Stop, mom.

"Gavin, I love you. I love you so much."
"Mom, stop saying that all the time. I know."


There was a coffin sitting next to a hole for 2 days in the graveyard across the street. I was amazed. Why, we could just sneak in at night and tip the lid off and see who was in it! My mother insisted it must be empty, waiting for a funeral, but the next day I spotted workers pushing it into the hole and grabbing shovels. My goodness, we really could have gone and had a peek. How strange and mysterious. And if Mike leaves me out in the sun for two days without a funeral, I will haunt him mercilessly. He assured me he would not. He would give me a skylight so people could look in properly.

The shirts I ordered last month arrived today. Landline's revenge.



Finally Friday. That was the longest week ever. The family is collapsed around the room, drinking Killian's while the kids snarf down Krispy Kremes. I am having tea. I have my willpower back just in time for Mother's Day. The men plan to fatten us up at the steak house, but I plan to eat either salad or shrimp, because I am in control here. I have a firm hand for these controls, yes I do.

Bum

You learn something new every day. Who knew "fanny" was a dirty word in the Land of Fish and Chips? "I want to lay outside and tan my fanny," I told Mike, then laughed at my own hilarity.

I sat in the back of the car on the way to dancing, trying to read my book while my mother turned in her seat to ask me questions about faucets and Gavin fed me firetrucks while using my hair as reigns. He is going to make a terrible horse owner. I finally detached myself and made a run for it at the 7-11, heading up to Yuri's house for an evening of "packing".

We sat in the remains of Yuri's tiny apartment eating vegetarian chicken wings and fake riblets, discussing men, whether Stephen Colbert was as do-able as Jon Stewart, and watching the cooks on Top Chef get into fights over who turned down their ovens. I made off with a bag full of hangers, some interesting (unopened) girdle panties, an enormous jar of pesto, and a weird racist piggybank. When dancing was over, I walked back down to the 7-11 to meet the family. Gavin admired the piggybank, pointing at its little grinning teeth and declaring that it looked just like me. Lovely.

It has been a week, and we are fully night weaned. This means I can get up to stuff at night, if for some reason I was able to drag myself out of bed and think of something to do, which I think has actually never happened. But it could now. It also means I can go away for overnight trips. Not that I have any plans to; I can not afford the plane tickets to the ALA conference as I had hoped. Anyway, sleeping through the night is nice after almost 4 years.

In the dark early morning, Gavin twined his fingers in my hair and whispered, "Mom, don't go to work, stay home with me." Just about tore my heart out. 

Thursday. Only another work day before I can repeat my impersonation of a popcorn kernel on the beach. At least I can use both arms again. It is sad to lose my best excuse. "I can't [clean the littler box/wash dishes/get off the couch], I only have one arm."

Italian: the new Mexican

The Mexican restaurant was bursting capacity by 6:00pm when we arrived. Already-drunk college and military kids hooted on all sides. Gavin crouched against a wall warily. "Sorry, it's gonna be a 2-3 hour wait," said a very not-sorry hostess, who then turned and complained loudly to a bouncer that it wasn't even 7:00pm yet. A radio station had set up tables of jello shots behind an enormous yellow taped barricade that blocked an entire row of parking spaces. Presumably this was where the party would rage until 3am. We decided to leave the scene while still intact.

Mike met us as we were walking away, his hair mushed flat on the top by his helmet. I tried to fluff it and tuck the puffy bottom bits behind his ears, and he gave me an irritated glare. We walked to the Old Spaghetti Factory and went upstairs to the bar while waiting for our table. The bar was empty, with fancy dark wood furnishings, dim and golden with dangling stained glass and wrought iron chandeliers. We ordered three margaritas and Mike taught Gavin how to play Space Invaders on the retro table arcade. I've always wondered about bars with stairs in them, but I negotiated them well enough despite the heels, dangling toddler, and impractically large margarita glass. The Spaghetti Factory earns 4 stars for atmosphere, but the food seems to be reheated from Costco cans. I stirred my mandarin chicken salad in circles to make it look like I was eating a bit. The drink made me talkative.

mom: What's she saying?
Mike: She's talking in chat.
me: lol. lol @ me.

Sheesh. Afterwards we walked downstairs to look at colored noodles at the kitchen store. 

The cat jumped on my head when I was 15 minutes late waking up this morning (5:30am) and I am downstairs with a hot bowl of oatmeal, a cup of tea, and spare time to blog. Good start to a Saturday.

(night 3, no nursing)

Weaning

Night two with no nursing. Not used to sleeping the night uninterrupted, I am awake at 5am.

Two days ago, Gavin endured a horrific dental procedure. His front chompers were deteriorating - due in part to the nighttime milk. I had a small tantrum at the dentist's office last month and demanded they special order white caps for him instead of putting the steel teeth of poverty on my child. Apparently milk teeth are too small for porcelain, and the technology for enamel-coated children's caps has only just been invented. They were confused about why I cared whether Gavin could smile confidently for the next 3 years, but they agreed to use him as their guinea pig for the new product. My mother took him in for his 3-hour appointment while I was in class. "He looked a bit like Golem there for a while," she told me later, "and it took so long the pain killer wore off. He cried when he thought they were done and weren't, but he hung in there and didn't melt down." My poor baby. The teeth look good, at least, and he was more than happy to score two new toy trains because we felt so bad.

