Category Archives: Stella

Keep her away from the sugar.

Pretty much, just another Sunday.

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The winner of last night’s sleep-off was Porter – but purely in terms of consecutive sleep hours, which was 8. Nevermind that it was from 7:00pm to 3:00am. From that point on it was just two more hours of fruitless attempts at getting him back to sleep.

Stella’s cumulative sleep time will never be actually known, but from the time the lights were turned out, until the time she was finally granted permission to be “up” at 5:15am (new time) she emerged from her bedroom no less than a dozen times. To be truthful, I don’t know if she ever actually slept at all.

Steve and I probably, each, garnered between four or five hours. There was even one point (at about 3:30 am) when all four of us were up and roaming the house.

As of 7:00am this morning, Porter is already back in bed taking a nap, Stella has watched two Wonder Pets videos, we have listened to the most recent podcast version of Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, and Steve has spent the entire morning seranading me with something he created based on the opening riff of Rock Lobster, wherein he spells D-E-N-N-Y-aPOStrophE-S. He even told me that if we all went dressed as we were (me, of course in my pajamas, and going on my second day without a shower), he would buy me a new pair of shoes. I am sorry, but no matter how sleep deprived I am, I am not willing to trade my dignity for a new pair of Danskos.

One of the reasons Steve is so obnoxiously chipper is that today is The Day. A day, to him, better than all gift-giving holidays rolled into one: the return to Standard Time. No, this has nothing to do with what time it gets light, or that he has some strange vendetta against Daylight Savings Time. To a man with the thorough tendencies that he possesses, there is nothing better than the day he is allowed the celestial opportunity to get up and methodically change every single timekeeping device in our possession. I fear, however, that this holiday (yes, in Steve’s world, this is a holiday) is being diluted with the advances of technology. I could hear the crest-fallen tone in his voice as he attempted to change the time on his cell phone only to find that it updates automatically. This is also true with the computers. He hasn’t checked yet, but I think he is a tiny bit concerned that the VW will also have reset itself. This is a car, after all, that will alert you when the temperature drops below 39 degrees so you know to watch out for icy conditions. I wonder if I can program it to get up with my children at night? Ah, but I digress.

So here we are. Again. Me, complaining about the fact that I am this far from standing on the corner holding a sign that says Will Work For Sleep, Steve, celebrating the opportunity to touch all the doorknobs, and my children, reminding us that being a parent – first and foremost – requires an enduring and impenetrable sense of humor.

Oh, and I’ve gotta go, because Porter’s up again.

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Update: So how’s this for irony? After reading this post, Steve informed me that I hadn’t updated the timestamp on my blogging software. See? I’m not kidding, people.
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The Season of the Pumpkin

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This year we planned a coordinated effort for our pumpkin patch outing. Taking into consideration Stella and Alex’s BFF status, it was natural that they do the next best thing to hanging out at the mall scamming for guys – roaming a dirty field for squash. 3-ish year olds love this kind of thing. No, really.

Whereas I used to be the kind of mother who wouldn’t even consider leaving the house without 2 spare changes of clothes, diapers, wipes, bottles, toys, birth certificate, umbella stroller and three additional apparatus for carrying, I realized halfway there that I had forgotten any kind of coat or hat for Porter. This is why you may notice a bluish tinge to his lips in some of these photos. Poor kid. He’s lucky I haven’t left him on the top of the car yet.

We waited a week to actually carve the pumpkins, and it was all I could do to convince Stella that a knife was not a kid-friendly tool…even the “safety” kind. She eventually acquiesced, and accepted that the best she was going to get was to have her hand on mine while I did the actual carving. She did have a fun time scooping guts though. Being that I am the only one who takes photos around here, and I had to be on the task of keeping her away from the weapons of destruction, there are not a lot of photos of the actual carving part. Instead, what you will see is pumpkins, one photo of Stella with a splayed open pumpkin, then all the pumpkins and jack-o-lanters neatly displayed for your viewing pleasure.

Being that Porter was napping during the majority of the carving activities, I had to stage some ‘Boy with Pumpkin’ shots for those of you who would likely complain if there weren’t adequate seasonal photos with both children (yes, grandparents, I am looking at you).

Scared Straight

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A couple of weeks ago, on our way home from the afternoon pick-up rounds, I looked in my rearview mirror and was horrified to see Stella’s face looking straight at me. She was, literally, standing up in her carseat. I was pretty well aware of the fact that she could buckle herself in and out on her own. It was not at all uncommon for her to close the door and insist that I let her do it herself. However, I thought I had made it clear that this was an only-when-the-car-isn’t-moving type activity.

Not wanting this to become yet another power struggle with her, I had to make a split second decision as to how I could impress upon her the heinous things that might befall her should she ever attempt this again. I immediately pulled the car over, turned it off, spun around and with my most controlled, bad-ass mom voice I could muster, told her to Sit. Down. NOW. I then, in an equally don’t-mess-with-me-on-this-one tone, told her to never unbuckle her seatbelt again while the car is moving. It is a rare occasion that she does anything the first time I ask. This, however, was such an occassion. And let me tell you, it made me heady with maternal power.

As she buckled herself in and explained to me, “but I coudln’t reach my book!,” I told her that not only was it my rule that she wear her seatbelt, but that it was a law, and that the police would pull us over and give us a ticket if they saw her not wearing it. I refrained from giving her a screening of Highway, Bloody Highway, but did impress upon her the bodily injury that may befall her if she chose to defy my orders. As has happened many times in our discussions over the last three years, I found myself once again reasoning with her using a concept that had absolutely NO meaning to her. I thought I was being so wise by trying to play the “Police” card, not realizing that the concept of police hasn’t yet had an opportunity to be played out. Until today.

As we were driving to school this morning we came upon a highway patrolman detouring traffic around a car that had, apparently, driven off the road. There was a man’s hat laying in the middle of the street, and the whole thing had ‘suspicious activity’ written all over it. As we made our way around the scene, and headed towards school, we came upon three police cars with doors open lights on and a man on his knees, cuffed in the middle of it all. As we were slowly detoured around the whole thing, Stella watched intently from the back seat. Then, in a quiet and ominous voice she said, “Mommy, I don’t think he was wearing his seatbelt.”

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Update: Apparently, it was a bit more than just a seatbelt infraction.
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Wedded Bliss

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Last night Stella and Porter attended their first wedding. Unsure of how kid-friendly the event would be, the original plan was that I would attend (alone) as the designated representative for the Walston family, and Steve would stay home and tend to the young ‘uns. As it turned out, this was an unpopular decision with many of the other wedding guests who, after the ceremony, insisted I call him and let him know that his, Stella’s and Porter’s presence was requested. This was good anyway since I had forgotten the gift on the dining room table.

While Steve and I took the opportunity to catch up with friends that we haven’t seen in years, Stella quickly became the life of the party. She became one of those wedding guests. You know, the ones who end up with a tie tied around their head, and incessantly request Free Bird from the DJ.

She participated in her first conga line:

stella

She got her groove on on the dancefloor:

stella

She managed to dance so well everyone backed up into a circle around her:

stella

She even managed to comandeer Lisa’s veil:

stella

Porter even managed to get in on the action. (Please disregard the fact that he is wearing overalls, and looks like he should be attending a hoe-down.)

porter

Aside from the fact that our kids proved their genetic heritage and tore the house down, Steve and I had the wonderful opportunity to see friends that life has cycled out of our orbit over the last years. Throughout the night, the word “full-circle” kept coming to mind. Some of these friends I have known since the very first days that I moved up here. Everyone has moved on to different places (both physically and metaphorically) and getting to see them all again, and catch up was so much fun.

On the way home in the car, Stella and I had one of those conversations that made me immediately relay it to Steve when I got home so that I wouldn’t forget.

“Hey Stella, did you have fun at the wedding tonight?”
“Yeah. Mommy, what is a wedding?”
“It is something where two people who really love each other say a bunch of nice things to one another and promise to be together for ever and ever. Then everyone helps them have a big party to celebrate.”
…silence for about 30 seconds.
“Mommy, I really love my grandparents.”
“Do you think you want to marry them?”
“Yeah.”

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Correction: I just realized that this was actually Stella’s second wedding. The first being Jodie & Anthony’s when she was 2 months old, and before she had realized the true scope of her party powers.
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