mornings are hard

Sam sent this to me. It's a fairly accurate depiction of what it's like getting our two boys out the door most mornings. Rowan is in full potty training. This consists mainly of him taking off his pants at inopportune times and places (church, Dairy Queen) and trying to flush his toothbrush down the toilet.  And then there's his brother. I spent 15 minutes this morning asking Hopper to do various wakey things:

"Hopper, sit upright"

"Sit UP, Hopper, no more blanket"

"Hopper, you need to get out from under the blanket and put your shoes on."

"Hopper, put your shoes on"

"Hopper, UPRIGHT and put your shoes on."

"Ok Hopper, time to  put your shoes on, I'm serious."

"Hopper, Up and To the Door."

"Hopper, SHOES then DOOR."

"Now, Hopper."

"HOPPER AUGUSTUS HOVLAND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY WHY ARE YOU WALKING BAREFOOT TOWARDS THE BACK OF THE HOUSE??"

 His response?

"oh, are you talking to me?"

gah. 

The Music

I have two very early memories of music:

1). We're in our girls shared bedroom. I was about 5 years old. My brother who was 9 and sister who was 11 were having a heated argument over who was the Best Band In The World Of All Time:  the Beatles or ABBA.  All evidence given at the time,  I was in the ABBA camp.

2). My sisters and I are trying to choreograph a dance to "Shake Your Body Down To The Ground."  The only thing we come up with is shaking our bodies down to the ground. It was a short dance.

But thinking on it, it's really not the only two early memories of music I have. I also remember that my best friend Amy owned the Goofy Greats Album by Ktel and Ronco records and we memorized the words to every single song including Snoopy vs. the Red Baron, which is kind of quite a bit about death, it turns out..

I remember exactly which 8 tracks my mom owned:
Elvis Presley Live at Madison Square Garden
Linda Ronstadt Greatest Hits
An Evening with John Denver
and one of my dads:  3 Dog Night One

I remember that sometimes when we were driving and "Take the Long Way Home" came on the radio, my mom would indulge us and take a different route.

I was just thinking of this the other day because Hopper is becoming very choosy about music these days. I'm not allowed to talk if the radio in the car is on. "Sssshhh MOM, You're bothering the MUSIC." We have to listen to the closing credits of every show after which he will announce whether the music was BAD (Fresh Beat Band) or good (Nerfherder)--his choices, not mine, though I agree with you kid, the Fresh Beat Band needs to die ok, not die, maybe just get mono or some other voice eliminating illness. Two things he seems to like in particular:  fast electric guitar and symphonies.   please god, don't let him grow up to be in Trans-Siberian Orchestra, that's all I ask.  

I think that he must be garnering his own first musical memories and I can't help but wonder what they are.

I should play him this.

The Ba-Ba

Since I was too busy posting photos of the lush green hills of the farm, I forgot to mention a wee little bit of info that also happened on our vacation last month. We got Rowan to give up the Ba Ba. You know the Ba Ba. You might call it a "binkie" "passy" "nuk-nuk" "goo-gee" whatever it is you call the plastic thing you stick in your child's mouth to make them stop making that yammering noise. Love it or hate it, the Ba Ba/ Binkie/What-have-you  is an integral part of baby-hood for a lot of us ( if you hate it, just hush, we're still working through some yammering over here so give us a break) Anyway, while we were out of town, we told Rowan we forgot to pack any Ba Ba. It was... shall we say: a wee bit rough there at first. He might have scared off some coyotes that first Ba Ba-less naptime.

It's ok. I used to be like you. I'd roll my eyes if I saw any child over the age of six months with one of these ridiculous things in their mouths. I never had to deal with it with Hopper because he just simply rejected the idea before he even left the hospital. Then,  I gave birth to a child that would wail for four straight hours unless you handed him one of these molded piece of plastic.  Caregivers have called me out of work meetings in a panic when the Ba Ba came up missing.  Trips to the store at 2:00am have been made to procure a Ba Ba.  good god. That kid do love a Ba Ba. It was his comfort, his buddy, his "ok, I'll go to sleep as long as I have this, I GUESS," so this giving it up was tough. It was definitely time for it to happen, but that doesn't make it any easier. He did not understand the lack of Ba Ba. He was.. displeased. He also started biting his own hand, HARD.  (Yeah, that's a new one on me.)

  It's been exactly a month and he STILL, every single day, asks me for a Ba Ba. Every day I say no. Every day he gets a little less sad, but he still asks the very next day. He has developed a callus on the back of his hand by now.  I have visions of this child asking for a Ba Ba on his way out the door for college.  But we will prevail in this Ba Ba-less world. We will prevail.

Molls

This is Molly our new foster puppy. And by "new foster puppy" I mean she's been here almost a month and she is 3 years old. Whatever, details.  Molly is wearing a cone because she had an extremely major ear surgery. I'm not going to go into specifics about the surgery because it squicks me out, but just so you know: she has to wear this cone twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for at least a couple of months.  At this point three weeks into it, we all have half moon circle bruises on our calves from Molly Fender Benders.

Molly is incredibly good with the boys and they love her, even though Rowan calls her "Ferguth" which she finds insulting. She's better behaved than our own dogs so she's been a joy to have around, other than the medical issues which just aren't getting any less gross as the weeks go by. I've nursed dogs through this surgery before (there's an extensive healing process), but I've never had one that will do everything in her furry little power to get at her own ear to rub at it like Molly does. She's causing just really awful damage that, again, not describing because I care about you and whether you're currently eating. Put it this way, last week, the vet attempted to sew Molly's ear flap to the top of her head so she'd leave it alone. It didn't work. So now, Molly gets to wear this:

It makes me laugh every time I look over at her because I can't decide if she looks like Esther Williams in a medically themed synchronized swimming pageant or Madame, the puppet. 

I will probably be purchasing a feather fascinator for her just in case.