Pics from Potty Week so far...

Here are a few pictures from our adventuresome week -- be sure to check out the self-selected outfits, especially the shoes (a shower gift for the babe on the way and Silas's new favorites):

Potty Learning

We have just finished day 2 . WHEW.  The experience is like being on a plane all day long with a 2 year old -- being ON, full of energy, alert, attuned, suggesting, encouraging, cheering, producing prizes and beverages, making sure no upholstered surfaces or carpets are in danger, urging the wearing of socks and t-shirt in the 60 degree morning despite the demands for nakedness, sitting for so many long stretches with my 33 week pregnant belly on the slate bathroom floor reading and re-reading and re-reading his beloved "potty learning" book to him (and it really is learning not training).  This afternoon, after Silas burned out on drinking and hadn't gone to the bathroom for a while, I even resorted to drinking games: clinking glasses with him (a favorite past-time) over and over and making him take a sip after each cheers!  

Tomorrow will be day 3, and we will be camped out, carpet pulled up from the living room floor, blue bulldozer potty seat in full effect, Lightning McQueen underpants, and the prize bowl of boats, cars, and candy waiting on the kitchen counter...

On the Brink

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,

she had so many children she didn't know what to do...

I can't remember any other lines of that rhyme, but pray tell, what did she do???  I am finding that "too many children" is one 2 year old.  What do you do when 1 is the limit and child #2 will be taking up residence in your house in a matter of weeks with or without your consent?

It is 10:30 AM and I am done for the day, ready to tuck Silas into some safe padded space with his blankie and some snacks and head out alone somewhere far far away.  To be fair, we started the day with a few strikes against us: jetlag, being 2 years old, no diapers in the house, an unshowered, frizzy-haired mother.  

And so, at 8, after coffee with Ben, we headed to Target.  The soundtrack of our trip sounded something like this:

"I want go to da park, mama."

"what you do?"

"what he do?" (random shopper)

"what he say?"

"I want thomas toothpaste"

"i need dose goldfish"

"I want go beach, mama"

"what you doin?"

"I want cereal now"

"I throw dis"

"I throw dis on floor"

"I want dat"

"I don't want diapers!"

"I DON'T WANT DIAPERS!"

"I throw this?"

"Where she go?" (child shopper)

"I WANT GO TO DA BEACH!" (crying)

"I kick dis"

"I kick cart"

"I kick car" (referencing kicking front seat of car, which I'd said all morning not to do)

"ready go, mama"

"I NEED CHOC-LATE!" 

"I NEED CHOCOLATE!  I NEED CHOCOLATE!" (huge melt down with tears -- down the check out line and all the way out of the store). 

You know it is been a bad trip when you have ducked into a nearby aisle (again) to escape the Small Madness dominating your cart and are gone long enough to overhear a stranger say, "Well where IS your mommy?  Let's go find her," at which point you have to gallantly step out of hiding with a confident smile and reclaim your child.  And you know you've probably crossed a line and should remove yourself from people when your impulse is not only to throttle your age-appropriate-mannerless son but also the nearby shopper who asks you if you've seen swim diapers anywhere.

When I got home, I did the only thing I know to do these days when I am on the brink, which is to retreat not to a shoe, but to a hot shower, in hopes that the impatience will burn off and the tension will melt down the drain.  Silas, all of the sudden oh-some-complying, asked to take a nap right when we got back, and though it was 10AM, an hour of napping that puts the rest of the day at risk, I did not hesitate. 

Now I am clean, I have vented, I have eaten my 3rd meal of the day, I am dying for a soda -- the only can of anything in my fridge is a V8 that is literally 3 years old -- and the small voice in my head is telling me it's time to wake him up so the rest of the hour isn't shot... So off I go.  Wish me luck.

aaaaaand ... we're back

We got a text from mom my this morning as we were packing up that said Silas has a fever. The poor kid has been clobbered by a cold that's going on two weeks. . . 

When we drove back into town, we found Silas limp and red-cheeked, listlessly sucking milkshake from a straw on Papa's lap in Macdonald's.  After I scooped up his hot little body, he looked into my face with his puffy little eyes and asked, "Where you go, Mama?"  

And now after an hour and a half of his nap-rejection-crying, I am imprisoned on the floor of Silas's room keeping him company while he  t r i e s  to nap --an effort that seems to have shifted to his reading aloud to himself...

We leave for the pediatric clinic, unnapped, in an hour -- ahh yes, back to real life. 

