The Burbs

Shortly after emigrating from Northeast Portland to the suburbs, Party Girl formed a Bunco group. I was the first member enlisted and also the only member that lived 20 miles away. The rest of the group comprised her neighbors of varying upper income levels. These Bunco events are a whole story unto themselves and can be addressed later.

Anyway, each month the members of the group take turns hosting the party at their house. Since I’m the only geographically, economically and spatially challenged member, and no one wants to pay the gas for their SUV to trek over to my side of town, part of the deal of my being willing to come across the tracks was I would have use of Party Girl’s house when my time to host came. Last month was my turn to host, and after witnessing first hand the lengths to which Party Girl goes to have a sparkling domicile and after standing around ineffectually for an uncomfortable amount of time (hey, I did offer to help), simultaneously apologizing and thanking her again and again and again for the use of her home, I grandiosely offered a night of babysitting, anytime, at her house, for payment in return for all her hard work, to which she judiciously agreed.

As it turns out, the date she had in mind was a day I was working. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t looking forward to a day that started at 5 a.m. and ended after midnight, where the highlight was watching a 6-year-old and a child under 2. I don’t like looking after my own child after a day of work, much less someone else’s.

For anonymity sake, we’ll call Party Girl’s offspring E1 and E2 (E1 being the elder 6-year-old child, Vaughn’s now estranged old buddy, and E2 being the afterthought). True to my form, I had planned to employ my best Supernanny skills and plop them in front of the TV for the next 2 hours until bedtime. Unfortunately, when I got there I was informed the electricity was out on the whole block with no estimated time of return. After circumventing the inevitable wail of abandonment from the 1-1/2-year-old (E2) as the parents left, we stood there staring at each other for a good 20 minutes or so before concluding that we were in danger of entering that 4th dimension where hours pass like minutes if we didn't come up with some kind of entertainment quick. Several rounds of Candyland and Shoots and Ladders later, all the while wrestling E2 off the game board and rescuing innocent game figures from the fate of spending a day or two wandering E2’s intestinal tract, I convinced E1 to go outside to the backyard, hoping for a more child riveting/slothful adult diversion. As we started on our tour, the first thing on the dog's to-do list was to promptly poop in the great expanse of meticulously groomed greenery they quaintly call their backyard. E2 was immediately drawn to this, requiring me to carry her little doll-like frame around the yard to keep her from playing patty poop with the dog’s feces. However, she developed a disturbing fascination with the dog's pile of poop, continually redirecting me with her "oop, oop" and thrusting her pudgy little arm in her attempts to conduct me to make the poop pilgrimage across the lawn multiple times so we could gaze on the dog's mound of elimination, counting the ever increasing crowd’s of flies progress in their maggot production. That seemed to be the most entertaining aspect of the evening for her. Of course, every time we admired the dog's sculpture of excrement, I felt increasing guilt over not cleaning it up off an otherwise immaculate lawn, inventorying just what I thought babysitting duties entailed and if they should include dog waste disposal.

After an untold number of less than subtle glances at the clock, it was finally getting late enough that I could pronounce it bedtime and perform the bedding down festivities, at least with E2.

One thing about babysitting other people’s kids is it allows me to do comparison checks. Now, being accustomed to Vaughn’s remarkable aversion to all things sleep related, I was preparing to fend of the nocturnal resistance for the remainder of the evening. Fortunately, I have a black belt in this particular form of warfare, having had plenty of practice for the last 6+ years.

As I’m putting E2 down to sleep (per parental instructions, including bedtime bottle of milk) and begin to leave the room, I marvel at her feather-light weight, being more familiar with Vaughn’s generous proportions. I don’t think I ever experienced Vaughn at that size, maybe at birth. E1 is supervising the bedding down process, reaffirming to me why I enjoy the pre-speech stage of child development so much.

"My mommy holds her and walks her back and forth before she puts her down." (Yeah, well…Allow me to introduce myself. Vaughn's Mom, otherwise known as Slacker Mom. Slacker Mom ain't down wit dat.) Of course, E1 continues to advise me on further bedtime techniques employed by her parents, as I'm looking over my shoulder at E2, who at this point is collapsed on the mattress of her crib, mouth slacked open with nipple of bottle hanging precariously from one lip and nothing but the whites of her eyes showing beneath her cemented shut eyelids. As foreign as this behavior is to me, I'm pretty sure I'm safe in assuring E1 that her sister has been expeditiously engulfed in Mr. Sandman's generous sprinkling of sleeping dust, in this case sleeping potion, and the pacing of the floor will be unnecessary this evening.

Next I start on E1, figuring this is where my veteran bedtime combat experience will finally be engaged. She sweetly and thoroughly brushes her teeth, swiftly changes into her pajamas and quietly listens to a quick bedtime story, lights out, never to be heard from again. I stumble downstairs, stunned and confused, unsure of what I just experienced. It had all the earmarkings of bedtime but completely unlike anything I have ever experienced before. Is this what average children are like? Is this usual or unusual behavior? Were their bodies snatched when they moved to the burbs and replaced with these odd Stepford children? Hmmm. If so, this just might be reason to seriously consider moving.

