Dinner and a Show

ACT I:  06:11PM January 13, 2014 - Set in a toy-strewn foyer that smells faintly of burned chicken tenders. If you listen closely, you may hear air raid sirens and bomb explosions coming from another room.  Enter Aaron through front door as Owen is corralled into bathroom by baby-toting mother covered in food.

KATE: (to Aaron) "Back away!!!  Don't let him touch you!  He's covered in honey!"

AARON:  "Where's the honey?"

OWEN:  (Proudly) "All over me."

AARON:  "Why?"

KATE:  "Because the chicken was burned so I gave him honey to dip it in, and he spread it all over his belly."

AARON:  "Why didn't he have a shirt on?"

KATE:  "Because Eliza puked all over him."  

ACT II:  05:45PM January 13, 2014 - Set in kitchen where you cannot see a single inch of unoccupied countertop. Eliza is showing the early signs of discontentment after being stuck in her high chair for too long. Owen is diligently dumping out the contents of every can of PlayDoh on the floor.  Kate is cooking Owen's dinner, cleaning up after Eliza's dinner, packing Owen's lunch for tomorrow, and wondering if someone could please pour her an extra large glass of wine.

OWEN:  "Mommy, I gonna watch Ewiza on my stool."  (Drags a stool over to Eliza's highchair and proceeds to steal every Cheerio off her tray, his sweet revenge after being denied his own bowl of cereal.)

ELIZA:  (Losing her shit)  "WAHHHHHHHHHH."  

(Kate lifts Eliza -- who is covered in pear juice and caked rice cereal, and therefore very justified in her cries of complaint -- and puts her in jumperoo seat while rushing back to the stove to flip the chicken tenders.  Meanwhile, Owen goes over to "help Ewiza bounce," thereby multiplying the force of every jump and essentially making his sister do negative Gs.  Kate turns just in time to see a familiar looking expression on Eliza's face.)

KATE:  (In that deep, slow-motion, Sandlot kind of voice) "Nooooooo!!!! Waaaaaatch outttttttt."  

(At that very moment, Eliza projectile vomits all over Owen's left arm.  Owen looks down, pauses in a moment of utter shock and panic, and then he, too, loses his shit.)

OWEN:  "GET IT OFF, MOMMY!!!!!!"

ACT III:  04:50PM January 13, 2014 - Set in an immaculate home, peaceful and happy.  Two sweet children are playing gently with one another as their loving nanny/second-mother finishes putting away the fifth load of folded laundry she's done today.

KATE:  (Cheerfully ignorant of what the next hour holds) "Hey guys! I'm home!"

Things You're Happy Your Kid Said In Private

• "Champagne is good."
• "Your forehead is big, Mommy."
• "Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap!"

Happy Hump Day.

A Traveling Circus

A week before Christmas, I flew by myself with both kiddos from Boston to Virginia.  The lag between ticket purchase and travel date was sufficiently long as to trick me into believing this would be a really swell idea.

(Side note:  future-predicting is one of parenthood's crazy mind games; you have no clue how different your kids -- and therefore your entire life -- will be from Time A to Time B, and it's deceivingly easy to confuse optimism with realism. "Oh, two whole months from now?  Eliza will practically be a toddler by then and Owen could probably help me carry all the bags through security."  Um, or not.)

It was only right before our flight, face-to-face with six rather imposing pieces of luggage, that I began to realize how many things could go terribly, terribly wrong.  (Spoiler alert:  nothing did, but that's not the point.)  Apparently, many people who encountered us in the airport that day had a similar thought.

Like any family with young children, we can be quite a spectacle when we venture out into the world. We're an easy source of entertainment for the bored people-watcher, a satisfying side show for fellow travelers.  Owen sang the ABCs Remix (starting over at QRS) on repeat through the entire security line.  At the gate, Eliza did tummy time on a blanket I'd spread on the floor and shared her glowing sweet-potato-orange spit-up for all to see.  Owen stood up in front of the otherwise silent boarding area crowd and announced that he wanted to take his pants off.  Then he began to sing at full volume:  "Dissssssneyyyyyy Juniorrrrrrrrr...On Demand!"  (I swear he watches less than 30 minutes of TV a day.)

