Coco Tuesday

This weekend we got our tree. I put up the lights with Madge's help and Julie's supervision, which was very generous, as the lights are far from even. Then we took a little break. But while we weren't looking, our little elf started taking out some ornaments and gently placing them on the branches. He was in his own little world, awesome to watch. (Madge, of course, pitched in as soon as she noticed and the two of them had the tree done in no time.)

House Envy

Occasionally we go on playdates to houses that are, quite frankly, jaw-dropping.
We were in one such three-story gorgeous thingies today. The kids were watched by the nanny and the cleaning lady was doing her bi-weekly thing (as in twice a week, not every two weeks - right?) and I was trying very hard to just be happy for the people who lived there and not jealous of their twelve- or fifteen-foot ceilings or whatever they were.
The best I could come up with was this:

If I worked the playdate angle, I could probably manage to spend more waking hours in this house than the people who pay the mortgage.

That's not too snarky, is it?

Madge Monday

We have a friend staying over whom we call "Auntie Pumpkin." In a way it's like calling a short person "Stretch" or a bald person "Curly;" in another way the moniker could hardly be more apt.
Anyway, Madge was addressing Christmas cards (yet another advantage to having a kid get bigger) and asked her, "Yo, Pump, what's your ad?"
Time to brush up on my lingo, or ling.

Vigilante Plumbing

There's a plumbing service in the neighborhood called Vigilante.
Not a big deal, but I saw a truck of theirs parked in front of the kids' school the other day.
On its back was a picture of a house and this text:

Are You Comfortable?
Is your home:
To Cold - To Hot - To Dry - To Damp
or just plain uncomfortable?

WE CAN HELP!

It wouldn't be so funny if it didn't have the repetition.
I have a feeling their writers were trying to be Shakespearean: Too be or not too be...

A Treat I Wish I Could Share

It is a special kind of joy to hear a nanny from dee aylaands complain about "Pokemon, Pokemon, Pokemon."
The accent makes it, well, irie. (pock-ee-MAHN comes close)

Coco, full of surprises

We were going to a playdate in the cold when I responded to the au pair's comment about the cold, "Sure is. You need a hat."
Next thing I know Coco takes off his and hands it to her.
(He has a bit of a crush on her.)

Poor Louisa

Thanks to the NYTimes’ Reading Room I have picked up The Education of Henry Adams, by the educatee himself. I haven’t read far (yet) but am quite intrigued.
I’m tempted to pitch one sentence of this book as a movie (probably to Sophia Coppola because I can’t think of another director it might interest). The sentence is:

The life at St. Petersburg was hardly gay for her [Louisa Adams, wife of President-to-be John Quincy]; they were far too poor to shine in that extravagant society; but she survived it, though her little girl baby did not, and in the winter of 1814-15, alone with the boy of seven years old, crossed Europe from St. Petersburg to Paris, in her travelling-carriage, passing through the armies, and reaching Paris in the Cent Jours after Napoleon’s return from Elba.

The movie would end, I guess with the reunification of the couple, now more estranged than ever. It would take a lot of research, so it's lucky for me that the strike is still going on.

Coco Tuesday

Coco's temper is something else.
When he's fed up enough, he tells you to be quiet, and he keeps telling you to be quiet until you say "okay" at which point he shouts at you because you're not quiet. If you try to take the seemingly smart way out by merely nodding, he just keeps repeating himself.
Last Friday was the book sale day for his class and he was supposed to bring in five dollars.
But he didn't want the "five money," he wanted the "one money." When we told him his teachers said to bring in five, but if he were really insistent (we were trying not to be late) a five and a one would be no problem, he'd just have six.
So he tore up the five.
Whoooeeeeee!

flat tire

Guess whose Crock-knock-offs finally died.

Madge and her friends apparently play a game during recess in which the point (for lack of a better word) is to kick off a shoe as far as possible and then hobble after to retrieve it.

And sandal-shoes were ideal for this game. No more.

Madge Monday

Our snow angel.

We had a sprinkling of snow yesterday, so we went out several times. As a snow lover, I have learned my lesson in childhood. Snow never lasts, so enjoy it while you can. Which means that we dragged out tired heinies to the playground at 7 am on a Sunday morning. On the plus side, though, we were the first to deflower the snow, as it were. And sneaky Madge walked backwards in order to leave misleading tracks.

After warming up, we went to the storage unit to get our sled and tried to make it to the skating rink, but our timing was off and the kids (especially Coco) were freezing in their non-winter boots, so attempted some sledding instead.

Finally, Coco fell asleep around 3:30, so Madge and I trudged to the skating rink.

I highly recommend going on walks with Madge. When she's not preoccupied with anything else, she's a delightful conversationalist.

Word Association

Last night Madge was playing MadLibs.
Her first prompt was "plural noun." She said, "boys."
Oooooooh, I thought, my baby is growing up.
Then she said, "Or toilets."

ConEd Overload

They illuminated the tree at Rockefeller Center the other night.
Our lights flickered the same night.
Coincidence?

everyone's striking

But not anymore, I guess. It's hard to hear, on the late night talkshows, that the Broadway strike is over, since the late night talkshows aren't current anymore.
Oh, well.
Too bad for the rest of New York, though. Julie was in a SoHo store, I think, helping some customers who were simply amazed that New York had so much more to offer than Broadway shows.
Without the flashy lights to distract the deer, I guess they do start wandering about.

Coco Tuesday

Fairly quiet day today.
But independence is striking early, it seems, and he didn't want to accompany me when I had to pee. We were at the library at the time and the bathrooms aren't the most appetizing, but I'm not asking him to eat a sandwich there. Just stand and wait.
Of course he pumped lovely foamy soap all over his hands and shouted at me to turn on the water.
When that didn't happen quickly enough, we had a pouting session on the steps, followed by a defiant stomp away from me, followed by an accusatory howl that he couldn't find me.
Remind me to download the song, "Every Time I Move I Lose" (a favorite with the Harper Court speed chess players).

Madge Monday

The weekend is one big blur to me, especially because both kids stayed home yesterday with a cough. They shared the cough, but hardly anything else other than a cranky attitude. It was a pleasure serving them, obviously. Today I prepped them with some Motrin and sent them off to school. The wave of crankiness will hit the moment I pick them up, I presume.
The "gingerbread" houses were made on Friday, I think. They were Graham cracker houses held up by milk cartons as learned in some preschool along the way. It was fun and sugary and I presume contributed to a weakened immune system. Yesterday afternoon we made actual gingerbread dough which will be converted into men today. As Coco says, "For gingerbread men you need ginger, bread, and men." Sounds more like a bachelorette party.
Forgive me it Madge Monday is light on Madge, but she's been especially confrontational so I'm hard-pressed finding lighthearted moments with her.
Or, conversely, I'm quite tired, so all potentially humorous holiday related drollery just strikes me as greedy lately.

SantaLand

Today we went to Macy's Herald Square and visited SantaLand. Coco and I visited SantaLand last year, so I had certain expectations, but the most memorable part of last year's visit - the two hours of snaking through the cafeteria and HR department - was missing this year. Apparently you get to walk right in when you show up on a Sunday morning at 10 am. Who knew?
When elf spoke to another, calling her Sweetie Sweetums, Julie and I remembered David Sedaris' "SantaLand Diaries" and the fact that all elves are given elf names (his was Crumpet, but he wanted to change it to Blister, if I remember correctly).
Many of the elves were female and African-American. This in itself isn't that spectacular, but one particular elf near the end of the proceedings - right before we went to see and pay for some pictures and a snow globe - didn't have chandelier-size holiday earrings, but instead sported oversized gold caps on her front teeth. I couldn't resist asking her elf name, figuring she had a good one.
And she told me, without a hint of irony: Country.

Museum fallout

Armed with three brand new sketchbooks, we went to the museum yesterday.

These are our results. Mine is an attempt to capture the composition of "Freiburg in the Snow" by Hugues de Beaumont. I've noticed lately that I really love drawings and paintings of architecture, and this cityscape is especially well done. Not my copy, but the original - come to Brooklyn and I'll show you. The city is floating over a blanket of snow in a gray morning setting. Nice.

Madge chose to focus on a detail of Rippl-Ronai's "Woman With Three Girls." I think she wins the prize. Also, I think she's ready for more sketching of art.

Coco did his own thing. Remarkably patient for a four-year-old, I must say. He lay on the ground on his tummy, legs in the air, facing the central atrium of that hall, and drew the alien and spaceship you see in the picture. I'm surprised they held still long enough for him to get all the details so accurately.

Thanksgiven

If we hadn't gotten TV recently, I wouldn't have known that I'm missing out by not being outside of JCPenney's at midnight. Darn.
At least we got our letters to Santa written.
And we saw "Enchanted" yesterday. Fun movie, especially since all the kids in the audience were really into it. I was quite reluctant because I'm tired of movies that are cashing in on children's need for bombastic kitsch and then are supposedly ironic about it themselves. If they really felt so bad about regurgitating past kids' movies, why don't they just not do it?
Also, a Barbie movie came in the mail. So I'm a little tired of the industry and now I'm no longer sure how I feel about the WGA strike in Hollywood. There is quite a lot of stuff I could do without. But I know it's up to me to have a viewer's strike. Let the struggling writers keep struggling and compromising their struggle.
Does anyone working on a Barbie movie use his or her real name?

Something to say

I'm too tired to come up with anything clever, so:
Happy Thanksgiving!

Coco Tuesday

An awww moment. Madge is reading to Coco, and he is absent-mindedly stroking her hair. They didn't even stop for the flash photography.