Perhaps it took us too long to get our lawn cut after we moved in, because I’m starting to wonder if one of the neighbors put a hex on us or something. Let me share the evidence - all of this, with the exception of my trip down the stairs, has occurred in the past 76 hours.

Exhibit A

See that butt-ugly medieval torture device-styled chandelier? I swear, I don’t know what the previous owners of this house were thinking sometimes. Nothing quite like sitting down to dinner and immediately being reminded of people on the rack or hanging from the dungeon ceiling by their toenails. Anyway, see the nice looking prongs protruding from the bottom? Yeah. Banged my head on that after having to stand and reach across the table for something.

Exhibit B

See my butt-ugly, bloody toe? Yeah, did that pulling a new stroller out of a box.

Exhibit C

I was called 2 hours after dropping Sam off at his new summer camp program because he was so upset that he couldn’t calm himself down. Nothing like that has EVER happened with him before. I’ve pulled him out of the program. And now I get to have both kids with me…all day…every day…for every moment…of every day…for the rest of the summer… not to mention the fact that it was emotionally exhausting and very hard on both of us.

Exhibit D

Remember when I was all excited about us finally getting life insurance? Yeah, well turns out I was DENIED a policy based on something that happened with my heart after Sam was born, something that I have no symptoms for, don’t need medication for, and have been told repeatedly by cardiologists that it is perfectly under control and that I am healthy. Yeah, denied. In addition, the bloodwork we had done for our application showed that Hubby had some sort of liver problem. So he scrambled around trying to get a doctor appointment and in the meantime did a bunch of research that led him to believe he had liver cancer or gall stones. And then when he met with our doctor learned that it was most likely a false test based on the rest of the bloodwork results and considering the fact that the tech who came to our house was TOTALLY INCOMPETENT. Still, not something you want to wonder about for 24 hours. And did I mention I was denied?

Exhibit E

My slippage on the stairs. And I realize this bruise is not impressive at all, but bear in mind that this photo was taken 11 DAYS later. This is what it looks like now. And also bear in mind that you are not seeing a photo of my butt-ugly butt…heh heh…

Exhibit F

Then there’s the Maki incident, of course. And he is home now, by the way, and thank you all for your kind words. He is actually much more lively than I’d expected him to ever be again. We’ve been told a year would be great, but it could be days, weeks, or months. Here he is enjoying and contemplating life.

So what do you think? Hexed or what? What is UP, Dude?!

Labels: House, Pictures, Tales

I awoke to rain and a toddler who refused to go to school. I knew the latter was crucial since said toddler would not be getting out of the house due to the former, so I started the long process of getting a writhing child out the door in a timely fashion. He’s usually very excited to go to school, so this was a little weird to me. He was adamant that he was not down with school today, not cool with walking to the car, and generally just “vewy angwy!”

And you know me - I started to wonder what awful thing had happened at school that made him so upset about going. Had a classmate been mean to him and the teacher didn’t help? Had he gotten into trouble and no one told me? Had he gotten hurt?

So as we drove there I continued to ask him why he didn’t want to go. I started talking about how they would get to go to the “big room” to play instruments since it was raining outside, and then he yelled, “No! I NOT want to pway Duckduckgoose!”

“Oh, did you play Duck-Duck-Goose at school?”

“Yes. It raining and I NOT want to pway.” Aha, so on rainy days they not only go to the big room for instruments, but also for games. That was a relief.

But then, about four seconds later, I started up again - Wait, why does he hate Duck-Duck-Goose so much? Does nobody pick him as the goose? Is he always the first one “out”? Do they put him in “the pot?” Oh God, they shame him and make him sit in the pot so that all the other kids can sit around him in the circle and stare at him because he was out first. He’s already having sport-related school anxiety! He’s going to hate gym. He’s going to have stomach aches on Field Day. He’s going to be like my brother and run himself into a wall to break his arm so that he can get out of P.E. because a shattered ulna feels better than the shame of being a non-athlete . . .

“You put your hands on the heads and I NOT want them to touch my head.”

“What?”

“I NOT WANT THEM TO TOUCH MY HEAD!”

“You mean you don’t like Duck-Duck-Goose because they touch your head? It’s not because of the part where you have to run around the circle and get chased and sit in the pot if you are out?”

“No, that a wittle fun. Running part is fun. I just not want them to touch my head.”

” . . . Ohhhhhh.”

When I picked him up two hours later I looked in the window to see Sam happily sitting in a circle with his hand stuck out so that the kid who was the ducker could walk by and tap him high five style - “Gooooooose!” - and Sam running and laughing around and around the whole room as the teachers tried to direct the two boys to at least head in the general direction of the circle, which had really spread out into something more like a line. There was no “out,” no “pot,” and absolutely no shame.

Labels: Learn More Every Day, Tales, Talking, The Big One

Today we visited our house, our very first house. Hubby and I have lived in various apartments since we graduated from college nearly ten years ago. We close at the end of this month. Very exciting, very overwhelming. We took measurements and tried to place furniture in our minds. We need to look at paint cards and buy a lawn mower. It’s like we’ve been college kids for years, living on a budget in small apartments. We’ve been kids with kids. But look at us now! A house, life insurance policies; we’re so very adult. It’s been a long time coming.

