starry night

Elder lad: "Mama, I love you more than all the "dually" truck tires they could make before the sun burns out in five billion years."

Wow.

always listening

At the breakfast proceedings this morning, the elder lad said something that flat out did not make any sense -- highly unusual for our always-thinking analytical future Mack truck driver, not so much for me. When I questioned him on the gaffe, he said "oh, excuse me. I haven't had my coffee yet."

(For the record, he doesn't drink coffee.)

"Where have you heard that before?!" I asked, knowing the answer already.

"From you," he said with a sort of smirk, at once sheepish but confident.

Oh my.

sugar and spice

The baking and frosting of the elder lad's birthday confections were collaborative efforts (though the consumption was every lad for himself).  As fun as that was for both of us, the birthday lad and I, if we had had some helpers like the ones in Who Made This Cake, that would've been infinitely more exciting.

In this charming story written by Chihiro Nakagawa and illustrated by Junji Koyose, tiny construction workers bring in big construction equipment and even a helicopter to bake a birthday cake (in the microwave, oddly), frost it with whipped cream, and festoon it with birthday felicitations.  Does it get much better for a lad who likes to have "cooking camp" in the kitchen with his mama and still has an insatiable interest in trucks and construction vehicles?  The elder lad thinks not.

I've reviewed some of our favorite baking-related and construction-related books before (with a follow-up to the cookie post here), but never one that combined both fascinations.  That virtually guarantees its place among the perennial favorites and a must-read for every birthday celebration.

seven

"Happy Monday Ev'ryone!  (Do not erase until all see.)"

Our elder lad turned seven yesterday.  He penned this message a few Sunday nights ago then covered it with a paper towel to keep everyone in suspense. That's just like him: always thinking of ways to get his message across, often employing his ten-dollar vocabulary and quick thinking to be as persuasive as possible.  He's rarely satisfied with half-baked responses, and he has developed an intriguing abhorrence to clutter and mess (the exception being the closet he shares with his younger brother, though he will get in there from time to time and work things over quite handily all on his own). 

His love endures for trucks and Legos.  He seems to have his father's mechanical inclinations, he is justifiably proud of his egg-scrambling skills, and art class is often the highlight of his school day.  He dotes on his baby sister (the younger lass) and is usually the only sibling who can convince the elder lass to share a book from the pile she brings along in the car (with the understanding that she'll get it back when he's finished with it).  He likes his brother, though in typical brother fashion each knows exactly where to push the other's buttons for spectacular effect. 

The seeds of his spiritual formation are taking root, and soon he will begin formal preparations for the sacrament of his First Eucharist. In the year to come, I pray the Lord will bless our lad with a deeper love for Christ and a willingness to use his many God-given gifts in service to the Lord by serving the people around him with kindness, respect, gentleness, and generosity. 

And please, Lord, let the spontaneous hugs and eagerness to work with me in the kitchen and elsewhere continue indefinitely...

our first Pinewood Derby

Time for lads, dads, and papas out in the garage working with tools followed by a fun and exciting day of races (some lost, some won) has made for a valuable and memorable deposit in the bank of experience.

git 'er done

 Would you look at that?!  Clean, folded, *and* ready for delivery.  Now where's that cute five-year-old truck driver?? 

C.W. Anderson's Billy & Blaze books

On our afternoon drive to collect the Kindergartner from school (the one who came charging around the corner today, backpack bouncing from side to side on his back, huge grin on his face, Bon Jovi-esque hair flapping every which way in the wind), we drive past a home on a large lot with "miniature horses" for sale.  Said "miniature horses" (not ponies, though I still don't know the difference) are often grazing in the large yard in front of the manor house, and we always look for them.

(Well, the lass usually looks for them, if she's awake; the younger lad is often on his way to zonking out for a power nap by that point.)

Whenever the lads are playing with cars and trucks, very often at least one of them has a horse trailer hitched up to a truck or similar vehicle.  Neither of them has ever ridden a horse, but the lads find the creatures especially fascinating -- at least as seen from the safety of their car seats.

By happy accident, my eyes landed on some books by C.W. Anderson on the top shelf of the children's section at our branch library that have since become some of the lads' favorites.   Their hero is a young squire named Billy, a country boy who loves horses more than anything else.  He receives a horse for his birthday that he names Blaze.  In various adventures, the inseparable pair inspire a neighbor boy and his pony, save a number of homes from destruction by forest fire, vanquish a mountain lion, befriend a wild stallion, and make new friends and discoveries exploring both the wooded area around their home and places the family visits (horse trailer hitched up to the family vehicle, of course).   Anderson's pencil-drawn illustrations bring the stories to life while allowing plenty of room for  imagination.

Along with other vintage favorites of ours such as those by Esther Averill and those by Edward Ardizzone, they have the kind of timeless appeal that keeps them relevant, entertaining, and inspirational in an age of glowing screens and urban sprawl.

In fact, sometimes these books are about the only enticement we can offer those mud-lovin' lads to come in from the slop for some quiet time.  That's probably as it should be...

the snowy day

We don't get knee-deep snow with drifts taller than Kindergartners all that often around these parts:

Tucked under our blanket of white, snow day activities included ...

 

 

 

The two-year-old lass insists her daddy made all that snow out there.  The elder lad set her straight: "God did that."

two cute

My sweet girl,

'Twas two years ago this morning 'round seven or so

when I first met you.

Every day you grow sweeter
(and more confident in your abilities in fending off wily brothers),
with endearing expressions such as "pwease, Mommy-O," and "thank you, Daddy-O"
and much kindness to all.

Just as quick to call dibs on a purple dump truck passing by
or wield a play power tool to fix your dollhouse
as you are to don a tutu (and insist upon leggings),
you relish bubble baths, raisins (and chocolate chips), books, helping in the kitchen, and all things pink and purple.

You and your siblings are under the weather with ear infections and much coughing and sniffling,
but that hasn't kept you from reveling in the (scaled back, but still pink) birthday festivities
so lovingly planned for you (with your input, of course).

Those enchanting eyes, that delightful giggle --
what a ray of sunshine you are to us.

May the peace of Christ be with you, my sweet girl, your whole life long.
How we love you so~

Virginia Lee Burton's books

With snow in the forecast, there is  much discussion of snow plows.  There are lads beside themselves with excitement at the prospect of driving their Tonka trucks through the snow in the backyard, there is one lass who is very determined to put her boots on and get out there too, and there is Virginia Lee Burton's Katy and the Big Snow.   It's one of our favorite books.

Katy is a big tractor at the disposal of the town of Geoppolis.  After one doozy of a blizzard, she dons a snow plow and clears streets otherwise impassable even for other snow plows.  With dogged determination she keeps working until the doctor can get his patient to the hospital, the firetruck can get to the fire, and the rest of the city get on with life. 

We first met Burton's magical work in Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, about one old-fashioned steam shovel named Mary Anne and her devoted operator Mike Mulligan who wouldn't relegate her to the junkyard in favor of one of those new-fangled gasoline-, electric- or diesel-powered shovels.  He claims he and Mary Anne can do the work of 100 men in no time flat.  After some high-profile jobs digging canals for ocean liners and cellars for skyscrapers, Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne are left to find work outside the limelight.  Modern times might have meant the end of the steam shovel in most places, but Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne find a way to keep serving together.

Time, progress, and efficiency play a central role in Burton's The Little House, about a house built in the country that watches a city grow up around it.  The house is abandoned and falls into disrepair, but eventually a descendant of the house's original owners returns to love it back to life.   This book won the Caldecott Medal in 1942 for illustrations. 

As in The Little House, Maybelle the Cable Car centers on a symbol of a bygone era and its struggle to stay current.  In San Francisco the cable cars have long been a fixture of public transportation, but there is a faction of folks who think they should be replaced by buses and other more modern and efficient vehicles.  Maybelle and her sister cable cars show they are still as relevant as ever in serving the city's transportation needs.

One of the all stars of children's literature, Virginia Lee Burton illustrated the charming stories she wrote in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s with intricate detail.  They are a visual feast and auditory pleasure for both the one reading aloud and the one(s) listening -- almost enough to distract from the wonder of powdered snow outside the window when it's time to thaw out from all that cavorting through the stuff, if only for a little while....

(not so) sweet dreams

For some people, the thought of speaking or performing in front of a crowd might be something of a nightmare.  This is not so much a problem for me, provided I am prepared for the event.

When I am fretting about something, the anxiety I feel plays out in my dreams in one of two scenarios:

1. I'm about to give a piano recital for which I have not practiced, or 
2. Mass is about to begin, and I'm on the bench frantically turning the pages of the hymnal accompaniment book looking for the opening tune.

