feel any of my fingers. The arm pit holes were cutting off the circulation to my chubbed up arms.

We still got a trophy though. I'd scan in the picture of the two of us but it's slightly pornographic. The dress was stretched t-h-i-n and my friends weren't into the whole "bra scene" quite yet - ifyouknowwhatimean. My mother showed a lot of restraint letting me on stage wearing that dress. Of course, what coud happen at a piano recital held in a Christian Reform Elementary school gymnasium?

Why did I feel that I needed to add in the fact that I won?
Pathetic.
However, I think I may have used up all my winning karma before I hit high-school. Since then, my track record has been dismal.

This is my way of telling you I didn't get the job I interviewed for last week.

This has nothing to do with the snub. The snub is laughable and something I just wrote to start me writing tonight. Unfortunately, missing out on an extra $268.00 a month isn't as funny.

Ah well.
Onward and upward.

Who knows if these things are even remotely interesting to any of you but I do them when they are asked of me because I figure it is a direct question from someone who would like to know.
Sometimes I feel like I'm hanging out here, telling you crazy crap about my life whether you are interested or not. I know you wouldn't be reading this unless you were interested... that or you find me really, truly repulsive and therefore like to pick apart my words in order to bash me with your sympathetic friends...

Nevertheless, the fact remains - this soapbox... what to do in order to even it all out?

There are a lot of people who visit and who do not comment. I do not mind the lurkers, I can totally understand how commenting can be both intimidating and redundant. Yet, I feel like this blog can be a little one sided. You see, I don't get to see you nodding, shaking your head or furrowing your brow in that cute way you do...

Could it be?
Could it be that this is just not possible?
Could it be that this is where, OH.MY.GOD, real people enter our lives?

Yeah, never mind (shudder), that's just crazy-talk.

So... as Kinuk has graciously tagged me, I will answer this meme in all it's buttonholed glory.

id·i·o·syn·cra·sy - a structural or behavioural characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.

Write down five of your own personal idiosyncrasies. Then, if you wish, tag five people

1) I can't stand it when I walk into a room and everything is pushed to the walls. Toasters, couches, plants, toys... everything. A room is a room for a reason, you can use ALL OF IT. The room doesn't appear bigger just because it looks as if you are about to start a square dance.

2) I file my toe nails and they are always clean. I can't stand dirty toenails. I would file D's toe nails as well but I think he already wonders if I've gone over the deep end. Franklin's toe nails are pristine.
Nonononono, thank-you little buddy.

3) My desk can be a absolute disaster as I work, but the kitchen must be sterile before I can cook. This can result in a late dinner. This can also result in someone else cooking said dinner.

4) I can never do three things at once. It must be four or five. If I'm feeling particularly restless, it can take six or seven things until I feel like I am concentrating and being productive.

No, I don't think my mother took drugs while I was a fetus.
Shame on you.

5) Right before it is time to go anywhere, I will clean. I clean because I think to myself, why just begin to go somewhere? Why not begin to go somewhere and clean at the same time? Why not do something that I won't have to do later? Besides D, aren't you trying to find your keys/hat/sunglasses/child/dime bag? While you are doing whatever you are doing (which I will admit is usually waiting for me) I will clean.

So, that's the tip of the iceberg. Initially, I thought the task might be a little difficult. So it turns out this was not so much "difficult" as stupendously easy.

Okay, how about you guys do this now: Joan, Jen, Charity, Jorjette and Marybeth.

Gotcha.