Persuasion

After nearly seven years of an impressive steadfast refusal to try any and all kid activities that his mother and I have tried to push him - REALLY PUSH HIM - into, the last six months have been a banner time for ol' Finny.  Who knew that it could take a kid 6.9 years before he was willing to learn to swing on a swingset by himself?  Or put his face in the water in a swimming pool?  Or ride a bike?

It was worth the wait, because he's now happily doing all of those things and the one, arguably most important thing, that he's been avoiding the most:  reading.

At the beginning of the school year, he would struggle to finish five pages in 20 minutes.  Last night, he read all 50 pages of Red Fish, Blue Fish in under 10.  That's a long freakin' book and I'm incredibly proud of how hard he's worked on his reading to get there.

But that's only the tip of the iceberg.  At school this week, they were working on writing persuasive letters.  Apparently, Finn's was for me.  I've included both a photo & a transcript translated into common English, since while his reading is great, his spelling might still be a little advanced for many of you.

Dear Famous Blogger, 

Can I have an iPad? 

#1:  Because you have two.
#2:  I won't have to bug you any more.
#3:  Why do you need two?
#4:  What will you do with the other one? 

So please can I have an iPad? 

Sincerely,
Finn

It's tough to argue with that logic.  I think the kid just earned himself an iPad - the old one, of course.  After all, why do I need two?

Now I apparently need to write a persuasive letter of my own.  The topic?  "The Importance of Flushing Your Poop."

TWO!

I'm way overdue for this post, but that's what happens when your life is being run by a two year old.  They're terrible.

Or so I've heard.  Mine is amazing.  You haven't lived until Edie has informed you via song that it's all about the bass, 'bout the bass, no "twebble".

Her "Mama Mia" that elegantly segues into counting from 5 to 10 is sick, as well.  The girl has jams far beyond her two years.

Happy Belated Birthday, little girl!  I alternately can't believe it's been two years since I was huddled under a blanket, shivering, on the day that you came home from the hospital suffering from post-partum Daddy flu, or that it's ONLY been two years since that day, given that the recent flights with you to and from Florida felt like five years each.

However the math works out, know that you're one of the three best things that have ever happened to me and that I can't wait to hear what songs you're going to sing next.

Hopefully they're about something other than your butt.

The Mad Pooper

Someone is pooping in our toilets and I can't figure out who it is.  This mystery is frustrating not just because I have cameras in each of our bathrooms (in addition to most public restrooms in the Greater Seattle area), but also because this Mad Pooper either does not know how to, or simply does not care to, flush.  Or use toilet paper.

I'd accuse Edie, but I know exactly where her poop ends up.  I'd accuse Kitty, but we all know that grown women don't poop.  I'm pretty sure it's not me, so that leaves Finn.

He insists it's not him.

And why would it be?  It's not like I watch him walk out of the bathroom without washing his hands, only to walk in 2 minutes later and see a giant piece of poop in the toilet, right?  I mean, I would expect this if I also watched him sit on the toilet after waking up in the morning and magically pee out from under the toilet seat all over the bathroom floor.  But who would do that?

Because that would be crazy.  And really gross.

As Finn was cracking a joke last night about how no one needs to be taught how to poop, I couldn't help but think of those toilet-paper-less poops in the toilet.  

I'll unmask you at some point, Mad Pooper, I swear.

But first I need to clean up this mysterious puddle of pee on the floor...

DIE-REE-AH!

There is nothing funny about being woken up on successive nights to the sounds of your kids puking in their beds.  Stripping wet sheets, finding big bowls, running the washing machine for 48 hours straight.  Add to that multiple days off work due to the ejection of bodily fluids from the other end, and it ain't a pretty sight.

On the other hand, there's nothing NOT funny about your almost-two-year-old daughter adopting "diarrhea" as her favorite word - screaming it at the dinner table, in the car, at passersby.

It's impossible not to crack up when she yells DIE-REE-AH!  at the top of her lungs while you're out at dinner, until you realize that everyone in the restaurant is looking at you laughing at this, in the midst of the piles of food that your kids have thrown all over the table, floor and empty beer bottles, slowly understanding that you're now "that" family.

And then immediately not caring as soon as another cry of DIE-REE-AH! echoes out across the dining room.

I'm sure it'll get old eventually, particularly now that her method for getting our attention is to interject, "die-ree-uh?" into any conversation that we're having.

But then again, I'm over 40 and giggling as I type this, so....  I won't hold my breath.

New Year's Rockin' Eve

There was a time in our lives when New Year's Eve meant glowsticks, tie dyes and epic Phish concerts - sometimes running all night - but those days are long gone.

Or so I thought.

I present, The Ninja Family New Year's Rockin' Eve 2014:

Yes, those are both of our children, rocking out to Phish live, via the wonders of the Intertubes.   And that was the mellow moment.  The rest of the evening was full of family glowstick drum circles...

... and dance parties - during which Edie would spin like a veteran Deadhead and Finn would approach and kindly offer, "Shall we dance?", which was my cue to pick him up and throw him onto the couch.

While we fully expected them to immediately lose interest in their parents' weird hippie obsession, Edie made it through the second set and Finn made it the distance, through East Coast New Year's and to the encore.  And he wasn't fakin' it.  I mean, look at this face!

As the night was winding down and Finn and I were laughing and messing each other's hair to our favorite mangled Phish lyrics ("I saw you with a chicken sub in your hair!"), I realized that this was what it was all about.  Being able to share an experience like this - one that was so formative for their mom and me, and such a part of our lives for so long - is transcendent.  Even if they were sober like a couple of losers.

One of these days, these guys are going to grow up, hop into a Virgin Galactic shuttle and head off to a Phish show on Mars for New Year's Eve, ditching us to watch alone on our couch (which will probably be made with GMO's; stupid future), but until then, I'm going to savor every New Year's Eve we have together.  We're going to buy as many glowsticks as we can afford, watch us some serious Phish, and turn our TV room into a crazy "mush pot," as Finn would put it.

Shall we dance?

Should auld acquainta... NO RACCOONS!

As another year winds down and as my lovely children have finally been stuffed forcefully in their beds with peppermint popcorn crammed lovingly in their cry-holes, it's time for reflection on the important question that I must imagine all parents ask themselves this time of year:  What did I yell more in 2014, "lean over your plate!" or "stop screaming or you're getting a time out!"?

And is it appropriate to immediately follow an exclamation point with a question mark?

The answer to both questions, of course, is "who freakin' cares?"

Whether it's Edie's adorable demands for everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) within 10 square feet of her, to "READ A BOOK!" or her oddly persistent fear of raccoons, it's been a great year.  Whether it's the fact that Finn is finally gaining confidence in his reading and writing or the fact that he hasn't taken that opportunity to write "BUTT" on everything we own, it's been a great year.

Yeah, we failed in our second attempt at organized sports and spent way more time (and gambling money) at the hospital than anyone should have to.  And yeah, there's still WAY too much poop in this house not ending up in toilets and/or getting flushed, but screw it.  The kids are healthy, they're happy, and I'm so utterly spent that I don't even get to update this thing as much as I'd like.

Even if I haven't written it down, at least I'll remember it - with the three brain cells that I haven't killed by drinking myself to sleep each night in total exhaustion.

So here's to a roller coaster 2014 and to new adventures and challenges in 2015!  Even though we've turned many corners this year, I know that we've still got a long & exciting road ahead.

We're gonna need more beer.

'Tis the season... for Raccoons!

It is fair to say that among the Scrooges of the Ninja/Rookie household, I am typically the Scroogiest.  From my rampant disdain for glittery junk that does nothing other than stick to my cheek inappropriately before important meetings and clog the vacuum cleaner to my disregard for dressing up for costumey occasions in anything more than a different colored baseball hat, I much prefer to spend my holidays sitting in the corner feeling superior and judging you all.

While drinking Egg Nog.  Because Egg Nog is the bomb.

Case in point, while Kitty starts Christmas planning in March, with "Stocking Stuffer Season" in full swing by July, I hold fast to a No-Christmas-Before-Thanksgiving rule.  This means no Christmas Lists get written, no Christmas Carols get sung and certainly no Christmas Lights go up until after the turkey is put away and both the gravy and Daddy are drank/drunk.

But it was harder this year to resist the draw of Christmas in the fall.  I don't think it was the October Christmas displays at Rite Aid (though those are getting better), I think it was the ridiculous explosion of Halloween and Thanksgiving lights that everyone in Seattle has suddenly adopted.  Thanksgiving lights?!  We even had a neighbor that had a giant inflatable turkey in their yard, holding a knife & fork... What does that even mean?!?  Is he eating turkey?  Or is he implying that he's going to eat people?

I have no idea, but we had to go down nightly to analyze & debate it.  Unfortunately, we may have broken our daughter of holiday lights in the process.  On one trip down to the giant inflatable cannibal turkey, we ran into a gang of ruffian raccoons that tried to run us off their turf.   I thought we handled it well, with few "We're not scared of you!  We're leaving because we want to, not because you're making us!" back over our shoulders, however now whenever Edie sees Christmas lights, she just starts repeating, "No raccoons, no raccoons" like a soldier with PTSD and won't let us go anywhere near them.

It would be a shame for someone who has shown herself to be a big animal lover to develop a critter phobia like that so early on, particularly one that impacts our ability to rock out to some Christmas lights, so we'll need to work on it.  And apparently we'll work on it by buying a life sized stuffed tiger that we'll name Mr. Pickles and that will also terrify her.  We like to fight fear with more fear.

Nothing is more adorably sad than hearing your daughter yell, "No Pickles, No Pickles!" over and over again at your enormous stuffed tiger.

Whatever.  She'll get over it, eventually.  She's already gotten up the courage to punch him in the head, so hugs are the natural next step.  Right?  Right.  Finn currently drags Mr. Pickles all around the house with him and sleeps with him in his bed every night, so it's not like she can avoid him.

So while we work on that, at least we can enjoy our own Christmas lights, since I went against type and put them up weeks ago.  Given how ridiculously sore I now apparently get from the act of putting up Christmas lights, I'm extremely happy that I did it so early.  This whole holiday would not at all be worth it if I had to climb up in that stupid tree and take them down again just a couple of days later.

Here's to Christmas lights in July!  Ho! Ho! Ho!