Suckitude, Part the First

As usual yesterday morning, things were a little chaotic around the house. Josh was up and out before 7 a.m., Jack woke at the ass-crack of 5:45 a.m. (after waking me up TWICE to go potty during the night) and Emmie was screaming in her crib at 6:40 a.m.

Can't we ever just start the day on a nice relaxing note? Why isn't my life like a Folger's commercial where I am awakened by the smell of brewing coffee in my crisp, clean 1,000-thread-count sheets with a breeze gently blowing the curtains back to reveal a glorious sunrise? I mean I don't drink coffee, my sheets aren't exactly crisp, we can't sleep with the windows open because we live on a busy street and I hate light in the room when I am trying to sleep, but other than those minor details, I would love to wake up like that just once.

I dragged my tired ass through the getting ready-breakfastmaking-lunchmaking-getting kids dressed routine and noticed Emmie was a little whiny. But I don't have time for drama in the morning when we have three people who need to be out the door by 8:25 a.m. for the brisk walk to school.

As I picked out clothes for Jack, she followed me around his room screaming. I calmly peeled her off my leg as I headed for her bedroom. As we walked in, she backed away from me, looked up and puked all over the rug. Oh for God's sake. I don't have time to clean up puke on this tight schedule, much less figure out how to take a puking 20-month-old along to drop her brother off at school.

Just as I was staring at the rug and trying to calm Emmie down, keep her away from the puddle of vomit and answer eleventy billion questions from Jack about why Emmie threw up, Josh called to tell me he needed me to read him something from a Post-it in his office two floors away or he could not function at work. That would be when my head exploded and my brains scattered all over the walls of Emmie's room.

After depositing Emmie in her crib so I could clean the rug, I shooed Jack into his room to continue getting dressed and ran downstairs to get the Post-it note info. I ran back upstairs, phone to ear, where I got Emmie dressed and corralled both kids downstairs to put on shoes and get everyone and the Hummer-sized stroller outside. We were running only three minutes behind, a feat of epic proportions considering what I went through moments before.

Emmie and I went about the rest of our day, grocery shopping and making a trip to Target. I figured her being in a stoller and not a cart would contain her pestilence somewhat and I really didn't care about other people's feelings because I really needed some organic turkey, damn it, and I wasn't going without my new favorite lunch -- grilled turkey and cheese.

Just as I was sitting down and blogging about my day, Jack's school phone number appeared on the caller ID. Was this Jack's mom? He had an accident.

CLIFFHANGER!

(More on this tomorrow, right now, I need to head out to an event involving adult beverages and no children. Plus, everyone likes a two-part blog post, right?)

Oh yeah, him

I totally forgot to tell you all that Josh is on a new project at work now. One that is LOCAL. As in, not out of town. As in he is home for dinner, bath and bedtime at night. He started two weeks ago, on the same day that Jack started school, but he was a little pissy I didn't give him the same attention that I gave my precious little boy.

For the first time in eight years, Josh is not traveling. I am not sure what to make of it, either. He has never had a local project in the time I have known him. Sure, I spent two years living with him in Bloomington, but that was us splitting time someplace and not really living full-time together in our house in Chicago.

I mean it's awesome and I am so excited to have him around, but it's kind of weird to have him around. How the hell can I complain about having soooo muuuuuch toooooo doooooo if he's here observing me all night? Like he's right there on the couch when I am aimlessly reading blogs and Facebook. And now he actually wants to watch a bunch of DVR'd TV series. I can't watch TV and be on the Internet, I need to focus on one media at a time.

And now I have to cook dinner and clean up the house every day. The hell? This is making my life somewhat more difficult, to be honest. But never fear, I am still bitching and moaning about being pregnant and having to do way more than I should be doing in my delicate condition. There's no way he's getting off without listening to that for a few more weeks.

Twice as nice

At 7 this morning, Josh went out to start his car, only to find the battery was deader than Heath Ledger. So he took my car to work, stranding me at home with two children on Jack's first day off of school.

I had fears of violence and boredom and whining, but the day went surprisingly quickly and there was no blood shed. Tears, yes, but that's to be expected. We had AAA come out and they replaced the battery, but because Josh had the two carseats, I didn't have the ability to go anywhere. Not that I would have taken the kids somewhere in the car, but it looked like rain all day and I didn't want to haul them out in the stroller only to get soaked coming home. So we stayed inside and played and everyone had fun.

At 7 this evening, we left a local restaurant to head home for bath and bedtime, only to find MY car would not start. For the second time in two weeks. And no, we didn't get it fixed after the last debacle in the Target parking lot because AAA finally arrived 90 minutes after I called them and the car miraculously started. And since we shut it off and started it numerous times after that, it must be fixed right? Idiots, that's what we are.

This time we had two tired kids in the backseat, but thankfully our friend Matt was at dinner with us, so Josh took Matt and his daughter to our house in their car, then came back and got the three of us. In the meantime, I sat reading the manual trying to figure out if it was the starter (because it's not the battery, everything lights up and engages, we just get nothing when we try to turn the engine over) while one child sobbed, "I don't want to go in Mr. Matt's car" and the other sobbed, "Gooooooooo, gooooooooooooo." It was as much fun as it sounds.

Now we get to have my car towed to the dealership in the suburbs, where they will bend us over in seven different positions. But we have no choice because while we might need a new starter, it could also be some weird key computer chip thing and if it's that, then it has to get fixed at the dealership anyway.

