7QT: Of Moles and Munchkins (mostly)

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It’s almost Lent, folks! I know, I’m ahead of the game, but I have a good reason: I am hosting a giveaway for my new book, Bring Lent To Life. If you’re a Catholic mother with young (or youngish) children, click over and leave a comment for a chance to win a signed copy!

Okay, now that I’ve done my shameless self-promo…moving on.

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I was poking around online, doing magazine market research yesterday, and an ad for “Molexit” caught my eye. Considering the helpless rage with which I am consumed every time I walk across my big lawn, my ankle twisting on the maze of mole hills, you can imagine I clicked. A little browsing led me to THIS. All I have to say is: These are people after my own heart.

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Photo by asterix611, via FlickrI teach flute and voice lessons in my basement, which you might imagine can be a bit of an adventure with three small children and, uh, a nursing baby. Alex used to be very quiet over in the corner, humming vocal warmups along with the students while he bent over a Lego creation or a rescue hero. (Precursor to the autopilot humming he does All.The.Time now.) But Julianna? Julianna takes it to a whole new level. This week in lessons, she turned her back to us, planted her feet shoulder-width apart, and sang to the sunny window with arms out Broadway-finale style, “Eee-AAAAAAAHHHHaaaaah!”

Ah, how I love that girl, despite her selective deafeness to anything she doesn’t feel like hearing…

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Speaking of Julianna, or rather, Julianna and Michael…my baby is 8 weeks old already. I cannot believe it. I’ve been anxiously watching for his first smile, and we got it this week–a few, fleeting, absolutely adorable smiles. But incredibly hard to catch. I spent twenty minutes making a complete, blithering fool of myself while the dish water got cold one night. Once–once–I hit the button at exactly the right moment….and the camera turned off. I had my finger on the power instead of the shutter. Sigh. In the end, this was the best I got:

While Julianna, who torments him ceaselessly, turning him sideways in his bouncy, soundlessly and sneakily rolling him over onto his tummy (and here I thought I was making a big joke when I said she was destined to be a superspy), dragging him by one arm when my back is turned, lying on top of him…what, you think I’m kidding? Look at this! Caught in the act!

Julianna is the one Michael smiles for most often. What is this, some freaky variant on Stockholm syndrome???????

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Smiles aside, Michael adores all his big siblings. He can’t smile with his mouth yet, but his whole face smiles. Moms, you know that look, right? Heart-meltingly bright eyes, arms and legs kicking, face alight? He does that often for us. And it makes me happy to see how much Nicholas loves him. I was worried about Nicholas, because he’s such a drama king, and so needy. I was afraid we’d be in for all manner of resentment and tantrums. But the transition has been remarkably smooth, and he absolutely adores his baby brother, asking to hold him at all times of the day. Of course, he lasts about ten seconds, but hey. He’s a boy.

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Alex was home from school two days this week. And now we have piles of homework to catch up on. Actually, he did most of it while I was teaching yesterday, but it’s a wakeup call, reminding me that whew, we are entering a new phase of parenthood!

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Well, I’m officially back to that phase of my life: the obsessed with sleep stage. It’s cyclical, and varies in cause and style. Right now it’s the “how many times did he get up last night?” strain. The Shangri-la of sleep for me right now would be getting to that stage where the baby wakes up around two and then sleeps till five or six. My babysitter keeps asking, “Is he sleeping through the night yet?” I’m like, uh…no. Is he supposed to? I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had a child who slept through the night until he or she was three years old.

Whatever, dude. Sleep is for wimps.

But that makes me wonder–how many of you actually have kids who slept through the night consistently? And at what age?

Enough from me. Don’t forget to enter my giveaway!

