Free advice

From Boy Wonder. Given to Action Hero, who was afraid of the car wash today and became a little weepy.

"Action Hero, I need to tell you something. When I was three, I was very scared of the car wash! I cried all the time when we went to the car wash.* But then I learned a lesson.** And when I was four, I wasn't afraid of the car wash anymore! So right now you are scared, and probably you will be scared when you are three too. But then you will be four, and then you will not cry at the car wash."

I found this rather cute. I also find it amazing how quickly Boy Wonder flips from Helpful, Protective Older Brother to Bossy, Teasing Older Brother.

Action Hero had no comment, except to ask if he could have lemonade and pretzels when we got home.

*Which we've only ever gone too once every three months, because it's free after an oil change.
**I am not sure which lesson he is talking about. I think Young Boy Wonder liked the car wash better after I told him it was like the car taking a shower, or perhaps running through the sprinkler. Perhaps that's it.

Black swan, white wine

Sorry, ladies.

(The above is actually a pretty good book, filled with quality novellas and short stories, and Misses Datlow and Windling should in no way be blamed for the fact that I have consumed so much Black Swan Riesling tonight that my nose is numb. They are good editors. I own many of their anthologies.)

I have been absent, mostly due to the vagaries of being a married mother with a full-time job going to school-part time, whose kids keep coming down with a variety of childhood ailments and whose mother has Stage 4 cancer. The past month and a half have brought many adventures, including the following:

Action Hero can TALK. Boy, can he ever. He has moved from babbling to being able to carry on coherent conversations.

Boy Wonder can COMPLAIN. Boy, can he ever. His favorite phrase is, "No fair!" This is trotted out on nearly every occasion on which he is displeased. He cannot have a third cookie? NO FAIR. He cannot have a treat because he has spent the past half hour teasing his brother until he cries? NO FAIR. He cannot have Kool-Aid for breakfast? NO FAIR. The sky is blue? NO FAIR. He also recently said, "You have RUINED my LIFE!" (You know, I think that was also concerning Kool-Aid for breakfast.) I was not expecting that for another seven years at least.

As dinner was cooking the other night, I heard a loud popping noise coming from inside the oven, and thought What the hell? Investigation revealed that the cookie sheet, on which the Tater Tots were cooking, had bent, as cookie sheets usually do in hot ovens, so I determined that the pan had just bent unusually loudly, and wondered if we perhaps had mice too, and if one of them had been startled when I turned on the oven. As it turned out, neither was accurate*; instead, the lightbulb inside the oven had burst, and rained down slivered-glass destruction upon the Tater Tots, as I discovered when I removed them from the oven. The kids were slightly less thrilled with the carrot sticks and cucumber slices that were hastily cut up to replace the Tater Tots, but only slightly. They like carrots and cucumbers pretty well. Especially cucumbers. Boy Wonder would happily eat a garden full of salt-sprinkled cucumbers, and Action Hero just likes to eat.

Earlier this week, I was thinking, "Gosh, I never really get one-on-one time with Action Hero. He is like Boy Wonder's little sidekick." And Fate laughed. And that very night, my darling little sidekick woke up at midnight coughing his head off with a horrid attack of croup. HERE'S YOUR ONE-ON-ONE TIME RIGHT HERE, said Fate. Action Hero is doing well now, although still a touch viral and feverish. Poor dear.

Still, my children are cute, I have an astonishing GPA considering that I am a married mother working full-time and going to school part-time (thank you, reading comprehension skills), and my mother is doing quite well, considering.

Thank you for your support. Will go enjoy Riesling buzz now.

*KNOCK ON WOOD. Loudly, and with great vigor.

Aftershocks

(Not actually "shocks," but "aftermoments of mild startlement" just doesn't have the same ring.)

Christmas or Christmess?
In preparation for the someone from the insurance company who is going to be calling in the next couple of days, I decided to look for any original-packaging type items. I was pretty sure the box and manual for the digital camera were somewhere in the basement, so downstairs I went. Whereupon I shouted the following:

"Hey Dragon? Were you digging around in the box of Christmas lights?"

"Me? Uh, no."

"Well, damn. I guess they did mess around in the basement after all."

A quick check revealed that all of our holiday decorations appeared intact, complete with Sesame Street's holiday-themed DVDs. At least we still have Elmo Saves Christmas! Nothing else appears to be missing, but, well, it's a basement. Here in Wisconsin, we put junk that we're not quite sure what to do with in the basement. I already had to toss a lot of what was down there after our December plumbing adventure, so I'm not clear on what I should be looking for (other than "Are all major appliances still there?" Which they are.)


Adventures in Banking
While looking through the paperwork this morning, I realized I was missing one booklet of checks. Now, they could have already gone to the Great Paper Pile in the Sky, or I could have written them out of sequence. Or they could have been taken yesterday, because even delinquent middle schoolers know what checks are. The nice man at the bank offered to just put a stop payment on that batch of checks, for free, but I bank and pay bills online, man, and you can do that with an account number and a routing number, both of which are displayed prominently on a check. So I made him open a brand-new account for me, and for some reason the branch manager came over to introduce himself. Hopefully, no one will steal our mail over the next couple of weeks. (But if they do, I take comfort in the fact that that's a federal crime.) As I was leaving the bank and heading to work, I briefly wondered if a piano would fall out of the sky and land on my head, or if perhaps a bike messenger would plow into me.

Safe-ty
Dragon called to say that he was leaving work early to undertake some DIY home security projects; anything I needed? I requested that he look for one of those fireproof-box type things, as the police officer recommended we get one of those for sensitive documents and decent-quality jewelry. He brought back a nice one, and now we have to decide where to keep it and its key. Oh wait, I'm on the Internet. Excuse me; he brought back a professional-grade, robbery-proof safe, which will soon be moved to an undisclosed location after we memorize the impossible-to-crack combination.

Thank you for listening. Tune in tomorrow for further adventures from the House of Strep, Spontaneous Vomiting, Relatives with Cancer, and Far Fewer Electronic Devices Than We Had Earlier This Week.

Dear Universe: WTF?

So, yesterday my mother came home from the hospital. Yay! I was going to stop by and visit her on the way to class today; accordingly, I left work at 4:30 feeling glad about seeing her and looking forward to class.

The phone rang as I was in the parking structure, walking to my car. It was Dragon.

"Hey, did you have any problems with the garage door this morning? It won't open."

"No. Sorry."

Then, a few minutes later, the phone rang again. And again, it was Dragon.

"Hi. I've just called the police. Someone's broken into our house. The computer room is trashed. I've got the kids outside and we're waiting for the police."

"Okay. I'll come home then." Call to school admin, asking her to explain to instructor that I will not be at class. Call parents, asking Dad to perhaps not tell Mom about break-in. (He does anyway, I later find out.)

Dragon was still waiting for the police when I got home 20 minutes later (boy, that felt like a long drive.) I'd spent the drive home having visions of calling all of the banks and credit card companies to cancel/freeze accounts, and having to look up everyone's number without benefit of the Internet. I went in to check things out, being careful to not touch anything, and confronted a confusing mess in the computer room. The camera and iPod (sniff) were missing, but the computers, although disconnected and in six different places, were still there. Credit cards, though scattered everywhere, were also still there. Papers were everywhere. The living room was also somewhat messy, and the DVD player and PlayStation 2, along with some games, had vanished. Still there: TV, DVDs, and digital photo frame. Upstairs, most of the dresser drawers had been dumped out, and my jewelry box was in pieces and mostly empty. Still there, though: wedding bands and engagement ring.

Soon the police, in the form of a nice female officer, arrived to collect evidence. (Noteworthy: "There's a beautiful handprint on this window. Unfortunately, I think it belongs to one of your sons.") Reports from the neighbors indicate that several middle-school-aged kids were the culprits; they were seen emerging from the house with a sack (my pillowcase, that would be).

So, not as bad as it could have been; big mess, but for the moment, most of the valuable items are still here. (Many of them will be relocated shortly.) We have our suspicions as to who these middle schoolers might be, and we have attentive neighbors.

On the other hand, I could cheerfully rip the lungs out of said middle schoolers, or perhaps their parents, because Boy Wonder is freaked right the hell out by all this. Thanks, guys; you left us most of our stuff, but now my five-year-old is afraid to go to the damn bathroom without me. Because there were Bad Guys in our house, and our closets, and what if they come back?

They didn't cover this in the parenting book, I don't think.

Action Hero singalong

The other day, Dragon e-mailed me this link, accompanied by a message saying, "Watch this with Action Hero in your lap!" I was at work at the time, so was not able to accomplish this immediately. But, once I'd acquired Action Hero from daycare, we watched it. And Dragon has created a tiny monster. Here, you watch this, and then I will explain.