What are the odds of having AAA come twice in one day to one household? Wait, don't answer that. Apparently, the odds are 100 percent.

If you have a money tree growing out back, could you please make a cutting for me so I can graft it onto a regular tree and grow a hybrid? I need one that sprouts $100s, but really I would take anything with a dead president on it.

Insulation nation

Remember yesterday when I told you there would be ultrasound pictures today? Scratch that. That would have been before the ridiculous Insulation Nightmare of 2009. I am thinking this one might go down in the record books.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that while the dudes were oozing the liquid insulation into the area near the kitchen sink, it was oozing right back on out under the sink through a hole in the cabinet. They were nice enough to heed my warnings about the hole, and cleaned everything up lickety split.

After spending most of the day here, they departed just before dinnertime. Thanks for the new energy savings (and the $750 tax credit!), see ya, buh-bye. When dinner time rolled around, I opened the cabinet to grab a pot to boil some water and found it covered in foam. Oh my. We forgot about the hole in the back of that cabinet that allows the gas line to reach the oven.

OK, I can handle it. I mean it's not ideal, but I can scrub out the pan and soldier on. But then I saw some congealed grease on the cooktop, under the stovetop grate. That's weird. We made bacon this weekend, but I know with 100 percent certainty that I cleaned the entire cooktop and backsplash. What the...?

I touched the congealed grease and sniffed it, only to realize that was no bacon fat, it was liquid insulation. In a panic I looked up and found white foam dripping down from the vents in my stove hood. I looked behind the hood pipe that goes all the way to the ceiling and saw nothing but white foam oozing out the sides of it. Oh my holy hell. Do these people have any idea how much that stupid fancy Wolf hood cost us? And that they filled it with foam? Guess the hole for the vent leading outside posed a problem.

Then I saw my three frying pans, conveniently left stacked on the cooktop for ease of use (read: no room in the cabinets to store them because we didn't exactly plan the functions of these cabinets when laying out the kitchen) also contained puddles of liquid insulation. I was about make my own puddle of liquid on the floor when I saw my poor All-Clad babies suffering like that. Not to mention the thought of paying to replace them was almost enough to send me into labor.

While shooing the kids into the living room to watch The Wiggles, I started yelling for Josh. No answer. I looked all over for him, finally locating him in our bedroom on a conference call. I can now tell you the universal sign for "holy shit, there's foam everywhere in the range hood" looks like a seven-months-pregnant woman waving her arms over her head and making puffed-cheeked faces that get progressively more full of air until she pops. I am a genius when it comes to charades, you would totally want me on your team.

Josh determined after some investigation that the fan mechanism itself was not filled with foam. A large, speeding bullet was dodged on that one. Can you imagine turning on a vent filled with foam insulation? We would have had our very own snowglobe in the kitchen. Shake it up and watch it fly!

Of course, the company was closed for the day so we had to wait until this morning to bitch about the state of affairs. Do you know what 12 hours with liquid insulation on her very delicate stovetop does to a seven-months-pregnant woman? It makes her very stabby. After throwing an enormous tantrum about the whole thing when I got home from a school meeting, Josh remarked that I was acting like Jack and maybe I needed to go to bed early. Oh yeah? Maybe you would like some liquid insulation with your scrambled eggs tomorrow morning. He tried to clean it off and it wasn't coming out and I was so over the whole thing and went to bed, leaving him to deal with it.

Josh played bad cop this morning and called the company. Their response was to tell us to try using warm water and if we couldn't get it out, they would send someone over with some cleaner. Riiiiight. Warm water. Like we didn't think of that.

Being the pessimist that I am, I knew it would probably take forever and a day for them to send someone out and that person would probably use some forbidden harsh chemical or steelwool sponge on the precious cooktop that can't be cleaned with any known cleaning product except water and vinegar, so I took matters into my own hands.

While Emmie ate lunch and well into her naptime, I scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed. Heavy-duty stainless polish and a microfiber cloth got it all off of the stainless steel portions. Hot water, a regular sponge and my body weight got it off the cooktop. And Barkeeper's Friend (my absolute favorite cleaning product ever) got it out of the pans.

There's still two burner covers that are covered with flaky white crap and one of the grates doesn't want to give up the fight, so I am going to have Josh take a stab at those and if he can't get 'er done, then I am telling the company they can try to clean them to my satisfaction or I want them replaced.

I'm sure they also won't mind when I sue their asses after WeeBey comes out with three arms and eight toes after the exposure to this chemical shit. They assured us when we signed the contract that the substance in question was totally! environmentally! friendly! My ass. I smelled that shit and it smells like chemicals. I am pretty sure they weren't spraying ground-up rose petals and banana peels into my house.

Hodgepodge

You know what we haven't seen the likes of on this blog lately? A nice bullety list of random goodness. Let's rectify that, shall we?

* I am officially in the third trimester now at 28 weeks. Wow. This is just flying by isn't it? Let's all pretend I am not giving birth in about 10 weeks. Because if I don't pretend that, I might freak out and have a pregnancy panic attack because OH MY HOLY HELL I AM GOING TO HAVE THREE CHILDREN UNDER FOUR.

* Speaking of three children, my mom told me today that she picked the kids up some Christmas jammies this weekend. She was going on about how cute they were and how they were matchy-matchy and I asked if she got three pairs. She said no, why would she get three? I had to remind her WeeBey would be here for Christmas and she shrieked and said she forgot. This is my fear about daily life in December: I will leave the baby behind someplace because I forget I have three of them. But with three, I guess I'll always have a spare so it will all work out.

