Hiatus

So I haven't posted in quite a while -- certainly not from lack of things to write about but because I've been trying hard to direct all my writing energy towards fiction (which also explains why I am so lousy about replying to emails). Logan and Shay are respectively in preschool and daycare MWF, which means I drop them off, get home by 8:30 and spend the day writing writing and writing some more. Discipline rules those three days. Chaos rules the other four days, but I suppose that's par for the course (I have no idea exactly what that even means).

Anyway, it's been both bittersweet and wonderful watching Shay grow and change. She walks fast, runs faster, jabbers endlessly ("Hi!" being her only really distinguishable word, which was also Logan's first word), and has an extraordinary facility for pointing at things with her index finger. She points to the window ("Sky!" we say with enthusiasm. "Bird! Tree! Yes, those are leaves!"), to the buttons on the elevator, to her mouth when we ask "Eat? Eat?", and to pretty much anything else to which she wishes to draw our attention. It's actually quite an elegant little gesture, and it will serve her well for "shushing" purposes should she choose to become a librarian one day. Or a mother. Ahem.

As for Logan, he is crazy about her. He follows her around, copies her when she crawls, runs, jabbers, points, and drops her food on the floor. We are not thrilled with that last one. I actually had a tough time with Logan over the summer since for at least five months, he was downright mean with Shay -- hitting her, kicking her and knocking her over so frequently that my blood was in serious boil mode. It was kind of a weird response -- I was SO angry every time he bullied her, and my anger sprang from the undeniable fact that I will let no one hurt my baby, not even my other baby. I'm not entirely sure I handled that whole period very well considering I did a lot of snapping and time-out-ing at Logan. I read some parenting books and tried a few different techniques, but I wasn't consistent and my frustration always came to the surface. I was also so upset because it was hard to see Logan -- who has always been a good, non-confrontational type of kid -- all of a sudden turn around and start bulling.

The good thing is that as Shay got older and more interact-able, Logan outgrew the bullying phase and their relationship now is far more one of brother and sister rather than bully and victim. He still sometimes "accidentally" knocks her over (an event followed by a wholly insincere "Sorry, Shay!"), but she also knows that a loud screech will garner her some attention. So the pattern is -- Logan knocks Shay over, she screeches and looks imploringly at either me or Will, Logan apologizes and we go on our way. It's typical sibling behavior (unlike what occured this summer), and for the most part anticipated and even somewhat acceptable.

Beyond Shay, Logan is thriving in his own multiple ways. He loves to rhyme, even if the rhymes make no sense ("Hey Mommy! Ban shran. Post jost!") and especially when they do ("Hey Mommy! Pan can! Shoe true!"). My personal favorite is "Taught apricot!" I don't think even I could've come up with that one.

He also continues to love music and plays the guitar and piano with a preschooler's aplomb. Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain" is a new favorite, though we can't convince him that the words are "Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain with the barkers and the colored balloons." He continues to sing "Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain with the barkers and the colored bloogs!" Never let it be said he doesn't know how to make a song his own.

He loves to "do art," which at home consists of pasting stickers onto colored paper and then coloring the stickers black. He remains as athletic and active as ever, waking up at 5am on full throttle and staying there for the rest of the day. He's taking swimming lessons and can swim about 10 feet, jump into the pool and swim back to the edge, and he's learning to dive for rings on the bottom of the pool.

He's enjoying the game "Zingo" at preschool (a Bingo variation) and especially likes to "do the machine" that spits out the Zingo markers. His love of books is never-ending -- recent favorites include the Berenstain Bears and Clorinda the cow. He tells Shay what to do ("Shay, we don't throw our food on the floor. No, no, no!" "Shay, you can only have books with pages you can't tear.")

In addition to "Little Wild," Logan calls Shay "Little Baby" -- as in, "I want to see Little Baby." Or after they've had baths and I'm getting Shay dressed, he says, "She's Little Naked and I'm Big Clean." That one cracks me up. My favorite is "my baby." "My baby's name is Shay," he tells people, or "My baby is one year old."

Melts my heart. Every time. They both do. Every day.

the future medical capitalist

This past weekend we had a "playdate" for Logan at the home of one of his friends, and one of the favored sets of toys was a rather complete set of surgical and dignostic apparatus. Syringes (plastic with blunt needles, of course), Scalpels (dull), tongue depressors (not so depressing to look at, really) and even a sphygnomanomometer. The latter is known to most of us as a blood-pressure taker thingy. Logan decided he needed to take my blood pressure. He tried to wrap it around my upper arm but found it wouldn't fit, tried to wrap it around my wrist but couldn't get it to fasten, so at last I had to hold the ends together while he pushed on the bulb and made the little needle whir round and round. He did this for maybe five seconds. Then said nothing. "That's not being a very good doctor," I said. "You have to tell me what my blood pressure is." Still nothing. "What's my blood pressure?" I asked more directly. He considered his response carefully, staring into space for emphasis, then looked me straight in the eyes: "Fifty cents!"

your election wrap-up with correspondent Logan

Here we are at the scene of last night's amazing, astounding, never-to-be-believed election result. Change is coming. Change we can believe in. Change we need. We have a new president. You can believe that, can't you? By constitutional amendment, a president is limited to to two full terms, so we needed to choose a new one. You can believe that, too, yes? Well then, Obama has thus fulfilled his promises! In order to celebrate, I give you a selection of Logan's election thoughts from the past few days.

At dinner the night before the election:

Logan said "Is 'rack Obama nice?"
I said "I don't know, I never met him."
Logan said "Is John McCain nice?"
I said "I don't know, I never met him."
Logan said "Oh" and resumed eating.

The morning of the election, at the polling station:

Someone said (referring to Logan) "He's too young to vote!"
I said "We're taking him down to Chicago for that."
I heard a few laughs and felt a few cold, silent stares.
Logan said "What are we doing here?"
Nina said "We're hear to vote for president."
Logan said "Maybe it's 'rack Obama and John McCain! Where are 'rack Obama and John McCain?"

The night of the election, watching returns on TV:

Logan said "That's 'rack Obama, and that's John McCain."
I said "Yep."
Logan said "First John McCain is going to win, and then 'rack Obama is going to win."
I said "Somehow I don't think that's going to happen. Though this is 2008 and most anything is possible."

The morning after the election:

Logan said "We're going to visit the president."
I said "Do you know where the president lives?"
Logan said "No, but we're going to take an airplane."
I said "The president lives in Washington DC."
Logan said "That's far away."
I said "Never far enough."
Logan said "I like fire engines!"