I didn't get much actual writing today, but I did get a lot of other stuff done.
1. Had meeting with HR regarding planned maternity leave.
2. Had meeting with main client regarding same. He was, surprisingly, unperturbed.
3. Finalized arrangements to have friend cover leave for me, for which she will get paid 2.5 times what I do. I don't think I'm getting any kickbacks, though. Ahem.
4. Called heating/cooling company to schedule clean and check of furnace/AC, which we haven't done for almost two years. It's all working fine, and the system is less than five years old, but it's a good idea, etc. They'll be here Thursday.
5. This isn't exactly productivity, but spent fifteen minutes happily scoping out the yarn store near work. I don't go there often, just because I don't have the time, but sometimes I get to indulge. Didn't buy anything.
6. This is not my productivity, but yesterday and today MHH made some phone calls regarding our hoped-for move to Israel next year. All were positive, and he'll be going to NY to discuss some aspects of this further. I'll know in a few weeks if there's what to talk about there, but so far, so good.
7. Cleaned kids' room and put away laundry. Yes, I still had un-put-away laundry from before the Nine Days.
8. Paid a bunch of bills. Where does the money go? I know where it goes. Food. It all goes on food. And none of it is eating out. It goes on milk, cheese, vegetables, grape juice, nondairy substitutes for milk, and rice. Many hundreds of dollars a month. Every month. And nobody is even a teenager! How is this possible? We are so not extravagant in our food purchases. I even make my own hummus, because it's so much cheaper (and, okay, tastes better). But still. We spend SO MUCH MONEY on food! And diapers, although right now Iyyar isn't going through nearly as many of those...
In other news, Iyyar threw up this afternoon, massively. I'm hoping it's because he drank too much prune juice this morning. That could do it, right? Right? He hasn't thrown up in months, so I'm hoping it's not part of whatever is going on with him GI-wise.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Wow
Last night Iyyar decided he wanted to sleep in underwear. I wasn't worried about any impending poop and he'd been keeping his pullups dry, so I said sure. And what do you know--he woke up in dry underwear! On backward, but he didn't seem to care. Then I took out his clothes, and after the mandatory 15-20 minutes of running around naked giggling, he got out a pullup (?!), put that on, and then put on his own clothes! Shirt backwards, pants on straight--easier to see which is the back when you're not pulling it over your head.
Wow! Red-letter day. Two firsts!
Oh, and yesterday Avtalyon said "thank you" for the first time. Barak and Iyyar always said some variant of "ta tum" so I was expecting that, but no. It came out, "keeyoo!" Reminded me of my grandfather's one English phrase. "Tank ee-yoo!"
Wow! Red-letter day. Two firsts!
Oh, and yesterday Avtalyon said "thank you" for the first time. Barak and Iyyar always said some variant of "ta tum" so I was expecting that, but no. It came out, "keeyoo!" Reminded me of my grandfather's one English phrase. "Tank ee-yoo!"
Monday, July 20, 2009
A Very Short List
1. I got Iyyar's celiac results last night. His IGA quant was 80, which is well within the normal range. This test is by no means infallibly accurate, but it would indicate that no, he doesn't have celiac disease. This is great in that a) he won't have to live a gluten-free life and b) I won't have to start cooking for three different diets at every meal, but it does mean that there is no quick fix in sight.
Iyyar has also, almost overnight, started staying dry. He wears underwear, he goes to the bathroom unprompted, and, unbelievably, keeps his pullup dry overnight. Even Barak doesn't do that. I took him to the ENT (more on this in a minute) in underwear on Thursday and he did have a rather dramatic accident in that big fancy ENT chair, but really, it was my own fault--if I'd taken him to the bathroom on the way in he'd have been fine. At home he now wears underwear all the time, and even gets up at night to go pee on his own. Totally amazing. However, also really problematic, in that he now can and does control where he pees--and does it in the right place--but can't do it for pooping. And he's decided that he wears underwear now. And he is still cycling between miserable constipation and diarrhea on a weekly basis. So... yeah. Problematic. We have a followup visit to the GI on Tuesday.
2. Iyyar had his ENT followup on Thursday. It took all of about five minutes. The doctor looked in his ears, in his nose, in his throat, and pronounced all great. This was after an audiologist visit where his hearing was also pronounced great--he was obviously hearing things that I was not hearing at all, which I found a little freaky, but if I only notice a hearing problem in the audiologist's booth it's not much of a problem, right? (I do have a mild hearing loss in both ears, which was irritating in high school and large lecture classes in college, but frankly I'd almost forgotten about it--unless I'm on a bad phone connection I never notice it anymore.) Anyway, the ENT said, cheerfully, "That was a much better resolution than I expected!" I chose not to ask what he'd been expecting.
So far as the not-quite-normalness of his sleep study, I was advised to continue following up on the GI problems (which obviously we're doing--and it was the GI problems that brought us to the ENT to begin with), because perhaps the GI troubles are causing the breathing disturbances. But otherwise, nothing need be done. Great.
3. We went to the zoo today--"we" being me, Barak, and Iyyar, without Abba, who was home with Avtalyon, who slept for FOUR HOURS while we were out. I think he must have been just hanging in his crib with the pacifier for at least some of that time, but whatever the case, Abba got an awful lot of peace and quiet with his sefarim in the kitchen. Meanwhile, the three of us were taking a bunch of buses, eating graham crackers, and watching gorillas, penguins, and gibbons do their thing. Iyyar was totally into the primates, Barak mostly wanting to climb on things. We had fun, although Iyyar starting melting down halfway through the first bus trip. It's two buses and close to an hour each way--a long time to sit when you're three.
Iyyar has also, almost overnight, started staying dry. He wears underwear, he goes to the bathroom unprompted, and, unbelievably, keeps his pullup dry overnight. Even Barak doesn't do that. I took him to the ENT (more on this in a minute) in underwear on Thursday and he did have a rather dramatic accident in that big fancy ENT chair, but really, it was my own fault--if I'd taken him to the bathroom on the way in he'd have been fine. At home he now wears underwear all the time, and even gets up at night to go pee on his own. Totally amazing. However, also really problematic, in that he now can and does control where he pees--and does it in the right place--but can't do it for pooping. And he's decided that he wears underwear now. And he is still cycling between miserable constipation and diarrhea on a weekly basis. So... yeah. Problematic. We have a followup visit to the GI on Tuesday.
2. Iyyar had his ENT followup on Thursday. It took all of about five minutes. The doctor looked in his ears, in his nose, in his throat, and pronounced all great. This was after an audiologist visit where his hearing was also pronounced great--he was obviously hearing things that I was not hearing at all, which I found a little freaky, but if I only notice a hearing problem in the audiologist's booth it's not much of a problem, right? (I do have a mild hearing loss in both ears, which was irritating in high school and large lecture classes in college, but frankly I'd almost forgotten about it--unless I'm on a bad phone connection I never notice it anymore.) Anyway, the ENT said, cheerfully, "That was a much better resolution than I expected!" I chose not to ask what he'd been expecting.
So far as the not-quite-normalness of his sleep study, I was advised to continue following up on the GI problems (which obviously we're doing--and it was the GI problems that brought us to the ENT to begin with), because perhaps the GI troubles are causing the breathing disturbances. But otherwise, nothing need be done. Great.
3. We went to the zoo today--"we" being me, Barak, and Iyyar, without Abba, who was home with Avtalyon, who slept for FOUR HOURS while we were out. I think he must have been just hanging in his crib with the pacifier for at least some of that time, but whatever the case, Abba got an awful lot of peace and quiet with his sefarim in the kitchen. Meanwhile, the three of us were taking a bunch of buses, eating graham crackers, and watching gorillas, penguins, and gibbons do their thing. Iyyar was totally into the primates, Barak mostly wanting to climb on things. We had fun, although Iyyar starting melting down halfway through the first bus trip. It's two buses and close to an hour each way--a long time to sit when you're three.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Score
Abba is off now, for the next five weeks, and I have every intention of taking advantage of his presence to do lots and lots of things--more excursions with the kids en famille, and also more 1:1 parent-child time. Today Abba took Iyyar to the pediatrician for a blood draw (the celiac test) and I went with Barak and Avtalyon on the bus to go to Trader Joe's. By all reports the blood draw went amazingly well; I called ahead to find out when Marlene, the Good Phlebotomist, would be around, and Abba says the whole thing took under a minute: she hit the vein on the first try and that was that. Barak and Avtalyon and I, meanwhile, went to TJ's to pick up tons and tons of oatmeal and high-soluble-fiber food (as we take a stab at the IBS diet--can't hurt, anyway, while we're waiting to see what the celiac results are).
