While Peeling Carrots

"Mommy!"

(Looking up from reading Latour's "Reassembling the Social") "Yes?"

"When we are finished making dinner, say Thank You, ok?"

"Ok. Can I say Thank You now?"

"No."

Fudge-based diets

DG, Teh N00b and I all went recently to a wedding in Mackinaw City, Michigan. This small tourist town has an entirely fudge and pastie based economy. (Not pastries, mind you. PASTIES. If you'd been to the UK you know what I am talking about).

But seriously, fudge everywhere. Fudge stores line the streets. Even places that don't make fudge, sell it. "Pizza! and fudge." "Fashion accessories! and fudge." "Fudge! and fudge."

Amazing. It's been a long time since I've eaten that much sugar.

Teh N00b is clearly my kid, because he would suddenly declare, whenever we were outside a fudge shop (amazing how 3-year-olds figure out which ones they are -- must be those marble slabs) that he was hungry. And he would do his little whine, "I want something to eat..."

When we got back to Chicago, I thought my attempt to exercise and lose weight would be completely shot. But I got on the scale and... I had lost another 4 pounds.

WTF?! I am going on an all fudge diet.

Sarah Palin destroyed my sofa, or, you call THAT empathic?!

This morning I woke up to find that Teh N00b had opened three cartons of yogurt, eaten half of each one without mixing them, then dunked two wooden cars into one and run them all over the back of the sofa and the coffee table, leaving yogurt tracks everywhere.

It was like the Palin-Biden debates.

She avoided any substance by leaving it untouched at the bottom of the yogurt carton, then smeared sweet goop everywhere, making a mess.

I don't understand anyone who thinks that Palin is charismatic, charming, or likeable. Because at the moment that Biden was recalling what must have been one of the most painful moments of his life -- the death of his first wife and young daughter in a car accident -- she failed to respond. At all. A simple, "I imagine that must have been a difficult time for you" -- anything -- would have done. But she just launched into blathering about McCain. (See the video here, it happens at 2:45).

Was she not listening? Did she not know how to respond to another's suffering? Does she not care?

DG thinks that this was a planned slip on Biden's part, an attempt to show his human side. Maybe, maybe not. But it doesn't matter. Biden's suffering was and is real, even if it happened a long time ago. If Palin can't respond to the suffering of someone standing in front of her, then how the hell can she empathize with the American public?!

Literalist Baby

I have to share a couple of comments from Teh N00b (Mom, Dad, Brother -- this means "Squeakers" -- since you probably are wondering why the heck I sent you this link. )

The Literal Baby Phase is pretty funny.

A week ago we went to a party at a house with small kids. Teh N00b brought the indoor toys outside -- specifically, a toy bulldozer. He wanted to take it in the sandbox. I thought maybe the parents of the house wouldn't want their indoor toys full of sand (turns out, they didn't seem to mind). So I told him he couldn't play with it in the sand.

He turned to me, very serious, and said "But! It has to scoop something!"

Then yesterday we were in a restaurant. A waiter invited him and His Best Friend In the Whole World to ice cream. He brought out the ice cream and Teh N00b (with a little prompting) thanked him. Later, a different waiter came by to ask the boys if they liked their desserts. "Tell the waiter it's good," I prompted him.

"But he didn't bring it!" Teh N00b responded.

I have to hand it to him, Teh N00b has great comedic timing. I don't think I've ever seen a waiter laugh so hard!

Now we just need to get him over his stage fright. At his "Noah's Ark" puppet play, he just stood and stared at me the whole time the other kids were singing and jumping, like, "What the heck are you and all these other people doing here, anyway?"

Security Books

Teh N00b has never been into "lovies," stuffed animals, or other soft, cuddly things that are supposed to give infants comfort as they go to sleep. He has, for years (he's now a ripe old three years, after all) slept with books. Even before he could memorize and recite them (the stage he's at now), he would demand they stay in bed after we read them to him.. If we forgot, he would get out of bed to retrieve them. We always find him asleep, a book under his head, or on top of his head, or tucked under his arm, or under his body.

Geez, it's like he's the one writing the d*** dissertation.

Tonight I put him to bed, and it got quiet, so after reading 30 pages on neoliberalism I went up to recover the books and slip them back under his bed, like I do every night. I tip-toe in. It's dark, he's still -- "Tough Trucks" between his head and the pillow, "Dazzling Diggers" under his arm.

As I approach, I hear a little voice, quiet but insistent: "My books."

Ooops. Too soon.

So I sneak out with a chuckle. An hour later I go back. He's rolled over, face up with the book open to truck drivers beneath him. As lift his head to move the book, he startles and whines, "My books!" then immediately goes back to sleep when I put the book beside him.

I wonder when I'll have to break it to him that eventually you have to stop reading and start writing. I guess I'll wait until he's four.

Zen Parenting

If Teh N00b weren't so darn big, he would totally do this. I've got to hand it to that mom, she's got the Zen thing down. No sense of panic from her, just "Oh yeah, she does this sometimes." It's something to aspire to.

Little Shop of Horrors, on my roof

DG came home from our recent trip a little sooner than I did. One of those nights we spoke on the phone, and I asked him if he had checked our vegetables, which grow in a large box on the roof.

There was a long pause, and I knew immediately that he hadn't. "I probably should do that," he said, quickly adding that it had rained quite a bit the week we were gone.

"Be careful. It might have turned into a Little Shop of Horrors up there," I warned him.

Truer words were never spoken. Since we compost, seeds wind up in the fertilizer and sometimes grow. Usually we pull them out, but when I saw a couple of squash-like plants, I figured I'd leave them and see what they turned out to be.

In two weeks these plants grew from cute little things with a couple of leaves, into a monstrous patch, four feet high and wide, shading everything else in the planter with leaves the size of two hands together atop stalks covered in small spines. While unpleasantly prickly, they do have lots and lots of flowers, and what looks like it might be the beginning of some sort of squash-like fruit.

So, I dutifully cut back the leaves and left the flowers and fruits. Because if anything is going to give Teh N00b superpowers, this will definitely be it. I'll leave it to greater minds (you know who you are) to decide what kind of costumed crime-fighting can come out of this.

Lincoln Park Zoo takes on the childhood obseity epidemic

At the Lincoln Park Zoo in their farm section they have a space about the weather -- where they have a TV set to the Weather Channel, live, all day. Because that ways kids can learn important things like:

... how to diet with the help of overpriced pre-packaged meals!

This is especially ironic given the commitment of the zoo cafeteria to healthy children's meals:


Excuse the fuzziness of the picture, but yes, that's "Cookies" listed first under the "Healthy Kids Meal." Cookies with trans-fats in them, I should add (Really. I checked the label).

But because they say its healthy, parents buy it (including myself). Apparently for the Lincoln Park Zoo, "healthy" means "we'll throw in an apple." Which is better than soda-pop, I suppose.

Watch What You Say

I don't worry too much about what people say in front of Teh N00b. All languages have swear words, and kids will hear them; the catch is learning when to use them.

I will admit to cleaning up my own language somewhat when Teh N00b started using the F-bomb to get my attention. His favorite show-stopper for a while was "F**k it out!" Best response? "You want a fork, honey? But we're not eating right now. What, you want a truck? We have one of those at home honey, should we go get it?"

Then we went to South America and no one knew what he was saying. So he stopped and hasn't sworn since.

Now, part two of "Watch What you Say":

Almost everyday a local ice cream truck comes to our street. I never buy ice cream from the truck because I don't want Teh N00b to beg everytime it comes by -- and the best way to avoid that, in my rigid parental mind, is to simply not make that an option.

The truck always plays "La Cucaracha" in tinny, ice-cream-truck notes as it waits to see which of the neighborhood kids it can tempt outside. So we (as sarcastic misfits) dubbed it the "Marijuana Truck." When it came by, we would joke in fake child-like excitement, "Hurray! It's the marijuana truck! Come and get your marijuana!"

This is, of course, completely inappropriate for non-smokers like ourselves. And we never say this in front of our neighbor's kids, because really, it's just an ice cream truck, and I imagine there is a shortage of catchy tunes off copyright that one can use to draw attention to one's frozen dairy treats. So you have to give the guy a break.

Yesterday we're walking down the street, and in the distance we hear the siren song.

"It's the Mara-mara-ni-wana truck!" shouts Teh N00b.

Oops.

Things you don't want to hear from a toddler first thing in the morning

A couple days ago we were half-asleep while the n00b rummaged downstairs in search of breakfast. Then we heard: "Here you go, fishes! Here you go!"

This got us up in a hurry.

By the time we got downstairs, throwing on bathrobes and rubbing our bleary eyes, he had dumped a large amount of fish food in the tank. It was lining the bottom of the entire tank.

As D.G. pointed out, at least it wasn't maple syrup. Or dish soap. Not like the spoon he dropped in the milk jug a few days before.

After siphoning the tank as best we could and changing the filter, the water is still murky and cloudy. Now, twelve hours after the fact, one fish is dead and the other four are hovering near the top of the tank, desperate for air. The food becomes particulates in the water that makes it difficult for them to breathe. They are literally drowning in food.

On the plus side, the n00b did bring in the newspaper this morning.

Open Letter to Tim Buckley of Ctrl+Alt+Del

Hey, Tim Buckley, no fair trying to make me cry at work.

Seriously, this comic is amazing – poignantly wordless. I had assumed in the previous comic that Ethan was just trying to get out of work; that made it all the more shocking. The last panel captures it all – shock, uncertainty, pain, not knowing what to say. "Loss."

Your comments are great, too. We're gamer parents. We love our son. We love our games. I can’t imagine ever giving either of them up (even if sometimes the games get sidelined for the diapers). One day, we hope Teh N00b will be gaming with us (at least until he becomes a rebellious teenager and finds whatever the "opposite" of gaming is by then).

Thanks for trying to do justice to the fact that gamers do have lives, and that kids can be part of that. If people don’t want to read about gamers reproducing, that’s their problem. Me, I see that reality in our son making cho-cho-trains out of “Ticket to Ride” pieces.

But that’s just me. You do whatever you want, Tim. I'll keep reading.

I think I'll eat some worms

A few weeks ago I went with Teh N00b and his Favorite Person in the Whole World (and associated parents) to the Garfield Conservatory. There they have a kids' area. There one finds a toddler-level table where kids can dig in the "dirt" to look for "worms" and "insects" and plant "vegetables."

Everything has to go in quotes because all the things involved are actually plastic. I suppose this is cleaner, and means they don't have to install a sink for washing up. Plus it means that real potatoes and carrots will not be harmed. Fair enough. But I think this is also about the parents and their fear of the "ick factor."

For example:
Now, I don't have a problem with worms. I keep them in the basement, after all. But I guess many other people think that worms are disgusting.

Me, I save my disgust for truly nasty things. Like cockroaches.

Or maybe they just want to protect real worms from the inevitable. Teh N00b is, I fear, way ahead of the curve there. Last summer while gardening I left a small bowl of worms I'd found (and intended to return to their bin) near him.

"Where did they go? What did you do with them?"

That's the day Teh N00b learned to shrug. For my part, I intend to go on believing that he just dumped them in the dirt. Because that's the sort of thing parents do.

The Philosophy of (No) Money

Teh n00b told me the other day that he was doing "Simmel-saults." I had to restrain myself from telling him that was what my dissertation was about, too.

Open Letter to Mayor Daley

Dear Mr. Daley,

I am appalled that you would allow part of Lincoln Park to be sold for the exclusive use of an elite private school. As a resident of Chicago who spends time in Lincoln Park, this affects me and my young son directly. As an environmentalist, it is simply shocking.

Our city has very little open space. What we have should be protected for everyone to use -- whether or not they can afford to send their children to elite private schools such as the Latin School. Closing this space off to the majority of the city's residents, not to mention allowing it be turned into a soccer field, calls into serious question your claims to be an environmentalist.

Being "green" is not about mere tulips. It is realizing that we are all dependent on the earth and have both the right to share in its beauty and bounty, and the responsibility to protect and promote other forms of life on the planet -- even when we have the money, power, and technology to do what is merely convenient for ourselves.

Please reconsider this disastrous decision.

cc: Mayor Daley, directly via his website.

Breakfast of n00b champions

This morning, hearing yells of anger I stumble downstairs to see the following scene:

Teh n00b, standing on a stepstool, bread cut haphazardly with crumbs all over the floor, hitting a jar with a butter knife in frustration because he can't get it open.

Jam? Nope. Hoisin sauce.

Instant Zombie!

Who needs a makeup artist...

...when you have conjuctivitis? Instant zombie!

Television Zombies

This snippet from Susan Jacoby (author of "The Age of American Unreason," a book which I have not read) has convinced me that I have done the right thing by avoiding most television.

Obviously, I watch some TV -- mainly movies and TV series on DVD (current favorites: Battlestar Galactica, Family Guy). I tend to wait until something has stood the test of time and has a few personal recommendations. I did make an exception for Heroes (although due to travel and work I've fallen far behind on that). I can't stand TV news and avoid it at all costs.

The n00b is not completely free of video fun. He likes to watch clips of classic Muppets on Youtube. Plus the videos at Where the Hell is Matt? He loves those. N00b dances around the family room saying "Matt dance, Daddy! Matt dance!" But he's out of the loop of contemporary kid culture. Other parents sometimes ask if he like Elmo (no, but he likes Grover!).

Of course, it's just a matter of time. N00b loves the moving, singing, dancing images, even though he associates them with the computer rather than the TV. And just TRY to get a kid's toothbrush without a cartoon character on it. Go ahead. I dare you.

At least Youtube clips are short and free of commercials. And have Grover. 'Cuz being a crazy liberal, I'd rather have blue muppets than red ones.

Rabbit 1, n00b zero

No, this isn't a posed photo. He did this to himself. That will teach him to take on the Rabbit.

Toddler Safety

"Somebody cut off your penis, Mommy?"

This is a sign to put Simone de Beauvoir above the refrigerator with the cleaning supplies.