Conversation with Boogermonkey today:
him: *picks up green crochet hook* This Andy’s croshee-ook!
me: yes, that is your crochet hook.
him: get Andy’s yarn?
me: alright.
him: it’s in the closet!
me: here you go.
him: thank you.
me: what are you making?
him: I make socks for Daddy. For when he gets home.
me: oh, okay.
him: I’m knittin’ like Mama does!
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that a pair of socks crocheted from lion brand cotton-ease probably wouldn’t be the most comfortable, lol.
Today was a kick-ass day. Boogermonkey’s birthday. A whopping two years old. 730 days. Over 10,000 nursing sessions, probably just as many (if not more) diapers, and a million kisses. He is the most awesome kid ever.
The day started with breakfast – scrambled eggs with spinach & sun-dried tomatoes, cooked by Llamaface, after a leisurely morning snuggle. I had wanted to go to the library for story time, but Llama & Booger took too long in the shower and with the self-grooming for that to happen.
Instead, we hopped on the bus and went downtown to the carousel. For a suggested donation of $2 per person, you get to go round & round to traditional Christmas tunes. The money goes to a children’s charity here in Seattle, though I forget which one. Booger went twice, first with me on the bench and then with Llama on the horse. We sat with a lady and her son on the bench and it turns out my midwife was her midwife 5 months ago for her younger son! Small world.
After that, it was a (kosher, beef) hot dog for lunch and birthday cupcakes.
We stopped at the mall, hoping to find something for my future father-in-law’s son (my future brother-in-law, I guess), but the store was sold out of the controller Llama said we should get him. While I browsed in Daiso, this awesome Japanese import store, Llama and Booger played a virtual game that’s projected on the mall floor. They had a blast and it made Booger thirsty so we all shared a PB&J smoothie & headed home. Booger & I napped while Llama went to the dentist to get some cavities filled. I was too tired to make dinner, so we went to Trader Joe’s for some frozen pizza & a tabletop Christmas tree. Booger & Llama decorated it while the pizza was in the oven. I suggested to Llama that we make that a tradition, getting the tree on Booger’s birthday. Booger had fun putting “balls on da flowah.”
He played a bit with some toys after dinner, including this really awesome farm set that Elias gave him. It’s felt and the pieces stick to the book. Each page is a different farm scene, like a barn or a field. He also wanted to read some stories in his “special chair,” a blue rocking recliner we picked up for free when a neighbor moved out & left it in the hallway. You can’t tell from the photo, but he’s reading The Shape of Me and Other Stuff, a favorite around here
Now he’s asleep, his first night as a two-year-old. I am SO LUCKY to be his mother, and I told him so tonight as he was settling down. He is an awesome kid and I can’t wait to see what the next year brings.
I hope to have a big happy birthday post for Boogermonkey tomorrow (since I never got around to it last year, bad mommy that I am), but today I don’t have much, so I have a meme. Got it from a Ravelry (are you there yet?) group, thought it was neat. I’m trying to be more domestic, both because I’m 25 years old, married, and have a child (soon to be two), my house should be a lot cleaner than it is, and because I am OMG NESTING SO BAD.
Nana, as we’ve seen before, is a funny lady. I had a long talk with her today about my her cat, how the vet told her how old he is (I already told you that, Nana. “Oh, I must have forgotten.”), which somehow got side-tracked to Thanksgiving (“I don’t want to say anything to your mother, but why did she have to make deviled eggs?” Because I asked her to, Nana, don’t you dare say anything to her about those eggs.), which then side-tracked to her Aunt Anna and how great a cook she was. I mostly uh-huhed through most of it, but reading some of today’s nablopomo posts reminded me of a Silly Nana Moment. Lots of people have been posting LOLCats as part of their nablopomo contribution, and it made me think of Nana. I had to explain to her what a LOLCat was. Given how new the internet is in relation to her age, and how new the concept of the LOLCat is in relation to the internet, it’s not surprising that she wouldn’t know. She didn’t get the humor, just kind of shook her head and said “That’s stupid.” But it got me thinking about Thanksgiving and how Llamaface was talking to Boogermonkey, having him repeat certain funny phrases like “I’m a rock star” and “I’m a ninja.” My grandmother then asked “What is he saying?” Ninja, Nana, ninja. “What’s a ninja?” My brother and I were flabbergasted. Nana is a fairly worldly, educated woman. We had no idea how to explain ninjas to Nana. How the hell do you explain ninjas to an 81-year-old woman?
I checked my e-mail this morning, and of the 17 that were there, one was worthwhile. A comment, left on this here blog, from someone I haven’t seen in years. At first I thought it was spam, because I get so many of those (you’ve all heard about that already, but I’ll certainly talk about it again in the future because that’s just how I roll). Then I realized I recognized the name and holy shit, how did she find my blog? Oh yeah. Because I left the address in the “about me” section of my myspace page. The myspace page that I don’t USE. Because I fucking hate myspace so goddamned much. No, seriously. Take the worst-designed webpage EVER, give it the worst navigation system EVER, let people make their own sub-pages with glittery sparkling pink text over a glittering sparkling purple playboy bunny background (THAT’S going to get me some good google search results!), then sell it all to Rupert Murdoch, and you have myspace. So. Much. Hate. For that damned site. The only “friend” I have on there is Llamaface, and that’s only so I can read his blog entries. And I went over there today and who’s sent me an e-mail through the shitty shitty myspace e-mail system but a gal I haven’t seen since I moved away from Coquille the day after I turned 13. I guess I have a few catch-up e-mails to write.
All I can say, before I collapse into bed, is thank goodness for my stitch & bitch group. Conversation with adults, every week, for a few hours, is better than drugs. g’night.
Thanksgiving is over and, while I won’t be decorating for Christmas until December 1, I think it’s acceptable to start now, even if it’s not optimal to do so. My opinions on the holiday are pretty strong, colored by years of weird Christmases, a “broken” home, shitty stuff happening during the season, etc. For instance, I don’t believe in fake trees, unless one is physically incapable of setting up a real one. Nana, for instance, has a really cool 1.5′ tall fiber optic tree that she pulls out of a box every year. Nana is 81. Therefore, her fake tree is acceptable. My mother, too, has a fake tree, one she bought when I went off to college because she’s depressed about having an emptier house and doesn’t want to “go all out” for the holidays anymore. My mother is able-bodied, not even yet 50, and manifesting her sadness by bringing more plastic purchased at the store that shall not be named. Her fake tree, therefore, is unacceptable. Chasing lights? They’d better chase in procession and not be all seizure-inducing with different patterns on each strand. And wrapping them zig-zag style like my dad always did to “save space,” is SO not okay. Lights (and garlands, for that matter) go all the way around or they don’t go on at all. Kitsch is acceptable, and in fact I’d argue that Christmas is the perfect place to go all-out with the kitsch. This tree, for instance, is the coolest thing ever, if you’re a knitter. I’m not going to make one because the thought of working with homespun AND fun fur at the same time gives me the heebie-jeebies, but if someone were to make it for me, say in exchange for a pair of hand-knit socks (to be given after the new year), I totally wouldn’t object.
Do you ever have one of those days where you plan and plan and plan to do a whole bunch of stuff, but by the end of the day all you’ve gotten done is one or two things, and you can’t really remember what you DID do? Yeah, today was like that. I’m hoping tomorrow is better.
Llamaface spent 12 hours at work today. He left before Booger was awake and he got home after he was in bed. Why? Because people can’t seem to get it through their thick fucking skulls that those “deals” happen at other times during the year, too, and even if they didn’t, maybe just maybe little Mckynzylynn would benefit more from a membership to the zoo or the children’s museum than a new fucking ipod. Very, very few gifts this year are going to be store-bought. VERY few. And I will be good and god-damned if I step one single FOOT inside the mall to get whatever it is I can’t make. Llama says he feels bad that gifts from us are always made by me, like he’s not contributing to the gift somehow, but I’m the one who does all the shopping anyway, so it’s not as though it’s any different. He hates shopping and he doesn’t have the best gift track record (see: the white fudge covered oreos of 2005), so he leaves it up to me, which I’m fine with, but don’t pout that it’s not from “us” when I decide that I’m going to tell corporate America to go fuck themselves and spend my free time (ha!) making comfy socks, arm warmers, and fabulous handbags for the various members of our family.
Thanksgiving dinner went off without a hitch or hint of drama, until we had to drive back to Llamamama’s house and Llamasister G decided she was going to scream at and aggravate Llamabrother, who was driving, but that’s so minor instead you get a Silly Nana Story.
My grandmother is 81 years old. Until fairly recently, she was lucid. Completely “all there,” mentally, though emphysema ravages her body (don’t smoke, kiddos!). Two years ago, when I was nearly due with Boogermonkey, she wound up in the hospital. A cold had escalated into severe electrolyte imbalance and pneumonia and she fell. From the way she was acting in the hospital and her recovery pattern, we’re all pretty sure she had a mild stroke, but we’ll never know because the incompetent asshats at her small-town hospital didn’t scan her head when she came in, even though they knew she fell. She’s been having more and more bouts of odd behavior ever since. The latest one involves apples and deer.
My mother has two apple trees in her backyard. They are prolific trees, and the apples aren’t the kind that most people would just snack on, though I do. They’re an unknown species, best for baking and cider. Mom doesn’t have the time for that kind of thing, so most of them wind up in the compost. Behind my grandmother’s house is a large patch of forested area, which is in turn backed up by wetlands (remember that part for later. Wetlands). All kinds of wildlife live in there, including deer. Nana insisted that Mom bring up the apples from her tree “so the deer would have something to eat.” So Mom did. And when all the apples were gone, Nana told Mom to go to the grocery store and get the rotten apples from the produce department that they can’t sell. Mom knew that was a silly request, but she asked anyway.
“The produce guy looked at me like I was crazy,” Mom said. “No, we can’t sell you those,” he said. “So I bought her two bags of apples, because they were on sale.” “What did you buy me apples for?” Nana asked (please imagine this in a whiny, nasal, Manhattan accent) “Because you asked me to, Ma,” Mom replied. “I didn’t ask you to get me new apples, I asked you to get the old yucky ones. So Mom explained that they don’t sell those, and if Nana wanted the deer to have apples, these were the ones they’d have to have. “Which do you think they’ll like better, the yellow ones or the red ones?” she asked my mom. “I don’t know, Ma. They’re DEER.” Nana set them out and proceeded to call my mom with deer updates.
“The male deer – you know, the one with the horns – he likes the yellow apples better,” Nana told Mom one day. My mother, who has never been known to be a patient woman, especially where her mother is concerned, took this all in remarkable stride. Until the day she went to Nana’s for one thing or another and saw the water dish at the bottom of the porch stairs.
“Why is there a water dish out here, Ma? Sunny (Nana’s cat who was put down on Sunday due to kidney failure) doesn’t go outside anymore.” “Oh, that’s for the deer. So they have enough water to drink.”
My grandmother, who lives behind a wetland, is concerned the deer won’t have enough water to drink.
And that, folks, is your Silly Nana Story of the day. Hope you all had a great holiday.