Fuji Kids: Part 1

I have decided to change the title of the blog to "I wish I wrote more, but..."

Ha. Just kidding. That title would be so appropriate, but alas, it is a trifle unwieldy. I do love a good ellipsis though "..." but for now, we'll keep the title as it is.

I feel like the fates are against me ever blogging again, because even as I write this, the screen is literally jumping up and down and right and left with no warning. It's like my blog is having a seizure. Maybe the shock of being updated is just too much for it. If it looks weird to you, be patient with us, we're epileptic tonight.  (Another possible title: the Epileptic Ellipsis).

The storied mountain itself at sunset. Taken from base by my fave photographer, Tim.

		Speaking of Fuji-san, our daily lives have changed a bit, as both Adelaide and Graydon are now enrolled in Fuji Kids Montessori youchien. Fuji means wisteria in Japanese and I don't know if there actually is any wisteria at their school, or if it's called Fuji because there is a wonderful view of Mt. Fuji as you approach the school. Either way, it's easy to say and remember, and I'll take what I can get. My Fuji Kids One of the annoying things that happens when a person starts to learn a foreign language is that they then pepper their native tongue with tidbits of their newly acquired language.  I know it's annoying, but here I am doing it anyway. In part, because I'm trying to think in Japanese instead of mentally translating and in part because we don't really have an American equivalent to youchien. It translates to kindergarten, but that isn't an exactly equivalent term. In America that means a grade that is part of the educational system, meaning everyone attends, and it's one year. Here, youchien is not required, though most children do attend one, and they last for three years. Most Japanese children begin their formal education at age 3, five days (sometimes six!) a week for roughly five hours a day. The school year begins in April and you are placed in classes by your age at that time. So if you're five in April, you're in the 5 year old class. In our case, Addie attends five days a week. She gets the bus at 9:15 and comes home at 3:30. Graydon attends somewhere between once and four times a week, and the oddest thing for me is that I have no say in his schedule. The school sends out a calendar for the entire year that lets you know what days the preschool meets for the two year class. This past week he went once. Next week he goes four days. (Note: I think that is God's gift to me for my birthday week, as Graydon is firmly entrenched in what I oh-so-fondly refer to as "the jackass years".)  Yes, I'm referring to this guy. Super cute. Super difficult. Japanese women have the highest rates of working after becoming mothers out of all the first world nations, and it is easy for me to see why. The schools are incredibly accommodating. You can drop your child off as early as 7:30 AM and pick them up as late as 6 PM. School care is also available on Saturdays. For an additional fee you can have the bus pick your child up and drop them off beginning at age three. Lunch is provided every day, and it is invariably nutritious and  delicious. Tea and snacks are provided for children who stay for later care. You can also sign your child up for lessons after school, including foreign languages, dance, and sports. This all begins at age three, remember. This week's lunch menu. Pardon the shadow of my head. It's getting late and the niceties are going out the window. And it is surprisingly affordable...that is, after the initial mammoth payout to get started. There is definitely some sticker shock involved with the registration fees, uniform costs, school supply costs, and so on. It adds up to a few thousand dollars, which is done in part to discourage parents from bouncing around from school to school. It's an investment in the truest sense of the word. But after that? About $300 per month for full time youchien. I believe we paid $200 for Addie's two afternoons a week preschool last year, for comparison.That could be more or less depending on how often you order school lunch and do extra care, but still...very affordable considering the level of care you're getting. Never in life did I think I would send my child to school looking like an extra in the Sound of Music, but it is pretty cute. I say "formal education" but at least at Fuji, the emphasis is really on play and developing independence. This fits right in with the Montessori philosophy, which Tim and I both love. Their motto is "Help me to do it myself", which is basically parenting in a nutshell, at least in my view.

The school itself has won awards for its design and I was instantly smitten when we toured. The entire building is designed to be on a child's scale and to encourage play and exploration. The roof is a large flat circle with slides down to the ground that encourages the children to climb and run in circles until they drop.

The school! That large surface with all the kids on it is actually the roof.

