Weasel Of Doom

This morning, Sergey walked into our bedroom and announced, “Look, shirt pants!” He put his legs into the sleeves of his shirt, making the aforementioned shirt into pants. We were amused.

We ended up splitting kid care this weekend. On Saturday, Bill took care of the kids in the morning, and then I took them to gymnastics while he went to work. At gymnastics, I have managed to acquire extra kids, since we bring bionicles and legos with us, and other mothers gladly let their kids play with mine while they (mothers) relax. I don’t mind (because it keeps my kids entertained, too), but I do find it funny. Our gymnastics have wi-fi, so I could catch up on emails and socializing (yay Facebook for iPod app). Then my friend Rachel got there with her boys, and we got to hang out a bit. After gymnastics, I called my parents on Skype, and they watched the kids being goofy. Mel came over around 4:30, enabling me to do a quick run to the library and a surgical strike to Pick’n'Save for apples and ice cream. I went to the mega-Pick’n'Save, and it’s huge! Took me a while to find my two items ;) Bill got home with the pizza, I made apple crisp, Bill gave the kids a bath, and that was that. We watched an episode of Vampire Diaries, and I was in bed by midnight. Oh, and I managed to do dishes and laundry, too, and take down Halloween window clings upstairs.

Today Bill watched the kids while I had the day to myself. I slept in (as much as one can while being interrupted by screaming children, but still), had lunch and did more dishes, then put Xavier to bed and went to work. My mother-in-law, who was supposed to come over around noon, did not show up until 2:30, and apparently left without putting the kids to bed (which was the plan). I am not surprised, but I am annoyed at how unreliable she is.

I started feeling sick an hour or so after I got to work, so instead of being productive I cleaned up my office. *sigh* Time to go home and go to bed (or possibly throw up). The fun, it never ends.

Sergey likes to talk.

[refusing to eat dinner] “I am allergic to meat” Really, kid? Chicken nuggets are meat… Well, quite likely meat… Well, definitely a meat product… Nice use of the word allergic, though. Didn’t know you had it in you ;-)

[as I am leaving for dinner and shopping with Shannon] “Mama, are you going to sleep with Shannon?” Ummm. Wasn’t planning on it. Pretty sure Shannon’s not that into me :-)

[playing on the swing as my parents watch on Skype, after asking them to count] “I don’t hear any counting!” It was the tone of voice on that one. The aggrieved “I am busting my butt entertaining you, and you can’t even count???” tone. Little brat.

[watching the Visa commercials during the Olympics] “It’s Shaun White!” The only athlete he identifies by name, because we forced him to watch the half-pipe competition. At first, EVERY snowboarder was Shaun White, including the ladies. In Sergey’s defense, the outfits were rather concealing, and Shaun White DOES have nice curly long hair.

[watching qubo] “It’s Obama! And Cash-for-Gold!” The cartoons on qubo all have the “be nice” message, but the ads they run are just sleazy.

I remembered so much more before I started this post, but now I am drawing a complete blank… Le sigh…

Whenever ChairmanMao starts crying, Squeektar pipes in with “Baby is crying! He is hungry! He wants boobies! With milk!”

This one is from a few months back, when Squeek discovered the difference between the sexes: “[Squeektar] has a penis. [DemonChild] has a penis. Papa has a penis. Mommy has a penis?” After being assured that Mommy does not have a penis (but knows where to get one when she needs it), he goes right down the line with “Grandma has a penis?” We got to have this discussion every day for at least a month.

Demonchild to BelovedSpouse, yesterday: “Papa, go away and talk to Mommy!” (Now where is that attitude when we want them to leave us alone? Nowhere to be found, that’s where.)

DemonChild, after farting: “[DemonChild] puknul!” (“puknul” means “farted” in Russian, and is about the only Russian word he remembers). This is followed by five minutes of giggling. Oh, the joys of life with boys.

DemonChild, a week or so ago: “Mommy, I want some nookie!” Me: “You are way to young for that! Maybe in 15 years or so….” BelovedSpouse: “And hopefully never from Mommy, because that’s just wrong!”

Squeektar, during “Meet Your Teacher Night” at daycare. As I sit down next to him, he grabs my boobs, looks at me adoringly, and announces to the whole room, “Nipples! Nipples! Nipples!”

DemonChild, getting into the car on Friday: “I have blue eyes!”
Me: “Yes, you do! What color is Squeektar’s eyes?”
DemonChild (after double-checking): “Blue!”
Me: “What color are Mommy’s eyes?”
DemonChild: “Blue!” Long thoughtful pause. “I don’t LIKE blue eyes! I want BROWN eyes!”

DemonChild is talking more. We are still not at the point of having conversations, but he is making full sentences on occasion, like “I am SuperDemonChild!”, “Papa drives a minivan!”, “Go away, Squeektar, I am trying to sleep!”, and “I don’t LIKE [whatever it is he is currently not liking; recent objects of derision include his bed, his pillow, and the bath]!”

For Father’s Day, BelovedSpouse took DemonChild to see “Kung Fu Panda.” It was little guy’s first theatre-going experience. According to BelovedSpouse, good time was had by all, and DemonChild only fell asleep for a little bit at the end.

Last Friday morning, I was wondering why it was taking BelovedSpouse forever to get ready, and walked upstairs to discover DemonChild buck-naked and eyeing the shower with anticipation. On Saturday, Squeektar also decided to try that new shower thing, but he wanted Mommy to join in, too. Our tiny shower stall is not big enough, so I had to make an executive decision — “Everybody with a penis, into the shower. Mommy is going to enjoy some peace and quiet.” Squeekinator did not like the shower, so he was out in a minute. DemonChild, on the other hand, now prefers taking a shower to taking a bath.

Squeektar has developed a fondness for the word NO. Both boys also say “Allright” instead of “Yes” – very cute. Squeekinator likes: cars, buses, building with megablocks, reading books, splashing in the water, sitting on Mommy’s head, snuggling. He dislikes: tags on his shirts, waiting more than 5 seconds for whatever it is he wants, being ignored, not being allowed to do things.

Number3 is right on target and head down. He/she enjoys sitting on my bladder, finding painful places to shove at, and going into stealth mode whenever anybody else is trying to feel it move. Our 32 weeks appt is on Thursday. I can’t believe how fast time is going! Need to find out if there is an antidepressant I can take while breastfeeding.

Work is work. Hopefully we will find out who our new fearless leader will be soon, seeing as the current fearless leader is leaving at the end of the month for greener and less stressful pastures which will hopefully suit his personality better. My immediate boss is still an annoying pain. He lost all the power and influence he had a few months ago, and that is not sitting well with him. He does not realize it’s all totally self-inflicted, either. Not a bad guy, just really inept as a manager. In some ways, it would have been easier if he was a total jerk as a person, too.

I am doing OK. Tired a lot (and anemic, too, as we discovered at my last OBGYN appt; need to stop forgetting taking my iron pills; at least I managed to pass the gestational diabetes test somehow.). For a few days, hormones were overcoming the antidepressant, and that was NOT fun. Doing better now. Same old, same old, basically.

My apologies for such a boring post. I miss having a brain, but I strongly suspect my brain does not miss having me.

Dear Squeektar,

Just because YOU went to bed at 9 pm, does not mean that everybody else did, too. In particular, Mommy did not fall asleep until after 1 am. When, by the way, you decided that the only way you can keep sleeping is by being on Mommy’s pillow. And around 4 am we were joined by your brother, who at least brings his own blanket and has cut down on kicking Mommy out of the way when she is having the audacity to sleep where he wants to be on her own bed….

My point is, at least wait until the alarm goes off at 6:15 before waking up and farting in my face, OK? Some of us count on that little block of time from 5:45 am to 6:15 am to get us through the day. Also, hitting the wall with your head because then the window rattles is a nice demonstration of cause and effect, but probably not very good for you.

Your Pavlovian reflex to the sound of my cereal hitting the bowl is cute, though. I can’t help but smile when you run into the kitchen going “ceweal, ceweal” and climb into the big chair in anticipation of me sitting down so that you can climb over to my lap. We should work on eating faster, though, because after 20 minutes Mommy’s portion of the cereal turns into a soggy mess, and I am not so far into my dotage yet that I can only eat mush. Just saying ;-)

[me:] “DemonChild, do you need to go potty?”
[DemonChild:] “No.”
[me:] “OK, Mommy is going to run upstairs and get some laundry quick.”

60 seconds go by. I am coming down the stairs with the laundry. On the edge of the living room carpet, there is a grinning Squeeker, holding the potty. In the background, DemonChild is frantically pulling up his pants.

[Squeeker:] WHEEEEEE!

Squeeker triumphantly wields the potty. Pee splatters all over the tile. As I am frantically trying to mop it up, the happy duo toodles off to the bathroom, and closes the door behind them.

Two minutes later. Disturbing sounds of happiness from the bathroom, accompanied by some splashing. I charge in just in time to see Squeeker attempting to bail water out of the toilet with the potty. DemonChild is laughing his skinny ass off. The only one not amused is Mommy.

….

