The end of an era, one full of sexy sexy chest hair

We were just tipped off on this one by Susie...

No, ladies, I'm not talking about Tom Selleck. I'm talking about this mommy's favorite Wiggle, Greg. The group formally announced today that Greg is retiring from the Wiggles and will be replaced by his understudy, Professor Singalottasonga. Apparently Greg suffers from orthostatic intolerance, where one's body does not react kindly to being in an upright position. Poor guy -- you can imagine years and years spent in a doctor's office trying to convince somebody that he wasn't making his symptoms up. And clearly, a full-time job as the Richard Simmons of the toddler set would not be a good thing for someone with such a condition.

We'll miss you, Greg. I'm so glad we got to see the original Wiggles line-up in concert this summer, with that dashing yellow-shirted dude singing his heart out to my fellas. I especially will keep his silver-throated voice and his Elvis shirts alive in my mommy daydreams.

Three steps towards the door

When you focus most of your energy on 1st) keeping two very young and handsome boys and alive and 2nd) keeping your house just clean enough that CPS won't take said boys away, it's easy to live only in the here and now and think little of the future. Sure, we hear that AnthonyCarlos go to preschool, but that doesn't mean a school-going disease could actually infect my little ones in my lifetime. They just stay in midget form eternally. That's what I read on the release form at the hospital, right?

Turns out I was drugged then, and Dada and I have since decided it would be a good thing for Isaac to go to preschool next year (inserting big Mama-Sniff here). Tuesday I took my precious Elder Blondie, with his fatty blondie brother in tow, to visit one that comes highly recommended from the locals. This preschool has several great things going for it. The three-year-old program meets only twice a week in the mornings, which would be ideal for us -- not too much school, but not too little, and a niiiiiiice little break for the Mommy (and her Jakey). It is very close to Dada's work, which means that we could likely split pick-up duties. Isaac would die to see more of his beloved Dada during the day. Also, AnthonyCarlos go there, and Carlos may even be in Isaac's class next year, which would certainly be cute. And lastly, they don't require their kids, even the 3-year-olds, to be potty trained. Not that we are ditching that process entirely for now because Mommy is tired of fighting Mister-I-Will-Pee-In-My-Dipe-So-Help-Me-God, no, no way! Never!

We had an appointment with a school director first thing in the morning, and, as is our way, we arrived 10 minutes late. Currently, it boggles my mind how moms actually make this "school" thing work, getting your kiddos breakfasted, dressed, and to a location on time most days of the week. Perhaps we will be more advanced at this sort of skill in a year's time. But I digress -- the school representative was ready to go, and seemed to care much more about the insane cuteness of Jakey's faux varsity letter jacket than our lateness. She told us it would take about 30 minutes to show us the each of the three three-year-old classrooms. What she really meant is "Let's take your Isaac and set him loose with the toys/critters/playdoh/sand tables in each classroom for ten minutes, shall we?"

I'm so glad this school happened to be our first school visit, because it was the bomb. Each room was filled to the brim with fun and mentally engaging toys, with paints and easels, with playdoh, with plants, with calendars, pictures, decorations, letters, numbers, shapes. Each room had its own critter or two, a gerbil or guinea pig. The kids were given "jobs" every day, like feeding the critter or watering the plant or getting the snacks. Almost the entire day is free play, assisted by the teachers, with some time for group activities like a craft or song or story-time, and a half-hour for recess (out of a 2-1/2 hour day). And while the "curriculum" is designed to challenge them a little (in one classroom, they were learning about how many days there were in the month of November), it's not completely above their heads, and also not so dumbed down as to be boring.

This tour was an important step for me, too, because I saw how completely engaged and at-home Isaac looked in the classroom. He's a natural for school, and it was a moving experience to see him work. He's such a sociable guy, and, being of above-average stature for his size, he blended in so well that there were many times I had to look hard to find him. At first he'd come to ask me "What's that guy doing?", but after a time, he'd ask the teachers, who were as happy to entertain his questions as if he were a student. He was also incredibly well-behaved. We had a quick talk before leaving the car about how we were going to school, but that this was not his school yet and he needed to stay with Mommy, and by golly if the feller didn't. When it was time to leave a room, he came right with me. He threatened to run off once into a gym, but I called him back and back he came. Toward the end of our tour, our guide praised him directly, "Isaac, you are so good at obeying your Mommy." He even played by himself in the director's office (with the director's Sesame Street playhouse) while I changed Jacob's diaper in the bathroom next door.

We are considering other preschools, and it's not a given that we'll get into this one because of it's total weirdo admissions policy, but I would be so happy if this was it for him. I could really see him going there and learning right away that school can be, above all, fun.

The lamest game of peek-a-boo ever

Sunday I took the babies to the park and we played on the tennis courts together, where Jakey took the most fabulous pictures ever and shamed me for forgetting to enter that babyGap photo contest. Because I dislike $5000 shopping sprees. He's even wearing Big Brother's hand-me-down babyGap jeans. Stupid, stupid Mommy.



Jacob loves playing peek-a-boo, as any red-blooded 9-month-old does. It doesn't take long at the game before he starts his special brand of riotous laughing, thick and easy, not unlike a drunken frat boy. I tried to get a movie of this peek-a-boo laughfest, but the game is apparently not as hilarious when he's distracted by Big Brother running laps around him. At least you get to see his gigantic top teeth up close. He did get his sixth tooth in (the upper left lateral incisor) two weeks ago, but I don't remember if it makes an appearance here.

Ka-chow

We talked endlessly about taking the Isaac to see Cars at the theaters this summer, but somehow we never followed through. Bless you, Disney Overlords, for making this movie available for us on DVD this holiday season, because goodness knows the stars would fall from the sky if Dada and Isaac didn't have the complete Pixar DVD library.

I feel bad at times about how much movie time those guys manage to get in on a weekly basis, thinking that it would probably be better if we did something, oh, active? But then I think about my psycho role-playing monkey, and how movies obviously fire up his imagination. His handle-hauler truck? It's now Mack, and his bitty Lightning McQueen goes for rides in it. Saturday we went for a family drive and Isaac asked us everytime a semi passed: "Is that Mack?" On our way home, Dada saw a distribution center that was part of an office complex and turned into it so Isaac could get a closer look at all of the "Mack"s. If he wasn't so firmly belted in, Isaac could have possibly hurled himself through the ceiling powered solely by excitement.

Really, we do watch a lot of movies, but we aim to make our movie-viewing experiences less of a sitting-on-your-tush-for-an-hour-and-a-half and more of a lifestyle. In a moment of weakness at The Mickey Store, Dada bought both Cars figurine sets. These are used to re-enact Isaac's favorite scenes as they occur throughout the movie, and subsequently throughout the following day (and the next, and the next). He memorizes the weirdest lines verbatim, and expects me to know what is to follow. His favorite is Lynda Petty's big line at the end: "Son, is Doc Hudson here today?" To hear your two-year-old address you as "Son", oh, it is a riot.

While I don't always sit and watch the movie, I do like the soundtrack, and he likes that I included the Rascal Flatts version of "Life is a Highway" on the mix CD I play in George the Green Car. We listen to this one song over and over and over and over again. How much do we listen to this song? Please allow Isaac to demonstrate.

Our long, luxurious Turkey Day Weekend

I haven't blogged this weekend because we were busy. Busy spending time with Dada. I know! Dude took off of work the whole weekend, and by "took off" I mean he only went in to his office for maybe 6 hours over the past three days and worked from home for another 6 while the boys were asleep. We got to hang out, watch movies, shop, wrestle, play trains, and nap, all together.



Isaac fell asleep on Dada while they watched the foozball together this afternoon. How long has it been since he's done that? But he would not part with his comfy Dada to go to his Isaac-bed. It makes me feen for a winning lottery ticket to spring Dada from his lame-o job so we could all be together all the time.

This year, as every year, we toyed with the idea of going back to Indy for Thanksgiving; this year, as every year, we nixed it with the logic that we'll be headed that way in another 3 or 4 weeks anyway. So we stayed put, as did our friends at the AnthonyCarlos estates, who invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner. They contributed a tasty huge ham and candied yams and we brought salad, mashed taters, rolls, and pumpkin pie. It was delicious according to Jacob, who ate everything, and "YUCKY!!!!" according to Isaac, who literally ate nothing. Here's a snap of Jake at his very first Thanksgiving enjoying his second roll.



We're still eating leftovers of the ham they sent home, and we are also rich in pumpkin pie because I'm a good little wifey and made an extra to keep here to entice Dada to stay home more. I think it worked.