Montessori also puts a lot of emphasis on exploring the natural world and using natural materials in play and learning. This meshes seamlessly with the Japanese aesthetic, and it's very, very well done at the school. There are no walls between the classrooms, only the type of accordion partitions you sometimes see in church basements, so it feels very open and free flowing. The buildings were all constructed around any existing trees.



 For safety, the openings in the roof are surrounded by nets. The nets are hand woven by Japanese fishermen using their traditional weaving methods.

A good view of the roof and the nets. The inclined glass structures are skylights.

The kids are allowed to climb the trees and jump down into the nets. They warned us on our school visit that sometimes children do get hurt and that we would need to be basically OK with that. Their attitude is that little mistakes with little consequences are the best way for children to learn. We completely agree. Besides, it looks like so much fun!


 


They also grow food on site, including rice, sweet potatoes, and eggplants and the kids are involved in each step of the food production process, from planting all the way to harvesting, washing, and eating the produce. As if that wasn't enough, they also have ponies and ducks at the school and the children get to ride the ponies on their birthdays.

It's basically the coolest school ever, and I wish I was five again, which is an envy I usually reserve for naptime.

So Tim and I love it, and I think the kids are liking it, especially Addie. Graydon...well he takes off running when he sees the bus and I usually have to drag him out of a pine tree kicking and screaming, but he'll come around. I hope. 

The computer is still seizing, so I'm going to break this into two parts. Part Two will contain all of my funny stories thus far. That's what we call a teaser in the biz. ;-) 

Our precious eldest girl. We're so proud of her! Even better, she's proud of herself.

But before I share the funny stuff, it would be remiss of me not to mention something very serious.

I'm so appreciative of this opportunity for a thousand and one reasons, but the one that sticks out to me the most is that we're very fortunate indeed to be based in a country where educating women is both allowed and encouraged. It could so easily be otherwise.

For so many bright young girls, school is a financial impossibility, or worse, downright dangerous. Every day when I watch Adelaide board the bus with her friends, I am grateful that I don't fear her being shot like Malala Yousafzai or kidnapped like the young woman taken by Boko Haram in Africa. The tears in my eyes are not from fear, but pride. Someday, she might be the President, or a surgeon, or a librarian, or stay at home parent. She could be anything and probably will be many things. Opportunities await. I never want to take that for granted.

Martin Luther King Jr., speaking on the steps of the State Capitol in Alabama, said "...the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Tonight, I am thankful to be living on the far side of that arc as well as the globe. And if her school is a series of arcs, well...that's just perfect.

Shinjuku

Today we finally, finally, finally made it into downtown Tokyo. We've only been here for four weeks or so, but I've wanted to visit Tokyo for about 3 weeks and 5 days of that time, so I was pleased.

We decided to take the train from Fussa into Shinjuku. Shinjuku is a huge commercial district, the kind of place that guide books love to call "bustling". It boasts the world's busiest railway station (two million passengers a day!), the Tokyo Metropolitan government (housed in weirdly Gotham City-esque skyscrapers) and a huge red light district (we didn't visit that, natch), along with no less than four or five department stores with ten to twelve stories each. It's ...bustling.

In the midst of all of this, is the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, which has been a part of Tokyo since the Edo era, in one capacity or another. And this is why I love Japan. The world's largest city, where space of any sort is incredibly expensive, and yet there are green spaces everywhere. And not just little pocket parks, but enormous, sprawling, lavish amounts of green space. The Japanese get so many things right.

It reminds me of Central Park a bit, with its juxtaposition of modern buildings and venerable old trees.

 Anyway, before Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden was a public park, it served as a private garden for the Imperial family, where presumably they entertained themselves by creating various types of landscapes to stroll through. We wanted to see the traditional Japanese garden portion of things, so off we went.

At first, I was highly unimpressed, though it was not the garden's fault. Our large shipment of furniture hasn't arrived yet (it's coming in two days!) so we don't have a stroller suitable for Tokyo yet. The Double BOB jogger is definitely built on American lines, let's put it like that. I was packing Emilia and girlfriend puts off a lot of heat. It was basically like carrying around a small portable furnace in the 90 degree weather. So there was sweat. And there were mosquitoes. Lots of them. We were pursued through the forest portion of the park by blood sucking insects whilst carrying screaming children. I think that might have been one of Dante's levels of hell, but I can't be sure. 