* Jack slept until 7:30 this morning, making it three consecutive days he has slept past 7 a.m. If you have arrived at this blog using the Google search, "What to do when my 3.5-year-old won't sleep past 5:15 in the morning and I want to shoot myself" then I have your answer: Put the child to bed at 6:30 p.m. and put the gun back in the locked storage box in the closet. I am living proof it works. I now finally believe everyone who told me that once their kid gave up naps, they started sleeping longer at night. Oh it was a battle to get him there, what with the horrible months of 5:15 wakeups, but we've maybe kinda sorta possibly figured out what works. And I am sure it will change tomorrow just because I told the Internet and everyone knows when you do that, it comes back to bite you in the ass.

* We're having blown-in insulation blown into the house today. This involves them removing a course of siding, drilling holes into the outside of the house, then oozing some liquid foam into the spaces between the whattya-call-the-2x4s-that-hold-up-the-floors. This will save us approximately $75,421.38 in heating costs each month. No lie. It was like we would turn the heat on and open the front door and all the windows every winter. Not to mention the pipes that would freeze every single time the temperature dropped below 15 degrees. There's nothing quite like the look of panic on Josh's face and watching him run downstairs in his boxers with a blowdryer in one hand and a space heater in the other after I throw open the bedroom door at 7 a.m. on a Sunday and scream, "The pipes! The pipes! Shit!"

* Part of the whole "popsicle pipe" problem is that there is a hole between the inside of our kitchen cabinet and the outside of the house. It's covered by the siding, but there's just a big ole' gaping hole there for no reason at all. As the guys were blowing the goo in there today, I thought to remind them about the hole. Good thing -- because now there's three inches of white foam covering all my cleaning products. I'm sure they'll clean that right up.

* Emmie, Queen of Doing It Myself and Duchess of No I Don't Want To Hold Your Hand Mommy, held court in Whole Foods this morning. I needed to grab a tube of toothpaste for the kids after she attended a little music class there and figured I could just run over to the health and beauty section and run on out. Clearly, I have never been a parent before. She threw herself on the floor, rolled around, screeched and refused to get up after I told her she most definitely could NOT take all the bottles of lotion off the shelf. Seeing as I am not allowed to lift her, other than in and out of her crib at naptime, I was at a loss. Didn't have the stroller with me (because I am a DUMBASS) so after 10 minutes of this nonsense, I picked her up and carried her out. Contractions within minutes, but they stopped when I got home and sat down. I guess they're not kidding when they told me not to carry her around with my cerclage in place.

* Remember when I said I was never doing construction on this house again? I am such a lying liar. Also, a glutton for punishment. In true Snarky Family style, I am pregnant again and we're starting another remodeling project again. While I am pregnant. Did I mention I was pregnant and we're remodeling? I am screaming silently right now. I look just like that famous painting. It's quite frightening, I assure you. But the project is necessary for all the important people in this house (that would be me and Josh) to maintain our sanity with the impending arrival of our bundle of joy. We currently have three bedrooms upstairs, plus a sunroom. The sunroom is a piece-of-shit, uninsulated, sloping-floored catchall for all the crap we need to store someplace. During the summer, it's usally 714 degrees and in the winter it's 45 degrees below 0. It currently holds tools of all make, model and size, holiday decorations, baby gear, a steam cleaner, St. Louis Cardinals lawn chairs, cans of paint, old toys and this safe that says "Property of Al Capone" on the outside. It will soon contain our Emmie and her things, as we are gutting it and making it a fully-functioning bedroom. That makes this a five-bedroom (plus office that could be a sixth bedroom) house and hopefully completes any more goddamn remodeling we have to do. Other than the upstairs bathroom. But that can wait. You know, until the bathtub falls through the floor.

* You might ask why we don't make two of the kids share a room to save some money, don't you people know there is a recession and you are a SAHM, you selfish whores of consumption? The answer is because Josh and I would go insane if our children all got up at 5:30 a.m. every day. Although Jack has been sleeping well for three whole days, we know better and realize it won't last. Rather than have him share his passion for torturing his parents at 5:30 a.m. with a sibling, we elected to have a room for everyone and everyone in his/her room on the third floor. This leaves a guest room free for guests (read: grandparents who are gracious enough to get up with the children when they sleep over) and an office in which Josh can hide from the kids in the basement. It also means everyone will sleep on the same level of the house and I won't have to clomp up and down the stairs to deal with nighttime wanderings, midnight feedings or requests for glasses of water.

* Apologies for the shit I just spewed forth. Tune in tomorrow for All Ultrasound Pictures, All The Time. Subtitle: "I Finally Found A Flashdrive So I Could Scan The Damn Things In A Month Later."

Being neighborly

A few months ago, you may recall we had a little visitor in our house.

After that debacle, we had a lock installed on the front gate to our property to match the locked gate at the back of our property. I like to say we live in Fort Knox now, because unless you have a key or a garage-door-opener, you ain't gettin' in. I feel pretty secure and am happy with the situation because it means I don't have to buy a gun. Not that I don't think you shouldn't be able to have a gun. I am all for licensed, trained firearms owners exercising their right to bear arms. Or their right to bare arms, although only if they work out because I see enough of my own flabby triceps and don't need to see anyone else's.

