Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Tuesday, July 31, 2007 Chicago, Not Chicago Trash was planning to go to Chicago this past weekend to visit our friend Bitter, who moved there last month (or, as M. Small recently put it, "She doesn't come to my house any more"). Here are a few reasons why that didn't happen: Car problems. Apparently there's some kind of issue with her seat belt/airbag system on the passenger side. Also, her right front turn signal has been burnt out for a while. Combined, these made for safety issues that meant we needed to get the car into the dealership. However, this was put off indefinitely, until her dashboard clock and radio went black.* Now, that needs to be fixed. And as long as it's in, why not get that other stuff taken care of? Except that the dealership doesn't seem to be in too much of a hurry, which meant they gave her a loaner to drive until she could pick up her fully repaired car today, Monday, which is when she was still supposed to be in Chicago. Mouth problems. Late last week, she hurt one of her molars. She called the dentist, and they suggested she come in to have it looked at on -- you guessed it -- Monday. Monday was getting to be a pretty busy day for being out of town. Wok problems. Actually, not so much work problems as actual work, in the form of projects that got dropped into her lap late last week and were due early this week. Occupational hazard, I guess. Face problems. We were in Iowa this weekend for Trash's stepdad's birthday party. The plan was that from there, I would return with M. Small while she would rent a car, drive it to Chicago, and fly home. And then on Saturday afternoon, she was playing with M. Small and their heads collided and she got a black eye and a broken nose. M. Small got a bump on his forehead that vanished within hours, and a bad mood that vanished within seconds. Despite making a crack loud enough to be audible in different rooms of the house (I was napping, and slept right through it, of course), Trash's broken nose wasn't bad enough to take her straight to the hospital. But the lady at the nurse line said to check on it again in the morning, and if it were a certain degree of worse, to go to the urgent care center. Trash prefers to do that at home rather than in a strange city, not to mention avoid the awkwardness of having to ask Bitter to shine a flashlight up her schnoz. When Trash called Bitter to cancel the visit, she said that the universe seemed to be sending several clear messages that this wasn't a good weekend to head to Chicago. Which is not the kind of thing she normally says. I had to agree. In fact, after we got home, we were both kind of surprised not to hear that I-80 had fallen into the Mississippi River at right about the time Trash would have been crossing the bridge. * We don't know for sure why the radio died, but Trash seems to think it had something to do with my having left my keys in the ignition overnight, draining the battery, and then jumpstarting the car. It's as good a theory as any, aside from the fact that it demonstrates that I am an idiot. posted by M. Giant 1:27 PM 8 comments 8 Comments:The radio thing, sounds like the anti theft thing. check in the manual and there will be a code number to unlock it. happens if the battery dies.
By Oh that is SNEAKY, shirky. I will have to remember that.
By You know, a freeway did collapse into the Mississippi River today.
By M. Giant -- are you and yours okay?
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'In fact, after we got home, we were both kind of surprised not to hear that I-80 had fallen into the Mississippi River at right about the time Trash would have been crossing the bridge.'
By I don't think Trash would mind my telling you that she and I have already checked in, and she, M. Giant, and M. Small are all okay.
By Wow. I only come by and read Velcrometer about once a week, maybe once every two weeks, and just happened to have come by and read your "chicago" post earlier today. Tonight, when I heard about the bridge, I immediately came upstairs to get online and re-read what you wrote, because it sounded so scarily similar, and yep, scarily similar indeed. If I have goosebumps right now, you must have...horsebumps? Something big, anyway, because wow. Wow. It's all my brain keeps saying. Wow.
