Favorite Books, Bedtime Battles, Steam Cleaners, Star Sightings and For All That Is Good Please No Centipedes

In the spirit of feeling overwhelmed, I give you bullets from the week.

-Monday night when I was reading David Gets in Trouble which Leo adores, I made a “burp” sound, as the book called for. Leo burst into giggles and leaned over and kissed me. I love that I know just how to make him laugh (actually it was a surprise that this would delight him so much but it was duly noted for future need!).

-We’ve been having Pat Benatar “Bedtime is a Battlefield” nights lately with Leo. He’s not crying, just refusing to go to sleep. He was up until 10 p.m. reading on Tuesday night. Reading! I have to say it’s pretty cute to open the door to check on him to find him sitting on his bed, quietly flipping though the pages of Clifford’s Christmas Presents. I finally caved and gave him Tylenol last night, thinking maybe the congestion was making him uncomfortable (though that is much better, thanks Zyrtec). At one point I asked him if someone had given him a latte in the afternoon but received no response from him. After reading, he moved on to more exciting endeavors, specifically dissecting the extra bed in his room, stripping the sheets and pillowcase, I just couldn’t get over how much energy he had. At 10 p.m. I’m not sure if it’s the time change, or what.

-Speaking of books, Ellie is obsessed with this book. She actively seeks it out and can sit and “talk” about all the pictures. The last few nights she has breezed through dinner so that she can go get this book and sit with it on my lap. She seems to know all the pictures by sight (i.e. if I say “where’s the car?” she can show me. It’s just amazing to see her language develop at what feels like warp speed. She has also mastered most of her animals sounds. Seriously, is there anything cuter than a 20-month old meowing like a cat? Except Ellie's "cat" is more like a screech. Even better, really.

-Leo loves that book too. He is so competitive with Ellie and it’s quite sweet. He is so eager, he’s the kid who raises his hand before he knows the answer. I say “where is the boat?” and Leo busts up with a raised hand and says “Mine!” thinks a moment and then points to the boat with a huge grin.

-I had a wonderful birthday last weekend. First of all, it was 70 degrees. Seventy! Degrees! I got to sleep in and then Erin and the kids brought me coffee and a homemade card. It makes all the aggravation worth it when I see those happy little faces greet me in the morning, scamper into the bedroom and jump on top of me. Erin told me I could do whatever I wanted and for me that involved going to Macy’s and buying this:



And no it's not a Swiffer though it kind of looks like one. Oh it is so much more. I had seen an infomercial (I know, I know, sue me, the TV had been left on HGTV the night before and when I turned it on at 6 a.m. it was showing a riveting piece on the Haan steam cleaner). Well it intrigued me and so I did some digging/research and learned that most people seem to think the Haan is (surprise!) a piece of crap but that the Shark seems to be quite popular and effective. The concept is pretty awesome. It steams your floors with water that reaches over 200 degrees farenheit and you wash and reuse the cloth pads that come with it (it supposedly even "sanitizes" your floor, though I don't think we'll be having dinner on the kitchen floors anytime soon). No chemicals and no waste and safe to use on wood floors (which comprise our entire house). I have to say so far so good. I mean, it's not a miracle or anything (a miracle would be someone else cleaning the entire house). Then again any sort of cleaning is better than none which had been my floor cleaning technique as of late. And yes, I spent part of my birthday steam cleaning the floors. I am that big of a nerd.

-Saturday night went to the opening of an amazing new restaurant in the city. Not to name drop (Oh what the hell, here goes) but we saw Caroline Kennedy, Diane Sawyer and her husband Mike Nichols and actor Ralph Fiennes. And oh yes, the food was unbelieveable. We don’t go out much but when we go out, we do it right.

-In Little Girl As Vampire news, we’ve had two straight days of no biting. I hope I’m not jinxing it by talking about it here. We’re just taking it one day at a time.

-The birthday party invites are beginning to roll in for Leo. I’m like Amy, I love a good kid party! These are both kids from Leo’s school where nearly everyone has Down syndrome so there is the added benefit that I won’t feel pressure for Leo to “act” a certain way at the party. Plus I will get to see some of the moms that I rarely get to see. Saturday’s party is here. I think Leo’s head might explode from excitement. These parties just get bigger and bigger. I told Erin we are the holdout hillbillys who still have parties in our backyard. What can I say? We are simple people. Anyway, I am just hoping Leo doesn’t want to hold a centipede at this party (it’s one of the “insect options”). I'm totally down with spiders (thanks Charlotte's Web and Buddhist Dad). But after living in a centipede-filled "garden" (fancy word for basement) apartment in Brooklyn I became a little too well acquainted with centipedes. And if Leo wants to hold one I think my head might explode.

The New Normal

Remember this little girl I used to brag about? How she ate everything? I don’t think I ever wrote the post about how cute it was that she was loving eating everything out of little bowls.


She ate so delicately and with such thought. She brought to mind Albert in one of my all-time favorite children's books, Bread and Jam for Frances:

"He took a bite of sandwich, a bite of pickle, a bite of hard boiled egg and a drink of milk. Then he sprinkled more salt on the egg and went around again. Albert made the sandwich, the pickle, the egg and the milk come out even." (Note to self: Order this book for kids. OK, for myself).

Well, she wasn't sprinkling salt on her egg or anything, but you get the picture. Anyway, it's too bad I didn't write about it because the thought and daintiness with which she ate was really cute. And too bad, because it’s over.

Ellie is in that new stage called Throw Everything On the Floor But First Mix it With Milk on the High Chair Tray. Oy.

I ask you, why do I ever even bother to mop the kitchen floors (truth be told it is barely a monthly occurrence if I’m lucky, but still!)

It seems that she hardly eats anything right now as she is too busy being Jackson Pollack with food. To be fair, she has a few staples: grape tomatoes, dehydrated strawberries (I know, weird), string cheese and her bottle. She’ll graze for a few minutes on the other stuff and then begins the wiping and the sweeping of everything from the high chair tray to the floor or onto the kitchen table. Lovely.

Sometimes I think my children were put on this Earth solely to make me chill the you know what out about the state of my house. I really have been trying to lower my standards. I don’t clean the toys in the living room up every night now. I don’t freak about piles. The one thing I’m a stickler for though is the dishes (I hate a sink full of dirty dishes but truthfully, I can’t go more than two days with out running the dishwasher because I need the little glass bowls and lids and sippy cups and bottles for packing lunches). And laundry. I don’t like to let that get out of hand. I don’t do it every day but I like to at least sort it every couple of days. Having those lovely piles of dark, white and “middle,” lined up neatly in the basement give me a delightfully deceptive delusion of order.

But back to the eating. I know this is typical for 16 months. Leo was a big time food thrower. I think it’s why our poor dog is about 20 pounds overweight. I was secretly hoping we might avoid the throwing with Ellie (as was, I imagine, our dog’s endocrinologist).

In the meantime, I am just not going to mop ever again. I mean, why bother?