For the record, they never pull this crap when their dad is around. I feel special, and not in a good way :-)

Well, judging by our children’s performance yesterday – Squeeker was screaming unconsolably every hour or so, and when he took a break, DemonChild piped in – we are so doomed. I remember when DemonChild was going through can’t-sleep-unless-there-is-a-parent-within-touching-distance-of-me stage, and it was, shall we say, not a lot of fun. But at least DemonChild did not scream loud enough to wake the neighbors. Squeeker seems to think it is his duty to make EVERYBODY within hearing distance as upset as he is about waking up in the middle of the night.

I took a day off, because ye olde eyes were not staying open. Only reason BelovedSpouse went to work is because he stayed home sick yesterday.

Oh, and right on cue, I hear Squeeker starting to cry (and so are the neighbors, I am sure, the kid does not waste time building up to a good cry, he goes from whimper to ear-splitting in less than 10 seconds. I timed it.). Sleep, who the hell needs it?

Squeeker now says “mi mi mi!” while pointing at the fridge when he wants milk, and “boo boo boo!” as he picks up a book and carries it to us so that we can read it to him. He also repeats sounds on command, like ba-ba, da-da, ma-ma, etc. Sometimes we think we hear him say “thankyou” and “cracker” and “hurray” but those could be auditory hallucinations, since they usually don’t repeat. No doubt at all about “mi mi” and “boo boo,” though. Go Squeek!

Squeeker is going through the sucky sleep stage when he wakes up screaming in his crib and does not calm down until he is in bed with us. (Amazingly, DemonChild sleeps through all the shrieking. I guess he has developed an immunity after going through the same thing himself a while back.) The suckiness is compounded by the fact that Shriektar has a cold (but not, as daycare thought, a case of pink eye as well. So he is going back tomorrow, with a note that says he is pink-eye-free. At the pediatricians office, the nurse joked about him possibly having a case of pink nose, and put “daycare” as reason for the visit, because certainly BelovedSpouse and I would not have taken him in otherwise. Love our daycare, even though they are occasionally a bit paranoid. Love our pediatrician’s office, too, for their nice doctors and extended hours on week nights.) and so he coughs himself awake and it sounds like he is trying to cough up a hairball, or possibly throw up. So far so good, though, we’ve been only getting the sound effects, and not the actual throwing-up.

At any rate, for the last week or so Squeeker has been sleeping with us. Wouldn’t be a bad thing, except he keeps trying to crawl away and explore in the middle of the night, necessitating very light sleep from me, so that I can catch him before he makes a head-first dive off the bed. Also, when he is awake and ready to play, he head-butts unsuspecting sleeping us in the face, which is extremely painful, and not conducive to being loving parents.

Because we often don’t latch the gate after screaming Squeeker removal, sometimes DemonChild wanders in to join us. The other night, I was dreaming we had a dog who was touching me on the hand with its wet nose, only to wake up and realize it was DemonChild’s cold nose. He was snuggling to my hand in preparation to climbing in. Good thing we have a king-size bed, I guess ;P

On Saturday, we made the mistake of letting the cordless phone headset out of our sight, and into Squeeker’s. To make up for the subsequent cruelty of separating Squeektar from his new amazing toy, I gave him my cellphone to play with. Disaster averted.

Now, I have been letting my kids play with my cellphone (keypad locked) whenever they want to. Usually, DemonChild would pretend-talk to it, and Squeektar would do a taste-test, an impact-test, possibly a blunt-weapon test, and then lose interest. The cellphone, a Nokia “brick” that came free with our calling plan, survived the attentions of my children for two years now, and have come in handy as an emergency toy a number of times. One might go as far as call it “kid tested, Mom approved.”

What I neglected to take into account is that Squeektar is currently going through a drool-monster stage. The amount of drool the kid generates is amazing. (He also has a cold; nothing like a snot-drool-tears mixture being wiped all over your face to test that unconditional love parents are supposed to have for their children, I am telling you.)

But back to my cellphone. When I tried to locate it a couple of hours later it was not, surprisingly, hard to find. In hindsight, that should have been the first sign that things were not going according to plan. Instead of hiding among toys or stuck into a shoe, the phone was on the kids table, in plain view. When I picked it up, it was damp. I wiped it with my sleeve a few times, but instead of diminishing, the dampness increased. The phone was literally oozing drool. Hmmm. It was also saying “battery low,” so I went upstairs, plugged it in, and forgot all about it.

Fast forward to Saturday evening. I heard odd noises coming from our bedroom. Investigation revealed the sources off the odd noises to be my cellphone, boasting condensation on the inside of its screen. Not good. When BelovedSpouse stopped laughing at the water-drops where no water-drops ought to be, he took the cellphone apart, and discovered that the battery was soaked, too. We left it to air-dry for the night, and hoped for the best.

Sunday morning. The parts were all dry, so I put the phone back together. And it seemed to work. Until I noticed that it kept dialing 7 all the time. And refused to respond to buttons being pushed. And randomly switched profiles. And attempted to connect to the internet. You get the idea.