7 quick takes sm1 7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 162)

Published in: on January 27, 2012 at 7:17 am  Comments (13)  
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The Comedienne

There comes a time in every young child’s life when he or she suddenly discovers humor. It’s a gratifying moment for a parent to see the development of a new cognitive level…but it forces you to put up with incomprehensible jokes. Lucky me: my middle two have reached their jokester stage at the same time. They think they are sooooooooo funny. They sit on my bed while I’m nursing Michael and crack themselves up. It’s absolutely adorable, and one of those times when the more-or-less-twinning of the littles shows itself to be alive and well.

Julianna’s the ringleader of this little comic group, and her repertoire of jokes consists of one: She signs “eat” and points to random objects–the baby’s nose, the pillow, the wall, my jeans, the phone–and giggles hysterically.

The first time, I admit, I was slow on the uptake (as I often am with jokes). “You’re gonna eat the phone?” I said blankly, and she fell on the pillow, overcome by mirth. Now that was funny. You poor people out there in the e-verse have no way of comprehending how magical Julianna’s laugh is. I was powerless against it. The first time, anyway.

Nicholas found it so hysterical, he couldn’t even sit up. Instantly, he adopted the joke as his own, wholly forgetting that he can talk.

Although–and I hope you’ll permit me the tangent; my story’s finished anyway–Julianna actually is talking now. She almost always asks for “milk please” and names a whole bunch of colors, as well as counting one to ten. You have to know the context; you wouldn’t just recognize the words automatically–but she is saying them. Yesterday her big speech therapy task was to learn to say “go home.” I’m so proud of my little girl. Except when she’s sitting motionless, pretending she can’t hear me issuing instructions, that is. That girl can use her disability to play stupid when she doesn’t want to do something. We really have to stay on our toes to try not to get manipulated. I know she’s winning some of the battles…like the chores battle. Nicholas is way farther than she is on the “complies with instructions” continuum. I know I have to fight that battle eventually, but I don’t have the time and emotional energy to deal with them simultaneously. Let’s just hope I manage to do it before Michael gets old enough to need the lesson!

(By the way–I’m well aware that today is Wednesday, not Thursday, but I have a special post prepared that requires editorial approval, so I’m doing Motherhood Moment a day early today to make room for it! Stay tuned!)

special needs wordless wednesday

Published in: on January 25, 2012 at 7:40 am  Comments (7)  
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The Name Game

baby names for dummies

Image by alist via Flickr

The kids are in bed, the TV is off, but we’re sitting on opposite sides of the table, me typing furiously on the NEO, Christian shuffling iPhone, bills and checkbook. I sigh irritably. This is not how we should be spending a Saturday evening. I’m tired. Really I just want to sleep. But now that I’m getting up once an hour all night, between kids and round ligament pans, bedtime isn’t as appealing.

He finishes paying bills and clicks his phone off. “Well?” he says.

 “So…what did you think of my idea for the boy’s name, really?” I ask.

His lip curls briefly. “I like mine better.”

Opening salvo. He pulls out the phone.

We have certain rules about names. Any name in the top ten is automatically out. The top 25, we have to think carefully. It has to have been around for generations, but it can’t be boring. Then there are the names we like but won’t use because we don’t get along with someone who owns them already. And after Alexander, Julianna, and Nicholas, we have a style to match.

One website lets you see what names “go” with the names of your current children. Christian types in Alexander and reads the list. He types in Julianna. The same fifteen names come up. Nicholas: ditto. He pauses. “Hey. All these names seem to be coming from the Greek.”

He types in Greek names.

“Amethyst! It means ‘without drunkenness.’” We both crack up, then subside into silence on opposite sites of the table. Christian hunches over the phone, his finger glowing blue in the light from the screen, and I smile affectionately at the top of his head.

“Drusilla!” he says. (Who would DO that to their kid? Haven’t you watched Cinderella???) “Achilles! Agamemnon! AJAX!”

The phone falls into his lap, and we both laugh so hard that we’re crying. And I realize maybe it’s not such a bad way to spend an evening, after all.

