Monday, August 24, 2015
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Recently Reading, Preachy Advice, and Style Points
I. Recently Reading
Arnobius-The Seven Books of Arnobius Against the Heathen
You just can't publish books with titles like "Against the Heathen" anymore. Too bad, although I don't think Arnobius would have had much success in the modern world anyway. His arguments are all carefully directed against the paganism of the early fourth century. They hold some interest as cultural signposts of his time, and I came away from his text with the impression that he was a careful thinker and widely-read, but not particularly philosophical--his arguments are the sorts you might find in tractarian literature against the "evils of our time." The question was raised in the prefatory notes to his section whether he might not have been a Christian at all--just a sympathetic pagan who thought very little of the Greco-Roman religions. This would seem to agree with the noticeable absence of any positively argued Christian philosophy. Thus ends my tour through Volume VI of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. I need something else to put in my "religious reading" category when I get back home, and am thinking about exploring some Niebuhr? Post-20th century Christians need to be conversant with Niebuhr, right? I'm welcome to other suggestions.
Redwall, by Brian Jacques
Cluny the Scourge is coming! I had fun re-reading this for the first time in years. I don't remember the books being so violent when I read them as child, which hopefully means that some of it went right over my head. There are so many characters! Even in the third part of the novel, you're still meeting new characters who have time to develop, play a role in the story, and find a fitting place at the end. James isn't ready to hear these books read aloud yet, but I'll look forward to introducing him in the next few years.
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
My only experience with Little Women was seeing the high school adaptation C&B were in. (I think this made me predisposed to like Professor Bhaer.) I didn't love the book--and I can't say that I'm in any hurry to read any of the sequels. The best part was the first third, and even if the girls were a little unrealistically distinct they were delightful characters. What happened to Laurie in the second and third books? He's up and down, but when he "grows up" it happens in about two chapters and he's completely unrecognizable? Charming parts, though, and it's understandably a classic.
II. Preachy Advice
We've had several pairs of friends get engaged in the last few months, and J and I are just weeks away from our 8th anniversary. This means we are one year closer to officially becoming one of Those Couples that dispenses unasked for advice upon all of our soon-to-be married friends. (And don't worry, recently engaged friends...when you get pregnant in a few years we'll be ready and willing to share unsolicited birth-horror stories as well.)
Seriously, it isn't ever our place to prescribe universal solutions based on our own limited experience. But the fragility of marital happiness has been on my mind quite a bit recently...it's hard to think of anything else in my life that can gloom up your whole life so entirely when it's going poorly or warm up and beautify everything else in your life when it's going well. It's a slippery venture to share with another human being a bank account, a kitchen sink, a child, a bed, a laundry machine, a bathroom, a calendar, and a mortgage. Here's what I know after 8 years...
1) Listening is an extremely underrated skill. Not only listening, but listening without immediately coming up answers/retorts. Not just listening to the other person's words, but having the creative capacity to put yourself truly in their place and imagine what's prompting what they are saying to you. Not merely hearing, but listening with active interest and questions in mind to further draw out and better understand what the other person has to say. In any argument, listening with a listening spirit instead of an argumentative spirit tends to immediately cool down the disagreement.
2) It's incredibly helpful to know how the other person perceives the world to be. This isn't important for the purposes of correcting or sorting out how the real world actually works--how many times the average couple actually gets out per month, how much the average pair of shoes costs, how many nights a week a young person in a new job stays and works late--but it's important because it gives you access to the lenses through which your spouse sees the world habitually. The real facts aren't nearly as important as the subtle impressions, because it's the subtle impressions that reinforce a sense of injustice, uneasiness, or displeasure.
3) Generosity begets generosity. If all of your marital interactions take the form of negotiations, bad compromises, and swaps, chances are your next disagreement will quickly fall into a negotiation. You'll stake out territory, use battle tactics, and set aside to yourself (whether you admit it or not) some standard by which you might "win" the dispute, or at least avoid losing it. If you consistently choose to act generously (or charitably or graciously, whatever you want to call it), even if you really lose out on something from time to time, chances are your spouse will be much more inclined to be generous towards you. Not only that, but acting generously gets easier with practice, and everyone feels better afterwards.
III. Style Points
I'm already thinking about winter in Western New York, and I've decided that our house needs more color throughout. I'm welcome to suggestions from any and all parties, but here are some ideas:
1) Scarves, hats, and mittens. There's no need for plain black gloves, except maybe when I'm on my way to a concert and wearing my tux. But even then, wouldn't it be more fun to have bright red gloves? Also, I wouldn't lose them as easily.
2) Area rugs. Because they'll make the floor pop and you won't be stepping barefoot onto cold hardwood
3) Food. This will be the year of purple cabbage, oranges, lemons, limes, and anything else that isn't plain brown or gray or off white.
4) Phone case. Julie has a pink one, I would take suggestions for something new as well.
5) Window ornaments. Christmas stickers, ceramic pots, plastic flowers, anything to get a little color.
6) Underwear. Tis' the season. Although, to be honest, 'tis always the season.
7) Coffee mugs. The privilege of winter is that you'll never enjoy a hot cup of coffee so much as when you come in from shoveling the driveway. Why not have it be in a fun mug?
8) Kid's artwork. We already have all the materials, we already have the blank walls. I think we need to devote a whole wall to his bright scribbles. (On the paper, of course, not the wall)
9) Blankets and sheets. Not something neon, of course, because you have to be able to get to sleep once you turn the lights out. But something fun.
10) Children. I probably can't wear bright orange to rehearsal, but James can look like a traffic cone all day long and no one will say boo. Plus, he already pretends to be a traffic cone.
Arnobius-The Seven Books of Arnobius Against the Heathen
You just can't publish books with titles like "Against the Heathen" anymore. Too bad, although I don't think Arnobius would have had much success in the modern world anyway. His arguments are all carefully directed against the paganism of the early fourth century. They hold some interest as cultural signposts of his time, and I came away from his text with the impression that he was a careful thinker and widely-read, but not particularly philosophical--his arguments are the sorts you might find in tractarian literature against the "evils of our time." The question was raised in the prefatory notes to his section whether he might not have been a Christian at all--just a sympathetic pagan who thought very little of the Greco-Roman religions. This would seem to agree with the noticeable absence of any positively argued Christian philosophy. Thus ends my tour through Volume VI of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. I need something else to put in my "religious reading" category when I get back home, and am thinking about exploring some Niebuhr? Post-20th century Christians need to be conversant with Niebuhr, right? I'm welcome to other suggestions.
Redwall, by Brian Jacques
Cluny the Scourge is coming! I had fun re-reading this for the first time in years. I don't remember the books being so violent when I read them as child, which hopefully means that some of it went right over my head. There are so many characters! Even in the third part of the novel, you're still meeting new characters who have time to develop, play a role in the story, and find a fitting place at the end. James isn't ready to hear these books read aloud yet, but I'll look forward to introducing him in the next few years.
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
My only experience with Little Women was seeing the high school adaptation C&B were in. (I think this made me predisposed to like Professor Bhaer.) I didn't love the book--and I can't say that I'm in any hurry to read any of the sequels. The best part was the first third, and even if the girls were a little unrealistically distinct they were delightful characters. What happened to Laurie in the second and third books? He's up and down, but when he "grows up" it happens in about two chapters and he's completely unrecognizable? Charming parts, though, and it's understandably a classic.
II. Preachy Advice
We've had several pairs of friends get engaged in the last few months, and J and I are just weeks away from our 8th anniversary. This means we are one year closer to officially becoming one of Those Couples that dispenses unasked for advice upon all of our soon-to-be married friends. (And don't worry, recently engaged friends...when you get pregnant in a few years we'll be ready and willing to share unsolicited birth-horror stories as well.)
Seriously, it isn't ever our place to prescribe universal solutions based on our own limited experience. But the fragility of marital happiness has been on my mind quite a bit recently...it's hard to think of anything else in my life that can gloom up your whole life so entirely when it's going poorly or warm up and beautify everything else in your life when it's going well. It's a slippery venture to share with another human being a bank account, a kitchen sink, a child, a bed, a laundry machine, a bathroom, a calendar, and a mortgage. Here's what I know after 8 years...
1) Listening is an extremely underrated skill. Not only listening, but listening without immediately coming up answers/retorts. Not just listening to the other person's words, but having the creative capacity to put yourself truly in their place and imagine what's prompting what they are saying to you. Not merely hearing, but listening with active interest and questions in mind to further draw out and better understand what the other person has to say. In any argument, listening with a listening spirit instead of an argumentative spirit tends to immediately cool down the disagreement.
2) It's incredibly helpful to know how the other person perceives the world to be. This isn't important for the purposes of correcting or sorting out how the real world actually works--how many times the average couple actually gets out per month, how much the average pair of shoes costs, how many nights a week a young person in a new job stays and works late--but it's important because it gives you access to the lenses through which your spouse sees the world habitually. The real facts aren't nearly as important as the subtle impressions, because it's the subtle impressions that reinforce a sense of injustice, uneasiness, or displeasure.
3) Generosity begets generosity. If all of your marital interactions take the form of negotiations, bad compromises, and swaps, chances are your next disagreement will quickly fall into a negotiation. You'll stake out territory, use battle tactics, and set aside to yourself (whether you admit it or not) some standard by which you might "win" the dispute, or at least avoid losing it. If you consistently choose to act generously (or charitably or graciously, whatever you want to call it), even if you really lose out on something from time to time, chances are your spouse will be much more inclined to be generous towards you. Not only that, but acting generously gets easier with practice, and everyone feels better afterwards.
III. Style Points
I'm already thinking about winter in Western New York, and I've decided that our house needs more color throughout. I'm welcome to suggestions from any and all parties, but here are some ideas:
1) Scarves, hats, and mittens. There's no need for plain black gloves, except maybe when I'm on my way to a concert and wearing my tux. But even then, wouldn't it be more fun to have bright red gloves? Also, I wouldn't lose them as easily.
2) Area rugs. Because they'll make the floor pop and you won't be stepping barefoot onto cold hardwood
3) Food. This will be the year of purple cabbage, oranges, lemons, limes, and anything else that isn't plain brown or gray or off white.
4) Phone case. Julie has a pink one, I would take suggestions for something new as well.
5) Window ornaments. Christmas stickers, ceramic pots, plastic flowers, anything to get a little color.
6) Underwear. Tis' the season. Although, to be honest, 'tis always the season.
7) Coffee mugs. The privilege of winter is that you'll never enjoy a hot cup of coffee so much as when you come in from shoveling the driveway. Why not have it be in a fun mug?
8) Kid's artwork. We already have all the materials, we already have the blank walls. I think we need to devote a whole wall to his bright scribbles. (On the paper, of course, not the wall)
9) Blankets and sheets. Not something neon, of course, because you have to be able to get to sleep once you turn the lights out. But something fun.
10) Children. I probably can't wear bright orange to rehearsal, but James can look like a traffic cone all day long and no one will say boo. Plus, he already pretends to be a traffic cone.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
de cantante bucina
I hardly ever write about trumpet playing, but I think about it all the time. Mostly I don't write or talk about it because my thoughts are specific to the craft, and without being immersed in the craft my thoughts don't mean much. I would share my thoughts with those who are immersed in the craft more often, but that would mean I'd have to talk to trumpet players, and I avoid this whenever possible. However, here are several undeniable truths of trumpet-playing that have some general application.
1) The most difficult part of trumpet playing is finding time to practice. First, because the instrument makes a loud and penetrating sound. Even if you play music intended to be soft or gentle, trumpet playing carries through wood, drywall, and cement. Therefore anyone who has young children, spouses, or roommates must be mindful of those who share their house. Often one's neighbors will also be disturbed by trumpet practicing, especially in apartment situations. Secondly, the trumpet is a physically fatiguing instrument to play. After practicing anything in the upper register or in a loud dynamic, your lips will begin to swell up and impair response. Whenever a trumpet player practices, he is on two clocks--the first being the patience of his family and neighbors, and the second being the endurance of his own body. A great deal of trumpet practicing must necessarily be to extend the length of the second clock.
2) Professional trumpet playing is much like professional cooking. There are many amateur cooks who can concoct fine dishes in their own kitchens, dishes that would have a place in many fine restaurants. A professional cook retains his job because he can prepare these dishes and any other dish that is ordered with great speed in the midst of a chaotic kitchen in the middle of a dinner rush even when he isn't feeling particularly inspired, night after night. Likewise, a professional trumpeter must be able to perform not only one piece well, but any piece that crosses his stand. Often he'll be asked to play a wedding (using piccolo trumpet), a brass quintet ceremony, a classics concert with Haydn on the first half and Bernstein on the second half, a jazz big-band gig, and a newly composed fanfare all in the same week, while keeping an eye on a solo concerto, a rock show, and a Halloween concert that are all coming up the next week, and maybe even getting ready for an audition the following month.
3) Professional satisfaction depends largely on how well you can get along with your colleagues. For some musicians, their instrument is their religion. For others, they're stuck in an unhappy marriage with their career--bitter, disillusioned with the stage, and all too eager to get out of the hall as soon as rehearsal is over. Almost everyone has some sort of pride or disappointment tied up in where they're sitting and how they got there. It's impossible to be best friends with everyone you'll sit next to over the course of your career, but if you can find a way to be cordial and enjoy their company, it goes much better for you. Going to work is drudgery if you dread your stand partner.
4) There are infinite possibilities for equipment, and each piece of equipment does feel a subtly different. There are two solutions--you can spend a small fortune attempting to find the right combination of trumpets and mouthpieces that will feel infinitesimally better for you than every other possible combination, or you can pick up the "standard" gear, bring it to the practice room, and try to figure out how to sound good on it. Option two is better for your wallet and your marriage.
5) There's always someone better than you. Even the "greatest" players in the world have someone, some teacher or old childhood hero, who they look at back over their shoulder. Chances are, in fact, that you aren't particularly special at the trumpet, at least in the cosmic history of trumpet playing. This doesn't mean that you can't love and enjoy your instrument. This doesn't mean that you can't practice hard and always seek to improve yourself. But it does mean that you can truthfully appreciate your colleagues who do some things better than you do, and that you can take a genuine, humble satisfaction in being able to pull off whatever happens to cross your stand on a particular day.
1) The most difficult part of trumpet playing is finding time to practice. First, because the instrument makes a loud and penetrating sound. Even if you play music intended to be soft or gentle, trumpet playing carries through wood, drywall, and cement. Therefore anyone who has young children, spouses, or roommates must be mindful of those who share their house. Often one's neighbors will also be disturbed by trumpet practicing, especially in apartment situations. Secondly, the trumpet is a physically fatiguing instrument to play. After practicing anything in the upper register or in a loud dynamic, your lips will begin to swell up and impair response. Whenever a trumpet player practices, he is on two clocks--the first being the patience of his family and neighbors, and the second being the endurance of his own body. A great deal of trumpet practicing must necessarily be to extend the length of the second clock.
2) Professional trumpet playing is much like professional cooking. There are many amateur cooks who can concoct fine dishes in their own kitchens, dishes that would have a place in many fine restaurants. A professional cook retains his job because he can prepare these dishes and any other dish that is ordered with great speed in the midst of a chaotic kitchen in the middle of a dinner rush even when he isn't feeling particularly inspired, night after night. Likewise, a professional trumpeter must be able to perform not only one piece well, but any piece that crosses his stand. Often he'll be asked to play a wedding (using piccolo trumpet), a brass quintet ceremony, a classics concert with Haydn on the first half and Bernstein on the second half, a jazz big-band gig, and a newly composed fanfare all in the same week, while keeping an eye on a solo concerto, a rock show, and a Halloween concert that are all coming up the next week, and maybe even getting ready for an audition the following month.
3) Professional satisfaction depends largely on how well you can get along with your colleagues. For some musicians, their instrument is their religion. For others, they're stuck in an unhappy marriage with their career--bitter, disillusioned with the stage, and all too eager to get out of the hall as soon as rehearsal is over. Almost everyone has some sort of pride or disappointment tied up in where they're sitting and how they got there. It's impossible to be best friends with everyone you'll sit next to over the course of your career, but if you can find a way to be cordial and enjoy their company, it goes much better for you. Going to work is drudgery if you dread your stand partner.
4) There are infinite possibilities for equipment, and each piece of equipment does feel a subtly different. There are two solutions--you can spend a small fortune attempting to find the right combination of trumpets and mouthpieces that will feel infinitesimally better for you than every other possible combination, or you can pick up the "standard" gear, bring it to the practice room, and try to figure out how to sound good on it. Option two is better for your wallet and your marriage.
5) There's always someone better than you. Even the "greatest" players in the world have someone, some teacher or old childhood hero, who they look at back over their shoulder. Chances are, in fact, that you aren't particularly special at the trumpet, at least in the cosmic history of trumpet playing. This doesn't mean that you can't love and enjoy your instrument. This doesn't mean that you can't practice hard and always seek to improve yourself. But it does mean that you can truthfully appreciate your colleagues who do some things better than you do, and that you can take a genuine, humble satisfaction in being able to pull off whatever happens to cross your stand on a particular day.
Monday, August 10, 2015
How to Paint Tile
forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit-Virgil
The true tests of marriage are setting up a tent together and painting a room together-Darryl Smith
It had been a great week.
I was home all day long, and we'd really done a great job of cleaning the house from top to bottom. Sure, there were a couple odds and ends that we hadn't managed to take care of--J had never gotten around to pulling out the bin of Owen's 9 to 12 months clothing, and I hadn't ever swept and mopped the floor in Owen's room--but on the whole, we were feeling pretty good about how the week went. We switched the library and the family room, we scrubbed the whole downstairs, we kept up with the dishes and the laundry, we ate healthy, we took long runs as a family, and we kept faithful to our goals for August--no meals out and no unnecessary shopping expenses. In short, we were feeling happy, healthy, and clean.
Saturday was going to be the day that I repainted the tile in the tub.
We knew from the day we moved in that the bathroom was going to need some work. I think, the next time we buy a house, we're going to make sure that the previous owner's take care of all the "little things" before we move in. The threshold to the bathroom is still in sad shape, and although I'd refinished and painted the bathtub a few weeks earlier, I wasn't sure how the tile would go. I went to Lowe's to ask for help picking out the right type of paint, and they sent me to Sherwin-Williams. At Sherwin-Williams I was handed a spray-on acrylic. "Are you sure?" I asked. "I used a brush in a kit to do the tub, and that worked really well." "It will be fine. Just make sure the surface is thoroughly prepped and cleaned, and give it three days to cure."
The three days to cure would be the hard part. We'd timed the tub refinishing with our departure for Csehy a few weeks earlier. I shut down the bathroom on the Saturday afternoon before, worked all day getting the tub cleaned and painted, and then no one was allowed to use the shower or bath until we returned from camp. The only sensible day to do the tile was Saturday, the day before we all left for Pennsylvania. Everyone took their last shower/bath that morning, and then as soon as J returned home from Melissa's bridal fitting, I went to work masking the tile upstairs. "I'll work as quickly as I can." I told her. "You know that I have to be at church early today, and that I have a wedding to play afterwards, right? Do you know what you'll do with the boys if they wake up?" "I think they'll get to watch some TV. We'll figure something out."
Let it be stated publicly that I did all my research for this project. I watched Youtube tutorials, carefully reread instructions multiple times, and looked up information on brush and spray techniques. The cleaning and preparation part all went according to plan, although admittedly taking longer than I'd hoped. "That's alright," I told myself "Once I start using the spray-paint I'll be at the easy part." I was a sweaty mess (so much for that last shower) sitting in a plastic-sheeted bathtub filled with old yellow paint flecks, bits of steel wool, and dirty sponges. But the tub was ready to go.
The result of the spray-paint was this: It smelled so vile that it woke both boys and J up from their naps, and it looked terrible. The paint sagged and dripped, the film hardly covered any of the discoloration, and I looked horror-struck at a painty mess that was clearly worse than the mess I had just started with.
J came upstairs and asked what that awful smell was. With my head spinning and my heart sinking, I told her that I was going to need to go to Lowe's again and figure out how to take care of the spray mess before it dried and cured on the tub. She reminded me that she needed to leave for church in a half an hour. We heard both boys making noise in their rooms. Still feeling woozy from the paint fumes, I asked her to set James up with a movie in our room and to put Owen in the pack and play. I would figure out what to do with them after I managed to get a coat of paint on.
While I drove to Lowe's and tried to clear my head with some fresh air, J changed both boys and brought them into our bedroom. We pride ourselves on limiting their screen diet, but sometimes this works against us. For example, in a bona fide emergency situation, when you need to leave for work in twenty minutes and both boys are insisting on being held and have only one very specific movie they want to watch (VeggieTales: The Toy that Saved Christmas) it isn't very easy to remember how to set up the unhooked and unplugged DVD player to the TV in your bedroom.
There were tears, and by the time J finally managed to get the DVD player turned on and properly displaying on the TV screen, Owen was wailing from the pack and play, I was back in the bathtub sanding and re-painting, and she was already fifteen minutes past when she wanted to leave for work. Stepping back in triumph from the working TV, she grabbed the VeggieTales DVD case and opened it up. Inside, of course, was the DVD to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
"I've gotta go," she yelled "and I think Owen just pooped in his diaper."
"Okay, I can break in a second." I yelled back. "Just go, and I'll look after them."
James: "Hey, George wants to watch VeggieTales. Where are the VeggieTales? George wants to watch the Toy the Saved Christmas!"
Owen: WAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I finished painting over the last potential disaster spot, and set down the brush long enough to go and attempt to sort out the boys, only stopping for a moment to grumble about how they should both be sleeping. I stepped out of the tub, and immediately left a big white painty footprint on the floor. I took off my shoes and made a note to also clean THAT up before it dried. Apparently I'd spilled some paint on the dropcloth.
Owen was in a sad state. He'd managed to untuck the sheet from the bottom of the pack and play and wrap it around both his hand and his head, which was pinned down by his flailing hand with his butt stuck up in the air. The poopy diaper wasn't even remotely contained. In fact, it was visibly dripping down his back and up to his shoulders as he struggled and flailed in the crib. Meanwhile, James kept blearily asking about watching a movie.
I picked up Owen and brought him into his room, trying not to touch him or let him drop onto the floor. As soon as I set him down he began oozing out onto the changing pad, and I peeled his onesie off and tossed it, with the changing pad, onto the floor, making a mental note to come back with a plastic bag before anybody stepped in them. The child was absolutely covered in...well, you know. "Owen," I said "you've just gotta go right into the tub."
I think I actually took a step towards the door before I remembered what was going on in the bathroom. Owen looked at me helplessly as I held him up by his armpits and tried to figure out where to set him down. I glanced back at the changing table, still covered in his explosion, and then he grinned at me and shook his head "no." (This is his newest trick.) He's very proud of it. I set him down naked on the floor just long enough to grab a handful of wipes. And in the second that I wasn't holding him, he immediately rolled onto his back, his stomach, and began to crawl away.
"AAHHH!! Why didn't I clean your floor!" Now he was not only covered in poop, but there was a poop streak on the floor and little bits of dirt and lint and dust bunnies were stuck all over his unbatheable body. I wet-wiped his wriggling body, wet-wiped the floor, and set a squirming naked boy (much happier now that he was out of that diaper) into his crib. Knowing he wasn't remotely sanitized but would need to be put back into some clothes, I struggled in vain to get some 6 to 9 month clothing over his enormous head and then put him back in the pack and play with the too-small snaps left unsnapped. James had continued asking for TV for that entire time, and was finally quiet when I unplugged the DVD player, plugged the Wii back in, and put on a George.
