Friday Film Fest

Today's actual video is kind of lame so in addition, I will present you with the whole lead up to that particular moment in time.

July 1

Email excerpt from my mom:

There's also some dress-up clothes in the box - if you think they're too girly, you can do w/them as you wish - they're from a tag sale.  There was a headband w/tigger ears to match the tail but somehow that disappeared - I think the lady who had the tag sale moved it to the other bag of dress up stuff that was really all girl.  I did like that headband, the tail and the Clifford headband that were in this bag of stuff.

July 6

Email excerpt from me to my mom:

The box arrived. Calder actually tried to find the tiger head in the box after pulling the tail out. He does like the clifford ears and wands as well. he did not, however seem particularly interested in playing princess with me but i bet some of that can be turned into some super awesome psychedelic astronaut clothes.

Box of dress up clothes go untouched until...

July 24 

Calder is bored. Daddy is gone again and Mommy thinks he should go play with some of his bazillion toys rather than watching Dora or Ice Age or Trucks again.

Alright, Mommy. Let's play wizard. I'll be the wizard, you be the person I smack mercilessly with my multiple magic wands.

Look, Molson! Did you know I had all this awesome stuff just sitting there in plain sight in my room? How could these sweet threads have gone unnoticed for so long? By the way, do you happen to mind if I mercilessly beat you with my magics wands. I am a princess after all.

No, really. I am a Princess. See, I have princess shoes and a necklace and a crown. Even though you can't see it, I also have a tiger tail. I AM A TIGER PRINCESS!!

But wait. You know what's cooler than a TIGER PRINCESS? The Little Mermaid of Course!

You are so putting this on the internet, aren't you? I guess there is only one way I can react to this and that is...
...
...
...

DANCE!

***All costuming choices and character names were decided upon by Calder himself. The only role I played in this insanity was helping him get dressed and following him around with the camera, giggling like a madwoman.

Odd

So every day for just over two and a half years now, Calder has had some form of milk-product immediately upon waking up. So why did he wander into my room at 6 a.m. yesterday asking for grape juice? At that hour of the morning I don't have the mental capacity to even know if we even have grape juice. We did in fact. Is Calder some sort of refrigerator contents psychic? He did this a while back with fried chicken. Asked for something utterly out of the blue that we just happened to have.

Is Let's Make a Deal still on? I am thinking if I play my cards just right, Calder could hook us up with a new dining set.

Good Reads

What can I say, the kid's got good taste.

Little Monster

Despite what this post title may lead you to believe, this is not going to be a four paragraph bitch session on how Calder has turned from a sweet, loving little boy into a screeching, smart-assy, public tantrum-throwing embarrassment. No, that's a post for another day.

Today's post is about how Calder asked me to play he same song five times on the way to day care this morning. This, in and of itself, is not unusual toddler behavior. It's their M.O., really, as anyone who has had to read Goodnight Moon 400 times or sit through endless Dora sessions can attest. Small children seriously like the things they like. Like, a lot. What was odd was that the song Calder kept requesting was not one of They Might Be Giants' eminently listenable children's tunes nor was it some insipid soft rock cover of the Itsy Bitsy Spider. Calder wanted to hear the Rah Rah song, goddammit. Again. And again. Oh, you've never heard the Rah Rah song? Trust me, yes you have. If you have ears and a radio, you have heard it. It's by this up and comer in the biz, Stefani Germanotta, you may have heard of her. What? Still no idea? Let me sing Calder's favorite bit for you. "Rah rah, ah ah ah ahh. Roma, roma mah. Gaga, ooh, la la."


Yes, my son is a Lady Gaga fan. A big one apparently. I know we are kind of late to the dance party on this one but the last time I spent real human money on an album without cartoons on its (virtual) cover was sometime in the first Bush administration. However, this all changed last weekend, when in a fit of boredom, Calder and I spent about 40 minutes on youtube watching her videos. What can I say, with Bruce gone so much we've run out of funny dog clips. Let's get this clear, think of her what you will, but Gaga's videos are friggin' captivating. Awkward monster dancing and killing people with poison? Where do I sign up? The insane visuals and catchy tunes eventually led to me downloading the entire album from the Amazon mp3 store ($2 cheaper than itunes. Eat it, Jobs.) Since then, Calder and I have had two Gaga living room dance parties, listened to Bad Romance approximately 30 billion times and one of us has had way more fun dance-driving her way through traffic on the way to work every morning.

While I would give almost anything to catch Calder on video singing along to Gaga there no point really, the Baby Gaga thing has been done to death already. There's also the fact that lately, whenever I catch Calder off guard; singing, dancing or playing pretend by himself; he immediately clams up and acts all bashful about it. It seems Calder has caught on to me and is refusing to be my singing-dancing performing monkey-boy any more. How sad. Maybe if we watch enough episode of Yo Gabba Gabba, they will tell me how to put the sillies back in.

Words and Pictures

We all put our pants on the same way, one leg at a time right?

Erm, or not.

Cheefers is going to be a great guard dog someday.

 What with those bitchin' eye lasers and all.

You know it's effin' hot...

When you can just see how sweaty someone is.

Did I mention that Calder loves his new doggie?

In fact, I've been informed that Bruce and I now come in a distant third and fourth in the love race. Sammy and Cheefers being #1 and #2 of course.

Shorts

This third weekend without Bruce was not terrible. It's still no fun fake-single parenting but I did not at any point have to clean vomit or feel like I was going to have any sort of emotional break down so I am going to call it a win. Having two teenage girls come over to watch Calder on Saturday so I could go out and do grown up things (play flippy cup) certainly helped. With the not having a breakdown part anyways.

***

Calder and Cheefers ("Mommy, his name not Chief. It Cheefers.") are getting along like a house on fire. I am pretty certain Chief is Calder's new favorite person. In fact, I have already been informed that Calder loves his new doggie more than Mommy. ("Be nice! He my friend, Mommy.") I don't really blame Calder though. When Cheefers isn't being a floor destroying hell-beast, he is a very sweet dog. And pretty fun too. He likes to play fetch, a game that Elby was never quite able to puzzle out and he's constantly trying to engage the cats in a boxing match.

***

Since our trip to the water playground was so successful, I decided to cut out the middleman and just buy Calder his own pool to ignore. It's shaped, impractically, like a helicopter. Why did i get a helidopter pool? Because the Target wqebsite is full of fail and it ended up telling me that all the available inflatable novelty pools were in Evanston as opposed to the one right by me which, as I learned later that evening was ground zero for inflatable novelty pool inventory. I have 5 Targets within a 15 minute drive of my house (I love living in teh city) and I end up at the one that has been decimated by the consumering hordes.

***

I feel pretty safe in saying that Calder IS potty trained. He needs to work on the butt wiping some and he still has occasional accidents at night but that can usually be controlled by limiting his evening beverages and making him stop at the potty before he heads off to bed. Now if Calder was only as good at going to sleep by himself is he is peeing on his own. We are still at the point where one of us (me) must stay in the room with Calder until he is fully out for the night. Attempting to leave even slightly before Calder is ready will set off an epic tantrum that can last for hours and ruin any chance whatsoever for a peaceful night. What's the point of trying to teach him to put himself to sleep at night if it means that none of us end up getting any.

***

When I told Calder his baby sitters were coming over on Saturday, he misheard me. For a few moments Calder got super excited because he thought he'd be getting a Baby Caro-lion of his own. You can take that one up with Daddy, buddy. You and everyone else. I am fairly certain that there are a few people at work that have their suspicions about me. Guess what, people? I ain't knocked up. I'm just fat and like loose-fitting shirts. I'd wear muu-muus to work if I thought I could get away with it. So no babies in this belly, just ice cream sandwiches.Wishing it was so won't make it true. Just like I wish I had a better excuse for the current condition of these ankles.

***

Also this past weekend I discovered that Calder has an entire playdough factory set up in his closet. Unfortunately the always cover your markers lesson has not translated so well the the realm of easily dried out modeling doughs. Despite the proximity of so many Targets, I thought the best solution to this would be to whip some up ourselves. Clearly. Did you know that there are approximately fifteen hundred different recipes for homemade playdough? And that all of them call for not generally stored in a normal kitchen ingredients such as three cups (seriously) of baking soda or cream of tarter? Who has that shit? (Yes, Mom. I know you do. Point made.) I finally found one recipe that had only three components, salt, water and flour. Hell, even my single male friends have that crap laying around. We can so do this. Hah. Not so much. Not only did it come out not resembling playdough so much as it did a sloppy, wet, glutinous paste but it was a bright red glutinous paste since the only food coloring I had was from my Red Velvet-making supplies. With Calder "helping" the kitchen ended up looking not unlike a crime screen or a Dexter DVD cover. 

***

Speaking of crime scenes, the kitchen may look like that for real any day now because I am fairly certain my oven is trying to kill me. Instead of immediately igniting like a normal stove, the thing has started to fill with gas and then suddenly catch, resulting in a whooooosh! and then a small boom. Except lately it's more of a bigger boom. Seeing as how I'd rather not blow up my family, I've decided that perhaps baking is not so much important until my landlord gets back from Albania. That may not seem like a huge deal considering it's hovering around 90 degrees in Chicago but it is really going to put a damper on Picky McIonlyeatgoldfish's diet. I wonder how chicken nuggets taste on the grill?

***

And finally, Big Papi is the balls.

Friday Film Fest

Calder the guitar hero, giving lesson to his "Uncle" Nate on how to properly play the guitar. I apologize for the crappy image quality. I can't seem to remmebr how to fix  the resolution on my camera.

This is a Picture

A picture of Calder having absolutely no fun whatsoever at the water playground today.

We have now established that Calder hates water on par with his loathing of wind and sunlight. Pretty much the only classical element the kid doesn't hate is earth. I wonder how he feels about Mila Jovovich?

 

This is a picture of a child who has just been bribed with a hot dog and Hi-C. I even told Calder I'd buy him a cookie if he went down the water slide with me just once. He did, screaming the entire way. Because I am a terrible person Calder did not get his cookie. But we did sit on the deck chair together while I listed the name of every dinosaur I could think of. I have a feeling the lady sitting next to us was terribly impressed.

Hot Time, Summer in the City

It has been pretty loud here recently, the residents of my neighborhood must really, REALLY like their freedom because they have been setting off fireworks for the last three or four nights. The actual 4th wasn't as bad as the night before since America's Birthday did not have 30 drunk shooting bottle rockets into my back yard from their roof next door. 

So, it's been kinda loud. But also hot. Reeeaaallly hot. Earlier, the temperature display on my car read somewhere around 33 degree Celsius. I have no idea what that translates to in American degrees but I know it's damn hot. And no, I do not know why my car is using commie measurements. I could try to change it to Freedom Degrees but I'd have to go back down to the car and open the instruction manual and it is just too damn hot for that. I'll fight the red menace when it gets a tad cooler.

Since tummies have been relatively calm around here for about a day and a half, I thought it'd be a great idea to take Calder to the city pool that is just right across the river from us. While I doubt he'd really swim, they also have one of those water lots with various wiggly shaped pipes that shoot water at unsuspecting toddlers. That should help us deal with sweltering heat, right? Wrong. Pool closed. So was the other city pool I tried to take him to. The hell, Chicago? We are melting here.

Well, that's cool, I though. We have a car and knowledge of two water playgrounds in the nearby suburbs. Not a problem at all. EXCEPT. Lincolnwood is a bunch of elitist jerks. It seems only resident can use their precious water slides. Non-residents can get in when accompanied by a resident but even then you only get access to the pool, not the slides or water playground. Oh, and for that supervised restricted fun you pay an entry fee of $12. To just go swimming. Lame. Lincolnwood, you are on notice.

Fine then, I said to myself, we'll just go to Skokie instead. I hear they are prettier and skinnier than you anyways, Lincolnwood. Although I believe what I said to a by that point thrice-denied screaming Calder, "Oh my god, knock it off! I am trying to find you a friggin' pool!" Short trip to Skokie later and yay! Non-residents allowed! Boo! Doesn't open for two hours. Holy god, people. I am so hot I am willing to wear an ill-fitting swimsuit in public, even though in my current state of out-of-shapeness I have a body type not unlike that of Sy Snootles. Throw me a goddamn bone, public pool operators.

So, having bribed Calder with popsicles to return home so we could wait out the two hours we are about to try this nonsense once again. At least the break gave me a chance to dry shave and put together a more sensible bag o' shit to bring to the pool. There will be sunscreen! And snacks! And a change of clothes because by the time we finally get over there, it'll be very close to the time at which I am supposed to collect Bruce from the airport. Now, there is something very romantic about airport good-byes and reunion but hot damn, homeboy needs to learn how to use some public transportation occasionally. Although once I get him here I am locking myself in a room with an A/C unit and a bottle of Riesling. I wish I could somehow work a pool into that scenario.

Some Vomit and Bitchery

I feel like I complain a lot, you know? Like, there are a million things I would love to tell you about Calder such as how he has recently started telling me, "I like your shirt, Mommy" regardless of what I am wearing. Or how he boogies down to Queen Latifah's version of Walk the Dinosaur during the credits of Ice Age 3. But the fact is, it is 5 a.m. and I am taking a break from housework to write this. I've actually been up since three when Calder came into our room to vomit up half-digested homemade french fries on my chest.


Of course that disturbed the dog so after listening to him whine in his crate for an hour hoping he'd go back to sleep, I got up at 4 and took the Cheefers for a mammoth walk around my less than desirable neighborhood. The good thing is that at that ungodly hour, even the criminal element has the good sense to be in bed. So now, 5 a.m. I have done the dishes, cleaned the cat boxes and will be attempting to do something about the smell in here shortly. The recent string of above 90/90 days (90 degrees/90 percent humidity) have been nothing but kind to the vast microbial flora (fauna?) that reside in my apartment. Also on the list, cleaning Calder's play area where he seems to be running some sort of free-form ant farm. It's more of an ant ranch really.


Of course after all this I will once again be depositing Bruce at the airport and left alone to deal with Barfy McGee and his cohort Doggie von Poopsalot. Last time we did this Calder was so out of sorts that he screamed nearly the entire way home. I was only able to calm him with promises of a trip to the Big Yellow M (no seriously, if you ask Calder what McDonald's is he will sing about farm animals for you) and a brand new copy of Finding Nemo. While an order of hotcakes and Wall-E would probably work just as well this time (Calder is soooo Pixar's bitch though I am not one to cast aspersions there) buying a new DVD or BlueRay every time Bruce goes out of town  this summer would start to get extremely expensive. Like, right after buying Wall-E. Thus, my alternative plan had been to take Calder to do something awesome yet free. Like the Field Museum (membership), Chicago Children Museum (pre-paid pass) or the Lincoln Park Zoo (free but that's because there aren't really any animals there). This morning's vomitworks may have put a cramp in those plans however. We'll see. Of course the pus-icing on the shit cake here would be if Calder is actually sick and I come down with it too. At least I already have the time off from work planned. Woooo, holiday weekend!