Representing

Recently, I got wind that other parents at J-dog and V-meister's school have been coming in to give the children cultural presentations. One French mother has been doing weekly language lessons. Someone else did a flamenco dancing presentation, and yet another parent taught the kids a Scottish jig.

Clearly, it was time for the Lithuanians to represent.

So yesterday, my friend V and I (who really should be added to the cast of characters on this blog) treated our childrens' classmates to a short lecture about all things Lithuanian. V dressed up in traditional Lithuanian garb and I festooned myself in amber jewelry. We brought out ye old medieval map and pointed out Lithuania's three main cities. Did you know, children, that there are about as many Lithuanians living in the country of Lithuania as there are people in Cleveland, Ohio? Lithuania is very small, but also very special.

We talked about knights and castles, and recounted the legend of the Great Duke Gediminas who had a prophetic dream prompting him to build a castle high on a hilltop around which the capital city of Vilnius later grew. The castle still stands today and you can go inside. Can you imagine, children, an iron wolf telling you in a dream to build a castle on a hill? That Duke Gediminas sure was one wild and crazy guy!

We discussed the freezing Baltic with it's precious amber offerings, and explained that Lithuanians love nothing more than slinging back a few and going for a dip in the cold Baltic during the dead of winter. Then we passed around chunks of "Lithuanian gold," enticing the children with the possibility that there just might be petrified bugs inside. Can you imagine, children, a mosquito trapped in tree sap that is more than ONE MILLION YEARS OLD?

We presented the flag and the national crest. We talked about the ancient folk tradition of weaving while my friend V twirled around in her colorful woolen ankle length skirt. We counted to ten in Lithuanian. We showed the children a "surprisingly comfortable" wooden clog and whipped them into a right frenzy with a circle dance during which there was a great ruckus and lots of loud stomping, much to the chagrin of the Montessori teachers who stood smiling and wringing their hands nearby.

Finally, we passed out rye bread and Lithuanian candy, which was enthusiastically consumed. Everyone had a jolly time and then we went home. It will be a tough act for other nationalities to follow.

Later, over dinner with the family, my husband asked J-dog and V-meister if anything special had happened at school that day.

They said no.

Still, it was totally worth it. I'll bet any money we make the spring newsletter.


My Friend V

Bilingual Blues

There are some hazards involved in speaking another language exclusively with your children.

The V-meister and J-dog are still young enough that they haven't rebelled against the mother tongue, and think nothing of addressing me in Lithuanian wherever we happen to be.

The other day J-dog and I happened to be at Target, where many colorful items of craptastic plastic caught his discerning eye.

He ran up and down the aisles, happily pointing things out and shouting, "This! This! Mama, look at this! Ooooo, I want this! And this! And this!"

We got a lot of condescending looks.

Because the Lithuanian word for "this" . . .


is "šitas" ("SHIT-US.")



And this is neither here nor there, but I thought I'd share it:

Book Title Translation FAIL

Why My Children Are Bilingual

People are often surprised that J-dog and V-meister, who were born here of two American citizens, are bilingual - fluent in both English and Lithuanian.

It's not the easiest or most utilitarian of languages to learn (hello, seven noun declensions!), and really only comes in handy if you are, for example, traveling in Lithuania or wanting to talk about someone behind their back. So I often find myself fumbling to explain why a relatively obscure Indo-European tongue, one of the oldest living languages in the world today, is J-dog and V-meister's langue maternelle.

Lithuania was first mentioned in the annals of history about a thousand years ago. It saw its heyday during the Middle Ages, when, with all assorted fiefdoms lined up and standing on tiptoe, its borders briefly stretched from the Baltic to the Black seas. This was and still is Lithuania's greatest claim to fame, with the bronze medal winning Olympic basketball team of 1992 sponsored by Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead coming in at a close second.

Later, there were a few hundred years of great might through an alliance with Poland, but the country's fortune began to change when it fell under the rule of czarist Russia during the 1800s. There was a brief period of sovereignty and cultural renaissance between World Wars I and II (the shining period of Lithuanian history into which both sets of my grandparents happened to be born), but in the summer of 1939, Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union against her will as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Russia and Germany. It was punted back and forth between the two countries a few times during the course of World War II, but when the dust finally settled, it was Soviet occupied.

