It's winter now all of a sudden and so I think it's time for a round up of the year. Here, read some stuff about somebody else's kids.
Stellina and Space Monkey
Stellina's in school three days a week, and looooves it. Loves wearing the shirt that has the name of her nursery school on it, and would probably wear it every day if her mom let her. So smart, loves her brother, very particular about ... everything. Eats a turkey sandwich for lunch every day, with dill havarti.
Baby Space Monkey, 9 months already! Crawling, drooling, says "mama" but is that just a thing that kids do without knowing?, has four teeth - bottom two central incisors and two top lateral incisors... he looks like he got in a fight. Would love to stand and walk, not quite there. His hair sticks straight up on top because he's got two cowlicks on the back of his head.
I went on a 5-day trip to Florida with these kids a few weeks ago, and it was much less work than I expected. Stellina loves the iPad so that made her portion of the flight really easy, and Mr. McDrool slept on the first flight, and kept the screaming to a minimum on the way back.
Big and Tiny
Tiny is about 14 months, walking, eating everything in sight, signing and talking also, still has barely any hair, and her mom wrote in their Christmas update that Tiny is sunshine in human form, which is all the way accurate. Not so tiny anymore, because of all the eating.
Big is still big and everything. I don't really see him very often because he goes to school.
Baby Bieber Bear
Turned two at the end of October, and talks all the time and is intelligible about 65% of the time. Has gotten to love playschool, and all he wants to do ever is "play cars and trucks and trains" which means sorting through his giant box of vehicles, and sometimes building tracks, sometimes just lining all the vehicles up on the table. We like to go to the library and also to Union Station to watch the MARC trains.
Three Horsechildren of the Apocalpyse
They moved to Alabama a few months ago, which makes me sad but I guess they are doing okay there. I saw them last week at their cousins' house so the parents could go out for dinner, which was hilarious and exhausting, but so nice to see them.
Zannah is 9, and is as string-beany as ever. Loves talking back and doing other delightful pre-teen things.
Prince Philip is 6, reads (!), wrote me a beautiful Christmas card that says he wants me to come visit them in Alabama. My heart grew three sizes that day. He's lost both top two front teeth, so he looks like an older bigger version of Baby Space Monkey, which is hilarious, because they share the same name in real life.
Captain Bananio is insane. He's 3 and a half, is only intelligible 50% of the time, and the rest of the time lives in his own little Bananilicious world. He stomps around and spits and jumps and yells and laughs maniacally and sometimes you just have to shake your head and walk away.
It's been three whole years now since I started watching those kids. Surprisingly, the one who I miss the most is Prince Philip. When Captain Bananio was a baby, he was sweet and docile and calm and all smiles, and Prince Philip was pouty, threw terrible tantrums, whined, and was just kind of a crappy 3 year old. Three years later I see that those tantrums were nothing, when compared to the havoc that Captain Bananio now wreaks on a daily basis. 6-year-old Prince Philip is happy, sweet, loving, and just wants to do things that he can be proud of, like reading and writing. He's still the silly little boy who loves to fight with pretend swords, and man, you should hear that kid recite the plot of Star Wars. I think I'll always have a special attachment to Captain Bananio because he was the first baby I ever watched, and I'll never be able to get over the wonder of watching kids grow up, but Prince Philip has surprised me the most by turning into not just someone I like to take care of, but a person I really like.
The Newest Charge
Now I watch a new baby, who I will call Small Fry, and I love her and she is so cute. She is three months old and what a three months it has been. Her parents are first-timers so they ask advice from me sometimes, which is pretty crazy to think about, that anyone would ask advice from me about anything, much less the rearing of a small infant. She's a good baby, very calm, very observant, very peaceful in the way she watches things. I hope I get to know her for a long time, because I think she will grow up well.
And now what I know about 2012 is that these kids will all get older and bigger, and new babies will come and they also will get older and bigger. For that is what the little ones do best.
Showing posts with label tl;dr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tl;dr. Show all posts
03 January 2012
04 March 2011
Come By Here
February sucked. March is doing okay, I guess. For a few days I was completely insane, crying at the drop of a hat and wanting to break things. Then I had a tiny mini-vacation day where I got to eat sushi, and frozen yogurt with mochi, and a nummy pastry, and I got my nails did, and I have been mostly better since then. Also, it turns out that getting manicures is awkward, and considering I messed mine up in 4 places within fifteen minutes, I don't believe I am built for it. This is fine. It was pretty effective in getting my hands to stop shaking post-doctor appointment.
