The 3 faces of B

The Bee was testing out his facial expressions this morning. Try to ignore the egg on his face -- this was right after breakfast before he got cleaned up.

Angry Face:

Sad Face:

Happy Face:

7 Ps

Mamacita tagged me for this a couple days ago. I'm a little slow on the uptake, but here goes:

Potato, as in sweet potato, my favorite nickname for the B.

Please let our daughter be on the list our agency received yesterday.

Pretty, which I'm sure she'll be.

Pukey, the way I feel today after drinking maybe one too many glasses of wine last night with my old high school buddy Morgan. Hmmmm...it really WAS just like old times.

Playing hooky, what I'm doing from work today (see above).

Purple, my favorite color.

Pantywaist, a weird name I've heard men call each other and never really understood. Or is it spelled "pantywaste?" I still don't get it. Anyway, I ran out of relevant P words, and that's what popped into my head. Take it or leave it.

Four pumpkins

This spring, someone at M's work gave the Bee a little tiny pumpkin plant. Seriously, the thing was in a little styrofoam cup with like a quarter cup of dirt and two itty bitty leaves. We planted it, then pretty much never did anything to it other than shove it out of the way when we needed to mow the lawn. That sucker must be 30' long now. It's amazing! Here are his four pumpkins:

Pumpkin #1

Not all that impressive (hint: it's right next to his right foot)

Pumpkin #2

Slightly more impressive, eh?

Pumpkin #3

Look at that monster! And it's still got two months to go!

Pumpkin #4

Poor pumpkin #4. We don't know what happened to it. One day it was there, the next it was gone, just a dried up little curl of vine where it once grew. I hope some raccoon family has feasted for a week!

It's Friday

Now playing at a blog near you, thanks to Friday5.org.

1. What were the circumstances surrounding your last all-nighter?
Not as exciting as the circumstances might have been a decade ago, I'm afraid. Back in those days, it probably would have involved getting a little tipsy, dancing 'til dawn, and stopping for breakfast on the way home. In reality, it was covering the 2006 election. I arrived at work at 5pm on election day, and left early in the afternoon the next day. It's actually pretty fun, but only if you're a totally wonky politics geek like me.

2. What’s your favorite stay-awake-and-alert food or drink?
Coffee. Brewed super-strong, made with about a 1/2 cup of hot milk (you have to time it just right, so you nuke it until it's on the verge of boiling, but it doesn't actually boil over -- makes it nice and frothy) and a heaping teaspoon of turbinado sugar. Mmmmm....must go make another cup right now....

3. What are you most likely to be doing when you’re up in the late, late hours of the night?
Getting the Bee back to sleep. Fortunately, this doesn't happen very often anymore (sound of me knocking on wood)

4. In what way does your personality change when you are sleep-deprived?
C-R-A-N-K-Y

5. If you get home extremely tired and extremely hungry, which need are you most likely to satisfy first?
The hunger. The sound of my tummy growling would keep me awake.

Now how 'bout you? Leave me a comment with a link if you choose to play.

Preschool cliques

Bee: Me-n-Isaac-n-Eno are friends. We're not friends with anybody else.

Me: Really? What about Leslie and Christina? They're not your friends anymore?

B: Nope. Just me-n-Isaac-n-Eno.

Me: Why? I thought you liked Leslie and Christina.

B: Eno said so. He said we're just friends with Isaac and Leslie and Christina aren't our friends.

Me (out loud): You can make your own choices, you know. You don't have to listen to Eno.

Me (inside voice): You've got to be freakin' kidding me! Peer pressure and cliques at age three and a half? In preschool?? How on earth are any of us going to survive the junior high years?

We have a new secret pal!

I say "we" because my new pal has a little one who sent a special present just for the Bee, and signed it "From your mini-secret pal." The Bee was thrilled when he saw that present with his name on it, of course. And even more excited when he opened it and discovered it involved dinosaurs! Bee's pal also included some very lovely original artwork for us, which I believe the Bee took up to his room to post on his bulletin board.

