At the still point of the turning world

T minus two days and we are wheels up to Hawaii. As I mentioned before, our furniture is gone so pretty much all that is left in our apartment are stacks of clothes to be packed and bizarre food items from the back of the cupboard left to be consumed before we leave. The boys seem to be adjusting mightily well. Finn enjoys the expansive carpet space to park his cars and trucks in broader lots of OCD organization and Henry really couldn't care less whether he is sleeping in a fancy crib or a blanket on the floor next to our air bed. It's been an interesting week:

Finn once again ran out of diapers before we realized it so while James scanned the aisle at Target for the smallest possible bag of diapers so we don't have to carry them with us to Hawaii, Finn went "nakie". We have been slowly introducing the idea of potty training but not wanting to start something in the middle of major transition (babywise peeps would be so proud of me), we have put off actual training until we get to Hawaii. Even so, Finn yelled over the women of the View this morning, "I need to pee", we ran into the downstairs bathroom, I hoisted him up to aiming level and he peed. I realize that for many of you who read this and do not have children, this is a sort of uncomfortable and unnecessary anecdote for me to be sharing. But for those of you with access to kids, this, you realize is a momentous moment that makes your heart swell with pride on a first words, first steps sort of level.

Using up the cupboard and fridge food makes for interesting meals. Monday, James made grilled cheese with the last bit of creamy tomato basil soup and supplemented with the final contents of a can of spaghetti sauce to make it go further. We've eaten kiwi with nearly every meal because I found an entire bag of them in the back of the fridge behind boxes of leftovers. And this morning Finn and I made pancakes with the last bit of mix in the box. We have about one table spoon of butter left and no syrup so feeling very martha stewart-y, I thought to sprinkle some powdered sugar on top for taste and aesthetic appeal. I keep the powdered sugar in an old ball canning jar and when I went to sprinkle, I dumped a huge pile on top of the pancakes that resembled a science fair rendition of Mount Hood. Finn promptly plunged both hands into the sugar and then clapped. This all took place during the nakie portion of the morning so wrapped in a towel, sitting on the counter, he covered us both in fine, sticky white powdered sugar and grinned from ear to ear.

Finn's language skills seem to grow with surprising speed and content these days. He often latches on to a word or phrase caught from some unknown origin and repeats it in every possible scenario to try it out. This week's phrases have included "ride it like a horse" and "backing up, backing up" as well as the Happy Birthday song sung in a monotonous zombie-ish voice that makes James and me laugh a little nervously, not sure if we should be entertained or disturbed.

I read the Babywise books one and two over the last couple of days because Mandy mentioned that their philosphy on baby-raising is most closely aligned with hers and Scott's sense of how they would like to parent Jake. But having already traversed the stages they talk about with two kids, I'm having some guilt that I didn't implement these strategies with my kids for their obvious health and emotional benefits. It's like reading the directions on a super-elaborate barbecue grill after you already assembled it willy nilly and turned the propane valve on, thinking, "wow it's a good thing nothing exploded."

I also read Anne Patchett's newest book Run and really loved it. I'd heard it wasn't so good and had even thought about taking my name off the waiting list at the library but then, as is my custom, I forgot about it and got an e-mail that it was waiting for me at the holds desk. Since I'd been something like #940 on the waiting list and I was already at the library picking up the Babywise books, I thought I might as well skim it. I was really pleasantly surprised. Anne Patchett has a way of making really unlikely situations very reasonable and accessible while still successfully making her prose full of lovely descriptions and unexpected connections--sort of the best of a romance novel, a political thriller and a naturalist's walk through the woods.

More once we get to Oahu....