I wanted to wax a bit more eloquent on the wonder that is my son in my post yesterday, but it was late and my eyeballs were about to drop out of my head and turn to dust on the floor.

So I postponed the mush until today.

MUSH ON!

Where do I start? When I think back to the early toddler days of Ethan, I remember the cuteness (he used to walk around and “drill” everything with his outstretched finger) but I also remember the moments of screaming, kicking, hitting, gouging, violent temper tantrums. Oh my, they were bad. They weren’t TOO often, and it wasn’t anything that wasn’t typical of a strong willed, very stubborn boy, but they required a lot of patience and cool-headedness. Things that you can only dole out so much of before it’s all used up and you turn into the Mommy From Hell. We had problems in school where he would sit in the office because of hitting another child, or his teacher. He would let his emotions rule him and once they ruled, he would do anything violent. Part of the problem was his teacher, while a sweet sweet lady, was a bit too nice. He needed a firm knowledge of the rules and the consequences for breaking them. It also didn’t help that there were a couple of other boys in his class that were just as strong willed as he was – the sum of those three boys was greater than each one alone.

I think back to those days because they are SOOOOO gone. He has matured into such a delightful boy. Strong willed, absolutely. Stubborn, hell yes. Plays super hard? Oh my yes. The boy can motor around a room pretending like he’s Lightning McQueen like nobody’s business. He comes home covered in dirt and tales of the playground, “WE FOUND A CATERPILLAR!” “WE BUILT A ROAD!” “WE RACED AND RACED AND RACED!” He is no longer ruled by his emotions. He can control his disappointment over something and totally knows how to rock a negotiation to get a decision overturned in his favor.

What constantly amazes me is the concern and empathy he shows for others. He shows such sweet protectiveness for his sister, sharing his toys and looking out for her behalf. Even as a toddler, when Jocelyn was a baby, he never showed the usual jealousy toward the new baby.

Shortly after Jocelyn turned 3, she moved to a different classroom. The 2 year olds have their own playground, and this change meant that she would be playing on the same playground that Ethan played on, with the big kids. A few days ago when I arrived on the school playground to pick them up, instead of running at me like a freight train, Ethan first ran over to Jocelyn to let her know I was here. So sweet. (Then he ran at me like a freight train.)

On Wednesday, his actual birthday, we took some cupcakes in to his class for birthday consumption at snack time. There were 12 cupcakes, and only about 9 kids. When I arrived to pick them up, there was one left. One that he had insisted be saved for Jocelyn. Every teacher I passed on my way to the playground to get them told me about how he had saved a cupcake for her.

When Jocelyn was sick with strep the weekend before last, he was so helpful and offered her everything he could think of to make her feel better. He ran to his bed and fetched his “warm blankey” and even gave her his pookie bear (most prized possession ever) to cuddle.

He loves to run at me like a freight train and knock me over with a big bear hug. However, once I was sitting on his bed, and bonked my head on his headboard in the process. So now, every time he does it, he slows down at the end and instead of putting his arms around me in a hug, he lifts one hand to hold the back of my head to make sure it doesn’t get hurt.

Last summer, we had a fun finger/toenail painting party that both kids enjoyed. I think he must have heard something about his pink fingernails at school, because every time I paint nails and offer to paint his, he refuses and says, “That’s for GIRLS!” I didn’t really make any comment, but I worried about his self image and any damage it might suffer from other kids’ comments. He is such a stubborn, strong willed guy that I want him to be able to do what he wants and who cares what anyone else thinks, and over the last year I’ve seen more and more signs that that is the case. He lets me paint his nails again now this year.

As we were leaving school once, someone called him a baby for carrying a stuffed animal (pookie bear) and he didn’t hardly blink. “I’m not a baby. I love pookie bear.”

Since my hair’s been pink, pretty much every day I pick up or drop off, I get other kids saying, “Your hair is pink!” or more commonly, “Why did you make your hair pink?!” One day Ethan turned to the questioner and stated, “Because she WANTED TOO!” in an exasperated tone.

Ethan has decided he loves pink, even though it is, as he says, “a girl color.” He doesn’t wear it or anything, but when cups and/or plates are handed out, he loves it when his cup/ bowl/ plate is pink, and we have to alternate who gets to have the “all pink” sippy cups between him and Jocelyn.

It is so wonderful to see him growing up into such a sweet, secure, caring individual, just like his daddy. I hope the next five years don’t come too quickly.

– amy turns the mush off now.