 

On In Around button

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The RemembeRED prompt this week was to write a “pivotal” conversation. This doesn’t quite count as pivotal, but it is important, and I thought it would be fun. This is also the first word count I’ve missed. I’m over by twenty-some. Mea culpa.

Published in: on November 15, 2011 at 6:49 am  Comments (24)  
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The (melo)Drama of a Scraped Knee

This is a story about this child of mine:

The one I’ve called the drama king, whose toy conflicts require trial by jury, whose every sniffle becomes a matter of national security.

I don’t think the title quite does him justice.

We went outside after dinner last Thursday to play for an hour before baths. Nicholas promptly tripped on his bare toes and went down on all fours on the concrete. Screams. Running to my outstretched arms. “I need—huh, Mommy!” (Hug.) But a hug apparently wasn’t enough; judging by his body language, the only sufficient comfort would be to crawl back inside me. (In case you missed the memo, that space is taken.)

He had a pair of minor raspberries to show for his mishap. Very minor. Not worth the energy for a special trip inside to clean them up, not when we were forty minutes from bath time. So I snuggled him for a minute and sent him off to play again.

Ten minutes later, down he went again. Back to my outstretched arms. Another assault on my poor uterus. Then Alex distracted him with a wild ride in the push-car, and giggles reigned on our street.

When we went inside for baths, the drama began. “My knee hurt,” he sobbed over and over. “My knee…my knee hurt…” You know when you scrape your knee, and it’s fine as long as you don’t change the angle of the joint? I tried to show him that if he’d just get his leg straight in the bathwater, the pain would ease off in a minute. No way. He was inconsolable. “Do you just want me to wash you and get you out?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he sobbed.

So much for my grand plans of folding the last remnant of laundry while they played. I washed him to a chorus of ear-splitting wails, wrapped him in a towel and carried him to my bed, where I could snuggle with him long enough to calm him down so I could wrestle Julianna through her bath. (I’ve never liked bath time, but in the third trimester I really loathe them. I’m a sweaty mess by the time I’m done.)

But he wouldn’t calm down unless I had my hand wrapped around his head, pressing it into my shoulder, and my cheek on his forehead. Any time I tried a variation on this position, the howling ratcheted upward again. “Nicholas, I have to go wash your sister,” I said repeatedly, with decreasing patience.

At length, he consented to be abandoned, providing he was covered with a crocheted blanket. I went to deal with Julianna, who likes having her hair washed about as much as she likes a visit to the cardiologist. When we finished with teeth, hair and jammies, I looked around for Nicholas, expecting him to be back up and around by this point.

Nope. Nicholas lay exactly where I left him, sniffling and quivering on my bed, under a blanket.

About this time Christian finished teaching lessons and came upstairs. “What was THAT all about?” he said.

“A skinned knee,” I said. “Can you believe it?”

Christian walked over to Nicholas. “Can I see it, buddy?”

Screams. Chubby arms clutching the blanket. Christian looked at me with concern. “Are you sure it isn’t dislocated or something?”

“He’s been walking on it,” I said. “He’s just being a drama king.”

Christian smothered a smile. “Well, then,” he said in his best teasing voice, “I guess we’ll just have to cut your knees off. What do you think, Nicholas? Should we cut your knees off?”

Oh, you thought there was screaming before, did you?

“Christian!” I shrieked. I flung myself across the bed and attempted to explain the concept of “teasing” to a two-year-old. Abashed, my husband came over and tried again. “Nicholas, will you let me look at it?”

Screams. Nicholas lunged for Mommy. I shot my husband a glare. “I wouldn’t let you look at it, either, after that!”

Christian gave up and retreated. If it wasn’t so funny, he might have felt bad. “Must remember,” he said, “that Nicholas doesn’t understand teasing yet.”

Ah, the melodrama of a scraped knee.

In case you’re wondering, Nicholas never mentioned it again.

Published in: on October 13, 2011 at 5:02 am  Comments (11)  
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The Hardest Naptime I Ever Came By

2 kittens taking a nap

Image via Wikipedia

They were doing so well.

