The kids and me. Me and the kids.

In brief, we have had a rough summer with Z. I think a lot of it is just being 9 (or so I'm hearing from other parents of 9 year old girls), but a lot of it has been the disruption of our schedule.

One of the ongoing issues I'd love to see a change in is that she's so goldurn negative all the time. Like, if we had a wonderful day, when I asked her to tell about it, she'd pick out the one lousy thing that happened. Last week while we were on our Santa Rosa trip, she wanted to go ice skating. There wasn't a lot of time, not everyone with us could enjoy it, we didn't have the right clothing, and it cost extra money (whereas we had hand stamps to return to the children's museum). She threw kind of a tantrum about it, and when I reminded her of all the fun things we'd done, she countered each with why they had been horrible. "We had fun at the Jelly Belly factory..." "Where I had to MARCH for HOURS until my LEGS FELL OFF." I think what's hardest about it for me is that I'm a positive, optimistic, glass-half-full, silver lining kind of person so I don't understand her at all. We're so unalike.

Now I should mention that not every day is just rotten awful pulling-teeth. Yesterday kind of was. Today was mostly good. Sometimes she's really sweet to her brother. Sometimes she's downright mean. Other times, she wants to be sweet, but she's overbearing and invades his space.

One thing that I wanted to immortalize here (lol, like my blog is immortal) is a funny quirk about her -- she is FOREVER in my way. I don't get mad or impatient about it, because I realize it's just not something she realizes, but the child will ask me for water while standing in front of the water tap. She will tell me how desperately she needs to get in the house to pee while standing between me and the locked door. She stands in the path of doors she wants to open. It's almost funny! Her brother has taken to sprinting away lately, and he's not so fast that I can't catch him, but you know what makes it harder? When a bigger kid is running right in front of me. In fact at the Jelly Belly factory, he ran off and I started running, too. She got in front of me and instead of blocking him or grabbing his arm, she tackled him like a football player. I mean, I shouldn't find it amusing (because it makes him cry), but she so WANTS to be helpful and she's just the opposite so much of the time. It's weird and endearing and funny and exasperating.

As for the boy, he is two, and he gets his kicks from pinching his sister, making messes, hooting into his empty milk glass to amplify the noise, and pushing our chairs away from the dining table. But he is still the sweetest kid I think I've ever interacted with. He kisses, hugs, pats, cuddles, and tells me he loves me. He falls asleep with his legs slung over me. He gives his sister suggestions for things that will "make you feel better" when she's upset. And he knows the rules and tells them to us when he fears we're in violation. He likes toot and poop and pee jokes. He sticks his butt towards his sister and says "I tooted on you."

He just loves animals (and books and shows about animals) and asks interesting, thoughtful questions about them all the time. Where do monkeys live? What do their tails do? What eats monkeys? Can they run away up a tree? Do monkeys have fur? And can they live in the desert?

As for the developmental stuff, we have good news on two fronts! First, it's been over a week since he nursed. I started realizing a lot of his continued asking for it was just boob-access-related. I mean, I tend to be... casually attired around the house. So he'd call for me in the morning, I'd be wearing a robe, and there they were! So I started putting on clothes first thing, and he sort of forgot. At first, we went almost a week with no nursing, then on Sunday morning he asked really insistently and I let him. Then in the week (and two days) since, he hasn't asked but about twice, and both times I've gently said no and he's let it go. So I think we're at the end of that phase. I might have been sad at a different stage, but it really felt like it was time.

Also, if he's going to go to 4-day-a-week pre-school this coming school year (which I think he's ready for), he has to be potty trained. I didn't want to force it, but I also did think he was ready. I bought him a potty watch (it's shaped like a toilet, dude!) and we started trying in earnest last week. He is VERY good about going when the watch alarm goes off, and pretty good about knowing when he does and doesn't need to go. He is not yet any good about just telling me he needs to go, and he still prefers to poop whilst crouching somewhere semi-hidden (preferably with his abdomen over a chair or other firm surface). We have done a few outings in underpants, and it's gone well. Today I took him to a movie, so I put him in a Pull-up, but I gave him the opportunity to use the restroom and he did, twice (and stayed dry otherwise). He still sits like a girl, and I'm not sure how to rectify that, but I also don't super-care. And since he is basically always carrying a toy in each first, I have kind of a hard time getting him to aim. But what the hell. It's a process.

Me! I'm in the title! I'm actually going to write about myself! Yeah, so... You know I like to write (er, obviously). Poetry is really my preferred genre, and for a long time I was having these pangs, like "I should go back to school and get my doctorate" or "I should enter a chapbook contest and see if I can get published." But everything was really just about getting some work done as a poet, and so I came up with a project. Years ago, while looking through some pictures with my grandma, I saw a picture of a little house with the words "Fortune's Cafe" on it. She said it was her childhood home, so obviously I had to ask about the sign. After her father had built (and lived in, with my great-grandma) a dugout home, they bought this structure to use as a house. Something about the name just evoked a lot of ideas for me. I asked her about her childhood, and once I mentioned The Grapes of Wrath. She told me she'd never read it, but from what she had heard, it sounded a lot like their life. I had wanted to write about it in prose, but never got more than about a page done before I hated it and myself. So I started writing about it in poetry, and I liked it. I wrote more. And then I lost momentum and didn't write for a while, but then I met with my writing group, who encouraged me to get moving again.

I've been writing a lot -- I have about 23 pages -- and doing some sort of background research into the Dust Bowl, passenger train routes in the 1920s, Chico and Bidwell Park, Depression Glass... And I've just been looking at a lot of pictures and maps and things. I discovered that there are two pictures of the Fortune's Cafe house, one with a flat roof and one with a gabled roof, and I liked the idea of my great-grandpa putting a new roof on the place, but the irony that you wouldn't really have to worry about rain leaking in for years to come. I found a charming picture of my great-grandma in about 1927 with a very fashionable bobbed haircut.

I hope I can get it written, edited, and in some sort of final shape. I'd like to give it to my grandma. I don't know how she'll like it -- she's finicky and crabby and not known for reading poetry. Plus, I've had to make a LOT of stuff up. I mean, who could know what my Granny was thinking about when she hopped on a train to meet my great-grandfather two states away? But I hope she'll like it. And I've had some very flattering feedback from my writing group, so maybe it's something. I don't know. I'm enjoying the process of writing it.

Okay, I've got to head to bed. My best to you folks.

--CM