Waking Dream

Vaughn employs every diversionary tactic at his disposal to extend his bedtime. Each evening after being put to bed, he makes his customary quota of trips upstairs to our bedroom for one reason or another, always something legitimate, of course, some emergency of one form or another. Last night after summoning us downstairs numerous times and making the predictable 20-30 trips upstairs, his approach was heralded once again by dramatic sighs, thumps and other assorted noises intended to maximize the parental emotional response. Finally, after much anticipation, his head crowns the top of the stairs, and after a long, theatrical sigh, he looks at us with as much woefulness as he can muster and pronounces:

“I’m having a bad reality.”

Yeah? Me, too.

Wordsmith

Vaughn was watching me open a package from Nordstrom’s, my eagerly anticipated arrival of Diorshow, a mascara that promises to give me the appearance of wearing false eyelashes without actually having to exert the energy involved in applying them. I pull out the Diorshow package that’s a flashing sparkly silver color. Frankly, I’m more impressed with the packaging than the mascara. As I’m oooing and ahhing over the packaging and commenting on how pretty it is, I can see Vaughn looking at it hungeringly, a glint in his keen packrat eyes.

“Do you want the package? It’s pretty, huh?”

“Can I?! Yeah, it’s pretty. It’s…DAZZLING!”

Hmm. Not the kind of vocabulary I would expect from a 6-year-old boy. There just might be a future in fashion for this one.

“Where did you learn that word? School?”

“Nope. Word Girl. It means: ‘To be so bright as to be almost blinding.’”

“Yes… I’d say that describes it rather nicely.”

Who says television isn’t educational? All that electronic babysitting is finally paying off.

Teacher, Boobs, Crush (I knew that would get your attention)

I have a crush on one of Vaughn’s teachers. Granted, he was probably still breastfeeding when I was getting my driver’s license …oh wait…give me a moment…Teacher Hottie breastfeeding…Okay. I’m done. Hey! I’m married, not dead (though the two bear some striking resemblances at times). Anyway, that’s my nickname for him: Teacher Hottie (partly because he’s hot and partly because I can never remember his name). Whenever I see him, I get all tingly and flustered, and I transform into this inarticulate, twitter-painted, infatuated teenager, and the best thing I can ever squeak out whenever I have the good fortune of encountering him is a breathy, “Hi,” while my 6-year-old perkily greets him, “Hello, Mr. B.” Dave, of course, is well aware of this crush, having that strange H. family anomaly of lacking the jealousy gene, and will listen at length as I opine the hotness of young Teacher Hottie. In Dave’s ever practical mind, as long as it doesn’t lead to playing squish and squeeze, my Teacher Hottie crush is his gain. Now…back to Teacher Hottie breastfeeding…

Vaughn and the Giant Squid

I live with 2 packrats. If I weren’t married to Dave, I would be convinced that Vaughn was a changeling swapped out by a hoarding rodent. Unfortunately, there is too much genetic evidence to deny the origins of Vaughn’s squirreling proclivities. Lest I'm being remiss in conveying the scope of Dave’s obsession, an example of "Something I might have use for later," includes an electric razor, minus the head, that has long since gone on to Norelco Nirvana, with globs of whiskers still clinging to its razor skeleton. This was one of the many priceless treasures that, much to Vaughn's delight, his daddy allowed him to collect from the seemingly endless treasure trove that is otherwise known as our basement. It is a veritable packrat Utopia, our basement. Vaughn's enthusiasm could not be curbed as he collected the various "supplies" that would be needed to contribute to his current invention-- *big movie announcer voice with reverb* "The Giant Squid Catcher." *Catcher,Catcher, Catcher, Catcher* Other essentials were discarded nylon clothes line, the handle from an old garden shovel (with chipping red lead paint), an old shower head (the kind that detach so you can get to those hard to reach places, you know who you are), and other sundries soon to be buried in what I like to call Dante's 1st Circle of Hell--"I am the way into the city of woe," a.k.a., Limbo, a.k.a. Vaughn's room.

Hunting squid is just the latest in Vaughn's phases. Let's see, first there were trains, and that went on for a good 2-3 years or so, long enough to have collected a plethora of all things trainlike that are now collecting dust in various locations in our home. There was a brief dalliance with racecars which somehow morphed into a fascination with all things oceanic. Now, he has chosen to focus his research and specialize in the Giant Squid--a noble calling.

Happily, his basement hunting expedition fulfilled 2 of his main tools that he had on his list for the construction of his Giant Squid Catcher, and yes, he had a list. I believe it read something like this--"Baskits rop." The fact that he scored a gaudy fake gold toilet paper dispenser out of his basement foray was purely a fortunate happenstance.