Away from the safety of our natural habitat of toys and books and easy time-out corners, we draw unwanted attention.  Some people smile or coo, but many people glare.  Who knows what they're thinking -- probably some version of "please don't be seated in the row behind me" -- but I try to avoid eye contact at all cost.  I already feel awkward enough; please let me live in my world of denial ("if I don't see you, you don't see me") and don't think I'm rude if I fail to look up.

If there's one thing I've learned about parenthood, it's that where the world sees uncontrolled chaos, an accident waiting to happen, I see meticulous mental planning:  a sloppy-looking mother wearing spandex pants and a baggy sweatshirt because it maximizes her toddler-chasing agility; a dad who is fully aware of the spit-up on his shirt but carefully choosing his battles; a traveling mama who hasn't had a sip to drink since yesterday for fear of needing to pee with two kids in tow.  Sure, there's chaos.  But there's almost always a corresponding contingency plan.

A kind woman next to me on the plane remarked that I was surprisingly calm for taking a flight alone with two little ones.  Of course, she didn't know about the Emergency Oreos I had in my pocket, the episode of Curious George I had queued up on the iPad, and the glass of wine that would be waiting for me at my parents' house.

Owen + Eliza: A Love Story

When you have Baby #1, everyone's inevitable first question is "How's the baby sleeping?" -- doubtless because sleep is assumed to be the main obstacle standing between you and the eventual regaining of your sanity.  But when Number Two comes along, the threat of sleeplessness is overshadowed by an even more sinister family hazard: sibling dynamics.  The delicate household balance you spent 21 months carefully cultivating can be immediately annihilated by a jealous toddler trying to find ways to get Number Two back to the hospital.  And so naturally the question now is, "How does Owen like Eliza?"

The answer, we are so grateful to say, is that he absolutely, positively adores her.

Since the moment Owen met Eliza in the hospital when she was just three hours old, it's been a love story.  While he hasn't always known exactly how to treat an infant (e.g., he frustratedly tried to force a pacifier into her nose upon first meeting), he has always adored her and doted on her completely.  He often adopts a high cooing voice and tells her that she's his "Appletizer" (no clue) and that's she's "so cute and getting so big."  He snapped at us singing too loudly one night ("Daddy! Don't wake up Ewiza!") and calls our attention to her needs when she's fussing ("Mommy! Ewiza needa bottle!").  Lately, he's started asking us to put Eliza in his crib in the morning, and a few days ago this request was accompanied by very explicit instructions: "Mommy, put Ewiza right there.  I stay with Ewiza.  You go play trains."

(Timeout: that's what you think I do for fun while you're not around?)

For her part, Eliza is just an unbelievably good sport.  From the moment she arrived, she has been a curious but exceptionally easygoing girl, a disposition that has been thoroughly tested by her very hands-on older brother.  He loves to lie on top of her and give her a huge hug (and a mouthful of his unruly curls), hold her cheeks and squeeze her hands, and position her legs in the yoga poses ("Happy Baby Toes!") he learns at school.  All the while, she looks at him with wide eyes and a big gummy smile and has eyes for no one and nothing else.  Aaron and I do all sorts of ridiculous stunts to get her to smile, but Owen only has to look in her direction to provoke a full belly laugh.

In the nearly six months Eliza has been with us, I have taken approximately 39,385 of the same photo -- some variation of Owen holding Eliza (and often, Eliza looking at me with disapproving skepticism). Since this blog is called Baby Spam and you're my captive audience, here are an unsolicited few of those many, many sibling pics.

Learning to hold "Baby Wiza in his wap"

A common theme: Owen looking lovingly at Eliza, Eliza giving me a what-the-hell-is-going-on look

The first of many times Owen will be told not to drive trucks on his sister. 

After positioning the chairs like this, Owen spent 15 minutes playing footsie with Eliza.