Yesterday, my baby turned 5 years old.

I still can’t beleive it.

The other day I spotted a Jiffy pizza dough box in the pantry and deemed it pizza night. Ethan was busy constructing the world’s largest lego snow-speeder-fire-police-blaster ship, and so I enlisted Jocelyn’s help. She helped me “paint” on the pizza sauce and was not quite so helpful putting the cheese on (more went into her mouth when she thought I wasn’t looking. Toddler sneakiness is so cute though).

It made me remember when my mom had us make our own pizzas with english muffins. Talk about easy! And there has been a dearth of home meals that have not consisted of PBJs and chicken nuggets, so I picked up the stuff next time I was at the store.

It’s amazing the progress this child has made. The child I once spanked because I was so frustrated with his inability to taste ANYTHING new, not to mention his inability to NOT provide a running commentary on how yucky everything was and how no morsel would ever pass his lips, NOT EVER, I’M NOT GIVING UP EVER.

So it started out pretty predictably. I opened a jar of sauce and gloped a spoonful on each side of an english muffin half, and told them to “paint” on the sauce.

“Can’t we toast one with butter mommy?” Ethan said,
“No, we’re having little pizzas tonight.” If ONLY that was the end, but now, he kept asking again and again until I thought I would scream. That was not the worst though,

“This looks DISGUSTING,” he would state as he spread the sauce around. I didn’t bother to answer, except to tell him if he couldn’t say something nice, not to say anything.

“I’m not going to eat it!” he informed me in a sing song voice! Again, no comment from me. Instead, I think I told them both what good “painters” they were.

By the time cheese sprinkling came around, he was having fun, and then I popped them under the broiler and they both had to turn the oven light on and off and check them and recheck them.

I set them down in front of them both, and Ethan again stated that he wasn’t eating any.

I dug out my standard line. “You just have to have 1 bite. You don’t know if you don’t like something if you never try it.”

He tried it. I turned my back on him and finished emptying the dishwasher. By the time I turned back around, the innards of his english muffin pizza was gone, with just the bones (what we call the crusts) left. I debated making him eat the bones, told him he had to eat least eat 1 of the bones to get dessert. He complied pretty easily.

I couldn’t help it. I tried, but I couldn’t help but verbally poking at him a little,

“I thought you said you wouldn’t try it?”
“I was KIDDING mommy!”

I’ll take it 🙂

This sort of scenario happens more and more often. He will talk big about something being so revolting that he wouldn’t ever put it in his mouth, but then when it comes time to eat, he will at least try it. I knew with teh pizza, he would eat it all, but even with less kid-appealing food, he will at least try it out.

It would have made me cry with happiness at one point.. but in my experience the trick to getting your kids to eat is learning to give up caring whether he eats or not.. (and careful bribery!) It’s worked. Of course, I do care a little, enough to post this post, for example.. but not enough to cry with happiness over it 🙂

If he eats, great. If not… oh well.

Is this what zen feels like?

I’m exagerating the laissez-faire attitude, because I’m pretty sure if this happened again, I think I really would cry in happiness!

In the morning, Ethan often gets up, wanders into our room and pokes us with his pookie bear. If it’s the weekend, we grunt, murmur something about it being too early, and roll over.

Ethan then will go downstairs for some quiet play time by himself. We will often come down to see all of the brilliant things he has built/ drawn/ concocted/ orchestrated:

Shall we look closer?

Block castle

Drawing…

WITH popsicle stick glued/taped to the bottom for a handy handle! For easy turning over to see the opposite side!
(He gets that ‘i must make a face when the camera is pointed at me’ from me)

And of course, the planes waiting by the runway. And don’t forget the gasoline truck, so they can tank up. And the toys r us truck, for… you know. Toys.

I’m looking back on the year of blogging and quite frankly, I suck. I used to at least post some photos several times a week which maybe kind of sort of made up for the not writing regularly. So, I’m going to try to remedy that. First up is some of the craftiness that’s been going on in our house.

Freezer stenciling on t-shirts. I have photos of the process for Jocelyn’s but only the finished product of Ethan’s. I used angry chicken’s freezer stencil tutorial to make these.

Here’s the stencil for Jocelyn’s shirt.

Next, I put the freezer paper over it, shiny side down, and traced it. Then I had to cut it out. This is probably the most time consuming part. Then, I ironed it onto Jocelyn’s blank t-shirt.

