Captain Underpants

Calder has gotten really good at pooping on the potty lately. I don't think I've had to change a nasty diaper in over a week. Still wiping butts on a regular basis but that too will come in time.

To make the training a tad easier, Bruce and I decided to get him into the pull-up style training pants. It's a lot faster to rip those suckers off when Calder is all "I poop NOW!" rather than wrestling him out of regular diapers. We even went all out and bought brand name ones because we thought the Pixar characters would make them more appealing for the kid. 

Pull ups are OK, I guess. I talked to a friend about this and I have decided now that I agree. They kind of suck when it comes to teaching children to pee on the toilet. Kids don't care if they pee in them so there is really no impetus to bother with the potty. There are special pull ups that have a cold feeling when they get wet, menthol maybe? That seems cruel as anybody who has ever had a run-in with special parts and Icy Hot can attest to.

Since Calder has been pooping on the potty like clock-work on Friday night I decided to experiment with Calder and real underpants. I dunno, maybe I miss Elby too much and was looking for a reason to clean pee off the floor again. Who knows. The first attempt at underpants lasted, well I don't know how long since I didn't have a stopwatch on me. 

Saturday, after the Field we tried again. Calder likes his underpants so getting him into them isn't tough. He likes to go through his drawer and snuggle them all while he watches TV. The hard part is getting him to choose just one pair to put on. This time went a bit better. Calder even made it on a trip to the playground without needing an emergency change. This success was achieved by putting him on the potty every 15-20 minutes and forcing him to go, ready or not. Of course, miss one interval or give him an extra sip of milk and I am back busting out the mop again. 

Regardless of how good he does during daylight hours, I make sure that Calder is back into the training pants at bed time. I don't need him trained so badly that I am willing to change sheets at 2 a.m. Today, though, I am being brave. Calder is at present napping sans Pull Ups so we will see how this goes. While I am tempted to cut the nap short to put him on the throne, after yesterday's napless he-beastie performance, I am willing to sacrifice some laundry for peace and quiet.

A Poor Judge of Age

Totally forgot, all of yesterday was completely redeemed when I took Calder to the park after the museum and another kid asked me if Calder was my little brother. 

I love you, kid at the park.

The One in Which I Totally Act Like a Love-Struck Teen and Calder Runs Away Screaming

Our Dinosaur Train-themed trip to the Field Museum did not go quite as planned. Firstly, there was some ridiculous walk thing going on so the exit from Lake Shore to access the museum was shut down. In both directions. Luckily, we were trapped in stop and go traffic so Cary was able to shout out the window to a cop and ask him where the hell to get off. Considering the circumstances, we got a relatively polite answer from the cop.

Since we were going to be meeting Dr. Scott the Paleontologist, I dressed Calder in his finest approximation of field-wear. I would be lying if I said I wasn't trying to impress Dr, Scott.

Unfortunately, the traffic was the least of our problems when we got to the museum. For whatever reason, everything we wanted to do required selecting a set time; the lecture, the Dinosaur Train event, the special Sue the T-Rex stuff. It was crazy. Our schedule ended up being: 11:15 Waking Sue 3-D movie, 12:30 Dr. Scott lecture and book signing, 1:30 Robo Sue, 2:30 Dinosaur Train, and then any time before 3:30 Mammoths & Mastodons.

You may notice a certain failure in our planning, like the lack any time for eating or, you know, seeing the museum. It might have worked if I had brought any food with me to placate the boy while we hustled him around to each special exhibit. I did for the first time ever take juice boxes out in public which is probably the only reason Calder made it through the end of the lecture. But with nary a baggie of Goldfish in sight, we had to ditch the Robo Sue (an exhibit for which I paid $7 each) for a severely crowded McDonald's lest Calder totally lose his shit and do several thousands of dollars worth of damage to the Field's historical artifacts.

The lecture was super fun and interesting, definitely geared more towards the parents rather than the actual Dinosaur Train viewing audience. I commend Dr. Scott for even attempting to give a talk like that in an auditorium full of shrieking toddlers. After the lecture we all lined up for the book signing. While I may love Dr. Scott a great deal, I am glad I got my book on Amazon ahead of time since I do not love Dr. Scott a $10 museum mark-up's worth. There are no pictures of this. Why? Well, because when it was out turn to meet Dr. Scott, Cary gave him the book to sign and carried on a short conversation (note, Cary does not watch Dinosaur Train) while I cowered behind the table refusing to make eye contact with him. I could pretend to you all that I was simply crouching down to engage Calder in the conversation but lying isn't nice. When confronted with a real life famous person, I went with hiding. I mean, c'mon you guys, he's a real-life paleontologist. And Canadian, of course I was reduced to a bashful pile of rubble in front of him. I was too embarrassed to even ask if we could take a picture. I am so lame, everyone.

After McDonald's and a quick nap (lucky Calder) we headed over to the Dinosaur Train meet and greet. Calder was too young for the other activities which apparently included getting free toy prototypes and auditioning to be one of the Dinosaur Train kids. Booooo. The first person to come out was Craig Bartlett, the show's creator. He led us in a karaoke-style sing-a-long of three of the show's songs. Hungy, Hungry Herbivore was sadly not one of them.

The second special guest was very special indeed. It was Buddy Pteranodon, the show's star. Buddy is actually a T-Rex but you'd understand if you'd ever seen the show.

This, however, is the only photo I was able to take of Buddy. As soon as he showed up, Calder started howling and made a break for the door. He had what you might call the Santa Reaction. It's good to know this is a consistent thing because it prevents us from planning any ill-advised trips to Disney in the near future.

Other things that scared Calder yesterday. The 3-D movie about Sue, the life-size Dinosaur Train character cut outs, Dr. Scott (that makes two of us!) and the giant bear in the Mammoths and Mastodons exhibit. As the day wore on I had the feeling that Calder was enjoying being scared more than he was actually scared. If that makes any sense. Like, OK, maybe an enormous tyrannosaur tearing apart a triceratops in 3-D s too much for a toddler to bear but the dinosaur skeleton he's seen approximately three billion times? C'mon now, that's a tad drama queeny.

In addition to skipping Robo Sue, over scheduling also caused us to miss out on an opportunity to meet and get the autograph of Sue Hendrickson, the woman who originally discovered the world's most completed T-Rex skeleton. It's a very interesting story and I am sad to miss out on the chance to be all, "So the government totally jobbed you guys, huh?" Or, you know, hide behind Cary while she chatted Sue up.

I think from now on I will prefer to have my museum visits famous-people free. I like wandering aimlessly and getting lost in the taxidermied animal galleries. At least Cary seemed to have a good time.

Friday Film Fest

And now for something completely different.



I apologize for the terrible quality but I have learned that if I delay for even one minute to adjust the lights or get a better camera, Calder will stop whatever silly thing it is that he is doing and refuse to be amusing at all.

Dinosaur Traaaaaain!

Oh. My. God. Dinosaur Train is coming to the Field Museum this weekend. I was planning to take Calder there anyways because Bruce is going out of town for the stupid NHL draft combine. Now we have to go. No really, we have to because I just impulsively got tickets for Dr. Scott the Paleontologist's book lecture.

I think this is absolute proof that Dr. Scott the Paleontologist and I are are destined to be BFFs.

Anyone else want to come with? I've got  membership guess passes burning a hole in my pocket...

You Down with O-S-V? Yeah, You Know Me!

Despite not being twins, my mother and my aunt share a birthday. Every year they celebrate such an unusual confluence of events by taking a trip to Old Sturbridge Village, one of them historical re-enacty places, where they say thee and thou and totally ignore you when you ask them why they are wearing a Swatch*. Clearly lameness is genetic. 

Obviously, bringing a two-year-old to such a place is a GREAT idea since they love history soooooo much. Even better is getting your sister and her two-year-old and infant to come, plus a handful of other siblingy people and make them all eat brunch together. In public. With other people. And a buffet. Let it be known, two toddlers cruising a buffet can be very dangerous. Q pretty much mainline baked goods and then hopped around the dining room like a frog while Calder tried to eat pieces of fruit and then put back whatever he didn't like. Yes, I am aware that everyone there hated us. We are, as a family, used to this. Fortunately, Little Pickle just sat there and ate everything the boys wouldn't eat so that was nice. Brunch was very good for the grownups and I ended up leaving what was probably the largest every tip on a buffet meal not left by a famous person. Yes, I. Bought brunch for everyone. It was weird. This post by my dear friend sums up how tweaking well-established family dynamics can be somewhat disconcerting. It's safe to say that in the family Bard, I am not known as the fiscally responsible one. 


