Pop-you-lar. I know about pop-you-oo-lar.

Who knew I was so popular? Thanks all for the affirmation and well wishes. (And thanks, Linny, for the introduction to *Wicked*, the musical. Love it.)

Anyway, before you open your mouths in protest, let me say that I know that it isn't me that's popular. It's my children. I would be quite boring, I'm sure, without them. So let me get back to them.

I had mentioned a story about diapers in the hallway to peak your interest. Let me explain that one. We had a diaper pail, not so long ago in the big scheme of things. At some point it ended up in the garage of the old apartment. After it sat outside our front door for 2 months. See, diaper pails are stinky. I don't think it matters how they are advertised or what wonders they claim in terms of odor control. Even the superest of celebrity moms has a stinky diaper pail. So we gave up on ours, and I put it outside to "air out." It has never returned to the Great Indoors. Now we just have a regular plastic garbage can in the boys room. No lid, even. Wet diapers go in it for a few days, and stinky diapers get tossed into the hallway to be dropped down into the living room over the railing to be wrapped up in one of our .5 million plastic bags and tossed out onto the porch to be placed into our large trash bin to be placed weekly on the street. (I know. Bad-for-the-earth plastic bag for bad-for-the-earth diaper.) So when I changed a stinky diaper last week, I told Elias I had to to put in the "Blah, garbage trash can blah". He picked it up, marched over and dropped it smack in the middle of the hallway.

Oh, Grandma's here for a visit! The boys love having grandma to visit. And read. And read, of course.

Here's us doing sign language for "Big." (Same book. A favorite around here.)

Is it any wonder the child gets himself hurt? He perches everywhere.

Until next time....

Shorts

Elias

I was pretending to sleep (OK, maybe not pretending) on Kindred's bed. I had put my head on K's pillow and was kneeling on the floor. Elias came over to me and ever so gently started pushing my hair out of my face with his tiny hands. Then he leaned over, when my cheek was free of obstacles, and kissed me in his special open-mouthed way, like he was kissing me goodnight. It made me so happy.

Elias' first sentence has become, officially, "Byeeee, Dada." He also learned to put "Peeek" and "Boo!" together in the past few days. "Peek-boo."

Kindred

Friday, I had one of those days when I thought my children were brilliant. Like with the whole lights coming out of their fingertips and eye sockets thing. Brilliant in the truest sense. Kindred got himself up from his nap (after actually sleeping!), and called to me. His hair was matted and his cheeks were pink, and I scooped him up and carried him downstairs, happy to see him. While I was holding him, he started describing the differences between two particular trains he has that he was looking at on the floor. He wasn't sure I could see the second train he had mentioned, so he pointed out to me that it was there, beneath the chair. I asked, "Kindred, did you just say 'beneath'?" "He looked right back at me and said, "Yes." Like, is there a problem with that?

Today, Kindred had his first completely diaper-free day! No accidents, no diapers. He still refuses (strongly and loudly and with tears and wails) to wear his underwear, but that day will come. No pressure. He'll figure it out. But I was so proud of him today.

He turns 3 on Sunday. Poor kid has to share his glory with the Giants and the Patriots, but we're celebrating Saturday, so he shouldn't feel neglected. Three. It somehow feels so much older than two.

Me

I recently had my two year anniversary. My blogging anniversary, that is. I'm glad for this outlet. I'm glad to be able to share my life with you out there. I started this as a way to communicate with my family as an alternative to emailing pictures every couple of days, and it has blossomed into something that is much more. I appreciate the chance to be creative, to tell stories, to process. I also appreciate everyone who takes time to read all the stuff I spill out. I know that I get an average of 30 people looking at this site every day. I am sometimes really surprised by that. So, here's a little request. If you are a regular reader and not a regular commenter, I was wondering if you could just post a quick "Hi!" in my comments, just so I know who you are and to keep a little idea of my readership in the archives, for posterity. (De-lurk! De-lurk!) (That's blog language for "show yourself, you lurker.")

