Welfareloser's Blog

okay, so i was emailing nodamnsense this morning about how i couldn’t wait to get settled in our new home, because then we can start homebrewing again (it’s kind of hard to move a bunch of 5-gallon carboys of liquid without aerating it.) okay, in addition to tons of resources for brewing supplies, and fresh fruit and ciders that you can brew with, the city also has a very active homebrewer’s association. and, of course, a major consideration in choosing our new home was the fact that there are good trout streams all over the place. fly-fishing and brewing… that covers 2 of my 4 major avocations. it’s like moving to disneyland!

#3, bluegrass and other traditional music… oh. my. god. in addition to a bluegrass festival within two hours EVERY FREAKIN WEEKEND all summer long… and in addition to the occasional bluegrass concert on the rooftop terrace of positiverolemodel’s place of work at lunchtime… there are at least 11 jam sessions every month.

now, here’s the punchline… one of the weekly jam sessions is at the local microbrewery. okay, this isn’t disneyland. this is heaven! i can only wonder if i got hit by a bus or went down in a shootout with the federales.

anyway… look out, iowa, here comes the burninator!

and his little friends:

with occasional appearances by:

and, unfortunately, a likely yearly appearance by:

seriously. okay, actually, it’s like four separate stories about cereal which i have masterfully strung together so that it almost resembles a coherent narrative. because this blog is all literary and shit.

my entire adult (i use the term loosely) life, i have loved to get free toys from cereal boxes. okay, technically, i loved it as a kid, too, but the love affair really exploded when i moved out on my own, and purchase decisions at the grocery store were entirely up to me. when i turned 18, the presence of a cool toy in a cereal box was given an equal weight to consideration of price, and whether or not i even LIKED the cereal.

i have an r2d2 snack bowl that BEEPS AT YOU (rock!) thanks to 4 boxes (or was it 8?) of corn chex. which i don’t really like. a year later, i’ve breaded more chicken breasts with that shit than you can shake a stick at. a little mustard, a little egg, a slab of chicken… it makes corn chex edible! i have 4 pirate snack bowls thanks to 8 boxes of trix, which not even my sugar-starved children will choke down. i still haven’t decided what to do with that shit – we could decorate the christmas tree with it, if we were stupid enough to buy one. (postitiverolemodel asked me when i thought the kids would be old enough to handle a christmas tree without it being a danger, and i estimated 2012.) i have matchbox cars, hats, t-shirts, stuffed animals, spiderman cereal bowls, action figures, mighty bean knock-offs, light-up light saber spoons, light up pirate skulls… and that’s just from the cereal! (prize possession: my t-shirt that, under the moonpie logo, reads: “eat mo’ pie.” oh, yeah. it’s classy as hell.)

so when the spiderman 3 swag started coming out, fuck YES it was time to buy some cereal. the one toy the kids were excited about were the spiderman water squirters. they were supposed to be available in lucky charms, resses puffs, golden grahams, and cinnamon toast crunch. so i watched for these toys to appear for a couple of weeks. seriously, i went to a couple of different grocery stores, checked out the entire cereal display, and NUTHIN. FINALLY, i scored two boxes of lucky charms with the squirters. just two! the rest of the display was empty. i might as well have been wearing legwarmers and shoulderpads, because it was like trying to get a cabbage patch kid at christmas 1983.

i went home and checked ebay, and found the squirters selling for more than the cost of the cereal they came in. free cereal! if i could get my hands on some. which i finally did… the next week, i happened to be at the store JUST as they were restocking the reese’s peanut butter puffs display. i bought 8 boxes, got them home, went to open the first one to get the squirter… and saw that the box had been taped shut. mother. fucker.

i broke the tape jsut to peek in and make sure, but i was right… some shitheel fuckstick monkeyturd employee had stolen the squirters and then taped the motherfucking box shut again. so i had to go BACK to the store, explain to customer service that i wanted my damned money back, and try again. luckily, they took them back without a fight, and better yet, the reese’s puffs shelf was still full, and most of the boxes had not been tampered with.

