Growing Pains....

Remember that show? Remember when Kirk Cameron wasn't crazy? Those were good times.

Neither here nor there, though.  This post is about my kid's legs.  And the mystery pains plaguing them.   The pains that kept him up half the night last night (according to him; of course, from my perspective he slept all night, so the reality is possibly somewhere in between).  He started limping last night--unable to recall any traumatic leg event from earlier in the day which might have caused the pinching pain behind his knee.   There was much heavily whispered "Ow"ing at every move; whispered to ensure authenticity, but whispered loudly to ensure maximum attention-garnering, naturally.

So we looked at his legs--compared one knee to the other, examined the back of the knee for any sign of injury, swelling or foul-play.  Nada.  A perfectly proportioned, unbruised, unscathed knee.  Veritable patella perfection, front and back.

We offered ice; he declined.  I offered Advil; he declined.  The coping mechanism of near-constant complaining and limping prevailed for the rest of the evening.  It was fun for the whole family, really.

This morning, he suggested from the warm cocoon of his covers that he stay home;  you know, because of the pain.  I admit I was tempted, because the warm cocoon of my covers was calling me and it would have been so easy to just crawl back to bed.

But mystery leg pains don't come with fevers, vomiting or copious amounts of green snot, so as a responsible parent, I just couldn't bring myself to give him the day off for "leg pain."  Not that I don't believe his leg hurts; I do.  But his leg's going to hurt at home just like it would hurt at school and last I checked, leg pain is not one of your more contagious ailments.

On the way to school (which he agreed to with only minor screaming and kvetching after all), I told him I'd make an appointment with our chiropractor for after school.  Turns out having a chiropractor for your kid is a super convenient way to cure him of all kinds of issues.  I'm a fan of chiropractics in general, but for a child, its like a magical process of fixing every little thing.  Whether its placebo or real, I don't care---behavioral problems?  Take him to the chiropractor.  Leg pain? Take him to the chiropractor.  He asked me this morning how his back being out of whack could lead to his knee hurting and we spent the entire drive to school talking about the nervous system and the brain and the spine--he can't wait to get to the chiropractor's today to ask her all it.  And he seems to have totally forgotten about his leg pain.

When we got to the school play ground, I asked two of his friends to take good care of him today because his leg hurt and his sweet friend Bella, a fellow 1st grader, showed him a technique of rubbing the skin below her pinky fingers with her thumbs and said "this sometimes helps with growing pains.  And sometimes it just makes my fingers tickle."  His friend Jack, a 2nd grader, said reassuringly, "I used to get growing pains all the time last year when I was in first grade."  Apparently in 2nd grade, the growing pains go on hiatus?  And clearly the concept of "growing pains" is not foreign to these kids.  Bella later suggest, authoritatively, that Ethan might in fact be going through a "growth snurt." And then I died a little bit from The Cute.

Ethan hopped dramatically down the hall and into the class.  I carried his bag for him as an excuse to meet his long-term sub and explain the leg issues--and I kind of felt like an ass asking her to keep an eye on him and sharing his fears that his friends would tease him if he limped, and chuckled and threw out the phrase "growing pains" and "I'm sure he's really fine, but...."  Thankfully she looked at me like I was only a *little* crazy, and not the full-on lunatic that I am.

So we'll see how he does today with the growing pains and whatnot.  His teacher did tell me that they're taking a "history walk" today (a what?!) so I'm sure I'll hear all about how excruciating that was.      

Let's just all hope that these growing pains usher in the age of an Ethan who weighs more than 40lbs, so we can finally get that kid in a regular booster seat.  Having to endure the "why are you still in that baby booster seat?" questions from his friends is getting to be a bit much for his ego.  Here's to hoping he's in a regular booster by age 7.  Bring on the growing pains!

Homework success...just in time for vacation. Also? Golf.

Its the little victories, people.  Like the fact that cutting Ethan's math drill into strips and hiding them around the house lead to an enthusiastic completion of the exact same worksheet that took two hours the week before.  And the fact that the promise of a treat at the end of the week & the ability to make a smiley face on a white board after completing each homework assignment was all I needed to offer to get the kid to come home, drop his back pack and sit down at the dining room table for 30 minutes each day.  Clearly I forget what its like being 6 years old. Thanks for reminding me, interwebs.