In any case, I feel honored that you all have kept up with me and seem to enjoy what I have to share. I hope I can keep it up. Because we all know I won't have a lack of fun stories on my journey. Not for a little while, at least.

Good Friends?

I think the boys like each other. I think. But usually their behavior towards each other is, well, contradictory. Sometimes they are wonderful playmates, occupying themselves side by side, and other times sharing a game or toy. Other times, like this afternoon, they inflict pain on each other, purposefully or not. Poor Elias has so many injuries. Today Kindred added to the list by whacking him across the ear with a plastic tube, leaving a blood blister and swollen bruise. (After deciding that ice would only make him hurt worse, and holding him until he calmed, I had to chuckle a little at his lopsided ears.) They are true siblings.

They are so different, and they respond so differently to life. But sometimes their responses to situations are really similar. Take last week, for instance. I told the story a few posts back about how we all were outside, and Kindred and Elias took turns singing and dancing on the deck steps. After they were done with their performance, they played in the yard. I was watching them, and I heard loud music come from a neighbor's house. I followed the sound with my eyes. Someone had opened a window and had their hands sticking outside, holding something with one hand and maneuvering something else with the other. I realized with shock as they placed that "something" on the outer windowsill and shut the window quickly that our quiet calm was about to abruptly end. I didn't want to take my eyes off the windowsill incase it was going to be a dangerous event and couldn't move fast enough to gather in my children before... I yelled, "BOYS IT'S GOING TO BE LOUD---" CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK!!!

Their little bodies were on the move before they even knew it. They clung to my legs shaking from head to toe, heads thrown back, wailing. I knelt and held them tightly, and assured them that the noise, though loud and scary, was not going to hurt them and was over. I explained what had happened once they had stopped crying enough to hear me. They had calmed down after a few minutes but their grips remained vice-like on me. I had to carry them back out into the yard and point out the window where the firecrackers had been lit and placed before they would believe it was finished.

(Later that evening when Michael came home, Kindred was recalling the day's events, and he added this into the story: "Dada, we went outside and it was loud. It was the cracker fires. They were so so loud.")

But today's story is the keeper. I was, of course, vacuuming my bedroom, (because vacuuming has become my first choice chore these days) and the boys were watching from the doorway. Kindred is still very apprehensive of the "big zoomie" but he doesn't get hysterical anymore, and can usually stay a safe distance away to watch. Elias, on the other hand, has developed Kindred's fear, and inevitably begins to cry loudly when I turn the vacuum on, even if he's had fair warning from Kindred's counting: one-two-three! I try to ignore Elias, because if I don't, he clambers up into my arms and I have to hold him while I proceed, and he's heavy, so I try to avoid this if I can and hope he'll just get over it or go in another room. Today he stayed next to Kindred, crying hard. I worked my way around the room. At one point I glanced back. Elias was still crying, but softer, and Kindred's arm was around his shoulders, pulling him close. Kindred even had his cheek resting on Elias' head. Elias' arm was around Kindred's middle, and there they stood. Brothers. Comforting each other in times of trouble.

I could hardly stand the beauty of it.

"Do you want some of this, Mama?"

I decided on a whim to vacuum the stairs. It needed to be done. Pine needles were all over this house, and the light carpet wasn't going to gracefully hide its share. So I set to work, posting the children in the playroom, and dragging that darn heavy "big zoomie" down the stairway to begin.

I realized as I was struggling to clean the landing, halfway up, that there was absolutely no possible way I could hear my children if they called to me, or worse, if they were injured somehow. I took a deep breath and resolved simply to work faster but to keep up with the task at hand, trusting that I had kid-proofed the first floor as best as possible. (Now, you realize working faster isn't really an option when you are fighting an impossibly uncooperative vacuum cleaner hose. Even one labeled "Extra long". Who made these stupid things?)

