The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Camera-Happy X 3

Okay, I've set up a couple of flickr badges over on the left so I can share my kids' photos.

The first sets (and, like their mother, these children are not hesitant picture-takers, so the sets are rather large) are from this past weekend - Saturday, when they first got their cameras, and Bill and Joe caught some awesome fish, and then Sunday when we took the kids fishing in the morning and to Southwick's Zoo in the afternoon.

I still haven't posted my own pictures from the zoo or the fishing trips - yeah, I'm a slacker.

But - I have to share this - the coolest creature we saw at the zoo on Sunday?  An albino peacock.  Tail feathers on full display.  Stunning.  Just stunning.  Just wandering around outside the zoo.  With an albino hen and a couple of guinnea hens. 

And so now we have three sets of shots of the same bird.

Here's one of Alex's:

And one of Julia's:

And one of mine:

Okay, make that two of mine.  It's my blog.

Amazing, isn't he?

Twirling Dervish

Julia wore her Easter ensemble to daycare today.

It's nice and twirly.

She likes to pretend she's a ballerina...

And just look at her foot - and the way her head is facing.  There's some flexibility right there.

If her clothes were more flowing, she'd have a Stevie Nicks kind of thing going on...

 

And she's not even dizzy.

Gone With the Wind

(This post is for my sister.  She will know why.)

It rained yesterday morning, and drizzled on and off into the afternoon.  Not a great day to play outside after school/daycare.  But Julia wanted to go outside anyway.  She doesn't let silly things like rain or cold get in the way of playing.

Besides, the Easter Bunny brought each of my children their VERY OWN umbrella, and what better time to go outside and play than on a rainy day when Julia could bring her VERY OWN "Ariel" (the Little Mermaid) umbrella out there with her.

So out she went, pink boots, red coat, and Ariel umbrella.  I watched her on and off as she ran around the back yard, or skipped, or ambled...sometimes with the umbrella, sometimes not.  Sometimes it looked like she was talking, or singing.  All in all, a good bit of play time.

But though it wasn't raining much any more, it was windy, and that made it feel colder than the 50+ degrees the thermometer promised.  Soon enough I heard a faint tapping on the storm door and saw the top of Julia's head and her umbrella through the window on the kitchen door.

I opened the inner door, and then carefully held the storm door so she could sidle past it on the top step and come in.

But then a great gust of wind swooped down, grabbed the Arial umbrella and pulled.  Hard.  Julia, still holding to the molded figure of Ariel on the handle, was yanked around with the umbrella and pulled off the top step.  She let go, fortunately, or she'd probably have ended up a few streets away, but she sprawled head and hands first down the (cement) steps and onto the (asphalt) driveway.

It was the funniest thing I've seen in a while - and I've never seen a wind-grabbed umbrella pull a human being anywhere except in "Mary Poppins."

But I swallowed the laughter before it bubbled out because Julia was wailing.  Physically she was fine - no scrapes on her hands or (thank God) on her face.  I think mainly she was just very surprised and scared by the whole experience.

I brought her in the house, hugged her a while, wiped the tears, and listened to her - in a sort of 3-going-on-4-year-old version of Mary Tyler Moore wailing "Oh Rob!" in her Laura Petrie years - recount what had happened.

"aaaaand...the wwwwind just...BLEW me...downthestairs and I FALLED DOWN!"

The Thunderous Threes

I don't remember if the twos were this hard.  I don't think they were. 

Yesterday while I was making dinner, the kids were playing upstairs, as I mentioned in last night's post (below). 

One of the fun things they did was bring a whole bunch of stuffed animals into my bedroom and pile them on the bed.  On the cat.  They thought this was hysterically funny.  The cat was tolerant, but not thrilled.

Well, later on, after dinner, I told them they needed to get all their stuff off the bed and put it back in their rooms.  They had also added other, non-stuffed-animal things like the two ukeleles we have...a box of crayons...and a couple of baseball hats from where they usually hang in the kitchen.

Julia said she would do it "all by mySELF!" so I left her to it.

A bit later, when nothing had been brought back downstairs, I asked Julia if she was done.  I thought maybe she'd just put everything in her bedroom.

She said no...hadn't done it yet.  And I told her to get to it.  NOW.  So she went upstairs again and stayed there for a while.

A bit later, she came back down to the kitchen.  I asked if she was done, and she said no.  So I escorted her back upstairs and started to point out (like she didn't already know) what I wanted her to put away.

And then I saw what she had been doing earlier. 

She had brought magic markers upstairs along with the crayons.

There's a big blue blob - around the size of a quarter on the sheet...and this on one of my pillows:

And how did I know Julia did it?  That Alex hadn't done it earlier?

Because she signed her work:

Princess of the Damned

Earlier this afternoon.

I'm in the kitchen prepping a chicken for dinner.

Julia and Alex have been playing upstairs - wonderful child-play - with lots of shrieking and gurgly laughter.

Julia comes into the kitchen.  The way her heels hit the floor is very businesslike, no-nonsense, and could be intimidating if she wasn't so short.

"Mom."  She stated.  "I gotta tell you something."  Something that cannot wait, by the tone.

"What is it, Julia?"  I ask, still busy with the chicken.

"Mom, look, I got blood."

When she speaks the word, blood has about three syllables.

I look down to see what's bleeding.  She's not crying, so it can't be too bad.

She holds up one tiny finger; her other hand squeezes the finger tightly so that a tiny line of blood appears just beneath the nail.

"How did that happen?"  I ask, turning back to my chicken.

"I don't know" she says, unconcerned now.  Her shoulders shrug in this new tone of voice.

She pauses a bit.

"But it's good to lick!"

Family Portrait

I know I post a lot of pictures of my kids, and some of my husband.  Not much of myself.  I don't really like having my picture taken - probably that's part of the reason I like TAKING pictures - I can hide behind the camera.

But still, my kids and husband don't see my through my own hypercritical lens, and there should, from time to time, be pictures of all four of us as we go through the years.

So, much as I'm reluctant to have my face out there for all to critique see, for my children, I'm posting a recent picture of the four of us.

Free

Yesterday when I was almost about to doze off for a few minutes while the kids were watching something educational on Noggin, a girl banged on my kitchen door and spoke in a friendly and rapid manner so well that all I heard was "free carpet cleaning" and I was completely under her spell.

A little while later, after she'd made a phone call to someone roaming the street in a van and then left to bang on other doors, a gray van pulled up in front of the house, a guy got out and opened the back doors and pulled out a few boxes.

Ah.  Duh.  Free carpet cleaning WITH DEMO.  Oh well, whatever.  Free carpet cleaning, after all.  So I let him in the back door and showed him the carpet in the basement.  The kids were sitting on the couch watching something educational about sea creatures...I think one of the creatures was something called a "Sponge Bob," whatever that is...but when the guy with the boxes came downstairs, they were ready for some new entertainment.

