In fact.. I’m going to make 2. One for Ethan, one for Jocelyn.

Fabric.. fabric.. what kind of fabric..

My grandmother was a quilter.* My mother is a quilter. She makes beautiful quilts.

Our trip to Utah in May/June included a long weekend camping in souther utah, near Moab. My entire family was there, with the exception of my sister’s husband. All five of my siblings, and all of their kids were there. There’s kind of 2 waves of grandkids. The older kids, and the younger kids. My niece Susan is the oldest of the older kids, at almost 16 and it ranges down to my nephew Eric, who is 9. There are 5 younger kids, aged 5, 4, 3, 3, and 3. Ethan is the oldest, and Jocelyn is the youngest of the younger set.

Anyway, I got kind of side tracked there – my point is, a nice time for our family, having everyone there, and especially for my folks who got to see all of their grandkids. We’re usually the weak link in family get togethers, as we live on the east coast and no one else in my family lives further east than Colorado.

So for our camping trip, my mom got those cute LED head lamps for all the older kids, and for the younger kids, she made each one a camp blankey.

Here are Ethan’s and Jocelyn’s blankeys. (I took these at night, so while I tweaked the white balance so the colors look OK, some of the pictures look a little washed out.)

Ethan’s camp blanket

Ethan’s camp blanket

Ethan’s camp blanket

Jocelyn’s camp blanket

Corner button

Close up of stitching

-amy

• My wallpaper art didn’t come yesterday. MAYBE TODAY!
• I’ve decided that the guest room will need some red in it. I hankering for a cuckoo clock painted glossy red, how yummy!
• my design/ decorating/ interior blog reading has reached new obsessive porportions that even frightens me a little bit. I woke up this morning from a dream that involved curtains, artwork and paint chips after reading casapinka’s blog all the way through from the first entry last night.
• I lost the lens cap to our camera. Luckily it was the cheap lens. Does that make it any better? I’m hoping it will show up, but since I ALWAYS stick the lens cap into my bra, and it wasn’t there when I was through with the camera nor anywhere in the only two rooms I was in during the camera’s use, I have no choice but to look facts in the face. My bosoms have eaten the lens cap. James would do well to beware.
• I got out the camera last night because James was out boozing and whoring with people who have absolutely nothing in common except the facts that they all own the same kind of car*, and I got to stay home and play with the kids by myself.

  This is more of a challenge than you might think. If you just play with Ethan, then Jocelyn is left out. If you just play with Jocelyn, then Ethan is left out. So we all played together in a big roleplay of getting Cinderella to the ball. Since I actually took pictures, I’ll wait until they are accessible before giving you the whole story, but I will tell you it involved cinderella, of course, construction machines, race cars, a my little pony and a police helicopter. More at 11.

-amy practices for the bubble yum olympics

* I guess they also have the penis thing in common. Will have to ask if any girls attended STI gathering.

raineyamy: hi
jameseypooh: hi
raineyamy: how’s it going? how’d they do?
jameseypooh: good
jameseypooh: kids did good this morning
jameseypooh: Ariel and Batman, that is
jameseypooh: I don’t know who Ethan and Jocelyn are
raineyamy: LOL

Yesterday was fun. I was working, and Jocelyn was able to play pretty well by herself. It was interesting just to watch her. Ethan always settles down with his boy toys (legos, cars, transformers, construction machines, you name it) and will play while usually stating every 5 minutes, “Come play with me mommy!” It gets pretty old.

Jocelyn is different. She has never known a life of just playing on her own. Her brother or her schoolmates are always there. I’m not saying she’s NEVER played alone, but it just isn’t a common occurence. First she kind of wanders around, sometimes taking my suggestions, “What’s that? I think Julie is crying! (her doll) I think she needs her breakfast!” (Jocelyn scampers off to attend to Julie) sometimes not. She loves to dress up, and so at one point she had on her poofy pink dress up dress on, a pair of swimming goggles on her forehead like a headband, and was kicking a soccer ball over the house while wearing a pair of dress up shoes, which I just loved. (And yet did not grab a picture of, doh!)