Not so happy about the gated community we've established is our new next-door neighbor. Our old next-door neighbor moved away last week and the new people moved in. Like many residents in this area, they're renters, young whippersnappers just out of college. I have seen their landlord, the owner of the house three feet to the south of our house, the house where we can see into their bathroom and got to know the sex lives of our neighbors two years ago a little too intimately, exactly four times in the last four years. He doesn't have someone come and remove the snow, he doesn't really give a shit about his property, he just shows up when something major needs fixing or when new people move in.

Genius Landlord, as we'll call him, has owned his building about 150 years longer than we've owned ours. And he has been taking advantage of our property situation by telling his tenants to access their basement laundry room by opening our front gate, walking down our stairs, meandering down our little sidewalk and re-entering his property via a door under his deck.

Which used to scare the living shit out of me several nights a week when I would hear people clomping down the stairs at midnight and think someone was trying to break in and kill me. It makes perfect sense to do laundry at midnight on a Monday, no?

In the winter, we don't shovel the steps going down to the ground level because A. there's no reason we need to go down there and B. by not shoveling, we can see any footprints and know if some unsavory characters have been lurking about where they are not supposed to be. That and we can see if any urban fauna (i.e. rats) have chosen to grace us with their presence.

But that presents a dilemma for us. Because we don't shovel the stairs or the path (let's not kid ourselves, mostly because we are lazy), but our neighbors use it to access their laundry facilities, they could sue the organic crackers out of us if they slip and fall. One of Josh's best friends is a personal injury attorney, and if you hear about all the ways you could get screwed by a personal injury on your property, well let's just say your butthole puckers at the mere thought of someone stubbing their pinky toe at your house.

On the advice of our attorney, we decided not to give a gate key to the new neighbors. It's too much risk. Not to mention, all Genius Landlord has to do is cut a hole in his deck and drop a staircase in there and the tenants have access. Nice and easy. Everybody wins.

New Neighbor called the house last night to ask for a key to the gate. Josh explained the situation and politely told him it's not happening and to call his landlord to figure out what to do. New Neighbor was displeased. Said suing was, "not my style." Unfortunately, living out of a box under an overpass with three kids is "not our style" and we're not giving up the key.

He tried to argue with Josh about the merits of property access and told Josh that if he breaks into our property and falls and hurts himself, he could still sue us. Umm, not sure how credible that case would be, but as Josh pointed out, if we give him a key, that's giving him permission to enter and that's certainly going to hold up in court.

So they parted on not-so-great terms and I am waiting for Genius Landlord to take an interest in this and get out the plot of survey and start duking out access rights with us any minute. In the meantime, I hope New Neighbor doesn't start throwing his dirty boxers over the fence in protest. Because I would totally do something assholish like that if I was him.

School daze

We're still trying to figure out how things work with the new school schedule here at Chez Snarky. But one thing is for sure, Jack loves his new school. Can't wait to get there in the morning and comes out with a huge smile on his face in the afternoon.

He sits next to a little boy named Josh at lunch, loves to play on the playground at recess and has a lot to say about the drama class he has on Thursdays. How cute is that -- drama for 3-year-olds?

We had a lot of real-life drama around the house during the last week, however, because Jack's sleep went in the shitter. He stopped taking naps and started getting up at 5:30 a.m. every day. That meant he was only getting about 10 hours of sleep per day and it just wasn't enough.

Oh the tantrums and the general weepiness and aggression made the four hours I got to spend with him after school extra-special. I even tried making him take a nap on Friday when he got home. Oh foolish Mommy. As if.

This weekend culminated in a sleep-deprived heap of crying at soccer. At 9 a.m. He just couldn't deal with the other kids trying to kick the ball at the same time he was trying to kick the ball and he ran off the field crying. You would think his utter exhaustion would have resulted in a nap that day. You would be wrong.

Throw in a cold-cough-runny nose that he picked up compliments of school, and you have a recipe for disaster. He clearly needed more sleep than he was getting. And it wasn't happening.

I couldn't take it anymore by Sunday night and decided to hell with it -- he was going to bed earlier than ever before. We gave him his shower at 6 p.m. and he was in bed at 6:25 p.m. I never heard a peep out of him. He woke up at 3:30 to go to the bathroom, went right back to sleep and managed to sleep until 6:20 a.m.

Building on that success, I planned to have him in bed at 6:30 again tonight. But he pretty much lost his mind during dinner. He refused to hold his cup with his hands, spilled it everywhere trying to hold it with his mouth only, was told if he didn't hold his cup with his hands, he would have to go straight to bed and because he's 3.5 years old, guess what he elected to do? You got it -- he tried to do it without hands again and we sent him away from the table. You would think he hadn't finished three-quarters of his dinner already, the way he carried on.

We told him if he couldn't stop throwing a tantrum, he would have to go straight upstairs. That's when he started sobbing, "I am so tired. I am tired. I need to go to sleep."

Poor kid. So I took him upstairs and tried to settle him down. There was a lot of crying and after finally getting him into bed, I didn't hear a peep out of him after 6:45 p.m. I felt awful for him because I know how it feels to be that tired, but at least I can recognize it. I don't think he's capable of that yet, which makes it so hard to figure out what's going on in his head.