On the plus side, it still rings. On the minus side, that’s about the only thing it does. My attempts to answer the phone have so far been a spectacular failure. I think my phone now things it is an alarm clock.

For those of you keeping score at home:
Squeektar: 1. Cellular technology: 0.

What’s really surprising is that it had taken this long.

It’s around 5 pm, I am half-asleep on the couch, Alan and his daughter are playing videogames on the PS2, BelovedSpouse is watching the kids and cooking dinner. Kids are roaming around the first floor. Kids get suspiciously quiet. After a brief search, kids are located in the bathroom, giving Squeektar’s hat and DemonChild’s “monkey” (knitted Easter egg) a bath in the toilet bowl. Water everywhere.

BelovedSpouse: “DemonChild, stay RIGHT THERE! Wife, get the camera and take a picture.” So we have photographic evidence. Then BelovedSpouse and I told the kids exactly what we thought about their bathroom activities. BelovedSpouse cleaned up the floor, then the boys got an early bath.

Here’s hoping dunking things into the toilet won’t become their new favorite activity. Little miscreants :-)

(overheard this morning, as BelovedSpouse is getting the kids ready to go to daycare): “NO, Squeeker, NO! This is DemonChild’s poopy, DemonChild gets to flush it!”

1. Set your vocal expression default to “Scream head off.” Proceed to scream head off for any and all reason, including no apparent reason at all.

2. Throw temper tantrums on hard surfaces. If possible, attempt to slam head into a wall, door, or cabinet for emphasis.

3. Go for things you are expressly forbidden. Scream head off when thwarted in your attempts to do yourself bodily harm.

4. Freak out every time your parents step away from you. Scream head off, slam head into floor. Look hurt when parents start screaming back.

5. When not interested in the food given to you, attempt to throw it as far as possible. Bonus if you can hit the carpet. If the food in question does not lend itself well to throwing, try to smear it over all available surfaces, and some surfaces that technically are not available.

6. Scream head off the moment you are put in bed. Fall back asleep the second you are picked up. Repeat until parents give up and put you in their bed. Once there, proceed to roll around and kick them in the face.

7. Ignore board books. Instead, find the ones your parents read, fold the pages over, and chew holes in the middle. It’s art! Also, they would not have made them paperbacks if they haven’t meant for you to be able to rip the jackets off.

8. Declare happiness anathema. When with Daddy, demand Mommy. When with Mommy, demand Daddy. When both parents are around, leave the room and scream your loneliness to the world. Have a full-blown tantrum, bang head on something in case they are not getting the message.

9. Sneak behind your parents when they are distracted. Then, as they accidentally step on you, scream bloody murder. Watch them freak out. As soon as parents turn around, sneak behind them again, gather breath for blood-curdling screams. Repeat until parents develop a disturbing habit of sidling along walls in order to get anywhere.

10. Undergo a total personality transplant when at daycare, becoming a perfect little angel full of lovings, hugs, and good behavior.

Daycare called to let me know Squeeker’s eyes were all gunked up, and asked that I come and pick him up as soon as I can. Fortunately, I already made an appointment with a pediatrician for later that evening. When I got to daycare, Squeeker was sitting in a little chair, with a table between him and the rest of the world. He did not look happy, and the teachers were feeling bad for him, while hoping he haven’t infected everybody else. I was hoping it was just a tear duct infection, because DemonChild had a number of those when he was smaller, and they looked very similar to what was happening to Squeeker.

The pediatrician had a different opinion. We got diagnosed with pink eye (not an apt name in our case, since his eyes are clear, albeit gunked-up shut), prescribed eye drops (twice a day for three days) and an antibiotic (twice a day for ten days), because she was concerned that Squeeker’s eyes looked almost bruised, which can mean that the infection is trying to spread to areas other than the eye. Argh. I am really hoping the bruised look was a fluke, because it seemed to go away once we got home. I don’t think I am up to dealing with potential serous complications.

This just proves that my children have the worst timing ever, and our last name should officially be changed to “Plague Bearers” :-(The parents of all the children Squeeker came in contact with in the last couple of days should pool their resources and hire a hit squad to remove the disease-carrying menace that is our family from society.)

Originally, BelovedSpouse planned to stay at home with Squeeker tomorrow. I reminded him that his mother wanted to try out her l33t grandmothering skillz, so Squeeker will spend a day with her instead. On the plus side, she lives less than a minute away from my work, so I will just wait at home for her to call when she is ready to babysit, and go in then. On the minus side, she is not an altruistic babysitter, so there will be some (unpleasant) way we’ll have to pay back for her helping us. Damned if we do, and damned if we don’t: the story of our life.