Going to TJ's with Barak qualifies as a full-on Trip, partly because of the joys of bus-riding, partly because of those fun little shopping carts and the promise of a helium balloon and granola bar, and partly because of the close proximity of a most excellent thrift shop with bins of toys marked 25 cents, 50 cents, and $1. Our haul for today: one Little People train engine that plays a tune when you press the smokestack; one Evil Robot; three miniature Beanie Babies, specifically koala, cat, and leopard; one worker man helmet, and one blue plastic hammer. Total cost: $3.25, plus tax. Barak was in transports of ecstasy the whole way home with said Evil Robot ("Imma! Look Imma! He has a claw hand that opens and closes like this! He has an engine on his back! He's gonna fight the Hulk, Imma. I think he's gonna beat the Hulk.") When we got off the bus, I spotted Abba and Iyyar on their way home from the pediatrician's, and Barak got to present Iyyar with his worker man ensemble. He was, needless to say, delighted, and much high-volume banging (nothing to bang on? No problem! just bang into the air and yell "bang! bang!" really really loudly) ensued.
Speaking of high volume, have I mentioned--I'm sure I have--Iyyar's earsplitting firetruck impersonation (intruckation?) Lately I've heard another version of it--from Avtalyon, while driving his own little cars around the floor. It's pretty amusing, watching this potbellied little person squatting on the floor, engrossed in his plastic concrete mixer, sounding its siren.
One other thing about the trip--the "promise of granola bar" part. I let Barak put a box of peanut butter chocolate chip granola bars in his little cart, as I always do, and then put them in his own backpack for transport. Once we got outside, he started asking me, "When are we going to have our snack?" and pointing out convenient locations. "There's a bench right there, Imma. There's a park. Can we go play in the park? We could have our snack in the park." I said I thought we should save our snack for when we were waiting for the bus, a time of enforced and otherwise boring bench-sitting. He didn't really want to wait that long, but just as the preoccupation with the granola bar got really overwhelming, we were at the thrift shop and the Evil Robot discovery distracted him. Anyway, once out of the store we did sit down on the bus stop bench, and Barak requested his granola bar. "It's in your bag," I told him. "You're in charge of snack." "Oh!" he said, a little surprised. "I forgot." He opened his bag, pulled out the box, opened it, and took out a granola bar--and handed the first one to me.
Am I allowed to say it? So sweet. And on the way home, as Avtalyon got more and more irritated with his prolonged confinement in the stroller, Barak played with him so nicely. I had Avtalyon's stroller facing sideways, so that he was right next to a seat, and he had his little train in his hands. All he did, for at least half the trip, was put the train on the edge of the seat, let go, and let the slope of the seat bottom take the train to the other edge of the seat--out of reach. Then he'd look beseechingly at Barak, who would hand it back to him. Again. And again. And again. A few times he'd say, "This is the last time. If you drop it again I'm not giving it back to you any more." But then, you know, Avtalyon would look very sad, and give him this very winning look, and he'd relent, and give him the train again, and Avtalyon would giggle, and Barak would giggle, and the next thing you know, well... Barak was playing another round of Drop the Train and Get It Back.
I think Avtalyon is training him well for future Abba-hood. Don't you?
Going to TJ's with Barak qualifies as a full-on Trip, partly because of the joys of bus-riding, partly because of those fun little shopping carts and the promise of a helium balloon and granola bar, and partly because of the close proximity of a most excellent thrift shop with bins of toys marked 25 cents, 50 cents, and $1. Our haul for today: one Little People train engine that plays a tune when you press the smokestack; one Evil Robot; three miniature Beanie Babies, specifically koala, cat, and leopard; one worker man helmet, and one blue plastic hammer. Total cost: $3.25, plus tax. Barak was in transports of ecstasy the whole way home with said Evil Robot ("Imma! Look Imma! He has a claw hand that opens and closes like this! He has an engine on his back! He's gonna fight the Hulk, Imma. I think he's gonna beat the Hulk.") When we got off the bus, I spotted Abba and Iyyar on their way home from the pediatrician's, and Barak got to present Iyyar with his worker man ensemble. He was, needless to say, delighted, and much high-volume banging (nothing to bang on? No problem! just bang into the air and yell "bang! bang!" really really loudly) ensued.
Speaking of high volume, have I mentioned--I'm sure I have--Iyyar's earsplitting firetruck impersonation (intruckation?) Lately I've heard another version of it--from Avtalyon, while driving his own little cars around the floor. It's pretty amusing, watching this potbellied little person squatting on the floor, engrossed in his plastic concrete mixer, sounding its siren.
One other thing about the trip--the "promise of granola bar" part. I let Barak put a box of peanut butter chocolate chip granola bars in his little cart, as I always do, and then put them in his own backpack for transport. Once we got outside, he started asking me, "When are we going to have our snack?" and pointing out convenient locations. "There's a bench right there, Imma. There's a park. Can we go play in the park? We could have our snack in the park." I said I thought we should save our snack for when we were waiting for the bus, a time of enforced and otherwise boring bench-sitting. He didn't really want to wait that long, but just as the preoccupation with the granola bar got really overwhelming, we were at the thrift shop and the Evil Robot discovery distracted him. Anyway, once out of the store we did sit down on the bus stop bench, and Barak requested his granola bar. "It's in your bag," I told him. "You're in charge of snack." "Oh!" he said, a little surprised. "I forgot." He opened his bag, pulled out the box, opened it, and took out a granola bar--and handed the first one to me.
Am I allowed to say it? So sweet. And on the way home, as Avtalyon got more and more irritated with his prolonged confinement in the stroller, Barak played with him so nicely. I had Avtalyon's stroller facing sideways, so that he was right next to a seat, and he had his little train in his hands. All he did, for at least half the trip, was put the train on the edge of the seat, let go, and let the slope of the seat bottom take the train to the other edge of the seat--out of reach. Then he'd look beseechingly at Barak, who would hand it back to him. Again. And again. And again. A few times he'd say, "This is the last time. If you drop it again I'm not giving it back to you any more." But then, you know, Avtalyon would look very sad, and give him this very winning look, and he'd relent, and give him the train again, and Avtalyon would giggle, and Barak would giggle, and the next thing you know, well... Barak was playing another round of Drop the Train and Get It Back.
I think Avtalyon is training him well for future Abba-hood. Don't you?
Sunday, July 12, 2009
With a feather
My phone just rang, at 9:24 on a Sunday night. I picked it up, and it was Iyyar's ENT.
"Hi, this is Dr. ENT!"
"Hi. Uh-oh. You're calling me on a Sunday night. This can't be good."
(I know, friendly, aren't I?)
"Actually, no, it is good. I'm calling because I just read the sleep study and it's good news."
"Really?"
"Really. I have the report right here and I can read it to you."
"Um... but why are you calling me at 9:24 [I was in the kitchen looking at the clock on the stove] on a Sunday night?"
"Because I knew you were worried."
WOW.
How's that for nice?!
Remember how annoyed I was at this doctor the first time I met him? We still have pretty incompatible personalities--I don't deal well with any kind of jokeyness where my kids are involved--but I hereby fully and finally retract anything negative I might ever have said about him.
Wow. So so nice!!!
Results, he said, showed "resolution of severe obstructive sleep apnea." AHI (obstructive episodes per hour, overall) was 4, down from 24 before. (Anything over 5 is a problem.) He spent all but one minute of his study with oxygen saturation over 90, and one minute below. He said, "This is what I would call borderline normal. It's not perfect, but as long as he feels okay, is waking up well rested, and seems okay to you, it's good enough." We talked a little bit more about his GI issues, and he mentioned that the GI tract and the airway are related, so if his GI tract is inflamed that can cause airway tract inflammation as well. But if anything, he thinks it's the GI causing the airway inflammation, not the other way around.
