Help Me, For Their Sake

Jackson has new friends. The neighbor boys, ages six and nine, are his new favorites, and we met another kid that lives down the street, also nine. And mostly that is a happy thing. It's pretty cute. But it also makes me so sad sometimes.

Have I mentioned that I'm terrified of kids not coming to other kids' birthday parties?

Case in point - today Jack was wearing his bike helmet, which he loves. He was wearing it and riding on his tricycle in the driveway. The other kids came over and Dayvon, the six year old and Jack's personal hero, asked why he was wearing a helmet. Jack just kind of sat there and looked at me all confused. I was like "for safety, Dayvon" and I tried to give him the evil eye so he'd stop asking questions like that. Instead he continued on with his questioning and talked about how Jack must be a little kid to have to wear a helmet and not ride a big bike, etc. etc. And probably what happened at that point was that Jack rode off, completely oblivious to the conversation. In my mind, though, Jack was completely distraught and sad and cried his eyes out because a kid he idolized thought he was really small and childish.

Then later the kids came into the backyard because they were impressed by the playground back there. So they all played and Jack was proudly showing them all the equipment. Then he ran towards another part of the yard, yelling back at them "Ummm guys, wanna see my bike? Ummm guys, THIS is my dad's BIRD feeder!" But somewhere in that five second run, the kids decided to all go home, so they ran through the garage and left. So Jack turns around at the bird feeder to show them, and no one was there. He looked around and was like "Ummm, guys?"

Still later the kids came back over and knocked on the door. It was too late for Jack to go out - we had to eat dinner and get in bed. But he came to the door with me and started dragging out all the things he could think of to show them, including the vacuum. He was so excited to show them all the parts of the vacuum and they just stood there looking confused and uninterested. They sort of argued that he really could come out, but I kept saying no and that he would have to get to bed, which they didn't understand because it seemed really early to them. But I kept explaining that he's 3. Then we said bye and they left.

So I know he's not hurt at all, but it just reminds me that all the friend-making starts now. And when he was only playing next to people, not with them, and we could control who was around him, it didn't really matter. I didn't feel like I needed to protect his feelings, or that other kids might question our rules.

I was explaining all of this to my brother and I said that Jack's emotions are fragile and he laughed and pointed out that MY emotions are fragile. So true. To all the other parents out there, or anyone who can help: please tell me how to shut that part of my brain off. Thanks.

Dearest Ryker

My Dearest Little Baby,

I am so proud of you. You have conquered many things in the last few weeks. You can crawl. You can point. You can babble "Mama" and "Dada" and "baaaa baaaa" (for ball, we think). You have been able to clap and wave for awhile, but you are doing it better and in more appropriate situations.

Here is one thing you HAVEN'T mastered. Sleeping. You are not a very good sleeper. I don't mean to focus on your weakness, but I'm going to for a second. You want to work on your new talents so much that you forfeit sleep for practice time. But here's the thing - it does NOT make you better at them. Your clap gets lazy - you miss and hit yourself in the face. You accidentally poke yourself in the eye instead of pointing at your face. You slur your words - "mada babababa" doesn't even make sense.

I'm trying to understand where you are coming from, but it's hard. I don't get so excited by new talents that I can't sleep. Actually, I don't really have new talents so I don't know what that would be like. Maybe I'll try to conquer something new and see what happens. I've never been able to whistle - maybe if I learn, then I'll fight off sleep too. I kind of doubt it.

In any event, please try to get some sleep. Your talents will still be there, and your Mama and Dada will be well rested and ready to enjoy them more.

Lovingly,

Mama

P.S. These aren't the best videos of your babbling, but it's something.

Video A-Go-Go

Here goes Ryker...

And here is Jack's music review...Dan Auerbach ("Hourbox" according to Jack), The Black Keys, Mr. Big, and the lesser known group "Polio." (He means Poison. Oddly close though, don't you think?)

Boredom

I used to have this problem when I was a kid. I would get SOOOO bored. And even if my friends were over, we'd get SOOOOO bored together. My mom used to always tell my best friend Vicki and I to go to the art museum and we'd scoff at her. Sort of ironic that I now go to an art museum every day, don't you think. Karma?

