The Culture of Children

Our preschool day has ended. I am dragging into the house the smaller child, the lunchbag, the go-bag, assorted crafts, an empty milk carton, a Starbucks cup for the recycling, &c., &c., when DH emerges from his downstairs office.

He surveys the bright pink rubble lining our entryway and immediately inquires:  "Why is there a dried-out pork rib bone in her go-bag?"

(Oh, we had carrion in the go-bag? I hadn't noticed. No, really. I hadn't.) 

"Uh . . . well . . . I don't know, honey, but we'd better leave it there. I am sure there is a good reason, and I am certainly not going to be the one to -- "

At this juncture, He'en bursts in from the car, utterly aglow and caroling:  "MOM! I found a DINAH-soah bone! Inna SAN-box!"

Aha. Told you so.

We lovingly installed her archeological triumph on the porch. It sits right on top of the giant petrified tree trunk that my husband bought several months ago through Craig's List. That, also, lives on the porch. With the recent addition of a Magical Bubble Making Machine, the porch is getting very exciting indeed.

Nothing prepared me for -- and nobody warned me about -- the culture of children. By "culture," I do not mean (only) the runny noses, grubby hands, and general petri-dish-ification of your entire living space. I mean the separate universe inhabited by people who undertake to breed.  Travel is not the only way to broaden the mind; you can stay right here and embark on a 20-year cultural journey with new language, new foods, different clothing, and an entirely separate gestalt from the cheerfully child-free family living right next door to you.

I recently read an Architectural Digest profile of a designer couple's weekend home. They flee the maddening rush of the Big City to spend time together, they say, listening to classical music, shopping at the farmer's market, and cooking Moroccan food.

Yeah. I remember those days. I can even say that I miss those days.

But I'll bet their porch is achingly devoid of magical bubbles, fossilized flora, and real live genuine DINAH-soah bones.

Time for the Little One

I am almost giddy with freedom, having dispatched He'en to day camp, DH to an overnight business trip, and Dragon Girl to her crib for a morning rest. I hear a few warbles from upstairs, so we will see if that last . . . well, lasts.

With Sister away on family vacay and Dragon Girl not yet eligible for any summer camps, I've enjoyed spending more time in my house and with the kids. I feel that the littlest one has been getting the short end of the stick lately, though.  So often, we are running from one activity to the next, or I am circling the house trying to chip away at whatever chunk of the local chaos has lodged into my path that particular moment.  And because DG is so good at playing quietly with her toys, she is most often left to her own devices to do that if we are at home.

This morning, however, was a special morning. He'en was eager to go to camp. She got up early, ate, dressed, and strapped herself into the car seat. Woot! Teeth and hair both went un-brushed, because I was not about to harsh that mellow by prying her out for personal grooming. I hurriedly put the breakfast food away and tossed Dragon Girl into the car, still in her pajamas. Per her usual, DG was fine with that, chirping happily at He'en and drinking her morning milk on the drive.

With that hasty departure behind us, Dragon Girl and I found ourselves at loose ends after dropping He'en at her camp. It is a perfectly gorgeous Colorado summer day complete with light cool breezes and sparkling sunlight. I realized that I had a change of baby clothes in the car, so we went straight to the park. After an in-car change and some sunscreen, I bundled her little warm squirmy self into the baby swings and we had a very giggly interlude of swinging. Such fun to tickle her feet when she swung toward me! Unlike He'en, Dragon Girl has loved the swings from the first moment she saw one.

When swinging paled, I toted her around the park and we landed under the play structure, where the wood chips were still pretty dry after last night's rain. I found a little purple bucket and a fat pink plastic hoe that another child had left lying around.  She merrily landed and put chips into the bucket, then out of the bucket, then more into a bucket, then found some very large chips and burbled at me while waving them in the air: "See what I have?" She tried putting the end of one in her mouth, then hurriedly whipped it out with a little grin and an "uh-UH!" when she saw me watching.