As the rest of the adults finished up, the two beleaguered fathers took their charges outside to burn off some of those chocolate covered strawberries. Q did circles around the lawn but Calder was awesome and offered to use the potty. I came out of the dining room just in time to hear him announce, "I pooped on the potty!" to the crowd waiting for their turn at what was left of the pastries. He followed that declaration up with , "It was huuuuge." That was a pretty good indication that it was time to get the kids out of there and over to the people who would ignore them if informed of a pending load in the pants, historical reenactors!

 According to this sign, I live in the west. I wonder if this means I should get my tits done and start worrying about earthquakes.

 

This is Bruce's "watching a sheep in labor" face. We had just entered the village when it became pretty clear that one of the resident sheep had an extra set of legs sticking out her rear end. Of course we had to stay and watch. And photograph. And tape. If you need five minutes of an uncomfortable looking sheep bleating quite urgently, lemme know.

This is what a freshly hatched sheep looks like. Focus on the cuteness and I will spare you the gross parts.

Skeptical toddler is skeptical. I think Calder doesn't mind visiting the history but he probably wondered where all their shiny plastic crap and beeping things were.

Relieving oneself on a real toilet, not that great. Pretending to drop one in 200-year-old outhouse, totally fascinating.

My mom's family were dairy farmers so I shouldn't be so surprised that Calder was so taken with the milk-a-fake-cow set up. He could have milked that thing ALL. DAY. LONG. And we didn't even point out to him that that is where his precious liquid crack comes from. He would never have left then.

What's more fun that pretending to pee in a hole or squeezing fake cow teats? Chasing belligerent poultry of course. This rooster clearly had some gigantic avian cajones since this was not nearly the closest he allowed Calder to get to him. One well-time lunge and Foghorn here would have been short several shiny green fathers.

The rooster was nothing attitude-wise compared to this chicken who just did not care what the stupid hairless pink thing wanted to. She was going to sit in her friggin' dirt hole and sunbathe, grubby toddler hands be damned.

Then Calder petted a cow. This may have been the highlight of his whole trip. After seeing a gazillionty billion of them from the car on the way there, Calder was totally stoked to get his hands on one. He mainly expressed this joy by shoving leaves in its face and shouting, "Hey, cow! Lookit me, cow!"

At the blacksmith's shop. Calder of course immediately ducked the chain and went straight for the burning hot forge and sharp implements. We really need to invest in one of those child leashes. I don't want to have to explain to an ER doc that we are there because my child was trying to secure himself a go at the anvil. 

How stupid does Bruce look? Yeah, I got nothin' left. We walked around a bit more. Found my aunt who is not powered by toddler energy and hit the gift shop where I got Calder a sweet tri-cornered hat and a bonnet for myself. I told you lameness was genetic. 


*This totally happened when I was there with the Girl Scouts as a kid. I also busted one of the actors for having a buttload of hickeys once when I visited in high school. I am shocked these people don't still hate me.

More Notes From the Road

In New York there is an obscene number of highway cops and these troopers are all working it like the municipal bonds are due.

The drive across Ohio is vastly improved by total darkness.

Indiana also sucks but at least they let you drive 70 so in the battle of things I hate slightly less than other things, Indiana wins.

Midwestern two-year-olds are easily impressed by the Berkshire "mountains", the only prior mountain experiences having come from watching Dora.

Dora is also the reason two toddlers will fight over who gets to hold the tour map at a historical reenactment place that they otherwise have little to no interest in.

Orange juice barf smells infinitely better thank milk-based barf. This is a godsend if you are going to spend the next 16 hours in the confined space in which a child has just vomited.

While I am apparently too old to stay up drinking beer past 9:30, I am apparently not too old to think that my car's odometer reading 8008 is hilarious.

No matter what age, a euphemistic discussion of your brother's sex life is always revolting.

When driving from east to west at a consistent rate of speed, you are never more than five minutes from hearing Lady Gaga on the radio. 

A lamb being birthed is kind of gross. Lamb afterbirth is even grosser.

The size of the tip is exponentially related to the number of toddlers at a restaurant table. 

Nothing can persuade a potty training toddler to go on the toilet like a rest stop bathroom.

When in Westfield I revert to my old high school coping mechanism -- eating. Though now it's without the benefit of a forced exercise regimen, also know as competitive youth sports, to keep me thin.

Still, two trips to Friendly's in two days is never not a good idea. Did I tell you about the deer?

Good Boy

Elby was never my dog. Originally, he was Bruce's but more recently he had very much become Calder's dog. At his best, we were great friends. At his worst, he was a nuisance and a destroyer of things. But they were only things.

Elby suddenly became very ill early this morning. Bloat. The emergency vet told me his stomach had flipped. We had our options, but producing several thousand dollars at 3 a.m. is not really an option.

Bruce had stayed home, thinking I would soon be back with the dog. I stayed at the vet, thinking about how we could explain to Calder what had happened.

How do you tell a two-year-old his best friend is gone, taken away in the night, with out a chance to say good bye?

How do you tell a 39-year-old that his best friend is gone, only a short phone call to say good bye?

Elby was a friend, a warm and loving companion. His exuberance was boundless, his adoration and affection even more so. He was playful, taunting the cats, egging them on on romps around the apartment or engaging in a all-out team assault on the mice in our apartment. They were not food or vermin to him, they were simply another game to be played and what great fun it was. 

He was patient and understanding. Able to withstand Calder's less delicate expressions of love. He never snapped, rarely growled, just sat and lately, more often than not, enjoyed the attention that Calder would heap upon him, joyful and adoring. You could see, that despite his grumpiness over missed naps and lost quiet, deep down, Elby loved his boy right back.

Elby was a Good Dog.

Over the Midwest and to the Woods

To Grandmother's house we went. Let me just start by saying, Chicago, IL and Westfield, MA are ridiculously far apart. About 16 hours driving each way and Calder was an absolute champ both times. On the way there, we drove through the night so he mainly slept.

 

With his blankie on his head for some reason. He's never done that before. In fact, Calder hates being covered by blankets and usually sleeps on top of his pile of loveys.

Apparently this is his new thing because on the way back home, he watched his movies and colored with his stylish new blankie hat. 

Our first non-traveling day was spent visiting our old stomping grounds, Northampton and Amherst. Originally, the plan was to finally hit the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and then go visit an old high school friend of mine. I am, however, easily distracted and thus we spent the bulk of our time at the A to Z Science Store because I had seen a commercial for it earlier that morning. At least we managed one of our primary objectives, pizza at Antonio's in downtown Amherst. Too bad for Calder that he missed it. Black bean and avocado pizza like that does not come around so often.

We also managed a second objective, meeting up with my friend from high school and her little girl, Kala. Calder and Kala had a great time running and playing and singing and generally making a huge mess together.

While at the ol' homestead, Calder played with a variety of items that are older than he is such a my old Tonkas that needed to be fetched from the shed attic and other used things that my mom had acquired for next to nothing. My mother is quite proud of her tag sale toy finds. Pretending to be a McD's employee is fun, I guess? Aim high, Calder. Aim high.

Calder also killed time at the house by demonstrating one of his new favorite pastimes, "doing science". Here he is examining a seashell that he had liberated from the bathroom.

My parents' neighbor down the street was having his yard redone. Somehow this ended up with Calder getting a ride in a mini loader. And people say Midwesterners are friendly.

As if riding around on construction equipment for fun isn't hillbilly enough, my dad took us to the dirt track Whip City Speedway* to watch the funny cars and modifieds go around in circles for hours. Calder, naturally, was thrilled by this. We were joined by my brother and his wife. Calder referred to him as Brian for some reason. His name is not Brian. Matt fared better than my sister-in-law whom Calder simply called, "that lady."

Weirdness is praticaly terminal in my family. But at least I know where Calder gets that blankie thing from now.

Who is this redneck child? You could put this kid on a NASCAR ad right now. Make that an American flag and he'd be the Fox News poster boy.

Did I mention that the vast supply of new and exciting used toys was the highlight of the trip yet? I have no idea how he got himself in there but I do know that Calder required some assistance with the extricating himself. 

The night before we left, one of my BFFs came to visit and we drank beer in the front yard until my father not so subtly suggested that we go drink beer in the back yard. Five days in Westfield, you WILL become a hick, so it is told.



I have skipped my Mom's birthday in this post. You know, the whole purpose of our visit. For that we went to Old Sturbrige Village for brunch and history (too many pictures) and then held a surprise birthday party for her at the ancestral family homes (no pictures). Those will get their own post when I get some photos of the latter and a keen editing eye for the former. In the meantime, I will let you know that you have five minutes of bleating and a shot of afterbirth to look forward to. 


*Whip City is Westfield's official nickname. At some point in the past the city was the carriage whip-making capital of the world. If it wasn't for the automobile, Westfield might still be an interesting place. Now it should be called the Boring City where nothing happens. Unless you count a deer jumping through the front window of Friendly's and running through the restaurant, covering the patrons in deer blood, before being let out the front door something. I wasn't even there but I may have told this store one hundred times already. And now it is one hundred and one.

Good News, Bad News

I am currently at the 'ol homestead in Western Mass with the fam, hence the lack of posting. I was supposed to have written this earlier this week but was delayed by the packing, planning and athsma treating in advance of the (long-ass) drive. So, in light of the delay, here's a condensed version of the past week in a GoodNews/Bad News format for brevity.

Good News: Calder is really getting better about alerting us that he has to go or that he wants out of his pull ups.
Bad News: This has resulted in him aking us up at 4 a.m., demanding a diaper change and help with the potty.  

Good News: Calder's learning about chores and responsibility. He even helped Mommy scoop out the cat boxes while I was busy with the dishes.
Bad News: He dumped it all in the toilet, clumping clay litter included, effectively cementing it shut.

Good News: Calder remembered to wash his hands after handling the dirty cat litter.
Bad News: He used toothpaste to do it.

Good News: Even though he was suffering from the same tummy troubles Calder had last weekend, Elby didn't crap on our floor while we were at work.
Bad News: He did it on our bed instead.

Good News: Calder went poop on the potty without any cajoling on our part.
Bad News: That was only the second half of the poop. Part one was already all over the bathroom and Calder.

Good News: Jet Blue put on a $10 sale for when we were leaving for MA.
Bad News: It was still $218 per tecket to get back so we still had to drive.

Good News: My attempt to be broccoli self-sufficient is working out ok and our plants are still alive.
Bad News: Our back porch has now been taking over by a jerry-rigged three-tier planting system.

Good News: My Mother's Day was spent at Home Depot getting supplies for the plants and then eating Hutch BUrgers at the Bunny Hutch.
Bad News: People think this is weird.

Good News: My new office building of all of two weeks has a bitchin' view of the Chicago river and some really iconic Chicago architechture.
Bad News: On Wednesday, I got to witness someone fling themselves right off of that really iconic architecture and onto a van below.

Good News: I finally got to hang out with a friend from high school and her little girl who is slightly older than Calder.
Bad News: None, really. Calder had a great time with Kala and I was able to catch up on about eight years of missed history.

Happy Mother's Day!

Thanks for everything, Mom. I am pretty sure I wouldn't be half as capable as a person or a mother as I am today if it wasn't for you.

After all, we've already established that babycenter is useless.

"I beautiful now, Mommy"

Oh dear.

Yeah, that's not coming off.

Aaaaaand he just took $10 out of my wallet and put it in his bank.

Awesome.

Things Calder Likes

Trips to the aquarium which he calls "the fish zeeum".

The Boston Red Sox. While watching the game last night, I'd yell, "Who loves the Red Sox?!"* and Calder would answer "Meeeee!" If I said "Me Too!" he'd get mad though. Apparently only one person is allowed to love the Red Sox at a time.

 His pets, but particularly the dog and the fat cat because they will sit still while he assaults them.

Chicken Nuggets but in this order: Ziyad halal nuggets > White Castle chicken rings > dinosaur shaped nuggets > Tyson Anytizers > McDonald's.

My friend Julie whom he has met maaaaybe twice. He asks if she's going to come over all the time. Julie lives in Connecticut.

Trips to the playground, especially for the "fwings".

When Mommy pretends to be a robot or a giant clam that is eating him or stomps around the grocery store like a T-Rex in order to make him stop being a pain in the ass and behave himself.**

Things with a ton of buttons, levers, knobs, gew-gaws, doodads or other things that are in general good for mashing and pounding. Mashing and pounding that causes flashing lights and/or loud noises is a bonus.

The nice ladies at Andy's Fruit Ranch, the most awesomely named market in the Chicago area. They give him "slock-lit" every time he visits. They have even admonished me in the past for not bringing him in.

Trying to trick Mommy into giving him another train by sneaking off to the bathroom to remove the turd from his diaper and stick it in the potty***

Dora, Diego, Spongebob, Steve, the Wonder Pets, Elmo etc. Too bad I accidentally got rid of Nick Jr.

*Yes, I am aware I am a huge dork. 
**It is not really shocking that other parents of similarly aged children NEVER attempt to befriend us in public.
***I am not sure if I am more proud that my child used the potty or the fact that he may actually be an evil genius.