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[ add comment ]some firsts
March 29, 2008, 8:41 pm
Yesterday Huck went to the dentist for the very first time and found out he has 20 teeth, all of which look fantastic except for the one that got chipped sometime in the last two years. As we got ready for the big day I told Huck he should tell Dr. Piesman that he brushes his teeth everyday and then Dr. Piesman will tell him, "That's very good, Young Man."Well, the visit was so quick that before we knew it we were reading books at the Barnes and Noble on 82nd Street. Out of the blue Huck looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "Hey, I never told the dentist that I brush my teeth everyday."
Without a single second's delay I found myself dialing Michael's number. "Hello?" he asked innocently enough. "Hello, is this Huck's dentist?" Again, no delay. We theatre people are QUICK! "Yes, this is Huck's dentist." I put Huck on the phone and he quietly told "the dentist" that he brushes his teeth everyday. There was a pause and then Huck sadly said, "You're supposed to say that's very good, young man."
I hope if you ever get such a phone call from a mother who screwed up a little bit that you too will be quick to play Dentist.
Here's Huck brushing his 20 teeth with his brand new toothbrush.
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Here's Huck right after sitting all the way through his first ever movie in a movie theater, "Horton Hears a Who." (Thank God I brought snacks.)
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Here's Huck today, finally able to pedal one of his tricycles all by himself.
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And to top it all off, we met baby Amelie for the first time today, too! Congratulations, Amir and Lisa.[ 24 comments ] ( 37 views )
things that crack me up everyday
March 27, 2008, 1:03 pm
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Huck’s the funniest person I know. And that's good, because it really takes the edge off his more challenging character traits that make me feel like we're living in an insane asylum. Here are some examples of things that get me through the day …
He loves for me to be “the buyer” whenever we are anywhere that has a barrier between us, like playground equipment or his kitchen or the playhouse at one of his play groups. The other day I ordered a cup of coffee and he shook his head and said, “We don’t have coffee here. Only robots. Two robots. You have to order two.” Then later when he FINALLY had coffee, he charged me 55 dollars for one cup. He really knows how to push his mama’s buttons.
Huck has a great memory and entertains me by quoting from a library book called “I’m Dirty” which we returned weeks ago. With an odd southern accent he recites, “Who’s got a boom, a dipper stick, and a bucket with a row of chompers? Me! And that’s just my rear end. Up front I got hydraulic ramps and a specialized, maximized, giant-sized loader bucket.” (For those of you who don't have a little boy, this book is about a backhoe front loader.)
One thing that always brings a smile to Huck’s face is calling him Krisdy. (This is how he spells his little girl-name.) He loves to give everyone a fake little girl-name, boys and girls alike, and if we call each other by these names out of the blue we make his day. So remember that the next time you see him. (And don't spell his name with a "t." He hates that.)
Though no one he knows smokes in front of him, Huck always pretends like his skinny little pretzel sticks are cigarettes. Troy thinks it’s all the stroller rides he’s enjoyed over the past few years, watching the hundreds of smoking New Yorkers pass him by on the sidewalks. Thankfully, like his mother Huck does not appreciate that people throw their cigarettes onto the ground and he never does that with his pretzel sticks.
And lastly, he loves a show called "The Backyardigans" and almost everyday he imagines that we are the characters, sometimes reenacting scenes from the four episodes he knows and other times inventing brand new scenarios. Usually this happens when we’re at the playground and almost always he’s Uniqua and I’m Tyrone or Pablo, which he calls Plob-o. What must people think when they hear him yelling, “Come on, Tyrone!” and me answering, “I’m coming, Uniqua!” He’s so not a Uniqua.
But he is very unique. For instance, here he is taking Lydia Lizard for a walk in the baby stroller while he wears his Mardi Gras necklaces (which he pretends is his long hair). Thank God he's not smoking a pretzel.
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[ 4 comments ] ( 28 views )yesterday's tomorrow
March 22, 2008, 8:35 pm
At the end of a long day recently Troy shook his head and said, “Time is so weird,” followed immediately by Huck nodding his head and saying, “Yes, time IS weird.” Because he’s struggling to understand things like “we’re leaving in five minutes,” time is confusing. Last week he was excitedly anticipating a Brooklyn trip to visit Shana and I had to keep telling him tomorrow, tomorrow. The next morning he asked if it was tomorrow yet and I said, “Yes, finally it’s tomorrow! Only now we call it Today. Yesterday Today was tomorrow.”Time is confusing for me, too. Now that Huck’s another year older I’m again in that time warp place where I look around and feel a little lost. I just noticed that we still have an ice cream cone shaped teething ring in our freezer, making me feel like I’m in a museum. At the playground these days we're surrounded by parents with babies or brand new toddlers and Huck and I seem like the old pros. He loves when I reminisce about his baby days and I often think deep inside he’s tired of all this big boy stuff. He’s probably still pooping in a diaper as a last ditch effort to maintain his baby status in this place.
Sometimes I look at Troy and imagine how his mom (our Na-Na) must feel when she sees him, and I bet every facial expression of his is like a fossil in her mind of a long ago boy she'll never see again.
This is what I think Huck looks like:
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But this is who he really is:
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I can almost see him as a grown man when I look at this face. And while I smile at the thought of knowing him as a man, talking to him over a cup of coffee about faith and politics or just the weather, I don’t wish a single minute away. Well, maybe a few. But mostly I want time to slow down just a little bit.[ 21 comments ] ( 43 views )
top o' the marnin' to ye!
