carl in casimirland.

I keep reading in US Weekly or The Economist, I can't remember which, that Bennifer is/are naming their little girl Violet, which irritates me greatly as that has been my (unused) girl name choice for two children and three years now. I should have made it Carl's middle name. And Carl, I swear to god, says Oink. It's a little "oy" baby squeak with a very discernable "K" in there, and is usually said with a smile. I thought I was just reading into it and being an excited parent, eager to prove that her baby is oinking before all the other babies are oinking. But then my mom was over and was like, "Is he saying Oink?" Yes! Even before little piggies his age, I bet!

Speaking of Oink, Casimir keeps accusing me of stealing his food. Now, I regularly will eat something as lame as tuna fish out of the can for lunch (this is how I make a tuna fish sandwich, the process just gets aborted at this stage) so that he can enjoy the last piece of leftover lasagna for lunch, along with seconds and thirds of it. But then he'll see me scavenge at his scraps and get mad at me for taking his food. I gave him the last two cookies out of the tupperware container, polished off the crumbs myself, and he points and uses his new language skills to tell me in a variety of ways that I ate it. All of it. Mommy finished the cookies and they're all gone. I try to tell him that even slaves get to eat, but even if I try and explain to him that we can SHARE some food, it's not especially fun to hear your two year-old accuse you of stealing food from him. Actually I have done this for real, when he was given piles of starbursts and jumbo tootsie rolls at a Halloween gathering (why not just pass out jawbreakers, the big ones?). But that's for his own good, and I thought he didn't miss them, but maybe he noticed I got fatter.

It's October 25th, which means that in my neighborhood the Halloween decorations have been up for about 25 days now. Only now, the scarier ones are going up. You try taking a walk with a two-year old and try and divert him from the bloodied, fake bodies hanging from trees and explain that the hands sticking out of the ground aren't real. Who does this stuff? Teenagers?

I just finished culling his book collection of anything with clowns in it or with "funny people," which is his term for clowns or any other similar or scary ass creature. Funny people is sort of the category, and clowns fall under it. This includes Dopey of Snow White fame, because of those ears I guess. In a few instances real life, Casimir has happily played alongside little children with physical handicaps that have made me weep inside for their hardship, and his sweet, innocent child self doesn't notice a thing, thankfully. But tweak that animated creature just a little bit and he just freaks out. I have no idea how or when he came to be afraid of clowns, but some of the little faces in certain books that he points out are indeed a little freaky looking, so I can see where he's coming from.

And now Halloween. It's hard explaining that the skull pictures in the window with bulging eyes are just Halloween decorations. Sometimes they creep me out too. To this day I always remember being scared of my young grade school friend's brother, because he had so many wax skull candles in his room. Sometimes he'd lock me in there and jump up and down on the bed and not let me leave until I named all the guys in his KISS poster (total funny people, if ever there was). Of course I couldn't, so I'd just try to ignore the skull candles with the writhing snakes coming out of the eye sockets and wait until he'd finally let me out. He was probably 7.
Anyway, yeah. At least there's candy. And mommy gets all the chokable ones.

Blogger finally made it easy for the computer- challenged to post pictures. Now how will I refrain from endless posts of And see how cute he is here? And see how I force my kids to pose together already? Someday they'll be happy they have so many photos of themselves when young, stiffly posed in irritation, waiting for me to just take the picture already. Although Carl can't move and get away yet, and so he poses nicely for lots of pictures.

I've always patted myself on the back for my fabulous feminist parenting when Casimir played nicely with his wooden dollhouse and dollies. He liked to "cook" and to play cars, and I encouraged both. The dollhouse family would cruise around in the dumptrucks and the cars would pull up to the house and play with the dolls. Lately, though, I've noticed that the dolls have been lying prone in a row in the dollhouse attic for some time, as if they commited some sort of Heaven's Gate cultlike mass suicide, and the dollhouse had become a parking garage for his larger and more stylish cars. Jerry Seinfeld isn't the only one who needs a whole house for his car collection.

Hello please go.
Last week I was having one of those days where the phone would ring as soon as I got a Carl or a Caz on the changing table, or the doorbell would ring as soon as I got in the shower, and I'd feel like I had to get it because it was probably some of the books I ordered on Amazon about how to make your toddler stop beating on the baby. At one point I trudged to the front of the house with two kids with poop in their dipes to see who was dinging the damn doorbell, thinking it might be important, like one of the nice neighborhood kids raising money for the local catholic school that I'm just dying to give cash to. So I peer out the front window and see three men lounging on my steps with leaflets, all dressed in light blue oxfords and black suspenders. I sort of assumed they were Mormons, not because I know anything about Mormons or have ever actually encountered any on that door-to-door thing I think they do, but the outfits had that sort of we-reject-modern-sinfulness look of piety to them. As much as I'm usually terribly open to an afternoon of proselytizing, I generally don't open the door for three strange, unexpected men, even in boring-ass safe suburban-like neighborhoods. Not even for Mormons.

Casimir was peering at them out the open window, and I went back to change Carl and told Casimir to follow me. A few minutes later I come back and Casimir is sort of yammering out the window so I let him yammer on while I get some snacks ready for him in the kitchen a few feet away, and remind him again that we have to get his diaper changed. Then after a short while I realize that he's actually talking to these dudes. They are still.there. Jesus.
"Is your mother there??" they're asking repeatedly.
"Yah! Going! change! diaper! yeah! Hi!"

I'm not sure if they were seriously still trying to get him to get me to come hear what exciting things they had to say, or if (as I assumed, I'm paranoid) they were as concerned as they sounded and were seriously inquiring about whether or not his mother was there. I finally just went up to the window and said politely that I was right there and was busy with a baby and couldn't get to the door right now, thank you and go away. I try and be polite, but sometimes I just think I should have a choice about opening my own door or not when I'm still half in my pajamas, without seeming rude. I realize it might look slightly pathetic to see a little boy at his window alone talking to you about a diaper for five minutes (I thought it was cute, actually), but he engages the mail carrier too. He talks to anyone. That doesn't mean I'm out in back smoking crack. And our house is about four square feet, so just because you can't see me, doesn't mean I'm not right there out of view, hoping you'll just go away.

And it turns out the annoying men in suspenders weren't Mormons at all, but just plugging some new local restaurant, and didn't I want some special offers for free meals? Because that's important enough to bug beleagured moms about, door to door. You know, restaunteers and Amish and Larry King. I can't keep track of who actually wears suspenders, so it's sort of confusing. Sorry, Mormons. I'll bet they don't even wear suspenders.

People always ask me how Carl is sleeping, because that's just one of the top questions you ask when you talk to the parent of a new baby. And I always say, "oh he's a pretty good sleeper, actually" and leave out the end of that answer, which would go something like: "when he sleeps with me and is attached to my nipple for a good portion of the time." That doesn't usually win approval, so I usually leave it unsaid.

And he nurses so much, I'm afraid I'm going to wake up and he's going to have made a Clifford-the-Big-Red-Dog-esque transformation and not fit into the bed anymore. The boy just likes to eat. And I, alas, I like to sleep. Even if it means sleeping with someone attached to my nipple, or with his head buried in my armpit, hand on my boob, just to make sure it doesn't get away. And then we go to the pediatrician and she takes one look at his weight and height growth and uses words like "astronomical" and "fantastic" and me and my boobies and Carl all beam with pride, as if he's just a big pumpkin and we're trying to win the prize for biggest pumpkin of all. One of Paul's brothers once said something like, "oh yeah it's cute until he's 300 pounds on the football team." But I won't be breastfeeding still then, so I think it will all even out before age two, which it did for Casimir who is no longer off the charts in height and weight.

And now that it's fall and leaves are changing and apple cider is flowing, Caz, Carl and I went back to Casimir's Moms, Pops, and Tots class at the park district. The place was crawling with babies in carseats and pregnant women. Some of my mommy friends were there who I didn't see all summer, and chatting on the playground again was kind of like reuniting on the first day of school as kids, after summer break- only with hoardes of toddlers running around, a baby to rock, and Casimir clinging to my leg saying "Mommy" repeatedly. It was nearly as stressful as the first day of school, if for different reasons, because Carl strapped to my chest was more wiggly than a backpack on my back and there wasn't someone clinging to me on the first day of school. We spent a good while talking about the stresses of toddlerhood and having two kids, and we couldn't get it out fast enough. I think sometimes I need a maternity leave from motherhood. Maybe in Sweden they have that?