So for the next few days, I am going to keep attempting the 6:30 bedtime and see where it gets us. Poor Emmie is totally confused by the whole thing and starts screaming and crying when Jack goes upstairs to take a bath without her. She then spends the whole time she has us to herself pointing to the stairs and saying, "Ja? Jaaaa?"

I really hope we settle into a new routine soon.

The perfect storm

I want you all to be the first to know: WeeBey is coming Dec. 4. I know this because the perfect storm is brewing and all the pieces will fall into place causing me to spontaneously combust and go into labor on that exact day.

At yesterday's OB appointment, my doctor and I took a gander at the calendar to see when this cerclage will be coming out. I will be 36 weeks Nov. 17. But I like to have my cerclages removed on Fridays because there is a small chance all those jazz-hands on my cervix and the whole "tugging the shit out of your cervix while trying really hard to get the wire out" business can cause me to go into labor. And if that's the case, then I have Josh around for the whole weekend to help me play a rousing round of "Is that a contraction?" instead of off cavorting with his friends at some sporting event. Or working. Far away. Out of town.

So that makes the removal date Nov. 20. Jack was born 19 days after my cerclage came out; Emmie arrived 12 days afterward. So let's split the difference and make it 14 days for WeeBey, even though everyone knows the more babies you have, the earlier they come. So that puts us at Dec. 4.

Jack's school calendar shows he has that day off. Of course he does. Because I will surely go into labor with two children at home. That's just how it goes for me. Even more distressing, my OB will be out of the country that entire week. Now, that's not a huge deal. Considering my chance of having my own doctor deliver a spontaneous birth (that is, one that's not induced) is one in seven, I wasn't counting on it anyway. But it would have been nice to have a shot at it.

I am also predicting a freak early December blizzard to coincide with all of this other shit. And Josh will probably be working in India. And the freak blizzard will mean I can't open the gate because there will be 10 feet of snow in the way, which means I won't be able to drive myself to the hospital and I'll be dressing two kids in snowpants and boots and dragging them by the hands, uphill, both ways, in snow drifts to the El. And I'll probably forget my El card and have to come up with cash to pay the damn fare. And I never carry cash.

There's no way I am exaggerating this in the slightest.

Mark your calendars kids -- I am 27 weeks and that stitch comes out in nine weeks. NINE WEEKS. To say I am not ready is a gross understatement. But I guess we have new crib bedding suitable for either sex, we have full wardrobes of boy and girl clothes in storage, we have a girl's name and two boy's names picked out and I have my boobs. I mean the boobs are all we need, really. We can go without a name, but baby needs to eat. So maybe we are ready.

Goooallllllll!

Not only was it the big first day of school this week, but it was also Jack's first soccer match last weekend. He had two lame practices in preparation for the actual game, which consisted one week of a circle of kids kicking the ball to each other and another week where they had no coach, so he kicked the ball around with Josh and his uncle Thabu.

The day before the big game, Josh and I decided we needed to start some serious training. We figured a regimen of two-a-days, wind sprints and dribbling drills would be a good way to start. But then we realized we would have to show him how to do the wind sprints and that would really suck, so we took him to the park for some one-on-one instruction instead. We took his goal and ball that he usually uses in the house to the park and kicked it around for an hour. And yes, Josh lets our kids play full-out soccer in the house. Also, T-ball. Which Mommy doesn't allow because the ball hits the flat-screen and Mommy doesn't want to replace it.

When we showed up for the game bright and early Saturday, ours was the only kid running laps on the track. I mean we didn't make him, he asked! Who am I to deny a vigorous pregame warm-up? By the time the team picture was over, Jack was raring to go.



There are 10 kids on each 3-year-old team and the rule is five of the children play 10 minutes, then they have halftime and the other five kids play the second half. Jack started off the game and on the first possession, this was the result:



Seriously, look at the ball-handling skill on that kid. He scored on TWO goalies. I am seeing Adidas contracts in our future.

Emmie apparently doesn't think Jack is all that, as she refused to watch him play and instead spent her time ignoring him and sitting on the track. She likes Ronaldo and can't be bothered to cheer for anyone else. That's the Brazilian Ronaldo, not the other one.



A few plays later, he scored AGAIN. If he's going to play like this, we need a celebration move. I am taking suggestions, if you have anything clever. Ripping his shirt off and running downfield is so 1999.



Then, when the second half started, they asked if he wanted to play goalie. Yep, my kid doesn't sit. He's that good. Guess who blocked two shots on goal, shutting the other team out for a 3-0 victory?



We'll be stepping up the instructional time from now on, getting him a private coach to work on advanced heading and dribbling techniques. I figure he'll be ready to move up to the 4-year-old division next week just so he doesn't get bored. He also travels with his own personal fan club.



Clearly, my worries about him not inheriting my athletic ability were unfounded. Thank God he takes after me. (Although my family would tell you he's a lot faster than me already. And I can admit my one weakness; speed is not my gift. Good thing I batted left-handed because I was already one step closer to first base on that side of the plate.)

First day of school

I have been talking nonstop about Jack's first day of all-day preschool for the last two years now. I go on and on to anyone who will listen how awesome our neighborhood school is and how it's FREE! MONTESSORI!

Except then the day came to send him off to all-day preschool with his backpack and his lunch and his blanket for naptime and I was suddenly unsure. What the hell kind of parent sends her 3-year-old off for a whole day with two women she met for 15 minutes two weeks ago? He needs me! What was I thinking?



And then we were there, and he was putting his backpack in his very own locker. Yes, my 3-year-old has a LOCKER. And carrying his lunchbox into the classroom and getting settled in.



At least they'll remember his name. And he's the only Jack in his class (shocking, considering every third kid in this neighborhood is named Jack) so that's good. Somehow the nametag made me feel a little relieved. They would at least know what name to call him in timeout if he started hitting the other kids.

Then he gave us a kiss and a hug, and was off to the other side of the classroom to explore. This Montessori thing had to be created with Jack in mind. Tons of interesting little toys, each with a place and everything in its place. He walked around with a HUGE grin on his face and was genuinely delighted to be there. I breathed a sigh of relief -- this was the best decision for him. I believe he will flourish in this system.



And that was our last view of him. His teacher asked him if he would like to sit down on the rug and read books, and he did. Just like that. Sat right down and got to work. We said our goodbyes and he waved dismissively. I guess he didn't have any reservations about staying.

On the way home, pushing an empty stroller, Josh asked me if I was sad. I told him I wasn't sad that he was going to school, just sad that he's not a little boy anymore. He's so grown up and doesn't need me as much.

I arrived at pick-up about 10 minutes early, along with several other moms I know, anxious to see them come out of the building. I felt like someone waiting for their long-lost love outside airport security. I craned my neck, kept checking the time. When the door opened and I saw a different teacher with a different class, my heart lurched.

But then there he was -- second in line out of the door and looking all around for me. I waved and got his attention and I thought my heart would burst waiting the 45 seconds it took for him to reach the spot where I could take possession of him on the playground. I'm not sure who was more excited to see who, or gave who the bigger hug, but it was definitely one of the best mothering moments I've had.

We walked home, him with his snack in the stroller and me chattering away with a million questions about his day. I couldn't tell you the route we took home or the amount of time it took. But I remember everything about our conversation. Someday I'll be lucky to get more than a grunt out of him after school, but for today, when he was 3-and-a-half, he was an eager participant in the discussion. And for once, I just lived in the moment and took it all in.

Reliving his good old days

Let me give you parents of more than one child a little advice: it might seem like a good idea to send one of your children off to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for a few days so you can give one of your other children some undivided attention. That would actually be a HORRIBLE idea.

Don't get me wrong, while you only have the one child, you will have life so easy you would encourage the grandparents to keep the other child a little longer. You will relax at the playground instead of hyperventilating because you have lost sight of a child -- you only have one to watch, how could you possibly take your eyes off him? You will let the child in your care choose the activities and meals and just about everything else because there's no one to fight with over who does what and when.

But then the other child will come home. And you will be overjoyed to have the other child home. Except you will be the only one who feels that way. The child who spent the last few days reliving his only-child past will be pissed. Very, very pissed.

The behavior in my house this last 36 hours has been off-the-charts horrible. Pushing, shoving, hitting, tantrums and fits. Poor Emmie. Welcome home sister dear, let me show you how much I missed you with a shove to the ground where you hit your head on the hardwood floor and cry for 10 solid minutes.

School starts Monday. Oh thank you all that is right with the world, school starts on Monday. Emmie shares my views. She'll just be the one sporting her bike helmet for the rest of the weekend in case Jack gets any urges to introduce her to the floor again.

Wipe out

Recently, I realized that having a fully potty-trained child (a must for Jack's new school) doesn't just mean they need to be able to pee and poop on their own. It also means they need to be able to wipe themselves. Not such a big deal if you have a kid who only poops once a day, but when you have the Incredible Pooping Machine like I do, this presents a challenge.

I have asked his pediatrician about this, but he says as long as he's healthy and growing, the prolific pooping isn't a problem. I still suspect it's a dairy intolerance, but I am too lazy to take him off all dairy and besides, I am not a crazy person. Taking away cheese and yogurt is like taking away more than half his diet and I am not up for trying to find substitutes (we don't do soy in our house, so not an option) and I really can't spare the brain power it would take to search labels and make sure there wasn't a drop of dairy to be found. Plus my pediatrician says not to take him off milk, so pfffft!

Since he's been pooping in the potty, an adult has always handled the wiping aspect. We found these awesome flushable wipes from Cottonelle (and they're nice for adults, too!) and somehow Jack started calling them Special Wipes and we stocked a box in all three bathrooms and brought them with us in the diaper bag and my purse for bathroom outings outside the house.

But about three weeks ago, I had to face some things. First, we couldn't very well send Jack to school with a box of Special Wipes. The other kids would totally make fun of him. And second, we better teach him to wipe himself because it could be all kinds of awful if he didn't know what to do and just did nothing at all.

So we told him to start wiping himself. Which he did, with serious consideration and careful practice. I am pleased to report the visions I had of poop-smeared toilet seats, toilet bases, walls, sinks and floors did not materialize.

He also adjusted quite nicely to regular old toilet paper. Except for the fact he uses way too much of it. When I say "way too much" please know I really mean "half a roll." I am scared for my plumbing, but Costco is going to love us because we're going through a roll a day in a single bathroom now.

Today, I found out exactly why we're going through that much TP. When Jack emerged from the bathroom late this afternoon, there was a large wet spot on the back of his shorts. Curious to know exactly how that happened, I asked him.

"Mommy," he said, with great animation, "I just take the toilet paper out of the water and I swish it all around the toilet seat!"

I'm sorry, what did you just say? Why would you do that? And the scariest question of all: then what happened?

