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.

What's been keeping me busy that isn't this blog

(Click to enlarge picture and see stash in all its woolly glory.)

Vroom

I mentioned a few days ago that Ada stopped by last Sunday to bring the boys birthday presents. Because she knows them pretty well, she turned up with some serious hits: Batman and Superman pajamas for Iyyar and Barak, respectively, which came with actual capes; and a Batman and Superman car (one of each) that you can shake, put down on the floor, and watch zoom away, with sound effects. "Turbocharged!" and "To the bat cave!" and so on. These were, Ada cheerfully admitted, the kind of presents you buy for other people's kids.

Barak and Iyyar, it goes without saying, are in love with their new cars. Barak is so possessive of his that I haven't seen it for a while, because he has it hidden in his bed; Iyyar has been playing with his all the time, but occupied less with the car itself than with the task of keeping it out of Avtalyon's hands. Iyyar's new goal in life, apparently, is preventing Avtalyon from ever getting any toys; whatever Avtalyon gets, Iyyar confiscates, with a merciless "no no baby! That's not for you!" I intervene in this at what seems like two-minute intervals all day, and while I remember that Barak used to do the exact same thing to Iyyar, it doesn't make me any more sympathetic. The house is FULL of toys, that baby rattle or toy wrench has been around since before you were born, and only now that Avtalyon's holding it it is the only toy you can possibly play with in the whole wide world? Give me a break.

Part of me is waiting eagerly for the moment when Avtalyon finally clops him one across the face (it won't be long); part of me knows all too well what will happen when that line is finally crossed. Anyway, by Sunday afternoon both the supercars were having time-outs, to reappear Monday morning (which they did). Of course, Monday morning both Iyyar and Barak went off to school, leaving Avtalyon... alone. With TWO supercars.

Asnat was here Monday and when it was time for her to go, I came out of my office to see Avtalyon hoofing it down our long hall in hot pursuit of the Batcar. Then he grabbed it, spied me, and came hustling back to present it to me for re-shaking and relaunching. But on the way, he wasn't just holding the car. He was driving it through the air, with a distinctly identifiable "Vroooooooooooooommmmm..."

news flash

This morning, Avtalyon said "hello" AND "wow"! And in the stroller this morning, said "baby" really clearly--not "baba" but a genuine "ba-bee!"

Now that I have a keyboard

My keyboard up and died last week, literally midsentence, for no apparent reason. I thought something had gotten inside and took it apart (with a screwdriver and Barak's able assistance), cleaned it, and put it back together, but no dice. The old keyboard is now serving as a computer-assisted navigation system for the pirate ship, formerly known as the living room couch, and I was keyboardless until I installed the new one about fifteen minutes ago. It's kind of surprising though what you can do without a keyboard if you really really have to. Like, put in your password by right-clicking and copying one letter at a time. Tedious, but it works.

Anyway. It's been a busy week. In short:

1. One of my most demanding clients at work is leaving soon, and he gave me, by way of appreciation, silver hors d'oeuvres forks and spoons. They are very pretty and were probably very expensive--his assistant thinks his wife picked them out. I had no idea what they were. I thought they were for the kids, but noted that the forks looked awfully sharp. His assistant told me what they were. Then, after a short pause, she told me I needed to get out more.

2. It's my birthday tomorrow. I'm going to be 36. I find this a little bit... unsettling. Not too much, but somewhat. Mostly because I am now on the Other Side of 35, and I want more kids, &c. My musician friends all freak out about 35 because that's the age Mozart died at ("and I haven't even written one opera! Not one!") For me, it's all about the fertility. Say what you will, but please don't.

3. I let Iyyar have a cookie with butter in it a couple of days ago, to see what happened. BIG mistake. The exact same thing happened that happened last time: he screamed and cried off and on all day until he finally pooped. It was awful and I felt terrible. Remind me not to try that again for a really, really long time.

4. Lately, Iyyar has been asking me to put on his "gloves", which are actually his Shabbos socks. He doesn't seem bothered by having socks on his hands and they seem to hinder his dexterity surprisingly little. Tonight he ate dinner wearing Barak's old blue car pajamas, a "pirate tichel" (my green-pink-and-sparkley tie-dyed one--highly piratical, of course) and gray socks on his hands. I should have taken a picture.

As a side note, do you know the German word for "glove"? It is literally "hand shoes." It is my favorite word in the German language. I mean, we know they are literal, but come on... "hand shoes?" It's almost as good as my favorite Hungarian word, which is "lightbulb." Literally, it translates as "electric pear." Which is, of course, exactly what a lightbulb is.

5. I have been knitting a LOT. I'm just on a huge knitting kick lately, and, in a departure from my knitting tendencies for the last few years, I've been wanting to do really gnarly, complicated knitting with lots of cables and charts. I've got my list of summer knitting all laid out, and first on the list is fall Shabbos vests for the boys in the navy blue Galway I have had sitting around for years. Pattern suggestions for cabled vests in sizes 2, 4, and 6? I could of course just wing it, but feel like branching out.

6. Avtalyon is getting impossible to cook with. He's suddenly started noticing that sometimes I have/am eating food, and takes this very personally. I have food! Which means that there is food that he does not have! And this cannot be allowed to stand! He tries his best to lunge out of his high chair (fortunately, he can't, but he tries reeeeeally hard), arms pitifully outstretched, wailing REALLY REALLY loudly about how much he WAAAAANTS it. Usually, he already has whatever it is I have. He doesn't care. He wants THAT ONE.

7. Other Avtalyon updates: he now says "book," "baby," and "peas," and has demonstrated a marked preference for the books containing pictures of babies. He LOVES books. He also loves his blankie. Like Iyyar, he sucks on the tag, but unlike Iyyar at this age, he prefers having his pacifier in his mouth. So what to do with the tag? Why, stick it in the next available aperture, of course. Which is why, when he's ready to fall asleep, you'll often see him sucking away on his pacifier while poking his blankie tag into his ear.

8. Last week, Avtalyon got a hideously high fever after a day and a half of throwing up everything he ate. "Hideously high" means that I just did not believe the thermometer, because come on--106? No way. Then Ada the Awesome stopped by, to give the boys birthday presents, and that was when we noticed that his hands and feet were kind of... well... dusky. And that he was breathing really fast. And that his heart was going awfully fast too. And that he looked really, really terrible. It was one of those moments where you truly don't know if you're being a neurotic mother or if there really is something bad going on, and given the choice of being laughed at in the ER for rushing in with a feverish baby and ignoring, say, a cardiac infection, I am all for option A.

Have I mentioned before how spectacularly great it is to have a babysitter who works in a pediatric ER? Not only did she drive us there, she came in with us, and it was kind of like going to the airport with a platinum frequent flier card (not that I would know.) She walked up to the registration desk and had a quiet word, after which we were ushered inside for a totally competent triage check by an RN (fever at 103.8, with Motrin), and then sat down to wait. Which we didn't do. Because about two minutes later, Ada poked her head out from around a corner and crooked her finger at us in the manner of a speakeasy proprieter during the early days of Prohibition. You can come this way now, but don't draw attention to yourself. So, as inconspicuously as possible, we coolly breezed in past a packed waiting room, and were seen right away by an honest-to-God DOCTOR (an MD! a real one! with a degree, and everything! I think she was at least as old as me, too!)

She thought he had a bug, but wanted to see clear chest films and his fever down before being sure about that. So Avtalyon got more Motrin than I would ever have given him at home, and a chest x-ray, and we hung out for a while in the ER while he nursed and perked up, and not two hours later we were out of there. Amazing. And we also had Ada around giving us the first-class treatment and bringing us stuff. If you have to take your baby to the ER, that is definitely the way to do it. But don't even ask me for my babysitter's phone number, because YOU CAN'T HAVE IT. We are not sharing.

9. As we get more and more serious about the idea of making aliya next summer, the question of what to do with our condo has been looming pretty large. It's pretty clear we can't sell it; even if we could find a buyer, selling it now would mean a financial loss that we just can't handle if we're going to be moving. Next option, of course, is renting it out. With that in mind, I've been making some inquiries about refinancing at a slightly lower rate to try to get the monthly payments down as much as possible. It transpires that, unless we qualify for one of the new federal programs, we actually won't be able to refinance because--get this--we don't have enough equity. We bought our apartment for $240k. We owe $173k on the mortgage, by dint of extreme thrift over the last few years and extra payments to principal almost every month. But we have about $7k in equity, because of how much value it has lost in the last year.

It's hard to think about like that. I can, however, think about it as, "If MHH had not gotten a job and had spent this entire year unemployed, how much worse shape would we really be in?" Or, "If someone had told me that Iyyar had [terrible disease] and it would cost $60k to cure it, how fast would I have forked that money over?" Yeah, it stinks, but when it comes down to it, we both have good jobs, we're still saving money every month, and if we've just lost most of our last six years' savings in the real estate market, well--a lot of people are a lot worse off. Perspective.

We might qualify for the program, anyway, which would mean we could refinance and possibly bring our monthly payments down a hundred or so dollars a month. I still don't think we can rent it out for what it costs us to carry it, but even if we are subsidizing it by a couple hundred dollars a month for five or six years, and it regains even half its lost value, it will still be worth it. Also, oddly, rents have not dropped by nearly as much as I would have thought. Three-bedrooms around here are still in the neighborhood of $1300, plus heat. And we have free laundry and deeded parking. So... yeah. We'll see. In the meantime, MHH heard today that he can, if he likes, renew his contract for a third year, so that's a good option to have even if we don't avail ourselves of it.

