This week Henry has shown that he is able to:

1) Climb out of his playpen
2) Open the bathroom door
3) Open the baby gate at the top of the stairs
4) Fall down the stairs

So. I had Henry’s 2-year portraits done at JCPenney.

First, let’s review Henry’s personality. He’s a sturdy, climbing, copying-older-siblings kind of guy; cheery and stubborn; tackling people, flinging things, getting into things; getting angry and yelling when thwarted; leaping onto people and saying “MMMMmmmmmm!” as he cuddles into their bruised bodies. THIS kind of thing:

Here is what I was expecting the portrait studio problem to be: overabundance of exuberance; getting into things; refusing to stand still; running around; being loud; playing games where he turns around suddenly just as the camera clicks.

Here is what the problem in fact WAS: clinging to Mother with all his claws; using his feet to climb higher; face crumpling; whimpering, “No, no, no. I not like it, camera. No, no want it, pictures.”

After a few minutes of this, a guy photographer came in and started doing silly stuff. Henry appreciated the effort but declined to get out of my arms—even if I sat right next to him. Finally I asked the girl photographer, “What do you…DO…in situations like these?” and she indicated the guy photographer and said, “I call HIM!” I said, “So we’ve already used our emergency option?” and she said, “Yes!” We both laughed and groaned a little.

Then I asked if we could just…take the picture with him on my lap. I mean, it would look weird with a “parts of Mommy” background rather than the nice white one she’d chosen, but at least we’d HAVE a picture. It’s not like we’re shooting a national ad campaign here: if the lighting is nice and the facial expression is characteristic, the background can be weird.

Well, so that’s what we did. And she got some really good pictures, too, especially considering the circumstances. She even got one of the two of us together in an “on purpose” way instead of in an “oops, part of Mommy got in that shot” way.

That’s just how he was. See how his knee is up? He’s CLIMBING me. And I’m all pretending I don’t care about my hair.

As he got more comfy, she had me lean back a teensy bit, and she went in from a side angle and zoomed way in:

This is the one I considered his “main” picture. It’s not entirely characteristic (he’s holding his mouth and chin oddly), and part of my arm is in the background, but it had the elements I was looking for in a photo: the child is holding still and looking not entirely unpleasant.

I got some of this one, too: it’s sad, but it’s cute.

Too sad: look at the downturned mouth corners and the Anxiety Eyebrows.

This one I love a LOT, because it looks JUST like him. But it looks “JUST like him” if he’s “JUST been told that everyone but him is going to visit the zoo, have a picnic, and get ice cream cones afterward.”

OMG I have HAD IT. NONE of my pens write nicely. I HATE the scratchy gel ones. I HATE the skippy ballpoints. I HATE any pen that doesn’t make a smooth, even, consistent line. The finepoint permanents are lovely but they lose their fine points too soon, and also they soak through thinner papers.

HELP ME. Tell me which pens to buy. I don’t even CARE anymore what they cost, if they will just WRITE NICELY.

Here is what I’m working on this week:

1. Serious potty-training. It is time, I really mean it, we are seriously doing this even if we completely soak every inch of the house in the process, I don’t care anymore about “child-led” because my children are apparently FOLLOWERS.

2. Looking for more Dinofours books for Elizabeth’s current obsession. I can get them used for 1 cent each on Amazon—but then it’s $3.99 shipping EACH, which seems…unreasonable, especially if I order them all from the same seller. I wish I could find more at our library book sale section: that’s where I got the few we have now, at 3/$1.

3. Experimenting with hot fudge sauce.

4. Doing laundry: our washer and dryer were out of commission for a week (we’re putting in a second bathroom! See also: potty training), so although I could use my parents’, we still have astonishing piles of dirty laundry. (See also: potty-training.)

5. Implementing new “If All Five of You Talk at the Same Time I Will Run Screaming Into the Sea” policy. I’ve always done a lot of correcting on this subject (“One at a time, please” and “Wait, Edward: someone else is talking”), but I am turning it up to 11. Because seriously: the sea is calling my name, and that makes SIX talking all at once.

Old Navy, Old Navy, have you any bargains? Yes ma’am, yes ma’am, two bags full.

I bought two of these reusable shopping bags to carry home my stuff, and two more to put in future care packages. They were on clearance for $3.49, and then all clearance was an additional 50% off, so I got each one for $1.74.

Boy shirts. Top row, left to right: polo for Edward; dinosaur shirt that probably won’t fit Henry (it’s 18-24m) but at $1.49 I HAD to try it; stripey polo in Rob’s next size up.

Bottom row: Rob asked me earlier this week if he could have a purple t-shirt: he’d noticed he had red, orange, yellow, green, and blue, but no purple. I said I’d look, but I didn’t have much hope. This one was on clearance for $1.98, and with the additional 50% off it was $.98. The other shirt is a stripey/picture polo in Rob’s next size up.

Long-sleeved Elizabeth shirts for next year or possibly the year after. Upper left is a $4 sweater. Center column is basic shirts in periwinkle/white stripe, pink, periwinkle, grey, blue. Also a red shirt that says “oh deer” on it, with a picture of—wait for it—a deer. Upper right has a cute owl on it. Lower right is a shirt that has a rainbow made up of the words “red” and “orange” and so on, and a cloud made up of the word “fluffy.” Except for the sweater ($4.23) and the rainbow shirt ($2.99), everything was $.99, $1.49, or $1.74.

One single short-sleeved Elizabeth shirt. I spent an entire $1.99 on this one because I liked it so much, making it one of the highest-priced items in the bunch.

For my lovey-lovey niece-niece. Four shirts ($.99-$1.99 each) and a pair of tights ($.98).

I also bought seven pairs of socks that aren’t in the photo because I’d already put them in the wash.

Total bill: $47.67.

I present the following evidence that I am losing my mind:

1. I was making a portrait appointment for Henry. I asked for “Saturday” and she said, “Okay, I have 10:00 on June 6th.” I was pretty sure there was a Saturday before that, but I couldn’t clarify my question because I couldn’t remember (1) what today’s date was, or (2) what day of the week today was. Tuesday? Saturday? No clue.

2. When I bought a plane ticket to go see my niece, I thought it was a 6-hour non-stop flight. This is because the flight number didn’t change, and no third airport was listed, and the number of stops was listed as “1”. I thought the “1 stop” was….well, I thought it was the landing.

3. Earlier this week, I completely forgot to make the kids their dinner. Paul said, “Uh…” and I had to sprint to the kitchen and make sandwiches because there was no time for anything else.

4. I have completely forgotten my fourth piece of evidence.

5. I was doing a breast self-exam and found a lump and panicked. The lump turned out to be a nipple.

6. As we left the play area at the mall, I thought, “Oh! If I hadn’t been paying attention, I would have thought that stroller was mine! It’s the same as the one I had for the twins when they were babies!” It WAS my stroller.

It’s pretty common for checkout clerks to make small talk with the littles. Things like, “Oh, are you tired of shopping?” or “Oh, is that your favorite blankie?”

Yesterday as I was putting things up on the belt I could hear the clerk talking to the twins softly and confidingly, so I turned on the smile I give to people who are being kind to my children. But when I tuned in, I heard that she was saying quietly to Edward, who was sucking his thumb, “That’s disgusting. Don’t do that. Take your thumb out of your mouth. Ew, yuck. Disgusting.”

Well. I could feel that smile drop completely off my face. Perhaps you are wondering if at this point I opened up a can of whoop-ass, but that is not my style. If I can manage to open up any sort of can in a confrontational situation, it tends to be a can of sob-kleenex.

In this case what I did was push the stroller forward so that Edward was no longer within her soft-chatting zone. I stood right where Edward had been, now between her and Edward, and I continued to not-smile. I finished the transaction and I left.

Would you have done it differently? I’m interested to know what other people consider The Right Reaction in a circumstance such as this one.