"Okay, George will watch himself."
J, meanwhile, had been routed by a traffic detour onto 490 E instead of 490 W and then spat out into Henrietta when she took the wrong exit onto 390 once she got turned around. She ended up being 45 minutes late to her rehearsal for church.
I finished up the first coat of paint (which looked much better than the spray job) just as James finished his George, and I texted J "I'm pulling the emergency parachute on a Wegmans pizza." With another coat to do in three (but no more than four) hours and being already exhausted, I gave up on the resolution about eating out to make sure I could get some sort of dinner on the table. I loaded the boys into the car and picked up some frozen pepperoni pizzas and a case of beer. They shared a steering wheel cart and Owen shouted in excitement most of the time we were in the store.
As soon as we got packed, Owen had another blowout up to his shoulders. I changed him again into another too-small onesie, then laid down on the floor with all the downstairs windows open while both boys crawled on me and James sang Sunday school songs. I was covered in paint chips, tub grime, and sweat. At some point the pizza was done, and I cut James' into tiny pieces. I gave Owen a bowl full of peas and corn with torn up ham and cheese, and he mostly spread them around his tray. J came into the house shortly after 6:30, and I unlatched Owen's tray so I could hand him to her. James got up and ran circles around the table, and promptly knocked down Owen's tray, spilling peas, corn, ham and cheese bits all over the freshly mopped and swept floor.
It was good, when I went back upstairs to work on the second coat, that I'd brought back some beer.
J had some too.
The true tests of marriage are setting up a tent together and painting a room together-Darryl Smith
It had been a great week.
I was home all day long, and we'd really done a great job of cleaning the house from top to bottom. Sure, there were a couple odds and ends that we hadn't managed to take care of--J had never gotten around to pulling out the bin of Owen's 9 to 12 months clothing, and I hadn't ever swept and mopped the floor in Owen's room--but on the whole, we were feeling pretty good about how the week went. We switched the library and the family room, we scrubbed the whole downstairs, we kept up with the dishes and the laundry, we ate healthy, we took long runs as a family, and we kept faithful to our goals for August--no meals out and no unnecessary shopping expenses. In short, we were feeling happy, healthy, and clean.
Saturday was going to be the day that I repainted the tile in the tub.
We knew from the day we moved in that the bathroom was going to need some work. I think, the next time we buy a house, we're going to make sure that the previous owner's take care of all the "little things" before we move in. The threshold to the bathroom is still in sad shape, and although I'd refinished and painted the bathtub a few weeks earlier, I wasn't sure how the tile would go. I went to Lowe's to ask for help picking out the right type of paint, and they sent me to Sherwin-Williams. At Sherwin-Williams I was handed a spray-on acrylic. "Are you sure?" I asked. "I used a brush in a kit to do the tub, and that worked really well." "It will be fine. Just make sure the surface is thoroughly prepped and cleaned, and give it three days to cure."
The three days to cure would be the hard part. We'd timed the tub refinishing with our departure for Csehy a few weeks earlier. I shut down the bathroom on the Saturday afternoon before, worked all day getting the tub cleaned and painted, and then no one was allowed to use the shower or bath until we returned from camp. The only sensible day to do the tile was Saturday, the day before we all left for Pennsylvania. Everyone took their last shower/bath that morning, and then as soon as J returned home from Melissa's bridal fitting, I went to work masking the tile upstairs. "I'll work as quickly as I can." I told her. "You know that I have to be at church early today, and that I have a wedding to play afterwards, right? Do you know what you'll do with the boys if they wake up?" "I think they'll get to watch some TV. We'll figure something out."
Let it be stated publicly that I did all my research for this project. I watched Youtube tutorials, carefully reread instructions multiple times, and looked up information on brush and spray techniques. The cleaning and preparation part all went according to plan, although admittedly taking longer than I'd hoped. "That's alright," I told myself "Once I start using the spray-paint I'll be at the easy part." I was a sweaty mess (so much for that last shower) sitting in a plastic-sheeted bathtub filled with old yellow paint flecks, bits of steel wool, and dirty sponges. But the tub was ready to go.
The result of the spray-paint was this: It smelled so vile that it woke both boys and J up from their naps, and it looked terrible. The paint sagged and dripped, the film hardly covered any of the discoloration, and I looked horror-struck at a painty mess that was clearly worse than the mess I had just started with.
J came upstairs and asked what that awful smell was. With my head spinning and my heart sinking, I told her that I was going to need to go to Lowe's again and figure out how to take care of the spray mess before it dried and cured on the tub. She reminded me that she needed to leave for church in a half an hour. We heard both boys making noise in their rooms. Still feeling woozy from the paint fumes, I asked her to set James up with a movie in our room and to put Owen in the pack and play. I would figure out what to do with them after I managed to get a coat of paint on.
While I drove to Lowe's and tried to clear my head with some fresh air, J changed both boys and brought them into our bedroom. We pride ourselves on limiting their screen diet, but sometimes this works against us. For example, in a bona fide emergency situation, when you need to leave for work in twenty minutes and both boys are insisting on being held and have only one very specific movie they want to watch (VeggieTales: The Toy that Saved Christmas) it isn't very easy to remember how to set up the unhooked and unplugged DVD player to the TV in your bedroom.
There were tears, and by the time J finally managed to get the DVD player turned on and properly displaying on the TV screen, Owen was wailing from the pack and play, I was back in the bathtub sanding and re-painting, and she was already fifteen minutes past when she wanted to leave for work. Stepping back in triumph from the working TV, she grabbed the VeggieTales DVD case and opened it up. Inside, of course, was the DVD to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
"I've gotta go," she yelled "and I think Owen just pooped in his diaper."
"Okay, I can break in a second." I yelled back. "Just go, and I'll look after them."
James: "Hey, George wants to watch VeggieTales. Where are the VeggieTales? George wants to watch the Toy the Saved Christmas!"
Owen: WAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I finished painting over the last potential disaster spot, and set down the brush long enough to go and attempt to sort out the boys, only stopping for a moment to grumble about how they should both be sleeping. I stepped out of the tub, and immediately left a big white painty footprint on the floor. I took off my shoes and made a note to also clean THAT up before it dried. Apparently I'd spilled some paint on the dropcloth.
Owen was in a sad state. He'd managed to untuck the sheet from the bottom of the pack and play and wrap it around both his hand and his head, which was pinned down by his flailing hand with his butt stuck up in the air. The poopy diaper wasn't even remotely contained. In fact, it was visibly dripping down his back and up to his shoulders as he struggled and flailed in the crib. Meanwhile, James kept blearily asking about watching a movie.
I picked up Owen and brought him into his room, trying not to touch him or let him drop onto the floor. As soon as I set him down he began oozing out onto the changing pad, and I peeled his onesie off and tossed it, with the changing pad, onto the floor, making a mental note to come back with a plastic bag before anybody stepped in them. The child was absolutely covered in...well, you know. "Owen," I said "you've just gotta go right into the tub."
I think I actually took a step towards the door before I remembered what was going on in the bathroom. Owen looked at me helplessly as I held him up by his armpits and tried to figure out where to set him down. I glanced back at the changing table, still covered in his explosion, and then he grinned at me and shook his head "no." (This is his newest trick.) He's very proud of it. I set him down naked on the floor just long enough to grab a handful of wipes. And in the second that I wasn't holding him, he immediately rolled onto his back, his stomach, and began to crawl away.
"AAHHH!! Why didn't I clean your floor!" Now he was not only covered in poop, but there was a poop streak on the floor and little bits of dirt and lint and dust bunnies were stuck all over his unbatheable body. I wet-wiped his wriggling body, wet-wiped the floor, and set a squirming naked boy (much happier now that he was out of that diaper) into his crib. Knowing he wasn't remotely sanitized but would need to be put back into some clothes, I struggled in vain to get some 6 to 9 month clothing over his enormous head and then put him back in the pack and play with the too-small snaps left unsnapped. James had continued asking for TV for that entire time, and was finally quiet when I unplugged the DVD player, plugged the Wii back in, and put on a George.
