because we need a little lego, right this very minute

So someone figured out a way to combine Cal's two great obsessions, Lego City and Christmas, comma, counting down the days until--and manufactured this:
It's a Lego Advent calendar. I never had an Advent calendar as a kid, but my best friend in elementary school did, and though I liked the idea of counting down the days and popping open the little cardboard windows for each day, I remember being distinctly let down by the so-called "chocolate" contained within, which was chalky and dry and tasted a lot like those shell-shaped hand soaps people keep for show in the guest bathroom.

But therein lies the beauty of the Lego Advent calendar. No shitty candy, just little Lego trinkets. I think each little window contains a small little Lego thing, anywhere between five and ten small pieces, that fit together to make a little minifigure or Christmas tree or toy airplane, what have you.


Let me be the first to say that yes, I am aware that this is a total rip-off, because look, it barely amounts to a handful of Legos in the end, and it's not exactly like there's a lot of building involved. Also, some of the pieces seem to be of unclear Lego/holiday significance, like Dog and Cat Eyeing a Hot Dog:

...or Angry Santa Takes a Shower While Wearing a Thong:

...but whatever, it's still better than waxy pellets of chocolate in the shape of the Baby Jesus.

Cal found the box for the Lego Advent calendar a week and a half ago (I thought I hid it well, up on a high bookcase, but he must have some sort of Lego divining rod, it's the only logical explanation) and I discussed with him how this was all going to work, how he was going to open one little window each day up until Christmas, but we weren't going to start until December 1st, because each little window has a number on it, etcetera etcetera.

He listened very carefully and nodded and then the second I stopped talking promptly poked his finger into the perforated hole for December 1st.

"I just wanted to make sure that it works," he explained sulkily, after I extricated the box from his hands and returned it to its shadowy bookshelf home on high.

So anyway, tomorrow is finally December 1st, and I told Cal that Wednesday evening, after dinner and bath and snacktime, if he was very very good and was nice to his little brother and did everything the way he was supposed to, we would open up the first little window, and then one every day up until Christmas Eve, as the Lord and the good people at Legoland intended.

Not until last night did I realize that I'm actually on call tomorrow evening, so I won't even be here tomorrow night. Oops. I hope Joe remembers.

nostalgia and farts

As I think I mentioned on Twitter (aside: if you don't follow me on Twitter, you might want to reconsider, because I'm actually updating there with some frequency now--unless you think me prattling on about the minutiae of my life is super aggravating, in which case, please continue not following me on Twitter), I have been trying to put labels on all my Blogger blog entries from the last seven years. The first three years of this blog are archived on my old Homestead site here and here (the less you read these entries, the better for you, I find them terribly embarrassing in both design and content but keep them up as sort of an archaeological relic, like the city of Pompeii), but I've been on Blogger since my intern year in Pediatrics, September of 2003, and thus have over 1,300 entries to sort through and catalogue.

That's a lot of entries.

I don't mind skimming through an old entry or two, that's kind of amusing in and of itself. But skimming through ALL of the old entries? Is excruciating. I've only made it back through July of 2008 (right after we moved to Atlanta, before Mack was born) and already I have flashback fatigue. Really the worst part of it (and I realize I may be alone in this, perhaps some people find the act of going through baby books a delight but I find it somehow lachrymose) is seeing how much my kids have grown in the past two and a half years--In Cal's case 100% and in Mack's case infinity percent. It's funny, it's cute, it's heartwarming to see the old pictures and read the old conversations and look at the old video, but it also makes me kind of sad. Because someday my kids aren't going to be little anymore, they're going to be big and grown up and not little and squashable, they're going to be adults and going out into the world and having their own lives and not need me and they're going to donate all their old toys to the local daycare center ruled by an evil despotic strawberry-scented bear. And then I will weep. Hell, I'll weep now.

Not to just indiscriminately recycle old stuff, but this one's worth it: a video from three years ago. Just three years ago. Mack's now almost the age that Cal was then. Sunrise, sunset.

cal on: marathons

CAL
Mom, why do people run marathons?

MICHELLE
I don't know, it's good exercise, and some people like to run.

CAL
But they have to run so fast and so far.

MICHELLE
Yeah, that's true. But, you know, some people enjoy that kind of thing.

CAL
Yeah. Crazy people.


(Edited to add: I was going through and labeling some old blog entries and found this conversation I had with Cal from around this time last year. Hee.)

scenes from a marriage

When you are on home call--that is to say, call wherein you are carrying a pager (or in my case, two cell phones--one is a backup in case AT&T's notoriously patchy service drops a call on my iPhone) but not necessarily physically in the hospital, all you can think about is that your phone could ring at any time. AT ANY TIME. At any moment, you could get a call from the nursing supervisor telling you to get into the hospital now, there's some old guy with an aortic dissection, or some lady with a small bowel obstruction, or some kid with appendicitis who needs to go to the OR, so get your ass back here in the next twenty minutes.

I'm sure after a couple more decades of taking home call, I'll be inured to the catecholamine surge that accompanies every phone call, every text message, every twinge that indicates that someone somewhere might be trying to reach me, but...I'm not at that point yet. I'm just being totally honest with you: carrying a pager at home stresses me out more than carrying a pager at work. It just feels like the stakes are higher, or more invasive, like the hospital is bleeding into your home somehow. And having been on the receiving end of some pretty bad call weekends, I am admittedly a little bit...sensitive about things.

Now, these are some things not to say to someone who is on call:

"So...are you going to get called in?"

"You're probably not going to get called in, right?"

"Can I run to the supermarket real fast and leave you with the kids? What? Why not?"

"You're probably safe now, right? I mean, what are the odds you're going to get called in now?"

"What do you mean you're backup call overnight? But just backup, right? They won't need you, right? I mean, what are the odds?"

"WHY ARE YOU SO ANNOYED AT ME?"

This is why Joe and I are having a little time-out right now.