We joined the madness at Toys R Us yesterday to finish Christmas shopping for the boys and, upon arriving home, we decided we should just let them open their stuff right away so they can maximize the time they have to play with it before they have to leave (most of) it behind for our trip to the grandmas'. Here's what they got, those spoiled rotten little monkeys.

Isaac got two board games, Candyland and Chutes and Ladders. They were so cheap at TRU online, and he is getting of the age where I think he can understand the concepts. A few months ago I bought him a 24-piece Sesame Street puzzle that he really likes, so when I found a more challenging 24-piece puzzle with the Very Hungry Caterpillar on it, I threw it in the cart. Isaac himself picked out Spencer over a big Lightning McQueen, which was a surprise but a pleasant one, as Spencer returns us to a phase of intense train-playing downstairs. Also at TRU, we found these Little Golden Book gift sets of a book +a cool toy of the title character. I could not resist the opportunity for him to have a bathtub squirter Scuffy the Tugboat to go with one of his all-time favorite books. He literally screamed at me and bawled when I told him we didn't have time for a bath last night, a definite first. Isaac also picked up a little plastic elephant figure to add to his animal collection and a wooden play clock from his wish-list. The marquee Isaac toy was a two-pack of pullstring Toy Story dolls with Woody and Jessie. The young man has not let either of them out of his sight in 24 hours.

Jacob also cleaned house, and I admit I went a little overboard with him. This was really his first opportunity to score toys of his very own, and, though he certainly doesn't care, I always feel a little guilty that he's always playing with Big Brother's hand-me-downs. In the end this was demonstrated to be a seriously stupid point of view, since both boys ended up playing with each others' toys. It makes me wonder how future Christmases will go, when they are both aware of what the other is getting and they both care. Anyway, Jacob got a Handle Hauler airplane. Isaac got a Handle-Hauler truck from my aunt last Christmas and loved it, and now that toy is also well-loved by Jacob, so I thought he'd enjoy a different one to call his own. Jacob also got two classic toys missing from Isaac's collection: a jack-in-the-box and the Sesame Street Dudes-Behind-the-Doors toy. The marquee Jacob toy, and it rocks the house so stinkin' hard, is this Wooden Activity Cart with Five Play Stations. Not only does it have lots of things for Jake (and Isaac) to look at and handle, but it's a hefty push-cart that Jacob and use as a walker. The best part is that I am a genius and bought it two weeks ago, when it was on sale online for $17.95.

Hope everybody had a great holiday, especially those back home. We can't wait to see everyone in less than a month!

Good morning!

To celebrate the return of Dada late late last night, I let Dada sleep in (though not as much as I should have for somebody who carried 40-lb car batteries miles through the forest several times yesterday) and took the boys to Starbucks. It was Isaac's idea. When he woke up, he greeted me with a request: "Mom, can we go to Starbucks and get some cow milky?" Heck yeah. Of course you're going in your jammies.

Unfortunately, stupid drive-thru Starbucks was OUT of both chocolate and vanilla cow milky. I ask you, stupid Starbucks, how on earth am I to get my fix on if I have to go to the other store where I must leave my car to get my coffee? Did I mention we were in our jammies? And do you know how much my baby hates being put in his car seat again and again?

Our barista had a solution -- a kid-sized milky in a cup with a shot of vanilla. It wasn't the same, but it was at least cute.


Tomorrow morning we will be reliving what is fast becoming an O'Neal Thanksgiving tradition -- the luxury-drink visit to Main Street Starbucks. Dad and Mom, who usually try to be pocketbook conscious and get drips, will splurge on their real faves. It makes us long for Seattle a bit when Dad orders his super-complicated drink. Nobody at the University Village used to bat an eyelash when I would rattle off his order for a venti half-caff, nonfat, no whip white chocolate mocha. Here we get stares and barista double-takes ("What was that, now?"). Sigh.

---

A quick potty update -- before his nap this afternoon, Isaac went pee on his potty in exchange for half of a blueberry candy cane. We were all terribly delighted, especially Isaac with his "sucker". Nothing else along this vein was successful, but hey, pottying once a day is a start, right?

Who knew it was a three-way fight?