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Dude . . . that thing about the interstate falling into the river
By Wednesday, July 25, 2007 Sick M. Small caught some kind of cold on or after or camping trip. It was inevitable that we were going to get it, especially since he's in an affectionate phase right now. It warms our hearts when he gives us kisses and squeezes unbidden, even when these displays of esteem leave us coated in yellowish phlegm. And lately, he's even been asking us to take off our glasses so he can kiss on each eye. There is no defense. Even terrorists would be hard-put to envision a more efficacious delivery system for biological weapons. And delivered it has been. Trash is now on her third week of suffering through debilitating throat pain that has nothing to do with the still-healing scar from her thyroid surgery. I was able to hold out a little longer, but last week I too was felled by whatever nasty bug had been incubating in my adorable little walking Petri dish. He's fine now, but I can only hope that the pathogen currently ravaging my upper respiratory system and Trash's didn't have the same effect on M. Small. In fact, I would almost have to conclude it didn't, because he spent a lot less time bitching about how miserable he was than I have been. He's over it, in any case. Or at least he is if we can believe what he says when we ask him how he feels. "I feel fine," he calmly asserts. My normal reaction to getting sick is to want to sleep a lot more. But even if I could – with my manuscript deadline less than six weeks away and about eight weeks of work left to do on it – it wouldn't help. My current bug has a charming feature whereby twenty or thirty minutes after I fall asleep, my mouth and throat dry out and start itching like crazy. For instance, yesterday I lay down for a catnap, promising Trash that I'd get up on my own in less than a half hour. Twenty minutes and one sleepy coughing fit later, I was as good as my word. But that's nothing compared to the agony upon waking up in the morning. Upon approaching consciousness, one first becomes aware of a ball of sandburs that has taken up residence behind one's uvula, one that undergoes spontaneous combustion every time you swallow. So then you spend the first half hour out of bed alternately loading up on some of every cold medicine we have in the house (and some I bought the other night after running out) and coughing up great gooey hocks into the toilet. If all goes well, the pain is reduced to a manageable level just before one gets to work and has to start dealing with other kinds of pain. "So go to the doctor," you say. Did that. All I learned is that I'm negative for strep throat, and that gargling with warm salt water might actually help enough to make up for how disgusting it is. So I've been chain-sucking throat lozenges pretty much constantly and counting the days until this is all over. I'm not optimistic, because Trash is a week ahead of me on this and she's still dealing with it. Pretty much the best I can hope for his that it'll be gone before I pass it back to the kid. Just to be safe, I'm refraining from kissing him on the eyes. posted by M. Giant 7:35 PM 9 comments 9 Comments:
The Thieves essential oil blend from Young Living will get all kinds of medieval on all kinds of nasty bugs.
By Sounds suspiciously like the bug I've caught. Nothing much to be done, I've been chugging down quantities of chicken broth laced with as much chillies, garlic and ginger as humanly possible and praying they will kick the bug's butt.
By See if you can get your doctor to prescribe Tussionex for you (an extended-release codeine cough syrup). It is the only thing that allows me to sleep when I have a bad cough, and it helps a little bit with the pain too. I recommend taking ibuprofen every 4 hours as well to keep the pain from driving you crazy.
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Our little germ incubator brought MONO to our house this month. Joy and more joy. How does a 2 yr old get mono, for goodness sakes?!
By Just got over that - absolutely sucked big time. After I tried everything over the counter I could think of, I got desperate and called my mom. She reminded me of my early childhood bouts with strep throat and said "Nothing ever worked for you but honey and lemon juice." I made up a small batch, found it worked wonderfully (particularly chilled). The recipe isn't an exact science - some siblings like it more sweet or more sour. I like it just sour enough to not quite give you that lemon throat lock...
By A long time reader, first time commenter, I had to say I sympathize with your subtitle for this post. I just had my tonsils removed at the ripe old age of 24 and yes, sometimes swallowing is AGONY.
By Okay. I know this is going to sound sort of appalling, which it is, but try chewing an aspirin. It's incredibly bitter and faintly metallic, but it really does wonders for sore-throatiness. (Though I admit I have never had a sore throat involving spontaneously combustible sandburs.) Also, in the lozenge department, Cepacol lozenges beat the pants off everything else because they actually numb your throat. 'Course, they taste awful too. Good luck.
By Addendum to Jennie's advice: Don't chew the aspirin - get BC Headache Powders at the pharmacy (it's powdered aspirin), mix it with water, and gargle it. A great southern, down-home remedy that actually works.
