So it turns out you can, in fact, teach an old dog new tricks

It works like this: E arrives home from work. Bubs sees him and runs ahead with his sights on the fruit basket. He lunges up and down on his toes, pointing and babbling urgently "here go, here go, here go!" E gets a banana down, cracks it open, at which point Bubs plops on the floor and refuses the banana until E also plops on the floor creating a suitable banana-eating lap. Once E is seated on the floor, and Bubs is seated on E, the banana consumption begins.

See?

Good Daddy! Smart Daddy! You're learning. Now, let's see if we can find you a biscuit...

Do not look at the following if you have an aversion to gratuitous cuteness...

Don't say I didn't warn you...

We take Sunday mornings with the Mo Tab seriously...

So here they are getting their groove on to last Sunday's "Battle of Jericho". I don't know why S decided jewels and dress up shoes (and a particularly sassy expression) were necessary, or (if you look closely) why Wonderboy felt it imperative to construct a mustache to go with his Joshua get-up...but why ask why?

Daily words of wisdom...

I have just the teeny-tiniest addiction to dark chocolate. I need it every day. That kind of addiction. Kind of like the way some people need to drink water, or eat real food, or interact with another human being, or air to breathe, or exposure to a little sunlight. That kind of need. Water? Eh. Food? Eh. Air? Eh. Chocolate? YES, YES, YES, YES, YES!

So what could be more lovely than eating chocolate AND getting your own itty-bitty inspirational message? Those smartypants who make Dove chocolates offer all that in one little foil-wrapped package. So, because I like you all and want you to have your very own friendly advice to perk up and inspire your Wednesday, here's today's suggestion:

What do you think? Not quite what you're looking for? Maybe another...

Ooh. That's a good one. Still not quite right? Maybe this one is just the thing...

Hmm. I don't know...

Well, you know me. I'm always happy to help out. Do what I can, and all that. I'll just keep plugging away here until I find one that's just perfect. Oh, nothing of it! It's just the kind of gal I am...

A little shout out to my new nephew...

Jayden Elijah

My words haunt me...

Parenting is challenging. Nobody who has experience with it needs to be told that. And the challenges are ever evolving. When numero uno, a.k.a. Wonderboy, was a wee thing I wondered what the big whoop-de-do was. It sleeps, it eats, it cuddles -- what could be better? Let's have a dozen! With mobility, a fascinating new stage begins. Again, no biggie. Cover the outlets, barricade the stairs and lock up the cleaning supplies. Vacuum obsessively, because anything you miss goes right into your own live, in-the-flesh, Hoover. Doable.

It was when a certain level of verbal sophistication was reached that I panicked. At first it's cute and charming. For instance, Bubby's entire verbal repertoire consists of "kee" (kitty), "Ee-ow!" (meow), "Go, go, go!" (so apropos if you know anything at all about the boy) and "Here go!" "Here go" is a wonderful, all-purpose phrase. If you want something desperately, "Here go" accompanied by frantic hand flapping is just the thing. If you want to give somebody something, well then an insistent, or thirty, "Here go's" would be more than suitable.

But then those early verbal attempts become significantly more adept and expressive. They develop the ability to reason, argue and express their own strong opinions. And you find your own words just slapped right back at ya.

For instance, this morning Wonderboy tried this one on for size:
"Mom, I would really love it if you would clean my room and make my bed for me."

The other day, he used this when he didn't like something I was doing: "That is not helpful." And also this when I asked him to grab a dishtowel for me: "I'm not going to do that for you. You're big enough to do that for yourself."

Yesterday Sassypants S said "I do not appreciate your behavior mom!"

And Wonderboy has been known to say to E, "Dad, do you need a time-out?" or the ever delightful "You might need to change that attitude!"

And just in case it seems we're always negative around here, Wonderboy said to me a few days ago, "Good job mom making your bed so nicely. Give me a high five."

A little Whoooop! for the Jayhawks

Univ. of Kansas pulled it off by sending the game into overtime. E has always been proud to be a Penn grad, but dare I say he just might openly admit to being a KU grad now too. At least for the next 24 hours or so...

Old MacDonald Had a Farm..

...and the farm reopened this week, so we were soooooo there. This is what parenthood has reduced us to: two adults who count down the days to the opening of the farm in the spring with more giddy anticipation than the three munchkins we drag along with us to feed the goats. The farm lived up to our every expectation, PLUS the addition of a new demonstration. The grooming and 'tricks' of Pippi the Holstein:

Pippi is perhaps the cutest cow ever. Her tricks consist of wearing sunglasses (as demonstrated here) and touching her nose to a volunteer's hand at the command of the demo girl holding the cow treats. Yep, there's cow treats. And Pippi loves them. Pippi also loves having her neck scratched, right under her jaw. I'm pretty sure she even moo-ed 'oh ya, that's the spot' when I did just that. I just dare you to eat a steak after looking at this photo for a moment. I'm pretty sure it's not right to eat such a clever and amusing creature. And I'm left with a very strong impression that Pippi really hit the bovine jackpot with this gig.

And it took all my self-restraint not to crawl into this pen:

Oh...my...gosh. I must be ovulating or something (apologies to my 2.5 male readers) because I think that might be the sweetest little thing I've ever encountered. Naw, it is the sweetest thing I've ever seen (besides my own offspring, of course). If it wouldn't have gotten me kicked out of the farm, and brought our farm fun to an abrupt halt, I would have crawled in and scritched above the soft ears of that calf. I need to get me one of those.

So let's just say you practice for months...

... to accompany a budding young flautist who has chosen a piano/flute duet written by this dead guy (Handel, in case you're not up to speed on portraits of bewigged composers) for the regional music competition:

And let's just say you dug out the old tick-tocking, wind-up metronome so as to get those durn triplets in "Siciliana and Giga" from Sonata V up to the brisk 120 called for. And let's throw in some sleepless nights, some indigestion, a whole lot of sweaty palms and all the general splendor that is stage fright. And then let's say you arrive for the music competition (yawning repeatedly and uncontrollably, because that happens to be your physical response to severe jitters), dressed in your good duds, trying your very best to enter the auditorium with confidence and a professional air (and without any more yawning), to discover you'll be performing on this:

I'm not even kind of kidding. No soft pedal. No sustain. No possibility of dynamics. And an office-type chair to sit on, so you pretty much have to sit up straight and crane your neck unless you want your chin inadvertently hitting the keys. And then if you play too vigorously (and come on - triplets at 120 are going to be vigorous), the whole thing starts wobbling. If the whole situation wasn't so sad it would be kinda-sorta funny.

The violin is looking more attractive all the time...

A little Ranunculus loveliness for your Thursday morning...

These are blooming in abundance in my yard right now. Yup, they sure are. So I'm glad to share them with you. Don't even doubt me for a moment...

One time I walked 8.99 miles, carrying a violin...

..and a bag of library books. Why? Because I'm an idiot, that's why.

Way back before kids came along and whims were a little easier to indulge, I had one. Well, not really a whim exactly, but more of a hair-brained, and completely absurd idea that I was going to learn to play the violin. I love the violin. I really do. I want to weep when I hear violins play. So why not learn to play, right? I mean, I read music, how hard could it be?

So, living in Philadelphia at the time, I called Temple U. and inquired about violin performance grad students taking on students. I was put in contact with a very talented young woman named Meg, whose violin playing made me want to weep and her instrument was worth more than most people's homes. I got myself a violin (worth more than most people's... um... small appliances?), a few good beginners music books and some rosin. With some calculating I realized I could catch a bus right outside where I worked in central Philadelphia and ride straight up to Temple, which really, let's be honest here, was in the hood. And there's a lot of hood in Philadelphia. And then after my lesson, I could take a short walk to the train which would take me home to Manayunk where I lived and a little trudge up the hill and I'm home. Easy peasy, lemon squeazy. I cut my nails to the quick and plowed right ahead, sure to become the next Itzak Perlman. No sweat.

On one particular lesson day I went to the Free Library on my lunch break (Free Library - this always confused me. Never met a library that wasn't free. Go figure) and loaded up on books. (Once again, this was prior to kids and you can do that when you don't have kids. Load up on books just for you and actually read them, that is.) So I headed to my lesson with about 30 lbs of books and my violin, but by the time I arrived at my lesson, having walked across town at lunch with all those books, and then carried them from the bus over to the University, my shoulder was killing me. Literally. Ok, not literally, but it did smart something fierce. So Meg decided I'd temporarily ruined my left shoulder and we should scrap the lesson and let my shoulder recover. So without the lesson I realized I'd have a half hour wait for the train. This is where I became an idiot. The exact moment. Right here.

I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that it would surely be faster to just walk due-west until I encountered a major north-south road, and catch a bus home. So with the offending books on one shoulder and the violin on the other I set off. So I mentioned Temple is kinda-sorta in the hood? Well, going due west puts you in the no-two-ways about it, wishing-I-was-packin-heat hood. And yo mamma wouldn't want you on those streets. My only hope was that my violin case might look a wee bit like an M249 automatic all wrapped up to go. I can't go into details about the next 7 miles or so because my delicate brain has tucked these memories away in a locked vault and only years of therapy could save me if I brought to the surface the places and things I encountered that night. And if you think cell phones were really around then, you would be wrong. And if you think inner city Philadelphia had phone booths, with actual phones in them, rather than mere shells with phones violently ripped out, and then used only as occasional trash receptacles and graffiti surface area, well, then you're wrong again.

After miles, and I mean miles, I did emerge into a more respectable part of town and found a phone booth. I called E and explained my plight. I think his response was something like "Hmph." Anyway, I told him to get his sorry hiney out the door and come find me, to which he lamely replied, "I don't know where the car keys are." I slammed the phone back on the receiver and pressed on. When I thought I could go no longer, and still hadn't found the right bus route to get me home, I found another phone. Called again, and again got, "I still can't find the keys, maybe you could take a cab." At which point I had no change left, let alone money for a cab. I was beyond livid. I mean I was a freakin damsel in distress at that point and the best he could do was suggest a cab?

I did eventually make it home. I think it was 9 or 9:30 p.m. when I got home and I'm pretty sure I crawled straight into bed. After dropping those blasted books on the floor and kicking my violin across the room, and telling off E as I dropped off to sleep.

And I had back pain, the likes of which I cannot possibly describe, for a week. Oh, and the car keys? In my pocket. Idiot? I rest my case.

Oh, and in the roughly ten years since this happened I have never actually mapped out the distance I walked that night until now. And it calculates at exactly 8.99 miles from campus to front door. It took me 3 hours.

The violin is stored deep in the back of a closet upstairs. I can squeak very slowly and painfully through "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". Itzak Perlman? Ugh. And I wish I had photos to accompany this post, but then if I did, you too would need years of therapy to recover. I'm glad I can protect you from that.