Probably more than 5 times, she said, “Let’s go get my brother,” and I had to tell her that it wasn’t time yet. She just wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to do all by herself. She always follows Ethan’s lead and she missed him. She also insisted that I stop calling her Jocelyn. For about an hour she was Cinderella, but then for the rest of the day she wanted to be called Ariel.

She was doing good at naptime (during which she took off all her clothes and put on Ethan’s, including his underwear, and then climbed into his bed to snuggle in) until the auto shop called and said my car was ready. They also said they could pick me up. So no nap for her.

I’d been kicking around the idea of a combination ballet/tap summer dance class for her because a) she is always always dancing. dancing and singing, that’s my girl, and b) loves loves to dress up and twirl around and c) hello! a dance class! for toddlers! need I say more, SHE WILL LOVE IT! So after we picked up the car, we went to target to check out their supply of leotards and tights (too big on both counts) and then went to the dance center in our community to sign her up.

Class starts TODAY, so we went from there to pick up Ethan and then to a dance shop in Manassas to get our supplies. The dance center said that since it was just a summer 6 week class, the cheap tap & ballet shoes from wal-mart would suffice. I don’t shop at Wal-mart, but I also didn’t want to pay out the nose for supplies for a 6 week dance class. I broke down and called them to see they actually had tap & ballet shoes, and they said they used to carry them, but now didn’t. I also called k-mart and target, and no dice. So we went to the very nice dance boutique and got Jocelyn real pink leather ballet shoes and sweet little white tap shoes. I’m glad I didn’t have to step foot into wal-mart, to tell the truth.

The nice lady got her fitted with shoes while Ethan found the stash of toys in the corner and kept himself busy. Jocelyn stood on the square of hard floor in front of the mirror and watched herself stomping and tapping and clicking her tap shoes with a look of utter delight on her face. We picked up her tights and leotard from there too. Now that she has real stuff instead of cheap fake stuff, maybe we’ll do a session or two of dance during the year as well.

When I was a little girl, for one of my birthday parties, we had a dancing theme. I remember my mom made tutus for all my friends and we all danced around to Olivia Newton John’s “Let’s Get Physical.” I also remember when I got my first pair of ballet shoes. I wasn’t in ballet. I did take ballet (and modern dance, and gymnastics) years later when I was about 10, but my first pair of ballet shoes my mom ordered for me from a catalog when I was 4 or 5. I remember the day they came, and putting them on with my leotard and long pink tutu.. my mom says I hardly ever took them off. She said I was dancing all the time.. dancing and singing. I wonder where Jocelyn gets it from 🙂

This morning Jocelyn excitedly told Ethan, “Today is my dancing class!!”

I hope it will be a hit. I want to stay and watch the class (at least the first one!) but am torn because I know Ethan won’t be able to sit still for an hour. I guess we’ll see how it goes. I should have put a movie on my video ipod.

ps – the mystery fever is gone, but there is a notice up on her classroom door saying how hand foot mouth disease has been spotted in her class. GREAT. I don’t think that’s what she had, but now I’m just hoping she doesn’t catch it!

i’m working at home today, with Jocelyn* at my side. Peter Pan The Tinker Bell movie is on, and Jocelyn is watching it with wide very attentive eyes.

She turns to me,

“Mommy. I want you to show me how to fly.”

I told her we would need to have pixie dust for that, so unfortunately, we’re stuck.

Now she’s watching and every now and then she says, “I don’t have dust. We need a fairy for dust.”

*She had a mystery fever yesterday evening that we think might be heat exhaustion or just being overheated.. I was staying home today anyway because my car? after it comes to a stop and I turn off the engine? Well, the coolant in the coolant reservoir starts to boil. It stops again if you turn on the engine (which we did to see if the fan was working). Odd, eh? It’s at the shop being poked and prodded, which I’m sure will cost us an obscene amount of money. Oh Honda Civic Hybrid, how I long to own thee!