Bringing him back in on Thursday for a followup checkup (as already scheduled), and a hearing exam (ditto). And tomorrow, Abba's going to take him to get his blood drawn for the celiac disease test.
In other exciting news, when Iyyar woke up this morning, I asked him, very casually, if he wanted underwear or a diaper. He wanted underwear. Fine. Breakfast came with juice, and after breakfast I asked him to go sit on the potty. He didn't want to, but a dramatic reading of Commander Toad and the Space Pirates (formerly Barak's favorite book, now Iyyar's, and I could probably read it in my sleep) convinced him. Just as the door of the Star Warts whooshed open for the pirates to come whooping hopping slithering sliding in, he looked up, startled. "I pishing!" And indeed he was. Chocolate chips all around. And another round of juice, too, to keep things, ah, moving along.
Forty minutes later or so, I suggested another potty trip. He said no, but then I found him in the bathroom, tugging at his pants while peeing on the floor. A step in the right direction, surely. I went to get clean underwear and pants and in the meantime stood him on the stool and asked if he wanted to try pishing standing up (which he's never managed before, despite multiple attempts under Barak's enthusiastic tutelage.) And then--eureka!--"Imma! I pishing!" I'm sorry if this is a little too graphic, but the look of total delight on his face as he watched the pee arcing into the toilet bowl was something to be seen. It was absolutely, hey! Look what I can do!
He went three more times today, twice actually getting his clothes out of the way first, and then once more at bedtime--earning himself a pullup to sleep in, for the first time ever. You cannot imagine--or maybe you can--just how exciting this was. Of course, he then promptly pooped in it, and then when I changed him pooped in the next one. But I am not worrying about that. One thing at a time.
"Hi, this is Dr. ENT!"
"Hi. Uh-oh. You're calling me on a Sunday night. This can't be good."
(I know, friendly, aren't I?)
"Actually, no, it is good. I'm calling because I just read the sleep study and it's good news."
"Really?"
"Really. I have the report right here and I can read it to you."
"Um... but why are you calling me at 9:24 [I was in the kitchen looking at the clock on the stove] on a Sunday night?"
"Because I knew you were worried."
WOW.
How's that for nice?!
Remember how annoyed I was at this doctor the first time I met him? We still have pretty incompatible personalities--I don't deal well with any kind of jokeyness where my kids are involved--but I hereby fully and finally retract anything negative I might ever have said about him.
Wow. So so nice!!!
Results, he said, showed "resolution of severe obstructive sleep apnea." AHI (obstructive episodes per hour, overall) was 4, down from 24 before. (Anything over 5 is a problem.) He spent all but one minute of his study with oxygen saturation over 90, and one minute below. He said, "This is what I would call borderline normal. It's not perfect, but as long as he feels okay, is waking up well rested, and seems okay to you, it's good enough." We talked a little bit more about his GI issues, and he mentioned that the GI tract and the airway are related, so if his GI tract is inflamed that can cause airway tract inflammation as well. But if anything, he thinks it's the GI causing the airway inflammation, not the other way around.
Bringing him back in on Thursday for a followup checkup (as already scheduled), and a hearing exam (ditto). And tomorrow, Abba's going to take him to get his blood drawn for the celiac disease test.
In other exciting news, when Iyyar woke up this morning, I asked him, very casually, if he wanted underwear or a diaper. He wanted underwear. Fine. Breakfast came with juice, and after breakfast I asked him to go sit on the potty. He didn't want to, but a dramatic reading of Commander Toad and the Space Pirates (formerly Barak's favorite book, now Iyyar's, and I could probably read it in my sleep) convinced him. Just as the door of the Star Warts whooshed open for the pirates to come whooping hopping slithering sliding in, he looked up, startled. "I pishing!" And indeed he was. Chocolate chips all around. And another round of juice, too, to keep things, ah, moving along.
Forty minutes later or so, I suggested another potty trip. He said no, but then I found him in the bathroom, tugging at his pants while peeing on the floor. A step in the right direction, surely. I went to get clean underwear and pants and in the meantime stood him on the stool and asked if he wanted to try pishing standing up (which he's never managed before, despite multiple attempts under Barak's enthusiastic tutelage.) And then--eureka!--"Imma! I pishing!" I'm sorry if this is a little too graphic, but the look of total delight on his face as he watched the pee arcing into the toilet bowl was something to be seen. It was absolutely, hey! Look what I can do!
He went three more times today, twice actually getting his clothes out of the way first, and then once more at bedtime--earning himself a pullup to sleep in, for the first time ever. You cannot imagine--or maybe you can--just how exciting this was. Of course, he then promptly pooped in it, and then when I changed him pooped in the next one. But I am not worrying about that. One thing at a time.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Wednesday
I have a few minutes of work time yet--not enough to really get going on something new. I'm waiting for someone to return a phone call, anyway, and don't know what to do next until he does. So... a few updates.
1. When Barak was three and a half and Iyyar one and a half, Grandma E came to visit. During the course of her visit, Barak devolved from a reasonably pleasant and civilized small child to a three-foot-tall monster toddler. He threw a tantrum in Target, spent more time out than in, whined, nagged, ignored me and... yeah. It was lovely. I thought, okay, he's trying to get attention--he'll get back to normal after the visit. Nope. He didn't really get back to normal until, oh, a few months after Avtalyon was born. When he turned four.
Iyyar is not yet three and a half. He's not even quite three and a quarter. But he seems to be entering That Stage. The I Don't Want To Do Anything You Tell Me stage. The I Don't Have To Listen To You Stage. The Let's See What Imma Does If I... stage.
Did I mention we're going to visit Grandma E in about three weeks?
It's really good that I have the blog, because when I look at how Iyyar is behaving (and let loose a primal scream that makes the neighbors wonder if they should call 911) and how Barak is behaving (generally speaking, nicely) I wonder what I am in for. Then I look back at the blog two years ago and remember how difficult (read: awful) Barak was at more or less the same age.
It's not him. It's the stage. I just need to keep telling myself that for the next six months...
2. Speaking of Iyyar, I truly do not see how I am going to toilet train him. He has the general idea. He often tells me he needs to poop on the potty and even runs to the bathroom. But pooping hurts him. A lot. And so he cries and wiggles off and, an hour or more later, poops in his diaper. What to do? Once I tried, physically, to get him to stay on when it was so obvious he was going to go any second. But he held it in, and that set off a few days of constipation that ended in a suppository and a lot of screaming. Lesson learned--I won't do that again. But if he's not in underwear in SEVEN WEEKS, he's not going to school next year. His slot will go to someone on the waiting list. I can't have two kids at home all day, every day, all winter, especially not when I am due in November. I don't know what to do--I don't really have a Plan B here.
3. Avtalyon, for all his snuggliness, is not, at the moment, a super-snuggly baby. If I want snuggles, I have to carry him around; if I try to sit down and get some quality cuddle time, he'll usually slide off and go play. Last night, for the first time in months, he wouldn't settle down. He'd been constipated for days (can I write about ANYTHING but poop?!) and then had a day of raging diarrhea caused by the blueberries and cherries I'd given him to help move things along. He was crying in his crib with yet another dirty diaper, which I changed; he was happy to go back into his crib, but cried and cried as soon as I left. So I came back in, picked him up, and sat down in the rocking chair, fully expecting him to take this as an opportunity for further playtime. Nope. He actually flung his arms around me, gave a happy sigh, burrowed into my armpit, and fell asleep. Bliss.
4. Four has to not be about poop! That means... um... well, work is safe! Four can be about work!
Work is crazy. Work is super crazy. People at work are crazy. People outside work are crazy. It's all just... all kinds of crazy. I'm trying to think of something else I can say that isn't identifying but I can't, so let's just leave it there. With CRAZY.