Of course, we met with this moderate homework happiness just days before the beginning of ski week (or, for those of us who don't ski, "Cabin Fever Week"), so that did nothing for our momentum.   Hopefully come next Monday, Ethan will remember the feeling of satisfaction he got from the Star Wars Lego set completing his work and getting a taste of academic accomplishment.  Add to the mix that we were informed before vacation that his class will have a substitute for at least three weeks upon returning from vacation, and I think we've got our work cut out for us.  Super!

Also, last week was the sugar-coated Valentines Day extravaganza in Ethan's class.  They did things like play Valentines Day Bingo, create Valentines cards by gluing conversation hearts onto construction paper (I can't tell you how many kids tried to eat the conversation hearts off of their cards--complete with glue--after they finished them; nor do I care to expound upon how many kids ate the conversation hearts out of the bowls after their classmates had pawed them repeatedly, looking for just the right sentiment of "U R the best" and "U R my honey pie" to glue to their papers. I can only imagine that every child in that class is at home right now, stricken with plague.  ::Shudder::)

Ethan made this cookie:

and actually ate it.  I didn't get a picture of the cookie consumption because I was too busy calculating the grams of sugar and the counting the different artificial food dyes my child was ingesting.  And figuring, based on those calculations, exactly how terrible of a mother I actually am.  Then I remembered he weighs 40lbs soaking wet and Valentines Day happens once a year, and I let it go.  Ahhh, the power of rationalization!

Also, my parents were visiting last week, which means we watched a lot of golf.  Even the cat watched a lot of golf.

And just so we could say we did more than watch golf on TV while we ate snacks on the couch, we actually got in our cars and drove down to Pebble Beach.  To watch people play golf in the flesh, while we ate snacks on the terrace.

Husband and Ethan trying out the latest in golf hat fashions in the pro shop. 

I'm not sure if Ethan's playing golf or baseball here, but whatevs.  

The shmancy lodge on the 18th green. 

Hey there, classy guy. 

Oh look!!! People playing golf! (photo courtesy of Ethan)

We sat outside with the sun burning holes in our brains while we waited for the slowest waitresses ever in the history of waitressing to bring us $20 plates of beets and goat cheese.

Then Ethan and I took a walk down to the green, where we took pictures of ourselves and golf carts.  Like you do.

When we walked back to the deck to see if our waitress had emerged with the fancy appetizers and beverages, Ethan took the camera from me and began what I can only imagine will be a long and illustrious career as a portrait photographer.  Look out, Annie Lebowitz.

One can't venture down to Pebble Beach without at least racing at breakneck speeds (i.e. 35mph) through 17-mile drive.  So we did, stopping at the most touristy and crowded spots to ooh & aahh at the  site of trees, rocks and tons of bird poop. 

The GPS thought maybe we should stop...you know, before we drove right off the cliff and into the ocean...

The lone cypress--which really looks like two lone cypresses, which wouldn't make it lone at all, now would it?

My dad pointing out otters or sea lions to Ethan.  Although, given my dad's history of erroneously identifying marine life, it was probably just a surfer. 

Waves being all crashy and whatnot.  

"Bird Rock" which was actually lousy with sea lions (hardly a bird in sight), bellowing at each other and generally disturbing the peace.  

Afterwards we drove home and I'm pretty sure we watched more golf.

Waterboarding Homework

I'm not a fan of extreme interrogation or torture techniques.  That being said, I think putting enemy combatants in a room with a couple of first graders and their homework might work just as well, or better, than partial drowning or sleep deprivation.

Yesterday afternoon found Ethan and I sitting at our dining room table, locked in a battle of wills over a sheet of simple math problems (think "4+5=").  This is math that Ethan mastered in kindergarten, thanks to my superb parenting skills an iPhone app.  No number on the page was higher than 10 & none of the answered equalled more than 10.  So pretty much, the absolute easiest math Ethan will ever encounter in his academic career.  Math I know he can do.  Math I've seen him do for over a year.