If it's the former scenario, I am usually my current age, but I am right back at the bench of the shiny black nine foot Steinway concert grand piano known as "The Hamburg" (since that's the Steinway factory from which it hails) in the concert hall of my alma mater.  My college piano professor and merry band of music major cohorts are all there, along with the people present in my life now.

If it's the latter, the church setting varies. 

Over the coarse of my catnaps through the night, punctuated by the nursing sessions and tucking back into their beds of two certain young squires, I dreamed last night that I was about to "wing" another recital.  It wasn't going to be pretty.

What's to blame for this anxiety?

A routine dentist appointment scheduled first thing in the morning.  I was (obviously) nervous I wasn't going to get up in time for it given my sleep deficit.  Not that I'm not usually up at that time, but I'm hardly ever out the door at that time.

Happily, though (and thankfully), I made it in time *and* got a cavity-free bill of health.  That calls for a homemade chocolate milkshake, wouldn't you say?

funny girl

Little Miss is capable beyond her nineteen months.  Deciding play dough was what she wanted to do this afternoon, she went to the drawer where we keep the tablecloth designated for play dough and other potentially messy creative ventures and started spreading it on the kitchen table.  This attracted her brothers' attention, as both of them can hardly resist the lure of play dough. 

Speaking of brothers, our young lady has hers working for her.

She now prefers the younger lad's pajamas to her own.  She looks so cute in his shortie PJs with the skateboarding dog on them.   He's cool with her wearing those -- but not the ones with the tools on them *or* his firefighter jammies -- as well as his soft yellow t-shirt with an image of four construction vehicles.   They have an understanding. 

The elder lad doesn't want her in his "little Legos" but is more than happy to rifle through the box of Duplos for more "guys" for the trucks he builds for her.  He also lets her wear his yellow firefighter raincoat and is only too happy to slice anything and everything for her -- play dough or otherwise.   Once the play dough and tools were set out, she had the elder lad slicing the dough for her.  

Funny girl she is.  She kisses on her baby "sisser," swipes bites from the plates her "bubba" the younger lad abandons (although this moniker applies to either lad), and implores her "Daddy-o" to "read!  Georgie! [as in Curious]  book!".  Not only that, but she melts her mama's heart with every request to "hold me."

As neat as it has been seeing the lads' personalities emerge, so too it is with the lass.  She wants to be outside digging in the dirt with her brothers, but also likes to dress up in her pretties.

She and her baby sister may not always appreciate or want their brothers' protection or welcome their presence, but with a closet full of truck shirts and broken-in jammies at the lassies' disposal, these brothers are pretty handy to have around.  The lass certainly thinks so.

hard hat area: construction-themed picture books

We've been experimenting with different driving routes to school in the hopes of striking a balance between most direct and quickest, which are not necessarily the same, depending on the time of day (rush hour, when my beloved is taking the lad to school, and mid-afternoon when the younger lad, lasses, and I are going to pick him up). 

One route is lined with orange construction barrels almost the entire way, with lanes narrowed and lowered speed limits.  This sounds like a nightmare to me in morning rush hour traffic, but to our five-year-old kindergartner, it's a dream come true.  The mid-afternoon drive through this little boy wonderland isn't quite as bad for the chauffeur, especially when punctuated by such wide-eyed, delightful exclamations as "that's my excavator!" and "that crane is lifting a pick-up truck!"

In honor of the construction that surrounds us and my lads who love it, here are some of the construction-themed picture books that we've dug (in no particular order):

• Roadwork by Sally Sutton, illustrated by Brian Lovelock 
• The Construction Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta, illustrated by Rob Bolster 
• The Lot at the End of My Block by Kevin Lewis, illustrated by Reg Cartwright 
• Building with Dad by Carol Nevius, illustrated by Bill Thomson 
• Dig by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha, illustrated by Marc Rosenthal 
• Who Made This Cake? by Chihiro Nakagawa, illustrated by Junji Koyose 
• C is for Construction: Big Trucks and Diggers from A to Z by Caterpillar 
• Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building by Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by James E. Ransome

the soundtrack of our lives

Happily, my collection of classical music has met its match in my beloved's collection of jazz and classic rock.  In our five years of parenthood, we've ventured into a new genre: kids' music.  As with any other genre, there's a lot of not-so-good stuff that is either mind-numbingly boring or simply insulting to the intelligence of any listener regardless of age.  But there's also a lot of really great kids' music being produced which appeals to the entire family.

Innumerable hours spent in a practice room hashing through one bar of music at a time yield a certain tolerance to hearing the same tune over and over again.  This comes in handy around here, when we get stuck on a certain favorite song and field requests for repeated playings.  (That said, I do have my limits.)  Fortunately, we've amassed a broad spectrum of favorite music, with a few key players on the most-oft-asked-for list.

Dan Zanes and Friends produce an eclectic kind of music that I can (and do) listen to for hours on end -- even if I'm the only one within earshot (not that I spend hours on end by myself, mind you; minute increments are more like it).  We have several most of their albums.  An informal poll of the five current family members ranks "Hello," "Smile, Smile, Smile," "Chi Chi Buddo," "I Can Do That" (from A Chorus Line), "Mango Walk," "Strike the Bell," "Daniel in the Den," "The Fine Friends Are Here," "A Place for Us," "I Don't Need Anything But You" (from Annie), and "Flying Machine" among the favorites, though their output is on the whole appealing to all ages.  We also have the two concert DVDs, and they're lots of fun.  Should DZ and friends ever play a venue nearby, we are *so* there.

A review I once read of Justin Roberts's output described him as "channeling his inner eight-year-old".  His usually funny, often insightful, sometimes touching, and in a few cases, water-works inspiring view of the various experiences of childhood, from the first day of school ("Giant Sized Butterflies" -- the one that spurred the water works for me when the elder lad was headed to preschool), to learning to "Tie Your Shoe," to planting a garden ("Little Raindrop"), to various aspects of sibling relationships ("My Brother Did It," "Meltdown") ring true so many ways.  The lads' current favorite is "New Haircut," from the latest album Jungle Gym, followed closely by "Obsessed by Trucks,"on the same album.  Other family favorites include "Not Naptime," "98.8," "Pop Fly," "She's A Yellow Reflector," "Yellow Bus," "From Scratch," and "Stay-at-Home Dad."  Here again, should he ever stop here on a concert tour, Mama will do her utmost to procure tickets for all of us.

Way before I even met my beloved, the two endlessly fun and funny ladies with whom I toiled in the trenches of orchestra lackey-ness and I happened upon Harry Connick Jr.'s Songs I Heard.  Harry puts his signature spin on familiar tunes from the Broadway and movie musicals Annie, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  Our favorites are "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "A Spoonful of Sugar," "Do-Re-Mi," and "The Merry Land of Oz."

My Chicago aunties are ever-dependable sources of good ideas (and encouragement), and the music of Harry Belafonte is one such example.  Several summers ago we listened to "Day-O" and "Jump in the Line" (the one from Beetlejuice) over and over again when my soon-to-be high school freshman cousin was a wee lad.  Now these two tunes are in our "favorites" playlist on the iPod, along with "Matilda."

We like several of the songs by They Might Be Giants, mostly from their recent release Here Comes Science, especially "I'm A Paleontologist," "Meet the Elements," and "How Many Planets?"  "Electric Car" is catchy and tends to get stuck on repeat in my head.  We also like "Alphabet of Nations" from Here Come the ABCs.  The videos of these songs are fun every once in a while.  Most of them are available on YouTube for those of us who don't own the CD/DVD recordings (which we don't; what we have in our library is from iTunes). 

New on our radar screen is a band of three teachers from Seattle who call themselves Recess Monkey.  We haven't heard most of their output, though what we have heard is pretty fun.   Our favorites are "Knocktopus" and "Sack Lunch."  The lads also like "Centipede Pirate," "Ice Pack," and "Secret Agent Watch," all from the album Field Trip.

Then there are the classic rock singles that hold pride of place.  These include "Glory Days" by Bruce Springsteen, several songs from The Blues Brothers, "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel, "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins, "Volcano" by Jimmy Buffett, and many by the Beatles. 

While we queue up a diverse array of offerings from several genres, the soundtrack to accompany this season of our family life is comprised of the work of some talented, creative, and imaginative musicians able to speak to children (and parents) in a fun, compelling way.  Surely, this sets the stage for a life-long love for and interest in music, and who knows what good might come of that...

construction zone

Wooden blocks are out.  "Let's build something," I say.

