Sally Says

Not So Drama Free

We're leaving on vacation tomorrow, and this week has actually been full of melt downs.  It's always hard when you're building up to and waiting for something good.  We've had our good moments too, of course, but sometimes 98% of my job is managing emotions.  It's hard being 2 years old and 5 years old.  Here are some of the many little things that all off a sudden seemed to be the end of the world for Tommy and Charlie this week.

Tommy had made a new friend at his Little Gym day camps Tuesday and Thursday.  He was so very sad to say good bye at the end of the camp because he feared he'd never see her again.

Charlie did not want to eat breakfast on Friday.  Even suggesting such a thing was absolute torture.  After much screaming and gnashing of teeth, I eventually managed to calm him down by promising that he wouldn't have to eat breakfast.  Then I suggested he watch a little TV.  While watching TV would he like some of these raspberries?  Oh yes. And some bread and butter?  Oh yes.  And some scrambled eggs.  Oh yes.  And a banana?  Oh yes.  And some cheese?  Oh yes.  But it wasn't breakfast.  Oh no.

Tommy learned how to shriek like he's actually broken a limb for every little minor injury this week. That's been fun.  He stepped on a toy while wrestling with David and Charlie last night and we all thought he'd pounded a nail through the bottom of his foot or something.  I'm sure it hurt, but he was just a little scratched and not bleeding or heavily bruised or anything.  Charlie had the best reaction though.  After Tommy stopped screaming, he asked "Is Tommy OK?"  We told him that Tommy was fine, but that he'd hurt his foot.  Charlie replied, "Oh!  Tommy needs ice.  I go get it."  He ran to the freezer and yanked it open and got his Thomas the Train ice pack and brought it right over and put it on Tommy's foot.  Then he grinned and with a very satisfied look on his face said, "There.  That better."

Charlie and I have been having a power struggle over the ice and water dispenser on the fridge this week.  He's finally tall enough to work it himself, and this leads to all sorts of drama.  We'd be fine if he'd just get himself one cup of water and then sit down and drink it like a civilized person.  Of course he's only two, so that's not a very likely scenario.  He'll fill one cup, take a drink, dump out the water and then go for another cup.  If I don't catch him in time he can go through all the cups in his drawer.  He'll carry the water outside and try to water the plants.  He'll spill little drips in various places throughout the kitchen, which will eventually cause him to slip.  I haven't yet banned all use of the water dispenser because it's actually nice for him to be drinking water instead of juice, but there are moments when both Charlie and I get tired of arguing about the limits of it's use.

Well, we're mostly packed and plan to leave tomorrow.  Now that I have my nifty new laptop, there shouldn't be any major pauses in blogging for me.  I might not get around to posting much if I'm having too much time relaxing away from the computer.  But I'm sure you'll understand if that happens.  We'll be spending 10 nights away from home, half at David's parents' farm and half at a reunion with many of our good college friends at a resort at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.  It's a good thing we have an iPod, a laptop and a DVD player to entertain us in the car.  

Amazingly Drama Free

Charlie has woken up early and a bit upset the last three mornings.  Yesterday morning he was muttering something about being all done with his crib and wanting to get down.  I didn't think much about it, other than being annoyed at having to get up before five after a nice long stretch of 6 am wake up times.

He's been taking his naps in his big boy bed for, oh, about three months now.  At night he goes down awake in his crib, but nap time only happens if I get him really deeply asleep in his big boy bed and then sneak out.

Last night we reached the end of his by-request songs (usually the belly button song and five little ducks these days) and were about to move onto the the required Moon, Moon, Moon portion of our musical evening.  Just as I started singing Charlie reached out and put a hand on my arm.

Charlie:  Wait.  I don't want to go sleep in my crib.  No crib please.

Me:  Would you rather sleep in your big boy bed?

Charlie:  Yes!  I sleep in my bed.  Please?

Me:  Let me think about it.  Would you stay in your bed all night long until the sun comes up?

