archive
blog
next
people
links
recipes
books
|
prev archive blog next |
|
bio people links recipes books |
April 24, 2006"Ba-yoon! What the hell."The title is a direct quote from my eldest grandson. So is, "Where kitty? What the hell." And also, "Bike? Bike! What the hell." "What the hell," has replaced, "Dammit!" as his favorite phrase that pays. Right now he's pointing to everything on Calvin's bedside table and naming them for me. Pointing at Calvin's key chain, "Key!" Pointing at the remote, "TV!" Pointing at the telephone, "Bone!" Pointing at the lamp, "Yite!" Pointing at Calvin's wallet, "Daddy!" Lilly arrived Friday afternoon, and left (reluctantly!) to go back to California yesterday. It won't be long now before she and Michael are back home to stay! We have established a very tenuous routine which involves Robert (I know I used to call him Anthony, but his parents decided to call him by his first name after all) getting up at about 7:00 and yelling, "Mama? Mama! Mum! Mum!" Then he wakes up his brother. Diapers are changed, and breakfast is served (this morning it was cereal and bananas). Then the requests for balloons ("Ba-yoon!" ala Robert, "Yoon!" ala Devlin) begins. There's a half a dozen of them blown up and floating all over the house, but they constantly want new ones. The bouncy balls I bought at the grocery store are not deterring them from their original mission to fill the house with Once the grass is dry outside, we open the back doors and let them run around in the back yard. Except neither one of them will go on the grass. Devlin let his balloon float into the middle of the yard, then stood there demanding that Calvin go and get it (which, like a well-trained Grandpa, he did). Robert threw his toy football out into the yard while the sprinklers were going off, and Calvin refused to go get it for about thirty seconds before taking off his shoes and stepping into the spray. Of course, five seconds after he was back on the patio the sprinklers turned off again. Lunch (today's menu was Beefaroni!) is followed by a one to two hour nap, during which time Calvin and I sit on the couch in the living room and blink at each other. Then we get something for ourselves to eat - this being our first opportunity - and try to straighten up before round two of the destruction begins. Heart-melting moment of the day. As I put Devlin down to sleep, I leaned in and kissed him on the head. He smiled up at me and whispered, "Ya-yoo." His version of, "Love you." As Marie said after a similarly melty episode, "Awww! You can have everything you want for the rest of your life!" The afternoon follows much the same as the morning. Calvin is trying to potty-train Robert and so asks him every fifteen minutes, "Do you need to go poopy? Potty on the big boy toilet!" Last time Robert was asked, he replied very firmly, "No poopy. NO POOPY. No no no. Okay?" Both of the boys are fascinated with Cheeto (the bearded dragon that was not named Slartibartfast). They'll come racing in, run up to the tank, holler, "Hi, Chee-yo!", and push their noses on the glass. Well, I say "they", but Devlin is less articulate than his brother, and also shorter. So he mimics his brother's words, and stands on tiptoes to see inside the tank. They're both bloodthirsty little tykes, insisting on, "More!" every time I feed Cheeto a cockroach. Last night as I ushered the boys out of the bedroom, Robert turned back around, leaned in, and whispered, "Night-night, Chee-yo." Dinner is executed somewhere around 6:00 (meatloaf tonight!), followed by a rousing, splashing bath in the big tub in our bathroom with Grandpa orchestrating. The boys go to bed around 8:00 or 8:30. We tidy and clean for the next thirty minutes. Baby Roman's routine is somewhat different, in that there really isn't too much of one yet. Last night was a bit tough - he'd wake up every time his binky fell out of his mouth, which was every thirty seconds, and wail. We'd do the round of checking the diaper/checking the hunger/checking the gas to try to figure out what was wrong, but I didn't twig onto the fact that he needed to be held until I moved out onto the couch at about 3:00 a.m. to let Calvin get some rest. I'd completely brain-farted the fact that Lilly has been co-sleeping with him since he was born, and the poor little guy just didn't like being by himself. As soon as I settled down and snuggled him up to my chest and covered us both with a blanket, he settled right down. Roman and I have been buds today. I've been working most of the day in the bedroom with him beside me. I feed him when he's awake, he hangs out and looks around for a while after he's fed, and then he falls back asleep. Easy-peasy. I'll start the night on the couch tonight and see how things work out. More stories about our day and pictures to come, right now I think I have a diaper to change. Later! Comments on this entry? Head on over to The Blog! |