Don't let the above photo fool you...

this photo is not from this year.

This is NOT what our living room currently looks like.

We will NOT be able to decorate our tree until next week sometime.

I hope...

Too much work.

Here, have another cute photo of my child.

She IS cute, isn't she?

Caleb's humor

{Background: There were a few occasions with the baby early on, when we needed to use the bulb syringe. She would spit up and start choking, and I would run for the bulb syringe and quickly clean out her mouth and nose. Caleb witnessed these incidents.}

YESTERDAY:

I burp audibly.

Caleb disappears to the other room and comes running back, carrying the bulb syringe. He moves it in the direction of my mouth, with a grin on his face.

"Mommy burp. Help Mommy!" he says, as he cracks up.

"Very funny, Caleb." I say, but I cannot stop laughing, either.

I cannot believe the humor of my 2 year old.

Laughter in the kitchen

We're making a dinner of lamb chops. Ron says, "Maybe we should season it differently tonight." (Our usual is garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil.)

Ten minutes later, it's time to season the lamb. I absentmindedly grab the cinnamon, and am ready to sprinkle just as Ron walks into the kitchen.

He says, "What's that?"
"Garlic." - I glance at it. "Oh no, it's cinnamon."
"I asked for different, not crazy."

***

I'm washing dishes. Ron walks into the kitchen excitedly exclaiming:

"You found grease and I found turkey!"

"Huh?"

My mind is in the kitchen. I try to piece together the story. He just came from the living room... and he's reporting that there's grease there AND turkey?

Grease, okay, we do have a 2-year-old, but... turkey??? When was the last time we ate turkey?!

Thanksgiving turkey?!!?

At last, he provides the context I am missing:

"Caleb's puzzle. You found Greece. And I just found Turkey. The missing pieces?"

"Oh."

***

Humor on St. Patrick's Day

The below email correspondence with a client (project manager) took place on St. Patrick's Day. The rare show of cluelessness gave me and my husband more than a few chuckles.

Client: Hi, I have a new job here for translation. I have attached the ITD to work into, as well as the source...

[I look at the source file. I realize that it is identical to a document I proofread and sent to him this morning. So, the job has been translated and proofread already.]

Me: Hi, Didn't I just do the proofing on this job this morning?

[Surely, he will quickly note his error.]

Client: You did it for Finnish - can you not work into Hungarian as well

[Really??! Thanks for informing me what language I translate. Cause apparently, I must have forgotten. And honestly, this sounds like: What good are you? Can you only speak one obscure language?]

Me: Finnish? I don't speak Finnish. I did it for the Hungarian language.

[What I really want to say: Are you drinking, man? I know it's St. Patrick's Day and all, but come on! Seriously, are you in a bar, typing this out on your Blackberry with one finger?]

Trick or Treat? (we shall see on Election Day)

Tonight, in the spirit of the Looming Marxist Regime, we pondered whether we should just fall in line with the logic of the masses and force all of the hard-working kids who diligently spent their night going about town, collecting their precious candy, to come by our house when their work is done and SPREAD THE WEALTH AROUND. We agreed, each of them should put 5 pieces of their candy into our goodie bag.

This would all be done in the name of FAIRNESS, of course. Because we are obviously small and frail and unwilling to traipse around town all night, collecting our own candy. So they must collect it for us.

If they don't want to do this (what?! they think this is unfair?), we would sit them down and explain to them that they already have too much candy to begin with. This is not fair. Why do they need so much? Really, they should not be so SELFISH. Be an American, already! Handing over your candy after a long night's collecting is PATRIOTIC!

Luckily, we came to our senses before this scenario played out. We hope that the country also comes to its senses before this plays out nationally.

And so, what happened tonight? We VOLUNTARILY GAVE CANDY to all that came to our house. Because we are big-hearted that way. As for our own candy-collecting activity, we agreed that if we want candy, we really need to put our shoes (and cute patriotic elephant outfit) on and walk over to at least one neighbor, which we did.

19 months: The Where is It Gesture, The Pink Flower, Telephone Pretend Play, and Beware Bugs - Here Comes a BOY!

