Fish for lunch

Here's what happens when Mom takes a break for a few hours (to write a speech for work) and leaves Dad with the two kids at the beach:

Ninety minutes later, the three-year-old shows up at the front door, dead bloody fish in hand, saying, "Mommy, I caught this fish and now we need to eat it for lunch!"
Try explaining why that's not going to happen and his eyes fill with genuine, jumbo-sized tears. "But it's from the OCEAN! We eat fish from the ocean!"

And so Dad finally troops up the stairs, with a sigh of resignation, and turns on the grill. When the "lunch" is finally "cooked" no actual ocean fish is consumed, as predicted. Said boy is given some teriyaki chicken, which he asks if it is ocean fish, and when given an affirmative, takes a tentative bite, then moves on to the next project.

But I should say this: His baby brother is all smiles, all the time. Well, OK, not in the car on the ENTIRE 30-minute drive from Dave's office to our house (think non-stop, this-can't-be-humanly-possible screaming, the whole way). But bring him to, say, a crowded doctors' office and he is all smiles the whole time and will sit patiently for an hour at a time while you get your eyes measured or whatever it is you might need to do. Whatta baby.

Rain, rocks, dreams

Every day, without fail, when we're walking in the door, some version of this scene is re-enacted at our house:

Luke asks to wait outside while I go in and close the door. Then he rings the doorbell and I open the door.

"Hi. What's your name?"
"My name is Pontrow. I'm just visiting."
"Well, Pontrow, come on inside. We're just about to have some breakfast/lunch/dinner."

He then proceeds to examine the house and admire everything with great enthusiasm.
"This is a wonderful house!"
"Why, thank you!"
"These are very nice big chairs. And this is such a nice play area for your baby!" Etc.

Yesterday he moved on to our bedroom: "This is a wonderful bed. And such a nice crib." Then he tugged on the co-sleeper/basinette to see how securely it was attached to the bed. "Nice and tight. Very good."

The enthusiasm continues at mealtime. "These are wonderful crackers!" "Did you make this spaghetti? It's delicious!"

Some who know Luke probably remember that he is notoriously finicky (Example: He stopped eating syrup on his waffles and pancakes because he does not like anything to be sticky). So it's actually a nice little change of pace to have his super-gung-ho alter ego come to our house every day. But has Pontrow expanded Luke's eating habits at all? Um. No. Still, it's enormously entertaining to watch such a big imagination at work.

On Tuesday at the farmers' market, Luke befriended a charming woman named Edith, a retired food writer, with whom he chatted on and and on about crabs, oysters, halibut, clams, sculpin, and barnacles. "This is a a kid who gets a LOT of interaction with his parents," she said to us. That left me and Dave beaming for the rest of the night, for as Dave put it, this is our luxury -- to have a life made richer every day by two amazing kids.

From the random file: I asked Luke what they talked about in school that day. "Weather," he said. "Oh, what's weather?" I asked.

"Weather - you know, like rain, rocks, dreams..." came the response. I guess the weather is just dreamy today.

Mem...ries...lightthecornersofmymind

Still basking in a post-Seattle glow out here ... Yes, it was tiring. Yes, it was chaotic. But even still, I can't wait for next year. (If pressed, I might even admit to having bookmarked several potential Bethany Beach homes already. )

Being so far away from everyone, this vacation has become a really important time for me. It's also increasingly an important time for Luke, and surely, Zach as well. Seeing Antonia, with her beautiful art projects, Sam, with his amazing speed and fearlessness, Helena, with her sweet helpfulness, and Lily, with her startlingly articulate conversation has made us all wish, as Luke did, to have his "brothers and sisters" with him all the time. And don't even get me started on how much I miss the grownups.

Oh, and hey - this vacation is the whole reason I started blogging two years ago (as a way of recording our trip to Cape May).

So I'm just going to enjoy it for what it is for now, until soccer practices, or summer theater, or swim teams, or whatever else get in the way. Then the kids can fly on their own to visit their cousins (like the two skateboard-toting preteens behind us on the plane, who displayed an endearing combination of confident swagger and vulnerable "I-love-you-Mom" on the cell phone.)

Will they ever be that big? Could they be halfway there already?

Here are some more pictures to hold everyone until we finally get The Disc from our faithful photographer.

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for making it happen!

Band-Aid Beach

Is Seattle just the best place in the entire world or what? Can you tell I just got back from a yummy Greek dinner and a (gasp) glass of wine?

At the very least it's a great time for Luke to be in Seattle because of his current fish obsession. Could he have thought that buying fish at the Pike Place market was as good as it got? Not after we spent half a day at Constellation Beach where the purple starfish are as big as dinner plates, the snails are bigger than grapefruit, and the crabs practically crawl up to you and ask to be cooked for dinner. At low tide, there's a long rocky stretch where you can walk out and see all of these creatures as close as you like, and/or slip on the rocks as appropriate...to the point where we had four out of five walking kids with bleeding injuries that required bandages. Joe renamed it "Band-Aid Beach." "It's like freakin' Normandy out here," he declared, surveying the casualties.

And where else but Seattle could it be not just bearable but actually pleasant to go out to dinner with eight adults and six small children? This Greek restaurant is the second place we've been where they have a special play area carved out for kids. By the end of our two-and-a-half-hour orgy of food, we had some kids busy in the play area and we had attracted some kids who weren't even our own to our table.

I'm just putting a few pictures out here to get the ball rolling. More to come as our adventures continue...

Ocean creatures

I think I've mentioned before that Luke is fish-obsessed. Evidence includes:

1) He will only eat if the food he is eating is described as some sort of seafood; i.e. spaghetti is jellyfish, tamales and sausages are lobster, rolls are clams, red peppers are redfish, etc.

2) He got a birthday card that folds out into a long chain with pictures of all different kinds of fish, and he keeps the card next to his guitar at all times. He uses it as "sheet music" to help him think up new lyrics to his ever-evolving composition, "Robot Ocean Clouds."

3) His favorite question is, "What kind of fish are we going to eat in Seattle?" Preferred answer: Salmon, king crab, Venus clams, lobster, monkfish, sculpin. Recurring follow-up question: "What do you think the fish might say?" Preferred answer: Please put me back in the ocean!

4) I asked him what they served at snack yesterday in school and he said, "Watermelon...and salt cod."



On an unrelated note, here's a pic not of ocean creatures, but of real-live air-breathing members of the family. Looks like Zach and I are the least cooperative of the bunch...

The party continues

What a week, with cousin Samson in town, big work party, lots of family events. I'm still trying to catch up but I thought I'd share another pic from Luke and Hatcher's party, courtesy of Super Photographer Bill-o (a.k.a. Boom-Boom). This is my "tropical" vegetable platter, during one of the rare moments when the palm trees weren't falling over. Little did I know the palm trees would become valued currency by the end of the party, with the kids fighting over who would get to keep them.

Not included here is what I like to refer to as "The Frosting Series" a group of about 8 pictures of Luke licking every possible microgram of frosting from his fork after he was finished with his cake.

More family pix to come soon...

Party pooped

Too tired to say too much tonight ... The party was great, but Luke ("I can subsist on cake alone") is currently melting down in the background so that's not much fun.

We had not four, not six, but nine ukulele players come and entertain us. They led the kids in hula dancing, then co-opted the adults to do a round. Amazingly, Dave and Stu were both willing participants - and this is after we got them both to wear sumo-suits at last year's block party (Dave: "I think I prefer the fat suit.")

Luke helped me make the cakes too...The only amazing thing about them, really, is that I got them done at all with a three-year-old leaning on my arm and saying, "I want to write the words!"

The big squiggle in the middle of the string on Hatcher's cake is when Luke pulled my arm to say, "I LOVE you, Mommy!" How can I argue with that?

Telling it like it is

Signs from today that maybe we have some more things we need to teach Luke before we can let him outside again:

In the restaurant this morning, as a lady with an exceptionally large posterior walks by:
Luke: "That's a big, big, big, big, big-"
Dave (cutting in with the first thing that comes to mind): "Luke! Will you close that door please? It's a little drafty in here."

After Luke struggles with it for a minute, Dave, who knows full well the door is solidly propped open, says, "That's OK, never mind." The great save is made, and the moment passes with the large so-and-so forgotten.

We think we're safe until tonight, eating dinner at the pizza restaurant when a Rasta-man with long dreadlocks walks in.

Luke: "Hey! There's a Muppet!"

Party time

Luke and his "brother from another mother" Hatcher are having their third annual half-birthday party. This year's theme: Luau. This year's invitation object: A pineapple, hand-delivered to each of their buddies' houses with the following tag:

Come to our luau - we'll play and laugh
As Hatcher and Luke turn three and a half
Jump in a bouncy house, eat tropical fare
While ukulele music drifts through the air!

My favorite response so far was when I asked one mom, "Did you get the invitation?" and she replied, "We already ate the invitation!"

