Remembrance

"Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America,

there will be no forgetting September the 11th.

We will remember every rescuer who died in honor.

We will remember every family that lives in grief.

We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls,

the funerals of the children."

~George W. Bush

A Thousand Words..

Sascha's unofficial summer project has been to get one of those sweet father-daughter shots.

Ally has been less than cooperative.

I could have so much fun captioning each of the below but I think they're better off speaking for themselves. View and enjoy...and Sascha, I love you, my good sport :).

Baby in a Barf Bucket

Remember the family barf bucket from your elementary school days? You know the one. We all had one, whether you called it the barf bucket, puke pail, or vomit can. I have a few non-dear memories of staring into our own dear barf bucket's ringed bottom and feeling the panicky rise of something not-so-pleasant.

Being the practical folks that they are, my parents have saved the barf bucket because it has myriad uses aside from its sordid past. Below, I share a picture. Yes, 25 years later, we're washing the baby in it.

Scene From Our Days

It is 4:30 p.m. I'm in the kitchen trying to prepare dinner. I emphasize "trying".

Ally is producing a sort of whining, grunting shrillness from the swing positioned in the middle of our small kitchen (around which I continuously dance in my attempts to chop broccoli and stir the onions lest they carmelize).

Ari is plopped in the living room, taking in another Veggie Tales and 1/4 cupful of yogurt raisins while asking good-naturedly every 15 minutes if "my dinner is ready". No. It isn't. Dinner will not be ready until Daddy is home. Is Daddy home yet? No. He is not. I have repeated this I-don't-know-how-many times. It has yet to sink in.

Mo is hanging in the kitchen doorway meowing plaintively for his dinner. As if, in our 9 years of feline-human companionship, I have missed a meal. I repeat, it is 4:30 p.m., he does not get fed until 6:30. Two more hours of meowing to go.

I move Ally from the swing into the Bjorn. Instantly, her mood improves as she jerks back and forth with me in the kitchen, watching me chop, saute and peer into the hot oven. This, of course, requires that I curve my back, keeping her away from the chopping knife, hot pan and hot oven door. Yes, funny you should mention, my back does hurt.

Ari, again, requests that his dinner be finished. This time before Daddy comes home. I would be extremely excited that he wants to eat real food so badly...if I didn't know for a fact that he would later eat three bites and declare himself finished (aside: this did later happen)...probably because he filled up on the random pieces of Mac & Cheese scattered over the kitchen floor from lunch with the neighbor boys.

By now, Mo has worked himself into a lather requesting his own dinner; eliciting repeated "No, Mo" from even Ari.

Ally begins to squawk from the Bjorn.

It is 5:15 p.m. The veggie pie is in the oven. No, Daddy is not home.

Bathtime

It is Sascha's job to bathe Ari. And they frequently go round and round about which body part Ari does not wish to be washed on any particular day. This day, it was the penis.

Ari: No, Dad. No. Don't wash my penis!

Sascha: But Ari, we need to wash it too.

Ari: No no no no no no no.

Sascha: Why, Buddy? Is it ouchie? Does it hurt?

Ari: Noooooo.

Sascha: Then why don't you want me to wash it?

Ari: Because it will fall off.

??????

7 a.m. Musings

Sometimes I'm afraid I will never have another original thought...and then sometimes I'm afraid I already have too many.

Hmmh.

Ari-isms

Well, my little boy is growing up. As is his vocabulary and language skills (as evidenced in an earlier post). Following are some anecdotes providing further evidence of said skills.

Here It Comes

I was changing Ari's diaper on my bed one day last week and was letting his bottom air out when he got That Look in his eye. All of you with toddlers know That Look. Uh oh.

Ari: Pee in Mommy's bed?

Wendy: Noooo, we pee in the potty or in a diaper, Ar.

Ari (grinning and nodding): No, pee in Mommy's bed...Here it comes...Look out...

He never actually meant to pee on my bed but he did mean to tease the heck out of me. Where he got this idea, I don't know.

Music Man

Whenever Ari is jamming on a guitar or rocking out to something inappropriate on the stereo, this is his favorite line to bellow:

"Yea, baby, yea. Yea, yea baby. Yea, yea baby. Yea, baby, yea!"

Babe Ruth

Over the past couple of weeks, Ari's gotten quite good at baseball. Not T-ball, mind you, baseball. He and I headed out to the street after dinner one evening last week intent on getting some ball in before bath. We set up the bases and I began to drag out the T, as usual. He vehemently stopped me. "No mom, not that. Just throw." Completely confused, I kept trying to set the T up. He finally got frustrated, threw the thing towards the garage and said, "Throw the ball! I knock it out of the park." Ok. I will. And damned if he didn't do just that. Two years old, no T...and he knocked it out of the park (or at least to the opposite end of the street).

Music Snob

As we were driving along on an errand one day, I was attempting to enjoy a little "mommy music" as opposed to the endless requests for the Wiggles or "The Batman Song" or "The Rock CD". My "mommy music" that day happened to be JoDee Messina's Greatest Hits (fantastic girl CD). About 30 seconds into the first song, Ari pipes in from the back seat, "No Mom, I don't like that moogoo (music)." "Well Ari, we're listening to my music this morning." A pause as he considers this, and then, "No, not that moogoo, good moogoo." Well excuuuuse me. Persecuted by a two-year-old for my love of girlie country.

Coach

I took a stroller fitness class last week and one of the stationary exercises we were doing gave you the option of adding a jump to make the exercise more strenuous. This being my first class, I opted out on the jumping portion. As I turned around to answer one of Ari's questions (he and Ally were in the stroller behind me), I noticed him eyeing the mom next to me who, of course, was doing the jumping part. About 5 seconds later, Ari yells out to me, "No, no Mom. You're supposed to jump." This amused my neighbor immensely. Me, not so much.

Love of My Life

While laying in bed this morning, Ari says to me, "Mom, you're my best friend."

Yeah, I melted too.

Apparently he said the same thing to his father 5 minutes earlier when I was in the next room. So he's fickle as hell. We couldn't care less.