He has now informed me that he and Daddy will be heading out on a second basement pilgrimage tomorrow, something I await with bated breath. Perhaps he’ll uncover the missing toilet seat that matches the gold toilet paper dispenser—the Holy Grail, as it were, of the basement tomb.

Those Hallmark Moments

A few days ago, I was meditating on the fact that it's been quite some time since I've heard the words "I HATE YOU!" spewing forth from Vaughn's mouth. I figured that the time had now come for a brief reprieve before the teen years set in and patted myself on the back for my superior parenting skills in subduing that particular rebellious preschool behavior. Then… there was today.

While driving home from school, as usual I was denying His Majesty some demand or other, hearing the predictable "Harrumph" and unintelligible grumblings from the back seat. Then I heard a sinister whisper in my ear,

"I...don't...L-I-K-E...you."

One of the many mixed blessings of parenting a kindergartner--being proud that he can spell and wanting to throttle him for being such a smartass.

It’s Fun To Stay At The Y-M-C-A

When Vaughn started school, the YMCA was offering kindergarten and afterschool care on the school grounds. Vaughn has never been fond of daycare (the rare times he has experienced it), but this seemed like a good deal. We promptly devised a number of reasons why we should take advantage of this opportunity. It was cheap. His friends from Kindergarten would be there, no big kids, and it would acclimate him to next year when he would be in school all day. And, of course, it would help us stay sane--three blessed days a week he would be in school from 8:30 to 3:00.

As the school year has progressed, Vaughn has begun to increasingly dislike the Y. I have made multiple attempts to query him as to the exact reason for this, to no satisfactory avail. Up to this point, his dislike of the YMCA has remained a mystery.

Of course, his YMCA outbursts have logically prompted us to try to concoct ways to provide Vaughn with a more positive association for the YMCA.

After hearing Vaughn utter the “I hate the Y” mantra once again, Dave was inspired to get out his DJ gear and put on his disk of the Village People’s infamous performance that no wedding reception would be complete without. This resulted in the following picture:

Music is blaring from the speakers in the living room, Vaughn is scowling murderously at us with his arms crossed, trying to kill us with his death stare, and his loving mommy and daddy are bouncing around the living room, enthusiastically singing along, “It’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A…,” complete with Village People hand motions.

Vaughn was not amused. For those of you who are curious, this is what it’s like to have musicians as parents. As Vaughn will willingly attest, they torture you unmercifully with music. It’s much like living in a musical from Hell or, as I like to call it, “Cats.”

Boys' Night Out

We were visiting my in-laws, C & S, today, a little H. family get together for upcoming Mother’s Day. The boys had decided to extend the evening by going to a movie. No, they weren’t being chauvinist pigs. Worse. They were going to a movie that none of the female set had the remotest interest in seeing—a documentary. As Auntie C. is trying to find child-friendly entertainment in their DVD collection (I have no idea why it didn’t just occur to me to put Vaughn to bed somewhere, since he was having entirely too much fun in their massage chair), she says, “Who’s Leslie Sansone? What’s a walk workout? How do you walk in your home?” Now, I could has said something smart like—“First you raise one foot and then put it down, and then…”--but uncharacteristically, I kept my mouth shut as I listened to her then go on to mock those that stand in front of their TV walking in place. (I still wonder why she had a workout DVD she was completely unacquainted with and had obviously never used. I suspect her husband was secretly rendezvousing with Leslie Sansone without C.’s knowledge.)

The thing is, I knew who she was talking about because I owned several of those DVDs. I held a brief frenetic conversation in my head as to whether I should divulge my little secret, but sleep deprivation won out, and I blurted, “I have several of her DVDs. It’s actually quite a good workout.” She’s staring at me, gape mouthed, like she can’t believe how she’s overestimated my intelligence all these years. “I mean…you don’t just walk. You do other stuff…” and then I lamely mumble other inanities, as her eyes are narrowing and naked skepticism is plastered all over her face. Of course, this didn’t stop my rambling.

Earlier in the day, we’d gone for pedicures, but my foot massage had to be limited to one foot because a month ago I had seriously strained my ankle and it was still tender to the touch. I now confessed that this had happened during a Leslie Sansone session. Now she’s looking at me like surely I am sh**ting her and thinking there is absolutely no possible way one can trip and strain their ankle while walking in place in front of their TV, so I proceeded to demonstrate. By the time I was done, my sister-in-law and niece were looking at me like I had just dropped several IQ points in their estimation of me.

My niece, God bless her, then asked, “Hey, have you seen that show on TV where the old lady is sitting in the chair exercising? I think it’s call ‘Sit and Fit,’” probably thinking this was just right up my alley.

I know I am dangerously teetering on the edge of dotage when I’m working out with Leslie, but I can’t help it. I actually like her DVDs. I don’t have to stare at a bunch of buff 17-year-olds, and many of her “friends” are rather plump, which makes me feel positively young and svelte whenever I play them. Besides, it’s an easy, lazy workout.

