Happy Fathers' Day

Farting around. 

My dad taught me my first fart joke at four (What did the burp say to the other burp? Let's go out the other end and be farts!).

He was a clever, thoughtful man who built things. My dad gave me my sense of silliness, and I simply cannot imagine life as a serious person.

I am thankful for my Dad, this year and all years.

Mom's house

I like going to Mom's house.

When I arrive, she asks me if I've eaten and feeds me regardless of the answer. It's always something healthy as opposed to the fridge dregs I would feed myself.

Mom gets the kids as many milk refills as they need, while I sit there. When the kids get cheeky, she gets cross and tells them to be nice to me.

Mom says to get some rest as many times as it takes to get me into bed. She covers me so I can sleep in. When I mosey out mid-morning, I find my kids playing with my old toys, retrieved from well-labelled attic boxes, lovingly stored all these years.

I like going to Mom's house. I like walking around the old hills of my childhood and remembering how the air there smells and how the earth crumbles underfoot. I like feeling a childish sense of security within the walls Dad built.

I grow older, but being mothered never grows old. Sometimes I think I need it more now than ever.

The atmosphere around Uranus

Before foolishly embarking on the construction of a planetary mobile with your children, consider Uranus: the planet that cracked you up as a child, and may continue to do so even as an old person.

Don't bother reading your horoscope for a while.  

I discovered this the hard way, as I attempted to be educational, which always ends in tears.

"Mom, I painted Uranus green! But I dropped it on the floor..."

Sure enough, there it languished.

When Uranus plummets from the heavens, you feel humbled. And when you kneel on the floor next to Uranus that was so recently in celestial orbit, it puts you in a reflective mood. You find yourself cast back to previous instances of Uranus crashing down.

This blog was born as a lament for the independence that I lost in a thumb war to Baby One, which I again lost in a dodgy poker game to Baby Two. Here six years into this adventure, the stars have once more aligned to send my sorry backside to the back of the queue with Baby Three.

"Mom! Wake up! Uranus is still on the floor."

There is little time for reflection with Uranus so low on the horizon, but I know from experience that it's only up from here.

A Twinkle in Bad's eye

I am deep into Bib Territory. There is no turning back now.

Armed with layers of protective gear, I have nevertheless become a Jackson Pollock of apple sauce, and carrot barf. Three kids in, I am somehow still shocked at what root vegetables can do to baby crap. And that is my lame excuse for not posting a dispatch here in so long: I was too busy running from crap.

Parenting is in the eye of the beholder. 

I would say that the first six months of my son's life have flown, except that they haven't. And yet they have. Haven't. Have. Haven't. Etc. As you can see, I am feeling a bit conflicted and fuzzy about the passage of time, and everything else.

You can tell by my poor choice of baby nicknames. When I watch my cherub gleefully bounce around in his baby swing, I am compelled to call him "Twinkle Toes".

Last night Ana very sweetly told me to check out where she'd written "dad" and "mom" on the fridge, and the picture on the left is the result. She claims innocence, but I have to wonder if it's a revenge plot for the Twinkle Toes thing.

Life with the three-ring circus is a messy logistical nightmare, but it is punctuated by frequent moments of joy, and the arrival of a little boy has provided a very happy disruption in the close and sometimes war-like relationship of his two older sisters.

Recently, while jack-hammering a dried avocado bomb from the highchair, I glanced over and caught Ana and Ali in tense Barbie negotiations, with the Little Guy drooling in the middle of them as a mediator. And right there, banana dripping from my hair, I had to catch my breath because of how perfect they are. Far more wonderful than I could have ever dreamt or imagined. Worth every ounce of sweet potato and crap. And there's been a lot of crap by now.

Anyway, Twinkle Toes is calling me and I'd be a bad mom if I stayed here typing any longer...

Hunting the old magic

Ana could've spent Christmas break honing her reading skills from the first semester. Instead she went hunting moon lions with a bow and arrow fashioned from farm junk.

Reality defense. 

Moon lions are more common than you might think. In fact the world is full of all kinds of amazing stuff, if you don't limit yourself to what's visible. 

I'm not entirely sure why the bow and arrow are neccesary (contrary to popular belief, moon lions are actually quite gentle). But as an expert in invisible magic, I trust her judgement.

Watching her hunt, I felt the anemic ghost of my own childhood magic stirring. Reading practice would've been great, but my gut told me that this rare unstructured time was best left unstructured. 

Whether you be child or ex-child, I wish you a happy New Year. May the year ahead be as magical as it possibly can be, and only as practical as it needs to be. Do your paperwork, then go hunting moon lions.