Samantha of Back to Me is a former vet tech, so I’ve been emailing a lot with her about Georgie. I was fretting to her because I felt bad that I hadn’t noticed his side-breathing (which means he’s having trouble breathing), and that when the vet asked how long he’d been doing it, I had NO IDEA because I HADN’T NOTICED. And even after the vet pointed it out, I still don’t feel like I can see it. I’ll look at him and think, “AH! Yes! I see it!”—and then I look at one of the other cats and their furry sides look the same to me.

Sam reassured me that breathing stuff is hard to see. I was relieved.

It reminds me of other things I’ve learned in various jobs, things that at first were impossible to see but then became obvious. One example is when I worked in a plant nursery and my co-workers were trying to tell me about plants that were “stressing”—that is, plants that needed to be watered but weren’t yet WILTING or anything. At first I was just, “What?? I don’t know what you are TALKING about.” But after awhile, “stressiness” stood out to me like a blinking red light.

Once you learn something like that, sometimes you don’t unlearn it: it’s still like a blinking red light. I get a little stressed myself when I see a stressing plant in a lobby, or a whole row of stressing plants outside a grocery store. If I have a sippy cup of water in the diaper bag, I’ll give them a little drinky.

Another example is when I worked at the daycare and learned to tell if a diaper was wet. It seems so obvious now, but I remember when my co-workers would say, “Well, just FEEL it. Is it wet?” and I’d be all, “Uh.” Now I give it a little squeeze and I know if it’s wet or dry or OMG DANGER DANGER EXPLOSION IMMINENT.

Also from the daycare I learned how to estimate a fever by putting my lips on the child’s forehead. I never got as good as my coworker Steph, who could judge it within a couple of tenths of a degree, but I could tell “no fever” from “low-grade fever” from “oh dear, we are going to have to call the parent.”

I used to make a lot of bread, and I got very good at telling when the dough needed more flour and/or more kneading—even though at first I was looking with frustrated bewilderment at the recipe that told me to add more flour “if needed.”

And I’ve made batches of fudge so often, I can tell by the smell and taste of it when it’s ready to pour out—even before it’s lost its shine or stiffened up.

I’ll bet you all have superpowers like this: things you can spot right away when the average person wouldn’t know what you were talking about. Tell me! I’m interested!

You know what drives me crazy? Yes, but that’s not what I’m thinking of. Oh, yeah, definitely, but that’s not what I’m thinking of either. Er, no—I mean, it’s true that drives me crazy, but I’m thinking of something else. Okay, FINE, so there are a LOT of things that drive me crazy. I’ll just tell you which one it is this time: Official Rules that MAKE NO SENSE.

Today I went to the post office to mail a package. It was a blog package, so in the return address field I’d written only “Swistle.” The clerk told me I needed to write my whole address. I preferred not to, and explained why. She said that the package COULD NOT BE MAILED without a return addresses. I suggested that this might not be the case, since I have mailed almost all my blog packages without return addresses.

She went to check with a superior. The superior said it was okay. Then a moment later the superior said, “But WE need to know your address: we need to Know Our Customers.” So I told her my full name and my full address, and I showed her my driver’s license, and she asked if I’d lived here long, and I said YES, and that my parents were Ruth and Robert Whistle and told her their address, and I told her my mail carrier’s name, and she was finally satisfied.

BUT THEN she had to give me a long, sober explanation about “Ever since 9-11” and “This has to go on a PLANE” and “What if it had Something Dangerous in it?” And THIS is the part where it is revealed that that rule is STUPID, because I could have written in a totally fake name and address and that would have gone through just fine. They wouldn’t have asked for ID to prove that it was my name/address, nor would they have asked me how long I’d lived in the area.

The only way their policy makes sense is if they ID every single customer to make sure the return address matches that customer’s driver’s license information. Since this is not done, the rule that packages can’t be mailed without a full return address is a Dumb and Pointless Rule and they should not be using that sober, serious tone of voice to explain it to me, as if I am not showing sufficient respect for the safety of our country.

Here’s another video Paul found, a song written for a baby nephew by the baby’s uncle. I love it, the kids love it, and now I love the name Arlo.