Leslie can be a bit too chipper for my tastes and only slightly less annoying than Denise Austin, but Denise is creepily cheery, in a Stepford fitness instructor kind of way. Denise Austin says you can workout anywhere, even doing butt squeezes in your car while you’re sitting in traffic. That to me is just too much effort; however, I do confess to the occasional Kegel workout in the grocery line, though it makes me feel a touch naughty. ;-)

Demon Barber of Glisan Street

I went to take Vaughn for a haircut today. It's been a few months. I can always tell when he's beginning to need it because it resembles a sparrow's nest with bad organizational skills when he gets out of bed in the morning. This is especially a problem when we're rushing out the door to school and I'm chasing him around and around in a circle with him screaming bloody murder in an effort to at least get the upper layer to lay flat over the hair mass, giving some semblance of effort on my part of making him presentable.

I usually take him to a kids tailored hair salon that’s supposed to make the whole seemingly tortuous ordeal of getting a haircut more child friendly. This place is wisely equipped with a toy strewn play area, salon chairs in the shape of various vehicles of transportation with TVs strategically placed in front of each one, unceasingly broadcasting something animated, and lollipops to sooth the tears from having suffered the shocking loss of ¼ inch of hair. He’s been going to this salon for about the last 2 years or so, but now that Vaughn has turned 6, I was feeling a wee bit conspicuous bringing in my 50+ pound Kindergartner to a place that is largely frequented by the under 4 set. His size has reached the point where he was getting dangerously close to giving the hairstylist a hernia trying to haul him into the little red airplane chair, and he was starting to freakishly tower over the other little midget sized patrons. Add all this to the fact that it is inconveniently located across town and I was getting tired of paying $20+ for a 2-minute haircut, so I decided that it is time for Vaughn to graduate to Old Faithful—Great Clips.

Now I know I have a tendency to not communicate my needs adequately, which can have disastrous implications at a hair salon, and once again, that situation must have occurred because when I said, "Just take 1/2 to an inch off," of Vaughn's 24 inches of length, the hairstylist evidently heard, "Oh heck, just scalp the little bugger," and proceeded to do just that in short order so that by the time we left the salon, Vaughn looking strikingly like a monk, complete with tonsure. I could have saved myself some bucks by just placing a small breakfast bowl on his head and shearing off whatever unruly locks were hanging below the rim.

I probably should have said something when the hair piling up on the floor exceeded the amount still on his head, but I have yet to figure out in the hair styling world at which point there is time to save yourself and at which point you should just pull the plug. The other hairstylist, who was sitting in the chair next to Vaughn (and had a tenuous grasp of English, at best), was sitting there gazing at the stacks of hair piling up under Vaughn’s chair and said something like, "Dat luk lie mo dan won itch, eh?" (Translation: "That's one hell of a lot more hair than an inch, Sweeny!") To which the Butcher of Seville, busily hacking away at what was left of Vaughn's hair, looked down at the floor with a maniacal grin plastered on her face then back up at the sane hairstylist and said, "Huh…You think so?," not missing a beat in her seemingly endless pruning of Vaughn's head, hands and scissors a whirling blur, with tufts of hair spraying hither and yon.

After the ordeal, poor Vaughn, who is customarily completely oblivious to his appearance, started showing an acute awareness of the new wind stream power generated by his head as he streamlined his way out of the salon and into the parking lot. It probably didn’t help that I kept saying, “Oh my God! Oh my God! What did she do to you?”

Looking at the bright side, I don’t believe he’ll need a haircut for the rest of the summer.

Addendum: One month later and Vaughn still looks like he got the bad end of a rumble with Daddy's electric razor and a soup bowl.

Applied Anthropogenic Linguistics

Having grown up in a family of 3 men and now living with 1-1/2, I thought myself fairly sophisticated in the ways of male conversation. Albeit, Dave from his vast experience of working on construction sites and his various other occupations (musicians being only one step up on the evolutionary ladder from construction workers) has exponentially expanded my masculine vocabulary and its attendant idiosyncrasies. However, one of Dave's major tutors of the male vernacular (contributing such flowery and descriptive imagery as the "bearded clam," and "tighter than a nun's c**t") has been his long-time friend CB, who is a tile setter by trade. One of CB’s many talents is his penchant for the imaginative turn of phrase, particularly when he can integrate something of a bawdy nature. This leads me to a little on-the-job exchange that CB shared with Dave.

Evidently, CB was finishing up a job for some religious observant Jews, I guess just short of Hasidic, and they'd gotten to the point of replacing the washing machine. As CB is advising them to the proper placement of the washing machine, he directs them to, "Just move it a c**t’s hair," never giving a thought as to whom he was speaking. His customers, never blinking an eye, amazingly manage to infer from his highly technical terminology the correct amount of movement needed to maneuver the appliance into its proper position. (I'm sure thinking in the back of their minds that they were never hiring this nutcracker again.) CB’s helper had a little more sense of awareness and had excused himself to the next room to smother his laughter, later pointing out to CB his little faux pas, of which CB had been completely oblivious.

