not-so-sticky

Trying to be economical, I vied for the generic bar soap over the shower gel I typically buy. 59¢. What the hell. Why not? The savings equaled at least a cup of coffee. The width of the bathroom, between counter and wall, is little more than a 3 foot span. At the far end of the bathroom is a shower, which itself is not much wider than 3 feet and is no more than a stall; there is no basin for bathing. Four of us stood going no where fast. Lily was the furthest in, then Dana, then Liam, then me. Lil had already stripped down but refused to get into the shower until Liam was in the shower. "But Lil! We can't get past you. You have to get in so then Liam can get in," I pleaded. Lil didn't get the logistics of it and refused to budge. The plan was to get Lil and Liam in the shower. Dana and I believe the angst and frustration is far lower if we tag-team child-wrangling. Dana will take Lil, I'll take Liam. Dana once said to me, during a bout of sleeplessness and sick ...

Last night, your Mum and I ate too much pizza. She deserved it, though. Do you know she actually worked late last night? It's true! Your Mum not only worked up until the day before you were born, but even worked late! Your Dad and I sat outside for awhile, a bit late last night under the moon and stars. Your Dad and I used to do this a lot. We used to take walks around Kinderhook late at night when we were kids, pretending to be zombies walking down the street. There wasn't much else to do in Kinderhook , as a kid...I'll show you how to this, too, when you get big enough. As we waited at the hospital for your arrival, I received a call from your Uncle Dana telling me your Grandpa Bob was on the loose. He had escaped while the house was still asleep, between 3 am and 6 in the morning. I was panicking a bit at the hospital. Too much pizza eaten too late the night before. You were on your way. Work kept calling me. And Grandpa was on the run! Thankfully, your Grandpa was f...

This morning when I got to Kyrce's house this morning, I was met with a gift! Kyrce had been digging around, sorting through some of the things she had stored away in her parent's attic when she came across this old canceled library book. Knowing my petrification of riding in vehicles, she thought it would appeal to me. The book was titled The Man Who Loved Bicycles - Memoirs of An Autophobe and was written by some guy named Daniel Behrman. It has this great jacket on it with some beautifully wonky illustrations of bicycles. I was checking it out the entire ride in this morning. "Wouldn't it be funny if the guy who wrote this book got run over by a car while riding his bicycle?...That would be ironic!...But I don't know...if I was that guy, I think that'd be the way I'd want to go!" I said. Perfect proof that his book was on to something. Most of our dialogues entirely meaningless, which is really what is so great about our carpool. I hear some carpo...

Poor Liam can't say too much yet. Mostly, he just parrots random words that we have taught him. Basketball. Monkey Boy. Quack Quack. Sky. His vocabulary isn't developed enough to respond one way or the other to the queries Lily poses to him. I suspect she views his silence as acquiescence. We were out in the back yard grilling when Liam climbed up into his parked stroller. Like the son of a roof monkey that he is, he climbs everything. At 1 and a half, he has even mastered scaling the baby gate, which I think is quite impressive. Tonight it wasn't the climbing that most concerned me. It was what I overheard Lil say to her little brother as she was trying to strap him into his stroller. "Baby, would you like to go get a hair cut?" she asked of him as she struggled with the belt on the stroller. Liam just smiled his dopey smile and watched his sister curiously. I was glad they were entertaining each other as I watched them from my camp chair. I like when they are p...

My youngest children will never know what it was like to have to wait for film to be developed before you can actually 'see' the picture you took. Subtlety, technology has creeped up on us; digital photography has nearly replaced film altogether - at least, for a non-professional like me. I haven't quite given up on my 35 mm completely. Before my trip to Frost Valley, I bought 3 rolls of B/W Kodak film. I only used 1 of them at Frost Valley because I needed the instant gratification of digital. I mean, what if all of my photographs turned out horribly? So, I stupidly ending up taking duplicate shots of nearly everything.Last week, I was taking some shots of the kids in the yard with actual 35 mm film! and after I took Lily's picture, her first statement was, "Let me see it!" It must seem completely bizarre to her that you can't actually see the photograph for a few weeks let alone while you're taking it... One of my favorite things as a child was to l...

Dana and Lily were watching Shrek for the umpteenth time tonight and munching on some Doritos. I heard them talking on the way up the stairs awhile ago. Lily was trying to convince Dana and Seth that she needed the entire bag of Doritos but Dana managed to placate her by putting a handfull on a paper plate. The movie ended, teeth were brushed, and Lil was tucked into bed. But on my bed remained a paper plate with a few Doritos on it. What the heck. Why not eat one? In the dark, I put one in my mouth. It was much soggier than I expected it to be... Lily had apparently licked all of the dorito-cheese off and left the chip behind. It was a bit late by the time I noticed this - it was in my mouth already. So I swallowed it. Is that disgusting or what? I wasn't actually that offended until I told Dana what had happened! He said, " What?! You ate it?! " My advice to you: don't eat food in the dark that your toddler left on the bed.