"Yes," I grinned back, "I am watching YOU!" Giggle. Crawl. Giggle.

Wood chips were good for nearly a half-hour, after which we had another swing session (this time sitting in the big swings on my lap). More giggling. Then a big yawn broke up the giggles, so we headed to the car. She cheerfully accepted the carseat and a little scrap of milk left over from the morning commute. All the way home, I heard quiet sucking noises and the occasional shuffle of a bare foot on the carseat fabric.

She was dozing by the time we arrived home. I lifted her out of the seat and she snuggled onto my neck with a good strong clutch of soft baby arms. Then to the crib, where I deposited her with kisses and cuddles. She lofted her rump into the air and started to close her eyes, then opened them again and looked at me from the mattress. A big smile lit her whole face, and she floundered up to a sitting position, cooed at me, then snuggled down into her mattress again.

My littlest little bit! I am working out our fall schedules and I will have to schedule times like this with her. They are precious; she is precious. I don't want to miss a moment.

I Am Toast

This morning, while feeding children and dogs, I popped a piece of toast into the toaster for myself. I did this with rank and unfounded optimism. Yet, I felt, my new strategy gave me a chance at getting hot toast. I set the toaster to 3, which is "barely warm." This is Opportunity #1 to get hot toast.

Didn't make it. The baby needed her strawberries minced up, and He'en was frittering around with her egg and needed a timer set in order to finish it. So passed Opportunity #1.

After getting the baby washed up and settled, and He'en dispatched upstairs for preschool clothing, I punched the same slice down again and hit the toaster button again for Opportunity #2. This would produce reheated golden crispy toast but it's better than no toast. It might even be hot.

But the baby took off climbing the stairs, and the kids' dishes had to be rinsed in the sink, and by the time I made it back, the toast was indeed golden-brown but stone cold. So passed Opportunity #2.

I had just retrieved the baby and was checking the go-bag for He'en's preschool (field trip money, show-and-tell item, change of clothing, coat-hat-gloves in case it was cold, extra shoes in case they got wet) when DH breezed down to the kitchen freshly showered and cheerful. He had finished his morning round of phone calls and was ready to attack the breakfast part of his morning.

"Are you going to eat that?" he asked, espying the golden slice still in the toaster.

"Nope, go right ahead," I sighed, scraping minced strawberry off my arm. It is foolish to resent somebody for having a shower and smelling good. There is no reason to be small and deny him a perfectly good piece of toast. So passed Opportunity #3. Exit the golden-brown slice of toast.

But! He'en had eaten only half of *her* toast slice. Aha! There was still some toast in the kitchen. It, too, was stone-cold, but it was toast, so I headed for that. I cut the piece in half and set it aside for a scrape of peanut butter from the almost-empty jar that I could not bear to throw away with a teaspoon of peanut butter still inside.

But then He'en needed her teeth brushed and decided, in the middle of hair-brushing, to rub a washcloth all over her head and then hide under it. So passed Opportunity #4.

"Fine, brush your hair yourself," I said to the washcloth.

"Noooo!" the washcloth screamed. Then the washcloth was thrown across the bathroom, which resulted in a wild-haired Time Out, category Attitude.

During the false lull of Time Out, I hitched the baby up on my hip and headed for the kitchen for my quarter-piece of stone-cold leftover kid toast. Mmmm.

But the quarter-piece was gone from the cutting board. I looked around the kitchen and saw it nowhere. The dog, however, had incriminating crumbs in her whiskers and was cheerfully snarfing an extra drink of water. So passed Opportunity #5.

I am not sure why the dog took one quarter-piece and left the other. But the other was still there. At last, I was able to smear a teaspoon of peanut butter scraped from the bottom of the jar onto the quarter-piece of stone-cold leftover kid toast that had been rejected or overlooked by the dog. Yum.

Clearly it was a Mama who coined the phrase, "You're toast." Yes. Yes, I am.

