Let's Go To The Zoo, Part Three

Oh, but God help us, we went to the zoo. Thefuckingzoo, yes.

We've been basking in downright lovely weather for a few days, and so, because I am freaking raging batshit crazy, I suggested that hey! We should take Noah to the zoo! It's free! It's outside! We'll see some animals! Get some exercise! Check in on those goddamn pandas. I'm sure the zoo no longer fucking sucks anymore, I mean: Obama. Right? Everything in DC is magical again.

Results were fairly typical. The whole place smells like poop, is STILL under construction, the pandas were sleeping, the monkeys were all sitting morosely in their cages with their sad little ape fingers hanging through the bars while assholes rapped on the glass, and a tiger roared really ferociously, usurping that one scene in 101 Dadamations where Pongo bites the bad guys as our Number One Source of Preschooler Nightmares.

I forgot to bring a real camera, but got some pretty good shots with my phone, I think.

Noah saw some elephants, which was real exciting.

(Not Pictured: the overachieving father who stood there holding up his infant's bucket car seat in the direction of the elephants, if only the poor thing's eyes were capable to focusing on indistinct grayish brownish areas [WITH POINTS!] a good 30 feet away.)

Ezra maybe saw some trees, when he ever bothered to get his face out of my bra.

(The Ergo. Wasn't sold on it at first, honestly. Too much carrier for too little baby. Now it's officially the greatest! thing! ever! especially since I could push a stroller AND drink a $4 bottle of soda AND breastfeed AND bitch about how much my feet hurt AT THE SAME TIME.)

  

I forget what this was supposed to be a picture of. I got distracted when Noah started screaming "I'M AT THE JOO! I LOVE THE JOO! HI JOO!" over and over.

And then we came home, and everybody took naps, and nobody died, although I think they overcharged us for parking. Best fucking joo trip yet!

I Didn't Make My Bed Today But I Sure As Hell Will Lie In It

So we bought a new bed. This is easily the most exciting news to hit our little household, at least since the last time I created an entirely new family member in my uterus. Our little double bed has always been one of those things we preferred complaining about to actually, you know, sacking up and solving the problem, but now with a dog and a cat and a baby and a really very pointy three-year-old, plus two adults with at least seven old injuries from times we got drunk and fell down sports, and...let's see, carry the one and multiply by my need for extra pillows...HOLY SHIT, did we ever need a bigger bed.

We sold some stuff on Craigslist to raise money for the purchase (we follow this guy's plan for household budgeting and wow, it really works!), including our elliptical trainer that has sat unused since it failed to bring on real, actual labor like I wanted it to. Goddamn useless piece of junk. There's something kind of embarassing about a young, super-in-shape guy arriving at your house with a fat envelope of cash for your exercise equipment -- he hauled that thing down a hallway and up a flight of stairs without breaking a sweat -- and then looking at that fat envelope of cash and being all, "I'm gonna use this for a BED, where my FAT ASS will make a nice groove in the mattress in no time. SCORE."

We bought the mattress Wednesday night, even though we fully intended to shop around and hem and haw and waffle on the whole thing to a ridiculous level, but the salesman was so desperate to make a sale, any sale, that he gave us the one we wanted at cost. And I felt GUILTY about that, what with this fucking economy and all, and how the guy had to turn lights on when we came in because he was trying to save money, because who the fuck goes and buys mattresses on a Wednesday night, and then when he started trying to sell us a probably-overpriced mattress protecter I elbowed Jason in the ribs and was all, dude, just buy it before I start crying.

(Noah, by the way, spent the shopping trip running around the empty, depressing store shrieking with joy because we were in a PALACE! Like CORDUROY! Rows and rows of beds! We have to find his button! CORDUROY!)

Anyway, we have a king-sized bed now, or at least a king-sized mattress and boxspring sitting on the floor of our bedroom, super-extra classy style, especially with our full-sized comforter just sort of floating on the middle of it, because I think I need to sell a stroller or a bookcase or a kidney before we'll actually be able to buy a bed and bedding. I didn't update yesterday because I lay down to nurse the baby one last time before writing and BAM, fell asleep for three straight hours. It's a damn fine mattress.

Of course, Ezra slept for seven and a half hours in his crib last night, and Noah was so jazzed about getting our old bed that he stayed put too.

The cat, however, still thought my legs were the best spot on the whole wide bed.

Hmm. This is a mighty boring entry, and I have no plans for a big finish. So here, I'm sitting on my new bed staring at this shadow on the wall right now, and I think it looks like Jar Jar Binks, and it's wigging me out a little bit.

