You just don't see the word "toot" in writing often enough.

The other day I got an e-mail from a friend at work. She had just finished a job interview and she said, "you know how I am; I'm no good at tooting my own horn. I did toot it on my thank you note, though." That's been running through my head for days -- "I did toot it." I think of it in that same tone of voice that valley girls use when they say "HATE-d it!": "TOOT-ed it!"

Why in the name of all things holy am I talking about this? See that red door with black hinges in the right column that says "fringelements" on it? This is me tooting my own horn. Well, tooting our horn, really. John and I have been creating blog banners. Before I started my new job, where I am apparently paid to sit and stare out my 38th story window without considering ways to break said window and hurl myself out of my boredom-inflicted misery, I was paid to create, among other less exciting things, document covers using photographs of typically very ugly and boring items. My challenge was to make the ugly, boring, and sometimes even disgusting things (wastewater treatment plants - need I say more?) look dynamic and flashy. I became quite proficient at manipulating images and splashing fonts and lines and dots and any randomness I could think of to take away from the god-awful images I had to work with. Before I was doing that job, nobody I worked with had ever considered trying to make the ugly pictures look NOT UGLY, and so they were thrilled with my work. Every day I would come home and say to John, "hell, imagine what kinds of things we could create with YOUR pictures, instead of this total crap I'm having to work with."

When we started this blog, I decided to do just that - I started playing around with some of John's images to create a banner for the top of our page. Since then, we've created banners for friends and family and a few fellow bloggers. John has a seemingly endless supply of cool pictures for us to choose from, and he's constantly coming home with more. So, if you want a banner for your site, check out the fringelements page for samples and more information. There will always be a button over there on the right. You know, because we like to have our horn tooted.

I used to analyze Henry James and Shakespeare. Now I do this. Help.

The kids have a CD with a recording of the old folk song "There's a Hole in the Bucket." It's become one of the songs that the kids obsess about and therefore I now hear it at least 15-20 times a week. When you hear a song this many times, you can really put a lot of thought into it. I've realized that I had never really paid much attention to the lyrics before, and man, was I missing out! At first, John and I laughed and laughed at dense, dull Henry, running to Liza with all of his little problems, completely incompetent in the ways of the world. And that spunky, clever Liza! With all of her quick answers and her seemingly endless supply of knowledge about buckets and straw and stones - ha, ha, ha! What a pair! Liza's the smart one, and Henry's the dumb, helpless one.

But the more I listen to it, I'm not so sure if it's as simple as that. Below are the lyrics separated by verse. Under each verse is my interpretation of the conversation between Henry and Liza. And I took some liberties with the last few verses.

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There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza.

There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole!

*Crap, Liza, my bucket has a hole in it!

Then mend it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry.

Then mend it, dear Henry, dear Henry, mend it.

*Sounds like a personal problem to me. Excuse me, but I'm on my way to Physics class.

With what shall I mend it, dear Liza, dear Liza?

With what shall I mend it, dear Liza, with what?

*Thanks for your brilliant insight, Liza...but exactly how helpful is it when someone tells you something is broken and you respond with "then fix it"?

With straw, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry.

With straw, dear Henry, dear Henry, with straw.

*Well, honestly. How. Difficult. Is it, Henry?

The straw is too long, dear Liza, dear Liza.

The straw is too long, dear Liza, too long.

*Know it all. What do you say to THAT, Genius Girl?! The friggin' straw is too long.

Then cut it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry.

Then cut it, dear Henry, dear Henry, cut it.

*Here's what I say: You're an idiot.

With what shall I cut it, dear Liza, dear Liza?

With what shall I cut it, dear Liza, with what?

*Okay, Little Miss Physics Class, you want to play like that?

With a knife! dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry.

With a knife! dear Henry, dear Henry, A KNIFE.

*Oh yeah, let's play this thing out.

The knife is too blunt, dear Liza, dear Liza.

The knife is too blunt, dear Liza, too blunt. [shrugs]

*Okay, you cocky shrew! I could go all day.

Then sharpen it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry.

Then sharpen it, dear Henry, dear Henry, shar-pen-IT!

*Oh yeah, you scrawny little punk?

With what shall I sharpen it, dear Liza, dear Liza?

With what shall I sharpen it, dear Liza, with what?

*Bloody hell yeah. I'm just getting started.

WITH A STONE, dear Henry, dear Henry, DEAR Henry.

With a stone, dear Henry, dear Henry. {SIGH} A STONE.

*You know I'm going to mop the floor with you, don't you?

The stone is too dry, dear Liza, dear Liza.

The stone is too dry, dear Liza, too dry.

*Heh heh. Just wait.

Then WET IT!, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry!!

Then wet it, dear Henry, dear Henry: Wetttt Itttt!

*Ohmygod youaredrivingmeinsane allIwanttodo isgettoPhysics.

With what shall I wet it, dear Liza, dear Liza?

With what shall I wet it, dear Liza, with what??

*Bwahaha! You suck!

Try water?! dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry.

Try water, dear Henry. Dear Henry, TRY WATER.

*I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you.

With what shall I get it, dear Liza, dear Liza?

With what shall I get it, dear Liza, with what?

*I am rubber and you are glue, you smug hag.

WITH A BUCKET! DEAR HENRY! DEAR HENRY! DEAR HENRY.

WITH A BUCKET! DEAR HENRY BEFORE I RIP YOUR HEAD OFF, A BUCKET.

But there's a hole in the BU-cket!, dear Liza, dear Liza.

There's a hole in the BU-cket, dear LIZA, A HOLE.

*Oh, snap! Who's the loser now, huh?! Back around to where we started, aren't we? Oh, Miss Physics is running away because she's a BIG LOSER! THAT'S RIGHT, LIZA, RUN AWAY!! Everybody thinks Liza's so smart, but look! My bucket still has a hole in it, doesn't it? Where's the Big Smart Liza now??

Because the Weirdness Never Ends Around Here

We were tagged by Freezio a while ago for the Six Weird Things Meme, and since we’ve already done two “weird things” memes, I figured I would just link back to those since surely I couldn’t come up with any more. Well, thanks to my new job, which provides a lovely salary and helpful benefits but is currently putting me through the most mind-numbing, time-stopping, soul-sucking “transition to my new duties,” I AM BORED OUT OF MY GOD-FORSAKEN SKULL, and thus have had plenty of time to think through the myriad weird things I haven’t yet discussed here. So, here we go.

1.) I have never been able to whistle. Scores of people have attempted to tell me their methods and pound into my brain that I am making it harder for myself than it really should be for any normal adult human with functioning mouth muscles, but all to no avail. I’ve tried the “suck air IN rather than out FIRST” method, I’ve tried holding my mouth in different positions, placing my tongue in different locations…wait, now this paragraph is getting out of hand. The point is: People, it can’t be done. I am a freak.

2.) What I lack in whistling ability, I make up for in toe strength and flexibility. Yes, that’s right. I can effortlessly pick up anything with my feet, and often do without even realizing it. This became clear the other day while I was talking to John and putting away the pile of clothes precariously perched on the footboard of our mission-style bed (that’s really the only reason I wanted a bed with a footboard, anyway – the extra clothes-hanging space; much the same reason many people opt for treadmills in their bedrooms). I dropped a shirt mid-sentence, and since I was holding a glass of wine in one hand and several dozen other articles of clothing in the other, I instinctively used my claw-toes to grab said shirt, and then I jauntily tossed it up onto the pile in my hands. John completely interrupted what I was trying to say because he then HAD THE NERVE TO LAUGH AT ME.

