“Mom, eggs are very FRAGILE.” As if he was telling me something I couldn’t possibly know. “That means that they can break very EASILY Mom.”
That in the 20 seconds (I exaggerate not!) that it took me to charge up the stairs to check that I hadn’t left a light on in the bathroom or walk-in closet, my three-year-old boy child can open the garage door by himself.
Yes, THE ROLL-UP GARAGE DOOR — the one that opens out to the street.
In 20 seconds flat, he carried a pine stool from the dining room into the garage, climbed up on it and pressed the button, which is WAY up the wall.
I heard the squeal of the garage door rolling as I reached the bottom of the stairs, and my whole body ran COLD. My face must have said it all because he immediately blurted out, “Sorry, Mom!”
Whereafter proceeded a very stern lecture about NEVER opening the garage door. Not until he was at least 26 years old.
We are in Target, moving slowly down a quiet aisle that has only one other shopper.
“Mommy, that lady has PINK hair!”
So she does. Neon pink and black highlights to be specific.
“Why does that lady have PINK hair?”
“I don’t know, honey … “ and since the woman can clearly hear us talking, I add, “maybe because it looks pretty?”
“No … it DOESN’T look pretty …”
Next stop? The mommy-that-lady’s-got-a-baby-in-her-tummy line … about someone who is simply carrying a bit too much weight. Don’t imagine we have much chance of avoiding that one.
Yes, that’s our kid in the grey sweater not singing a word. You wouldn’t think he’d been practicing the holiday concert songs for weeks. Or that he’d sung Jingle Bells with great gusto all the way to daycare that morning.
Part of me wanted to stop filming, run over and hold him tight.
The other part thought, “Way too funny — this is one for posterity baby!” and kept going.
This morning, Tau spotted a picture of people coming down a rollercoaster, hair whipping in the wind, mouths open screaming. And of course, “What it is, Mommy?” and “Why?”
And now I’ve learned the shortest path to a satisfactory answer.
YouTube.
So when we got downstairs for breakfast, I plopped him in front of the computer with his Raisin Bran and played a selection of home-made rollercoaster movies.
The first few freaked him out a bit with people screaming and the loud racket of the cars on the tracks, so I searched “rollercoaster kids” instead and found some dragon-shaped coasters on gently undulating tracks with happy music and kids smiling.
He watched them for a while, and when I clicked on more of the same, he said after a few seconds, “Mommy, I don’t like this one … is got music … I like to have one wif screaming!”
One of the not-so-thrilling aspects of living in Southern California is dealing with termite infestation in our wood-framed homes.
Our townhouse development (about 250 units in all) is being fumigated this month, which means double-bagging all our food and medicines, moving all our houseplants out into the yard, packing up everything we need for work and daycare, and moving out for three days while our home is tented.
We’ll be living it up in a local budget motel — watching junk TV, eating out and swimming in the hotel pool.
With all the packing, living out of bags and then unpacking again later in the week, I think I’m going to take a little holiday from blogging. Our hotel has wireless Internet access but I think we’re going to take those three days to just hang out!
Our lovely state, she’s on fire again! This time it’s Northern California — to be precise, the exact area we’re planning on holidaying in later this year (says she with a wry smile).
There are 1400 (yes, fourteen HUNDRED) fires currently burning and officials say that the kind of dry vegetation conditions they are seeing (caused no doubt by the recent hot spell) are normally what we see in October or November!
So I’m guessing that unless we get lots of rain in the coming weeks, we’ll be facing more fires in California this summer. Bah!
We wouldn’t normally post the contents of our kid’s nappy on the Internet but this has to be seen to be believed.
When we got home today from daycare, I checked his diaper by peering down the back of it, only to see a few small wood chips.
The two-year-old class playground at daycare has a fabulous pit filled with wood chips and diggers and dump trucks and such. Tau often comes home with chips in his hoodie or pockets.
So I thought to myself, “Hmn. That can’t be very comfy. Better change him, or at least remove the offending particles.” And opened the diaper to find …
Sometimes life gets in the way and I don’t get to report back on a major event. Like Halloween.