10. Part of the effect this whole condo-buying and equity-losing experience is having on me is to make me rethink my practices of daily thrift. I am the kind of person who buys a lot of generics, doles out the expensive parmesan cheese only in combination with the cheaper, if less tasty, varieties, and is clothing her youngest kid entirely in his big brothers' hand-me-downs, because, well, what does he care if he's wearing someone else's tomato stains? Now, I can't help but think that with that money we could have all gone to visit my grandmother, or Grandma E. I'm really glad we forked over all the money to go to Israel last year. And today, when I went to Target to get cat litter and diapers, I didn't buy generics. I bought Pampers. And I got Iyyar a concrete mixer and Barak a garbage truck, too.

Next week, back to our regularly scheduled thrift. But tonight, I'm eating straight Parmesan on my noodles, baby.

The week in fifteen words or fewer

1. Vomit
2. Fever
3. Emergency room (does that count as one word or two?)
4. Nonstop nursing
5. Noodles AGAIN
6. Work?
7. Laundry
8. Lost phone charger
9. So... tired...

Just happy

Not much blogging these days--not for shortage of bloggable episodes, more because of competing interests (such as laundry, knitting, and sleep).

Just a quick one, then, so you don't give up on me entirely:

Yesterday I was sitting on the living room floor watching Iyyar and Barak play, and contemplating how big Iyyar is getting. I felt the need for some cuddles. "Iyyar, can I have a kiss please?" He obligingly came over and gave me some kisses, then consented to sit in my lap and get squeezed for a minute or two before running off to play again. As he got up, he turned around to check that my need had been satisfied. Head solicitously forward, eyebrows up: "You happy now?" (It sounds kind of... accusatory, but it was actually very sweet. He really did want to be sure that I was in fact happy.) I assured him that I was, and away he went.

An hour or so later, now in the kids' room, I was again sitting on the floor, wiped out after a particularly athletic Avtalyon diaper change (that baby is SO STRONG, it's not normal). Iyyar came over with a bulldozer and started explaining to me that he needed a straw, I think to use for the bulldozer's exhaust pipe.

"I don't have a straw right now."

"Yeah! Do have a straw!"

"No, I don't. See?" I held up my empty hands.

"Have a straw inna kitchen!"

"I know, but I don't want to get up and go into the kitchen right now. I'm tired."

"No! Not tired!"

"I am too tired."

"You not tired. You just happy."

"I'm happy, but I'm also tired."

"No! I give you kisses. Now you happy. Not tired. Just happy!"

I didn't quite realize it was supposed to work like that.

In other news, the local utility company is doing a ton of work near Iyyar's playgroup, putting in streetlights and I don't know what else. Iyyar loves this and always wants to watch. "Wanna watch it worker man!" Avtalyon is surprisingly okay with this--back when it was Barak who wanted to watch, Iyyar would always flip out eventually and we'd have to move on. Now, the limiting factor to watching length is how long it takes my feet to start hurting. Sometimes we're there for an hour or more, to the amusement of the worker men.

Avtalyon's favorite activity right now is emptying the bookshelves of all the books, so that he can sit on the floor and peruse them all at his convenience; Barak seems to get taller and skinnier by the day, and now loves to whisper "secrets" into Iyyar's ears. Sometimes I overhear him. "Iyyar! Poopy pop! It's a secret! Don't tell anybody, 'kay!"

He hasn't yet.

Pesach roundup

Late, and incomplete, but it's been sitting here as a draft so days so here you go.

1. My CSIL commented to me last week that she loves the stage that both Avtalyon and his youngest cousin are in, where all they want to do is walk around and pick things up and put them down. Add to Avtalyon's list, though, going up and down stairs. We live in an apartment, and ergo have no stairs; my CSIL lives in a three-level house with an extra set of stairs to the basement. That means no fewer than three flights of stairs, conveniently carpeted for your stair-climbing pleasure. Avtalyon got quite good at going up. Going down, however, was more of a problem, because he was convinced--in the absence of any evidence whatsoever--that he could go down like an adult, as in, standing up, one foot at a time. I caught him most of the time; he does have a couple of pretty shtark bruises, too.

2. The city that my CSIL lives in has a very large indoor mall complete with a rather impressive amusement park. As in, with a rollercoaster and everything. None of us were about to get on that, but both Barak and Iyyar had a blast on the kiddie rides--especially the one where you could get into various vehicles (firetruck, tractor, forklift, helicopter) and go around and around. The helicopter even went up and down. As soon as the ride stopped, instead of getting off, they'd just run to the next appealing-looking vehicle and get on (the operator was very nice about it, since there wasn't a line). Next to that was a similar ride with motorcycles. You can just imagine Iyyar on that one. He came off it looking dazed. "Go onna motorcycle. Go vroom vroom. I like it!"

3. The house that my CSIL lives in is equipped with not only stairs, but two couches with paranormal properties. When you sit in them you can't... get... up.

4. Today (This is where I am starting to finish off this days-old draft) I decided to try to start in earnest with the toilet-training business. I have enlisted Barak's help in this by promising him equal share in any available potty treats, thereby acquiring for myself a more than willing assistant. He has, a few times, demonstrated the Art of Pishing in the Potty without Getting Your Pants Wet to Iyyar. Iyyar has been impressed, but uninclined to follow suit. Today, I saw Iyyar look like he was about to poop, and whisked him off to the toilet--only to have nothing happen.

Barak turned up helpfully with a box of trucks, and sat there entertaining Iyyar for a while, periodically exhorting him to poopage. No dice. I was in the kids' room with Avtalyon, listening in, feeling it better not to interfere. After a while, Barak popped his head in the door.

"Imma, I needa poop potty right now."

"Okay, go in the other bathroom."

"No, I think I'm going to show Iyyar how to do it. Then he'll know how."

"Um, okay. That's a great idea." Right?

You'll have to forgive the graphic nature of the following, but it was so hilarious I can't resist. This is the conversation (one-sided) as I overheard it from the next room:

"Iyyar! I'm going to poop potty now, Iyyar. This is how you do it, okay? First you take your pants off. Not all the way, just like this. Then you sit on the potty. [Sound of Barak ascending.] Then you put your penis here, so that you don't pish on the floor. Then you let all the pish come out. [Sound effects left to imagination.] Then you need to poop. You have to wait for the poop to come out. When you hear [I swear I am not making this up] a squishy sound, that means the poop came out. Okay? [More sound effects here.] That's the poop coming out. Do you hear it? I have to let it all come out. [More sound effects.] There! Now I pooped. Now I have to wipe my tush. [Pause.] Imma! Where are the wipes? There aren't any wipes in here, Imma!"

I attempted to deliver the desired item with a straight face. I think I failed.

For the record, Iyyar spent most of the afternoon naked from the waist down and did manage to pish, but not poop, in the potty. He kept asking for a diaper, and I kept returning him to the bathroom; eventually Abba got home and clearly was going to have a nervous breakdown when he saw the diaper-free child on Shabbos afternoon, so I gave Iyyar a diaper, into which he promptly pooped. And Abba got to change it.

5. Avtalyon, for the first time, showed me his nose today! I've been trying to get him to do this for a few days. "Iyyar, where's your nose? Barak, where's your nose? Abba, where's your nose?" Everyone dutifully puts index finger on nose. "Avtalyon, where's your nose?" And Avtalyon puts his finger in his... mouth. But today--nose!

Avtalyon is being particularly hilarious lately. Today he figured out how to get on and off the blue living room couch, a situation which requires close monitoring because once he's up there he's so excited he jumps. He's also very, very into books lately. He'll bring me books to read, and sit on the floor looking at books, pointing at things, explaining them to me in great detail, and--funniest of all--laughing, a lot, at whatever it is he finds so funny.

6. One more Avtalyon thing. While we were away for Pesach, I was sure he was close to stopping nursing. He never nursed for more than a few seconds during the day, a few minutes at night. He was just too busy, too distracted--more than once he'd slide off my lap after an abortive nursing session and go straight for a sippy cup of water. Well, fine! But the day after we got home, that was all over--he's back to a nice luxurious nurse first thing in the morning, after naps, and at least once at night, not to mention a snack or two in the afternoon. He's only just fifteen months, so I'm glad--I wasn't ready to stop yet.

7. I'm going to post this now, but remind me to tell you about Avtalyon and the grape ices. I want to do that one justice, but it's time for me to go to bed!

One more

I almost forgot this one, so before I do:

Iyyar had a cold over Pesach, complete with abundantly runny nose. It ran so often and so fulsomely that he did not object to nose-wiping, but, on the other hand, he did not have any inclination to stop what he was doing to go wipe his nose himself on, say, a tissue. Too much trouble, you see. The result of this was layer upon shiny layer of snot on both forearms of all his shirts, deposited before he'd even finished with breakfast, and me chasing him, mostly futilely, with Kleenex for much of our stay.

Usually he'd get to his nose with his sleeve long before I got near him with the tissue. Sometimes, though, it was close. And on one memorable occasion, as I reached toward him, tissue in hand, to stem the tide, he looked right at me and held up his hands in the manner of someone about to graciously and generously, with great self-sacrifice, save another the trouble of a particularly distasteful task. Hands out, shoulders up, head a little back:

"It's okay, Imma. It's okay. I just gonna use my sleeve."

Home, no place like.

We are back after a lovely and fun-filled Pesach trip to my CSIL, formerly known as my DSIL. (Formerly Domestic, now Canadian). The ages of the children in residence during our stay: 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 1. Parent: child ratio of 1:2, which sounds like it should really be manageable, doesn't it? In fact it was: the "big kids," defined for these purposes as any child 4 and over, played so independently that much of the time we weren't sure where they were--upstairs or in the basement? The babies spent their time doing what one-year-olds do best: walking around in circles picking things up, chewing on them, and dropping them for something more interesting a few minutes later. As for Iyyar and the cousin a few months older than him... well. Some of the time they played beautifully. There were a couple of memorable afternoons of peaceful playing of Lego. But there was also cousinly war on a scale only seen at that exact age, an age where a particularly offensive wave of the hand can be cause for... well...