3.) I have to watch television previews. I don’t watch much TV anymore (you people take up too much of time). But for the few shows I still watch, I have a very rigid requirement: I insist on watching the next episodes’ previews at the end of the show. Do not inhibit my ability to watch the previews or you will incur my wrath, god help you. I know it’s not logical; I know I will see the show next week so why oh why must I see the previews it’s just so stupid!, but this is how my anal little brain works so JUST LET IT GO.

4.) I hate coffee. Will. Not. Drink. Coffee. Plain, black coffee, that is. Cappuccino, coffee-flavored ice creams, coffee-flavored candies (like Nips – YUM) would be my first choice of hot drinks, ice cream, and candy. I know. I’m a real enigma.

5.) Despite the American Love of All Things Smoky, I don’t like anything even remotely “smoked” or barbeque-flavored. Even though I live on Mexican (or "Tex-Mex") food, I won’t touch chipotle sauce for this very reason. People tell me I’m missing out, but, really, trust me. I’ve tried all the new-fangled twists on smokiness, and it’s just not happening. Hate it.

6.) I once won a game of Assassin that started with about 50 players and had quirky rules about where, when, and who you could and couldn’t shoot. Weren’t expecting that, were you? Neither were they. Bwahahaha! It’s always the quiet, discreet ones. This is why I know I totally could have been a successful spy. Maybe some day I’ll tell some fun stories about Ye Ol' Game of Assassin.

April, summed up by Kristen's random camera shots

I am not the professional photographer around here (that would be John), but despite that fact, my husband has bought me more picture-taking and picuture-manipulating gadgets than any non-professional (unprofessional?) photographer should have. I don't have the talent to accompany these gadgets, so I just end up with a huge conglomeration of poorly taken photographs on really nice equipment. It's a shame, really.

Because the month of April has flown by (How? Nothing's marked on our calendar, so that must mean we've been sitting around twiddling our thumbs. That, or someone didn't write anything down this month. Ahem! John.), I haven't uploaded my digital photos in weeks. The horror! I forgot to post my witty rant about the time I took the boys to the park one evening while John was taking pictures at one of the dozens of weddings he'll do this year. I'm thinking specifically of the time that Quinn showed me he'd learned a lot from Bryce in the past year about interacting with other children, and how much of a reaction you get from other kids' parents when you follow one-year-olds around with your hands on your hips shrieking, "I'm a superhero! AAA!" Yeah, that was fun. It was really fun when the other mom looked at me like I was one of those trashy, drunk moms who sits back while her kids bully the other innocent park-goers. Hey!! I don't let my kids bully. (And I wouldn't be trashy if I had time to brush my hair, which I don't, due to my kids' incessant demands. And if you had my kids, you'd be drunk, too. Don't judge.) To escape the awkward glares, I indulged the kids' neverending demands that I turn my biceps into liquid jello and push them on the swings for 12 hours (or maybe 15 minutes, I don't know - it's all the same to me).

Now that I think about it, maybe I never wrote about this fateful day because it ended with me lecturing the kids ALL THE WAY HOME about how when we talk to people, we don't pretend to be superheroes, we just "pretend to be ourselves," at least until we get to know them for the love of god. The response I got to that eloquent speech? From Bryce: "But the little one-year-old liked it when I was being a superhero, she didn't think it was scary at all!" From Quinn: "I WANT LACKALONI CHEESE FOR DINNER! LACKALONI CHEESE!!!!"

Mmm-hmm. I had mentally blocked out this excursion until I saw these photos again. Well, at least the only evidence is of them having fun. What you can't see in the picture is how many extra calories I burned that day by strategically pushing each swing in a rhythm that would allow me to run around the swing set and snap pictures of them at opposite ends of their swing spectrum. (Those two I posted were my only successes. I SUCK as a photographer.)

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The other thing that's been keeping us busy this month (and by "busy," I mean trapped in or near the bathroom by the newly-interested-in-potty-training Quinn) has been Quinn's knowledge, or lack thereof, of his bladder and bowel functions. I think he is finally getting a grip on how early he needs to get to a toilet, but for the past few weeks, he's looked at us with a panic-stricken face while we're in the middle of dinner or cleaning or watering the grass and has let us know in his, well, quite blunt fashion that he needs to use the facilities: "Water's coming out of my penis! WATER! COMING OUT OF MY PENIS!" We haven't been taking the time to correct his phrasing because we're always so ecstatic that he suddenly KNOWS this about himself, and we've just dropped whatever it is we're doing and rushed him to the nearest toilet. Things are better now, but for a while, in a disappointing finish, we'd get him to the toilet and then...nothin'. To pass the time, John taught Quinn his favorite method of dealing with this issue:

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And as Bryce's first real school year comes to an end, his school is engaging in all manner of frantic fundraising efforts. They held a jog-a-thon the other day and invited all parents, but our summery spring weather turned back into something resembling fall, and so not very many people showed up. I was quite proud of myself for being there, and when I saw Bryce again at home that evening, he ran up to me and said, "Mom, I was SO GLAD you came to my jog-a-thon today!" And I was glad too, because I got to see how many 1/6 mile laps it takes to deplete Bryce's seemingly endless supply of energy (five laps, running the whole way). Check it out:

After this genius event, the all the kids in the class were quiet, and still! I vote for more jog-a-thons!!

Diagnosis Feisty

When Quinn was born, he seemed so laid back and easy compared to what we’d been used to. We delighted in the fact that even though one child kept us persistently on the edge of insanity with his constant need for interaction and his neverending quirks and "issues," the other child, The Easy One was there to balance everything out, and help us keep our perspective. Over the past year, what we’ve slowly come to realize is that Quinn is no longer, in any way, shape, or form, “easy”. At best, the kid is normal. At worst, he has turned into an aggressive and manipulative toddler as a result of a dangerous combination: an intensely controlling brother, natural charm and age-related cuteness, and parents who fell asleep at the wheel.

Yesterday we took Quinn to the doctor for his three-year check-up. I’ve been sitting here trying to decide what the highlight of the experience was. For instance, was it when Quinn shouted indignantly as John carried him to the exam room, “No! I don’t LIKE Dr. W!” right at the exact second Dr. W happened to be standing 18 inches away? Was it when the soft-spoken and genuinely friendly nurse asked Quinn to remove his shorts so that the doctor could examine him when she came into the room and Quinn shot daggers out of his eyes and repeated “No!” 25 times at her? Was it when, after John told Quinn to get over himself and took his shorts off for him and also began removing his socks, Quinn shrieked a shriek that suggested his thin, too-small socks were protecting his feet from the burning acid his ignorant parents didn’t realize was spread all over the examination table?

No, innocent readers. None of these humiliating moments were the highlight. The highlight came when, after spending 15 minutes role-playing with Quinn about what Dr. W was going to do, showing Quinn how he was going to have to lay on the table while she looked at his ears and knees and stomach, reminding him about how we use our manners and our soft voices to speak to people, Quinn made his final transformation into Psycho Boy. Psycho Boy started out with a flushed face and a deceiving hide-behind-mom stance that made us all think he was still just a normal, nervous three-year-old child. When we placed Psycho Boy onto the exam table, saying, “remember Quinn? This is where you sit while Dr. W looks at your ears, and your eyes, and your stomach?” he almost kept up the deception. When he heard us refer to his ears, though, Psycho Boy quickly stuck both fingers in his ears and turned away from Dr. W, who was attempting to have a conversation with him. It took all of my strength to get Psycho Boy’s fingers out of his ears so Dr. W could lay him down, but even with both of us pushing on him, his body remained at an unnatural angle, his face beet red, his entire body shaking with the exertion of fighting off two grown women, all the while yelling, “NO! STOP! I DON’T WANNA LAY DOWN!” He finally plopped back in exhaustion, but then he remembered his secret weapon, the one he’d been saving up for this exact moment, the one that would surely lead to his escape from the evil clutches of his mother and his pediatrician. Stuck on his back like a turtle, and with a perfect shot within view, knowing his stupid, stupid mother was focusing on his upper body, Psycho Boy lifted both feet and with animal strength and speed (think: jackrabbit) KICKED THE CRAP OUT OF DR. W’s CHEST.