Then Jocelyn and I got to painting. (This was taken several weeks ago. You can see how I caved to kid pressure and put a little pink streak in her hair. OK, I’m lying. I caved because I totally wanted to do it! However, you’ll see later, in the photo I took this morning, how it’s pretty much disappeared now. It gave her several weeks of pure bliss. You can also see in this picture how pink haired ladies should never wear orange shirts!)

After painting, I set the shirt aside to dry. By the next morning, it was dry and I tossed it in the dryer to heat set it, and she wore it that day.

I did Jocelyn’s shirt first, because I pretty much knew what we wanted. After hers was drying, I asked Ethan what we should put on a shirt for him. He gave me a blank look. Jocelyn has a shirt that says, “My daddy loves me,” so drawing for something, ANYTHING, I suggested, “How about ‘I love my daddy?'”

He shook his head, thought a minute, and then said, “I love TRUCKS!”

“Should we put that on your shirt?”

“YEAH!”

I thought that sounded a little boring, but then I got the idea to take one of his drawings of a truck, and use that as well.

I took the purple truck, got rid of the line/road at the bottom, and made it part of the stencil.

So here is the finished results, of both shirts, taken this morning in front of their school (notice how the pink is now gone):

We started Ethan in soccer this spring. When we first told him, a month or so before it started, he was adamantly opposed. He gave no reason why, but then one day he said, “No, mommy. I’m going to be A WORKER MAN.” ‘Worker man’ is always his preferred career path when discussing what he wants to be when he grows up. Somehow, I think he believed that we were picking his career path in life by enrolling him in soccer.

We were pretty sure that when he experienced soccer, he’d get straightened out and love it. Stubborn as he is, he adamantly insisted that he WAS NOT going to like soccer, and at his first practice, even though he ran around playing the soccer games his coach devised with glee, climbed into the car at practice’ end declaring that he had NO FUN WHATSOEVER. Until his daddy said, “oh, I guess you don’t want any cake then..” and which point he made an about face. He hasn’t looked back since.

James and I wondered aloud whether they actually knew which way to kick the ball. Ethan proved to me during last Tuesday’s practice that he at least knew this much of the game. His coach divided up the team and pitted them against each other. While not too interested in getting into the swarm of kids around the ball, he showed that he at least did not want the other side to score a goal. He ran over to his own goal which was marked by 2 cones, picked one cone up, and moved it much to close to the first cone, so that scoring a goal through that narrow space would be nigh impossible (for 4 and 5 year olds at least). I had to laugh, even as I called out a reprimand and an order to replace the cones.

Saturday’s game day dawned cold, but not nearly as cold, windy or rainy as the rest of the weekend would become. James climbed out of bed to check on the game time, 10:30am, and then returned and barked that we had to get up and get ready or we’d be late. I got up and got ready while James got the kids ready, shin guards, soccer uniform, water bottles, soccer balls, and then out the door, “we’d better take Daddy’s car! It’s FASTER!” without much breakfast for me or James, as we were running late late late.

I had printed out the map of the park where all the games take place, with each of the fields designated. I knew we were on field 7. We were supposed to arrive about 15 minutes early, but instead arrived right at game time. Ethan and I scrambed out of the car to run over to his field. Already feeling like a disorganized, bad mom, I felt even worse as I arrived at the fields to see all the games under way. There were 3 little fields all in a row, and #7 was supposedly the one in the middle.

I looked and looked and did not recognize a single person. I asked Ethan if that was his coach? How about that guy over there? I felt worse and worse as I stopped and started asking parents on the side of the fields what team was playing here? How about the other side? Do you know the team number? before walking to ANOTHER one of the fields, with little son in tow to ask someone over there. Maybe it wasn’t field 7 at all. Maybe it was field 10? Where was field 10? Why did I leave teh map with James in the car? Why had I not brought my phone so I could call him to tell him to bring the map? Why did I decide to dye my hair pink, so then not only was I a bad mom who didn’t know where her son’s game was, I was a bad PINK HAIRED mom who didn’t know where her son’s game was. I was so very fed up and didn’t know what to do and was feeling lower and lower by the second. When James and Jocelyn showed up, I was done asking people questions, and kept nudging James, “Go ask, go ask, go ask.”

I felt awful as I had to try to cushion Ethan for the worst, “Your game might be over, honey.”

“Why?”

Why? Because your mother is an idiot, that’s why. I had no good answer.

James was positive that it WAS field #7. I sadly noticed that the game seemed to be ending. “What time IS it?” I asked James. “10:40,” he replied. 10 minutes past Ethan’s game time, and it was over already?

I walked up to yet another parent, and went through the usual questions, “What team was playing? Do you know what the opposing team was?” The dad shifted uncomfortably, but not from the irresponsible pink haired mother interrogating him, but because he had no idea. He turned and called his wife, who evidently kept all the information, but was too far away/busy talking to someone else to hear. He turned back and said a little apologetically, “The game ran a little late, I don’t think the ref was really paying any attention to the time. We started late too.”

“When was your game time?” I asked, yet another question from the pink haired irresponsible mom.

“It was supposed to be 9am.”

NINE AM?

NINE AM?

These games were supposed to last a half hour. Nine am?

“9am? What time is it now?” I asked. He looked at his watch. Finally, a question he could answer and didn’t need to find out from his wife!”

“9:40.”

I turned to James who had ambled up to us sometime during the discourse, and he frowned and looked at his watch. My first thought was, ‘James has an atomic watch, it can’t be wrong.’

But it was wrong.

He had hit some button in the night and set it to the wrong time zone.

It was NINE FORTY-FIVE (by this time) and we were FORTY FIVE MINUTES EARLY FOR ETHAN’S GAME.

Then came the laughter with the guy, “Oh, we are here a whole HOUR early! Thanks for your time,” etc. etc.

After the flood of initial relief, came the ANGER. I knew it wasn’t James’ fault. Hell, I was partly to blame. I have so many clocks that one can see the time from pretty much any position in the entire house, and yet I never noticed the hour. I wasn’t angry about the slowly freezing to death over the next half hour, I was angry about feeling like such a bad, irresponsible mom. Every time I walked up to someone to ask questions, I felt so horrible about myself for not having it all together. I reflected on the repeated feeling of inadequacy as I sat on the cold grass which slowly froze my ass off, and damn if I wasn’t pissed off, baby!

So my own self-loathing aside, Ethan’s first game was fantastic. The game itself did a lot for making me forget about being pissy. It was so cute and amusing and wonderful to see all those little kids running around, like a swarm of bees following around a little mobile flower, with a few bees not really caring about the flower and just running around for the hell of it. My son? One of the bees running around for the hell of it.

Right before the game started, Ethan actually spread his legs out wide to make what I instantly recognized as a tunnel. My son wanted the ball to go through his little self-made tunnel. I had to call out, “Ethan! No tunnel!” and then he hopped his legs together amiably. He was not overly concerned about the ball, or trying to get it through the goal, and I would have to think very hard on whether or not he actually made contact with the ball at all. …. No, I take it back. I am pretty sure he did. But for the most part, he had a blast just being out there and running around.

He played in the first half, and sat out the second half. He spent the first few minutes trying to convince me that we didn’t have to stay until the end, but could leave and go play on the playground. I finally had to put a stop to that by saying if he asked again, we wouldn’t go to the playground after the game at ALL, and then he shaped up.

We had fun hollering, “GO LIGHTNING!” (our team’s name, which Ethan suggested on their first practice) and nobody noticed when we lost, I think the score was 5-3.

We played on the playground, and then went out to lunch (James and I had had no breakfast, if you remember), but it wasn’t until I sank into a steaming hot bathtub after we got home and got the kids settled in for naptim, that I finally warmed up my cold frozen bones.

Before I finish this post, I have to say that Jocelyn cannot wait until she is old enough for soccer. At Ethan’s first practice, the coach called out, “Everyone line up!” and Jocelyn ran and lined up, ready to play. She can’t understand why SHE doesn’t get to play TOO! She’ll be old enough to play in the fall, and then we’ll get our superstar playing. Between the two of them, she is the one that is much more into it. For her age and motor skills, what she can do with a ball is pretty amazing. She’s the one who always wants to play soccer when we go outside to play. Ethan would much rather get out his trucks and dig in the flower beds. When James and I watch her, we both agree that she seems to be a natural athlete (biased much? probably). I can’t wait until I don’t have to stop her from running out onto the field to play too.

-amy doesn’t know about this soccer-mom gig

Oh boy, where to begin? What a fantastic weekend it was.

EVERYONE’S FINE

The weekend actually started for the kids, on Thursday. Jocelyn was up all night coughing and fiddling around Wednesday night, so much that I thought she must be really sick. So James took the kids in to school and let both teachers know that I would be picking them up around noon to take Jocelyn to the doctor. Well, it turned out our pediatrician was only open until 11am, which meant I needed to get Jocelyn there by 10.30, which meant I needed to pick them up by 10. The only reason we sent them in anyway was because Jocelyn had her Easter party and we didn’t want her to miss it. So I took them to the doctor, Jocelyn got examined and she’s fine, just a cold. Their school was closed on Good Friday (James stayed home with them then), so they had a very long weekend!

SINGING

Friday night performance was fantastic. Oh, can I tell you how much I love the music we sang? So beautiful! It’s sooooo good. I’m so sad that it’s over and now we won’t be working on it in rehearsal anymore. We had a pretty good turnout, and it went really well.

SATURDAY CRAFTINESS

Saturday Jocelyn and I went and did some errands in the morning, and James took Ethan to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum (it’s near Dulles airport in VA instead of downtown DC). All accounts given pointed to them having a fabulous time, with a stop at an ice cream shop before getting back home to top it off. Jocelyn and I did some boring things. Bank. Pick up pictures. Stop at grocery store. I made the mistake of commenting to her earlier that morning, that her dress-up dress was getting too small, and we’d have to get a bigger one. One should never say this until one is ready to go out THAT MOMENT to get a new dress, because everywhere half hour, she said, “Will they have a bigger dress here?” “Are we going to get me a bigger dress now?” etc. I decided that if I waited until after Easter, then all those fancy easter dresses would be on sale, I could get her one that is too big (perfect for dressup) and I should wait until then. Plus, I bought a little girl dress pattern with a gift certificate that Anna gave me for my birthday (ain’t she sweet??) and I thought I should get busy on that as well.

So we got back home (sans new bigger dress) and put up some Jocelyn photographs in her room. I had some up long ago, took them down when we painted it, and then the pictures got carried off, taken out of the frames, and otherwise mangled, so it was time to get those back up. Jocelyn loves to look up at the photos and say, “That’s me, JOCELYN!”

Then I started on another project I’ve had in the back of my mind for a long time. I’ve wanted to try freezer stenciling, and even had bought blank tshirts for the kids in preparation for it. So today was the day. I traced the stencil onto freezer paper, cut it out with a kitchen knife (oh exacto! where art thou?) ironed it on to her shirt, and then we both sat down and painted it in. I reread all the directions later, and found that I actually did the painting wrong – you’re supposed to DAB, not STROKE, and Jocelyn and I stroked. You’re also supposed to use very thin layers, and well, we just globbed it on. It turned out fantasticly though, and I set it in the dryer the next morning, and then Jocelyn wore it all morning until she spilled water all down the front. It is just the cutest little shirt ever, in my opinion. I may make one for me. I don’t have a picture of her wearing it yet, but here is the stencil:

When Ethan was home, I asked him what he wanted on a shirt for him, and he kind of gave me a blank look.

“boys rock?” I asked.
more blank looks.
Jocelyn has a shirt that says, ‘My daddy loves me,’ so then I suggested, “How about ‘I love my Daddy?”
Finally, an opinion, “NO, I love TRUCKS!”

So an “I love trucks” shirt is in the works next. I have the stencil all cut out ready to be ironed on, but I need to get a blank shirt for him. The one I had was deemed unacceptable, because it is yellow. “BLANK MEANS WHITE MOMMY!”

Sunday was more crazy project fun. On a much bigger scale. Earlier that week, Ethan verbalized some thought processes to me, while we were in Jocelyn’s room.

ROOM SWAPPEROO

Ethan: “I slept in this room with Jocelyn before.”
Mommy: “You mean when Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Larry visited?”
E: “Yeah. In a SLEEPING BAG!” (they didn’t visit in a sleeping bag. he slept in a sleeping bag. because uncle larry was in his bed)
M: “Ahhh, yup.”
E: “And this room used to be mine.”
M: “Yes, it was, when you were a little little boy.”
E: “I could sleep in here with Jocelyn again. We could share it.”
M: “You mean move your bed in here?”
E: “YEAH! Like CHARLIE AND LOLA!”
m: “Then what would we do in your room?”
e thought about this a minute.
e: “We could make it a toy room!”
m: “You know, I could really go for this idea.”