Scene: the van. We are all piled in on the way to the airport, to which we are being chauffered by Uncle Yaakov.

Me: Iyyar, did you have fun at Tanta Sara's house?

Iyyar: Yeah!

Me: Did you play with [cousin]?

Iyyar (less enthusiastically): Yeah.

Me: Is he your friend?

Iyyar: No.

Me: Why not?

Iyyar: He bited me. He bited me with his teef. He bited me like DIS (giving graphic reenactment of teeth on fingers.

Well then.

That aside, the kids had a fantastic time, which I may or may not recount more fulsomely later on if and as time permits. However, I won't postpone what was possibly the sweetest moment of the whole stay. To wit:

Tanta Sara's house has three floors. (This is not the sweet moment. This is exposition.) There is a basement, where we were sleeping, which has two bedrooms, laundry and a playroom; a main floor; and the upstairs, where the kids' bedrooms are. Iyyar is still not enthusiastic about stairs, but he was going up and down them a lot at Tanta Sara's because he didn't have much choice. He does seem to be doing better on them (and continuing to eat like crazy and sleep 13 hours a night--he's got to be growing). At some point last week I was in the basement with Iyyar when I noticed that he had a dirty diaper. I'd changed the last diaper in the main floor bedroom, and had left the diaper-changing equipment up there.

"Come on, Iyyar, let's go change your diaper." I started up the stairs, with Iyyar coming along behind, surprisingly cooperatively. Once in the bathroom I realized, oops--no wipes. Oh no, wait--I left them upstairs. So I started up the second flight of stairs, meaning to grab the wipes and meet Iyyar downstairs. I didn't expect him to follow me up, but he did. Which is why, as I started down the second flight of stairs, I heard, around the bend in the staircase, Iyyar, huffing and puffing his way toward me, hand over foot over hand, giving himself a little pep talk with each step:

"My Imma's up dere. My Imma's up dere." Pause. Heavy breathing, gathering of strength for the next step. Then again, "My Imma's up dere. My Imma's up dere!"

His Imma came down to meet him.

From the mouths of, &c.

1. On Thursday, I was feeling in a generous kind of mood and decided to bake cupcakes for No Reason At All. (Well, Yehudis's kids were coming over, so that was the excuse, but really it was because I was so relieved about Iyyar.) I had meant them to be for Shabbos too, but by the time Friday afternoon rolled around there were only 6 left and we were having lunch guests. This is how I found myself baking another batch of cupcakes at 5 PM on Friday with all of my children in eager attendance in the kitchen.

Iyyar dropped the paper liners into the pans for me and Barak was standing at the counter observing. I was using a mix, because of the time constraints, and thought I'd try to save a bit more time by pouring the batter directly from the bowl into the cupcake tins instead of spooning it in. Bad idea; predictably, I spilled it all over the place.

"Imma, you spilled!"

"I know, I know. " I got a paper napkin and wiped off the top of the pans.

"I don't think there's enough in there. Are those ones going to be filled?"

"When they're baked they'll be full. They rise in the oven. If you fill the cups up all the way with batter, they spill over the side."

"You spilled it over the side."

"I know, but that's because I was in a hurry and I wasn't being careful. I wasn't being careful and that's why I made a mess."

"Yeah, I noticed that."

2. Iyyar is still not feeling great, still kind of wobbly on his feet, and still not into stairs. If I try to get him to come up or go down, mostly he just cries and waits for me to carry him. Most of the day he's happy, but he definitely seems off to me. I guess I'll just bring him back for another checkup after Pesach if he's still out of sorts. In the meantime, he does seem to be growing. He's certainly eating enough. Yesterday I wanted to make some pre-Pesach pizza, which was a challenge because I had a) no tomato sauce and b) no parve cheese for Iyyar. So I made myself a pizza with regular cheese and Trader Joe's red pepper dip (adequate, but not really recommended) and made Iyyar a pizza with dough, olive oil, and a little sea salt, and a bowl of dip for, well, dipping purposes. His pizza was a good inch thick and filled a 9" pie pan. He ate the entire thing, singing the happy food song the whole time.

3. Iyyar's speech is really picking up, and I hear him also using some of Barak's turns of phrase. "I willn't" instead of "I won't," is a big one. He also gives great kisses. Sometimes I try to get one by pretending to cry. "Iyyar, I need a kiss!" [sob, sob]. He comes over and diligently gives me a kiss on the cheek, sometimes even two. This week, I asked for a kiss without first going through the crying routine. He promptly came over and gave me the requested peck on the cheek, then, eyebrows up, in a tone of voice that was sort of preemptively scolding: "No cry. Don't cry, Imma, kay? Don't cry."

4. Avtalyon likes to wave. He's been waving for months, but lately he's been getting more of a kick out of it, just as a way of sort of keeping the lines of communication open. Sometimes he even waves at me while nursing. Hi, Imma! It's me! It's me down here! He doesn't nurse that much during the day anymore--places to go, people to see, you know--but is back to waking up once or twice a night for a nice long nurse. I know it won't last long, so I don't mind much.

5. Barak is really, really excited about our upcoming Pesach travels. For days he's been asking me when it's going to be Tuesday, how many airplanes we're going to go on, when we're not going to be eating chametz anymore, etc. However, he seems to have a little bit of confusion over our actual destination and the cousins who await us there, and Israel and the cousins he knows there. The other day he let me know that really, he'd rather be going to Israel, and when are we going to be moving to Israel to live the whole day? I told him not for a while, but first we're going to go away for Pesach. And on the way, we will stop at the doughnut store. He seemed satisfied with that, for the time being anyway.

In which we return to our regularly scheduled blogging

Still wobbly-legged with relief and feeling like someone who has just dodged a hailstorm of bullets. It seems slightly unreal to just go back to cute kid stories, but that's why I'm here, right?

This is what happened this morning:

(Background: I am a little bit of an, um, eclectic dresser. I don't pay much attention to what I wear and do not stop to think, say, what color my tichel and shoes are before putting on a purple raincoat, a bright pink backpack, and multicolored gloves made of sock yarn. Sometimes the tichel is orange with sparkly stripes and the shoes are light blue and the socks are... oh, well, you get the picture. I tend to be pretty colorful, and most of the other immas and mommies around here tend to wear an awful lot of black.)

This morning I came into the kitchen wearing a black Parkhurst beret, for no reason other than that it was on the top of my tichel drawer. Midway through breakfast-cooking (I made scrambled eggs) Barak noticed this.

"Imma, why are you wearing a hat?"

"You mean, why do I wear a hat, or why am I wearing a hat and not a tichel today?"

"Why are you wearing a hat and not a tichel today?"

"I don't know. It was the closest thing to my hand. Do you like it or do you not like it?"

"I don't like it."

"Why not?"

"I think it's not so pretty."

"Why isn't it pretty?"

"It's just black. I think a tichel is more prettier than that."

"Black hats aren't pretty?"

"No. They're just boring. I think you should wear a tichel."

"Okay. Go find a tichel in my drawer and I'll change."

He ran and got me a long pink stripey tichel, which I put on. He looked pleased.

"Is that better?"

"Yeah. That's much more prettier than just black."

Personally, I agree with him.

In which I am delighted to assume the role of mother who worried herself sick for no reason

Iyyar does not have Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

See, I can say [horrible disease] now because he DOESN'T HAVE IT.

Although, from reading this list and looking at him, you might understand why both the doctor and I were worried. More than half the list is applicable to him to some degree. But there is a blood test that, while not diagnostic if positive, rules it out if negative, and it was totally, definitively negative.

Thank God.

The doctor thinks he's just a little weak and uncoordinated, which is what I thought before I noticed the stairs. He doesn't have a good explanation for why stairs have suddenly become a problem, and just said to keep an eye on it; my regular pediatrician put in a referral for physical therapy. I don't see any other new changes, and am not worrying about anything (else) dire. I'm assuming it's just a growth spurt.

Thank God.

* * *

We now return to our regularly scheduled kid updates. Want a few? Oh, I knew you did:

1. Iyyar (Iyyar! Who is fine!) has had nary a whisper of tummy trouble since the triple whammy of pinworms, dairy sensitivity and tonsils were all dealt with. He is, however, now having multiple bowel movements a day--usually two or three. Tonight, I'd changed his diaper and gotten him into pajamas and I heard a suspicious noise. Iyyar knew I'd heard it, and gave me a somewhat defensive look.

"Iyyar, did you poop?"

"No! Not poopy!"

"Can I check!"

"No! No want you to grab it!"

"What?"

"I don't want you to grab my pants!"

2. We are, B"H about a billion times over, going away for Pesach, to visit my husband's sister and her family (Hi Sara! Iyyar's fine, Sara!). We are all tremendously excited about this and, secondarily, I am personally thrilled not to have to be making Pesach. I always feel that I owe sort of a karmic debt to the universe when I don't have to make Pesach, which I attempt to repay by facilitating the Pesach-making of others. So tonight, we had over most of Yehudis's kids so that she could turn over her kitchen. Dizzy with relief this afternoon, I decided to make cupcakes AND franks in blanks in addition to the spaghetti and meatballs I had planned; when Yehudis's kids walked in the door, they were mightily pleased.

YK: What smells really good? Did you make pretzels?

Me: No, I made cupcakes.

YK: You made CUPCAKES? For Shabbos?

Me: Some of them are for Shabbos, but I made enough that everybody can have one right now.

YK (reverently): Wow. And we also get meatballs and spaghetti?

Me: Yup. And also franks and blanks.

YK (quietly): Wow. You use your oven a lot. You use your oven a lot to make all of your really great food.