“Whoah!” Dr. W exclaimed, jumping back from Psycho Boy. “You have strong legs!” Then, looking back and forth from me to John, who was halfway out the door by now, pretending to have suddenly realized his real family was actually at Disney World and he’d best be on his way to find them, “He’s a lot more feisty than his brother, isn’t he?”

Uh, more feisty than Mr. Intensity? Crap. Yes. Yes, he is more feisty than his brother. We’re in deep, deep crap here, people. Send help.

TP'd

Last night at 10:30 I was sitting on the couch with my lover on my right and my wife on my left, when the doorbell rang. Since I was in the AD-ADD zone with season two, I didn't immediately acknowledge the doorbell, but seconds later did acknowledge the sharp jab of Kristen's finger in my ribs.

I grudgingly paused the DVD player and went to the front door wondering Who the f*** would dare ring the doorbell at 10:30? Then I remembered that Hannah was out with friends and the dam of Uh Oh Thoughts broke open and flooded my brain with all the worst case scenarios imaginable: She's been hurt. She's been in a car wreck. She's in trouble. She's been arrested. She's .... and opened the door. To find this.








I went outside, looked up the street, then down the street. I heard the sound of car doors slamming and a car starting, saw brake lights and the getaway vehicle speeding off. I stopped to admire their handywork.



This is a picture of just the right side of our yard, the left side was equally adorned. Hannah arrived home a short time later and began cleaning it up with her friends. I'm not sure which part of the evening took me more by surprise: the toilet paper wonderland in my yard or the fact that four teenagers voluntarily - and cheerfully - cleaned it up.

Technical info about the picture above (in case you ever want to capture your own yard when it gets TP'd). I put the camera on a tripod, set it to ISO 200, f 6.7 with a 30 sec shutter speed. I pressed the shutter button, set my flash at 1/16th power and walked around the yard popping my flash at the yard and into the trees.

The Dark Side of Four

Last week my mom had Bryce come over to spend the night, and Quinn was outraged at the injustice. "Next week it will be your turn," we told him. "My turn? Next week I get to go to Megama's house and Bryce stays here with you?" How many times have we heard this question over the past seven days? I lost count on day one, let's leave it at that. Today was the day of reckoning: The Day Of Quinn's Turn. When my mom showed up to load him into her car along with his six dozen required dog pillows and blankets, his face was beaming, his body was twisting, and he couldn't get out of the house fast enough: "Bye!! It's my turn!! I'm going to Megama's now! See ya later!" No separation anxiety here.

John had a session tonight, so that meant Bryce and I had an evening to ourselves. I asked him if he wanted to go eat dinner somewhere, and he named the place that serves his favorite chips and queso. I told him to get his shoes so we could go and he said, "well, how 'bout you just play with me for a while? That's what I want." I suggested Candy Land in an effort to avoid my pet peeve of pet peeves, role playing. Bryce LOVES role playing. That's the only way he's ever played. For four years. I thought Candy Land would entice him since we can never play it when Quinn is around unless we want all of the colorful gingerbread gamepieces to be flung across the room in a fit of rage when we refuse to let Quinn throw the game cards into the trash can. Bryce's response when I brought it up was, "well, how about we play MY game first, and THEN we can play Candy Land." HIS game, the FIRST game that we had to play turned out to be the DREADED game of role playing:
"You be Princess Spotty
and I'll be Super Noir and pretend that this evil ball came and stole everything out of your castle and you need Super Noir to save the day." Oh, what the hell?, I thought, I'll just go along with the kid, let's see where this thing goes.

I started to notice a trend with Bryce tonight. As Princess Spotty, I asked Super Noir to retrieve my stolen pet dragon and horse, and also my bridge. After Super Noir was done, I tried to spin things into a positive light: "Let's have a party to celebrate the safe return of my pets!" Bryce immediately turned to the darker side of the story: "NO! The evil ball has to go to jail. Pretend you have a jail in the castle and make him go there!" Uh, okay. Well this could be a good lesson - consequences and all that. After a few minutes Bryce said, "Pretend it's been a year and the evil ball's sentence is over. "Okay. Evil ball, did you learn your lesson? No more kidnapping, right? Okay, you're free to go. Now, NOW we can have a party to celebrate!" Bryce was concerned about the party but he had a plan: "Well, okay. But if any bad guys try to come down the chimney, the dragon can just blow a fire into the fireplace so the bad guys will get burned and have to run away!" Man, this kid is bringing me down. I decided the "game" was over and it was time for dinner.

After dinner Bryce and I went for a walk. On Fridays at his school, his class watches a movie, and apparently today the movie was about dinosaurs. More specifically, as I found out while listening to him repeat himself ad infinitum, it was a fictional movie, because apparently humans were involved and were involved to the point that they were killing the dinosaurs. Wha...? Like the kid isn't obsessed with heavy, depressing things enough as it is?? He kept saying, "those poor dinosaurs, I can't believe those people killed them, I can't believe they're dead." I finally said, "Bryce, you know people weren't around when the dinosaurs were. They aren't extinct because of people. That was just a movie, it wasn't real."

I. AM. AN. IDIOT. What exactly did I expect to get out of this conversation? Did I think through my statement? Why can't I be like other parents who say, "hey, how about a cookie?!" when they want to distract their child from unpleasantries? During our walk, because of my STUPIDITY, Bryce started asking for specifics about how exactly the dinosaurs did go extinct. "Well, scientists aren't sure," I said. "One theory is that there was a huge asteroid that hit the earth and caused a huge cloud of dust and debris to block the sunlight. The earth's temperature changed and the dinosaurs couldn't survive."

Questions I've been answering since I opened my big mouth:

What are asteroids?
How big are asteroids?
Is the dust cloud still there?
Why do asteroids fly through space?
Do we know where they are?
Do we know if one's coming?
What if I were a T-rex and an asteroid hit me?
Will an asteroid hit our house?
If an asteroid hit our house, would we be hurt?
What if it was just a little asteroid and it only hit the grass?

While playing Princess Spotty and wondering why my kid always turns things into scary, sad, or negative experiences, I must have forgotten that HIS MOTHER CAUSES EVERY BIT OF IT. Luckily for both of us, Bryce actually doesn't seem to view any of this as negative or scary...more like, interesting. At the end of our dinner, he looked at me and said, "I'm glad Quinn's at Megama's. I really like it when it's just me and you. It's a lot more fun like this."

Fun. Dark, but fun.

AD-ADD, A love affair, and the first potty poop

AD-ADD: I have been officially diagnosed with ADADD. Arrested Development Attention Deficit Disorder. Due to our chaotic fringe schedule, we rarely ever get to watch anything on TV when it is originally broadcast. In fact, we barely have TV at all. We reluctantly subscribe to basic cable (23 channels of crap) only so we can get decent reception of nbc, cbs, abc, & pbs. We do, however, have netflix. Queue up 100 shows/movies/documentaries/independent films and they are delivered to your door 3 at a time. We were able to watch a few episodes of Arrested Development during the first season and thought they were well written and smart. When we saw they were available on DVD - paradise. Every episode, in order, when we want. I love this show. So when I put it on - don't bother calling me, or talking to me because I have AD-ADD. And I'm bummed it might not continue. Any other AD fans out there? If so, what's your favorite AD line?

A Love Affair: It's true. I'm in love. With a sensual lover named Cabernet. Even though my current label has been good to me, and has satisfied me, I am beginning to tire of her same old tricks. I need something new, something a little bolder than "big, ripe, black currant notes intertwined with cedar smoke licorice and earth. Medium-bodied, with ripe fruit as well as fine balance." So, what are your recommendations for a good Cabernet Sauvignon?

Quinn's First Potty Poop: Sooner or later it had to happen. And it did. Last night. We clapped, and cheered, and danced. Sacrificial lambs were slaughtered (ok, not really, but if we lived 2000 years ago, had toilets and lambs, a lamb would have been slaughtered). Diapers cannot end soon enough.

I knew it was a dream because of the blue eye shadow.

I was in my car, or a car that I assume was mine. I was driving along and became aware of a strange, ambiguous, undefined feeling that something was somehow...off. I felt like someone out of the corner of my eye, outside the car, was watching me, staring at me actually, and trying to get me to look their way. Just because I'm paranoid, introverted, and over-protective of my personal space, I purposely didn't look. I kept driving. Somehow I saw myself - you know, like I was a second person present in the car (or a third person?), and noticed I was wearing a muumuu-like shirt (bright blue with huge white leafy flowers) and also 1985 blue eyeshadow like the kind the girl was wearing in the Indiana Jones movie when Indiana was still teaching classes and one of his students had a crush on him and wrote "I love" on one eyelid and "you" on the other - wrote it on top of a glittery sky blue caked-on eyeshadow - and blinked reeeaallllyy slloowwwly every time he looked at her so as to give him her ultra-subtle message.

I kept feeling the staring and now it was actually becoming more like really annoying movement, like someone was waving or thrashing around trying desperately to get me to look their way. In exasperation, and to myself and the one or two other selves in the car, I said, "tssk!" and looked out my window, preparing to roll my eyes and snarl in impatience and snobbery. Even though my car was moving, and I was driving forward at a presumably fast pace, when I looked out the window and expected to see another moving vehicle dangerously close to mine, what I actually saw made my heart beat twice as fast as usual and my hands clutch the steering wheel more tightly. It was not another vehicle. It was a small one-story red brick house with a glass door allowing me to look into the front room, in which was standing...no, JUMPING and WAVING with all the energy you'd expect from a hyper poodle, none other than RICHARD. SIMMONS. Richard was waving at me like he couldn't wait for me to look over and acknowledge his existence, more than that actually, he wanted me to get out of my moving car and come into his small one-story red brick house.

Confused and yet strangely compelled, I got out of the car, again noticing, despite the absence of any mirrors, my hideous eye shadow and flowy royal blue muumuu-shirt, and walked towards Richard Simmon's small one-story red brick house. Now I was on a sidewalk and had two or three blocks to walk, even though in my car, Richard Simmons had appeared to be right across the street. Suddenly I noticed John walking, rushing actually, by me - not even recognizing me, or pretending not to. I'm sure he was humiliated that his wife was wearing a royal blue muumuu-shirt and 1985 blue eye shadow. I tried to get his attention, and then got really, really mad when he didn't hear me. Meanwhile, Richard Simmons was still frantically waving and jumping jacks in his small one-story red brick house.

I remember thinking I was completely confused. I woke up wondering if that semester in my social science class in college where we discussed Freud and learned his actual method of dream analysis - learned it so well that we had to analyze one of our own documented dreams, actually - would help me. Unfortunately, I am no longer in college and there's no deadline for me to turn in a paper that proves I methodically analyzed my dream. And thank goodness, right? Anything with Richard Simmons in it must mean I'm really warped.

The French are a direct people.

One of the perks I had access to as a child attending a magnet school in the otherwise questionable Chicago Public School system of the '80s was early foreign language. My parents were able to choose from French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. Mine chose French. From kindergarten through sixth grade, French class was simply part of my school day. When we moved to another state in junior high, I thought it was really odd that nobody else I met had ever taken French: wasn't it just part of school? What kind of crazy non-French-class-offering world had we moved to?? The great thing about these early classes is that I didn't just learn basic vocabulary, numbers, and verb conjugation; we read children's books by French authors, made crepes, sang traditional French songs (Alouette, anyone??), and celebrated Mardi Gras.

One of the book series that I always loved was the one about Babar the Elephant. I actually think I'd read the books outside of my French class, but we read them there too, and with the good associations I had with the class, I must have placed Babar on some crazy pedestal. Recently I was on Amazon looking for Curious George books, and somehow ran across this blast from the past. I was thrilled: "Oh, Babar! How could I have forgotten about sweet, cool, culturally-aware Babar the Elephant? I must introduce my kids to him!" I ordered two books, the one explaining how Babar became so human-like and the one about his world travels. They arrived earlier this week and I sat down with Bryce to read them last night. I was probably anticipating as eagerly as he was, considering the fact that once I thought about it, I really didn't remember the actual story of Babar at all.

Imagine my surprise when on the second page, Babar's mother is killed by a hunter. Not only that, but the hunter is shown shooting a gun, and Babar's mother is shown lying dead at her son's feet. It's okay, though!! My eagle eyes caught the "killed" in time for me to switch to "hurt" (because my son is obviously an idiot and won't catch on, you know) and quickly turned the page to move on to the REAL significance in Babar's life: meeting the rich old woman who "gives him whatever he wants" - items including "fancy clothes", cars, and apparently a mansion in which to live his new half-human, half-elephant life of luxury. Bryce wasn't going for any of it, though. The second I turned the page to talk about how Babar ran away from the hunter and found the nice old elephant-enamored lady to give him money, he said, "But mom! He needs to tell someone that the hunter hurt his mother!" My quick thinking skills that had SO CLEARLY NOT HELPED ME AT ALL, now utterly failed me and I just kind of looked at him blankly. (As Catherine Newman would say, "Blink. Blink blink.") Then I kept reading. Babar's elephant cousins show up in town, and he uses more of the old lady's money to buy them lots of fancy clothes, too. Bryce interrupted again: "Is he going to tell them about his mom? Where is the hunter?" I kept thinking something, anything would distract Bryce from that detail about the hunter, but no. I NEVER LEARN. Babar's reunion with his cousins makes him want to return to the forest where he grew up; he misses the rest of his extended elephant family. In the scene where the elephants have a huge forest party with Babar and the cousins, the book is almost over, and I thought I could breathe a sigh of relief, that maybe Bryce had moved on from the obsession about the hunter. He looked at the picture of all of the joyful elephants dancing and welcoming with open arms the addition of capitalism into their formerly primitive, naturalistic lives, and I thought he would point out how happily they were celebrating Babar's marriage to his cousin Celeste and also their lovely, costly wedding garb. Instead he said, "Is the hunter going to shoot all of them, too?"

Zut Alors!

I had forgotten how direct and sometimes painfully honest French art can be. It really should have come as no surprise to me that Babar's mother would be callously killed off in the first two pages, or that the elephant king would die a shriveled, green lump after ingesting poisonous mushrooms immediatley prior to Babar's return to the forest. This is the same culture that gave us a song about plucking a bird's feathers for pleasure, after all.