5. I am so into knitting right now it is hard to describe--probably because I have so little knitting time. My ravelry queue is stretched out to THERE and unless I quit my job and hire a full-time babysitter, there is no way on earth I'll finish it before I'm due, or even in this lifetime. And, predictably, what does uberimma do when she has no time to knit? She scratches the knitting itch by buying knitting things, of course. I just got two new knitting books AND put in a small Schoolhouse Press order (a little bit of Plotulopi/Icelandic Unspun to round out what Jasmin brought, so I can make a sweater with it). Pattern for said sweater is in one of the new books. In the meantime, I have on the needles:
-an Eris for me, out of green Ultra Alpaca
-a newborn baby sweater, in green and yellow sock yarn
-a pink hat for Shanna's daughter
-a green hat for Shanna's son
-mittens for Barak (mittens themselves are done, just need the second liner)
I also have, in the Want To Knit Right Now category, yarn and pattern for a Lett-Lopi vest, which I plan on making A-line for a postpartum belly-camouflaging fall garment. With all three of my kids, I woke up the morning of the bris realizing I had absolutely nothing I could possibly wear and look civilized in. This is an attempt to avert that crisis situation. Think I'll get a girl this time?
6. MHH finishes work this Friday and is up for a five-week break. One of those weeks will be spent visiting Grandma E and Deb, and there are many local daytrips planned (there is so much to do locally that we never do, simply because I can't wrangle everyone on multiple buses alone).
One of the planned highlights, however, is a trip to a fiber festival with my friend Sarah. Yes! With Sarah! Without children! I will pack my bags, get on a train, go several states away, and knit and knit and knit.
If I remember to pack my passport, that is.
1. When Barak was three and a half and Iyyar one and a half, Grandma E came to visit. During the course of her visit, Barak devolved from a reasonably pleasant and civilized small child to a three-foot-tall monster toddler. He threw a tantrum in Target, spent more time out than in, whined, nagged, ignored me and... yeah. It was lovely. I thought, okay, he's trying to get attention--he'll get back to normal after the visit. Nope. He didn't really get back to normal until, oh, a few months after Avtalyon was born. When he turned four.
Iyyar is not yet three and a half. He's not even quite three and a quarter. But he seems to be entering That Stage. The I Don't Want To Do Anything You Tell Me stage. The I Don't Have To Listen To You Stage. The Let's See What Imma Does If I... stage.
Did I mention we're going to visit Grandma E in about three weeks?
It's really good that I have the blog, because when I look at how Iyyar is behaving (and let loose a primal scream that makes the neighbors wonder if they should call 911) and how Barak is behaving (generally speaking, nicely) I wonder what I am in for. Then I look back at the blog two years ago and remember how difficult (read: awful) Barak was at more or less the same age.
It's not him. It's the stage. I just need to keep telling myself that for the next six months...
2. Speaking of Iyyar, I truly do not see how I am going to toilet train him. He has the general idea. He often tells me he needs to poop on the potty and even runs to the bathroom. But pooping hurts him. A lot. And so he cries and wiggles off and, an hour or more later, poops in his diaper. What to do? Once I tried, physically, to get him to stay on when it was so obvious he was going to go any second. But he held it in, and that set off a few days of constipation that ended in a suppository and a lot of screaming. Lesson learned--I won't do that again. But if he's not in underwear in SEVEN WEEKS, he's not going to school next year. His slot will go to someone on the waiting list. I can't have two kids at home all day, every day, all winter, especially not when I am due in November. I don't know what to do--I don't really have a Plan B here.
3. Avtalyon, for all his snuggliness, is not, at the moment, a super-snuggly baby. If I want snuggles, I have to carry him around; if I try to sit down and get some quality cuddle time, he'll usually slide off and go play. Last night, for the first time in months, he wouldn't settle down. He'd been constipated for days (can I write about ANYTHING but poop?!) and then had a day of raging diarrhea caused by the blueberries and cherries I'd given him to help move things along. He was crying in his crib with yet another dirty diaper, which I changed; he was happy to go back into his crib, but cried and cried as soon as I left. So I came back in, picked him up, and sat down in the rocking chair, fully expecting him to take this as an opportunity for further playtime. Nope. He actually flung his arms around me, gave a happy sigh, burrowed into my armpit, and fell asleep. Bliss.
4. Four has to not be about poop! That means... um... well, work is safe! Four can be about work!
Work is crazy. Work is super crazy. People at work are crazy. People outside work are crazy. It's all just... all kinds of crazy. I'm trying to think of something else I can say that isn't identifying but I can't, so let's just leave it there. With CRAZY.
5. I am so into knitting right now it is hard to describe--probably because I have so little knitting time. My ravelry queue is stretched out to THERE and unless I quit my job and hire a full-time babysitter, there is no way on earth I'll finish it before I'm due, or even in this lifetime. And, predictably, what does uberimma do when she has no time to knit? She scratches the knitting itch by buying knitting things, of course. I just got two new knitting books AND put in a small Schoolhouse Press order (a little bit of Plotulopi/Icelandic Unspun to round out what Jasmin brought, so I can make a sweater with it). Pattern for said sweater is in one of the new books. In the meantime, I have on the needles:
-an Eris for me, out of green Ultra Alpaca
-a newborn baby sweater, in green and yellow sock yarn
-a pink hat for Shanna's daughter
-a green hat for Shanna's son
-mittens for Barak (mittens themselves are done, just need the second liner)
I also have, in the Want To Knit Right Now category, yarn and pattern for a Lett-Lopi vest, which I plan on making A-line for a postpartum belly-camouflaging fall garment. With all three of my kids, I woke up the morning of the bris realizing I had absolutely nothing I could possibly wear and look civilized in. This is an attempt to avert that crisis situation. Think I'll get a girl this time?
6. MHH finishes work this Friday and is up for a five-week break. One of those weeks will be spent visiting Grandma E and Deb, and there are many local daytrips planned (there is so much to do locally that we never do, simply because I can't wrangle everyone on multiple buses alone).
One of the planned highlights, however, is a trip to a fiber festival with my friend Sarah. Yes! With Sarah! Without children! I will pack my bags, get on a train, go several states away, and knit and knit and knit.
If I remember to pack my passport, that is.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Quality control
I just spent some time looking through posts from last year. And was... a little embarrassed. Not by how bad they were, but by how much less bad they were then than they are now. There were more of them. They were better written.
I do keep this blog for myself. I keep it as a record of my life, of my kids' growing up, of the little things that I know I would otherwise forget. I also keep it as a way of staying in touch with friends, because I am, with very few exceptions, lousy at staying in touch. This way, Grandma E and my sisters-in-law and the friends who are interested can all know the cute things the kids are doing, without my having to email them each individually--which I would never manage to do.
But I also keep it because, as a professional writer who writes almost exclusively as someone else, I want to have a way to write in my own voice. I want to be able to remember what my writing, my own writing, my own voice, sounds like. Lately, my own writing hasn't sounded that great. And it isn't surprising that I'm down to fewer than twenty regular readers. And I can't help but think, is this my writing now? Is this my voice? Do I even have my own voice anymore, or has it morphed into the voices of various men old enough to be my father?
I know that most of it is that I don't have a lot of time. Any time I spend blogging is time stolen from speeches, from housework, from the kids, or, most likely, from sleep. But, to use a quote one of my clients likes, anything worth doing is worth doing well.
I'll try to do better.
I do keep this blog for myself. I keep it as a record of my life, of my kids' growing up, of the little things that I know I would otherwise forget. I also keep it as a way of staying in touch with friends, because I am, with very few exceptions, lousy at staying in touch. This way, Grandma E and my sisters-in-law and the friends who are interested can all know the cute things the kids are doing, without my having to email them each individually--which I would never manage to do.
But I also keep it because, as a professional writer who writes almost exclusively as someone else, I want to have a way to write in my own voice. I want to be able to remember what my writing, my own writing, my own voice, sounds like. Lately, my own writing hasn't sounded that great. And it isn't surprising that I'm down to fewer than twenty regular readers. And I can't help but think, is this my writing now? Is this my voice? Do I even have my own voice anymore, or has it morphed into the voices of various men old enough to be my father?
I know that most of it is that I don't have a lot of time. Any time I spend blogging is time stolen from speeches, from housework, from the kids, or, most likely, from sleep. But, to use a quote one of my clients likes, anything worth doing is worth doing well.