I mentioned it a few more times to both Jocelyn and Ethan, told them maybe we could try it out for a while and see how it goes, brought up other “problems” as I thought of them, just to see what solution Ethan would think of (“What about naptime?” “I can be very quiet mommy, I can sleep during naptime”). Sunday morning, I thought, “Why not?” and so me and the kids got to work re-arrancing Jocelyn’s room to accomodate Ethan’s bed. We left his dresser in his room, cleared out 2 drawers in Jocelyn’s dresser, moved in his bed and his clothes. They were SO excited and pleased to have both their beds in the same room, and they had a blast in the new “toy room.” Jocelyn brought her dress up clothes, and we put them in the closet, and said, “Now it’s your dress up closet!” Ethan hauled his geotrax train stuff up the stairs all by himself (and let me tell you, it’s a lot, and it’s heavy) and got straight to work making a train layout. James and I got a bunch of laundry folded in relative peace while they played to their hearts content.

It reminded me of when I was younger and my sister and I rearranged our rooms on a weekly basis, sometimes even switching rooms with each other for a few weeks and then switching back. Of course, I was 14 and my sister Susan was 10, not the toddlers my kids are, but it was fun, and why not? 🙂

CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN

Sunday night we had some frantic house cleaning on the main level and I’m happy to say my sanity is saved for yet another week becuase it’s all relatively clean. If we get it clean Sunday night, then it usually stays pretty clean all week. On the other hand, if we DON’T get it clean, it’s a disaster, and it stays a disaster all week, and it really makes me pretty depressed.

Today Jocelyn starts in a new classroom. She moves up from the 2 year old class to the 3 year old class, which means not only a new teacher, new friends, etc. but she gets to go play on the BIG playground! She is very excited about this, and Ethan is too. He has already told her how he will show her all around the playground and play with her. It’s very sweet. Sunday evening, she came over to me and said, “I want to go to school,” and was somewhat distraught that she would have to wait all the way until MORNING to go to her new class.

Ahhhh.. it was a lovely weekend. The lovliest I’ve had in a long time.

-amy: established 1873, natural spring amy.

So, Sunday night I posted that I felt like I was going to be sick. My throat had that scratchy feeling that made a taunting sing songy bully voice in my head sing over and over, “You’re going to be siiiiiiick!”

And it was correct. Oh boy was it correct.

Monday morning.. I don’t remember the morning. I vaguely remembering saying something about not going to work to James. That’s it. I don’t remember James showering or getting dressed, or the kids running around or anything. I do remember the weird vivid fever dreams I had. I woke up to stillness all around me and that weird feeling you get when you wake up not knowing what time it is or what’s going on. I went back to sleep. Around 10am I dragged myself out of bed, left a message on my boss’ voicemail that I wouldn’t be in that day, did a shot of Dayquil, and got myself into a steaming hot bath hoping that would stop the fever-shivering. It did, but when I managed to drag my carcass out of it an hour later, the shivering came back. I stayed in bed all day, not really sleeping, more like drifting along on a cloud of feverish unconsciousness. I don’t like it there. I dreamed about my raspberry bushes taking over the entire yard. I dreamed about digging huge trenches around them, and putting in cement gardening blocks to try to contain their growth. I dreamed about other things too, but they’ve now faded from memory. Luckily, no nightmares. Fever nightmares are the worst. I vaguely grew aware of the time and the parched state of my throat, and so I made a white-knuckles on the bannister trip down the stairs to get a glass of water, and then back in bed I called James and asked if he could pick up the kids. He did, but warned me that I’d have to actually supervise them, and make sure they get dinner and jammies and get put into bed, because he had class that night. I had remembered, but wasn’t relishing the idea.

When they got home, Ethan and Jocelyn were so cute. They came over and asked me if I was feeling sick, and why and assured me that they’d take care of me. Ethan is especially cute when someone is sick. He gets the victim his warmest blankey, and even offers them his treasured Pookie bear. I let them watch TV all night, eat PBJs on the couch, got them both dressed in their jammies in the living room, and then packed them to bed one by one with (very short) stories. The really sucky part about being in bed all day with a fever is that late at night when the fever has finally broken and you’re exhausted and yet not really sleepy and the thought of going back to bed where you spent all day is depressing.

Tuesday was a little better. The fever abated with the help of the Dayquil, so that I actually ate food and ginger ale, but stayed pretty solidly on the couch for the duration of the day. I took the opportunity to catch up on Gilmore Girls. I watched a few of them last fall, but then got discouraged with the turn of events in Loralei’s love life and stopped watching them as the TiVo recorded them. I just let them build up, so now I’ve got about 10 episodes to watch. I like doing it that way better, because then I can watch a whole bunch in a row and get to where everything is better again (and I know they will be. I KNOW THEY WILL BE.)

I even managed to get up and make some dinner for everyone. I knew that today I’d be going in to work, but was still feeling pretty crummy.

And I must say, for being sick, it could have been much worse.. I could breath through my nose OK. My throat felt a little scratchy, but not like I was swallowing razor blades or anything. My symptoms all zeroed in on my nasal passages not actually part of my nose or throat. Right under my eyes and behind my nose, I felt like somehow, a deflated basketball had snuck in there and then inflated. I felt as if my brain was trying to ooze out my ears. My neck hurt like a mofo everytime I tried to turn my head. My head itself felt like it weighed 50 pounds and was impossible to hold up or move. My ears popped and crackled everything I even thought about swallowing or moving my jaw.

Tuesday night, I was feeling better (read: no fever), but as all the congestion in my sinus cavities started to finally loosen, I would cough up, what I described to James as, “bloody pieces of my brain.” It looked that way, and it felt that way, and since more dark green bloody spew the size of my top ring finger knuckle got spat out into the sink and shower this morning, I decided that even if I was feeling a bit better, I should probably seek professional assistance. I mean, if it IS my brain, I certainly don’t want to lose any MORE of it into the sink. I know though, that it’s not my brain, it’s nasty infected horribly compacted mucus that has set up it’s home in my sinuses (sinusi? sini?). However, it’s much more fun to point at the sink and exclaim, “MY BRAIN! THAT WAS THE PART THAT CONTROLLED MY ESP!”

Ahem. Sorry about that. I hope you weren’t eating or anything.

I got myself to a doctor this morning. I now have antibiotics, nasal spray, narcotic laced cough syrup for nighttime, and the label “sinus infection” to use on friends and colleagues in order to derive pity for my sad sorry state.

I just hope I stop horking up pieces of my brain.

In other not so good news, I’ve now used up all my sick time for the year and have started on vacation time. Yippee!

Saturday night at dinner, I made a big pot of broccoli for James and I, and planned on forcing the kids to have a bite too. I decided to wait until they wanted something yummy, and then pull the old, “after you’ve had a bite of broccoli” trick. Bribery and treats when eating vegetables are involved is the only way to go. Hell. Not even just vegetables. ANYTHING new.

I’m happy to say that after chipping away at Ethan’s stubborn refusal to eat ANYTHING that looks suspicious and foreign by eating it in front of him and making him taste it with cake and cookies for dessert as the reward, we have finally had success.

Unfornately I nearly wasn’t able to enjoy it because I about had a heart attack from the shock.

So I was happily eating my broccoli, when Jocelyn asked if she could have “a little tree broccoli.” It’s the first time she’s asked for it, but she’s eaten some before with little persuasion needed. This was a little shocking though, and it’s a good thing it happened, because maybe it helped cushion what was to come. “Sure,” I said, and handed over a little tree.

“Mommy,” Ethan asked politely, “could I have some broccoli please?”

My heart stopped. I mean STOPPED. But I kept moving my knife and fork the way I had already been moving it. I kept my eyes on my plate instead of letting them fly in shock from my son to my husband back to my son. I schooled my voice to keep a normal tone as I replied, “Sure,” in the same way I had said it to Jocelyn. I ignored the sharp tingling pain moving down my arm.

My. Son. Asked. For. Broccoli.

We did nothing, NOTHING to upset the precariousness of the situation. We remained totally blase through the actual experience, we didn’t even exchange a knowing look. Acknowledging a miracle, even to each other, may have forced the space-time continuum to jump back into alignment and then Ethan would have said, “Broccoli? BLECH! NEVER! I WILL NEVER! NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVVVVEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRR!!! This mouth? Never gonna open.” It wasn’t until an HOUR after they were safely IN BED that I freaked out about it. I yelped and screamed and had a major cow to James. He looked at me in confusion until I managed to spit out, “BROCCOLI! HE ASKED FOR BROCCOLI!” and then he joined in the cow birthing with his disbelief. We laughed, we cried, we sat and remembered with WONDER.

Our son. ASKED. for broccoli.

Just OPENING HIS MOUTH readily as a fork laden with broccoli soaring through the air whilst it’s holder made airplane jet noises would have been miracle enough.

HE ASKED FOR BROCCOLI.

I may never recover from the shock.

