Monday, March 29, 2010

Pics

Birthday season has come to a close here, so...

Griz's 1st birthday



The Girl's 3rd


Ma & Griz

Griz

Griz attempts to retrieve an icecube with her mouth

Boy

Sunday, March 28, 2010

His Garbo Moment

The Boy's big birthday bash took place yesterday. Festive and active, with a Wonderpets theme ("What's gonna work? Teamwork!"), exhaustion prevailed by the end of the day for all involved.

Among the assorted guests were members of the Boy's all girl fan club that I have mentioned before. At one point during the party I saw the Boy race from the bouncy house into our home. He was followed by the fans. I wondered if he was retrieving some toy. After a length of time and no return I slipped into the house to investigate. I heard laughter from the bathroom. When I opened the door I found the Boy seated upon the throne taking care of his business. Three girls were seated along the edge of the tub like birds on a wire devotedly watching the Boy. The expression on the Boy's face was not one of delight.

There is such a thing as too much attention.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Ode To Boy

He dances frequently with abandon,
likes to shimmy his behind
His hair all tends to fly away,
never staying where assigned

He chooses colors oddly
when taking crayons in hand
Sky is often purple
and pink his choice for sand

The things he'll eat have limits,
pretty much pizza and hot dogs and chicken
What kid won't eat pasta?!
Yeah, he's one, for instance

He talks and talks and talks and talks,
Good God, it never ends,
As if his brain types away all night
and with morning light hits "send"
And he sings a lot throughout his day
It's an opera - his life -
An aria of the mundane
with crescendos for highlights

His laugh can be infectious
"Tickle me," his battle cry
And when your fingers finish
his cackle turns swooping sigh

He's taller than his peers
all skin, sinew and bones
Not so much as a trace of fat,
and muscles all postponed.

Though I love my children very much
His sisters both, and he
There's something about this firstborn boy
that's a little special to me
Perhaps it's that we almost lost him
five years ago today
when he slipped from womb to delivery room
and his palor from pale to gray.
I doubt it comes from manly pride
(take a look at him in those antlers)
No, I suspect it's something else
that makes him my enchanter.
If I met him on the street
or struggling on a swing,
a complete and total stranger
unrelated at all to me,
I still believe he'd take me in,
smile and win me from the start
It's some magic thing in his perfect soul
which levers up one's heart.

Not a thing in the world I wouldn't do for him,
and none of it would repay what I owe
So Happiest of Birthdays to you my son
You've five candles for wishes, now blow.

Happy Birthday, Arlo.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Nuts

It started at Christmas. It was a simple airing of a ubiquitous holiday special that seems to have instigated it. Ever since then the obsession has grown. Who would have thought an animated, bald headed kid named Chuck could inspire such a habit?

A Charlie Brown Christmas is to blame. The Girl saw it and demanded more. So her jones was fulfilled with It's the Great Pumpkin, and then the Valentine's Day, and the Thanksgiving, and then the holiday-less You're a Good Sport. This weekend added You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown to the repertoire. It never ends. Over and over and over again they run in the dvd player. When one ends the Girl demands yet another, or a replay of the one that just ended. It is ghastly.

Even the Boy has reached his limit: "Good Grief," he shrieks when she requests yet another play, the phrase itself evidence of his own overexposure. She is never done with it.

She has taken to hauling a blanket around, telling us when she grows up she wants to be Linus. A kid who has never felt a profound attachment to any object now drags a filthy blanket hither and fro, unable to part with it.

What she gleans from it is beyond me. Peanuts was never truly a children's comic, its little observations better absorbed and reflected upon by those with a more experience under their belts than kids. Yet there she sits, motionless, absorbing it all, occasionally laughing.

Her television time-limits, and our stamina, are the only thing that keeps her from a 24/7 cycle with Lucy, Chuck and the Red-headed girl. I'm sure it will pass but for the moment, well, maybe dvds can wear out.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Memory Lane

Me in 1986.
Cardigan.
Ripped jeans.
I was all Cobain before Cobain.