Logan: Spokesman for the ADA

This morning I was trying to get Logan to brush his teeth after breakfast.

"No, first I want to play with my trains" (the trains in question are really one train -- Thomas -- and an assortment of other toys chosen by color to represent the other trains on the island of Sodor, but that's another story for another time).

"Logan," I said, raising my voice. "Logan, you HAVE to brush your teeth, or they'll fall out. You don't want that to happen, do you? If they fall out, you won't be able to eat any yummy food like french toast or bacon." I was confident this would get him. He loves french toast and bacon.

But, being Logan, he thought about it a moment and said. "I'll just keep my mouth closed."

"What?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'll keep my mouth closed and then my teeth can't fall out."

Well, problem solved, I guess! (But he still had to brush his teeth.)

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!"

The Pizza Set

Since we went into a toy store to find a birthday present for a friend of Logan's, he has been enamored with a particular pizza set. The other day we had some time to kill before picking Shay up, so we stopped at the same toy store, "just to look around."

Well, of course the minute we walked in Logan made a bee-line for the pizza set and picked it up. The conversation ensued:

LOGAN: I want this pizza set.

ME: We're not getting the pizza set.

LOGAN: But I want it.

ME: I'm sorry. I told you weren't not buying anything today.

LOGAN: But I want it.

ME: I know you want it, but we're not getting it.

LOGAN: (tucking the pizza set under his arm) Well, I'll just go ahead and get it, then.

ME: (slightly dumbfounded) Uh, I said we're not getting it.

LOGAN: (marching towards the cash register with the pizza set still under his arm) I'm just going to go ahead and get it anyway.

ME: How are you going to pay for it? You can't just walk out with it. You need money.

LOGAN: I'm just going to give them some pretend money.

ME: I don't think they'll take pretend money.

LOGAN: Maybe you can give me some of YOUR money.

ME: Sorry, I'm not giving you any of my money.

LOGAN: Well, I'll just go ahead and get it anyway.

After some gentle cajoling and talking, I managed to get Logan to put the pizza set back on the shelf, and we left the store without the remotest hint of a tantrum.

However, I have a feeling that there had better be a pizza set under the tree on Christmas morning, or Santa's going to have some serious explaining to do.

Letters BIG and letters small

Last night I was reading to Logan.... ah, no. We have to change that. From now on, it must be "...Logan and I were reading..." because that's what it has become. A cooperative effort. Last night Logan and I were reading Richard Scarry's ABC book and after we finished and before I could slam the book closed, he noticed that on the endpapers are the letters of the alphabet in their capital and lowercase versions. I was explaining to Logan that "A" and "a" were the same letter, just written differently for different reasons that I didn't even want to try to get into, but he kept asking why and so I started talking about sentences and proper nouns and then Logan, tired of my ineffectual attempts summarized for me: oh, the "A" is the mommy A and the "a" is the baby a. The "B" is the mommy B and the "b" is the baby b, and .... all the way to Z and z, and then I bid him good night with a kiss and wished him many, many ZZZZZZZZZZ and zzzzzzzzzzz on his way to dreamland.

Cookers: the growing menace

Recently a very good friend of ours visited from Miami and, since she had a craving for Indian food, we were happy to indulge her with a trip to our favorite local Indian buffet (which we rarely get to frequent these days). We had a pleasant meal, enjoying curry and conversation and even the overcooked, cold gulab jamun which Logan quickly identified as "bald ice cream." After we paid and while we were waiting for our friend to return from the restroom, Logan caught sight of the bowl of after-meal seeds that aficionados chew to cleanse their palates. He saw his mommy partake and so, of course, he had to as well. In the process he spilled a spoonful on the table. I walked over all cool and calm and said, "I wonder who made that mess?" Logan dropped his eyes for a moment, lost in thought; after a few moments, he met my gaze once more and said: "Maybe it was the cookers!*"

* cooker (noun): in Loganese, this refers to one who cooks (not to be confused with the standard english 'cooker' which refers to a piece of hardware used in the cooking process), i.e. a cook or chef.

"What am I doing??!"

That could well be my motto since becoming a father (and I'm guessing that Nina would confess to asking that question at least once since becoming a mother), but what I'm thinking of right now is something Logan used to say. He used to jump around and shake back and forth like a flounder flung up on dry land (except that, unlike the flounder, Logan would do so on his feet). To top it all off, he'd have this curious grin on his face and ask "What am I doing?!!" Nina and I could never figure out the origin of that charming dance, but we got LOTS of laughs out of it. Now, within the last couple of days, Shay has taken to doing something similar. Just last night, for example, while Nina and I were watching some fine NBC Olympics' coverage, Shay pulled up on the coffee table, directly between the television and N and I. She looked at us coyly and then commenced to bobbing up and down and swaying back and forth. Very Loganesque (though with not quite the same 2-year old boy's intensity). So now I'm wondering: is she aping something she's seen N or I do? (and did Logan do the same?) Or did she learn it from Logan (they do look at one another quite frequently at mealtimes, and Logan has been known to make some noise and motion while eating), leaving Logan's acquisition the only remaining mystery. Everyone loves a good mystery, I guess. And as long as I can ask "What am I doing??!" there's guaranteed to be some in all our lives.

Where the (little) wild things are

Anyone who has had the manifold blessing (and by manifold I mean what sometimes seems like equal parts blessing and curse) of raising two children will recoil in fear when I dare to write the two words that must be uttered in hushed, sibilant tones: sibling rivalry. Yes indeed, how the words do inspire dread in the hearts of the initiated. And so, too, for Nina and I (it just struck me that I had been calling her "my wife" in the earlier posts, as I imagined for some reason that this was all in some sense anonymous -- until I remarked upon the subtitle of our blog, just another example, as Nina would say, of me being me). As I was saying, so, too for Nina and I. We've been struggling mightily of late with this sibling rivalry thing, and at times it's threatened to beat us. But the beauty and wonder and outright pride we have in Shay and Logan always saves us. And just the other day, a ray of hope split the leaden skies of another difficult day. Logan was in his high chair and Shay, enraptured by his sing-songing laughing presence as she usually is (he's her big brother after all, and until he starts hitting her the spell is unbroken), enraptured she turns from what she's doing and starts crawling toward him. Logan's eyes turn and fix on her, eyes that sometimes fill with a stormy, thundering desire to push or hit or knock down. His eyes fix on her and fill with sunshine, filled like twin fountains by that unquenchable ray of hope; he looks at her and says, "Here comes the Little Wild!"

Nina and I look at each other, our own eyes feeling the warmth of the words. I'm not sure who said it first, but there was an "Awww!" and then a "how cute!" and then the clouds, the scaly armor of the leaden day, began to fall and disappear. There was hope in the Roy-Lewis household, and Logan himself was leading the charge.