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Just came upon this entry today (what happened to my notifying email, I do not know....) and have my own bit o' advice for the Nasty Throat Ick, which struck me down for almost 3 weeks at the end of June/beginning of July and which included a really irritating laryngitis to boot: Throat Coat Tea, with honey and lemon in it for good measure. I did double tea bags in one cup, covered the cup and let it steep for 10 minutes per the crazy instructions on the box, then squirted in some honey and lemon and chugged. It was the ONLY thing that helped, especially at night - worked better than essentially drinking Chloraseptic did, which I did before I thought of trying the tea. It's made of slippery elm bark or some such nastiness, but when doctored up with the honey and lemon, it isn't half bad.
By Wednesday, July 18, 2007 Potter Weekend By the time the last Harry Potter book hits our front doorstep on Saturday (requiring me to build a new one shortly afterward), I'll only be about halfway through my first reading of the fifth book, and, barring unforeseen circumstances, will not have seen the fifth movie. My current goal is to see the film before reaching the third act of the book. I'll probably be finishing up Lengthy Hallows some time around Labor Day. Trash, not so much. As with the last two books, she's going to try as hard as she can to read it all in one sitting. This is a little difficult when you have a two-year-old in your house. I'm not saying it's more difficult or less difficult than it was two years ago, when we had a baby in the house, but it will probably be difficult in a different way. For instance, two summers ago, most of every weekend day was spent either getting ready to feed M. Tiny, feeding M. Tiny, cleaning up after feeding M. Tiny, or dealing with the diaper-borne results of feeding M. Tiny. But at least then he wasn't prone to persistently asking, "What'cha doin', Mommy?" every time she sits down. And of course, he isn't old enough to understand that you don't interrupt mommy when she's got a new Harry Potter book. So here's the idea I had, which, for one reason and another, will not be happening, at least not this weekend. And since the surprise is blown anyway, I give the idea to you, for free, for use if you live with a beloved Pottermaniac as well as a toddler, baby, or needy roommate. Here it is: 1. In secret, pack up your loved-Potterhead's most comfortable clothes and pajamas. Leave room for plenty of their favorite snacks and beverages. Include the snacks and beverages too, or else you've got an underpacked bag. 2. Make a reservation for one at a local hotel. It should have room service. Ideally, it should have a cancellation policy that doesn't leave you stuck with the bill on your credit card if plans change, but that may be hard to find. 3. As soon as the Potter book arrives (you'll be able to tell the exact moment by the sound of the approaching mail truck, or a spike on any standard household seismograph), pack it, your loved-Potterhead, and the toddler or baby (or needy roommate, if he or she is really needy) and drive to the hotel. Don't forget the bag you packed. If there's room in there for the book, you didn't pack enough snacks. 4. Check in. Leave the book and the loved-Potterhead. Some cash wouldn't hurt either. Take home the toddler or baby (or needy roommate), who is your sole responsibility for the next twenty-four hours. 5. Rack up huge points. Keep in mind that most of them will be deducted if you neglect to pick up the loved-Potterhead the next day. 6. Tell me how it went in the comments. Or maybe you already have plans for Potter weekend. If so, tell me about them. I’m going to be playing video games in a hotel room while Trash takes care of the kid by herself, but that's just me. posted by M. Giant 8:13 PM 12 comments 12 Comments:My mom has always taken my daughter to her house for Harry Potter weekend. Partly because I work at Barnes & Noble and don't get home til 4 in the morning on Harry Potter night. My husband could take over all the child care duties, but if I actually want to read this thing it's best if she's out of the house. This is the first year that she'll be old enough to come to the party, though, so that's kind of cool. Good luck! -Carly
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...I have people flying in from out of town for this.
By Well, it was going to be me, my couch and my ipod until I finished, but we were able to get the leaked copy file and I'm done already. So now I can sit back and enjoy the release party on Friday night instead of worrying that someone is going to ruin it for me. And of course I'll be keeping all secrets to myself so I don't ruin it for someone else.
