"So why is there a toy hammer next to a pile of dust in the living room?"
"Oh, I forgot about that."
"Right. But...where did that come from?"
"Well, it would take some explaining."
Actually, it would take some explaining to do the explaining. You see, running parallel to the much more serious problem of the water gushing out of the hole in the pipe through the hole in the ceiling because of the inaccessible pipe being permanently backed up we've been dealing with somewhat less serious but equally maddening problem of blocking Owen's access to the stairs. We borrowed a baby gate from some friends, but after multiple failed attempts (some of which involved drilling into the wall) to set it up in the landing, I took it down to the basement in disgust. Of the two possible spots to mount it in the landing, one doesn't run parallel to the walls, and the other is apparently an umountable distance for that particular baby gate. So, we gave up on gate number one and purchased a cheap plastic gate from Lowe's for a second attempt. Attempt number two was an obvious failure from the beginning. For one thing, the gate didn't have an opening mechanism, which meant that you had to step over it every time you wanted to get up or down the stairs. This is dangerous, especially when you're holding small children. Secondly, James was completely shut off from the stairs. And finally, the gate constantly fell down under the least amount of pressure, such as Owen touching it. So, we decided to scrap gate number two. We kind of keep it around for ornamental purposes and to sometimes temporarily block off a room that has a project and/or vomit underway. Our third attempt was a cheap Aldi knockoff of gate number one which we hoped would be a better fit for our oddly shaped stairway. The gate came in a box without instructions, and was manufactured by a company that does not have a website. I couldn't figure out how to mount the gate, and there were some choice words muttered. Eventually a customer servicehuman replied to my snarly email about needing instructions for the gate, and I managed to get it successfully mounted in the stairwell. Well, somewhat successfully. It falls down about once a week, and then I have to re-position it and try to mount it again. One of the tricks I figured out to compensate for the odd shape of our stairwell was to use an old piece of scrap 2x4 to shorten the distance of one of the mounts. And that was working well, until yesterday when Owen was standing on the landing yanking on the gate (as is his wont) with a big grin on his face...and I noticed that the 2x4 was slipping out above him. I stood up from the couch and darted across the room just as the whole gate collapsed on top of him. He emitted a klaxon-wail and rolled to his right, which meant that he rolled off the landing step and fell onto the hardwood floor of the living room. The gate, of course, slid off the landing and fell on him again.
J knew that this happened earlier, but at the time of her asking me about the pile of dust and the toy hammer on the floor, she knew of no connection between the mysterious mess and the most recent baby gate calamity.
"Well," I said "Once I managed to get Owen calmed down I thought to myself that I might be able to mount the gate more securely if I cut the 2x4 in half and used both pieces to get a more even spacing between the pressure screws. So I took Owen, who was still crying, and the piece of wood into the garage to get my saw. I knew that I would probably make a big sawdust mess if I tried to cut it anywhere else, but I didn't have anywhere to set Owen down in the garage. I went over to put him in the stroller, but all of my drywall tools were in the stroller from earlier, when I didn't have time to put them away properly because I had Owen in my other arm. So I set Owen down for just a second on that old piece of scrap cardboard, just to move the tools out of the stroller, and in the time that it took me to move the tools he had somehow put a piece of dry styrofoam in his mouth (don't know where it came from) and was holding up two little hands that were completely blackened with garage dirt. So I decided not to keep him in the garage. I brought him, and the piece of wood, and my handsaw, and a 5-gallon bucket into the living room. I brought the bucket so I wouldn't make a mess of the sawdust. I had to keep Owen from going up the stairs (because there wasn't a gate) but I also didn't want him getting to close to the saw. So I started sawing through the wood and walking away from him every couple of strokes, because he was trying to climb up in the bucket, but then I'd have to stop when we got too close to the landing, because he'd try to go up the stairs. And then James came down when he heard me working with tools, and got out a bunch of his plastic tools to "help" me. So I had to keep him away from the saw too. And when I finally sawed through the thing I stepped away from the bucket just long enough to put the two pieces of wood down by the baby gate, and in that time Owen tipped it over and spilled sawdust on the carpet. And James left his hammer out by the sawdust. And that's why there's sawdust and a hammer on the carpet. I was going to vacuum it up, but I got distracted by trying to get the baby gate back up and then looking after the kids."