Whole wheat flour

OK, do I need to explain how I somehow wound up with 15 pounds of wheat flour in my cupboard? No, I'll leave that one alone. But what's important is it led me to discover this recipe, from Betty Crocker, for whole wheat chocolate chip cookies that are so good I don't think I'll ever make the "regular" kind again:

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 cups Gold Medal® whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

1. Heat oven to 375ºF.
2. Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in chocolate chips. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.
3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.

Picky, picky

I continue to be confounded by Luke's picky and completely unpredictable eating habits. If what my mom says is true, I ate everything, all the time, preferably at the same time. Luke has a very limited repertoire of food that he will eat and he won't try anything beyond that (in other words, he's no Antonia or Helena eating crispy whole fish). We're lucky we started him early on tamales; otherwise there's no chance he'd eat them now.

Luke also has a fussy/meticulous side that I will attribute to Dave, because I am the world's biggest slob (true confession time) who will even avoid using utensils and will eat out of the container whenever possible. Contrast that with Dave, who, for instance, won't eat foods at the same time if they're going to run into each other, and who is famous for, when he cooks, somehow using every single plate and utensil in the kitchen. That's why I was amused but not surprised the other day when I gave Luke a cookie after dinner and he protested about eating it on the same plate as his dinner ("That's where the meatball was!") I mean, it's a cookie, for crying out loud.

As a mom, I've been trying to be more creative about sneaking new foods into his diet. I made a zucchini bread the other day and told him it was sugar-and-spice bread, and I only nonchalantly let it slip, once he had eaten the last piece, that there was zucchini in there too. The next day we made a zucchini chocolate cake together, and he knew that there was zucchini in it but he seemed excited about it anyway (though it turned out he was mostly interested in the frosting). Finally, the next morning, he turned to me wearily and said, "Mom, I just don't want any more cakes or breads with zucchini in them, OK?"

So now, given all that, explain to me how his interest in crabs came to pass. We have books about crabs, and he thinks they are cool, and he knows people sometimes eat them with a hammer, but we never really eat crab so I don't know where it came from. But on Sunday, Dave called me from the supermarket with Luke in tow: "I just want you to know that there's going to be a meltdown unless I buy Luke some crab."

Me: "Crap? Why is that news?"
Dave: "No, crab. He wants me to buy crab, and the smallest package I can find has a lot of crab in it."
Me: "Krab? I love that stuff. Sure - go ahead - I'll make a seafood salad."

Thirty minutes later or so they came back with crab, as in actual crab, as in slightly crabby-smelling disembodied legs packaged in supermarket styrofoam and plastic. Gross. But Luke insisted on having crab for lunch, so I held my nose and picked out the crab meat, heated it a little bit (it was precooked) and put it out for him on a plate.

He stared at it. "No mommy, I wanted to eat the crunchy part."
"Like the shell? You can't eat the shell."
"Well I don't eat this part, I only eat the crunchy part."

So there goes $11.99 down the drain. Next time he'll have to experiment with something a little cheaper, like beans. Anyone want some slightly used crab legs?

Random conversations

Luke: "Mommy, I don't like school."
Me: "Why not?"
Luke: "Because it's too windy."
(Luke was later heard to proclaim, "I love going to school!")

Me: "Luke, what's your favorite vegetable?"
Luke: "I don't like any vegetables."
Me: "Oh, that's too bad. Why don't we just eat these green peppers then?"
Luke: "Yeah!"
(We proceed to chow down on green pepper strips.)

Me (while Luke is eating french fries): "Luke, can I have a french fry?"
Luke: "Sure!"
(Luke grabs a french fry, climbs down from his chair, starts to walk over to me, but stops to sneeze...right on the fry. He hands it to me. I eat it anyway. I feel like a true mom.)

Luke (hugging me): "Mommy, I like to hug you. You smell like odorant."

Booger

So Papa and Luke are talking and playing, when Luke starts rubbing one small spot on Papa's face. Finally Papa asks, "Luke, what are you doing?" and Luke replies nonchalantly, "I'm putting a booger on your face."

"Back!"

Couldn't resist...Luke loves to play baseball, and when he swings and misses, he does a very energetic thumbs-backward sign (as if to say "You're out!" and shouts, "Back!"

I don't know why he does it or how he interpreted that as the thing to say, but it is darned funny...

hiatus

Beachbucket will be taking a little break for a while. For regular updates, see Zachary Enzo's blog. I'll probably combine them later...

check out

Mental check: When's the last time I went 8 weeks without wearing shoes? Infancy? When's the last time I went 8 weeks without wearing a shirt? During my own fetal development?

Zachary Enzo is here and he is as beautiful as anyone could have imagined. Tonight I'm getting my shoes on and doing what might seem like the unthinkable - going home and leaving him here. They've told me to prepare for a breakdown at some point. But here's what I know is true: He's in good hands, and I belong at home, not here. Let's hope it's not too long before Zach too gets to go home. There's a whole world outside waiting to meet him.

you don't say

Things Luke has been saying recently that crack us up:

To the nurses:
Nurse: "Are you in kindergarten?"
Luke: "No, I live in California."

To the baby:
Luke, with his hand on my tummy: "How do I make the baby kick?"
Me: "Why don't you try to talk to the baby?"
Luke, pressing his face against my belly button: "Hey, BABY!!!"
(The baby responds by giving him a swift kick in the face...)

To himself:
Luke, before going over to Garrett's for breakfast: "Daddy, will Garrett be wearing his pajamas?"
Dave: "I don't know - maybe. "
Luke, quietly to himself: "Will Garrett be wearing his pajamas? Yes, yes he will. "
Then to Dave: "Yes Daddy, he will be wearing his pajamas."

home stretch

Finally getting on Blogger after so many failed attempts...now I've figured ou how to get on thru the BlackBerry so let's hope my thumbs hold out. So...many...blog entries...backed up in my brain. But here I am in the home stretch ready to sum up rather than comment on any one individual day. Probably for the best.

I didn't feel like this before, but now that I only have a few days left I have a very calm peace about being here. I'm soaking up every last moment of peace and quiet. Now that I'm off the bedpan and can take regular showers I am sleeping better and feeling more refreshed. It's almost a nice feeling to wake up in the morning to total peace and quiet, knowing that someone will be coming in shortly to deliver breakfast. Fat chance of that happening anytime in the next 18 years (or some would say longer).

The nurses are mock-arguing amongst themselves about who gets to deliver this baby. It's funny that the normal experience is to just kind of check in and out, delivering your baby with a bunch of relative strangers. But I'll be with the same group of people that have taken care of me and gotten to know me round the clock for the last seven weeks. Some nurses are more personable than others, some are more cautious than others...I'm glad I've kept an open mind because there is one nurse whom I was all set to lodge a complaint about, but then she corrected herself and has gone on to become one of my strongest advocates.

I've also figured out all of the ins and outs - which meals to avoid, which special orders to request, which nurses ar most responsive, which nurses are most willing to gab. Too bad there's not really a way to pass on all of my accumulated knowledge.

Last Friday on a rare day when Dave and Luke couldn't come to visit I completely lost it and started bawling on the phone to Dave. They more than made up for it the next day by staying for 6 hours - but the point is, I would never have made it this far if I hadn't been able to count on nightly visits from them. I still don't know how Dave manages it all.

Luke has positively flourished here. One of the nurses told me yesterday, "We see lots of kids here, but with Luke it's an absolute burst of sunshine. He usually comes at the end of the shift when we're all dragging a little and he gets everyone so excited and happy. "

Having me venture out in the wheelchair seems to make him even that much more excited. The other night he was practically skipping down the hall, saying "I have a mommy and a daddy and we are all together!"

Luke seems to be relatively ready for a new baby too. The other morning he announced to Dave, "I'm going to teach the baby how to walk!" Besides, he's already told half his friends, "I have a new baby brother named Junior. "

I don't know what life with this baby is going to be like. Of course I'm still a little scared. How long will it be before I can walk around like a normal person and pick up one or even two kids?
How long before I sleep again? Will Dave have to declare a "code gray" at some point and have them drag me off to the insane asylum? Or might it be all sunshine and roses and long days at the beach?

And what will the baby look like? Will it have lots of black hair, like most of us, blonde hair like Helena, or even red hair? Will it have Dave's nose, as one of the ultrasounds seemed to suggest?

One thing that has been great all along is that even from the early, super-scary days, the baby has always looked healthy. Thank God for that. As for the rest, stay tuned....

I got nothin'

Hey - Anyone notice that I haven't been on in a while? I'm still looking for new and sneaky ways to circumvent this tightwad, non-blog-friendly wireless portal. So, let's run through the list...is there any minute detail of my stay (leg-shaving, anyone?) that I haven't recounted numerous times on the phone? Do I have any big-picture summaries that could somehow encapsulate the day-to-day tedium of being in the same bed every moment of every day? Um....no.

