Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Oh, SNAP!

Tonight MM gave me the finger. Not in a bad way. He just had configured his hand in that shape and said, "LOOK MOM! Look what I'm doing with my hand!"

.....

So I said to him, "That's really great, Sweetie! You're really very dexterous....um....dexterous means you can do cool things with your fingers. Um....one thing though...that shape you're making with your hand...some people find it really rude. It's kind of like the hand version of calling someone a doodyhead. So don't do it at school. Okay? 'Cause people might get mad."

"It's rude to do this?"

"Yeah, Pumpkin. For some strange reason, people think it's rude. I know you don't like to get in trouble for being rude."

"No, I don't. I won't do this at school. But it's really cool that I can do it, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. Would you like to learn how to snap your fingers?"

"YEAH!"

"Okay, first you go like this..."

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Birthday birthday birthday

Three birthdays in two parties. On the downside, I had to miss what promised to be a wonderful blogger family playdate. On the upside, MM had a great time at both.

How is it that he's the one running around like a maniac and I'm the one who needs a nap?

Final exam on Thursday, then three weeks off! And I've scheduled a blogger playdate during my visit to my MIL!!! Woohoo!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

An open letter to Jerkface

Dear Jerkface:

Our professor is deaf and, therefore, he speaks somewhat indistinctly. When you keep talking through his lecture, it means none of the rest of us can hear what he's saying. Nor can he hear questions posed to him. Given your complete ignorance of the subject you demonstrated during the class review session before the exam today, I'm guessing that this technique isn't working very well for you, either.

Your behavior shows that, despite your claims to the contrary, the corporeal punishment your parents used with you DID NOT WORK. You are the poster child of what comes of Authoritarian Intrusive parenting. And, yes, that WAS a question on the exam. Why? Did you get it wrong?

Sincerely,

Mystery Mommy

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Done!

Enjoyable, but not one of the top 3 in the series.

Some of the most wonderful sounds in the world:

Thud thud thud thud thud
Clonk
Tinkle
Flush
Stomp stomp
Whhhhhsssssshhhhhh splashsplashsplash
Stomp stomp
rustle
"Mom, could you hang up the towel for me?"

(ding dong) "Mom! Doorbell!"

IT'S HERE!!!!!!!!

It's on a UPS truck...

On its way to me!

Friday, July 20, 2007

Shooooooooes!

I got these and these! My tootsies look soooooo cuuuuuuute!

And I got a skort. And a chocolate ice cream. Never say I don't splurge, eh?

Thursday, July 19, 2007

_ick

MM had a TICK! ON! HIS! HEAD!

It was a Diamond Back Dog Tick. So no Lyme disease, thank goodness. But ICK! A TICK!

According to the doctor who removed it this morning, the best way to remove a tick is to rub it with lots and lots of soap and then use a tweezers to pull that sucker off. Next time, we'll do it ourselves. We were worried that we wouldn't remove it all.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Talking about death

My grandfather is 97. He's survived 3 kinds of cancer, two (or is it three?) heart attacks, and - until recently - was doing the NYT crossword everyday. Now he says he can't do that AND read the Times from cover to cover, so he gave up the crossword in favor of being informed. Also until recently he and my grandmother were going to movies, museums, and plays. They're still reading the New York Review of Books and then reading the books that were reviewed. He's going deaf but still tells silly jokes and sings silly songs at my son. The same silly songs he used to sing to me.

He's an eternal sort of person. And it's hard to believe that he's coming to the end.

A few weeks ago, he started doing dialysis three days a week. For a long time, he refused to do it. He didn't want his quality of life to suffer. But this December is his 50th Anniversary with my grandmother, and I think he decided to start dialysis when it looked like he might not be able to get to that milestone. He seems to be doing really well on it, although he's exhausted on the days when he gets the procedure done.

MM and I went to visit them while we were in NYC. We saw them twice, on Friday and Sunday. In just the couple of months since I saw them last, my grandfather looks like he's aged 10 years. It's so hard to see him.

Here are some discussions from the weekend:


MM: "Is GG Professor Emeritus very old?" (GG stands for Great Grandfather)

Me: "Yes, sweetie, he's very, very old."

MM: "So old that he's going to die?"

Me: "Well..."

MM: "I know, I don't have to worry about it."

Me: "That's actually not what I was going to say. I was going to say that we are worried that he's going die. But he's not going to die today or even tomorrow probably. And we're visiting so that we can spend as much time as we can with him before we can't spend time with him anymore."

MM: "Does death mean that someone's gone forever?"

Me: "Yes it does. But that person will still be in our memories and we will still love them, so in a way they will always be there with us.

MM: "So is Grandpa's brother gone forever?"

Me: "Yes, sweetie. He is."

MM: "Did I ever meet him?"

Me: "No, I don't think you ever did."

MM: "So how can I remember him so that he'll be there?"

Me: "You can't, but Grandpa can. And so can all Uncle Science's family and friends. That's why we went to his memorial, so that all the people who knew him and loved him could remember him together."


(later)

MM: "What are those black spots on GG Professor Emeritus's face?"

Me: "I think they're kind of bruises."

MM: "Are they catching?"

Me: "No, they're not catching. He has them because he's very old and his blood vessels break easily and give him bruises*. You won't get them from kissing him or anything."

MM: "Are you sure?"

Me: "I'm totally, completely sure."

MM: "Okay."

MM: "I wish nobody ever had to die."

Me: "I wish that too, MM."

MM: "I'll put it on my Christmas list. Maybe Santa can give that to me."

Me: "I know Santa would love to give that to you, but even though he's very magical he just can't stop people from dying when they're very, very old."

MM: "Was Uncle Science very, very old?"

Me: "Yes. He was very, very old and also very sick."

MM: "He was Grandpa's brother, right?"

Me: "Yes."

MM: "Does that mean Grandpa is very, very old?"

Me: "No. Grandpa isn't very, very old because he was much younger than Uncle Science. He was the youngest of all his brothers and Uncle Science was the oldest. Uncle Science was twelve whole years older."

MM: "So Grandpa's not going to die?"

Me: "Not for a long time.**"

MM: "Okay."



*He's got very dark age spots that weren't there last time I saw him. I don't know the science behind age spots so I used this patently false explanation instead.
** You hear that, Dad? Keep up with the swimming and everything, okay?

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Home again, home again

Whew. Visited with no less than 100 people this weekend what with my dad's family at the memorial, my grandparents, and the parents of my high school friend. MM was great, really held it together through it all and was very grown-up and cooperative.


Interesting discussion in the comments on the last post. Here are my latest thoughts on it: if it's a good book for other reasons, I'm not so concerned with the explicit content. Clan of the Cave Bear and The Handmaid's Tale, for instance, are books I'd be happy for him to read. Valley of the Horses? Well, I read it when I was a teenager and...so...I think I'd be okay with it. Uncomfortable but okay. LKH? I just don't know. I'm guessing I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Dani tagged me

Eight things??? EIGHT THINGS???

Alrighty.