I will point out here that I do not make franks and blanks OR cupcakes with any regularity. I just made cupcakes for the second time in about a decade; the franks and blanks are Yehudis's favorite so I usually make them when she's involved. I would never consider such a menu for just my own kids, certainly not on a weeknight. But I don't think I have ever heard such total mealtime silence from so many kids as when everyone was shoveling in dinner tonight.

3. Speaking of food, one of my more reliable vegetable delivery vehicles is carrot pancakes. I make the Joy of Cooking basic pancake recipe, with no sugar, whole wheat flour, and three large carrots, peeled and grated fine, added at the end. Everyone loves these and I let Barak and Iyyar eat theirs with maple syrup, or, as they both call it, "maple syriup." Avtalyon ate four and a half of them, and they are not small. After dinner, Barak had an announcement.

"Imma! Imma, you know what Imma? You know what I think? I think you should make just carrot pancakes. I think you should make them for dinner every night. That way, I'm not ever going to kvetch. I'll just eat them all up. Okay, Imma? JUST carrot pancakes. EVERY night. Okay?"

I didn't agree to that, but I appreciated the compliment.

4. Avtalyon has recently figured out how to climb onto Barak and Iyyar's toddler beds. He had about one day of doing this with some difficulty and now can do it in a heartbeat with no trouble at all. The only trouble involved is that once he's up there, he's so delighted with himself that he stands up. And jumps. That part is a problem.

5. A friend of ours gave us some pirate hats lately, left over from Purim. She gave us three. I had in mind that the big boys would have two and the third would be in reserve for the inevitable Hat Tragedy. But no. Avtalyon wants his hat as well. He can't quite get it on himself, and when you put it on for him it is so huge it sags all the way to his shoulders on both sides. But he is about the cutest little potbellied pirate you ever did see.

I am so, so, so relieved I can't even begin to express it. I am so grateful to be able to just write updates on my kids. My kids, who are here, and safe, and healthy, and fine.

Thank God.

In which I attempt optimism

I took Iyyar to the doctor today. He (doctor) said that his (Iyyar's) muscle weakness is not what he would expect in a kid with [horrible disease we talked about last night], which is reassuring. However, if he's weaker/less coordinated than he used to be, that's concerning, and so we did a blood test, which will be back on Friday. "He doesn't look to me like a kid with [horrible disease], but I've been wrong before, and what you're telling me is something we need to follow up on." So.

My hopeful idea, as of half an hour ago--could this (wobbly legs, bumping into things, not being able to get up without hands) just be a post-tonsillectomy growth spurt? Growth hormone is secreted during deep sleep, of which Iyyar has had practically none for probably months. He's got his appetite back and is doing some serious eating these days. Surely he's doing some growing. Could that be it? Maybe?

Please?

Blindsided

I don't read a huge number of blogs regularly--about a dozen or so. Each is interesting to me, or speaks to me, in a different way.

Some of them are written by people like me, in whatever way. Some of them are written by people I know. And some of them are written by people to whom bad things have happened.

One of the worst things you can say to someone dealing with something terrible--a health crisis, a loss--is, "I don't know how you do it." It is a way of saying, I couldn't do it. I couldn't be you. I can't be you. What happened to you can't happen to me, and it won't.

I've thought for a long time that there are two categories of people in the world; people to whom nothing really bad has ever happened, and don't think it ever will; and people to whom it has. I'm in the former category. Once something bad has happened--something that changes your life in ways you never thought to expect--it changes the way you see everything, and it changes it forever.

I worry. Grandma E tells me that there is no use in borrowing trouble, and she's right. But I know that the bad things that people think you're silly to think will happen really do happen. To someone, somewhere, they happen. Maybe today it will be me.

I read, or have read, a few blogs that started out as ordinary blogs--about work, about family, about anything--that turned into Bad Things blogs. Someone is diagnosed with cancer. Someone has a terrible accident. Sometimes it is the blog writer. Sometimes a child.

Yesterday I watched Iyyar go up the stairs. He has trouble going up the stairs. I've noticed it for a while, but chalked it up to his big heavy boots. Yesterday he wasn't wearing boots, and I saw his legs tremble and give under him, unable to support him. He grabbed onto the railing, and went the rest of the way on all fours, unperturbed.

And suddenly I started thinking about all the little things I've seen him do in the last few months--things I haven't thought much of because of being busy dealing with the tummy issues, the tonsils, the sleep. The way he walks sometimes. The way he can't stand up by himself, without grabbing onto something. The way he can't lift his head off the floor and sit up if he's lying on his back--something none of my kids can do. The way people have mentioned to me that he seems uncoordinated, that he doesn't seem to have a lot of muscle strength, that he's cautious physically. Individually, not things that are a big deal. Maybe he needs some OT. Together, those things are on a list of signs of something so terrible I can't think about it too much.

So I called the doctor last night. I told him what I'd been seeing. I knew he wasn't going to say it was nothing, but I was hoping for a little reassurance. I told him the diagnosis I was worried about--the worst case thing. And he said, "That was my first thought too." It's very concerning, he said. He needs to see a neurologist. I should bring him in, right away, so we can get started on this.

It could be nothing. It's probably nothing.

But maybe it's not.

Kol simcha

I tried to post this morning but Blogger wouldn't let me sign in, and now I'm tired and can't quite remember all the things I wanted to post. Oh well.

In short: I took Barak to his first chasuna last week. It was hilarious. We went shopping that morning, initially just to find a white shirt free of grape juice, blueberry yogurt or chocolate stains, but ended up buying an actual suit: Target had little boys' polyester suits in navy blue for what I would consider a reasonable price, so I bought a jacket and two pairs of pants. It was worth it just for the look on Barak's face, of barely suppressed glee at this unexpected initiation into the world of adulthood. A suit! An actual suit! (He thought it was black, like Abba's, but I couldn't quite go that far. He's four and a half; he gets navy blue.) I also bought him shiny new black Shabbos shoes, which he was in line for anyway; his current pair have an actual hole.

I had to hem the pants, but the jacket was fine, fortunately. He was incredibly excited, totally dressed and ready to go an hour early, and standing by the window asking every minute WHEN exactly our ride was arriving. WHEN? In five minutes? Two? Maybe she came already, and we missed her? He looked positively chassidish, with the white short, dark suit, no tie and payos. Hesat beautifully through the whole chuppah, stood up when everyone else did, and was completely entranced by the dancing. I couldn't get him to dance with me at all--he just spent the whole time staring at the men. When dinnertime came along, he was unimpressed.

"What's that?"

"That's chicken."

"It's chicken?"

"M-hm."

Pause. Then, with unconcealed disgust,

"Is it dead?"

"Yes, it is dead."

"I don't want to eat that."

"Okay, you don't have to. But enough with the commentary please."

"Okay. Are we going to have dessert?"

"Yes."

"Can I have it even if I don't eat the dead part?"

"Yes!"

"Okay."

I should point out here that after our Target trip, we'd stopped at the grocery store, where they have a fish case, which was full of whole dead fish, which Barak had asked about. So... yeah. Dead food was a topic of interest.

I should have taken pictures, but didn't. Alas. He'll be wearing the suit again soon enough, but it'll be yom tov when he does.

Oh, and there are plans afoot to toilet-train Iyyar. Stay tuned. I did buy him, on the ill-fated Walmart expedition, two packages of Sesame Street underwear that included two with Super Grover, if you can believe that. He loves them and carries them around by the handful, but does not seem to have connected the underwear with the act of potty-using. We'll have to work on that one.

Friday roundup

1. After several nights of almost-hourly night terrors ending with a shrieking Iyyar in my bed, kicking me, Iyyar more or less slept through the night last night. He did start a few times with the slow, monotonous wailing that has, to date, portended hysteria to come, but the full-blown howling, screaming, flailing attack never materialized--he settled himself back down without my having to do anything. This, clearly, is a Very Very Big improvement.

2. Pre-tonsillectomy, and the week or so following, Iyyar's nighttime breathing was so loud you could hear him in every room of the apartment. Now, you have to bend way over and put your ear right by his mouth even to hear him breathe. It's disconcerting, but definitely an improvement. The other thing that appears to have stopped, along with the snoring, is the drooling: yesterday I realized that his shirt, which is usually soaked in front and requires changing at least once midday, was bone dry. Wow.

3. Last night I went to Wal-Mart, which I think I've done now twice in my life. I'm hoping that the third time will be the last. I HATE Wal-Mart. When I was a kid and would go shopping with my mother, she used to say I got shopping-itis; after twenty minutes in A & S, I'd start complaining that my head hurt, I was tired, and I wanted to go home. Now, I do most of my shopping either in small local stores (food) or online (almost everything else). The main exceptions to this are Target shops, which I do once or twice a month. Target doesn't bother me; other than the rampant consumerism, I like going there, because I know where everything is, I can stock up on everything quickly, and then I won't run out of garbage bags for a while. But Wal-Mart, holy cow, it was like being 14 again. I literally got tunnel vision, it was hard to see anything clearly, and I starting feeling a sense of impending doom. I had to wait for my friend Yehudis to finish shopping before I could leave, since I'd gone with her; otherwise, I probably would'be abandoned my shopping and run for it.

4. Avtalyon has been so hilarious lately there must surely be something specific to mention here. Oh yes. Remember this song? Avtalyon loves it. Every time I play it, which is often since Jasmin decided to be a total enabler and send me the CD, he stops whatever he is doing, his eyes get really big, and he dances.

5. One of Iyyar's playgroup-mates is a boy named Moishy who likes to sing the Hashavas Aveida song, the first line of which is "Hashavas aveida, what does it mean?" I don't know what any of the other lines are, other than a mention of "return it right away," because Iyyar hasn't picked those up yet. Moishy has a toy guitar and he likes to play the guitar and belt out Hashavas Aveida at top volume. Iyyar does not have a guitar, but belts out the song at volume regularly. "Ha SHAAAVAS AH! VEI! DAH! What! DOES IT MEAN...!" He does this not quite all the time, but almost. Today, on the way to playgroup, he started singing it. And I couldn't resisit. "Iyyar, what does Hashavas Aveida mean?"

Pause.

"I don't know."

6. The amount of candy Barak gets at school is incredible. He gets candy for Shabbos party, he gets candy to make projects with (!) and every time there is a birthday he comes home with a pekel full of junk. He even got two (TWO!!) huge bags of shaloch manos from the school. Now, Barak is four and a half and he really doesn't react well to sugar. But oh, does he love it. So I did what any sensible mother would do in this situation: I bribed him. I sent him to Target with Ada, and let him pick out a small box of pirate Lego. Then I made a sticker chart, with 16 spaces on it, and every time he handed over a piece of candy he got at school, I put a star in one of the spaces. When he filled up the chart, I told him, he could have the Lego.

It took two weeks and one day to fill fifteen of them. (To be fair, Purim was in there. But still. Fifteen pieces of candy from school in two weeks and a day!) He handed everything he got over, not only willingly but enthusiastically. He's got one space left, and he'll probably fill it via the school's Shabbos party. If he doesn't, I told him he could earn a last star by doing an extra Shabbos job (usually, picking up toys/books/whatever). He'll be pretty happy tonight. His behavior has been noticeably better after school. And I already have two more little boxes of Lego stashed in the closet. I thought about whether this was a really good idea as an ongoing thing, and I decided yes, it was; the boxes of Lego are the $5-6 ones (the first one was more, but he doesn't know that) and would I pay $6 to prevent Barak from eating half a pound of sugar and artificial color? Yes, yes I would.

The next chart might have more spaces on it though.

7. Iyyar's tummy seems to be doing much better, after something of a setback following surgery. I've got him off dairy completely and taking probiotics and acidophilus, which can't hurt. Now that he's not having dairy, I've been doing a lot more fleishig cooking: one of the few meals that everyone will eat happily without complaining is chicken soup with matzo balls, so I do that midweek at least once a week. And it never fails to amuse me that neither Barak nor Iyyar ever distinguishes between meatballs and matzo balls: they are as likely to ask for matzo balls with spaghetti as they are to ask for chicken soup and meatballs.

8. Avtalyon has developed a taste for cucumbers. He loves them and will shove every available cucumber into his mouth before touching anything else. I find this very amusing: personally, I think eating cucumbers is like eating crunchy water. Harmless, but unappealing.

9. Barak also likes cucumbers. His standard favorite Shabbos lunch is cucumber and bologna sandwiches. No need for bread. He puts bologna between two slices of cucumber, nibbles off the excess bologna, and then has himself a sandwich. He'll make several that way before eating them all.

10. Avtalyon wants so much to be one of the big boys. When Iyyar and Barak are on the floor playing, he's always skulking around, poking his nose in, trying to get in on the action. Sometimes Iyyar and Barak are tolerant of this. Sometimes not.

And finally, a picture of said big boys, courtesy of Ada:


And one of the little boy, who is getting bigger daily.

Day Three

It says in the Torah that the third day after surgery is always the hardest. We had evidence of this today, with a lot of rolling around and wailing and "my mouth hurts!" After that first fantastic morning Iyyar slowed down a lot, but he's basically been okay; three-hour naps in the afternoon, kind of fussy etc., but all right as long as he gets Tylenol every 4 hours. Oh, and that bit about "he'll have bad breath"? Not a joke.

Some friends brought us Shabbos food on Friday afternoon, which was amazing--much more food than I would ever have made for us, plus apple cake, which the kids loved. And bologna! Which Avtalyon thought was fantastic.

Barak is very much enjoying the new routine of frequent popsicles, jello, and sorbet morning and evening (in which Iyyar's antibiotics have been hidden), and seems to accept the idea that this will only last until Wednesday. Oh, and today Avtalyon decided he was old enough to drive and climbed into the Little Tikes car, with not terribly successful consequences. He's too little to sit on the seat and have his feet touch the floor, so he can't actually go anywhere, which he found rather frustrating; also, climbing up on the seat was such a challenge that he kept sliding down and getting stuck underneath, requiring frequent rescue missions. None of this dissuaded him from trying again and again, of course. If at first you don't succeed, &c.

On an unrelated (is any of this related) note, I love how Iyyar pronounces "sandwich." It's "shammish." And he likes it "sho muchsh!"

Home!

Iyyar and Abba came home this morning, after getting discharged at the crack of dawn to allow Abba to get to work. Iyyar had a great night; his SpO2 never dropped below 96, which is fantastic, especially compared to the horror show of his sleep study.

I got the amoxycillin down him this morning by melting an Italian ice, mixing in the medicine (which I'd had the pharmacist flavor lemon, just to be safe), and freezing the whole thing back up. Down the hatch, no problem; same thing for the chewable grape-flavored Tylenol. If you come at him with a medicine dropper, the teeth clamp shut, so the skulduggery was definitely in order.

I can't believe the difference in him already. He's been off for months, and while a big part of it was obviously the tummy issues it looks like a lot of the general unhappiness must have been the sleep. He got home with Abba while I was dropping off Barak at carpool, and Asnat was here with Avtalyon. I walked in the door and the first thing she said was, "I can't believe how happy he is! It's the old Iyyar back!" I forgot that he used to be Tigger--just less furry, and twice as loud.

So far...

Iyyar did great in surgery and afterward. He set some kind of popsicle-eating record, such that the nurse who initially said "no such thing as too many fluids, just keep bringing them on" finally called a popsicle time-out at around 8:30 pm after the seventeenth popsicle (and that's not counting the Italian ices, or the juice). He spend the afternoon zoned out in front of Sesame Street with the popsicles; the only thing that really seemed to be bothering him was the IV and the ID tag, which he cried about every time he noticed them.

I came home an hour ago and Abba is at the hospital now, which I'm starting to feel was a mistake; I called a little while ago and heard a lot of howling. It's not that Iyyar needs me more or is more attached to me (not at all, in fact) but he doesn't settle as well with Abba, who he knows is, well, more or less wrapped around his little finger.

If all continues to go well he'll be discharged in the morning. Right now the main issue is seeing how he breathes when he's asleep. Here's hoping that all goes well, and he'll be eating his popsicles at home.

601

When I signed in to blogger I noticed that I have just hit 600 posts. So here is post number six hundred and one.

Iyyar's surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning; we have to leave at 6:30 am to get there at 7:30 for surgery at 9:10. I wish he'd gotten to bed earlier, but it was hard with Purim.

I think I'm packed; the food is in the fridge, but everything else is in two bags on a kitchen chair. Carseat in kitchen. Iyyar's blankie, a few books, Grover, and the fireman that is a present from his morah are all in his backpack (or as he puts it, pack-pack.) I'm bringing my laptop and some Sesame Street DVDs, which should come in handy. I'm not bringing overnight clothes for me; I'm going to have to come home tomorrow evening to nurse Avtalyon, and either Abba will spend the night at the hospital or I'll grab what I need and go back.

I should be editing a speech, but I really really really can't concentrate. I should probably just go to bed.

Just Tonsils

Not heart surgery, chas v'shalom. Nothing huge and scary. Just. Tonsils.

I took Iyyar for his preop physical on Friday, and asked if the results of the sleep study were in the computer. They were, and holy cow. One of his apnea episodes was so bad that his oxygen saturations dropped into the 70s. I kind of thought that if your sats were in the 70s they'd call an ambulance but my pediatrician didn't seem worried. "He really needs his tonsils out." But they wouldn't have just sent him home if they thought he wouldn't wake up the next morning, right? Right?

When Barak had his adenoids out, almost exactly two years ago, I was worried in advance but recognized that the fear [that he would die] wasn't really rational. I was worried because I was his mother, not because there was anything that wasn't totally routine about an adenoidectomy and ear tubes. With Iyyar, they're treating him as high-risk, which, I have been assured, is a Good Thing; the problems come when the high-risk kids are not identified as such. They know he tends to stop breathing (she says calmly) and are prepared to deal with such eventualities. (Me to pediatrician on Friday: "What would they do if he did stop breathing?" Her, with a casual shrug, "Bag him, put a tube down his throat. Get him breathing again." I managed not to actually faint.) He is not having his tonsils out at the local hospital where Barak had his ear tubes; instead we are going to the less local but still fairly nearby children's hospital, which has an excellent reputation and is one of the best children's hospitals in the country. Not only that, but Ada works there (though she won't be there when we are). We've been there before and have been impressed. They know what they're doing.

I know I shouldn't be this worried, and that IY"H he'll probably be just fine, and we'll be there for a couple of days or maybe three for them to keep an eye on his breathing and then he'll be miserable for a few days at home. There will be a lot of tears and ice cream and Sesame Street and then he'll be happier and he'll sleep better and this will all be behind us. And in a way I wish we could just fast forward, not even to next week, but just to Wednesday morning, just to have the waiting over with. Good thing it's Purim tonight, right?

Just tonsils. It's just tonsils.

Bits

1. Iyyar's surgery is scheduled for this coming Wednesday, as in, the day after Purim. At least I won't have much time to worry the day before.

2. It's getting really really obvious how much he needs his tonsils out. He sleeps so badly that he is impossible to wake up most mornings. To get to school on time he needs to be up by 7:30 at the absolute outside, and that means eating breakfast in the stroller. This morning he got up at five minutes to 9.

3. Avtalyon said Barak's name this morning, clear as anything. He said it a few times.

4. In other good news, Iyyar's tummy issues are, for the moment at least, gone. He says nothing about his tushy hurting, poops without commentary, and has been eating much better. I don't let him have anything with even traces of dairy anymore. Last Sunday he had some cereal that was OU-D (whey all the way down in the ingredient list) and the next day he was screaming. I think we have moved past the point where this could possibly be coincidence.

5. I need to figure out hospital knitting. When Barak got his adenoids out I did the stupidest thing imaginable, which was bring along an Eris to finish. Ha ha ha. It stayed in a bag for months before I could bring myself to repair the wreckage. This time I'm thinking Noro stripes. Interesting, but brainless.

6. The anxiety about Iyyar has settled into a sort of moderate level of panic that is almost, but not quite, enough to prevent me from doing anything else.

7. I'm feeling much better physically, though. As in, I actually cooked dinner last night AND the night before, for the first time in about a week. Now my kids have to get used to the idea that no, we do not eat cereal for dinner, all over again.

Soha soha senki

Today's been hard. Nothing in particular, just one of those days when I didn't manage to do anything right. And as if that wasn't enough, I have this stuck in my head, which, well... you probably have to be Hungarian to get the full gloom value of it. Don't bother with the English version either--it's pointless, as most English translations of Hungarian poems are.

As a point of side interest, the poet (Jozsef Attila) once wrote love letters to my great-great-aunt, who was a psychiatric nurse in one of the hospitals in which the poet (Hungarian poet, remember) spent time. (This is less impressive if you are Hungarian. Apparently he wrote a lot of love letters.) She tossed them, because, well, he was crazy. He later killed himself by jumping in front of a train. (Not because of her, I assume.) And they named a university after him. (The one I went to, in fact.)

Only in Hungary. Seriously. I mean, just imagine that here. Sylvia Plath University? Not so much.

Listen to this instead. More fun.

Sometimes

Last night was hard. I couldn't sleep, my head too full of worries about Iyyar. The minute I heard my husband fall asleep, I got out of bed, pulled on a sweater and went back to reading journal articles on obstructive sleep apnea (which, truthfully, was good for me; it's better to be informed). By the time I was really ready to sleep, it was 2 am; as I walked past the boys' room, I heard Iyyar wake up and cry for me. I went in and settled him, but it was too late; Avtalyon was up. I nursed Avtalyon back to sleep and got into my own bed, but just as I was getting under the covers I heard Iyyar wailing again. So I went back into their room and just climbed into Iyyar's bed next to him. "I'm right here," I whispered, "Go back to sleep." He gave me a look of mingled surprise and delight, and went right back to sleep with a contented smile still on his face. I went to sleep too, after a while, and slept till around five, but curled up on half (okay, two-thirds) of a toddler-sized mattress bordered on three sides by headboard, wall, and footboard (and on the fourth side by a sleep-disordered toddler) is not the path to restful slumber. I woke up at around 5:30 and got into my own bed; a few minutes later I heard Avtalyon, up for the day. My husband got him up and changed and let me stay in bed until 7:30 or so, at which point I did finally stumble out of bed and into the kitchen.

Barak was already there, dressed and ready go to. "Am I going to school this day?" he asked me, as he does every day, in his own peculiar turn of phrase. "Yes, but Iyyar's still sleeping. Did you eat breakfast?" "No." "Okay, go get a banana while I nurse Avtalyon, okay?" He did, and found the banana good. "There's no squooshy stuff and no brown! It's just white! I'm going to gobble it all up!" Avtalyon, having at this point been up for over two hours already, was ready for a nap by the end of the nursing session; I went to put him down and was surprised to find, on my return, Barak standing there in coat and mittens, totally ready to go. I was so tired it was as though someone had hit the fast-forward button--wait, wasn't he just standing there not in a coat? What happened? I looked at the clock, and saw that we still had ten minutes. I looked at the counter, and saw a bag of Brussels cookies. I wanted one.

"Barak, if I do something that I am never ever going to do again, are you going to want me to do it again or will you just accept it as a pleasant surprise?"

"I'm going to just assept it as a pleasant surprise."

"Okay." I took out two cookies and handed him one. I cracked open a diet coke and took a swig. We stood there munching, and just as I was contemplating a second cookie for each of us, Abba walked into the kitchen. "Abba, I've been meaning to talk to you about these hallucinations you've been having. Because you're not seeing anything at all unusual right now. You and your dad both have this problem, I've noticed it before." I passed Barak another cookie and we crunched on companionably.

"Yeah, I should probably look into that, shouldn't I."

"Uh-huh." Crunch, crunch, crunch.

"Abba, can I have some milk?"

"That part's not a hallucination. You can give him the milk."

"Um, okay."

Someone, at least, had a very pleasant morning.

In which I don't even know where to begin

Earlier today I had in mind the post I was going to write tonight. It was going to be quite the post. I was going to bring you all up to date on the soap opera that has been our household for the last week or so. I was going to vent. I was going to yell and scream. I was going to bellow my outrage to the very corners of the Internet.

Yeah, well, I was going to. But it's 11:20 and I'm too tired, and I already told it all to Grandma E on the phone earlier. So you get the short, drained, low-volume version.

1. I have bronchitis. I had another episode of asthma or bronchospasm or whatever you want to call it on Shabbos, and on Sunday I got antibiotics. It all sounds so quick and easy when you put it in one sentence like that, doesn't it? Believe me, it wasn't.

2. Iyyar needs his tonsils and adenoids out and it all sounds rather scary and urgent. At the last ENT appointment (which, at the time, sounded scary to me) I was told to schedule the sleep study, and then make a followup appointment two weeks later to discuss the results, which (said the good doctor) took two weeks to come in. I was surprised, therefore, to get a call from the doctor this morning. Somehow or other he had the results already. I did not feel that this boded well. I was correct.

The sleep study was awful. Really really bad.

[Blog post interrupted to go deal with screaming children.]

One of the numbers that should have been, at most, 5 was in fact 80. That one sticks in my head. Anyway, he has very severe sleep apnea, and while this means he really needs his tonsils out, it also means that he is considered very high risk, which means doing it at the children's hospital, with an ICU available, etc. The doctor was explaining to me all the risks (yes, I want to know, but I don't!) and at the end there was a bit of a pause. Which I filled by telling him, point blank, "Don't kill my baby."

There was another pause after that. Apparently no one has ever told him that before. Strange, isn't it?

3. Work is insane. Quite literally in at least two respects. I can't get into more detail here because I don't blog about work. But oh, if I did... I would have a lot of material.

4. It's my anniversary today. Six years! And we still like each other most of the time. (Okay, there were a few minutes yesterday when I wanted to kill him. But only a few.)

5. I'd like to tell you about the appointment I had on Sunday morning about my inability to breathe. I'd also like to tell you about the total jerk of an osteopath I saw, and about his inability to imagine that I had accurately read the package insert that came with the albuterol inhaler, or that I knew the difference between "teratogenic" and "tumorogenic." I'd like to tell you about how much his attitude, and his disinclination to get his information right, ticked me off. But I'm tired, so I won't. Instead, I'll let you read the following, cut and pasted from the original. Note that the correspondent who can't read package inserts is, inexplicably, the only one capable of using the shift key.

----- Message -----
From: UBERIMMA
Sent: 3/1/09 07:38 PM
To: NAME WITHHELD ON THE ADVICE OF THE CHOFETZ CHAIM, DO
Subject: Medication Advice

Dear Dr. Withheld,

When I came home I checked up on albuterol online. It is indeed an FDA category C drug, with both teratogenic and tumorogenic risks, not a category A as you assured me this morning. Also, so far as I can tell the categorization system is per the FDA, not the WHO.

Summary can be found here:

http://www.drugs.com/albuterol.html

Fuller info here:

http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/archives/fdaDrugInfo.cfm?archiveid=3780

The package insert advises to either discontinue the medication or discontinue breastfeeding.

I thought you should be aware of this.

Uberimma

To:

Uberimma

From:

NAME WITHHELD, DO

Received:

03/02/2009 1:20 PM

thanks for the update. i must have misspoken if i used the term "class A'.
as you know, the FDA category system refers to drugs in pregnancy, not drugs in lactation.
in our discussion yesterday i was referring to the World Health Organization listing, which for albuterol is
"1. Compatible with breastfeeding
Drugs are classified as compatible with breastfeeding if there are no known or theoretical
contraindications for their use, and it is considered safe for the mother to take the drug and continue
to breastfeed."
different organizations and dr's do use different classification systems and have differences of opinion.
cautions for using a drug are weighed against expected benefits and i knew you were aware of the information on albuterol since we discussed it. i'm sorry for the mix up.

Thirteen things

Avtalyon is 13 months old today. In his honor:

1. We have a First Years handsfree gate in the entrance to our kitchen. The pedal that opens the gate requires 40 lb of pressure to open, so babies and toddlers can't open it, but an adult (or a smart preschooler who jumps on it really hard) can. Today I noticed Avtalyon holding on to the gate with both hands, putting one of his pajama'd feet on the pedal, and pushing--trying to open it himself.

2. Avtalyon loves light switches. Every time I walk past one holding him, he wants to flick it on, then off, then on, then off. Sometimes he does it without my even slowing down for him. This can come in very handy on Shabbos, but you have to be careful that he doesn't get his own ideas about which lights should and should not be on.

3. He splits his nighttime sleep between the big crib in the boys' room and the pack and play in my office. He sleeps fine in either one now, but if Iyyar wakes up in the night (as happens often these days) he wakes up too, and has a hard time settling back down.

4. He is in size 4 diapers now. And they're not too big at all, even the Pampers.

5. He likes his little soft blue leather shoes with the turtles. When you're putting them on him, he is interested enough to let you hold him still.

6. He really, really, really wants to get his hands on the cordless phone.

7. He likes drinking water from a sippy cup. I tried giving him whole milk the other day, though, and he was unimpressed. Cheerios in whole milk, fed to him with a spoon, are acceptable.

8. He likes to go to sleep with a pacifier in his mouth and his blankie tag in his hands. He must suck on the tag in the night, though, because it's getting all ratty there.