You are 19 months old today and can I just start out by saying: OH MY GOSH, THE CUTENESS! You keep getting cuter all the time! Tell me, how’s that even possible? You are supposed to be adorably cute when you are very young, that’s expected; but as you grow older, you are supposed to gradually lose that cuteness. This seems to be working backwards for you, for you keep getting more and more adorable as you grow. (Even with the screaming.)

This here is currently Cuteness # 1: The Where is It Gesture. Which is also accompanied by an adorable Where is It Sound. (That I cannot insert here.)

You love flowers. Or I should say, the pink flower (whose name I don’t know; although I knew it four years ago, when I planted it) that grows in our front flowerbed. A couple of months ago, at the height of spring, I introduced you to this flower (whose name I still don’t know and don’t feel like looking up right now, so let’s just call it The Pink Flower). So I introduced you to this flower and showed you that “Look, you can smell it!” At which point, you were instantly hooked. Your love for this flower grew and grew, and now every time we leave the house or arrive home, you scrunch up your little nose and make exaggerated sniffing sounds while pointing to The Pink Flower. EVERY TIME. You must go over there and pick one. This has become an integral part of leaving the house and arriving home.

When you pick The Pink Flower, you don’t just smell it and let it go. No, you hold onto it for hours at a time. If we’re going to the store, you hold onto your precious pink flower throughout our entire shopping trip, pressing it to your nose to smell its scent every now and then, and asking for assistance if you’ve accidentally dropped it into the shopping cart. At home, you keep it with you in the house for hours, placing it here and there while you go do something and then going back to it again. These days, I find dried up pink flowers in every nook and cranny, where you’ve placed them for safekeeping. Unfortunately, these flowers don’t bloom through the summer (though I think constantly picking them off has extended their blooming season a bit, cause they’ve never bloomed this long before). I noticed the other day that there are only a few more left. You’re in for some sad disappointment when you’ll soon find that there are no more Pink Flowers. (I’m sure that you’ll give us your Where is It Gesture. Whereupon your father and I will shrug our shoulders and look forlornly at each other.)

Another fascinating toy lately is the telephone. You love that thing. Anytime someone calls our house, you expect to be able to talk to them. Those occasions when we’ve hung up the phone (or tried to) without handing it to you first, you loudly let us know your displeasure. When we hand you the cordless phone, you grab it, hold it to your ear and start walking off. You pace! You pace exactly like you’ve seen your daddy and I do on countless occasions while talking on the phone. It’s hilarious to see my one-year-old pacing and "talking" on the phone, much like a teenager.

You love to play pretend with the telephone. It doesn’t even need to be a real phone; it can be a play phone, a remote control, a Lego or a block. You hold these to your ear as you walk around and talk as if there is someone on the other end. You chatter away and every so often you stop and make an eruptive sound resembling a cough/cry. You fake laugh! It took me a while to realize that you are pretending to talk on the Lego phone, complete with a pretend laughter. The first few times I heard the fake laughter coming from the other room, I was wondering what was the matter? Your execution of this pretend laughter must have improved over time, because now it’s clear to me who you are imitating. It is unbelievable how precisely you are able to imitate your Daddy’s laughter.

You are spending more and more time in make believe. In your world, cherries are cars, a zucchini is an airplane and bugs get unceremoniously flushed down the toilet amidst matter-of-fact waves of bye-bye! Wait! That last one isn’t pretend at all! That’s just something we do when we catch a BUG!

In order to catch a BUG, one needs a very sharp-eyed one-year-old, who will make sure to find every single bug that has ever dared to cross the threshold of the family abode. The BUG may be naively scurrying from one place to another, trying to be inconspicuous as he goes about his day, not knowing that his hours are numbered, because there is a one-year-old by the name of Caleb in the house.

Son, I am very proud of you.

As you have gathered by now, BUGS are not your Mama’s favorite creatures. Whereas last month you’d pick the bug up and squash it into a pulp between your fingers (forcing me to clean BUG GUT off of you – NOT COOL), this month you understand that “Yes, the BUG is there, but I need not pick it up and squash it with my bare hands. We’re not barbarians here. Simply pointing the BUG out will do.”