I'll try to do better.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Um... what?!
I took Iyyar for his followup sleep study last night. Sleep study #1, as you may recall, was something of a horror show, with upwards of 80 episodes of apnea per night, in addition to his refusal to go to sleep, keep the wires on, etc. I wasn't there for that one--Abba took him, since Avtalyon was still nursing too much for me to leave him overnight.
We fully expected study #2 to be a formality. I took him, and he was out like a light in less than fifteen minutes. The tech put almost all the leads on him without waking him up, but the nasal cannula did him in, and once he was woken he was restless from that. I'm not sure how much of an impact the wires etc. had on the results, but when I asked the tech how things looked as we were about to leave, he said, "Oh, he still has it." Still has what? "He still has obstructive sleep apnea." His O2 desaturated down to 88, which is better than 72 but still not what you want to see. And while the tech was sure he wasn't rousing 80 times an hour, he also was sure it was "a lot more than 5" which is the cutoff. I asked for a ballpark and he said he hadn't counted yet.
I'm not sure what is next. Iyyar has an appointment with the ENT in a couple of weeks, for both a checkup and a hearing test. I know his hearing isn't quite normal--he does fine mostly but I've noticed him not hearing things and other people have mentioned it to me too. And we also have a followup with the GI doctor the week after that.
I know he's better and doing the T & A was worth it. He visibly sleeps better, doesn't snore anymore, and did have that huge growth spurt right after surgery. But he's still tired, still cranky, still climbing into bed in the afternoon and falling asleep during time-outs. And he's still flying off the walls the rest of the time. But he's a three-year-old boy! Surely they all bounce around sometimes, and get tired sometimes, and nap sometimes. It's so hard to know what's normal and what's not. What I know is not normal is the digestive stuff. It's not normal that he only poops when on Miralax. Which is, so far as I'm concerned, like Tylenol--it makes him feel better but isn't actually addressing the underlying issue.
Anyway. Time for me to leave my lair. Anybody know of any connections between OSA and, um, IBS?
We fully expected study #2 to be a formality. I took him, and he was out like a light in less than fifteen minutes. The tech put almost all the leads on him without waking him up, but the nasal cannula did him in, and once he was woken he was restless from that. I'm not sure how much of an impact the wires etc. had on the results, but when I asked the tech how things looked as we were about to leave, he said, "Oh, he still has it." Still has what? "He still has obstructive sleep apnea." His O2 desaturated down to 88, which is better than 72 but still not what you want to see. And while the tech was sure he wasn't rousing 80 times an hour, he also was sure it was "a lot more than 5" which is the cutoff. I asked for a ballpark and he said he hadn't counted yet.
I'm not sure what is next. Iyyar has an appointment with the ENT in a couple of weeks, for both a checkup and a hearing test. I know his hearing isn't quite normal--he does fine mostly but I've noticed him not hearing things and other people have mentioned it to me too. And we also have a followup with the GI doctor the week after that.
I know he's better and doing the T & A was worth it. He visibly sleeps better, doesn't snore anymore, and did have that huge growth spurt right after surgery. But he's still tired, still cranky, still climbing into bed in the afternoon and falling asleep during time-outs. And he's still flying off the walls the rest of the time. But he's a three-year-old boy! Surely they all bounce around sometimes, and get tired sometimes, and nap sometimes. It's so hard to know what's normal and what's not. What I know is not normal is the digestive stuff. It's not normal that he only poops when on Miralax. Which is, so far as I'm concerned, like Tylenol--it makes him feel better but isn't actually addressing the underlying issue.
Anyway. Time for me to leave my lair. Anybody know of any connections between OSA and, um, IBS?
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
All clear
I took Avtalyon to the doctor this morning to get his ears rechecked and they were pronounced just fine. Yay!
I wanted to take Iyyar in to get his bloodwork done, too, but a) it's raining and b) I had an appointment for myself, too, and it seemed a little more than I could reasonably handle. So we need to go back this week sometime, when the Good Phlebotomist is there.
I wanted to take Iyyar in to get his bloodwork done, too, but a) it's raining and b) I had an appointment for myself, too, and it seemed a little more than I could reasonably handle. So we need to go back this week sometime, when the Good Phlebotomist is there.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Beety
I made picked beets last week. I really love pickled beets. I always thought it was a Hungarian thing, but Avtalyon, who has never even been to Hungary, liked them too. He liked them so much that, when presented with a bowlful, he employed the two-fisted hand-over-hand eating technique in which one hand shoves beets into mouth while other hand grabs more beets from bowl, continuing with this until there are no more beets left, at which time the hand discovering a beetless bowl presents said bowl for refilling (before the other hand has even finished cramming the last few in the gaping beety maw).
He ate a LOT of beets this way. Afterwards, we had this:
And then, of course, the dreaded beet diaper. "Imma! Imma, look Imma! Avtalyon pooped PURPLE!"
He ate a LOT of beets this way. Afterwards, we had this:
And then, of course, the dreaded beet diaper. "Imma! Imma, look Imma! Avtalyon pooped PURPLE!"
Even more disorganized than usual
But better than nothing, right? Right?
1. Barak's latest Lego creation is a laserbeam airplane. It's a pretty impressive airplane with a flower piece on front. This is the thing that shoots the laser. He's done a lot of little Lego lately, mostly courtesy of his star chart Lego but this past week courtesy of some birthday money from Bubbe & Zayde. I got him a set of pirate Lego, soon to be discontinued. It was much bigger than the kind I usually give him for star charts, and I didn't want to up the ante with that, so I gave it to him as a late birthday present. He was, naturally, thrilled, and happily crept out of bed after the other two were asleep erev Shabbos to tackle it. He did it all by himself, by "looking so so carefully at the constructions."
2. Avtalyon is being HILARIOUS lately. He really seems to be feeling better and, par for his course of trying to be like his big brothers in all things, has started doing Lego. By this I mean that in the last couple of days he has figured out how to attach Lego. When he does this, he does one of two things; either he attaches it into a tall stack and brings it me or someone else available to take it apart for him (this is harder than putting it together?); or he puts it together into an amorphous blob and drives it around the floor, saying "Beep! Beep!"
3. Avtalyon also just started saying "meow" and "please!" which comes out sounding like "bee!" He still has zero patience for waiting for anything while in his high chair, but now sometimes inserts a few hopeful "bees!" into the frantic wailing.
4. Iyyar has really had some setbacks on the tummy front this week. As in, back to screaming and constipation. I called the GI doctor back this week and talked to the nurse clinician. "It's been eight months and he's still not OK. I'd like to bring him back in, and also, I think we should look more into the possibility that he might have celiac disease." He's showing so many of the signs that I wanted her to try a different test to be doubly sure--there are a few. We talked about his antibody levels, which were tested for in February. Except--surprise! They weren't! They didn't get enough blood! And nobody told us that the tests were canceled! In fact, we were told that if no one had contacted us, then everything was normal! Does this ring a bell with anyone else here?
We've been giving him Miralax this week, which has brought him from constipation to diarrhea. An improvement from the point of view of his comfort, but it still doesn't give any answers or any long-term solution. Also looming on the horizon: preschool. If he isn't toilet trained by the end of August, he can't go. I don't even want to think about that possibility. I'm bringing him back in for another blood draw Tuesday (fun for everyone!) and he's going back to the GI doctor at Children's in July.
5. Barak's latest invention on the fantasy animal front is the dragon cheetah tiger. I know that they are black and they have big teeth and they are scary, because he drew one for me. VERY big teeth. Don't meet one of those in a dark alley.
6. I told you this was going to be disorganized, right?
7. I am way way way behind on work. WAY behind. I've been distracted, and I've been tired, and I'm burned out on this year. And I want a break, but one is not forthcoming.
8. It is the time of the Annual Ant Invasion. Barak and Iyyar think this is great. I do not. I also don't like it because I don't want to teach the kids to smash bugs for fun. But I do a lot of bug-smashing these days. Fine line, etc.
