Stuff I Want to Ramble About

First, Charlie has started talking liking crazy. He says lots and lots of words, mostly just naming things he sees, but he's started to put little words together to make rudimentary sentences.

Yesterday, he fell over and came to me crying, "Bonk! Head! Bonk!"

The other night David and the boys dropped me off at a meeting and Charlie started crying when I walked away from the car. On the drive home, he kept saying to David, "Back! Mama! Go! Back!"

One of his very first words was for "juice," which he calls, "boof." The other boys have picked it up and ask for boof also. So we have a little family word now.

Charlie calls Calvin "Cahvie" and Henry "Wewee." I thought that would make Henry mad, but it makes him laugh almost every time. He likes to ask Charlie who everyone in the family is, just to hear him say "Wewee."

My favorite is that he calls David "Daddy" - the other boys have always called him plain "Dad." The doorbell rings in the evening and Charlie runs from wherever in the house he is, chanting, "Dad-dy, Dad-dy, Dad-dy." Pretty seriously adorable.

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One time several months ago, I was thinking of creating a new blog for myself and I wanted to add some things and really go in for all of it and blog like a real blogger. So I was sketching out some of my ideas and playing with names and pictures and layout and what-not, all in a spiral notebook.

Henry came along and watched me while I was doing it, talking to me all the while. Finally, he asked what I was drawing and I absently told him it was my blog.

Ever since then, he has gotten out spiral notebooks on occasion and announced that he was working on his blog. He draws pictures and spells out small words and adds miscellaneous letters and numbers, with little squares around them.

He bugged me all morning one day last week, saying that he wants to put his blog on the computer now. It makes me laugh and I think it's cute, but he really wants me to take him seriously. So I think I might have to drum up a five-year-old's blog of some sort and let him have at it. Knowing Henry, it could be a real hoot...Here's what he showed me that he has in mind:



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Last night while David was reading to the boys before bedtime, I heard both Calvin and Henry giggling and cackling and I thought they were probably getting wound up and not cooperating or listening to the story. Then I realized that David was still reading, undisturbed, which he wouldn't be if the boys were being disruptive or not listening. Then I realized what they were reading: A chapter from Harry Potter.

I just ordered the six book set because Calvin is liking chapter books and it is such good writing that I thought he might enjoy listening. I know we are waaaaay behind the curve here - I haven't read any of the books yet (forgive me?). But better late than never, right?

Then I started to worry that they wouldn't get into the books or wouldn't like them because they've already watched the first three movies until they have them mostly memorized.

But they are enthralled. I loved hearing them laugh at a story, and beg to hear more and more. It's wonderful.

And this is where I want to say that J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyers do not belong in the same sentence. I'm happy Meyers has met with as much success, and there are a couple things I liked in the one Twilight book I forced myself to finish (the vampire baseball game and the idea that loving someone means controlling yourself) but the caliber of storytelling and readability are hardly comparable. Please. Read one chapter of Harry Potter and one chapter of Twilight and tell me which one leaves you as cold as marbly Edward. And quit comparing the two. It makes me batty. he he he.

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I haven't cut my hair since before we moved to Kiev. It's almost shoulder length now. I kinda like it and I kinda don't. Something in the air here makes my hair insanely staticky and fly-away, and I have yet to find a shampoo, conditioner or other product that helps with it.

I've never had long hair before. Never. Once it was as long as it is now, which was, coincidentally, when I lived in Ukraine before. Then I went to a beautician in Donetsk, with a picture in hand, and was shorn like a sheep (which was not the picture I had brought in).

Anyway, I'm a little chicken to go in to get my hair cut here. Partly because the mullet is alive and well here, partly because showing a picture didn't really work before, and partly because it takes someone really good to give a good, polished looking short haircut. Short also means more frequent haircuts, which means the same haircut stress more frequently. Or else more awkward growing out.

Plus, I had in mind to let it grow the whole time we lived here - it would be mid-back length by the time I went home. I would look totally different than I ever have, and I think that would be fun.

But the static. And also, I can french-braid other people's hair, but not my own. And also, ponytail holders are breaking it. And also, I hate the feeling of my hair under my cheek when I lay down to go to sleep (weird, I know).

And also, suddenly my hair is falling out by the handfuls. Yikes! OK, handfuls might be a slight exaggeration, but seriously - lots of hair everywhere. At this rate, I might be bald before it grows out much more. Besides that, even though it's my own, it grosses me out to find long dark hair on clothing, bathroom fixtures, the kitchen counter, etc. Ew, ew, ew. This is a problem.

So what to do?

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And finally, I love Netflix. We don't have cable / American television (which is half deliberate decision and half laziness) so it is the best thing in the world to get a couple movies ever so often in the mail. Happiness in a red envelope. It's the little things, people, the little things.