I know. And I can't even blame sleep deprivation this time. I'm just really and truly this weird.

Quick! Look! It's a baby! Pretend this all I posted today, okay?

Writing Checks Your DVD Collection Can't Cash

Or, Why I Didn't Post Yesterday

So. For the record, Noah has been successfully potty-trained since the summer. At least, in one -- ahem -- aspect of the undertaking. The second -- cough -- aspect has been kind of a no-go, and my word, am I making a lot of unintentional puns already. POOP. I AM TALKING ABOUT POOP.

This is, apparently, super-normal, and considering the kid lives on a diet of bread, cheese, milk and bananas, we had Bigger Issues to worry about. Bigger Issues I have no interest in documenting, except to say that constipation + stubbornness = honey child, I don't give a shit (bwah!) WHERE you go, JUST GO ALREADY.

Recently, however, we've gotten that situation under control, and were simply waiting for Noah to decide when Noah is ready, one of the biggest loads of crap (bwah! hah!) we've ever been told about potty training. 

(I know, I know. Some kids just wake up one day and decide to do it and everything works perfectly and the blessed angels sing and these kids' mothers become insufferable bores about the whole thing, what with the respecting of the delicate little bottom business and desires of the child and such. Let me tell you, the only potty-training assvice I will ever offer is that if you can avoid trying to train a three-year-old, DO SO. Make at least one honest hardcore attempt when they are still somewhat compliant and a few pounds lighter and easier to wrastle. Three-year-olds are scary. Do not engage a three-year-old. Teach your two-year-old how to use the toilet and where the Cheerios are and then like, check in on them in a year. Or two years. I haven't been hearing very good things about Four, to be honest.)

Personally, we've learned that Noah will be ready whenever Noah is offered the correct bribe...and then is sort of forced to accept that bribe through the luck of good timing on our part. For number one, it was -- of all things -- BUTTONS. Goddamn buttons. He was fascinated with all the spare buttons from my sewing kit, so I drew some buttons on a Ziploc baggie and told him he could have a button everytime he used the potty. For every accident, he lost a button. We went cold turkey to underpants and yeah, he lost a few buttons and I did some extra laundry, but in under a week, he was trained and the proud owner of every spare button in the house.

We've offered him a variety of bribes to finish the process, but none have really been enough. Candy bars, special outings, toys -- so. not. interested. I was okay with not forcing the issue, but dude. Three-year-old poops are disgusting. There's no Pull-Up in the world capable of containing some of them. That's a MAN, man, if you know what I am saying. However: he will go when he is ready, I maintained, through gritted teeth and a smile and a bottle of vodka.

It turns out, he was ready yesterday. There was some cajoling and repeating and repeating of the poop bribe du jour: a candy bar AND the 101 Dalmations movie, which he'd watched a couple weeks ago at my in-laws and has not shut up about since. We seized on this and dangled the chance to watch it again over his head, like a carrot.

(By the way, since I seem to get the same snide comment almost every time I mention the fact that yes, we own a TV and yes, Noah occasionally watches it, which apparently means he watches it ALL THE TIME, NON-STOP and thus leaves us NO TIME in the day to talk to him or read him books or do anything that would potentially help his speech, let me huffily clarify: Yes, he watches TV all the time, non-stop and we make it a point to never talk to him or read him books.)

(Seriously, though. He watches maybe one show a day. Little Bear before his nap, or Blues Clues as a reward for eating a good dinner. We have family movie night once a week where he gets to pick a Pixar movie. Exceptions are made on sick days or snow days, because I AM NOT MADE OF MAGIC.)

So where was I? Oh, yes. 101 Dalmations, which Noah calls the Dadamations, which kind of sounds like an avante garde dance troupe who could give Sparkle Motion a run for their money, but is also pretty cute. We did not actually have the DVD, but Jason assured me it was available On Demand. Bribe away!

I bet you can see.

Where this is going.

I pulled up the movie On Demand while Noah proudly chomped away at a leftover Halloween Kit-Kat and oh, there was much rejoicing, and then much scowling as Noah eyed Glenn Close as Cruella De Vil and looked back at me with much suspicion while I frantically looked online and through our Tivo options for the animated version. Netflix? iTunes? Amazon UnBox? FIVE ZILLION OPTIONS FOR INSTANT MEDIA GRATIFICATION, all of which offer nothing but the live-action piece of crap. Try explaining that to a child who has only ever known the magic of TiVo, who can request any specific show (and episode) at any time of the day, who cannot grasp that sometimes certain shows just aren't ON, who will one day roll his eyes at my talk of just five channels and aluminum foil on the TV antenna and how we watched Sesame Street AND WE LIKED IT and snow, uphill, both ways, with only VHS cases for shoes, and that's if you were LUCKY.

I found it divided into 10-minute segments on YouTube, but by this point Noah was crumbling into despair. "You need to FIX IT," he sobbed, pointing at the television, "Dats all WRONG."

What else could I do? I put the kids in their coats and in the car and drove them to the nearest store and prayed and prayed and prayed that their online in-stock status thingie was correct, thanked the nice man who held the door for us by ramming him in the shin with Ezra's stroller, and ta-daaaaaaaaaa! Procured the correct version of the Dadamations for Noah, who regarded the DVD with awe and wonder and proudly handed it to the cashier and proceeded to tell her exactly why he was getting that movie.

We came home and watched it together instead of taking a nap. People smoke and smack each other and call each other idiots and you know, talk about skinning puppies and Cruella is clearly the stuff of toddler nightmares. It was everything Noah hoped it would be, and I was Parent Of The Year for a few hours, until he -- ahem -- demanded it again at 11 pm.

The moral of this story, I think: Wait until they're ready, or at least lay off the fiber.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

My phone rang on Saturday at the exact wrong time for the phone to ring. Screaming baby, whining preschooler, misplaced shoes and house keys and that stupid plastic Piston Cup that has suddenly become the most beloved and cherished toy in the world, although apparently not beloved and cherished enough to NOT CONSTANTLY BE LOST. I let the call go to voice mail.

When Jason's phone rang a few seconds later, I froze.

"It's your mom," he said. But I already knew that.

I grabbed the phone and fumbled with it for a bit -- my palms had gone completely clammy -- and heard nothing but my mother's sobs. The room began to spin and my heart dropped into my shoes and I took two stumbling steps towards the step between the foyer and living room. I'd been standing next to a nice upholstered bench, but for some reason the step looked like a better option. Like if I heard the news while closer to the floor there would be less of a chance that I'd hurt myself when I went into a full-on slide-to-the-floor meltdown.

The news was bad, but it was not That Bad News. He was alive, but the pneumonia was life-threatening. His heart was out of rhythm again. He couldn't breathe. He was strangling and panicking. He needed a breathing tube, a ventilator, but he was refusing it and the hospital said they were accepting his refusal. No ventilator.

The next few hours were blurry -- I got very shrill on the phone with my mom, unable to fathom the idea that my father was lucidly refusing essential and life-saving medical care. No, I said. He's sick. He's been deprived of proper oxygen levels for too long. He's doped up. He doesn't know what he's doing. They can't let him do that. You go in there and you tell him that I'm telling him to get on that ventilator and let his lungs fucking heal already, only leave out the f-word. I know it bothers him.

But my fucking lands, really.

My brother and I talked too -- endless gallows humor and a debate over competency and stubbornness over who could rearrange their life this week to go to Pennsylvania and...and...I don't know. Do SOMETHING. Fix SOMETHING. Grab the nurses by the collars of their scrubs and impress upon them that we KNOW he's being a difficult patient but he is NOT a difficult person -- he is kind to children and pets and waitresses -- and he is OUR FATHER and we NEED HIM and look! He has a new grandbaby! Look at the baby!

SERIOUS BABY SAYS SAVE HIS POP-POP, SERIOUSLY.

In the end, my mom called back and said that he'd written a note and agreed to accept the ventilator...IF he had another serious gasping/strangling attack. Which...he wasn't having, at the time. But. Okay. Thank you.

He never needed the ventilator. On Sunday, his lungs looked the same. Which was actually kind of huge, because it was the first day where his lungs hadn't looked WORSE.

Today, his lungs look better.

Forgive the lazy Internet expression here but: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(In my head, that is not actually pronounced like anything but must always be accompanied by a wide bug-eyed, open-mouth expression, and then you shake your head -- just a little, like if you were a cartoon and someone just put a bell over your head and whacked it with a mallet -- once for every exclamation point.)

It's not over, oh, no. It's not. He is still very, very sick. The pneumonia is very, very bad. But it's getting better, finally. The medicines seem to be working. He's off the not-a-ventilator-but-not-a-simple-oxygen-mask machine and back to the simple oxygen mask, which he can pull off and talk to my mom for the first time in almost a week. His heart's rhythm is good, his breathing is better.

I think we're all breathing better.