1,576,800 Minutes of The Goose

Dear John,

Happy 3rd Birthday Buddyboo! Blow out your candles and then—since I’m completely self-centered—congratulate me. It’s now the fall of my SENIOR YEAR at the University of Parenthood (UoP), and you are, of course, my best (and only) professor. Although I’m undecided about my major, I’ve ruled out Early Childhood Education given my current test scores as well as self-evaluations of my own strengths and weaknesses as based on my internship/work-study in the field of Raising You.

And speaking of strengths and weaknesses …

I’m still not sure which category you actually fall under. Or even which one is positive in that context.

There are many times when you are a weakness for me. I cannot refuse you “appa juice” even at midnight. If you liked coffee I would probably give you that too whenever you asked for it. I feel perfectly comfortable disciplining you but if I see anyone else doing it (like that guy called Your Dad), I have this sudden urge to run to your side, arms open, in case a hug (or an excuse for bad behavior) is in order. I cannot say no to a back scratch session. I cannot say no to a request for $2.50 gourmet popsicles. Especially not the “chockit chip” kind. Indeed, sometimes I must say YES because I can so easily put myself in your shoes (a child’s shoes) and feel how good it is to hear that simple word, “Yes.”

Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children.

~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

And then there are times (days) when I feel like all I say is NO. And on those days you often scream yourself hoarse. And I alternately congratulate myself on being strict and consistent and beat myself up for having too-high expectations and wanting immediate gratification. Every time I invoke some disciplinary procedure, I expect to see instantaneous results. I always forget that discipline is about teaching, and since I am a teacher, I should know at least a little bit about how content must be recycled many times before it takes root. Nevertheless, I often feel like the government needs to require mandatory parental testing so that I can be officially assessed on my maternal skills. I have a weakness for quantifiable data.

There may be some doubt as to who are the best people to have charge of children, but there can be no doubt that parents are the worst.

~George Bernard Shaw

But for as many times as you are a weakness, there are twice as many occasions in which I find my strength in you. For example, one day I asked you if you made anything at your “new school day.” You looked at me and smiled and said, “Yeah! I made … I made … um FRIENDS!!!” And then I realized the big ocean’s worth of difference between my worldview and yours. I always want something concrete … you know, like I was expecting you to tell me about some papier mâché frog, or two painted hand prints with a sappy poem on the top, or something indiscernible made out of pipe cleaners and construction paper, or perhaps some actual POOP in the potty rather than just the word. But as we all know, material things (quantifiable stuff) should not matter in this world. Qualitative stuff, on the other hand, matters immensely, and so I may need you, from time to time, to strengthen my focus on quality, rather than quantity.

Your dinnertime ritual is another “you = strength” example. No matter how stressed out I am as we sit down to a lovely, low-fat, delicious family meal at dinnertime, you can always bring me down to earth by starting out the blessing with, “Thank you for Mama.” It’s like my own personal injection of pure happiness, every night.

The guys (and gals) who fear becoming fathers (and mothers) don't understand that fathering (and mothering) is not something perfect men (or women) do, but something that perfects the man (or woman). The end product of child raising is not the child but the parent.

~Frank Pittman, Man Enough (parenthetical notes added without permission by the blog author)

One final “you = strength” example (not that there aren’t more, it’s just that I’m fast approaching the end of your official birthday, and to me, that’s like a due date for this “paper” I’m writing) is that you inspire me to become involved in many extra-curricular activities here at the UoP. I’m active on all sorts of playground committees. I’m the secretary of the People for the Prompt Removal of Shirt Stains, and I’ve served as Chair of the General Clean-Up Committee now for approximately 156 weeks. Just last month I was elected Most Likely to Eventually Be Declared Unfit/Insane. I’m popular, as you can tell.

Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids.

~Sam Levenson

But YOU, my dear, YOU are popular beyond belief. You really are a little John-John. I can’t tell you how many people have looked at you or a photo of you (even @ 12 months!) and said that you look like either a senator or a future president (even though that seems a little off having just posted a picture of you as Superunderwearman). And so in light of your obvious political potential, I’ve been planning accordingly and thinking about how you have such a great presidential name: President John Becker. Imagine!

