These days, Dave and I spend our time with Tau either trying to keep our wits about us or shaking our heads in disbelief. Three recent conversations …

1

Lying with Tau at bedtime, as he rearranges his lions. “Uh … I needa my dog!”

“Dog isn’t here, honey. Hold this lion.”

“I. NEEDA. MY. DOOOOOOOOG!”

Sigh. Knowing full well that Dog is on the back seat of my car, I go the path of least resistance: “I don’t know where it is.”

Long silence. “Probably is downstairs. Probably is inna kitchen. Or probably is inna garage!”

Yes. Probably.

2

And we are now in love with Band-aids. Whenever we fall, we NEEDA a band-aid.

The other day, after not listening and not watching where he was going, he trips, fall and bumps his right shin.

“Waaaaaaaaaaa!” Deep breath. “Waaaaaaaaaa! I NEEDA Band-aid!”

Unsympathetic mother: “Come here, lemme see. No, you don’t need a Band-aid. There’s no BLOOD. We only do Band-aids for BLOOD in this house!”

3

And we are the Ruler Supreme of last-ditch attempts not to have to go to sleep — especially where we are EXHAUSTED and should have been asleep ages ago.

Lying in the dark. “Mommy?”

“Yes, Tau.”

“My diaper is coming loose.”

When did he learn loose? “No it’s not. I just put a new one on.”

“It IS! Is coming loose.”

“Lemme see.” Flip him on his back, zip down his PJs to check the velcro and make sure the fit is right and straight. “No it’s not loose.” Ziiiiip! “Come, let’s tuck you in.”

“Mommy? My diaper is giving me owie.”

Sigh. “Really?”

“No.”

I can hear him grinning in the dark. “OK. Go to sleep now.”

“Mommy? I need to go potty.”

“No you don’t. You need to go to sleep.”

“I NEED to go POTTY!” Silence. “I. NEED. TO. GO POTTEEEE!!!”

“OK. Let’s go potty.”

(And, yes. He really did need to go potty.)

Aimee has launched the very first Kid Art Auction for Earth Day 2008.

How does it work? Your kid makes art. You post it to the Kid Art Auction Flickr pool. And you tell all you know about it so that they can go and bid on the lovely pieces our kids have made. When bidding closes, the parent ships the art to the highest bidder. Simple and fun, yes? All proceeds go to We Can Solve It, a project from the Alliance for Climate Protection.  

Family overseas, sorry, but the bidding is only open to those in North America. But friends with kids under 17 in Canada and the US? Get those kiddie fingers busy.

Here is Tau’s first effort with scissors, markers and glue. Isn’t Happypillar sweet?

Another reason I love Dooce. She knows the power of a good bribe. See the Elephant Clips post below the lovely photo.

I took Tau to the park to ride the train yesterday and took a few snaps along the way.

Thought I’d post them for the family who haven’t had the chance to visit. They are in our La Casa set on Flickr.

Enjoy!

Today I bought Tau his first set of kiddie scissors.  We spent lots of time practicing and when I was confident he understood how to cut the paper and not his fingers, I let him go at it.

So I’m in the kitchen and I hear mutter, mutter, mutter coming from around the corner.

“What’s that Tau?”

“I cutta the carpet!”

The cream nouveau shag that looks like mini-noodles. Could have bet big money on that.

We spent Easter Sunday yesterday with Dave’s sister Trish, her husband Bruce and family. Tau loves haves having his teenage cousins Greg and Jess around to play soccer with him and do Thomas the Tank puzzles (thrilling for them, I’m sure!).

It was so hot here that the Easter Bunny had to drop his eggs off very quickly after brunch and we ran out and find them before they melted into globby, gooey little messes.

Pics are over at Flickr. Enjoy!

This morning I woke Tau up by opening his blinds, the sun streaming in on his bed.

“C’mon sleepyhead. Time to get up.”

Sits up, fuzzyheaded, rubbing his eyes and squinting up at the light. “Iz-zat Mr. Golden Sun?”

I don’t believe it! I’m standing by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said, “The road uphill and the road downhill are one and the same!”

We had a wonderful time in Palm Springs for my 40th birthday this past weekend. Dave rented a gorgeous place with a pool and a hot tub, and we spent the weekend relaxing, sleeping in, going for coffee and yes, the three of us ate a whole birthday cake! It was mostly fruit and sponge cake, or so I keep telling myself.

Also, I have been wanting to buy a digital SLR camera for a long time now and with birthday contributions from various family members (thanks again all!), I was able to order my Canon Rebel XTi and a 50mm lens last week. It arrived in time to take away with us.

Thanks for your lovely cards, calls and flowers all!

Mitch, Tau and AJ at Omaha Beach House

It amazes us that even after two months back from New Zealand, Tau still raises things that we thought he would have long forgotten.

When we catch and hold his swing in mid-flight at the playground, he knows that saying “AJ’s password” (”Love ya, AJ”) is the only way to get the swing going again. He also remembers that the “AJ hug” requires a “tap, tap” of his hand on our backs.

The third thing he “remembers” cracks me up: I recently told him on the way home from daycare that Mommy would be home when we got there. “What are you going to say to Mommy when you see her?” I asked. His response? ” Hello gorgeous!” I almost drove the car off the road. He tells me AJ taught him this.

So as I mentioned, most of my blogging energy is going into my new site (those of you who haven’t seen it, let me know and I’ll send you the URL). That means not much nobaddays-ing these days.

But I did want to touch base on a couple points.

1. It snowed in San Diego County yesterday. Yes. Snowed. And it was cold and windy. I had to wear a sweater. And run to my car. And turn on the heat. Yuk!
2. This week I started a three-month tech-writing contract with a small software company here in San Diego. For the techies: They develop a media-hosting/social-networking platform that fits seamlessly into their customers’ websites. Think YouTube but higher-quality and for the corporate media market. Online newspaper and TV sites. That sort of thing. I’ll be documenting their admin tool. Love being at a small start up again … fun product, fun people. And I really love that I’m only working four days a week and 20 minutes from home!
3. Dave and I celebrated our seventeenth anniversary last week. See pics of the yummy dinner I made on Flickr to the right.
4. And yes, my fortieth is coming up this leap year’s day. We plan to be away that weekend, so family if we could talk the weekend before or after, that would be grand.
5. I hoped to post about New Zealand the whole month of January but didn’t get around to doing that, did I? Dave stepped in admirably with posts on wine and coffee but I had planned to tell you all about our travels there. So many posts still sitting on the shelves of my mind. Time to clear them out but with the new job and a bunch of other things I want to get done around the house in Feb and March, I don’t think that’s going to happen. So please make do with taking another look at our pics. I think they capture just how lovely and relaxing our visit was!
6. Finally, belated happy Valentine’s Day everyone! We kinda skip over it here at Casa Nobaddays but Tau apparently did quite well — he came home with a goodie bag stuffed with candy and cards from his classmates. All along the lines of this one last year.

That’s all she wrote for now!