The Soviet Union worked carefully and deliberately to eradicate Lithuania's national identity (as well as that of the other two Baltic states - Latvia and Estonia) for nearly fifty years. Thousands of "anti-communist subversives" (read: journalists, artists, clergy, educators) were deported to prisons in Siberia, Russians were encouraged to relocate to Lithuania in an effort at homogenization, and Lithuania's culture and history were systematically "russianized." Outgoing mail was routinely intercepted, and people were beaten up and thrown in prison for offenses as seemingly trivial as the possession of a typewriter. (Typewriters were prohibited for private use because they could be used to disseminate anti-Soviet propaganda outside the Iron Curtain.)

Because of the looming specter of cultural obliteration, Lithuanians like my grandparents and parents living abroad made it their mission to ensure that the language and cultural traditions of their homeland would survive in exile. It's why they taught me - a second generation Lithuanian and American born citizen - Lithuanian from birth.

Growing up, it was the only language spoken in our home. Throughout grade school, I attended language immersion classes on Saturday mornings, (reluctantly) read Lithuanian literature as well as The Baby-Sitter's Club series, raced from Brownies to junior folk dance practice on Friday nights, and took back-to-back piano and Lithuanian lap harp lessons - all in the name of a tiny spark of hope that the country my grandparents had reluctantly fled some thirty years before would someday be free again.

In mid-January of 1990, Soviet tanks stormed Lithuania's capital city of Vilnius, zoning in on the area around the national TV tower where thousands of citizens had gathered in peaceful protest against the U.S.S.R.'s half century long rule. And while the international media's eyes were trained on the Gulf War half a world away, the Soviet Army killed 14 Lithuanian civilians and injured hundreds more in a last ditch attempt at snuffing out a grassroots freedom movement that had been slowly gathering momentum for years.

And less than two months later, on March 11th, 1990, Lithuania declared itself sovereign, the first of the Baltic countries to do so. To their utter joy and disbelief, my grandparents were alive to witness from afar the day they had no hope could arrive during their lifetime.

On the weekend when this occurred, it was my great misfortune to be stuck in town for the SATs while my entire extended family traveled to Washington D.C. along with thousands of others to rally for independence. So when news came at dusk that Lithuania had finally, finally declared itself free, I was home alone in a darkened kitchen, eating a bowl of Ramen noodles. And I, who only knew Lithuania from books, song and lore, stood in front of a flickering TV set and wept for her.

Lithuania went through a difficult time of transition from a communist state to a free market economy. And during the fifty years of Soviet occupation, its language inevitably evolved towards a distinctly Russian dialect. So much so, that my accent and vocabulary is two generations out of date and often deemed antiquarian by current native speakers. What's more, after fifty years of tireless efforts to keep it alive and pure, there is no longer a need to defend it.

And yet.

I continue to speak Lithuanian with my parents and even with my adult siblings. When the P-Dawg (who is not Lithuanian) and I decided to get married, there was no question that we would do the traditional Lithuanian wedding dance during our reception. And when the little V-meister was born, the words I spoke to greet her, the ones that flowed most naturally from my lips, were Lithuanian.

There was no question when I first laid eyes on her that Lithuanian would be the little V-meister's mother tongue. Though I had not shed blood, sweat or tears for the tiny homeland of my parents' birth, it felt as much a part of me as the wrinkled, warm bundle that squirmed in my tired arms.

Lately and understandably, it's getting more and more difficult for V-meister, and especially the younger J-dog, to express themselves in Lithuanian. English vocabulary is quickly replacing many of their Lithuanian words, and rightly so. My children are third generation persons of half Lithuanian descent living in a country - America - that changed their family's fate.

Make no mistake - we are American. I love America and will always call it home.

And yet . . . I will go to great lengths to bind my children to the vestiges of the long suffering heritage that is only half theirs.

It is the least I can do.




"Attack of the Killer Lithuanian National Doll"


(Click here if you want to read my family's emigration story.)

I Love It When a Plan Comes Together

You volunteer to help out with the school Christmas pageant, and next thing you know you're onstage sweating bullets in a one-size-fits-all velour elf costume:



I am the elf on the left, "Dzingu-Lingu." Loosely translated this word means, "Jingle."

My friend V is the elf on the right. Her name is pronounced "Zhvung-Zhvung" and translated means, "Jangle." I am not making this up.

We wanted to add a little pizazz to what had become a lackluster Lithuanian Saturday school Christmas pageant, where "pizazz" equals getting roped in to act as co-masters of ceremonies dressed in full elf gear, right down to our strap-on footwear.



My friend V and I wrote and acted out a series of skits that were to take place between each of the childrens' performances. I was a disgruntled elf who had run away from Santa's sweatshop in the North Pole and my friend V had come to retrieve me. It was up to the children to restore my Christmas spirit and help me remember the handbell tune that would summon Santa.

There was much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth when the night before the show, not a single parent volunteer had committed to playing Santa Claus. But it only took one passive-aggressive email to the distribution list for two Santa volunteers to come out of the woodwork and restore my faith in humankind.

We sang, we danced . . . we hammed it up in only the way that former camp counselors can. I even did a cartwheel, for Pete's sake.

And it was deemed "The best Christmas pageant . . . in about ten years."


"The Littlest Angel"

Saved by the Bell

On Saturday, I was hanging out in the kitchen of our church hall, waiting for the V-meister to complete her first day of L1thuanian school.  The V-meister actually speaks fluent L1thuanian already, but I like to run around like a headless chicken six out of seven mornings a week and besides, my daughter is not yet old enough to realize that she could be doing gymnastics or watching cartoons instead of reciting noun declensions of a Saturday morning.

Anyway.  There was another mom there prepping ingredients for some chili she was planning to serve at a dinner party that night.  Because I know that hers is a non TV watching family who also bakes their own bread and probably composts as well, I asked her if the chili was vegetarian.

It was! And before I knew it, I had launched into a monologue about my new flexitarian diet.

Now, I didn't know what flexitarianism was until I read about it in Martha Stewart's magazine two days ago, but I liked the sound of it and wanted to impress chili mom with my healthful ways.  All of a sudden, not only was I a flexitarian who eats nothing but grains, fish, poultry, and the occasional Big Mac, I was also making my family healthful recipes from the Moosewood Cookbook every other night. So while my friend V, who also happened to be in the kitchen listening to our conversation, shot me a look that said, "I saw you eat three pounds of ground chuck yesterday," I went on about the versatility of bulgar wheat. (What is bulgar wheat?) 

My friend V was on to me.  She said, "So. Do your kids eat these Moosewood recipes, too?"  And I was all, "Um, if I'm making something I know they wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, I'll give them soy nuggets instead."  And she was all, "You are so full of crap."  Which she didn't actually say out loud, but it was written all over her face, as was, "I'd like to see you turn on a stove."

My point is that while waxing poetic about quinoa, I realized that I have an affliction whereby I feel compelled to match my tastes and convictions to those of whoever it is I happen to be speaking with at the minute. And it's not that I'm lying, exactly, because I do like salmon and while I was speaking with chili mom, I was 100% convinced that I would never eat another Chuck Peterson Hungry Heifer special again as long as I lived, until I came home to find the P-Dawg making spaghetti and meatballs.

Before I had a chance to exchange wheatgrass smoothie recipes with my soul mate chili mom, the bell rang and I had to go retrieve the V-meister.  But now that I'm aware of my condition, I'll be working on developing a better sense of self.  Let's just hope that in the meantime, I don't meet any communists or trekkies.

Spaghetti with meatballs is a regular part of my flexitarian diet

It's Not a Cult

I have been to L1thuan1an camp and back!

There is no air conditioning at L1thuan1an camp. There is no Internet and no cell phone service. You share a bathroom with ten other families, you sleep in a bunk bed, and you let your children run rampant sporting Kool-Aid mustaches. All in all, it's a jolly good time.

I've told you a little bit about my family's cultural background, yes? But I can't recall whether I mentioned that V-meister and J-dog are bilingual. I've been speaking L1thuan1an with them since they were babies, so they are both fluent. And, see, there's this total immersion sleepaway camp in Michigan that I used to attend as a child where we conversed in our mother tongue, drank Tang, sang ballads, folk danced, and occasionally re-enacted ancient pagan solstice rituals. It was always the highlight of my year.

I loved it so much that I used to be inconsolable for weeks after returning home. When I became too old to attend as a camper, I signed up to be a counselor. So, when the opportunity presented itself to attend a weeklong family camp, the Ramas were among the first in line to attend - even the P-Dawg who has not a lick of L1thuan1an in him, went with us.

He was quite a trooper, eating cold beet soup and kugelis (potato and egg casserole) with the best of them, teaching a childrens' juggling class, participating in a campfire skit, and learning a few choice L1thuan1an phrases ("Let us drink ale.")

Now we're back, fighting off a summer sickness and digging out from underneath a mountain of laundry. But it was definitely worth it.


Me, running an obstacle course - and moving very quickly, I might add.


Obstacle course, leg two: pile diving off a picnic table


The V-meister and I performing in front of the campfire.


The V-meister and her cousin dressed up for L1thuan1a's one thousandth birthday party. (Can I get a what? what!) It is actually older than that, but was first mentioned by name in the annals of history about a thousand years ago.

So we had a birthday party. The kids dressed up all medieval-like, ate pizza and cake, and later watched Shrek II dubbed over in L1thuan1an. And while they did, we adults drank mead and ate whole chickens with our bare hands in the next room over.

Okay, not really, but we had a beer pairing dinner featuring everything from maple cured ham, to Lithuanian garlic bread with Havarti dip, to cured salmon finger sandwiches, to shrimp gumbo, split pea soup, black bean chili, and sour cherry pie. It was a pretty sweet birthday party.











Some other scenes from our trip:


The P-Dawg posing in front of some nature and a couple of SUVs.


The P-Dawg, preparing to juggle raw eggs over my mother's head as part of a campfire stunt.


Thorn Lake ("Spyglys")


The beach at dusk.


A cross. L1thuan1ans were one of the last in Europe to convert, but now they're as Catholic as they get.


That's all for now. I hope to be back on a fairly regular posting schedule soon!

Sharing the Bounty

Despite all the blog comments I've read to the contrary, I never believed that anyone *actually* rolled around on the floor laughing (ROFL) at a post until I started reading Halushki.

I've never met a more eloquent or witty kapusta head. Which is saying a lot, since the rivalry between Poles and Lithuanians goes all the way back to the middle ages.

I like Jozet so much, that I defeated my award/meme/linking phobia to give her a ROLF Award for this post, which had me ROFLMAO, spewing coffee on my monitor, and peeing in my pants all at once.

Please now, go forth and read Jozet at Halushki.

Hut for Sale; Desperate Hutwife Not Included

Oh right, my blog!

I've been bizzy.

Last weekend was a veritable Lithuaniapalooza. What that means is cultural festivities out the wazoo in commemoration of the motherland's 90th year of independence.

How is it possible that Lithuania could be celebrating ninety years of independence, you ask, when I just told you last week she only busted out from behind the Iron Curtain in 1991?

Lithuania has two independence days - February 16th is the first one, when we told the czar to bite us back in 1918, and March 11th, 1991 is when we shed the dread communist mantle once and for all.

The upside of being relentlessly bullied by evil empires is two separate excuses to party like it's 1999. But we like to place the emphasis on our first independence day because it sends a clear message that sez, "Suck it, commies! Let's pretend the last fifty or so years never happened."

So I spent most of the weekend rehearsing for and participating in the Lithuanianpalooza, where my extreme choir sang and even the little V-meister recited a poem and sang a song along with her little pre-school friends. The rest of the time during the program, she looked like this:



Next:

With the real estate market in our area totally tanking, the P-Dawg and I decided now would be the ideal time to put our hut up for sale, and so I spent most of Monday running around like a madwoman, shoving random clutter, clothing, toys, and the odd child under beds and into closets in preparation for our listing agent's visit.

So paranoid was I about the state of our lair, that I was practically tripping over myself to offer our agent my take on things that could be improved before we put the house on the market. Because, above all, I aim to please.

As we were doing our walk-thru, I would bound in front of the pack (the pack being the agent, the P-Dawg, the V-meister, and the J-Dog) to enter the room in question before anyone else did so that I could properly lament the sorry state of affairs and make totally unbidden and impossible promises like, "I was thinking we could just knock this wall out, you know, to make the room look bigger? And a new paint job, of course, and curtains, and why don't I just box up all the kids' toys and send them back to China right now!?"