So somehow I thought this terrible day would be a good time to wean him. He lasted until 2 am before sobbing quietly against the wall, and then turning to me tentatively and asking between tears in a quiet heart-breaking voice cracking with utter despair, "I can't nurse anymore?" He rolled over and hugged me and sobbed into my chest. I relented, but reasoned, "Only once a night, ok?" He agreed with complete relief, snuggling down against me while I kissed his head.

And the little guy has been true to his word. He nurses once at bedtime, happy and snuggly, then rolls over and sleeps the entire night. I'm both relieved and sad. It won't be long now before our nursing days are completely over. He asked to sleep in his own bed at nap time yesterday. It makes my chest hurt.

Lazy weekend

Gavin paints the new shelf:



Mike paints the new shelf as well:



I do not paint shelves:



It was a nice weekend. Yuri and I caught up over brownies and shopping - it seems she is leaving Hawaii forever in a few weeks. I'm sad about it.

Our family spent the morning in Kailua having breakfast with Ron. Mike and I hit the gym for the second day in a row and then boiled our butts in the hot tub. This evening we will measure ourselves and compare from week to week.

Queen of the eyesores

The sky this morning was grey and still, and I felt the same. I drove slowly, passed by the fire station, waved at the bleary-eyed firemen, braked for a flock of mynah birds, and sat in my car for a minute in front of the school. Pulled on my sandals, turned off the music. It's no use, listening to music. I can't find anything that fits right anymore. Too loud, too whiny, too quiet. At least I have books. I'm reading Princess Academy, one of this year's Newbery honors. I like princess books that don't follow the Disney Princess Cult guidelines for acceptable behavior. As a kid, the Paperbag Princess was one of my favorites.

I'm waiting for my eyes to dilate into dark pools of insanity as my cold medicine kicks in. I should have stayed home, but it is my job to get the high school kids to read, and this is their first library day in a month.

Doped up and slightly loopy, we went to yoga anyway. Our yoga instructor stopped us outside class and asked if we had been doing yoga for a long time. She said we are very flexible. As we went up to lift weights and shower, Mike grumbled that his hips didn't feel flexible. He is trying to make them limber, I'm just trying to get mine to hold themselves together again.

Gavin has decided he doesn't like the daycare room.
"There are no babies," he said.
I tried to encourage him, "You could make friends with the bigger kids."
"I could make them go way up to the top [of the play structure] and push them off real hard!" he said.
"Um, no,"
"I could hit them in the head with a car and make them fall down down and cry," he said, bashing his fist into his hand.
"Or you could play with them and ask them what their names are."
Gavin sighed.
At the end of the (non-head bashing) evening, we stopped at the store and bought the boy a donut, since he had eaten his dinner and a lot of fruit already. I handed it to him in the car and told him, "That was the last one."
Gavin let out a maniacal laugh and held it up triumphantly, "The last one! And it's mine! Ha ha ha, now they can't have any! Mwah ha ha ha!" And he ate it up.
I love my kid..

Easter 06

That's cool with me, it's not my favorite...

I just realized at this moment that it is the pain medication to blame for my recent loopiness. And that you should not swallow pills with boiling tea.




Gavin napped for 3 hours and woke up with the urge to boogie. "Dance!" he commanded as he rolled out my yoga mat. We did manic yoga to The Darkness.

"No, Mike, stroganoff is too fatty," I said at dinner time. 20 minutes later we were eating fried chicken fritters at the Chinese restaurant. Well played.

At RSCDS, Gavin's idea of dancing was to grab my hands, yank me forward, and yell "bonk!" while head butting me. Then he turned, did a little jig, skipped in a circle, and stood doing his alarming little impersonation of Michael Flatley; locking and unlocking his knees spasmodically. I examined the box of organic vegan gummy bears we bought at the health food store (boiled corn syrup, oooh, healthy) and read my book, then fell asleep in the car, mouth hanging open.

Onward to Easter! Ready to eat chocolate again. Gavin has gotten the hang of this Lent business. When I reached for his M&Ms at the theater, he pulled them away and said sweetly, "No, mom, you have to wait until Easter. I'll eat them all." Blast.

136.4

books and cupcakes

All by myself. Well, and my mother and Gavin. Mike flew away into the night, off to New York on his adventure. Gavin slept soundly, barely twitching, while I rolled across the empty side of the bed, so happy to take advantage of the room that I wasn't able to get comfortable.



Gavin tossed apples, oranges, bananas, and grapes into our basket while we were at the store looking for cupcake sprinkles. It is my policy to buy whatever produce he asks for, so I unloaded the pile of fruit at the register with a shrug. We shredded up a whole bag of carrots and made carrot cake cupcakes, smeared with cream cheese frosting. Gavin decorated them with layers of multi-colored sugar balls, and we each ate one. I sat on the bench at the empty park and read my book ("Airborn", by Kenneth Oppel) while Gavin played on the jungle gyms and rolled his trains down the slides. We stuffed ourselves into our tiny tub and washed off the playground dirt, then sat around watching cartoons until dinner. My mother came home and dismantled the DVD player, retrieving the paperclip Gavin poked inside. After dinner, the boy fell asleep on the couch under a blanket while my mother and I drank tea. My cousin and aunt arrived. The kids are eating grapes and cupcakes, I refilled the teapot with English toffee tea. Very domestic.

I'd like to have some adventure too, though.

Pictures

Gavin acts cool as usual:



Me in a skirt for the party last week:



Mike in his kilt today:



New Maui Celtic shirt: