George of the Jungle

"Which game was it?" -Will, in response to a parental cautionary tale about someone actually dying of video game addiction

"Why is it so f***ing windy?" -Zach, innocently, on a windy evening

"Hey Georgie, you're my best friend." -Zach


George's baby portrait, looking exactly like Zach's at 6 months.

Memes for Moms of Boys

Some More Quotes--

"I probably have an idea." -Zach, when he wants to say something

"White weddings give me gas." -James, listening to Billy Idol in the car

"We don't have time for this!" -Zach, fighting his nap


And some Memes for Moms of Boys-

SoCal Baby Names

I live in a part of the country where "mother of five" is a pejorative to be said only while slamming on the brakes to avoid an accident on the 405. People don't tend to have big litters of kids around these parts, because if you are not a hardcore cheapskate like me you may find yourself spending a metric ton of money to house, feed, and raise them here.

So in Southern California, apparently even more so than in other parts of the U.S., each and every name you pick for your baby has got to really count--real people name their kids real aspirational things like Banjo Minnow (boy) and Babe-raham Lincoln (girl).

Baberham Lincoln in #waynesworld

I might be exaggerating about Lil' Banjo and Baberaham, but please bear with me as I suggest some...

***(Parody) Southern California-Inspired Names For Your Baby (You Won't Find On Nameberry)***

SoCal Real estate themed twins: Net Equity (boy) and Mello Roos (girl)

Hollywood names, taken one step further: Harlot; Schwarzenegger; Stefani; Blanket Statement; Bowie & Queen (twins)

Place names for those who have never been to SoCal: Elsinore; Hemet; Chulavista; Salton

For surfer babies: Aggro; Charger; Gidget

James From State Farm

So, we're still not over the never-ending stomach virus from Hell.

But.

We got to go to Family Rollout Day at Daddy's work on Saturday. Which means we got to expose a bunch of other unsuspecting folks to the virus from Hell hang out with real, live spaceships. It was cool.


Here it is, your aerospace-themed Christmas card picture.


Zach with a weird rash on his face.

We weren't actually sure we were even going to make it to the event, since Zachy had been sick and we the parental units were dragging @ss from cleaning up diarrhea and not sleeping. But we went. And the kids promptly resumed puking Sunday night/Monday morning, as if they'd barely missed a beat.

So...if you were there and we got you sick, I'm very sorry.

It's super exciting to get a picture of our whole family in which everybody's looking, and James is almost smiling a real smile rather than looking annoyed and almost-teenaged. Everybody was dressed REAL nice, too. Like, jeans and polo shirts and dresses. This is no small deal, because for some reason our eldest suffers from the irrational belief system that 1) pants are never necessary in Southern California and 2) wearing khakis or bluejeans makes him look like Jake From State Farm.

You know who I'm talking about.



Anyway, someday he may eventually recover from the embarrassment.

Heart Beating

George is sleeping on the bed next to me right now, and he is so beautiful. The pictures, they don't do justice to how beautiful he is.




Some more, for posterity and general double-rainbowing:



Let the record show that GT loves pureed pears; hates peas.




Let the record also show that Will gives very good DorkFace when he tries. #Dorkface, as he'd remark.




Let it show that James is outgrowing all his pants much too quickly,




that we let our two-year-old wear his sister's clothes on special occasions,




and that *this* took place (Big Tom holding GT in the NICU) only a few short months ago.

Dizzyland

"Dad, I have a question. Do you know Buzz Lightyear? Do you know Mr. Toad's Wild Ride? I want to go to Dizzyland, Dad. I want to drive the elephant." -Zach, asserting his nostalgia for our first visit to Disney (and especially the Dumbo ride)

"What's the point? When I grow up I want to be a dirty hobo!" -James, indignant over having to study for a math test

"That's not funny." -James, a few minutes later, when I showed him Chris Farley's "Livin' in a Van Down By the River" thing on YouTube

"I want to live in a van, down by the river." -Will

"What's 'rollin' doobies'? -Elise

Star Wars: The Name Nerd Awakens

So I saw the new Star Wars movie with the big kids last night. It was my second time (first was date night w/ the husband last Thursday night). And I could not wait to get home and search feverishly for a Kylo Ren Tantrum meme generator (so far I haven't found a good one, especially in gif form). Instead I made a Sad Stormtrooper.



Hashtag nerdy and obsessed with Nameberry.

Even More Celeb Babies Renamed

Maxima "Max" Maxine Eliana "Maxie" Zuckerberg

Saint Moral West, brother to North True

Marlowe Marlena Monroe, sister to Grey Rose Audrey

Year's End

"I scienced the heck out of it." -James, stealing a line from The Martian when I asked him how his recent digestive system test went (He got a 94%)

"Hit me, Joanne!" -Zach, asking our beloved nanny to gently pat him on the back as he fell asleep at naptime

"Eh...muchachos..." -Zach, expressing annoyance at another kid at preschool

"Finally!" -Elise, relieved at no longer having to share a room with Zach

--

George has started to sleep more at night, so we've moved his crib to the "book nook" part of upstairs and let Zach reclaim his (their) room. It's the end of an era. As of yesterday I'm not camping out in there in the big-boy bed, next to the crib of an itty-bitty baby anymore. But the developmental leap (and big sleep milestone for our family) hasn't yet translated into more sleep for me, since I have to try harder to listen for George's grunts and other night noises from the relative comfort of my real bed. This is so as not to disturb Joe, who somehow manages to sleep lightly as the rest of us snore on in a blackness that is "darker'n a black steer's tuchus on a moonless prairie night". George did pretty well last night, though--he went from 10:30 or 11-ish p.m. to 4:30 a.m. and then went down again until 6:30.

(Sigh). They grow up so fast.

More Zach-Talk

"No. Swear words. I wanna use swear words!" -Zach, when Will gently corrected him ('gosh-darnit, Zach')

"Dad, will you sing "Hatty-Birthday-To-You?" -Zach

"Hannaburger" [hamburger] -Zach

"I wanna see the wopter-copter [helicopter]." -Zach

And Speaking of God

I went to a parent-teacher conference for Zach the other day, at his religiously-affiliated preschool. The conference was immensely gratifying, almost as much so as Elise's (in which her teacher reportedly said she wished she had a classroomful of Elises and compared her to J.K. Rowling! *Cough, cough,* genius daughter!).

Zach's teacher says he is doing wonderfully, talking up a proverbial storm, and generally getting along great. This is especially nice because I haven't even been the one responsible for bringing him to his school, packing his little lunch, or doing the majority of the Zach-upbringing, in months--except for schlepping him around to his siblings' after-school activities, and immersing him in the requisite swearing-while-driving.

Thank goodness for family, community support, and good help when a new baby is born.

So we're (Zach n' I) driving home from the conference and have the following exchange:

Zach: (singing, making preschool-sanctioned hand gestures) Open, shut them. Open, shut them. Give a little clap, clap, clap! Open, shut them. Open, shut them. Fold them just like that!

(bows head in prayer) God is great, God is good; let us thank Him for our food. A-MEN!

Me: Oh, you're praying before you eat your sandwich, just like you do in school.

Zach: Yeah!

Zach: Hey Mom.

Me: What.

Zach: (Shouting at top of lungs) G-D DAMMIT!



In retrospect, Zach's teacher seemed to be laughing about something and looking at me out of the corner of her eyes during the conference.

It's back to the Swear Jar for me.

This.

This article is awesome:

http://www.kveller.com/i-am-a-feminist-mother-who-stayed-at-home/

In The Fall of the Year

Zach's moment of zen: getting to hold BeeBee George

All Eyez On G

Two weeks ago yesterday, George was born at 35 weeks, and at least two weeks earlier than I'd originally thought he would be. He spent a week in the NICU, not strictly due to the prematurity but because he was breathing too shallowly when he first came out. Thankfully, he is home now and doing much better. I am much better, too, now that I'm not itching nearly as badly (curse you, cholestatic liver).



George Thomas B.
6.28 lb (I think!) He was a pretty good size for how early he was.
19" long

Here he is with Daddy.



The NICU thing was pretty strange, especially at first. It felt SUPER, ALL SORTS OF WRONG to leave the hospital without George. I kept having bad dreams when I got home; not that I got much sleep anyway because I was supposed to be up every 3 hours pumping, and even when I did get a little shut-eye I would wake up drenched in sweat. When he finally came home I felt incredibly relieved, and not just to avoid fighting the traffic to see him.

Also, I hate pumping.

So far, George seems to enjoy being awake often between the hours of 10pm and 5am, sleeping while being held, Skittles-flavored breastmilk, and pooping. He dislikes nasal cannulae and hiccups.

The kids are enjoying him, too. Even Zach has been pretty into him; he desperately wants to hold Baby George, but this is a dicey proposition for a two-year-old and a preemie. Maybe when he gets a little bigger and hardier (George, not Zach. Zach is plenty big and hardy--speaking of big, it is Will's tenth birthday today, and we just celebrated Zach's 2nd and James 11th. Quit growing up so fast, kids.)

Curious George and The Terrible Itch

Warning: Author is itchy and bitchy

I'm developing an obnoxious pregnancy complication that I had during my last pregnancy: obstetric cholestasis.

The nontechnical explanation is this. It's where you itch like you have a full-body mosquito bite, especially at night when you're (fer the LOVE of GOD) trying to sleep. Your palms, soles of feet, cheeks, upper back, upper arms, boobs, skin between the toes, and pretty-much-everything-elses itch. But yeah, especially the hands and feet.

It's getting bad enough that I've scratched open some of the skin on my feet from scratching in my sleep.

The technical explanation has something to do with the liver, gallbladder, bile acids/salts in the bloodstream, sensitivity to pregnancy hormones, a medication called Ursodiol, another medication called Benadryl, utter exhaustion, and wishing one were able to unzip and remove one's own skin. Oh, and weekly or twice-weekly fetal nonstress tests. And hand-wringing (mine), because stillbirth is a little more likely than in usual times.

The only thing that helps the itching is NOTHING WHATSOEVER OMG. It doesn't help that the temperatures outside have been hovering around 100.

The poor kids are sick of my being sick/bitchy and quite ready to return to school, I think.

The only good news is that I have some really awesome sitters helping me (Joe is away on a four-day bachelor party right now, because of course), and that this stupid complication means they'll be inducing me early again this time. Thankee Jesus--no need to worry about having a baby on the side of the 405.

My prediction is Sept 17th, though they (docs) haven't committed to anything yet. But the 17th would be good, because Will wouldn't have to share a birthday (his 10th birthday!) with Baby George. Did I mention we're probably naming the baby George?

--

Lately Zach has taken to lifting people's shirts, exposing their bellies, and saying, "Baby George?" He especially loves to do this to Daddy. I wonder if he is expecting Curious George The Monkey to come out of Mom's tummy at the end of all this, though, because that's one of his favorite book characters and the only frame of reference he has for "George".

Death of a SalesVan

Our dejected minivan finally shucked its mortal coil.

It happened during our multi-state road trip a few weeks ago. We'd just reached an elevation of approximately 11,000 feet, near the top of Mount Crumpet or something like that (read: overlooking Denver and 45 minutes shy of our ultimate destination, which was my brother's house). We'd already seen the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and hiked briefly through Bryce Canyon. We'd stayed in and around the "parks" region of Southern Utah enough to be getting antsy of all the Mormon/cowboy weirdness, obligatory tourism, and blazing heat, and were driving intently toward Max and Megan's. The kids had only been mildly to moderately obnoxious that day, and Joe and I were just starting to shout to each other--over the usual child-related din--about how the minivan was doing with this grand journey.

Me: (puts feet up on the dashboard, and aims the A/C directly at pregnant torso) So how's the van doing?!
Joe: You know, it's actually doing amazingly well for being at almost 200k miles!

(5 minutes later)

Minivan: RATTATATATATAT! GRrrrrrrRRRRRR! (Horrible engine noises) *Car refuses to accelerate*

Me and Joe: Oh shit.

We put the flashers on and pulled over into a weigh station area for large commercial vehicles that was right near the tippy-top of the mountain pass. The kids started to get nervous, but we reassured them that everything was going to be fine; we just needed to put a little bit of oil in the car and all would be right as rain. Somehow we managed to coast in the far right lane to a gas station, where Joe poured in, like, four quarts of oil. The van was still loud, lethargic, and very unhappy. And the minute the guy at the repair shop heard the noise the car was making in an idle, he began to shake his head in a way that was both definitive and sad.

"The damage is done," the repair guy prognosticated. Due to some kind of loose bearing rattling around all over inside, the engine was probably minutes away from seizing. But that wasn't before he informed us that there was exactly jack-sh*t on the mountain in terms of towing, car rental services, or places to comfortably stop (other than where we were standing). We could cut our losses now or we could try to make it through THE ONE LAST TINY HILL of the mountain pass (about 3 miles long) before a long downward trajectory to the city.

Naturally, we decided to try to coast it.

100 feet into the THE ONE LAST TINY HILL, the van went to the little diamond mine in the sky. Indeed, it proved to be worth more dead than alive because the junkyard (after much ado and effort to get the title) offered us more for it than the CarMax dealership would have, had it been in any way serviceable.


(This was taken after Triple-A finally showed up and the van was towed to the bottom. And Zach was the only one who didn't get the memo about making a sad face.)

Anyway, the van's long-coming martyrdom was a sacrifice that won't soon be forgotten; we got a much nicer car after Megan came and picked us up. The American Dream was alive and well for us that day, as we bought a very-gently-used, pricey foreign dream car with all the accompanying bells whistles, extra seats, and safety features.

Fast forward to today: I take four kids to the DMV to register a vehicle purchased out of state and only cried twice in doing so. Alas, that is a story for another day.

Toddlers Are Funner Than Tweens

Today we were running an errand that required being in the car for awhile, and we were short on time. Being a mother of nutritious integrity I made a hasty lunchtime stop at the Bad Place of Poison Burgers.



Somewhere along the line, James decided that throwing his entire hamburger across the minivan and calling me a b*tch was an age-appropriate and prudent way to communicate his displeasure with my particular choice of eatery (point taken). His reason for the insult--which was technically not swearing since he spelled the word out instead of saying it--? The burger smelled "like chemicals" and was giving him a headache.

"Fine," I said. "Starve." And sentenced him to clean out the whole minivan by himself. Because, like Tina Fey, I Will Not Have That Sh*t.

Anyway, the commotion of all this prompted Zachy to start chucking McNuggets at my windshield from his carseat. But hey, at least that made me laugh a little bit and marvel at his hand-eye coordination. Things took a turn for the worse when, shortly after that, I peed my pants for good measure a few times while sneezing and driving. This was also the same day I discovered that one of my favorite bloggers, The Coquette, has been DELETED by Tumblr for what is sure to be a very, very foolish reason (she completes me! Well, she and Julie Robichaux).

....Just in case you're ever wondering what that smell is when you're driving my van.

Man in the Mirror

Some stuff that came home in Elise's backpack this week:






“They chew the babies [sic] food and barf it back up…”

I'm imagining the lesson: "and that's what's known as 'parental regurgitation behavior', kids. Okay, class dismissed for lunch."



Not sure what to think about this, entitled The Mirror.

Why I'm A Little Bit Scared

Top 10 Reasons I'm A Teensy Bit Scared To Have Another Son (Yes, these are all sexist)

10. My downstairs bathroom already smells like the reptile house at the zoo; more boys in our family = more packs of neighborhood boys coming over and missing the bowl.

9. Potty training and the accompanying public urination phase. (My big boys used to do it from the top of play structures in public parks.)

8. Even more broken bones and trips to the orthopedist. (James just got his cast off after he'd climbed the fence for a "shortcut" and fell onto the concrete fountain in our backyard.)

7. More trips to Wal-mart to buy cheap shoes. And socks. (Will wears out a pair of sneakers every two weeks, then the hole(s) in his shoe creates the same problem in his sock.)

6. The noise, oh the noise! It's just gonna get louder up in here. (Zach is entering the screaming two-year-old phase.)

5. The punching, oh the punching!

4. More years of accidentally stepping on legos with bare feet and gingerly putting away lego creations for safe keeping.

3. Energy requirement: I'm tired just thinking about chasing another little boy through toddlerhood.

2. Needing to remember all the Thomas The Tank Engine characters' names, personality traits, and political orientations for that much longer.

1. It's a little bit scary how sweet a son can be.

Toddlerspeak: A Few Definitions

Big Tom (n.)- See Also: Grandpa Tom.

Big Truck (n.)- (1) Any large vehicle; (2) alias of Uncle Chuck.

Elmote (n.)- A device that, when pointed at the TV, summons Elmo to the screen.

Gramma Kiss (n.)- See Also: Grandma Kris.

Nack (n.)- a fruit snack.