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I'll be staying up all night (I missed the Amazon guarantee by deadline, so my husband is going to stand in line for me tomorrow night.) and praying my kids don't get up. I'm a pretty fast reader, but I've got a giant roll of duct tape to tape them to the walls if they get out of hand before I'm done.
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I have a test worth 35% of the grade for a class I may not technically be passing; that's on August 1. Later that day I'm volunteering at a thing for underprivileged kids who need medical care. It'll probably be one of them who spoils the book for me.
By Nevermind; I'm on page 493 now.
By ...aaand, problem solved.
By So, what did Trash think? Was the book worth the wait?
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Well *I* think it was. I am now jealous of my husband, who hasn't started it yet and gets to experience it fresh and new.
By I'm with you GhostGirl. My family actually thought I should put the book down to feed and clothe them - silly fools! They forcibly removed the book from my hands and made me go on the boat without it. Jerks. I didn't start it till Sunday morning, but their interference prevented me from finishing until 1:15 p.m. Monday. Jerks.
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Wow Bunny, I admire your self restraint. In my world, that's a stabbin'.
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I was in Lake Placid on Harry Potter night, so I had to wait until 9 AM the next morning. Sneaking out of the hotel would have woken up The Husband and The Daughter, and that would have gotten me killed. Spent much of the rest of Saturday reading while The Husband "relaxed" and watched the kid.
By Saturday, July 14, 2007 A Digital Camera and Beer Trash is pretty proud of the pictures she took during our camping trip last weekend, and rightfully so. This is just about the worst one of the bunch:  As previously mentioned, this is the first time we've been camping at this particular locale. You know how at most campgrounds, there are a few sites on the water? Well, this one is on an island, so every site on one side of the road passing through the campground is on water. What's even more amazing is that every site on the other side of the road is also on water. I've tried to explain this to people, but I don't really feel confident using the word "isthmus" in spoken conversation. But anyway, here's the view from very near our site:  Now, if you're like me, you'll take one look at all that glassy, still water, without a ripple in sight, and instantly think of one thing: mosquitoes. But for whatever reason, they didn't bother us at all. A few flies and moths at dusk were the worst we had to deal with, and our giant citronella candle repelled the worst of those. Unfortunately, the giant citronella candle also attracted M. Small, so it was kind of a tradeoff. Here's the view from right next to our campsite's picnic table:  The miniature camper in the foreground isn't there right now, mind you. At least, he better not be.  That's more like it. Obviously it's kind of ridiculously beautiful, but the downside is that on the second day or so, one becomes aware that if flash floods should strike the Chippewa River, the best-case scenario is that you'll never see your camping equipment again. We realized that there wasn't actually a whole lot for M. Small to do, per se, so we went on a lot of walks. Now, he doesn't generally like to leave home (or the campsite, in this case) without bringing something with him. I think it's like some kind of psychic tether for him that he can hold onto. Sure, he can also hold on to Trash's or my hand, but those items have a tendency to hold him back when he suddenly gets the idea to dash across a parking lot or something. So something inanimate is good. On this trip, he could have chosen from any number of small toys we'd brought along for him, or even some small bit of non-lethal camping equipment. He went with the latter. Specifically, he insisted on holding the end of the air hose that's attached to our air mattress pump. And the rest of the pump? Not his problem. It could tag along if it wanted.  In other words, I could either carry the cylinder for him or let it drag noisily along the ground (see above). I think we got about the same number of looks this way, but at least people didn't hear us coming.  As previously alluded to, this campground is on the Chippewa River, which flows from here down into Lake Wissota about twenty miles downstream, whereupon a brewing company in Chippewa Falls takes the water and turns it into my favorite everyday beer, called Leinenkugel. So I was literally surrounded by water that I will one day be drinking. In fact, we had a few cans of Leine's that we'd brought with us from home. So basically, water once flowed past this spot, ended up in cans, got shipped to Minneapolis, was bought by us, stuck into a cooler, and transported back to the river, where I ultimately returned it to its source. I'm all about the circle of life. posted by M. Giant 8:26 PM 6 comments 6 Comments:Gorgeous pictures, Trash.
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What really bends my brain is to think about the beer you will be drinking, say, six weeks from now.
By I live in DC, and I got WAY too excited the other day when I found out the Korean grocery near me carries several varieties of Leinie's - and I don't drink beer. Guess I miss home.
By Leinenkugel Berry Weiss for the win!!!
By You were at Lake Wissota? It's my favorite Wisconsin campground! Maybe when M. Small's a little older you can take him to the Leinie Lodge for the brewery tour and beer sampling. I think they do root beer for the little ones.
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Okay, I know I'm jumping in waaay late here, but after reading your post, I noticed for the first time that there is a neon Leinenkugel sign in the background in The Great Outdoors, which I must have seen 50 times.
By Friday, July 13, 2007 Trash and I put off M. Small's first airplane flight for as long as we could. Let's put it this way: he hadn't turned two when we flew to New Mexico last fall, but he had when we flew back. It turned out to be fine both ways, and we decided afterward that we'd been kind of silly for worrying so much. After all, what was the worst that could have happened? Um, this. We were stressed out enough knowing there was a chance that M. Small would wiggle and bitch all the way through the flight. If we'd known that some insane fascist flight attendant had the power to strand us in the middle of an airport terminal with no baby supplies after making us sit through an 11-hour delay just for repeating a phrase over and over, we probably would have stayed home. As it is, we're only going to fly non-stop from now on. posted by M. Giant 1:38 PM 6 comments 6 Comments:
I saw this story on Good Morning America. That woman is a real bitch - and I love that she gets away with it so the terrorists don't win. I won't be flying Continental any time soon.
By I've been stuck in an airport with no more diapers in my carry-on, a toddler with diarrhea, very little formula left, no stores open, no food purveyors open, 3 hr delay - it was heck on earth! If another mom hadn't been there with extra diapers, I would've been in big, big trouble! That flight attendant needs her head examined, esp since other passengers had no problem with the child. Geez.
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That story made me see red. I've travelled nearly 75,000 miles with my daughter (who is 27 months) and what I've realized is that airlines feel under no obligation to help children and their parents. I have always bought my daughter her own seat and they still make comments to me to the effect that she is not a real passenger and so they are doing me a favor and not required to heat my bottle/let me board early/have my stroller at the gate. I really think that parents need to get a bit more militant about the rights of families who travel and write letters of complaint whenever they are treated badly. Luckily, Ella has always been fantastically easy to travel with, but its not thanks to the airline staff.
By Air travel is not a service-with-a-smile, anything-we-can-do kind of industry anymore. It's not that way for anyone. Kids, parents, anyone. It's a cattle call, and I'm not sure the problem is that airlines don't care about parents as much as it is that airlines don't much care about anyone. When I travel as a single person, I never fail to feel like the airlines do nothing but coddle people with kids, even when the kids are being total bratty assholes, but this just goes to show you that it entirely depends on where you're sitting. Everywhere I go, it feels to me like parents get every possible break, and everywhere I go, parents are convinced that they're mistreated.
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http://www.wsbtv.com/news/13675836/detail.html
By I don't know why people travel with babies. Just keep them at home until they are old enough to behave themselves. Babies don't need to leisure travel, a toddler doesn't need to fly to go on vacation or visit their mother's friends. If you have baby just stay home for the first 8 years. You have to make sacrifices when you are a parent, and one of the sacrifices should be that you don't get to fly. Bringing a baby or small child on a plane is extremely selfish - it's bad for the baby, the fellow passengers, the flight crew, and probably no fun for the parents either. So why do it?
By Wednesday, July 11, 2007 Snooze Alarmed As I may have mentioned before, part of the reason for our upstairs remodel last year was to give M. Small a safe area to play without any intervention from us. In theory, once he graduated from his crib, he would be free to move not just around his bedroom, but also across the hall to his new playroom, and as long as we went to bed with a baby gate blocking his access to the stairs and the bathroom door blocking his access to the toilet, he could entertain himself indefinitely. As of 6:00 yesterday morning, he appears not to have gotten that memo. We habitually our alarms for around 6:45, which means we normally get up around 7:00 to 7:25. At 6:00, M. Small started calling down the hall for us. "I'll see if I can get him to take a paci," I muttered to Trash as I stumbled out of bed. But when I got to his room, he already had one in his mouth. That wasn't what he wanted. He was sitting up on his bed, and he told me, "I'm done with my nap." "You're really not," I assured him, and went back to bed. He continued yelling, though, until Trash invited him into our bed to "snuggle." What could be better than a family snooze for an hour or so? Well, the problem there is that M. Small is not aware of the difference between "snuggle" and "filibuster." After about ten minutes of sleep-precluding babbling and wiggling, we kicked him out and sent him off to his playroom. But even then he insisted on attempting to get us out of bed with various high-volume proclamations. "I need a tissue!" A very canny move, this. He picked up a runny nose on or after our camping trip last weekend, and since then we've been encouraging him to ask us for a tissue when he needs one rather than wiping his face on his bare arm. Now, after days of encouraging this behavior, wouldn't we feel like heels if we just lay in bed and ignored it? The answer: yes, we kind of did, a little bit. Because she was lying on her good ear at the time, Trash at first thought he was saying "I need to kiss you!" Which is not something he spontaneously says very often unless he's trying to shorten a time-out. "Then come in and kiss us!" she called back. When he didn't show up, I told her what he was actually saying. "That little scammer," she muttered. "Come help me set up my train track!" Now, the reason we've kept his Thomas toys boxed up for the past three weeks is because of the lead-paint recall, and we've just been keeping the little potential toxin-bombs out of his hands until we get around to going through and seeing if any of the specific items were affected by the recall. But he has no way of knowing this. Right? Right? I got up long enough to make sure he wasn't sucking all the red off a little wooden stop sign, told him, "Play with this plastic train instead," and went back to bed. "I need a bedtime snack!" The implication being, of course, that if we just hook him up with a bit of fruit or a cracker or something, he'll go back to bed and leave us in peace. When in fact we all know that the moment one of us blearily presents him with a "snack," he'll ask, "No, I want a pancake" or "How about some sausageges?" He did get a waffle and some sausages, but not until we were damn good and ready. What does this mean? Is he getting too much sleep? Did he go to bed too early? In fact, he had stayed awake until 10:00 the night before, and was more than satisfied with the eight hours of sleep he'd gotten. My toddler needs less sleep than I do. I am so screwed. posted by M. Giant 10:53 AM 6 comments 6 Comments:
My toddler needs less sleep than I do. I am so screwed.
By Mine crawls in bed and says right in my ear "dwink? dwink? dwink? . . . " until I cannot stand it anymore. She doesn't do this to Daddy! Ah well, we can sleep when they move out, right?
By Lord, does this sound familiar. Except, when my 3-year-old son comes in to snuggle, he says things like, "Hey! Mommy's nipples!"
By Have been having a very similar experience but at 4:45 am
By I think toddlers who need less sleep than their parents are a common problem. From my own childhood, I can remember lying down with my mother to take a nap because she was tired; I would lie there, wide awake, waiting for her to be done resting. I wish I could go back in time and take all those naps now.
By This is why I love other people's children and have a cat. I feel mildly bad about refusing my cat's requests for food at 4:45 am, but not as bad as I would feel if it were a people baby.