I can only say, that there is hope for everyone. If Ethan asked for broccoli, then there is hope for everyone. We have had so many fights, timeouts, even one case of spanking, over food and refusal to even try it. If my son asks for broccoli, you too, can experience this miracle. Perserverance, my friends, is key. My son is 4, and I’ve been working on him steadily for the past.. oh, 2 years, I’d say, with phrases like, “If you don’t taste it, you won’t know if you like it.” and replies like, “Ok, you only have to have 1 bite”, or “I’ll make you something else, but you have to try that first.” or “OK, you don’t have to eat any of it, but then you won’t get a cookie for dessert,” or “no yogurt until you have 1 bite,” (to the statement, “BLECH THAT LOOKS GROSS.” or “YUCK, PEAS, I HATE PEAS.” or “CHICKEN?!? NOT IN NUGGET FORM?!? I’D RATHER CHEW MY OWN ARM OFF.” or “I MIGHT DIE IF I PUT THAT IN MY MOUTH!” or “I WILL NEVER, NEVER EVER CHANGE MY MIND! EEEEEEEEVEEEERRRR!”)

Seriously. Hell? It must be might cold down there about now.

Not only because my son asked for broccoli.

And then he ate it.

This morning, James got up and hopped in the shower while I laid in bed wishing I didn’t have to get up for about 5 minutes.

When I finally got up, I got a couple of clean items of Ethan clothing from the heap of clean laundry in our room and headed over to Ethan’s room. I opened the door, and found Ethan standing right inside. I could see he was a little surprised to have the door opened for him by me, but he hardly glanced at me as he sped by, ignoring my cheery, “Good morning! Do you want to pick out some clothes?” and the items in my hands.

I continued on my way, deposited the clothes in his closet, and went to get Jocelyn up. Every morning, she is still asleep, and I (when it’s my turn to get the kids up) gather some clothes, scoop her sleeping form up from her bed, and go plop her on the toilet to go potty. She wakes up halfway with me rummaging around in her closet and dresser, and I hold her for a minute before putting her on the potty, but yes, I know what you’re thinking, it’s kind of an abrupt way to wake up, but hey, I don’t see YOU over here doing it a better way so just shoosh already.

As I was sitting in the bathroom with Jocelyn, I heard Ethan motoring around the upper floor. He crashed around in our bedroom for a bit, and I saw an Ethan-shaped blur rush past the bathroom door into Jocelyn’s room, and then another blur as he raced out again and headed down the stairs. I halfheartedly called out to him, “GO PICK OUT SOME CLOTHES,” but it didn’t do any good.

Jocelyn, fully awake with a newly empited bladder, danced around the bathroom insisting on dressing herself and generally being a cutie patootie. I got her toothbrush all ready for her, along with Ethan’s, and then left her to dress herself and went to search Ethan down. As I stepped out of the bathroom, I saw him scooting at a much slower pace from his room to mine. No words. Grumpy, sulky face. Gone was the happy motoring pace.

I went into my room and found him sitting in a corner on the side of the couch.

“What’s wrong, Ethan?”

Nothing but a sad face.

“Are you trying to find something?”

“Yes. I can’t find my Pookie bear. I looked EVERYWHERE.”

Oh dear. CRISIS MODE! CRISIS MODE! Ethan has had the same little white bear that I had as a little girl since he was an infant and I put it in with him in his crib. As a baby and a toddler, he liked it, but I would say that his baby blanket was more of his “attachment item.” Lately however, he is enamored with his pookie bear. He will take it to school, he will make the bear give people hugs, he even made pookie bear show his bottom to James once, and then put him (pookie bear, not James) in time out for the act. Every now and then, he’ll talk for Pookie bear, and then quickly tell you, “That was my bear!” He will tell me, out of the blue, “I love my pookie bear SO MUCH!” and then try to squeeze it to death. That bear is much much much beloved.

“Why don’t you go brush your teeth, and I will look for pookie bear.”

I was sure I would find him, but as I took my turn motoring around the house I got more and more worried as I thought about the possibility of a lost pookie bear. I tried to remember when Ethan had him last. I knew he didn’t take him to school yesterday, but DID have him that morning. Ethan came into our bed in the morning for a few snuggle minutes before getting up, so I started to think Pookie bear must be hiding in our bed somewhere.

I came back to the room, where Ethan was perked up but still very sad on not having Pookie. James was out of the shower and I explained the dilemma. We started searching the bed and bedroom, and finally, james let out a cry of discovery.

“Look what I found!”
Ethan RACED to his daddy and took his beloved bear in his arms.
“There’s pookie bear! He was HIDING!! I love my pookie bear SO MUCH!”

Crisis averted 🙂 These pictures are old ones, but still cute, and give you an idea of what Mr. Pook E. Bear look like: