Nicolaus woke up this morning and ran out into the living room where I was already awake and working, because I work all the time and if I don’t start early I might die. He ran out into the living room — and then stopped. Crestfallen isn’t a word I use very often, but that’s exactly what he was at the sight of just boring me in my pajamas and socks.

His eyes filled with tears and he stammered a bunch of stuff and it took me a full two minutes to process that he was crying because Santa didn’t come.

Now, that’s crazy obviously because my god it is the end of July and even if you aren’t big on calendars it is 90 degrees outside and plus there’s usually some lead-in to Christmas, right? Like decorations and everything? Or you know, people mentioning that Christmas exists?

It seems that last night he attended a small festival where grownups were telling the kids that this is actually Christmas and to go to bed really good because tonight Santa is coming. And that I didn’t decorate or get a tree because I didn’t know about it. And that he even heard Daddy talking about it during the night, something about “Stay in bed or Santa won’t come tonight…”

I provided lots of good evidence that it is in no way remotely Christmastime and suggested that maybe — MAYBE — this was a dream? But of course those are all of the things I would say if I didn’t know it was Christmas because I am that much of a spacey flake and/or if I just didn’t want him to be upset because Santa blew him off.

Want to see what heartbreak looks like? Tell your kids that tomorrow is Christmas and then don’t mention it the next day. He really thought that Christmas had been canceled. And six is about the age where the awesome magicalness of Christmas is at its max, so for it to be canceled suddenly and without reason is right up there with losing a beloved stuffed animal or having Mr.Rogers look at the camera and say “You aren’t all that special. Even if you’re one in a million, that means there are thousands of kids out there who are exactly like you.”

So that was the start of our day. The good news is that if we ever decide to cancel Christmas for any reason, it turns out that the children will cry for under five minutes and will bounce back immediately if we let them play the digging game on my phone.

New print to that effect. Perfect for the geology nerds in your life!

Click to see the whole thing.

No one here slept much last night, but the week is starting anyway. How does that happen?

Yesterday was rough. The whole week has been rough. You want my kids? You can’t handle my kids!

Recovering from being sick, plus they want my attention because I’ve been traveling this month and working a lot and sick and lame and… yeah. You know? So the boys have spent the week practicing being loud. They’re getting good.

Yesterday they were fighting and wrestling and oh my god, my headache expanded to fill the room. So I sent them to go play in their beds for awhile away from my headache. Ah, quiet. Except that the bird went insane, tweeting and squeaking and banging on her metal cage for them to come back. Owwwww. Head hurts.

Every 1.5 minutes they would shout “Can we come out now!”

And I’d say “No!” not because I was mad but because my head was full of metal grinding against metal and the extra noise was making me want to pull up the wood floor planks and crawl under them.

Until 20 minutes later when they came out holding hands. They stood at the end of the couch and sang:
We are friends we are friends
We don’t fight we are friends
We are orbiting trouble, we are orbiting a planet of trouble
and we must find a way to activate
escape velocity
we are friends and we don’t want to crash into trouble planet
we have been orbiting it
that’s why we are friends

Which obviously that song was 100% worth any head ache. I did have to ask — so, am I the planet called Trouble? Nicolaus clarified: “”No, it’s not a planet called trouble, it’s just a planet where like everything is trouble. And if you crash land you can get stuck permanently in trouble. If you’re orbiting you CAN totally get in trouble but you can also get away from trouble.”

Speaking of planets and trouble, he and I are reading War of the Worlds right now. I am editing it as we go for a few bits of extreme violence and a lot of old-timey talk that makes no sense. I worried at first that the martian machines would be too scary, but he finds it hilarious. Which is good because now there are two of us on this earth who see that HG Wells was going for a rollicking good time with his tale of total destruction and devastation of populated towns.

So now he is drawing pictures of flying saucers and is making martians out of tin foil and generally being six years old. Meanwhile, Graham and I watched Toy Story for the first time last night and the movie transformed him into Buzz Lightening-gear. My head still hurts, but my life is pretty dang great.

A couple of things I’m working on right now!
1. A holiday card for the American Council of Engineering Companies. One concept out of many:

2. Flashcards for hardcore music nerds (pictures pending)

3. Labels for baby shirt packaging:

Awesome:
Me saying a bunch of idiotic stagefright-affected nonsense in front of one of the most powerful people in high-tech publishing. Not that I’m paranoid, but any guesses what he’s typing? My guess: Oh my god please make her stop saying words.

Singing with the smart people

Making it to my twin nephews’ first birthday party in New York City.

I just noticed that my dog is enormous. When did he double in size? And what the hell have I been too busy doing to notice?

I was in New York all weekend and Graham apparently did not notice that I was gone. Or maybe he noticed but figured there was a good explanation and no need to ask or worry about it? Anyway, awesome.

The stage and effects in the broadway show Mary Poppins

A few weeks ago, two robins checked out the tree outside our apartment window. The next day they worked their robin asses off building a nest while we watched. A few days later there were eggs and very soon there were babies. We watched them feed the babies, then the babies learned how to fly and went away. Those dang birds accomplished more in July than I hope to do in the next decade.

Graham got out of bed last night and played in the rocket ship closet until I don’t even know. One in the morning? I found him crashed in a semi-headstand that can only be explained by his falling asleep suddeny in the middle of one hell of a party.

How much work I have to do this week. Seriously, it’s all Nerdy Baby related and super fun.

AWESOME:
Graham’s overtired/hungover mood this afternoon.

Disney’s pathological insistence that materialism is bad.

Nicolaus and Kevin were sick with a horrible achy stomach flu the entire time I was in California.

How badly I want to give you a detailed review of Mary Poppins, like it matters what I think about Mary Poppins even a little bit.

Getting hit with the super achy stomach flu whilst in New York and so missing out on all of the fun with babies.

Riding in a cab to the airport, trying not to throw up.

Riding on a plane, trying not to throw up.

Getting texts from Kevin while I’m out of town regarding my dog’s refusal to use the bathroom outdoors on account of I am out of town

How tired I am even though I’ve slept thousands of hours over the last two days.

A few people have asked if it’s okay for them to print out the sewing machine diagram. Yes, totally but! The one I posted last week is only 72 dpi. If you aren’t technical, DPI = dorks per square inch. The more dorks they had working on the program that created your file, the better the quality of the resulting print. Well the one I showed you earlier was only made by 72 dorks and so it will look like a butt if you print it out. So! Please download and print this better version instead:
Sewing machine.