As I've said, I've been exposed to many a masculine phrase, especially ones referring to the female nether regions and their many and varied uses, but I must say, this was a new one to me.

Now, I think it is universally understood that the term c**t, in any context, is, to put it lightly, politically incorrect, and the idea that one would use it offhandedly in the context of directing a customer as to the moving of an appliance is truly remarkable--such is the character of CB.

And, of course, the question that remains unanswered (for that matter, heretofore unasked) is what's the difference between moving something a hair and moving it a c**t’s hair? Is the breadth of that particular hair a mite smaller or larger than the average hair from one's head? I guess we'll know when Hell is colder than a witch's t*t, eh?

Dog Shark

Our dog is a voracious eater of books. Yes, eater, not reader. She’s smart, but not that smart. If given half the chance, she could digest a sizeable library in one sitting. Books for some odd reason seem to be her next favorite chewing toy, second only to electrical wires (especially those connected to expensive equipment, like computers). I have spent well over $100 in resupplying the county library with Poe’s many literary victims. Since she is well over a year old now, and presumably, that is when dogs have all their adult teeth, I have concluded that she must be part shark, replacing her teeth every few months for a new, razor sharp set that can lacerate a book to papery threads in seconds flat.

She’s also sneaky. She is forbidden to be on the couch. Whenever she hears me approaching the living room, by the time I might actually catch her red-pawed, all I see is obpeequious Poe primly sitting on the floor, innocently licking her butt or some other distasteful spot, curiously overly preoccupied in her grooming--all of this taking place suspiciously close to the couch. The idea of forbidding her to occupy the couch is presumably because of dog hair. However, the cats keep our furniture blanketed in layers of fur, so I’m not sure what the point is.

I guess I could argue that we want to keep the texture consistent.

Emanon

I have noticed that I am extremely prolific during a certain time of the month. The words and ideas just flow out of me. Unfortunately, it only lasts for a day or two; hence, the extremely long dry spells in my blogging.

I guess there is scientific evidence to back this up that hormones affect women's creative juices, something about estrogen or progesterone flooding your brain with creativity, blah, blah, blah. If this is the case, what's going to happen when I hit menopause? Will my brain just slowly dry up like a desert preserved raisin? Menopause is a topic I have become more and more obsessed with, to be more specific, perimenopause, because I think I'm currently in the throes of it. There are things sagging that I didn’t even know could sag. Well, that could be age or childbirth, some of it is a toss up. And for you woman who are currently childfree who innocently think you can avoid drooping breasts by not breastfeeding your child, if and when you decide to end your childfreeness, I have news for you. Your boobs are going to get big one way or the other, then they’ll engorge, and then they will deflate, forevvvveeerrrrr. So you might as well get some use out of them while you can.

I know 39 is a little early for worrying about perimenopause symptoms, but I’m a hypochondriac and 39 is about 94 in music years, which is perhaps why I seem to be having this psychological block to producing another record. When you have 13-year-olds out there who have already achieved success, I begin to feel like a has-been at 39 without ever having been. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not looking for rock star fame. I’m afraid I’d go a little Britney Spears with the lack of privacy, shaving my head after dangling my child from a freeway overpass (no, she hasn’t done the latter yet, but give her time). But really, what is left to me now? As Dave increasingly reminds me, jazz is a genre that is timeless, with elderly piano greats virtually keeling over the keyboard while in concert. But there are 2 significant elements I am missing. I am not a jazz great and doubt strongly I ever will be (although Ella Fitzgerald did hit her prime at 40), and I’m just a vocalist. (Q: How do you put a sparkle in a female singers’s eye?A: Shine a flashlight in her ear. ) And the few things a vocalist has going for her besides her voice is her looks, and nobody wants to look at an old hag singing Rod Stewart’s “If you want my body and you think I’m sexy.” Frankly, I really don’t want to see Rod Stewart perform it anymore.

Lolita

Vaughn has chosen his bride to be. We'll call her A. It all began with Vaughn's list of prospective BD partygoers to his upcoming birthday (my most dreaded time of year, besides Christmas). I had assumed it would be an all boy party, given Vaughn's current aversion to girls, but to my surprise, Vaughn requested the attendance of 2 partiers of the female persuasion. Needless to say, this was very shocking to my sensibilities and prompted a maternal interrogation—"Who are they? What are they to you? Do you play with them? Do they speak to you? Do you like them?" This is just a preview of things to come when he's 40 and seriously considering marriage. Maybe I'll be dead by then and spared the agony.

At first, Vaughn was rather ambiguous in his answers, and in perfect denial, I settled myself on the idea that some of our diversity training was paying off, and he had decided to widen his circle of friends to include the token quota of females.