Then all of a sudden we popped out onto a lawn and we were in historical Japan. 



 



There were dragonflies everywhere. I have never, ever seen so many dragonflies, nor been so excited to see dragonflies because it was mosquito free territory. We lolled under some trees and then lolled some more because we were totally defeated by the heat and blood loss.

Staring up into the trees

Perfect patches of shade under each tree

We didn't move an inch, but we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a flock of ladies that surrounded my children, cooing and snapping pictures and pinching their cheeks and declaring things like "I love you, little babies, you are super kawaii" (rhymes with Hawaii and means cute). Tim and I were slightly bemused because we suddenly experienced what it was like to parent Suri Cruise, minus only the wealth and the looks and the strange alien religion.

We were happy to let the ladies take pictures with the kids, as they (the women) were radiating goodwill and happiness and also because we were slightly stunned. Our kids were filthy. I mean, dirty in the way that only small children can manage. Graydon had grime in the folds of his neck. Addie's feet were smell-able at ten paces due to her refusal to wear socks with her sneakers. Her face is sporting several scratches thanks to an attack by Graydon and more bug bites. We had been walking around Tokyo in 90 degree heat for several hours and no one was at their best. Some of us (ok, me) were decidedly at their worst, sporting streams of sweat, lank hair, approximately 86 mosquito bites and a broken foot. (Note: Yes, I have broken my foot. I wish I could say it was doing something coolly Japanese, like sumo wrestling or one of those game show obstacle courses, but alas, I simply walked into a chair.) No one wanted my picture, that's for sure, and the kids were not in much better condition.

In addition to THAT, the women taking pictures with them? They were in full kimono. Brilliant cloth bright with embroidery, flowers in their hair, those divided socks with the high wooden flip flops, fans in their hands, the whole stunning, glittering array of traditional Japanese attire, and all they wanted to do was take pictures with my dirty, cranky, corn-fed American kids. "Exotic" is very much a matter of perspective, it seems.

Sweaty. Bug bitten. Dirty. But those eyelashes...

And the dimples...

I guess they still are pretty cute.

A Low Bar is Key

I'm kind of drunk* right now, but what the hell, I'll take a stab at this anyway.

(*Fatigue drunk, just to be clear, not alcohol drunk. Sadly.)
 
In the aeons since I last posted, we have produced a beautiful and beloved baby girl. We named her Emilia Mae, brought her home with pride and love, and then promptly proceeded to lose our minds over the next weeks. And I will very definitely post her birth story, hopefully soon, but for now, I can't even process anything more complicated than the alphabet. And I might miss some letters there, if given a pop quiz.

Baby love

So there's the usual newborn fatigue and sibling processing going on, but Emilia also has reflux and is possibly colicky, possibly just high maintenance, but either way is attached to me 24/7. Like for real, for real, I'm either nursing baby girl, wearing her, or sleeping with her.

Also it's finally spring in MN, which means it's time for the Ewalds to contract a killer death plague and disappear into the sick locker for a while. Which we have done, and 2014's plague consists of some sort of mild and yet still soul shrivelingly awful influenza complete with fevers, chills, and muscle aches that actually made me cry on Friday morning.

Sick Locker 2014: Fevers of 104, aka Life Sucks

Though to be fair, I was attempting to get three small children to the doctor's by 8 AM in order to start our medical clearance for the military, and that might have brought me to tears on a good morning. The fever and chills just made it more fun.

Allow me to share my life with you.

Scene 1: Hallmark Moment

Emi is crying, because I'm not holding her. Addie is crying because I gave her water in an orange cup instead of a blue one. Addie pushes her cup away in a tantrum, and of course, knocks it over. Water is everywhere. Graydon is crying because his hands are dirty. Wait, his hands really are dirty. Is that...yes. Yes, his hands are covered in poop. He has diarrhea, probably from "Advil tummy" and went excavating in his diaper. In his distress, he is trying to clean them on anything and everything he can reach. 