long story short, i bought a grand total of about 30 boxes of cereal, had plenty of squirters for the kids, and ebayed enough of them that the cereal was all free. i win!

now, every now and then, i will buy the ridiculously overpriced 10-packs of mini-boxes of cereal. being an awesome, if hypocritical parent, i give my kids the reasonably healthful cereals from those packs, like the cheerios, but three of them are always mine: the cocoa puffs, cinnamon toast crunch, and golden grahams. i pour all three of them together into a cereal-grog and eat it like that. i was telling nodamnsense about this habit once, and his reply was, “goddamn. just pour a frappuccino over that and enjoy the orgasm!” so, when we were in denver last month, i did exactly that – i bought two 4-packs of frappuccinos and a big box of each of those cereals. and lemme tell you, the frappuccinos were gone in two days, and the cereal was about gone in four. even wampus got in on the action, minus the coffee.

wampus eats his cereal in a bowl with milk and a spoon. my kids, on the other hand, eat it any way BUT the “right” way – out of the box with their hands, pouring it directly into their mouths from a cup, in a bowl with a fork (and thank god, no milk), off the floor after any of a number of cereal-related accidents, etc. the most creative, by far, was the time i caught spazmonkey shoveling lucky charms into his mouth – with doritos. he said it was “pirate food.” he offered me some. i declined.

so, with 30 boxes of cereal stacked in my garage, i of course made several bags of cereal-grog. i was especially pleased with a combo of maple flavored eggo waffle cereal, cinnamon toast crunch, and reese’s peanut butter puffs. the kids liked it, too. stupid me, i handed a big bag of it to spazmonkey and walked away. when i came back, he held it up to me, proudly declaring “i made it pirate food, mommy!” oh, yeah. he had just dumped a bag of doritos into it, and was about to shake it up to distribute them evenly. fuuuuuuuuuuuck.

so i stopped him, took the bag, and picked out all the doritos, explaining that he could fuck up his own bowl of cereal any way he wanted, but not the whole bag that was for sharing. he cried, then patiently waited for me to finish, then stormed off with both bags and dumped some of each into a bowl. “see mommy? pirate food! i lke pirate food! it’s GOOD! it’s MY GOOD PIRATE FOOD!”

then he and dramaqueen threw some mega bloks pirate toys into the bowl and took turns fishing them out, applauding, congratulating, and doing victory dances every time they found the toy in the cereal. yep. i think they’re related to me.

we were prepared to party the minute we closed on the new house.

the kids are all big fans of the new house… they have the formal living room as a toy room…

…and three bedrooms between the four of them instead of two. the twins chose the room with the psychedelic ceiling fan:

and evilgremlin chose the room that is his favorite color, red:

…another big hit was the fridge that dispenses water and ice:

…and best of all, a big backyard that meets up with a bunch of other big backyards full of kids. they met about half a dozen kids over the weekend, and there are at least a dozen more just on our cul-de-sac. didn’t take them more than about 20 minutes to get into the groove of hopping from one swingset to the next, into someone’s house for popsicles, on to the next yard to hit the sandbox, inside for some video games during the hottest hour of the day, back out, etc… they were worn out:

… and can’t wait to go back. i didn’t get any pictures of them with their gaggle of new friends, since they ran my ass ragged too, AND i spent a good chunk of time hanging out with a few of the neighbors – other moms who are, like, cool. which i’ve never encountered before. i was explaining to them that, in my current town, i, with my four kids, am a freakshow: the standard is a nearly-forty mom with one, maybe two kids, who dress in gap clothing and $40 shoes and “play with flashcards,” “make good choices,” “use their words,” and never, ever, ever climb up the slide. after a moment of silence, one of them told me, “you’re going to fit in just fine here.” sweet!