The issue yesterday wasn't the equations themselves (although there were all kinds of laments like, "I don't knooooooooow the answers!!! I can't do it!!!!"), it was the fact that this particular assignment was a "drill."  The point of the assignment was to solve the 50 simple equations, getting as many correct as possible, in 10 minutes.  Each Thursday, in class, they take the timed drill and if they get a certain number of problems correct, they move on to the next drill.

Let me start off by saying, I hate this assignment.  It reeks of standardized testing training and joyless rote memorization. It represents just about everything I loathe/dread about the public education system in this country right now and why I didn't want to send him to public schools in the first place.  I dream of emailing the teacher and telling her, "Dear teacher who I know is just doing her job,  from here on in, Ethan will not be completing this ludicrous waste of time math drill bc his father and I are philosophically opposed to math drills and all drills and anything that sucks the joy out of learning and deadens our child's innate curiosity.  I know you have to prepare him and his classmates for the absurd state testing that will determine whether or not you get to keep your job, and I don't believe that everything has to be super! fun! and creative! all the time in the class room, but the pressure to complete this entire page of equations in 10 minutes makes the numbers swirl around on the page in front of my kid's eyes, the answers fly from his brain, and within 5 minutes, he is crying under the table and I am pulling my hair out, trying to find the balance between enforcing your assignment and the knowledge that I am destroying my child's love of learning with every passing minute. So from now on, the 6 year old doesn't participate in timed drills as assessments.  Sincerely, Ethan's Mom (and probably every other mom in the class)."

Its not that I don't think kids need a healthy dose of positive academic stress, or that I think they shouldn't feel some sense of competition as a motivation to push themselves to achieve.  I was the first runner up in my elementary school spelling bee.  I entered essay contests in middle school.  My college roommate and I used to sit down at the kitchen table the night before a paper was due in our senior Shakespeare course, all of our separate notes and outlines piled up in front of us, eyes on the clock, waiting for the minute to round out, and the shout "GO!"  We'd write out 15-20 page papers feverishly into the night, competing to see who finished first, and then we'd wait with baited breath for the professor to return the graded papers, to see who "won" and got the higher grade.  *cough* nerds *cough*  I like some healthy competition and academic pressure--it always pushed me to do my best.

But my kid is not me.  And he's not a senior in college, or in middle school, or even 6th grade. My kid's got anxiety issues and a low level of self-confidence academically.  He is not competitive; he is a frustrated perfectionist who doesn't quite have the know-how to reach perfection.  He can do the math problems.  But he won't unless he knows he can get them ALL correct.  And he knows (or at least believes) that he can't get them all correct in 10 minutes.  And so he spirals into hysterics.

Husband and I have tried to convince him that sometimes its not about getting everything right, but somehow he is wired this way; and that wiring, combined with the wiring that makes him incredibly stubborn?  Makes for a long evening of homework that *should* take 20 minutes.

The larger part of me feels for him & wants to throw the assignment in the trash and tell him to go outside and play.  He's six, for the love of G-d.  But there's a part of me, the part that follows rules and feels the intense need to fall in line with what is expected of me (and thereby my kid), that digs her heels in during homework time and convinces me that its the principle of the thing.  The kid has homework.  Its work he CAN do, and I've told him its time to sit down and do it.  And if he does it without making a whole production, it will be done in 20 minutes and he can have the rest of the afternoon/evening to play.  So really, its my job to make sure he gets it done--even if it means two hours of hysterics and defiance.  I certainly can't back down--what is that teaching him?  In my opinion, a six year old shouldn't have to do rote math drills for homework; but my even stronger opinion is that a six year old shouldn't run the house.

And so, I feel stuck.  Taking away privileges doesn't phase him.  Its like The Crazy has to run its course, however long it takes, and then he sits down and gets it done.  After the hours (literally) of losing his mind over the math drill, he sat down and got it done in under 10 minutes.  And he got them all right.  And then he put away Mr Hyde and turned back into Dr Jekyll, pleasant and happy as could be.

