Category Archives: Monkey

Monkey, parenting, Stress

Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure…

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And then there are the kisses you discover your 6 year old sharing with her 6 year old friend when he’s over to stay the night.
Monkey and Simon were upstairs, playing in her dress up trunk, like they have a thousand times. This time however, they were pretending to be married, because my darling child is obsessed with kissing.
She and I have had many discussions about how mommies and daughters don’t share romantic kisses, brothers and sisters don’t share romantic kisses, and that she is too young for a romantic kiss.
She sees kissing all around her. When we take her to see Harry Potter she sees kissing, when she watches The Princess Bride or Star Wars she sees kissing. Then she, being a method actor in the extreme, wants to see what all the fuss is about. Regardless of the conversations we have had about kissing, my daughter bravely forges ahead, to try out this kissing nonsense on Simon.
Why him? Because I am sure in a moment of idiocy I explained why you don’t try to romantically kiss your 3 month old brother by stating those kisses are reserved for boys, when she is older.
Well, Simon is a boy, and now, she is older.

The two of them in particular have had an increasing aura of suspiciousness about them over the last few months, and his mom and I have been keeping a closer eye on them, we just didn’t realize their playfulness and curiosity had gotten to the point of kissing!

Ack! Sadly, this means no more overnights between Ellen’s kids and mine. It has been coming for a while, this need to separate the girls and the boys, but it is the end of an era.

I now have a Girl. A Girl who knows which of her friends is a Boy, and is aware enough of the differences that she wants to kiss him. And lock the door to her room while she does it.

Monkey, parenting, Stress

No good deed goes unpunished.

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Especially when you have children.
Children are loving, snuggly, persnickity, perverse little wretches.
Today we planned to go to the beach. We were supposed to leave the house at 9:30 this morning in order to catch the sea before high tide and meet Ellen and Tiff.
We woke up early, with an hour and a half to spare, and I gave Monkey her requested breakfast of apples and peanut butter and cereal. I told her we only had an hour and a half before we had to leave to meet our friends at the beach for a day of swimming and fun. She excitedly jumped around and then asked to play on the Xbox.
“Er… no,” I said. “”You need to eat your breakfast, so we can go to the beach.”

And here is where the good deed is punished. Sad that she was not allowed to spend the hour before the beach on the Xbox, Monkey defiantly settled at the table, set her ankles up on it, and slowly, painfully picked up a single frosted mini wheat, and began to gnaw delicately on it’s edge.

Sighing and shaking my head, I went about my packing of snacks, dressing of baby, and otherwise preparing to spend the day doing something fun with my children. Occasionally I would toss out to Monkey that she needed to eat, as I would not be spending six dollars on a crappy piece of pizza on the boardwalk if she failed to fill up on breakfast. I would also not be getting her fast food.

An hour passed. It was 15 minutes until departure time. She had managed to consume about 5 frosted mini wheats, and one apple slice. Argh.

Finally I told her to finish getting ready. She meandered up stairs, spent about 20 minutes in the bathroom without managing to brush her teeth, and only when I yelled up “If you are not ready and down here in ten minutes we are NOT GOING!!” did she actually scurry to brush her teeth and hair, and put on her shoes.

Of course, by now I was grumpy, having spent the morning dealing with She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Fed, instead of getting to engage in the excitement of beach trip preparation.

About 10 minutes into the drive the comments started:
“Ooh..a Wendy’s!” “Look mom! A McDonald’s.” “Mom, can I get Ice cream?”

I just don’t get it. Why, why on earth, would she decide to goad me to the point of canceling the trip?? Does she like me in a bad mood? Argh! Of course, my mood was not improved by carting the huge bag of supplies, beach umbrella, and baby to the beach. Nor was I cheered by the bouts of crying Otter engaged in. I did cheer up when we went down to the water and splashed a bit. Pictured here:

It was also nice to see the kids splashing, and to hang out, however briefly, with Ellen and Tiff.

