Off the Rim

As you know, Brigade, Birdie has long been taken with the potty and all its associated accouterments.  It's all getting a bit ridiculous though: Birdie approaches the potty as her brother does, which is to say, she would like to pee standing up, and if she is to sit on the potty, she would prefer to sit on the rim of the bowl, rather than the seat.  It makes no difference, apparently, that Julie is a girl, and Clara is a girl, and thus, that as Julie sits on the seat to do all her potty business, Clara might as well.  No.  Instead, what appears to be determinative here is that Joe is little, and Clara is little, and therefore, as Joe does, so shall Clara.  And you know, Brigade, at home here, if Birdie wants to try and pee standing up, well wiz away! And if she wants to sit on the bowl's rim, worst case scenario is she falls in, or sit in some dried dribbles from the boys.

But on Monday, after the zoo, at Noodles, all was not well.  While Julie finished up ordering, Ted took the bambini in to the bathroom so they might wash their hands.  He took them into the men's room which doubles as a family changing room and if there is any silver lining in this story, it is that the events which unfolded, unfolded in relative privacy.  This reporter wasn't present so her account is secondhand, but she heard the screams.  Apparently, in the men's family changing room at this Noodles, there is a urinal, and a potty.  Joe used the urinal and--you see where this going, Brigade--as Joe does, so shall Clara.  Of course, as you also know, this simply will not work.  Ted knew this, and suggested the potty.  Clara found this suggestion acceptable, but not the attendant suggestion that she sit on the potty seat.  Only the rim of the bowl would do and Ted (bless him) did not condone her sitting on the bowl rim of the public toilet.  Things devolved from there, as after this grave disappointment, she would brook no assistance with the washing of her hands which was desperately needed in the wake of the visit to the zoo, and frankly, after Clara had attempted to clamber up on the toilet bowl rim and, upon being denied, pitched herself on the floor of the--it bears repeating--public restroom.

Julie heard all of this, and decided not to intervene.  As Ted later said, "Double teaming never works."  So she hastily got her hands washed and upon leaving the bathroom, found Joe in the booth where Julie had left the drinks and order number.  He announced (at typical preschooler volume--i.e. loud) that "Daddy and Clara were outside because Clara couldn't handle it."  And indeed, there she was, outside, wadded up in Ted's arms, with the construction site across the way, listening, no doubt, to a running commentary on all the trucks on the site.  She wasn't crying or screaming though.  Poor Birdie.  With a bit of a cold, a bit of a bonk, and more than a bit tired. . .and then refused a seat on the toilet bowl rim.  It was almost not to be borne, but bear up Birdie did, and so it was that noodles were had.

Swish.

A First

In other news from this weekend, we  can report that we have had our first call from a sitter while we were out.  We went out to dinner with friends Sunday night, and left the bambini with Emily, one of the celebrity demi-goddess from across the alley.  It used to be that playing with Play Doh was what was done when one of the celebrity demi-goddess came over, but now, apparently, they play hide-'n'-seek.  Clara was already under the dining room table before we left.  We'd just sat down to dinner when Emily called to say that everything was fine, but she thought we'd want to know that the bambini had pulled down a curtain rod, Clara had been hit in the head, and had a small cut.  Also, Emily had done what any responsible and probably a little freaked out tween would do and had called her mom.  Julie told Emily that it was only a matter of time before this happened, and she was sorry it had happened on Emily's watch.  As it turns out, it was curtain rod in the dining room on the east wall, the one that faces the street.  We were thinking the downed rod would almost certainly have been the one over the window behind the couch since the bambini are always at that window and tugging on those curtains, but no.  The dining room rods are capped with these fluer de lis-like spears, so Birdie does indeed have a cut---small, but fierce.  Joe informed us that they were being monkeys when this all went down (literally).  But they are fine, as we told Emily and her dad yesterday when they were headed out to buy a fan, we were painting, and Joe was hopping around the driveway and laughing so as to impress Emily.

We Also Paint

In other news from the long Memorial Day weekend, our garage painting project is coming right along.  All but about half of the south-facing wall is primed, and the eastern and northern exposures have the first coat of yellow on them.  Joe helped a bit with the eastern-facing wall, and here and there with some of the priming.  The priming work was less fun because he had to share Julie's brush, whereas he had his own when he was working with the yellow.  When Clara got up from her nap on Sunday, we naturally assumed she'd want a piece of this action, too.  Ted gave her a brush (with nothing on it), and we told her to have at it.  She looked at us, and the brush, burst into tears, and dropped the brush.  So we figure she was either thinking, "What the. . .I WANT THE PAINT!!!!!" or, "I'm too young!  Find some other lackey!  Take the boy!"

Painty McGoo and Painty McGee

Moments before tears and dropped brush.

Much more fun than painting.

To Keep From Going Zoo-y, We Go to the Zoo

But we should back up!  After all, when last we left you, we were considering whether to build an ark and wondering if we'd ever get to go to the park again.  Fans, the sun came out on Sunday.  Hooray!  We went to the zoo--the big one; the Minnesota Zoo--to which Joe and Clara's Grandparents Trump gave us a membership.  (And Fans, we're gonna get their money's worth because we went to the zoo again today!)  The Minnesota Zoo is a large, very spread out zoo, so our zoo sprawl coping strategy was to ask Joe what animal he wanted to see and then go in search of that animal, looking at others along the way.  Yesterday's animal was a snake; today's was a giraffe.  Fans, would you believe that the Minnesota Zoo has but one snake?  It is a python that is really long and looks to be a very respectable python, but it was rather something to locate him (or her, as the case might have been).  Today's animal was a giraffe.  There are no giraffes at the Minnesota Zoo.  By now you might be thinking, is this a zoo, or a fair ground?  Rest assured Fans, it is some kind of zoo.  We saw turtles (and tortoises), a lot of fish (and not just fresh water fish that are, let's be honest, not as flashy as your salt water fish that are representative of fish in all your children's books), a lynx, a bald eagle, monkeys and apes, flamingos, a tiger, a moose, caribou, prairie dogs, antelopes, otters, bears, and lots of other things that we cannot remember the names of including something that is as revered in China as a panda bear (something that is pronounced like "talkin'").  There are also camels.  You can ride some o them (the luckiest camels).  Julie was about to say, "Hey!  Do you want to ride the camels?!" when Ted--wisely--preemptively said one needed to be five to ride the camels.  Joe is looking forward to turning five.

Love ya, Turtle!

We're related?  So like where's my fancy white tail?

Roaring like tigers.  Well, like a tiger.

A moose!  It would like a muffin.  (Seriously though, the educational placard said something like, "A moose spend most of its day chewing."  Apparently, they eat a lotta lotta grass.)

Camels.  Gotta get to five.

Here Clara has simply run out of gas so naturally, she just sat down.  And there is a rock on the sole of her shoe.  Lately, she is big on keeping her feet and shoes somewhat pristine.  We trust you see the difficulty.

Wanted: Two Moons

We recently added Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me to our library.  It was one of the books Joe selected to read tonight.  In it, a girl named Monica asks her papa to get her the moon, which he does, with the help of a ladder, and a mountain, and the moon telling him to wait until it is a bit smaller.  The moon plays with the daughter until it begins waxing again (you get a science lesson in this book, too), and is too big to stay and play.  Shortly before Julie finished the book, Joe asked her if she would get him the moon when she was "more taller enough."  Julie said yes.  Joe added that she should get a moon for Clara, too.  Wanting to get this totally tacked down, he then asked when Julie would be more taller enough to get these moons.  Julie said she wasn't sure.  Joe tried a different tack: what number would she need to be?  She allowed that she would be 36 this year, but that she didn't think that would be sufficient.  Joe said "Yeah, probably 20."  Julie said that was younger than 36 and said maybe when she was 40.  So we've got roughly four years to find ourselves two moons.

That's probably the place to end the post, but this author would like to remember what happened when she took Joe into bed: Clara was still awake.  For a long time, she would bounce up all "Ah ha!" when one walked in, and then would usually pitch a small fit until all her dolls were back in their diapers, booties, and assorted garb.  One night, not so long ago, Julie decided that the dolls would be mis-en-placed, if you will, once, and after that, they were bedding down in whatever state their mistress had them.  (As you might imagine, Dearest Readers, this went over like a lead balloon with their mistress.)  So it was not without some trepidation that Julie approached Clara's crib tonight and reached a hand in to touch the Baby Bird's head and say, "I love you."  That's when Clara reached up her own hand, grabbed Julie's and brought it to her cheek.  (Clara must have been really tired.)