This month's goodies:

The Bee checking out his gift (a dinosaur coloring book with crayons):

And a totally unrelated picture I took today, which I include just because it makes me giggle a little and because I've been so very bad about posting pictures these last few weeks:

Scary scary, very scary

First off, let me begin with a little good news: the demon that has possessed my sweet little boy's body for the past week seems to have departed. He's been really funny and lovey today, and didn't call me a name or try to hit me even once. I have a theory: this morning when we left the house, I asked him if he remembered to bring his listening ears (there was an "incident" at preschool yesterday where he didn't listen to his teachers & ended up not getting to swim with his class). He said yes, but that their pretend batteries were dead. I replaced the dead pretend batteries with new pretend batteries, and boom! There you have it. A listener.

And now the scary part: I was on my way to pick up the Bee after school when my cell phone rang. It was M. I had just turned onto the street where the preschool is & was about 3 blocks away. I pulled over to talk to M. As I was sitting there, I noticed in my rearview mirror that there were about 10 police cars with their lights on in the parking lot of an old Walgreen's right across the street from where I was. This quickly multiplied to about 15 cars, then a couple pulled into the parking lot right next to me. When I noticed the helicopter circling, I got the creeps big-time. I interrupted M to tell him there were cops everywhere, I didn't feel safe, and I needed to get to the Bee to get him out of there. Then I pretty much hung up on him.

When I got to the school, the front doors (normally locked & you need a combination to get in) were standing open. I went in & told the receptionist what was going on down the street & that she might want to close the doors. Within about 30 seconds, they had locked every door and window, shut all the blinds, moved all the kids into rooms on the side of the hall away from the street, and announced a lock-down. Kind of sad that they had to hear it from me before the police called, but oh well. We were locked in for about 45 minutes before the police said they could let people go, even though they discouraged it. I ran out, stuffed the Bee in the car, and took off in the opposite direction. I did NOT feel safe there.

Why didn't I feel safe? Well, apparently one of Colorado's most wanted fugitives had holed himself up in a house three blocks down the street. They didn't know if he had hostages, or what kinds of weapons he had. By the time we left, there were at least two police cars on every block for about a mile around the school. And keep in mind, we left in the opposite direction of where all this was going on. There were three helicopters circling.

Unfortunately, his school isn't in a very good neighborhood. We LOVE the school, but it's pretty much in the worst part of town. Something along these lines happens about once a year. Last year it was a drive-by shooting three blocks in the opposite direction of today's stand-off.

I hope that all this will become a moot point, as we're considering moving to another town about 40 miles from here sometime in the next year. More on that some other day. I have to get off the computer, or I'll miss the beginning of the Daily Show! I can't miss my main (OK, only) source of TV news!

10-day recap

August 4-9 in Boston for business. Stayed at the same hotel M & I spent our wedding night. When I told them that, they put me in a suite. Sweet! It would've been more fun if M were there, of course.

Spent a "B & Mommy Super Fun Day" Friday with the Bee. We went swimming at Apex, which has a very cool indoor pool & also the best indoor play area I've ever seen. Last time we went there (sometime last winter), the Bee was too little to climb up into the play area by himself, and scared to go down the "dark slide" (it's one of those tunnel slides, & brown, so yes, rather dark) by himself. Not this time! He climbed right up there like a monkey and slid by himself over and over. I practically had to drag him out kicking & screaming.

Saturday was a big party at my parents' in honor of my sister & her fiance, who have been visiting from Maryland. The Bee played like a madman with a gazillion cousins and ate two and a half hot dogs. Gross.

Sunday morning, the Bee and I packed up our tent & headed down to New Mexico with my sister & her fiance. Our aunt has a house between Taos & Santa Fe, in a lovely little mountain valley. They had a houseful of people, so Bee & I stayed in our tent and my sister stayed in the yurt. We ate lots of good food (my uncle can cook like nobody's business), hung out by the fire watching for shooting stars (the Perseid meteor shower peaked while we were there), and generally had a good time. The ride back today was less fun, especially after I threw out my back then got carsick one hour into what turned out to be a six and a half hour drive. Another not-so-fun part was when the Bee was sitting in my sister's lap, then suddenly stood up and launched himself from her lap onto the concrete floor, face-first. I'm not exactly sure what he thought he was doing, but it was a horrifying moment. I saw him falling in slow motion. He landed smack on his face; I don't think he even had time to put his hands out to break his fall. His nose bled a little, although I was surprised and relieved it didn't get broken, and he's got a big red raspberry on his forehead from the carpet. Otherwise, he's fully recovered. It's good to be home, and a hot shower was just what I needed.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera on a single one of these adventures. Sorry about that! I'll make up for it in the next couple weeks.