One of the nurses made me a calendar on Sunday: "Jeanne's Baby Countdown." It's funny, a calendar like that would have completely overwhelmed me at the beginning of March but now it is kind of cool. The perinatologist tells me that he personally wouldn't want to keep me past 34 weeks -- and even though my regular doc has the ultimate say, 34 weeks looks well within striking distance on my calendar.

Dave and Luke are truckin' along as a little team...going to the beach, doing projects, finding new and eclectic musical selections to enjoy during their long stretches spent in the car together (think Fugazi followed by Burl Ives). Dave has even been called upon to do such previously Jeanne-driven things as shop for clothes and new shoes. For the record, he scored on the shoe front, and Luke is happy, so I'm starting to believe that we really will pull through this relatively unscathed.

Luke is so thoroughly "in" with allof the nurses that the one night he didn't come in, I had to answer questions about why he wasn't there. He announced to the gathered crowd last week that we were going to throw a big, big party at our house and invite all the nurses, so I guess we'll have to figure out how to hold up that particular bargain.

Young Baby Squirt appears to be in good spirits, although it definitely has a mind of its own: burying its head and hiding its face during ultrasounds, squirming away once the nurse has finally found its heartbeat on the fetal monitor, growing big enough that I look like a watermelon pasted onto some stick-legs and arms, that kind of thing. I hope this little one realizes at some point that it is really, really wanted.

Oh, and hey - I started accepting visitors, which it turns out is a good thing. Why didn't someonne tell me sooner that it would really make time fly?

A few resolutions:

No feeling sorry for myself - lots of people are nowhere near as lucky
No more movies that involve someone slowly going crazy all alone in a room (ahem, Aviator)
No more iceberg lettuce
No more fretting about Sudoku - if it's not fun, don't do it
No more fanatical googling of preemie outcomes. We're going to have our own story and it will be a good one.

racer

So my two stunningly handsome men took 1st place in the stroller division of our neighborhood 5K this morning. The prize? Some guy saying "Hey, you were the first stroller!"

Trying to distract myself this morning because apparently I was having contractions....Hmmm..How bout a Luke vocab update, hospital edition?

Hop-sidal=Hospital
Mometer=Thermometer
Odorant=Deodorant
Elevator bed=Hospital bed
Listening radio=Console that controls the TV and calls the nurses
Medicine stand=IV drip hanger
That button= The big blue button located so temptingly within reach that sets off a hospital Code Blue, whatever that means. Just DON'T TOUCH IT, OK?!?!?!?

bed riddance

Unk told us last week, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." So He must have been splitting his sides when we talked about doing things in March and April and then having a baby in May. Heck, as of two weeks ago I was making plans to go shopping for bigger maternity clothes.
Now that the rug has been pulled out from under me, the new reality of these hospital room walls is starting to sink in. For the moment I have no choice but to do all the thing I am worst at: thinking only positive thoughts, staying in the present, not moving around, and being away from Luke and Dave. But I have to admit being obsessed with things like preemie complications and Luke's sadness and confusion. Plus - and this is terrible to say - but there are times when I think maybe a preemie would be OK if it jst meant I could go home. And no one wants that.
That's why I'm thinking that maybe I just want to keep this Luke-focused for the moment so I don't lose these past few weeks worth of funny stuff.

Luke at bedtime to Dave: "Daddy, look at my face. I don't like meatballs with sauce. I only like plain meatballs."

Luke to me: "I have twins in my tummy. Their names are Hickey and Mickey. "

Luke to the nurses in the nursery: "Where did this baby come from?"
Nurse: "It is resting here because it just came out of its mommy's tummy."
Luke: "I call it an oven."

That's all I've got for now. Let's hope we have lots more good stories ahead of us.

heavy tummy, heavy heart

Just as I'm ready to start processing the fact that Luke has been in school for a year now, we get the devastating news today that Luke's beloved Miss Beverly is leaving and today is her last day (well technically tomorrow, but Luke's not in on Fridays). Miss Beverly was the cornerstone of everything we liked about the school; from Luke's first day there she was a constant source of patience, comfort, affection, love, and auto-harp playing. She's moving to another school in the area, and even though I wouldn't just yank Luke out of his comfort zone at school at this point, the thought seriously crossed my mind. I told Dave that it must be pregnancy hormones that are making me so sad about this; he disagrees because he's equally sad. Luke will be sad at some point in the future, most likely, but for now, he, like the other kids, doesn't really know what it all means when she tells them she is going to another school.

It's strangely similar to another big change that Luke can't grasp entirely - the addition of a new person at our house. For the past few months when I'd tell him I had a baby in my tummy he just wouldn't believe me and he would laugh it off like the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. Lately he's started to take it a little more seriously. He is really fascinated by the "Your Pregnancy Week by Week" book and especially loves the diagrams of babies curled up in a tiny mommy-tummy space. I think the fact that several of our friends have just had babies as well makes it more interesting. When I told him that Robert's mommy had sent us pictures of the new baby she just had, he couldn't wait to get to the computer. We scrolled through the whole pile: baby, mommy and baby, Robert and baby, grandma and baby, etc. Finally Luke said in exasperation, "Mommy, I want to see the pictures of when he came OUT of her tummy!" I had to tell him...hmmm...They don't really take pictures of that part, or at least I hope they don't share them.

Luke is signed up for what seems like an excellent sibling class at our hospital. They ask the kids (ages 3-5) to bring a baby-sized doll and they will teach them to rock them, change a diaper, feed with a bottle, etc. Then they watch a movie about being a big brother/sister; then they all walk across the street to the maternity ward to look at all of the new babies. Trouble is, the earliest we could get in to the class was the end of April. With this massive clothes-stretching tummy, I hope I make it long enough for the class to be relevant. At least by then it should seem a little more concrete.

Luke has been bothering us in the past few months with an unfortunate tendency to wake up in the middle of the night and want to sleep in our bed. He calls it *his* red bed (our sheets are burgundy/red). We thought we had solved the problem at least temporarily when we got him some bright red sheets and he was beyond excited about his new red bed. But last night Luke was a wildman at bed-putting time: Dave couldn't get him to sleep until a ridiculous hour; he woke me up at 3:45; and he woke up for good at 6:40 this morning. Could it have been the fact that he didn't eat dinner until 8:15 at night and I let him have a half-cookie at 8:30? Could it be that the red sheets are too stimulating? Could it be some kind of radar that he senses something big is about to happen and can't seem to relax until he understands it? I don't know, but Dave is committed to putting him to bed again tonight, to maintain a consistent routine. Right now they are downstairs "building" Nut a "doghouse" and I hear them laughing about something. Let's hope it translates into a happy night.

Oh, and by the way, we went to the beach on Saturday and we ultimately had to leave around noon because it was too *hot*. Yep, that's right. But think of all the things I had to give up to move out here: decent pizza, hoagies, cheesesteaks, family. So it's the very least I deserve...right?

The curse has ended

Looks like we've finally ended the curse of Valentine's Day. For reference, the last three have been marred by 1) year one, sleepless with a screaming baby, driving around aimlessly looking for a place to have a nice dessert that would be tolerant of a screaming baby; 2) year two, Luke's eye surgery; 3) year three, weaning combined with painful hand-foot-mouth disease. Somehow Valentine's Day had become the Day of Misery.

But this year I was happy to be greeted in the morning with a soulful rendition of "Clementine" with guitar accompaniment, of course (picture Luke strumming while sitting in his little chair in front of his new guitar stand/microphone). Later he entertained me with a new song he composed for the guitar: "No hitting/No hitting people/Mommies say no/And they get mad." Verse two: "No pushing/no pushing people..." etc. etc.

Later he completely blew me away with one of his memories. We were reading a book that mentioned termites, and he asked what a termite was, and I said it was a tiny, tiny bug that liked to eat wood. He thought about that for a moment and then asked, "Did a man come to look for termites in our old old beach house?" Whoa. I mean, that was more than six months ago! Who knew that little nugget was still lodged in his brain? So the day turned out pretty well, all things considered, especially given the amount of sugar.

One thing that I increasingly love about Luke is his confidence about asking adults for what he wants. When we went to the library yesterday, Luke and I went looking for his favorite library book -- the Berenstain bears go to the dentist -- but the book was nowhere to be found. "Well, we have to go ask the lady then," he announced, and marched straight up to the reference desk and asked the library lady, "Where's the dentist book?" (Further investigation revealed that both copies were checked out.)

Then at McDonald's for lunch, while I was cleaning up our table, Luke went back over to the counter and started chatting up the cashier about the cookies on display. I didn't hear the conversation but I know it had something to do with how much he liked cookies and how much he might want one. I also knew that he had already had candy that morning, plus cupcakes to come at our V-Day party later, so I ushered him out the door without a cookie. I was actually congratulating myself for having dodged a bullet because I was thinking that at least at a super-corporate place like McDonald's, the employees can't be talked into giving away the food. It was to my huge surprise then, that we were halfway out the parking lot when the McDonald's lady came running after us with a cookie in a bag. "Wait! He said he wanted a cookie!"

