Oh, for the love of Pete

Susanna just ate cat throwup. Can we agree that this is a new low?

Oh we are busy, busy people with these two child-lings. There have been so many great moments in the last couple of months that I wanted to put in the blog, and pathetically, I've forgotten them already. See, this is precisely why we need the blog, for the memory addled.

Susanna's first word? Possibly "bread"(that's my carbo-lovin' girl), possibly "Mama" (but does that count?), possibly "pirate" though we're having some trouble with replication on that one. Seems it might have been a freak occurrence.

She loves to dance. Loves to push the wagon around the house. She's funny. She accessorizes with goggles. Fro can fill in on that one. She likes meat--chicken, pork, whatever you got. The girl can seriously pack away food. She does this kind of baby talk that translates generally to "Yes!" She'll say "Ahhhhhh Da!" with a somewhat guttural tone. She is so very attached to me; it is both tender and maddening, the latter especially when I'm trying to cook dinner. I want to peel her off me like fruit leather from the wrapper. Susanna kisses me. She also bites--Roel gets the brunt of that. But then again, he probably deserves a nip now and then. :)

Roel is, as my friend Jocelyn said of her own kids, unbearably cute and unbearable. He graduates from preschool this weekend. He turned 5 in April and had a swingin' superhero party. One of my top 5 favorite moments happened in the late afternoon the day of his party. We had a jumpy house in the back yard and the four of us--Fro, Roel, Susanna, and I all went into it together, jumped around, threw ourselves against the net walls, and whenever any of us needed to rest, we'd lie down in the patch of perfect afternoon sun and ride the waves created by the jumping. It was good, clean fun and I felt such deep love for my family right then, right there. I'm a little embarrassed to admit how challenging that can be day to day. Seems like there's often something pressing to do, some distraction that pulls me away from just hanging out with the kids and Fro and treasuring the time we have. Often times it's the work of the household that needs to get done.

Every time my friend Missy jokes about people with real careers and how we are not they, (though she's kind of crossed over to the dark side with this new job of hers) I retort without pause, "Hardest job on the planet!" I don't know. I kind of think being a coal miner might be harder. Or a slaughterhouse worker. But raising children isn't easy work, no, no, no, though it is rewarding in those seminal moments.

But every now and then things don't go so smoothly, and the F-bomb slips out. It just can't be helped. So out of the blue, (I knew this day would come) Roel says, "Aw fuck." I put on my poker face and try to convince him of two things: that it's not a good word to say and, when he asks why not and what it means, that I don't know its meaning. My brother-in-law, Richard, when his kids were young, had some great faux-swears. The one I liked best was "cheese and crackers!" in place of "Jesus Christ!" So I find myself resurrecting phrases I remember hearing in my childhood: "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" I remember my father using that one and a few less pious utterances as well. And my current favorite: "For the love of Pete!" I have no idea who Pete is--the apostle? No matter--as long as it keeps me from dropping the F-bomb, I'll use it.