Hobson's Choice
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Your Big Backyard
Well, after around 6 months, I've finally figured out that the magazine "Your Big Backyard" is not just arriving in our mail at random. Someone has clearly given Eleanor a gift subscription.
It's taken me way too long to realize what was going on.
Unfortunately, we never received a notification card saying who sent the gift subscription. So here's a thank you, whoever you are. I hope you're a blog reader. Let me know and we'll send you a genuine piece of preschool art in the mail.
6:56 p.m. - 2006-08-14
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P.U.
I think I may have a problem.
I think fart jokes are funny. Farts ARE funny. We like to think we're all about our minds or our love or our morality. We like to think that we're superior creatures to the beasts in the field. And then our bodies remind us that we're not, with their own funny little joke. All of us stink and make strange noises. As mighty as we are, we fart. And with the fart comes a little intimation that our bodies will someday fail us entirely. All good jokes contain a little hint of mortality.
And of course, having spent most of my adult life as a vegetarian or a big eater of fruits and veg, life would be brutish and dour if you couldn't find a little fart joke amusing.
Now I'm about to start teaching preschoolers, and I know that one of my jobs is to disapprove of farts and giggles and to inculcate that disapproval into the young. I may be in trouble.
What may save me:
(1) Fart jokes by four year old boys are not actually all that funny. All jokes by four year olds are not all that funny.
(2) Fart jokes are a lot more funny in the abstract than the concrete. What I'm trying to say is: a fart joke is funnier if there is no actual stench in the room.
9:09 a.m. - 2006-08-13
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How to Be Embarrassed in Two Easy Steps
Poor Chris. His dignity reached an all-time low yesterday. As the parent who goes to work five days a week, he often gets to miss out on some of the more spectacular offspring-instigated public embarrassments. Yesterday made up for it.
Yesterday, right before his in-laws left, E walked up to him and said, "Look. Your penis bounces behind your shorts."
And then yesterday evening, E accidentally touched bird poop. Horrified and anxious to get it off, she immediately started wiping it on Chris's shirt.
Oh, the dignity of parenthood.
8:53 a.m. - 2006-08-13
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Cleaning in August
We're having a huge picnic tomorrow for the teachers' union at Marshall, and I'm getting the house cleaned up today. In honor of my mom's friend Amy, we're adopting her philosophy of "If you see my basement, I will have to kill you." Just to clarify, Amy is not a creepy type who keeps illicit, horrifying things in her basement. That's more of a y-chromosome situation involving basements and death. No, when you hear a woman state that she'll kill you if you see her basement, you know that it has something to do with housecleaning. She knows that if you see the chaos in her basement, she will be haunted by dead housewives from the 1950s. The idea ought to be "If you see my basement, I will have to kill myself."
AFT folks, just be warned: don't go in our basement.
Because I don't know what has happened, but our house has just gone to pot in the month of August. Maybe it's because Eleanor's been around non-stop; maybe it's because I've reaggravated my leg injury; maybe it's because we've been trying to have some last hurrahs of summer as a family before the semester starts. Whatever the reason, chaos reigns.
And I think that old houses have lessons to teach you that you never really encounter in a newer house. Every time you add 20 years to a house's age, you are initiated into new mysteries. We learned lessons about basements and attics in our 1940s house. I'm sure that my sister-in-law who has a 1900s house encounters lessons (horrors) that we can never dream of. I don't even want to think about what our friend Paul whose house dates to the 18th century has learned.
And here is the August curriculum of the 1920s house we call home: In August, you will be visited by the ghosts of Urine Past. You can swish the toilet bowl out with borax every day. You can religiously wipe down the toilet itself. You can tell your ecologically-minded family that there will be no Mellowing of the Yellow for the month of August. You can replace your toilet brush. Still, every time you walk into your bathroom when the temperature is above 90, you are going to think, "I don't remember converting this room into a public facility in a train station."
So union members, come pee at your peril tomorrow.
9:18 a.m. - 2006-08-11
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The Garden Report
Holy Seeded Fruits! I just picked 19 tomatoes, and it looks like there will be 5-10 tomorrow. And this from a jungle of a garden where the tomato plants are growing into one another, topping each other's cages, knocking down their own stakes. 19 tomatoes.
6:21 p.m. - 2006-08-08
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Get A Job!
Two weeks ago, I wasn't even thinking about new employment. I wasn't imagining any major changes in our lives in the next couple of years (unless, of course, the fertility fairy strikes us with her magic, an outcome that seems increasingly unlikely). And then in the twinkling of an eye, actually about six hours, I got a job. Teaching preschool. At Eleanor's school.
I'm so excited that I'm sleeping less at night. I'm going to bed late and waking up early, all with excitement about my new job. I hadn't thought to go back into the classroom with little ones, but here I am. It's the perfect situation as I don't have to arrange childcare -- Eleanor will be in school. The blog has been quiet because I've been stunned and happily amazed. Vive le paid employment!
6:27 p.m. - 2006-08-07
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Socks!
I did it. I finished my first pair of socks. Okay, I've still got to weave in the ends and block them, but that's not hard. And confession time, I generally do a massive and boring end-weaving/blocking session in December shortly before I have to wrap all the presents anyway.
But I did it. I knit a pair of socks. They're not perfect; there are mistakes. But they're the same size, and they're not going to unravel. And they will fit an adult woman foot. And they feel like heaven.
If heaven is having uber-comfortable feet.
Meanwhile, you could easily mistake it for hell here. The heat index was 105 today.
9:42 p.m. - 2006-08-02
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Husbands and mice
So the other day, I was asked to babysit Eleanor's toy "puppy" Ropey while she and her husband went on a date. I asked her what her husband's name was, curious to see how she would answer since she had previously said she would be married to Daddy and Mommy when she grew up. But apparently not anymore because she said:
"Eleanor Mister. And my name is Eleanor Hale Hobson Green."
Adding to the hilarity was the fact that Ropey is an old, broken computer mouse. Regular readers of this blog know that this house is stuffed with plush toys ("stuffed animals" as it were) to the point that I despair. Some of these toys are even, yes, dogs. But what is the most exciting toy of the week? What makes the best pet dog (it already has a leash attached)? Yes, it's a decrepit computer mouse.
6:29 p.m. - 2006-07-31
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Oh the horrors!
Yesterday, I discussed my horrible cruelty as a parent, but apparently my wicked ways have been topped by one of my friends.
Eleanor's best friend went with us to story hour, and we got to have lunch there. I just wanted to remind E's friend that she shouldn't eat anything apple-related since she's allergic. I don't want anything bad happening on my watch, don't want to break somebody else's kid.
And then she replied in this sad and aggrieved voice.
"Yeah, I can't drink apple juice because my mom won't let me get diarrhea."
While every adult in the room tried unsuccessfully to stifle their giggles, I replied, "Yeah, moms are kind of strict that way. We tend to say to no to unneccessary diarrhea."
Sigh. She went back to eating her cheese sandwich.
7:39 a.m. - 2006-07-27
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Mother @#$%
This is the kind of cruel mother I am: I refuse in 90 degree weather to bring blankets out to the porch so that my offspring can cover up.
Because she is soooo cold.
What a mean mother I am.
6:23 p.m. - 2006-07-26
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