Something tells me that if we fast-forward 25 years, we're going to see a guy who is holding on to an America West ticket from Boston to L.A., but he decides that he really would rather fly United, and so he pokes around and asks a few questions, and a few hours later he is flying home first-class on United. Who does that sound like to you?

Spag-a-weenie

I think we can agree that the worst days are not when Luke is totally under-napped, or over-sugared; they're the days like yesterday when he is a total wet noodle. Luke spent the majority of yesterday throwing up, due to some stomach virus or something, and it was sad and extra-hard. The worst of the worst is when all he wants to do is eat or drink something, then it comes back up again, and then we have to convince him (!) to wait for a reasonable two-hour window before eating or drinking again, ha, ha. I can only listen to the whimpering and moaning for so long before I give in to caregiver exhaustion and have to turn it over to Dave for a while (which I did, and he used the time to take a somewhat cheerier Luke to Home Depot, ending in a car splattered with bananas). Anyway. At least Luke has the good sense to start these things on Friday night so we have the whole weekend to work it through together.

Luke's wet-noodle condition was so extreme that I was able to sit next to him on the couch yesterday, cutting out little red paper hearts for valentines, and his only reaction to the scissors was a labored glance of a glazed eye over in my direction, then eyes back to the TV (compared with typical reaction: "OH! I need the scissors for a project!!") At one point I suggested using the shredder (a favorite activity) and when we found out the shredder was broken, he simply stared mutely in my lap for 10 minutes while Dave and I discussed what might be wrong (compared with typical reaction: "What happened to the shredder? Why is it broken? Who's going to fix it? What do you think Daddy might say? What do you think I might say?")

The only time we got him to crack a smile was when we were watching the Food Network and Emeril couldn't get the spaghetti pasta-maker to work and he had to make fettucine/linguini, and he called it "spag-a-weenie." That got the weakest little sick-person laugh out of Luke, and it was a rare moment of sunshine in an otherwise wet noodle day.

Today he's cheerier but he had the meltdown of all meltdowns when we went to the store and I told him no, we are not going to buy the Yard of Gumballs. We finally made it back home after a detour for a green popsicle and now he's telling us his ear hurts. So we could be back to the drawing board tomorrow, but I'll take an earachey guy over a throw-uppy guy any day.

Call me Mo

No one loves a new word as much as Luke. He'll turn it around in his head for a while, then try to find every opportunity to use it. Example: In a new book, where a kid slides down a banister, Luke wanted to know all about banisters. A little while later, he announced that his name was Banister. The next day he decided that he wanted a dog named Banister and a cat named...Manister. And so on.

As a somewhat unrelated aside, he'll decide what he wants us to call him on any given day depending on who he's been playing with or what he's been thinking about. For a while after he read "Knuffle Bunny" he wanted to be known as Mo (the author's name) and there were a few moments when somewhat inexplicably, he insisted on being called Picnic Mo. Lately he's been insisting that we call him Chef Sam Nikita. But it's OK, because Chef Sam Nikita took it upon himself to rustle up some breakfast in bed for me this morning (a slice of banana bread).

In our latest book there's a scene where a boy makes a face at drinking a warm can of what is labeled "budget cola." Luke wanted to know all about what the soda was called and what budget cola meant. So I told him, "Budget cola means that it is cheap soda."
"What does cheap mean?"
"It's something that isn't very good, but it doesn't cost very much money so you don't really mind. Like things at the 99 cents store."
"I like the 99 cents store!"
"Right, I mean it's just something that maybe doesn't taste as good as a soda that costs more money."

Shortly after this conversation Beatriz and Felipe came over and Luke announced to them that he was drinking budget cola for breakfast. "Budget cola is cheap soda, like you get at the 99 cents store," he informed them.

Of course they had no idea what he was talking about but I had a good laugh at Chef Sam Nikita's expense.

What do you think I might say?

Life is strange, living in the subjunctive tense. Every day Luke has new issues to examine, new possibilities to consider. Like when Ferdinand the bull sits on the bee: "What do you think Ferdinand might say?" "What do you think the bee might say?" Further contemplation is necessary about the idea of Luke sitting on a bee: "What do you think I might say?" "What do you think you might do?"

Or if we go to a park with some particularly appealing toys: "What do you think some boys might do?" (take the toys) "What do you think I might say?" (Noooooo!) Or if I'm getting ready to leave for work: "What do you think I might say?" (Goodbye mommy) "What do you think you might say?" (Goodbye, Luke, I hope you have a nice day). "What do you think you might do in the car?" (Feel sad about leaving) "What do you think I might do when I get to school?" (Have fun, I hope)

Luke's teacher tells me that he's the king of all questions, and it's true - it's an all-day affair. By the end of the day on Friday, I was just on question-answering autopilot, but it must have come to a shock for Dave to come home to Mr. Non-Stop Subjunctive.

Truthfully, Luke and I have a pretty good rap down these days. I'm not so completely exhausted that I can't deal with him, he's been taking naps again with some regularity, and we're working together (two steps forward, one step back) on the potty thing. Dave is gone for two nights this week, which two months ago would have been inconceivable, but now seems like it's just routine.

Unfortunately, Luke has this new devil-child-freakout thing that he does at bedtime where he won't make a move to cooperate getting ready for bed; then he gets mad when you try to do anything for him. Last week I had to strong-arm him to get him to brush his teeth, then I dumped out the "old" water standing in his cup and put new water in for him to drink. This resulted in a 20-minute flip-out session ("I want to drink the OLD water! Not the NEW water!") that was ultimately resolved by Dave reassuring him that when you dump the old water down one bathroom sink, you can get it back by turning on the faucet in the other sink. We've managed to avoid the devil-child-freakout by starting bedtime preparations a little earlier, but it's still dicey enough that I'm hoping to avoid it for the next two nights.

We asked the doctor at Luke's three-year appointment about his focus on small motor skills (read: tools and guitars), possibly to the detriment of large motor skills. It comes up every now and then, like when he can't seem to get the hang of the tricycle or Big Wheel. But the doctor has reassured us that it'll all catch up in time, and for now, he's focused in what he's interested in.

I guess it makes sense, then, that while in the past it had never once occurred to him to do anything but ride in the cart at the grocery store, the story became completely different when donuts were involved. Yesterday when we got to the store, the donuts were the first thing he saw, and he nearly had a coronary. "Oh! Oh! I have to get out of the cart!" he said, as he wriggled to a standing position and appeared to be preparing to jump out. He studied the donuts for only a moment, then very authoritatively grabbed the kind he wanted and tossed them into the cart. For the rest of the time there, he rather huffily insisted on walking and pushing the cart, as if I might somehow make another ridiculous error like failing to pick out donuts.

I'm weighing the idea of giving him a donut tonight. On the one hand, I know he'll ask for it. On the other hand, there's sugar-induced craziness. So I think I'll put it in the simplest terms: Donut, yes, but only if there's no follow-up freakout. And then the questions will begin: "What do you think I might say?" "What do you think I might do?" "What do you think you might say?"

Take my stuff, please

Our garage sale unfolds:
7:15 am: Luke wanders downstairs in his pajamas, finding us setting up outside and meeting the first customers (garage sale starts at 8 am)
7:16 am: "Luke! Put down the weedwhacker!" Luke: "I don't like garage sales."
7:20 am: In the kitchen, preparing breakfast: Luke: "Are we going to sell our refrigerator? Are we going to sell our food?"
7:45 am: The first big pile of towels sells. I bring out more towels and linens.
8:00 am: The sale is in full swing. People are looking for specific things we don't have: surfboads, skateboards, sporting or stereo equipment, antiques, books. Hmmm.
8:30 am: A group of people drive up in a truck and buy 90 percent of the furniture we are selling, rendering our garage sale basically over except for the junk. More people buy towels. Fleeting insecurity: Did we have enough stuff for a garage sale? Are we just total novices? Should we start putting out things we hadn't intended to sell? I bring out more towels.
9:00 am: Relief arrives in the form of Silvia and the boys. Luke takes them upstairs and I can hear him jamming on instruments and laughing hysterically with his "big brothers."
9:30 am: Silvia takes Luke and the boys out to IHOP, and buys the rest of the towels I put out. I go find some more.
10:00 am: It is so dead that Dave and I sit outside relaxing for a while, then start cleaning up the office and the basement.
10:30 am: Luke arrives back from breakfast, covered in syrup and dirt.
11:00 am: Luke greets our last customer: "Hi! Where's your money?"
11:15 am: We wrap up the last remaining items. Total revenue: $231, including five sets of towels, almost all of our furniture, most dishes, and zero clothing.
11:20 am: Whoops - we forgot to put out the wrought-iron patio chair and table set. As Luke would say, "Wah, waaaa." Picture-taking for Craigslist items commences.
12:00: Dave drops off all of the remaining items at Goodwill. We haven't changed the world, but at least we have a little more space.