"Oh. That is complicated. I thought maybe James was hammering ritz crackers on the carpet or something."
"That would have been simpler. But no, that's sawdust. And also there's sawdust all over the bottom step, from where I sanded down the rough faces of the wood. Owen was trying to climb all over that too."
II. Pizza comparison
We knew back in August that this was going to be a free week--a week with no orchestra services whatsoever, no teaching for me, and no commitments except church over the weekend. We talked about trying to travel somewhere and get away for part of the week, but we chickened out, partially to save some money and partially because we just couldn't believe that a Saturday evening would pass without me having a gig some place or another.
It was a glorious week, but we were nearing the end of the week and we still hadn't really done anything special. We decided to use my lesson cash from the week to order a pizza once the kids were in bed last night. It was Salvatore's, and it was amazing.
There might be "better" pizzas that you can get somewhere in Rochester. I'm sure that at one of the fancy restaurants (like Six-Fifty, which is sadly no longer) you can order some specialty-topped fancy and fine pizza that uses high class ingredients and is subtly flavored. But I'm convinced that as far as take-out pizza goes, you just can't do any better than a Chicken Charlie pizza from Salvatore's. It's a country sweet flavored chicken pizza with a blue cheese base, and the crust and the cheese are just perfect. It had been a really long time--maybe since the Spring?--and it was every bit as as hot and gooey and amazing as I remembered it. I ordered it about 10 minutes before the kids were in bed, and we spent probably an hour downstairs just eating it and savoring it as slowly as we could stand in our pajamas.
Apparently turning 30 means that you can't binge on greasy pizza and bounce out of bed the next morning. I felt like garbage for most of the morning, and even 24 hours later I'm still a little hesitant to poke through the fridge. But it was totally worth it. And whenever we have a free Saturday night again, it will be really hard not to think about how good it was...
III. End of George?
We're seriously considering limiting James' time with George and Steven. It's really George that's the problem.
The trouble is that when James has George, you can't access James. Whenever he gets even a bit stressed out or uncomfortable, our child stops speaking to us. Instead, he holds up his stuffed monkey and speaks in a nasal, nearly unintelligible voice that mimics the "monkey voice" from the George TV series. "James, can you please put those library books back on the table?" "Oo-ah, James wants to bring those home for our room." "I need to talk to James, not George." "Oo-ah, James wants to bring the books."
This was mildly cute the first few times it happened, but because George is with him CONSTANTLY and because the boy is starting to become more aware of social cues, he's using George as a perpetual retreat from anything he doesn't like. And he's almost four. (My son is almost four!) And he can't carry those stuffed animals around with him forever.
Today he came to church with me, and, as usual, he didn't answer any of the greetings from my choir members as "James." Only George spoke to them. Granted, "George" did a decent job of listening to their questions and being friendly, but anyone who interacts with him must think he has some kind of speech impediment. And do you know what? We miss the real James.
The other day, George and Steven had to go through the wash. J spent the morning with James baking granola and working on his much beloved States puzzle. She had three hours of our wonderful son, unfiltered by the fictional monkey. Without his puppet, he's really pleasant. He can look you in the eye and talk to you.
But he loves that monkey, and if we start to take it away...well, it probably won't go over very well.
Growing up can be hard work.
IV. The Good Scotch
The Bills lost today in frustrating, hair-yanking fashion. Lux and Melissa came over. Watching football with other people is a great idea when your team wins, but there's no socially graceful way to watch them lose. Tonight's drink is from the good bottle of scotch. Cheers to the next game.
V. Practice Habits
I'm appreciating, as I attempt to patch the drywall in our kitchen ceiling, the intricate technical mastery some people must have to make perfect drywall seams. It currently looks awful, and I'm going to have to cut out some of the tape and just start again. Even on the sections I "got right," it still is painfully obvious that some amateur did a bad patch job. I enjoyed practicing the trumpet tonight and thinking through all of the techniques that have become "second nature" in my professional life--transposing, articulating, shading subtle tone colors. It's nice to feel like a pro.
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