"Well, Mommy, then I flush it all down the toilet! There was water EVERYWHERE!"

And indeed, there was. So there's six-months-pregnant Mommy on her hands and knees swabbing the poop deck. Literally.

Psuedo only child

Much like Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, this is Mommy and Jack Week in the Snarky family. We're spending some quality time together before he starts school next week and Emmie is having quality time with Grandma and Grandpa in Wisconsin before she starts All-Mommy, All-The-Time 14 Weeks next week. That will be followed by New Baby Invasion Weeks in December. I am sure she'll love it.

When I first found out our neighborhood school offered a full-day, five-day-per-week Montessori program, I hesitated for about 2.5 nanoseconds. Full-day school? For free? Where do I sign?

But now as it's getting closer, I am starting to have some pangs about sending my little boy off with strangers for six hours every day. I mean he's going to play outside on a playground without my direct supervision to make sure he doesn't fall off the monkey bars and break his arm. He's going to eat lunch without my direct supervision to make sure he eats his spinach before he gets his dessert. He's going to have to wipe himself after he goes to the bathroom. The pressure, I tell you.

Not to mention the fact he will be in a class of 26 kids with only two teachers. That's 13 kids per adult! I can't even hang out with 13 people at once and keep track of what everyone is doing. How can they possibly watch 13 young children without losing one? These kids are shifty, they can sneak away in a second. Or something. Something terrible.

But next Monday, we'll send him off to school and I'll probably spend the days wishing he was here torturing Emmie and running away from me. I had doubts about Emmie's ability to exist without her brother stealing all the attention. She's always had someone else to play with. Now she's probably going to make me be her playmate. But when he was off at camp several mornings per week this summer, she relished the time alone and enjoyed playing with the train table with no one screaming, "NO EMMIE I AM PLAYING RIGHT NOW," grabbing the trains out of her hot little hands and throwing her to the ground. So I think she'll be just fine.

To celebrate his last week at home, we've been doing fun stuff. Monday we went to the playground and the water park and out for pizza. Tuesday we took the El downtown, went to the Planetarium, had lunch and dinner out and played at the park some more. Today we hit the farmer's market and the park and had pizza for dinner again, followed by ice cream cones. Tomorrow, we have the Children's Museum on the agenda as well as a reunion with his sister.

I know he'll never remember this week in the grand scheme of things, but I hope he's had fun having me all to himself and doing fun things that he loves. I've had a lot of fun with him. I found myself getting teary tonight as he licked his cone at Dairy Queen and smiled at me with ice cream all over his face. That sweet little face will be the one greeting me every day at 2:45 p.m. and I am so looking forward to that part of school -- the part where he runs to me and hugs me with that mega-watt smile on his face and we talk all about his day on the way home. Makes the six-hour separation more than worth it.

I am raising a genius

I am not usually one for disclosing the fact that my son is a certifiable genius. It's not really a surprise, seeing the gene pool he comes from. (You can all stop laughing now. Just because we put dirt three feet up the foundation of our house doesn't mean we iz stoopid. We can haz purdy flowers.)

Jack just turned 3-and-a-half years old and knows his full name, his address and his telephone number, including area code. He can spell his full name, somewhat legibly write his first name, knows his sister's full name and how to spell it and can play Mariokart on the Wii.

He's currently fascinated by babies in people's tummies and can tell you everyone who has been in anyone else's tummy in our extended family. He has known all his colors, shapes and letters for more than a year, but we'll throw that in as well.

He's really into what fruits and veggies grow on trees and what grows on bushes or in the ground. But carrots stumped him this morning when we discussed it over a breakfast of pumpkin bread and scrambled eggs.

Jack: "Mommy, where do carrots grow?"
Mommy: "They grow in the ground."
Jack: "On the ground?"
Mommy: "No, under the ground."
Jack: "Where the subway El tracks are?"

Seriously, that is his thought process. He knows the subway runs under the ground and since carrots are growing under the ground, they must be growing near the tracks.

I can't wait to see how he theorizes that this baby is coming out of Mommy's tummy. Because he keeps asking and I keep saying, "The doctor will help the baby come out."

So does anyone have any age-appropriate thoughts on how to tell him the baby is going to shoot out of Mommy's girly bits like a pinball? He knows the correct anatomy terms (so do I, but can you imagine the Google searches that would result from that same phrase I just typed with the correct terms? I shudder to think.) but I am wondering how much detail we should get into at this age. Not to mention, I need to figure out how much of it I want all 26 kids in his new class to know, since I bet he will be sharing his knowledge with all of them.

Eating it up

Parenting amnesia really sucks ass.

I know nature intended for us to forget the bad stuff, because we would never procreate again if we remembered the pain and suffering. Take for instance, the teeth-gnashing that comes along with the care and feeding of a 19.5-month-old.

Oh I forgot about this stage with Jack and now I am reliving it again with Emmie. And it's just as much fun the second time around. And when I say just as much fun, I mean as fun as piercing your eyelid with a screwdriver and then inserting a nail and calling it an "eye ring."

Today Emmie refused to eat oatmeal, cantaloupe, turkey, cheese, bread, squash, chicken, tikka masala, rice, naan and applesauce. Things she did eat? Milk, pumpkin bread, milk, a single pea, milk, more milk, almond butter off a spoon and a smoothie. Also, air.