Anyway, I was driving home the other day sans kids and I got stopped at a red light that is notoriously long. And I used to get stopped there and get SOOOO bored. Sitting a whole of 90 seconds was just too much for me. But this time I immediately reached for my iPhone and started reading Tweets. (Did the Olds all get confused just now?) I was excited to be sitting at the light because I knew I had time to get caught up on my "reading." And as I was reading I was thinking that my phone should really be given a name, because it is my friend now. (I'm taking suggestions....)

And then a thought popped in to my head.

"I will never be bored again."

My rationale is was between kids, husband, boyfriend (kidding! sheesh) friends, family, work, sports, and now MY PHONE - complete with Twitter, Facebook, this blog, other people's blogs, Scramble and the NYT Crossword puzzle - I will never have another time where I'm searching for something to do or think about.

To be honest, I was a little weirded out by that spontaneous thought. Isn't it okay to have down-time? Can my down-time include all of my social networking and technology obsessions? It's relaxing to me, so doesn't that count? But does every second of my day need to have an activity assigned to it? It's the complete opposite of meditation (which I'm really interested in) - isn't it?

Thoughts?

Fern's DNA

Our children are blessed (and cursed?) with a varied gene pool. We have musicians, artists, teachers, scientists, pilots, techy-nerds (I mean people with a high technical aptitude), lawyers, athletes, doctors, craftsmen and theologians. Most of the people in our family have several of these gifts (Chuck - if I can use him as an example and brag at the same time - is a great singer, great photographer, has a great mind for science and technology and has a freakish ability to tinker with/fix/build almost anything.).

It's been so much fun to watch Jack and his growing interests. He seems to have received the musical gene ("Momma, I'm a very good microphone player."), teacher gene ("Here is how you do dat - do you wanna twy?), and handyman gene ("Look at dat truck! Look at dose tools!"). I'm sure others will come forward later.

Ryker is starting to show his as well. The most noticeable one thus far? His Great Grandmother Fern's finger waggle. When he's feeding he will point a finger and wave it at me. If he picks up a cane I'm going to have to get therapy.

Why

Subtitle: A list of questions currently occupying space in my brain.

• Why do boys find insects/creepy-crawling-things so funny? In our house, whenever a person audibly passes gas, Chuck and Jack yell "Who let in the barking spiders?!" which I don't even understand. They also have a running joke about eating worms.
• Why are mirrors confusing? Jack should understand them by now, but asked me at a birthday party yesterday how he gets "there" - pointing in the mirror at a game that was right next to him.
• Why do babies hate having their diapers changed?
• Why do squirrels need to eat our bird food? Can't they find enough food on their own?
• Why is Jack obsessed with listing things that "only Mommy can do" or "only Daddy can do"? And why is my list so much shorter?
• Why can kids spin around and not get dizzy but I take 3 turns and need to hold on to something? Same thing with somersaults.
• Why do servers put knives and hot plates in front of my children? Do they teach them to do that to separate the parents that are paying attention from the ones that aren't? Are they undercover Children and Family Services employees?
• Why can't children sit still? Ever? If you watch Jack closely - he NEVER stops moving. Even if he's sitting down, he's moving his feet or bobbing his head. When do we outgrow that?
• Why do kids want to carry cats around? And why do they think it's best to hold them under their armpits so their front legs are sticking straight out in front of them?

I Dreamed a Dream

I'm not sure what this says about me, but last night I had a dream that Barack Obama was chilling in our living room.

He was wearing those black nylon workout pants and gray t-shirt that they always show him in and he was just lounging on our couch. I was really nervous about how to talk to him, but he was very funny and easy-going.

I told him he should rest because he probably doesn't get to do that very often. He told me that he'd take a bowl of ice cream and a blanket if I had them. I rushed into the kitchen and found that I had the end of a pint of Ben and Jerry's. I told him that he's lucky that he's Barack Obama because otherwise I'd never give the last of my ice cream away. I gave him the bowl of ice cream and then was faced with a dilemma. He wanted a blanket and I had two. One was a small fleece blanket that I worried was maybe too small - more of a "throw" or whatever. The other was my beloved Slanket, about which I endure endless teasing from everyone who knows I have one (except Beth, who gave it to me). I opted for the small fleece one because I couldn't handle the thought of President Obama doubling over in hysterics at my precious Slanket. I tossed it over his legs and handed the bowl of ice cream over, and he settled in.