Every Party Needs a Pooper

Taking He'en to birthday parties now is akin to taking our barely-subclinical hound to the dog park. Socialization is important. You want to be a responsible parent. You start with the best of intentions. But, before you know it, somebody has a punctured ear and you're apologizing all over the place.*

On a recent sunny Sunday, I loaded both kids into the car for the New Best Friend's birthday party. I like the New Best Friend a lot. She is a sweet cheerful little girl. Her parents are gracious and mellow. I really wanted to further this relationship. I was carefully pressed and dressed in my best Mom Jeans. He'en was sporting a freshly washed dress.  She had wrapped the present three days in advance. We happily drove though the spring afternoon and arrived at the house awash with glittery anticipation.

All was sweetness and light as He'en disappeared to play with the birthday girl and her preschool friends. I plopped Dragon Girl on the floor of the great room, where she set about charming every mother present by cooing and giggling over a huge purple balloon. Eventually the parents announced "Games!" and a flock of delicious little girls swirled in from the other room.  We were off to a great start, I swear.

Then came Hot Potato Dress-Up. The music plays and the kids pass a ball. When the music stops, the person holding the ball has to close his/her eyes and draw a dress-up item from a giant flour sack. The game continues until everyone is wearing something goofy. Sounds great. And it was great. Until the kid next to He'en drew a plastic alligator head.

The next thing I know, He'en had broken from her place in the circle and was literally crawling toward me, wildly sobbing. I was so nonplussed that I think I mouthed the words, "What the ... ?" to another mom over my kid's head as I wordlessly patted Helen's back, trying to figure out if she'd sat on a thumbtack or something.

After riding out some intense gasping and hacking, I finally ferreted out the words, "I wanted the alligator head!" (Try this with a sob between each syllable and no letters "t," "r," or "l," and you will see why it took me so long to decipher.)

I sent her back into the ring with gentle words but scant sympathy.

By this time, the game had moved along. When she finally got her turn to draw an item, I sighed with relief . . . briefly.  She dove headfirst into the flour sack like a released gamecock and thumped about in there until the other kids started to shout "Don't look! You aren't supposed to LOOK! Come on, pick!"

She stonily ignored their cries and emerged in her own good time with a very fancy purple-and-silver Hawaiian lei.  On any other day, this would have delighted her, but not today. She wore it with white-lipped resignation for the rest of the game. I saw her twice try to negotiate a trade for the alligator head. But she didn't come back to my lap, and as Hot Potato Dress-Up mercifully drew to a close, I had hopes for a full recovery.

Well, the parents were no rookies, so they moved the games right along with bright cheer into a "freeze dancing" round. He'en tried a couple dance moves but then came to bury her head in my lap, clearly still smarting from the dress-up trauma.

I sent her back into the ring again. She was none too pleased with me but willing to be distracted by a third game that we'll call Paper Plate Prizes.

This is a cute little game where numbered paper plates were strewn about the floor. Music plays, and the kids hop from plate to plate. When the music ends, everyone puts one foot on a plate. (The smart parents had provided one plate for each child). A winning number is drawn from a hat, and the person whose foot is on the matching plate gets a small gift. The game continues until everyone has a gift. Good stuff, right? Yes, you would think so.

He'en couldn't even make it onto the dance floor. She melted down so hard  -- I never did catch the reason -- that I had to usher her out of the room.  Another mom kindly watched Dragon Girl while He'en and I had A Little Talk.

"I'm just TYE-uhd [tired]," He'en sobbed.

"Well, you don't have to play games, that's fine. But you may not cry and make scenes at somebody else's party."

"I want to yie [lie] DOWN," she pleaded.

"Absolutely not. If you're too tired to sit quietly, you are too tired to be at the party and we will leave."

She could tell I was serious. "Don' WANT to yeeve [leave]."