Charlie:  (looking at me like this is a very silly question)  Yes.  It's night time.  I sleep until morning time in my BED.  No crib.  Please?

Me:  Ok.  Let's try it.  Lie down and I'll sing Moon, Moon, Moon to you.

So he did and I did and I said good night and he didn't make a sound until morning.  It was a totally drama free transition.  Strange. 

Tommy had to move to a big bed right before he turned two and it took a couple months of up and down and falling asleep under his bedside table and reading books by himself until 10 and me pretending to sleep next to him until he started to doze off before he figured out how to lie still in a big boy bed long enough to fall asleep.  I guess waiting until they're older really makes a difference.  It probably also helps that he had Tommy's excellent example to follow.  Tommy slept in Charlie's room while Grandma Sylvia was here, so Charlie got to see how a really good sleeper goes to sleep in a big boy bed at night.

I did go in to check on Charlie before I went to bed at 10.  We have a 2nd mattress under his bed that we pull out as a mid-way stop between the bed and the floor.  It works great to protect them from falls.  He was asleep on that mattress instead of up on the bed.  When I picked him up to move him he opened his eyes, said "I fall a little bit, but I'm still sleeping!"  I put him back in bed, covered him with his blanket and he snuggled back to sleep.

Maybe it will get harder tomorrow night, but I kind of doubt it.  Charlie saves the power struggles for daytime when he's fully awake to appreciate the fun.

Translating Charlie

Gobbles - swimming goggles

You Rot!  - You Rock!

Stop reading!  -  Put your book down and pay attention to me

I start it. - Don't even think about trying to put that lid on if for me.  No, I don't want to just tighten in after you get it started.  i want to do the whole thing myself from start to finish.

I use 'puter few minutes. - Do whatever you want for the next hour mother.  I'll be over here at the computer.  You can use your new laptop.

I mean do that. (usually said after a stumble) - I meant to do that. 

Can we play something? - Pay attention to me Daddy.

Where my grapes go? (usually said while looking into an empty bowl) - More food over here please!

I don't want to. - No translation necessary.  We hear this a lot.

Last Day of Preschool

Tommy's last day of preschool was Friday.  It's a good school, and has been a good fit for Tommy.  I know I've been griping a lot about the carnival stuff, but the things is, I VOLUNTEERED for that part.  They need to improve how they interact with parents if they want us to go above and beyond and volunteer for stuff, especially since it's not an inexpensive preschool.  The phrases "it's just preschool" and "we're already writing checks once a month" come to mind.  Regardless of my experiences in the fund raising and volunteer areas, however, Tommy's classes, teachers and experiences were quite good for him.  I think he's well prepared for Kindergarten.

Tommy was actually quite sad for a couple of weeks about the last day of school.  He's not scared to go to Kindergarten.  He's just sad to think that he'll never be in preschool again.  Heck, that makes ME sad.  We tried to focus on the positives and convince him that we'll do lots of playdates with his school friends, but the truth is he won't see many of those kids ever again.

Ah well.  Life moves on.  He'll still see the staff and some of his school friends from time to time since Charlie will be in the 2-year-old class there next year.  He'll make new friends and we still have a whole summer full of playdates with his old friends ahead of us.  Actually, he'll be attending 5 days of summer camps at the preschool in July, so it's not even a real good-bye yet.

As the girl scouts say, "Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver but the other's gold."  We've been singing that song a lot around here lately.  Tommy only burst into tears the first 50 times we sang it.  He's a bit of a glutton for dramatic emotional moments.

 

 

Guitar Hero

So what do you do when you suspect you've all been playing too many video games?  Buy more video games!  We went to Best Buy to look at laptops yesterday, and came home with Guitar Hero.

Charlie always watches people play the sample game in stores with awestruck focus, so we knew he'd love it.  He does, and is asking for it all the time now.  Luckily, this is actually a game I'm willing to play with them during the week.  Or maybe that's not a good thing.  Time will tell.

Tommy was a bit more hesitant, but now likes the game quite a lot too.  He's particularly good at Eye of the Tiger.  Both the boys are just strumming on the beginner level so far.  I doubt either of them will add the other hand anytime soon. 

An interesting side effect of buying the new game is that Charlie now has a new favorite song.  It's Don't Sleep Til Brooklyn by the Beastie Boys.  He LOVES it, and has been singing it non-stop for 24 hours.  I find this absolutely hilarious.

You know you've been playing too many video games as a family when...

Tommy was practicing reading with David.

Tommy:  What's that word?

David:  We

Charlie: Wii Fit?  It's my turn!  Charlie's turn now!

***************

The boys were horsing around and play fighting.  As Tommy pretended to pummel David he started muttering "X...B...A,X!...Y" in time with his moves.

*********************

Charlie often breaks into song.  Lately his song has been, "Everybody is kung fu fighting! (mumble, mumble) Fast as lightning!" He punches the air when he sings this.

Procrastination Bites Me

The wall of carnival game boxes is still in our office.  I was sick right after the carnival, remember?  I didn't go through them and put things back in order or whatever it is I was supposed to do with them.

Wait.  Back up.  Did I tell you that at the end of the carnival "they" made me pack all 21 boxes into my little car and take them home with me?  I'm not really sure who "they" is, but "they" have the power to make me do way more than is reasonable.  I was DONE.  I bought all the stuff and got it all organized and set up the carnival games TWICE because of the weather.  My reward was a car full of boxes that were no longer organized, just thrown together higgledy-piggledy and returned to my car.

I brought them home and stacked them up in the office.  When I became feverish the next day and started throwing up the day after that I decided that they boxes could wait.  They've been waiting ever since.

Now we have ants.  In the boxes.  They found the lollipops.  That'll teach me to procrastinate vounteer tasks.  Actually, I haven't written my "final report" yet either.  Maybe I should do that before ants attack my e-mail.  Buying a new computer is not exactly in the budget. 

I had originally thought I'd re-build the rain-spattered, disorganized game boxes so that they could be all ready for next year.  The wouldn't be better, stronger or faster, but they would be rebuilt. 

Then I down-graded my plans when I discovered the school doesn't really have any place to put them.  I was told to toss the ticket cans and try to consolidate the game equipment into as small a space as possible.  We can make new ticket cans next year.  And by "we" I think "they" mean "you, Sally, the sucker who does all this work for us" can make new ticket cans.

Anyway, back to the ants.  I'm not sure what to do now.  I've called the Orkin man, but I probably shouldn't let him spray the boxes of lollipops and other pre-school carnival prizes with poisonous chemicals.  He can save those for our baseboards.  Maybe I should take all the boxes outside and hope that the ants find something more interesting to attack?  Nah. It's threatening rain.

I guess I should throw away the lollipops and start sorting other stuff into plastic bins, being careful to brush off all the ants.  Wait.  I don't have any plastic bins.  How much more money is this carnival going to cost me?  The tally is close to $400 so far.

Sigh.  Here's the plan. 

Step 1: Carry the boxes that have ants on them outside. 

Step 2:  Hope it doesn't rain.

Step 3:  Go buy plastic bins when Charlie wakes up from his nap.

Step 4:  Divide the left-over prizes, game equipment, etc. into the bins.  Kill ants as I go.

Step 5:  Put all the rain-spattered ticket cans into a garbage sack and STORE THEM IN OUR SHED.  Then whoever they rope into doing the carnival games next year won't have to scramble around for 2 months trying to get people to save their coffee cans and bring them to school. 

Step 6:  Break down all the labeled but empty boxes and tie them together.

Step 7:  Re-print the game instruction sheets that got ruined by the rain.  Put them into a folder so that the school can lose them before next spring.  Keep the files on our computer.

Step 8:  Dump all the stuff on the school's doorstep before the last day of school is over. (Um, the last day is tomorrow.)

Argh.  There are ants crawling up my leg.  Stupid ants.  I guess I'd better get started.

Almost forgot

I forgot the best part about Family Day!  Tommy said it was all just like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.  We were allowed through the locked laboratory gates, and no regular people have been allowed in for ten years.  He was seriously disappointed that the secret laboratories didn't have oompa-loompas or chocolate rivers.

Family Day! No pictures!

The national labs where David works had their first family day in 10 years on Saturday.  We went, and David's mom came with us.  There are no pictures because we weren't allowed to take any.  It was excellent to peek behind the curtain.  It was a very big deal for all of us to be allowed behind the security fences.

We saw the cafeteria where David often eats.  That was kind of exciting.  Tommy ate some Lucky Charms.  Charlie kept walking away from us, calling out "I'll be right back" over his shoulder.  I'm not sure where he was trying to go. 

We saw a mock-up of the satellite that David's been working on.  It was only OK'ed for them to show folks a fake version of a small part of the satellite the day before family day, so I appreciate getting to see it.  Even though it wasn't actually the real thing.  Even though I didn't understand a bit of it.

The boys enjoyed putting on part of the clean room suits that David has to wear to work on the satellite.  They were most impressed by the automatic shoe duster and all the sticky pads on the floors that you have to pass through to get into the clean room.

Look!  A picture!  This was taken by someone who works there with a lab camera, and I'm sure it went through 294 levels of security investigation before David could e-mail it to me. 

Please ignore my horrendous hair.  There were sustained winds of 35 miles per hour and gusts up to 55 miles an hour on family day.  (I'm not exaggerating.  I looked it up.)  We had to hold onto Charlie quite tightly to keep him from getting blown away.  It was exhausting to walk from building to building. 

I now know that the only pictures in David's office are three of Tommy when he was 2 years old.  That travesty will be rectified soon.  I also found a cool OU mug on David's book shelves.  I confiscated it.

We saw what happens to marshmallow peeps at really high altitudes.  Or maybe it was different air pressures.  Or maybe temperature?  Nah.  Nothing melted.  Hmm.  I wasn't really paying attention.  The peeps did cool things though, and I'm sure there was science involved.

We saw x-rays of things like flowers and calculators.  In the same room we saw a demonstration of some sort that involved giant rubber bands and a box of tissues and super fast cameras that take enough frames per second to show you what happened when they released the rubber bands.

Geez.  I'm quickly realizing I have no idea what most of the stuff we saw was.  I guess they only do family day once in ten years because the lab's greatness is wasted on people like me.  I was just focusing on keeping the two-year-old from wandering into a vacuum chamber (or something more dire).

We saw an example of the micro-machines that David used to work on.  They were smaller than I expected - gears working together in the equivalent space of a drop of water.  However, they weren't as small as SF nano-technology.  All the SF books I read really ruin real engineering for me.

We saw the offices of a lot of our friends.  They weren't in the offices at the time, so I'm not really sure why we walked in 60 mile an hour winds to see their offices and leave them cryptic notes written by Tommy.

I know I'm being a bit flip about the whole thing, but it actually was a very nice day.  The people David works with were all very nice, and extremely enthusiastic about showing their work to families.  It's great to finally have a sense of where David works.  This was the first time in the 6+ years we've been here that I've been anywhere near his work.  Yay family day!  They should do it more often.  But maybe next time they can do it on a day without wind.  That would be nice.

Portraits

 

Charlie Paints

 

Tommy humors me.

The non-parental person who invented Danimals Crush Cups might be a little bit evil.

On the plus side, Tommy's completely bought into the marketing.  It's yogurt he'll actually eat.  For some reason the instructions to "just crush and slurp - no spoon required!" make it cool.

On the negative side, Charlie does whatever Tommy does.

Riddle Me This

Tommy:  I have a riddle for you Mommy.

Me:  Hit me with it.

Tommy:  What's two circles next to each other?