Imminent Space Monkey is still Imminent, getting more and more so every day. Stellina went through a week where she was terrified of baby brudder and didn't want to see her mom, but now she is back to checking brudder's room every night before bed to make sure everything is in order. Due date isn't until the 18th, but I guess babby could come anytime between now and then. New Babbies! They are so great.
BiebzBear is either growing out of his annoying-as-hell stage, or I am getting more tolerant, and I think it is both. I have been reading lots of parenting books which I think is helping with my ability to understand why he does the annoying shit that he does, and/or to change things so he doesn't do them. I spend most of my time with him, now, usually 20-25 hours a week.
I seem to have picked up a church gig now at a small Methodist congregation in Arlington. It is fine. They pay me decently for minimum-impact work, though they have a 10:30am Sunday service - 9:30 call time is so early! Hymns and simple anthems are fine but I desperately miss singing in Latin and I miss singing early music and I miss singing anything challenging. The choir members are mostly older folks, with two other paid youngsters like me, and everyone is really friendly and nice. But Methodists are weird, and also this church is in the middle of nowhere. If I could find a Catholic or Episcopal church that was easier to get to and wanted to pay me to sing for them in a slightly more professional choir, I would miss my friendly little Methodists, but I would be less bored. In rehearsal yesterday we started working on a simple Thomas Tallis piece, which made me miss early music in a way I never thought I would.
Speaking of church, I am planning to do a Lent project. I seem to do okay when I have projects to accomplish, with little steps and an end-date, and not so well when I have a giant amorphous "do this until you are done with it" assignment. So I am going to try to exercise every day from Ash Wednesday to Easter, I guess with Sundays off?, in some manner or another. I am hoping it will help with my general lethargy and low energy/motivation levels, since it really couldn't get much worse. However, because I believe that running is for chumps, I am tasked with coming up with better ideas for exercise. I am thinking lots of dance classes and bicycle (impending warmer weather = a huge plus for bicycle), and maybe I'll find a yoga class even though I do not like yoga, or do a trial membership at a gym or something. Also, I hate running not only because it sucks and it's for chumps only, but also I can never get my iPod headphones to stay in my ears just while I'm walking, let alone running. What is the solution to this! Are there excellent running headphones out there that anyone knows? Also are there good exercise ideas?
Anyway, Lenten Project Oh-Eleven. I don't know if it will work and maybe it won't, but I will try. I am bored and I can never get anything done. I feel like I am always trying to play catch-up with myself. I can never make any positive progress because my room is never clean, and I can never clean my room because I have too many things to do, and I can't do those things because I am at work or sleeping.
When I first started watching Stellina I used to marvel at how Stellina's mom kept her house so impeccably clean with a such little kid. It didn't take long for me to realize that her secret, I guess, is that she never lets herself get behind in the stuff she has to do. StellinaMom keeps their days so regimented that everything always gets done when it needs to get done: laundry, dishes, wiping down all non-porous surfaces, putting away toys. Stellina's up at 6:30 or 7, lunch is at 12, nap is from 1 to 3, dinner is at 6:30, bathtime at 7:15, in bed at 8. Scheduling gets harder, of course, now that Stellina is the Queen of Stalling. Stall-ina, haha, get it. She also refuses to use toothpaste, what's up with that!? She and I discussed why, and she said, "Because it's too blue." A likely story.
Back to always playing catch-up. Every task I ever have always seems just a tiny bit out of hand. Too much laundry, too many shoes to put away, too much floor to sweep. It's so much easier to get in the bed and stay there for three hours, until it's time to find food and then get back in bed for the nighttime sleeping. I almost wish for a fresh start but I think that would require moving, and not only does moving REALLY suck, it never quite seems to be a fresh start, because I'm always running out of packing/moving time, so I put everything in boxes as quickly as possible. Then on the other side I'm just unpacking boxes of crap that I don't know what to do with, and then I still have the same piles of crap that I had in my old residence. I think what I need is two days where I can mega-dose with speed, I mean... caffeine? and do all my cleaning that I could ever possibly need to do, and everything else I've been avoiding, and then a mini-vacation, and then I can manage to have a mini-fresh start and be happy. And I can do my best to channel StellinaMom and never get behind in small, daily tasks.
