Even more disorganized than usual

But better than nothing, right? Right?

1. Barak's latest Lego creation is a laserbeam airplane. It's a pretty impressive airplane with a flower piece on front. This is the thing that shoots the laser. He's done a lot of little Lego lately, mostly courtesy of his star chart Lego but this past week courtesy of some birthday money from Bubbe & Zayde. I got him a set of pirate Lego, soon to be discontinued. It was much bigger than the kind I usually give him for star charts, and I didn't want to up the ante with that, so I gave it to him as a late birthday present. He was, naturally, thrilled, and happily crept out of bed after the other two were asleep erev Shabbos to tackle it. He did it all by himself, by "looking so so carefully at the constructions."

2. Avtalyon is being HILARIOUS lately. He really seems to be feeling better and, par for his course of trying to be like his big brothers in all things, has started doing Lego. By this I mean that in the last couple of days he has figured out how to attach Lego. When he does this, he does one of two things; either he attaches it into a tall stack and brings it me or someone else available to take it apart for him (this is harder than putting it together?); or he puts it together into an amorphous blob and drives it around the floor, saying "Beep! Beep!"

3. Avtalyon also just started saying "meow" and "please!" which comes out sounding like "bee!" He still has zero patience for waiting for anything while in his high chair, but now sometimes inserts a few hopeful "bees!" into the frantic wailing.

4. Iyyar has really had some setbacks on the tummy front this week. As in, back to screaming and constipation. I called the GI doctor back this week and talked to the nurse clinician. "It's been eight months and he's still not OK. I'd like to bring him back in, and also, I think we should look more into the possibility that he might have celiac disease." He's showing so many of the signs that I wanted her to try a different test to be doubly sure--there are a few. We talked about his antibody levels, which were tested for in February. Except--surprise! They weren't! They didn't get enough blood! And nobody told us that the tests were canceled! In fact, we were told that if no one had contacted us, then everything was normal! Does this ring a bell with anyone else here?

We've been giving him Miralax this week, which has brought him from constipation to diarrhea. An improvement from the point of view of his comfort, but it still doesn't give any answers or any long-term solution. Also looming on the horizon: preschool. If he isn't toilet trained by the end of August, he can't go. I don't even want to think about that possibility. I'm bringing him back in for another blood draw Tuesday (fun for everyone!) and he's going back to the GI doctor at Children's in July.

5. Barak's latest invention on the fantasy animal front is the dragon cheetah tiger. I know that they are black and they have big teeth and they are scary, because he drew one for me. VERY big teeth. Don't meet one of those in a dark alley.

6. I told you this was going to be disorganized, right?

7. I am way way way behind on work. WAY behind. I've been distracted, and I've been tired, and I'm burned out on this year. And I want a break, but one is not forthcoming.

8. It is the time of the Annual Ant Invasion. Barak and Iyyar think this is great. I do not. I also don't like it because I don't want to teach the kids to smash bugs for fun. But I do a lot of bug-smashing these days. Fine line, etc.

9. A friend of mine from grad school came for a brief visit today. It was really, really nice, and my kids were as beautifully behaved as they've ever been in their lives. She was impressed. "They're so good!" I did tell her that they're not like this all the time, but I admit to the shepping of some nachas in that regard. They really were being awfully good.

10. Oh, I forgot this--it should have been attached to #1. Last Friday, when Barak was doing pirate Lego, we had dinner guests. We had made early Shabbos but even still, by the time we sat down to eat it was after 8. Barak sat with us for kiddush and motzi and then sneaked off to the kitchen (with my permission) to do his Lego. I let him stay up until 11 PM. Crazy, I know, but he was totally fine the next day. And he had a blast.

What this made me think of was the Make-A-Plate. You know those melamine plates that you made in nursery school, or that your kids made? I made mine in 1976, and it was a picture of my mother in a blue dress and high heels with curly hair. Barak's obviously criminally negligent preschool did no such project, so I ordered the kit online and we did them at home. Iyyar's is covered with scribbles. Avtalyon's is handprints--I stuck his hands on an inkpad and then on the paper templates you are supposed to use. Barak's plate is a drawing of a house erev Shabbos. It is dark outside (colored in blue) and the Imma is lighting candles on a table. There are brothers in bed, and one brother who is not in bed. This, he informed me, is the brother who is getting out of bed to play little Lego in the kitchen.