My life with Kurt, the epitome of engineer, he is the ultimate “left brained” king of spreadsheets. Aside from still wanting to play Dungeons and Dragons or some other role-playing game like Vampire he is mentally an 80-year-old curmudgeon who seems to be highly allergic to change of any kind. Oddly, we are a perfect match.
I’m a horrible mom. I sat on the spare bed while Sophia tapped on the keys of my laptop then she wanted up on the bed with me. I pulled her up in front of me, while simultaneously leaning back and rolling to the side so that she would be beside me on her back. But as I rolled my hand rubbed on a blanket on the bed. It felt wet and I let Sophia drop onto the bed. She landed right in a pile of cat puke. I swear I had no idea it was there. That stealthy little ninja bastard in a fur coat puked without me hearing it.
He’s so way off schedule. He never pukes during daylight hours. What the fuck is up with that? Who gave him permission to change his hours?!
I’ve become accustomed to waking up at two, three, or four in the morning to the rhythmic sounds of, “Aaack hhck aack”. Usually those sounds occur in the small hallway space between the bedrooms. That patch of carpet has been cleaned more than any other part of the house. All the bedrooms lead to that space and that’s as far as the cat seems to be willing to travel in order to puke privately. Although there have been a couple very notable times aside from this one in which he changed up the routine a bit.
There was the time that in trying to get off our bed to puke he only made it as far as the footboard. I could hear the sound of water splatter everywhere. Because it was night, I only thought of the floor and cleaned up what I could find in dim light. It wasn’t nearly as much as what it sounded like. In the morning I saw some splatter on Kurt’s dresser. I wiped it down, then for some reason thought to check inside the fully closed drawers. I had to wash everything in the bottom two drawers. It was EVERYWHERE!
The other memorable cat puke moment was the time Bailey was sleeping on Kurt’s stomach and began to hack up a fur ball. The sound and motion woke Kurt, but only enough for him to sit up, nudge me, and yell, “Get him, Go Go Go!”
This post has been brought to you by Hills x/d and c/d feline prescription diet with chicken and the color tan.
This morning I made breakfast and finished before Sophia, of course. I don’t eat the parts I like best and then use the rest to paint the table, but that’s just me. *glare at the toddler* I let her have her fun at the table, but in order to do that I have to leave the room, so I started on the dishes.
Sophia slid down her chair as soon as she realized I was putting the dishwasher dishes away. I didn’t even realize it until I turned around and saw her holding up a dinner plate by the top of the rim with both hands. Thank you honey, you’re such a big help. If I had to bend over that extra five inches to actually reach the plate I’m sure I’d break in half.
She gave me each and every dish until the bottom of the dishwasher was empty. She then ran back to the table to finish her breakfast, minus the icky apricots of course. Everyone knows apricots aren’t for eating. They’re for painting tables orange with gooey slime.
Sophia and I ran several errands including going to have my last name changed at yet another place. I completed my tedious list of tasks, which put Sophia to sleep in the car, and ventured to new experience. After several missed streets due to missing signs because of road construction and subsequent u-turns, I finally made it to a U-pick blueberry farm at noon.
Sophia loved it and I knew she would as putting little things into cups, buckets, bags, and boxes has been her long time favorite pass time. She took to it like a fish to water, though she was a bit over zealous. She didn’t just pick the blueberries she also picked the green-blueberries. *sigh* I guess that’s the price of cheap labor.
Here is Sophia on her union mandated milk-break:
We didn’t stay at the berry farm very long, but we did collect 3.5 pounds of blueberries of the blue variety. Since I didn’t get to the farm at my anticipated time I also didn’t get to make my anticipated dinner, so at dinner time it was off to Boston Market we went.
We went there specifically because Kurt wanted pizza and I didn’t. After some thought to the selection Kurt called a waitress over. He asked her the sizes of the pizzas. As she rattled off the diameter of each size, Kurt used his hands to give an approximate visual. The waitress left our table and Kurt continued with his decision. Then I hear him mumble, “four squared times three point one four.” OHMYGOD, seriously? I gave a concerned look, “are you trying to figure out the area of each pizza?” He smiled and I rolled my eyes. I can’t believe it.
As if knowing the area of the pizza helps in figuring out the amount that fits in his stomach. If he knew the volume his stomach could hold, and how low it was currently running, along with how thick the pizzas run at Boston Market he could be onto something. But area, useless. I mean I could eat two square feet of soup if it were spread out thin enough. Oh crap! He’s infected me. Shit.
On the way home, Sophia began to whine. Her forty-minute car nap on the way to the blueberry farm wasn’t quite enough to last her the day. She had dark circles around her eyes. Kurt casually said to her, “If you don’t stop I’ll run us into a tree.” All fussing discontinued. Who knew idol death threats work on toddlers?
I told Kurt about my recent post citing an article about the bell curve of the toddler language explosion and how he’s encouraging a dramatic vocabulary increase. I reminded him of telling Sophia her blanket, “Friend” must stay home because he’s agoraphobic.
Kurt laughs, “He’s not agoraphobic. He’s angora-phobic. He’s afraid of fuzzy open spaces.”
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man.
I attended the same ‘living with baby’ class at the hospital a few months after leaving my job that I had gone to while on maternity leave. There was a mom there with a set of fraternal twins, girl and boy. They were about a month older than Sophia who was about eleven months. Their mom mentioned how much they loved story time and that they would sit intently listening to stories. I was hopeful that Sophia would soon act the same. Then she mentioned that they had been that way for quite a while. I didn’t feel as optimistic.
Finally, about three months ago, at nineteen months, Sophia began to show interest in books beyond spreading them all over the floor. 
At first there were two that she carried around with her everywhere, one called “Happy Baby Words” by Rodger Priddy that is in English and Spanish and another called “Helping” published by Berryland Books. The second one is supposed to come in a pack of three or four books but Sophia picked this one out at a secondhand store. It’s all of four pages and very cute at first. After several hundred readings, it begins to drag.
Days later Sophia added two more books to her carry everywhere collection. The letters “S” and “T” from the Baby Einstein box collection were not to be left out of anything. I don’t know if it’s the shape of the letters or the little animal pictures on the front that draw her to these two particular books, but I’ve shuffled them within their box and she always picked the same two books out of the bunch and it shows. Those are the stickiest and most worn two books in the box.
Two weeks ago, on July sixth, I attempted potty training her for two hours. Kurt and I had heard some special news report where the doctor said the child is ready/can start being trained when he or she starts hiding when they go potty and starts showing a preference for being dry. I was excited. I am so tired of diaper changes and having her kick me the entire time I try to change her.
I put a gate up in our downstairs, blocking the rest of the house. I read the two potty books I bought at Half Price Books weeks prior, “Once Upon a Potty” by Alona Frankel and “Sara’s Potty” by Harriet Ziefert. I showed her the potty that we’ve had sitting in the main bathroom for weeks. I asked her to sit on it, and she did. I thought, “Wow this’ll be a piece of cake.” I changed her diaper, let her run nekkid from the waist down, and set a timer for twenty minutes. I figured I’d have her sit on her potty and read the potty books to her regardless of whether she had to go or not.
She peed before the timer went off. I expected that, really I did. I cleaned it up and set the timer again. Again she peed before the timer went off, so the next time I set it for ten minutes. She wanted to eat so we went upstairs, half nekkid, and she went again before the timer. She peed on the chair and it spilled onto the hardwood floor. I moved her to a different chair, cleaned up the mess, and then she went again on the second chair. I hadn’t even reset the timer yet. I moved her back to the first chair, cleaned up the mess, and reset the timer. After she finished eating, we went back downstairs to the tiled floor where she promptly peed again this time slipping on the tile. I was done. Clearly this wasn’t working. I simply couldn’t get her to the potty on time and she had no clue what I was wanting.
After all that she dropped the letter books for the two potty books. I view this as a sign that the experience didn’t scar her for life. Unfortunately, she’s using the books to scar me. Her favorite seems to be the one that annoys the crap out of me, “Once Upon a Potty”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to read it, probably twenty times a day. It’s pure torture.
