The Making of Booky Punk Punk

This is the first time in Charlie’s life that we have carved a pumpkin together.   Luckily we got around to carving it before the squirrels ate it all.  
“Ok, that is weird, Dad!”

The kids were not really sure about scraping it out at first….

But Charlie got the hang of it after a bit.  Then Wendy played with her little animals and other choking hazards while we got down to business.  Charlie wanted a monster with lots of teeth and three eyes.  

After dinner, a bath and getting ready for bed, we went out in our pajamas to see how it looked lit. 

 

Afterwards, I interviewed them.  here’s the results of their  up past bedtime thoughts.  I thought Wendy’s description was the perfect name for our happy little pumpkin monster, “Booky Punk Punk”!

Happy Halloween!  

gifts in the midst of stress: poop on the deck

Its been a crazy month followed by an insane week of moving.  I’m loosing everything, down to one sippy cup, and my brain is not much better.  Still, I have seen the Lord at work in so many ways, encouraging me and giving me a thankful heart.  I feel like it wouldn’t be fair not to mention it.   Wendy has been a big encouragement to me.  Even though caring for her often interferes with my productivity, she makes me so excited to be alive and a mother.

Our Wendy is a pistol.  A fire cracker.  A spit fire.   I find myself marveling that someone so small can be such a determined force of will. 

Since moving into our new home, (it has a back door that goes out onto the back porch and has steps to the yard), she has been declaring “Out, Out Out!”   “GO”  and “Wok (walk)” and “Yea-ya, Yea-ya(Alaythia)!”   Then she brings me her shoes, puts them in my hands and sits down on my feet so that I will put them on her and take her outside to play with Alaythia.   When I do not comply with her wishes great screams and tantrums commence! 

Yesterday, after cleaning our old apartment all day, we walked in through the back yard, but dragged Wendy straight inside, much to her dismay.  I jumped in the shower with her to rinse off the cleaning solutions and dust before dinner and then wrapped her in her towel and sent her through the bathroom door to find Dada, who I had just spoken to about something else.  When I got dressed and met Jonathan coming up from the basement, I asked him where Wendy was, but he hadn’t seen her.  We had a short  moment of panic and then found her with her thunder-thighs and glory rolls all naked to the neighborhood, happily eating rocks out of a planter on the back porch.  (It turns out she doesn’t need my help to go “OUT” anymore.)  She looked up at us and grinned, then turned to look out over the yard, showing us her back side, and threw up her arms to roar triumphantly at the sky.  

As I grabbed her hand to lead her inside, I noticed she had left a pile of droppings on the deck and a puddle on the door jam.  All I could think about was how much I liked her—even more because she had just pooped on the floor and cared not one bit about it!  Thinking of her yelling out her victory kept me smiling all day.  So splendidly alive, this girl of ours!

road trip

Both Alaythia and Charlie have a few good sized road trips under their belts at this point in their young lives.   This morning  brought another one. 

Destination: America

Driver: Charlie

Contact in America who they are driving to see:  Chewbacca

Pretty female passenger napping with cozy blankets:  Alaythia

They are bringing all their worldly possessions with them.   At one point Charlie declared they had arrived, but Alaythia informed him that this was just a stop to get gas in the car, because America was a long way a way from St. Louis.

Snack was a high tea at a reliable British pub on the way: Arrival was greeted with squeals of delight:  “It is so clean here!” 

I guess the immigrants were so excited to stretch their legs after that arduous journey, that they did not have time to take a good look at the living room floor. . .

watermelon faces

watermelon + dress refashioned from an old maternity top + favorite chair = Mama stops making lunch for a photo shoot.  right?  Of course, every time! 

It really is no wonder that she is exhausted after three hours of being awake!  This girl knows how to express her emotions and how to make sure we ALL experience them right along with her!

conversations with Charlie: Female Anatomy 101

[scene:  We are sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office.  Charlie is sitting on my lap, covered in hives (the reason we are there) and swinging his cowboy boots while I read a book quietly to him. ]

Charlie, looking up to watch a very pregnant woman cross the room, then talking loudly:  Mama, that goyul has a baby in her tummy! 

Mama:  Yes she does!  How exciting!

Charlie:  It is going to come out soon? 