"Okay, George will watch himself."
J, meanwhile, had been routed by a traffic detour onto 490 E instead of 490 W and then spat out into Henrietta when she took the wrong exit onto 390 once she got turned around. She ended up being 45 minutes late to her rehearsal for church.
I finished up the first coat of paint (which looked much better than the spray job) just as James finished his George, and I texted J "I'm pulling the emergency parachute on a Wegmans pizza." With another coat to do in three (but no more than four) hours and being already exhausted, I gave up on the resolution about eating out to make sure I could get some sort of dinner on the table. I loaded the boys into the car and picked up some frozen pepperoni pizzas and a case of beer. They shared a steering wheel cart and Owen shouted in excitement most of the time we were in the store.
As soon as we got packed, Owen had another blowout up to his shoulders. I changed him again into another too-small onesie, then laid down on the floor with all the downstairs windows open while both boys crawled on me and James sang Sunday school songs. I was covered in paint chips, tub grime, and sweat. At some point the pizza was done, and I cut James' into tiny pieces. I gave Owen a bowl full of peas and corn with torn up ham and cheese, and he mostly spread them around his tray. J came into the house shortly after 6:30, and I unlatched Owen's tray so I could hand him to her. James got up and ran circles around the table, and promptly knocked down Owen's tray, spilling peas, corn, ham and cheese bits all over the freshly mopped and swept floor.
It was good, when I went back upstairs to work on the second coat, that I'd brought back some beer.
J had some too.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Domestic Duties
We talked about turning the downstairs around for a while.
I asked J when we returned from camp, "Do you think this is realistically going to happen, or not?" She said that she thought it would, and then it ended up happening that very night. What happened was this: We set up my library, the piano, and the desk in the front room of our house, which we ended up calling The Library, The Front Room, and The Living Room at various points. In the back room, we set up our two couches and the cube which housed toys for the boys downstairs. We called this The Family Room, The Living Room (you can see the confusion that arose from this arrangement already) and The Back Room.
There were some decent reasons for this arrangement. The back room is carpeted, the front room is not. The back room has big windows on three sides and is full of light, while the front room can be a little darker and more subdued.
But there were reasons to switch as well. J didn't like my bookshelves to be the initial sight upon entering the house, and with good reason--there isn't a matching pair among them, even the pair that is supposed to match, and many of my books are, well, more functional than beautiful. We also found that the back room was hard to keep clean, mostly because it felt too small. There was only a small carpeted area left when the two couches were in there, and James would immediately cover the whole surface of the room with toys upon getting up every morning. (On particularly difficult evenings when we didn't pick up after him he could just continue working on the previous days' mess without having to empty all his toy boxes for a fresh one.)
Attempting the room switch on Sunday night might have been foolish. We're both 30 now, after all, and at any moment we could pass by our moment of physical prime into the long, slow descent of old age. We had just arrived back from two weeks at camp the night before, the boys had both been horribly out of sorts all day, and the house was already in a state of near disaster. I brewed the rare pot of 8 PM coffee and began to pull books off shelves, stacking them perilously against the wall. We agreed to work to 11, and then we'd stop, no matter what was done or undone.
J took the opportunity to work on something else we'd talked about--reducing the toy content of the cube by about 20%. If James had 10 matchbox cars, we threw 2 of them in a box headed for the basement. If Owen had 5 stuffed friends, we retired one of them. We put away puzzles, threw out card games, and generally attempted to declutter our lives a bit. (It's amazing how much junk you pick up when you have kids.) That part went well, although there was trouble a few days later when James saw me emptying the vacuum filter into the trash bin and noticed that we'd chucked out Don't Spill the Beans. "Hey," he said "why'd you throw out Don't Spill the Beans? Are you going to throw it away." I noticed his hurt expression, remembered the wisdom of my earlier conversations with J, reflected for a few seconds about living more contentedly with fewer material possessions, and told him in a gentle and wise voice: "I guess you'll have to ask Mommy."
Once all the shelves were stripped bare and the toys had been resorted, we began to move pieces around. First we tried to move my desk (which is called "my" desk, but is really J's) into the corner. At this point we'd unloaded eight shelves of my library, excavated the furniture, moved the entire dining room into the kitchen (to clear a path for moving) and there was no going back.
"It looks awful," said J.
She was right. The desk fit horribly in the spot where we'd moved it, and the only other sensible spot would mean that we didn't have enough wall-space for the two largest bookshelves.
We tried angling the desk, and it looked even worse.
"Well, this is the nicest piece of furniture in the library. We have to make this look good, even if nothing else will."
We moved it against the back wall, and it looked better.
Then we hauled in the two tall bookshelves, and began experimenting. As the tape measure had previously confirmed, they didn't fit anywhere. I was almost to the point of suggesting that we move them to the basement when J had a stroke of genius: She tipped one of them on its side, and laid it underneath the big casement windows. We had to remove a little hardware to make it work, but the effect was striking, and the shelves look much better sideways than they ever did standing up. It opened up all sorts of additional wallspace, and gave nice long surfaces under the window for additional storage. Moving in the rest of shelves was no problem after that.
There was more trouble when we attempted to move the couches into the front room, though.
We tried the blue couch against the red wall and the brown couch against the white wall. It looked bad. So we tried the blue couch against the white wall and the brown couch against the red wall, and that looked even worse. We moved the blue couch out of the room and tried to find a place for just the brown couch. That looked bad too. I should say, by the way, that at some point an evil witch put an enchantment on both of the couches so that they grew heavier each time we picked them up. By the time we were finishing up (nearly eleven o'clock, the very witching hour of the night) we could hardly get them off the floor.
We ended up throwing out the brown couch. It sat on the curb for three days this week while we hoped for someone with a pick-up and a need for an ugly couch would come by, but I ended up breaking down yesterday morning and calling the trash company. (James still thinks "it's going to another family that needs a couch.") It served us well, that couch, for the last few years. But no matter where we moved it in the house, there was a basic problem with it--it was as ugly a piece of furniture as you'll ever see.
J didn't love the way the blue couch looked either, but she worked in the front room as the clock ticked towards eleven, and I took laundry-baskets full of books from one room to another.
We were done by 11:15, and all the furniture was moved from one room to another.
We even found Lightning McQueen, James' adored little red car which had been missing for a month. I snuck upstairs before I went to sleep and put it on his bed next to his pillow. The next morning James woke up to find Lightning next to him and excitedly showed George. I was about to get in the shower when I heard his voice calling from downstairs.
"Roy!!! Hey ROY!!!!"
I poked my head out of the bathroom door.
"James, are you trying to tell me something?"
"Hey, why'd you move all your books into the Family room? George says he doesn't like it. George says you need to move them all back, okay?"
Well, George may not like it, but we think it turned out pretty well.
I asked J when we returned from camp, "Do you think this is realistically going to happen, or not?" She said that she thought it would, and then it ended up happening that very night. What happened was this: We set up my library, the piano, and the desk in the front room of our house, which we ended up calling The Library, The Front Room, and The Living Room at various points. In the back room, we set up our two couches and the cube which housed toys for the boys downstairs. We called this The Family Room, The Living Room (you can see the confusion that arose from this arrangement already) and The Back Room.
There were some decent reasons for this arrangement. The back room is carpeted, the front room is not. The back room has big windows on three sides and is full of light, while the front room can be a little darker and more subdued.
But there were reasons to switch as well. J didn't like my bookshelves to be the initial sight upon entering the house, and with good reason--there isn't a matching pair among them, even the pair that is supposed to match, and many of my books are, well, more functional than beautiful. We also found that the back room was hard to keep clean, mostly because it felt too small. There was only a small carpeted area left when the two couches were in there, and James would immediately cover the whole surface of the room with toys upon getting up every morning. (On particularly difficult evenings when we didn't pick up after him he could just continue working on the previous days' mess without having to empty all his toy boxes for a fresh one.)
