Housekeeping

I am so, so, so glad that I'm not the only one with a dirty house...

Madeline Madness

Trains have been replaced as Jack's favorite play activity and topic of conversation. We have moved on (and backward) to Madeline. I'm thrilled to have something to talk about other than tenders and smokestacks and roundhouses, although our current repertoire of storylines is still a bit limited and starting to get somewhat tired. Until he starts remembering all the plots of the stories, which we've just started reading again, the favorite by far is pretending to fall off a bridge into the river. At least 20 times a day, Jack informs me that he's on a bridge, saying, "I'm not being careful..." to which I'm supposed to respond, "Oh, no, Madeline, don't fall in the river!" Jack then dives to the floor, yelling, "Splash!" One of us has to find his stuffed dog to play Genevieve and drag him to the shore, whereupon I (Miss Clavel) give him a big hug and tell him how glad I am that he's okay.

In the second favored place is the play in which Jack groans in bed, I proclaim, "Something is not right!" and we "drive" (I carry) Jack quickly to the "hospital" (downstairs couch) where he gets a full checkup with his doctor's kit and has his appendix removed.

I knew this was not just a passing fad when, after the first day of Madeline play, Jack woke up twice during the night and instead of calling out "Momma," summoned me by yelling for "Miss Clavel." Requests for Ben are even more complex as Jack has dubbed him Pepito, who is the son of the Spanish Ambassador who lives next door. So when calling for Ben, even during the middle of the night, Jack asks for "Daddy Pepito son of the Spanish Ambassador."

He has, however, started a couple of irresistible bedtime rituals that melt my heart. He knows this and exploits it to full advantage. First, he has ingeniously replaced goodnight kisses (which he started refusing a week or so, to much protest and sneaking of kisses from me) with nuzzles, which he very freely gives. He rubs noses, although he moves his head so quickly that's it's generally better for the recipient to just stay still and wait to the nuzzle to come. Second, instead of accepting going straight to bed after his goodnight lullaby, as soon as we start to leave, Jack says, "Momma, will you stay wit me?" That request is quickly followed by, "Talk about our day," which leads to a quick recap of the events of our day. It has become my favorite 10 minutes of the day.

I have to say that I greatly prefer this to his previous routine of falling asleep on the floor in his doorway. Every night for about two months we had to put him back in bed before we went to bed ourselves.

Engineer Jack

A few weeks ago, our Parents as Teachers parent educator asked Jack what he was going to be for Halloween. Although we hadn't talked about it yet, I had been planning on making him a really cute chicken costume that I had seen in a magazine. Nope. Jack immediately responded that he was going to be a Little Blue Engine. I gulped. I can sew decently, but something like that would be beyond my sewing prowess. Then I briefly envisioned a painted microwave box for Jack to wear around his torso. That sounded even more daunting, because if my sewing skills are basic, my painting skills are non-existent. And I was absolutely not going to purchase a Thomas the Tank Engine costume--I loathe Thomas (apparently I'm not the only one, though I hate him for other reasons as well). So I decided to do what any other sane mother would do when faced with an impossible costume request. Nothing.

Score one (or is it about 10 million in my lifetime by now?) for procrastination. While we were visiting my parents week before last, Jack fell in love with an engineer's cap my brother had picked up on vacation while I was in high school. Jack, not normally one to wear hats, wore that one nonstop. A quick trip to Farm and Home (yes, Warrensburg has a store called Farm and Home, and it's chock full of John Deere stuff, Carhartts, and, more importantly, overalls in all sizes and styles), and a peek through old dress up clothes to find a handkerchief and we were all set.

And so I present Engineer Jack:

Note that the smudges on his face are not just normal two-year-old messy face; we made a special trip to the organic potting soil bag for that "just shoveled a pile of coal into the steam engine" look.

At the end of the night, we took this little video of Jack Trick or Treating our house. Sorry for the sideways-ness--can never seem to remember which way is upright, and YouTube, unlike the now defunct Google Video, doesn't seem to allow switching frame orientation. I also have to clarify that although Jack was an engineer, not a conductor (there is a difference, and normally Jack, over-educated in the field of train travel as he is, would be the first to explain it), all the adults who saw his costume asked him if he was a conductor. By the end of the night he had given up and was even calling himself a conductor. Too bad, especially because the way he says "eng-i-neeo" is even cuter than the way he says, "con-do-tor."

Baby update: I'm 15 weeks pregnant now and fully into maternity wear. The baby is now about the size of an orange and is kicking away like crazy. At my 8 week ultrasound s/he was already moving enough to impress my OB, and for the past few weeks the movements have been strong enough for me to feel, even though it's still abnormally early for that. In about a month we'll have the big ultrasound when we'll find out the baby's gender and blessedly be able to refer to the baby as either "he" or "she" instead of "it" and soon after to have a name other than the undignified "Baby #2" or "the baby."

Telling Time

Jack today, pretending to answer the phone:

Yeth, we can do dat. Otay, Nonna and Pops, you will be 'ere at thirty o'clock? Atter bedtime? Otay. Bye bye.

Halloween post of the train engineer tomorrow.