I was pathetic. But the agent made only minor suggestions for bathroom and kitchen updates and, of course, advised us to get rid of all the junk I had thrown in the basement and shoved under beds and into closets in my foolhardy attempt to foil her.

Also of note:

The V-meister has yet another ear infection. We made the much dreaded trip to the pediatrician's office this morning. The V-meister quite enjoys the Ped's office, but it frankly makes me rather sick.

I like to go in armed with anti-bacterial wipes to disinfect any and all surfaces we may potentially come into contact with and also hover around the kids like a hummingbird on crack to ensure that nobody gets any ideas about licking the wall (J-dog!) or, you know, touching anything. By the time we get home, I'm totally wiped out, twitchy, and convinced that I picked up the flesh eating bacteria.

This ear infection, however, seems a lot less dastardly than the Great Ear Infection of 2007, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.

And now I'm off to begin polishing the floors with my toothbrush.

The One Where I Make Like a Shepherd and Get the Flock Out

Have you ever been stone cold busted trying to sneak out of a social gathering?

It happened to me this very weekend at the annual choir Christmas party.

The P-dog and I had had enough of the festivities and were making a stealthy exit when I realized that I had left my purse down in the basement, where the party was still going strong.

(And by going strong, I mean that a group of tenors and sopranos were playing "Spin the Bottle" while the altos and basses stood around the bar singing the one about the horse.)

Just as I had grabbed my purse and was heading back up the stairs, our choir director pops out of nowhere and commands me not to leave just yet.

Me, (in my coat and mittens, hoisting purse over shoulder): "Oh, no, I'm not leaving, just, you know, Hey, look! A communist!!!"

No sooner was I back upstairs with one foot out the door than a veritable stampede of angry choristers came lurching up after me.

I made one last stab at pretending I was just going out to my car to retrieve something, but it was a no go.

The P-dog and I shamefacedly went back down, where it came to pass that everyone was waiting to present me with the prize for "Most Unique Communal Christmas Tree Ornament and Supporting Presentation."

(It was a pair of binoculars, in case you're interested. The ornament, I mean. The prize was a pillar candle with pedestal and decorative rocks.)

Talk about embarrassing.

It's not that I don't enjoy the annual choir Christmas party. I usually hem and haw for a good couple days before it takes place, but then end up swinging from the chandeliers yodeling having a good time after a tumbler of eggnog and maybe a shot or two of Lithuanian honey liqueur.

My big beef with the Christmas party and most choir-related social events comes down to the fact that my fellow choristers do not consider it a party unless organized activities abound, and sometimes I'm just not in the mood for Lithuanian charades, Lithuanian bingo, or Name That Lithuanian Folk Song.

At last year's party, I was pitted against two sopranos in a Play-Doh sculpting contest. The assignment was to sculpt a falcon in one minute or less (I'm not going to go into too much detail about the rules, because I'm assuming you all are familiar with the falcon sculpting game?).

The contestant whose creation most closely resembled an actual falcon was to be named victor. Now, I can usually sculpt a pretty mean falcon, but in all the excitement, I momentarily got my birds of prey mixed up and ended up with a rather sinister looking vulture instead of its much nobler cousin.


Vulture


Falcon

(Kind of like mistaking a turkey for the glorious bald eagle here stateside.)

I did not take home any door prizes that evening.

I wasn't expecting any accolades for the binoculars, either, but I'm guessing the judges were blown away by my accompanying PowerPoint presentation, complete with seizure-inducing special animation effects.

Ha! I didn't really do a PowerPoint, but I did just give myself an idea for next year.

Weekend Update

The choir concert went off with nary a hitch this weekend.

I say "nary" because at one point, I almost came to blows with the soprano to my left, who failed in her duty to lead the first row of singers into the circle formation in which we were to sing an a capella number around the periphery of the church.

I had to step in and save the day by leading our row out in the opposite direction. The entire encounter, during which I can be seen wildly gesticulating, then throwing my arms up in resignation before exiting stage right was recorded for posterity, and if I ever get a hold of the footage, I'll be sure to post it here.

I was also apprehended by the Fashion Police for wearing gold lame (la-may) and a polyester cape. (The photo above does not do this outfit justice.)

I must have skipped practice the day we voted on uniforms.

But I am happy to report that illness was successfully thwarted and I was able to sing with passion and gusto. After the show, several fans approached me not to complement my lark-like singing voice, but to mention how entertaining it was to watch me.