-amy will throw you to the crocodiles

At dinner.

I ask about her tummy. As in, “How’s your tummy, is it full? Are you done eating?”

She replies, “It’s full mommy! Like when you ATE me and I was in YOUR TUMMY!”

I guess we need to straighten some things out about how babies get into mommies’ tummies. Ahem. Didn’t we have a few more years before we needed to have THAT talk?

Next.

Sometimes, when the kids need some motivation in the eating of the dinner, I “talk” for the food on their plate.

“Eat me! I’m so yummy and delicious! I want to be in your tummy!”

Now, let’s not get all existential here about the absurdity of food having a lifelong dream of being consumed.. it just works. The kids will be squabbling, or paying attention to the toy they can’t have at the table, and all of a sudden they’re laughing at the thought of food begging to be eaten and they will start to eat it and make their own voices for the various bits on their plate. I also do this for clothes that beg to be put on their bodies, toothbrushes that despareately need to rub up against teeth, and bathtubs wanting to have kids climb inside of them. To my credit, I have stopped short of toilets wanting to be peed in. SO FAR.

The other day when I was home with Jocelyn I suddenly heard her talking for some “play” food she had “made” in her kitchen.

“No! No! Don’t eat me! I don’t want to go into your tummy!” Pretty much the only thing she left off was the ‘help! help!’ and a maniacal cackle before she pretended to eat the protesting pretend food. I couldn’t stop laughing for 10 minutes.

Ahhhh kids.

It occurs to me that this whole pink eye situation has taught James and I one thing: How to give our children eye drops with very little fuss and bother. And so, I will attempt to share the one good thing to come out of this mess – our professional knowledge on giving kids eye drops.