Babymoon*

Well, after making fun of the commercialized idea of a babymoon, I find myself on a luxurious and heavenly one of my own. Ben and I have spent the past three nights in an old inn at St. Michael's -- a teeny town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Some impressions so you can better imagine it:
-The inn is made of white clapboard houses (mannors)-- the old one dates back before the turn of the century -- with black roofs and little porches opening out to the river
-Adirondack chairs scattered all over a bright green lawn that spreads to the sea wall and sparkling water beyond
-Pairings of Canada geese clustered around the grass in the mornings, mallards in the afternoon, swallows and sparrows -- all the birds darting and dancing and wooing for Spring
-Spring! daffodils, narcissus, juicy red tulips, blooming rosemary, crab apple trees dense and bursting, red bud trees, even blooming lilacs, and marsh grasses hemming them all in
-A brick driveway with grass peeking through the seams -- a quaint lain to the inn from main street
-Tea time outside -- little glass apothecary jars of loose tea to smell -- pear and the most fragrant earl gray. Ben's discovered he likes Lapsong (gross -- Eli, you and he can have it together!)  Little scones -- airy, crusty perfection with homemade raspberry jam
-A shed full of bikes to cruise on -- we tried a tandem, but it turns out I like steering, braking and balancing on my own bicycle with my own personal view of the road.  It was tricky but we didn't crash.
-And the water... I love the ocean. And i love the beach.  A river satisfies in a completely different way, though -- soothing, silent, rippling, sparkling, silk-smooth, wind-textured, iridescent, full of sky and sun and weather. I have loved my mornings sitting out looking at the water.
-The town is a one street down -- a few blocks of stores and the rest beautiful old houses snugged between the harbor and marshes a few blocks away. We discovered that stores and restaurants are really only open wednesday-sunday (or thursday-sunday), a fact which doesn't seem to strike anyone here as odd, and most everywhere closes by 5... Though there are a few kitschy stores in the mix there are also some gems. Here are links to my two favorites:

*cocoandcompany.com (a Paris to the Moon -- one of my favorite costa mesa stores: shopparistothemoon.com -- who has spread it's wings!) Drool-inducing. I wanted to move right in to the middle of it and stay there. Ben was patient...

*markethousegourmet.com -- this store we visited 3 times yesterday! more than anything else, it is aesthetically pleasing with its large glass jars of homemade candy, bottles of silver-ball cake toppings, jams, honeys, oils -- all eye candy.   The menu is so delectable that I glued it in my journal! The woman who runs it, Jennifer, is nutty and wonderful! She does *everything* herself and seems inexhaustible -- she's there 7 days a week, knows everyone in town, has two children and a husband who owns the big crab restaurant in town.  Crazy.  I am definitely a big fan. Her slogans (printed on pink/green and black/white bumper stickers) are "get fresh" and "get fancy" -- yes, fresh and fancy she is!

It's like Ben and I have been drugged here. We have slept somewhere between 9 and 11 hours every night, taken naps during the day and still been for more sleep.  I guess one could call that relaxation or unwinding.  I am off to wake him so we can enjoy our last breakfast in town, hit the farmer's market, say goodby to lovely Jennifer and head back toward the Bay Bridge. We've decided that though this will probably be our last child, we will take Babymoons for the rest of our lives.

Eli and Hollie's Wedding!!

E&H got married April 5th in Yakima!  I just IMed with them from France, which he described as "big blooms, breezy, billowy clouds, warm sun, short rains -- 'Spring' exactly" --yum!  

Here are a few pics--

Hollie the bride when she first put on her dress:

Practicing putting the ring on her finger:

Hollie's bouquet -- she attached wedding pictures of her ancestors by ribbons to her bouquet:

KJ took this one through the window:

Tuxes:

When I couldn't sleep and got up for orange juice in the night

I walked out on the front porch to watch the rain and thought for a split second it was snowing. Cherry blossom petals blustered in the wind and splattered all over the sidewalk. It was so windy that between the horizontal rain and the ominous swaying of the trees, I was sure a natural disaster was about to split the house in two and sweep Silas away into the night.

My parents' house sidles up next to the woods. The towering old trees, still holding their winter silhouettes in the dark, creaked and swayed in the roaring wind as I stood there. I am surprised by how unaccustomed I have become to these old friends. Living in California for so many years, where the only deciduous trees are 20 or 30 feet high, I find myself struck and startled by their sheer size and presence. Especially under the wind...

The rain is calming, but thunder still rumbles around the sky as I sit at this table. I have the back door open and can smell the grass and dirt, the wet concrete, and blooming bulbs mixed into the night air. Wind chimes are clanging and the rain falling from the gutter slaps the ground. It is Spring in Washington.