Arts, Crafts and Colonel Kurtz.....

Since Josh has been born we've had a lot more time in the house than usual this summer. So, a couple weeks into his life Lucy, Josh and I hit the craft store to buy some art supplies. I thought "art projects" would be a great way to pass the time indoors. We loaded up on paint, markers, feathers, pom poms's, glue, stamps - you name it, we bought it. As much as it was "art projects" it was more like "new mother desperate to compensate for spending lots of time and attention on the new baby projects." Everyday I would try to spend some one-on-one time with Lucy working on a project. Now the combination of new baby, a two year old and a grown woman almost incapable of anyting craft-related was not quite the dream team - but I was going to make it work.

One afternoon when there was a brief lull in the throes of Josh's newborn fussiness I embarked on an art project to give Lucy and I some special Mom and Lucy time. I got out macaroni, twine, paint, paper....it was a production. Sleep deprived and feeling guilty that Lucy was watching more TV than I'd care to admit, I set out to have some quality time damnit....We started with the macaroni necklaces. As I tried to teach Lucy to string the dried pasta onto the necklace she mostly ignored me, tried to eat the pasta and then crunched it into a million bits when it fell to the floor. Josh was still sleeping so I strung the macaroni while Lucy made a mess and then moved onto stage two of the project - painting. I laid out the paint, gave a lesson on how to paint each stupid noodle and waited for Lucy to obidently and neatly follow my instruction. Instead, she mostly rubbed the paint on her hands like lotion. When I had to leave for a minute to tend to the waking fuss-bucket she painted her arms and stomach. She was very pleased with herself and when I returned to see it she proudly told me she painted her tummy. As she continued to camouflage herself like Martin Sheen in Apocolypse Now, Josh lit up like fireworks on fourth of July. As I placed him on a blanket to wail away, I got Lucy out of her chair and into the tub leaving a trail of fingerpaint handprints behind.

Eventually she got clean, he got fed. I learned that eventually we'd all get the hang of it and if it was going to work it would have to be real fun and not "forced fun" for our art projects together.

Guy Smiley

Josh is now almost three months old and he is so smiley. If you even just think about looking his way, his eyes light up and he smiles with his whole face. I noticed from the very first days of his life that he'd get these sneaky little smiles while he was sleeping. Of course when babies are that little people just discount those sneaky little smiles as gas or something else - but never are those little ones given credit for a real smile. I could tell with, "the guy" as we call him, that his smiles were genuine. They were while he was asleep or in a milk coma, but it was not gas, it was happy. When he was around four or five weeks old I got the first awake smiles. Talking to him on his changing table he'd look right at me and his little lips would curl into a goofy grin. Over the next weeks I noticed that I'd be feeding him and all of a sudden find myself laughing at something Lucy was doing and the big goof would look up at me and smile like he thought it was funny too. Milk would drool out of the sides of his mouth while he'd look like he was going to crack up. Now he smiles when you talk to him or make silly sounds. Lucy likes Josh to sit with her on the couch and while she chatters away or watches TV. Josh loves it too, he just looks over at his big sister and smiles. She is oblivious to his adoration. It is so nice and reassuring to see his smiles. He's just kind of a happy-go-lucky guy. He smiles like he's on the verge of laughter. Lucy was never that smiley as a little baby. Her poor little body was usually in too much upheaval from refulx that she was usually to pissed or uncomfortable to smile. It's nice to see a baby's gums from a big grin rather than a constant cry!

Potty Party

There are some things that I really amp up and get neurotic about as a parent. When Lucy was a colicky infant I researched formulas, pacifiers, bottles, nipples and everything else endlessly. I was certain that I could find the answer to stop her crying in a book, or on a website. As she got older I read about transitioning to solid foods, starting milk, drinking out of sippy cups and any other change to her routine. I would research endlessly, reading posts from other Moms on different approaches for tackling these issues. There were certain milestones that I got hyper about, and after Lucy's second birthday I was beginning to ramp up the process to tackle potty training.

When Lucy was around twenty-one or so months I bought a potty seat. When I brought it home and showed her she held it by the handles and stuck her face through it and grinned a huge ass grin. Okay, not quite time, so the potty seat went away. Eventually around Lucy's second birthday I busted the potty seat back out and every now and then would sit Lucy on it to just hang out. Clothes on, clothes off she'd sit for a couple mintues and then get bored. Every now and then she'd wake up dry in the morning, but there were no other cues for readiness that the books told me to be on the lookout for. When Josh was two weeks old, the whole house was just remembering how babies cry a lot and things can be pretty hectic. One morning I got Lucy out of her crib, took off her diaper and it was dry and then asked her if she wanted to sit on the potty and she said yes. Sure enough she peed and it was like the first landing on the moon - clapping, everyone looking at the pee. I was so proud of my little girl. Over the course of the next couple weeks she peed more and pooped on the potty. She was more ready than I was for this. I hadn't prepared my sticker charts or anything! Sure there were a couple days with pee on the floor and one poop in the underwear, but nothing too horriffic! She had basically potty trained herself. So we went out and bought underwear. We got fun colors, Dora underwear, Ariel underwear and even some Diego boy briefs since "the man" doesn't think little girls need Diego underwear. Anyway, I took Lucy to the toy store for a present for doing so good on the potty and she chose a trash truck.

My little Lucy proved me wrong once again. Sometimes I feel bad because I think I underestimate her. She took a new room and her baby brother in total stride - both things that sent me into a web surfing tizzy. I am so proud of her, she is becoming such a little girl. Now that she isn't in diapers she has total plumbers crack in like 90% of her clothes - it is pretty funny. She loves to pee in other people houses and relishes in everyone looking at her poo. We talk about her poo like she is laying golden eggs, but it seems to work. I dreaded the whole potty process, but Lucy once again proved to me that she is smarter than I give her credit for.

p.s. I use the word potty all the time now. It would have really annoyed me before I had kids to hear the word potty - but it really does sound much nicer that toilet. Given that I talk about it a LOT of time now, I'd much rather throw the word potty out there eleven million times a day than toilet.

The Meatball Song

I am always singing songs to Lucy. I am a horrible singer, but she loves songs and music so I sing songs she knows, make up songs, hum - whatever. So, last week Lucy, Michael, Josh and I were all loafing around on our bed and I started singing "On Top of Spaghetti". For those of you who are unfamiliar with this classic it is basically a song about a rogue meatball rolling off of the table and onto the floor, until eventually the meatball is nothing but mush. Sung to the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey", the meatball song is one I remember fondly from my own childhood. I thought it would be a funny, silly song that Lucy would really like. As I was singing I could see Lucy getting sad. It wasn't a typical toddler big burst into tears sad, it was a quivering of the lip and tears welling in the eyes sad. As I got to the end of the song tears were streaming down Lucy's little face and she was crying. So sad about the meatball, she was totally overcome with emotion and had no idea why. My heart melted. Her raw emotion and empathy were so sincere I just gave her a big hug. It was so funny and cute at the same time. I wanted to keep singing the meatball song because it was so cute, but it just made Lucy too sad. Now when we talk about "The Meatball Song" she tells me not to sing it because she cries and then she asks me why it makes her cry. She is such a funny little bird, so sensitive. The silly little meatball song making her cry makes me smile. I'm not quite sure why.