The items she refused to eat all ended up on the floor at various times during various meals. And before people point out she might be drinking too much milk and filling up on that, we give her milk with meals and a small amount mid-morning and mid-afternoon. By late afternoon, she will scream bloody murder if we don't give it to her. And that's fun for exactly no one in this family or anyone walking by outside, for that matter, so we would give in and get the damn cup of "NUM NUM MAAAAAAAA" for her. But starting yesterday, I don't give in anymore. She needs to learn she won't get everything she screams for at some point. Better now with milk than later with Coach purses.

Tonight, she happily started in on the chicken tikka masala I lovingly made for my family (sauce from a jar, but still) and then took the plate and flung it at my feet after one bite. It is important to note she has eaten this dinner at least once a week since she was about nine months old and used to love it. Now, not so much. You can imagine I handled that plate-flinging with great diplomacy.

I did notice she's cutting two new teeth on the bottom, for a grand total of six bottom teeth (four new ones), so maybe that's bothering her. But whatever it is, it's bothering me. And if it bothers Mommy, it bothers EVERYONE because Mommy makes sure everyone knows about how hard she has it.

Cause and effect

As long-time readers know, our house has been a bit of a challenge. For those not in the know, we bought our 123-year-old house four years ago. When we bought it, we thought it was perfect for fixing up. And when I say fixing up, I really mean completely gutting the first floor.

That was the best decision ever. It took our house from "oh, a house" to "OH! A house!" in our minds. Our kitchen kicks all kinds of ass and we really like the open layout the remodel created. We also built a third bedroom upstairs, giving us a lot more space.

Then, we grew out of our space when we had Emmie, and decided to convert our two-family house to a single-family house. Sure we lost the rental income, but we weren't tripping over toys and we could once again host the grandparents in a guestroom. And that was important because when the grandparents stay over, Mommy and Daddy get to sleep in. We like our sleep. Clearly, the conversion was the way to go.

Converting gave us an extra bedroom and full bath as well as created an office for Josh and a huge play space for the kids. Which was all kinds of awesome. Not any kind of awesome was the discovery of termites and the dietary delicacy they considered our house. That pretty much sucked ass.

In between the two interior remodeling projects, we also did some landscaping outside. I am very proud of the landscaping as we built several retaining walls and raised planter beds in various spots as well as laid our own brick patio. I did 75 percent of the work on that project by myself as Josh was sitting on the sidelines with a wrist injury. It was my blood, sweat and tears. And I am proud of my landscaping.

When it came to problems with the interior remodeling, we couldn't blame ourselves. I mean the house is 123 years old. Things are wonky. Then floors are a little slanty, the walls aren't plumb, the support beams are a little saggy. But it's got charm. But when it comes to the exterior and the landscaping, we are a pair of huge DUMBASSES.

When we built the raised planter beds and retaining walls, we piled a bunch of dirt up and penned it in with the paver bricks from the corner of the house to the corner of the eight-foot-high retaining wall. So we just piled a bunch of dirt right up against the brick foundation of our house. The corner of the house, to be exact. You know, where two sides of the house are held up.

Today we had a guy come over to give us an estimate on tuckpointing the brick on the first level of the house. He took one look at the retaining wall/raised planter and told us we have damage behind it. Not maybe, not he guessed. He said we definitely did. He can't believe we haven't seen water damage inside the house yet. The area in question inside the house would be right behind my brand-new, custom-built bookshelves.

In the annals of Dumb Shit Amy and Josh Have Done, this one takes the cake. Not only have we potentially done damage to the single largest investment in our lives, but we also brought a whole shitload of extra work on ourselves. Well, on Josh because I am not in a position to do any manual labor right now.

So in the next few days, Josh has to disassemble the wall and move all the dirt so the tuckpointer can come back and take a look. Then they'll fix the damage to the brick, put down a rubber membrane over that portion of the brick and then Josh can move all the dirt back and rebuild the wall. Again.

Because of the way projects concerning this house go, we'll probably be banned from the premises because the house will fall down and we'll be living in a tent on the driveway out back when the baby comes home. In December. In the snow.

Hi there

All of a sudden, Emmie is the Walmart greeter of our family.

She says "hi" to Josh and I in the morning. She says "hi" to people on the phone. She says "hi" to people when she pretends to talk on the phone. She says "hi" to people she sees in stores. She says "hi" to homeless people she sees on the street. She yells "hi" and bangs on the window when she sees people walking by the house, which is approximately every 30 seconds.

It's awesome. She has this little tiny voice and it comes out as a clipped, "hi!"

She also likes to bid people a fond farewell with an equally tiny-voiced "bye!" Tonight when we put her to bed, we shut the door and heard her yell, "bye" behind the closed door.

The mimicry is really taking off lately and she at least tries to repeat back everything we say to her. Mama and dada are still her all-time favorites, but she's working in more each day. Strong candidates for soon-to-be-favorites include car, El and Go Diego Go. The latter making me fall down laughing every time I hear it. There's no sheltering the second child from the television.

Yesterday she started her music class for the fall. She took the same class (different teacher) last spring, but we took the summer off so I think she forgot all about it. She wore a new dress and was really excited to be going somewhere with just Mommy, but when we got into the room, she plunked herself down on my lap and wouldn't move. It took her a song to warm up, but then she was standing in the middle of the circle, moving and grooving, singing along and doing all the hand movements to "Wheels on the Bus."

She was even more excited about the blueberry muffin at Starbucks afterward. She knows where it's at.