I believe others were in the room too - I think Chuck was there and I'm pretty sure my mom was sitting behind the couch at the dining room table - which we refer to as the Play-Doh table because that's all we ever use it for. I told my mom that this morning and she replied "because of course I'd be playing with Play-Doh while the president sat in your living room."

Move Over John Millman

Jack has a new favorite answer to any "Who" question.

Example 1:
Mommy: "And who comes tonight to hide our eggs?"
Jackson: "Al Fwanken?"

Example 2:
Mommy: "Whose picture is this on the penny?"
Jackson: "Al Fwanken?"
M: "No buddy, that's Abe Lincoln."
J: "Right. He da one dat dieded? By a gun?"
M: "Yes, that's right."
J: "Why not Al Fwanken?"

The Agnostic Bunny

There are a few days a year that I'm reminded of the lack of organized religion in our house. Easter is one of them. First of all I generally have no idea when Easter is. I only realize it's coming when I start seeing pastel colors and bunny-things in the stores. This time when I realized it was coming Chuck and I decided that we were going to do the egg dying and hiding routine. Chuck went to the store Friday to get our (I mean the Easter Bunny's) supplies. I sent him for baskets and some treats.


I guess the economic downturn trumps our desire to adhere to the usual Easter festivities because Chuck decided that $10 was a lot to spend on a basket, so he came home with two pastel colored gift bags. "What the heck are we going to do with those?!" I said. "Jack can use them to collect the eggs" Chuck replied.


Okay. So yesterday I decided to introduce this whole subject to Jack. It went something like this:


Mommy: "Jackson, guess what tomorrow is?"
Jackson: "Huh?"
M: "Easter. And so today we need to dye some eggs."
J: "Why is dying?"
M: "Well that word has two meanings - one is when someone isn't living anymore and the other is when you want to color something." (Thinking that this conversation is not starting out well.)
J: "Huh?"
M: "Never mind. Anyway, we're going to dip eggs into some colors and then leave them for the Easter Bunny."
J: Blank stare.
M: "And then do know what happens? The Easter Bunny comes tonight and he hides those eggs for you."
J: "WHY?!"
M: "Umm, I guess because he's silly. So we need to leave them for him so he can hide them for you tonight so you can find them tomorrow."
J: "Why do we do that on Easter?"
M: "I don't really know. We just do."


Not a single mention of Jesus. First, because we have never talked about Him before. And second, because I really have no idea what He has to do with a gigantic bunny that sneaks into your house at night. Or art projects with eggs. Or hide and seek with eggs.

Well, we dyed them anyway and then put puffy paint on them. It was in the kit. And then we left them out. After the kids were in bed and we had had a few adult beverages, we set off to hide the eggs. Chuck had brought home six large plastic eggs that have Matchbox cars in them, and four smaller eggs that have Play-Doh in them. We put Kisses in with the cars and then hid all of them. I reached for the real eggs and started to hide them too, but Chuck looked really nervous. He thought Tugboat might eat them or they might break. Instead, we put them in a bowl and wrote a note from the Easter Bunny to Jackson.

This morning countless Americans got up, grabbed their Easter baskets, hunted for their dyed eggs and then got cleaned up and went to church. We got up, grabbed our gift bags and hunted for plastic car-holding eggs. Then we stayed in our pajamas, played on Twitter and put grease on our bird feeder to try to keep the squirrels off.

So here's my question (if you are still reading this - maybe you gave up already) - if we aren't willing to do the religious part of Easter, should we not do the fun part either? I guess we do Christmas, but that seems a bit easier to rationalize. We're around lots of family at that time and it gets talked about a lot more than Easter does. I feel a little like a fair-weather fan. When the boys get older I think we'll tell them what some people believe happened today, and that we celebrate Easter in a little different way (gift bags and Twitter and squirrel-tormenting) but we respect other people's beliefs on this day. But by those standards, shouldn't we also do something for Passover, or Kwanzaa? What does your family do?

As a side-note, I encourage all of you to listen to David Sedaris' story about the Easter Bunny. It's one of the funniest things I've ever heard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5apZmwR9UI

Better Than Money

You know those scenes in movies where a bag of money busts open and dollar bills go everywhere - then all the people scramble around grabbing as many as they can in their tight little fists?

That was Ryker last night. Only it wasn't money, it was clumps of dirt and dead grass and dead leaves. He sat on the ground for half an hour spinning in circles on his butt and grabbing everything in reach. At first he kept trying to put it in his mouth (he actually succeeded once, as I later realized when I pulled a small leaf off his gums). Then he decided it was just as fun to grab a fistful and thrust it towards me as proof of his dirt-holding abilities, with a huge grin on his face. He was so happy.

I often wonder if the neighbors can hear what I say to the kids in the backyard, and if so, what they must think. Last night it was "Yes, nice dirt...Yes, I like the dirt too...No, no - Icky...Bleh...Oh thank you for that leaf. That's nice." And then to Jack "Oh the nice monsters live there? Cool. Hi nice monsters!...No, no - we don't ride our bike on the slide...Why are you taking the broom up there?"

We have fun, anyway.

iCan'tStop

I'm so ridiculously hooked on my iPhone it's sad. But lucky for you (or not, maybe) that means more pictures! And I can send them straight from my phone.

See Flickr link on the right.

Poem

Roses are red
Violets are blue
You are very healthy (and don't have Cystic Fibrosis or thyroid problems or anemia)
And Ryker is too.


Test results looked perfectly normal.

And now I can rat myself out - as I told several of you I would. So the pediatrician told us NOT to look up Cystic Fibrosis under any circumstance. She made that very clear. And I didn't!

For a whole 3 hours I didn't look it up! Then I did.

They say one of the symptoms is that the baby's skin tastes salty, and their sweat tastes even saltier. So I licked my baby. Over and over and over. I licked his face, his arm, his chin, his shoulder. I made him sweat and licked that. Poor Ryker has been my personal salt lick for the last week. And he wasn't salty. Not once. So the test result really just confirmed my own very scientific findings. But it's nice to know the wacky doctors and their highfalutin tests say the same thing.

Thanks for all the positive thoughts.

Best Answer

Jack came in and out of our room ALL NIGHT last night. I'm not kidding - ALL NIGHT. So this morning we were pretty irritated with him and we were harassing him about it, Spanish Inquisition style...

Chuck: "Jackson - you keep coming into our room at night."
Jack: "......"
C: "It's really making us frustrated because we just need to sleep."
J: "...."
C: "So you need to sleep. For real!"
J: "Oooo-kaaaayyyy."
C: "We're not playing around Jack. Why do you come in to our room? Why do you do that? What's your answer????"
J: "Sprinkles."

He said it totally straight-faced. Like that was clear as day. Chuck had to turn around and face me because he was laughing so hard.

My reaction was one of jealously. I wish I could answer like that. For instance, I just made a huge blunder at work and I'm likely to have to talk about it today. And when they say "You just can't mess up like that" I want to say "Ooooo-kaaaayyy." And when they press me for an answer as to why it happened? "Sprinkles."

No News is Good News?

Okay, here are the things we've learned in the last few days:

1. Ryk's allergic to cephalosporins (I might be spelling that wrong) - that was the first reaction he had while we were at Children's.
2. Ryker is ALSO allergic to penicillin - he reacted to that Tuesday night after we got back from the hospital.
3. I have a Pavlovian response to putting medicine in my baby now. I break out in hives FOR him as I wait to see if The Spots are going to come back.
4. He's a champ at the lab tests - slept through some of it and cried harder at having his pants pulled down than he did at the blood draw.
5. Trying to collect a urine sample from a baby is a pretty funny endeavor.
6. Children's Hospital won't send results to your doctor unless the doctor calls and requests them. Because "they don't know the fax number." Really? REALLY?
7. Ryker does not have kidney disease. I didn't even know we were testing for that.
8. Everything that HAS come back to the doctor's office (not sure how since they don't know the fax number) has been negative - he looks great on all the things that they have seen.
9. We are awful at waiting.

There are still some tests that we don't have results for. We'll let you know what we find out.

In the meantime we don't want you all to forget about our awesome 3 year old. Here he is: