Random Ramblings

Enoch just woke up crying just now. I asked him what was wrong, if he had a bad dream, etc. He finally answered that he had a bad dream. I asked him what happened in the dream. He told the most horrifying tale. He said...that he dreamed he wanted ice cream and that we had it but...Dad ate the last of it! Oh noes! Anyone would wake up crying after that dream, right?

The funny thing is that he blamed Eric in the dream. We did have ice cream a few days ago and I ate the last of it last night after the kids were in bed. Tonight after dinner, they asked for some more, and were quite upset to be told it was all gone. But, you know, it was my fault, not Eric's! He even told them about how I didn't even share the last little bit with him, so he's clearly been victimized just as much as they have, but somehow gets the blame and causes the nightmares. :D

Hello? Is this thing on? Are you still there, world?

Huh. I guess the end of the world happens later today? The Mayans couldn't possibly be wrong, after all, nor could their calendar start over at the beginning like ours does when we hit December 31st. Oh no, that would make far too much sense.

Yesterday was Enoch's last day of school before Christmas break and the school was putting on couple assemblies with each class presenting something to the other kids and parents. Aside from there being two afternoon kindergarten classes, I wasn't quite sure why it was split into two assemblies. Now that I've seen their gym, I know. It was freaking tiny. No room for anyone. The principal kept stopping the program and telling people that it wouldn't continue until the parents cleared the doorways because it was a fire hazard. That seemed hilarious to me, as making a tiny path available to the door would not have made a bit of difference if a fire had started. The huge mass of parents would have instantly wedged itself in the two doors and all the "fire hazard" concern would have been for naught. Maybe all elementary school gyms are this size and I just don't remember since it's been so long since I've been to my elementary (and I never will again since it's been torn down and replaced with the typical prison-like building of the past forty years of school designs :( ).

At any rate, I didn't expect Enoch to do much, because this is Enoch. Sure enough, he refused to even get up with his class. Both of our kids march to the beat of their own drums, him especially, and public performance just doesn't seem to be part of their programming. So I recorded his class on my iPad and played Minecraft until everything was over so we could grab him and go home, because honestly? I don't care about kids I don't know singing Feliz Navidad. My life would be fuller without ever encountering such a thing, in fact. Bea didn't much care for any of it either. After a few presentations, she finally stopped cowering with her hands over her ears, but as soon as the clapping would begin after a performance, she'd cover them right back up.

Neither of them were quite as funny as they were in their dance recital last June, but that's probably going to be hard to top for a while.

Enoch: "Mom, come here!"

I walk over to find he's destroyed a bird toy and set the wooden rectangles from it in a line on the floor.

Me, angry: "Hey! How come you destroyed that bird toy?"

Enoch: "Because they look like boats."

I had no ready response to that.

Today is Enoch's first day of preschool. He's been alternately excited and contrarily refusing to go. We had a short meeting with his teacher last Friday, where Bea showed herself to be far more ready for school than he actually is, chatting and being social while Enoch hid his face in Eric's shoulder. Of course he warmed up enough to draw a picture for the classroom right as the family after us came in for their time. Children!

It was apparently worth it, though, because while he hung back a bit, when we asked him to give his bag of extra clothes to his teacher, he did so without a fuss, and even /looked/ at her. Amazing! Then he was off, wanting to go slide outside with the other kids. We barely got him to say goodbye to us, which I'm hoping isn't going to cause him to throw a fit later when he realizes we're not there anymore.

And...of course we managed to be late. Me by myself? I'm on time to things. Eric by himself? He's on time to many/most things. Add us together? Somehow we end up late to every freaking thing ever. Something always happens, whether it's being distracted by things on the computer or trying to find shoes or organize some of the havoc the whirlwinds that our children create in our home. Then the traffic was bad. How traffic manages to be bad in the half mile or so that we had to go, I don't know, but it was. And parking? Forget about it. So I feel like a complete and utter heel, taking my oldest kid late to his first day of school ever. Oy.

I'd post pictures, but if I waited to do that, the post would never happen at all. Perhaps Eric will go to the actual effort, though the pictures are awful with the harsh, bright, afternoon sunlight pouring down on him.

I'm cleaning off my desk and among the things sitting around on my shelves is an old photo album that Enoch partially tore apart. It's not like I have any desperate need to look at photos from my childhood and teen years all the time, so I figured I would just pull the pictures out and stick them in a box to take up less space. As I'm doing so, Enoch suddenly points at one of the pictures and says, "Jesus!"

The picture was me as a little girl holding my cat, Buzzy. Bet you didn't know I was the second coming of Christ, huh, 'cause I sure didn't!

My kids are weird. Enoch, when he was very little, would do a nunununu kind of sound that seemed to be him saying no to something, but that quickly faded. He's all of three years old and he's just barely started to say no in the last few weeks. Even then, he hasn't said it enough that Bea has picked up on it yet.

I came into the office a few minutes ago to find that the kids had pulled my chair up to their desk and Enoch was sitting on it. I told him that I was here now and he needed to give me my chair back. He declared, "No! Mumble mumble Ink chair!" (Ink is his pronunciation of Enoch). He wasn't saying it in a defiant way but in a teasing way, so I said in a kind of sing-song, "I don't think so!" In the same sing-song, he said, "I think so!" It was very funny. I finally got him out without a fight by convincing him to steal Eric's chair instead.

Enoch loves to echo everything we say and Bea loves to echo him. The game of telephone this presents is hilarious. She does have little quirks of her own, though. Enoch was never interested in animal sounds, but Bea loves them. She tries to do the different ones we tell her, but she must forget them, because a few weeks ago, she started meowing after talking about any animal at all, even the voiceless giraffe. She's now mastered saying "woof woof" like a dog, so she alternates between the two. It's hilarious. All animals are cats, dogs, giraffes, or occasionally cows or horses, and they all woof or meow.

My kid is a nut. I was feeling pretty crappy and really needed to take a bath, so I hauled him and some toys in the bathroom and did so. He was fascinated by the water, so I grabbed a couple of his floating bath toys and he went to town. One would allow water in when pushed under the surface and then drain when pulled out, so he kept filling that one up and then chewing on it or splashing with it. He ended up soaked from head to toe, and though we keep it around 65 F in here, he didn't even act cold. I was freezing without clothes on, and he, soaked, was happy as a clam.

It was hilarious to watch him and it kept him entertained, so I'll definitely do this in the future. I'll just take his clothes off first next time.

Freecycle is interesting. Sometimes people have very specific wants and I wonder why on earth they think anyone would give such a thing to them, like a working car. On the other hand, I just was able to help out with a very specific want, so you never know. I'd been considering getting rid of my old Game Boys and the pokemon games I had. The other games could be played on my GBA, and with Fire Red and Leaf Green on the GBA, I really didn't see myself playing Red, Blue, and Yellow again. Lest people think I'm a complete tool, my brother gave me Blue and Yellow once he got tired of them. I'm only mostly a tool. ;)

Well, a few days ago, a mom posted to Freecycle wanting Pokemon Yellow. Her son had tried to wash his and ruined it and he was devastated. Wow, something I could actually help with. Without telling her I was going to do so, I went ahead and stuck one of the extra Game Boys, a link cable, and Blue and Red in with Yellow. She just emailed me thanking me a ton, as her son apparently asked for Blue and Red for Christmas. Whoah. I just totally made a kid's Christmas. That's pretty awesome.

Enoch seems to finally be getting a tooth. My mom and I were, ironically enough, just talking about how he didn't seem to be teething yet last night. Right before bed, though, he started chomping on my finger hard, and I started feeling around in there, and there was a major bump on his lower gum (one that Eric somehow couldn't feel). Looks like he might finally be getting his first one, which might explain his orneriness lately.

Enoch has said his first word and exhibited understanding of it: Mama. Or "Mamamamamamamamama" as he sometimes says. He's very fond of his single word. He's also started to pull himself up to a standing position. I bet he's going to be walking at nine months like I did.

He's also sick for the first time. We all came down with a cold earlier this week. I thought I was coming down with a sinus infection Sunday night when my throat started hurting, but since Eric had the sniffles the next day (and only then, grrr, lucky!) and Enoch had a runny nose, sneezing, coughing, and watery eyes the day after that, I downgraded it to cold status. I'm still really stuffy, but not as miserable as I could be, so yeah. Cold. Enoch's first. I'm very grateful he hasn't been sick before this and that it's passed fairly quickly. He slept until 1:00 pm this afternoon and was considerably less fussy today, so I think he's starting to feel better.

Finally, because I tend to be remiss about this since Eric does it so frequently, here are ( baby pictures. )