I took it as a complement.

In all seriousness, the concert was lovely. An extraordinary group of musicians accompanied us on strings for several pieces, including the Mozart Mass, and there were several phenomenal soloists from our own choir ranks, whose performances were all the more impressive because most of them are not professional singers.

We sang several pieces a capella (without accompaniment), one of which was a Gregorian Ave Maria chant and the other a haunting "Our Father" arrangement. Since we began as a church choir (we now also sing secular music by modern Lithuanian composers, as well as traditional folk pieces), this particular concert featured only religious music by mostly Lithuanian composers. Some pieces were sung in Latin, others in Lithuanian.

Unfortunately, none of the photos the P-dog took from the back of the darkened church came out. The group shot I'm posting here was taken a few weeks before the concert. I'm in the first row left, next to the choir director (looking not a day older than sixteen, I might add).

If I ever figure out how to post sound files, I'll post some of our recorded pieces.

There's No "I" in "Team"

I've mentioned here before that I sing in a non-professional choir.

Tomorrow is our big twenty-fifth anniversary concert extravaganza and, wouldn't you know it, the little germ squadron that has been plaguing the V-meister for the past three days is now attempting to penetrate (I said penetrate!) the fortress of my immune system.

I'm not actually sick yet, mind you, but I can feel it coming.

Which is why I've been chugging expired packets of Emergen-C all day long in an effort to stave off illness. Let's hope the homeopathic warrior antigens win out, because have I mentioned that the success of this entire performance is hinged on my participation? It takes a special kind of talent to lip sync those really high notes in such a way as to leave the audience none the wiser.

Lithuanian choir is an extreme hobby, my friends. You don't just sit it out if you're feeling a bit under the weather. You hook yourself up to some IV fluids, offer up a little prayer, and hope you don't fall off stage.

Why, I sang in our twentieth anniversary jubilee concert five years ago with only half a functioning larynx, thanks to a nasty case of laryngitis. I was unable to speak for the entire week after the show, but that's what you do when you're a church choir supah-stah.

Just last night during rehearsal, an elderly alto almost passed out during the Mozart Mass in D. We had her lie down on a pew for a few minutes while someone took her blood pressure and fed her some Werther's Originals, and she was back on her game in no time at all.

Anyway, in between Emergen-C cocktails, I took my mom up on her offer to babysit the kids for a few hours and had a blissfully solitary lunch at a local cafe.

I was going to be all high-tech and post from the coffee shop, but I experienced some connection issues. Unable to get online using the cafe's network, I went balls-out and hitched a ride on some random unsecured wireless network named "Killer" that popped up on my screen.

Then I started sweating bullets, because isn't that like the equivalent of hacking into the FBI mainframe?

The connection was dropped after about two minutes (they were on to me) and I wasted the remainder of my lunch spree debating whether I should go ahead and turn myself in to the police station around the corner.

OK, not really, because I also have outstanding parking tickets.

But I did feel a bit criminal.

The End.

(And I hope I don't get sick.)

J-Dog Manifesto

Yo, yo, yo!

J-Dog here.

I hijacked the short tempered mother figure's laptop while she was busy picking lint off the couch.

While I'm at the helm, I'm taking the opportunity to lay down some ground rules for the mutha.

Perchance all of y'all could pass these on to her for me?

********************************************************************

I, J-Dog Rama, speaking on behalf of toddlers the world over,
Address this Manifesto to all people of good will and short fuses, (but especially MamaRama),
Declare my unwavering commitment to uphold the tenets set forth in this document, and
Invite all the childrenz of the world to join me in my effort at achieving the goals outlined herein.

I hold the following principles to be essential, and maintain that I have the right:

• To feed mySELF. No need to be all up in mah' grill with yer dang spoon anymore, mama.
  
  
• To nod off in my car seat whenever the moment is right, afternoon naps be damned. Don't be trying to stop me with your incessant chatter, your yawn-inducing rounds of the Lithuanian National Anthem, and your perpetual rolling up and down of the car window, woman.
  
  
• To run screaming in the opposite direction at shoe and/or coat donning time, then drop to the floor squirming when you be comin' at me with that sleeve, yo.
  
  
• To take a dump the minute you zip up my snowsuit.
  