Tonight we registered Seth for the Fall semester at Coleman Catholic. They gave us a ballpoint pen that said "Coleman" on it. I gave them a check for the deposit. Seth, Lily and I likely looked a bit lost upon entering and a student a couple of years older than Seth approached us. Looking lost, he correctly assumed we were there for registration and pointed us - unsolicited - in the right direction. Lily was very excited to be going to school. She pretends to go to school a lot at home, in which she straps on a back pack and runs circles around the house, trying to catch the bus. She doesn't really know much about what it is, only that Seth goes there everyday at the same time she goes to Evie's. Coleman looks like you've stepped inside a time machine and traveled back about 60 years. It's clean and well-maintained but its lecture hall where we met for registration was furnished with rows of uncomfortable wooden seats that looked like they had been bolted in ...

The bed frame arrived yesterday and with minimal cursing and only one missed slat, Dana assembled it in a little over an hour. Except it doesn't quite look as tidy nor as sophisticated as the image shown above. Instead it looks like this: It felt good to sleep in the bed. I didn't think it would make a difference, but having the mattress off the floor actually improved what I already thought to be ideal sleeping conditions. Of course, this is coming from someone who has been sleeping on a variety of air mattresses for a couple of years now... Remember, Liam just turned 1 this past December. So. Never will I wake up in the middle of the night laying on top of a deflated air mattress. Sleep is going to be good in this bed.

Today I was sitting in the cafeteria at lunch when my phone vibrated. It was Dana. I'd love to tell you that Dana had called for some important reason although even those one could deem 'important' typically aren't, now that I'm situated in New Jersey for work. I consider this a positive, actually, as many household crisis need to be solved without 'Mom Intervention'. When I worked in our Wall Street office in Uptown Kingston , I was only a few blocks away from my residence. Invariably, I would get called for any mini-crisis that occurred. These calls were often something that could have been figured out without me, but since I was so convenient, I was often brought in to oversee the decision. Dana once called me when his truck was overheating to have me look up online for him what he should do...Another time Andrea showed up at work because Dad had gotten out of the house and she was nervous about calling the police, since they had returned a wandering Dad ...

As Dana and I were getting ready this morning, I said, "Hey! Kyrce wants to make us dinner tonight! Is that OK with you?" Dana responded, "If she wants to come over and make us dinner every night, that would be fine with me! What are we having?" I scrambled to get the house relatively tidy before Kyrce showed up. We typically work together from my house on our work-from-home days. I think it helps keep both of us on target. But the house was a bit of a disaster. Getting all of the dishes moved from our dining room to the kitchen from dinner the night before was key. That's a bit embarrassing for me to admit, but hey, it's the truth. You try to clean the kitchen with two kids tugging at your leg, bonking each other and carrying on, while your father follows you so closely that every time you turn around, he is standing right behind you! No matter which way you turn it's chaos! Now you tell me how I'm supposed to wash the dishes and tidy up! It's ...

Don't you ever throw cheese on the staircase again! Had I actually just said this? Had anyone actually ever said this? Lily had decided she was not going to eat the slice of cheese Dana had given her, nor was she going to throw it out. She had deposited it on the staircase like this was a perfectly natural thing to do. When I asked her to pick it up and throw it out, she refused. She simply said, "I can't." Dana was about to make her pick it up, but he's kind of a sucker for Lily and noticed there was fuzz on the cheese, which was why she was particularly hesitant to touch it. Fuzzy cheese is just gross. So, as I watched Dana pick up the cheese that Lily had slopped on the staircase, I sternly said... Don't you ever throw cheese on the staircase again! A second later I was trying not to choke from laughing because it was just so absurd. My own childhood was full of mysterious commands that never made much literal sense, but were figuratively masterful. Despi...

With my eyes squinting from the light, I stepped out of the dark sanctuary of my bedroom and into the bright, cold hallway. I didn't stumble far until Dad popped his head out of his room to greet me. I was surprised to see him in there still and not down on the couch, where he often is hours before we are awake. Have you seen the Bowflex Revolution ? I didn't really know what to say. I was still half asleep and I probably looked confused. Well, have you? Have you seen the Bowflex Revolution?! Dad grinned. He stood sideways in the hall and flexed his arm muscles. Dad...would you please go back in your room for a bit? I have to get ready for work. Oh ! Where's that? In here? Is that where the Bowflex Revolution is? Yes, Dad, that's where the Bowflex Revolution is. It was nice to see him in a good mood, even though he almost seemed delirious. Since Dad was probably up for several hours before I stepped into the hall, I imagined he had been watching infomercials for the sam...