Now appearing in my shoes: AnnaRay

AR has not stopped giving me a hard time about my reaction to our first failed attempt to conceive three years ago. Until now, that is.

Of course, I knew at the time it was ridiculous for me to worry I was infertile after one unsuccesful artificial insemination, but there really isn't any part of the whole conception endeavor that's rational, is there? We are driven by this snake-brain urge disguised as an emotional desire tangled up with societal expectations. It turned me into a loon, and now I get to sit back smugly and watch AR go through the same metamorphosis.

Biology, man. You can't fight it.

Except we are fighting it. As a couple, we are technically infertile, though chosing an anonymous donor from an sperm bank's online catalogue seemed like a perfectly natural selection to me. Once I got over the weirdness factor, that is. Of course, that was nothing compared to the horror I had to overcome when I was six years old and my sister told me where babies really come from. (Vaginas?! I'm telling Mom!)

Intercourse, insemination, in vitro, adoption - however you get there, the whole having a baby thing is one freaky ride.

Good morning, sunshine

It happens once a month -- I'm feeling good about the world, in control, confident, attractive, bemused at the wackiness that is life, back in my zen place, etc. And then the gods remind me that I'm not actually the boss of me.

Take this morning, for example. I sped off from the little green house feeling pretty chipper -- despite the fact that I am incapable of reproducing and not a woman -- and dressed to kill in my day-glo yellow biking jacket, my sleek biking tights and my incredibly geeky biking helmet. I was early after several long days, so I decided to stop for a bagel. I read the Times, I ate breakfast, I treated myself to a decaf. Then I went into the bathroom and vomited it all back up.

Let's recap: Not pregnant. Vomiting nonetheless.

It gets better. Post-hurl, I gave myself a few minutes to recover and make the best of a bad situation. (Me to self: "Sure, that everything bagel wasn't as good coming up as going down, but at least this gives me time to read the entire paper!") Once my stomach settled, I hopped back on the bike and took off for downtown. Again, I was feeling right with the world. Until I stopped at a light on the edge of downtown and, with a grace I didn't know I possessed, proceeded to fall over into the street.

Imagine a tree falling in the woods, except the tree is me, wearing my hideous gold coat and tights and a bowl on my head, and instead of there being no one there to hear it, I'm holding up two lanes of traffic and five other bikers.

The good news: I now sport awesome bruises on my right elbow and knee. And I made it through the morning without beating up any blind men or screaming obscenities at any paranoid schizophrenics. That's progress.

Segundo, where are you?

Alas, not in my womb.



(We were hoping for a second blue line.)

Make room for daddy

We received an envelope from our lawyer the other day. Inside, she led with a quick letter letting us know that we had now completed our business, thanks for your time, etc., etc. Tucked inside that was a copy of the kid's new and improved birth certificate.

All the basics are there. Place of birth. Date of birth. Mother: Judybat. Father: AnnaRay.

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.

Who's your Daddy? If your name is TheBoy, then apparently I am.

Part of me wonders how our lawyer managed to find the only liberal -- or perhaps illiterate -- file clerk in the entire state of North Carolina? Part of me feels like we hoodwinked 'em, and fears a middle-of-the-night phone call from an angry old white guy sounding a lot like Jesse Helms: "That birth certificate we sent you? A mistake. And by the way, you're all going to hell."

Maybe, but not for this. If any of you folks are in the neighborhood anytime soon, I'll be the one passing out "It's a Boy!" cigars and teaching the pooper to throw a ball. That's what fathers do, right?

The long, slow climb

Yesterday was the first day of fall, and I, for one, couldn't be happier to live in a place where the weather is decent enough to acknowledge that. While it was 94 degrees in Raleigh, with 87 percent humidity, it was 75 degrees in Portland, with 60 percent humidity. Delightful.