9. A friend of mine from grad school came for a brief visit today. It was really, really nice, and my kids were as beautifully behaved as they've ever been in their lives. She was impressed. "They're so good!" I did tell her that they're not like this all the time, but I admit to the shepping of some nachas in that regard. They really were being awfully good.
10. Oh, I forgot this--it should have been attached to #1. Last Friday, when Barak was doing pirate Lego, we had dinner guests. We had made early Shabbos but even still, by the time we sat down to eat it was after 8. Barak sat with us for kiddush and motzi and then sneaked off to the kitchen (with my permission) to do his Lego. I let him stay up until 11 PM. Crazy, I know, but he was totally fine the next day. And he had a blast.
What this made me think of was the Make-A-Plate. You know those melamine plates that you made in nursery school, or that your kids made? I made mine in 1976, and it was a picture of my mother in a blue dress and high heels with curly hair. Barak's obviously criminally negligent preschool did no such project, so I ordered the kit online and we did them at home. Iyyar's is covered with scribbles. Avtalyon's is handprints--I stuck his hands on an inkpad and then on the paper templates you are supposed to use. Barak's plate is a drawing of a house erev Shabbos. It is dark outside (colored in blue) and the Imma is lighting candles on a table. There are brothers in bed, and one brother who is not in bed. This, he informed me, is the brother who is getting out of bed to play little Lego in the kitchen.
1. Barak's latest Lego creation is a laserbeam airplane. It's a pretty impressive airplane with a flower piece on front. This is the thing that shoots the laser. He's done a lot of little Lego lately, mostly courtesy of his star chart Lego but this past week courtesy of some birthday money from Bubbe & Zayde. I got him a set of pirate Lego, soon to be discontinued. It was much bigger than the kind I usually give him for star charts, and I didn't want to up the ante with that, so I gave it to him as a late birthday present. He was, naturally, thrilled, and happily crept out of bed after the other two were asleep erev Shabbos to tackle it. He did it all by himself, by "looking so so carefully at the constructions."
2. Avtalyon is being HILARIOUS lately. He really seems to be feeling better and, par for his course of trying to be like his big brothers in all things, has started doing Lego. By this I mean that in the last couple of days he has figured out how to attach Lego. When he does this, he does one of two things; either he attaches it into a tall stack and brings it me or someone else available to take it apart for him (this is harder than putting it together?); or he puts it together into an amorphous blob and drives it around the floor, saying "Beep! Beep!"
3. Avtalyon also just started saying "meow" and "please!" which comes out sounding like "bee!" He still has zero patience for waiting for anything while in his high chair, but now sometimes inserts a few hopeful "bees!" into the frantic wailing.
4. Iyyar has really had some setbacks on the tummy front this week. As in, back to screaming and constipation. I called the GI doctor back this week and talked to the nurse clinician. "It's been eight months and he's still not OK. I'd like to bring him back in, and also, I think we should look more into the possibility that he might have celiac disease." He's showing so many of the signs that I wanted her to try a different test to be doubly sure--there are a few. We talked about his antibody levels, which were tested for in February. Except--surprise! They weren't! They didn't get enough blood! And nobody told us that the tests were canceled! In fact, we were told that if no one had contacted us, then everything was normal! Does this ring a bell with anyone else here?
We've been giving him Miralax this week, which has brought him from constipation to diarrhea. An improvement from the point of view of his comfort, but it still doesn't give any answers or any long-term solution. Also looming on the horizon: preschool. If he isn't toilet trained by the end of August, he can't go. I don't even want to think about that possibility. I'm bringing him back in for another blood draw Tuesday (fun for everyone!) and he's going back to the GI doctor at Children's in July.
5. Barak's latest invention on the fantasy animal front is the dragon cheetah tiger. I know that they are black and they have big teeth and they are scary, because he drew one for me. VERY big teeth. Don't meet one of those in a dark alley.
6. I told you this was going to be disorganized, right?
7. I am way way way behind on work. WAY behind. I've been distracted, and I've been tired, and I'm burned out on this year. And I want a break, but one is not forthcoming.
8. It is the time of the Annual Ant Invasion. Barak and Iyyar think this is great. I do not. I also don't like it because I don't want to teach the kids to smash bugs for fun. But I do a lot of bug-smashing these days. Fine line, etc.
9. A friend of mine from grad school came for a brief visit today. It was really, really nice, and my kids were as beautifully behaved as they've ever been in their lives. She was impressed. "They're so good!" I did tell her that they're not like this all the time, but I admit to the shepping of some nachas in that regard. They really were being awfully good.
10. Oh, I forgot this--it should have been attached to #1. Last Friday, when Barak was doing pirate Lego, we had dinner guests. We had made early Shabbos but even still, by the time we sat down to eat it was after 8. Barak sat with us for kiddush and motzi and then sneaked off to the kitchen (with my permission) to do his Lego. I let him stay up until 11 PM. Crazy, I know, but he was totally fine the next day. And he had a blast.
What this made me think of was the Make-A-Plate. You know those melamine plates that you made in nursery school, or that your kids made? I made mine in 1976, and it was a picture of my mother in a blue dress and high heels with curly hair. Barak's obviously criminally negligent preschool did no such project, so I ordered the kit online and we did them at home. Iyyar's is covered with scribbles. Avtalyon's is handprints--I stuck his hands on an inkpad and then on the paper templates you are supposed to use. Barak's plate is a drawing of a house erev Shabbos. It is dark outside (colored in blue) and the Imma is lighting candles on a table. There are brothers in bed, and one brother who is not in bed. This, he informed me, is the brother who is getting out of bed to play little Lego in the kitchen.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Deja vu all over again
I think Avtalyon's about to blow another eardrum. This is getting a little old, don't you think? First he ruptured two, and got 10 days of Amoxicillin. On day 7, I brought him in for a checkup, and he had one ear clear and one still cloudy; on day 13, he ruptured another ear. That got him 14 days of Cefprozil. We are now on Day 8 and he is giving every indication of being on the brink of yet another rupture. I called the doctor earlier asking for a referral to see an ENT; she said she'd request it but I should bring him in in the morning anyway, so they could switch his antibiotic. Not sure to what.
It's been a rough week. A lot has been going on, most of it, frankly, bad; the major thing has been a death in the community that has everyone pretty shaken up. Without getting into too many details, a mother a little older than me with kids a little older than mine got up out of bed one day and died, in front of her kids, for no clear reason, with very little indication beforehand that anything was wrong. She was not someone I was close to or had a lot in common with, but we have known the family for years, my husband worked closely with her husband for several of them, and she was a really, really good mother. Better than me, and too good to lose. That's terrible enough, obviously, and there are other aspects of it that have blown a lot of my own mother/child/no mother issues out of the water. I haven't been sleeping well or thinking about much else. Compartmentalizing has never been my strong suit.
In the absence of any ability to do anything helpful for the family, beyond paying shiva visits and getting on the list to make meals, I've been trying to work on other things; I invited a few Shabbos guests who really need invitations, and have been trying so, so hard to focus more on the kids and what they need from me. Which has been hard, because Barak and Iyyar are currently in a state of ongoing conflict--not constant, but much more frequent than has been the case historically--and Avtalyon, for whatever reason (ears, probably) has been really, really fussy. Plus I'm just very tired. The busiest time of the year at work is ending now, and while that is good it means that the pile of put-off tasks must be dealt with. The laundry never seems to end, and now that I'm in my fifth month (yes, I'm just sneaking that one in there) I can't just get by on five or six hours of sleep. This morning I was just too tired to think so I decided to lie down for fifteen minutes (at around 9:15). Need I even tell you what happened? The two-and-a-half-hour nap was awesome, but I have to make those hours up somewhere.
Oh, and we still need to figure out a way for my kids to see their grandparents this summer. We have a trip scheduled to see Grandma E in early August, but getting to see Bubbe & Zayde is a lot more complicated logistically; my MIL does not fly, their home is not somewhere we can stay with the kids (they'd be happy to have us, but it doesn't work practically), the one friend who lives nearby has a new baby of her own and almost certainly can't host us, and neither MHH nor I have flexible vacation schedules--if it doesn't happen between mid-July and mid-August, it isn't going to happen until next summer. The initial plan was to meet up with them in Boston, but that isn't working out for a number of reasons, even though it would have been by far the easiest and most enjoyable thing (IMHO, anyway). I feel awful putting a visit off indefinitely. The kids haven't seen their grandmother since before Avtalyon was born, and haven't seen their grandfather since we were in Israel. It's not like any of us lives on Mars. It's not like we all have a superabundance of family, either. Just not sure what to do about it.