Me:  I don't know.  Glasses?

Tommy:  No.  Not glasses.  It's a number you can't ever count to.

Me:  Infinity?  You're making up riddles about infinity?  How do you even know about that?!

Tommy:  Yes!  That's it!  I saw the drawing of it on Phineas and Ferb.  (That's a Disney Channel cartoon.)

Me:  Wow.  That's a good riddle.  You should tell it to Daddy.

Tommy:  I know.  Phineas and Ferb are boy geniuses, just like me.

Me:  I have no response to that.

Tommy:  You're strange Mommy.

Friendly Faces

No time to write. I'm WELL!

After three weeks of nasty stomach flu and mad carnival planning, I'm FREE.  I'm not sick.  We have no obligations for the day.  We can do whatever we want.  Let the de-cluttering begin!  Boy howdy, this place is a mess.  Time to flash into action.  Talk to you later!

Just a little yogurt? No? Aw, shucks.

Still sick over here, but hopefully improving.  I only melted into a puddle of nasty goo for about 6 hours yesterday, which is a vast improvement over the first part of the week.  On the plus side, I've lost 10 pounds.  And I'm dreaming of cheese...and chile...and chocolate...anything that's not jello or gatorade.  

Just for the record.  If my doctor says this is a stomach bug and NOT swine flu, and that there's no need to get tested, and the independently consulted pediatrician says EXACTLY. THE. SAME. THING, well then I don't know what more I can do to switch off people's panic button.  I'm not being stubborn, just educated and reasonable about things.  If one more person mentions swine flu to me, I swear I'll LICK YOU so you can be very, very sick and have all the doctors tell you to just stay hydrated and wait it out too.

I'm kidding of course.  I doubt you can get this from licking.  David's not sick.  Charlie's not sick (knock wood).  I think this is one of those "only transmitted through direct contact with poor bathroom hygeine" sorts of things.  Since Tommy got sick first and I was the one up with him in the middle of the night when he was heaving into the toilet and spraying the wall behind him...  I should stop there because even I have my grossness limits.  Let's just say I came into direct contact while tending to and cleaning up a very sick Tommy, so now I'm sick, and I'm being as careful as humanly possible to keep David and Charlie and anyone else from getting it.

Not that I'm defensive about it. 

Huh.  This was supposed to come out funny, but it's not.  Guess I should go back to bed.

(p.s. It's not swine flu.)

(p.p.s.  It's not swine flu, but if it actually is I will NEVER admit it.) 

Still Alive

No.  We don't have swine flu.  But thank you for worrying. 

At least I don't think we have it.  We haven't been tested, but as far as I can tell this is just a regular old stomach bug - no upper respiratory gunk at all.

It just confused me last week because Tommy has an iron will.  He probably had a fever at some point, but didn't complain so I never thought to check it.  He was probably miserably nauseous all week, but I kept thinking he was recovering in between bouts of vomiting because he acted like his usual self.  The parasite tests were all negative. 

As usual, all the facts were revealed once I got sick.  Obviously, he was contagious.  I, at least, had 36 hours of miserable fever, so it's likely viral or bacterial.  Then I spent 24 hours in miserable communion with the porcelain idol.  Now I am grumpy, semi-miserable, nauseous and plagued by a vaguely defined ickiness.  This is probably the part Tommy just ignored.  I ignore nothing.  Pity me, for I am sick.

Unfortunately, my children go INSANE when I am sick.  They were both understanding and helpful for about half a day, but then they realized I was REALLY sick and FREAKED OUT.  David stayed home with them yesterday and we were all miserable.  Tommy and Charlie both just cannot handle the idea of me being less than engaged and capable.  They completely fell apart.  There was much screaming and stomping off to their rooms and hysterics over little silly things.  David was so happy to go back to work today. 