When I finally made it to the top step, I shut off the vacuum. That's when I heard Kindred call from below me.

"Do you want some of this, Mama?"
"Want what?" I asked.
"Some of this," he replied earnestly.
"What is it?" I ask again, stretching over the railing to see what he was offering.
"This!" he repeats, holding up a small white stick, with some remnants of... lollipop? at the top.
I rushed down the stairs.
"Where did you get that? Is that a TootsiePop? Did you eat it? Did you bite it or just lick it?" Not that he even knew what a TootsiePop was. A hundred questions for my son so that his inattentive mother could assess how perilously close he came to choking.
Instead of answering, Kindred pointed to his brother. "Elias didn't like it."
Heart attack number two. Elias had tried the child-choking-hazard-on-a-stick as well?

My "Moral of the story": No more house cleaning.
(Convenient, eh?)

Kindred in last week's church clothes. Quite happy that he has a place to put his hands.

Colors

Light blue vinyl high chair cover. Light brown hair. Pale olive-ish skin. Pink lips. Orange spaghetti sauce remnants on cheeks, chin, neck, ears, nose, forehead and hairline. Gorgeous hazel eyes with one distinct brown streak. Long dark eyelashes.

And colorful lower eyelid/upper cheekbone; pinks, purples, blues, yellows and reds. Ouchie, on an otherwise perfect face.

Family and Falling

Well, it was a day.

We had family over. Michael's sisters, father, and the rest of the Wilson clan joined us for lunch and a lively afternoon. (Lively for everyone except Elias, who slept from 11am - 3pm for his nap. He must be growing. He didn't even get up this morning until 8:15am. This was of course because I had ejected Kindred from the room when he began singing from his playpen bed at 7:30am. (He was sleeping in a playpen because the past several mornings he has amused himself by tossing various items of various densities (stuffed toys and books, shoes and clothing, boxes, towels, etc.) into Elias' crib while Elias is still sleeping. I don't think it's necessarily to be mean, but mostly because his desire to have a playmate overwhelms his sense of courtesy. So he was relegated, unhappily, to the "baby playpen" in the hopes that a lesson would be learned. We'll see. He's back in his "big boy bed" tonight.))

So anyway, Ffil and JT showed up to visit after a lengthy trip to the Holy Land, and the Wilsons braved snot exposure to bring children to play and beer to share (Seriously, I want to take a picture of how full my fridge is at this moment.) and to see our new house. Caden and Kindred played incredibly well together for hours, both of them adamently skipping lunch lest they have to stop their revelry. (Kindred also absentmindedly skipped on the potty. Four times.) It was a great time. (We missed Carol though, and I have no doubt she missed us.)

After everyone had left, some for the second time, Michael packed up to leave for rehearsal. Right before he left, Elias followed him up the stairs, but did not make it back down gracefully. He fell somehow down 4-5 stairs and stopped at the landing. From my vantage point on the couch, I knew it was going to be bad because before he had even finished falling he was crying out loud. He smacked his face on the stair so hard he actually took off a dime-sized area of skin under his eyes that split slightly and was bleeding. He also has a sizable purple swollen spot right under his eye. Michael says it looks like a boxing injury. He doesn't look quite as bad as this guy, but the swelling under the eye is very similar. Oh, it was traumatic for this Mama. And him, of course. Poor little guy. He eventually resigned himself to the fact that I needed to put a cold pack on his face many times, and would sit resolutely in my lap looking at a book with his good eye or watching his brother be silly. He was thankful to be back in bed tonight, where he know I wouldn't be torturing him and he could relax and feel safe.

All said, it was a good day, and we were thankful to have so many gather with us for a few hours.

And people, come have beer. Really.

~~~~~~

There are a few stories that have been sitting in my "to blog about" file for a while, and in an effort to make those posts appear, I will give you a small glimpse that I might feel compelled to explain:

Kindred and Elias and the cracker-fires
Lima bean peanut roast and string beans and broccoli.
Elias on the potty.
Throwing dirty diapers into the hallway.
"Do you want some of this Mama?"

Check back...

Tibits on Elias

Elias is now 16 months old. In fact, when this finally gets posted, he may be closer to 17 months. He is darling, as darling as ever. Except, of course, when he isn't being darling. Then he's semi-maniacal. He'd stopped that wretched head banging for a while, but then he got sick and miserable last month and remembered that he used to do that for attention, so back into the old habit. It's frustrating, but as long as I don't affirm it or coddle him over it, maybe he'll remember that he'd abandoned the tactic for a good reason. I guess having a child with a strong will is positive in some ways. (If someone could just leave a few comments about why that might be positive, that'd be great.)

(This is an older picture, but one of my favorites.)

Elias doesn't speak yet. I'm so glad he's my second, because I'm not worried about his development at all. I feel like he'll talk when he wants to. He only says Mama, Dada, Biig Poppop, buh (ball, bus), baby, chhhhchhh (chooch), pessss (please), dow (down) and beep. He also has started this sing-songy way of saying "Hiiieeeee" and "Bye-eeeee" when someone comes or goes. However, he will fill in parts of books that he is being read: When the truck is stuck and the driver calls for help, an approaching car calls out, "Beep beep!" Elias knows every time this happens and will fill in the beeps when the reader pauses. He will also fill in the "baby talk" in "Knuffle Bunny" when the heroine discovers that her favorite stuffy is not in her arms, written something like: Aggle klabble flabble! Wumpy flappy! Snurp? When the reader get to this segment where Trixie expresses her distress, the reader pauses and Elias reads the entire page aloud. And in Goodnight Moon, he knows that the quiet old lady whispers "Hushhhhh".


Elias' favorite activity by far is reading. He will pick up a book, and if you are sitting or kneeling on the floor anywhere in the room, he will turn around and walk backwards in your general direction until he falls, hopefully, into your lap. If you aren't sitting on the floor, that doesn't mean you are off the hook. He will wave that book around in your face and beg and moan and groan until he gets to indulge in the pages of the fine literature he cannot yet read to himself.


Elias' second favorite activity is going outside to play, "learn to climb" the cement stairs (I have a heart attack every time), or just watch for busses. Rain, shine, sleet or hail, if you are getting a coat on to exit the house, he is at your heels, ready with his own outdoor wear. He brought me his hat and his father's scarf the other day in an effort to plead his case for playing out in the rain. He could not accept that playing in the rain in January in the northeast, global warming or not, was not going to happen.



Elias' feet are the most ticklish thing. I can't put his shoes on or take his socks off without him writhing around in a fit of giggles. It's hard not to exploit that particular weakness for the delight of hearing his wonderful laughter.


He's also become quite fond of sign language. Today he sat on my lap and watched computer screen animations on the ASL website of people demonstrating signs. And then he (get this) saw them do a sign and he said "Baby" and he was RIGHT! He does hat, more, baby, ball, light, down, please, thank you, and his latest addition, book. He even walked into the dark playroom recently, looked up at the ceiling and made the sign for light, and grunting something that sounded like "on."


Once, last week when I did concede to taking the children outside in the 60F weather (!), Kindred decided to sing for E and I, perched on the bottom stair off of the deck, while E and I danced. After Kindred's song was finished, Elias took his place and started a song of his own. It was short staccato ("Ah- ah- ah- ah- ah-") tune, and as he sang it happily, he turned himself around and around on the stair, quite carefully and deliberately.

Two last snippets. Sometimes when he's being cooperative while I'm trying to use the computer, Elias will sit on the floor in the office and occupy himself by taking apart one particular pen, and then putting it back together. This blows my mind, because it comes apart in several pieces. He almost always gets the reassembly correct.

Finally, the boys got new bowls and plate sets for the holiday, one being a Sesame Street set, complete with Elmo at the bottom of the bowls. Elias hasn't quite gotten used to this, because everytime he finishes his food, he gasps in surprise and points out to all of us that Elmo is in his bowl! He gets so happy.

Good kid, this one. Glad we've got him around.

Learn something new everyday. Isn't your brain tired?

I got tagged.

I believe that is the correct term.

Anyway, I got tagged by Maria to complete a meme. Now, I have seen these things floating around the internet, mostly MySpace and blogs, and I have refused to pay them much attention because I never knew what "meme" stood for or how it was pronounced (me! me!, mame? mem?) so I thought I should stay away from something my amateur blogger self didn't really understand. It may also be clear to my readers that one-word answers don't really do it for me. I'm an overcommunicator, folks. Sentences that seem like they are run-on but aren't are my favorites. (Oh how my husband yells at me for those.) But then Maria went and cornered me. (She didn't actually, just suggested (tagged) me.) There aren't many people who could have made me consider doing this, but she did. I figured when she, the doctorate student, didn't know what it was exactly either, I had a fighting chance to figure it out and do it.

So for the curious, on many levels, here is what a meme is and here is mine:

Meme. Pronounced "meem". Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity.

8 Things I'm Passionate About
(It should come as no surprise to those who know me that this list was the hardest to answer)

1- Kindred

2- Elias

3- Figuring out how to teach my children to love holistically.

4- Despising our "endless War on Terror"-- Haven't we heard the old phrase "Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing is wrong?"

5- Ben & Jerry's

6- A love for cleanliness and order. Don't laugh. Just because I'm passionate about it doesn't mean it happens.

7- Figuring out the ins and outs of my marriage, my commitment to a man who is at times a complete mystery and at other times an open book.

8- Telling stories.


8 Things I Want to Do Before I Die

1- Go back to New Zealand

2- Live in the west (which may or not include living in an RV and/or "off the grid")

3- Own a dishwasher

4- Make a mix CD of my life

5- Learn to sew

6- Make figgy pudding =)

7- Take my children to the Rose Bowl Parade

8- Be a better friend and correspondent


8 Things I Say Often

1- That's so funny!

2- Say, 'Bye, Dada'

3- What do I need to be doing right now?

4- Do you have to pee?

5- What should I make for dinner?

6- I did another blog post.

7- I need to take a shower.

8- Boys, it's time for sleep.


8 Books I've Read Recently (in 2007)
(I'm in a book club so that makes this one easier.)

1- The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

2- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

3- Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

4- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

5- Cellophane by Marie Arana

6- Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

7- Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (in process)

8- Innumerable children's books. Favorites: Almost anything by Mo Willems or illustrated by Julie Vivas


8 Songs I Can (or do) Listen to Over and Over

1- Forever by Ben Harper

2- Poughkeepsie by Over the Rhine

3- Steady, As She Goes (acoustic) by the Raconteurs

4- Songbird by Eva Cassidy

5- Don't Cry by Adam Again

6- In This Heart by Sinead O'Conner

7- Wanting Memories by Sweet Honey in the Rock

8- Complainte De La Butte by Rufus Wainwright

bonus:

Little Drummer Boy by Josh Groban

The Garbage Truck Song by the Little People


8 Things that Attract Me to My Best Friends

1- Common experiences and/or history

2- Humor

3- Guidance in cooking

4- Sharing our children's lives and adventures

5- Their perspectives that teach me

6- Their attractiveness (I have some HOT friends.)

7- Their caring for me

8- They steady me when I'm falling apart.


8 People who Should TOTALLY Do This Meme

(That's not my wording. It's TOTALLY how it came to me.) This is a tough one. Not to put anyone on the spot. Not to seem juvenile. Not to make anyone feel left out. Ugh, so much pressure. Here goes: Lara, Lora Lynn, Jenn, Ericka, Michael, Carol, Elizabeth, Erica, Matt, Cassie, Caren, Danielle, Deborah. I suppose that means you've been tagged. (I know that's more than 8. Shut up.) Feel free to brush it off, but if you do it, just let me know. I think this was in interesting exercise for me in self-awareness, so if you have extra time and need a reason to delve into your own mind for a minute, well here's your excuse.

Why ask Why?

Kindred's first Why? question, presented to me quietly with a tone of bewilderment and confusion as we were walking up the stairs from the basement together:

"Why did Cookie Monster eat the Christmas tree?"

He was thoroughly unimpressed and not amused one bit with Cookie Monster's lack of judgement and self control, and could not believe that the Christmas tree, or a telephone or a pencil might actually be items one might want to eat.

I love this kid.

Bring us some figgy pudding...

It's no secret that I am an NPR junkie. I almost always enjoy any story I hear on it. A few days before Christmas, there was a chef interviewed who answered the question: What the heck is figgy pudding? And I heard the recipe for it, and wow. It's a steamed cake, packed with booze. Here's a quote:

Figgy pudding — aka plum pudding, plum porridge, Christmas pudding and steamed pudding — is a quintessentially British sweet with a history that might go back to Shakespeare's time. We know it was around in the mid-1600s, because that's when the English Puritans banned it — and Christmas, too. There probably aren't too many sweets that have been banned, but then there aren't too many sweets that are as alcoholic as this one.

Seriously, it is made with a sauce that is so full of alcohol that you can actually light it on fire for a stunning presentation. (Thus the line in the famous song, "We won't go until we get some....") Makes me want to be a real cook.

But anyway, I now present to you, Our Christmas

Anxious boys gathered around the tree to see what goodies were waiting for them.

The boys get overwhelmed pretty quickly with all the present opening, so we dragged that part out throughout the day. Every couple of hours we would open another one until it was stocking time, which was nearly bedtime.

Elias is getting the hang of ripping wrapping paper. He loves to look at our tree, especially when the lights are on. He's pretty good at not tearing it up, which is a relief. He mostly stands and stares at it for a while. Sometimes he'll add a dramatic *gasp* when he gets particularly impressed. When we went to church on Christmas Eve, he tried several times to run up and stand by Pastor Maggie while she was preaching or reading, and he begged hard for bread during communion, and he was generally a little irritable. But when we sang "Angels We Have Heard on High" for our benediction, he sang loud and hard and happily right along with us.

Kindred has a favorite Christmas song. His complete enjoyment while listening to it kind of blows my mind. He requested to hear it at Christmas while I was making dinner, so I pulled it up on my iPod and attached the speakers. He stood behind me, his gaze locked and and his body immobile while, I am convinced, he pictured every move that the Little Drummer Boy made in his journey to meet Jesus, both physically and emotionally. Kindred listened intensely, his face quite serious, and when it was over he broke the silence only to ask to hear the Rum-pum-pum-pum song again, please. Then it happened all over again. It felt like I was watching my own little boy take a journey that was far beyond the boundaries of our kitchen, and I tried to breathe the moment in and savor its magic.

This was my favorite present of all. Kindred gave it to Michael and I. He made it at school and his teachers wrapped it up and sent it home with him.

After the first or second round of presents, we had dinner: Vegetarian meatloaf, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, and stuffing. And I made cranberry sauce from scratch. (Tart enough to make you cry.)

Christmas night, we put the kids to bed and had what has been called our "Grown-Up Christmas." No figgy pudding, but lots of joy and spirit, and dessert. Good, good fun. The first party of sorts that we've had in our new house.

Amber and her friend spent the night and occupied the children in the morning while we prepared to get in the car and dash away to visit my family in western PA for Christmas #3.

And here are just some goofy poses by Elias.

Merriest of merry to you!

A Hopeful New Year

A happy new year wish to you from my excited, bundled, and sleepy family.