Gonna getcha

Horsing around in Dada's new office

Why we're not potty training quite yet

Today before naptime I had my little diaper-changing conveyor belt going. I opened Isaac's dirty diaper and was surprised with a stinkless but extremely loamy and voluminous poo. Lord knows how long it had been there.

Nearly incredulous, I said, as I usually do, "Isaac, you have to tell Mommy when you have a poop..."

He interrupted my usual spiel about how "it makes your bottom sick" and "we need to clean it up right away". Flat on his back in front of me and without missing a beat, he rolled his eyes a little and called out as if he was across the house, "MOMMY! I HAVE A POOP IN MY DIAPER!"

Oral fixation

Six days after Jacob cut his first tooth, he cut a second one, a matching lower front incisor. They make a very cute pair, but are still very small and a little tough to catch on e-film, as the copious slimy slobbers his precious mouth is creating to usher the teeth in also makes them blend into the background. As far as I can tell, we are done teething for awhile now. No more raised and angry-looking gums from anyone.

And I also learned tonight, while assisting him in brushing his teeth, that Isaac sprouted his final molars while no one was looking. Perhaps we should get that boy to the dentist sometime. I'm sure he'll just love that.

Instead of taking pictures of Jacob's new teeth, I shot a video of him engaged in a new and fun activity -- eating cheerios. Isaac and I learned today that chasing Cheerios around the high-chair tray keeps Jacob entertained long enough for Momma to shove some food down her own gullet. I zoom in and out to try to catch a glimpse of the new teeth, but his hand always seems to get in the way. Oh well.




Competing for Cutest O'Neal Boy of the Year was Isaac. Since he's talking almost nonstop in Jacob's video, I thought I'd turn around and give him the opportunity to express his opinions on camera. A quick intro: we are currently obsessed with singing that verse of "Wheels on the Bus" where the kids go up and down. As if you couldn't figure that out for yourself.

Back to school

Today was the first day of class for the university kiddos. They've been moving back to school all weekend, and Dada alongside them has worked hard to move in to a new office, paint the department's main lecture hall, and prep for his first class today. We took him to work Saturday and Sunday and had a lot of fun critiquing the young-ness and trampy looks of the new crop of freshmen on campus. It makes me so glad I have boys to dress when I see these 18-year-old chicks (who you would swear were 14 if they weren't on a college campus) running around in skimpy shorts and hiking up their tube tops. I mean, call me a prude, but what is so wrong with wearing a t-shirt and jeans?!?!

It makes me remember my first days at college. For me, the second day of classes ended with me crying in a heap in my dorm room, convinced that there was no stinking way I could do all this work set before me and have it be rubber-stamped with the big golden As I was used to from high school. I was a big nerd and AP-tested out of almost everything "freshman", and so loaded myself up my first semester with the maximum allowable number of credits, containing two or three intensive writing classes and 300-level German. My boyfriend at the time helped a lot. He brought me a nice bouquet of purple flowers and rubbed my back and told me everything would be okay, and that I was a sharp cookie and if I couldn't do it, no one could. Well, I was smart in at least one respect; that I kept that boy and made him my baby daddy. And, as he usually is, he was right. I could do the college thing, and actually I did it quite well.

The grade-school-aged kiddos have been back to school for a few days now, we think. Our litmus test is the appearance of the crossing guard in front of our house, as we live literally a block away from where Isaac and Jacob will likely go to elementary school. Lately, while Isaac and Dada watch their post-dinner movie, I have been taking Jacob for a walk in the stroller to help him attain his late nap. We occasionally pass by the elementary school, and every time we do it makes me want to throw up.

The school? Oh, it's nice enough. It's got a big playground, lots of green space, even a baseball diamond where little leaguers met this summer to do their bidness. It's a decent school in a decent neighborhood littered with parents from academia, and the internet tells me there are relatively few child predators that live nearby. I would be proud to send my kids there. If my kids can make it past my front door, around my body barring their way.

It's so cliche, but what makes my cookies travel upward is the thought of them in a scenario I can't control. When they go to school, people could say mean things to them. Their feelings will get hurt. They could possibly get physically hurt, and possibly on purpose. They could get scared, belittled, put down. And I would have no idea, unless they told me. Right now, truly our only school-like scenario is our weekly playgroup. Kids sometimes beat up a little on Isaac, shoving him around or taking his toys. Sometimes he shoves back (not that he should), sometimes he cries about the injustice, sometimes he just stands there and takes it all in. Most times he looks to me to intervene or tell him what he should do, and I do, and try to inform the offender that he is a turd, though in a pleasant and socially acceptable way. I know he's young, but I just can't imagine him yet on his own. I want to be there to stick up for him when he can't stick up for himself.

Isaac isn't going to preschool this year, in part because most of the 2-1/2-year-old preschools require their students to be potty-trained, in part because I am not ready to send him. Regardless of my state of readiness, he will be going to preschool next fall when he is 3, and tomorrow I will begin calling around to schedule tours for us. AnthonyCarlos go to a great preschool on Main St. that comes highly recommended by our friends; I'll be calling there. I'll also be calling the preschool at the church we go to (when we are brave and energetic enough to go to church). There's an Episcopalian church that has a Montessori-based preschool not far from here; they'll be hearing from me, too. And in every case, I know I'll be talking to their various sweetly-natured representatives, gushing about how they work on these art projects and have this and that field trip, when I'll have to swallow a huge lump, one that contains in it every time the babysitter has been here and Isaac has insisted on ditching her to find Mama, as well as every time I left him behind at day care in Seattle and he would press his face and hands against the window and wonder aloud in baby-ese where I was going.