My special toddler recently bathed in the potty limelight woke up this morning, wide awake and tummy grumbling, at 5:00. It was inconceivable. He ate a huge dinner of French toast and drank lots of milk the night before. He can be counted on to not make a peep most nights until at least 6:30 am, and usually 7 or 7:30. This 5 am hoohah belongs to his little insomniac brother. Fortunately, Isaac is also a freak and, after serving him some milky in bed, I convinced him that he needed to stay put and that he couldn't get up until it was light outside. He did just that, laying wide awake and being a quiet little monkey and occasionally kicking his sheets around, for A WHOLE HOUR, until Jacob screamed to schedule the real start of the day. Bless that Isaac that he doesn't think to disobey his tired Mama.

After such a rough start, I began to question my ability to handle another day of chasing his bare tush around and cleaning up his pee. But two cups of coffee later, I ripped his britches off and it was Nekked Day: The Sequel. "I a nekked boy!" the toddler screamed, running with glee throughout the house, stopping only briefly to pee on the living room floor.

I took it a little easier today, with slightly less harassment. Instead of asking him every 5 minutes if he had to go, I tended to wait until I actually saw him doing it. At one point, we were playing in his room and he started to pee. I startled him, loudly saying "STOP!" and he did. I led him to the bathroom. "Isaac, do you want to do that on the potty?" "NOOOOOO," he whined, and started doing the peepee dance. Great. Boy still doesn't want to use the potty. How does one potty train without the potty?

And then potty angels broke through the heavens above and spoke to me in song to give me the most fantastic idea yet. I looked around the bathroom and saw the bowl of yesterday, the one in which I placed toys in lukewarm water for him to play with while he sat on his Isaac-potty in vain.

"Isaac! Would you like to try to pee in that bowl?" "Yeah!" he said. "I pee in the bowl!"

I threw its contents into the sink and set it on the floor in front of him. The most super-cute thing I've ever seen happened next. Nekked-boy walked up and very purposefully straddled the bowl and, bending his knees ever so slightly, stood above it and let loose a gigantic pee waterfall straight into the middle, not spilling a drop on the floor. "Mommy! I peeing! I making a circle!" he said, referring to the circular base of the bowl which was now being filled in with pee.

When he was done, we had a serious little party. There was whooping. There was hollering. There was much ado made about dumping the pee in the potty, which he insisted on doing himself, and flushing, too, because that's what we do when pee goes in the potty. There were two Tootsie Rolls to be consumed. We even called Dada, who was in the middle of his field work in West-by-god-Virginia and, again because the potty angels were looking out for us, had plenty of signal on his cell phone to listen to his firstborn recount firsthand his very first successful potty adventure. Dada told me that us calling him was the best reason thing that had ever happened to his cell phone.

So the score stands: Isaac 1, Mommy 1, Potty 0.

Of course that was our only success of the day. Once the bowl had been so marked, Isaac was not in the least bit interested in using it again. I hung some IKEA lights on the wall in Jacob's room, leaving Isaac unattended in his own room long enough for him to make a large, neat pile of stinky poo next to his bed. Somewhere during the 10 minutes I took to make dinner, leaving Isaac with the order that he was to watch Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving while sitting on his potty, he got up and peed right next to his potty and then sat back down on it. Clearly the solution is that I shouldn't leave his side, but that's just not going to happen. You can already start to feel sorry for poor Jake, who is getting neglected during Potty Boot Camp (not that he seems to mind -- I will give it to my darling secondborn that, as long as the Mama is within 3 feet of him, he is wonderfully capable of entertaining himself). One thing I can say is that so far Isaac seems to enjoy making his messes on the hardwood floors and not on the rugs, which is lovely. Well, lovelier than the reverse.

I do pay attention, though. The potty adventure is teaching me a lot about his excretory habits that before were quite literally under wraps. I am amazed the capacity and steel-trap-edness of his bladder. The boy-child can take in massive amounts of fluids and not pee for literally hours. At one point when I was trying to force the issue, I let him climb up on the big-people potty so he could reach the bathroom sink and pour himself as many glasses of water as he liked. I am not joking when I say he probably drank 10 cups of water, and then proceeded to hold all that water in for an hour, and then for another 3-1/2 hours through his nap, to wake up dry. I with my iron bladder can't even do that. He must be part camel.

Isaac 1, Potty Mommy 0

Today was a magnificent day in the O'Neal household, one trumpted with much fanfare by the Mama, mostly to herself. Today was the randomly appointed day in which Isaac would begin his lessons in serious potty usage, and I, the Yoda of Potty, She Who Can Hold Her Pee So Long Her Bladder Should Be Studied, would be his tutor.