Attempting the room switch on Sunday night might have been foolish. We're both 30 now, after all, and at any moment we could pass by our moment of physical prime into the long, slow descent of old age. We had just arrived back from two weeks at camp the night before, the boys had both been horribly out of sorts all day, and the house was already in a state of near disaster. I brewed the rare pot of 8 PM coffee and began to pull books off shelves, stacking them perilously against the wall. We agreed to work to 11, and then we'd stop, no matter what was done or undone.
J took the opportunity to work on something else we'd talked about--reducing the toy content of the cube by about 20%. If James had 10 matchbox cars, we threw 2 of them in a box headed for the basement. If Owen had 5 stuffed friends, we retired one of them. We put away puzzles, threw out card games, and generally attempted to declutter our lives a bit. (It's amazing how much junk you pick up when you have kids.) That part went well, although there was trouble a few days later when James saw me emptying the vacuum filter into the trash bin and noticed that we'd chucked out Don't Spill the Beans. "Hey," he said "why'd you throw out Don't Spill the Beans? Are you going to throw it away." I noticed his hurt expression, remembered the wisdom of my earlier conversations with J, reflected for a few seconds about living more contentedly with fewer material possessions, and told him in a gentle and wise voice: "I guess you'll have to ask Mommy."
Once all the shelves were stripped bare and the toys had been resorted, we began to move pieces around. First we tried to move my desk (which is called "my" desk, but is really J's) into the corner. At this point we'd unloaded eight shelves of my library, excavated the furniture, moved the entire dining room into the kitchen (to clear a path for moving) and there was no going back.
"It looks awful," said J.
She was right. The desk fit horribly in the spot where we'd moved it, and the only other sensible spot would mean that we didn't have enough wall-space for the two largest bookshelves.
We tried angling the desk, and it looked even worse.
"Well, this is the nicest piece of furniture in the library. We have to make this look good, even if nothing else will."
We moved it against the back wall, and it looked better.
Then we hauled in the two tall bookshelves, and began experimenting. As the tape measure had previously confirmed, they didn't fit anywhere. I was almost to the point of suggesting that we move them to the basement when J had a stroke of genius: She tipped one of them on its side, and laid it underneath the big casement windows. We had to remove a little hardware to make it work, but the effect was striking, and the shelves look much better sideways than they ever did standing up. It opened up all sorts of additional wallspace, and gave nice long surfaces under the window for additional storage. Moving in the rest of shelves was no problem after that.
There was more trouble when we attempted to move the couches into the front room, though.
We tried the blue couch against the red wall and the brown couch against the white wall. It looked bad. So we tried the blue couch against the white wall and the brown couch against the red wall, and that looked even worse. We moved the blue couch out of the room and tried to find a place for just the brown couch. That looked bad too. I should say, by the way, that at some point an evil witch put an enchantment on both of the couches so that they grew heavier each time we picked them up. By the time we were finishing up (nearly eleven o'clock, the very witching hour of the night) we could hardly get them off the floor.
We ended up throwing out the brown couch. It sat on the curb for three days this week while we hoped for someone with a pick-up and a need for an ugly couch would come by, but I ended up breaking down yesterday morning and calling the trash company. (James still thinks "it's going to another family that needs a couch.") It served us well, that couch, for the last few years. But no matter where we moved it in the house, there was a basic problem with it--it was as ugly a piece of furniture as you'll ever see.
J didn't love the way the blue couch looked either, but she worked in the front room as the clock ticked towards eleven, and I took laundry-baskets full of books from one room to another.
We were done by 11:15, and all the furniture was moved from one room to another.
We even found Lightning McQueen, James' adored little red car which had been missing for a month. I snuck upstairs before I went to sleep and put it on his bed next to his pillow. The next morning James woke up to find Lightning next to him and excitedly showed George. I was about to get in the shower when I heard his voice calling from downstairs.
"Roy!!! Hey ROY!!!!"
I poked my head out of the bathroom door.
"James, are you trying to tell me something?"
"Hey, why'd you move all your books into the Family room? George says he doesn't like it. George says you need to move them all back, okay?"
Well, George may not like it, but we think it turned out pretty well.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Quick Hitters
I. Swimming
We took the boys swimming at the HC pool today. James vaguely remembered swimming there last year, and I'm not sure he's been in the water since then. Watching your two-year old who can't swim get excited about the pool is a little different than watching your three-year old who can't swim. When J told me that we maybe ought to consider paying for some swim lessons for James I immediately dismissed the thought. Why would we pay to have someone else teach James a skill he could learn in a few afternoons at my parent's pond? Well, for one thing, it turns out that we haven't been out to the ancestral pond terribly often this year. For another, J isn't particularly fond of pond-swimming as an activity either. I don't know if James would mind or not...he certainly loves "Papa's Pond" and is currently making a collection of sticks to either throw in or fish with (he knows which is stick is for which use) beneath his carseat. Whether or not we could get him into the pond to swim, there would still be the problem of actually teaching him to swim. I assumed that he would splash around in the shallows and eventually begin to float on his back and doggy paddle, or possibly be thrown bodily into deeper water by a loving and impatient parental figure without any promise of retrieval. None of these have happened, and he may need to learn swimming at a public pool. He did well at HC today, although Owen was clearly the braver of the two boys. Owen would kick his feet vigorously, careen off his parent toward the water, and then make excited splashes in the water with an expression of unbridled delight until he splashed himself in the face, at which point the expression would change into drenched and blinking shock, followed by a broad grin, and then more splashing. Even though James was a little more cautious, he still didn't want to leave once our time was up. He immediately asked when we could come back to the pool, and I told him maybe Friday.
As I put him down for his nap this afternoon, his last soft question as I closed his door was "Hey Daddy...when I wake up from my nap will it be Friday yet?"
II. J's Thoughts
1. When was Owen's last diaper change?
2. How many servings of fruits and vegetables has James had today?
3. Remember not to step on the second to last step of the stairs or the squeak will wake Owen up
4. If you just ignore all the facebook activity of you more active friends for more than a few days at a time they're going to assume something is wrong.
5. When can I get my flute in for a clean, oil, and adjust?
6. Need to respond to Pearce emails during naps today
7. Need to remind Roy my car needs an oil change
8. Take the chicken out of the freezer before lunch or it won't be thawed for dinner.
9. Everyone had dessert for lunch today, shouldn't be any sweets for dinner
10. Look up how many months old Owen needs to be before he can start eating cheese
11. Roy said he's out of white dress shirts, make sure a load of white laundry gets started
12. Remember that laundry will also need to be flipped during naps
13. Check to see if Roy emptied dehumidifier before leaving for rehearsal.
14. Has it been more than three days since I washed my hair? Could have time to wash and dry it during nap, but may have to give up something else
15. Make sure Owen doesn't sleep too late during morning nap or else he won't want to sleep for afternoon nap
16. Be sure to put letters out before lunchtime, or else they won't be remembered before the mail comes
17. Need to get milk at the grocery store
18. Need to leave an extra five minutes if taking my car, since we'll need to stop for gas as well
19. Remember to grab a pencil from the nightstand when going upstairs for the white laundry
20. Set aside some time for coffee this afternoon if you're going to still be awake to work out this evening
21. Make sure James helps clean up the mess of wood blocks before bed tonight since it's an extra long workout
22. Should nap be spent on a shower if I'm going to work out later? But won't have time to dry hair afterwards because Roy will probably want to get right to bed...