Putting the skills he learned with his doll to work

"Seriously, Mom?" Part I

"Seriously, Mom?" Part II

"Seriously, Mom?" Part III

Spontaneous hand-holding to settle Eliza down in the car

Two more "Reasons My Son is Crying"

1.  He found out he has to share his last name with Eliza.
2.  I answered "No" when he asked, "Does Mommy have a peepee like Owen?"

Go figure.

This is not America.

Before you have a two-year-old, you think you have some idea of what this age involves:  epic public meltdowns, a proliferation of the word "no," and repeatedly counting to three.  But no one warns you about the root cause of all this friction -- the completely irrational, almost always absurd reasons the kid is crying in the first place.  Sure, there is the understandable freak out about the vegetables you're making them eat or the bedtime you're enforcing.  But until you have a two-year-old, there is no way you could ever anticipate igniting a firestorm by offering ice cream or explaining that we eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

There is a whole hysterical blog (Reasons My Son is Crying) devoted to these irrational freak outs, almost none of which I would've believed a year ago.  But, boy oh boy, do I believe them now.  It takes crafty negotiation skills to go head-to-head with a little person who is pissed about not being allowed to eat chicken fingers for breakfast.  To add to the Reasons My Son is Crying (Barasz Edition), here are some recent favorites...

• I told him his middle name is Charles. 
• What he heard:  "Your middle name is Saddam."
• I told him that "ka-wear-us" is actually pronounced "hil-ar-ious"
• What he heard:  "Eliza is my favorite child."
• I wouldn't let him out of his high chair to "go clean the whole house" (no joke) until he finished eating his lunch.
• What he heard:  "You're not allowed to eat your lunch until you go clean the whole house."
• I suggested we have lunch at Panera.
• What he heard:  "Santa's not real."

One favorite "Reason My Son is Crying" moment came yesterday after a prolonged battle over a shirt selection.  (Clip below.)  Stupidly, I offered Owen a choice between his gray train shirt and a red striped shirt.  (Total rookie mistake.)  He'd already spent 20 minutes melting down after finding out he could not wear them both simultaneously, when Aaron told him he had to wear the train shirt (period, amen) because this is America and Daddy said so.  Talk about fuel on fire.

This. Is. Not. America.  !!!!!!!!!

Shouldn't all diplomatic training involve being locked away with a toddler for a week?  It seems like Kim Jong Un might have a lot in common with a hungry 2-year-old.

[Owen] Charles in Charge

They say God doesn't give you more than you can handle.  If that's true, he must've seriously doubted my capacity for "handling" when he gave me Eliza -- the most easy-going child on the planet -- and Owen -- whose favorite pastimes are cleaning and parenting.  

Aaron and I joke that there are now three parents in our family; should we have a momentary lapse in judgment or (gasp) try to cut a corner here or there, we can count on Owen -- our Mini Voice of Reason -- to bring us back into line.  He patrols the household diligently for items out of place or routines not followed, and seems to take pride in publicly shaming the offender.  

We first realized we'd acquired a third parent when Eliza was only a few weeks old.  Sleep deprived, chronically late, and hungry, we'd hurriedly left the house to go to dinner when Owen announces:  "Daddy, Owen need shoes on."  Oops.  One point for the 2-year-old.

And he's handy for many such transgressions.  For example:

• Should you try to bribe your toddler into eating eggs by sprinkling them with parmesan cheese:  "No Mommy, that for pasta, not for eggs."
• Should you display poor hygiene after allowing your toddler to sit on the potty: "Mommy, need to wash the hands."
• Should you lazily leave an empty baby bottle on the coffee table:  "Have to put it in the sink, Mommy.  Owen do it."
• Should you recklessly climb a tree in the park:  "Need to be careful up there, Daddy."
• Should you negligently ignore the spit-up slithering down the baby's chin:  "Mommy, need to wipe Ewiza face!"
• Should you think it's acceptable to splash your brother in the tub:  "Don't kick water on me, Ewiza JANE!" 

It's reassuring to know that someone's making sure nothing falls through the cracks.