Cold Spaghetti

New obsession: foam stickers. We found some on clearance ($2.39!) and Will has been having a blast with them… one set is flowers and the other… dinosaurs! He has a very slight lisp when he says “dinosaurs” (“dinosaurthsss!!”) which makes it even more fun to do these crafts with him. He gives each dino a name and roars while placing them on the page. Quite the man. Although for me, it’s the Superman shades that make it.

She rolled over, back to front, on purpose. I put her face up on her playmat while making Will lunch. Moments later, Paul came in to find her happily talking away to the girafe on the mat, bobbing away on her belly. Go Kate!

Two new and exciting events have been unfolding in our household.

1. Kate is taking showers.
2. Kate is sleeping in her crib.

Yes, I bring our 15 week old baby into the shower. Showering is getting to be a full group experience: me, Will, Kate, and Butch, the 3-inch tall driver of Will’s dump truck. The four of us just rock out in the little hall bath. Will plays at my feet and generally tries to be helpful as I lather Kate into a slippery noodle and then hand her off to Paul for dressing. Scared yet? It’s not a big deal in our book. Of course, we also put her to sleep on the soft bedding of our bed, have stuffed toys in her crib, allow her to sleep on her tummy, and give her matches for teething.

Kate is not sleeping in her crib through the night; I don’t imagine that this will happen until she’s over a year old. We’ve been trying to introduce the concept of sleeping in the crib over the past few weeks and now she is starting the night there, going to bed around the same time as Will. She joins us by 1am. Last night she announced her readiness to get in the big bed by pooping all over her crib. I guess we deserved this by sticking with the size 2 Baby Dry diapers; we really should switch if we want to be leak-free.

An informal survey of some Abeona families shows that everyone is using the real words. In fact, I have yet to find anyone who isn’t.

We are all now regularly using “penis” when Will uses the potty. (He is “tinkling” in the potty a few times a day.) There has been no real opportunity to discuss how Mommy is different from Daddy. The closest we’ve come to discussing genitals, babies, or anything else of that nature is when he checks out my Cesarean scar and I explain that he and Baby Kate came out of me in that spot. Future goals: figuring out how and when to work in the issues relating to privacy and good-touch/bad-touch.

Everything is on hold this week as we throw ourselves behind the efforts to get Abeona House open. It will be the first new daycare/preschool to open post-Katrina, an effort almost a year in making. How hard can it be to open a daycare in New Orleans? Rocket science may be easier. Or, at least, less stressful and frustrating. Paul has done a great job in helping with the many construction projects that need to be completed before inspection on Thursday. He’ll blog about these. The picture above is the mammoth handicap ramp. Next hurricane, we’re weathering it under this ramp. Renee and I watched kids today while parents worked outside. The babies aren’t featured in the picture above. Lesson: child-watching is much more difficult when age ranges include babies.
“I flying!”
Abeona House Child Discovery Center! (With Paul in the front working on the stairs.)

I went with my gut today and began to use the words “penis” and “testicles” with Will. Paul wasn’t around for most of the day so he has yet to learn of my independent decision. It will take some work to get Paul in line with the phraseology; this is the man who somehow got Will to use the word “bubbie” to ask to nurse.

I’m still curious to what other parents have done or what other people grew up saying… maybe it’s time for an informal playdate survey!?

Consumption of blueberries may lead to very, very black, loose stools from preschool age child. Proceed with caution. (Don’t have a freak-out… like I did this afternoon.)

We are getting closer and closer to actual potty training. Which means we have a serious choice to make: How do we teach Will about private parts?

And more importantly: What do we call those parts?

All the information I’ve found says to use the real words (penis, vagina, vulva). In truth, I agree with this completely. I have no problem using those words, explaining what our private parts are for (tolieting and making babies) and being clear that these parts are private, to be touched only by yourself, a close caretaker during washing, or doctor.

Still, we resist. Maybe it’s because we have been parents long enough to know that those words will surface in terribly embarrassing moments once they’ve been unleashed. Or maybe it’s because we’re just uptight. Either way, we stayed up late into the night last night discussing possible alternatives.

We were throwing out sounds and making up words to represent “penis,” when I suggested “zombo.” Paul immediately giggled and said, “Oh, no. Not zombo.”

“Why, what is ‘zombo?'”

“You don’t know? Come with me to the computer.”

If you are like me and have not been introduced to zombo, please, stop reading and go directly to www.zombo.com. If you do not, you will be cheating yourself. Go to the website and be confused. Be sure that your volume is on. Give it a good 5 minutes or so.

After being introduced to 15footstick‘s early-internet WTF?! joke, we decided that, if we went with made up names, zombo would totally be our word for penis.

Which leaves us in a quandry. Should Daddy have a zombo? (We’re not sure what Mommy should have. Top choices include “pente” and “bunky.”) We like zombo so much that we’re having a hard time doing what we think is right (i.e.: using the real words.) We actually can’t remember what words we learned as kids, although we both agreed that they were made-up words and not the real stuff. So would it really be that damaging to use made-up words? Or should we just stick with the real stuff and deal with the laughs it might bring in mixed company?

“I working.”

Will has a Jack-in-the-box at my parents’ house. It is a standard model with “Jack” dressed in a clown-inspired hat and suit, with cartoons of clowns juggling and unicycling on the sides. When he turns the handle and Jack pops out, Will always calls out, “Daddy!”

My Mother made the slip of calling out, “that sucks a big one!” when she overcooked bacon in the microwave this morning. Will, who was happily playing on the porch, conveniently decided to get involved in that moment: just as the words escaped Granna’s mouth, Will came charging into the kitchen shouting, “that sucks big one!” I looked down and shouted, “PEANUT BUTTER”, my distraction tactic to keep Will from repeating less-than-desireable phrases he hears from his mother’s family. Usually Will compiles. Today he just looked at me and repeated, “that sucks BIG one!” He put special emphasis on the “big,” as if to gently remind me that this phrase was now perminently saved in his personal lexicon. Thankfully, I kept my follow-up response (Damn!) to myself.

A few months ago, Will was Determined to Do Everything Himself. This included feeding himself, combing his hair, putting on clothes, and brushing his teeth. Lately there has been a huge regression of these behaviors: he asks to be fed, for someone else to brush his teeth, and doesn’t complain when one of us goes after his hair.

Kate is back to her super-pooper status. 5 big ones today; 4 of which overflowed up the back. This is an indication that we probably need to switch diapers to ones with a more cinching waist. We recently went from Pampers Swaddlers to the less expensive Pampers Baby Dry… I think we need to go either go back to Swaddlers or into Cruisers. Baby Dry does a great job on holding in leg leaks, but the waist doesn’t have the same give.