Finally - feeling better

Am I allowed to say this - or will I superstitiously make things worse? I'm feeling better. Even good.

-- I'm a functioning member of our household once again
-- Today we will go from being, oh, about a million dollars in debt to having $$$ in the bank (no house, but at least we're not holding on to a depreciating asset)
-- Luke has been wearing underwear for about a week, and accidents notwithstanding, he seems to be doing alright
-- Luke seems to have stopped his middle-of-the-night wakeups as his cold gets better
-- Luke came out from his three-year doc appointment today with gold stars and all-around cheers for how smart and great he is. (Aw shucks.) He even volunteered to get a shot today, even though he only technically needs it sometime within the next year, with no protest and in fact extreme interest in examining the needle before and after
-- The director of Luke's school can't stop talking about how advanced and engaged he is (apparently he wanders into her office all the time for chats)
-- Dave is poised to make a move on a car that will finally make him happy (a 2001 zippy red Volvo wagon)
-- We have actual adult furniture in our house
-- We are ready for a garage sale on Saturday that will make a big dent in our remaining clutter
-- Dave and I have a long-awaited date night on Saturday to cap off a great week.

Smiles all around.

The Age of Nut

OK, it's clear, Luke needs a sibling, or at least someone else to talk to in our house. Dave and I are amused/alarmed by the fact that he is repeatedly asking us to help him talk to any number of inanimate objects in the house. Example: "Can the hamper talk? Hamper, what are you doing?" We felt we'd seen the worst of it when he wanted attention from the banana on the counter: "Hey, banana, watch me vacuum!"

Probably no one has received more of this kind of attention than Nut, Luke's small stuffed dog. Nut is Luke's constant companion while reading, sleeping, and throughout most meals. When I see Luke coming in to our room in the morning, I usually see Nut at the same time (unless like yesterday, he pops his head in, and says, "Wait, I forgot Nut!" and does a quick turnaround). Nut gets to try food, drink milk, and occasionally take medicine. He's often asked to use tools and play instruments. He even came along in a bag on Luke's trip to the music industry convention last week with Suzi and Bill.

Why Nut, as opposed to any other animal, or, say, the toaster? To be fair, Chairman Mao is a somewhat constant feline companion, and yesterday after he "hurt" himself he needed to be ministered to and now sports a Spongebob band-aid. And Otter has made his share of appearances at meals and booktime. But there's something about Nut and his soft floppy compliance that seems to make him both portable and ready for anything. If we lose him, we're sunk.

Speaking of favorite dogs, Luke loves the idea of "favorites" so he helped me answer the following questions about himself:

Favorite color: Red and pink and green ("Daddy, what's the difference between pink and red?")
Favorite ice cream: Chocolate
Favorite breakfast: Waffles and meat
Favorite lunch: Wahoo's
Favorite movie: Dumbo
Favorite tool: "Hammers, mallets, wrenches, screwdrivers...lots of tools"
Favorite music: "I like lots of music"
OK, favorite song: "I like lots of songs."
OK, favorite Raffi song: Baby Beluga
Favorite book: "I like lots of books" (OK, never mind)
Favorite restaurant: In N Out Burger
Favorite dog: Nut
Favorite cat: Chairman Mao
Favorite snack: Goldfish and Triscuits
Favorite dessert: Chocolate chip cookies
Favorite shirt: Cat shirt from Sam (Puma shirt)
Favorite pizza: Mushroom
Favorite room in our house: "Your bed, Mommy"

Up or down/In or out

Haven't blogged in a while, in part because I'm just not sure: Am I in a great mood, on top of the world? Or am I crushed under a huge rock of depression? Seems like every day it's a little different. Saturday I felt great; couldn't wait to get some stuff done around our long-neglected house; Sunday I realized just how badly I overdid it and my tiredness leaked out and brought everyone down. I had just about recovered on Sunday night, and curled up peacefully to sleep, when we were awakened a little before 1 am with a croupy Luke gasping for air. Two and a half hours and a watching of Dumbo later, Luke was peacefully at sleep, breathing somewhat easier with the humidifier humming, and I finally stumbled back into bed. Today I thought for sure he'd crash at naptime, but no such luck - he was still running around long after my body had decided it needed a break.

But enough about me - let's kick off the year with a list of what's in and out for 2007:

In:
Our long-forgotten furniture from Pacific, 90 percent of which we don't have room for.
Using the potty (see diapers, below).
Fuzzy pajamas (uncharacteristic cold snap in the air)
Carrot sticks, hamburgers with the bun, spinach omelets, red onions, and a world of previously ignored food
Dumbo
Renting
Cigars/Champagne (two things Luke has picked up on from the Dumbo video, and which he asks for all the time)
Altoids ("What's your favorite Altoid?") (thanks a lot, Dad)

Out:
Tommarp and the Bus Chair, two vestiges of our former furniture life
Any boxes we haven't opened for the last three moves
Diapers, at least part of the time for Luke. He spent the morning perfectly happy in underwear and has been waking up dry in the mornings!
Footless pajamas
Naptime
Owning
Regular blog entries

Hahahahaha. Just kidding about that last one. I'm sure there will be lots to say in the coming weeks as things get more and more interesting.

no sleep, just dreams

Three years ago tonight, I had no idea what lie ahead of me. A little before midnight, my water broke, setting off a chain of events that was alternately thrilling and terrifying, and while things have mellowed out since then, it's safe to say that nothing has been the same.

Well, OK, some things are the same all over again. I'm currently rolling around for hours at a time, pulling out my hair at sleepless night after sleepless night. I'm carrying around a ridiculously oversized belly that keeps me from moving quickly and squeezing into small spaces (critical toddler coping skills). And I'm soaking up every minute of back-East-time, basking in the idea that I get to stay here for more than two weeks, but dreading the though that I might not be back for a long time.

This Christmas we're seeing signs of what things might be like in the future: Luke jumping out of bed on Christmas morning, breathlessly announcing, "Santa is coming!" Sam and Luke and Lily sitting by themselves at the kids' table, conversing among themselves. Luke and Sam picking out a book and curling up on a chair to read it together. Are these the same little helpless infants who we used to carry around in car seats?

Three years ago, all Dave and I knew was that there was this tiny, extremely loud and messy human being who was all of a sudden our round-the-clock responsibility. The idea of it was almost too much to process. Now I look at our little mop-headed builder/drummer/guitar player and I listen to him chatter away, and I think, how could I even imagine a life without him?

I tell Dave that he is the love of my life because I chose him, he chose me, and we choose to live our lives together every day. It doesn't have to do with blood or obligation; it's the purest expression of free will that we want to be together. But my love for Luke is different; almost more physical. In my weepy hormonal state, I can sometimes picture an imaginary umbilical cord connecting me to him in a way that can never be broken.

Last night when Luke couldn't/wouldn't go to sleep, I finally just let him run around while I sat blocking the door. At some point his steam ran out and he collapsed in my lap, burying his head in my chest and inhaling deeply. Finally, he raised a tired head up to look at me and said, "You smell good, Mommy." At the end of the day, it's those little words, and the full-body hugs, and the sloppy kisses that always outweigh the most trying episdes of the day. I love you, my three-year-old boy, and I can't imagine it any other way.

light in the darkness

So we had a Santa pic; now it's time for the equal-opportunity Hanukkah pic. Sadly, it isn't quite equal opportunity. Luke's been so busy absorbing all of the details of Christmas, Santa, and reindeer that it felt like sort of an afterthought last week when I said to him, "So there's this other holiday that we celebrate called Hanukkah...." Lots of information to process this week.

Aw, heck. The truth is, mostly I haven't blogged because I didn't want the footie pajama post to be pushed further down on the screen. Guess I can't hold out forever though.

Things that bumped me up this week:

*Offers and counter-offers on our house
*Seeing our meatball trying to suck its thumb, missing, and then turning to face the screen and moving its jaw up and down in laughter. That's really refined humor among the 16-week-old fetus set - looks like we have a comedian in there!
*Watching Luke very solemnly use his new doctor kit on his bear with a tummy ache and saying, "Your tummy hurts? Hmmm. Just a minute," then going over and consulting the pamphlet in the doctor's kit. "This says 'How to Fix a Bear.'"
*Finally getting at least one good night's sleep following several early wakenings.

Things that made me say 'hmmmm.'

*Playing with Luke at the park, urging him not to leave his hammer lying around because "someone might take it," then watching him become extremely interested in the idea of someone taking it. He stopped all further play, placed the hammer in the middle of the path, then sat in wait for some kid to come and take it. At some point I just put the hammer away. Then he did the same thing with his green measuring cup. Finally some little kid walked by, picked up the cup, and then put it down in pursuit of some other toy. As we were leaving the park, Luke told me (and did I detect a note of pride in this?) "When we were at the park some kid took my toys!"

*Taking Luke to a family holiday party, and watching him progressively fall apart more each time some kid took 'his' toy. Funny, he's happy with just one kid around...and plenty happy with a room full of adults...but once you introduce party chaos and kid free-for-all, he doesn't seem to want to hold his own.

The latter might have been explained by the onset of yet another cold. Last night it manifested itself with Luke declaring that there were orange monsters in his room, and then making repeated trips out of his room and into my side of the bed throughout the night. Funny enough, he was perfectly happy this morning. Let's hope he (and I) can all stay healthy enough for the next 48 hours to have an uneventful flight back East.

flying

My two least favorite words have now become "subchorionic hematoma." That said, my two new favorite words are "fine to fly."

Oh, that and what Luke said to Santa tonight. He asked for candy, and then he told Santa he "I want Mommy to feel better."

my heart, it wears striped footie pajamas

Is it so wrong to just watch Luke toddle around in the morning and totally swoon? Here he is, with his little sturdy body, giving us a constant narration of his activities while he alternates between flipping pancakes on his bed, fixing a chair with a hammer, solemnly strumming his guitar. It's ironic, because the same small person who is such a delight in the morning can be such a pain at the end of the day that I can't wait for him to go to sleep, but by the time the sun is up, I can't wait to hear his footsteps coming back to see me again.

On our vacation we got to see the best and the worst of times; the best being when he was surrounded by adults and confidently chatting away about various foods and activities. At our favorite Mexican restaurant he struck up a conversation with the big burly manager on the way out: "Thank you for dinner. I got some candy from the candy bowl. It was just like when I was trick-or-treating." We could barely keep from cracking up, when, walking away from this conversation, we heard Luke quietly saying to himself, "That was a very nice man."

At our favorite Japanese steakhouse last night, we could almost hear the groans at our communal table when all of the other already-seated couples saw us sitting down with a toddler. But Luke was on perfect, bordering on angelic behavior throughout the evening; saying "please" and "thank you" to everyone; laughing at all the appropriate jokes that the chef made; and quietly eating his rice with chopsticks when he wasn't being spoken to. It was as if there was a halo over his Little Lord Fauntleroy suit. Everyone complimented him at the end of the meal for being such a delight.

And yet...as night and tiredness overtake us, we see the demonic flip side of all this sweetness. The first night it was a whine that turned into a nonsensical tirade on the way home from the drugstore: "Daddy turn the car around. I want the white notepad, not the yellow one. Turn the car around! I want the white one!!! Nooooooo!" and so on for 20-plus minutes.

Last night it was even worse, coming down from the steakhouse high, when he turned into his rarely seen utter non-compliance mode during teeth-brushing and bed-putting. Dave put him to bed, over loud protests, to the point where I swear he was still saying, "I want MOMMY!!!" as he slipped into sleep.

By 1 a.m. the reasons for the sudden shift in behavior became more apparent when he woke up crying that his ear hurt. Ugh. Back to sleep by 2 a.m. And back up at 6:30. And back to sleep until 9 a.m., with the extra time feeling more like a necessity than a bonus.

Tonight we're back at home and Luke is a little glassy-eyed and dopey, and - am I allowed to say this? - I kind of like him this way. He's all cuddly, and affectionate, and all he wants to do is curl up and snuggle in bed and watch music with me. There's no edge to his sickness tonight; it's just pure droopiness. And it just makes my heart swell even more. I watched him fall asleep tonight and then listened to him for a little while and wondered about him as a four, ten, or even fifteen-year-old. Will I look back without remembering the ugly tirades, and just long for the snuggly footie pajama times again?

vacation, all I ever wanted

Here we are in Palm Springs, or a close proximity, and I'm tapping away to the dimmest light in our room while Luke is sleeping and making impossibly cute baby murmering noises in the background. I was feeling somewhat light-hearted and happy, but now that I read Joe's blog I'm mired in gloom and sadness. My biggest complaint right now is there's not much of a view from our otherwise well-appointed hotel room, so what is in fact my problem?

Pause for deep sigh.

Luke has been asking friends and his teachers for days, "Do you love Palm Springs?" He's been almost as excited as any one of us about this trip, and yet once we're here it's been hard for him to identify exactly which part is Palm Springs. "Is this Palm Springs?" he's been asking, at the outlet stores, pulling into the hotel, in the lobby lounge, and again at breakfast. One thing he knows for sure is In N Out burger. Yesterday he napped on the long drive here and seemed to wake up with a start when we passed an In N Out burger on the freeway in the middle of who-knows-where. "That's In N Out Burger!" he declared, and then promptly turned his head, shut his eyes, and fell back into a deep sleep. It's a special kind of radar.

This resort is...hmmm...a little strange, at least for our current needs. They're bending over backwards to make it a great stay for us. When we got in we asked if we could get a refrigerator (aside from the super-full minibar), and within moments a man came in wheeling a fridge that's about twice the size of what I had in my college dorm room (no charge). But our special rate/stay here seems to have forced us into some kind of 90-minute sales-presentation-that's-not-a-sales-presentation, which we may or may not be able to get out of tomorrow. Plus the resort as a whole is very spread out, with only sporadic golf-cart-shuttle stops, and you have to walk sizable distances to places like the lobby, restaurants, pools, etc. That would be fine if I were at a normal activity level but since I'm not really supposed to be walking at all I've been depending on Dave to chauffer me/us on ridiculously short car trips. Today I watched Luke in the hotel's kiddie park while Dave was on a work call; dealt with a meltdown when I told Luke he couldn't dig in the sand in the parking lot with the croquet mallets, and then wound up catching the next available shuttle-to-anywhere in complete mom desperation. I can't tell any of the buildings apart, so I had the driver drop us off at the corporate center, thinking it was the main lobby, and then there we were, stranded, sans Dave, watching some bored suits talk on their cell phones. So it's been a little strange.

I told Dave today that I would love to be enjoying this vacation at my normal pace and at a normal anxiety level but almost every vigorous movement reminds me that everything is still not quite OK with my body, and I'm worried. It doesn't feel so good. Let's hope Luke is able to at least remain somewhat oblivious and enjoy the rest of the time here.

little earthquakes

Luke has been waking up early for some unknown reason; for the last two weekend days he's simply getting up and crawling into our bed (which is OK at, say, 6:15; but not OK at 4:30 because either way I won't fall asleep afterwards).

This morning Dave and I were awakened at 6:20 not by our little earth-mover, but by a real-deal earthquake rattling the windows. OK, a micro-earthquake, magnitude 2.7, but still, it was noisy for all of 5 seconds.

Luke for reasons yet unknown slept through the whole event, and in fact kept sleeping until an almost unheard of 7:40. Why he chose to do this on Earthquake Monday, rather than, say, a weekend day when we might have liked the extra sleep is also unknown.

Incidentally, I went on the main earthquake site almost immediately afterwards to check magnitude, location, and to fill out the "Did you feel it?" forms. Dave says, "Who bothers to talk about 2.7 magnitude earthquakes besides people from the East Coast?" Turns out more than 100 people from our town had already filled it out - guess we're all transplants.

Sunday papers

The scene: Luke and I are reading the hardware ads in the Sunday paper together.

Luke: "What's that, Mommy?"
Me (reading the ad text): "That's called a Sawzall."
Luke: "Hmmm. Mommy, I think that's called a reciprocating saw."

Phone home

One question a person might ask is, how many more days is Jeanne going to spend primarily in bed? That is a very good question and Luke and Dave and I would all like to know the answer. Following yet another scare on Wednesday I'm back to the mattress with a laptop and a few DVDs as my constant companions.

One thing that has really emerged as a trend over the past week, as Dave runs around town with Luke fulfilling all of my various errands, is that Luke finds talking on the phone irresistable. He and Dave could be gone for less than two minutes and if I call, he wants to get on the phone.

"Hi Mommy. We were at Home Depot. We were at the Tool Corral. We saw saws, drills, sanders, jackhammers...Now we are going to In N Out burger to get some milkshake and French fries..." and this could go on for hours.

He sounds so serious and so authoritative on the phone that I've been forgetting he's not even three yet. I dictate my food orders on the phone to him ("Beef burrito." "Double mushroom pizza") (Yes, that's how we've been eating for the past week). Today I talked to him after his eye doctor appointment and he asked me if I needed Dave to go to the farmers' market. That had both of us scratching our heads because how did he know it was Friday? (We sent him to school today even though it's not his regular school day.) And how did he know I was thinking of asking Dave to go to the farmers' market?

If anyone calls while we're at home, he'll be going out of his skin until he gets a chance to have his say. Dave was on the phone with the newspaper subscription office the other day and I thought Luke was going to pop a blood vessel, trying to get near the phone to say hi to the lady.