So far, they’ve braved a two-hour trip in a car with windows they can’t see out of; they told me when they needed bathroom breaks; they ate well in an unfamiliar house, tag-teamed their catnaps in the car, and tolerated an unexpectedly long wait at the doctor’s office.

Now, at 4p.m., we head for a meeting with my editor to discuss a possible future project. We sit in the tiny cafeteria at the front of Dierbergs and wait. I try to find room in the booth for snack boxes of raisins spread on napkins, a giant bag of books and toys, my NEO, and the stack of napkins I’m using in place of Kleenex.

“Hi!” says my editor brightly. We do introductions, the kids show off their fast-dwindling stack of raisins, and the meeting begins.

Here’s what I had in mind.

Here’s what we already have. What do you think?

Yes, they do look awfully similar, don’t they?

Yes, picture books get expensive.

Nicholas runs out of raisins. I get out the crayons.

What about this idea? Or this one?

Can you clarify? I’m not sure I’m following, with my daughter pulling napkins out of the napkin holder on the table. I set it up on the ledge to get it out of reach.

Well, it could be a resource for children, to go with our adult series…

CRASH. The napkin holder attempts to gouge the Formica, entombing my daughter’s hand within the crater. A quick examination reveals no harm done. I push the napkin holder toward Nicholas, who seems pretty mellow on the other side of the table. Julianna tries to climb over me to get out of the booth. I keep talking, but I sound increasingly out of breath as my pregnant body tries and fails to keep up with the energy of 4 ½.

…books selling well… Distributors…preorders…

The gratifying sensation that attempts to puff up my insides implodes as my daughter climbs over the back of the booth and slips into the aisle. I do a quick cost-benefit analysis and decide to give her a short leash. She walks up to a deli worker on his break. He’s trying to read Facebook on his phone; she places a cute little hand on his leg and smiles adorably into his face. “I’m so sorry,” I say, leaping up to drag her back. I pull out three books from the bag. She rejects them in quick succession. Nicholas puts his raisin-crusted hand on my editor’s shoulder and leans in to say, “Batman!”

What about Ordinary Time? I pull two pages out of the coloring book and set the crayon box between the two of them. That could incorporate several of these ideas, don’t you think?

Yes, that sounds possible.

SCREAM. Julianna doesn’t WANT to color on a ripped-out page, she wants the BOOK.

I’m so sorry, they haven’t really had naps, they’re  usually much better-behaved.

Oh, they’re fine. Now about this column…I think your point starts here, and I think that’s what you want to use for an opening.

Yes, that makes sense. Actually, I’m going on faith that it makes sense, because mostly what I know is that Julianna has climbed over the booth again. She makes a beeline for her interrupted conquest. This time she climbs up opposite him and places both arms on the table, giving him her winningest smile. I don’t know whether to be defeated by her charm or come down hard on her. I drag her back again. This time she screams the whole way.

Well, I think that about covers it.

Yes, thanks for being willing to drive up here…I can’t even imagine how they’d behave if we had to drive down to you today!

Oh, they’re fine.

We pack up the scattered books, crayons, toys and papers. I shove one bag over each shoulder and attempt to hold my children’s hands to walk out the door. Simultaneously, they pull that toddler trick where they simply refuse to stand up, so you’re faced with the dilemma of dragging them along by their arms, possibly dislocating shoulders in public, or you have to come up with some other method of discipline. Frankly, I’m not sure how we get to the car, because the instant they see where we’re headed, the screaming begins in earnest. Sweating, I somehow wrestle everyone and everything into place, lock restraints, and make it onto the highway.

Fifteen seconds later, blissful silence reigns in the back seat. At 5p.m., it is naptime at last.