Last week, a chill wind blew in and lifted my spirits. There's nothing better than the first intimation that autumn is on it's way. I pulled on a pair of jeans for the first time in months and pulled my favorite wool sweater out of the closet. I don't think I wore wool once in all the years I was living in North Carolina. The temperature here drops down to 48 or 49 degrees at night, and it's a long, slow climb the mercury makes as the sun pulls it into the 70s by mid afternoon.

Dee-lightful.

It could be that trip to the accupuncturist that snapped me out of my recent summer funk, but I think it was the weather. And now AR seems to be slipping into the hole I just vacated. Alas. I'd say our timing is awful, but I think it's just right. We've always had the decency to take turns falling apart, which means there's always someone around to pick up the pieces.

No comment

I think I'm depressed or at least in some kind of emotional funk having to do with . . . well, I think we can all figure out all the things it might have to do with.

Thus, I don't have much to say. Sorry. I'm hoping Judybat found something in the Thursday Styles section that really pissed her off. Because I have nothing to contribute at the moment except a misguided wish that the sun would stop shining so damn brightly here. Bring on the rain, at least in reasonable amounts. Or for a day or two.

All I want to do with my time is eat cheese, read Harry Potter and sleep. That's healthy, right?

Is this progress?

The (NY) Times had the most annoying article in the paper today - and it wasn't even in the Thursday Styles section.

It seems a slew of young women attending the nation's elite colleges are all set to ditch their careers once they start popping out the kids. Cynthia Liu, for example, is a Yale student who plans to go to law school, then be a stay-at-home mom by the time she's 30.

Hope that works out for you, Cindy.

Uzezi Abugo, in her first year at U. of Penn. and showing exactly the kind of breadth of experience I'd expect from a freshman Ivy Leaguer, is quoted as saying:

"I've seen the difference between kids who did have their mother stay at home and kids who didn't, and it's kind of like an obvious difference when you look at it."

Then there's Sarah Currie, a senior at Harvard who said a lot of men in her American Family class approved of women staying home with the kids:

"A lot of the guys were like, 'I think that's really great,' " Ms. Currie said. "One of the guys was like, 'I think that's sexy.'"

It's comforting to know that even at the nation's elite colleges, 19-year-olds are still idiots.

The Times interviewd 138 freshman and senior women at Yale via email. More than half of these women plan to work part time or quit work entirely when they have children, but said that "pursuing a rigorous college education was worth the time and money because it would help position them to work in meaningful part-time jobs when their children are young or to attain good jobs when their children leave home."

Good luck with that, my sisters.

(TWO of the 138 women expected their husbands to stay at home with the kids, and another two expected whoever was furthest along in his or her career to keep working while the other spouse quit.)

Here's what I know: In most fields, especially ones that Ivy-League-educated women enter into, part-time jobs are not easy to come by. And even if you do find an employer who is open to flexible schedules, you are likely to be discriminated against when it comes to work assignments because we live in a culture in which you're considered a slacker if you're not working at least 50 hours a week - and that doesn't include commute time. And if you want to come back to work after taking however many years off until the kids are in school, finding full-time work will be just as hard because you've been out of the game for awhile. You and your dusty credentials will be competing against young, ambitious folk who have been rolling with all the changes your field has undergone during the time you were away.

When people in this country say they think staying home to raise your kids is the most important job you can do, they're just blowing smoke up your ass. If it were true, there'd be more support for it, like paid maternity leave and assurances that you'll be welcomed back into the workforce when the kids are older. If it were true, you'd see a lot more men doing it.

And this is why it drives me crazy to read about young women like Angie Ku, who "talks nonchalantly about attending law or business school, having perhaps a 10-year career and then staying home with her children." According to the Times:

Ms Ku added that she did not think it was a problem that women usually do most of the work raising kids. "I accept things how they are," she said. "I don't mind the status quo. I don't see why I have to go against it."

At the very end of this long article, the Times tosses out one lone voice of reason, who sums up for me why this little trend is so horrifying:

"They are still thinking of this as a private issue; they're accepting it," said Laura Wexler, a professor of American studies and women's and gender studies at Yale. "Women have been given full-time working career opportunities and encouragement with no social changes to support it.

"I really believed 25 years ago," Dr. Wexler added, "that this would be solved by now."

The way I see it

Item 1: I thought we started the blog because there were so many people out there who were fascinated by the whole two-chicks-having-a-baby thing, but were too shy to ask about it. (That and I think everyone should be subjected to what I have to say.) When I was pregnant, it always struck me as odd when a good friend would ask me questions on someone else's behalf about how I got knocked up. As if I had any qualms about telling anyone anything about the most intimate details of my private life. I was also surprised to learn that my pregnancy was the topic of water cooler conversations at work among people I didn't even know, (but who knew enough about me to know that I'm gay). As if the most intimate details of my private life were in any way interesting. I forget that to most people, whose reference point for everything gay is Will & Grace or The 700 Club, our family is a little, uh, different.

Item 2: Let's not disparrage those of us trying to get pregnant after the age of 30, because it turns out getting pregnant is against the odds at any age. (Unless, it seems, you are my sister.) Even if you're 18 years old and all your parts (and his) are in working order, and you're having sex at exactly the right time, you still only have a 1 in 5 chance of making a baby. That's what I learned way back when I was trying to get pregnant. Here is what I learned as we tried to get AR pregnant: Even if you give the sperm a ride past the cervix to the womb via catheter, (whatever length,) the tiny dudes still have to hike up the fallopian tubes to get to the egg. I guess I wasn't paying attention in sex ed, 'cause I always pictured them hanging out in the uterus until the egg made her grand entrance. Also, hanging out in the uterus wouldn't be what I pictured it, because, in spite of the fact that it's always drawn as a spacious-looking pear-shaped room, the uterus is more like a sticky sandwich, so says our doc. And If you think that's too much information, just wait till you get to the next paragraph.

Item 3: It's nice going through this a second time without having to actually go through it again. I already know what it feels like, and this time I don't have to take my clothes off. Also, I have not been compelled to think about it every second of every day for the two weeks it takes to get a positive or negative result on a pregnancy test. The first time I did the procedure, those two weeks lasted about two months, and I remember being hyper-attuned to the tiniest changes in my body. I don't eat steak, so there were no little tummy rumblings, but I was convinced my boobs were bigger. That, of course, was all in my head, and when I did get pregnant on the second time try around, I knew even before the little blue line showed up on the pee stick, because I was constipated for the first time in my life. I told you to watch out for this paragraph.

And awaaaay we go

When we started this blog, oh so many months and random rants ago, it was with the intention of chronicling our attempts to give TheBoy a sibling. In part, Judybat and I knew we wanted to record our experiences while they happened as both a personal history and so we could look back, during the more unpleasant moments to come, and remind ourselves that we really did want a second child. In part, we figured if we offered our loved ones details on-line, they wouldn't bother us in person or over the phone. (OK, so that last thought was just mine. Judybat actually likes people.)

Well, folks . . . here we go.

Last Sunday morning, just before my flight to fortune in Vegas, Judybat and I got on our bikes, took a leisurely ride to our neighborhood fertility clinic and commenced with the baby makin'.

I'll spare you the gory details like, say, discussion of catheter lengths and sperm motility. Let's just say that my uterus is a lot further up there than I'd thought. And when Judybat offered to join me on top of the table post-insemination, I wasn't exactly in the mood for some hot loving under the fluorescent lights. Imagine, ladies, a pap smear gone bad. Imagine, gents, your ladyfriend complaining about a pap smear gone bad. In other words, not painful but certainly unpleasant.

So here's the headline: I could be pregnant. Right now. Or not. The unceasing grumbling in my stomach and intermittent queasiness since earlier this week could be the result of a parasite carving out its little nest inside me. Or it could be my body reminded me that while I love steak, I'm really not built to digest it. I'm exhausted. But then again, I'm always exhausted. We won't know the answer until the end of next week.

My guess is that it will take us a few tries, but that could just be my brain trying to ensure that I'm not too disappointed if I have to go through the process again next month. It turns out that getting pregnant, at least at this age, is quite difficult, even if you time it right.

Why are Judybat and I telling you this? There is a risk. This grand reproductive effort could fail. I could get pregnant and miscarry. But the little woman and I both agree that this is an experience you should share with your friends and family, so that's what we're doing. If something goes wrong, I expect you to shower me with chocolate, coffee and good thoughts. If something goes right, stop by and we'll let you change a dirty diaper or two.

Stay tuned, and think fertile thoughts.

What happens in Vegas . . .

Doesn't always stay there. Case in point: I came home from my desert sojourn $150 richer, thanks to a lovely evening spent at the craps table.

Let me run that by you again, just to gloat: $150. Add the $50 I staked myself, and we're sending $200 to the Red Cross. Isn't that just the nicest thing ever? Personally, I'd rather buy myself a new fountain pen. But Judybat seems to think we should help other people. Like that's a message we want to send to TheBoy.

Anyway, three days in Sin City with my brother and my stepfather -- the Current and Forever, as opposed to the Once and Future -- seems to have been just the thing I needed to get me out of my post-summer rut. Except for the fact that I ate too much, stayed out too late, inhaled too much second-hand smoke and came back more heart-achey than ever about what's happened to my family.

More on that later. For now, let's all revel in the fact that I took some cash from TheMan, despite his best efforts to take it all from me at the blackjack table. Take that, Man!

Goodbye, Ella.

Today I rode my bike down to the autobody shop to collect my belongings (camping knife, jumper cables, 2 tampons, 3 scrunchies, 18 pens, 1 press badge, 11 cents and 1 tiny metal helicopter) from my car before they hauled her off to the wrecking yard. She was totalled at the intersection of a really bad day my sister was having and the joy ride of someone driving while being a teenager (DWT.)

I was not upset when the Allstate guy called to tell me my 1999 Subaru Outback Legacy wagon with a grand total of 65,000 miles on it wasn't worth what it would cost to repair it. We were thinking of selling it anyway. She spent half the summer sitting in front of our house with a dead battery before I got around to changing it, and then spent another month sitting crumple-faced after the accident before I got around to taking her in to the body shop.

Still, I felt a little like a criminal wiping my fingerprints from the scene of the crime as I dug through her compartments for the personal effects I'd forgotten I'd left behind. It's like I was washing my hands of this whole dirty driving business. I wasn't, of course. I still use our 2003 Subaru Outback Legacy wagon to drive The Boy to school and run the occasional errand that requires hauling something heavier that 2 bags of groceries and a watermelon. But I feel good about being a one-car family. I'm only sorry my dear Ella had to be sacrificed to get us there.

Oh well. No use being sentimental when gas is three bucks a gallon.

He's smarter than we are

TheBoy, that is. Our little bundle of sweetness and joy has, over the past month or so, turned into a scamp, a rapscallion, a fledgling evil genius.

Exhibit A: My little mimic
We were awaiting our meals at one of Portland's many fine dining establishments the other night -- OK, it was actually a Denny's in the 'burbs, but what are you supposed to eat when you're making the monthly Target/HomeDepot run? -- when TheBoy began climbing up on the back of our booth.

I asked him to stop. JudyBat asked him to stop. He continued climbing. I shifted into MommyVoice, pointed my finger at him and ordered him to get down RIGHT NOW.

He looked at me, grinned, pointed his own finger and bellowed, "RIGHT NOW MOMMY!" And then he began to laugh maniacally.

Exhibit B: Our new bedtime ritual
It began several weeks ago. We read our stories, we exchanged our kisses (a time consuming process given that our variety pack now includes normal kisses, cat kisses, bear kisses, frog kisses and bonks on the head), we pulled up the covers and we turned out the light. JudyBat and I both sighed, kicked our shoes off and adjourned to the entertainment center for yet another lovely evening of HBO's best on DVD.

And then we heard it. A tiny voice calling out from the darkness.

"Want pee. Need to pee."

We rushed him to the potty, thrilled that he'd taken this major new steo toward toilet training. Then we put him back to bed, with another round of kisses, covers, light-dimming, etc.

Back to the DVD.

Then we heard it again.

"Want water."

We repeated the process.

"Want clean ears."

Again.

"Want blow nose."

Again.

"Want poop."

And so our sweet little nightly ritual has turned into an agonizing ordeal. After the first round, JudyBat and I huddle in our own dark corner of the house, cringing, holding our breath and waiting for that little voice to demand something of us.

The long and short of it is that he's brilliant. We can't refuse his attempts to use the toilet, not when we're trying so hard to get him to use the pot the rest of the time. Also, there's only so much we punish him for mouthing off -- he is, after all, barely two and a half, and I do sort of look like an ass when I point my finger and raise my voice.

Plus, neither of us wants to scar him the way we may or may not have been scarred by our parents. That was a joke, sort of.

Anyway, I'm headed to Las Vegas for the next few days to enjoy a little desert high life. Be nice to Judybat. She's my peeps, and I'll kick all y'alls asses if you're mean to her. I do have The Rage, after all.

It's a (not so) fine line

It's not fer nothin' we call AR "The One with the Rage."

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I must point out that we'd all be a lot better off if AnnaRay could just learn to express herself; only then will random people in Portland be safe from walking into the path of her wrath. You don't see me going around kicking the canes out from under blind people - except for that one time, but that was only because I never watch where I'm going. We all have our issues.

Anyway, I think therapy is a great idea, but it will only help to a certain extent if a certain someone doesn't learn to let it out. Knowing where the rage is coming from is all well and good, but keeping it pent up is what causes the real problems. The other day my panties were all in a bunch about some misunderstanding or other, and I raised my voice in an effort to make myself understood because I didn't think people were listening to me, and a not-so-innocent bystander told me to relax. Everything was all right, he said. Well, everything was alright until someone told me to relax because he felt uncomfortable with a little bit of tension.

I did not kick his ass. Though I think I would have been justified, because what's more passive aggressive than telling someone to "relax" during a disagreement? It's like saying, "I don't have to listen to you because you are out of control."

I loath passive aggressive. It's dishonest and cowardly.

I'm not saying we should be like my aggressive aggressive father, who can't make it through a meal without someone storming off over something he said. By his own admission, my father sends so much flak into the air that he can't even remember what offensive thing he said to whom. Of course, he sleeps like a baby at night, having released all his toxin into the air for the rest of us to lie awake and deal with.

There's got to be a happy medium, I think, between unchecked, indiscrimintory, toxin-spewing rage and suppressing your justified anger until your head pops off. I might have a tendency to yell at times, but I've never been one for extremes.

Eh?

Here's my morning, in a nutshell:

- I visited another ENT -- are they all nice, geeky white guys in their mid-40s or what? -- to talk about my hearing loss. My second opinion was the same as the first: This is probably something congenital, it could have something to do with the ear infections I suffered as a tot, there's nothing anybody can really do about solving it or predicting whether I'm going to eventually go completely deaf. Reassuring. At least he was honest about it.

- Post-doctor's appointment, I hopped the bus downtown, stopping at our bank on the way to deposit some checks. There was a blind man at the counter next to me, and on my way out, I accidentally kicked over his cane. It flew across the lobby. I apologized profusely. He did not seem placated, understandably.

- The capper: On my way from the bank to my office, I passed by a bus stop where a seemingly sane-looking woman (SLW) was standing and waiting. As I walked by, she yelled something at me. I kept walking. She kept yelling. This conversation ensued:

SLW: I don't even know you. How dare you!
Me: I didn't say anything to you.
SLW: I know. It's the way you looked at me. How dare you! Nobody deserves that kind of look!
Me: Ma'am, I don't know what you're talking about.

At this point, she began walking toward me, continuing to carry on about my evil glare. I, in turn, lost it, and began asking her to leave me alone. Actually, I think the phrase I used was something less polite, like, say, "Back the fuck off now before I make you back the fuck off." And, yeah, I was screaming. And pointing my finger. And generally looking as menacing as possible, if I'm capable of looking menacing.

Not my proudest moment. This exchange has only confirmed something I've been thinking for a while: Maybe I need therapy. Because apparently, I have all sorts of surpressed rage just waiting for an excuse to come out.

Where has my zen place gone?

Don't cry

I had a couple of rants I thought I might post today. One was about Frank Rich and how I can no longer find solace in his column, because even though he articulates with such wit and style the many grievances I have with the current administration, (this week he compared Bush's mishandling of events immediately following Katrina with Bush's mishandling of events immediately following 9/11,) he seems to be getting more strident about it, (he described Bush's speeches as "sanctimonious," his actions as "reckless blundering," his m.o. as "fecklessness and deceit," - with "heartless" thrown in for good measure - and his management of the current crisis, "incompetent, diffident and hubristic") which should make his writing all the more enjoyable to me but instead makes me feel like he's complaining about the same thing over and over and getting more and more shrill because nobody is listening.

Then there was the fact that the newspapers have stopped calling the people fleeing from the death and destruction in New Orleans "refugees" and are now calling them - these people whose future is uncertain because their home has been destroyed - "evacuees," and how ridiculous I think it is that the word "refugee" might be so insulting to people, but then it occurs to me that the plane loads of black people flying into towns like Portland, where they hope to rebuild their lives, would in all likelihood be more easily accepted as "evacuees" than "refugees," and what kind of horrible things does that say about Americans and how we view our place in the world.

But no, I'm not going to rant today. Instead, I will contemplate the simple beauty of spilt milk on a cafe table, brought to you by The Boy:

Floods stink

And I don't mean that flippantly. My one brief experience with massive flooding, way back in my previous life when Hurricane Floyd hit, is that a flood of any size leaves behind nothing but homes and businesses that need to be demolished and mold growing everywhere and that stench -- dirty and dark and fetid and impossible to forget. Add in the heat and the hunger and the decaying bodies and the ants and the snakes and the desperation, and I cannot imagine what life is like in the Gulf Coast right now. None of us can, I suspect. I can, however, pass along a snippet of an email a colleague received recently from a fellow reporter working down there.

"If hell exists, it is here in New Orleans. After being evacuated from several places and braving the wilderness, I've found some electric and believe it or not a computer.

I've never experienced anything like this in my life. I doubt the state or the nation has either. You should see the faces of the refugees. Many have nothing but a bag, or the clothes on their backs or a baby on their hips. Mostly everybody has lost everything. The superdome looked like something from the third world. People are hungry. And desperate. The 9th ward is gone. The 8th and 7th gone. Eastern New Orleans and even Lakeview all under.

There are children here who haven't eaten in days. I would say 97 percent of the people are black, many poor and most will have no place to call home. Most of the workers here, the police, the emergency workers us reporters, none of us know if home still exist. I lost my car. Not sure about my apartment. And those things seem like simple sacrifices in the face of what this community, the entire city is going through. Family, television can not paint the picture we're seeing here on the ground.

Most of us in the field have nothing either. I've slept in places with no air conditioning, no electric and no running water for days. My newspaper relocated while I was at camping out at city hall. I left the paper monday night, to switch with another reporter with a ham sandwich and a bag of toiletries. Phones around the city were down. All of the circuits busy. I found out later that they evacuated. Several feet of water surrounded our building. Our cars were swallowed. They rolled. I didn't find out until late the next day when no truck showed up and the water was rising. We are grinding. We have no homebase and we are working extremely hard to get information out there. And we are actually doing it. We have traveled almost an hour away at times to find a landline or a place with a phone or enough light to dictate stories over the phone.

Its real out here. And our small losses, us lucky ones who have so far lived to relay the tragic stories emerging from this city, pale (understatement) to the thousands of people who died. Many stayed in their homes. The babies. The infirmed. The elderly. People are dying because they don't have enough medicine. People are dehydrated. People are turning increasingly violent in the face of such disasterous circumstances.

Pardon me now while I leap up on my soapbox: Journalists get a lot of shit these days for being lazy and corrupt and self-absorbed. On any given day, a lot of the criticisms thrown the main-stream media's way are fair and almost accurate. But there are also an awful lot of hard-working, honest reporters and editors and photographers and videographers and radio newshounds out there whose goal in life isn't to be famous or risk their lives trying. All they want to do is report the news, maybe do some public good, maybe even get all writerly once in a while. In Biloxi today, 30 percent of the newspaper staff haven't been found yet. In New Orleans -- or rather, in what was New Orleans -- they're trying to find a reporter who was supposed to be covering the hurricane from the Mississippi coast. He was staying with his mother.

I guess this is my way of saying I can understand the urge to do in-the-moment media criticism, especially when cutlines refer to whites "finding" food and blacks "looting" it. But I don't really think this is the time, just as I don't really think it's the time to criticize the feds, much as I would enjoy raging about Condi's up-close tickets to "Spamalot" the other night.

Let's count our dead first, OK? Then we can honor them by making the world a better place.

Here endeth the sermon.

"I dood it!"

The Boy has reached an age where he insists on doing everything for himself. We are encouraging this, as it seems to promote independence, self esteem and, as an added bonus, an incredible amount of patience in the moms.

This morning, while watching him dress himself, (in the green plaid pants and orange striped shirt he picked out on his very own,) I was reminded of this passage from T.H. White's The Once and Future King:

The new ant put down the [dead ant] vaguely and began dragging the other two in various directions. It did not seem to know where to put them. Or rather, it knew that a certain arrangement had to be made, but it could not figure out how to make it. It was like a man with a tea-cup in one hand and a sandwich in the other, who wants to light a cigarette with a match. But, where the man would invent the idea of putting down the cup and the sandwich - before picking up the cigarette and the match - this ant would have put down the sandwich and picked up the match, then it would have been down with the match and up with the cigarette, then down with the cigarette and up with the sandwich, then down with the cup and up with the cigarette until finally it had put down the sandwich and and picked up the match."

The Boy put one arm through the neck hole and pulled the shirt over his head. Then he took the shirt off his head and his arm out of the hole and put the shirt back on by pulling it down so the crown of his head peeked out the other arm hole. Then he tried again and managed to get one arm through one arm hole and the other through the neck hole. At this point, I leaned in to give him a hand and was repelled with,

"NO IMA! NO! I DOOD IT."

He's very good about picking up his toys, (especially when I explain to him that we won't be going anywhere, doing anything or seeing anyone until he does,) but his method is less than efficient because it involves playing with each toy he picks up for five minutes before putting it back where it belongs. He's getting more adept at buckling his car seat and bike helmet, so it doesn't takes him long anymore unless we're in a hurry. He's adamant about dragging a chair from the kitchen to the bathroom so he can stand at the sink and turn on the water and wet and soap and rinse and dry his hands after using the potty, especially before bedtime. He enjoys sweeping a lot, so I make a point to take the broom out only when he's sleeping, because sweeping to him means pushing everything I've swept into a pile back under furniture where it belongs apparently.

I know the day will come when I long for this time when he insisted on doing everything for himself, and then of course, I will need to learn a whole new sort of patience.