Motherhood: A daily adventure

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
—Matthew 11:9

Yesterday I took Zoë and Alexander to school for the October Birthday Lunch so that we could have lunch with Miriam. We didn't pack actual lunch, however, because I'd just gotten home from volunteering in Benjamin's classroom when it was time to leave again. Instead I grabbed an assortment of snacks from the pantry assured the children (and myself) that we'd have actual lunch when we got home.

Miriam found us in the cafeteria and we found a table together and visited while we ate. Alexander rather vocally kept asking for food so I kept offering him bites of fig bar. He'd only ever take teeny weeny nibbles, however, which is out of character for him. And then I noticed that in spite of the small bites he was taking his cheeks were bulging.

"Are you even swallowing?" I asked him. "What have you got in there?"

Sometimes he keeps food in his mouth for a long time without swallowing, but fig bars dissolve into mush pretty quickly so I couldn't imagine it making such a big lump in his cheek. He also has a habit of sticking his tongue into the side of his cheek and when I ask him what's in his mouth there's nothing in there at all but his tongue, little faker! 

This time, however, he opened his mouth to show me what was inside and a rock popped out—a pretty big one, too!

"Where did you get this?!" I asked him.

He refused to say (on account of: he can't talk yet) and I have only deduced that he either:

A) Found it in the "bib" pocket of his jacket (he sometimes puts things in there)
B) Found it on the seat of his stroller (he sometimes puts things there)
C) Had it in his hand the entire morning (having found it in the house because sometimes we leave rocks lying around (and by "we" I mean Benjamin and Zoë) because he will find something he likes (often a spoon or a car) and will carry it around all day)

That doesn't really narrow it down, but I know it wasn't in his mouth before we left the house because I nursed him (and his mouth was most assuredly empty for that activity).

I'm just glad I found it before he choked on it!

******

Last night Uncle Jacob and Aunt Shayla stayed for dinner. The kids and I are participating in the Beehive Book Club again, where we read a bunch of books and write reviews in order to narrow down the "long list" for the book reward to a "short list."

It's nice to be on this side of the list narrowing for once (job market joke).

Anyway, Shayla loves to read so I invited her to join us and they ended up staying for dinner. Andrew had gotten some cook-at-home pizzas from Costco and we decided to eat on paper plates, which is not very environmentally sound but it sure does cut down on clean up time!

The kids were goofing around as they were setting the table and Zoë started crying when Benjamin threw something at her. I didn't see what happened but Rachel did and she began to berate him.

"Benjamin! Why would you throw a fork at her?!"

"It wasn't a fork!" he retorted. "It was a knife!"

"That makes it worse!" she shrieked.

Fortunately we were using disposable utensils to go with our disposable plates so getting hit by a flimsy plastic knife really didn't hurt Zoë (she was simply being melodramatic, as per her usual).

******

Like all my children, Alexander loves dishes. He loves when it's time to put the clean dishes away because he can help pull them out of the dishwasher and throw them all over the floor or bang on them with spoons and so forth. He also loves that the dishwasher door remains open because he loves to climb on the door.

All my babies have loved this (along with many other babies in the world, I'm sure).

Alexander, however, takes things a step farther and will climb into the bottom rack and onto the utensil holder and, as far as I can tell, is rather intent on getting from there to the top rack (his next goal being the counter top, and then climbing up the light fixtures to the ceiling, probably).

He was standing on the utensil holder, trying to get into the top rack, when I came out from putting something away in the pantry.

"Hey, buddy!" I said, pulling him down. "This is not your personal jungle gym."

Then I started washing a cookie sheet left over from last night (we didn't have cookies, but Andrew did make crostini to go with the pizza) and while I was doing that he starting scaling the dishwasher racks again.

"Mom! Mom! Mom!" Zoë cried. "He's doing it again!"

"Alexander!" I chided. "This is a dishwasher, not Mount Everest! Get down!"

"He's not getting down, Mom!" Zoë said, stating the obvious. "Get him down! Get him down, quick! Mom! Mom! Get him down! Mom!"

"Just a minute," I said, rinsing the cookie sheet and balancing it on top of the other clean dishes stacked on the counter to dry. "I only have so many hands..."

"You don't have so many hands!" she objected. "You only have two!"

"You're right," I said. "I have exactly two hands and that's not very many, which is why I can't do everything at once."