"Then woman up and get back in there with your game face on. One more meltdown and we're leaving. We will say we are sorry, and we will say goodbye, and we will get into our car, and we will go. Is that very clear?"

Our hostess (the birthday girl's mother) came in during the tail end of my little pep talk. God only knows what she thought. I apologized and she said it was fine, really, and led Helen off to get a little face-painting. As I glared from the doorway, He'en was an angel. But as soon as the mother finished painting a cute unicorn on Helen's tearstained cheek, Helen was right back at my side, tugging on my jeans pocket.

"I want to dance," she insisted, pointing to the Paper Plate game that was still in progress.

"Great," I agreed, "go and dance!"

"I want to dance with YOU," she insisted, lower lip quivering again.

"No, there are no other mommies on the dance floor. You need to get out there if you want to participate."

"WAIIILLLLLLL!!!!!"

We had officially crossed the event horizon for this particular party. 

So I marched Helen back to the other room again and sat her down with Very Clear instructions to sit Right There while I collect our things. 

"Noooo! I wan' to DANCE!" She tried to tear away from me and stagger, tear-blinded, back to the dance floor.

I caught her in a straitjacket hug. "You're in no shape to dance. You're crying too hard."

Then . . . "Oh. I get it. You want to dance so you can get a gift."

She nodded, wordlessly sobbing.

"Helen . . . no. I am very sorry for you. But I am not sending you back out there. You are not going to be the kid who ruins your friend's party by crying the whole time."

I gave additional Very Clear instructions along the lines of Sitting Right There.  Then -- trying to act simultaneously grateful and sheepish -- I collected Dragon Girl from the mother who had been holding her.  As she graciously smiled and handed over my baby, I recalled that Helen had also had a meltdown at her child's party a scant three months ago. Yeah, dammit, great, now we're that kid.

I am honestly getting pretty angry myself at this moment.  But how much is me, and how much is He'en?  Even as I force-buckled a hysterical Helen's shoes while trying with the other hand to keep the baby from eating the birthday girl's coloring books, I had to wonder. Am I overly cranky about this? Isn't this just a tired four-year-old being a tired four-year-old? Is it really a reflection on my parenting? Am I mad at my kid because I think she just made me look bad? Gosh, I hope not.  I mean, we've all been there, right?

But these are questions for another day. No amount of self-doubt or Momguilt was going to persuade me to allow Helen back into that room. I left her in a complete hysterical puddle, tucked Dragon Girl onto my hip, and went to find our hostess to make apologies.

"Are you sure?" she said, kindly handing me a My Little Pony gift bag brimming with party favors.

"Very sure," I groaned, and thanked our hostess for a lovely afternoon.

Total party time: 40 minutes.

And if you think He'en cheerfully trotted out to the car and obediently climbed into her carseat, I want to come live in your reality. But we made it, and nobody hit anybody else (although some of us certainly thought about it).  I crammed down the urge to launch nine versions of the "How Could You?" lecture and contented myself with driving, with only some white knuckles on the steering wheel to belie my truly staggering self-control.

After an impressive amount of sobbing, kicking, and hiccuping, He'en fell silent for a while.

Then:

"Mom?"

. . . "Yes?"

"I diddun' effen get any CAKE."

=====

*Apropos of watching our neighbors' five (5) dogs play together, He'en and I were discussing the different "talents" of dogs. "Some dogs are bred to stand guard," I explained, "and that's their talent. Some dogs are bred to run around and keep cows or sheep in a group. That's their talent."

He'en: (delighted by this idea) "Dogs haff TAL-ents?! Yike faeries?!"

Mom: "That's right! Now, what do you think our dog's talent might be?"

He'en: (long pause)

Mom: (prodding) "What is Kira really good at?"

He'en: "Um . . . fighting?"

'Nuff said.

Just Plain Hard

It's just plain hard to be four (4) years old. I don't remember it well myself, but I can tell by watching He'en. Great joys are abundantly counterweighted by great tragedies. Although "bounded in a nutshell," still her world entertains infinite emotional space.