Mama:  I don’t know.  It will come out when it is ready.

Charlie, after a long pause in which the wheels of logic start turning:  But Mama, how does the baby come out without making a big hole in her tummy?

[all eyes, every head, in the room swivels towards us, suddenly very interested in our conversation…]

Mama, blushing and trying desperately not to make eye contact with anyone who is staring:  Um…, Well…, God makes a special hole for the baby to come out.

Charlie:  Where is the hole? On her tummy?

Mama:  No, you can’t really see it.

Charlie:  Is it ‘visible? No, I mean INvisible?  Visible means you can see it and invisible means you can’t see it?

Mama, hoping this is a conversation diversion opportunity:  Yes, visible means you can see it and invisible means you can’t see it even though it is there, like the wind, or like heat.  Can you think of anything else invisible?

Charlie: The baby comes out an invisible hole?

Mama:  Not really, Charlie, but I think we are going to have to talk about this at home.

Charlie:  Why?

Mama:  Well, it is more of a  private conversation.  So I will explain better when we get home, OK?

Charlie: OK.  Can I see a baby’s invisible hole, Mama?

Mama: Maybe, someday, Charlie.  But let’s talk about it later, OK?

Charlie:  OK! 

[While I have no qualms whatsoever discussing the birds and the bees in a child-appropriate way, I never in my life considered broaching the conversation for the first time in public!!!  That surely puts a whole new twist on it!  Yeesh!]

To her father, And his…
To the man who has stuck by my side in this high-seas adventure called parenting.  For the boy of my heart who knows how to be calm in the storm, speaks with wisdom, and who day after day, gives us the gift of FUN!  

Your children are blessed to call you Dada, and I’m blessed to be your girl. 
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

Meet the newest members of our household!

Invisible Friends!!! That’s right,  Doodoo and Doddy.  They enjoy frequent meals, love ‘tend’ (pretend) food, never eat their vegetables and come with us on most outings.  They travel by pocket or by fist and Doddy has no Daddy.  This is sad, but he does have Doodoo, his best friend, to make up for it.  

Tan-tan is one of their friends.  Tan-tan lives in a cave and sometimes confuses his pet porcupine for his pillow at night.  This leads to very pokey dreams in his ‘dream place’ while he is sleeping.  (We made up a silly song to sing about it. ) 

Now that Doddy and Doodoo live in our house, they help Charlie process all sorts of things.  A couple weeks ago, I was making a celebration cake for his Aunt Catherine’s graduation.   He decided that Doddy and Doodoo also needed a cake, a “bwack biwfday” cake.  

So while I gathered and poured in the ingredients, so did he.  (Mama looked on and tried not to twitch too much as he gathered all the little toys in the house to be his cake batter.  I had no idea we had so many little parts and pieces until I saw them in one place!)

This video meanders…look at about 3:15 to hear about Doddy and Doodoo.

When I stirred up my cake, so did he.  Wendy, though bemused, did her best to help.

Thankfully,  while I washed up the dishes, he did put most of the little cars away!  I never did hear if Doddy and Doodoo liked their birthday or not.  Maybe that’s because they are not my ‘tend’ friends! 

shooting the breeze

Wendy has started jumping in on the conversations belonging to the fully verbal members of the family.    Of course, not being able to talk has limited her ability to participate, but it has not dampened her enthusiasm for trying.   She patiently waits until she hears a word she recognizes and then loudly belts out her version of it.  It often has nothing whatsoever to do with the conversation.  Here are two examples:  (Charlie and Mama are reading a rather factual book about bats.  The discussion is about how they can fly without seeing. On the floor, Wendy is chewing on a Woody pez dispenser and determinedly trying to stuff a kid’s cymbal into her shoe.)

Charlie:  Dey can see in the dawk?  Like me, cuz I eat cawots?
Mama:  No, they can’t see in the dark, but they can hear so well with their ears that they they don’t bump into things.
Charlie:  But how do du bats heaw so good?
Wendy:  (ripping Woody out of her salivating mouth and getting up to come at us with an intense look on her face, all the while repeating in a hoarse, growling voice)  Ba-BA(Batman)!  BA-BA, BA-BAH(BATMAN)!!!!

(In the car on the way to prayer group at a house where Charlie recently enjoyed playing in the back yard during a graduation party for their daughter. )

Charlie: Are we goin der to go outside and eat those yummy muwbewies(mulberries) again?
Mama: No, we are going to prayer group. We will stay inside this time.
Charlie: Why did we go outside dah last time we was dere?
Mama: That was a party with lots of people. This is just prayer group and we will all fit inside.
Charlie: It was Miss Mwee’s biwfday?
Wendy: (suddenly erupting from her car seat, in a loud, droning and very off-key tone) Ha Boo-yay! HA BOO-YAY! HAP BUTAY NEh yuh….hu…..nu… HAPT BOO-YAY!!!!

Wendy’s growing conversation “skills” have been all but ignored until I noticed her doing this yesterday. Since then, I have not been able to stop laughing at her.  Even though she seriously sounds like she has dementia and hearing problems, I love how intensely this sweet ‘goyul’ wants to keep up and be part of her family!

the widdle, weeny whiney voice

Charlie:  "Ders a voice in my bones, Mama, a widdle tiny weeny whiney voice that says, [in a high squeaky voice] “I need juice!"”

Mama:  "Is there?”

Charlie:  "Ders a map on my shirt dat tells me da way to treasure. It goes into my tummy.  You open your mouth and ders a way to my stomach from my mouth and my bones needs  some juice.  So dey are saying,  (in a high squeaky voice) “Follow duh map!””

Mama:  "That’s what the map says?”

Charlie:  "Yes!  It says you go dis way and den dat way(pointing with his finger).  You put the juice in yow mouth and swallow it down your foat (throat).  Yow fowt is long and it goes stwaight to yow tummy.  You dwink it down and den it’s stwaight in your tummy and it goes along yow skin and right to your bones!! An the bones are so ‘cited ‘bout getting some juice!  Dey just gobble it up!” (putting both hands out to the side and bouncing them up and down to emphasize each word)  “Isn’t dat GWEAT?!”

Mama:  “Uh…”

Charlie: “So, mama, can I have some juice?” (sensing my dumfounded silence to be some form of hesitance, and trying to cement the deal) “Fow to make my bones be happy?”

She Argues!

I had my first conversation, I mean, argument, with Wendy tonight as she was finishing up dinner .  

Wendy:  rubbing her fists up and down in opposite directions on on her chest, “Baaah”

Mama: “You want a bath?”

Wendy: more fist rubbing with an excited expression, “Baaah!  Bee-Bee, baaah!”

Mama: “Wendy wants a bath?    No, we are not going to have a bath tonight.  We can wash your hands?”

Wendy: crying, Baaah!!  Baaah, Bee-bee baaah!!!!! 

Mamma:  “No, Wendy, you already had a bath today.  But we can wash your hands!”

Wendy:  more fussing, throwing back head against chair, “Baaah, baaah!    Baaah!!!”  (pause)   Looking up at me, measuring my face, now in a high pitched voice, hitting palms against her chest, “Pee?”

Mama:  “Please?  Bath, please?   Sorry honey, no bath tonight.”   trying to change the subject “Are you all done?  Do you want to get down?”

Wendy:  cheerfully flapping hands, then pointing down,  “Ahh-daa, ahh-daa!”

Mama:  pretending to be enthusiastic, hoping she is distracted,  “Ok then, let’s get you down and go wash your hands!”

Wendy: rubbing her fists up and down in opposite directions on on her chest, “Baaah!”

Mama: […]

I am more stubborn than you, that’s what I am!

Memorial Day Water Fun

What fun it is to wake up and go on a little drive to a park, see our family, swim, picnic, slide and then come home again all in the same day!
         
I wish close proximity with my family was the norm for all my life, but I can honestly say that having a brother and sister  four hour drive away is the closest I have ever lived to my family since 9th grade.   That’s a sad thought, so lets not linger there.    Instead let’s look at this! And this!And this!
    

And after all that looking and laughing, let’s just agree that holiday’s truly are for
sharing with your family!  What a blast!

A chair my own size…

      I’ve often thought --
here, where table tops fit clean over my head
and the door knobs are so very very much out of reach--

I’ve often thought,
and I’ve often wished for a chair.
A chair just my size:
right height for my legs,
right width for my girth. 