So even though I still feel like dookie, I am pretending to be well.  Tommy gets crazy-eyes whenever I head down the hall towards the bathroom.  Charlie keeps asking me, "You sick?  What happened!?"  Then he clutches his stomach, makes a fake retching noise and says, "I sick too!  We go see Charlie's doctor?  Please?"  To keep the insanity at bay, I am now officially no longer sick.

(I had to change Charlie's diaper 8 times this afternoon, but we're trying to be optimistic.  He's NOT going to start vomiting in the middle of the night.  Nope.  There's got to be a bright side to still breastfeeding him.  He has all my antibodies now, right?)

At least they're still cute...even if they tend toward the crazy.

I could never get a job as a diagnostician

David asked me where my sunburn seemed worst.  I looked in the mirror and didn't seem red.  Hmmm.  Maybe I feel feverish because I have a FEVER!  Yep.  101.2.  I can't believe I didn't realize that my sore muscles and joints were the aches and pains of a fever.  That would have been a more reasonable conclusion than thinking I was having a delayed reaction to some exercise.  And checking my temperature would have been a reasonable thing to do when I started getting chills instead of blaming an invisible sunburn after a cloudy day. 

Tommy's old enough to be a real help in these sorts of situations.  He's playing "library" with Charlie in his room and putting movies in for them. 

Sigh. 

Back to bed for me.

Ah Summer. How I hate it so.

Forgive my whining.  I'm still completely exhausted and sore from Saturday's carnival.  I've never been a particularly athletic person, as you all know, but I'm even more ill-equiped to face the summer active season than usual this year.  Those cluster headaches I had most of the winter really did a number on me.  They seem to finally be gone (yay!) but the me of today is significantly less fit than the me of last fall.  Now it's getting hot, and three boys are itching to be outside DOING stuff, while I just want to sit on the couch.  Oh well.  The best way to undo the cluster headache damage is to join them outside in their rompings and runnings.

After all the physical exertion of the carnival, I was ready to take it easy yesterday.  The little boys were without me for almost the entire day though, so my alone-time Sunday breakfast was cancelled in a vote of 3-to-1.  We all went out to eat together.  Then Tommy begged to go for a walk at the Rio Grande nature center.  We had a nice long hike/walk and played Pooh Sticks at the bridge and the weather was just gorgeous for it.  We'd gotten such an early start that we were done by 10:00. 

David got to pick our next destination, so we went to the plant nursery to pick up some vegetables, herbs and flowers.  One hundred and forty dollars later, we headed home to start planing stuff.  April was full of freak cold snaps alternating with really hot days, so it was a good thing we waited until May to put stuff in the ground. 

By the time we got home, it was apparant that I alone had picked up a sunburn on this partly cloudy day.  Just as I started to feel feverish (as I always do with a sunburn) my leg, arm and back muscles started screaming from two days in a row of unaccustomed exercise.  But we had flowers and vegetables to plant!  No rest for the flabby! 

 

 

  

At least we have air conditioning this year.  I'll never have the same enthusiasm for outdoor summer activities as the boys, but I usually find my stride eventually.  Someone has to sit in the shade with the camera and a book after all.

Rain

The carnival was a big success.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the games.  Sadly, it was really cold and started raining really hard about half way through.  So we moved the entire carnival downstairs to the church fellowship hall.  It was a lot of hard work to tear it all down and set it all up a second time while lots of kids and parents were waiting for us.  Lots of parents pitched in and carried stuff for us, so it was just barely manageable. 

I'm pretty tired. 

I'll let you know how the profits turned out.  I'm sure it was all worth the effort.  Hopefully.

 

 

 

 

Update

Tommy's home from the doctor.  It's not a virus.  It's not bacterial.  I's more than likely a parasite, and we'll be taking samples for testing.  (guck.)  The good news is that he doesn't have to miss the carnival.  He's not contagious, per-se.  It can be spread, but only if he uses extremely poor hygeine.  The school director is OK with him attending, so yay!  Unfortunately, he'll probably have fragile digestion for a while.  He'll be stuck with a diet of bannanas, rice, apples and toast for a while.