Wednesday Luke and I passed the time by calling assorted friends and relatives and leaving them messages. Did anyone get them? Because we have a small boy here who really, really wants to talk to you.

The $2 question

Spending the past four days bed-bound has given me lots of time to ponder big questions. Such as, while we watch Luke's language skills take off, which is funnier/cooler? The things he knows or the things he gets wrong?

We're still laughing about when he aked Grandma Bobbie if she had a pool in her house and before she could register her surprise he added, "I was just kidding." And of course we got a big kick out of the lengthy story he told us about how he needed to pack his suitcase because he was getting on an airplane tomorrrow, by himself, to go to San Diego for two weeks, to do some work.

But I can't help laughing when he comes close but doesn't quite get something right. As in:

The "skeleton board" (bulletin board, which we just happened to hang up around Halloween)
The "bull-zoh-der" (bulldozer) in the empty lot
"Will you draw me a smelly face?" (smiley face)
"Is he Spanishing?" (when Raffi was saying something in French)
"That's the biggest hammer I've never seen!"
"Hush little baby, don't say a word, Papa's gonna buy you a walking bird."
And of course the big family dinner disrupted by song: "I know an old lady who swallowed a PIE! Fuh-naps she'll die!" (pause for gusty swig of milk) "Fuh-naps she'll die!"

Then there's "This is called robbers," which he says whenever he sees a hot dog, some roast beef, or a table full of food. It's not even worth trying to explain but suffice to say Dave and I have been laughing about it all week.

I'm still in bed this afternoon and Luke is perhaps a little perturbed or disturbed about my lack of activity. That said, he's been a great help, along with Dave, bringing me food, books, DVDs. I think we're all looking forward to when I can get a vertical perspective on things...

pinecone seltzer

Something about Luke's cheery talkativeness around strangers inspires them to give him things. Like the waiter (not ours) he befriended at the restaurant who was suddenly inspired to offer Luke his pick of desserts from behind the bakery counter (Oreo cheesecake, which he didn't really like anyway). Or the waitress named Pat at our truck-stop breakfast joint who brings him a muffin before we even order. Or the homeless lady on the beach who stopped her cart to offer Luke a small snack bag. (Luke: "What was that lady trying to give me?" Papa: "A bag of cookies." Luke (nonstop for the next hour): "I want to go back to the BEACH! And see the LADY! And eat some COOOOOOOKIES!")

We've been living it up for the past few days with Grandma Joan and Papa in tow; strolling through town at the merchants' holiday open house and seeing reindeer and (inexplicably) a zebra; walking to the beach; day-tripping to the mission; baking and cooking and eating incessantly. Yesterday, on our sunny cloud-free day at the mission, it was one of those rare times when by about 2 pm all I could think about was how much I would love to rewind the day and get to do it all over again. There wasn't a single bad moment that I would have been unhappy about reliving.

Luke is astounding us with his sense of direction. Even at nighttime he can tell you where we are ("There's the doctor's office! There's In N Out Burger! There's the 99 Cents store!"). Grandma Joan tripped and fell about a block from our house when we were walking home the other night; two days later, when we were approaching the same block from a different direction, Luke called out, "Grandma Joan! Be careful! Don't trip and fall!" Everyone started laughing, but perhaps hadn't even realized that we were about to be in the same place where she fell. Then when she stepped over the fateful crack, he said, "Make sure you walk in the middle where it's nice and straight!"

There may have been significant, weighty moments during our visit but the times that we are most likely to remember are the most ridiculous, because Luke wants to re-tell them ad nauseum. I'll let him tell this story: "Grandma Joan was clearing the table for dinner. She picked up the pinecone but by mistake she dropped it into Papa's seltzer! Papa picked it out but then he said, 'It's OK, I'll drink it anyway!'" (followed by fits of uncontrollable laughter).

This visit could perhaps best be characterized by the sound of non-stop toddler conversation. Being in a long drive on the freeway brings out the worst of it. Tonight when we got home from Long Beach, we had had our ears completely talked off for the last 45 minutes. Dave, in the front seat, pulled out his wallet and said to Dad, "Here's the $4 I owe you." I wasn't sure what it was from so I asked them jokingly, "Did you two have a wager of some kind?" "Yeah," said Dave grimly,"Four bucks says this kid doesn't shut up the whole way home."

Name that tune

It is cracking us up that whenever someone asks Luke his name now, he answers with first and last names (usually resulting in a polite, "What?"). It could be a function of being one of just too many Lukes. Or it could be a function of a new growing skill of being able to identify your full name, the town where you live, your parents' names, etc.

In fact, Luke has a whole cadre of different names that he keeps stored up for special occasions. When he's working as a worker or builder, he prefers to be called Harry. (Sort of an offshoot of wanting to be called "Scary" when he was a painter.) Lately, he's been asking me to call him "Team" (most likely a direct outgrowth of when we're getting all of our stuff ready to go somewhere and I say, "Come on team, let's go!")

He's also excited about the idea of being someone's friend. Like after we visited Mom and Dad (and Mark), Luke went around proudly identifying himself as "Mark's friend." Sometimes he'll take it a step further when he calls me, "Daddy's friend."

Of course, he doesn't always get names quite right. Yesterday before he left school he was talking with one of the teachers from the older kids' class. Later I asked him what her name was. "Her name is... (pause for deep thinking) ... Lawn..der..ee" "Laundry? Like a laundry hamper?" I asked, incredulously. "Hmmm. Yes. Laundry," he declared. That's one I'm going to have to investigate further.

So lately I've been feeding my amusement by asking him what we should name various characters or animals. He will give it a great deal of thought, and then often settle on the old standby "Harry." But sometimes he'll surprise us. Yesterday I asked him what he thought were the names of two cats in a book we were reading. "Their names are Harry and... (pause for deep thinking) ...Keet." Keet? I don't know where that came from but it has a nice, jaunty, feline kind of sound to it.

Last night when we came home from work and school I surprised Luke with a two-foot-high nutcracker. As expected, he was beside himself with delight. Lacking nuts to crack, he amused himself by flattening chunks of play-doh and announcing that he was working with his new "machine."

"What do you think we should name the nutcracker?" I asked him over dinner. This was apparently a great question because he literally had to tip his head back and scrunch his eyes closed to think about it. "I think we should name him... (pause for deep thinking) ... Sis." So that's our new nutcracker: tall, bearded, standing sternly in uniform with axe in hand. Go ahead and call him Sis. I'm sure he'll endure worse in the coming weeks.

Sunday, no words necessary

Mistakes were made

Sure, Halloween was great. It was the day after that was really scary. Mistake #1: I vowed not to use the car all day, so I pushed Luke in the stroller from the library, to downtown for lunch, to a toy store, and then back home. By the time we got home, I was completely wiped and Luke hadn't had any physical exertion all day. Naptime was a battle royale. I would have been glad to skip the nap altogether except I could tell from his protests that underneath his bravado, there was a super-tired kid just waiting to collapse. After his last-ditch attempt to cry for Daddy, he finally gave up the fight, conking out completely in my arms at an unreasonably late 3 pm, and having to be roused from some sub-human hibernation phase at 5 pm.

At class that night, I told the teacher I was glad to see that the discussion topic was temper tantrums, because the afternoon had been such a mess. "Oh, you just have to write off the day after Halloween entirely," she told me. Now why didn't someone think to tell me this earlier?

Luckily Luke has the presence of mind to remember these things and talk through the post-mortem. That night, it was a topic he couldn't get enough of: "What did Mommmy say when it was time to go to sleep? What did Lukey say? I was MAD!"

On Friday I drove to the park and gave Luke plenty of running-around time; then we had friends over for lunch and wore ourselves out running around the house. By the time naptime rolled around Luke seemed tired enough and we had even joked about how Wednesday's debacle wasn't going to repeat itself. We sat down in bed to read stories...and then...more nap protest! I decided to let Luke run around (safely confined to my room and his) while I took a breather in my bed. That was fine until he took Dave's basket of coins and dumped it into our laundry hamper. I marched him back to bed and kept him there until again, he gave up the fight.

On the way to dinner that night, Luke told Dave, "Daddy, at naptime, I made some mistakes." Dave gave me a sideways glance and asked Luke what kind of mistakes he made. "I dumped your money into your basket and Mommy was MAD. But I was MAD because Mommy said 'it's time to go to sleep' and I said 'no, no, no!'" "Well, thank you for being honest with me," Dave said. The next afternoon Dave put him down for a nap without even a whimper.

Lest it start to sound like Luke is all-Daddy, all the time (which he sort of is), I should point out that Luke and I are quite a pair in the kitchen. It's been progressively more fun as we unpack the kitchen boxes and find new tools that I have to think of some immediate use for. When we unpacked the meat grinder, we made chicken salad. When we found the Foley food mill, we made cranberry sauce. When we found the potato masher and the nut grinder, we made banana bread with a brown sugar/walnut topping. This morning we pulled out a little pie plate and Luke made an apple/Lego pie, which come to think of it, is still "cooking" on his little grill.

When we cuddled up on Sunday morning, he said to me, "You're a good cooker, Mommy. You're a good breakfast cooker, you're a good lunch cooker, you're a good dinner cooker..."

*sniff* See? I can't have made that many mistakes...

candy man

Is it the hormones that just made me want to cry today when I came home and saw my completely grown-up boy, in full doctor regalia? "How was your day, Luke?" I asked. "Pretty good, Mommy. Thanks for asking," came the reply from the man with the stethoscope.

Dave and Luke went out to trick or treat in the all-out Halloween part of town (think adults pulling wagons down the street, lit up with a fully stocked bar) and Luke was an undeniable hit with all of the grownups. When they came home, Luke told me all about the mummy who asked him for help with her bandages and the house decked out like a pirate ship where they gave out candy money. "I can eat bubble gum because I'm big enough and I'm strong enough," he informed me. "You're not strong enough, Mommy." Hmmmm.

Shortly afterwards I became a patient at the "hopsidal" while he operated on my leg. Then he finally peeled off the doctor's outfit for a jaunt in the pool with Dave. "I'm surfing, Mommy!" he's calling in to me while I'm sitting at the computer.

Who's this grownup guy?

black humor

Shortly after the last time I wrote, Luke spent a morning vomiting repeatedly, and ultimately turning into little more than a wet noodle of a guy before he fell asleep for an early nap. Ninety minutes later, he bounced out of bed, bright and cheery, announcing, "I have to brush my hair!" (which he did) before continuing on to a perfectly normal day. Is it possible that things that seem completely bad on the surface are actually just plain funny? Like me finding a wavy grey hair on my head the other day? Or me using the bathroom at the doctor's office, then checking out at the front desk, walking through the reception area, walking through the parking lot, doing an entire grocery shopping trip, only to come home and have Dave tell me that there was a long strand of toilet paper hanging out the back of my pants? Or me writing the perfect little journal entry, the blog equivalent to the Great American Novel, only to have it disappear into thin air as Blogger crashed? Funny, indeed.

It's been a long week, with Dave gone two nights, followed by two nights of special activities, which have left me feeling completely spent. Luke was sorely missing Dave by the end of his trip (Dave to Luke on the phone: "I'm staying in a hotel" Luke to Dave: "Does it have a pool?") and I was sorely missing some relief from endless readings of "Little Pig" (the Three Little Pigs).

But "It's almost Halloween," as Luke keeps reminding us, and the excitement continues to build. We had a special Trick-or-Treat night at our Wednesday night class and Luke was a little skeptical at first. ("I just want to watch," he told us.) Soon he caught on to the idea that if he planned it just right he could get a lollipop from every trick-or-treat station.

Thursday afternoon, without a trace of irony, Luke went with me to the dentist, which was another big hit. "Are you going to use the drill yet?" he kept asking her. Then by Thursday evening, when we went trick-or-treating at Bill's mom's senior home, Luke was a Halloween pro. He had the whole door-knocking and "thank you" routine down pretty well, until he was somewhat unduly frightened by some big kids with face-covering masks. But he did get to eat two chocolate bars plus an oatmeal cookie, so there was at least something redeeming in the whole day.

Strangely, this whole time, Luke has been telling everyone from his teachers to the lady behind the pizza counter that he is going to be a "push-car" for Halloween. I think what he means by this is the railroad trestle car that the skeletons are pushing on our neighbor's Halloween display, but I have no idea how this translates into a toddler costume. I've managed to con him into wearing his doctor's scrubs two different times now, once for Bill's mom's, and once yesterday for a toddler Halloween parade that was little more than a few moms pushing strollers in a circle (Luke: "Where's the parade?").

Today I had the joy of watching Dave and Luke carve pumpkins together; tomorrow is downtown trick-or-treating. By actual Halloween I think this novelty will be pretty much spent. Although Halloween is supposedly a big deal in our new neighborhood our plan, for now, is to take it easy and just answer the doorbell. Here's to a weeklong sugar high.

jellyfish

Warning ahead: This may be the most boring blog entry ever because it has no theme or predetermined direction. You know, I would blog more if I didn't feel like I might be sick any moment. But hey, don't feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for Luke. I picked him up from school yesterday like a rag doll, coughing and whimpering with his trademark red over-wiped upper lip. Teacher Melissa said he wasn't able to sleep at naptime, so he was extra-tired and rolled around on the floor throughout dinner, refusing to eat and generally being inconsolable. I put him to bed almost an hour early but he woke up within 1/2 hour due to a mega coughing fit, and we had to go through the whole bedtime routing again to settle him down. How do people do it with more than one?

I'm sure there are a lot of fun Luke stories I could be sharing but it's hard to bring them to mind when I'm so me-focused right now. We went to a massive birthday party at an indoor playground on Sunday and while it was slightly overstimulating for Luke, it completely wore me out beyond repair. I slept for two hours when we got home and then later in the afternoon declined the invitation to go to the pier and the aquarium with Luke and Dave and Suzi and Bill in favor of vegging out on the couch and generally doing nothing productive. When we got home, Luke approached me cautiously: "Are you feeling alright?" (I guess he can't conceive of any reason why a person would choose not to go and see jellyfish.)

We're warming up to the Halloween season and let me first give thanks to all of the cooler voices that prevailed in preventing me from hosting a Halloween party. I'm not sure what I would have done, as I haven't even been able to keep myself on track, let alone do any kind of party planning. I'm considering taking him to a few different Halloween-type events and I'm trying to weigh the scare factor vs. the overwhelmedness factor vs. the sweets obsession factor for each one. The main question remains: Will he wear his doctor costume? And then: Will he stop obsessing about candy long enough to just enjoy the holiday for what it is? And then: Will he have nightmares for weeks to come about scary stuff? He told me that he was scared by a jellyfish he saw at school the other day, so there's no telling what might haunt his little brain late at night.

Speaking of the sweets obsession factor: We all know Luke is obsessed with gumballs for whatever reason, but the larger reality is, he just seems to be a sweets junkie. I'm trying not to make it a forbidden fruit, but it's all he wants to talk about eating. On Friday Luke helped me make chocolate chip cookies with the mixer (a big treat) and the pile of remaining cookies (that is, the ones that didn't burn to a crisp on the as-yet-unexplored bottom shelf of the oven, setting off the smoke alarm for 10 minutes, but that's another story...) proved to be too much of a temptation for the entire weekend. But he's ever-optimistic about the possibility that any meal might be an excuse for a marshmallow, or ice cream, or some other super-sugar treat.

I made him a yogurt "milkshake" the other morning and he was thoroughly unimpressed. When we got home last night I tried to cheer him up by hauling out the mixer again so we could make pudding, which I thought would be a big hit, but he turned that down too. Maybe he saw how much milk went into it and realized it might actually have nutritional value. He keeps talking about a kid from school named Sammy who brings "gummies" for lunch. Could it be gummy bears? Or gummy fruit? I have no idea, but I figure it's only a matter of time before there's some serious lunch-swapping going on around here.

tooled out

What to say, really, after a great week with everyone and all of Luke's tool fantasies fulfilled? He got to use the post-hole digger, drill press, all manners of saws, and had other extravagances like apple-picking and tractor-riding. Oh, and of course seeing Papa and Gamma Joan and Uncle Joe, Aunt Sara, Sam, Lily, and the dogs made it all worthwhile.

The good news was that we made it through the flight on the way home and I have that particular stressor out of my system. My favorite image is of Luke walking down the darkened aisle toward the bathrooms, with his crazy shoes sending red-and-blue flashing lights ricocheting around the plane and causing various disoriented passengers to lift their heads up from sleep with a somewhat alarmed, "Huh?"

By the time we landed, we had reached the absolute threshold of exhaustion, with me sitting comatose in the back seat on the way home from the airport, and Luke finally giving it up once we got home, unable to even finish the marshmallow sitting in front of him. "I'm finished," he croaked. Luke slept in, spent about an hour in the pool in the morning, then took a long siesta on Sunday. As for me, I never even made it out of the house all day.

Luke is settling back in but is probably feeling a little tool withdrawal. He was bugging Dave about wanting to use the drill press again until Dave finally came back with, "Luke, you have already used at least three different drill presses and you are not even three years old. I didn't use my first drill press until I was 33!"

Dave and I have had to face some crushing realities about the direction that the market seems to be headed and the complete lack of homebuyers out there right now. We've had some tough conversations in the past few days and we just sucked it up this morning and made one more big price cut, which will hopefully put us more in line with our competition. The sad fact is, it's a far different market than even a month ago when everyone was telling us how well-priced our house was. Now we're going to hunker down and hope for some action before the home-buying dead zone that is Thanksgiving/Christmas. For now, all I'm thinking of is just making it through the week.