On In Around button

Published in: on October 3, 2011 at 4:49 am  Comments (9)  
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Spring, Sprang, Sprung (wearing out the cliché)

It’s that time of year again. Sloppy rows of birch, maple and sycamore, hugging the writhing creeks, weary after a long winter’s worth of holding their breath, exhale a soft halo of glowing lime. The understory stretches, a dense, impassable wonderland of redbud and dogwood and wild blackberry flinging its splendor out for all to see, before the canopy steals its light.

I know, writing about spring should be illegal. When we start waxing poetic we employ ten dozen clichés and deeply selective vision. You know, the kind of vision that ignores the old tire half-buried in silt at the edge of the stream, the sad remnants of somebody’s fake poinsettia, the non-biodegradable plastic swimming pool hung up on a branch—all the remnants of a wet winter.

Still, this is my blog, and spring never fails to evoke in me a wonder that cries out to be expressed, especially after an endless winter like the one just past. I’m not going to annoy any editors with my musings—I’m just going to share them with you. And maybe someday I can steal the images for use in a story. (I’ll be like Tchaikovsky: repeat offender in self-plagiarism.)

It’s a perfect day, and as I sit in the warm sun, I try to identify how many different bird calls I can hear. They sing in such perfect ensemble that no matter how many times I count, I always lose track after three. I glory in the air rushing past my face as I pedal along the trail. Wake up, world! And wake up, soul. The mind-numbing days of staring at the same four walls are over. The dandelion war begins anew. And…

Wait a minute, what’s that hiss? That noise like escaping air? Surely that’s not a sharp trail rock, wedged in my bicycle tire, a mile and a half (all uphill) from home?

Bah, humbug!

;)

Shared with You Capture: Spring at I Should Be Folding Laundry

Published in: on April 18, 2011 at 4:28 am  Comments (8)  

Mama’s On Live Radio! Quick, Time to Run Away!

Early in March, I participated in the local Children’s Miracle Network radiothon benefiting what we call in our house “Julianna’s hospital.” I’ve been meaning to write about it ever since, but I kept hoping I’d get my hands on all the photo files I wanted to share. But I finally decided to go with what I have. So here we go: My fifteen minutes of fame, mother-of-three style. :)

I pulled Alex out of school 15 minutes early so he could have the chance to be on the radio with me. The sky hunkered down black over our heads, but the rain held off until we were pulling out of the school parking lot. Then the heavens opened up and dumped. On the interstate, we managed to outrun it. Barely. It was a pretty wet walk from the car to the hospital, but we did manage to get under shelter before the downpour turned green and impenetrable with mere human vision.

I arrived at the radiothon with three kids under 6 and the promise of help from the organizers. In a word, it was hysterical.

Christian's reaction to this picture? "I'm telling you, we're gonna have trouble with this one!"

I did four interviews—eventually. But first, we sat around the couches and watched the first major severe weather of the year roll by, complete with a tornado warning, which moved the whole shebang into the hospital cafeteria for fifteen minutes. The kids passed the time eating crackers and fruit snacks provided by the staff. Fortunately, the twister went south.

It took me an interview or two to warm up. Alex ran the Batmobile on the floor, up the backs of the rollaround plush chairs, and around the back of the sound boxes lying on the tables—and then perched on my leg to talk into the microphone, so he could say he’d been on the radio, too. Julianna just wanted to spin the chairs around and around. Oh yes, and investigate the contents of various purses and laptop cases left on the floor by people who clearly were not aware of her presence in the vicinity. (What were they thinking? ;) ) Every deejay commented on how vivacious she was, by comparison to the story I was telling of a child on the verge of death (which sounds really melodramatic, but read the history and you’ll know she really was).

Christian tells me the mascots HATE having their tails pulled. T.J., my apologies.