How do you do this again?

(to be repeated internally: can't homeschool! insanity imminent! can't homeschool! insanity imminent!)

In search of The Happy

In further demonstration of his future as an actor, Isaac is obsessed with people's emotional states in an almost objective and calculating way. He is particularly observant when we're watching TV together to see if characters are sad. He could care less if they are happy, which might at first seem mildly disturbing, but I like to think it's because "sad" isn't the norm in his life, and it's more interesting as the outlier. Anyway, as an example, in Toy Story 2, what does Isaac remember most? That one scene where Cowgirl Jessie was sad. The why (that her little girl grew up without her -- oh, the sobs if I don't stop thinking about it) is completely unimportant. He has a Cowgirl Jessie doll and every now and then when playing with her, she'll stop whatever she's doing and slouch over while Isaac makes an appropriately solemn face to announce that "She's sad."

Isaac is so fascinated with the state of Sad that he practices emoting it himself. For no apparent reason at all, sometimes he'll stop whatever he's doing, slouch over in a deliberate and exaggerated way, and sigh. "I so sad," he'll say. "Why are you sad, buddy?" someone will inquire. Sometimes he'll tell you that he's sad in the manner of a character from a movie -- "I Nemo's Daddy. I can't find Nemo anywhere. I so sad." -- or other times you get "I don't know." He never, ever "practices" being happy. Again, it's not like he needs practice at that, since he is spontaneously happy or giggling like 90% of the time.

Lately, though, he's had a couple of truly tragic moments where it was clear that he was hurting and confused inside, where perhaps his play-acting at "sad" came in handy to express himself. Friday morning, Daddy was exiting the bathroom with a load of dirty clothes and Isaac, always underfoot, ran in front of Daddy's legs. Daddy didn't see Isaac, and accidentally pushed him down. Isaac skinned his knee a bit on the wood floor and immediately requested attention, but Daddy had his hands full and had already headed in a different direction to dump off the laundry. This was something that truly hit Isaac to the core -- first that his dearest love Daddy pushed him to the ground (though it was a complete accident), and then that Daddy could run off without any owie-kissing at all. Isaac just started bawling, much more so than would be expected for a simple knee-scrape. He turned to me: "Mommy, kiss my owie! Make it better!" I complied, but that wasn't enough, he cried on. He turned to me again, tears streaming, pleading, "Mommy, get my happy back?"

The same thing happened when AnthonyCarlos came to our house for a playdate Friday afternoon. Anthony wanted to play with Isaac's Molly train, but Isaac was convinced it was his turn. Isaac was not content to play with another member of his extensive train collection. You could see in his eyes that he wanted to take the train away, but that he recognized the ultimate authority of the almost-5-year-old Anthony. This internal conflict broke our poor young man, and he again began to fuss uncontrollably. After a few minutes of unsuccessful explaining that we share-our-toys-like-AnthonyCarlos-share-theirs, an again-tearful Isaac turned to me and begged, "Mommy, please get my happy back?"

Apparently his Happy can be returned with a little intensive snuggle session that includes some silly neck kissing, so all is not lost, young man. But still, how genuinely "sad" is that? Poor guy.

A love/hate relationship with food

Here at the O'Neal household, we don't openly encourage eating disorders. Both Dada and I are relatively slender people, but we like our food. My friend Sara often tells me that she likes me because I'm a girl who's not afraid to put away a tall stack of pancakes. We are also doing better about eating a variety of things in front of the boys, like more fruits and vegetables, since I grew up and started eating green things. My mom would be so proud that I eat salad now.

Lately, however, we have had some struggles with the boys in the eating department. It is solely my duty in the house to be the Keeper of the Boy-Meals, so when they start slacking on their end, I start stressing.

We started Jacob on solids at 5 months. We did rice cereal for about 4 days, and it was all going so well that I tried bananas. He liked those, so three days later I tried peaches. Jacob seemed to be souring on the peaches after the first day, so I tried sweet potatoes, which he didn't like at all. Then carrots, pears, and applesauce in rapid succession, each of which he seemed interested in the first time, but then never again. Finally it got to the point where Jacob wouldn't even eat the bananas that started it all; he would sit in his chair with his mouth closed and scream as I would repeatedly poke his lips with the spoon. And atop all this, he was developing the horrendous contact rash on his cheeks that plagued his older brother for the entire timehe was spoon-fed.

So I stopped feeding him solids for a week. He's kind of old, but not that old, and I figured we weren't going to get anywhere with me trying to give him a panic disorder every time his high chair tray clicked in place. I wasn't sure what to do, when Meemaw Ross suggested we forget this whole fruit/veggie thing and just go back to cereal for awhile. "Remember when you started Isaac on solids? You guys were so cautious that I think you fed him nothing but rice cereal for a month."

This is his fifth day on just oatmeal, and things are improving by leaps and bounds every day. The first day, he was excited to get back in the chair and gnaw on the spoon containing that mushy goo with the overarching taste of boobie juice. Every day thereafter, he's put down two, sometimes three bowls (~4 or 5 oz) of oatmeal at one sitting. Back to basics was apparently the key.