Elder lad: "You're the mom.  You get to decide."
me (wishing to record those words for posterity and precedent):  "How about a house to fit my family?  Soon my husband and I will have four children."

him: "so you'll need four, five downstairs and one upstairs."
me:  "bedrooms?"
him: "yes."
me: "yes -- a guest room would be nice.  We might not need quite that many bedrooms, though.  We can share."

me to younger lad: "what do you want to do for the house?"
him: "bake muffins."

That's an idea I can get behind, but he soon abandons the oven he's constructing in favor of building a bank with a drive-through lane, then later swiping all the cars and tucking them into the box the blocks came in and covering them with pillows.

Check this out:

Notice the sweet vintage Chevelle station wagon.  That's a gift from my dad, as is the flame-bedecked Nomad.  Those are the family vehicles.  The brother pick up trucks parked one in front of the other are for the lads.   The Citroen, Alfa Romeo, and Charger (below) are Date Night cars.

The back view shows the elder lad's fleet of service vehicles: firetruck, the fire "jeef"'s SUV, his Mack truck ready for dispatch to the grocery store, and the dump truck for trips to Sam's.

books to fuel the imagination

Have I mentioned how much my lads love trucks?  Maybe it was obvious from their trip to the car show yesterday.  Not a bambini ride passes without several exclamations of "that's my dually/Mack truck/lawn care truck/cement mixer, Mom!"  At times there is dispute as to ownership, but the rule is if we're *imagining* a truck is ours anyway, then it can belong to both lads.   Girls can drive trucks just like boys can, so now the lads declare the occasional purple or rare pink truck as their sister's.  We stand for gender equality here (but I'm not sure where the whole pink and purple being "girl colors" came from).

We have a cache of vintage Reading Rainbow episodes, including one featuring the book Tooth-gnasher Super Flash by Daniel Pinkwater.  As fun as that book is -- and it is -- two of the books the kid reviewers at the end recommend are among our most-oft requested books from the library.

We can scarcely get through Truck Song by Diane Siebert (pictures by Byron Barton) for all the "that's my ____!" claims on the semis and other trucks that fill the pages.  The rhyming text and colorful graphics make it appealing for younger gearheads, and the variety of trucks (not to mention the subject matter) keep it interesting for those well-versed in the lingo of "rigs" and such.

Fill It Up: All about Service Stations by Gail Gibbons conjures up memories of the small town gas stations of my small hometown that are not so common anymore.  Depicting a fictitious full-service station from the day shift to the night shift, the station offers not only gasoline but also towing and auto repair services.

The lads relish these books each time we check them out as though they've never read them before.  I myself am so accustomed to truck-spotting as I drive that it is my default mode to point them out.  When I'm driving somewhere with just the lass in the car, sometimes I catch myself wondering whether to draw her attention to that sweet-looking dump truck or not.  On a recent outing, though, the lads got all excited about a purple Mack truck, deeming it to be hers.  She was quick to turn her head in the direction they were pointing.  I guess that's my answer...

mustang sally

Five years ago right about now I was due with our elder lad.  Looking for some diversion and exercise in an attempt to encourage the babe (whose gender we did not yet know; we haven't found out genders in advance of any of our children's births) to come out and meet us, we accepted an invitation from my dad to go to a car auction.  Having never been to anything of the sort, our curiosity was piqued.

It was a world entirely foreign to anything I'd experienced.  Most of the cars would merit a "vintage" label of one kind or another.  Some were souped-up hot rods or trucks. Others were classic cars from the mid-century years.  There were even some antiques -- as in, Model T's and those of that era.  There were a few late model cars, but the main offerings were of the collectible, tinker-around-in-the-garage kind.

The people-watching opportunities were vast and varied, and the auctioneer and his assistants highly entertaining. He'd say such things as "You're buyin' it today," or "here's a great daily driver!" or "this one's in mint condition."  The air in the exhibition hall in which the auction took place was heavy with exhaust in spite of all the doors and big wall vents being fully open.

The lad didn't make his entrance into the world for several more days (time enough to clear all the exhaust I'd breathed in).  His brother and sister have been similarly tardy.  We'll see if Bambino #4 (a.k.a. "Quattro") follows suit.

Last year my dad and my beloved took the lads to the car auction.  They had a great time looking at all the cars.  The noise was a bit much for them, though, and their interest waned after a little while (before Dad's and my beloved's had).