“President Becker is enjoying high approval ratings
this month due to his involvement in programs aimed at the simultaneous eradication of all poverty, pollution, illiteracy, and disease throughout the
world.”

I’d make a great First Mother. I can smile and wave and be on committees and say “thank you” when people compliment my son and get angry and defensive when they criticize him. I think I’d be much better at that than I am at being a “real” mother. It just seems so much easier when compared to those little everyday decisions such as when to punish, how to punish, etc.

In spite of the seven thousand books of expert advice, the right way to discipline a child is still a mystery to most fathers and... mothers. Only your grandmother and Ghengis Khan know how to do it.

~Bill Cosby

And one more important point to make about my potential as a First Mother … there are actually scientific ways to gather information about presidential campaigns and terms – Gallup polls!

Whenever I held my newborn baby in my arms, I used to think that what I said and did to him could have an influence not only on him but on all whom he met, not only for a day or a month or a year, but for all eternity - a very challenging and exciting thought for a mother.

~Rose Kennedy

Wow. I have to say, Bud, I have high aspirations for you, but I am no Rose Kennedy. When you were a newborn baby, I never once thought about “eternity” … I was mostly just worried about getting you from one meal to the next, wishing my boobs were see-through and labeled like a measuring cup, finding time to sleep, and counting poops. But Rose, YOU GO GIRL.

Seriously, John-John, I can truly say that being your mom has been the best education of my life. I’ve learned so much about you, your dad, and myself. The good and the bad. I was never truly faced with my faults until I faced motherhood. And now it’s like I spend every day (off and on) looking through the Hubble telescope at my horrid, magnified maternal blunders.

"Having a child, loving a child deeply in a daily way, forces you to connect with your mortality, forces you to dig into places that you have rarely had to confront before. What I found way down deeply...having a child is a kind of eternity, a capacity for -- and reserves of -- love and sacrifice that blew my mind. But I also found the stuff inside of me that is pretty miserable. I was brought face-to-face with a fun-house mirror of all the grasping, cowardly, manipulative, greedy parts of me, too."

~Anne Lamott

Yeah.

So back to happy thoughts … Again, happy birthday Silly Goose. Today we woke you up early from your nap, dragged you to the car and then to the movie theater, forced you to sit through half of “Ratatouille” by bribing you with a strawberry milkshake, and then, when your behavior worsened, threatened you with “leaving.” You heard the word “leaving,” perked up, and said, “I’ve got an idea! Let’s go to a paygound!”

You do have some good ideas doodle bug. And I hope I get to watch you figure out how to implement them all.

Big hugs and nose kisses,

Mama

Zero:

One:

Two:

Three!

Sum. Thin. Else.

the hills are alive
Originally uploaded by Kimmy Crack Corn

He said that to me.

"Mama, you're sum. thin. else."

Um, kettle? You're BLACK!

Indeed.

I am down in the back again. No reason. Just went out on me in the middle of a lesson about the differences between "another" and "an other."

So we watched a lot of videos this afternoon after I got home. Of course I own the collector's edition DVD of the Sound of Music ... the one with interviews with the kids, behind-the-scenes footage, and several different language options. I know the dialogue in this movie so well that I can listen to it in Swahili and still understand.

So anyway, we watched it today and I thought he'd be completely bored. But he is my son! First of all, he was fascinated with the nuns, whom I explained as "Ladies who live and work at the church."

Next, there was the scene with the whistle. Whistle. 'Nuf said.

Just after that, Maria finds a frog in her pocket, throws it, and screams. Twelve times.

Then, there's the gazebo dancing scene with Liesel and Frederich ("Sixteen Going on Seventeen"). We watched the kiss several times.

Another high point was the canoeing event where Maria and the children all fall into the water (while wearing curtains) just as they are about to be introduced to The Baronness Schrader. Ten times they fell.

But that marionette show with The Goatherd Crew. Twenty-two times. And just for future reference, you can make an entire low-fat delicious stir-fry dinner in the time it takes to watch "High on a Hill Stood a Lonely Goatherd ... yodel-lay-dee, yodel-lay-dee, yodel-lay-hee hoo." By the 22nd time you can have dinner cooked and frozen for the next week.

After that we had to get out of the house and go look for apples and throw rocks in the lake. Our excitement could not be contained by these walls.

And speaking of walls ...

Walls are, apparently, very expensive and hard-to-come-by here in the Music City. Not that I'm complaining. It's just, well, it's ridiculous that it costs so much. Just plain ridiculous. I better not get started, but I do have to ask one question: Who are these people who are buying two bedroom, one bath houses with no yards for a quarter of a million dollars? Who are they? I need answers to make me feel better about this whole thing. Or maybe I just need an apartment complex with a nice big pool and fitness center in the meantime. Yes, that might work.

Tomorrow is another "new school day." It's been a bit of a rough, weepy week. He's fine when I pick him up and reports all sorts of things that he's made (like, friends named Sam and suitcases of construction paper and pipe cleaners). And there's lots of, "Today is an old school day. Maybe anunna day we will go to my new school day." It just breaks your heart.

So I better go get in bed so that I can prepare for another day of heartbreak (tomorrow).

His birthday is Sunday. We've had him almost three years. That's impossible, but everyone assures me it's true. So of course, in the tradition of all good moms, I will post my birthday letter (which used to be a monthly thing and has now been reduced by approximately 92% (eleven twelvths).

Love to all,
MoTG

Our Attempts at a Self-Made Family Photo

more attempts
Originally uploaded by Kimmy Crack Corn

per request of the new school day.

Click the photo to see more. It's quite comical, actually.

Happy WEEK!

Real Estate Ranting & Relative Clauses

It is 10:29 p.m. and I have yet to be successful at even one photo upload to Flickr. My current elevated level of anger cannot possibly be healthy. Especially when combined with my ire about the phrase, “buyer’s market” as applied to the current real estate situation. At present we are facing the following options:

1. A box
2. A dump
3. A bad neighborhood
4. A bad school district
5. A 45-minute commute

If one more person tells me, “This is a great time to buy!” then I really might spit right in his/her face. What in the world does that mean when you cannot even get a decent 3/2 house for less than a quarter of a million (in a good neighborhood zoned for a good school district)? Does that mean “great time to buy” for members of the Tennessee Titans football team? Or for Shania Twain’s backup singers? Because it certainly doesn’t apply to Completely Normal Everyday Working (sorta) People like us. I will never understand life. We shoulda just moved across the globe to an easy life where we were all set to live in a studio apartment in a GINORMOUS metropolis in which we would’ve had ZERO language skills and only one income.

So, in keeping with my positive theme here, I think I’ll post some recent Goosequotes:

• "I didn’t tee-tee in the bathtub on purpose. It was a ask-a-dent.”
• “Let’s listen to ‘Rock Sand!’” (he means the song by The Police that is listed as “Roxanne” on the album cover)
• “It’s the one that’s round.”

Now that last one may not seem interesting to you, but au contraire! (my new officemate is French … he teaches gee-ah-gwa-FEE … better known as geography). Anyway, that third quote, my dear readers, is quite a linguistic accomplishment. It is a Restrictive Relative Clause!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s my beacon of light in a dark, dark world.

I just heard a strange buzz. I’m sure it’s another waspinthehouse. We found a nest in the laundry room and even though I watched Brian annihilate every single one of them with my friend Foaming Wasp & Hornet Spray, I’m positive that they’re not all gone. Positive, as in the opposite of negative.

And to think, there are brown recluse spiders crawling all over this house and I’m worried about the stupid wasps. Our garden is officially dead because every time I go out there to water it, I end up nearly getting committed because of my behavior. Bell peppers: dead. Sunflowers: scorched. Tomatoes: eaten by insects, scorched, and dead. It just gets worse. Don’t even ask about the turnip greens. They’ve been gone since late June. Incinerated by the sun baking that wasp poison onto their leaves. It’s about like me in high school, lying out in the sun on a sheet of aluminum foil on top of my (black) trampoline while slathered in a mixture of baby oil and iodine. Healthy!

So, in Goosenews, there is the following:

The Discovery of The Wizard of Oz.


He is especially interested in the metaphysical differences between the Good Witch of the North and the Wicked Witch of the West, a.k.a., “that green-face girl.” Usually his viewings go something like this:

Him: “I don’t wanna see that green-face girl. I like that other one.”

Me: “You mean, Glenda the Good Witch?”

Him: “Yeah. And why’s she good?”

Me: “Because she’s not bad.”

Him: “And why’s she not bad?”

Me: “Because she doesn’t do yucky things.”

Him: “And why does she not do yucky things?”

I think you get the picture.

Additionally, there’s been an infatuation with the wearing of polar fleece dinosaur mittens (“work gloves”) while carrying around discarded blocks of wood (“chips”).


Today he wore them to Office Max along with his new green sunglasses, which came in the party-treat bag from Lawson’s 3rd birthday party, and an American flag Polo shirt.

Oh yes, there’s another topic: The recent birthday party of our friend Ernie’s grandson, Lawson. They had a blow-up jumpy thing (not rented … Lawson’s daddy got it for $20 at a garage sale down the street) and a real, live fire truck with firemen who actually got the hose out and sprayed the yard. But did he see even a minute of jumping or water spraying? No, indeed not. He spent the entire time riding and/or guarding a preschool-sized four-wheeler and shoving birthday candles into his face. Yes, you read that right. Candles. It started with licking the icing, but it didn’t stop until several bites of wax were ingested.

In case y’all don’t recognize the genre of this writing, it’s called 20th century stream-of-consciousness. You know, like Faulkner. Like Quentin Compson ranting and raving about his crazy family in The Sound and the Fury.



One last obsession to point out is the Refusal to Remove the Large Stopped Watch, permanently dead at 10:21. He'll even tell you that it's 10:21 if you ask.

Finally, he started his new Big Boy School yesterday with rave reviews. Didn't even look twice when I left. We were the first to arrive (imagine that! no one else was there at 7:01 a.m.) and the first thing out of his mouth was, "Where are the new friends?" Luckily, a few other insane people send their kids to this school for the extended early care hours (7-9 a.m.).

I need to stop.

Wish us luck this weekend as we waste more time looking at dumpy boxes in scary areas of town where government officials are expected to any-day-now come in and take over the school on account of their NCLB test scores.

G'night.

You Scratch My Back …

interesting expressions
Originally uploaded by Kimmy Crack Corn

And I’ll do the following:

1. Make sure everyone is bandaged appropriately in Thomas the Tank Engine bandaids
2. Say “poo-poo” a lot
3. Say “toot” a lot
4. Say “paint the poop deck” a lot (thank you very much Veggie Tales) and then correct myself by saying, “paint the coco deck”
5. Snuggle up close to allow the aforementioned back scratching.
   

Actually, #5 should be #1 because Lordy! Do I love those brief snuggly moments … even if it does require that I claw at his sweet little back.

The discovery of the pleasures of backscratching come at just the right time. Because if he didn’t want to snuggle at night then I might drop him off at a fire station (you know, they don’t ask questions).

But luckily there are moments like backscratch opportunities. And also, Macy & Granddaddy just left from spending three days on child-care backup duty, during which time I discovered that relief from an almost-three-year old is sweet. And if you think I have one picture of any of it then think again. Or if you think that I can’t write an entire paragraph in which every sentence begins with a conjunction then think again.

I have now completed an entire week as a full-time faculty member and it went relatively smoothly. There were lots of strange first-week questions from the students, the top three of which are listed below, because I know that my readers like content that is completely unrelated to Geese:

1. “Do we have to be here on Tuesday AND Thursday? I thought we could just pick one."
2. “Can we leave our cell phones on if our ring is a beautiful Celine Dion song like the theme from the movie Titanic?”
3. “Hello. My name is Magny like ‘magnificent’ and I come from the heavens.” (In response to the prompt, “Please introduce yourself to the class by pronouncing your name clearly and telling us your home country.”)

I love my job.

And next week, the real preschool days commence. MWF 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. And since Macy & G’Diddy left this morning, that means we’ll have to actually cook dinner after work. The very idea.

But I'll spend Thursday afternoons and all day Saturday and Sunday with him. In addition, I have vowed (and so far succeeded) in my goal of NOT bringing home any schoolwork. We'll see ...

Here's what we did THIS Thursday (today):

Built a garage for Ernie's lawnmower:

NOTE: Ernie is the astronaut just below the dinosaur and next to Winnie the Pooh and that half-visible Cowboy.

Knocked it down with a workout ball (half naked):

Life is good. Leave a comment. See you next week ...

The Mother Goose

A Week in Pictures (or, One Author's Laziness)

I'm tired, but we've had a good week.

See?
Today while I worked horrendous hours (8 to 5:30! gasp!), the guys made zucchini quiche.

This photo is indicative of my life: about 25% me and mostly HIM.

Ye shall reap what ye sow.

Beautiful Fruits of the Harvest.

(This is starting to sound like a Baptist Hymnal.)

My Best Friend. If it would only fit better in my back pocket! The following is a list of things you can ruin with wasp spray when you douse your desk with it because one day you looked over and there was a big one angrily approaching your right elbow, just south of the mouse pad:

• Three pages of your dayplanner
• The Emergency Contact Card for a preschool
• Directions on how to enter placement test scores
• A bag of goldfish

And then I had to suffer the questioning of Husband, who had the nerve to ask ridiculous things such as, "Why couldn't you just hit it with a magazine or your shoe if it was just CRAWLING and not SWARMING (like they usually are -- said under breath)?"

The things up with which I put. I tell you.

And incidentally, you can also kill sunflowers, green onions, and spiders caught in the crossfire. Have I mentioned that I hate August?

ION ...

Here's our pre-night-night conversation from earlier tonight:

JEB: One time, when I was just borned, I was a puppet.

ME: Really?

JEB: Yep, in The Stonecutter.

ME: Really? In a presentation of The Stonecutter? That must've been interesting work for a newborn.

JEB: No. It was CRAZY! (maniacal laughter)

Oh! I've been forgetting to write about his imaginary friends Gordon the Gorilla and Morton the Mouse (individually known as "Gord" and "Mort" and collectively as "The Zoo Crew"). They are a construction team. Their main jobs include moving dirt, jackhammering, getting out the Toolkat (sp?), and using machines such as log skidders or excavators to perform various tasks. Sometimes they go to meetings with Brian and I or to work with one of us. They ride in the backseat. And they always have to be instructed about how to cross the street or behave in parking lots. The newest bedtime ritual involves all three of us lying in his bed talking about what jobs The Zoo Crew did earlier in the day and what's on the agenda for tomorrow. Earlier this week they drove all the way down to Mississippi to use Grandaddy's Orange Kubota Tractor (along with a little New Holland digger) to dig a drainage ditch for one of Macy & Grandaddy's neighbors. Today they helped me advise belligerent Egyptians on the finer points of TOEFL and Michigan Test score correlations. Tomorrow they're braving the heat with a team of roofers who are working on a Habitat for Humanity house.

Gord and Mort are a lot more active than my I.F., Beebobba. All he did was wear plaid pants and pick his nose.

Wow. I had more in me than I thought! Now I think I'll collapse. Until next week ... ONWARD and UPWARD.

p.s. We've got a REALTOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Joanna, Marilyn, and Fruit Flies

Before I get to all the women, let me just say ... that stupid bragging I did about how great it is to use compost in your garden has come back to bite me in the butt. Here begins the first anecdote.

In order to collect the compostable material in the kitchen, we first just used an old bowl. Then my friend Mamabird gave me a gift certificate to Gaiam which I used to buy a nifty little countertop compost bucket. I boasted about it to everyone … all about how it has a filter and a snapping lid (much better than that old bowl) and all of that. But so much for organic agriculture in your backyard: We have got fruit flies trying to eat the dish soap. Apparently you have to be humble AND concerned about the environment at the same time.

Fruit flies will attack by the way. You’d think that something smaller than a pinky fingernail clipping and equipped with wings would choose the “flight” vs. the “fight.” WRONG. If you attempt to clap-kill a fruit fly (which, by the way, you should always do about an inch above wherever they’re hovering), they will fly at your eyes. I never should’ve made my students read The Metamorphosis. They didn’t understand it anyway. Have you ever tried to explain the differences between conscious, unconscious, and subconscious to a group of 17 low-intermediate, non-native English speakers? Well, it can make you a little SELF-conscious (and crazy and sorry that you ever attempted to further their critical thinking skills).

Apologies, I’m not making smooth transitions, am I?

Well, speaking of students (how’s that?), now is the time of year when all teachers start having those nightmares where your mouth (or, alternately, eyes) doesn’t work and all the students are cheating and talking on cell phones and citing Wikipedia for research on “The Pros and Cons of Reincarnation.” Last night I woke up Husband by screaming, “TALKING! Stop it! TALKING is when your mouth is moving and sound is coming out!!!”

And now’s the time for me to integrate the words in the title into the actual body of this post.

Recently, we have moved on from “the high school song” (“Taking the Long Way” by the Dixie Chicks), “the woo-hoo song” (“Celebration” by Kool and the Gang) and “the get-down song” (“Get Down On It” also by K&tG). Now we are into “Joanna” (also by K&tG). It’s been on repeat in Suzie Q. Subaru since early this week. He calls it his song: “Play my song, Mama … Jo-ANNA … I LOVE YOUUUuuuuu!” And since it’s a lot better than “Booty Booty Ya Ya Ya” by Laurie Berkner, we’ll take it. I just bought a new Dolly Parton Greatest Hits album at the local used CD store, and when I suggest that we listen to “Islands in the Stream” or “Jolene,” he replies, “Too bad, Mama.”

Oh be careful little ears what you hear.

And speaking of the used CD store …

They also have used videos. Kids’ videos. Like “Jay Jay the Jet Plane,” “Bob the Builder,” “All About Road Construction,” and other popular titles. So he picked out the latter after a long 15-minute selection process with lots of deliberation between the two of us (The Dad was conveniently off listening to some potential additions to our music collection). I gave JEB a dollar and he went to pay for it. Then he needed nine cents for tax and I only had a nickel and two pennies. So, we had to interrupt The Dad, who had at that point stopped listening to Things We Would Never Buy (not even for a dollar), and had begun his search for a Michael Jackson greatest hits album.

Oh! The pride of a 2.9 year old holding a video on the topic of road construction.

So proud was he that he marched over to a life-size cut-out of Marilyn Monroe and said, “Hey. You wanna watch this video with me?”

I nearly wet my pants (which isn’t all that uncommon even when I’m not hysterical, but still).

In other news, I have found a coupla new discipline tools of late. First there is the phrase, “I’ll turn off the road construction video if …” and second there is The Online Behavior Problem Solver at babycenter.com. You just choose an age, then a problem area (e.g., “potty talk”), and BOOM! You get an entire article written by EXPERTS on whatever particular challenge you are facing. If it weren't for experts, I know a certain Goose who would probably be in state custody.

And FYI ... potty talk is totally normal and has nothing to do with the fact that, for a while, you, your husband, and a 14-year old laughed hysterically at the phrase "POO-POO" when said in various contexts at the dinner table and otherwise. Until the preschool teacher "Miss Mary" laid down the law. Then it became unfunny.

Except when said with a Parisian accent.

And that, folks, is all. Bravo to you for lasting this long.

See you next week, and click the picture above to see a couple more.