9. He's got three teeth on top and two on the bottom. I think a fourth one is coming in on top--he's been fussy lately.

10. He's not totally bald anymore--just starting with the peach fuzz.

11. Yesterday, when Ada left, he walked after her, waved, and said "ba ba!" as in, bye bye! And when he heard Barak come in the door, he said Barak's name, absolutely clearly.

12. It's impossible to nurse him if anything else interesting is going on in the room. He's too distracted and keeps flipping around sideways to look, without troubling to break his latch first. Ouch.

13. He's just started to display signs of baby temper. Last week, he threw a full-blown baby tantrum, as in, he flung himself down on his stomach, beat his hands and feet on the floor, and howled. I laughed, and I think he was slightly insulted. Then he forgave me.

Tired

This'll be a short one--much to report, but not much time.

Iyyar's been coughing for a while. Not a lot, but when he does it sounds pretty bad, and it's really not going away. I mentioned it to the ENT when we were there, and he didn't seem bothered; I mentioned it again to the nurse practitioner last week, and she said that if the whole family was coughing (well, I am, and Abba is a little) and nobody had a fever, I didn't need to bring him in. Yesterday, though, he really sounded bad, and I was feeling worse myself--I'm always tired, but it's usually because I don't sleep enough. Lately, I've been tired in an I-can't-move, all-my-muscles-ache kind of a way.

Last night, though, I woke up and couldn't breathe. My chest hurt too much to inhale, and it was going up my neck, down my arm, into my back. It was pretty scary, and I couldn't even get enough air to tell my husband that I was having a problem. I managed after a little bit to get up and get into a hot shower--the theory being that maybe I'd pulled a bunch of muscles coughing. (All of them at once, though? Really?) That was when I realized that it wasn't just really cold in here, I was having chills, and then I found a thermometer and realized I had a fever. Great. I found another blanket, got back into bed, and by that point was breathing okay--well enough that I'd discarded the idea of going to the ER but thought a trip to the doctor in the morning was in order.

I called in sick, spent the babysitter portion of the morning napping, and kept Iyyar home from playgroup because there was no way I was going to be out pushing a double stroller in the cold. This afternoon, we both went (by cab) to the doctor. "Does anyone in your family have asthma?" he asked me. I said no, not that I knew of. He pulled out a little tube with beads in it. "Look, I'm going to blow into here." He stood up and blew and the bead went up to 700. "Okay, now you do it. Take the deepest breath you can," (it wasn't very deep) "and blow." I did, thinking, hey, that wasn't too bad. Then I looked at it. 300. Oh. "Try again." I did; 300 again. "Let's get you an inhaler." What? I took two puffs and ten minutes later blew into the thing again. 400 this time. Huh.

Anyway, he thinks I had an asthma attack brought on by a respiratory infection; he gave me an inhaler. My chest still hurts and I still can't get a good breath, and I'm still dragging around, but I feel a whole lot better than I did last night. Better than walking pneumonia, anyway, which was my guess as of yesterday.

And Iyyar is fine; lungs clear, and the doctor mentioned getting him an inhaler as well but when I said he didn't seem bothered by the coughing said, then let's just let it go. Oh, and he looked into Iyyar's ears and said they looked fine. I guess we'll see what the ENT says next time--followup in two weeks, after Iyyar's sleep study, which is tonight. Iyyar and Abba are leaving in half an hour, so I'd better go make sure everything's ready.

French fries

Yesterday, more or less on a whim, I took the boys for French fries after school. I had asked the person who takes Barak home in the afternoon to drop him by Iyyar's playgroup, and so we were all together and out for a walk, right by the French fry store. Too much to resist.

We had our fries, and I supervised Barak's desire to feed Avtalyon: "Not the hard ones. The long soft ones, like these. He only needs one at a time. " Avtalyon managed to suck down a couple of fries, Barak had a blast, and Iyyar, who doesn't have much appetite these days, played with his and sang but didn't eat very much. At one point Barak asked me what was inside the fries, and I told him potato. When we were done, I asked Barak to put his garbage in the trash can, which he cooperatively started to do. Then he noticed the picture on the French fry bag--a very happy-looking potato, complete with face, arms and legs, leaning smugly against a large pile of fries.

"Who's that? Is that a potato?" he asked.

"Yup, that's a potato."

"What's he doing?"

"I think he's saying, look at all these yummy fries."

Pause. Then, softly and almost horror-struck,

"Were those his friends?"

I don't think I came up with a very convincing explanation for that one. Instead, I changed the subject. "Barak, do you know who really really likes French fries?"

"Who?"

"Grandma. Grandma really likes French fries."

"Does she eat them a lot?"

"I don't think she eats them a lot but when she gets them she really likes eating them."

"Does she gobble them all up?"

"Yup. Just like you do."

Solemnly, in an attempt to determine exactly how Grandma eats French fries: "Does she slurp them up like a vacuum cleaner?"

"No, she's politer than that. Grandma has very good manners."

"Oh."

more updates

1. First things first--Iyyar did in fact poop yesterday. Three times. (I know, you were all holding your breaths, right?) But this morning he didn't eat much breakfast or lunch, moped around, and then by lunchtime burst into tears saying he didn't feel good. Half an hour of rolling around on his bed with his blankie and Grover later, though, he seemed fine. He happily shared a bowl of cereal with Abba and is out with him and Barak now. Avtalyon is napping and I should probably be cleaning up, but I choose to sit here lumpenly instead. And blog, of course.

2. Avtalyon is shattering all known cuteness records. Today he picked up a toy phone and intoned "Iiiiiiiii," into it, very seriously, several times. His other fun activity of the day was picking up an empty, capless Avent bottle, dropping a yellow piece of Lego (the medium-sized kind) into it, and trying to get it out with his fist. The proportions of his hand to the bottle neck make this impossible, so it's kind of a frustrating exercise; after a while he gets mad and cries, I take the bottle off his fist and tip it upside down, and the piece of yellow Lego falls out. He then looks at me and grins, picks up the Lego, drops it back into the bottle, and puts his hand back in. Lather, rinse, repeat.

3. Last week my husband needed to put a program on his laptop, which is almost six years old and very full of stuff. So he took all the pictures on there--of which there were many--and moved them onto my computer. This meant that I rediscovered a bunch of knitting pictures I'd forgotten I had taken, some of them of knitting I've already given away and had forgotten I'd even done.

Naturally, the next thing to do was start adding those projects to Ravelry, which I did. One of them was a pi shawl--an Elizabeth Zimmerman creation that is my only piece of lace knitting to date. I made some mention of it being my "first and probably last lace shawl."

Can you see where this is heading?

After I added the project I took a look at some of the other pi shawls, saw one done in Trekking XXL, thought about getting a similar effect with my box of Koigu scraps, and, well... I'm on the 568-stitch section now.

4. I am running out of ideas for things to cook. I've taken Iyyar off dairy again, and since he's not feeling good he's being really picky. Barak is always picky but does have a reasonable range of things he'll eat; however, most of them contain dairy or things Iyyar won't touch (like raw vegetables). If you were to draw a Venn diagram representing the range of healthy food items that Barak and Iyyar like, there would be very little overlap.

My general philosophy on picky eaters is "This is dinner, take it or leave it." I don't force anyone to eat anything, nor do I offer alternatives. However, given how Iyyar's been losing weight I can't let him skip meals--meaning I really need to be offering him something he'll eat at every meal, and it wouldn't be very nice of me to only make things that Barak hates. This means that currently, we're down to about three recipes.

Complicating things massively is that Barak won't eat meat, except for bologna and hot dogs (yecch) so if I make, say, spaghetti and meatballs, Iyyar and Avtalyon are thrilled but Barak ends up eating plain spaghetti with spinach. And I truly don't think meat as it is produced in this country is good for anyone, so I don't want to be forcing Barak to eat it--especially since I was myself a vegetarian for 12 years and fully understand his "I can't possibly eat THAT!" reaction.

Any ideas for pareve, kid-friendly, quick and easy meals? Ideally, I'm looking for ideas that don't involve scrambled eggs, Hungarian noodles, Trader Joe's chickenless nuggets, corn, carrot pancakes, peanut butter sandwiches, or spaghetti, because I've got those covered already.

5. Barak is being really sweet lately. Not every second, obviously, but often. He's bigger now--closing in on five in a couple of months--and much more interesting to talk to. It's also getting more interesting to listen to him play. Last Friday both of our guests canceled on us at the last minute (as in, half an hour before licht, but that's another story) and my promise to Barak that he could come out of bed when our guests arrived, as long as Iyyar was asleep, hit a snag. Not only that, but Iyyar's four-hour nap that afternoon meant that he wasn't interested in falling asleep, and in fact stayed awake until past 9--pestering Barak the whole time.

At 9:15 pm, after Abba and I had finished eating our own dinner and he'd gone out to a shalom zachor, out came Barak. "Iyyar's asleep. Can I play with little Lego?"

What to do? I'd told him he could come out if he stayed in bed quietly till Iyyar fell asleep, and he'd kept his part of the bargain. I'd also told him he could play with little Lego, which he hardly ever gets to do, since it's a choking hazard for Avtalyon and Iyyar scatters it on the floor.

"Okay," I told him. "But just for a little while, and very, very, very quietly."

---

This is where I comment that Blogger autosave is not to be trusted. I had finished this post with an entertaining roundup of Barak's Lego session, wherein I got to witness the construction of an amphibious helicopter and listen to Barak's commentary on same. I also mentioned the ridiculous cuteness of his green bear pajamas, how Avtalyon likes to toddle around the house with one hand on his chest a la Napoleon, and how Iyyar has been spending a lot of time lately talking about his boot powers (apparently, his boots have superpowers. And to think I got them on clearance at LL Bean.) Alas, the end of the post is gone, so you'll have to content yourself with this, I suppose. And I'll have to go clean the kitchen, because it is incredibly unlikely to clean itself.

Square one

Last Sunday, Iyyar started looking uncomfortable. And didn't poop. Monday same. Tuesday, he started in with the kind of crying and screaming we haven't seen since early January. Wednesday was more of the same, and last night he woke up at 10 hysterical, rolling around on the floor and wailing that his tushy hurt and he couldn't poop. My friend Yehudis, in a great act of chesed, drove over to the 24-hour drugstore for us at 11 at night to get suppositories--which didn't work (and by the time she came over, he was all happy again, after an hour of Grover videos in my office). Then he started crying again, then he fell asleep, then woke up screaming with a dirty diaper (but not dirty enough) at around 3 am. This morning he seemed okay, woke up on his own and wanted to go to school, because he's supposed to be Shabbos Tatty today. We got as far as the door of playgroup when suddenly he fell apart. "I don't feel good..." and we turned around and went back home, by way of the drugstore, where I picked up more Miralax, even though I don't think it does him a bit of good personally.

So, looks like starting the dairy again was a mistake. He got the second pinworm pill yesterday--so that can't be the problem, because he was already miserable before that. I talked to the GI doctor's nurse practitioner yesterday, and have another call in today. They don't seem to have any more ideas. The stool samples came back negative for parasites and all his bloodwork, B"H, looks good. But clearly, there is something wrong.

Motzai Shabbos

I just put sitemeter back on here, after a few years of having it off. I discovered that I have an average of 25 visits per day, which is nice; I'm surprised that many people read this. I also discovered that on Saturday, I get ten readers. Which, I guess, says something about my readership.

So... where to begin?

Avtalyon had his birthday last week. That was fun. He got chocolate cake and ice cream, which he ate, of course, with his hands, and while I'm sure some of it made it into his mouth (he was singing the happy food song, so it must have) the rest wound up evenly distributed over his face, pajamas, and high chair. Also last week was Avtalyon's introduction to spaghetti and meatballs. Eating spaghetti and meatballs is fun, but nothing like as fun as seeing them eaten by a pair of one-year-olds (we had some very small guests that night too).

In other news, all the boys are now sleeping in the same room. I tried this a couple of weeks ago and it didn't work out very well, because when Barak woke up screaming (which doesn't happen every night, but often enough) I ended up with a lot of screaming, and Avtalyon got relocated back to the pack and play in my office pretty quickly. I have cribs in every bedroom right now; the regular crib in the kids' room and pack and plays in both our bedroom and my office. The walls are thin and the kids are loud, and Avtalyon is a light sleeper, so he frequently gets moved from one crib to the next, often in the middle of the night. Anyway, I just put him down in the kids' room for the first time, and it's still quiet there. The night is, of course, still young.

And as for the Iyyar medical saga... well, it continues. The GI doctor, as you may remember from our last thrilling episode, ordered a bunch of tests, including stool samples for parasites and some blood work. Early last week, I noticed Barak sticking his hands in his underwear and scratching his bottom. "Barak! Don't do that!" He withdrew his hands, guiltily. The next day we were at CVS for something and I saw him doing it again. "Barak!" This time he didn't stop. "It's so itchy."

Hang on. Did I blog about this already? I did, didn't I?

I need to sleep more...

Anyway, yes, so, Barak had pinworms, which meant dosing both him and Iyyar, which I did, and now Barak is no longer itchy Iyyar is doing way better, so much so that I reintroduced dairy gradually last week and he is now back to his usual diet and seems fine. He occasionally complains that his tushy hurts him, but not in a major way, and he's been going every day. So, that's good.

Thursday, I took him to the ENT, fully expecting to be told he needed his tonsils out. I was rather taken aback, however, to hear that the doctor first wanted to do a sleep study, because otherwise my insurance would not approve doing the surgery at the local children's hospital, and he wanted to do it there because they had a PICU, and Iyyar might need one, and they wanted to be cautious.

??????!!!!!!!

I do think Iyyar needs his tonsils out. I don't think he breathes easily, I don't think he sleeps well, and I am pretty sure his enormous tonsils are a cause of that. I also think that his tonsils are part of how prone he is to choke on food--I still feed him like I would feed an 18-month-old, with nothing hard and no chokeable pieces. I think the tonsils should come out. But, hello, NOT IF IT'S GOING TO LAND HIM IN PEDIATRIC INTENSIVE CARE!!

I think what happened--and I told this to my pediatrician on the phone late on Friday--is that I started giving the ENT doctor the abbreviated saga of Iyyar's GI woes, and the doctor heard this and immediately thought that he was looking at some kind of medically complicated child, and decided to be really cautious. I am all for caution. I applaud caution, especially in people who are considering performing surgery on my child. But I thought the communication might have been a little lacking there.

I asked him to explain to me exactly why he was being so cautious--whether it was something he was seeing in Iyyar, or something I had said. He said it was what he'd heard from me. Fair enough. He also said that Iyyar's ears were packed with gunk--I can't see anything, but clearly he did--and that he had no motility in his eardrum, his ears were full of fluid and he couldn't hear (he also wanted an audiogram). I have no problem with an audiogram but I'm really sure Iyyar can hear--maybe just in the other ear, which he couldn't look at because of the gunk, but he doesn't have any hearing loss that's affecting his communication with me, at least. (I told this to the doctor and got the body language loud and clear in reply. "You don't believe me. That's okay. You see what you see in his ear, which is that it's full of gunk. I'm telling you what I see, which is that he communicates fine. Now you have more information.")

Barak could not hear at all, which is why we got the ear tubes. Iyyar hears fine. I don't have a problem with doing a sleep study, which is at worst an inconvenience--okay, a fairly major one, being that we have no car and a nursing baby--but we'll manage. I don't know why I came out of the appointment so mightily freaked--maybe it was that I felt I wasn't communicating, or that the doctor wasn't listening, or maybe I was just flipping out from having heard the phrase "pediatric ICU" uttered in conjunction with MY CHILD.

The next morning I called my regular pediatrician and left a message saying I wanted to talk to her. She called back right before Shabbos and I communicated my freaked-dom to her; I also said that I was worried because the ENT was making clinical decisions based on things I had said about Iyyar's health, and I didn't know what the heck was going on with him myself. I think it's pinworms, but am I really sure? No. She was reassuring; do the sleep study anyway, she said, because it can't hurt. Go to the followup, and take it from there. Your insurance will cover a second opinion, especially if it's for a surgery, because they'll be hoping they won't have to cover the surgery. So, that's the plan. And open enrolment is coming up soon at work--I'm going to look into switching to the PPO.

Anyway. Sleep study scheduled for Wednesday night. I'm supposed to make a followup appointment two weeks later, for an audiogram and another checkup with the ENT. Stay tuned, as always, to this exciting channel.

It worked last time

I've been thinking lately of two books I loved when I was little that I'd really like to find for my kids. One of them is A House for Barbapapa, which isn't in print anymore in English but is on Amazon in French (no problem, I can read it to them in English and the pictures are the best part anyway). The other one is harder.

Does anyone remember a picture book (okay, this is a good one) about a little girl who goes sailing on a boat all by herself, except that she brings her baby brother along? The illustrations are very soft watercolors, and very detailed of the inside of the boat, and I think there's a peach tree on the boat that she puts there so that she can feed her baby brother peaches (or something like that... sorry, it's been about 30 years!) I have a hazy recollection of the ship being called the Morning Something, and I definitely remember a wonderful illustration of her and her little brother in a bassinet and the inside of the ship, and my own fantasies of having such a ship myself.

Ideas?

In other news...

[If you're reading this while eating your breakfast, maybe it'd be a good idea click away now. Go read the news or something, and come back later.]

pinworms!

Yes! More pinworms! A couple days ago I started noticing Barak reaching inside his underwear to scratch his bottom. At bathtime, I saw a lot of red marks on his tush, and thought, hmm, that doesn't look like a rash but what is it? And then at night, he woke up wailing and crying--real tears and everything--saying that his tushy hurt him. I told him to go to the bathroom. He said he didn't need to. I told him I could put some cream on if he had a rash and maybe he should be careful to wipe himself very well when he went to the bathroom. Then I saw that he had his hands in his underwear again and was scratching like crazy. "Barak, does it hurt or does it just really feel bad?"

"It feels really really bad!"

"Is it itchy?"

"It's iiiiiiiiiiitchyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! It itches so so much!"

Thick, aren't I?

This time I bypassed all natural remedies recommended by the Internet and went directly to the thermonuclear approach. Both kids got dosed with mebenzadole on Thursday (Avtalyon's too little, so he gets lots of vaseline--he's not unhappy) and have had diarrhea ever since. Iyyar's diarrhea has little white things in it. Some of them are squirming.

I told you not to keep reading if you were eating, didn't I?

So... today's pre-Shabbos recreation will involve a lot of hot water and laundry. I'm really really hoping that the pinworms have actually been in Iyyar's system this whole time and are the cause of the GI woes. I'm less convinced right now that the dairy was the culprit; he was immediately better for a week, but the problems have been coming and going over the last month and he hasn't had dairy, except for the couple of times he's sneaked it, in almost 6 weeks.

In further news, Avtalyon, after a week or so of being generally under the weather, is back to his happy perky self. This is a very big improvement for him and also for the household at large; he was being pretty pitiful and we all felt sorry for him, especially Barak, who kept trying to get him to smile with endless rounds of peekaboo. Iyyar pooped on the potty a couple of days ago, and got ice cream, which was great; the timing could have been better, though, since his ice-cream-lust-fueled desire to use the potty came just when the pinworm-fueled-diarrhea-avalanche came. I have been scrubbing a lot of poop out of a lot of different pieces of flooring, carpet and furniture lately.

Okay. I'm done. You can go finish your breakfast now. That is, if you still want it.