Pause while I try to think of something cute or cheery to end this with...
Oh, the firetruck. I can tell you about the firetruck. That really was cool.
We had an absolutely awesome surprise visit to the fire station last Thursday. There is a single-engine company about five or six blocks from us, on the way to Barak's new kindergarten, where I had to drop off some registration forms last week. On the way there, we saw the firetruck parked on a corner, and saw firemen get out. This was from a few blocks down the street, as we were coming up toward the intersection of the main commercial stretch. Neat! we said. We'll get to watch firemen! A few minutes later, as we approached the corner, we saw them all get back into the truck. Oh well, show over--oh. No. Wait. What's that they're holding?
Ice cream cones. They had, apparently, stopped on the way back from a call for ice cream. I caught the look on Barak's face. "Barak, do you think that's fun? I bet that would be fun. Would eating ice cream cones in a firetruck be about the most fun anyone could have?" Barak, somewhat dreamily, agreed. Then we discussed further and upon careful reflection decided that the absolute most fun, the pinnacle of fun that one could have in this lifetime, would in fact be eating ice cream AND chocolate chip cookies in the back of a firetruck.
Got that? Good.
So we went on our way, passing the fire station, where we got to see the truck backing into the bay (remember, it is on the way to school--this is all along the same semi-major street). We dropped off our forms. We came back, on the other side of the street so as to get a better look through the doors at the firetruck. It was a warm day, and the door was still open. What the heck, I thought. I poked my nose inside and saw a fireman sitting by the door doing a crossword. Can't hurt to ask, can it?
"Excuse me? Would it be okay if my kids looked at the firetruck?" He got up. "Sure! Come on in."
We went in, Iyyar and Avtalyon in the double stroller and Barak holding on, all of them looking sort of... stoned. They all really like firetrucks, if this needs mentioning, and none of them was expecting this. Even Avtalyon, who can actually (sort of) say "firetruck" now, was awed by the big red machine. They stood and gazed, openmouthed. The firemen looked at them.
"Do they want to go inside?"
Um.... WHAT?!
Long story short, he let the bigger two play in and on the firetruck for at least 20 minutes. He even let them sit in front and pretend to drive. He answered their questions. He let them look around the bay. He asked me if I had a camera to take pictures with (I didn't, but I did have a phone and used that). He was SO NICE.
We are planning to make cookies to bring them this week, so that next time the firemen get ice cream, they can sit in the firetruck and eat cookies and ice cream and have the most fun anyone could possibly have. I think they deserve it.
It's been a rough week. A lot has been going on, most of it, frankly, bad; the major thing has been a death in the community that has everyone pretty shaken up. Without getting into too many details, a mother a little older than me with kids a little older than mine got up out of bed one day and died, in front of her kids, for no clear reason, with very little indication beforehand that anything was wrong. She was not someone I was close to or had a lot in common with, but we have known the family for years, my husband worked closely with her husband for several of them, and she was a really, really good mother. Better than me, and too good to lose. That's terrible enough, obviously, and there are other aspects of it that have blown a lot of my own mother/child/no mother issues out of the water. I haven't been sleeping well or thinking about much else. Compartmentalizing has never been my strong suit.
In the absence of any ability to do anything helpful for the family, beyond paying shiva visits and getting on the list to make meals, I've been trying to work on other things; I invited a few Shabbos guests who really need invitations, and have been trying so, so hard to focus more on the kids and what they need from me. Which has been hard, because Barak and Iyyar are currently in a state of ongoing conflict--not constant, but much more frequent than has been the case historically--and Avtalyon, for whatever reason (ears, probably) has been really, really fussy. Plus I'm just very tired. The busiest time of the year at work is ending now, and while that is good it means that the pile of put-off tasks must be dealt with. The laundry never seems to end, and now that I'm in my fifth month (yes, I'm just sneaking that one in there) I can't just get by on five or six hours of sleep. This morning I was just too tired to think so I decided to lie down for fifteen minutes (at around 9:15). Need I even tell you what happened? The two-and-a-half-hour nap was awesome, but I have to make those hours up somewhere.
Oh, and we still need to figure out a way for my kids to see their grandparents this summer. We have a trip scheduled to see Grandma E in early August, but getting to see Bubbe & Zayde is a lot more complicated logistically; my MIL does not fly, their home is not somewhere we can stay with the kids (they'd be happy to have us, but it doesn't work practically), the one friend who lives nearby has a new baby of her own and almost certainly can't host us, and neither MHH nor I have flexible vacation schedules--if it doesn't happen between mid-July and mid-August, it isn't going to happen until next summer. The initial plan was to meet up with them in Boston, but that isn't working out for a number of reasons, even though it would have been by far the easiest and most enjoyable thing (IMHO, anyway). I feel awful putting a visit off indefinitely. The kids haven't seen their grandmother since before Avtalyon was born, and haven't seen their grandfather since we were in Israel. It's not like any of us lives on Mars. It's not like we all have a superabundance of family, either. Just not sure what to do about it.
Pause while I try to think of something cute or cheery to end this with...
Oh, the firetruck. I can tell you about the firetruck. That really was cool.
We had an absolutely awesome surprise visit to the fire station last Thursday. There is a single-engine company about five or six blocks from us, on the way to Barak's new kindergarten, where I had to drop off some registration forms last week. On the way there, we saw the firetruck parked on a corner, and saw firemen get out. This was from a few blocks down the street, as we were coming up toward the intersection of the main commercial stretch. Neat! we said. We'll get to watch firemen! A few minutes later, as we approached the corner, we saw them all get back into the truck. Oh well, show over--oh. No. Wait. What's that they're holding?
Ice cream cones. They had, apparently, stopped on the way back from a call for ice cream. I caught the look on Barak's face. "Barak, do you think that's fun? I bet that would be fun. Would eating ice cream cones in a firetruck be about the most fun anyone could have?" Barak, somewhat dreamily, agreed. Then we discussed further and upon careful reflection decided that the absolute most fun, the pinnacle of fun that one could have in this lifetime, would in fact be eating ice cream AND chocolate chip cookies in the back of a firetruck.
Got that? Good.
So we went on our way, passing the fire station, where we got to see the truck backing into the bay (remember, it is on the way to school--this is all along the same semi-major street). We dropped off our forms. We came back, on the other side of the street so as to get a better look through the doors at the firetruck. It was a warm day, and the door was still open. What the heck, I thought. I poked my nose inside and saw a fireman sitting by the door doing a crossword. Can't hurt to ask, can it?
"Excuse me? Would it be okay if my kids looked at the firetruck?" He got up. "Sure! Come on in."
We went in, Iyyar and Avtalyon in the double stroller and Barak holding on, all of them looking sort of... stoned. They all really like firetrucks, if this needs mentioning, and none of them was expecting this. Even Avtalyon, who can actually (sort of) say "firetruck" now, was awed by the big red machine. They stood and gazed, openmouthed. The firemen looked at them.
"Do they want to go inside?"
Um.... WHAT?!
Long story short, he let the bigger two play in and on the firetruck for at least 20 minutes. He even let them sit in front and pretend to drive. He answered their questions. He let them look around the bay. He asked me if I had a camera to take pictures with (I didn't, but I did have a phone and used that). He was SO NICE.
We are planning to make cookies to bring them this week, so that next time the firemen get ice cream, they can sit in the firetruck and eat cookies and ice cream and have the most fun anyone could possibly have. I think they deserve it.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Avtalyon
Avtalyon is asleep now, with his first dose of Cefprozil (twice a day for two weeks) inside him. Fortunately he loves this kind of medicine too, although as with the Amoxicillin he tries to grab the empty medicine dropper so he can chew on the bulb.