  1. Got new glasses. Not sure I like 'em. MS and MM know they don't. But they were the least expensive frames in the store that day. Next time I'll shop around more. Maybe bring frames with me.
  2. It doesn't really matter, because I wear my contacts almost all the time anyway. I had to get new glasses for my fall classes because I'll be dissecting things again. All three of my fall classes involve dissection labs.
  3. Friday is a memorial for my uncle who died last month, so we're going up to NYC. MM is really super excited about having him some grandparent time.
  4. We're taking the train. Don't you love taking the train? Once, when I was pregnant with MM, we took the overnight train to Hilton Head to see my MIL. We had a roomette and everything. Even 6 months pregnant, I felt just too Cary Grant for words.
  5. I was talking with a friend about something on Tuesday and somehow Laurell K. Hamilton came up and she said she hadn't read any of those books herself but her daughters (12 & 14) had just started reading the Anita Blake series. So I said, "ummm...." And she said, "What?" And I said, "I don't know how you feel about your daughters reading explicit sexual material?" And she said, "WHAT???" And I said, "Well, the first 6 or so books are violent but not terribly sexual...after that, they get mighty steamy." And she said, "Well, I guess I'll have to read them first!"
  6. Which makes me wonder about what kind of mom I'm going to be for my future teenager. Will I be a "yes, you can read it...come to me with questions" mom? Or will I be a "I don't want you reading that until you're older" mom. Will I be okay with him reading the violent books? Will I be okay with him reading the sexy books?
  7. Speaking of books, we're reading The Wizard of Oz to MM. One chapter a night. Oz has just taken off in the balloon. MM is fascinated. He likes the movie better, but he loves that the book is different and more detailed. And that the book we're currently reading is different from the pop-up book we've also read. "The pop-up book doesn't have as many words because they needed to make room for all the pop-ups" is his explanation.
  8. Speaking of the WOO, I love what Oz says to the Cowardly Lion about the drink he gives him:
    "What is it?" asked the Lion.
    "Well," answered Oz, "if it were inside of you, it would be courage. You know, of course, that courage is always inside one; so this really cannot be called courage until you have swallowed it. Therefore I advise you to drink it as soon as possible."

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Pooped. Boy oh boy.

Today was to be DAY OF THE PLAYDATES.

We started off with a two-fer in the AM: MM, BigTallKid, and LookAtThoseCurlsOnHim at the the pool. Then we all went to the restaurant with the big upside-down W on the doors. Then we all went to our respective homes.

Whereupon MM announced his feet hurt. His toes are all blistered, probably from when his flip-flops popped off in the parking lot. Poor fella.

So there went our plans to play in the fountain with DeepVoicedPreSchooler, but we remedied that by calling and asking if it could be a "Sit Quietly and Watch DVD's Date" instead. So that's what they did.

Yesterday we had a different playdate with my cousin from Maine, her 8 yo daughter, and her boyfriend's neice and nephew.

Tomorrow...tomorrow is another post!



I know there's a lot of stuff going on in the world what with Libby and Cheney and scandals galore, but so many other people are posting so many well-thought-out posts about that, all I feel I want to say about it is, "Yeah! What they said!" So I'm going to let these ones slide by.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

It's a small, small world

My professor offers quite a bit of extra credit. One way to earn it is to summarize 3 popular (non-scholarly) articles he has up on the class website.

Article #5? Written by one of my mother's best friends.

What makes it a truly small world is that when I was in Korea on a stopover twenty years ago, I turned on the tv and saw this same friend!!!!

I just called her to let her know that her article is required reading for this class. She's quite pleased.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Holy guacamole, has it really been that long?

Mostly, I've been working on unbloggable stuff and have nothing to say. So I'll leave you with a quick seven things courtesty of Purple Kangaroo:
  1. I got an A+ on that portfolio I did for my Social Work class. Most of my biography (done in order of Piaget's phases) was taken from the blog.
  2. There's a fun fountain over at a nearby shopping center that kids can go play in. We took MM there Saturday and he had a blast. Then we got ice cream at Haagen Daz. Does anything say summer better than Chocolate Chocolate Chip ice cream with chocolate crunchies?
  3. I culled out my clothes and brought no fewer than 7 bras, 3 suits, several dresses, and a few pairs of pants and shirts over to The Resourceful Woman. I also threw out about 2 trash bags worth of clothes that were stained or ripped. Why did I keep them in the first place?
  4. I didn't cull out my books, but I did put them back on the shelves. I can't wait for 7/21, can you?
  5. Also gone are three large bags of miscellaneous trash. And 7 broken chairs. And long-expired canned goods (bought after 9/11).
  6. MM baked! a! cake! almost all by himself (I supervised and did the oven work). He brought it into school on Monday and shared it with his class.
  7. It's hard, when taking a Child Psychology class, not to test one's five-year-old to see what developmental stage he's in. If you're interested, he is starting to leave the pre-operational stage (he can imagine what another person's point of view is. He doesn't think that he and I have the same view if we're facing in different directions). I haven't checked to see if he has an idea of conservation yet.