However, the trip was fairly stressful for me. I swear, I am at the point where leaving the house at all is simply too much trouble. Maybe I will become a hermit.

family, Monkey, Otter

A life ruled by a 20 pound tyrant, the number 200, and more…

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Well here we are, 200 posts since I moved my Western attitude to the East coast. Thanks for everyone who has read my various and sundry ramblings. I appreciate your time and the connection to the outside world.

My life continues to be ruled by my 20+ pound tyrant. Otter has begun to “talk”, making little vocal stylings at all hours of day and night, trying out his mouth and vocal cords. His talking is quite darling when the sun is out, so long as you are not trying to speak to anyone yourself. However, he has begun to wake up at an ungodly early hour to regale his father and I with tales of wild baby tribes living deep in the jungle and god only knows what else. He now does this almost every day. He is very, very loud.

So I drearily wave goodbye to the sleep I finally began to catch up on. I welcome back the bleary-eyed, leaving my keys in the freezer, sleepless self. I get lots of smiles to make up for the lack of sleep, along with a lot of baby giggles. I am also getting regular lectures on the deplorable treatment of babies in this culture, a loud demand for an increase in snuggle time, and the joy of watching Otter talk to this sister.

We are also nursing nigh constantly now, as opposed to the previous 3 months of slightly less than nigh constant nursing. Has anyone else out there had a Mongo baby? He is over 20 pounds and only 3 and a half months old. He grew out of his 9 months clothes in one week, and is now wearing 12-18 month clothes. I need a support group for moms of amazon babies. I need answers to questions like, “is it realistic to presume I can continue to breast-feed an infant this large without supplementing?” I need a unlimited gift certificate to Baby Gap. I need a massage therapist to deal with my aching back and shoulder muscles. Mostly, I think I need other women to tell me how they handled having huge children.

Lee is doing very well at his job, his career has taken new twists and turns that I don’t fully to understand. He is happy, he is stressed, he rarely programs, but manages large numbers of people programming a large array of projects. He has days when he can’t even sit at his desk to wolf down a sandwich. He is amazing and I am very proud of him.

Monkey is happily engaged in being a big sister. Her brother is completely fascinated by her and watches her all the time. Therefore, she has begun to view his existence as highly positive, instead of dubious. He has done well, knowing which person to kiss up to for extra love and attention. She dotes on him, holds him all the time, and gets many drooly kisses for all her love and hard work. It is really neat, being able to watch their relationship develop. I always felt my brother and I had a little secret world, separate from our parents, and I really hope Monkey and Otter have a similar connection.

My foot is better, I can walk really well on it, but I still can’t stand to have the spot touched. Sigh. I hate adding things to do to my list of things to do, there are already so many things to do! I guess I will try and visit a doctor soon. Feh.

Mom was out here for a wonderful week. We had a perfect day at the beach with Monkey and Otter. Mom and I took turns taking Monkey into the water, where we squealed and splashed. While mom was in the water with her, Otter and I lay down under the umbrella and watched the sky. It was pretty magical. He loved to be there in the little wind-break I made him out of bags and towels. He kept smiling and looking around at all the new sounds. Then mom took over and Monkey and I spent a while getting wet and giggling. She is such fun at the beach, perfectly happy to run in and out of the waves for as long as anyone will let her. I was completely refreshed after the visit.

On the home-front, we finally got the dishwasher and dryer repaired, which is wonderful, though the combination of the repair person and the cable guy having appointments today has rendered my chances at a shower negligible. The repair guy was in and out in less than an hour. However, Scott, the cable guy, well actually the Fios guy, is still here, having had to bring the cables over three telephone poles and across the street. He got here first, and I began to feel pretty bad for him when it hit 1:30 and he was still installing. I decided it was only polite to feed him. After all, they do not have any information warning against the feeding of a cable guy on the website and he had been here working all morning. He seemed happy to sit and enjoy a very sticky peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a cold glass of ice water while basking in our air conditioning. I even stuck a few ginger snaps on his plate.

Happily, I can now do dishes with minimum hassle, and I will be able to dry my clothes too. Yay! I can take down the temporary clothesline I created in our sitting room! Now all I need is a Wife, and my domestic life will be complete.