But I also have my mommy tricks up my sleeve. He still purses his lips shut and won't let me shove a spoon through, so I move the spoon over to his hand and he quickly grabs it and shoves it in his mouth. Already we see a streak of "I do it myself" in this one. He gets so wrapped up in chewing on the spoon that, if I get another, I can dole out some fresh stuff and draw his attention away from the empty spoon with a full one -- that way he never frets about me taking His Spoon away. I am particularly proudest of his newly soft and silky cheek skin, my mommy coup de grace. I got him to help me with that. About halfway through his meal, when he gets tired of playing the spoon-switcheroo, I give him a warm, wet washcloth to chew on, and he mops his face clean for me.

But while Jacob is learning to love eating, Isaac is increasingly resentful of it. He vastly prefers to drink warm milk instead of eating -- he probably drinks upwards of 5 or 6 cups a day, and would drink more if I didn't issue some sort of threats about eating real food instead. Here is a complete list of things I know Isaac will eat at least one bite of:

*yogurt
*graham crackers
*pancakes and/or waffles
*buttered bread
*canned green beans
*noodles from Progresso chicken noodle soup (but not chicken)
*McDonald's cheeseburgers (but not Wendy's, and not homemade)
*hot dogs, buns separately
*Spaghettios with meatballs
*scrambled eggs
*pretzels
*Goldfish
*pickles
*grapes
*strawberries
*apples
*oranges and clementines, but not orange juice
*teeth rotting, sugar-laden snacks of any kind

No more pasta, no more mac-n-cheese. We've tried peanut butter, but he screams and forcibly scrapes it from his mouth should it but touch his tongue. No protein that is not full of mystery meat and preservatives or dairy-derived. He also won't eat cheese. Or pizza. Or anything that is remotely new to his palate. Each night, I fix two dinners -- one for Dada and I, and one for the increasingly picky toddler. I try to put a little of what we are having on his plate, and he usually screams at me to get it off, lest it taint his precious strawberries with its New Food cooties.

I am getting increasingly closer to my wit's end with him. It seems like he shuns another standby almost daily now -- yesterday he barely picked at his grilled cheese sandwich, insisting that I should remove the "yellow water" that lay betwixt his sliced of bread. He eats his daily vitamin, but I can't help thinking that his near-complete lack of lean meat and veggies is seriously unhealthy, though his 2-year blood test showed that he was not anemic. To hammer the nail in his anorexic coffin, his babysitter came over on Friday after a two-week absence and declared, "He looks skinny!" Thanks, ho-bag.

What should I do? Does anybody have any suggestions about how to present things to him that might coerce him into eating, or ideas for food that he might not find repulsive? I know toddlers are notoriously picky eaters, but to me, this seems a little extreme.

I've changed

Found the link to one of those Meijers-Briggs dodads on Erin's blog. I used to be an Extroverted NFP, but perhaps staying home has changed that a bit? Anyway, it's all, super-scarily true. I especially like how it suggests I should be a writer.

You Are An INFP

The Idealist You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world. Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships. It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close. But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop. You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist.

What's Your Personality Type?

Just stay away from my Girls with that thing

There is something so satisfying and calming about parenting a second baby. When Jacob was refusing his food and not sleeping and shooting his awful Fuss-Ray in all directions, what was my first thought? Not cancer or food allergies or Imminent Baby Death Syndrome like I would have suggested when Isaac was doing the same. No sir. This time, I knew Jakey was teething. That was two weeks ago.

This week, his lower front gums erupted in gigantic, prominent mounds where his incisors should be. Last night was the worst night yet, with him waking up at least once an hour from 9 until 1. But this afternoon, as we awoke from a nap together, a happy, chirpy Jacob took hold of my finger and guided it into his mouth to chew on it with a wee, ridged edge that upon examination turned out to be his brand new lower right incisor.

My darling 6-month-old baby cut his first tooth. Unfortunately, its neighbor still looks to be arriving any second now, so I'm not getting my hopes up for a sleep improvement just yet. But milestones, people! How they tick on.

Isaac rides the truck at Wal-Mart

Here it is, your moment of zen.




PS -- Everything has to have a real-person name now, and if it doesn't, I am expected to make one up. I've resorted to an alliterative naming strategy to make things easier on myself, hence "Travis the Truck." It's a monumental task. The boy has lots of little figurines. I ran out of C names on all his cows, so the family Jeepster is George the Green Car.

Jacob at 6 months

Saturday was Jacob's half-birthday. How does that happen? Just yesterday, I swear, he was a gigantic bundle of squooshy sleep. Oh wait. I guess that would still describe him.



He is exactly the same as his brother before him in most aspects, sleeping included. A most excellent napper, Jacob usually takes a catnap in the morning, a huge nap while Isaac sleeps, and then another catnap at night. He does not sleep through the night, waking up about every three or four hours to eat or, more realistically, nibble before crashing again.

It's funny at this point to revisit the blog from when Isaac was his age, wherein I griped and moaned continually about how Isaac woke at 1 and then at 4 before waking for good at 6:30 or the like. What a whiner I was. I know lots of people considering a second child worry about how they will readjust to the lack of sleep. In that way I am oddly grateful to my darling Isaac, who never let me adjust to a lifestyle that contained sleep in anything other than metered 3- and 4-hour doses.

They also both enjoy(ed) falling asleep in their respective baby-wearing devices, Isaac in his Bjorn, and Jacob in the Bjorn and now the Hotsling. We just figured out the hip-carry position today -- hooray for us! -- and I took this picture of Mr. Soul-Piercing Blue Eyes about five minutes before he collapsed for a nap against my bosoms. You can almost see the sleep starting to eat at him.


When I was pregnant with Jacob I had these strange cravings for another blond baby. Isaac's hair is so incomparably beautiful, but my secret enjoyment in looking and touching is because it serves as a shocking reminder that my semi-mutt-ified German genes can win the war against those pernicious drunken Irish ones. When Jacob was born with blackish brown hair (and in larger amounts than Isaac possessed at his first birthday), I was pleased that he looked like my husband. But as the months tick on, Jacob's hair seems to lighten daily, and last month while nursing him I had a seriously uncomfortable attack of deja vu as I looked over and swore that Baby Isaac II lay in my arms. To say I am relishing this turn of events is an understatement.

While the jury still seems to be out on what Jacob's final hair color will be -- and I hesitate to even blog this because it will surely invoke the Bloggy Curse -- it seems like the blue eyes are here to stay. Isaac's were already on their way to the bluey-greeny-hazel given him by his Mommy and his Pawpaw by this time. Jacob's eyes are so unnaturally blue they almost defy description without a crayon box nearby. We do have blue eyes in the family. My grandpa on my mom's side has the same steel blue eyes as my brother. But so far, color-wise, Dada says his grandpa on his dad's side is the best match, as the man had the same solid, sorching deep blue eyes Jacob does. The drunken Irish genes, they are occasionally useful.

Jacob is currently in a horrible mood, thanks to his incoming teeth and frustration at his inability to crawl. In the past week he has taught himself to army-crawl for one body length to get to something, and Meemaw and Pawpaw witnessed with me how he can also scootch himself along with his arms with his butt planted on the ground. But his slapdash movement repertoire, while vast and comical, does not always get him to where he wants to go. Thus far he's been such a happy baby that it's rather alarming and stressful to his poor mother to hear him wailing so.

The one thing that always cheers him up, without fail, is Big Brother. Jacob's favorite thing in the world is to "wrestle" on our bed with Isaac. This is where Jacob, Isaac, and I pile on the bed together and crawl around or play peekaboo or tickle each other or just lay together. We seem to do this a lot lately, and it's gotten to where, if I lay Jacob down on the bed, he'll get ferociously excited and beam an open-mouthed smile and pump his arms and legs wildly. If Big Brother touches him, or gets close to him, Jacob will erupt in huge, real giggles. They are getting along together rather well lately, and, with Jacob's professionalism in the sitting-up arena, that has led me to try a long-anticipated mode of transportation to the park. Because really, why else would you buy this two-seater wagon unless you were saving that extra seat for a second child?

Isaac, Toddler Thespian

One of Isaac's most requested reads is "It's Potty Time", a book about a little dude learning to use the potty. Apparently in past lives, the little dude was petrified by the sound of toilets flushing -- perhaps he lived in the sewer? -- and, anticipating that others may feel the same, the book comes replete with a little button you push to hear the sound of a long, luxurious flush (finished with giggles!), just like what you would hear if you were also a big boy and just pooped on the potty. Fear of the flush was never a problem for Isaac, and I thought his latest obsession with this book would surely signal that we were knocking on the door of potty learning. It is not in the least bit so, but oh well. We are not in a terrible hurry.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this book for Isaac is that the little dude, much like Isaac, has a kitty. The book opens with the secretly coercive assertion that "Everybody uses the potty," and, to further hammer the point home, the first page shows the kitty sitting on his litter box, thus using kitty potty.

Isaac has been taught about our kitty and how he has a special potty that lives in the basement, so this page resonates with our young scholar. Long, long ago (in the years B.C., Before Children), for reasons completely unknown, Dada dubbed Cat-Brother's large litter enclosure "The Poop Condo". Because I thought "condo" wouldn't make much sense to Isaac, I recently changed it to "The Poop Box". It looks like a box, and kitty poops in there. No touching!

Now I will digress a little, but bear with me. Over the past month, Isaac's empathy and desire to role-play has matured visibly. He likes to put himself in the shoes of others to figure out, for example, why that baby is crying ("she's teething, like Pookie on the Heroes. The pediatrician come and help her."). He also takes his role-playing quite seriously. He likes to take his Toy Story guys and show them their likenesses on the covers of the Toy Story DVDs, upon seeing which he will say in the guise of the character, "THAT'S ME!"

One of his most frequent roles is that of Kitty Isaac. At least ten times a day he will drop down on all fours and crawl around the house, meowing and encouraging us to pet his head or to crawl around and meow with him. He especially likes to do this in public places with terribly filthy floors, this is how committed he is to his craft.

We didn't realize how in-depth of a character study he had done on his Kitty until this morning. He began a seemingly typical portrayal of Kitty Isaac, with meowing and a scratch on the head from Mommy and Dada. But then Kitty Isaac began pacing (still on all fours) around in circles...

Kitty Isaac: Where's my poop box?
Mommy: What are you looking for, Kitty?
Kitty Isaac: Poop box. I can't find it.
Mommy: Your 'food box'? (to Dada) Is that what he said?
Dada: I don't know. What do you need kitty?
Kitty Isaac: Poop box! I need my poop box!
Mommy: Oh my God, he is saying "poop box." Because he's a kitty.

And with that, Mommy and Dada simultaneously shot coffee out their noses. The Toddler Thespian, he takes his craft seriously. Now if only we could get him to poop in his poop box...

The state of the state

Dada got back into town first thing Tuesday morning, and we have been helping him recover from his jet lag, which I know from experience is unexpectedly heinous when you jump 3 time zones. Worse yet, we hardly get any time to enjoy him before his mistress, work, starts to make demands on him. School starts in a little more than a week and he's teaching the class his department recruited him for. He is excited about it, but he's never taught it before and teaching is always a big, time-consuming, and sometimes annoying responsibility.

I, however, am totally stoked about the semester starting because I will be stealing Dada's employee benefits to take a kickboxing class once a week with his grad students. Heeee-yah!

Since Dada's been home, we have almost eradicated nighttime TV. Instead of watching movies together, Dada has rekindled our toddler's love of Thomas. Isaac and Dada build ginormous train configurations and then hook all the trains end-to-end and Isaac makes a career of moving them slooooowly around the track so they don't topple over. The horrible wailing when they inevitably do can be heard for miles.

To celebrate the new action our Thomas collection is getting, we have unofficially declared this weekend to be Spoil Isaac to Pieces Weekend here at the O'Neal estates. You thought he had it good when Meemaw and Pawpaw were here, but nothing compares to what we gots going on here. Tonight we spent at the toy store procuring a castle bridge and, at long last, Emily. The spoiling tour de force, however, happens tomorrow night when we get to see, as Dada explained it to the boy, our homeboys Greg, Anthony, Murray, and Jeff "at their house". Fo' real. It's times like these I really wish I had a camera phone.

Poor Jacob is teething, and, to me, it seems so obvious and awful. He spends the entire day with something between his gums. He sleeps erratically, which is no fun at all, and wants to nurse all the time. At first, I was quite concerned because suddenly (last Friday) he was not cool with eating solids anymore. I thought we'd stop for a few days and try again, but when I did, even with his "favorite" (based on my truly extensive research), bananas, he screamed the whole time. My guess is that the spoon is irritating to his already painful gums, so we are taking a two-week hiatus from the solids until his teething episode settles down a bit. No teeth in sight at all, mind you, so all my surmisings may be complete hogwash, but it does sort of make sense when you look at his enormous and bulging lower gums.

Then peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars

Remember Isaac's tendency to beat up on kiddos littler than he, including Ella and blog-friend Ben? About two or hree months after it first started, it has stopped completely. We've hung out with Ella a bunch in the last few days, and not once has he even hinted that he thought of pushing her. This morning we had a playdate with our friends Nathaniel and Patrick (where Patrick is a few days older than Ella), and Isaac was an exemplary young man, even going so far as to share toys with Patrick.

Additionally, he is suddenly excellent, not exactly at sharing, but at something I will refer to as sharing on command. Being 2, he of course thinks everything is his and will take toys away from other kids, but if I remind him, "No, so-and-so was playing with that. Please give it back and you can take your turn with it when they are done," he will do just that. Even with his baby brother.

This newfound wonderfulness is completely coincident with his mommy slapping. You didn't think this would be without a catch, did you? At least my toddler is no longer a violent hellion towards others. Just towards me. But the fact that he gave up his weirdo disturbing pushing behavior gives me hope for a peaceful, non-aggressive tomorrow.

We get by with a little help from our friends

Though we've only been here for a year, we've met some really awesome people and made fast friends with other young professors' families. Most of these professors have wives who stay home or work part-time, and their extended families, like ours, live far away. Everyone is in pretty much the same situation, and I think that encourages us to look out for each other. When I mentioned at playgroup or in passing when my mommy-buds would call to chat that Dada is out of town, we would be flooded with invitations to see movies together or go to the pool or come over for playdates or you name it. While Dada is gone, our friends have erected a sturdy little support system to help me pass the time as painlessly as possible with my fussy bruisers. We are truly lucky to know these people. They are really just wonderful, and make life with crazy kiddos even more fun than it already is.

Meemaw and Pawpaw scooted out of town last night, so today we were on our own for the first of three more days until Dada gets home. When we mentioned as such to Ella's mom and dad yesterday at the pool, they insisted on feeding us tonight at their place. We were like totally there.

Isaac and Ella pushed each other on Ella's Nemo ride-on while Jacob showed off his sitting-up skillz. After a scrumptious dinner of grilled (not microwaved!) hot dogs, fruit, chips and salsa, and cupcakes, we all walked to a nearby park together. I gave Ella's daddy my camera so I could come home with some pictures, and he took his picture-taking duties very seriously.

The kids and the mommies:


Isaac and Ella demonstrate proper sliding technique:



Now everybody on the seesaw!


