What is this Global Warming you speak of?

So the slide? Is very big.

And is very brightly primary colorific. Very brightly colorific.

Also? Two people who together weigh less than 300 lbs are not capable of taking it apart. But the two people in question did not discover this fact until after it had been put together. So my living room now looks like a freaking daycare. Good times, eh?


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But as you can see, it is a big, big hit, (yes, he's actually yelling his new favorite phrase "I LOVE it!" ) so I guess we just look like a daycare for now. Or until we sell the house.

Which might be sooner than I had originally thought, because, gee, I dunno, there’s just something demoralizing about spending, say, $10,000 on a brand-spankety new supah-efficient heating system, only to be completely deflated by one’s first $250 heating bill. Welcome to Utah, indeed. So I spent most of last weekend insulating my basement with the help of our trusty friend Mike in the hopes that we might stop hemorrhaging money heating the black hole that is our master bedroom.

And in case you needed another fun reason to live in Utah in the winter--you know, in addition to the weeks of temperatures where the highs are in the 20s (I, like Sparky, do not believe “high temperatures” and “20s” belong in the same sentence), may I introduce you to the meteorological wonder that is The Inversion? You can read the wikipedia article if you want to know what an inversion technically is, but basically, it’s the glut of pollution that gets trapped in the valley thanks to our bowl-like geography, making everything look like smut soup, obscuring my much-adored mountains from view and giving everyone the experience of feeling what it’s like to have smoked for, say, a decade. Because everyone should have that experience, no?

But lest I complain too much about my beloved new home, it is not wholly without merit. It is the land of Amazing Mormon Grad Student Babysitters, one of whom is the ONLY non-family member ever to put Sleepy D down for the night. And she got him to watch 20 minutes of an animated movie. Twenty minutes! When she called me "a knockout" last week, I almost asked her to move in, but I thought she’d think I was too fast. Or easy.

Oh well. At least she’s coming back tomorrow night so that Daddymatic and I can go to the movies. If we can remember what they are.

You, internets? What does the weekend hold for you?

It's official

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Well, internets, it's official. We've successfully renegotiated Heavy D's contract for another year, due in large part to a vocal showing by his as-yet untapped fan base. So thanks, Sparky, Kristin and Redneck Mommy in particular for showing the love and letting the management know how you feel about this particular player and his strengths.

So, as you can see from the vid, our little fella turned two over the weekend. It was an unusual birthday by Matic standards--no countdown, no cake, no party, no stripper--and the child is from a family in which the father often begins his own birthday countdown in January (hello, March 29?).

But fun? Oh yes.

For starters, Daddymatic got himself D a very cool remote-controlled car, which was an instant hit. I have never seen the Model D take to a toy this way, but, as Daddymatic pointed out, he is male and it is an Italian car. Even if it looks like a Volkswagen.

He also got a ride in my friend Mike's BIGTRUCKBIGTRUCK! which was very cool, since Mike is not above doing donuts in parking lots and shoving the bad-ass V8 into 4WD to show off a little, which got the typical D response of "Doot 'gin. Doot 'gin." And grins galore. And constant begging for "See Mike! See Mike!" at any given moment during the 48 hours following. It's embarassing to have one's parenting replaced by a $40,000 vehicle, but at least it's a really nice truck, right?

And finally, the perfect endcap to the day was a trip to the local hipster coffeehouse, because we have discovered that we can ply D into letting mama and daddy enjoy a nice latte or so by getting him his own frothy beverage, called "daviscoffee," known to mere mortals as a cup of whipped cream with a spoon. So we decided to forego our usual haunt and head to the hot spah-zot in town where the pierc'd and tattoo-ed staff was more than happy to provide D with daviscoffee. Unfortunately, I was midway through an ETM (extremely tasty mocha) when D dropped a load and we realized why we don't go to hipster coffeehouses more often: they are the only place in Utah that the plastic fold-down changing table people have left untouched. Oh well.

The partying did continue, in typical Matic fashion, as long as we could possibly drag it out, and given that even Utahans have the sense to celebrate The great Doctor Martin Luther King Jr., that means a whole extry day of funness. But that's for another post, so tune in next time for a full report on the Indoor Slide Monstrosity and, God willing, actual video of D voicing his newest phrase: "I LOVE IT." He says it so enthusiastically and, frankly, gaily, that I like to call it his first truly metrosexual phrase.