Thus, you have again applied your talents and have made yourself useful by pointing out every sort of creepy-crawly creature you come across. Which is where I (must) take over by grabbing some toilet paper, gathering up the BUG, and hauling his a** to the toilet. It is a smoothly oiled operation, not hindered by emotion. Afterwards comes the unceremonious flushing, as we send the BUG off to another world with many waves and exclamations of “BYE-BYE, BUG!” (Yes, you now speak in phrases. Unceremoniously.) This is the fate of all BUGS in our house, except for that huge cricket that I couldn’t catch, but was finally able to successfully trap under the plunger and even today, he still awaits his fate there. (What do you think, should we wait one more week before we check on him?)


This is just a heads up, but I may need you to take over this bug-catching chore at some point in the future, if you don’t mind. The only reason I’m doing it now is because I’d rather catch a bug with toilet paper than clean bug gut off your fingers. But if you could learn to catch them yourself with toilet paper... We’ll talk later.

It seems like you’ve suddenly turned into a BOY overnight. If we thought you were a BOY before, we were wrong. It is clear to us after this month that now, NOW YOU’RE A BOY! A rambunctious, adventure-loving, risk-taking, LOUD, BOISTEROUS BOY! A BOY, who likes to run full speed at Daddy and body-slam into him. A BOY whose body-slams are so strong, they actually hurt. A BOY who is constantly seeking opportunities to jump off of high places, who relishes every chance to run at breakneck speed, to throw a ball, and to screech at the top of his lungs. You are not afraid to plop yourself back down into the pool, landing hard on your butt with water splashing all around. Or to have water poured over your head, (you’ll even pour it yourself!) as you laugh loudly at the water running down your face and into your eyes.

Before you were conceived, whenever I thought of having children, I always imagined a daughter. I guess, I thought that there would be a familiarity we’d share just by being of the same gender, and that maybe I could more easily relate to a daughter than to a son. But I must tell you how exceedingly happy I am to have a son, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. In all your boyishness, you have fulfilled my motherly dreams and longings. From the time of your birth, a bond was built between us, and even in this last month, it has only grown stronger. I honestly cannot imagine that it is possible to have any more of a connection, any more of a bond between mother and child than what you and I share.

Love,
Mama


(P.S. The Pink Flower belongs to the genus Dianthus, its full Latin name is Dianthus deltoides and its common name is maiden pink. It is helpful to have little volumes like this one around for those rare occasions when the Internet search engine fails to deliver.)

Dear Medicare

Dear Medicare:

It is so very kind of you to think of my birthday and to be concerned about my wellbeing in my upcoming senior years. It is also very thoughtful of you to offer me your services without answering health questions. Nonetheless, I would ask you to please stop sending me mail that begins with: “As you approach your 65th birthday...” or “As you approach this significant year in your life...”

You are right about this: I am approaching a significant year. However, you made a tiny little mistake in the numbers. (I’m not sure how you could have mistaken the 7 in 1972 for a 4?) I’m also not sure how you got a hold of my name and address. Although I do realize that the recent birth of my child may have given you your very first opportunity to obtain my personal information. You did not waste any time (I congratulate you on that), but acted swiftly, and packages from you began to arrive in my mailbox almost as soon as my baby and I arrived home. What I fail to grasp is how you made the connection between my being a patient in the Maternity Ward with my reaching retirement age (?!?). Though now that I think of it, modern medicine HAS accomplished a few miraculous things lately, including the extension of the childbearing years (recently I heard of a 60 year old giving birth), so you may truly have a point there.

I know that you are eager to welcome me as a Medicare customer (and I am grateful), but I have some unfortunate news for you: if all goes well, I have a good 30+ years of excellent health (and private insurance) ahead of me yet. I am so sorry to disappoint. I recognize that you’ve invested a lot in me already by sending me all those beautiful printed materials through the past 5 months (kudos to you for not giving up easily!).

Lastly, thank you for making me ponder this question: “When you reach 65, will your health care coverage keep up with you?” The answer does not come to me easily. I’d have to say, I don’t know. I sure hope so... Get back to me in about 30 years and I’ll let you know how that turned out.

(not yet) Yours,
A Future Elderly Citizen