Thanks again, Ella's mommy and daddy! We had a great time. Such a great time, in fact, that my resident night owl Isaac, whom I usually have to nail to his bed at 9:30 to get him to sleep, crawled into bed himself at 8:45, pulling the covers up and repeating over and over, "I sleepy. Time for bed." I say 'repeating' because this never ever happens and I thought he was joking -- but he wasn't! If only his brother would have done the same.

Blond boys were on sale at the grocery store

Why else would I get two? What am I, crazy?

Jacob sits: now on video!

I always think about shooting a video of Jacob sitting up at the end of the day when he's completely wiped from his all-day baby workout. He gets a little sluggish then maneuvering himself to sit up. This is in contrast to his mad skillz throughout the day, when all one need do is put him on his tummy and sha-zaam! he's already bolt upright and reaching for big brother's toys, or the rail of the crib.

Three days after he first figured out this whole sitting-by-himself business, he is amazingly stable when upright, but not perfectly so. He has, in the words of his brother, "bonked his head" so many times ... well, I won't elaborate much further so you don't sic CPS on me, but let's just say that I am no longer allowed to leave his side for probably the next two weeks while he builds up his abs, lest he careen too far backwards or to the side and concuss himself. Just when I was enjoying that I could leave him alone on the floor in a room for a second while I, say, went pee...

He already a big red "bonk" on his right temple there -- that was not from sitting up, but from wrestling with Mommy during a diaper change at the pool, wherein she just barely saved him from rolling his precious lard butt off a lounge chair and onto the concrete below.

But I digress -- the video! I shot this after bathtime tonight, so not only do you get to see Jacob's new trick, but you also get your squooshy-rolled baby fix.

Wednesday: what is a simple bite on the buttocks among friends?

Today, in continuing with our let's-run-the-grandparents-ragged theme, we went to the zoo!








Our little Wilmington zoo is actually quite low-key. It is not one of these "Oh lordy, we dropped $20 a piece to get through the door, so if we don't make a whole day out of it my wallet will scream in protest" kinds of zoos. Really, it is the perfect toddler zoo. Little kiddos, like mine, are free, and big people are $5 each. And the whole zoo can be taken in at a seriously leisurely pace in about 45 minutes. And the refreshment stand serves only hot dogs and ice cream. And there are so many little monkeys, they almost give them away at the door. Jacob even liked the monkeys and watched them skitter around the ceiling of their monkey cells. My darling Isaac? He liked the snakes and the burrowing owl. There's no accounting for taste in this household.

In a spark of mommy-creativity, we went wild with all things "zoo" for the rest of the day. At the zoo gift shop, they had a large pit of little zoo critters, and Isaac helped me stuff a cylinder full of animals we knew from Polar Bear, Polar Bear to take home with us. This evening after dinner, we watched Madagascar. Then to round out the day, Isaac and I read Polar Bear, Polar Bear together at bedtime and talked about which animals we had seen in person.

Interspersed amongst all this niceness and relative good-boy-ism was dinner. The 'rents and I got a wild craving for some pasta and, in a moment of sheer stupidity, I suggested we brave the experience of dining outside the home with two teeny bruisers for the third time this week. Now, I was a little motivated to try an Italian restaurant on our Main Street, mainly because Dada and I don't date anymore, and so I don't get the chance to eat out at the many varied and unique restaurants our downtown has to offer.

This was pretty dumb for a number of reasons. First, to get to this restaurant, we had to pass by the dinky green space with the brick circle that Isaac loves to run around. Second, Isaac can't sit in his chair for the length of dinner even while we are at home. Third, I keep forgetting that, as much as I might try to serve it to him, Isaac is just not fond of pasta anymore, and is rather fond of pitching a fit and starving himself in lieu of trying to even touch it with a fork. Looking back, we probably would have been better off cooking. But then you don't have four boxes of pasta leftovers in your fridge, now do you?

To start with, Isaac and I had to get some more change for the parking meters from our waitress and head back to the car, an excellent task since I saw that sitting still was already a challenge for him. But Isaac insisted that he would not have his hand held as we walked along the sidewalk next to this crazy-busy street, nosiree. I, knowing better, would not have it, so I picked him up to carry him as he kicked and screamed in his fury of immobility. Once he was in my arms, he stopped his fussing and writhing and looked at me with stillness and complete clarity.

Then he cocked back his arm and smacked me open-handed across the face.

He's tried to smack me, or, more often, smack the air in my general direction, before. He gets a time-out for this. He's never really hit me. When he did tonight, I was rather proud of how I acted. I grabbed and held his arm and sternly said, "Excuse me? What did you just do?!?!?" Isaac looked away and, knowingly, said, "I don't know." "You just hit me in the face. That hurt me. You need to say you're sorry to mommy." "Mommy, I sorry." "Okay, then." And we were okay. Even when we got back to the restaurant, he was cool. He ate some bread. He drank some root beer. He sat still as they fetched our food at lightning speeds.

And then, God forbid it, but they set a plate of pasta down in front of him. Those awful people. He tried wriggling out of his chair. I told him he was to sit there and eat while the rest of us ate. He smacked me in the face again. I turned his chair away and gave him a time-out. I turned him back towards his food. He tried to escape again. I told him that wasn't an option. He smacked me in the face again. I took him in the bathroom and gave him a stern talking to, making him repeat with me "We don't hit." I sat him back in his chair. He tried climbing down from it. I sat him back up, and he smacked me in the face.