I like some of the ideas used in the book like naming some of the body parts other than the potty focus, but the names used for the private parts and elimination are irritating. I mean who the hell calls a vagina a pee-pee? And this is a book specifically for girls. I may not use the more medial terms, urinate and defecate, for elimination but I also don’t use wee-wee and poo-poo. Those are silly words. I changed the words that I read and had to tell Kurt what we will be using.
Kurt reading the potty book: …And just like you, Prudence has a body, and this body has many nice and useful parts: A head for thinking…
Kurt calling to me: What are we calling it?
Me: A VAH-GUH-EYE-NAH!
Kurt back to reading: A Vaahhh-gu-EYE-Nuh for making pee
The board book version of Mr. Brown Can MOO! Can You? By Dr. Seuss has also made her list. Someone told me that animal sounds count as words, so I’m crediting this book with adding two new words to Sophia’s limited vocabulary, “Kopp” and “Biz” (Klopp and Buzz). “Kopp” is of course the sound of horse feet and “Biz” is the sound that bees make. She only uses these words when reading the book herself. She doesn’t use them on the correct pages, but they’re associated with this particular book. This brings her total number of words (including signs) to a whopping thirteen. Not very impressive.
Her current signs are: milk, more, eat, apple, and banana. Her actual spoken words consist of: daddy, hi, cheese, cat, bye, momma, and now klopp and buzz. I’m waiting for that vocabulary explosion I keep hearing about. According to an article I found in Scientific America Kurt is enabling this explosion by telling Sophia that “Friend” must stay home because he is agoraphobic, so I should be hearing an explosion of words by her second birthday…in two months.
McMurray says. But “to explain the big picture, it’s much, much simpler. … Anytime you have more difficult than easy words [the learning curve] will have this property.”
This was our conversation on the way to dinner:
Kurt: We’re old…mostly you.
Me: Really, you were born in 72 and I wasn’t even alive yet.
Kurt: Ok I’m old and you’re a young whipper snapper. Coot.
Me: My cooter isn’t a snapper.
Kurt: I beg to differ; it’s a Penis Fly Trap.
We went out for Chinese food and Sophia played with all the tea cups as if they were stacking cups. I suppose they do stack nicely. Kurt poured tea in ours and Sophia insisted that she also get some. Hers received a complimentary ice cube. She promptly and purposely dumped it all on the seat just as she dumps the water out of the toy watering can at swimming; only the Chinese restaurant wasn’t in the middle of a pool.
After Kurt finished his tea Sophia had two cups, two saucers, and an extra plate meant for us to share our food with her. We did give her some of our food to try and she did try it in a manner of speaking. She tried using a fork to put the rice in a tea cup, and she tried tipping the tea cup to empty the rice back into the dish. She also organized the dishes. The cups fit neatly in the middle of the saucers and she organized them this way. She then stacked the cups together, and in a separate pile she stacked the saucers together. Kurt and I were impressed by her categorization. Of course after dinner we loaded her into the car and she began chewing on her books. Not as impressive.
My fortune for the night, “Remember three months from this date. Good things are in store for you.
The last time I hung out with her, I noticed she looked thinner. I didn’t say anything to her. It didn’t occur to me until after the fact that I should mention it.
I relayed my thoughts to Kurt.
“Yep,” he says, “you’re such a guy. I love you. You’re a man with a vagina.”
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
The Kangaroo Climber is currently in the ground floor level room formerly known as The Dog Room or The Mud Room. Either were very fitting names. We kicked the dogs outside entirely. Don’t worry they have the worlds largest dog house, our shed, at their disposal. We washed the mud stain dog silhouettes off the walls and cleaned the floors six times. We also resealed the tile floor, and unlike most times when I say, “we” but mean Kurt, I actually did this stuff.
This room was the coldest room in the house so I wanted a warm color. We painted the ceiling but kept it white and then we moved onto the walls. I realized, while changing out the ceiling vents, that five years ago I put filters over the vents. I don’t remember those filters being quite so thick. 
They started out as paper thin pieces of felt. They now had about a quarter inch of dirt on them and two inches of dog hair above that. Nasty doesn’t quite describe it. After removing the ‘filters’ the room warmed up A LOT, but I stuck with the color I picked out. After applying the new wall color we started calling the room The Mexican Hacienda.
This room leads into the laundry room so we also took to calling it The Mexican Laundromat. While Kurt threatened to paint the trim purple instead of staining it, I threatened to buy a front loading washing machine *pause for effect* in teal. After moving Kurt’s computer into this room, and because of the room’s proximity to the garage, and a bathroom within the laundry room it is currently known as The Man Cave. The man still doesn’t do laundry. I’ve tried.
The man is greatly disturbed by the Kangaroo Climber and says, “it’s not The Man Cave anymore. It’s The Kid Cave.” *insert boo-boo lip* As soon as the weather clears up again (probably this weekend) Sophia’s new toy will go outside as intended. It’ll go next to the 300 square foot patio Kurt worked on for three or four weekends.
My second Mother’s day was very nice, except for the part where Kurt dragged us all down to go test ride a motorcycle while I tried desperately to keep a certain toddler occupied. We left the house late and hadn’t had breakfast so I came up with the grand idea of going to Ihop. We wound up leaving there without eating. Note to self, Ihop is fucking crowded on Mother’s day. And here I thought every other Mother got breakfast in bed. We wound up going to a Chinese buffet since it was so close to lunch time anyway.
After ‘breakfast’ we all went to “look at” a motorcycle. Sophia and I spent a good hour climbing up and down some stairs outside the condos while Kurt and the seller talked motorcycles and not just about the motorcycle for sale. Kurt finally took it for a test ride and I talked to the seller while Sophia climbed all around the inside of the car and into her car seat where she for the first time snapped the shoulder strapped together by herself then screamed because she couldn’t get loose. Kurt eventually came back, chatted more about motorcycles and then agreed to purchase this motorcycle. He now has FOUR motorcycles and he complains about my stuff taking up so much room in the garage. I have a plastic tote of memorabilia, another tote of doggy stuff, a bicycle, and the smallest chest freezer ever made. That’s it.
I told Kurt that for father’s day I’m going to drag him to Babies R Us or some other place of man torture not realizing how tortuous our next stop would be for him. I dragged him to Molbak’s, and I stuck him with the now very sleepy toddler. It’s Mother’s day which means I get a break from being a mommy, right?
I bought a bunch of starters, mulch, lime, and plant food. My cart was loaded with everything needed to start a small herb and vegetable garden which I’ve dubbed my salsa garden.
As soon as we arrived home I took off to the back yard and dug up a patch of grass that was mostly weeds and moss, filled it with about 50% mulch, added lime and plant food, and then inserted plants. So far they’re still alive. We’ll see how long that lasts.
In the mean time, the toddler was catching up on sleep and Kurt put together a very early early early early Christmas present from Kurt’s side of the family to Sophia. The Kangaroo Climber fit together like an easy puzzle, but since there were no tools or other sharp objects to contented with so I worried Kurt may hurt himself on all the rounded corners.
Click on the picture to see video of Sophia on her slide. 
Note to Kurt’s side of the family: This video was taken right after her nap. She played on it all night long until around bed time and then in the morning forwent milk and breakfast to go downstairs and play on her new toy.
For the past nine or so years, they have put out the “What is a mom’s work worth” around mother’s day, and every year Kurt starts ranting as soon as it comes on without even listening to it. He acts like it’s painful to even consider.
Kurt: What about dads? Dads come home from work and then become the handy man, carpenter, landscaper, daycare/babysitter, auto mechanic, and porn star.
Me: *snickering*
Kurt: Don’t laugh, I’m a porn star, and I want to be paid for it!
Me: *laughing*
Kurt: *raised eyebrow* I am a porn star?
Me: Yes, you’re a porn star.
Kurt: Good, you may live.
Now there is a calculator on salary.com to find out what a mom and dad are worth weather they’re stay-at-home or working. I have several beef’s with this calculator however.
May is here and Mother’s day is near. I saw it on the dining table this morning and raced to see what it said. It’s been a long time since either of us left the other an endearing note. I guess I’ll have to settle for less, “Time for flea medicine” is what I get.
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
