Hey, Laura!

It's finally cold enough in Alabama for your beautiful sweaters!

(And also for funny hats.)

A long night

Friday there was the dreaded contagion sign posted on the door of Aerin’s classroom.  “A child is this room has been diagnosed with Conjunctivitis (pinkeye).”  Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes.

Sunday at lunch, after the kids had been in the church nursery happily exchanging germs for half the morning, I noticed Aerin’s right eye was bright red. Whatever good I got from that morning’s thorough churchin’ was immediately undone by the invective that filled my head. I swallowed a couple youhavegototbefuckingkiddingmes and instead leaned across the table to Todd.

“You want the bad news, or the bad news?  Because THERE IS NO GOOD NEWS.”

Back home, we scrounged up an old bottle of Vigamox, dating from our last flirtation with pinkeye, that isn’t set to expire until 2013.  With the dosage instruction missing, we simply donned our Tyveks, poured half of it into her eye, and made the sign of the cross.

That night, a storm rolled through.  Not a bad one, as these things go in Alabama, but enough that it woke Micah, who made a prompt appearance at my bedside immediately following the first clap of thunder.  It was 3AM.  He solemnly and tremulously informed me that there were “pieces of thunder and wightening aww around my room,” and climbed over to the space between me and Todd where he squirmed and kicked for the next half hour.  He was followed shortly by all three cats, who have recently become skittish of storms.  I suppose being left to die in a tornado twice in the past year was too much for them.

At 3:45 the weather radio in our bedroom blared to life, announcing that everyone in South Huntsville was probably going die.  Or something.  I’m not sure, because the small boy to my left and the three cats to my right all jumped out of their skins at the first tone and I missed the details of the announcement as Micah’s arms were wrapped around my head in a starfish-like paroxysm of terror.

At 4 AM, the storm quieted down.  I asked Micah if he was ready to head back to his bed.  He allowed that he was and together we made our way upstairs, where I lovingly tucked him into his bed and tracked down all his stuffed animals.  Then I gratefully crawled back into my own warm bed.

At 4:30, just as I was drifting back to sleep, Todd rolled over and viciously elbowed me in the face, splitting my lip and jolting me awake.  He claims to remember nothing of it and swears it must have been an accident.

At 5 AM, I opened my eyes to see Micah’s face approximately an inch from mine.  “GAHAHHhhhello baby, what’s wrong?”  It was lightning again, you see.

At 5:30 and I cold-heartedly sent him away to make the long, dark trek upstairs to his cold, lonely room alone and turned off my alarm.

At 7:45 Aerin woke us up, yelling at Micah, who had gone into her room, presumably because both his parents were comatose and could not be brought back to consciousness.

 

First Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

Can you please give me a hula hoop?  And also, hi, Santa!

The Polar Bear has torn down the North Pole and also the tree at the North Pole. I have some sticky ink in my machine that I can put where it got knocked over and also in the crack so it won't need tape.

The Polar Bear let the Snowboys blast all the rockets off!*

I would like:

• a head band
• a hula hoop
• a truck to pull a tanker
• a train with a diesel engine that pulls
• a robot fish
• a nutcracker
• a coffee maker that can have water in it that makes the water into pretend coffee
• a robot penguin

Love,


*Can you tell we're on our second round of The Father Christmas Letters so far this season?

Worth at least six new gray hairs

Around 7:45 Monday morning we were, as always, scrambling to pull everything together at the very last minute. Shoes, daycare blankets, diapers, everything that somehow gets scattered to every corner of the house over the course of the weekend, I was trying to round it all up to get us out the door.

As I was standing at the dining room table stuffing the daycare bag, I heard Aerin laughing behind me. I turned around to see her standing on the sofa, bouncing up and down, and grinning at me. She was SO PROUD of herself. I told her to sit down, but because I was busy, I didn't go over and pull her off. I knew full well she'd just climb back on again, and I honestly just didn't have the time to get into a battle of wills.

(Hahahaha, you know what else I didn't have time for?  EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT.)

The next thing I heard was her walking backwards off the sofa and hitting the side of her head on the coffee table on the way down.

She immediately started screaming and I ran over and picked her up. There wasn't any blood and she was crying, so I figured she was okay. I got her calmed down, we got everyone loaded in the car, and we went to daycare.

At 11:30, while Todd and I were at lunch, they called to tell me Aerin was sick. They told me she'd fallen asleep during the gym that morning, then thrown up right before lunch. She didn't have a fever, but she was acting strange and they were pretty sure she had some sort of bug.

Sadly, I spent a good 15 minutes lamenting the presence of another goddamned stomach bug in our home before it finally occurred to me that the child probably had a concussion. And of course, by then, her pediatrician's office was closed for lunch until 1:30.