Its not just the math drills, which, with my own fear & loathing of mathematics, I can almost understand.  The other day, we went (or he tried to go) 10 rounds over a simple coloring-in assignment.  His hand hurt.  He was too tired.  He was hungry.  He needed help.  We didn't have the right crayons.

Oh. My. G-d.

I know the explanation is likely simple.  Combine his anxiety issues with his need to control the situation in the face of all the changes he's gone through in past month, add in a typical 1st grader's resistance to give up play time for more school work & its easy to understand, from the outside looking in, why we're dealing with this.  But holy hell--in the moment, it feels like I'm trying to reason with a drunken monkey. Which I realize kind of makes me the bonehead in the situation.  And around and around we go....

So if the Pentagon is interested, I've got a torture technique to offer up--a 10 minute math drill with a 1st grader or 'fess up.  I'm guessing if they can round up a bunch of 6 year olds like mine, its only a couple of days before we have this war on terror locked up and put to bed.  (And lets not get started on bedtime these days....)

In Which I Gush About John Irving....

So this past weekend was beyond lovely.  My flight across the country started off with a plane that was only 1/2 full, so from San Jose to Chicago, I got an entire row of seats to myself and there was much expanding to fit the space and spreading out.  I read and came >this< close to actually taking a little nap (said the girl who has never been able to sleep on a plane; even overnight flights to Europe are sleepless , eye-burning experiences for me)

Unfortunately, my couch-in-the-sky to Chicago totally spoiled me for the rest of the flight because from Chicago to New Hampshire, the flight was completely full & I spent the two hours smushed up against the window, contemplating the structural integrity of the double paned airplane window glass.  It just so happens that being sucked out of an airplane window at 30,000 feet is my absolute LEAST preferred way to go.  Thanks to the miracle of modern cinema CGI, airplane catastrophes (thanks, LOST) have ruined me for stress free air travel.

Nevermind; I got to icy cold NH at midnight, having suffered no change in cabin pressure or "water landing," so it all worked out fine.  I celebrated by sleeping until 1pm the next afternoon.  Yeah, you read that right.  I slept for TWELVE uninterrupted hours.  I felt so good when I woke up, I couldn't even be bothered to be embarrassed by my utter slothiness. I faked a little bit of mortification, but really? Yay, me!

On Friday night, we headed up to Portsmouth to see John Irving speak at the Music Hall.  We started out at a little cafe that used to be called Cafe Brioche, but is now named something corny like "Breaking New Grounds" --get it, coffee grounds?  Meh.  My friend and I split a piece of some sort of chocolate salted caramel cheesecake thing and marveled happily at the number of people sitting in the cafe on a Friday night, reading real paper & ink books (we are both curmudgeony old biddies when it comes to the e-book).

Then we sauntered (well, as much as one can saunter in 20 degree weather) over to the Music Hall, which is this old-timey theater downtown.  Seriously, the old floor boards are worn and faded and the creek like an attic floor when you step on them.  At the bottom floor concession stand, we ordered glasses of wine only to find that there is a law in NH that one is not allowed to transport alcohol UP THE STAIRS at any public place.  Um.  So the usher had to take our glasses of wine from us and carry them up the stairs FOR US.  At the top of the stairs, she handed us our glasses of wine and told us to enjoy the show.  I'm not entirely sure what kind of mayhem is going to result in people carrying their own wine up a flight of stairs in a public place, but for a state whose motto is "Live Free or Die," it seems like a weird law.  I mean, this is a state that has a hard time passing seat belt laws and still doesn't require motorcyclists to wear helmets.  So....you can tear down the highway at 70mph on your Harley with nothing between your brain and the pavement but your own skull, but you can't walk up 10 steps while in possession of a plastic cup of merlot.  Okay.

Irving was amazing.  He talked about his new book, his old books, writing screen play adaptations (which he doesn't like to do because of how it corrupts the concept of the passage of time in his stories); he talked about how he has novels, written in their entirety, in his head, for years at a time before he sits down to write them.  He never starts to write the novel until the last line (and the several lines leading up to it) are fully written in his mind.  He told us about the book he's working on now--that's been rattling around almost fully formed in his mind for years.  He talked about the inspiration he finds in the 19th century novels of Dickens (one of my favorites) and Hardy (my favorite) and Melville (note to self: reread Moby Dick).

I was equal parts swooning and intimidated and jealous and in awe. Unfortunately, my friend pointed out that his voice sounded a lot like Christopher Walken's, so I might have been a little distracted at times, waiting for him to demand more cowbell.   He talked for about 30 minutes, then the NPR interviewer sat down with him on the stage and they had a James-Lipton-style question and answer session that lasted about another hour, maybe hour and a half.  When asked about the apparent autobiographical nature of his novels, he replied that while he is none of his characters, he does look to his life, to the people he has known and loved and that he is compelled to decide, for each book, how he is going to make those people suffer.  He talked about obsessions (if you read Irving, you know he brings the same topics and images into almost all of his books) and he talked about sex and sexual otherness and the role that concept plays in his novels.  He talked about sex and his characters a LOT.  Not surprising given that his latest main character is a bisexual boy growing up in Vermont in the 1950s.  Irving's books are often populated by characters who have "crushes on the wrong people," but In One Person kind of takes the cake.

He was funny at times, talking about how he is one of those people who is funny at the most inappropriate of times. And he was near tears at some points, especially talking about a friend he lost to AIDS, recounting how his friend had told him towards the end "don't come see me; you don't want to see my like this" and how, having complied with his friend's wish was one of the greatest regrets of his life.  "I should have gone.  Of course I should have gone," he said quietly, almost like he was unaware of the 900 people sitting in the audience.

I was so sad when it was over, but so grateful for my impulsive behavior two weeks earlier when I saw the post on my FB feed about the show, and dashed off a quick "GET ME A TICKET!!!" note to my friend, Tress and booked a ticket to fly across the country. Three thousand miles was a long way to go to sit in a room for 2 hours with a guy who wrote some books.  It probably seems frivolous and crazy to some people.  But for me, it was two hours of condensed and concentrated awe and inspiration worth every penny and minute it took to get there.

Grown-Up Smarty Pants Weekend

You guys, I'm at the airport.  I'm getting on a plane--by myself.  I'm flying alllllllllll the way to the other side of the country, alone.  I have novels packed in my carry-on.  And I'm going to read them.

Where am I going, you ask?  I'm going to NH, to see John Irving, only my favorite writer ever, speak in Portsmouth, only my favorite NH town ever.  With Tress, only my....well, you get it.  He's going to be talking about his newest book, In One Person.  Guess what I'm reading on the plane???!!!

Its not just that I'm going to see such a great friend and be in the same room with a literary god (this is like The Beatles, 1964 for the nerd girl bookworm in me--but hopefully I will refrain from screaming and fainting when he walks out onto the stage).  Part of what has me giddy is the vast hours of time stretching ahead of me today in which all i have to do is sit, read, read some more and then sit again and read more.

Not that I don't love my kid, because I do.  But yesterday?  During Ethan's play date?  I got to listen to an hour, an HOUR, of Ethan and his friend combine the names of Star Wars characters with a variety of potty talk.  Like Poop Vader.  Butt Vader. Luke Fartwalker.  R2-pee-poo. Poopy Fett. Jabba the Butt. Obi-Fart-Kenobi.  Each one followed by peals of hysterical gaffaws and giggles more raucous than the last.  And while I stood down stairs and laughed quietly to myself, I also felt my brain cells crying.  I literally thought of the cells in my brain as little sad frowny faces because--wow.  Being surrounded by lower elementary aged boys is not doing anything for my smarts.  I am a few potty jokes away from being Elaine Beniss watching tires rotate outside the auto shop and clapping my hands in delight.

I have been trying to recharge my brain; I have cut down on my internet lint-gazing time and reduced the number of "words with friends" games I let myself play at any one time--last year I started playing WWF under the guise of it being actually good for my mental acuity.  But really?  It ends up feeling an awful lot like being a mouse trying to get to the end of the maze for a little bit of cheese more than an intellectual undertaking. Don't get me wrong, I'd play WWF all day if I could (I'm not above the maze and cheese deal at all), but I knew as time went on that I just wasn't getting the mental acuity boost out of it that I thought I would.

Walking away from the computer and the iphone more has been great--I've got a long way to go, but my house is cleaner, my kid is happier, I sleep better and I'm reading more.  I don't just read at night now, before falling asleep (thereby forgetting almost everything I read).  I've started reading more during the day, when I would have normally been on the computer.  Its only 10-20 minutes here or there, but it adds up and maybe, just maybe my brain will be better for it.

Today I'm going to finish Nicole Krauss' The Great House (so freaking phenomenal--if you've never read her, do it.  Start with The History of Love) and then try to get through In One Person by tomorrow night before we go see Irving speak.   Then there's a whole flight home for more reading!!!!

Its so nice to get back in touch with my inner nerd.

To Ski or Not To Ski....

Ah yes, it is that time of year again.  The time when the mercury drops to unspeakably cold levels and the snow piles up like so many mountains of fluffy cotton balls.  Children, rosy-cheeked from the cold and excitement of a snow day, burrow into snow caves, dare each other to lick frozen flag poles, or roll snow men into existence, giggling and breathing out clouds of freezing happiness.  In other parts of the country.

Sigh.

Here, we get a thin crust of frost on the car windows & have to go four rounds with the kids about why they NEED to wear a jacket out because ITS WINTER, and that's just what you do--from December until March, you were a parka! Something down-filled and quilted! With a hood! And a zipped-up zipper! Even if it's 50 degrees out, because Mama's from New England, damn it!!!

And that's winter in Northern California.  Unless you get in the car and drive 4 hours east.  Then? WEEEEEE!!!!!

It's a mountain! With SNOW on it! Yay!

When Husband & I moved to the west coast, it was with the understanding that I was going to need to spend a weekend or two each winter in the snow.  Therefore, in the past 4 years, I have spent approximately 6 days in snow.  And that's just about right--just long enough to gasp with glee when I notice that we've driven up to the snowy elevations and that suddenly there's snow blanketing the trees on the side of the road.  Just long enough to love the feeling of the icy cold air in my lungs and to romanticize the brisk, clean sparkly winter wonderlandiness of it all.

The first year we went up to Tahoe, Husband and I, under some joint delusion of athletic prowess (or perhaps overconfidence in our basic gross motor skills), took ski lessons.  This was a misguided attempt  on my part to recapture my own non-skiing youth and turn it around. I"m from NH! I'm supposed to ski! How could I not ski?!!!  Every one in NH skis! I have friends who went to high school with Bode Miller, damn it!--just by association, I should at least be able to take a black diamond blind-folded with one hand tied behind my back!

Oh people.  I cannot ski. Not only can I not ski,  I can't even walk in ski boots.  I can, however, fall on my butt with astonishing flair and whine incessantly about the boots cutting off circulation (and shredding the skin from my shins).  And it turns out, Husband, who was born and raised way closer to the equator than me, couldn't really care less about ever learning to ski.  A match made in heaven!!! Yay!

So the next year, Husband and I dropped Ethan off at ski school (he LOVES skiing; apparently gravity is far less intimidating when you're only 40-something inches from the ground), and spent the morning and early afternoon lollygagging about at the resort, shuttling ourselves from Starbucks to one of the outside fire pits, to the bar, to the fire pit, to this shop or that, to the fire pit...and even though I love a fire pit as much as the next person, it got boring after a bit, and we found ourselves wandering over to the kid's lessons for the sheer entertainment value of watching tiny people on skis.

This year, we finally got it right.  You know what you do at ski resorts when you don't ski?  (besides drink?)  You get a massage.  BAM!

No pretending we're going to become mid-life skiers;  no playing the "we're too cool for ski school" card and lazing at fire places all day.   Just drop the kiddo off with a bunch of people we're assuming are trained to care for kids while teaching them how to ski down the side of a mountain, get ourselves some coffee & head towards the plunky-plunky new age music of the day spa.