Celebrating Eostre

When John posted the picture of the Jesus feet in the photo column on Good Friday, I flinched: "You need to take that down. People are going to make one of two incorrect assumptions: you're either being sarcastic and sacreligious, or we've misrepresented ourselves on the blog so far and we're actually 'religious'." Then I realized that 1.) this was our blog and we could post whatever random thing we felt like posting, and 2.) if anyone had a question or comment about the intention with the photo, they could comment or e-mail us. (Actually, they couldn't e-mail us since we have no contact information currently available on the site. As a side note, we can be reached at kristenandjohn at homeonthefringe dot com - we'll have that added to one of the side columns soon.) John will be posting a brief comment on the Jesus feet later, because he has something to say about that picture...even though after some reflection, I told him I feel conflicted about putting any sort of "justification" or "explanation" about what is another example of his artistic talent. There is no commentary on the pictures of the tulips, the shark, the shoes, or the buildings at night. Discussing the Jesus feet makes me feel like we're apologizing for something, and those of you who know me well know that that COULD NEVER BE. Apologizing is not my strong suit.

Having both grown up in Christian households (albeit different sects of Christianity), and living in a region where the assumption is that if you are white and middle class, you attend a Christian church and identify yourself unquestionably as a Christian, we are well aware of the social ramifications of any deviation from traditional Christian thought. We are also aware, though, of the lack of education most Christians have about their religion and its history, and the very foundation on which the religion is based. For all of the Sunday school classes and "small groups" and bible "studies" made available to Western Christians, there is a severe lack of understanding about the actual facts surrounding Christian belief. If, rather than quietly accepting this fact, you were to point this out to (the average) Christian, you would be scoffed at and told "it's simply a matter of faith." Translation: I don't feel the need to have facts and historical information, and if you do, there is obviously something wrong with you, you lazy, sinful, dirty infidel.

Luckily I grew up with parents who encouraged me to question and challenge belief systems. Today I'm sure they feel like they shouldn't have pushed this virtue so hard on me; I've probably taken it to a point they aren't completely comfortable with, considering the fact that they each still identify themselves as Christians in at least some sense of the word. John grew up with Catholicism, which, in my brief two-year experience attending Catholic services and even classes on how to shed my disgusting Protestant shell so that I could be considered worthy of eating cardboard-like wafers and drinking free wine from a community cup every week during communion, does not lend itself to questioning much of anything. So it wasn't until John had been exposed to several different Protestant churches and a few years of my own rambling, exploring rebel talk that he could clearly articulate his stance on religion in general and Christianity in particular. Neither of us have much opportunity to DO this, mind you; just the ability to do it. And it's been a very gradual approach to get us to this point; this is the first year we haven't attended a church service on Easter Sunday - even if our attendance in the past was merely the result of respectful acceptance at the request of another family member. We've educated ourselves and reflected over the years to a point that we could now be clear and logical if pressed by our family about why we don't attend a church, and why we wouldn't at least go to church on the major Chrisitan holidays. But it is only recently that we've felt confident enough in our stance that we could comfortably have this conversation if the opportunity were to arise.

None of this is to say that John and I have all the answers, particularly about parenting our young kids, in matters of religion and Christianity. We still observe the cultural and secular aspects of Christmas and Easter, and we talk with our kids about the Christian teachings surrounding these holidays, since the rest of their family is Christian and they are presenting us with questions about Jesus' birth and death stories. (And also because I believe that if they aren't exposed to a basic education about both the current prevailing religious beliefs and the lesser known ones, they will have no ability to do what John and I have done over the past seven years - mull over all the information and come to their own conclusions of what truth means to them when their brains are capable of doing so.) As they age, we'll also give them the historical context for these stories and how that context is so significant to the rituals accepted by Christians and non-Christians alike in our Western culture today. Wreaths, trees, eggs, bunnies, Christmas in winter, Easter in spring: all completely unrelated to the actual biblical stories given as foundational by the Christian church, yet accepted within the mainstream Christian circles as a natural part of the holiday. In reality, as I'm sure most people now realize, these aspects of the holidays that are considered purely "commercial" or "secular" have ancient pagan rituals at their root, and aren't technically "secular" at all. Similarly, the death, resurrection, and ascension story of Jesus in the bible has multiple look-alikes that, surprise! were circulating through more than one pagan community hundreds, even thousands of years before the preacher potentially named Jesus potentially lived in Galilee and potentially died during the reign of Pilate.

Yesterday we took the kids to an Easter egg hunt at a friend's house. She has a huge party every year where she invites the entire neighborhood and anyone she knows with kids. She provides a feast and invests in substantial amounts of candy, eggs, and Easter toys. She even has her front and back yards sectioned off for different age groups to allow the youngest children enough space and time to gather their plastic, sugar-filled treats without having the older kids knock them over in their mad dash for jelly beans. She carefully monitors her RSVP list and ensures that all the kids are present before starting the hunt. Once all the kids are accounted for, she gathers them around her, explains the age group sections, and then gives the "ready set go" okay before they all scatter wildly in search of their Easter loot. It's quite a sight, all those young kids in their fresh spring clothes listening intently to the hostess, the expressions on their faces exposing the most complex thoughts they have in their heads at the time - we want candy, and we get to go find some! Their faces aren't like their parents', whose tired, worried eyes can't be disguised even by the undoubtedly genuine smiles generated by watching the kids anticipate something so simple. Age and Responsibility and Life In The Western World has made disguise virtually impossible. But the kids have time on their side; they have a lack of experience with the constraints the world will place on them as they grow; they have appreciation for things their parents so easily take for granted - like the sun, the grass, and going on an expedition for bright blue and yellow plastic eggs.

For a brief moment yesterday, I understood what Bryce meant when he said he felt like we'd been here long enough already. He's getting old and mature enough to begin to experience the very first twinges of what I would ultimately call jadedness or discontent. The notion of springtime as a rebirth after the death of winter has something universally appealing to those human, age-constrained emotions. Whether you think of this time of year as Eostre's celebration or a remembrance of the Christian story of Jesus' resurrection, the universality of youth's newness and possibility is what the ancient holiday was originally intended to celebrate and to remember. Ultimately none of the specifics -- religious, secular, pagan, or commercial ones -- really matter all that much.

A quick update to yesterday's post

Well, so far we are all still alive (but there is a dead bird in the backyard).

If you don't hear from us after Friday, it's because we're dead. And Bryce really is psychic.

Lots of death thoughts going on around here. Yesterday was the anniversary of John's dad's death. The family really didn't acknowledge it; there is a bit of (this is going to be a shock) dysfunctional weirdness associated with certain aspects of how John's dad was or wasn't memorialized. It's ugly, actually. Suffice it to say that John was never all that impressed with a shoe box at the top of his mother's closet being the final abode of his dad's ashes. I know, right? He's so amazingly picky. (To be fair, the ashes have now been moved. To the inside of a statue of a baby boy. In his mom's house. NO, that's not creepy at all.) Anyway, for some reason I always remember the date because I had only met John's dad once, and my attendance at his funeral and wake were only silently and begrudgingly accepted by the family who still saw me as the quite scandalous young girlfriend they were hoping was just a phase John was going through. I've missed so much by not knowing his dad; he would have liked me more than any of the rest of my in-laws have, that's for sure. He was cynical and laid back and worldly - all traits I would welcome with wide open arms after the mind games I've endured from the females of the clan.

Also, I'm running out of clothes that are appropriate for the 90-degree "spring" weather we're having right now. Rummaging through my closet and muttering under my breath this morning, I came across the outfit I bought to wear to a funeral almost two years ago. The funeral was for a friend of mine who had died in a car accident on an Oklahoma turnpike. On Father's Day. With her husband and three-month-old baby. Her neck was broken and she died instantly. Her three-month-old had two broken legs, her husband was in a coma for two weeks and suffered minor temporary brain damage, two broken jaws, a couple of smashed knees, and event amnesia. The husband and daughter are both fine and healthy now...at least as fine and healthy as they can be without a third of their family. I wore the outfit, but couldn't stop associating it with the funeral, and I kept thinking, "geez, what's with all the death thoughts lately? why would I wear this today after the father-in-law death anniversary yesterday?" and then I'd shudder.

At dinner tonight, Bryce was using one hand to poke canned peach squares onto his fork, held in the other. I couldn't stop staring at all the peach juice dripping off of his fingers, onto the table, imagining that sticky, stubborn layer of nastiness I was going to have to wipe up later. He interrupted my internal cleaning map-out by saying, "are we going to die soon?" Yeah. If anything will snap you out of your agonizing over peach stickiness, it's your four-year-old saying "are we going to die soon?" in the same tone of voice that he'd say, "are some dogs purple?"

"No, we're not going to die soon, why do you ask?"

"Because we've already been alive for a really long time."

"Oh. So you think we've been around long enough now?"

"Yeah. I think we're all going to die tomorrow, actually."

"What? Why? Why do you say that?"

*shrugs, eats another peach* "Because. We've already been here a really, really long time."

"Well I think we're most likely going to die once we're really old. We still have a lot to learn."

"Hmm. No. No, I already know all the stuff."

"You've only been around for four years!"

"No, I've been here a lot longer than that. I think we'll die tomorrow. Or pretty soon."

Okay, WHAT THE HELL. As I was typing this, a FUNERAL HOME AD JUST CAME ON TV. It's prime time right now, all the other commercials are for car insurance or fast food joints. I've never seen a funeral home ad on this channel before in my life. Say some Hail Marys for us, people.

Mornings like that do NOT suck.

This morning I was checking e-mail on my way out the door to work, and Bryce shuffled in, his soft cowlicks sticking out all over his head, clutching his blanket to his chest. He tentatively approached; out of the corner of my eye, I could see him at my elbow silently seeking permission to interrupt my seemingly important grown-up activity.

Like his mother, sometimes Bryce can be a tad...unpredictable in the morning. I've learned to let him start the dialogue; it just works better that way, and besides, the kid loves to talk, in case I haven't adequately conveyed that. It's not like we go more than two minutes without a conversation starting, despite the fact that I never start it. Sometimes the conversations are tense, because Bryce often wakes up too early and this occasionally results in an unexplainable and apparently inexpressable foul mood. This means that rather than, oh, I don't know...GOING BACK TO BED like a normal person, he feels the need to follow me around and groan like a sick animal. I'm not so much into that. This means that I respond with a complete lack of sympathy, and he is understandably insulted, which leads to more groaning. Mornings like that really SUCK.

But there are different kinds of mornings, too - mornings like the one we had today. As he stood next to me while I scanned my inbox, I waited with baited breath, pretending not to notice him. Was it going to be a groany day? Were we all going to have to walk on eggshells or constantly threaten "time outs" to keep the peace? He kept standing there. Tap tap tap, I started typing a response. Then he spoke up: "Mom, I just wanted to give you a hug and a kiss." And then he did.

Oh, okay. I guess that's cool with me. I guess I can do without the yelling and tantrums this morning. I mean, I'll miss them, and I'll expect them back tomorrow, but for today, a hug and a kiss are fine, I suppose.

Boogers, spiders, and pee

This morning's conversation with Bryce.

Bryce: Dad, what did you pack in my lunch today?

Me: Oooh, I made a special lunch for you today! Boogers and Spiders!

Bryce: That's gross! I don't eat spiders!

_______________________________________________

Quinn is three years and one month old now. Kristen and I have been leading him towards losing the diaper and using the toilet for several months now, but Quinn isn't having anything to do with that potty nonsense. We don't want to push it, and try to get him to sit on the training toilet at least once a week day, but the little guy acts like we are putting him on a ring of fire whenever we sit him on the potty seat.

This morning, I got him out of bed, took off his pajamas, and when I took his diaper off, he was TOTALLY DRY. Hmm, one of the signs of bladder control, I thought to myself, and he must really need to go. I took him to the bathroom and sat him on the toilet. He countered with wails of protest and streaming tears of insufferable agony. Despite my aptitude for being able to turn these situations around by making an impromptu game out of it, he didn't lighten up and he didn't go. We headed back to the bedroom and on went the underwear (Buzz Lightyear underwear, uber cool big boy Buzz Lightyear underwear) and his clothes with instructions that if he felt like he had to pee, to hold it, and we would go pee in the toilet.

I lifted him off the changing table and headed out of his room to start breakfast. Quinn took two steps, stopped, and as I reached his bedroom door, he yelled "Dad! My pants are wet!"

Thinking, I've got another chance at success this morning, I put clean underwear and pants on him, talked about feeling the urge, holding it, and going in the potty. Quinn assured me he was in full agreement and we headed downstairs. He climbed into his chair at the table and I placed his Cheerios down in front of him. I began to unload the dishwasher and Quinn yelled "Dad, my pants are wet!"

Sigh. I just wish Quinn was as ready as I am to get past the diapers.

You can call him MC Slim Q.

Recently, while eating dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Quinn stopped his loud demands for chips and queso and a look came over his face - the same look a dog gets when it hears a squirrel rustle or a bird chirp, curious eyes, head cocked to one side, all other muscles perfectly still. The dog analogy is fitting, because Quinn is Super Sense Boy: his olfactory, auditory, and tactile awareness is astounding. A new song over the Mexican restaurant's sound system had caught his attention, despite the fact that none of the rest of us had noticed it because of the restaurant noise drowning it out. He started grinning and bobbing his head, and trying to mimic the words. It sounded something like "ga ta lee ah," only more garbled and toddler-ish than that.

I noticed it sounded a little more gangsta than what the restaurant normally plays, but I figured Quinn just liked the beat and didn't think much else about it. When the song ended, though, Quinn wasn't having any part of that: "I wanna hear ga ta lee ah again! I wanna hear it again! AGAAAIINNN!!" Fortunately, at that moment, the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets were placed in front of him, so his shouts were muffled after that. The boy likes to talk with his mouth full. Don't judge me. I'm working on it.

The next time we went to eat there, I had completely forgotten about this entire experience (and really, every time we go, the only thing I'm really thinking about is how quickly the margaritas will arrive). As soon as we sat down, with the stereotypical Mexican / South American music playing in the background, Quinn started up again: "Ga tah lee ah! Ga ta lee ah! I wanna hear it!" I was confused: "What? What are you talking about? Ga tah lee... oh wow. That song from last time? With the drums and the really fast yelling?" He smiled, his eyes sparkled: "Yeah! That song!" Hannah said, "I think the words are 'gasolina' - I noticed it last time, too." Right then, our favorite waiter Jorge (re-named "Forhay" by Quinn) walked up. "Gasolina?!" He had a knowing and amused look on his face. I told him Quinn had heard the song last time we were in and really liked it. He left the table. Soon, the traditional music stopped, and the Latino Rap came back on. Quinn was ecstatic.

I have no idea why Quinn is so obsessed with this, but something tells me Dutch won't be adding it to his kids' music mix anytime soon.

Here's the song. Now, envision a three-year-old trying to sing along. To the really fast parts. Oh. My god. It's hilarious.

So, apparently, all I had to do was ask.

Tonight after work, we had planned to have a picnic in the park with the kids. Fifteen minutes before I made it to my car to head home, the weather took our plans and crushed them under its cold, wet feet like an empty aluminum can. Dread filled my soul: the kids would have been pumped up for our outing, wound up tightly, all set to bounce and ricochet off the bright green plastic play equipment to their hearts' content, while, more importantly, John and I expended only enough energy to lift the Mikes' bottles to our lips. So what now? What diastrous combination of emotions and behaviors would I arrive home to find?

Not to worry; John thinks of everything. "We're going to have a picnic on the living room floor!" he said as I wearily surveyed the progressively more obnoxious behavior the kids were using to let us know how disappointed they were about the rain. Bryce kept climbing on our bed and trying to jump on it with his shoes on; Quinn kept running to the front door yelling, "I'm going to the park! I'm wearing a jacket!" despite the dozens of times we told him it was raining and we weren't going.

As I was putting clothes away and talking to John, Bryce was becoming more and more loud and demanding, so I tried focusing on him: "tell me about school today - what did you say about your wallaby in show and tell?" This didn't work to curb the behavior - he kept darting under covers, hanging on John's leg, and doing all manner of, well...annoying things. I finally said, "Bryce. You act like you're needing attention, but I'm trying to talk to you and give you what you need. That doesn't seem to be working, so I don't know what to do anymore. Rather than jumping and yelling and hanging off of us, why don't you use your words and tell me what it is you need?!"

He stopped and looked at us in a very matter-of-fact way and said, "I'm hungry." The kid ate two sandwiches, some graham crackers, and a bowl of pineapple, which, for those of you who aren't aware, is about one and a half sandwiches, some graham crackers, and a bowl of pineapple MORE than he normally eats.

Huh. It was so simple! If only I'd known before now, I could have saved myself years of anguish.

Variation on a theme: today a poltergeist, tomorrow another dinosaur romp.

With the ages and issues of our kids, I feel like I should have more to say, that every night I should be overflowing with sentiments of all types - amazement, awe, amusement, bewilderment, fear, anxiety, wonder, and yes, even weariness, frustration, and exhaustion. But honestly? Right now, I don't feel much at all. I'm not saying there aren't pieces of all of those feelings tacked here and there throughout these recent days -- just that none of them seem to outshine any of the others. Or maybe that's the problem, right? There are so many that my feeble mind can't filter all the noise and edit this current phase down to something I can coherently describe, or even think about; it's just a jumbled jigsaw puzzle of emotions and day to day activities. A small sample from today, but this could be any day:

Since the spring weather is upon us, for the past few days, the boys have been out playing in the front yard as I drive up from work. Sounds sweet, huh? It is. It's very sweet to see Quinn's eyes light up as he recognizes my car halfway down the street, and then comes darting across the yard to welcome me home. Of course, this sweetness is tempered a bit for me by the fact that I'm usually having a heart attack while screaming, "GET BACK GET AWAY FROM THE CAR LOOK OUT QUINN!!" as I move the car at a snail's pace into its spot in the garage. By the time I open my door, he is right there, already talking and has his fingers poised to push all the levers and controls on my dashboard: "We're catching bugs! What are these buttons? Why are you in the car?" I kiss his head, scoot past him and close the car door gingerly, then head to the yard to find Bryce, who is, lately, always playing hide and seek with me, despite the fact that I do not know this and before the last five seconds, haven't actually been there. I tell him hello, he peeks from around the tree, and in his typical quirky fashion, runs away growling. Sigh. I use the rare opportunity while the kids are entertaining themselves to have a conversation with John not involving pirates, and the kids seize THAT opportunity to start their nightly reign of terror. "Oh, look. Mom uttered an entire sentence without being loudly interrupted by a guttural noise. We're slacking: Double time!" The thousands of sticks littering our yard become swords, I reprimand them in another attempt to quell the innate desire they each have to impale the other one, then go back to an attempt at conversation with John, whose dead eyes tell a story of woe and hardship and battles lost: another day in paradise. And it isn't even bath time yet.

We go in for dinner and despite the whining and the protests about whatever apparent prison-grade gruel we're offering, end up laughing under our breath at some behavior we don't want to overtly encourage but admit later to each other that if we didn't find it funny, we could no longer call ourselves human, and though we have some moments of unexpressed blood-boiling rage at some of the manipulative and overtly rebellious tactics they each regularly utilize to elicit a reaction from us, manage to make it through the meal with no bloody stumps left in place of appropriate limbs and organs. Tonight Bryce even asked for more FRUIT after dinner, so when he finished that and asked for pudding, we picked our jaws up off the dirty kitchen floor and then gathered around to see if he would actually not explode if he ingested more than one ounce of food within an hour. While he was eating his pudding and I was finishing my dinner, Quinn was on my lap mooching chips, and all of a sudden, right in the middle of a sentence, Bryce became a flash of limbs and spoons and dirty water cups and smeared chocolate pudding and disappeared from our sight. All I saw was his hand swipe the top of the table (in an attempt to grab for support, I guess), his finger-printy water glass go flying, and then he was gone. THUMP. John's face had that priceless, "I really think that's hilarious but my kid might be hurt so I better not laugh, and wasn't it a shock to see him just disappear like that?" look on his face, and then we heard the cry from under the table.

That's right, everyone. Within three days, both kids have FALLEN FROM A CHAIR WHILE SITTING STILL. What is with these kids? John's theory is that we have a poltergeist. To that end, he jokingly asked Bryce, "did you feel someone push you?" and Bryce adamantly and repeatedly denied having felt anyone push him; he was more concerned that we acknowledge that he'd been hurt already! I asked him where it hurt, and he pointed vaguely to his side. I said, "oh, on your side there? ouch!" and he looked at me, sniffed, and said matter-of-factly, "you mean my hip." Yes. Not too hurt to correct his anatomically retarded mother, apparently.

I love what I do

I have the two best jobs in the world. My primary job of being a stay at home dad is satisfying and fun (mostly), but can be harrowing, dangerous, and frustrating at times (see all previous posts).

My other job, taking photographs, is fun (mostly), but can be harrowing, dangerous, and frustrating at times.

I was contacted by a mom to photograph her twins who are now 3 months. Twins. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't complain.

Here's a slideshow of the twins.

Hugo clearly needs to take some lessons from GW

For the most part, I stay politically quiet. I don’t feel comfortable participating in political discussions, because I always feel I haven’t done enough detailed research to back up any claims or “feelings” I may have on something. I suspect, though, that I do have an average knowledge of current world events, and that my discomfort with participating in political discussions has more to do with my understanding that my opinions are not typically shared with the majority, and that no matter how compelling I may find my reasons for my beliefs, I will NEVER change someone else’s mind about theirs. (I’m also lazy, and have no intention of unnecessarily expending energy. And that’s how I ultimately view pointless debates: the unnecessary expense of energy.)

With that disclaimer as a backdrop [REPEAT: I AM NOT TRYING TO CONVINCE ANYONE TO AGREE WITH ME HERE] and just for kicks, I do want to address an article I read about Hugo Chávez today. Apparently Chávez has had the bold audacity to spend his country’s extra oil money on “pet projects abroad.” John Negroponte said that Mr. Chávez is "spending considerable sums involving himself in the political and economic life of other countries in Latin America and elsewhere, this despite the very real economic development and social needs of his own country." Hmm, yes. Sounds serious. Because the United States definitely doesn’t condone involving itself in the political and economic lives of other countries!! No we don’t! Iraq? Shut up. Well, okay. We do that. But certainly not at the expense of our own economic development and social needs!! Education? Poverty? Some of the worst infant mortality rates in the world? Shut UP, I said.

What is Mr. Chávez doing with these extra billions, anyway? Well, certainly not anything the Bush administration could appreciate: “In the Bronx this past winter, Citgo, a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, provided heating fuel at a 40 percent discount to some 8,000 low-income residents of 75 apartment buildings.”

WHA…??

Yes, that’s right. Chávez spent a portion of Venezuela’s extensive oil proceeds on providing heat for low-income families IN THE UNITED STATES. But why would he need to do that, since the United States is so responsible about ensuring its own economic security before invading, I mean, aiding other countries? Clearly he’s just trying to show off; he could have used the $2 billion in question on programs in his own country, after all. Oh wait! He did do that ($8 billion last year, $10 billion this year).

