Vegetable Alien

You know, I was all set to write a monologue on spoons this evening, only to find out that - d'oh! - it's been done. So, it looks like it's gonna be vegetables instead.

This morning Juana and the boys and I went on a tour of a farm, under the guise of "pick your own" watermelon. But here's the difference between a canned farm tour versus a "real" pick-your-own experience: On today's farm tour, we were allowed to walk up and down the rows of watermelon plants and admire them in a non-touching way; then we were shuffled over to where a little pile of watermelons had already been picked, and we got to "pick" our own watermelon from out of the pile. A little cheesy, no? And for this we paid $13 a head?

But it wasn't all a complete waste of time. While we rode in the tractor up and down the fields, the farmhands kept plying us with large handfuls of fresh-picked produce. Of course I expected Zach to partake, but it was a complete - and I mean complete - surprise to see Luke gamely sampling radishes, cilantro, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, and green onions when they were passed around. We went to the little farm stand after the tour and Luke insisted that we buy some more green onions. Did you think I would have said no? The funny thing was that I asked him whether he wanted to eat them plain again, or whether I should chop them up and put them on something, and his response was, "Why not both?" It was weird, almost as if a little vegetable alien had done a mind-control job on our five-year-old. Possibly they put something in the soil.

Zach was, surprisingly, a little harder to please. This particular farm tour involved a lot of sitting on the tractor and listening (as opposed to running wild up and down the rows of plantings) and after a certain point, he began announcing repeatedly, "I'm all done with the tractor! I'm all done with the tractor!" while trying to climb off. Of course he was fully enthused with the watermelon sampling, and by the end his pure white t-shirt was a more or less even shade of pink, with dirt streaks up the sides. While Luke and I shopped at the farm stand, Zach ran around a little maze of strawberry plants, and even though I'm almost sure they were not there for the eating, Zach consumed quite his fair share... I'm even thinking it might have been as much as $13 worth.

Sunday is race day!

Another Visit to Krakatoa

It's stupid, and true; I am pretty sure I broke a toe - my second toe-break in two years (albeit a different toe). I am so mad at myself for this happening two weeks before the big race. It happened just as I finished a great ocean swim with some buddies. I was coming into the shore, I started to push off from the bottom just as I got knocked by a wave from behind, and somehow I jammed my second toe into the sand at an odd angle.

I went to the doctor today and he checked it out from every angle to make sure no other bones were involved, and he declared that it was probably a hairline fracture. However, he (sensibly) declined to order an x-ray because the treatment would be the same whether it was broken or not and he'd rather not see me waste the money or get the extra radiation. Now I just have to stay off it as much as possible (haha! joke! after I've been up and down the stairs 17 times today already!) and give it some rest before the big race.

Luke is in a new camp this week and I'm thrilled to see him settling right in with new teachers and new surroundings (fortunately a lot of his friends are in this camp too, so he's not alone). When Zach and I picked him up today, we hung around the playground with a new friend of his from class and the two of them got busy almost immediately playing "Star Wars" (which is funny to me, because neither of them appears to have any idea what they're talking about, but they have all the right lingo).

Luke also told me that he tried celery at camp today and he decided that he kind of likes it. My new favorite camp! My tolerance for picky eaters is pretty low, and Luke seems to be among the pickiest. I'm glad he found a new food that he likes because he's eliminated almost all the rest. For meal options we're now down to peanut butter and jelly, plain spaghetti, hot dogs (but only certain kinds of hot dogs), pizza (but only certain kinds of pizza), and Wahoo's chicken and rice and beans (but only chicken and rice and beans from Wahoo's, nowhere else). I try to console myself with the fact that Joe used to be a picky eater, and now he eats everything, including stuff that I won't even sit in the same room with. Apparently Dave used to be super-picky as a kid too, and he's much better now, but his "will-not-eat" list still includes foods that I consider necessities: eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, broccoli, and shrimp. Mmmmm. Now I'm getting hungry.

Zach is in the refrigerator all the time but I'm not worried about him eating too much; if anything he's on the bodybuilder's diet. His go-to food is hard-boiled eggs, and he only eats the egg whites, so he's kind of like a lean protein machine. In fact, he has the strongest mid-section of any child I've ever seen. It's evident when he goes to the playground and hangs from a bar and just holds his legs straight out in mid-air for minutes at a time. It's also evident when you try to force him to do something he doesn't want to do, like get his hair cut. ("This kid is stronger than a bull," declared our hair-cutter, Linda, which Dave loved to hear because he is convinced that Zach is a classic Taurus.)