23. When was the last time Owen had a poopy diaper?
24. Did Roy remember to give Owen miralax in his bottle last night
25. Is Roy driving or carpooling to rehearsal today...will he be able to answer text questions?
26. Make sure that James practices some phonics words?
27. Make sure dishes get put away from dishwasher
28. Make sure dirty dishes get loaded into dishwasher so I can have counter space to make lunch
29. Make sure that I write down somewhere that I'm going to need to buy bread at the store
30. Remember to put the shopping list in my purse before I leave for the store with the boys
31. Remember to put sunscreen on both boys before we leave since it's supposed to be so scorching out today
32. Remember to grab sunglasses from the desk before trying to drive around out there
33. Check with Roy to make sure he doesn't need anything from Wegmans
34. Even though he says he doesn't, make sure he isn't about to run out of body wash or deodorant
35. Put down "clean bathroom" on the list of nap to-dos so it doesn't stress me out tonight after kids are in bed
36. Text Roy and ask where his drop-cloth from the tub project is supposed to go
37. Need an explanation for James as to why one of his roof slats was donated to make paint
38. Remember to help James look for his lost Lightning McQueen car
39. Is Owen making noise just because he's drowsing, or is he really getting up?
40. Remember to write back to texts from Mom, sisters, and friends while Owen is nursing
41. Make sure James has some quiet activity to do while Owen is nursing
42. If I give James iPad time now is he going to have too much for one day when I teach my lesson later?
44. Remember to text my student and make sure she knows not to come right at 4:15 today.
45. Remember to check calendar and see if Roy moved his Wednesday student
46. Remember we need more diapers for Owen...should this be a Wegmans trip or a BJs trip?
47. Calendar says Roy isn't teaching on Wednesday...text him to check anyway.
48. Write back to Diane's email once the boys are down and I can type it out on the computer
49. Check to see if Roy took the computer with him to rehearsal
50. Since it's here, make sure it's plugged in and charging so it won't have to do a whole boot-up once you turn it on
51. Make sure you turn printer on too if you're going to have to print off stuff for Pearce during nap
52. Text Roy and see if he knows what's up with this error message on printer
53. Check those potential BPO dates that Roy just sent against the calendar in the kitchen...will we need more childcare
54. Remember where you left the grocery list before you start packing up boys...kitchen? desk?
55. When was the last time James went potty?
56. Where is Steven Bear?
57. Try to get James to wear his sandals again, even though he's going to insist on sneakers
58. Leave Owen in a place where he can't get into anything to help James wipe himself
59. Put "more outlet covers" on grocery list
60. Remember to cancel Thursday student
61. Find a post-it note to jot down reminder about Thursday student
62. Check Owen's mouth to make sure there isn't any more of that crayon in there
63. Remind James about manners and not hitting Owen
64. Talk with Roy later about what to do when James pretends to be fighting
65. Keys? Phone? Wallet?
66. Remember to ask Roy again about getting battery in key fab replaced
67. Be on the look-out for steering wheel cart
68. Remember to get individual pack of sanitary wipes for cart
69. Look at the pretty cheesecakes. Could tonight be a cheesecake night instead of exercise night?
70. Are we out of apples again?
71. Not going to get diapers today. Remember to schedule a time to go to BJs later in the week.
72. Drat. Remember to schedule a time to go to the other Wegmans to pick up prescriptions.
73. Which is cheaper, 6 avocados for 4.99 but probably not all of them will be good, or 4 avocados for 3.49 but you know that the quality will be better in all 4?
74. Ignore other mother in cute jogging shorts with awesome double stroller. Do not covet, do not covet.
75. Need new bras...could possibly go to Target and leave kids with Roy tonight? But that means no working out
76. What's the best thing to do with a cartful of groceries and James while changing Owen's diaper in the restroom?
77. Remember you absolutely HAVE to stop and get gas on the way home now. Is it cheaper at Hatch Road or further down Empire?
78. Need to invite Hamways over for dinner
79. Need to remember to find childcare for Friday afternoon while Roy is at rehearsal
80. Remember to download podcasts so you don't have to listen to Life Is A Highway again
81. Be sure when you do Pearce work this afternoon that you cc in the guest pastor for this coming Sunday, even though he probably won't look at it
82. Ask Roy how much money is left on the Amazon gift card...
83. Make sure James doesn't end up carrying the grocery bag with the eggs
84. Keep Owen awake in backseat so he'll sleep during afternoon nap
85. Is the battery going in the garage door clicker as well?
86. Respond to Csehy availability survey while you've got laptop open this afternoon
87. Ugh. Roy bugging on about passport photos again.
88. Make sure that James has full sippy before going down for nap.
89. Try to suggest a story that isn't Curious George Lost and Found before nap
90. Be sure to remember to wash out James' lunch dishes before you start nap-work so that everything doesn't get stuck on them when it dries
91. Underneath Owen's high chair really needs to be swept out
92. This Excellus notice that came in the mail...is there any way this can be deciphered into English?
93. Why is James crying? Oh yes, he wanted his Yoshi stuffed animal in bed with him too.
94. Owen doesn't look sleepy. Could possibly work on Pearce stuff while he plays on floor?
95. Remember to move back end table so it doesn't clutter up living room after you've done work on laptop with Owen on the floor
96. Remember to move James' tangrams down to basement so Owen can't get into them once both boys are asleep
97. Remember to turn on Owen's fan, since you turned it off (trying to conserve electricity) when you put him down from nap
98. Remember to plug in phone and charge for a bit once you get downstairs
99. Does Roy know that something is growing in the gutter outside Owen's room?
100. Why is James making monkey sounds when he should be sleeping?
We took the boys swimming at the HC pool today. James vaguely remembered swimming there last year, and I'm not sure he's been in the water since then. Watching your two-year old who can't swim get excited about the pool is a little different than watching your three-year old who can't swim. When J told me that we maybe ought to consider paying for some swim lessons for James I immediately dismissed the thought. Why would we pay to have someone else teach James a skill he could learn in a few afternoons at my parent's pond? Well, for one thing, it turns out that we haven't been out to the ancestral pond terribly often this year. For another, J isn't particularly fond of pond-swimming as an activity either. I don't know if James would mind or not...he certainly loves "Papa's Pond" and is currently making a collection of sticks to either throw in or fish with (he knows which is stick is for which use) beneath his carseat. Whether or not we could get him into the pond to swim, there would still be the problem of actually teaching him to swim. I assumed that he would splash around in the shallows and eventually begin to float on his back and doggy paddle, or possibly be thrown bodily into deeper water by a loving and impatient parental figure without any promise of retrieval. None of these have happened, and he may need to learn swimming at a public pool. He did well at HC today, although Owen was clearly the braver of the two boys. Owen would kick his feet vigorously, careen off his parent toward the water, and then make excited splashes in the water with an expression of unbridled delight until he splashed himself in the face, at which point the expression would change into drenched and blinking shock, followed by a broad grin, and then more splashing. Even though James was a little more cautious, he still didn't want to leave once our time was up. He immediately asked when we could come back to the pool, and I told him maybe Friday.
As I put him down for his nap this afternoon, his last soft question as I closed his door was "Hey Daddy...when I wake up from my nap will it be Friday yet?"
II. J's Thoughts
1. When was Owen's last diaper change?
2. How many servings of fruits and vegetables has James had today?
3. Remember not to step on the second to last step of the stairs or the squeak will wake Owen up
4. If you just ignore all the facebook activity of you more active friends for more than a few days at a time they're going to assume something is wrong.
5. When can I get my flute in for a clean, oil, and adjust?
6. Need to respond to Pearce emails during naps today
7. Need to remind Roy my car needs an oil change
8. Take the chicken out of the freezer before lunch or it won't be thawed for dinner.
9. Everyone had dessert for lunch today, shouldn't be any sweets for dinner
10. Look up how many months old Owen needs to be before he can start eating cheese
11. Roy said he's out of white dress shirts, make sure a load of white laundry gets started
12. Remember that laundry will also need to be flipped during naps
13. Check to see if Roy emptied dehumidifier before leaving for rehearsal.
14. Has it been more than three days since I washed my hair? Could have time to wash and dry it during nap, but may have to give up something else
15. Make sure Owen doesn't sleep too late during morning nap or else he won't want to sleep for afternoon nap
16. Be sure to put letters out before lunchtime, or else they won't be remembered before the mail comes
17. Need to get milk at the grocery store
18. Need to leave an extra five minutes if taking my car, since we'll need to stop for gas as well
19. Remember to grab a pencil from the nightstand when going upstairs for the white laundry
20. Set aside some time for coffee this afternoon if you're going to still be awake to work out this evening
21. Make sure James helps clean up the mess of wood blocks before bed tonight since it's an extra long workout
22. Should nap be spent on a shower if I'm going to work out later? But won't have time to dry hair afterwards because Roy will probably want to get right to bed...