"All I can say is thank God for him for being able to help me and some others get some oil," said Geraldine Shields, a homeowner who received 200 gallons of free oil in January and will be able to buy fuel at a 40 percent discount. "It's time somebody started thinking of the little guy."

There's his problem!! THINKING! Hugo, buddy. If you want to be a real leader in world politics, you've got to stop that nonsense. No. Thinking. Allowed. Especially not thinking of the "little guy." Amateur!

The joke's on me

I was in the shower, and Bryce came in to use the potty. Always needing to fill any silence, he starts a conversation with me . Please remember, he’s only 4, and I’m in the shower.

"Dad, do you like hot water?"

"You bet I do! I love hot water!"

"Then get ready, cause I’m gonna flush the toilet!"

"Bryce! Don’t flush! Don’t flush the toilet!"

Sinister, maniacal laughter. Then he flushed. And laughed again. And ran.

Fringenesis

In the beginning, Blogger created the Home on the Fringe template, and Kristen and John saw, and it was good. But soon Kristen, fickle blogger that she was, became restless and dissatisfied, and the only one available to endure her wrath was fellow blogger, John. And John saw, and it was bad. Sure, Kristen and John created a new banner, but it did not even link to the home page. And what was that miniscule text in the top left corner? The spoils of Kristen's fruitless attempt at hiding the forced Blog Title in the Blogger Template! She lamented - nay, bellowed, "How do I link the banner back home? How do I change the background color? I don't like the way this looks but I can't figure out how to change it! How? HOW? HOW?!" The angry blogger lashed out at the computer, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And then Blogger sent its only begotten Chag to save Home on the Fringe from the errors Kristen had caused with all of her amateur tinkering. Kristen said, "let there be a white background." and Chag made it so. John said, "Let there be a photo column." and Chag provided it, that sweet manna from Internet heaven.

And Kristen and John saw everything Chag had made, and behold, it was very good. And Kristen said, "We are not worthy of Chag's great template abundance. How can we repay him?" And John said, "by taking a vacation to visit him. He would LOVE that, I just know it."

Fridays on the Fringe

One thing I miss about my old job is that I got to leave at lunch time every Friday. EVERY Friday! Of course, this mostly meant that I had time to get home, clean up the breakfast dishes (John, buddy. We have GOT to work on this.), fold the 17th load of laundry for the day, eat some leftovers, check my e-mail, and leave to go pick up the kids from school. And inevitably I would forget to pack drinks and snacks for them, what with the not-being-used-to-picking-them-up-every-day thing. And that meant that the entire way home from school, instead of spending some quality time talking to the kids about their days and singing some happy pre-school tune like "The Wheels On The Bus" (what is wrong with me? is that my idea of a euphoric car ride?), I spent the whole drive trying not to cause a massive pile-up while steering with one hand on the wheel and one hand stretched behind me, my head flipping from the view out the windshield to the carnage that was forming in my backseat - little hands clawing at each other and my stupid, stupid arm trying to mediate the chaos, all while incrementally raising my voice in an effort to drown out the progressively louder shrieks and giggles and accusations coming from the (fortunately) strapped in bundles of hunger, thirst, fatigue and overstimulation. So, maybe it's good that I don't pick them up on Fridays anymore, huh?

Anyway, I took last Friday afternoon off so I could take Bryce to his school's book fair. John picked Quinn up from school, so we avoided the whole car / chaos / mom forgot drinks for both kids problem. However, on the way to the car, Bryce said, "did you bring me something to drink, mom?" I cringed. "Oh no! I didn't...I'm sorry I forgot. AGAIN." He kept walking non-chalantly. "Oh. Well, maybe I'll get a drink at home. It's okay that you forgot. It's okay that you forgot my drink, mom." (He had to say it twice, you notice. YOU FORGOT, woman. YOU FORGOT!)

I realized Friday that it really was never the lack of food or drink on Friday afternoons that was causing the chaos in the car, or at home, or wherever we would stupidly try to go eat that evening "for fun." It was the kids' dynamic together, at the end of the week; Bryce doesn't nap at all at school, and when Quinn goes on Wednesdays and Fridays, he only gets a short rest. Friday evening is the worst time. John lessens this effect by driving the car that has a DVD player and plying them with juice and milk as soon as they're strapped in, but the effect is the same as soon as he gets them home. If the kids aren't separated on Friday afternoon and evening, it's a recipe for disaster. And they're rarely separated, so...yes. Disaster every Friday at Home on the Fringe. Wooo! Strap yourselves in for the ride!

When I got Bryce home on Friday, I gave him his long-awaited snack. Quinn was upstairs playing. Peace and harmony reigned. And then, Quinn came downstairs. "You got new books, Bryce?" I heard Quinn show the slightest interest in something over which Bryce had momentary control, and suddenly I was in one of those slow motion movie scenes and I couldn't make it to the living room in time to intervene and successfully distract Quinn. Everything in the house was in my way. Walls closed in on me, I tripped over the dog, my legs didn't work correctly, my time stood still, while my ears conveyed to me the horror I was trying desperately to prevent: "NOOOOOO QUIIINNNNN!!! GGEEETTTT AAAWWAAAYYY FFRROOOMM MMYYY BBOOOKKKSSS!! THEY'RE MINE!" And then came Quinn's shriek-cry response, accompanied by what I knew would be his fist rising in the air in a threatening pose over Bryce's head.

I managed to separate them again briefly, but I got distracted and the trouble started again. This time they were in it together, racing around the house playing monster, growling at the top of their lungs, and Quinn came dangerously close to falling on the tile several times. I separated them again, feeling more and more exasperated, looking at the clock and wondering aloud, "what time is mom coming to get them again?" With about 10 minutes left before they would be leaving for a night with Megama, after three time outs for Quinn and multiple failed attempts at interesting Bryce in the wonders of the outdoors, I put Quinn at the table with his LeapPad. Bryce was momentarily and quietly playing with some toys in the living room. I was folding laundry. "Phew!" I thought, "we made it through the afternoon, and soon we'll be on our way to a lovey dinner out. We survived Friday afternoon with no major trauma."

And then it happened. While sitting still on his chair, not demanding anything, not complaining about the mediocre quality of his three-year-old life, not even requesting a glass of milk or reaching out for something, Quinn just FELL BACKWARDS OUT OF HIS CHAIR ONTO THE CERAMIC TILE FLOOR. How does that happen? One minute we're finally all enjoying a quiet, peaceful 30-second laundry-folding, LeapPad reading experience. The next, I hear a soft thud that can only be flesh-covered skull on tile. That sound makes my mouth go instantly dry and my adrenaline-infused body bolt from the couch and pick Quinn up like he weighs as much as an empty plastic sack. All in the same instant I think, he's still conscious, is he bleeding?, why don't I hear him crying?, he's obviously trying to cry because his mouth is open and his face is red, where is the sound? I knew he was really hurt when my mom, the deliverer of all things good, the one who lets us listen to the same song on the same CD 67 times in a row, walked in and he didn't acknowledge her. "Are you okay, Quinn?" she asked him as he buried his head in my neck and cried. No response. I held him a little longer and he pulled himself together enough to say, in what I think he assumed was a very mature use of grammar, "It's very hurting, mommy!"

I tried to ask him where exactly it hurt, but he insisted, no matter where I pointed on his head, that he hurt it on the floor, by god, THE FLOOR!

I knew something like this was going to happen eventually. Next Friday I'm getting the kid a helmet.