A pirate, a cowboy, a mariachi and a rabbit walk into a bar...

Last week it was Purim, a lesser known Jewish holiday where we read the Book of Esther, a story about a nutty Persian King who offs his first wife for not dancing naked for his buddies, then has a beauty contest where a local Jewish girl named Esther wins and is crowned queen. She ends up saving the day when the King's Minister of Sinister, Haman, wants to kill all of the Jews for not bowing to him. Oh no, King, these are my people! So he ends up killing Haman and his ten sons and half of Persia instead. It's actually a really happy drunken holiday minus the whole massacre bit at the end. Anyway, it has sort of turned into a Jewish Halloween so we went to a big costume party on Saturday with the kids and it was FABULOUS. 

And I for one have never been a fan of dressing up. I always hated Halloween. I don't know, back then we didn't have Old Navy so our parents ended up making us these cockamamie costumes. I had some zingers which I mostly made myself, since I'm a third child (can you hear the violins). When I was five I dressed up as a vampire which itself is a little bit ridiculous. Who let's their five year old dress up as vampire. I ended up scaring myself so much that I took off the costume and walked around the neighborhood in red tights and a red t-shirt with slicked back hair. A five year old Pat Benetar. 

And then having to dress up twice a year was an extra burden so I usually blew off Purim. My husband was the same. Hated Purim as a kid. We're cut from the same cloth - jeans and t-shirt cloth, not costume cloth. 

But now we have the kids and Purim is kind of a kids holiday replete with cookie making (lovely three corner filled cookies called Hamantaschen) and noise making and merry making (you're actually commanded by God to get fall-down drunk). So with great trepidation we took them to this party that some of our friends put together for like 15 families, hosted at one of the kids' daycare sites.

It was SPECTACULAR. First of all, I somehow threw together four costumes in half an hour. Mine was easy. I'm always a pirate. Puffy white shirt, flouncy black pants, black boots, red sash, eye patch. Voila. My husband, who has been mistaken as Turkish, Jordanian, Indian, Pakistani, Italian, Spanish, Argentinian, Brazilian and Lebanese, dressed up as a Mariachi singer and looked mucho authentico. He wore hisPuerto Rican guayavera shirt, black pants, a giant sombrero and my dad's old ukulele tied around his chest. Then he shaved himself a little mustache enhanced by some eye liner and presto - Senor Guapo. My son already had the beginnings of a cowboy outfit with his black boots from Grandma, plaid shirt, and a leather fringe vest that a colleague of mine passed down. So I got him a hat and a red bandanna and he was transformed into the Sundance Kid. And the baby, well she wore a pink onesie and bunny ears. She grows out of stuff so fast I couldn't be bothered finding her something cute. Anyway, she's plenty cute just wearing bunny ears. 

My husband and I both planned on staying no more than an hour because it was clear to us that with so many people in costume and so many people our son didn't know, he would have a major come-apart and we'd have to drag him home by the chaps. We braced ourselves and went inside. 

In fact, the kids did great. They played. They ate. The baby took first place in the falafel eating contest. Just kidding. She would have though, had there been one. My son and I made hamantaschen and noise makers. One of the father's did a toddler version of the book of Esther (minus the slaughter) and we played games and danced all afternoon. Probably one of the best family days we've had. No tantrums, no accidents, no biting, no whining. Just happy kids and relieved parents. 

I like your bra mommy

Yes, my son stood up on his chair at Starbucks today and said very loudly, "Mommy, I like your bra. And I like your boobies."

After the initial shock, I had the good sense to simply say thank you (if I'd have told him not to say that he would have said it ten more times) at which point he went on to tell me that he liked my new red bag and my cell phone and my earrings. And that was the end of his Starbucks proclamations.

Where does he get this shit? I mean, really, I like your boobies? I guess that's a nice thing to say. A little weird though, no? And somewhat inappropriate coming from my son. And at Starbucks. And frankly they're not even that great anymore. Pretty droopy in fact after all that nursing. Although some of the Starbucks patrons would disagree. I got a few winks. Just kidding.

The other day, while I was taking his clothes off for his bath, he was completely naked and then did a little pantomime like he was trying to scratch his back so I asked what he was doing and he said he was taking off his bra. And truthfully, it didn't even phase me. Naturally he would take his bra off before getting in the tub.

So now I'm back to the question of whether or not my son should see me naked. He gets the concept of privacy so I could definitely go that route. Today he walked into the bathroom while I was on the toilet and when I got up he pointed to my "netherlands" and asked what's that. I just pulled up my pants and ignored him. I can just imagine our next Starbucks visit...

Mommy, I like your vagina!

No thanks.

Bathtub conversations

I was writing the previous blog while my son was in the tub playing the other night when he started getting into a hard core dramatization with his rubber duckies. So I dropped what I was writing and just started to transcribe. This was his conversation:

• Did you make poo poo big duck?
• Yea, you didn't!
• You're a big boy.
• You need to go poop in the potty.
• You're a big duck.
• Oh no, you made poo poo in the tub little duck!
• I'm going to put my legs on you because you made poop in the tub and you're a stinko.
• Guys, stay there, I'm going to put my legs on you.
• I'm not going to change you because it's not okay.
• That's so sad.
• Should I change you? No I'm not.
• Now you're crying and you want me to change you.
• Okay fine.
• Wow, that was a big one little duckie. Let me get the wipes.
• You're done.
• Now it's your turn. Oh boy, you need wipes too.
• You guys are big boys.
• Oh shoot.
• Okay, you're done.
• I have to clean you still okay duckie?
• You can't swim now because I have to change you because there's poo poo on you.
• Mommy! I need to get out of the tub because little duck made a poo poo and it's yucky in here now.

Classic.

Spoinky

Lord, where have I been? I haven't written in a fortnight as it were. I'm such a loser blogger. It's that no time thing. And then I get to a place where the house is such a mess and I can't do anything because our stuff is all over the place. I know this sounds ridiculous but it really renders me incapacitated. I come home and I just stop being able to function in my normal octopus manner. And two arms just doesn't cut it when you're trying to feed a baby who shrieks if she's not fed exactly what she wants and at a pace that would make her a contender for that world championship hot dog eating contest. All the while making dinner for the rest of my family, entertaining my son, and doing the dishes.  

So why is our crap everywhere this time? We took the kids up to Lake Tahoe for a snow weekend (this is already a week ago - that's how behind I am) with my brother's family and now we're having a bad case of the luggage creep. But it was worth it because I finally got to see my son play with other kids. Three days, four adults and four kids aged four, three, two and one. What a hoot. I mean nothing beats tiny people dressed up in puffy clothes. We took them sledding and went searching for icicles and they built forts and spent entire days in their long underwear. It was fabulous. The best part of the whole trip, besides the two mornings that my sister-in-law and I went cross-country skiing by ourselves, was that my son actually played with his cousins. They made up a game called Spoinky where one player takes the green tentacled rubber ball (the spoinky) and flings it at another player. I am not kidding you they played this game for like six hours every day. Up and down the two sets of stairs, in the bathroom, under the fort they built in the living room. Everywhere. 

My brother and I had to laugh because when we were kids our parents took us skiing for a week every year with three other families. And every year we'd play a game that called "Billy" which entailed rolling up a sock and hurling it as hard as you could at someone else. When we were a little older we called it "William." Someone invariably got smacked in the face and cried. Usually me, come to think of it. But we all have fond memories of Billy.

It's so nice to see our kids creating those same memories. So much has changed since we were kids - no one walks to school, kids don't play by themselves in the street after school, 8 year olds have cell phones - but I'm happy to see that it's still fun to throw soft objects at your friends and relatives. 

My Darling Motorola

We went to our friend's son's third birthday party on Saturday and it was really lovely. Just a bunch of friends and their kids running around eating cake and chatting. At one point I was sitting on the sofa with my friend and another girlfriend of ours who also has a three year old and is pregnant with number two. As we were chatting their two sons started fighting about who got to play with Thomas, or was it Percy? One of those stupid trains. The boys were in tears and the friend who's pregnant told me, you see? I told her not to start up with those trains because they just become obsessed! It consumes their every thought. Trains and more trains! And Thomas and Percy and Clarabelle and this one and that one! Uch! Shut-up already with the trains! Then the mother of the birthday boy said, I know, but he loves them. I just bought him one video and now he lives and breathes these ridiculous trains!

Now thank god, Thomas is one thing that my kid is NOT obsessed with so I don't have to suffer through those inane storybooks and videos. I mean who writes this stuff? Winnie the Pooh kicks Thomas' ass any day of the week as far as I'm concerned. Meanwhile, as I'm thinking this to myself I hear my son, who's sitting next to us on the couch, singing "Motorola" over and over to the tune of "My Darling Clementine."

Try it with me:
Motorola Motorola
Motorola Motorola
Motorola Motorola
Motorola Motorola

Ladies, at least your kids are obsessed with something that befits a three year old. I mean, kids grow out of Thomas with time while I have at least a decade of listening to the Motorola song before my kid may actually have his own phone. Thomas isn't looking half bad after all.