Why I still get carded

Overheard this evening, on the bus coming home with Mama:

X: Mercedes is a kid.
A: Yes, she is.
X: And Xan is a kid.
A: Yes, you're right.
X: And Dada is a kid.
A: No, he's a grown-up.
X (in resolve voice, a la Willow Rosenberg): No, he is not a grown-up. Dada's a kid.
A: He may act like a kid sometimes, but he's really a grown-up.
X: No, he's not. Dada's a kid.
(slight pause)
X: Mama's a grown-up.

Well, there you have it.

Ahead and Behind

The grading piles left over from Thanksgiving are finally completed. I am as mystified as everyone else that it has taken this long. But I'm back and, while I have to now make it through the next week of final exams, I may be back to blogging at least a little more regularly.

To celebrate, Angela and I have thought about posting this Way-Too-Much-Information posting for some time now. So, here goes:

The Last Ten Places Xan Has Asked One of His Parents to Kiss Because He Has Hurt It (And Which We Have Subsequently Kissed, Despite Any Aversions)

1. Head
2. Finger
3. Head
4. Elbow
5. Head (hmm, trend?)
6. Head
   
7. Tongue ("Dada, I'th bith my thongue. Can you kith it?")
8. Back
9. Head
10. Butt (For the first time, but undoubtedly not the last: "Dada, kiss my butt!")

I would continue this posting, but I think I hear him crawling up to take a flying leap off the ottoman onto the sofa. Again.

Last night

(Paper count:
"Jeff, how many are left?"
"About 20."
"In that stack or overall?"
"Just in that stack. Should have it done tonight or tomorrow. Then one more stack to go before all the finals come in.")

Visions of Holiday to Come (by AMD)

Last night, the three of us were sitting in Xan's room during the handoff between post-bath/pyjamas (Jeff) and pre-story/music (Angela).

"Goodnight, Dada. I love you." Kiss.

"Did you say goodnight to the Christmas tree?"

Xan hops off the bed and excitedly scampers into the living room. "Goodnight Christmas tree." Parents smile. "I love you." Parents giggle. "I give you a hug." Parents panic.

No se lo digas a nadie

I'm raising my head up from the morass (four piles down, two to go) with news that is not news -- or, rather, that I got news that I don't want to publicly advertise yet because it's not definite yet. (No, nobody's pregnant.) Nonetheless, it points to some very good news. I'll just leave it at that

With one week before the semester ends, it's back to the grind.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Hope you all have successfully devoured the Thanksgiving leftovers! Blogger and my Dad's computer didn't like each other, so I couldn't post this earlier. So pretend it is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and read on.......

Happy Thanksgiving with lots of cranberries (by AMD)

(Jeff's paper count: 2.5 stacks down, 1.5 to go, 3 more coming in by Wednesday night)

One of the joys of being a parent is sharing things you love with your kid. Orchestra pictures will be coming later, but to honor the holiday, let's look at CRANBERRIES!

I grew up with a cranberry bog practically in our backyard. We walked - or in my short running phase, jogged - around it (1.3 miles), learned about its history (used to be a pond), helped harvest, ice-skated on it, etc. We have about a million stories about "our" bog. So naturally we share this experience with Xan.

We had a special treat this year: on the road between the airport and my parents' home we stopped off at a different cranberry bog where my dad was helping a friend with the harvest.



Grumpy (yes, that is really what his grandfather wants to be called- it's great!) walking with Xan on the road between two sections of cranberry bog. Notice the bog on the right in its dry spring-fall dry state and on the left in its winter dress - covered with water (according to my 8th grade research on the topic, this is because cranberries don't like lots of temperature changes, so keeping them under water keeps them at a mostly steady temperature; from personal experience I can say it also makes for a great skating rink in January).



One way to harvest cranberries is "wet:" flood the bog; then use a machine to hit the berries off the vines. The berries rise to the surface, perfect for corralling together (see above). Then they send them an escalator-type contraption to a truck (below).


Berries that are wet harvested are processed into juice and sauce, mostly. (The whole berries you can buy in the store are dry harvested.)

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving! Eat lots of cranberries!

Lion, not bear!

(Jeff's paper count: 1 stack down, 3 to go; 4 more stacks still coming in by Thanksgiving)

Xan's Halloween Report (respectfully submitted by AMD):

8:ooam: "Halloween, Mama! We will get chocolate, and candy, and lollipops!"The latter is the treat of choice this season, oddly inspired weeks ago by two random students on the AU shuttlebus (who left the wrappers on the seats).

3:30pm - protest putting on costume. Agree only when parents plead that it is just for two friends in the department.

3:30pm - trick or treating in the department, starting with the graduate students in the lounge who teach him the classic "trick or treat, smell my feet......"

3:45pm move on to professors in their offices. Handling the "trick or treat" and "thank you" routine with ease. Starts to go further "trick or treat... um... give me good to eat!"


(this photo looks remarkably similar to last year!)

5:00pm Left campus and joined four colleagues and friends in a trick-or-treat friendly part of our town. Angela was very lame and took no photos; Jeff was working at a film screening on campus, so there is no visual evidence of the event.

But if you will, imagine this little lion happily traipsing after a slightly bigger fairy princess on a neighborhood sidewalk in the Halloween dusk. It was magical.

There is no substitute........

While there is no substitute for the true author of this blog, there is also no end in sight to his backlog of papers to grade. So in the interests of not allowing a similar backlog of topics to stymie him when he returns to posting, Jeff is allowing me to procrastinate on my lesson prepping write an entry or two. Basically, I'll be keeping the chronicles of Xan's life up to date and avoiding any movie commentary. For those of you who don't know - I am "Wifeling," Mother-of-Xan, and She-Whom-the-Cat-May-Upon-Occasion-Actually-Obey.

Before putting up Xan posts, I'll start with a quick "life with Jeff" vignette. Specifically, a list of ways to tell that Dr. Middents is in grading mode:

1. The amount of hair product is drastically reduced and instead he controls the poof of his hair with a baseball cap.

2. When I wake up in the wee hours of the morning, he is asleep on the couch / dining room table / floor with a pile of papers on his chest.

3. His futile dialogues with the cat feature lines such as "Vega, would you give this a B or a B+?"

4. He reaches for his 25-pound dictionary, muttering "Oooooh, I absolutely do NOT think that word means what you think it means."

5. He cannot tell you how many papers he has left; he lists how many stacks of papers he has left (4 stacks now - 4 more to come by Thanksgiving)

6. He drinks coffee. Sometimes starting at 10pm. The man almost never drinks coffee.

7. His generally amicable TA says "You're STILL not done?"

8. He begins to sport a grading callous on his right pointer finger.

9. He tries to get his 2-1/2-year-old son to help grade, again.

10. He doesn't blog.

Yet this amazing man will still take Xan around campus to trick-or-treat and bring him to family orchestra concerts (posts and photos coming) - and even do dishes!

Anyone have any advice for Jeff as he grades?

Stuck

Like Xan in playground equipment somewhere in Capitol Hill, it may seem like I'm stuck. Angela's aunt rightly is chastising me for having first asked who is reading this blog... only to then not post in forever. Believe me, I've wanted to. But right now I'm behind the 8-ball with a ton of grading to wade through and seemingly no time to do it in. (Mustard gas seems to be part of the problem. That will make a good posting.)

Which goes to say that I'll be back, soon. But for now there are a few more papers to go...

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

I saw this the other day and thought this was a great idea: so many of us read each other's blogs but then rarely comment. We lurk. Never participate.

So let's show ourselves. I'm going to delurk myself at the various blogs I read. I encourage you to do the same. Including this one: say hi! Wave! Introduce yourself! Ask me embarrassing questions which I'll try to reply! let's see how many people are really reading this.

So what did you learn today?

As I have mentioned, Xan started preschool just a couple weeks ago. His routine is fairly free-form, but they usually have one major planned activity for each day. The school was nice enough to give us a calendar of these activities. For example, later in the month, the class will be cooking pumpkin muffins. The idea, of course, is that when your child comes home, you'll be able to steal his muffins ask what happened at school today.

Thus it was that, as we were about to start dinner, we looked at the calendar on the fridge and saw that today was marked cryptically with "What Happens in the Fall?" "What the heck is that?" Angela murmured to me. "Beats the heck out of me," I replied under my breath.

As we sit down, Xan has already started taking out the offending elements from his rice. An aside here: I can't believe the food pickiness has finally begun. "I don't like mushrooms," Xan declared as I put down his plate, which had a nice dollop of brown rice mixed with mushrooms and onions. "Since when?" I said to him, since I've seen him eat them with gusto before, and since he said it in the same tone he uses when he wants to be obstinate. ("No, I don't want to go to school!" "Xan, you love school." "No, I don't like school." "Do you like cookies?" "No, I don't like cookies." I have actually had this conversation. Indeed, I have a variation of this every time I try to get out of the door in the morning.) Rather than fight this battle tonight, Ange and I quickly de-mushroomed his rice; after all, more 'shroom for me! "And I don't like onion," he said. "Oh no, Mama and Dad took all the mushrooms out, you have to take care of the onions." Luckily, this time, he took this as fair and proceeded to do so. This is what he was doing when we sat down.

"So," Ange turns to Xan loudly, "what happens in the fall?"

Suddenly, a little face brightened immeasurably. If you know of my son's cute sing-songy voice, please apply your memory of it to the following. The reply was brimming with happiness.

"In the fall," he declared, "the leaves fall from the trees."

Holy crap, I thought. That's right. Jeez, are they actually teaching him something over there? Angela and I looked at each other, quite impressed with school.

"And in the fall," he kept going, "the rain falls on the leaves and then the leaves fall from the trees."

Why, yes, I thought, that's also true. Not to mention that fact that I'm actually hearing a comma there. He's even recognizing the use of the dependent clause!

Ain't no stopping him now. Still happy as can be: "And in the fall, the leaves are green and yellow and red and orange and brown."

Wow, that's really goo-

"And in the FALL, the cars go zoom-zoom very, very fast."

Ange and I look at each other quizzically since we hear about cars that do this every day, not just in the fall. OK. Well, I suppose that could happen in the fall, but-

"And in the FALL, the juice comes down from the trees and splashes me in my face and in my mouth."

Blink. What the he-

"And in the FALL, the rain comes and the trucks with mushrooms and the kids turn over I play with the water and get very very wet but not with a diaper."

By this point, I'm hiding the fact that I'm laughing hysterically at the gibberish that is clearly happening in the fall. Angela is doing her best to smile-and-nod because he is directing all this to her since she asked the question. She, too, is losing it.

This went on for -- and this is not hyperbole -- about 10 minutes, with a flurry of statements all beginning very forcefully (but cheerfully) with "In the fall, . . ." with about half the statements making perfect sense and the other half scripted by pre-Mexican Luis Buñuel. It was brilliant.

I almost can't wait to see what will happen in a couple weeks, when the calendar says they'll be talking about the "Gray Squirrel."