The Twinkies

There was a monster in F’s room. It was pink, lived in the light and made the sound “meow.” It also alternated between being a good monster who was her friend and scaring the crap out of her.

We did a “monster removal” ceremony and colored pictures of the monster, shone bright lights in the room and made loud noises to scare the monster away, then put one picture in a box, taped it up and gave it to Daddy to deal with (as Daddies know how to dispose of monsters.)

J was jealous that F had a monster in her room. He complained that he wanted one.

I also swapped the kids rooms, though this was unrelated, and that seems to have helped. When asked F will say that, no, there isn’t a monster in her room but that, yes, there is one in J’s.

When you children are experimenting with fluid dynamics and exploring the volume of different containers, well, at least the clean up of the water everywhere helps get the mystery stickiness off the floor at the same time.

(Remember that “tissy” is our word for nursing.)

J: I want tissy.
Me: OK, go get in the mama bed and we’ll have a little tissy.
J: I want big tissy.
Me: Yes, well, your father does too but little tissy is what we have.

I need a sitting baby about 6 months old for a portfolio shoot. You come to me and I shoot your child; no session fee and you get an 8X10 of your choice for your time. If you have one and are interested let me know.

Yesterday was a day all about my house and President Obama. Not that President Obama has anything to do with my house, I just like saying President Obama. I cried when the announced introduced him as President Elect. I teared up when he took the oath. Alas, I did not cry during his speech as that was spent trying to corral twins.

I was driving them home from school and he began to speak right as we turned on to the major street our block is off of. I though, “No problem. They keep saying it’s a short speech. I’ll just drive around for 20 minutes and hear it.” The moment I went past our turn off F began to scream “Not that way, that is not our house. We don’t go this way!” When I persisted in my non-home-going ways she started to just scream. Loudly. J joined in. I turned up the volume and went home and let them run around in the snow while I sat in the car in the driveway and listened to the rest of it. Well, I listened to it when I wasn’t keeping J from crawling into the “big truck” in our driveway.

We’ve been replacing our windows. They were original chain and counterweight windows and very cool except for that lead paint chipping off and drafty stuff. Oh, and they were very difficult to clean. The new windows are not nearly as cool architecturally but they do seem to keep the drafts away and lack that “sending flakes of toxicity to your floor and toddlers” feature which we weren’t all that fond of. We knew the back room would be an issue. It is a home-owner addition done by someone who was not quite as handy as he thought he was. To say that it “leaked” in the rain would understate the matter. The wall actually oozed water. So we knew there would be problems.

The whole back wall was rotted out. It all had to come down. OK. I was anticipating that. When the contractor told me about it I was phlegmatic. I even decided it would be a good idea, while the whole wall was down, to add a door out to the garden turning that room from the “what the hell is this weird space off the dining room” room to a nice little sun-room/breakfast nook.

Note: Amie – any decorating ideas?

Back on track…

Yesterday the electrician came to redo the wiring. Turns out the carpenters had gotten zapped by a wire that was turned off at the circuit box. Oh yeah, and whomever wired that room decided that putting current through the ground wire was a good idea. And there were no boxes around the switches or outlets. They have to take down all the paneling on all the walls in that room to totally redo all the wiring.

Now, we’ve had electrical issues before. When we had to redo the bathroom while I was pregnant because it was raining into the kitchen the electrician went to hook a new ceiling fixture up in the kitchen and I believe his exact words were “What the hell is wrong with your house?” What should have been a trivial job took almost all day as he sorted out the screwy wiring. So I know that someone lived here who was deluded into thinking he (or she) was an electrician.

Yesterday’s electrician kept reexplaining the problem to me. I was so cheerful about the whole thing I don’t think he believed I really understood what had to happen. I understood. I just wasn’t surprised. You know when they say, “Don’t try this at home, kids?” That includes wiring, people. Just don’t. Hire an electrician. Really.

President Obama. I just really like saying that.