I went upstairs to shut the back door, which I'd forgotten to do when I let the guy in, and as I ran up the stairs I heard Julia, my timid and reclusive child, say "You have dark ears!"  He laughed and said "Yep, and the rest of me's dark, too!" 

He was actually a very nice, polite guy who told me he's got a wife and two daughters - one's five, one's eighteen months - back home in NH.  The Kirby sales force goes on selling field trips about three times a year to other states - each trip is for about a month at a time.  Yikes.  Not the life for me, but he said he really loved his job.  I don't know if that was somehow part of the sales pitch, but he really seemed pretty genuine. 

Years ago we agreed to a free demo by a water filtration system company (for which we were to receive a case of orange juice, so initially we thought it would be worth it), and the woman who held us hostage did the demo was horrid.  At some point during the torture, I stopped being polite.  I just wanted her to finish up and go.  She had this annoying habit of saying a little something and then turning on a gaudy three hundred kilowatt smile that wasn't the least bit happy or friendly or benevolent.  It was a hungry shark smile, and she had visions of commission checks dancing in her head.  She very nearly stepped across a line when she said something about us willingly bathing our son in poluted water (from the unfiltered tap in the tub) - in a guilt-inducing "you're pouring raw sewage on your year-old child" kind of way.  She didn't CROSS the line, or I'd be blogging from a prison.  But she stepped right up to it and dangled her toe on the other side.  The best part was when she knew she'd lost us but had to continue on with her presentation because it was her job.  We just glared at her while she flipped through her ring binder with filtration information and flashed her slightly dimmer smile at us out of habit.  The best part was when she called her boss to report that "They aren't interested in improving the quality of the water they use" or something like that.  HAHAHA.  Like we're suddenly going to realize we're terrible and irresponsible parents, letting our son bathe in filth and doing our dishes in water that has a mineral or two in it.  Just give us our juice and be on your way, shark lady. 

Anyway - this guy with the Kirby all-in-one vacuum/carpet cleaner/hardwood cleaner/air filter/chimney cleaner/sink unclogger/dishwasher and diaper changer - he was nothing like smiley shark lady.  So I listened to his sales pitch, and he actually sounded pretty sincere and not pushy at all.  Like we were just hanging out waiting for a bus, and he was telling me about his vacuum cleaner/carpet cleaner.  Just because he was excited about it. 

Anyway, he got on with his job and I sent the kids out to play (and to leave him alone).  Julia had had a couple unpleasant bouts of diarrhea earlier and wasn't her entirely happy self, but that seemed to change when the sales guy showed up.  So she and Alex played out there for a while, and when they came in, the carpet had been vacuumed twice (once with ours and then once with the Kirby - just so he could show me how much dirt my old (it's around 20) vacuum cleaner leaves behind and how fabulously the Kirby dirt sucking action is - and then spots were pre-treated and then the whole carpet was doused with cleaner and he was letting that soak in for a few minutes before letting the Kirby loose to slurp it all back up again.

He spent a lot of time and did a great job.  When he finished up, the kids and I were in the living room and Alex was reading to us from a little book they put together in his kindergarten class.  They're working on rhyming words, and families of words that end the same, like the "an" family - dan, can, man, fan, etc.  So he was reading from the book and Julia was half listening, half trying to distract him.  I was listening and trying to keep her from pissing Alex off.  I really didn't want to have to break up a fight while there was a stranger in the house.

He came up the stairs with the tray that catches the dirty, gunky water and debris from the carpet cleaning process, and he headed into the bathroom to dump it down the toilet. 

Bored with Alex and his book, Julia followed the more interesting, dark-eared man to the bathroom to see what he was up to.  She stood in the doorway for a moment, just observing.

And then she said

"Guess what! I had the dropping poops today!"

There was a full second of complete and utter silence in my house, and then both the salesman and I burst out laughing.  For quite a while.  Thank goodness he has small kids, for one thing. 

And at least if he wasn't going to get a commission from his visit, he got some entertainment out of it.

Update on the Face

For those of you following along, here's the latest picture (taken this morning) of Julia's face (you can read about the initial event here and the update I did 3 days later here).

She's healed up pretty well - you can see some thin, shallow pink scars that I think will fade out over time, and I am applying Eucerin healing ointment (or whatever it's called) a few times a day as well. 

She is none the worse for wear.

In fact, on Sunday, my husband - who has recently become a born-again skiier (yes), took both kids to a local ski area, got them both outfitted in rental equipment, bought Julia a cute pair of goggles (pink), and the kids had an hour lesson while Bill hit the slopes.

Apparently the instructor told Bill he was really impressed with Julia - for one thing, that she didn't lose interest halfway through the lesson (because of her age) and also because she is a very determined little soul and did not give up.  If she fell, she got back up and tried again.  And again.  And again.  She was completely wiped out by the end of the lesson, but she had a great time and wants to ski again.

Which is fine with me, as long as she wears a full helmet of some kind to protect her face.  I don't think that's asking for much.

