Mama Sarahndipity

The One Where My Kid is "That Kid"....

2012-01-25T12:03:00.000-08:00

Ethan has what one might refer to as "an excess of energy" most days. Its one of the reasons I believe he's weighing in at a whopping 33.8lbs at almost 6 years old (the other reason being that his favorite foods are watermelon and cucumbers. Seriously?! Eat a donut, kid!) So we try to keep as busy as possible. Park trips, play dates, light saber battles, and, on Tuesday afternoons, we head to little kid gymnastics place, where running around like a lunatic and turning summersaults until your equilibrium is permanently skewed is encouraged. The perfect place for Ethan.

But every once in awhile, Ethan goes beyond the realm of appropriate running and summersaulting. And he becomes....that kid. The one other parents can't help but watch with a mix of amusement and horror (light on the amusement, heavy on the horror), peeking around and wondering where is the woman who is raising this child to be just this side of neanderthal? Yesterday was that day.

Every 6 weeks or so, the gym has a parent participation session, where we're allowed to take off our shoes and go sit on the big red mats inside the gymnasium while our little ones show off their monkey-bar skills and chase the teacher around the room skipping and leaping and pretending to be ninjas, or whatever the hell it is they're doing. It's adorable.

Until your kid licks his own foot. Licks. His. Foot.

WHY why why would he do that?! I don't know, people. But he did. While sitting with his friendly little friends on the mat, waiting for instructions on what feat of strength and gymnastic-y skill they were to perform next, Ethan picked up his own little bare foot, inspected it seriously for a second or two, and then licked it. Twice. To, of course, the utter glee and fitful giggles of his friends. Thus proving to me that Ethan will do just about anything for a laugh and an adoring audience.

And I can only assume whatever he licked off of his foot had some sort of hallucinogenic property (or more likely, he was egged on by the laughter of the other kids), because after that, he was pretty much the whirling-est dervish that ever whirled. He could not contain his energy while his teacher was giving instructions and while the teacher was mid-sentence, Ethan decided to pop up and yell in my general direction, "I LOVE YOU, MOMMY!!!!!"

I whispered, "love you, too. sit down and listen," and hid my face in my hands while the other moms were either snickering or tsk'ing. I could tell the teacher was getting frustrated by Ethan's complete lack of even pretending to pay attention to anything he was saying. I was torn between taking over and disciplining him and sitting back and letting the teacher deal with him. None of the other kids seemed put out by his momentary lapse in self control, but every time he interrupted or got up to jump around while he "should" have been sitting, my inner highly-strung-overly-self-controlled 8 year old self got twitchy. I have issues.

As the teacher was finishing up giving instructions, Ethan decided that, having exhausted the taste sensations of his own feet, he would have to branch out, and he popped up again, grabbed his teacher's hand, and swung on it a couple of times.

And then licked it. Oh dear god. *twitch twitch*

Thankfully the teacher took it all in stride (and thankfully the gym comes equipped with all kinds of hand sanitizer dispensers), and after explaining kindly to Ethan that licking other peoples' hands was A.) not very polite, and B.) GROSS, he sent Ethan on his way to show off more epic gymnastic skills.

Like these:

A little pre-vaulting jazz hands...

Are you watching me? Are you watching me?! Do I have 100% of your attention?!!!

And post-vault jazz hands!

so. much. rolling.

going that way....

...and this way....

This is what he looks like most of the time--blurry from all the moving.

He's looking at the guy's hand like he's going to lick it again, isn't he?

Never happier than when he has all eyes on him.

And then there was much twirling....

crash landing...

And don't forget to swing on the bars...

look how happy he is--think he knows that some germ he licked off his foot is going to have him puking by Thursday? Probably not...

look how hard that girl's working to swing herself around the bar. My kid looks like he's sitting at a bar waiting for a margarita. Bless his little heart.

In hindsight, he was far less "that" kid than I initially thought in the moment--he was just so much more of a kid than I ever was. Sometimes its hard for me to gauge where the line is and when he's actually gone over it. True, licking his foot? And someone else's hand? Mortifying. But only for me. And only for a minute.

Knowledge Hodgepodge...

2012-01-23T09:49:00.000-08:00

Ethan's brain seems to be expanding by leaps and bounds on any given day (or, more exactly, on every given day). He simply NEEEEEEDS to know and understand everything that is being said, and will ask an incessant stream of questions. It is for this reason that I can no longer listen to the inappropriate morning radio talk show on the way to school and why I refuse to let Ethan see an actual news broadcast. I am not prepared to answer all of those questions. As it is, questions about G-d and heaven and dinosaurs and tides and Star Wars and why leaves are green and worm holes and......omg, I need to lie down.

And while he is simply thirsting for this knowledge, he has a bit of a problem keeping it all straight in his mind. This is evident in his imaginative play. While a grown up would probably play Spider Man when s/he played Spider Man and dinosaurs when s/he played dinosaurs, Ethan tends to jumble them up....

Exhibit A: Spider Man rides the baby T-Rex...

Exhibit B: Mama T-Rex eats Spider Man...(cue Debbie Downer music...)

Exhibit C: "Spider Man head...nom nom nom...."

And he tends to get his history timeline a little mixed up....like when the "big bang" hit the dinosaurs....

please note the mangled Spider Man splayed out in to the side of the picture.
By the way, it seems my fate in life to never live in a house that has decent lighting for any type of photography. That's not at all frustrating.

I feel like Ethan knows SO much more than I did at his age--lunar eclipses, super novas, Martin Luther King Jr., Star Wars, how babies are born (born, not made. I'm not ready for how they're made.), super heros, how planes fly, what gravity is. He's asked questions and/or spouted out facts about these topics and countless more for at least half the amount of time he's been alive already. He can't seem to get enough knowledge. I don't remember being like that.

And I love that having all those little tidbits, however incomplete and over-simplified, in his mind gives him such huge leeway in what sort of imaginative play is possible.

Echo gets to join into the play as an "Echosaurus; he's a carnivore cat dinosaur, and he's the biggest dinosaur, even bigger than the T-Rex." Of course he is....

Another 60 Miles? Yeah. I Can Do That.

2012-01-19T09:43:00.000-08:00

Do 1 in 8 women in the United States still get invasive breast cancer in their lifetime?

Is breast cancer still the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women worldwide?

Is a women in this country diagnosed with breast cancer every 4 minutes?

Were almost 40,000 women expected to die of breast cancer in this country in 2011 alone?

Yes.

Until the answer to all of these questions is "no", I can walk 60 miles.

I can walk for a friend and a former class mate who are fighting to rid their bodies of this disease.

I can walk for the researchers who live their lives to save the lives of others and need precious dollars to continue their work towards a cure.

I can walk for the uninsured single mom who can't afford her own screening or treatments and has kids at home who need their mother.

I can walk in memory of the almost 40,000 women who died of breast cancer last year.

I can walk for the teenage girl who held up a sign as I passed her on the Berkeley campus last year that read, "My mom had surgery yesterday; thank you so much for walking." I think of that girl, and her mother, and wonder how they are, often.

I can walk to celebrate the millions of women in this country who have stared down breast cancer in their own bodies and survived.

It is not easy; there are hours of commitment to training, fundraising, and blisters, and aching muscles and cramping arches and calves. There were moments last year during the walk when my feet barely fit back into my shoes and I wanted to get on the bus & give up. But it is nothing compared to fighting for your life against breast cancer.

I hope you'll find a way to donate to this cause--all of us know someone who has been, or will be, touched by this disease in our lifetimes, unless we can stop it. Please take a moment to click on the Susan G Komen link to the right of my blog and make a donation, however small, to help me reach my goal of $2300. There are no words to express my gratitude, but you will know, when the cure is found, and I believe it WILL be found, that you had a hand in making it so.

Thank you so much.

Oh, Happy Day!

2012-01-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

And I'm not even being sarcastic or ANYTHING!

Last Thursday, I picked Ethan up from school determined that our afternoon would not be our normal, "I want a playyyyyyyyydate," "I want a snaaaaaaaack," "momma, watch me battle Darth Sideous, Darth Vader, Darth Moll," and then, "watch me battle Obi-wan, Captain Rex, Luke Skywalker..." (somewhere in there he leaps over to the dark side with a little more glee than I'd prefer, but what are you going to do?) After several hours of this riveting entertainment, sprinkled with maybe a walk outside, some coloring (Ethan's newest obsession--as long as its a Star Wars coloring book), we generally come to the "I want noodles with butter and sprinkle cheese for dinner. NOthing else. Don't even try to trick me," portion of our day. The routine is getting a bit ~~soul-sucking~~ boring, so instead of going home and letting the aforementioned chain of events unfold for the next 5 hours, I packed up the car with snacks, coloring books, sand toys, and Ethan's collection of "interesting sticks" (translation: "these are my sticks that make good light sabers when I don't have my real light sabers.") and told Ethan we were going on an adventure.

After a few moments of lamenting the fact that his only companion for said adventure was, well, me (I am apparently super boring and lame, because my 5 year old is really 14), we were on our way to Santa Cruz.

First we stopped at Seabright beach for some "interesting stick" collecting and some sand castle construction. I spread a blanket as close to the water as Ethan would let me get (read: not close at all), and dumped a bag of sand toys. I buried Ethan's feet, he buried mine (digging bare wiggly toes into the sand in January? Heaven.), we constructed some sand buildings and roads, then Ethan went off in search of sticks and I took eleventy billion pictures of seagulls and watched a chihuahua named Zeus chase a frisbee. My Thursday was soooooo way better than your Thursday. Just sayin'.

shiny happy people...

After absorbing the sound of the crashing waves for about an hour, we were drawn to the wharf by the sound of the sea lions cavorting (or beating each other up--the sounds are all pretty much alike), so we hoped in the car and headed over to see if we could find their not so secret hiding spot.

Ethan's favorite thing to say about the sea lions? "Momma, they stink." Indeed they do, little man. Indeed they do.

sleepy sea lions...

Cranky sea lions (no booze allowed...)

taking "the family bed" just a bit too far, thank you very much...

After watching one giant sea lion (the one under the "no alcohol allowed" sign) hulk his way back to the water by squirming over the entire pile of sleep sea lions (each one he jumped on raised their heads, "quuuuuuuuooooooooaaaaannnnnk"'ed at him and then put their heads back down and went back to sleep), we noticed that the sun was rapidly making its way towards the horizon, so we got back in our car and headed to the next beach on our list. We made it just in time to catch the sun setting

Sunset on Natural Bridges beach

we weren't the only people there to watch the sun go down...

Jedi knight using the force to try to keep me from taking his picture....sorry, young Jedi, the force is strong with this iPhone....

The drive home was quiet and sleepy--Ethan tried to convince me he didn't need a bath when we got home, but then proceeded to take his shoes and socks off to dump a metic ton of beach onto the backseat floor of my car. Whatever sand didn't end up on the floor remained lodged between his toes and I assured him that yes indeed, he was taking a bath when we got home. Boys.

After stories and some snuggles, before he fell asleep, Ethan said to me, "we had the best day, didn't we, momma?" Mission accomplished.

In Between Days...

2012-01-12T10:02:00.000-08:00

This morning I scraped frost off the windshield. This afternoon, Ethan and I are going to the beach. I left the house this morning in a fleece, scarf and mittens. I'll return at the end of the day in a sandy t-shirt. Such is winter in California. Lovely in its own way, but so different from what I experienced for the majority of my life that I'm still trying to adjust to the inbetweenness of it all.

This is the time of year when I miss the piles of snow from the Januarys of my childhood---like the bank of it that used to sit to the left of our front door, under a steep slope in our roof; the snow would slide off the roof in a low rumbling that was like our own personal 4.5 on the richter scale, and leave a pile of snow that was still working on melting well into the month of April. I mean, if I'm going to have to head outside early to warm up my car in 36 degree temperatures and scrape the windshield, I should get some pretty, fluffy, sparkling in the sunlight snow to go along with it, right?

But then I think of what that snow is like in February (or March); grey and dingy from the car exhaust driving by, the blinding glare of melting snow on the roadways, and the cold that just never seems to go away, the summer that seems to be receding into the distance instead of getting closer. Yesterday, with the thermometer reading 68 degrees at 4:30 in the afternoon and the sun still high enough in the sky to spend some time outside playing, I felt a million miles away from the cold winters of New England and DC.

I still hope that it snows here (well, in Tahoe) so we can spend at least a weekend flopping down into powdery snow, making snow angels and sliding down hills, either in sleds or on skis. A few days ago, Ethan spent a good 30 minutes recounting specific details of his experience in ski school last year in Tahoe (the whole 1 day of it). I love that he loves the snow. I want to foster that, but its hard in a place where you have to drive five hours to get to a flake of snow.

But still. It's not a bad trade off when you can go play on the beach without a coat on one day before New Year's Eve...

fish eye of Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz

hanging out at the pier with friends; these boys are my life savers--they are a few years older than Ethan and know ALL about Star Wars AND Legos...

One wonders what surfer dude does with his board when he's riding his bike to the beach...

digging in the sand

Bombs away! Yes, that is a cannonball into a dry pit of sand. Boys.

Playing catch? With my kid. Awesome.

He holds his own with the big kids just fine, thank you very much!

Ah, That's Better....

2012-01-11T19:42:00.000-08:00

.....um. Or is it?

As you see, some....thing (again with no feet), wearing black pants up to her stick-armpits, minus hands and/or fingers (note Husband and Ethan both have fingers extending from their identifiable arms), wearing no top and apparently having been shocked by something (or yelling, perhaps more likely, asking "where the hell is my shirt???!!!), has found its way into Ethan's family portrait. And I'm sorry, but what exactly is that line coming down between my legs? Am I really a cross with a yelling head on it?

Bless his wonderful sweet little heart, I love that boy. But this picture, and my late arrival to it, is a therapist's dream. Husband's wearing no pants, I'm wearing no top. Husband is smiling (of course, he's not wearing any pants!) and I'm yelling. None of us have feet, I have no hands or fingers, but I *might* have a penis. Oy.

Late.

2012-01-10T09:28:00.000-08:00

We were late to school today, for the first time ever, thanks to His Royal Highness Sir Know-it-All McBossy Boots. At 8:10, I tossed his clothes for the day on the couch while he gazed glassy-eyed at the TV, apparently food coma'd out from his french toast and milk and said, "time to get dressed, Ethan!" To which he replied with all the sullen annoyance of a 14 year old girl, "I have plenty of time, momma," and went back to whatever animated drivel was flashing in front of him at the time (that would be Chuggington, Disney's Thomas rip off.)

Plenty of time, you say? Okay. I'm a fan of natural consequences. Someday that child is going to school in his pajamas. So I reminded him that his tone was unacceptable (because that? not okay) and went off to get myself ready for the day (the magical lure of Chuggington has no hold on me. But Matt Lauer was in my room making cheeky small talk with Ann Curry, so I had to get in there ASAP).

Sure enough, 15 minutes later, at 8:25, a mere 15 minutes before we needed to be out the door, Ethan was still not dressed. He had grown bored with the cartoon trains and their lessons about responsibility and honesty, and had located one of his light sabers (see previous post). I found him, still in his Batman jammies, standing on the back of the couch, poised to take out General Grievous, or some such Clone Wars baddie (hello, not the real Star Wars).

"Ethan, get dressed. Now. We're going to be late."

"Mom, I KNOW! I am getting dressed!" Seriously, he's standing on the back of the couch, light saber above his head, in his jammies, clothes still on the other couch exactly where I put them 15 minutes ago. I don't know what part of this could possibly be considered "I am getting dressed," but 5 year olds have this uncanny way of believing that if they say something out loud, it must be true. "You don't have to always actually remind me!" (he loves to throw the word "actually" into as many sentences as he can, whether it belongs there or not.) Insolent scowling teenage tone gives way to weepy kindergarten whining. Have you heard that? Its somewhere between nails on a chalk board and and two alley cats duking it out. So, pretty. But at least its age-appropriate. I assure him that unless he can actually dress without my reminders, yes, I do actually have to remind him.

Thus commences yet another discussion about his tone (disrespectful and unacceptable) and his decision-making skills (um, poor, at this moment) and a pouting Ethan puts on his clothes. Once the dressing is finally complete, the tooth brushing battle begins. This is one where natural consequences aren't acceptable because teeth are kind of, well, necessary for the eating and the talking and the looking not-scary for the rest of your life. Important things. So the natural consequence of "don't brush your teeth, your teeth rot"? Not going to work for me.

So after telling him twice to brush his teeth (and threatening to confiscate the light sabers, "do you really want to put the entire galaxy at risk over a couple of teeth, Ethan???!!!") I went about my business, listening for the sound of water running in the bathroom.

Funnily enough, without my ever having heard the water run, Ethan emerged from the bathroom, moments later, declaring his teeth clean and himself ready to save the galaxy from Ventress and the Rancor monster. (whoever named these Clone Wars characters really phoned it in, in my opinion. What happened to the Boba Fets, the Wookies and the TaunTauns? Words make up out of the blue, no connotation, no connection to words in the English (or any) language. Rancor? General Grievous? Lame.)

A quick check of all four of his tooth brushes (don't ask) revealed not one wet one, and no sign of tooth paste on any. Sigh. Thus ensued the biggest battle of the morning. The one that involves the whole "LYING IS WRONG!!!!!" part of the battle. Where Ethan tries to convince me that even though he "lied" he didn't really "lie" so much as "pretended." And then we talk about the difference between "lying" and "pretending" and on and on and on. That's a fun one.

After several moments of ensuring me that he had, indeed, brushed his teeth and that he had actually dried his toothbrush on a towel (seriously?!), I sadly had to remove the light saber from the fearless Jedi amidst much foot stomping and "You're so mean to me!!!!!!!"'ing. I ensured him the only thing he was responsible for saving in this particular galaxy was his teeth and to get into the bathroom and start brushing and that I was going to be there in a second to make sure he was doing it this time.

Grumble. Grumble. Grumble. "You don't HAVE to watch me brush my teeth," he muttered. "Apparently I do, Ethan. When I don't watch you? You don't do it. What part of that aren't you getting?"

Finally, 15 minutes later, we are ready to leave. Only problem is that "15 minutes later" is when we're supposed to be walking through the door of his classroom, not out the door to our car. As we are heading out the door, we begin the "can I bring my light saber to school" part of the whole morning melodrama. Delightful. Apparently there is a belief among 5 year olds that the longer they draw out the long "e" sound in the word "pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease," the more likely parents are to oblige them & their ridiculous demands. Someone needs to clear this misunderstanding up for them.

I did my part by ensuring him that no amount of pleading or long "e" sounds was going to make me change my mind, he was not going to bring a weapon-eque toy to school to wield at his classmates, and that this was not only my rule, but also the rules of the school and stop trying to argue with me that a light saber isn't really a weapon. "Did a light saber kill Obi Wan?! Did a light saber chop of Luke Skywalker's hand? Okay, then. Its a weapon. It stays at home. End of discussion. We are very late. Get in the car. NOW."

The raising of the voice creates all kinds of undesirable reactions in my child. Tears, further whining and declaring me "mean" and "too demanding," to which I reply, "If I have to be mean and demanding to get you to school, I guess I am." The drive to school is rife with pouty "haruuuummmpppphs" from the back seat Jedi in futile attempts to continue the discourse which has now caused us to be late enough that the entire traffic pattern to school has evolved to a rush hour mess and I'm stuck behind 10 cars at the light instead of the usual 2 and parking at the school is going to be a cluster and that's going to make us even later and OMG WHY CAN'T HE JUST GET DRESSED WITHOUT A FIGHT???????

Sigh.

When we finally get to school and walk into the office for a late slip, for the first time ever, the principal welcomes us with smiles and a cheery "This is your first late slip? And in January?! Good track record, Ethan!"

WHAT?????!!!! No, no, no, no!!! I love the school and I adore the principal but PLEASE don't make it okay that my kid is late to school! I know its not the end of the world and I tempered my "we're late! Its not okay to be late to school," lectures with "it's not the end of the worlds" and whatnot. I'm not interested in breaking my child's spirit over a freaking late slip, but COME ON! He needs to know that respecting me, and a schedule, and the time of his teacher and classmates, and his education, is IMPORTANT. It's not super duper that this is the first time he's been late to school. Sigh. I'm not looking for anyone to hand him a detention slip over it, but a gentle, "let's not let this happen again, okay, buddy?" would have been nice.

So tomorrow, given how closely we've been cutting it lately with our schedule and running late, the light sabers are going to be disappearing during our morning routine until he's dressed and his teeth are brushed. That's going to be fun. If you happen to hear a caterwauling banshee howl sometime around 8am PST, that's my kid, a lone Jedi protesting the evil Empire.

The Force is With Him....

2012-01-09T15:37:00.000-08:00

ALL. THE. FREAKING. TIME.

Ethan's obsessed with Star Wars. OBSESSED. As I type this, he is in the living room dueling some visible-only-to-him Utapowan alien creature with both his blue and his red light sabers slicing and dicing, and claiming he's more powerful than Yoda (big talk for a 5 year old). He's also narrating every millisecond of the action with the least coherent string of seemingly unrelated words I've ever heard. In a British accent.

There are menacing faces being pulled, and an unlikely number of flailing, screaming death scenes being played out over and over again in the Jedi arena that is the space between the couch and the TV. This happens at least 5 times a day, 8 on the weekends. Occasionally I am unable to find any laundry that needs sorting or dishes that need to be loaded into the dishwasher & I find myself on the business end of a blue light saber and the cutest 3 foot tall Jedi since Yoda:

The Force is strong with this one...

He is all business....

oh, the drama!!!

And the grand finale---the gut-wrenching death scene in which our Jedi knight, having been struck down by the enemy, crawls to his light saber. Very touching.

A little bit of belated Christmas morning Darthness...

Husband battles the Young Jedi.

Research....

It's a Thankless Job, But...

2012-01-06T21:32:00.000-08:00

Behold, my child's "family portrait":

Now, let's for a minute just so Husband and Ethan aren't missing feet. And that each have the appropriate number of fingers (instead of Husband having 4 on each hand and Ethan having between 6-7 per hand). AAAAnd, for argument's sake, let's ignore the fact that my child thinks he's African American (except, apparently for one of his arms.) And Husband is bald.

Um.

Where am I?

I'm aware that it's not all about me, but maybe, in a family portrait, I could make at least a passing appearance?

It is adorable & I love it & I'm so glad I took this picture because the teacher told me that she was going to have him "finish" the picture today---by which I mean she probably said to Ethan, "this is going to really bum your mom out; maybe you can find a way to put her into this picture today?" And Ethan told me this afternoon that he had, indeed, added an after-thought Mom to the family treasure. So the next time I see it, I'll be in there somewhere, which is good. But I'm so glad I snapped this shot of the portrait before he was encouraged to "finish" it. Not only is it adorable, but its going to make great guilt fodder someday....

Block....

2012-01-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

The problem with taking an unintentional blogging hiatus is that when you come back, you can't think of anything exciting enough in your life to blog about. Even though you've been saying in your head at various times in the past months, "this would be a great blog entry" as your child practices Parkour on the living room furniture or is mid-light saber duel with Husband, when you're sitting in front of the blank screen, and you've forgotten how to write, none of it seems all that enthralling (at least to others).

