The Big Man

The Love-Husband of Team Love is an average sized American male. Not particularly large, but to a 3-year old and to a 10 month old he is "The Big Man". Lily has developed such an attachment to Daddy that if he puts his coat on she starts bawling like the world is ending. There is no such reaction if I leave ;). David is already worried about getting totally wrapped around her little finger and giving her everything she wants with no discretion. Actually he was worried about that 3 days after her birth. When she came home from the hospital we stopped by a clothing store to pick up a few girlie outfits because, well, we had a girl! No yellow or green for her - it was going to be all pink, all the time! While we were in the store he said, "Oh man. It's really, really easy to blow the budget shopping for a girl. We have got to watch out for this one." Anyway, that is how Lily relates to her Big Man.
Tonight at lunch was the first time we heard the phrase "The Big Man" in reference to Daddy though. Moses was told to eat three more bites of his sandwich and his response was, "No Daddy. You're not The Big Man. I don't have to listen to you."
Well, that was a major misunderstanding that was rectified very quickly! Daddy is indeed The Big Man. And until you, little lad, are 17, 18 or so, he will remain the Big Man in stature both physically and authoritatively.
Then at dinner I snapped at David (almost certainly for something that wasn't deserving of such treatment - though somehow, I can't remember...) and Moses' immediate response was, "Mommy. Daddy is The Big Man. I don't think you should talk at him that way. You should say you're sorry at him."
Well, we certainly could use some extra Morality Police on the scene so I'll let it slide that apparently Daddy remains The Big Man and yet I am not yet viewed as The Big Woman. Well, I'm sure that Baby Lovelette III will take care of that misunderstanding, I'll be Big before you know it.

Bedtime Belaters

I don't think that "belater" is a word but it's my blog so, hey, I dub it acceptable. Moses is at the height of excuses to delay, lengthen, or avoid altogether, bedtime. At least, I hope that this is the height - that is the problem with first children - you never know how much worse it can get. It's very similar to a women's first labor. I definitely experienced a great deal more fear with the second labor then the first, due to knowing how much worse it gets. I'm just hoping that it works the opposite way for kids but I have my doubts.
Anyway, every time we squelch one excuse with threats that "if you ask for one more drink you lose all your trains", or some such other train-related punishment, he comes up with a newer, shinier, more innovative type of excuse.
The saga began with several weeks of asking for the proverbial "wast, wast drink". It is very hard to turn down a 3 year old who is "so, so, so, vawwy, vawwy, fiiirrrssty." But we've managed to eradicate that request by offering him 3 drinks before he get into bed (one milk, one apple juice and one water).
Then came the "one, wast, wast, wast, bwank bwank". At current count I believe that there are 9 "bwank bwanks" and he usually wakes up with a wet head from all the sweat. Tied in with the extra bwank bwank requests is usually a request for a new shirt or new pants or, my favorite, new socks (all regardless of proper seasonality).
The most manipulative request we receive is, "I just want yoooouuuuu." Very hard to resist but upon hearing for the 150,000th time I have learned that it is most often followed by begging for candy or some other pleasure that is certainly not as innocent as "yooouuuu". Also manipulative is the request to kiss, "my sister, Lily." This would be sweet except that she's usually been in bed sleeping for hours already.
The most spiritually manipulative request is, "Can we sing the Fr. Ed's church song?" One night while obliging my son's request for "spiritual hymns" he insisted that I also "do the drums" and so I pattered away on the side of the bed. He tearfully reacted with, "No, mommy. I want the song with wots and wots of people." So much for obliging with church songs. I can do the drums but I can not split my voice into lots and lots of people.
The longest-standing belater is that he is scared of the monkeys. This only happens when daddy is home to shoot them. Daddy will come in and "shoot" under the bed. Lately this has grown from, "And daddy, shoot the monkeys. OK, now the little ones. OK, and maybe the bird." The bird?
Also when daddy is home he has added to the bedtime routine a "cwash and a fwie". Translated: "a crash and a fly". The 'crash' is where David sits on the ground and Moses runs into him, knocking him over. The 'fly' is the typical "airplane game" with the added instruction (added every night, even though we think it's a given now) that he wants to crash into the side of the bed. This crash into the side of the bed takes place in slow-motion with many contorted facial expressions and usually ends up looking like road-kill with rigor mortis.
"Most Creative" prize would have to be awarded to last night's belater. "Oh, I have a great idea! Maybe you can set the timer and then I can get some quadeet (chocolate) milk!" Wow that really is a great idea! I love to fill my son up with sugar and caffeine as I lay him into his bed!
The second, and this definitely wins the prize for "Most Befuddled Parents Belater", also took place last night. I will let you imagine our responses to his questions, keeping in mind that they were mostly along the lines of, "huh?"
"Um, can you change this dark? Please, I don't like this dark. I want a different one."
We eventually construed that he wanted, for no particular reason, the light bulb changed on his lamp.
But I really knew that I'd won the battle (though certainly not the war) when he called me into his room after he had been told NOT to ask for any of the above things or else punishment would be swiftly and dramatically handed down. He stood there stammering for at least 3 minutes while I badgered him with, "What? What do you want? Why did you call me in?" Without his old stand-by excuses as belater-options his final admittance of defeat, complete with collapsing onto the bed, was, "I...I...I (sigh) give up." It was a sweet but short-lived victory, as the three-year-old's well of creativity never dries up.

Moses the Conniving

Charming and conniving are good words to describe three-year-olds.
A couple hours ago David had taken out his guitar and was practicing a couple songs and Moses suggested that David move into his (Moses') room to play while Moses built a train-track in the living room. This surprised both David and I because usually Moses would beg David to put the guitar down and build a track with him. Plus, the only reason anybody plays in Moses' room is when he wants to build a train-track and he doesn't want Lily to mess it up.
Next Moses brought all the tracks into the room where David was playing the guitar and said, "Maybe I'll build a track in here and you will play your guitar in here too."
Shortly after he struck the final blow with, "Maybeeeee, you put that guitar down and maybeeee you build a track with me."
He had succeeded in getting David in a room, away from Lily and with all the tracks. That is conniving.
On an unrelated topic, we were talking at bedtime about the new baby. He said that it might be a baby boy or a baby girl and that it was getting bigger and bigger. I said, "Moses, do you like babies?" He replied, "Yes, I like babies."
"Why do you like babies?"
"Gecause, they like me."
Well, duh - the oldest reason in the book.

Here we go again!

From this...



















to this in 9.0 months. Hey - it worked so well in 2007 we figured we'd give it another go in 2008. Announcing the creation of the 3rd Love-Child! Let the growing season begin!
I am very much looking forward to being stretched within an inch, or 1/2 a centimeter, of my life and I'm looking forward even more (imagine!) to holding a third beautiful baby in early September. We have a hunch that this will be a boy but not counting our chickens yet. As with the other Love-children we will not be announcing the gender before we see the little items with our own eyes so feel free to submit name-suggestions for both genders up until the polls close (towards the end of August). We are in special need of girl suggestions.
Having three kids is a bit of a milestone it seems. It feels like we are crossing from the realm of "married with children" to being a family. Not just "a little, young family" but a full-blown family. Still not a "big family" but you get the idea. There's no going back now! It's only a matter of time before people will know that we are either Catholic or Mormon just by looking at us in the grocery store.

Early Results In (updated 7:26 and 9:31 pm)

Huckabee...















Romney....



















and Thompson

















are in a dead heat for the Michigan primary win, according to the Loves' unofficial polling of Michigan-voters-we-know-well-enough-to-ask-who-they-voted-for Poll of 2008.
33% split evenly over all three candidates and all three people polled. Updates will be posted if there are any major changes. (as of 4:30 pm)

7:26 pm: This just in...Romney has taken a staggering hit with the vote splitting 3 for Huckabee, 2 for Thompson and Romney just holding in with 1 single, sad, solitary vote. McCain has yet to make a showing.

9:31 pm: We are surprised to announce that neither Thompson or Huckabee actually won in Michigan. This poll just did NOT see that coming. But the creator of this poll did end up with what she wanted (McCain did not win) so will not be complaining too much about the accuracy, or lack there of, of this unofficial poll.

Also, based on the above pictures, the creator of this poll would like to switch her vote from Romney to Thompson in the contest for best-looking candidate .

Do I dare?