I know I haven't been blogging much lately. I've been busy with work, the kids need and deserve my attention, and I'm still knitting more than I really should. And both Barak and Iyyar were sick last week--fevers, stomachaches, etc. So... yeah. Not much with the blogging.
I feel bad, though, not documenting this incredibly cute and funny phase in Avtalyon's rapidly-vanishing babyhood. He's sixteen months old, and just stopped nursing this week--a couple of days ago, in fact. He's still so much a baby in so many ways--he weighs 25 lb as of his last checkup, he's still got hardly any hair, and he just got in his seventh tooth (bottom left). And he's still really little and soft, and has a hilarious potbelly, and gives great kisses, and is just amazing to snuggle.
He's just enough of a baby that when he does non-baby things it still really startles me. Mostly, probably, because of the contrast between him and Iyyar and Barak. Today, I had to take Barak and Iyyar with me to the pediatrician, because of the short notice and all. Barak is still feeling under the weather and was not thrilled about the walk; Iyyar and Avtalyon were busily pestering each other in the double stroller, and even the really short wait we had in the exam room before the doctor came in was too long. Barak and Iyyar both wanted to climb up on the exam table, Iyyar was pushing the stroller around, Avtalyon wanted to bang the mouse on the keyboard, etc. It was already a little hairy in there when the doctor came in, and Avtalyon was in no mood to have his ear poked at. When the doctor was done looking at him, he (Avtalyon, not doctor) wiggled out of my arms and hustled across the room--to get my large, pink, quite heavy backpack, haul it back across the floor, and push the handle into my hand. Subtle, isn't he?
He's also been mimicking things the boys say, usually with no apparent idea of what those things mean. That's why we often here a phrase that sounds suspiciously like, "I needa go potty!" Other favorites are "I want it!" and "I don't want it!" ("Ah na wa na!") Today, though, when he went over to grab Iyyar's Batman car, it was pretty clear that he knew what he was saying: "Mine!"
Right now he seems to want nothing more than to be big, or at least, big enough to play with his brothers. Sometimes they let him in on their Lego and block activity--sometimes not. Sometimes he is forced to resort to grabbing a kippa and running away with it to get them to pay attention to him. (That one works really well.) He loves fruit, and cucumbers, and grated cheese, and noodles, but not his high chair--as soon as he's done eating, or has emptied a bowl, or has no further need of something on his tray, over the side it goes. "No" has proved unproductive, so I've resorted to removing his entire tray instantly upon the first infraction. We'll see how that one goes, but I'm not about to mop my floor after every meal and snack.
Oh, and he loves shoes. I think it's more the association with going out--often, after he's got his shoes on, he'll go straight to the back door and wait there. Sometimes he picks up his sun hat on the way, which is kind of funny because when the sun hat is on his head, outside, the sun hat immediately becomes the bane of his existence. It's kind of, "Okay, here's my sun hat, let's go!"--but that doesn't mean I'm going to wear it once I'm out there, you understand.
Pretty soon he'll be too big for me to want to post pictures of him on this blog, but here's one from yesterday, of him modeling the engineer's cap sent to us by Grandpa M a couple of years ago.
Pretty cute, if I do say so myself.
I know I haven't been blogging much lately. I've been busy with work, the kids need and deserve my attention, and I'm still knitting more than I really should. And both Barak and Iyyar were sick last week--fevers, stomachaches, etc. So... yeah. Not much with the blogging.
I feel bad, though, not documenting this incredibly cute and funny phase in Avtalyon's rapidly-vanishing babyhood. He's sixteen months old, and just stopped nursing this week--a couple of days ago, in fact. He's still so much a baby in so many ways--he weighs 25 lb as of his last checkup, he's still got hardly any hair, and he just got in his seventh tooth (bottom left). And he's still really little and soft, and has a hilarious potbelly, and gives great kisses, and is just amazing to snuggle.
He's just enough of a baby that when he does non-baby things it still really startles me. Mostly, probably, because of the contrast between him and Iyyar and Barak. Today, I had to take Barak and Iyyar with me to the pediatrician, because of the short notice and all. Barak is still feeling under the weather and was not thrilled about the walk; Iyyar and Avtalyon were busily pestering each other in the double stroller, and even the really short wait we had in the exam room before the doctor came in was too long. Barak and Iyyar both wanted to climb up on the exam table, Iyyar was pushing the stroller around, Avtalyon wanted to bang the mouse on the keyboard, etc. It was already a little hairy in there when the doctor came in, and Avtalyon was in no mood to have his ear poked at. When the doctor was done looking at him, he (Avtalyon, not doctor) wiggled out of my arms and hustled across the room--to get my large, pink, quite heavy backpack, haul it back across the floor, and push the handle into my hand. Subtle, isn't he?
He's also been mimicking things the boys say, usually with no apparent idea of what those things mean. That's why we often here a phrase that sounds suspiciously like, "I needa go potty!" Other favorites are "I want it!" and "I don't want it!" ("Ah na wa na!") Today, though, when he went over to grab Iyyar's Batman car, it was pretty clear that he knew what he was saying: "Mine!"
Right now he seems to want nothing more than to be big, or at least, big enough to play with his brothers. Sometimes they let him in on their Lego and block activity--sometimes not. Sometimes he is forced to resort to grabbing a kippa and running away with it to get them to pay attention to him. (That one works really well.) He loves fruit, and cucumbers, and grated cheese, and noodles, but not his high chair--as soon as he's done eating, or has emptied a bowl, or has no further need of something on his tray, over the side it goes. "No" has proved unproductive, so I've resorted to removing his entire tray instantly upon the first infraction. We'll see how that one goes, but I'm not about to mop my floor after every meal and snack.
Oh, and he loves shoes. I think it's more the association with going out--often, after he's got his shoes on, he'll go straight to the back door and wait there. Sometimes he picks up his sun hat on the way, which is kind of funny because when the sun hat is on his head, outside, the sun hat immediately becomes the bane of his existence. It's kind of, "Okay, here's my sun hat, let's go!"--but that doesn't mean I'm going to wear it once I'm out there, you understand.
Pretty soon he'll be too big for me to want to post pictures of him on this blog, but here's one from yesterday, of him modeling the engineer's cap sent to us by Grandpa M a couple of years ago.
Pretty cute, if I do say so myself.
What, again?
Last night Avtalyon was fussy again, as in, waking up every few minutes crying, settling back down, then crying again. I gave him Tylenol at around midnight and then he slept through till 8 am--and woke up happy. With a ton of brown goo oozing out of one ear.
ANOTHER ruptured eardrum? Seriously? Three days after he finished a 10-day round of amoxicillin? I brought him in last Wednesday for a well baby visit cum ear recheck, and the pediatrician said one ear was clear, the other cloudy. And the nurse, when I called this afternoon, said that the antibiotics can kill the bacteria without taking care of the inflammation. Um, okay.
Back to the pediatrician this afternoon, with everyone in tow, even though Barak and Iyyar are just getting over being sick themselves and are not going to appreciate the shlep--especially not Barak, who's going to have to walk the mile each way. Oh, and it's looking pretty threatening out, too.
What I'm more worried about though is what effect multiple eardrum ruptures have on hearing. It can't be good. Wonder if he'll send us to the ENT and Avtalyon will end up with tubes...
ANOTHER ruptured eardrum? Seriously? Three days after he finished a 10-day round of amoxicillin? I brought him in last Wednesday for a well baby visit cum ear recheck, and the pediatrician said one ear was clear, the other cloudy. And the nurse, when I called this afternoon, said that the antibiotics can kill the bacteria without taking care of the inflammation. Um, okay.
Back to the pediatrician this afternoon, with everyone in tow, even though Barak and Iyyar are just getting over being sick themselves and are not going to appreciate the shlep--especially not Barak, who's going to have to walk the mile each way. Oh, and it's looking pretty threatening out, too.
What I'm more worried about though is what effect multiple eardrum ruptures have on hearing. It can't be good. Wonder if he'll send us to the ENT and Avtalyon will end up with tubes...
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
What's been keeping me busy that isn't this blog
(Click to enlarge picture and see stash in all its woolly glory.)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
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..."
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..."
Monday, May 11, 2009
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!"
Sunday, May 10, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
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...
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...
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