I’ll tell you what I won’t miss - apartment neighbors. I would say one of the main reasons I have wanted us to buy us a house so much has been to get away from crappy neighbors. Yes, I realize it is possible to have crappy neighbors in a nice neighborhood, and that in many ways it is worse because you are stuck with them when you own a home. But I think nothing can compare to sharing walls (or floors, or ceilings) with really bad neighbors. We’ve had some really “special” people surrounding us in our years of apartment living. It’s always something that’s really difficult to deal with when the people who live around you are bothersome. You can’t really do much for fear you will make things worse, and then they are still your neighbors, just now they hate you for say, calling the cops, writing a letter to their landlord, etc.

Usually I resort to writing letters in my head to make me feel better. I’ve told these people off repeatedly in my mind, drafting letters to be stuck on their door for them to find, but I never actually do the sticking. Perhaps I can find some closure if I get them out of my head and share them here. So, from our most inoffensive bad neighbors to the ones that I will truly never forget, I give you part one of a series of “Letters to My Bad Neighbors.”

Dear Dude and Wife Upstairs,

We hear you. We hear everything you do.

Wife, how can you stand your husband’s laugh? How can you hear it, day after day? The high pitched, hyena-like cackle: wuuuuuhp (a sharp scoop of roughly an octave here) buhp buhp buhp buhp buhp. Tell me, exactly how much pot are you guys smoking each day because WOW, it’s gotta be a lot.

I have to tell you that you guys are not nearly as good at Rock Band/Guitar Hero as you think you are. Practice has not made you any better either. Your rendition of Black Hole Sun has not improved with time. Although, I must say, I would rather hear your stoned, tone-deaf incantations than feel our apartment shake each time you dropped a bomb in your previous air strike game that you played for twelve hour sessions every Saturday.

I think it is safe to say that if I can tell you what movie you are watching just from hearing the soundtrack through my ceiling (Gladiator, by the way), that it might be a tad too loud.

Can’t say we’ll miss you, I just hope we get out of here before you get yourselves a Wii.

The fam downstairs

Labels: House, Tales

“Underweight,” “Off the chart,” “Failure to thrive” - all of these I have heard in the past year regarding Sam’s size. For months I have been trying to get him to gain weight because he is not high enough on “the chart.” Oh, the chart, the all important chart. Last summer, when this all began, our pediatrician wanted me to put Sam on a high calorie diet in order to get his weight back up. I was pregnant at the time, emotional. The whole thing really took me by surprise. I was particularly confused about the manner in which she wanted me to get him to gain. It involved a lot of sugar and a lot of products like Instant Breakfast. I ended up doing a modified version of it, focusing more on increasing his fat intake, and in six weeks he gained a whole pound. I was told to continue with this diet in hopes that he would creep up even higher.

Fast forward to January. At this particular doctor appointment I found out that Sam had not gained what she would have liked him to. I explained that at his last visit he had been weighed on the big scale and was fully dressed, whereas this time around he was on the sitting scale and in a diaper. Still not good enough. I asked if he appeared unhealthy in any way. No, but too low on the chart. She started talking about having him tested for reflux, also known as a milk scan. As she explained it, this was just a precautionary measure to be certain there was not a physical problem that was stopping him from gaining weight. She assured me it was a simple, safe test, and that there was no harm in having it done to be sure everything was ok. He probably wouldn’t have reflux, but we should do it just to be sure. If the reflux test was negative we should move on to a special feeding clinic where he would have behavioral evaluations and put on some sort of program to get him to eat more. I went home overwhelmed and upset. I’d already been trying so hard to balance what she wanted me to do with what I felt was right for him, and this felt like I’d failed after being given an ultimatum.

After I had some time to regroup and get over how shamed I felt (she also tried to make me feel stupid about Robby’s alternative vaccine schedule, which she had originally said she supported, but that’s another post), I just had the feeling that something was off. You know, when you just don’t feel right and are unsure as to why?

I started writing down everything that Sam ate each day. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but I had a feeling I might need it at some point if I was going to deviate at all from our doctor’s plan for him. I also started doing a little bit of research on reflux. When I compared what I was finding out to what he was eating in a day, there was just no way that it was the problem. He was eating quite a bit and taking in a wide range of foods. More importantly, I called the hospital to find out exactly what the test entailed, and that’s when I discovered why I felt so odd at the appointment with her.