Why does my happiness depend on how clean my living space is?!
Imminent Space Monkey is still Imminent, getting more and more so every day. Stellina went through a week where she was terrified of baby brudder and didn't want to see her mom, but now she is back to checking brudder's room every night before bed to make sure everything is in order. Due date isn't until the 18th, but I guess babby could come anytime between now and then. New Babbies! They are so great.
BiebzBear is either growing out of his annoying-as-hell stage, or I am getting more tolerant, and I think it is both. I have been reading lots of parenting books which I think is helping with my ability to understand why he does the annoying shit that he does, and/or to change things so he doesn't do them. I spend most of my time with him, now, usually 20-25 hours a week.
I seem to have picked up a church gig now at a small Methodist congregation in Arlington. It is fine. They pay me decently for minimum-impact work, though they have a 10:30am Sunday service - 9:30 call time is so early! Hymns and simple anthems are fine but I desperately miss singing in Latin and I miss singing early music and I miss singing anything challenging. The choir members are mostly older folks, with two other paid youngsters like me, and everyone is really friendly and nice. But Methodists are weird, and also this church is in the middle of nowhere. If I could find a Catholic or Episcopal church that was easier to get to and wanted to pay me to sing for them in a slightly more professional choir, I would miss my friendly little Methodists, but I would be less bored. In rehearsal yesterday we started working on a simple Thomas Tallis piece, which made me miss early music in a way I never thought I would.
Speaking of church, I am planning to do a Lent project. I seem to do okay when I have projects to accomplish, with little steps and an end-date, and not so well when I have a giant amorphous "do this until you are done with it" assignment. So I am going to try to exercise every day from Ash Wednesday to Easter, I guess with Sundays off?, in some manner or another. I am hoping it will help with my general lethargy and low energy/motivation levels, since it really couldn't get much worse. However, because I believe that running is for chumps, I am tasked with coming up with better ideas for exercise. I am thinking lots of dance classes and bicycle (impending warmer weather = a huge plus for bicycle), and maybe I'll find a yoga class even though I do not like yoga, or do a trial membership at a gym or something. Also, I hate running not only because it sucks and it's for chumps only, but also I can never get my iPod headphones to stay in my ears just while I'm walking, let alone running. What is the solution to this! Are there excellent running headphones out there that anyone knows? Also are there good exercise ideas?
Anyway, Lenten Project Oh-Eleven. I don't know if it will work and maybe it won't, but I will try. I am bored and I can never get anything done. I feel like I am always trying to play catch-up with myself. I can never make any positive progress because my room is never clean, and I can never clean my room because I have too many things to do, and I can't do those things because I am at work or sleeping.
When I first started watching Stellina I used to marvel at how Stellina's mom kept her house so impeccably clean with a such little kid. It didn't take long for me to realize that her secret, I guess, is that she never lets herself get behind in the stuff she has to do. StellinaMom keeps their days so regimented that everything always gets done when it needs to get done: laundry, dishes, wiping down all non-porous surfaces, putting away toys. Stellina's up at 6:30 or 7, lunch is at 12, nap is from 1 to 3, dinner is at 6:30, bathtime at 7:15, in bed at 8. Scheduling gets harder, of course, now that Stellina is the Queen of Stalling. Stall-ina, haha, get it. She also refuses to use toothpaste, what's up with that!? She and I discussed why, and she said, "Because it's too blue." A likely story.
Back to always playing catch-up. Every task I ever have always seems just a tiny bit out of hand. Too much laundry, too many shoes to put away, too much floor to sweep. It's so much easier to get in the bed and stay there for three hours, until it's time to find food and then get back in bed for the nighttime sleeping. I almost wish for a fresh start but I think that would require moving, and not only does moving REALLY suck, it never quite seems to be a fresh start, because I'm always running out of packing/moving time, so I put everything in boxes as quickly as possible. Then on the other side I'm just unpacking boxes of crap that I don't know what to do with, and then I still have the same piles of crap that I had in my old residence. I think what I need is two days where I can mega-dose with speed, I mean... caffeine? and do all my cleaning that I could ever possibly need to do, and everything else I've been avoiding, and then a mini-vacation, and then I can manage to have a mini-fresh start and be happy. And I can do my best to channel StellinaMom and never get behind in small, daily tasks.
Why does my happiness depend on how clean my living space is?!
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