This year was a different story.  The lads remembered the auction from last year and thus had an idea of what to expect.  Dad and my beloved procured kid-sized ear plugs on the way to the car show.  We planned to meet for lunch and me bring the lads home for siesta time in case the adult gearheads wanted to look around some more.  I came home with a worn-out younger lad and the lass, but the elder lad returned to the car show with his dad and grandfather.  It might've been the most walking he's done in his entire life.

With stories of a "blueish-orange" truck, one painted with flames, and lots of interesting classic cars, the lads were happy to tell of their adventure.  When I asked them if there were any Bambini Rides like ours, they said no.  "Most of them," the younger lad told me, "were from the Ancient Sixties."

in their element

It's been a long time dream of my beloved's to have an organic vegetable garden in our backyard.  He's been working on the planters since last fall, but due to a variety of circumstances (among them life with young children and the wiles of the weather), the boxes are only just recently in the ground.  Today he went for a big load of dirt to dump into them.  One can imagine the excitement this might elicit from our lads.  They were rarin' to go with their boots on and shovels ready when he got home with the dirt.

The memory of the lads out there with their shovels and trucks will stay with me for a long time (but I took pictures too).  My nearly 17 year old sister has been spending the weekend with us helping get ready for our newly-minted three year old's family birthday party tomorrow afternoon, so while the menfolk were outside dealing in dirt, we were inside getting ready for the party.

I stuck my head out the back door at one point to ask how things were going.  The elder lad replied ebulliently "great!  We could use some help here.  Want to come out?"

'scuze me?  Dirt doesn't hold quite the same attraction for me. (though I do love seeing them so happy covered in it)

"Um... I'm working on getting ready for the birthday party tomorrow. Could I get you a water refill, though?"

"Sure!"  he replied. 

Now if we can get them to eat the veggies that issue forth from this lovingly-constructed and tilled garden, that would be really something...

three years -- all in a day

It's been a day of celebration here, as our younger lad turns three today.  There have been trips in "the big truck" with Daddy to the hardware store to check out the riding lawnmowers and various other offerings, then later (in the Bambini Ride) to the ice cream shop and (water-logged) park.  Grandparents came for dinner and truck-themed birthday cake.  The birthday lad and his siblings climbed all over each other reaching for toys both just-unwrapped and those brought out from the closet to compliment the new ones (and there might have been words to the effect of negotiating whose turn it was with the brand new this or that).

All this we've done to honor and celebrate the lad who brings us such joy on a daily basis with his sunny disposition, funny little running commentary and facial expressions, endearing declarations of love, and generous spirit toward those around him. 

I may have intuited that he was a girl the entire time I was expecting him, but I am ever grateful for the lad he is.  I look forward to getting to know the man he will one day grow to be, and pray that the time between now and then passes only at a pace such that I'm able to fully relish each burst of laughter, display of affection, sound effect, and opportunity to be his Mama. 

Birthday blessings upon you, dear lad.  We love and cherish you. 

humility via laundry

For all my crowing about my victory over juice dribbled down the lass's shirt, I must now admit with great humility the loss of a favorite shirt belonging to my younger lad at my own hands.  This one went through the laundry with a big dose of drinkable yogurt front and center gone unnoticed.  Thinking back to the bleaching properties of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide that had helped erase all traces of the juice, I sprayed alternating doses of the two on the lad's shirt -- lots and lots and lots of alternating doses.  It did seem to be making some progress even though the stain had been through the dryer.  I hadn't wanted to use the bleach pen on it (something I resort to when all else fails) because the shirt's color was described as "milk" and not white, so I thought the bleach pen would work too well and take things a bit too far -- if you know what I mean.

I digress.  I finally decided to attempt laundering the yogurt-stained shirt.  When I pulled it out of the washer, it was in tatters.  Literally.  Holes -- nay, rips from end to end -- everywhere.    There was nowhere for the poor shirt to go but the trash.

Herein lies the lesson... vinegar and peroxide work wonders gently bleaching things *in small doses*.  Rinsing with water afterward helps too (I've since had a couple of minor victories with the same dish soap/vinegar/peroxide treatment on other clothes, making sure not to leave the potions on very long). 

Mama really ought to check the laundry for stains *before* loading the washer, though this is easier said than done when I have several little helpers vying for who gets to turn the machine on and jockeying to empty the contents of the laundry basket into the tub like a dump truck doing its thing.

The poor lad hasn't mentioned the shirt since it disappeared from the stack in the closet.  That's probably for the best. Mama will have to hang her head in shame if and when he does ask for it.