I booked a couples' massage for myself and Husband--and I have to say the whole idea of lying naked on a table next to your partner, who is also lying naked on a table, while strangers rub you?  Its just weird.  Its not like you can hold hands, and you certainly don't want to chit-chat.  So what's the point?  I don't know.  But I do know this:  a ski resort is THE place to get a massage.  These massage therapists are used to people coming in after a hard day of swishing down mountains on skis and snowboards, muscles tight and aching.  They are used to working out the kinks in the athletically fit and ambitious.  So our gelatinous, squishy muscles were no match for their powers.

After being kneaded like so much dough, Husband and I headed to meet up with our friends (actual skiers) for lunch.  You know how a massage therapist will say that after a massage you should stay hydrated and drink lots of water to help flush out the toxins released by the massage?  Yeah.  Turns out, vodka, although a clear and tasteless liquid like water, is NOT really a good substitute for water in this scenario.  Um. Oops.  Lunch may have consisted of a couple adult beverages, which combined with the aforementioned massage-released toxins and threw what I assume is my "chi" into some sort of crisis and I felt pretty sick for the rest of the day.  Let's call that "altitude sickness" and not "stupid Sarah sickness," shall we?

Ethan trudging towards ski school--I think he might be wearing that parka until he's 10. 

Pre-massage beverage. Grande skim, extra hot, no water chai.  Oops.  Again with the no water. 

Look at the pretty mountain I didn't even pretend I was going to engage with in any way, shape or form except to take a couple pictures and say, "pretty." 

I love that he loves the snow. 

 I'm hoping we get up to the snow at least once more this winter.  More skiing for the kid, more massages for me.  Everybody wins!

Barf Mitzvah....

This fall, in the tradition of little Jewish boys & girls everywhere, Ethan started Sunday school, and thus the long and winding road towards his Bar-Mitzvah, in 7 years.  I am hoping when it happens, his Bar Mitzvah party will feature fewer poorly executed Michael Jackson covers by the band and less hair-spray glitter amongst the tween guests.  Guessing since it won't take place in 1984, as mine did, its probably a safe bet that we can avoid those party pitfalls.

Anyhoooo----things with Ethan's Jewish education are already looking far more productive and positive than was mine (staring at a chart of the Hebrew alphabet really didn't teach me much about being a good person and caring for my fellow human being).   On Sunday of last week, in conjunction with the observation of Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday, our congregation held a "Mitzvah Day."  For you non-tribe types, a "mitzvah" is a good deed. There were literally dozens of service projects to choose from, from making aid & relief packages to be delivered overseas by End Hunger Now to visiting seniors at local assisted living housing to participating in a Habitat for Humanity build in our area.  Ethan and I opted to work in the kitchen, making healthy snacks to be given out that evening at a local homeless shelter.

Ethan was very excited to help out; I have to say, for all his expectation that the tooth fairy bring him ungodly amounts of money for each tooth and his whining about not having gotten a new toy in soooooooo loooooooong (3 days after Channukah....), Ethan's got some serious generosity of spirit.  We donated a shopping cart of new toys to Toys For Tots this year & I've never seen Ethan beam with such pride as he did when he put those toys into the barrels.  When we are stopped at a traffic light and a homeless veteran is holding up a "please help" sign in the median, Ethan is the first person in the car to start shuffling around to find a loose dollar or change--"Mommy, he served our country and we should help take care of him."  When we see a barrel at the grocery store collecting cat food for a local shelter--he's all about it.  He still wants what he wants, when he wants it, and isn't quite clear on the whole concept of money not in fact sprouting from trees in endless supply.  But he's got a good heart.

So on Sunday he got to combine his generous spirit and good heart with a whole bunch of melons & kabob skewers, to make fruit kabobs for the shelter.  Ethan and several other first graders (and their parents) milled about the kitchen for almost three hours, chopping melons into chunks to slide onto the skewers.  Please take a moment to imagine...."Wash you hands!" "Chunks! Cut them in chunks--you can't put that sliver of watermelon on a skewer!"  "Please don't eat that!" "Wash your hands!!!" "The skewers are not swords, boys!" "Don't put that on the kabob! Its been on the floor!"  "Wash you hands!"


After we finished 100 fruit kabobs, we whipped up some home made cocoa mix and helped another group dust powdered sugar on 100 healthy whole wheat cookies that were fresh out of the oven.    Sadly, I only have pictures of them making the cocoa and dusting the cookies, because somehow, despite my best efforts to remain on the periphery, I ended up corralling and coordinating much of the kabob business.


We don't mess around when it comes to our combining our calling to make the world a better place and enjoy our cultural and theatric traditions....we had our very own Fiddler on the (Kitchen) Roof.  I can't remember his name, but after his first name on the tag, it literally said, "The Fiddler."  He roamed the synagogue, playing his music for all the volunteers working on various service projects throughout the building and the grounds.  When he first came into the kitchen, the kiddos stopped their work and watched him stroll through the kitchen, effortlessly playing his fiddle and surveying our progress (or lack thereof at that point, given the kids' inability to focus on melon chunks while there was a real live fiddler wandering through the kitchen).

Waiting to measure the ingredients for the dry hot cocoa mix. Patience is a virtue and all that....

I had Ethan pose for this picture in front of the Stop Hunger Now organization's banner when I thought that's the project we were working on.  Turns out they were doing some hardcore emergency relief food packaging to go overseas, complete with giant bags of grain and assembly lines of volunteers--not entirely kid friendly, so we retreated to the kitchen and our melon kabobs.  But wow--it was amazing to walk through there and see the amount of food being put together to be sent to developing countries in need.

Ethan watched his friend measure out the cocoa....

Then Ethan got to level it off...

And dump it into the mixture

Then Ethan got up on the step stool to powder some cookies.

Still with the tongue out whenever he's concentrating....he took this powdered sugar business very seriously.

Then they helped clean up. And smiled about it.  Staggering.

A last, rogue batch of cookies came out of the oven as we were finishing up with everything else, and Ethan decided to "make it snow" and stood up on the highest step of the ladder before unleashing the powdered sugar snow storm onto the little village of sugar cookies below.

After all our Mitzvah-ing, Ethan and I met Husband down town for lunch.  And that, we think, is when our luck started to change.  We will never know if it was the chicken in our tacos or if there was some bug lingering in our guts just waiting for the moment to strike, but by about 5pm that afternoon, Husband and I were starting to feel....off.

Very.  Very.  Off.

Its true that Ethan had thrown up a couple of times overnight between Friday and Saturday.  But after that he'd been fine.  A little tired, but no other symptoms and no desire to stop doing his thing.  We assumed it was something in the miso soup he'd had the night before. And he was certainly back to his old self on Sunday morning when we were fixing all those snacks for the homeless shelter. It didn't occur to either Husband or I that in those hours, Ethan had passed some puking bug on to us.

So whether it was some sort of crazy coincidence that all three of us ended up with food poisoning within a 72 hour period (Husband's initial theory), or the same virus ripped through us in varying degrees of "omg, just let me die now....." -iness, its no matter.  In a moment that made me SO grateful we didn't fall under the spell of that adorable little totally-vintage, 1-bathroom house we looked at while house hunting, Husband and I began with the puking at the exact same time.  And for hours after.  I lay on the floor of one bathroom texting him "Are you okay?"  and reading his responses, "I think I cracked a rib that time."  We debated via text when/if we should go to the ER, which one of us was more dehydrated and who would be able to take Ethan at 11:30pm on a Sunday night if we had to take ourselves to the hospital.  At the odd times when we found ourselves both out of the bathroom and in our bed at the same time, we communicated through pained moans and whispered "make it stooooooops," until one of us had to get up again and stumble to the bathroom.   It was like that scene in Bridesmaids, but without the wedding gown.  And the street.  And it wasn't funny.

By morning, the most violent of it was over.  But in the past few days, we've decided that the lingering effects are much more virus-like than food poisoning-esque.  And now I have to wonder if our mitzvah of the fruit kabobs and sugar cookies carried this curse of The Barf to those we set out to help.  I am really really hoping against odds that it was the Mexican food we had for lunch because I would feel just awful to think that by being in that kitchen on Sunday, I'd somehow sent this bug on its way to people who are least equipped to deal with it.