At that point I did what any parent who finds herself out of options and going completely bat-poo insane would do; I took him in the bathroom and spanked his precious and clothed hiney twice. It wasn't hard at all, but enough to shock the crap out of him. You know, because that's how to effectively teach my kids that hitting is wrong.

Did it work? Not really. By the time we'd stooped so low, I'd realized that this was just a bad idea altogether, that Isaac wasn't going to sit, that he wasn't going to eat his dinner. I sat him on my lap and we rifled through my purse. When that got old, I pulled out my Secret Super Emergency Stash of jellybeans. He sat perfectly still in his chair and ate them, one by one, as Meemaw and Pawpaw finished their dinners, and I took my turn holding Jacob as I fought back tears of utter frustration, guilt, and helplessness. My kid hit me, and I couldn't convince him that it was wrong. My kid ate root beer, some french bread, and a small box of jellybeans for dinner. My kid is a holy terror whom I can't take anywhere. Worst of all, I spanked my kid, which I preach to Dada all the time is a horrible way to discipline our child. Poor Meemaw and Pawpaw, whose memories are still fresh from when they had a little girl his age a quarter of a century ago, are very understanding, but it is still so embarrassing. He'll grow out of it, right? Right?

Tagged

Jane tagged me. Because I am not wanting to write that which should be written, I'll go with this sensory-oriented meme instead.

1. I am... Claire, Mommy. Sometimes "Kitty" or "Ho-bag". Habitually forgetful.
2. I want... lots and lots of blissful, uninterrupted sleep.
3. I wish... Isaac would use his listening ears more often.
4. I hate... waiting, sometimes even for my kiddos to grow up.
5. I miss... my husband. A lot. Come back home soon, hon.
6. I hear... my dishwasher. My mom in the kitchen, mopping the floor (bless her). I do not hear my boys, for they are sound asleep.
7. I wonder... if I am messing up my kids. If I am doing it right.
8. I regret... every time I've lost my temper with Isaac.
9. I am not... a housekeeper. Of any kind.
10. I dance... to inspire Isaac to dance with me. He used to.
11. I sing... all the time. Really loudly. Now Isaac joins in.
12. I cry... every time I watch "A Baby Story".
13. I am not always... the mommy I want to be.
14. I make... some tasty homemade bread.
15. I confuse... bedtime with blog-time.
16. I need... to be a better listener myself.
17. I should... go to bed. Or fold some laundry. But here I am.
18. I start... everything with boundless energy.
19. I finish... everything halfway. That rinsed out coke can? It can walk itself to the recycling bin, right?

I'll tag Jen and Erin, if they feel like it.

To make Meemaw cry

Jacob figured out how to sit up by himself for the first time tonight.





He was so cute, so obviously proud of himself and his new trick. He'd get upright and kind of look around with this big grin on his face, like "Heeeeeyyyyyy, look at this! This is so cool. I can see lots more of big brother's toys from way up here!" And poor Meemaw was a total basketcase, that she got to witness this important milestone of his. We'll try to get a video tomorrow.

Pawpaw loves him some Jake

Tuesday: our first touristy thing!

It was the same story when we lived in Seattle. We never did the quintessential Seattle touristy things -- like Pike Place Market or the Space Needle -- until people came to visit. We always thought they were too dorky or we were too preoccupied with school.

Here it's even worse. Not only do we have these two bruisers who are not so easy to take just anywhere, but we also don't have time to research what all there is to do in our own back-a-yard. Lucky for us, Meemaw did a little 'searching before she came out, and found Longwood Gardens. Basically, Longwood Gardens is a gigantic collection of plants and, more importantly, fountains, started by a DuPont family member, because we are in the Delaware area and everything is DuPont this and DuPont that.

In general, Longwood Gardens is a very peaceful and photogenic place. This was from my very own camera, not a postcard.



But I must say my first thought when Meemaw brought up visiting there was, "Won't that be a little, um, boring?" My second thought was, "What, they have fountains?!?!? Isaac will love it!" Now, having been there, I can honestly say that, while it is truly a beautiful place, I can see that there is a short age-defined window of enjoyment should you wish to visit the gardens, especially if you are a boy. If you are a toddler, you are in fountain heaven. If you are between the ages of four and seventeen, your likely reaction to the place might be "Yay. More trees. Can we please just visit the potato chip factory down the road instead?" Anytime after seventeen, the place is again heaven to you because you would only come there with your lady, and for your troubles she would totally reward you with some tail later.

The place is so picturesque that I could photoblog it forever, but here are the highlights. This was basically the theme of the day, that of Isaac running full-speed in whatever direction he wished to go:





...in contrast to the theme of my life, that of following Isaac around with Jake perched on a hip:





And then I'll just smoosh the rest together. It's all beautiful, and goes like -- Let's go play in this fountain! Look at those big trees and pretty flowers! Get in your dang stroller, kiddo, it's too far to walk!

Monday: yes, we were just there, but so what?

Pawpaw had never been to our local orchard before. Of course we must take him, and snag some more of their sinful juicy peaches to take home. We were a bit scared that the forecast called for rain, but though our feet got a little wet from walking in the grass, we saw none of it and had a great time.

We found some fish food and Meemaw quickly dispensed with the first round of quarters to fatten the already obese koi:





We showed Pawpaw our Barnyard Buddies, played in the sandbox, and climbed all over the train where Mommy got a little snap-happy:









Mommies and grandparents agree: the orchard is a great place for toddlers. And babies.



After naptime, Meemaw and Pawpaw watched the babies for an hour and a half so I could go for my annual checkup. This doctor, who I do like, is a little weird. She asked me the typical questions: "Do you smoke?" (no) "Do you drink?" (a very little). When she got to "Do you exercise?" I joked with her, "You mean like carrying a 20-pound baby all over the house and chasing my toddler at the park?" In complete seriousness, she looked at me over her glasses and said, "That doesn't count. You need to take time to exercise for yourself." You know, with all that time I have floating around, that time I spend watching QVC and eating bonbons and crocheting doilies. I mean, if the lady would just look at my forearms. Dude, they are totally ripped!

As she's examining my Jacob-feeders, she notices aloud that the blood vessels surrounding them are engorged. She then launches into this great story about a mare at her farm that just had a baby colt, and boy are the veins on HER udder enlarged! You know, because I as a nursing mother so deeply desire to be compared to a farm animal by a relative stranger. Later as we talked about babies I inquired as to whether she, who was clearly pushing 50, had any children. She didn't, she said, and never got around to making the time to have them because of her career. Poor girl, I thought, but that does explain a few things for me.

That night we treated Isaac to his new favorite toy -- the sprinkler! Toddler entertainment that simultaneously does some yard work for Dada!


Pawpaw and I ran around town doing some errands, and they also let me drive to Starbucks by myself to pick up some beverages. I'm telling you, I'm tempted to let these highly accomplished babysitters just up and move into my basement. They would be so much cooler than those itinerant spiders living down there now.

Sunday: showing Meemaw and Pawpaw the ropes

Meemaw and Pawpaw's first days here were spent touring our frequent haunts -- places we love to go because we know Isaac will have a fabulous time and will run all the energy out of his precious little legs. On Sunday, we went to the mall to donate all our spare change to the fountains. Annoying how, at most malls, some semblance of a sign decorates the fountain(s) suggesting that change thrown in will be donated to this or that charity. Our mall completely dispenses with any such reassurance. For all we know, our change goes towards the Buy a Cup of Starbucks for the Janitor fund. But Isaac sure does love to chuck the change, so we limit ourselves to throwing in only pennies. Until they run out, and then he can have nickels. And then maybe dimes. But no quarters! Except on days that end in 'y'.

No pictures from the mall. We were too busy trying to keep Isaac from falling in fountains or from getting plowed down by people as he ran around benches in circles or from escaping my powerful Mommy grip as we waited in line at the food court. A total body workout, the Isaac-corraling is.

Later that afternoon we chilled around the house, playing with Isaac's new JoJo figures (because Meemaw can't keep her wallet closed at the toy store). And Pawpaw cleaned out my car. And put some of our tree limbs in the trash. And replaced the lightbulbs in my front porch light. And taught Jacob how to drive.



Here's Meemaw helping me watch the boys outside:









Jacob exercises for his new favorite guy:



Isaac creates a masterpiece with his new bathtime "stickers" from Meemaw:

Saturday: Meemaw and Pawpaw are here!

I will do my best to post a day-to-day recap of Meemaw and Pawpaw's visit for all the interested parties, though I apologize if I may lag a bit -- we have been biz-zay and it will take the entirety of my Venti black iced tea to get me through all the pictures I need to post from the last four days.

Anywho, it all started on Saturday. Meemaw and Pawpaw's day began even earlier than ours -- they couldn't sleep for their excitement and began the drive from Indiana at 5 a.m. Despite their early start, we here in Delaware had few hours to kill until their arrival. The local orchard does U-Pick blackberries and raspberries on Saturdays for now, so I took the boys and we picked us a whole heap of juicy-fresh berries. They should have weighed Isaac before we went in:




I should have guessed that, for my picky eater, berries are tasty at the orchard, but less so at home. I think it's the appeal of getting to throw them on the ground when he's done, or rather, when he's taken one bite and another berry tempts his palate.

Meemaw and Pawpaw arrived at around 4 that afternoon, and after a long and tiresome drive were greeted at the door by a shrieking, vibrating Isaac who was so excited to see them that he could only speak in tongues for fifteen minutes. I was a little worried about how Jacob would take to them. I just started letting the babysitter hold him this past week and, according to him, she will definitely take some getting used to. I figured Jacob would be similarly fussy and intolerant of being held by Meemaw and Pawpaw, but that just is not so. He is all smiles and giggles and gooing for them, and even reaches to be held by them when they turn his way. For Meemaw and Pawpaw, then, I think the reception alone here at Casa de O'Neal was worth the drive.

This was the first time Meemaw and Pawpaw have seen our "new house," so we gave them the grand tour of the grounds, including Isaac's newly discovered "forest" under the dogwood tree in the back-a-yard.





And, after Pawpaw treated us to Applebees, we took them straight to our park.





Then it was home to play with the new bath toys and to read the new bedtime stories Meemaw brought, and all too soon our first day was over. Ah, but a whole week of days remained...

Eating applesauce

So far, our junior gourmand enjoys bananas, peaches, pears, and applesauce. He is not a fan of squash. Can't wait to try peas!