One of my favorite Zach-isms is when we're at the beach and he sees one of the advertising planes. He'll point to it and say, "There's a plane...pulling a sign!" The other day he looked up in the sky and saw a small prop plane and said, "There's a plane... pulling a sign... without a sign!" This morning Luke and I decided to help him make a little sign to tie to the back of his toy plane. Luke contributed the artwork: a little drawing of a beer bottle, and the words, "The Good Time Lime." Ah, summertime.

What's Mine is Yours

Here I am, exiting from the ocean after my swim "test" today (I'm in the middle, in case that's not immediately clear). Now that I've passed the test, I'm clear to swim the ocean race in two weeks, providing I don't chicken out or otherwise fail to pull it together that morning. I've heard the adage, "Do something that scares you every day," and I hope that's a good thing because I am definitely challenging my comfort zone on a regular basis. Not in a bad way like I'm doing something stupid, just in the sense that I have a healthy respect for the ocean (and a fear of being the last one to finish). Getting into the water is like a big rush of cold and nerves... and then suddenly it feels good, and when it's all over it's exhilarating. You can't really replicate that in a pool.

There is so much going on with Zach right now I don't really know how to package it all. These days he will climb up just about anything, hang from it, and then jump off whenever possible. He loves getting into the refrigerator, for example, and pulling out any kind of food that might interest him. Yesterday I managed to get there just as he had pulled down a whole carton of eggs (but before they broke). He's also sporting a big scrape down the side of his face, which he got from jumping, or possibly falling, off the top of the couch onto the train table (and before you call Social Services, yes, Dave and I were both home at the time, both trying to stop him from doing it).

He also has this funny thing where he hasn't really figured out "mine" versus "yours." Last night he wanted to put a band-aid on the scrape on his face... and when he woke up this morning, he stumbled out of his room and announced, "I have a band-aid... on... your face." My favorite was the other day when he was playing at the fountain, got completely soaked from head to toe, walked over to me, and announced, "I wanna... take off... your pants."

Luke is continuing his obsession with Legos and his all-encompassing need for more Lego sets. "Mom, look," he explained to me the other day. "It's like this: You like jewelry, and I like Legos." He knows that Dave gets mad when he keeps asking for Legos, so he's started speaking in code around the house. "Can we go buy some Ls?" Yesterday he was feeling particularly magnanimous after beach camp, when he struck up a conversation with Dave: "Dad, I have a really good idea. Should we go and get everyone some suprises? We can get Mommy some jewels or some new clothes, we can get Zach a really cool toy, and you can get something you like. How does that sound, Dad?" Hmmm, and he never mentioned himself. Whatta guy.

Countdown to the East Coast: 16 days.

Loosening Up

"Mom, my tooth hurts," Luke said to me yesterday. My first instinct was to give him the old "Sure honey, whatever" response, but then, remembering the tooth abscess debacle, I thought twice about it and decided to check it out. It was his front bottom tooth, which upon inspection was listing to the right. I touched it, wobbled it, and confirmed that it was... a loose tooth!!!!! Luke and I danced around the room with excitement. Then we went to Google Images to search for pictures of what the Tooth Fairy looks like. (Hey, this is the 21st century, what are you gonna do?). Of course I loved it when Luke thought about the prospect of a new tooth growing in and asked me, "When is my new tooth gonna hatch?" (Related follow-up question: "Mom, is the tooth fairy pretend like Cupid, or real like God?" Ummm....)

This afternoon Luke is off for his first day at beach camp. I'm sitting here silently fretting and hoping that he'll have a good enough time that he'll want to go back. It's kinda hot today, and he already had a long morning at school, and beach camp lasts for three and a half hours, and yadda yadda yadda mom-worry. As I walked him there this afternoon I was trying to explain what it would be like, but I must have overcompensated because he finally said, "Mom. Please. Stop. TALKING!"

Luckily he is with two little friends so he's not completely with a bunch of strangers. But still, I shed a little tear when I dropped him off. I've been sending him to the same school since he was two but this is different. It's really camp! With counselors! And big kids! ("Are there going to be bullies?" Luke wanted to know.)

