Rocker for Hire

Master guitar player available for weddings, bar mitzvahs, graduations, office parties, and preschool play groups. His ultra cool style is complemented by his boyish good looks. In addition to the guitar, artist is proficient on pots and pans, LeapFrog Learn and Groove Alphabet Drum, kazoo, and tambourine, and is a master at playing on Mama's nerves. He boasts a number of original songs, including "Starfish Cool," "Runaway, Runaway," and "The Mermaid Song." Prefers to take payment in milk and cookies.

Whose Jong?

Lately I've been playing a mahjong game on the computer when I want to chill out. Both kids seem to be mildly interested in it, especially because there are sound effects when you match up the tiles. Max came up to me this morning and we had this conversation:

"Mama, what are you doing?"

"I'm playing mahjong."

To which he replied, "No, Mama, it's not YOU jong, it's MY jong!"

Ahhh, to be three again and rule the world! ;)

School Boy

This week marked another "first" for the books -- Max's first official school pictures arrived! They were taken in the beginning of the month and it was a pretty painless process -- we walked in, sat down, snapped a couple of pictures, and we were done. The hardest part about the whole thing was trying to prevent Max from testing out the photographer's equipment ... especially when the photographer made the mistake of showing Max the "picture" in the back of the camera (at which point Max noticed that the camera had all kind of fun buttons, just like Mama's camera!). Of course, I was checking out the photographer's gear too, although I refrained from actually pushing any buttons. I think Max looks a lot older in his picture than he actually is -- he sure doesn't look three!

Since our first day of school pictures are being held hostage by our new computer (which is in the shop), I haven't had a chance to talk about how Max is doing in preschool. To say that he is absolutely loving it is a bit of an understatement -- he only goes to preschool twice a week (for two hours a day), but he wants to go every day. He loves his teachers and every day when he walks in he goes up to them and says, "Hello Mrs. P--, hello Mrs. C--!!" He also likes to play with all the "little girls and boys" (I don't think he knows his classmates names yet). His teachers say that he's doing well -- he plays nicely with the other children, does well with group activities, and is a very friendly, huggy little boy.

The only downside to school is that he doesn't nap on the days he goes to school and by the end of the day he is one tired, cranky little boy. Usually you can get him to tell you about what he did at school, but lately his new stock response to those questions is, "Hmmmm, I don't know." Rats, I thought we had until at least middle school before had to deal with that one!

Bittersweet

After two years, two months, and two weeks of nursing, Molly has officially weaned. As of Friday, it's been a full week since she nursed and it went even better than I could have hoped. Molly hadn't been doing more than comfort nursing for months, so it was more a matter of habit and ritual than sustenance for her. Dad was off for a full week, so I had him get up with her in the morning, which was one of her usual nursing times. By the time he went back to work, I just started either tucking her back in or getting up with her when she woke up and she never even batted an eye. I'd still been nursing her briefly before bed, but since cutting out the morning session went so well, we went cold turkey on the bedtime session.

The first night she asked to nurse and fussed for about 30 seconds when I tried to distract her. I offered to hold her and sing her a song and she happily climbed into my lap and asked me to sing the Dora theme song (*aye*). The second night she was uber crabby and had a 60-second meltdown when she realized we weren't going to nurse. Once again, she was placated by the offer of a song and a cuddle. After the first two nights, she didn't even ask again -- she hopped into my lap, snuggled right up, and started in on the song requests. It was pain and trauma free for Molly, which was all I ever wanted.

You'd think that after over four years straight of being pregnant and/or nursing that I'd be happy to have my body back. And I am. But there's another part of me that's really sad to lose that special bond with my baby. Who, although I hate to admit it, isn't really a baby any more! Even though I know it's ridiculous, there's a part of me that worries that she won't NEED me any more, since I don't have something special to offer her. It was the ultimate ace up my sleeve, since it was something only we could share. Now I'm just a regular, old parent, without any mama superpowers.

Nursing was one of the hardest things I've ever done (at least in the beginning), but it was also one of the most rewarding. I'm proud that I could give such a valuable gift to my children. But, now, I think I'm going to go have a glass of wine ... or two. ;)

Bad Computer Mojo

Sooo, a motherboard replacement, a few hours on the phone with tech support, and much frustration later, we're still without a working new computer. We had to ship the darn thing back to California so that tech support could tinker with it. The good news is that they received it -- the bad news is that it isn't due back to us for a couple of weeks. Given that it is holding some pictures of mine hostage, I'm falling even more disgustingly behind on photo and blog posts. At this rate, I'm just going to have to start blogging sans pictures and add them in later. But, to blatantly misquote Alice, "What is the use of a blog without pictures?"

We also seem to have pinpointed the source of our computer misfortune ... me. My work laptop decided to throw it's hat into the ring and corrupted itself this week, so I'm now without a fully functioning home computer OR a fully functioning work computer. Bah! It's almost funny ... except that it's not!