Little Thinker

A Few Little Things

My left eye feels like morning has come too soon and the light is just way too bright for it.  My right eye is fine, however.  Eye strain?  Should I sit facing the other way on this couch on alternate days so each eye is exposed to the vast brightness of outside equally, and the left eye won't be so exhausted?  Perhaps an eye exam.  But then, the last time I was there, the doctor cheerfully told me that when you hit 40, your eyes start to get drier or something and you start to need glasses for reading (or typing on the laptop?).  I was not as cheered by all this as he seemed to be.

~~~~~

I brought Alex to the Dr yesterday because this cough he's had is not going away, and he's congested and snores so loudly the house shakes.  Okay, that last part isn't true.  But his voice has started getting all raspy, and his tonsils looked like little moons in his throat, and so I figured we should check it all out. 

Our appointment was mid-afternoon, after Bill got home from work, so it was just me and Alex, and Julia stayed home with her father.  Alex is fun to hang out with.  Plus he's very sweet and affectionate and cute and my son and my firstborn and an interesting and sensitive little person.  He is generous with hugs and I Love You, Mommy, and I am greedily inhaling and absorbing all of that, because I know the day will come when these things will not be dispensed with such abandon.

Anyway, we hung out in the waiting room for a while - Mondays are busy, especially Mondays after school vacation weeks.  We watched other bits of families come and go...saw a couple of little babies...he's kind of obsessed with babies at the moment.  He wants me to have another one.  I tell him over and over that we want two, we have two, and we're not planning to go beyond two.  I remind him good friends of ours have a baby that he sees on a semi-regular basis.  That should be enough.  But still.  He suggests names for this fictional third child of mine.  He has clearly given this a lot of thought.  Perhaps we should get him another pet.

Finally we were called into the examining room, I told the nurse what was going on, Alex contributed his five cents' worth (he is my child - he has more than two cents' worth of input), she took his temp (normal) and said the doctor would be in shortly.  We played "I Spy" and he showed me how he could hoist himself up on the exam table all by himself because he's a big boy. 

The doctor came in - she's not our regular doctor, but all of the doctors where we take the kids are fabulous, so I don't mind seeing someone different now and then - and looked in Alex's ears, listened to him breathe, and peered at his throat.  He's got some congestion in his right lung, and yes, his tonsils ARE big. 

She decided she'd test him for strep.  His sore throat is gone, and he hadn't had a fever.  But might as well rule it out, since it's prime time of the year for strep and related adventures.  She left the room to get the tube with the giant Q-tips, and when she came back she explained to Alex that she just needed to tap the back of his throat with these things. 

"Will they take the red off it?" he asked.  I love this age.

Well, I guess anyone reading this has most likely had a strep test.  I think I'd rather have a needle in my arm than have giant Q-tips jabbed into my throat.  Just for the record. 

Alex was sitting up on the exam table, and the doctor tried to hold his tongue down with a tongue depressor so she could poke his throat, but he didn't like that tongue depressor.  Not one little bit.  He kept pulling away, or shutting his mouth...lips firmly pressed together, eyes fearful and suspicious.  Need a plan B.

Plan B was to have him sit on my lap and have me hold his hands so he couldn't grab the instruments of torture from her hands.  That worked fine, except his head was still free of restraint, and there wasn't much I could do to keep him from pulling his head back or clamping his teeth down on the oversized popsicle stick and not letting go.  The doctor finally had to emphasize that she couldn't take it out of his mouth until he let go of it.

All this gave me horrid flashbacks to a bright, high-ceilinged office, a huge red high-backed leather chair, a kindly doctor with a big flat wooden paddle that he needed to stick down my throat (it seemed), and the fact that it took my mother and the nurse to hold me in that chair so he could take a look.  The perfume of rubbing alcohol filled the air, and I can't smell it to this day without the urge to gag.

I suggested to Alex's doctor that maybe without the tongue depressor she'd have better luck.  I told him to say "loud" really loudly (* over the weekend he was demonstrating "LOUD" and "soft" and that's when I happened to get a REALLY good look at his throat).  Eventually that worked, and I felt the tap of cotton swab in my own throat when he jerked back from the nice doctor and her giant Q-tips.  He looked betrayed and annoyed and kept swallowing, trying to get rid of that poked feeling.  I told him a lollipop would help.  I told him he deserved two.  The doctor said she'd be back in five minutes with the results.

Five minutes later.  He has strep.  Antibiotics are prescribed.  He can't go back to school til Wednesday. 

As we were leaving, the doctor told Alex he could go get his two lollipops, and he told her they weren't both for him. 

"One is for me because I'm sick and I was a good boy, and the other one is for my sister because she has a bloody face!"  The doctor looked at me but before I could say anything, Alex launched into a lengthy recap of Julia's "agony of defeat" moment on Sunday.  I tried to condense it, but Alex actually waved a hand at me, stepped IN FRONT of me and told me he could tell it because he was there and I wasn't.  The doctor listened intently to the story and then confirmed that yes, Julia did deserve a lollipop after that.

~~~~~

Julia's pink elephant has gone missing.   

Yesterday we were "doing a big clean up" in the kids' bedroom, because I am just so sick of the coughing and congestion and dry air and dust and closed windows and germs and all that.  A part of me wanted to just set all the toys on fire, as that would be the quickest way to get rid of them and whatever stray germs had colonized in the fake fur.  But instead we stripped beds and dusted and cleaned doorknobs and gathered all the stuffed animals into a pile so I can wash them in vats of boiling bleach water batches over the next couple of days, along with all the sheets and blankets and all that.  As we sorted stuffed animlas (I am washing them by size), I put Julia's elephant on her stripped bed because I just washed it the other day.  I didn't want it mingling with the germy toys.  I didn't think about it again until after dinner, when I remade the beds and the elephant wasn't on the matterss any more.  I thought she'd probably been playing with it while Alex and I were at the doctor's.  But Bill didn't know where it was.  Julia didn't.  And it wasn't in any of the obvious or usual spots. 

Last night Julia woke up several times and after searching around in the dark on her bed, would start whimpering because she couldn't find her elephant.  I'd explain that we would find it the next day, and she would cry, so I'd bring her into our bed til she fell asleep and I fell asleep and then I'd wake up when she started grinding her teeth, so I'd bring her back to her own bed and wait for the next round.  Maybe that's why my left eye is so tired.

As I've been typing, the kids have been searching, giant flashlight in Alex's hands, for this missing pink pachyderm.  No luck so far.  I have a feeling I'm going to spend my entire day looking for this thing.

~~~~~

And it occurred to me this morning...Julia had a bit of a sore throat last week, AND a low fever.  So I am thinking I need to get her in to see the doctor today so she can have her throat swabbed too.

That should go well. 

~~~~~

Update:  I found the elephant.  I started loading the first batch of germy stuffed animals into the washing machine and there it was.  I would have SWORN on all sorts of holy publications that I hadn't put the elephant in there.  But clearly I was mistaken.  Or Julia stuffed it in there to be helpful.  Or I am just losing my sanity. 

That last one seems the obvious choice to me.

Face First

(Let me know if you see a pattern...)

When she was oh, a little over a year old, I think, and still getting her sea legs, she took a digger going from the kitchen step at my parents' house onto the rug on the porch.

And for a little while, she looked like this:

 

And then...let's see, when was it...around a year later, she was jumping on Alex's bed - the one that has the iron headboard and footboard with the pretty scrollwork (used to be mine) - and she dove face-first into the footboard, split her lip and ended up with 4 stitches and looked kind of like this:

And then...a couple of months ago, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease, and one of the symptoms was the partial paralysis, or palsy, in her face, as evidenced here:

Granted, she looks kind of cute with that crooked grin above, but still...a three year old child doesn't need palsy.

Fortunately that disappeared and she went through her antibiotics and all that, and apart from a cold this week, she's been doing pretty well.

So anyway, today, being the last day of winter break, Bill thought it would be nice to take the kids sledding over at City Park.  He bundled them up in their snow pants and hats and boots and jackets and mittens, and off they went, bound for adventure.

I took a leisurely shower, puttered around a bit and was putting the coffee cups in the dishwasher when the car pulled in the driveway, and Bill came in the door carrying Julia.  I took her and brought her into the bathroom, sat her on the edge of the sink, peeled off her winter outerwear, and examined her little face.

And right now?  It's looking something like this:

Haircuts

Alex's hair had been getting rather shaggy lately, so last week I brought him to my sister's house so she could trim it.  To save time, she was just going to use the electric clippers on the longest setting (so he'd at least HAVE some hair left at the end) and, knowing how expressive Alex's face can be during these events, I sat there and took pictures through the whole thing. 

If you're interested, here's how it went....

Mini Me

When I take all my backyard nature photos of squirrels and assorted birds, I set up my camera (w/telephoto zoom attached) on a mini tripod on the kitchen counter just to the left of the sink.  That's the spot for the best view of the back yard, including the shelf on the deck rail that was originally constructed as outdoor counter space but currenly is the winter feeding station. 

Anyway, Julia likes to sit on the counter and take pictures, too.  I've let her look through the viewfinder of my camera and snap pictures.  That's the lovely thing about the digital camera - she can shoot as many pictures as she wants and if they aren't any good - I can delete them. 

Anyway, last weekend she and I actually had a tug-of-war with the camera because she wanted to take a picture and so did I.  The thing was, there was a male cardinal in the cherry tree and THAT was what I wanted to shoot.  But Julia wanted to take a picture of the bluejay in the same tree.  And so she is trying with her little fingers to pry the camera out of my grip, and I'm trying to fend her off, focus on the cardinal, and prevent my nice shiny equipment from slamming into the sink in the process.  Ultimately, the possessive big sister of my personality reared up and shouted (I'm kind of ashamed) "It's MY CAMERA!"  At which point Julia burst into tears and the cardinal flew away.

So.  Yesterday, in order to avoid all of that, I went digging around in camera bags and found this:

My father gave me this for Christmas in 1984 and I've shot zillions of rolls of film with it.  The majority of my adult life has been viewed through that lens.  Or through the other two lenses I have for that camera.  With that camera, I've photographed my sister's kids as newborns, and also my own. 

Anyway.  I got this camera out and found a couple rolls of film and another mini tripod, and I set Julia up next to me at the window.  I taught her how to focus (sort of - she doesn't really have that down yet) and how to crank the film over IMMEDIATELY after taking a picture.  (This is a big deal for me - it drives me INSANE when someone - like my husband - doesn't crank the film over.  SO frustrating.)  Anyway - my children will be brought up right, in this respect at least.  I quizzed Julia this morning - Julia, what do you do after you take the picture?  "Crank it!"  That's my girl.

During a lull in the backyard wildlife activity, we went to take a look out the front window, to see if the birds or squirrels were doing anything there.  No.  But Julia took several shots of our truck, which was parked in the street.  And then we sat on the couch and took pictures of each other.  It was really fun....

Okay, now see my delicately extended pinky in the shot below?  (She and I switched cameras.)

Now look at her equally delicately raised pinky here:

She has decided the camera is hers.  I try to explain the concept of borrowing, but she ignores me.

She shot two rolls of film yesterday.  It'll be interesting to see how they come out.  At times she would also say "Let's trade!" so she could snap away on my digital at lightening speed for a while.  I'm not going to show you ALL the pictures she took.  But there are about twenty that look almost exactly like this one:

Eventually the squirrels and birds ate all the food or at least became too bloated to eat any more.  So Julia turned to family portraits.  She used the last couple of shots on her second roll of film up, and then asked to borrow my camera. 

Because you know how it is when you're trying to do a group photo.  Someone blinks in one or someone's not smiling - you have to shoot a bunch just to get one or two good ones.

Here are hers....

When You See An Animal, Start Clicking

We took the kids to the zoo today, and I picked up a disposable camera for each of them.  They've used them before, so they just needed a quick refresher once we arrived.  I told them both that they only had 27 shots, so choose carefully. 

Alex was very selective - only one photo per animal.  I don't have the pictures back yet, so I don't know how he did, but he was very aware that he had a finite number of shots.

Julia, on the other hand, informed anyone within earshot "When you see an animal, start clicking."  A motto not unlike my own early philosophy.  And the current one, to be truthful.  As a result, once we passed the elephants and were looking through the class at the seals, Julia tried to take a picture but couldn't.  Bill checked her camera and sure enough, she'd finished the roll.  (For comparison's sake, Alex had about 15 shots left at this point.)  Anyway, this bad news did not sit well with our young nature photographer.

She stood there, near the seal tank, staring at the ground and refusing to follow Bill and Alex as they headed toward the giraffe house.  I half followed them, half coaxed her.  And I promised her I'd take pictures of anything she wanted me to.  But still, she was reluctant to smile.  She wanted her OWN camera, so she could take her OWN pictures. 

Ah Julia.  I understand completely.

Thank goodness you were born in the digital age.  I think you'll enjoy a nice big memory card one day, when you have a camera of your own.

She wants pink.

A Little Snow This Morning

 

Julia snippet

"Julia, what kind of bird is it that stands on one leg...and is pink..."

"A...FALINGO!"

Wishing for a Tsunami at the Pool

The kids had swim class tonight.  We got there earlier than usual, so we tied the styrofoam "bubbles" around the kids' middles and sat in the little stand of benches to watch the other classes.  There were some more advanced classes going on at the far end of the pool - the diving end.  We watched those kids do cannonballs and practice dives, and we watched other kids and their parents arriving.

It's hot in the pool room.  Hot and humid.  Bill and I dress for summer on swim nights just so we don't pass out.

We were sitting in the front row of the benches, close to the shallow end of the pool.  There was a beginner class in front of us, about 5 kids with varying levels of comfort in the water, and their teacher, a slightly heavyset girl in a one-piece swimsuit.  I hadn't seen here there before.  She was encouraging the kids to follow her back and forth across the shallow end..."Come on, fishy-fishies!"  And they'd paddle along behind her, then suddenly she'd turn around and holler "Shark attack!" and pretend to chase them back the way they'd come.  Lots of squealing and laughter.  It looked like a fun way to learn to swim.

At last the lifeguard on duty blew her whistle and that half hour session was over.  Kids climbed out of every side of the pool, parents met them with towels, and the kids waiting for the next session hung around until their teachers called them by name.

The girl teaching the class in front of us stayed in the water and leaned forward onto the edge of the pool and called out "Rays and Starfish!  Any Rays or Starfish?"  She waited there, looking around expectantly, and finally one little boy and his mom came over to her.  She explained that the other teacher for that group was out sick and she was the sub.  The mother nodded and the little boy headed off to the end of the pool to wait for the sub and the rest of his class.  The sub stayed where she was to keep an eye out for other Rays.  Or Starfish.

And while the girl was standing there in the water, leaning forward slightly, in our direction, Julia, who was sitting on my lap, pointed to the sub and said cheerfully - and loudly, of course -

"Mommy!  She has a big chest!" 

Unfortunately, there was no earthquake right then, so all I could do was look at the sub with an apologetic, embarrassed look on my face and clap my hand over Julia's mouth.  Fortunately for me, this girl wasn't upset - she shrugged and smiled and said "I do."  I smiled gratefully at her and then was glad to have a reason to look away when Alex and Julia's teacher started calling their names. 

Bill, meanwhile, looked everywhere but at the girl in the pool or at me until she had headed over to the class she was covering.  I looked at Bill.  His smile was fixed and if I hadn't known better I'd have thought he had just lost control of a bodily function or two.  He sort of murmered "what did she say?" at me and I told him and he nodded - just as he'd thought.  And ignored.  "I just kept talking to Alex," he told me.  "I was so glad Julia was sitting on your lap."

I told him I was just glad she got the terminology right.  She used to say "nest." 

I was also glad the sub was teaching her class at the deep end of the pool.  Way too far away for any accidentaly eye contact.  When class ended, we fled.

We Interrupt This Photo Essay on Last Night's Dinner Preparation...

So yesterday Bill (mainly Bill - I was soft shell crab fry cook, dishwasher, and photographer) prepared this absolute FEAST of Japanese food.  Primarily sushi - related things, but not just that.  I'll post the recipes separately, because there are too many to cram into this one post.

But after the meal, and after the clean-up, I uploaded the pictures I'd taken while the meal was being prepared, and what struck me funny were not the pictures of the food, but the unexpected pictures that showed up here and there in between the chronology of the food prep.  Basically what happened was while Bill was making the soft shell crab maki rolls, and I was taking pictures of them, Alex yelled from the other room "Mommy!  Come quick!  The sky is pink!"  And so I just peeked out the kitchen window, saw that yes, the sun was setting and pink clouds dotted the sky, and took a quick step outside to take a few pictures before the pinkness was gone.  Alex knows I will to this, so he is vigilant.

So here's an example of my viewing experience...

Ready For Her Close-up

Some people, like myself, do all they can to avoid being photographed.

Others...

Julia update - blood test results

Forgot to mention this before, but I got a call from Julia's doctor exactly a week after her horrible experience with sharp things and BLOOD to let me know the results were back and yes, she indeed had Lyme Disease.  I forget how he explained this, but from the test they could tell she was in early stages, so we caught it at a good time.  Yay.

She's going to be on her amoxicillin for the rest of this month, and after that, fingers crossed, she will be fine.

Sudshide

Julia's got a bit of a stuffy nose...but it doesn't stop her from singing:

You are by sudshide

By ody sudshide

You bake be hapPEEEEEEEEEE

Whed skies a graaaaaaay

You dever doe deeeeeeear

How buch I looooooooooove you

Peas doh taaaaaaaaake

By sudshide

A--------waaaaaaaay.

Julia update - Returning to Normal

We're very fortunate that (knock wood) Julia's bout with Lyme disease has been on the milder side.  The son of a friend of mine is on his second round of amoxicillin and suffered from a swollen knee and allover joint pain.  Poor kid!!

Julia's face is looking so much better - it's just about back to the way it was, pre-palsy.  And even better, her personality, her moods - she's so much better in that respect as well.  Whereas before she would cry if you looked at her the wrong way, now she is back to her sunshiney-dispositioned self.  She's also sleeping better, which is wonderful for everyone.  She'll be on the "pink medicine" for the rest of the month, and hopefully that will be the end of this episode.  (Fingers AND toes crossed!)

We were at my sister's house on Sunday so she could trim Julia's bangs.  Julia found a pair of sunglasses, and I shot this picture.  It came out a bit blurry, but I liked the look anyway.  I messed around with the color (really?) and here's the result. 

An Experience Worth Telling

Last night was the next session of my kids' swim class at the local Y.  They're both in the Pike class, though Alex could progress up to Eel, but he's still kind of leery about jumping into the water unassisted.  He does well once he's in, but it's the scary jumping in that is holding him back from my husband's Olympic dreams.  Ah well.  We all get our bubbles burst from time to time.

Anyway, couple of little things from last night.  Okay, three.

First thing - it was EVEN hotter/more humid than usual in the pool room over there.  Just in case you were wondering.

Second thing - while we're sitting with the kids on the benches waiting for the earlier class to finish up, I noticed a little girl about Alex's height in a swimsuit.  She looked familiar, and within a second, I recognized her.  She and Alex went to daycare together when he went to earlier place (where he went for about 5 years of his 5 and a half years on the planet).  She is very cute in a tomboy girl way.  Pretty brown hair, big brown eyes, couple of baby teeth missing in the front with the edges of the adult teeth just starting to appear.  Very quick to smile.  Her father was tying the styrofoam "bubble" around her middle when she noticed Alex.  And I watched her telling her father and pointing to Alex.  So I hissed at Alex - "Hey, isn't that?" And he looked and looked away, because he is a cool macho boy and girls are yucky.  Bill joined in and tried to get Alex to say hi, but that didn't work either.  There was something very interesting Alex needed to stare at on the opposite side of the room.  The girl and her father sat a row behind us and as they climbed up, she said hi to Alex.  But of course, like I said, Alex is a cool, macho manly man boy and girls are yucky.  So he ignored her.  Which I thought was rude and so I hissed (yes, it's my day to speak Parsel-tongue) at him "SAY HI TO HER!!!!!" and, realizing I wasn't just kidding around, he turned around and tossed a casual "hi" over his shoulder in her general direction.

When the teachers came around to call the names of the students in their classes, GUESS who was in class with my kids.  Yep!  Bill and I grinned to each other like the goofy parents we have become and settled in to watch the show. 

Actually, it wasn't a whole lot of a show.  At first, she was at one end of the little line-up of students and he was WAAAAAAAAAAAY at the other.  Eventually, after late registrants had been added to the classes, there were 7 kids in that class.  Two boys, five girls.  And while Julia was still the tiniest, there was one other girl around her size.  But back to Alex.  The teacher passed out pool noodles to all of the kids and they hooked the noodles under their arms, across their chests, and began paddling and kicking across the width of the pool.  This is old hat for Alex and Julia, and like I said, Alex is doing well once he's in the water, so once he got acclimated to the process, he was way out in front of the pack every time.  They'd paddle and kick and splash across the pool, with their instructor helping the kids who were new to it, or joking around with Julia, the class clown.  (She hit him with a pool noodle last session.  And she was splashing water at him today.  He is great with little kids.)

Anyway, again, back to Alex.  After one or two races across the pool, lo and behold, guess who now was lined up next to Alex along the edge of the pool.  And guess who was chatting away with her like they were old war buddies.  I sat there elbowing Bill and giggling.  I'm so goofy.  Not much else came of it, but at least he wasn't being aloof any more.  He said "bye" to her as we left.  Girls aren't ALWAYS yucky.

And the third thing.  If you've been reading this blog for oh, the past two weeks or so, you know that Julia has had a bout with Lyme disease.  The most recent adventure was when she had to have blood work done.   That was last Friday.  One of her band aids (the Diego one, on her right arm) came off over the weekend, but she wouldn't allow anyone to touch the Dora band aid.  I'm sure she was afraid of more pain. 

But with pain and suffering often come great stories to share with friends and family, and Julia, while not as wordy as her mother, told her story with great passion and drama.  I overheard her telling Alex about it, her eyes wide, her face animated....

"I went to the BAD doctor, and she put a SHARP THING in my arms and I GOT BLOOD!"  And as she said this, she'd hold our her wounded arms, pointing at the band aids (or where the Diego band aid had been), her face drawn and grave.  She knows she's lucky to have survived that morning.  She's told the story to a few people now, and has her delivery down pat.

So back to last night.  We're watching the kids go back and forth with their pool noodles, and you know, Julia's small and so she kind of gets hemmed in by some of the slightly larger kids who can take off faster.  But she can move pretty fast if no one's in her way.  She smiles hugely through the whole class. 

She is not, however, there to learn to swim.  At least it didn't seem like that last night.  No, this is her social hour.  Social half hour.  She and the second-to-littlest girl bonded immediately and spent the swim-across-the-pool time chatting away about hair and nails and makeup and boys. 

We didn't notice this immediately, because we were too busy watching Alex and looking for signs of romance there.  And then Bill said "Why is she swimming with her arm like that?"  I looked, and there, in the middle of the pack, was Julia, her left arm raised straight up.  She looked like she was at a synchronized swim team practice session.  I waited for the next graceful move...and then I looked at her face.  It was no longer smiling.  It was grave.  Somber.  And her mouth was moving.  She was talking to her little best friend, and she was telling her the story of the Bad Doctor Who Put a Sharp Thing in her arms.  I saw Julia's mouth as it formed the words "And I got BLOOD!" 

She'd been holding up that arm so her little friend could see, with her own eyes, the scars of battle.

 

Julia the Brave

Just a few pictures from this afternoon...

   

Julia Update - Adventures at the Lab

I remember one time when I was pregnant with one of my kids - I think it was Alex - and I had to go have some routine lab work done, which, of course, included blood work.  I'm okay having blood taken, but it's not my most favorite activity in the world.  I think I'd be a little worried about myself it it was, actually.

Anyway, I went to the lab to pee in a cup and give them some blood.  And so this lab chick did the usual tying off of my left arm, swabbed the crook of my elbow with alcohol, and tapped on the tender area a bit to get a little blood vessel to show itself.  Tap tap tap.  Apparently the veins are shy in my arms.  Anyway, she finally decided to go for it, and proceeded to jab the needle in and FISH AROUND IN MY ARM A BIT because the vein had retreated somewhere deep in my arm and she couldn't find it.

It hurt.

After a bit of that, she removed the needle and decided to try the other arm.  Same routine - swabbing and tapping.  And then the jab - and MORE SEARCHING FOR A VEIN.  Do you know what it feels like to have a little needle under your skin, searching around for something with blood in it?  Oddly enough, IT DOESN'T FEEL GOOD.

So then she finally thought she should get some help, so she called in another lab worker - someone with experience in what she told me were extremely thin veins - and that woman nailed it on the first try.

I have since gone into any bloodwork situation advising whoever is wielding the needle that I HAVE VERY THIN VEINS - PLEASE USE A SKINNY NEEDLE until one day someone told me I didn't have thin veins at all.  Perhaps that other woman just didn't do a good job.  And that seems to have been the case.

That was just a little background story for you.

This morning, after dropping Alex off at kindergarten, Julia and I got some chocolate donuts to fortify ourselves and headed down to the lab so Julia could be thoroughly tested for Lyme.  She carred in a little plastic bear with her, and we took a number and waited.  Not a long wait - we were the first ones there. 

A young, pleasant girl wearing medical profession white shoes led us through a labyrinth to the little blood-drawing room.  I gave her the prescription page from Julia's Dr with all the tests he wanted run, and she started looking through the cupboards for something.  Perhaps a textbook.  Oops, that was prematurely  mean of me.

Then she said she didn't have any of the bottles for pediatric bloodwork - they have a pink top, apparently - so she called another lab office in another building in the same enclave of brick medical buildings to see if they had some.  They didn't.  The girl she spoke with told her it was ok to use a normal adult bottle.  So after taking off Julia's coat and putting it back on, I took it off again, and mine, and we sat on the chair of torture.

Julia sat on my lap, and this cushioned table thing came down to lock us in.  Lab Girl gathered the bottle and another bottle with an amber liquid in it, and a little carry tray with all the stuff that would be a part of Julia's fun and exciting lab experience.  For some reason, Lab Girl put these things on the padded surface of the locking-us-in table...it crossed my mind that it wouldn't be a good thing if that bottle of liquid got shoved off by mistake.  But - not my call to make.

Lab Chick pushed up the sleeve of Julia's left arm and swabbed it with alcohol and then with iodine.  I tried to distract Julia by discussing the color of the iodine and Look!  It has little bubbles!  It's amazing how many dopey things have come out of my mouth since becoming a mother.  I mean - in addition to the regular dopey things that came out before.

Anyway, Lab Chick wrapped a blue rubbery strap around Julia's biceps to cut off the flow or to give her a preview of the hell to come.  Lab Chick was nice enough - she asked Julia if she was strong, if she liked Dora, and normal girly chitchat like that.  She had me hold Julia's right arm under the restraint bar/table thing, and hold Julia's left wrist.  She had  Julia hold an empty vial and squeeze really hard.  Then Lab Chick tapped on the tender little inner aspect of Julia's elbow and stuck Julia with the needle.

Julia wrenched her arm away (she is very strong...and I wasn't holding her tightly enough, obviously) and cried out and from there it just got worse and worse.  I tightened my hold on Julia's tiny little wrist and basically stretched her arm out so she couldn't wiggle, and I held her tightly around her little waist with my other arm.  Lab Chick tried again and we watched my baby's red blood flow through the skinny tube into a vial. 

And we listened to Julia yell and cry.  It was horrible.  But not AS horrible as it was to become.  I kept murmering "it's okay, it's okay, you're a brave girl, you're being such a good girl, it's almost done, it's almost done" in one long run-on sentence in Julia's ear, and I'm sure she didn't hear any of it because she was busy hollering "I WANNA GO HOME!" over and over, pausing occasionally to sob and gulp and gasp shakily for more air before yelling some more.

Lab Chick finally pulled the needle out and pressed some gauze on the wound and got Julia her Dora band aid.  Look!  Who else is that?  It's Boots!  And Map!  Julia's crying slowed and she calmed down.  And Lab Chick finally decided to mention that she wasn't done yet.  She still needed blood to put in with that amber liquid.  I guess that was for the actual Lyme test.  She looked a little dubious about continuing.  "It's up to you..." she told me.

If it was really up to me we would have been gone.  But that would mean coming back another day for the rest of it, and that would probably be harder to accomplish, since Julia would recognize the building and I wasn't sure I could get the local National Guard to get her into the building again.

So I said to Lab Chick "It's got to be done.  We're here already.  Her other arm, right?" 

Of course, once Julia heard me say "other arm" she knew what was going to happen and she fought with all her strength to not allow it.  Unfortunately, she's only three and a half and so eventually she was back on my lap, left arm locked (by my left arm) around her torso, her right wrist in my right hand. 

And Julia was bawling.  And her voice dropped octaves and got all scratchy - she sounded like Suzanne Pleshette - and she just kept crying NO I DON'T WANT THAT IN MY ARM I WANNA GO HOME and other stuff I couldn't even understand because Julia was drooling and crying and gasping and I was trying to ignore it all so that I could do the sucky job of being a human manacle.

And here's where it got worse.  Lab Chick got a bunch of blood flowing, and then she apparently had to get that blood into the bottle of amber liquid, which was now at my right on the arm of the torture chair of hell.  And she just...I don't know if she was flustered or just SLOW BY NATURE or what, but she seemed unsure of what to do, and couldn't get the little blood thing into the little plastic funnel contraption for the bottle (to keep everything sterile) and while she's screwing around trying to figure out how it worked, blood was dripping out the end of the little tube, and she's distracted by it and NOT MOVING FAST ENOUGH IN MY OPINION and Julia's loud and practically incoherent (at one point she choked out "MOMMY (gasp) I'M BEING A (sob) GOOD GIRL NOW!!!" - I almost started crying myself at that point), and meanwhile the freaking needle is still in Julia's arm WIGGLING AROUND and I wanted to BITE Lab Chick or scream at her, but I didn't want to make Julia more upset, so I just fumed quietly in my head and kept trying to reassure Julia and NOT BITE LAB CHICK.  After screwing around pointlessly for oh, what seemed like several millennia, Lab Chick finally just took the needle out of Julia's arm,  had me hold some gauze on it and she finally figured out how to get Julia's blood into the amber liquid. 

Julia got a Diego band aid this time.  She politely declined the offer of a sticker.  "I just wanna go home, Mommy."

Instead we went to the grocery store to get a few things (which I just realized are still in their bags on the kitchen floor, heh heh, dairy products and all) and told her we could get her a balloon...no, TWO balloons, one for each arm.  If she'd asked, I'd have bought all the balloons.  Instead, she saw a Pink Panther balloon and we also found a Sponge Bob balloon for Alex.  And I bought her a Go Diego Go DVD.  And a monstrous box of goldfish crackers.  If she'd asked for lobster and filet mignon, I'd have bought that too. 

I had this very strong urge to just go through the store loading the cart with anything she might want.  But I didn't.  I also had an urge to cry.  And to throw up.  I didn't do those either.

Right now Julia is downstairs eating goldfish and watching Diego rescue animals. 

And I am trying to shake the sound of "MOMMY, I'M BEING A GOOD GIRL NOW!" out of my ears.

Julia update

Not a whole lot to report - I called the doctor's office this morning and her pediatrician called me back.  I told him about the partial facial paralysis and he said he was convinced it was Lyme disease, and that he wanted to put her on another antibiotic for 28 days, and wanted her to have a blood test as well.  And he wanted to see her, just to make sure there weren't any other neurological issues.

So we had an appointment this afternoon.  Dr. S put Julia through a bunch of physical tests - had her make different faces, tapped her knees and checked other reflexes.  It was sort of funny - I wonder, in particular, what she was thinking of all this when he had her stand in front of him, her eyes shut, arms out, and he poked her in the chest from various angles, I'm guessing to check her balance.  She stayed upright.  Then he had her walk across the exam room and back.  She looked at him a little suspiciously, maybe wondering what annoying thing he was going to do next.

But she was a good sport, and he's a great doctor - I can't say enough about that - and then he told me that the reason he wanted her to come in was more to set his own mind at ease - there was a slim possibility that there was something else wrong (I can't remember what he called it) that could result in damage to her brain.  "But she's way too healthy for that," he told me, while she and Alex were climbing around on the exam table, leaning over the side.  I was trying to pay attention to Dr. S while wondering how much damage she'd do to her brain if she fell off and landed on her head.  But she didn't fall.

I'll bring her in for the blood test at the lab tomorrow - it was temporarily closed when we went over there today. 

So anyway, that's the scoop.  She's finishing up her other antibiotic, and she started the amoxicillin at bedtime tonight. 

I had a bout with Lyme disease a bunch of years ago - I think I was out of work for about a month - it was kind of like having Mono, which I have also had.  I just felt achy all over, exhausted, I slept a lot, I just didn't feel well for a long time. 

So I'm sure she's not feeling great either - she has frequent bouts of crying, she's much more sensitive, emotionally, and gets upset very easily, especially if Alex is teasing her (or merely annoying her in an older brotherly way).   She's getting a dose of Tylenol in the morning, and a dose of Motrin before bed, and that seems to be enough.  We play that by ear.  And she gets a lot of hugs and snuggling.  Whatever will work for her.  Fortunately she's not miserable all the time.  It's just that when she is, she really is.   

I'll update again when there's something new to tell. 

If it's not one thing...

...it is, of course, another.

I'm home today because Julia has

                                                "I"

Yes, that's right.  Pink eye.  Only one is pink at this moment.  I'm hoping it just stays that way.  I mean - only one, instead of two.  No, I don't want her eye to STAY pink.   

Although...given the color and her girly-girl nature (sometimes, when she's not brandishing firewood at her brother), it would probably be sort of appropriate.

Anyway, I'll be back here at some point later this morning, once I've brought Alex to kindergarten.

Words You Don't Want to Hear...

I was opening a box of unsalted butter in the kitchen.

Alex was in the dining room cutting out the peacock I'd just drawn for him.

Julia was also in the dining room.  She'd wanted me to draw a leopard for her to cut out, even though her scissor skills are not yet as her brother's.

Anyway.

I'm peeling open the end of the box.

And I hear an annoyed three years and almost five months old voice complain:

"Mommy, I'm trying to cut my hair and it's not coming off!"

Yeah.

And I dashed into the room and there, on the dark green tablecloth, were many 4-inch lengths of her beautiful golden blonde tresses. 

Not so many that it's very very obvious.  She didn't cut her bangs.  She cut a chunk from the hair which hangs in delicate layers on the left side of her face.

Now she's got delicate layers on one side, and a sharp gash on the other.

I guess, in a way, it suits her.

Mini-me

The normal routine is this - after work, I go pick up the kids at daycare, come home, they take off their coats and hats and shoes and go play or Alex does his homework if he has any, or they watch a bit of a DVD while I go change out of my work clothes and into (usually) my pajamas.  Bill, if he's not working, is there and either gets Alex going on his homework or plays with them or whatever.

Anyway, that's pretty much the routine.  I need to change out of work stuff and get into comfy home stuff before I can fully become Wife/Mommy/At-Home Me.

Yesterday Bill was working late, so I got home with the kids and Alex immediately put his coat on the hook, put his sneakers in his bin, and asked to watch The Grinch.  Julia took off without a word, and I heard her upstairs walking around probably gathering stuffed animals to bring back to the basement or something like that.

I got Alex settled - no homework - and was about to go upstairs to find my jammies, when Julia appeared, without her sneakers, and wearing a pair of pink stretchy pants instead of the black ones with snowflakes she'd had on earlier.

"I changed," she said.  And then she headed downstairs to watch The Grinch with Alex.

For your entertainment

Alex REALLY REALLY wanted to make gingerbread men.  Not just any - he wanted to duplicate the gingerbread man from (what else) the Shrek movies.  So last night we made a batch of gingerbread dough and cut out some cookies, and the kids decorated two each before bath time.  Here they are:

Complete with gumdrop buttons.  Alex's, that is.  Julia's...gumdrop goiters, perhaps.

I get this look a lot

Again With the Fish Eyes

I was trying to come up with some clever title to this post that wouldn't give away what it was about.  Something that would make you (or someone) want to read more to find out what I was eventually getting at.

Nothing really worked.  So I gave up. 

Cupcakes with the Kids

Last week at this time I was in the process of making a birthday cake for the boyfriend of a friend of mine.  In order to keep the kids from trying to grab bits of cake off the final product, I told them we'd make cupcakes on Saturday.  So we did.

I used a regular boxed cake mix, and just for kicks I substituted a 14 oz can of pumpkin puree for the oil called for in the recipe.  And I shook in some pumpkin spice mix too.  We all took turns stirring the batter until it was nicely blended, and then I spooned the batter into mini muffin tins.  The kids had had the task of putting all the mini paper cupcake liners in each pan.  I think we made about five dozen of them.  And they were pretty good too - more moist than usual, due to all the pumpkin puree in there.  I think I put a bit too much of the spice mixture in, though.  But no harm done.

I let the kids each eat one once they were cool enough, but then it was time for Julia to go to bed.  After she was tucked in, Alex and I frosted about a dozen of them and decorated them with mini M&Ms and little sugar Harry Potter-themed decorative shapes.  Alex proudly showed Daddy his work, and we all had a little chocolatey pumpkiny goodness before Alex had to go to bed.

The next morning, both kids finished frosting the cupcakes and sprinkling additional colorful sugar on them.

Here's the end result:

They had fun.  Which, really, is the whole point.

(taken directly from an instant messaged conversation with my sister the other morning when i should have been working...)

me: this morning while i was getting julia dressed
me: and repeatedly asking alex to please take off his jammies and his pull up and put on his underwear and pants (over and over and over)
me: he finally took off his jammies and the pull up (which he just HAS to FLING into the air.  fortunately he is dry just about every morning now.  but still)
me: anyway
me: i'm trying to get julia's diaper on - like wrestling an octopus - and he's leaping around, happily naked for the moment - "Mommy!  I don't have any clothes on!"
me: and then he comes over toward me
me: saying
me: "my pee-pee"
me: i said "what about it"
me: and he said
me: "my pee pee is all twinkled up!"
mere: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
mere: what did you say?
me: i said "what?"
me: and he said it again, so of course i looked to see what "all twinkled up" might possibly mean
me: and i think it actually means "brrrr, it sure is cold in here"
mere: aahhhh.  Heehee
me: all twinlked up
me: twinkled, i mean
mere: Oh

me: and a julia thing
me: she LOVES the wizard of oz...or "Boz" as she calls the movie...
me: especially the singing and SKIPPING they do
mere: heehee
me: we were watching last night, alex and me on the couch and julia on the floor destroying one of alex's books...and the munchkins started singing happily because the witch was dead, and - as we have seen her do every time - julia got to her feet and started "skipping" all around the room, with a big big BIG smile on her face
mere: how cute
me: but she doesn't skip, it's more like a canter - there's one foot that always leads.  she doesn't switch back and forth.
mere: skipping is hard
me: yep
me: she thinks she's skipping.
me: bill has heard her say "kip!  kip!" while she's doing it
mere: heeheehee
me: it's extremely cute
mere: i bet
me: and at one point when some munckin is climbing out of a hole in the yellow brick road (i think it's when glinda is singing "come out come out wherever you are," etc) julia ran over to the tv and pointed at him right in the face.  she likes the little munchkin boy.  i think he's one of the lollipop guild guys...
mere: its guild?
me: yeah

mere: i thought it was lollipop kids
mere: :-[
me: there's the lullaby league (the ballerinas)...and the lollipop guild.
me: i used to think it was kids too.
me: but i read it was "guild" somewhere...
mere: i never knew it was league either
me: oh
mere: oh
me: i always thought the middle of the lollipop guild guys looked sort of like grandad.
mere: hahahaha  i'll have to take a closer look next time
me: i think it reminds me of that black and white picture of grandad in the bowler hat, with a cigar, looking like a thug...
mere: oh
me: oh
me: and
me: apparently alex had stuff on his face yesterday morning when i dropped him off at daycare.  his teacher checked his face this morning just before i left and oh it's too long to go into but jeepers crow some days i just feel so worn out after i bring him there.
me: and it's actually NOT oatmeal or milk...it's his runny nose that he wipes across his right cheek.  OKAY????
mere: that woman is so weird
me: i go through periods where i think - no - FEAR - that somehow, due to some incompetency of mine - he is going to somehow be a kid other kids make fun of.  i don't know why i do this, but i do.  and he's fine. and he has his little friends, and all that.  but still...this is what sneaks around the back of my mind...and then i've got HER bringing up something like his messy face...so...I'm sending my child in to preschool DIRTY.  IS THAT IT?

mere: hahahahahahaha
mere: its HER.
me: i know
me: but it's also MEEEEE
me: because that is how my brain works sometimes
mere: yeah, but thats normal
me: oh
mere: its the naked parent moments
me: yeah
mere: you'll get used to it.
me: sometimes i can laugh about it
me: other times i can't.
mere: thats good
mere: i know
mere: i know how that is
me: but if i write about it...usually i can end up laughing about it.
me: because then i can read how silly it all really is
mere: yeah
me: plus, Alex can say - and identify - a parasauralophus.
me: Which is a dinosaur that has a weird bone thing sticking off the top of it's head...pointing toward the back.  It's one of the "bonehead" dinosaurs.
me: He knows that.
mere: thats good.  whats wrong with that?
me: NOTHING.  He knows his dinosaurs.
me: that's really cool.
mere: oh good
me: he's perfectly fine.  i'm the wack-job.
mere: too bad about the snotty face
me: yeah
mere: if it wasn't for that he'd be normal
me: :)