WWJBD

Part of redirecting Baby Girl from mistaking her brother's head as a Nerf ball is a little game called "Justin Beiber." We play this game at least a couple times a day.

Now pay close attention, lest you miss the stratego of this highly amusing sport.

Place baby in swing or some seat in which he is reclined.

Peer in at his face, and with a slightly droning tone of voice, ask him, TATUM, DO YOU LIKE...JUSTIN BIEBER?

A small pair of edible cheeks will concave into the most adorable dimple cheekset ever.

JUSTIN BIEBER? DO YOU LIKE JUSTIN BIEBER, TATER?

Oh the laughter, the full-belly, dimpled-out chortling that will ensue.

YOU LIKE....JUSTIN BIEBER, DON'T YOU, TATE!

I don't know any of Justin Bieber's songs, I could barely pick him out of a line-up. But I know someone that just likes the sound of his name....

*** The other night, it was just Little Man, Baby Girl and I eating a highly nutritious dinner of pasta and Weight Watchers Giant Latte bars at the kitchen table. Baby Girl said she likes cutting shapes and putting them on her magic wand. "I believe you," I said.

"But do you believe JUSTIN BIEBER?" said she.

I love having inside jokes with 2 year-olds. They are the best.

Lady Day

We got to the theater 5 minutes after the show had started. It was dark. Baby Girl isn't exceptionally afraid of the dark. She's much more afraid when cartoon characters crash their skateboards than she is of the dark. We were there to see "Toy Story 3" which we'd already seen before. But who can get enough of Woody, Buzz, Slinky and Barbie for that matter? I had popped popcorn to smuggle in. This theater had an ice cream parlor in it.

We had left Little Man at home with Daddy-o. Girls Rule and Boys Drool type deal. She was going to get to sit on my lap and we'd whisper to each other that we liked Mrs. Potatohead's violet eyeshadow and yellow earrings. All of the tension over having to share me with a sibling would dissolve into thin, dark, movie theater air.

All of this is to say that I was going for Mother of the Year, or at least membership in the Mother of the Month club.

Until.

I couldn't tell you what.

Only that I accidentally bumped Baby Girl's leg on a chair when we were being seated.

TORRENTIAL TEARS. OVER THE TEARS IN A BARREL. FEMA WOULD FEAR THE DAM BREAKING ON THESE TEARS.

We sit down. It's dark. The Pixar short is playing.

I WANNNNNA GOO HOOOOOOME. NANA! DADDY! I WANT DAAADDYYYYYYYY!!!

I quiet her. Stuff some popcorn in her mouth. She'll be into it once she sees the "Toy Story" trademark.

I WANT GEORGE! I WANNA GO HOME!

We march back out to the car to get Curious George. Why would I not bring George into the movie theatre? Why would George not want to meet Woody? Duh, Mama K.

We use the loo.

We return to our other seats.

There are deep breaths. There is talk about how Andy is leaving for college and how Woody and Buzz need to get back before Andy leaves for college.

I WANNA GO HOME.

Somewhere from the back of the theatre, the voice of someone who wants to rightfully watch the movie for which he paid his hard-earned ten moneys.

SO GO HOME!

Fifteen minutes later...

We do.

We drive home.

But not before we stopped for a pizza moon.

Which is best eaten with 3D glasses on.

Summer that Was

Hey, September, how yoo dooin'? September, here's what: I'm happy you're here. You always bring with you the smell of U-Hauls and giddy college students, the sounds of wonky high school trombone players, "Haa-yaaang on, Sloopeh, Slooopeh, Hang Onnnn!", freshly cut football fields. Your days start to slope, the sun waning, 7:30, 7:15, on on on down to 6:30 p.m. and by the time your turn is almost up, there is a coziness to the night and an acquaintedness with new school textbooks, while still a hopefulness that there are big things still to accomplish this year.

But let me tell you about this past summer, September, the one you're sweeping up for me in your wake. I'll be frank. I thought this summer 2010 was going to suck. I thought I was going to be all soaking bedsheets with milk and wandering zombie-like around my creeky home at 3 a.m. But this past summer was awesome in its unremarkableness. It was just lovely, and smooth. We didn't go anywhere spectacular (Newport? Cleveland, anyone?). I don't even think we went out to brunch somewhere splendid. We just ate a thousand popsicles on our cruddy patio, watched the airplanes overhead, and wasted a lot of sprinkler water on ourselves, which, if you ask me, wasn't a waste at all.

Sure, it was no party when Loverpants got pneumonia. And the hematoma thing I could have done without. But I'll always remember Fourth of July, sitting with Brother Greg watching the "Boston Pops" on our couch and talking about how his blanket and law textbook were waiting for him on the Common, but instead he was sitting watching the performance with us on TV.

I'll remember chicken parm night with my old man and Julie, defining bummerooski with my mom and Goobs, and just being so grateful and shmoopy to come home from OH and come back to my life with my hubby.

I'll remember getting to know the girl that Baby Girl is now at an articulate 2.5 years-old, how she used "I'm sulking" totally appropriately, how her sapphire eyes, framed by her pixie cut, look out at a world and see not a complicated planet but only the ripe cherry tomatoes in the box garden, the sequined pink slippers on sale at Target, the travesty that is the removal of the "Shrek 3" billboard on Gallivan Blvd.

Most obviously, though, I'll remember the ease and wonder I felt for 104 days of meeting this new Little Man in my life. I don't know what angel interceded in Heaven so that I could have this little boy with a halo all summer long, but I am grateful. He is so marvelously adaptable that holding him - which I try to do as many seconds of the day as I can - is a tranquilizer, it's possibly the best drug a hospital lets you leave with, no prescription necessary. Just hold Little Man for a minute, ohhhh those soft little cheeks and fluttery eyelashes! And you will know.

So all that is to say that life until now has been wonderful, and welcome to you, September 2010. 30 more days in this month of turning 30. Yahoo.

*** Some snaps that our new friend, the talented Dr. Paul Yoo took at Boston Temple in the Fenway.