March 17, 2008, 10:43 pm
I've always been tickled when hearing about my nieces and nephews making valentines and turkeys or crying over scary leprechauns at school, and finally Huck is old enough to partake in such activities. Today at our Monday morning play group Huck got to make Irish soda bread (he was in charge of the raisons, which is ironically the one thing about the bread he did not particularly care for when all was said and done). For at least 20 minutes he kneaded his little pile of dough while the other kids ran off to the play room. Huck's a great reminder of enjoying the process and not worrying so much about the final product.;)
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[ 22 comments ] ( 29 views )aging
March 15, 2008, 9:42 am
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Today is Max's 14th birthday! Huck didn’t like us singing to the old dog this morning, insisting that it was still HIS birthday. It's hard when the world revolves around you and then takes a moment to revolve around someone else. Especially when that someone else is a stinky old dog who's gone deaf.
These days we’re all feeling older. Pappy T just got diagnosed with a severe case of flat-footedness, explaining a lifetime of pain in his feet and knees and causing me to feel badly for yelling at him every time he wants new shoes. I finally succumbed to switching from regular contacts to special ones for astigmatism because I’m practically blind in my right eye. Huck is very obsessed with our age, often announcing in public places, “You’re 37!” Lately he’s been telling me that I’m almost 100, which sounds more like Max's age.
And speaking of birthdays and aging, Huck made a card for a friend recently and as he scribbled a note he read aloud, “For God so loved the world because of the wonderful things he does. Because, because, because, because, because of the wonderful things he does!” Sometimes you need a little mix of Jesus and the Wizard of Oz to get you through the day.[ 10 comments ] ( 41 views )
lucky big boy
March 10, 2008, 4:18 pm
Huck had an incredible birthday weekend! He had Aunt Jeni giving him constant love and attention along with gummy bugs, jelly beans, cake, ice cream, some snake tattoos on his arm and leg, pizza, many balloons, lunch at his favorite diner, a subway trip, popcorn, a ride on the Central Park carousel, a party with his buddy Jaydon, another gathering with grown-up friends, approximately 497 new toys including a bus tent that we can't get him out of, and his own private concert by Lauren and Pascal right here in our living room! We got a little teary eyed this morning as we waved to Aunt Jeni driving away to the airport, but then Buckaroo arrived from Aunt Tina so I think we're going to be okay! (Not to mention a special guest appearance from Uncle Nathan this evening!);)
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[ 3 comments ] ( 37 views )
three is a magic number
March 7, 2008, 8:28 am
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HUCK!!!;)
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[ 12 comments ] ( 41 views )the last few days of terrible
March 4, 2008, 8:34 am
We learned from cousin Noah the trick of counting nights when anticipating something exciting. We are very happy to report that there are two more sleeps until Aunt Jeni arrives and three more sleeps until Huck's birthday!The following pictures were taken during a Daddy and Huck river adventure over the weekend. I feel they illustrate quite nicely the split personality toddler we have on our hands. And I would like to personally thank all the people who have looked at me with compassion over the last few days and sadly said, “Three is worse than two.”
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[ 10 comments ] ( 49 views )
state of the huck address
March 1, 2008, 3:03 pm
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Here I go again with my annual “it’s almost Huck’s birthday” monologues. It all begins today on March first as I reminisce about his due date three short years ago. I tried to explain it to him this morning, but he looked at me the way I look at him when he goes on about something that only his sweet little brain can understand.
Huck has ordered white cake and white frosting with jelly beans, M&Ms and carrots on top. He’s very excited for Aunt Jeni to come around the mountain when she comes and also to get together with his little friends and then later with his big friends to celebrate. He does not know that Lauren and Pascal from our fave band Balthrop, Alabama plan to drop by and give him a private concert. Mostly he’s excited to finally be three, and he promises on that day to begin pooping in the potty and to throw out all diapers. Uh-huh. Sure!
Huck is sleeping quite well all by himself in his big bed with orange sheets (his favorite color), usually waking up once in the night but going back to sleep relatively easily. We have noticed that he’s very sensitive to loneliness these days, even weeping recently over a book about a mouse who’s left alone briefly by his bird friends. We finally returned that book to the library and hope we never see it again.
Another interesting development is Huck’s desire to play like he’s Mommy and I’m Baby. I hope and pray none of you ever, ever see my Baby impersonation. It is so awful. I can’t stand myself as Baby. My favorite thing about Huck as Mommy is that he says he’s a short mommy when he needs help reaching things. Recently we were playing this game and before I knew it Baby was at the doctor having a check-up. Huck played the doctor, of course, and made me chuckle when he pulled out the stethoscope, put the pieces into his ears and pretended to watch a little movie as if it was an iphone. I also enjoyed when he took out a hairbrush from his doctor’s bag (which is actually a veterinary hospital kit) and worked on my hair for a while. The worst part was when he took the tweezers and plucked at my skin saying he was getting my blood, following by jamming the thermometer through the blankets towards my bottom. Some doctor!
Many times a day Huck begins a sentence excitedly with “I didn’t realize …” and it’s simply his way of pointing out exactly what is going on around him. He’ll say, “Hey, I didn’t realize we were all sitting here in the living room!” or “I didn’t realize I was going to eat a banana!” He also uses the word “although” a lot, making him sound approximately 42 years old. “We were reading that book, although we need to return it to the library” or “I like tomatoes now, although I used to not like them.”
But then without warning something will make him mad and he'll yell and cry and boss everyone around, reminding us that he's two. I hear that sometime during the age of three these drunken cavemen chill out a little bit and stop fighting over toys all the time. This is what I'm looking forward to more than anything. Well, that and the M&Ms on top of his cake. [ 22 comments ] ( 36 views )