Case in point: the garlic. A couple weeks ago, we read about seed-planting in her High Five magazine. She was taken with the idea. Magically, I had everything on hand to create two seed incubators:  paper towels, black construction paper, and clear plastic cups. Into one incubator, we lovingly placed a peeled garlic clove. Into the other, after much discussion, we lovingly placed a cube of potato with just exactly the right number of eyes. Several rejected potato cubes became part of that night's soup.

It is wonderous that both garlic and potato did not go non-viable from the sheer intenstiy of the inspections they endured for the next few days.

First, I had to talk He'en out of chucking the whole experiment when there were no immediate results. By "immediate" I mean "within three minutes."

Next, we had to check the incubators at bedtime, morning time, and several times per day thereafter. Intermittently, I had to remind Helen to add water . . . and intermittently I had to pour off the results of over-attentive watering.

But, thank goodness, the garlic cooperated. Within 24 hours, the bottom started to look a little hairy. Then a stripe of purple appeared at the top. Then, glory-be, actual roots appeared, along with an actual sprout. He'en was delighted.  She moved it from the bathroom into her bedroom. It didn't mind the change.Clearly having no idea what was in store for it, the garlic continued to flourish and sent out a gratifying tangle of white roots and a nosegay of six-inch green leaves. Fantastic! 

At this point, I found other things to occupy me, and I largely forgot about the garlic except to give it an occasional drink at bedtime.  (The potato never germinated, but we leveraged the failure: on the way to the trash, we had a mini-lesson on mold spores.)

Today, He'en came downstairs cradling the young garlic plant. It was notably shorter. The roots looked a little dry. One leaf was crooked over at an inauspicious angle.  "Issss not good," He'en sighed, stroking the droopy leaf.

I forebore to lecture her on the dangers of over-petting garlic. That ship obviously had sailed. But I have great faith in the self-healing power of plants, so I suggested that she get a little nice dirt into the incubator cup and we'd try moving out from the paper towel into a real house. She immediately brightened and began charging around the house to gather shoes, digging implements, and the like. I sent her outside with sprout and cup.

After a short time, she returned, glowing, and presented me with the garlic plant snuggled into a half-inch of dirt. "That's really really good dirt, honey," I praised her.

She poked a finger into the cup with great satisfaction, modestly confessing, "It hasss a few yiddow woks [little rocks]."

"Well, you can pick those out. But how about this: find a little more good dirt just like that, and snuggle the whole thing into the dirt just like you would pull blankets up to your chin at night."

"Snugg-ow it?"

"Yep, plants like to be snuggled, right up to," -- I pointed -- "about here, where the green starts."

"I will snugg-ow it," she agreed, stepping outside again. I returned to the dishes for six seconds until a high-pitched yawp brought me back to the window.

He'en had either stumbled or dropped her cup. However it happened, both cup and dirt were on the ground, although He'en was standing. She had rescued the spout from the carnage and stood clutching it, sobbing and raspberry-faced.  I watched a second (callous me!) to see if she would recover on her own, but the grief was too great. Staggering through her tears, she was headed for the door cradling the now-naked garlic sprig.

Hugs and petting followed, along with an unnecessarily -- but reassuringly -- thorough inspection of the garlic. See? It still has the top and all the leaves are there. See? The roots are not broken. See? It's all in one piece. Where did you find that good dirt? Do you think there is more good dirt over there? Are you sure? Okay, let's go see. Wow, yes, that is really good dirt. &c.

Sniff.  But back onto the pony she climbed, and she returned with a cup full of dirt and the garlic sprout "snuggow-ed" nicely into it. She perched on the kitchen stool and poured water over the whole thing, very pleased.

Then followed the search for a garlic permahome. She wanted to return the garlic to her bedside table. Eyeballing the muddy sloshy mixture, I vetoed that idea.  I suggested several alternate spots. This led to a go-round on how much sun it should get. "Dose windows haff sun," she argued, pointing to the southern breakfast nook.

"Well, that might be too much sun," I temporized, envisioning sauteed garlic.

"How about heah?" she suggested, clambering up to the dining room table. Biting my lip, I watched the muddy garlic cup travel up the ivory leather chair.

"Um, yes, that would be fine. It's near the other plant."

But she was not satisfied and clambered down. Undaunted, she tried again: "I want it in my woom."

"Um, no. But let's see . . . " I hauled a little bench to the dining room window. "It can be here! In a special place all its own! And you can sit on this loveseat and visit whenever you want."

She was not persuaded by my false enthusiasm and reached for the cup to move it again. "I wan' it in my woom," she asserted. But the cup chose this moment to tip a little, splashing a few tablespoons of mud slurry over the table and onto the floor. "Oh, oh, nooooo . . . " she started to well up again.

After another round of it's-fines, we agreed that the garlic would, indeed, live in the dining room in the special-place-all-its-own.  I am going downstairs now to beam positive energy onto that durn thing.

Seeing the Pretty

I’m not sure why I buy toys for He’en when there’s a perfectly good supply of leptoglossus occidentalis crawling around whenever the weather gets above freezing. This afternoon He’en announced from the bathroom, “MOM! Dere is a STEEN-k-buhG on da faucet.”  [Henceforth I will will use the traditional spelling, but you, gentle reader, must promise to pronounce it, in your head, “STEEN-k-buhG.”]

I sighed inwardly and shifted Dragon Girl onto my hip.  “Okay, should we put him outside?”

“Yesss.”

Thence followed a one-handed search for an appropriate buglift. We concluded that a paper Dixie cup would do the trick. “I wan’ take him out my-SEF,” He’en insisted.

“Okay, but stay on the porch, please.” We are enjoying a mild day after the recent snowstorms, so I released He’en and her Dixie cup onto the front porch.  She sat there for a while, turning the cup this-way and that-way, examining its inhabitant. I settled down to feed Dragon Girl, which was just foolish, because Helen immediately reappeared inside, still cradling both cup and cargo.

“Please can I yook at him on da utha pawch [other porch]?”

Sure, why not. So I relocated both He’en and stinkbug* to the sunny south porch. She sat out there for quite a while, lifting and turning her hands in the mellow afternoon light while the stinkbug climbed up and down her aqua sweatshirt with the sparkly butterfly on the front.  (Being no idiot, the stinkbug had, by this time, abandoned his Dixie cup for warmer climes.)

I watched through the window, wondering if stinkbugs really do stink. I figured we would find out pretty soon. Helen’s outdoor mania regularly requires me to research things that hop and crawl; I knew the bug wouldn’t bite or sting.  I frankly was more worried about the bug than my child. Helen’s ROR with insects has, in the past, resulted in more than one mortally crippled fellow-traveler and subsequent mercy killing.  But she was very gentle with this one.

After a time, she re-entered the house with the stinkbug perched on her wrist like a microscopic falcon.

“He’s pwiddy,” she announced.

The stinkbug twitched an antennae in cheerful agreement.

Surprised, I agreed as well. “Yes, he is pretty. What is your favorite part of him?”

She raised her wrist to her nose, went a little cross-eyed, and decided, “Da gode [gold] on his back.”

I took a closer look myself. Indeed, he had a beautiful pattern on his back. “I like his little stripes. Helen, it will be a great gift to you, your whole life, if you can see something pretty where other people can only see an icky old bug.”

She huffed a short laugh, a disconcertingly adult sound from a four-year-old.

“I can see da pwiddy,” she assured me with total confidence.

May it always be so.

 

 

Photo courtesy of University of Rhode Island, R.A. Casagrande.

 

*It's actually a Western Conifer Seed Bug, not even related to the true stinkbug. It may get stinky when nervous, but it eats only tree sap.

