Bumblebee Sweet Potato

The transition stuff at my job is shaking out, and I’ve blogged about it in the previous post. If you’re a regular reader, and want to read about it, email me or leave a comment here and I’ll send you the password.

Men (particularly my coworkers) who describe themselves as “babysitting” when they are simply taking care of their own children in the absence of their spouse.

Does this bug anyone else?

I confess, I can’t stop myself, I say it every time. “It’s not babysitting if you’re taking care of your own children. It’s parenting.”

(guess not all of my brain is consumed by non-bloggy thoughts)

I’m spending a lot of time lately trying to figure out a major transition in my work life, and I think it’s taking up all the space in my brain that’s normally devoted to blogging. Hopefully, I’ll have worked through it all by the end of this week, and I’ll be back to normal posting on the weekend.

Landisdad is away for the weekend, and the kids and I are planning some fun stuff together. While I’m generally out of town at least once a month for my job, LD rarely travels alone. He’s off to celebrate the 40th birthday of his oldest friend, and I’m hoping that he has the great time that he deserves.

Last year, when he was working on Sundays, I had lots of day trips with the kids, and I kind of miss the mommy-kid only time.  It’s draining, being the only parent ‘on,’ but I also feel like our interactions are fundamentally different (and by different I mean easier) when they are alone with me, rather than with both of us.

In some ways, it’s not so much them that’s different as it is me. When I know that no one else is going to get up and get the Potato his breakfast at an ludicrously early hour, I just get up and do it–I don’t lie in bed thinking, “why doesn’t he get up?” While it’s true that the Bee, generally, is more helpful when there’s only one grown-up around, it’s also true that I’m more focused on my kids when I’m the only grown-up around.

That being said, it’s time to get off the computer, and help the Potato vacuum under his bed. Why does he have to do that at 8 in the morning? The world may never know.

We recently got the book Bugs Before Time by Cathy Camper, which is about insects in the pre-historic age. Both my kids are really into it–it’s a picture book, which the Potato likes (plus it’s about bugs! and dinosaurs! what could make an almost-four-year-old happier?), and it’s filled with tons of cool facts, which the Bee is into. For example–there were once water-based scorpions bigger than your bathtub wandering the face of the earth. Also, six-foot-long millipedes. Ew. The pictures are really cool, though.

It occurred to me, after we got it, that while there are tons of great kids’ fiction books out there that are age-appropriate for the Bee, I haven’t been that thrilled with the science writing for the tweener set. I suppose there are those who would consider a book about bugs from the pre-historic era to be fiction, but we’re a pro evolution family here in landisville.

There are tons of good little kid science books, but most of our older kid science library is made up of books that landisdad had when he was a kid. I assume that part of the reason for this is that I’m prejudiced in favor of fiction, so those tend to be the kinds of books I like to buy, but I also suspect that it’s due to a lack of good writing aimed at this market. Most of the science books I see have titles like Gross!, and just don’t seem that interesting. I’m also really not that into things like Science for Girls, although I am interested in teaching science to my girl. It’s the segregating of science into a girl/boy thing that I can’t countenance.

We had a block party yesterday, and one of the moms had gone to the dollar store and gotten a bunch of little toys for all the kids to play with. After the Potato finished freezing himself in the various kiddie pools, he picked up a bug collecting kit, and spent easily an hour trying to catch ants and other various insects. Finally, his dad caught a firefly for him at dusk, and we spent some time talking about how its body looked, and the similarities between the firefly and the pre-historic insects (look! an abdomen!). He kept the firefly overnight, but we let it go this morning–I told him that I didn’t know what fireflies ate, so we needed to let it fly away to find something to eat.

I like it when my kids are curious about the world, whether it’s the world today or the world of 300 million years ago.
PS–Happy Father’s Day!

Lately, the Potato has developed a new sound to replace whining. It’s very similar to the noise a balloon makes when it’s leaking air. It’s also optimally designed to drive his parents totally insane.

He can sustain it for a disturbingly long time, which gives me hopes that he may have the lung capacity to be an Olympic swimmer. Barring that, a successful glassblower.

I know that reacting to this exciting new noise is about the worst possible thing for me to do, but I’m worried that his high-frequency emission is about to force blood to seep out of my eyeballs. Any suggestions?

Since the last week of April, I’ve been involved in the organizing of about 9 events, which is about an event a week. It hasn’t actually been an event a week–one week featured three (ugh!), but it’s felt long and draining, nonetheless.

I’m a little tired of sitting through meetings. Don’t get me wrong, my usual job involves lots of meetings, but the meetings that involve event planning are harder. They’re more likely to involve people from other organizations, for one, which means that you have to get through a bunch of organizational culture issues. Tiresome.

I  thought I was nearing the end of the line–the last of my planned events was scheduled for next week–but my boss just put me in the planning loop for another one, that happens the last week of June.

And of course, it’s the end of the school year, with all its attendant hoopla.

I can’t wait for July to start. I’m hoping no one’s going to schedule something around July Fourth.

For the final in our meme series, I’ve been tagged by Kimberly from solomom. I’m taking some liberties with this one, since I’m feeling like I’ve maxed out on self-love in these last couple of posts. So without further ado:

7 Things I Love About My House:

1. In 1992, the guy I was dating built me a really cool bookcase that was both ginormous and folded. One side is about three feet wide, and the other is close to four (he really knew the way to my heart!). Needless to say, I’ve moved around a fair amount since 1992, and there’ve been some real difficulties fitting it into various apartments. The day we moved into our house, I realized that it actually fit perfectly in one corner of the family room, between two windows. It was at that moment that I knew we had the right place.
2. We have a Cape Cod that looks tiny from the street, but it goes back forever. It might be the longest house on our block–it’s certainly longer than both of our adjoining neighbors.  Now that the basement is finished, we almost have more livable space than we know what to do with. Space is good–not just for all of my crap, but for the kids, too.
3. The man who built our house was a local contractor who lived here with his family. There are all kinds of cool built-in bookcases, and little nook-like closets. In addition, the people who lived here before us refinished several of the closets with cedar–our linen smells great.
4. Hardwood floors everywhere.
5. We have a tiny driveway which is shared with our next door neighbor. It will prevent us from ever getting an SUV.
6. There are two full bathrooms. Almost every other house we considered buying had only one. Having two was a big selling point. Of course, sometimes on cleaning day, I regret it.
7. We have the biggest fireplace I’ve ever seen in a house that wasn’t a mansion. We don’t have a ton of fires, but when we do, it can really heat the whole house. The chimney is exposed in the middle of our stairs and second floor and it throws off the heat when the fire is going.

And for the tagged on this one…anyone who wants to do it.

Okay kids, that’s it for my meme-fest. Tune in tomorrow for new (but not necessarily more interesting) content.

I was tagged by CamiKaos for this meme–Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so:

An Island Life

Whee! All The Way Home

Melanie in Orygun

Mommified Me

Bumblebee Sweet Potato

But there’s more! Yes, the questions:

What were you doing 10 years ago?
-10 years ago I was living in California, and I had just started working in the labor movement. Landisdad and I lived in a dome that was built by cultists in the early 70s. Yes, you read that right.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
-Getting ready for the end of the school year, and being amazed that my Bee was about to be a second grader.

Five Snacks You Enjoy

-chips and homemade guacamole (I’m with Cami on this one)
-kettle corn
-fresh strawberries
-Odwalla power bars (especially peanut butter chocolate chip!)
-peanut butter crackers

Five Songs That You Know All The Lyrics To

-Sweet Potato Boy (music & lyrics by landismom & dad)
-The Bumble Bee song (music & lyrics by landismom & dad)
-Talkin’ About a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)
-(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello)
-Upside Down (Jack Johnson)

Five Things You Would Do If You Were a Millionaire (well, a million doesn’t go that far anymore. I’ll assume that we’re talking more than one million)

-buy a bookstore
-put more away for retirement/college for the kids
-pied a terre in London
-iPhone with an unlimited plan
-hire a chef, so landisdad only has to cook when he wants to

Five Bad Habits

-too much food
-too little exercise
-too much TV
-too little cleaning
-not enough time spent with friends

Five Things You Like To Do

-read
-go to the movies
-have fun with my kids
-ride my bike
-eat dinner in expensive restaurants with my spouse

Five Things You Would Never Wear Again

-in the 80s, I had one of those sweatshirts with flourescent handprints on it
-an ill-fitting bra–is anything more uncomfortable?
-a miniskirt, especially the red pleather number I had in high school
-6″ stiletto heels
-fishnet stockings (are you sensing a theme here? the 80s were a bad time for my wardrobe)

Five Favorite Toys

-my iPod
-my bike
-my laptop
-does Netflix count?
-I guess I’m not really a toy person

And finally, the tagged:

Jackie

Sandra

Jody

Liz

Thordora