Which for Dave and I is neither here nor there, not having grown up trick or treating and so feeling no real connection with the holiday. In our pre-Tau days, we were the people who turned off the lights and curled up in bed early with a movie. Or went out for dinner so that we could see everyone dressed up but not have to wrangle with the challenges that Halloween presents.
Like how many pieces of candy to give each trick or treater. And whether you hand the treats out or just hold out the bowl and let kids help themselves. And what kind of candy is deemed acceptable anyway? All that and gauging how much candy to buy upfront, so that you don’t have a mountain of Kit Kats and M&Ms left over. Not that that’s a tragedy in my opinion — I can always find a way to dispose of Kit Kat bars.
Palm tree burning in our neighborhood, Oct. 22, 2007.
Credit: K.C. Alfred, San Diego Union-Tribune
Now that we are home and safe, I’ve been thinking about what I’d like to add on the wildfires that have so scarred our county. And my arms feel like lead. In part because we are mentally and emotionally wiped out. It’s been a long week and we’re so looking forward to turning the page on a fresh one come Sunday night.
But also in part because when you see how monstrous not one but five simultaneous fires in your region can be, you end up feeling a bit small and unavailing. You realize how little power you have to change the course of nature and how you really ought not to place much importance on building a home or a certain way of life because it can all be taken from you in a matter of hours.
So here I sit, feeling a bit silly again about the name of our blog. These past few days in San Diego were not good at all. In fact, for those who lost family members and homes and livelihoods, they were very, very bad. And when a natural disaster hits your community as badly as this one did, everyone feels it. (more…)
Tuesday 2 a.m., but it still feels like Monday night. Can’t sleep so thought I’d send an update. If all is safe to travel, and if we need to move, we’ll probably go to stay with friends not too far away tomorrow late a.m.
Will let you know when we are “settled.” Don’t worry if you don’t hear from us; there are sporadic power outages and so Internet access is spotty.
This post is mostly for our families. We are still safe. They have evacuated an area a bit North of where we are staying because they expect one of the fires to burn along one of the canyons and through almost to the coast.
We are watching updates on the news and if it comes to us needing to leave again to go South, we will do so well in advance. We have offers to stay with two sets of friends that are well out of the way of the fire.
We have wireless access in our hotel room and brought a laptop with us, hence the update Again, please don’t call; we are fine. If you don’t hear from us, please assume we are OK. We will contact you if we need to move.
Access to the following two web sites is a bit slow, as many locals are checking them constantly, but they do provide up-to-date info. Please wait a while before trying to access them.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/
http://www.kpbs.org/news/fires
If you hear of homes having burned in Poway, please don’t assume ours is gone. We live in the very urban area of the city and only evacuated to avoid any possible traffic jams. Most of the houses that have burned in Poway are on the NE more rural outskirts, where there are a lot of smallholdings and fancy estates.
Love,
Sue, Dave and Tau
PS: We are grateful for Playdoh, the Dinosaur book and the Chili’s restaurant just next to our hotel
As you will see from the TV reports, our neighborhood was affected by the Witch Creek fire. We think our exact area is still OK so far but no news.
We are fine and got out just before our neighborhood was evacuated. We are at a Holiday Inn in Sorrento Valley near Dave’s work. There is a business center here in the hotel, so we will try to post daily updates on the blog.
Please DO NOT worry … we are fine with plenty of food, TV, a king bed and internet access.
At the door this morning. “Tau, wait! Mommy needs to put on her shoes … uh, boots …”
Turns around, staring at my boots for the first time because the new word (it’s only just cool enough to consider wearing boots) … the NEW WORD! … has alerted him to something that needs to be examined, explored, filed away in his little Rolodex of comprehension.
Tugging them on, showing him the zippers. “These are Mommy’s boots.”
“Boo-bz?”
“No … boo-ts. Boots.”
“Boo-bz.”
“Boots.”
With certainty: “Boobs.”
“OK dude …” Can’t beat ‘em join ‘em. “If you say so!”
Mommy’s boobs. On her feet.*
Nice!
* If I was Jessica at OTJs, I’d be breaking out my Photoshop skeelz right about now.
Again, please don’t call; we are fine. If you don’t hear from us, please assume we are OK. We will contact you if we need to move.