Now here's the really weird thing: I'm at home while Zach is taking his nap, Luke is off at beach camp, and Dave is at work, and we're all within a seven-block radius of one another. Luke's beach camp is just a block from Dave's office. So when Dave walked back down to his office after lunch, he sneaked onto the sand to peek at the beach camp goings-on, snapped a little picture and reported back to me that Luke seems just fine.

Apropos of nothing, but it's just making me laugh: This morning Luke asked us, "Was anyone killed while they were building our house?" Um...No, not that we know of.

Late afternoon update: I picked Luke up and the first words out of his mouth were, "That was SUPER-FUN!!!" ... and later he added, "It was funner than fun!!!" Turns out he was a little scared to get in the water, so one of the guy counselors named "Brint" (Brent?) went in with him and soon had him cracking up and playing games in the water. Luke also came up with the name for his group (the Water Slides) that the campers voted as their favorite. So there you have it. Best possible first day of camp.

It's weird that I have so much to say about Luke when in fact I spent most of my time with Zach today. Suffice to say that he's become articulate in a very precise way. He'll spend a full minute trying to string together exactly the right sentence. "There's... a ... baby ... bird ... walking ... on ... the ... dirt ... on ... the ... ground." Often we'll be waiting in suspense for the last word. "I want a... a ... one ... I want a ... a one ... I want a ... a egg."

I always think it's funny that the boys (all kids?) get their b's and v's mixed up (Luke still calls our balcony the "valcony."). Zach is obsessed with "ruvver" bands because he thinks they can be turned into balloons. He'll hand me a rubber band and say, "Make a balloon." Then, after I've told him again and again, he'll walk around muttering, "Ruvver band doesn't make... a balloon."

At the moment I have this little landscaping redesign fantasy for our house, and it involves re-doing the front yard with drought-resistant native plants. I'm obsessed with the front lawn of some neighbors of ours who have perfectly tended white-gold beach grass that sways in every breeze. When I look at it, I think of Zach's hair when he's running somewhere or on the swing. His hair is nearly white, and it's super-fine, and it just kind of blows and swooshes in the air in whatever direction he's moving. I know if we had it in our front yard I would think of Zach and it would make me smile every time I saw it.

Summer Games

OK, is everyone ready to talk about something other than nursing? I thought so. The last few weeks or so have been miserable for all of us, but Zach is finally easing back into his normal life as a happy, cuddly kid who sleeps for a somewhat reasonable amount of time every night. Here he is, walking with the flag on the Fourth of July, and clearly reverting to his old self because he's preparing to just walk away without considering whether anyone is going with him or not (a trait of his that's especially unfortunate in large, open public spaces).

The big news for me is that I've gotten more serious about training for an ocean swim race at the beginning of August. I've put in many hours at the pool, but of course that's literally miles away from what it's really like to swim in the ocean. So on Sunday morning I took the plunge and went down for an ocean swim with a triathlete group that trains at the beach every week. The best part was that I met a swimming buddy, a woman named Sarah who is - get this - a NICU nurse and a lactation consultant! My hero! She was a little bit slower than me, but that was totally fine because it gave me a chance to get my bearings and build more confidence in the ocean. I'm going to take a little ocean swim class on Saturday morning, and then go back for another swim with the group on Sunday. "I wish I had more experience swimming in the ocean," I was complaining to Dave the other day. He fixed a glance at me and said, "Well, you have two choices: You can either take one of those 'experience pills' or just go out there and get more experience." Yeah. That's what it's like around here.

I took Luke and Zach over to the school yesterday to ride bikes, primarily because Luke hasn't been on a bike in about eight months and it's pretty embarrassing that I'm not even giving him an opportunity to learn. He had a good time for about, oh, three minutes, until he decided that it was more interesting to get down off the bike and study the machinery involved in the wheels and gears. (Zach, on the other hand, was completely nonplussed by the tricycle, and climbed onto Luke's bike, saying, "I wanna ride a bike! I wanna ride a bike!")

This summer, Luke is busy reading up a storm. Having finished the Captain Underpants and Ricky Ricotta series, he's now working his way through the Franny K. Stein (the mad scientist girl) books, and a book on science experiments. He's also in love with a new TV show called Special Agent Oso - a Disney-fied James Bond knockoff about a bear. We even pulled out the walkie-talkies yesterday to create the right ambience for some important Oso-type missions we needed to carry out (watering the plants, making dinner, etc.). Oh, and Luke is filled with questions as usual ("Mom, is God real or pretend?") and blessed with charm to spare: The other day we were in a shop and Luke started chatting with the young female shopkeeper. "You are so CUTE!" she finally told him. "Yeah, I know," he replied, "but you're a little old for me."

Zach, by the way, completely idolizes Luke. He'll gladly hold his hand wherever they're walking, he wants to wear Luke's shirts and shoes, and he imitates just about everything Luke says. Given that Luke spends a lot of time talking about his alter ego, Robo-Justice, it's not too surprising that Zach talks about him too. "This is... a Robo-Justice... car," Zach will announce, before sending a racecar down the track. I also think Zach might be just about the only two-year-old in town who, just before heading down the slide, shouts, "Jet pack: Activated!"

Oh, and when it comes to giving guilt trips, Zach has apparently learned from the master. Yesterday he saw me on my computer, checking my email, and he gave me what was perhaps my strongest motivation ever to stop what I was doing. "Mommy, you close...the computer...now...please." Gulp. Guess I'd better wrap this up.

Done

Fair warning: If you're uncomfortable discussing breastfeeding, don't read on. Lots of other things to surf on the web.

So Zach is now officially weaned. The whole process was painful, and Zach was pretty despondent for a few weeks, but it was time for both of us to move on. I realized that I've spent nearly 4 1/2 out of the last 5 1/2 years nursing, and although it's been the sweetest thing I can imagine, I've done my time.

The last few months have been strange for me because I've been assigned to write about breastfeeding issues at the same time I'm going through them. At times it's been hard to sort the universal issues from the personal ones. For instance, last month I was asked to write about the "breastfeeding backlash" - which, in a nutshell, is a backlash against the holier-than-thou breast-is-best preach-ifying that goes on among moms. But, as I told my editor, I really struggled with it, because I don't want to speak for anyone else about what is right for them, but for me it really was the very best thing.

With Luke, the first week was probably one of the most difficult of my life, and the first three months were unbelievably grueling. But we were lucky enough to have good resources and encouragement to keep us going. Once we eased into a routine, it got kind of nice, and once we got past the first year it was too sweet and comforting to stop.

If I hadn't had such a good experience with Luke, I probably wouldn't have tried so hard with Zach. But from the very beginning I was doggedly determined to make it work, even though I knew that when he was born he was heading straight to the NICU and would be bottle-fed. After I came home from the hospital I dragged myself out of bed twice a night to pump and get a good round-the-clock supply going. Once again, I was lucky to have great assistance and encouragement. By the time Zach came home, he decided that he preferred me to a bottle, and he never looked back.

In our neck of the woods, it is definitely de rigueur to nurse for a full year, as the AAP recommends. Quit before the first year without a valid excuse (I'm being sarcastic here, of course), and you might get the old judgmental eye-roll from other moms. But on the flip side, hardly anyone continues nursing beyond a year. I'm one of the very few among people I know in the area who has gone past age two. (Paradoxically, all of my closest friends from college breast-fed their little ones past age two and beyond - whatta bunch of hippies!)

When it was time to wean Luke, I bribed him for the first two days with cake, then with banana bread, and then after a few days it was a non-issue. With Zach, it dragged out a lot longer and he took it much harder. (He was completely unimpressed with the cupcake I offered him.) For the last few weeks he's had an obsession with round comfort objects: Our house is filled with balloons and he's been eating hard-boiled eggs all day long. He's also been wandering the halls in the wee morning hours looking for me. It's only been in the last four days or so that he's kind of eased up and stopped mentioning it. I think he's almost finished with his grieving process, but he still seems to need lots of physical comfort.

Balloons, eggs....Why am I even writing about this at all, you might ask? I think I just want to have this down on record for when I look back on it some day, and to validate how important it was for me and the boys at this very early stage of their lives. There are times (specifically 1 am, 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, and 5 am) when it was a huge pain and I swore I would quit right then. But in the end, the sweetness won out, and I'm glad that is the part that I will remember: snuggling close with a little baby; big eyes looking up at me; my body flooded with feel-good hormones. All in all, I'm glad that we had the time we did together -- and it's hard to imagine a better start for a great relationship.