Feist on Sesame Street

Action Hero LOVES this clip. LOVES it. We watched it for the first time on Friday. When it was done, he said, "Aden! Aden!" (Guess what that means.) So we watched it a few more times, and then he said, "She say hi to me! To ME!" I puzzled over this for a few seconds, and upon another viewing, realized that the singer gives a little wave when she comes out from behind the gate and starts walking. And, since he is two and thus the center of his own little universe, she is waving at him, of course. Anyway. We watched it a few more times the next day, and when it was time to stop, he started shrieking and stomping his feet, saying, "Aden! Aden!" He was quite put out when no more YouTube was forthcoming, but recovered enough to dance quietly around the living room, singing, "One two free four, countin countin nummer four," for a little while. And we watched it

Of course, child song love has drawbacks for grownups. First of all, I am pretty sure that the regular versoin of this song, which is probably not about counting chickens and penguins, is never going to sound "right"; I will always see dancing monsters when I think of it. And, second, but perhaps more important, I cannot get it out of my head.

I bet you can't either, now. You're welcome!

More barfing. No, I'm not kidding. And some bad news.

My family would like to turn this year in for a refund, please. Though it all looked very bright and pretty right after the holidays, it is not performing very satisfactorily.

The day began reasonably well, with trips to Target (diapers) and the library (Boy Wonder and I have now read 70 books together this summer; 30 more and he will get FABULOUS PRIZES. Well, he'll get prizes, anyway, and he will certainly think they are fabulous). In between trips, I made pancakes for lunch. Some phone conversations indicated that my mother, currently in the hospital minus a kidney and various lymph nodes, was feeling reasonably well and up to a visit with Boy Wonder. Action Hero was sleeping, so he and Dragon held down the fort at home while Boy Wonder and I went to the hospital.

News on the hospital front was not great; reports are back on the kidney and lymph nodes, and it's NOT QUITE THE NEWS WE WERE HOPING FOR. Chemotherapy, perhaps even a bit on the aggressive side, will be required. My mother is not thrilled, but is feeling more ...comfortable? secure? something along those lines?...now that she knows what is going on. After having been a nurse for 40 years, the past three weeks of not knowing were driving her right up the wall. She is looking forward to getting all aggressive with the chemo. We managed to have a nice visit, and she was very happy to see Boy Wonder.

Who, as we were in the parking lot on our way to the car, suddenly said, "Mom! I'm COLD!" We had just walked under a shady overhang area and the wind had been blowing, so I didn't find anything odd about that. He also dozed off on the way home, which I also did not find odd; it was 4:00 and if he's going to doze off anywhere during the daytime, it's late afternoon in the car. But when he began rubbing his eyes and complaining of a headache, I started getting rather worried. He was really not acting like his usual self, or even his not-feeling-well self; he was acting really odd and was obviously in pain. He didn't have a fever. Had he bumped his head? Did he somehow have a concussion? Soon enough, all was revealed; at 4:56, I said, "Boy Wonder. Does your belly hurt?" and he nodded, got up, and said, "I think I am going to puke." Which he then trotted off to the bathroom and did, voluminously. Twice. Then his skin became hot to the touch.

So, once again, Dragon and Action Hero (now awake) held down the fort at home while Boy Wonder and I went to the hospital - a different one, with Urgent Care. A bit further away than the other one, but, as it's just opened and is probably not high on the local radar, absolutely lacking in other Urgent Care seekers. Thus, we had the staff to ourselves, and quite attentive they were, immediately ushering us into an exam room and presenting us with techs, nurses, and a doctor in short order. Visit in brief: temp of 102. Patient very drowsy, kept dozing off on gurney but would wake up periodically to say, "I don't want a shot!" Conclusion: there may still be some strep, or related bacteria, hanging around in there, as his throat and neck glands were still quite irritated. Different antibiotics were prescribed and acquired, along with new bottles of children's fever medicines, since in recent weeks we've killed the old bottles but good. Home at 7:30.

Current status: Boy Wonder dosed with antibiotic and "fever medicine"; he did perk up a bit but still requested an escort to bed shortly after we arrived home. I cannot visit the hospital tonight, in case I am carrying any Bad Sore Throat and Fever germs. I briefly wondered if I should visit the bar instead, but am instead visiting my couch, library books in tow.

Barfing in school libraries with boys

Welcome to Nausea Awareness Week, currently being celebrated by Anithe & Co. Action Hero will joyously share this situation to anyone who asks, saying "I puked in Mommy's car! Splash-ed on Mommy and Boy Wonner's bapack! I puke in Mommy's car! Yucky." Fortunately, it was only the once. Sadly, today brought another incident, this time for Boy Wonder, who let loose in the library at the end of day camp today. Poor dear. He was quite subdued and a bit feverish when I got there, but did have this to say as we walked out the door:

"Action Hero puked in your car."

"Yep. He sure did."

"And I just puked in the library at my camp."

(pause. Then smile.)

"Mom? Maybe we shoud carry a bucket!"

That's not a bad idea, considering.

Barfing in cars with boys

Brought to you by Gross Moments in Parenting, Volume MCXLD, Chapter 51: Stomach Contents and the Viewing Thereof. Anithe & Co., var. dates from 2003 to present.

Also brought to you with apologies to Beverly Donofrio. (Although, since at one point she had a toddler son, I'm sure she'd understand.)

So, hey. My car smells. Want to know why? Too bad; I'm going to tell you anyway.

It began in dramatic fashion in May 2005, when I arrived at daycare to pick up Boy Wonder and was greeted by a slightly rattled thermometer-holding teacher. "I'm so glad you're here!" she said. "He's been acting really weird all afternoon, and just now he sat down on the floor and just started sobbing! So I took his temperature and it's 104 degrees!" Well, damn. That was the highest fever he'd ever had in his life, and I was accordingly freaked out. I bundled him into the car, checked my purse for the bottle of toddler ibuprofen, and suddenly remembered it was in my desk drawer at work. I was torn: go back to my office and grab the ibuprofen, or head home and give a dose there? I decided to head back to work, but in any case, no ibuprofen was given; as I pulled into the parking lot, he suddenly made odd hiccuping noises and barfed from here to eternity. Then he did it twice more on the way home. Oddly enough, by the time we got home his fever was nearly gone, and the next day, the doctor couldn't find a thing wrong. "Well, when a child's fever is very high, it does sometimes cause vomiting," he said. This was news to me, as previous fevers had not manifested in such a fashion.

But, ever since then, it's proved quite accurate. When Boy Wonder's gets a fever above a certain level, he vomits with great force. He really, really, hates throwing up, and breaks into hysterics immediately afterward. And, unfortunately, these episodes often occur in the car. The most recent winter featured several such episodes, two in my car and one in Dragon's. The one in Dragon's car featured a special bonus nosebleed, and the subsequent fever lasted four days before breaking.

Why all the background? Well, you'd think that I would remember this all, and apply the knowledge that fever = barfing, as needed. But you'd be wrong.

Today, I arrived at my parents' house to pick up the boys. Boy Wonder was quite cheerful, but Action Hero was sitting dazedly on my mother's lap, and barely looked up when I came in. When he did look up, he began whimpering and crying quietly. "He's been like this since he woke up from his nap," said my mother. "Does he feel warm to you?" He did, but not THAT warm. (However, he did tell me that he wanted to go in the kitchen because the Lightning McQueen sleeping bag was scaring him, so that should have been an indicator that things were not quite right.) So what did I do? I packed the kids up and we all walked out to the car, where, 10 seconds after I buckled Action Hero into his carseat, he barfed from here to eternity.

"He barfed on my BACKPACK!" said Boy Wonder, and burst into hysterics. Action Hero, rather stunned by the whole thing and with good reason, also burst into hysterics. Everyone was removed from the car, taken back inside, and mopped up. Action Hero's clothes were changed, and he stopped looking so dazed. The carseat was temporarily mopped up. We all boarded, and I called Dragon to tell him that we were riding home in the Vomit Comet.

By the time we got home, Action Hero was asking for apple juice and dinner. (He received well-watered juice and Saltine crackers.) By bedtime, his fever was essentially gone.

Let's hope it stays that way. And that, next time a slightly warm Action Hero is afraid of his sleeping bag, I'll just go get a bucket instead of heading for the car.

The Family Storm

On a lighter note, way way back, Boy Wonder announced that he was a superhero named Captain Thunderstorm. Apparently, this was not just a passing fancy on his part. He has since expanded the name game, and the fantasy life, to encompass all the members of our immediate family, my parents, my friend and her daughter, and the occasional school friend.

Through many discussions with Boy Wonder, the truth has been revealed to me. We are the Family Thunderstorm, it would appear, and we are powerful. Boy Wonder, of course, is our leader, Captain Thunderstorm. He is supported in superhero-ness by Captain Daddymanstorm, Captain Womanstorm, and Captain Babystorm; surely you can figure out who is who. (Although I think "Captain Laundrystorm" would work just as well for me after this weekend; here at the House of Strep we are not doing the usual summer playing-outside thing, so today presented ample opportunity for clean clothes. My laundry is done, man.) Also included are Captain Grandmastorm and Captain Grandpastorm (again, self-explanatory). We are divided into various teams. The two main teams are the boy team and the girl team, and the boy team is divided into Team Crystal and Team Rocket. The girl team is divided into Team Flower and Team Butterfly. But we all work in the same office.

We all have assigned uniform colors. (He drew pictures of each of us in uniform one day. Yes, I saved them.) We all have assigned numbers, though these change daily. Some of us serve as special helpers to Captain Thunderstorm, and if you tell him forcefully to pick up his toys, you will lose your status as a special helper. One day, when my parents were visiting, Boy Wonder announced grandly, "The boy team has 57 special powers!" After a short pause, my dad said, "OK. Name them." (I think the Captain got up to seven, all involving lightning or flying, before turning his attention to something else.) Oh, and we have a submarine. A yellow one.

This certainly makes the afternoon commute more interesting, and Boy Wonder has spent many a happy hour working out the logistics of, and drawing the adventures of, our superhero team. I myself have three different interpretations of our submarine. And there's nothing quite like zoning out while washing the dishes and then hearing a little, fake-deep voice say, "Captain Womanstorm. You must get your papers and work in your office now."

I'll get right on that. Thanks, Captain!

The really pretty crappy day

Replace "Alexander" above with "Anithe" and that'll be just right. Where do I begin?

Yesterday morning, 5:38AM. Kids wake up. Early. I take them downstairs to the living room and hazily flip on a cartoon. Boy Wonder coughs a few times and says, "Mom? My neck hurts when I squeeze it." I respond, "Well, stop squeezing it then. And come here, let me look at it." Well, no bloody wonder his neck hurts; I feel the sides of his neck and note that the lymph nodes along his jawline are swollen to the size of, like, Delaware. Whee. When queried whether anything else hurt, he says that his tummy might hurt. Double whee! And time to call the doctor, because sore throat/neck + abdominal pain = strep. Doctor's office opens at 8:00. We have some time to kill here.

6:00-7:48: Which we fill by making assorted phone calls. First to my mother, who is upset to say that if Boy Wonder is ill, he should not visit her, because if she gets sick then her surgery* must be postponed. Second, to my supervisor, indicating that I will be taking at least the morning off to transport child to and from doctor. Incoming call from my father, who has heard from my mother, who is upset because she thinks I think that she doesn't WANT to watch the kids.

8:00: We call the doctor's office and are provided with an 8:45 (!) appointment. I put sandals on everyone and leave. I realize I must stop for gas before driving across town to the doctor's new office location. I swear, and stop for gas. We arrive at doctor's new office location at...

8:43: We are whisked into exam room and presented with a doctor, who high-fives both children. Boy Wonder: "Do I smell...candy suckers?" Doctor: Cracks up. Presents Action Hero with sucker; promises Boy Wonder one when exam is finished. Boy Wonder is examined, and the Rapid Strep Test (sticking large Q-tip device down throat of patient) is performed. We head into the waiting room to wait for results. This is a bad idea, because...

9:04: Boy Wonder, having not been sufficiently cautioned about the dangers of running in flip-flop sandals, runs across the waiting room in flip-flop sandals, trips, slides across rug, and whacks forehead on chair leg. As he breaks into hysterics and Action Hero looks on in awe, I race back toward the exam room and request an ice pack from some startled nurses. I race back out into the waiting room to find a startled doctor (not the one we just saw) checking out the situation. We are whisked back into the exam room, where Boy Wonder's forehead is ice-packed and he has his pupils checked and is presented with a bandage. I suppose that if you're going to fall and whack your head, you might as well do it at the doctor's office. We are also informed that the strep test was negative, but presented with medication anyway because, well, giant lymph nodes. We chill with the ice pack for a few more minutes before heading off into the parking lot, where...

9:33: Action Hero takes off running, giggling madly, and is brought back to reality as I pick him up and shriek about the dangers of parking lots. Once safely in parked car, we make more phone calls. Mom: sad that she cannot spend time with grandchildren until they are symptom-free. Dragon: will come home around lunchtime. Daycare director: yes, of course Action Hero can come in. We start the car and go about our day.

11:00: Action Hero is at daycare. Boy Wonder's medicine has been acquired and given. Boy Wonder is in the living room, watching a cartoon, as I prepare lunch for him. I see something silver and shiny out of the corner of my left eye...and then I can't see out of my left eye at all. I realize in horror that I am starting on my first migraine headache in 15 years.** I gulp two generic ibuprofen tablets, reconsider, and take two more. I prepare Boy Wonder lunch and read him a story (once the silver whirlies have concluded) and wait to see what kind of headache is going to hit. Dragon comes home. I briefly consider calling my supervisor, but decide that I will feel like too much of a jackass if I call and say, "Um, I'm not feeling well," after calling and saying, "I'm going to be late," then calling and saying, "I'll be in after lunch." Off to work I go, feeling a bit like I'm riding the Tilt-a-Whirl...

3:00: which I deal with by chewing a LOT of peppermint gum, and my headache has fizzled. Well, whew. Never thought I could whack down a migraine wtih ibuprofen and pepperminnt gum, but not complaining. When filling coworker in on headache and doctor-visit misadventures, I end up filling her in on everything.*** She buys me a Coke.

8:00PM: While putting children to bed, I discover swollen glands in Action Hero's tiny neck. "Owie, Mommy. Dat hurts. No touchie neck."

8:57PM: Dragon leaves to see new Batman movie; I bid him happy watching as I rest on couch under blanket. I promise to make iced tea and save recorded TV show episodes for him.

8:58PM: I close my eyes and do not wake up until Dragon comes home from movie, whereupon he sends me off to bed.

Thus concludes the yesterday portion of our adventure. The today portion, also beginning at around 5:38, involves another call to doctor (the startled one), who thinks we should wait for a couple of days to treat Action Hero, since the strep test was negative and it may be all viral anyway. It also involves Action Hero hitting his head on the coffee table and getting a big bruise, and then getting a call back from Startled Doctor that, while Boy Wonder's rapid test for strep was negative, the more traditional overnight test came back positive. Welcome to the House of Strep. He will call in a prescription for Action Hero.

*She is having one of her kidneys removed. Because it has cancer on it. Tests currently pending on whether or not cancer is anywhere else. We hope it's not.

**I got migraine headachaes regularly from fifth through eighth grade. Thirty minutes or so of whirly flashing lights in front of one eye, followed by Very Bad headache lasting six to eight hours, followed by barfing, followed by passing out in exhaustion.

***See first footnote.

Double grossness

Brought to you by Gross Moments in Parenting, Volume MCXLD, Chapter 57: Noses and Their Contents. Anithe & Co., var. dates from 2003 to present.

When I came up with the joke citation above, I had no idea I was going to get so much mileage out of it. Ha.

When Boy Wonder was about the age Action Hero is now, he paused during dinner and said, "Oh, no. Corn! Nose!" and we spend a wild few minutes extracting a large kernel of corn from his nose. He did not enjoy it, and has (so far) not repeated the trick.

Last Sunday, Action Hero decided that it was his turn in that particular spotlight, and, as we were having macaroni and cheese for lunch, he suddenly paused, looked thoughtful, and pointed at his plate of noodles. He said, "In nose," and then nodded sagely. (Hey, at least I have informative kids.)

"Action Hero. Is there a noodle in your nose?"

"Yes." (another earnest nod)

"Okay, tilt your head back and let me take a look...hey, what do you know. There is." (turning around) "Hey! Dragon! What did we do when Boy Wonder put corn up his nose?"

"Why?"

"Oh, you know, no reason. No, because Action Hero has food in his nose now."

Anyway. For some reason, Action Hero understands the concept of nose-blowing slightly better than Boy Wonder did at that age, and the noodle was rather smaller than a corn kernel, so all was well a few minutes later.

Gross Moments in Parenting also presents the following special bonus section, When Fingernails Detach! We hope you enjoy it as much as...uh, wait. No one's enjoying this. Never mind. Here, have a gross story.

Several weeks ago, as I was in the basement doing laundry, I heard earsplitting shrieks from the first floor, and ran upstairs to find Action Hero saying, "Owie finger! Pinch door! OWWIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE! WAHH!" And my, there were tears. And I said, "Aw, honey, did you pinch...DAMN. You sure did." For lo, he had been sitting at the foot of the steps, and gotten his thumb stuck in the door hinge; his little cuticle was a bloody mess and the thumbnail was quickly turning purple. Ice, lots of hugs, and eventually a Spiderman bandaid, complete with antibiotic ointment, were applied, and he recovered (although he burst into tears every time he looked at his hand for the next three hours). The finger healed nicely over the next week, but the nail looked pretty grody, and had gotten worse over the past couple of days. No more bruising, but it looked all dry and weird.

Today he came running up to me shouting, "Owie, owie! Finger owie pinch!" And I was like, "Um, yeah, you pinched your finger last month, but it should be all bet...oh, MAN. Let me take a look at that." For lo, his little thumbnail is now only attached in one upper corner, and the rest has detached itself from the nail bed. Whoo! Fingernail-falling-off action! In the absence of having any idea on what to do, as I've never incurred such a fingernail event, we wrapped it in a Band-aid (Elmo this time) and spent much of the evening meal watching him tell himself sternly, "Leave bannaid. No touch! Leave lone!"

In conclusion, yech. (But it could be worse. I haven't gotten to Hey! Fevers Can Make Your Kid Barf! Who Knew? yet.)

The sincerest form of flattery

Action Hero loves to push and pull various objects throughtout the house, enacting different scenarios as he does so. He will pick up my keys, jump on his ride-along car, and say, "Bye Mommy! I drive car! See morrow!" and spend the next few minutes tooling around the house, bidding us all cheery farewells. Or he will push a chair around and announce that he is riding a rocketship, and bid us all cheery farewells. Or he will put on a backpack, grab my keys, and announce that he is going to school (bidding us all cheery farewells, of course).

Because it is nearly summer here, and because we have had approximately 90 zillion inches of rain recently, the grass has gone crazy and Dragon had to cut it yesterday. Apparently, this and previous mowing observation made quite an impression on Action Hero, as this morning found him pushing around a rolling Spiderman backpack saying, "I cuttin grass, Mommy! Cuttin grass!" Sadly, the camera was not available.

When the muse strikes...

There's half a tree on my neighbor's garage. There's a bunch of water on my basement floor. Action Hero threw a block at Boy Wonder, leaving a small owie under his eye. Then Action Hero put a macaroni noodle up his nose.

Excuse me, I have to go write a country song now.

Night terrors

Or, The Curious Incident of the Punch in the Night-time.

The scene: Charming Bungalow. It is 3:45 in the morning, and our heroine Anithe wakes (probably from a weird dream; those have been prevalent lately) to the sound of a crying Action Hero.

Action Hero: Mommy! Mommy!

Me: What's wrong, honey? (picks him up and hugs him)

Action Hero: Boyboy punch me in da EYE! Da EYE!

Me: Uh. There, there. (looks across the room at Boy Wonder, soundly asleep and snoring gently) But you know, I think that was a dream.

Action Hero: (sniffle) DWEEM! Puncha da eye. (sniffle)

Me: Uh-huh. Well, come sleep on my shoulder for a while, 'kay?

So, why is my two-year-old dreaming about his brother punching him in da eye, anyway? Since we don't actually run around punching each other in the eyes at our house.

Theory 1: Well, why not? He and Boy Wonder have been having small tugs of war over toys, and Boy Wonder, being both larger and more possessive, frequently yanks toys away. Plus Action Hero accidentally whacked Boy Wonder in the eye the other day, as both of them ran up the stairs (it really was accidental, Boy Wonder was behind him and Action Hero was just Racing with Big Brother, a favored activity in these parts). Boy Wonder then said, "My eye! My eye!" and needed much consolation.

Theory 2: You may have seen dogs and cats do all sorts of wacky things - kick, make running motions with their paws, or shake their heads - in their sleep? Well, kids do the same thing. From my vast experience as a parent of two behaviorally quite similar children, the smaller they are, the more they twitch, flail, and make amusing facial expressions. It is likely that Action Hero flailed in his sleep, whacking himself in the eye and startling awake, and his small sleepy brain concluded that the only other person in the room was to blame.

Still taking things literally

Today I had a Home and School Meeting to go to (sort of the Catholic School version of the PTA, I think), so Dragon picked up the boys and got them situated with dinner (they had a picnic! in the backyard!) while I sat in a church hall basement and listened to a summary of fundraising efforts. Good times. And good cookies. Anyway, I made it it home before sunset, and, as I pulled into the garage, I noticed something colorful (not a bat! whoo!) flapping merrily against the garage window. Further investigation revealed a red, white, and blue windsock, in the style of Modern Kindergarten Art Class.

After hugging each of the children about six thousand times, I said to Boy Wonder, "Honey, did you make the red, white, and blue thing outside?"

"No." he replied.

"What?"

"I didn't make it outside. I made it at school."

And to think, a large company pays me to edit its documents.

(Another) non-Kodak moment

Brought to you by Gross Moments in Parenting, Volume MCXLD, Chapter 57: Noses and Their Contents. Anithe & Co., var. dates from 2003 to present.

Entirely normal parenting moment: hearing the two-year-old cry in the middle of the night. Picking him up, comforting him as he buries his face in your shoulder, and carrying him back to your bed to cuddle for a while.

Slightly unnerving parenting moment: realizing, once it gets light out and you can actually see said two-year-old's face, the blanket, and the shoulder of your nightshirt, that he was crying because he was having a nosebleed.

Where have all the sandals gone?

Many matters have been weighing on my mind recently, including but not limited to finances, both Charming Bungalow-related and other; relationships with family members; the nature and logistics of being a working mother; and how to introduce more variety, and health, to the household dinner menu.

So I'm going to blog about footwear. Specifically, sandals.

Last summer, once the weather started getting warmer, I spent quite some time looking for my sandals. Not of the flip-flop variety; if one loses those, one can buy another pair for $1. Not of the Rugged Outdoor Casual variety, either; my pair of those, which Dragon purchased as a gift for me about six years ago, are easy to find and in good condition to boot. (Er, sorry. No pun intended. Really.) I was looking for my office-appropriate sandals, consisting of, as far as I recall, a pair of flat strappy slip-ons and a pair of low-heeled slip-ons. I didn't find them right away, though, and, as last year was rather eventful, before I knew it, autumn had arrived and I was looking for the office-appropriate boots. (Those, I found.)

Warmer weather has arrived again, though, so I once again decided to look for the sandals. And I looked. And looked. And today, I looked some more. I looked in the basement. I looked in the attic. I even looked in the garage. And I have NO BLOODY IDEA where on earth they are. I can't exactly retrace my steps now, since we moved into Charming Bungalow going on two years ago, but here are my efforts so far.

We moved into Charming Bungalow over Labor Day weekend, 2006; I'd been wearing my sandals a lot (while house-hunting, actually), and decided that the moving efforts would require sneakers. So, figuring it would be getting cooler soon anyway, I packed them away. Where? Don't know. I remember throwing all of our shoes into a cardboard box, as they were shoes and didn't need careful packing treatment, and then transferring the ones we weren't wearing regularly into a plastic storage bin.

And that's where the trail ends. I have found plastic storage bins containing clothes, toys, table linens, holiday decorations, purses, winter hats, and winter boots. One of these bins did contain a pair of sandals that fits Action Hero; I found various items of clothing that I'd forgotten about, so it was sort of like shopping; and I've been meaning to change purses as the current one has a big hole in the lining that swallowed $1.25, two tubes of lip balm, and the flash drive with all of my schoolwork on it before I noticed (all items were easily retrievable, but still), so now I have a fine selection of different purses to choose from. So the search wasn't a total loss. However, St. Anthony (patron saint of lost things, who has assisted me in finding various household items) has not seen fit to reveal the sandals.

Still, I hope to find them one day. They were plain, black, conservative sandals, and those seem to be rather hard to come by these days what with all the patterned, pointy-toed, wedge-heeled, cork-soled deals filling the stores these days. (At least, last summer, when I briefly considered replacing the sandals and couldn't find a darn thing that was similar.) I can't imagine that I would have inadvertently tossed them out with something else, as I'm pretty sure there are two more pairs of sandals that were with them, and that would have made for a pretty heavy bag to inadvertently toss. But I've looked in every available plastic storage bin, and I don't think there's anywhere else to look now.

Perhaps I ought to appeal to St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes.*

*Who probably has as many--more, really--weighty matters to consider as I do, so I ought not trouble him with finding missing shoes. I will continue appealing to St. Anthony.

Dude, where's my rebate?

Have you gotten your economic stimulus check today?

We haven't! And we didn't get it yesterday, or the day before, or the day before, either. Or the day before THAT. You get the point.

I was getting quite concerned, actually. I read all of the intial press releases and news articles, and got all excited: we e-filed way back in February and received our refund as a direct deposit, and Dragon's SSN put us in Group 1 of the direct-deposit-rebate receivers. I did the online rebate calculator thingie, and it looked like we were available for the maximum. More excitement abounded. Surely, I thought, we would have our rebate by May 2! The day after, at the latest!

Only (as mentioned above) we didn't, and I suddenly realized that we had never actually gotten The Notice explaining that we would be getting one. I visited the eligibility calculator several thousand more times, checked the Reasons Why You Might Not Be Eligible, and got a bit worried, especially when an informal survey revealed that several acquaintances had received notices.

So I finally broke down and called Them. You know, those people. Who are, as it turns out, required to immediately identify themselves by name and employee number upon answering the official Rebate Hotline. I guess they must get, oh, I don't know, a lot of complaints, or something?

Anyway. Mr. Rebate Answer Person was quite nice, considering that he's probably had to answer variations of my post title eight hours a day for the past month, and said, "Oh, I think I understand now. Did you have your taxes done through a preparer?" Why yes, we had. "And you had them take the cost of tax preparation out of your refund?" Indeed. "In that case, the direct deposit was routed through THEIR bank first, and then they wired the refund to your account." Oh. "In those cases, we issue a paper check; yours should be on the way in a couple of weeks." But we are getting one? "Oh yes, I don't see why not. All of your SSNs are valid, and you're certainly within the income guidelines." Duh; if the income was higher, I wouldn't be so darn concered about this here rebate thing.

So that's settled. Weeping and obsessive online balance-checking may endure for a week, but joy (and a tax rebate) cometh by Memorial Day weekend. At least according to Mr. Rebate Answer Person. Let's hope he's correct!

Taking things literally

Like many two-year-olds, Action Hero (currently weathering an ear infection, poor tiny dear) has a very busy schedule and considers time spent sitting still time wasted. Thus, he is not thrilled with having to remain still long enough to have his diaper changed, and he fusses a lot during this process. Sometimes, he wiggles; other times, he tries to kick. So I try the time-honored tradition of presenting him with a toy to distract him. Usually I give him a toy that belongs to his brother, so it is New and Special and Distracting.

One day he was being particulary wiggly and fussy, so I picked up a Spiderman action figure and said, "Here, buddy. Tell Spidey all about it." Meaning, of course, "Here, have a toy and stop fussing already."

And of course, since he is two and does not yet grasp all the vagaries of the English language, he happily grabbed the action figure and said, "Hi, 'Pidey! I stinky. Mommy chane my diper! (pause) No kickin Mommy."

This technique works pretty well, actually; so far, Action Hero has cheerily informed Spidey, his twin action figure, various stuffed animals, several Happy Meal toys, Buzz Lightyear, and a number of toy cars about what happens when it's time for a change.

Fortunately, they have not seen fit to respond.

Boy Wonder is Five

From this:



To this:



...in a scant five years.

Kodak moment

Actually, it's a Sony Cybershot moment; I thought it might be nice to follow up the tale of Action Hero and his Surprise NasalMist™ with something pleasant. Story first, then picture.

I may have mentioned a time or six recently that Action Hero is really into coloring lately. Last Friday, when I went to pick him up at my parents' house, he was sitting at a child-sized table coloring intently. He looked indescribably sweet, and I decided to move our own child-sized table, currently in the playroom upstairs, to the living room so he could color there. Perhaps, I thought optimistically, Boy Wonder would like it too, and they would sit at the table and color together! (Generally one of them sits at the coffee table, after they fight over the kid-sized chair, and the other sits ON the coffee table.)

At first, this turned out to be a very optimistic thought indeed. I moved the table into the living room on Saturday morning. Action Hero really liked it, and would occasionally drop his toy cars to sit at the table for a while. Boy Wonder, delivered home by my parents after his Grandparental Sleepover Night (this occurs every other Friday or so), said, "Hey! Why did you move things?" Then he and Action Hero, each having sorely missed the other (or the opportunity to clonk a small counterpart on the head with a toy), spent the next couple of hours fighting over markers, toys, cars, stuffed animals, and who got to sit on my lap more.

Then it happened. I left the room for some reason (to cook dinner, I think), and came back to find the following:



Behold the power of the Child-Sized Table. And the crayons and colored pencils, of course.

Non-Kodak moment

Brought to you by Gross Moments in Parenting, Volume MCXLD, Chapter 57: Noses and Their Contents. Anithe & Co., var. dates from 2003 to present.

The scene: a living room, shortly after dinner. Action Hero, reduced to stormy weeping because I'd dared to WASH his HANDS and FACE after DINNER, decided I wasn't so bad after all and turned to me for comfort, burrowing his head in my shoulder and generally being quite cuddly. He sat up on my lap, smiled, and did a variety of cute two-year-old things. He even let out a cute two-year-old-style sneeze, very dramatic, with a "KaCHOO!" sound effect. I said, "Bless you," and reflected on how cute toddler sneezes sound.

Right before I felt the fine mist settle onto the front of my neck.

Thank you for your support. Tune in soon for the next Gross Moments offering, Look Out Below, or, When Kids Barf.

Memento mori

So yeah, that Somber Post. Or, "Why We are Very, Very Happy That We Visited Illinois on Easter Weekend."

Wednesday, March 26. The phone rang at 11:00 at night, and I woke up just as it finished ringing. I noted that the number was that of my mother's cell phone, and hit redial; she and my dad had gone on an overnight trip, so I couldn't imagine her calling so late unless there was a reason.

Boy, was there ever. My grandmother (my father's mother) had died. They weren't clear on the details yet, but by all accounts it had been fast. Probably her aneurysm, discovered by her doctor several years ago, had burst.

When I was growing up, listening to my grandmother was better than reading Nancy Drew and Little House on the Prairie put together. I loved to hear her talk about what it was like growing up as the only girl in a household with seven (yes, seven) brothers, how she would help her mother with everything, and how she and her mother would embroider yards and yards of the household linens every spring. And how her brothers took care of her, and were protective of her. They even picked her name; her mother, wanting an uncommon name for her daughter, sent her older sons out into the neighborhood to take a survey of girls' names and find something pretty that wasn't too common. They did. They also helped persuade their mother to let my grandmother buy her first grown-up (read: black) dress, when she was 16. (I remember her telling me that her argument was it wasn't really ALL black, it had a shiny multicolored rose at the belted waist, but that hadn't mattered to her mother until her brothers joined the discussion.) Her favorite brother, just two years older, took her out on the town for her eighteenth birthday. He also helped her buy a typewriter, so the two of them could practice at home and get good office jobs. (They did; in fact, this brother was the first man in the family to wear a white shirt to work, during a time when the distinction between white-collar and blue-collar jobs was literal.) She was a dedicated folk dancer, and also loved to go out dancing with her three best girlfriends every Friday night.

When we went cottaging up north (Wisconsin-ese for renting a cottage in the northern part of the state for a week or so during summer vacation), she would spend hours playing games with me and my cousin. We played lots of card games (our favorite was Royal Rummy), lots of Yahtzee, and plenty of Scrabble too. (She had a special Scrabble cheat sheet, composed of unusual two-, three-, and four-letter words, for the times when random, unrelated letters were sitting on your tile holder and you needed a really short word.) She also outfitted all of our Barbie and Cabbage Patch dolls in nicely crocheted creations, some of which are probably still in my parents' attic. And, when we took it into our heads to give impromptu singing and dancing performances, which we often did, she made us feel like we were the greatest. (We weren't.)

I sat there for an hour and a half remembering all of the above and more, until Dragon came to suggest I get some rest.

The next few days were a flurry of phone calls and visits, punctuated only by a baking frenzy (mine; I decided to bake a batch of my dad's favorite cookies, to be set aside for his own personal use, and then decided that baking made me feel useful, so I also baked two types of chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and two batches of Rice Krispie treats, and was about to start in on some cookie bars when I ran out of vanilla. And steam*).

Her funeral was the Monday after. Despite its pretty pink and white embroidered lining, it was hard to reconcile the coffin with my grandmother, who'd so recently been smiling as Boy Wonder colored at her kitchen table and Action Hero ate approximately half a carton of vanilla ice cream at same.

So I'll remember her that way. Smiling at me and my cousins. Staying up late with me and telling me stories; playing cards at her kitchen table or at the table of a rented cabin; holding a Baby Boy Wonder and then an Action Hero in her lap and smiling at her great-grandchildren.

*After the funeral luncheon, I said, "I sort of don't know what to do now." Dragon said, "PLEASE don't bake anything else, okay?"

Dream a little dream

Please enjoy the following tales of wacky dreams had by my immediate family.

Recently, while attempting to wake Dragon up one morning, I said, "HEY! Don't you have to go to work?" To which he replied, "I'm the last man on earth! Why would I have to go to work?" Then he woke up, and was a trifle confused. (He did rent I Am Legend the weekend the boys and I were out of town, so there's a logical explanation behind this one.)

That same morning, Action Hero, who had been transported to our bed in the early morning hours, yawned, stretched, and said, quite clearly, "Crayons." Then he sighed and continued sleeping. Well, okay then. I'll get right on that.*

And, to round out the trio, Boy Wonder apparently had a doozy while sleeping over at my parents' house last night. My mother reports that he woke up at 4:20 and said, "Grandma! Classmate just stole my pencil case and my cutting scissors and will not give them back! OH NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo." He was eventually persuaded that his pencil case and cutting scissors were just fine.

*He has been coloring a lot recently, and watches Boy Wonder very carefully, perhaps hoping that he will soon be able to crank out impressive drawings of houses (Boy Wonder recently drew one that had a face AND was riding a skateboard) instead of covering a sheet of paper with colorful scribbles.

Two at the Zoo

I've had a Somber Post brewing for about a week and a half now, and I can't seem to get it right. Needs to be done, though. Watch this space.

Right now, watch the space below.

For TODAY, we are HAPPY and PROUD. For lo, two years ago today I was dozing in front of the latest episode of Lost - not something that I generally did, but entirely excusable considering that I had given birth about eight hours prior. That's right, folks; today is Action Hero's second birthday. He is now Two, with no sign of Terrible yet. To celebrate, the zoo in this here neck of the woods held Family Free Day!

Well, that's not exactly right. Proud as I am, I am also aware that the free-admission day was not actually in honor of my younger son's birthday. Several times each winter, and generally once in early spring, some corporate sponsor holds Family Free Day at the zoo, whereupon lots of people go and spend money on everything but zoo admission (generally $8 to $12). I thought they knocked it out of the park last year when Free Day fell on the Sunday before Boy Wonder's birthday, but we took having it fall on Action Hero's actual birthday as a sign that we were meant to take the kids to the zoo. Any weather-oriented deities also outdid themselves, as temparatures reached a sunny 60+ degrees, with a light breeze.

And it was a fine day for all concerned. We arrived early, before Free Day was in full force and everyone in this county plus the four neighboring ones got there. Upon entry, we were greeted by an array of "Everything $4.00" bins, filled to the brim with stuffed animals and other assorted zoo souveniers. The gift shop crew must have been totally patting themselves on the back for having that idea, but we liked it too. Soon, Boy Wonder and Action Hero each had his very own stuffed tiger (well, Action Hero had a "kiger" for a while, but I think he got the "t" sound at some point), as well as a shiny stuffed crab, WHICH DOES NOT HAVE A TAIL, in case anyone was wondering, and a shiny stuffed lobster, which does. I think the crab and lobster are pretty neat, actually, but the kigers carried the day, each one riding in the lap of its proud owner. (And now, each one currently clutched in the arms of its sleeping owner.)

Souveniers out of the way, we then went about the usual zoo business of animal-gazing, and had a nice time. Peacocks, which Action Hero displayed a great interest in, abounded, and he said, "Doggie! Woof woof!" to a charming little red panda creature. He was also delighted by various monkeys, and was mesmerized by a black bear that had climbed onto its wooden play structure. ("Bear aclimbin?" Yes. "Bear ajumping?" No, probably not.) Boy Wonder seemed to greatly enjoy the elephants and hippos, and spent quite a while watching the African fish in the maquarium (sic), but overall I think his favorite parts of the day were 1) eating popcorn and 2) riding the zoo train, which was the last thing we did before deciding that we were all pretty tired and cranky.

So naturally, we went to a restaurant for a late lunch, whereupon the boys ate like stevedores (whoo for fresh air!) and Action Hero was presented with a complimentary dish of ayecreen. Excuse me, ice cream. There was also singing, but quietly and just at our table; a crew of singing waiters would have freaked him out. Then we went home and keeled over from exhaustion. (Not really. We watched a lot of Scooby-Doo DVDs, and bedtime came early tonight.)

So, hooray for Action Hero, my small and smiley two-year-old! May he have scores more happy birthdays (though they may not all involve stuffed kigers).

Be it ever so humble

"We sleeped over two times at the motel. There wasn't a frigerator, there was just breakfast at the motel."

So goes Boy Wonder's summary of what we did on (part of) our Easter vacation. I'll elaborate a bit, though.

As previously mentioned, my paternal grandparents live in Illinois. They used to drive up frequently for visits, but as they are now in their mid-eighties and have assorted health issues, they do not so much make the long drives anymore. So we miss them, and my parents and uncle's family try to make the drive at least a few times a year. As I had a couple of vacation days to use up, the boys and I went along this time.

We stayed in the aforementioned motel, so my grandparents would not need to go to the trouble of readying the guest bedrooms, and also because my mother thought it would be fun to stay in a hotel with a pool and take the boys swimming. She went to great lengths to find a hotel with a pool, and located the one that the local college swim team practiced at. There was great excitement in the ranks--surely this would be a nice, well-maintained pool, if a swim team practiced there!

Well. The message must have gotten garbled somewhere along the line, because as it turns out, 1) it wasn't the local swim team that used the pool, it was the water aerobics class, and 2) they don't use it anymore anyway. Unfortunately for us, this meant that the pool was heated in a rather odd manner, with the heating mechanism turned on at 8:00 a.m., when the pool opened, and off at 10:00 p.m., when the pool closed. So if one were to, say, wish to use the pool in the morning, one would have a very cold pool indeed. And a very chilly Boy Wonder, who kept insisting that he WAS NOT COLD even as his teeth chattered inside purplish lips and he was bundled in towels and taken back to the room to stand directly in front of the heater for twenty minutes. (Action Hero, perhaps because he was perched on my hip during all of our water adventures, was not as chilled.)

Oh, and the hotel was a DUMP. If you're ever in Rantoul, don't stay at the Days Inn. Unless you like the type of atmosphere that makes you wonder when and why the CSIs will be showing up to gather evidence.

But, as it served our purposes well enough, I shall complain no more, and shall now relate pleasant things. It was very nice indeed to see my grandparents, along with my aunt and uncle. Pre-Easter dinner on Saturday was very nice, as was Easter dinner on Sunday; the boys ate chicken and turkey with wild abandon. Grandparents were very impressed by Boy Wonder's coloring skills and verbal acuity, and Action Hero very charmingly sang his versions of the alphabet song and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." A good time was had by all.

And boy, are we ever happy to be home. (Home, with some ice for scraping; home, where my iPod's playing; home, where the Advil's waiting silently for me...)

Infernal equinox

Happy Spring, everyone!

Except if you live here, that is. We were just wrapping up a pleasant week of lovely spring weather, in which the 40+ temperatures melted the two feet of dirty-looking snow covering just about every road in the city. Our alley suddenly seemed huge, since the snowbanks on each side of it had departed; driving was suddenly much, much easier; and we finally saw all of the grass in our backyard, most of which we haven't seen since November.

However, despite Spring's official arrival, Winter is not quite ready to quit partying down and go crash somewhere, and is currently reminding us that, after all, we do live in Wisconsin, and should not exactly be surprised that it is snowing in March. This is a bit excessive, though; last time I went outside the drifts were up to my knees, and I just checked the local news online and discovered that we are having an official Snow Emergency. (Less impressive than it sounds; mostly it just means that your car will get towed if you park on certain streets. Also that the airport is full of stranded and pissed-off travelers.)

So yeah, more snow. It is prettier than the last batch, having not gotten all grungy yet. But Dragon is tired of shoveling it, various sets of my neighbors are very likely tired of helping me dig out my car when it gets stuck in the alley, and I am tired of having to make sure that our selection of snowpants, hats, and mittens is always clean and available. Boy Wonder, predictably, is delighted, and said, "Mommy! Look, it snowed again! Yay!" Action Hero, on the other hand, is not, and said mournfully, "Oh, no. Is nowing. Colda all wet. Oh, no."

Colda all wet, man. Oh, no.

Book drop

Today's post is for my father-in-law, who recently returned a book he borrowed and left a couple more along with it.

Last night, I got home from class around 10:00, as is par for the course on Tuesdays, and surveyed the living room in dismay. The piles of clean laundry had not only not magically folded themselves and trotted themselves upstairs, they had actually multiplied. And more junk had arrived, too, and for some reason there was a small stack of books on the couch.

"Dragon! What's with the books...oh, wait, here's I Am Legend and Assorted Other Creepy Tales That Will Send You Running for the Brain Bleach, Including the One About the Zuni Fetish.* Did your dad stop by?"

"I guess; when I opened the door to check the mail those were behind the screen door."

"Hey, he brought the new Ken Follett one! Awesome! But what's he doing reading Alice Sebold?"

"Who?"

Anyway. Three cheers for new books, and I'll get started on those directly. World Without End, amen.

*Part of this title MIGHT be a slight exaggeration.

Name game

"Mom? My name is Stormin' Stripes."

"Uh-huh, that's ni...wait, what?"

"My name is Stormin' Stripes. He is a superhero. He wears stripes and has storm powers!"

"Oh. He's not on TV, is he?"

"No. I made him up in my head."

(pause)

"Actually, my name is Axel Thunderstorm."

"What! Um, okay. Well, that's not a bad superhero name either."

(pause for stop at Golden Arches drive-through)

"What kind of toys did we get in our Happy Meals?"

"I don't know. Maybe a pirate toy? The boxes have pirates on them."

"Oh. Like in Pirates of the Carambeamam?"*

"Just like."

(pause)

"Mom? My name is Captain Thunderstorm."

"Boyboy. Capin Funtorm."**

*Not that we have let him watch these movies. One of his school friends has, though, and is a big fan.

**In which Action Hero shares his opinion, which is that of the Tiny Echo.

The congested concertgoer

Not only was I not kidding about Action Hero's love for cars, I was not kidding about the clogged sinuses either. Good grief. Totally not fair, considering the round of sinus infections that hit Charming Bungalow in late January/early February. But, since this time my ears are not plugged (at least not yet), I decided to deal with my sinus congestion by...going to a concert. Should you ever experience severe sinus congestion, please consider doing the same. You will not actually feel any better (and may, in fact, decide to give up and go visit the doctor already the following morning), but at least you'll feel lousy while listening to one of your favorite bands. And, at a concert, no one can hear you blow your nose (which, after a day or two spent self-consciously honking away in my cubicle, seems like paradise on Earth).

Following are some tips for the congested concertgoer, should you undertake such in the future. You, too, can blow your nose vigorously while enjoying Irish drinking songs!

1. Before leaving, imbibe a glass or two of your favorite alcoholic beverage. (Public Service Announcement: Only complete this step if someone else is providing transport to the concert. Thank you.) This temporarily clears the sinuses, and has the added bonus of getting you to giggle at the whole situation. Frequently, and with vigor.

2. Attend with older relatives. They may complain about not being able to see the band once people in front of you stand up, but they carry cough drops, and one of them will magically produce a bottle of Afrin (purses are amazing things), quite handy for when the temporary wine treatment fails to clear the sinuses.

3. Try to ensure that the people sitting near you have also imbibed their favorite alcoholic beverages (or, in the case of the college students behind us, whatever alcoholic beverages they can afford). They will provide stimulating and distracting conversation to overhear before and after the opening act, and their enthusiasm will be contagious.

4. Wear a warm coat and a sweater. This may seem counterintuitive considering that large, full theaters are not generally cold, but when your fever kicks in again, you will be quite cozy with the extra clothing.

5. Look scruffy and miserable. I swear I did not do this intentionally, but my mother bought me a drink and had to pay $9 for it, while the same vendor charged me $6 for the same drink not 45 minutes later. Something must have inspired that, and I doubt it was because the vendor was bowled over by my beauty and charm.

Cars. No, seriously.

So, the other day I posted about Action Hero's love for cars. Just in case you didn't believe that (there's no reason why you woulnd't have, because, "Gosh, but my almost-two-year-old boy loves to play with cars," isn't that suspicious of a statement), I now have photographic evidence. Today I was doing dishes in the kitchen as Action Hero raced around finding cars, and I noticed he wasn't saying, "Vroom vroom!" to the usual degree. And I turned around to see what he might be up to. Here is what I found*:



He was so intent that I was able to run for the camera. As soon as he heard it click, he looked up and said, "Cars, Mommy! LOTSIE cars!" I agreed; yes, there sure were a lot of cars. Then he said, "Lotsie cars. Need MORE cars!" and raced off, presumably to canvas the neighborhood to see if any of the neighbors had additional toy vehicles in need of lining up on our kitchen floor.

*You may not be able to tell from here, but in just in case you can, the pink thing is a dreidel. Yes, a dreidel. Long story. But Action Hero means no disrespect by adding it to the car lineup, I assure you.

Progress report

May I present Happy and Grumpy? (Guess which is which.)




Actually, "Grumpy" is not all that accurate. More like, "May I present Happy and Too Cool to Smile and Wave at Camera?" Or perhaps, "May I present Happy and Wears Crayon in Hat, Which is Not Really Supposed to be Worn Indoors Anyway?"

Nah, "Grumpy" is shorter. And Happy is pretty accurate.

So, yay! Kids! This blog is supposed to be about them, after all. And they are doing all sorts of fascinating things lately.

Action Hero is a little star, and is generally as happy as he appears in the photo above. Unless I leave the room, and then he looks serious, pops his thumb in his mouth, and follows me. He has recently become quite enamored of toy cars. Hot Wheels, Matchbox, toy from Happy Meal, whatever. This also means that we watch the movie Cars a lot, and he runs around talking about Acqueena (Lightning McQueen, in toddler-ese) quite a lot. He is getting better at communicating overall; last Saturday morning, he said, "Car pay for carcar go vroomvroom shicken!" and instead of being utterly confused, I said, "Oh, you want to play with your cars and make them go vroom on the kitchen floor? Go for it, man." (The kitchen floor is the best place to make cars go vroom, as it turns out; they don't work so well on carpeting. Unfortunately, they often vroom right under the stove; it's like a little parking structure under there. I will have to retrieve them soon, lest we end up with Matchbox Melt on the linoleum.) He is also very interested in being a Big Boy lately. His daycare teacher mentioned that he had been asking to use the potty, and I thought, Yeah, whatever...he's not even two. He's just asking because he sees other kids doing it and wants to pretend he can. So naturally, last night, he said, "Potty," did a little dance, and then used his little training potty. Twice. I suppose we must work on this now.

Boy Wonder is still voicing every thought that floats through his head, and then some. His questions are getting more complicated, though; the latest was, "If a shark ate a crab and then the crab pinched the shark's throat, what would happen" Dude, I don't know. And what is it with the questions about crabs, anyway? He can recite the full names of everyone in our household, knows our address, and is working on my phone number. He likes school, and says that his favorite class is gym. Oh, and music. Oh, and art. And computer too. Mostly, he is nice to his littel brother, and always introduces him proudly. Recent variations include, "This is my baby brother Action Hero and he is just like me! He is just the same as me!" (one girl said, "Oh my God, it's a mini-Boy Wonder!") and "Look who my mom brought with her to pick me up! This is my baby brother! Action Hero, come say hi to everyone!" Boy Wonder, though very accomplished and smart, is not always in a fine mood; he is four and often likes to see what happens when he casually says, "No," when instructed to get dressed for school, brush his teeth, or do anything that requires tearing himself away from toys or a cartoon. I suppose we must work on this now. There may be a sticker chart involved; stay tuned.

As for me (hey, it says "and their mom" up there too), I feel rather like a hamster running on a wheel. There are children, home, work, overtime, and school. There is a bathtub that won't drain, a basement that needs a good scrubbing, an attic that may need a mousetrap or two (at first I thought it was a squirrel, but reliable sources inform me that one or two mice can sound like the Charge of the Light Brigade if the house is quiet), and a backyard with a lot of melting snow that will hopefully not all trickle into the basement. There are closets that need reorganizing and household items to be obtained, and there are always, ALWAYS, dishes that need washing.* There is handsome overtime pay, but there are also clogged sinuses, homework that really needs doing, and a nap to be taken.

Did someone say nap? Excuse me.

*The management would like to announce that most of the dishes were clean this evening, courtesy of Dragon. Thanks, dear.

iFinally bought one

'Tis March, which means that 'tis the season for tax refunds. (Well, not for everyone, but as parents and homeowners, Dragon and I get a good-sized refund; thus, we get our taxes done ASAP and are now the proud recipients of two direct deposits from the federal government and the State of Wisconsin.) Much of the money has gone, or will go, to various practical applications. However, Dragon did suggest that I purchase a prize or two, entirely for myself, and after some consideration I decided that this was a good idea.

So I bought an iPod. Well, not really an iPod. Actually, not even an iPod nano. I didn't feel THAT much of a prize would be prudent. And really, those things hold like 1,000 songs, and as I've always been more book- than music-oriented, I don't know if I can even think of 1,000 songs. My small and shiny prize is the iPod shuffle, which holds about 240 songs and can be clipped nicely to a pocket, sleeve, or lapel. It comes in blue, silver, purple, and green, and has the added bonus of having recently dropped $30 in price, as it is about to be eclipsed by the newer model of shuffle, which can hold about 500 songs. It also comes in a shiny dark red, and I almost considered waiting for that one based strictly on color reasons. But the small and shiny blue shuffle was calling to me, so I purchased it and took it home.

And I like it very, very much, and have spent quite some time with it since purchasing it on Thursday night. I have put many songs from my CD library on it, and have even purchased a few from iTunes. I took it grocery shopping, and rather enjoyed doing the shopping in a pleasant haze of Moby and Muse. I wore it tonight while doing dishes and folding laundry. I have even taken it for daily walks.* Dragon is quite amused, but he is, after all, the one who told me to buy myself a prize, and he should be quite happy that I did not decide to take my "prize" money to the bookstore and buy another shelf's worth of books.

I am somewhat behind the techological times (the shuffle was introduced in 2005), but I am very happy with my small and shiny shuffle.

*Granted, that last goes above and beyond the instructions in the small and shiny user's manual, and is based entirely on my need to lose a few pounds. However, the iPod shuffle does make a fine exercise companion.

Nobody expects the Senseless Inquisition!

When you are four, every thought that floats through your head is Very Important. In fact, your thoughts are so important that, no matter what time it is, day or night, you must share them immediately. With the nearest adult, if possible. Questions are also Very Important, and also of a time-sensitive nature, and should always be preceded by, "Mom? I have to ask you something," or the equally useful but more urgent, "Mom? Mom! MOM!" Perhaps most importantly, questions are not required to make sense.

At least, the above explains the following conversation, held at 5:15 this morning.

Boy Wonder, whispering: Mom? Mom? (whispering loudly) MOM!

Me, startled awake: Bathroom's across the hall, honey.

Boy Wonder: No! I need to ask you something!

Me, sighing resignedly: Okay, shoot.

Boy Wonder: Do crabs have tails?

There's no business like snow business

So, we got some snow this week.

Okay, we got a lot of snow this week.

All right, we got SEVENTEEN DAMN INCHES of snow this week. Eighteen, if you count the extra inch our fair suburb got. Everything closed except Dragon's office, and we have no idea why they stayed open, as the weather made much of their normal day-to-day work impossible. Even my office, which is not known for closing, told everyone to go home at 2:00. (I was already home, as my very own supervisor had told those of us who made it in to get the heck out of there before we ended up stuck in a snowbank somewhere.)

And the wind chill this weekend is supposed to be -35. As in, 35 degrees below zero.

The global is not warming. At least, not here in Wisconsin. When Great Cthulhu emerges from the depths of Lake Michigan (why not?) to begin his journey to the Oval Office, he will no doubt whack his head on an ice floe on his way up, and become just as cranky as most of the people in southeastern Wisconsin. It's not like we're not used to snow here, but this winter has so far featured a touch more than usual. I believe our fair city, which generally averages about 30 to 35 inches of snow per winter, has just hit 60 to 65 inches.

Boy Wonder is very pleased with the snow, and enjoyed "helping" us shovel on Wednesday. Action Hero does not like it much, getting weepy and saying, "Colda. Colda. Wet!" when taken outside. Dragon is half-dead from exhaustion, after shoveling three times on Wednesday and chopping a whole bunch of ice yesterday. And I really, really miss Tucson right now.


Update on the ears: oddly enough, the eardrums are not actually busted. Apparently, my sinuses are so messed up that they a) caused all the ear drainage and b) are somehow responsible for the hearing loss. My doctor drew a little diagram for me, to illustrate what exactly was going on, but I neglected to take it with me when I left the exam room. At any rate, my left ear started working again on Wednesday, but I STILL can't hear out of the right ear. Things are going to seem very loud when this all clears up.

Something's busted

I have lots of things to blog about, including the holidays, cute things Boy Wonder is doing, cute things Action Hero is doing, and cute things Charming Bungalow is doing. However, the latest development is so odd and unexpected that I feel the need to share it first. Reader discretion is advised.

It began almost two weeks ago, when Boy Wonder developed a high fever and spent the next three days flattened by some sort of virus. Sure, we want kids to rest when they're sick, but it's eerie when a usually energetic four-year-old says, "I'm too tired to play. I just want to sit in your lap, please. Can we rest now?" The virus then commenced its infiltration of our entire household, felling the rest of us one by one. Dragon started coughing so hard that he couldn't sleep, and Action Hero and I got our fevers last Sunday. His didn't go away until yesterday morning, and mine visited on and off during the week, along with lots of coughing, sneezing, and general unpleasantness. We bought lots of tissues, juice, and cough syrup. Everyone except me went to the doctor.

I was finally starting to feel a bit better on Friday. Then, midmorning, I suddenly noticed that I couldn't hear very well out of my right ear; it sounded like I was underwater on that side. Two hours later, it was seriously hurting. I mean, seriously. A friend once mentioned that she'd had a run of ear infections during college, and found them quite painful indeed, and man, do I ever concur. I have no idea how Boy Wonder contended with having all those ear infections when he was an infant and toddler. And I have NO IDEA AT ALL how Action Hero has managed to have two stealth ear infections, which weren't revealed until at the doctor's office for some other unrelated reason. Anyway, speaking of doctor's offices, I went to mine, where the following conversation took place.

My doctor: You have a lot of congestion at the back of your throat.

Me: I had even more there before the cough syrup kicked in.

My doctor (looking in my right ear): Yes, that one's infected. Very irritated. We'll get you some antibiotics. (looking in my left ear) That one's clear.

Me: I've had this cold all week, and my ear didn't even hurt until today. Can ear infections come on that suddenly?

My doctor (looking up my nose): Yes, because you don't have a cold, you have a sinus infection. It's very easy for bacteria to travel to the ear, once the sinuses are infected.

Me: Oh hurray. I haven't had an ear infection since I was five, you know.

My doctor: Uh-huh. Once the medication begins working, the pressure and pain should decrease and your hearing will return to normal levels.

So I trotted off to the drugstore, with my ear hurting like holy hell and my sinuses feeling grosser by the second. Upon arriving at home, I dosed myself with a variety of medications and sat down to wait for my ear to quit hurting. It didn't, and the other one started hurting too. Somehow, I managed to fall asleep anyway.

Until two o'clock this morning, when I awoke to the calm, soothing sound of the ocean. However, since I live in Wisconsin and haven't seen an ocean since I was 11, I quickly realized that something was amiss with my ears, which were trying to convince me that I was either on a beach or perhaps riding in the back of an airplane. Yes, really. Apparently fluid whooshing around in your ears makes a whole damn load of noise. I sat there for an hour and a half waiting for the sound effects to go away. They didn't, and the situation developed an unpleasant new dimension: every ten minutes or so, it would sound like someone was softly tapping on the outside of a seashell, and something would start oozing out of my right ear. (Hint: it wasn't the ocean.)

I began to suspect that my eardrum had gone and blown itself up, and wondered if I ought to do anything about that. After some consideration, I decided to take the time-honored course of going back to sleep and dealing with it in the morning. And deal with it I did. I'll be kind and spare you the details of exactly how the right side of my neck, and the hair behind it, looked when I woke up, but it was certainly enough to convince me that my eardrum had indeed ruptured. As an added bonus, my left ear--the one that wasn't supposed to be infected--staged a similar blowout two hours later.

So yeah, I have two ruptured eardrums (hey, at least they stop hurting once they blow), about 50% hearing loss (this will come back eventually, just not till things heal up in there), and an exhaustive supply of ear fluid, which continues to exit stages right and left (presumably this will stop soon, as there can't be THAT much more in there).

Not sure what the lesson is in all of this, but I'll certainly be watching the kids closely for signs of ear infection in the future!

Holiday greetings

Happy holidays from the Friends of Spidey. More later!