It kind of sucks to be 5 days into my big fat bloggapaloooooza and think "well, crap, what the hell am I going to write about?!" Disheartening.

But this can only mean one thing--time to start whipping up some new adventures and blog-foddery opportunities!! Time to get out the map, put our fingers down and find something to do, some place to go. Life tends to stagnate when I'm not writing and I'm not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg, but there it is. So along with resolving to write more in the blog, I'm resolving to have more adventures this year.

Time to get started...see you back here tomorrow...

Being Bad...

2012-01-04T10:05:00.000-08:00

We've been talking a lot to Ethan lately about the difference between "being bad" and bad behavior. At an age where the questions about "good guys & bad guys" and Darth Vader and Aniken Skywalker (the same person, no less!) are of the utmost fascination, at least when he isn't asking me questions like, "Momma" (I've recently become 'momma'), do fish have testicles?" and "Momma, what is heaven?" So you know, we've got a wide variety of interests going on here, everything from fish testicles to the after life. Throw "good" and "bad" in there & you've got an epic ~~shit storm~~ party of parental explanatory performances.

The "bad" guy discussion was made easier (or tougher, as the case may be) over the past year by my slowly growing willingness to listen to NPR in the car again. So there have been vague discussions about Osama bin Laden ("He was a really bad guy who hurt a lot of people and the brave people in our military made sure he'll never hurt anyone again), and Jerry Sandusky (hello, lengthy discussions about stranger danger and why its important to scream "FIRE" instead of just screaming and how there are certain times when its okay to jab your thumb into another person's eyeball and twist.)

He has also asked why a bad guy would want to hurt John Lennon. This after someone other than myself or Husband told my then 4 year old that Lennon was shot and killed over 20 years ago. And that George Harrison got really sick and died, too. Yeah. Kind of like taking Santa Claus away from the kid.

Still, thankfully, Ethan's concept of "bad guys" is limited---when he asked about how many bad guys there are in the world, I assured him that there are over 6 billion people in the world (or is it 8 now?!) and that the vast majority of them are indeed good-hearted people. His reply? "So there are like 4 or 5 bad guys?"

Bless his heart.

So I'm really sensitive about how he perceives himself in terms of "good" or "bad." Lately, there's been a lot of testing those boundaries--especially given the Jekyll & Hyde dynamic of his latest obsession--the Darth Vader/Anikin Skywalker juxtoposition. Sweet innocence turned into pure evil?! How is that possible?! Can I be good AND bad?! Is Darth Vader really all bad if he started out as a good Jedi like Aniken?! But....but.....

A couple weeks ago, during a few moments of particularly obnoxious behavior on Ethan's part, someone in our presence asked Ethan "just how bad can you be?!" in awed disbelief that a 5 year old would not always be demonstrating exemplary and angelic behavior. Ethan stopped short, considering the question. Was he bad? Him? Bad?

Sigh. So after removing him from the situation, we sat & talked about how sometimes we behave in ways that are not acceptable, or inappropriate or yes, even bad. But that there's a distinction between the behavior and the person. HE was not bad. He was behaving totally inappropriately for the situation, and he needed to stay in his room for a few minutes and chill out until he could pull it together and be around people again. But that didn't mean he was "bad."

Dont' get me wrong; I have no illusions that my child is some type of infallible cherub, dripping only sweetness and sunshine. Oh lord, no. Since kindergarten started, holy hell, it is one test after another. There are battles about eating, about cleaning up, about what exactly my role, as his mother (read: not his maid or short order cook) is, and the list goes on. And there are consequences for the behaviors that make me want to run screaming from the house like my head is on fire (and for lesser offenses, too). Wanting your child to grow up with a fundamental belief in his own goodness doesn't translate into letting them burn the house down and giving them a gold star for it.

The other evening, after a particularly, erm, challenging day filled with meltdowns and tears and the occasional slamming door and the ensuing consequences, Ethan came to me at bedtime, "cutest kid ever" jammies on & face washed, ready for sleep. He hugged me and said, "sorry I was so bad today, Momma." Oh my heart. And so there was another conversation before bed about the difference between being a bad person versus sometimes behaving badly. After which he trotted off to bed & mentally pummeled husband with 100 questions about the Star Wars galaxy--like if it's "in real life" and is it out there happening right now & how do we know about it? And do fish have testicles? Oh, no, wait---he asked me that this morning during breakfast.

At an age when the concept of "good" and "bad" are just throbbing in the forefront of his busy brain, and he's learning how to view himself and the people around him, it seems worth the extra effort to drive home the distinction between being a bad person and being a good person who occasionally makes poor choices & exhibits bad behavior.

Dont' be fooled by the masks--he's one of the good ones.

Why My Husband is Awesome, Reason #12,478,007

2012-01-03T22:28:00.000-08:00

For Chrismukkah, he got me an awesome fish eye/macro photo lens for my iPhone. And I don't think I've paid much attention to anything else since....

Seabright Beach lighthouse, Santa Cruz, CA

backyard bud starting to sprout. Macro shots make my heart pitter pat, people.

Natural Bridges, Santa Cruz, CA (and also, I need to learn how to keep my fingers out of fisheye pictures. Der.)

Another backyard bloom---Mother Nature is 100% mindblowing in macro.

Dandelion

And then a couple more from this week that are neither fish eye nor macro, but were lucky shots, so I thought I'd share...

winter tree, Los Gatos, CA

Church, San Jose, CA

Winery, Los Gatos, CA

My favorite tree (I have a thing for the trees....) in this morning's fog.

These pictures, and hopefully a few more, will be coming to an Etsy shop near you soon, since one of my resolutions is to get my butt in gear and get that shop going. *gulp*

E! News...

2012-01-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

No, no; there's no Kardashian news here. No one got married for 25 minutes and made a gazillion dollars for their wedding photos here. No one's in rehab or breaking parole. No one's drinking tiger blood and making millions off of shouting "winning!!!" into a computer camera. And, (and this one's going way back) no fading teenage star is shaving her hair in a tattoo parlor and assaulting photographers with umbrellas. Nope. I'm just tired & couldn't come up with a snappier title, and I wanted to give you some updates on Ethan since I haven't blogged in eleventy billion years.

So, in E! News....

When I was busy not blogging in October, Ethan took a spill off his bike. It looked a little something like this:

At least that's what it looked like when we finally got him to the hospital. What it looked like initially? Was a lot bloodier. I am forever grateful that Husband was with Ethan when the chin-splitting fall took place because I would likely have passed out at the sight of all that blood, hit my own head on the pavement and then we'd be quite a pair. But Husband had the presence of mind to stay conscious, and he scooped the screaming bleeding boy up and carry him home, while at the same time dialing me and yelling into the phone, "We're going to the hospital. We're going to need stitches" over the screaming coming from Ethan.

Now, when Husband says without any hesitation that we are in an emergency situation that requires immediate medical attention (and then goes on to specify what that medical attention is going to be)? It's an emergency. This man has talked me out of many a late night trips to the ER with Ethan over the past 5 years and the one time he did cave to my hysteria last year after a bout of croupy coughing and vomiting, he was kind of humoring me. He's calm under pressure and rarely over-reacts, while I get kiiiiiind of crazy in any situation that does not resemble a spa setting.

So I knew to throw on my shoes and meet them at the front door, where I was greeted by my child covered in blood which was still gushing thickly from somewhere on his face. I ran back inside for towels and ice and off we went to the nearest ER.

The thing about some ER nurses? They aren't so great with screaming kids. I'm sure there are some who are phenomenal. I'm sure there are ER nurses out there who would make it their job, especially on a slow October Saturday afternoon, to put a terrified, hurting 5 year old boy at ease while he waited to be examined by the doctor. Buuuuuut, not these ER nurses. They were more about asking us to get our kid to pipe down because he was scaring other patients. Now granted, Ethan was in full-on terror & shock mode, having what I am absolutely certain would have been categorized as a panic attack. I get that it was unnerving (hello, it took YEARS off of my life. I get it!) But really? "Can you quiet your kid down because he's scaring other patients." Yeah, sorry. But no.

When the doctor on call finally got the bleeding to stop and the area numbed enough that she could get a good look (and by "good look" I mean she could see straight down into the chasm that only stopped at my son's chin bone), she announced that she "wasn't going to touch that," and that we'd have to wait for the plastic surgeon on call to come in. That sent Ethan into another round of hysterics, but Husband was smart and whipped out the iPhone to distract Ethan while we waited.

That looked something like this:

See that little scratch on his middle finger? That was the only other mark on his body from this fall. The entire brunt of it was taken by his chin, hence the split that could only be described as a chin c-section.

Hours later, the plastic surgeon showed up in a pair of shorts and a Calvin Klein t-shirt ready ~~to dose me up with botox~~ stitch the boy's chin up. After about 5 more panic attacks (Husband finally had the stroke of genius to turn the Beatles musical selections on from his iPhone and miraculously Ethan relaxed and cooperated), six internal stitches and eight external...or maybe it's the other way around--either way, there were 14 stitches, they sent us on our way....which looked kind of like this....

poor little guy, trying to smile.

So that was in October. Last week, Ethan had a crown put on one of his back molars because in addition to splitting his chin to the bone, he also knocked his teeth together so hard during the fall that he fractured a couple teeth.

Clearly he is still super adorable:

And he likes to remind me on occasion, that "chicks dig scars, mommy."

BLOGAPALOOOOOOOZA!

2012-01-01T19:42:00.001-08:00

As in "I am a total blogapaLOSER." Seriously. The fact that I had to squint at the screen, scrunch up my brain and think "what the hell is my log in?" to get to this blog is sign enough that holy hell, I've been gone too long. And I wish I could tell you I've been crafting the great American novel or scouting the rain forests of the Amazon for the cure for cancer---but I cannot. Because what I've been doing is giving myself carpel tunnel by having 18 games of Words with Friends going at one time, editing, reediting and framing 2000+ digital pictures from my iphone, and don't get me started on Pintrest.

Also, since we moved closer to Ethan's kindergarten, I have forfeited the luxury of lounging at coffee shops during his school hours instead of driving the 15 miles back and forth. So that means my house is cleaner and the laundry is done. But that means that now I'm at home, folding laundry or chopping vegetables while watching Will & Grace on Lifetime instead of sipping tea in the coffee shop and writing in my blog.

So, sadly, that brings us up to date. Not glamorous, huh? Sorry.

BUT!! One of my resolutions this year is to turn my blogapaloser into BLOGAPALOOOOOOOZA!!! As in, "damn, look at that girl blog!" That means this month I will blog every single day. My house *might* not get clean. But then, none of us died of the plague when I was spending some of my time each day writing at Starbucks, so I'm fairly certain I'm not jeopardizing the well-being of any loved ones by heading back to the coffee shop, laptop in hand.

Just a short entry for today--I have a whole lot of resolution starting to accomplish today (bye-bye Peppermint Joe-Joes!), but I'll leave you with this little dude....

Clearly, he's super thrilled that I'm going to be writing stories about him again.

Maybe He's a Vampire?

2011-11-13T15:51:00.000-08:00

Fridays are Ethan's kindergarten are seirously fun. The day starts with an all-school sing-along assembly, where the kiddos learn patriot favorites like "This Land is Your Land," holiday favorites like "The Monster Mash," and sometimes, a few Beatles songs (yeah, that's right--All You Need is Love on a Friday morning with coffee and 100 elementary kids--pretty sweet.)

Then Ethan's class pours out of the building to recess, 20 minutes of controlled (more or less) chaos where the boys spin BeyBlades while the girls build fairy forts on the hillside. Apparently this is the age/grade where the genders cootify (Shakespeare invented 10,000 new words, leave me alone) and can no longer bare to socialize with each other--it happens so organically its hard to fight--these days I watch Ethan catch pretend footballs on the lawn, wrestle his way out of a pile up of fellow kindergarten boys and engage in to-the-death light saber battles in the courtyard with his guy friends, after school. Only when we get home does he readily admit that he would still like to go to his girl friend's house and put on Disney Princess dresses and conduct fashion shows for the moms until the sun goes down.

After recess the kindergarteners come in for their enrichment centers--each week revolving between gardening, cooking, art and glass/ceramics. I volunteer on Fridays, which means I spend my Friday mornings in sing-along, recess & then enrichment center. Apparently I garden. This is news to me, although as an aside, I have to say I did in fact not kill any of the garden left behind by the previous tenant AND I seem to be, at least currently, keeping our lettuce and cauliflower alive. So while I'm off digging in the dirt with one group of 5-6 year olds, Ethan is engaged in one of the other activities (except for once a month when we're together).

A couple of weeks ago, his activity was cooking. To make use of the last of the tomatoes growing in the school's gardens, the recipe of choice was bruschetta. Which calls for garlic. Something my child has probably eaten several times without either of us knowing it, but certainly not something he would, at this point in his life, opt for under any circumstances--when asked what he'd like for dinner, I guarantee you Ethan will never say to me, "You know, Mom, I think I'd like a good scampi." Won't happen.

So thinking he could avoid mixing his tomatoes (which he loves) with garlic (which he does not), he decided to tell the teacher in charge that he was actually allergic to garlic. "Allergic" is a new word to Ethan--Daddy appears to be allergic to gluten and dairy, and Ethan's school is rife with kids allergic to nuts, eggs, citrus, dairy and just about any other food product you can think of. All Ethan really gets is that "allergic" seems to mean that you don't have to eat it. So, in Ethan's mind, a garlic allergy? Very convenient.

What he didn't realize is that, as his parent, it is my duty to inform his school of any and all allergies my child might have. He also doesn't realize that allergies can be a deadly serious thing (literally). He knows nothing of anaphylaxis or EPI pens. He's never witnessed anyone having a life-threatening allergic reaction. He knows a couple of kids who have relatively mild allergies, but he's not been briefed on the significance of or the responsibility that comes with a truly serious allergy. Why would he? We're unbelievably lucky that he has none.

Well.

To say it was like he shouted "fire" in a crowded room is definitely an overstatement (but you know how I love me some hyperbole). But. The garlic was immediately whisked away and stricken from the recipe. One of the other moms volunteering offered to go check with me and either verify or debunk the claim, since she knew I was out in the garden beds trying to convince a small horde of kids to help me shlep rotting pumpkins from one bed to the other (yeah, that was not so successful. Mostly they just squealed "Ewwwwwww!" and "Cooooool" while the pumpkins disintegrated in my hands--it was really special.) The teacher declined her offer, probably thinking I was a total deadbeat of a mother not to inform the administration of my child's allergy. Apparently they asked him a couple of times if he was sure he had a garlic allergy & he insisted that yes, indeedy, he was not allowed to eat garlic.

At the end of the day, I was approached by the Dean who asked, "Does Ethan have any allergies we don't know about???!!!" Oh my. Never in my life have I done nothing wrong and felt more awful for having done something wrong. I assured her that no, he was absolutely not allergic to ANYthing, and I apologized on Ethan's behalf for making something like this up (I knew this was coming, as the aforementioned mother told me about the situation during lunch recess after the enrichment centers).

I then went in search of the cooking teacher, to offer my apologies for my silly son and his make-believe dietary intolerances. I found her in the midst of a meeting with other teachers regarding---please take a guess....kids who make allergy claims without any corroborating information from parents. Thank you, Ethan. I assured her that it wouldn't happen again and that she had not, in fact, almost killed my child with her bruschetta.

After all but taking a blood oath that my child has no food allergies, we put the whole thing behind us. Except for the discussion with Ethan about why we don't make stuff up about things that could put us into anaphylactic shock, and how thinking you might not like a food does not equal being allergic to that food.

I am poking fun at the response, but I'm actually really grateful that Ethan's school is so vigilant. Knowing that they are that careful to ensure the safety and wellbeing of their students makes me that much more confident that they are committed to looking after my child when I'm not around the other 4 days of the week. Because even without the vampiric allergy, he's still my special snowflake.

Graduating from Nick, Jr....

2011-11-07T11:18:00.000-08:00

Let's just pretend I didn't take a month of off blogging, shall we? I can't sit through another one of my rambling explanations of writer's block and what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life angst, so we'll just gloss over it and spare ourselves, mkay? But as an aside, I'll admit that I am "supposed" to be writing almost 6000 words for NaNoWriMo today, as I am already 3 days behind after a strong start (and by "strong, I mean there are words on the page, even if they don't make sense or reflect anything remotely identifiable as writing--or-thinking--talent). But considering that I realized around word 5000 that I have no discernible plot and I dont' really like my main character (who is based on ME, for the love!), I am thinking I might switch gears entirely, give myself a couple of days to brainstorm and then start from scratch again. super!

So instead of worrying about plot and character development or the existence of a theme, I decided to blather on about Ethan and how he is growing up too damn fast and SLOWTHEHELLDOWNALREADY! He is constantly asking me when his next birthday is--"how many months until May?!!" "How many weeks, days, minutes, seconds until my birthday?!" I am trying to devise plausible ways to slow down the time-space continuum so I can stay 40 for at least the next decade--40, not "in my 40's"--and he is trying to rush headlong into his next birthday so we can have a StarWarsBeatlesTransformer party at ChuckECheese/ourbackyard/PumpItUp/thepark.

He's pointing out words he knows how to spell and rambling off math equations as we drive to the grocery store. It is all very exciting and he's amazing and when I am not feeling just the tiniest bit suffocated by his constant neeeeeeeeed for attention and validation, I am busting with joy and pride at what a fantastic little man Ethan is turning into (and truly its not as though I ever doubted that).

The other day, as Ethan and I were compiling a small army of Luke Skywalkers out of playdough, Ethan heard Moose E Moose talking from the TV (yes, "bad parenting 101" in our home--the TV is on, a lot, even when we're doing other things.) and then heard announcer lady say, "It's like preschool, on TV." He looked up at me & announced, "I think I'm too old for this show; I'm in kindergarten, not preschool."

Now being the peri-menopausal, hyper-sensitive joy to be around that I am lately, these words made me a little weepy and I had to pretend to go to the bathroom because crying around your 5 year old isn't quite as okay as crying around your screaming 8 month old. After I contained myself a bit (seriously, turning 40 is a fabulously complicated blessing--time has taken on a whole new significance for me in the past few weeks; I hope its just a phase and I can soon go back to getting through a day without contemplating my own mortality and being at once crushed with gratitude for my own health and terrified by the passage of time which will surely find a way to steal it away). GAH!!!! Aren't you glad I haven't been blogging?!!! Seriously.

I realized, though, that he's right; Dora and Diego don't really speak to him any longer, aside from the fact that we can basically recite the script of each and every episode. He still loves Dino Dan and, G-d help me, The Fresh Beat Band; but other than that, we have little use for Nick, Jr. And I can't bring myself to turn on regular Nickelodeon or, even worse, live-action Disney shows. Ethan's got a sass streak that does not require him being exposed to smart-mouthed teenagers on TV. (could I sound like a crankier old woman?!) I did show him Husband's and my favorite ever cartoon--The Fairly Odd Parents, on Nick this weekend, and he liked it. Only problem with that is that its on before SpongeBob, which I loathe with the intensity of a billion white hot suns, so I have to be quick with the remote when Fairly Odd Parents is over to avoid falling into that freaking pineapple under the sea.

More than kid shows, though, Ethan has been showing an interest in the Science Channel and Food Network. Yesterday we flipped back and forth between some show on how Super Novas are created & Food Network Challenge: Lego Cakes. Obviously he can't grasp the concepts of density, worm holes and solar wind (um, hi; neither can I), or how these Challenge contestants can call rice-krispie treats "cake" (um, hi; neither can I), but he watches it rapt and full of questions. Hours later he wants to know "why did that star explode, again?" and I wrack my brain to remember something about the heaviness of the iron at its core and how when the star can't take it anymore it does something like imploding and then exploding out from the core. And then there's the whole idea of the black hole---5 year old's mind? Blown. So is back to a discussion of rice-krispie treat as sculpting medium. Far more familiar territory for me.

There's a BIG part of me that is so thrilled to say goodbye to Moose E Moose & Zee. It's been a long and drawn out relationship of convenience with them, and I don't care if Moose likes Candy Corn or if they make it to Frisko the fire ant's birthday party on time. And I won't miss Max and Ruby or Little Bear and I take sheer joy in the idea of never having to sit through another episode of the Backyardigans. But like the end of all relationships, its been a little bittersweet because they have become such a part of our daily life's fabric (again, awesome parenting!!!). And as you know, I bristle at change, even when its welcome and good for me. I'm all rational like that; its how I roll.

I'm sure we'll find our way to Channel 120 every once in awhile to see what's up with the Fresh Beats (like maybe they decide to, oh, I don't know, change clothes once in awhile?!) and Dino Dan (will his mother ever seek professional help for her child who sees extinct prehistoric beings roaming freely throughout the hallways of his school and home? And when will that annoying chubby classmate of his turn into a full-blown Chris Farley?) But for now, we are going to make Science and Food Network our go-to's. Because you know, the family who pretends to understand a damn thing that astrophysicist is saying together, stays together. And maybe if I watch enough of the show about worm-holes and black holes and the like, I'll find a way to stay 40 for the next decade.

When Life Hands You Lemons...

2011-10-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

(or a container of Country Time crystals....), set up a lemonade stand....

That's what Ethan did on Tuesday. Somehow he got it into his head to start up his own business (it could be the influence of his entrepreneurial friend, Livi, who at 5 and a half is her neighborhood's go-to dog walker, cat feeder, plant waterer extraordinaire--complete with her own marketing department) and selling icy cold beverages on the corner of our block is what struck his fancy. I'm relieved he didn't ask Husband and I for a food truck of some sort to serve his lemony elixers out of, because he's been watching a LOT of the Great Food Truck Race or whatever it's called on Food TV.

Thankfully he was content with a pared down operation of just his IKEA art table, a hand-printed sign beckoning thirty travelers and a couple of plastic jugs of lemonade. He did, at one point, insist on serving said lemonade with a Twizzler "straw" but mercifully he forgot about that little touch of je ne sais quoi after I completely spaced buying the Twizzlers along with the rest of the accoutrements.

So after school on Tuesday, we set up the stand to coincide with the dismissal time of the elementary school down the street. Oh, idyllic suburbia, how I love to hear the sound of the school bells ringing umpteen times a day from 1/4 mile away. Its like having my own little 50 minute alarm clock from the hours of 8am-3pm. You know, so I can keep track of how much time I am wasting each day, in neat little 50 minute intervals. Very helpful indeed.

While Ethan sat patiently at his lemonade stand, eagerly awaiting his first $.25, I ripped into the bags of faux-spider webs & squishy plastic spiders to drape across the shrubbery in the front yard. Because that's what you do in California in October---you celebrate the season of falling leaves and ghouls by sweating your ass off decorating for Halloween. In the 85+ degree heat. Somehow, I would envision a hot apple cider stand at this time of year, call me crazy. But no, lemonade. With lots of ice.

Slowly parents started to make their way towards the school to walk their kiddies home. Remember walking home from school? In first grade? Alone? Yeah, not anymore. Because apparently suburbia is also crawling with child-snatching lunatics. I recently read an article about the criteria for "first grade readiness" in the 1970's--one of the benchmarks was whether your child is able to walk 4-8 blocks on their own without getting lost. Um. Yeah, we live ONE block from Ethan's best friend and I'm still not comfortable letting him walk that on his own. Thank you, 21st century paranoia; I'm looking at you, Nancy Farking Grace.

As parents approached, Ethan decided on a "yell at potential customers" marketing approach by announcing at full volume that he had "LEMONADEFORSAAAAALE!!!" in case the sign that said "Lemonade" and the two 2-gallon jugs of lemonade on his table were not enough of an indication. Good sports, each and every one, they smiled and said they would be back, many of them saying, "Oh, I wish I had some money with me! I'd love some!" as they sauntered on towards the school.

After hearing this "I don't have any money on me" reason a few times, Ethan decided to conserve his booming sales pitch until he got a sense of what he was working with---the next parent who passed by was not greeted by his town-crier-esque announcement about his lemonade, but a question about her financial liquidity. "DO YOU HAVE ANY MONEY????" he asked the mom passing by, and 15 feet away, I threw about 10 plastic spiders in the air in horror. Thankfully, she laughed and said that no, she didn't, but once she picked up her kids, they would walk home and get some.

"Ethan!!! Honey, don't ask people for money!!! Offer them the lemonade!" How charming that I had to caution my child against pan-handling on the corner of our block. Winning!

Finally a steady stream of sweaty elementary kids and their parents came filing past the stand and Ethan's business was hopping. With two sizes to choose from, we were doling out small and large cups of lemonade for $.25 and $.50 a pop, some with ice, some without. Considering the 2-gallon jugs were too heavy for Ethan to pour, and that he has no idea how to make change, it was basically my lemonade stand, but his cute-factor is definitely what brought in the uber-generous tips (seriously--someone gave us a $5 for a $.50 cup of Country Time lemonade).

After the rush elementary kids was over, we were left with only one small cup of lemonade left, which we split between us (guys, Country Time is nasty), and $30. Not too shabby for one hour's worth of work.

Ethan's already started planning his next lemonade stand--he wants to make a LOT more lemonade so that we can also handle the middle school crowd that lets out 30 minutes or so after the elementary school. He wants to add the option of some sort of berry or pink lemonade ("maybe we can even put real strawberries in the lemonade!!!"), and next time he hopes that I've found his cash register in our moving boxes so he can use it for each and every transaction.

Watch for us on Food TV--The Next Great Lemonade Stand competition. He's got it in the bag.

"Do you have any money???!!!!"

"Come on, you know you've got some money....."

"I'll give you some lemonade for some money!!!!!!"

Oh, that bandaid on his chin? Yeah, I'll tell you about that next time.

I Want My Two Dollarsssss....

2011-09-29T09:29:00.001-07:00

Please tell me you're old enough to get that reference? Please?

My child--no doubt as a result of our own tendency to be a little too free w/ the purchase of toys and treats throughout, well, his entire life--has started to become a bit pushy with the "I wants" of late. He believes to his core that every trip to Target to pick up toilet paper and a gallon of milk warrants a stroll through the toy aisles and the purchase of at least one Hot Wheels car, if not an Imaginext Batmobile or some sort of super hero paraphernalia. And to be fair, for a long time, I fell into the trap of "If you're on your best behavior while we shop for everything we need, Mommy will buy you a Hot Wheels car." In my defense, they are $1 and provided hours of entertainment, so it seemed like a budget-friendly no-brainer. However, since Ethan's generally well-behaved and we go to Target a lot (which might be the larger root of the whole problem--mama's a bit spendy and that can't be great money-management modeling), we are now living in a house that has a Hot Wheel to human ratio of about 30:1 (yeah, I just used a ratio. Suck on that, math teachers who thought I was hopeless. I'm looking at you, Sr. Eleanor.) (Is that what a ratio looks like? Did I do it right?) (I should have paid more attention to Sr. Eleanor).

So when I'm not puncturing the arch of my foot on one of Ethan's little metal non-explosive land mines that are strewn throughout his room and the hallway, I am sweeping them out from underneath the couch, or having to stop the dryer because one has fallen out of a pocket and is clunking around in there, or listening to one of the cats bat a car around the kitchen floor (where they are sure to leave it for me to step on next time I enter the kitchen.)

So yeah, too many toys. Even though we got rid of quite a bit before our move & even though I've intentionally not unpacked a whole box that's currently residing in our garage. Really, then, I can't blame Ethan for having an expectation of instant gratification when we are anywhere remotely near a store that markets products to his age group.

We've been slowly backing off of toy purchases except for the holidays, birthdays and other special occasions. I can't remember the last time we purchased a toy for Ethan just because we were there and it was available. Each time we meet with some resistance, but its been a good opportunity to talk about gratitude and how we are so lucky to have everything we do. He likes to talk the talk--he can tell me all the things he's grateful for and that there are lot of boys and girls out there who don't have it as cushy as he does. But when push comes to shove, the boy wants the goods.

Things came to a head a couple weekends ago when we were at a toy store purchasing presents for a friend's birthday party. Ethan was intent that he neeeeeeeeded a toy--he didn't even know what toy & couldn't even find anything that he really really felt compelled to have. But those details don't concern him---he wanted a toy and expected to be able to stay and browse until he found something suitable. When Husband and I insisted that we were there to buy presents for our friend, that we had in fact already purchased said gift and were making our way to the store exit, the storm hit.

A few warning gusts of whine. The clouds of the furrowed brows and clenched fists came next. Then the deluge of giant alligator tears. Followed closely by the spinning twister of "I waaaaaaannnntttt a tooooooyyyyyyyy," repeated over and over. Of course, in front of several other parents, no doubt judging us for either the general over-indulgence that would have lead to such an outburst, or for not buying him a toy to get him to pipe down. It was super good times.

And being that he's working so hard to be on his best behavior during the school week, when he loses it at home or on the weekends, he loses it hard. Wild assertions, such as "money DOES grow on treeeeeeees," and "but I don't have ANY toys at home!!!!!!" come flying from his mouth through tears, in a desperate attempt to get us to believe in some sort of alternative reality. He says it with such certainty (as though I am a dumbass for not having planted more money trees in the backyard and how could I not notice that dust-bunnies are the only thing inhabiting his toy boxes?!!!???)

Fortunately for Husband and me, this bodes well for us being able to out-logic our child for quite a while to come. I have friends whose kids are so sharp in the area of logical argument that they are already being stumped by their 5 year olds. Thankfully, our little boy is more of a flights-of-fancy type of kid, based firmly in emotional reaction (he *might* get that from me?! Maybe?) as opposed to logic and linear thinking.

Having had enough of these types of outbursts, Husband and I proposed a chore & allowance schedule whereby Ethan could earn his own money and spend it according to his wishes (after putting the first 1/2 of his allowance in the bank each week). Ethan loved this idea. Perhaps because after the list of chores and what each was worth financially was drawn up, he assumed he would be paid, in cash, every single time he performed one of his chores. He ran to the cat dish, tipped the bag of food over until it was spilling out over the bowl, ran back to the living room, stuck out his hand and said, "Twenty-five cents, please."

Excellent. Now that I won't have to feed the cats for a week & a half, let's make "sweeping up the spilled cat food" part two of that particular chore.

When we informed Ethan that, no, he wouldn't receive a quarter here or fifty cents there, every time he completed one of his chores, the storm of righteous indignation swelled again. "But....but I fed the cats! I did my chooooooore! I want my moneyyyyyyy!!!" Oh, the tears.

We explained to him how an allowance works--we'll tally up the chores he performs and how often on the responsibility chart each week & on Fridays we'll give him the total amount we owe him. Husband explained that even he only got paid every two weeks for all the work he does at his company. This was met with more cries of, "I want my twenty-five cennnnnnnnts!" and Husband and I taking turns leaving the room to snicker at our little workers' rights activist threatening to go on strike almost even before he'd started the job if the terms weren't to his liking.

In the end, to at once appease him and to show him the futility of receiving his allowance in tiny pieces, Husband reached into his pocket, pulled out a quarter and handed it to Ethan. He stood there with the quarter in his hand (at first he was horrified that all his hard work of over-filling the cat dish was reduced to one coin--Husband asked him if he'd prefer 25 pennies instead & the response was a resounding "YES."), I'm sure feeling a mix of satisfaction and confusion. He asked if we could go to Target so he could spend his allowance. Husband and I asked him what he planned to buy with $0.25. Looking down at the shiny coin, he contemplated his purchasing power. Then he put his allowance into his pocket and said, "You can just give me the rest of my allowance at the end of the week."

Excellent idea, little man.

So far this week, I haven't had to feed the cats, pick up any of Ethan's clothes to put them in the laundry hamper, make Ethan's bed or water our plants. Fabulous. The only chore that Ethan's yet to attempt is "Clean Your Room." This chore is worth the most money because its the toughest job--it will be interesting to see how he responds tomorrow when we give him what he will surely consider a puny sum of cash (since Husband told him what his potential earning power was). I wonder if that means next week will find his room sparkly and clean. We'll see.

Until then, we're just doing what we can to help out the economy, right?

Sir Paul, Style Icon...

2011-09-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

While some boys these days are walking into their local kid's hair cut place with a picture of Justin Bieber, or simply sitting at the kitchen table as their mom buzzes around their head with electric clippers, my kid's got a different vision. Paul McCartney. More specifically, "the young Paul McCartney."

Two days before school pictures, Ethan's hair was looking like this:

Probably the longest its ever been. We ask him periodically, "is it time for a haircut, buddy?" and 99% of the time, "nope, I like it," is the response we get. It was encouraging when we started kindergarten and found there were two other boys in the class who unapologetically wear their hair long; at least I didn't have to worry about him being made fun of, or being mistaken for a girl.

But the day before school pictures, Ethan announced he was ready for a change. "Can we get my hair cut? I want it cut like Paul McCartney. Young Paul McCartney." Not that there's a huge difference between young and not-so-young Paul McCartney hair. But the kid knows what he wants.

We sat down with Google and did an image search for of Sir Paul, on the look out for the perfect picture of the mop-top in question. Ethan decided on this:

I think it was the fact that he looks like he's Vogue-ing that Ethan liked more than the hair, but whatever. I saved the picture and brought it to our local kid's hair salon.

Really enjoying his time in the stylist's chair....

Pondering his new 'do...

Ethan's imitation of the original picture of McCartney

and his kindergartener's artistic interpretation of said pose.

Is it just me, or does he look like an entirely different child with short hair? Long hair or short, The Cute is almost too much to take, in my admittedly biased opinion.

Hell Hath No Fury...

2011-09-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

like a worn-out kindergartener.

Holy cats, people. This child is out of his everloving mind these days. Bless his heart, all I hear from school (teachers, other parents, administrators, etc) is how fabulous he is. "He's so sweet!" "He's very thoughtful of his classmates." and my personal favorite, "you know the advice they give you in communication seminars? Like to nod and make eye contact when you're listening and to repeat back to a person what you've heard them say? Ethan totally did that with me today--what a great communicator!!!"

This confounds me. Perhaps the doorway into the kindergarten classroom is in fact a portal to an alternate universe where only happy, well-behaved & respectful kids are compatible with the air supply. Perhaps ::sob:: he just really likes being there more than he likes being with me ::sob:: Perhaps the teacher has bribed them with toys and candy if they save up all the turmoil for at home (which? I can't blame her. I've got 1, she's got 23).

But whatever it is, within moments of pick up, the magic spell of good behavior has gone *POOF* into the ether and the next several hours are littered with tantrums and whining and sass. It's really special. Really. Special.

Let's see, an example? Okay. Last Wednesday, Ethan asked to stay late at extended care--its like a elementary-age appropriate rave in there every day from what I've heard---dance parties, movies, popcorn, games, Wii, arts & crafts, etc. Who wouldn't want to stay?! Fine. It was "sports" day last Wednesday, so I let him stay until 3pm (two hours longer than his regular school). I speed walk my way to the playground to find him running around with his friends, playing tag. (fortunately, Ethan goes to one of the remaining schools in the area that allows the game of 'tag' on its playground. You know, while kids at some other schools are perhaps wrapped up snug in bubble wrap before being allowed out onto the playground.)

I smile & wave from the edge of the playground. When Ethan sees me, he immediately stops his chase and hangs his head. The trudging towards me slowly begins. Oh, the drama. By the time he reaches me, he is gearing up for the wailing. "Why do we have to gooooooooooo???? I hardly had any time to plaaaaaaayyyyyyyy." The extended care teacher gives me a look like, "Um. Yeah, he's been playing his heart out for 2 straight hours," which I know is true. Bless his heart, Ethan's little fibs are so entirely unbelievable that unless he improves at it, he's going to try to tell a teacher some day that a UFO abducted his homework. The tears start to flow. The ever-increasing pitch of "I don't want to gooooooooo" starts up.

When I tried to tell him that it was 3pm and he had in fact had plenty of time to play, he started in with the, "It's not 3 o'clock!" This is my favorite--when he tries to argue away cold, hard, totally non-threatening facts. "It's not 3 o'clock!" "No, you didn't buy me a toy yesterday!" (fact: yes, I bought you a Batman batmobile to go with your batcopter. FACT!)

And then we escalate to the "always" & "never" statements and the whole concept of fairness. Oh, this is always a good time.

"You never let me do anything fun!!!!!" (this is after I paid extra for him to stay in extended care for 2 hours so he could have FUN with his friends). "I never get to have a play date!!!" (this wailed in agony as we were leaving....a play date. Oh, the irony!)

This weekend he informed me and Husband that he was going to "cry for a month" because we wouldn't buy him a toy while at Target picking out birthday presents for friends. I told him that if he planned to cry for a month I would go ahead and cancel our play dates for the next four weeks because no one wants to hang out with a kid who's incessantly leaking from his tear ducts and complaining about life. He stopped crying.

This is where I admit to being a horrible mother & say that sometimes, he gets so riled up and crazy, saying such nonsensical things with such conviction that I have to leave the room. Not because I'm frustrated, but because it makes me giggle. There is something unbelievably precious about him losing his mind over the silliest little things (although I realize they are not silly to him), and I just love him so much, it makes me smile and that upsets him more (understandably). So I leave the room for a minute while he's yelling about how "NOT VERY NICE!!!!!!" I am. I don't feel great about giggling over these tantrums, but I guess it is better than having to suppress the urge to spank him instead.

For all my joking about the alternate universe in the paragraphs above, I know that he's just working so hard to transition smoothly into kindergarten, to stay on task, to make sure the teacher loves him as much as his last teachers did, making new friends, falling in love with math (my kid???!!!! oy). By the time he gets home, he's just got nothing left---the "good behavior" tank is running on fumes.

Husband jokes with me when he is displaying typical gross male behavior in front of me (use your imagination) that I should feel grateful he's comfortable enough around me to just be himself in all his grossness. "It's intimacy" he says. Um.........

But in a way, its the same thing going on with Ethan right now, but with tantrums and borderline psychotic mood swings instead of bodily functions. After a day of concentrating on being the best behaved kid he can possibly be, Ethan's comfortable enough with me to just be himself--and "himself" at that time, is a whining, complaining, tantruming mess. And I love him just the same.

Of course that doesn't mean he's getting away with it, either. He has lost play dates (which is probably a good thing because he is bone-crushingly tired by the end of the day) and he's spent some time in time-out. Today we are making something called a "mind jar"---a thing I found on Pintrest. Its a jar filled with water, glitter-glue and food coloring. When mixed together, it creates a glittery lava-lamp type effect in the jar. The woman who posted it on her blog uses it as a tool for her children when their behavior or mood is out of control. They have to go to a certain spot with the jar, shake it up and take some deep breaths as they watch the glitter settle back to the bottom of the jar. Then they can put it down and come talk about what's going on, or apologize--whatever's appropriate in the moment.

Ethan loves the idea. "So I can calm down when I'm really upset, right?" he says. I love that he gets to help make it and therefore has some ownership over it. And I love that while it is a great redirection away from undesirable behavior, it doesn't really feel like punishment (because why should I be punishing Ethan for having feelings?)

We'll see how it goes. I'll let you know if glitter can soothe the savage beast...

Hookers & Ferries & Cops in Pink Tutus! Oh My!

2011-09-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

At times, the SGK 3Day walk was so fun that it was easy to lose sight of the very real & tragic reason we were all there, hoofing it 60 miles around the bay area---every three minutes another person in this country is diagnosed with breast cancer. One in eight women in the US will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their life time--that's 12% of American women, people. It doesn't take a giant leap of logic to realize that at some point, without a cure, we will all be impacted in some way by this disease. It is sobering and terrifying. But.

The best thing about the SGK walk was that in spite of those seriously Debbie Downer stats, the 3 Day is much more a celebration of life & of the human spirit to fight & survive, and to fight for each other. I mean, really, what could be more celebratory than this, I ask you:

or this?

Its a good day when you get hugs from tutu clad police officers outside a bank of port-a-potties, my friends. A damn good day indeed.

Just as a side note, these fine gentlemen were from the San Jose police department and they were volunteering, using up their own vacation time to patrol the route and keep it safe for us. And I'm also thinking they were kind of keen on the idea of donning pink tutus, fur mukluks and bunny ears. Because you don't see that on COPs often, now, do you?

Oh, and bras on their helmets. Let's not forget that...

They were pure awesomesauce.

Also awesomesauce? My teammies. The picture is missing three of us (me, taking the picture and two others off in the port-a-potty line...) But look at how chipper!! Look at how ready to go! Raring to have at it!! At 5am!

At the Cow Palace!!! WTF is a Cow Palace??!!

But that's where we started out from. The Cow Palace. Home of fancypants cows? Who knows.

But I do know that pink hair at 5am is quite fancy...

After the opening ceremonies at sunrise gave us our first case of the ugly cry...

we headed out into lovely Daly City...

And by "lovely," I mean full of temporary construction fencing, traffic cones and fog.

And the danciest, happiest dude of them all, stopping traffic for us to cross.

Lots of mini-vans of supporters drove by us, honking and cheering us on throughout all three days.

First stop? The Yumi Deli. Natch. Six am & no coffee makes for some silly walkers

And LOOKIE! Hookers for Hooters!!! (note: not real hookers. I think.)

These ladies popped up over & over again during the course of the three days, bullhorns & all, playing music, dancing, singing, high-fiving & cheering us on. Somewhere in the middle of day 2 the sight of them *might* have made me weepy & overwhelmed with how much emotional support & encouragement they were doling out. Hookers with hearts of gold, I tell you.

And then there was all the mother nature-y goodness along the way, too.

Pretty, right? Totally made those blisters that were slowly developing under my pinky toenails totally worth it.

Day 1 drew to a close with us making our way, no longer a swarming sea of pink, but spread out over several miles, more like a slow trickle of pink, to Fisherman's Wharf, where the tourist's marveled at us like we were part of the regular attractions--you know, Boudin's Sourdough, the Pier 39 sea lions, Ghiradelli's Chocolate & the ladies walking 60 miles in pink shirts. We caught a ferry over to Treasure Island and were beyond thrilled to realize it was then another 1.5 miles of walking to the camp ground. There's something about walking 18.5 miles and then getting to sit for 30 minutes as you watch the lovely city sky line and rock gently to the rippling current that makes that last 1.5 miles seem like a particularly horrendous torture for the blisters & muscles. And no shower has ever felt better than the one I took that evening inside an 18-wheeler shower truck, after waiting in line for 40 minutes holding my pajamas & towel and making small talk with the women to either side of me in line.

There was a chipper lady in the dinner tent bouncing up & down on the stage (she clearly had taken one of the vans from the starting point to the camp), telling us what a great job we were doing & letting us know about the dance party that would take place in that very tent on evening 2. Dance party? After walking 40 miles? Oooookay, crazy lady. You have fun with that.

Day 2 found us ~~hobbling~~ walking through Berkeley and Oakland. Where this sign:

could not have come at a better time. Yes, I'm smiling, but look at how I'm leaning on that utility pole. I could have stayed there all day.

So, they don't need chemo & that obviously provides tremendous perspective. But they are going to need to be lanced and disinfected and covered up with blue cushy "newskin" and then sealed with carpet like "moleskin" and then wrapped in a pink sticky tape that looked like the soy paper Ethan gets his avocado rolls made with bc he doesn't like seaweed. mmmmm....sushi feet.

There we go....ready for the next....30 miles. Oy.

While most of day 2 was spent checking my daily schedule to see how. much. farther. there. was. to. go., there were some amazing & memorable moments as well. Right before heading into the medic tent to have my feet tended to, I walked past a girl who was maybe 16, holding a sign that said, "My mother had surgery yesterday. Thank you for walking." Cue the ugly cry, please. And when I started thinking that I wanted to puke with every single foot fall, a woman would walk by me with the pink temporary tattoo "survivor" on her cheek. Some supporters lined the route with poster boards of Frost's poem, "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening," which ends:

Again with the ugly cry. There were reminders everywhere of why we were doing this & how the pain we were feeling was so insignificant and fleeting compared to that of the people we were walking for. And every time someone stopped us, asked us "what are you doing?" & listened to us explain our goal, it felt like we were doing something. Every time we walked past an outdoor cafe & someone stopped their conversation to give us a thumbs up or to thank us for what we were doing, it was an anesthetic for the pain swelling in our feet.

But again, that shower? Felt awesome. And I've never slept more like a rock than I did those two nights on the ground in a little pink tent.

Day 3 is pretty much a blur. The ferry dumped us in Tiburon and we had to be quiet for several miles so as not to wake the rich people. Super. Tax loopholes AND extra beauty sleep. I started to notice that the monster hills actually felt good on my tight muscles; they were like built-in stretches. Go figure. For a lot of the day my feet were well-wrapped and minimally painful, but I was so intent on getting to the end that I can't really tell you a lot about that day. It was very much a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-to-the-finish kind of a day.

This guy made it possible for me to keep going, after he performed minor surgery on about four different places on my feet. Glamor, thy name is medical tent nurse. How many gnarly nasty feet that man had to tend to over the course of the three days must be endless fodder for blister-related nightmares and flashbacks. I know as a nurse he probably sees far worse on a daily basis, but the sheer volume of nasty feet....::shudder::

Awesome.

And then, we were there:

I will admit that I didn't walk up the giant hill from Fort Baker to the Golden Gate Bridge. We'd stopped for lunch right before the hill & I always found that starting back up again after a break was the most painful part of the walk. I really didn't want to be limping and hobbling over the bridge after climbing a monster hill. So one of my teammates and I hopped on what we *thought* was a SGK bus to take us to the top of the hill & drop us off at the bridge.

Turns out, we really just got into an RV driven by someone named Mimi, who was accompanied by her daughter, Leelee, and a pomeranian. Turns out, they weren't entirely sure where they were going or where to drop us off. See, when trying to navigate the Golden Gate Bridge, you have to be very careful not to take the wrong turn or chose the wrong exit, or you'll end up on an irreversible track over the bridge and then there's money involved and confusion and a lot of "take this exit here!!! Oh, no, not that one!! This one!!!" or you end up heading out of town completely. So my teammate & I spent about 7 minutes in absolute internal panic mode while Mimi & Leelee tried to figure out A.) how to get from Fort Baker to the bridge and B.) how to avoid the aforementioned missteps that would drive us right off the SGK route altogether.