  
• To smear my foot in my poop filled diaper, then flip over on the changing table and perform a nose dive onto the floor.
  
  
• To sample the occasional mouthful of dirt from time to time.
  
  
• To turn the storybook page whenever I see fit, and not when the written word dictates.
  
  
• To stand up in the tub.
  
  
• To pee in the tub.
  
  
• To poop in the tub
  
  
• To lick the shopping cart handle to my heart's content and don't be crampin' my style with no pimped out cart cover, betch.
  
  
• To be told I'm loved every day and held whenever the need arises.
  
  
• To melt and break your heart a million times over and do it again.

Note to the Mutha: To remove the oven safety guard, keeping tab firmly pressed down with one hand, use the alternate hand to snap lid free (she has a hell of a time with this, people.)

That's it for today, my peeps. I'll try to post again soon if I can get online. If any of my fellow macro-cephalic folk would like to add items to this here manifesto, I would be happy to oblige.

Oh, and a special shout out goes to In the Thick of It, who was the inspiration for this post. I hear you have a cute and feisty sixteen-month old daughter. (Call me.)

Peace out, my friends.

Birthday Aftermath

The V-meister had her second birthday party over the weekend. The P-dog and I are inherently lazy people and our living room is the size of a storage closet, so the festivities took place at one of those indoor play centers that I would have given life and limb up for to celebrate my birthday at as a kid, were it not for the fact that it flew in the face of our Eastern European immigrant code of ethics.

The best part of the manufactured fun had to have been the pin-yah-tah. The P-dog stuffed it chok-full of choking hazards and rigged it up from the suspension bridge. (A suspension bridge! Leading to a tree house! Which I totally climbed and forced my friend V to climb, as well.)

We forgot the blindfolds, but it was all for the best, because watching the assembled pre-schoolers attempt to bust open that pinata with a Nerf bat and completely unobscured vision was painful in and of itself. I can only imagine how dire the situation would have been if we had actually blindfolded them.

Someone eventually knocked it off of its rigging and then they took turns smashing the heck out of it on the ground. Finally, one of the helpers cut a hole in the thing and shook the candy out on the floor, and the little children formed a mosh pit of sorts, clawing and shoving their way towards the loot. I could have sworn I saw someone stage-diving from the puppet theater platform in all the excitement, but I can't be sure.

"This Party Is Freakin' Awesome"

The result of all this partying is a plethora of plastic games for 2 to 4 players ages 4 and up which, unfortunately, can neither be assembled nor played by a four-year-old and her eighteen-month old brother.

Which leaves me with the task. Frankly, I would rather poke my eye out with a pick-up stick, but such are the sacrifices we make, n'est pas?

I was ready to cry uncle and stick my head in the Easy Bake Oven whilst attempting to interpret the assembly instructions for the Hungry Hungry Hippos game. I suppose it's karma coming around to kick me in the bum for all the bad technical documentation I inflicted upon the manufacturing industry in my former career (although I always thought it would come in the form of a subpoena after a factory explosion, but whatever. I'll take the Hippos.)

You know you have reached the very nadir of self-respect when you find yourself asking your four-year-old if she could take a look at the instructions and let you know what she made of them. And when said four year old studies the page for a few seconds before offering a surprisingly helpful suggestion, well then you might as well move into the local Assisted Living community without further delay.

By the time I finally figured it out, I was hell-bent on playing a rousing round of Hungry Hungry Hippos if it was the last thing I ever did. But after about two minutes of marble gobbling ecstasy, the V-meister announced that she was done with the Hippo game and please for to set up the Cooties game now, mama.

I told her that was Daddy's department and gave her the fifty piece These United States puzzle please for to play quietly in your room.

In other news, the J-dog tried to punch a hole in the window of Exam Room Number 3 during his eighteen month wellness checkup this morning (the excitement of this post is palpable, is it not?), so indignant was he at Nurse Mary's audacity in attempting to measure the circumference of his gigantic toddler head. Swear to God, as soon as I released him from my choke hold, he scrambled over to the window and gave it a good one-two punch. Go J-dog! You show 'em!

Everyone is OK, though. The J-dog is thriving and I got a book recommendation from my pediatrician entitled, "Your Three Year Old: Friend or Foe?"

What more can one ask of a Monday?