1. First things first. You must acquire some patience. It does no one any good to become frustrated and controlling. Think about it. Much like sleeping, eating and pooping, there is nothing, NOTHING you can do to make your child open his or her eye. If they decide to screw their eyes closed, you are screwed. Totally and completely screwed. And attempting to wrench someone’s eyes open long enough to drop in some eye drops will NOT be the most pleasant experience in the world. You must acknowledge that the instinct for ANYONE when something comes near the eye, is to blink, or otherwise protect the eyeball. When the kid throws up his or her hands in defense, they cannot help it. That is what the brain is telling them to do. And the VERY WORST thing you can do is to get all loud and yelly, and order them to put them hands down, or to stop blinking, or to open your eyes already, dammit! Yes. Not good things to say. Just keep in mind that you have to do this (of course your dosage may vary, but probably about) THREE times a day for the NEXT 7-10 DAYS. If you lose your cool and get your kid all apprehensive about this on the very first day, you are going to be in hell for the next week. Seriously. If you feel like you’re losing your temper, it’s better to take a break, and try again in 10 minutes.
2. Television. Television is your friend. Lay the child down on their back, so that their head is closest to the TV, and their feet are farthest away. Load up the tivo (what? you don’t have tivo? well, I can’t help you then. DVDS! There we go!) with their favorite show, preferably a new one that they haven’t seen before. Something with talking. Cartoons filled with primarily physical comedy doesn’t have enough to draw their attention (at least, this is how it was for our kids. They love tom and jerry, but it wasn’t enough for eyedrops time.) Their position on the floor is such that they have to crane their neck upwards to see the TV. Not only their necks, but their little eyeballs have to look upward too. If they tilt their head too much so that their eyes aren’t as open as they could be, just gently slide their head down a little so that they have to keep their eyes as open as possible.
3. Hands can be a problem. They just can’t help themselves from reaching up and blocking their eye from the eyedrops. James will actually lay the kid down with arms at their side, and straddle them gently so that his knees on the floor is holding their arms in place against their body. (Please don’t put your knees on their arms!) I sit to the side of the kid with 1 leg holding one arm, and then i put my other leg across their body with my knee up in the air so that my foot on the floor holds their other arm in place. Just remember to be gentle and explain that you’re helping them to keep their hands at their side. Ethan got pretty good at this by himself so that we don’t have to hold his arms at all, but if he accidently lets his hands fly up to his face, we’ll just have him put his hands under his bottom, and the pressure of sitting/laying on his own hands is enough for him to keep them there.
4. Now in the beginning, I’ve found that turning the sound on the TV up a bit so it really captures their attention is helpful. (I actually discovered this when I would give Ethan haircuts as an 18-month-old and he was scared of the loud clippers. I’d turn the tv up, and he would forget all about the clippers. I had to turn it WAY up though.) They are very concered about that bottle of eye drops, and they want to keep track of it, and they’re thinking, “I’ll just squint and it will never go in,” but then, “OH! Look at that! It’s Charlie and Lola! Lola is small, and very funny! They have to complete the tasks their mom gave them in time to watch their favorite programme, Space Family Hudson, the Faaa-mi-ly in space!” The louder volume than usual will really distract them and they’ll crane their heads to see what’s going on. Just be patient (PATIENT PATIENT PATIENT!) and watch for that opportunity to drop the eyedrops in. You may have to hover there for 5 minutes with the bottle above their eye, readjusting the tilt of their head, or gently pulling the lower lid down, just waiting for PERFECT moment to drop them in – it’s gonna take a while, and it may take a few tries, just beeeee patient. No freaking out or yelling at the kid allowed. I sometimes have to say, “Look! what is charlie DOING?!” to Jocelyn, as she is harder to do than Ethan.
5. REWARD SYSTEM! After every successful eye drop (and there will be plenty that just hit the eyelid when the kid blinks RIGHT at the wrong time, or flinches or throws up their hand in protest. Just say, “Oopsies!” wipe it off, and take up the waiting position again.) Where was I? After each successful eye drop, have something on hand for immediate gratification. We use M&Ms or marshmellows (the little ones). And don’t depend on just the treat to be the reward, you’ve got to be a freaking cheerleader and make them feel FANTASTIC. “YOU GOT ONE! GOOD JOB! You are SO GOOD at this! What a big girl/boy! You are! YOU get an M&M! Gimme five!” I can’t stress this enough. If you make this an unpleasant experience, they are going to resist EVERY time it’s eyedrops time. If you make it a big payoff after the yucky part, they will remember and not fight you tooth and claw when eyedrops time rolls around. We always have a little pile of M&Ms waiting for them after the whole ordeal is over. It’s gotten so that Jocelyn will get excited about eyedrops and say, “I’ll get the M&Ms ready!” when it’s time. (Of course, she sometimes fusses DURING, but at least when we say it’s time for eye drops, she doesn’t run howling away from us into the night.)
6. A little more on the dropping of the drops themselves: I have found that it’s easier to tilt the body at a slight angle from the TV so that they are looking both UP, but also to the side a bit. This exposes more of the white of the eye for the drop. I always try to drop into the inner part of the eye, by the nose rather than into the outer side of the eye. It just seems like the lashes are longer and getting it INTO the eye is just a lot trickier if you’re trying to drop from the outside. Then I change the angle of their body so it’s easier to get to the inner eye of the other eye. This is getting pretty picky though, just get that sucker in anyway you can, I’m just letting you know my preference.

I think that’s it. That’s all my expertise on administering eye drops. I’ll be interested in seeing if a lot of search hits come my way from this post. I know that when we first had to give eye drops, we were totally bewildered on how exactly we could possibly accomplish this. Now, I’m happy to say that we don’t actually have to go through this whole routine each and every time. One of us has to drive to their school to give Ethan a dose of eyedrops at lunchtime and he manages that with very little bother. Today after I picked up Jocelyn’s Vigamox eye drops, I gave her her first dose in the car, with her sitting in her car seat. There was a time when I never thought THAT would EVER be possible. So if you are despairing at the thought of giving your kid eye drops, I hope this helped a little 🙂

-amy

it is with mixed feelings i am blogging today.