Fortunately it seemed like it wasn't entirely Leelee's first time at the rodeo, so she directed her mother correctly into the parking lot for the Golden Gate Bridge, we gushed our thank you's profusely (both that they got us up the hill in time and that they were not in fact creepy serial killers trolling the route for their next victims--well, we didn't say that part out loud, obviously.) We met the rest of our team up at the top of the hill & walked across the bridge as a team. Very bonding and life-affirming and all that good stuff.

For some reason, my brain kept letting me think that the bridge was the end of the walk. And while it was a highlight for sure, there were still several miles to go before we reached the end. This line of walkers heading off the bridge and down towards Crissy Field kind of bummed me out as we approached the end of the bridge. There were probably vans I could have taken, but there was something so symbolic about the walk--even though all the money had already been raised, and the walking was, in truth, especially at this point in the game, a formality, I couldn't bring myself to give up. I just kept coming back to the reason I was there in the first place.

And then we were at the finish:

Yay, team!!! Still missing some people (it was hard to get us all in one place at the same time).

The crowd of walkers waiting to go into the closing ceremony.

walking in to the closing ceremonies, site of the final ugly cry....

After all the walkers who were not personal survivors of cancer themselves had entered the circle, those people who walked as survivors march in, at which point everyone takes off one shoe and holds in the air to salute them. Its possible that it was simply delerium from the pain in my feet and the overwhelming emotion of the past few days, but given that I'm a sucker for symbolism, I shed some fat weepy tears on this one.

Then the survivors join hands and there's swelling triumphant music playing and TEARS TEARS TEARS!!!

Aaaand then on our bloodied little stumps that once were feet, we danced....

Where do I sign up for 2012?!

On the Other Side...

2011-09-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

In my next life, I hope to come back as---well, some species that doesn't accumulate a lot of crap along the way. So that if I'm ever in the position of having to move dens or nests or hives, I can do so with minimal effort, no boxes, packing paper or bubble wrap & definitely no moving company. Just me and the stripes or spots or feathers on my back, my family or my pride or my flock, setting off to our new location. Because if there's one thing I've learned over the past 4.5 years, its that packing & unpacking an entire household sucks.

It's been almost a week and unfortunately the house is still aflood with boxes; mainly because I had to spend so much time at the old house packing up odds and ends & cleaning. And there were the little glitches along the way, like when I walked into the new house and found a gaping empty space in the kitchen where the refrigerator had been. Nothing cuts into your cleaning and unpacking time like having to bounce from appliance store to appliance store looking to drop an unbudgeted-for several hundred bucks on a new major appliance. And let me assure you, dragging an exhausted 5 year old just finished with his first week of kindergarten around with you to appliance store after appliance store? That's a special kind of family bonding right there.

But the good news for the 5 year old? His room is big enough to fit every last toy he owns! So now instead of the house being overrun by toy sprawl, all of Ethan's cars and dinosaurs and super heros and train goodies fit in his room. My living room and office space will no longer be a makeshift play room!!!! WINNING!!!

The house itself is great--old and totally unrenovated (the toilets were clearly installed at a time when people only grew to be about five feet tall because they are so teeeeny--think one size up from preschool sized toilets. That's only the slightest of exaggerations), but great. The kitchen screams 1950's (except for the new stainless steel refrigerator. ooops) and has the layers of unmatched white paint on the cupboards that don't all quite close just right to prove it. Also there's the vague smell of grandma's old kitchen which is at once nostalgically comforting and also twitch-inducing. The office room has wood paneling on the bottom half of the wall (okay, so perhaps it was renovated once. In the 70's.). So, that's awesome.

But the backyard is a total oasis of awesome. Vegetable garden right in the middle of producing a whole crop of tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplants. I'm trying to harvest them as much as possible before I kill every last one of the plants with my gardening incompetence. The whole yard is enclosed in a giant privacy fence and the fence is covered in flowering vines & gorgeousness. Hummingbirds galore and a slight view of the mountains behind us. Doesn't get much better than that (and totally makes up for the fact that our master bathroom is the size of a postage stamp and has a barely functioning shower).

Seriously, though, all my complaints are in jest because I realize how incredibly lucky we are to have found a house, ANY house, in such a great location, close to so many great friends, and that we have everything we could possibly need, even if not all of it takes the shape we'd prefer. The house is full of character in the way only a house with 15 layers of paint on kitchen cabinets can be. I fully intend to add my own layer of a different shade of white, just to make my mark on the house, too.

In other news, HOLY CRAP, PEOPLE!!! The Susan G Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure?!!!!! IS TOMORROW!!!! I will be getting up at three freaking thirty IN THE MORNING! And driving myself to a teammate's house; her husband will drive us up to the city to the starting point. We will be getting there at FIVE AM! Nothing like walking those first 20 miles on four hours of sleep!!!!

But I cannot wait--I'm walking with some amazing women and feel as ready as I could ever be. I know I could have trained more (one of my phenomenal teammates logged 500 miles of training. FIVE HUNDRED!!!!!), but I know I'll be able to do it. Of course, I did notice that the pair of sneakers I've been training in for the past 6 months have started to fray on the inside by the back of my ankle--so that should be awesome around mile 40. But I've decided to power through with that pair of shoes, and have purchased all kinds of blister deterrents and special foot wrapping stuff to make a good barrier between my ankle and the inside of my sneaker, so hopefully I won't be hobbling towards the finish line on bloodied stumps that used to be feet.

And can I say, in a moment of totally losing sight of the point of the whole experience, I canNOT wait to get a pedicure after this experience---the hobbit-foot state of the callouses on my feet are horrifying. The other day I inadvertently stepped on broken glass....and I didn't even feel it. Because my feet are layers thick with nasty callouses. That is all kinds of nasty, but necessary for the walk. But come Monday afternoon, I am taking a Ped-Egg to those suckers until my feet feel newborn-feet-never-touched-the-ground soft.

So, my team has raised close to 40k and I am so hopeful that somewhere, one of those dollars will be put into a study that will lead us to a cure. And that some of those dollars will go to provide a mammogram to an uninsured woman in my area, or to treat someone in my community who would otherwise be unable to afford to save her own life. One in 8 of us will receive a diagnosis of breast cancer in our life times; everyone of us will know someone diagnosed. Just since starting to train for this walk, I have learned of a friend being re-diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, and several of my teammates have had friends or family members diagnosed as well. We are walking for them. And all kidding aside about blisters and monster-hoof feet, nothing this walk can throw at us will be remotely as difficult or painful as the fight against cancer has been and will be for these people we love.

So I'll see you next week, on the other side of the walk. If you follow me on Instagram, I'll be posting a lot of pictures of the walk as we go. My name on IG is "Sarahndipity71"

xoxoxo

First Day of Kindergarten

2011-08-29T20:44:00.000-07:00

Oh my gracious, people. It was THAT day. The one where you wake up feeling like "today is the first day of the rest of your life," when you look at your 5 year old sleeping soundly in his little bed. Empty Nest, Phase 1. The first day of kindergarten.

Ethan's been in preschool since before he was 3 years old. So in some ways, this should have just been another in a series of his "first days of school" days. But it just felt different. Maybe its because I spent Sunday night getting myself all verklempt over folder after folder of baby pictures on my computer.

squishy toddler cheeeeeeeks!!! Going to kindergarten?!

cranky baby face!!!!! In kindergarten??!!!

little velour track suit baby!!!! In kindergarten???!!!

Yes, yes, & yes, my friends. And of course, no standard first-day-of-kindergarten photo shoot for Ethan; he went for a full-on dance-off and Vogue-ing spree on the front walk way...

Kindergarten Kool

"Who's got two thumbs and is going to kindergarten today?!"

Oh my. And then we drove to school. A 20 minute drive we only have to make a few more times because WE MOVE ON FRIDAY!! EEEEEP!!!

Last year's classes made these bird houses that live outside the schools' main doors. I've never actually seen birds in them, which I suppose makes sense given the hordes of screaming elementary students that run by them eleventy billion times a day. But still. Pretty birdy houses.

Yay!!! I'm embarrassing my kid with kisses!! And so it begins!

When we got into the class room, the teacher had set up a scavenger hunt for all the kids and parents to familiarize them with the different areas of the class room.

We stamped our names at the letter stamp station.

Then we had to go explore the community garden & make an observation about the sunflowers to share in the science nook of the class room.

Ethan's observation about the sunflowers: "They have blue in the middle of them!" which is true if you look really closely. My observations: "These sunflowers are crushed to the ground, dying a slow death. Excellent gardening. I could totally be the class mom gardener if this their benchmark of a successful garden."

Before I left for the next three hours, we also decorated a frame to hold his official "first day of school" picture; cut out, decorated & hung up his birthday cupcake for the calendar & read a story together (about Splat the Cat's first day of school) in the book nook. He whipped himself up into a teary frenzy when it was time for me to leave, complete with having to be gently, but forcibly pried from me while screaming, "Mommmmmmy!!!!" and crying. Fear not. I stood outside the class room for 30 seconds and surely enough the crying ceased the second I was out of sight and never started again. In face, at the end of one minute's time, Ethan and a new friend were running out to the play ground with the rest of the class mates, giggling and shooting at imaginary bad guys with their fingers. The Academy Award winning performances never stop, people.

After school there were cups of melting ice cream to be enjoyed. On the ride home, I asked Ethan what he did in school today & was given his typical cagey "lots of things," response, which is followed by refusal upon refusal to elaborate. Which makes the helicopterer in me twitchy, but the rational part of me thinks, "good for him! He owns it as his and he doens't have to tell me every last thing about his day." This year is going to be all about not neeeeeeeding to know what my special snowflake is doing every minute of every day. :: deep breaths ::

For dinner, Ethan said he wanted to go to "that sushi place we go to," for his special first-day-of-kindergarten dinner. I didn't even know what sushi was when I was 5. Way to be fancy, little man!!

Give the boy some miso soup w/ tofu & sticky rice, and an avocado roll and he's in heaven.

Happy first day of kindergarten, sweet little man. You're such a big boy, but you'll always be my baby. I love you so much more than you'll ever know, Mommy.

This Week...

2011-08-24T22:10:00.000-07:00

Oh, glorious fun happy days. Positive attitude!!! Happy thoughts!!! What a wonderfully fun time we're having!!! Only a few more days until kindergarten starts and this presssshhhhhhus time together is over!!!!

Would you like that version? Or the version in which my child has alternated between reaching up to me for hugs and kisses, telling me "I love you so much, Mommy," to screeching, "It's not fair!!! You NEVER let me do anything fun!!!!!!" to giggling merrily with his friends one minute only to be whining and shoving them the next? (Note: this would be the version the one bearing an exact resemblance to the truth). While I'm obviously dealing with the random bouts of Crazychilditis he seems to be displaying (which I get is likely exacerbated bc of the move and the starting kindergarten & the sense that his entire world is changing in the course of two or three week's time), I'm trying really hard to focus on the Super! Happy! Fun! times.

And what can be more super and fun and happy than discovering that your child has inherited the genes that leap-frogged right over your generation, from your mother to your child, and lo & behold--he LOVES cleaning. Not cleaning up his toys, mind you, or any other mess that undeniably belongs to him. No, the mere suggestion that perhaps he might think about cleaning up a toy or two elicits all kinds of excuses and pathetic flailing, and ends in threats of toys being thrown away if they aren't picked up & wails of "that's so not faaaaaiiiiiirrr!!"

But this weekend, as I was washing the sliding glass doors on our back porch, Ethan was magically transformed into some sort of pint-sized Merry Maid and he simply HAD to help me. Help? Cleaning the house? And washing windows to boot? OKAY!

After we finished the sliding glass doors (I did the top part he couldn't reach & he did the bottom part), he asked if I had any more windows he could wash. Sweet fancy Moses, do I ever!!!

I know you can't really see his face, what with the solar glare coming off of that spanking clean window!!!! That I didn't have to wash!!! Score!!!

When he finished the windows (in my defense, I only let him do a few that were easily reached--its not like I sent him up on the ladder to get the tricky ones), he asked if there was anything else he could clean. Um. Why yes, yes there is, little man. I directed him to his bathroom and showed him how to spray the cleaner in the tub/shower(it's green--as in non-toxic, not the color) and wipe it all down with the sponge. I'd post pictures of that, too, but he decided to strip down to his underwear for that particular chore. And I'll definitely end up going over that tub again before we vacate the property, since he repeatedly cleaned the same 10 tiles of the tub over and over again. But still--those 10 tiles shine like the top of the Chrysler building!

Then on Monday, we went to the Oakland zoo with friends. We saw this guy there:

I have never watched a giraffe get down on all four knees before--holy cats, is that hilarious! They are the gangliest, most awkward creatures ever. It was like watching that clip of the super model walking down the catwalk in those ridiculous platforms and face planting right into the crowd. Made me almost happy to be short and stalky. They are so graceful as they glide around, reaching up to pull leaves off the trees. Then one tries to take a load off and suddenly they are the goofiest creatures on earth.

We also saw these guys...

I know it's hard to see, but that is two meerkats, sleeping and snuggling. Oh my word, how cute is that???!!! And I looked closely, I promise they are sleeping, not having crazy wild meerkat sex.

Speaking of sleeping, we came home to this...

Lazy, good for nothing cats didn't manage to clean OR pack a thing while we were gone. Echo was not at all pleased when I woke him up from his nap by snapping this picture. I'd feel badly, but A.) I'm assuming he slept the entire time we were gone and B.) how hilarious is that?! This is his regular "damn, it's hot!!!" sleeping pose. I take a picture of him every time I see him like this because it never fails to make me laugh. Yes, I realize I am one husband and child away from being a crazy cat hoarder lady. I know.

Speaking of the packing....

Crash is apparently supervising. I find him every day on some box or another, as close to the ceiling as he can get, testing out the sturdiness of each box's packing job. So far he's not fallen into any of them, so well done, tape!

This one might need a bit more padding on top...

Holy crap, that's a lot of boxes, Mom!!!! Please note the farmer's tan and the Build-a-Bear shirt that Ethan did not believe would be too small for him until he tried to put it on himself. Also note the boxes. They are in every room of the house, stacked high & deep. Ahhh, isn't moving grand?

In the evenings, to get away from the piles of packed boxes, and the stacks of empty boxes and the packing paper and the bubble wrap, we go to the park. Where we ride bikes, climb on giant pillars and insist on being pushed in the baby swings....

hey buddy, I know a giraffe you might be related to...

And the Strider bike that we got Ethan to prepare him for balancing on his big boy bike without training wheels. The drawback? He loves this thing so much, he refuses to try to ride his big boy bike at all. I fear he will completely lose the ability to pedal. Sigh.

Tomorrow, after we pick up more boxes from some friends, we are taking a day off of the packing and cleaning routine and heading to the beach. We've had a veritable heatwave here (it's been 90 degrees the past two days after almost an entire summer that hasn't gotten above 85), so we'll be driving towards a foggy marine layer of chilly goodness in the morning. Can't wait.

Ommmm....

2011-08-21T21:54:00.000-07:00

So I just wrote a whole post about how Ethan's kindergarten doesn't start for a whole week after every other school in the area starts and what are we going to do for another whole week with each other while there's no one else to play with, I'm trying to pack a house and prepare for a move, and Husband's working late because its a crazy time at his work, and Ethan is so bored with me that all he does is whine and I'm running so low on patience that all I do is count to 10 and do the quiet, slow yell ("Ethan. Stop. Whining. Now. Now. Now!") and zOMG, next week is going to SUUUUUUUCK!!!!!

And then I read it back over and hated myself a little bit. I'd be lying if I said I'm not a little jealous of those moms who are going to get four hours to themselves tomorrow--even if all they're going to do with those four hours is watch or listen to something that isn't PBSkids (if I hear "Here we go! go! go! go! on an adventure! The Thingamajigger is up and away!!!" one. more. time.) while they clean the house and sort laundry, or if they are going to go to a business meeting without having to juggle childcare, or grocery shopping in peace. I'm a little jealous.

But still. These are the days, right? Some day when my surly teenager is rolling his eyes at me, I'm going to think back wistfully to the days that my little boy wanted nothing more than to spend his time with me (well, when he's not busy wanting playdates or snacks or toys). I will think fondly of the times we rubbed colored chalk on salt and made "sand art" and the times I wedged myself into the big green tubes on the play structure at the park so that we could pretend I was in the space ship, too, on my way to Mars with Ethan.

So next week is going to be a challenge. Boxes need to be packed, the house needs to be cleaned, and the child needs to be entertained, and those things don't always mix (although this weekend Ethan did a bang up job of washing windows and then insisted impatiently that he be able to scrub his own bathtub, getting testy when I asked him to please be patient and wait until I was done cleaning Mommy & Daddy's bathroom. Seriously.) In all honesty, it would be easier if I was dropping Ethan off at school for four hours so I could come home, listen to NPR and get into the packing zone, completely uninterrupted. But. I can't. And that's okay. I did buy a big bag of styrofoam packing popcorn last week (sorry ozone hole), so maybe tomorrow we'll find some way to make a craft out of them before I throw them into the boxes with the fragile stuff. Maybe I'll let him wash the kitchen floor (no, really, he wants to. He asks all the time) while I pack the china in the dining room.

Who knows? I'm all zen-ish about it right now, but I'm sure this week will have me pulling my hair out, and doing the slow quiet yell at Ethan after the 500th time he barges into the bathroom while I'm trying to pee. I'm sure I'll be looking at this school's paper work, quadruple checking that I have the dates right and he really isn't supposed to be there until next Monday.

But I'm also going to try to take a lot of deep breaths and think about 10 years from now when this bubbly, silly, giddy, attention-demanding boy could be a teenager who just wants to be alone in his room with his headphones or out with his friends, and count my blessings that for right now, at least for one more week before the barrage of new school, friends, and experiences sets in, he's all mine, and happy about it.

When Yard Salers Attack...

2011-08-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

So it's taken me a week to get to this post because OMG, people, yardsalers are batshit crazy!! From the trench coat clad guy who showed up to my yard an HOUR before my sale started, looking for "electronics and whatnot," to the couple who ripped me off in my own driveway, to the guy who came back throughout the day over & over again just to peruse my wares (as if I would be revolving merchandise, I guess? At a yard sale?), I am still recovering from the hours of dealing with weirdos, fearing for my own safety and mercilessly stomping all over my own dignity by selling my used things to strangers.

Let's start at the crack of dawn, shall we? I have my iPhone alarm set to chime happy church bells because the last time I changed the tone, I was setting my alarm to wake up for the spectacle of Will & Kate's Royal Wedding (not to mention the coke-head cousin's poorly reconstructed nose, and sister Pippa's backside in that dress. Damn!). It was a glorious occasion. This time? Slightly less auspicious. The bells started chiming at 5am, but the only thing "royal" about this day was going to be the degree to which it was a pain in the ass.

While the rest of the house slept, I headed to Starbucks; had to drive a full 2 miles from my front door to find one open at that ungodly hour (there are at least 4--FOUR--closer to me, but none open at 5am. Believe me, I realize how ridiculous that is). The problem with eating a muffin at 5am? You're hungry again by 7am. This is how "second breakfast" comes to be. Second breakfast is a very bad idea, because even though you barely remember it, you did just consume something like 400 calories while only partly-conscious a few hours earlier.

Two hours later, by 7:30 (I had advertised the sale as starting at 8am), I had a yard full of people while I was still pulling crap out of my garage. One of my first sales of the day?

::sob:: Ethan's little red wagon of hope. ::sob::

It pulls at my heart strings to have let it go, but truth be told, we haven't pulled Ethan anywhere in that thing in over 2 years. It was a pain in the ass to lug back and forth to the farmer's market when we lived in Studio City, but we did it because it was a radio flyer little red wagon, damn it, and that's what you do!!!! Kid on one side, a veritable cornucopia of fresh produce on the other? It was practically mandatory in our neighborhood in LA.

But here the farmer's market isn't close enough to walk to and the handle is just low enough that you can't quite stand up straight to pull it, so by the time you get anywhere, you're on the phone with your chiropractor seeing if he can fit you in later that afternoon. More than a little red wagon of hope, it was a little red wagon of spinal misalignment. So, yes, sir, I will take your $15 cash money for my 3 year old red wagon. Sigh.

And then there was the couple who ripped me off. We'll call them the Thievy-McStealersons. They, and their grown-up son, sauntered onto my property about mid-way through the sale. The woman picked up one of my barely used Baby Bjorns that I had marked as $20 and said, "$2? I give you $2?" Um. No. No you don't give me $2. You give me $20. I said, "well, I could go $15 on it, but no less than that; it's barely used." She chucked it back down. Okay. That's fine. Not a problem. A few minutes later she held up a pair of never-worn shoes that were priced $4. Again "$2? I give you $2?" "No," I said, "those are $4." And so forth...

Several times they asked me about a duvet cover. Still in its packaging. From Crate & Barrel. A queen sized duvet cover that we were never able to use. Queen sized duvet covers from Crate & Barrel run somewhere in the neighborhood of $80-$100. I had ours marked at $15. FIFTEEN!!! A steal! And of course, the lady first offered me....$2. I felt like I was in a damn John Cusack movie.

I stood firm on the measly $15 price tag, but they kept coming back with offers. They offered me $5. I said, $12. And so forth, until we got to the point where, against my better judgment, we settled on $8. EIGHT! Ugh, I cringe just thinking of it, but one piece of advice I got prior to the sale was, "your goal is not to get rich; it's to get rid of the stuff you can't use--if you price something at $10 and someone offers you $5, just take it. At least its gone at the end of the day." So fine. I agreed on $8 for my $80 unused duvet cover.

We exchanged our wares--I gave them to duvet cover & they gave me the cash. Except.

They only gave me $6. Which I didn't notice until the duvet cover was in the tight clutches of Mrs. Thievy-McStealerson. I politely said, "oh, sir, this is only $6, we agreed on 8," to which he replied with a smile and a nod, "Yes, I know; you help me out. $6 is enough," and started to walk back to his car with his wife (who was probably pissed that she had to pay more than $2) and their son. I tried to call him back, to let him know that, um, NO. $6 was not enough, but when I said, "No, actually; you still owe me money," he just waved and said, "no, you're fine," and got into his car with the rest of the Thievy-McStealersons and drove off.

Now, let me clarify here that the last thing I care about is the money. I mean, the most I stood to make out of that deal, even by my own pricing system, was $15, hardly an amount that warrants making a scene over. And $8? $6? Its pretty much all the same, and it doesn't matter. Like I said before, the goal of the yard sale was to get rid of stuff, not rake in a fortune. And technically, I did get rid of the item and got $6 I didn't have before out of the deal. And none of this is the end of the world, but OMG, really?! You stand in someone's driveway, talk them down to like 90% off the retail price of something and then intentionally short them in the deal?!!! Who does that?! My head still spins.

And then there was the lurker. The guy who came back about four times from 7:30 until about an hour after the end of the sale, when Husband and I had hauled 2 old bookshelves out to the curb with the signs "free" written on them. He had previously bought an old Calphalon sauce pan and cover, a pair of shoes and a Parents brand cat-shaped piano toy on his other once-arounds my property, so by the time he walked up to the bookshelves and hoisted one onto each shoulder, I felt like I should be inviting him & his wife in to dinner. He was pleasant enough that I didn't quite feel a freaked-out sense of stranger danger, and he did buy things, so at least he didn't give off a creepy just-hanging-out-in-your-yard-until-you-go-out-so-I-can-break-in-and-steal-everything-you-own vibe. And his steadfast lurkiness DID garner him a sweet set of bookshelves that would have cost him $20 during the actual yard sale. So good for him. But still. That is some seriously committed, hard-core yard sale-ing for you.

But you know who I didn't feel like should invite into dinner? The Thievy-McStealersons. Funnily enough (as in not really funny at all), they showed up in our front yard at around 5pm. Three hours after we had closed up shop, hauled a carload of unsold things to Goodwill, I had showered, resigned myself to spend the rest of the day in a pair of Husband's boxers and an old t-shirt, glued to the TV in my room watching a fracking Lifetime movie called The Pregnancy Pact, the Thievy-McStealersons pulled up to our house, and began demanding their $6 back.

The problem? They had apparently been unaware that they were purchasing a duvet cover. They were under the impression that they were in fact procuring a set of sheets. Fortunately, Husband was outside playing with Ethan when the disgruntled karma-challenged trio made their grand return. Husband, who had not been present for the delight that was my initial encounter with these people, ran interference and explained that neither I nor the money was available for a chat at that time. Please note that "DUVET COVER" was written front and center on the packaging AND I specifically remember saying, "this duvet cover is brand new, never used, in its original packaging." Last I checked, "duvet cover" and "set of sheets" barely even share any of the same letters, nevermind sound anything alike. And at no time did anyone in the offended party query, "Duvet cover, you say? Exactly how does a duvet cover differ from, say, a set of sheets?" So given everything, my sympathy for their misguided purchase was nil.

Mrs. Thievy-McStealerson apparently tried to walk past Husband to come into the house. (REALLY???!!) And at that point Husband told Ethan to come inside because OMG, who knows how crazy these people are going to get over a duvet cover that cost them $6? Fortunately they left after Husband told them they really had to go, he was sorry, but there was nothing he could do to help them.

And I'll tell you, if ANYONE else I'd encountered that day had come back later saying that they'd purchased erroneously in any way, shape or form, I'd probably have given them their money back. If Little-Red-Wagon-of-Hope guy had gotten home and his kid hated the wagon ::sob::, I would have taken it, and given him his $15 back. If the Lurky-loo thought he was buying a 6-quart sauce pan, but it ended up being an 8-quart sauce pan and he already had one of those at home? I'd have given him his $5 and taken the 8-quart sauce pan to Goodwill in the morning. But there was something about these people and their audacity to rip me off & then return hours later demanding a refund. And I'm not a habitual yard sale goer myself, but do people REALLY think that I have a return policy??!!! Do people usually think they can return something they bought at a yard sale?! Does that happen?

Seriously. Never again. I far prefer the warm-fuzzies I get when I drop a bag-load of toys off at Goodwill to the alarm-going-off-at-5am-so-people-can-rummage-through-my-shit feeling I had last weekend. I'm grateful for the money we made; its going to help with the move & some of it will be going into my 3-Day Walk for the Cure fundraising, so in the end it was all worth it. But really. Never. Again.

The Many Faces of E...

2011-08-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

Given his penchant for the singing and the dancing, Husband and I decided to enroll Ethan in a week-long summer camp called Broadway Babies. A friend of his participated in a session earlier this summer & we went to watch his week's performance of Snow White, complete with its SEVEN Snow White starring roles (talk about divas!) In this camp, each kid gets to pick their own role, even if someone else has already chosen it, too (hence the glut of princesses). It was adorable and pressssshhhhhus and all that stuff & I didn't even know 99.9% of the kids in the production. So imagine my absolute glee when after the final curtain call Ethan announced that he wanted to participate in the camp the next time it was offered (and really? 25 preschooler/kindergarteners trying to get it together to bow at the same time? Herding cats. Adorable, giggling, crown-falling-off-their-heads cats).

So this week, we have been popping over to the camp, a mere three minute drive from the house (pure bliss considering the 20-minute commute we've had for the past 2 years), pinning on a little felt name tag and running to the carpet to sing scales with the rest of his troupe. On pick up of the first day, I caught a glimpse of him through the class room window, front and center of the chorus line, practicing his Rockette kicks and pulling a top hat on and off his head. Also? There were jazz hands. JAZZ HANDS, people!!! I defy you to find something cuter than jazz hands on a 5 year old boy wearing a Beatles shirt and a top hat.

The play this session is The Emperor's New Clothes. The Emperor? You get three guesses. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you probably only need one guess. Yup. My kid. Well, you may have also guessed, "Some other kid named Morgan?" and you'd be right with that guess, too, but this blog isn't about her. Only two kids opted for the title role (as opposed to the robust crop of Snow Whites in the previous session. I suppose a naked ruler is probably somewhat less appealing to a bunch of kids than a princess), and mine was one of them.

Ethan is somewhat secretive about his role, although he has revealed that he will be wearing some sort of paper underwear costume--assuring me that he will not actually be "naked in real life, because that's inappropriate in front of a bunch of people I don't know," (someone should perhaps put this tidbit of wisdom on a post-it and affix it to former Representative Anthony Weiner's smart phone--a helpful bit of advice from a five year old).

Husband and I were not the slightest bit surprised by Ethan's announcement that he was "starring" in the play; he was, after all, the angry troll in his pre-K class's re-enactment of Three Billy Goat's Gruff. He looked something like this for that role:

apparently, today's stylish angry troll goes in for a pillow shoved up his shirt, a piece of red felt pinned to his front and a face that resembles a cross between a pirate and someone who has just lost a contact. Noted.

and let's face it, he's been dishing out the drahhhhmaahhh for years now. His ability to produce big fat tears over the slightest sensed injustice or dropping everything to whip out his guitar to perform a Beatles song, or zipping from room to room, imagining himself being chased by crowds of screaming fans, announcing that he is in fact in the midst of the filming of Hard Day's Night and that its important we don't disturb him. So the acting bug has bitten him hard on stage, and off.

Here are a few of the other "recent faces of E" for your viewing pleasure...

All you need is love...and a pair of guitar glasses, duh.

stylin' cowboy

on "stage"

reacquainting himself with a years-old winter hat...in June. In his jammies.

pirate snack time at preschool...

Even cowboys with daddy's sunglasses and a toy walkie-talkie have to stop for an apple juice break sometimes.

Um....

A silly face dance-off contest with cousin Sofia. Hard to tell they're related, huh?

Breaking it down Best-Buy style...

Underwear-head. We're so proud.

Needless to say, I am waiting with baited breath for tomorrow's production. Clearly out space on the video camera as I type.

I've Been Avoiding You...

2011-08-05T10:02:00.000-07:00

It's not you; it's me. I suck. And, per usual, I've been all angsty about blogging--why I blog, is it fair to still be blogging about my kid as he gets older (I can see the reams of paper scattering his future therapist's floor as he shares entry upon entry from my blog as evidence of how I screwed him up forever), is blogging keeping me from doing things like thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life (how much longer can I look people in the eye when they ask me what I do with my life & I say, "I'm a stay at home mom. And I blog. Aaaaaaand that's about it,") ?

And then there's the sheer amount of time being taken up trying to organize for a yard sale (I will need a bigger yard for all the crap I plan on getting rid of) & a 3-bedroom-house move within the same month. My house is overrun with boxes, piles of random ~~shit~~ stuff, boxes, beds flipped up and pushed against the wall to make room for more ~~shit~~ boxes. The cats each have developed visible twitches & one has taken to pooping right outside the litter box in protest of the approaching upheaval of their daily schedule (because you know, it's going to be hard for them to adjust to eating, sleeping and pooping in another house. Poor kitties).

We're having a yard sale next weekend & moving over Labor Day Weekend. Fortunately our landlords have decided NOT to put the house on the market before we move out. I'd like to think it is out of the kindness of their hearts and their desire to make this process as stress-free for us as possible. But I think perhaps it's got more to do with the fact that their realtor took a look at the inside of the house (read: recognized my complete inability to keep a house from looking like an all-out disaster zone) and strongly advised against bringing potential buyers in while I am in any way responsible for the state of the house. Fair enough. Either way, it means I get to pack (and by "pack" I mean throw things all over the house until they happen to land in any one of 10 boxes I have lying open at any given time) in relative peace.

And then there's the training for my 3-Day Walk next month. My teammates went up to the city this week and walked 22.5 miles in one day! I couldn't join them, but it really hits home how close the walk is getting!! And I love everything about the walking except the vast amount of time it takes up. Walking more than 6-7 miles a day ends up eating a huge chunk of time up, at a time when I don't have a huge chunk of time to eat up with it. But that's okay; my reminder to myself when the alarm goes off at 5am, or when I'm walking in the heat, or huffing up a hill, of thinking of the blog posts I haven't written because I've been walking, or the boxes that have yet to be packed and the yard sale items that still need price tags, is that even the crappiest aspect of this training and the 3-Day is SO much easier than having breast cancer. Really, EVERYTHING in my life is easier than having breast cancer. My life is such a blessing, even in the chaos of the move and the training and the "what do I want to be when I grow up" angst.

And then there's the pictures. About a year ago, I started a photography blog (that really went nowhere--I think the link might still be on the sidebar of this blog). While the site went nowhere and was eventually abandoned (have I mentioned I'm pretty sure I have ADD?), it clicked something on in me & then I found Instagram on iPhone & all the funky filters available through various apps & another app that allowed those pictures to be printed out true to the filters and in a 4x4 format. A couple women from my walking team suggested that I print out some pictures, mount them onto cards & sell them at our big concert benefit (have I mentioned that this team of 8-9 women has raised $35k for our walk???!!!). So I spent hours in the backyard with an aerosol can of spray adhesive (sorry, Mr. Ozone and braincells), 5x6 cardstock cards, 100 of my photographs and voila! Photo cards made to sell at our benefit concert.

And people bought them! Not all of them, but a lot of them. I wasn't able to attend the concert, so I"m not 100% sure that at the end of the day my teammates didn't look at the massive pile of cards and say, "well, shit; let's all just buy 10 so she doesn't ever find out no one even looked at them," but they swear there were no pity purchases. So that means people bought pictures I took. And that kind of blows my mind.

So after I get the yard sale put to bed, and the move is over, I'm considering opening up an Etsy shop to continue selling my pictures. EEEEEEEEEEP! Did I really just say that?! I've battled internally a lot with the idea that the pictures are iPhone pictures & I just press a bunch of buttons to make them look a certain way--that can't really be art, can it? I can't really call myself an artist, can I? That's insulting to people who actually take "real" pictures with fancy cameras, isn't it? Is it? I don't know. My concept of myself as an artist has always been the biggest struggle for me. It is the area where my inner critic is loudest---she will let me eat that 4th cookie without berating me for the size of my waist, and she'll let me go to the bookstore instead of doing the dishes without giving me a hard time about being a lousy housekeeper. But when I dare to say aloud, "I"m an artist," she kicks into overdrive with the "I can't believe you just said that!!! You are so NOT an artist! Take that back right now or people are going to laugh at you!" Oh yeah, she & I have a really great time together.

But I'm working on making her shut her big fat yap, and I'm going to open that shop regardless of what she says. It helps that up to this point, (and through a certain amount of time once the shop is open) ALL proceeds will go to Susan G Komen for the Cure for breast cancer. Its hard for anyone's inner critic to bitch about doing good deeds, so hopefully that will shut her up long enough for me to start really believing myself when I say, "I'm an artist." (seriously, people, I cringe when I type that; the inner critic is a tricky one.)

So how about a few pictures of the kiddo? He's in a Sand, Dirt & Water camp this week. He's come home with shaving cream art, a sand & wax candle, built ice sculptures, made volcanoes and created his own fossils. He also comes home every day face painted like a vampire. He's discovered the world of "squinkies" and "go go"s, which are akin to the Silly Bandz in terms of the "why didn't I think of that?!! I'd be a freaking billionaire by now!" factor (and the "WTF?!" factor, as well, if we're being honest). Next week he's in another camp called "Broadway Babies," where he can put some of his mad melodrama skillz to good use. We spent a few days with family on the east coast and another few days at the beach with good friends--all in all it's been a pretty fantastic summer so far.

In the Virgin American terminal at SFO, waiting for our flight east.

couch surfing with his wife.

Ethan took a break from our house hunt in early July to watch a colony of ants on the front entry way of a potential house.

And he has developed a penchant for drinking his cold apple juice out of a tall Starbucks hot cup. Because of course he has.

What's the Catch?

2011-07-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

You guys, I found us a place to live! Well, no. A friend of mine found us a place to live. Walking through her neighborhood last week, she happened to notice a "for rent" sign stuck in the yard of a house just a block from her. She texted me a picture of the sign with the phone number for inquiries & the rest is history.

After the discouragement of going to an open house for a far less fabulous house last Saturday that was attended by at least 4 other families (in just the 30 minute span of time we were there), the open house for this place was attended by......me. Well, me and one other woman who walked through the house quickly, said "we'll be in touch," and took off (whatever, crazy lady! This place is GOLD! GOLD, I TELL YOU!!!). The landlord, heretofore referred to as, "Mr No Nonsense," didn't bother with that pesky Craigslist or the paper. He just stuck his sign in the front yard and if someone saw it, it must be meant to be. Thank you, Mr. No Nonsense. And thank you to my fantastic friend who lived in the neighborhood and saw the sign.

Within an hour of walking through the house (and forgetting to ask about air conditioning, washer/dryer) and marveling at the FOUR bedrooms and THREE bathrooms and the backyard LINED WITH TOMATO PLANTS and gorgeous flowering climbing vines, he called me and told me "the other people who said they would be here aren't here. They said they wanted it, but they didn't come to see it. So I've made my decision. I got a feeling about you when we were talking; I feel like you will take good care of the house. You'll be happy here. Your family gets the house." (yes, he was that dramatic; I love him already, people).

I texted Husband (who was 6000 miles away in Dublin), and sent him a bazillion poorly lit iPhone pictures of each room of the house and I'm pretty sure he could hear me "SQUEEEEEEE'ing" across the miles.

The best part? We are within a couple of blocks of some of our best friends, and closer than we were to some of our others. The house is within walking distance (ambitious walking distance, but still...) to Ethan's kindergarten. AND, if we're there for more than a year, a couple of blocks from his elementary school. As opposed to the 20 minute drive we've been doing almost daily for the past 2 years. A block!!! That means I can actually go home while Ethan's in school without feeling guilty about my gas-sucking car polluting up the atmosphere & draining our bank account.

So there's that.

Also? On Saturday, I am going to start selling my photography. My Susan G Komen team is hosting a concert/auction/art sale & I mounted about 80 photos to contribute to the sale, the proceeds of which will be going to our fundraising efforts. I have no idea if anyone will actually buy any of my pictures (I hope they do because the $$ is for a great & important cause), but the idea that after Saturday, someone somewhere might have one of my little photographs stuck up on a wall or tacked onto a cork board or under a magnet on their fridge somewhere in their home kind of blows my mind in the most humbling and thrilling way I've ever felt.

I am feeling particularly lucky & grateful (and honestly a tiny bit afraid that something is going to transpire to make this whole thread of fabulousness unravel, because it just seems too good). Its hard to trust the universe sometimes, even when it seems to be handing you exactly what you want (or maybe because of that). But for now I'm going to try my best to believe that good things can happen with no catch, no strings attached, and be happy with that.

Yay!!!!!

All You Need is Love....right?

2011-07-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

So, summer kind of sucks this year. Its hot as the devil's backside outside (which is weird for this time of year in Northern California--its usually not 100 degrees until September; you know, autumn. When its supposed to be cooling off). I am spending all my time either looking for a place for our family to move to that doesn't cost a large fortune (I'm even willing to consider a small fortune at this point) or getting up at the crack of dawn to get in a 10-mile training walk before the day begins. The walking is great and I LOVE doing it, especially for a cause, but it takes up hours of time that I would otherwise be spending, oh, I don't know, sleeping. Or blogging. Or organizing my house for a move to G-d knows where.

Luckily, there's this:

to distract me from the heat and the frustration and the no-time-to-get-anything-done-ness of this summer.

There will be a lot of down-sizing in our lives, a lot of "since there won't be any more kids, I guess we don't need a 3-bedroom"-ing and yard sale-ing (as in the selling side of it, not the buying part of it). The housing market is picking up out here for sellers (as is evidenced by our landlords booting us to sell their house), so renters are running back to apartments and condos. And apartments and condos are taking full advantage, charging obscene amounts (not like Manhattan amounts, but we are talking the suburbs here--$3700 for a 3-bedroom apartment in suburbia? INSANE).

In the hustle and bustle of Silicon Valley, this move is forcing us to stop trying to keep up with the Joneses and focus on the essentials--all we really need is each other. Husband, Ethan and me.* And the tickle-fights & laughter. And the bedtime stories & cuddles. In reality, 3 people don't take up a lot of space. Or need a lot of things. I'm not a girl who has ever really liked a lot of change, but in the past 3 years, I've come to reluctantly embrace it, searching for the positive in the curve balls life throws us, in the sense of not being entirely in control of where we're going or what we're doing. The thing that stays consistent--our family--is what matters, not how many square feet we occupy (although more than 1000 sq ft would be nice, thanks very much). So yeah, I'm all enlightened on that and everything. But I'm still going to cry when I have to donate 100 books to the library.

*(and probably a self-storage rental for all our crap that won't fit into a tiny apartment).

Beating the Heat....

2011-06-26T19:39:00.000-07:00

One of the most wonderful things about California is that no matter how sweltering hot it gets inland, the coast is always cooler. When we lived in Studio City, the sun beat down at blistering 100+ degree temperatures. We'd hop in our car, get on the 405 and head to Santa Monica (less than 10 miles away, but an hour away, thanks to LA traffic). In Santa Monica it would be 30 degrees cooler and we could relax on the beach without needing an IV drip of fluids to keep from dehydrating.

Here in the Bay Area, its pretty much the same thing; the drive still takes about an hour, but its closer to 30 miles. Thank you, not-LA traffic. The early part of this week felt more like mid-September instead of mid-June. September is our horrible hot month here; the 30 days that you have to close up the house at the crack of dawn to keep the cool night air in as long as possible and by mid-afternoon its too hot to be outside and you're sweating inside, even though you're stripped down to a tank top & a pair of your husband's boxers and you just don't care if someone comes to the door, you're not putting on more clothes (well, you will, but you will not be happy about it). That's September here. Except it's apparently also the 3rd week of June this year. Ugh.

After suffering through Monday's heat, Ethan and I awoke on Tuesday morning with a plan. A plan that included MUCH cooler temperatures, a bunch of junk, the beach & some strawberries.

We started out at Half Moon Bay, a sleepy little coastal town, complete with a plethora of surfers, marinas, chowder houses & art/junk/antique shops. My junk shop of choice didn't open 'til noon, so we ventured down to the marina for a little picnic, which consisted of peanut butter crackers, rice cakes and gatorade, because I am the most awesome mother ever.

I'm really good at taking pictures of the top of my kid's head, right? He was digging for dinosaur bones here.

boats!

The saddest looking fisherman ever, Ethan, and a chihuahua's butt.

At noon we went to Half to Have It, which is, hands down, the coolest found-treasure (ie. junk) shop ever in the history of junk shops.

Seriously, where else can you find a happy, cheering Buddha AND....

...an old motel sign? Seriously.

Or maybe you live on a Fairchild Street & this would be awesome in your entry way? Or you love mermaids? Some people do love mermaids. Or perhaps you have a penchant for planting succulents in abalone shells? Not bad as penchants go?

As Ethan is neither in the market for abalone shell NOR an old motel sign, he found climbing the giant rock in the middle of the yard more to his liking.

Oh, and did I mention they sell glass? By the pound? That I let my kid play with? MOTHER OF THE YEAR!!!!!!

Before you call CPS on me, these pieces of glass are rounded like marbles. No sharp edges and very unlikely to break. He happily sorted them & dug in them while I ooooh'd & aaaaah'd my way through the yard.

And when he got tired of playing with glass, he played with the terracotta vats of seashells.

How many scoops you want?

After we got our fill of tchotchkes & broken glass, we headed to a farm in Pescadero, just a bit down the coast. There we were greeted by....

plants in antique washing machines...

...and antique farm equipment...

Oh, California, you hide kitsch in every corner. I love you.

We attempted to pick strawberries, but the fields looked kind of like this (cue the Debbie Downer music):

wauuuuuuuw wauuuuuuuuaw waaaaaaauuuuu....

We sang a few choruses of "Strawberry Fields Forever," (even though it was more like "strawberry fields for about 10 rows before the beans start"), picked a couple handfuls of pink/white berries, and shelled out our $7 to pay for the berries I knew would go from unripe to overripe & rotten in the heat of the car on the drive home.

As we left the farm, we noticed the "marine layer" (that's fancy Californian speak for "fog") was rolling in. The temperature was a delicious 65 degrees, so we decided to stop at the beach on our way back home, because we knew we'd be heading into the inferno of the inland temperatures if we didn't linger on the coast until at least 5pm.

So we ran races up & down the dunes.

He is tireless, people. How is it that he is never, ever tired?

Well, maybe a little bit tired...

Then we did some sand construction....

This was a 3-lane highway. He was very disappointed we weren't equipped with our rush-hour-worthy supply of matchbox cars.

And then we had to go foraging around in the driftwood and flowers to see what we could see.

Turns out, what we didn't see was the rock that Ethan stepped on on his way back off the driftwood....

Ethan was adequately impressed with his non-boo boo and concerned about the risk of infection ("did we bring the neosporin, Mom?") that I was able to convince him that perhaps it was time to go home.

On the drive home, munching on strawberries and inspecting the non-boo boo (pretty much at the same time, which is oh-so-super-hygenic, I know), Ethan noted "Mom, we had a really fun day!" Melt. My. Heart.

Yes, little man, we did.

Now Where Did I Put That Packing Tape?

2011-06-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

Every time I think I'm getting back into the swing of things with this blog, I skip off into the universe again & poof! It's been weeks since I wrote. At this point, I've had so many "oh, I"m going to have to blog about this" moments that they all meld together into a swirl of blurry semi-memories that just are not going to be riveting to either write about OR read. So.

I'll try again.

I'll start with our "big" news (as in "big pain in my ass"). We have to move. Again. Our landlords contacted us almost 2 weeks ago to let us know what fabulous tenants we are and how much they looooove having us in their home. But we have to go. They are selling the house & we are not buying it. So out we go. Fortunately our lease goes through mid-October, so its not like we have to be out this weekend. Although, given that they want to put the house on the market & show it before the end of summer, moving out this weekend does sound tempting.

There seems to be an expectation that I will be inhabiting this home & keeping it "show ready" for their realtor to do open houses & appointment showings. Um. Really? Because, I'm not really what you'd call a "housekeeper," in that I don't really "clean my house every day," and I don't "scrub the toilets til they shine," and my kitchen isn't always "tidy," and our dirty laundry doesn't always "hit the hamper," and my 5-year old doesn't "always aim correctly when he pees," and my cats aren't "without their smelly faults," and my mail isn't completely "sorted," and the garage is sort of what you might call "our own personal junk shop."

So I don't really think it is going to be beneficial to either their goal of selling a house or my goal of not stressing out over whether or not they can sell their house for us to be living in the home for much longer. Mid-October is looking more like mid-August for us.

Sigh. My little bloggy break has its perks for you in that while I've not been blogging, I've pretty much gotten past the angst of making Ethan move for a 4th time in 5 years, so I'm not going to ramble endlessly about that mommy guilt. I've gotten to the "kids are resilient!" and "he'll be fiiiiiine!" part of that process, so yay for that, at least. I'm trying to dig deep to that "What an adventure!!!! This will be a fun new beginning!!!" attitude that I know is in there somewhere, but has been covered over by layers contentment and routine.

Now the angst is revolving around the fact that there is nothing out there right now to rent. When we moved here 2 years ago, the housing market was in the shitter & that meant lots of good rental deals. People couldn't sell their houses, so they rented them out. Fantastic! Now, while it's not soaring into the stratosphere, the market is supporting more sales, so the rental opportunities are vanishing into thin air (case in point: the house I freaking live in; woot!)

And then there's the packing. Oh, the humanity! I am so over packing. And unpacking. Yes, the unpacking. And I"m not talking about unpacking in the new house, wherever it is, whenever we move into it. I"m talking about those last 3 boxes taunting me from the garage. The 3 boxes that never got unpacked from when we moved into this house. Boxes probably full of things I don't "need" (since I've not once gone digging through them in the past 2 years looking for anything), but that I am loathe to throw away. Certainly I don't "neeeeed" my grandmother's high school diploma, but dammit, it's history and all that! I can't throw it away. So I will cart it from house to house in a box that never gets unpacked for as long as I live, apparently.

Over the next couple of weeks my home is going to be reminiscent of one of those HGTV home organization shows where we go through every room and throw things into "trash" "yard sale" "pack" "donate" piles, minus the brash loud buxom host with a giant flower in her hair (does anyone remember that show?) This should be especially fun when we get to the play room area of the home. Ethan is what you might call a "hoarder" of toys. Everything is "special" and while he talks at great length about donating toys and periodically even goes through his stash and picks out things he thinks "some other little boy or girl might like," to give to Good Will, when push comes to shove, I have to remove things under cover of night or drop-off play date, or there are tears. I am hoping that the idea of making cold hard cash in exchange for hisbajillion trucks and 24-piece puzzles will foster his entrepreneurial spirit & he'll consent to clear out a good portion of the room. Otherwise, he's going to need his own U-Haul.

So I'm off to scour Craigslist. For houses. Again. Awesome.

Moving On Up....

2011-06-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

So.

Friday was Ethan's preschool graduation. Or, as the powers that be at his school called it, "Moving Up" Day. And as promised, I made a total ass of myself with the weepies. Truly, I wouldn't have, I'm sure of it, if they hadn't played that Israel Kamakawiwoʻole mix up of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" as my baby came walking down the aisle with his friends. Seriously, people. Dr. Mark Greene of ER did his whole "great doctors don't die; they just fade away on the Hawaiian breeze" death scene to that song, and I danced with my father to the Louis Armstrong version of "What a Wonderful World" at my wedding, and the lyrics about all the potential & the passage of time & the beauty of the world through the eyes of the young, and OHMYGOD!!!! It's just a song RIFE with emotional baggage, so obviously at the first note, I was a big embarrassing mess. Sigh. They may as well have just thrown on a bit of Bridge Over Troubled Water, mixed that up with Puff the Magic Dragon & finished it off with Sunrise, Sunset; then I may have just passed right out due to sap-induced emotional overload. Seriously.

Ethan & his little friends were adorable; they walked in one by one, each carrying a rose they gave to their teachers at the end of the aisle before going up to sit on the stage. They sat through grown-up speeches thanking teachers, directors, administrators, etc., and aside from some twitching, dress-lifting, yawning, squirming and elbow-sparring, they were model little people for the entire ceremony.

After they stood up and sang a sweet little song about peaceful, happy people (not to be confused with shiny, happy people), complete with sign-language accompaniment (or reasonable attempts thereof), it was time for their diploma (or...certificates of move-uppance?) One at a time, each kid stood up by one of their teachers & the teacher read a little bit about the child---what they wanted to be when they grew up, what they'd wish for their family if they had one wish, etc. Most kids wanted to be astronauts or veterinarians or ballerinas when they grew up. Lofty, if standard. My kid? My kid said he wanted to be "The Next Beatle. I'm going to be the youngest Beatle." And his wish for his family? "That I could sing them a new Beatles song." Me, too, little man. Me, too.

After the ceremony we ate hotdogs, fruit and cupcakes, got our faces painted and stood in endless lines for the balloon artist. Or rather, I ate a hotdog, fruit & cupcakes while Ethan got his face painted and stood in an endless line for the balloon artist. My 32-lb 5 year old, preschool graduate seems to run on an endless supply of energy that is not derived from food consumption. I counted a small handful of challah & three strawberries going into his mouth during the entire picnic. I am going to observe his eating habits closely for the next week, write a book, call it "The Ethan Principle: Its Not a Diet, Its a Lifestyle" and make a million freaking dollars. I'm sure it will consist of constant motion & a diet of string cheese, fruity Cheerios, freeze-dried mangoes & buttered noodles w/ sprinkle cheese. Doesn't sound tasty to me, but you should see this kid's abs.

This "moving up" stuff is serious business...

Thank goodness I brought my mad photography skillz to the party, right?!

Three mover-uppers discussing what is, no doubt, a weighty matter, during the ceremony.

Seriously some of the cutest kids. ever.

Are the grown-ups still talking?!!!

And then they sang.

Ethan's teacher read's Ethan's Beatles Manifesto.

And shakes the rabbi's hand while receiving his certificate of move-uppance.

Aaaaaand then he uses said certificate as a telescope.

Then it was time to fuel up with that one-bite of challah....

...and have at it with the koosh balls until the parents were done eating and tired of saying, "Have you seen my kid?! Where's my kid?!"

And then they were kindergarteners....

Getting All Martha Up in Here...

2011-06-09T09:08:00.000-07:00

Summer is approaching. That means all over the country, moms everywhere, of the stay-at-home variety or otherwise, are gearing up for 8-10 weeks of hearing the whining timbres of "I'm booooooored," and "there's nothing to doooooooooo." This will happen regardless of how packed a summer schedule is, no matter how many hours of soccer camp or arts & crafts camps a child is engaged in or if you've taken out a second mortgage on your house or cashed in a chunk of your 401K to cover the cost of said camps to ensure that your child is adequately stimulated creatively, kinesthetically and academically during those long summer weeks (nevermind that when I was a kid, my grandmother said, "go outside and play!" and it was free and we did it because grandma said to, and we all still got into college. End of story.)

So that means that I am starting to pack my bag o' tricks full of crafty, arty, field-trippy kind of plans. I need to be ready when the lamentations of boredom start. I do plan on implementing the "go outside & play!" cure as often as possible (of course with the necessary 21st century revision of "in the back yard. That's fenced in. And invisible from the front yard. So no one tries to steal you. Or touch you inappropriately. While I"m inside folding laundry. wondering if I should have given you a baby monitor to take outside with you so I can hear everything that's happening while you're outside and I'm inside. On second thought, stay inside and play a video game." I kid.).

But I know there are going to be times when Ethan and I are staring at each other, counting the seconds until bedtime (well, he can't tell time yet, so I'm probably projecting a bit there), and I want to be prepared with FUN! FAMILY! BONDING! arts & crafts.

This week Ethan was home most of the week (happy summer vacation preview!!!) with the most unstrep throat strep throat in the history of strep throat. Had a fever for about 10 minutes, complained twice that his throat hurt. Other than that, business as usual, except contagious. So he stayed home with me.

Awhile back I found a cool blog post about making colored sand art & bookmarked the page for future reference. Well, yesterday was that future. So as not to mislead anyone into thinking I came up with this idea, I got it (along w/ eleventy billion other ideas) from this fabulous blog

and I'm a little less afraid of summer now.

A little warning: this craft is not really for the mess-phobic. Fortunately, I don't fall anywhere even in the neighborhood of that category. Sometimes I think our lives would be a lot more serene if I were a bit more concerned with the mess, and I've tried, made countless resolutions to be a neater housekeeper and teach Ethan how to be neater. But, at almost 40, I've concluded that it's just not who I am (it feels much better to announce it as a revelation rather than a resignation), and so I will embrace the mess and worry about cleaning it up later.

You need: salt, colored chalk, paper & glass bottles w/ caps, corks, etc.

You start out pouring some plain salt onto a piece of paper. Ethan needed to play with the salt for a few minutes before we went any further....

"Look, Mommy, a latte!" Perhaps we go to Starbucks a bit too often...

Then you take one piece of chalk and rub it against the salt until all the salt has turned that color.

Then pick up the paper, making it a little funnel, and pour the colored "sand" into the bottle. I got these for $1 at Michaels, but Ethan liked the project so much that I'll likely be frequenting our local Goodwill to find cheap glass jars--our house is going to be full of them soon. And if we ever give you a handmade gift? You're looking at it right now...

And...lather, rinse, repeat....

His:

Mine:

Ethan was quick to inform me that his was better because my layer of yellow was "just way too big. Next time, remember not to use so much salt for the yellow layer, Mommy, okay?"

Um. Okay.

Like I said, the project is a bit messy. You can see in the pictures that my dining room table definitely got more than its daily recommended allowance of sodium. Take a moment to image what the floor underneath it looked at. Neat freaks (and I say use that term affectionately) are shuddering in horror right now, I know.

FORTUNATELY, I have a kid who has a new-found love of the dust-buster. Dust-bust away, little man!! Dust-bust away!!!

Tomorrow Ethan graduates from preschool. Be prepared for the sap, people, because I will be bringing it.

Gearing Up for the Ugly Cry...

2011-06-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

You guys, Ethan graduates preschool next week. As a matter of fact, this time next week, he will be a preschool graduate. I'm pretty sure I'm going to make a damn fool out of myself at his "move up" ceremony. How can I tell? Because as I type this in Starbucks, with a whole week to go before the actual date, I am totally dabbing my weepy eyes with their scratchy recycled napkins just after writing the first sentence of this post. Wuss, thy name is Sarah.

Seriously, when did he go from being this:

and this:

or even this:

and this:

to this??!!!

When you look at him, do you see any of the baby left? Sigh. I don't. When I look at him now, I can see more of what he will look like as a teenager than I do of what he did look like as a baby.

I know this is like the blog equivalent of the sit-com clip show cop-out, but really. Look at him!!!

A few days ago a friend & I were in a party supply store gathering decorations for the graduation party that will finish off the school year next Friday. We came across little "Oh, The Places You'll Go," by Dr. Seuss mortar boards. I may have cried right there in the party store. (translation: I most definitely 100% certainly did cry.) And my friend might have laughed at me (translation: see above, but switch "cry" to "laugh.") Whatever. Next week when her little one walks in with a flower and starts singing some song to us, she is going to do the ugly cry right along with me. It's all right, K, I'll bring the tissues.

Look kids! Big Ben!!...Parliament!!!

2011-06-01T11:18:00.001-07:00

Except in our specific case, it was "Hoover Dam!!! Red Rock Canyon!!"

I'm not sure why as a parent I am the slightest bit surprised by my child's raging apathy towards all things historically significant and/or aesthetically compelling. I've seen all the National Lampoon Vacation movies, and the disdainful glares and optical-nerve-sprain-inducing eye rolls the Griswold children are capable of as their parents cart them all over hell & creation is not new to me. As a matter of fact, in the movies, its down right hilarious. Look at how pissed off those kids are at their parents for ripping them away from their friends in the name of magical family bonding time!!! Hahaha! Hahaha...ha...ha...erm. heh...

Turns out, not so funny when it's your kid, too young to be schooled in the ways of even the remotest bit of self-restraint. And the whining. Oh, the whining!!! Believe me, if Ethan were just sitting in the back seat pouting and rolling his eyes at us, that would be awesome. Bring the silent misery, kid! It's the obsessive vocalizing of his displeasure at the situation every. freaking. second. that drives me over the edge.

But thank you so much, internets, for validating us & our decision to cart his whining butt all over the historical landmarks and natural treasures of this land. The next time Ethan is whimpering in the back seat that what he reaaaaaaaaaaaallly needs is a play date with our next door neighbor or to go home and play with his Wii drums, I will have no problem turning around from the front seat and telling him, "The internet says this is good for you!!! Someday you'll appreciate this!!!!" (which is basically what I say to him now, minus the internet validation part).

Want to see some of the pictures of the places that stole hours from Ethan's life that he'll never get back? Okay!

Hoover Dam:

Really freaking cool. "It's like an upside down pyramid, Ethan!!!" "Did the slaves from Egypt build it?" Yay, Jewish preschool education!!!

Oh, happy day!

Husband? Is a wayyyyyy better parent than me. Maybe its because I spend so much more time with a 5 year old and I just don't have the reserves of patience that he has. Maybe he's just better at it than me. But this was 5 minutes after we'd parked the car & Ethan was already in a full-blown whine rant, with "I want to go to the ppooooooool" on a continuous loop. I had stomped off in a typical only-child huff of "I can't deal with this," (its good that at least I can recognize my weaknesses, right?!), and Husband did the whole get down on his level, validate his feelings and then try to strike a compromise. Seriously, sometimes I think if he'd had lactating boobs, I could have lifted right out of the equation.

The giant fake smile. He feels the magic of the bonding. And the historical significance. Can you tell?

Really enjoying the tour.

Good times!!!!

The view from the dam itself (as an aside, I keep spelling it "damn." No wonder my kid keeps saying things like, "what the hell?!" Awesome.)

Those smiles? Squinting in the sun. I kid! I kid! (um. sort of)

The best part of the trip for Ethan? Smashing a penny in the gift shop.

He also enjoyed pretending that he was holding up the whole mountain while standing on this zodiac map thing we couldn't quite figure out the significance of. Sooooo, when you go to Hoover Dam, remember: kids like to smash the pennies and pretend to be super heroes holding up mountains. They ought to put that in the guide book.

Red Rock Canyon:

Ethan was momentarily interested when we...um...totally lied to him and told him we were going to be looking for dinosaur bones. (what?!!! It could happen....)

...and when we got to pretend to be a giant lizard in the visitor center...

but as soon as we got into the actual beauty & awe-inspiring magnificence of nature? There was much whining. We did, however, manage to take some deceptively joyful looking pictures, so here you go....

tour guide Ethan....

this looks like fun family bonding, but its actually Husband taking a picture with his iPhone and Ethan whining that he doesn't want to go for a walk among the amazing pretty rocks.

but he does want to pose like king of the world on top of one of the rocks. Naturally.

Seriously these rocks were amazing.

amazing.

And thus ends our Saga of a Whining Kid, the Vegas Edition. Stay tuned for the continuing adventures of the Whining Kid, which returns to its regularly scheduled whining today as I attempt to entertain said kid in rainy, cold weather. Good times ahead, folks. Good times!

What Happens in Vegas...(the "with a 5-year old" edition)

2011-05-29T15:43:00.003-07:00

About a month ago, Husband came home from work looking particularly frazzled and fried and announced that it was time for a get-away. I was instructed, as the activity & social director of our team (just call me Julie McCoy), to find a place that was "inexpensive, sunny & comes with a pool." "Inexpensive" meant some place we could drive, "sunny" meant some place south of us & "with a pool" meant endless potential for me to become twitchy with relaxation-induced anxiety while Husband and Ethan frolicked in the water during said vacation. That pretty much left us with Mexico, San Diego or Las Vegas (or, let's face it, a multitude of other places that I was just too dim to look in to). Mexico was out since I am particularly fond of my head, and the heads of my loved ones, being attached to our respective bodies. San Diego would probably have been lovely, but I wasn't sure what I'd do while those capable of relaxation partook of the pool. And when looking through the hotel information available for Vegas, I discovered that many hotels had wave pools & lazy river tubing pools, which sounded a lot more fun than your run of the mill sit-around-watching-the-palm-trees-grow pool (why don't I love relaxing, people???!!! What is wrong with me?!) Plus, there's a giant Sephora in Vegas & I know exactly where it is.

So Vegas it was!

A tip about Vegas with a 5 year old. Go during the week. Our room at the Monte Carlo was, relatively speaking, dirt cheap--Monday through Thursday nights cost about the same as staying Friday & Saturday nights. So there's that to consider. But even more importantly is the fact that the sleaze-factor in Vegas is relatively low during the week. Yes, they're still smoking in the casino & the jumbotron advertisements of showgirls and boobs! boobs! boobs! are still flashing pretty much everywhere. But you're more likely to bump your inner-tube into a retiree or a small family in the lazy river than a bimbo. And you're much more likely to hear the excited squeals of little kids running down the hotel hallways early in the morning than you are to hear coke-fueled orgies being carried on in the room next to yours all night. And even though people are allowed to smoke in the casino & by the pool, there just aren't that many people doing it, so its never really an issue. And we discovered that there's almost always a way around the casino, so if you're staunchly against a kid walking through a casino, you can avoid it completely. So Vegas during the week? Good.

It seems, however, that the weekend in Vegas starts some time around 3pm on Thursday afternoon. On Thursday morning we took a short day trip from the city to the Hoover Dam. We left a mostly tame, family-friendly as long as you don't stop and talk to the guys in the "Girls 24-Hours a Day!" t-shirts on the sidewalks type of town & returned to a city gearing up for 72 hours of gluttonous debauchery. The young families and middle-aged, too-tanned & slightly-bloated casino tourists by the pool had been replaced by surgically-enhanced, bikini & stiletto-clad 20-something waifs & their drunken douchebag frat-boy counterparts. The pools where Ethan had spent the past 3 days practicing putting his head in the water (and totally rocking it, people!!! We have a swimmer!!!) and floating round-stream (it was a circular lazy river) in a $15 plastic tube had become swirling STD-swap meets of a party. The a-little-too-loud-but-wholesome-sounding family in the room next to us was replaced by a trio of raucous Pabst-Blue-Ribbon case toting college boys (let's take a moment to pause in memory of my youth, as I realize this entire paragraph just screams, "SARAH IS OOOOOLLLLLLDDDD!"), and the second-hand smoke content of our oxygen supply became nearly intolerable.

Fortunately, we'd done almost everything we'd set out to do. There had been the hours of frolicking, and yes, even relaxing, by the pool. We had managed to see the fountains at Bellagio, even though we were almost crushed to smithereens by an over-zealous group of picture-taking tourists that amassed by the thousands within moments of the every-15-minute show. We had taken Ethan to dinner at the Rainforest Cafe (which he alternately loved and hated--the boy likes apes, but is not a fan of thunder whether its real or mechanically induced).

We seriously contemplated taking Ethan to see Cirque du Soleil's LOVE tribute to the Beatles, but when push came to shove, the idea of spending over $100 a ticket on a show that may or may not terrify Ethan into a catatonic state & forever ruin the Beatles for him just didn't seem worth it to us. So instead we trekked from our hotel to the Mirage in search of the LOVE gift shop so we could peruse a metric ton of Beatles merchandise all in one room. The shop & the entry way to the theater turned out to be more than ample ecstasy for the child, and we spent a good portion of our afternoon watching him run up & down the rainbow-lit hallway, dancing & singing and generally communing with the collective spirit of the Fab Four. Safe to say he was emotionally & physically spent after the experience & we'll save the actual show for when he's 7 or 8 (or can get through the shark scene in Finding Nemo--whichever comes first).

On a "What? Isn't it all about me???!!" note, I did manage to sneak away to the big shiny Sephora for awhile. In what I can only assume is a sneak-preview of the joy that will be menopause, my skin has gone completely dry in the past 2-3 weeks. I don't mean "wow, I should maybe moisturize more" dry kind of way--I mean full-on drought, flaking, peeling, HURTING dry. Forehead, chin, all of it. For a girl who's always battled break outs, this desert-face thing is totally new to me. And I"m not a fan. So at Sephora I was on the hunt for a super rich moisturizer, preferably something with colloidal oatmeal as an ingredient. Low & behold, First Aid Beauty (FAB) makes an inexpensive (as Sephora products go) intensive treatment, so I snatched it up (along with some eyeliner, eyeshadow, a lipstick & blush). So far it seems to be doing the trick, but I've also added Palmer's Cocoa butter skin therapy oil, which has vitamin E in it. I'm slathering both on multiple times a day & fortunately it seems to be working in so far as it keeps the hideous peeling and flaking at bay, but I am still hauling my butt to a dermatologist STAT. Because really, just ew.

Anyhoooo, on our way out of town on Friday, we tortured the child by dragging him to the great outdoors & forcing him to commune with nature in Red Rock Canyon, about a half hour outside of Las Vegas. While Husband & I oooooh'd and ahhhhhh'd at the magnificent rock formations jutting up out of the ground and folding in on themselves in a variety of caves and cliffs and curves, Ethan kicked dirt and whined something about wanting to gooooooooooooo. No matter how many times we told him that we were going to spend the next 4 hours sitting in the car as we drove to Bakersfield, he insisted that he needed to rest NOW and couldn't possibly be expected to maintain a standing position and certainly would not agree to walking more than 5 more feet at any one time without screeching and complaining.

Husband and I are torn on what to do with these Fun! Family! Bonding! times because torturing Ethan means torturing ourselves. But at the same time, when are we ever going back to Red Rock Canyon? Or the Hoover Dam (because he pitched the same tantrum-y routine there)? And do we stop doing these things, things that WE want to do as a family, because the youngest and least rational of us doesn't want to do them? Or do we tolerate the complaining and whining, have a relatively miserable time, but at least we can say we did it and we have the pictures to prove it? Sigh.

Other than the whining during the few times we had the audacity to want to do something other than entertain him (or when our attempts to entertain him took too long, like when it took us an hour to walk through the hotels to find the LOVE gift shop), we all had a fantastic time. Much frolicking, relaxing & ooohhh & ahhhhh'ing was had by all. All while in the least debauchery-adjacent environment possible in Vegas.

Nothing like a dust storm to welcome you to the Mojave...

Ethan spent most of our morning in Bakersfield, CA (1/2 way to Vegas) hurtling himself off of the desk chair to the bed, screaming, "I'm superman!!!!!"

He pouted when we had to leave the endless entertainment of preschooler/superhero space flight and head to our actual vacation destination. Especially when we decided to stop and take some pictures of the cool architecture in the arts district of the city. It's not easy being the kid of two amateur photographers.

Fortunately we found a guitar shop (closed, thank goodness) right next to the funky theater & hotel we were snapping pictures of & Ethan amused himself by oogling vintage guitars through the window.

This is what he would have looked like if he'd been Siamese twins.

Ethan was impressed by how much water there is in Vegas, for it being in the middle of a desert. That wall, for instance, is all water.

He was even more impressed by the ton (literally) of chocolate running through the chocolate fountain in the sweet shop at Bellagio. Here he is in the middle of saying, "I own ALL OF THIS!!" Clearly, he warmed to the Vegas attitude right away.

No paparazzi, please!!!

Wave pool & lazy river pool, as seen from our room on the 28th floor.

Husband and E oooooh & aaaahhhh at the plethora of hydrangea in the Bellagio conservatory of flowers.

"There are lots of girls in their underwear here, aren't there, guys?" We'll be accepting our nomination into the parenting hall of fame any day now....