Todd took her home and I went back to work, Googled the crap out of "baby concussion," and decided she was probably okay. But I called the doc at 1:30 anyway and described her symptoms and asked them if they wanted to see her, or if I should just keep an eye on her. And the nurse immediately told me to take her to the ER. Apparently I should have been a hell of a lot more concerned than I was. So, yeah, I guess I failed that parenting test?

Anyway, once at Huntsville Hospital's Pediatric ER, they checked her out and decided she needed a CT scan, since she hit the side of her head and there wasn't any real lump. Aerin had to be restrained for the scan and holy hell, that sucked, but at least they didn't have to sedate her. Based on the scan, they determined she was fine and probably just had a mild concussion. We were given the okay to go home before our paperwork even made it through registration.

She was still a little off the next day, but by Wednesday she was back to normal. So even though I clearly missed the "freak out about head injuries" portion of the parenting class, no harm no foul this time.

I always told Todd Aerin would be the first of our children to ever visit an ER. And even though I fully expected there to be more blood on her first trip, I'm still going to say NAILED IT.

Yakety yak

So here's something I've been quietly worrying about. 

Aerin doesn't talk much. Right now she is 16 months old and has a total of about six words. She only uses three of those reguarly: dada, bubble, and ball.  She's very vocal, but she just doesn't make many different sounds.

By contrast, Micah had at least three times the number of words at 16 months and he used them all constantly. And they were words like bellybutton, tractor, water, and spoon. Stuff well beyond dada and baba and bah.

I know that every kid develops differently.  I know that Aerin is still in the range of "normal."  I'm happy she's talking at least some.  I don't think she's delayed or having any special difficulty.  Second child, etc etc etc.

But I can't help but worry a little bit.

(Although, since Aerin's bidding fair to catch up to Micah in both weight and height, maybe being faster to talk will one day make up for the injustice of him being beaten up by his baby sister.)

Minor inconveniences

These last four weeks have been...exhausting. There's been work travel (for me for once). There've been Halloween parties and family visits. There've been milestones with the kids and lots of funny stories, but no time to tell anyone about them. There's been worry about some family and conflict with other family. I've had more projects and plans and permits and presentations to do than I can possibly squeeze into my schedule. There was a presidential election that made at least 70% of people I regularly encounter completely unbearable. The time change jacked everything up. The last month has been tragically devoid of cupcakes.

This morning I had to work to make up the three hours I missed yesterday due to voting. I should have stayed to work more, but I really needed to go grocery shopping and the idea of doing that on the way home tonight in the dark almost made me cry.  Now that I'm home, all I want to do is sit in front of the fire and drink hot chocolate with a half-gallon of Bailey's in it.  And eat cupcakes.  Of which there have been none.  I mentioned that.

But despite all the annoyances, we didn't have a superstorm wipe out half our town, so I guess I can't really complain. And we've been having fun too.

Someone can climb up on the chairs now. Nothing is safe.



We went back to Tate Farms on Halloween and practically had the whole place to ourselves.
The weather was fantastic too!

Tate Farms

Like most other families around here, we have a annual tradition of visiting Tate Farms. This was our third year going and only our second of visiting during the day. Just like last year, we had a fantastic time.

The rest of the pictures are here.

Festival

Every year, on the first Saturday of October, the city of Madison, Alabama hosts the Madison Street Festival.  I had never been, even when I lived in Madison, but this year I heard that Madison Hospital had decided to sponsor all the kid activities, and therefore all the facepainting, pony rides, bounce houses, and crafts would be free.  Also, one of my friends had a booth on Artist's Alley and I felt like we should go and show our support.

It took a little bit of convincing where Todd was concerned, but Saturday morning, despite the chilly, wet weather, we left our house at 8:30 and drove to Madison.  We didn't know what to expect, but at least we were doing something different!

First, we stopped by Jessica's booth to say hi.  Then Todd left with Aerin (and my phone and all my money) to get Jessica some coffee and ended up in the slowest coffee line ever.  So Micah and I had a good thirty-five minutes to hang out with Jessica and examine her jewelry.

While we were waiting, Micah got to see two trains go by up close. I managed to get back over to the tracks in time to see the engine on the second one, so he got to wave at (and be waved at by) the engineer.

When Todd finally showed back up (with some hot chocolate for me, which offset my anger at not being able to get in touch with him to find out when or if he was ever coming back), we decided to wander over to the Kids Pavilion. Micah was a little overwhelmed at first, but he really got into it when we started seeing his a bunch of his daycare friends running around. He got to pet a turtle, get his hair colored, and have his face painted. When he and Kaya (a super sweet little girl from his Preschool class) met up at the bounce house, he really had a blast. After that, he got to pet a pig, two goats, and some chickens.  Aerin was stuck in the stroller the whole time, but she at least was having fun watching everything going on all around.

After all that, it was time for pizza and cookies.  While we were eating, a couple of Ghostbusters walked by. We tried to explain to Micah why they were so cool, and ended up promising that one day he'd get to see the movie and then he'd understand.

When we left, Micah was so tired that he rode in the stroller while Aerin walked.

---------------------------------------------

I am so glad we went. It turned out to be a really fun event, and it was definitely better than being cooped up in the house getting increasingly irritated with each other.  It also gave us the courage to take both kids out to dinner that evening, something we haven't done since Aerin developed her 100-decibel pterodactyl screech and learned to haul full margarita mugs off the table. I like to think maybe we're finally turning that corner where we can once again go out in public and not come home exhausted and covered in splatters of baby-launched cheese sauce.

But if not, still, Saturday was a banner day.

15 Months

• When she sees a bird or a plane flying overhead, she yells, points, then covers her mouth with both hands.
• When she sees a car coming, she yells, points, and starts doing a crazy stomping dance.  Then she starts waving.  (Pretty much everyone waves back.)
• She can climb the stairs unassisted. When she gets to the landing, she stops, sits down, and claps for herself.  Then she finishes climbing the last four stairs.
• She can come down the stairs, mostly without falling to her doom.
• She refuses to wear shoes in the car.  She has trouble removing socks, though.  This requires a lot of howling until someone helps her get it off her heel.
• We moved her upstairs on Micah's birthday. I haven't finished putting everything back up on the walls, so she has a pinwheel mobile hanging over her crib temporarily. She'll try to blow at it to make the pinwheels spin.
• She can say ball, bubble (buhba), mama, dada, hi, and moon (mooh).
• She says "baba" for book and apple.
• She signs for "more" and "please."
• When she hears music, she starts dancing,  Last night she was groovin in her highchair at the Mexican restaurant.
• She loves books. Every morning as we're trying to get out the door, she follows us around with a book in her hand. When I walk into her room at the daycare, she immediately points to the books and starts signing "more please."
• She still desperately wants to squash a cat.  Any cat.
• She's becoming very attached to the pink Snoopy Jessica's mother bought for her at Easter.
• She spends the whole night wandering around her crib. I've never seen a baby scoot around so much in their sleep.
• She really likes wearing Micah's old shoes, so I haven't bought her a new pair. I like to think of them as her ass-kicking shoes.
• She can go down the slide by herself and stand up at the bottom (most of the time).
• She's a tough cookie. She isn't really bothered by things like falling face-first off the ottoman,  sliding off the picnic table she's climbing, or getting whacked in the chest by her brother's feet as he's coming down the slide.
• She hates having her diaper changed.
• She's finally cut all four eye teeth, but they seem to have stopping coming in again. She has all the rest.
• We had to buy a trash can with a lid after I caught her throwing toys in the trash. MULTIPLE TIMES. I can't help but wonder how many she chucked before I noticed.
• She has a temper.
• Oh my god, does she have a temper.
• And a little bit of a violent streak.
• But she is usually sweet and cheerful, so that kind of makes up for it.
• She's not at all what I expected, but she's actually pretty awesome.

60 Year Anniversary

I love seeing these two together.

After six decades of marriage, they still seem to like each other an awful lot.

I find it both inspiring and reassuring that they've been married nearly twice as long as I've been alive.

Happy Anniversary, Bears!

Airplane Party

I don't know what happened. One minute I was all, "aw, get on outta here with that Martha Stewart crap" and the next I was feverishly browing Pinterest and cheerfully chirping to my husband about scrapbook paper and spray paint.  I think it's the eyelashes.  When Micah blinked up at me through them and said, "Mommy, I want a pwane party," the practical part of my brain sort of dissolved into a puddle of goo.



I mean, come on. Do you see those things? You'd fall for it too.
Instead of "sure, maybe" the words that left my mouth were, "Okay, baby, we'll do that." And so we did.

I wanted to keep it simple and fairly cheap, and something we could put together in our limited free time. I didn't want it to be too fussy, but I wanted to go with the airplane theme. And most of all, I wanted the kids to have something to do OUTSIDE.

We spent the preceding week assembling all the various bits and pieces in the evenings. For a while there, it felt like every night was arts and crafts night in our house. We were either cutting, painting, taping, or gluing SOMETHING. But I think it was worth it, because Micah had a blast.
























Sunday night, as I was bathing Micah, he told me, "Mommy, I wish we could have my party EVERY weekend."

You can't ask for a better endorsement than that.