Also in the category of unfortunate -- our agency hasn't gotten a new list yet. I was sure it would come while I was in New Mexico, just because I didn't have cell phone service or internet access while I was there. I jumped on the computer as soon as I got home, and no new list. Boo hoo. I'm still hoping it'll come this week. We have a class at CCAI on Friday night. Wouldn't it be great if they met us at the door & said they had pictures of our baby?! A girl can dream...

Things the Bee has said over the past ten days that amused me:

Mom and Dad (as opposed to Mommy and Daddy) appear to have stuck. He still calls me Mommy if he's tired or hurt, but 99% of the time I'm MOM. And he says it in this very deliberate way, so that you can tell he's really trying to stop saying Mommy.

We were at the grocery store, and B was driving one of those carts that looks like a fire engine. As we were cruising the produce section, he asked "Mom, where do you think this fire truck is going? It starts with mmm." I guessed it was going to the monkey house at the zoo. Wrong! It was going to "a mergency." Get it? To him, it's not "an emergency," but "a mergency."

When we were driving to Apex, somebody cut me off on the highway, and I called him a jerk. I ended up getting a 10-minute lecture about how I shouldn't call people bad names. He kept going "Remember, MOM, don't call people jerks, okay? It's not nice."

When we first arrived at my aunt's place in NM, she was giving us a tour of the new yurt. We adults were inside, and the Bee was out on the deck. We could hear him talking to this dog out here, and he was going "Come here, little puppy. Sweet black little puppy! Come here!" He was using this super-high voice, like I guess I do when I'm calling Kenai, and it was just the cutest thing. I just love to eavesdrop when he's talking to himself!

I'm in love

With my new vacuum! I've been complaining about our vacuum for a long time -- it sucks (in that it actually DOESN'T suck very well, ha ha!). Yesterday, after much research, I went out and bought a Eureka Capture. Of course, I immediately vacuumed the entire house when I got home, just to test-drive my new baby. I couldn't believe it! Now mind you, I'd already vacuumed yesterday with the old vacuum, so you'd think our carpets would be relatively clean. Well, I had to empty the canister four times! It was chock-full of dog & cat fur each time. Grrrrroooooosssss!!!! If you have pets and are sick of living in a fur-coated home, get to Target and buy one for yourself!

In other, totally unrelated news: We are now "Mom" and "Dad" instead of "Mommy" and "Daddy." This happened once before, about a year ago, and only lasted a couple of days. We'll see how long it lasts this time. I kinda miss being "Mommy."

More on the obsession with guns, and maybe pyromania too?

Tonight we were reading the new book that the Bee got for completing the public library's summer reading program. He got to pick it out himself. It's a book about firemen -- his favorite literary subject ever since he decided that he's going to be a fireman on the ladder team when he grows up. Well, really, his plan is that he and I are going to be firemen together when he grows up. I've agreed enthusiastically to go along with this plan so far, without mentioning the age limits most fire departments have that will prevent a nearly 60 year-old woman from becoming a firefighter recruit. I figure there's plenty of time for us to get into all that later on. Anyway, back to the book tonight.

Reading this 10-page book of mostly pictures takes 20 minutes because he has at least one question on every page. On the page where the firemen (actually, firemouse, firebird, and firecat) get to the fire, he asked me how the fire started. Before I could answer, he offered a couple of possibilities: "Maybe some kids were playing with matches. Or maybe a guy had a gun and it squirted lightling (aka lightning) and that started the fire."

Oh, where to start? The lightning obsession has really taken off in the last few days, ever since he overheard us talking about a jogger who was killed by lightning on a trail just a couple miles from our house last week. He doesn't really know what "killed" means, so he's not so much traumatized by this story as fascinated. And the guns "squirting" thing comes from playing with squirt guns at our friends' house on the fourth of July. M & I have both explained several times that real guns don't "squirt water," they "shoot bullets," and bullets give "very, very bad owie boo-boos -- blood owies!" Somehow this doesn't seem to be sinking in.

So what did I say to his "maybe a guy had a gun and it squirted lightling" theory? "Yeah, maybe." That's probably not going to earn me any parenting awards, but there's only so much explaining a mom can do, and only so much a 3.5 year-old boy can take.