So, our primary is coming up here in the next few days and we Michigan pro-lifers have got some decisions to make! I am daring to ask you what your opinions are on the Republican field - at the risk of getting no comments because no one else dares to air their political views on the blogosphere. But, I'm really very curious so here it goes ... (non-Michiganders opinions are in demand also!)
I'm voting for Romney (at least until I change my mind again - as has happened frequently over the course of these primary campaigns).
*While I have got my doubts/concerns about a man who ran as a pro-choice candidate in the past - I do believe in conversion and I also trust many of the people that he has surrounded himself with (they are rockin prolifers). Even if he has not had a genuine conversion in principles I think that he will honor his commitment to the movement because of the people has has asked to work for him.
* I think that IF Giuliani's wild scheme to start his momentum in Florida really works then Romney has enough money to chase him down all over the country and beat him out of the nomination (thank you Maria for that point).
And really, really the pro-life goal has to be to keep Giuliani off the ticket. The potential long-term damage to the pro-life position of power in the Repulican party is very frightening if he gets the nomination. The Republican party has GOT to need us - why? Because frankly, we need them. Without them we end up like Britain where the abortion issue isn't even controversial anymore because no major party represents them and prolifers have no political tools to work with.
* Although Romney has placed 2nd in Iowa and NH, and MI could be his last stand, I think that it could also be a case of the tortoise and the hare and MI could be his turning point. He already has more delegates that any other Rep. candidate and his 2nd place finishes in BOTH important places I think looks better then either McCain or Huckabee's 1st place finishes which sort of look like local-flash-in-pan successes, since neither one really made a showing in the other place.

Why not McCain or Huckabee? No on McCain for the obvious - he's barely pro-life and would do NOTHING for us as president. The man has done nothing to prove or even try to prove that he has principles on ANYthing (the war, immigration, taxes), least of all life-issues. He rides the popular wave. But we've all known that about him for a long time.
No for me, with reservations, on Huckabee because I don't think that he's as viable a candidate as Romney. Now, that being said - I'll be watching polls carefully over the weekend (national polls) and reserve the possibility of changing my mind. I'm very convinced of his pro-life principles but man, I don't know if he could go up against Giuliani b/c he's cut so many ties with the base on tax and immigration issues. He's much farther left on those then the base and not all in the base put life first. Lots are going to look at the immigration and taxes and say, forget it - Huckabee is running in the wrong party - and then if it's down to him and Giuliani, Giuliani wins the base and thus, the nomination. So, it's a tough call but ultimately my goal is a short-term one to beat Giuliani - not so much to beat Hillary or Obama. Obviously we have to choose someone who would stand a chance against one of them but their race to too-close-to -call and I would choose Huckabee to run against Obama and Romney to run against Hillary, so since I don't know who'll get the Dem's ticket I'm going for a shorter-term goal of beating out Giuliani.

Regularly scheduled programming

This is our first week back to our "normal" schedule since the middle of November. Due to trips, holidays and a family crisis, thrown in just to make life interesting, we have been running around like chickens without heads, hence the lack of posting. But yesterday we began real-life in earnest and it was very nice. This morning we got up, dropped the Love-doctor off at work and went to mass, where something that I thought was really funny happened.
We attend daily mass in a business complex that has a chapel included. They offer 4 masses a day plus confessions after every mass, adoration once a week and morning and evening prayer at the beginning and end of the typical work day. Rah rah Tom!
Lots of non-religious businesses and religious businesses rent space here and consequently have their newspapers delivered here. So, when you walk in for the early mass there is always a pile of papers laying there with the different organizations names on them. Well, I walked in past the papers and there was a woman there who I know (she goes to my church and is...well...let's say that I was avoiding getting into a conversation with her because it is very difficult to extricate yourself from the stream once you're in it) and she was poking through the papers and finally picked up a copy of the Ann Arbor News. I thought, "Hmmm, I know she doesn't work here - well, maybe she's carrying a paper to an organization for them, just to be nice. Oh well, I have to run to the restroom before mass." But I changed my mind about going to the bathroom when I saw her heading there (once again, the stream). So, at the homily (about 15-20 minutes later) I decided I really needed to go to the bathroom and hauled both my kids down the hallway (helicopters and all) and as I opened the door to the bathroom she was walking out - without the paper. I get into the stall and, lo and behold, there is the paper in the waste-paper basket. I don't know exactly why I find this so funny but I think that it has something to do with the idea of walking into a place of business, stealing a newspaper, and then using their toilet to carry out my morning paper-reading-taking-a-dump routine, all 20 minutes of it. I've been chuckling about it all morning, especially because then I saw her going up to communion at mass afterwards. What an odd duck.
On a totally unrelated note except the close time-proximity, we passed a worm on our way out to the car after mass and Moses was curious so I was explaining worms to him. "They live in the dirt and sometimes when it rains it gets too wet for them and so they come out. Also, sometimes you can put a worm on a hook and try to catch a fish because fish like to eat worms."
To which he knowingly replied, "Um. No mommy. The fish are movin and groovin in the water and the worms are not, so the fish are not eatin the worms."