By Saturday, July 07, 2007 Happy Camper III: Camp and Camp Again We just got back from M. Small's third camping trip today. I mean to say, it was the third time he's been camping in his life, not that we went camping three times today. Although I'm just about that tired. The first time we took him camping, he was just learning to walk. The second time, he was just learning to talk. This time, he learned to push me out of the paved lane that wound between the campsites whenever we went for a walk, just in case a car was coming. Next year we're hoping that he'll be just learning to do the dishes. This trip was different from the two previous ones we took him on in other ways, as well. We went to a different campground, one that's slightly closer. It was a place about a half hour northeast of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Before then, we had camped in Black River Falls, about a half hour further away. I think we figured that the half-hour shorter journey meant that we would be able to get home faster in the event of an emergency. It was also the first camping trip with M. Small when he didn't also have Trash's mom with us. Normally, two people is the ideal number for camping. There's enough to do to keep both people busy, between the setting up the tent and the cooking and the fire tending and the vacuuming, and no one ever stands around feeling useless or underutilized. But then you throw a toddler into the mix, and then you have one person camping while the other person has their hands full keeping the toddler out of trouble. Which, since we don't currently own any camping gear that includes childproofed cabinet doors like we have at home, can become a full-time job. That was Trash's mom's job, and she did it well. We did miss her help this time around, but this trip with just the three of us was a lot more successful than it would have been without her before. We arrived on Thursday evening with about an hour of daylight left, and if you've ever set up camp in the dark like I have, you're not in a hurry to do it again. If you've ever set up camp in the dark with a toddler running around, well, why didn't you just get a hotel room instead like I would have done? M. Small got a kick out of watching me put up the tent, and we were lucky enough to have two tent-peg mallets so that he could even "help." Then, while Trash was busy starting our fire and setting up our camp kitchen outside, M. Small hung out in the tent and helped me inflate the air mattresses. And I needed his help because out of the three pumps we brought with us, one of them had an unrecharged battery, another had a motor that was too weak for the job, and the third was manually operated and didn't fit any of the valves anyway. Which left my lungs. Every bit of available assistance was needed. M. Giant: Whossssssshhhhh…. M. Small: What are you doing, daddy? M. Giant: I'm blowing up this air mattress to mommy and I can have someplace to sleep. Whossssssshhhhh…. M. Small: (jumping on the air mattress) What are you doing, daddy? M. Giant: Wishing I had enough air left in my lungs to yell at you properly. Whossssssshhhhh…. After a while, we were done, whereupon M. Small bounced on his own miniature air mattress and happily proclaimed, "I love camping!" Last night, we explained to M. Small that the next morning, we were going to pack it all up and go home, so that we could get back in time to a birthday party he was invited to. I was wondering if he still loved camping after a full day of it. "Do you want to go home?" I asked him. "No, I want to stay camping with you guys," he said. So that's what we ended up doing that last night. posted by M. Giant 8:31 PM 4 comments 4 Comments:....vacuuming?
By Thank you for asking that. I was very confused. Do you vacuum the pine needles and dirt off of the other dirt?
By Ants! I would totally vacuum up all the ants.
By Duncan Creek? O'Neil? My husband is from Chippewa Falls! We'll be back there in August (we live in Oregon). Glad you had a good time.
By Monday, July 02, 2007 Movie Review Trash took M. Small to his first movie in a theater the week before last. I had two objections. The first objection was that it was on Friday, which Trash doesn't work but I do, which meant that I wasn't going to be there for M. Small's first full-fledged cinematic experience. The second objection was that the movie in question was Surf's Up, which looks like total crap. It turned out not to be a positive experience for either of them. M. Small enjoyed it for a while, but then he kind of hit the wall. They'd gone with M. Small's best friend from day care and her mom, but the two of them went to the bathroom. M. Small wanted out shortly thereafter. Having lost all interest in the film about 45 minutes in, he started yelling, throwing popcorn at people, running around, dumping water on the floor, and generally being a little shit. Trash did her best to restrain him, but she was still under doctor's orders not to pick him up, let alone her own purse and the other mom's stuff she was responsible for in their absence. After ten minutes of this, the other kid and mom finally returned, and they all left the now-thoroughly disgruntled theater (quite an achievement for a 10:30 matinee aimed at kids) with M. Small tossing off this last unprovoked gem at top volume for their entertainment: "DON'T HIT ME, MOMMY!" So naturally, I brought him to another movie eight days later. I had a few things in my favor. 