Fake Paris.

Starting off day 2 in Vegas looking a little rough.

And then, there was LOVE....

Oh my. Look at how strung out on the Beatles & flourescent/neon lights that boy is in the 2nd to last picture. Overwhelmed, much?! But despite the look on his face in that shot, he had a blast.

I'll have to continue the picture blast tomorrow because I'm staring at an Everest sized pile of laundry and in spite of my mother's best attempts to instill a clean-the-house-before-you-go-on-vacatoin ethic in me, alas, my house was left on Sunday as though we'd all been raptured up while in the middle of a "who can make the biggest mess" contest. So there's that.

'Til tomorrow, interwebs.

Walking On Sunshine...

2011-05-15T16:16:00.000-07:00

Or, in my case, walking on blisters. Lots of gnarly, hobbit-foot, not-sure-I'll-be-able-to-walk-tomorrow blisters. Its been awhile since I've talked about the fact that I'm participating in the Susan G Komen Walk for the Cure this September (shameless donation plea: see my badge over on the margin; I'm half-way to my goal! Feel free to help me get there! Just click on the link to donate!!!). I started training in January, walking ever so leisurely at the gym, 4-5 miles on the treadmill a few times a week. But once the weather got nice (which I realize is eye-roll-inducing for East Coaster & Midwesterners, given that it rarely gets below 40 degrees here even in the thick of winter and you have to go 5000 feet up to see so much as a flake of snow), the team I'm walking with started outdoor training walks.

I missed the first couple of them because I was graced with the creeping crud over & over again this winter and early spring--strep, sinus infection, sinus infection & yet another sinus infection (apparently when it never gets below freezing, the farking germs NEVER die. That's totally scientific, right?). But in the past few weeks, I have joined my teammates (Who, by the way? Rock.) for a couple of training walks and I will tell you, these girls do not mess around. I am SO happy to have the motivation of seeing other women trucking up a hill faster than me, while I huff and gasp behind them. Because if they weren't 20 paces ahead of me? I'd be sitting down.

Turns out 4-5 days at the gym, leisurely strolling on the treadmill while obsessively checking Instagram & Facebook does not prepare one to walk 20 miles a day, 3 days in a row. Who knew?!!! One of my teammates is a veteran runner of marathons, including the Boston marathon. She's running TWO marathons this summer before doing the 3-Day walk. Did I mention these ladies don't mess around? I have already warned them that I will be falling behind, an that I don't expect them to wait for me because I don't want to slow them down. I will be making all kinds of new friends September 9-11th; the stragglers. And that's okay, because at least I'm doing it.

I love when we're on a trail and we come to a fork and no one knows the "right" (read: least painful) way to go & we just pick one and see where it takes us. We're adventurers! Fearless adventurers! (hold me) Today that set us on a course straight up the side of a mountain, on a lean-forward-into-it steep, narrow, slippery, rocky trail that opened up to a lovely meadow which I figured was at least a serene & picturesque place to go if I were to drop dead from the climb. When we got a little higher up on the twisty trail, as I grasped my knees and gasped to get even the slightest bit of oxygen (lovely! mountain! air!!) into my lungs, one of my teammates asked a woman running down the hill (show off) if the trail led back to the parking lot. She said, "No, it just goes up & comes back down." My life flashed in front of my eyes.

Fortunately we decided not to see how far into the stratosphere "up" was before it started coming back down, and we retraced our steps back to town and found our original trail. Sweet Fancy Moses, thank you.

Aside from being in awesomely bad shape and having the lung capacity of a haddock on dry land, I find myself falling behind because of my addiction. To my iPhone camera. And Instagram. I've fallen into the trap of seeing pictures all around me wherever I am, so while my teammates are actually concentrating on the trail ahead, I'm stopping to take my 11000th picture of some moss on a tree. Because who doesn't need 11000 pictures of moss on a tree?!!! Or baby geese! You can't just walk by baby geese, people. (although their mothers would clearly prefer you did, given how they squawked at me for stopping to take pictures). You HAVE to stop and take a picture. Right? No? Just me? Oh.

You know that dog in "Up"? The one who says, "Squirrel!!!!"? Yeah, that's me. Perhaps my doctor will write me a temporary 'scrip for Ritalin for those three days I actually have a goal I have to meet before the sun goes down. Otherwise, I could be 10 miles behind the pack, taking pictures of a faded band-sticker on the back of a stop sign, or of the snapdragons in someone's fire escape garden, somewhere in the city. Seriously, it's a problem.

In all, we trekked 10 miles today. So, 1/2 of what we'll be doing in one day come September. And except for the blisters on my feet, which, if they had their own mouths would be incessantly screaming all kinds of obscenities at me (which would be horribly embarrassing since I'm sitting in Starbucks right now), I feel great! So I guess my biggest challenge (aside from the aforementioned photography-induced attention deficit) is toughening up my feet with a giant layer of callouses. So...that's sexy, right? Yay, me!!!!

When A Special Snowflake Gets Water in His Eye...

2011-05-13T10:06:00.001-07:00

...its kind of like giving a Gremlin a bath, while serving it a 4-course meal after midnight, in a brightly lit room.

That's what swim lessons have been like for us for the past month.

You might remember me posting this picture:

in which Ethan seems to be gleefully embracing his inner aquatic animal (I'm guessing otter), ready for the fun of swim lessons to begin. And for several weeks, he looked forward to swim lessons with an enthusiasm that had him asking on Monday "is today my swim lesson?!" and slumping over into full-blown depressive angst when I responded "no, honey; swim lessons are on Saturday. You've got 5 days until your next lesson."

For weeks Ethan frolicked in the water with his best friend (or his wife, for those following the epic love story of Ethan and Tiny P), dipping his face in the water, blowing bubbles, and holding the hole-y bucket of water over his head to get used to the idea of water in his face. Husband and I were thrilled because Ethan's spent years screaming bloody murder every time we had to wash his hair and we had anticipated a similar headache-inducing response with the swim lessons. But he seemed to love them! Visions of snorkeling and endless games of Marco Polo and water volleyball danced in our heads! Our next house can have a pool!!! We'll have rafts and noodles, and pool parties and a cabana boy!!!!! (okay, maybe that last part was just me...)

Until.

Week 5 found us reading an announcement on the white board that teacher "L" will be permanently replaced by teacher "K" for the rest of the spring session. Okay. That's fine. We deal pretty well with personnel changes. And teacher "K" seemed pretty nice.

Except.

Teacher "K" has a strict "no goggles" policy in her lessons; the belief being that beginning swimmers use them as a crutch and should they accidentally fall into the pool w/o the goggle crutches, they will apparently sink like a stone to the bottom of the pool because they don't know what to do without their goggles on. So in order to assure complete and authentic, un-crutched water confidence, no goggles allowed.

And this is where my special snowflake FREAKED THE FUCK OUT.

See, Ethan's got a streak of perfectionism in him. He didn't crawl until 10 months, but when he did, he crawled like it was his job. He didn't walk until 15 months, but his walk started at almost a run. He didn't potty-train until almost 4, but when he did, it was a "I'm done with diapers, mommy," type of thing and since giving up nighttime diapers, he's not had one single accident over night. Ethan does things in his head 100,000 times before he attempts to do them physically. Husband and I know this about him. He's not reading anything willingly yet and is only really writing his name, but we're not concerned. When he does decide to start reading and writing, he'll be pulling Dostoevsky off the shelf and composing love poetry for Tiny P in calligraphy (or something like that...). And I'm sure that while he wasn't looking like Michael Phelps out there in the pool, he was taking it all in & preparing mentally for the day that he would put all the kicking practice and arm movements together and take off across the pool, his eyes goggle-free, open under the water the whole time. Because that's how he is.

The problem is that Ethan simply wasn't ready to give up those goggles. He was LOVING his lessons with teacher "L" and her focus on getting the kids comfortable and happy in the water. With teacher "K", the shrieking peals of "I don't waaaaaaaaaant to go to swim lessons!!!!!" begins sometime around mid-morning and ends with us forcibly carrying him to the car so he can cry the entire 20 minute drive to the swim school for his lessons at 1pm. It's wicked fun, people.

Since day one, Husband and I had been able to sit in the gallery, behind the glass, enjoying the view of our child splashing and practicing his kicks and blowing bubbles. But now, in order to peel Ethan off of one of us, we have to go into the pool area and stand right at the edge of the pool to keep him from going into full-blown cataclysmic tantrum mode, the likes of which sounds 100x worse than it even is because of all that awesome pool-water and high-ceiling'd green house echo chamber effect. So! Magical!!

This past week, I got all "that mother" and informed teacher "K" that Ethan is simply not ready to give up his goggles and he either wore them or we just weren't going to stay. She nodded at me, let Ethan put on his goggles, and moved on with the lesson, but I could tell inside she was calling me all sorts of unflattering curse words. Ugh. I hated that. Because I was a teacher. And I had a way of doing things, too. Not that I was unyielding in my ways (because I wasn't) or unwilling to teach to the child (because I was).

But I will readily admit to having my teacher feathers ruffled on more than one occasion by a helicopter parent who got in my face about how I HAD to make exceptions for their special snowflake when I knew full-well said special snowflake was capable of doing things my way, but reveled in their special snowflake status and watching their mother and/or father steamroll all over their teacher (please note I am NOT referring to students who had actual learning challenges or anything of that nature; I'm talking about "my kid should really be allowed to turn their homework in late b/c she went to a concert last night and couldn't finish her paper," or "my child is going to Australia for a month; can you get me the next months' worth of assignments by tomorrow?" or, "Lord of the Flies is awfully violent for 8th grade reading; couldn't you maybe teach something like Ghandi's autobiography instead?" Or my personal favorite, the phone call I received from a mother, furious that I had "assassinated" her daughter's character by not accepting a plagiarised piece of work. I wonder why I don't miss teaching?!)

So yeah, I hated getting all "you have to play this my way" with the teacher, because I'm sure her way works most of the time AND I know that I won't always be there to fight Ethan's battles for him or make sure that he's 100% comfortable with everything that's asked of him in a learning environment. But Sweet Fancy Moses, the melt downs. And the fear of the water.

I just couldn't bear the idea of him becoming so afraid of the water that he refused to go in. Or that his swim lessons would have to stop due to them becoming a complete waste of time and money. I hated swim lessons. A camp counselor one summer picked me up & just chucked me in the water because I was standing on the side of the lake dock shaking & crying. "Enough of that! Just get in!" she said as she hoisted my 7 year old body up off its feet and threw me into the lake. That was pretty much the end of it for me. I can tread water for a minute or two and I do a mean doggy paddle. But I never trusted a swim teacher after that. So maybe its my own baggage that makes my insides curdle when I see a swim teacher force Ethan into a scenario that scares him, that he's not ready for. And he's not me; maybe he would adapt and get over it and later on be grateful for the hard-ass "no goggles for you" swim teacher. But.

And there are some things we might just say, "you know what? This isn't right for you right now; we'll return to this another time when you're a little older." But swimming isn't just a fun hobby like cooking classes or soccer. While I know I'll always have to be vigilant as a mom at the pool, I look forward to a summer without the anxiety of my child sinking like a stone to the bottom of a pool while I look away for a nanosecond to swat a mosquito.

So, yeah. I'm that mom. And my kid is that special snowflake. Oh the joy. The special magical joy.

And Then He Was Five....

2011-05-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, he looked like this...

...and now, he looks like this...

Excuse me while I take a moment to digest that....

Aaaaand, I'm back. The past couple of weeks have been full of party-planning, grandparent-visits and all manner of stellar behavior that seemed to scream "This is what 5 is going to look like. Prepare yourself!!!" like a pre-5 public service announcement that bore repeating over and over again.

Ethan turned 5 almost a week ago and someday when he looks back on this blog, he'll be able to tell his therapist that 5 years old is when I stopped blogging about his birthday on the day it happened, and therefore when my parenting skills hit the skids. Sorry, kiddo.

Last year, Husband and I threw the Beatles themed birthday party, complete with a home-made Abbey Road, foam ball & pipe cleaner octopus' gardens and themed foods like the Sgt Pepperoni Pizza for the kids, and the Eleanor Fig-Brie platter for the grown-ups, and two cakes--one a drum and one a guitar. This year, I paid some bounce house place an ungodly amount so that all of Ethan's friends could bounce and slide and jump for an hour and a half before eating pizza provided by the bounce house place & a cake I bought at Safeway. Then we went home, Ethan got to open a few presents and it was time for bed. Yes, we made him go to bed before he'd opened all his presents because he had school the next day. Again, Ethan will have a lot to tell his therapist.

On Friday, Ethan was the Shabbat boy at his school, which means he got to carry the torah around during services (and by "torah," I mean the little plush stuffed-torah used by the preschool so as not to risk desecrating a real torah with preschool snot; the passing of the torah is a germophobes worst nightmare, complete with an entire preschool's worth of germs passed around with it every Friday. Probably every illness in our house over the past 2 years is attributable to our child's preschool's religious observance. But it's wicked cute when he sings in Hebrew, so totally worth it.

Pictures? You want some pictures? I can do that...

The birthday king (in his embarrassingly dirty socks, which in my defense, he'd already had off on the bounce-house lobby floor for several minutes when this picture was taken, and they were NOT that grungy when he left the house. And there are shadows there. And I should have just cropped the damn picture), watching the video of the rules before commencing with the birthday bouncing. So that he could promptly forget them all in the dizzying mayhem of the giant slides and jousting-rings.

on his giant inflatable throne; eat your heart out Prince William...

And putting the candles on his Star Wars cake with the frosting so blue that 24 hours later every child (and erm, adult) who attended his party was pooping blue.

What birthday king doesn't love to eat cheese pizza on his giant inflatable throne?

We were able to light the candles on Ethan's cake after prying the swarm of cake-crazed preschoolers away from it. It was seriously like a scene out of Lord of the Flies until we convinced them that there would be "NO CAKE FOR YOU!!!" unless they were each seated in their chairs. If you squint, and hold this picture in the right light, you night be able to actually see Ethan's expression. Please note that he looks as though he's never seen cake before.

And as Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader battled atop the cake, Ethan turned into a giant blur and blew out the candles.

I just love the look on his face in this picture.

The next day, Ethan chose to wear his newly acquired pirate garb to school, thus transforming himself into the Sabbath pirate, a little known Jewish super hero. No? Okay, I tried.

Arrrrgggh!! Shabbat Shalom, mateys!

At school, Ethan wore yet another crown, made by himself, covered in stickers of things he likes. Which are apparently America & cars.

He wore his birthday crown in lieu of the appropriate head covering while in a synagogue, but I'm guessing G-d gave him a pass since it was his birthday.

Ethan singing the Shabbat prayers and make no mistake, he is trying to wrestle that microphone right out of the rabbi's hands.

After services, it was time to switch out costumes again (Lady Gaga, is that you?!) and switch back to the pirate bandana.

And then it was snack time, sponsored, naturally, by the birthday boy's family. Last year, I sugared them up with cupcakes that they got to frost and decorate themselves. The teacher really appreciated it. So much so that this year, in September, she made a "please try to make birthday snacks as healthy as possible" plea. I have to be honest, I thought of bringing cupcakes again because damn it! It's a birthday snack!!! But I didn't. Husband and I brought graham crackers, cream cheese and an array of fruits for the kids to make "smiley faces." Of course, in this picture, the kids are eating bananas & challah bread, so clearly my snack was superfluous.

And it's probably a good thing because while the idea for the fruity smiley faces is genius (and I can't take any credit for it; I totally stole the idea from a friend with a kid in a different class), we didn't realize we needed to buy whipped cream cheese. Watching a bunch of 4-5 year olds trying to spread regular, cold cream cheese on a graham cracker is basically watching an exercise in snack food demolition. So basically they had bananas, challah bread & bits and pieces of graham cracker piled high with globs of cream cheese and raspberries for snack. Awesome.

At home we opened birthday presents (and apparently watched golf)...

Please note his love of the Beatles rages on...

Also note that, given the change of clothes, we opened presents on three different days, making it officially a weekend of birthday for Ethan. Dangerous precedent, I know. But that's what happens when mama can't get her act together and get all the presents wrapped in time. I'm awesome that way.

In true little kid form, Ethan's last question for me before he fell asleep on the night of his 5th birthday? "Mommy, when do I turn 6?"

Sigh. Too soon, baby. Too soon.

The Prince and the P(illow)

2011-04-27T09:56:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, Husband and I attended a "parent education night" at Ethan's preschool entitled "Help! They Are Out of Control!" We went because we hoped the childhood development expert would at once reassure us that Ethan's erratic bouts of devil-spawn behavior was not some sort of irrefutable evidence that we had broken or spoiled him beyond repair, and give us real tried & true magic tricks to get him behaving like a recent graduate of Miss Grace's Finishing School for Devil Spawn and Other Possessed Beings.

Fortunately, her nifty old-timey visual aid (a giant pad of paper clipped to a big easel) assured us that the peaks and valleys of Ethan's behavior are totally normal at his age and not at all an indication of demonic possession or horribly horrible parenting. Preschoolers just, for a number of valid and not-at-all-your-fault reasons, are...challenging. So that was a HUGE relief. However, her methods of coping with said out-0f-control preschooler pretty much revolved around counting to 3 a lot. Which? Isn't bad, I guess, given that my kid has yet to test me past "1...2....". I fully admit I have no idea what happens when I get to "3." But I imagine its got something to do with our world being sucked into the much-feared black hole of Tantrum.

Husband and I walked out of the event feeling that, if nothing else, we were relieved that our child's Sybil-esque behavior was at least normal and that we were not dealing with the only child who could be snuggles and smiles one minute and screaming, and door-slamming the next. It was nice to know there were other parents wandering aimlessly through the same trenches. And we happened to fall into a nice routine of pleasant behavior from Ethan somewhere around that point, which encouraged my brain to put the whole thing behind me and settle into an extended period of "My child is the sweetest little boy ever & aren't we such wonderful parents?" (note: the hubris perhaps only slightly exaggerated).

And then.

My parents came to town, excited to see their cherubic grandson. Their legacy in the flesh. And at first, things went great. In a burst of uncontainable joy, Ethan ran through the baggage claim area into the waiting arms of my parents, both beaming with pride and love and all that other fabulous stuff. When we got home, Ethan showed Grammy & Grampy all of his prized possessions and probably sang 2-3 lines of the entire Beatles catalogue for their listening pleasure. After dinner, Ethan and my father sang Passover songs together, my father singing the part of Moses' "Let My People Go" (which, I'm sorry, but I can't ever hear anything but Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off when I hear that song..."Let My Cameron Go..."), after which Ethan declared, "Grampy, you have a really good God voice," and my heart melted into a gooey blob of mushy love for both of them.

Apparently, though, the biological clock of preschooler behavior was tick-tocking in Ethan's body and approximately 30 minutes later, some sort of primordial alarm went off inside him and his sweet little Dr Jekyll turned into cranky-ass, irrationally screaming Mr. Hyde right around bedtime.

The problem? His pillows. Pillows.

I guess, somehow, the pillows that were just fine the night before (and for every night for the past 2 years) were suddenly atrociously and offensively unacceptable. As if they'd magically turned into fields of flaming poop or something while we weren't looking. Crimes against humanity. So visceral was his reaction and refusal to tolerate the presence of the pillows that before Husband and I knew it, Ethan had thrown his pillows from his bed, the tears had started falling and the wailing "I don't like my pillllllllllooooooowwwwws" had commenced, at approximately the volume of a jumbo jet buzzing the roof of our house. So it was a really good time.

We tried the "enough dawdling, Ethan, go to bed," routine. We tried the "look, Mommy's using the pillow--its okay! Nice pillow!" routine. We tried the "are you kidding me?!!! This is ridiculous!!! There is NOTHING wrong with your pillows!!!" routine. We tried the "do you want to sleep on one of mommy's pillows? Daddy's pillows? A pillow from the living room?" routine. We tried the "do your ears hurt? Does something hurt when you lay down?" routine? Each routine garnered the same out-of-control irrational refusals and wailing. Eventually I had to do the stern, "mommy will be right back" and then go out in the hallway and laugh until my sides hurt routine because the whole scene was just SO ridiculous. Poor kid.

Finally, grammy saved the day by coming in with her plush, C-shaped travel pillow. "Would you like to sleep with Grammy's pillow?" she asked, and the angry wrinkled face on my child relaxed into a exhausted, glassy-eyed contemplation of the oddly-shaped pillow. He reached out and took it from her, put it down on the bed and spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out how exactly to use it. He put it around the top of his head, over his eyes, around the back of his neck, laid his cheek on the side of it and then in the hole in the middle of it. It was clearly NOT at all comfortable for him, but he was relentless in his attempt to find a way to use this pillow, his other pillows still discarded, strewn across the floor.

There were hugs and kisses at this point, and we left Ethan and his travel pillow to their business of falling asleep. Finally. On my way out of the room, I picked up his regular pillows, detestable things that they apparently were, and put them at the foot of his bed so that he wouldn't trip on them in the middle of the night if he got up.

Before I went to bed a few hours later, I went in to check on him. The travel pillow lay on the floor by his bed. He was sound asleep. On his regular pillow.

Oh, Hai!

2011-04-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

I can haz blog?

My apologies, interwebs, but the past month has brought a lot of sinus infections, ear infections, fever, chills, colds and whatnot all through the Sarahndipity household and there are only so many ways to describe things like fleghmy coughs and snot before you lose your readers because of the ick-factor, you know?

But we're all recovered now (until the next time one of us touches a doorknob or walks past a person harboring a solitary germ...), so it's possible I might have something to talk about besides post-nasal drip and the mortifying realization that its time to go bra shopping after a trip to the doctor's office, during which, while listening to my lungs with her stethoscope my doctor pointed out, "you know you've got a hole back here in your bra strap, right?" So awesome.

Aside from consuming a small forest of trees worth of tissues (right now we have the carbon footprint of a giant Yeti--I'm going to have to start composting just to make up for the past month's tissue consumption), we've gone through all kinds of fun little family growth, development and bonding.

Ethan started swim lessons and lo & behold, the child put his face in the water and the world did not come to a screeching halt. This is the child who has screamed when having his hair washed since the day he emerged from the womb. The child who lives in dire dread of getting water in his eyes and who I thought would be wearing arm-swimmies until college. But what do you know? When he's in the presence of the speedo and swim cap clad teenager, he's all about slapping on the goggles, blowing bubbles and floating on his back. Who knew?!

Oh, the cute!!!! And that pink tutu in the lower right? His wife. You know, the one he married a few months ago. Yeah, they are still very much in the honeymoon phase--swim lessons together and everything.

Ethan's also developed an oh-so-charming habit of faking me out with his independent play. Yes, he'll play independently in his room, or the backyard and I will have a few blissful moments of relative quiet to...wash the dishes. or fold the laundry. So, you know. yay.

BUT, when he feels he's kept to himself long enough and is noticing that I am not adoringly absorbing his every swing of the plastic light saber or swooning with motherly pride over every crash of the matchbox Lambourghinis, wherever I am in the house or yard I hear "oooooooouuuuu" followed by the fakest fake crying one has ever heard. Ethan definitely has a future in the performing arts, but acting won't be his thing, I assure you. No Academy Awards in Ethan's future. But of course, being the responsible mother I am (most of the time), I go to see what tree has fallen on him or what pteradactyl-sized bee has stung him. And when I ask him, "honey, what's wrong?" he generally stops crying (well, stops making fake crying sounds), thinks for a few minutes and then says, "I have a boo boo," pointing to a week-old, scabbed over quasi-cut that he never even realize he had gotten in the first place, such was its initial painlessness. But now? While I am up to my eyeballs in half folded laundry or a sink full of soapy dishes? That "boo boo" takes on epic significance and its limb-threatening pain must be dealt with immediately.

Honestly, I'm finding myself "rushing" to his aide at a much slower clip these days, my little boy who "cried wolf." Someday I am going to saunter out into the backyard and find him impaled on his light saber or being attacked by a pack of rabid mourning doves and then I'll feel bad. But seriously, kid.

We also took a little trip to Monterey to get our fix of fabulous fresh air and outdoorsy goodness. I tend towards the Clark Griswold when it comes to expectations of family vacations or holidays, so I had our 3-day itinerary packed to the gills with coastal exploration, aquarium visits and other seaside town fun like surrey bike riding and watching otters frolic like they do. In the back of mind, as I always try to, I reminded myself that it *might* not be as Norman Rockwellian as I always want things to be--there might be meltdowns or things we couldn't do and I might end up pouty and disappointed. And I took a few deep breaths.

And yeah, so Highway 1 was closed before Big Sur due to the fact that the road had literally washed away. Bye-bye, road!

And we didn't get to the children's discovery museum. Bye-bye, extra giant sized petri dish o' preschooler germs!

And the Tor House in Carmel was closed. Bye-bye, house built of stone by some poet, by his own two hands, as a sort of sea-side Taj Mahal testament of ever-lasting adoration to his beloved. We did drive by it for a peek and I was afforded the opportunity to chide Husband for never building me a seaside cottage out of rock and stone with his own two hands as proof of his undying love to me. He informed me that if I waited for him to construct some sort of symbolic gesture of love like the Tor House, I *might* be waiting for all of eternity. Fair enough.

And our hotel had no air conditioning. Hello, sweaty king-sized bed crammed with kicky preschooler, snoring Husband and me. For two nights.

And Ethan decided 15 minutes after leaving a restaurant with a fully functioning restroom that he had to pee, so we had to run around Carmel looking for a public restroom while he whined that he was going to "peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" through the hoity-toity streets of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Hello, stares from fancy-pants Carmelians & tourists. Goodbye, dignity and extra time to poke around in pretty little shops until the parking meter runs out.

BUT in spite of all of that stuff, the trip was perfection. If you are ever in the Bay Area, you absolutely have to go to Monterey/Carmel. That's an order.

look! They have playgrounds EVERYwhere!

Then we went to Lovah's Point....where we saw no lovahs (thankfully), but weird little pointing statues, seagulls and lots of rocks...

For dinner, we went to Benihana where Ethan wore a paper chef hat, tried shrimp for the first time (hated it) and was generally a blur of activity while the guy in front of us salted everything he cooked to the point where I think he may have been trying to kill us from a sodium overdose.

The next day there were a multitude of not-so-shabby views like these as we drove down the coast until we came upon the "Route 1 is closed due to it being gone" sign (not actually what it said, but that's the gist....)

Ethan worked on poses for his future modeling career as we hiked through Point Lobos...

And then we watched a couple of harbor seals trying to get out of the water and up onto the rocks by repeatedly riding tiny waves up onto the rocks and trying to hold on for dear life as the wave washed back out. Those fat little suckers work hard for their couple of hours in the sun. There are some serious evolutionary flaws at work there, I think. But so cute. Like marine cabbage patch kids.

There was a lot of hiking and plenty of breath-taking views at Point Lobos--even excursion-averse Ethan enjoyed himself....

In Carmel, rich people dine with pink dogs in their laps. And there are places that serve chocolate chip cannoli and gelato. What a magical place...

There are countless other pictures we took of 17-mile drive, the aquarium, the sunset, yadda yadda yadda, BUT the highlight of Ethan's trip was, without a doubt, the bicycle surrey (with the fringe on top, natch). Ethan was our official bell-ringer as we pedaled down the bike path, steering the ancient behemoth of a bike through pedestrians and real cyclists, and across streets.

I don't know why I look like I'm trying to smile through unspeakable fear in this picture, or why Husband resembles someone who *might* receive extra scrutiny from the TSA, but Ethan is totally blissed out....

and in this one...

But now we are back to reality, a reality complete with epic battles over who is cleaning up the legos and in exactly what time frame, how much of one's plate has to be cleared at dinner to merit an ice cream sandwich for dessert and how many hours of The Beatles one family needs to listen to before they are officially "Beatled out."

It's all good.

What's That They Say About Payback?

2011-03-25T09:03:00.001-07:00

When I was a little girl, I recall getting in trouble once. Once. That's right. I was, what you might call a really, really, really good kid. My mother claims I never had temper tantrums (until I hit puberty and then I was as sullen and cranky as they come), and I have only two recollections of ever being sent to my room or grounded, ever in my life. I was grounded in my sophomore year of high school for lying to my parents about who I was going out with one Friday night and where I was going (another story for another day--suffice it to say I was a terrible liar and was found out and brought home before I even got to enjoy the fruits of my lying labors even a little bit). And I was sent to my room at age 5, also for lying, after having been caught red-handed. Or, in this case, red-faced.

The details are a bit fuzzy, but I believe my mother had informed me that we were going to be leaving for my grandmother's house in a few minutes. She was just going to go put on some make up and we'd be going. While girls of my generation didn't have quite the princess-obsession that seems to be so pervasive today, we still caught on early to what made girls "girly" and the significance of things like bras and make up. At least I did. There is more than one picture of me strutting around the house at 4 years old, clad in footie jammies and one of my mom's bras, straps twisted around my tiny shoulders, cups covering my entire torso. A good look. So when my mother said she was going to put her make up on, it seemed natural to my 5 year old brain that I do the same thing.

Except I had no make up. I was 5. What I did have, though, was magic markers. Brightly colored Crayola magic markers. And so I went to my room and set about putting on my make up; a little blue above my eyes (it was the 70's after all), some pink circles on my cheeks and red on (and probably around) my lips. I'm sure it was lovely. Thank goodness for non-toxic markers.

I emerged from my room, proud of first attempt at make up, ready to go to my grandmother's house. My mother did not share my joy or pride. "What did you doooooo?!!!" is what I recall her saying when she first saw my face, which I now realize probably looked like I'd been attacked by a roving band of evil clowns.

And the best part of the story? The part that, as a 5 year old made perfect sense to me, is that in response to "What did you doooooo?!" I replied....

"Nothing."

Clearly, if I simply refused to admit to having done anything, it didn't happen. If I didn't fess up to putting marker all over my face, I didn't HAVE marker all over my face. Or if I did, at least I hadn't done it. Boldest. Lie. Ever. I don't even have any siblings who could have held me down and drawn on my face. And with the cat lacking the upper body strength and opposable thumbs to be responsible, that really just left one possible culprit (taking into account that there really was no roving band of evil clowns). Me. But I denied it until I was blue in the face (no pun intended...well, maybe a little bit intended. Groan), even after my mother picked me up and held me up to the mirror, my brightly markered face staring right back at me. Deny. Deny. Deny. Nope, didn't do it. I look totally normal, mom. I don't see anything unusual about my face at all.

Finally she had no alternative but to send me to my room while she...well, I was going to say went to the internet to look up how to remove magic marker from skin, but we didn't have internet then. So who knows what she did while I was sulking in my room, my beautiful make up job gone to waste. Now that I'm a parent, I imagine she went into the living room and laughed her ass off, her face hurting from keeping a straight face through that entire scene.

But I remember being sent to my room for that lie. That hilariously egregious lie.

Which is why I'm sure the universe was laughing at me on Tuesday afternoon this week. Trying to take advantage of a break in the rain storms, Ethan and I headed to a Japanese garden nestled in the Santa Cruz mountains. After paying our admission and letting Ethan put some dollar bills into the donations for Japan earthquake/tsunami relief bowl, we headed into the garden. First stop, the rest rooms. Scene of Ethan's hilariously egregious lie.

As we each emerged from our own stalls, I reminded Ethan to flush his toilet. He informed me casually that he had, and went about washing his hands. I listened for the sound of his toilet, but could only hear the one in the stall I'd been in. "Are you sure, buddy? I don't think you did." To which he petulantly replied, "I ddiiiiiid!"

Hrm. So I stuck my head into the stall he'd been in. The water in the toilet was decidedly yellow and very still, clearly undisturbed by any flushing activity.

"Ethan, you didn't flush the toilet. I need you to flush when you're done."

"I flushed!!!!!!"

"Then what is this yellow in the water?"

Long silent pause....

"Someone else's pee?"

Yes, my child tried to tell me that, as he and I were the only two in the bathroom, somehow someone else had managed to sneak in and pee in that exact stall since he peed and flushed mere seconds ago, and we had somehow missed this phantom pee'er. Or, that the urine left behind by a previous pee'er was somehow extremely tenacious and had clung to the sides of the bowl while Ethan dutifully flushed his own pee away. Okay.

I have to admit that at the time, I failed to find the hilarity in the situation because all I could think was "he's lying to me! he's lying to me! he's LYING TO MEEEEE!" and visions of kindergarten suspensions and a future in and out of juvy swirled through my head. Have I ever mentioned that I tend to over-react (and that I love hyperbole)? What should have been a teachable moment (and a funny one at that) turned into a battle of wills that ended with me flushing the toilet and revoking play date rights for the foreseeable future (which translates into: the rest of the day!!! And I mean it!). Not my finest parenting moment.

But later we talked about how telling the truth is so important and how I was upset not because he hadn't flushed the toilet but because he'd lied to me about it, even after I'd given him several opportunities to tell the truth.

It wasn't until later, as I was falling asleep that night, reminding myself that the lying phase is normal, all preschoolers go through it, it's about imagination and pushing boundaries and is totally developmentally appropriate, that I remembered my own lie to my mom all those years ago, and my refusal to admit my 'guilt' even when literally faced with the irrefutable evidence, just as Ethan had. Ahh, payback, thy name is parenthood.

Things That Go "Bark" in the Night....

2011-03-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

you know, like my kid. At 11pm. Out of a sound sleep. Well, hello Croup.

Turns out, its just a tiny case of croup. Of course, we didn't find that out until much later when the ER doctor told us that on a croup scale of 1-5, (who knew there was such a thing?!) Ethan was about a .5; yes, there's a "." before the 5, indicating that his case of croup didn't even really merit a 1 on the scale. Apparently on a Crazy Mother scale of 1-5, I rank somewhere around 15. Or 20.

But let's back up to the waking up out of a sound sleep, coughing, barking, gasping, and what have you. We put Ethan to bed after a nice warm dinner of miso soup and sticky rice, his first dose of antibiotics and some Motrin for his fever. He slept for a few hours, during which time Husband tried gallantly to stay awake and catch up with me after a week away on business, even though his body felt like it was somewhere around 4-5am, London time. So I sent him to bed and went to check on Ethan.

I was resting in Ethan's room at around 11pm when Ethan sat up, coughed that awful barking cough, complained that his throat hurt and tried to lay back down. Five minutes later, the coughing started again, enough to wake Husband across the hall. We dug out the Delsym and gave some to the little man. Five minutes after that, all hell broke loose and Ethan's cough rose to the pitch that it was making his vomit--2, 3 times in quick succession. Then there was the terrified crying/screaming which inevitably follows the vomiting, battling for lung space with the barking cough and gasping that would not stop.

I ran to the bathroom to turn on the hot water so we could sit in the steam, like we did 3.5 years ago when Ethan had his first case of croup

lots of steam for the croupy little baby....and really? I took pictures of my kid in mid-croup flare up? Although, neither of them seem too stressed here, so it must have been a calm moment.

But we never got as far as the steamy bathroom this time because through the coughing and puking, Ethan's teeth started chattering and his body started shaking and I was, in my frenetically freaked out state, only able to process worst-case-scenario outcomes, so I over-rode my reliable voice of reason (read: Husband) and told him, I'm guessing now in a voice that really left no room for discussion, that I wanted to go to the ER, and I wanted to go now.

There was much shuffling around for blankets and lovies and underwear. Just a helpful little note: while a bra does not seem necessary in the middle of the chaos before a late night trip to the ER, once things calm down a bit, you're going to wish you weren't flopping all over the place underneath that t-shirt. Believe me.

In a boneheaded, what-type-of-parents-ARE-we move, we headed out of our neighborhood bound for what we thought was the closest emergency room, Ethan shaking in his car seat with a blanket over him, me sitting on a pile of Purim costumes, library books and possibly a dozen matchbox cars strewn across the passenger seat next to Ethan's car seat. We pulled up to the imagined ER, only to find the lights out, the rain-soaked parking lot empty, and the words "Urgent Care" written atop the medical building.

We are ER-virgins as parents. Husband has taken me to the ER on more than one occasion. As a matter of fact, when we lived in DC, he took me 2-3 times in one year (stomach ulcer, flu and something else I can't recall) and it became his little running joke to ask me "do I need to take you to the ER?" for every ache or pain that befell me. Har-dee-har-har, Mr. Comedian. Needless to say, we knew where to find every ER in the metro-DC area, but that wasn't going to help us last night.

So Husband got on the phone with 911, to explain that our son was coughing and having a hard time breathing and that we were sitting in our car outside what we thought was an ER, but it isn't an ER and WHERE THE FUCK IS THE CLOSEST ER???!!! And of course, the 911 dispatcher, trained and effective professional that he was, began rattling off a series of questions concerning Ethan's condition and Husband, apparently by that time feeding off of my mental frenzy in the back seat (which must have been transported to him telepathically because I was all zen calm, soothing reassurance to Ethan. No, really, I was), kept answering him completely and finishing each complete response with, "Please, where is the closest ER?"

Finally we were directed to the closest ER, barely a mile away from where our car was idling in the Urgent Care parking lot. I hustled in with Ethan wrapped in a blanket while Husband went to park. At this point, his coughing had all but stopped, he hadn't thrown up since we left the house and his color was looking relatively normal again. The woman at the desk nodded to a clip board with a questionnaire--"fill that out, please," she said to me from behind glass.

Seriously? Not "I see you have a bundled up child in your arms; what is the matter???!!!" or an offer to write down the information for me while my arms and hands were obviously full of 30lbs of croupy, glassy-eyed preschooler. It was everything in me not to go all Terms of Endearment on her ass, but I really didn't want to freak Ethan out any more than he already was by the situation, so somehow I managed to fill out all our essential information without putting Ethan down or going on an overly dramatic tirade, muttering under my breath the whole time that it was ridiculous that no one would help me until I wrote my kid's full name and reason for our fucking midnight trip to the emergency room down on a piece of paper.

After a few moments, Husband joined us and the "I can't help you until you write stuff down on this piece of paper" lady called us back in to the triage area. She said a few "kind" (read: condescending and obnoxious) words to me about sometimes its best to just be calm and look at the situation rationally. I wanted to say a whole bunch of unprintable things to her and kick her in the shins. But I didn't. I did however apologize for being snappish when I first came in and explained that Ethan's symptoms came on very quickly and out of nowhere and that for a parent, that is terrifying and tends to make you lose sight of the rational. Bitch. (no, I didn't really call her a bitch. But I wanted to. But I didn't. I was very polite.)

Ethan continued to not cough, bark, gasp or throw up for the next 20 minutes while we waited for the doctor to arrive. Obviously, very glad that the episode did not repeat itself, but was becoming more aware by the minute that I was indeed THAT mom, crazy, over-reactive, in the ER at 12:30am on a Saturday night with a kid who had...a cold? Yeah. Poor Husband, his body wracked by jetlag, his eyes barely focusing, Ethan nodding in and out of sleep on the hard ER bed, and me....slowly starting to breathe again and realizing....I am so that mom.

BUT in my defense, this was the first time EVER that we've taken Ethan to the ER. There have been times that I've thought we needed to, but Husband has talked me down and we've dealt with whatever it is in the wee hours of the night and then just gone to the doctor in the morning. I am guessing that his still-on-London-time-spent-12-hours-in-a-plane-today-not-really-even-sure-where-I-am_right-now state of mind made it impossible for him to reason with me in the moment of the barking and the gasping and the puking and the shaking.

The doctor listened to Ethan's lungs, checked out his throat and ears (confirming that indeed his right ear is percolating quite an infection), made Ethan smile a little bit, went over the steam and cold air routine with us, told us as comically and forgivingly as he could to come back if Ethan ever was actually really sick, dismissed us, and then, no doubt, went back to sleep in some empty room on the other side of the ER.

It's 4:30 on Sunday now, and Ethan has yet to even really cough again at all. Ear infection well under control and his temperature seems to be back to normal. But I'm prepared. Tonight I will have extra water in our humidifier, the hot water dial turned way up on the shower for steam if we need it, and a couple of Xanax on the kitchen counter for me to keep the Crazy Mom in me in check.

Let's Make a Deal....

2011-03-19T20:40:00.000-07:00

or, "I'll take the raging ear infection that's hiding behind door #3, Monty!"

I may have mentioned yesterday that Ethan has started dabbling in the art of wheeling and dealing when it comes to trying to get out of every day chores like cleaning up toys that have seemingly projectile vomited themselves from the play room shelves to the living room floor over the course of the day. (And let's take a moment to acknowledge that I'm writing blog posts TWO days in a row! Aaaand, let's also take bets on the likelihood of me losing my mojo again and disappearing for another 3 weeks....).

While the battle for collective bargaining rights wages on in Wisconsin, I'm dealing with my very own one-4.5-year-old-person union right here in my own home and he drives a crazy hard, relentless bargain. I keep turning him away from the table, telling him that no, he may not clean up tomorrow; no, it is not reasonable for me to believe that he is playing with every. single. toy. in the living room all at once; and that, no, "Cleaning up is too boring," and "But I'm too tired," are indeed not legitimate reasons to keep the Buzz Lightyears, the Lego storm troopers, and eleventy billion matchbox cars strewn across the floor.

And yet, he keeps coming back to the table with more explanations of how cleaning up tomorrow will actually be beneficial for both of us, and how, if I can't see that, and insist on the room being cleaned at this very moment, I will have to do it myself. It's really fun trying to explain to a 4.5 year old that he really has no leg to stand on.

A few days ago, while I was attempting an unprecedented "just stopping in for ONE thing" Target trip (I'll spare you the suspense: I left with at least 5 things...), Ethan asked for a toy. I explained to him that at that very moment, there were no fewer than 50 toys on the floor of the living room and/or play room and/or his bedroom, and that until he got those cleaned up and kept them cleaned up, he could forget any more glorious romps through the toy aisle at Target. As I contemplated the difference between "Nice 'n Easy"'s "Espresso on the Double" and "Suddenly Sable" boxes, I could tell his gears were working...

"How about...." he paused, making sure he had my attention (I am riveted by drug store hair dyes), and then continued, "you buy me a toy now, and I promise when I get home, I'll clean up all the toys in the living room." Big smile. Winning! This deal could not be turned down!!

Except, it was. Poor kid. "No, Ethan; you need to clean up today's mess and show me that you can take good care of your toys before we get any more. That's the way it is. End of discussion."

And then there was much whining in the hair dye aisle.

Thus far my favorite leap-of-logic-turned-bargaining-attempt came last week when I told Ethan that he needed to clean up his toys before dinner. He stopped what he was doing (something that involved not cleaning up his toys) and said to me in a matter of fact voice, "Here's the thing, though, Mom; they're my toys and I make the rules of them. My rules for my toys are that I don't have to clean them up unless I want to. Okay?" As though, you know, perhaps I'd missed the memo concerning "Ethan's rules for his toys" and he was just trying to make it clear once and for all so I could stop needlessly harping on this whole ridiculous tidying up business.

He really wasn't trying to sass me; in his sweet little heart of hearts, he truly thought he was clearing up this little misunderstanding between us. Couldn't you eat him up? Uh-huh. I had a hard time not laughing, clearly.

The irony of the scene was when, after his declaration of toy independence, he turned to walk out of the room, and stepped foot-arch first onto one of his match box cars. Tears flowed, "owwwwiieeeeeeee!!!"s were bellowed several times and the little rule-maker hobbled to me for snuggles and kisses. He obviously wasn't seriously hurt and I obviously didn't laugh out loud at the whole thing, nor did I say anything even remotely sounding like "I told you so," but it did kind of make me chuckle on the inside that his little plan to cover the entire living room floor in pointing hard pieces of metal backfired on him.

I took the opportunity (after many hugs and kisses of motherly reassurance and unconditional love) to explain to him that part of the reason mommy and daddy want him to clean up his toys is so that things like that don't happen--to him, or to us. I explained that we're a family and families help each other out by taking responsibility for our own things, making sure they all go where they're supposed to be so no one gets hurt and nothing gets lost.

After a small, inconvenient misunderstanding of the definition of "cleaning up the living room", which Ethan translated into "take every toy that is on the living room floor and throw it onto the play room floor wherever it may land," we've managed to live in relative harmony for several days--toys pretty much in their space, coming out only a few at a time and going back when we're done with them. I've helped a little, but mostly I've encouraged from the sidelines, explaining that moms help their kids do things that they need help with--like laundry, and meals, flossing their teeth and writing lower case letters--but little kids are totally capable of picking up their own toys, so moms really don't need to help them with that a whole lot.

But this morning, the living room floor was once again starting to look like the site of a vicious match box car, Imaginext man and Transformer cage match, so I asked Ethan to clean it up before we went to the airport to pick up Husband from his week-long business trip to London.

As if on cue, Ethan grabbed his ear and wailed. "My ear huuuuuuurrrrttttssss!" My first assumption was that Mr. I Haven't Had an Ear Infection Since I Was One Year Old was working on his acting skills (his class is all into acting out the Billy Goats Gruff stories right now and I hear Ethan makes a spectacularly mean and comical troll--its possible I'm raising the next Adam Sandler and I'm not sure how I feel about that). Really. He has no conscious memory of ever having had an ear infection and even when I've been absolutely sure in the past that he has an ear infection---he hasn't. So, cynical mom-of-the-year me, I assumed it was yet another get-out-of-cleaning bargaining ploy. And I made him clean up his toys. I mean, really--it came out of nowhere.

Until he kept complaining and whining while he picked up his toys. And I realized that earlier in the morning, he'd told me his ear "was itchy on the inside". And that he'd been coughing a little bit in the night. And that I was a horrible, awful mom for making my kid clean up his toys while he was telling me his ear hurt. There was much snuggling, and repentant-mother/wronged-child bonding at that point, until we went to pick up Husband

The doctor couldn't see him until 6pm tonight; fortunately Motrin kept the pain at bay until right around that time. When Husband and I got him into the office, the doctor poked around for a few minutes and said, "Yup. That ear is infected."

I suck. And I am totally cleaning up his toys for him for the next week.

Just to clarify, I am in no way trying to make fun or light of what's currently going on in Wisconsin, nor am I trying to make an actual comparison between a 4.5 year old and the teachers' unions in that state. Anyone who knows anything about my political beliefs knows what I think of that situation.