23. When was the last time Owen had a poopy diaper?
24. Did Roy remember to give Owen miralax in his bottle last night
25. Is Roy driving or carpooling to rehearsal today...will he be able to answer text questions?
26. Make sure that James practices some phonics words?
27. Make sure dishes get put away from dishwasher
28. Make sure dirty dishes get loaded into dishwasher so I can have counter space to make lunch
29. Make sure that I write down somewhere that I'm going to need to buy bread at the store
30. Remember to put the shopping list in my purse before I leave for the store with the boys
31. Remember to put sunscreen on both boys before we leave since it's supposed to be so scorching out today
32. Remember to grab sunglasses from the desk before trying to drive around out there
33. Check with Roy to make sure he doesn't need anything from Wegmans
34. Even though he says he doesn't, make sure he isn't about to run out of body wash or deodorant
35. Put down "clean bathroom" on the list of nap to-dos so it doesn't stress me out tonight after kids are in bed
36. Text Roy and ask where his drop-cloth from the tub project is supposed to go
37. Need an explanation for James as to why one of his roof slats was donated to make paint
38. Remember to help James look for his lost Lightning McQueen car
39. Is Owen making noise just because he's drowsing, or is he really getting up?
40. Remember to write back to texts from Mom, sisters, and friends while Owen is nursing
41. Make sure James has some quiet activity to do while Owen is nursing
42. If I give James iPad time now is he going to have too much for one day when I teach my lesson later?
44. Remember to text my student and make sure she knows not to come right at 4:15 today.
45. Remember to check calendar and see if Roy moved his Wednesday student
46. Remember we need more diapers for Owen...should this be a Wegmans trip or a BJs trip?
47. Calendar says Roy isn't teaching on Wednesday...text him to check anyway.
48. Write back to Diane's email once the boys are down and I can type it out on the computer
49. Check to see if Roy took the computer with him to rehearsal
50. Since it's here, make sure it's plugged in and charging so it won't have to do a whole boot-up once you turn it on
51. Make sure you turn printer on too if you're going to have to print off stuff for Pearce during nap
52. Text Roy and see if he knows what's up with this error message on printer
53. Check those potential BPO dates that Roy just sent against the calendar in the kitchen...will we need more childcare
54. Remember where you left the grocery list before you start packing up boys...kitchen? desk?
55. When was the last time James went potty?
56. Where is Steven Bear?
57. Try to get James to wear his sandals again, even though he's going to insist on sneakers
58. Leave Owen in a place where he can't get into anything to help James wipe himself
59. Put "more outlet covers" on grocery list
60. Remember to cancel Thursday student
61. Find a post-it note to jot down reminder about Thursday student
62. Check Owen's mouth to make sure there isn't any more of that crayon in there
63. Remind James about manners and not hitting Owen
64. Talk with Roy later about what to do when James pretends to be fighting
65. Keys? Phone? Wallet?
66. Remember to ask Roy again about getting battery in key fab replaced
67. Be on the look-out for steering wheel cart
68. Remember to get individual pack of sanitary wipes for cart
69. Look at the pretty cheesecakes. Could tonight be a cheesecake night instead of exercise night?
70. Are we out of apples again?
71. Not going to get diapers today. Remember to schedule a time to go to BJs later in the week.
72. Drat. Remember to schedule a time to go to the other Wegmans to pick up prescriptions.
73. Which is cheaper, 6 avocados for 4.99 but probably not all of them will be good, or 4 avocados for 3.49 but you know that the quality will be better in all 4?
74. Ignore other mother in cute jogging shorts with awesome double stroller. Do not covet, do not covet.
75. Need new bras...could possibly go to Target and leave kids with Roy tonight? But that means no working out
76. What's the best thing to do with a cartful of groceries and James while changing Owen's diaper in the restroom?
77. Remember you absolutely HAVE to stop and get gas on the way home now. Is it cheaper at Hatch Road or further down Empire?
78. Need to invite Hamways over for dinner
79. Need to remember to find childcare for Friday afternoon while Roy is at rehearsal
80. Remember to download podcasts so you don't have to listen to Life Is A Highway again
81. Be sure when you do Pearce work this afternoon that you cc in the guest pastor for this coming Sunday, even though he probably won't look at it
82. Ask Roy how much money is left on the Amazon gift card...
83. Make sure James doesn't end up carrying the grocery bag with the eggs
84. Keep Owen awake in backseat so he'll sleep during afternoon nap
85. Is the battery going in the garage door clicker as well?
86. Respond to Csehy availability survey while you've got laptop open this afternoon
87. Ugh. Roy bugging on about passport photos again.
88. Make sure that James has full sippy before going down for nap.
89. Try to suggest a story that isn't Curious George Lost and Found before nap
90. Be sure to remember to wash out James' lunch dishes before you start nap-work so that everything doesn't get stuck on them when it dries
91. Underneath Owen's high chair really needs to be swept out
92. This Excellus notice that came in the mail...is there any way this can be deciphered into English?
93. Why is James crying? Oh yes, he wanted his Yoshi stuffed animal in bed with him too.
94. Owen doesn't look sleepy. Could possibly work on Pearce stuff while he plays on floor?
95. Remember to move back end table so it doesn't clutter up living room after you've done work on laptop with Owen on the floor
96. Remember to move James' tangrams down to basement so Owen can't get into them once both boys are asleep
97. Remember to turn on Owen's fan, since you turned it off (trying to conserve electricity) when you put him down from nap
98. Remember to plug in phone and charge for a bit once you get downstairs
99. Does Roy know that something is growing in the gutter outside Owen's room?
100. Why is James making monkey sounds when he should be sleeping?
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
James' Day
I used to be the cute one,
Little and round and sweet.
Now it's my blonde-haired brother
Smiling and kicking bare feet.
I used to be the cute one,
Who girls would kiss and coo
Now I'm covered in scratches and mud
(The creek will do that to you)
I used to be the baby
Patted and coddled when crying
Now I get a stern look and rebuke
When I make a sound like I'm dying
I used to be the baby
And helping was volunteer stuff
Now I've chores to keep up with
And I can't seem to do quite enough
I used to stay out of trouble
'Cause trouble was out of my reach
But when I said "Daddy, what's this"
And suddenly there sounded a screech,
I stood staring shocked and I knew
by the look on his face I did do
Something awful which soon I would rue
Although the red gadget was new
And in four white letters P-U-L-L was written...
...well, "WE DON'T PULL FIRE ALARMS"
I used to be the cute one,
But now I'm headed to jail
Like George, who fooled the Fire Department
Maybe I'll get a cell with my pal.
I used to be the cute one,
So Owen, I'll spare you some harm:
Don't ever grow up
Don't learn how to talk
And don't pull the Fire Alarm.
Little and round and sweet.
Now it's my blonde-haired brother
Smiling and kicking bare feet.
I used to be the cute one,
Who girls would kiss and coo
Now I'm covered in scratches and mud
(The creek will do that to you)
I used to be the baby
Patted and coddled when crying
Now I get a stern look and rebuke
When I make a sound like I'm dying
I used to be the baby
And helping was volunteer stuff
Now I've chores to keep up with
And I can't seem to do quite enough
I used to stay out of trouble
'Cause trouble was out of my reach
But when I said "Daddy, what's this"
And suddenly there sounded a screech,
I stood staring shocked and I knew
by the look on his face I did do
Something awful which soon I would rue
Although the red gadget was new
And in four white letters P-U-L-L was written...
...well, "WE DON'T PULL FIRE ALARMS"
I used to be the cute one,
But now I'm headed to jail
Like George, who fooled the Fire Department
Maybe I'll get a cell with my pal.
I used to be the cute one,
So Owen, I'll spare you some harm:
Don't ever grow up
Don't learn how to talk
And don't pull the Fire Alarm.
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