1) Surf's Up kind of got sprung on him, so he didn't know what to expect. I wanted to make sure he didn't have that excuse this time. We had plenty of long talks during the days beforehand about the way you behave in a movie theater: no running, no yelling, no throwing things, no cell phones. Otherwise he wasn't going back inside a movie theater again until he was three. 2) I learned from Trash's experience. This time it was just going to be the two of us, so there would be no purse-guarding; if things went pear-shaped, we could be out of there in seconds. I made sure M. Small knew this, too. Trash also packed him a backpack full of snacks, juice boxes and silent toys to keep his hands and mouth busy. 3) I was fairly confident that Ratatouille was going to be better than Surf's Up. And, in fact, so was M. Small. He heard them talking about it on the radio on Friday morning and decided he wanted in. And as much as I keep reading about what a tough sell Pixar has with this one – the foodie theme makes Happy Meals kind of a non-starter, plus it's about a rat, for Chrissakes – these analysts have failed to take into account how cute a two-year-old is when correctly pronouncing "ratatouille." Besides, it's Pixar. They could make a movie about a Nazi leper caught in a romantic triangle between a turd and a tampon and people would still see it. So guess what? He did great. We arrived just as the previews were starting, but we were still lucky enough to stake out about five empty seats at the bottom row of the stadium section (as per Trash's suggestion). M. Small sat on my lap at first, gazing raptly at the previews (that's my boy) and viewed with naked contempt the trailer for the Underdog movie (again, that's my boy). He had a few questions about the pre-feature short, "Lifted" (worth the ticket price alone, if you ask me), then settled down when he got a look at that bouncing desk lamp that he knows so well from the beginning of Cars. It's now a brand icon as familiar to him as the golden arches or that big red target. He's a sensitive child, so I wasn't sure how he'd react to any scary moments, especially since I hadn't seen it yet myself and didn't know where they were. I mean, yeah, I knew Remy gets knives thrown at him and shit, but I was counting on that happening too fast for M. Small to take it in. I wonder what he made of the shooting spree at the beginning, because we've been putting off introducing the concept of firearms for as long as possible. But then the old lady's shotgun wasn't really any louder than a lot of his toys. He seemed to think Remy and his family were mice, which I didn't bother to correct him on. And then when Remy found himself stranded alone in the sewers beneath Paris, M. Small sympathetically moaned, "ohhhh, noooo….ohhhhh, noooo…ohhhhhhhh…" in a very soft voice until I assured him that Remy would find his family again later. You don't cast Brian Dennehy and then only give him five lines, after all. And he was quite well behaved. He moved around a bit, but quietly. He wanted to sit in the seat to my right, and then in the seat to my left, and then stand on the floor behind the empty seats in front of us, and then in my lap again. I went along, and that kept him happy and quiet. Even when I gave him cookies, he thanked me very softly. And then he was just done. I hadn't expected to make it all the way through the movie to begin with, but I wasn't expecting him to signal our departure with a quiet and polite, "I want to go home," moments after Skinner read the letter from Linguini's mother. So we went home. I'm sure I'll eventually learn Remy's and Linguini's fates when it comes out on DVD (in the meantime, don't tell me). Or maybe I'll just take him to see the second half next week. If I can bribe a projectionist to run "Lifted" again after the credits, it's a done deal. posted by M. Giant 3:26 PM 6 comments 6 Comments:
The first film I ever saw in a cinema was "Follow That Bird", which means I was four. I still fidgeted and changed seats a lot, so you know...
By We took the whole fam to Ratatouille last Friday. Both adults and the six-year-old loved it. Our 2 year old got antsy and, after a major tantrum in the lobby, fell asleep. Great flick though. Funny, the girl made it through Shrek the Third without a problem, but a good movie she has a fit. Guess she was just tired.
By Yes, everyone dies at the end, but Rocky wins. There's also a finger kept in a jar around the guy's neck.
By
"Don't hit me, Mommy" - priceless!
By
Hmmm. Quick bit of wikipedia-ing here, and I can confirm that I was either a shade under or just turned 3 when I saw my first movie in the theater. That movie? Bambi.
By Well, you've got my cube-mate beat. Her son is eight, and she won't take him to theatres because "he gets nervous."
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