Then Vaughn starts having some man-to-man talks with Dave on his rides home from school. (Dave has had a few blessed work-free days lately. I say blessed to keep myself from panicking--look at the positive.) Vaughn starts ruminating out loud about how he's going to foil a challenger of A.'s affections, a fellow classmate and friend, L.R. He comes up with various ideas, finally settling on the idea of some sort of giant mousetrap contraption. How he plans to sneak this into the Kindergarten room, much less get the supplies for the making of this, is never really addressed. Let's hope this is a "humane" mousetrap.

Dave had prudently decided it was unwise to suggest solutions men have devised in the past (one being jousting) to settle this little disagreement (because the next thing you know, we'd be getting a talk from the principal about how our son, holding a very long stick, maniacally ran headlong at another boy, who also, puzzlingly, was carrying a very long stick).

Now, one obvious resolution to this would be to ask the little seductress who she would like to marry. Dave, being the highly evolved male he is, asked Vaughn about this most practical solution:

"Did you think to ask A. who she would like to marry?"

"No," infusing into this one word that this was the most stupid and ridiculous question any parent could ask, we being the foolish old dolts that we are.

Anyway, as it turns out, Vaughn and L.R. have stated their intentions to marry the fair maid A. (at least I hope we can assume she is a maid). Vaughn has finally felt courageous enough to broach the subject with me, evidently having at last come up with a solution to this sticky conjugal conundrum: They will have a vote among their fellow classmates as to whom is deemed to be the best suitor.

Now this is the latest conversation between the two males:

"Dad, is it okay for kids to kiss?"

"Well, it depends. I would need to know the circumstances." (Now you know if the conversation had been posed to the female counterpart of this parenting duo--me--this conversation would have come to a quick and decisive end--"NO! Neither is it okay for teenagers to kiss nor unmarried adults--EVER!")

Vaughn's answer as to the circumstances of said kiss was, "Well…It would be a boy and a girl!"

Thank God for small favors. Given the previous dialogs, I think we can safely conclude what prompted this question and who the boy and girl are in this scenario. And I thought I wouldn't be dealing with this until he was in his teens, falsely comforted by his present seeming distaste of anything feminine.

A. wisely declined the BD invitation, stating previous commitments. This must be quite the 5-year-old that has her social calendar mapped out 2 weeks in advance, probably feared a confrontation with a more mature female. Yeah, you'd better quake, you little strumpet. I know all about girls, having been one myself. My first kiss was as a Kindergartener in the boys' bathroom, with a fellow boy kindergartner, initiated by me. (Mom, Dad, you didn’t read that.) So from one hussy to another--you'd better watch yourself, A. I've got my eye on you. I know people.

Postpartum Blue-Jeans

I have come to the conclusion that I can only blame things for so long on childbirth and postpartum effects. I think that horse is run out. That creek has dried up. That turkey has flown. I think you have a window of about 5 years to refer to everything as, "Well, with me being postpartum, and all..." and Vaughn's 6th birthday is looming on the horizon. I have about 6 months to lose the "baby fat" before it becomes the middle age spread. I actually lost all my baby weight in the first month of Vaughn’s birth, but then Vaughn started passing out long enough in spells that could be technically called naps, enabling me to sneak trips to the freezer for my Ben and Jerry fix. Most people complain that fat sneaks up on them. I can say that that is NOT the case for me. I see fat coming straight at me like one giant gelatinous boulder of adipose tissue, often absurdly embracing it as it flattens me into a size 8. Oh, don’t go pphhhhssssstttt. On my short, delicately boned frame, 5 pounds translates to 50 on a normal sized woman.

Before Vaughn was born I had all these big ideas about working out with a baby. The first month I was pregnant I subscribed to Fit Pregnancy, determined to maintain my hard earned fit body. Fit Pregnancy had all kinds of ideas on how you could not just stay fit during pregnancy, but that first mentally hazy 6 weeks after delivery and beyond, with mommy and baby exercises. The first problem with this very noble concept was I had no energy after getting exactly 3-4 fragmented hours of sleep, at best, on any given day. The second problem is I didn’t anticipate having a child that would gain 5 pounds every week. My now flaccid muscles couldn't conjure up enough strength to keep up with Vaughn's growth curve. And the third problem is these exercises required one of those complacent, barely alive babies, who are happily accommodating enough to provide the resistance needed in mommy’s situps to get her six-pack back, which Vaughn was not.

One of the very first baby purchases I made when I was pregnant was a baby jogger, visualizing jogging my way back to fitness while baby was blissfully unconscious in the jogger, after performing our Mommy and Me exercises, of course. The reality turned out to be me sprinting frantically down the sidewalk, Vaughn’s screams echoing throughout the neighborhood, desperately trying to get home as soon as humanly possible to avoid being any more conspicuous than I already was. I think I broke some Olympic records in those first years. I attempted a few of these jaunts, each time optimistically thinking that this time I would make it, at the very least, around the block, and by that time, Vaughn would have passed out. And each time, the same race back to the house, either pushing screaming baby, or if too far from the house to not elicit someone calling Children's Services, pushing stroller with one arm and holding unnaturally heavy baby in other. Well…it did provide a workout of a sort.