A place to eat snacks while swinging my feet
Ahh, to enjoy a good book
from my very own seat!

A place for my behind to rest while I’m writing,
so I wouldn’t be so late with my
first-birthday-thank-you-note-sending!

Yes, it would please me so,
I’ve often thought
to have a chair just like this,
in my very own spot!

And this one surely would fit,
if only I could stop ending up
with my rump on the floor when I sit!

Conversations with Charlie: Expletives in three-year-old style!

Charlie has a huge vocabulary and uses these words liberally.   I think he inherited my need to process out loud AND Jonathan’s need to carefully craft each utterance to be as accurate as it can be.   This particular combination in Charlie is one of the most frustrating and most charming things in my life.
                                
Charlie often phrases and re-phrases the beginning of a sentence or paragraph until I am almost ready to shake the rest of it out of him.  He will not move on, or do any other task, until it satisfies him and he can finish his idea entirely.  If you try to hurry him by finishing his sentence or jumping in to help, he will inform you that you just “ ‘toowupted” (interrupted) him.  THEN he will start over from the very beginning.    Only very patient souls persevere to the end of one of Charlie’s thorough explanations, but by then they have fallen in love with him and his creative tongue.
Exclamations, on the other hand, have started flying out of Charlie’s mouth without deliberation.  We feel no need to correct his errors since they bring us such amusement.  And, his mistakes make his utterances age-appropriate, right? (Please tell me I’m right on this one! ) Here are a few goodies:  

• The tip-off to this new phase of language and his first  imitated ‘adult’ exclamation, was a high-pitched “WHAaaaaT?!!!?” as he threw out his hands in surprise when I told him that Batman cannot fly.
• Then, he dropped his basket of cars and they spilled all over the floor: “Tao-nay-shun!” (Tarnation!) Too much Looney Toons, perhaps?
• After spending three minutes trying to pick-up a soccer ball, three tennis balls, a golf ball and a football all at once: “Goodness gwasus my oh me! Dis is twiky!”

{Apparently, after some experimentation, he decided his preferred genre of expletives are statements which begin with “what the…”  He got quite creative.  There is a whole family of them} 

• When Wendy knocks the jar of markers off the art table:  “What duh oawth(earth) did you do?”
• As we merge onto the freeway, and he looks out his window on the left side:  “What duh hoe-wee (holy) cow!  Doze caws ow suwr fwyin past us! Day aw dwivin’ cwazy!”
• This one is for the little things like missing a ball when hitting it with a paper tube:  "What the whack?"
• This one is powerfully, doubly and expletively effective: “What duh WHhaaaat !?!”
• And our personal favorite:   “What duh hick !?!!”

{bonus quote}
Last week Charlie explained to Jonathan and I, in a serious tone (about the two very dead dandelions languishing in a little tea cup on the dinner table):  “Doze fwowers are a ‘pecial tweat for you guys.  But I don’t give dem to you evwee day, (sagely nodding his head) yeah, cuz dey are a ‘pecial tweat. . .”

Hope this was a treat too!   Thanks for stopping by!

Charlie’s Finale Ballet Performance

Charlie and Alaythia had their ballet recital last Wednesday night.   Both sets of parents have decided that this recital also marks the end of their (short-lived) ballet careers.  For me the decisive moment came about 30 second into their performance, when I had begun laughing so hard I couldn’t see through the tears filling my eyes.  I glanced over to see Jonathan laughing and blushing a beet red.  In every direction were the convulsing shoulders of parents trying their hardest to keep from guffawing out loud.   Charlie?  He was totally oblivious, dancing a solo in head-banging style--wiggling his hips to the music and once, even falling down in his enthusiasm. 

Oh, and he and topped it all off by jumping off the stage rather than walking down the steps at the end. Yes, I think the ballet world will be better off without Charlie’s arabesque…and his parents certainly don’t have the guts to sit through more performances like that! After admitting this, there is not really much space left for saying we are proud of him, but we are.  He certainly enjoyed himself immensely.  (That counts for quite a lot at this age.)  And no one will forget his performance easily.
Here’s the video:   No extra charge for its anti-depressant effects!