September 7, 2005

like it or not, I am still struggling with this

I am still weighed down by my reaction to Hurricane Katrina, particularly by a nagging sense of just how damn good I have it. I am extra conscious these days of every cup of coffee I buy, every load of laundry I fold, every cup of over-priced organic milk I pour for the boys. I am trying not to be crushed by the sense that I am well off while others are not, but this week it is hanging heavy and is making it hard to be funny. Or to write at all, for that matter.

But tonight I read this post from Mrs. Kennedy and this one from Heather and I feel somehow better. And tomorrow I will tell you all about Henry’s school and other frivolous things that are happening here in the land of All is Well and Good.

I might even be funny.

September 6, 2005

he’s a knight AND a princess

Henry and Charlie were watching Bob the Builder’s A Christmas to Remember tonight (yes, I know it’s September; I was desperate). This particular Bob the Builder video, for those of you who have not seen it, includes both a complicated subplot about the writing of Elton John’s Crocodile Rock and an extended appearance by Sir Elton himself.

Anyway, the boys are dancing around in front of the TV and Charlie says, ‘Henry! That’s Elton John!’

‘Yeah, but he’s a knight,’ Henry says, ’so he’s Sir Elton. Right, Mommy?’

‘Right.’

Charlie stops dancing (which consists of hopping up and down while waving his arms in the air like a deranged NFL referee) and says, ‘If he’s a knight, does he have a suit of armor?’

‘No,’ I say, ‘he has a tiara.’*

‘Oh,’ he says, ‘like a princess!’

‘Something like that,’ I say.

*As I am sure you know, the film biography of Sir Elton is titled Tantrums and Tiaras. Which, now that I think of it, could easily be the title of Charlie’s biography as well.

September 5, 2005

and we will fill it with sangria, I think

I have so many things I want to write about–how happy I am that Preppy is back as a fashion statement, what we did for our anniversary, how my mother-in-law baked a BOSTON CREAM PIE for us last night, how conscious I have become of every frivolous dime I spend–but Charlie woke me up at 3:30 and wanted me to lay down with him, and because we are opposed to letting the boys get in our bed at night (as they might decide that’s where they want to sleep all the time), I dragged myself out of my comfy pillow-top California King and smooshed in with him in his little twin bed and slept there until 6:30, with the bedrail poking me in the back. Every time I tried to get up (a feat of Olympic gymastic proportions, by the way, with the bedrail there), Charlie would wake up and say sleepily and sadly, ‘No, Mama, lay down’ and pat me with his little fat baby hand. Then he would pull the blanket over both of us and arrange his binket and put his thumb in his mouth and pat me again or press his forehead to mine and doze off. Except for the shooting pain in my leg and the exhaustion today, it was tremendously cute.

But now I am beat, and we are going to the pool this afternoon to celebrate the Official Last Day of Summer, which makes me even more tired just to think of, so instead of any post of substance, I have this Funny Charlie Moment for you.

The other night, when I was reading him his bedtime stories, he picked out Maisy’s Pool, in which Maisy the mouse gets out her inflatable wading pool. Charlie pointed at the picture of the pool and said, ‘We have a pool like that.’

‘Yes, but we don’t call it a wading pool, do we?’

He shook his head.

‘What do we call our pool?’

He thought for a moment and then said, ‘A booze pool!’

I swear I never called it that. Not once. But I will now.

September 4, 2005

I still heart Oklahoma

Congratulations to Sleeping Mommy on her Okie Blog Award for Best Family Blog. Hooray!

And a big thank you to everyone who voted for Friday Playdate, and a special thanks to the kind Okie soul who nominated me. This Mommy gig so rarely gives me the chance to even be in the running for ‘best’ anything. Thank you. You all are the best.

Hooray for Oklahoma!

September 3, 2005

September 3, 1994

Wade and I are not ‘grand romantic gesture’ kind of people. For us, romance is found in the repetition of the mundane: Wade takes out the trash. He changes poopy diapers without being asked, and without complaining. He unloads the dishwasher. He kills bugs.

And I love him for it.

Our wedding was a beautiful, happy day, but the days I remember loving Wade the most are in times of crisis and stress: when my friend Diane died, when Wade’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, when Henry was in the NICU, when Charlie had yet another ear infection. When I am overwhelmed, Wade is there to take out the trash and kill the bugs and keep me going.

In the Episcopal wedding service, there is the bit about who ‘gives’ this woman. Instead, our minister asked my parents and Wade’s parents if they would accept us into their families. For me, this day is about the family Wade and I have built together. And I love that most of all.

September 2, 2005

if Elizabeth Darcy and Frodo Baggins had a baby

Wade went to the bookstore last night, after we put the boys to bed. When he came home, he brought his new book into the sitting room, where I was folding laundry and watching a rerun of Will and Grace. He was carefully covering the title of the book. All I could see was it’s size.

I should stop here to add that my husband is a total geek. Total. Geek. His iPod is completely loaded with classical music; he reads Civil War histories for fun. Recently he read a three-volume biography of Doestoevsky. Just because. Geek.

Anyway, he has his VERY LARGE book there, and he says, ‘Okay, are you ready?’

‘Yes.’

And he reads to me, dramatically, with extra emphasis, from one of the ‘puffs’ inside the book. ‘”A literary triumph . . . ravishing . . . superb . . . a chimera of a novel that combines the dark mythology of fantasy with the delicious social comedy of Jane Austen into a masterpiece of the genre that rivals Tolkien.” See–Jane Austen and Tolkien. Something for BOTH of us!’

And I am such a geek that I say, still without seeing the actual book cover, ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell! I so want to read that!’ And I am right. Because, as we established earlier this week, I am a geek, too.

We spent the rest of the evening makeing jokes about Austen and Tolkien getting drunk together and deciding to write a novel. We were so funny! And that’s how we have stayed married all these years.