the sleppys

These babies are getting very heavy. I can sleep only on my side. When turning from one side to another, I grunt in my effort. Getting out of bed takes at least three minutes (on a good day). My calves are constantly cramping. I can’t put my belly on the edge of the sink anymore to wash the dishes. Instead, I am standing with feet shoulder-width apart (to get myself shorter) and turned to one side (to keep Belly out of the way). It is not comfortable. Other than that, I have no complaints.

Taylor is putting her own clothes on. She takes off her diaper, picks out her pajamas, and dons them. Of course, she picks out the boys’ pajamas and doesn’t put on another diaper – which I don’t expect her to do. She walked into the living room on Saturday night wearing a pajama top and shorts. She wore them in a such a fashion: The neck was under her arms, covering her chest, and both her legs were in one of the shorts’ legs. Basically, she was wearing a tube top and a miniskirt. It was Saturday night. She probably thought that she was going out. It took ten minutes to coax her into wearing a diaper and the pajamas properly.

On Father’s Day, the boys presented Dad with a book: The Home Depot’s Home Improvement 1-2-3. After I came back from work, we rode to my parents’ house where we swam in the pool, played soccer, and watched Dale Junior win the Michigan race.
Ty asked me if Mother’s Day was on Saturday. He doesn’t remember this year’s Mother’s Day because we didn’t do anything or go anywhere. I took four naps that day – so I don’t remember it much either. We did have the Shepherd’s Pie that Dad made. Then he asked, “When is Children’s Day?” Ty, everyday is Children’s Day around here. You always sleep in. You always have a made-from-scratch breakfast. You ALWAYS get the day off from school! Children’s Day. *hmmph*
Kyle has become quite the poet – though not the William Carlos Williams type. “Bug, Rug, Lug. Hey, that rhymes!”

“Yes, Kyle. They all rhyme.”

At the grocery store, “Milk, Wilk, Tilk. Hey, that rhymes!”

“Yes, Kyle, but those aren’t, like, real words.”

At the bank (when it’s really quiet and full of people in business suits), “Gas, Ass, Lass. Hey, that rhymes!”

“Yes, Kyle. They rhyme.” Oh, my goodness.

Ty puts written English to good use.

My mother-in-law threw a baby shower for me on May 4th. (Yes, that was a very long time ago, and I’m writing about it NOW?) It was an old-fashioned, Girls Only shower. A few of my friends came over. One friend brought her 5-year-old daughter who started getting a little bored, so I told her that she could play with some toys (although the only toys that we have are boyish things like dragons, trains, dinosaurs, and cars). When she left, it looked like she had scattered toys around and attempted to put some away but didn’t quite manage to put the toys in their assigned bins.

When the boys came home after the shower, Ty was upset that the girl had made a mess. He yelled at me (presumptuous little boy) and told me not to let anybody in his room again. He made a sign: “KEEP OUT. Not go in a thE 3 kids room.” So I helped him clean up, and his sign still hangs at kid-eye-level on his the three kids’ room’s door. So now when other small children come over, he enforces the rule on the door.

The Stanley Cup Finals

We’ve been watching the Stanley Cup Finals on television. Ty is very excited that the Detroit Red Wings have only one game to win the Stanley Cup. He follows the game itself fairly well, considering it’s a fast game, and he’s only five. It took me a few televised games to catch on to what was going on. Where’s the puck? How do you know if the puck’s in the net? Who’s got the puck now?

So tonight, the Cup is in the House. Detroit is playing on home ice, and I’m kind of excited about it, too… considering I’ve never played ice hockey and have been ice skating only one time in my life.

Taylor Fashions a Bandage

We have a rubber tree – two, actually – in our front yard. Taylor was climbing the north tree all by herself. “Mommy, I did it!” she likes to yell. On Saturday, she had climbed the thick trunk to where the branches start to spread, about four feet up. I saw her fall out of the tree and onto the grass. She screamed. Ty was standing above her, telling me that she fell. I acted nonchalant about the whole thing. She didn’t fall on her face. She didn’t break her arms. She merely had a few long scratches on her arm from hanging tightly to a branch while falling. I thought I would stop the bleeding with my dress but found that the scratches didn’t cut through her skin. They were more like long bruises. She saw that they were red, and continued to cry. (I think she hurt her pride more than she hurt her body). She wouldn’t let me take the fabric from my dress off of her arm, so we sat in the grass while Ty played. He brought a leaf from the tree over to me, and Taylor used it to bandage up her arm.

The next day, she walked around the house wearing the leaf bandage against her arm. And today, the scratches don’t look so red, and she seems to have forgotten about the whole falling-out-of-the-tree thing.

Baby Names

It’s tough picking baby names. I don’t understand how people just chose a name for their babies in utero. I’m sure that they spend a few hours together discussing the issue. But how can parents be sure that their unborn boy or girl will actually be a Craig or a Jessica? And with the middle name, it just narrows what kind of Craig or Jessica the child will be.

I suppose that we’ve fortunate in naming our babies the right names. Well, Kyle is more like a Kurt, but it’s close! And if we have a Kurt, he’ll probably be more like a Kyle – or maybe a Carlton. Who knows? The point is this: I know what kind of names I like, and I know that not all names will go well with our last name. And I’d really like to hold my newborn(s) and get to know them for a few days before engraving their names in stone. But the hospital won’t let the baby go if he or she doesn’t have a name, and I don’t want to be stuck in the hospital for days on end simply because our babies won’t tell us their names.

This whole process reminds me a lot of T.S. Elliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats‘ “The Naming of Cats.” Rest assured, no one will be named Admetus nor Munkustrap. Although Cat Morgan sounds cool. Whether we have fraternal or identical twins, boys or girls, one boy and one girl, I don’t think it’s cute or fair to give twins rhyming names, id est, Brandy and Randy.

Kyle the Hero

Dad has been playing Baldur’s Gate, which is a role-playing video game. Kyle, our creative-sensitive-dreamer child, runs around the house, holding a plastic clothes hanger, shooting fiery arrows from his bow. Every once in a while, Ty will join in as a bad guy and pretend to be hit and fall. Santa Claus brought the boys foam swords and shields, so Kyle uses his to kill the monsters in the hallway. When he notices that I’m watching him, he stops, frowns, and pretends to be simply walking down the hall. So I have to be careful not to make eye contact with him while he’s slaying giant lizards because if I pretend to be looking at a spot on the wall, he continues his battle against evil.