Make It Stop!

For real. I call Uncle.

Remember two weeks ago when Jack had the stomach flu? Yeah? And then I decided not to write about ME having the stomach flu last weekend. There wasn't anything interesting or funny about it. It sucked. The same morning that I got sick, Ryker did too.

I had about one day of feeling better, and then my throat started hurting.

Then Jack started coughing.

Then I lost my voice.

Then my nose was all stuffy.

Then Chuck took a nap. He never naps.

Then I spent half of dinner in the bathroom with Jack.

Now we are all sitting here straining to hear the TV over Chuck and my hacking.

UNCLE.

Mawwaige

I was driving Jack back up to Target the other night, for a last minute Halloween costume emergency. (Chuck accidentally bought him a size 12-14, so it looked like Batman's son was trying on Daddy's uniform.)

As we were driving, he asked me when he would get married. I said that people get married at all different ages, and some choose never to get married. It just depends. He said that he really WANTS to get married. I said okay, that then it would depend on when he found the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He goes "well, I want to marry Logan, but he doesn't want to be married to me. And boys don't marry boys." I said "well, sure they can" and teetered on the verge of explaining the state by state difference in this fact. I decided against it.

"I really want to get married. At school I asked 'Who wants to marry me?' but NO ONE said anything!"

I said that some kids just haven't thought about marriage yet, but that once they did, I was sure someone would say yes to him.

Jack: "Well, I really want to marry Logan and Rico and Payten. Why can't I marry all of them?"

Me: "Well, in some cultures that is ok with everyone. People can share their lives with more than one person. In our culture we say that a person can only be married to one other person at the same time."

The conversation fell apart after that. Jack swore I said "sculptures" instead of "cultures." Also, explaining polygamy versus monogamy and why gay marriage isn't legal is really really hard when you're talking to a five year old.

Opportunist

I am sick of the illness circulating through our household. Although we're trying to not spend money right now, I splurged on some immunity boosting Jamba Juices for our family. I figured it would cost less than going to the ER 84 times in the next several months.

I came home with three orange-sherberty things. I didn't figure Ryker needed one. Ryk looked longingly at them - "What DAT?" I said it was something for Mommy and Daddy and Jackson. Ryk took that better than I thought he would. He sat there quietly in the armchair while I gave Jack his cup. He tried it. Ryker watched him carefully. Jack announced "I don't like it" and Ryker jumped out of his chair immediately, yelling "*I* yike it!!! *I* yike it!!!"

I poured him a small cup. He devoured it, pushed it back across the counter at me, and said "I yike it. (Signed for more.) More."

Tonight

It was an adventurous night in the Van Nostrand household. Jack's stomach ache - which he complained of during his soccer game and which led him to take a 2 hour nap for the first time in a year - took full hold in a really gross way. I'll spare you the intricate details, except to say that it was in the car on a trip with Daddy to Walgreens to stock up on Pedialyte and Saltines. They didn't make it.

When they got back, Jack came into the house in just his underwear (it's 50 degrees out). He threw his hands in the air and said "I fwrowed up" and marched back to the bathroom. So that was that. I got him into the shower and went out to the garage to help Chuck. I sat in the driveway disassembling his carseat while Chuck worked on the interior of the car. Ryker ran around in pajamas and Crocs and obeyed as I repeatedly yelled "DON'T TOUCH THAT!" at him. I went back in to get Jack out of the shower, put his carseat and clothes in the washer, spray his shoes out, and give Ryker Fourth Supper.

Chuck ventured BACK out, this time without Jack but in the same car (???). He got our supplies and milk shakes. Jack was ecstatic.

Here's where the night got better.

I put Ryker in bed, which I don't get to do very often anymore. Jack's just a wee bit attached to me, as Ryker is to Chuck. I'm out of practice. Ryker now insists on doing baby flash cards - they have animals on them starting with each letter of the alphabet. He pulls out Buffalo first and says "Yak." Wow. I said "that's really close - but that's a buffalo." He goes "Buffo?" and then pulls out the Yak card and puts them side by side. Nodding, he says "yak" at the correct one. A few cards later he pulled out the Narwal and said "nawal." (This is significant if you know the story about me only finding out that narwals were real about 3 years ago.)

Then it was time to sing. We turned out the lights and he snuggled up to me and requested Sunshine. I obliged. Then Pat a Cake. I obliged. Then Cankle. Ummm...

"What Ryker?"
"Cankle."
"You have cankles?"
"No."
"What do you want to sing?"
"Cankle."
"Mommy has cankles?" (stiffling laughter)
"No."
"Good boy. What do you want to sing?"
"Cankle....DIS!" (doing the Twinkle sign from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)

OHHH!

Back to Jack. He seems better. He ate applesauce, the milk shake and a few Saltines. He is mostly just upset that he can't go to school tomorrow, because he really wanted to wear his soccer uniform and medal for his friends. Once they smell nicer, we'll let him.

32

Well, another year has passed. This is the first year I haven't been pregnant or had a baby in tow for about 5 years now. And because of that, I was able to turn the focus back to me. My first objective? To conquer my panic disorder. I've been in therapy for 15 months now, and every single day for those 15 months, I have logged my anxiety levels and my anticipated anxiety levels, as well as any exposures I have done. (Exposures are things that make me confront my anxiety, things that I would have avoided in the past.)

I'm such a perfectionist that I'm almost always looking at where I need to go, instead of celebrating how far I've come. As part of a birthday present to myself, I decided to go back and look at my logs, starting with my birthday last year.

I counted them up, and I noted 116 exposures I've done in the last 365 days. Imagine something that gives you cold sweats, makes you want to pass out or throw up - then imagine intentionally putting yourself in those situations once every three days. It's intense.

Not all of them go swimmingly. I've had 7 knock-down, drag-out panic attacks in the last year. Lots of others gave me significant trouble, but didn't put me out of commission. But the vast majority of exposures were fine. I have developed a pattern. I get anxious in the lead-up to something. Then I peak in the first 15 minutes or so - sweating, dizzy, nauseous - and then I calm down and do just fine. Last year I would bail on things in those first fifteen minutes. Now I am able to remember, through that, that I know the ending to this story already. I know I'll be fine.

What's interesting about looking back at all of my exposures is that they have changed in some pretty dramatic ways. Things that I flagged as exposures in the fall and winter of last year are not things I have noted in the last few months. Some are the same, the bigger ones, but lots of the day to day things that used to make me crazy now are fine.

So it's been a good year on that front. Progress on my journey.

I Lose

I asked Jack who his favorite person is in the whole entire world (trying to get him to say me, of course). His answer?

Lucy.

I've never even HEARD of Lucy.

How do I lose to a kid who I've never even heard of??? I'm sure she's lovely, but come on!

Sign of Things to Come?

Ryker marked his second birthday by promptly falling into every stereotype of the Terrible Twos known to man. He throws CRAZY tantrums. He screams and yells because we cut up his hot dog instead of giving him the whole one. He sobs if we don't let him carry the case for a DVD around. He yells "No Momma - (s)top it!" when I rudely insist on changing his dirty diaper.

And he doesn't reserve that behavior for us. He shares it with his teachers and classmates as well. We have started getting notes about his behavior. "Ryker had a tough day." "Ryker was very angry." "Please work with him at home on this."

This week they've started making him go sit with Miss Mari. That's the Toddler Room equivalent of being sent to the principal's office. The offense? When he gets mad, he now sits on the ground, takes his shoes off, and throws them across the room. He has all the rest of the toddlers doing it too. So the chain-reaction where one kid cries, then another starts crying now includes a mass of children dropping to the floor to remove their shoes.

It used to be that when I took him into the room, they would say "Hi Ryker!!" with genuine excitement in their voices. Now they sound a titch disappointed that he showed up. I remember my mom coming home from a day of teaching first grade, saying that it was a really easy day because Naughty-Child-So-and-So was home sick and wasn't there to disrupt the class. That's MY baby now! Awesome.

My mom is trying to convince me that the Universe provided Chuck and me with the Crazies (my new name for the boys) because we are so calm and can handle them. And of course we can. But I have a new respect for those parents in the store who have kids throwing tantrums. I used to look at them and wonder what exactly was flawed in their parenting style that would result in kids THAT out of control. Now I just smile and nod knowingly.

Things that Annoy Me at the Gym

Those of you that follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook, feel free to not read this. It will just reiterate what I've already said many times.

As you know, I am fully in love with the gym. I really am. I love it there, love how I feel while working out and when I'm finished. But there are things that I find myself being super annoyed at. I guess it's good that I'm focusing my annoyedness on the following instead of being mad at the actual workout, but still.

1. People being loud in the sauna. This happened today and was the inspiration for this Post-In-Which-I-Vent. This woman very loudly yawned over and over and over again. And then sighed deeply. And then yawned. And then cleared her throat. I don't want to talk to you. Stop trying to make me.
2. When people just wander around the gym, not doing anything.
3. People hitting on me in the locker room. I wish I was making this one up, but I'm not. It's happened at least 3 times.
4. When people pick the elliptical machine right next to me when there are a dozen other ones to pick from that don't have anyone on either side.
5. The music they play over the speakers. Seriously, it's like sleepy-time in there. NOT motivating.
6. When people talk on their cell phones while running or biking.
7. When people move around in the hot tub. Like, completely change places. I closed my eyes one time, just relaxing, and opened them to find the woman had moved half way around the thing, and closer to me.

Hmmm. I thought for sure I had more than 7. That's not too bad, I suppose. Here's hoping that this blog rids me of these annoyances.

The Costume Conundrum

Last year at this time, Jack was asking me to get him a flower costume for Halloween. I was debating whether or not he'd get made fun of, knowing the kids at his school. I scoped out the costumes and found one that would probably work. But then he announced he wanted to be Spiderman, and we went with that.

In chronological order, the following have been Jackson's costumes for Halloween:

1 month old - Tigger
1 year - ??? (Seriously, I just spent like 30 minutes trying to find a picture of what Jack was for Halloween that year. We can't figure it out! Bad parents...bad, bad parents. We think maybe he was a cowboy??? Wait, he WAS a cowboy - I just found the pictures! Phew.)
2 years - Bumblebee
3 years - Superman
4 years - Spiderman
This year he has announced he wants to be a monster. A monster? Okay. Research mode - I have found such gems as "Bleeding Scream Child Costume," "Demon of War Black Child Costume," "Kids' Shredded Corpse Costume," and "Infected Child Costume Extra Large."

Can I just do the flower one?