April 22, 2009...8:21 am

all existential and stuff

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It’s either some introspective cosmic spiritual thing or a combination of sleep deprivation and eating several one week old race car fruit snacks in my dirty coat pocket that I write.  Do you ever think of all the blog things that are going on and even if you did have the time or brain matter to write a post up, that you still want to wait till its the event(s) are all over before you post about it?  Like, how the heck do I post about all this and even if I could find the words and then actually read my own words and then think…I just don’t want to relive it all.  Can someone make an adult version of a fruit snack?  Ya know, like a range of them based on what you need at the time….chamomile fruit snacks to help soothe up to Valium infused for those more aggressive days? 

Moving along.

To recap all the milestones – we did the egg thing, we did the family Easter shots (kind of – self-timer is my kryptonite),

IMG_2313 by you.

we saw grandparent set one

IMG_2322 by you.

and two (along with an Easter egg hunt that looked nothing like the 1.99 Easter basket from my youth),

IMG_2339 by you.

IMG_2348 by you.

, and we live at Impression 5:

IMG_2275 by you.

We’ve had a chronic problem over here…going on 29 months.  Ive mentioned that Scrappy likes to jump in prior posts in a kind of light-hearted, “oh how funny, we have a little Mexican jumping bean”, or “Scrappy has a lot of energy”.  Here is the real extent – also, please don’t write suggestions about this behavior…we’ve done it all including me climbing the house naked with a prayer rod in 15 degree weather with wind at 18 knots, facing due-north minus 12 degrees at 10:15pm and reciting the Gettysburg address.  I blame grandparents, but let me just break down what he does.

Cute, isn’t he?  And doesn’t he look rested and all productive?

IMG_2246 by you.

We all do it innocently enough with infants.  Stand them up on our laps and let them jump so they giggle and laugh.  Grandpa Daane made click-clock horse sounds when he did it and Scrappy was hooked.  Then Grandpa was sick and wanted to still give Scrappy the jumping experience and bought him a bouncy jungle gym thing – in which Scrappy would jump himself to sleep.  So innocent and yet so effective.  But since then, every night and all throughout the night, Scappy jumps in his crib to the decibel level of shaking the whole house and while doing this bizarre un-Zen-like sound that is best described as a garbage disposal on its last leg with a spoon in it .  Hubby and I alternate evening jumping patrol so at least one of us can sleep, but its so loud and annoying that we never do. 

But we all have our breaking point and we both reached it. 

 Hubby woke up one evening to the sounds of our china rattling and that all-too-familiar jump and removed something .

He tore off the front crib panel.

And he slept.

But we didn’t because we were so wierded out.

And because there is another monkey see.

IMG_2381 by you.

We had to monkey do it again.

IMG_2384 by you.

Breaking points can be good things and so is precious sleep.  The transition of an open crib has been different but the adjustment is better than the house shaking and our neighbors wondering what bizarro alien-lab experiment is going on in our mothership.

When I designed Sailor Daane for Gangles McGee, I choose colors, design, etc, that I thought best reflected his personality.  It took a few months.  When beginning  a pattern that reflected Scrappy, (also called Pinocle in these parts), I had ideas.  I also gave other people the free association game and all unequivocably always said “jumping” first, “likes to wear hoods”, needs something loose-fitting, and blue.  Here is what I came up with:

Pinocle by you.

The stockinette and reverse-stockinette pattern repeats are meant to look like a stretched spring or coil, and of course there is his trademark gangsta hood with a coil-like trim:

Pinocle Back with Hood by you.

The pattern is done and is in the test-knit phase.   These are the ONLY two of 500 shots of him that are not blurry or him screaming “NO PITCHER”…they will do for now. 

There is still jumping when he first goes to bed as he can still uses the back of the crib, but I think it’s his equivalent of a nice Pinot Grigio before bedtime, and I for one would never take that away from him.

 

14 Comments

  • . . . . and they looked so quiet last Thursday on their way from the library to the playground! Who’d a thunk they were jumping beans? LOVE, love, love that new sweater design! Hope you’re including a non-hood option (not every little guy is a gangsta’).

  • Your “jumper” and his blue hoodie are adorable. And if he needs to jump before he sleeps, so be it. All kids soothe themselves in different ways. Scrappy’s way is just noisy. My guess is that by the time he goes to Kindergarten, he won’t be doing it. Hang in there.

  • Oh dear Squirrel Sister…I am so coming to town to scare your kids into behaving and then you and I are going on a girls’-weekend-roadtrip, ‘cuz you seriously need it.

  • Great solution to the problem. Of course you now have other potential problems like night raids thru the house, but a good night’s sleep is worth it.

  • Who knows why boys do what they do – they are boys!!! Wait until you ask why they are doing something and they say “I am a **-year-old boy, its what I do.” I about lost it when my 6-year-old told me that – I had to leave the room I was laughing so hard.

    The sweater is AWESOME! You are very talented and I am jealous.

  • His girlfriends will be muy puzzled over that jumping behavior. :)

    The sweater is SO cute.

  • ella will just look at him, roll her eyes and sigh. she’s practicing now.

  • Oh god, I’m going to have to go jiggle my crib front tomorrow morning when someone is awake. I don’t know if it makes that sound–thanks for the PSA! Ha ha!

  • Love the jumper(s)! The best part of crib-freed little boys is teaching them to turn their own light on in the morning and play. Don’t wake mama while you’re at it, kid. Good luck to you :)

  • Mary K. in Rockport

    Gymnastics for tots. Siphon that energy right off. I bet those Olympic champ twin brothers, the Hamms, started just this way.

  • I have so been there, Kahlan likes to do that too…

  • Love the bare feet in the Easter Picture !! Just think you actually had the time to actually dress up to the shoe part! Life has to be getting better.
    As far as the crib jumping–My daughter (now age 30 and a Marine flying all over the world with Obama) started rocking her crib at about 4 mos. Not a gentle side to side rock – a on her hands and knees back and forth rock ,which made her crib squeak loudly(WD40 was no help) all night long! Hubby said it sounded like a 50 cent Whore House on Saturday night. Kind of eee-aww like a donkey.
    All night-every night until at the ripe old age of 31/2 we could (somewhat ) reason with her. We told her she could rock for 15 minutes(egg timer) and then if she wasn’t sleepy she could read or play quietly in her room til she was ready to fall asleep. It worked most nights but those 3 1/2 years were hell- I kept thinking “no one really needs 6 hours sleep do they???” We feel your pain and frustration-isn’t it amazing what babies and toddlers can do to us and that no one ever even mentioned that I might have a child making my house sound like a brothel ? I think they should have known that there is never too much info when it comes to letting us in on the secret hell that awaits. I thought bed at 7:00- evening of knitting and TV with Hubby–HAAAA HAAAA !

  • Dang, grrl. I have zero kids and you have two jumping squirts of the same age? Ack.

    No wonder you want valium in your fruit snacks. I bow to you… I guess I’ll stop short of kissing your feet. Good thing they are adorable every once in a while so you can have a photo to remember the moment.

    Love you all.
    LynnH

  • You’re right, some things are so accidental. Mine sings….The entire soundtrack of The Lion King starting from “It is time…”, standing in his bed and waving whatever stuffie of the moment, in the dark. He has done so since he could stand without tipping over, and he’s now 7. It’s gotten so the entire family will chime in, IN HARMONY, if anybody starts humming it. Can he sleep without it? Not really. If you want, I bet I have an extra copy somewhere….:-)


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