Remember, our doctor told us the test was not a big deal. She said it was simple and safe. She said I’d just need to bring a cup of milk for him to drink. What she failed to mention was that first a radioactive material would be put in his milk. I was assured by the woman on the phone that this was “perfectly safe,” that the amount of radioactive material was so little that they “just dumped it down the sink.” I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean. And it doesn’t matter because of what would happen next. After drinking his radioactive milk Sam was going to then be strapped down onto a table . . . for an HOUR . . . while they x-rayed him to watch what the glow in the dark milk did inside his system. Can you imagine? He’s two and a half. He was going to have belts going across his chest holding him onto a table tight enough that he would not be able to move insane asylum style. I was told that I could bring some books to read to help sooth him. Yeah, that’ll work. I spoke to a friend of mine later and found out that her son had this test done.  She said it was completely traumatizing for both of them.  She had to leave the room several times and begged her husband to unbuckle her son so she could take him and run away.  She also said there was no way the test would not have come up positive because her son was so upset that he made himself vomit.  Did my doctor think I wouldn’t find out what the test really entailed? I just can’t believe that this woman could stand there and tell me it was not a big deal. We’ll not be seeing her again.

I called the doctor. She wasn’t in. I spoke to her colleague. I read my food log to her and she agreed that he most likely did not have reflux and agreed there would be no reason to undergo “that test” when he was not demonstrating any symptoms for that problem. She recommended I take him to a nutritionist in order to make sure that what she thought sounded like a great diet really was one and to discuss other reasons he might not be gaining.

Sam had his first appointment with the nutritionist a few weeks ago. She agreed that he seemed very healthy and had an excellent diet, but that he was small. She gave me some more tips on how to get him to take in more calories. We’re going to keep checking his weight in hopes of getting him higher on the chart. It feels slightly less like an ultimatum, but I certainly still feel very much under pressure here. And constant discussion about Sam’s eating certainly does not help things. As any of you with a child this age knows, the more you push the worse it gets. So I’m trying to settle down about the whole thing and trust myself to do what is best for him.

_______________________________________________________________________________

And here’s the happy side of this post, also appropriate under the same title. Sam and I had a little Mommy/Sammy date today. I took him to see his first movie, Horton Hears a Who. I had no idea if he would enjoy the movie experience or not. I tried to prepare him as much as I could by explaining that the “TV” was going to be really big and it might be loud. We had been reading the book for a few weeks now in anticipation of doing this one day. I was prepared, though, for the possibility that we would not be staying for the whole thing.

And, well, I have no freakin’ clue how he liked it. He was mesmerized, I can tell you that. I tried to talk to him and ask him questions throughout the film - Did he like it? Was he scared? Did he want to stay? Did he want to sit on my lap? - and he just gave me one-word answers and assured me we should stay. I suppose it’s pretty overwhelming the first time you’re in a movie theater. And of course, my crazy emotional crap kicked in, and I was pretty much choking back tears at the end. Why is it that once you are pregnant and go through that crying phase it still lingers for things like this? Is that true for others too? It rears its head again for the endings of movies and bad TV. It’s ridiculous.

After the movie I asked Sam what his favorite part was. He said it was the part with the eagle. Um, the really scary, vampire-like eagle who attacks Horton and steals the clover, almost killing the people of Whoville? Yeah, that’s the one.

I hope Sam doesn’t wake up screaming in the middle of the night about monkeys trying to cage him. He did eat a great dinner though so he can’t be completely scarred.

Labels: Tales, The Big One

Plagiarism is the fondest form of flattery.  Is that the saying?  I think it’s actually supposed to be “imitation,” but that’s pretty close.  I will tell you though, that in reality it makes you sweat.  It makes you feel ill.  It makes you shake to have someone flatter you in this way.

My husband has stumbled upon a post written by someone in which they have directly stolen my writing, VERBATIM.  And it’s a person who gets paid to write; they got paid for this post of theirs (MINE).  I’ve left a message for the editor of this website and am now waiting.  I don’t know what else to do.

When I was a teacher, if a student plagiarized work and passed it off as their own it was considered an extremely serious offense.   What happens here?  Will she be suspended?  Will she have to write an essay?  Will we be calling her parents?  Sometimes we asked the student what they thought an appropriate consequence would be.

What do you think it should be, J.H.?

Labels: Tales

You know the tour isn’t going well when you have to deviate from your standard list of questions to ask, “Now where is the teacher that is supposed to be in this classroom right now?” as you watch two boys proceed to shove each other.  Ugh.

Labels: Tales, Toddler

Hubby was carrying Robby out the front door of our building; I was taking Robby’s stroller/carseat and Sam out the back so I could use the wheel chair accessible ramp. I was walking in front of Sam with the stroller when I heard him fall on his way down the ramp. I let go of the stroller to turn around and help him up because he was clearly hurt and upset. When I started to get him up he became visibly more upset, trying to articulate something and pointing over my shoulder. Finally he found the words through his tears, “Wobby! Wobby!” I turned around to see what he was so upset about. When I let go of the stroller it had rolled down the ramp, down a small hill, and into a bush, where it now stood askew. Sam had forgotten that Robby was with Daddy and thought his brother had crashed into a bush, and that is what he was most concerned about even though his hands were quite skinned and bloody.

I don’t know if I should be really proud that he is such a protective and empathetic big brother, or if I should be really worried that he thinks his Mom would let his younger sibling fly down a hill in a stroller and crash into a bush.

Labels: Brothers, Tales, Toddler