Glitterjeep

DH drives a 1999 Jeep Wrangler Sahara. He drove it when I met him, and he has continued to drive it through all his economic upturns and downturns. 

The Jeep is, hands-down, my man’s best friend. The dog can’t even compete. The Jeep has taken DH to federal court, to multi-million-dollar real estate closings, to private airfields, and out mud-running.  It has effortlessly clambered up and down mountains, through lightning storms, over blowdown trees, and into gullies that would puzzle a bighorn sheep. In one surprise blizzard, the Jeep led a conga line of 4WD vehicles up the freeway shoulder to freedom while the drivers of more ecologically responsible cars had to sit in gridlock and shiver. “That thing grips like a slug,” DH chuckled with great satisfaction, kicking snow off his hiking boots. A law firm client even gave the Jeep top billing during his company’s Christmas party: “Our lawyer is a complete Renaissance man: he’s not only handling our merger, but he flies airplanes, climbs mountains, and drives a Jeep!”

The Jeep failed us only once, through no fault of its own: we tried to drive it through a thigh-deep flood to evacuate from a Florida hurricane. The Jeep cheerfully went forth, but its unmodified exhaust pipe was blowing bubbles from twelve inches underwater.  Rather than swamp the exhaust system, we chose to abandon the evacuation and sit out the hurricane in the house. (This was the fourth evacuation of that year, which accounts for the cavalier attitude. Frickin’ frackin’ hurricanes. Note that we no longer live in Florida.)

When not saving humanity, the Jeep acts as DH’s portable Man Cave. It harbors an interesting welter of drywall mud, tow ropes, paint sticks, tile samples, Home Depot receipts, sturdy gloves, earflap hats, water bottles, reading glasses, and camping gear. When I occasionally drive the Jeep, I have a nice smug feeling that if civilization imploded somewhere between preschool and the dry cleaners, the Jeep would either get everybody home and/or sustain us in the wilderness until we could flintknap our own spears.

The Jeep stays largely devoid mommy-litter and kid-litter, except for last week. For reasons too long and boring to list here, DH and I swapped cars for a few days, and I shoehorned both carseats into the back seat of the Jeep.

 The kids are flatly delighted by this turn of events.  He’en can see everything out of the full-length rear window and keeps squealing with delight on the turns, crowing about “how FAS! we awe [are] go-ween!” Dragon Girl is less vocal but equally pleased. Her rear-facing bucket carseat requires me to stand on the back bumper and hoist her through the rear window for exit and entry. She thinks it’s great fun and giggles every time at this peek-a-boo game. Once underway, her ladybug toy merrily jingles over the bumps and she watches the scenery out the giant windows with an occasional softly delighted “Ah-glurrr!”

Where two-girls-under-five go, however, pink sparkly things go a-with. Thus follows the Glitterfication of the Jeep. After a mere four days, DH’s formerly fine and manly vehicle acquired a dried yarrow flower on the dashboard, a smattering of pastel terrycloth socks, a plushy blanket with green and pink flowers, and a liberal sprinkling of glitter from He’en’s “Pink and Purple Mermaid” art project.

I feel that the Jeep is comfortable with this.  Like a man who is secure enough to cheerfully escort his girlfriend to a drag show, the Jeep knows that it will be back in its rightful place in good time.

DH, however, is going to realize an unexpected benefit. Since the birth of Child #1, I have been harping at him to buy a more baby-friendly vehicle.   I now have resolved to stop.   In a world increasingly slathered with pink tulle, rhinestone tiaras, Barbie dolls, pastry sprinkles, beads-glitter-feathers-sequins-rainbows-sparkles-ponies-ribbons, it’s clear that DH’s last bastion of manliness should be preserved. I think that even the dog would agree.

[A special shout-out for this entry goes to my AOL-customer-support alumna sister, who found a way to make my computer talk to the Internet again.]