She lives!

I know, I know, it's been a while since I posted anything real. About a month, in fact. And I have no outstanding excuse to offer except for the insanity of my job (at the busiest time of the year), as well as the time-consuming nature of motherhood in general and laundry in particular.

Even though it's been a month I can't promise anything of great interest, and in fact have no idea what I'm about to write, but I'll just start a list and see what I come up with. That okay with you? Great.

1. I took Iyyar and Avtalyon for their three-year and fifteen-month checkups, respectively, this morning. Iyyar--are you ready for this--has grown THREE INCHES and gained three pounds in the less than three months since he had his tonsils etc. out. And I'm pretty sure most of that happened within the first month, because that was when he outgrow all the last of his 2T clothes. He's going up stairs fine now, his muscle weakness seems to have diminished greatly, and while he still doesn't look as coordinated as the other kids in his playgroup you wouldn't immediately pick him out as the klutz the way you would have a few months ago. So, yeah, it looks like all of that was indeed growth-spurt related. But holy cow. Three inches!

2. Last Wednesday Avtalyon was Fussy. Capital-F Fussy, which he hardly ever is. He had a ton of hard earwax in both of his ears that seemed to be uncomfortable, and it was clearly interfering with his hearing, so I'd made an appointment for what I knew was going to be a miserable and traumatic earwax excavation; in addition to the annoyance that seemed to be causing, he had one tooth barely broken through on the bottom and two more poised to strike on top. So, itchy ears and teething--plausible explanation for a baby who toddled miserably around Yehudis's basement playroom, periodically tumbling into my lap to nurse, wail, scrabble around for more nursing, and wail some more. Right? Anyway I thought so.

Until the next morning, when I went in to retrieve a suddenly happy Avtalyon and saw that he seemed to have thrown up a little in his crib. No, wait, that's not vomit. It's... poop? No. Dirt? No. Oh wait. What the... is that earwax?

It was. It was earwax that had erupted from his ears when, um, both his eardrums ruptured from the huge nasty infections that had been percolating away in both ears for however long. The force of the explosion was such that it did an excellent job of earwax removal--it was all in his crib. The amount of pus and goo leaking out of his ears, however, was more than moderately alarming, so off to the pediatrician we went. She gave him antibiotics--oral, not ear drops, because, as she said, "I don't think you could even get them in his ears, and if you did, they'd probably get washed right out by all that... gunk."

Oh, and by the way, Avtalyon LOVES his antibiotics. He grabs the dropper out of my hand and sucks them right down--and even goes to the fridge himself and, if I open it, pulls the bottle out and hands it to me. Forget the cheese, I want more of THAT! Good thing it's a seriously childproof bottle.

3. Barak had his "nursery graduation" this week. I think this is a completely ridiculous concept, but admit it was pretty cute to see him dressed up as a chet.

4. Ooh, here's a thrilling one. Sterilite just came out with a new size of 15-quart latching bin that fits perfectly into the spaces in the wall of cubbies I have in my office cum guestroom cum fiber cave. I confess to having bought 20 of them, and lovingly sorted a whole lot of yarn into them. I do like how it looks when it's all kind of loose and crammed in there--sort of a horn-of-plenty effect--but concede that this is both more organized and probably more moth-resistant.

5. I've been knitting a lot, at least, a lot more than I really have time for. I just finished Iyyar's alphabet sweater, or, as he calls it, his ABCDE sweater; it's a kid-sized (obviously) Lopi into the yoke of which I knitted the alphabet. And it worked out perfectly, too--I only had to make the J a little narrow. Ends are woven and it's blocking now, just in time for summer.

6. They had cherries in the grocery store yesterday! I bought a bag and ate them all myself.

7. I feel like I should be doing more cute-kid updating but... I can't think of much. Iyyar is being pretty trying, to be frank--a lot of testing, testing, 123. What will you do if I do this? How about this? How about this? He is totally uninterested in potty use, which has the potential to be a real problem if he doesn't get his act together soon--no clean dry underwear by the end of August, no preschool. I really don't want to push it with him--he is the kind of kid who does not respond well to that--but I'm going to have to get serious about it when school is out. I'm giving myself until July 1--he's out of school so in my clutches all day, and Abba is still at work, ergo not here to freak out at the sight of a three-year-old running around the house commando.

Complicating the potty issue is that the constipation seems to have made a return visit. I have no idea what's causing it this time, unless (best case scenario I can come up with) he inadvertently ate another kid's dairy snack at school. I kind of doubt that though. He associates "cow milk" so strongly with feeling terrible that every time he sees me cooking or preparing anything in the kitchen, his first question is whether "that's a cow milk one." If I say yes, he won't touch it, although if it's something particularly appealing he might argue with me for a while about whether it really is cow milk, or whether I am merely misinformed. I feel bad about giving the other two cheese in front of him, especially when he loves it so much, but I just can't take dairy out of everyone's diets--especially since Avtalyon won't drink milk and Barak won't touch meat. They need the calcium and the protein.

8. I got a new mouse, since the old one barely worked anymore. The new one lights up in a sequence of five very bright colors--I did not notice this when I picked it out. It is not cool at all--it is, in fact, spectacularly distracting. And you CAN'T TURN IT OFF.

9. Hmm. Nine. Do I have a nine? [Thinks.] No, I don't.

10. The usual division of household labor around here is that Abba deals with the laundry (the schlepping-to-basement part--I fold and put away), the garbage, and gives baths when he is available. I do pretty much everything else. Lately, Abba has taken to emptying the dishwasher in the morning, which is really really nice, but has been so busy with work (seriously, he is almost never here) that the laundry has been sliding by the wayside. To the point where none of us really had much in the way of socks or underwear, etc. It had sort of gotten to the point where he was so overwhelmed with the backlog that he just couldn't deal, so I said, fine, I'll do all the laundry and clear out the pile and then you'll take it from there. Which proposal was gratefully accepted.

Eight. I did EIGHT loads of laundry in the last day and a half. And we have huge Maytag extra-large-capacity washers and dryers, that easily take a very full, very large basket of laundry. It's all folded and put away now, and everyone's sock drawers are overflowething. It's a nice feeling.

Okay. That's enough blogging for tonight. Off to knit something, and then go to bed.