apparently, every house in iowa city has a “hawkeye room” – a room painted an obnoxious shade of gold, often with black trim. in our house, it’s trogdor’s bedroom, since he couldn’t voice an opinion about which room he actually wanted. to avoid damaging his poor little eyes, we plan on repainting it.

at least he has a nice view from his windows. but other than that, the house needs very little work before we move in sometime next month. the rabbits and chimpmunks are thick, so gardening will take a little more effort (one neighbor had even resorted to an electric fence to protect his asparagus a few years ago,) but we’ve already got a gorgeous little rhubarb patch there, and a small spot that isn’t too shady where we’ll be able to get a few other vegetables in.

the grown-ups’ other favorite features include the screened-in back porch:

and the massive master bedroom with its private bathroom:

i mean, damn. it looks like an actual adult decorated that room. honestly, i’m not quite sure if i feel right pooping in it.

subtitled: clear evidence of genetics being involved in the formation of a sense of humor.

so we closed on our new house in iowa on friday – more on that later when i get back to my computer and can upload the photos i took. but on saturday, we took a day trip to the amana colonies, a historic german farming cooperative comprised of seven tiny villages. our first stop was at the visitors center. after striking up a conversation with the nice lady at the window and trading pleasantries in german with her, she told us a little about each village, and then handed my dad a map.

LADY: here’s the map. you’re right here, and if you just follow this road, you’ll go through all seven villages.

OPA: okay. cool. now which village is clothing optional?

later, we stopped at one of the many wineries in amana. they had wines made out of every fruit you could think of, and probably some you couldn’t, like elderberry and rhubarb. my dad hung out at the free sample bar for a bit, talking to the lady about their wines.

OPA: can i try the rhubarb wine next?

LADY: no.

OPA: why not?

LADY: you don’t want it.

OPA: now i REALLY want it.

LADY: you’re not going to like it.

OPA: okay.

after trying the wine…

OPA: wow. can i have the recipe for that rhubarb wine… so i can burn it for you?

EG: mom, can i have a flyswatter and a rain coat?

ME: no.

EG: but i think there are flies in the house.

ME: there aren’t.

EG: but i SAW one last week.

ME: i shooed it outside.

EG: but there could be other ones.

ME: there aren’t. promise.

EG: *giving me a look of exasperated pity* yeah, that’s what they want you to think. is my raincoat in the closet?

EG: hey, look, a lightning bug! what is he doing walking out here in the morning?

ME: maybe he’s just not sleepy yet.

EG: *giving me a meaningful look* yeah. or maybe he’s walking away from home because he got tired of the rules.

okay, so i may have mentioned that trogdor is a little bit ahead of the curve on physical ability. at 3-1/2 months old, he can grab stuff, wave it around, get it in his mouth, sit upright in a supersaucer and twist and twirl and spin all the toys on it, and roll all over the place to faceplant on top of stuff he wants.

so. every baby, no matter how young, makes attempts at crawling when placed on his belly. they’ll lift their heads, wave their arms, and make frog-kick motions with their legs. if you put a hand behind their feet, they’ll push off and look either bewildered or delighted (or pissed, if they faceplant.) but no matter how hard they try, they just don’t actually pull off forward progress by themselves until around 6-8 months old.

okay. i’ve never seen a three-month-old actually get his feet under him and GO like trogdor just managed today. there was a wild yawp of anger as his first attempt just rolled him to the side instead of pushing him forward, but a couple of minutes after i stopped filming, he managed to start inching forward and was quite pleased with himself.

trogdor crawls!

fuck. just when i thought i had this household under control again.

and here he is being a NORMAL cute baby, laying on his back, getting tickled and laughing (and then puking… i always managed to whip out the camera at just the wrong time.)

trogdor laughs!

so i got fixed on wednesday morning. and by fixed, i mean my uterus is no longer broken. and by broken, i mean “permanently stuck in spitting-out-babies” mode. in case you didn’t know first-hand, or hadn’t already guessed, abdominal surgery sucks. but it’s over, it’s healing, and it’s nice to have that behind me.

i would say i never have to worry about being knocked up again, but let me tell you a little story. on my very first OB visit ever, i was 22, all cute and little with a tiny baby bump, and of course being excited about the whole thing, i struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to me. she was about 35, very, very pregnant, and decidedly unexcited. turns out, she had intended to have 2 kids, and was now pregnant with #4… and #5. after #2, her husband had had a vasectomy. after #3, she had gotten her tubes tied. i’ll never forget what she said to me. “as soon as i get these two out, i am making them take out my tubes, my uterus, and my ovaries. the whole motherfucking works.”

yep!

we’ve hit a few of them this week.

DRAMAQUEEN: the year-long reign of superman has come to an end. since last may, he has worn nothing but various incarnations of superman shirts. since last october, he has only worn dark blue shirts with a puffy, shiny silver superman logo and light-blue long sleeves. (these, of course, were taken off the market just as he decided it was the only shirt he would wear – and we only owned two of them. i finally managed to find three black short-sleeved shirts with the same logo on ebay – in size 8 only, when he wears a 4. got some light-blue sweatshirts at goodwill, oma sewed those sleeves under the t-shirt sleeves, and he had three more ridiculously oversized shirts to complement his generally scruffy look.) seriously. flip back through my blog archives. you’ll see him wearing that shirt in every single shot.

then, suddenly, upon acquiring a sandman water squirter from a box of lucky charms, he decided he wanted a sandman shirt. luckily, we had a green-and-brown striped shirt. he put it on and declared “i’m not superman anymore!” i was afraid he might get obsessive about that particular shirt next, but the next day, he wore a blue-and-brown striped shirt (“i’m the blue sandman today!”), and today he’s in a spiderman t-shirt (“i look so COOL today!”) people are so used to seeing him as silver superman that he’s getting a ton of comments on his sudden change of clothes.

TROGDOR: now 3 months and 1 week old, he decided it was time to outgrow his 6 month size clothes and start wearing 9 month size. he’s in the 75th percentile in weight, but at just over 26 inches tall, he’s in the 99.96th percentile in height. (i’m 5’1. my husband claims about 5’7. our 6’4 friend jokerjitsu wants to know how we drugged him and stole his gametes.)

also, he got into his supersaucer for the first time. it’s supposed to be for 4-8 month olds, but he’s big enough, he’s figured out how to grab at objects of interest and sort of half-assed manipulate them, his feet actaully touch the floor in it (unlike any of his brothers at 4 months), and he’s even starting to get a handle on how to manage his big ol’ lollipop head. as i was cleaning it up for him, he just about chewed through his oma’s arm to get to it. he bopped around in it for 20 minutes, hooting and crazy-eyed, got his arm pinned to his body in the seat, and started howling until rescued.

SPAZMONKEY: i can see why the label “toddler” ends abruptly at age 4 – it’s not arbitrary. suddenly, spazmonkey is zipping his own coat, buckling his own seatbelt (okay, this isn’t as easy as you might think; kids’ carseats have these crazy 5-point seatbelts that have a rather steep learning curve… it took me years before i didn’t have to struggle with getting the latch over the chest to work), putting on his own helmet and riding his bike, and other marvels of self-sufficiency. (dramaqueen has done all these things too, but it they were spazmonkey’s idea first by about a week, so i’ll give him credit.) going out with the kids has almost become… easy. (yeah… here comes the lightning.)

EVILGREMLIN: he fits in my shoes. wtf is up with THAT?

POSITIVEROLEMODEL: okay. no milestones here. i’m not even sure if he’s entirely awake in this shot. he’s just watching spongebob. yep. he’s pretty much furniture.

(no, i’m not stuttering; that’s to the tune of “happy birthday to you,” you fucktard. copyright infringement at its finest!)

okay, knowing how old you are is just one of those things – like what noise which animals make, and whether or not they cry when at the hidden-thumb “i’ve got your nose” trick – that complete strangers will use as a litmus test to judge how smart your kids are.

now, a kid’s age is not something a kid can figure out on his own. he has to be told, repeatedly, “YOU ARE XYZ YEARS OLD.” then, you have to practice asking him how old he is, and force him to reply with the correct number; bonus points awarded if he holds up fingers (bonus intelligence points if it’s the correct number; bonus cute points if it’s the wrong number.)

so the twits just had a birthday, and we decided to finally go ahead and drill them on the correct answer to that pop quiz, since even though they can articulate all kinds of complex ideas (like “oooone… twooooo… fweeeeeee…. fooooour…. fiiiiiive…. five! there’s five black people in this room!” and “jokerjitsu has bumpy ears because he fights. he’s THE MAN!” and “NoDamnSense lives in the mountains WAY UP HIGH and FAR AWAY! that’s okay, we’ll go find him at christmas!”) they can’t answer that question correctly, and strangers assume they’re retarded. a sampling:

STRANGER: how old are you?

SPAZMONKEY: my name’s SpazMonkey!

STRANGER: okay. but how old are you?

SPAZMONKEY: i like cheese!

STRANGER: well, okay. how old are you, then?

DRAMAQUEEN: no.

so, we did the “hold up this many fingers” and question-practice routine a few times around their birthday, and they got it down fairly quickly. so the other day, when a stranger asked SpazMonkey how old he was, i wasn’t worried.

STRANGER: are you guys twins?

SPAZMONKEY: yeah!

STRANGER: how old are you?

SPAZMONKEY: i’m crazy.

oh well. since he was wearing a buzz lightyear shirt, superman pants, and spiderman shoes at the time, and he can’t pronounce “schizophrenic,” that’s as good an answer as any.

the twits came to the post office with me yesterday, and saw a huge star wars display… so i asked the lady at the cash register if there were any of the new r2d2 mailboxes in this town, and she said there was one on the quad, in front of the math building. the twits immediately colored some postcards, taped on some cut-out pictures of star wars stuff, and addressed them to various grandparents and friends so we could go put them in the “star wars mail” (before some dumbass students decide to steal the damn thing, despite the fact that it would be a federal offense. i give it a month, tops.) they were very impressed with the intergalactic mail. a discussion of which spaceships the jedi postmaster might use ensued.

then some bells went off, and they asked where the music was coming from. i pointed at the bell tower of the building right behind the r2d2 mailbox – altgeld hall, the math building. dramaqueen goes wide-eyed and screams, “OH MY GODSH IT’S THE HARRY POTTER HOUSE!”

and i realize that the building where i slept through math 130 looks an AWFUL lot like hogwarts… inside and out. it was built in 1898, has 33 levels, marble stairs, ornate iron railings, intricate mosaic floors, towers and cupolas, alcoves covered in gilt…

now, a word about the university of illinois campus. it is nationally known for being handicapped friendly. no hills here, perfect sidewalks, and handicapped-access door-opener buttons all over the place. so i took them inside “hogwarts,” occasionally hitting a few door-opener buttons when they weren’t looking, so these huge, ornate wooden doors slooooowly creaked open on their own. they found a door with a poster of trogdor on it (“dummeldore has a trogdor-dragon!”):

(the caption on this sign read “ALL PAPER-GRADING COURTESY OF THE BURNINATOR!”)

… as well as magic staircases, magic doors, magic computers, and they decided some shaggy-haired bespectacled korean dude was harry potter. when spazmonkey announced that he had to pee, i hit the button to swoosh open the bathroom door… and they clutched each other, peeking around the corner, whispering. finally, spazmonkey asked, “there’s no ghosts in there?” i assured them that this bathroom was not the haunted one, so they marched in, proudly jabbering about how they were peeing in the harry potter potties (which flushed on their own… magic, i tell you!)