I then tried various other methods of transportation--Baby Bjorn, backpack, etc.--but Vaughn had an unusually rapid growth pattern, stubbornly staying in the 95th percentile (that means he was bigger than 95% of his peers), and well, there comes a time when it just isn’t humanly possible to carry around a being that weighs 35% of your body weight for any length of time.

Then there was the bike. We live in a hilly area, and again, Vaughn was a fat baby and quickly outgrew the weight limits on the bike seats.

I then tried The Trail Gator. This enabled Vaughn and I to ride tandem. This seemed to be another good idea, but again, the reality was people could hear us a mile before they saw us:

“Don’t put on the brakes…I said DON’T PUT ON THE BRAKES…Vaughn, we’re in the middle of an intersection, STOP PUTTING ON THE BRAKES!” Or

“You’re going too fast… MOMMMMYYYYY. STOPPPPPP. YOU’RE GOING TOOO FAST!!!!!” And so on. Add to that that he is now almost half my body weight and 3/4 my height and gets too pooped to pedal after 15 minutes, hilly area, etc., etc.

I tried walking with him, but for that I have to pack about 10 pounds of snacks and expect to take “snack breaks” about 2 minutes out the door and at 5 minute intervals thereafter, pretty much defeating any cardio benefits.

Well, as I said, I am now close to 6 years postpartum, and before I turn 40, I have set for myself the goal of getting back to my prebaby weight and shape, with or without my source of weight gain's (Vaughn's) cooperation. I think the shape part of my goal is futile, but I told myself I was for sure cleaning out my closet this year if I didn’t fit into my size 2’s. Hope springs eternal!

Well…back to the treadmill.

Warbling Garbo

In the process of following through with Dave and my New Year's resolution of practicing at least 15 minutes every day, Vaughn has been more than often the involuntary recipient and vociferous critic of our musical endeavors. Last night whilst we were practicing, he was finishing up his late night snack at the dinner table (which is in the living room/family room/dining room/music room), so he was unavoidably positioned smack dab in front of the speakers where my voice is blaring out. After we finished a song, he looks at me and says:

"Are you are movie star or something?"

"Why do you ask?" (Bracing myself for mini-Simon Cowell's acerbic observation.)

"Because you sing a lot of songs."

"Well, that doesn't make a person a movie star."

"Yeah…but you sing them really good."

*blushing* Hey, Simon likes me…today.

The World According to Vaughn

My son has very convoluted theories when it comes to theology. Many an interesting philosophical conversation is held in the old family mini-van:

"I don't pray when I'm here. I pray when I'm up at Mammaw and Papa's because they make me, but when I'm back here, I don't."

"Why not?"

"Because Mammaw and Papa have more Bibles than we do. They have 10 Bibles and we only have 2, and they go to church a lot, and I don't go to church that much."

Donning my pedantic robes and setting aside my own confused perceptions of religion, I launched the following oration: "Vaughn, a relationship with God has nothing to do with how many Bibles you have or how often you attend church. It has nothing to do with things or places. It has everything to do with praying and talking to God." (Assuming, of course, there is a God.)

Long stretch of blissful silence.

"OH!...I GET IT!...God is the king of us because he's bigger than us, just like people who are big are the king of people who are little."

Yeah, something like that.

And Our Sponser Is...

The setting: Father and son out for a drive. Vaughn is practicing his blossoming reading and spelling skills on roadside advertisements.

"Daddy, what does A-E-L spell?"

"I don't think it spells anything."

"Well... maybe it spells E.G. Edwards. Did you know that Home Depot is proud to support this Old House?"

When my son can spout off verbatim the sponsors of the various TV programs on OPB I think it's a sign that we should start weaning him off TV. Just a thought.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Whenever Vaughn sees me in the process of cleaning the house the following conversation ensues:

"What are you doing?"

"Cleaning the house."

"Who's coming over?"

Now, there are 2 things painfully obvious here:
1. The sight of me housecleaning is so foreign to Vaughn that when he sees me kneeling on the wood floor, vigorously scrubbing away at months of caked on pasta sauce with a bucketful of cleaning supplies at my side, he has difficulty identifying this activity as cleaning the house and thus needs an explanation for Mommy's odd behavior.
2. When the rare occasion of cleaning the house does occur, the assumption (and usually rightly so) is that someone must be coming over.

This perpetual uncleanliness has reached a point where even I ask myself, "What do you do all day?"

