I love that my son enjoys switching the toilet paper roll onto the hand towel holder, and the hand towel onto the toilet paper holder. It’s especially nice when company is over…
Found out today that I’m not above cramming last night’s dirty roasting pan into the garage before a playdate. So if you and your kid get together with me and Hudson sometime soon, just know that it’s pretty likely there’s a little Calphalon hiding out there by the laundry.
Undeterred by his sinus infection, Hudson is clonking around the house in my Manolo Blahniks, announcing, “This is a hiking trail!”
You know how time-outs are supposed to correspond to a kid’s age? A 4-year-old gets 4 minutes of time-out. Well in my house, age also corresponds to the number of times per day I have to ask my child “Where are your pants??”
Angry Farmer
So I’m gardening merrily away when I catch Hudson shredding the seed packets I forbade him to touch. He takes one look at me in my big straw hat, and tells me I look like “an angry farmer.” A Neiman Marcus sunhat is not standard farm issue, my dear boy!
Sticker Face
Yes, he did this to himself. Passed out in the carseat on the ride home from Disneyland.
Hudson’s internal translator fascinates me. Apparently, “You may give the dog one milkbone” means “You may continuously stuff jumbo milkbones into the dog until we come check on you.” Lesson learned.
You Say It’s Your Birthday
This morning my gorgeous boy gave me a card. Not just any card, mind you. He had taken my birthday card from my father-in-law and jazzed it up with some choice Clone Wars stickers and edgy ballpoint artwork. (I rescued the enclosed check, though! Score!) Now that’s what I call reduce, reuse, recycle. I’m still hoping for one of his homemade construction paper-crayon-glitter glue gems, though, so I’ll probably badger my husband into helping him make one later.
In addition, I received several of his toys artfully wrapped in that extra roll of birthday paper we keep around for the preschool party circuit: a green plastic dragon, a bracelet from his pirate treasure trove, and a musical toy. He actually did a better job wrapping than I generally do— which is not saying much, because as my family will attest, I am about the laziest gift-wrapper on the planet.
But my favorite part of the morning was when he translated the scribble scrabble on the card he had painstakingly detailed for me: “This says Happy Birthday, Mommy. I love you. Love, Hudson.” Yes it does, sweetheart; yes it does.
Cookie Monster
At 5:55AM, unbeknownst to us, Hudson padded into the kitchen in search of raw cookie dough. Jim found him sitting at the kitchen table, bold as brass, stuffing gobs of chocolate chip laden dough into his mouth. I’m hoping that his body will have built up enough of a tolerance for things like dirt, and milk drunk out of a cup used to collect roly poly bugs, that raw egg dough won’t make him skip a beat. I’m also thinking that I need to use some sort of fingerprint recognition locking device on my fridge.
Dogging My Steps
Separated By The Dreaded Door
(Note dog mucus on glass)
So this is about my “other” son. The canine one. The one who was coddled and babied for three years, until his princeling status was rudely usurped by the lil’ bundle o’ trouble known as Hudson James. We’re talking about Murphy, my gorgeous and utterly ridiculous 7-year-old Boxer. He is, simultaneously, the best dog in the world and the most spastic dog in the world. And he does some crazy shizness.
Looking back over the years, I’ve realized that Murph’s major psychological issues all center around being left alone in the house for more than, say, five minutes. This dog has perfected the revenge message, and the message has evolved over time. Murph has gone through various phases or periods, much like an artist. There was his couch period, when he was just a tot, during which he basically ate couches whenever we left the house. Then his taste for upholstered couch frames narrowed and refined itself into a yen for pillows. So much so that for a time we actually bought what we referred to as “sacrificial pillows” at Marshalls and left them out when we left for work so that we’d have a place to rest our heads that night.
After the pillow period came the counter-surfing period. Murph is quite talented at standing on his hind legs and and using his dexterous front paws to obtain his target of choice. Many loaves of bread (pushed far back on the kitchen counter, might I add) have in this manner become, well, toast.
Let’s not forget the diaper period, whereby any diaper forgotten in a bathroom wastebasket would be duly shredded all over the formal living room floor. What a nice surprise to find when you return home with your arms full of groceries.
Most recently we’ve endured the psycho period, which means that Murphy will select exactly one cuddly bear or plastic action figure from Hudson’s toy basket and leave it strategically lying (think chalk outline position) at the front door so that we are sure to see it when we return home. He does not chew on them. But he is clearly saying that next time, he might just bite the head off of that Anakin Skywalker action figure. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, suckers.
We’ve just moved into a new house, and Murphy’s separation anxiety has drastically intensified with this change. He follows my every move, dogging my steps so closely that he steps on the back of my flip-flops at least ten times a day. He could be in the middle of a joyous ball game in the yard with Hudson, and if I walk more than two feet into the house he gets a crazed look in his eyes and comes racing after me. If I make a trip to the bathroom, he waits outside the bathroom door for me. When I take a shower, I step out to find him lying on the bath mat. Hudson has taken to shutting Murphy outside with him so that he will play, but to no avail. Murph just stands at the back door with a stricken, obsessed look on his face, intermittently pawing the door and giving the paint a good scratch with his claws. In short, he has become my stalker.
Now whenever I leave the house, I put all pillows, bread, wastebaskets, and toys on lockdown. If I didn’t follow this exit procedure, Murphy’s revenge would be swift and merciless. I’m looking forward to the day that Murphy settles down into our new place and chills out. But in the meantime, I’m finding it awfully entertaining— not to mention endearing.