Nicholas colored with Miss Missouri. T.J. (“Truman Junior”) showed up between interviews two and three, and my kids went crazy. They beeped his nose, hugged him, played with his tail. During the second interview, the kids started fighting, and I had barely started the fourth when Alex spotted plastic cups of candy on the table in front of me. “MOMMY!” he yelled, just as I began telling our story on live radio, “THEY HAVE ROLOS! CAN I HAVE A PIECE OF CANDY?” Hearing the word “candy,” the other two came running, and I was reduced to making jokes, trying to hold a microphone and unwrapping candy for three greedy pairs of hands. “I don’t think anyone’s eating dinner tonight,” I joked. And then Alex turned to me and whispered, with all the glee of a small child uncovering something scandalous, “Mommy,  guess what? Truman’s a PERSON!”

“How did you decide that?” I whispered back.

“He has a zipper!” Alex said.

So begins the unraveling of all the mystique of youth! ;)

We were supposed to be on the radio in the bottom half of the 3:00 hour. I figured we’d be home by 4:15, 4:30. Instead, we limped into the house five minutes ahead of Christian coming home from work. (And they sort of ate dinner, but not exactly.) But it was worth it when my next door neighbor asked for my autograph the next day. :)

(This Motherhood Moment shared with mama Kat’s Writers Workshop.)

Published in: on April 7, 2011 at 5:27 am  Comments (5)  
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Searchability

Google Search homepage

Image via Wikipedia

One of the funniest things to do as a blogger is to see what search terms bring people to your blog. Most of the time, they’re utterly ordinary: “kate basi blog,” for instance. But included in the mix are some real gems, and today I feel like sharing a few. In case, like me, you’re curious as to what in the world I wrote that showed up on these searches, I’ve linked you to the appropriate post.

The funny…

The things that make you go “hmmm”…

The not-so-funny…

  • rsv related to vsd (or this one) (No amount of distance can make this funny, but it’s so significant in my life that I’m just grateful when other search it, in the hopes that they find themselves not alone.)

And finally, in the category “what the…?” we have:

  • ugly pie (I don’t know what you’re talking about. In this house we only have cutie pies. ;) )
  • alex w ness (Surely that must be a typo? Virtually every post I write has that in it.)
  • elphant mush (Where did the all-knowing Google find that on my blog?)

Okay, those of you who have blogs, what are your favorite search terms people have used to find you?

Published in: on April 5, 2011 at 5:14 am  Comments (4)  
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Things You Hear Around the Basi House, vol. 2

(For volume 1, click here.)

Giggles definition

Image via Wikipedia

“Honey, knives are not for two-year-olds.”

“I’m gonna get you!”
(You must understand, they want to be “gotten”! This seems to be the easiest way to get the kids up the stairs for bed. )

 “rrrrrRRRRRAAAAAAAARRRRRR!”, accompanied by Julianna’s screams and Nicholas’s warbling giggles.
(I have only myself to blame for this one. Alex learned quickly how much they like to be “gotten.” I just wish his whole volume control was set at about half the amplitude.)

“Wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa wa.”
Nicholas just keeps asking till I put the glass in his hand.

“I swear, they’re all possessed!”
(It’s the only explanation!)

“Are you whining? I know you’re not whining, because my baby doesn’t whine.”
(Yeah. Maybe if I say it often enough, it’ll make it true.)

“Do not use the claves on the mirror!”

“(Fill-in-the-bodily-function) goes in the toilet! Not in your diaper!”

“That is not a toy!”

And, on a related topic…

“GET YOUR HANDS OUT OF THE TOILET RIGHT NOW!!!”

Ah…life with little ones. Can’t wait to see what things we hear when the teen years hit. ;)

What are the catch phrases in your houses? C’mon, dish!

(Note: WordPress wants me to tag this post Japan, United States, Singapore, and Recreation and Sports. Um. Okay, dude. Whatever.)

Published in: on March 16, 2011 at 5:10 am  Comments (8)  
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You Know You Need A New Wardrobe When…

You know you need a new wardrobe when your not-quite-4-year-old daughter has this to say about it!

Published in: on January 20, 2011 at 4:31 am  Comments (5)  
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