Lest you think I'm exaggerating, keep in mind that my house contains one child, who I do believe at birth was swapped out for a pack rat and has all manner of debris accumulating in his room--sticks, leaves, empty water bottles, scraps of paper, tops of pineapples (no kidding), rocks, shells, wadded up duct tape and whatever else is hidden or growing underneath this layer. This paraphernalia is always on hand for Vaughn's next inspiration. One never knows when one might need the odd screw or stick. Currently, he's working on an air tank for scuba diving that involves two small water bottles duct taped to his fireman rain coat, and now he's talking about "making" an aquarium that he can swim in to put on top of his train table, which currently is serving as a salvage dump.

My house also contains two cats, one of which has chronic hairballs that can be found in all sorts of unexpected places throughout the house. This cat also has bulimia. When we leave extra food out, he gorges himself and then shortly thereafter scurries to the nearest rug or carpet to purge on. (This condition might have developed due to the fact that once Vaughn was born, the cat was fed once every few weeks or so. Either that or he has a body image problem.) The last time the cat expelled his dinner, the pile of regurgitated food sat on the carpet of the basement steps for over a day. You see, Dave and Vaughn, with the dog, were giving me one of those rare Mommy days and had left the house to me, so I was officially "off duty" and decided to "think about that tomorrow." After Dave came back home the next day, the pile of puke was removed, and I thanked him for being such a kind and considerate husband. After recovering from his shock, he told me he had no idea what I was talking about. We discussed at length the mysterious case of the disappearing cat vomit and deduced that our roving canine vacuum was the phantom consumer of said vanished cat barf. Evidently, Poe is indifferent as to whether the cat food is fresh or recycled--“It’s just plain good eatin.’” This forced me to admit that it sometimes comes in handy to have a dog.

And that brings me to the fourth dirt contributor to our household. Poe is neither short haired nor long haired, somewhere in between, but she sheds hair like a duck sheds water--constantly. These little puffs of hair line every wall of our house like an army of little black dust bunnies, so it appears as if we have intentionally fur lined the interior of our house. Add to that her obsession with pencils and using her mouth on them as a wood chipper, and our home looks like a cross between the shag-carpeted back of a 1970s van and a country bar with a sawdust-covered floor to absorb the occasional spilled beer or juice box--the only thing missing is a mechanical bull and a lava lamp.

The bright side of all this is Vaughn's expectations of having a clean house after having spent his whole childhood in this environment will be so low, his wife will just have to do housework every leap year, at most, to appear as Martha Stewart to my Felix Unger, and my daughter-in-law certainly won't have to worry about me visiting with my white glove.

Definition of Obsequious: See Our Dog

The submissive peeing thing is a little more under control these days. However, Poe still remains armed and ready at the slightest provocation, just to remind us that her psyche is fragile and that we must handle her with the utmost care lest we experience another urinous breakdown.

She is still the epitome of submission, especially with Dave. He makes her melt, literally. This evening he was giving her some leftover steak, and much to Dave’s consternation, Poe immediately assumes the pee pose. I said she was offering up her obsequiousness to him as an explanation of her behavior. Or, as we have come to call it, obpeequiousness.

The Messiah Hath Cometh

Conversation between my husband and his son:

"So, Vaughn, do you know whose birthday is on Christmas Day?"

"No...MINE?!"

Leave it to my son to believe he is the Savior of all Mankind, aka, Jesus Christ.

There are two rather pathetic observations to be made here: (1) My son has almost reached the ripe old age of 6 under the impression that Christmas is nothing more than an opportunity to con a fat old dude in a red suit out of more toys to add to his already burdensome collection and (2)that every national holiday is somehow related to his day of birth because he manages to finagle a gift or two out of it. Well, maybe three pathetic observations: He's almost 6, and he doesn't know the date of his birth.

Now, despite his seeming ignorance of the meaning of Christmas (this after having spent 2 years in Christian preschools complete with Christmas pageants where he learned the infamous Baby Jesus Boogie and having more than a little smattering of religious exposure from the occasional church attendance with either us or relatives), I refuse to conclude that my child is that dense. Rather I have chosen to presume from this exchange between father and son that my 5-year-old is an 80-year-old in disguise in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's. This has not been the first occasion in which I have questioned my child's mental clarity. If put to the test, Vaughn would not be able to pass the recent and remote memory test on a senior mental examination--remembering 3 objects in 5 minutes. He would be hard put to remember 1 object right after you pointed it out to him. He most certainly would fail the orientation part, given he asks me multiple times in the day what day it is. For example: After a day of school, he'll come home and ask me, "Was today a school day?" He also confuses the time of day, concluding that early morning is "almost night" and pitch black is a fine time for a bike ride or a walk to the park. He evidently never got off that "newborn" clock.

Any day now I fully expect him to turn to me and say, "And you are?" He's already prone to wandering directionless and needing help dressing and feeding himself, not to mention flushing the toilet. I wonder if Alzheimer facilities have an age limit--no one under the age of 10?