Scene 2: Motherhood: NAILING IT

My mom goes back to NC on a Tuesday, right as Emilia's colic is hitting full force. Emilia has a screaming fit that lasts for two hours. She cries. I cry because I can't soothe her and because my Mom left. Tim comes home and my eyes are swollen shut from sobbing, I'm topless because I accidentally soaked my shirt with breastmilk after forgetting breast pads, and my hair is matted with spit up from Emilia's reflux issues. 

Scene 3: Feel the Burn

I attempt to hustle the two bigger kids into the shower with me. Emi is grunting and working herself up into a crying fit in her bouncy chair. I have approximately 4 minutes to get myself and the bigs cleaned before she blows. I herd my two eldest into the spray and hurriedly rip off my own clothes. In my hurry, I accidentally also rip a dangling thread "down there" assuming it's part of a my admittedly crappy underwear. (I am not wasting good undies on post partum, y'all). It is not. It is my episiotomy stitches...which I have just ripped out.  That smarts.

Scene 4:  The Future

Tim comes home and all three kids are crying while I am swigging cooking sherry and singing "Jesus Take the Wheel" at the top of my lungs.


OK, #4 hasn't happened yet, but give it time.

 So all of that is hard and I've cried more in the last three weeks than I did in the last year, but it's totally worth it for this.

Gang of three

How did I get three beautiful, smart, healthy kids? We are truly blessed and it's that long term view that gets me through the short term chaos of transition. It's always hard to add a child to your family, even when everything is "perfect" and it hardly ever goes perfectly, am I right? Still, we have not yet visited Intensive Care so this worlds, galaxies, universes even, better than our transition with Graydon.

And during those moments that everyone is crying, I just try to find one grace note, and hang on to it for dear life. Like the following: it might be noon and Addie might not be dressed yet and Emi might need a diaper change and yet another feeding and the beds aren't made but just look at their darling faces and how much they already love each other.

Sister Love: this one melts me.

So while we've kind of lost the plot here, I know it will get better in the coming weeks. We don't have much to focus on besides our family. Just Tim finishing his thesis and defending it. And saying goodbye to our friends and family here. And moving out of our house. And moving to Tokyo. Total cakewalk.

It reminds me of something my friend Danielle says that always cracks me up: like the old MadTV skit, it's all about "Lowered Expectations" for the next few ...um....years?

Brother Love

And So It Continued (Christmas Season Retroblog Part 2)

I left off my last blog with the cliffhanger of two birthday parties looming approaching and that was a small lie fib stretching of the truth, for reasons I will get into momentarily.

But first, I actually forgot that before we had the birthday parties, we had our last Ortho Holiday Party, which is always a great time. Even though I have been pregnant for three of them. I think that speaks to the "fun" aspect of it, because I cheerfully endure the indignity of maternity pantyhose and swollen feet/face/well-everything-really and waddle out to celebrate the holidays with our family-away-from-family.

Me, Tim, and E3 at the pre-party

The 5th Year Women, missing only Ashley and Laura.

The whole year, minus the Swanns and Walkers. In our year we are responsible for 26 children...and counting...so it's always an event when we can all meet up. 

Now back to the birthday "parties" and my confession about the small truth-stretching. For those who don't know, Addie's birthday is December 16th and Graydon's is December 30th. I actually gave Addie and Gray a combination birthday party. I figured I have maybe one more year where I can get away with this, so I made the most of it.

Incidentally, when separate parties are demanded, I foresee years of Addie having decent-ish parties and Graydon having pizza and leftover cupcakes because Christmas is over and New Year's Eve is tomorrow, and listen kid, we're glad you were born but WE ARE ONLY HUMAN and anyway it's your fault, you shouldn't have been SO LATE and impossible to birth, and yes, poor, poor G Man. It's not his fault. Except that it is, Mr. I-Decided-To-Be-Born-The-Night-Before-My-Induction. We wanted a better birthday for him, but I think that horse has already left the barn. In a very leisurely "in my own good time" fashion, which is very Graydon.

Carrying on.

Once I decided to combine the celebrations, the issue then became choosing common ground between my two children. Addie likes princesses, art, and dolls. Graydon likes fighting, wrestling, and rough-housing, in no particular order of preference. After contemplating such possibilities as "Kung Fu Princess" and "Hulk Monet", I finally decided that they both liked balloons, so voila, "Addie and Graydon are Growing UP!" and balloons galore. Sixty, to be exact. You have no idea how many balloons are in a 60 balloon bundle until you're putting them in your minivan.

Sadly, I never got a picture of all the balloons together for two reasons.

1) Because my children kept seizing handfuls of ribbons and dragging them off into their rooms while screaming gleefully.

2) Because my ceiling is an old fashioned "popcorn" ceiling which does not play nicely with balloons. All the aforementioned screaming and dragging pretty quickly decimated the numbers.

We lost about half the balloons that night, but the survivors were surprisingly tough. I recently committed a lot of heli-cide with a pair of scissors on the remaining stubborn stragglers because I was so tired of seeing balloons, but this was about a month after the initial purchase.

It was a good and normal party, and I think the kids were happy, which is all that mattered to me. We had wild rice soup, challah rolls, chips and a delicious variation on seven layer dip, a fruit plate, a cheese plate, and a veggie plate, with cupcakes for dessert. My only disappointment is that I didn't take many pictures because I was too busy running around, but I did get a few with the singing and cake.

Just slightly thrilled with the attention!

Should I succumb to madness/poor memory and do a party again, I am determined to take more pictures. Even if the guests are standing around starving and parched with thirst, roaring for drinks and food. I will just take pictures of that too and it will really give us a feel for the event.

Clapping for himself and/or the amazing singing

The joint party was on the 15th and Tim and Addie's actual birthday is the 16th. We saw Randy and Terri the day before their birthdays, because they were kind enough to keep the kiddos for the entire weekend to give us time to get ready for our various festivities that weekend.

Trains and cars! Jackpot!

It's too bad this is so out of focus, but the expression on his face makes me laugh so hard. "It's like, so totally, ermahgawd, this is to.die.for!' 

The Brogans met us for breakfast. Addie kind of likes Calum, if you can't tell.

On the morning of Addie's birthday, we went out to breakfast at Daube's, our favorite local bakery. Their doughnuts are amazing. Let the record reflect that I will absolutely miss Daube's when we leave. As will my children. All three of them, because E3 insists that we eat there at least once a week. Little tyrant.

Graydon kinda likes doughnuts.

We went out to dinner that night with Mary and Steve and the kiddos at Chester's, a local favorite. I didn't get any pictures because Chester's is always super dark and moody and "We might be in Rochester but we will make it loud and dark and trendy so you can pretend you're elsewhere", which I appreciate, along with the excellent food.

And that was basically it for the birthday celebrations...except for one last thing I want to remember. If you are related to me or Tim, or in any way offended by frank sexual speak, stop reading here.

All the twisted folks are still reading. Don't worry, I totally would too.

Tim and I put the kiddos in bed that night and collapsed beside each other in small heaps, pretty much exhausted after three straight days of celebration and two children cracked out on sugar and lack of sleep. I said "Do you remember when birthdays used to guarantee a new piece of lingerie and really creative and athletic sex?" And I am sure I was not mistaking the look of alarm on his face when he warily said "Yes". I'm not sure if it was the thought of "athletic" with a woman the size of a small whale or just the thought of any effort at all, but he was clearly frightened. I started laughing and said "Yeah, me too. Right now, sleep sounds better than sex. Sleep is my new sex, in fact. My favorite sexual position is officially 'comatose'". And then I knew I was right about the fear on his face, because for the first time, I heard my agnostic husband say "Amen". And that's really the best way to sum up three birthdays and the holidays with three children, all of whom are four and under: "Sleep is the best gift one can give or receive."  

And So It Began (A Christmas Season Retroblog)

Ah, December. My old nemesis, we meet again.

So pretty. So innocent. So calm and bright. SO DECEPTIVE.

Once again, I have been thoroughly defeated by the sheer unrelenting grind of birthday/birthday/holiday/birthday/holiday. Fortunately, it's a battle I don't mind losing because instead of nasty things like wounds and gangrene and post traumatic stress, we get lots of pictures and memories and family time. Oh, and presents. Those are nice too. The end result is much the same though, as January usually finds me locked into a quiet room, hunkered down with chocolates and a fat book, pretending that I do not own a phone or a computer, waving a white flag.

The biggest irony of blogging is that the busier you are, the more you want to record what is happening, and yet the less you have the capacity to do so. I'm quickly coming into acceptance of a new tradition: the January retroblog. We took a few weeks to recover, and here I am, attempting to retroblog no less than 570 pictures and about 571 memories. Don't worry, I won't share all of them. Just, you know, half of them. That seems reasonable.

In all seriousness, I thought I would just cut them up into smaller chunks and dole them out over the next few weeks. No one...by which I mean "me"...has the patience to page through tons of pictures saying things like "Opening Presents" for half an hour.

Without further ado, your first chunk. Sounds appealing, doesn't it? And yes, I did consider becoming a poet, but ultimately decided it would bring me too much fame and notoriety. I didn't want to sell out to the man.

So, it all began with tree decorating. Tim and I wanted to make it an event this year. We didn't do a tree last year, since we were headed to NC and then to Florida for three months. This year, we had hot cider and chocolate, Christmas carols, and a lovely fresh tree. Which I killed pretty quickly by forgetting to water it. But that was later.

Addie really got into everything. She wanted pictures with all her ornaments.

A good example of the "Mom, take a picture of me with THIS ornament" genre

She then proceeded to place all of her ornaments in basically the exact same place on the tree. Right at her eye level on one side. Any tactful suggestion to spread them out was immediately shot down. Every night Tim and I would redistribute only to have her move them back the next day. Sister knows what she likes.

Please notice the short sleeved shirt. I usually lay out a short sleeved shirt to (theoretically) go under a long shirt for layering purposes. The difficulty here is that Addie usually prefers her t shirts to her sweaters, so we end up with a lot of seasonally inappropriate clothing. Nothing says "Christmas" like cherries, I guess.  We've finally wised up and started buying only plain grey, white, and black shirts for layering.

Clustering, for the win!

 Graydon could have cared less about the whole process. He found one glittery train ornament and played with it all night. He did a surprisingly good job not breaking anything, and when I say "surprising", I actually mean downright shocking, because he usually wreaks havoc like a Texas twister.

In this picture, the train has found a sled ornament, which is now his "track". Pretty creative, I thought.

It's unfortunate that he's so shy.

I attempted to take a sibling picture of them in their jammies after it was all done, but yeah, it didn't work out. "Look at me, ok, smile!!! Or, yeah, you could just wrestle, that's fine."

Best shot of the series. All the others are just a blur of flailing limbs.

The very next day Ads had her preschool Christmas program. She'd been diligently practicing her "songs" for several weeks, mainly consisting of bursting into loud "HAAAAA LAY LOOO YAH!"s randomly and with great feeling, since they were singing the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's Messiah in part of the program. When I was in preschool I think we might have sung "Jingle Bells", but today's children are just way cooler than we were.

So, apparently, this is a big dress up occasion. I did not get this memo.

Here is my child, front and center. In her jeans.

I did think about it, and in fact, texted my friend Jen before the program to ask her if they were supposed to wear a certain color. I thought it was a little weird that they hadn't asked us to dress them all in red or green or whatever the hot color scheme of the moment might be. She said "I'm just dressing Calum in a reddish plaid shirt and his cords" so I thought "OK, yeah, I'll do a red shirt". I guess this is like one of those things that is so obvious they don't explain it, kind of like "Don't wear jeans to your wedding" or suchlike moments. 

To make matters worse, not only was my sweet girl totally underdressed, but I was late. Tim left for a conference in Colorado that day and I just couldn't get out the door in time by myself. So I had to literally RUN Addie into the school, catch the line before they filed in, and shove her into it. While carrying Graydon. And being pregnant. And swaddled in outdoor clothes because it was a balmy 10 out, which meant I then started streaming sweat from the combined effects of the subtropical heat of the school and stress. So I was super relaxed and ready to enjoy the evening ...or not...which wouldn't have mattered except poor Addie was terrified and didn't really understand what we were doing.

This is her filing into the auditorium, biting her nails, because she is nervous and has no idea what is going on.

 This wasn't my absolute nadir as a parent, sadly, but it didn't feel great. I felt like I set Addie up for a bad situation, because I know she needs time to relax and adjust and I didn't give her that. And I felt like an idiot for having the only girl child in jeans in the place. And because we were late, she was last in line, which meant she was front and center. She spent the entire time nervously twisting around to observe other kids. Except for the times she was picking her nose. It was about a 50/50 split, I'd say. I was so proud.

So much more interested in the other kids than in performing. Don't worry, I won't post pictures of her other activity.

Reliving this still makes me cringe, but I thought I would share because this was a milestone of sorts, and also because FYI PARENTS Christmas pageants are dress up occasions. I tried to give myself a pep talk like "Hey, ok, she's underdressed, no big deal! It's not her prom, right? And who are you trying to impress anyway? No one cares! All kids pick their noses sometimes. It will add a note of authenticity to the videos!" Then I just gave up on self pep talk and wished fervently for some red wine ...this was a theme throughout December, by the way.

With her friends and classmates, Calum, Briella, and Halle. I'm pretty sure Addie was upset at me too ;-)

Instead of drinking wine, I went home and made about 6 dozen cookies for the annual "Bone Wives n Hominy" Christmas cookie exchange the next day. Because 1) I'm pregnant and 2) I procrastinate. After a stressful and embarrassing evening, it is always therapeutic to bake enormous amounts of cookies to be given to other people, incidentally all extremely skilled chefs,  whilst simultaneously attempting to put two wild and overstimulated children to bed by yourself. I highly recommend this for your next frazzled state.

A small sample of the deliciousness

The good news is that sugar makes an excellent substitute for alcohol, and I had lots of yummy treats to eat after that gathering. I drowned my embarrassment in cookies and milk, and it was good that we had lots, because I wasn't quite done striking out yet with Addie and school. 

Lots of her friends go to the same preschool. Addie goes to the afternoon session on Tuesday and Thursday and some of her friends came to the cookie exchange in their pajamas because it was "Pajama Day" at preschool. I had NO idea this was happening, but knowing me, that's not really shocking. I mentally shrugged and sent Addie off to school in a pair of zip up footie pajamas with snowflakes and ice skaters on them. Only to see all the other kids in her class in regular clothes and her teacher looking slightly confused upon seeing Addie. I tried explaining "Oh, some of her friends at a playdate said it was Pajama Day..." and trailed off in feeble silence while Mrs. Batterson laughed in sympathy and explained that was only for the 5 year old class. Oh. OK. Well, that's cool. Not only did I send Addie to her pageant in jeans, I also sent her to school the next day in pajamas. At 12:30 in the afternoon. Like I just couldn't quite summon the energy to dress my child that day.

Thank heavens I can laugh about it now, because of course December got so much easier after that. I only had to plan two birthday parties, start finish Christmas preparations, do the holidays with Tim's family, and then host my family's visit. Easy peasy for an organized and efficient person. Like me. I would say those are the top two words that people use to describe me.*

Yeah. I ate a lot of cookies that month. 

*If you don't know me, this is not true at all. Once I was bemoaning my chronic lack of organization and my friend Jen very sweetly and tactfully said "Well, Tara, I would say you're of a more artistic mindset". And there you have it.

The Impossible Dream

...getting a good shot of both my children at once. I guesstimate that it happens once out of every 100 attempts. I have about 10 seconds before the photo shoot degenerates into a wrestling match.

 

I also have this enormous backlog of pictures and blog posts right now, and I'm not quite sure what to do with it, honestly. It's just way too much of a hodgepodge to put in one big post, even one big picture post.

I think I actually do stick to my goal of blogging twice a week...success!... it's just that I'm not publishing that quickly...fail! Mostly because all of my blogging takes place pre 7 AM and that's not always my most coherent time.




Anyway, I'm not gone, and I am blogging.

And much like throwing meat to hungry lions, I thought I'd throw out some recent Addie and Graydon pics before my parents and siblings destroy me. My musings on life are well and good, but they really just want to see the punkins.

It might take me another month or two to get a decent photo, but in the meantime, at least they love each other. Most of the time. 

The Sick Locker

Sick, and yet still cute. Only kids can manage this. This was after a fever broke during nap.

"Man plans. God laughs." ---Yiddish Proverb

Touché , Jewish folk...touché. 

I did indeed have large plans for blogging and life-ing but we got a visit from our old foe, RSV, and we have been shut inside the sick locker ever since. 

I hate the sick locker. We use the word "hate" a lot in our culture...you know, we hate Ke$ha, we hate idiots that write condescending articles about moms with iPhones, we hate the word "moist"...or maybe only I say I hate those things? However, I actually really do HATE being in isolation with sick kids. 

And I am not talking about a runny nose and a slight cough. That's what I like to refer to as "winter" and since it lasts an ungodly amount of time here you just learn to buy the industrial size of Boogie Wipes and move on with life as usual. 

I just told him that Puxatawney Phil was a false prophet and that winter would last sixteen more weeks.

 I might have mentioned a time or ten that winter decided to stick around.  This is from my friend Catherine's FB profile, and it's too good not to share.

Even the natives have dropped their usual scoffing at the soft "cake eaters" in moderate climes and are now restlessly eyeing the forecast

 An extension of winter means an extension of "winter illness" season. So two weeks ago, Addie went to bed perfectly happy and then woke up at midnight choking and unable to breathe properly due to a nasty attack of croup. An ER visit for an emergency nebulizer and some steroids fixed her right up, but she was quite unwell for several days after that with persistent fevers and a nasty cough and a general malaise which she explained as "Mom, I'm getting really slow."

Asking to go to bed at 7 PM one night.

 During a follow up visit to family practice, they mentioned that her croup might have been caused by RSV, which actually relieved me. Because you know, Graydon already had that as an infant so I thought he'd sail right past it.

Stupidly, I forgot that Addie also already had RSV, which is why Graydon got it as a three week old.

As soon as Addie started to recover, G man went down and he did not fare so well. Addie is robust. She gets sick very rarely and when she does get sick, she doesn't stay down for long. I'm not going to get into the whole saga, because he's fine now, but it took us a few doctor's visits and worried nights and a set of chest x rays and some antibiotics and a home inhaler to get over it.  And that's the short version.

We  had the humidifiers on blast in the kids rooms.

Frankly, it really sucked. It's hard to see your kids suffering, even when you have confidence that all will be well in the end. But when your kids are that ill, you can't see anyone, you can't go anywhere, and you can't really DO anything to take their minds off of how bad they feel.  There were a great many sleepless nights especially when Graydon was sick. I slept upright with Graydon on the couch for several nights with the humidifier beside us and I had a lot of uneasy dreams about being on a lifeboat in the ocean. All of which makes sense when you consider that I usually woke up to find water beaded up on the couch and our blankets. 

Poor little G man was not feeling so super at this point.

Long story short, it was tiring and scary at times, but I think we are now healthy and caught up on sleep. We have been released from the isolation of the sick locker and it's amazing. Just being able to run errands during the day feels like a privilege. And you know what? It IS a privilege. Too often I forget that for a lot of people, the sick locker has to become a way of life.

Resting together

So I am newly grateful for health and wellness and energy and rest. 

And, as an added bonus, the weather has been really nice the past few days. Granted, it is supposed to be quite chilly again for the forecastable future, but we do have flowers springing up in our yard.

Spring is about to break out of the sick locker too, and not a moment too soon. I think everyone is ready to welcome a new season.