There were many, many factors that led to this day, both Isaac-derived and environmental.
From Isaac:
*He knows (and usually announces) when he is going to go poop.
*He wakes up dry from his nap most days. Heck, he wakes up dry from the big sleep more often than not.
*He will sit on his potty bare-butted if I ask.
*He is interested in what Dada and I are up to when we go potty.

Other cosmic factors pointing to this, yes, this as the day:
*Isaac is getting old and his buddies are doing it.
*Dada, who is always motivated to get us to leave the house, is out of town.
*It's a holiday week and we are going nowhere.
*I just dropped $60 last week at BJs to diaper the two of them for the next few weeks. It angered me.
*We will be heading back to Indy for Christmas soon, and I just know I will hear it from somebody about how he's too old to still be in diapers and can they help him use the potty while he's home? You know, cause it's so simple.

So, after dropping off Dada in the general direction of his eventual destination, and picking up a few things at that King of Stores, Walmart, we headed back home. I declared today Nekked Boy Day, much to Isaac's delight, and, keeping two shirts on him to ward off the cold, let him run around half-clothed all morning long. I yammered on at him about how he was a big boy now like AnthonyCarlos and that he will now be using the potty for peeing and pooping. No more diapers! And look at the assortment of Spongebob and Thomas underwear and/or Buzz Lightyear pull-ups you have to choose from, should you wish to clothe yourself in non-diapered undergarments! The thrills! And, if you go poop or pee in the potty, Mom will give you a Tootsie Roll!

Total nonstop potty excitement ensued. Isaac probably spent the better part of an hour sitting on his Isaac potty this morning, with me coaxing him to stay put just in case something should come out. I did everything a human could possibly do to make him go. I let him drink from my water cup that had a straw. I gave him toys to play with in a bowl of lukewarm water. I sat on my Mommy potty and did my business next to him. I ran water. I made up a special potty song regarding how a certain farmer had, not a farm, but a POTTY and that animals were not had by said farmer, but instead sat on a POTTY. This song, I sang it for 15 minutes. I sang it into the ground, much to the amusement of the toddler as he sat on the potty.

And where did he pee? On the hutch in the dining room. On the floor in his bedroom and in the hall. When it was naptime, no sooner had I put him In a pull-up than he peed in it. Each time it was "Okay, but next time let's try to pee on the potty! Hooray for the almighty potty!" And each time he would look past the puddle, concerned not that he and his whole world was pee-soaked, but that "I can't find my Lightning McQueen. I think he's lost." When he would sense that he did have to pee (and he never articulates the need to pee), he would rapidly try to exit his potty to do it somewhere else.

Unlike my regular (AHEM regular) guy, he didn't poop once today. I think it's because, during nekked time, he told me "I go into the living room to poop on the rug," and I chased him into the bare-floored bathroom and surrounded him with potties. Unfazed, he ran from the bathroom and into his room to poop. I ushered him back into the bathroom and pulled the door to. "Look! You can poop and we'll leave you alone! You can close the door, just like Daddy does!" But instead of pooping on a potty or even on the floor, I think he just forgot about pooping altogether.

Oh, the excitement, the pumped-upedness I was conveying. Dude, I was so into the potty I made ME want to go. But not him. While he is perfectly happy to sit on the potty, he does not want to unload his messes into it AT ALL. At one point when I caught him peeing in his pull-up, thanks to the disappearing planets on the front, I asked if he could try peeing in the potty and he started crying. "I no want to pee in the potty! I pee in my diaper!"

Now I realize that this is just the first day of really forcefully suggesting the potty as an alternative to the diaper. But as much as I enjoy chasing my toddler around the house with a towel and a bottle of windex, how exactly am I to know if any of this is sinking in? And what if it doesn't? Dude seems as though he could care less that he is peeing all over himself.

He knows exactly what he's supposed to do. He's seen Mom and Dad do it countless times. We have three potty books, all of which get read regularly. Can it be that, despite his advancing age, he's just not ready?

Jacob at 9 months

My dearest Jake-a-boo,

Today you turned 9 months old, meaning you have spent as much time in the world as you did in the womb. Well, technically, you came out of the womb two days early, so this "equivalency day" happened four days ago. But who's counting? I'm in the middle of writing my second book, and you're lucky if you get a nice little post more than once a week now. You're super-lucky if I can remember your month-birthdays. And look! I did!

Today I'm going to make a little confession, mainly because your evil father poured me a glass of wine that was far, far too large and it brings out memories. I make this confession also because I am your mother and so no matter what I say or what you do, I love more than almost anything in the entire universe, more than jumping in piles of raked leaves; more than gingerbread lattes, those harbingers of Christmastime; more than your father. I say "almost" because I love you exactly as much as I love your brother. This is saying a lot.

Ever since you were born, you have been my baby. When your brother was born, he was our baby. Dada and I were both working at the time and, while I did take off three months to figure out why, God, why the hospital had sent him home with me, who knew zip about babies, Dada shared in much of the parenting duties. He never could figure out how to lactate, but he did a lot of other things because he had to so I could finish my degree.

When your brother was first born, I was afraid of him. I had never changed a diaper in my life. Here was this little dude, ripping my poor boobies apart, and I was terrified that I would drop him, among other things. He sensed my fear and preferred Dada for the first two weeks. After that I assume he had done a risk-assessment and calculated that the probability of my accidentally killing or maiming him was not so great that he should avoid learning more about this nice lady with the yummy boobie juice, and suddenly we were tight. But it was nice to have another figure to turn to, this Dada person, to have options, you know?

When you were born, my dearest Jakey Monster, there was nothing for me but to love you. I knew, from real-world experience, that you were unlikely to die in my care. The first night we were in the hospital together I insisted on changing your diapers. I scoffed at the wussy first-time mom in the bed next to me who flatly insisted on the nurses doing everything, on keeping her hands clean of this whole baby-business until she absolutely had to. While I was thoroughly enjoying your brother in his toddlerhood, I also got to enjoy your infancy. Your Dada is now gainfully employed and does not get to participate in your babyhood as much as he would like, as much as he did with your brother. He loves you so much, but you are only recently interested in him. He is another, highly entertaining plaything in your universe, much like your brother. Mama is your world, and she loves it. Except when you are a fussy teething monster who refuses to go to sleep like a good little mini-me. Then she only likes it.

But here, here is my secret confession: when you were born, I worried. Not about things that mommies usually worry about, you know -- jaundice, weight gain, explosive farts. None of those. You were so normal and getting so fat, there was nothing to worry about there. No, I was worried about more important things. I worried that you were uglier than your brother.

Don't get me wrong, you were cute. You had so much hair, and you were already pinchable and rotund. But you had to compete with your brother, He of the Devastating Charm. As a mother of one, you naturally think your child is destined for reproductive greatness. But what if your second comes along and he's not quite as breathtaking? What if, later in life, every girl he brings home is forced to gaze upon the handsome older brother and perhaps make an uncomfortable choice?

As a mother, your first concern is that your babies be healthy and happy. But if they are already both, you then ardently wish for them to be equally pretty. Poor you -- you were saddled with that drab dark brown hair and, worst of all, your mother's nose, which she ardently desired to have surgically altered when she was in middle school -- to compete with your older brother, spouting off full sentences before his second birthday to flirt with the campus honeys as he shakes his thick golden locks in the breeze. I was upset thinking of a future where you might be made painfully aware of this, one where you got a lower score than he on "Hot or Not?" and your life was ruined.

But fate decided that it should set the stage for this Mama to have maximal potential for future grandbabies. While you have kept my unfortunate nose, you have also kept those sinfully blue eyes. And your hair, much more voluminous than your brother's at his age, has magically become blond, too. And you are charming in your own right, so happy and easy to laugh. All the ladies now turn their attention to you, with your little shy-boy game. "Hi there, cutie!" they say, and you give a sly smile and turn your face into my chest, turning your face ever so slightly to peek out slidelong.

It would appear that, in about 15 years, the ladies will have a terrible choice before them: the blond, hazel-eyed smooth-talker? or the blond, blue-eyed body-builder? I can feel my genetic fitness shooting through the roof with you two. I'm so proud.

Love you,

Mama.

My first attempt at matchies

The brothers in their natural habitat, playing on Mommy and Daddy's bed.


Don't they look so old?

Carlos and Anthony's mommy tries to dress her boys in matching or semi-matching outfits most of the time. When I first caught on, I commented on how cute they were and how fun it must be to coordinate them, like little boy Barbie dolls. She laughed. "Actually," she said, "it's so that, should one of them run away in the grocery store, people can help me look for another little boy wearing this."

Tooth Krakatoa

Jacob has been a fussy pill the past week. He is not a happy camper unless he's being held, by me, at least 75% of the time. I had to sleep with a heating pad Saturday night because I made the mistake of trying to carry him in one hand and two garbage bags full-o-trash in the other.

Dude weighs 23 lbs now according to the bathroom scale. I know my mom is going to comment, and my grandma -- who reads but never comments -- is going to email me, and both will give me a soft, soothing butt-whooping about how I need to take it easy and not carry that fat boy around so much. I'm such a little thing! I'll hurt myself! Blah blah. It's funny, really, how much I can tote his lard butt around during the day and not even feel it. He's like my personal trainer, growing ever so gradually so my biceps don't even remember that he used to be 9 lbs. You should see my arms, man, they are riiiiipped. No more bye-bye arm for Mama, no sir.

But anyway, Jacob is fussy. Why? Well, it couldn't be another tooth, could it? Actually, yes. It can. FOUR OF THEM.

Horsing around with him this morning, I happened to get a good glimpse of this upper gums. Remember how he just popped out two top incisors, like, last week? Apparently today or yesterday his top right lateral incisor poked through. Its left compatriot is bulging out of the gum-skin, ready to burst right in at any second. Even worse, he has smaller, but still protruding, bulges where his top canine teeth should be. Poor feller! Isaac was pretty steady with the dentition eruption, clocking in at one per month starting at 7 months. Jacob looks like he will have gotten his top middle four teeth over the course of 2 weeks, putting the total tooth count at 6. And he's not even nine months yet.

I have a theory -- that his precocious dental progress is solely to help him in his quest to become the next great sumo wrestler. He is done done done with the smooshy food, so why not start sprouting all these chompers to help him move on to bigger, better, meatier things?

Evidence that you don't want my tooth genes

Here's a picture of Jacob having a good ol' time swinging at the park. It's not the greatest. If you squint one eye and the moon is in the second house perhaps you can make out the tips of his huge top incisors as they very rapidly descend down into his oral cavity. Did I mention he likes to bite? That he almost amputated Dada's nose last week? My poor bosoms, they cower in fear.

If you can't see the teeth, you can amuse yourself staring deeply into his pretty blue eyes. You can hear him now, can't you? "Hello, ladies..."

Practicing for a future swim meet

Yes, that's mud.

**update: Just to clear things up -- he's saying "CANNA-FALL!" (aka Isaac-ese for 'cannonball')

I promise it's not all poop and boogies over here

At playgroup yesterday, Isaac found his favorite baby doll and clung to her the whole time. At one point, Isaac helped Baby show off the many things she could do.

You know how, at the fourth of July, fireworks shows have relatively piddly little fireworks poofing off at a steady pace, one after the other, until the grand finale, when suddenly all firework-Hades breaks loose? That was like our dialog with this baby.

First came the simple stuff. "Mommy, the baby's giving you a kiss." And the baby gave me a kiss. "Now the baby wants to shake you hand. Shake the baby's hand, Mommy." And we did. "Now the baby's giving you a big hug." And Baby did.

Then Isaac was struck with an idea for his Baby Puppetry Grand Finale. Baby started rooting around her nose with her plastic little hand as Isaac narrates. "Mommy, Baby's picking her boogers. Now she wipe it on her shirt. No, baby, don't do that. Boogers go in the trash. Throw the booger in the trash! There, now Baby threw her booger in the trash. She no wanna eat it. That's yucky."

That's right. I have taught my son well in booger etiquette.

---

Today in the bathtub we played with a deep white cup, one whose actual household job is supposed to be that of a cleaning apparatus for Dada's retainer. Apparently this white cup did a great deed in a past life to be permanently upgraded to Bath Toy of Isaac, a role in which it has been well loved. White Cup has been scribbled on repeatedly with a purple bathtub crayon, so much so that the inside is crusted over with hard little purple mounds. For whatever reason, the purpleness caught Isaac's eye for the first time today.

"Mommy," he asked me, pointing at the ancient purple scribbles. "Is that Teletubby poop?"

Seriously, Jakey. What's your hurry?

Chalk it up to his natural genetic capacity for genius. Perhaps it's his super-coolio older bro, the stunningly handsome walking and talking machine. Whatever it is, Jacob has used the past two weeks to focus his brain-rays on blowing milestones to dust.

His first act of sheer genius was to cut his fourth tooth, the top left incisor, on the heels of its right counterpart. Dude is 8 months old and already prepared to guillotine your fingertip. For whatever reason, the left one was apparently much more painful and resulted in three days of general Jacob crankiness and unrest which was no fun, no fun at all. But now that it's through, we can see why all the drama -- poor fella has inherited my gigantic front teeth along with my gigantic long nose. Excuse me, Dada? Where are those captivatingly handsome Irish genes now? Getting drunk somewhere in a mitochondrion?

Whereas Jacob first began goo-goo-gooing at Mamaw and Dadaw early last month, the past two weeks have coaxed many more syllables from his pouty little bow lips, and there is NOTHING CUTER. I am so disappointed in my lack of a movie to illustrate this. I will keep trying. You have seen nothing so adorable as Jake screaming "DEH-DEE-DEE-DEE-DEH-DEE" at an entertaining Dada or Big Brother in his loudest voice possible. He likes to gurgle to himself, too, as he cruises around the table, as though he required a "gurrrrrrrrr" motor sound to keep him going.

But perhaps the most breathtaking of all is that this psycho baby is trying to stand by himself. Many, many times a day he pulls himself up on the coffee table in the living room. Almost every time, he will temporarily let go and find himself standing with no support whatsoever. At first when he did this, he'd do crazy arm-windmilling in the vein of some Looney Tunes character at the edge of a cliff until he'd regain his grip on the table. However, after about a week of practice, he can stand still for a full second without wobbling before he reaches back, apparently out of habit.

Isaac was reluctant to stand. He learned how to stand unassisted for a week, I think, before he started walking. It's funny -- I was just remarking to Dada a few days ago that, if Jacob keeps with Isaac's pace, he'll be walking in three months. Now I think Jacob intends to write his own pace, one that requires his parents to supplement themselves with crack, or perhaps meth, to keep up.

How do you argue with that?

In the dining room, with the perpetrator sitting in his time-out chair. The Mommy approaches.

Mommy: Isaac, do you know why you got a time-out?
Isaac: I. Don't. Know.
Mommy: Because you didn't use your listening ears. I needed you to come inside so I could change your diaper. Now, when Mommy asks you to come inside, what do you do?
Isaac: I. Don't. KNOOOOOOW.
Mommy: You come inside. Can you say that?
Isaac: (mouthing amid a hideous smirk) I. Stay. Outside!
Mommy: No no no no no no. You come inside. You come in inside when Mommy asks you to come inside. Can you say that?
Isaac: (mouthing) I. Stay. Outside!
Mommy: (getting impatient) No no no no no no. Do you need another time out?
Isaac: (getting equally impatient, grabs Mommy's face on both sides) No. Mommy, LISTEN. I NEED TO EAT MY POOP.

He was a cowboy. Yee-hah!

Isaac's two previous Halloweens have been really pretty lame and involved trick-or-treating in that classic of American venues, a mall. Last year Isaac was old enough to both walk and carry a candy receptacle, but we eschewed trick-or-treating in the traditional sense because the neighborhood we lived in was made up of childless party people. This year, not only do we live in a bona fide neighborhood (replete with cul de sacs!) populated almost entirely by families with kids or retirees, but Isaac also was developmentally advanced enough to be trained in the routine.

Isaac: Mommy, we go walk in the dark to other people's houses and get candy.
Mommy: Okay buddy. First we go up to the door. Then we knock. Then what do we say?
Isaac: Trick-or-treeeeeeeeeeat!

At a little after 6, we set out, both boys in the wagon. Isaac was a little timid at first, and who can blame him? After months and months of preaching to him that we do NOT approach other people's houses, here we are leading him by the hand to the open doorways of strangers. But he is not made of stone. It only took a few doors for him to get it. You could see it dawn on him -- "you mean I say 'trick-or-treat' and these people throw candy in my pumpkin?!?!" -- and he became a seasoned pro.

His special favorite were the old ladies. One old lady commented on how pretty Jacob was in his cow costume, thinking, as it turns out that most people do, that Jacob was a girl. Isaac piped up in his surliest voice, "I not pretty. I a cowboy!" To another old lady handing out little treats, who inquired as to whom Isaac might be, Isaac put on a real show. "I a cowboy!" he said, and, lifting his hat towards the sky with a flourish, yelled "YEEEE-HAH!" She gave him a whole bag of fruit snacks.