Saturday morning dawned with Jocelyn’s right eye all pink and puffy. PINK AND PUFFY PEOPLE!!!

This makes a grand total of 3 episodes of pink eye for her. Ethan is finishing up his eye drops for his 3rd episode as well.

WHEN WILL THIS STOP!! I can’t help but feel like a failure as a parent. It goes like this. Child A has 5 more days of eye drops. Child B finishes their eye drops and both eyes look great. Child B goes 2-3 days off the eye drops and suddenly wakes up with their eye all red and irritated. We have changed pillow cases every day. We’ve changed towels every day. We’ve neer used a washcloth more than once before it goes in the laundry hamper. We’ve washed hands as often as is humanly possible while not just standing all day in the bathroom with the water running. I’m starting to go a little crazy.

To our credit, Jocelyn has a cold, and has had it for the past week. Nothing too bad, but she’s got some serious snot issues going on. Luckily, she hasn’t been coughing, and hasn’t had a fever or anything. There are usually 2 ways to get conjunctivitis. You catch it someone who’s got it, or you have a cold and it kind of works it’s way into your eye. So it could be that we’re doing nothing wrong, she could have just gotten it because of this cold she’s fighting.

I still feel like shit about this though. And Ethan is supposed to be done with his very-much-a-pain-in-the-ass drops (tobramycin) (must be given every 4 hours, so one of us makes a trip to school during our lunch break to administer them). And I’m totally freaked out that he’s just going to turn up with them again 2-3 days after he’s off of them.

Our pediatrician was closed this past Saturday, so I took her to an urgent care place, who prescribed some drops (sulfacetamide sodium opthamalic solution). Something different than she had been taking before (which was vigamox). We got them and dutifully have been putting them in her eyes, but when monday morning arrived, she did not look ANY BETTER. There was no way she could go to school with her eye still pink and swollen, in fact, if anything, I think her eye was MORE swollen than it was Saturday.

So today, I blog from home, as I stayed home with her. We went to the doctor, who gave us a new prescription (and she commented that the drops we were using wasn’t likely to do any good, ergh), went to target to fill prescription, then drove to the school to give Ethan HIS dosage of drops.

I toyed with the idea of going from there up to have lunch with James, as he did last week when he was home with Ethan, but the Jocelyn was acting pretty grumpy and tired, so off we went home, and I got her into bed for naptime (with no fewer than FOUR crying jags, the poor dear was so tired).

So this sucks, because damn. Pink eye. GO AWAY ALREADY!

However, it doesn’t suck too bad, because instead of trying to work from home as I usually do when I’m home with a sick kid, I am taking the day off. It is so nice. I’m not putting movie after movie in so as to entertain the child while I try to accomplish something. I’m not saying, “Not now, mommy’s working,” whenever the child wants to inform me of inane, but nevertheless very important details,

“I”M THREE!”

“I’m the MOMMY! You’re the BABY! NAPTIME, GO TO SLEEP NOW!”

“I can do a SOMERSAULT!”

“LOOK MOMMY! I took off ALL my clothes! I’m NAKED GIRL!”

“LOOK! I picked out this booger! FROM MY NOSE!”

Now I can actually acknowledge or reprimand these announcements on a case by case basis instead of hoping to distract by pointing out what Cinderella/ Lightning Mcqueen/ Totoro is doing on screen.

When the day started I had grand plans of cleaning the house from top to bottom in this beautiful gift of a day spent home with my offspring, and I did manage to go through a lot of the crap sitting on our coffee table (and under our coffee table) but then the morning gotten eaten up with errands, and the afternoon has been eaten up with blog reading (and now writing).

But one thing I shall be doing. I’ll be donning the latex gloves (because i have very girly sensitive skin) and wiping off every fucking toy and surface with those bleachy sanitizing wipes to make sure no pink eye cooties can stick around to infect my children again.

-amy won’t rub eyeballs with bleachy sanitizing wipes though