For now, though, I have cuteness that only Bee-bee can bring out in our precious spawn:

Forgive me, Internets. It's been a month since my last confession.

Things in the Matic household have been…interesting. The last few weeks reminded me of when I went to Alaska and saw Mt.McKinley. We were there in June amidst awful weather, and one day, someone said, “Go down to the end of the road and see Mt. McKinley. The fog has finally lifted from it and it’s spectacular.” As I’m walking down the road, though, I’m grumbling something about how in the heck am I going to be able to tell which dang mountain it is, since there are nothing BUT snow-capped, huge mountains around here, being that I’m smack dab in the middle of a mountain range, and then? THERE IT IS: a huge, towering completely snow-covered mountain, dwarfing everything in sight, and upon reflecting on it later, I thought “Yeah, I guess you can’t really miss that, huh?” Sort of like Real Labor—if you have to ask, it’s not Real Labor.

That is how the terrible twos were for us the past few weeks. I have whined here about D’s tantrums and his crying when I leave in the morning, which, while brief, is a tempestuous maelstrom of toddler misery and starts my day off with a whopper helping of guilt and a small side of relief that I get to go to work where, most of the time anyway, people do not scream and cry and crumple their sweet faces when I do something they don’t like.

And I thought, “Geez, he’s hit the terrible twos early. This is pretty hard, but I think I can handle it.” Just like seeing all those mountains, and thinking Mt. McKinley would simply be the vaguely bigger one with slightly more snow.

But ooooooh the week of Christmas, I finally saw Mt. McKinley Three temper tantrums before 8 AM one day. Most days, actually. Whining and crying and clinging nonstop from 7-10 every morning, despite however many time-outs or “mommy goes to the other room because that noise makes her ears hurt” rehearsals we did.

I did things I’m not proud of. I’m sure during one of those put-in-time-out-sessions, I was rougher with him than I needed to be. I yelled, despite the fact that it made me sick of myself to do it. I considered not re-upping his contract, which is due to be renewed on Sunday.

And then the night before we were to come back to Utah (because oh yes, most of the horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad parenting I got to do over the holidays was in front of my own sainted parents. Because God has a sick sense of humor, that’s why), D announces on the way home from some outing that he’s MAD! MAD! And starts to cry. It was some kind of gestalt-type release, apparently, because he cried—hard—for the next hour. Nothing would console him. Mama had to hold him UP (no sitting, woman!) and get him away from all grandparents, the TV, and most books and toys. We got him calmed down a few times, but then he’d start up again. We put him to bed early, and he woke once, equally hysterical, but did go back to sleep.

All night, I worried. Was he sick? Was he going to get worse? Would they make us ride on the outside of the airplane if this hysteria continued?

And then, in the morning, he woke up right when we needed him to—on his own—and was, for the most part, completely charming for the rest of the day. Certainly more charming than either of his parents, who each felt like ten pounds of crap in a five-pound bag.

Since then, thing have been much better. I mean, he’s still being Two, but in a much more manageable kind of way. He’s been affectionate, and even downright adorable on several occasions, so the contract re-negotiations have gone well. It was touch and go there for a while, but the fact that he pretty much poops on command and sleeps twelve hours at night has swayed our front office personnel considerably.

So, now, I will leave you with two bits of D cuteness in case any of you are still reading:

I may have mentioned a time or ten that D calls cats “gun-guns.” We are still not sure why, but the other day, he and the kitty were watching Daddymatic make cookies, and D looked over and said, as clear as a bell, “What do you SEE, Gun-gun?” He then paused dramatically for effect and replied, “I see cookies, Day-vuss.” (he has finally started referring to himself by his own hyper-articulated name. Because apparently, “Day-day” and “D-diddy” are soooo 2006).

And then last night in the tub, he grabbed himself by the business end and said “Day-vuss have a penis.” I concurred that he did. “Daddy have a penis.” I didn’t feel I was in much of a position to deny this, either. I mean, how do you think you got here, little one? Then he said, “Mama have a penis.” No, babe, mama doesn’t have a penis. What does mommy have? He thought for a moment, and then broke into a huge smile and said, very proudly, “a TATOOOOOO!”

That’s my boy.

Pictures coming--Bee-bee was the holiday photojournalist, so when I get them from her, I'll post 'em.