Momma and her Boyees

A little before her Christmas galavant to St. George (minus dragons), Wendy was feeling enormous parental guilt at abandoning her spawn, and leaving her husband to work, babysit, feed, clothe, clean, and change the diapers (oh, wait: no diapers), and so she decided to treat them to a day at the zoo, followed by steamers at Starbucks, which has evolved into something of a personal coping strategy, and thus it is a great honour to share in the ritual.

Ahem. Back on track. Number 1 elected to stay home, being far too old for zoos, and far too cool for anything not deep-fried. He stayed in his room, silent (but deadly), mooning over some girl, no doubt, far away in Castelnuovo di Farfa, who was no doubt mooning over him, but probably in Italian.

I, on the other hand, was not mooning anybody, but was hard at work earning a living in my office, and maybe watching an episode of Prison Break online. Maybe.

Here's what Wenders got up to. I've posted this under her account so she can edit at will, with the proviso she not remove any mooning jokes or the stuff about steamers.

"Oh that ain't the half of it! Oh no, sistah! She was all like, 'oh no you ditint!' And I was like, "Oh yes I ditit!' And she was all like, "Get ouch mah face!" And I was like, "That's yo face? I thought it was yo momma's toupee!' Hee-hee! Girl, I was all up in her bizness, uh-huh!"

"Tyger, tyger, burning bright

"In the forests of the night,

"What immortal hand or eye 

"Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

"Kgkgkgkgkgkgkguh-kuh-kuh-ngaw. Huh? Sorry. What? You say something? Geez, I musta dozed off for a minute there."

". . . and we have a message we'd like to share with you: 'Nanananabooboo! Plllssllsplspllst!'"

"Hey Doris!"

"Yeah, Merv?"

"You got any uh dat cream left ovah?"

"I dunno, why?"

"My keistah is faschliggudah! That's why!"

"Oh my goodness. Honey, I don't think the cream's gonna cut it this time. Maybe you should go and see my son, the doctah!"

More monkeys, fairly evolved. Makes one almost believe old Chucky D. Well, wholesale, that is.

Nice work on these next two. Look out, ec. Wendy's gonna be all up in yo bizness!

"Ziss precociouss 'jungstehr'--ha ha, zat'ss a liddle choke I made zere (oh, zat's anuzzehr vun: tee-hee, zese are my pesst chokess, all epic-glottiss, you cood ssay!)--vass performing vhut vee call in medicine ein 'autotracheotomy.' Ass you can ssee, he missus zuh sroat, und inssted punckchuhrs hiss left chick. Now all zat happens iss vhen he breazs, he vhistles like a liddle faun viss a pan floot!"

"And then the alien plant thingy says, 'Feed me, Seymour!'"

The Graduate (and other achievements)

So Amber and Dave think it's a big, fat, hairy deal that Dave has finished his MD/PhD and got to wear the hide of the velveteen rabbit (with accents) at long last. Pshaw! Jonah, it must be said, has graduated from nursery school. We're still waiting for news of a fellowship. (Kidding. Congrats, Edwardseseses! Venisti, Vedisti, Vicisti! Semper Laudanum et Mari Juanium in Formam Pillulam Percorramum--est!)

Anyway, back to our graduate.

Oed and Ted:




A very sober affair (clearly):




Jonah and his BFF (a true Welshman, one of the cymry and a right proper gent)




Jonah and another friend, clearly not Welsh . . .




He vants to suck yor bludd . . .



Actually, all the boys thought the gowns were batman capes. It's not surprising, given the confusion caused by talk of "cap and gown."

Quick story: Wendy and I had sent the older two to PG for a few weeks, and we just had number three (terror of the high C!) with us. He was just two years old. We went to Home Despot in Lethbridge (I misspelled that on porpoise), and he was growing restless being in the cart, so a kind sales associate gave him a roll of stickers. Jonah looked at him incredulously, but accepted the gift and then sat there considering for some time. I went back to the ceiling fans and he was quiet for a good long while. Suddenly he began exclaiming "I'm a genius! I'm a genius!" over and over. I looked back, and he was plastering the shopping cart with stickers.

The act itself wasn't remarkable: it was his command (use and understanding) of the word genius that was remarkable (and darn cute).

Well, here's proof: Jonah only went to school for the last two months, and he's already caught up with his peers. Behold the evidence:

First, a note from his delightful teacher, Ms. Sue, who's from Sohth Aavrick-a:




The cover page of his report card, decorated par soi-meme:




And the report:






Now our report: Jonah continues to keep us in stitches, and on pins and needles. He bursts into song regularly, and not always songs we'd like him to sing. He spells, counts, plays solitaire (but not solitarily: one is always informed about Jonah's whereabouts and activities a' la Howard Cosell, i.e. Jonah's own running commentary), plinks out tunes on the piano, leaves a trail of belongings throughout the house (like the old Family Circus kid, but with toys and items of clothing instead of dashes), imitates every accent he hears, can't say "mi chiamo" to save his life (comes out more like "mi cameo," which if he were attempting Spanish would be kind of apropos, because he behaves as though every moment of every day is his own highly anticipated cameo), and just loves being alive. This is infectious, obnoxious, and precious. I'm writing that tonight because we've had an inordinately high dosage of Calvin-Jonah lately, and we're accen-tuate-ing the positive.


Christopher, by no means a slouch, has also been honoured of late. We should note that he has also "graduate," as my students would say, from "prim'ry school," and will no longer have to wear knickers and dippy shirts, though during the hot months he'll wish that weren't so. He and his class put on their big year-end show tomorrow night, so we'll post a few pics or maybe a short vid clip before we leave (Wednesday!). In the meantime, here're two pics to tide you over:


In this first one, you can plainly see that the beatings with the ugly stick have increased in intensity and frequency . . .





And here's the cert. By way of explanation, C often uses his first name at school, to his mother's continuing chagrin (not because she doesn't like my brother Steve, or his name, but just because he's Christopher to us), and the school's obvious confusion. I think it's slightly devilish, not to mention mildly subversive, and therefore approve of it whole heartedly.

Armless, or better, Armful, or better, Signs that it's time to head back to the gym for toning exercises

Weekly cute: perhaps as part of his oedipal fixation, or maybe as a compensation for his refusal to nurse properly as an infant, Jonah has developed a tactile fetish for what he calls "chubby": "Dad, I love your chubby," he'll say, while patting my, ahem, svelte and rock-hard abdomen.

But as I said, he is an oedipal soul at present, so this fetish has as its apex the squeezing of Wendy's upper arm. The other day, by her account (and I should tell you she has instructed me to share this story), Jonah was in the middle of his squeeze fest when he made this comment:

"Mom, I love your arms. They're just like play dough."

Ay caramba.


We should also say that our other two kids are cute, it's just that they rarely do anything expressly cute, since they are of course manly men. But, we did get a few calls last weekend from girls calling Christopher to inform him that some girl named Alex S likes him.

Christopher's response: turn several shades of red, stammer, and hang up. Also, avoid the phone for the next two days, but never be very far away when it was answered, and without exception ask the respondent who, what, and what else.


Report cards are in (well, Riley's is. Christopher "never got [his]"). Uh-huh. Anyway, Riley is at year level or better in all but two of his subjects, to which he is a newcomer, and his Arabic teach anticipates him being at year level by year's end: in Spanish, where the expectations are higher, he'll almost be there. We may have an heir-apparent.

Peace out.